UK and Europe 2025, Day 5

Charming. The village of Buxton is just charming. I’ve been struggling with not liking Edinburgh as much as I expected. I’ve been thinking, “am I just not in the mood for travel? A little grumpy?” The answer is no. I just didn’t care for Edinburgh. How do I know? I am charmed by Buxton. Everywhere I look I love what I see. Lovely architecture, charming cafes, a lovely park with a stream running through it. Charming. And it’s cold and rainy and I don’t care! Happy to walk around in less than ideal weather to experience this little place.

A little aside: 20 years ago I was in London for six weeks studying Shakespeare and the Renaissance during grad school. I snuck away one weekend to attend a puppet festival here in Buxton where I saw my favorite marionette artist Stephen Mottram perform. The festival was fun and Stephen’s show was wonderful. I saw him perform here.

Today I’m here to go to another toy faire.

I had a great time looking at everything and had some great toy nerd conversations.

Still raining on and off, still loving the little town of Buxton I grabbed some pastries and headed back to the hotel to enjoy my breakfast. after I ate it was time to head to the train station so I could catch my train to Manchester.

The train station is the end of the Northern Train line. So there’s only one train to catch. Even the tiny little train station is charming.

Manchester Piccadilly station was a glorious cluster-f***. Confusion and delayed trains made the place chaos. Despite the chaos I managed to find my way to a crowded platform and get to the airport in plenty of time.

I hung out at Cafe Nero until I could check my bag (the only time I’ll be checking a bag on this trip…stupid Ryan Airlines) and then headed to the Escape Lounge to relax before my flight to Venice.

I’m still a little jet laggy so I managed to sleep a bit on the 2 hour flight. (I usually can’t sleep on a plane so this was remarkable!)

I took this water bus to the Rialto Bridge and had a lovely walk to my hotel arriving around 11:30pm.

I shared a chip with this bird in the video (which I think is illegal in Venice…? I am a rebel.) It then began shouting that it wanted more. Way to rat me out, bird.

I found a really good off season deal on this room and while the room is wonderful the view is what it’s all about for me.

Venus is one of my favorite places on the planet and I couldn’t be happier to get to spend some time here.

Spent some time on the phone with Mikey and then headed to bed.

Thanks for following along!