Noting Hill Carnival

The main street from all the way up. There surely is no end to it. You can spot the trucks in there.

We just went there for a little bit to see how it is, still, the biggest one in Europe! Wasn't very impressed, but was interesting. Apparently it is a Carribean thing, so there is loads of soundsystems around playing reggae and stuff and all kinds of Carribean food stalls. But that is in surrounding streets and areas. The main street, however is for the parade. People with costumes and trucks with music in there. So that's all, plus crowds of people, tons of rubbish, police and ambulance everywhere (just in case!).

Parade

Some watch it from the comfort of their own window sill :)

Kids of course...

Jamaican food stall on the right, music in front.

The inside of a truck in the parade. Yeeees, that is a truck which goes in the parade :)

Some roof :)

Eastbourne: The place for old people

Museum in Eastbourne

The last weekend of August was a long weekend as the Monday was off as well. That's when Noting Hill carnival takes place. But on Saturday we decided to go to Eastbourne with my classmate Virga :)

Eastbourne is not far from Brighton, it is situated on the same beautiful coast. We went to see it for a bit and had a walk in the city. There is a joke that average age of the population there is 75 and it really feels like truth :)) everything around there reminds of old age: a competition for veteran sportsmen, old ladies' style knitwear shops, boules clubs, wheelchair accessibility everywhere, even the museum says "how WE lived them" - normally a museum would show other people in the past lived, right? And there people go to the museum to remember about their days :)))

Sunday morning was all so bright and sunny, but we headed back to London for Noting Hill.

Beachy Head

Eastbourne pier. Full or arcade games. Yuck.

Sunny!

Cornwall and Devon

Cliffs, near Mousehole

Hello

Last week I traveled in Cornwall and Devon. They are two counties in Southwest England and are famous for their beautiful nature. Many British go there for the summer holiday. I decided to hitch hike there as it was the first time when I had time to do that and I was really interested how is it in England. It was not easy, but I made it... The hard thing is that its forbidden to stand on the motorways and you can be fined so I had to stand on the exits where its not easy to get a ride...

Anyways, I made it to Plymouth where I stayed for a few days. I did my travels from there. Plymouth is nothing really special as a town, but its a good location I think if you want to travel around.

I took one day to visit Cornwall, which was not really enough. I would say you need about 3 days to see everything what's worth to see. So Cornwall seems to have its own language - Cornish. It was taken over by English by the 18th century but now ppl try to bring it back to life. It is very much like Welsh and Breton, so it's Celtic. You can really see that when you look at the map and see all these cities that you don't know how to pronounce :)

So I took a train to Penzance, walked around the beach a bit, then went to Mousehole. That was a very cozy little town. Different from the English ones. The vibe reminded me Croatian coast villages as they also were on the mountain by the sea. And all the narrow little streets with flowers growing from everywhere and the houses made of stones.

Then I went to St Ives which is The Place to go in Cornwall. Very touristic and very crowded but still all so lovely. Visited one fudge shop which was sooo traditional, run by an elderly couple who were doing everything so elegantly, slowly, politely, no rush, no artificial smiles, just being totally British :)

The last stop was Truro, Cornwall's capital. Was all very quiet, maybe because its was an evening already...

The next day we went to Dartmoore which is a huge park in Devon. Beautiful :)

I took a bus back from there, did not want to stand on the road all day again :)

Here is all the route I made:

View Larger Map

Mousehole harbour

Mousehole

Mousehole

St Ives

Dartmoor

Dartmoor

A weekend in Canterbury

Somewhere in between of Whitstable and Hernesbay

Hello,

I know I haven't updated my blog for a long time. That is because I was away, in India. I understand that many of you would like me to write about that. But the things that I have seen and experienced there during 3 weeks cannot possibly be captured by a camera or described in words and put in a blog entry.

So last weekend I went Canterbury to visit a friend, Elena, who was my coursemate once. She lives (with 3 Lithuanians and one Georgian!) in a city centre, just above the Greek taverna that she works in. On Saturday which was very nice and sunny we walked around Canterburry a bit. It is a small cozy town but it is full of people (kind of tourists). Anyway it is nice to be in a place where you can reach everything on foot. We managed to get in the famous Cathedral (symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion) for free - normallyit's 9 pound per person. We did that in the sneaky Lithuanian way, hehe - we just went in through some other entry (it is a big area with walls, gardens, etc.) where a sign "no entry" was hanging. The Brittish have this strange believe that people just blindly follow signs no matter what....

The next day we went to Whitstable, another small cozy city on the coast of the North Sea. It has lots of nice beach houses. But for me, Lithuanian, it will always feel odd when there are houses on the beach. So later we set for a journey to the nature. It was quite spontaneous - I bought a nice postcard with castle on the cliffs by the sea and then we found out that the place in the picture is close by. We took a bus to Hernes bay and from there we walked, as the castle was already seen from there. Nevertheless, it took us about 2hours to walk there. According to googlemaps, it's almost 4 miles one way. But we also had to go back :) was fine with me, as I do a lot of walking during work.

And now I am leaving for Wales in a minute.

See you!

There is a chair hanging in the air above the boat. It was used to check if somebody is a Witch. Yes, really, from those times.

Cathedral gardens

Gardens

This house has sth to do with Dickens. Canterbury is his hometown. As well as Orlando Bloom's.

Whitstable seaside. Houses are like in Nida.

Hernesbay. You can see the Castle at the end. In reality it looked much closer than in the pic :)

The castle's remains. Ah, it was actually a church, as we found out later.

The pic for my postcard was taken somewhere here, just in autumn I guess as everythings so brown.

Pleasure for eyes.

I didnt swim but I let my feet to feel the water. Not too cold.

A weekend in Italy: Florence and Bologna

Florence from up a hill

Hi

so yes I went to Italy one weekend in March. I visited my friend who is in Bologna for Erasmus. It was very lovely. I was amazed by the beauty....

We met and spent the first day in Florence. It is a beautiful city, can't deny. The churches have interesting white exterior. But everything is soooo touristic that it is not nice anymore...

We came back to Bologna the same evening and spent the next day walking around the city, relaxing in a beautiful park and looking for a supermarket that would be open on Sunday :))) in the evening we cooked some grated potatoes with mushroom sauce as a Lithuanian speciality. It was highly approved and praised :)

That was a great weekend - I did enjoy the country. The Italian ice-cream is really as good as they say. I have met one of the most freaky people ever. The nature seems to be beautiful (even though I have not really been there). And, seriously, for some reason Bologna seemed to be more appealing than Paris :) maybe because of cheerful, colourful houses or calm, cozy rhythm that was opposing the always busy London.

The first thing to catch my eye on my arrival at Bologna station - +22 in mid March.

[This weather came to London few days after that]

The Cathedral - Florence

Some other church, Florence

Florence, riverbanks and the famous bridge.

Cemetery, Florence (note the Cypresses....)

The streets of Bologna

Bologna

Bologna

In the park, Bologna

Falling asleep

The park

Funny car (I have seen quite a few of those)

Sooo many bikes, all the same style as this white one just different colours.

I have spotted some of these midgets trying to steal the signs. Sth has to be done!

Paris II. Montmartre and Père Lachaise cemetery

Sacre coeur in Montmartre

(Paris continued)

In the morning we went to have a walk Montmartre. It is a nice district with a cozy provincial-like feel.

Then I visited the famous Lachaise cemetery. Many famous people are buried there. I did not find many of them (didn't really try to), but it was a lovely walk. Beautiful place.

Later I relaxed in one park and walked around st Germain. Then I joined my host in one bar for some French songs. There was a guy playing a guitar and everybody got a booklet with lyrics and were singing along! A good pronunciation practice I would say and of course lots of fun. The bar was stuffed with the French singing their songs :)

To sum up, I had a very enjoyable weekend in Paris. Didn't really understand why everybody is so amazed by the city. It is nice, but not utterly beautiful. It has a lovely feel though, somewhat like Barcelona, but it is not that chaotic-noisy-southern as BCN, more subtle I would say.

Enjoy the pictures for now and wait for the next post about my last weekend in Italy!

Montmartre

Montmartre

Montmartre

Montmartre - the only vineyard in Paris

Montmartre, Moulin rouge

Cemetery

Cemetery, Crematorium

Crematorium
Chopin's grave
Some graves' exterior...

...and some interior

interior