I went to Alton Towers this week! I haven't been in a long, long time, and I'd completely forgotten how beautiful the whole park is. The towers themselves are a wondeful old listed building (which happens to house their haunted house, although it was closed when we went - shame), and the parks and lakes around the rides are all lovely. If you walk through to the forbidden valley you end up walking along a winding forest trail which wouldn't be out of place in a nature resort. Awesome stuff. The rides are great too! I went to Thorpe Park a while back and loved Stealth, so I was really excited about seeing what Rita could do. It has a bit more going on than Stealth, but as a result the speed of it doesn't seem as important. They actually use identical technology. Air is a really cool idea. The ride hoists you up so you're headfirst just before it starts, so you're staring at the floor (and the sky) throughout the ride. It's a really fun ride but the speed doesn't quite match up to Rita. Blue Peter did a pretty cool feature on it, as it happens. It's only an hour and a half's train from London to Stoke-on-Trent - the journey was relatively pleasant, compared to the crack-of-dawn car trips I remember. I really, really want to stay at the Alton Towers Hotel now. And go to the water park. If only I had money to burn. My relationship is a year old now! According to Wikipedia, this makes it a toddler. Alton Towers was our anniversary trip! We also went to the absolutely stunning Boxwood Cafe. Still trying to get to a Michelin Star restaurant, but this one was amazing all the same. I had the veal, Kristy had the chicken. The chocolate fondue was very, very nice, and very, very rich. Good stuff.