My parents visit London – and us

London skyline

I’ve been in London for a bit over 3 weeks now and I really enjoy it. These past days the weather has been so-so but otherwise it’s been remarkable good weather.

The group ready to take off from South Kenton

Two weekends ago we went on a walking tour organized by Walk London where we joined a route close to our place. The route we were walking was the 10th segment of a walking path called the Capital Ring which goes through the green belt all around London. It was a really nice walk and nice to see that there is lots of green patches around us.
At Welsh Harp we met up with the chairman from Welsh Harp Conservation Group who told us about the area that sees a lot of migrating birds. The conservation group had two hides from where they can sit and look at the birds. Below is a picture of how it looks inside the hide and here is the view you can see looking out from the hide.

Looking out

This past weekend my parents came to visit us. And as I am still very new to London I got the chance to explore a lot of new places myself. Friday we took a tour in open doubledecker buses around London to see the famous landmarks in central London.

My parents in front of The London Eye

In the evening we went to my first West End performance to see a musical called Jersey Boys about a band from the 60s. I really enjoyed the music and the production with the way the stage kept changing into so many different sets throughout the show. This is definitely something to do in London and I hope to see more shows while I’m here.

Saturday we went to Notting Hill for the Portobello market to look the stalls, stuff they were selling and the atmosphere. Later we went to the Science Museum.

Crowds on Portabello Road

Sunday we went to Little Venice which doesn’t really look like Venice but is a very nice place none the less. From here we took a canal boat to Camden Lock where we ran into another market with great food stalls and loads of people.

Looking down the canal

It was nice with a visit from home and now that I have come closer to Denmark it will be easier to travel back and forth to visit friends and family and get people to visit me 🙂

Spring is here!

Flowers in boots

Saturday 9 of us started out at 8am from the bus station in Prague. Our goal was a small town called Mseno where the hike would begin. Throughout the week leading up to the trip we had watch the forecast go from good to decent to sketchy. But most people were still psyched for a hike so we set out anyways. 

As we got in the bus and set out for the hour and a half bus ride it started to rain. It hadn’t stopped when we got out of the bus and as we started out for the walk everyone was in an overly cheerful mood as if the sun would come out if we just kept smiling.

Follow the red arrow

We started out down the path through a small alley in Mseno and soon we found ourselves walking in splashing mud across fields. Luckily we later got on to paved road for parts of the trip.

The hikers

The rain finally stopped as we made it to the first lookout point on our route. Further along we came to a part leading through something out of Lord Of The Rings with narrow passageways through the sandstones covered in bright green moss. 

Narrow passway

Staying in fairytale world we later came to the castle of the day Kokorin Castle where we took a break.

Hrad Kokorinsky
Spring

After a late lunch we realized we still had 10km to go before we would get to Melnik so we tried to pick up the pace. At the same time the sun came out and we were walking along a beautiful path up and down hills past lakes on a river.

Walking along a lake
Cozy lake

Leigh Anthony Dehaney one of the other guys on trip (and an artist and wizard with film) made two really cool films of our trip. The creepy flick below and the one with people here (you need a facebook login).

 

We made it to Melnik at the other end of our route in time to catch the 18.40 bus back to Prague. It ended up being a trip of somewhere around 20km and the first time this year I experienced two digit temperatures, saw flowers, deers and heard bird song 🙂 Finally spring is here.

Thanks a bunch to Grace for organizing.