Best place you've ever been?

[Roger Kettle]

It will come as no surprise to most of you when I say that the best place I've ever been to is Montana. I should add brackets here and throw in Wyoming and South Dakota but you get the idea---it's what's described as "The Old West". I can't describe how I feel, driving around places like the Little Bighorn, Yellowstone Park, Mount Rushmore and Deadwood, but let's just say I'm as happy as a pig in....short supply. A cold Budweiser in a friendly Montanan bar is about as good as it gets for me...
....until you mention the Algarve in Portugal. This is an area I discovered about eight years ago and have grown to love. It has become the focus of my one-week annual holiday and is a family thing. My wife, my sister (Diamond Lil) and I, plus any offspring that aren't too ashamed to be seen with us, head off to Portugal every year. It really is a wonderfully relaxing place that keeps me sane for the rest of the year.
Boston. That was the first place I took my kids overseas and the first time they'd been on a plane. Loved it.
Denmark. Loved the people and loved the Carlsberg.
The Scottish Highlands. Well, I come from there. There is nowhere more beautiful in Britain.
Over to you lot...

[Tom]

Hokey dokey, and in no particular order...

Cyprus. I've only been there once, but knew my way around Paphos as soon as I arrived there. Loved the island. Loved the history.
Israel. Amazing place, and again with the history. Floating on the Dead Sea is one of the strangest experiences ever!
Mystic, Connecticut. Wonderful working town. I've got a thing for history!
Niagara-on-the-Lake - a quaint town just up the road from Niagara. Loved it!
Cornwall. Love the county, can see pirates in my mind's eye looking into the bays.
Trearddur Bay, Anglesey. Very calming place.
Windermere and the Lake District. Just the nature!

Must admit I have never been to Scotland, but would love to go. There, and Iceland. And Peru.

I can't say that any of the places I have been to is the best, but each is equally the best!

[Mince]

My imagination.

[The Peepmaster]

The Scilly Isles for me as a destination in the UK.

Also had a great break on the Isle of Mull, up here in Scotland, before deciding to move up here.

I also enjoyed the Algarve, but that was a few years ago.

Of course, the last 3 years I've been out to the Far East, and my favourite places have been Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and Puerto Galera and Boracay, both in the Philippines.

[Calvin]

Since I was young I always loved the more rugged places and the animals that inhabited them. Northumberland's border and wall country and the Lake District were perennial favourites.
After coming to Canada I found the closest thing to my ideal up in Northern Ontario.
The sun creeping over the tree-tops onto the mist rising from a dead still lake with a Loon (Northern Diver) calling in the distance gives me goosebumps. Canoeing round a point to find a moose standing in the shallows (those things are huge),or a black bear rumbling out of the thicket to the water's edge and staring right at you. Ice cold Budweiser on the cabin deck after a day's fishing, with a sky so full of stars without light pollution as well as a display from the Northern Lights if you're fortunate. Just then, a wolf calls and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It just doesn't get any better than that, for me.
A little flowery, but a subject and a place close to my heart.
One place I would love to visit in the future is Machu Picchu.

[The Peepmaster]

Since I was young I always loved the more rugged places and the animals that inhabited them. Northumberland's border and wall country and the Lake District were perennial favourites.
After coming to Canada I found the closest thing to my ideal up in Northern Ontario.
The sun creeping over the tree-tops onto the mist rising from a dead still lake with a Loon (Northern Diver) calling in the distance gives me goosebumps. Canoeing round a point to find a moose standing in the shallows (those things are huge),or a black bear rumbling out of the thicket to the water's edge and staring right at you. Ice cold Budweiser on the cabin deck after a day's fishing, with a sky so full of stars without light pollution as well as a display from the Northern Lights if you're fortunate. Just then, a wolf calls and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It just doesn't get any better than that, for me.
A little flowery, but a subject and a place close to my heart.
One place I would love to visit in the future is Machu Picchu.

That's a stunning description, Calvin.

I might be able to help you with Machu Picchu. I'm frantically putting two new websites together, one of which features South American Tours.

[Tarquin Thunderthighs lll]

Boy, I can't compete with that, Calvin, or indeed any of what came before it. But it does my dodgy ticker no end of good to read such heartfelt appreciation of... of... well basically, what just is.

I'm not that well travelled alas, and have only been on two return flights in my life. The first to Eire, which was beautiful, and like stepping back in time by a several decades. The second was to Austria, and that was truly stunning. Perfectly sculpted mountains, manicured fields and crystal clear lakes, it was like stepping into a land designed by Disney. Almost too perfect.

But the best place I've ever been lay practically on my doorstep in global terms, and yet I was in my forties before I ever saw it. I make a pilgrimage up to Aviemore, just north of Kettle Country, every year, and I never tire of the beauty of the Cairngorm area, and Speyside. But it was only a few years back that I actually ventured further north than Inverness, and drove up to John O'Groats, then along the north coast and back down through the middle of the northern Highlands. I was quite stunned by the beaches up there - beautifully golden sands, palm trees and the most turquoise of waters where I expected cold, harsh desolation. It was like a mirage.

Then the drive down, through layers of peaks, hundreds of them as far as the eye could see. And splendid desolation, the mostly single-track road (in perfect condition - barely used) being the only sign of man's interference for miles and miles. Then you'd come across a cottage in the middle of nowhere, and an elderly woman would wave to you from the porch. Then nothing for another thirty miles, until you see another cottage. And another little woman waving from her porch. And you just know that the last little woman had tipped this one off with an excited phone call, declaring "There's a car coming, Morag!".

The lakes and mountains of Austria are truly awesome, but they were made by Walt Disney. If you ever get the chance to drive through the lochs and mountains of the far north of Scotland, all the way up to the top, that is the real deal!

[Jack]

I went to Cleethorpes once.

[Bilthehut]

The most interesting journey for me was travelling down to the Falklands in 1983 in a Hercules transport aircraft.  30 hour journey, stopping off at ***** for 1 hour then a 2 hour stopover at Ascension.  The in-flight air-to-air refuelling was interesting.  We thought it was bad enough, having spent 13 hours getting from the UK to Ascension, only to meet passengers disembarking from another Herc having made a 25 hour round trip to the Falklands, with 3 in-flight refuellings and not being able to land at the Falklands.  They then had to do the trip again the next day.

[Tarquin Thunderthighs lll]

F****** Thatcher! 








Sorry! 

[Bilthehut]

F****** Thatcher! 





Sorry! 

Why

[Tarquin Thunderthighs lll]

How many reasons do you want, Bill? Going to war over the Falklands will do for starters though, never mind the follow up costs.

Or did you mean why the "Sorry!"? That'd be for ruining this lovely thread with bitter politics. Sorry again!

[Bilthehut]

Thanks.  I cannot possibly comment, but it was classes as a 'conflict' as we did not declare war on Argentina (or vice-versa0 -- but that's irrelevant.  Admittedly, loss of life is sometimes pointless, but then that's the cost of having politicians who have not served.

I must also stop politicising this thread.

It was a fascinating journey, bt not one I would wish to repeat in the back of a Herc.  The alternative at  the time would have been to travel in a flat-bottom boat (Landing Ship Logistic) for 2 weeks from Ascension to FI - not a good idea in the South Atlantic.  The SS Uganda had been the transport ship at the time but was withdrawn for a refit.  This was a pity as I had been on that ship in '73 during an educational cruise in the Med, and my mum had sailed out to Singapore from the UK on the same ship in 195* to join my dad - otherwise I would not be writing this now!

The Falklands are fascinating, but much like Dartmoor, with few trees and incessant wind (not due to beans).  The wildlife (not the Bennies) are worth visiting the Islands for.

[Malc]

I have a photo of me standing next to a cannon in Mtalfa (Malta, where my dad was stationed) when I was three.
When I married Mel, we honeymooned on Malta, and without any maps or prior knowledge, and after 30 years I found that location again (the cannon still outside the cathedral in Mtalfa) and took another photo. The cannon was actually tiny.
In that sense Malta has a fascination for me, as has Wilhelmshaven in Germany, where I went to school. Wilhelmshaven was a U Boat base during WWII and I went back for a school reunion in 1997. Very, very emotional.
Neither of those places are geographically spectacular, but Wilelmshaven was so cold in winter that the sea froze, it was a very lonely place for us kids separated from our parents and the bond forged between ex pupils (one of whom commanded the Falkland Islands after the 'conflict', and another of whom is Ridley Scott) is an extremely strong one.

I love the highlands and the lake district, I loved Bute (which I had lived near for many years but never visited until I popped over to see Nige) I love Paris, I have been many times, and I have a strong affection for Port Meirion in Wales.

Sydney Harbour Bridge is beautiful at night -VERY impressive sight, much more than the Opera House, and I also was enormously impressed by the two bridges going over the Forth on my way to visit Roger. I described them on the way back as looking like two giant Stegosaurs wading in the water, that's how they looked in the glare, coming over a hill driving south to Edinburgh.

I love the soft Postman Pat feel to Dorset, and I wish I had the money to buy a holiday home near Lulworth and stay part of the year.

[Fyodor]

http://www.westhamhouse.co.uk/

...........

and Stratford spitting distance away.