‘At 60-plus, we feel like teenagers again’
While we wait for the chance to travel abroad once more, our readers recall their best budget breaks closer to home
Both time and cash were limited with four teenagers at home. Our parents had agreed to “babysit” them so we could enjoy a much-needed weekend getaway close to our Liverpool home.
We wanted coastal walks, pubs with roaring fires and the soothing sound of waves – and we got all that at The Studio Cottage in Cemaes Bay, the most northerly village in Wales. The high point was a hike across the sands to the 14thcentury Llanbadrig Church, high above the cave where St Patrick is said to have found refuge when shipwrecked. The simple timber-framed building has a dramatic Moorish interior with blue tiles, blue glazed windows and Arabicstyle iconography. Magical.
Jane Gallagher, Liverpool
A LIFELONG LOVE OF THE LAKES
Two tents, sleeping bags and a Calor gas stove, 10 bob for three nights’ camping, plus fish, chips, peas, bread and butter and a pot of tea at 1/6d each. Add fried bacon and mushrooms on the camping stove for breakfast, and it’s a bargain.
It rained solidly for two days and nights, but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm. On the third night, a miracle happened – we awoke to a strange light in the tent and the sound of hammering in the woods, emerging into a wonderland. The sky was blue, everything sparkled in the sunshine – and the sound we heard was a woodpecker.
It was love at first sight and the start of a passion for the English Lakes that has lasted a lifetime.
Jean Johnson, Cheshire
A DAY IN DUBLIN FOR UNDER 10P
A flight with Ryanair might not qualify as a budget break, but it was a once-ina-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated bargain. We bought return flights from Newcastle to Dublin for the princely sum of 1p each way, including all taxes, baggage and even credit card fees – secured for free, at Ryanair’s request, using a Visa Electron card. So for just 8p, four of us had a wonderful day out in Dublin – plus, of course, a little bit extra for those celebratory pints of Guinness.
We ended up in Kilmainham Gaol (as visitors, I hasten to add), which seemed appropriate given that we felt we had inadvertently robbed Michael O’Leary. Now that’s what you call a budget airline.
small tent pitched in a field in Wales brought ‘pure bliss’ for this week’s winner
My eldest grandson and I had been on an expedition the previous year and I was under pressure from the other three to “do something” for them. So I chartered a four-berth motor cruiser on the Thames, starting at Reading. The two boys slept in the forepeak, the girl in the cabin and I, the skipper, had to make do in the cockpit. We trundled downstream, soon mastering the technique of traversing the locks, then turned around and carried on upstream. We stopped to explore and to buy supplies, had cultural days at Windsor and Cliveden, and picnics and barbecues on shore. On board we held competitions – who was the best helmsman, for example – played board games, chatted and got to know each other indepth. It was real quality time.
We were introduced to the Lake District when driving back from Scotland, staying in Keswick overnight. It was such a beautiful landscape that we knew we had to return and experience more.
We chose November, when we knew it would be less crowded with a choice of cheaper places to stay. The property we rented for a week was a small selfcatering terraced cottage in Elterwater, in the centre of the Lakes.
From there we enjoyed walks along the river to and from Skelwith Bridge, and within short driving distances we explored the lakes, forests and fells around Rydal Water, Windermere, Coniston Water and Buttermere, with amazing vistas around every corner.
It was chilly, but we wrapped up warm and enjoyed a wonderful holiday, usually ending up for meal in a welcoming inn with that all-important log fire.
RELIVING TEWKESBURY’S PAST
Long ago the spa town of Cheltenham was little more than a staging post en route to prosperous Tewkesbury: a mix of medieval, Tudor, Georgian and Victorian architecture laced with a jigsaw of narrow alleyways set at the confluence of the rivers Severn and Avon.
How things change. For it was here, on the flood plain of the Severn Ham with a backdrop of the Malvern Hills, that the horse racing fraternity would later descend en masse: an event often combined with a river festival to rival that of Henley Royal Regatta.
Eyes and feet are today drawn to the jaw-dropping Tewkesbury Abbey, celebrating the 900th anniversary of its consecration and forming a bloody backdrop to the Battle of Tewkesbury re-enactment. Watching the sun set over the Ham, in a cottage for £45 per night, will make you stay longer.