Wandering England

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The thing I love about Europe is ... well, Europe itself, with its mixture of cultures and languages. For instance take the Italian town of Villabassa where I stayed in the Dolomites, which actually also has the (German) name of Niederdof - how confusing is that? Well, not very apparently to the locals. Most businesses advertise in both languages with hotels and cafes adding English to their menus.

Reluctantly leaving those fantastic Dolomite Mountains it was back to Venice overnight and a Ryanair flight to Stanstead Airport (one of three international airports servicing London). Re Ryanair; I suggest that if you’re considering flying with these budget carriers, check out deals with the regular carriers (eg BA etc) first. Reason being that if you add up all the hidden extra costs, there appears to be not much difference in price; especially if you take into consideration that the cheapo carriers usually fly into alternative airports that are often a considerable distance from your intended destination.

From Stanstead it was then a train up to Leeds. The three hour £70 (A$110) fare was the most expensive and uncomfortable train trip I’ve ever had in Europe; especially when for more than half of the trip I had to travel standing up in a packed pride of the British Railway. Am I whinging - yep! But do I like what I’ve seen of England so far - absolutely! But it’s undoubtedly the most expensive European country in which I’ve travelled and must only get worse for the poor buggers with the planned increase in their VAT (GST) to 20%!

Other observations so far: the hire car had the speedometer in both miles and kilometres while petrol is sold in metric litres; the sun shines (occasionally according to locals) in Celsius (although it’s been kind so far); distances are measured in imperial miles while the currency is in metric; fruit and veg are sold in pounds and ounces and after a month using the Euro currency in Italy with the boldly stamped coin denominations, I had to put my glasses on to discover the value of the UK coins.

The history however is everywhere and, coming from a country that can only boast 230 years of white occupancy, the heritage is very impressive. The Brits really do love their queues however and it’s kind of quaint to see people in neat lines to get aboard buses etc.

The trekking so far has been really good, mostly across the open moors where blustery winds often make it difficult to stand on the exposed crags. The small villages very are quaint and come with names like Giggleswick, Wigglesworth, Long Preston (as opposed to its Short sibling), Burton On Lonsdale and Horton On Ribblesdale etc., all which sound like something I’d expect to come out of a Harry Potter story.

More soon so ciao for now.

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Photos

More of the Dolomites
A few of the intrepid team tacking the various walks - not all old farts like me!

The faithful boots
The boots that got me way up here.

Fran on the Dolomites
It looks cold and it was but then it rained and we all got drenched!

West Cumbrian coast
Original old village on the wild coast, now full of trendy B&Bs and cafes.

Roughing it!
It's tough when one has to stay in something like this but somebody has to do it I guess.

The exposed moores
Typical of the exposed moores and believe me that when the gales blow it's hard to stay upright.

Yorkshire Dales
It looks fantastic but this was a good day - it really is beautiful!

Comments

[steve and marilyn]

Hey Dennis Thanks for the update. GB is great, we only visited part of the south and the Lakes in the west, all beautiful. Weather looks good so have fun. Finally we have a minority government led by Labour, majority 2, after a long drawn out birth - the Nats are already kniving?? the Independents - hope none resigns, gets sick or dies or we are back to the polls - interesting times. I have always felt the Brits conduct their politics with style and a heavy dose of good grace, not like us wild colonials! Take care. S and M

[Stuart Blows]

Corned Beef
It is hard to believe that for some reason Dennis did not like the superb corned beef offered in his sandwiches, he seemed to think that the stuff found in Australia was supperior.