Monday, July 30, 2007
Predictably, shortly after sorting out our email problems, our isp threw a serious wobbler, and refused to function at all.This was unfortunate timing, as it came a couple of days before we went on a short break, so till now, no-one has known why my cam and chatroom have been dead, emails haven't been answered, etc.
So anyway... the city of Hull has been generally recognised as the worst place in England.
We decided to find out if the reputation was warranted, and booked a few days in The Quality Royal Hotel, right in the heart of Hull.
These photos might suggest that the place is as bad as people say it is, but there's more...
And then when you begin to explore the surrounding area, there's still more...
Click the images for larger versions.
So, the hotel was absolutely fantastic, and is highly recommended, and as for the reputation of the town... no warranted at all, as far as we could tell.
Labels: holidays, hotels, photos
Steve 9:13 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, January 29, 2007
Most wonderful weekend ever!As planned some time ago, we went to Scarborough, and stayed at The Grand Hotel... a Victorian hotel that when it was built, was the largest in Europe.
The place is very quirky and slightly odd, seeming to be trying to stay true to its history, while functioning on a tight budget in a modern era.
So while the architecture is very grandiose and impressive, the actual decor is either looking rather tired, or somewhat dubiously chosen. What is it with all that blue? Certainly not horrible... just peculiar.
The staff were *very* good though, being both friendly and helpful.
Our room was quite an odd mishmash too, combining a victorian feel, with some later art deco furnishings, and plenty of that ill advised blue. The floor boards added real comedy value too. Creaky? Yup. Much fun.
This probably makes it sound like it wasn't really much good, but that would be doing the room an injustice. While quirky, it was very comfortable, had a warm atmosphere, and the most awesome view.
Looking south, we could see down the beach, and had a great view of the Victorian bridge spanning the valley...
...while looking east, we could see out over the harbour.
At dinner that evening, it appeared we'd been upgraded, as while we'd got our room at a bargain price, we were dining in the hall reserved for premium guests. Yay!
The experience was actually a little confusing, as the soup starter, which was absolutely wonderful, was served to us at our table... while the main course was self service from the carvery, and turned out to be a little unspectacular.
For what we were paying though, it was excellent... just slightly bemusing.
On saturday morning, before breakfast, and while Andrea was still asleep, I went for a walk with my camera.
It was very cold, but the sun was just rising, and there were some very dedicated surfers already on the beach.
I walked along the beach towards the town and took a wander round the harbour.
Time was getting on and I needed to find a florist, so I headed into town (or so I thought), only to get completely lost, and end up at the very top of the hill by the castle.
Though I hadn't actually planned to be up there, and I'd already been out much longer than intended, I couldn't help but be impressed by the view, and how The Grand completely dominates the bay.
Anyways, I made my way back down into the town, and after asking for directions several times, I finally found a florist, from which I bought every last red rose they had.
On returning to the hotel, Andrea and I went down for breakfast, and I have to say, this turned out to be quite excellent.
Then to the serious business of shopping, and some very specific shopping it was too. We must've checked out every jeweler in Scarborough, but it was worth the walk.
Rather than walk directly back to the hotel, we went down the hill and took a walk along the sea front, which for January was surprisingly lively, and then along the beach.
So, as we walked along the almost deserted sand, under the lights of the seafront, and in view of the impressively lit Grand Hotel, I took Andrea's hand, dropped to one knee, and said "Andrea.... Would you do me the honour of being my wife?"
She said yes. :D
Having already bought rings together earlier, Andrea knew I was going to propose... and it was the whole point of the weekend in Scarborough, but the actual moment... it was very special.
We exchanged rings. Andrea's is gold with a diamond cluster. Mine is a white gold ridged band with 6 diamonds embedded around it.
We headed back to the hotel, where I presented Andrea with the roses I'd bought in the morning, (the hotel staff were fantastic and went to some trouble trying to find a vase for them, though after much searching, a water jug served the purpose finely), and we drank the best champagne I've ever tasted, in some very nice glasses... a lovely gift from friends and colleagues of Andrea's.
The next morning, before breakfast, I went for another walk with my camera. I'm still learning how to get the best from the thing, so while some shots that should have been excellent came out blurred, some are as breathtaking as the views themselves were.
Scarborough has sunrises that make getting up early compulsory.
After another great breakfast, it was back off up to our room to pack. Checking out was at 10am, and we were pushing it, but it's hard to hurry to leave such a great place.
Just before we left the room, we paused at the window to watch the surfers on the beach.
Yup.
Best weekend ever.
And best of all.... We're engaged!!!
Labels: holidays, hotels, photos
Steve 6:00 AM [+] (4) comments
Saturday, December 30, 2006
So then, now all of that's done and dusted... Christmas, and the run-up to it.On the 21st, Andrea and I went back to Milton Keynes for a couple of days, mainly to drop off pressies for my family, but also to do a spot of shopping.
As it's a damned long journey, we figured it'd be better if we stayed the night in a hotel, and while we'd initially booked a room at Newport Pagnel services, at the last minute, Andrea managed to get us a room in The Cock Hotel in Stony Stratford.
This was ultra cool for two reasons.
Firstly, Stony Stratford is my absolute favourite place in the whole world, and at Christmas, with all of the lights up, the place is absolutely magical.
This pic really does the place no justice at all, but you get the idea.
Secondly, we've stayed at The Cock Hotel before, and though on that occasion, our room was a little shoddy, we really liked the atmospehere of the place. So this time, we were thrilled to bits when we got a vastly better room for an absolute knock down price.
As you can see, the room was a decent size, with a double bed, decent sized sofa, HD TV, and wonderful decor and general ambience.
Now if that was all, I'd have been impressed, but the view from the window was really good too. Maybe if it hadn't been Christmas, it'd have been a little less impressive, but as it was...
This was the view looking directly out and down, while looking up the street a little...
So that's the run-up... what about Christmas itself?
Great day.
The build-up to Christmas is always pretty stressful, or at least, I find it so... so the fact that Christmas day was a really chilled and relaxing day was a real bonus.
With Andrea's 3 offspring all in attendance, it was a full house, with much food, drink, pressies, and tv. Just how things should be.
What did Santa bring me?
Among lots of other really cool stuff, top pressies were a Colecovision (early 80s games console... expect to find details in my Consoles And Computers section in a week or so), some books on photography and historic buildings, and Top Gear DVDs which repeatedly caused me to wake Andrea, coz I kept laughing at them, watching with headphones while she slept.
Yup... top Christmas.
Labels: Christmas, holidays, hotels, photos, Stony Stratford
Steve 9:12 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, July 23, 2006
We're in sunny Blackpool for a long weekend.Things didn't go entirely smoothly, coz when we got to our hotel, The Savoy (Believe it or not), they'd screwed up, and even after they'd phoned us just 2 days ago to confirm the booking, our room was unfortunately not available.
So, they "upgraded" us to a different hotel just up the road. Upgrade is a interesting word. We're at the Norbrech Castle Hotel, which if you ignore the style and quality of the building, and concentrate on size and facilities, is an upgrade.
This place looks for all the world like a converted hospital with added crenelations to make it look like a castle. We went for a nose around last night and found not only does it have its own indoor swimming, stage, 2 resteraunts, gymn and beauty salon, it also has its own cinema. Big place? Ho ho. I should say so.
Blackpool itself is odd.
Imagine a 1920s northern english working town where the inhabitants travelled to 2006 Las Vegas.... then went home, built the closest they could to a replica with 1920s technology, and then left it to rot. What you see today is what's left.
Very very odd.
Steve 1:38 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, June 11, 2006
The weekend in Scarborough was very enjoyable.Great weather, and watching england play in the world cup, while catching some sun on the beach was a blast.
Our only reservation was the guest house. I won't name the place, coz they were actually very pleasant people... but yeash... it really smelled of cat pee there, and the decor... well... it had a very high comedy value, if you get my meaning.
Speaking purely for myself, hotels are definitely the way to go.
Steve 2:16 PM [+] (0) comments
Sunday, May 21, 2006
We spent the weekend half way between Milton Keynes and Northampton, which was handy, coz it meant we could visit both my mum, and my sister and her family.The hotel was... interesting.
We stayed in The Falcon, in Castle Ashby, having a room in 'the anex', which was in fact a cottage a hundred or so yards from the hotel itself. The building was pleasantly quaint, and the staff efficient and friendly. As per usual, we got our cheap deal on the cost of the room, and a good job too.
Why a good job too?
Well... the staff being pleasantly efficient pointed out that the resteraunt had closed when we arrived, but that we could have a sandwich if we liked, and they'd bring it to our room. Great we said, and ordered a ham salad and cheese salad.
They were very nice sandwiches, and it was really nice of the staff to bring them the hundred yards to our room, but.... *** £8 *** for a sandwich?
That's nearly half the price of the room for a night.
Oh well.
Yup... lovely place, but if you should ever stay there, unless you're absolutely loaded, eat somewhere else, or take your own food.
Anyways... this is the view from our room.
Pretty.
Walking down country lanes in the very early hours, in the pouring rain is pretty fun y'know. It's SO dark.
Oh yeah... chatting on irc while travelling up the M1 is quite an enjoyable novelty too.
Yup. That was an enjoyable weekend.
Steve 9:09 PM [+] (0) comments
Monday, January 30, 2006
This sunday was the first aniversary of Andrea and I meeting.To celebrate, we spent the weekend back in Milton Keynes, staying at the Cock Hotel, in Stony Stratford.
The Cock is a famous place, though you may not know it. Ever heard of the 'cock and bull story', or "We'll ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross"?.... that's The Cock Hotel in Stony.
Saying that... the quality of service, and general level of maintenance in the place left something to be desired. Some of the staff were great, but jeez, some were really miserable bastards... and the faults and safety issues in the place... if they'd had a surprise health and safety visit, they'd be shut down in an instant.
This didn't matter hugely to us though, as we'd booked into the place on a discount online bookinjg scheme, and weren't even paying half of full price. Had we been paying full whack though, I suspect we'd have left and gone somewhere else.
Anyway... not wanting to go on about the hotel, coz it wan't a biggie really....
So, did we have fun? Yup, very much so. I can't say we did anything unusual, exotic or out of the ordinary... we just enjoyed the time going to places we used to go to when I lived there, like down to the river, or for drinks in the Vaults Bar while they had a folk workshop.
Oh yeah.
After 5 months, I got a haircut at last. It's kinda funny, coz I could get it done here really easilly, but I waited to travel 105 miles before I had it cut, so I could go to the same place I always used to have it done.
We'll definitely go back again, and next time, we'll probably go see some friends and family too. We decided not to do that this time, coz.. well... being a special occasion for us, we just wanted the time to ourselves.
A year eh? How'd that happen?
Labels: hotels, Stony Stratford
Steve 3:54 PM [+] (0) comments
The Benway Empire |
 |