Thornbury Castle

After Bath the sun was still shining and we visited a local castle that is now an hotel and has a small vineyard. Having asked first, we wandered about the gardens. Amazing to see this gorgeous property just tucked down a lane behind the church. Beautiful gardens, strong high double rowed castle walls. Such wonderful history and so accessable.  King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn stayed here.

Bath time

We were lucky to be taken and shown the highlights of Bath by an expert, Graham's aunty. It was a lovely morning and the trees and gardens were beautiful. Wandered about and saw the sights, the Crescent and great old buildings. We had morning tea in the Assembly rooms of the Bath Spa, lovely high ceilings, a trio playing wonderful music and we tasted the Bath spa water, a small sip was enough for me.

Warm welcome in the UK, Bristol

Flew Easyjet from Berlin to Manchester. Our first Easyjet experience, its  like a bus....no seat allocation you just get on and grab a seat. Bit of a scramble but not as bad as I expected. When we arrived at Manchester we were really impressed with the helpful officials at the airport and train station, everyone went out of their way to help us. We had 4 train changes to get to Bristol and the train driver at Manchester said just hop on this train to Birmingham and you eliminate two train changes. Then at Birmingham he hopped out of his drivers car and personally walked us to the Penzance train platform to be sure we got the correct train, super friendly and helpful.

Had a wonderful time with Graham's family in Bristol, thanks to everyone for being so welcoming and showing us such lovely places, we'd never have found them under our own steam.

ris

Berlin wall art

Berlin

Have had a wonderful time in Berlin.  Once you get the hang of the underground and over ground trains its pretty easy to get around. The pace of life here feels pretty relaxed, love the fact so many people bike around and its flat so even better. Lots of energy focussed on the football and when Germany beat Portugal last night fireworks were going off in our neighbourhood. We are staying in Nollendorfplatz which is a couple of metro stops to Potsdamer Platz where you can walk to the Brandenburg Gate, Reichstag, Kaiser-Wilhelm church, Berlin wall memorial, Victory column, Checkpoint Charlie and the Holocaust memorial. Also found our way to Schloss Charlottenburg with its beautiful formal gardens.
Its very moving to read the stories and see the photos of people that attempted to cross from east to west some as recent as the 1980's.  In amongst all the tourist comings and goings at the Holocaust memorial and the historic boardwalk and picture gallery near Checkpoint Charlie  you felt a real sense of sadness, shock and awe.

  The new berlin is buzzing with art, design and really interesting blending of old and new architecture.

Prague roof lines

Prague

Spent a few days in Prague. Beautiful old buildings with amazing roof lines.
Wanted to visit Prague for a long time so perhaps had built up unrealistic expectations....it was nice but quite grubby around the edges and lots of slightly dodgey types milling about, interesting the hotel warned us not to trust the taxi drivers. The trip from Prague to Berlin by train was lovely, great scenery. Train followed a river gorge with gorgeous wee villages. German police wandered through the carriage at the town closest to the border and that was it. No passport checks.