Portland – Weymouth
We had a wonderful time in Portland, visiting Alistair’s family.
Thank you for letting us stay Auntie Ann!
Portland is just beautiful with terrific coastline and beaches as well as a new marina that was built for the Olympics in 2012. Getting to Portland we had to go through Weymouth – with yet another marina situated right in the city. We can’t escape the sea and the marinas, even if we are traveling by car and not by yacht!
We had lovely walks, scrumptious food and great fun visiting the family. I realised that I am not a great ‘people photographer’ and all the pictures I got of the family reunions was an artsy picture of Alistair’s Aunt and the dogs of one of his cousins…. But don’t worry guys, we remember you, it’s been a great time!

Cornwall
Oh my! Everybody said that Cornwall is beautiful – they weren’t wrong! We stayed at Tregenna Castle in St Ives for a few days and took this as our base for day trips around the countryside. Of course, I just got a very bad cold and I wasn’t really up to much. I remember our beautiful walks around St Ives, the colours, the little roads, the beach, the Cornish Pasties, the seagulls stealing the Cornish Pasties, the little shop, the full English breakfast that was included in the room price… Imust have put on a few kilos in our two weeks in England just because of the breakfasts
Over the next few days, we visited, Hayle, St Kevern, Camborne, Portreath and the Godrevy-Portreath Heritage Coast, Marazion and St Michael’s Mount. With me being sick and the weather being cold, it was mostly just a quick stop, a wee walk around, a couple of pictures and then back to the car. I hope I’ll get back here someday to give Cornwall the time it deserves!

Manchester / Darlington
Quick trip up to Manchester – 6.5 hour drive! – on our way up to Darlington. We met up with an old school friend and had Chinese for dinner! Chinese is no something that you come by that easily in Italy so we enjoyed it very much! We didn’t see anything of Manchester as we left the next morning. In Darlington we found a nice Hotel – The Blackwell Grange Hotel. We didn’t book breakfast with the room and instead wandered off to McDonalds for brunch before meeting up with Alistair’s Mum. We visited The Bowes Museum about 40km away from Darlington. It was a lovely day – inside the museum, as it was again very cold. Clouds started rolling in too, and our walk around the park was cancelled the following day so we stayed inside and nostalgically looked through old and new photos. Unfortunately, we didn’t have more time to spend with Alistair’s Mum, it was lovely meeting her.

We arrived in the marina in Licata in October. It was hot and sunny and we spent our days working on the yacht (installing solar panels, cleaning the teak, fixing leaks etc) and the nights socialising with our fellow cruisers who were wintering in the marina.
But then winter came and it got cold, windy and wet and we were quite often trapped inside the boat because we didn’t leave the boat if it wasn’t really necessary.
So, when the weather turned bad after New Year’s and most of our jobs were done on the boat, we decided to head north and escape the Sicilian winter and instead spend a few weeks in England and Germany. I never thought I would actually say that.
We wanted to visit family in England and Germany – quite simple, really. But when you throw a dog into the equation things are not so straight forward.
We couldn’t take Tiny into the UK, so we had to fly from Catania to Hannover to drop Tiny off at my parents, then continue on to London the next day. Find flights back to Hannover and then head home o where our yacht is – with Tiny. Not many (affordable) airlines take dogs in the cabin. We found 2 airlines to choose from – Air Berlin and Eurowings – and chose the latter even though the fare was slightly higher, but our stop was in Stuttgart, rather than Vienna.
Tiny handled the flights quite well, after a time she relaxed in her bag and lay down. Every time we landed she started crying a bit but she does the same thing when driving in a car.
 
London / Chertsey
We hired a car in London but stayed the first night in Stansted as we arrived quite late. The next day we drove south around London on the M25 and past Windsor before heading on to Chertsey. We couldn’t believe how packed Windsor was and there was not a single parking space to find to go and actually have a look at Windsor Castle. I only managed two blurry pictures from the moving car. A bit further away we found a spot to pull in and I could play with the ducks and swans of the river Thames. In Chertsey, Alistair showed me around his old stomping grounds (twice) and we were done by lunchtime. Alistair couldn’t believe how small the town was – his house, his friends’ places, the school, downtown, train station – everything was within 1 minute driving distance. It was great to see the place and it brought back so many memories for Alistair.
Stonehenge
As it was still quite early we decided to take the scenic route towards the west and go and see Stonehenge! Oooh, how excited was I?! Coming on the A303 you go right past it and I had my camera at the ready and I managed to snap some pics. Alistair then spoiled my fun when he said that the parking probably costs a few pounds but I wanted to check it out anyway. And would you believe it? The parking was free! Yay! So we got out of the car, got our camera gear etc and headed off to the entrance / visitor centre and then we saw it….. £18.50 per person. To go look at some rocks? From quite a distance (as it’s fenced off)? We think not! Little me was very disappointed and even the gift shop couldn’t really cheer me up. And I do love my gift shops! We wandered aimlessly about and then went back to the car to organise a hotel for the night. Bookings.com was becoming our new best friend!
 
The Fontmell / Fontmell Magna
We found a place for the night which also included a full English breakfast in the room fee. We were sold! From Stonehenge it took us about 1 hour to get from Stonehenge to The Fontmell. At some stage I thought we got lost; we had to turn off the main road and ended up on a very narrow dirt road, following a tractor. But that is just the English countryside for you. I loved the drive, loved the narrow roads, the fields, the villages,  the old stone walls…
Fontmell Magna is no difference. We loved the place and especially The Fontmell, where we stayed the night. We usually give recommendations for marinas we come by and not hotels but I will make an exception. When we walked into  the reception (which is also the pub), I felt instantly at home and when we went up to our room, we were really impressed. The room had just been refurbished (other rooms were in the process of being done up): it had a huge bed, great decor and our shower had two shower heads (I mean, whaaat?). Obviously, any place where you don't need to pump the water manually out of the shower is good for us. But this was pure luxury! We spent the evening in the pub and dining area - excellent food (and wine - but we stuck with local cider and gin tonic),  personable friendly staff and great ambience. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend this place to anyone! 10/10 would go there again!