Vienna day 2

Opps, it was entirely my fault, missed the practice session at the Spanish Riding School as I just read the 2pm tour and not the email which said the practice was at 10am. Hopefully tomorrow´s gala performance will make up for it.

The Spanish Riding School is beautiful, although the arena is smaller than I expected. Unfortunately the horses have a virus which means that we were not able to enter the stables or touch the horses as it is contagious.

See the following link for more info http://www.srs.at/index.php?id=353

The horses are stunningly beautiful and a lot shorter than I expected. It was very interesting hearing the history of the riding school and also how the horses and riders are trained. They start training the horses at 4 years old and they usually begin performing at 12 years old and then perform until they retire at approx 25 years old when they are retired and generally live until 30 years of age, a very good age for horses. The riders are generally aged 16 when they join and non riders are preferred. Following their training they are moved up a league to student rider where they are trained by the stallions and senior riders. Next step up is senior rider when they train four stallions each and if they are lucky, eventually graduate to the chief rider, these are the riders who perform the difficult jumps. The riders can retire and although no pension was mentioned, it appears they are well looked after.

Our guide, Lukas, was entertaining and told many interesting stories and I can´t help but wonder if he is a failed rider as he mentioned the fall out is high for trainee riders...

We also saw alot of Vienna with its classical looking old buildings and cobbled streets. Dogs everywhere - on the underground (you pay a half price fare for the dog)in shops, and all well behaved. The cathedral was amazing - almost did a tour of the catacombs, but wimped out when I saw them disapearing into the depths. Really looking forward the performance tomorrow. Anne.

Vienna

Naughty Neighbourhood

Here we are in lovely Vienna, with this view from our room's window. Unfortunately no models to be seen...

The drive to Heathrow was sort of uneventful other than the usual six trips around the roundabout until we found where we actually needed to go and most of the time that was pure guesswork.

So now carless and in a city where the traffic goes the wrong way and everything closes on Sunday!

The hotel is ok, now that they've added a second bed ... It's quite warm here, about 23 degrees and thankfully we have lots of windows to open.

Tomorrow is day one of the Spanish Riding School adventures which will follow.

Road Trip, Road Trip, Road Trip

I love a road trip I do and this road trip was extra special as my sister, Anne was along for the ride!!!

I returned from Glastonbury at 4.30am on Monday and within hours we were on the road to Oxford. It took ages to get out of London and I must say Anne's map reading abilities are even worse than mine, which is saying a lot...

After driving around for a while we managed to find a bed for the night at the rather stunningly ordinary River Hotel, on the banks of the River Thames. Our hostess was most definately without the 'mostess'.

We carried out a thorough investigation of Oxford and found lots of university grounds closed but had a very nice stroll until we had an early dinner in an empty courtyard and returned to our delightful abode whereupon I fell asleep for 12 hours ...



The next day, well rested we enjoyed breakfast in the hotel until the fire alarm went off and all the other tourists cleared off and we stayed put finishing off our full english...

Next we drove off to Blenheim Palace (Anne would like to record that we didn't get lost going there) and were among the first to arrive and started off our visit with the new interactive tour with the ghost of Grace Ridley, the Duchess' maid. For more information follow this link http://www.blenheimpalace.com/news/blenheim.htm

We followed this tour with a stroll around the grounds, including the lovely rose gardens, where Anne is a bashful model.



We returned to the Palace for the tour of the state rooms which was accompanied by annoying Americans telling each other that but for Americans the Palace wouldn't exist...

We broke away from them and visited the front of the Palace to see the 'secret gardens' before heading off in search of the Cotswolds. From Witney we drove to Burford which I recognised from a previous visit several years ago. Unfortunately it was just before 5pm and most shops were closing, however, we did manage to do some shopping before stopping for cream teas followed by a stroll through the local graveyard.

We then got very lost trying to find our way to Bath. The upside was that Anne saw some lovely English countryside and pretty houses ... we eventually arrived in Bath and were promptly told to make our way to Bristol for accommodation as you have to book months in advance for beds in Bath.

So off to Bristol we went and proceeded to get incredibly lost trying to find the only hotel that seemed to have accommodation. We ended up picking up a local to navigate us to the Marriott - oh the shame!

Very nice beds so another good night's sleep before getting up earlish to head back to Bath and after enjoying an al fresco breakfast watching students enter the cathedral for graduation, we went on a free walking tour that took about two hours and was very informative and enjoyable. We then did a tour of the baths which were stunning, and nice and warm!



Following this tour we wandered around Bath, doing a bit more shopping and then trekked back to our car after asking directions from some policemen ... Then it was a very slow exit from Bath and a quick and wet drive straight to Brighton where we arrived amid a heavy downpour to find seafront accommodation (although we in the cheap room didn't get the view) for the night. Again an early start for a stroll down the pier (which was closed at that time of day). I looked sadly upon my friend, the helter skelter, before strolling along the beach front and back through the town checking out all the lovely shops before a return to London, via Ikea in Croydon.

Pre-Glasto

Hello World

I should probably be more excited about my sister coming to visit me, but Glasto wins - but only just and it happens first!

I'm off tomorrow by coach (yuck) and meeting Kat and co there (with a bit of luck). I shall be a late arrival as not leaving London until 5.30pm...

Anne arrives on Saturday whilst I imagine I'll be waist deep in mud, minus the gumboots which didn't arrive!

That's it for my first post. Kylie's patiently explaining the wonders of blogging and I really should be going down to the supermarket so Anne has something to eat when she gets here.