London 8/9 December 2007

Owing to the possibility of engineering works delaying our journey, we caught the 6am train to London and, in consequence, arrived very early. Even after a second breakfast at Paddington, we arrived at the O2 Centre an hour before Mary and Tim could be expected to emerge. When they finally arrived they looked decidedly worse for wear having been drinking cocktails in the Savoy the night before.

Tutanhkamun exhibition was interesting. http://www.superbreak.com/go/RH089/tutankhamun-exhibition/about.htm People queued appallingly badly but we managed to get round without needing embalming.

After lunch we tried to get into The Ritz but failed on account of our being unsuitably dressed. And the Royal Academy on account of the Friends Room being closed for refurbishment. So we gave up and went to the hotel.

Dinner with Mary and Tim at Smollensky's on The Strand.

A late start on Sunday, so late in fact that Mary and Tim beat us to The British Museum, a feat unparalleled in living memory.

The Terracotta Warriors exhibition was fascinating, housed in the old library. http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/all_current_exhibitions/the_first_emperor.aspx Like the Tutanhkamun exhibition it was dramatically lit in a darkened space and the queuing again left much to be desired.

A whistlestop tour failed to justice to the museum (Rosetta Stone and Elgin Marbles only).

Then off to the Masters tennis at the Albert Hall. http://www.theblackrockmasters.com/ Highlight the mens' doubles final, won by Mansour Bahrami and Henri Leconte. We didn't buy the DVD!

We were booked on the 8.07pm train back but it was cancelled. Fortunately we were early and so got the late-running 7.27pm train and changed onto a bus service at Swindon which actually got us home at more or less the expected time.

Tallin 18 November 2007

Later start on Sunday morning. Tallinn old town is very compact and much prettier than Helsinki. It isn't as cold either though we still took every opportunity to get inside to warm ourselves up.

The City Museum had an excellent display on how the Communist propaganda obscured the truth about the occupation of Estonia. The curator, who had lived through the Second World War, explained how the Red Army conscripted men at the start of the war and how the occupying Nazi forces conscripted men later so that brothers could end up fighting on opposite sides.




Made our way up the Toompea Hill for excellent views over the city. The Toomkirk has a bizarre private chapel like a railway carriage set half way up one wall overlooking the pulpit.


Went into the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral while an orthodox service was taking place. It was so informal. The congregation was either crowding round the priests at the front or else sat chatting around the perimeter of the church.

Lunch was a mediaeval banquet using traditional foods (at last something vaguely local even if it was actually Hanseatic League German tradition).

Ridiculously early for the flight home but switching to the preceding flight would cost £200 which is a bit excessive when the original cost was less than £60. So we didn't bother.

Helsinki 17 November 2007

Got up ridiculously early after our late arrival and got a taxi to the Nordic Jet Line ferry terminal to catch the early morning ferry to Helsinki. http://www-eng.njl.fi/

Jennifer Susan slept most of the hour and 40 minute crossing of the Gulf of Finland, which was flat as the proverbial millpond.

Entered Helsinki's narrow harbour shortly after dawn as the weak winter sun filtered through the clouds. Cold and snow greeted us, but very few people.


Visited the orthodox Uspenski Cathedral first, glad to get into the warm. Then made our way across the practically deserted Senate Square to the Lutheran Tuomiokirkko, which in contrast to the gilt dripping icons of the orthodox church was a simple pale blue interior (though still warm).

Having taken in the Stockmann department store (largest in Europe) we finally found somewhere open for an early lunch - Iguanas, Mexican cooking...

By the time we had looked around the Finnish National Museum and found the City Museum it was already getting dark in the premature nightfall so far north.

We ate dinner (Spanish...) and got the ferry back to Tallin.

Had to try the Ice Bar at the hotel for the vodka shots in glasses made of ice.

Estonia 16 November 2007

Flew to Tallin with Estonian Air http://www.estonian-air.ee/index.php?lang=ENG. The evening flight from Gatwick was delayed while they re-configured the plane but got there ok, shortly before midnight. Taxi took us to The Merchants House http://www.merchantshousehotel.com/, a small boutique hotel in the middle of the old town.

Zanzibar 12/13 September 2007

I have to confess that I was more than a little worried about the arrangements for getting home. There didn't seem to be enough time to get from the hotel in the north of the island to check in for our flight from the airport in the south of the island. Popo, the tour leader, assured us it was ok - there were no tickets but that was fine.

And I have to say, it all worked a treat.

We were dropped off at the airport and taken by a Tanzania Air official straight through without checking in. Our luggage was whisked off through the x-ray machine and we were taken out to a little 8 seater single-engined Cessna. The pilots apparently asked Chris where we wanted to go and fortunately he said Dar es Salaam International (there's more than one airport then?). We hopped over the Indian Ocean between Zanzibar and the mainland and landed 25 minutes later.

Thereafter the journey home was a drag. An hour's wait before we could even check in for our next flight onward to Kilimanjaro. Fortunately, we were able to check the luggage straight through to Heathrow. Short stop-over in Kili before taking off (with great views of the mountain) to Addis Ababa.

Another long wait in Addis, where it turned out it was their new year as Ethiopia is on the Julian rather than the Gregorian calendar. In fact, it was their Millennium. So we saw in the New Year in a restaurant with the staff (who closed it after serving us) and a German missionary, drinking freshly roasted coffee, sharing chocolates I'd bought in the Duty Free next door, and watching the firework displays on their television.

The missionary informed us that she was on our flight and was returning to Rome. This was the first we knew that we weren't flying direct to Heathrow. So we took off at 2am and stopped over for an hour in Rome while the passengers were disembarked and staff came on to clean the plane around us. Finally made it to Heathrow at about 9.20am on Thursday morning. Five flights in 25 hours - exhausting. Definitely called for sharing the drive back to Bristol.

Zanzibar 11 September 2007

Went diving off Mnemba Atoll with East African Diving. http://www.sansibar-tauchen.de/eng/

Saw dolphins. Did two dives to about 20m. In spite of havng told them that we thought we needed 6-8kg of weights, the dive centre gave us 4kg (Jenny) and 5kg (Mark), which was inadequate, meaning we had to fin down rather than descend normally, and also made it nigh on impossible to do a safety stop at 5m on the ascent as we would have had to be head down and finning hard with all the air out of jackets to stay at that depth once our tanks were nearly empty. Not impressed.

That said, everything else about the operation was well run. The wanted to see our PADI cards to check our qualifications and the briefings were thorough.

Zanzibar 10 September 2007

On Monday we drove to the north of the island where we spent a couple of nights at the Smiles Beach Hotel. http://www.zanzibarmagic.com/english2nd/smilesbeachhotel.htm . We visited the turtle conservation project which hatches eggs and looks after the turtles until they are about ten months old, after which they are released into the sea. Some females are kept until they are more mature (about two years).



In the evening we went out in a dhow and snorkelled on a reef offshore then sailed back as the sun was setting.