When we were kids our Caravan was at Pooley Bridge. From 1967-1983 the time taken to cross the A66 went from over 3 hours to around 2 hrs. Since then they've taken virtually all of the Single Carriageway bits out of the 66..theres only a few miles of Single left. I can do Travellers Rest to Ullswater in 1hr 25 mins now.

I'm often in Pooley Bridge by 8am, days walking, tea in pub, back home by 7.

I drag the journey out. Go to Middleton in Teesdale via Bishop and drive over the top to come out at Brough. Back via Penrith, Alston and down the Wear valley. Admittedly I do enjoy driving.

Did I mention North Wales

Yes with way too much passion.

He only goes there for bread.

The milk isn't warm enough.

Mr Colonel after re-reading this thread and your wants/needs/hates, I would recommend a week or 2 in Benidorm instead!!!!

Mr Bishop. Please do f uck off.

I cant think of many places I would less like to go.

Even the thought of travelling there with familes loded with about 10 kids and their smelly sweaty parents, swearing like common folk, singing Y Viva Espana, and then getting there and them with Their blothed backs and their cardigans and their transistor radios, complaining about the tea "oh they don't make it properly, do they? And stopping at endless Majorcan bodegas selling fish and chips and Watney's Red Barrel and calamaris and two veg. And sitting in their cotton sunfrocks, squirting Timothy White Suncream all over their puffy, raw, swollen, purulent flesh, 'cos they overdid it on the first day, and swimming pools full of draft Red Barrel and fat German businessmen pretending to be acrobats and forming pyramids and frightening the children and barging into the queues. And if you're not at your table spot on seven you miss your bowl of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, the first item in the menu of International Cuisine.

You seem to know the place far too well Mr Colonel!!!!1

PS best/funniest retort on the Bunker for yonks!

Agreed. Spain is a quarry.

Oh lordy, I'll be in Keswick that week. I wonder if I can cancel.............

Thankfully, either through work or holidays, it's one of the weeks I'm NOT in Cumbria!

Praise De Lord!

Cuba would be right up the Colonels street .

It depends where you go doesn't it?

I went to Spain with my parents when I was a kid as I got older travelled and saw the World and now I'm married with two kids under 5 the last two years we've been to Ibiza and Majorca for family holidays and I've really enjoyed both. The flight is only two and a half hours for a start which just about enough for small kids and if you choose the right resorts you see that both are beautiful islands with loads to offer. Similarly a week in Benidorm watching tattooed blokes in vests from Barnsley drinking John Smiths is my idea of hell but I'm not sure you can't call a full country a 'quarry' because of that.

Best holiday I ever had was a weeks walking in the Picos da Europe mountains in Asturias , Spain, beautiful landscape , beautiful food and lovely people.

Best holiday I had was in Guisborough eating REAL bread.

Holidays are like music, some people like shit ones.

And don't forget every Thursday night there's a bloody cabaret in the bar featuring some tiny emaciated dego with nine-inch hips and some fat bloated tart with her hair Bryll-creamed down and big arse presenting flamenco for foreigners

Looking to pop over for a day out with the kids (11 and 9) on Monday, anywhere in particular recommended?

yeh. Blackpool

Always pop in here when i'm over there.. and you can get a pint of Vodka and red bull at the black chicken bar for under 5 euro's Colonel .

Go to Pooley Bridge. Lake Ullswater. About 1hr 35 door-to-door. Take them on the Steamer, get off at Glenridding, have yer dinner, get back on Steamer back to Pooley. Have a paddle in the Lake, pint in the Garden of The Crown (kids can paddle there too) look round the gaff, come home! Great day out!

:Sounds like hell.

How much paddling do you think his 11 year old could stomach?

And you are disgrcae for encouraging him to drink and drive

won,t fly, seasick in the harbour at liverpool, alergic to garlic. i,ll carry on with crimdon dene.

In a nutshell, there is nowhere in The Lakes that would tick everyone of the Colonels boxes. That is what makes it so special and keeps the riff raff away. Long may it reign

It's all subterfuge, smoke and mirrors stuff. The Colonel protestest to much, ergo is Guilty of holidaying twice a year, once in Blackpool, and once in Benidorm!

Blackpool makes Benidorm look like the Maldives.

What a shithole.

In all honesty of anyone said to me they would pay for my Travel, Food, Beer etc and it would cost me nowt, I still wouldn't take them up on their offer for either of these places.

I stayed in Blackpool a good few years ago all paid for etc as I won a seat in a Poker Tourney there. Only problem was it was October/November or something and was even more dead than usual, and im sure the theme park place was shut.

Broke down on way home too and had to be towed all the way back.

Just wish I had broke down on the way there.

Agreed Blackpool is a shithole but were did you stay in Benidorm ?big place 1000 odd bars ..can only guess that you and pj didn't enjoy your stag do's.

Never been to benidorm, it's as much the people who go there as the place itself that puts me off. In fact probably more so.
They want a holiday somewhere like Blackpool but with sun, but they still want everything to be English and everyone else there to be mostly English. It's like Costa del UKIP.

Benidorm keeping away from the strip and going into the old town is a pleasant experience, going into the English area where the tv series is filmed is hell.


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I've been for stag do and enjoyed it for what it is and that type of weekend. It's a lot cleaner and tidier than I expected as well.

I wouldn't go on holiday there in a million years though.

Never understood why anyone would want to go to Benidorm. Surely you go away for a break from this shithole not to sit in British bars full of brits getting drunk.

Exactly, why not go to real and interesting places on holiday. People sat watching Coronation Street and bars putting the fact they serve 'real gravy' on blackboards outside to entice pikeys in like Susse...sorry customers in is just fucking depressing.

Lovely up at that San Jaime Church area in the Old Town..Poniente Beach if you don't fancy Levante.big place,easy to escape the rowdies.

If Malaguf in Majorca and San Antonio in Ibiza are more your thing PJ then hey ho.

Sounds ideal Phil, cheers!

Remember pools playing at Blackpool on Boxing Day 1984, we were back in B&B at 8pm, 10 of us playing bingo, £5 full house, everywhere was closed , it was dire.

first went to blackpool in its so called haydays. hated it then and since then its gone down and down. wouldn,t mind but it ain,t that cheap either especially if you,ve got kids. i know it gets a lot of stick but like morecambe. cheap and chearful and not far for a day out in the lakes or barrow.

Blackpool was okay until the 80s, when it seemed to sell out to , groups of people on the lash, rather than a family holiday. Last time I was there, was on way to Fleetwood couple seasons ago. Got off train at Blackpool and walked down to the seafront to get a tram. All the tatty , sleazy pubs in litter strewn streets in the usual Blackpool drizzle , advertising 2 for 1s and Strippers etc. Could of easily been in Benidorm, really tacky.