I heart London A 3 night stay in Huttons Hotel, Victoria, LondonDate of stay: 12-15th July 2011
I am quite lucky that my birthday is in July so I usually use it as an excuse for a trip away. This year was a special 'last trip before university' treat for my daughter & me so we decided on a girlie holiday to London. I cant afford fancy West End Boutique hotels but after much internet research I found Huttons Hotel in the Westminster area to be an affordable 3 star hotel in a very good area of London, just near Victoria Station. I would definately stay here again & would recomend it to anybody!
This blog is pretty much the diary I kept while we were there, sorry if it waffles on a bit!......
Day One
The train journey from Darlington to Kings Cross London was rather unremarkable. Bland farmland with a scattering of pretty churches here & there. The journey took less than three hours but it was probably two hours too long to be stuck on a strangely freezing cold train!We got off the train at Kings Cross and went straight to buy our travel cards (as everybody had insisted we should) then took the underground train to Victoria. The Underground itself wasn't nearly as scary as presumed and was pretty similar to the Paris Metro.First view on leaving Victoria Underground station was the 'Apollo Victoria' theatre advertising 'Wicked'.A huge and colourful sight making me excitedly realise I was really in London!!After being adamant that we wouldn't get off the tube & 'look lost'... it was infact exactly what we did do!Much conferring & consultation of several maps we set off in a general direction, which happened to be correct hurrah!Our hotel was in a lovely Georgian faced, quite part of Westminster. Absolutely gorgeous and everything I'd hoped for! The room was small but clean & certainly big enough for us two. The bathroom was a literal cupboard but there was a loo & shower in there! Best of all there was a wonderful balcony overlooking the street below, brilliant!!Our first stop of the day was Westminster. Straight off the tube to find ourselves standing directly under Big Ben! WOW!!!The clock face was so ornate with all the patterns & gold inlays and we were lucky enough to hear it chime 4oclock. Brilliant!The Westminster area is beautiful all the buildings are intricately carved stone affairs. The houses of parliament seemed to stretch on for miles! I got excited to see where the reporters stand to give live News reports & see all the gazeboes with film crews set up. I was shocked to see all the tents of the protestors. Protesting about all kinds of things too...I never knew this was here.We had a brief visit to Victoria Gardens to admire the Thames & views of the London Eye. Then a quick look at Westminster Abbey before setting off up Whitehall to Downing Street. The gated entrance to Downing Street is guarded by machine gun toting police! Eeek!!!There were a lot of statues commemorating this&that, mainly wars... On to Horse Guards Parade when we ogled smartly dressed soldiers & I fell in love with a gorgeous dragon!!!Then onto Trafalgar Square for a spot of people watching. Loved the 'ship in a bottle', interested by the Olympic 2012 countdown clock & rather enjoyed the artwork made from live plants next to the National Gallery. Tittered at some 'headless' street entertainers & marvelled at the guy playing the 'Flumpet' (flaming trumpet to you).Back onto the tube to Piccadilly Circus, this is as busy as the saying goes...and also turns out to be Theatre-land!
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Day Two
A bowl of muesli & a cheese sandwich for breakfast (???! hmmmm) A quick game of 'guess the nationality of the guest' then off to the V&A museum our first port of call for the day.Inside the museum, I liked the wooden shop front from a 15th century London shop & the spiral staircase from France. I lovedall the dragons and the metalwork section and some of the Asian exhibits were fascinating.We went on to The Natural History Museum next but were disappointed to find the dinosaur section was closed :(Never mind we did see a few dino-skeletons & the extinct 'Giant Sloth' was interestingly bizarre! I really enjoyed the Tokyo Supermarket earthquake experience too!Next stop (and several tube rides later) was Tower Bridge. We arrived just in time to see the bridge rise for a ship to pass through it! We saw the Tower of London just near it on the other side of the river from our vantage point.We walked right along to London Bridge (it wasn't falling down!) & had a bite to eat before heading to The Globe theatre. We passed 'The Golden Hinde', Sir Francis Drake's sailing ship. How lovely to see such a beautiful sailing vessel in a city! Sadly it was closed as a school party was on boardnever the less it was a beautiful find! We also saw HMS Belfast...wow how big!?! HUGE!!!Finally the globe theatre came into view & I have to say, it wasn't really as I expected. It was much bigger & not the shape I'd thought it would be& there was a wall all around it, but hey it’s a great piece of history& I'm glad we saw it.The Millennium Bridge was just a little bit scary! I walked across it nervous in the fact that the side rails were quite low and I could easily trip & tall over the edge or a mad man could come along and push me over!! (Much to the ridicule of my daughter!) I bought some warm honey roasted nuts from a vendor on the bridge to help take my mind off the ordeal!St. Paul’s cathedral was enormous. The huge white building with its domed roof, instantly recognizable from TV, however from the side & back managed to look totally different!Back on the epic tube journey to the hotel to rest our weary legs & aching feet before heading out to the pretty pub at the bottom of 'our' street. St Georges Tavern was a lovely pub. I had an absolutely gorgeous Halloumi salad& vanilla baked cheesecake...yummy! Another lovely day in London, I just wish the weather was warmer!
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Day Three
First on the agenda today was a trip to Buckingham Palace. It was much bigger than expected with huge golden gates. The place was a hive of activity, lots of different types of soldiers all in different uniforms with or without horses! It was a lovely sunny day so we got settled on the fountain opposite so we could watch the changing of the guards.It was quite a long & slow arrangement with lots of trumpet fanfares & even a rendition of 'Pirates of the Caribbean' theme tune! Lots of comings& goings, horses, strange hats (some of which were on the horses!) and bad tempered police women...two hours later it was all over & we headed into St James Park for a picnic lunch. The park was very pretty so we set off along the lakeside & came upon a sign saying not to feed the pelicans... pelicans??!! Sure enough further along we saw two pelicans in the bird feed enclosure!We wandered along to New Scotland Yard for a quick photo & then over to Westminster Abbey where we sat in the pleasant garden enjoying the sunshine& watching 2 boys practice tight-rope walking.From here we crossed the Thames & bought our tickets for a 'flight' on the London Eye. The queue was huge & we had to wait for nearly an hour to get on...But finally we're on & what a view!!! We were so high!! A fantastic view of London :)Afterwards we ambled along South Bank enjoying the exhibits of the festival we'd wandered into. We saw the E4 purple cow comedy stage, the colorful Beach Huts & enjoyed the displays, each different inside each hut... We came to a 'little beach' so pulled up a yellow bucket for a well earned rest...more mooching past some modern art installations, brought us to an elaborate roof garden, complete with vegetable patch & scarecrow.Another great day of London sight-seeing :)
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And Finally
This was our last morning in our country’s capital city & we spent the time doing as all London tourists do eventually, gift shopping! I bought Mr Plough a 'my girlfriend went to London and all she bought me was this lousy T-shirt' shirt and I got myself an 'I heart London' t-shirt, because I really did heart London! I was totally surprised by how much I'd enjoyed this trip away. I'm a country girl at heart & I normally favour the countryside to big cities but London had surprised me in every way.I had pre-formed ideas of it being a dirty, unfriendly, over crowed monstrosity of skyscraping, modern, bland buildings with muggers&rapists waiting to pounce on every corner, it was nothing like that thank goodness! I found the people we spoke to very friendly, the tube staff were brilliant & patiently showed us how to read the tube maps, there were so many old historic buildingsI didn’t know where to look first & we never got mugged or worse & as two females alone in the big city we felt safe everywhere we went, even at night. We were taking the coach home just after 12 so had a few hours to fill with gift buying & last minute sightseeing. We left our luggage safely at the coach station & ended up having our final hour in a pretty garden/park on Buckingham Palace Road wondering what on earth the two shell covered 'grotto' type buildings were about...It was an incredibly LONG bus ride home...we were sat in front of the two most obnoxiously unfunny stand-up 'comedians' I'd ever had the misfortune to meet (well maybe there's been one other far worse but that’s another story)we got stuck in not one but two traffic jams & ended up being nearly an hour late home.. hey-ho we had a fantastic time in London & I cannot wait to go back again one day soon!
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London on a Budget
A great time can be had in London even if you're on a budget. We mainly spent our time sight-seeing. The Victoria & Albert museum & The Natural History museum were free entry as are many other museums in London.It's worth doing a bit of research before you go to find out who charges for what or what link save entry fees there are.A lot of attractions give discounts for entry of multiple places.Buy a travel card (as everybody told us!) you'll use the tube more than you think!And just take the time to actually stop & look at places, take a photo, chill out in one of the many parks & enjoy your visit to this amazing city!
All content& photos copyright ©AngeGraham(the vintage-pirate) and may not be reproduced.
If you enjoyed this blog please check out my website 'Its a little travel guide' all about the joys of travelling on a budget!
Monday, 12 December 2011
Thursday, 8 December 2011
Just Like Jessie J....
On Tour...Just like Jessie J
1 Night stay at Spa Apartments, Bridlington
Date of stay: 26th October 2011
I have quite a varied taste in music but it was always going to be a risk when we booked tickets to see Jessie J but the fact that she would be playing in a venue like Bridlington Spa intrigued me & after I saw the Pigeon Detectives there back in 2008 I always intended to go back to see someone else play there. For mainly this reason we booked to go. I wasn't sure where to stay or even if to bother staying overnight at all. We were already booked up to see The Feeling earlier that month so I ended up leaving it until quite late to book so choices of accommodation were quite limited for the discerning 'budget traveler' however at £40 for the night The Spa Apartments met our needs.
It was a grey & threatening afternoon when we arrived in Bridlington. We got marginally lost looking for the apartment but that's all part of the fun! We found it eventually just a street behind the evenings venue. There was nowhere to park the car so we ended up parked outside the Spa & noticed the start of the evenings queue already forming...erm its only 3.30!!! (Apparently the first girl had arrived from York at 7am that morning..or so I was reliably informed by the cafe opposite owner.)
The apartment was slightly old fashioned but certainly had lots of character & we quite liked its quirky layout. It had a kitchen/eating/living area with flatscreen TV, separate bedroom with the worlds shortest bed & lumpiest pillows and huge bathroom with both a bath&shower. Overall it was ideal for us, in a great location, clean & I would stay there again for a overnight or weekend break.
We dumped the bags & headed into Brid for a pint or two & something to eat and where else would anybody want to go when in Bridlington other than the legendary Jeromes! I love Jeromes, I've been going there for about a million years! Its right on the seafront, they sell the most delicious pizzas & the beer's a good price. Its family friendly & there's often a singer on in the evenings. Through the day you can have a coffee or a cream tea, they have an nice outdoor seating area & even sell gorgeous icecreams & doughnuts!.... Having said all this, on today's visit they were in the middle of some major renovation works & we sat in amongst paintpots & ladders & then briefly in the dark until a man with a tupperware dish full of lightbulbs came to our rescue! Haha! After beers&pizza we headed back to the apartment, past the most ridiculously long queue I've ever seen in my life, and I've been to Disneyland so I know what a huge queue looks like, but looking at this queue I couldn't understand how all these people were going to fit inside the venue?....
The simple answer was they weren't. Well I suppose they did but not in a way that everybody would be able to see the stage.
And so began the most badly organized concert I've ever had the misfortune to pay £25 a ticket for. I felt more sorry for the row of little girls sat along the back wall looking depressed, they didn't stand a cat in hells chance of seeing Jessie J perform.
We walked up & down the length of the upper balcony, dodging a glimpse of the action between peoples heads. From the bits we did manage to catch we weren't impressed with Ms J's performance, between waffling on about her parents' love of Luther Vandross & wailing like a banshee or indeed in my opinion singing along to a backing track we gave it up as a bad job & headed to the bar instead.
Hey-ho you live and learn, I'd never go see her again also I'll never go to that venue again. Ever.
The next morning we checked out of our quirky apartment & headed off into Bridlington for breakfast & sightseeing. I'd recommend the Marina cafe for a full English, the owners were witty & friendly, just remember to shut the door!
There's a lovely harbour to walk in & in summer season I can recommend a trip on the pirate boat or if you're feeling brave have a blast on the speed boat!
There's a very small museum that's worth a look into, its only about 20p admission or something!
There's a large funfair on the promenade, as a child, my daughter use to love the Drop-zone freefaller & it's got a great view if nothing else! The Jungle River is great fun too & don't forget a go on the dodgems!
Enough of Bridlington & now on to Filey!
Filey is the grandmother of this part of the Yorkshire coast.
I love Filey for its peaceful gardens, beautiful Georgian buildings, magnificent views of the bay and I've spent many an hour digging sandcastles on the lovely clean beach. The ornamental gardens complete with waterlilly filled fish ponds, stretch nearly the full length of Filey. From here is a 'new' sculpture trail that starts at the wishing well & ends in the valley park, its a pleasant walk that passes half an hour if nothing else and I did get to ride on a plesiosaurus!
People rave on about the 'cobble landing' at Filey... personally I don't see the fascination, I'm from Durham, we have cobbles, I'm unimpressed! ...Hey-ho on to Scarborough!
I have fond memories of Scarborough from my childhood in the 70's. It was the place to go for your summer jollies. We use to stay in a Guest House bed, breakfast & evening meal & they banged a gong when it was time to eat & the soup always smelled lovely...they were endless summer days of donkey rides, sandcastles & icecreams...miniature train rides & kite flying....at one time there was a marine park complete with real live dolphins & model dinosaurs....we went to the illuminated 'Tree Walk' in Peasholme Park on an evening & saw the Naval Battle there on an afternoon...we always went to the cinema, it was either James Bond or Star Wars and the 2 main highlights for me were the Pirate Boat Hispaniola & the evenings spent at 'Its a Knockout' at the open air theatre & the after show fireworks display shouting 'we want a banger!!'...happy days..
So it saddens me to see Scarborough in such a sorry & neglected state as it's been in lately. However on this trip I was delighted to see the start of some improvements to the North Bay area. The addition of colourful beach huts dramatically livens up the bay area & there's no denying the newly built holiday apartments have regenerated the Corner Cafe area. I just hope the planned Haven caravan park on the old site of 'Marvels' happens. They've revamped the park area & now Kinderlands water chute is suddenly the 'historic water chute' & over a hundred years old (??!) & my beloved open air theatre has had a total makeover & promises live concerts in summer months...Even the miniature train station has be modernised & now boasts a cafe & there's a strange little complex of 'wooden shed' type things that claim they'll be shops in the future... things are on the up for Scarborough & I'd love to think one day it will be as popular as it was when I was a little girl.
All content copyright©AngeGraham(the-vintage-pirate) and may not be reproduced or copied in any way.
If you enjoyed this blog please check out my website 'Its a little travel guide' all about the joys of traveling on a budget!
1 Night stay at Spa Apartments, Bridlington
Date of stay: 26th October 2011
I have quite a varied taste in music but it was always going to be a risk when we booked tickets to see Jessie J but the fact that she would be playing in a venue like Bridlington Spa intrigued me & after I saw the Pigeon Detectives there back in 2008 I always intended to go back to see someone else play there. For mainly this reason we booked to go. I wasn't sure where to stay or even if to bother staying overnight at all. We were already booked up to see The Feeling earlier that month so I ended up leaving it until quite late to book so choices of accommodation were quite limited for the discerning 'budget traveler' however at £40 for the night The Spa Apartments met our needs.
It was a grey & threatening afternoon when we arrived in Bridlington. We got marginally lost looking for the apartment but that's all part of the fun! We found it eventually just a street behind the evenings venue. There was nowhere to park the car so we ended up parked outside the Spa & noticed the start of the evenings queue already forming...erm its only 3.30!!! (Apparently the first girl had arrived from York at 7am that morning..or so I was reliably informed by the cafe opposite owner.)
The apartment was slightly old fashioned but certainly had lots of character & we quite liked its quirky layout. It had a kitchen/eating/living area with flatscreen TV, separate bedroom with the worlds shortest bed & lumpiest pillows and huge bathroom with both a bath&shower. Overall it was ideal for us, in a great location, clean & I would stay there again for a overnight or weekend break.
We dumped the bags & headed into Brid for a pint or two & something to eat and where else would anybody want to go when in Bridlington other than the legendary Jeromes! I love Jeromes, I've been going there for about a million years! Its right on the seafront, they sell the most delicious pizzas & the beer's a good price. Its family friendly & there's often a singer on in the evenings. Through the day you can have a coffee or a cream tea, they have an nice outdoor seating area & even sell gorgeous icecreams & doughnuts!.... Having said all this, on today's visit they were in the middle of some major renovation works & we sat in amongst paintpots & ladders & then briefly in the dark until a man with a tupperware dish full of lightbulbs came to our rescue! Haha! After beers&pizza we headed back to the apartment, past the most ridiculously long queue I've ever seen in my life, and I've been to Disneyland so I know what a huge queue looks like, but looking at this queue I couldn't understand how all these people were going to fit inside the venue?....
The simple answer was they weren't. Well I suppose they did but not in a way that everybody would be able to see the stage.
And so began the most badly organized concert I've ever had the misfortune to pay £25 a ticket for. I felt more sorry for the row of little girls sat along the back wall looking depressed, they didn't stand a cat in hells chance of seeing Jessie J perform.
We walked up & down the length of the upper balcony, dodging a glimpse of the action between peoples heads. From the bits we did manage to catch we weren't impressed with Ms J's performance, between waffling on about her parents' love of Luther Vandross & wailing like a banshee or indeed in my opinion singing along to a backing track we gave it up as a bad job & headed to the bar instead.
Hey-ho you live and learn, I'd never go see her again also I'll never go to that venue again. Ever.
The next morning we checked out of our quirky apartment & headed off into Bridlington for breakfast & sightseeing. I'd recommend the Marina cafe for a full English, the owners were witty & friendly, just remember to shut the door!
There's a lovely harbour to walk in & in summer season I can recommend a trip on the pirate boat or if you're feeling brave have a blast on the speed boat!
There's a very small museum that's worth a look into, its only about 20p admission or something!
There's a large funfair on the promenade, as a child, my daughter use to love the Drop-zone freefaller & it's got a great view if nothing else! The Jungle River is great fun too & don't forget a go on the dodgems!
Enough of Bridlington & now on to Filey!
Filey is the grandmother of this part of the Yorkshire coast.
I love Filey for its peaceful gardens, beautiful Georgian buildings, magnificent views of the bay and I've spent many an hour digging sandcastles on the lovely clean beach. The ornamental gardens complete with waterlilly filled fish ponds, stretch nearly the full length of Filey. From here is a 'new' sculpture trail that starts at the wishing well & ends in the valley park, its a pleasant walk that passes half an hour if nothing else and I did get to ride on a plesiosaurus!
People rave on about the 'cobble landing' at Filey... personally I don't see the fascination, I'm from Durham, we have cobbles, I'm unimpressed! ...Hey-ho on to Scarborough!
I have fond memories of Scarborough from my childhood in the 70's. It was the place to go for your summer jollies. We use to stay in a Guest House bed, breakfast & evening meal & they banged a gong when it was time to eat & the soup always smelled lovely...they were endless summer days of donkey rides, sandcastles & icecreams...miniature train rides & kite flying....at one time there was a marine park complete with real live dolphins & model dinosaurs....we went to the illuminated 'Tree Walk' in Peasholme Park on an evening & saw the Naval Battle there on an afternoon...we always went to the cinema, it was either James Bond or Star Wars and the 2 main highlights for me were the Pirate Boat Hispaniola & the evenings spent at 'Its a Knockout' at the open air theatre & the after show fireworks display shouting 'we want a banger!!'...happy days..
So it saddens me to see Scarborough in such a sorry & neglected state as it's been in lately. However on this trip I was delighted to see the start of some improvements to the North Bay area. The addition of colourful beach huts dramatically livens up the bay area & there's no denying the newly built holiday apartments have regenerated the Corner Cafe area. I just hope the planned Haven caravan park on the old site of 'Marvels' happens. They've revamped the park area & now Kinderlands water chute is suddenly the 'historic water chute' & over a hundred years old (??!) & my beloved open air theatre has had a total makeover & promises live concerts in summer months...Even the miniature train station has be modernised & now boasts a cafe & there's a strange little complex of 'wooden shed' type things that claim they'll be shops in the future... things are on the up for Scarborough & I'd love to think one day it will be as popular as it was when I was a little girl.
All content copyright©AngeGraham(the-vintage-pirate) and may not be reproduced or copied in any way.
If you enjoyed this blog please check out my website 'Its a little travel guide' all about the joys of traveling on a budget!
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Old Blogs, Old News...New Blog News!
Hmmm on setting up this little blog I've discovered 2 other previous blogs that I've clearly never bothered with. I've no idea how to delete these old blogs which is quite frustrating especially as I'm unlikely to need 3 blogs to blither on about things...hey-ho here we go with this new blog, Marvels, Moans & Musings because sometimes I just have stuff to say that wont fit into a twitter or facebook status so my intention is to link up with this blog when I fancy a ramble about something...you never know somebody might read it, stranger things have happened!
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