Holidays 2025

[David L]

Yesterday we took the subway to Brooklyn. Visited O'Keefe's bar - no bloody Guinness ffs! Still, barmaid felt bad so we had a free pint (Lagunitas)!
Checked out Evil Twin brewery tap - great beers (super strength!) before walking back to Manhattan on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Next, ground zero, Woolworth building, subway to NYU and slice of pizza at 'Ray's' just around the corner from McSorley's Ale House where we met our 'new' friends from Long Island, Sean and Elma, for drinks. Finished the evening at 'Swift'. On the way back to the hotel we unexpectedly found ourselves in a Japanese restaurant enjoying dumplings and sushi- very good.
Another busy day! (19000 steps)

[David L]

Today we had a sort of mopping up exercise. Madison Square Garden and Trump Tower. Had no idea that Trump's gaff is open to the public. It may have  been the strong americano at Andrews Diner NYC but some of you will be pleased to hear that my contribution to the Trump residence was loose and quite foul smelling.
This afternoon we made our way via Grand Central to White Plains where we were met off the train by Clare's nephew, Lloyd, who accompanied us to his (and wife Nicola's) apartment. A nice two-bedroom place in the Mitchell block with splendid views. Settled in as Nicola prepared dinner and then we all wandered over the road to their local craft beer bar, Wolf and Warrior. Some good beer on offer.
The lasagne Nicola had prepared was delicious after which we settled down to watch the first game of the World Series. Was hoping to catch a glimpse of Geddy but not yet. Blue Jays are currently ahead 11-4 at the top of the 9th innings despite being the underdogs. Go Blue Jays!

[David L]

Today is the wife's birthday!
Train back in to NYC from White Plains today. Subway from Grand Central to Court Square and then took a boat across the East River to Brooklyn. Some wonderful views of Manhattan to be had from here.
Brief snack at Smorgasbord, an al fresco food market by the river - delicious empanadas! Next stop The Kent Ale House followed by the Brooklyn Brewery and Spritzenhaus33, both do good impressions of german beer halls. It's a quite different place to Manhattan with a trendy vibe similar to Shoreditch or Hoxton (I guess).Places packed out with a young crowd having a great time..................and us 
This evening we enjoyed a wonderful meal at Morton's Steakhouse in White Plains. Quite posh but not in the least bit pretentious. They had been informed of Clare's birthday and we were welcomed with greeting cards at our table. We were looked after well and the food was excellent. Possibly one of the nicest steak dinners I've experienced, although the sprouts consumed by my wife are now making me quite nauseous.
Returned to the apartment to watch the second game in the series. Unfortunately now tied after a Dodgers win. No sign of the Gedster.

[David L]

More of a laid back day today. We visited Lloyd and Nicola's respective work places in White Plains. Both ambitious, flexible and very capable they've been in the US for a couple of years after already doing a stint in Frankfurt a few years ago.
Nicola has worked for Pepsico for some years and was asked by the company if she would take the position at the global HQ in NY which is the reason they are here. Her workplace is most impressive surrounded by magnificently manicured gardens, through which we took a stroll this morning.
Lloyd spent a time out of work here apart from a temporary stint at his last employer, Vodafone, before getting his current job at the Mastercard global HQ very close to Pepsico. They are both extremely happy with their work situations and both companies allow them to work from home for a lot of the time. Mastercard's premises is also impressive. Having introduced her nephew to working in the city of London as part of a 'bring your family to work' initiative when he was young, she is very proud of both of them for the way they've managed to progress their careers. They both acknowledge her part in their life choices.
Taking a drive across the Hudson River we drove into Nyack to get a light lunch at the Coffee Ride Cafe - popular stop with a large number of local cyclists. We then took their delightful spaniel, Molly, for a short stroll along the Bronx River before driving through the upmarket suburb of Scarsdale where we marvelled at the huge houses and their equally impressive halloween displays. Next stop was Broken Bow Brewery for a couple of nice beers.
We had a perfect end to the day at The Cheesecake Factory in White Plains (fish tacos followed by peanut butter cheesecake).
That's our last full day, heading home tomorrow.

[David L]

Woke on our last day to find the weather was still fabulous - sunshine and blue skies although the temp is beginning to drop. The trees are turning glorious shades of red, yellow and copper - wonderful sight.
Nicola gave us a tour of their apartment building - wow! At the very top is a large barbecue/patio area, gymnasium, outdoor table tennis and a  pool table. There is a fully a large dining area with cooking facilities that can be booked for hosting large groups, a large lounge area and a small pool. They even have a golf simulator! All free to use whenever. The monthly management fee seems cheap to me at $70.
Lloyd then drove us all out to Kisco where we brunched at the Kisco Diner. We were all impressed with our orders. Bacon, onion and pepper omelette with home fries and toast for me. No chance of a decent 'brown' sauce but A1 was available and raised the flavour nicely.
We returned to White Plains and had a mooch around the shopping mall. A high-end affair including Rolex, Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton and other 'posh brands'. Not enough time to really explore before packing our bags and setting off for JFK. We said our goodbyes at North Plains station. We will catch up again when Lloyd and Nicola return to the UK for Xmas.
We've had an absolutely wonderful week and vowed to return before too long. Next time we visit them we might go on to do Boston (our fingers are crossed that they stay put for a while!)

[Matt2112]

Really enjoy reading the travelogues on here, especially as it gives me an excuse to chronicle this year's city break/annual pilgrimage to Athens (our third consecutive year).

We were fortunate enough this year to have access to the Escape Lounge in Manchester Airport's Terminal Two by virtue of being in Aegean Airlines' Business Class (we're on plain old Easyjet on the way back), but as I'm not used to such privileges I made the mistake of utterly stuffing myself at the complimentary buffet cooked breakfast, to the point where I couldn't eat a single morsel of food on Aegean's pretty impressive meal service on the flight.  On being presented with a tray chock full of food by the smiling stewardess, I apologised to her profusely - in Greek - to her gracious understanding, on multiple levels.  I was also suffering from a case of a horribly bloated stomach and trapped wind for a good hour due to my earlier unwise over-indulgence which, let's say, took some time to remedy.

With a strong tail-wind giving us an ground speed of over 1,000 km/hour, we zoomed down to Athens Eleftherios Venizelos in a rapid three hours, the last 20 minutes or so offering a spectacular sight as the sun set and dusk fell over the city.

Yiannis, our driver for the 35 minute journey to our hotel in the Syntagma Square area, was a very endearing gent with utterly immaculate English, and we had a hugely enjoyable chat where he gave me some astute and valuable advice about not just the usual touristy stuff but my own endeavours to improve my Greek.  After the young 'un demonstrated her own Greek language abilities (she can, for example, order stuff in restaurants) Yiannis joked that she was better than me!  Or at least I presumed he was joking... 

After a brief shopping trip to get some bits, and the mandatory selfie-taking on the hotel's roof terrace with the Parthenon gloriously illuminated in the background, the rest of the family retired for the night after a long day, and I nipped down to my Athens "local", The James Joyce, for a cool, refreshing draft Mythos or two - alfresco of course, as late October nights in Athens can still be closer to 20 Celsius than ten.

The plan for tomorrow is to use the hop-on hop-off bus to visit a few places of historical interest, with the mandatory Acropolis visit on Thursday. On both days, the weather looks glorious.

[Nickslikk2112]

My latest "Holiday" was a weekend in Manchester. It rained.

[Matt2112]

So to Day Two of our mini-Greek Odyssey, starting with the hotel's reasonable buffet breakfast where I was careful not to repeat the mistake of around 24 hours earlier.

Syntagma Square is one of the transport hubs of Athens, so we found a hop-on hop-off bus stop easily and bought our ticket from a guide; I assumed it would be valid for the day but it's actually valid for 24 hours, and as it turned out that the sight of a ticket in your hand is enough for the driver to (barely) wave you on, it did make me wonder if the rules could be...bent a little bit... 

We decided to complete a circuit (about 90 minutes) of the city, complimentary headphones plugged in to the console for the informative commentary, before determining where we should get off.

Amongst the many statues passed, I was particularly impressed by a fantastic sculpture in Omonia Square of Icarus, falling to his death head first to the ground; I found it not only aesthetically stunning but an example of genuinely great art that has got under my skin in a good way and that I've thought about ever since (it's on the "Revisit List" for next year).

After rolling through the menu, so to speak, we opted to disembark by the Presidential Palace, where the Greek Guards have their barracks and can be seen on the public paths going through their stony-faced, distinctive and precise manoeuvres, with some of them being marched right past you under the eye of a superior in more familiar army uniform; the young 'un in particular loved experiencing all this.

Our next port of call, just a few minutes walk down the road, was the Panathenaic Stadium, a site dating from the 6th Century BCE, the venue for the first Olympic Games of the modern era in 1896 and the only stadium in the world built of marble.  And what a breathtaking place it is! A stunning amphitheatre that still holds concerts for up to 65,000 people, it is every bit as essential to visit and experience as the Parthenon itself.  Olympic rings overlook the stands and the elongated running track, where keen and serious  runners take the opportunity to time themselves around it, and others - kids, mainly - scamper up and down the lanes for the pure fun of it.  It was all wonderful to witness.

We missed the last bus back to Syntagma, but a short cut through a park made for an easy walk back.

After the exertions of the day, the evening was spent going out for a meal and then immediately returning to the hotel to crash because we were all so knackered!  But we were also mindful that we wanted to get up to the Acropolis as early as possible the following morning to beat the crowds...

[Fishy]

Our return from London today we realised this was flight no 10 this year.. never flown so much in one year...

[David L]

Our return from London today we realised this was flight no 10 this year.. never flown so much in one year...

Consumed with guilt?   

[Fishy]

Our return from London today we realised this was flight no 10 this year.. never flown so much in one year...

Consumed with guilt?   

Nope...

[Nick]

24 for me in the last 12 months.

[Matt2112]

24 for me in the last 12 months.

The many taxes and surcharges on air tickets contribute to airports becoming carbon-neutral - like, for example, Amsterdam Schiphol, only one of the biggest and busiest hubs in Europe.

So, thanks Nick!

[Matt2112]

Sorry, but "Day Three" has become so long I'm splitting it into three parts.  So here goes:

Day Three - Part One

Day Three in Athens was dedicated to the annual pilgrimage to the Acropolis site and the Parthenon, but for the first time we added in an overdue visit to the accompanying museum.

Again, breakfast was taken in reasonable moderation and we were at the HOHO bus stop for about 9:15am - with just over an hour left on our ticket - just as the bus itself arrived exactly on cue.

Although the streets of Syntagma were in shadow at that time of the morning and felt a little too cool for t-shirt snd shorts, I knew that by the time we were up at the Acropolis that choice of dress would be more than vindicated.

And so it proved: the weather had been glorious throughout the visit so far, however on this day it was particularly fine, with only the merest hint of a breeze and a pristine, cloudless blue sky, the temperature climbing into the low-mid 20s.

I didn't pre-book our entry tickets as I expected - correctly - the queue to purchase them on a walk-in basis at this time of year, at this time of the day, would be small and we'd be progressing through the entrance in no time.

Last year, the guy scanning my ticket noticed my AFTK t-shirt said, "Rush - great band!"; this year, as we walked past a guided group to the same point, a guy with long dark hair who looked to be in his 30s pointed at my Time Machine t-shirt - "Rush!", he exclaimed, and we fist-bumped.

We made our way up the steep-ish route through the magnificent  structure of the Propylaea, the Acropolis's entrance, which creates a bit of a bottle-neck of people capturing images of it in one direction and panoramic views of the sprawling west side of Athens in the other.

[Matt2112]

Day Three - Part Two

And so to the Parthenon itself: I'd recently heard on BBC Radio Four's news that, for the first time in decades, it was completely free of scaffolding.  An AI search noted this would only be the case for a window of a month or so, hence the privilege to stand in the shadow of its columns felt extra special. 

However, on the western face that greets you on entry there was a small but unobtrusive area of scaffolding after all, but still in no way did it detract from the unique aura the building gives off.

The site was a little more crowded than expected due to a confluence of a few guided tours, but once that eased we were able to take some decent snaps in front of the Parthenon  from various angles and the sprawling, sun-blessed vista of the city looking the other way. There's a huge flag at the eastern-most point of the Acropolis, but such was the balminess of the weather it was slumped against its pole, an occasional lazy, half-hearted flutter the only indication of what passed for a breeze.

As we were taking some pics in front of the eastern face, I had my second Rush fan encounter of the morning: a gent perhaps in his early sixties who couldn't look more like an American tourist if he tried asked if I was going to next year's tour, said he already had his tickets for Boston and introduced himself as Steve.  I shook his hand and told him I will see about next year, and after exchanging a few more pleasantries we moved on.

My last act before leaving was to assist an elderly lady who was clearly finding the uneven, slippery surface difficult to navigate as she was making her way back to the pathway to the Propylaea; "Merci beaucoup! Merci beaucoup!" she said as I made sure she got to safer ground.

Enveloped in a sheen of sweat from clambering about in the warm sunshine, we made our way down to the HOHO bus, which again obligingly arrived as we did, our tickets barely looked at again even though they had technically become invalid half an hour before...

We were to make the short journey to the Acropolis Museum, alighting at the stop by another Athens landmark, Hadrian's Gate, where a few more photos were taken before heading to another "must-go".