Ireland – 9th to the 21st May - Ferry trip – we left Pembroke on the ferry two hours late with a four hour instead of three hour crossing due to rough weather. Somehow we all managed to grab a seat on a couch and sleep through much of the tossing and turning. The ferry pulled in about 9 pm and we got to our hotel River Inn at Wexford about 9.30 pm very tired. The next day was dry and sunny but cold. We rode to Waterford where the famous Waterford Cry...

We decided this trip to change the style of our blog. On our last trip we created an entry from every place we stayed overnight. By the time 16 weeks were up, we were blogged-out. This time we are going to attempt weekly entries with less detailed narrative supplemented by more photos and captions. We hope you still enjoy reading about our adventure in its new format. Getting to the UK this time was far less eventful than 2011. We had no travel agent stuff ups ...

While Greg worked on the blog and relaxed in the cool interior of our hotel, Kerrie wandered off (she never can sit still for long) to explore the Topkapi Palace as she had been told it was one of the must do sites of Istanbul. Even though it was very hot the walk down to the Palace only took about 10 minutes and if you stayed in the shade it was fine. The Topkapı Palace was the official residence in the city of the Sultans for approximately 400 ye...

Monday to Friday 4 July to 8 July 2011. We arrived in Istanbul at the Hotel Nena around 8 pm and checked in. Fortunately Kerrie chose a hotel close to the centre of the old city with most tourist attractions within walking distance. Before we dumped our stuff and went for a walk to get the lay of the land and have a meal. It was 11.30 pm before we crashed, very tired after a full day of travel. Istanbul has also been fascinating to us. We both studied Ancient ...

Sunday 03.07.2011 & Monday 04.07.2011 - we said our goodbyes to cousin Betty and Ciggy knowing that we would see them soon when they visit us in Australia in October. The drive to London was hassle free as we beat the afternoon peak hour traffic by setting off early from Southampton. As we only had the 120 mile to travel we were in London by about 11.00am so we decided to head into the city and do some sightseeing. Our first stop was London Bridge an...