England's Beautiful North East

Seeing Phil's roots has been wonderful. I have heard so much about his home town from the first day we met that I have been looking forward to seeing it with my own eyes for years now. Finally, the day arrived and after much anticipation I have seen where he grew up and have met most of his large family.

Sunderland has received much bad press from Phil and his friends and family (it's so easy to be down on your home town) but is really nice. I think I must have been expecting the worst - hundreds of teen moms (we have seen a few) and constant all-day bar brawls (one of which we saw in the making) - but it's a lot quieter and prettier than I thought it would be. The town has loads of beautiful old churches and cool buildings with old, discoloured spires. Phil is right in saying that to appreciate the town's beauty you have to always be looking up. We have checked out the city centre a few times and just today we saw the area being nicely rejuvinated.

We've had the chance to do two trips to take in some of the sights. We went to Durham which is relatively close to visit with three of Phil's great friends, Kev & Sarah (and baby Jessica), and Alison who was visiting from Leeds. We spent the day strolling through Durham cathedral and through the high street. Again, a very nice town and reminds me of York (which I am almost certain I visited on my way to Edinburgh). We also got to take in The Angel of the North which is a huge androgenous anglic figure made out of steel which you can see for miles around. Apparently it got a lot of criticism but is really nice.

Phil and I took a day trip to Holy Island of Lindisfarne - again, so nice (I think I need a thesaurus for more descriptive words). You have to drive along a causeway that gets completely flooded during high tide, so you have to plan your trip a bit carefully so you can make it on (and off) the island without getting swamped. Luckily for us, the passing was from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm so we could enjoy the whole day. We took a poke around the little castle on the island (partly to get out of the icy, howling wind) and walked around the cathedral (not inside it - who wants to pay an extra £4?!?). Afterwards we took a quick stomp around Banbrough castle which was about 20 times the size of that on Holy Island and just as stunning. The coastline around that area is absolutely gorgeous.

The other trip we've taken has been to the Lakes. Marcus, Nicola, Phil and I took the scenic way to Ambleside on Lake Windermere. The drive down was gorgeous! The countryside is loaded with grassy rolling hills dotted with quiant stone farm houses and littered with sheep, but changes to dramatic low mountains covered with red, purple and green plants. The lake was so pretty and we were all lucky enough to get rooms where we could enjoy the view (even though it was definetly dark by the time we got home). We spent a nice chunk of time strolling around the town admiring the buildings and took a nice stroll along the waterfront. We also ate a delicious dinner (complete with chocolate "terrine" - somewhere between mousse and cake).

So, all in all, the North East of England has been a wonderful stop. It's been great meeting friends and family that I have heard so much about (finally a face to a name!), and Maria and Neil have been wonderful hosts - right down to the 17 person dinner Maria hosted, my special de-hallowe'en-ed birthday cake, and a pre-Christmas dinner (to come tomorrow). Thanks so much, it's been wonderful and I will definetly be sad to go (though excited to see what lies in store).

Spain!

Okay, late as usual. Our trip to Spain was awesome. I did the map thing again, this time with completely inaccurate maps, but it gives a general overview of our trip.

Madrid was amazing. It's been a long time since I have been anywhere truly old, and Madrid has some very old, very beautiful things to see. We were very kindly put up by Phil's friend Dave who lives in a gorgeous little flat in almost the exact centre of Madrid - a tourist's dream. We were within walking distance of everything we wanted to see (and Maria and Neil's hotel!). We got to check out a few museums - notably the modern art museum (by choice) and the Prado, with all old paitings (by mistake). We ate our body weight in cured ham and cheese, caught up with Dave and Dermot (and Bea and Chloe), and generally soaked up big city living.

After Madrid, we drove roughly an hour to what is currently my favorite Spanish city - Toledo. Toledo is an old, walled city that seems to be completely made of stone. There are so many twisting back streets that you seem to be continually lost except for the fact that the whole town is built on a steep hill, so as long as you keep going up (or down) you'll eventually hit something you know, or a sign that will point you in the right direction. The cathedral there was amazing and it was one of those places where you feel like you're getting to know the city by sitting in a patio drinking wine and eating olives - thankfully a passtime for us. We also took a great tour on a little car-train that told a very interesting history of the town and brought us to places we hadn't seen on our harrowing drive or on our walks.

Toledo's old city is incredible - except when you were trying to find a hotel and a parking spot (Maria said that I was "having kittens" in the backseat, which was entirely accurate). We looked around for ages, driving down increasingly narrow and steep streets, until lady luck shone upon us and we found a gorgeous hotel with a whole street full of parking. Halleluia!

After Toledo we spent two more nights in Cordoba which is famous for its mosque (La Mezquita). Maria and Neil had already seen it, so Phil and I spent a morning enjoying mosque-come-cathedral with our audio guides in hand.

We got dropped off in Granada for a few days of sight seeing, most notably the Alhambra - a complex of buildings with houses and palaces in a walled fortress-like structure. As with everything we saw it was amazing. Again, we hired a few of the audio guides and they were great - they gave a good overview of what we were seeing without taking an age to do it. The highlight of the Alhambra is the Palacio Nazaries which is so delicately and ornately carved it's staggering. I have included a photo of it, but it doesn't do it justice - every nook and cranny of the palace is carved intricate bas-relief. Ah, gorgeous.

After Granada, Maria and Neil became our very gracious tour guides, taking us to some beautiful villages in the mountains and coastal cities near Salobrena (where we were staying with one of Neil's cousins). I know this posting doesn't do two weeks of wonderful traveling any justice, but that's the gist of it. We had a great time.

Nova Scotia!

Okay, sorry this is so late, but we haven't had too much access to the ol' internet. Here is a rough - and I mean rough - picture of the trip we did around Nova Scotia in around 6 days. For such a small place there is a lot to see and it does take time getting place to place (even though Halifax to Truro is only an hour).

Essentially, we spent the first three days in Halifax, chilling out with my good friend James who kindly allowed us to share his house (and his cat, Morgan). We got to spend a good share of our time in pubs (yahoo! Halifax has wicked pubs) and enjoying the period costumes that seem to fascinate this province. A few of the highlights were our trip to the Alexander Keith's brewery where you get to go back in time to 1867 (they spare no expense), get a joke (which James says has changed with every visit) AND get sung to. We also took in the excellent Pier 21 exhibit about Canadian immigration and the wicked Maritime Heritage museum which had an "old timey" store complete with a very enthusiastic gent working behind the counter. Also, old fog horns rule.

After we picked up our rental car we drove up towards Parsborough where we were booked into a gorgeous B&B for our first night (which was an amazing feat of pre-planning for the likes of us). We took a few planned detours (and a few unplanned detours) and saw the gorgeous country side of the Bay of Fundy. We didn't get to see the high and low tides, but we did see the mud flats and where the water usually is which was good enough.

One highlight was our trip to a winery, which, upon more careful reading of the map, turned out to be a blueberry winery run by a guy who was very similar to Broome's Olif. Anyway, after a long, long chat about how he had made so many mistakes in his life and was stuck with a patch of land cultivating blueberry's (and a description of his wine being "tasting not like blueberries, not like wine") we grabbed a bottle of sparkly and got back to the car as quick as we could. The wine was left untouched for the next eight days, probably a record for us.

I don't know if this is the googely eyed dinosaur you saw (mom and dad) but it was the best one we could find in Parsborough. :)

We took the advise of the lady running the B&B and headed to Cape D'Or to check out the view and the amazing restaurant. After some 4 wheel driving in our poor rental car, we got to the place for some great 360 degree views (and some delicious chili made by a the owner, originally for Regina). It was there that we got to see the best views of the tidal bore (a la Skookumchuck Narrows) since we were there at exactly the right time. I would advise anyone in the area to book up a night in their B&B - I'm sure it would be amazing.

From there we had a long drive to the little, pretty town of Pugwash where we ate at the golf course because everything else was shut and slept in a dive of a B&B (what kind of owners smoke in their B&B?!?). The following day we hit the Jost Winery on the way toAntigonish where you could try as many wines as you wanted. We restrained ourselves but the whites are goregeous. Afterwards, we got to Antigonish and loved it - especially the art gallery, the camera store (where Phil got his digital SLR) and this excellent cafe. Hmm.. so yummy.

To make a long blog short, we stayed in an amazing B&B called Haus Truberg in Port Hood (down from Inverness) which served a great 4 course meal, we tried to find the hike in Mabou for about 2 hours, we did some hiking in the National Park which was pretty good, but we got to see some mooses walking along the road - a first for both of us. We also got to do a trail ride in Cheticamp which was excellent - the lady who ran it was so much fun and we got to gallop AND ride through a river. Fun!! Plus, she had the cuttest kittens at the stables.