Nice People Thread No. 14, all Nice and Proper

SingleSue

Wheezy wrote: »

Popular destination!


Offhand, I'd say I've been to around 30 countries...

Parts of the globe I've never set foot are Latin America and S-E Asia.

I even spent my honeymoon there!

kabayiri

Thinking of the places I have visited, I can't really count work trips.

It's not like a real break. Sometimes you only get to see the inside of an airport.

I wonder whether we maximise the potential of the UK as a tourist destination?

I'm surprised there are only a handful of Center parcs for example. Scotland would be a fantastic place for a few of these parcs.

kabayiri

zagubov wrote: »

What impresses me are the cities of Europe. The character and personality of them, the charm and the diversity. Not just the ones on the med either. If you go to Germany and don't pop a few metres over the border to see Salzburg, you've missed something beautiful.
...

The proximity of places is great. It's something our American cousins don't quite get.

California is a fantastic state, but it can take hours of driving to visit places. L.A is just a sprawling city.

zagubov

kabayiri wrote: »

I wonder whether we maximise the potential of the UK as a tourist destination?

I'm surprised there are only a handful of Center parcs for example. Scotland would be a fantastic place for a few of these parcs.

Center Parcs always seem busy; often felt you could double the number of sites and they'd all fill up eventually. But most of the sites are near big population centres, so Nottingham gets them from midlands, the north. Elveden gets Londoners (just came back from there). Longleat's got Bristol, midlands, London.

Don't know if adding more in the far north would add any extra customers, gven the nearest big centres (the Central belt and Tyneside) already have the Whinfell forest one nearby.

kabayiri wrote: »

The proximity of places is great. It's something our American cousins don't quite get.

California is a fantastic state, but it can take hours of driving to visit places. L.A is just a sprawling city.

San Francisco and LA are about as far apart as London and Edinburgh, but only has a few trains a day.

I've never been interested in seeing LA. The idea of a city without a city centre just seems ridiculous.

ivyleaf

I've been to :

Germany (have lived there)
Belgium (have lived there)
France
Austria (Innsbruck and South Tyrol)
Switzerland (Ticino)
Italy
Spain
Gibraltar (have lived there)
New Zealand (twice - we went there with Saga and liked it so much that we went back on our own.).

Also visited Tangier and Ceuta in north Africa, but I don't really count those as it was just on day trips when we lived in Gib, a long time ago.

My favourite city in France is Colmar, the regional capital of Alsace. Even nicer than Florence because it's not too big!

We've been very lucky to visit so many places, but the consequence is that our home is in need of a lot of repairs, because every time we get some money together Mr ivyleaf wants to go away somewhere instead of doing things like having the walls re-rendered

I don't feel as if I want to go abroad again though, for the time being. This June we visited old friends in Scotland, and had a few days on the South coast just before Easter. It was really relaxing as I didn't have to speak a foreign language! (I always have to do all the talking when we visit Europe as Mr ivyleaf has only a few words of anything but English, so it's all very well for him.)

My ivyleaf wants to go to Australia next, but I can't see that happening.

Actually, I would quite like to go to Quebec - I know I'd have to speak French, but I found out a few years ago that my Great-Great Grandmother came from there.

Spirit_2

ireland
norway
sweden
netherlands
belgium
france
italy
spain
cyprus
usa
uae
brunei
borneo
Andorra

Not many places for me and I can't see my horizons expanding anytime soon. I have been declined world wide travel insurance only last week that covers existing conditions.world wide includes europe. When some outstanding consultant episodes are complete and I get further diagnosis I can then get european cover. Off to France for the bank holiday weekend , have two weeks at end of october but nothing booked, and three weeks in cyprus in January. Will have to rely on EHIC

Last september I had booked aweekend away with my daughter but it was canceled as I had a stroke, this year in june oH and I were going to france for a few days but that got cancelled due to me having a heart attack. Should I be worried as a weekend away draws nigh?

I have had a number ofother trips cancelled or cut short but have never claimed on insurance. I usually have an annual holiday insurance cover policy.

trip to vienna to see Andrea Bocelli for a wedding anniversary - I was too ill to go.
trip to istanbul cancelled when my mum died the day before I was due to go.
Holiday in Norway cut short as my brother in law died the day after we arrived so we flew back the next day.
Holiday in Scotland cutshort as I was admitted to hosp there.

I know micheals big family hol last winter didn't go to plan either.

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

Never been anywhere in The Americas. I plan to cycle across America one day. I've always wanted to go to the States but as somewhere to live/travel around for 6 months not just to go to for a couple of days or even weeks. One for after the Generalissimos have beggured off.

Vietnamese bread is awesome too. My BiL has a GF from Vietnam. She is an amazing cook. I really want to visit SE Asia but preferably the bits without those 'travelers' (pretentious word for tight-fisted tourist). I'm too old to be drinking moonshine and hooch with a bunch of people that still have functioning livers that want to argue the toss with someone living a subsistence life over a penny or 2 because they don't want to get 'ripped off'.

Tomorrow will be fine. This is just to make sure I don't have cancer, not to find it. As a precaution I am going to drink wine tonight as I can't have 3 hours kip again like I did last night.

Myself and the wife went trekking in the hills in Laos years ago and hooked up with some other random backpackers for a while. About ten of us went out to dinner at the end in this little village.

The bill came and a South African girl I didnt like (as she kept going on about machine gunning elephants who strayed onto her farm in SA) appointed herself as bursar. She counted up and then proceeded arguing bitterly with everyone as she said someone hadn't put in enough..

She went round the the (rather tight a$$ed) table, none of whom would admit to putting in short.

I began to lose the will to live after ten minutes and asked her how much we were missing.

"One thousand Kip!" she shouted. "One of you has shorted us by 1000 kip!"

1000 kip was then equal to 9 British pence.

I laid down 2000 kip and left with the missus. 1000 for the kitty and another 1000 for the waitress. (Yeah, I'm a baller.)

As I left I heard her shouting "Its not what its worth in pounds its what you can buy with it. That would get you a coffee here!"

Good luck with the tests.

michaels

Spirit wrote: »

ireland
norway
sweden
netherlands
belgium
france
italy
spain
cyprus
usa
uae
brunei
borneo
Andorra

Not many places for me and I can't see my horizons expanding anytime soon. I have been declined world wide travel insurance only last week that covers existing conditions.world wide includes europe. When some outstanding consultant episodes are complete and I get further diagnosis I can then get european cover. Off to France for the bank holiday weekend , have two weeks at end of october but nothing booked, and three weeks in cyprus in January. Will have to rely on EHIC

Last september I had booked aweekend away with my daughter but it was canceled as I had a stroke, this year in june oH and I were going to france for a few days but that got cancelled due to me having a heart attack. Should I be worried as a weekend away draws nigh?

I have had a number ofother trips cancelled or cut short but have never claimed on insurance. I usually have an annual holiday insurance cover policy.

trip to vienna to see Andrea Bocelli for a wedding anniversary - I was too ill to go.
trip to istanbul cancelled when my mum died the day before I was due to go.
Holiday in Norway cut short as my brother in law died the day after we arrived so we flew back the next day.
Holiday in Scotland cutshort as I was admitted to hosp there.

I know micheals big family hol last winter didn't go to plan either.

Not surprised you can't get insurance

SingleSue

Mightily relieved the tube strikes have been called off for this week....I am travelling on Friday!

Before booking my tickets a few weeks ago, I checked to make sure there was no industrial action and it all looked safe, it was only today I found out there was some....cue 10 minutes of frantic "What the blooming hell are we supposed to do", refreshed the BBC site and it was all off.

There would have been no alternative for us, no wiggle room on time (we are leaving at just after 5.30am and have to be in Northampton by 10) and because of where we are, pretty much every journey bar Norwich or Cambridge, we have to go through London (although I have now found an alternative which avoids the underground....takes longer though and hadn't discovered this when these tickets were booked).

Never liked strikes and have never supported them....and this only hardens my resolve against them...if I pay for something, I expect to have it or a service delivered not be left with confusion and stress because someone else decides to change your plans.

PasturesNew

zagubov wrote: »

I want to do one of those pre-Xmas cheap trips to Bruges ...

I saw the film ... doesn't look like there's much there