2022 IN REVIEW

FAMILY VACATIONS 

Your favorite traveling knuckleheads certainly put in some miles in 2022, and we did a fair amount of it with family.  

Tenerife, Canary Islands - April

Barraquito coffee
Tenerife

We spent two weeks on this Spanish volcanic island at a time share resort with points gifted us by Janet's stepmother. The first week we explored the island on various tours on this widely popular tourist destination. Millions of tourists come here yearly and most of them are English. One of our tour guides said that Tenerife was “Spain in theory only.” 

The second week our English family came over to stay at the resort and we lounged around the pool or went into Los Christanos for cheap beer at any number of British-style pubs. The grandsons were on half-term, or spring-break.

Grenada - May

No family was at the Sandals Resort in Grenada, but as this was our fourth trip to this Caribbean chain of luxury all-inclusive resorts, we have become part of a “family”. As repeat customers we are awarded points towards a future trip and “recognized” at an awards dinner for our patronage.

The remarkable Sandals experience includes free diving and never having to hear the word “no.”

Wildwood, NJ - June

No summer would be complete without a visit to the NJ beaches. Every year we try to spend a few days at this family-friendly southern NJ beach town.

Colorado – July/August

Our English family came to visit us for nearly 6 weeks during the summer and we all traveled together to Colorado where Janet’s half-sister and her family live. We spent a week in Denver, then a week in the ski resort town of Breckinridge. I also got to drive out to Grand Junction to see my sister.

Breckinridge

Fiji - September

No family in this island nation, but the family unit is a strong vibrant part of the Fijian culture. We got to visit a few Fijian villages where the family ties of the community were strong and enduring. While at the villages we had to wear sulus, a type of sarong. 

We also went white-water rafting and diving.

Fiji

Hilton Head - October

Janet had a sorority-sister week at this posh South Carolina enclave. I was not invited. They went on a lot of bike rides dodging alligators and soaking up the last of the summer's weather on the wide, sandy beaches.

Austin, Texas – November

Janet visited her daughter in Austin, Texas, for some precious mother/daughter time and some serious Texas Barbeque. The trip was a birthday gift from me.  

England – December

We are currently in Nantwich Chesire in England to spend the holiday season with our English family again. Over the years we’ve been here for the holidays several times, but the last time was before the COVID pandemic hit. Not that we’re counting, but this is the third time this year we are all together, making up for lost time, and perfectly bracketing this year of travel with family and close friends.

St Mary's
Nantwich

Budapest - January, 2023

We are not slowing down in our travels. After the new year we are taking a side-trip to Budapest, Hungary for a 5-day mini excursion, taking advantage of cheaper inter-continental airfares, before coming back to Nantwich for a couple of days.

Thanks for reading!

Love Janet and greg

© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj

BOXING DAY

I’LL HAVE ANOTHER

It doesn’t matter what is the origin of Boxing Day in England, today it is a holiday where shopping, drinking and sporting events fill the day.

Depending on whom you talk to, Boxing Day had either something to do with giving the servants the day off and sending them home with “Christmas Boxes” filled with food and money, or the day that boxes for alms set outside churches were finally opened and the contents distributed to the poor. Now, it’s a “bank holiday” where businesses close and pubs open and football matches fill the television screens.

The holiday is celebrated the day after Christmas, December 26^th or the first weekday after Christmas in England and Wales and through much of the Commonwealth of British nations. Supposedly Boxing Day is considered a big shopping day where retailers fling open their doors with big reductions on prices, but here in Nantwich, our second home in Chesire, England, most of the little shops were closed and the streets were quieter than normal. We took the grandchildren to the market to buy some items, but they had no more chicken eggs, our number one priority! Although, we were able to get a comfy set of couches at Caffé Nero our favorite café in town as it wasn’t crowded at all. Hot chocolates and lattes are great pastimes with the grandchildren.

CAFFE NERO

Later that day we went to the grandparent’s home for an expansive buffet served for Tea, what our hosts call an early dinner. We ate, drank and drank some more as we watched the Everton F.C. match on the television and chatted with family and friends until nearly midnight.

It was a relatively quiet day, perhaps because of the lingering effects of COVID when there was a severe lockdown throughout England, but in previous years we had gone on pub crawls and watched a well-attended match of the semi-professional local football club, the Nantwich Town F.C. at Weaver Stadium before Tea. Their nickname are the Dabbers although some in the crowd were calling them the Cabbages, because of their green kits.

NANTWICH TOWN F.C.

Thanks for reading!

Love Janet and greg

© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj

CHRISTMAS IN NANTWICH

EARLY RISERS, QUICK BEERS, LOTS OF FOOD
It’s been quite a number of years for this humble scribe since the last time the bedroom door has been slammed open on a Christmas morning with wide-eyed desperate kids wanting to claw at the presents left beneath the fir. Cautioned by Mom-Mom that she had to have her coffee first before any such melee could begin, we were awakened by the grandchildren at 6:30 a.m. Thankfully for their sanity and ours the coffee pot was set on a timer and was already brewing the elixir of the gods.

We are ready for Santa

My days of fawning over my own children shredding the wrapping paper on Christmas morning has long since passed, but this day, despite the early early early hour, was glorious. Indeed, it was wonderfully chaotic with the grandchildren giving the bum rush on their bounty, yet still pausing enough to tenderly give us gifts they picked out for us at school, before again diving headlong into the fray.

Somewhere between having a squishy ball tossed past my ear and their other grandparents, who live a few blocks away in Nantwich, arriving with more gifts, the coffee finally started to take effect!

THE GUN

Going to the pubs is an important English pastime and social gatherings are often centered around these hallowed institutions. There are plenty of pubs to choose from in the small town of Nantwich, but we planned our Christmas afternoon to spend a few hours at The Rifleman, once a favored destination for grandfather, but this tied-house for Robinson’s Brewery had fallen out of favor with him because of a myriad of reasons. It was in favor today because it was open from 12 noon to 4:30 pm and we got the okay from the spouses to have a pint or three.

The Rifleman Pub, Nantwich

Sadly, after many hellos to lots of friends gathered at “The Gun”, where I was introduced to everyone as "the American", and a pint of Unicorn bitter, perhaps Robinson’s best beer, they ran out and we were forced to quaff Guinness. (All right by me….don’t tell the English Grandad!)

THE RIFLEMAN - NANTWICH

TEA

Later back at the house, it was Tea time, a meat medley of a beef roast and turkey and lamb with countless sides including pickled onions and parsnips and Yorkshire pudding. There were plenty of bottles of wine uncorked and later scotches and a diverse and expansive cheese board and we wiled away the rest of this beautiful intimate Christmas story chatting and dodging nerf gun darts launched by the boys.

I hope your Christmas was at least half as good as ours.

Love to all... you know who you are,

Thanks for reading.

Live Love Travel.

© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj

TRAVEL LOGISTICS TO ENGLAND

A LONG DAY’S JOURNEY ON THE SHORTEST DAY
On the shortest day of the year, on a trip that used to take us just 8-9 hours door-to-door, we nearly traveled for an entire 24 hours.

St. Mary's Church, Nantwich

Getting to Manchester England, the nearest airport to Nantwich, used to be relatively easy. It’s a 45-minute drive to the Philadelphia airport and the same from Manchester to our second home in Nantwich. With a direct flight between the two destinations that lasted about 5 ½ hours we could do that holding our breath.

American Airlines is our carrier of choice. We’ve collected a lot of frequent flyer and loyalty miles and we tend to travel exclusively with them or with one of their partner airlines, but because of the COVID pandemic they gave up the Philadelphia/Manchester route. Now we must fly on AA’s partner airline, British Air, to Heathrow in London, clear customs there and then take a 45-minute flight to Manchester. Heathrow is a sprawling airport and we have just over an hour to make the connection and there is no dawdling.

On this particular trip on the shortest day of the year, December 21st, we were not lucky. There was a computer glitch with British Air which delayed our departure from Philadelphia. We would miss the connection. There are other flights, but they we were told they were all full. So, they put us on a 3:15 pm flight, a full 6-hour layover in Heathrow. By the time we arrived in Nantwich we would have been on the “road” for 24 hours!

We recently flew all the way to Fiji in less time.

Thankfully, we were able to negotiate stand-by seats on an earlier flight once we landed in Heathrow, so the cramped flight with unforgiving seats seemed a bit less arduous.

We may have to rethink using American Airlines. Other options are flying Aer Lingus to Dublin first or through Frankfurt, Germany with Lufthansa. We could also fly out of Newark, NJ or NYC, but that “quick” jaunt from Philadelphia to Manchester is now gone. Ugh

By the way, we were lucky to get out of the country when we did. I understand it’s around 7°… that’s in Fahrenheit not Celsius back in Philadelphia. Here in Nantwich it is sunny and nearly 50°, thank you very much. And, Nantwich is such a lovely place it was worth all the troubles we endured to get here.

Thanks for reading

Merry Christmas

Love Janet and greg

© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj

NANTWICH CHESIRE

OUR SECOND HOME

We are spending Christmas and New Year’s Eve in Nantwich, England. This picturesque town in Chesire has become our second home as we have visited it several times, ever since Janet’s daughter married a boy from there and started her own family.

Sadly, my family is scattered and never able (or willing) to get together for the holiday, but over the passing years the melancholy has dissipated and has given way to a triumphant joy as I have embraced this new direction of my life. I look forward to seeing again all the “Dabbers”, as the citizens of Nantwich are called, that I have come to know over the years and, of course, the grandchildren.

Familiar are her streets and alleyways, her pubs, coffeeshops and smiles, her tidy homes fronted by prim and proper gardens and the leaning timbers of old Tudor edifices, and her magnificent cathedral that chimes out the day’s passing. There is so much to love here. 

Nantwich is our second home.

Thanks for reading!

Live love and travel, and Merry Christmas

Janet and greg

© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

WHEN YOU COME TO A FORK IN THE ROAD, TAKE IT

Team VFH official portrait

Robert Frost wrote the poem “The Road Not Taken” as a joke, ribbing his friend fellow poet Edward Thomas, who would always lament about not having taken the other road while out on their many walks together, thinking that if they had chosen the other way it would have better. People though read a lot into the poem. It was about choices in life and the effect it has on the future.

The late Beatles guitarist George Harrison wrote the song, “Any Road,” with the poignant line: “If you don’t know where you’re going / any road will take you there.”

The equally articulate catcher for the New York Yankees, Yogi Berra, renown for comically wise Yogiisms weighed in on this decision-making point of view once when giving directions to his house. When you come to a fork in a road, take it, he had said. He meant that either way was equally a good way of getting to his home. 

We here at VFH Central would like to give our take on this matter with our own sage advice. “Wherever you go, there you are”. That must mean something ponderous to some, but to us it simply means we’re happy. I mean, why worry?

NOT SLOWING DOWN

After a year of traveling that had us in the Canary Islands, Grenada in the Caribbean, Colorado and Fiji I was very happy to stay home for a while. I got to putter in my garden, harvesting hot peppers and making and bottling hot sauces.

But, Janet wasn’t finished and in October and November she had gone somewhere. Of course, I wasn’t invited to a lady’s week with her friends down in Hilton Head.  Lots of bike rides dodging alligators and afternoons lounging at the beach for her. In November she went to Austin Texas to visit a family member. I bought the airplane ticket for her as a birthday present.

I wiled my time alone with rides through the Pennsylvania countryside following the direction my cigar pointed me, and any road that it chose was just as good as the other.

TO ENGLAND AND BEYOND!

We are not done with this year though. Later this month we’re off to Nantwich (make sure you pronounce the “T”) for the Christmas holidays and New Year’s Eve. We’ve been there several times over the years, and it never gets old in Jolly Old England. I am looking forward to the trip...

ST. MARY'S NANTWICH

Sadly, because of COVID, American Airlines gave up the Philadelphia to Manchester route that was a major pipeline for us, and now we must fly to Heathrow then take another plane to Manchester. It's a short turnaround making that second plane, but Janet has done this before and assures me it's okay. 

Taking advantage of already being in Europe where intercontinental flights are cheap, we’ll not return directly to the USA after our visit. Instead, we’re flying to Budapest, Hungary for five days. Flights there from England are roughly $100USD on Ryanair. Currently the dollar is strong. It’s pretty much an even exchange with the Euro and when the British pound tanked back a few months ago and the exchange was JUST $1.09 to the pound we exchanged some money to have while there.

Hungary has the Hungarian Forint (HUF) which is .0026 to the dollar, but some of the guides we’ve hired to show us around Budapest will only take Euros, so we had to buy some of those. ATMs in Hungary spit out HUFs.

Thankfully Janet does all the detail work and I just get to see the sights.

Thanks for reading.

Love Janet and Greg

Merry Christmas and remember to LIVE LOVE and TRAVEL.

© 2022 by Gregory Dunaj