Arrived in Albania - a little later than planned!

Tuesday was a travel day! We had to make our way from Birmingham, England to Tirana, Albania.

We left the hotel just before 9:00am and did the twenty minute walk to Birmingham Coach Station where we caught the bus towards London's Luton Airport. We had to transfer half way to another bus, and arrived at the airport right on time at 12:15pm. Cost for the buses was £21.85 ($27.85 USD, $38.25 CAD) each.

Major change of plans.

I mentioned the other day that there's a lot going on behind the scenes here at Travel with Kevin and Ruth, and that is proving to be totally true.

Our original plan for July was to continue through the Balkans, with quite a lot of time spent in Serbia, a country that we have never been to. Then perhaps Georgia for August, before heading back to Canada in September.

Well, all that has changed.

4 Affordable Ski Resorts in Europe for Holidays on a Budget

Excitement is high when you decide to go on a ski holiday, but it plummets when people check the prices. You won’t have to go through that if you search for deals at affordable ski resorts in Europe. Chances are that you haven’t heard much about such budget-friendly establishments, but there are many out there. In this article, you’ll discover four of them, which are characterised by amazing prices and excellent services, so that you can enjoy the exhilarating experiences offered at the best ski resorts in the world without breaking the bank. 

Hiking in Peak District National Park... day 2

Unknown to most who have never been, the name "Peak District" has nothing to do with mountains or the landscape. And to be honest, we didn't know that either. In fact the terrain in Lake District National Park has more mountains than Peak District does. In fact, the highest point in Peak District is only 636 metres (2,087 ft) above sea level.

But Peak District is not quite as busy as Lake District, and the scenery is just as good. And there seemed to be a lot of walking trails in just about any direction.

I'm not gonna lie, we were pretty much done!

We had done Friday overnight at the Ravenstor Hostel in Peak District National Park. We had met our friends Antoinette and Ki there, and we all had breakfast together and then headed out. They do a lot of hiking in this park, and they had planned the route for us. 42 kms (26 miles) over two days!

We set off day one at 9:30am...

We have arrived in Peak District National Park!

We said goodbye to Aly and Martin this morning. Thanks again for putting up with, and looking after us! We wonder where in the world we shall meet again.

And we headed into the city of Sheffield. This is the city where my grandfather went to work in the steel mills when he was 13 years old!

It is so frustrating!

While we have been quietly meandering our way through the English countryside, there is a lot going on behind the scenes here at Travel with Kevin and Ruth. Let me explain...

Although we've been enjoying ourselves doing this "senior backpacking" style of travel, as we call it, we are missing our favorite method of travel... motorhome.

The area where some of my relatives came from

A bit of a dismal morning, so we just stayed indoors until things cleared up. It ended up being a decent afternoon, but with a cool breeze.

Aly and Martin took us for a drive through some of the smaller towns. My grandfather (my mother's father) was born in nearby Wakefield. He started working in a steel mill there when he was 13 years old.

Funny story...

We fly to Albania on Tuesday evening for our 11 day hike in the Albanian Alps. We're so excited!

In preparation, we've been trying to do some walking every day, but it's tough to get in any hilly areas to work the legs. So we've booked a walk in Peak District National Park this coming weekend.

A nice walk to the next village

Monday was a dull morning, and we had some computer work to get caught up on. Aly and Martin went to do some work on an investment property they bought, and they did not make it back until dinner time.

The skies cleared mid afternoon though and so we went out for a 10 km (6.2 mile) walk to the next village and back.

Beautiful day in York, and more photo matching

The forecast was for a gorgeous Sunday with sunshine and a high of about 21C (70F), and that's exactly what happened. It was a perfect day.

We set off just after 9:30am along with Aly and Martin and the four of us drove about 45 minutes north to the ancient city of York.

May Expenses - thanks easyJet!

Well, we had a budget of $2,750 CAD  for the month, and we ended up spending $3,097 CAD ($2,275 USD). Not bad, considering we always make our budget purposely at the low end of the scale to give us something to strive towards, So it's actually pretty rare that we meet our budget. But considering Ruth bought new hiking boots, that's really the item that put us over the top. Having said that, I should have budgeted for them in the first place.

Technically, we spent far more than that, but we were lucky that our easyJet flight had been late and they compensated us £880. We also used some credit card points to pay for our flights from Antalya to Paris on the 1st of May.

The pubs in old town Hull, England

Saturday morning we went for a walk in the center of Hull. They call the area "Old Town". 

Hull has a lot of history, dating back to the 12th century, and next to London, it was the most bombed city in the UK during the blitzes of WWII when 95% of the city's buildings were damaged or destroyed. 

We're lucky nobody was hurt!

We took a rare blogging day off yesterday! But we're back on track now, and so I'll combine Thursday and Friday together in this post.

On Thursday, we spent the day running some errands with friends Glen and Steve.

Almost bought another motorhome!

Yesterday we drove down to Manchester airport and picked up our housesitting host. Again, ridiculously expensive parking charges, just like the other day when we dropped her off at Liverpool airport where they had a £5 ($6.35 USD, $8.70 CAD) fee just to drop someone off close to the terminal. 

We were picking up this time, not dropping off. But at Manchester airport, there is no free pickup outside the terminal. So I figured out a place where we could wait for free five minutes away, and when she made her way through immigration to the baggage she sent a message. Then we could drive to the short term parking area where it cost £6 ($7.60 USD, $10.50 CAD) per half hour.

It was a good week house sitting

Despite the regularly overcast skies, we had a good eight days here in Preston. It seemed to pass by really quickly, even though two of those days had wet enough weather that we never left the house!

We need to try to do more house sitting. I actually applied for one next week, but when the host doesn't respond after 24 hours, I withdraw my application, explaining why. 

England has so many scenic walking areas!

It was another wet drizzly morning, however the forecast called for clearing around lunchtime, and that's exactly what happened. 

We made a plan to have lunch, and then head forty minutes north toward the town of Arnside where there are a couple of National Trust properties with a lot of walking trails.

I came across an eSIM data plan that never expires!

When we were in Turkiye for most of the month of April, I had bought an eSIM for the phone. This was my first experience using an eSIM.

Usually we stop in and pick up a local SIM card for whatever country we happen to be traveling to. It's not as convenient as an eSIM, but its often quite a bit cheaper.

Fantastic hike in Lake District National Park

We woke up Saturday morning, and we were happy to see the sunshine through the bedroom curtains. We planned to meet up with friends David and Mirsie in Lake District National Park, so to have nice weather would make for a perfect day!

We hit the road at 7:45am for the hour and fifteen minute drive to the village of Coniston located in Lake District National Park.

These boots are made for walking...

We packed a lunch and set off to the Forest of Bowland National Landscape about 40 minutes drive east of Preston. 

Still overcast and misty even though there was no actual rain in the forecast. High of 12C (54F).

The rain finally slowed down enough to get out for some exercise

Another wet cold miserable day yesterday here in northwest England. We stayed inside until the rain slowed down after lunch, but the unappealing weather doesn't change the fact that we're trying to be in shape for our upcoming 10 day Albania hike.

So we bundled up and set out on an 8 km (5 mile) urban hike leaving directly from our doorstep here in Preston.

Wandering around Liverpool, and new hiking boots!

We were up just before 5:00am Wednesday morning to take Jane down to Liverpool airport. It was about an hour drive, mostly on the motorway. Of course the highway is not very busy at that hour, and with sunrise in this area at 5:00am it was already light outside.

Arrived at the airport to find they have an odd way of dropping off and picking up people. You have to pay £5 for "express" drop off at the terminal where you have five minutes to say goodbye or you pay another £5!

Easy tips for hiking on a budget

Hiking is an activity that is typically very affordable as it’s very accessible. For the most simple hikes, all you need is a basic set of equipment and then you can simply start walking through the terrain and set off on your adventure - then, as you begin having bigger budgets to play with, you can look into hiking holidays, which are based over a few days or weeks (depending on the duration you would like to do). 

Cat sitting, but that doesn't mean we'll be sitting still!

We did the last bit of our drive from the Dairy Farm to Preston yesterday. 

Arrived in Preston around 3:00pm, and stopped in at a Lidl grocery store to pick up a few things we knew we would use, of course not knowing what our host Jane might have in the fridge that might need using up. 

We sure put on the steps!

The step counter on the phone read 24,365 by the end of the day.

We had checked out of our room but left our bags in the storage area so that we could make our way to pick up our car rental on the other side of Birmingham. Then, I found a little breakfast and lunch restaurant in a nearby industrial area. That turned out to be a great choice!

On the road again!

We had an enjoyable couple of weeks with Helen and Tony. Thank you both for having us. Always lots of laughs when we get together, and we look forward to the next time. Hopefully this coming November in Mexico!

We got packed up and our ride arrived at just after 6:00pm. Tony's Uncle John had come down for the wedding, and they live north of Birmingham so were able to drop us here on their way home. 

And then the skies opened up...

Other than feeling a little tired this morning, we all survived wedding day. We had arrived at the venue yesterday around noon, and had an hour and a half or so to get ourselves cleaned up and into our fancy dress clothes.

Obviously Ruth and I don't carry around fancy dress clothes! However, when we went to the wedding in Ireland last year,  we had Max the motorhome with us and we were able to transport our clothes to Helen and Tony's where they were stored until we needed them yesterday.

Steaks on the grill

So, we've decided to keep the rental car as we had it arranged with pickup in Birmingham on Monday. We probably would have saved a few dollars by taking our house sitting host up on her offer of letting us use her car for next week, however the logistics became difficult. 

Anyway, we decided that the extra cost was worth the extra convenience. 

Getting ready for the wedding

We have a car rental booked for this coming Monday in Birmingham, but yesterday evening I received a note from our house sitting host that she has an older car we can use if we want to. Which is very nice of her!

And I can cancel our car rental at no charge, but before I do that I need to check out just how much we'll save to see if it's worthwhile. 

Nice day trip down to Wareham, Dorset

We packed a lunch and set off for an hour drive towards the riverside town of Wareham, Dorset. But along the way we stopped in at the village of Moreton. Helen and Tony knew of an interesting little church in the village.

Moreton is also the resting place of  Lawrence of Arabia!

House sitting booked, and a preview of next month's adventure!

I mentioned the other day that we had applied for a house sit up in Preston, England and we found out that we were accepted. So we'll be looking after Stripey the cat for 8 days from May 21st to the 29th.

We're also renting a car, but we don't pick it up until we get to Birmingham on the 20th. It looks like we may be getting a ride up there from one of the other wedding guests. With a car rental, we'll be able to do lots of day trips from Preston, including some time in Lake District National Park which is about an hour north of Preston.

Off to the doctor... again!

Boy, it seems like we've been in a lot of doctors offices the last while! 

I wasn't even going to tell this story because it may be nothing... but as travelers, it's always interesting to hear how the medical system works in other countries. So, here it is...

Day trip down to the Jurassic Coast

We were all up at 6:00am Sunday morning. We had made a plan that we would drive down to England's southern Jurassic Coast and arrive there before the crowds. It was supposed to be a beautiful day, and based on the weather forecast it might be the last one for quite some time!

Our thinking was that we would then be able to head back later that morning while most of the traffic would be in the opposite direction.

I told her she would never be bored.

Saturday afternoon we took a trip over to a nature reserve just west of Glastonbury. It's run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and sure enough there were a lot of birding people there with the big zoom lenses and birding scopes.

It's times like this that I miss having the big camera with the fantastic zoom lens, but to be honest, I don't miss it enough to go back to carrying something like that around. Totally happy with the camera on my smartphone.

What's on the agenda for the rest of the month?

We've been really lucky with the weather this week, but it looks like we're in for some more typical "British" weather next week. Overcast with rain and a high of between 15c to 18c (60f to 65f). Oh well, it is only May after all, so we've had it pretty good.

Yesterday morning, we took Lindsey and Sadie over to the Castle Cary train station for their ride back to London's Gatwick airport.

Last day with Lindsey and Sadie

Yesterday morning, I received a notification from our Wise currency account that £880 ($1,103 USD, $1,509 CAD) had been deposited by easyJet. If you missed it, this is related to the compensation for the late arrival of our flight from Paris to Bristol. 

They said it would show up within 7 days, and it did! Did I mention we love easyJet?

Out for a hike above Cheddar Gorge!

We've done a lot of walking in the past couple of months, but it's been mostly flat city walking, not an actual trail hike that includes some climbing. And with our big ten day Albania hike coming up in just over a month, we need to get our legs in better shape.

So yesterday we went up to Cheddar Gorge to do their 5 km (3 mile) Gorge Top Walk.

The smallest city in England

We never did get any rain, but it was after lunch by the time some blue sky arrived. It turned out to be a nice afternoon, with high around 20C (68F).

Tony drove us over to the city of Wells... the smallest city in England based on the fact that it has both a cathedral and only 12,000 residents. We had gone through on the bus the other day and Lindsey had said she would like to go back and wander around. Helen stayed home... she has a bad foot and is trying to give it some rest.

Made it back to Helen and Tony's

On Monday, we walked almost 2 kms to the Bristol Bus Station and took the 10:55am bus from Bristol to Glastonbury. 

The bus was right on time, and it cost an amazingly cheap £2 ($2.50 USD, $3.40 CAD) per adult, and half that for Sadie.

April Expenses

We've been busy since the end of April, and just haven't had time to post our monthly expense report!

We started the month of April by arriving in Kuwait City on April 1st and had two flights throughout the month as we made our way to Istanbul and Antalya, Turkiye. 

Our budget called for $3,115 CAD ($2,300 USD) for the month, but we knew we had some medical things to get looked at, and ended up spending $3,512 CAD ($2,566 USD) in total.

Fantastic news!

Well, the "maybe some good news" from yesterday unexpectedly turned into fantastic news today!

I had mentioned yesterday that because our easyJet flight from Paris to Bristol was late arriving that we may be entitled to compensation. The European Union (EU) has some strict regulations governing the airlines and their commitments to their passengers, and if your arriving flight is more than three hours late, you can submit a claim to the airline.

Arrived in Bristol, England... and maybe some good news!

Yesterday's blog was posted late, so if you missed The view from the Eiffel Tower you might want to go back.

We were up at 5:45am to catch the bus to Paris airport for our 9:00am easyJet flight to Bristol, England. The bus outside the hotel arrived right on time, but we didn't have any small bills to pay for the bus. Only a €20 note. It was supposed to cost €2.50 each for the adults, but when I went to pay, the driver just waived us on through! So the ten minute bus ride to the terminal was totally free.

View from the Eiffel Tower

Friday was a bit of a hectic day! We had to be out of our apartment by 11:00am, but had arranged to be able to leave our bags behind, provided we were back to pick them up by 1:00pm.

So we headed out to return to the Eiffel Tower in the hopes of getting up there to match up another photo or two.

Busy day touring Paris matching my father's photos

For whatever reason, Paris has never been on our "to do" list. I guess that's why it took 62 years for us to get here!

We've only got a day and a half to explore the city, so we were pretty much planning on sticking to the highlights. But with lots of walking, we would see other stuff along the way.