2025 Winter Travel

To be honest, I haven't got out a lot over the last couple of months, so I'm going to round my recent outings up into one post. Generally, this is not my favourite time of year to travel or go out, because it's just so cold, and being outside is just a struggle, but even so, it's still important to get a change of scenery from time to time. Since coming back from our wedding, we've had a few little trips out locally and one weekend away, which was mostly for practical reasons, but was also quite fun at the same time.

Here are the highlights!

Tewkesbury With Claudio

One weekend in January, we wanted to take a day trip, so Claudio was looking at this blog to see which interesting nearby places he hadn't visited yet. He read this post I wrote about visiting Tewkesbury in September 2023 and decided he'd like to go there.

I think Tewkesbury is quite an underrated place - it is very picturesque, but doesn't get the crowds that the nearby Cotswolds do. We had a nice, chilled-out time walking by the river, visiting the magnificent abbey, and exploring the town centre. 

After walking around in the cold, the best way to end an outing is, of course, by stopping off at a café! There are quite a few independent cafés in the town that looked interesting, but most were quite crowded. Then we came across a Greek Cypriot café called Coffee Mer Med that had a few free tables, and decided to go there for lunch. We really liked this place - both the food and the décor transported us to the Mediterranean, making us feel like we were inside a taverna on a sunny island, rather than in England on a cold, January day!

Reading, London and Pangbourne

I had a couple of days off from work recently, which we used to go and do some research on where we'd like to live in the near future. We've been thinking about Reading as a option, as it's quite easy to get from there into London on the Elizabeth Line, rents are cheaper than in London proper, and it's also quite convenient for us to go back home for visits.

To get a feel for what it would be like to live there, we stayed in an apartment at Premier Suites Reading rather than a hotel. We actually got upgraded to a two bedroom apartment, which had a really big living space, and we loved it. It was definitely the sort of property that we'd like to be living in within the next year or so.

Although I've passed through Reading train station (which is very modern and almost feels like an airport) many times, I'd never actually been to the town itself, so it was interesting to finally explore it. I hadn't heard much about it, and it was actually quite a pleasant surprise for both of us. Even though it's not in the capital itself, it definitely has a London vibe to it - when you come out of the station, you're greeted with the sight of high-rise buildings and traditional London taxis. The town centre is generally clean and attractive, and has a modern shopping mall, called the Oracle, which was quiet and calm when we visited on the Thursday we arrived, though it did fill up on the Saturday.

There's also a riverside area with lots of restaurants, which is quite picturesque. We went to Côte on our first day, taking advantage of a promo code that I'd got for entering a competition!

After lunch, we explored Forbury Gardens Park and Reading Abbey Ruins. The ruins were really striking, and it was great to see some of the historical side of the town.

Then we walked along the river...

...until we arrived at the Huntley Wharf housing development. These apartments reminded us of where we used to live in Santiago, and is the sort of place we could see ourselves living in the near future.

We continued walking and crossed over the River Thames to the Christchurch Meadow Playground, which was very spacious and even had a little outdoor pool, before picking up some supplies from Aldi and heading back to the flat to make Chilean hotdogs!

The following day, it was time to head into London! We took the Elizabeth Line into the city to get a feel of what commuting in would be like and also to get to see some more potential areas to live. We stopped off at Ealing Broadway to get to know the area a bit, as it's quite a convenient place in terms of transport. As it happened the weather was awful that day - freezing cold, rainy and windy - which wasn't much fun, but at least it meant we got to see potential areas to live at their worst, most depressing time of year, which was quite useful actually!

I felt fairly neutral about Ealing - it didn't quite have the London vibe I was expecting, and seemed like any other generic British town, but we did like exploring Walpole Park, where you can find Pitzhanger Manor, an old manor house with an art gallery inside.

After lunch, we took the District Line over to Barking in the East End of London, as we'd seen there were quite a few places to rent there. The area just outside the train station seemed a bit run down, but other parts were a bit nicer. We went to Abbey Green Park, which has the ruins of an old abbey. Nearby, there are lots of new, modern apartment buildings, which looked nice, but we weren't convinced we liked the area enough to live there. We're thinking that we might next look into Stratford as a place to live, as I really liked it when I visited during my Gap Year in 2015.

This was probably the first time I've visited London without seeing any of the touristic areas. I've always felt a buzz of excitement when visiting the capital, from Little Venice to the Greenwich Meridian and everywhere in between. But I didn't really feel that in either Ealing or Barking, and was surprised that Reading actually felt more "London" to me than they did.

The next morning, we decided to get a feel for the sort of weekend activities we would do if we were living in Reading, and took a very short train journey to the picturesque village of Pangbourne, which is located on the border of two areas of natural beauty: the North Wessex Downs and the Chilterns. 

Claudio especially enjoyed Pangbourne, because it has both an Aston Martin and a Lamborghini dealership!

We enjoyed walking around the traditional English village and then across the river to Whitchurch-on-Thames, which was very scenic indeed.

The only thing missing was a cute café or tearoom like we have in the Cotswolds!

We went back to Reading and had a quick look round the shops before going to find some lunch in the riverside area. One downside to the town was that most of the restaurants were packed, even though it was after 2 pm, which isn't very usual for the UK. Eventually, we went to a Japanese noodle place called Marugame Udon, which wasn't too crowded. I hadn't heard of it before, but I looked it up and found out that it's a chain of restaurants that are only located in London and Reading! The food was really good and the portions were very generous.

After lunch, we had a walk along part of the river we hadn't explored yet, and looked at some more apartment buildings.

We finished off our weekend in Reading with coffees and a pastry in Gail's bakery. This is somewhere I wanted to try specifically because it's a London chain with a few branches around the South East, and not somewhere you can find where we live in the South West (Coffee #1 is our regional coffee chain!). However, the café was quite cramped (we had to wait for a seat) and the food and drink was a little pricey. But it was nice to be able to say we'd tried it!

Overall, the weekend gave us more of an insight into the what it would be like to live the London/Reading lifestyle! We've now explored quite a few potential places to live in and around the capital: Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, Redhill in Surrey, Reading in Berkshire, Ealing in West London and Barking in East London. Of course, there are plenty more possibilities, but Reading is looking like the winner at the moment.

I'm looking forward to when we finally move and blogging all about it - but first of all, we've got a honeymoon to enjoy! I'll be back here on this blog next month, hopefully with some very exciting travel stories to share!

Life Update and Autumn Travelling

Greetings travelling readers!

This post will most likely be my last of 2024, as in a couple of weeks' time, we'll be off to Chile to get married and then spend Christmas in the sun. So now that we're entering December, it seems like a good time to round up all the little adventures we've been on over the autumn months. 

Generally, autumn is not my favourite time of year. Even though my birthday is in October, I much prefer warm, sunny weather and long summer days when it doesn't get dark until late at night. I know a lot of people love the cosiness of autumn, but I hate how it gradually gets colder and darker with each passing day. It doesn't feel like that long ago that I was spending my afternoons after work sitting in the sun on the patio with a book and next door's adorable cat keeping me company, and now it's dark by 4 pm and I have to put on gloves and a hat to go outside some days.

But given that Claudio and I are going to be in the sun for most of December, as well as parts of February/March, it makes sense to try to enjoy the benefits of the colder weather while we're here. We've had some nice times out and about over the last couple of months, and I'll be writing about them today!

The Village Hotel, Swindon

I was given a voucher from work, and decided to use it on day passes to the Health & Wellness Club at our local Village Hotel in Swindon. These hotels all have a gym, a swimming pool, a hot tub, a sauna and a steam room, as well as a Starbucks and a pub-style restaurant. We'd previously stayed at the one in Swansea, but we actually found the Swindon one quieter and a bit nicer.

We started off our day there with a workout in the gym, which is huge and has all the equipment you could ask for. Afterwards, we had a relaxing swim, and rewarded ourselves with time in the hot tub and steam room, before finishing off our time there with a pumpkin spice latte! Even though we only spent a matter of hours there, the experience felt like having a mini holiday, and we'll definitely go back if I get another voucher.

Halloween and Bonfire Night

Something nice we did this autumn was getting into the spirit of things over Halloween and Bonfire Night. As a kid, I used to get really excited about both of these events, but in recent years, I hadn't really celebrated either of them beyond watching the occasional Halloween-themed movie.

But this was Claudio's first non-pandemic Halloween in the UK, and he wanted to see how different it was here compared to the Chilean Halloween, where it's already quite hot and sunny, and doesn't feel quite as spooky as it does in dark and chilly England! So we decided to go on a walk after supper on Halloween night in order to see all the decorations people have put up around the village. I usually don't like going out in the cold and dark, but it was actually a really fun experience, and I felt a little bit of that excitement I used to get when going trick-or-treating. We even stopped to watch a little firework show happening at one house!

Speaking of firework shows, we got to see a much bigger one a few days later, when the village put on its annual Bonfire Night show. Again, this is something that I hadn't been to in person for years - once I got to secondary school age, we started watching it from the window instead. But it's definitely a more fun experience to actually go out and watch it with everyone else. The show was much more impressive than we expected - it lasted about 15 minutes and had some huge, colourful fireworks. Overall, it was a nice and different way to spend a Sunday evening!

Abingdon

The most exciting thing that's happened to us this autumn was becoming an aunt and an uncle! My sister and her husband had a baby boy at the end of September, and we went to visit them in October. After having a cuddle with our nephew at their house, we went out to the town of Abingdon for lunch at the Abingdon Riverside Café and a walk along the River Thames.

I'd heard of the town of Abingdon before but didn't realise it was so picturesque. With the river and its quaint, old-fashioned buildings, it made us think of Bruges. It was great to stroll along the river after a lunch of avocado on toast and a flat white - my favourite combi!

Cotswold Lakes in Autumn

The colours of autumn are always beautiful to see, especially when they're surrounding a tranquil lake. I don't think they were so vibrant this year as I've seen them in other years, but all the same, it was nice to go and check them out at the lake next to the De Vere Hotel and the Gateway Café in the Cotswold Water Park. Afterwards, we went to a little wooden cabin selling donuts and crêpes and had warm donuts with Nutella - would highly recommend!

Marlborough With Claudio

Claudio hadn't yet visited the scenic town of Marlborough, so it was good to get the opportunity to go there for an explore while my parents were visiting a friend. Of course, I had to take Claudio to the famous Polly's Tearooms, which he enjoyed very much!

We also visited some parts of the town I hadn't had time to see when I last went to Marlborough, including the posh Marlborough College, from where you can see the ancient Marlborough Mount (which looks a bit like Silbury Hill near Avebury) and the Marlborough White Horse.

We also went for a walk around the riverside area at the other end of the town, which is another place with a bit of a Bruges vibe!

Our weekend in Surrey and London

We had a somewhat spontaneous weekend in the London area in November, as I was going to meet up with my friends from Malta on the Sunday, and then we arranged a viewing of a flat in Redhill in Surrey on the Saturday.

The flat was an option that was genuinely affordable for us to buy, and I'd really loved it from looking at the pictures on Zoopla, so it was very disappointing that on the Friday afternoon prior to the booking, the estate agent called us to cancel, as someone else had already had an offer accepted. By this point, it was too late to change our train or cancel our hotel reservation, so we went anyway and had a look at the apartment building from the outside. It actually looked much shabbier in person than in pictures, and we weren't massively keen on the area, so it was kind of a relief that we hadn't lost out on something really special! 

The experience did prove to us though that if we're going to find a property to buy in the London area, we're going to have to start off by renting there, so that we can easily explore different areas of the city and view flats at short notice. We've decided we're going to take the plunge and move after we get back from honeymoon in March next year. It is daunting because of the costs involved, but also very exciting, because we love London and really want to live and work there!

After we'd seen the flat, explored the area, eaten and checked into our hotel in Redhill, we took the bus over to Reigate to have a walk around. Reigate is not somewhere we're considering moving to, as it's very expensive, but it was a very nice place to visit. It was particularly interesting to see the Priory and the Castle Grounds.

The following morning we got the train into London, arriving at London Bridge Station, right underneath the Shard!

We then travelled over to Canary Wharf, as neither of us had been before, and we'd seen a reel on Instagram saying that it was like going to New York without having to pay for an expensive flight! That's actually not wrong - even though we haven't been to the Big Apple yet (hopefully we'll go in the not-too-distant future), we did kind of feel like we were there! The skyscrapers are amazing and I loved the sculptures made from leaves.

We stopped off at Blank Street Coffee, a coffee chain that only has locations in the United States, London and Manchester. I've seen it mentioned a lot on LinkedIn for its marketing strategies, so wanted to visit, being a marketing girly myself! I had a pistachio latte, Claudio had a chocolate orange mocha, and we both had a pistachio pain au chocolat. While my latte was too sweet for my taste, Claudio's mocha was pretty good, and the pastries were very tasty, although they were also very sweet - I think they gave me a sugar rush and then a crash later! 

While we were in the area, we also had a look round the London Museum Docklands, which is actually free to enter. Here you can learn all about the Docklands area, its history as a port, and its role in the slave trade. 

Interestingly, there was a room with signs showing all the different places where the ships from the Docklands went to trade, and Claudio was surprised to see it included two cities in Chile - Valparaíso and San Antonio!

Afterwards, we travelled over to the west of the city to enjoy the Christmas decorations in Covent Garden.

Then it was time for me to meet up with the girls from Malta over in Waterloo, while Claudio went to look at the Christmas lights in Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street.

There were 7 of us in total out of the 12 of us that went out to Malta together, so not a bad turnout. We went round the South Bank Christmas market and then had a Sunday roast in a pub. It was great to catch up with everyone and hear what they've been up to. Hopefully, we'll have another meet-up in the new year!

That's all from me for today - and for this year! Of course, there are some big adventures yet to come in 2024, and I'm very excited to write about them in January.

Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2025 to everyone reading this! See you soon 😊