Glencoe

I flew up to a town called Glasgow in Scotland for week. Colleagues recommended places called Loch Lomond and Glencoe. I googled them, they looked bueatiful, so I drove up to them. 

Loch Lomond is maybe 30 minutes north of Glasgow. It's a beautiful lake and you can drive right alongside the water. I didn't stop, but I sure did keep glancing to the right to look at the lake.

Glencoe is another hour or two to the north. It feels like curvy mountain driving and I even drove through a full out snow blizzard?!

I made it up to Glencoe and wow is it stunning. The scale of the mountains and the vastness of the area is awe inspiring. Glencoe is the name of a town as well as a snow capped mountain. I parked and wandered around a bit, absolutely loved it.

 

Tetbury Bibury Beaconsfield

I drove back up to the Cotswolds area today. I was picking up a few antiques and negotiating a few more. Tetbury was even busier this week compared to last week. I saw a handwritten sign for a festival. 

Then I drove 30 minutes over to a town called Bibury. Pronounced BYE-bur-ee. It's known as the most photographed area of the UK, let alone the Cotswolds. 

 

The final stop of the day was a town called Beaconsfield. It's known as the most expensive place to live in the UK. Joanne Frogatt from Downton Abbey and Cat Deeley from So You Think You Can Dance are known to live nearby. I noticed lots of nice cars, but didn't bump shoulders with anyone I recognised. I had fun looking around!

Bristol

We had a mini team meeting over in Bristol last week. It's approximately a two hour drive to the west. Bristol is the last city before you head over the bridge to Wales. 

We started at the Clifton suspension bridge. Quite a view of the bridge from a local hotel pub. Apparently the project manager for the bridge was only 23 years old when he lead the effort.

We then went over to the waterfront, next to the University of Bristol. Very nice area. We saw a random tree that was man made, full of solar panels. We found out the next day that the tree was being "turned on" that day!

Tetbury - Cotswolds and Antiques

We drove up to a town called Tetbury yesterday. I'm still not sure, but I think the "Cotswolds" we've all heard of are an area, as opposed to a single town. So, I could be wrong, but I think Tetbury is part of the Cotswolds. 

Tetbury is known for its antiques. There are 20-30 shops, and many more dealers. We're looking for tall but narrow furniture to hold stuff. 

We've learned they tend to call these pieces of furniture "tall boys" or linnen presses or wardrobes, or the French version would be armoire. 

We bought a few pieces and our thinking is that they only cost a bit more than Ikea or Homebase, but they come with hundreds of years of history and character. Maybe even a bit of haunting, if we're lucky :)

One store is Tetbury specialises in clocks. They make clocks, restore clocks, and talk about clocks. I thoroughly enjoyed the ancient roar of tick tock as we walked through.

For dinner, we didn't check the Yelp app, we just walked up and down the street looking for the place with the best local buzz. We found it! There was a restaurant on the corner that said "dining within 30 miles". We were quite sure what that meant, but we quickly learned that meant all food - every little bit - was sourced within 30 miles. And you could taste it. It was fresh and scrumptious. I had Wagyu beef, which of course didn't start local, but they had a two page paper on the table explaining where every ingredient on the entire menu came from. For Wagyu, a local farmer had flown to Japan, made connections, and started a local farm for Wagyu beef! 

Oh, restaurants (and pubs) like that will fill up with reservations, but we're often just walking in. At first we thought it was very rude that an empty restaurant wouldn't let us in, which has happened to us many times, but we've learned how to negotiate. What they're thinking is that you'll sit down and eat for 2-3 hours, which will ruin their reservations. So if you say "we'll eat very quickly, how soon do you need us out", then most people will say, oh sure, if you're out by 7, then we can do it. With two kids, it turns out to be a win win. 

Great town, similar to Petworth in terms of size and antiques, but much more beauty in terms of town and architecture.

Chesil Beach and Abbotsbury Swannery

I found myself right next to a place called Chesil Beach for work. From work, I could look down and see the length of the beach. It's beautiful because there's water on both sides of a long narrow pebble beach. After work, still dressed in a suit, I pulled up to the beach to take a closer look. The car park wasn't free but I didn't have change, so I used my cell phone to pay for parking for the first time - so nice! 

The beach has a noticeable hill to climb before you can see the ocean. The walk up the hill is loud because the pebbles make so much noise when you walk on them. Reaching the top of the hill, you can then see the length of the beautfu beach - very simple and relaxing!

A colleague recommended Abbotsbury Swannery, which is about a 20 minute drive from the beach. I'm pretty sure I had never heard of a swannery, let alone been to one, so I was on my way! He briefly explained that monks used to take care of swans there, but it's more of a public place now. Intriguing. 

It's a relatively long twisty road to get there. The views reminded me of car commercials - expansive green fields spotted with goats, sheep and cows.  I pulled up to the swannery and its ancient wooden gate, ready to see what's inside. There was a small cabin with lots of swan  related gifts inside. It cost about £10 or £11 to walk through the swannery, which you pay there. 

I paid and walked through to find a nice scenic path lined by a small stream on the right. I followed the sound of rushing water to find another wooden gate just past a hedge maze and non-motorized go karts. 

There were 3 or 4 cute white huts with curved thatched brown roofs. One hit had a hand made bomb that had been dug up on site - complete with war damage to it! It looked like a huge black golf ball, even with purposeful semi sphere grooves in it. 

The stream was about 2-3 feet across and then emptied into the ocean. There were over 600 white swans there! They have 3 or 4 walkable paths, that go around swan nests and sets of trees and brush. I took lots of photos, read some signs, but mostly took in the peaceful yet overwhelming feeling of hundreds of beautiful creatures wandering around me.

I think I'd like to head back to Chesil Beach and the swannery with my family - nice spot!

Seville - absolutely amazing

Seville shocked us with its beauty and charm. Southern Spain is a bit more traditional Spain. We started by walking to Plaza de Espana, not knowing exactly what to expect. It's basically a ridiculously huge semi circle of red brown and orange architecture. There are two tall towers at either end and a palace looking castle in the middle of the semi circle. The area in the middle of the circle has a lazy river with boat rides and a huge water fountain. Horse drawn carriages circle inside the plaza nonstop (that's how big it is, you need a horse to get around).

We then walked toward the cathedral. You walk right by the teatro, which we didn't expect, it's a beautiful white and yellow circular building. Honestly not sure what's in it - we saw signs for shows and casino - if that's related :)

The Royal Alcatel is in the same plaza as the cathedral. There was quite a line for it, and we had heard its "the most beautiful garden in the world", so we waited in line. We barely had time to finish ice cream before we were in the garden, and sure enough, it's stunning. Lots of beautiful architecture along with trees and flowers - and lots of water. There were at least 2 or 3 girls and women in fancy white dresses with professional photography crews guiding them around. 

The cathedral is probably the most inspiring cathedral I've ever seen. Your body can't help but physically say wow when you walk in. I actually stood at the door for a few minutes just to appreciate lots of people from lots of cultures say wow as they walked in. 

The first room must be 5 or 6 stories tall and the main altar is 3 or 4 stories of solid gold (paintings, sculptures, etc). Then you walk up a ramped tower called Giraldi. 31 flights of ramps to then see all of Seville from the top - love it!

We did a night time Flamenco dance at a place called Los Gallos. We weren't quite sure what to expect. Turns out that this particular place does 6 rounds of dancing. Each round is about 15 minutes followed by a few minute intermission. One or two of the rounds were only singing or guitar. The big finale brings together the whole story and it's great!

Ibiza - the party island!

J Lo and Pitbull told us to go from London to Ibiza, so we did it. In the UK, they tend to pronounce it Ibitha, and on the island itself it's called Eivissa. Whatever the place is called, it's beautiful! They say there are at least 80 beaches, and it feels true. The beaches in the north are quieter and more family oriented, the south is where the big parties happen. The northeast tip is a 30 minute drive, which is "way out there" and so it's even more rocky and secluded. 

There are so many good beaches that we spent our first night as a family looking at pictures and recommendations to try and decide where to go. We were staying in the north and it was April (70 degrees Fahrenheit), so we narrowed it down to Cala Gracio, Cala Comte, Cala d'Hort and Cala des Jondal. We figured it was cold enough and the kids were young enough that we could just spend an hour at each beach, then move on - it's barely a 15 minute drive between beaches.

Just barely not making the cut for us were Cala Xaracca, Cala des Salines, Portinatx, Sant Vincent, Cala Figueral and Cala de Bossa.

Most of Spain doesn't speak Spanish (and limited English), they speak Catalan, which is similar but different to Spanish.  Cala means beach (or so I think, because I saw playa too). Good morning is Bon dia. 

Cala Gracio was fantastic. We pulled up and found ourselves to be the only ones there. I had heard that Cala Gracioneta was "connected just to the north", so we hiked up the rocks and around the corner, sure enough, another beautiful beach. Picture colourful rocks about 2-3 stories high, forming a semi circle bay of turquoise water. Pop a white stucco house at the top of the rocks and some white sand by the water...

Cala Comte turned out to be the beach that was hanging in a photo on our wall in the hotel. Picture that same beautiful beach, shrink the rocks a little, stretch out the beach to be 250 yards wide, now place a giant green grass land mass out a could hundred yards in the ocean.

Cala d'Hort was my favourite. Change the green grass land mass to a huge tall solid rock and now you're picturing it. That rock is called Es Vedra and rumour has it that Zeus put it there!

Cala des Jondes was disappointing in that "I've been spoiled by amazing beaches" kind of way :) there's an extremely expensive restaurant there but that was about it, don't get me wrong, it's beautiful too.

We found it was still early, so we decided to hit a few more beaches!! :) we drove the 30 or 40 minutes "all the way" to the north and went to Cala Xaracca. That one had even taller rock cliffs and a secret second beach around the corner like Cala Gracio. Xaracca was my favourite hike. We sat and ate ice cream whilst staring at the beautiful beach, then we went to one final beach.

We drove a few minutes over to Portinatx, which actually turned out to be family oriented and one of the most crowded to our surprise. Now, "crowded" means 15-20 people as opposed to 0-5 that we found at every other beach lol. Really nice forest (along the beach) hike at Portinatx.

We went back to the hotel and found this was our second hotel with a temperpedic mattress - nice! 

We walked the town learning that Ibiza is basically in off season until 31 May, so it was very quiet. We took the food recommendation of the hotel and enjoyed some local cuisine. Such bright colours all over Spain!

In Spain, they drive on the left hand side of the road, sit on the left hand side of the car, and go to the left around roundabouts. Speed limits are posted in kmph. We changed our car navigation from Catalan to English and unbeknownst to us, the digital speedometer changed to mph. I mentioned to my wife that I liked how fast we could drive, but then we realized that we were zipping past every other car - pretty funny to realise that mph is way faster than kmph when you're looking at kmph signs :)

First time to Spain

To start our trip to Spain, the family and I spent the night in a hotel at Gatwick airport. There are amazingly inexpensive flight deals here, but of course there are a few catches (unless you get lucky). First, you'll need to book a bit in advance. Second, you'll probably get tough times of day (eg early or late). Since we had an early flight, we spent the night so that it was a bit easier to make the flight (there goes some of the savings :) ). All London airports let you pay for parking in advance (online), that seems to save a lot of money too. The car parks are pretty nice too - they read your license plate, welcome you (in text on a screen) and let you in.

We started in Barcelona. The air traffic controllers were on strike in France, so our pilots warned us that we were taking the scenic route. We flew over the Alps and they were beautiful, so it was worth it!

We were nervous about our taxi pickup because of the flight delay, and after just a few minute wait, they were there! My cell phone didn't work at first, but my wife's did, so I did some googling to solve the problem. Strangely enough, the easy fix was to turn off "euinternet", but then it worked!

Time to explore! Barcelona's most popular street is called Las Ramblas. At one end is a plaza and about a mile down, toward the beach, is a Christopher Columbus monument. It's a cool street because there's a pedestrian-only area in the middle. That area is probably wider than both ways of the street combined - so it's very inviting. The outer streets are lined with shops, the inner pedestrian area is lined with pop up stands and even some restaurants. It was quite crowded and we enjoyed some tapas there. 

The area by the Christopher Columbus monument reminded us of Southern California - Palm tree lined streets with the feels and smells of an ocean - very cool. 

We walked to the Picasso museum next. We had bought our tickets online so we were able to skip a long line and walk right in. This was probably the first experience where we felt the family friendly nature of Spain - several of the museum employees went out of their way to talk to the kids and make them laugh. What I personally learned the most at the museum was the journey/improvements that Picasso made over his life - I thought they were noticeable even though it wasn't specifically called out as something to watch. 

As the day wrapped up, we visited the Catedral de Barcelona. Very impressive of course :)

We had heard that siestas still happened, so we were prepared for shops and restaurants to be closed all afternoon. In the heart of the city, we found that most everything was open all afternoon, so the learning continued...

Finding antiques and making chocolate

Sorry, been a couple weeks since my last post. Admittedly, I'm finding myself more and more of a "local", so it's getting harder and harder to realise stand-out things to mention. In just a few days I will lived in the UK for exactly one year, I do have a post planned to mention "highlights of the year".

Two activities jump out over the past few weeks. Before even mentioning those, I have to say we just got home from a friends and family Easter dinner. This dinner was extra special because it was the same friend that invited me over last year. Last year I was alone, and had only been here a few days. This year, I had my family with me and a year full of experiences. We brought lots of food and wine, and had such a great time. Can't thank you enough, my good friend :)

One of the food items we brought was chocolate. It wasn't chocolate that we bought, it was chocolate that we made from scratch. I've decided to take up chocolatiering, if that's a word. It's not as easy as it looks. It takes quite some research, and the ingredients are expensive and hard to find (and even slightly controversial!) Long story short, it took 5 batches before I had edible chocolate. I'm probably about 100 batches away from something special :)

One of the topics at dinner was antiques. We've been recently looking for antique furniture. We figure it's quite an opportunity to look for historic furniture in such an historic area. Sure enough, there are entire villages known for antiquing. You can google all you want, but "knowing the people/places" seems to be the experience needed in antiquing. That's fun. I do enjoy negotiating prices on pieces we love.

What a fun day, and 4 day weekend. It's hard to find the words to describe how much we're learning and how much we appreciate it. It also helps to have software like Skype to not only talk to family in the states, but see them in live video too!