Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

chewmylegoff

GDB2222 wrote: »

Is there one in Hemel? I've been to the one in MK, but Hemel is miles closer (literally).

Youngest son was talking about going to MK tomorrow, so thanks for the info. http://www.thesnowcentre.com/

Perfect, you can pop along and let me know if it's any good!

zagubov

vivatifosi wrote: »

Prague is on my "to do list". I have been on lots of city breaks because I can't do beach holidays.

I liked: Copenhagen, Helsinki, St Petersburg and Talinn on the Baltic; Barcelona and Rome on the Med. Naples is good too, not so much for the city but where you can get to from there: Vesuvius, Pompeii, Herculaneum, Capri, Sorrento... At the other end of Italy I love the area round La Spezia. DH loves Lisbon but I haven't been there since I was a kid. In France I really like Avignon and Strasbourg, there's plenty to do in and around both. Further afield I like NY and Boston. Barcelona is my favourite city break destination.

My to do list: Prague, Bratislava, Lisbon, Krakow, Budapest, Dubrovnik, Venice, Oslo, San Sebastian, Rejkavik (or however you spell it), Ljubljana (ditto), Berlin.

I can't get over how many European cities and capitals we're able to visit nowadays compared with when I was younger.

Got a cheap flight to Athens in the late 80s using Czech airlines CSA but had to change planes in Prague. Looked out and saw a car park full of skodas. The airport was surrounded by tanks. The planes were all unfamiliar airlines; Interflug, Tarom, Malev, Balkan.

Felt I was in a spy novel. About a quarter of the passengers changing planes were taken away and searched, and everybody was in uniform. The beer on the plane was lovely (Pilsner Urquell) the food was a slab of hot cheese studded with chicken and made me gag! All served by short-tempered stewards.

Noticed that my row of seats was all westerners but the row in front and behind were people talking in what sounded like slavic languages and wondered if they were keeping westerners and easterners on separate rows deliberately!

At the time there was fear of airliners being attacked by terrorists but I reminded myself mine would be the last one they'd pick - it was owned by the country that made semtex!

Would love to go back and see the city not just the airport! At the time I'd have had to apply ages in advance and get a visa to step outside the airport (even for an hour)- and tell the police where I'd stay each night.

neverdespairgirl

Hello all NP - back from ski-ing, had a great time. A lot of snow, though - a couple of metres over the week we were there (Val Thorens, in France, but we flew to and from Geneva) and we didn't get to ski at all the last day. Isaac adored it - both ski-ing, and (as a polar bear) finding and eating seals in snow drifts.

chewmylegoff

i was in meribel last year, it hadn't snowed for a month and was awful! sheet ice everywhere which was not ideal for a pathetic beginner.

we flew into grenoble and had a similar massive transfer. grenoble was also the most poorly organised airport ever, it's not like they don't know that people fly into there to go skiing in the winter, they were trying to operate the place on a skeleton crew. hated the long transfer, 4 hours i think. if i went back to the french alps i would be getting the eurostar and a taxi!

neverdespairgirl

sss555s wrote: »

I've not really been to many European "city break" destinations outside the UK except Prague.

I fancy Barcelona, Nice and one of the Italian city's. Where have other NP been and liked and where would they like to go in the future?

Not quite sure what you'd qualify as a city break place in Europe, really?

I've been to Florence and Siena in Italy, both as a child and young teenager, and loved them both.

I lived near Krakow for a year after I left school, teaching English, and spent time in most of the main Polish cities - Warsaw, Lublin, Wroclaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Zamosc and a few others, and a fair few in nearby countries - Prague, Bratislava, Kutna Hora, a few other Czech and Slovak places, Budapest, lots of places in Romania and Bulgaria, the Baltic capitals (Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn) and about 10 different Russian towns, in another summer, and Lvov and Kiev.

I'd recommend any of the Polish cities except Warsaw, which I didn't like much, and the lakes near the border with Lithuania are spectacular. Prague, Kutna Hora and Bratislava are all wonderful, and I love both Moscow and St. Petersburg in completely different ways.

Budapest is OK, but I'd prefer to be somewhere else. Bucharest is a bit of a Communist-dictator-dump, but Brasov, and the painted monasteries, are wonderful. Sofia's OK, Buglaria as a whole is fantastic. Tallinn and Vilnius appealed to me far more than Riga, which is a bti smug.

Kiev felt lethal.

neverdespairgirl

silvercar wrote: »

Incidentally, alleged murderer has been arrested and was known to victim. Seems a quick result.

It's usually a family member. Murders are, on average, easier to solve than most crimes.

neverdespairgirl

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i was in meribel last year, it hadn't snowed for a month and was awful! sheet ice everywhere which was not ideal for a pathetic beginner.

we flew into grenoble and had a similar massive transfer. grenoble was also the most poorly organised airport ever, it's not like they don't know that people fly into there to go skiing in the winter, they were trying to operate the place on a skeleton crew. hated the long transfer, 4 hours i think. if i went back to the french alps i would be getting the eurostar and a taxi!

I'm pretty much a beginner - I first went 2 years ago, then last year, then this.

OH is extremely good, and his mate who came with us is also pretty fantastic. They went off together in the mornings zipping over cliffs together, and such other fun things.

I ski slowly and carefully down blue runs, and don't like to go too fast.

Geneva's pretty handy for Val Thorens, but our flight was delayed by 3 hours on the way back because they chucked someone off it and then couldn't find his bags.

They made us all get out of the plane, and stand on the tarmac in the sleet to identify our bags, then collected those which weren't claimed and shoved passengers and claimed bags back into the plane.

michaels

The Hemel one is behind the Teco/Leisure centre where the dry slope and ski shop used to be. I can't be having with the whole indoor real snow or dry slope thang but then having done 3 seasons in mega resorts 100m is of nouch interest (have they managed to get people out of Zermatt yet where I did season 3?) however it wold be great for learning / refamiliarising and if we ever had the money to go abrod again we would think to get the kids a few lessons first.

How did you find Val Thorens NDG? I find it too bleak in bad weather and the altitude can make sleeping a bit tricky and of course it is not the most picture postcard of resorts - I think the lower traditional resorts are better for January.

Doing a transfer from Grenoble to Meribel is a bit cheeky - basically Grenoble should be used to service the southern French resorts and Geneva the northern ones such as the savoie. I used to do weekends fkyng standstrd to /geneva leaving nwork at 4 on Friday, catching (just) a 7pm flight, landing about 9.30 and in resort in a hire car about 2 hours later local time and returning inn the same plane going back on the Monday night for £20 return on the flights and 3 full days boarding but it seems much harder and a lot more expensive now, as I walked through St Pancras last Friday on the way home from work I saw the train to bourg St Maurice and though may be that is the best idea.

treliac

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I used to be something of an expert on Canterbury, when my DD went there 10 years ago. £75+ per week now (?!?). This for a room in a house on the noisy Sturry road.........

I could not quite follow how "Ronnie" and his "apprentice" had raised the ceiling in the cellar

Yes, it is a lovely city. Students have free admission to the cathedral and can look forward to the pleasure of graduating there.

DS's rent is a little under £110 per week (based on 52 weeks) and it's only a small room. It's approaching time to start looking around for next year.

As for the cellar on the programme, you could only see the step in the floor above where it had been raised so I've no idea. There's little doubt, however, that Ronnie and his wife know their business with student lets.

zagubov

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I lived near Krakow for a year after I left school, teaching English, and spent time in most of the main Polish cities - Warsaw, Lublin, Wroclaw, Krakow, Gdansk, Zamosc and a few others, and a fair few in nearby countries - Prague, Bratislava, Kutna Hora, a few other Czech and Slovak places, Budapest, lots of places in Romania and Bulgaria, the Baltic capitals (Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn) and about 10 different Russian towns, in another summer, and Lvov and Kiev.

I'd recommend any of the Polish cities except Warsaw, which I didn't like much, and the lakes near the border with Lithuania are spectacular. Prague, Kutna Hora and Bratislava are all wonderful, and I love both Moscow and St. Petersburg in completely different ways.

Budapest is OK, but I'd prefer to be somewhere else. Bucharest is a bit of a Communist-dictator-dump, but Brasov, and the painted monasteries, are wonderful. Sofia's OK, Buglaria as a whole is fantastic. Tallinn and Vilnius appealed to me far more than Riga, which is a bti smug.

Kiev felt lethal.

I stand by what I said earlier. Two decades ago, half of Europe was "out of bounds" to us travellers - a parallel world that gave us Bata shoes and "The Singing Ringing Tree" and about as easy to visit as the moon! :cool: