Sunday 30 December 2018

Review of 2018

You maybe wondering what I have been up to since I last posted. Well, we are away a lot of the time. So if we are not away, we may have just come back, or may be getting ready to go away, or we may be busy planning and booking another trip.

In the last year we have been lucky enough to go to places that I never expected to visit and have seen sights that even in my wildest dreams I never expected to see.

We saw in 2018, in Madeira with the spectacular firework display that Funchal puts on each year.


After that we had a few weeks back home before we set of for India's Golden Triangle of Delhi, Jaipur and Agra - the highlight of which has to be the Taj Mahal at Agra. It is a wonderful sight.


From Delhi we flew on to Columbo in Sri Lanka. First we travelled up to the Cultural Triangle. Then it was on to a tea plantation, where we spent two nights in a converted tea factory and boy did it rain while we were there.


Next after two weeks of sight seeing and travelling, it was down to the south coast for some rest and relaxation. We were sunning ourselves on a  Sri lankan beach while the UK shivered under the Beast from the East. Finally we had two more days of sight seeing before flying home.

June saw us off to Crete for some time in the sun, but what we got was cloud, rain, thunder and lightening although not all at the same time. Back home the weather was warm and sunny, which went some way to make up for the disappointing weather in Crete.

Life at home is fairly mundane. Husband has finally retired from paid employment and has found himself another voluntry project to replace working. So I still hardly see him. When we can we get out into the garden, but this year the weather has rendered the garden either too wet or too dry and I am not making excuses. Then there is the cottage which needs some decorating, if nothing else.

October found us off again on a cruise from Athens to Dubai through the Suez Canal. We had seen a TV programme about a warship sailing this route and we had never visited any of the ports of call. So it was all new and very different. From Athens the first stop was Limassol in Cyprus - not very exciting. Then it was on to Ashdod in Israel, from where we visited Jerusalem which was interesting


and Bethlehem which was disappointing and over crowded.  We then took two days to sail through the Suez Canal with desert to the west and built up areas to the east. The next port was Aqaba in Jordan and our chosen excursion took us to Wadi Rum where the film Lawrence of Arabia was shot.


The photograph is T.E.Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom and yes there are only five. The following day found us at the port of Safaga in Egypt. That day's excursion took us to Luxor where we visited the Karnak Temple



 followed by the Valley of the Kings. Here we went into the tomb of Tutankhamum, complete with


his immaculate death mask and mummified body. This was amazing and something that I never expected to see. What ever came after this experience was probably going to be a bit of a let down. We had four days at sea to get bored before we reached Salalah in Oman and then another day on to Muscat before we set sail for our embarkation port of Dubai. Here we went up to the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa - the world's tallest building, which gives you far reaching views of Dubai.


 Then it was time to come home until our next adventure at the end of January.
 

Monday 24 December 2018