Travel 2016 – Lappeenranta, Day 14

Day 14 – Monday 18th July (Lappeenranta) Moose count = still not a one! We got up in a spirit of adventure ready to see if the hotel breakfasts were any better than their dreadful dinners. They weren’t. With an hour still to run most things had run out (there was no fruit left apart…

Travel 2016 – Savonlinna, Kuopio, Joroinen, Imatra, Day 13

Day 13 – Sunday 17th July (Savonlinna, Kuopio, Imatra) Moose count  = Possibly in a stew! Also, one stuffed moose (but the museum was closed)! Today was the day we had to move on again. This time we did a somewhat illogical side trip to Kuopio en route to Imatra. If you look at the…

Travel 2016 – Savonlinna, Day 12

Day 12, Saturday 16th July (Savonlinna) Moose count = does a photo of a moose count? The day started with a quick trip to the market to get supplies to have with the lörtsy for dinner, and to extact some items from the car like maps and guidebooks. The kauppatori at Savonlinna is smaller than…

Travel 2016 – Helsinki, Day 5

Day 5, Saturday 9th July Moose count = 1 moose fillet, 0 live moose Saturday saw a somewhat early start as we were booked on a walking tour with Happy Guide Helsinki and they were kicking off at 10:00am at the Vanha Kauppahalli. We arrived with 20 minutes to spare and so wandered into the…

Travel 2016 – Helsinki, Day 4

Day 4, Friday 8th July – Helsinki Moose = 1 bronze moose, 1 stuffed moose, 0 live moose The ferry disembarcation was quick and efficient and after a drive into the city that had us wondering where everyone was, we were in Helsinki and parking up by the hotel within 30 minutes, a fact much…

Food 2016 – Le Gavroche, London

Monday, May 9th 2016 – Le Gavroche, London So after what feels like years of completely failing to get a table at Le Gavroche an invitation came through to attend a celebratory event there. I just needed to reply quickly to the email and hope I was faster than anyone else. I was! I paid…

Travel 2016 – S’Hertogenbosch, Zaltbommel, Day 3

Sunday, March 5th 2016 – S’Hertogenbosch, Zaltbommel After another excellent (but egg-avoiding) breakfast, we headed out again, discovering the local market was in full swing. A stop to buy bread was essential although I was impressed that we managed to avoid caving in to our taste-buds and didn’t buy vast amounts of cheese to go…

Travel 2016 – S’Hertogenbosch, Vught, Day 2

Friday, March 4th 2016 – Day 2  (S’Hertogenbosch, Vught) A good night’s sleep and we woke to decidedly inclement weather, unfortunately. However, breakfast was in the dry of the hotel undercroft. It was a fairly impressive buffet, though it did come with the semi-compulsory egg that is a feature of everywhere I’ve ever stayed in…

Travel 2016 – S’Hertogenbosch, Day 1

Thursday, March 3rd 2016 – Den Bosch We’d been planning on catching the Hieronymus Bosch exhibition in his home town of S’Hertogenbosch (or Den Bosch as it’s more commonly -and pronounceably – known) since we’d first got wind of it back in 2015, and the looming new job start focussed our minds on getting it…

Travel 2015 – Bruges, Day 2

Sunday, December 13th 2015 – Bruges So it was up and at ’em pretty promptly on Sunday morning as we wanted to see as much as possible. It was a ridiculously mild morning so after breakfast in the somewhat disappointing breakfast room (which felt more like an institutional cafeteria than a dining room in what…