honeymoon

Because of one thing or another (tumours, bereavement, exhaustion) we had to wait until February of this year to go on honeymoon.  But it was the best time ever.  We went Sri Lanka for three weeks; two weeks travelling around and one week in the capital so that S could meet some of my relatives.

You know how you can build things up and then fear that they won't live up to your expectations?  Well, our honeymoon exceeded all expections for both of us.  We climbed an ancient rock fortress, we watched the sun rise over a cloud forest, we did a six-mile trek to one of the highest points on the island, we climbed a waterfall, we saw elephants in the wild, just taking a bath in a lake and we went whale-watching and saw a blue whale.  A blue whale!!!  It was incredible and unforgettable.

Reader, you should visit Sri Lanka, it won't disappoint!

carbon off-set

I am going to have to make a sizeable contribution to a carbon off-set charity this year, as I once again boarded a plane and took off into the London sky.  This time, I have landed here, home of the Braves:

Sicily

Twenty hours on a ferry from Genoa and we fetched up in Palermo. If you haven't been to Sicily, and even if you have, come as soon as you can. It's gorgeous. And Palermo is even more chaotic and crumbling and charming than Genoa. Mali, I'm looking at you in particular. Come here and fall in love for yourself!

Genoa

After a full day of travelling on three trains, we've fetched up here in Genoa. It's a mad, crazy, lively and distinctly edgy city. Just crossing the street is a bit of an adventure, as is playing dodge-the-street-hawker.
But it's wonderful! (Sorry no photos, am blogging on my phone)

three meals

Yesterday I had breakfast at St Pancras station in London.
Then I had lunch in Paris, in a little cafe close to the Gare du Lyon.
And dinner was in a side street in Zurich.
I'm travelling again :-)

Norway

Before I bore you with holiday snaps, I have to first explain something.
I like trains.  Or, more accurately, I like train journeys. When I was 20 I did the obligatory inter-railing trip around Europe and since then I've been taking as many railway journeys as I can.  Like the Carlisle to Settle railway, the Duoro Valley line in Portugal, the amazing Indian Pacific in Australia and a few more. All very lovely but were not on my list for as long as the train journey between Oslo and Bergen.
So anyway, a friend wanted to go with me and so the two of us took an early morning flight to Oslo.  We were only there for a day and a half (been before) but took the opportunity to hop onto an Oslo fjiord cruise.  It was very cold... (I wasn't wearing a feather mask but I was wearing a fleece, waterproof and blanket)

 Happily, the sun came out as soon as we got back to the city.

This photo and the next were taken at 10.00 at night :-)

After a day and a half in Oslo, we took our sleep-deprived selves down to the station to catch the early train to Bergen.  My friend thought that perhaps we'd have some time to catch up on sleep or to do a little reading but in fact we spent the entire 7 hours glued to the window.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If that wasn't enough beauty, we had arrived in Bergen.  An UNESCO heritage site, which is ridiculously lovely, even in overcast weather.

 

 

  The next three photos were taken around midnight, thanks to the midnight sun

 

 

 

On our last full day in Bergen, we took a boat trip through Sognefjiord to Flam. Again, not the sunniest of days but it reminded me of the South Island of NZ...

 

    

  

 

And then from Flam we took the Flamsbana, to continue with the railway theme.

 

 

Norway is so beautiful I wish I knew more poetry!  I want to go back again and go further north, but that is a trip for another year.
I wasn't going to include any travel on my 12 for 2012 list as I do travel often.  But I have to put the Oslo to Bergen train on there because I have wanted to do that journey for 20 years.

holiday

I am back home after a week away here.  It seems at first like a strange choice of destination for a holiday but I have never been to the UAE before (well, apart from a couple of hours to change planes on the way to Australia two years ago), and it is also a 90 minute bus-ride away from here.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel which had sea views and a stretch of private beach from which I plunged into the Persian Gulf for the first time in my life (point of interest - it's freaking freezing in March).

On our first full day we took the bus to Dubai, which looks in places like a film set for a science fiction movie:

We didn't get to see the famous Palm Islands or World Islands that day but as we had tickets for the top of the world's tallest building for a few days later, we thought we'd see them then.

Sadly, we had not allowed for the sandstorm which hit the UAE the next day, and stayed for the remainder of our trip. The temperature dropped (but we're British - it felt like a London summer to us), visibility was reduced dramatically and there was sand and dust everywhere: on surfaces, in hair, in eyes, in ears for crying out loud.  Reading by the pool (again, we're British...) meant sand in the pages of books or, in my case, settling on the screen of my Kindle.  Sand also would have settled in the cocktails we treated ourselves to, had they hung around long enough...

If you can't beat it, join it so we took a trip to the desert.

And did embarrasingly touristy things (yes, that is me driving a quadbike* and wearing traditional dress)

A couple of days before we left, we went back to Dubai to go to the top of Burj Khalifa.  Well, they call it "at the top" but it's only (only!) 124 floors up, which is actually about half-way up the building.  The city below looks like a model, although visibility was still hampered by the sandstorm.

While it might be cheating a little bit, I am counting the quadbike driving as one of my 12 for 2012 as I have never done it before and have wanted to for years (I am a woman of simple dreams, apparently).  And I did it in the Arabian desert, which has to count for something!

the streets of Philadelphia

After New York, we took the train down to Philly for the conference.  I'd never been there before, and I'm not sure that I can claim that I've really been there now as I mostly saw the inside of the conference centre.  However, I did run away from the conference for 3 hours after our talks, and sloshed through the pouring rain to the Old City. It's very pretty...