Col & Rens UK Trip

The last update was when we just returned from France which was about a week and a half ago. We came back and we looked at what we wanted to do while we were over here and how much time we had. We realised that we could do everything that we wanted and could afford to and be able to come home a bit earlier. I contacted our travel agent and enquired about bringing our flights forward. Surprisingly, it was all updated and changed without any cost. Instead of coming home December 8th, we will now be arriving home November 8th.

We had planned to travel the last month we were away. 1 week in Ireland, 1 week down the bottom of the UK, and 2 weeks in Europe. As we have brought it forward we have begun looking at where we are going and what we are doing. We booked flights to and from Ireland and also the train for throughout the UK. We have drawn up what we want to do in Europe and if everything works out and we book what we currently have planned, we will go to Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, Prague, Salzburg, Munich and Budapest. All the travel between these cities is mostly done on bus, and most of them night buses. Won't be much fun but a cheap way to get between cities, and we wont be wasting day time by traveling. Also, night buses save us on accomodation costs.

Last week Renee was back at work. I was unemployed. As we were now heading home a week earlier, it really made my decision to leave my job a mistake. As we only have 6 weeks before we move out and travel, we really needed to be saving. I had been to different agencies etc during the week but hadn't really heard anything. I got offered a job on the Thursday which was £1 less an hour than my previous job. I got in contact with where i worked previously and they were happy to have me back for 6 weeks. I started back there on the Monday. For me it was a pretty lazy week. Considering its now Wednesday night and i've been back at work 3 days... i can honestly say i miss the lazy lifestyle.

Saturday August 19th (The weekend after my lazy week) we met up with Renees parents who flew in from Paris to the Manchester Airport. They picked up their hire car and we drove to Skipton. They are staying in a 3 bedroom house for the 2 weeks they are there and it just happened to have a spare bedroom. How convient. We stayed up there the Saturday night and came back to Manchester Sunday night.

The beginning of this week was a week we were both working. I had a really boring day on Monday. I had to rewatch and reread all the security and money laundering videos. Exciting Stuff. One of the videos i have literally watched 4 times. Everything is back to normal now.

This weekend coming is a long weekend. We have the Monday off due to a public holiday. I have no idea what its for, but i'll take it. Friday afternoon we are going back to Skipton and staying up there the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Renees friend Toni who was Renees travelling buddy last time they were over here will be in Skipton too. Haven't really been out drinking or seen much of Skipton at night so it really should make for an interesting night.

Tuesday we will be back at work. Friday afternoon we will finish early and get a train to Leeds. There we will meet up with Graeme and TBA as we go see Robbie Williams at Roundhay Park in Leeds. Should be good. After that we will get back to Barnsley and we will stay the night there. We will get up in the morning and catch a train to York. The Saturday night we will be staying in a hostel in York. Its a private twin room but i think its a shared bathroom so that will be interesting. How many times have i used the word interesting so far?? Too Many.

The Sunday in York Graeme will be playing cricket. They won last Sunday which put them in the Yorkshire One Day Knockout competition. Sunday evening we will be catching a train back to Manchester.

So really.. That is pretty much everything. Hopefully after the weekend we will have a few photos of Skipton. Cols Interesting Note for the day. Renees mum originally came from Skipton. Fi and G's dad went to Skipton Grammar. Pointless... but cool.

While it might have nothing to do with our holiday, its still pretty damn cool!

Sunday 30th July was the Heavy Woollen Cup final of which Barnsley was a part of. Graeme plays for Barnsley for those playing along at home. The Cup is pretty much a knockout one day competition. Graeme took 5 wickets in his first 5 overs leaving Baildon 6-40 after 10 overs, eventually all out for 99. Graeme finished with 5 for 36 off 10 overs. Barnsley easily got the runs and won the cup. Not only did Barnsley win, but Graeme won Man of the match.

Saturday 12th August Barnsley played Rotherham Town. Rotherham batted first and Graeme dismissed the teams only player to really threaten on 51 and then soon after followed that up with 2 wickets in 2 balls bowling both batsman. That left him with a chance of a hat trick. He struck the next batsmen on the pads in front and an appeal lead to the umpire raising his arm and dismissing the batsman, and completeing the hat trick.

The first photo is an article which appeared in the Geelong Advertiser shortly after the Heavy Woollen Cup. The headline is slightly cut off but it read "Harper shines in UK". Second and third photos were taken during the Cup Final. Forth picture is an article out of the Barnsley Chronicle weekly newspaper.

Its been about 2 weeks since i last updated this blog. Friday July 28th was my last day at work at it was also Renees last day before 2 weeks of Holidays. That weekend and Monday to Wednesday of the next week were very quiet. Didn't really want to spend much money before leaving to France.

Thursday came and we left our house on bus to get to Manchester Central. From there we got on our 4 and a half hour bus to London. From London we got on our 8:30pm bus which travelled through the night and arrived in Paris about 7am. We bought unlimited use Metro Underground passes that would allow us to get everywhere we wanted and needed to go. We arrived at our Hotel about 8am and tried to check in. At first they couldn't find the reservation. Probably didn't help they spoke absolutely no English. She ended up pointing to the pricelist behind the counter which said €89. They checked again and on the first line it had our booking. €51 a night. Excellent.. We went to our room and slept a couple of hours as we didn't get a great deal of sleep on the bus.

Once we got up we went down to the river and walked past the Louvre and towards the Eiffel Tower. We strangely ran into our tour director from when we first came to the UK. Small World. We caught the underground down to the Eiffel Tower and took a few photos. A few of which are just below.


That afternoon we went via Metro to Montmartre. We had a browse up there and strangely ran into our tour director again. While up there we looked at the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur and just walked around. It is the highest point of Paris and has some pretty cool views. Unfortunately its kinda blocked and you can't see in the direction of the Eiffel Tower. Once we had finished looking there, we wandered down the road and grabbed some Kebabs for tea and checked out the Moulin Rouge theatre. Didn't actually see it, but was still interested to see it. 3 Photos are below. The first is the Sacré Cœur. Second is looking from outside the Sacré Cœur back at Paris. Thirdly is of Moulin Rouge Theatre.


From here we caught a tube back to the Eiffel Tower so we could check it out at night and see it all lit up. This was Renees forth time to Paris and had seen it before, but i had only seen it during the day the last time we were in Paris. After that we went back to our Hotel to get a goods night sleep before our trip to Disneyland. Below are 3 Photos of the Eiffel Tower at night.


We got up early the next morning and caught a train to Disneyland. Its 30km out of Central Paris so it took a bit of time to get there. We eventually got in around 9:15am. We went on pretty much all the rides and saw pretty much everything we could see. There were 2 parades throughout the day and we saw both of them. The second parade was the closing of the park at 10:30pm and concluded with fireworks. We left around 11:30pm so we had been there about 14 hours. We eventually got home about 12:30am.


The next morning we were up early again to get down to the Eiffel tower before to queue to get to the top was too big. We got there about 9am and got up to the top pretty quickly. Took lots of photos while up there and a few are below.


After the Eiffel tower we went out to Versailles to have a bit of a look. Renee had seen inside it previously and i wasn't greatly interested so we just had a look at the exterior and didn't bother going in. Luckily we decided not to go in as the lines were absolutely huge to walk through it. After the Versailles we came back to our hotel for a rest.

For tea that night we went out to a place called Chartier. It was in a book we had read and it was relatively cheap and was traditional french food. It was a cool little place. When you ordered food they actually wrote the order down on the paper table cloths. We both had Entrees, a Main, and 1/2 a bottle of win and it came to under 40 euro. Pretty cool. The menu was totally in French so i decided on something i wasn't sure what is was. One thing i did know is that it would have mushrooms in it. I could work that out from its name. When it arrived half the plate was full of mushrooms and it had some meat. The meat was tasty. Neither myself or Renee could work out what it was and we didn't ask. When i got back to the UK i read a review for the restuarant on the net and it mentions some of the meats they serve. The actual quote i read was "The menu follows brasserie-style traditions, including items you might not dare to eat -- boiled veal's head, tripe, tongue, sweetbreads, lamb's brains, chitterling sausages -- as well as some old-time tempters". I have no idea what i ate and i dont think i want to know. It was tasty though.

The next morning we caught the train to the airport and flew to Nice. Caught a bus there and went to our hotel. Renees parents and brother were in Europe so we had organised to meet up with them and spend the time in Nice together. It was really good to see them. That afternoon we spent time catching up with them and it was a nice change to relax.

The next day we caught the train to Monaco. We got daily bus passes and went around Monaco. We stopped at the Royal Casino and went in an had a look. We paid to go into the actual casino and put some money through the machines. None of us won anything. We went to the supermarket and got some cheap lunch and then caught the bus to close to the palace. We walked a little were there is a good view looking back at Monaco. Took a few photos and then got back on the bus towards the train station. Renees parents and brother headed back to Nice while Renee and I stayed a little bit longer. From there we caught the bus back to near the Palace and walked up to it and took a few photos there too. We caught the bus down to near all the yachts and boats and walked along the water. Along there we found a nice little place where we had tea. The food was pretty tasty, but the view was pretty awesome too. From here we caught the bus through the tunnel and pretty much traced the Grand Prix track. By days end we had been on the bus around 80% of the track and walked the remaining part. After this we caught the train back to Nice.

Next day we caught a train which went to Villefranche which wasn't far from Nice and took a boat cruise which went around to Monaco. Amazing views on the cruise. It really is an awesome area. Could have easily spent more time here than 3 days. Once we got back to Nice Renee, her parents and I went out for tea to a place near where we were staying. Had some of the nicest food i have eaten in a long time while we were there. Photos below are... 1 Casino Royale. 2 View looking back from viewing platform near Palace. 3 - Hey thats us!! 4 - View from the Palace. 5 - Where we at tea with part of the view in the background. 6 - Looking towards Monaco from our boat cruise.



The next morning we flew back to the UK. We arrived at the airport and some flights had been cancelled and a lot had been delayed. We found out then there had been the arrests and security risks to flights from the UK heading towards the USA. The last and most pointless photo is of the departure information from the Nice Airport. 3 flights Cancelled and 6 delayed. Our plane was only about an hour and half late so that wasn't as bad as we thought it might have been. We arrived and i was thinking how good it was back to be where people spoke english. Then i heard someone speaking with the horrible british accent and thought how much i would prefer not to understand what they say than have to listen to that accent. Oh well.. All is fun.