Recently we have been spending more time in the (sometimes) sunny, seaside city of Bangor Northern Ireland, my hometown, which I admittedly did lose love for many years back. Due mostly to boredom, as it really is not the centre of excitement when it comes to the global stage. But, now, as an almost mature …
Castle Park will likely be the first place you see when arriving to Bangor, with the old Town Hall (or Bangor Castle as it’s now better known) found directly opposite central arrivals stations in the centre of Bangor and, it’s just really hard to miss. Then, surrounding Bangor Castle is a rather expansive woodland known …
In my many years of blogging, I don’t think I have ever mentioned the 4 years that I wore a suit and worked up at Northern Ireland’s Parliament Buildings. Why? Because it never has been relevant to my writing, and it was just so tediously boring. As the highlight of any day was perusing the …
This whole Interrail itinerary started as no more than the idea of the Glacier Express; a rather spectacular train journey that cuts across the Swiss Alps from Zermatt to snowy Saint Moritz. But in piecing together the journey, we quickly realised that travel to-and-around Switzerland would likely be very expensive. Or at least it could …
I’d say we’ve travelled fairly well in the winter months over the past few years, but were I to pick 3 highlights in this time, it would have to be our rail travels in Japan, and maybe our winter road through the Scottish Highlands, then there’s that time in Cesky Krumlov in winter snow. This …
This Takeaway Tuesday comes (on a Thursday) from “The Green Chilli”, one of the longer-standing Indian restaurants in central Bangor (Dufferin Avenue), and is a takeaway I have been fairly familiar with through the years. In fact, I was even at the original opening years back, when the Mayor at the time kept referring to …
Sandy beaches, cliff edge castles and a Unesco World Heritage Site. The Causeway Coastal Route is home to many of Northern Ireland’s iconic landscapes, and it is also my old stomping ground. Once upon a time (a long time ago) I actually studied in nearby Coleraine (University of Ulster) and lived for two years in …
Best of the Causeway Coast and Coastal Route (UNESCO) Read More »
For 4 years now we have shared the various cultures and celebrations of Asia, so it just felt about time we shared the other side of our life, in Northern Ireland. And while Allan had always assured me, he “has no culture”, this is obviously not true, at least for those new to life there. …
It has become like routine for us now to escape at winter, to chase the snow, as we did very similar in past years when we were hopping through Honshu and Hokkaido in Japan in 2017, on an 8 country road trip in East Central Europe in 2016, and then there was Hunan, China in 2015. So now this year we are hopping …
I really don’t understand the whole ‘eating out’ thing, where you pay twice the price, for mediocre food, while sitting in stuffy, uncomfortable surroundings. At the same time, I would forever choose chip shop food over any restaurant that I know. Because there are differences between chip shop food and restaurants, where, for example, I …
