Fratton to Anywhere

Journeys Across Europe and Beyond

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  • Paris, Nîmes and the Cévennes

    Paris, Nîmes and the Cévennes

    Spending three weeks in France might seem an ambitious trip to undertake on one’s own but I had planned it to test everything about travelling to see how I’d actually cope on a holiday without Sarah. 

    The first week was to be spent in Paris, a city I love but any sightseeing trip there has to be carefully planned, mostly, with tickets needing to be bought in advance, routes planned and itinerary arranged, so there should be very little scope for ad hoc activities that might have required a discussion were I not alone. The next week I was to travel south, down to Nîmes. This part of the trip was to be all about relaxing, more obviously relying on my own company, and taking in a few sights of this very Roman city, and then the antidote to that; the last few days spent in the countryside of the Cévennes was about meeting up with friends for a few days before coming home.

    Day One

    Having decided to catch a slightly earlier train than initially planned, I left home at 10am and trundled my case down to the station, pausing only for a quick chat with Sharon on the way. Once the train pulled in and I alighted I found myself in the Quiet Zone of the 10:41 train to Waterloo which turned out not to be quiet at all; one woman moved three times to get away from overly chatty people. The onward trip to St Pancras was as straightforward as ever; Bakerloo to Oxford Circus, Picadilly on to St Pancras which was quite crowded for a Wednesday lunchtime. While I got myself some refreshment it became increasingly clear there was a problem, confirmed by announcements every so often that the French passport control system had developed a fault and so they couldn’t process anyone until it was fixed. Mild panic took over sections of the station, the queues for earlier trains got longer and the crowd edging around the entrance got larger. Too many people still don’t realise that these days they will have a set check-in time for their train so, despite only two trains being open (and queueing because of the fault) it was staggering the number of people trying to check in for later trains who then gathered round, getting in the way and being a real nuisance instead of just wandering off for a while or getting another coffee. I was happy to wait and watch; it was still an hour before my train would be called anyway. By now it was obvious that the queue consisted of two trains worth of passengers waiting for the French to get their act together. Finally the queues snaked forward and eventually our train was invited to join it. After an unseemly rush our line snaked around what felt like the whole station, with people doing that fast walk that’s just short of running to get in the queue as quickly as possible even though everyone has a ticket and a dedicated seat so there’s no need to rush at all.

    As it turned out, thanks I think to being boarded almost as soon as getting through security, our train left only five minutes late and arrived bang on time in Paris. The journey was as smooth as ever and especially comfortable in Eurostar Plus where I also had the pleasure of a half decent meal and glass of wine. I might need to rethink my seat next time as carriage 1 is furthest from the exit at Gare du Nord so it was quite a walk to the station hall and on to Metro line 5, through the barrier where I wrenched my arm last time here. However, it’s thankfully not far, albeit on a packed train, to République where I emerge, not into the forecast thunderstorm but to a bright, if cloudy, sky and a noisy pro-Palestine demo.

    My Hotel, the Meslay République, was easy enough to find and the receptionist very friendly. My room is clean and tidy, and the décor though clearly new was still a little stylistically dated. Both twin beds still in situ meant the room seemed smaller than perhaps it was. What wasn’t an illusion was the smallest bathtub I’ve ever used.

    Dinner was at “Mon Coco” across the Place de la République. Busy, noisy and quite a young clientele, I had a large beer and eventually a fairly good steak before strolling around the square back to the hotel and the football on iPlayer.

    Day Two

    Today was all about walking, over five miles in the end – no wonder my feet hurt. 

    I got up really early, for me, and had a nice simple breakfast. Not €12 worth, but there will be other days. I wandered vaguely in the direction of the Pompidou Centre but it wasn’t going to be open for hours so I kept going, visiting Tour Saint-Jacques and the Rue de Rivoli before turning back into the Marais and an hour later finding myself at the entrance to the Musée National Picasso Paris. Entry was €16 and worth it for the fairly extensive collection, most of which had remained in the artist’s possession until he died. After leaving there, I stumbled across a very different museum nearby; that of the Musée Cognacq-Jay, the private collection of the 19th century owner of one of Paris’s premier department stores that was left to the nation upon his death – lots of Boucher style, very French, paintings in a reconstruction of a suitable house of the time. Free, and very worth seeing.

    I grabbed a quick café allongé and Linzertorte at the traditional Jewish deli – Florence Kahn – before seeking out the Carnavalet Museum nearby. This is the Museum of Paris and is very extensive in both scope and content – possibly the best free museum in the city, and probably in the top five of all museums here. I learnt a lot more about the French Revolution than I knew and even more about Paris (and by extension, France) in the Nineteenth Century. Before leaving, I indulged in lunch of croque mademoiselle in the museum café and some time resting my now very sore feet. My slight calf strain not helping either, but I did manage to avoid a very sharp downpour while solving the day’s Wordle.

    Next, a return visit to Place des Vosges and the Maison Victor Hugo. Some commercial art galleries line the otherwise lovely square but most of these were a bit brash and tawdry, aimed perhaps at the well-off tourist in reality. Maison Victor Hugo is worth visiting and not very big so it doesn’t take much out of your day. I was going to have a wander around the Place de Bastille but another shower found me ducking into the metro for a round trip home.

    The eastern end of Metro Line 5 terminates at Place d’Italie from where you can catch Line 6 back to the centre. Much of this line is above ground, which is interesting in itself and also gives you one of the best views of the Eiffel Tower (sit on the right) as it passes. A change a Trocadero to Line 9 takes me back to République and “home”. It’s been quite a day, I’m tired and frankly parched  so a very large beer in the bar around the corner is most welcome before a late afternoon snooze back in my room. After which, maybe two hours later, I eventually dragged myself out for food and here’s a confession; I settled on a Macdonald’s but (mitigation) purely because they were advertising MacPoutine (I’m not sure they called it that) and I was intrigued. I’m sure it’s a pale imitation of the real thing but O, Canada! If the real thing is even slightly better than this corporate behemoth can offer then it is truly a dish to be proud of. Also, the Big Mac was significantly better than those on offer in the UK. By the time I get back to the hotel I can only muster enough energy for a dip in the tiny bath before bed.

    Day Three

    I don’t know what it is about holidays but I’m up very early again. Sadly today I awake to the news that my friend Rachael has succumbed to her cancer which puts a damper on the day. However, the morning is scheduled to be spent at the Musée d’Orsay which will be a very suitable place to lift the spirits for a while. I catch the metro down to Concorde and cut through the Tuileries to the footbridge across the Seine to the Quai d’Orsay and the museum. I’m early, of course, so waste some time sitting on the steps doing ‘my games’ including failing at Wordle – GOFER ffs! I join the short queue at 10.15 – no-one seems to care that it’s 45 minutes earlier than my ticket is for. It’s not overly crowded inside until you get to the impressionists’ section and especially the Van Gogh room, where everyone seems to have rushed to. There is so much more to the gallery but most people only seem interested in the “hits”.

    I have a light lunch there but as I’m leaving I manage to give my dodgy calf a good (i.e. bad) tweak so the rest of the day is all about hobbling. Invalides, the now very appropriate venue for the afternoon, is not far under normal circumstances but it takes an age to limp there. It also means I only have the energy to visit the tomb of Napoleon rather than the whole Musée de l’Armée which might have been interesting. Invalides itself is massive and quite a distance from the river, even further to the entrance to the spectacular mausoleum housing Bonaparte’s remains. By the time I’ve seen it I’m very tired and very sore.

    Thankfully the nearest metro goes directly back to République without changing. Sadly the Paris metro is almost entirely lacking in escalators so it’s several flights of steps to hobble up and down before reaching République where I seek out a pharmacy for some support bandage and, at the suggestion of my daughter, some orthotic insoles which they have. Then, while having a beer and a club sandwich at a nearby café I spy a sports shop across the square where I decide to buy some proper walking trainers and some tiger balm. Not feeling like finding a restaurant I get a snack tea from the supermarket and retire to my room for the night.

    Day Four

    Day four is Louvre Day and I don’t need to be up too early but when I am awake I realise I haven’t been sent my ticket. A couple of texts later and it arrives over breakfast. It’s not far to the Louvre really, just one change of metro, but my calf is still not great and Bastille metro station is massive so it’s a long way between platforms. I finally get to the Louvre in good time, passing the queues for tickets in the shade of the building and joining the queue with 11am tickets in the open sunshine by  the pyramid. It’s only about half an hour in the end before I can enjoy a good hobble around the art. Once away from the crowds milling to see ‘you know who’ I had a great couple of hours in the so-called minor areas on the upper floors before finding myself in Nineteenth Century French art and the crowds around the Gericault and Delacroix. I then took a deep breath and braced my self, for it also had to be done, to brave the Italian Renaissance wing and see all the great works on the way to and from La Joconde. I’ve calmed down a lot from all the texts I was sending the family at this time, but really! I then went to pay my respects to the Venus de Milo, whose shear beauty can still make me shed a tear or two. In a side gallery on the way, there was the finest Attic Red Figure vase I’d ever seen – I don’t think any of the crowd streaming past for the Venus noticed it at all; their loss.

    I was by now really tired of standing and walking and needed desperately to sit in the  park with a drink and something sweet. Before leaving (via a surprising underground shopping centre I swear wasn’t there last time), I bought a stupidly heavy book from the gift shop before heading out into the Tuileries in search of that refreshment; it was mid afternoon by now and my lunch in the gallery a distant memory. I found a shady table in one of the cafés and after being moved from that table for four (that no-one sat at in the hour I was there) to a more appropriate (in their eyes) table for two, enjoyed an apple clafouti and Breton cider. I did think about visiting the Orangerie for a Monet fix but the queue was halfway to Concorde so I wandered off, through the fairground to the Rue de Rivoli and then up towards Vendôme, which has to be THE most exclusive square for shopping anywhere. I hopped on the metro at Opéra and back to the hotel. Dinner later was at Bouillion around the corner; a decent terrine and OK veal, but a nice restaurant.

    Day five

    Le Tour finishes in Paris today; a fact I was unaware of when booking this trip and only became aware of after having my Louvre booking moved and noticing a Facebook post about how the race was climbing Montmartre for the first time in years. Even so, I wasn’t sure I was going to make the effort to watch the race, especially with my leg the was it was. The stage itself was not due to start until 4pm and wouldn’t reach Paris for a couple of hours after that, meaning there would be plenty of time beforehand to other things before I’d have to decide.

    First up I decided to visit Pére Lachaise cemetery today instead of Tuesday as planned, leaving Tuesday to Montmartre if I fancied it. It wasn’t too sunny but it was close. Once I arrived, instead of studying  the map, I just meandered around the graves and tombs getting a feel for the place but soon enough came to another map and decided to properly get my bearings. The grave of Oscar Wilde seemed to be about the furthest from where I started so I headed off up the hill with the idea of working my way back down via some of the other famous graves. It was quite a climb to the other side and Oscar but I made it and after waiting for a tour group to finish, paid my respects. Google maps turned out to be a great help once I’d zoomed right in – many of the famous graves were clearly marked – and, after passing large memorials for all the murdered of each Nazi death camp, I soon found myself at the grave of Edith Piaf. Working my way around past Modigliani, Balzac, Sarah Bernhardt, Pissarro, Jim Morrison and many others I ended up at the tomb of Eloise and Abelard by which time I was back at the gate. The nearest Metro station was on the same line as that nearest to the Pompidou so it seemed a good idea to go back there now it would be  open. Sadly, however, when I arrived and after going through the rigmarole of security I discovered, after depositing my stuff in a locker and only peripherally noticing the apparent emptiness, that because of a refurbishment program, the only part of the whole place that was open was a Tilmans photo exhibition which at €17 was a lot to ask so I left.

    Mimi had put me onto an exhibit at the Borse de Commerce on the other side of Les Halles to where I was, so not too far away. I purchased a timed ticket from the machine and joined the short queue. It wasn’t long before I could go in. The main attraction was a large round pool in the middle of this rotunda upon which  were floating a large number of different sized porcelain bowls being gently propelled around by a slight current and chiming as they collided. It was mesmerising. There was quite a bit else to see but I needed some lunch first. The gallery “café” turned out to be among the poshest I’ve ever visited and I had a wonderful meal for a pretty reasonable price.

    Ultimately I decided I would go and see if watching Le Tour was feasible and after a long walk down the Rue de Rivoli and a small shower I eventually found a space near the Madelaine right by a corner where I would get a good view. Eventually the race reached us – every time you see them you forget how fast they go – huge cheers as they sped past towards Montmartre and again as they sped back in more and smaller groups. As they came back the second time it started to rain properly so I left but it took ages to find an open metro. Crossing the road had to be achieved via an underground car park without which I’d have been walking for hours soaked to the skin.

    Day six

    Today I’m  booked in to see Sainte Chappelle (and the Concierge – it’s a joint ticket) but have been unable to get a timed entry ticket to Notre Dame (which has only recently reopened). After the usual breakfast, I’m off down to Chatelet on the metro which is one of the biggest stations going. After what seems like miles of tunnels and countless stairs I’m eventually spat out on Rivoli and make my way to the Isle de la Cité and join the queue about 40 minutes ahead of my entrance time. It’s well worth the wait; the stained glass is really as impressive as all the photos suggest. The Concierge is less impressive but has a rich history which became more interesting as it got to the revolution and the imprisonment of Marie Antoinette. Her cell is now a chapel, unused again, and it tells her story and that of other women affected by and involved in the revolution (e.g. Charlotte Corday) very nicely.

    The queues outside Notre Dame are off-puttingly long so I continue with my plan to explore the two Seine islands for the day.

    First I head to the furthest end of Cité and the Pont Neuf and find myself in the delightful Place de la Dauphin where I enjoy a lovely early lunch of beef carpaccio and a well-earned Pastis to the soundtrack of a couple of petanque matches going on at the fat end of this triangular square. Then hobbling (still) the length of both the Isle de la Cité and Isle St Louis before resting a while in the small park at the other end. It really is worth taking the time, even with a dodgy leg, there’s lots to see, plenty of interesting shops and bars and, if you’re lucky, you might see a man walking his cat. Passing the former residence of Charles Baudelaire and its extravagant down pipes I cross back to the right bank and wander along looking at the green box book shops – the Bouquinistes – that were open, buying a couple of small gifts before I got back to the Louvre.

    As I walked along, the idea of an afternoon on the river began to appeal. Sarah would have loved it. There’s much to choose from but the ‘Batibus’ is as good as any if you don’t need a running commentary. It’s a hop on / hop off boat that goes to all the major sites on the river – €23 for 24 hours – and as I  didn’t fancy one of the much more crowded Bateaux Mouches, it seemed ideal. Approaching two hours later I got off at the stop marked Concorde which in reality was right by the Grand Palais and a good 250m from the Place de la Concorde itself. Still, my leg is starting to benefit from walking in my new shoes so it’s back to Concorde, back to République, back to the hotel.

    Day seven

    The last time Sarah and I were in Paris we stayed in Montmartre in a quaint little hotel built in what appeared to once have been the garden of Theo van Gogh. We must have passed the Café des Deux Moulins as featured in the marvellous film “Amelie” several times without noticing. Today I had breakfast there.

    It was a very poignant day all round but also one that  was more relaxed than the others. I spent the day. wandering around the Butte taking  it all in again. After breakfast passing the shop of M. Collignon and down to the funicular up to Sacré Coeur (of course), following the footsteps of Amelie Poulin as well as our own. I was saddened to see the people selling locks for the  fences around the basilica and then saw the very long queue to get into Sacré Coeur itself in the now hot sunny late morning so I wandered on, past the pharmacy who cured my cold last time and stopping for a pastis at a very busy bar before taking a turn around the main ‘artistic’ square where the tourists are fleeced of their hard earned by some of the most ordinary, indeed often just bad, art on offer.

    Turning another corner I led myself to the Montmartre museum which  is a delightful oasis in all the chaos of tourist season, even with a noisy school party. The standing exhibit was as remembered but the other part held an extensive and fascinating exhibit of the work of Maximilien Luce as well as the studio of Suzanne Valodon. Just as I turned into the final room there was a crashing noise as the shade of one of the lights had fallen off, missing all the displays and the woman in the room ahead of me, thankfully. After letting the staff know of the incident I had lunch in the attached café of a lovely smoked salmon bagel with lentil salad and very reasonable glass of rosé.

    The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering, no particular purpose, finding new sights, remembering old ones, until my calf hurt more than it had all day and I headed back down Rue Le Pic to Blanche and home. Once refreshed and hungry I popped across the road to the Italian restaurant opposite which turned out to be excellent fare before returning to pack my bags for the journey south in the morning.
    Paris has once again delighted, even on my own, but I did feel it would have been nicer to share it with another. Maybe next time.

    Day eight

    Travel day.

    Settled up at the hotel handing over another €150 for six breakfasts and the city tax. Decided in the end to take the metro to Gare de Lyon and regretted booking such a late train but found a seat by the piano as a young woman went through almost her entire repertoire so at least I was entertained. The call for the train to Avignon came eventually and after a trek down the platform I found my single seat in first class (because why not?), amusing those around me by failing to link my earpods to my phone so they had to listen to two minutes of “I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue” before they said anything. I listened to the rest of the programme and another podcast before spending  the rest of the time looking out of the window – it’s a pretty interesting landscape around that line past Lyon.

    At Avignon I disembarked, grabbed a sandwich from the Relay shop and got on the local train to the main station in good time to make my connection to Nîmes. I was probably half way there before I realised that my ticket only took me as far as Nîmes Pont du Gard – a considerable distance from Nîmes Centre. I assumed I’d have to catch a local train into town but the train I was on did stop there making me wonder why my ticket only went so far. Probably my fault in booking. I decided that as my ticket had already been checked and the train was pretty full, I’d risk just staying on to the right stop and plead ignorance if someone checked. They didn’t and I walked out of the station into the full glare of the afternoon sun and 30º+ of heat. The flat I had rented was a full fifteen minute walk from the station and despite a fair amount of shade, it was a real slog dragging my now much heavier case (remember the book from the Louvre?) with my improving but still sore calf.

    Romain, the owner, had sent me a phone number for Nicolas; the guy managing the flat and who lives on the top floor of the block, but it was a digit too short so it took a couple of calls to Romain to sort it out before Nicolas bounded down the stairs and carried my heavy case up three floors to a very smart apartment. He thought I was arriving an hour later so while I went to a nearby Carrefour City for basic supplies, he finished cleaning the floors. I made myself a very passable pasta dish and collapsed in for an early night.

    Day nine

    Aside from a shopping trip to the very good market at Les Halles, the highlight of today was doing the laundry and lounging about. I deliberately put today aside as a do nothing day after my Parisian exertions but I roused myself enough to make a nice salad niçoise while listening to the cricket commentary. Back to the tourism tomorrow!

    Day ten

    A proper tourist day. First stop the tourist office who were very helpful and where, despite many things being free on the first Sunday of the month, I bought a four day city pass because of the flexibility it would provide. The proximity of Arles begs a visit and the lovely people at the office found me a bus to take me there so I will be going tomorrow.

    The pass was well used today – firstly the excellent Roman museum which is spacious and well laid out allowing the visitor to follow the story of Roman Nîmes with a clarity seldom  seen elsewhere. It also has a nice garden. There was some building work around the area and  I couldn’t find the bullfighting museum so ended up at the Musée des Beaux Arts. This is your standard city art gallery, nothing exceptional and not very big but it is nicely curated and it’s worth the short time it takes to visit.

    The building that dominates the centre of Nîmes is the Arena or amphitheatre, one of the most complete such structures still standing. The day was heating up but a lot of the Arena is obviously out of the direct sunlight so as I was right there (enjoying a beer in a bar opposite) I thought it was an opportune moment to visit. The corridors around the arena are somewhat labyrinthine and the signposting is not always as helpful as it might be, I think some of the directional signs must have been missing, but it’s still a very impressive building, still used for occasional events. By now the earlier beer was becoming an issue but on finding the lavatory shut I had to hold on a bit longer! After buying a little glass crocodile for the souvenir shelf, I got some lunch of Caesar salad followed by ice cream doused in the local liqueur before moving on, back to the area around the flat.

    The Carré d’Art is a really good looking modern art museum, designed to reflect the next door Maison Carré; the most intact Roman temple. The Carré d’Art is light and airy and has some interesting displays which I think are not permanent but the main focus does appear to be something the French are very keen on; a multi-purpose modern art building for studying art with lots of very well used library and study areas as well as excellent exhibition spaces. Had to follow the footsteps of Alice Roberts up to the terrace café for a Badout Red and a great view.

    The Maison Carré itself is most impressive from the outside, but the inside is entirely bare and given over to an exhibition of its history. I’m not sure the entry would have been justified if not part of the City Card. By now I’m more than tired so a quick visit to the the Carrefour again before going home for the evening.

    Day eleven

    Arles. Got to the bus station early and found the stand easily enough and waited. Handed over my €2 coin on embarkation and it wasn’t long before we were in the busy market day Arles’ traffic. To be fair, it is a huge market, in the middle of which is the tourist office where I was given a QR code for a self guided walk following the sites associated with van Gogh which I sort of followed, not in the right order as it turned out but hey.

    Arles is pretty shabby, especially compared to Nîmes, but I think some of the time it’s a studied shabbiness. The places Vincent painted are marked with information “easels” showing the appropriate painting alongside the text including where the Yellow House isn’t (see picture), the Rhone for one of the starry night paintings, and the hospital he stayed for a while which is now a chic little square. One of the squares he painted is now full of restaurants and cafés where I persuaded the waitress to allow me a table and one of the last servings of oysters for lunch. After thoroughly enjoying the local and Carmargue oysters, I wandered a bit further, found the Musée Reattu a very interesting art gallery for a hour or so, before arriving back where the market was no more.

    By now it was late afternoon but the bus back to Nîmes wasn’t for another couple of hours so I decided to go to the station where, if there wasn’t a train, the buses also ran from. Thankfully there was a train which saved me an hour of waiting but cost €9.50 more so swings and roundabouts.

    Day twelve

    Up reasonably early and after what has become my usual breakfast here I’m out before the sun bakes the day too hard for I’m going to climb up to the Tour Magna- a big old Roman tower on top of a hill to the north end of town. It’s approached through parks and gardens, attractive with water features and colonnades, statues and grotto-like features and rising through a combination of steps and slopes. I’ve remembered my water bottle this time.

    The climb is fairly arduous for an unfit old git like me but I stop and drink frequently and come across the tower sooner than I thought. Another quick sit on a nearby bench watching a dachshund beg for the ball from the mouth of a much larger dog to no avail. After a while I approach the tower, show the attendant my city card, answer the ‘where are you from?’ question and read the information boards . It turns out that someone having read the predictions of Nostradamus managed to persuade the mayor of the time that the tower was filled with gold and that he should therefore be allowed to excavate and basically gut the building. Thankfully he was stopped before it fell down but it does mean that it is now an empty shell with a modern staircase thrusting up the middle.

    Looking up, this internal staircase wraps itself around a large central column. There’s nothing to hold onto on the inside of the spiral and the outer handrail has a flimsy look about it. I’m nervously about a quarter of the way up when I decide that I really don’t like the trauma involved in obtaining a slightly better view of the city. I’m also very concerned about what will happen when someone wants to come down past me! I turn gingerly trying to simultaneously stick to the  smooth column and hold tight to the worryingly insubstantial handrail. I wimped out.

    Not much to be said for the rest of the day except that I made the mistake of not visiting a couple of remaining museums, which would have been free, instead thinking that I’ll do them on Monday when, as I discover, they’re all closed.

    Day thirteen

    With the museums closed and much else besides, I got a pastry for breakfast and wandered about taking in some of the Roman sites dotted around the city as well as much later attractions. When I found myself near the station again I briefly thought about going out to the famous Pont du Gard but I couldn’t be sure of the right bus and the right stop and soon got put off by my own nature. So, I popped into the tourist centre, bought a gift and a bag before doing some shopping and going home.

    Day fourteen

    Quietly got up and breakfasted on granola and milk, waited till after 10am and made my way downstairs and across to the antiques shop that has been closed since Saturday (when  I was in Arles). On Friday evening (today is Tuesday) I had seen the most marvellous beaded, red and yellow leopard figure in the window. The shop had a 40% off sale which made this much more affordable and very tempting. I had been thinking about it all weekend and Monday when it was also shut. So today I went in and bought it. My faltering French (Franglais to be honest) seemed to be enough to get my message across as the Proprietor couldn’t or wouldn’t speak any English – and why should she?

    I brought my bounty back up to the flat and headed off to the Musée de Vieux Nîmes, which is mostly about the famous serge de Nîmes or as we know it; denim. It’s not a huge place but nicely curated and well worth the €5 I had to pay because my city card had run out. After a pleasant while here I left for the centre of the old town and discovered that the cathedral, contrarily, was shut on Tuesdays. Ended up having a very nice lunch in the top floor balcony of the Carré d’Art before coming home to sort out the laundry and start packing after a game of “guess what Dad bought” on WhatsApp, then arranged for Steve to pick me up at noon tomorrow for my last few days here, chilling in the Cévennes.

    Days fifteen to nineteen

    I had established that there was a bus service I could use should it be necessary but as we drove deeper into the countryside and, after lunch, arrived at my accommodation, I was glad it hadn’t been. The place was on the side of something of a gorge and, while not far from the bus stop, it would have been quite a drag getting my case down there. It also seemed a lot further than it looked on the map so the journey could have been long and arduous.

    Anyway, I had been picked up in the narrow street outside the flat in good time and we headed out of the city towards Anduze. It was good to see a familiar face again. After showing me the local wine cooperative that we’d be visiting in a couple of days we stopped for lunch at La Madeleine, which was very pleasant. So much so that we lunched there again before the winery visit.

    After stopping for supplies, we paused at my accommodation long enough for me to find my room and drop my case before driving up to the campsite for the rest of the day. It was so hot by now that I almost wished I enjoyed the water and had brought some ‘togs’ but alas I would have to make do with a cold beer or two. Once I’d been shown around and we’d had those drinks and the nice repast we’d picked up at the supermarché, I set off back down the hill to the charming converted mill that was my home for the next few days.

    The following day, after a lovely breakfast, I climbed back up the hill and we set off for the petit Train à Vapeur des Cévennes at Anduze for a trip that would take us to Saint Jean du Gard. It’s a busy attraction so it’s a long train with mostly open carriages puffing up the valley, past the Bambouseraie en Cévennes – a somewhat incongruous (to me) bamboo plantation and visitor attraction where the train stops – to its destination. The river weaves in and out of sight and is sometimes very low but what water there is is often full of bathers. Arriving at Saint Jean du Gard we head off to explore the small town and eventually fetch up at the Maison Rouge – Musée des Vallées Cévenoles, housed in a spanking new building and displaying beautifully curated artefacts charting the history of the area, its peoples and way of life including a large section on the silk weaving industry that was once the lifeblood of the area.

    We found lunch at La Porte Ouverte where I was finally able to try Andouille Guémené which topped a crêpe complèt. It’s surprisingly meaty for what is in reality a sausage made entirely of pig’s colon and very delicious. 

    Back to the station for the return journey and we found that people were able to visit the cab of the train which was lovely but even hotter.

    These few days were designed to be convivial and relaxing and they’re turning out exactly as planned. The day after the train ride is the scheduled visit to the local wine co-operative where we get the full tour, much of which is in the blessed relief of the cool of the vat buildings and air-conditioned shop. The wine is very good and Steve will bring some back for me so, mindful of the new allowances in place thanks to idiocy of you know what, I buy half a dozen bottles to enjoy at home.

    The next day is a road trip into the heart of the Cévennes. We take the main road, twisting high up the valley to the plateau and stopping to take in the views and refreshment before driving back down the other side which is smaller and twistier, passing through tiny hamlets and villages and ending up at the village Steve first stayed in years ago where we have a nostalgic wander before going back to the campsite. Attached to my B&B is a bar area where rum is king so we walk down the hill to spend the evening there. They also offer a charcuterie plate so we enjoy a cocktail and a beer or two alongside the meat and cheese before it’s Steve’s turn to walk home.

    Day twenty and twenty-one

    The homeward trip begins with another lovely breakfast before checking out and waiting for Steve to give me a lift back to Nîmes for the train to Paris. When booking I was over cautious when it came to making sure I could get to the station even if a lift was not available for any reason, so my train wasn’t due until nearly 3pm. In the event of course, I could easily have caught a much earlier train and even made it home the same day at a push but I had a hotel near Gare du Nord and a morning Eurostar booked so being in no hurry was nice despite the wait. The train to Paris, unlike the one from there was a direct TGV into Gare de Lyon and arrived on time and without stress. 

    I took the Metro towards the hotel and emerged into an unfamiliar area of the city and took a wrong turn before eventually finding my accommodation. It looked nice online and the outside was promising but I was tired and going through the door I genuinely wondered if rooms were available by the hour. The woman behind the desk was charming and helpful though and even let me off 40c of the city tax because her card machine wasn’t working and I couldn’t find enough cash. She said she’d got me a nice room on the 5th floor with a balcony but once I’d taken the tiny lift up there and negotiated the narrow, slightly grubby, corridor and saw the room, my heart sank, The bed was great but everything else was anything but. The balcony was barely a foot wide and so high up I couldn’t even countenance climbing out onto it. By now, stupidly as it turned out, I was thoroughly spooked so I had a tepid shower and a cup of tea and turned in to bed.

    In the morning I packed and went down to breakfast to be greeted by the most friendly and cheery man who decided that despite ordering a pain au raisin as part of my petit dejeuner, a croissant was such an essential part of the repast that he’d given me, and the woman who wanted pain au chocolat, a complementary croissant alongside everything else. It was a very good breakfast and I was totally embarrassed by my fears the previous night. I strode out into the Paris daylight much cheered and made my way the short distance to my Eurostar home.

    The trip back from Waterloo was anything but straightforward. I’d booked first class and was sitting comfortably awaiting departure when nothing happened. I don’t know how trains start but this one didn’t. An engineer was called. A lot of people got off and caught a different train south. I waited until the train was officially cancelled and walked over to the given alternative which turned out to be half the length with only eight first class seats which I managed to get the last of. At least I wasn’t standing and there was the bonus of a can of gin and tonic proffered by one of my table companions. So, once again South West Trains surpass their usual awfulness as the last leg of the journey and I drag my case back home from Fratton station a couple of hours later than I’d hoped but pleased and content that I’d had a successful trip, that I could travel on my own quite happily but would obviously prefer company in the future.

    0.21 tonnes CO₂ saved

  • Penrith, Stirling and Dumfries

    Penrith, Stirling and Dumfries

    A short trip to Scotland with a purpose is where I start my solo traveling life. 

    I’ll be visiting friends near Stirling and undertaking some family history research in Dumfries. But first, Penrith where I had hoped to see the legendary largest policeman uniform as the Cumbria constabulary’s museum collection has largely fetched up at the Penrith museum. I sent them an email long before I left but their very prompt reply ruled out any specific Currie family connection. I thought I’d come anyway.

    Day one

    I get up at stupid o’clock. Stupid because it’s over an hour before I need to, and even after a very relaxed breakfast I still have time for a full edition of Celebrity Antiques Roadtrip before I need to amble down to Fratton station. Even when I get there my train is still only the fourth one due. Sarah wouldn’t have allowed this nonsense, but here we are.

    An uneventful, if dozy, journey to Waterloo is followed by the Northern Line to Euston where I pick up some lunch (and for full disclosure, a pre-lunch Whopper Junior). There are, it turns out, absolutely no litter bins in Euston station. I’m booked on the 12.30 to Glasgow central which starts boarding at about ten past. My handful of rubbish is dumped in the train’s bin as I get on. Without knowing, I’ve thankfully reserved a seat as the train looks to be very busy. Even better, the seat next to me remains empty despite it having been booked through Carlisle. The train is a pendolino and travels at a fair lick reaching our first stop at Warrington after only 100 minutes. Penrith, 290 miles from London is a mere 3½ hours of pretty comfortable travel. I have to wonder if HS2 is really worth it.

    For once, arriving by train is super convenient for checking in to my accommodation as I arrive at the B&B minutes before regulation check-in time and am welcomed in. It’s a very smart but homely place, very welcoming.
    After a late afternoon’s rest in front of the snooker, I head out for a quick wander around town, getting my bearings, before settling on the nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. This turns out to be a good choice as a very enjoyable dinner is served by exceptionally friendly (family?) duo. I have carpaccio and cartoccio, both excellent. After dinner which I pop in to the nearby pub for a whisky and then a beer and a watch of the football. Arsenal are playing and there’s a Liverpool fan in desperate for them to lose.

    Day two

    Breakfast is early. It’s good, but way too early really. As a result I’m up and out long before the museum opens. While I’m wandering about what is a very interesting and pretty town, I notice there are several references to “Dockray” which I must look in to later – the name appears in the family tree – and stumble across a newly opened and beautifully curated antiques shop where I buy a beautiful horn Quaich and have a lovely chat with the owners. Finally I’m able to visit the museum which is small and lovely but has nothing really police-related in it so I leave disappointed. Having pretty much exhausted Penrith  for entertainment I opt for an afternoon in “The Lakes” and after a fair wait at the bus station take a bus to Pooley Bridge at the head of Ullswater. The place is almost entirely geared up for getting the most out of tourists, the two main pubs serving expensive fairly ordinary food and drink for instance. The one bright spot is the local book and coffee shop where I pick up a couple of things to take home and am introduced to Westmoreland Pepper Cake with my coffee. It’s a hot day, and a misleading bus timetable leads to an hour’s wait for the next chance to return to Penrith and a quiet evening in front of the snooker.

    Day three

    After breakfast I leave for the station and a train to Edinburgh and on the Stirling where I am to stay with friends for the weekend. A very quick and efficient couple of hours later I’m met at Stirling station and taken to their new home near Plean. A quiet afternoon ensues. Whisky is imbibed in the evening.

    Day four

    Stirling Castle is our first destination. Booked in advance, we arrive early enough for a place in the car park and a wander around the churchyard which include the sentimental Victorian memorial to Margaret Wilson who was drowned for refusing to give up Protestantism during the Scottish reformation. 

    Stirling Castle offers regular, free, guided tours and it is well worth taking one. Our guide was also very good and we had a great time. It’s easy to see the importance of Stirling Castle in the history of Scotland as the position it occupies is clearly impossible to sneak an army past without being noticed.
    After the castle we wandered down into the town itself for a poke about, finishing up at an art collective/shop where I added to my souvenirs.

    Day five

    Today is distillery day! But first a jaunt around a very nice antiques centre at Buchany nearby. It’s a place one can spend hours and fortunes. I seriously toyed with the idea of a beautifully boxed decanter set but both the price tag and the logistics of getting it home forced me to see sense.

    Deanston distillery is on the banks of the River Teith housed in an old cotton mill. The whisky it produces is beautiful too. We had a warehouse tasting and were very well served, leading to me spending a stupendous amount in the shop.
    Another relaxed evening with a good amount of whisky followed.

    Day six

    My onward journey involved a couple of trains (three, as it turned out) and a change of station in Glasgow to get to Dumfries and the meat of my trip – ancestor hunting!
    I was dropped at the station an hour ahead of my train so it was a relaxed time doing the games on my phone as I awaited the train to Glasgow Queen Street. This was very straightforward, arrived on time and I made my way to the station concourse for the next leg. The train to Dumfries left from Glasgow Central and my ticket included a bus transfer but the location of the bus stop was unclear and it was only a 10 minute walk, the weather was fine, so a stroll through the city centre it was. Glasgow Central is a large station made to look older and posher than perhaps it is. My train was probably leaving from platform 14 (iirc) so I made my way over that way and started staring at the small departure board there. It got perilously close to the scheduled departure time before the board finally confirmed that the train that had been there all the time, a good twenty minutes, was indeed the train to Dumfries. 
    The weather was warming up nicely as the train dawdled out and across the Clyde. We hadn’t gone very far; Stewarton I think, before it became clear that the engine was not in the best of working order. After really struggling to engage its gears to pull out of the station, the train manager (Guard for older readers) told us that the train was now incapable of going beyond Kilmarnock where we would either get a bus onwards or we could wait for the two o’clock train (it was now roughly 11.30am). We limped into Kilmarnock where the station manager assured us the bus was on its way. Several passengers were on time sensitive journeys and were increasingly anxious as the bus continued not to arrive. Refunds were sought and taxis investigated. It was by now well after noon and the chance of the bus significantly beating the two o’clock train to Dumfries was getting slimmer so I decided I’d wait for the train. By the way, Kilmarnock station is at the top of quite a steep looking hill and the thought of dragging myself back up it after investigating the dubious delights of the town for an hour made my mind up to wait on the platform for the now eighty minutes before the next train arrived. As I reached the platform a shout came from  the station building that the bus had finally arrived and did I want to catch it? I declined. All this palaver meant that I arrived at Dumfries station in the late afternoon rather than just after lunch as planned.
    I was staying at a guest house just across from the station. They had sent me a text that morning detailing how I was to access my room – the code to the (back) door and the key to my room lodged in the door itself. It seemed odd not to be met, the place itself was lovely and very comfortable, and when I finally met my host at breakfast the next day, they were very nice and very welcoming.
    The station, and therefore my guesthouse, is a good ten minute walk from the town centre and anywhere nice to eat. After settling in therefore, I went for a bit of a wander without any clear idea of where i was going. Fortuitously I found myself outside the Burns House museum a good twenty minutes before it closed. It’s a very nice, very small museum of the later years of Burns’ life and I had a nice chat with  the guardian before going on to St Michael’s churchyard where Burns’ mausoleum is situated.
    The early evening was still warm as I wondered around the churchyard, taking note of any Currie graves I came across and pausing to look at Burns’ mausoleum. After leaving the church I made my way down to the river where I encountered the man from the Burns House again who told me of the delights of the main museum including, which I did not know, its Camera Obscura! We parted as he crossed the river and I turned back towards the town centre again where I eventually settled on a curry at the India Palm which proved to be a wise choice. Back to my guesthouse, some world snooker on the telly and an early night, for tomorrow would be genealogy heavy.

    Day seven

    I have booked myself into the Dumfries and Galloway Family History Society reading room from opening at 10am and I’m quite prepared to spend the bulk of the day there. I’m early. At about 9.55 they notice I’m waiting and invite me in. They’re lovely people and can’t wait to help look for records while  I browse the many booklets of monumental inscriptions, making notes of locations and inscriptions for further future cemetery visits. We make some small but not insignificant progress before I decide I’ve exhausted what I can achieve there today and after offering profusive thanks, I set off for the museum at the top of the hill. Sadly for me I miss the pedestrian turn off and end up following the signs for cars in what turns out to be a long and winding route up the hill on what is turning into quite a hot day.
    The museum is lovely and well curated and I spend some time there before booking my spot for the camera obscura. The operator is not very experienced but it’s a good one despite the much taller trees now than when it was built, obstructing some of the views.
    At the bottom of the hill, on the river, is the Burns Centre which has a café/bistro attached and my large breakfast is wearing off. Lunch is nice and then I make my biggish mistake. One of the books I read this morning was Monumental Inscriptions of St Michael’s churchyard, towards the back of which is a record of one of the graves myself, Heather and other members of the Facebook group are looking for. The book says it is in the new part of the cemetery which I take to mean it’s in the new cemetery a way up the hill. The day is now hot and the walk is a lot further than I thought so I arrive in what turns out to be a very large cemetery on a very hot day without any further refreshment. After a rest in the shade I start looking for that particular grave in the area the book says it is. I can’t find it but there are other Curries and related families so I trawl the entire section walking up and down the rows of gravestones taking photos and getting increasingly exhausted. After over an hour I’ve also exhausted all possibilities and decide to leave. Footsore, I find a local shop and inhale a bottle of water and some chocolate (for energy of course!) and set off back down the hill, eventually arriving back at the guesthouse for a well-earned nap before contacting Heather about my day, having a shower and heading back out for dinner at the popular Italian restaurant in the town centre. A couple of pints at the Tam O’Shanter before bed, along with a nice chat with a worried Preston fan (the final matches of the season are at the weekend and Preston are in danger of relegation) I try to reassure him that Pompey are likely to get a result and Preston will be safe – which turns out to be true.

    Day eight

    Today I’m meeting up with Heather (and her friend) for a day of churchyard visits and other local landmarks associated with the Currie family. Rather than them driving into Dumfries and back out to Lochmaben, it’s easier for me to catch the bus out to them. Sadly two scheduled buses don’t turn up and I wait over an hour before another suitable service arrives and I finally get to Lochmaben where we meet a the townhall/library and go for a coffee to get acquainted and plan our day. Naturally the first stop is just round the corner in Lochmaben’s cemetery which is a bit overgrown and lumpy, but we find a few possible family graves that we photograph for later research.

    Not far away is the Cruck Cottage museum which is an excellent preservation of a cottage like those some of our ancestors would have lived in or at least have been familiar with. We find it open and wander in before the guardian comes across and points out the newly repaired patches of floor we’ve walked on. He’s very helpful though and we have a good chat with  him about the cottage and the area and our research before we move on.

    Next stop is the graveyard at Torthorwald church where we know there are family graves to be found, one of which people are keen to have re-photographed and then on to Collin (tiny) before a refreshment stop where they have some lovely ice cream and I have a very disappointing sandwich.
    Heather has been in contact with the farmer who lives at a place our ancestors were married, Rockhallhead nearby, and we are able to visit the farm at least. He gives us thankfully detailed directions and after trying and failing to convince the woman who now owns the old farmhouse to let us take pictures, we meet the farmer for a quick chat about the history of the farm etc., and he also gives us a tip about the best place to photograph the house from the road.
    The day is wearing on and they decide they need to go to Dumfries for something so are happy to drive me ‘home’. We arrange to meet for dinner the next evening.

    Day nine

    The DGFHS is open again today and I need to check what I thought I read in the book on St Michael’s on Tuesday. I find the book again and read the section more carefully and of course, the “new” section of the cemetery predates the New Cemetery and is a walled section secreted behind the Burns mausoleum and when I get there it is a matter of moments before I find the grave exactly where it should be. I check the rest of the section for other potential family graves before taking it easy for the rest of the day, exploring the town a bit more, watching some more snooker before dinner as arranged at the tapas restaurant near the river. It’s not any tapas a Spaniard would recognise, but it’s tasty and we have a lovely evening before saying our goodbyes.

    Day ten

    Home today. A light breakfast – I don’t want to be uncomfortable – and then quite a wait for my train. I’m sitting patiently on one platform when the driver of the train on the other platform calls across; am I going to Carlisle? then I should go with his train. It’s an hour earlier than my booked train but it seems fine and so I’m off. In reality I’m just moving my hour’s wait from Dumfries to Carlisle but there’s probably a better chance of a more comfortable wait and coffee in Carlisle. I do indeed get some coffee, encounter a stag party changing into drag in the loo (ironic) and have an altogether more interesting wait before my train arrives. This train is going to London but I’m getting off at Crewe to catch a later train that will get me there earlier by not going via Birmingham. They’re both Pendolinos so fast and comfortable so even with the tube across London and the usual SWT to Fratton, I’m home by 6.30pm which I think is pretty good given the stick handed out to the trains in this country.
  • Our last journey together – three weeks in Scandinavia

    Our last journey together – three weeks in Scandinavia

    Prologue

    Back in early 2020 we were just about to start planning and booking our trip around Scandinavia when it became abundantly clear we wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Three years later and we’re finally setting forth on this Scandi saga, three weeks travelling and visiting the three capital cities on the way. 

    Addendum: Sadly, we were not to know that this would be our last long trip together. Sarah recently died after a short and very uneven fight against cancer. The trip was wonderful and we both enjoyed it immensely, I’m only sorry I was unable to finish writing this post in time for Sarah to see it, please enjoy it on her behalf.


    Addendum Two!
    I have since found Sarah’s diary notes from the trip and have added them after each day. The notes got more extensive further into the trip as she became more anxious not to forget anything. I have transcribed them just as they were written.


    The basic itinerary

    Unlike previous trips, we’re not leaving Fratton on the train this time but will be driving to Germany to visit our friend in Remagen and setting off from there. This will at least give me the chance to write about LeShuttle (formerly EuroTunnel) which in our experience (and hopefully without tempting fate) has been the most quick and efficient way to cross the channel if you’re driving.

    After spending the first night in Remagen we’ll be taking trains to Kiel to catch the overnight ferry to Gothenburg and then the intercity train to Stockholm where we’ll be staying for a few days with my cousin. When we leave the Swedish capital we’ll take the sleeper train all the way up to Narvik in northern Norway, well inside the Arctic Circle. After staying the night there, it’s then two buses and a train, taking about 13 hours down to Trondheim but through some of the most spectacular scenery. We’ll spend three days there, staying in an apartment (and getting some washing done) before moving on to Oslo for three days and finally Copenhagen for another three days. After that it’s back to Remagen for a long weekend before getting back in the car and driving home.

    The Journey

    Day One

    Up at 6am to drive to Remagen. Because one’s never sure how the traffic is going to be on the M25, we have allowed about an hour contingency on a three hour drive, which means we arrive at Le Shuttle in good time enough to get on an earlier crossing. The efficiency of LeShuttle is in full swing, which means we actually leave an hour ahead of our original booking. It really is the easiest and most comfortable way to get across to Calais: the check-in gate has ANPR and loads your booking on the screen as you drive up – answer a few confirming questions and your windscreen tag is printed. If you have to wait any time there’s a decent terminal building but keep an eye on the screens and an ear in the announcements – on both our last two crossings our tag has been called before the screens register that you can board. Next step is passport control, a little longer than before thanks to you know what, but it’s not long before you’re driving onto the train to make the 35 minute journey to France. The Calais end spits you straight out onto the motorway and off you go.
    Our drive is fine, lots of opportunity to switch into cruise control across northern France and Belgium before it comes into its own on the autobahn. The route is as straightforward as it gets; once on our way the first time we need to make a turn is at Brussels to get on and off the Ring. Pretty much the next thing we do is turn right just before Cologne! Remagen is under a hour from there. There’s not much to delay us, even with the changeable weather and a stop for petrol, and we arrive at 4pm.
    Dinner is at the tapas restaurant we’ve been to before; Casa Antonio López, and we’re joined by our old friend Jürgen for a very convivial evening.
    Sarah: “Travel to Marly. Supper at Tapas with Jurgen”

    Day Two


    Very much a traveling day. We’re up in very good time for Marlene to drive us to the station. I’ve intimated that the train for Cologne leaves “about 7:30” so that there’s no chance of missing it. The train is scheduled to leave at 7:45 but it’s actually close to ten minutes late. It’s one of those ‘bare bones’ commuter trains and arrives at the Hautbahnhof in time for us to get some drinks for the next leg and a sandwich for later. The second train of the day takes us to Lübeck, a few hours away to the north east. The passing landscape slowly changes from agri-industrial to a more bucolic rurality the closer we get to our destination. Diagonally across the aisle from us is a young man accompanied by an older woman, presumably his mother. A little while into the journey he takes a large-ish bag of carrot batons from his coat pocket, which he proceeds to munch his way through, pausing only to mutter “Mmm, lecker*” every so often. It becomes a bit creepy, and when he leaves the train (with the older woman) I wonder briefly if she is his mother, or maybe his next victim. 

    Having been a little late most of the journey so far, we arrive in Lübeck suddenly on time, where we change for the regional train to Kiel. It’s a shortish trip through beautiful countryside, interspersed with the most picturesque lakes, before we’re discharged into the late afternoon Kiel sunshine a short walk from the port where our Stenaline ferry to Gothenburg awaits. We can see the ferry terminal once we take the few steps from the station to the nearby main road, and it seems to take less time to reach it than it does to board. Check in is quick and easy, but the gangway is quite an uphill trek. The ship itself looks very like any other ferry but is subtly better – it’s slightly more comfortable, and the buffet food is slightly better and with more choice than you might expect. Firstly though, there’s a bar on the upper deck where we’re serenaded over our beers by a couple of singers in the late afternoon sunshine. The trip has got off to a fabulous start. The singers aren’t brilliant but just right for the mood as we sail north with the sun eventually setting as we turn in for the night.

    (*tasty)
    Sarah: “M takes us to station. Train to Cologne. Cologne to Lubeck. Lubeck to Kiel. Boat overnight –    singer on deck & buffet supper”

    Day Three

    Stockholm

    Arrival in Gothenburg is misty. There’s time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast in the cabin of bacon rolls and coffee from the upper deck bar; avoiding queues at the buffet. As we dock, the foot passengers crowd round the exit and we’re also slightly anxious to be among the first off. We need to grab a taxi to the station – it’s far too far to walk and there isn’t an obvious bus – and although we know there’s a rank at the ferry terminal, we don’t know how many cabs will be available. In the event we manage to get in the second or third to pull up and are driven the few miles to what turns out to be a very open-plan station. Our train to Stockholm awaits but we have time to supplement our early breakfast and pick up some lunch from the concession stand before finding our first class carriage where we can relax as we cross Sweden in comfort. Coffee and snacks are also provided and the journey passes quickly so it doesn’t seem long before we pull into Stockholm Central to be greeted on the platform by my cousin Anton who’s looking after us for our stay here. We relocate to a coffee shop where we’re joined by his daughter Kayla who was touchingly anxious to meet us before spending a few days with friends.

    Anton and Annalie live at the end of the green metro line in one of several purpose built apartment complexes surrounding a communal green space, built in the 1970s after Swedish architects learned what not to do from Britain. It’s very Swedish, very comfortable. He’s arranged for us to stay in the community flat in the complex over the road and we drop our things before a surprise bicycle trip is sprung on us. We’re to meet a few of their friends at a reggae evening a couple of miles across the parkland that extends beyond their flat. It’s a lovely area and the ride is not too onerous even given our relative tiredness and we certainly wouldn’t have missed it. The venue is a lakeside former sheltered living complex and we have a great time meeting friends Mia and Sasha, eating delicious burgers and listening to very white Swedes giving it all the reggae patois. The ride home is slightly more direct, slightly less ‘scenic’ but we do encounter a deer grazing peacefully by the side of the path before we join some residential streets leading back to the flat. Although it does seem childishly disconcerting to be riding down Karin Larsson’s Väg on the way.
    Sarah: “Arrive Gothenburg, breakfast on boat, coffee & croissants from deck bar.
                Train to Stockholm. Met by Anton, met Kayla then back to their flat. Out to reggae bar on the bikes, burgers
                Met Mia & Sasha”

    Day Four

    We have a delicious breakfast with Anton and Annalie before heading out, back into the city. A short walk from the station we find the right stop and catch a tram round to the open-air folk museum, “Skansen”, across the road from the already long queues for the ABBA museum, the length of the  queue finally puts an end to any idea that we might visit. We will spend more than half the day wandering around the relocated ancient buildings as well as an aquarium and small zoo of native animals. It’s a fascinating look into the past although it feels a little more contrived than you’d like. We have a very nice lunch, pet the odd cow and watch the bears before our meandering passes through more modern townscapes and we leave through a late nineteenth century shopping street to catch a tram back. 

    It’s very hot. We continue on from the tram stop into the oldest part of the city and collapse into a Pastis Bar run by an Arsenal fan with whom we end up discussing the merits of, among others, Freddie Ljungberg. A local policeman passes on a Segway as we get a text from Anton who’s come to meet us for the approaching evening. Having wandered off, we reconvene at the bar before being led off to a nearby park for a bit of a picnic. It’s cooler now and the repast is very welcome. Suitably refreshed we’re taken on a brief tour of the old town where we indulge in an ultimately fruitless search for a souvenir ‘Little Red House’ before crossing the Golden Bridge (Guldbron) and climbing up to a trendy bar and food area overlooking the city. Anton video-calls his sisters in South Africa and we have a good chat over some beers and chips as the sun starts to set.  The crowd is getting younger and noisier so we head home, stopping only to admire the metro artwork.
    Sarah: “Breakfast with A&A. Into Stockholm, folksmuseum (old houses etc) went to old town. Pastis bar. Met Anton. Picnic in park, crayfish salad, crackers & wine. Went up to terrace tried to buy small red house & failed! Beers & chips. Video called Janine & Dee”

    Day Five

    Today is Annalie’s birthday, we’re to meet up later at the modern art gallery for something of a “do”, but first, today is also boat trip day. Rather than take one of the tourist trips/traps, we’ve been advised to make use of one of the regular ferry routes that service the huge archipelago that makes up the municipality of Stockholm. There’s a rainstorm brewing but undaunted, we arrive at the quayside where the majority of ferries depart from. We’ve decided on Grinda as our destination, an island some 2 hours out but still roughly on the edge of the outer archipelago. The ferries themselves are fairly basic, but they have a coffee shop aboard and are far from crowded and the scenery is fantastic. We pass island after island with some of the most attractive waterfront properties before we land at Södra Grinda. The promised storm has, for the most part, remained focussed on the city centre but as we alight from the ferry, the rain starts quite heavily. Sadly, the island is primarily geared up for walkers and campers and it’s a kilometre or so to the nearest open eatery. It’s worth the ensuing dampness however, as the island’s hotel is more than comfortable and welcomes us for a pre-lunch drink followed by the poshest Swedish meatballs for lunch itself. The rain has stopped by the time we need to walk back to the jetty and it’s a pleasant stroll now through very beautiful woodland. There’s quite a crowd waiting for the boat back to the city, which takes a slightly different route and docks on the other side of the peninsular it left from.

    After a full day on the water, and after we manage to get the birthday girl a nice bottle of wine from one of the official shops, we decide to squeeze in a visit to the Nobel Prize museum before the evening’s entertainment. It’s a really good museum and worth the visit but it’s a bit of a walk back to the modern art gallery for the birthday get-together, especially given how tired we are now. The gallery is entirely free on Friday evenings so, after drinks in the café bar, we spend a happy hour or two exploring the exhibits which includes a fascinating Laurie Anderson retrospective. As we’re slowly reconvening in the lobby we’re joined by Kayla who’s come back a little early for the celebrations, which continue at a trendy local restaurant in an old waterfront building. We have a lovely evening before Anton drives us all home.
    Sarah: “Up early – boat trip round archipelago to Grinda island. Rain, walked up to hotel for lunch – meatballs & mash. Back to mainland, wine supermarket for Annalie’s b/day wine. Nobel museum. To modern art gallery met A&A & 3 friends. Drinks in garden then did all exhibitions (free) Laurie Anderson & Sjoo. Out with A&A & 1 friend for supper on waterfront, Kayla had joined us”
     

    Day Six

    It’s Saturday and our last day in the Swedish capital. After breakfast in their flat we are to spend the whole day together exploring beyond the obvious. We get in the car (bags too) and are driven to Snösäträ where a community of street artists has taken over a derelict factory site. Every surface is covered in some of the best street/graffiti art we’ve seen and today there’s something of a festival brewing as one section has been painted over (pink!) ready for new work. Artists are gathering and marking out their sections while some food and clothing stalls are setting up and the music starts. Sadly we don’t have time to stay longer and after a good hour exploring it’s time to move on.

    Next stop is the other side of the city where we are to spend the middle of a steaming hot day at Millesgården, a gallery and sculpture park complex created by the sculptor Carl Milles and his wife, artist Olga Milles, née Granner. The gallery has some excellent exhibits and occupied us for a good while before we move into the sculpture park where the heat drives us into the café before we go much further. There’s a decent amount of shade while we continue our visit which ends at the pink house where is housed an exhibition of Swedish artworks and antiquities which rounds off the visit nicely.
    We’re in an area of Stockholm where low-rise apartment complexes are dotted around parkland. Our final couple of hours here is spent picnicking on the edge of a small woodland, perched on a flattish rock overlooking the city. It’s lovely and we are still in good time to get back to the city where we are to catch the sleeper train to Narvik in northern Norway, well inside the Arctic Circle. Farewells taken, we cross the road to the station and eventually find our way to the right platform for our train and wait.
    The “Arctic Circle” sleeper itself is OK, although not quite as modern as the YouTube videos had us believe, perhaps we’re just unlucky. The dining car for instance, is merely a hatch without a defined queueing system, not the cafeteria style expected, although the food is good enough. It’s a long journey; leaving Stockholm at 6pm, we won’t reach Narvik until around mid-morning the following day. As we travel north, the beautiful sunset seems to last an age as we drift off to sleep in a fairly comfortable cabin.
    Sarah: “breakfast with A&A – went to street art graffiti place & house. Picnic. Dropped at station, bought  coffee for Steve. Night train to Narvik. Supper on board microwaved fish & potato eggfry”

    Day Seven

    Narvik

    We wake to more sunshine, incredibly still in Sweden. There are a couple of major stops before we finally reach Norway. It’s a popular hiking area, so by the time we roll into sunny Narvik, having enjoyed breakfast travelling through some spectacular scenery, the train is considerably emptier that it started. We’re staying the night, principally because we have no option – the bus out leaves some three hours before the train comes in and there’s no train south from Narvik although you can go further north. We’ve booked a hotel quite near the bus terminal so we can catch tomorrow’s early bus down to Fauske to meet the train to Trondheim. Outside the station the advertised taxi number doesn’t seem to work, perhaps it’s just our phones, and there are no cabs hanging about, and none turn up while we wait for some twenty minutes. The only sensible course is to walk the half mile or so to the hotel where, of course, we’re too early to check in. They’ll happily look after our bags however so we wander off in the direction of the Narvik museum where we are welcomed with a coffee and an art exhibition as well as an extensive history of the railway we came in on. Narvik is an important iron ore port and the railway was originally built to transport the ore from the Swedish mountains to the North sea and on to the world, (including Port Talbot in Cymru we learn). It’s a charming museum but now it’s time for lunch. The restaurant bar under the hotel looks decent enough and so it proves as we hang out there until check in time. As it turns out (and as suspected), we’ll be leaving too early for the hotel breakfast but the charming receptionist says not to worry, she’ll make us up a packed breakfast to go!

    After a siesta we go out to make sure we know exactly where the bus stop is (behind the shopping centre, down some steep steps), have look round and get some dinner – again at the hotel attached restaurant. It’s still very light, disconcertingly so, as we make our way to the posh new-looking Scandia tower hotel for a beer and the view from their penthouse bar. Possibly the most expensive beers we’ve ever had but the view is breath-taking. It’s still light when we turn in at around 10pm. The sun will officially set for only three hours this night, although it never really gets dark.
    Sarah: “Arrive Narvik. Do museum (trains) & art exhibition. Beer in hotel bar. Dinner in hotel bar. Up tower hotel to bar for view & drink. Sunset at 11.35 rose at 2.30.”

    Day Eight

    Day eight is all travel. We’re in good time for our bus, which will make some thirty stops and a ferry crossing on its way to Storjord where we’ll change buses for the rest of the trip to Fauske, about 6 hours and 60 stops in all. It turns out to be one of the most beautiful bus trips ever. Norway is just stunning, like Scotland on steroids. The buses themselves are pretty comfortable and we get a seat at the front so the view and comfort is enhanced. When we get to Skarberget the bus drives onto the ferry and we get a lovely 30 minute break as we cross the fjord. One of the other passengers points out a mountain in the distance which they say is Norway’s national mountain, and who are we to argue. After changing buses, and nearly leaving my coat on the first one, we continue through more fantastic scenery and several long tunnels on our way to Fauske where the bus stops at Fauske station before continuing on to Bodø. We have about half an hour to wait for our train, just time for a very decent salad lunch from the café, before the train arrives and some nine hours later deposits us in Trondheim. Here we get a taxi to the bar where our apartment key has been left because we have arrived after the time allotted by the agent that we could meet at the apartment. It’s good of them to allow us to book under the circumstances but the apartment itself is not so easy to find on our own. After initially misunderstanding where it was, we manage to get proper directions and collapse into what turns out to be a very nicely appointed flat and our home for the next three days.

    Sarah: “Bus to ferry to storjold & then Fauske. Train to Trondheim. Arrived 10pm ish. To flat.”

    Day Nine

    Trondheim

    It’s another bright, sunny day as we rise relatively early in search of breakfast. It turns out that central  Trondheim is relatively easy to navigate and reasonably compact too. We’re staying in one of several new developments around a Docklands-lite area and just across the river Nidelva from the main part of town. Upstream of our apartment is the Old Town where we’ll be dining this evening but first, breakfast. We find a charming café bakery and partake of the most delightful buns washed down with some very fine coffee.
    Next stop is the Tourist Information Centre which, after a bit of searching, turns out to be a desk in a small shopping mall where we are able to pick up a tourist map. On the way we pass through the shopping centre where the precincts are decorated with flowers and colourful umbrellas. We pass an enticing art shop and don’t pass a more enticing haberdashery. After about half an hour perusal Sarah leaves with some packets of buttons from the extensive and decoratively arranged racks.
    Central Trondheim is a bit of an odd shape, growing up as it has along the winding mouth of the Nidelva river and the map proves very useful. Not far from where we are is the cathedral complex which includes several museums which thus seems the most logical next step of our tour. When we get there, we discover a craft market in the grounds and a large stage area built across the main façade, ready for a religious (probably) discussion session. All this is part of the weekend’s Olavsfest celebrations, the city’s big annual cultural festival.
    We get a group museum ticket and visit the crown jewels, the museum of resistance, the archaeological museum, the Bishop’s Palace, an art exhibition and the cathedral itself. It’s been a busy morning and early afternoon so we head back to the flat pausing only for lunch where we had breakfast where by now they are serving delightful smorbrod.
    Back at the flat we sort the washing out on the drying rack before a well-earned siesta.

    Tonight’s dinner is in the old town and has been booked long before we left home. We’re dining at Baklandet Skydsstation, a very traditional Norwegian restaurant in a very wonky old yellow wooden building less than a mile form the flat. We walk past the many modern bistros near the flat and into the cobbled streets of Old Trondheim. It’s a very pleasant walk and piques our appetites nicely. It’s a hot summer’s day but we both find the reindeer stew most inviting, and delicious it is. It’s a charming and convivial atmosphere and we leave thoroughly satisfied after the addition of pancakes and jam (Sarah) and a delightful apple cake (me).

    Just down the road is the famous Old Town Bridge from which many a selfie is taken, now including ours, and as we leave the bridge again I spot something I’d seen on YouTube before we came; a bike lift. It’s a free service, but you really have to work for it – there’s a very definite knack to it, so it provides several minutes entertainment as people try, and often fail to get a boost up the steep Brubakken street. While we’re hanging about watching the cyclists, there’s a growing number of people joining us in what looks like mediaeval dress. The confusion is soon resolved as we notice the small theatre across the way is playing Romeo & Juliet and it’s the interval.

    Sarah: “Nice coffee shop – soft buns & coffee. Haberdashery, buttons, walked, found info, craft fair. Military museum, crown jewels, art, Bishop’s Palace, cathedral. Coffee shop for lunch. Quiet afternoon at flat. Shopped. Washing. Out to old town for trad supper (reindeer stew) & pancakes & jam/apple cake. Bike lift”

    Day Ten

    Just around the corner from the flat we’ve noticed a small modern art gallery which we spend a happy hour in before walking into town again, this time continuing on to where we can catch a boat out to the island of Munkholmen; a former monastery, later fortress with good views of Trondheim, a decent café, craft shop, plenty of picnic opportunities and a beach! The boat out takes about twenty minutes and is more or less hourly. It’s an enjoyable way to spend a more leisurely few hours on our last day here, Sarah even has a paddle in the chill fjord. After catching the boat back, the rest of our time is spent just wandering and picking up our usual cheap souvenir.

    In the evening we manage to get a table at what turns out to be a rightly very popular Italian restaurant on the waterfront.
    Sarah: “Wandered – boat to island – lunch – paddle – boat back. Italian restaurant – packed”

    Day Eleven

    We’re up early to catch the train to Oslo. It turns out to be a fairly short walk to the station so we arrive in good time. The journey is as spectacular as before and we arrive in the Norwegian capital mid afternoon and, almost as we step out from the station, into a short but very heavy downpour. We join the throngs sheltering in doorways before it eases and we brave the shortish walk to our hotel – the Hotel Karl Johan – which is very nice but has a peculiar layout. Our room is quite a walk from the central staircase, round several corners and up a few more stairs. We go so far round the floor we feel we must nearly be back at the beginning but our room, it appears, is at the opposite arm of a horseshoe and there’s no quicker way to reach it.

    After settling in we stroll down to the waterfront and find ourselves an early dinner of egg and wild mushroom ramen in an  aquavit bar on one of the piers. Of course, we have to try the local spirit as well, and very nice it is too. We have a short, meandering wander about the area, take in the many sculptural offerings before turning in for an early night – there’s lots planned for the morrow.
    Sarah: “Walked to train. Train to Oslo. Arrived to a soaking downpour. Walked to hotel – odd layout. Ate at pier bar. Early night”

    Day Twelve

    Oslo


    Breakfast at the hotel is a bit of a scrum but we discover the rear entrance is much nearer our room than going all the way round again, so that’s good.
    Part of the reason for seeing the waterfront last night was to establish more or less where the boats to Bygdøy (or Museum Island) started from. It’s not actually an island, more a peninsular, but there is a regular ferry service that most people use to get there. First stop is the Kon Tiki museum. Both of us were captivated by the story of Thor Heyerdal and his crossing of the pacific on a balsawood raft, and not only does the museum tell the story with film and artefacts, the actual Kon Tiki raft takes centre stage and we couldn’t be more excited. His later voyages on the papyrus boats Ra and Ra2 are also fully covered as is the rest of this extraordinary man’s life.
    Across the way is the Fråm museum, containing the ship Fråm which Amundsen took to the South Pole, as well as a comprehensive story of polar exploration and the search for the Northwest Passage. It’s a very popular attraction and rightly so. We have and great time there before visiting the maritime museum with its demonstration of Viking ship building and history of Norwegian seafaring. Our only disappointment is not being able to visit the famous Viking longship museum, which is closed for refurbishment until 2027.

    Also on Bygdøy is the Norsk Folkesmuseum, a similar idea to that in Stockholm but somehow less showy, less commercialised. It’s more of a walk than we anticipated and we’re very relieved that there’s a decent lunch to be had in the café before we go in. The highlight is the traditional wooden church and also eating Lefse with butter which was being baked in one of the old farmhouses on what is again a very hot afternoon.

    We take the bus back into town which  stops near the royal palace, not far from our hotel, and it’s pleasant walk back through the park.
    Our evening meal is at Den Glade Gris (The Happy Pig), an  almost exclusively pork restaurant not too far from the hotel. As we arrive, we’re glad we thought to book as there’s a substantial queue growing which we skip. Looking at the menu, and then at each other, we both forego the opportunity to try smoked whale, before tucking into our beer and respective pork dishes. There are pigs everywhere. There are no vegetarian dishes on the menu but the vaguely sinister suggestion that one should ask the manager if that’s what you want. We could only speculate as to what their reply might be!
    Sarah: “Breakfast scrum. Boat to museum area – KON TIKI, FRAM (arctic), maritime museum (talk about viking boat building), boat house. Walked to Folkesmuseum saw old relocated houses & church. Ate LEFSE with butter. Trad restaurant Den Glade Gris (The Happy Pig) beer, pork knuckle, did not eat smoked whale! Pigs everywhere.”

    Day Thirteen (Saturday)

    One of the more famous Oslo attractions, and one which anyone who has been before will insist you visit is the Vigeland sculpture park and associated museum. It’s only a few stops on the tram from the hotel and although the weather has turned a bit drizzly, today’s the day to visit. On the edge of the park is the Museum of Oslo which seems a good place to start but as we approach it seems deserted and as we get to the door it’s clearly shut. One of the windows is broken and a staff member comes out to tell us that there was a break in last night and the museum wouldn’t be opening today. There’s a café just opening further into the park so we go there before tackling the sculpture park itself. There are more than 200 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland (1869–1943) in bronze, granite and cast iron, including famous works like The Angry Boy (Sinnataggen in Norwegian), The Monolith (Monolitten) and The Wheel of Life (Livshjulet). The sky is still grey as we wander this impressive life’s work and then to the museum which is house in his studios and contains much of his other work and the maquettes and scale models of the park sculptures. There’s also some more recent work by contemporary Norwegian artists on display which is, in many ways, just as challenging.
    We decide to visit the royal palace as it’s on the way home so attempt to buy tickets online which proves frustratingly impossible – they don’t seem to be available ‘on the day’. However, a quick look around the back of the building reveals a queue and an information desk. It’s an odd system but we can certainly join the next tour but it’s in Norwegian. We could certainly wait another hour for the next tour in English, but they have no way of knowing how many tickets have been sold by the various outlets around the city, so it might be full *shrugs*. There’s a written guide in English so we shrug in return and join the queue for the Norwegian tour. No cameras, nothing sharp is allowed in and we have to wear crime scene booties whilst inside what turns out to be a moderately interesting palace.

    It’s warmer now and the air is quite muggy as we walk the couple of hundred yards back to the hotel to rest and change for our evening in a less touristy part of the city. Just behind the bus terminal  is Grønland, a vibrant multicultural area and we fancy a decent curry and a wander. It seems logical to take the bus even though we’re not completely au fait with the system but we get to the bus station without too much trauma even though it takes a few minutes to orient ourselves as to which direction to walk thereafter. By the time we get there it’s starting to rain quite seriously. There are a lot of options along the main street, but the Punjab Tandoori looks the business – full of local people and the odd backpacker, we go in and join the queue, frantically scanning the menu on the wall. A couple of beers first, then a couple of thaali which we get just as a table comes free. It’s very good fare, and the people-watching is top notch. Some kulfi to finish off the meal is ideal.

    The rain has eased by the time we leave and it’s a nice walk to what we hope will be the right bus stop back to Karl Johan’s Gate and the hotel. It might have been the right stop but it was the wrong bus. We’re halfway up a hill we didn’t come down on the way before we realise our mistake so get off and walk back down towards our destination. It’s not massively far but we’re tired now and we’re just glad the rain has continued to hold off until we stumble into the lobby.

    Sarah: “Sculpture park & museum. Oslo museum shut – windows smashed. Palace (tour in Norwegian) Cooper not allowed in! Rested in afternoon. Went for a curry”


    Day Fourteen

    It’s our last day in Oslo and we’ve booked a floating sauna right on the quayside opposite the opera house. Borrowing the hotel’s towels we take a pleasant walk past the parliament building and down Prinsens Gate towards the saunas. We are in a shared sauna, there’s an American woman, some French students and a muslim couple from Copenhagen. She’s in a full body outfit but it’s all very convivial as we start to sweat together. We arrived first, along with the American, so she and Sarah are first outside to brave the leap into the Oslo fjord with myself not far behind. It’s cold but not freezing and really quite invigorating. Some of the younger occupants start leaping from the roof of the sauna and a great time is had by all. Changing back into your clothes is a bit tricky given the open nature of the space, but the manager is happy to offer a more private room for those who need it.

    Suitably refreshed we head across the way to the opera house, a magnificent structure meant to resemble an iceberg and serving a very nice coffee on the veranda. Visitors are able to climb all over the outside of the building and there are great views to be had from the top.
    Just behind the opera house is the new Munch museum, celebrating the country’s most famous artist. it’s quite the structure, the top leaning quite significantly. We have a good look round, there’s lots to take in, and yes we visit the darkened room where the several versions of The Scream are illuminated briefly, one at a time, to try and preserve their fragile existence for a bit longer.
    By the time we finish we realise that it’s both early afternoon and we’re bloomin’ starving. The museum café does a very good, if very expensive, beef smørbrod which we inhale before catching a tram back to the hotel where we manage to exchange our soggy towels for clean, dry ones and pack ready for the net leg of our journey tomorrow.
    Before then we spend the evening at SALT, a small fjordside encampment of street food offerings we noticed whilst at the sauna. Beers, chicken bao buns and Cajun skewers and rice top off a most enjoyable day and reflecting on that is when I realise that Oslo has finally made us love it.
    Sarah: “Sauna & fjord swimming – fab. Coffee. Opera house. Munch. Late lunch – roast beef sarnie. Packed. Managed to get soggy towels swapped for clean. Went to SALT – beers, chicken bao/fries plus chicken cajun skewers & rice. Very good. Packing mastered”

    Day Fifteen

    A storm has hit Norway overnight, Oslo is wet but trains north have been cancelled because some lines have been washed away. Thankfully we’re heading South, ultimately to Copenhagen but initially back to Gothenburg where we have to get replacement bus to a station the other side of the city because of work on the line. It would normally be a direct train so this interruption is a nuisance. The train staff do their best to direct everyone to the right bus at the bus station across the road, but the buses themselves are not brilliantly signposted and the bus staff are bored with  the whole process. The weather remains awful, the scenery more ordinary. We cross the Oresund bridge almost without noticing and arrive in the Danish capital late in the afternoon. Our hotel is not far, a short walk across a major road junction and round the corner from the Tivoli Gardens, and very nice.
    The rain has pretty much stopped by the time we wander out looking for dinner, which we take at a smart modern curry house on the next block. It’s been quite a dull day’s travel and we turn in early ready for a busy day tomorrow.
    Sarah: “train to Gothenburg with a bus replacement for part of journey. Second train  had no wifi & got increasingly packed. Scenery big change from Norway – duller. Rain all the way. Found hotel – very nice room. Went out for a curry.”

    Day Sixteen 

    Copenhagen and Helsingør

    Neither of us felt we could visit Copenhagen without a day trip to Helsingør, the real life Elsinore of Shakespeare’s Hamlet (but you knew that right?). Back at the railway station we have an amusingly frustrating view minutes trying to catch a train that may or may not be cancelled because of yesterday’s storm, but eventually we get our tickets and find the right platform and we’re on our way.

    Helsingør castle is about a kilometre from the railway station with its statues of Hamlet and Ophelia, but its position means you can see it the whole way, looking every bit as you might expect it.
    It’s a magical place and they’ve really leaned into the whole Hamlet thing despite the events on which the play is based taking place much earlier and in an entirely different part of Denmark. Helsingør was the party capital of Elizabethan Europe apparently, so audiences would have recognised Elsinore ahead of anywhere else.
    Scattered throughout the castle are actors playing characters from the play – Queen Gertrude playing with  some children, Claudius strutting his stuff in the living quarters, and Hamlet himself in the great hall (one of the biggest in Europe) holding court to a gaggle of enthralled children who, after hearing the story, rush off to confront Claudius trailing frantic parents in their wake.

    We’re having a marvellous day, we even take in the battements, the cellars rather than the ramparts, where Hamlet’s ghost makes far more sense when you see the dark and mazy tunnels. After some time in the gift shop we walk into the old town where we come across an old bar with double windows full of steins. It looks just the place for lunch and it couldn’t have been more perfect. We have herring and salad with a small dish of lard to ‘butter’ our rye bread (there’s actual butter too for the faint-hearted), all washed down with what our ebullient host insists is the best beer in the world but is actually the local version of Tuborg (but still just right for the occasion).

    It’s time to leave this small town and head back to the city. Stopping off at the hotel to regroup we decide we’d better go and see the Little Mermaid statue even though it’s miles from anywhere. Taking the metro out to the Østerport, it’s still quite a walk to the statue on the other side of the castle. Is it worth it? Maybe. The waterfront there is attractive and it’s a nice walk through the Amalienborg palace grounds to Nyhavn where we’re going to look for dinner.

    Nyhavn is a bit of a tourist trap but it’s very picturesque, even in the rain, and we manage to find a seat indoors at one of the many restaurants. By the time we finished the rain has eased once again and it’s a short walk to the large cobbled square of Kongens Nytorv where we can catch a metro back to near the hotel.

    Sarah: “Good breakfast, nice glass yoghurt pots with lids – BANANA! Went to station – storm overnight had caused train chaos. Managed to get a train to Elsinore. BEAUTIFUL castle, underground cellars, actors being ‘Hamlet!’. Lunch in pub full of steins – fried herring & beer – very good but much indigestion. Elsinore is a charming little town. Back for a nap. Out to see Little Mermaid on scary ‘S’ train (actually not scary but very urban). Took pics, walked to old town & saw palace & cathedral. Went to old town with pretty painted houses – OK supper in harbourside restaurant. Metro home very clean & new like Liz Line”

    Day Seventeen

    On our way to the Design Museum we pop into the Lego shop where surprisingly they do not do a Lego Little Mermaid (not even Disney’s Ariel). Central Copenhagen is a nice place for a wander with lots to see and many interesting shops to experience. Just before we reach our destination we notice the Museum of Medicine which we decide is worth a look. We’re right. A fascinating tour through medical history and an exhibition on the intelligence of the alimentary canal are among the exhibits spread over three floors.
    It’s raining again by  the time we reach the Design Museum fifty metres further on. It’s very busy. It turns out that it’s Design Week in Copenhagen and there’s “An Event”. We amuse ourselves watching the young and trendy cope with the whole rain situation in their fancy togs whilst enjoying our coffee and cake in the  café. The museum itself is slightly disappointing, possibly because of the Design Week focus, but especially given the reputation of Danish design.

    We head off, the rain has stopped again, without any real idea of where although it is lunchtime now. We’re a bit lost and find ourselves at the edge of the Østre Anlæg park and notice we’re outside a small avant-garde art gallery called Den Frie Udstilling where, even more peculiarly, we notice one of the exhibitions they have on now is called “Popty Ping” – the Welsh for ‘microwave’. They also have a café. The café is in the cellar and we enjoy a very nice lunch there before bracing ourselves for whatever the gallery has to offer. Which is largely dead centaurs. But also an apocalyptic film and a room full of microwave boxes. Challenging stuff but fascinating, and the life-size centaurs are modelled so well it takes a moment to make sure they’re not actors.

    Østre Anlæg is a lovely park, and on the other side of it is the national art museum, which is where we head next. An hour later and we’re getting pretty tired – the museum is good btw – but we both feel obliged to pay our respects to Hans Christian Anderson by visiting his statue in the park across the road by which time we really need a rest.

    After returning to the hotel, freshening up and having a well-earned nap, we decide to catch dinner at one or more of the stalls in the Tivoli Food Hall. We end up enjoying some pad thai at Wok Wok, and some more beers and quesadillas at Zócalo. It’s a vibrant atmosphere with plenty to choose from, easy to move from stall to stall picking and choosing, having another beer and a great time.

    Sarah: “Metro to older part of town. Did cathedral. Found medical museum, informative, beautifully laid out & designed, virtual reality headsets about sight. Walked to design museum, slightly up itself. Fashion week event being set up – what outfits. Good in parts, lovely silver & textiles. Walked & came across Den Frie Undstilling fur Kunze. Went in for lunch – fab sandwich. Saw an exhibition was ‘Popty Ping’ – whatever is it? Weird installation of ‘on fire’ microwave boxes! Weird dead centaur exhibit. Weird film. Went to National Gallery. Tired. Ice cream & coffee. Home. Out to Tivoli food hall – street food. Pad Thai & beer, Mexican & beer. Lego shop – no little mermaid – home. Shower leaking – new shower put in or is Sarah bonkers. Receptionist advised using towel to silence drip & will send plumber tomorrow.”

    (I’d forgotten about the shower incident!)

    Day Eighteen

    Our last day in Copenhagen, and our last meaningful day on holiday. We visited the royal palace with its fabulous library and interesting modern tapestries but otherwise it’s fairly ordinary lived-in modern palace. 

    Our next stop was to be Cristiania, the so-called independent (ish) hippy commune where we had quite an expensive Coke and a brief look round. It struck us as ultimately a bit seedy but it was a grey day and not much was going on so maybe that wasn’t a true impression. Anyway, we had a good wander around the surrounding Cristianshavn before going back to pack. 

    Our late afternoon and evening was booked for the Tivoli Gardens. Sarah was a sucker for a fairground and this is not one to miss. We had a marvellous evening on nearly every ride we could get on, including the kid’s vintage car ride and carousel, but had most fun on the two rollercoasters that were running (it was still a bit windy) and getting face-deep in a couple of massive candy flosses. We finished the evening watching the ballet performance of The Steadfast Tin Soldier before having dinner in the food hall again. It was a lovely way to end our time in Scandinavia; Copenhagen is a great city to visit even though it’s not as twee and compact as it would have you believe. 
    Sarah: “Went to Royal Apartments – good walk. Went to Cristiania, grubby & full of bad jewellery stalls. Saw twisted spire church, open but too scared to go up. Bought Lego Xmas tree. Home. Packed. Out to TIVOLI Gardens. 9 rides including 2 rollercoasters & baby ride vintage  cars. Candy floss. Watched Toy Soldier ballet at open air Chinese Theatre. Supper in  food hall, steak & chips & red wine – very good. Home, finished our wine, lazed, sleep. Shower fixed.”

    Day Nineteen

    A series of awful train journeys back to Remagen. The Copenhagen to Hamburg train was hot and uncomfortable. The Hamburg to Cologne flix train was hot and noisy, and our ticket wasn’t actually valid for it so thank you very much Deutsche Bahn for fucking that one up for us, plus it arrived very late so we missed our scheduled connection to Remagen. We caught a later train, having sought the advice of the Cologne platform manager, and arrived back in Remagen about an hour and a half later than expected.
    Sarah: “Out straight after breakfast. Train to Hamburg – no wifi, no charging points, very hot. Changed trains, FLIX train, had to get new ticket – wifi though. Very hot & very late. Missed connection to Remagen, scurried around & found next train. Got in at 8.50. Met by Marlene. Home to bread & meat & cheese & wine.”

    Days Twenty and Twenty-One

    We spent a relaxing couple of days in Remagen. First we went to the Arp Museum just up the road – somewhere we had never been in all the times we’d visited Marlene, and then a morning at a flea market in Linz across the river. In between these was  a very German meal by the river opposite Konigswinter on the outskirts of Bonn. The decision to use Marlene’s place as a base to launch our journey turned out to be an excellent one. Stopping there for the weekend proved to be a useful release of pressure before getting back in our car for the drive home the next day.
    Sarah (with more detail than I remembered): “SAT: Up & out to Herr Fassbender for salami. Went to art gallery/station with Martin too. Cheesecake art gallery went on to restaurant where Beethoven used to go. Had supper beside Rhine – Liver! Home  for cake. Renata came round.
    SUN: Late breakfast. Off to flea market at Linz. Martin too. Bought penguins for Steve. Tin for me, cocktail sticks for Ric. Beer on other side. Back to Marlene’s & I cooked a curry for supper.
    MON – home!”

     In Loving Memory of my companion in travel and in life; Sarah Lewis (1957-2024) RIP 

  • The Western Highlands

    The Western Highlands

     Or, Scotland by rail part 3

    View of mountains around Loch Leven towards Glencoe

    January 2023

    Having had our return journey (in Whisky Galore) disrupted, we were offered a complementary single journey as compensation. Lovely. Then Covid happened and things were obviously delayed but ScotRail were true to their word and we arranged a trip in November 2021. Two weeks before we were due to leave, word came of a rail strike for part of our time and our journey was completely cancelled under us. The hotel and other things were booked however so we decided to drive up – adding an extra two days and two overnight stops to the journey, but we had a great time in Inverness, Speyside and even visited John O’Groats for the craic.

    This latest problem added another discount to our tickets that we have now used without further incident, and this is that tale:

    Wednesday night  / Thursday:

    No fancy restaurant or visit to Milroy’s this time, Steve’s knee was not up to long walks or stairs and none of us fancied aimlessly trolling about north London anyway, so we packed a picnic; including haggis stuffed potato scones to help celebrate Burns Night; and we left Fratton late in the afternoon on a more comfortable than usual SWT train aiming to get to Euston without rushing.  We grabbed a taxi from Waterloo and arrived at Euston’s taxi rank in plenty of time, even allowing for the longish walk to the station concourse. The Caledonian Sleeper was not on the departure board yet so we found a seat and waited. During which time Steve got an email saying that the water in the cabins was not working but that everything else was fine and they were looking forward to welcoming us on board. The news was greeted with a shrug and a tot of whisky from my hipflask. Restless, I determined to find out where our train would be. The ticket  office chap didn’t know for sure but that it was always either platform 1 or platform 15. I checked both and there it was at Platform 1. Just as I established this fact the announcement was made that we could board, which we duly did to the accompaniment of a lone piper (Burns Night, again). The new cabins are pretty much just an update on the old ones with a very similar design and layout, slightly bigger window and more mod cons but still a little more cramped (it seems) than its European counterparts. But they also retain the adjoining compartment door so were we able to properly share our splendid picnic, quality wine and more whisky before allowing the clack of the rails to rock us to sleep. Before turning in finally, I checked that our breakfast order had been taken and the lovely Fiona, our coach’s attendant, assured us that she had it and furthermore that it would be complementary owing to the lack of running water in the cabin although they had supplied ample bottled. 

    We woke to snow-capped peaks and coffee and bacon rolls to enjoy them with, rolling into Fort William a few minutes ahead of schedule.
    This time I had booked a hire car for us from a local company, which turned up a little late as they were dealing with another hire from the train and it really is a small local operation. Our ride for the week was a rather swish Audi sports model, low-profile tyres and automatic gearbox an’ all. Lovely, but not, as we discovered, ideal for some of the more remote Scottish roads we were to travel. Knowing that we were not able to check in to our apartment before 4pm, I had arranged a visit to a gin distillery where we were to have the full experience, coming away with our own bottle of ultra-small batch craft gin made to our own recipe (with much guidance of course).
    Pixel Spirits turned out to be a side project of the Loch Leven Hotel, or was the hotel the side project? It’s hard to say but it was a splendid afternoon in glorious surroundings. Welcomed with coffee and biscuits, then a chat about the company over a gin and tonic before a tour of the distillery.

    We were then shown to our mini stills and a table with over 100 botanicals to choose from and following some very clear guidance we came up with our recipes and set to weighing our ingredients before firing up the stills and watching the process unfold, intervening at the appropriate times, turning a litre of grain alcohol into, in our case, English Breakfast Gin, while Steve and Alison came up with something more floral and herby in their bottle of “Three Score Years and Ten” celebrating, as we were, Steve’s 70th birthday. 

    It was a really great afternoon, we learned a lot and came away with a good understanding of the process and a unique gin, which if we think worthwhile, they will make further bottles to order from our recipe.

    As we were staying in an apartment this time rather than a hotel, a quick visit to Morrison’s was in order to source breakfast items etc. before we checked in, unpacked and showered. The apartment block is in an old garrison building up the hill a bit from the main road but very comfortable, if a little under-lit. There turns out to be steps down the side of the building to the main road, fetching up barely 50 metres from the curry house we enjoyed on our last visit and do so again on a surprisingly busy Thursday night.

    Friday

    Today is Ardnamurchan day and is the first real test of our flashy sports Audi as the roads on the peninsula are narrow, winding and less than smooth. First stop however, is the Corran Ferry across the narrowest point of Loch Linnhe. It’s a flatbed roro, and the crossing is about a third of a mile but it costs a tenner each way for cars although pedestrians go free. It’s a beautiful drive down the coast from the ferry and the road then cuts inland between Garbh Bheinn and Creach Bheinn and then down the side of Loch Sunart to Salen. The road forks there and the way to the distillery continues down the side of the Loch for a few miles. Driving it is a tense affair but we get there and pull into the rather smart distillery overlooking the loch where we are greeted with confusion as Caren had forgotten to book our tour into the new electronic system. All is well though, it’s January and there’s no other visitors. It’s a marvellous distillery, determinedly carbon-neutral and sustainable and produces a jolly fine dram. Caren is a delightful host and we have a lovely time. It’s well into lunchtime by now and it’s January. Nothing nearby is open so we forego any idea of driving to the point of the peninsula – the westernmost point of the British mainland – and turn back towards Salen and take the turn north. At Acharacle there’s a community café that serves food all day including the most delicious Full Scottish Breakfast in which I indulge wholeheartedly before we continue on our way. The plan is to make a circuit via Glenfinnan back to Fort William but not far out of Acharacle I screech to a halt as a roadside venison stand appears as we round a corner. The sign directs us to the red house next door and eventually the occupant shuffles out to help us. It’s his son’s shop he tells us but he is out shooting some more stock. We buy what turn out to be some excellent sausages and a particularly fine haunch to roast for Steve’s birthday on Monday. 

    The road winds on, heading towards the coast before it will join the main “Road to the Isles” and we turn back towards Fort William. On one of the more isolated stretches, we are forced to a stop while a gang of workmen close the road to take what looks like an outsized lawnmower to some overhanging trees. After a wait of some twenty minutes, I edge our car with its low-profile tyres gingerly over the debris and off we go again.
    We stop briefly at Glenfinnan to take pictures of the viaduct and buy some Harry Potter related toy or other for Osian, but as time is getting on, we don’t stop long and are back in FW in good time to rest up and change before dinner at the winter premises of the fish restaurant we enjoyed so much last time. It once again serves up an excellent repast and our day draws to its close climbing the steps back to the apartment and enjoying a few drams, mine being those of the Ardnamurchan tasting, helpfully decanted into little bottles for the driver.

    Saturday

    Oban is today’s destination and it’s Sarah’s turn to drive, not something she’s looking forward to as she’s not a big fan of automatics. The direct road is a winding but very scenic affair and it takes a little over half an hour to get there. We park up and explore, it’s a beautiful town with much to recommend it; a lovely harbour, two very fine whisky shops and “The Gem Box”, a childhood memory of Sarah’s whose family loved Oban and Mull and whose late cousin loved shopping at this jeweller. There’s nothing that takes our fancy there today however so we seek out the distillery. We knew in advance that they weren’t doing tours and the only tasting they will offer is the official one at 2pm which is verging on a bit too late for our other plans for the day. Neither do they produce miniatures and their whole attitude comes across as being a bit snotty. Never mind, there’s a charmingly ordinary local pub, Aulay’s Bar, near our car park which not only serves delicious haggis rolls alongside some pretty decent beer, but also sells the local dram which we try and like well enough. Resolving that the distillery had lost the opportunity of a direct sale, we spend some time, and far too much money, in the independent whisky shops instead.

    Tonight’s meal is something of a blow-out as we’ve opted to throw caution to the wind and dine at Inverlochy Castle where Michel Roux Jr oversees the menu. It’s a wonderful evening with great food and a fabulous accompanying flight of wines in an exceptional setting including, at the top of the stairs leading to the lavatories, a snooker room straight out of an inter-war novel with the most enormous elk head on the wall. 

    Sunday

    Today is the longest trip of the tour as we’re booked into Talisker on Skye. And it’s stormy. Knowing we could potentially be a bit jaded after the night before, our visit isn’t until after 2pm but it’s still a relatively early start as it’s over two and a half hours away. And it’s stormy. We turn off the main Inverness road at Invergarry and head towards Kyle of Lochalsh as the worst of the storm hits. The drive over the pass into Invershiel is particularly challenging and we’re barely halfway. Eventually we get to the bridge over to Skye and, despite the lack of water-borne transport, a chorus of The Skye Boat Song breaks out in the back seat. Skye is the largest of the Inner Hebrides so there’s still a way to go to Carbost and the Talisker distillery but at least the weather is easing. 

    Water is cascading off the mountains, and the road gets smaller the further we go but we arrive in the area in good time, as planned, and we start to think about lunch. Despite what the internet had to say about our options, nothing we had researched was actually open, so we rocked up at our destination some 90 minutes early and despite signs to an on-site café there was nothing to eat there either. We leave Steve perusing the shop and dash back up to the local community store just as it’s closing but the

    proprietor’s  a good soul and lets us buy our provisions which we then consume in the rather smart waiting area of the visitor centre. Finally working out that we were the only people booked in on the 2:30pm presentation, and the likelihood of ‘passing trade’ was virtually nil, they suggest we take the experience now so we waste no more time and head to the tasting room. The ‘experience’ is billed as a multimedia extravaganza but in reality is a series of promotional films and a guided tasting but it’s ok, and Sarah’s driver’s drams come in a neat hessian bag with a free funnel, so that’s good. The shop is well stocked and we end up buying a bottle of 9 year old wine cask finish that you can bottle yourself, which is a lovely detail, so I have a bottle of Talisker with my name on it and an entry in the customs book.

    The drive home is much less hairy as the weather has eased considerably. We stop at the Collie and MacKenzie statue at Sligochan for a wander and photos before turning towards home pausing only to fill up at the Co-op in Broadford whose petrol is noticeably cheaper than anywhere else we’ve seen. It’s dark by the time we get back to FW, and we hunker down to a meal of venison sausages and plenty of whisky.

    Monday

    When originally planning this trip, we had thought we’d leave on Monday but for some arcane reason we couldn’t get the train until Tuesday evening so we decided to go to Mull on Monday as a sort of bonus trip. The usual way to get there I believe is to go to Oban and catch the ferry to Tobermory but that’s far too easy for us intrepid travellers. 

    We cross Linnhe by the Corran ferry as per, then at Loch Sunart we fork left and cross the mountains to Lochaline and the short ferry across the straits to Fishnish on Mull. From there it’s a very scenic half hour drive to Tobermory and the most delightful distillery experience of our trip – even though it was my turn to drive! I had emailed the distillery ahead of our trip saying we were hoping to get there this day but certainly couldn’t guarantee what time, so would they be able to accommodate us on something of an ad hoc basis? When we arrived they were more than welcoming and offered us what would normally be a warehouse tasting of their finer whiskies at 2pm, but with the warehouse closed for refurbishment we could have a short tour instead. That suited us admirably so we decamped to the pub next door for a pint and a burger before a wander around the harbourside of Ballymory, I mean Tobermory – which I still associate with the Wombles as our kids were grown up long before Ballymory was a thing. It’s a delightful place even with half of it closed and we manage to get a few things we needed including a postcard for Michael.

    The distillery tour is great; no matter how many of these we do, there’s always something new or different. The tasting is long and relaxed and from my tiny sips I manage to guess the finish of a couple of the drams and am thoroughly chuffed with myself. Time is pressing however, there’s a long way and two ferries to get home in time to roast the venison for Steve’s actual birthday dinner so, reluctantly we return to the car and head back. I don’t get much company on the way home aside from a few snores and a drunken rendition of ‘Sailing’ as we’re crammed onto the Corran ferry for the last time. The road back from Lochaline is twisty and the fog has descended so I’m quite grateful for the relative silence as I try to keep up with the tail lights of the car in front, but I’m no match for his local knowledge and lose sight just before the summit and crawl down the other side before the fog clears and the altitude lowers. Aiming to get back by 6pm, I pull up at 6:15 which I think is pretty good considering the three-quarter hour wait at Fishnish. There’s a rush to get the meat in the oven and we’re back on schedule for what is an excellent repast followed by more whisky.

    Tuesday

    We’ve arranged to have the car for the rest of the day and we think that a trip to Spean Bridge would be worthwhile as it’s advertised as a woollen mill and whisky centre but it’s nothing but a tourist trap for unwary Americans so we have to make other plans. Despite my misgivings it’s decided that a drive out to Mallaig would suit. I think this is largely swayed by memories of the crab sandwiches we had there last time because there’s bugger all else to do there. It is a good drive though, especially in the Audi and we rock up at a very windy Mallaig where nothing at all is open save the local Co-op. Still, it’s a nice drive. The way home passes Glenfinnan again and their visitor centre has a café that was open last time we passed so that’s our new destination. There’s also a very good little exhibition about the Jacobite Rebellion which started here in 1745. After coffee and cake, and in between showers, Sarah and I wander over to the impressive memorial to the rebellion.

    The afternoon plans centre around the Ben Nevis pub, once we’ve garnered enough supplies for our train picnic later. Having parked the car at the station, left the keys with the ticket office and  the bags in left luggage, it’s a fifteen minute walk through town to the pub. On the way I notice that the wool shop that had been closed every other time we passed, was open so Sarah and I went in while the others went to secure a table for a late lunch. It’s a charming shop, up a flight or two of stairs and turned out only to be open because the owner’s friend from Eigg was stuck on the mainland after a late-night helicopter trip to the hospital for her, thankfully well, young baby. Two bags of fleece, some wool and a couple of books later (one signed by the woman from Eigg who turned out to be its author), we bid a fond farewell and find the others at the pub. Pie and chips all round, and more than a couple of pints of the local brew pass the afternoon swimmingly, but eventually it’s time to go. 

    Having retrieved our many, heavy, bags we’re waiting in the fairly cold foyer when we’re invited into the First Class lounge – there’s far too few passengers at this time of year we’re told, to keep it too exclusive. We’re checked in, fed coffee and biscuits and wait in comfort for the call to board. The paucity of passengers also means we can get a seat in the dining car for the first part of our journey where we enjoy a conversation with the steward and a miniature of Glen Garrioch just to be sociable. There’s also a repeat of the cabin water problems so our breakfast is again free. We return to our cabins, consume our picnic (and a dram or two) before turning in, oblivious until we are served breakfast somewhere in the midlands before rolling into an empty Euston (there’s a train strike) just ahead of schedule.

    Wednesday

    We’ve booked a taxi home at great expense and he’s late. We eventually get hold of him and he’s stuck in traffic not having realised there’d be trouble on a rail strike day. He finally shows up and we load our bags into the boot and ourselves into the car. It’s comfortable but this guy is not a good driver and, being in the front seat, my journey home is fraught with worry but we get there in one piece and fall into the house.
  • Seville, mostly

    Seville, mostly

    September 2022

    After two and a half years off the rails, Spain beckons. We’ll be travelling from Fratton (of course) to London, Eurostar to Paris where we’ll tick off our last Parisian mainline station when we leave on the sleeper from Gare Austerlitz to Latour de Carol in the Pyrenees. From there a local train will take us to Barcelona where we’ll overnight before catching the morning train to Granada. After a couple of nights there visiting the Alhambra, we’ll head to Seville for the best part of a week, visiting Jerez, before heading home via Madrid and Santander where we’ll catch the ferry to Portsmouth.

    Day One

    Fratton Station

    The night before we leave there’s a big thunder storm and water is coming in through the bathroom vent. After some running repairs we retire and awake the next morning to find everything in place so we shrug, get ready and set off to catch the 11.54 to Waterloo. Minor panic as a Southern Trains service to Victoria is abruptly cancelled but nothing else is affected and, although we set off slowly, thanks to other delayed Southern Trains – a fact our conductor is keen to remind us of throughout the journey – we arrive in good time and cross London by tube and sit patiently in St Pancras International waiting for our train gate to open.

    I know Eurostar have had their critics recently but just to say, passport control and security was as smooth as possible with the added entertainment of one of the ‘guides’ making sure we got in the right passport lane – “no, this one, not my fault it’s brexit”.  
    Arrived at Paris Nord bang on time leaving us just shy of two hours to get across Paris to Gare d’Austerlitz on a packed Ligne 5 and notwithstanding a wrenched elbow gained by lifting a heavy case and bag over the barrier. Anyway, Austerlitz will be lovely once it’s finished and is the last mainline station in Paris from which we have departed (I may have mentioned this before). There’s quite a wait in our airy (ok, outside) waiting area before the board directs us to the platform for our Intercités de nuit sleeper to Latour. There are no private beds on this train and I think we were too late booking to take advantage of an espace privée supplement, so we find ourselves sitting on our quite comfortable couchettes finishing off a half bottle of half decent Bordeaux before turning in under the sleeping bag provided for us. We have one traveling companion in the upper bunk but it’s all very convivial as we speed on through the night to the Pyrenees.

    Day two

    At around 7am, our traveling companion starts moving about as quietly as she can and eventually leaves the train at Foix. We are thus left to ourselves for the next couple of hours as our train climbs slowly into the Pyrenees. It’s beautiful. Mountain trains are the best, moving slowly through spectacular scenery while you gently take it all in and if it’s a sleeper, you can come to your senses at leisure. And while this particular morning might not quite equal waking up to an eagle taking flight in the Highlands, the window is three times the size and we can both easily enjoy the passing view.

    Eventually we come to a halt at the impressive but practically deserted Latour de Carol Enveitg station on the Spanish border. There’s a nice looking café just outside but it turns out to be shut on a Wednesday so we have to content ourselves with coffee and pastries from the Relay concession in the station. Our Rodales train to Barcelona is due to leave at 10.25 and there’s an announcement to that effect but there’s no train and the half dozen of us waiting shrug and laugh at the imaginary transport that is ‘about to leave’ so ‘please close the doors’. A moment or so later a man appears from the station building and shouts across the tracks to those of us waiting and it turns out the said train is 15 minutes late arriving. Twenty minutes later we board, and trundle off down the other side of the mountains to our destination. The first three quarters of the journey are spectacular (when not in the many short tunnels) but it gets more prosaic the closer to Barca we get and the last few kilometres are underground. 

    We’re staying at AC Sants across the concourse from the station and check in before having a very welcome shower and a bit of a siesta. It’s a comfortable business oriented hotel and is so convenient for a brief stay in the Catalan capital as most trains come in and out of Sants and there’s a massive taxi rank outside. Suitable refreshed we find there’s still time for a short trip out and we settle on the museum of the art of Catalunya on Mount Juic. We wander across an get in one of those taxis which takes us right up to the museum and then swerves round and up the hill to a point nearer the actual entrance. There’s a mobile bar affair outside the main door and a beer seems in order while we take in the panoramic view of the city. It’s a spectacular venue and very well presented, plus Sarah gets in free. There’s a lot to see but we confine ourselves to a splendidly presented exhibition of rescued medieval frescoes, altarpieces and other religious art from the region followed by a walk through the history of Spanish art.

    Dinner tonight is at La Tere Gastrobar where we ate last time we were here; we hope it’s as good and generally it is. The quality of food is still very good but I guess covid has contributed to robbing it of some of the ambience and bonhomie we experienced last time. Our train to Granada leaves at 8.30am so we retire to our room and watch something we’d downloaded on the iPad before turning in.

    Day three

    The convenience of our hotel can’t be overstated. It’s comfortable too, although the air conditioning this time was positively arctic. Left is the view from our window of the station, so it’s a matter of supreme ease to walk across the street to catch our high speed train to Granada this morning. We have splashed out for confort class seats for the roughly six hour journey. Masks have to be worn and it takes a little while to get used to that again. Sarah has been spending time on every train making lace and today we’re sharing our table with a Spanish pair, one of whom is crocheting a shawl and regales us with many photos of their previous efforts, all of which are excellently made but are largely variations on a theme.

    The landscape of the Ebro valley is interestingly stark as we approach Zaragoza then passing Madrid on towards Cordoba there’s farmland and olive groves. We get lunch from the buffet car; toasted iberico ham with tiny bottles of olive oil and a rather marvellous tomato concoction to tart it up with, together with a glass of red wine. 

    Leaving Cordoba, where our new friends get off, we learn that the Queen is at death’s door and I’m glad not to have to face wall-to-wall Nicholas Witchell speculating with no solid information for hours on end. It seems however that this is it.

    Meanwhile, the track from Antequera to Granada is all olives and distant mountains. There’s a new road being built and what looks like a wildfire in the distance but we arrive in good order into 33° heat and take a taxi to our hotel where we have to wait a while to check in at 4pm, no earlier. It’s worth it however as we’re upgraded to a very comfortable ground floor suite in this listed 17th century Palacio. The man at reception is extremely helpful and has prepared a useful guide to all that’s good for our short stay here including where and when to get the best photos of the Alhambra and the best places to eat.

    Time for a siesta.

    Upon waking we learn that the Queen has indeed died.

    We still need to eat so we head to La Diamante recommended by our host and manage to get a couple of seats at the bar. We order a couple of beers and get a mixed plate of seafood and aubergine to keep us going. We order clams, deep-fried anchovies and a dish of mushrooms and devour the lot washed down with a couple more beers. The food is as fresh as it is delicious and generous, the service is hectic and friendly. It’s very popular. We go back to the hotel for a whisky and a relatively early night for tomorrow we have the Alhambra.





    Day four

    Our tour starts at noon, we’re to be there fifteen minutes beforehand. Never one to leave things to the last minute, we’re there an hour early. Time for breakfast at one of the cafés and still have twenty minutes to wait with no clue as to who out of the many tour guides in the meeting area will be ours. I wave my tickets at some of them but they shake their heads, they’re not ours. Finally I find a few fellow tourees and we gather together outside the gift shop before Ana breezes up and announces she’s the 12 o’clock English tour guide (she’s actually local but her English is excellent). Tickets issued we start our three hour tour of the entire complex. It’s fascinating, Ana has a PhD in Islamic studies and so provides us with perhaps far more insight than we might have had on other tours. We hadn’t realised quite how extensive the Alhambra is but the best is saved for last as the tour ends in a crescendo of beauty and with us exhausted but happy. Sadly for us, the tour ends quite a distance and downhill from the entrance and the gift shop from where we’ve resolved to buy a suitable “coffee table” book. The climb back up is arduous in our tired state and the continuing 33 degree heat. 

    A bus back to the centre and a search for lunch (at 4pm!) finds us inhaling egg, chips, chorizo, Andalucian black pudding, fried green peppers and pork loin washed down with beers and sparkling water at a café restaurant not far from last night’s excellent repast. This too is wonderful, a sort of full Andalusian all-day breakfast.

    We’ve been told that a particular church is as spectacular as any Rome has to offer so, refreshed, we catch the number 8 bus across the city and arrive at said church ten minutes before it closes. They won’t let us in. Not even for a quick peek. Grrrr. It’s a way out of town, among the university buildings, not being entirely sure of finding a bus back in this still searing heat, I check and find Granada has Uber so I call one and eventually we’re back at the hotel for a shower and a snooze. A table has been booked at Los Manueles for 9.30pm – still early for Spain – and we have a decent meal there this time washed down with white sangria.

    Day five

    Before leaving for Seville there’s time for breakfast at the “Alhambra Café” on Bib-Ramblas and some last minute shopping. We even squeeze in a visit to their very splendid cathedral before a taxi takes us to the station.

    There’s a pretty long queue for our train and every one’s luggage has to be x-rayed before boarding. Our ticket is for Antequera where we change trains for Seville. It now seems the train we’re about to board is also going to Seville which produces a moment’s confusion but then I realise it’s going via Cordoba which surely must take longer. In the event about twenty other passengers get off with us and board what turns out to be the train from Málaga to Seville arriving at around quarter past four.

    Seville station is smart, new and cavernous. Outside is hot, stiflingly so. We find the taxi rank and get in the first available. Trouble is, the driver doesn’t seem to know her way around, has to ring the apartment owners, still can’t find it and has to use Sarah’s Google maps directions to get us there. She still charges us €10 for the privilege despite having gone at least half a kilometre in the wrong direction.

    The apartment is wonderful. It has a proper kitchen, living room and bedroom, a large bathroom, a balcony AND a rooftop pool. We go shopping and I cook us a spicy chicken tagliatelle dish as we enjoy a quiet night in. In the meantime I book us a tour of the Alcázar in the morning. 

    Day six

    The Alcázar is a fifteen minute walk from the apartment and Google maps takes us a slightly longer way than necessary but we fetch up at the Lion Gate in good time and wait. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the deal with the tickets isn’t the same as it was in Granada and all we’ve bought is a jump the queue ticket. There are plenty of potential guides around however and one seems particularly promising. We end up in a small group of six, there’s a good dynamic and we have a thoroughly enjoyable tour. The Alcázar itself is beautiful in all respects and was substantially rebuilt by King Pedro who was strongly influenced by the style of the  Alhambra and you can see echoes of that design throughout those parts of the palace. I get the impression that the decoration is not quite as fine as that at Granada but that’s really a counsel of perfection as it is still wonderful. The gardens are particularly impressive but the heat drives us inside and we have a quick lunch in the café and a wander around what remains of the old gothic portion of the palace and the ceramics exhibition before leaving in what remains stifling heat.

    Outside the cathedral we stop for a drink – a couple of Finos as it happens – and some pinchos, at Orio’s bar. Deciding to head to the river we stumble on the tourist office and end up booking a river trip on a solar powered boat. The boat doesn’t leave until 6pm so we have a couple of hours to kill. We carry on down to the river, about 100m away, past the Torre Oro and find the pier for later and sit in the shade for a while. Further down the bank there’s a couple of bars which seem as good a place as any to wait. The nearest looks quite good, the bar is run by a young man with his uninterested girlfriend and there’s plenty of room so we order Aperol spritz and enjoy the ambience, which includes a Spotify playlist called “In da Guettho” which we have great fun texting our horrified daughters about.

    After an iced coffee we head back to the pier and before long are aboard the boat on our river trip, which proves only that Seville’s waterfront is not all that interesting, particularly when the three language commentary is out of sync, but it’s a calm and relaxing hour spent on the water. We would normally spend late afternoons wherever we’re staying to recharge before going out to dinner but today. perhaps foolishly given the heat, we’re walking back through the old town looking for a potential tapas bar crawl. In the end we find a good looking restaurant and stay there for dinner instead and then manage to crawl home for a well-earned sleep.

    Day seven

    It’s raining! I booked tickets to the cathedral last night (it’s Monday and not much other touristy stuff is open) and on our way there this morning it starts to rain. Annoyingly the pre-booked entrance is not the main entrance and we have to dodge the now quite heavy rain to the other side of the building before we can go in. Seville Cathedral is quite magnificent, apparently the third largest in Europe after St. Peter’s and St Paul’s (Rome & London) and contains the tomb of Christopher Columbus (or part of him at least) among other treasures. It feels more like a museum than an active church but it is beautiful and the morning is well spent. It has a lovely cloister with orange trees and a wooden crocodile hanging from the ceiling and the obligatory gift shop through which we exit and from which we buy our obvious souvenir for Seville – a cheap resin model of the Torre Oro.

    We grab a beer at a local bar and decide to take a tourist bus tour of the city aiming to end up at Plaza d’Espagne. It’s a very long tour with several very interesting sights but the area that once held the 1992 world fair, now a business park, is not one of them. We go round the whole tour and swap buses to start again so we can reach our goal. The Plaza d’Espagne, part of the extensive rebuilding for the 1929 Ibero-American exhibition, is hugely impressive but seems somehow under-utilised and we have one more stop before we head back to the apartment. The tobacco factory where Bizet set Carmen is now a university building but it remains an impressive structure and Sarah poses for a photo outside to send to friends with whom we went to see the opera at the Royal Opera House a few years ago, buying very expensive tickets during a night on the vodka.

    Tonight we eat at a splendidly decorated Moroccan restaurant very near the apartment and it’s rather good.

    Day eight

    Before we left home I booked us a tour of a sherry bodega in Jerez and a couple of days before departing I get a phone call from them asking if I realised I’d booked a Spanish language tour. Obviously I hadn’t realised this, so our visit time was pushed back from midday to 4pm for the English version. This means we don’t have to leave Seville quite as early as originally planned – Jerez is only just over an hour away by train so we resolve to catch the 10:45 and amble the ten minute walk to the station. Queueing at the Renfe ticket office, time is starting to look tight but ultimately the train is delayed anyway so we arrive in good order and walk into the centre of town.

    As with nearly all places it seems, the area around the station is not very salubrious but as we walk further Jerez begins to unfold its charms and we find ourselves first at a bar in the Plaza de la Asuncion for a refreshing fino, and then lunch of anchovies and Russian salad at a very local café in the Plaza Plateros. Our tour is at the Bodegas Tradicion and on the way there is the cathedral so we stop for a visit and spend a cool half hour before climbing what turns out to be quite a steep hill up to the bodega. We arrive a little early but they’re happy to let us in and we rest under a roof of vines alongside a couple who had arrived even earlier than us. By the time four o’clock rolls round there are a dozen there for the tour.

    Bodegas Tradicion is a relatively new venture built on the foundations of a much older one and their interesting story is told before we visit the many barrels of sherry and get a very good grounding in how the various types of wine are made and how they differ from each other. We then get a generous tasting of several of their very fine products before we are led into what turns out to be the highlight of the tour; their excellent private art collection where we sip our Pedro Ximenes and marvel at this small but perfectly formed collection of Spanish art including examples from all the greats – Goya, Velasquez, El Greco, Picasso to name the obvious. Suitably enamoured, we buy a couple of bottles – a fino and oloroso – and share a taxi back to the station with another couple. A coffee in the station café kills the time waiting for our train back to Seville where our taxi driver this time has a much better idea of where things are.

    I make us a meal using up the chicken and pasta we had bought on our first day as a lovely day comes to a very satisfying end.

    Day nine

    The weather is fine again, but thankfully not as hot. We’re heading for the Seville Museum of Fine Arts gallery in the Plaza de Museo. It’s a nice wander through a different part of Seville and we first come across the magnificent Setas de Sevilla, a large wooden structure known to locals as the mushrooms, finished in 2010 and a very modern landmark for this old city.

    On the way we also pass Lizerran, a café bar recommended by Adam for its pinchos, so we stop for a beer and a snack which is indeed pretty good, before we move on to through shopping streets to the gallery.

    The gallery itself is excellent. Well curated and a fascinating journey through more Spanish art, including a fine collection of Murillos, set in a lovely old palazzo with a cool courtyard interior.

    It’s our last night in Seville so we decide to try one of the nearby bars, the first of which, “Becerrita”, turns out to be a more than decent restaurant and a fitting conclusion to our time here. The food is lovely and we settle on sherry with every course rather than a bottle of wine. A crisp, dry fino to start followed by a Palo Cortado and finishing with a very fine PX. 

    Day ten

    Today marks the turn for home as we turn north towards Madrid. We leave Seville fairly early in the morning and arrive in the capital just after 11am. We’re at the main station, Atocha, but our hotel and tomorrow’s departure station is at Charmatín so after failing to find the local train connection we get in a taxi to cross the city. Charmatín is the mainly business quarter and home to Real Madrid but the station is rather prosaic and the hotel, like AC Sants in Barcelona, is not built for tourists but is also not quite as nice as its Catalan counterpart. It will do for us though.

    Sarah has found us a potentially interesting little museum to visit only a couple of metro stops away. Finding the metro itself is less that straightforward however but after wandering aimlessly for a few minutes we eventually find it down some steps from platform 1 of the main station. The ticket machines are also less than obvious and there are a couple of staff stationed nearby to help the many confused travellers. After that, the trip is as easy as it should be. The museum is ten minutes from the metro and up a slight hill but we find it easily enough and buy our tickets. It’s often best, we find, to start at the top floor and work our way down. The lift in this building is a rather fine vintage wooden one and the museum itself is filled with a marvellous collection of art, objet and artefacts put together by José Lázaro Galdiano and bequeathed to the Spanish state.

    We seem to be in a rather expensive part of town with the cafés offering rather more expensive food than we really require on a Thursday lunchtime but we find one that’s more relaxed than the others and beautifully decorated where have a lovely, good quality lunch. Rather better quality than the station Burger King we get for dinner before a very early start in the morning.

    Day eleven

    We’re on a fast train to Valladolid where we change and catch a slow train through the Cantabrian mountains down to Santander. The mountains are very picturesque with broadleaf woodland, ochre painted houses and wild pampas grasses framing the meadows and villages dotted along the way and making it look not quite like a Swiss alpine scene.

    Santander station is half a mile form the hotel and once oriented we drag our weary carcasses to what turns out to be a very nice hotel near the water, and crucially, across the road from the ferry terminal. We are able to check in and after a quick rest, a shower and booking a restaurant for later  Sarah is desperate for a swim. Santander is actually bigger than it looks and the main beach is really too far to walk so we get the front desk to call us a taxi. Before launching ourselves onto the sand it’s time for lunch.

    There are a whole load of bus stops here and several of them will take us back to the hotel so after a swim (for Sarah, not me) and a sizeable ice cream we catch one.

    Our dinner booking is at Querida Magarita, a Michelin recommended restaurant. it seems quite near on the map so we walk, but it’s further than we thought and up a bit of a hill and in what looks like a more residential area but it’s very much worth it and we have a great meal with paired wines at a very reasonable price. A taxi back to the hotel is essential after such a repast.

    Day twelve

    A day to wander around the centre of Santander, picking up some last-minute shopping and having lunch in the cathedral square before it reopens after siesta. The cathedral itself is nice, not very elaborate but calm. We also have a stroll in the park by the hotel and take some time to relax looking across the water and laughing at the forlorn attempts of a workman to keep his temporary barrier erect in what s quite a strong wind and in the face of a public determined to ignore it. The modern arts centre is quite the building and the park has several sculptures dotted around – it’s a lovely place to sit quietly after what has been a busy couple of weeks.

    Dinner turns out to be in an old covered market that has been converted into something with art shops, bars and a travel themed restaurant. It’s a real contrast to the previous evening but no less enjoyable and a fitting way for our time in Spain to end.

    Days thirteen and fourteen

    We arrive at the recommended time to catch the 2pm ferry back to Portsmouth and wait. And wait. Brittany Ferries’ Santander route does not seem geared up for foot passengers at all as we wait for all the vehicles to embark before following them up the vehicle ramp rather than via a separate passenger entrance as you might expect. Our cabin is nice though, thankfully I booked one with a window, and we settle down for our 28 hour voyage home. There’s an interesting talk scheduled for the marine mammals we might see on the way but we fail to see any whales or dolphins on either day. A fair dinner is included and we then retire to our cabin and watch “Rocket Man” (3 Stars) on their video on demand service. Sadly I completely failed to put my iPad away properly for falling asleep and so managed to leave it behind when we disembarked.

    The weather was calm for the whole crossing thankfully. We don’t dock until 5.30pm though and with nothing else much to do we end up watching most of the Queen’s funeral, which seems to be on almost every TV on board anyway. Once again the lack of regard for foot passengers shows as we don’t get to leave until well after everyone else and the bus to the terminal is cramped and not geared up for the amount of luggage we all carry. After a long time at border control (yawn, thanks Brexiteers) we call an Uber and are soon home.

    Carbon saved by not flying: 1.15 tonnes

  • When it’s spring again…

    When it’s spring again…

    February 2020

    We love Amsterdam.

     Day One

    Although worrying noises were beginning to come out of China, our sole concern at this time was the potential disruption of Storm Ciara. It was, however, a very leisurely start to a quick break in Amsterdam as we left Fratton station headed for a midday direct Eurostar to the Dutch capital. For some reason when we booked, the cheapest ticket out was in business class so we had a very relaxing and comfortable journey arriving on a late afternoon in early February.

    On our first trip to Amsterdam back in 2012 we stayed at a lovely boutique hotel just off the Museumplein and in a fit of nostalgia we had booked the Hotel Jan Luykens again for what may turn out to be the last time. On booking in we were told that it would be closing in October. I dare say it closed earlier than that. It was a nice hotel and very conveniently located but lacked any dining facility. Accordingly we scout around for dinner and head for Sama Sebo a very popular Indonesian restaurant. The weather is wet and without a reservation we seem to be out of luck but as we pass along the outside looking for an alternative, one of the waiters waylays us with the offer of a seat at the bar if that would suit. It does indeed. We order the rijsttafel and stuff ouselves stupid on the most delicious and varied food.

    Day Two – The Hague

    We have started to want to explore further afield and so we are going to The Hague. Dutch trains are frequent and efficient so with only a fairly early start and a quick change in Utrecht we arrive at Den Haag HS mid-morning and head for our first stop; the Marithuis museum.

    The Maritshuis is home, among other things, to The Goldfinch and Girl With A Pearl Earring, the latter attracting quite a crowd as we enjoy the many works of the Dutch Golden Age. It’s a lovely museum gallery and well worth the trip on its own.

    Through the Binnenhof, the old Dutch parliament buildings, we walk to the small Museum De Gevangenpoort exhibiting preserved relics of past crime and punishment, and the next door Galerij Prins Willam V, a small but delightful art collection. By now it’s lunchtime and we eventually find a suitable café in the town centre.

    Wandering the shopping centre and arcades, we decide there’s enough time to visit the Escher museum before Storm Ciara will hit and force us to stay. Twigs are already being blown from the plane trees as we approach what turns out to be a highlight of the trip. It really is time to head back to the station now and we arrive in good time to find a seat on the high speed train to Utrecht which is suddenly not going anywhere. Everyone piles off and starts to stare at the departure board and I quickly realise that the commuter train on the next platform is going to Utrecht and we grab a seat before it fills to the brim with passnegers from the Intercity. It transpires that the cancellation was due to a broken down ICE which we pass near Gouda with one of its pantograph hanging off. 

    The on train guard tells us that there’s an ICE coming that will get us to Utrecht marginally quicker than the commuter train we’re on so we take the chance and get off at one of the small stations and wait for longer than we we led to believe but it arrives and without any more drama we get back to what is now a very blustery Amsterdam. It’s too early for dinner and we always like to rest up at our hotel if we can, so we do. 

    The trouble is now that the storm is in full sail and our restaurant is thorough soaking distance away and we enjoy tasty traditional Dutch fare while quietly dripping on the floor at the window table.

    Day Three – Rijksmuseum, diamonds and cheese

    There’s a very nice café just around the corner from the back of the Rijksmuseum where we have a pleasant breakfast before heading into the museum itself. It’s always worth a visit and today is no exception and we spend all morning there breaking briefly for a beer and apple cake. Between the Rijks and our hotel, which we have often passed without entering is the House of Bols and the Diamond “museum”. Watching craftsmen at work before resisting attempts to sell us expensive diamonds passed an hour before we stride firmly into the House of Bols for an excellent tour of its history and that of Jenéver before cashing in our free cocktail chits, having another cocktail, spending a small fortune in the shop and striding somewhat less firmly out again. The rest of the afternoon is spent at the hotel.

    On the way over, flicking through the Eurostar magazine, there’s an article on cheese which includes a rave revue of a pop-up fondue restaurant in an old factory site on the edge of the Westerpark. It’s a bit out of the centre but sounds exciting so I get the phone out, find the website and manage to book a table in what turns out to be a very popular venue. It’s quite a tram trip and we warily enter the complex, passing closed shops but also some bars that look promising. Eventually we find it right at the rear and with some relief, as we’re still an hour early, pile into a very ‘hip and trendy’ nearby bar for a pre-dinner drink. The night turns out to be brilliantly memorable, the food, welcome and service excellent and fully cheesed up we get the tram back to the hotel.

    Day Four – North Amsterdam

    The ferries from the Centraal Station across the Ij are frequent and free! We’ve decided that today we’ll explore further afield and head towards North Amsterdam where I’ve heard of an artists community in an old factory which is a vibrant centre duting the summer but even in winter has much to recommend it. It sounds like a plan so we catch the tram to the station cross the Ij and breakfast at Pont Neuf. 

    The area is being heavily redeveloped and it’s a long and sometimes confusing walk to our destination but we clock a fleamarket on the way and eventually find out target which thankfully is both open and houses a more than acceptable bar where we recover from the chill wind with large coffees before exploring further. It’s definitely interesting and will be on our agenda next time we visit in the summer but there’s not much happening now so we head back to the fleamarket for a fun time regretting we did not have a large van with us. Calling up the bus timetable on the phone we find and catch a bus back to the ferry. Just along the way is the eyecatching Eye filmmuseum where we have lunch and spend the afternoon.

    Our last dinner this trip is at De Belhamel, a very good restaurant, beautifully decorated in art nouveau style and with a great view down the Herengracht canal. It’s very popular and the food is sublime, as is the bar where we stay for a nightcap before we go back to our hotel for the last time.

    Amsterdam offers so much for the traveller that we will surely be back again, pandemic or not.

    Day Five – Home

    Our journey home suffers from the after effects of the storm as some of the high speed lines are unuseable and it soon becomes clear that we will miss our Eurostar connection as our Talys ICE trundles through some of the minor lines around Rotterdam, Eurostar are ready for us however and we are booked on the next available train. They’ve received some criticism lately for their attitude to honouring CIV commitments for those with separate rather than “through” tickets, but we do have through tickets and the process is clear and easy.

    We grab pasties at Waterloo and get home about two hours later than scheduled. As I finish this, over a year later, we have only managed a drive to our friend’s house in Germany in the summer for a few days and it looks unlikely we shall be heading abroad again until 2022. Fingers crossed.

    Carbon saved 50kg

  • Lisbon, Barcelona and Paris

    Lisbon, Barcelona and Paris

    November 2019

    A week or two before we set off on this journey to Lisbon, emails started arriving talking about how southern France was flooded and no trains were crossing the Franco-Spanish border. Other information suggested that efforts were being made to work around the floods and connect somehow with the French TGVs to Paris. So because any potential problems were limited to the route home, I resolved to carry on as if there was no problem at all and deal with whatever occurred as it happened.

    The taxi, due at 3.15am, was early and sat outside our open bedroom window gently purring while we got dressed. Bang on its due time the phone rang loudly to let us know it was here and we set off into the chill morning headed once again for St Pancras International. After an uneventful crossing we trundled out of Gare du Nord towards the waiting taxis to cross Paris to the Gare Montparnasse where we were to catch the TGV to the Spanish border. It seems to take ages and we pass through unfamiliar parts of the city but we finally arrive and get dropped at a side entrance to the station, where there was work going on, lifts out of action and signage not as clear as it might have been, particularly for the non-francophone. Time was on our side though and we soon found a staircase, hauled our cases up to the drab concourse and found a grocery cum coffee shop for a more than adequate late-ish breakfast of croque monsieur and café au lait while we await the train to Hendaye.

    Incidentally, travelling through Montparnasse leaves just Austerlitz of the Parisian mainline stations we have yet to set off from, so perhaps a visit to Provence will be in order in the future.

    It’s an awkward winding stair down to the platform when you’ve got suitcases to manoeuvre, and the security barrier is both overmanned and porous, but we find our way to our carriage and board. Settling in on the upper deck of our train, we leave the capital and head off towards the Atlantic coast. Sarah starts knitting some extremely complex Sanquhar gloves and I read my book and look out of the window before the desire for a smattering of lunch drives me to the buffet car. Catering on TGVs is so much better than what’s on offer from the trolley on SWT and OK, it was €8 but lunch was a very tasty cheeseburger that did not suffer at all from being microwave reheated. The wine was of a pretty decent quality too. As we travel on towards the coast the weather worsens and it isn’t long before announcements are being made about delays. The high speed line was flooded in several places so we have to use the regular lines between Bordeaux and Biarritz (which, incidentally, looks glamorous even through the deluge). Our original connection time was 50 minutes and estimates of the delay range from 30 minutes to an hour and a half. In the event we make the connection at Hendaye for the Lisbon sleeper, the Sud Express, comfortably, even allowing for some confusion surrounding a group ticket ahead of us in the queue.

    Retiring to the buffet bar to enjoy whatever they have to offer for supper (bacalhau à brás as it turned out), we end up sharing a bottle of wine with a lovely Dutch couple, bemoaning the absurdity of Brexit and drinking to future Anglo-Dutch relations before turning in.
    The tracks across Spain are a little bumpy but you get used to sleeping in fits and starts and letting the swaying and rhythm of the carriage rock you back to sleep and this cabin was cleverly designed to be roomier than most too. A knock woke us about 30 minutes out from Lisbon.

    Lisbon Day One

    The only problem with arriving by sleeper is that your hotel is never ready for you to check in that early. The train approaches the city, as most do, through its least salubrious areas arriving alongside the cruise terminal. Giving the address of our hotel to the taxi driver, we travel the short distance up the hill of Alfama until our path is obstructed by a police officer who, for some undiscovered reason, was preventing vehicles from going any further up that street. In an echo of Tangiers we drag our cases up the remaining 50m of cobbled street to our poorly-signed hotel. As expected, we couldn’t check in but they were extremely welcoming, stored our cases and even gave us breakfast. With the rest of the morning to kill we set off for the castle at the top of the hill, winding through the narrow streets and arriving just as it opens. For a while we have much of it to ourselves and after the obligatory photos of the spectacular view, and a wander through the romantic garden, we settle at a outdoor café table for a coffee and our first pastel de nata, surrounded by peacocks, in the warm Lisbon morning sunshine.

    The Castelo de S. Jorge is the perfect place to start your visit to Lisbon. There are stunning views in every direction from the ramparts and towers, and it has the added bonus of a camera obscura with regular ‘shows’ in a variety of languages. We happen to time it just right to get it to ourselves, in English, which helps add to our growing familiarity with Lisbon’s topography.

    Outside the castle is a regular looking bus-stop and we would have passed it by unnoticed but for a sheet of A4 paper pasted to the back. It’s funny how in a place surrounded by an unfamiliar language, the sight of something in English catches the eye. This was a sign about how the popularity of the authentic experience offered by Air BnB was encouraging landlords to evict local tenants in favour of tourist dollars and begging visitors to use hotels rather than opting for staying in such a local apartment. Not something we’d ever considered before and certainly thought provoking.

    Just below the castle is the church of Santa Cruz. After a quick stop at a ‘convenient’ pissoir (for me), we visit both the charming church and its adjacent bell tower, payment for which supported its restoration and affords us access to the very interesting photo exhibition of life in mid 20th century Lisbon up in the gallery.

    It’s getting pretty warm by now and we stop for a beer at 28 Café, decorated as one of the traditional yellow trams that hurtle around the narrow streets of Alfama and are a vital transport option around Lisbon. We wander further down the hill, visit the darkly impressive cathedral and poke our noses into a nearby church before fetching up for lunch in a port bar at the bottom of the hill just off the Praça do Comércio. It has a whole wall of Port and some other Portuguese wines and plenty of tables. There is a bewildering variety of port by the glass available but before we can order the waitress draws our attention to the fact that they only take cash. Strange, given the prices of some of the vintage port on offer, but there’s a nearby atm and we share a plate of charcuterie and cheeses washed down with a delicious dry white port (or two).

    By now we figure we’d be able to check in and freshen up so we climb back up the hill to the hotel. Our room is very comfortable and a quick doze seems in order. The hotel also has what it calls a fitness centre in its other building just up the street, which includes an outdoor pool and Sarah loves a swim. We try it out, which means making our way through a garage area, past a couple of gym machines and out into a quite pleasant garden, again with great views. The pool however is freezing cold and the swim doesn’t last long.

    I like to book a table at a restaurant near the hotel for our first night at least, just so we know where we’re going to be eating. This time I have booked at Fado and Wine, hoping it delivered on its name at least. It’s just inside the main commercial area of the city, so we take one of the several staircases down the hill, squeezing past a group of young people noisily milling around boxes of books seemingly being hawked by someone or other. The restaurant turns out to be more of a wine bar with food, much like we’d had at lunch, but the host was delightful and charmed with us being English so we had a very pleasant meal before beginning the climb back up the steep staircase to the hotel. Barely 20m from the hotel however is Tasqinha Canto Do Fado and we fancy a beer. It’s getting quite crowded as they’ve got live Fado on tonight (and as it turns out, most nights of our stay). We cough up €7 for a table and are thoroughly entertained by two fado singers accompanied by the traditional guitarist and guitarrista. So we drink more beer, and a cocktail, and finish with coffee before booking a table for dinner the following night, prompting our hosts to refund our €7 and a packed first day in Lisbon draws to a close.

    Lisbon Day Two

    We’ve decided to spend our second day in the city out in the Belém area. There’s a lot to see out there so first we head down to the Praça do Comércio to pick up our Lisbon cards and catch tram to Belém from the main square. It stops eventually outside the Jerónomos Monastery which is a beautiful confection of Gothic Manueline architecture.

    We spend a large chunk of the morning exploring the monastery, together with an exhibition that includes a very helpful timeline of Portuguese history set against world and wider European events. By the time we emerge into the late morning sun we’re more than a little thirsty and scout around for a café. All we can find however is a little coffee truck near the monument to Portuguese explorers on the waterfront. It’s very welcome. Just along the way is the Museu de arte popular, not something we’d noticed in the guidebooks but what could be wrong with a ‘popular art’ museum. Nothing in the end, but popular means ‘folk’ in this instance and there’s not a huge amount in it but for an extensive exhibition on basket weaving with many and varied examples of the basket maker’s art. Curiously, given that we were pretty much the only people in there, the attendant paid us very close attention all the way round.

    We continue along the waterfront towards the tower as it approaches lunchtime. There are several options nearby but we settle on a café literally on the water, and share a curious pastry sandwich with some daring sparrows before going to take a look at the Belém Tower itself, pausing only to admire the memorial to the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic, undertaken in 1922 by two Portuguese aviators Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral in a Fairey III.

    The Belém Tower is another gorgeous example of Manueline architecture but there’s not a lot to see inside and it will be some time before it reopens today so we content ourselves with a good look round what we can see of the outside before crossing the park to a very open footbridge across the main road so we can visit the Museu Coleção Berardo with its impressive array of modern art including a couple of very interesting temporary exhibits before weariness gets the better of us and we catch the tram back to the Praça do Comércio and stagger back up the hill to our hotel.

    We indulge in a brief snooze before showering and dressing up for dinner at Tasqinha where we are thoroughly entertained by Fatima Garcia and others while we eat very presentable food served by our extremely friendly hosts. It’s gone midnight before we stumble into bed.

    Lisbon Day Three

    I’m probably a little hungover as we start our third day here. There’s a flea market sprawling over the hill behind the cathedral, but I need a coke and a coffee before I can face diving in. We spend all morning poking around the vast market before catching the iconic Number 28 tram down to the centre in search of some lunch. The tram is packed and hurtles breath-catchingly close to some of the buildings in the narrow streets of Alfama but it’s a lot of fun.

    The weather has turned a bit dreary and there’s rain in the air as we wander about looking for a suitable place to eat. There’s a good many cafés, and many a tourist trap before we settle on the fish restaurant Concha d’Ouro with tanks of fresh seafood lining the entrance and where Sarah dives into a hearty fish stew. I, still on the delicate side, have something grilled with chips. It’s all delicious. The restaurant is packed but the service doesn’t flag and we have a great time.

    Just around the corner is the Santa Justa Lift. Built in 1902, the lift is a magnificent cast iron edifice linking the commercial district with the Bairro Alto. Today there’s obviously something amiss, perhaps understaffing, as the queue takes forever to deliver us to the, admittedly very well appointed, lift compartment for the ride up. It’s still gloomy and damp as we wander around the Bairro Alto and we’re not sure whether to stick around or head home but I’ve heard the Church of Sao Roque is worth a visit. It’s not very inviting from the outside, but the interior is more than spectacular and the associated museum turns out to be well worth a visit too. It’s one of the earliest Jesuit churches in Portugal and the inside is Baroque on acid; gold, lapis lazuli, marble, Azulejo tilework, sculpture and art compete screamingly for your attention. We’re very glad we made the effort.

    We have had enough wandering now and even though it’s properly raining now, walk back down the hill through some of the more high end shops and find our way back to the hotel before another evening of food and Fado at Tasqinha.

    Lisbon Day Four

    It’s Sunday, and it’s going to be a busy one; Sporting Lisbon are at home this evening and we’ve got tickets. First up however, is the tile museum; it’s a little out of the centre so we catch a bus that should go past the door. After about 20 minutes it’s clear we’ve gone too far so we get off and cross the road to catch one going back the other way. We get Google maps out and take a guess at which bus stop to get off at this time. The driver is clearly puzzled as to why these English people want to get off here and pulls up beside us and asks where we’re going. We tell him, he rolls his eyes and says to get back on; “Why didn’t you ask?”. We shrug instead of trying to explain how unlikely it is an English bus driver would be as helpful. Two stops later we get off at a Lidl and follow the signs to short way to our target.

    The museum is excellent and well worth the trauma getting there. After over an hour looking at tiles we catch a bus from just outside the museum this time and successfully find our way to lunch in a café near Praça Dom Pedro IV.  We’re heading north today so catch the metro at Rossio so we can get up to Museu Calouste Gulbenkian for the afternoon. Suffering a minor diversion after turning left instead of right on leaving Sao Sebastiao metro station, we find the museum complex with its two architecturally interesting buildings situated in a lovely park. There’s a very wide range of works from the ancient to contemporary art from around the world collected by the British Armenian businessman and philanthropist Gulbenkian and a modern exhibition centre including a brilliant timeline of modern Portuguese art history. The café is thankfully great too, as refreshment is much needed by now.

    The José Alvalade stadium is further north and a change of metro lines away. The stadium is a riot of green and yellow atop, among other things, a large Lidl store where people are still shopping as the fans gather. I try to order some food and end up with what turns out to be a cold hotdog topped with chipsticks! The football is pretty good and ‘we’ end up winning quite comfortably.

    Back in Rossio, in the square, there’s a large marquee affair and lots of noise and bonhomie. It’s a food fest and after our weird hotdogs, we’re still a bit hungry. We stop for mulled wine while we decide what to eat and get a bell ring and hearty cheer when we tip the enthusiastic server. We settle on a vast quantity of grilled pork to eat and finish the day with, yes, a drink at tasqinha.

    Lisbon Day Five

    Day five is largely set aside for any shopping we still have to do, various gifts are purchased along with some Port for us and a couple of t-shirts for me. We visit the oldest bookshop in Portugal and brouse some of the more ‘fashionable’ precincts. After a couple of hours wandering the streets of central Lisbon we fetch up at the small beach by the main square and buy a cone of roast chestnuts from the nearby cart. It’s warm and sunny and it’s nice to relax for a little while and reflect on our time here.

    We’ve arranged a car to take us to the station, further out of town this one, where the sleeper to Madrid will leave at about 10pm, so there’s plenty of time for some food and a last drink at tasqinha before we leave. The train is a bit late and the platform is cold but ultimately we’re on our way, sad to leave Lisbon but a day in Barcelona beckons.

    Barcelona

    There’s quite a queue for local train tickets across Madrid to the Atocha station from where the Barcelona train leaves. We’ve been here before and grab some breakfast at a small concession before looking for our platform. The indoor rainforest is still quite impressive but the security queue and the queue for the travelator down to the plaform are both a little chaotic so we have no time to linger.

    It’s still very early as we leave Madrid and the onward problems we have thus far ignored are now beginning to play on our minds. We consider several options as to how we might complete the next leg, given the floods in France and the apparent lack of a connection across the border. SNCF still considers our TGV cancelled. We arrive at Sants station a couple of hours later and search out the Renfe help desk where they are utterly unconcerned at our worries, pointing to an A4 sheet of paper that we are assured says we are to turn up on time in the morning and all will be fine. Mollified we cross the Placa de Joan Peiro to our smart and business-like hotel, check in, freshen up and nap.

    We have no firm plans for the day but want to do something so we decide to head for La Rambla and see what happens. The Metro calling itself Barcelona Sants is, judging by the length of the tunnels we have to walk down to get to it, actually in the next county. We’re tired and thirsty and perhaps a bit tetchy but we get there and wander about until we find a suitable, if somewhat trendy, café for much-needed refreshment.

    The Palau Guell is around the corner and we settle on that as a suitable visit, one we hadn’t been to on our previous trip to the Catalan capital some 18 years earlier. It’s an impressive Gaudi concoction hidden away in an otherwise anonymous side street. 

    Another wander and we stumble upon the Mercado de Las Boqueria and we love a local market. This one is beautifully presented and we spend a happy hour there before catching a metro at Liceu back to Sants.

    In most cities the area around the main railway station is less than salubrious but the neighbourhood behind our hotel is wonderfully “local” and we have a mooch around and grab a beer at a small bar while we wait for our restaurant to open. I cannot recommend La Tere Gastrobar enough. Modern, delicious, tapas style menu, beautifully presented, it turns a one-day stop-over into a memorable part of the holiday. We sleep with smiling faces.

    Journey to Paris

    For once we need no taxi, tram or other transport to the station, which is becoming a familiar place to us and we buy breakfast at the concession we’d used twice before. The queue for the Paris train, which SNCF still insists doesn’t exist, is growing so we join it and are eventually given new reservations and an explanation of what is to happen. We will get a regular Renfe train to Beziers where we’ll be put on coaches to Montpellier (a strange station in the middle of nowhere as it turns out) where we will catch the TGV from there to Paris Lyon as planned and only a couple of hours later than scheduled. A quick email to our Paris hotel reassures us both that we’ll be there, just later than we’d arranged and we’re off. The journey goes almost exactly as they had said, even if I did have to email SNCF to get on the TGV wifi because our ticket reference was for a train that wasn’t running!

    The taxi to our hotel gets stuck in a jam along a street that seems entirely populated by wedding shops but eventually turns up the hill of Montmartre and pulls up outside a large blue door. The building used to house Theo van Gogh and we take a few minutes to decipher the instructions for the gate lock to find our boutique hotel looking like a small house in the garden. We are welcomed heartily and shown to our basement room, which is very funky with a bath nestled in an alcove. More or less across the road is what one would describe as a typical French bistro and we have a typical French bistro meal and thoroughly enjoy it.

    Day Nine – Birthday in Paris

    Today is my birthday and I’ve woken with a stinking cold. It’s a chill morning, the warmth of Lisbon long behind us, and it’s not promising to be a great birthday. We climb Montmartre to Sacre Couer and find a pharmacy where after a few questions the pharmacist sells me a packet of cold cure which knocks the whole shebang on the head within twenty minutes, certainly by the time the Montmartre museum opens at 10am.

    The museum itself is set in Renoir’s house and is packed with everything relating to Montmartre and its artistic legacy, including the brilliantly preserved atelier de Suzanne Valadon, model and painter, the first woman painter admitted to the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

    It’s going to be a very “arty” day. At the Grand Palais, just off the Champs Elysee, they’re hosting two exhibitions; El Greco and Toulouse-Lautrec and we’re off to see both. We emerge from the Metro just outside the Palais to be confonted with a labyrinth of barriers making up an elaborate queueing system. But there’s no-one in it. Fairly relieved, we twist and turn our way to the entrance and get a double ticket each. Turns out there’s no queue because everyone is already inside. The El Greco is packed but brilliant. There’s a café and we manage to get in, find a table in what turns out to be a lull in proceedings and get a pretty good lunch before tackling the Toulouse-Lautrec, which is equally fascinating.

    Dinner is at La Maison Rose, a charming restaurant in Montmartre run by a lovely couple; she very business oriented, he just loving having people round for dinner. It’s a great meal and a lovely end to my birthday.

     

     

     

     Day Ten and Home

    The oft dreaded ‘last day’ arrives and we book an Uber to Gare du Nord, who turns up on time but for some reason 50m up the road. The Eurostar lounge at Paris is as grim as usual with the added confusion of a lost belt. Okay, mislaid. Thoughtlessly I wore trousers requiring a belt to stay up which, having a metal buckle, had to be removed for the x-ray machine. Trouble was, it didn’t seem to come out the other end and it wasn’t in there – they checked. Train waiting, passports to be checked meant I had to abandon the mystery and move on. Only after getting through the entire check-in process and finding a seat for the duration did I find it tangled up in my coat. Oh well.

    The traffic in London was appalling and our taxi driver got caught in a worse jam by taking a ‘quicker’ detour but we got to Waterloo in time and caught the train home after lunch at the café we had breakfast after Scotland. The journey had a final twist however as we were taken via Winchester seemingly just for the fun of it. But home we were.

    Carbon saved by not flying: 320kg

  • The Drachenfels Railway

    The Drachenfels Railway

    October 2019

    A quick post to celebrate this delightful rack railway running from Königswinter to the top of the Drachenfels mountain, just shy of 300m above the Rhine.

    Sadly, it’s only 1500m long so doesn’t take very long to travel although there is a midway stop for the Schloss Drachenburg. The castle itself is a rather magnificent Gothic confection and worth a visit.

    The trains themselves consist of two carriages with integral driver, run on overhead electric cables at a gradient of up to 20%. Very classic design.

  • Whisky Galore

    Whisky Galore

    June 2019

    It was to be the trip of dreams (and drams) and, if we ignore the journey home, it was pretty wonderful.

    A couple of years ago four friends went to Champagne (by car, so no report here) for a tasting and gastronomic journey into the world of bubbles. It was brilliant. We had a great guide for our tour and a happy day of chance discoveries when left to our own devices. The resolve to do it all again was strong from the start and after wondering whether to return to France and perhaps Bordeaux or Burgundy, we decided to indulge on of our other shared passions; Scotch Whisky.
    I was left to research options, come up with an itinerary and then make the necessary arrangements. The advantage Champagne has over Scotland, on this instance at least, is that it is much more compact – we could not, in any reasonable amount of time, be expected to cover the whole gamut of whisky production in the same way as we could méthode champenoise in France so we would have to be much more selective. The other problem would be getting about; three of us could drive but none of us wanted to. The answer was to avail ourselves of a driver/guide for a couple of days to drive us around adding ‘local colour’ where appropriate. After many hours pouring over maps of Scotland, maps of distilleries and researching those whiskies we might prefer to visit, we settled on establishing a base in Fort William because it was convenient both for several Highland Distilleries and Speyside, and because it would enable us to take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy two of the world’s “must do” rail journeys – the Caledonian Sleeper and the Jacobite Express.
    And so it is, in late June, the four of us board a noon train at Fratton (of course).

    Day One 

    We cross town from Waterloo to Euston, leave our luggage at, appropriately, Left Luggage and tube it down to Soho because when one embarks on such a trip, it’s best to start as you mean to go on. In that spirit I thought the best thing to do to really get us ‘in the mood’ was a private tasting at Milroy’s whisky bar in Greek Street, and what an inspired idea that turned out to be. We booked a 3pm tasting of premium examples from each of Scotland’s five whisky regions. We got a thorough outline of the basics of whisky production from our very knowledgeable host and a dram of some very fine malts, finishing with an astonishing Octomore, just the thing to set us up nicely for our journey.

    With further astonishing foresight I had booked a table for dinner a few doors down at 10 Greek Street but after the tasting we had a little time to kill so a restorative coffee at Tintico across the street was very welcome. Only I noticed Burn Gorman at the next table reading a script and because I’m not one to disturb people just because they’re a bit famous, it was quite funny to point out his presence to the others once he’d left. After coffee we had just enough time to buy a ridiculous/beautiful shirt at Zegerman’s before our dinner at a very hipster but equally high quality restaurant at Number 10. That left plenty of time after dinner to take the Underground back to Euston, retrieve our luggage and wait in the crowded hall for the board to confirm the platform for the sleeper north.

    When we booked, the website was all about the new rolling stock and how wonderful it would be compared with the tired old stock. As we approached the barrier it was clear that the new stock was not yet in operation on the Fort William route at least. A woman with a clipboard stood in place of the not-yet-operational electronic ticket barrier, who was keen to underline the fact that they were ‘very short staffed’ on the train tonight and could we get our breakfast orders done within 30 minutes of departure. Hmm. Anyway, we found our cabins and even though they seemed a little more cramped than those on European night trains we had used before, we settled in. The lounge was full, and restricted to first class passengers, while the kiosk/bar was very late opening due to the aforementioned staff shortages. By this time we had tired of the idea of a night cap and settled on sleep.

    Any grumbles about the train the previous night disappeared upon waking. We spent the next three hours trundling through the most wonderful scenery, stopping at romantic sounding highland stations before this wonderful journey ended somewhat prosaically alongside Morrison’s in Fort William.

    Day Two

    I would stake ready money on the fact that a significant proportion of visitors to Fort William arrive by sleeper train. This makes it all the more bizarre that our hotel was so intransigent when it came to checking in. This was not possible they assured us, under any circumstances before 3pm. Any circumstances. The train had berthed at 10am so there we were, less than twenty minutes later in the lobby of the Clan MacDuff Hotel failing to check in. They could look after our cases but that was it. Even in normal circumstances having over four hours to kill would be annoying, but because the hotel was a mile or so out of town it was necessary to take a taxi there and back it felt like a wasted journey. This is even before you factor in the rest of our day’s itinerary.

    We’re booked on the Jacobite “Hogwarts” Express, which leaves Fort William for Mallaig at 2pm. We can’t check in until 3pm. Okay we say, we’ll check in when we get back from dinner. That’s fine, they say, as long as that’s before 10pm. However, the Jacobite doesn’t get back to Fort William until after 8pm so we end up making a special trip back to the hotel just to check in before going out again to eat. We did, briefly, consider the option of eating at the hotel, but the restaurant only opens between six and eight. Really.

    After a moment’s staring at the loch across the road we resolve to spend the intervening hours in town and reception calls us a taxi. Just as we’re beginning to wonder about Scottish hospitality, a Very Helpful taxi driver takes us to the heart of Fort William’s main drag and points out several options for lunch and after a bit of a wander round, we end up at the Ben Nevis bar for perfectly tasty meal and some pretty good beer too.
    The weather, I should say at this point is Hot, heatwave hot.

    The Jacobite express to Mallaig is on many a “top ten” rail journeys list, and rightly so. The landscape of the “Road to the Isles” is beyond spectacular and travelling through it on a steam train is just perfect. Crossing the Glenfinnan Viaduct we can see crowds of people on the opposite hill aiming, it transpires, for the perfect shot of said Hogwarts Express as it passes by, ignoring in large part the monument to the Jacobite rebellion in the valley below. There’s a few minutes to take a breather at Glenfinnan station and a quick look around the small museum before we head off again for Mallaig.

    This west coast port turns out to be somewhere you go to get somewhere else – there’s not much to do on such a visit as ours, although we later see an advert for a short sea safari that guaranteed to be back in time for the return train. Our wait is eased by some fat crab sandwiches and a cream tea of epic proportions. It is spoilt by an awful busker operating from the boot of his car opposite the café.
    The return journey is naturally just as beautiful but the heat is now exacerbated by regular hot smuts from the engine being blown in through the necessarily open windows. We’re starting to flag a bit now and we have yet to make the trip back to check in. We take the chance to change and freshen up before another taxi to the curry house we had booked earlier. I had a very decent chicken dansak but my companions were left raving about the quality of their various lamb dishes. One of the best curries we’ve had was supremely enhanced by the view over the loch. By the time we had finished eating it was approaching 11pm and it was still not dark. Just time for a nightcap before turning in. Thankfully we’d had the foresight to buy a bottle of Bunnahabhain from Morrisons for the purpose. It was still light when we turned in.

    Day Three

    Day three is Distillery Day One. The driver I had booked for the two days arrived as promised at 8.30am and we set off for the furthest distillery of the day, aiming to work our way back via Blair Athol and Dalwhinnie. After a pleasant drive through the stunningly beautiful landscape skirting the Cairngorms, we arrive at Edradour near Pitlochry.
    Edradour is charming. Set in the small valley of the burn that feeds it, it looks like the sort of thing Disney would build if asked for a typical, Scottish, Olde Worlde distillery, all white walls and red paintwork, everyone in kilts and some of the finest whisky around. By now we were becoming very clear on the “how” of whisky production so when it came to our second stop of the day we headed straight to the bar. The Blair Athol distillery bar is a fine thing. Made from an old copper still and staffed by a very knowledgeable young woman who guided us expertly through a six dram tasting. (By the by, the Blair Athol distillery is in Pitlochry, not Blair Atholl a few miles away).

    We had had a mild panic as a booking misunderstanding had become apparent – I had assumed that Stephen, our driver, was going to make any necessary arrangements but he had believed I was making them. A quick bout of googling reassures all that appointments were not always necessary and there are plenty of places to visit anyway. We lunch in Pitlochry. When we return to the car Stephen is redeemed as he has made arrangements for us to join the last tour of the day at the otherwise booked up Dalwhinnie distillery, the highest in Scotland. A fairly uneventful tour was enlivened by a tour leader approaching the nether end of her tether and an assistant of the less than helpful variety. It had clearly been a long day. Interestingly, Dalwhinnie had chosen to match their various expressions with handmade chocolates and not entirely unsuccessfully either.

    That night we dressed up for dinner at the Lime Tree restaurant and art gallery and very good it was too.

    Day Four

    Today is to be spent on Speyside. After the previous day’s non-booking misunderstanding, I had spent some of the evening checking and revising our proposed itinerary. It meant two things – one, we would not be able to visit the Speyside Cooperage, principally because it was shut, and that a visit to Aberlour was unlikely to be possible as tours were restricted owing to some remodelling work. A quick conversation with Katie, a friend and part time distillery guide, confirmed this. Despite this last minute chopping and changing, a suitable programme was worked out and a great day was had.

    First stop is still Cragganmore, a bit more than a mile from the main road despite what the sign says. Again we opt not to take a tour, even though we had thought about their interesting food matching tour, it was still early and none of us were hungry enough. We settled on a full tasting in the shop and are suitably impressed. Impressed enough to spend a substantial amount on one bottle and a staggering amount on another. Our enthusiasm gets us a view of their stills anyway as they have very unusual flat tops and we ought to see them.

    The next destination is Dufftown, putative capital of Speyside with a specialist shop, seven distilleries and a museum. On the way we pass the cooperage and stop for pictures anyway before rolling up Dufftown’s main street to our first stop, the museum. Quaint doesn’t even begin to describe it. Occupying a single shop front, it barely qualifies as a museum but does have a good number of antique whisky-making accoutrements and ephemera all presented by a delightfully enthusiastic and friendly woman who also points us to the local Costcutter as the best place to buy our whisky. She is right, it has almost as many whiskies on sale as the specialist shop and many at lower prices.

    We decide to take lunch just outside Dufftown at Glenfiddich which is all super corporate polish but has a very decent café with whisky pairings for their menu. We all order the burger with its suggested dram of Glenfiddich IPA (for a separate, brief review see Will it Mac?). We’re not too bothered about the rest of their products but look round the shop anyway before heading off again.
    Final stop of the day is The Glenlivet, deep in the countryside, where after a wander around their very smart museum cum display and a quick tasting we are officially “Whiskied out”. At least for now. We are all a bit jaded as we are driven back to the hotel where we wave a cheery farewell to Stephen and get ready for dinner at “The Geographer’s”.

    Day Five

    We awake to a change in the weather. No longer hot and sunny, it has turned quite dramatically and is now wet and windy, grey and misty. Which is a shame, because today’s plan includes a boat trip on Loch Linnhe. After breakfast, something the hotel is pretty good at, we check out and get a taxi to the station to leave our bags in one of their very large lockers. While there my phone rings; it’s the boat operator – ‘were we still coming?’ they ask. We confirm that we are and will be there before too much longer. The weather appears to be easing a bit but it’s still not ideal by a long chalk.

    “Souter’s Lass” is an old Royal Naval tender that worked on the South Coast as “Bournemouth Belle” before operating as a ferry between John o’Groats and Orkney from 1980 to 1987. She now runs cruises on Loch Linnhe and thankfully has a sheltered, downstairs bar offering many things, but today the hot chocolate is most welcome. The mist clears quite well as we set off and we can see everything our guide talks about, with the added bonus of a sea eagle seen flying down the loch. Just before Corran, we turn back towards a rocky island where a colony of seals basks, as best it could. The skipper expertly approaches the isle and we get fantastic views of the creatures.

    Handily, the boat is operated by the same people who run the very popular seafood restaurant on the pier and our lunch booking meshes neatly with the end of the trip. The restaurant doesn’t disappoint with some excellent seafood nicely washed down with a bottle of Picpoul.

    After lunch we head for our last distillery of the trip, the Ben Nevis distillery on the outskirts of Fort William under the shadow of its namesake. It’s a much more industrial affair than the others we’d seen and, although the weather is not helping, it has an air of disappointment about it. Almost all its output is snapped up by its Japanese owners, leaving too little to market anywhere but at the distillery itself. It’s nice enough, and its rarity is tempting but we resist adding to our seven bottle haul.

    A last visit to the Ben Nevis pub is absolutely called for before picking up some picnic items for the journey home.

    We get to an unnervingly deserted station but we’re early so don’t panic until Sarah notices the screen says our train is “cancelled”, not ‘late’ or ‘delayed’ but “cancelled”, and there’s no-one there to explain themselves. Eventually someone is coaxed out of the back of the ticket office to tell us that the train broke down on Friday and they haven’t managed to sort a repair or replacement in the intervening two days. We were to be ferried to Edinburgh by coach where we would wait for the Inverness section of the train to join. A three hour coach journey, a three hour wait at Edinburgh Waverley before we could board (and sleep), but we would get to Euston on time. Hooray. Grrr. The coach journey is horrendous and only briefly lit up by passing through the always stunning Glen Coe. The journey through the Trossachs is beautiful but coaches make me queasy at the best of times and this road is very twisty-turny. Eventually arriving at, or rather near, Waverley station to endure the further long wait until we finally board the train at nearly 1am. We do indeed arrive at Euston on time but its a fairly rag-tag bunch who fetch up at Waterloo for the SW Train back to Fratton.

    We have since agreed a compensation package for our homeward journey troubles.

    Carbon saved: 112.5kg

  • Berlin

    Berlin

    November 2018

    It’s perfectly possible to get to Berlin by tea-time but after this trip we’re left wondering if it’s worth it. Not Berlin, Berlin is fantastic, but undertaking the journey in one hit. The trip from St Pancras, via Brussels and Cologne, is easy enough but it’s very long and not very interesting. Next time we fetch up in the German capital it will probably because it’s a convenient stopping point between two other destinations on a much slower perambulation around Europe.

    That said, we set off for Berlin at 3:40am on a Thursday morning. By taxi. We wanted to get there in the early evening if possible and the 6:47 Eurostar allowed us to do just that, but meant either staying overnight in London or the cheaper option of a pre-booked taxi and a 3am alarm as there are no trains from Fratton that early. The car journey was as smooth as one could have hoped and we arrived at St Pancras an hour ahead of last check-in and very calm.
    I was a little worried when booking about the Deutche bahn “print at home” through ticket because it only had one name on it, but a call to the DB helpline was quite reassuring and when I waved the piece of paper at the gate we were issued with official boarding passes (which no-one looked at again) and ushered through security.
    The security area has changed since we were last there; there’s still the x-ray machine with people faffing about because they hadn’t prepared, but after that, passport control has become mostly automated. Actually, that’s British passport control because the French are still using uninterested looking officers in booths for the most part.

    After an eternity watching an advert for the new Harry Potter franchise film on every screen on a 5 second loop, we finally board our train. It’s our first time on one of the new Eurostars, and while there are more facilities (like a charging point at every seat), despite the illusion of more space it still feels a little more cramped than absolutely necessary. By now though, for us, it’s just a means to get to Europe and not the exciting new adventure of our first trip. A brief stop at Lille and we’re soon in Brussels.
    Annoyingly the escalator directly down to through trains is still out of use, presumably for some misguided security reason, so the transit to our ICE to Cologne is more rushed than ideal but we make it with a few minutes to spare and settle in.

    The Brussels/Cologne ICE is fast – around 300km/h at times, and much more comfortable. We grab a coffee from the chap with a tray (proper coffee, not SWT Nescafé) and eat some of our packed lunch (it’s still only elevenses really). The transfer at Cologne is much more relaxed and we have time to buy a delicious roll before climbing up to the platform. The Berlin train is bang on time although the carriages are numbered in reverse of expectations sending everyone scurrying to the opposite end of the platform from where they were waiting. The journey itself is not desperately interesting once beyond Hannover, and some five hours later, an hour after sunset, we roll into Berlin Hbf the biggest station I have ever seen – it’s like something out of Metropolis with criss-crossing tracks on multiple levels.
    A taxi whisks us to our apartment hotel near Checkpoint Charlie. Our room turns out to be more of a suite with a kitchenette, very comfortable, well-equipped and frankly a bargain.

    Our friend Carrie has recommended a Bavarian style beer hall which is nearby so we head out in search of dinner and (of course) beer. On Charlottenstrasse, near the twin churches and concert hall, is Augustiner am Gendarmenmarkt looking suitable popular and full at seven in the evening but they find us a table and half a litre of beer disappears fairly quickly. We go for the “full German” to eat. Following a delicious fresh pretzel and mustard, we are delivered a sharing platter piled high with sausages, meatloaf, roast pork, crackling, dumplings and meatballs mounted on a bed of sauerkraut, and another beer or two. We, unsurprisingly, forego dessert and stagger back to the hotel for a welcome sleep, grabbing some breakfast from Lidl on the way.

    Friday

    The hotel has a small spa in the basement and after a refreshing swim/jacuzzi we head out.
    Just around the corner is the Checkpoint Charlie museum. Checkpoint Charlie was the best known crossing point of the Berlin Wall (1961-1989) and this museum documents the post war history of Germany leading up to its construction and the many and varied attempts to cross the wall to escape to the West. It’s a bit of an overload on the senses as the displays are packed in a warren of rooms, but it’s fascinating to see part of your own history from the point of view of those who lived it rather than watched it on the news. It’s housed in a building close to the original guardhouse and opened only two years after the wall went up, an analogue live-tweet of history perhaps.

    By now we are in desperate need of a coffee so we are on the look out for something suitable as we head towards the Jewish Museum. At the bottom end of Friedrichstrasse a housing development the other side of a children’s park has a massive elephant painted on its wall and there’s a good looking coffee shop across the street. One milchkaffee and sly apple cake later and suitably refreshed it’s off to the Jewish museum with its intriguing architecture and sensitive displays of Holocaust artefacts; household items left behind by those murdered by the Third Reich. Upstairs in the old building is an exhibition about Jerusalem, at once interesting and frustrating for the non-religious.


    We have lunch in the café of the nearby modern art museum, a really nice organic salad, before taking in the exhibition featuring modern German art and a special display of the Novembergruppe. It’s always an interesting time spent in galleries showing how a country tells its story in its art. It also gave me an idea for our own art collective (Fire Monkey Arts).

    By now we’re getting tired so decide to call it a day and go back to the hotel, passing the Bush/Gorbachev/Kohl memorial, for a rest before another night at Augustiner’s for a massive schnitzel. And although the schnitzel was more than substantial, with schnitzel there has to be strudel. It’s the law. A couple of beers to wash it all down.

    Unter den Linden and the Brandenburg Gate is not far, so we wander over. The wide boulevard is having new U-Bahn tracks and station laid under it so the overall effect is rather diminished but you still get a sense of its grandeur. The Gate itself looks its best at night and we’re glad we made the effort even though the surrounding buildings have encroached on its space way too much making it look smaller than you imagine, especially in daytime. A busy day over we head back to the hotel. The habitual stop at Lidl for some breakfast provisions precedes a very good night’s sleep.

    Saturday

    We are led to believe there’s a flea market by Friedrichstrasse station with its impressive glass canopy but despite searching all around the station we can’t find it and decide to carry on our way to Museum Island where we come across … a flea market! A street full of interesting bric-a-brac, vinyl records and vintage clothing occupies the bank opposite the museums and on quite a chill morning we are also glad of the gluhwein on offer.
    The Museum Kart we bought the day before gets us into the Bode Museum on the point of Museum Island. The Bode houses an eclectic collection of sculpture, Byzantine, Rennaisance and Gothic art, as well as a collection of altarpieces, coins and medals. Currently it has a fantastic exhibition of non-European art and makes interesting comparisons between it and so-called high art, asking the important question ‘why is non-European art dismissed (even if it’s admired) as “Tribal Art”?’ something that needs a much wider platform.
    The Bode also has a nice café where we lunched before heading off.

    Further down the bank from the flea market is an art market which is great for a wander and views of the massively impressive cathedral. Crossing the bridge back onto Museum Island we headed for the Neue Museum, home to the city’s Egyptian collection including the object of our visit, the world famous bust of Queen Nefertiti. There are many “world famous” artworks but only a few make your heart truly sing and the Nefertiti is one of those. It is exceptionally beautiful and well worth going to Berlin just to see it.

    We’re a bit tired now so a boat trip down the Spree appeals. Our bearings aren’t completely true yet so we walk further than absolutely necessary to find the right pier but we do and an hour and a half of entirely German commentary later, but suitably relaxed, we head back to the hotel, pausing only to pick up the Chagall lithograph we’d bought for my birthday from a rather nice antiquarian book and print seller on the Gendarmenmarkt.

    We have about an hour to rest before dinner at Charlotte and Fritz’s, a rather good restaurant we’d booked ahead of our trip. We like at least one pamperful dinner when abroad and this certainly doesn’t disappoint, beautifully cooked and presented dishes in elegant surroundings.

    Sunday

    Being suckers for a good market we get on the S-Bahn and then a tram, passing a significant section of the Wall left up as a memorial, to the Sunday Fleamarket at Mauerpark. The weather’s turned a bit damp and the market space is not fully occupied but it’s still big enough for a couple of hours worth of browsing and has every imaginable food truck outlet available, including an “Eastern” hot, spicy, milky drink which I initially can’t drink it’s so hot and certainly can’t finish because it’s quite unpleasant. Sarah is convinced she saw a different market from the tram and after peering up a couple of side streets in the increasing rain, there it is; the Arkonaplatz market full of the most amazing vintage and ‘retro’ furniture, fixtures and fittings alongside more regular bric-a-brac. The rain is getting quite heavy now so after exhausting all on offer we head back, picking up some food from the supermarket at the station. By mid afternoon we’re back at the hotel and disinclined to go out again. We spend the evening relaxing, cooking and eating a very nice pasta meal, drinking a good bottle of Austrian red wine and watching British telly.

    Monday

    It’s our last day and it will centre around our pre-booked slot at the Reichstag. First up however is the neon-green fronted, not at all hidden, Spy Museum. This turns out to be well worth the visit, more so if you are with younger travellers, chock full of history and interactive displays charting the course of the dark arts of espionage through the ages. There’s an elaborate diorama of the “Bridge of Spies” made famous by the Tom Hanks film, code-breaking puzzles, and a dressing up booth! The only odd thing is that upon leaving (through the gift shop, naturally), you have to go back in the main entrance to retrieve bags and coats from the lockers.

    There’s a massive shopping centre across the road which includes a tube slide from second to ground floor. Wandering through we fetch up at Friedrichstrasse and the Christmas shop we’d seen earlier in the trip. Gifts duly purchased and lunch beckoning, we make our way along Unter der Linden, through the Brandenburg Gate, towards the Reichstag, scouting out the entrance before finding a nice café in the park opposite. It’s a hot buffet and the day is warm enough so we sit outside with our meals and beers marvelling at the fattest sparrows either of us have ever seen.

    Timed entrance tickets to the Reichstag have significantly cut the queues we had been warned about and our party are soon in the lift up to the dome. It’s quite a spectacular structure and the views in the gathering gloom are still impressive.

    Our daughter had stayed in Berlin a couple of years ago and recommended we visit the Schwulesmuseum, It’s our last afternoon so we decide that’s where we’ll finish. Looking at the map it seems not far the other side of the Tiergarten but the park is larger than it looks and it takes a while to cross. On the way we pass the Soviet war memorial and a large equestrian statue in its own clearing, and quite a thirst is worked up. The museum itself is a history of LGBT activism and persecution and thankfully has a very nice coffee shop. It’s along way back to the hotel and we’re out of cash – there’s no direct transport route anyway, so we drag our weary feet back past the art installation that has marked “nearly home” for us during our stay. Dinner is at Maximillian’s, a slightly smarter version of Augustiner’s, which includes a massive salad, another schnitzel and, of course, beer.

    Tuesday

    I’ve had the foresight not to book a desperately early train so the morning is not a mad rush, our taxi gets us to the station in good time and our journey back is as uneventful as our journey out, save for the excitement of spotting the Wuppertal suspension railway, and it’s not long before we’re back in Cologne, then Brussels and the Eurostar back to London. Once again the train from Waterloo is delayed and the arbitrary nature of UK platform allocation precipitates the usual mad rush for seats when the train eventually arrives and less than two hours later we are home.

    Carbon saved by not flying: 140kg