bonio's VirtualTourist Home Page

Hello,
Thanks for visiting, I hope you find something interesting.
I live in a small town in Northamptonshire, called Rothwell. It's about 70 miles from London and 60 to Birmingham, the nearest large town is Northampton, living here is ok but every chance I get, I'm gone!!

cheers!
Alan.

Here's what we did in 2007
Jan. Skiflying in Oberstdorf, (watching) special treat for Mrs Bonio.
March, The Belgian beer festival in St Niklaas then Mechelen and Antwerp
April, Hamburg. FC St Pauli and the Sea Devils home games also a Manfred Mann gig
May, Rimini, Italy
June. A week in Lithuania visiting Vilnius, Trakai and Kaunas
July. Maribor, Slovenia
Aug. Clacton - on - sea beer festival
Sept.Stuttgart and the Cannstatter festival
Oct/Nov A short visit to Dortmund and Köln to see a Waterboys gig then later to Hong Kong and hopefully on to Singapore, KL and perhaps Macau too.
Dec. A week in Bavaria, probably Munich and Regensburg visiting Xmas markets?

And plans for 2008 include.
Jan. 4 days on Sardinia
Feb. 3 days in Girona, Spain then a special treat - a trip to Vienna to a Neil Young concert.
March. Palma de Mallorca for a long weekend
April, Altenburg, Jena, Dresden and Meissen, Germany.
May / June. Altinkum, Turkey for a week, then Lou Reed performing "Berlin" in Nottingham, UK
July, The Viersen Bierbörse and then to Venlo, Netherlands.
Aug. The Pickering ( North Yorkshire) folk festival, The Waterboys are playing acoustic, a real treat for us, can't wait.
Sept. A week in Belgium
Oct. A first visit to the Isle of Man. Then Wembley to see the NFL game

As you see my job allows me 10 days off each month - hard work up to the holiday though, have to work 22 of 25 days....

Happy travels :-)

A weekend at the Viersen Bierbörse, then a short visit to Venlo in the Netherlands

Regular readers of my pages, if there are any, will notice that I always include at least one drinking establishment on my pages. I'm a long term member of CAMRA, the campaign for real ale. Hopefully I'll never find the perfect pint but many have come pretty close recently.
Current favourites -
Pride of Pendle brewed by Moorhouse in Burnley UK
Nottingham Nog by Alcazar in guess what...Nottingham UK
Edelstoff from the Augustiner brauerei Munich,
and a recent discovery - Gouden Carolus Ambrio from the Anker brewery in Mechelen, Belgium

Also I like to search out brewpubs or microbreweries wherever we are, the variation in beer styles is amazing, local beer is usually best don't you think?

take a look at this photo - that was my first beer of the day, honest, I look totally s**t faced don't I?

I've just discovered the works of Haruki Murakami, read the book, Kafka on the shore in a couple of days, excellent story and writing. Just started another of his, Norwegian Wood, so far so good - maybe I've found a new favourite authour.
Haruki Murakami website be warned, the music on here is very addictive.

Just re-read the book I had to study for my "O" level exam - Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, it's an excellent story, I'm sure I was too young to appreciate it in 1975, it was a double book, The end of the affair came with it, ..........stunning!

If I've visited somewhere and enjoyed it there will always be a mention. I'll rarely give anyting a bad write up if i've only visited the once, places can have bad days. If someting is truly appalling or more than one bad visit there is sure to be a report here though.