Caldera Palace

The sun came out and we were able to fully appreciate the hotel and it's surroundings. We discovered a local bar just across the road from the hotel that played the football - much to Andy's delight! We walked up along the coast and found the area was lovely, just what we wanted as we didn't want the Malia setting. Don't get us wrong, we love a good night out, just glad we weren't staying there throughout our whole holiday. The hotel's beach was good, the hotel obviously looked after it as the adjoining beaches weren't so attractive. The sea was beautiful, but you had to be careful when entering as there were sharp rocks. We did most of our swimming by our room. The pool water was pretty cold at first and took some brave attempts to get in! Once you were in though, it was lovely. We were pretty lucky with our room as the sun came over to our side at about midday and stayed until sunset, the guests on the other side lost the sun at midday. We bought a bat and ball, an underwater camera and some goggles, as we are big kids and like to have a bit of fun!

Our Honeymoon

Our Honeymoon, May 2009. There were no real dramas with getting to the airport, we were well organised this time. The flight was ok, just the usual annoyances.
Upon arrival in the capital of Crete, Heraklion, we were greeted with a luxury, private coach, just for our hotel. This we warmly received as that meant there would be no dropping off at other hotels which would have increased our transfer time. This was a little concern of ours as we had booked a resort.
We booked a 5 star hotel on a 5 star resort. We don't normally do this, but we thought it's our honeymoon and why not? The hotel happened to be all inclusive as well, we like to eat out and experience local restaurants and cafes but again thought it is our honeymoon and as it turns out, there were lots of different types of restaurants at the hotel.

First impressions were excellent, it certainly looked 5 star. Our room was incredible. The bed was huge and so comfy, didn't think we'd ever get out of it! The bathroom was all marble with a huge power shower with all the bells and whistles and the bath was a jacuzzi bath! We had booked a 'swim-up' room and certainly got that! Open up the patio doors and step out onto our decked porch and then straight into the pool! There was a like a river/pool that snaked around the hotel and had steps up to all the ground floor rooms.
We cracked open our bottle of Champagne and toasted our honeymoon. We went and had a wonder around and ended up at one of the pool bars for a Pina Colada and a lager. Here we met another honeymoon couple.
Slowly we went back to our room. We were both very tired from the trip as we had to show our faces at a birthday party hours before we flew!
Steph nearly slept in her clothes she travelled in as tiredness, Champagne and Pina Coladas make you very sleepy!

The first two days were a bit windy and rainy. The locals said it was the worst weather they had seen for a long time. No matter, we became excellent at table tennis and propped up the bars in the hotel and out! We wanted to wait for the sun to come out before we went exploring. We didn't have to wait long, day three to the end of our honeymoon, we couldn't have asked for better weather.
The honeymoon couple we met had gone to one of the sites we had on our list when it was raining and said they didn't enjoy it much as they rushed around it because otherwise they would have been soaked through.
We were staying in Crete longer than them, so stuck to our plan of waiting for the rain to stop.

A view from our flight

Our huge and most comfy bed

We were impressed with our room

Our Swim-up room

We stayed at the Caldera Palace in Analipsi, Crete.

Update

We are back from our trip to Wales. It was a brilliant trip and we managed to get the best of the weather which was a bonus. The dogs seemed to have the time of their lives!
We stayed in Tal-y-Bont and visited Barmouth, Tywyn, Harlech, Porthmadog/ Black Rock Sands and Shell Island. Trip report to come soon after Crete.

For our first anniversary we are off to London for a weekend. We have booked tickets to see Thriller Live in the West End and will be visiting as many attractions as we can fit in!
Can't believe it's been nearly a year already since we got married!

Time flies when you're having fun!

Crete report on it's way.

Sealife

Recently we went to the Sealife Centre in Birmingham. We had some 2 for 1 entry tickets, so thought we would use them. We enjoyed the visit. Andy was a bit disappointed that the Sharks weren't very big (and too quick for photos!) and the Piranha tank wasn't bigger! So a trip to the Blue Planet Aquarium in Chester might be on the cards. The photos we took weren't too bad, as flash photography is not allowed.

We're off to Wales with the dogs for a holiday, so we will start the Crete report when we get back. Wela i chi!

Sealife Centre Birmingham

We paid £15.50 for the both of us using the Merlin 2 for 1 ticket.

TSFC Trophy Night

On Saturday July 18th 2009, TSFC held their presentation night. Up for grabs were trophies for top scorer, most improved, best in training, players player and managers player, to name but a few! There were a few surprises on the night with special trophies for the manager and assistant manager from the lads to say thank you for helping them win the treble. There was also a surprise for the lads. Although TSFC came second in the Lucozade league, the manager presented the lads with a trophy from Lucozade and VIP tickets to see a premiership game. A good night all round!

The Treble!

TSFC have had a great season this year, they won the league and two cups. As you can see from the pictures there is a lot of silverware. Fully deserved, they worked hard and it paid off. Next season they have decided to conquer the premier league on a Sunday but may come back to Saturday football after that.

Deja Vu Wembley!

We embarked on another trip down to Wembley on the 23rd May 2009, to see Shrewsbury Town football club (again!) v Gillingham football club.
Again, another convoy of coaches headed down south, making one stop at a motorway services, where Shrewsbury fans just took over the whole place.

It was a lovely day, so on arrival we headed to a pub. The pubs around Wembley were allocating themselves to either team, we ended up in a Wetherspoons.

Our seats in the stadium were a bit higher up than last time (ok, a lot higher up), but a good view. To cut a long painful 90 minutes short, Shrewsbury lost in the dying seconds to a late winner from Gillingham. The dream was over again. Maybe they will be lucky next time? Or maybe everything happens in three's?

STFC 0-1 GTFC

Arrivederci!

We will finish off this trip report on Milan with some pictures we took while exploring. We both found Milan to be a friendly and interesting city and would definitely visit again. We have found that not everyone rates Milan as a weekend break as much as we do, but each to their own and we all have different ideas on how to spend a long weekend. We are thinking about some more long weekends and considering on continuing with Italy, Venice and Rome being high on the agenda for obvious reasons.

Next time though we will take a more extensive phrase book as ours was not enough to get us by. Our little souvenir of Milan is a miniature vespa.

The next trip report will be our honeymoon in Crete. Before that, we will update you on TSFC and the treble! and a short report on our deja vu trip to Wembley! As you can probably see from the trip countdown on the right hand side of the blog, we will be off to Wales very soon for the dog's holiday, Tal-y-bont to be exact. We have more plans ahead and reports will follow accordingly.

Steph hasn't forgotten about the trip reports on Thailand and Malaysia, they will come, she just hasn't got round to transferring the APS films to CD yet, but Steph will get her act together and get it done!

3 Jolie

We went for a meal at the newly opened 3 Jolie restaurant owned by the AC Milan footballer Gennaro Gattuso. The restaurant was walking distance from our hotel. We really enjoyed the meal and would reccommend it. The restaurant had low lightning and a colourful decor, which set for a good atmosphere. The food was delicious and without much of a waiting time. Andy had steak and Steph had a beef spaghetti dish. Steph was drinking Vodka and they were very generous with their measures, so if you order a single you are more likely to get it verging on a triple!

After the meal, we went to our hotel bar for some drinks and got talking to our friendly barman, there was a bit of a language barrier, but we think we just about understood each other. The barman felt that he wasn't being challenged enough, so we got him making some cocktails! They were pretty good. The hotel bar closed quite early so the barman recommended his local. His local turned out to be a plastic gazebo in the middle of the street, but it had a good atmosphere. A couple of locals joined us and the language barrier was even greater, but everyone seemed to have a good time anyway.

Our friendly hotel barman

At the barmans local

Gattuso's restaurant

This Is It

Steph has been asked by a few what she is going to do with her 'This Is It' Michael Jackson tickets.
She has two concert tickets and two after show tickets. She has decided to keep one concert ticket and refund the rest. Steph also has a tour t-shirt, so all this will make a nice souvenir of the Michael Jackson concert that never was.