Madrid, Spain – August 2025

21st Aug 202521st Aug 2025 ~ HowNot2Life

Thanks for visiting my blog for my umpteenth visit to Spain, but a first visit to the Spanish capital!

Introduction

We booked this trip on somewhat of a whim earlier in the year, so that my wife Mikayla could have somewhere to go in the summer holidays (she’s a teacher). We were warned a few times after it was too late, that Madrid is ridiculously hot in August. That was true, in fact it was hotter than usual being 39 degrees one early afternoon, with wildfires not too far away and endless health and safety reminders on public transport. Still, expecting the worst, it wasn’t as bad as we thought. We took it easy around the hours of midday and 4pm and stayed in the shade as much as we could. Given my size and lack of fitness I honestly thought it was manageable, so personally won’t put people off going in the summer.

Anyway, Madrid is the modern day capital of Spain and located smack bang in the middle of the country. No beaches or 18-30 holidays here guys. The metropolitan area of Madrid has a population of around 3.4 million and in my opinion it feels a lot larger than perhaps it is.

Image ^ My favourite photos from the trip.

Costs & Getting Around

Ryanair flights from Bristol were super cheap at £80 each but we required one larger cabin bag that added an extra £60, so £220 total for the flights.

We absolutely loved our little apartment called Garden House Madrid (website link). At just £50 per night for three nights, it was around a 20 minute bus into the central area or a ten minute walk to the nearest metro. The bus stop was right outside the building and there was a huge supermarket with fast food options a ten minute walk away. The small additions in the room were really cute too, such as snacks, plasters, cotton buds… even a small bag of spare chargers!

We purposely didn’t have a breakfast option as we had facilities in the room, so only spent about £15 on Breakfast for three days from the supermarket that afforded enough bread, ham, butter, cereal, milk, fruit, juice, water and some cakes.

Image ^ Our room in the wonderful Garden House Madrid.

Madrid received my top marks for getting around. Total transport costs were just £20 each for 4 days and covered the wide network of metro and public buses, and possibly local trains but we didn’t use these. Buses seem to run every 5 to 15 minutes but note it’s a big city, so from one area to another could easily take an hour! I would add that traffic was never an issue for us. Most of the city benefits from 3-4 lanes available for vehicles in each direction! Google Maps worked well but on a few occasions the metro/bus linking was not to my preference.

You can purchase a tourism travel card at the airport metro station and the card also includes an airport transfer and back. Note the metro station is a LONG walk from Terminal 1, a good 20 minutes.

We had a great day trip to Toledo and Segovia on Day 3 that cost £120 and the tour of Real Madrid’s stadium was £35 each. Apart from that we didn’t really splash out on anything other than food, drinks, the odd souvenir.

We were really shit with food on the trip. Saving money on breakfast was great, but most of our other meals were fast food, which was similarly priced to the UK. We did have visit a Chinese buffet one evening, but the only time we planned to have paella and some local cuisine we decided against it due to not feeling 100%. I had to Google this at the time, but the tap water is safe to drink, I must have had about 10 litres of it during the week with no issue.

In total, without digging too much, I think the whole trip cost around £850 for four days / three nights.

Itinerary

Day One

Flying early morning meant that we made our way into the city from the airport, following the 2.5 hour flight, around 11am. We couldn’t check in until 1pm so visited the pre-planned supermarket to get some breakfast supply.

The supermarket was a real pain in the arse lugging around our bags in the wheelie basket things (top tip, take a bloody trolley key or change!!) and the place was massive, as in, a WHOLE isle just for your fix of ham variants!

Image ^ A section of just the two sides of an aisle of ham in the supermarket.

Once we took the bus three stops to outside our apartment and checked in, we had ham baguettes for lunch, an hour or so rest with the aircon, then negotiated our way towards the north of the centre to visit one of the most well-known sports stadia in the world.

Image ^ Outside the continuing-to-be renovated Bernabéu stadium.

The Santiago Bernabéu, home of Real Madrid has been undergoing renovations for the past few years so the tour wasn’t as complete as it may be in future (can think of no access to dressing rooms or pitch side?) but interesting enough.

I will say form the get go I am certainly NOT a Real Madrid fan, and the plethora of people walking around in £100 replica shirts actually left a bitter taste in my mouth. Oh how my and their cash could have benefitted their local football teams instead. This place was Disneyland for plastics.

Once I managed to get over this, and the cringe at some of the selfie-stick waving giddiness inside, I did try to actually appreciate the tour.

Image ^ A model of the finished article.

There was corridor after corridor of trophy rooms and an informative timeline of how both the club and stadium were formed. I was pleased Welsh legend Gareth Bale had his own space concerning the 2018 Champions League final (the overhead kick goal).

Image ^ Real Madrid’s collection of La Liga (Spanish League) trophies.

Image ^ Gareth Bale’s iconic goal accompanied by video highlights of the final.

Image ^ Bale’s boots and memorabilia from the 2018 final… done a good job cleaning them…

Image ^ Wall of 15 European Cups / Champions League trophies.

After these rooms you got a glimpse of the bowl for the first time, but had to walk half way around the stadium to actually visit the section where you could walk out of the concourse and admire the view from a seating area.

This was always going to be my favourite part of the tour. Perhaps some of you are surprised it was my first time at this stadium, but hopefully won’t be the last as I gazed at the away end imagining the scenes when Wales go 3-0 up in a future qualifying match.

Image ^ Stadium panorama. Nice if the pitch was there but it was pre-season. They played here just a week later though!

I tried to explain to Mikayla how the football pitch, once laid for the upcoming season, kind of folds away underground in a specific environment to keep the grass healthy… but I don’t know how successful I was doing so! However, I did intrigue her with a fun fact that whilst the renovation cost in the region of £1.5 BILLION, they only added an extra 4,000 seats taking the capacity to 85,000, a long way short of rivals Barcelona. No doubt a lot of this renovation is to accommodate more corporate ‘fans’ and outprice the locals further.

Back outside after being forced to walk through the gift shop (HELL ON EARTH) my final observation was how short in height the stadium looked. I reckon at least two of the 5 tiers are below ground level. Anyhow.

After a bus or two we then visited the Puerta del Sol public square for a photo of the “El Oso y el Madroño”, a bronze statue of a bear and a strawberry tree. Somewhat underwhelming given the tourist interest but a very recognisable image many relate with Madrid.

As the heatwaves from the direct sunline started to ease off, we visited a stately square Plaza de Mayor on the way towards the Royal Palace and Santa Maria Cathedral.

A stones throw away from the Palace, I changed my mind about continuing our exploring for the day. We had been awake since 4am and easily passed 20,000 steps. Instead of having a half-arsed flying visit now we’d enjoy our time here better tomorrow.

Image ^ Santa Maria Cathedral from the outside.

Day Two

Before our proposed re-visit to the Royal Palace and Santa Maria Cathedral, we chose to visit Moncloa’s Lighthouse to the north-west of the centre. This place promised great views over the city and at just €4 each to get the lift to the top, once you walked past Moncloa Arch that celebrated Francoist triumphs in the Spanish Civil War, it was well worth the money, especially as I had seldom seen this on things-to-do lists.

Image ^ Moncloa Arch with Moncloa lighthouse in the background.

We spent a little longer up here taking our time to read the information boards that highlighted specific buildings in view in certain directions. The sight of four massive skyscrapers stood out to the north, and there was a one building which had a phoenix on when built buy an old insurance company, which, ironically, has since gone out of business! Another building we were informed was built from the top down (cool but why) and then the more recognisable sights in the historic centre of the city. Apologies for some crap photo’s here it must have been the way the glass was angled!

Image ^ View of four tallest buildings in Spain.

If your squinting to try and see the Bernabéu, it’s actually behind the tall “tower “Picasso Tower” to the right on the horizon… Sorry to disappoint you. I did tell you the stadium didn’t seem very high from the outside!

Image ^ Details about the buildings in the photo above.

Image ^ You can just make out the building with a phoenix on top to the left, and the building built from the top down on the right.

Image ^ Looking towards the old town and Retiro Park.

Catching the Metro to the Opera station in the centre, we walked past the opera theatre towards the palace.

Image ^ Statue located between the opera theatre and Royal Palace.

Hopefully the photos above and below give an indication to the scale of the Royal Palace. Massive. I prefer not to give royalty any more money than I had to so we didn’t visit inside. A self guided visit was around €15 but note what also put me off were the queues… not too long but stuck in the direct sunshine!

Image ^ The Royal Palace, taken through the gates.

From here we walked around the side of the Santa Maria cathedral that lies adjacent to the Palace. It’s the place I took a photo of the outside for the last photo on day one. We paid a Euro donation to visit and I don’t really know what else to say, not being really into this type of thing. I can tell you I had a nice sit down on a pew for ten minutes though whilst Mikayla explored (shittest blog…).

Image ^ Inside the Santa Maria Cathedral.

From the Cathedral we walked a good kilometre in the midday sun back to Puerta del Sol (the bear statue) and having my first ever Taco Bell for lunch (probably the most Spanish thing I ate all trip) paid a visit to some Egyptian ruins. Nowhere near Egypt. I know…

The Temple of Debod is set in a pretty park area. According to Wikipedia, The Egyptian government donated the temple to Spain in 1968 as a sign of gratitude for their participation in the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia. Nubia was a region along the Nile.

The largest building was a shrine. I was really surprised that we couldn’t enter here to have a nose, and even though it seemed quiet, were told that they can only allow so many people to visit per day.

To get here we had to walk for about 20 minutes from the nearest metro and up a few flights of steps. Paired with the peak of heat being close to 40 degrees I did struggle somewhat around here. We did originally plan to play it safe and go back to the hotel, but once we caught a long bus with air condition, we decided to metro and bus jump to the far east of the city and visit another football ground, this time belonging to Atletico Madrid.

Image ^ There’s a 70,000 seater stadium around here somewhere, honest…

With google AND metro signage making it clear that the stadium stop was not operating, which made sense as it was in the middle of nowhere and not a match day, we alighted from the next closest metro and walked. I find the above photo quite humorous as at this point I had dragged my poor wife to the outskirts of Madrid just to look at a football stadium, that wasn’t even open!

Luckily it didn’t take too long to emerge with a great view of the modern Metropolitano stadium, and luckier still, that Metro station was in fact bloody open, to make our trip back to the apartment for a rest a little smoother.

Image ^ The craply named Riyadh Air Metropolitano. I’ll just stick with Metropolitano...

We knew we had a full day on a trip tomorrow so didn’t place much on the agenda this evening. Just as Kay was obtaining the divorce papers over another football ground visit, she rescinded these once she realised the home of Rayo Vallecano was only a few stops away from our apartment, and we even felt the joy of some raindrops!

Image ^ Estadio de Vallecas, home of Rayo Vallecano.

Image ^ Mural outside Estadio de Vallecas, home of Rayo Vallecano.

That evening for dinner we made the questionable decision to visit a Chinese buffet restaurant in Príncipe Pío train station the other side of the city, which amounted to another two hours use of our transport passes.

Day Three – Toledo and Segovia day trip

Today was fun. We booked this day trip (link) via Viator.

** Note ** I could probably double the length of the total blog with information on this trip. Reading it back after it’s first draft, I should have maybe put a few more bits in, but you can always google the stated locations for more insight!

Image ^ Outside the Las Ventas bullring.

Our pick-up point, somewhat interestingly perhaps, was outside Las Ventas Bullring, which is active and slaughters bulls on a nightly basis in the name of culture. Whilst it was certainly an impressive structure, I won’t really be saying much more about it. I did laugh at some of the reviews on Google a few weeks prior, many along the lines of “I had a nice time apart from the animal killing etc etc”… *shrugs*

Anyway… Our day today would involve driving south of Madrid for an hour to Toledo, then a two hour drive north, passing Madrid, before a final hour back to base. If that makes any sense.

Although the bus was mostly full we managed to swag the back 5 seats to ourselves and enjoyed wonderful aircon that made the journey comfortable. As we arrived into Toledo we were dropped off for a photo opportunity roadside with a panoramic view of the town. Splendid, that.

Before we would start our walking tour, we had a pit stop at a nearby Damasquinado factory (the art of inlaying different metals into one another—typically, gold or silver into a darkly oxidized steel background—to produce intricate patterns).

Some reviews were annoyed at this was a ploy to get you to buy something, but I found the stop short, interesting, and the gift shop had some cool and reasonably priced swords but good luck getting that through hand luggage… Annoyingly I can’t find the name of the actual place as there are a few sword makers around – Toledo is famous in this field – but the place we visited made swords for the Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones series.

Image ^ Swords for sale. Some were as little as €130 I thought that was cheap…

Another short ride concluded and we started off our walking tour of Toledo, kicking off crossing a bridge and a sizeable uphill walk to San Juan Monastery. I’m not going to go in to detail but the tour guide was really informative all day about the history of places visited, explaining back when Toledo was the capital of Spain, Muslims controlled the area but allowed Jews and Christians to live in harmony, ultimately changing when the Catholics gained power.

We stopped at a few spots around the Jewish quarter, which was the largest on the Iberian Peninsula at the time, and onto the majestic Catedral Primada de Toledo. Crikey, just noticed how many places of worship are here in such a small area!

Image ^ Outside the Catedral Primada de Toledo.

We paid €12 each to enter here, shaving off our time for lunch but it was a worthy expense. The downloadable audio guide had over 40 points of interest and in 30 minutes we didn’t get to see them all. I put that down to the guide being rather hard to follow but it was impressive nevertheless.

Image ^ Inside the Catedral Primada de Toledo, the main altar.

Image ^ Inside the Catedral Primada de Toledo, some outstanding carving on the seats that the choir uses.

Following the tour we had to manoeuvre through the narrow tourist-heavy streets to the main plaza and Royal Alcázar of Toledo for a quick bit to eat before meeting back up with the group.

Image ^ Walking through the narrow streets of Toledo. Those sheets above were a good shout.

To re-join the coach, which was parked back down the cliff face, we used no less than eight escalators. I’ve only just realised writing this that WHY didn’t we bloody start here and get the escalators UP hill and than walk back down hill?!? Never mind I could do with the exercise.

Image ^ Loads of escalators to get us back down to the bus.

Fast forward two hours and we were now north of Madrid in Segovia. Segovia has a rich architectural legacy, including medieval walls, Romanesque churches, a former royal palace and a Gothic cathedral. There is no doubt however, what the outstanding piece of architecture is that brings tourists along… its ancient Roman aqueduct has more than 160 arches and stands above Plaza Azoguejo in the heart of the city.

The aqueduct was built way back in the first century and was built to transport water from the mountains over 10 miles away to fountains, public baths and private houses.

Fun fact: This aqueduct was constructed without using cement and still stands to this day, incredible stuff at that time. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near if one stone was to come loose…

After some photos and an ice cream we started another short-ish walking tour through Segovia passing the aforementioned gothic church (another huge and imposing building) and main Plaza del Mayor, where it was explained that many plazas have buildings with balconies surrounding the squares such as this and Plaza del Mayor in Madrid. The guide state this location was prolific in ‘dealing’ with people who refused to convert to Christianity in the allowed timeframe after taking rule of the region.

Image ^ Gothic style Catedral de Segovia.

Our final stop in Segovia and thus the tour was the Alcázar de Segovia, a medieval castle. The tour guide suggested that the castle was what Snow White’s Disney castle was based upon, but considering Snow White is German, I have my reservations!

Nevertheless, the castle was in picturesque surroundings and once inside offers superb views of surrounding areas. There were many rooms in the castle that we walked through, but in lieu of any form of guide, and being a bit medieval-ed out at this point I just enjoyed the scenery!

Image ^ View of central Segovia from Alcázar de Segovia.

By the time we were dropped off back in Madrid it was 8pm (eleven hour tour for €60 each wasn’t bad) we didn’t do anything above dinner and travel back to the apartment.

Day Four

Today started off a bit shit. I was due to go to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan for the football in 16 days time. I looked to see if I could check in for the flights over breakfast, only to see Pegasus Airlines had cancelled my flights without as much as an email! That meant that I was a little miserable today without having access to a PC to properly consider my options. Fear not, just as we boarded the plane home I found similar flights, so the next blog is still a GO! (as of 10 days before my trip!)

Carpe diem and all that… today was a chance to go around at our own pace and see a few things we planned when relaxed or weren’t all that fussed about.

We left our luggage at the apartment and headed to Retiro Park, something we were looking forward to all week. Covering 125 hectares it’s Madrid’s equivalent of London’s Hyde Park. The park was really nice and definitely worth a visit. We managed to do a big circle without being in the sun too much. Not much more to say about the park but I’ll caption the images…

Image ^ Reitor Park, Madrid. Monument to the Álvarez Quintero Brothers (Spanish dramatists).

Image ^ The Crystal Palace underoing renovation in Retiro Park, Madrid.

Image ^ Rose garden in Retiro Park, Madrid.

Image ^ Enjoying the shade in Retiro Park, Madrid.

Image ^ Parterre Garden in Retiro Park, Madrid.

Walking from here, past the Puerta de Alcalá arch, Mikayla was keen to visit the Madrid Library, which we did, but it was a bit boring as the public were only granted access to and small exhibition.

Image ^ Puerta de Alcalá triumphal arch.

Just as Mikayla got over the two hour detour visiting the Atletico Madrid stadium earlier in the trip, I convinced her that we should visit ANOTHER ground, the Coliseum in Getafe, to complete the set of four Madrid-based who play in the Spanish top flight.

Image ^ The Coliseum stadium, home of Getafe football club.

Make your own mind up whether it was worth the trip for the walk around outside and average photograph. It didn’t help matters that Getafe lies just outside the boundary of our travel card, so had to fork out an extra €3 each for the additional two stops on the metro!

At least we had a quiet lunch in a deserted KFC. As our flight wasn’t until 10:30pm we still had the whole afternoon spare. I was pleased to suggest we pay a visit to those 4 tall buildings we noticed at the top of the Lighthouse on day two. The zillionth long transport route later I found it cool to be amongst the four highest buildings in Spain and I don’t think we seen another tourist.

Image ^ 3 of the 4 tallest buildings in Spain.

The Torre de Cristal stands at 249m tall with its three neighbours 230, 236 and the other just 70cm smaller! Gutting that… especially as they were ALL finished in 2008! Fun fact: The 5th tallest building is in bloody Benidorm.

Image ^ … and the other one that was hiding in the last photo!

Although we decided to make tracks to the airport at this point, I did have a hope to see the two main locations that featured in La Casa Del Papa / Money Heist, a Spanish language TV programme I thoroughly enjoyed during lockdown (watch it it’s on Netflix). The two buildings were the Bank of Spain and the Mint. We had already passed the Bank a few times which is near Retiro Park. When researching the Mint however, I found that the show actually used different locations in Madrid to film. Makes sense but I felt a bit daft.

We didn’t bother with our included airport transport using the metro, instead catching the bus for €5 each. It only took about 15 minutes to the airport, and, TOP TIP, it dropped you off outside the terminal of choice rather than a 30 minute walk from the metro station!

Image ^ One final bus to take us to the airport.

I have already told you about successfully rebooking flights for my trip to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan (touch wood), so that was good. Our flight was delayed by 45 minutes, we got home at 3am and I had to be up at 7am to drive 175 miles for work! But it was a great trip.

Things we didn’t do…

Actually watch a football game in one of the grounds visited. In fairness it was pre-season…
Eat some bloody Spanish food!
A nice dinner or drink in one of the many rooftop bars with a good view
Ride the cable car from Ouest Park to a viewpoint – currently undergoing major reconstruction
If we had loads of time, there’s a Warner Bro’s theme park in Madrid

Thanks for reading! Wish me luck for the next trip, I may just need it!

Brussels, Belgium – June 2025

15th Jul 202516th Jul 2025 ~ HowNot2Life

Thanks for visiting my THIRD blog of Brussels! As with my blog in 2022 (not much to it but link here), I will start of by saying for a better(ish) overview of the city, refer to my post in August 2018 (link here) as although we were only there for less than a day, my wife and I did more touristy stuff than I have the past two times watching the football! Nothing to do with beer, obviously.

However, if it’s the tribulations of another short Wales away football match you’re after, I hope I can entertain.

Costs

As with Macedonia in March, my pal Peter sorted this out. As much as we’re a bit fed up playing Belgium, Brussels has to be one of the easiest places to get to for such occasion.

As we were travelling from London we agreed to take the car and park a 15-minute walk from St Pancras International at a cost of £60 each including fuel. An added bonus was a mini tour of London, going past Hyde Park, Harrods, Natural History Museum, British Library and Piccadilly Circus to name but a few.

Image ^ Piccadilly Circus ft. lady who wants to get run over

We travelled Sunday morning to Tuesday evening and used the Eurostar to get across the Channel. The train cost £108 return which was great value. Prices do go up and down but it’s an enjoyable ride, with the ability to also travel to Paris, Lille or Amsterdam from London Kins Cross / St Pancras.

Our hotel, Hotel Expo was on the outskirts of the city, but importantly across the road from the stadium and cost £205 a room for two nights including breakfast, albeit the rooms were tiny. Can’t be far off a very good deal in Brussels and the location was ideal for after the match.

Other costs, general spending money on food, drinks, beers, luggage storage and the metro I estimated about another £150 so not too expensive at around £450 all in including the £33 match ticket.

Itinerary

Day One

Following on from the drive to London, walk to St Pancras, Eurostar to Brussels and Metro, we arrived at our hotel around 7pm. This gave us enough time for a short rest in the hotel and dump the bags before getting the Metro in to the City Centre for a late dinner.

Image ^ The view from our hotel entrance

I do wonder what brings tourists to Brussels. Obviously it is one of the main centres of Europe and has excellent transport links. I just find the place to welcome people for a day or so before they make their onward travels. The central streets are great for a stroll around for a full day, but activities wise the capital city of Belgium is lacking in my opinion.

Image ^ A typical city centre street in Brussels

For dinner, we cashed in on a reservation I made five months prior in JANUARY following a video from Cheap Holiday Expert! Restaurant Mozart (link) is based a few minutes away from the central square and offers all you can eat ribs for €25. Right up our alley after a long days travel. The ribs come in a variety of flavours and come with fries and the most spectacular jacket potato I have ever tasted, thanks to whatever sauce it was on top.

Image ^ Endless ribs at Restaurant Mozart

After just two and a half racks of ribs I was spent. The restaurant also serves their homemade wine that you pay for by the centimetre, but I passed on that opportunity to be fresh for a long match day tomorrow.

Day Two

I really should reconsider early starts when I have a day drinking ahead of me in future, but today I was up at 6am for a planned bike trip around the Atomium and parks that were nearby. I purposely chose a pushbike to get a bit of much needed exercise in, and spent a good 45 minutes aimlessly following paths around Laeken park, which was pleasant but not as picturesque as I thought. For some reason the whole park is blurred out on Google Maps, but I can assure you it was not Area 51.

Image ^ Proof of exercise, before I swapped over to an eScooter!

Arriving back at the Atomium, I was content with my pedal and, straight back to being lazy, swapped my bike with an eScooter to lap around the park and back to the hotel in time for breakfast. Much quicker and much more fun!

Fun fact: The Atomium is regularly the top of most must-see lists in Brussels and one of Belgium’s most famous landmarks, originally constructed as the centrepiece of the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. The balls look so small but each has its own museum or exhibition inside. I’m still none the wiser how you actually get between spheres as I simply don’t think I’d fit in those interlinking tubes!!

Fun fact: There’s was this weird copyright law around images of the structure, even if you take a phot yourself. For yours a specific Belgian Association of authors, composers and publishers claimed intellectual property rights of the images, that was only lifted in 2016. How they would police that, suing a teenager on a school trip from I dunno, Massachusetts, for lobbing a photo on his Insta is anyone’s guess.

Image ^ The Atomium in its early morning glory

We did intend to visit the Atomium this morning after breakfast, it’s about £15 to enter, but after a slow start leaving the hotel we decided to head in to the city centre.

Our first port of call was to show Pete where the Mannekin Pis statue/fountain is, along one of the maze of narrow streets. Another one of Brussels most visited spots, of a boy having a wee, which to be honest is completely underwhelming. A fun fact would be that he has over 1,000 costumes, but that pushing fun even for this page.

Certainly the focal point of Brussels is the main square “Grand Place” with some incredible architecture on all four sides. In 2018 we were lucky to visit during the a biennial event where the Grand Place is covered with a massive tapestry of flowers, but today we were treated to a few marching bands and selfie sticks galore. The centre piece of the square pictured is the gothic style town hall, and where the above photo was taken was where we settled for a beer .

As the waiter brought us our 11am beers, I had an immediate sense of deja-vu and immediately started scrolling through my socials and my 2022 blog post, and as expected, I was having the same beer in the same bar, wearing the same shirt as three years ago.

Image ^ 2025 v 2022 where did it all go wrong…

I did take some consoling over how much older I look in just three years, not to mention my heair (welling up just typing this guys) so the only cure was to pick up our match tickets from a nearby hotel and continue with the beers.

Image ^ Looking out on Place de la Bourse that would soon become party central

As for previous matches, the Welsh fans congregated in Place de la Bourse where there were a few bars and an Irish pub blaring out Cymru anthems. A loud, boozy, but completely friendly party atmosphere that presented no harm to locals or tourists.

After a few pints of Stella, remarkably cheaper than expected at €6 a pint, Pete went for his usual pre-match siesta whilst I met up with a few fellow Newport County supporters. When the queues got too long many people just popped in the nearby off-licences. I recall picking up 4 knock off Desperados and 6 alcopops in lieu of cider as the shelves were becoming increasingly empty!

Still, but 7pm it was time to catch the metro to the stadium, a good half an our away plus a walk to our entrance.

Given the queues getting in to the ground with 3,000+ other Welsh fans, I was pleased to have picked up a can of Stella for the commute with still plenty of time before kick off.

Image ^ Cymru fans waiting to enter the stadium

The game itself…. what to say!

There was a lot of confidence in the stands before kick off after an unbeaten start to Craig Bellamy’s introduction to management, although this would be by far the biggest test. Things did not go to plan as we were stuffed 3-0 inside the opening 27 minutes, just for Wales to score through a Harry Wilson penalty before the break to make it 3-1 at half time, a goal I actually missed to get a bottle of bloody water of all things.

The second half, or at least 37 minutes of it, was the most intense and enjoyable away game I’ve had watching Wales, noting I’m still a relative newbie who missed some of the epic matches at Euro 2016. Sorba Thomas and Brennan Johnson scored for Wales to make it 3-3 by the 70th minute – you cannot imagine the scenes and pints being thrown when the equaliser went in (some bloke actually fell from the second tier but had only minor injuries) under Kevin de Bruyne, the poor mans Aaron Ramsey, took advantage of sloppy defending on 88 minutes to give Belgium victory.

Final score: Belgium 4, Wales 3

Image ^ The match at King Baudouin Stadium

After the game the atmosphere within the Welsh fans was one of pride and relative happiness. Looking at the Belgium team with names like Doku, Lukaku, Tielemans and Trossard it was a bloody good effort. I enjoyed a few more pints and some food in bars near the ground before the two minute walk back to the hotel.

Day Three

I’d had worse hangovers but still sacked off breakfast for an extra hour sleep in the morning, so by the time we headed out and popped or luggage in a locker at the Eurostar station I was up for another walk around.

There wasn’t much to do but to buy my wife some Belgian chocolates from the very posh looking Royal Saint-Hubert arcade, where if my wife asks they didn’t have anything under €100.

I had steak and chips for a stomach-settling lunch whilst Pete had a bucket mussels (no ta) and via a stop at a waffle shop, and a calorific sugar rush that followed, we made our way back to the station to embark on our journey home.

Thankfully the journey home was unproblematic and we arrived in Newport by 11pm. A productive 2.5 days.

I have promised myself that I will put more effort in to Brussels the next time. They do have loads of important EU buildings that I’ve only glanced at previously, and if all else fails there are a few football grounds to visit or a day trip to Bruges under an hour away. That’s for next time though.

Thanks for reading. See you next time for Madrid in August with the wife!

Skopje, North Macedonia & Pristina, Kosovo – March 2025

5th Jun 202515th Jul 2025 ~ HowNot2Life

Thanks for visiting my first Wales football blog of 2025! The destination was North Macedonia, which is a new country for me and I think the 49th in total, with the day trip to Kosovo being number bloody five-zero!

Macedonia, officially North Macedonia (we’ll come on to that) is a Country in the Balkans, formerly part of Yugoslavia. It is landlocked and bordered by just the five countries; Greece, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia and Bulgaria. It has a population of 1.8 million with around a third of these living in the capital Skopje. It is not in the EU and has the Denar as its currency.

The trip was Monday to Friday with the football match on Tuesday.

Costs

I travelled with my friend again for this trip who was designated planner (give me a break I’ve already been to 4 places in France and Istanbul since Christmas). He did a splendid job sorting return flights from Heathrow for £212 each. We did have to stop at Frankfurt going and Zurich coming back but that did break up the otherwise 4 hour flight.

The four-star Queens Hotel costs around £150 each for 4 nights including a simple but satisfactory breakfast. It was around 15 minutes walk to the main square, opposite a bus stop and had a supermarket underneath.

Public transport was cheap. The one time we caught the bus it cost about 40p. A ten minute taxi was around £3 but the city sights are all within walking distance of each other.

Food at restaurants was very good value. A bottle of local Skopso beer was £1.50 or £2.50 centrally. Cigarettes £3 a pack. I went a whole bloody week without fast food so couldn’t price up a Burger King or KFC, but that does lead me in to my first fun fact: there are no McDonald’s in the country!

Ummm, what else? We caught Flixbus to Heathrow and the taxi from Skopje airport to centre was 1000 denar, thirteen quid to you and me. The ticket cost for the game were either £4 or £13. What a nice surprise.

Important health update for fans

Avid readers or those who tripped over my recent Istanbul blog in February will remember my foot had been a proper five digit fuckhead since January which almost ruined Turkiye for me. I still struggled the week leading up to this trip but you’ll be delighted to know my right Plantar Fascia was okay. I took my walking stick… FML… with me most days but it was 90% precautionary and in total over the full three days I probably achieved 50,000 steps.

Itinerary

Day One – Home to Skopje

I’ll keep days 1 and 5 short as we’re all adults who know what an aeroplane is and what a twat the whole process can be.

9:30am bus to Heathrow, fully recovered from the electrical outage the Friday before and quieter than my usual experience.

We flew with Lufthansa and had spare seats next to us on BOTH legs. An absolute dream! Just a quick note about Lufthansa. Obviously having a spare seat next to me was paradise beyond the airlines control, but how nice to have a complimentary bottle of water and mini Lindt chocolate bar! I’d be a kidney lighter having that on WizzAir…

It didn’t feel like a long day but we arrived at our hotel at 11pm and there is only an hour time difference. That didn’t stop us bumping into a couple of other Welsh fans who easily tempted us to go for a beer in a bar just up the road. The local lager hit the spot. One turned into three but all very sensible.

Image ^ Testing the local lager after a long day travelling.

I already mapped out that food was unlikely, so felt proper chuffed with myself unpacking a Bombay Badboy Pot Noodle out of my bag for supper!

Day Two – Skopje and match day!

Instead of scheduled rain it was a lovely sunny morning as we enjoyed breakfast on the roof terrace, heading out around 10am to ensure I had ample time for getting drunk after the touristy stuff!

Before we could catch the bus in to the centre we had to get cash from an ATM and then get some change. Easy with a supermarket and soft drinks nearby.

Fun fact: I was horrified that my otherwise fabulous “Nothing” brand of phone was not compatible with an eSIM. The plan was to get a card over there, but as the morning went on I didn’t bother. Then as the week went on it, my point is that it was actually rather liberating not to have notifications every two minutes. I did have the odd catch up in restaurants and Pete had his hotspot for emergencies, but I did honestly enjoy putting my phone away throughout most of the day!

Anyway. Bus. A very old, stinky, busy scrap of metal but did get us to where we wanted to go! Still, it was the first and last of the trip!

Image ^ A very quiet street in the Old Bazaar

The Old Bazaar (kinda like a market area) was a must visit although very quiet first thing in the morning, bearing in mind it was still Ramadan. The plan was to pass through here and walk up hill to Skopje fortress in the hope of some good pictures.

It certainly didn’t disappoint as even before the entrance one could see the stadium in all it’s glory and looked very impressive. We’ll be seeing you again later.

Image ^ Skopje city centre from fortress with Vodno mountain in background

The fortress was not exactly Kings Landing but it was free and useful to map out other parts of the city centre. There was also a small bar here that slowly filled up with Cymru fans having the same idea of a midday beer or two. Lovely.

Image ^ Cymru fans enjoying a midday beer

We continued back through the Bazaar, now much busier, and to the main square, passing not one but two statues of Alexander the Great.

Fun fact: Alexander the Great is not Greek. In fact don’t mention the G word. He is Macedonian, at least according to the locals. Apparently the statue upset Greece, which leads me on to another…

The centre of Skopje is truly bizarre! A previous leader had an idea of Project Skopje 2014 and turn the place into a tourist hotspot, by erecting new buildings but making them look old. In total he placed dozens of statues and 13 buildings. This REALLY pissed off the locals given the cost and considering the Macedonian public services could have benefited immensely instead from this cash. If you don’t laugh you’d cry and whilst I don’t think I have any great photo’s, they did indeed look bloody ridiculous. Ten year old buildings trying to look like 100 year buildings!

In sympathy, to maybe see where he was coming from, Skopje was flattened in the 1960s by an earthquake, which saw a huge 80% of it’s buildings collapse. I just think the unjustified cost of his plans leapfrogged any good intentions.

Image ^ Vardar River running through Skopje

Walking over the old Stone Bridge, which I believe is older than say, a fortnight (lolz), we bumped into a friend at the main square before collecting our match ticket from a nearby hotel.

I left the lunch decision to Pete. I just fancied a burger at most before getting on the beers, I felt rather “meh” about going to a nice Macedonian restaurant but OH MY GOD it was so good I’d end up having exactly the same meal the next day! The place is called Old House (link).

A T-bone pork joint with fries, salad, garlic bread and a drink came to about 16 quid. Just look at the size of it….

Miraculously by the time we made the short walk back in to the centre, plus a few Marlboro Gold’s, I could stomach a beer and as Pete went back to the hotel for his regular match day siesta I went in search of some booze!

I was blessed not only to meet up with some fellow Newportonians but also newfound friends from gogledd Cymru and really enjoyed many a beer and a few sing songs before the game. One of the best parts, so I take very few photos!

Roll on three hours. I did lose said pals on the way to the ground in search of some cigarettes, but after 12 pints or so the independent walk to the ground was a mix of an experience, both quite fun and challenging (no mobile data for maps remember). I’m not naming names but if this was another Balkan country or two I’d be shitting myself. It’s a good job my wife never reads this stuff…

Watching the football match was never in doubt and I re-joined Pete before kick off for the anthems, and a minute silence for the poor souls that lost their lives in a Macedonian night club fire just a few weeks prior.

The game itself, at the time I thought was very disappointing for a match I took for granted Wales would win.

The game to life right at the end of the game after Joe Allen, the living Jesus, of all people, gifted a Macedonia goal, only for Wales through Dai Brooks to comically equalise in the 90th plus whatever minute (highlight link).

I need to comment on the ABSOLUTELY SHIT hospitality in the ground. No beer, no food, not even bottled water! This was in the posh seats.

Fun (depressing) fact: I STOLE a bottle of open water off a stewards desk at half time, I was that parched. I wonder how such occurrences can be allowed (not the stealing bit) but that’s UEFA for you…

Feeling knackered after a long day, twinned with being trapped in the stadium with zero facilities, loo roll inclusive, I didn’t really have the mantra for beers after the match. Therefore, Peter and I walked back to the hotel in search of food, that was not forthcoming. You’ve got 30,000 people in a stadium and food outlets closed and hour beforehand. FML. 24 hour shop for crisps and chocolate and bed. I could have murdered another Pot Noodle…

Day Three – Vodno Mountain and Lake Matka

After a chilled breakfast we headed back to the fortress before our half-day trip in the afternoon. We had time to kill so wandered around the vicinity. I took a great interest in a nearby caravanserai named Kursumli An, as I had been playing the Assassin’s Creed Mirage video game set in Iraq where they were prominent. A caravanserai is kind of like an old fashioned motel and service station.

Image ^ Outside the Kursumli An caravanserai

This building dated back to the 16th century and had since been a prison before just left to dilapidate. I thought it would make a great hotel and in such a prominent location.

Image ^ A peek inside the Kursumli An caravanserai

What made it more frustrating to allow such a dwelling to fall into disrepair, was the fact that the “Museum of Macedonia lay only 100 metres away, in this concrete eyesore of a building that was supposed to resemble some type of old v modern middle-ground. The museum itself was closed, well, I assume it was because we couldn’t even find it, just a smattering of office workers walking around at lunchtime.

Time to go on our day trip I think.

We booked through Viator (link here) a half-day tour to Matka Canyon and Vodno Mountain. At £25 each, this was great value for money. I think we had to pay about a quid for the cable car (£24 cheaper than Dubrovnik and 3 times longer) and around €9 for a boat trip at the canyon/lake to visit the Vrelo Cave.

The three minibuses was full with other Welsh supporters and it took a good 30 minutes to meander up the mountain to reach the point where we could catch the cable car. The guide was really good too, giving a history of Macedonia, why to them it is NOT North Macedonia and why they are not that fond of the Greeks.

Ooooh, maybe I can introduce a new section. A history lesson, but by me? A Christory lesson if you will. A really to the point, citations probably needed, half-arsed couple of sentences to cover centuries of historical importance.

Christory lesson: Why is Macedonia called North Macedonia and not just Macedonia, or where is south Macedonia?

Well kids, the area of Macedonia is actually a large area that covers North Macedonia and a large section of Greece. Today, Macedonia is a former administrative region in Greece that includes the prominent city of Thessaloniki. In fact, the region is considered to include parts of six countries, namely all of North Macedonia, large parts of Greece and Bulgaria, and smaller parts of Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo.

When admitted into the United Nations in 1993, Greece kicked off about the use of “Republic of Macedonia” which resulted in the place called “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” before the two sides both agreed on The Republic of North Macedonia in 2019.

I did make some notes about some other interesting bits, but as I’m writing this part in June, I’ve since deleted them. Top blogger.

The top of Vodno mountain provided a superb panorama of the city and we were told that on a clear day Greece, Albania and Kosovo are all in view. Still no sign of my dignity though after pinching that bottle of water last night.

Image ^ The Millennium Cross on top of Vodno Mountain

Built in 2002, at 66 metres high, the cross is one of the largest of it’s kind in the word according to Wikipedia. What that doesn’t tell you is that you can actually see the cross lit up from as far away as the Kosovo border some 20 plus kilometres away. You’ll see a really shit photo as proof if you keep scrolling to tomorrow…

Image ^ Antenna Tower of the Agency for Electronic Communication under construction.

In progress was a new eyesore next to the Millennium Cross. I was very interested in how on earth they can build such a structure up here. To be honest though, I did think it got in the way of the main attraction. After some research, this monstrosity is going to be the Antenna Tower of the Agency for Electronic Communication, which will be the tallest building in Macedonia at 155 meters. twice the hight of the cross.

The mountain top views did not end there. Peter called me over to peek over the… peak… towards the south facing side, to be treated with perhaps my pick of the trip photos.

Image ^ Church of Saint Panteleimon, Skopje

Before heading to the canyon we had a quick pitstop at the Church of Saint Panteleimon up in the hillside, a small 12th-century Byzantine monastery constructed in 1164. I didn’t choose to go inside, instead entertaining the sheep outside (not like that lads) but a fun fact is that the Church is on the back of the Macedonian Denar banknotes.

45 minutes drive from Vodno, our drop off location to access Lake Matka was a good mile away and whilst I didn’t necessarily need my walking aid I wasn’t gutted that I brought it with me! The route was flat albeit with an incline to rise to the top of the dam. I don’t see many dams and concluded that I find them rather impressive. Hoover Dam will be ticked off at some point I’m sure, fingers crossed.

As the lake opened up there was an opportunity to take a boat ride to some caves, or stay in the restaurant. Pete opted for coffee and cake whilst I headed out on to the water with most of the other tourists in our minibuses. It would have been great if the weather was a bit nicer but nevertheless the 20 minute ride was quite relaxing, in preparation for undoubtedly some going up and down at the cave.

Once we departed the boat we had to wait for the driver to power up a generator that would light our path in to the cave. There were some 100 steps to the cave entrance, 100 down in to the cave and vice-versa on the way back. The cave was quite cool but something that could be missed if you can’t be bothered with the steps or confined spaces. Whilst a very low budget experience this positional lighting made a difference. 9 Euro was about right.

A relaxing cruise back to the restaurant later and the mile-long trek back to the buses (which felt like three know the fun concluded).

Image ^ Waste of an orange on my Baklava!

Once back in Skopje, my preference was to revisit the restaurant we had lunch at yesterday. I had exactly the same meal, with the addition of some baklava to finish. Two massive plates of food, sharing salad, side of garlic bread, two desserts, one beer, two cokes and a shot of vodka for forty quid. Diolch yn fawr Bois.

Image ^ Glad to be fluent in Macedonian at this point

Day Four – Kosovo Day Trip

27th March 2025 was the day that I reached my 50 country milestone. It was really annoying that I assumed I was on 49 until the journey home to Wales, thinking that my upcoming trip to Kazakhstan or a neighbouring country would take the acclaim. I forgot the wonderful country of Slovenia off my list, even more annoying as it does have its own blog post!

To book our day trip, we used the same company Skopje Daily Tours as we did from yesterday’s trip, albeit by contacting them directly to save a few quid. We perhaps could have squeezed them a bit more as they wouldn’t have to give Viator a sizeable cut, but we were content paying £90 each for the bonus of a tour guide and a comfortable people-carrier, enjoying the day with two other Welsh fans and without my bloody walking stick!

There are several daily public buses/coaches that make the journey to Pristina and I priced these up at £20 each return. If I were travelling alone I would have chosen this option, but the organised trip was significantly less hassle. As a corollary, the tour guide and second stop at Prizren were additions I would have otherwise have missed.

Image ^ Border control between Kosovo and North Macedonia.

Meeting in central Skopje for an early 9am start, we were told the border crossing can get busy at times but thankfully the queue for cars was flowing and it took no more than ten minutes, noticing the queue for 50+ lorries were very close to blocking access to the roundabouts leading up.

Image ^ Kosovo national football stadium

It would have been a wasted opportunity not to get close to the national stadium, should I not come here to watch Wales in the future, so I was delighted when we parked up in the vicinity of the stadium. The tour guide was certainly perplexed over our interest in the paltry 14,000 capacity Fadil Vokrri Stadium.

Next up was, what I believe to be, the number 1 tourist attraction in Kosovo, the Newborn monument. Although it is by far the greatest spectacle, its meaning bears much more weight, being unveiled on 17 February 2008, the day that Kosovo formally declared its independence from Serbia. To give it a bit of jazz the artwork is changed every year on the anniversary. As of 2025 Kosovo is the second newest country in the world (after South Sudan, 2011).

Just a few meters up the road from the Newborn monument was a statue of Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State for the second term of Clinton’s presidency 1997-2001. She advocated for NATO intervention to protect Kosovo Albanians from the violence perpetrated by Serbian forces under Slobodan Milošević. It’s safe to say without this intervention, the country may not exist today, with over 90% of the population ethnic Albanians.

Next we made a visit to the Cathedral of Saint Mother Teresa. It was only a couple of Euro to visit the left bell tower.

Image ^ Cathedral of Saint Mother Teresa

The next two photos I think show a good contrast of pre and post independence. A cluster of high-rise buildings populate one area of the City with more continuously being constructed, with plentiful American investment. The other picture shows the old town, which is where we’d be heading shortly.

That very strange building to the right of the photo is actually the National Library and not something from a Crystal Maze zone. We did pop in there but unfortunately it didn’t look anywhere near as interesting on the inside. Just past the library is a church that was never finished. It doesn’t look far off I’m surprised it’s just left there, although it was meant to be a Serbian Orthodox Church… so in that case I’m surprised it’s still there at all!

Image ^ National Library in front of the Old Town part of Pristina

Walking to our next stop we passed several mosques, many of which make up the oldest buildings in the City. I did find it bizarre why you would have three places of worship within 150 metres of each other, but then within a half-mile radius of my workplace back home there must be at least a dozen Churches.

Writing this part now four moths after the visit, I had to do some digging to find out where we went to next. Thankfully I’m quite good at using maps to retrace my steps and can tell you that we visited the small Ethnological Museum. In the museum, tools and items related to lifestyle from the Ottoman Kosovo period are on display. It was very St. Fagan’s like and although the ten minute tour was interesting, it was not something I would make a detour for.

By the time we walked back to the car, through the main street of bustling shops and cafe’s (desperate for a wee, thanks Burger King) it was time to head out of the city. Another peculiar top-tourist spot in the city was a stature of the aforementioned Bill Clinton, that I just managed to snap whilst passing in the car.

It was a 90-minute drive away to Prizren. This is the second largest City in Kosovo but seemed significantly small when parking up in the old town. The four of us enjoyed a banquet lunch that consisted of a huge meat platter that we couldn’t finish. I recall being quite agitated in the restaurant, the name of which I won’t bother mentioning. I had a nap in the car on the way here, thus groggy, was rushing to make the most of the Wifi and message my wife, both of which were exacerbated by the waiter taking the piss because I didn’t want a beer with my lunch. I know turning down a beer is not my usual mantra but this geezer really wound me up!

Resting bitch face been and gone, we walked along the river and a few buildings and monuments important to the history, but truth be told there weren’t a great deal to do. You can see a Citadel at the top of the hill but that wasn’t part of the day. The amount of plastic running down the river certainly took away from the picturesque nature of the area and the weather was now miserable as we made it to a café just in time before the heavens opened.

Image ^ Skopje’s Millenium Cross seen from the Kosovo border.

The drive home was without incident and the tour guide was nice enough to drop us off at the hotel. For our final dinner of the trip, at a place within walking distance from our hotel, I thought I would be a smartarse and order some fish for a change. As someone who prefers their fish boneless, battered or in a tin, it ticked none of the boxes and I’d still be picking the skeleton out now if I didn’t give up half way through. The salad and chips were nice though, as was the live music. For me though, I was ready to go home after a very pleasant few days.

Day Five – Skopje to Home

This will be quick. Our flight was at 9am so we were out of the hotel by 6:30am. Two hours to Zurich. Hour transfer. 90 minutes to Heathrow. Zurich airport was a bit shit efficiency wise (thought they are supposed to be good at that stuff??) but no qualms.

Flixbus home. Pint in the local. The end.

Thanks for reading!
ANOTHER trip to Brussels awaits in June…

Istanbul, Türkiye – February 2025

12th Mar 202513th Mar 2025 ~ HowNot2Life

Hello and welcome to my first blog post of 2025 (technically haven’t finished France at the end of December 2024 yet but hey-ho you obviously weren’t bothered about that!)

Mikayla had wanted to go to Istanbul for some time. Although I had been to Türkiye, a lesser known seaside city of Samsun in 2023 for the Welsh football (link here), I know the biggest city would be very different!

I am going to have a go at significantly reducing the word count, at least for this blog. I have been falling in to the trap of not writing about my trips soon enough due to time constraints (the pub) thus forgetting some good stuff. The initial section may remain quite text heavy but in terms of the itinerary think bullet points, not paragraphs Christopher!

Istanbul is by far the biggest city in Türkiye with over 15 million persons. A few points on this. The country stopped using “Turkey” in 2021. Although the largest, Istanbul is not the capital city of the country – Ankara is, which is more central with under 6 million inhabitants.

Istanbul is famous for many things, but of interest is that, where the city is split in two by the Bosphorus Straight, it’s commonly regarded that one half of the city is in Europe, the other in Asia. I didn’t really see any difference in culture etc between the two. Istanbul was slightly more “Westernised” than I anticipated, similar to our memories of Amman in Jordan.

The trip was good value for money as FLIGHTS during February half-term in Wales were around £75 each from Bristol, Monday to Friday. The Orient Express by Orka Hotels (see NOTE 1 below) was a great location and walking distance (see NOTE 2) to the central tourist hotspot of Sultanahmet Square, costing £60 per night for two with breakfast and use of the sauna and tiny pool in the basement.

NOTE 1 – This wasn’t the HOTEL we booked. We originally booked the Royal Orka Hotel and Spa down the road but due to a ‘security’ issue we were shown to one of their sister hotels two minutes up the road. Looking at the photos I reckon the initial hotel would have been a bit nicer, but it didn’t impact our stay, and was probably more convenient when you consider note 2…

NOTE 2 – I had struggled for a few weeks before visiting with a recurring foot problem that decided to reinvigorate itself on the flight over. I’ll try to mention this as little as possible but to summarise it was the worst pain I’ve experienced outside of home EVER. At the worst it took me 15 minutes to walk 120 meters on day three. Good job the hotel was that little bit closer to the tram! After aimlessly looking for a walking aid for two days we finally had the epiphany of asking the hotel reception where we could buy one, to be told they had a spare crutch in lost property! Relief and FML in unison.

GETTING AROUND was good (foot aside) once we understood how to get a 3-day ticket from the machine. Costing about £20 each I don’t think this was the cheapest option but we made it good value. This covers buses, trams, metro, public boat crossings, trains that go a little further afield and another type of ‘Marmaray’ train I didn’t quite get but similar to the Metro. We didn’t use an Uber once after the airport. Google maps worked OK but didn’t integrate the different methods of public transport as well as hoped.

COSTS on the whole were a little bit cheaper than in the UK. Bottled drinking water very cheap. For £10 in an American fast-food joint you could get loads. Entrance to the sights were significantly more expensive than expected… so much so we didn’t pay for them.

I’ll include more costs further in the post. All in with things like airport parking, hold luggage and the like we were glad to have some change from £800!

Shall we crack on with the intenerary?

Day 1 – Getting to Istanbul

Flew from Bristol late afternoon arriving around 8pm. Already mentioned my foot. Istanbul (IST) airport is bloody ages away from the City and even if I were fit I would have still paid £35 for a 45 minute Uber/taxi.

Changed hotels, by now it was around 11pm so we sacked off tea and had an early night.

There… that was quick, wasn’t it?

Image ^ View from our hotel, a few minutes from Gülhane tram stop.

Day Two – Blue Mosque and not much else!

After a basic breakfast we obtained some cash from an ATM and figured out the travel pass. Just one stop from our hotel was where to get off for Sulanahmet Square housing the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern.

It was early on we understood I wouldn’t be doing anything quickly today (perhaps all week) but we did wish to see the Blue Mosque, high up on every must-see list. This was also free as long as you can shake off the odd friendly chap in the square with an ulterior motive (i.e. trying to flog you a carpet).

We timed the visit really well, just before the Mosque was closing for tourists during prayer. I was the last one allowed in but that had nothing to do with the four minutes and extreme amount of pain it took to take my bloody shoe off! Although otherwise of course I was happy to do so.

Inside the Mosque was impressive. I have a tendency not to be too extravagant with the description of religious buildings… Jeez I don’t want to think how many Churches I’ve been to as an unreligious person… so I hope the pictures can do the work for me here.

After finding a stable place to re-shoe-up, it was time for a recovery sit down, one of about seven thousand today. The benefit on this occasion was a mid morning snack featuring a 50p cob of sweetcorn with salt. I miss them already.

Image ^ 50p sweetcorn as a snack with some snow and a doggy in the background

Fun fact: It’s hard to see it in any of my photos but today there were still piles of SNOW dotted around from a recent downfall. Snow in Turkiye?!? (albeit February). There’s a joke somewhere about assuming frozen Turkey was more a December event but let’s not….

Image ^ Sultanahmet Square. It really was that gloomy not just my shoddy photo-editing!

Following our short trip down the road to the Mosque we decided to try our luck on the Metro, primarily to do something where I could primarily sit down! Our planned itinerary was already unravelling on the first full day so we chose to visit an area on the Asian side of the City and a football ground that is currently home to Jose Mourinho, namely Fenerbahce. Google Maps told me there was a bus that would take us closer to the ground but I really couldn’t be arsed.

Image ^ Şükrü Saracoğlu Stadium, home of Fenerbahçe football club. From the Metro stop!

It was approaching late-lunchtime now and being a little at a loss, noted a large shopping mall near a stop returning to our hotel, so chose there. We had something called Arby’s. Obviously American but cannot say I have come across the chain before. It was below budget and filling and gave me enough energy to get back to the hotel via a visit to the supermarket.

That evening was embarrassingly void of anything interesting. A huge reason of writing these blogs is to force me to actually do stuff, but on this occasion the evening was spent in the hotel room watching the football on TV, ad-hoc visits to the shower to rinse my feet in cold water and a kebab from Uber Eats.

Day Three – Galata Tower and Bosphorus Boat Tour

The morning of Day 3 was when I mentioned earlier, it took my 15 minutes to walk 120 meters to the tram after leaving the hotel. By the time we travelled three stops to Karatoy station, the second course of Zapain for the day must have kicked in as we trekked for around 40 minutes uphill (usual pace 15-20 mins) to reach Galata Tower.

Not so fun fact: Writing this, I’ve just clocked a funicular (uphill underground car) that would have taken us to the top, with the tower a very short walk downhill. Absolutely taking the piss there.

Image ^ Some fancy looking steps up to Galata Tower from Karatoy tram station.

The Tower would have provided really good views of the Bosphorus, the Sirkeci and Sultanahmet districts where we were staying and beyond. However, we just could not justify the £30 each ticket price to walk up a load of stairs behind 100+ schoolchildren.

Instead we did something we very rarely do. We sat down outside a café bar, had a slow paced fizzy beverage, enjoyed the sunshine and watched the world go by. Delightful. Almost like we were on holiday!

Image ^ Walking down Galata Tower to the tram. Think the road is called Yüksek Kaldırım

Descending the hill was actually more difficult for me than uphill, as we chose a very busy path with many shops and tourists, add steps, too many vans driving both ways and cobbled streets. By the time we reached the bottom, back at the tram stop, we decided that I’d tram back over the Galata bridge whilst Mikayla made a dent in her step target for the day (yeah rub it in, hun).

Image ^ The Galata Bridge with Galata Tower in the background

The benefit of this though, is that I had a comfy seaside seat for ten minutes watching the fishermen and the restaurant staff trying to shepherd folk in to their establishments. On a side note the amount of jellyfish visible in the water was something I haven’t seen before. Eurgh… The bridge itself was quite fascinating. Was it built to house all of these buildings on top of the water / under the bridge? Or were they a new addition?

For lunch we had this really disappointing kebab not too far from the hotel. A miniscule portion of meat compared to home and more expensive. I had every intention of having kebabs for at least 50% of my meals but this would be just my second and final one of the the trip. A real shame as I had been pescatarian for all but a couple of weekends this year.

Kebab misery aside, the probable highlight of the trip is up next!

For a bargain price of £22 each we added ourselves to a daily boat tour. When booking one may raise an eyebrow over the departure location, it’s in a petrol station, but nevertheless the ship was there promising us a meal, entertainment and audio guide.

Image ^ The boat next to ours. Very similar but ours was cleaner!

It was a strike of fortune that we were seated right in the corner to enjoy our own personal chit chat and genuinely weird but perfect way my wife and I get on.

The food was good, but excellent if you consider the overall cost.

Image ^ Table set up for dinner on the boat

For something similar near anywhere central you would pay at least the same and without the boat tour. I’ll put my neck out and say that even if you have one night in Istanbul it’s worth doing.

LINK HERE to our booking on Viator. I’m nowhere near mainstream enough to use #ad, so it’s just my opinion.

Image ^ View from the boat close to departure point

The trip itself aside from the good food was also very pleasing. The tour travelled north under one bridge and close to the next that connect the two sides of the city.

Image ^ View of boats under the Bosphorus Bridge

In total there were 22 audio guide points on the tour, showcasing everything from history to bridges to islands to palaces to fortresses on the way. I did actually save the app to share in more detail but in the interest of keeping this shorter – go see it yourself.

The entertainment on board also deserves a mention. Traditional music and dances with a belly dancer chucked in for the Dads. I’ve got a great photo of said dancer having a wonderful time time with my wife but I’m keeping that to myself. Or for divorce proceedings…

Image ^ The Eastern side of the Straight with Kuleli Military High School (now a museum and language school) lit up.

We were privileged to have gone on a tour on the Nile in 2022 shortly after I proposed to Mikayla with similar entertainment on board. So for this reason, I paid more attention to the sights and audio guide. And the baklava for dessert!

Image ^ Another view of the Bosphorus Bridge

Go on. One more photo of a bridge.

Oooh shit I nearly forgot a fun fact!

Fun fact: The Bosphorus Bridge, known officially as the 15 July Martyrs Bridge built in 1973 to aid transport of goods and commute spans over 1.5 kilometres joining the sides of Istanbul. At the time this bridge had the 4th largest suspension span in the world. To locals back home in Wales , imagine the Severn Bridges but with NO support in the middle! Impressive eh? The equally impressive Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge further north is very similar (50m shorter) and built in 1988.

In total the tour lasted around 3.5 hours. I stress I’m not affiliated in any way but we had a 3 course meal plus bread and salad, music, dancers, a long boat ride on the Bosphorus, free soft drinks and we’re sat right by the smoking area (I’m a smoker and had a bad foot remember) ALL FOR LESS than entry to Galata Tower that we visited in the morning.

Day Four – Hagia Sofia, Grand Bazaar and Taksim Square

I assumed somewhere selling suitcases and bags would also sell walking sticks? Is this apparent in the UK or just me? But no joy for our first three days here. This morning it had got to the point I couldn’t stand up straight, so I asked the hotel reception where to buy such a walking aid, for them to pull out an actual crutch from lost property!

WHY DIDN’T YOU ENQUIRE ON DAY TWO YOU IDIOT…

Apparatus in hand, literally (lolz), we set off. Day Four would have been a write off without it.

We headed back to Sultanahmet Square (day 2) to visit the other mosque known as the Hagia Sophia. This surely is the tourist hotspot as it was the first time on the trip we experienced a queue of obvious non-locals. Fun fact, it used to be a church and still has some nods to Christianity inside. I found that bizarre.

The tour guides around here are a pain in the arse. They may help you jump the ticket queue (it was quiet when we went so would’ve saved us five minutes) but would have been overpriced. The entrance ticket itself was quite expensive at around 20 quid but you did get a really good audio guide with that.

Top tip: The Hagia Sophia was a good visit and worth the money. You could pay about 50% more to go downstairs i.e. walk on the green carpet, but we felt that was upselling from the ticket office and everything is visible from the tier we were at. The audio guide and walk took around an hour which I thought was the correct amount.

After a good rest outside sat in the square and a newfound determination, we wanted to tackle the Grand Bazaar, a few stops along the tram route. I expected this place to be absolutely heaving and to not necessarily enjoy our walk around. You can imagine my surprise when we entered the well lit and spacious market floor. I was expecting narrow alleys bustling with people including pickpockets but this was more akin to a shopping mall – even the stall owners were not as pushy as I expected.

We purposely waited to visit here to pick up a routine Christmas tree decoration and a magnet for Mum, with success. I’m admittedly crap at bartering and didn’t have much complaint about the traders first offer of £5 for a small Aladdin like lamp that will genie itself into a decoration with some poetic licence. We did however manage to get him down to £4 but apart from the ‘experience’ of bartering (meh) it wasn’t really worth the hassle for such a small purchase?!

Image ^ A selection of Baklava inside the Grand Bazaar.

Exiting via the west side as there was a recommended kebab shop I saw online, this is where the streets did get very tight and busy. This area is surely still considered the market area but I’m guessing the rent is considerably lower!

Image ^ The vast external streets outside the Grand Bazaar indoor market

In total we continuously walked for about half an hour as the kebab stall didn’t really take our fancy, until we got to the outskirts of the market. For lunch we had Burger King next door to the disappointing kebab shop we visited yesterday.

Back at the hotel I did entertain some self-guided water ‘aerobics’ in the small pool to hopefully assist recovery- it didn’t.

After a productive morning we reviewed what was left to do and decided to make a slow paced visit to Taksim Square about half an hour away on the tram and up an underground funicular.

The square was the largest area we had seen and you’d think here is where they could hold big events such as concerts or a TV showing of Türkiye’s third place finish at the 2002 football World Cup. Tonight though it was very quiet and not much going on. This did further highlight the centrepiece of the square – Taksim Mosque. I don’t know whether it was atop a hill or strikingly lit up in anticipation to celebrate Ramadan, but to me this was the prettiest of all the many Mosques we passed yet it didn’t appear on many sightseeing to-do lists. I understand you can go in if you wish.

Image ^ Taksim Mosque taken from Taksim Square

We sacked off the idea of visiting another football ground as Mikayla was starting to feel a bit worse for wear so called it a night.

Day Five – Basilica Cistern, Footy stadiums and commute back to airport

What started off as being a bit lethargic the night before turned into something a lot worse the morning after for Mikayla. Not very good timing as it was a) the only morning I actually felt a bit better with the foot and b) the day we would travel home. This was really sad considering how much she had to put up with me throughout the week.

With some disappointment and guilt I made my way, on my own, back to Sultanahmet Square to visit the last major thing we wanted to see, being the underground Basilica Cistern. On this occasion I did splash out on the £30 entry fee, which in hindsight was very expensive for the experience.

To avoid being as confused as I was at one point expecting some Church like dwelling… a basilica is basically a large oblong hall and a cistern is receptacle for holding water, like your loo at home.

Initially built between the 3rd and 4th Century, the Basilica provided a water filtration system for nearby important buildings during the Byzantine period followed by the Ottoman times.

It was a very large area covering nearly 10,000 square metres, featuring over 300 nine-metre marble pillars.

The audio guide was useful without presenting anything incredible. Aside from the area as a whole I guess, the main attraction were two column bases featuring the head of Medusa. These were apparently oriented sideways to avoid her gaze that would turn you in to stone. Yep, people believed that.

In popular culture, the site has featured in 007’s From Russia With Love and a few other films, however my first thought was how much it would fit in to an Assassin’s Creed video game. With method behind the madness, the guide did confirm that it featured in the Revelations instalment.

Image ^ One of two Medusa head columns inside the Basilica Cistern

With the tour being wrapped up quicker than expected and with Kay having no reason to want to check-out until the last possible minute, I took it upon myself to take an hour-long trip from the Basilica Cistern to visit football ground number two, belonging to Besiktas – probably the most central of all teams in Istanbul.

Image ^ A small harbour with the Asian side of the city in the background

Remarkably this was a stone throw away from where we caught the ferry but I was none the wiser in the night time.

As time wasn’t really in my favour I simply walked around the arc of some of the stadium and through the club shop. I don’t think I could have been tempted by a £70 shirt even if they had my size! Out of the 3 grounds visited this was the most poignant as their current manager is Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who was by far my favourite player growing up.

Image ^ Tüpraş Stadium, the home of Besiktas football club

Back at the hotel it was time to leave with our suitcase and two backpacks. I did hand my crutch back to lost property which was a schoolboy error in hindsight.

We never envisaged that this leg of the trip would be so bad to regret passing on a £35 taxi, but a combination of the distance, busy-ness, cost and illness(es) really made this hard work.

The one highlight was a stop off outside the Galatasaray stadium, completing the trio of largest Turkish teams. This in itself though added an extra hour to the commute.

Image ^ RAMS Park, the home of Galatasaray football club

We think it cost us about 20 quid in tickets as our 3-day pass had expired and was unlikely to be used on the airport leg anyway. And the last part of the journey via metro was standing room only!

This meant that by the time we finally arrived at Istanbul airport (itself huge) we were well and truly spent. We still had three passport/security checks to navigate and pick up some tobacco from duty free before we could finally rest and wait for our flight to board.

If tiredness had a monetary value, only when I got home did I realise I spent £23 on a McDonalds at the airport on one meal and extra fries. #hownottolife kids….

To finish, here are a few things we didn’t do for a number of reasons, but you may wish to consider.

Kiz Kulezi or Maidens Tower – a building locate off shore in the Straight
Topkapi Palace Museum – about £30 each entry
Dolmabahçe Palace – about £30 each entry
Day trip to Bursa – we initially booked this tour but cancelled due to the reviews
Day trip to Troy (as in the movie) – a long way to travel in one day and £90 each if I remember correctly
Ataturk Stadium, where Liverpool and Man City have both won Champions Leagues. About a three hour round trip on public transport as it’s some way outside of the City!

If you have any more that you feel should be on that list, give me a shout!

Thanks for reading!

Normandy & Brittany, France – December 2024

20th Feb 20253rd Apr 2025 ~ HowNot2Life

Welcome to my final post of 2024! It’s been a great year travelling, starting off slowly with our wedding in March, followed by our first trip to Barcelona and Andorra the day after in April. Next up was a trip to the Algarve with my Mum for a dire Wales football draw with Gibraltar. The big one was undoubtedly our fabulous honeymoon to South America in August, although my solo trip to Montenegro and Dubrovnik in September was very enjoyable.

This trip was different as I’d be driving in another country. I did drive from Prague to Amsterdam way back in 2013 but that’s a distant memory.

The purpose of the trip was to visit Mont St Michel, a small island of the northern coast of France I had wanted to visit for a few years now. Once this was an option, we were able to plan around it, and whistle stop tours of Bayeux, Rennes and Caen made up our itinerary.

Getting around

I usually detail all of the public transport options here, but the car was an obvious luxury, and an absolute necessity for our itinerary. We caught the ferry from Portsmouth to Caen. This not only saved us 2 hours by not driving to Dover for the ferry or Eurotunnel, but also 2 or 3 hours on the French side getting to Bayeux for day 1. This did mean the ferry was overnight rather than a few hours, however it did save us from probably forking out two additional hotel stays.

The roads in France were good. It took some getting used to driving on the right hand side, especially the roundabouts and the km/miles conversion, but nothing that should put you off. There is a chance I caught caught by the sole speed camera and an incoming €59 fine, although at the moment I’m confident the flash was for the car going the other direction at some pace! Worth noting that parking was surprisingly cheap.

Costs

We didn’t get much change from £900 for the whole trip, which was quite a bit more than we expected.

The big cost was the ferry at £380 return for a car, two passengers and a £40 cabin each way. Diesel was around the same as the UK, so another £150.

We tried to save a little on hotels. Mont St Michel’s hotel Vert was £90 including breakfast and parking… This was a great location and the cheapest in the small area. Rennes was £65 including breakfast and free parking. Caen £50 all in.

We cut back on food and drink, taking a load of drinks in the car and mostly takeaways for food.

Not forgetting the £25 expense on a car kit to adhere to French law. Not so fun fact: If you drive in France it is mandatory that you have a hi-viz jacket, warning triangle, UK car sticker and headlight deflectors where necessary. We didn’t see another car with the deflectors. Maybe newer cars can be changed somewhere on the dashboard to point them in the correct direction but I couldn’t be arsed to investigate.

I don’t want to waste another paragraph on this, but I noticed a lot of sets stated you also need a fire extinguisher, first aid kit and other nonsense, but the RAC and Eurotunnel websites stated just those four.

Image ^ Boarding the ferry at Portsmouth on route to Caen

What we didn’t do…

To be honest we had a full four days, with keeping time aside to relax (it was a holiday like) so I’m not disappointed in missing anything obvious. Had we had more time and preparation, perhaps a deeper investigation of the coastline and war beaches would have been really interesting.

When in Rennes, a friend suggested visiting Nantes but was a bit further out the way. The beauty of the trip, apart from one 120 minute drive, was that the place hopping commutes were limited to just 20-60 minutes.

It’s also “only” (Kay’s words) a 4 hour drive to Disneyland from Caen. So fill your boots with the endless possibilities.

Itinerary

Day One – Bayeux and bits

Obviously the ferry ride went alright. Paint me Jack… Time to drive on the wrong i.e. right side of the road for the first time in 11 years, and with an automobile I’m actually responsible for.

Straight off the bat outside of the port I blindly rocked up 80kmh at the first unexpected roundabout. I’d like to think the presence of headlights would have stopped me had there been some, but yeah, first learning curve eight minutes in.

Luckily for us and the population of France we weren’t on the motorway long as we turned off to head to our first stop, as it was around 7:30am and nearby Bayeux attractions opened at 10am.

Image ^ A very early arrival at Longues-sur-Mer Battery

After driving through a few miles of country lanes, it was strange to see a massive area for 10+ coach spaces and 100+ cars. However, as said area notified us that we couldn’t park until 9am, we continued and parked on a verge right by the sight we wanted to see.

Our stop was Longues-sur-Mer Battery. Here were quote “huge, preserved WWII gun installations, built by the Germans to defend France from sea invasion.” The battery is the only one in Normandy to retain several of its original guns.

Many return readers will note I don’t tend to bother with religious buildings, museums or history in general. However, in this neck of the woods pretty much all of the above were unavoidable. And I loved the experience.

If any historians are reading please note that my posts are not much more than a diary for my own benefit. I’m usually a cider loving football fan from Wales.

Image ^ Inside the structure housing the guns. Very spooky early in the morning!

It quickly hit us that these machines were not only an unfamiliar attraction in itself, but were used as a weapon during WW2 to actually kill people. Certain they did.

The area contained a few of these stations. We saw three of four, being way too scared in limited daylight to explore the narrow passageways behind the turrets, before returning to the car for our short 30 minute journey to the surprisingly small town of Bayeux.

Image ^ The entrance to the Bayeux Tapestry museum

Now THIS is a fun fact. The last time I visited the Bayeux Tapestry was on exactly 2nd July 2000. Chrissy an innocent 12 year old. I remember the day vividly as later on that evening France won the Euro 2000 final with a David Trezeguet golden goal.

Nos-fucking-talgia.

Perhaps due to this incredible moment in time, I had ABSOLUTELY NO RECOLLECTION of what the Bayeux Tapestry building looked like, and my old age, obviously. After the fourth change of direction we finally reached the magnificent building, which in fairness looked similar to other building in the beautiful town. Tickets were bought. Museum go.

Image ^ The tapestry itself (image nicked from Google as taking photo’s was prohibited).

I have probably touched upon the fact I try to avoid museums, art and religious stuff on my travels, if not already here on every other blog, but if you’re in the area = visit the Bayeux Tapestry.

The Tapestry i.e. the bit of cloth you see, depicts 1066 and William the Conqueror… ummm… conquering England.

My aforementioned new found loves of this trip, including museums, will stop at history lessons. So find that out for yourself. I’m gonna focus on the amazing feat that a SEVENTY odd meter bit of cloth made it into this museum being about, give or take a THOUSAND years old. That’s a bit impressive ain’t it?

Honestly, I would not have had a clue what what was going on had it not been for the free audio guide breaking up each scene on the display. Lasting about 30 minutes, it was a perfect walk and listen overview of the tapestry for me personally.

As buzzing as I could be at 11am on a misty 27th December having been up since 5 and driving the wrong way since 6am, I couldn’t help but notice how wonderful the small town of Bayeux was. I guess coachloads come and go just for the Tapestry, but as we wanted to get every cent from the parking arrangement headed to the impressive Bayeux Cathedral and a walk around the streets. I also lost my cigarette lighter that needed replacing. So two birds one stone…

Image ^ Walking through the quaint streets of Bayeux

Back at the car to our next stop was only a five minute drive and free parking available at the Museum of the Battle of Normandy. Whilst we didn’t go in to this museum, the tanks outside themselves were somewhat an attraction (if you’re in to that sort of thing) but more importantly it was only a two-minute walk up the boulevard to the Bayeux War Cemetery.

Image ^ Outside the Museum of the Battle of Normandy

There was little actual WW2 combat in Bayeux, although it was the first French town of importance to be liberated. Bayeux War Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth cemetery of the Second World War in France and contains burials brought in from the surrounding districts and from hospitals that were located nearby.

The site contains 4,144 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War. At the time of writing Google Maps label this as the British cemetery but this is not correct. There are also over 500 war graves of other nationalities, the majority German.

I wasn’t really sure what to do with photographing the cemetery and more so popping them on a sub-par blog, so I decided just to take one each to perhaps show the scale of sacrifice.

Across the road from the graveyard is the Bayeux Memorial, to remember the 1,800+ Commonwealth Soldiers who are know to have died but have no known grave.

From Bayeux we drove 25 minutes to the Normandy American Cemetery just off the Channel. I did find this very contrasting. It has a huge carpark before going through the entrance with toilets, site map and a small museum. It feels strange to compare but it did have that Theme Park feel with the entrance, multiple trails and ‘attractions’. A feeling the American’s doubled up the site as a celebration of victory alongside remembering the fallen.

Image ^ Omaha beach taken from inside Normandy American Cemetery

We took a path that ran above the famous Omaha beach. We didn’t see anyone on the beach walking the dog etc. It was eerily vacant. Perhaps visiting the beach is prohibited I don’t know. In any case it was impossible to imagine the warfare 60 years prior.

A map overlooking the beach was educational, especially for me who had/has little knowledge on the subject.

Image ^ Map depicting allied forces arriving in France during WW2

Whatever route you chose you would no doubt enter the huge area with the graves. Thousands upon thousands of crosses with the odd Star of David gravestones dotted throughout.

Image ^ Over 9000 gravestones at the Normandy American Cemetery

In total, 9,389 people are buried here.

Image ^ Infinity pool and memorial at the Normandy American Cemetery

The central point of the perfectly symmetrical layout features a chapel, with what I can only assume the front end featuring an infinity pool, a semi-circular memorial with a statue titled “The Spirit of American Youth Rising from the Waves”. The alcoves contain maps and a considerable amount of text further informing the viewer of the history.

Image ^ Garden of the Missing at the Normandy American Cemetery

Behind the memorial was an arching garden called the “Garden of the Missing”, and similar to the one we seen in Bayeux contained the names of fallen soldiers with no grave. 1,557 of them.

After that enjoyable but very sombre walk we aimed to get to our next destination before early December nightfall. We just missed that target but arrived safely in – let’s call it the land part of Mont St Michel – after 110 minutes on the road.

Our hotel was great for the £80 or so we paid. It is located in a kinda gated village with hotels and restaurants, which means you can drive through the barrier instead of park in the tourist and day-tripper car parks. For £80 we had a decent breakfast and located right outside a bus stop that would take us to the summit of the island if we didn’t fancy the 30 minute walk.

Day Two – Mont St Michel

Image ^ The shuttle bus that takes you along the road/bridge to the island

We got the bus. Perhaps the most disappointing park of the trip are the unsatisfactory photo’s I took here. The bleak weather didn’t help but I really should have taken more.

Only a fun fact can make up for this. The castle in the Disney movie Tangled is based on this place. Short but incredibly insightful I am sure you’ll agree.

Image ^ Mont St Michel. A crap photo but the best one I had available!

Inside the walls you could be mistaken for thinking you were wandering through Hogsmeade, an area in Harry Potter. The abbey at the top also looked extremely Hogwarts-y.

Image ^ The narrow streets within the walls

It was some incline to the castle, but the number of visitors, gift shops, cafe’s and restaurants made this less painstaking. Saying that, I REALLY wouldn’t fancy coming here in summer with 3x 4x the tourists.

Image ^ An image of the abbey from about 15 metres above sea level

Entrance to the Abbey was very reasonable at 11€. Avid readers will remember my last trip to Dubrovnik put me in a position to consider paying a tragic €35 just to walk a path around the city walls! Bollocks to that. This was much better value.

The map included with the self-guided tour explained the many rooms within the Abbey and their purpose. There wasn’t anything that particularly stood out to write about, but that wasn’t to say it wasn’t worthwhile and recommended if you go.

I will mention the gift shop oddly. They has such a nice pillowcase we contemplated paying 60 bloody Euros for it! Months later I can’t decide if leaving it was the correct call.

On the whole it is a must-do. If one went to Paris they’d simply HAVE to chuck themselves up the Eiffel Tower, and if you’re anywhere near here you should visit. In my opinion anyway. If you were wondering how a bus managed to take us to an island. Here you go:

Image ^ The road connecting the island to the mainland

D’you know what…. I recall this playing on my mind at the time (writing this bit nearly 2 months after visiting)… given the age and buildings of the commune, I wonder how far it is from a Wonder of the World?

Unfortunately I tend to use Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil as a comparison. Yes it’s huge and on top of a mountain, but it is *only* a statue. They’ve even managed to construct lifts escalators up there to get people to the site lads… In my opinion this remarkable small hump gives it a run for its money. Apologies in advance Jesus…

Image ^ The abbey walls at the mouth of the Couesnon River

How contracting two pictures can be; above and below!

After the free shuttle bus back to the car, stop three being Rennes was only an hour away. Even though we had takeaways for the trip so far we still spent a few quid on food, so where else but IKEA?!?!

Image ^ Our ‘off the beaten track’ choice for lunch!

So cultured. I would be lying if I stated I just had the one hotdog to accompany some fries and an ice cream, but at least we didn’t leave the store with the usual picture frames, sandwich bags and at a Billy bookcase!

IKEA was on the outskirts of the city as was our digs for the night. Fortunately so too was the local football stadium! Rennes are quite a bit team in the French league but hardly get a look in after Paris Saint Germain, Marseille and Monaco.

Image ^ A peak inside Roazhon Park, the home of Rennes football club

It looked like a lovely stadium although the views inside were not that generous!

Image ^ Outside Roazhon Park, the home of Rennes football club

Our hotel tonight was a very cheap “B&B Hotel” which is a chain. I can’t think of another unmanned hotel I’ve stayed at. Whilst this wasn’t scary or an issue, it was only unmanned between 6pm and 8am, can you really not employ one person?!? The room was mega cheap but fuck sake pay someone. Corporate greed.

Image ^ The self-check-in machine at our hotel. Not a member of staff in sight

Day Three – Rennes and Vitré Castle

We didn’t get murdered and we were pleased to see a human being arranging the ample breakfast buffet for us. Continental but with bacon and sausage. Can’t complain.

Fuelled for what was intended to be a full day in Rennes city centre we walked 10 minutes to the metro station and headed in.

Fun fact. potentially three!… When the Metro opened in 2002. Rennes was the smallest city in the world to have a metro network. In 2008 it was succeeded by Lausanne in Switzerland. However in 2022 it was and is the smallest with two lines.

Eat that, Francis Bourgeois!

Image ^ The Canal d’Ille-et-Rance that runs through Rennes

I was amazed how quiet the city centre was. It was indeed a Sunday just after Christmas, but I would still expect to see a lot of residents walking around and most shops open. We walked from the central train station (Gare metro stop) over the Canal d’Ille-et-Rance to where we thought the tourism hot spots would be.

Image ^ Parlement of Brittany / Rennes Court of Appeal

After a quick stop at the Brittany Court of Appeal building with a very festive but closed yard out front, we heading in the direction of Saint Pierre Cathedral. Retracing my steps I see we missed a large square containing the Rennes Opera building that would have been worth a small detour, but we did enjoy the quirky buildings on our route.

Image ^ Some of the medieval half-timbered houses in the old town area of Rennes

The Cathedral stood dominant in a small square. Again it was strange being the only tourists around at this time and the building itself didn’t seem overly welcoming to visitors.

At this point we were both concerned about where our next toilet break would be. With the place like a ghost town and multiple cafe’s and restaurants either not open yet or closed for the day, decided to walk back towards the train station where at least there were more identifiable buildings that were likely to be open. We ended up going in to a cinema right outside our next stop which was the library, where I read we could get a really good viewpoint across the city.

Image ^ The Champs Libres centre in Rennes

Unfortunately the building that houses the Rennes Library and Museum of Brittany was closed, as was pretty much everywhere apart from whatever films they had on in the cinema… in French.

Admitting defeat, we agreed there was little pointing hanging around and as I was looking at the best route to Caen, we noticed a place called Vitré that would only slightly be out of our way. Mikayla took very little convincing and within the hour we were back at the hotel and on the road for a bit of spontaneity!

After a 40 minute drive and a nearby McDonald’s lunch we parked up outside Vitré castle, at the cost of EIGHT UK PENCE for three hours.

It was very quiet here too. Must be the time of year. But there must be other lunatics like us who were doing similar? I don’t think I thought of Harry Potter as much when I visited the bloody studios, but the streets leading up to the castle very much resembled Hogsmeade. It was a shame nowhere was open, and didn’t look as they had been open for some time. I bet it’s bloody heaving in the summer, mind.

Image ^ Narrow streets leading to Vitré castle

Arriving in the open, the castle looked very grandiose, even if the empty carousel did feel a bit post-apocalyptic (I was getting early stages The Last of Us vibes).

It was nice to bump in to another human being at the ticket office and happily paid €7 each to enter.

Image ^ Outside the entrance to Vitré castle

There were a few other people and groups dotted about, which was nice, as I was starting to think we were bring a bit convenient visiting! The castle itself had impressive walls with a number of towers and rooms you could enter displaying exhibits and what life was like back then.

Image ^ Inside the castle and museum of Vitré

Hang on I don’t even know when ‘back then’ even was…. *finds brochure I brought home*

I’m so pleased of my forethought to keep the brochure guide thingy, I’m just going to write out what’s in there…

“In the mid 11th century, Robert the 1st baron decided to build Vitré castle on its present site, at the top of a promontory forming a natural defence. His successors continued to enlarge, decorate and adapt the fortress as defence architecture developed, until the mid 17th century, when it was abandoned. It was then converted into a prison. The fortress is a remarkable vestige of the tumultuous (fucking hell you can tell these aren’t my words…) history of the Breton border marchlands.“

There ya go. Nothing much about any battles of blood spill sadly by the looks…

Vitre castle was a pleasant visit considering Rennes was a bit of a let-down (our fault not theirs). Who doesn’t love a castle? It also meant we were closer to our next destination.

That was about it for today. Our two hour drive leaving Brittany to return to Normandy, specifically Caen went quickly as I was listening to the football commentary back home. I did think there was a 90% chance we got flashed by the only bloody speed camera we noticed, but writing this section three months later I think we’ve gotten away with it, touch wood.

By the time we settled in to our hotel on the outskirts of Caen, I watched the remainder of Newport losing for the millionth time in the season, and had an early night after grabbing a takeaway.

Day Four – Caen

To save a bit of messing around and to have a bit more freedom should Caen centre be as quiet as Rennes the previous day, we decided to drive rather than catch the bus and parked in walking distance of the main sights we wanted to see.

Image ^ Hôtel de Ville de Caen (town hall) next to the Abbaye-aux-Hommes.

Today was a rather pleasant day given the time of year (not as gloomy as the photo!) and after a short stroll through the gardens leading up to the Hotel de Ville we paid a few euro to enter. Just by looking at the magnificent state of the place, you can tell it has not been a hotel for some time and now houses the municipal Town Hall since 1965.

Image ^ A garden in the monastery with the Abbaye-aux-Hommes in the background.

It was tricky to differentiate between what was the old hotel and what was the abbey as part of the museum walk included a yard that was mart of a monk monastery, once part of the abbey itself. The museum if I recall explained the effect WW2 had on the City and whilst I can’t remember exactly how many buildings were damaged by bombing, it was a lot. The museum also had an exhibition space that on the day housed loads of model ships! I love a model but surprisingly this didn’t take my fancy. If said boats were made of Lego I’d still be there now…

Image ^ An outside view of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes

Next up was the adjacent Abbey of Saint-Étienne, more commonly know as the Abbaye-aux-Hommes. A very impressive structure and free to enter – once we found the door. The inside was impressive but you know I’m not too interested in that sort of stuff, so, to me, by far the coolest thing in here was the resting place of William the Conqueror who we learnt about at the Bayeux Tapestry.

Image ^ The ledger stone of William the Conqueror

Bill founded the abbey in 1063 and his tomb has gone through several disturbances and renovations since his burial in 1087. I am led to believe that under the 19th Century stone that is here today, only Bill’s thigh bone is in the tomb! Whilst I won’t admit to using Wikipedia as my main or reliable source of historical information I have since forgotten since the visit, I did chuckle at this excerpt…

“A further indignity occurred when the corpse was lowered into the tomb. The corpse was too large for the space, and when attendants forced the body into the tomb it burst, spreading a disgusting odour throughout the church.”

Lovely. When it’s my time just chuck me in the oven and scatter me somewhere nice yeah?

Following the abbey we walked around 25 minutes to Caen castle. The area looked (and may be) more of a Citadel that would have overlooked all other buildings back in the day, minus the odd church spire.

Image ^ A view of the City outside the main entrance to Caen Castle

Again this was free entry, but there was a LOT of renovation work going on. A little chapel was closed and the erection of modern building housing museums didn’t really match up I thought. Now writing this section in April and looking on Google Maps, the renovation looks almost complete and nothing like my photo thankfully!

Image ^ A building site inside Caen Castle

Also pertinent on the map is the castle keep towards the north of the walled area that would have been worth a look at. Unfortunately this was cordoned off during our visit, so after a quick lap of the outskirts we headed outside of the walls.

A stroll through one of the main shopping streets was a nice way to spend our last lunchtime. We didn’t have a plan for lunch yet so I was keen for a nibble of something. Ultimately though, I was so indecisive with too many options, I ended up with nothing!

Back in the car we had an epiphany and decided to hunt down a nearby Aldi or Lidl for lunch. We each had a sandwich, a pastry, cake and drink for something like six quid each and reflected that we should have done this for other mealtimes.

As fate would have it, smack bang in the middle of the drive to our final tour stop was a football ground – the home of Stade Malherbe Caen, or just Caen. A very decent stadium looking at it from the roadside. The team play in the second division in France and aren’t very good at the moment. This led me down a rabbit hole and I was amazed that Caen is only the 40th biggest commune in France given it’s history, location and sights.

Image ^ The Stade Michel d’Ornano, home of Caen football club

Our final stop was the museum Memorial de Caen, tagged “Caen’s Centre for History & Peace, exploring WWII, the Normandy landings & the Cold War.” Parking was free and entrance was €20 each.

Image ^ The Memorial de Caen building from outside.

I have to be honest, I loved this museum visit. This is not like me. I probably learnt more about World War 2 in the couple of hours here than I knew beforehand. Quite a sombre end to our trip.

I was going to make a concentrated effort in going into detail about the experience, the reason for quite a few photo’s, but I don’t think I would do the place justice. I would however suggest you visit yourself if you ever find yourself getting to France using the port of Caen/Ouistreham.

Image ^ A timeline of WW2 after entering the exhibit.

Image ^ Various posters made by the UK recruiting soldiers from around the world. Don’t tell Tommy Robinson…

Image ^ An exhibit portraying the affect of war on Caen

Ooh, I mentioned that I could not recall the amount of damaged buildings in Caen during WW2, when we visited the Hotel de Ville this morning… I knew I made a note of it somewhere. 35%.

Pardon me for adding such a boring photo, but it had to be included. This was taken from a short film as part of the exhibit showing the extremity of the fighting on the D-Day beaches. I felt this really poignant as kind of a round circle for the trip, after visiting the batteries early on our first morning.

Image ^ The end of a short film in the museum exhibit, showing the now calm D-Day beaches.

We still had a little bonus after exiting the main museum into the mezzanine area. There is also an underground bunker that you can visit under the museum.

Although this has of course gone under a significant amount of renovation and refurbishment, this spot was in fact a command post of the German general Wilhelm Richter and played a crucial role during the first decisive weeks of the Battle of Normandy. You can read more about the bunker on the museums website here (link).

Image ^ In the bunker underneath the Caen Memorial museum.

Image ^ A recreated of the goings on of a command post during WW2.

So there we go. A lot of ground covered in four days and many wide-ranging sights were enjoyed.

Image ^ Centre commercial Carrefour Hérouville, a good place to stop before the ferry back to the UK.

Whilst we were pleased to drag out the museum visit longer than we expected, we still had some hours to waste until our overnight ferry. A humongous shopping centre passed the time providing us with dinner and a look around a few shops, trying my upmost to successful tell Mikayla she does not need a Harry Potter book in French!

Image ^ And finally… the ferry back to Portsmouth

Thanks for reading,

Chris