Spring sunshine in Valencia

My suggestion for a spring break near Paris (Springtime in Paris) was greeted with sighs of indifference by my unappreciative offspring. Apparently Mickey and friends are sooo last year among the teenage and tweenie cognicenti of Bristol.

Undeterred I logged onto the Easyjet website to search for a cheap flight out of Bristol - preferrably to somewhere with warm weather, a beach for the children and a bit of culture for me. Valencia seemed to fit the bill on all counts.

The city has an interesting old quarter, a vibrant café life and a port that hosted the America's cup last year. I can already feel the sunshine warming my cheeks and the smell of paella in the spring air. I liked the look of the futuristic complex of The City of Arts and Sciences, perhaps to wander round the L'Umbracle, the greenhouse full of tropical plants from all over the world.

Sadly we'd miss the Fallas carnival in March, where the the city indulges it's pyromaniac tendancies, burning enormous papier-mache sculptures and setting off fireworks.

Searching for a hotel that wouldn't break the budget for a family of five, I came across this amazing place, Rooms Deluxe. It's the most upmarket of the three Hôme hostels and each of the 28 rooms has been designed by a different artist.

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Let me introduce you to Bristol

I started this blog to escape the grey days of winter, but as the sun's been shining here in Bristol, I've started to get a warmer feeling about my home town.


There are so many funky, secret and facinating things about this city and I've decided I really ought to get out more and explore. I'm planning to write a few posts that will give you a glimpse of the places you wouldn't find on your own.


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Wood-carvings at Anse Chastenet

My parents have just returned from the Caribbean resort of Anse Chastenet on St Lucia - in a previous post I wrote about some of the artists that are on display in the hotel. They took these photos of sculptures in the hotel by the resident sculptor, Lawrence Deligny, which I just had to share with you. Take a look at more of his work on the Anse Chastenet website.

I adore those swan like lovers - it's entitled 'The Kiss'. This place has to be my dream destination for a second honeymoon.




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Sleeping under a smoking volcano

My fellow bloggers Silken on Places to Go and Milton Ramirez on Global Voices alerted me that Mt Tungurahua in Ecuador has been erupting again. It brought back memories of my visit to Ecuador in October 2007 when I slept on the slopes of this smoking volcano.

I stayed with two friends in the fabulous hotel spa of Luna Runtun perched high on the slopes of Mt Tungurahua. Our night at the spa was our one concession to luxury, on a trip where the typical accomodation was a tent on a sandbank beside the Rio Bobonaza (but that's another story).




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Battlefield tours for the Old and Bold

As any old soldier will tell you, the ties of tradition and comradeship will always bind you to your regimental band of brothers. Even now, when my husband needs a little extra courage, he will put on the green, red and brown stripes of his old regimental tie. I love the story of how, before his regiment's major battle at Cambrai in 1917, some regimental colours needed to be found. The best that the local draper's shop could provide was some green, red and brown cloth and so the colours were made and the regimental slogan born - "Through the mud and the blood to the green fields beyond".


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Blogs to enhance your travels

I've come late to this whole blogging thing - I'm of the generation that can still remember when computers took up a whole room. So I decided to take a peep at what other travel bloggers might be up to and shamelessly steal their best ideas to improve my own posts.

Being nothing if not methodical I started off with a few blogs, checked out their blog lists, then checked out their blog lists, then.... you get the picture. The whole process was pretty tedious to tell you the truth and once I got going the lists seemed never-ending.

But then it dawned on me that it could be fun to use these blogs like a friendly resident who can guide you on their home turf, and take you to the places most tourists would miss. So now I've spent hours wading through all those blogs and hand-picked this list of my favorites to help us all when we go travelling.

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Paris

Artists of St Lucia

As the days in Bristol turn greyer, my thoughts turn to the turquoise skys of the Caribbean where my parents are have flown to escape the British winter. For the last few years they have returned in January to the beautiful Anse Chastenet resort on St Lucia, and who can blame them?

Viewed from the window of my computer screen, it looks wonderful - perched on the side of a lush green mountainside, with an idyllic beach below and the famous view of the Pitons in the back-ground.


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Springtime in Paris

My New Year's resolution is to pack in as many holidays into the next year as possible, so my thoughts turned to a family break for the Easter holidays.

My eye was caught by a magazine article in on family camping near Paris, taking in both Disneyland Paris and the sites of the French capital. It sounded like a promising blend of fun and culture so I decided to investigate the possibilities and what they might cost.



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Ethiopian planning game

Early in the New Year I met a friend for coffee who could barely contain his excitement. He and his wife, who works for DFID, had just heard they were being posted to Ethiopia and would be moving out there in April. My friend, being something of an action man, had been awake all night trying to work out how he could get his land rover, helicopter and yacht out there in order to maximise the adventure potential. He had decided he might have to compromise on the yacht as Ethiopia is a landlocked country.

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New Year in the forest (2)

With Christmas behind us, our holiday season continued with our family gathering at Centerparcs (or Stalag Luft as my husband had affectionately re-named it). The pre-bookings had been changed numerous times to accomodate fluctuating numbers, a food mountain ordered from Tesco, the cobwebs brushed off our bikes and all manner of sporting equipment assembled.

Finally we arrived at the appointed time (3pm) and experienced a warm welcome and efficient check-in, although my sister arriving half an hour later got stuck in a traffic jam and arrived a little more frazzled. Our two adjoining cabins were cosy and well laid out, each one set a little apart and surrounded by pine forest. Getting everything unloaded and cars removed to the car-park in the drizzle and darkness did make me feel a little grumpy. But any bad mood melted away the next day when we woke to find the winter sun filtering through the forest around us and we set out to explore the world of Centerparcs.


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