WW1 battlefields, Belgian Chocolate and Champagne

On the last weekend in May, we did a 5 day trip to France and Belgium. We caught the Eurostar (train) from London to Calais where we hired a car. It was pouring with rain when we got there and continued to rain for nearly the whole day. So this made driving on the right hand side of the road all the more interesting!

We headed over to Dunkirk for a look around and then called in the French version of a Fish and Chip shop - a baguette and frites shop! While we were trying to order, there was a French woman who was trying to help us translating to the chip shop lady. Then would you believe it - she invited us (Melinda and Adam and our friends Damien and Sarah) back to her place to eat!

So after that we headed off to Ypres in Belgium where we crossed our first ever land border. However if we weren't paying attention to the signs on the freeway, we would have totally missed it!

Once in Ypres we checked in to the hotel and checked out the city. We saw a parade of British Army guys at the Menin Gate in the evening where they played the last post and have done every night since 11th of November 1929 'every night and in all weathers'. The only break was when the Germans invaded in the second world war and it was not allowed. However the day that they left, it started again and continues to this day.


British Army marching to the Menin Gate in Ypres

The next day we went on a tour of some battlefields and memorials as well as a few cemeteries. There are many cemeteries dotted all around the Ypres Salient, all neatly maintained. That afternoon we headed back in to France thinking that we would be able to find accommodation wherever we felt like it. Not so! Anyway a few hours later we finally checked in to a hotel in Amiens.

The next day we did some of our own touring around the Somme. It was good to see these areas that you have heard about for years like Villers-Bretonneux where Australian soldiers liberated the town from the Germans. The school there (called L'Ecole Victoria) has a memorial on the wall of the school and it is located in Rue de Melbourne which is just off Rue de Victoria.



The next day we took a drive down to Rheims - the main city in the Champagne region. Plenty of bottles of Veuve-Cliquot, Moet & Chandon and other normally really expensive bottles of champagne on the shelf at the bargain price of €28. We did a tour of the Mumm winery and had some tastings at the end. With neither of us being big champagne fans, it was hard to get excited by the tour guide saying that they had suitable bottle of champagne for all times of the day and for everyoccasionn.

Adam, Melinda, Sarah and Damien at the Mumm Winery

After that we headed back to Calais in the car and then on the train back to London!

Weekend in Ireland

A couple of weeks after the Turkey trip, we made another trip away for a weekend in Ireland. We flew in to Shannon airport (near Limerick) to stay at a mates house in a little village called Adare (I asked but Red doesnt live there...).

Melinda & Adam at Adare Manor

It was the weekend of the final of the rugby union European Cup and since Munster (local team) were playing against the French team Biarritz, Limerick was absolutely chockers with something like 10,000 people watching the game in the main street! So we avoided Limerick and watched the game in the local pub. The home team won which made everyone happy and in the mood to party.

Melinda, Mette, Dale and Adam in Adare

On the Sunday we went for a little drive to see a few places including the famous cliffs of Mohr, which appears in most Irish tourism ads. A top weekend all round and certainly looking forward to checking out Ireland again sometime.

Cliffs on the west coast of Ireland

Turkey and Anzac Day

On the Wednesday after Easter we set off to Turkey for a 13 day trip. The first 8 days were booked through a tour company, as we needed to have a tour booking to get to Anzac cove on Anzac day.

Blue Mosque in Istanbul

We started off with a couple of days in Istanbul getting haggled by all the carpet salesman in the Grand bazaar. Of course we bought a couple of over priced, useless souvenirs, but it was fun none the less. Then it was a long days travel towards the South West of Turkey. Its an exciting city, and very cool how you drive from Europe to Asia by crossing a bridge over the Bosporus (probably wrong spelling).

Bridge between Europe and Asia

We went to the ancient ruins of Ephesus, on the Aegean coast of Turkey,

Ruins of Ephesus

Then to Pergemum and Troy (I was excited since I had seen a movie about the place)

Then over the Dardenelles on a large ferry crossing back from Asia to Europe on to the Gallipoli Peninsula. We spent a day touring around Anzac cove, Lone Pine (Australian Memorial), Chunnnk Bair (New Zealand Memorial) and looking at places we had all heard about like the Nek, the Sphinx and so on. Then it was a cold night on the grass in our sleeping bags waiting for the dawn service. It was a dawn service pretty much the same as those in Australia except the Governer General was there. If anyone was thinking of going to Gallipoli, I would recommend that if it isn't important to you to go there on Anzac day in particular (noting that there isn't anything extra in the services), that maybe you should think about going at another time. That way it would be a lot quieter and you could wander round a lot more. However it was good to experience it all.

Back to Istanbul for a day wandering about, buying more expensive souvenirs and booking some more tripping around Turkey. We caught an overnight bus to Urgup - in Cappadocia in the centre of Turkey. There were loads of cave houses that look exactly like Bedrock - the town in the Flintstones! Then we caught another overnight bus to Antalya, for a couple of days in the Mediterranean sun. It was fun but there must be mainly German tourists there because everybody kept asking if we were German - in German. About the only German I know is 'nein' which didn't get me too far.

After that it was a couple of flights back to London and ready for our next trip!

Rugby tour to Croatia

Over the Easter weekend I (Adam) went on tour with my Rugby club to the capital of Croatia - Zagreb! Without going in to too much detail, we :
- Arrived at Luton Airport complete in Little Britain costume (a British TV show)
- played 2 games
- won 2 games (apparently not the done thing on tour!)
- saw quite a bit of the Zagreb nightlife
- nearly missed our plane after the hotel staff refused to give everyone back their passports because of some supposed broken items which they failed to produce...

But that's all I can say about that.