An unabashed tourist and her family explore the world one holiday at a time.
We don’t normally pay for audio guides when we visit historical places, but it’s included in the entry fee into Christ Church in Oxford, and so the three of us put headphones on and walked towards the signpost labelled with a number one. To the little traveller’s great delight, the audio guide also had a children’s option (which I also...
After our visit to Cardiff Castle, we followed along the Animal Wall until we reached the entrance to Bute Park. I specifically wanted to visit this park, because I’d been staring at it on Google Maps for many months while writing a novel in which my protagonist was chased through the park and entered Cardiff Castle through a little-known side...
Cardiff Castle stands in the middle of a busy thoroughfare, incongruously medieval in the midst of a modern city. It’s home to a sumptuous Victorian palace and an iconic clock tower, but since we didn’t think our little 7-year-old would enjoy an hour-long guided tour, we opted to explore its other sights on our own instead. It was a drizzly...
“I want to see a stegosaurus!” Aidan shouted, excited, as we hurried up the steps to the Cardiff National Museum. Uh oh, I thought to myself. Having spent two years’ worth of lunch times inside the museum, I knew there were dinosaurs, but I didn’t recall ever seeing a stegosaurus. Nevertheless, we set out eagerly in search of the remains...
“Dragon!” I stagger as Aidan runs into me, clinging on for dear life. “Where?” I ask, smiling at the surprise in his eyes as he realises I’m excited instead of afraid. “In the pit, over there.” He leads me to it, just past the moat surrounding Caerphilly Castle and beside a ‘ye olde’ signpost proclaiming the trench to be a...
The last time I wrote about our UK 2023 trip, I was in the midst of sorting out all the admin that goes along with organising an overseas vacation, while also panicking about the inclement weather and wondering whether we’d encounter an unseasonal bout of snow in the middle of spring in Wales. I can now safely say that everyone’s...
We were supposed to visit Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia, on our first day of the campervan trip, but due to rainy weather and time constraints we decided to skip it and head straight for Lake Bled. After fleeing from the Croatian heat and returning to Slovenia, this time near Lake Bohinj, we had some extra time on our...
Lake Bohinj wasn’t on our original must-see list while in Slovenia, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of our trip! After a few scorching days in Croatia, we jumped in the campervan, drove an entire day and finally settled in for nearly a week at the lovely Camp Danica near the town of Bohinjska Bistrica. We...
We arrived in Dubrovnik on the heels of the worst heat wave Europe had seen in decades. I think it must have been over 38°C in the shade! A recipe for disaster when you’ve just driven four hours in a campervan, crossed the border between Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina (twice) and had to walk for an hour in the...
I smile indulgently as I watch my little hooligan jumping on the remnants of a toppled column in a quiet corner of the Diocletian’s Palace complex. Gareth is off on his own, exploring the Game of Thrones Museum, so the little one and I indulged in a bag of candy from a confectioner’s shop and, with the sugar rush roaring...