European Vacation Days 1 & 2 - July 2022

Day 1 - July 10, 2022 in London

My husband had a business conference in London last summer. Boogs and I decided to tag along on the trip. 

Our first look at London. We landed at Heathrow Airport around 10 o'clock in the morning. 

It took a while to get our luggage. There were hundreds of bags surrounding the baggage area. Every baggage carousel was surrounded by bags. We were told they were severely understaffed. 

We took a black cab from the airport to the hotel.

We settled in to our Hotel, Waterloo Hilton Hampton, and then went out for lunch. The Waterloo area was a great location. We were close to many tourist sites, restaurants, and shops. We had lunch at a restaurant called The Fire Station, walked around a little bit, and then went back to the hotel to sleep. Jet lag was getting to us.

Day 2 - July 11, 2022 in London

My husband did not have to work this day. We slept in and had a bit of a later start to our day. Samuel ended up sleeping about 15 hours. At home in Texas, it was 109 degrees, the high for London was 88 degrees. We were loving the cooler weather, but the London news was reporting it as a heat wave.

We went out to breakfast at Caffe Deniro before spending the day sight seeing.

It was a gorgeous day. 

We bought a day pass on the Uber Boat to get around London. It was called the Cylone Clipper. The water in the Thames was very brown. The boat was a great way to get from one place to another. It cost 43 pounds for the three of us to get a day pass.

We got off at the Bankside Pier to go to the Tate Modern Museum. We passed Shakespeare's Globe Theater. 

We did not go in the Globe but I had to stop and take a quick pic. I talked my guys into giving me an hour to spend at The Tate Modern Museum. Wow, the entrance area was huge!

When we first walked in, we headed to the right side of the museum. It had lots of bare concrete rooms with various modern dance pieces projected onto the walls.  

The left side of the museum had things we were more interested in. The picture next to Boogs reminded him of the blanket I finished knitting for him last year. 

We saw lots of interesting pieces of art from Dali, Picasso, fiber artists, sculptures, carvers, etc. 

After we left the Tate, we walked over to Boroughs Market. It was a really neat place to wander around. We did a little bit of souvenir shopping - chocolates, socks, hat, and a few other small things.

The food smelled so good but we were still full from our breakfast. There was one shop that had cooked goat legs with different seasonings on display. 

We ended up buying goat ice cream from a little cart called The Greedy Goat. It was delicious. 

We walked along the Queen's Walk before hopping back on the Uber Boat.

The boat went under the London Bridge. It was a really neat angle to look the bridge from underneath it.

The next time we got off the boat was at the Greenwich Pier. 

We stopped at the visitor's center. We walked through the National Maritime Museum.

Greenwich is really pretty. We walked up the looooong path to Observation Hill to the Royal Observatory. I dared Boogs to roll down the hill. He just rolled his eyes at me. This picture looks like a fairy tale.

Of course we had to have a picture of my husband and Boogs with a statue of General James Wolfe, a gift from Canada.

We were getting hungry so we walked into town to find a place to eat. We ended up at a Nepalese restaurant called Mountain View. The food was very good, we had chicken tikki marsala, lamb korma, and garlic chili chicken with some amazing deserts.

We took the Uber Boat back to the London Eye Pier and walked back to our hotel in Waterloo. 

It was about 9 pm by the time we made it back to our room. We walked over 10 miles and were exhausted from our day of sightseeing.

Turks & Caicos 2023 Day 8 & 9

Grand Turk sunrise on day 8

June 9th was our eighth day on Grand Turk. Since we were flying out the next day, we were unable to scuba dive on day eight. The dive shop owner told us we should go to the festival taking place on Salt Cay island.

This is the boat that was supposed to take us from Grand Turk to Salt Cay. Unfortunately, it left 30 minutes earlier than they told us it would, so we missed it. The owner of the dive shop happened to be walking by Manta House and we asked her if there was another way to get to Salt Cay. She made some calls and even took the time to drive us across the island to catch another boat to Salt Cay. It took about half an hour to get from Grand Turk to Salt Cay. The boat was moving fast. I loved it!

When we arrived at Salt Cay, people were setting up a stage for live music and tents for selling homemade food. It was pretty quiet, so we decided to walk around the island a bit. Salt Cay is the smallest of the inhabited islands of Turks and Caicos and does not have very many permanent residents.

We were told this house, with the limestone roof, is a nautical landmark because the huge white roof reflects moonlight and can be see for miles away by boats. Tim, the owner of the boat we rode to the island on, has lived in The White House since 1999. We were told his family had it built in the early 1800s and family members have owned it since then.

Island church

There were many nice beaches to explore.

Lots of little tide pools.

Boogs took this picture of a boat that washed up on shore during one of the hurricanes that have hit the island.

Cannon at Dunscombe Point

Our dive shop owner told us we should go to Dunscombe Point and swim in the pool. (Look Mom, a tree! Isn't that...interesting?

There is a beautiful "pool" at Dunscombe Point. We enjoyed swimming there and looking for crabs inside all of the holes in the rocks. We swam for more than an hour before heading back to the festival area.

We listened to live music for a little while and then went to the Coral Reef Bar and Grill to grab a bit to eat. The conch fritters were delicious with a little bit of ketchup and spice sauce.

Yum!

Going to Salt Cay was a good way to spend the day. I enjoyed our swim and the boat ride over more than the festival. The boat ride back to Grand Turk was a bit slower than the ride over. 

We had a quiet evening back at Manta House and sat on the beach to watch another beautiful sunset.

June 11th was our last day on Grand Turk. I was up early again and sat on the beach to watch the sunrise. I miss that beautiful view.

Nigel showed up to watch the sunrise with me. 

We had a wonderful time on vacation on Grand Turk island. It was beautiful, peaceful, and incredibly relaxing.