Travellers tales

 

Shirley and Alfred were great travellers. Shirley demonstrated her wanderlust and independence of spirit early on, by cycling to Brittany  (Brittany, 1947 ) - against her father's wishes - with two friends as soon as travel restrictions were lifted after World War Two.

 

While she loved international travel, Shirley also had a great love for the history, landscape and architecture of the British Isles. Finding and staying in a comfortable B&B in the heart of the countryside, preferably near a cathedral city (she was very knowledgeable about the great English cathedrals)  or stately home, was at least one of her ideas of heaven. For every city, town and village she visited, she would buy  - preferably beforehand -  a guidebook and map, and she would plan out her trip making a list of and making notes on the places she intended to visit. 

 

Needless to say, any question about exactly when and where she travelled, whether with Alfred, with the family, by herself, or where any of us travelled at any time for business or pleasure, could be answered by referring to the detailed list (detail, bottom right) she made starting with her honeymoon in 1948 and ending in 2012 with her last trip to Israel for her grandaughter Noa's wedding.

 

The countries she and Alfred visited together included: Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Cyprus, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece,  Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel (almost every year from the late 1960s), Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malta, Morocco, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, USA, Yugoslavia.