Cinque Terre

The walk begins...
Us overlooking Manarola



Our daily ritual of beers/wine on our lovely deck
Corniglia



Vernazza

Monterosso beach
Ummm pizza... and check-out our view!



That's our apartment!

More pizza!
Riomaggiore

Wow - sensational wee break away. 6 days on the gorgeous North West coast of Italy. Perfect temperature to be swimming each day, but also good to walk the 12km Cinque Terre coast from village to village.

We were staying in the middle village Corniglia, where we had an apartment all to our selves. Was a great base to bring back the lemon cello and pasta to.

Some days we walked north to the villages, and others we went south. The walks weren't too bad, but during the middle of the day, it became a bit too hot to walk those steep hills. All good for the thighs eh! Nothing a big gelato doesn't fix!

Blackpool

Inside the local tram
See one of the many hen's nights just to the left...

The Blackpool Tower
Center Pier
We went up to the pool of black on Saturday morning for the weekend, to experience "a slice of the north". We were pleasantly surprised with the curry we had for dinner that night, but that was about it! It is definitely a grim place to be living... No-one has any teeth up there, and they look like they haven't seen the sun for about ten years. Even I looked tanned, and that is saying something! It was lovely to be around some genuinely nice people though... have a bit of banter with the locals over a cup of tea and scone without thinking they are about to steal your bag.

We got amongst the pub scene while we were up there, and ended up at a karaoke bar before 4pm with the hundred's of hens/stag do's that afternoon. Ended up seeing a lot more than I bargained for at one hen's night club... see, Blackpool does offer something that no-one else does!

Arsenal vs. Chelsea

Arsenal fans!
Dirty old Chelsea fans!



Blimmin heck! My boyfriend is a legend! Don't know how he did it, but he scored two tickets to the Arsenal vs. Chelsea game at the Emirates Stadium in Arsenal, London at the weekend. Blimmin awesome!

Was our first football game in England and the atmosphere was all I imagined. I learned a few new hand gestures I'll have to show you all when I see you next, but overall it was pretty well organised and tame.

Arsenal fans sit in a segregated area taking up about 70% of the stadium, and the poor Chelsea fans had about 30% of the stadium, but were given quite a bit of abuse from any surrounding seats. Because our seats were in the Arsenal area, we had no choice but to support them - if you wanted me to come out alive anyway.

We were so lucky with the weather. Clear blue sky and 20 degrees! Blimmin legendary!

More of Belgium the beauty

Our very own wee courtyard at the B&B we were staying at

Antwerpen Grote Markt



Cute wee restaurant
Antwerp Cathedral
Ahhh, the Belgium tradition for drinking! You actually weren't meant to pick the glasses up like I am about to, you were meant to hold the wooden handle and drink, although it became pretty hard towards the bottom!







Antwerpen Train Station

Brussells Grote Markt
Leuven - the home to Stella Artois


Well, what can I say... another opportunity to drink more of the best beer in the world and the best chocolate for a long weekend... who would say no?

We caught the Eurostar over to Brussells on Friday night and then caught a national train directly into Antwerp for three nights. Really easy to get around on their trains, and they are so fast! We stayed at a beautiful B&B bigger than our flat in London which was a really nice base to explore the city.

Went over to Leuven for lunch one day and unfortunately the weather there wasn't too flash, so didn't see too much apart from inside the pubs.