Posts by Charmaine Hallmark

MACHU PICCHU IN STYLE by Brenda Wilkinson Our trip to Peru started with a few days in Lima – a beautiful and very interesting city, with lovely beaches, a clean spacious city centre and an amazing Gold Museum. From there we flew to Cuzco and stayed in the Monasterio Hotel, a converted monastery with beautiful…

CORFU  by Paul Proctor We got off to a good start . Monarch had seated us sensibly . We had a slight delay but it was due to a small baby on board being taken ill, but that was not the airlines fault. Our hire car was what suited us.  We found the Villa Armandos easily…

JERSEY by Gordon Wilkinson Just an hour and five minutes from Gatwick on Flybe and you can be in Jersey. It’s a great place for a short break, so it seemed ideal for my birthday celebration at the end of May. We chose The Grand in St Helier because of its prime location on St…

XIN CHAO by Margaret Whale Xin Chao! We’re back for a rest!  Great holiday – worth all the effort of getting itinerary right. Hanoi – Sofitel was THE hotel – they really looked after us and was worth paying the extra for Historic Wing. Left bags there at odd times and they gave us courtesy…

  AN INSPIRING STORY  by Phil Avery It may seem lazy to be writing up my Antarctic Expedition three months after returning, but without this pause I would have been vague about the main aim of the expedition, education. And anyway, wind chill temperatures as low as -60 deg C, winds gusting to 70 mph…

BONZA BIKE TOURS SYDNEY by Colin Tuttle On Wednesday 23 September 2009, Sydney awoke to an eerie orange gloom, with the Harbour Bridge and Opera House barely visible through the murk. I had chosen this day to experience the BONZA BIKE 4 hour tour of the City’s attractions, following the worst reported dust storm in…

OUR WEEKEND IN EDEN by Stuart Stallard Once again Hallmark lived up to their name and produced another first class outing to Cornwall and the Eden Project. We were sorry to hear that Sheila was unwell, but found that we were in the capable hands of her stand-in, Guy. With Sheila’s planning and briefing he…

OUR HOLIDAY TO CROATIA by Jacquie Russell Well what can I say?  First of all I am delighted we met at the Mayor’s Ball as I was stuck for something to do for our 25th Wedding Anniversary (and Bob’s 60th that was in April), when you mentioned Croatia it jumped at me – as I…

ANTIGUA A WINTERS TALE by John and Lilian Patrick December 3rd – a cold and miserable day. The whole country was struggling with floods, ice and gales. However, for the two of us, things were about to change drastically. At 9.30 that Sunday morning we boarded a flight to the sun-kissed Caribbean island of Antigua.…

ELK O SELTZER by Gordon and Brenda Wilkinson We had enjoyed a wonderful family holiday in Canada, starting with a trip to the Calgary Stampede, followed by visits to the beautiful lakes in the Canadian Rockies, mountain biking in Jasper and whitewater rafting on the Sunwapta River (twice, it was so good!). On the night…