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Post by Big Blue on Jul 24, 2024 14:12:49 GMT
Not worth charging away from home normally as the cost/benefit isn't worth it, but we had a couple of nights at the New York Marvel hotel in Disney and they had c20 EV chargers, all FOC with no time limit] We really are going to have to stop planning the same stuff. We’re stopping at Disney on the way home in September - Newport Bay Hotel this year. I’ll steal a charger point 😁 Booked dinners and lunches last night: madness. Some restaurants are already unavailable and it’s six weeks time!
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Post by Martin on Jul 24, 2024 15:57:50 GMT
Great minds and all that! I assume it’s the same deal re chargers at the other hotels.
It’s going to be busier in 6 weeks than it was last week.
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Post by PG on Aug 8, 2024 14:00:10 GMT
I've not done a road trip for quite a while. Too long really. The most epic one for us was our 14 day 2,000 mile US road trip around the canyons (Grand, Bryce, Zion) and related national parks, starting and ending in Denver. It makes me old to realise that was 28 years ago!
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Post by Big Blue on Aug 8, 2024 21:23:21 GMT
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Post by Alex on Aug 9, 2024 5:53:32 GMT
We're finally having our first holiday since 2021 with a few days down in Brixham. Our youngest daughter has a lot of mental health issues and hasn't been able to stay overnight away from home for some time and our last holiday was an utter disaster with her refusing to leave accommodation for most of it. Thankfully we're in a much better place with her now and we'll have a bit better time of it with her.
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Post by Martin on Aug 9, 2024 6:43:13 GMT
We're finally having our first holiday since 2021 with a few days down in Brixham. Our youngest daughter has a lot of mental health issues and hasn't been able to stay overnight away from home for some time and our last holiday was an utter disaster with her refusing to leave accommodation for most of it. Thankfully we're in a much better place with her now and we'll have a bit better time of it with her. Hope it goes well Alex, enjoy!
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Post by Roadrunner on Aug 9, 2024 8:07:25 GMT
We're finally having our first holiday since 2021 with a few days down in Brixham. Our youngest daughter has a lot of mental health issues and hasn't been able to stay overnight away from home for some time and our last holiday was an utter disaster with her refusing to leave accommodation for most of it. Thankfully we're in a much better place with her now and we'll have a bit better time of it with her. I do like Brixham. There are some good seafood restaurants there. Or there were when I was last there. Enjoy!
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Post by Boxer6 on Aug 9, 2024 8:49:03 GMT
We're finally having our first holiday since 2021 with a few days down in Brixham. Our youngest daughter has a lot of mental health issues and hasn't been able to stay overnight away from home for some time and our last holiday was an utter disaster with her refusing to leave accommodation for most of it. Thankfully we're in a much better place with her now and we'll have a bit better time of it with her. Hope you all have a pleasant stay Alex. And that there aren't too many bad drivers getting in the way down there!!
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Post by LandieMark on Aug 9, 2024 9:14:46 GMT
Enjoy Brixham. We visited in 2021 when we had a week based in Torquay.
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Post by PG on Aug 9, 2024 9:32:42 GMT
Hope you have a great time Alex.
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Post by Big Blue on Aug 9, 2024 9:33:50 GMT
We're finally having our first holiday since 2021 with a few days down in Brixham. Our youngest daughter has a lot of mental health issues and hasn't been able to stay overnight away from home for some time and our last holiday was an utter disaster with her refusing to leave accommodation for most of it. Thankfully we're in a much better place with her now and we'll have a bit better time of it with her. Enjoy Brixham. We had a lovely time when we stayed there a couple of years ago.
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Post by Alex on Aug 9, 2024 17:23:47 GMT
Thanks all. Typically with traffic heading West for the weekend it's taken 7hrs to do a journey that Google maps said would take 5 although we did stop in Andover for an hour halfway. Sticking to the holiday park restaurant tonight but fish and chips by the harbour is calling out to me. We're at the far end of the holiday park right by the South Coast path so I'll be heading for a good walk in the morning before everyone else gets up!
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Post by bryan on Aug 12, 2024 5:05:09 GMT
We're finally having our first holiday since 2021 with a few days down in Brixham. Our youngest daughter has a lot of mental health issues and hasn't been able to stay overnight away from home for some time and our last holiday was an utter disaster with her refusing to leave accommodation for most of it. Thankfully we're in a much better place with her now and we'll have a bit better time of it with her. Hope you have a great time and she enjoys the seals in the harbour. Good to hear she is in a better place
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Post by Roadrunner on Aug 12, 2024 17:18:13 GMT
We have arrived at our first destination. Normandy for a few days before heading further south. ![](https://i.ibb.co/1z8W2XS/20240812-180850.jpg)
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Post by PG on Aug 12, 2024 20:39:04 GMT
Looks an amazing house that! Although the bushes by the door could do with a trim ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/smiley.png) Well in a first for a while we've actually got two holidays - well short breaks - booked and ready to go before the end of the year. 3 nights near Devizes in September, as we want to visit Stonehenge, then 2 nights in Oxford in December to see Blenheim's Christmas extravaganza.
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Post by Big Blue on Aug 13, 2024 5:32:11 GMT
![](https://i.ibb.co/H213NKm/IMG-1659.jpg) View from yet another stop.
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Post by Roadrunner on Aug 17, 2024 20:14:55 GMT
After eight hours of mainly good driving, but two big traffic jams, we have arrived at our house in the Dordogne. 99% of the time, driving in France is an absolute pleasure. Everybody uses their indicators all of the time, even on roundabouts. Their motorway services are crap, having barely half the number of parking spaces and one fifth of the number of lavatories required. They do, however, know how to do a nice house in a rural, edge of village location. ![](https://i.ibb.co/bsHGr8p/20240817-194010.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/89NYfFN/20240817-194052.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/brwCfmr/20240817-194003.jpg)
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Post by Big Blue on Aug 18, 2024 9:08:47 GMT
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Post by Big Blue on Aug 22, 2024 13:45:18 GMT
Right. Another update with some added amusement. We decided to have a beach day and a few years ago we had a day on a stretch of the beach in the bay of St Tropez - Plage de Pampelonne in Ramatuelle. W2.1 decided that the nice sand dune beach was the place for us. Having set up our patch with a couple of chairs, a sand proof mat, applied sun cream etc. we surveyed our surroundings. I won’t post any pictures as it would likely violate the rules as my elder daughter announced that there were a lot of naked people about. Fair enough: St Tropez renowned for that sort of thing however whilst surveying the area to see how I measured up against the other (mainly homosexual) men I turned to get a face full of well manicured early 40s gash from the family to our left. I was glad I had invested in reactolite lenses this summer! Another aspect of this stretch of the beach was that the sun lounger section, where you pay through the eyes for a wooden bed and yet more for cheap warehouse-outlet champagne, was in the part piled high with seaweed. We laughed at the tourists sitting there as we strolled the beach for ices. Not as much as the two Spanish lads who saw it was €3.50 for a can of Heineken and walked away. Anyway, that little adventure over the girls and W2.1 advised that they were hungry as we left the car park. A quick search of the sat nav and we stopped to eat in the village of Gassin. Now we were straight off the beach, dressed in beach clothes and looking like a group of day tripping holiday makers. Which we were. However this Gassin place is the kind of place frequented by people who pay to sit on a sunlounger drinking cheap warehouse-outlet champagne who pretentiously dress up to the nines for dinner in a holiday village. Our waiter was happy to have normal holiday makers to serve as opposed to loud voiced urban wimmin who have children called Tarquin. It was a very pretty village, however, and the food we had was exceptional, proving the point made by a French residing engineer friend of mine. French food is either £50 per person melt in the mouth lovelines or steak et frites with no in between option. Gratuitous shot across the gulf. ![](https://i.ibb.co/j3mrdmN/IMG-1718.jpg)
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Post by Martin on Aug 22, 2024 14:36:28 GMT
Didn’t you notice when you were there last time?!
We’re back to going away in school holidays, as my youngest starts in September. August flights have started to open up so there’s some more serious thinking going on, which I know is rather early for some people! Top two options are a nice villa on a Greek island or Singapore/Bali. Greece because aa we know (and have seen on this thread), there are some lovely places and we ended up spending rather more than planned on the February 25 break…but you only live once…. Bali because we love the Far East, Lindsay hasn’t been before (it’s on her bucket list), July/August is a good time to visit and as a bonus, we both love Singapore. If I was to put money on it, I think we’ll end up going for Bali ,I just need to get over the flight costs.
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Post by Big Blue on Aug 22, 2024 16:55:38 GMT
Didn’t you notice when you were there last time?! Different section last time out. It’s 4.5km long. (The beach, not the combined gentlmens lengths on display)
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Post by Roadrunner on Aug 22, 2024 20:09:22 GMT
Ha! Reminds me of the Dune de Pilat beach we went to when I was a teenager. I can still picture the French mademoiselles playing with the beach ball on the edge of the water...
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Post by PetrolEd on Aug 25, 2024 14:47:06 GMT
Didn’t you notice when you were there last time?! We’re back to going away in school holidays, as my youngest starts in September. August flights have started to open up so there’s some more serious thinking going on, which I know is rather early for some people! Top two options are a nice villa on a Greek island or Singapore/Bali. Greece because aa we know (and have seen on this thread), there are some lovely places and we ended up spending rather more than planned on the February 25 break…but you only live once…. Bali because we love the Far East, Lindsay hasn’t been before (it’s on her bucket list), July/August is a good time to visit and as a bonus, we both love Singapore. If I was to put money on it, I think we’ll end up going for Bali ,I just need to get over the flight costs. Just come back from 2 weeks in Kefalonia staying in Fiskardo. It’s bloody lovely the Greek islands and we tend to go every year but to different places. One thing I have noticed is that the large 50m boats are starting to turn up which is always the start of these places being ruined. I which they’d stick to Mykonos or anywhere else in the med. Greek islands should be about keeping it simple.
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Post by PG on Aug 28, 2024 8:09:34 GMT
.... nice villa on a Greek island ... Just come back from 2 weeks in Kefalonia staying in Fiskardo. It’s bloody lovely the Greek islands and we tend to go every year but to different places. One thing I have noticed is that the large 50m boats are starting to turn up which is always the start of these places being ruined. I which they’d stick to Mykonos or anywhere else in the med. Greek islands should be about keeping it simple. Couldn't agree more. I went to Santorini almost 40 years ago. No cruise ships, some villas, small apartment blocks and small hotels. Pretty cheap. It was beautiful. Now it looks like the gateway to hell, unless you can afford to stay in a mega-mega-mega expensive boutique hotel.
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Post by LandieMark on Aug 28, 2024 12:32:48 GMT
We stayed in a small hotel in Pyrgos which was unspoilt. The rest of the island was beseiged with cruise ships and the coaches.
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 30, 2024 12:10:34 GMT
Just come back from 2 weeks in Kefalonia staying in Fiskardo. It’s bloody lovely the Greek islands and we tend to go every year but to different places. One thing I have noticed is that the large 50m boats are starting to turn up which is always the start of these places being ruined. I which they’d stick to Mykonos or anywhere else in the med. Greek islands should be about keeping it simple. Couldn't agree more. I went to Santorini almost 40 years ago. No cruise ships, some villas, small apartment blocks and small hotels. Pretty cheap. It was beautiful. Now it looks like the gateway to hell, unless you can afford to stay in a mega-mega-mega expensive boutique hotel. We stayed on the very unspoilt Dodecanese island of Astypalaia last year which I loved. Much more than Kos, where we also stayed en route to Astypalaia and back again (you either transit via Athens with second leg on a small ATR turboprop, or fly direct to Kos and then take a seacat ferry). Kos was actually perfectly fine, but Astypalaia was magical. Same friends we went with last year went this year to Paxos and Santorini. We were invited to join again but couldn't this year for family reasons. They've come back raving about Santorini and insisting that we all go back there next year. They are not the types for mega-mega all-inclusive hotels or anything overly chi-chi. I must say I was quite surprised as I had Santorini pegged as "to be avoided except for out of season".
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Post by racingteatray on Aug 30, 2024 12:32:02 GMT
We've just done two weeks based at our place in Italy, interspersed with a weekend at the beginning in Venice (for a friend's birthday bash), four days down in Monopoli (Puglia) staying with a cousin of my wife, and a trip earlier this week to Milan for a family funeral. Car has been racking on the miles - at least 2,000 this month I should think.
Managed to fit in a visit to Matera as it's reasonably close to Monopoli and the weather wasn't great one day (it was shortly after that yacht sank) - it's a gorgeous place and we lucked out by visiting just after a storm, so, despite rapidly clearing skies, temperatures were in the low-mid 20s which is positively fresh for southern Italy in August!
I think we actually drove through one of these very localised downbursts on the dual carriageway between Bari and Matera - the sky ahead was black with weird ominous dangling triangles of cloud like upside-down sails. Then all of a sudden the heavens simply opened - torrential doesn't do it justice. I can only imagine it would feel similar to drive into a smallish waterfall. Thankfully there was very light traffic - within no time at all the surface was completely awash, with sprays of water fountaining up either side of the car as you drove along despite the motorway being slightly elevated compared to the adjacent fields. Everyone slowed to a 20-30mph crawl with fogs on etc and you could feel the wind buffeting the car - it was like buckets of water were being continually hurled at the windscreen. Most extraordinarily, the external temperature reading on the dashboard registered a drop from 28C to 17C in scarcely two minutes - I watched it drop almost half a degree every 10 seconds or so. And then just as quickly as it started, we drove out again onto a completely dry road, and by the time we got to Matera some 10 minutes later it was nothing more than a glowering black sky that eventually cleared away to the east leaving a lovely calm day. And in Matera it hadn't rained at all.
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Post by Martin on Aug 30, 2024 13:14:23 GMT
We had rain like that in Florida on the way back from the East coast, couldn’t see anything around us at all, not even cars that weren’t that far in front, but we had to keep going as the other worry was a lorry hitting us from behind. Scary stuff.
I'm surprised re Santorini in the summer, it's just come up in the news feed on my phone funnily enough.....nice view, but the experience of being there looks horrendous to me!!
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Post by Big Blue on Aug 31, 2024 9:50:16 GMT
Had that kind of rain in Austria last summer. Cleaned the car nicely.
W2.1 went to Santorini on a hen break in July. All late 40s / early 50s House they rented was amazing and they had a great break. W2.1 went in the 90s and yes: it’s mad busy by comparison but once the cruise hordes go or before they arrive she said it was great.
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Post by alf on Sept 3, 2024 13:33:14 GMT
A few "proper camera" pics from Normandy. The WW2 history there was unavoidable and there is a lot just left laying about, I couldn't go for a run without passing tanks, cemetataries and memorials. We were 1km from the beach right on the border between Sword and Juno beaches, we also saw the Muberry harbour of Gold from a distance, when viewing a gun battery. The cemetaries are as always beautifully kept, and quite emotional to visit. The older history was stunning too, perhaps more surprisingly - Caen and Bayeux were absolute gems with stunning Normal era and Medieval buildings, and William the Conqueror's name is everywhere. I'm descended from Normans (who were actually Vikings given a piece of France to shut them up) so this was interesting. I've not heard of Caen and Bayeux (beyond the tapestry) in this way - it just seems everywhere in France that is old, is beautiful and has superb buildings. Normandy seemed very quiet aside from the tourists, some of the roads were very narrow but with so little coming the other way, it was not an issue. When something did, you both had to stick two wheels in the edge of a field.... My daughter did French A level and is thinking of studying there at some point during or after Uni, being a history nerd like me, I think we will have more road trips - Tina is not that interested in it all, though the prettier places appeal to everyone... ![](https://i.ibb.co/dkfHbBQ/IMG-3787.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/ZfM87qn/IMG-3798-ed.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/7Vr0Q9R/IMG-3809.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/wgJDfp4/IMG-3813.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/tKWcZGh/IMG-3817.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/3CkMTZm/IMG-3829-ed.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/QmQsmm8/IMG-3840-ed.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/GRt7TJC/IMG-3845.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/92yJMch/IMG-3850.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/tQTZHsv/IMG-3855.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/Lhdy9Cn/IMG-3866.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/cDDzHvP/IMG-3873.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/FKgFVdN/IMG-3879-ed.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/Krh5V9z/IMG-3884.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/JF2VxVJ/IMG-3892.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/sg5FCGJ/IMG-3899.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/dkkNJxx/IMG-3914.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/YbFh9T8/IMG-3919.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/3N4w0LG/IMG-3929.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/DPB0nyc/IMG-3953.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/fYqGyXv/IMG-3956-ed.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/gW7Sfbv/IMG-3957-ed.jpg) ![](https://i.ibb.co/xmpptVr/IMG-3974-ed.jpg)
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