Christmas 2023 – Sights & Sounds Of Sainte Maxime, France

Christmas/New Year greetings from Sainte Maxime  (pronounced ‘Maksim’), located here on the Mediterranean Sea in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region in Southeastern France. We’re located in the French Riviera (Côte d’Azur), 90 km (56 mi) south-west from Nice and 130 km (81 mi) north-east from Marseille, and about a 20/30 minute drive from Saint Tropez or about 15-minutes in catching the ferry the runs between both towns. Sainte Maxime boasts  a population of ...

Doing It Tough On Tour – Visiting Lochranza Distillery & Visitor Centre.

It was a great way to celebrate one’s birthday – visiting the Lochranza Distillery & Visitor Centre on the Isle of Arran. The centre, and open 7 days a week, is owned by the award winning Isle of Arran Distillers Ltd, is situated in the beautiful village of Lochranza at the north end of the Isle of Arran. We had arrived on Arran a few days earlier and enjoyed playing golf at Whiting Bay and Shiskine golf clubs, so what a wonderful offical last stop before boading the ferry and returning ...

It’s Christmas Day, The Golf Club Is Closed But You Still Had To Wait Ages To Tee-Up

I was looking at some of the latest golf-related stories the other day when I came across this article: ‘Should You Play Golf on Christmas Day?” It quickly took me back decades when my brother, Steve and I used to play golf on Christmas Day, and in those years when we were first getting into the deep end in playing golf. We grew-up in the lower North Shore region of Sydney.  Our father, Terry, was the first in the family to play golf.  He joined the 9-hole Castlecove Country Club course, ...

Roganstown Hotel, Golf & Country Club – From A Family Farm To Irish Parkland Golfing Gem

Golf fans around the globe know that Ireland is famed for some of the best links courses on the planet. Courses such as Royal Portrush, Royal County Down, Castlerock, Portstewart, Rosapenna, Enniscrone, Donegal, Portsalon and Ballyliffin in the north and north-west to the likes of Waterville, Ballybunnion, Dooks and Tralee in the south-west where there right there on the virtual front doorstep of Dublin is the likes of Portmarnock, Royal Dublin, The Island and then my favourite a little to the south, ...

Whiting Bay Golf Club – Three Centuries Of Isle of Arran Golf

The late 1890s was a great time for the birth of golf on the Scotland island of Arran. Arran remarkably boasts six golf courses founded within 11 years of each other, and up to the dawn of the 20th century. They include – Lamlash (1889), the 9-hole Corrie (1892), Whiting Bay (1895), Shiskine (1896), Brodick (1897) and the 9-hole Machrie Bay (1900). Six years later in 1906 the six clubs got together to form the Arran Golfers Association. Our first introduction to golf in Arran was visiting The ...

Arran – A First Visit To This Unique Scottish Isle.

A first visit to the isle of Arran. Yes, after many visits to Kintyre and the Outer Herbrides we are heading to Arran, an island off the west coast of Scotland. It is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde and the seventh-largest Scottish island, at 432 square kilometres (167 sq mi) and located just 90-minutes by ferry from the mainland at Ardrossan to Brodick. Though culturally and physically similar to the Hebrides, it is separated from them by the Kintyre peninsula and where we were headed after ...

Honfleur – Lovely French Town Where The Seine River Meets The English Channel

Honfleur is a lovely-looking city in the department of Calvados, in northern France’s Normandy region. Founded by Vikings in the 800s, Honfleur has served for centuries as a port for trade and travel. The town is located on the estuary where the Seine river meets the English Channel. The Church of St. Catherine (see You Tube video), dates from the second half of the 15th century, replaced an older stone church which was destroyed during the Hundred Years’ War. The Vieux-Bassin (old harbour), ...