Baltic Adventure by Land, Sea and Air, 3

LONDON, BREMEN, COPENHAGEN, STOCKHOLM, RIGA, TALLINN, HELSINKI, LÜBECK, COLOGNE

Part 3, The Former Soviet Baltic States

(see Part 1 here)

(see Part 2 here)

The Night of Three Rooms

Our hotel in Riga, the Radison Blu Latvija, was built in the Soviet era as the Intourist hotel, the only one in town where foreign visitors could stay. Two blocks from the KGB building the rooms will have been bugged and visitors could be followed and spied-upon to ensure that the Soviet state was safe from foreign interference. It had been thoroughly refurbished and the KGB has moved out, so we felt quite safe (not that our conversations would have been any risk to any state, capitalist or communist!), but there were other problems which led to an interesting start to the night! We went into our room and inserted the key card into the slot and the lights came on ... then went out fifteen seconds later. We tried it several times but could not keep the lights on, so we went to reception and they kindly allocated us another room across the corridor (I thought, if the KGB are listening, that will confuse them!).

All was well and we went off for a walk around Riga, returning later to the hotel for dinner and then retiring to our room for a shower, the clothes washing and bed. Once in bed we realised that we could not silence the air-conditioning, or so we thought, but on opening the window we then twigged that the racket was coming from outside where everyone's over-worked air-con seemed to be blowing out into the night air. We were given yet another new room, but this one was three floors higher and so we had to travel in our nightwear, carrying our luggage and our wet washing via the lift to the new floor at about half-past eleven at night, much to the amusement of other passengers in the lift. At last we could go to sleep! And there is no way the KGB would have followed all those moves ...  The view from the room in the morning sun was fantastic, across the trees in the park with the golden domes of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral beyond. We went down for our breakfast and prepared for our first day out in Riga.

Our guided tour of Riga was partly by coach and mostly on foot and began with a visit to some of the finest art nouveau architecture in Europe. This was built pre-communism as apartments for the middle classes and there are street after street of buildings too many to record. It was explained to us that during the Soviet era these apartments were further divided and shared between several families, many of whom were moved in from Russia and one of whom was probably the original owner of the flat who now became an unwilling tenant of a shared part of the same flat. Our guide said that everything was then painted in "ugly grey," "ugly green" or white. I speculated that she had missed out "ugly brown" but presumably she knows her own city!

We moved on to the city centre where we saw pre-soviet, soviet and post-soviet buildings, monuments and churches of several denominations.

Although the country's independence from Russia dates from the USSR's collapse many years ago and it has been an EU and NATO member state for almost as many years, there remains a substantial Russian-speaking population there, and anyone who attended school before independence knows the Russian language, but anyone who attended school afterwards learnt English instead.

I really enjoyed exploring Riga, a beautiful city which has been through a lot of violent history but whose recent freedom was won peacefully and whose beauty is now restored. It remains, however, on the front line where the increasingly threatening Russia faces NATO, and there were German and Dutch senior troops staying in our hotel. Everywhere we went there were Ukrainian flags alongside the Latvian and EU flags. Russian street names were being expunged and the street where the Russian embassy is located had been renamed to Ukrainian Independence Street so that all the letters to the embassy had to carry that expression! This attitude to Russia was a theme throughout our visits to Riga, Tallinn and Helsinki, all of which are capitals of nations on the NATO border with Russia and who have often suffered from their relationship with Russia in the past.

In the afternoon we set off to do our own exploring and following the recommendation of both our local guide and our Tour Manager we started at the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, a repurposed soviet building which previously celebrated the USSR. What we learnt there about suppression of religion and other freedoms would apply equally in Estonia. The three Baltic states plus Finland were caught between the two empires of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia and those trying to govern the country were heroes or villains to one side or the other from week to week, as were those trying to serve in their armed forces. A lot of people died and lot were imprisoned and many were deported to Siberia, of whom some returned and some did not, but those who did came back to an unfamiliar land.

The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia: the black soviet architecture was thought to be appropriate to the subject

Gluttons for punishment, we moved on to the former KGB building, now run by the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, and it was very chilling indeed. The only public entrance to the building, known locally as "The Corner House" was on a street corner not far from the Intourist Hotel, and it was in the entrance lobby that citizens could enquire about the fate of loved ones arrested by the KGB - whether they received an answer was another matter. We were taken to the reception area where detainees would be brought in via another door where their clothes would be divested of belts, laces or anything else that could be used to take their own lives and returned to them before they were taken for questioning and then improsoned in inhuman, cruel conditions I shall not describe here. You have to see the place for yourself. Do do the guided tour: the free public exhibition tells you a lot, but the experience of being in the cells makes sure you'll never forget. One did not have to be a criminal to end up here: the police and crime system was quite separate. This was a political matter, a matter of state security (as perceived by the government of the USSR). We were beginning to see that the USSR was not so much a "union" like the USA or the EU but an empire where nations were occupied and conquered rather than applying to join.

Back on the street it was sunny and hot and we put the chill and the smell of the KGB behind us as we walked back to our hotel to shower and prepare to go out for our evening meal at Domini Canes, a restaurant recommended by our Tour Manager and at which we had booked a table earlier in the day. It was here that we tried the local tipple Black Balsam. We discussed this with the waitress and ordered a blackcurrant flavoured balsam each, and she kindly brought us a shared sample of original Black Balsam to try. It was OK, actually. Probably quite good for a sore throat, too.

The following morning, Wednesday, a new month, a new capital, we moved on by road to Tallinn in Estonia, another former soviet republic which rejoiced to be an independent EU and NATO member state, yet still on the front line with Russia. The journey mostly followed the Baltic coast, but about a kilometre inland and through managed forests, so we did not see much of the sea. We stopped twice: once for a WC break at the former border post (both countries are in the Schengen area) and a meal stop in the town of Parnu, which was a charming place with a high street full of bars, cafés and restaurants. We found a small back-street café mostly frequented by local people and had a sandwich and coffee there.

Tallinn was another gorgeous city with a medieval Old Town whose walls were largely intact. There seemed to be more Ukrainian flags than Estonian in some streets.  Our hotel, the Radisson Blu Olümpia, was built when Moscow hosted the Olympic Games and the sailing events were held in Tallinn, then part of the USSR. This was in the 1970s and although it has been substantially updated since then there were photographs in the reception area of how it used to look when first opened - very reminiscent of British buildings of the same era; think Birmingham New Street railway station before its 21st century rebuild!

After finding our rooms and leaving our luggage we were met by a local guide with a coach and taken on a tour of Tallinn. It has a history as a port of the Hanseatic League and therefore ancient connections with Germany, Denmark and Sweden as well as Russia and the other Baltic states.

As usual on this trip the meal on the first evening was an included buffet dinner at the hotel and was of a pretty decent standard. The full day in Tallinn was a completely free day after the hotel breakfast and we wandered into town with a view to buying gifts to take home for those who had kindly looked after things for us while we had been away, to exploring some of the history of the city and taking coffee and marzipan at Maiasmokk Café where we had seen marzipan novelties being hand "painted" on our guided tour the day before.

We bought the gifts and while in the shop browsed among the very attractive pure wool sweaters, buying one each to take home. Trying them on was a bit of a trial in more ways than one in the heatwave Tallinn was experiencing at the time. We thought it might be wise to take these back to our hotel room rather than trail our shopping around the city for the rest of the day, after which we set out again and visited the Great Guild, now housing a Heanseatic League museum,  Maiasmokk Café where we had coffee and shared a piece of marzipan curd cake, and the Church of the Holy Spirit. The interior of this church was absolutely amazing, well worth a visit and the small fee they charge to keep numbers down, and amazing when you consider what this nation and city have been through since this ancient church was built.

Back at our hotel we went for a swim in the hotel pool, high up towards the top of the building with stunning views over the city. A fifteen metre pool, it was ideal for a relaxing swim both to make a change from all the walking we had been doing and to cool down from so much time in the sun. Taking it easy, we dined in the hotel restaurant that evening and then prepared to move on the following day. There was much more excitement to come, and our mode of travel was to change yet again: we had done rail, air and road; now we moved on to sea.

To be continued, next part covers Helsinki, the Baltic Sea, Lübeck and the train journey home.

Out to Lunch, by Train

Special Birthday Treat: Train Ride and a splendid French Restaurant 

As usual I had bought my wife's birthday presents well in advance: one she asked for and a small one as a surprise extra, and as they day drew near I twigged that we had nothing in the diary for the whole day, and as it drew nearer it looked like to was going to be a lovely warm, sunny day. Going our for a meal would be an obvious treat, but it would be good to make it an adventure and I knew exactly where to go ...

This is just the bread and butter on the side ...

There is an excellent French restaurant in Bury St Edmunds, La Maison Bleue. We had been there once before and thoroughly enjoyed it and I knew she wanted to return and I thought that now would be the time, so I booked the table on their website and then our booked train tickets. New trains had been introduced on the Greater Anglia service to Bury St Edmunds from Peterborough since we had last travelled this way, so it would be interesting to experience these trains. The weather forecast for the day was very hot and sunny: it started off only as very warm and a little cloudy when we boarded our first train at Stamford and changed at Peterborough, but by the time we arrived at Bury St Edmunds it was hot. As we were going to a special restaurant for a special meal we both wanted to dress, and this gave me a chance to use linen suit that I had bought five years earlier and hardly ever used - if it's hot enough for a linen suit it's usually hot enough for shorts - and I have certainly not used it again this summer yet!

I had allowed plenty of slack times there was no rush on the day and we could take the whole day easy, even if there were delays, which there were not: all four of our trains ran to time.

So, the new trains: these were three passenger coaches with a cab each end, all fairly normal, but instead of motors beneath all the floors like the train on our local route through Stamford, there is a sort of short locomotive between two of the coaches, with a corridor through it, making the passenger compartments much quieter and smoother (and presumably allowing a relatively simple change of traction if necessary at some point, but I am not an expert). The seats were comfortable and awards the end of some coaches the seats were on raised platforms above the wheels whereas in the middle of the coaches they were lower, allowing for better accessibility for the mobility-impaired. For us, the raised seats gave us a decent view from the large windows, and we had a really great ride. The section as far as Ely we know quite well, but after that we have only been that way a couple of other times.

The area around the station at Bury St Edmunds has seen a lot of building work since we were last there and it is much more attractive as a first impression of the city, and we made our way up through the streets to the city centre which was bustling with a market as well as many good shops and not as many closed shops as some places. We had time for some browsing and just as we were thinking that a drink before our lunch would be a good idea, The Nutshell came into view, the country's smallest pub, which had some very decent beer (although the birthday girl went for prosecco on this occasion) and outside tables under the shade of trees in the street - very continental.

After our drink it was time to make our way to the restaurant and it did not disappoint. They had taken in my message about needing a corner tablet help with hearing difficulties and there was a "happy birthday" message on the birthday girl's petit fours with which the meal ended. This is the only restaurant we have come across in England where we could buy Swiss wine (and even they only had one this time), so that was a necessary part of the decision-making when browsing the menu! The waiting staff here are attentive and the food and drink excellent, and although it was lunchtime on a very ordinary weekday, the place soon filled up, so I was glad we had gone for a fairly early reservation.

After the meal there was time for a bit of a stroll back though the city before making our way to the station, and it was now becoming very hot and very sunny! We visited the cathedral gift shop and stocked up on cards for friends' forthcoming birthdays, and one or two air-conditioned ladies' clothes shops where we bought nothing but enjoyed the cool air! And so, back to the station, staying in the shade where we could, almost like being in, say, Italy or the French Riviera, and as I type this on a cool day with the rain falling it is hard to believe that the weather we had that day really did happen!

The linen suit and linen shirt stood up well to the test, as did the air-conditioning on the trains home. It had ben a really great day out, the train rides through some great scenery looking ts best in the summer sunshine after the wet spring, the drink under the trees, the French lunch, and most important of all the birthday girl enjoyed it all! Wins all round.

This Could Be the Last Time, I Don't Know ...

Holiday by Train on the South Coast of England

Waterloo station in London has seen many an excited departure for seaside holidays on the south coast and the west of England, and in recent years some of these have been mine. The trains themselves are not very exciting these days, and the First Class seating was downgraded at the last franchise award, although it is still excellent value for money if booked in advance. Waterloo is a busy station with many local and suburban services but also with some significant long-distance trains serving several holiday destinations all along the south coast, although it has been many years since it served the Devon and Cornwall resorts. our holiday this year began at Yarmouth, on the Isle of Wight. Fast trains normally leave Waterloo every half-hour on the route to Bournemouth and Weymouth, and there is a simple cross-platform change of train at Brockenhurst in the New Forest, from where a local branch-line train connects with a ferry direct to Yarmouth.

We had used this route twice before and I worked out a schedule that fitted our needs, taking us to London via Cross Country and LNER trains from Stamford, with a change of train at Peterborough, in plenty of time for the 13:35 departure from Waterloo. All our travel was booked in advance as soon as Advance tickets became available, and the hotels both at Yarmouth (very expensive) and Chichester (just expensive) where we were stopping next. I also booked the restaurants for dinner on the Isle of Wight as we have had difficulty finding places in the past. 

The weather had not been good all through July, dull, cloudy, showery, and cool for the time of the year, but on our day of departure the sun was shining when I woke up and stayed out until well after we had left home, making the journey to London much more pleasant than I had anticipated, helped by the trains being on time and clean. I had allowed plenty of connection time at Peterborough and we enjoyed the coffee and biscuits from the "Bike Barista" which are free for LNER First Class ticket-holders. On the train, the 10:50, brunch was served from LNER's Dish menu and I had the blueberry porridge and an orange juice. It really was a very good trip, arriving at Kings Cross on time. At Kings Cross Underground station we spoke to a member of staff to have my wife's renewed Senior Railcard linked to her Oyster Card to gain the Railcard discount on Underground travel in London, then we made our way to Waterloo.

Kings Cross to Waterloo is not a difficult journey by Underground, but the route is not that obvious! We have done it several different ways, and also by bus (takes ages) and many years ago I used to do it on foot. This time, which may be the last time, we took the Victoria Line to Warren Street and from there the Northern Line straight to Waterloo: in both cases a train came into the station as soon as we arrived on the platform, so the cross-town change of station was pretty quick, although the Underground trains were both very busy, for the middle of a weekday in summer. 

Something Funny Happened at Waterloo

The idea was get to Waterloo in good time, buy a simple lunch and wait for the train while eating it. There is a Marks and Spencer Food Hall and that is where we bought our lunch, but there is also a Benugo café (I did get coffee there) and many other food outlets, all of which looked quite good. Tip: go and sit on the balcony overlooking the concourse: it is much less busy and frenetic there, and Benugo is there, too, with interesting views of the activity below.

While eating, knowing I had plenty of time, I looked idly across at the departures board to see if our train was posted yet. Not only was it not there yet, but neither did it appear in the "subsequent departures" section even though several trains timed after it did appear there ... "13:35" was clearly printed on my Advance ticket, and LNER, through whom I had made the booking, sent me the automatic reminder stating 13:35, but there was no 13:35 departure! Live Train Times on the LNER app came to the rescue: I looked up live departures from Waterloo to Brockenhurst and found that it was retimed to 13:30 owing to some alterations to the timetable to reduce the number of trains operating. That was fine, no need to ask anyone for help. Soon the platform for the 13:30 to Bournemouth and Weymouth (also holiday destinations, of course) was indicated and we made our way to platform 12 and boarded.

Delayed, Not Delayed

We left Waterloo station on time, but by Southampton our train was four minutes late for some reason (even though the retiming had given it an extra five minutes ...), and as it made its way through the New Forest the train became later and later, not by a huge amount but by enough to miss the connection at Brockenhurst for Lymington Pier for the ferry to Yarmouth. Disappointing, but not tragic. The next train to Lymington Pier was just half an hour later and was on time, giving us seven minutes to board the ferry, and, of course, the ferry staff were expecting a last-minute influx because they had noticed that not many arrived on the preceding train ... so in spite of a half-hour delay we arrived at Yarmouth exactly on time, but we waited at Brockenhurst station rather than at Lymington ferry terminal. Our afternoon cup of tea was on board the ferry instead of while waiting for it!

We checked in at The George Hotel and Beach Club at Yarmouth, went for a stroll around the town and then took up our reservation for dinner at The Terrace, the rather splendid restaurant above the ferry terminal at Yarmouth. Nothing in Yarmouth is cheap - indeed it did occur to me that this place is similar to Switzerland in the cost to visitors, but it is a very small town and we were here at the peak of the holiday season, so we could not expect a bargain.

Our drinks lined up for dinner!

We did have a table indoors, although the weather was very considerably better than last time, but still not really right for overlooking the harbour. The cocktails, the food (I had fish and chips!) and the beer were great, and we were greeted by a fantastic sunset (see header photograph) as we left. Back to The George, bath and bed ready for the morning.

When planning the holiday I had left the first full day vague, to put it mildly, thinking that in suitable weather we might visit a beach and just take the day easy, then visit Osborne House (English Heritage) on the next day. The weather forecast, however, showed that the next day, Saturday, was to be the only wet and windy day (Storm Antoni, as it turned out, yellow weather warning throughout the south of England!), so we rescheduled Osborne to the first day, Friday, and left Saturday as the vague day but no longer expected to visit a beach!

On the Rocks and Off the Rails, but Nothing is Wrong

We took a bus to Newport on Friday morning and changed for Osborne House. The wonderful Southern Vectis buses from Newport to East Cowes stop at the gates of Osborne House and so we were soon there, showing our English Heritage membership cards and breezing in. First stop was for coffee and then we toured the house itself. While we have done this several times before, there are often new things to see, and in any case one does not take in everything each time. 

From there we strolled down to the beach, once Queen Victoria's private beach, where we enjoyed an ice-cream, and then we walked through the woods to the Swiss cottage and children's garden plots where the young princes and princesses learnt their life skills under the care of Prince Albert. we took the courtesy bus back to the house and then, having seen enough, walked into East Cowes, which we'd never done before, and from there took the bus back to Newport and thence to Yarmouth. Dinner that evening was at On The Rocks, a "hot stones" restaurant where we cooked our own steaks on hot stones, accompanied by unlimited salad and chips, and glass of Malbec, of course.

We woke on Saturday morning to the sound of rain. We had breakfast on Saturday morning watching the rain as it eased off and came back. By ten o'clock it was much lighter and the sky much brighter and we set off on the 10:25 bus to Newport where this time we changed for the bus towards Ryde, alighting at Quarr Abbey. I had long ago heard of this Roman Catholic Benedictine abbey and on the ferry from Lymington its various facilities for visitors had been advertised, so we thought we'd use this free day to have a look. Quarr is set in beautiful countryside and woodland, near to the ruins of its pre-reformation predecessor which was dissolved by Henry VIII. The abbey is an unusual design in brick, and very peaceful, and for visitors it offers a café, a farm shop and a more general gift shop and plenty of opportunity to walk. Visitors are welcome to attend the chapel services (but to leave the singing to the monks!), although we were not there at the times for any of those. We were in the café when a shower of rain occurred and did not encounter any other wet weather until we arrived at Newport bus station on the way back, but all the bus stops there have shelters so we managed to take cover while waiting for the connection onwards to Yarmouth. By the time we left the weather was dry again, although we did pass through more showers on the way. Back at Yarmouth we returned to our hotel and changed ready for our evening out: this was a meal at Off The Rails, the restaurant with a railway theme located in the former railway station building on the edge of Yarmouth. This was about a ten-minute walk away and, as on our previous two visits, the food was different (I think "quirky" the word for the menu) and both delicious and filling.

Sunday was the day to move on and we said farewell to our hotel at Yarmouth and left for Newport on the same bus departure as on Saturday morning, but this morning was sunny and much warmer, and we had luggage. Even with our cases, which are not huge, we travelled on the top deck of the bus. This ride, scenic as it is, was a lovely end to our three-night stay on the Isle of Wight. We had not explored much the time but we had rested a lot, which was what we needed more than anything. We were making our way to Ryde, by changing buses once more at Newport bus station, a place we had begun to know quite well, for from Ryde we were to cross back over the Solent for the next stage in our week's holiday. Buses to Ryde are "only" every fifteen minutes on Sundays but soon enough we were on our way, past Quarr Abbey where we had been the day before, and into Ryde. We had coffee at an Italian coffee shop we have visited before and then it was time to make our way to the Hovertravel check-in for the flight across to Southsea.

Festina Lente

We had never used the hovercraft before, but when I was booking the train tickets this was the route I was offered. They were open tickets via "any permitted" route but the itinerary I was given was for the hovercraft and its integrated bus link to Portsmouth and Southsea station. So we gave it a try. The Hovertravel website urges everyone with a through rail ticket to book a specific flight in advance and I had done this and had to show my rail tickets and quite the booking number on check-in: we were a touch early and were allowed to board a flight 30 minutes in advance of the one I had booked, since it was far from full. The flight is just ten minutes and the bus is waiting by the terminal at Southsea, but it was straight into heavy traffic. All the time gained in charging across the Solent so much faster than the catamaran we have normally used was used up poking our way slowly around Portsmouth city centre to transfer to Portsmouth and Southsea railway station - the catamaran used to take us direct to Portsmouth Harbour station, but I am not sure that direct trains to Chichester now operate from the Harbour, so perhaps that is why we were sent the long way round via the hovercraft to Southsea. Another "disimprovement" in our national rail network which is now run more for the convenience of the operators than the passengers, it seems. 

We had about forty minutes to wait for our train - perhaps Sunday is not the brightest day to choose to travel - but there were ice-cream parlours nearby so it was not difficult to pass the time! Soon enough we boarded a semi-fast train bound for London Victoria which whisked us swiftly to Chichester station from which we walked to our hotel, the Chichester Harbour Hotel, a bit of a way from the station but very handy for the theatre which we would be visiting in a couple of days' time.

According to established tradition, that evening we met our friends for drinks: it is their holidays, for many years spent at nearby East Wittering, that have drawn us here each summer to join them for a day at the beach and an evening at the theatre. The reason why this could be the last time is that they had just (last week) moved to Chichester and will no longer be taking their holiday at East Wittering. This year they were doing it, one last time, as it was the easiest thing to do with having only just unpacked their possessions. We shall doubtless continue to visit, but not as a summer holiday in the same way. Dinner the first night in Chichester was at Côte, only because that's where we went the very first time we came and we've been there on the first evening ever since!

Our first full day staying in Chichester was spent exploring. We took a bus to Arundel which we'd only visited together once before, over thirty years ago! The obvious way to Arundel would be the train, but it was fun to try the bus, an infrequent service and so needing thought and discipline (though good to have the train in mind as a back-up in case we decided to stay longer). It was a very pleasant ride through the Sussex countryside and we visited the splendid Roman Catholic cathedral there and wandered among the shops, having lunch at a very individual place called Green & Coal. The bus back took a slightly different route through some different villages and then we had a relaxing evening, with a takeaway salad in our room.

The Hills Are Alive

The second full day was the day we were booked at the theatre (The Sound of Music this year), with a pre-theatre dinner booked at The Bell at 5pm: the dinner arrangement has become earlier and earlier over the years as we've feared missing the start of the play - although last year we were served so expeditiously that we had time to kill before the theatre! That still gave us some time, though, and in indifferent weather we took a bus to explore Midhurst, a few miles to the north, where we've never been before. No longer on the railway, Midhurst has a half-hourly bus service so we had no need to plan our travel. Among other things we discovered that the administrative centre (and the information office) for the South Downs National Park is right opposite the bus station in Midhurst and we picked up lots of information for potential future visits. We had coffee and croissants at the local bakery, served by the French owner of the business and his Italian assistant - good coffee, good pastries and a chance to speak French and Italian!

Back in Chichester we changed and prepared for our evening out ... Now we have been enjoying musicals at Chichester Festival Theatre for many summers and have seen some fantastic productions, but I have to say that this year's The Sound of Music was the best we have seen. The performances by some of the child actors, some of them in their first major production, were superb. Before the theatre we had dinner (if you can call it that when starting at 5pm!) at the Bell Inn, opposite the theatre, as we have for several years.

The following day, weather much improved, fortunately, was our day at the seaside, so we set off for the bus stop, via Tesco to purchase a contribution of wine towards the day's catering. Our bus ride to East Wittering was much quicker than we have ever experienced before, with less heavy traffic, and also we had a double-deck bus for the first time and so had a very different view of the countryside, and West Wittering as we passed through it, than in previous years. We walked from the bus stop to our friends' holiday home and so began our probable final visit to East Wittering. We walked along the beach, we ate and drank with our friends, we walked again, visited an inn of the shore of Chichester Harbour and an ice-cream shop on the beach at East Wittering and spoke of old times spent together. After what seemed all too short a time we were driven back to our hotel and prepared for the following day's train trip home.

Homeward Bound

Having breakfasted in our room for three mornings on fruit salads from M&S, we pushed the boat out with breakfast at The Ivy on our final morning. We packed our cases and checked out of the hotel, asking them to keep the luggage until we were ready to catch our train. We had booked a table at The Ivy along with all the other bookings when the holiday was planned, but I don't think it would not have been difficult to find a table on this morning if we had not booked. It was warm enough to sit outside on the pavement: the restaurant faces north so it needs to be a warm day as the sunshine does not reach the outside seating until late in the day. After a really great breakfast I visited an exhibition at The Novium Museum on JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth fantasy novels and the art, music, TV and film adaptations from them, and then it was time to collect our luggage and make our way to the railway station to begin our journey home. 

We had booked Advance First tickets for the 13:09 train to London Victoria, but because of an overtime ban this train was not running and we opted to take the 12:39 instead, running half an hour ahead of our schedule rather than half an hour behind. We did not need lunch after the late an substantial breakfast, and in London we went straight to Kings Cross (easy on the Victoria Line from Victoria, and all step-free, so easy with luggage, too). We had coffee at Notes, which we had visited once before, many years ago when it was surrounded by building sites, and then waited in the First Class lounge at Kings Cross until our train was ready to board.

The train journey from Kings Cross to Peterborough went smoothly but by the time the catering trolley reached us we had to take our food and drink with us to eat later as we were almost in Peterborough. Not to self: travel in coaches M or L next time rather than K - that way the food will come sooner! At Peterborough we popped to Waitrose for milk and then caught the connection, on time, for Stamford and walked home. It was a lovely, warm, sunny evening and the town was full of people enjoying themselves, many of them having a drink after work. We'd had a great week and it was good to be home: washing on, LNER supper consumed at home, shower and bed. Now the question is: was this the last time? What will replace this staple of our summer holidays? 

Car-free Holidays to the Isle of Wight

Four stories about holidays by rail, ferry and bus

Our annual visit to the south coast is now planned, hotels and restaurants, anyway; the train tickets will have to wait for a bit. We shall visit Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, again this year before moving on to Chichester. I thought readers might be interested in our four previous visits to the Isle of Wight, as this really is a great place to go car-free. Indeed, I'd say that the Isle of Wight is actually better without the car, which is a bit of a rave to get onto the island in the first place and can be a bit of an encumbrance when you are there (we took two cars one year, some time ago, when there were six of us); the ferry queues are not much fun.

So here are the four visits we have done in the past, all great:

• 2017, Shanklin and the Isle of Wight Steam Railway
• 2018, Shanklin, Carisbrooke Castle and Osborne House
• 2019, Yarmouth, The Needles, the Coastline
• 2021, Yarmouth, Mottistone Manor Garden, Osborne House, Isle of Wight Steam Railway

The secret to enjoying these holidays is:

• Book the accommodation in advance (and restaurant the first night - we always regretted when we didn't do this)

• Allow plenty of time for the journey to make it relaxing, no rushing across London

• Think carefully about packing and try to keep it to one modest suitcase and a small backpack each

• Book train tickets early and go First Class; book through to the Isle of Wight destination so that the ferry is included in the ticket - that makes it both simpler and much cheaper

• Download in advance the Southern Vectis bus map and install their app on your smartphone, and use their day rover tickets

Southern Vectis buses will take you all over the east or west sides of the Island without a change of bus, and to go from one side to the other involves a simple change at Newport bus station. We also do a lot of walking, and bicycles can be hired if you like cycling. We love the buses; almost all of them are double deckers and the views from the top deck are wonderful. Even from the bottom deck the views are better than from a car.

The Best Laid Plans

Summer Sunday Trip to London 

With the gradual easing of lockdown restrictions we have been able to see many of our family whom we had not seen for several months, but our son and his household in London, with no garden, we had seen least, and so some arrangements were made for this summer and we set off yesterday, Sunday, the eve of "Freedom Day" when the remaining legal restrictions were due to be lifted, to visit them. But it did not quite work out as planned, even though the plans were only a few days old. Our daughter-in-law had a cough and was awaiting the result of a Covid test, so it was uncertain whether we could visit at all, but on the morning of the visit her negative result arrived. In the meantime, however, their younger child's nursery had told them that the little girl must isolate as a contact at nursery had tested positive ... so we only met our son and the older child for a picnic, not being able to go to the house.

This has been the problem with unlocking - is it actually saving the economy and bringing some certainty to business when infection levels are so high that random self-isolations are making it hard to plan anything at all, even as minor as Sunday lunch with Granny and Grandpa?

As far as travel was concerned,  getting out of Stamford on a Sunday morning always means driving because the rail service starts very late on Sundays. This particular weekend was when the line between Stamford and Peterborough was closed while engineers built the new junction at Werrington to connect the new "dive under" to the Stamford Line tracks, so there was no rail service at all on our local line. So we drove to Peterborough, a trip short enough for our plug-in hybrid car not to need any petrol, being within range of the battery. We also got to play with the new (to us) car park payment system at Peterborough station! At the barrier on the way in we did not have to do anything but pause while the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system read our car number plate then opened the barrier. Parking on a Sunday morning in the pandemic was a piece of cake, and then I made sure I read the notices about payment so that I knew what to do when we came back later on! There were several options, but it seemed to me that the simplest in our circumstances was to use my credit card contactless on the way out. There was no ticket to lose, no faff at ticket machines. no need to remember our own number plate (and having bought the car at the start of the first lockdown we are not really familiar with it yet!), and, most important to me, no need to use a smartphone app - although the LNER app is one option for those who prefer it. If you think buying a train ticket is complicated, to me as a very occasional driver and parker of cars paying for parking these days seems far more complex than paying for train tickets. The app you need varies from car park to car park and the ticket machines are complicated and do not often use the same English that I do. And if you think that is complicated, you should try electric car charging ... but that is another story.

We had allowed bags of time to get to Peterborough because you never know what sort of hold-ups there might be (none in this case) and how much time might be soaked up parking the car and fighting the ticket machine (minimal and zero respectively, see above), so we had some time to wait for our booked LNER train, time we occupied with our usual Sunday routine of the Sunday Times General Knowledge Crossword puzzle. We were booked on a specific train in order to take advantage of low-price Advance First Class tickets in each direction. Our trains both ways were LNER's "Azuma" class inter-city express trains and on the morning trip to London we were treated to coffee and the weekend breakfast menu, although having already had breakfast I just topped up with a pain au chocolat with my coffee and a bottle of water for the sweltering day which lay ahead. Our booked seats turned out to be the pair with no window, but there was no-one in the table seats immediately in front of them and no further station calls for this train, so we consulted the First Class host and moved into those seats, still well-enough distanced from other passengers, and we were all wearing face-coverings, of course.

We knew in advance that from Kings Cross the Hammersmith & City Line was not operating, and that several other lines were suffering from sudden closures because of unexpected self-isolating staff, so we took a bus to our chosen rendezvous point, which was Kensington High Street. Buses are not quick, although perhaps they are not so slow on Sundays, but we do get to see a lot. We actually travelled by bus only as far as Hyde Park Corner and then walked along the South Carriage Ride of Hyde Park and along the souther edge of Kensington Gardens to reach our destination. This part of London is just a joy to visit on a summer day and there were lots of people, walking, sitting and cycling. We met our son and senior grandchild and then bought the components of a picnic from the Whole Foods Market in what had formerly been Barkers department store, opposite St Mary Abbots church, and returned to Kensington Gardens together for our picnic, followed by coffee in a side street café where the crowds were much thinner. Altogether it was fairly easy to keep a safe distance from others, with just a little care, and we were very happy throughout.

We accompanied the others back to their front door but could not enter, of course, and then spotted that although the Hammersmith & City Line was not operating, the Circle Line apparently was, because we saw trains passing and the local station open. that would do: we went to the station  and took the next train to Kings Cross St Pancras. There was plenty of space to start with and although mask wearing (still compulsory) was patchy we were OK for a while. Someone sat opposite us and kept taking his mask off and on but there was nowhere else to move where everyone was masked so we were reliant on our vaccinations and our own masks. Gradually the train filled up and our neighbour left his mask on, as did most others - interesting. Transport for London will be requiring face coverings even after the legal requirement is lifted because London's transport does get crowded and there are parts of London where vaccination take-up has been poor (not where we had just been, though).

We now had an hour to spare at Kings Cross and we spent it in the First Class lounge and enjoyed a salad we had bought at the Waitrose beneath it, before making our way to the train when it was ready to board, using the bridge over the platforms once more - this had been closed on our recent trips. Again we had our socially-distance reserved seats but this time a pair facing each other across a small table, our favourite arrangement. The complimentary refreshments on offer included wine (which I have never known at a weekend before, but I remembered that I would have to drive home so I declined that and accepted the cheese and pickle sandwich and another bottle of water.

The car park at Peterborough worked beautifully: I did ensure that I had my credit card to hand and at the barrier simply "showed" it to the card reader and drove out. We took a scenic route back to Stamford and arrived home to plug the car in ready for duty the following morning having used no petrol and emitted no exhaust.

It was a good day out. In spite of the difficulties a summer day in west London is never going to be bad, and neither is day with children and grandchildren, even in reduced numbers, and, I have to say, a trip in First Class with LNER is almost a guaranteed joy as well! Just as well, as we have quite a few more coming up, including Edinburgh in a few weeks' time when I am hoping that the catering will be better still. It is already so much better than last summer when we all lived in fear of getting near other people and touching anything that someone else may have touched. Looking forward to next month's trips, and just hoping that plans do not have to change too much!

An Actual Seaside Holiday by Train!

High Speed Train to the Kent Coast for a Short Summer Holiday

"I'm on the train!"

Last weekend we took our first train trip of 2021 when we went to Croydon to join a wedding celebration, and this week we took our first seaside holiday of the year. 

We had been to Bath on a road trip as soon as hotel stays were permitted (and suffered terrible traffic congestion as a result), but this was a proper holiday by train to a coastal resort and although the weather was not playing ball when we left home we still had a great time with some warm sunshine while we were away. It was hard to believe that just a week ago I was in shorts and t-shirt but now I was definitely in jeans, heavy shirt and jumper for the journey, but was able to shed some layers as the days passed - mercifully I had brought one short-sleeved summer shirt with me.

Socks still match mask 

The hotel, in Broadstairs, was booked a couple of months earlier, when the "roadmap" towards the ending of lockdown was published: had we been able to end restrictions on 21st June as hoped, this trip would have begun on the following day; as it happened we still had the social-distancing rules and compulsory face-covering on trains, but it was still a good trip. The hotel was recommended by our neighbours and we had driven past it the year before when we had a short break in Kent by car. We decided then that Broadstairs looked like a town best visited by train, and when the opportunity arose we took it. LNER tickets to London (First Class as we usually do) were booked well in advance, and tickets from Stamford to Peterborough and from London to Broadstairs followed as they were released. The LNER and Cross Country tickets were electronic downloads which I printed at home and the Southeastern ones for the final leg of the journey were printed card tickets which I had to collect from the station.

Real coffee in a mug, and a glass for the water!

After a leisurely morning of packing and preparation we strolled into town and caught the 10:57 train to Peterborough: the latest timetable revision has given us trains that are broadly hourly but which arrive and leave at a variety of "about the hour" times rather than the "clock face" departures we had become used to having. We arrived in Peterborough on time and made our way over to where the LNER train to London soon arrived, in good time for an on-time departure. We declined the offered sandwiches as we had a picnic lunch with us, but the coffee was very welcome, served with biscuits, and we were so pleased to see that freshly brewed coffee was back, in the china mugs which have been a feature of First Class travel on this route through several different operating companies: far nicer than the instant-coffee-in-paper-cup of the pandemic era! And it was served from trolleys by the familiar friendly LNER First Class staff: the pleasure of rail travel was returning, and we look forward to the day when staff can dispense with their plastic aprons and we can all take off our face-coverings and smile at each other again!

I had allowed plenty of time in London for lunch before taking the train on to Broadstairs. Had all restrictions been lifted I had thought we might visit one of the station restaurants - there is quite a choice of them between Kings Cross and St Pancras stations, as well as lots nearby. But we instead retired to the First Class lounge at Kings Cross to eat the Waitrose salads we had brought with us. After an hour at the lounge we made our way across the road to St Pancras to find our train onwards, the 14:12 to Margate, a Southeastern high speed Javelin train. The only special things about these trains are their high speed (they are Britain's fastest domestic trains) and their stunning appearance: no catering, and no first class, but they are comfortable and do their job well. The ride is good, although the scenery ends as the train leaves St Pancras and heads into the tunnel that takes the High Speed One line under east London and towards Essex. The first stop is at Stratford and then back into tunnel until we emerge into the urban-edge sprawl on Thameside Essex, glimpsing the Queen Elizabeth Bridge (with its slow-moving traffic)) before plunging into tunnel under the Thames and into Kent, stopping at Ebbsfleet (a park & ride station for north Kent) and Ashford on High Speed One, with a brilliant view of the Medway estuary in between, and then turning east towards our destination. Now on ordinary tracks our Javelin was still travelling pretty fast and stopped in Canterbury and Ramsgate, heading north into Broadstairs, our seaside destination, a smooth ride and on time.

As we left the train at this traditional little station, a sign at the exit directed us to "Beaches and Town Centre, 5 minute walk," to the left and we followed it. It didn't mention the flight of steps down to the street! These required us to carry our rolling luggage, but never mind: in the days the sign was written everyone was carrying their cases all the time, so we tried not to be spoilt 21st-century brats ... and although it seemed more than five minutes to our hotel it probably wasn't: that was just the excitement building! 

The Royal Albion is a traditional hotel in the Shepherd Neame brewery's chain, updated and enhanced by some up-to-date features. Our spacious room was beautifully decorated in the current trendy grey and reasonably well-appointed, with plenty of power points and storage and a comfortable bed. As requested, it had a sea view. In fact it had a very good sea view because it was on the third floor - more carrying of luggage required as the hotel is traditional enough not to have a lift!

After unpacking we went for a short stroll around the immediate vicinity of the hotel and then returned for dinner which we had booked at the hotel restaurant for the first evening. The meal was excellent, with local produce and, of course, Shepherd Neame's local ales. We had a table in the restaurant's glazed section overlooking the terrace with the beach beyond. It was quite idyllic from where we were, but, as yet, pretty chilly outside! Although still early evening when we completed our meal we returned to our room and I spent a little while beginning this blog post then reading a book before retiring to sleep, unaccountably tired - my theory being that we had had such a busy few weeks that now that we were on holiday with an opportunity to rest, our minds and bodies were taking that opportunity!

When we finally awoke the following morning I popped out to the nearby Costa to buy take-away coffee because our hotel reservation did not include breakfast and we did not need a big hotel breakfast after the previous night's dinner. We had brought a few things with us for a very light breakfast but I was disappointed not to be able to buy a croissant at Costa, so that had to wait until later in the day when I could find a better coffee shop. After breakfast we set off along the esplanade and out along the coastal path towards Ramsgate. Ramsgate is about two miles from Broadstairs and it is a very pleasant walk, away from roads most of the way and away from busy roads all of the way until the town centre. We had in mind coffee at an Italian coffee shop we discovered on a road trip here last year, but were open about what we might do for lunch, anticipating perhaps a light lunch and then a more substantial dinner back in Broadstairs in the evening. However, on the way to Ramsgate we had a stroke of luck that transformed our plans: one of our sons sent me a personal message about something unrelated to the holiday and having replied, I sent him 15 minutes of our live location just as a bit of idle chatter and he replied with a restaurant recommendation in Ramsgate - I had no idea he'd ever been there, but he had and we followed up his advice. The restaurant was the Royal Harbour Brasserie which we looked up on Trip Advisor over our Italian coffee (and croissant!) and to my enormous surprise turned out to be located at the tip of one of the harbour breakwaters, looking most unlike a restaurant!

Even when we approached the entrance it still did not look like the sort of restaurant to receive such a recommendation from my discerning offspring, or a visit from us, but we ventured up the steps to the entrance and gingerly went in to find a welcoming bar area with welcoming staff and a glorious seafood menu and wine list, with seating inside and outside. We booked a table for an hour's time and went off for a walk around Ramsgate. This old port town is well worth a visit, packed with history and still very interesting in spite of recent economic difficulties, and some of the newer enterprises like this Brasserie, and Wetherspoons redevelopment of a seafront pavilion as the largest pub in Britain (!), are lifting the town out of the doldrums - as are the new flats being built along the seafront.

Returning along the harbour wall to the Brasserie we enjoyed a great lunch and although I was disappointed to miss the swordfish, the last portion of which had just gone to another diner, the traditional cod and chips did not disappoint. Although the air temperature was not especially high that day we sat outside in the sunshine and there was amazingly little wind considering that we were, effectively, some way out into the sea, so we felt very warm. It was an idyllic way to spend a lunchtime on holiday and we were so glad to have discovered it in such an unlikely way - without that chance conversation on the way it is doubtful that we'd have walked out along the breakwater and it is absolutely certain that we would not have climbed the staircase and entered the restaurant!

After lunch we popped into Waitrose for a prepared salad for our supper in our room that evening, the need for a restaurant dinner in Broadstairs having been eliminated, and then we walked back to our hotel by a different route, taking us inland and along a variety of streets - there is no countryside between the two towns other than (briefly) on the coast.

After night had fallen we went for a stroll along the promenade in Broadstairs, very attractively lit with strings of coloured lights and spherical lanterns and with the full moon over the sea. It had been a really great day, sunnier than expected, and we had walked many miles, seen a lot of coast and historic town and enjoyed a fantastic lunch. Now it was time for a long and deep sleep in preparation for the following day's planned walk to Margate, more than twice as far and on what was expected to be a warmer and sunnier day. We slept like a pair of logs after all the exercise of the day, but soon ready for another like it, boosted by another Costa coffee and light breakfast of our own devising. 

This time we set off northwards from Broadstairs, along the promenade to start with and then the clifftop past Kingsgate Castle and the North Foreland Lighthouse down to Joss Bay where we stopped for our morning coffee before continuing towards Margate along the north coast of the Isle of Thanet. 

In the distance as we passed Cliftonville (where I spent many a childhood summer holiday) we could see our destination, the Turner Contemporary where we hoped to have our lunch in the excellent restaurant. We made a reservation for a suitable time and then took a short walk along the seafront and through the streets to return for lunch and visit the gallery. Just as the previous day, the lunch menu was short but wonderful and this time we went for three courses and would not be needing a meal later. I then visited the current exhibition at the gallery, The Tourists: Ellen Harvey & JMW Turner (this is all free of charge, registration for social-distancing and contact-tracing being the only requirement at present).

Our walk around Margate was restricted this time to the town centre and Old Town, having visited by car just last year. I used to come here a lot as a child, where my mother was born and brought up, and in those days it was a thriving holiday resort, but the seaside boarding-house type of holiday is now completely out of fashion even for those who prefer to stay in Britain rather than fly abroad, and Margate's economy has suffered greatly. The commercial centres of this town and of Ramsgate, it seems to me, have also suffered from the development of a shopping centre at Westwood Cross, central to Thanet but unrelated to its towns. All the main shop seem to be at Westwood, and the centres of Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate are effectively relegated to the role of local centres. We studiously avoided setting foot in Westwood Cross and spent our money in the towns (mostly on lunches, it must be admitted ...).

We took a bus back to Broadstairs at the end of the day.

The next day, Friday, was our last, but I had booked a train at 16:01, so we had a good chunk of the day still in Broadstairs. By modern high speed train services this really is not far away (indeed, it is quite feasible to have a day trip to the Thanet resorts from Lincolnshire now, as I did to Canterbury a couple of years ago), so three nights' stay meant three days' holiday, and four would have been feasible with an earlier start, but we preferred the more leisurely start. After the usual do-it-yourself breakfast with Costa coffee (and, to my surprise, a croissant this time!), we packed our cases and checked out of the hotel, asking them to keep out luggage for us until departure time. We walked again along the coast, but this time along the back of the beach, towards Joss Bay where we had stopped on our way to Margate; for some reason the café was not open, but we were returning straight to Broadstairs anyway and had our morning coffee there. Lunch was at Posillipo, a genuine Italian restaurant next to the hotel: they have a branch in Canterbury which we had visited before and greatly enjoyed, and eating here was part of our plan from the start. I had the most amazing pizza bianca, white pizza with mozarella and cream (!) in place of the usual tomato paste, absolutely delicious and thoroughly recommended. I regret I did not quite finish it and certainly had no room for a second course.

A last stroll along the seafront and it was time to collect our cases and walk to the station. We had had a fabulous time, but the holiday was not quite over yet. I have always maintained that when you travel by train the journey is part of the holiday, and although the time on the train was relaxing (I was reading, and sorting out my photographs, among other things), I had allowed a couple of hours in London on the way back, too. The intention had been to have tea at Fortnum and Mason while at St Pancras station, but we discovered the previous week that they have not yet reopened the café space there, so we decided to go for a walk around the developing Kings Cross area and then have a cup of tea at the First Class lounge at the station before boarding our LNER train. Coal Drops Yard had opened at Kings Cross since our last time there, and that was interesting enough, but what made the exploration a real treat was an outdoor exhibition of photographs sponsored by the Aga Khan Foundation and based on the historic Silk Road. It highlights the work of the foundation and is fascinating in the way it describes the various cultures - with an emphasis on Islamic cultures - of the nations along the Silk Road. I do not know how long it will be there, but it is well worth having a look - allow an hour - if you have the slightest interest in history, geography, human society or photography!

We tore ourselves away and took the cup of tea we had promised ourselves and then took our allocated seats on board the 19:30 to Edinburgh, first stop Peterborough. The complimentary hot drinks trolley came by and I declined a hot drink having just had tea, but when the cold drinks came there was not fruit juice ... but the good news is that they had wine! Wine has returned to the First Class menu! Gradually normality is returning. This was the first week for wine and brewed coffee - and the passenger numbers are picking up, too, so let's just hope that infection rates are not picking up too much as well. With all the numbers and with so much drink to distribute, the food did not come by before Peterborough, so I cannot comment on that. We did not need it after our Posillipo lunch, of course, but I think they would have fetched us a sandwich if we had been depending on it, because I saw one being taken to someone else.

And so to the connection to Stamford and the walk home over the meadows and through the Friday evening sociability (best avoided when tired!) of Stamford town centre. The 2021 summer holiday season had got off to a cracking start for us and this blog has finally come back to life. More to come, gradually, of course.