If I'm not already on my travels I'm planning the next trip
According to the regional guide the area around the towns of Lammhult and Värnamo is known as the Kingdom of Furniture. Both towns are approx 70 km south of Jonkoping and about 40 km north of Almhult.
In Lammhult you can visit the showrooms of the following furniture makers and sellers:
In Värnamo you’ll find:
(header image copyright Boeing)
Crikey, it’s that time. Tuesday 29th August
A bit of last minute sightseeing today here in Seattle. We joined an organised tour to the Boeing factory in Everett just outside of Seattle. It was well worth it. Before our allocated time slot for the factory tour we took a look around the exhibit hall which includes a full sized 777 jet engine, a cross section of an 787 fuselage and various other parts of Boeing aircraft.
The factory operates 24 hours a day, with approx 20,000 people working in a single shift, most of which are in the main production facility which is the world’s largest building. We weren’t allowed to take cameras or phones into that building but frankly it would have been difficult to capture the vastness of the building. From overhead gantries we viewed the production line of the 747, 777 and 787 aircraft. You simply cannot get your head around the sheer size of the factory. With a floor area of 4.3 million square feet and a total volume of 472 million cubic feet, it swallows up large numbers of these large aircraft in their various stages of construction. If you ever have the chance to board one of these via steps instead of an air bridge only then can you appreciate their bulk. Looking down on a factory floor with four 747s in a line you suddenly start to appreciate how big the building actually is. Apparently all of Disneyland Florida can fit into the building with over 12 acres of spare space.
The afternoon we took a final look around some different parts of the city, first stop being the Amazon HQ. The company employs 25,000 people at its headquarters here in Seattle, and according to their website, 20% of them walk to work. The company continues to expand here in Seattle and is forecast to occupy 20% of available prime office real estate around the city. Amazon also wants to bring back some nature to the downtown area with the creation of some Eden-project like biomes called the Amazon Spheres.
Amazon are starting up their Amazon Go service here which promises to provide the next generation of retail experience. The focus is initially food, something the company is making a key priority moving forward. Only last week did they announce they have bought the Whole Foods Market group.
An evening packing for us tonight in advance of our flights back to Bristol via Schiphol tomorrow.
Monday 28th August
A relaxing day exploring more of Seattle. First stop was the Museum of Pop that is just a couple blocks from our hotel. A really good hands-on museum that has a focus on popular culture not just music. That said, the musical exhibits include a hands-on area where you can play many popular musical instruments in separate sound-dampened rooms. We played guitar, keyboards and drums, getting back into playing a full acoustic kit for the first time in ages.
Other areas devoted to the likes of David Bowie, a whole section dedicated to the history of the guitar and another charting the voyages of Star Trek and the USS Enterprise! A fun place and highly recommended.
After lunch we headed to the Seattle Museum of Art. This was another museum well worth a visit. Including many European, African and modern-day US pieces of art, the First Nation rooms were really interesting and gave much insight to the type of art we’ve seen a lot of here in the north west US.
We extended our walk to Chinatown which is in the far east of the city. Unfortunately it was really a disappointment. Hey ho…clearly we have high standards. Like Vancouver, we noticed a sudden change within one block of large numbers of homeless people, Chinatown appearing to mark the boundary. S commented that none of the homeless people we’ve seen on this trip appear to be Asian or African only, apparently, of US birth. This might say a lot for the family and community-minded culture of those other regions.
An early dinner tonight at a seafood restaurant down on the sea front. A bit touristy so not cheap but it makes a change from the more modest meals we’ve been having.
Sunday 27th August (written Monday 28th)
An early start this morning as we left our hotel in Victoria. The last early start of the trip and the last day of driving as we’re returning the car to Avis once we arrive in Seattle. The ferry was scheduled to depart at 6.10 am and we had to be there for customs / US border security an hour before. Thankfully, the ferry terminal was right in downtown Victoria, only 10 minutes drive from our hotel so we did manage to get a good night’s sleep!
Our ferry was the MV Coho, an ageing ferry that was built in 1959, almost as old as me! That said, it was in good shape, extremely clean and tidy despite its age, clearly the crew take pride in her. During the summer months she makes eight passages to and fro across to Port Angeles. By next week that’s down to six, and a month after that down to just two daily sailings across the Juan de Fuca Strait. The journey took just 90 minutes and in no time at all we were driving off the ferry and through the terminal town of Port Angeles. Two options for our drive to Seattle. One would take us all the way around the southern part of Elliot Bay via Tacoma or, the shorter option we took, via the Bainbridge Island Ferry. This state-run ferry offers fantastic views of Seattle as you approach the downtown area by sea.
So, we’re now without a car for the next few days. We managed to clock up just over 3,800 miles since leaving San Francisco! The car served us well and once out of the stop/go cities I managed to get the fuel consumption up to 38.2 mpg. I could achieve more in my Transporter but thankfully with cheaper fuel prices here it didn’t impact our budget too much.
We headed down to Pike Market for our first explore here. Wow, what an amazing place. Loads of fresh fish, flowers, fruit, tourist shops ..loads of things spread over three floors. My son got talking to a guy selling chopping boards and other wooden gifts. They were lovely and all made from recycled wood.
Next stop was taking the Monorail to the Space Needle which is close to our hotel. Like the Space Needle, it was built in 1962 for the World’s Fair that took place here in Seattle. It’s still running..a short journey but great to see it still in use since then. We went up the Space Needle for fantastic views across the city and beyond. Mount Baker could be clearly seen but Mount Rainier, that provides a backdrop to the city, was in smoke haze. Apparently more wild fires are causing this to the east of Seattle.
Dinner courtesy of Dick’s across the road from the hotel; we’ll be more adventurous tomorrow night!
Saturday 26th August
Probably one of our most relaxing days this trip today. Clear blue skies today with a high of 26 deg C but with overnight temperatures down to 13 deg C, you can feel a nip in the mornings. Winter is certainly coming although here in Victoria the winters are relatively mild. Today we drove through downtown Victoria and to the southern coast looking out across to the US.
We drove along the coast road that links the very desirable communities of the southern parts of Victoria. We then headed out to Ford Rodd Hill Park and Fisgard Lighthouse to the west of Victoria. The lighthouse which is still in active service was built in 1860 and the fort in the late 1800s. Part of the defences of the British Empire, the fort was extended in 1940 as part of defences for WW2.
We’ll be sad to leave Vancouver Island tomorrow. The whole island has so much to offer and we’ve hardly touched the surface of what is on offer. What fun it would be to live here. I can’t think of anywhere that offers such easy access to wild remote areas and yet be so close to all the conveniences of modern life. Maybe a place to come on holiday again one day.
Tomorrow we have an early start to catch the 6am ferry across to Port Angeles marking the end of our Canadian adventure. As our journey comes towards the end we seem to be taking things much slower. No long trips across the desert and no remote places. Hard to believe just 4 days left before we’re on our plane home. Hey ho!
Saturday 25th August
Yesterday morning we stayed around Victoria, doing a bit of present shopping and visiting the Parliament building. Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia and is the seat of the Province’s government. The Victorian era continues here in both architecture Queen Victoria’s name. The Legislative Building, built in 1897, sits overlooking the harbour and provides an attractive backdrop to the city’s modern buildings. We went inside for a short tour around the public areas of the building. A lot of history recorded on its walls by way of old photographs and maps. You could spend hours looking at them.
In the afternoon we headed to Fisherman’s Wharf for our whales boat trip run by Eagle Wing Tours.
We hadn’t visited Fisherman’s Wharf before so it was good to spend some time there before our trip. It’s a bit of a tourist trap but in the nicest possible way. On a busy day it could be a bit of a crush but we didn’t have a problem. In addition to shops and food outlets, the Wharf is also home to many house boats, a couple of them B&Bs.
Our whale watching trip took us out to the San Juan Islands midway between Victoria and Seattle. During the trip we came across several family groups of Orcas (Killer Whales), Sea lions and, on the way back, Bald headed Eagles.
A fab day. Lots of sea air – we slept really well!
Thursday 24th August
A drive through rush hour traffic this morning in order to get to the Tsawwassen ferry terminal for our 10 am crossing to Vancouver Island. We made good time and arrived just before the earlier departure left and got waved straight on board as they closed the gates behind us. It was a really lovely crossing, sitting out on deck watching Vancouver fade into the distance. It wasn’t long before we were weaving our way through the narrow channels of the Gulf Islands that surround the southern eastern part of Vancouver Island. We could spy many lovely homes on some of the islands, some island communities being large enough to have their own schools.
Once at Swartz Bay, we joined the convoy of cars coming off the ferry and headed south to Victoria. Rather than continue with them we turned off to explore the town of Sidney just south of the ferry terminal. What a find! A lovely un-rushed family-friendly town with a pier, coast path walks and even ‘Ask A Local’ volunteers that helped guide us to find whatever we needed. Lunch from a local bakery sat in deck chairs overlooking the sea. Perfect!
We then pressed on to Victoria and checked into our hotel. The hotel staff suggested walking along a foothpath/cyclepath into the downtown area, which we did. It was a really good suggestion, and helped us to orientate ourselves in our new surroundings.
Established in 1843 and named after Queen Victoria at a time when this area was British North America, the town certainly has a British feel about it. English-style public gardens, pubs and architecture help make this feel very much like home,
Wednesday 23rd August
Getting up to date with the washing was our first order of the day today. It certainly piles up, although it didn’t take long before we headed out for our last explore. We headed down to Granville Market, an area we passed by on our RIB tour last night. The market is a real gem of food stalls, fruit and veg shops and tourist shops. Several bakeries are located there, one, Bread Affair, providing lunch for us. We then hired a couple of water bikes and took them around False Creek for an hour. A friendly harbour seal followed us around for a while.
Tomorrow we are booked on a car ferry across to Vancouver Island. More follows!
Tuesday 22nd August
A busy day on the activity front. First stop Deep Cove for a 3 hour guided kayak tour.
It was a fab day for the paddle. Hot and sunny, clear waters, small group of just six of us and an interesting and knowledgeable local guide. We saw seals, star fish and cormorants during our paddle. Lunch was toasted sandwiches from a local bakery and we sat in the shade having lunch by the side of the cove.
In the afternoon we headed into downtown Vancouver for our trip around the harbour on a fast RIB. Awesome!
The trip lasted over 90 minutes and took in the busy harbour, English Bay, and False Creek. We explored areas we hadn’t see before which really helped our understanding of the area and places we could visit.
We splashed out for dinner dining at Cin Cin. Great food, highly recommended.
Monday 21st August
This morning we took our time leaving Whistler, stopping for the eclipse on our way down to Vancouver. The scenery was outstanding and about half way down the vista opened up as a wide estuary, actually correctly it is a fjord (shaped by a glacier), appeared on our right, getting wider and wider the closer we came to the city. One thing we noticed on the drive was that here in this area of BC, the road signs are in dual language English and First Nation. (In Alberta French was the other language). There are a lot of First Nation lands around the area and many of the visitor sights are First Nations related such as Siwash Rock here in Vancouver Harbour.
We checked into our motel and then took the Skytrain into the downtown area and found some lunch. Vancouver came as a bit of a shock to us. Having been in relatively small places for the past two weeks, the sight of so many people, wide roads and traffic jams took some getting used to. Also, Vancouver has a major homeless problem, so much so the mayor has said it has reached crisis point. In some areas they are lined up along the streets, trying to sell all kinds of things they have found. (Update: We later heard that we shouldn’t have ventured into the areas we did. They are literally the next street from the historic Gastown area so many tourists make the same mistake.)
Chinatown was a bit of a disappointment unfortunately. We think we were in the right area, certainly lots of Chinese shops, but nothing like the bustling Chinatown in San Francisco. We need to check this again.
Vancouver is a major deep water port as well as a busy recreational sailing and water sports centre. A host of float planes take visitors for a short flight around the bay. We opted inside for the cheaper option of going up the Vancouver Lookout for stunning views across the city and beyond.
