Travel 2007 – Lisbon, Day 1

Friday, 19th October 2007 – Lisbon, Day 1 Three facts stick in the mind after our visit to Lisbon: There are no flat surfaces in Lisbon – it’s always up or down. All statues of great navigators have a seagull permanently attached to their heads. It may be symbolic… It’s bad news when the bottom…

Travel 2007 – Bucharest, Day 4

Sunday, 19th/Monday, 20th May, 2007 – Bucharest, Days 4 and 5 Sunday in Bucharest was just as nuts as Saturday had been with people running into barriers/tyre walls/each other and anything else they could find to hit. It all got messy and again we seemed to walk miles and miles, mostly up that damn hill…

Travel 2007 – Bucharest, Day 3

Saturday, 19th May, 2007 – Bucharest, Day 3 Well, it’s fair to say that Saturday in Bucharest started waaaay too early, with an 8.15 qualifying session. Really not what we wanted, but what can you do? That meant leaving the apartment at 7.30, in order to get to the press office and get organised in…

Travel 2007 – Bucharest, Day 1

Thursday, 17th May, 2007 – Bucharest, Day 1 Well, Bucharest… The sound of traffic chaos (engine’s revving, horns blaring, traffic cops blowing whistles) and of dogs, feral or otherwise, barking their heads off. The scent of honeysuckle mingling with poor drains and cigarette smoke. The sight of beggars with faces so wrinkled they could be…

Travel 2006 – Vienna, Day 3

Sunday, 3rd December 2006 – Vienna, Day 3 Sunday was slightly less frenetic than Saturday had been. Again we started with a superb breakfast in the hotel, then took a slow wander along to the Hofburg. It was a chilly day, but we wandered round the outside for a while, and along the Ringstrasse before…

Travel 2006 – Vienna, Day 2

Saturday, 2nd December 2006 – Vienna, Day 2 Saturday got off to a good start (though everyone was a bit sleepy). Breakfast proved to be excellent, with some superb bread and rolls in all shapes, sizes and textures, and hams, cheeses, spreads, jams and things to go with them. There was plenty of fresh fruit,…

Travel 2006 – Vienna, Day 1

Friday, 1st December 2006 – Vienna, Day 1 Friday we were up at some absurd time to haul ourselves to the airport. We picked Steffie up at 6 am and had an easy drive to Heathrow, parking in the Short Stay Car Park which is right next to Terminal 4 (this was a damn good…

Travel 2006 – London, Lacock

Friday, 27th/Sunday, 29th October 2006 – London, Lacock The weekend? What can I say? Well, it was packed, hectic and pretty damn wonderful in all sorts of ways. It just doesn’t seem to have involved enough sleep! Friday started out well, and I worked from home in the morning, while Lynne was out getting her…

Travel 2006 – Oxford, UK

Saturday, 4th March 2006 – Oxford College reunions can be dangerous! Where do I start? Good question. There wasn’t anything to suggest the weekend was going to get badly derailed, at least not to begin with. I treated myself to a gym session early on Saturday, knowing we’d be eating lunch and dinner in Oxford,…

Travel 2005 – Germany

Saturday, 29th October/Sunday, 30th October 2005 – Essen, Germany Friday was the usual routine once we made it to the airport – we headed straight to the seafood place for a meal, then walked to the gate just in time for our flight to Düsseldorf. At the other end it was a quick drive to…