No photos yet but I'll post them when I get around to it. Our honeymoon was pretty fantastic. We started off with one night at the
White Heather and then travelled down to London by train (1st class of course!) where we had three nights in the
Royal Horseguards Hotel. This hotel was specially chosen by me as it is the only one overlooking the Thames opposite the
London Eye.
On the first night in London, I had booked tickets for the ballet (la di da!) so, after an early dinner, we walked to Sadler's Wells for a performance of the
Nutcracker. It was the first time either of us had been to a professional ballet and we both loved it. Tchaikovsky's score was very memorable and we were constantly humming the tunes for a couple of days afterwards.
The next day (New Year's Eve), we walked up the river past the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey to the
Tate Britain (more culture!). After a couple of hours there, we caught the Tate Boat which takes you down the river to the
Tate Modern where we were able to laugh at all the modern art. It was interesting to see the Hirsts and Emins straight after the Constables and Canalettos and I'm sure I know who has the most talent. We then walked back along the South bank to the Eye but couldn't go on as they were closing early to rig it for the big party that evening.
Later on we headed out again and walked through Leicester Square to Shaftesbury Avenue. The crowds were really starting to build and it was a good atmosphere. Our destination was an Indonesian restaurant called
Bali Bali - Keren hadn't had any Indonesian food since leaving London and she missed it - it was busy and lively and the food was tasty so we had a good meal.
We headed for a pub that I knew on Pall Mall but it was closed; as it turned out that was probably a blessing in disguise. We cut through to The Mall and asked a motorcycle cop whether there were any access restrictions on our route back to the hotel. He was friendly and helpful and we set off through St. James's Park towards Parliament Square. There were quite a few people in the park but we were still shocked to see the number of people in Parliament Square. The crowd was pushing through a bottleneck caused by some temporary barriers - it was shoulder-to-shoulder and, as we filed slowly past, I asked a policeman whether we would be able to get back to Whitehall Court for midnight (where our hotel was) he was incredibly unhelpful and told us we had no chance. This was obviously upsetting and surprising as it was only 10:30pm, when we finally got through the barrier and into the square the crowd opened up a bit; there were still a lot of people but no longer a crush. There were three police officers nearby and I decided to try to get some help. I told them that their colleague had told us it would be impossible to get to our hotel before midnight and that it was our honeymoon and that my wife was claustrophobic (at which point Keren burst into Oscar-winning tears!). They were much more helpful and assured us that Whitehall itself was not too crowded and we shouldn't have a problem - I was hoping for a police escort but an assurance was OK. They were right and we made it back to the hotel soon after 11pm.
From our balcony we could survey the crowds on Victoria Embankment it was really packed and there was music playing. It was a party atmosphere but we were pleased to have our own private viewpoint. The crowd counted down to midnight and, when Big Ben struck twelve, the
fireworks started. They were incredible and went on for about ten minutes, the windows to our room were vibrating with every explosion and, just when you thought they'd reach a final crescendo, they would carry on to something bigger. The fireworks were being launched from boats and also from the wheel itself which made for an incredible display. I'd recommend a visit but get a hotel room and stay there!
On New Year's Day (not hung-over for a change) we headed up to the
Natural History Museum for the
Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition. It's something we've been to for the last three years and the awesome photos are well worth a look. Afterwards we took the tube to
Camden Lock and had a walk around the hippy market there. We had some curry from a street vendor and just chilled for the rest of the afternoon. I wanted to visit a pub I knew in Pimlico which has a micro-brewery in the basement - after a tube journey and a ten minute walk we got there to be told that they stopped brewing about six years ago. We ordered a drink anyway then found out they were closing in ten minutes and so we had to rush them. We got a bus from Sloane Square back to Whitehall and popped into a pub near Trafalgar Square. Despite having menus and condiments on all the tables they weren't serving food so we left again. Central London pubs are mostly rubbish unless you're a tourist wanting a taste of fake
Olde Englande. However, completely by accident, we found a pub called
The Harp which was actually a nice place to be. They had about six cask ales on and the staff were friendly. When we asked them if they did food, they said no but told us we were welcome to bring in some takeaway if we wanted - so we did!
The next day (2nd Jan) we headed over to City Airport for our flight to Italy. In November, Air One had cancelled the direct flights that I had booked and replaced them with flights via Milan so we had a three hour stopover in Linate. On the plus side, I played the honeymoon card at check-in and got us upgraded to Business Class so we had free champagne. The view as we flew over the Alps was breathtaking but we had to share that with all the people in cattle class. We landed a little late in Rome and there was no steps available to get off the plane (welcome to Italy), then we had to wait a long time for our cases to appear so, by the time we went into the arrivals hall, we were about an hour late. I was worrying slightly as I had arranged for the hotel to send a car for us. He was still there though holding up a little sign with our name on it. We settled into a black Mercedes and were driven into the centre of Rome at warp speed. I think every driver in Italy thinks that he should be driving for Ferrari instead of Raikkonen and Massa, and they feel the need to prove it all the time. Keren and I just shut our eyes and prayed.
Our
hotel was on Via Cicerone near the Vatican and it was only a five minute walk into the centre of the city. On our first day in Italy we took the Metro to the
Colosseum and paid for a guided tour, it was well worth the extra expense and gave life to the amazing building. Interesting fact..... the Colosseum was only called the Colosseum from about the year 1000, before that it was known as the Flavian Amphitheatre and so Russell Crowe et al are all getting it wrong. Our guided tour also included the
Palatine Hill, which is where Roman leaders from Romulus, through the Emperors, right up to Mussolini built their houses. Our tour guide was from the great Roman city of Leicester but she knew her stuff and we really enjoyed it. From the top of the hill there were fantastic views of the
Circus Maximus (ancient stadium for chariot racing etc) and the
Forum (the 'High Street' of ancient Rome).
On our second day in Rome we went to the
Vatican for a guided tour. I've never seen a queue as long but, by being part of a tour group, we were able to skip it - result. The
museums at the Vatican are enormous and there is no way you could do them justice by wandering round them alone. Having a guide means you see all the most important stuff and hear the stories that explain why it's important. The
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is obviously the most famous artwork in the museum and rightly so. It's the only place in which photography is prohibited - nothing to do with flashes damaging the art - it's because a Japanese TV network paid for the restoration in return for
image rights!
On our third morning in Rome we packed our bags again and headed for the stazione to take the train to Civitavecchia - double-decker train, very exciting! The journey took about an hour and we got a taxi from the station to the dockside where we got our first view of the
Costa Concordia - the ship that was to be our home for the next 12 nights. As suite passengers we had the luxury of priority boarding so our cases were checked in and we bypassed yet another queue. The suite was terrific, we had a balcony, a large bed, seating/dining area, a writing desk, a dressing room and a luxury bathroom with a jacuzzi, marble surfaces and double sinks.
The ship left port at about 7pm and we spent the afternoon and early evening finding our way around and working out what was where. It was an enormous vessel, 13 public decks, 3500 passengers and 1100 crew. There were restaurants open from breakfast through to about 1am and all the food was inclusive so you just pleased yourself. The only fixed dining time was dinner where you had a reserved table at a set time for the entire cruise. We were in Ristorante Roma at the 9pm sitting. Our neighbours were a family from the US, Rani and her daughters and son-in-law Mimi, Mytri and Gouri. Although we didn't introduce ourselves straight away (typical English reserve) we eventually got chatting and really enjoyed having dinner with them every night.
When we awoke on day two of the cruise we were in
Savona, northern Italy. Being January it was a bit nippy but the sun was bright. It's only a small town (about 40 miles from Genoa) and, after breakfast in our suite, we spent the day exploring. There was a market there, we had a coffee in a pavement cafe, walked along the beach and explored the
Priamar fortress which dominates the town and provides fantastic views of the mountains and coastline. We were back on the boat by about 4pm for a late lunch - this was to become the pattern for our days in port: breakfast in the room, explore the port, back on board for 4pm lunch, chill for a few hours, dinner at 9pm.
Day three was spent at sea, steaming south along Italy's western coast towards the
Strait of Messina. We passed through the strait in the evening and then turned east for Greece. By the morning of day four we were in
Katakolon which is a small port near
Olympia (where the ancient Olympic games were staged). We had booked an excursion so it was all aboard a coach for the 40 minute journey up into the hills. Our guide (Roula) was very interesting and very proud of her country. Olympia was fascinating - the Greeks really have more history than they know what to do with and visitors can just climb around on top of the 2500 year old artifacts.
On our fifth day we arrived in
Athens - more accurately we arrived in
Piraeus which is the port serving Athens. It's at the end of the Athens metro system so it was fairly easy (and very cheap) to get into the centre of the city. We walked up to the
Parthenon from where there are fantastic views of the whole basin in which Athens sits. It's a huge sprawling city with a few hills poking up through the
sea of white buildings. Although the great historical monuments were worth a visit, I was a bit disappointed with Athens. It's very dirty and there is graffiti literally everywhere. It just looks a mess.
The next day we were in
Izmir, Turkey. Where Athens had been a disappointment, Izmir exceeded expectations. It was very clean, the people were friendly and the promenade was broad and attractive. We walked into town and were struck by something very surprising - in a 30 minute walk we counted no less than 20 different bridal shops. There were wedding dresses everywhere - even in the bazaar! Izmir must be centre of the Turkish wedding industry. The
bazaar was eveything the name suggests - a maze of tiny streets with hundreds of stalls crowded together selling everything you could want, and quite a lot that you wouldn't want. I was tempted to buy a sheep's head but settled for a kebab instead.
It was back to Greece for day seven as the ship arrived in Rhodes. This turned out to be our favourite port of call.
Rhodes old town is encircled by a wall and most traffic is prohibited from entering; this means it retains a feeling of antiquity that is lost from other places by the noise of engines and the smell of exhaust fumes. The old town is a maze of little cobbled streets, some only about six or eight feet across, the buildings on opposite sides of the streets are braced by buttresses as a defence against earthquakes. Wandering about a place like this is just a pleasure and I hope we'll be going back there at some point.
On day eight we awoke in Limassol, Cyprus. We had booked ourselves on a coach excursion to
Paphos to visit the Tombs of the Kings and the House of Dionysos where there are many Roman mosaics in a fantastic state of preservation. On the way to Paphos we had a photo stop at Aphrodite’s rock - supposedly the birthplace of the goddess. Keren was familiar with Paphos having spent time there before and it was nice for her to see the harbour again. It's another place where we hope to return.
Day nine was our final port of call -
Alexandria, Egypt. Many of our shipmates boarded one of the 55 coaches on the dockside for trips to the pyramids. We couldn't face the seven to eight hour round trip so we opted for a tour around Alexandria instead. It was a whistle-stop itinerary which included the
Citadel of Qaitbay, the
El-Mursi Abul-Abbas mosque, the
Library of Alexandria, the
National Museum, the
Roman amphitheatre, the
Montaza Palace and Gardens and, finally, a papyrus shop. Phew! When we returned to the ship it was very quiet as most people would not be returning from their pyramid trips until after 9pm. That being the case, the normal dinner sittings were suspended for one night. As our American friends would not be there, we took up a standing offer to eat in the Club Concordia a la carte restaurant. The food and service that we had been enjoying every night was of very high quality and we wanted to see how much better the other restaurant could be. The service was a notch higher, e.g. a dedicated wine waiter who swirls the wine around in a tasting glass for about a minute before letting you try it, and the food was even better. The highlight was my dessert, I ordered ice cream and the waiter arrived at our table with a bowl of milk and eggs and a jug of smoking liquid nitrogen. He mixed the two together resulting in clouds of dry ice cascading from his mixing bowl like a witch’s cauldron. The effect was spectacular and the end result was ice cream that was very cold but very creamy without the usual ice crystals.
Days ten and eleven were spent steaming north-west back through the Strait of Messina to Civitavecchia. Unfortunately Keren was ill on the second of these two days at sea and spent most of it in bed (or in the bathroom!) so I had to entertain myself by trying to increase our collection of bar receipts. There were about a dozen bars onboard and it was our aim to buy a drink in each.
On the morning of day 12 we were back where we started in Civitavecchia, we had made arrangements with the crew to leave the boat early. Our flight home left at noon and time was a bit tight - we explained our problem to the customer services manager onboard and she couldn't have been more helpful, probably another example of a perk of being in a suite but you've got to exploit these privileges when they are offered! We were escorted off the ship and straight to a waiting taxi who whisked us the the airport. It all went so smoothly that we were sat at the airport an hour early!
The flight home was unremarkable and entailed another three hour stopover in Milan. We arrived back at London City at about 5pm. When we got to Kings Cross it was absolutely packed. One glance at the arrival and departure boards explained why. Due to signal failure, nothing could get into or out of the station. The entrance gates to the underground station had been closed because it was full of people trying to use an alternative route. We didn't fancy battling our way on to public transport with two big suitcases and a couple of other bags; so I left Keren with the luggage and went in search of a bed for the night. A Travelodge room was duly acquired and we retired to the luxury of three single beds and complementary toiletries in the shape of one mini bar of soap. How the mighty fall but at least it was better than the alternative. We had had no travel problems in all the miles we'd covered in the previous three weeks, it took good old British railways to upset our perfect record.
Not to be disheartened, we decided to view this unexpected extension as a blessing and went out for a traditional British meal of curry and beer. Keren even managed to provide me with a good pub near Kings Cross - something that I didn't believe existed. In future, try
Smithy's if you're in search of some pre-rail libation. The next morning we headed back to the station and were pleased to learn that our 1st class tickets from the previous day were still valid.
So it was back to South Hykeham with four hours of video, hundreds of photos and thousands of memories. What a great trip - when's the next one?
May bank holiday weekend was also Mark's big birthday weekend. He was having a party near Cambridge and K & I were kindly invited.
Last night we had an office outing to the dogs. A coach had been booked which picked us up from the office at about 6:30pm. An hour and a bit later we were dropped off at Nottingham Greyhound Stadium. Beth & Jon and Alison were all in the party, as well as Nick, James & Mikey and Rachel and Jules.
