Long weekend in England

A few pics from a recent long weekend away. We hired a car and drove down into England through the Lakes District. Then continued down to Manchester, and back up via York on our way back to Edinburgh. A stunning part of the UK.

Country road in Northumberland

Church in Jedburgh

Scotland/England border fareeezing!

Low morning sun on barley fields

Misty morning near Hawkeshead, the Lakes District (Beatrix Potter country).

Deciduous tree Windermere

Autumn leaves Windermere

Lake Windermere jetty

Lake Windermere

Part of Hadrians wall near Carlisle

Scotland/England border marker (England on the otherside)

Lake Cottage

Manchester Christmas markets with the Barkers

Manchester

York evening, with ferris wheel in the distance

Edinburgh - The job hunt begins!

From Paris we caught the bus through the chunnel on a car-train to London.  Managed to get into London for the Wimbledon final Murray verus Federer (we watched on TV), the hype around Murray having a shot at the title was ridiculous. As we know he lost and cried like a baby, but I guess that comes with doing so well in such a tough competition.


We are currently in Edinburgh, Scotland looking for work.  The sun is out today and we have a few flats to check out this arvo.  So, at this stage the blog will be put on ice.  We hope you have enjoyed the photos and stories of our Europe travels, we can't speak highly enough of the experience we have had over the last 3 months. 


cya Kat and JJ

Paris - Our french connection

Our last stop before heading back to the UK was the capital city of France, Paris. The city is a tourists dream with so many world famous monuments, buildings and museums.  We spent four days in the city and managed to see a lot including the Arch de Triumph, Champs de Elyee, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Catherdral, Louvre and Moulin Rouge.

In Paris we stayed with our mate Kent from Wellington, who is currently living and working there.  It was fantastic to have someone that knew where all the good local pubs, restaurants and bakeries were.  I'm sure we sampled far more Parisian culture than any regular tourist would dream of - so thanks bro.

Some of the local awesomeness (guided by Kent) we sampled included:

1. An Ethiopian restaurant for dinner - extremely hands on, novel and delicious;

2. A number of awesome suburban bars packed with local Parisians;

3. An impressive taxidermy shop - animals in there included, a tiger, lion, polar bear, giraffe, deer, skunks and a baby elephant;

4. A couple of delicious, extensive bakeries (Boulangeries) and parks for lunch;

5. A live gig - "Other lives" and "Wild Beasts" - (other lives were amazing, wild beasts ok).

Whilst in Paris, we also caught up with Tom, another mate from Wellington. Tom was passing through and is on his very own trip around Europe.  Was great to catch up with him and hit up some of the local goodness including the gig and general tourist sightseeing.

Kent and I having beers in Paris - I even ordered in French!

Arch de Triumph - AKA "the roundabout of doom".

Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel tower

Kat in the Eiffel tower gardens

Cooling off the feet at the Lourve

The bell tower of Notre Dame

View from top of the Notre Dame bell tower, gargoyles and Eiffel tower in the distance

The staircase down from the Notre Dame tower

Mona lisa crowds

Mona

  

Kent and Tom dipping "injera" like pancake

Ethiopian for dinner

Our Ethiopian meal - so gooood!

The Moulin Rouge - Spiritual home of the "Can-can" dance

Lunch in one of the many Paris parks

Moet and Chandon Champagne - Epernay, France

First stop in France was Epernay in the wine region of Champagne.  The famous Moet and Chandon champagne cellars are located in the centre of town, with some 28km of underground cellars.  We joined a tour of the cellars where the guide described the process of making champagne ending with a tasting.  Well worth a visit.

The following day we had to drop off our trusty Peugeot and lug the backpacks once again.  After 2 months of driving we were both a bit sad to see the car go -  we had traveled 8,140km with no breakdowns and no flat tyres  The car was super comfortable with ipod connections, cruise control and a massive boot, superb.  

After all our camping we had gathered quite a good cooking and outdoor living setup.  So unfortunately we were going to have to bin all our gear simply because we wouldn't be able to carry it.  A bunch of young lads had pitched up for the night next to us in the camping ground, so I wandered over and offered up our surplus camping gear...  turns out they were uni students from Ghent in Belgium - cycling around France (8 of them cycling with one mate driving a van with their tents and food etc).  They were super impressed with the offer and gladly accepted all our gear (except the tent which we will keep).  They offered me a beer and were pretty good value - having lots of questions about NZ when they found out where I was from.  A pretty good feeling to hand all our gear on to students rather than binning it. Having been in their position, I knew that the gear would be well used and probably end up in someones flat in Ghent. 

Moet and Chandon

Dom Perignon - Moet and Chandon acquired the vineyards where Dom Perignon Champagne was produced and continued making the champange which is the most expensive in their range 

Champagne maturing in the cellars

A bit of Moet tasting, very nice.

Scarlett Johansson the Moet spokeswoman in the background. The range of bottle sizes in the foreground.  The largest bottle is 20 litres.

The food is ridiculously good - Bruges, Gent and Brussels, Belgium

First stop in Belgium was Bruges. Being a bit of a fan of the black comedy movie "In Bruges" starring Colin Farrell meant this city was a must see.  Bruges had an amazing range of interesting old buildings. The food was also disgustingly delicious - Belgium waffles, fries with mayo, chocolate, garlic mussels and of course the beer!  

Mussels in Bruges

Bruges town square

Belgian chocolate shop

Bruges canals

Time for a beer...

A showcase/beercase of Belgiums finest

Bruges town square

Bruges canals at night

More canals

Canals in Ghent

We moved on to Brussels where the TomTom directed us to the middle of the city to a "campground" that didn't exist.  It did mean that we got to see a lot of the city sights by car and after navigating our way out of the CBD we ended up camping in a little village nearby called Grimbergen.  Conveniently, we stumbled across a garden music festival in Brussels in the Palace Gardens where a local band belted out a good range of covers we all know.  The park had big sculptures of all the famous Belgian foods - waffles, mussels, beer, chocolate,  brussel sprouts, fries with mayo - I didn't realise there were so many!

Waffles with 101 different toppings

Mannequin Pis - one of the big tourist attractions apparently?? (a statue of a little boy having a pee)

 Church and gardens in Brussels

Street Art - Pommes frites in the park

 Chocolate!

Brussel sprouts -Yuk (kat), yum (JJ)

The final of EURO 2012 between Spain and Italy was played live when we were in Brussels.  After Spain smashed Italy 4-0 we quickly left the Italian pizzeria we were watching the game in and found Spain supporters flooding the streets.  In the chaos we ended up heading the wrong way to our bus home (the last bus) and missed it...  (Despite a local bar owner being a good samaritan grabbing the keys to his 2012 mini and driving us towards the bus station until the swarm of Spaniards celebrating their win blocked the road).  So we ended up having to hail a taxi to get back to our campground out of town.  

The end of a long day - possibly too casual hence missing the last bus.