We have enjoyed several trips in the UK and Europe by train and they seemed too good to keep to ourselves. These are all real reports of our own experiences and none is sponsored by any of the businesses mentioned in them; all views are my own. Do feel free to comment and ask questions! #flygskam #trainbragging
Lincoln Has a Better Train Service Than Ever, but What About Sundays?
I had been invited to a special service at Lincoln Cathedral to celebrate, or at least to mark, the 150th anniversary of the founding of the erstwhile Theological College there which I had attended from 1980 to 1983 but which had been closed for some years now. There would be a chance to meet some old friends from those days (although I knew not who or how many) as well as some people I knew who had been there before or after me, so I leapt at the chance to go. As it happened, my wife would be at the cathedral on the day before, attending the first meeting of the newly-elected Diocesan Synod. As we had little else on that weekend we decided to make a weekend break out of it, and as, for various reasons, we, and especially she, had used our car rather a lot recently, we would go by train and relax properly. We booked two nights at the newly-refurbished White Hart Hotel in Bailgate, where we had stayed briefly a few months earlier, and I ensured that there were suitable train services. This last was especially important because we would be returning on a Sunday evening, after the early-evening service and the socialising over refreshments which would follow it, not knowing how long we should wish to stay to that.
On Sundays the roughly-hourly East Midlands train service via Sleaford and Spalding does not operate; it is Monday-Saturday only, so there would be a much-reduced choice of trains, all going on the LNER route via Newark and Grantham. However, it all looked fine, with trains back at a couple of suitable times in the evening which would allow enough flexibility, and with Super Off Peak tickets we would not be at all restricted.
So we set off from Stamford on a Friday afternoon and during our change-of-train at Peterborough bought tea (well, it was tea time!) to drink on the East Midlands Railway train to Lincoln. This service now uses decent trains with comfortable seats but still does not have any on-board catering, so we either have to take our own or buy at the station. Arriving at Lincoln we made our way across to the bus station and took the next bus up to the Cathedral, about a five-minute wait for a five-minute ride. It was then a short walk to the White Hart where we checked in and unpacked in our cosy and well-appointed room. We booked dinner in the hotel for the first night and really enjoyed the meal, served by friendly and efficient staff.
Breakfast at the hotel on Saturday morning was another matter: despite being almost the first to arrive when the dining room opened we were almost the last to be served, and my wife had a meeting to get to. I had given up and hurriedly eaten a croissant when my poached egg finally arrived - I managed about half of it when we had to rush off. Not good, but a chat with the duty manager elicited not just an apology but a substantial discount on the total bill which made everything look all right again and, sure enough, the following morning we were very well served indeed and we shall look to stay at the White Hart again when we need a hotel in uphill Lincoln. To be fair, the breakfast service was difficult that morning because a large party all needed to be ready at once, and there was also a wedding party all wanting time to get ready for the big event. And us ... and they didn't start until quite late on Saturdays so we all arrived in a short time - but still, we could have been served in order of arrival.
I went off around the city centre shops during the meeting, and in the afternoon attended a service at the cathedral marking thirty years since the first ordination of women priests in the Church of England (brilliant sermon!) while my wife went round the city centre shops. In the evening we went to an Italian restaurant in downhill Lincoln and then found a bus back up the hill at bedtime - not so easy as bus services thin out substantially after the evening peak, but it was OK provided we used the timetable (I use the live departures on Apple Maps on my iPhone) rather than just turn up and wait as we can do during the day. It was essential to get a bus (or taxi otherwise) because my current health condition would not easily cope with climbing the hill - anyone who thinks Lincolnshire is flat needs to see Lincoln.
Sunday morning breakfast could not have gone better, then we attended the morning Sung Eucharist at the Cathedral, had a rather less-then-usual Sunday lunch after the gastronomic delights of the previous two evenings and made our way back to the Cathedral for the special afternoon Evensong. It was good to meet some old friends and acquaintances, as well as some newer and current ones who had been at the college after my time. Two former members of staff who are now retired bishops were present, one of them preaching.
We had spoken to everyone we knew and exchanged contact details with some with whom we had lost touch and it was time to make our way home. The vergers had kindly stowed our luggage in their vestry and once I had recovered it we said our farewells and walked to the station. We'd had a choice of a departure which had a short wait at Newark and a long wait at Peterborough, or one that had a long wait at Newark and a short wait at Peterborough: we took the former, a long wait at Newark being a daunting prospect. Peterborough station is drab enough but Newark Northgate can be grim on an autumn night! In the event we arrived at Peterborough and decided to call a private-hire cab to take us home - this cost us an extra £25 but we were home before the long wait at Peterborough would have ended! We really do need a more frequent service between Peterborough and Stamford, or maybe we just need more Sunday services everywhere - the options for coming home were very sparse compared with the outward trip. Nevertheless, it was a great weekend, and I maintain still better than taking the car, with no restriction on drinking wine with friends and no trying to drive in the dark while tired after doing so much.
Travelling home from Venice on a special train service
On our last morning in Venice our journey with Belmond began: the centrepiece, of course, was their luxury re-creation of the Orient Express train, but it began with a representative meeting us at our hotel and taking us and our suitcases to a private-hire water taxi for the trip to Venice Santa Lucia railway station to wait for our train. It did not properly end until we arrived in London St Pancras in Eurostar's Business Premier Class which was an integral part of the Belmond package.
Given the gastronomic experience we were expecting during the 24 hours on board the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express it might have been better for our health to have walked to the railway station, but the boat service was provided as part of the through journey, and it was in any case great to have one last trip up part of the grand canal. On arrival at the railway station waterbus terminal a team of porters was standing by to take our luggage which would be delivered to our allocated compartment. Those with more luggage than ours would have their larger cases stowed in a baggage car, just taking to their compartments what they would need overnight.
And so we arrived at Venezia Santa Lucia railway station and made our way to platform 2 where our escort went to the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express desk that had been set up there, ensuring that our arrival had been noted. The train was brought into the platform about half an hour before departure so that there was an unhurried boarding and loading of luggage. As a fan of Art Deco style and the inter-war "Dieselpunk" era, this journey was something I had wanted to do for a long time, and I was not disappointed in the slightest. The Art Deco feel of this train has been so well preserved, restored and enhanced, even though modern features like wi-fi and, discreetly hidden, electric charging points have been installed.
Our steward Gloria took our passports in case they needed to be seen at a border in the night, put our luggage on the rack and introduced us to the features of our compartment - critically, how to lock the door! - and a waiter came along and poured Champagne into the two flute glasses that stood waiting on the table. The Maitre D came along and asked our preference for the noon or two o'clock sitting for lunch, which, of course, was linked to the seven or nine o'clock sitting for dinner (we went for the earlier in both cases).
The train trundled away falteringly from Venice to begin with, with frequent stops and often moving slowly, but soon it was noon and we washed our hands in our little wash basin and made our way to the third restaurant car, l'Oriental, for lunch, which was an unhurried affair with included Champagne and a wide variety of wine available, most of it included, but you could easily spend a few hundred pounds on special vintages if you wished to do so. The three-course lunch was delicious and relaxing: we accompanied it with a non-alcoholic rosé, given the amount of Champagne we had already had and that dinner with more alcohol would be coming along later. A meal on a train is always rather special, and in an Art Deco restaurant car in Italy especially special!
The train eventually arrived at Verona where the first locomotive change took place. Here we took an opportunity to have a stroll on the platform - just a little more exercise - and reboarded the train when the rain started. It was a fair while before we got going again, and the next service train from the same platform was indicated running 72 minutes late, which made us wonder what sort of disruption was holding us up and for how long. But once we got going we moved fairly swiftly, more like an express train, and were soon into Alpine mountain scenery. Before long Gloria came to our compartment offering afternoon tea, which include a variety of teas and some small pastries, both savoury and sweet.
I wrote some postcards to the family (which I knew would arrive long after we were home, but they would be posted with the special Venice Simplon-Orient-Express postmark and would be nice for our family members to receive) and then we repaired to the bar car, which we had not yet seen, for a cocktail before dressing for dinner. I could not resist ordering the Vesper Martini, but I am unsure whether it was shaken or stirred. The bar car had a very relaxing lounge-like atmosphere and our drinks were served with a selection of nibbles - you do not go hungry on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express! And so back to our compartment to dress for dinner. Now, smart clothing is required throughout a journey on this train, and I did wear a jacket and tie for lunch, but for dinner, "formal" wear is required and so we did wash and change into formal evening wear. Two people changing their clothes in the confines of a railway compartment is quite a challenge but we did manage within the hour we had allocated to present ourselves smartly attired ready for dinner.
Dinner was in a different restaurant car from lunch, the idea being that we would get to experience everything the train had to offer in our twenty-four hours aboard. This time we were in the Côte d'Azur car, all decorated in blue. This was my favourite, and it was good to have the longest mealtime there. Most people played the game and turned up in formal clothes, some really spectacular, and no-one was in less than a jacket and tie. Once more this was a leisurely meal with all the water and wine you could wish, and started with Champagne. We were not far into the meal when darkness came and we were travelling through the night. The route took us through the Alps to Innsbruck in Austria where the train reversed and made its way eastwards through Liechtenstein towards France. No murders so far, although there was a party of some fifty Americans on board, so the Agatha Christie scenario was not impossible. No Russian assassin attempting to kill a British assassin, either. Time to get ready for bed, and if dressing for dinner in the daytime compartment was a challenge, undressing for bed in a compartment which had been transformed by our attendant into a bedroom with a ladder to the top bunk was even more so! At least the ladder meant that we could easily access our cases on the luggage rack if we needed to get something out or put something away, and actually the compartment was so well designed that we really did not get in each other's way very much.
The bed - I had the lower bunk - was surprisingly comfortable and I had a decent night's sleep (better than our last night at the Venice hotel, in fact), until we stopped somewhere and our compartment was immediately next to the cooling fans of a locomotive on the next track. Neither it nor our train was going anywhere for some time, and noise came and went frequently as the locomotive's thermostat required it. This felt like it had been going on for a long time, but this can be deceiving, before at last the sound began to fade and I realised from the slight sounds from below that we were on the move again. By now it was two hours to our accustomed morning alarm, and I had the best part of that asleep.
It was still dark when we awoke and dressed, taking the opportunity to repack our suitcases as we went along, so that by the time we went for breakfast our compartment was reasonably tidy. It was daylight when we arrived at the restaurant car Étoile du Nord for breakfast. There was a small basket of pastries on the table which we ignored until after we had eaten a fruit salad and, in my case, the best-tasting poached eggs on toast that I have ever eaten. We stayed at our table for some time enjoying the views of countryside not unlike that at home, and drinking coffee and water, then we returned to our compartment which in our absence had been converted back into a sitting space. The train was by then through Dijon and making its way eastward on time towards Paris. The sun was shining, it was a lovely morning to be travelling.
When we arrived at Paris Gare d'Austerlitz it was still sunny and although the air temperature was quite cool, it did not feel particularly cold in the sunshine. The train crew had taken our luggage onto the platform and we collected it and wished them farewell, but our exciting and special journey was not yet over. Since the withdrawal of the through service to and from London Victoria using Belmond's British Pullman train, the Venice to London service now uses the Eurostar in Business Premier Class to complete the London stage of the journey, so we were now to experience Business Premier Class on Eurostar for the first - and quite possibly only - time. But plenty of time had been allowed before the Eurostar train departure from Paris Gare du Nord, so we decided to go for a little stroll along the Seine rather than just take the Metro straight there. As we walked we felt warmer and warmer in the sun. We went as far as the west front of Notre Dame cathedral and then took the Metro from Cité station direct to Gare du Nord, where the signage all seems to have changed since our last visit, with the Eurostar terminal now being designated "Hall 2", with the Union Flag appearing next to it.
Even after our stroll we still had lots of time before the train to London, but that was fine, because a big part of the Eurostar Business Premier Class for Venice Simplon-Orient-Express passengers is the availability of the Business Premier Lounge while waiting. Another advantage would have been the fast-track queue at the ticket gates, but there were only two or three people in front of us anyway, so that didn't make any real difference! We did get nice smiles from the Eurostar staff, though, amusingly. The lack of crowds made the whole security process so much more relaxed, and I was pleased to note that the scanning of luggage etc at Gare du Nord seems to have improved since my last visit, and the electronic passport gates on the UK passport control had worked this time and let me straight through. There was no queue at all at the French passport control desk, either. Once through passport and security checks we took the lift up to the Business Premier Lounge, showed our tickets, sat down and relaxed. I could not get the phone-charging sockets to work, but that was not important this time, fortunately. We helped ourselves to coffee and snacks, then later a cold drink, while we awaited the boarding of our train, which was scheduled to leave three minutes earlier than when it had been booked, such is the way with Eurostar trains.
As soon as our train left Paris we were served drinks. We chose Champagne; after all, this was a part of our Orient-Express experience! The meal was soon served, but I missed a trick in not asking for wine to go with the meal when the drinks were brought, but we did have plenty of water. In Business Premier Class there is an option of a hot dish, and on our train it was trout and very good indeed. This was a light three-course meal with starter, main and dessert and although not quite Orient-Express standard was pretty good. The meal finished before we reached the Channel Tunnel and before long we were at St Pancras International station, with plenty of time to go before our booked train to Peterborough and connection home to Stamford - I dare not arrange it any tighter because of the multiple opportunities for schedule to slip before we got to London, but in fact nothing held us up at all and we had as long in the First Class Lounge at Kings Cross as we did in the Business Premier Lounge at Gare du Nord.
Our train left Kings Cross on time and we were served the usual refreshments, although we did not need a lot after the week, and the day, we had been enjoying. The train did encounter a few shorts delays which made the connection to Stamford rather tight, but we made it with a couple of minutes to spare and arrived at Stamford exactly on schedule - and without having to hang around on Peterborough station. Our kind next-door neighbour picked us up by car and drove us the last half-mile home: it's a lovely walk in the summer but we were glad of a lift this time.
When we left home six days before I said it was hard to believe that we were going on this adventure (and as I write this I have not yet published that part of the story!), and now we are back I find it hard to believe that we have done it! The legendary Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, ticked off the The List.
The Journey Can Sometimes Be More Important Than The Destination!
I had given up on taking the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express when they stopped using the British Pullman to operate the service through to and from London. That had always been the traditional route, the departure I used to see on the International Departures board at London Victoria many years ago and had always wanted to try; when it returned as a special luxury train I waited until an opportune time to take it, but then a coronavirus pandemic intervened, and by the time I started planning in the summer of 2023 a trip on the VSOE for my 70th birthday in 2024, Belmond had stopped operating out of Victoria, quoting difficulties owing to "Brexit". The last such trip was in the autumn of 2023 when I was in the middle of sorting out some health problems, so the idea was scrapped altogether. It would have been a lot of money to pay to have less than what I wanted to do; the new service involved starting from London St Pancras International by Eurostar and crossing Paris, as we have done so many times already - it lost so much of what made it special.
But then, out of the blue, came advertising from Great Rail Journeys, whose escorted tours we have taken many times. The advertising was for an independent tour comprising three nights in Venice, travelling out or back by VSOE and Eurostar and flying the other way, with an option of taking an extra day to travel by rail instead of air for the other direction. The price was what sold it, the whole trip less than what Belmond were asking just for the Orient Express and Eurostar section of the holiday .... to wheel out all the clichés, this was a game-changer, a no-brainer, and out came the diary to start the planning! To avoid the "we've done all this before" feeling at the start of the holiday, we would opt for the return trip being by the Venice Simplon Orient Express: this would take us as far as Paris and then Belmond, the VSOE operator, would book us Business Premier Class on Eurostar from Paris to London St Pancras International. We've never travelled Business Premier before so the whole trip back from Venice to London would be special.
For the outward trip we asked for the rail option, so that would indeed resemble many a previous departure from London but that was OK: this bit was not meant to be special - except that any European adventure is always special to a certain extent. Going by train would make it more of an adventure than flying since by travelling overland we would truly experience the journey and not simply drop into Venice from the sky - and in any case getting to an airport from where we live is a bit of a "mission" before we ever start. There would be an overnight stay in Montreux, Switzerland before an early-morning through train to Venice. This all looked great and we paid our deposit and awaited the departure date. Fortunately we had an adventure to Switzerland in the diary, too, also involving Montreux, in the summer, so we were not simply pacing the floor waiting for October to come round!
I booked the trip almost a year in advance, as soon as I was made aware of it, and so when my birthday came round both my wife and one of my sons bought me the Lego Orient Express set ... and although my daughter-in-law said they could take theirs back and get me something else I opted to keep it because the standard two coaches was a bit short and I thought I'd be able to make up something a bit longer using two sets! Such has been the busyness of my life this year that by the time we left I had completed only one set ...
This being an independent trip, there was a fair bit of correspondence between me, Great Rail Journeys and Belmond to ensure that all the arrangements were complete (and I imagine a fair bit out of my sight between GRJ and several other companies, too), and eventually, a few weeks before departure, an email message from Great Rail Journeys arrived with multiple attachments containing the many train tickets and other vouchers and information that we would need while away. This time I bought my own train tickets to and from London and a room at the Premier Inn opposite St Pancras International station for the night before our departure. All was set.
Early on a sunny Saturday evening at the beginning of October we walked down to Stamford railway station with our cases packed for a real adventure. We were to see some familiar sights and a lot of very new sights, and we were on our own, exploring places and travelling a few new routes on new trains as well as some we had used many times before, including, of course, the very familiar Cross Country train from from Stamford to Peterborough! It was extremely busy, but everyone had a seat, and we sat near the luggage stack, ideal for our circumstances. I could not help thinking that this little train, perfectly adequate and comfortable (although in need of its pending refurbishment) was a long way from the splendid trains we were planning to use for the rest of our adventure!
At Peterborough we had a short wait for our connection to London; Sunday upgrade work on the East Coast Main Line meant that traffic on the line was rather reduced and when we boarded our train, on time, there were very few passengers in our coach so the complimentary service was very swift and fulsome. It was from the lowest-category Deli menu (trains were only starting at Grantham, so nothing hot was being served), but I enjoyed a very filling chicken brioche roll. We asked for a can of Hop On Board ale each as well as water for the trip and the usual crisps and the caramel pot for dessert and the little chocolate brownie to go with the coffee. Also supplied were biscuits, which we kept as "emergency rations" in case we needed them later in our adventure, and an extra can of ale each, which we also kept back for later.
Duly fortified we arrived in London needing no dinner and went straight to our hotel and to our room, via the Little Waitrose at Kings Cross station to buy fruit for the following morning when we had an early start. The adventure had begun! After all the planning and preparation it was hard to believe we were actually doing it, but I had a great "wodge" of home-printed tickets (also saved to our iPhones in case that would be more convenient) to prove that we really were.
You can never complain about a Premier Inn room!
We set alarms for six o'clock Sunday morning, got ready for the day and made our way to St Pancras International station. Walking down Midland Road and entering through the side entrance we were straight into the International Departures area as the gates were being opened at 06:45 for the 08:01 train for Paris. The queue moved swiftly and we were soon through the security check and the British and French passport control - although at the British one we were behind someone with really complex multiple passports which held us up a bit: how complicated can nationality and citizenship be? Anyway, early on a Sunday morning there was plenty of waiting space in the departures area, we found a table in the Station Pantry café and I went to buy coffee. At security I had got chatting to a smartly-dressed young man who was on his way to the races at Paris, "the biggest horse racing event in Europe," he said. Looking around there were several men in ties and many in waistcoats clearly going the same way. One of them was buying four pints of gassy beer to take to his table with his friends when I was buying our coffee - I really could not bring myself to drink any sort of beer at that time of day!
Travelling Standard Premier Class in this direction we were served a light breakfast soon after departure, having already eaten our fruit from Waitrose with our coffee at the Station Pantry. It is amazing how quickly the time passes on the train journey to Paris: it is not one of the world's most scenic railway routes, although some of the section through Kent, and some of that just north of the Paris suburbs are quite picturesque. The tunnels under London and under the English Channel, of course, provide no view of anything at all, but at least these days there is full 4G data coverage through the Channel Tunnel.
Having always changed station in Paris by the RER (two stops to Gare de Lyon from Gare du Nord, so fast and convenient, but the trains are unpleasant and often very busy and the stations are not wonderful, either), we experimented with the Metro which I knew would take longer but we were in no hurry, having plenty of time before our booked train to Geneva. It had been my intention to travel on Metro line 5 to the Gare d'Austerlitz which would have left us an easy walk to Gare de Lyon and had the side benefit of seeing the station at which we would arrive when we came back to Paris on the Venice Simplon Orient Express on Friday; unfortunately it was raining in Paris so that plan would have resulted in us becoming quite wet on that easy walk between stations, so instead of going on to Gare d'Austerlitz we changed trains at Bastille and went to all the way to Gare de Lyon under cover! We bought our lunch from Monop'daily at Gare de Lyon as we have before, but this time we ate it inside the station and not outside as on previous occasions.
As soon as the platform was announced we went to join our next train, a TGV Lyria for Geneva, and took our reserved seats on the lower deck of a First Class coach, a pair of window seats at a table for four, so we had company in the aisle seats for this stage of the trip, but in First Class we still had plenty of space to ourselves. This was a similar journey to the one we had taken on our escorted tour to Lausanne and Interlaken in the summer., the Alpine scenery beginning after the train left the high-speed line and started making its way eastward towards Switzerland. At Geneva we left the train and walked through the passport control and customs post with no delay: it was a bit busier there than usual because the train was terminating there, short of its normal terminus at Lausanne because of a problem on one Lyria set which left the service unable to operate its full timetable. Those going forward were directed to the next train for Lausanne, which was not long afterwards. We had a little longer to wait for the connection to Montreux where we were to spend the night, but that was fine because we wanted a coffee break anyway and found a strange little place called The Bloody Bar inside the station. I'm sure we used a café at this this station about ten years ago but it was not like this ...
Our regional train to Montreux was a Swiss double-decker and although we had no reserved seats we were in First Class and we opted to sit upstairs and enjoy the lake view. By the time we arrived in Montreux the sun was setting. Great Rail Journeys had booked us a room and breakfast at the Swiss Majestic Hotel, right opposite the station, but because our train was leaving very early in the morning we asked for packed breakfast to take on the train and were promised that this would be arranged. Our room was small but great, with all the features we needed, and a small balcony with a view over Lake Geneva. I was beginning to wish I'd asked for two nights here instead of just the one, but anyway we had some evening so we popped out for a salad from a supermarket and ate that for supper on our balcony. A brilliant part of the holiday. The sunset over the lake was fantastic, enhanced by a pleasure boat coming into Montreux pier, just along the shoreline from our hotel.
After supper we had a stroll along the lakeshore and then went to bed early ready for the morning's early start: that would be two early starts in a row, so we determined not to rush to be up on the third day!
When we checked out, our packed breakfasts were ready and waiting for us on the reception desk: this is Switzerland and most things just work. But we were off into Italy. Montreux station was familiar from our summer holiday, where we caught the Golden Pass Express to Interlaken among other things. This day we were taking a six-hour ride straight through to Venice on an Italian EuroCity train, starting with a Swiss crew and then to be changed for an Italian crew at Domodossola - where we found our timekeeping lost 13 minutes, which it never regained, during the crew change! Never mind, it did not affect our holiday but it just seemed an interesting factor in the way different nations operate. We were in First Class again and in the front coach, but although this was a long-distance international train it had no catering facility on board (well, not quite true: it had a buffet coach but the buffet counter was shut for the whole journey), but we had allowed for this eventuality and had boarded with coffee bought at the station, our packed breakfasts from the hotel, and a few bits left from our LNER trip two days before, as well as some fruit from home. The packed breakfasts were very worthwhile and so did last us through the whole morning, just before one o'clock at Venezia Santa Lucia station. The train had reversed at Milan, so when we arrived at Venice we were in the rearmost coach instead of being at the front, so we had a bit of a walk to the station exit, where we were met by our English-speaking guide who would escort us to our water taxi and take us to the hotel. I had wondered how this part of the tour would work: Great Rail Journeys had included a private boat transfer from the station to the hotel (I'd have walked!) and there was Francesco, as he introduced himself, waiting with a board with our name on it, and the GRJ logo, as we reached the station concourse.
After waiting a few moments for the taxi to find docking space we were whisked off by the canals of central Venice, finishing up back on the Grand Canal (having cut off a big loop) for the final approach to the Hotel Savoia & Jolanda which had been booked by Great Rail Journeys for us. Our room on the first floor had a view across the lagoon to the island of San Giorgio, and we overlooked the waterbus stops and gondola station right outside our windows.
We took advice both from our guide who had brought us here and from the hotel reception staff concerning restaurants and gelateria, and their advice was to provide much of our agenda for the two full days we were here! It was, of course, already lunch time by now, so guided by Apple Maps we set off for a supermarket for a salad which we took back to our room for the "main course" and then set out again for a gelato for the "dessert". The recommended gelateria had such an enormous queue that we decided to look for a quieter one, which we duly found and enjoyed what we bought. We had been to the Tourist Information Office near the railway station and after taking advice bought a three-day pass each for the water buses, the "vaporetti," which are most practical way of getting around the whole city and its multiple islands. The passes were valid for 72 hours from first use, so would enable us to travel the rest of that day and the two full days. We tracked down the restaurant where we wanted to have dinner, advisedly the "best carbonara in Venice, the Dona Onesta. It did not take bookings, but it was by now almost our dinner time and its opening time, so we went for a short stroll and came back to ask for a table. We both ordered spaghetti carbonara and it was indeed extremely good, but not having tried the same thing in any other Venetian restaurant I cannot comment on whether it is the best!
We returned to our hotel by waterbus, using our passes, and it was soon time for bed in preparation for a day's exploring tomorrow. We wanted an early start because rain was forecast from about noon and we wanted to squeeze in as much as possible before the rain.
Breakfast in the hotel restaurant was good: the usual fruit juice, coffee and a buffet, which included scrambled egg so yellow that I wondered what happened to most of the egg whites! It was delicious, though.
We took a waterbus to Murano, the island on which we had stayed last time we visited Venice, so it was interesting to revisit a few years on. We strolled around remembering our previous stay, and visited a few glassware shops, coming away with a new Christmas Tree decoration as our souvenir. One gelato, and it was time to take another waterbus to the island of Burano, much further out in the lagoon, which we had never visited before. This was to be a day of island-hopping, but it was dampened somewhat by the weather, as light rain began while we were on our way to the waterbus stop (the service to Burano only calls at one stop on Murano), and it was raining a bit more when we arrived on Burano, although it was patchy and we did have a couple of dry spells. We found a lovely café for coffee and a spot of lunch and then as we set off to explore the island the rain really came down solidly and quite heavily. The island was beautiful: it seems to be the thing to do to paint your house in bright, vibrant colour on Burano. You could never mistake it for any of the other islands. Well worth a visit. We walked as quickly as we could back to the waterbus stop and took the next departure back to central Venice, which took us via some of the other peripheral islands, but with wet and steamy windows we could not really appreciate them as we had hoped to do. The waterbus was busy but we managed to get seats, although in soaking wet trousers sitting was not easy! I had dried off reasonably well by the time the vaporetto moored at our local stop and we walked through the rain back to our hotel. We showered and changed and decided swiftly that dinner would be in the hotel restaurant that evening! As resident guests we received a 10% discount on the food bill at the restaurant, but the main incentive was not having to go back out in the rain!
The following day the weather was dry and mostly sunny, although a little windy but not too much. A much better day for weather, and we continued the island hopping theme, starting by taking the vaporetto straight across the the island of San Giorgio which was also new to us, although we had seen it quite a lot both on this visit and the previous one because you cannot really miss it! It is the background to life in this part of the city. We walked along the marina which forms the waterfront facing the place where our hotel is and saw the boats and ships making their way into and out of the Grand Canal and the Giudecca Canal which come together at this point: only the Giudecca Canal can take the larger vessels such as car ferries and the occasional cruise ship (which are no longer allowed to dock on Venice's islands). Building work on the island prevented us exploring there any further and we took the next waterbus along to Giudecca island and walked all along its waterfront, finding a local café for morning coffee, and crossing bridges until we reached the island of Sacca Fisola at the far end of the little chain of islands, from where we took a waterbus back into the city centre, for we were in search of a hat for Alison as well as some more exploring. In the hat shop were some interesting styles: the proprietor bought in a variety of plain hats and decorated them in various ways. We did not buy the steampunk top hat, although I was tempted until I remembered my luggage space!
Our exploration included some detective work to find the palazzo where we'd had dinner on our last night in Venice on the last trip - not to dine there again but because we had been taken there in the dark through a maze of back streets and picked up by water taxi direct from the palazzo and never really took in where we were. After a couple of false leads we did find it, the Palazzetto Pisani, with its front door in a narrow alley and a small mooring in which a boat was ready for its next trip. Now we knew where we had had that great dinner four years before: not a necessary piece of knowledge, but we were intrigued to know.
We walked back over the Grand Canal (using a bridge!) and took the next vaporetto back to San Marco and our hotel for dinner again. This time I had a pizza. I almost always have a Margherita, original and best in my opinion, and not just because they're usually the least expensive!
It was our last evening in Venice, for the following morning was to be the highlight of a trip which had already had its fair share of really, really good things: the ride home in the care of Belmond and its Venice Simplon-Orient-Express train. From check out at the hotel until arrival in London, all was booked and was to be of the highest standard. We had been used to Belmond's hospitality on the Royal Scotsman train three years ago and looked forward to a similar experience on the Orient-Express.
I had received a letter to tell me that an old friend whom I had not seen for some years but with whom I had been in touch by letter a couple of times per year had died. He was well over ninety, so I could not be too sad, but I did want to attend his funeral and just maybe see some of his family and perhaps some other acquaintances. The funeral was to be in a chapel in Salisbury Cathedral, for he was a retired priest who had lived near the Cathedral in his last years: I knew him as the person who had trained me in my first curacy in Grantham over forty years before.
It was a long way to go, but I had only ever been to Salisbury once before and it would make a good day out. It was a simple enough trip, although involving a trip across London between Kings Cross and Waterloo which I had never really mastered, until this time. Finally, at the age of seventy, I have it cracked! My wife and I are always saying that by the time we die we'll have excelled at living ... life-long learning is all very well, but some lessons you wish you'd learnt a while earlier.
Surprise Bargain First Class Tickets
Now, on a trip like this I usually break it into sections and order online tickets for each leg, using Standard Class for the local train to Peterborough and First Class Advance for the trunk sections, with my Oyster Card for getting across London, but I start by looking up the through ticket partly to have a price to compare but mainly to see which trains I need to get in order to undertake the journey, noting the times and then buying the tickets the cheapest way I can find. To my surprise I could not get a better bargain than simply getting an Advance Single in each direction all the way between Stamford and Salisbury: it was even cheaper to book all the way than to hive off the Stamford-Peterborough bit and buy Standard Class for that, so it was First Class all the way both ways. Great. Further, these tickets were also valid on the Underground between Kings Cross and Waterloo, so there would be no charge on my Oyster Card for this trip. The little cross on the right-hand edge of the ticket shows validity on the Underground: I don't know if everyone knows that, as it does not seem to be widely advertised.
I left Stamford on a fairly early Cross Country train, the 07:56, and caught the 08:28 LNER train to London, on which the good old LNER bacon roll, coffee and orange juice made a decent breakfast. Everything was on time (or, at least, so close to it that I did not notice otherwise!) and the LNER booking engine had allowed plenty of time to cross London, so I set off to find a reasonable route to Waterloo, choosing the Piccadilly Line to Leicester Square and then the Northern Line to Waterloo. It worked, and was better than some other routes I had tried in the past, but even better was to come on the way back ... stay with me!
I was slightly nervous about putting my ticket in the ticket reader on the barrier at Kings Cross St Pancras Underground Station in case it did not come out again, but it did and the journey continued! I made sure I was within sight of a member of staff, just in case, and I did check with him that the ticket was valid, a belt-and-braces thing.
I had never travelled from London to Salisbury before and was looking forward to trying that train service, the only non-electrified railway route at London Waterloo. My one previous trip to Salisbury was from the other direction and was over thirty years ago, so it was a bit different. The train consisted of six coaches, two three-car Express Sprinter. I walked along to the middle of the train to a First Class section: there was another right at the start of the platform but I thought that might fill up rather more. I had plenty of space where I chose to sit and had a relaxing journey through the pleasant Surrey and Wiltshire countryside. Indeed, it was so relaxing that at one stop I looked out of the window to see where we had reached and saw that it was Salisbury! So I quickly gathered my stuff together and rushed off the train ... which then stood there for a further several minutes before continuing its journey to Exeter.
And so into the city. I had allowed plenty of time to have lunch before the funeral, judging that if something went very wrong I could be up to two hours late and still get to the service on time by squeezing in lunch earlier in the journey. Nothing did go wrong (although not getting off the train and having to get the next one back from the next stop would have qualified!) and so I had time for a stroll around as well as a pizza at Presto, near the Cathedral.
St Nicholas Hospital where my late friend lived his last days, possibly the inspiration for a Trollope novel!
Trinity Chapel, Salisbury Cathedral
I was early getting to the chapel for the funeral and had time to sit and think and pray, and to take in the splendour or this huge cathedral.
After the funeral and the wake, mingling with people I had never met before as well as members of the deceased's family I had not seen for nearly forty years and some I never knew well anyway, I made my way back to the railway station to await my train home. So far it had been a lovely sunny and reasonably warm day, ideal for travelling, and mercifully the weather waited until I was under cover at the station before the heavy shower came! By the time my train was in, the sun was shining again ...
There was some interesting shunting at Salisbury station as shorter trains came in from the West and were augmented at Salisbury to form longer trains for the rest of the journey towards London. Although three coaches of my train were standing at the platform when I arrived, passengers could not board until the incoming train from Exeter had coupled to it, then the doors were unlocked and boarding commenced. I went into the "new" part of the train, reckoning that there might be a greater choice of seats, as indeed there was, and with no luggage I really could sit anywhere. The ride to London was uneventful and soon I was strolling along the platform at Waterloo station towards the exit and the Underground.
So ... back to the issue of the quickest and easiest way between Waterloo and Kings Cross stations! According to Apple Maps, the best way is the Bakerloo Line from Waterloo station, changing at Oxford Circus for the Victoria Line to Kings Cross, so I thought I'd give that a go. For some reason I never consider the Bakerloo Line, I don't know why, but this turned out to be the best way because at Oxford Circus there is a cross-platform, step free, connection between the two lines. As it happened on this trip, I was also fortunate in having a train arrive at the platform just as I did both at Waterloo and at Oxford Circus, and neither was overcrowded, so it was a quick, simple and pleasant trip, quite unlike the other route in the other direction. Now I must update my page on changing station in London!
A few minutes wait in the First Class Lounge at Kings Cross and I was soon on my way home: LNER train to Peterborough and the Cross Country connection to Stamford. All on time, tea and crumpets (warm!) from the LNER menu on the train to Peterborough. And my lovely wife picked me up in the car from Stamford station to save me the uphill walk home. I look forward to improved health one day so that I can look forward to the walk home instead of asking for a lift, for I much prefer walking, and the walk at the beginning and ending of a trip is part of the advantage of using trains and buses: on days when I travel by car my exercise level drops alarmingly. It had been a good day: a lovely day for travel, a joyous farewell to an old friend who'd lived a long and fruitful life, a new train route, a great cathedral, and an epiphany about transfer between London railway stations!
Chichester - well worth a visit if you've never been
The easy bit - through London
We recently visited our friends in Chichester. Timing was determined by a theatre visit (Oliver! at the Chichester Festival Theatre, excellent production), and a desire to attend church with them on the Sunday, where they have both joined the choir. The trip there was almost uneventful, except that our first train, from Stamford to Peterborough, was late enough for us to miss our booked Thameslink connection at Peterborough, setting us back half an hour as we awaited the next departure. This was fine: we simply informed our friends we'd be half an hour late, sat back and enjoyed the ride: by travelling in the declassified rearmost section of the Thameslink train we enjoyed First Class accommodation on our Standard Class tickets. Once out of Peterborough there is not a lot of scenery until the rolling hills (and tunnels) of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, and the spectacular Digswell Viaduct overlooking Welwyn. The most interesting section of this ride for me is the slow trundle though central London: we go from being a 100mph main line express to an urban metro with frequent stops, automatic doors and big inflows and outflows of passengers. After the pause at Farringdon for the change from overhead to third rail electric pick-up, there is the crossing of the Thames at Blackfriars, where the station is actually over the river, and the curve round Southwark Cathedral into London Bridge station. So many landmarks are visible from this route and the train travels very slowly, so there is plenty of opportunity to look for them. After London Bridge we became an express train once more, not stopping again until East Croydon.
We changed trains at East Croydon, and with no delay to the Thameslink train we made the expected Southern connection to Chichester, half an hour behind the booked one - there was no complication with tickets since we were travelling on ordinary Super Off-peak tickets with no reservations. At Barnham, the last station before Chichester, some light rain began, and with slippery rails the train began to lose a little time as the driver struggled to accelerate. Arrival was therefore delayed by just a couple more minutes and thus we were over half an hour late and were able to claim worthwhile Delay Repay compensation, although to us it really did not matter much on this occasion.
To cut a long story, but almost certainly a boring story for readers of this blog, very short, we had a great few days with our friends (which did involve a certain amount of railway modelling ...) and then it was time to move on.
The last-minute add-on bit - to London
Our son in west London invited us to use his home as a base for a London break while he and his family were away visiting other relatives in Scotland. Their departure coincided with our commitment to visit our friends in Chichester, and their return with a commitment to our other son in Peterborough, so our opportunity for a few days in London was short, and we would not see the family there either before or after the stay, but we have a key to the house and we gratefully accepted the chance to visit London once again, even though for only three nights. Moving on, then, involved just turning up at Chichester railway station and buying two off-peak singles to London Victoria ... except that it was not that easy. The booking office at Chichester railway station was closed, and so I had to challenge the ticket machine to sell me the right ticket. Thank heaven I am an experienced train traveller with science A levels and a couple of university degrees, because I struggled to use the machine to get what I wanted and I felt sorry for anyone new to this sort of thing and who had not had the technical education I'd been blessed with! The machine suggested a lot of "popular" tickets, but none was for an off-peak single and it was not at all clear how one would go about telling the machine that one had a Senior Railcard and required the discount. Further, I never did discover how to buy two tickets at once and had to repeat the whole drawn-out process to buy a second ticket for my wife. By now we were looking at getting the next train... Which was fine. But I have learnt that in future I need to book online even if I do it on my way to the station. I would still have to confront the machine to deliver the actual tickets (Southern do not do digital tickets), but at least they'd have been chosen and paid-for.
The actual journey went well. Very well. The view of Arundel as the line curves round it is always a joy, and the green, leafy scenery of rural Sussex and Surrey is delightful, too. Soon we were in London and used the District Line to Hammersmith and then the Hammersmith & City Line to our son's home before letting ourselves in and settling in for our brief stay.
Our agenda for London included a visit to Buckingham Palace state rooms on the first day, and lunch at Murano in Mayfair on the second, both booked in advance as soon as we had accepted the offer of the accommodation. The Buckingham Palace trip would be free of charge because the ticket we bought last year was still valid for another couple of weeks.
And so after a good night's sleep in our temporary home we travelled back the way we had come, via Hammersmith to Victoria, and then walked to the ticket office at Buckingham Palace to pick up the tickets we had booked in advance and await our turn to enter the State Rooms. This visit is very well done, as you would hope of the Royal family! There is a multi-media handset to allow a self-guided tour at ones own pace, and as we had done the tour the previous year our pace was quicker than most, although there is a lot to see, including some new things, such as the new portrait of the King, and a second visit is certainly well worth while. The art collection alone is worth seeing more than once. While there we saw advertising for the photographic exhibition at The Kings Gallery, with pictures by many photographers of members of the Royal family over many years, and decided to visit that after lunch on our second day, Murano being about an after-lunch stroll from Buckingham Palace ...
So, emerging from tha Palace and after booking our tour of the King's Gallery the following day we went for a walk through Belgravia to Sloane Square, really not very far at all. The walk took us through Eaton Square and we popped into St Peter's Church, rebuilt after a disastrous fire just a few years ago, and there we discovered (or, rather, were reminded) that the new parish priest is the grandson of a now-deceased old lady I used to visit in one of my past parishes and who told me about her grandson being ordained - a small world indeed. Eaton Square is a mathematician's nightmare, being far from square, about six times as long as it is broad! But at least it is, more or less, a rectangle.
At Sloane Square we visited the Peter Jones store, probably the only remaining John Lewis branch to retain its original name. Tea and cake there rounded off our eating out and then we caught the District Line and Hammersmith and City Line back to our temporary home.
Our first engagement the following day was the lunch at Murano in Mayfair, so we were in no hurry when we went out and walked down to Goldhawk Road to catch a bus on Route 94 to Piccadilly Circus, from where we planned to walk to Fortnum and Mason, just for fun, really! The bus ride took us right along the north side of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, along Oxford Street and then down Regent's Street, a really great ride, for those with the time. From Shepherd's Bush as far as Oxford Circus it very much parallels the Central Line of the Underground, which is the obvious alternative if time matters more than the top-deck view (and the free ride if you've a Senior Citizen's bus pass!).
Fortnum & Mason is always good fun to look around, and although there were some tempting cheeses there was no way we could keep them to take home, so could not buy. But we did get a few small treats for the grandchildren by way of thanking the family for the loan of their house while they were away.
We were quickly on our way on foot to Mayfair for our lunch reservation at Murano. As ever, this was a great meal, served with suitable style and efficiency, with an imaginative, Italian-based menu. We went for the lunchtime table d'hôte menu but added a few bits. The meal always includes nibbles before and after, and water. You do not go hungry at Murano.
It was a short walk from Mayfair to Buckingham Palace, and then round the corner to The Kings Gallery to see the Royal Portraits exhibition,extracts from His Majesty's photo collection. This was interesting not only because off the subject matter but also because some (most) of these pictures were created by world-famous photographers and there was a lot of information about them as well as about their royal subject matter. It was a last-minute idea to come here but I was so glad I had. We returned "home" to Shepherds Bush by District Line train to High Street Kensington to do some shopping at Marks & Spencer and then took a bus to White City, from where we walked the rest of the way. A tiring day, but very rewarding: all we had really done was to visit one photographic exhibition!
The complicated bit - getting home, collecting children on the way
On our last morning we tidied the house after breakfast and left early. We had a busy day ahead, for we were only able to fit in this last-minute royal jolly if we picked up our Peterborough grandchildren on the way home, for we had promised to look after them for a few days at our home. So, a Hammersmith & City line train to Kings Cross to begin the day (via Fortnum & Mason's St Pancras branch to buy our favourite St Pancras Blend tea, only available there) then the 10:30 LNER train to Peterborough; once more we travelled Standard Class because it was not a meal time and there was little to be gained in First Class for such a short journey on what we think is a pretty comfortable train anyway. Our son handed over his children in the entrance hall at Peterborough station and we took them to the platform to await our Cross Country train home to Stamford. We had not been on the train more than two minutes, still in Peterborough, when the senior grandchild declared that she was bored. Encouragement to look out of the window fell on deaf ears, even though this is the child who travelled happily all the way to Bournemouth with us a couple of years previously ... I don't think I'll ever understand children even after two generations of trying to care for them! Maybe it's because for a long trip we brought things to do on the way, but that was hardly worthwhile, especially when we had been via Chichester and London, for a trip of less than fifteen minutes. Finally we walked home from Stamford station, which was far from boring with two children reluctant to carry or trail their "Trunky" luggage, but we got there. Straight into lunchtime, and the rest is beyond the scope of this weblog! Just a note to say that booking the tickets required a little thought: we needed adult, Senior Railcard, singles for ourselves, one child single and nothing for the younger child but the hope that we could get her a seat (we could). All these were bought in advance along with the outgoing fares and the the fare from London: the only tickets I didn't book in advance but very much wish I had, were the ones from Chichester to London. I have learnt my lesson, and the railway company (Southern in this case) has hammered one more nail into the coffin of the station booking office.
It is easy to think that for complex trips a car is necessary, but I think this is far from the case. Indeed, sometimes taking the car can be a hindrance when there is nowhere to park it or when you need to finish something in a different place from where you start, or if two of you need to separate. With some planning, this sort of trip worked well. It helped that all the trains that mattered were on time - and I have now received the compensation for the one that was late at the start of the adventure - and the smartphone apps that allow us to track one another made the meet-ups at both Chichester and Peterborough stations a breeze.
It would also have been easy to think that it was not worth the effort to squeeze in a few days in London, but to forego both free accommodation and a free visit to Buckingham Palace was just not on! We did not have the chance to see our London family that week, but they visited us just a few days later, so that was not too much of a loss.
The Wednesday featured a day out in the Bernese Oberland in the Great Rail Journeys itinerary, including the ascent to Jungfraujoch using the new Eiger Express cable car from the edge of Grindelwald to an intermediate station part of the way up the Eiger. We had been to Jungfraujoch before and although we enjoyed it very much we felt that on this occasion our time would be better spent exploring other places in the local area rather than repeating that visit. It's not that we don't like seeing the same things twice, but the particular things that we enjoyed at Jungfraujoch did not seem worthwhile compared with the idea of exploring Grindelwald and Wengen (both of which we had also seen before!) and riding more trains rather than the cable car.
Those going on the full excursion were warned to take warm clothing, even though the weather at Interlaken was hot and sunny when we walked with them to Interlaken Ost railway station. We did take some warm clothing, as we were heading to broadly the same area, but not intending to climb quite so high. We decided to travel with the party as far as Grindelwald Terminal, where the rest of them would be taking the cable car, then we would walk into Grindelwald centre, have coffee and then take a train via Kleine Scheidegg to Wengen for lunch, moving on to Lauterbrunnen where we would rejoin the party to travel together back to Interlaken. We had the train timings for the party and could easily fit our schedule into it, meaning that our travel to Grindelwald and from Lauterbrunnen was covered by the rail pass we had been issued - a pass that also gave us half-fares on the section between which we were paying-for ourselves.
The Swiss are always developing their railways. Not only did our train stop at the new station at Grindelwald Terminal to connect with the Eiger Express cable car, but also at an earlier station on the edge of Interlaken that serves the commercial area around the airfield. Our walk from the rail station into the centre of Grindelwald was warm and sunny and very pleasant. Although the station we had left was called "Terminal" it was not the end of the line! It was the terminal of the cable car system, which had been under construction last time we were here. The actual terminus in the centre of Grindelwald was being improved to provide better facilities for the town itself and so was a bit of a building site. Nearby was the hotel where we had stayed on our last visit so we strolled over to have a quick look and reminisce, and spotting a waiter setting out some outdoor tables we decided to have our coffee there - something we had never done when we were staying there.
Then we had a little walk around the shops and went to buy our tickets. There was some uncertainty about whether we needed to pay for the bit between Kleine Scheidegg and Lauterbrunnen which may or may not have been covered by our GRJ rail pass, but as we were travelling alone we were asked to pay and did so, quite contentedly. By the way, if you think rail fares in the UK are expensive, even at half-fare these little Swiss mountain railways are very expensive, but, then, think of the engineering they have to pay for! Anyway, we had a great ride. I had forgotten just how steep these cog railways in this part of the country can be until the train took a steep dive down the hillside to the "downhill" part of Grindelwald where it changed direction and then climbed steeply back up the other side to begin the ascent to the north face of the Eiger.
As the train climbed so we began to glimpse snow from the train windows (this is June, remember!) and by the time we descended from the train at Kleine Scheidegg there was a lot of snow around, although not at the station. Now it was cold, though, and we wore such clothing as we had brought and made sure we stood in the sunshine. The rest of the party would be up at the Jungfraujoch now, with the icicles and the ice palace and the view down to the glaciers. And the chocolate and watch shops! There is nothing much at Kleine Scheidegg except the train up inside the Eiger to Jungfraujoch, and it is not as busy as it used to be now that a lot of the traffic goes by the cable car to the next station rather than coming here. We joined the next train down to Wengen as soon as it was ready and made our way there. Now the conductor on this train was English and he was pretty sure that we had not needed to pay for this stretch of the journey because it was covered by our passes, so when we arrived at Wengen we spent a few minutes at the ticket office raising the matter and indeed were refunded that part of the fare ... very good. And off we went for a walk around Wengen, visited once before, ten years ago in winter. Now it was warm and sunny and there was no snow down here and we found a very nice traditional little restaurant for a bread and soup lunch, ideal.
And so to the train again to its terminus at Lauterbrunnen where we awaited the one after ours, which we were able to watch winding its way down the hillside opposite the village, on which the rest of our party were travelling ... or, rather, they should have been travelling. Every tour manager's nightmare had ben visited on our tour manager Richard when one of the party had failed to catch the train back down from Jungfraujoch, so the party was one short when they arrived. These days with mobile telephones it is much easier to sort out this sort of thing than it once was, and the missing person was easily able to follow down on a later train.
Back at Interlaken Ost we walked back to the hotel and changed for dinner. This night we were to dine in the restaurant at the very top of the tower; we assumed that there were few enough diners for only one restaurant to be needed so they fitted us all in on the top floor. I think some of those who had booked it for following day, when we had to make our own dinner arrangements, were a little put out that we were all getting that view anyway! Another great meal, with an amazing view. At one point there came rain, and then, looking along the valley back towards the Jungfrau there was the most fantastic rainbow right over the mountain. I think this hotel must have been put on this site specifically to take advantage of the view up the valley to the Jungfrau, and for us that evening it really was very special.
Not sure why this guy is looking at me this way ...
Thursday was an entirely free day and we had decided long ago that on this day we should trip out to Meiringen to visit the Reichenbach Falls made famous by the (apparent!) death of Sherlock Holmes with Moriarty in what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had intended to be the last of his series of Holmes novels. This we did, after having a rather later start than on the last few days, but we managed to pack a few more bits in as well ...
We began again with a walk to Interlaken Ost railway station from where we bought our half-price train tickets and caught a train direct to Meiringen: this took us along the north shore of Lake Brienz and through the lakeside town of that name which we had visited on a previous trip. It was a fantastic scenic ride. At Meiringen we strolled into the town centre and kept walking until we came to funicular station that would take us to the Reichenbach Falls, a little way out of town. It was a great walk, but we could have done most of the trip on a little local train that goes that way. Before ascending to the Falls we had coffee at a nearby café which was actually the canteen of a hospital but open to the public. We were able to sit outside and enjoy the sunshine. By then we had decided that after the Falls we would like to visit the nearby Aareschlucht Gorge, which it was possible to visit using the aforesaid local railway, and there happened to be a combined ticket available for the two attractions - and in Switzerland you take every opportunity to save money. The ride up to the Falls was fun - funicular railways always are, with their ever-changing view of the world below - and arrival was in a mist of spray. The waterfall is a spectacle but I think not such a spectacle as it would have been in Conan Doyle's day, with various alterations - and safety features - which mean that even if you could get to the edge to plunge over it you would probably survive now!
Back down we walked to the station on the Inertkirchen Railway which would take us to the start of the Aareschlucht Gorge. Access to the gorge is at either end, with a railway station not far away from each end: we opted to travel to the far, eastern, end of the gorge and walk back through it to take a train back to Meiringen from the western end. The day continued sunny and we had a fantastic adventure, making up the itinerary as we went along, with local advice and the ever-available information from the internet. Apple Maps on our iPhones provided us with the train times and we were soon on a train to the far end of the Aareschlucht Gorge, where the station was actually inside a tunnel: I would have photographed the train there but the driver asked me to leave the platform because the signal would not clear to start the train while the platform was occupied! Not wanting to be the reason for a delay to a Swiss train, we rapidly left the station and the door slid shut behind us. Outside was a small group of people awaiting a train in the other direction but who would not be able to go onto the platform until the train was there and the door opened for them. If the London Underground worked that way it would slow things down quite a bit! So, a nice bit of uphill walk to where the gorge started, and a brief pause for an ice-cream to recover from the uphill walk in the hot sun, and then we paid our admission fee and started through the wonderful scenery of the Aareschlucht Gorge.
Photographs on a website cannot do justice to this amazing natural wonder: you simply have to go and see it for yourself. In places the river is wide: in some other places you can reach out and touch the rock on the opposite side! Here and there there are waterfalls and rapids, and occasionally you have to walk through rock tunnels, although much of the way you're on a walkway cantilevered out from the rock face a few metres above the water. It is all safe and easy, with some care, and there is much interpretative information on display boards as you go through. As we emerged the other end there was a gift shop and after browsing there we walked to the station to take our train back to Meiringen, this time from a station in the open sunshine. It was a trip of just a few moments and then we were able to join our train from Meiringen back to Interlaken Ost where we added just one more adventure to the day's itinerary: if there was not too much of a queue we would take a funicular ride up to Harder Kulm, the conical peak that overlooks Interlaken town centre ...
We arrived at Ost station and walked along to the river bridge and level crossing which took us to the funicular terminal and sure enough there was just a very short queue, so we joined it and bought tickets for the ascent. This was a longer trip than the one to the Reichenbach Fall; indeed it may well be the longest funicular I have ever ridden, and the unfolding views of a town we had begun to know were just stunning.
Like all these tourist railways up mountains there were viewpoints and a restaurant at the top. We spent some while taking in the views and then stopped for a beer, no more, at the restaurant outside bar. We could look down on our high-rise hotel, along the valley to the Jungfrau in the distance, and we could see the trains, like small-scale model trains, in both Interlaken stations. Both lakes were in view, and both boat terminals where the lake cruises operated: we had arrived in Interlaken on a boat on Lake Brienz on a previous holiday, and were due to take a boat from here on Lake Thun the following day.
Back down in the town we wandered along to a shop where we had seen drinking glasses with their bottoms moulded in the shape of alpine mountains and thought these would be great souvenirs of our holiday, so we popped in and bought one depicting the Matterhorn, which was a feature of our first alpine holiday, and the Jungfrau, a feature of this one.
Then it was back to the hotel and dinner at the top floor restaurant, this time at our own expense from the full menu. There we met a few others from the Great Rail Journeys group who, like us, thought it would be hard to find a better location.
The hot, sunny weather did not last, and the following morning saw us setting off by bus in light rain to see the historic architecture of Bönigen, a very old place now a suburb of Interlaken but clearly its historic origin. There are many old, traditional Swiss timber building in its narrow streets, so much so that an architectural trail has been created for visitors. In the steady rain we followed this trail and did see all of the buildings, mostly houses, but our map got wetter and wetter and it was hard to take photographs, but I hope you'll enjoy the few I have put together here. Again, Bönigen is well worth a visit if you are in Interlaken with time to spare, and again, for us Apple Maps delivered on the bus timetable. We just managed to fit in our soggy tour of Bönigen in time to meet the rest of the group for the afternoon cruise on Lake Thun, included in our Great Rail Journeys tour.
Bönigen
By the time we left for Interlaken West station for our boat the rain had almost stopped, and by the time we boarded and the boat slipped away from the quayside (astern!) it was dry. Once clear of the river, the boat turned and cruised along the lake to Thun, where we would have a good couple of hours before taking a train back to Interlaken.
On the cruise we bought a glass of wine from the bar and enjoyed watching the scenery slip by - including, while gong astern along the river, the receding Harder Kulm from where we had looked down the previous evening. Some of the party had a light meal aboard, but we contented ourselves with a snack on the waterside in Thun.
I had been advised by another railway modeller that there was a department store in Thun with a decent model railway department and we sought it out and there purchased a station kit I had long wanted and did not expect otherwise to be able to find: Swiss model railway equipment is fairly sparsely available in the UK. I was, though, beginning to wonder about the capacity of my luggage going home ...
Dinner at Interlaken was an included meal back in the downstairs restaurant and then we began our packing ready for the morning:it was time to think about getting home, a long journey all in one day.
We checked out and walked all together to Interlaken West and there joined a Regional train to Spiez, unfortunately already rather well-filled with people with a lot of luggage, so we were standing in the vestibule with ours. It was only a short trip, though, this leg, and the view of the lake was as good as ever.
At Spiez we joined an Intercity train to Basel, again in Second Class but this was a duplex and we managed to bag some great seats on the top deck with some really good views. We had a little time to buy lunch at Basel before travelling First Class on the TGV to Paris, being taken by coach across to the Gare du Nord for the Eurostar train to London, travelling in Standard Premier with a light meal with wine as usual.
We were in the very front of the London train which was great because we were able to leave quickly and make our way over to Kings Cross to get the last fast train of the day to Peterborough, again with a light meal, from where we needed a taxi to our home in Stamford, being too late for a train. On the way to Peterborough we downloaded an app for a Peterborough taxi company which had been recommended by a family member, and with that we were able to book and pay for the taxi (technically a private hire car) which was then waiting for us in the pick-up area at the station. It worked brilliantly: no need to have enough cash to pay a black cab, and no fear of a huge bill if the journey is delayed. We'll use that again we need it.
We had said farewell to our brilliant tour manager and to all our travelling companions while we were on the Eurostar train, and so had been ready for that dash to Kings Cross, but could not help wondering, as did some others, whether an earlier start from Interlaken might have got us back at an early enough hour not to have that rush back home. Some people were staying a night in London because they lived too far away to travel home that night. Still, that did not detract from what had been another really great holiday. We had seen much that was new, and seen again some old haunts. Some things had been a real adventure, some relaxing, all of it good. The weather could have been better at times, but at other times it had been absolutely perfect. We are already looking forward to our next foreign adventure ... and that story will be told soon!
