Athens, Spain and UK

I thought seeing as the year is drawing to a close, I'd better finish off these holiday posts so I can finally start talking about other things!! After beautiful Santorini, the BFG and I stayed a few days in Athens, then a week in Spain and then a week in the UK.

The Acropolis

The Parthenon

We went to this sandal maker as it was recommended in the Lonely Planet Guide (which I've yet to return to you Katie!!) It's a very cute shop with poetry all over the place run by three generations of sandal makers. I picked a style, they measured my foot and an hour later, the sandals were made - I just had to wait a while before wearing them as I needed to let the glue dry! They have had heaps of celebrities go there, one being Sofia Loren!!

Our main reason for going to Spain was to eat. It was a toss up between Italy and Spain and in the end, the thought of buying Camper shoes at the source won out. This was one of my favourite places to eat in Madrid - the Museum of Ham!

Royal Palace - Madrid
Symbol of Madrid

We took a day trip out to Toledo on the bullet train - lovely walled city

Suckling pig - yum yum

Marzipan

Creepy sculptures at the Train station - creepy BFG coming out of it's ear included

After a week of eating and being complete pigs ourselves (and a pair of Campers each), we flew out of Madrid and into wet wet London Luton airport. I know Luton from that show Airport (think that's what it's called) and all the fun stuff that comes with flying Easyjet. I have no complaints of either really. It was just wet and miserable when we got to Luton. We had to go pick up our hire car and found out that they do not hire out automatic cars - so no driving for me! We ended up having to drive to York because we had left buying the train ticket thing too late and it was phenomenally expensive. It actually worked out cheaper to hire a car and drive. But seriously, a 3 hour drive took 5 and a half because of the rain and all these roads being closed.

Knaresborough near York - we had a few days in York as the BFG's sister and family lived there. Just what I imagined the English countryside to be!!

The Minster in York

London
I seriously don't recall why I was so desperate to go back to London. It wasn't as fun as I remembered it to be. But I have a feeling it was because I wasn't interested in going to see all the usual London sites (eg Westminster Abbey, the Palace, etc etc) because I did all that last time. In fact, we found London to be expensive, full of people and a bit drab. I wish we had gone to Oxford to visit fellow knitter with the same name instead (next time Lien!!).

I did get to spend a day with a friend of mine who I met through work and also some colleagues in our London office (this was purely social - so no work for me!). The most exciting thing we did in London was:

Celebrity spotting

and eating at Ottolenghi.

Ok, I can't believe I'm going to say this. But I found our trip too long. I'm not saying that 4 weeks off work was too long, but that traveling for 4 weeks is too long. Next time, I'll just go for 3 weeks and have a few days to recover! Anyway, the nice thing about being engaged to a European, is that there are always reasons to go to Europe.