Yesterday, or more precisely early this morning due to a flight delay, we got from a few days in Venice, our first time ‘away away’ since 2019. We’ve been on various short trips to a variety of places in England, Scotland and Wales in the last couple of years, but not the sort of destination where you can relax in a sunny Campo with a Spritz before dinner, take a gondola ride, or discover that your very poor command of Italian hasn’t improved miraculously by being neglected for such a long time.
It was bliss.
What we most missed during lockdowns and other more restrictive Covid regulations were gigs and holidays, not just the events themselves but having them as points in the calendar to look forward too. These things are subject to change of course, but in the Italy’s case at least the only Covid restriction we noticed was a request to wear a face covering on the bus between Marco Polo and Piazzale Roma. We didn’t take the vaporetti, preferring to walk everywhere, but passengers in those seemed to be masked too (as were staff but not customers in shops). There was no requirement to provide a negative test result or even show proof of vaccination.
Anyway, assuming you’re able to and feel comfortable about it, have you got any holidays planned this year?
Slovakia, Blue Dot and Bingley Weekender (walking distance).
Oh, we do get around.
Visited Kefalonia last month.
Already booked are
Vienna in September
Cyprus in October/November
About to book for Stockholm in December.
It seems the world, or at least Europe, is your oyster when you’ve retired. Enjoy!
This is an accumulation for all the years I couldn’t go when I retired, and I want to travel while I still can.
My daughter is on a Grand Tour with a friend for a month: first stop Kefalonia although she’s on the airport side for a couple of days whereas I believe you favour Fiskado, as do I. Then they fly to Athens and Rome with the rest of the trip by train: Venice, Florence, Zurich, Brugge, Paris and a couple of others I’ve forgotten.
I stayed in Skala as I’d been there before, as my mobility isn’t the best and I was travelling solo I thought I’d better stay somewhere I knew where things were.
Bit early for tours around but it was great to be away,
Hope she has a great time DBP.
We are going home tomorrow after a lovely fortnight in a log cabin in deepest darkest Lincolnshire. It’s been a fantastic relaxing break after a fairly traumatic first half of 2022.
On one hand it was sad because we always visited my Mum when we came up here but of course after her passing in April that isn’t possible.
That aside we have been enjoying all the this part of the UK can offer, heaps of good food, some of the best beaches, fairly easy countryside walking, and the peace and quiet. That’s if you don’t count Skeggy.
On a similar note, 2022 has been trauchling for The Light and I as both of our fathers died this year. In neither case was the relationship with our late father positive or loving, but that brought its own sort of challenge when they died a few months apart.
We deliberately didn’t make an itinerary for Venice, preferring to pick a destination far from our flat each day and just take a slow walk there, stopping wherever looked interesting of for coffee, gelato, beer or whatever treat we fancied. Just enjoying being there without feeling like there was a list of things we ‘had’ to do, a proper R+R break.
Can’t say I’m much interested in foreign again yet. America remains bonkers and airports to Europe don’t much appeal, from the look. We are ramping up our UK jaunts and loving it.
We flew Stansted to Marco Polo return. I can’t say there were no problems as we got back two hours late (incoming flight delayed by ‘air traffic control restrictions at Stansted’ whatever that means), but the rest of the journey was trouble free.
We turned up 3 hours ahead of departure as advised, but got through security at each end in about 15 minutes, and went straight through passport control in Venice. Passport control at Stansted was extremely busy as it usually is, but although the queues were long they moved briskly. Airports are rarely relaxing experiences in themselves, but there was no noticeable difference to pre-Covid trips.
Each to their own of course, but if you did fancy a European trip our experience would suggest you don’t let the stories about airport chaos put you off.
I was ‘lucky’ I was asked if I needed special assistance after I said I walked with a stick and could be a touch slow.
I was emailed back that I would be wheelchaired through both airports, found that I was fast tracked through fast track and had a special lift (basically a portakabin that could be raised) with others to the aeroplane.
Not really. Going to UK next week 😉 Also a few days in Switzerland. Not looking forward to the airport experiences.
See above – experiences will vary of course, but ours was pretty much indistinguishable from a 2019 trip.
Good. Let’s hope so. Even if the UK/Swiss part is clean there are horrors being reported at Canadian airports. Toronto is the worst but Montreal where we are flying from is second worst.
I hope you haven’t made the mistake of being disabled, like Frank Gardner.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/disability-61497830
We had a 15th Wedding Anniversary trip to Gibraltar planned before the world closed.
Now it’s opening again, the furthest I’ve been (and only plane trip) is Belfast.
Don’t know if it’s pandemic concerns still simmering, or the fact that we never really did big foreign holidays before, but not planning anything more than weekends away and days out.
Plenty of towns and cities in the UK with un-explored record shops for me (or “cultural heritage and restaurants” if Mrs D is listening)
Hitting a beach in Sardinia in September. Can’t wait.
A long weeekend in Wirksworth with some friends before that. That’ll do me.
Where in Sardinia, MC? I’m near Cagliari at the moment, will be here until October.
And there’s an offer if you like.
Is there a mirror and a cabinet? And where’s me glasses?
Costa Rei, on the other side. Pop over, big boy.
Bloody hell – appropriately enough for today, The AW seems to have morphed into Grindr.
It was only a matter of time, I suppose – once we got rid of all those pesky women, with their self-respect and standards and everything
Hey! I have standards. And if you don’t like them I have others etc
You can see some strong images on Afterword grindr. Besoke drawers for CDs, Filos and other specialist equipment. I’m surprised it hasn’t been shut down.
There’s been a lot of talk of measurements recently, and as for “fat boys”….
Yeah, our back garden. And bed.
On the other hand….
3 days in New York in September. And 3 Blue Oyster Cult gigs – albums 1 to 3. I’m quite excited.
Been to UK to visit family. Now in Karpathos, hot and windy. Evaded Stockholm Arlanda queues as it was 4:30 am flight, first of the day, no waiting. Now they have stopped people queueing more than 3 hrs before departure which was creating chaos since they were there up to 6 hrs early, a bit like panic buying. Next is New York in October which is with SAS who may go bust. Karpathos is a gem and not too developed. It’s our second time. We mostly do Greek islands as summer hols. There have been stories of dragon fish. Not seen one. Quite dangerous if you step on one, non-indigenous. Amorgos is the best island we’ve been to. Have to take a ferry. As seen in The Big Blue movie. Very beautiful. Oh yeah, we are seeing The Stones in Stockholm and camping in forest in tipi for our birthday. Glamping with wolves. Spirit name maybe.
There are laws about masks in Greece on buses and in pharmacies that no locals on this island follow and only 1 or 2 tourists. Generally it is the same as it ever was here. You don’t notice any difference. More expensive.
I have to agree with you DF about Amorgos. I have been there twice a few years ago. The first time, I travelled from Piraeus on the small ferry (passengers only) which took 5 hours and wasn’t a lot of fun. I learned my lesson and, next time, I flew to Santorini and took a much shorter ferry journey from there. We stayed at Levrossos and enjoyed its relaxing atmosphere. Paradise!
Croatia again.
Have been every summer since 2005 to see my other halves mother as she moved back there in 2003. Now the kids are pre teen/teens we are looking at doing ‘trips within the trip’ and spending 2-3 days at other nearby islands as 17 days on the same beach has now got boring for them as well.
2 weeks in the French countryside. Can’t wait.
A tip from TV’s Alex Polizzi is to consider doing sightseeing in Venice very early in the morning as a pre-breakfast walk. You can then establish which places you’d specifically like to go to later in the day and then, after a leisurely breakfast and perhaps a bit of a rest, specifically go to those places when you feel like it.
Just back yesterday from 3 nights on a boat hotel in Maastricht – apart from the first night when we were down in the galley with no natural light, a quick request got us upgraded to wood paneled cabins on the top deck, opening onto the scene below – unobstructed river views of the heart of the city. It was like being in a low-rent Agatha Christie novel. And the 9 Euro monthly German train deal meant we only had to buy tickets to and from the border.
We’re off to a German island later in the month for another week – an old fashioned bucket and spade thing.
Maastrict…. what a treat, eeee….
Scoff all you like. On a summer’s day, sitting in a cafe in one of the leafy squares with a white beer or in a riverside bistro with a glass of Chablis, as Dutch girls cycle past along cobbled streets on ‘sit up and beg’ bikes, there’s few more enjoyable places to be.
Errrr…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty
Drinking and ogling fit Dutch bints? Sounds like absolute hell.
As a fully committed European and remoaner, why wouldn’t I go on pilgrimage to the place where the EU began?
Drinking and ogling? Simple pleasures for a simple Sal. In the summer sun, everyone in Maastricht was fit.
The idea of the EU arguably began in whatever Kent bunker Churchill was in in 1944, not that you’ll find that in the Boris book etc….
PS. I don’t know how “fit Dutch bints” ended up there, autofill must have just put in one of my most-used search terms.
Yes, I am going to hell, isn’t it hilarious!
Is there much for the visitor to see and do in Maastricht? That tends to be my problem with UK holidays, along with not feeling like I’m really away if I’m surrounded by British accents. Apart from London, Edinburgh and Glasgow I can’t think of anywhere worth spending more than a day in.
Surrounded by British accents in London?
Ah, but I’m half an hour for London and can go whenever I like. It had to be in that mini list, and we do sometimes stay the weekend, but but it wouldn’t be our first thought for a holiday.
Nice shops, attractive architecture, walled city – it reminded me a bit of York, only with continental food, drink and climate.
@salwarpe
I concur . Lovely place to wander around is Maastricht. Worked in Germany many moons ago but always popped over the border to make a crazy party.
Haven’t been overseas since the end of 2019 and no plans to do so this year. But a fortnight planned in the beautiful South West in August and am counting the days….
I’m staying right where I am, because there’s nowhere in the world I’d rather be.
East Grinstead is rather lovely
*bristling* It suits me, dai.
I’m currently on a sunsoaked Italian beach, having resumed a thirty year habit of going to the island of Elba for a beach holiday. Flew out from Gatwick with EasyJet and it was pretty trouble free. Arriving in Pisa was very straightforward. The passport reading machines were very quick and efficient. I was through at the speed of light, compared with the old days.
Second trip of the year for me. I did a very cheap four week cruise to the Caribbean in January. Round trip Southampton, so very accessible, and, Covid notwithstanding, trouble free.
Life begins to feel a bit more normal!
We went to Venice in 2020 when weekly visitor numbers were down from 80.000 per week to 8,000. Last year we wentr to Corfu – switched at the last minute from Barbados where there was an 8pm curfew still in place.
This year we have so far been to South if France which was superb, we are driving half of Route 66 next month postponed from 2 years ago and what was a 21st present for my daughter so is no a 23rd present.
In November we go on a music cruise from LA for 5 days and on New Years eve we go to St.Lucia for a week – a 25th anniversary present to each other.
I have 2 holidays booked for 2023 in Jordan and Austria and a long weekend in Rome.
It is most likely my last working year and I am making up for lost time/ doing things I might not be able to do in retirement. Life is for living.
Edinburgh for August – not really a holiday at all as I’ll be doing the day job during the, er, day, and my side hustle in the evenings. My show Waiting for Hamlet is on at The Space throughout the Fringe – I’m not in it, it’s all professionals dontchaknow, but there’s publicity and so on to be done. I kid myself this means they want me for radio and TV interviews, the odd spot on Newsnight or Front Row, but I have a feeling it’s going to be me in doublet and hose handing out flyers on the Royal Mile.
Anyhoo, if anyone’s up that way – https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/waiting-for-hamlet?fbclid=IwAR3kwny95UQ-wlzkcdP50ji_pr_tB40xDXGllyYF-9XLeARLvil5iKBB4Z4
Break a leg, darling! MWAHHHHHHH!!!!!
Good luck @chiz!
Good luck indeed. Really enjoyed it when I heard it. Alas I shall be in the opposite direction to Embra.
….”me in doublet and hose”…. Chiz thinks we will think this isn’t what he usually wears. Adorable.
@Chiz prepares
That looks great – good luck @chiz!
It must be pretty damn galling for chiz – a confirmed thespian – to read all these wishes of “good luck” because, darlings, that is one thing one DOES NOT DO. The other being naming the Scottish Play. NEVER wish a lovey “good luck”! ALWAYS “break a leg!” Oh dear. Still, the curse it is cast – chiz will soldier on. Because he’s an artist and a professional.
He’ll be marvellous.
MARVELLOUS.
After all, he was excellent in Twin Peaks.
It’s OK I whistled left the dressing room turned on one leg and washed the blood off with ‘Outdamnspot’ cleaner. Gets to those hard to reach stains. A cousin to Best Universal Grit Grime Effluent Remover.
Buy some today.
Thank you HP. I didn’t like to say anything, but yes all is lost. A plaque on all your houses!
A blue plaque. The ultimate refuge of the scoundreel.
Many apologies Chiz.
To make it up, allow me to say Toi toi toi.
‘Wanders off whistling a jolly tune…’
Just returned from a month in New Orleans, Nashville and Memphis which Lady G bought me as a birthday gift but which was postponed three times.
Nashville was a slight disappointment due to the fact that it seems to have become the hen night centre of the Deep south and, inevitably, there were a few gobsmacking t-shirts on display (‘Whiskey, Freedom and Guns’) being one of the most memorable/disturbing. It was redeemed by the Grand Ole Opry. The best type of live gig- no one did more than three songs so no one got bored. Some of the journeyman bar bands there too would put many of our more celebrated combos to shame.
Memphis was so cool. A bit dilapidated but somehow ‘real’ (even though, ironically, Beale St is largely reconstructed). Did the usual- Graceland, Sun- but also just wandered around and soaked in the catfish vibes.
Spent over six hundred dollars on records. If ever you go there I recommend Euclid Records in New Orleans and Phonolux in Nashville. I also recommend you travel business class on the return trip for the extra baggage allowance…
Abdomutelu love Mezmphis – edgy snd real so too New Orleans. Nashville so so. On the your we did we took in Lafayette which was great for live Cajun music
It seems I’m not the globe-trotting kind.
This year I’ve been to Colindale, Oxford, Aylesbury, Wood Green, Borehamwood, London Colney, Camden, Oxhey, Bushey, North Finchley and East Finchley.
All those were day (or evening) jaunts. Haven’t been anywhere on holiday for years.
I shall be visiting Muswell Hill at the end of the month then the fleshpot that is Romford.
I go to Colindale a lot too. For work. A double whammy of disappointment.
Madrid in 10 days time; psychology conference, but plan to bunk off when I feel like it, tickets to see Snarky Puppy in the Botanic Gardens there (sounds very civilised venue), a weekend after the conference for a spot of tourism with my daughter, who is coming up from Gibraltar, and both flights in the middle of the day, if it works out. Hoping it will be chilled and dignified.
We are doing a road trip in September to Sweden to see son, daughter-in-law and their four month old daughter.
We have ten days to drive back from (fairly) near Gothenburg to Calais. Never been to Denmark. Other than Copenhagen does anyone have tips for stopovers in Denmark, please?
Thanks
Personally, I would park outside Sidse Babbette Knudsen’s house with some strong binoculars for a few days. But you don’t have to take my advice.
Odense, on the middle island of Fan, is rather pleasant. I did the UK Sweden road trip in 2019, with stops being Amsterdam, Bremen and Odense on the way (to Malmo) and Munster on the way back, an altogether quicker experience with few stops.
My friend visited Odense a couple of weeks ago. He rated it, telling me that it was lovely and quiet (until three bus loads of roadies showed up).
Cromer, Lincoln and Cromer (possibly long enough for a diversion to the Holt Vinyl Vault this time).
I am very dull.
Mrs F has gone to Newcastle. Watch out, Geordies!
She’s not on the train is she? The trains and all the major towns on the East Coast line are heaving with terrifying hen gangs (or “parties”) every Saturday afternoon at this time of year.
Some very-much-non-English people of my acquaintance are getting the train to Leeds next Saturday and I’ve tried to warn them about this. They are going to get a shock. Vodka! Shrieking! Inflatable penises! And that’s just in the Costa at the station.
She’s gone with a chum from P’boro on the East Coast main line to the – yes – hen party of their mutual Actual Geordie Friend in a bar on Bigg Market.
Mrs F is petite and used to go off like a rocket on two glasses of vino. She’s barely touched a drop in the last decade because of me, so is less than match fit.
The AGF’s previous hen party coincided with Stevenage Town playing Newcastle United in the FA cup. Mrs F had to be carried out of a Newcastle bar, for her own safety, after standing on a table and chanting “Come on Stevenage!” Drink had been taken.
Oh god. Well, you had all those happy years together, and I hope you’ll go to visit her in HMP Low Newton…
Cromer Pier can be quite diverting for about 20 minutes. Other than that my only memory of my sole visit a couple of years ago is that the town has a ‘Swiss dry cleaner’ which seemed to set great store by its Helvetian roots, though I have never heard before or since that the Swiss are renowned for their dry cleaning. And the uphill part of Lincoln is beautiful of course.
Cromer often has a record fair, and is only a short drive from Holt Vinyl Vault. Lincoln boasts two record shops. What more do I need?
I’ve been to ver Vault each time we’ve holidayed in Norfolk, and called in there last month. It strikes me they are a bit pricey, though they do have a great selection. Holt’s very pleasant, but does seem to have an awful lot of shops selling things for dogs. It seemed at times that we were the only people who didn’t have a dog, when out walking. The pub in Burnham Overy Staithe sold dog treats alongside the crisps. Great part of the world to visit if you like dogs, but don’t have one.
Yep. Last time I came out only having spent a tenner, and felt like I’d won some kind of crate digger’s lottery.
We went to Amsterdam back in April for the Fairport cruise, and Cyprus a couple of weeks ago to stay in an apartment which I had ‘won’ in a charity auction back in March 2020 (drink had been taken). Paphos was OK, but very touristy, however we had a good time and the food and drink is cheapish. Cropredy in August, Jersey in September, Looe Festival later in September…blimey, aren’t we the gadabouts!
Went to Thassos,Greece in May. Quiet compaired to usual but a lovely week. Just back from Porto last Friday. Spent the last week holed up with Covid! Enjoyed Porto though. We’re off to Jersey for a couple of nights in July then Greece Rhodes/Symi in September. Looking to get some camping in the UK during the summer.
We were in Porto at the beginning of May. We were on the other side of the river, which is called Vila Nova de Gaia, and we stayed in the Sandeman hostel. It really is a hostel filled with young backpackers, but it does have a few proper rooms, and we were in one of these. Bus tours and a 3 hour river cruise. Lovely weather and fairly inexpensive. No problems at airports. The only problem is that everything is uphill. Plenty of bars and restaurants at river level, but you have to climb a mountain to go anywhere else. I would recommend the place, and the hostel/hotel but for no more than 5 nights, which was how long we were there.
2 weeks in Menorca to come, and a long weekend in Fife since my partner’s son is getting married in Cellardyke harbour!
That’s a gorgeous place to get married!
We’re off to a festival called ‘Stowaway’ in August. It’s pretty near and looks like it could be a good laugh, albeit very middle class. I’ll be sure to take a few flags much to everyone else’s annoyance.
Six days cycling at the start of June, five of which were flag-cracking sunny and even came back with a touch of sunburn from … Scotland. Crossed to Arran, then further west to the mainland again, returning around the head of Loch Fyne and crossing to Bute, which was just gorgeous. Thanks to my folk singer’s repertoire, I managed to cycle down the east and back up the Atlantic Coast of Kintyre, without once breaking in to ‘that song’.
Flying this Thursday to see some of the Tour de France in action – the first time I will have seen it in France itself. Some trepidation about making it though Manchester Airport, but Sleezyjet haven’t been cancelling the Geneva flights, so should be OK.
A week after returning from that, I start a three-and-a-half week folk odyssey, pulling together four festivals, all paid for in 2019.
Oddly enough, I’m also going to see the Tour de France later this week. After the weekend I’m going on to Bern for a couple of days and stopping off for a night by lake Geneva to see Robert Plant and Alison Krauss at Montreux Jazz Festival. Can’t wait.
No more odd than you going to see HMHB with a mate who’s a train driver, back in January.
Nepal was my first overseas trip in three years. I used to get crazy cheap flights to China from Sydney and would explore the mountains in the Tibetan borderlands. Nepal was the nearest alternative as China is still locked into its hardline zero covid policy. It was great to get away for a few weeks even with all the hassles of covid clearances and non-functional apps. The teahouse trek circuit is not really my thing but it was an eye opener to see how that economy works [or doesn’t] for Nepal and its people. I was surprised by how many westerners were trekking already. I thought people would be happy to be back on holiday again but most people I met on the trails seemed quite uptight/serious and not very chatty. Sitting in a mountain hut at 4000m amid the epic scenery of the Lantang valley and everyone else staying there was just staring at their phones. And yet there’s also still a surprising number of westerners who go to Nepal thinking its 1975, expecting banana pancakes, greeting fellow foreigners with ‘Namaste’ and talking about karma and chakras. Strange times.