2014 – what a year! I think Lisa summed it up appropriately with the Charles Dickens quote on her Friday post. So where did the wind blow me in 2014, let’s take a mini blog post vacation together!
The Staycation
You have to love a good old staycation; no airports, no security lines and an unlimited luggage allowance equals mostly a stress free holiday unless of course you get stuck in the one way system in Sheffield! This year I’ve had a few mini staycations in England that included Heythorp Park in Oxfordshire and staying at the brand spanking new Shangri La London Hotel located in The Shard.
But if you had to ask me what my favourite staycations were it would be the weekend away discovering the delights of Derbyshire and Yorkshire…
Exploring London during the Open House weekend and staying at the ultra trendy W Hotel in Leicester Square…
and when in England you just need to sleep in a castle especially one where randy old King Henry VIII rested his head.
Passport at the Ready
After a long discussion of heading somewhere nice and warm for our birthdays in February we ended up in the very tropical city of Berlin for a long weekend! While not my favourite city in Germany (and I don’t know why people rave about the city – there is more to Germany than Berlin and Munich folks, get out there and discover it!). I highly recommend staying at The Intercontinental Berlin especially if you’re gluten free, their breakfast is amazing – allergy label heaven.
For Lisa’s birthday in March, Lisa and I jetted off for a romantic weekend in Verona and then a jolly jaunt down to Venice for the Carnival. Let’s just say Venice and I are on a break at the moment – Venice broke my iPhone and then almost ruined a £800 handbag! We can laugh about the disastrous weekend now but oh my goodness at the time (the bottom three photos of Lisa and I sums up the weekend – we were cold and wet kiwis – these are the photos you didn’t see!)…
I love Europe in springtime and Amsterdam is the Queen of Spring – glorious sunshine and tulips galore what more can a girl want; wait, maybe a rather large clog! (Yes you all need to feel sorry for Lisa as she has an egg for a sister who has no shame = spring flowers make me want to skip and dance like crazy – I should point out that’s me in the bottom three photos)
The First Bank Holiday in May, G and I met Lisa in Athens for the weekend and let’s just say Lisa and I shopped till we dropped. Athens is one of my favourite European cities; I would seriously move to Athens just to eat my weight in feta cheese!
Can I just say that I loved having my little sister in the same hemisphere as me for the first half of the year and our last trip together was to one of Lisa’s favourite cities in Europe – Krakow in Poland. We had the best trip ever…planned to perfection by Lisa and even my stonking cold didn’t ruin our perfect weekend together.
I love a bit of pressure, I work way better under pressure so it should be no surprise that G and I jetted off to Paris with a free night voucher on the last day it was valid. G’s first visit to Paris and he needed to see six million dead Frenchmen and ladies! G has a travel obsession, he’s on the look out for the best catacombs in the world (trust me we travel for strange reasons; cake, catacombs, shoes…)
May and June were crazy months and I had three trips booked back to back (Krakow, Paris and then Copenhagen). G was short 20 tier points for his BA membership so we jetted off to Copenhagen for the day, as you do.
I have a travel wish list a mile long and Porto was at the top of the list; finally I got there and holy moly I wasn’t disappointed. Great hotel, soulful city but just not a gluten free haven that I thought it would be. It did make me giggle when I got asked when my baby was due (gluten bloating) and the horrified stares from random strangers as I knocked back a few glasses of Port.
Can you imagine not having a week long holiday for over two years – well that was me until we headed to Egypt for a week. Unfortunately we did have a few issues with a certain hotel chain which was unfortunate, 5 star hotel should mean 5 star service in my world! This was my third visit to Egypt and I still love the country and people. It’s just so sad to see a country bought to it’s knees by the political unrest – Aswan and Cairo are two of my favourite places in Egypt.
You know when you wait ages for a bus and two come at once; well one week holidays seemed to be the same. After our sunny holiday to Egypt, I was jetting off to Germany to meet Christine and Jonelle and spend a whole week touring the Christmas Markets. Just in case you don’t know, I’m obsessed with Christmas and the German Markets!
Scoffing Afternoon Tea
And when I wasn’t on holiday I was scoffing Afternoon Tea; 19 of the little buggers in fact! I’ve done a round up of my favourite gluten free afternoon tea’s for 2014.
So what are your exciting plans for 2015? We have a new travel link up running from the 1st of January through to the 7th of January about your bucket lists, travel plans or anything else for 2015 – you can find more information here.
xx
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