Northern travels

On the train again. An important note, if traveling between major British cities, book a reservation! Almost ended up standing all the way to Edinburgh as a nice birthday gift.

Since I last checked in, we have seen the cheerful city of Chester, the Williams clan in Prestatyn, and explored Manchester.

Chester was buzzing as it was a race day. There lots of proper British folk wearing their hats and heels or 3-piece suits. There were also lots of proper drunks making fun of those wearing the hats and 3-piece suits. That night was also the Heineken cup, so we watched that in a very lively bar.
Sunday was spent with he family in Prestatyn. We took a great tour through the Welsh county side, where everyone of my houses was pointed out (apparently we lived in a number of them). We also Walked about in Batisyy-swana (that being the phonetic way to pronounce the impossibly Welsh name. We also drove through Conway Castle (it's large enough to drive through) which was quite lovely.

Tuesday and Wednesday we spent in Manchester. We walked about the city, had a great night out with my distant Welsh cousin Scott, had the best Donair of life, and watched a ManU friendly vs Juventus. Old Trafford was pretty amazing and because captain Gary Neville was retiring, he invited back some old ManU players. This included David Beckham, who is just as dreamy on the pitch As off! Jamie thought so too! We really liked Manchester but felt that two days was enough to exhaust the tour.

We are into Edinburgh this afternoon, going out for a nice dinner tonight (thanks Mum and Dad)! Saturday concludes the Uk part of the journey and poor Jamie has to go home to work. So far the ash clouds over Edinburgh have been ruining travel plans, by they'll hopefully be all sorted by the weekend.

Cheerio for now
G

Jamie in the sin bin

Further travels

Hello again
Currently on route to Northern Wales. We had a nice visit in the South and Cardiff.
Wednesday was spent in sleepy old Bath. We managed to walk the city about four times in the span of a couple hours, found a great little pub for the remainder of the night, and no, no baths were taken.
Thursday was a beautiful day in Cardiff (I even got a small sunburn). Not a whole lot to do in Cardiff except see the castle (which was very nice and castely), walk about, shop, drink, and play rugby. Unfortunately the city was all booked up for the Heineken cup rugby final, so we weren't able to stay an additional few nights to see the game in the new stadium. Met some very nice people in the hostel, however, so had a great night.
Friday was Bristol, which had a fair bit of character. We stayed in a rowdy hostel called the full moon which was right off the area where the tesco riots had been the previous weeks. The highlight of the night was my visit with Tim and James (now Jim) Bale (very good family friends from when we lived in North Devon in the early 90's), and James' fiancé Sonya (who was quite lovely). Got to catch up on all the news and enjoyed a few more british beer. Everyone was in quite good shape, which is good because the men are attempting to follow a leg of the Tour de France in July.
Today we are off to Chester to visit a different part of beautiful Wales. We are hoping to go to Conwy Castle which is the only thing to do in Northern Wales according to Rick Steeves and Lonely Planet - should be a relaxing stay :)
Get to see he Williams side of the family tomorrow (my maternal Grandpa's cousins kids) who took care of us when we lived in Wales. Should be a lovely visit provided Jamie doesn't mention anything about manchester united (they are all diehard Liverpool fans).
Toodles for now
G

Ps the pictures are outside Bath Abby depicting the angels decent and accent into heaven (Jacobs ladder), and Jamie being locked up for silliness outside Cardiff Castle (over 2000 years old, the castle not Jamie ;-) ).