Best Holiday Ever

What was the best holiday you have ever been on?

SFC describe their most memorable holidays.

Mrs O’Mahoney

Apple Fairy Liquid. It’s the most unobtrusive scent. Except when it isn’t. I obviously hadn’t smelled it in years but when I got that whiff, I was transported a few hundred miles and several decades back to The Caravan. It wasn’t ours. It was Aunt Blanche and Uncle William’s. There it was, waiting for us, in the wettest county in Ireland.

I remember the squeeze in the car, sandwiched between two brothers with another sat upright and grinning in the boot. I don’t remember any luggage, no bags. Pop drove. Or, was it Granny? Anyway, there were three adults and four children all in shorts and t-shirts with goose bumped arms and knobbly knees. We kicked our trainers off in the car.

The campsite was briny, sandy, scratchy and spikey. I know this as I never did replace the trainers and all journeys thereafter were barefooted. Even the breeze was salty. Or sandy. A bit sharp anyway.

That raincoat did more than keep off the multidirectional rain. I tripped over a semi-hidden beach stone but I didn’t cry. You shouldn’t cry on holidays. A 99 ice cream was pushed into my plump hand. It dripped a little. I shivered. The cone offered some respite from the chilly mouthfuls. We all gasped walking up the hill. It wasn’t the gradient. The dunes fought our sinking ankles as the wind beat our eyes and mouths closed. The Caravan. It was there in front of us again though I didn’t recognise it. I would never have found it again on my own. Two big, slightly sweaty, palms grabbed mine and pulled vertically up. I instinctively pulled up my knees and was swinging in an unrehearsed response.

There were chips, all on one plate and sausages and chip-shop vinegar and later, as I fought to keep my eyes open to the sound of keepieuppies outside and the sight of evening sunshine streaming through threadbare curtains, there was the smell of Apple Fairy Liquid.

Mrs Scott

Machu Picchu - journeying by plane and train to the site of ancient Inca ruins. A ruined town hidden in the middle of the mountain range of the Andes in Peru. Llamas wander round photo bombing your images of this mystical place and it feels like you are Indiana Jones and have travelled to discover somewhere very special.

Mrs Wray

I know the answer should be France (because it is a fabulous country with a beautiful language) but my best holiday ever was in a log cabin in the mountains in Bregenz, Austria overlooking Lake Constance. The views were incredible, the people very friendly and I could pretend that I was Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music.

Mrs Tarr

Last year, we decided to go to Cornwall (again!) This time with a difference: no lazing and lying around. We walked for about 20km a day for 6 days around the southwest tip around Land’s End. With teenagers and a dog! By some miracle, we had 6 beautiful, sunny days. There was a bit of boot swapping and dog limping at times but very little moaning. Highlights were swimming in the sea pool at Mousehole and arriving at the Minack theatre for the show with seconds to spare.

It was definitely the most memorable family holiday we’ve had in years – I’m just not sure we’ll do it again any time soon.

Mr Brownlee

My favourite ‘holiday’ involved walking hundreds of kilometres across northern Spain to the fabled city of Santiago de Compostela. Walking the Camino de Santiago had been a long-term ambition, which I finally realised in 2019. Trekking on an ancient pilgrimage route in the company of fellow travellers (or peregrinos as they are called in Spain) from all over the world was a journey of rare and varied pleasures. Granted, it’s not everyone’s idea of fun but for me the simplicity of walking through some beautiful landscapes couldn’t be bettered. As Socrates put it: ‘He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.’ Bueno Camino!

My favourite holiday was after doing Camp America in California in my twenties. My husband and I explored the West Coast, sleeping in our travel car, dodgy motels and at friends’ houses, I had met at camp. We made incredible friendships, ate delicious food, did a sky dive and made wonderful memories. We’ve since been back with our little Leo and hope to make more magical memories with our growing family.

Ms Major

Best holiday ever was a trip to Brunei, Borneo and Malaysia. Staying with a friend who was teaching in Brunei at a British school, I was lucky to have someone who knew the places to act as a tour guide. We visited the rainforest, travelled by canoe on rivers, saw the sun rise and set over beautiful beaches and met so many friendly people. The highlight was visiting a family to join in their Eid celebrations- wonderful food and generous hospitality.

Ms Bryan

My favourite holidays are at my house in the south of France. There is so much to do there, that we never get bored.

We love going to all of the places along the coast, as well as going inland for some spectacular mountain views. Nothing seems very far from our village either, so we can go over to Italy, visit Monaco, Nice, Frejus and Saint Raphael, just depending on where ever we feel like going that day. It is always bright and hot there, so the spectral display of colours everywhere looks so much richer.

Our also cat loves going there and basking for hours in the sunshine. There are also lots of antique fairs to visit, where we love looking at old items and wondering about the stories behind them.

There is also a tennis club and a nice, large pool in our village, so that is always fun, where we can see our friends and family and have nice BBQs and get-togethers after.

It reminds me a lot of my childhood as well, as we spent our summers at our family cottage, so having another place to be able to live, especially in the summer, has always felt important to me and has made my holiday times perfect.

The one downside, to some comical extent, is that my house is almost at the top of the village, so when I want some exercise or to get to the tennis club, I walk down it quite easily, but the walk back up is not an easy one. Also, where I park my car is even higher up the village than my house, so I get a workout just getting to my car. In my opinion, my house is on a mountain, but the villagers remind me that it’s just a hill, especially in comparison to the Alps just behind us, but when I’m walking up to my house or up to the car, I have never been able to convince myself that ‘it’s just a hill.’

Overall, I feel very lucky that I can have the best holiday every time we go there, as it just seems to get better each time. My favourite holiday is skiing with the family in Courchevel, France - a combination of mountain air, an activity that all the Samples enjoy and some après-ski.

Mrs Rahim

My best holiday ever was a cruise on the Nile. It was like stepping back in time (and like stepping into an oven- I went in June!)- watching the people on the banks of the river work the land as they must have done hundreds of years ago. The tranquillity and serenity of gliding down the Nile was wonderful as were the ancient pyramids and tombs that I visited. Fabulous!

Mrs Wilson

My favourite memory of a family holiday was buying a huge, giant, inflatable dinosaur. We then hid the inflated dinosaur in the shower room, pretending to our children that the Pirates of the Island had to leave rather abruptly and had left them with the responsibility of looking after ‘Deeno’ the Dinosaur.

We even wrote a ‘pretend’ note, stained with coffee to age it, signed by the pirates! Deeno came everywhere with us for the next 10-days. I do hope they don’t read this now they are 13 & 16 years old and find out it was Mum and Dad!