Another Couple of Nights Away

A Short Break at Studland Bay by Train and Bus

As I mentioned in A Couple of Nights Away, we received a really good offer for a two-night stay at the Knoll House Hotel on Studland Bay in Dorset, quickly snapped up along with reduced-price rail tickets during the "Rail Sale". Last time we stayed there it was more of an adventure than we bargained-for when the heathland between the ferry and the hotel caught fire and our return from a day out took a lot longer than planned owing to a road closure to avoid the fire. This time we just had the adventure we had planned, and weather which was better than we had dared to hope.

The weather did not start well, with light drizzle as we packed our cases, and steady rain by the time we left for Stamford rail station. Umbrellas raised we arrived at the station and caught our 09:56 Cross Country train, a few minutes late this time, to Peterborough where we popped round to Waitrose to buy a packed lunch before catching the connecting LNER train to London at 10:50. We were travelling with First Class tickets to London and complimentary coffee and brunch were served on the way. From Kings Cross we took the Victoria Line to Oxford Circus and the Bakerloo Line thence to Waterloo - all using our through train tickets booked from Peterborough to Bournemouth: nothing extra to pay for the Underground. At Waterloo we browsed Foyles bookshop while awaiting our train - not a cheap option as we bought three books between us that we had known we needed until we happened to see them in the bookshop!

The train from Waterloo to Bournemouth was comfortable, smooth and quite fast but there is no longer any catering on board South Western Railway trains, which is why we had brought a packed lunch with us. By the time we had boarded the train at Waterloo it was lunchtime and so we set our table and enjoyed a lunch of prepared salad, fruit salad and chilled peach tea. Super, and probably much like we'd have bought on the train had there been a trolley or a buffet. First Class on Southwestern Railway is not like First Class on LNER, but it was comfortable and it got us to Bournemouth in time to get our bus onward to the hotel.

The bus ride to Studland on the number 50 "Purbeck Breezer" is what makes this journey an adventure: it is normally operated with open-top buses and although in summer these sometimes have just a windscreen at the front of the top deck, in winter they tend to use the versions with the first few rows of seats under cover, and we arrived at Bournemouth in nice time to stroll over and board one of these, taking our seats just a few rows back to get the best views while remaining remaining sheltered from the wind. By now the sun was beginning to break through and the rain had completely stopped. The bus wound its way through Bournemouth town centre and the western districts of the town and the leafy pine woods of Canford Cliffs then along the southern edge of Poole Harbour and the most expensive residential land in the UK at Sandbanks before waiting for the ferry across to Studland. We had to wait for a ship to leave the harbour before our ferry could arrive from the other side but were entertained by a Royal Navy Chinook helicopter practising with the Special Boat Service off The Foreland while we waited and the sun gradually showed more of itself through the thinning cloud cover. From the urban townscapes and arcadia of Bournemouth and Poole we were now into the carefully maintained (by the National Trust) semi-wilderness of Studland Heath and very soon we were stopping the bus outside the Knoll House Hotel.

The stunning view from our room, through the hotel grounds to Studland Bay

After checking in we unpacked the smarter clothes we had brought for evenings at the hotel so that the creases would drop out by dinner time, donned our walking boots and set off for a walk down to the beach and along it. The walk down through the hotel grounds and through the woods onto the beach was something we had many times - in summer! It was different this time and our progress was halted by water too deep to wade through in just walking gear, so we had to make a bit of a detour but got there just a few moments later. By now it was past tea time and the National Trust café and shop at Knoll Beach had just closed for the night and Trust staff were busy with their conservation work. We just walked along the beach in glorious sunshine and back again in drizzle! Shower, change and dinner. Dinner was included in our package but we did avail ourselves of the cocktail bar in preparation for dinner, and this was definitely not included. We found ourselves chatting to a local couple who were there simply having an after-work drink - what a lovely place for that! They recommended a whisky bar in Bath which we shall have to try next time we are there.

After a good night's sleep we awoke to a gorgeous sunny day and after breakfast set off for a day out, beginning with a bus to Swanage, too early for our senior citizens' concessionary passes so we had to pay our fares. We had a little stroll around Swanage for old times' sake and then boarded a bus to Wareham which we had only briefly visited, by car, in the past. There we explored, had coffee in a place once apparently frequented by Lawrence of Arabia, and discovered a really ancient St Martin's Church, the same dedication as our church at home in Stamford but very, very different. 

It remained sunny all day with very little wind, and temperatures were good for February (up to around 10 degrees C), and in the sun it was quite warm when walking and we removed our coats and gloves very early on. When we caught the bus back to Swanage I also removed my jumper, for the top deck was like a greenhouse! From Swanage we travelled as far as Studland village and then went down to the beach there and walked along to Knoll Beach for a snack lunch at the National Trust café. Sitting there in the sun it was just like the summer (except for the number of people in coats) - indeed it was better weather than we had in the summer of 2020 when we came here with all our family.

We strolled along the beach in the direction of Poole Harbour - with no intention of going that far, of course - and along part of the naturist beach where, not surprisingly in February, I suppose, everyone seemed to be wearing clothes. A few horses, a few dogs (they're allowed here from 1st October to 1st March, and then forbidden for the sake of the wildlife for the rest of the year).

It was time to walk back now, time to rest and recover from what had been quite an energetic day for us. Bath and change (and a brief unintentional sleep!) and ready for dinner again. No cocktail this time but we did have Prosecco with our meal, and pudding. We were hungry after such a day, and we slept even better than the night before.

Our last day was a Friday and we packed and paid our bill and checked out straight after breakfast, leaving our luggage at the hotel to set of, suitably booted, to walk to the Old Harry Rocks. These rocks (see heading photograph), vertical chalk stacks at the end of a headland, are a constant sight and landmark along this section of the coast and have been a distant companion on many of our holidays and especially of our walks along the beaches but we have never before visited them and seen them at close quarters. It was a walk of about a mile and a half from Studland village and rather than walk along the road we took a route out of the back of the hotel grounds and over the heath - which took us through more mud than we really wanted to encounter - the last time we went this way was in summer and there had been some mud but not so much. We returned along the road from the village! The walk between the village and the rocks was all good off-road walking and all very easy. On the way back we had coffee at a beach café at Studland Middle Beach before returning to the hotel, recovering our luggage and taking the Breezer bus one last time back to Bournemouth. This time it was a closed-top bus, which is fine in winter, but we always travel on the top deck here for the views of Studland Heath, of the ferry crossing, of the trees of Canford Cliffs. In Bournemouth we had lunch at a town centre café  and then walked down to the seafront to "say goodbye" to the sea before taking the next bus to the railway station and await our train home. 

It had been a short break but I think we had made the most of every moment.

We boarded our train at Bournemouth and had a smooth and pleasant ride to London Waterloo, then easy interchange to Kings Cross via the Underground. At Kings Cross it all began to fall apart. Our train, on which we had reservations in Coach L, turned out only to have five coaches owing to trains being out of place following earlier disruption due to a fire somewhere else. It was jam-packed in Standard Class and overfull in First. We did not have seats until someone took pity on a couple of pensioners and gave us a seat; refreshments could not be brought through on the usual trolley but we could visit the galley and pick up our sandwiches and drinks. Then it unravelled even further when the train stopped at Stevenage owing to problems further along the line. It eventually transpired that it would be held for some time and our kind train manager suggested that those heading to Peterborough might like to get off and take the next train to Cambridge, which would soon stop at the adjacent platform, where we could get a connection to Peterborough. For us, of course, that would provide us with a connection home, albeit two hours late but we were already missing the planned connection and were by no means sure that we might make the next at Peterborough. So we baled out of the overcrowded train, beer cans in hand along with our luggage, and caught a Thameslink train to Cambridge. Once there we made our way across to the platform where a Cross Country unit was waiting to form the next departure for Birmingham which would take us home. To my surprise it was a newly-painted refurbished class 170 Turbostar. I think they only had one, possibly two, in the fleet at that time, so it was a bit of a silver lining to have the chance to travel on one. New seats with slightly more legroom and bigger seat-back table which comfortably took my large MacBook Pro (on which I am writing this article now).

The lovely day then unravelled further still when a very disruptive passenger boarded and racially abused a couple of other passengers, threatening one of them and generally causing mayhem. We could all have done without that and some of us texted British Transport Police as we are always being urged to "say it" when we "see it" so that it can be "sorted". He was leaving the train at Peterborough anyway and was taken care of by the BTP, but as time went on it became clear that he was ill rather than criminal and I think he was well known by the police as someone in need of support.

And so into Stamford and the usual walk home across the meadows and through the town, two hours later than planned but I understand from LNER that the train we had abandoned at Stevenage did not reach Peterborough until very much later. We await our Delay Repay compensation, but I have to say that none of this disruption really affected our enjoyment of a really great couple of days away. We had packed in so much and so many new things, and we were still home before our usual bedtime. The train staff coped brilliantly and the thinking-on-their-feet action of the LNER train manager who suggested the detour via Cambridge certainly saved the day for us - and for those left on the stranded train there were now more seats available, vacated by those like us who had taken the alternative.

Arrival at Stamford on the newly-refurbished Cross Country Turbostar, with brighter paintwork and much smarter interior. We love arriving at Stamford station on our way home and being welcomed by all the church towers as we cross The Meadows.

 

Train Trips Through, To and From London

Why is Retired Life so Complicated?

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.

Tour of the French and Swiss Alps by Train, part 3

The Golden Pass Express and Interlaken

We left our luggage outside our room as requested on the next morning and went for breakfast, then after collecting our hand luggage we checked out and made for the station along with everyone else, to catch the same train to Montreux as on the previous day. I had taken the precaution of settling our extras bill the previous evening so that we could get away smoothly this morning. And so the centre-piece of this train tour was about to begin, the journey on the Golden Pass Express from Montreux to Interlaken.

The station at Montreux, which we had seen on previous days out, looked very much the part with potted palms on the platform, but the weather could have been drier. And sunnier. The train was waiting at the platform when we arrived from Lausanne, and our tour manager Richard had a group ticket and allocated our seats in a First Class carriage, which was spacious, comfortable and was equipped with panoramic windows, like the Glacier Express we have used before. This train was only about a year old, the new through service having begun the previous season.

Soon the train moved away, on time, from Montreux station and immediately began to climb away from the town and the lake shore. The railway line wound its way up the hillside until we found ourselves looking a long way down to the lake, first on one side and then on the other. We were scheduled to have a light meal of local foods on this journey, and sure enough, before much time had passed the table was set and the sommelier made his way through the carriage to pour the Champagne to accompany our snack. 

Soon the platters of local cheeses and cold meats arrived, with each pair of passengers having a little bag containing the napkin, cutlery and a bread roll. It was all jolly good, and sitting there sipping Champagne while enjoying the scenery and nibbling the local produce was just a wonderful element to our holiday. I'd recommend this to anyone: I have no idea whether it had been booked specially by Great Rail Journeys or whether it is standard fare for First Class ticket-holders, or whether anyone can pay for it as an optional extra, but however you do it, it made for a really great journey.

There were several intermediate stops along the way, and at Zweisimmen the train stopped for an extended period for a change of crew as we were handed over from one train company to another. At one time a change of train was necessary here as the two companies use different track gauges, but the new Golden Pass Express carriages have gauge-changing bogies and the same train can run through on the two different types of track. It is not necessary to leave the train during this process, but, of course, those interested in the technical aspects tore themselves away from the comfort of the carriage to note from the platform the changed bogies before rejoining the train for the rest of the journey to Interlaken!

The journey onward to Interlaken took us through Spiez and alongside a good part of Lake Thun. We had travelled from Spiez to Interlaken before but it was no less enjoyable this time around to look out across the lake and enjoy the last part of this scenic ride into the station at Interlaken West where our train terminated and our rail trip for the day came to an end. Our luggage having been taken separately we walked light to our hotel, the Metropole, in the centre of Interlaken. It had been described as the tallest building in the town, and it certainly dominated the skyline from the direction of West station. Tallest it was, but prettiest it wasn't, being a grey concrete edifice attractive only from the front, a view not seen while walking along the main street. We arrived before our luggage and just as check in had become possible and after a pause to receive our room keys and instructions we went to find our room for the rest of the holiday, high up in the tower overlooking the town's playing fields and across to the valley beyond with the great bulk of the Jungfrau mountain dominating the distant scene. We had paid a little more for a superior room and it was worth every penny: spacious, a balcony, a superb view, lots and lots of sockets for recharging our devices. 

While we awaited our luggage we went for a stroll into the town. I had heard from one of the other passengers on the trip that there was a good model shop in the town and that we had in fact passed it on our way from the railway station. I soon understood how we had come to pass it without seeing it: it was on an upstairs floor above another shop and was only visible from the main street the its "A" board was out during opening hours, but it had been closed for munch when we walked by. However, we went in, now joined by two others, and soon by yet another. I don't think I have ever before been on a Great Rail Journeys holiday where I have met other railway enthusiasts, even less people who are actually building Swiss model railways, but here there was quite a handful of us. I did not actually need a lot for my own layout, having bought almost all I need and simply needing the time to get it put together, but I did buy some little people and a Swiss station clock and Alison bought an Advent calendar which had a HO scale figure beg=hind each window, even blagging a price reduction because it was clearly old stock from last Advent ... so I look forward to the population explosion on my model railway this December!

Returning to the hotel we happened to meet a porter who had just received everyone's suitcases and was sorting through them, so we went to him and took away our own to take them to our room. The express lifts at this hotel were among the best we have ever encountered (I suppose, being a tower block it need good lifts because not many people would cope with the stairs).

Dinner that evening was in a very pleasant dining room on the first floor, where we had been informed breakfast would also be served the next morning. There was another restaurant high up on the top floor with wonderful views out across the town and the mountains, and some people booked their dinner there for the free evening which was to come in a couple of days' time. We left our dinner that evening to chance; we do like living on the edge (well, actually we just didn't want to be tied to coming here when we might find something else).

And so to bed. In a sense we had done very little, but we had enjoyed a spectacular train ride and had acquired some interesting models (how interesting was yet to be revealed in 25 instances!) and moved into a fabulous room. The weather could have been a bit better (it was not bad, just a bit murky at times and showery at times), but as it happened, we soon discovered that warm sunshine was to return the following day for a great day out. And for the day after that, too. This was becoming a really good summer holiday.

Tour of the French and Swiss Alps by Train, part 1

Away at Last!

It was not until we settled into our seats on the train to London that we took in how much we had missed travel since our last trip in autumn last year. Sitting at our "club duo" seats in LNER's First Class and browsing the menu it almost felt like we had come home from a long absence rather than the other way around! The familiar rattle of the catering trolleys being pushed into the coach and the friendly hosts taking our order brought back many memories of past train trips as the countryside slipped past. Late spring and early summer is a brilliant time to travel in England: the greenness of the landscape is just fantastic, especially after the wet weather we had had this spring. The cold drinks came first and we both ordered rosé wine but there was not quite enough left in the bottle on the trolley to pour two glasses, so I volunteered to have white … and the host placed the rosé bottle on our table so that we could finish the last half-glassful between us! We ordered the homity pie, a delicious vegetable pie which came with a “bean salad”, and meanwhile the crisps for a starter and the lemon and elderflower pot for dessert were delivered off the trolley. By the tine we arrived in London all of this had been consumed and we knew we’d need no supper that evening. 

We were on our way by train to London early on a Friday evening ready for a very early start on Saturday to check in for the 08:01 Eurostar train for Paris on our way to Switzerland on another Great Rail Journeys adventure. This one was new to the Great Rail Journeys catalogue, because it uses a train service which had only started a couple of years earlier, the Golden Pass Express which we were to use between Montreux and Interlaken. We had never visited Montreux before, or anywhere else on Lake Geneva, nor Chamonix in France which was included as a day trip by train in this tour. We had never really visited Interlaken, either, although we had changed trains there often enough, and although one of the day trips from there was something we had done before it still included lots we had not. Amazingly with a mix of four- and five-star hotels and First Class rail travel, this tour was not particularly expensive and I did not hesitate to book it as soon as I saw it advertised the previous year. It has been something to look forward to through all the health issues that have dogged me over the last several months, culminating in (yet another) cardioversion just two days before we left home. 

In London we stayed at the Hub by Premier Inn beside Kings Cross railway station. We have used this place once before: it is a touch cheaper less expensive than a proper Premier Inn, but to my mind is still very poor value. The room was very cramped and inconvenient and although this time we did at least have a room above ground (last time we were two floors below ground!) it was till very claustrophobic. We shall probably not use it again: the Premier Inn in Euston Road is also better located for St Pancras station and far more pleasant for just a few pounds more. 

We went to bed early but did not sleep especially well before we were up early and off to St Pancras International railway station to meet Richard our tour manager before going to the International Departures ticket gates to begin our continental rail trip. The station was extremely busy! Train travel has definitely resumed now and we look forward to more services being reinstated. After showing our tickets at the gates we were soon through the security checks and then showed our passports at both UK and French Passport Control - unusually it was the French controller who smiled and spoke to us and not the British one, very odd. Seeing that the preceding train to Paris was just boarding, we thought that if we made our way straight to the café area we might get seats at a table there for our breakfast: this turned out to be correct and while my wife looked after the luggage at our chosen table I went off and bought a couple of black coffees which we drank with the fresh fruit salads we had bought from the Little Waitrose at Kings Cross station before we went to our hotel the previous evening. Before long the boarding of our train was announced and we were off on the travelator to the platform to board the train.

We were in coach 3, towards the rear of the train, and our section of the coach was where the wheelchair spaces were located, separated from the rest of the coach by a partition with a couple of private coupes, so it was a cosy area with just nine people in it, and around our table of four there were just us and one other couple on the Great Rail Journeys tour, so we had met the first of our travelling companions already. Before long our Eurostar E320 train slipped out of the platform and began accelerating along High Speed One towards the Channel Tunnel and on to Paris. A continental breakfast was served soon after leaving, as usual in Standard Premier Class on a morning departure. We had finished breakfast by the time we emerged in France, and for some reason the train slowed down and even stopped briefly causing us to arrive a few minutes late in Paris. This was not a concern as we had about three hours to change stations and have lunch before travelling on. As always with Great Rail Journeys we were taken across Paris by coach to Gare de Lyon; if we had been travelling alone we'd have used the RER or Metro, but it would be hard to keep a group together that way. At Gare de Lyon we bought a salad lunch at Monop' Daily as we so often have and ate our lunch outside in the sunshine while we awaited the departure of our train, a TGV Lyria direct to Geneva.

The first part of the TGV journey is unremarkable apart from its high speed, soaring across France down towards Lyon. Here I began typing the first paragraph or two of this blog post, and paid a visit to the buffet bar for drinks. We were with the rest of the group, some two dozen others, on the top deck of a duplex First Class coach and it was all very comfortable. The journey came into its own once we left the high speed line and started wandering towards Switzerland. We were threading our way through the hills where the Jura and the Alps come together and where France, Switzerland and Italy start to share mountains and lakes, and it is all very pretty. At Geneva we were changing trains to take an Interregional service to Lausanne where we were to stay the first three nights. We had changed trains at Geneva before but had been travelling in the opposite direction and taking a French train out of Switzerland. As with going the other way, however, there was no passport control at the EU border (although the facilities were there) and no customs check (although, again, the facilities were there, and we did see someone having their suitcase searched but no-one even looked at us).

Lausanne turned out to be a very interesting city to visit, although it was not originally planned to be part of this tour. We were supposed to be staying in Montreux and for many of us on the tour, ourselves included, Montreux was part of the attraction, but for some reason the hotel there was not available and Great Rail Journeys had booked the Lausanne Palace Hotel for the group instead, a better hotel, apparently, but not quite where we had expected to be. The itinerary otherwise remained the same, although it was not quite as efficient and convenient, but I think we can put up with that as a trade-off for the standard of the hotel. Getting to it from the station was fun: it is a very short walk to the station from the hotel, but the walk to the hotel from the station would be up a very steep hill so we travelled just one stop on the Lausanne Metro. The hotel minibuses took our luggage (and had room for four passengers, too) and we were handed public transport passes for the city which the rest of us then used on the Metro, alighting at Lausanne Flon station opposite our hotel. Well, I say opposite, but it was still four storeys below the hotel entrance, but there is a public lift from the Metro station to the street and we eventually all made it up to street level and were checked into the Palace Hotel. Our room was fantastic. This was a five-star hotel and was well-equipped: unusually for Switzerland there was a coffee maker in the room and the minibar was free to use (although the only alcoholic drink there was beer, but still a great part of the standard offer). By the time we had sorted out our luggage (brought up to our room by the porters) and showered it was time for dinner at a hotel restaurant and then bed. It is always helpful when dinner on the first night is included in these packages especially on Saturdays (busy) or Sundays (half the places closed), and dinner at the Lausanne Palace was great!

On Sunday morning we set of to explore some of the city centre of Lausanne, taking the Metro just two stops to the opposite side of the ravine in which the city's shopping streets are located, from where we were able to cross a bridge to Lausanne Cathedral. As it happened we were there between the Sunday morning services and were able to pop in to look at the building. We did not have time to stay to worship as there was a programme of activities for the rest of the day, but we did spot a likely restaurant for a fondue and kept that in mind as a possibility for the evening unless something even better turned up. We walked back through the quiet Sunday morning shopping streets to our hotel and met the rest of the group for the first group tour. As we were not now staying in Montreux our capable tour manager, Richard, arranged for the group to take an earlier train than necessary for the included tour of the Château de Chillon. The ride along the shore of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman in the local language, French) was wonderful with an almost continous view of the lake, with hills beyond and a series of towns, villages and vineyards between the railway and the lake. At Montreux railway station, standing at the platform was the train would be taking later to Interlaken, the Golden Pass Express, looking very splendid.

Montreux, billed as "stylish Montreux" in Great Rail Journeys' publicity, was a lovely place to visit, especially on the waterfront. Some of the party were excited by the statue of Freddie Mercury along the promenade! We bought a take-away salad lunch from the local Micros supermarket and sat by the lakeside to eat it in the warm sunshine. It was an idyllic time, and like most of the group we opted to walk along the lakeside footpath to the Château de Chillon rather than take the train (the plan, had we been staying in Montreux, had been to take the trolleybus there, apparently). We all arrived eventually at the entrance to the Château for the booked guided tour in which we learnt the fascinating history of this building, built on a natural rocky island just off the lake shore by the Savoy family to claim duty on traffic on the lake and conquered by the Bernese a couple of centuries later. While we were being taken around the interior the rain came, and came heavily. By the time we were ready to leave, mercifully the rain had almost ceased, and soon did cease. We made our way to the nearby pier from where a paddle-boat took us back along the lake to Lausanne, with a view of "stylish Montreux" and a few other places where we docked on the way. the weather by now had turned quite good again and we were able to sit on the forward deck with a super view of the surrounding hills and mountains. Most of us then used the Metro again to return to the hotel. We showered and changed and made our way back to the restaurant we had discovered in the morning and enjoyed our classic Swiss cheese fondue with Swiss wine served by attentive staff at the Café L'Evêché, after which we returned to the hotel, with help of the Metro, through the rain which had returned, but was OK for the short times we had to be outside. 

And so our first, brilliant, day of this Swiss "adventure" came to an end. We had visited a cathedral and a castle in two different towns and enjoyed a traditional Swiss supper and we were staying in a wonderful traditional Belle Epoque hotel. We looked forward eagerly to what more new experiences the subsequent days would bring, beginning with the Mont Blanc Express, back into France for the day!

The Italian Lake District

Lake Maggiore by Train via London and Colmar

Our third (and possibly last) holiday based in Italy was booked almost as soon as we were home from the previous one, and again it was a Great Rail Journeys escorted tour. They offer a selection of holidays by train in the Italian Lakes but the one that stood out for us was a week or so in Stresa, on Lake Maggiore, because it included a trip on the Centovalli Railway which we had done once before in poor weather and wanted to visit again in the summer. It also included a stopover in Colmar (where we have stopped before and enjoyed) on the way there and Dijon (which we have never seen before) on the way back. It also included quite a lot of free time and would therefore be quite a relaxing holiday as well as a further exploration of Italy and eastern France. And although we would not be stopping there, a passage through the Alps would be good to do in a year in which, for once, we had not visited Switzerland!

We had tolerated a cool, fairy wet, summer and had been looking forward to getting away to some sunshine, and as we were about to leave the sunshine suddenly resumed, temperatures rose and England started enjoying summer at last, although, if anything, it was a bit too hot and we began to look forward to the slightly lower temperatures on the lake shore in Italy!

We began with London, as always when bound for the continent, but this time instead of going late in the day (Sunday, when we have no local trains until lunch time) simply to stay overnight we went earlier so that we could take the chance to see the King's and Queen's coronation robes on display at Buckingham Palace. In order to fit this in we asked both of our sons for favours: one to drive us to Peterborough to catch a Sunday morning train to London, and the other, in London, to look after our baggage while we visited the palace: it is always nice to see the family anyway, especially those in London whom we see only occasionally.

We had our usual breakfast at home before leaving by car for Peterborough station, but on boarding the train the smell of bacon rolls required me to have another breakfast on board the train! With orange juice and coffee this was a very satisfying start to the day. Sunday engineering work had closed the Hammersmith & City Line, so our journey to Shepherd's Bush for the personal left-luggage facility was more complicated than usual, but the Underground still delivered and we arrived there via a short visit to the Westfield shops where my wife had some pending business ...

Free of encumbrances, then, we made our way to Buckingham Palace, via an ice-cream break in The Green Park, and although we were half an hour early for our ticket time we were admitted and after the security check we were handed our audio-visual personal guides and began the tour of the Palace state rooms, which included the coronation robes displayed in the ballroom and quite a lot of information about the coronation service, the work of the monarchy and the life of King Charles III. It was all very well done but slightly amusing that the commentary spoke several times about what His Majesty normally or usually does each year, but he has not been doing it for a year yet! Clearly it is a description of what the monarch normally does, based upon what Queen Elizabeth II had established and often what the King has done just once.

We had tea with cake and sandwiches before leaving the Palace and returning to our son's home. We stayed a short while and took up their offer of dinner, although we did not need a lot after our royal tea.

For our overnight accommodation in London we try to get as close as possible to St Pancras International station and have often stayed in the Premier Inn opposite the British Library in Euston Road, but even the Premier Inn can be expensive in central London, so this time we tried The Hub (by Premier Inn), an even more budget hotel, and slightly further away, on York Way, east of Kings Cross station. Our room was two floors below street level but it had all we needed just for a night's sleep: a bed and an ensuite shower/wc, with space beneath the bed for two cases. There were mains and USB sockets for charging our devices (interestingly, continental as well as UK mains sockets), air-conditioning (no window, of course) and huge towels. We did not book breakfast and from getting up on Monday at 6am we were at St Pancras, after a ten-minute walk, just after 6.30 to check in with our tour manager before making our way to the Eurostar departure area.

I could not believe how efficient the operation at St Pancras had become! There was no queue at the ticket gates and I was caught off guard, not having bothered to have my ticket ready because I am used to taking five minutes to get to the barrier: still, with no-one behind me it did not matter that I had to ferret for my ticket before scanning it at the barrier. The security check was only slow owing to the need to put all my metal stuff, including my belt, onto the tray and then take it all back again after passing through the scanner. Then before I has time to get my passport ready I was being ushered towards the UK border post, fumbling now for my passport, for there had always been a queue here in the last few years, plenty of time to get ones passport ready. Once through the UK check at least I was now ready for the French border police who inspected and stamped my passport quickly and efficiently All done in less than ten minutes from turning up to being ready to go - with still an hour before departure. My wife had come through even faster and had found a couple of seats in the waiting area and then I went to buy coffee and we had our first breakfast: coffee and the apples we had brought from home, and in my case a croissant from the coffee shop.

We made our way early to the travelator up to the platforms, our tour manager having had a tip-off about the platform number. We were the first people up to the platform when the train was announced: never done that before, although we have been the first off when arriving.The train left London on time and our second breakfast was soon served, the usual Eurostar light meal on an early train, included in the price of our Standard Premier tickets. Engineering work in France made us just a few moments late into Paris, but that was not significant as we had a couple of hours there to walk to Gare de L'Est, have some lunch and board the train to Colmar where we were to spend the first night of the escorted tour. 

Bob the tour manager asked me to walk at the back of the group as I happened to have hat like his and he would know where the rear of the group was if he looked back and saw me, and he could tell the group to stay between the two hats! I have been chosen for many things in my life, some more pleasurable than others, but this is the first time that my headgear has been the criterion of selection ...

The TGV to Colmar was very comfortable, as TGVs generally are, but it was very disappointing that the bar car was not open ("il y a une problème"), so no after-lunch coffee. Colmar is a place we have stopped overnight a few times before, and it was good to have a chance to walk round for a bit before dinner. Just as on the last few visits the weather was very hot. In one shop we even managed to do a very little very early Christmas shopping! Colmar is a lovely town, and one of the great benefits of overland international travel over flying is that you do get the chance to see other interesting places on the way to you main destination.

Dinner, a good night's sleep and a decent breakfast completed our stay in Colmar and then we met the rest of the group and crossed the road to the railway station for the train into Switzerland on Tuesday morning. This was a local train to Basel (Bâle in French) and we were all together in the First Class coach at the rear of the train. We had about an hour between trains at Basel, a station we have used several times in the past, both on group tours and on our own: it is really two stations in one, a French section and s Swiss section. We sat in the sun for a while outside the station and then joined the next train which would take us on through Switzerland to Domodossola in Italy. The original plan has been to stay on this train all the way to Stresa, but engineering work on the line had cut this particular train service short and so we had to take a coach for the few kilometres to our hotel on the lake shore in Stresa, but not before we had seen the beautiful Swiss Alps and several towns we have visited in the past, including Brig which was our first Alpine destination almost ten years ago.

We had a beautiful hotel room on an upper floor with a balcony (where I am sitting typing this post!) overlooking Lake Maggiore and the islands we would be visiting the following day. We went for a walk around the town and then returned for a shower and dinner with the rest of the group at the hotel. And so to bed. It had been a fairly murky evening after a sunny day, but the sky was beginning to clear by sunset and held some promise for the morning, but with very thick curtains to our room we would not see the weather until we opened them after a good night's sleep ...

Dazzling Sun, and A Dazzling Palace

Our room had very thick curtains and when we finally awoke, on our alarm at 07:30 on Wednesday I opened the curtains and immediately had to close my eyes and back off as the sun was shockingly bright, straight across Lake Maggiore and into my face! Once I had recovered my composure and my eyes had adapted to the light I could see that it was a wonderful sunny morning and a brilliant day was beginning. 

The morning and early afternoon were completely free and so after breakfast I spent some time in the morning writing my weblog on the balcony and then we walked into town again did some of the Town Trail of interesting buildings, with a stop for a gelato at a place where we bought one last time we were in Stresa, but to be honest, not many of the buildings were particularly interesting ... then we sat by the poolside (or, rather, I did: Alison swam, after much grimacing at the cold, in the pool) at the hotel until it was time to get showered and dressed ready for our first included excursion.

We all gathered in the hotel reception and Bob the tour manager led us out to the landing stage opposite the hotel where, a few moments later, a hired launch arrived to take us to Isola Pescatori for a brief visit - we had been there before for a slightly longer visit, but it was good to see it again - and then we were taken by another launch across to Isola Bella, the island we could see from our balcony and which we had never visited before. Isola Bella is the island on which the Borromean Palace stands. We had a swift guided tour around tha palace, which is still in use by the Borromeo family and in which the current Princess was actually in residence when we visited. The place was stunning. Buckingham Palace was still in our minds as we had been there just a couple of days before, but although the Borromean Palace was a lot smaller it beats anything else I have ever seen for decoration - except possibly some of the rooms at Burghley House ...

After the tour of the palace we visited its gardens and were served Prosecco and nibbles there before returning by another boat to our hotel for a later dinner and straight to bed to recover from the day: it did not seem that we had done a lot, but it all added up to some miles of walking and a lot of sunshine.

Freedom and Adventure

Normally on a Great Rail Journeys tour the free days are interspersed among days with included activities but for various reasons of non-availability on certain days it turned out that our two completely free days fell together, and immediately followed the first full day in Stresa when there had been only the island tour beginning late in the afternoon. Unfortunate in some ways but a free day is a free day and there was plenty we could do to fill them, or we could sit and do very little as I had tried in vain to do on Wednesday morning! We had toyed with the idea of visiting another lake, but the railway works which had caused us to use road transport for the last stretch to Stresa would also make reaching another lake rather long-winded, and in any case, there is much to see around Lake Maggiore without travelling so far. We decided to go to Verbania, the largest town on the lake and just across from our hotel. It could be reached easily by public boat service, by bus or, according to the timetable, by train. We decided to take the train, although I soon realised from the map that Verbania station was some kilometres from the town centre, indeed from the town, and even then I was daft enough to buy return tickets ...

Stresa station was about a ten-minute uphill walk from the hotel, pleasant enough, and although a little tatty in places with a faded splendour, a nice little station. We bought our tickets and went via the subway to the opposite platform to await the train. With a minute to go I remembered that the tickets had to be validated before travel so I nipped back and inserted them in the validation machine and returned to the platform just as the train was drawing in. No-one checked the tickets in any case.  Our train was a semi-fast from Arona to Domodossala, the first stop being Verbania. The station there was modern and pleasant but now we needed a bus to the town. Apple maps showed a bus stop on the main road nearby with a bus in a few minutes' time. It took a while to find the stop, but find it we did: nowhere to stand but the newly-mown verge (which must have resembled a meadow before mowing. The bus picked us up and then took us via a stop right adjacent to the railway station, but on the other side of the tracks and which we had not noticed, and would have been much more convenient. It was about twenty minutes into town and we were pleased we had not attempted to walk. We were already beginning to reassess the value of the return halves of our train tickets, the distance from the station to Verbania being roughly the same as the distance we had travelled on the train! I am not complaining: this is supposed to be an adventure, and an adventure it was! 

We had coffee at a café at the town hall and then went for a long walk along the lake shore, enjoyed a cold lemon drink overlooking the lake and then walked back into the centre of Verbania for a gelato and a bus back to Stresa. For our evening meal we had promised ourselves a cocktail and a pizza at a lakeside pizzeria near our hotel and that was what we did. While we were there two other pairs of people from our Great Rail Journeys group turned up, and we had seen another couple there earlier in the day. I hope they all liked it as much as I did. A good meal for two, with cocktails and coffee, €53.00, that's under £50: brilliant.

Friday was the last of the free days and we had decided to take a bus in the other direction to Arona, farther south along the lake. Buses around Stresa were not a big tourist thing and it was not easy to find all the information we needed; stops were not always easy to find and the online data available to Apple Maps and CityMapper, our usual public transport information sources, was patchy and difficult to understand, but we were able to get a timetable and information from the tourist office. The buses were actually quite useful once we found them and stops included one at the rail station (we'd alighted there on our way home from Verbania) and one by the lake boat terminal, so there was some effort at integration, but not a lot. After a quick look around Stresa Friday market, we waited at the (unmarked) stop by the boat terminal, soon encouraged by local people turning up to wait for the bus, too. It was a little late which would have made us concerned if it had not been for the others at the stop. The vehicle was more like a coach than a bus and was very comfortable. Like the buses we had used the day before, they did not take card payment as we were used to in Britain, but only cash, although they did offer change so were able to pay with no difficulty.

Arrival in Arona was by the rail station in the centre of the town, by the boat terminal there, where there was also a tourist office where we were able to pick up a map of the town. Again we walked along the lake shore and stopped for our morning coffee at a little restaurant that was just opening for the day. We decided that from there we would walk up to the statue (described as a "colossus"!) of St Charles Borromeo, a member of the ruling Borromeo family who had become a Cardinal and Archbishop of the Counter-Reformation and was very popular locally. When you read of his reforms to the Church in his diocese you wonder if he had come a little earlier in history the Reformation, with its great divisions in the Church, might never have happened. It was a long, uphill walk to the church and the great statue, sometimes along the roadside, sometimes a long stepped footpath, sometimes on the road itself. It was hot and sunny, but we got there! Apparently this is second in size only to the Statue of Liberty in New York of the type of statue that one can climb up inside: I did not try that ...  We returned to Arona town centre by a different route which was a lot easier going but just as hot and sunny and with much more walking on the carriageway. On arrival in the town a gelato was the most urgent thing to find, and we sat looking over the lake and recovered from our exertions of the morning before taking the bus back to Stresa - once we had found it! We  knew it would go from the rail station forecourt but did not really know exactly where: a bus in the right livery stood among about ten others but with its engine running, so we walked to the front and saw that the destination was, among other places, Stresa, and the door was open. So we asked the driver, paid him and sat down. About three local people were already aboard and one more joined us. It was not at a bus stop but just among a pack of coaches and would have been easy to miss! The adventure continued ... back in Stresa we bought salad and fruit for our evening meal at our room and one to relax. We would be up a little earlier the next day for what would be, for me, the centrepiece of this exciting holiday.

The Centovalli Line in Sunshine at Last - and in Its Centenary Year

We last rode the Centovalli Line almost ten years ago, but it was in winter and on a wet and murky day. Winter is not a bad time to travel a scenic line, actually, when the deciduous trees are bare and there might be snow highlighting some features, but the rain and mist were, well, a dampener. We looked at doing it again one summer but on that particular day the forecast, although warmer, was not much sunnier, so we didn't even try. Third time lucky: the inclusion of this scenic line in Great Rail Journeys' itinerary for this holiday was one of our reasons for booking it, and it was sunny. Along with the rest of the group we walked up to the station from the hotel and awaited a train to Domodossala where we had just under an hour before taking the Centovalli Line train, just right for the morning coffee break. The station buffet operated the traditional Italian coffee bar system where you pay at the till and take the receipt to the barista who then makes the drinks listed on the receipt. We had become used to the concept on out earlier visits to Rome and other cities, but it was the first time we had come across it on this trip, the first time, I suppose, that we had been at a bar not specifically aimed at foreigners. The entire transaction was conducted in Italian; we are getting there.

The group had a block of seating reserved on the Centovalli train, Second Class in this case: I suspect there would not have been enough First Class seating on the four-coach multiple unit that comprised this train. It is a two-hour ride to Locarno on the express service we were on, and it is scenic for all but the first and last couple of kilometres. I did not take photographs because they would never do justice to the scenery: if you want to see it you'll have to travel the line yourself, well worth doing!

There was a party atmosphere in Locarno when we arrived, with a large music festival happening in the streets, a sort of urban Glastonbury.

Above: Locarno market place this summer

Right: Locarno market place on our previous visit

In Locarno we revisited the pizzeria Al Portico where we had had lunch the last time we were there, but this time we could speak to the staff in Italian. On my iPhone I showed the waitress my blog post with a photograph of the restaurant. It had barely changed, although we did notice that the menu now had a German translation of each item - not that that was any use to me. By the time we had eaten our salads and enjoyed the coffee it was the to wander back to the rendezvous with the group to await the boat ride back to Stresa. Our tour manager was keen to ensure that we boarded the boat fairly early in order to give us the best choice of seating, and as it was so hot and sunny we chose a shaded area on deck, bt eventually moved under cover with an iced drink from the on-board bar. It was a three-hour journey back to Stresa, the boat calling at several places on both sides of the lake on the way, including two stops in Verbania, which it was nice to see again from a different angle. By then the sun was much lower in the sky (we arrived at Stresa at seven o'clock), so we were out on the sundeck for the last part of the voyage, from which we could see the side of the Borromean Islands that we not visible from Stresa, and could spot our hotel among the buildings as we approached the town. Dinner was back at the hotel after a very quick shower.

Another Lake

Sunday dawned with another sunny morning but we had a chance to recover from the three preceding days' adventures in the heat as the included tour to Lago Orta did not start until 13:30. After a snack lunch in our room we joined the rest of the party for the coach trip to the small town of Orta San Giulio: it was not far as the crow flies, but was in the next valley and so further by road (and would have been even further by rail!). From the coach park we took a little road train down to the town centre and lake shore where we had a few minutes (another gelato stop!) before we all boarded a boat to visit the tiny island of San Giulio on which stands a church founded by Saint Julius and in which his body is buried. The church is beautifully decorated with wall paintings throughout and well worth a visit. The island is densely packed with homes and a large Benedictine convent and there is a walk around the island, the "Walk of Silence" in one direction, with plaques about the value of silence, and the "Walk of Meditation" in the other direction with plaques of platitudes which really did not make a lot of sense to me. Either way round, though, and we had ample time to do both, was a very pleasant walk. Lake Orta itself is much smaller than Lake Maggiore, much more the size of the lakes we know in England and Scotland. The boat to the island took us the long way round so that we could see something of the lake and the island's numerous boathouses where the residents keep their boats. The boat back took the shortest route and we were soon walking back to the little road train and our coach back to the hotel for dinner and bed.

Food and Wine

Bob the tour manager had warned us to have a light breakfast on Monday morning because we would be fed amply during the day! It was quite a long day out by coach into a wine-producing area some way south of Lake Maggiore, and began with a visit to Ghemme, including a tour of the Rovellotti winery, which must be unique, followed by a tasting, with accompanying nibbles. The winery is situated in the town centre in a collection of building which began as a fortress in which the citizens could try to hold out in the event of an attack on the their town when it was situated between two warring dukedoms but which become surplus to defensive requirements when peace broke out between those families. We were shown around by a young member of the Rovellotti family who have had premises in the former fortress since its founding in the medieval period Two generations of the family and a couple of other employees currently run the wine-making business and we sampled four varying wines accompanied by light bites to suit them - trying to keep consumption of food as low as possible because of what was to follow ... but needing something to stop this being nothing but wine, and before noon, too!

This followed by a drive through the countryside (which was possibly gorgeous but most of us slept through most of it after all that wine) and lunch, a generous lunch, with wine, at Cascina Monchucchetto, an agriturismo even farther south. The views from the agriturismo were fantastic but it was so hot in the sun that we did not want to enjoy the sun for long. It was necessary to go a bit steady on the food and wine as well after the morning's indulgences at the winery. No dinner was necessary that evening.

We spent some time that evening packing our bags, for this was our last night in Stresa: the next day we would begin the journey homeward, and although it would be quite possible to get home in one day (as we have done from, say, Neuchâtel when travelling on our own), we still had one more interesting place to see.

Burgundy

We were all taken by coach with our luggage to Stresa railway station where we caught a Geneva-bound express through the Alps to Lausanne where we changed trains for a Paris-bound TGV as far as Dijon, a city we had never visited before. We arrived in Dijon on-time mid-afternoon and after finding our room at the hotel, the Oceania le Jura, a short walk from the rail station, we set off for a stroll in the city centre. We bought a gift, mustard, of course, for our kind neighbours who have kept our plants watered in our absence, and by then a little rain had begun, so we started back in the direction of the hotel, past the miniature version of the Arc de Triomphe which graces the city centre, and went for a drink in the hotel bar. By the time I had ordered the rain was very heavy and we were soon joined by other members of the tour who had baled out of walks around the city centre, looking considerably more bedraggled that we were. Later we heard tales of those who had ventured farther and who developed a sudden need for coffee or for prayer, sheltering in a café or the cathedral ... 

The evening meal was a fixed menu of local specialities at a nearby restaurant and the eggs in a burgundy sauce were especially good in my opinion, as was the cassis-flavoured sorbet with which we finished. Unlimited water, and coffee, were included but we had to buy the wine and I must say that for a cheap house red the wine was magnificent. My opinion of Burgundian cuisine and wine has been enhanced by this visit. We brought a selection of mustards home for ourselves, too.

The rail station at Dijon has a large cylindrical booking hall very reminiscent of Charles Holden's inter-war designs for the London Underground, in white concrete rather than brick as in London. We were back there in the morning to take a TGV train to Paris (it was the same service, earlier in the day, as the one on which we had arrived the previous afternoon from Lausanne). This time we arrived at Gare de Lyon and Great Rail Journeys had provided a coach to take us through the streets to Gare du Nord, where we arrived neatly in time to check in for our Eurostar train to London. By the time we had all been through passport and security checks (and, like London, this all seems to have become much slicker now) it was almost time to board: I don't think I sat down in the departure lounge at all!

Taking a seat on Eurostar now I almost feel like I'm already home even though I still have two more train rides after this one and a time zone to cross! The light meal, lunch to us, was soon served and we had our final conversations with the people who had shared (some of) our adventures of the past week and a half and before we knew it we were in the familiar space of St Pancras station. It was a long walk from the last coach of the train to the exit, but that did mean that we got to enjoy the vast and glorious railway station that London St Pancras has now become. We walked across to Kings Cross and although I had booked seats on a train to Peterborough at 16:06 we had a look at LNER's app and saw that pairs seats were still available on a train that would be leaving in about twenty minutes, and hour earlier than that, so I reserved a pair of seats on that, cancelled the ones I already had and by then its platform was announced and we took our places. Again, a light meal was served, although I kept the pudding course to eat later at home since it did not seem long since Eurostar had fed me! There were only four minutes in the timetable between the arrival of this train at Peterborough and the departure of the train to Stamford, so we knew we might not make that connection. The idea was that we would shop at Waitrose in Stamford if we got it and in Peterborough (it's right by the station) if we didn't! As it happened our train from London slowed down to a crawl on approach to the station and we began to give up hope of getting the tight connection (so tight it was not advertised) but by being first at the door, and choosing a door near the footbridge steps we were able to get over the bridge and be going onto platform 7 for the Stamford train just as the whistle blew, and the kind dispatcher had the doors opened for us to board. For whatever reason it was still held at the platform for several more minutes, so perhaps the haste was not necessary after all ...

Back in Stamford we took the familiar walk across the Meadows and stopped for tea at the open-air Italian restaurant at the Sheepmarket square, a last little glimpse of Italy as we made our way home. While we had been away there had been a heatwave at home, and we were actually less hot (high twenties Celsius) than England, and specifically Lincolnshire, had been. Now both places were beginning to cool down and autumn looked like it was coming at last!