Entertainment For Lively Minds
2011 - The Year of Travel
Where did you go this year and what did you most enjoy about your holidays?
I was very fortunate to have four trips abroad. It meant largely neglecting my friends and my usual social life, but it was worth it and I hope to repeat it in 2012.
I visited the folks in Cyprus, always a joy and their balcony is one of my favourite spots in the world. You can see the mountains to the north as well as the Mediterranean Sea. I could sit there for hours.
In September the wife and I went to New York and among many highlights (recommended by the Massive) the stand out was a sunny Sunday spent walking through Central Park in the morning, seeing the Yankees beat the Red Sox in the afternoon and then watching Ravi Coltrane at the Village Vanguard in the evening after eating one of the finest meals we have eaten (Betel in Greenwich Village)
In November we had four days in Venice and we watched the sun set as we stood on the Rialto Bridge. The weather was freakishly warm and the vista of the red sky beating down on on the gondolas on the Grand Canal was stunning.
We then spent Christmas in Prague and on Boxing Day we were at the top of the clock tower of the Old Town Hall as night fell looking out over the Old Town Square with its Christmas market in full swing. A more festive site I have not seen.
- More from jimmyshoes01.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Two photos for you
Sunset from the Rialto bridge, November 30th, 2011
Prague's Old Town Square, Boxing Day 2011
Fantastic view of Venice
Thanks for showing that. I've managed to see Venice three times over the years, though only on 2 day trips (from holidays on Lake Garda) and one overnight stay at the end of a short Med cruise*. I've been blown away by it every time - the most magical place I know. One day I'll have a proper holiday there.
(*Have to say, looking out of the cabin window on the cruise ship at 5am, and realising we were sailing past St Mark's Square as we came into port was very special).
It was in Venice I discovered
that the word "breathtaking" wasn't an empty word but an accurate physical description of what happens to your body when you see something very beautiful.
For different reasons I had to get away twice in 2011, both times I went to Hua Hin in Thailand to play golf. The first time I was chatting with someone about the incredible courses I'd played there and he said "Did you play at Black Mountain?" and when I said no he said "You missed the best one" So when I went back that was my first stop and I discovered he wasn't wrong.
This is something I loaded onto to youtube, with every shot I took a shot, some of the photos look like postcards and I wasn't
trying to take pretty pictures I was just pointing the camera where my next shot would go. Two dimensional photos do not do justice to such a three dimensional place.
I shot 120, by far my worst ever score (the bunkers and greens were sadistic) but I was still very glad to have played such a magnificent venue.
Black Mountain Golf Course Hua Hin Thailand
The Southern States of U.S.
Driving through Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee. We met some of the nicest people I've ever had the pleasure of being with. Strangely considering the region remarkably tolerant and far from the Rednecks I was expecting. The landlady of the B&B we stayed in at Alabame lending me her pickup truck when the hire car broke down.
Sitting in a square in Spartanburg watching a fantastic live band playing for a breast cancer charity, watching the fountain turn pink while pink plastic ducks bobbed round. Me and the GLW sat drinking Dead Man's Ale bizarrely coloured pink for the night!
The opposite to that was the week in Corfu in an all inclusive hotel full of Russians spending the whole time at the bar with them getting more and more aggressive. An all inclusive holiday was spent, all week, in the next village eating and drinking with locals so costing me double! Even that couldn't rescue it!