ALAÇATI BLUES

HEADING TO SUN

Our three years stay in our little kingdom comes to an end and we are heading back to sun, turquoise blue Aegean and Mediterranean waters, fluffy street cats, variety of juicy and tasty fruits and vegetables, amazing smell of the bakeries, adventurous motorcycle rides and Mediterranean style slow living.

There is a long list of the things we won’t miss like rain, unbeatable British summers, health and safety craziness, tea with milk but we gonna miss our home, the pubs, antiques shops and markets, city foxes, first class football, film quality British dramas, the smell of the fireplaces in the middle of the city, Guinness, canal walks, small theatres, delicious Indian food, our friends in London and also in a very special little pub in Edinburgh.

But,
at the end,
the question still is:
What’s the meaning of Stoneheeeeeenge? 

SCOTLAND'S DOORS 2

More Scotland doors here.  

A ONE DAY ESCAPE TO FRANCE

Since we came to London, for our Paris travels we were using EuroStar trains but today finally we experienced Dover-Calais ferries for crossing the channel for a short trip. The London-Dover train (2 hours) + Dover-Calais ferry (1,5 hour) system worked very well for us and the weather also was very helpful for having a little “air de France”.

Calais surprised us with its empty streets on a sunny Saturday. The 80’s music broadcast from the loudspeakers at the empty but christmas decorated Place d’Armes was little bit twilight zonish. The 55 metres high Calais Lighthouse visit with the accompanied by the lighthouse guide was the best part of the day. Climbing 271 steps of this lighthouse built in 1848, definitely worth.

At the end of the day, on the way back, we were the only ferry passengers without carrying huge bags full of beer cans, etc. and it was interesting to observe the amount of daily trade circulation/activity of people between two ports. 

WATER OF LEITH IN EDINBURGH

An oasis in the middle of Edinburgh. A beautiful walk way along the water under the trees. Peaceful, quite and just beautiful.  

THE SMELL OF THE AEGEAN SEA

Since three weeks we were in Turkey enjoying the last days of summer, eating fresh figs, fresh wallnuts, green tangerines, aegean fishes, goat cheese, laying down under the sun, swimming in cristal clear aegean waters with calamaries and fishes.

And we left our hearths in Aegean Sea, again...  

EDINBURGH

In July, we made a little road trip and big part of this trip was in Scotland. It was our first time in Scotland. We loved the country, we loved the people, specially Edinburgh. We felt there at home. Even, we have been regular customer to a pub during nine days we stayed there and made new pub friends, talked with them about the life, the city, the museums, the jazz, the poetry (specially Robert Burns), sports and -even we were agreed to not to talk about politics while drinking alcohol- little bit politics. Yes, it was a very special pub and we keep it to ourselves.

When we were talking about a trip to Scotland we were expecting a rainy and cold weather even in summer and for being in such northern part of the island, we were ready to it. Buuut, during our stay there, Scotland lived most hot two weeks since last twenty years and it was heaven for us (not for Scottish friends).

We will share more photos and details of this beautiful city but as an opening, we can say that we fell in love with Edinburgh. Is one of these old, characterful, amazing cities with beautiful people and we hope to go back there again.  

DOORS OF CANTERBURY

Some old doors from an old city... 

BIBURY IN COTSWOLDS

Cotswolds towns are one of our favorite destinations in UK. The second town we visited last week after Painswick, is Bibury which is a 600-700 persons populated little town.

The town’s most visited parts are Arlington Row and the riverside lined by beautiful stone cottages. Bibury is not a place to spend hours maybe but certainly worth to pop up even for a short walk to see these beautiful old cottages.  

PAINSWICK IN COTSWOLDS

Last week on our way to Silverstone for Moto GP, we visited two beautiful Cotswolds towns. The first town we stopped is Painswick. We walked on the narrow streets of the town and took some photos. We looked for a nice place to drink something but it was little bit like a ghost town and most of the shops were closed.

Anyway we enjoyed our walk on the streets lined of Cotswolds stone houses. The sun was not shining on that part of the day, pitty for the photos but it was nice to visit another town of this beautiful part of our little kingdom.  

SCOTLAND’S DOORS

Some Scottish doors from Edinburgh and Rosslyn Chapel.

More door photos here and here. 

LAKE DISTRICT: WINDERMERE

Lake District National Park in Cumbria is one of the most attractive touristic destinations of UK and was part of our little road trip we made few weeks ago. Because of being there only 2,5 days, our visit was concentrated around one of the most popular lakes, Windermere.

During our stay in Lake District, we visited little towns around Windermere, enjoyed three boat trips in the lake, made a gentile 4 mile walk along the lake from the Wray Castle to the Ferry House and enjoyed the incredible, beautiful sun. It was a total 2.5 day of well spent relaxing time. This time was more a touristic trip but for the next time we hope to rent a cottage in Western Lake District and enjoy the less crowded part of the national park. 

MORECAMBE

When we headed through the north two weeks ago, we were looking for a town to stop near our way to eat something. Then we saw Morecambe on the coast and remembred Hairy Bikers’ visit to Morecambe to see the production of potted shrimps.

Decision made and we choosed to taste Morecambe’s world wide famous potted shrimps. For being a Saturday, Baxters, the most famous producer’s place was closed. So we tasted Edmonson’s potted shrimps. Because of tasting for the first time in our lifes, we can not compare with others but it was tasty what we ate. It went so fast to our stomacs and we forget to take the photo of potted shrimps.

After the “let’s taste Britain’s flavours” activity, we walked on the promenade from one side to the other side of the town next to a sandy beach.

Conclusion: it was nice to taste the potted shrimps, Morecambe is a small coastal destination to spend maybe few hours but not one of our most preffered towns in UK.  

DAUNT BOOKS

Our first and favorite bookshop in London. When we were living in Marylebone, we were visiting more often this neighboor shop and almost every day stopping in front of the shop’s window.

Daunt Books is one of the most beautiful bookshops we saw around the world. You can find here every kind of book but they are specialised on travel books and they have a huge collection of travel books where you can spend hours. If you are around London, don’t miss to visit Daunt Books, you gonna love it!

WARSAW COVERED BY SNOW

This week, we made a short trip to Warsaw and we enjoyed this beautiful city for four days. During four days it’s snowed and the temperature was –7°C but the feeling was –15°C during the day. It was cold but after our visit we decided that Warsaw is one of the best cities to visit during the snow. The christmas lights in the streets were still on and it was beautiful.

We stayed in Mercure Hotel in the heart of the city and we walked to almost everywhere. We visited the National Museum, the old city walls, the Praga district. We made several walks in Nowy Swiat which is most colorful street of Warsaw where are located lots of good shops, restaurants, cafés and patisseries. During four days we tried to taste every polish food we find in different places and each time we ended happy with the choice. We made more then one visit to A. Blikle Patisserie founded in 1869 for drinking white wine and eating paczki  -which is polish donut-. We tasted different types of pierogis -which are polish dumplings- in Zapiecek. We ate the best dishes in a polish restaurant named Przy Trakcie. Tuesday night was jazz night at the hotel’s bar and was another occasion for another bottle of wine.

We walked in beautiful Lazienki Park covered by snow and visited there the Palace on the Isle, Myslewicki Palace and Old Orangerie where is the Royal Theatre and Royal Collection of Sculpture.

For keeping the body warm and the mind healthy we drank lots of these: tea made by homemade raspberry juice, herbs, cloves, orange, lemon and vodka.

We brought home some delicious smoked polish cheeses.

We brought home also some Polish pottery. We love Polish pottery!

You know where is the best Irlandzki Pub east of Dublin?