Sunset over Derwentwater

Last weekend we spent the second Bank Holiday Weekend in May up north in the Lake District. We have spent so much time over the last two years exploring the World, and we realised this year that we haven't seen much of England.

We have wanted to visit the Lake District ever since we arrived in the UK, but always felt it was too far away and needed more than a weekend. Actually, it is only a three hour train ride from London, and everything is so close together that it's easy to see lots of different places in a long weekend.

We left work early on Friday, and caught the train from London Euston to Penrith. We thought that getting a train just after lunch would be empty, as there is always an after work rush on a Bank Holiday, but it was packed even that early.

We arrived in Penrith in the late afternoon and hopped in a taxi that took us to Keswick. Keswick is located in the North of the Lake District, and is on the edge of Derwentwater, one of the prettiest lakes in the region.

The view from our room, we climbed the mountain in the distance!

Brighton, Lewes and a couple of Castles

London, along the rest of the UK and Europe, has been stuck in a never-ending Winter. So far it's been about eight months of cold weather and grey skies and everyone is really getting tired of it. It's Spring, I am not supposed to still be wearing my big Winter coat and sleeping with a hot water bottle. 

My hands are cold all the time, no-one remembers what it's like to be warm! Hopefully Summer is just hiding around the corner, and then perhaps we'll get a never-ending Summer.. but I doubt it.

So when we woke up on Saturday to more grey skies, we knew we had to get out of London for the day, and go somewhere known for sunshine, the seaside! We had a quick look at the train prices and discovered Brighton had the cheapest train tickets, so off we went.

Some of the amazing Brighton Street Art

Getting away from the Tourists on Capri

After a fairly subdued previous day on Capri, we woke up early the next day with lots of plans for exploring the island.. until we opened the blinds.

Aside from the amazing view, all we could see was huge black storm clouds approaching the island, bringing with them rain and cold weather.

We continued to get up and get ready, before heading up onto the roof terrace of our Hotel for breakfast. The terrace is completely uncovered, but we persevered and hoped the rain would hold off until after we had finished breakfast. Luckily we managed to get through a nice breakfast of muesli and fresh pastries before we felt the first drops of rain.

A rough ride from Sorrento to Capri

After a lovely sunny weekend visiting the beautiful town of Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, we woke up early on Monday morning all ready to head to Capri. Capri is a stunning and mountainous island located a 30 minute hydrofoil ride from Sorrento. 

It's well known for being a playground for the rich and famous, most of the taxis are convertibles and the stores in Capri town cater almost exclusively for the more well funded traveller.

Upon leaving the apartment, we realised the weather was not nearly as nice as it had been the last couple of days. There were big black clouds hanging over Sorrento, and while it wasn't raining, there were strong winds.

We arrived at the Harbour to see that the sea was really rough and I began to get apprehensive about getting the ferry. We were getting a hydrofoil, which is a super fast ferry that almost skims the water. Great in calm waters, but super bumpy when it's rough.

As soon as we left Sorrento it was clear it was not going to be a good ride, Bradley and I took some motion sickness tablets to try and ward off any nausea  but it was really FAR too late for them to be effective.

After a long extremely rough and bumpy ride, resulting in my vomiting into a plastic bag we luckily had in my purse, we arrived in Capri. It was only slightly calming to see I wasn't the only one being sick and everyone left the boat a lot worse for wear. Embarrassingly a South African lady saw I was upset and gave me a long hug which only made it worse, but so nice of her to stop and try to make me feel better since she was clearly upset too!

Day trip by Ferry from Sorrento to the Amalfi Coast

We spent our second day on the Gulf of Naples visiting three beautiful towns on the Amalfi Coast, Positano, Ravello and Amalfi.

Still feeling a bit woozy and headachy from the previous day, we decided to get the ferry there and back rather than the bus. The bus goes along the coast and the roads are very windy, and I figured I'd be affected by motion sickness more than usual. The only downside with getting the ferry is that we had less time on the Amalfi Coast as there are only a couple of ferries a day between Sorrento and the coast.

The upside was we weren't going to be crammed onto a hot bus with heaps of other tourists and we'd get amazing views of Positano and Amalfi from the water.

Lemons and Sunshine in Sorrento

Last weekend was the first of two Bank Holidays we have in May, and we decided to extend it into a five day weekend and head to the Amalfi Coast in Italy.

The last time we were in Italy was at Christmas in 2011 when we went to Rome, that same year we also visited Tuscany and Venice. We've always loved our visits to Italy, alongside Germany it's one of our favourite places to visit, the food is amazing and the people are always so friendly, so we were looking forward to exploring more of the coast.

Sneak peek at Capri

We enjoyed Capri a lot more after we'd been on dry land for a few hours. That ferry ride from Sorrento was horrendous. So here's a sneak peek while we sort through all our photos and go enjoy our last night in Italy!

Exploring the Highgate Cemetery and Village

Continuing our resolution to explore more of London than our little corner out West, we headed North to the Village like suburb of Highgate.

Highgate is one of the most expensive areas of London to live in and is full of amazing huge houses all lining lots of private streets which regular people like us have to keep out of.

Highgate used to be a separate village until the Victorian times when it was integrated to be part of London. It still feels like you are miles away from London, but from the Village you can see the City skyline in the distance.

It is also just a short walk from Hampstead Heath, one of London's largest parks where we have been several times over the last few years, so decided not to visit on this occasion.