Our spa destination of choice was the Marine hotel in Troon. Troon holds a lot of personal meaning to me as my Grandad lived there for years, and had it not been for him this year would have been certainly more tricky. He passed away earlier this year so being in Troon is another wee nod to the infamous Himmy Jalliday (double dutch- Jimmy Halliday).
I arrived Friday night, and Louise and Emma collected me from the airport. When we got to Louise's new and beautiful town house it was a case of decanting the presents - Scottish themed of course! I had also brought homemade Hallowe'en cakes and Lorne sausages/potato scones that were a blessing come Sunday. My bag was already half the weight.
We arrived mid-afternoon on a Friday, made our way by train and underground to our hotel. We then turned the corner from coming out of the metro, once we got our bearings of course, and 'ta na' the Iron lady (as it's known to the Parisians) - The Eiffel Tower was right in front of us. Breathtaking! Our hotel was literally in it's shadow. What a perfect location for our fleeting visit.
I now decided to cash in, on two very thoughtful presents. They add nicely to my list of achievements this year. First stop Manchester, to the Sealife centre and the seaTREK.
We quickly got to familiarise ourselves with yet another city and we took in the sights by doing a hop on hop off bus tour.
The train stations in Italy are something to marvel at. To buy or get information, you first need to take a ticket and wait for your number to be called. It was a good system as Italians don't know how to queue. We even managed to help fellow English speaking travellers with this unique way of purchasing tickets- feeling proud and accomplished having known what we were doing.
My holiday this year was to see Italian cities whilst ticking six places off my list. Ingenious I feel. My friend Lucy joined me on this trip as neither of us had been to Italy before.
My Fringe experience comes in two parts. The first visit was on a rather soggy Sunday with my friend Gael. We headed through on the train with our coffees to prepare ourselves for the day. Gael had pre-booked a show that started at 4pm so we had the majority of the day to wander about and take in the atmosphere.
I met Claire and Gill in a cafe in Shawlands for lunch before our day out. The rain was chucking it down but we had high hopes it would brighten up.
I went with my family and we stayed in a beautiful cottage in Kilmory, near Lagg, which is in the south of the island.
