Martha and I decided to head to Liverpool for the day. Easy enough to catch a train from Manchester Oxford Road station direct to Liverpool Lime Street. Immediately after exiting the station we saw...
Blog posts from UK
UK Dec 2024: Manchester food & drink
Turtle Bay A chain restaurant in the UK with a Caribbean theme, we were intrigued by their 2-for-1 happy hour before 6:30p. The 'One Love' with passion fruit was nice, as was the combo of a...
UK Dec 2024: Manchester sights
Manchester is a bustling city with converted old brick warehouses and gleaming steel and glass towers on the same street. Over several days we explored its markets, historic landmarks, and street...
UK Dec 2024: London food & drink
We split our time in London returning to old favorites and trying some new spots. Given how busy things were in 2022 we knew we should get reservations, and it definitely paid off as London felt...
UK Dec 2024: London sights
Friday Right after we dropped off our luggage, Leandra headed to Bank to exchange some old money for new bills since they were only open until 3pm. The process was easy, just had to show bills to be...
UK Dec 2024: introduction
In the summer we started planning an international group trip, our first since 2018. The UK ticked a lot of boxes - the direct flight from RDU to London was quite open, and London is always fun and...
Euro Fall 2024: a weekend in London
After our flight delay we had two full days left in London, and we spent virtually all of it with family. Saturday, Sept 21 We took it easy Saturday morning, making plans to check out a few...
Euro Fall 2024: intro & flights
Our main trip for Fall 2024 saw us working for the first 1.5 weeks and then take vacation for the next 1.5 weeks. The majority of our trip was spent in southern Italy, specifically Puglia, with a...
Euro Christmas Markets 2022: introduction
In 2020 we had planned on a Thanksgiving trip centered on European Christmas markets, as it had been 6 years since we were last in Europe late in the year. Of course, all of our 2020 plans were...
UK January 2020: Bracknell
Bracknell is a convenient town for accessing my UK office, but it generally lacked interesting restaurants. After a multi-year development the downtown is completely re-done, including new...
UK January 2020: London
In mid-January I had a work trip to the UK which gave me some time to head into London. Leandra wasn't able to come on this trip, so I focused on theater shows and museums she was less likely to...
Euro summer trip 2018: overview, maps, and where we stayed
For summer 2018 a trip to the UK for work materialized, meaning a return to London and the Berkshire county area last visited in January. Since Leandra could travel with me we decided to tack on a...
UK July 2018: where we stayed
On the UK portion of our July trip we stayed in London and Wokingham. Ampersand Hotel - South Kensington Eric had stayed at the Ampersand once before and was happy to return for this trip. This...
Wokingham: eat + drink
Sunday After an easy check-in to the hotel, we walked 15 minutes into town for a cider at The Ship Inn. We ordered at the bar and sat outside in the shade as the air temp was gorgeous. The beer...
London: food + drink
Friday After my missed connection adventure it was nice to go out for some comfort food, so a trip back to Vicino for dinner was in order. We split the Sicilian Rosato special (a mix of sangiovese...
London: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Eric surprised me before the trip by finding tickets to the Harry Potter show, parts 1 + 2 for Saturday! Part one runs from 2pm to 5pm and Part two runs from 7:30pm to 10:15pm so we made...
London: Trump protests, Hampsted Heath
Since Leandra's arrival was delayed I had the afternoon in London by myself. By chance I was in town the same day as Trump, and protests were planned for several spots around London. Given the news...
London: getting there the long way
The original plan to get to the UK for this trip was for both of us to fly IcelandAir through Reykjavik, Iceland onto London. However. Right after Eric bought my ticket, the price for the same...
Our Itinerary
2024 Trips
San Diego, CA (Jan)
Sarasota, FL (Feb)
Madrid, Spain (Mar)
Valencia, Spain (Mar+Apr)
Palma, Mallorca (Apr)
Croatia (May)
Long Island, NY (July)
Faroe Islands (Aug)
London, UK (Sept)
Puglia, Italy (Sept)
Matera, Italy (Oct)
Rome, Italy (Oct)
Mosel Valley, Germany (Oct)
Frankfurt, Germany (Oct)
London + Manchester, UK (Dec)
2023 Trips
San Diego (Jan)
Orlando (Feb)
Richmond, VA (Apr)
Northern Italy (Apr)
NC Mountains (May)
Long Island (Jul)
Wisconsin (Aug)
Chicago (Aug)
Oak Island, NC (Sept)
Brooklyn, NY (Sept)
Bordeaux + Rugby World Cup (Sep)
Castilla y León (Sep)
Seychelles (Nov)
Willamette Valley (Dec)
2022 Trips
Florida (Feb)
NC Mountains (Apr)
Washington DC (Apr)
Valencia, Spain (May)
Hilton Head, SC (May)
Pacific NW (Jun)
Long Island (Jul)
Florida (Sept)
Chicago (Sept)
Poland (Sept)
NC Mountains (Nov)
Euro Xmas Markets (Dec)