Life's about experiences. These are mine.
We don’t normally go on organised excursions laid on by the cruise company because, quite frankly, they don’t represent very good value for money. Often you can do the same trip for half the price by doing your own thing. However, that’s not always possible, and today we took a coach trip from Olden, where …
Continue reading “Norway 2025 – Day Four – Briksdal Glacier”
When we awoke this morning, we were already docked in Stavanger, Norway’s third-largest city, a place of 150,000 people, making it less than half the size of my hometown of Reading. Stavanger has grown on the back of fishing, oil, and tourism, the latter as the gateway to the fjords. The cruise ship, of which …
There’s a lot to be said for the comfort of familiar things – a favourite place, a much loved song or a film that lifts you – and it can be very discombobulating to do someting that on the outside appears to be the same but is actually very different. I guess that this is …
Continue reading “Norway 2025 – Day One & Two – Comfort in Repetition”
Reading Museum has one small exhibtion space, the John Madjeski art gallery, that they put to good use displaying a number of interesting exhibitions each there for about six months. Previous ones had all been more traditional art type exhibitions and the last of which was Art Stories where recent works of art acquired by …
Continue reading “Reading’s DIGITAL Revolution, Reading Museum”
At the beginning of the year I wrote about The Murals of Central Reading highlighting the three that were there, two of which were very recent. I compared them with Bristol and noted how Reading’s “are a much more sober and corporate affair.” Royals, Residents & a Rock Festival For as long as I have …
Years ago my Dad told me about a place in Swindon where the Science Museum held items that there wasn’t room for in their museums. Tickets seemed to be like hens teeth and then came Covid and the place shutting down while a new facility was built. Finally, last October, I managed to secure tickets …
I have for some time now been attempting to visit every museum in the Reading area of which there are eight by my reckoning. The last of these that I had to do was a tiny place just on the outskirts of town, just 15 minute from the centre. I have to admit I had …
Continue reading “Riverside Museum at Blake’s Lock, Reading”
The great thing about having gone out of Amsterdam the last couple of days was that meant we could explore some of the city today without repeating ourselves. A Place of Calm When we were here last time we stumbled upon a place called Begijnhof which we’d remembered as a quiet area in the centre …
Continue reading “Amsterdam 2025 – Day Four – Amsterdam & Eurostop”
We had this morning loosely planned out, where we’d do some of the highlights of Amsterdam. Helen then said the next time we come, we should go further afield, so I suggested we go to Delft today. This is not something we Thompsons do. We aren’t really known for our spontaneity. Even so, less than …
Today was the reason we were in Amsterdam – a visit to Keukenhof (I’m told it is pronounced Kook-en-hof) – the self proclaimed “most beautiful spring garden in the world”. In all the years that we have been coming to The Netherlands we have never made a visit there before but as we were planning …