Dorothy and the 125th Anniversary Wimbledon-The Championships 2011

One of the most important timelines of our holiday was to be in London in mid june. This meant that Dorothy had two weeks in London at the same time as the 125^th anniversary Wimbledon tennis championships. Gary spent the time chasing steam trains, that may form a separate blog posting.

I (Dorothy) went to Wimbledon centre court on 3 different days.  I (Dorothy) checked the schedule of play before I arrived and this made it easy to know which courts the junior Australians would be playing.

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As play does not start on Centre court until 1pm, I had time to wander around the many outside courts. I watched the whole game of Andrew Whittington- Australian junior, and then in the late afternoon I watched Sam Stosur lose her first round game.

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The matches that I saw on centre court were Serena Williams, Roger Federer and Novak, they all went through their games easily.

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 So they were not great matches to watch but I still enjoyed seeing the great players on court and they made the game look so easy to play.  I also saw the match where Maria Sharapova won her game to go onto the Women’s final. 

PHOTO 2683 (above)warm up & 2705 (below)  trophy

My seats were all in the back rows but still good enough to see everything on the court, also on an angle which meant it was easy to see the ball at all times.  While I was walking around a large number of security staff walked passed and in the middle of them was a tennis player by the name of Rafal Nadal. He was easy to see as he was the one in white!  Then I watched matches on the outside courts, tried to watch mostly the Aussies.  I went to the Women’s Final and watched Maria Sharapova lose, it was a reasonable game and I was pleased to see the undog win, Petra Kvitova.

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Then I watched the finals on centre court of both the men’s and women’s doubles games and they were fast, it was really hard to follow the ball especially if they played at the net.  It was made special as Sam Stosur (Aussie) was playing but they could not beat their seeded opponents.

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The crowds of tennis spectators were all enjoying their strawberries ($5 or £2.50) or champagne, or Pimms, or for £15 ($30) you could enjoy a table service afternoon tea.  I just stayed with my Marks & Spencers supermarket pre packed sandwiches and drink (£2.50 or $5). 

When you arrive at the Southfield station it has green matting (to look like grass) laid out on the platform and lovely baskets of flowers to greet the Wimbledon spectator’s.

(PHOTO 2665 Station)

From the station you could either take a bus, taxi or 20 minute walk to the tennis by just following the crowds (and the ticket touts).

 (PHOTO 2585 bus) 

Battle of Waterloo, 1815 and all that stuff

Hello Bloggers, here is our last blog from the continent

We had booked to catch the Eurostar train from Brussells to London St Pancreas so decided to stay our last two nights on the continent in Brussels. We were not able to find any accommodation in the Brussels area so end up in a self catering place just outside Brussels, in a little town called Waterloo.
Waterloo is now a thriving dormitory suburb for Brussels, but nearly two hundred years ago is was the site of a major battle between France and England (with some help from a Prussian army at the last moment).

Main street of Waterloo with museum in the house that General Wellington used as headquarters (Photo number 585)

Napolean was of course the dictator of France (for the second time) and had won many battles in the few years before Waterloo

Lions mound on site of battlefield (photo 600)
This hill, called the Lions mound was built between 1824 and 1826 on the site where Prince Guillaume of Orange (heir to the Netherlands crown) was wounded in the battle. The mound supports a cast iron lion. The lion protects the globe which symbolises the return of peace to Europe.

View from the top of Lions mound, over the battlefield (Photo 595)

The site of one of the major battles now has an information centre describing the battles that raged in those few days in 1815.

Of course in the end history tells us that Emporer Naploean was defeated by Wellington, helped by the arrival late in the day of troops commanded by General Gebhard von Blücher of the Prussian army.

We spent an enjoyable day wandering the battlefield by public transport. The next morning we caught a bus from outside our hotel into Brussels and then the Eurostar train to London to begin the next portion of our holiday.

Villages of Southern France

Dear fellow bloggers, sorry for the delay in getting this blogs on the net, here is a blog that has had  a gestation period of quite a few weeks!
We wound our way up from Spain through Andorra and into Southern France.
Along the way there are some beautiful villages, especially those with large verandahs on the shops. Two villages that we found with these large verandahs were Mirepoix and Millau.

Photo of the underneath of the shop verandah at Mirepoix (Photo number 327)
This village we found by taking the wrong turn at a roundabout. The houses in Mirepoix were built in the middle ages. The locals found that if they built the first floor larger than the ground floor and with an overhang at the front then they could gain protection from the weather and have more room in the first floor. As it was raining the day we were there, we totally agree.

One side of the village square at Mirepoix (Photo number 325)

The next day we travelled further on up the middle of France toward the French town of Millau to view the worlds highest bridge, on the A75 motorway.
Millau was found to be a beautiful village in itself, with a well signposted parking area for camping vans as well! We parked the van correctly in the parking place and then toured the town on foot.

Street scene, the shops around the central square in Millau (Photo no 355)



Some of the original streets in Millau were quite narrow, as is evidenced by this street through a gate in the walls of the old town.
Hope the next instalment/blog is not as long in gestation.