Ever wish you could just jump on a train and spend a day in Paris? Well, from London you can! We’d never taken a ride on the Eurostar before, and when we finally did we wished we’d done it sooner. We’ve discovered an easy way to spend a day in this romantic place, whether it’s cold, windy, wet or sunny.
How to spend a day in Paris
Easy, accessible … 24 hours in Paris is sure to enliven anyone’s spirit. We visited during the colder months, and the city is just as charming, if not more so than in summer. Like Amsterdam, it’s easy to get to Paris from London for a day trip, city break and 24 or 48 hour adventure.
Highlights for our day spent in Paris include a Sienne river cruise on Batobus Paris, Montparnasse Tower, wandering the Latin Quarter and visiting the very gorgeous Notre Dame Cathedral. Have a read of our travel guide and vlog, linked in the feature below.
Click ‘read more’ or the arrow in the top right hand corner to scroll the photo story.
Paris is a huge city with quite a bit of craziness going on. We like this helpful guide by NTripping on how to avoid havoc. We’d love your tips and questions too – drop us a line in the comments or on social media.
If you’re visiting the city, don’t forget to explore via the Thames as well. The river bus isn’t very expensive and gives you so many beautiful, historical old views of this fab city we are lucky enough to call home.
#happyexpats
Here’s a recent adventure we embarked upon starting at the Tower of London and riding the Thames Clipper to Greenwich.
We recently had the opportunity to visit the lovely seaside city of Bournemouth for the weekend.
Actually, we’d intended to visit here for a long time. We have super lovely and creative friends from the Gold Coast who lived and worked here for a few years and loved it (shout out to Lou and Iain from P’s in a Pod); and as Aussies, we are always on the lookout for a ‘real’ beach.
As far as seaside cities here go, I’d describe Bournemouth as being a contemporary destination, conveniently located just two hours’ train ride from London; the beach is actually beautiful, there’s a pier, and plenty of bars, restaurants, serene hotels and accommodation to keep you happy for a sunny weekend escape.
We appreciated how the city has been designed – there’s a central mall with shopping – at the top of that is a spot called ‘the triangle’ that boasts some nice bars and eateries like Smokin’ Aces and Koh Thai. A wonderful park and landscaped garden area (including mini golf) leads explorers through the town towards the beach and Bournemouth Wheel. Either way along the beach you can wander the promenade and discover ice-cream, coffee, cocktails and markets. Truly charming.
Determined to dip our toes in the ocean just once before ‘summer’ in the UK is over, we followed advice from friends about serene days out in Kent.
We boarded a train from London headed to Broadstairs and Botany Bay, ready to explore the gorgeous Kent English seaside.
Discover our itinerary and have a look around for yourselves…
Days out in Kent – take the train to Broadstairs
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I’d read a magazine article somewhere about the UK’s prettiest beaches, and Broadstairs was in the list as being ‘most Instagrammable‘ (in other words, great for photos).
I figured the destination would be right up our alley.
Plus, at just an hour and a half from London’s St Pancras, this quaint beach-side haven in Kent is easily accessible for us.
Broadstairs – beachside beauty for a day out in Kent
Broadstairs is a favourite among families for a summer’s day at the beach.
Indeed it was reportedly author Charles Dickens’ most loved holiday spot in England!
While we were blessed with sunny weather, I wouldn’t exactly say it was warm on Saturday.
Many dogs and children ran carefree along the beach and there were brave windsurfers and boaties heading out into the great, cold blue.
If jumping in for a swim, isn’t your thing (we concur), there’s plenty more to do on a day trip to Kent in and around Broadstairs.
A day out in Kent, top ideas include:
– the Dickens House Museum
– The Old Curiosity Shop
– Broadstairs’ historical pier and boathouse
– Bleak House (built in 1801 and later Dickens’ holiday home)
– Admiralty Cottage (1815).
Broadstairs in Kent offers the curious visitor stories and history around every corner, and helpfully, a self-guided walk has been devised.
You can download a map of the Broadstairs Town Trail, or find out more at the visitor information stand at the entrance to the beach.
We had embarked on our days out in Kent adventure for the scenery in particular – Cooper armed with his vlogging equipment and me with my beloved Canon EOS camera.
A day trip to Kent – around the area
Broadstairs is part of the Thanet District in Kent, which includes two other major settlements, Margate and Ramsgate, that are both served by trains coming in and out of London.
It’s possible to walk or hike along the coast (being mindful of tide times), to enjoy the seven bays of Broadstairs.
If you take a look at a map, you’ll see that from the beach at Broadstairs you can wander left and you’ll come across Stone Bay, Joss Gap, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay before eventually coming into Margate.
To the right, you’ll discover Viking Bay, Louisa Bay and Dumpton Gap.
Actually, further along the coast in this direction you would come to Dover, which means directly across the water is France!
The Viking Coastal Path is a route you can walk along in either direction.
There are plenty of signposts showing where you are and also explaining the history of the bays, including smuggling, wartime and shipwreck stories.
Botany Bay, UK
We were destined for Botany Bay this particular weekend.
It took our fancy because it’s of the same name as somewhere very significant in our Australia’s own history; plus the spectacular chalky cliffs were something we wanted to view for ourselves.
Next time we visit, we will head to Ramsgate because the visitor information guide said there are really nice bars and facilities along the waterfront… my interest is piqued.
The scenery here is very ‘white cliffs of Dover’ style; dramatic and quintessentially English.
The beaches are real, so you can get sand between your toes, happy dogs can run, bark and play; and the air is crisp and fresh. Just what we all need to clear the mind and free the spirit.
Because we only had a few hours scheduled for our day trip to Kent, we didn’t end up walking from Broadstairs to Botany Bay.
Under normal circumstances this would take an hour, but we didn’t have the time to spare so jumped in a cab.
We want to give a shout-out to Broadstairs Taxis because the drivers who helped us were really friendly and informative.
Also, they sent a text to our phone to let us know how far away they were – all round good service. And, between one destination to another it was only £5.
Picture perfect days out in Kent
Botany Bay and neighbouring Kingsgate offer picturesque views on beautiful days out in Kent, like the one above.
I spotted a wedding shoot taking place on a cliff-top and a music video being shot beneath; a lone wind-surfer enjoying time on the waves and the beaches were pretty and rugged, winding around the coast.
We were rugged up but the visit here was a chance to satisfy a creative longing to video and photograph this country we’ve come to love so much.
Of course, it came time to eat, and we had our sights set on the Botany Bay Hotel, which offers pub-like dining in fine surrounds opposite the ocean at Botany Bay.
The place is really dog friendly (yay!) and quite well priced.
If you’re there as we were for lunch, you can’t book, but evening you can reserve a table.
You can stay in the hotel too, which is perfectly positioned for anyone who wants to spend more time playing, hiking, writing, photographing or simply being mindful by the sea.
After a big meal (and maybe a beer), you can walk off any indulgence by heading around the Viking Trail just ten minutes to Kingsgate Bay.
You’ll pass a golf range and spot the extremely grand Kingsgate Castle on the cliff overlooking the ocean (pictured above).
It’s now filled with apartments inside but looks really cool from the outside, and views include the sea doorway and white cliffs as pictured above.
If you’re thirsty after this coastal expedition (wandering along the top of the cliffs or walking down to the sea front below), you can pop into Captain Digby Tavern, another cliff-top pub.
Out and about on a day trip in Kent
Life certainly is better at the beach, and our day trip to Kent included breathing in the fresh ocean air, patting plenty of puppies, enjoying a pub lunch with a view and feasting on the scenery this coastline offers.
We can’t wait to get back this way, and would highly recommend the easy trip if you want to experience the English seaside.
Time: about an hour and a half by train to and from King’s Cross in London; we would suggest four to six hours here for a decent day trip.
Cost: our day trip cost around £55 for two return train tickets, £10 in cab fares as we were short on time, but we wanted to take a look along the coast, and £10 each for a nice lunch.
Train booking: we booked our tickets through trainline.com.
We inadvertently stumbled across these 7 great reasons to visit Rugby in England! Actually, we got marooned in the West Midlands and stumbled across the town of Rugby when searching for things to do in Warwickshire. Have a look around in our vlog, and some itinerary highlights below.
Travel to Rugby in England: video guide
From the church to the pub
Not necessarily as dodgy as it sounds!
Yesterday morning as we looked at our options for upcoming days out in Warwickshire, we considered the reasons why we wanted to find out more about Rugby.
As we were driving by our favourite new watering hole, The Bull Inn, we enthusiastically started a conversation with our cabbie. He happily obliged and started a yarn about how he’d lived at that very pub growing up.
At that time (about 50 years ago), he said the place – Rugby and Warwickshire was – was very different.
History lesson
His family lived above; the pub didn’t serve food, but was designed as a labyrinth of little spaces that were nick-named ‘snugs’, so you could snuggle up to others when it was chilly.
He told us of a secret tunnel that runs underground from the pub to St Mary’s Church across the road. It’s an old tunnel, now closed off but once used by the priests for safe passage. Often in England you’ll find (or would have before churches were burned down or dismantled) churches and pubs right next door to each other. Apparently this was so the church labourers had somewhere to go at the end of a long day.
I’m having a hard time verifying this, so if you have more detail on the history of this set-up in villages across England, please let me know in the comments.
He also shared that apparently soccer (football) started in these parts, as a game which could go on for days and with the aim of being the first team to get the ball from one church to another. Then they’d go to the pub.
Seems that everything begins at church and ends at the pub – in the most respectful and affectionate of ways, of course.
Best laid plans…
That sets the tone of our time in Rugby, a place that’s full of stories and story-tellers, proving that sometimes the best-laid plans aren’t what’s best for you.
It was from our base in Rugby that we had planned to hire a car and set off for a few days out in Warwickshire. We would also do the few-hour round trip to visit Cotswold hotspots including Broadway, Chipping Campden, Bibury and Moreton-in-Marsh.
All was going along just fine. We checked into our utterly gorgeous little Airbnb country escape overlooking the countryside, complete with excellent pub and quaint main street just on our doorstep.
But when Saturday arrived, it seemed we were not meant to get to the Cotswolds. Between several transport mix-ups, the illusive location of the car hire company, a lengthy wait to secure a pre-booked vehicle when we finally found the car hire place.
Then we realised mid key hand-over that there was no way to return it until after the long weekend – we ended up with no choice other than to explore present surroundings. Our days out in Warwickshire turned into a focus on one little town, but we would make the best of it.
What’s Rugby like then?
Rugby is a market town on the river Avon, positioned in the middle of the country on a train line between London Euston and Birmingham.
It’s quite big with all the amenities you want on a trip away including plenty to do, see, eat and buy (‘fun shopping’, I call it).
Under normal circumstances when you have access to a car, Rugby is a great base to explore from. It’s central to a range of wonderful cities and villages across Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Gloucestershire including the Cotswolds, enchanting National Trustsites, and even top attractions like Blenheim Palace, Oxford University and ‘Shakespeare’s land’ around Stratford upon Avon.
Why did it turn out to be just fine to be marooned in the West Midlands though?
7 reasons why you should visit Rugby in England
What’s in a name?
You can’t help but be impressed by the grounds at the Rugby school.
One of the region’s most significant events was the founding of the school in 1567 thanks to Lawrence Sheriff, a grocer who upon his death left money to set up an educational institution for local boys.
Lawrence’s significant legacy in these parts and his name is all over streets, pubs and other memorials.
Of course, everyone associates this place with Sir William Web Ellis, who in 1823 picked up the ball and ran with it!
Legend has it, this was the beginning of the game of rugby as we know it. Indeed, during the World Cup tournament, teams play to take home the trophy that bears his name.
Most of the year, you can stand on the spectacular field where this all happened, and where lucky young students have the chance to be educated in one of the most well respected schools in the country.
Informative tours are usually available too, and there are excellent museums all over town where you can learn about how this place has influenced not just the game of rugby, but most other ball games we know and enjoy today.
Unique wares
A friendly cab driver pointed out this most eclectic place: part vegetarian café, part homewares store and quirky gift shop – described to us as, ‘a place you just have to visit’, we totally agree!
Cooper even vouches for the yummy vegetarian fare on offer and we recommend it for a hearty, good-value lunch.
Summersault is located in the centre of town, off the main mall or street opposite the Rugby school.
Interesting architecture
Rugby proves to be a neat, pretty town, sprinkled with interesting architecture dating from medieval times through to the past hundred or so years.
The Rugby school owns a large amount of land where stately buildings stand and school staff reside.
A number of other colleges plus many old churches steeped in history are all over the city.
We found that no matter what the religion, if the house was open, we were welcomed in to enjoy a respectful wander around.
Particularly interesting (with a particularly lovely community) was Saint Marie’s where we met Fr David Tobin who enthusiastically shared stories about the rich history of the establishment and its founding family, the Hibberts.
Market town charm
There’s plenty to see and do here, and the charm is magnified when you realise actually how much the town has contributed to contemporary life as we know it.
From ballgames to the Olympics, English gentlemen to jet engines and something else close to our hearts, radio… the BBC has put together an interesting read here on how all this relates to Rugby.
People with heart
I think pretty much everyone we met in Rugby were helpful, kind and friendly to us.
From the cab drivers to publicans, and our Airbnb hosts – the locals were generous in every way.
In fact, it was thanks to their openness that we learned about the area’s history and things to do.
Oh, and they let us pat their dogs too. That’s always nice!
Special thanks to Wilmer the Weimaraner puppy’s mum, Riley the sheepdog’s dad and Polly the 9-month-old-pup’s owner!
Leisurely fun
Our ‘local’ (as in, five minutes’ walk from our accommodation) was called The Bull Inn.
As with any place in England, there are public houses on just about every corner.
Rugby is no exception, and the city boasts a number of cool establishments with rich histories attached to their walls.
Our favourite though, was The Bull Inn, so it’s a good thing we ended up staying near it.
The food, vibe and space were all terrific. We wish there was something like it near us in London!
A country escape
The highlight of this trip was our accommodation. The Airbnb is a lovely space overlooking countryside in Clifton upon Dunsmore outside Rugby.
We chilled out, wandered to the pub, cooked, and listened to the rain. It reminded me of rain that falls in the wet season in north Queensland.
If you’re seeking a country escape that still has the conveniences of city life, this is a perfect option.
Getting around:
As we discovered, you’ll need a car for days out in Warwickshire. In Rugby, walking or riding a bike around is easy.
If you’re based a out of town as we were, cabs are easy to catch and are not very expensive. It’s about £5 to anywhere.
The central train station is where you’ll end up if you’re moving on from the district.
There is also a local bus service which would be worthwhile using if you were in town for longer. We’d suggest a car is a good idea though, if possible.
Bath is the epitome of Georgian elegance and is a wonderful place to visit at any time of the year. It’s a pleasurable day trip from London (take Great Western Rail from Paddington); or stay a night or two and truly indulge in all the romantic things to do in Bath!
Personally, I love Bath because it’s easy to get around but has all the perks of a city like shopping, coffee, plenty to see and do. Bath is rich in history – the buildings tell many lifetimes worth of tales, dating back to the Romans right through to Jane Austen, and even the birth of Royal Mail. And, aside from anything else, the city is strikingly beautiful.
It’s one for the romantics, for sure – a very special place, like York (which you also must visit). Here are seven of our sweetest ideas for you to explore…
7 romantic things to do in Bath, England
Bath Abbey Tower Tour
Bath Abbey is the divine structure that makes for a perfect meeting spot in the town centre. It is an utterly surprising find as you’re wandering the old streets, and you’ll have your phone in hand snapping pictures before you even realise what you’re doing!
Indulge in some people watching in the square, and when you’ve gathered your breath, climb to the top for a bird’s eye view of the area.
If this idea takes your fancy, you can book exclusive personalised tours which take place out of hours. Watch the sun set over this uniquely lovely place, away from the tourist crowds. More at bathabbey.org/towertours.
Stroll along the Gravel Walk
This is fine for all, but Austen fans will especially rejoice because it is the setting of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth’s proposal in Persuasion.
Continue your wander through to Royal Victoria Park for a picnic, and wind up your exploration in the lovely woodland of the Botanical Gardens.
Be mindful after dark though, for although it might seem pretty at dusk it is said that a number of Bath’s former residents often also wander here. Particularly notable is a white haired man who will appear before you on the Gravel Walk, only to vanish back into the night. Spooky, although perhaps a romantic pursuit for the ghost-hunters (like me) among you…
Boo!
Take to nature – canal ride, row boat or horse drawn carriage ride
As you step off the train into the city of Bath, you’ll spot signs for visitor information centres. Drop in and enquire about one of the unique opportunities to interact with nature.
Back in town, we suggest skipping the cab line and instead take a horse drawn carriage ride around the city, just like in Austen’s romantic age. Be enchanted as you pass by grand spaces like the Royal Crescent, Royal Victoria Park and The Circus. Courtyard Carriages will make it happen.
Stay overnight in a romantic hotel!
Bath is brimming with excellent accommodation options for all budgets. If you’re willing to splash out for a special occasion and take full advantage of this city’s status as a centre for romance, this one looks nice – the Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa. It’s centrally located with sublime views of the city! We’ve not stayed here, but sure would like to. Seems so very Austen-esque.
Another decadent property I spotted on our travels was Bath Spa Hotel, a five star stay overlooking the breathtaking Bath landscape.
Jane Austen festival in September
Yes, yes and yes!
Indulge in regal splendour – performances, balls, workshops, promenades, fairs, lunches, breakfasts (and the odd Mr Darcy sprinkled around town for good measure)…
There are even short tours of the surrounding area on offer so you can get your entire literary and adventure fix with the least amount of effort. If you’re a fan of the author, don’t miss visiting in September. More at janeaustenfestivalbath.co.uk.
Note: there’s a plethora of Austen experiences open all year round too if you can’t make it in spring.
Thermae Bath Spa
Bath is of course famed for its ancient baths and healing waters, and now thanks to Thermae, we can all take a dip.
After you’ve explored the interesting old ruins, step it up to contemporary times in an utterly indulgent and romantic manner. Thermae now boasts a sensational rooftop pool with sweeping city views. There’s plenty of other treatments you can enjoy too – the best of modern pleasures and old world lush blended into a sublime chance to unwind and feel the love.
Country walks and quaint villages
When we visited Bath recently, we actually took the Hop on Hop off bus tour, which features two routes through Bath. One travels around the city and explains the local history, and the other highlights the outskirts upon the hilltops overlooking the city’s skyline. This is an excellent way to get your bearings in the city. Helpful too, because Bath is very hilly so it’s easy to get tired making your way around. An option like this makes it simpler to identify the places you might like to go back to, and the skyline journey in particular showcases some lovely walks.
Suggested places to visit include the ‘prettiest village in England’, Castle Combe (accessible from Bath), Kennet and Avon canals which are some of the loveliest waterways working their way through England. The tour guide also pointed out walks you can try nearby to stops on the tour’s itinerary such as around Middle Hill Lodge.
Words can’t describe how lovely it is here, although many writers have attempted to do so throughout history. Why not visit and see for yourself? You may find the Visit Bath website useful, and book your train tickets in advance for the best deal, Trainline.
If you’ve found this helpful or have a tip to add, please let us know in the comments.
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