Bletchley Park, UK

Hope you all had a great Easter! As you can imagine Alessio and I spent it eating, walking, cycling(him), reading(me), xbox(him) and watching TV.

The beginning of March I went to London for a long weekend. The last trip before most places/countries went into a shutdown. It was a present from myself and my sister, Elena for our mothers' 70th birthday which was the end of December.

One of the places my mother and to be honest me, have always wanted to visit was Bletchely Park. For those who don't know what Bletchley Park was it was where all the allied code-breaking took place during WWII. There have been numerous films about the place, such as Enigma and The Imitation Game which are both very good.

There is a lot to take in so you need the whole day, not far from London about 50miles and then  a short walk from the train station. First there is an short film to explain the place, then an exhibition too. It is a bit cheaper to buy the tickets online.

Then you leave the main building and head into the complex. There are many huts where lots of different aspects of the code-breaking went on. Quite frankly I was rather lost on how it was all done, as maths it NOT my subject.  It shows how the men and women were able to decipher the codes from the Enigma machines and Tunny machines. It is said that the work done at Bletchley  Park shortened the war by up to 2 years.

The men and women who worked at Bletchley signed the Official Secrets Act and even long after the war they could not tell their families what they did during the work.

It is well worth a visit if you are interested in WWII and history in general. The gift shop had lots of interesting stuff to buy. I bought a book(of course) about the men and women who worked here. It was very interesting!

Have a great week!

Postcards from London

For a long time I had wanted to take Alessio to visit London and finally we went last October with my parents. It was a great 6 days and we saw lots of fantastic sights and Alessio had a great time!

We saw lots of the major tourist sights such as Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Kew Gardens, a short boat trip on the Thames, Natural History Museum, Museum of London, St Pauls Cathedral and Portobello. We also went on a day trip to Brighton, which I already wrote a post about it.

I enjoyed it all and it was difficult to pick what to see and as always there is so much more to see and maybe one day we will go back for it won`t be a long time!

Wishing you all a lovely weekend!

A Day in Brighton

We had a day trip to Brighton back in October when we were in London for nearly one week. We took the train and arrived around 11am, we headed straight to the pier area. It was actually really nice to see the sea and the sun shining down on it too. I

We walked around the promenade and stopped for lunch, then we visited the Pavilion, a former royal residence. We did not visit it and it did look a bit shabby, but it had lovely gardens.

Afterwards we stopped for coffee and cake, looked at the shops and bought some clothes for Alessio which he always likes!

Finally we headed back towards the train station and off back to London. I would say that I was not so impressed with Brighton to be honest (sorry). I think the highlight of the trip was seeing a squirrel running around the streets!


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                                                    David Bowie in Mexico

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                                         Fancy staying in a hotel featured in a movie!

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                                             This new movie sounds good!

London by Night

St.Paul Cathedral

Southbank

Chinatown

SOHO

Looking over my photos I don´t seem to have taken that many, but seeing London at night was really awesome. Even with my camera the photos turned out to be ok, it was great seeing all the amazing sights!

The first evening we wondered around the Southbank, seeing the National Theatre, Oxo Building, the Shard, St Paul`s Cathedral and in the distance the financial district. I was quite excited about seeing these buildings and felt a bit like child.

On Friday evening we wondered around Chinatown and Soho which was as you can imagine very busy. We had dinner in a really great French restaurant called Cote, earlier that evening I had seen Tom Hiddleston and Sienna Miller at the premiere of their movie High-Rise in Leicester Square.

The other evenings we stayed near to our hotel which was in the area of Farringdon, it had lots of great bars and restaurants. Such a great city would be great to go again but not sure when I will be able to visit again.