After the travel-filled July we decided to lie low for a while. There are so many places within a day trip from London that there was no time to be bored, however. First I headed to Arundel castle which lies south of London on a railway line to the coast. The castle occupies the top of a hill and is surrounded by a lovely little town. So nice in fact, that I decided not to go into the castle and explore the town instead.

(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.)

Next weekend I headed to the Leeds castle (nothing to do with the city of Leeds) which is located to the east of London. This one was a little bit more complicated to reach – I had to take a bus, but since it is a well known attraction, the service was good. The castle is surrounded by a beautiful park, which includes some impressive plants. I particularly like the big leaf Brazilian transplant.

But even during the days we spent in London, there was always something going on. On the anniversary of Diana’s death in Paris, there was a special window display at the Harrods department store (unfortunately I did not manage to get a photo of the window, just the flowers in front and the little description on the side of the window). Kensington Palace, however, was fully “decorated” as it is every year.

September put us back on the travel trail. First a short visit to Montreal and then a trip to Turkey. I was initially planning a visit to the Canary Islands but I wanted to stay on the beach. That turned out to be surprisingly difficult, at least while paying a reasonable price. I felt that since we are traveling in September, definitely off season, I was entitled to a discount. Club Med has an office in Covent Garden which I pass every day on the way to work. I walked in and simply asked if they had anything on sale. Turkey was very reasonably priced and so off we went. Club Med formula is all meals and activities included. That is usually not a very attractive proposition, the food gets boring after a few days. But this was different. This was a French management, French chefs and about half of the customers were French. This kept the food quality very high – it was difficult not to gain more weight than I gained.

The sea was still warm enough to swim in, days were mostly sunny, even though there were few days of afternoon showers when the temperature dropped. This, however, made the sea seem warmer and there was always “hamam” – Turkish steam bath, to keep us warm. I went for a morning walk along the coast every morning and it soon became obvious that most the guests in Antalya were from Russia. I would hear Russian on the street, all the gift shops had Russian signs and shop keepers would start speaking in Russian before trying English, French and German. The purpose of this trip was relaxation by the sea and we did very well. Only one sightseeing trip but a very full one: we sailed up to a little fishing village with its own castle, visited a Roman theater, pre-Roman burial chambers and the church of St. Nicholas of the Christmas legend.