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...
After almost 4 years of being stuck in South Africa (thanks Covid!) we’re finally boarding a plane in a few days’ time and heading for Europe again! We will be flying via Qatar on plane tickets that we bought for our 2020 trip to Ireland (alas) to London, where we’ll pick up a hire car and drive down to Wales...