My Holiday of a lifetime

Well i know it has been ages since i last blogged, but i have had a great reason why.
I have been on holiday to far distant shores for five weeks in total, a holiday of a lifetime. San Fransisco, New Zealand, Sydney and Singapore !!!.
Had a wonderful time, exhausting but worth every minute of the travelling.
As you can imagine there were many pictures taken 2500 in total, but we are slowly picking out our favourites.
I have decided to break them up into smaller parts or we will be here for another year looking through them.

Started off in San Fransisco on the 20th January 2010.
I love this place city so much, been fortunate to be there in summer and now winter, both having different aspects in the different seasons.
We left uk in the freezing snow covered land and arrived to a very large storm in America , it was pouring and the wind was howling, weather forecast for the three days we were there AWFULL ! Just togged up in the wets and off we went to explore.
Did a trip on a coach so we could get to see the famous bridge and Golden gate park.
Got thoroughly wind swept as you can see. Got back to the hotel where an open log fire was burning and a welcoming wine tasting was arranged, "ah i've arrived"
San Fran is such a diverse city wonderful shopping malls the sights obviously, but you also get the rough sides with many beggars and homeless people walking with their whole life in a shopping trolley, sad! But i still love it, riding on the cable cars from Powell to Market street down those famous hills! Great food, certainly great wine , we were like children in a sweet shop looking in the supermarkets stocked with our favourite Californian wines! Seeing the bridge and Alcatraz in the bay is magical to me whatever the weather.

The famous cable car there are now only three left in the city

View of Golden Gate park from the bandstand where it was dry

One of the many painted building in the city

My favourite photo , i was wet windswept but i didn't care
"I am in San Fransisco"

The weather was so bad, but it still has a magic about it!

Another wonderful view

Taken from the cable car

One of thos famous hills with the sheer drop down with a view of the bay

The many skyscrapers that adorn the city


New Zealand will come in the next post.
Hope my followers are still there?

A trip on the london eye

Well i am making a conscious effort to blog more i am afraid to say facebook and farmville have taken over the past weeks shameful !!.
Anyway these are a few photos taken on the London Eye a couple of weeks ago. It was a birthday treat for my eldest daughter who had never been before she really loved it, we made a day of it and went out to lunch afterwards to a restaurant in covent garden called Wahaccas, a former masterchef winners restaurant superb food mexican food all freshly cooked to order all washed down with a lovely margarita, delicious! We finished off the day by shopping and ended up at Gordon Ramsays wine bar to end our day. It was lovely to spend time with both my daughters at the same time, does not happen as often as we would like so it was very special for me to have that time with them.


View taken leading up to the eye


Loved the shape of this building down below us.
As can be seen it was quite misty.

Some of Londons great buildings

Got snap happy with Big Ben took so many.

One of the most iconic buildings of London

Another one !!!!

The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben from above

in the pod.

I just loved the angles and workings that could

be seen whilst in the pod on the eye itself

View from our pod onto the other, with a view of the

Thames in the background

From our pod the other one looked like it was

suspended in mid air

Quite a good view with the buildings down below.

Good job i am not scared of heights!

An empty pod shell

My favourite picture, to me it just captures everything

the eye is, an amazing piece of engineering

Just another angle from within the pod.

Planning to go on the Eye again at some point at night this time views would be wonderful.

Been a hectic couple of weeks seeing family and friends great to catch up with people who i had not seen for ages, crammed so much in one week, but loved every minute.

Sue our youngest daughter went home yesterday after spending a week with us, the house is so quiet today miss her already xxxx but we had a nice relaxing time together plenty of chats and hugs and laughs, so thankyou Sue .

Amalfi Drive seems like a dream!

My trip to Italy seems a long time ago already, but i can still remember the beautiful scenery of the Amalfi drive.
We had such lovely weather that day unlike some who went the following day , so we were very lucky to catch some glorious views! We had an early start at 8am but it was worth it seeing the sun on the water overlooking Capri and the road was not to busy thank goodness as anyone who has done this will know that the road is very very narrow in places with sheer drops on the left hand side, quite breathtaking at times! The drive took us to the beautiful town of Amalfi, then onto Ravello.

One of the many little villages set in the hillside
With the 5star hotel at the edge! Mega money to stay!

We stopped here for a coffee break just an hour into the journey
i passed on the coffee just wanted to admire the view.


This was just a rock formation honestly!
But it is now known as the Madonna holding flowers
once you were passed it you could see nothing from
the other direction.

A better view i think of the formation

Just loved the colour of the sea here, and the boats getting
ready to go out.

We are now in Amalfi.

This picture i am very proud of, after i looked
in the guide book this was in it.

The original 13th century road in Amalfi

Again this one was also in the guide book.

In medieval times it was named the Valley of the Mills

The beautiful cathedral

Dedicated to the Apostle Andrew

One of the ceilings in the cathedral
I left the flash on and promptly got told off, so

felt i should not take anymore inside.

A beautiful view from Ravello looking down with

the mountains in the distance.

A view of Minnori taken n Ravello

View from the mountains from the coach.

As you can see we climbed and climbed to one of the highest points.

One of my favourite days of the whole holiday such contrasting views from the high mountains to the hillside towns ans the sea of course with its wonderful colours.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUE

So pleased you liked the card we sent, it is usually you that makes me cry with your cards, got my own back ! We will have some bubbles to celebrate when i am down.
Just wishing you a very happy birthday!! Sue thought this was just your sort of humour.
With all love as always Mum xx

Beautiful Sorrento

Well as you can see we really did not have a great time , the scenery was awful, the food bad and well the weather that was bad as well!!!!???? But i may be joking, had a most wonderful time.
Packed so much in one week but still had time to do nothing but drink coffee and people watch down at the harbour.

This iced coffee was just divine and so well presented
the brioche was great to!


our view from the restaurant whilst having our coffee


My pizza was gorgeous thank you for asking!
We were staying in the Neapolitan riviera where the famous pizza
was invented.


The famous villa where Sophia Loren , Gina lolla Brigida
stayed and Tom cruise got married!

With this view i can see why it was chosen! Stunning!

On one of our many walks down to the harbour front

and there were sooo many steps, Lynda did really well

as she had a swollen foot at the time.

Another little narrow street

Sorrento with its many tourist shops

but you can avoid these if you just go a few streets behind

the main area.

Still lots of people!

A view of the Marina Grande

With a view along the Sorrentine peninsular

Taken from the other way with the Marina Piccalo

at the end. Our boat for the day was moored just offshore!

Same view

This was just a snippet of Sorrento it was so beautiful we may go onto Amalfi next time then Pompeii and Herculaneum which were fascinating .

As my trusted guide book said " Amalfi the coast for falling in love"

Brrrrrr who turned the teperature down!!

Well arrived back on friday night and was greeted by my daughter with a lovely smile and a hug, she had text earlier in the day " i know you don't want to come home you two shirley valentines but i am really looking forward to seeing you" made me smile! spent the night at her house then made our way home to cornwall on saturday after a lovely lunch at Toys Hill in kent (home cooked ham egg and chips). My friend dropped me off at Launceston and Tony picked me up from there. So we had a great run back only 4hrs from kent, unlike our trip up which took nearly 7hrs the dreaded M25 again, got caught in a bad accident where everything just stopped for over an hour and half so frustrating and tiring.
Had a super holiday our hotel great and the food really good met some lovely people so if you are reading this now P and M i didn't write anything bad LOL we hit it off straight away which was great we met up in the evenings and had a good laugh and a gossip!! such good company so thankyou both! In fact we are all meeting up with our respective daughters in december!
We did not do all we had planned but we certainly made the most of our week there in Sorrento and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves from the moment we arrived to the time we left.
Just chilling out today in more ways than one its blooming freezing after being in temeratures of the high 20's sitting here typing with my jeans and two jumpers on brrrr. Will get some pics up during the week it was so beautiful can't wait to share the sights. Shame we can't get smells over the blogs because they were fantastic too lemon, orange and olive trees i can smell them now.

Pasta, Pizza and Pompeii

My case is packed and i am ready to go to Italy on friday!!
My friend and i are off to Sorrento for a weeks holiday, been planning this for a while but only booked it last week due to my friend having a foot operation, which i can report was a great success and she got the all clear last week.
We will be doing a couple of trips whilst out there one being Pompeii and one to the island of Capri, with maybe a boat trip thrown in. This is our hotel just about a mile outside of sorrento, seems a little more quiet than some we looked at in sorrento itself , apparently overlooking the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius . Although the weather does not seem to great at the moment over Italy we are hoping for at least a few days of good sunny weather. Fingers crossed!!
We will drive up to my daughters tomorrow and spend the night there, that way we will be the right side of the dreaded M25 we can then make our way to Gatwick after the morning rush hour. We are parking at my friends sister-in-laws so no airport charges either!
It shall be great not to have to think about cooking as eating out is one of my favourite things to do in Italy (or anywhere for that matter!) you can sit and people watch ,even if it is just sitting with a lovely cappachino or ice cream. Mmmm i can just taste that ice cream now.
It will be an adventure i'm sure Lynda and i are not known for our sense of direction at the best of times LOL we even managed to get lost in a car park once that is another story!! Our families do get a little worried i think but we are big girls now and can look after ourselves JUST!
So Bonn voyage people for a week or so. The camera and charger are packed in readiness!