PeanutWood

A quick note about our photos

Author: Adrian

Morning all

Sitting in Calvi Airport again, checking weather and NOTAMS, attempting but failing to file a flight plan online and uploading more pictures. We’ve got some fresh orange juice and croissants to keep us going – and the orange juice was €4.50 so it’d better be good!

Owing to a minor whoops on PeanutWood the Gallery is missing. Don’t know why, but it just is. Can’t really fix it down here so for the time being we are just uploading the rough draft pictures to my MobileMe account.

We’re blogging either on the iPhone or on the Macbook if we have a wifi signal. This is why there will sometimes be a delay in getting the pictures online. If you haven’t seen any pictures, scroll back through the posts and see if there are any links at the end of the posts!

Launching soon to mainland Italy. Thunderstorms forecast up at Pisa, but looks pretty good where we’re going – and its glorious here in Calvi. Spookily, we are sitting in the terminal with 200+ Brits waiting to board a Thomson flight to Gatwick. It really IS a small world after all.

June 28th, 2009  |  Posted in PC/Internet  |  No Comments »

Calvi

Author: Adrian

So, we’ve arrived at Calvi for the second night of our Italian Adventure. OK, many of you will point out that Corsica is in France but we have to call the trip something, so it’ll stay.

It’s been another hot day. Temperatures have topped 30C here and the sun has been pretty unbroken. I managed to hold a conversation with our taxi driver – in French. Sort of. I made him understand we were flying a light aircraft from Cagliari to London and would be home next weekend. He in turn let me know his Dad was a professor of English, but he (the driver) could speak barely any. Still, we made it and it made the journey more entertaining.

We’ve got another nice hotel. It’s older than the Holiday Inn at Cagliari but is clean and close to the harbour.

We’ve spent the afternoon wandering the town. We went up into the citadel, high above Calvi and explored there. We then went down into the harbour and wandered amongst the huge yachts, not even the smallest of which we could afford. Finally we spent a couple of hours strolling the beach, mostly in the warm Meditteranean waters. Thoroughly pleasant.

The town has a buzzing atmosphere. There is a music festival on at the moment and we’ve spent some time following a marching drum group making a tremendous racket through the narrow streets. We escaped eventually to the harbour once more for a crepe and beer, and the drums then worked their way down to us!! Great fun, lots of noise – but not in a bad way.

It’s now almost dark and the town looks different again, very limited street lighting but effective at creating just the right atmosphere.

Our Calvi pictures are now online and here!

Tomorrow we head to Siena. We’ll be spending two days there before being thrown out of the hotel for the Palio race. Back to Italy then, and the adventure continues…

June 27th, 2009  |  Posted in Travel  |  No Comments »

First flight – Cagliari-Figari-Calvi

Author: Adrian

0830 is an unreasonably early time on a Saturday morning when your on holiday, but needs must. We decided to get airborne as soon as possible to take advantage of smoother air and head north to our next night stop in Calvi. Adrian would be flying to Figari and then Linda the second leg up to Calvi. The flights would be flown up to 4,500 ft but hugging the western coastlines of Sardinia and Corsica to save flying over the mountains.

Cagliari was pretty organised really. We met our handling agent in the terminal, he took us through and got us weather. The flight plan was filed, and then just the bill to pay. This worked out at rather more than the €90 promised – €145!!!! Hmmm. Then to fuel. We had to drag the aircraft to the pumps, but that wasn’t far. 162 litres uplifted came to a whopping €480!!!! Thank heavens we get the fuel back from the club, that was a big bill!

The flight was nowhere near as complicated as I expected. No follow-me truck out of Cagliari, just a simple taxi instruction. We followed the VRP route and climbed as quickly as they’d allow us to our cruising altitude. A smooth flight, with ATC handovers and we were on our way. The only thing we were constantly asked for was estimates, but that wasn’t too difficult with the GPS.

Approaching Bonifacio we were asked by Figari to hold, no idea why as we were number 1 to land but never mind. Joining downwind at 1000ft we were completely surrounded by mountains, it looks pretty intimidating at first. Landing was normal, and we taxied to park.

No landing fees at Figari which was nice, just a pleasant chat with the on-station Met officer. He was very friendly, helpful and informative even about our legs tomorrow. Sadly he recommended departing really early before the weather gets bad in Italy. Oh joy.

Linda then took the controls for the leg up the western side of Corsica. Departure and climb straight to 4500ft then over Ajaccio and up to Calvi. Gorgeous coastline the whole way. Calvi were in a hurry for us to land due to a 737 inbound, so we made a hasty approach to a landing Linda ungenerously described as “awful”. It wasn’t that bad, sure there was a bit of a bounce but it was controlled neatly the whole time. And we walked away from it, and can use the aeroplane again!

We are now sitting here in Calvi terminal enjoying a beer and updating the blog on the free wifi. Pictures from this leg are here!

June 27th, 2009  |  Posted in Flying, Travel  |  1 Comment »

Cagliari

Author: Adrian

Well, day one of our Italian adventure is over. It’s been a blazing hot day with temperatures hitting 30C and quite muggy too.

Having relaxed at the hotel for a couple of hours after arriving we asked reception where to go in town and how to get there. We were offered a taxi (hmmm) or the bus. We chose the bus, and wandered in the heat to the stop 10mins away.

The first bus driver said we were waiting on the wrong side if the road. The second didn’t speak Enhlish and wouldn’t take any money. He seemed to be intjmating we had to buy a card from somewhere, darned if we could figure out where though. So we sat down, shut up and had a free ride into town.

The port had a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in when we arrived. The town itself seemed ok, nothing too special but we wandered around the port, the botanical gardens and some of the piazza’s. There was a very nice ice cream shop where we had strawberry sorbet, most refreshing in the heat.

Dinner was a rally nice pizza at a street cafe. Can’t really explain why, but real Italian pizza is just…better. Maybe it’s the base, who knows. But it was good.

My frustration today has been my complete ignorance of what’s going on. Not many people speak English. We have a phrasebook, but it’s not ideal. Situations like the bus were a good example: he could have been telling me I’d be shot if I stayed on the bus, but I was none the wiser. In France I can get by – badly, but I can read and understand spoken French (if it’s spoken slowly). In America its all about the donuts, nice and easy. In Italy I could be doing anything, and know nothing of what is happening, and I don’t like that. Still, we shall blunder on and maybe by the time we leave Italy we’ll be better – or arrested.

On a funny note, my iPhone shows the network as “I WIND”. Seems appropriate!

Our Cagliari pictures are here!

Tomorrow we fly to France – well, Corsica. Our first stop is Figari then Calvi for the night. Our first flight in Italian airspace could be interesting!!!

June 26th, 2009  |  Posted in Travel  |  No Comments »

We’ve arrived

Author: Adrian

Well, that was an eye-opening welcome to Italy. We’ve just checked into the Holiday Inn Cagliari which is a beautiful modern hotel situated in a dump of a building site/wasteland/industrial estate about 4km from Cagliari City Centre. I’m typing this having just stopped shaking from the taxi ride.

EasyJet didn’t cover themselves in glory this morning. We were an hour late after an aircraft change from an A319 to a 737. This meant waiting for a Captain from another flight and we then missed our slot. The delay was blamed on fog at the airport and then air traffic not letting them push back. Fog? A slight exaggeration I feel. Still, we weren’t in a rush.

On arrival at Cagliari we decided to find the handling agent and arrange fuel. Challenge 1. Epic fail. No-one spoke English or would answer the phone. Eventually we tracked the agent down (he said he was having a sandwich), and we couldn’t furl until 1530 anyway so we’ve arranged to meet him at 0845 tomorrow.

Then came Challenge 2. A 4km taxi ride to the hotel. Oldish bloke in a VW Golf, looked like a olive grower. Harmless, friendly. Sadly, he seemed to think he was driving a Ferrari around Monza. Lane changes, much waving of hands, swearing in Italian and horn blowing. He launched (almost literally) up the entrance ramp to the hotel and then charged us €15 for the experience. We knew the Italians were spirited in their driving but…. We’ve got a fair few taxi rides coming up over the next week, we plan to keep our eyes shut through them if that is a guide!!!

So, we are going to chill here for an hour or so then get the bus into town to explore. The bus will be ok, won’t it?

June 26th, 2009  |  Posted in Travel  |  1 Comment »

Back online – and flying again!

Author: Adrian

Well, so much for keeping the blog up-to-date. Looking back at it this evening it seems we are still in the Bahamas, but rest assured we aren’t.

We are in fact in sunny Milton Keynes. For now. Not much has happened in the last few months, it’s been work work work with a few fun bits thrown in. Mostly thrown Linda’s way too.

In the past few months Linda has brought a Mini and been adding to her flying experience. She now has a multi-engine rating and is checked out on the Mooney. She’s been busy.

The reason for the checkout at least will become clear. We’re off on a flying adventure. A big one.

The Mooney has for the last week been heading down to Cagliari, Sardinia with another pilot. He’s abandoning it there and easyJetting home. We are then heading south with the orange lot to bring the aeroplane home.

In a nutshell we plan to fly to Calvi, Corsica then across to Siena in Tuscany where we’ll visit Florence and Pisa. Then head up the coast to Genoa and Cannes before flying back through France to good old Cranfield.

It’s going to be an epic adventure and we’ll be blogging it all here – subject to Italian and French wifi! Now Linda is checked out on the Mooney we will be sharing the flying, doing a leg each. One flies, the other reads the map. Theoretically the map-reader talks on the radio as well but Linda doesn’t do foreign ATC normally!

The planning is more or less done now. Landing fees in Italy seem steep (or at least on a par with Cranfield), and Firenze/Florence wouldn’t let us land there at all unless we stumped up €100 a night for hangarage. We’ve had help from some great guys on an Italian flying forum – most of whom are going to be reading this blog, ciao il mio nuovo amici italiani! We’ve booked some of the hotels – notably Cagliari on the first night, Calvi on the second and Siena for nights 3 and 4. We’re going to leave the rest somewhat flexible, we’d have left Siena flexible if it weren’t for someone advising us of a festival in Siena on 2nd July…the day we were due to leave and head northwest, but the hotels booked up 2 days prior too necessitating us moving to Lucca on the other 2 days in Tuscany.

So , the blog is alive once more. Welcome back faithful reader, we hope not to disappoint you…

June 23rd, 2009  |  Posted in Travel  |  2 Comments »

Castaways in the Bahamas

Author: Adrian

Yesterday was the “busy” day of the cruise, shopping and sightseeing in Nassau. The next two days promised to be a much more relaxed affair.

Our stop today was to be Castaway Cay, Disney’s private island in the Bahamas. Boasting three public beaches, an explorers trail, small settlement housing gift shops and food, and precious little else. The island is almost totally unmanned, most of the staff you see on the island are from the ship – they disembark before you to set everything up.

New on Castaway Cay this time is The Flying Dutchman, the pirate ship commanded by Davey Jones in Pirates 2 and 3. A great addition to the island, it’s moored just in the bay so you can get good pictures of it and the Disney Wonder. It also makes a great photo opportunity to meet Captain Jack Sparrow!

We prebooked a glass bottom boat tour from the Cay which was at 1115. Prior to that we strolled around a bit and found hammocks on the family beach. The sun was shining, temperatures in the mid 20s and a light breeze to keep it very pleasant indeed.

The glass bottom boat tour was good, if with a little less underwater viewing than I’d have liked – we seemed to spend more time getting to the reef than we did there. We also got to throw some oats in the water which whipped the fish into a feeding frenzy!

After a brief stop on the ship to write a couple of postcards we headed back onto the Cay for a BBQ lunch and then trekked off to Serenity Bay, the adults-only area. The tide was out and the blue water so shallow you had to walk at least 100m out to be able to swim. It was so nice sitting there we could have stayed all day, but needed to be back at the ship for 4pm.

We still had to post our cards. The island post office was by the ship, and open til 4. What we didn’t figure on was of being cash only. On board and on the Cay you just use you room card to charge and as a result we had no cash on us! Fortunately a friendly American paid the dollar for us and we got the postcards away! Many thanks to the unknown American, he wouldn’t let me pay him back or anything.

Back on board our evenings entertainment consisted of a movie in the Walt Disney Theater. Not even out in the UK yet, we got to see Bolt. In addition to that, we saw it in 3D! Another top Pixar movie, so good we’d see it again during our at-sea day! Dinner was a Pirates themed meal before heading out on deck for the “Pirates IN the Caribbean” deck party, finishing off the evening witha midnight showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 1. Good day, but so long we fell asleep before the end of Pirates!

The at-sea day was far more relaxed. We got up, ate breakfast, sat in the sun on deck, ate a snack, watched Bolt again, ate lunch, sat on deck, had a tour of the ship, ate a snack. Eating is (sadly for our waistlines) a theme on a cruise ship.

In the evening we had our cases packed and outside the room ready to be taken to shore. Dinner was at Animatirs Palate, the best of all the restaurants in our opinion. The restaurant is like a black and white cartoon but many of the paintings around the room come to life and colour throughout the evening.

The evening ended with a farewell from all the Disney characters in the lobby and we took one last midnight stroll around the top deck. Tomorrow we’d be disemarking early, and checking in to fly home to the snow, ice and cold. Not something we are looking forward to….

February 12th, 2009  |  Posted in Travel  |  No Comments »

Nassau and Atlantis

Author: Adrian

Our crossing from Port Canaveral was surprisingly peaceful with calm seas and at 8am we found ourselves on deck approaching Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. It was surprising it was so calm really because the wind was positively howling on deck to the point of pushing you backwards!

Nassau’s harbour entrance and port seem impossibly small for such a big ship, especially when the ship turns round in port to berth stern first! Still by 0930 we were cleared to go ashore, not departing again until 1900.

We had pre-booked a daytrip to Atlantis, a huge resort on Paradise Island. We found last time that the actual town of Nassau was pretty ordinary so thought we’d take a look around the casino/hotel/aquarium/waterpark that makes up the Atlantis resort.

To make the day even more entertaining we were given a guided bus tour of Nasdau by our bus driver from the dock. Good, informative tour but I really think he needed to watch the road more as the driving standard varies from abysmal to a level much lower than that!!! We made it without hitting anything (just) and were met at the entrance to the hotel by our guide for the next couple of hours.

Our tour was pretty interesting, if a little hard to hear at times. We went through the casino and into the lost world of Atlantis – a maze of paths through some incredible aquariums. We then walked through the beach area to the shark exhibits – a big underwater tunnel allowed us to see the sharks really well.

After the tour finished we enjoyed a light lunch provided by Messrs Ben and Jerry, the set off to explore the grounds some more. Our aim was to find Dolphin Cay, but after venturing past the water slides, round the beaches, and through the casino once more we admitted defeat and found some sunbds in a wind-sheltered spot for an hour or two before returning to the Disney Wonder.

Back onboard we hit the Walt Disney Theater for the first showing of Toy Story: The Musical. A brilliantly put-together show telling the story of the first movie, great fun.

Dinner tonight was in Tritons, the restaurant “under the sea”, and to a French theme. We tried escargot, snails, and they weren’t bad either – at least when drowned in garlic butter and cheese!

By the time dinner was finished it was 10:30 so we had a stroll around the deck and then off to bed, Casarway Cay beckons tomorrow!

February 11th, 2009  |  Posted in Travel  |  No Comments »

Disney Wonder

Author: Adrian

Well, our two weeks in the villa at Cumbrian Lakes passed in a flash, and jolly good it was too. Yeah the weather had its moments but generally was fine, and there was only really one day that it stopped us doing stuff – ironically my birthday but never mind.

We now ventured east from Orlando to Port Canaveral to catch the Disney Wonder for a four-night Caribbean cruise. We sailed on the Disney Wonder a couple of years ago and loved it, so thought we’d do an extra night this time which gave us an itinerary of Nassau on day one, Castaway Cay on day two and then a day at sea before returning to Port Canaveral on Thursday.

Being Disney they don’t do things by halves. The ship is stunning – 11 decks, 5 restaurants (not including snack places), 3 pools and a total of 887 staterooms. Beautifully decorated, you can wander for hours admiring all of it. But it’s not just the ship – even the cruise terminal has the Disney magic in it. You could get used to this treatment.

Check-in was a painless affair and we were onboard by 1pm. Lunch was a light (!!!) buffet at the Beach Blanket buffet before we did the mandatory emergency drill at 4. This is essentially a chance to look daft on deck wearing a lifejacket while they check you off on the register.

At 5 we sailed down the port channel and out into the Atlantic Ocean. The ship horn is no ordinary horn – it blasts “when you wish upon a star” which entertains the locals on shore as we steam to sea. Sunset over Cocoa Beach was spectacular, and then we left the USA behind.

Now, if you thought we ate a lot while in Orlando you ain’t seen nothing yet. We are allocated a table for all four nights – we are sharing with Dan and Rebecca from New York. Dan is a ramp worker at JFK – tug driving, baggage handling etc – which is spooky. There are meant to be another couple on our table but they haven’t shown up so far. Our first night was in Parrot Cay, then two nights in Triton’s, before finishing in Animators Palette on the final night. Our servers – Jojo from the Phillipines and Marianne from Argentina – stay with us for the whole cruise.

The food is delicious, no other word for it. Breakfast is a buffet, lunch is practically anything you want and dinner is a four-course feast, and if you dare mention you can’t decide which of two dishes to have you’ll get both!

The entertainment looks to be good too. We watched a show called The Golden Mickeys in the main theatre – named after Walt – which was good, if a little cheesy. There is also a movie theatre and a huge screen on the top deck which promises to show Pirates of the Caribbean amongst other films.

So, the Disney Wonder is living up to, and even exceeding, expectations. It’s gonna be a good cruise!

February 10th, 2009  |  Posted in Travel  |  No Comments »