Our luck washed up...

Refusing to pay the exorbitant hotel prices to do our laundry, we have been lucky to find affordable full-service laundry places so far along our route.  

Although it took a very intense internet search and some language-barrier infused telephone conversations, we thought we were in good shape in Ljubljana. Until the first shop had to close because the owner's car broke   down and she needed to take it to the shop. And then the actual washing machine broke in the second shop so the laundry would not be ready in time.

Out of options and time, we hauled our bags of laundry through the pouring rain to catch a taxi to the nearest laundromat, a 20 minute drive away.

Luckily, although it was in the middle of an industrial complex and completely abandoned, the door was open so we headed in.

Now, whose job was it to remember to bring coins for the machine...?

Our specialized drying technique

Sunny Slovenia?

Having been lucky to make it through most of England without substantial rain, we had packed away our umbrellas, readying ourselves for the balmy weather of the Balkans.  But this was not to be the case.

As soon as we arrived in Slovenia, the skies opened and the rain poured down. It did not stop for two days and continued sporadically throughout our entire time there.  The irony was not lost on us that we endured more rain in sunny Slovenia than we did in wet England.

Nonetheless, we really enjoyed our time in Ljubljana, Slovenia. This small capital city has made the bold choice to shut off all of its Old Town (the downtown) to cars, making it an entirely pedestrian zone.  This brave decision has rightly earned Ljubljana the title of "greenest capital city" in Europe.  Getting rid of the cars completely opens up the downtown.  Instead of car lanes, the streets are filled with outdoor tables hosted by the restaurants.  Instead of parking spaces and lots,  musicians and craft stalls litter the streets.  It is energetic but relaxed all at the same time.

In addition to its green reputation, Ljubljana was recently awarded the "safest" city label in a recent study (beating out Montreal in second place).  The test involved tracking 20 "lost" cellphones that were placed around the city.  In Ljubljana, 19 of them were returned to the police station within 24 hours!  No wonder the safe in our room was just a random box that wasn't bolted to anything - they probably thought giving us a room key to lock our door was going overboard!  

As if the pedestrian zones and safety records didn't indicate just how charming this town really is, the statues might.  As in all capital cities, there are statues all around the city commemorating national heroes.   With the exception of one small tucked away memorial plaque to Napoleon, who during his short reign there let Slovenia keep its language, not one of their statues was a war general, politician or fighter. Instead, the statues are all of poets, writers and artists. These are the people that are treasured.  This, paired with a national anthem that talks about being friends and getting along, certainly conveys the city's genuine and caring culture.  

This is a city that really made sense to us. It had all the amenities of a big city but with the heart of a small town.  But with all the upside, we did learn one downside to a pedestrian downtown - there is no easy (and definitely no dry!) way to get you and your luggage to the train station in a rainstorm!

Bring on the Balkans...

In search of hotter weather, we left the UK and headed the the Balkans.  Geoff was eager to see Croatia and Beth was sure that the country had changed significantly since she was last there 25 years ago.

We arrived in Zagreb, Croatia's capital, to find a small but charming capital city.  Having been under the Habsburg rule for hundreds of years, it was not surprising to see Austrian influences both in the city's infrastructure (pastel coloured buildings (with a heavy use of yellow) in a gothic style) and public zoning (rounded streets and lots of public spaces).

Hotel Esplanade

We learned from our tour guide that our lodging, the Hotel Esplanade, was actually a historical site, having been built to house travellers taking the Orient Express from Paris to Turkey (and vice versa) for their needed overnight stay in Zagreb.  This certainly explained its close proximity to the train station and downtown core and made Beth imagine wishfully that we would be on a similar train the next day to Ljubliana.  As she elbowed past the hoards of backpackers to secure a seat on the train that was a touch too-graffittied for her tastes, she realized that this would not be the case.  

Zagreb is small in number with only 800,000 residents.  You get the feeling that they have a bit of a complex about being such a small capital city and want to prove to you that it is still worthwhile to visit.   The tour guide made several mentions that their cuisine was world class and they had all the shops of the bigger city.   Perhaps this is why they have so many museums (separate post on the more unusual ones).  But they really needn't worry - between the lovely public squares to sit and relax, the wonderful weather and some of the friendliest locals who just want to help, it has a charm and intimacy that is very compelling.

Although we won't be visiting the Mushroom Museum here anytime soon, we could certainly see coming back to Zagreb on our future travels.  

One of Zagreb's main squares.  It combines architectural styles from a variety of eras.

Unique Museums

Have to hand it to Zagreb for trying to be a bit unique in its museum offerings.....

The Museum of Broken Relationships was pretty cool - stories of relationships (not only romantic) that failed for various reasons and relics/momentos.

Naive art though..... No, not a typo of Native, actually art made by those "naive" of any education or training in creating such art..... lost the battle for our attention to a cafe in a nice sunny central square.

Now, the Mushroom Museum..... That definitely piqued my interest! Of course, Beth would have none of it unfortunately.

Vegetarian haggis?

Haggis.  A Scottish delicacy.  And also the innards of an animal.  To vegetarians, haggis seems even more off-putting than other types of meat and did not leave us optimistic about our eating prospects when visiting Edinburgh.

We were both surprised and unconvinced our first night out to see "vegetarian haggis" on the menu.  How could that even be possible?  But, we were assured it was completely vegetarian and absolutely delicious and so we pushed aside our cynicism and ordered it.

A bit like sheppard's pie in a coq-au-vin wine sauce, vegetarian haggis was absolutely delightful.  As we worked our way through it, we were a little disappointed that we had only ordered one to share.

Although vegetarian haggis takes slightly different forms depending on the restaurant (sometimes like a patty, sometimes wrapped on strudel etc.), we couldn't get enough of it and ate haggis every day during our visit.

The haggis now makes sense.  The Scottish kilt, however, is still a mystery...

Edinburgh the Great...

Many locals joke that the annual Edinburgh Fringe and Theatre festivals in August fund the city for the rest of the year.  As we wandered around the city (wearing all the warm clothing we owned due to the incredibly cold and wet weather) , we could almost believe this.  For the whole month, the city is packed with tourists who have come from around the world to take in the festivities.  Although the festival started out as a theatre festival it has actually become most famous for its fringe restoval which hosts hundred of theatre, music, dance and comedy performances.  The book of options is actually 100 pages long!

We took in some historical sites while we were there, taking an audio walking tour of the city and then touring Holyrood House, a working palace where the Queen spends much of her summer.  The Palace was actually quite understated, with lots of rugs and wall hangings, and minimal furniture, at least in the public rooms.  An unexpected surprise was seeing the rooms where Mary, Queen of Scots, spent many of her days.   These rooms were much smaller than we would have imagined and the personal staircase she would have used seemed far too narrow to accommodate the wide dresses of the time period.

Although we took in some history, the performances at the festivals were certainly the highlight.  Having booked a couple of performances ahead of time, most of our choices were made impulsively.  The festival has an incredible app that allows you to search for shows "nearby" and "starting soon" so you could just spontaneously pull it up and choose something when you had some free time.

In the end, we saw a diverse range of   shows (list at the end of the post) and really enjoyed almost all of them.  Geoff even participated in one of them!

We cannot speak highly enough of this festival.  The city is fantastic, the people ridiculously nice and the performances superb.  Our only recommendation if you decide to go one year (which we think you should!) - make sure you pack some warm clothes - it is chilly up there!

Performances:

1.  A-Loan - The story of a group of kids, parents and related characters dealing with the realities of the kids heading off to university.  The theatre held about 25 people, just three times more than the number of cast members, and the show was funny and serious and compelling and likely our favourite performance.

2.  The Travel Guide for Agoraphobics - This free comedy performance was a charming exploration of travel and weird roommates.  Although it lagged a bit at the end, we were incredibly impressed by the comic's ability to perform on his own for almost an hour without one dirty joke!

3.  Ladysmith Black Mombazo - this world-reknowned musical group, who wrote songs with Paul Simon back in the day, performed a pitch-perfect medley of songs that detailed the struggles, triumphs and way of life in South Africa.

4.  James I - Although almost three hours in length, this play flew, weaving great Scottish history with wonderful acting, a gripping storyline and a simple but effective 360-degree set.

5.  The horror! The horror! - This 1920s "comedy show" was perhaps the weakest of all the shows we saw, hampered by a story line that didn't really make sense.  Nonetheless, the acting was impressive and Geoff's performance in the show stellar!

Countryside reflections

As we sit on the train to Edinburgh and reflect on our time in South-West England, a few poignant thoughts come to mind:

1.  Driving in England is hard. Although I found driving in the opposite side of the road to be a fairly easy conversion and even got reasonably comfortable with the incredible number of roundabouts, I will likely never get used to the narrow and curving streets in the countryside.  They may call them double roads but when one car has both sides of it whacked by bushes as it drives down a road, that is not what I would consider a two-way street!  For all those incredible people who have driven me around the British countryside during the course of my life, a heartfelt belated thank-you!

2.  People in the British countryside know how to live and eat well.  Whether it is the long walks through the hills with their dogs or the leisurely lunches and later dinners they enjoy (sometimes hosted in the local garden centre!), they really seemed to have figured out how to live a great life.  We are still impressed that the vegetarian food in each of the places we visited not only lived up to but often surpassed the tastes we experienced in London.  A list of the great vegetarian restaurants we enjoyed is at the end of this post.

3.  Although they both enjoy lots of green space, rural England and downtown London seem like two completely different worlds.  In London, everyone is hurrying around whereas you hardly see anyone working the fields in the countryside.  In London, no one has a car but you cannot survive without one in the country.  They eat at different times (rural England, to our delight, enjoys a much later dinner hour) and seem motivated by completely different things. For a small country, England clearly has a very diverse population.

With that said - we're off to Edinburgh to see a completely different side of this great United Kingdom!

Restaurants:  

-  The Swindon Marriott's quorn filets

-  The Olive Tree Cafe in Swindon (and, oddly, in a garden centre!)
-  Bath's Acorn Restaurant

-  Herbie's  in Exeter

-  Tasty Pasty (Cornish Pasties) in Cornwall

-  Meluha in Bristol 

- Cafe Maitreya in Bristol suburbs 

-  Beezee's Tea House with its exception quorn hotdogs and jacket potatoes

-  The Daffodil in Chelthenham

-  Studio 65 in Tetbury

-  Delicious Sunday lunch nutloaf in Ebrington at the Ebrington Arms 

-  Burford Cafe in Burford (and also, oddly, in a garden centre!)

-  The Montpellier Chapter Hotel restaurant

It was a studious day...

On our final leg en route back to London, we made two stops.

The first is Stratford Upon (not "In" - that is used for the County name) Avon.  Originally a market town and hub for the river crossing, Stratford is now primarily focused around the live of William Shakespeare, who was born and spent much of his life there.

Everything in the town feels related to Shakespeare.  There are three playhouses which showcase Shakespeare's work.  The town church hosts a statue of WS and the tombs of him and his family are prominently featured up near the pulpit.  The town's street names and building engravings all reflect him and his works and Shakespeare and his wife, Anne Hatheway's, homes (in fact,  anywhere they frequented) have been restored and protected, even going so far as to knock down the adjoining buildings abutting his childhood house to prevent any chance of a fire destroying this wonderful piece of history. 

Our tour guide was hilarious - charming and self-deprecating while telling us all about the history of the town,  the origins of sayings like "a toad in your throat", "bonfires", and "goodnight sleep tight", and phrases that Shakespeare created through his works, like "vanish into thin air"! 

Our second stop was Oxford.  Although it was the summer holidays and the students and teachers far away, the town was packed with tourists coming to see this famous university.  The University, the oldest English speaking university in the world, originally started in 1096 and grew rapidly after the mid 1100s.  The university functions primarily around its colleges, which are breath-taking.  With the university's sophisticated and intricate buildings that were surrounded by lush and beautifully manicured gardens, it is easy to see how these grounds inspired some of the world's greatest thinkers.  

Although we had hoped we would come up with some great thoughts while being here,  we settled for a nice stroll around the campus and an intense Nutella hot chocolate before driving the last leg of our trip back to London.

Onto the Cotswolds...

Hearing rave reviews that the Cotswolds is the jewel of Southern England, we couldn't wait to get there and start exploring its quaint towns.  Contrary to our naive expectations that we would be staying in a remote and secluded lodge surrounded by rolling hills, our beautiful hotel, The Montpellier Chapter, was set in the bustling town of Cheltenham (far bigger than any of the towns we have visited thus far) within walking distance to a restaurant and shopping-filled promenade.  In retrospect, it is no wonder our earlier Internet search had found so many laundry service shops available there!

Luckily, our hotel was perfectly located to do just that and so we headed out, each day in a different direction, to explore.

We visited a lot of towns during our time (11 in total!).  For our readers' and our own sakes, we will not got into detail about each of them (although there is a list of them at the end, just in case).    Instead, we will say that there is a reason that these towns are voted some of the most romantic in England.   They host beautiful old stone homes that are very well-maintained for their age.  The homes are unique in character but share an architectural design that creates cohesion.  They have exquisite gardens and stunning views of the rolling hills. There is a quiet serenity in these towns - like you have gone back to another time, before life got so busy.

There isn't much to do in these towns except wander around and drink tea.  The people in the Cotswolds love their "cream tea", a cup of tea with 2 scones.  We still cannot figure out why there is always two scones but perhaps it is so that you want you to sit and stay a little longer than when you just have one. 

A few highlights must be noted -  

In Broadway, there is a large watchtower built on Beacon Hill that overlooks the town and offers gorgeous views of the countryside.  The history of the tower is unusual - it was commissioned by Lady Coventry who wanted to see whether a torch lit in a tower on Beacon Hill could be seen from her house.  And so she paid for the tower to be constructed.  Good news for Lady Coventry - her very expensive experiment worked -.   she could see the tower light easily from her house! 

Upper and Lower Slaughter have a recommended walking trail between them.  The trail consists of three fields joined together with no paved footpath.  But lots of sheep.  There were no route markings on the trail and the only way to guess that you were going in the right direction was when you saw a sign asking you to shut the gates behind you.  To keep in the sheep, I suspect!    

Once in Lower Slaughter, we actually tried to continue on a more paved path to walk to Bourton on the Water but the trail was so covered in horse manure that we couldn't find a clear enough path to make it there cleanly.

The hamlet of Ebrington has a pub, the Ebrington Arms, that serves vegetarian (and non-vegetarian) Sunday Roast.  The place is so popular (surprisingly, not because of its vegetarian options) that if you want to park you must either go all the way back to the neighbouring town 3 miles away to find a spot or get creative.  We opted for the latter and Beth and the car still have nettle stings from the off-road steep-hill parking maneuvre devised.  Interestingly, the passenger who came up with the genius parking option was the only one to walk away unscathed.

In the end, Geoff's favourite town was Bourton on the Water, partly because of the canal running through it and partly because it had the most energy and buzz.  Even though the canal water was only 1 foot deep, it was lined with tons of people both sunbathing beside it and wading through it.  Beth's favourites were Chipping Campden and Painswick, likely because they both felt the most lost in time.  Almost untouched by the new world.  

Although not what we had originally envisioned, it turned out that Chelthenham was the perfect place for us to stay.  It provided the modern amenities we needed (clothes washing and an awesome juice bar!) just steps away from the serenity of the Cotswolds.


Towns Visited:

• Painswick
• Cirencester
• Tetbury
• Chipping Campden
• Broadway
• Stow-on-the-Wold
• Bourbon on the Water
• UpperSlaughter
• Lower Slaughter
• Burford
• Ebrington 

Bristol brought it...

We weren't quite sure what to expect from Bristol.  Traditionally a shipping and  manufacturing town, Bristol has gone through a recent transformation, changing its focus to become a more cultural hub in the UK.

In the end, Bristol was a real highlight for us for many reasons:

• The waterfront has been  revitalized and boasts restaurants, walking paths and modern apartment buildings.   Their boat trips along the river are short but give great insight into Bristol's history and proudly display its innovative architectural updates
• Our hotel - the Hotel Bristol - still wore its industrial exterior but was beautifully renovated inside and ran like a five-star hotel, offering some of the best service we have enjoyed this far.  
• Its Hippodrome offers first-class theatre productions. We enjoyed an evening of Dancing in the Rain, a production that sported incredible dancers, an ambitious set and 12,000 litres of water.  
• It has great restaurants such as Meluha, an Indian fusion restaurant which might be Beth's favourite Indian restaurant to date.
• It offers numerous waking paths, including a hike along the water and up to the Clifton Suspension Bridge that crosses the River Avon and gives spectacular views of the surrounding countryside.
• A tearoom in nearby Beese's that requires a drive down a terrifying unpaved deep-drop road but that served Quorn hot dogs and jacket potatoes that made the drive more than worth it.  

As we checked out and the hotel gave us bottles of water to keep us hydrated for the next stage of our journey, we really felt that Bristol is on the right track!

Oh Bude...

After hearing so much about the beauty of Cornwall and how lovely English seaside towns are, Geoff was very excited to be heading for the northern Cornwall town of Bude. The weather looked like it would be perfect for the stay, the hotel looked attractive and was "steps from the beach",  and we were both looking forward to the sand (a rarity in England) beach set among rugged cliffs (also a rarity in England).

The drive in was lovely, with the Sun beaming down and the landscape getting more and more rugged.

Our hopes began to moderate somewhat as we drove through the town of Bude -the road followed a shallow, fetid, algae-water canal that supposedly was once England's 2nd most important waterway, with cheap wood clapboard surf shops lining the route and more than a dozen ice cream stands selling identical faux ice-cream.

Up ahead was the beach, we could see people walking by with wetsuits on, and families carried blankets and picnic baskets in anticipation of a fun surf-filled day ahead.

As we crested the ridge, there it was. Where everyone was heading. The beach? Wait, that cant be it can it? There was about a mile of sand, strewn with pockets of tidal water, covered in rotting seaweed, and with boats that were hardy (read: cheap) enough that the owners just let them rest on the sea floor when the tide went out.

Dominating the scene was a large parking lot, which featured as the central viewing object from pretty much any angle that was tried.

Beach goers had set themselves up amidst the tidal detritus, spreading their blankets out steps from the parking lot but 100s of yards from the actual water. Had they been there since the tide went out? Surely they wouldn't have wasted the effort of donning a wetsuit if they could barely see the water?

As we pulled up to our hotel, we saw the prize jewel of Bude, the seaside pool. This answered the question of why people were wearing wetsuits. They were wearing them into an ugly concrete pool that was filled with water at high tide, but which was nowhere near the sea during daylight hours.

Perhaps our hotel was "steps from the beach" at high tide, but during the day it was about a 15 minute hike. The hotel was actually quite nicely decorated, but the advertised beach view could only be realized by peering through the windows of the camper vans parked in the omnipresent parking lot.

Our hearts sank as we realized that this is where we would spend our next 4 days. 

Still, in a stoic attempt to make the most of it, we bravely set off for the town's best restaurant, Life's A Beach, which proclaimed that we would be wondering if we were on the Italian Riviera after experiencing their beautiful atmosphere and food.

Well, I think the Italians should consider a defamation suit for such a proclamation. Life's A Beach is a few notches below Wally's Burger Shack. It did have the advantage of being about the only place in town which did not focus its view on the parking lot, but sticky picnic tables built on a concrete escarpment serving whatever happened to be dredged up from the deep-fryer most certainly does not remind me of Portofino.

After giving up on our gross meals, we began the hike to the beach. Perhaps there was a hidden cove somewhere that could inject a little romanticism into this experience? Alas not. The cliffs were indeed beautiful dropping ruggedly into the sea, but it was nigh impossible to get a decent view of this. 

We gave up on the beach (never to return) and instead went in search of the castle, which led to our most pleasant surprise. On our way to the castle we found the unused tennis courts. This at least got us some exercise in the sun. The castle itself was okay, but its small size, refocusing as a mediocre lifeboat museum and sunken position left it worth a 15 minute visit at best.

Having done pretty much everything we could do in town in 3 hours, we headed back to the hotel to get some work done. To shake ourselves out of the funk we had fallen into, we went down at 17:00 to have a drink on the sun terrace overlooking the parking lot. The hotel was out of bitters and clearly could not mix a cocktail, but the setting was decent and we settled in for some liquid happiness.

It was at this point that we realized that the nice looking tapas restaurant at the hotel remained eerily dark and inactive as the dining hour approached. A quick check in with reception confirmed our concern - despite this being a weekend tourist destination, basically every restaurant in town was closed on Sundays! Reception helpfully suggested a pub about 25 miles away, or a tapas place that was a 30 minute walk that could "maybe" take us at 22:00 if we hurried through our meal.

All of this probably sounds a touch negative, but deservedly so. This was a waste of a coastline. No wonder so many Brits invade the Mediterranean beach towns.

Still, we managed to have a good time. The tennis was good, the hotel was comfortable, and we got a lot of work done. Plus, we got to sample authentic Cornish Pasties from "Tasty Pasty". Didn't exactly fulfill our fantasies of suntanning, beach volleyball and beach blanket reading, but at least now we know that we have no desire to fight the traffic hordes into Cornwall!