LISA Edinburgh Day 1 Our first night in Scotland was ungraciously disturbed by some noisy Frenchmen, but as they weren't natives, we decided it would be ungracious to judge the country by them and, after a bit of a sleep-in, headed off to buy our 48hr Royal Edinburgh Tickets. These got us entry into Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse (royal residence in Edinburgh), and the Royal Yacht Britannia, as well as 48hrs of sightseeing bus passes on 4 diff...

LISA Having realised our grievous error in missing Harrods when we were last in London, we headed to the luxury department store as soon as we were settled that night (they're open late) hoping for some great pictures and maybe a souvenir bag. The ironic comedy of the day continued when we popped up out of the underground and realised that the whole famous façade was obscured by scaffolding, and the big gold letters were barely visible. Having learnt resi...

LISA ….The rush for the train from Cambridge meant we didn't have time to use the station ATM, and were down to a grand total of £5.80 cash. "Not to worry" we thought, "there'll be an ATM at the station we get off at." Now this may seem a little silly once you realise that we were headed for country Essex, but every station we had been to so far had at least one helpful hole-in-the-wall, if not more. Hmmm, however, my wishing for ...

LISA On our introductory wander around the town the afternoon we arrived we were delighted with 3 great finds: the cheapest fish and chip shop yet, which subsequently hosted us for dinner; one of only 4 surviving medieval round churches in the country; and super-cheap (at £5 a 50-75% discount depending on who you believe) chauffeured punting on the river Cam. Our gentle trip down the river was a spectacular way to see the backs of the colleges. In fact, as...

LI Our Oxford hostel is in stark contrast to the peaceful academia generally associated with Oxford. It is a self-declared "funky" hostel, complete with corrugated iron shower cubicles (bit like posh Aussie camping really) and brightly coloured, painted murals adorning every visible inch of wall. Arriving last night expecting to find a super-market nearby for additional supplies, we ended up finding a little Chinese restaurant that had all you-can-eat...