Mike and Jane's Travels
('How to spend the kids inheritance')
"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page"...St Augustine
A new addition to my short essays on different subjects that interest me. In the first of these, I have looked for some uplifting stories of how the unlikliest people have found the courage and determination to do something amazing in their lives but have not received the credit and recognition they deserved, what we might call unsung heroes.
After many years of researching places we have been to I have decided to write some brief (potted) histories about well known events that have occurred in the past. The Lucky Generation reflects the generation I was born into, the Huguenots are French refugees that came here in the 17th century and three well known Human Tragedies that have happened in my lifetime. Finally, and most recent the era I went from teenager to responsible adult.
Since my retirement in 2004, we've been somewhere different every year but there are some places that we have always said we would like to go back to even though the air travel puts us off a bit. One of those places we would love to see again is the Maasai Mara safari park, south west of Nairobi in Kenya and specifically the Governors Safari Camp; this is the land of the Maasai warrior tribes and all manner of wild animals roaming the countryside without restriction and under the protection of the Kenyan Government. A truly memorable holiday.
In recent years partly due to Jane's aversion to flying, we have switched to holidays by coach and also cruising from Southampton. Neither of us likes the stress of airports and have found the alternatives of home pick-up, departure and arrival in relative comfort and most of all the company of good friends a fantastic alternative to perhaps seeing more distant places.
During these travels we have met and made lifelong friends with Nick and Olwen from Cardiff in Wales, Marion and Ed, Gaynor and Jean, as well as many other wonderful people.
It's hard to pick out the best of our holidays as there have been so many but I guess if pressed I would pick the following for different reasons:
Kenya & the Maasai Mara. This was our first really big holiday and will be forever in our memories for the wildlife we saw close up and the wonderful Governor's Camp on the Maasai Mara Safari Park
Alaska Cruise. In a world where we are forever being told that global warming is destroying our glaciers we saw the incredible Margerie glacier from our cruise ship at the end of Glacier Bay. My memory of this was the absolute silence when the ship stopped in the middle of the bay as well as the whales we saw at Sitka.
Baltic Cruise & St Petersburg. We cruised the Baltic with our good friends Marion and Ed, the highlight of which was our 2 day visit to St Petersburg. For a city that was decimated during the German siege in WW2, it is incredible how they have transformed it into one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The Hermitage Museum, The Peterhof, St Catherine's Palace with the Amber Room and the Church of the Spilled Blood were just some of the incredible places to visit; there was far too much to do in two days and we will go again some day.