23rd May

Final day with RC Hazel Grove and they decided to take us for a tour on a double decker of the past! We drove all the way from Stockport to Manchester city and went to the transport museum. A fine collection of ooooold buses it was!

In the afternoon Robert Cryer and I went to the Lyme Park where the "Pride and Prejudice" series was filmed. The forest there is owned by the National Trust, there is a protected area for red deers and I got to take a photo of some of them.

In the evening Aris Tsalikis gathered us all for a barbeque night at his place. It was fantastic and we had the chance to talk to a lot of people in a more relaxed atmosphere.

22nd May

The whole team was taken by many members of the RC Hazel Grove to the Blue John cavern in Castleton. Did you know that no John was ever involved in the naming of the mines? It is a misinterpreted french "blue yellow" (bleu jaune) because those french miners discovered the blue-yellowish rock in that mines some hundreds years ago. Afterwards we went to the largest reservoir of the area, Derwent reservoir at the Peak District National Park in Derbyshire. Unfortunately the skies were pouring down and we could not enjoy a walk by the lake (yes, the lovely photo is "fake", I was not prepared to get my camera soaking wet!!!)

At night we had some delicious dinner in a Mediterranean restaurant with many members of the RC Hazel Grove. I think that Mediterranean cuisine tastes somewhat different up here!!!

21st May

Vasilis had another vocational day @ Cheshire Pet Medical Holmes Chapel. Panos and Zac had slightly a different day! Beeston Castle, Peckforton Castle (hotel actually). We visited Port Sunlight with the exceptional Lady Lever Art Gallery - that Lever guy had an awful lot of money to make such gifts to his wife!!!

Yet the best of this day was the joint dinner meeting at Deanwater Hotel. Both the greek and the english teams gave their presentations to the RC Hazel Grove. We were most pleased to hear that the english team had a great time in our country and found the greek hospitality to be unique. Jon spotted quite right two main cultural differences: our driving skills and our relationship to food!!!

20th May

Liverpool tour by the RC Jodrell Bank. Beautiful city (sorry Manchesterians but it is true). We got onto the yellow duckmarine, for an amphibian tour of an hour!!! We wandered around a little, saw a few shops in the Albert Dock area. Visited an exhibition about ships, world wars, and even practised in identifying the criminals in a port (talking about interactive museums!!).

Lusitania disaster in 1915: "The German Government claimed that Lusitania was carrying military supplies and there is some evidence to support this". Strange how different nations and countries change roles in less than a century... (the States, the UK and the rest of the "coalition of the willing" indifferently whistle here)...

The Slavery Museum was astonishing, I was left speechless: "It tells how Europeans have benefited from slavery". Made me wonder whether contemporary people are free at all or is it that slavery still exists in a more diverse and entrenched form.

19th May

Vocational day. Vasilis visited Wilson MacWilliam's practice.He attended many operations and learnt a different technique in cruciate ligament's repair. I visited Tarporley Health Centre with Nicky Wallace who is a nurse practitioner, a profession non-existent in Greece. Afterwards I went to Warrington General Hospital where I met the Early Intervention in Psychosis Team, led by David Hindley. Andrew Wallace took me to some racing grounds, Oulton Park, where I saw some very fast racing motorbikes. In the evening we gave our presentation at the Rising Sun pub, the place where RC Tarporley attends their meetings. The room was overcrowded (I would say that our presentation has become very popular in the UK - we may start as well thinking of issuing tickets!!!) but everyone was very friendly and we had a great evening overall.

18th May

Tarporley. New RC for this week. We went to North Wales, passed the Bodnant Gardens and saw some different villages and places. Unfortunately the weather was not so good. The Great Orme must have been the most windiest place I have ever been and the altitude was just 207m above sea level. Great scenery but don't ask me what the names of the villages were, I could not even read it, let alone remember them... Ll's and dd's, it's all greek to me!!! Here we go: Aqueduct of Y Waun, Coedwig Gwydyr, Betws y Coed, Y Gogarth, Llandudno, Conwy. I hope I got it all down right!

15th-17th May

In the morning we had a guided tour to the city of Nantwich, the host city of the week. We then had lunch and departed for Chester, where we stayed in a 3-star hotel near the train station, no more than 5 minutes on foot from the centre of the city. Lovely city with nice shops. Vasilis and Panos paid their dues to the local market indeed! We had the time and weather permitting we walked all the way round the city on the walls (some parts from the roman period some parts quite new -17th century). Nightlife was much of a disappointment for the Greeks though. Rb's ("rosie's"), Watergate, Havana, Level 2, poor quality sound, very few people in the bars, lots of stoned youngsters in the streets. We thought that Cruise could be somewhat different, but unfortunately we weren't "smart enough" and did not pass the face control!!! Shame on you!