Category: Travelling Tales

A long weekend in Copenhagen

On the Thursday my dad kindly drove us to Heathrow, where we stayed overnight in a hotel as our flight was at 7am, which even staying in the airport meant a lovely 4.45am wake up. Once we landed, we got the train to the station by our hotel (the 2 day ticket we had bought in advance covered the airport too) and amazingly could check in (we thought we would be dropping off our bags and coming back later), so we put on sun cream and then headed out to explore. (This was also a relief to me because in my infinite wisdom I had packed the charging anchor thing but only with the continental plug, forgetting that we were in a UK hotel on the Thursday night, and this would usually be OK but I wanted to listen to some podcasts on the plane and also needed my phone for the text message train ticket- as soon as I realised I turned it off but I’d used it lots in the day for podcasts/ phone calls, and it kept on crashing anyway which used more battery to turn back on again so it meant I could charge it a bit in the hotel before we went out).

It was baking hot. I don’t want to sound like a broken record here, but like the rest of Europe it was having a bit of a heatwave.

We had to go about 4 stops on the metro (no AC on there of course as this weather is rather unusual) to the centre, where we walked around, saw the pretty colourful houses by the water (and then the same ones in the Lego store).

The centre is very easily walkable, although you can hire bikes too. We found a shop by Tivoli gardens selling amazing looking vegan ice creams, so I had the most refreshing raspberry ice cream covered in dark chocolate (on a stick, like a magnum, which turned into a race against time as it melted very quickly!).

After looking at the impressive buildings/ palaces (including seeing the poor guards marching back and forwards looking blisteringly lot) we walked out to see the Little Mermaid statue. The last time we were in Copenhagen was several years ago in December where it was the total opposite- lots of rain, freezing cold and getting dark early. This time the sea breeze was lovely and cooling so we stayed there for a while, being amused by the lengths some people were going to to get their selfie by her.

I opted for a photo from the path instead- much safer!

To escape the heat we found a lovely park to sit in for a while, and then headed back to the centre. We had re-watched the Copenhagen Travel Man episode, and had put the Round Tower on our list of things to do, but we thought we would be closer to it on the Saturday. However, we got to the end of a street and it was right in front of us, so we went up it. It was built in the 17th century as an observatory, and according to Travel Man, has a sloping spiral floor instead of steps so the king could ride his horse to the top. It only cost 25K (around £3 each), and as well as stunning views across the city, had an art gallery inside.

After that it was time to head back to the hotel- 28,000 steps isn’t bad for a day of sightseeing! We did try and see the blood moon, but it was too low in the sky.

By the lift in the hotel it had this table with mini towels and also lemon iced water, although sadly when I got back from parkrun the water had run out…

On Saturday after I did the parkrun, we went out for a breakfast of cinnamon rolls before heading into the centre again, this time heading towards the botanical gardens. It was even hotter than Friday, so we spent a while sitting in the shade, people and duck watching.

After walking around some more of the palaces and big buildings, we headed to a big park (the King’s garden)- full of hen parties and people chilling out in the shade.

Then we walked back to Tivoli gardens- we didn’t go in there as we went last time, but outside was a new sort of food court (much nicer than a shopping centre one) with all sorts of food stalls- pizza places, salad bars, bakeries, bars- you could then sit outside with views into Tivoli gardens. I must have spent half an hour wandering around choosing what to have as there were so many options.

In the end the need for something salty won over, so I opted for a grilled avocado and black bean sandwich, and I didn’t even know it came with pickles! The best bit of a veggie burger is the pickles so I was very excited to see this big pile. Andy got a burger and some salt and vinegar chips for us to share, and we sat outside enjoying the atmosphere. We’d seen a tasty looking cake in one of the bakeries, and after wondering whether we should get it as a take away decided it wouldn’t hold up to the heat, so shared a slice- it was some sort of raspberry open tart with dark chocolate and marzipan crumbles, served cold from the fridge which sounds weird but it was perfect.

Slightly less walking with 29,000 steps in total (which included my parkrun).

On Sunday we had to be at the airport early in the afternoon, so we walked up to the park near our hotel (the one that I had been to for parkrun) and walked around there for a while.

During parkrun I had seen a fenced off area with those special gates that are on a lean so always close, and wondered what was inside. My question was answered as we came across some Highland coos!

We also found a lake/reservoir, and sat for a while watching a heron catch some fish. It was all very peaceful.

It was such a great place to revisit in the summer with so many parks. The metro system was easy to navigate (even for me), the city is so clean and everyone is so helpful there. Of course parkrun was a bit of a bonus too, but it has reminded me how much I love this part of the world- Scandinavia/ Iceland…

Did you see the blood moon? Where do you like to go on weekend breaks? Do you like to watch Travel Man?

Amager Fælled parkrun! Danish parkrun tourism!

I’ll get to the rest of Copenhagen in another post (we arrived early on Friday morning and came back on Sunday). We stayed a few metro stops from the city centre (the Crowne Plaze Towers hotel opposite Ørestad station and right by the huge Field’s shopping mall), handily placed around 3km from the start of Amager Fælled parkrun.  The directions looked fairly simple as all I had to do was either run up the straight road and then turn left into the park, or get off at the university metro stop and head into the park.

(Our hotel was by the mall on the map so you can see it looked relatively simple). It was super hot so in the end I decided to get the metro, although this added to the stress a bit (not because of navigating the metro, as that was super simple with either a north or south-going metro, every 5 or so minutes) but because my phone was playing up and not always unlocking and the metro ticket was a 48 hour pass purchased online, so if I had been asked for a ticket I would have needed to show the text message.

Anyway, I thought I had prepared well, by emailing myself a link to the map (on the parkrun course page, if you look at the map, you can select the “share” icon and email it to yourself, which means when you then open the map via the link on your phone, both the  parkrun route and your location show up), but my phone then started zooming out so much that I could see the whole of Europe on my screen- argh! I’d read that it was very much a last-minute parkrun, in that people would appear at 8.55 and set it up. Fine, but if I was in the wrong part of the park that  would be no good. It wasn’t a flat grassy park where you could see across, it was full of bushes and trees, with paths between them, meaning no last minute dashes across to the right place.

The entrance to the park

Thankfully as I was wandering in, clearly looking confused and probably talking to myself, a runner overtook me, turned and saw my top, and pointed the way for me. I waved a thanks to her, as she then turned off left, but had indicated that I needed to go straight on. A little later I came across a cross-roads of paths, and could not decide (and again the phone wasn’t working), but after seeing a few people up ahead decided to go that way. As I got closer to the group of people, one person came up to me (seeing my parkrun apricot top I suppose) and asked me if this was where it started.  I admitted that I didn’t know, and she told me it was a lot of English tourists plus some locals that were new to parkrun, so no-one knew so far where the start was. Fingers crossed we were in the right place! At around 8.50 the crowd of people moved a little further down the track to a clearing, where someone got out a tarp (for water bottles etc) and someone else put down cones for the finish funnel- phew!

The briefing at the start

The run briefing began in Danish, and seeing as all I can remember from my time in Denmark was how to count to ten, I worked out the 5k, 2 laps part, and then there were some claps (someone waved so we knew that was a milestone of some sort). A guy sidled over and said to me and someone else that he would translate for us if they said anything important, but then the guy doing the briefing switched to English and said “any tourists here today? From England?” Lots of people put their hands up, and then one lady said she was from Australia. “You win” he told her. He explained that there would not be marshals out on the course, but it was signposted and you could just follow the person in front. He then quickly ran through the route, told us it was the first parkrun outside of the UK and was coming up to being 10 years old, before showing us to the start line (back along the path where we first waited). A line had been created (it looked like flour) on the floor to show the start line, and then it was a quick countdown and we were off.

From their facebook page- one of the volunteers must know a short cut as he was waiting on the first lap with his camera taking pictures of everyone.

It was absolutely baking. On Friday the temperature had got to over 30C, and the Saturday was meant to peak at 29, but there was little shade and a breeze only appeared in a couple of places.

I had seen on the results that it was a fairly speedy one, with final finishers coming in before 40 minutes, and I think I tried to keep up with the pack at first but it soon thinned out and I ended up mainly by myself. I ran behind this guy in the blue top (you can see a bit of him in the photo) and it had 50 and the parkrun logo on it. I wondered for a while if the milestone tops were a different colour in Denmark, and then realised that it seemed the same shade as the 500 top, so perhaps one of the 0’s came off. However when I looked at the results there was no-one with that many runs (438 was the highest I found) so I am not sure. Any ideas?

I enjoyed running the route- every now and then you had to look out for arrows on the floor and at one point during the second lap (when we were all further apart) I did wonder if I had missed an arrow, but then I noticed the fenced off field and remembered running by it before. When I ran past the start/finish area on my first lap, there were loads of people cheering (RD/ timer/ scanners etc)- they had these little hand held clapper things and were cheering in both English and Danish, including the lovely but very not true chant of “you look beautiful”.

Follow the arrows…

I was so hot by the end- my face seems to radiate the heat- so I wasn’t really putting in a fast finish. It was one of my highest placings though (47/67 runners- it was my 6th best finishing position). As soon as I finished I got my barcode scanned. The lady told me she was very happy that my wrist band scanned, and I told her I had a backup on me too. She showed me a notepad, and explained that they were ready for anything. As I stood in the shade to cool down, she was writing down the barcode for someone who had it up on their phone (DFYB people).

Although there was no cafe nearby, people were hanging around, sitting in the small patches of shade and cheering everyone else in. I chatted briefly to the lady who came up to me at the start (and her husband)- they were from Cumbria and here on holiday. I was surprised to see in the results that they had only done a couple of parkruns before this one as when I was chatting to the lady she was raving about how brilliant parkrun was (I’m not saying you can’t love it from the start, but seeking one out on holiday seems like something you would do once Saturday morning is always a parkrunday for you).

Anyway, I was hot and thirsty so I headed back to the metro, getting back to the hotel for about 10am. I had lots of water and a cool shower and then we headed to the shopping centre to get a cinnamon roll for breakfast- what else can you do in Denmark?

That was my 160th run, a nice number to do my 3rd country with.

I do like the badges on the tourist running challenges– now I have a new flag!

Where would your ideal parkrun holiday be?  They are in so many countries now- how about Germany combined with a Christmas market trip? Or they posted about a potential NYD double with Copenhagen and then Malmo…

Sunny Scotland!

For half term we headed up to Scotland for a bit of a whistle-stop tour. We could not have been any luckier with the weather. My theory is that if you go to Scotland (or the Lake District, or pretty much anywhere north of where we live) then if you get rain, then that’s what you expected, and anything better is a bonus. After work on Friday we had dinner, packed up the car and headed up north.

Andy had diligently researched hotels close to parkruns – originally we were going to stay in Leeds on the Friday night so I could go to Temple Newsam, but our route in Scotland changed so we stayed in Warrington. A few weeks ago they announced on their facebook page that the event wouldn’t go ahead on Saturday due to a community event taking part in the park- annoying, but I was glad I knew in advance. It meant we set off fairly early the next morning. We stopped in Sizergh castle (a NT place) to stretch our legs and of course sample some cake- we shared a piece of sticky toffee cake (a local speciality apparently) and it was so good although I think if you had a piece to yourself the sugar crash would be epic.

I enjoyed watching the goslings, and we had a good wander around the grounds before heading to Glasgow.

All the sunshine!

It was such gorgeous weather, and so after dropping off our bags we walked through the town centre out to one of the parks (Glasgow Green) and along by the river. I was also very excited to find that the Hotel Chocolat had a cafe, so we had to share a hazelnut hot chocolate.

On the Sunday morning I went on a run, to the same park,enjoying the somewhat quieter streets.

After breakfast we walked along the river in the opposite direction to where we went on Saturday, then drove to the botanical gardens for a walk and picnic lunch. The park was rammed!

Then it was time to head off to Loch Lomond- another place crowded with people out enjoying the spectacular sunshine.

We walked along the lake for a bit, and then also through a loop in some woodland.

Our hotel was on the shore of the loch with more amazing views. It was light until so late in the evening too.

On Monday we had a longer drive to Inverness. We broke it up by stopping in Aviemore for lunch- we’d been to the amazing Mountain Cafe last year (possibly the same day) so we were keen to go there again. I had a delicious falafel and hummus sandwich, but the slices of bread were about a thick as two normal pieces of bread- we didn’t need dinner that day!

We did however have room to share a piece of caramel shortbread- it had the thickest caramel ever- so good.

One of my friends lives in Inverness, so I had asked her for recomendations- she told us about the Ness Island Walks, basically paths linked by bridges going over the river, up to the town. Again, beautiful weather and such a fantastic place for an evening walk.

On Tuesday we had arranged to meet up with my friend and her two little children. We went to middle school together, and by a weird coincidence moved up to Scotland the same week that my family moved to St Albans. Despite only knowing each other for three and a half years, we kept in touch and often used to visit each other in the holidays, although as we have got older it has become harder to meet up. We had arranged to meet in Nairn (apparently the Brighton of the north) but the sea mist (I forget the Scottish word for it) had rolled in, so after a walk up and down the prom, we headed to Logie Steading, a farm with a cafe, shops and art gallery in the old stables, next to a river with lots of marked footpaths, where we had lunch in the cafe, a long walk by the river to the canyon, and then back to the cafe for ice cream. It was so lovely to catch up- of course we are in touch via social media and all of that, but in person it is different.

From there we drove to Aberdeen, although we didn’t end up seeing much of the town. We parked in the centre and went for dinner, but our hotel was on the outskirts and as we were headed to Edinburgh the next day, we didn’t go back into the centre in the morning.

In Edinburgh we visited the botanical gardens before heading to the centre. It was a bit overcast that day, but still warm.

As it was rather overcast, of course we went to the Hotel Chocolat cafe, this time for a mint one (we shared a large each time but I am very sure that the Edinburgh large was bigger than the Glasgow large).

On Wednesday morning I had a run in Edinburgh- stupidly I was remembering my run in Glasgow, thinking I’d be out before it got busy, but of course forgetting it was a work day. The run had a lot of stop-starts as I had to wait to cross roads, but I still managed to do around 4 miles looping around the city centre. It was so misty that morning that I could hardly see the castle, although it did clear during the morning.

Then it was time for my favourite- breakfast (well, brunch really by the time I’d had a shower, we’d checked out and left our bags in the car and walked there..) at Loudon’s.

I love French toast, and so of course had to have it- I went for banana, salted caramel and toasted coconut. They do special blends of tea too, so I had one with black tea, cocoa nibs and coconut, which was delicious.

After a final walk around the park, it was time to head south and leave Scotland behind. We stopped off in Alnwick for a bit of a walk, and then drove to Newscastle for our penultimate stop.

The blue skies were out in force, and it was enjoyable to wander around by the river, remembering when we were last here (for the Great North Run).

I’ll save our final stop for another blog post as it involved some parkrun tourism.

Have you ever been to Scotland? I suppose having a friend living there meant I had a reason to visit, but I have been a fair few times. It always surprises me when people haven’t been when it’s so close (and easy with options for going by plane, rail, even bus).

Cream teas and not such a good cinema trip

Last Saturday (the first one of half term) we had to drive to Exeter and were originally going to visit Stourhead- the leaves at this time of year are meant to be amazing- but with storm Brian on the way they had closed the gardens, so we went to Montacute house instead. It had a cool wobbly hedge, and some nice gardens to wander through.

The traffic was pretty bad, so we headed into Exeter after that for a mooch around the town and dinner at Bill’s before going to our hotel, which was out in the middle of nowhere it seemed (single track roads to get there- we had some air miles which were going to expire and we could use them for the hotel- I don’t think we would have chosen it otherwise as it was a bit remote).

On Sunday we were up early to drive to the Eden project.

It was such a sunny day when we arrived.

It was really interesting- there are these huge domes that contain plants from different parts of the world- we spent ages in the rainforest one. You could even walk up these wobbly stairs suspended across the roof to get to the very top (apparently a rainforest canopy walkway)- it was boiling up there! As it was half term they had some Roald Dahl themed activities going on, like a show about how to spot a real witch, but there was enough for us too. The food choices were not easy to find- they were a bit spread out and didn’t all seem open all the time- once I had eaten my (fairly nice but nothing special) beetroot and something wrap, I found the burrito stall which could have tempted me as it was cold. All the stands sold Pukka tea so I had a lovely lemon, ginger and honey tea to warm up with.

I also bought a few bits in the shop including ginger muscle rub (it warms as you rub it in) and lemongrass hand cream.

One of the exhibits was closed over the winter, and by the afternoon we felt we had seen it all, so we drove back via another National Trust place (Lanhydrock).

We had a walk around the huge grounds (filled with cows), walked through the house as quickly as is polite, and then went for a cream tea. I don’t usually go for cream with a scone (I usually go for just jam) but I had a little cream on top and it was actually really nice. I might have been converted. Maybe it’s a different type of cream?

Then we headed back to Exeter- we had cinema tickets that would expire, and the only thing that was on at that time (well apart from It which I do not want to see) was a film called Happy Death Day, which we thought might be funny. It was basically Groundhog day crossed with Scream. I am not a horror fan, but I don’t mind thrillers or black comedies (I just close my eyes in the tense bits)- this however, was just terrible. It made me feel so old-it was aimed at teenagers for sure. Plus the bits that were repeated were all terrible lines, so you had to listen to the same awful dialogue over and over. At least it was free (and out of the rain!). Afterwards we went to Pizza Express before heading back to the hotel- a busy day.

On Monday we made it to Stourhead- it really was beautiful there and well worth a stop. We’d bought some lunch to take with us and although it rained on the walk around the lake, it eased off for a bit so we could sit outside and enjoy our picnic before driving to the next hotel. We’d booked a spa hotel (Bowood, near to Chippenham- a free night from Hotel.com), and the spa was available for use for hotel guests, so after checking in we headed straight down. The pool felt a bit cold, so both of us (with incorrect logic) thought “we’ll warm up in the steam room first, and then swim”- no, that doesn’t work! I could only stand the steam room for a few minutes, and then of course when we got into the pool it felt freezing! After swimming for a bit, we used the sauna and the jacuzzi (which was extremely violent) before going for a final (and of course cold) swim. The pool area had huge windows overlooking the hotel grounds and golf course, so it did feel relaxing. They did treatments such as massages, but I’d had one on Friday so we just used the normal facilities. The hotel was not near a town, but it had a few options for dinner so we ended up in the Brasserie.

The next morning we had breakfast in the same place and then drove to Windsor to break up the journey home (we know a nice tea room in a garden centre…). As we had mainly sat in the car that day we walked the long way into town- it was about 4 and a half miles in the end- before braving the unpacking. Why does unpacking take so much longer than packing?

Are you a fan of a cream tea? Do you like using a steam room or sauna? Have you been to the Eden project? Apparently there’s a parkrun starting there soon, although I can’t work out where the course would be. What is the worst film you have seen at the cinema? 

A week in France

Last week we got took the car on the tunnel (something I had never done before) and drove to the Loire Valley in France for a week in a self catering cottage/gite.

Fun fact- I also learnt how to make photo collages. So, look forward to seeing many of those over the next few weeks!

We left on Friday night and stayed right by the tunnel in France, as we got a very late train (11pm or something)- we were toying between staying there or nearer to Rouen, to break the journey up a bit, but in the end decided that a 2 hour drive would not be the best at that time of night. I then found out that a parkrun had just started there- it was so tempting to change our plans but as Andy was driving it wasn’t really fair on him. I took my running things with me as I knew I would have time to run while I was there- I’ll save that for a separate post though.

The drive to our gite took up most of Saturday- we had a brief stop to pick up some lunch (and to use the toilets in Ikea), and another brief stop later on to eat lunch, but it took us pretty much from 9am-5pm to get there.

On Sunday we had a wander around the town near to us (Chinon)- there was an antiques market going on by the river so we spent a while looking around before walking up to the castle. Later we had a walk along a cycle path (although cars did drive down it)- great for me to scope out an easy running route.

On Monday our first chateau visit was to Villandry- you could pay for just the gardens and they were very impressive. It was baking hot there but we spent a few hours walking around and admiring the views and the beautiful plants- some inspiration for our garden at home! The fruits and vegetables were grown in geometrical shapes, and each bed had a map so you could see what was being grown in each section.

Of course a visit to France could not be without croissants- I was looking forward to almond chocolate ones, but we only found these once in a little bakery in the town, and then on our final day. The owners of the gite also made their own jam, and we were given a couple of jars as a welcome- I very much enjoyed the strawberry vanilla jam, and I brought home the plum with juniper berries. They did all sorts including strawberry bergamot which sounded amazing. The shops were full of delicious fresh fruits- I ate a lot of peaches and nectarines that week, and one say we treated ourselves to a mango.

On Tuesday we stayed around the gite for the day- I’d been on a run and after breakfast I sat in the garden and let my hair dry (I didn’t need to use a hairdryer for the whole week as it was so warm) and read- I managed to finish one book, read another one and then start a third during that week so I read a lot! There was a pool so Andy did a bit of swimming but I was happy enough relaxing in the garden.

On Wednesday we had decided to visit a couple of chateau that were further away- the first one was about a 90 minute drive.

Chambord (bottom left) was more like a palace- it was huge and rammed with tourists. It was a bit like Versailles – a palace built for the royal family but hardly ever used as they traveled about. We shuffled through the rooms and saw more beds and tapestries than I have before in my life. It did have some amazing architecture- a double helix staircase and some very amazing turrets, but I much preferred being outside so we had a walk around the gardens afterwards. We then headed to Chenonceau which was very impressive- the building spanned a river with a ballroom being the room on the first floor over the water. Interestingly the river was the border between occupied France during WW2, so it was used to smuggle people out. The day was fairly overcast when we left, but between the two places the clouds disappeared and so we had a very hot walk around the beautiful gardens there too.

On Thursday we headed to a chateau very close to Chinon (Chateau du Rivau) which was possibly my favourite. It was really quirky, with  sculptures everywhere (including a hole mole coming out of a mole-hill at the castle entrance, plus giant wellies and watering cans in the garden). It had lots aimed at children such as flower fairy gardens (remember those?? I used to love the flower fairies) and had some really amazing sculpture gardens with animals made using garden equipment- my favourite was a peacock where the tail was made with spades and rakes.

On Friday we decided to stay closer to home- after popping to the shops for some lunch we drove out to a different town (Saumur- a town by the river with a chateau perched on a hill) for a little mooch around we had another walk along the cycle way.

We made full use of the kitchen in the gite and always had dinner there (we are doing up our living room and just had a wood burner installed so we are on a bit of an economy drive). I was very excited to find proper iced tea for sale (not just iced tea flavour which is what things usually are). We tried a few (mint, lemon and green tea) but the black tea with peach won- yes it did have some added sugar, but only a teeny bit- it was 94% black tea with sugar and peach juice concentrate and it tasted like proper brewed iced tea.

I was very excited to have a chocolate almond croissant too- alongside a huge yellow nectarine and some hot tea it made the perfect breakfast.

On Saturday we were up early to check out and drive to Giverny, where Monet’s garden is (tip- book online as the queue is massive otherwise as it seemed like a “one in, one out” policy too).

It was beautiful there- of course it had the huge lily pond with everyone trying to take selfies and photos on the bridges, but the more formal gardens were amazing with long rows of flowers- one row would be yellows and oranges, another blues, another purple. We then headed to a supermarket to load up on goodies to bring home (coffee and wine for our parents, jam and chocolate for us) before a night in a hotel. We had about 2 1/2 hours of driving to get back to the tunnel, so we got up early and were on the road before 7.30. Apart from a brief panic in Rouen (a tunnel was closed and no diversion was signed but thanks to google maps we were back on track) the journey was smooth and we managed to get on an earlier train too. We’d bought some chocolate almond croissants the day before and these were a welcome breakfast once we were aboard the train.

It was a very different type of holiday to the one we usually go for- we would rarely stay more than a couple of nights in one place usually- but it was really relaxing without me feeling like I had cabin fever!

What sort of holiday do you like best?  Have you ever been on the tunnel before? I’d only been in the Eurostar as when I was little we would always get the ferry when driving to anywhere on the continent. It was so easy to not even need to pack properly but just throw it all in the boot with no worries about the amounts of liquids or the weight of anything.