Wales - land of our fathers (and my mother!)

Chepstow and Cardiff

What a lovely area this is! We are at a country club Marriott hotel that has a golf course on it – so bliss for both of us! Dave found this when he was looking for a golf course to play and what a gem! Very old buildings with stables and a church and a graveyard! We have a semi-detached flat in the ‘Lakeside village’ part (overlooking a lake on the golf course). We walk through the graveyard to get to the dinning, reception, bar area (bit spooky coming back in the dark! Full moon last night and felt for these poor souls under the ground).

 Entrance to the reception area - cool eh?

The golf course.

This is the bridge over the Severn Estuary which is the border of Wales and England

Dave played his round of golf. He said it was a nice course (greens a bit slow). Very interesting finishing hole because it is a 210m par 3 and you have to hit it onto the green in one shot! The course is full of lovely English trees that are turning colour and a few loosing their leaves. I walked one hole with Dave by the lakeside (then got bored – back to my book!) and saw all these squirrels hopping around eating the fallen acorns. Just magic.

I just love hearing the Welsh accent around me. Very lyrical and musical to the ear.Our waitress is an Australian who came here a year ago with her husband who is Welsh. Already she has a lilt in her voice

Today is Cardiff day. It is about 30 mins away down country roads and past villages (the scenic route – I think our GPS lady is into the nice countryside1). It is bigger than I thought, with a nice feel about it. 

We parked right by the ‘Principality Stadium’ aka the Millenium Standium aka Cardiff Arms Park! 

We went in for a tour of the stadium and ended up with these two guides (one came along for the ride I think) just for us. As you can imagine the talk quickly turned to the ins and outs of Northen Hemisphere rugby plus the AB’s and rugby world cups etc etc Quickly discovered they don’t like the English, think Gatland is wonderful (don’t like him being away taking the Lions tour down under next year), have a great rivalry with Irish …. Great stadium – It had been redesigned in 1999 with a retractable roof (takes 20min to cover over). Apparently the away captains can choose the day before if they want the roof over or not (can’t go back on their decision). The Welsh like it over cause it gives them lots of atmosphere when they sing and cheer, the English always choose to not have it over to take the advantage away from the Welsh, and NZ team like the roof closed cause dry conditions suit our style of play (see I do listen!). 

We got to sit in the media desk where the coaches, players etc talk to the media,

See the changing rooms (Welsh one is more modern and each player has his own phone charger points etc)

Sit in the President’s box (where the royality sit at games (like Prince Harry, William, the Queen)

The turf is replaced and grows quickly with heat lamps (not enough natural sunlight to grow grass). They were getting ready for the up-coming 6 Nations season.

 Anyway and hour and a half later  we left to walk down the road to the Cardiff Castle, which takes up a lot of the inner city area – you can’t miss it.

It was built by the Normans and was a large area inside the walls. It had fallen to ruin by the 1800’s when the Marquis of Bute (who had made lots of money from coal and transporting it from the docks at Cardiff) decided to restore it to make it the city’s pride and joy. They used the castle walls as bomb shelters in World War 2 (did you know Cardiff got bombed quite extensively?) 

the keep is the tall castle part in the middle where the people went to hide when they were attacked. We climbed up it  (150 steps to the top) and saw an amazing view out over Cardiff.

Lots of school parties were there on trips to discover their heritage (very multi-cultural type children) – not all that well-behaved – the teacher in me!)

After the castle was the hop-on bus which took us for a tour of the city. The interesting part was their dock area which was a thriving place about the early 1900 with coal going out on the ships. After that was a decline and now they have re-vamped it into an amazing dock aea to walk around (little cafes and shops. Quite lovely.

So – all in all loved Cardiff. Much nicer than I thought ( I had been thinking run-down, not much money etc). The buildings were lovely, parks beautiful and lots of trees turning colours.

A very satisfying day – especially as Mum was Welsh, so I think my Welshness was coming through.

By the way all signs were in both Welsh and English. We were told the North and middle areas of Wales speak Welsh quite fluently.

England - Land of Hope and glory!

England – Land of Hope and Glory!

Yay! Landed on English soil and it isn’t raining either! A rather dodgy, bumpy flight from storm-ridden Nice to the calm waters of London. We managed to negotiate our way through Gatwick Airport to get our rental car (which we up-graded from a ford focus to a 118 BMW with built in GPS. Far too flash for me to drive.

So off we go – Dave fiddling with the GPS, me with my map book – down to Salisbury (Stonehenge). It is only under 2 hrs from London, however today is Friday afternoon, so of course all the ones with a nice little cottage outside London are taking off and going home for the weekend.  Oh ….. is that what you do if you have money? Not too bad driving but as we got close to Stonehenge it was bumper to bumper, slow crawl as you drive pass the big stones! Which are just there in a paddock!

I made a decision to visit them then, so off we go off down a little road till you see this amazing new visitors centre (2 years old). Not too many cars in the carpark, so we pay our money, and hop onto a shuttle bus which takes you to the site! Some people walked it, but it is quite a hike and the time was ticking on….. it is a National Heritage site so cars aren’t allowed near it (tho there is that busy road rushing pass along the edges!)

Very interesting actually – not just a lot of up-right stones. You have little guides  that let you know what each group of stones meant. Did you know that there was a road that led up to it for the pilgrims who came to leave offerings to the gods they prayed for? And also there were lots of little round humps in the fields around the outside that are all part of it as well.

The museum at the visitors centre was great – showed how they got the stones shaped, dragged and how the ones along the top got there 4000BC. Quite technical.

So after spending a couple of hours there we went onto our country hotel, which was a 950 yr old farm house done up. Very lovely, with lovely people running it. We met these older English guests in the little bar room, and had dinner there in the dining room. (gorgeous food – best pork belly since Off the Track!).

Today was a visit to Salisbury Cathedral – with our own personal guide (little old lady volunteer who likes dressing up in Regency costumes and going to balls – think Pride and Prejudice!) It is cool on the outside (gothic) however the inside was rather boring decorative wise (it has a copy of the Magna Carta as well – only one of four made).

 This is one of the oldest working clocks in England (in the cathedral)

 They had a harvest festival last weekend (Autumn 'stuff')

After looking around this place, lovely villages, tree-lined roads, neat little cottages, open green fields, I decided I could quite like it around this area. Very pretty.

Bath

We then drove to Bath (about an hour from Salisbury) through all of the above countryside. First thing – I always thought Bath was by the sea! It is not – it is by a river. Secondly – it is again a lovely town with lovely town houses, but I thought it was a bigger city (don’t know why).

 The Bath Abbey (not a cathedral)

 Lovely river views from our river walk towards the main centre

We found the Roman Baths (where the romans bathed in the hot springs 2000 years ago). No that was an amazing place. They have made it into an interactive type museum- no-one can bathe in them now. We were there about 2 hours so really worth visiting. 

Nice - which is very nice!

Got up very early and arrived at Rome train station to try and figure out how the Italian train system works. First thing - no information desk! Second - you have thousand of commuters pouring into Rome while you are battling a huge suitcase and hand luggage trying to get out! Against the flow of traffic and all that!
Lots of armed soldiers near the station, outside and inside. Very serious standing there with machine guns (not very approachable when asking directions to a platform either!)
Anyway on board and next minute zooming up the country to Milan at 300km an hour, smooth as, for 3 hours. I went to sleep most of it!
Milan station - no security - no checking of tickets before you go on the platform. We had 10 min to change trains and had to go from Platform 4 to 18! Talk about Brenda power walking with her bags! Then our carriage just right at the end of the train - Carriage 18. However - one problem. Carriages went from 17 to 19 - no 18. Dave at least got us on the No 19 carriage and then asked a conductor where carriage 18 was, and he said 'missing!" OK - you have lost a carriage? Anyway he gave us new seats so all was fine. Slow train however it took 5 hours to get to Nice. /Some spectacular scenery - especially the last part going down the coast. Lots of cliffs and sea and small towns perched on rocks.

Just before Monaco you cross the French border. The train stopped and police got on. Marched through the train just looking - not checking pass ports or anything. As we took off I could see about 10 police on the platform surrounding 2 guys they had got off the train, that looked like they were refugee types.
Nice is lovely. We got a hotel on the promenade des Anglaise on the waterfront, and up-graded to a sea front room. This was a good call, as we are here for 3 days, and can look down over all the hussle and bussle. The promenade is where the truck driver shot all the people in July. Right opp. our hotel is where the memorial is with lots of flowers, and bears, and signs and flags etc. We went to have a look and it was quite moving.

After a good nights sleep recovering from 2 major adventures and a day long train trip, we went to explore Nice for 2 hours in the morning.
We walked by the sea right along to the end, (not many people on the beach, which is pebbles) but a few brave souls were swimming)

 went into the old town and found a flower market which was amazing what it sold (also fruit and veges, fish, chocolate ...)

By the time we walked back we had found the exclusive shops with some very expensive jewelery right in the shop windows!

That afternoon it was a tour of Eze (perfume making town above the hills of Nice).
We toured a perfume factory which was fascinating - they make oils,soaps, creams as well.

Then up to a tiny medieval castle town high on a hill overlooking the sea- once again lots of steps up and down.

After that was Monaco. Our driver was just that - a driver - not a tour guide. We were with 4 other people (Brazilians) and had to keep asking him questions. We drove along a narrow coast road to get there (about 20 mins from Eze) with houses all the way (very rich looking) so you didn't know when you were actually in Monaco. A big sign came up and there you were!
The houses were beautiful - lots of pastel colours, wrought iron balconies and shutters.

We saw an old castle which is now the Museum of Oceanography,

 a garden overlooking the sea, the church all the monarchy got married and died in (found Prince Rainer's tomb),

 Princess Charlottes house she lives in still,

Prince Alberts palace that he lives in now ......

We then looked down on the yacht marina - bit disappointed. I was expecting it to be bigger with lots more super yachts, tho it  is the end of the season.

We drove along the grand prix circuit where they start the cars and the start line. Pretty narrow roads for the cars to go on.

Then it was the casino. Once again very small outside (and app. in as well). We couldn't stop but the driver drove round the roundabout outside twice so we could get photos. No famous faces but saw a Ferrari and a rollsroyce parked outside. Lots of security standing round shooing away tourists that were just there for photos.

So generally speaking - lots of people and cars, lovely buildings and scenery, but I was shuddering to think what it would be like in summer!
On the way back we went  to Nice over this 3 lane each way super-highway, with tunnels and tolls all the way. I was in the front seat and our driver was going at least 130km at one stage! but so were all the other cars! Mama mia!

Today was our first rain day, so it became a lovely blob day. We braved the rain to go shopping, got soaked, stayed in our room, read books and slept. Just a nice chill-out day.