The Holy Land and a side of Jordan

A visit to the Holy Land had always been on our wish list, and we finally got there – plus a quick jaunt in Jordan – in April/May 2014. Io be honest, it took a lot of work to figure out the best way to travel as independent visitors, so hopefully  the following account of the wonders and warts from our 16 night adventure will be a useful resource.

Jerusalem highlights

Ah, the home of religion – for Christians, Jews and Muslims. We had a few days exploring the city, old and new, taking in:

• A free walking tour of the Old City with New Jerusalem Tours (do pay a tip though!): highly recommended as a way to get your bearings and learn plenty, like why there is an Armenian Quarter, that most Armenian surnames end in ‘ian’ – think the Kardashians, and why Armenian monks wear peaked hoods. I don’t know why the facts that stayed with us were about the Armenians quarter rather than the Jewish, Muslim or Christian quarters?

•  A visit to Temple Mount, the site of Muhammad’s ascent to heaven (for Muslims), the site where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac (for Jews), and the home of the famous golden ‘Dome of the Rock’ mosque. It’s only open for a couple of hours a day to non-Muslims – check the times before heading there. The queue got pretty long after we arrived, but we think everyone got through security (we were told by our tour guide not to wear jewellery with eg a cross or Star of David, so Lou had tucked hers away, but no one seemed to be looking for them). Blokes need to wear long trousers. Non-muslims can’t enter the mosques but there’s a beautiful view over the Mount of Olives and it’s a lovely peaceful place to walk around and take in the stunning colours of the Dome of the Rock.
• A wander down the Mount of Olives, taking in the Chapel of the Ascension (complete with Jesus’ ‘footprint’ in a rock), Dominus Flevit church and the Garden of Gethsemane. Lou’s highlight was the spacious, modern Church of all Nations at the bottom, and Dean’s was St Mary’s tomb which was pretty dark and dingy to be honest.



2000-year old olive trees, possibly in the Garden of Gethsemane

• Plenty of time getting lost in the alleyways, playing football with the local kids, walking the footsteps of Jesus along Via Dolorosa, and nipping in to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the apparent site where Jesus was crucified and buried, and is sadly in a poor state of repair.

• A tour from Jerusalem to the West Bank (Palestine) with Abraham Tours: absolutely fascinating and very sad. In a day, we covered the reputed baptism site of Jesus on the Jordan river (which is about 5 metres wide with Jordan on the other side); the ruins of the ancient city of Jericho (the ruins show there was no wall that would have come a’tumblin’ down though!); Bethlehem, including the Church of the Nativity and a section of the dividing wall between Palestine and Israel; The field where shepherds watched their flocks by night; and Ramallah, the capital city, including a wander through the market and a stop at Yassar Arafat’s tomb. Worth doing a tour as most car hire companies won’t let you take a car into this area.



The 'baptism site' of Jesus, complete with tour buses

Even shepherds need to eat

•       The famous food market, Mehane Yehuda. It’s amazing. We stuffed our gobs twice on these pastry things filled with hummus and veg and falafel, and scoffed incredible fish and chips for dinner. 

Sampling the local cuisine

•  A few hours at Yad Vashem holocaust museum. It’s at the end of the light rail route so is easy to get to, and free to enter. It’s set in big grounds so would take ages to get around everything, but we took in the main museum, a few of the memorial sculptures and gardens, and the gorgeous, haunting Children’s memorial.

 Jerusalem top tips:

• Be prepared for extensive, seemingly unrelated, and somewhat rude questions when you arrive and want to leave the airport. I was asked the origins of my (German) surname when we arrived, our itinerary was put under a microscope, and we were grilled on who we’d visited and where we’d stayed in Jordan as we tried to leave.
• It’s very easy to grab a sheirut (shared taxi) from Tel Aviv airport to Jerusalem, just follow the signs to taxis/buses, and there are plenty of guys touting their mini-vans. Cost was 64 shekels pp and they took to our accommodation after a few other drop offs.
• The website for inter-city buses is in Hebrew only, so it’s tough to book from the UK. Instead, we asked at the information centre just inside the Jaffa gate, and they booked the bus we wanted online for us.
• Tala Hummus was a bit of a gem of a find, just up by the Jaffa gate, delicious and cheap and no problems spending an hour or so playing cards out of the heat eating hummus and lemon and mint drinks.
• Traffic to get in, out, and around the city can be mental. Leave plenty of time.
• Everything closed over Passover. We mean everything including public transport. Except for restaurants in the Muslim quarter of the old city, a few crummy little supermarkets, and a kosher McDonalds we had to visit with a handful of other forlorn tourists out of desperation one night. We thought things may be busy due to Easter, but completely missed the memo about how to survive as a visitor during Passover.
• To get to the Mount of Olives, get a public bus (check with the info centre which one, from the Damascus Gate) to the top, and wander down the path. You’ll need a decent guide book to know where to go and what you’re looking at. The Church of Mary Magdalene was closed the day we visited so check that too if you’re desperate to see one in particular. 

Halva at the markets

Galilee/Nazareth/Haifa/Akko highlights

From Jerusalem, we hired a car and braved the crazy (and I mean crazy, selfish, aggressive, dangerous) traffic for a couple of hours north to explore Galilee and Nazareth. The areas around the Sea of Galilee are beautiful, especially if you’re interested in Christian history like us. We enjoyed a fish lunch on the waterfront at Tiberius (not much else to see there), visited the ‘Jesus Boat’ on the shores of the Sea of Galilee which was interesting, and the church on the Mt of Beatitudes (the site of ‘blessed are etc etc’) which had spectacular gardens and view.

Loaves and fishes garden

Nazareth itself doesn’t have an awful lot to see, but this was our base for the north and we spent a couple of hours looking around the Church of the Annunciation – the site where the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary – and the church of St Joseph next door, the site of St Joseph’s carpentry shop and Jesus’ childhood home. The courtyard of the Church of the Annunciation was a highlight, with gorgeous murals and mosaics of Mary and Child from around the world. This was the only church on our visit where Lou’s knee-length shorts were too short, but they had wrap skirts to borrow for the information centre. While in Nazareth was ate at Al Amir (sign’s in Hebrew only, it’s by St Mary’s well) – some of the best kebabs and hummus we had all holiday. We stayed at Fauzi Azar Inn which was pretty, but very expensive for how basic it was (and houses a mixture of hostel and hotel guests and prices, meaning we were kept awake by budget travellers while we tried to get our £100 a night worth of sleep).

Images of St Mary and child from around the world

We spent a day from Nazareth driving to Haifa and Akko on the coast. An easy drive, so well worth doing if you’re up that way. In Haifa we visited the Ba’hai gardens, most of which were closed on the day we were there (Wednesday). So if you’re really interested in exploring them in full – only allowed with a guide – don’t go on a Wednesday! We also stopped at Elijah’s cave in Haifa, but there’s not much to see now apart from a slightly dingy Jewish shrine in a cave.  Dean loves a walled city, so we spent a great hot and windy couple of hours walking around Akko on the coast, one of the few Mediterranean cities whose surrounding walls have remained intact.

Eilat to Jordan

There are a number of border crossings between Israel and Jordan, each with pros and cons – like location, who ‘owns’ the crossing, variations in visa requirements and costs, and who’s allowed to use it. We decided to cross from Israel to Jordan via Eilat, right down at the south, as it was reported to be an easy crossing and got us closest to Petra, our first stop in Jordan. It was an easy five-hour bus ride from Jerusalem (a few run each day, you must book in advance. You get allocated seats and free wifi). It was a bit of a rude scrum to get on the bus – which is stupid since everyone has an allocated seat – and the bus stopped for food etc after about 3-4 hours so was a fairly comfy trip with great views of the Dead Sea as the sun went down. Eilat itself was a fairly tacky sea side town, but we spent one night there at the dodgy-looking, basic Corrinne hostel before taking a 10 minute taxi (30 shekels) to the border with Jordan the next day. This border was super easy to manage, we just walked from one country to the other in 20 minutes around mid-day. We’d read that you weren’t allowed to take any food or drink across but we weren’t asked. We also didn’t have to pay for a visa and were greeted on the other side with a warm handshake from Jordanian officials. Rather a different welcome from that in Israel!

  

Amazing colours in the stone, Petra

Jordan – Petra and the Dead Sea

We had arranged through our hotel in Petra for a car to take us the two hours from the border to Petra (45 JD). The ancient ‘Rose City’ of Petra is amazing. We stayed at the excellent Cleopetra Hotel where we were warmly welcomed by Mosleh, the legendary front-of-house/can-sort-anything-for-you man. Everyone we met was friendly and up for a chat, here's a taste of the fun spirit of the local Jordanian kids putting Dean through his paces:

Two nights was a good amount of time to visit so long as you’re happy to get up early to get in to Petra, it was magic to wander in before 7am while it was empty and quiet (and not overrun with tourist buses).

The Monastery, Petra

We covered pretty much all of Petra (or so it felt), including the High Place of sacrifice, a trek to the Monastery up steep steps complete with souvenir sellers charmingly sweeping the dust from the steps made of dirt, and tourists on donkeys looking absolutely petrified. We also took in a number of the Royal Tombs. Petra was, of course, scorching hot and there was no cover, so wear a hat and take plenty of water (you can buy water and snacks inside too).

Back up near the hotel, we ate twice at Al Arabi which had the general kebabs etc (delicious) and a huge range of salads etc and paid a visit to a local bakery for its huge range of baklava and other yummy and cheap sweeties.

Dean and his mates at Shobak castle

From Petra, we organised a car (through our mate Mosleh) to take us to the Dead Sea which cost 75 JD and took about 3.5-4 hours with a quick stop to explore the remains of Shobak castle, and chat to the locals in Sala-al-Din fancy dress. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Resort which was new, plenty of pools and space, and lovely big rooms – we were upgraded. The best bit was the free mini-bar with soft drinks, chocolate milk and crisps. Lucky, as the food wasn’t all that great at the hotel, we just wanted a nibble one evening so ordered pizzas at the pool-side bar – they were frozen, heated in a microwave. Much more promising was Shrak restaurant, serving Jordanian fare. The resorts along the Dead Sea really are in the middle of nowhere so you’re stuck with the food wherever you stay. Take snacks!

As well as quality time poolside and in the pool, we took a couple of dips (or rather, bobs) in the Dead Sea and slathered ourselves with the magic black gloopy mud.

Pool-side drinks at the Dead Sea

Bobbing around

 Israel – Jordan King Hussain/Allenby Bridge

We used the Allenby Bridge crossing back to Israel, knowing it was the worst in terms of how long it would take and treatment of those crossing, but it was still much closer than heading all the way south again, then trekking back North in Israel. We arrived at 8am just as it opened, were marshalled through a couple of Visa desks – one to pay a departure tax and one to hand over our passports. Yes, hand them over. As in, leave them with the Visa guys out of blind trust that we’d receive them back once on the bus to the border itself. Hey, we had no choice and everyone else was doing it, but it was a relief to get them back 30 minutes later. The whole crossing took about four hours, with much of that spent in the hot sun in jostling, queue-jumping crowds.  The actual ‘visa’ part was quick and easy, it was more the queues to get your baggage x-rayed and through the doors. This border is so bad because it’s the only one Palestinians can use to get in or out of the West Bank so it’s chock full at the best of times. We think there was a big Hajj returning too, judging by the 10L containers of holy water going through – this added to the queue pressure. Our advice: get there at or before 8am, have some food and water and patience. Once through, get a sheirut again from just outside the hall into Jerusalem for 42 shekels each.

Tel Aviv

We ended our trip in Tel Aviv, jumping on a bus from Jerusalem (no need to book, they go a few times each hour). We were pretty tired by this stage, so we spent our final days mostly in relaxation mode, with every evening on the beach sunning ourselves and watching the sun go down. 

When we felt active, we:

• Visited the Hagana and IDF museums, both focused on Israel’s military history. Both fairly interesting if you’re in to military stuff, take your passport and be prepared to be grilled at the IDF museum, with Lou asked why she’d visited Egypt five years earlier – a question no one at the border asked, but which, apparently, is important if you want to look at old tanks.
• Did a free walking tour of Jaffa with Abraham tours – very hot but well worth it, and we learnt why the kiwi sweet, the Jaffa (orange chocolate flavour) is so-called, as Jaffa used to be focused on producing oranges
• Hired bikes a few times (like London’s Boris bikes), visiting Yarkon park which was beautiful and worth exploring with a river running down the middle.

Cooling off with Watermelon, Yarkon park

-     We ended our trip with the most amazing meal at La Shuk restaurant off Dizengorf St eating an incredible, unique seafood dish – too hard to even describe but it was a taste to remember.

Tel Aviv is very much a late-night party city. All restaurants seemed to be open until the wee hours of the morning, and were open on Friday (Shabat) when everything in Jerusalem would be closed.

 That’s the big adventure done for 2014, we’ll stick to a few easier, and closer to home options for the remaining months to try to get some relaxation in.

Chlling in the Cotswolds

The Lygon Arms

 

 

We needed a long weekend and some R&R in November, so booked a couple of nights at the Lygon Arms in Broadway, in the Cotswolds, just a couple of hours drive away.

The Lygon Arms is an old coaching inn so it was full of nooks and crannys and fireplaces to snuggle up with red wine and a book. The restaurant, in the old hall, was amazing, and the spa treatments were pretty darn good too.

While in Broadway - a tiny town - we trekked up to Broadway Tower, a Capability Brown 'folly' and the second highest point in the Cotswolds. Despite it being November, we were there on a glorious sunny day, so the views were pretty impressive.

The highlight for us, though, was a guided tour of the nuclear bunker, a shining example of government propaganda. These bunkers were set up, and manned, with instruments to measure a nuclear explosion, but the instruments would have been of absolutely no use to anyone in the event of a nuclear explosion. But if they made people feel safer, then job done! Really facinating and well worth a visit.

We drove back via other the beautiful Bourton on the Water and a quick stop at Bampton for a peek at St Mary's church, famous for being used for filming in Downton Abbey.

 With Broadway Tower in the background

 

 Our walk to Broadway Tower

 

 A higgledy-piggledy cottage, Broadway

 

Cinque Terra: La Bella Italia

Dean’s folks paid us a visit over summer (about time and don’t leave it so long between drinks please parents), so we planned a trip to Italy with them for some flavour of the continent and some guaranteed sunshine and to trace Dean’s Mum’s family roots to the town of Calomini. Lou had always wanted to visit the Cinque Terre so that was our focus, but we also squeezed in a photo opportunity in Pisa; a night in Lucca; a trip to the tiny town of Caolmini; a quick visit to Verona, home of Romeo and Juliet; and a couple of nights in Venice. All up it was a fantastic week away, enjoying independent travel dominated by wonderful weather, fantastic food and wine, and not quite enough walking to cancel it out. Highlights follow.

No caption required!

Following the obligatory photos at the leaning tower of Pisa we headed 30 minutes to the walled town of Lucca, our base for the night. We explored the town – which was pretty quiet on a Sunday – taking in the walls, numerous squares and passageways, St Martin’s Cathedral and the Basilica of San Frediano (along with the fascinating – and slightly weird – mummified body of St Zita, patron Saint of maids and servants, on display. Although she died in 1272, when her body was exhumed in1580 it was found to not have decomposed (proof of her Saintliness?) but has since been mummified). We enjoyed an excellent meal that night at Trattoria Da Leo washed down with local wine.

The next day was all about finding our roots. We were off to the tiny town of Calomini, high in the hills, to the hometown of Guiseppe Vangioni, Dean’s great great great great grandfather. Legend has it that Guiseppe fled Italy to Akaroa, New Zealand, in the 1860s after running into trouble with the Coppas when smuggling olive oil over the Italian mountains. The town was pretty quiet, but we paid a visit to the cemetery (lots of Vangionis) and admired the view.

 All (tiny, windy, back) roads lead to Calomini

From there it was off to our main base for the week, Vernazza in the Cinque Terre. We parked the car in La Spezia [top tip: we found it tough to find information about parking online beforehand, get there early and ask at the information centre for directions to the free car park a few blocks away.] Trains to the Cinque Terre are regular and only take around 30 minutes. Our base was A Ca’ Da Nonna, a great little apartment, and after dumping our bags we wandered the couple of minutes to the natural harbour and saw the sunset over foccacia, beer and gelato. Highlights from our few days there were the walk from Vernazza to Monterosso, and from Vernazza to Corniglia, exploring Riomaggiore and Manarola by train, daily swims in the harbour, dinner and breakfast at the Pirate Cafe (lovely staff and free wifi), and each day ending with sundowners on the balcony before exploring the variety of food options in town. Dean, Nik and Pete also enjoyed raw seafood at Puna Pescheria.

 We would definitely recommend Vernazza as a base, it was bigger than a couple of the other villages so had more food and accommodation options, and had the best swimming access apart from Monterosso which had beautiful sandy beaches but was so big it didn't have the topsy turvy village feel of Vernazza.

After four nights in Vernazza we hit the road again to Venice, with a pit stop in Verona, a spectacularly old Italian town where we walked the old streets to Casa de Guilieta for a photo at Juliet’s fictional balcony. 

We ended the holiday with two nights in Venice, doing all the obligatory tourist spots including the canals (by Vaporetto - water bus, we weren’t feeling flush enough for a gondola), St Mark’s cathedral, Rialto bridge, and a worthwhile tour of the Ducal Palace One of the unsung highlights was a trip to Burano (just beyond the more famous Murano) where all the buildings are painted glorious bright colours. Simply beautiful. 

Isle of Wight weekend

Some pics here from our spring time long weekend in the Isle of Wight. It was worth a visit, but we felt like we could have had the same experience elsewhere on the English coast, without having to travel the extra distance to our accommodation in Shanklin on the south east coast of the Isle.

 At Fisherman's Cottage - an old school cottage right on the beach only open part of the year due to the tide. Great food, patchy service.

Lots of walking along wind-swept beaches, exploring the old village of Shanklin (full of thatch-roofed buildings like the cover of a chocolate box), and resting, so it was just what we wanted. The highlight was a day spent at the Needles, a row of three stacks of chalk that rise out of the sea. They’re named after a fourth needle-shaped pillar that collapsed in a storm in 1764, but the name has stuck. Alum bay is also host to colourful cliffs of sand coloured by minerals. The colours run vertically, but actually originally were horizontal lines showing the various ages of the earth, and it’s quite freaky to think at some stage the land was turned 90 degrees. At the park there’s a fairly tacky ‘theme village’ at the top, with rides for kids and an old-fashioned sweet shop, but we bypassed that and walked down to the boat queue and took a quick trip close to the needles themselves, then spent a good few hours trekking up the coastal path to a monument to Alfred Lord Tennyson who lived nearby, and stopping at the site of a top secret space rocked and missile development centre open between 1955 and 1971 – pretty run down with an amusing model of a rocket which looked like a child’s school project, but informative all the same. A really beautiful walk on a windy but sunny day.

 Dean with the Needles in the background

 Alum bay sands

As we were carless, we took a couple of buses each way to the Needles, which took a couple of hours but meant we could enjoy the view from the top deck as we wound our way through villages and farms.

The other highlight was the meal we had at Pendeltons in Shanklin old village: wonderful service, delicious food, and very well priced.

The walking track

We heart NZ

An invitation to a wedding was as good an excuse as any to get back to New Zealand for a visit; the stars aligned, the timing was right, and the country was just finishing up one of the best summers on record so the weather wasn’t looking too bad either. The main purpose of the visit was to attend the wedding of friends, but also to catch up with friends and family. Our two weeks there were super relaxing and reminded us of the very different pace of life we’re living in London. 

During our two week stay we got to:

Akaroa: the home of Dean’s extended family and one of our favourite places on earth.

 Sunset on the bay

Our favourite tree at the family farm, Paua Bay

Wellington: the home of Dean’s family and Lou’s home for her last ten years in the country. Also the capital city and enjoying spectacular weather confiming you really can't beat Wellington on a good day.Caught up with friends and family, and visited some of the favourite old haunts including Oriental Parade and catching a Hurricanes game.

 Wellington's Civic Square

Enjoying Feijoa gelato on the waterfront where we used to go running. And by the way, why does no one grow fejoias outside of New Zealand? It's a conspiracy.

Hawke’s Bay: Lou’s hometown, known as 'wine country', and another of our favourite spots. There we saw more friends and family, and once again indulged in food and wine. This trip, while shaping up to be an excellent one, was not good for the shape of our bodies...  (Check out this cool ad about why you should visit Hawke's Bay). This was where we attended the wedding of our friends too, and had a blast at their ceremony and reception at one of the beautiful local wineries, Craggy Range.

 Supporting the local economy by bolstering our wine collection at Ngatarawa. Check out the colour co-ordination with our local guide (aka Lou's mum)

 Celebrating at Craggy Range

Auckland: for a night with friends and to mentally prepare ourselves for the 28 hour journey back to London.

In between leaving on 27 March and arriving back almost three weeks later, the UK had increased its temperature 15 degrees and gone through daylight savings, both of which made for a pleasant and mostly jet lag-free return to real life.

To our kiwi friends and family: we’ll try not to leave it so long between drinks! For now: haere ra xxx

Singapore - the perfect stopover

March 2013 saw a long-overdue visit back to the homeland, New Zealand. In the past, we’ve flown directly to New Zealand and squeezed in a short stopover on the way back to London, but this time we decided a couple of days in Singapore to shake off the London winter ahead of our kiwi break was in order, so we spent three nights there.

Singapore turned out to be an ideal stopover:

• Hot weather? Check
• Great food? Check
• Enough to do without having to visit all the tourist joints? Check
• More great food? Check
• Easy to get around? Check
• No language barriers for jet-lagged brains? Check
• And a bonus feature: two sets of friends to catch up with while there and get the inside scoop on how best to spend our time.

We really wanted to use the time to thaw out and de-stress so we’d arrive in New Zealand relaxed, and Singapore delivered the goods. From our central hotel, we managed to see the following (suprise, surprise, a von Yarrall holiday featuring lots of eating):

• East Coast Lagoon Food Market, where we joined friends and tried Singapore staples chilli crab, sting ray, carrot cake (nothing to do with carrots, rather stir fried globs of raddish and flour dumplings) and satay washed down with cold beers
• Lau Pa Sat hawker market, set in an old cast iron Victorian structure - for more food
• Breakfast each day of kaya toast (a kind of jam made of coconut, sugar and egg) and kopi (local coffee with sweetend condensed milk)
• Raffles Hotel – just the outside for a nosey
• Little India – like being in another country
• China Town – like China town in any city really
• Orchard Road – famous for its shopping, spent most of the time nipping in and out of giant shopping malls to either soak up air con, or avoid downpours
• The light show, viewed from Bar 33 (on the 33^rd floor of the Marina Bay Financial Centre Tower 1) – didn’t really get the point of the light show at all, but the views were fab
• The MerLion, Singapore’s mascot
• Clarke Quay at night, a great wander down the waterfront with a stop for dinner followed by an ice cream sandwich (ice cream in bread – actually delicious)
• The Singapore Zoo, visited first thing in the morning and even then by the time we left we were melting. A pretty amazing zoo as the animals aren't in cages or behind bars, but rather separated from the public by ditches/streams of water. Included an entertaining elephant show and well worth the visit.
• And plenty of quality time pool-side in between

Three nights was plenty of time to get a feel for the city and definitely enough to relax and get over the jetlag before having one final swim and jumping on a plane. Next stop, Aotearoa.

A Skandinavian Christmas

Christmas markets had been taking a back seat since visits to Cologne/Dusseldorf and Luxembourg a few years ago, so we decided it was time to change that. Some cheap flights courtesy of Norwegian air saw us headed to Stockholm for a long weekend at the end of November, just after a heavy snowfall, perfect for getting into the Christmas spirit.

A delayed flight though meant we arrived later than planned on the Friday (the bus from the airport into town is the cheapest way to get there, and usually pretty quick without massive snow falls), so after checking into our hotel we headed straight for the Old Town markets with the sun starting to set mid-afternoon. We found them easily, but they were on the underwhelming side - only around 30 stalls. Not to worry: we tried some glogg (swedish mulled wine) and ginger biscuits to warm us up a bit, then walked around the quaint old streets with snow crunching underfoot. By 4pm it was pitch black, and our soft bodies were finding the cold, cold. 

We marched back through town past the Royal Palace and Parliament, and over a bridge beautifully lit with lights, and enjoyed a quick pricey pint (£6) followed by some traditional nosh at Pyttirian. 

Saturday we had a somewhat later start - let's call it an alarm malfunction. So we hightailed it to Skansen open air museum, the world's first open air museum and one of the oldest and biggest Christmas markets around. Friday's snow had stopped but it was thick all around, deep and crisp and even. A real picture postcard setting for the premier Christmas market maybe 100 stalls, selling a range of stuff from cured reindeer meat (not fans) to warm socks, homemade beer and assorted gifts and decorations. It wasn't long before the -10 degree weather started to bite, so we enjoyed plenty of hot food and wine, including Dean's particular favourite, a coal bun - a mixture  of flour, water and salty bacon all fried in a cast iron pan over a fire. Simple yet effective, it was like a thick doughy pancake, served with cranberry sauce. 

With warm stomachs but cold extremities, we took part in some of the entertainment on offer, a dance around the giant Christmas tree. We joined the crowds for some Swedish folk dancing which ranged from pretending we were a variety of animals to traditional womanly housework (we think). Unfortunately the video evidence of Dean being a bunny rabbit doesn't exist, as Lou pointed a camera doing nothing at him while he danced instead of pressing 'record'. Obviously the traditional housework dance didn't include women and technology... 

Invigorated and feeling the feet again (by this stage it was -5) we checked out the grounds which included traditional Swedish buildings (like a farm house and a working bakery), and the zoo complete with reindeer, wild swine, lynx, foxes, bison, wolverine and seals. The brown bear was, wisely, hibernating for the winter. There had been so much snow and at times we couldn't see nor hear another soul so it really felt like we had the wilderness to ourselves. As we walked back to the centre of the park the snow started falling heavily again, so it was all pretty magic for these two kiwis who still love a bit of snow after spending most of our lives without it.

The following day (Sunday), we headed for the Royal Palace. Rather annoyingly, in winter things are open very limited hours in Stockholm, so it didn't open until mid-day. This did make sight-seeing a bit tricky, it was far too cold to wander around outside for too long, and far to pricey to while away the hours in cafes, but when the Palace opened we enjoyed a couple of hours taking in the history of the building and the obligatory changing of the guards.

Stockholm was a beautiful city surrounded by water - and in our case snow - so we'd happily visit again, perhaps in summer to see more of the city without constantly having to warm ourselves up and battle against short daylight hours. The easiest way to get around was the metro - buy a ticket from a shop which is cheaper than a machine or the ticket guy (weird), for roughly what you'd pay for a trip on the London underground. It's also a small, walkable city, and we found that was the best way to get our bearings and keep ourselves moving in the cold.