English friends and family - a whirlwind tour of southern England

Back to our base in the UK and we spent a fantastic day in and around Bookham.  Geoff headed off to explore the local cycling routes and ended up cycling up Box Hill which is where the Olympic Road Cycling time trial event takes place.  Lucy spent the day harvesting fruit, veg and flowers from Jenny's allotment.  It is so nice to have dinner almost entirely of produce that you picked!

Raspberries, tae berries, snap peas, beans, potatoes, black currents, more black currents, strawberries, courgettes, rhubarb and sweet peas!

Box hill getting ready for the Olympics.

We spent a night down with Maggie and Jeremy Robinson on their farm in Devon (we were there in the end of May) to catch up with them and to see Maggie for her birthday.  It was great to see their son Thomas and his fiancé Natalie again too. On the way down to Devon we stopped at Stonehenge.  Both of us were sceptical of the hype around a pile of stones, but we thought we'd better check it out ourselves.  We found it really interesting and the size of the stones is just massive!  The audio guides available provided interesting commentary on the history and building of the henges and we'd recommend that you take one walk around with one too while you're there.

The familiar stone circle.

Audio-guiding on a typically wet and chilly summers day...

The stones were just MASSIVE, some weighing ~ 45 tonns!  How they got the blocks on the top we're still not so sure....

Then it was off to Bristol to see Jessica Robinson and explore the city a bit (see blog on Bristol and Brunel).  Bristol is also home to Banksy (a very elusive graffiti artist, whose identity remains a trade secret). He is famous for his distinctive black and white street art which now appears all over the world - but is particularly evident in Bristol.  We were lucky enough to find at least two of his pictures while we were in town.

One of Banksy's murals. Another "artist" took a paint-gun to it...

There were public table tennis tables set up all over Bristol.  It was such a novelty for us that we had to have a game even though it was raining!

The distinctive Radcliff Camera

Oxford was our next stop where we stayed with Louise Robinson (yip - the whole family!) and enjoyed exploring the town.  One of the highlights for us was the tour of the ancient Bodlian Library and Evensong at Christ Church College. We met up with Guy and MJ Axelson for a lovely dinner and to meet their chickens :)

The gargoyles were brilliant!

The stairs up to St Mary's church tower were well worth it - the view was stunning.

The bridge of Sighs

The school of Divinity beneath the Bodlean Library. It was also shot as the set for the infirmary at Hogwarts School as part of the Harry Potter series. Look familiar?

Dinner with Guy and MJ.

The weekend saw us meeting up with Bernard and Linda Spies (mountaineering friends of ours from South Africa) in Leicester before heading out to the Peak District to go climbing. Our wonderful Peak District climbing trip is documented in our next blog "Climbing The Roaches".

On our way home we walked the brilliant maze at Clivendon Estate (a National Trust property) before having tea with Andrew Mitchell (Lucy's cousin) in Maidenhead and dinner with Karina Haines (one of Lucy's good sailing friends) in Northwood.

The maze was a-maz-ing!

We enjoyed the bird sculptures in the gardens.

Our last two and a bit days were spent in and around Bookham, mostly sorting though our things and packing up.  We did however get out to see the chocolate boxy, quaint town of Shere, explore the impressive Clandon Manor House and Hatchlands Manor House - both National Trust houses.  Clandon is an architectural masterpiece featuring a double volume marble entrance hall with life size friezes of people emblazoned onto the ceiling. Its collection of 18th century furniture had been bequeathed separately to the national trust and included beautiful furniture with inlaid designs, the detail of which we had never seen before, and a bizarre collection of china figurines and birds - impressive but we're not sure we're going to start our own collection any time soon.  Clandon was the family house of the prominent Onslow family, 3 of whom were speakers in parliament, and we enjoyed 'spotting' two de Laszlo portraits (see blog in April on "London - Friends, culture and tubes).  There is also an authentic Maori meeting house in the garden complete with wooden carvings and mother-of-pearl inlays.

Shere all decked out in British bunting.

The entrance hall at Clandon

Hatchlands is completely different and the National Trust inherited an empty house.  This they've rented out to the Cobbe Family as their residence and houses their personal display of artwork and Mr Cobbe's piano collection.  Visitors are allowed access to the ground floor only during certain hours each day to see the items.  In amongst portraits of famous people and by famous people is an original painting of William Shakespeare (the one of him in a dark jacket with lace collar and a goatee) and of his only known patron the Earl of Southhampton (this portrait was thought to be Lady Norton, the Earl's grandmother, but a few years ago it was discovered that it was actually of the Earl himself!).  There was also a number of paintings by Titian and some sketches by Rembrand van Rijn.  As for the piano's - they were amazing.  We lost count, but think there were about 42 in the house and their owners ranged from Marie Antoinette, Chopin, Liszt, Schubert and Edward Elgar, (who had inscribed the works he had composed at that instrument on the instrument!) to name but a few. Geoff couldn't believe the wealth of history and heritage sitting in such a private collection. We couldn't play any of the piano's, but they do allow tours with the owner a handful of times during the year when he performs on them.

One of Chopin's piano's.

Elgar's piano with the titles of the works he composed on it written inside on the wood.

Hatchlands House.

We were very glad to be able to wrap the European part of our trip off with dinner and chocolate birthday cake for Uncle Charles's birthday. 

Cake for Uncle Charles' birthday

A very big thank you to everyone who hosted us along the way  - you allowed made this dream trip possibles for us by your generosity and kindness. We have really enjoyed getting to know members of our families and friends in their home settings.

Jenny and Charles and their dog Danny

Visiting friends: Nuenen and Billerbeck

We left the beautiful Belgian countryside with a car boot full of Belgian chocolate and beer which Geoff thought would be gifts for our next hosts. He was only partly right as Lucy wasn't keen on giving away her newly acquired chocolates!

We headed through to Nuenen, near Eindhoven, where we stayed with Willemijn and Sander and their bubbly son Oliver. Willa had been Geoff's host sister back in Cape Town and this is the closest he has been to uncle-hood so far. He didn't drop the child once and even tried to teach it to play the piano!

The wet and cool dutch weather kept us town bound, but we enjoyed the picturesque town of 's Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) with its lovely dutch brickwork and canal systems.

Is this what "Baby Mozart" is all about? Geoff and Oliver thrashing away at the ivories...

Willemijn and Sander with little Oliver

Den Bosch town square during a break in the wet weather

The brickwork is exquisite

The cathedral of St. Nicolas only recently completed a 20-year long restorative facelift. It is a stunning architectural work including an angel with cellphone reception to whom you can forward your messages and confessions...

Some of the spectacular flying buttresses

The leaning walls of some buildings illustrate the trying founding conditions the Dutch have to deal with -  this building had some spectacular reinforcing tendons which were simply incorporated into the facade,

Though we were fascinated by the churches we saw, they were not the focus of our travels. They are however monuments to the prosperity of towns and remain focal points for the small towns. Our next destination was Billerbeck, near Munster in Germany. Here we stayed with the Dittmar family.  Anna Dittmar and Geoff are old friends from his high school exchange to Canada.

Anna and Geoff: Some might say that they haven't changed much since high-school, although they are cumulatively a little more hairy now...

Anna introduced us to the extraordinary world of ice-cream spaghetti, beer enhanced ten-pin bowling and raclette (a german culinary experience involving grilling and frying your food at the table).

Spaghetti al fresco anyone? Anna used to work in this classically styled ice-cream parlour. Their pistachio ice-cream was spectacular.

Raclette is a very social way to eat dinner. (Verena, Geoff, Nikki, Christiaan and Anna)

We also took a cycle ride through the local countryside to visit Anna's future in-laws. A break in the poor weather made for a spectacular ride through barley fields and forest amply rewarded with waffles and sour cherry sauce - yes please!!!

Outside the local cathedral - which is apparently disproportionately large for the  town of Billerbeck.

Lucy decided that european bicycles suited her far better than her mountain bike at home.

Christian (Anna's fiancé), Anna and Geoff

Billerbeck has a strong stone-working tradition which was evident in a number of the buildings and public sculptures. 

We tried to re-create a babotie from local ingredients and it actually turned out alright - our hosts loved it!

After a lovely couple of days visiting friends, we headed back to Schipol to return to the UK for our last two weeks in the northern hemisphere.

Visiting friends : Rotterdam and Louveigre

After leaving Croatia we arrived in Amsterdam and met up with one of Lucy's old North Sails colleagues. It was fun revisiting one of her old occupations that was so familiar, yet so long ago. We were amazed by how flat the area around Amsterdam was - we were soon to learn that this was just the Netherlands in general!


We headed directly through to Rotterdam where we stayed for a couple of nights with our friends Justin and Bronwen Cross. We explored Rotterdam and managed to take in some of the fantastic public artwork and architecture, while getting a feel for this incredibly cosmopolitan city. We were also amazed not only by the nationalities we encountered - but also by how these nationalities - particularly polynesian - are linked to the old dutch trade routes and their subsequent colonisation efforts.

An amazing artwork of oil barrels and "oil people" in an unruly pile. Appropriate for such a fossil fuel conscious society?

Erasmus Bridge - One of the landmarks of Rotterdam

Traditional dutch sailing boat/barges (Lucy couldn't resist photographing more boats)

Cube houses for square people? - Lucy and Bron

We then continued on to Louveigne, near Liege in Belgium where we met up with Pierre and Geraldine Bemelmans, and their two lovely kids, Jules and Jeanne. Pierre took pride in showing us his home town and we really enjoyed getting to see Liege in the sunshine and rain. Geoff climbed the famous "Stairs on the Mount" with 4-year old Jules and we experienced the fantastic Sunday market.

Geoff, Lucy, Geraldine and Pierre

Pierre and Geraldine have converted this beautiful old stone house to a modern home. We were inspired by their efforts to rethink what could be done in a home.

The famous steps in Liege

Geoff and Jules coming down the 384 steps 

The old part of Liege is full of little stairways.  We were glad we didn't have to help anyone move house here!

Jules getting into the spirit of walking in the woods.

Picking wild blueberries...yum!

We both enjoyed curling up with a book in the Bemelmans' egg couch.

Choices, choices!  The whole isle was full of different types of Belgium beer! Pierre knows the Belgian beer industry well and gave us a shopping list of drinks we ought to try before flying back to the UK. Guess what all our other hosts got as thank-you presents...