There’s
no place like home. Nothing truly compares to my bed with its thick
memory foam mattress and if I’m completely honest, my own
toilet. Home comforts, home cooked food, the familiar surroundings.
Contented as I am at home in the UK, my thoughts persistently wander
and dream of other places. As a child, I had a pile of travel
brochures and would pretend I was a travel agent, organising the
ideal holiday for everyone I knew. I still love to flick through
brochures, search online and plan the ideal trip. However, these
days I sometimes have the opportunity to actually go on those trips.
This year for me has been the pinnacle, the complete icing on the
cake for travel. It all started in January, when my husband accepted
a new job and with just a few days notice he was suddenly given a
year of gardening leave. Once I fully understood what that meant (a
paid year off), I was giddy with excitement and went straight into
organisation mode, flitting around and weaving together ideas. Our
limitation was that we could only go away during the school holidays
as we have teenagers in crucial educational years. We had a generous
budget, with savings towards a special summer trip for when our
eldest finished Secondary school, plus two years of not really going
anywhere meant that we hadn’t spent anywhere near the usual
amount of money. What a privileged position to be in and what a
wonderful opportunity! I was determined to cram in as much travel as
I could for the year ahead.
February
half term week was coming up fast. Our half term breaks ordinarily
tend to be rather low key. We had dental and vet appointments already
arranged for that week. We quickly decided that a long weekend city
break could be squeezed in. At the top of the dream list for most of
us was Copenhagen, Denmark. Ever since I’d seen pictures of
colourful Nyhavn and admired it in miniature form at Legoland, I’d
imagined walking along the cobbled waterside, munching on a Danish
pastry. My wish could finally come true. Flights and a hotel were
promptly booked and I was thrilled that we’d be staying on
Nyhavn itself. Travelling for the first time since the Coronavirus
pandemic felt exhilarating. We boarded our flight wearing facemasks
and were handed antibacterial wipes to clean our seatbelt and lap
tray. We secured our jam packed cabin bags in the overhead cubby,
ready for take off.
We
arrived early in the evening and bought underground tickets to
Kongens Nytorv Station. After a swift transfer, we walked from the
city centre, our wheeled cabin bags clacketing along the cobbles
noisily. It felt so refreshing to be walking around somewhere
completely new to us. The evening was bitterly cold and a fine mist
of rain was in the air. I was impressed with the organised cycle
lanes of Copenhagen and found it pleasant to see such little traffic.
Our hotel was indeed in the perfect location. I was awake very early
to take pictures of Nyhavn at sunrise. The night before, we’d
noticed how expensive eating out was in this city, so I was on a
mission to eat as much as I could from the included breakfast. I also
planned to sneak a piece of fruit away in my bag for a mid morning
snack. From past experience, hotel breakfast buffets are generally
not that great. This one was definitely an exception. Eggs cooked to
order, fresh bread and pastries from a local bakery, fresh fruit,
good coffee. Tears of joy almost fill my eyes as I think about it,
even now. A Norwegian man who was a fellow guest, came over to talk
to us and invited us to go and visit him in Norway sometime and
offered to take us out on his old wooden boat. We wondered what he’d
say if we were to actually contact him out of the blue one day for
that boat ride. I’d love to try it out.
We
climbed a tower to admire the city views, marvelled at an exhibition
of artwork made out of plastic collected from beach waste, walked to
the very underwhelming little mermaid statue (it was so much smaller
than I had anticipated) and found a street food place to buy our
meals at a reasonable price. We took photos of the beautiful streets
and (for fun) took several, slightly less picturesque photos of us
standing next to abandoned bicycles, discarded refuse sacks and walls
of graffiti for our ‘alternative’ album. It all started
when I asked my youngest son to take a picture of me on Nyhavn, “But
don’t get the bin bags in please!”, I’d requested. Of course, he
snapped a shot with the rubbish included. Why not then,
make it a challenge to find other such scenes? I marvel at the
lengths I’ll go to in order to bond with my teenagers.
The
Easter holidays were our second travel opportunity. My husband
requested a warmer climate this time and we wanted to choose
something relaxing before the busy Summer term. The Canary Islands is
the obvious choice for guaranteed sunshine in early April, not too
far from the UK. I did my usual careful reading of reviews and found
a reasonable package holiday to Lanzarote, staying in a villa within
walking distance of everything we could possibly need. My eldest son
spent most of the week inside the villa. My other son slept in until
late. We at least managed to enjoy a family meal by the harbour each
night. This mostly consisted of Tapas with wrinkly potatoes and a jug
of Sangria. Our walk there and back was spent admiring the many local
cats, stopping to fuss the most friendly ones. We went on a road trip
in a hire car one day and experienced plenty of tight bends on high
altitude roads, just like in the old cartoon, ‘Roadrunner’,
except with plenty of lycra clad middle aged men on bikes thrown into
the mix. The downside of the week was the nasty skin rashes that
appeared after using the pool at our villa (the chlorine levels
weren’t quite right). I vowed that in future I’d bring my
own water testing kit, if indeed there was such a thing. That aside,
we felt fully relaxed as we left. One week was enough though. Spanish
tapas becomes slightly boring after consuming it for too many days. I
would soon look like a wrinkly potato. We were glad to be home again.
We’d missed the cat.
The
next school holiday was May half term. Our sons had to stay at home
to revise for upcoming exams. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, I
took further advantage of our situation and asked my parents if
they’d mind coming to stay with the teenagers and the cat. They
agreed happily. Overcome with joy, I planned a road trip. We’d
dreamed of doing a USA road trip one day when our children had left
home. Now we had the opportunity to do a smaller version of it this
year. New England seemed a sensible choice, given the length of
flight for a week long trip. I had previously researched some of our
chosen route, so I dug out my notes and continued my endeavours with
online searches. A plan was solidified, bookings made and I was
beside myself with anticipation.
We
arrived in Boston Logan airport, picked up our hire car and drove up
to Maine. We felt so free, out on our adventure together. We could
eat wherever we liked and walk for as long as we wanted to for a
whole week! Our first stop was at a beautiful 1800s guest house in
Portland. We took breakfast sitting in the pretty bay window. We
liked Portland a great deal. I had my first taste of lobster roll,
visited the quaint lighthouse at Elizabeth Point, snapped pictures of
the charming houses of the West End and when it rained one afternoon,
we went to the indoor shopping mall just out of town. My excuse was
the cold weather. I’d packed for a warm Spring only. The
weather had decided to take a turn and drop its temperature
dramatically the day after we arrived and I needed warm clothes.
After
three nights in Maine, we ventured over to Vermont. The road signs
warning of Moose and Bears built my hopes too high and I almost made
myself dizzy, looking out of the passenger window as the car
travelled along. Alas, a deer was all I spotted! We can easily see
plenty of those in the UK. Besides my disappointment at not seeing a
bear or moose, the scenery was breathtaking. Lush green hills that
continued on and on. I wished to see a red barn, just like ones I’d
seen in pictures and I hastily took random blurry photos from the car
window each time I saw anything remotely similar to the one in my
head. We stayed for one night in Stowe, surrounded by the green
mountains. One night really wasn’t enough but the next hotel
had been booked, so on we journeyed, down through New Hampshire and
then on towards Boston, trying not to focus on how quickly the week
was passing by. Traffic was heavy in Boston and everywhere seemed
built up and loud after the tranquility of rural Vermont. Still, I
liked Boston, especially the Beacon Hill area. We took a guided walk
with a local, who pronounced it, “Borston”, which made
the experience all the more authentic. The whole week we spent in New
England is now fixed in my memory as one of the best vacations I’ve
ever had.
Our
eldest son had decided he didn’t want to go on a family holiday
in the summer, no matter how much I tried to persuade him. My
youngest son was desperate to go to The Yukon, Canada (or indeed
anywhere it seemed, that meant travelling the world at our expense).
I’m not keen on long flights nor connecting flights so I ruled
out Yukon. Instead, I organised a road trip around Ontario for the
rest of us. This was our most extravagant trip, because we had to
choose flights during a peak holiday period. However, we knew that
we’d probably never have a year like this again and would
regret not taking the opportunity. Our first place to explore was
Niagara Falls. The views of the falls were spectacular and I’m
so glad we took a boat ride on the ‘Hornblower’ boat,
which completely took my breath away. This boat takes you right up to
the falls, where you can feel the wind and the spray on your face. It
was absolutely exhilarating! The visitors on the Canadian side were
given red ponchos, whilst the visitors on the USA equivalent boat
ride, were given blue ponchos. We thought it would be great to wear
our red ponchos on the other boat from the USA, just to stand out in
the crowd, however we unfortunately didn’t have time for such
schenanegans. I found the town of Niagara Falls itself to be rather
tacky with its casino, high rise hotels, amusement arcade and viewing
tower. It was slightly run down in places, although there were nicer
parts of the town to be seen here and there. As we left to drive to
the next destination on our route, we pulled over at a farm with a
charming roadside stand that was selling freshly picked peaches. Oh
my, those peaches just make my mouth water thinking of them even now!
We then arrived in beautiful Niagara on the Lake with its historic
clapboard houses. The streets were picture postcard perfect, clean
and free from any litter. There was a pretty strip of recreation
ground by Lake Ontario, where we enjoyed sitting, relaxing with a
book and watching the sunset.
We had
booked one night near Kingston to break up the next leg of our
journey up to the Capital, Ottawa. As Kingston was the former
Canadian capital city, we thought that it might be an interesting
place to look around. We arrived at our hotel and decided that we
were hungry and needed to eat dinner immediately after checking in.
The hotel was on the outskirts of Kingston, so we decided to drive
downtown for a good choice of eateries. We experienced one road
closure after another, with confusing diversion signs that had us
driving in circles until we couldn’t stand it any longer and
went back to the hotel to eat in the bar there. It was perfectly
adequate and we decided to simply use this as a resting place for the
evening, then move on to Ottawa. Maybe we missed out on Kingston or
perhaps we didn’t miss much at all! We have no idea. I spent a
relaxing evening by the hotel pool, watching (on my phone) the final
episode of an Australian soap opera that I enjoyed as I child, seeing
if I could remember the characters that had come together for a
reunion in the final episode. This is my main memory of Kingston.
On the
way to Ottawa, we were hoping to visit a National Park in Quebec. We
were excited about experiencing French Canada, albeit a brief
encounter on our whistle stop tour of Ontario in just ten days. We
passed into Quebec and immediately the signs changed from being in
both English and French, to just French only. I thought this would be
a super place to have lunch in one of the French cafes. Upon arrival
at the National Park’s car parking area, we found it to be
chaotic with people driving around looking for spaces. I was
desperate for the toilet and had to run to the Visitor Center before
we could even try to find a parking space. When I came back out, I
spotted a vehicle leaving and quickly ran to the space and waved at
my husband, flapping my arms like I was flagging down a rescue
helicopter after an SOS call. A lady came over to me saying something
in French with a slightly annoyed tone. All of my school French
knowledge suddenly slipped my mind and I asked awkwardly, “Do
you speak English?” She didn't, so she called her partner over
and he curtly told me, “We have been waiting for this space.”
We then decided it was probably best to give up on Quebec, just as we
did Kingston, given the limited time we had. We journeyed on to our
hotel near Ottawa. The hotel staff were friendly and our room was on
a high floor with a great window view. It was, however, on the
outskirts of the city, although downtown was easily accessible via a
nearby train station. Ottawa appeared rather boring at first, not
helped with the timing of our arrival being during a national
holiday, which meant that many places were closed. It did however
slowly grow on me, especially after a guided walk the following day
with a fascinating local person. Afterwards, she took us to ‘Rib
Fest’, where there were many stalls selling juicy looking
barbecued meat. One of her recommendations to visit was the Arts
theatre. It was such an interesting building to explore! I was
pleasantly surprised by many more aspects of this city as our time
there went by. I decided I really liked Ottawa! What I found
difficult was seeing all of the homeless people, just like in most
large cities. It was heartbreaking to see and hard to let go of,
especially as we were enjoying such luxuries on our holiday, such as
meals out or going for coffee whenever we desired it. The contrast
felt stark and so it should.
Our
final destination of the road trip was Toronto, which was bustling
with activity. I walked so far that I had sore feet. My husband and
son went up the CN Tower (I wasn’t so keen on being that high
up and gave it a miss). We had some of our best meals in Toronto. We
made friends with a puppy in the musical garden, which was also a
good place to find shade from the intensity of the sun. Our trip all
too soon came to an end. Canada was a really interesting and fun
place to visit. I was disappointed to find that there didn’t
seem to be much recycling going on in most places we visited and
plastic straws were still being given out in all except one
restaurant we went to. I felt guilty about the amount of plastic we
needed to throw away, so I found myself washing some of it in the
hotel room and sneaking it into my suitcase to recycle at home,
hoping that my husband wouldn’t notice. Only the keenest of
recyclers would understand.
On the
flight to Toronto from London, we had a rather annoying and
disruptive adolescent boy sat in front of us. He wobbled the seats,
put his hands behind his head, covering my TV screen. He raised his
voice, he pressed the call button frequently to express his demands
to the cabin crew and at frequent intervals, he put his face through
the gap between the seats to glare at us. His Mum seemed to cater to
his every whim. So imagine my absolute shock and horror ten days
later as we were at the boarding gate for our flight home, when I saw
the exact same family waiting to board. Hopefully we wouldn’t
be near him this time, we assured ourselves. This was a large
aircraft. What are the chances? Once onboard, our jaws dropped as
that same family located their seats… directly behind us. On a
night flight. It was like a cruel joke. He kicked the seat in front,
loudly protested about a sudden pain in his leg, pressed the call
button, yelled to his Mum that he hated all women (maybe he didn’t
get his own way that time) and generally made sure that we wouldn’t
enjoy a wink of sleep.
A week
later, my eldest son went on a week’s holiday with his friend’s
family and thus it made sense for the rest of us to take one final
trip. This was our lowest budget trip and it turned out to be
fantastic. We flew to Vienna for three days. We had to ask for help
at the airport desk upon arrival, as it was difficult to work out the
train route to our hotel. The lady at the desk kindly wrote down
which trains to catch, where to change to another train and where to
finally get off. The ticket machines thankfully had an English option
and so purchasing tickets was easy. In Vienna, we went on an
informative guided walk, which included detailed descriptions of a
particular type of famous cake and how the recipe varies from cafe to
cafe. I appreciated this attention to detail, as it’s an
important choice to make when time is limited. We ate apple strudel
at the infamous Cafe Museum. We were sitting outside this elegant
cafe when my husband decided the sun was glaring and he needed to put
his cap on. He hadn’t realised he’d balanced his
sunglasses on top of the hat, so that when he picked it up, the
sunglasses catapulted across the pavement cafe at great height and
landed several tables away. Thankfully they didn’t hit anyone
on the head and spoil the ambiance of the place. One man saw it and
was snickering away to himself. Amazingly, nobody else appeared to
notice. The city centre had old fashioned water pumps dotted around,
which was a relief for everyone during the very hot weather.
Tourists, tour guides, shoppers and homeless people were all able to
stop and have a drink or wash their hands and face.
We
caught the train from Vienna to beautiful Bratislava, where we spent
just one night and wished we had stayed longer. It is a charming
little city, although the tram ticket machines were not easy to
understand for us foreigners. I imagine many people from overseas
make a lucky guess at choosing the correct ticket. The next day, we
took a taxi to the train station and caught a train to Budapest for
the remainder of our trip. The route was scenic, seats were spacious
and the tickets were inexpensive (purchased in advance). Again,
trying to fathom the public transport ticket machines upon arrival
was a mystery and finding an English speaking person to help seemed
almost impossible. As in Bratislava, I wonder how many tourists don’t
buy the correct tickets here either? We were later told by a tour
guide that hefty fines can be issued, so beware if you are ever in
that situation! One ticket is needed for each individual stop and
must be validated on the tram. Budapest is a beautiful and exciting
city. We’d been there twice previously, the most recent was for
a Hungarian wedding, which turned out to be the most fun wedding we
had ever attended, with dancing all night long. This time we went on
a free guided walk of the city and tried even more new food and
beverage options. There was a large annual festival taking place for
St Stephen’s Day and we really enjoyed listening to the various
bands that were playing. All three of our visits to this city have
been completely different each time but all enjoyable in equal
measure.
Our
amazing months of travels were over all too quickly and we’d
not even been on the Norwegian man’s boat. The memories I have
from this year are so plentiful, that I have bought a travel
scrapbook to work on in the Christmas holidays, aiming to artfully
catalogue our adventures. Hundreds of photos will have to be combed
through carefully. Narrowing them down to a few will be difficult and
that is without consideration of my alternative album! I have widened
my horizons, stretched my mind, tantalised my tastebuds and found yet
more insight into other places, people and cultures. These travels
have truly questioned my attitude of ‘Love thy neighbour’
on flights, tested our patience with ticket machines and endless
immigration queues, broken my heart at the sight of so many homeless
people in every single city we visited. It’s left me with piles
of laundry (and recycling) to unpack. My heart is full of gratitude,
fulfilment and memories to treasure. The travel agent in me is now
taking a break and simply enjoying the pleasure of home.
I am an unpublished British writer
in my forties, married with two teenage sons. I began my writing
journey as a child,
inspired by a love of books and a propensity to day dream and
imagine. At the age of ten, I won first prize in a school
competition, judged by a Children's author. I thoroughly enjoyed
creative writing in English lessons throughout my teenage years in
education. I then grew up and didn’t write for many years. It
was something I wanted to take up again ‘one day’. During a countryside
walk with my youngest son during the 2020 covid
pandemic lockdown, I mentioned this desire to him. As soon as we
arrived home, he handed me my laptop and told me to begin. Once I
started, I didn’t want to stop. I joined a fantastic writers
group in my local area, which regularly inspires and holds me
accountable to continue working on my creations. I have been reading
books about the art of creative writing and have spent the last year
entering short story competitions and experimenting with various
genres.
