The Boy and The Coconut Tree

I don't apologize for my travel preferences, I do spend a lot of my travels sitting in cafes, drinking coffee  Coffee and delicious muffin in Stockholm and watching the locals get on with their daily lives. It fascinates me and yes I also love to travel on ships, this trip on the Baltic has not put me off, I may not travel Tallink again but I will travel on the Baltic, the sea and the cities around it are too interesting and beautiful to avoid. A day in Tallinn is probably all you need. The city has two distinct areas, the lovely old quarter which is well preserved, cobbled streets and pretty (but be warned, cobbles are dangerous when wet). The old quarter is easy to navigate if you have a map, I asked directions from a few locals and they all shrugged. I found my way around eventually and explored. The new part of the city is strange, lots of modern buildings, shopping centres and new hotels but not many people around and not a lot of character. The shopping centre ...

So the nerdy geek inside of me is a bit of a ship/ferry enthusiast. The girls in the office mock me about on a daily basis. I love being on a big ship out at sea, especially if it is a bit choppy/rough. I booked on to one of the 2 big Baltic ferry companies, TallinkSilja ,  the other (and possibly the better) is Viking Line .  Now Silja once had a reputation for having amazing ships and amazing service but this reputation has taken a blow since its takeover by Tallink, it still has the big ships but most of the fleet is now Tallink and their ships may be big etc but are not as stylish. Publicity shot of MS Victoria 1 So BA and my miles got me a round trip to Stockholm and I was booked on the MS Victoria for a round trip to Tallinn, my ideal cruise would have been a round trip to Helsinki on this beauty but the prices for 1 person travelling alone were too high. So my ship was the smaller but newer MS Victoria 1 . She isn't an ugly ship and is large but my gu...

The school holidays have now started here in the UK and it shows.  The crowds in central London today are far bigger.  Parliament  Square and Whitehall were a scrum of people with selfie sticks and maps.  I am not quite sure of the logic of using a selfie-stick for every photo, maybe its an age thing. I was recently in Amsterdam and watched, aghast, as 4 American girls took their photo, grinning outside Anne Frank's house. No doubt their tour of Europe included grinning selfies at Belsen or topless shots on the D Day beaches. Some people are idiots.  So summer is in full flow though it feels like Summer arrived in late May, fell flat, got up again in late June and has stopped and started since then. For me, summer is still the 6 weeks school holiday, especially as my nieces and nephews are now on holiday, my sisters and my parents will be stressed out and my teacher friends will be happy and less stressed.   Here is my song of the summer (Song of Jul...