PRAGUE

Second time around for Matt and I, and first time for Lynda and David, Prague was just beautiful! God blessed us with glorious sunshine, so much so that Lynda had to buy a pair of shorts! We spent time in the Prague Castle and in particular in St Vitus, which is the Gothic Church within the castle walls. Magnificent, with beautiful stain glass windows on every wall, and ornate gargoyles acted both as drainpipes and as a way to ward off demons. Some our favourite times was walking along Charles Bridge in the sun, listening to the live jazz band, drinking Czech beer in the Old town square right underneath the Medieval Astrological Clock, moseying along the cobbled stones window shopping and of course, the Opera!
A good friend of Matt and mine from Platt (our church), Jonny, has a friend who lives in Prague, who is an Opera Singer. Martin Barta was performing in La Traviata at Prague State Opera at the time we were going to be in Prague. So…off to the opera we went! What an experience! Exquisite! Champagne during interval and even a backstage pass afterwards. Martin met us at the stage door and he took us to his personal dressing room, and showed us the stage. We took him for a drink at a very nice bar near the Opera Theatre; and then he took the tram with us and walked us all right to our door. Wow, what an evening!
Prague is a beautiful city; definitely try to get there if you can!

Budapest in the Sun :)

Just a quick one to say that Jo and I are sitting in the sun in Budapest. We've spent the last 5 days with with Ben and Ksenia. More info to come, I'm not going to spend time in Budapest blogging when I could be out soaking up the vibe :)

Road Trip

For the beginning of the first week of Lynda and David’s stay, Matt was in Geneva so Lynda, David and I went on a road trip; north to Scotland via The Lake District. Following trusty Tom-Tom we made our way to our first stop – ‘Hill-Top’ in Ambleside, the home of Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit Tales, (see photo opposite). Though, to get there Tom Tom lead us to a lake saying ‘Ahead…get on the ferry’! And before we knew it we on a ferry in our car crossing Lake Windermere! Hill Top was so beautifully romantic we felt like we were in the tale with Peter Rabbit, well, Lynda and I did. ☺

We headed north again following the sweeping green hills, lined with stone hedges, to Stirling. After a huge meal at The Portcullis pub, we slept soundly in our hostel right near the castle and next door to The Church of Holy Rude, where Queen Mary of Scots baptised her only son James V1 of Scotland, (who also became James I of England).
Our trip to Stirling Castle was brilliant.(see photos - part of the castle) The castle, the stone hedges, the history was magnificent. David, with his Engineering mind could not stop saying “I just don’t know how they built it!”
From Stirling we travelled due East to Dundee where we met up with Matthew and stayed with him in his hotel, which was a lovely treat. We shared a lovely meal with him and a colleague that night, which also happened to be David and Lynda’s 32nd Wedding Anniversary! While Matt worked the next day, we caught a train to Edinburgh and visited the castle, and walked around the beautiful gardens and shopped! The sun was gloriously shining, with warmth like I’ve never experienced in Scotland before! We saw a beautiful bride in an old car driving to the wedding we assume, and then when we arrived at the castle visiting St Mary’s Chapel, we saw the same bride getting married in that same chapel! Throughout our castle tour, David still commented, “I just don’t know how they built it!” The next day we all travelled back to Manchester from Dundee; about 6 hours drive in torrential rain!

These two photos are at Edinburgh Castle; Lynda and David are on the left. The canon is still shot every day at 1pm.