The fens

I finally went for that walk through the fen reserve near St Ives. It's lovely, peaceful & relaxing, even though I'd walked about 4 miles all up by the time I got back to Michelle's. It was a lovely sunny day & even reached 26c I think.
I'm heading back to Europe tomorrow, will be in Paris by tomorrow night & staying there 9 days. Lots of walking, sightseeing, a couple of bus trips maybe. My first venture totally by myself in a foreign country. Just as well a lot of French people speak English, I'm v limited in French. I'll put up photos, maybe not the usual sights though.
 Who liked the 'dog' building outside Amsterdam? I was talking to a couple of Dutch women at the YHA in Bath & asked them about that building. They hadn't thought of it as a dog, haha! They were going to row about 200 miles in about 6 days in a canoe, passing through 26 locks along the way. They were hoping for no rain, sitting in water for each shift would be unpleasant, to say the least. YHA's often have interesting people. I talked to an Englishman, been travelling around for a few years, could be considered 'homeless' I guess, going from YHA to YHA with the occasional trip overseas. Obviously not broke though. He had decided to go back to his home city of Birmingham to buy a one bed flat 'cos he's 68 & wants a settled base to continue travelling from!
Tomorrow I go under the English Channel by train, no seasickness, yay!

Still in Huntingdon

It's been great catching up with Michelle & family. I've enjoyed being here. On Thursday I skipped walking in the fens, instead I had a lazy morning, then walked into the town centre for a look around. Friday again lazy, mainly because the weather wasn't great & I had a sore knee, had to rest it. We went to see Viva Forever, the Spice Girls musical, that night & it was really good. I would say on a par with the Melbourne version of Hairspray that I saw a few years ago. Lots of familiar songs, the cast had energy & enthusiasm, passable storyline. It was amusing & fun.
Today we went to Foxton Locks to view the narrow boats & see the series of canal locks in action. It was great, we even had a relaxing.short boat trip. Finished the day with a good dinner out. Another enjoyable day. I do like the narrow boats & canals!
What will tomorrow bring?

Huntingdon & Cambridge

I'm now in Huntingdon staying with Michelle, Scott, Eimii & Kate. I've spent the last couple of days in Cambridge looking around. I caught the bus there yesterday & being me slept all the way there & back, wandered around the town a bit & booked a walking tour & a bus tour for today. Today I took my wake up tablets & was amazed at what I had missed. The bus travelled through several small towns, St Ives was beautiful, along a busway through farmland & fens, a potential walking trip in the fens tomorrow. The busway is open to the countryside, no walls, much more scenic than Brisbane's. Anyway the walking tour was interesting & visited the King's & Queen's Chapels at Cambridge University among many other university sights. Then the bus tour went around the wider Cambridge highlights & sights. After that I saw some of the university sights from a different perspective, from a punt on the river Cam! No prizes for guessing where the name Cambridge came from. It was a great punting trip though, chauffeured of course. I enjoy watching others do the work! Peaceful & relaxing. Then the bus trip home, still awake, St Ives is definitely my favourite. Thanks to better weather today I've enjoyed Cambridge immensely. I really am seriously affected by the weather, eh.
Tomorrow the fens!

Bath in 6 days

Only Saturday to go here, I leave on Sunday. It's been interesting & relaxing. I arrived Monday, spent most of Tuesday in the library, my milieu, eh. Wednesday was an arvo trip to Stonehenge which I enjoyed. The pictures are already on fb. Good commentary on the headsets. The police were getting ready for the Summer Solstice influx.
Thursday I booked a day trip to Avebury, another stone site as old as & way more extensive than Stonehenge. At some stage the Catholic Church decided it was too pagan & started burying the stones. Quite a feat in itself, consisting of digging an enormous hole in front of each stone, then toppling the stone in & burying it. Those stones were one third of their length into the ground to start with & weighed many tons! Those priests must have been good conmen to get the people to work that hard. Anyway they eventually, after many stone burials including a crushed barber/surgeon, gave up. Some of the stones were used for local buildings & fences too. In I think the late 1800's, 1900's an Englishman decided to dig the buried ones up & did get a fair number but apparently there are still about 40 stones down there.
An interesting titbit; I saw a stone fence with a thatched roof along the way, only about 3-4 ft high. Thought that was strange so of course I asked. Apparently the thatch acts as a water resistant roof protecting the mortar, ergo the fence lasts longer!
That trip also went to a Cotswoldian village, Castle Combe, no castle anymore, just one street but v quaint. I will get photos up. Laycock was another village, Wiltshireish maybe?, four streets this time. Again worth a look & photos.
Today I have been wandering around Bath, photos later. From the Roman Baths to the Thermae Spa, I only saw the outside of the buildings as to go inside them cost more than seeing Stonehenge. Avebury was free! I walked to the Royal Crescent, a crescent of probably Georgian apartment buildings, each apartment worth a small fortune by virtue of overlooking the Botanic Gardens. No balconies on that side though, go figure. Then I eyeballed the Circus, more apartment buildings, three sets curved in a circle around a small grassy area with five magnificent old trees. In the Gardens I took pictures of a squirrel scampering through the trees, don't know if it'll show up.
Yesterday's bus trip, as a bonus, provided a free cream tea at a local hotel so after all that walking I replaced the calories in a v tasty way. I also scored a ticket to a Noel Coward play, Relative Values, starring Patricia Hodges. I'm looking forward to that tonight. Now the library is closed so I'm using the local supermarket's Wifi!
Okay, that's probably way too much detail. So complain to the management!

The European trip is over!

Okay, the European trip is over - I'll write about those last few days later. Amsterdam was great, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got a little queasy on the ferry trip from Calais to Dover, drat it. Rivers are so much calmer. Thankfully I'm going under the Channel next time on the Eurostar.
Anyway, back in the UK, I've had 3 days in Exeter, seen the Cliff Richard concert. He's always good, YAY! Amazingly blue sky for the concert though the forecast was for rain!
Now I'm in Bath with the Avon River & the Roman Baths, staying at the YHA. No Free Wifi there, overpriced Wifi! So today I'm using the free Wifi at the local library, great place to spend a gray day. Tomorrow's supposed to be fine, sunny & warm so I hope to do a day trip to the Cotswolds, if I haven't left it too late to book.
Coming into Bath on the bus I was reminded quite strongly of Adelaide, all the stone buildings & the contrasting quoins, no doubt. Not by the time we hit the central city though. All those ubiquitous apartment buildings & terraces, they're inescapable. Gray, dirty looking, mostly boring! Rome was the exception but I must have been on the 'good' side of town, lol. I know they have to fit in all those teeming millions but really! Why not clean them, give them a lick of paint, put plants on the balconies, something!
I'll come back to the library another day for the Wifi.
Enjoy your trip around the sun,
Gail Frances

Lucerne, Switzerland

Switzerland is nice, Lucerne is nice, nothing outstanding though. Lots of little points of interest that make it worthwhile. We've been here 2 nights & I've done lots of walking, just looking around. I've taken photos on my cell but can't upload them to fb, maybe in Germany. I put some up yesterday from my iPad so have a look on fb.
Tonight we went to a 'typical' Swiss restaurant for dinner. That was fun with a band, yodelling, flag tossing, alpen horns, cow bells. Again photos on cell, see later..
Off to Germany again tomorrow,
Gail Frances

Salzburg to Munich

Austria really is so green! We went on to Salzburg today & the scenery is still great, rolling hills & forests. Salzburg is a mountainous area & we did a short walking tour of the city centre, then on into the mountains. It reminded me of driving over Arthur's Pass without the Otira Zigzag, all those steep gorges that Jan hated looking down, eh.
The optional today was a trip up a mountain to Eagle's Nest, a Hitler monument, edifice, conference centre? I didn't go, of course. It was bad enough listening to the local guide on the bus making excuses for the blind following of Hitler. The usual 'They didn't know - life was so hard - Hitler gave them work'. Yes, work killing people! Anyway I spent the time in a picturesque little town I wasn't much interested in but I did get a massive cup of tea, lol. A pleasant change from the tiny cups we're often given. The bonus was I got to go down the mountain again then back up to collect the others, then down again. If only I had been driving - I always enjoyed driving to the West Coast. The pity was the time wasted on that Eagle's Nest trip could have been better spent further on.
From Salzburg we drove to Munich, more lovely landscapes, but I was disappointed we didn't have time to see much of the city, v little in fact, just 1 1/2 hours in a dubious part of town with beer gardens. Definitely not my scene at all. No walking tour, no bus drive around the major sights. There was so much more to see! But no more time, all wasted sadly.
Four countries in one day tomorrow!

Austria, Vienna Woods, so cool!

My first impression of Austria is of greenness, so much green, so much forest, rolling green hills. Amazingly so much greener than NZ! Our Southern Alps are definitely more rugged & we have the so useful plains but Austria has forests everywhere, not just radiata pine either, lol.
I haven't had time to see Vienna yet, sightseeing tomorrow then free time to explore in the arvo. I'm meeting Christine in the evening, yay. Our hotel is right beside the Danube & definitely a step up from the last couple, not that there was anything wrong with the others. But a king size bed beats a single bed any day, lol!
So from one green country to another, & to that brown country too, goodnight!

Capri, Rome & things of interest

The Isle of Capri was beautiful but the boat trip over was a bit rough, made a few of us feel ill. Land was good! Lots of up & down walking on the island but worth every slope & step. An 'upmarket' tourist resort for sure, but so, so nice. If I could remember how I would add photos - I did take them. Maybe I can get some onto fb. The boat trip back was much calmer, lol.
Anyway now we're in Rome & this morning visited the Vatican, interesting; the Sistine Chapel, absorbing & sometimes puzzling trying to figure out some of the pictures; the Basilica of St Peter, awesome. All the 'pictures' there were actually mosaics, the intricacy of them & the size. I am in awe of the talent!
We've also visited the Colosseum, again an interesting ruin but for me overshadowed by the deaths of both people & animals that took place there. I can't separate the use from the building.
This evening I found another park to wander around. It was fairly small so I walked around 3 times, I needed to stretch my legs. Nice to listen to the birds, see the greenery, & hear the kids playing. Apartment living means no back yards, etc, so whole families go to the local parks most evenings for fun & exercise, or just to sit & talk to their neighbours. I'm blessing daylight saving, it's so nice to be out in the evenings in daylight again. I do miss that. (If only Queensland wasn't so backward in that respect.)
Whoops, the others have just come back from dinner. Golly, Australians are more raucous than Americans! The lobby has been invaded with that ubiquitous 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!' Cringe! Just as well they're mostly harmless, lol. The Americans have slunk off to bed, feeling outclassed maybe.
I'll finish on that note, Venice tomorrow.
Ciao