We have enjoyed several trips in the UK and Europe by train and they seemed too good to keep to ourselves. These are all real reports of our own experiences and none is sponsored by any of the businesses mentioned in them; all views are my own. Do feel free to comment and ask questions! #flygskam #trainbragging
London, Bremen, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Riga, Tallinn, Helsinki, Lübeck, Cologne
Part 1, through Belgium and Germany to Denmark
This tour of Scandinavian and Baltic countries was planned as a birthday treat for my wife's next round birthday and we were able to time it so that we would be away on the actual day. This had an advantage when going to northern Europe in that it would be likely to be warm enough, since the big day is close to midsummer day. The Great Rail Journeys rail tour "Highlights of Scandinavia and the Baltics" nicely fitted what she wanted to do and was available at just the right timing, so we booked it up as soon as we discovered it, well in advance, and worked all out other plans round it.
Many other trips small and large were taken between booking this one and starting the adventure!
Trains and Boats and Planes
There are no trains out of Stamford on a Sunday morning but this suited us well on this occasion: as I am to be missing from church for two Sundays while touring, it was as well to be able to take the Sunday service at St Martin's before I left. We had a light lunch, washed up and walked down to the station for our booked train and connected at Peterborough for a train to London, travelling in First Class, booked well in advance.
As usual, soon after leaving Peterborough the cold drinks trolley came through and we chose rosé wine, excellent for such a hot day and we thought it would go well with our chosen food but alas the food had run out, but for crisps and biscuits. Not a disaster but an annoyance: we were meeting our son in London for a drink and would just add some food to the plan. Having checked in at the Premier Inn at Kings Cross we met at Mare Street Food, in the beautifully-redeveloped Kings Cross area.
On Monday morning our Great Rail Journeys tour began as we met our Tour Manager Martyn outside the GRJ office at St Pancras station and then made our way to the ticket barriers in the International Departures area. There was an unprecedented queue! usually we just walk in, wth an occasional brief wait, but this time the queue started right back by the lifts to the Southeastern Highspeed platforms. Although it was a long queue it was fast and it was not all that long a time before we were scanning our tickets and going through to await boarding. Security and passport check were swift and efficient. I was expecting to buy coffee at The Station Pantry as usual only to find that it was closed and behind hoardings, being redeveloped into another type of establishment. So we finished up at Prêt-à-Manger which was perfectly fine. Just time to drink our coffee before the train started loading and we went up the travellator to find our coach and our pair of facing single seats, our favourite accommodation on Eurostar and on any other train that offers it. As usual, a light breakfast was served on the train, and as often on Great Rail Journeys we met some of our fellow travellers who were sitting at the four-seat table opposite ours.
The Eurostar train arrived at Brussels on time and then began a long catalogue of delays. We had time to have lunch at Brussels and already knew that our connecting service to Cologne was running late.
We were scheduled to catch the 17:11 train from Cologne to Bremen and there was still plenty of time to make the connection, but it was indicated as expected at 17:58 and with no catering. As time passed it became later and later until it finally left Cologne at 19:00, nearly two hours late. This is, I'm sorry to say, the sort of service we have come to expect from DB. Our Tour Manager telephoned ahead to our hotel who kindly held back our buffet dinner until we arrived. It was a pity that we should not have a chance to see much at all of Bremen: thanks to further delays to our train we had to go straight into dinner and did not get to bed until midnight.
On a bright and sunny Tuesday morning we walked back to Bremen station for the ICE to Hamburg. This one did have its catering offering but was a few minutes late then held before arriving at Hamburg Hbf, but was still in good time to make our connection to Copenhagen. The coffee was good but we had to pay cash, which is unusual these days; to our surprise, the train to Copenhagen was from Prague and was a Czech train with a Czech crew. Having crossed Germany it was, of course, late, although only be ten minutes. This eventually became twenty minutes before it actually departed. We were travelling in Second Class on this train, but this was still comfortable and pleasant. We did think of having a hot meal in the restaurant car, but when we went all the tables were taken and there were few of the cooked items left, so we bought sandwiches and took them back to our seats. The first highlight of this section of the journey was crossing the Kiel Canal on the Rendsburg High Bridge. This is high enough to allow ships to pass beneath, and have crossed the train then descends on a wide spiral to pass under the bridge and continue on its way along the opposite bank of the canal. This is all in a wooded residential area which looks great from the railway, although how great the railway looks from the homes I cannot say!
After crossing the other highlight of this journey, the Great Belt crossing, there was a total change of mood after a Danish crew took over at a subsequent stop. The driver spoke to us and told us he was going to to his best to regain lost time, there was a ticket check and a rubbish collection and everyone was asked to get their luggage out of the aisles, there was an announcement about the bistro (it was not restocked, though and the Czech steward remained). Unfortunately a Signal fault caused further delay and lost a few minutes more than our Danish driver had been able to recover. We arrived in Copenhagen's wonderful main station with its unique timber truss roof just in time to walk to our hotel, the Scandic Palace in the main square, drop our luggage in our room and then walk to our meal out at the restaurant Flammen for a traditional buffet dinner. It was very much a carvery where we were served with our choice if meat (I had wild boar) and helped ourselves to the vegetables.
We had arrived in Scandinavia, the first of a series of capital cities. We had been in Copenhagen before, on a day out from Billund when we brought our children there for Legoland over thirty years ago! We recognised only the royal palace. Back in those days we had to fly to Copenhagen, but now were able to get there by rail via the Great Belt bridge and tunnel. Our activities in Copenhagen and subsequent adventures in Stockholm, Riga, Tallinn and Helsinki will follow soon in the next post or two ....
On Friday we all walked to the Manx Electric Railway terminal at Derby Castle on a slightly less-murky day. It was good to have a bit of a walk, a decent bit of exercise after a lot of sitting about over the last couple of days. At Derby Castle terminal we watched our tram (or is it a train?) being prepared. Each one seems to consist of an enclosed tram car with trolley pole, towing a "toast rack" open coach which has an enormous seating capacity. It is a bit of a faff shunting this set at the termini because every time the powered tramcar changes direction the current collection pole has to be reversed, involving it being pulled off the conductor wire, pulled round and re-engaged with the wire. Eventually the crew managed to get the two vehicles in the correct order and then brought them to the tram stop, once they'd got the waiting passengers off the track, and we were able to board, all of our party opting to travel in the open coach.
The tram rattled and ground its way up and down the landscape, sometimes beside a road, sometimes not, until it arrived at Laxey, about half way to its northern terminus at Ramsey. We all left the tram there and carefully crossed the tracks to a waiting tramcar on the Snaefell Mountain Railway: this is an electric rack railway system that climbs the only mountain on the island and is the only such railway in the British Isles. On a clear day, I am told, you can see a long way, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, but this was definitely not a clear day: the clouds came and went a bit as we ascended but by the time we reached the top we were in thick mist and a strong, cold wind. I stood on the summit and could not even see the tramcar two minutes' walk away. I came down to have a warming cup of chocolate in the café and found that my hair was streaming wet and my clothes soaked: the wet wind was like a spray and I had been thoroughly drenched.
We took the tram back to Laxey where we were free for a couple of hours before the booked journey back to Douglas. We had a home-made gelato at a little independent ice-cream parlour near the station, down here it was much warmer and almost sunny. Then it was time to walk along to the world-famous Laxey Wheel, the Lady Isabella. This is the biggest water-wheel in the world and extremely powerful. Its purpose was to provide power to pump water from the metal ore mines near Laxey, and the shaft connecting the wheel to the mine oscillates along a raised channel atop a long series of arches. The water that powers the wheel falls from the river above. You can see Lady Isabella in action on my video on YouTube.
Return to the hotel in Douglas was by the Manx Electric Railway back to Derby Castle, and we all travelled in the "toast rack" coach again, for the view. The party then boarded the horse-drawn tram at Derby Castle as far as Villa Marina, This was a new experience for almost everyone. Riding along smoothly on rails it was hard to believe that we were in a horse-drawn vehicle plodding slowly along the middle of the busy seafront road. The horse tram used to go all the way to the ferry terminal near our hotel but has been truncated at Villa Marina, so we did have to walk the rest of the way. We had done a lot and took the rest of the day easy before changing for dinner in the hotel restaurant once more. All our evening meals were included on this tour.
One thing we learned at The Old House of Keys was that early on in the days of motoring the Island's parliament voted to close the roads from time to time to allow racing, which was not something allowed in Great Britain of Ireland. The island is best know for the Isle of Man TT (Tourist Trophy) Races, and is visited by a lot of keen motorcyclists who like to ride the TT circuit, at more reasonable speeds. As it happened, the two weeks' practice for the 2026 TT Races was to start the weeks after we were there, and the preparations were well in hand: all the paraphernalia of a race track were being put into place and islanders were going away on holiday and letting their homes out to spectators.
Our tour included a ride on a coach along a substantial part of the circuit with a commentary from someone who has competed in TT races in the past. It is a long circuit taking in several towns of varying sizes as well as Snaefell mountain, and modern racing motorcycles reach speeds up to 200mph on suitable stretches of the road. It was fascinating, even to a non-biker like me, to hear about the way the racers drive around these roads. Not to be attempted when open to ordinary traffic! We had a brief stop at the village of St John's for Tynwald Hill and the parliament church where each member of the House of Keys has a reserved stall.
From there we moved on to Peel where the former Isle of Man Railway station has been repurposed as the House of Manannan, a history of the Isle of Man and its seafaring. Apart from a visit to this, coffee and ice-cream, we also visited the Isle of Man's cathedral which is located in Peel. Finally, the coach took us on to Ramsey, still following the TC circuit, nd we returned to Douglas once more by Manx Electric Railway, choosing this time to travel in the enclosde tramcar rather than in the "toast rack" coach for the long trip along the entire line from terminus to terminus.
Sunday was a complete free day and the question was what to do. There were several things we had not seen, and some, like Snaefell mountain, could be repeated in order to enjoy what by now was lovely weather. Warm, bright and sunny, the view would be quite good. We decided, though, to attend worship at one of the Douglas churches (they are all different and we did some research on line and from noticeboards before plumping for St Matthew's) and then take a bus to Ramsey where we would visit the Grove Museum, a preserved Victorian family home. Buses are a bit thinner on the ground on Sundays but there was no problem finding a suitable departure on route 3A from the street terminus in Douglas to the little bus station in Ramsey from where we set out on a fairly long walk to the Grove Museum, taking coffee at a little café on the way. By now the road closures for the TT practice were being prepared and a real carnival atmosphere was beginning to build up. Motorcycles were parked everywhere as enthusiasts gathered to enjoy at least some of the four weeks of activity. You can read about the Grove Museum on their own website, so it suffices to say that we enjoyed sitting in the beautifully maintained garden with an ice-cream and then exploring the house and outbuildings which had been used by an extended family and had been very little updated and so gave a fair impression of the home of a middle-class industrialist's family.
We had left undecided how we were to return to Douglas and once we had walked back into Ramsey we opted for the bus rather than the Manx Electric Railway simply because we had done a lot of walking already and the bus would drop us much nearer the hotel than the tramway would.
Although this had been a day with no included outings, it was also the last day and for the only time on the trip the whole group was to have dinner together: two large tables were booked at a fixed time and wine was included, a very fine way to end almost a week together before we went our separate ways the following day. We also necessarily had breakfast at the same time, although not aound a shared table, on the Monday morning because we had to be ready to go to the ferry terminal to catch the departure of Manxman at 09:05, which meant being at the terminal at around 08:00 with our luggage - the hotel did provide porterage but we had very compact luggage and taking it ourselves saved having to have it ready even earlier! Once the luggage was scanned and checked in we took our seats at the front of the 8th deck again to enjoy the voyage.
The crossing was, if anything, even smoother than our outward journey, and we did make use of the bar and the café on the way over, but the restaurant was not needed after the hotel breakfast. We made our way to baggage reclaim and then went to await the boat train to Lancaster. About half of the party was still with us at this point, the rest presumably having gone to the car park to drive home. Everyone was, of course, taking different routes home from Lancaster and we had a while to wait for a train across to Leeds, so we had lunch from one of the buffet counters at Lancaster while we waited.
This was a very disappointing stage of our adventure. Departure was chaotic with platform changes, but eventually a Northern train arrived which was far too short to take everyone waiting along with those already aboard. By now the weather was hot and sunny and the train's air-conditioning was not working - not good on an overcrowded train on a hot, sunny day! We could not sit together and the luggage had to stay in the end vestibule. For a short hop, say from Morecambe to Lancaster, we would not have minded, but this was a long and scenic journey which we had hoped to enjoy together. A pity, but the train did eventually, and only a little late, get us to Leeds station, from wheer we had a short walk to our Premier Inn for our final night away from home. This stay was unbelievably inexpensive, so much so that I had booked a Premier Plus room for the first time and added the optional charity contribution. The Plus room at a flexible rate for just £66 was a great deal. We are very happy with Premier Inn's standard rooms, but this was certainly superior with more space, better coffee facilities and all sorts of goodies, and crucially the same comfortable bed. And being new it was also in excellent condition. The your Yorkshire staff were super friendly and helpful.
We wandered into Leeds city centre in weather that contrasted hugely with the cool damp of just a couple of days ago (although I gather it had been like that for some time in England), had supper at an Italian restaurant and went back to the hotel to sleep.
The following day we each had our own agenda and as it continued to be hot and sunny it involved lots of drinking seeking of shade. I largely spent it taking architectural photographs and generally exploring. Having rediscovered Leeds as possibly the best shopping city in the UK, perhaps we need to consider going there again with that purpose in mind.
We reconvened at the hotel, retrieved our luggage and boarded our LNER train south to Peterborough, in First Class with a snack meal and a glass of wine. The train made a neat connection with a train to Stamford and we were very soon home and unpacking, with our minds filled with wonderful memories of all our adventures of the last couple of weeks and a determination to revisit the Isle of Man, possibly by booking the same trip again but visiting things we had not been able to fit in on this trip, notably Peel Castle and the Manx Museum, and the Groudle Glen Railway. Before that, though, there was the little matter of a long-planned but yet-to-take-place spectacular trip to the continent in not many weeks' time. Watch this space!
I have long wanted to visit the Isle of Man, partly to see its vintage railways and partly just to experience life in a Crown Dependency, a British Isle that is not the UK nor Ireland. My parents considered it when I was still with them in my early teens but it did not come off then and the opportunity never seemed to arise again ... I have also wanted to experience the trans-pennine rail routes, to stay in the Midland Hotel, that great deco moderne masterpiece in Morecambe, and to visit Leeds again, the last time being many years ago. It all fell into place when I was thumbing through a newly-delivered Great Rail Journeys British Isles Catalogue: their Vintage Railways of the Isle of Man escorted tour ticks all of the boxes for the Isle of Man itself and begins and ends at Heysham ferry terminal, a short hop from Morecambe. Furthermore, if it suited our friends who live in Warrington we could stay with them for a few days on the way, and my wife could visit a former colleague now living in Leeds on the way back, both trips involving new routes for us. The various friends were contacted and arrangements made around the most suitable Isle of Man dates for our diary and the Midland Hotel booked. There were so many exciting things about this trip where almost everything except our friends was new to us, and we even fitted in a couple of unexpected things while travelling.
Armed with a picnic including a couple of individual bottles of Prosecco and some plastic wine glasses we set out to Peterborough on the 10:57 Cross Country train on a Friday. It was a touch late but we still had time to buy takeaway coffee at Peterborough before boarding our next train, the 11:23 East Midlands Railway train to Liverpool which would take us all the way through to Warrington Central. It was a beautiful day and it was great gazing from the windowat countryside which, to begin with, was very familiar but we had usually seen at twice the speed on East Coast Route expresses. This was an express (limited stop) service, but with a much lower maximum speed. At Grantham the train left the main line and headed off to Nottingham and along here we enjoyed our lunch. Just as we finished the train's refreshment trolley came through and we bought coffee to round off the meal. From Nottingham we headed north through Chesterfield to Sheffield and then across the Pennines to Manchester. Through Manchester was the slowest part of the journey and we lost time on the congested track between Piccadilly and Deansgate, being picked up by our friends about five minutes late. It had been a super ride through lovely countryside (OK, yes and Sheffield and Manchester as well!) in comfortable seats and with a great picnic. It was not the quickest way to Warrington, but that was not the point: it was slow and scenic and we had a lovely lunch on the way.
Our friends met us and drove us to their home where we stayed the next three nights, having a day out on Saturday and a day in after church on Sunday ... with a couple of pub visits thrown in.
On Monday they took us to the other station in Warrington, Bank Quay, where we took an Avanti West Coast train (another first: I've never travelled with them before, except rammed into a vestibule between Birmingham New Street and Birmingham International). It was a comfortable, although late, journey, and we had plenty of space, perhaps an advantage of travelling mid-afternoon. We left Avanti at Lancaster and, being late, had a tight connection into our train to Morecambe. Now this was a bit of an adventure. We had just enough time to get over the bridge to the train we could see waiting on the other side of the track (platform 4 for those who know Lancaster station, which I didn't until then), so we went to the lift because I really cannot climb stairs with luggage. The lift was not quick, and when we got to the bridge we soon realised that we could not access the stairs down to where the train was waiting as the seconds ticked by. We had to use the lift down as well, and again it took ages to comes and ages to go down by which train the train should have left, but this being Northern it was still there. Indeed it was still there ten minutes later. I do not think we ever saw a train, of any operator, on time at Lancaster over the course of this holiday, and as you'll see, we were there quite a lot. The timekeeping on the routes that converge there is appalling. Still the train got us to Morecambe: it is only a few minutes, much closer than our home in Stamford is to the main junction station at Peterborough. Although it was the same type of unit (Class 158) as the one we had enjoyed travelling on all the way from Peterborough to Warrington it was somehow less appealing - possibly because of the noisy schoolchildren who got off at the one intermediate stop at Bare Lane, but probably also because these sets were never intended for short distance stopping services but for the long distance express service like the Norwich-Liverpool route that we had use to travel to Warrington.
The walk to the Midland Hotel is longer than it used to be. The railway line has been cut short and, to be fair, is probably better located to serve the actual town and also connects well with local buses and a new retail park (this is a travel blog, not a town planning critique, so I won't go on about how that has killed the town centre), but it is not directly opposite the hotel which was built by the LMS Railway to serve the high-class resort at Morecambe. We saw the Midland shortly after its refurbishment (it had lain derelict for some years and was really at risk) and it is no longer quite the class of establishment that the then owners intended. The external finish could do with renewing and some of the interior could do with a little bit of a spruce-up. The meals, although good in themselves, are served in a pub-like manner, ordered at the bar, and there are no tablecloths. Very good, but not the high standard it used to be. It remains staggeringly good in its context, though, for Morecambe is not a thriving town.
Our room, however, was quite amazing. It was spacious and with a sea view and had some design features I have never seen anywhere else, possibly original. You need to see my YouTube video to get the full effect, but suffice it to say that if you go into the ensuite bathroom you may think there is no door. And then you realise there is no WC either, but when you pull at a hand-hold in the wall boarding a whole section of the wall swings round to close off the bathroom from the bedroom and reveals a WC with toilet paper and all the kit. Tea and coffee facilities and the TV and waste bin are behind another panel, and the wardrobe behind another. There were two deco moderne armchairs and a drinks table. We were very happy there for our two nights, and I would easily and confidently recommend this hotel as a stopover on the way to or from the Isle of Man, handy as it is for the Heysham ferry terminal, as I shall go on, eventually, to describe.
We went for a walk along the seafront which was uplifting and saddening in equal measure. It was a clear evening and the view across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District hills was breathtaking. The local authorities had obviously spent a great deal to improve the public realm of the seafront and local people were out walking, running, skating and cycling along it. All the shops were shut, but then it was evening and many were simply closed for the night, but many also were closed for good. Several small hotels were also clearly closed for good. We were looking for somewhere to eat and were just thinking that we'd have to return to the hotel when we spotted the Bay Café a small fish and chip shop on a street corner. It was open, and it had a few tables inside. There was a couple eating there; we asked how it was and on their advice asked for the small portion of fish and chips. It was delicious, it was filling and it was very inexpensive. Very little else was open in Morecambe that evening but we hit on what was probably the best traditional fish & chips I have ever had. We returned happy to the Midland where we enjoyed cocktails in the bar before bath and bed.
On the Tuesday morning we decided to take the 10:00 bus into Lancaster. After a quick look around the town centre, coffee and gelato we gave further thought to the day and, realising how close we were decided to take a train to Carnforth, for two reasons: one was that a craftsman in Carnforth, as it happens, was assessing a vintage flute that once belonged to a long-deceased relative and we thought it would be good to meet him in person, and the other was that I had long wanted to visit Carnforth station where a lot of location-shooting was done for the film Brief Encounter. A phone call checked that the instrument-maker was available and we made our way to his home where his front room was his workshop. A lovely person, we made arrangements for the flute to be sold and restored so that it would be playable again rather than end up on a rubbish tip. When we were at Lancaster station awaiting our train to Carnforth we saw a steam locomotive there and identified it as Blue Peter, the very locomotive which had taken us to and from the Lake District last autumn. I had to pop over and say "hello" ... well, not literally, I'm not that mad.
After our brief encounter with the antique flute we made our back to the station and enjoyed a good salad lunch at the refreshment room made famous in Brief Encounter, explored the heritage centre and then went across to the opposite platform to await a train to Grange-Over-Sands. This was only a few minutes' scenic ride away and, having stayed there many years ago, we knew it as a pretty town. we were not disappointed: the train ride, the town, and the garden we walked through on our way back to the station were all lovely. We only stayed there about an hour but the rail fares here are so reasonable that it seemed a worthwhile thing to do. We took the next train through to Lancaster and then back to Morecambe (remembering to buy a ticket because we had come by bus in the morning so we did not have a return half!). We enjoyed a cocktail in the hotel bar-restaurant again ...) and then dinner, which was excellent. The next day we were to leave England for Man and we started our packing before a good night's sleep.
Wednesday was to be the start of our Great Rail Journeys escorted tour to the historic railways of the Isle of Man, but our ferry was not due to leave until 15:30, although one has to board well before then, and we also had to meet our tour manager at the ferry terminal. There is a boat train once a day from Lancaster to Heysham Harbour (or Heysham Port; the name varies from sign to sign!) which calls at Morecambe, so we were to take that when the time came. Meanwhile, after checking out we had the hotel store our luggage and went off for a short walk along the seafront and then visited the new shops opposite the rail station. Now I could see why B&M no longer occupied the lovely art deco building on the sea front near the hotel: they had a new shop in the new shopping area. After looking around a bit we went to a supermarket there to pick up a few things for a picnic lunch which we would have while waiting to board the ship, the Manxman. Meanwhile, we took coffee back at the hotel bar and then recovered our luggage and went to get the boat train, actually buying our tickets at the station. The train was just an ordinary two-coach Sprinter of Northern Trains which normally ply between Lancaster (or sometimes Leeds) and Morecambe but for this one service per day reverse at Morecambe and take the single-track branch line to Heysham Port, the driver getting out and changing the point to access the branch. The picture shows it arrived at Heysham with the driver walking to the other end to take passengers off the ferry to Lancaster.
The station at Heysham Port exists solely to connect with the ships to Douglas and it was simple enough to walk across to the departures entrance where we met Alan, our tour manager, who briefed us on the procedure for checking-in our luggage, boarding the ferry and finding he best place to sit (the Njarbil Lounge on Deck 8, which has superb views at the front of the ship). We just had time to eat our lunch, with drinks bought from the cafeteria on site, before we were called to board. The next adventure had begun.
The Manxman took an interesting route, curving well south before making west across the Irish Sea. But when you think about it, the enormous offshore wind farm we saw over to starboard is presumably located in shallow water. There were also a handful of oil platforms, quite a lot of activity out here at sea, as wells a few other ships and even fewer smaller vessels. The shipping lane is not as wide as you might think! Soon enough we saw the outline of the Isle of Man standing above low-level mist and watched it draw nearer and then waited for the ship to berth and disembarkation to be announced.
By the time we had crossed the enormous elevated walkway across the docks to the arrival area and collected our luggage from the carousel it was past our usual bedtime when we arrived at the Claremont Hotel. We had been given our room keys by hotel staff who met the group at the arrivals hall, so we did not have to check in and we made our way straight into the dining room to have dinner, which was excellent. The Great Rail Journeys group had a sort of table d'hôte menu with a choice of about three starters, three mains and three desserts, so we had enough choice to cope with faddy eaters (which we most definitely are not!) and everything we had at each dinner was superb. Unusually for a GRJ tour, dinner was included every evening, as well as breakfast every morning. Meals were not generally at fixed times but between certain times so we had much fllecxibility.
Also included in the pack which contained our room keys and meal times were a pass each for transport through the island and a pass for all the heritage sites. These would be used on all the included activities but were also available in our free time to do anything else we wanted with no further cost.
Our room was at the back of the hotel with no new at all - indeed the lower window was obscure glass to avoid us seeing the insalubrious back yard outside. However, the interior of the room was super, with flexible lighting and enough electrical points for all our electronic kit. On trips like this we do not spend a lot of time in our room, though, always out and about exploring. For now, shower and bed.
The Thursday was the first group activity of the tour and the one which mattered most to me from my reading of an article in Railway Modeller when I was eleven years old, about a model railway layout based on the Isle of Man Railway. This once extensive network is now reduced to one line, between Douglas and Port Erin but is still operated by the original steam locomotives and wooden carriages. It is a charming railway well worth visiting even if you never read that article back in 1965. We all walked to Douglas station and after some photographs joined our carriages on the train. The weather was cool and damp and there was plenty of visible steam as the locomotive was prepared and backed onto the train. When we arrived at Port Erin we had a sort guided tour of the small railway museum there and then we taken by road coach to The Sound where there are seals to be spotted in the sea and The Calf of Man island just off the shore. With better weather apparently you can also see Ireland beyond, but we could barely see the Calf of Man on the day we were there. We did spot a couple of seals on the rocks, and most importantly had a mug of hot chocolate at the café!
The coach then took us on to Castletown where we had time for lunch and then gathered at the appointed time to visit together The Old House of Keys, erstwhile home of the oldest parliament in the world. We learnt a lot in a series of mock debates based on important decisions in the past, mainly that although this may be the world's oldest parliament it is most certainly not the oldest democracy but had quite a lot of catching up to do. We took part in debates to elect Members to the House of Keys, to allow women to vote and to move the capital from Castletown to Douglas (largely because the building had become beyond economic repair to continue in use).
The afternoon had no included activities but most of the group, ourselves included, visited Castle Rushen, just across the street, probably the best-preserved medieval castle in the British Isles. This was included in our attractions passes, too, and cost us nothing. Great views, apparently, were to be had from to top of the keep, but at the time I was not fit enough to climb up there. The castle is, of course, intimately linked to the history of the island, ad there was a lot to learn about how it has been ruled and governed over the centuries.
Many of the party were returned to Douglas and direct to the hotel by the coach, but several of us opted to return on the Isle of Man Steam Railway from Castletown station a cost-free option as it was covered by our travel passes. Back at the hotel we had time to change before dinner and then have a lazy evening after a busy day before a good night's sleep ready to the next action-packed day.
The story will be continued in a future post with more Little Trains and a few more Other Trains!
Visiting the oldest city and the biggest city in Switzerland
I have been following Byway Travel on Instagram for a while; their advocacy of slow travel and of the journey being an important component of the travel experience matches my own view very well. As a company they not only promote this philosophy but help people explore it for themselves by selling curated or tailored trips by surface transport, notably rail. If you like the look of some of my adventures and would like help to do this sort of thing yourself, then Byway Travel might be worth a look (no, they are not paying me). My most recent trip to Switzerland could easily have been arranged booking travel from London to Zurich with Eurostar and then using a Swiss travel pass while there and booking my hotels with Booking.com, but we thought it would be interesting to give Byway a try. This adventure is how it worked out (and some of the new experiences began while we were still at home)!
On the Byway website we input the elements we wanted to include, First Class rail travel, three nights in Chur, two in Zürich and one in Paris, and a night in London before departure. They came back with a suggested itinerary which we adjusted slightly and then accepted. This was an interesting experience because by the time we had filled in our details on the booking form one or other part of the itinerary had become unavailable and we were invited to try again. Each time we were offered a different selection of hotels. Now I could not believe that they were all filling up that fast, so after several of these attempts I just went an ahead and booked anyway. It all seemed to work and eventually we received confirmation of our booking and information about tickets and timing.
This was the next adventure! We were to travel using Interrail passes, and while we had used these before on a Great Rail Journeys escorted tour they were paper passes then and we had a tour manager looking after seat reservations etc.. Now the passes were digital and we were responsible for everything ourselves. I am, as you might guess from the amount I publish on line, quite comfortable with digital media on the whole and I often use digital tickets, held on my iPhone. But the combination of the digital pass and the journeys having been planned by an agency meant that there was plenty of room for error in getting the right journeys on the pass on the right days! Byway even provide a weekly seminar on using the Interrail app alongside their Journey Guide which contains all the information we need for our trip. Those journeys needing reservations, that is the Eurostar journeys from and to London and the TGV Lyria each way between Paris and Zürich, had pdf tickets supplied by Byway which we both printed and filed in iCloud for access on our devices: it was these printed reservations which opened the ticket barriers at St Pancras and Gare de Lyon. We attended the seminar and all was ready for departure. As we were travelling to London one day before our first international train, we had to buy tickets for that part of the trip, but we were to return home from Paris in one day which ment that our Interrail passes would cover the UK journey as well: that’s the way Interrail works!
And so we were off! It had been a while since our last international adventure and it was great to be setting out again. A normal Friday morning in Stamford, although no need to buy anything from the market, which was just as well because the Mid-Lent Fair made it a pretty minimal market. We did join the ecumenical Lent Lunch and then wheeled our cases down to the station to take a train to Peterborough for a simple connection to London, First Class on LNER. We did not need the rather delicious-looking meal on offer as we had dinner to come, but we had a drink and a biscuit, keeping the crisps for later.
Byway had booked us a stay at a Point A hotel in Grays Inn Road. We had never stayed in a Point A before, always tending to go for Premier Inn, and we were very impressed. Next time we need a stay in London I’ll see how the cost compares and will definitely consider it. We had been invited to our son and his family for dinner and set off there after checking in, then returned for a good night’s sleep and a good continental breakfast before walking down to St Pancras International station to check in for Eurostar. With dire warnings about queues and delays we had allowed far too long for the formalities which were over as quickly as ever, and we did not even need breakfast to pass the time! We did eventually have coffee (we don’t rate the coffee served on Eurostar trains, not as good as LNER!) and then, still with thirty minutes to go, boarding began. '
As we have discovered before, the light meal served on Eurostar trains from mid-morning is lunch, so, soon after breakfast we were eating our light lunch with the Eurostar signature refrigerated cutlery! (The meals are made up in advance on trays complete with napkin, cutlery, glass and cup and the whole trolley is kept chilled so everything is cold. I put the wrapped butter pat in my pocket to warm up …) The journey to Paris was uneventful - at least it was for those of us who have been this way so often: if you’re new to it the transit under the sea is probably quite an event! We were in coach 2 and the corollary of having a short walk in London to join the train was a long walk in Paris to leave the train. I had an electronic Metro ticket on my iPhone to use in Paris but my wife had none and try as we might we were unable to add one (even though at one stage the app did take some money), so at Gare du Nord we enquired about it and could not understand the explanation. She was sold a Navigo card (€2) and a single ticket loaded onto it (the normal €2.55 fare) I bought the same, ready for the journey home; I had thought that when we installed the Île-de-France de France app last year we were set up for easy purchase of Metro tickets, but the Paris Metro remains a mystery!
We do not like the experience of using the RER to Gare de Lyon even though it is quick and convenient, but we had time in hand (I think Byway are set up to help people migrate from flying to rail and go out of their way to make it stress-free!), so we went by normal Metro through to Gare d’Austerlitz, just across the river, and walked from there. We had coffee at the station and bought water to take with us and then boarded the TGV Lyria bound for Zürich where we were to change trains for Chur. We had First Class tickets on our Interrail apps and printed reservations for upper-deck seats. This was a great journey: no catering included but an excellent buffet from which we enjoyed a good salad dinner.
At Zürich we had about half an hour before our connecting train to Chur: this was a station we’d get to know in a few days’ time. By now it was dark, so the hour’s ride to Chur was not its usual scenic self, but the train was swift and comfortable and we were soon walking up Bahnhofstrasse towards the Hotel Stern where we had first stayed twelve year earlier on our first Great Rail Journeys escorted tour.
We checked in and went straight to bed, well after our usual bed-time, both excited and tired.
Our first day in Chur was Sunday, and although we had thought of attending church, circumstances were such that we changed our minds, not only because were we still recovering from the late night, but the choice of church was a bit problematic. St Martin's, the same dedication as our church at home, might have been good, but it is protestant, and Swiss protestantism is a bit extreme and I was not at all sure we'd have a clue what was going on. There is also the Roma Catholic cathedral and although we'd recognise the service (for it would be similar to our Church of England liturgy) the sermon in German would be opaque to me and technically we would not be welcome at holy communion. So a short lie-in and a slow start to the day prevailed.
At the hotel reception we picked up our tourist passes for the city, complimentary to hotel guests and covering free museum admissions and local buses. We had printed a city map before we left home and had a good idea of what we would do, starting with the Museum where we learnt a lot about the history of the city and the canton. Chur qualifies as the oldest city in Switzerland because it was the first town to have a bishop appointed to it, and therefore the earliest to have a cathedral. There was a great view over the city from the top floor of the museum, and a decent cup of coffee to be had from the reception.
We had a stroll around the city, punctuated by a stop for beer outside a bar in the old part of the city centre - typically Swiss with outside tables supplied with blankets, but in the sunshine it was quite warm enough not to need these.
From the old city we strolled out along the riverside and then back towards the rail station area where we planned some of the following day's activities and then visited the city's natural history museum.
After a brief history of every beast known in Graubünden we went for a walk around the city centre following a published trail and found the "Chur Foot," a standard measure set into the wall of the town hall. The Foot is a familiar measure to us as British citizens but will be less familiar to locals these days!
We gradually made our way back to our hotel where we had dinner in the informal setting of a lounge bar trying some of the local Graubündner dishes on offer.
On Monday morning our plan was to complete our travel over every part of the RhätischeBahn by travelling up to Arosa on the line from Chur. I did not really know what to expect: the line began as a separate tramway, much like the Bernina Line further south, and was acquired by the RhB and absorbed into its network, and the destination was completely unknown to us (except that it was uphill!). These days the services are operated by Allegra electric multiple units towing a handful of older passenger cars and a driving trailer to enable them to work in either direction without shunting after each turn.
Our journey to Arosa began at 10:08 at the dedicated Arosa platforms at the front of Chur station, outside the main SBB/RhB building, with day return tickets bought from the station ticket office; our Interrail Passes were not set up for enough travel days to cover that day. The journey begins very much like a tram ride through the streets of Chur: once off the station forecourt we followed very much the route we had walked along the riverside the previous day. It begins as double track and we're riding on the same side of the road as the other vehicles, then after it singles out we are on the right-hand side which feels OK going this way, still with the traffic, but this is no tram: it is a train of six or seven full-length coaches! It is the same feeling you get in Tirano where the Bernina Express goes through the streets for a short distance. Eventually, well outside the town, and after an intermediate station in the street, the road and the railway do part company and we climb steeply into the mountains.
Gradually we saw more and more snow on the ground and in the trees and by the time the train arrived in Arosa there was thick snow on the ground and a frozen lake covered with snow. As we walked around the town a few snowflakes began to fall. We called at a small café for coffee and nusstorte and then went for a walk around the lake, by which time there was a light, steady snow shower. It was quite magical. Arosa is a popular place for skiing, which is not something I had realised until I got there. We took the next train back at far as an intermediate stop at Langweis where I took a few photographs and made some notes for the intermediate station on my model railway.
From Langweis there is a great view of the Langweis viaduct and a small display in the station about its construction. For me, though, much of the interest was in the way the station is used: the nearest track to the building is a siding and you have to walk over the siding (on a proper crossing) to the hard standing which passes for a platform (as at many minor Rhâtischebahn stations), but when our train arrived there we had to pass a late-running train on its way to Arosa, and when we descended it was all the way down onto the gravel ballast: there was no platform at all there! My model station Mitteldorf will definitely be built this way, complete with level crossing right through the station!
We took the next train down to Chur and Alison spent the rest of the afternoon shopping, having seen some things while exploring the preceding day. Dinner was again in the lounge bar at Hotel Stern.
On Tuesday morning we validated our tickets on the Interrail app and left Chur for Zürich, Switzerland's largest city (although very modest by British standards), and we were able to enjoy the scenery we had missed on our way there by night on Saturday. We arrived in Zürich mid-morning and decided to go straight on to Luzern for the day, leaving our exploration of Zürich for the following day. Our hotel was some distance from the station here, so we kept our luggage with us. We each had just one modest-sized wheeled suitcase and these were no burden. From the station in Luzern we walked along the river and crossed one of the famous wooden bridges - not the shortest way across but it's what you have to do as a tourist! I am not ashamed to be a tourist: this trip was definitely a tour. As this was a day when we were travelling on our Interrail passes, we were able to include the trains to and from Luzern on our passes by searching for the trains and adding the tickets to the pass - so we were travelling First Class on a short journey which we'd never do if we were buying tickets. We had our lunch in Luzern at Wirtshaus Taube, a restaurant we had identified from Trip Advisor and made this our main meal of the day, the usual filling Swiss delicious-but-not-slimming meal that keeps you going for the whole day.
We returned to Zürich in peak travel time and avoided a crowded four-coach train in favour of the less-crowded eight-coach one that left a few minutes later. The we walked to the hotel - this was interesting, along a river much of the way, but involved quite a climb and in retrospect was a mistake. The trams were cheap and frequent so for the rest of our short stay we used these in both directions, having discovered that three tram routes stop right outside the hotel and one route just one block away in the next street. We checked in and had a good night's sleep ready for the next day's adventures.
Wednesday was our full day in Zürich and we explored the streets in the morning, roughly following a city trail we had found and incorporating a visit to the Globus department store where we bought a souvenir glass to replace one we had bought in Interlaken a couple of years before and had been dropped and broken at home. Our trail took us to streets of interesting old buildings and streetscapes, as well as through the world-famous financial district, home of the "Gnomes of Zürich".
After a morning's exploration we made our way to the Landesmuseum for lunch and afternoon's study of Swiss history.
We had earlier identified the restaurant at the Hotel Adler for dinner and booked a table, so we returned there at the end of the day and then took a tram back to our hotel. The weather had varied throughout the day, but the increasingly frequent rain showers in the afternoon had given way to a dry evening and nothing spoilt our enjoyment of this great city. After a good night's sleep and a decent breakfast we were ready for another country in the morning.
We left for Paris late morning on Thursday and had our coffee at Zürich main station while waiting for our train to be announced. There is a myth in Britain that Swiss railways always run to time and are never cancelled, but this just isn't true. On our many visits ti Switzerland we have found the railways to be, yes, a bit better than ours, but not perfect. Breakdowns and trespassers can happen anywhere and Switzerland is not immune. International trains to and through Switzerland are also affected, of course, and contrary to popular belief at home, snow in Switzerland does affect the running of trains and the condition of the roads. This morning the departure board showed several trains delayed and one cancelled, but not our 11:34 departure for Paris, the usual TGV Lyria, operated jointly by the Swiss and French national railways.
Arriving at Gare de Lyon, we made our way to our hotel, the Sleeping Belle, and then set out for a walk through the city, following the River Seine and passing across the Île de la Cité and on the the now-open Cathedral of Notre Dame (although we did not visit on this occasion). We then made our way back towards our hotel looking for somewhere to have dinner, settling on a steak at an art deco themed restaurant near to the Gare de Lyon.
Breakfast on Friday morning was at our hotel and then we made our way to Gare du Nord for the train back to London and thence home. We had all morning and although we had Metro passes on our iPhones we decided to walk. This whole trip had been about "slow travel" and this would be a way to enjoy Paris while on our way home. With wheeled suitcases this really is not a hard thing to do and the walk was very pleasant.
At Gare du Nord check-in for our train to London was just beginning and when the attendant controlling the queue for check-in saw my Sunflower lanyard she beckoned us across the priority queue normally reserved for Premier Class travellers and made sure that we sped through check-in: this was very welcome as although I can walk any distance, more or less, I do find standing and shuffling a bit hard and this was largely avoided. I had my usual difficulty with the passport machines and had to have mine checked manually at the French passport control. The we had a short wait with a cup of tea before boarding the train and speeding across to London. We were on our way home with a short wait at Kings Cross, our travel from London to Stamford covered this time by our Interrail passes as it was an international travel day on them. We arrived home late afternoon and had plenty of time to unpack and read our mail.
Full video of the whole trip is now here, and on my YouTube Channel, @Marks_Rail_Adventures
It had been a great break, and now my attention turned to the final preparations for exhibiting my model railway at the forthcoming Stamford Model Railway Show. No shortage of things to do in retirement!
This was one of those trips that took shape as circumstances brought things together and presented an opportunity for a bit of an adventure! In the event it turned out to be more of an adventure than we anticipated - but all the more fun for that.
My wife had meetings in Lincoln on one evening and the morning of the day after the day after that, i.e. with one day in between. We decided to make it into a little break with me accompanying her in a hotel near the meetings and taking a day out together on the day between the meetings. It happened that the York Christmas Market, to which we had never been, was taking place and so I booked train tickets not just to Lincoln and back on the first and last day but from there to York and back on the middle day.
Lincoln
A good Lincolnshire lunch - at Lincoln Cathedral
The adventure began on a Tuesday morning at the beginning of December with a walk down to Stamford railway station from where we took the 09:56 train, on time, to Peterborough. There we changed trains, buying coffee from the Bike Barista on the way, taking the 10:28 East Midlands Railway train from Peterborough to Lincoln. Across to the bus station we just neatly caught a bus up to the cathedral and walked round to the White Hart Hotel, our home for the next two nights. We were too early to check in but were able to leave our luggage with the duty manager and went off to the cathedral café to have lunch which was to be our main meal that day. We can recommend this place: the service is good and the food excellent.
Once checked in to our "cosy" room (i.e. small, but that was fine and was what we booked), it was time for Alison to go off to her first meeting, which would include a light evening meal. I went to the hotel's bar for my own meal. Again, very good.
York
The Wednesday was all ours and was allocated for a day in York. We had Standard Class Off-peak Singles in each direction so we could choose any train after the morning peak and set off down to the station after our hotel breakfast for a local train to Newark Northgate where we would change for York. At Newark we had to cross via the footbridge for the brief wait for our connecting train - the train on which we were booked and had seats reserved for us was running late, though, but as we held open tickets we boarded the one that happened to pull in as we walked onto the platform. There were plenty of seats available in Standard Class and we sat and enjoyed the ride with some coffee from the buffet counter.
In York we walked into the city centre and in spite of the very cold weather enjoyed some time around the shops and the market that we had come to see. There was in particular one Christmas shop that was so popular that there was an organised queue to enter and customers were let in as space allowed. We joined the short queue and spent some time there looking at decorations etc.. We do not need a great deal more in that line - we are mostly selling and giving away things rather than acquiring them - but it is good to have a little update now and again. No, we did not buy this glass nativity - a bit big for us.
In the cold weather there was no shortage of ways to warm up - apart from going into shops, that is - and we called at a stall selling an excellent hot chocolate, alongside their usual mulled wine etc.. One of the excellent things about it was the Bailey's that was used in place of the usual cream ... and the optional cream topping (which we opted for) was at no extra cost.
We walked back to the station when we were ready and took the next train home and this was where the adventure took an unexpected adventurous turn. Our next train back to Newark Northgate was expected just a few minutes late, but there had been an incident on the line further south near Stevenage and trains from London were severely disrupted, meaning that there would be no connection to Lincoln until very much later. I consulted the timetables on my iPhone and decided that it would still be best to get the next train south from York but that it would be better to change at Doncaster, the next stop, where an unaffected train would get us back to Lincoln before anything from Newark. It would mean a wait of over an hour at Doncaster, but Doncaster station is in the town centre and we might be able to get dinner there rather than waiting until arriving in Lincoln, meaning that overall we would not be losing any time at all.
Meanwhile we still had a little while to wait until our departure from York, and I noticed that among the listed departures was a charter train on one of the far platforms and I thought it might be interesting to see what it might be. Either the coaches or the locomotive might just be worth seeing ... and it was. We had time to see GWR Castle Class steam locomotive 5043 Earl of Mount Edgcumbe depart with The Christmas White Rose charter train before we returned to the southbound main platform for our LNER Azuma to Doncaster.
Doncaster
The 16:34 train we were to catch was the one on which we had reserved seats, but because of the disruption passengers expecting to board another train would also be travelling on ours, so we made sure we were ready to board and take our seats - after a day on our feet we did not want to have to stand, and I did have my walking stick with me which always helps in these circumstances. People recognise a walking stick but not everyone is familiar with the sunflower lanyard. Talking to other passengers on the way to Doncaster revealed that Doncaster would be a good place to change trains with an hour to spare because in the Frenchgate Shopping Centre adjacent to the railway station there was a pub that did meals, ideal for eating (and keeping warm) while awaiting our connecting train to Lincoln. (There is also a pub on the platform, where I have had a pint once before, but it does not offer food, unfortunately.) I'm afraid I cannot recommend the food at the pub in the Frenchgate Centre, although the beer was good, but it did fulfil the need at the time.
Lincoln
We returned to Doncaster station and found our train, the 18:47 to Peterborough via Lincoln. I had hoped to ride this route some time but not in these circumstances, particularly not in the dark which meant that we could have been on almost any route in the country and it would have looked much the same! We crossed the River Trent and called at Gainsborough Lea Road then headed south to Lincoln, stopping just once more at Saxilby. The train was a warm and comfortable East Midlands Railway local unit, the sort we are now seeing all over Lincolnshire and a huge improvement over the aged single-car units we used to have. At Lincoln we took the next bus up the hill and walked back to our hotel. The walk along Bailgate was a great end to the day's adventures with the Christmas decorations and general Advent busyness. This city has a great feel to it these days.
Well, we thought that was an end to the day's adventures, but more was to come in the middle of the night ...
Our room at the White Hart was great. The shower en-suite was good, too, but it let us down when the door jammed with my wife inside at some time in the early hours of the morning. Fortunately I was woken by her attempts to open the door, which was not locked but refused to respond to the turning of the door handle. After a trip to reception in my nightwear and two visits by the night porter the door finally opened as it should have done without any really effective input from either me or him - just as he was at the point of thinking he'd have to resort to breaking the door down. We did not close it fully after that! So there was a bit of a sleep shortage that night and we were duly compensated most satisfactorily when we checked out after breakfast the next day.
After the business meeting on the Thursday morning which was the initial reason for staying in Lincoln, we made our way down the hill with our luggage to the railway station and had our lunch at the Costa Coffee café at the station while we awaited our train, the 13:24 LNER departure for London which took us to Peterborough. We had initially thought we might leave later than this, so we did not have seats reserved on this departure, but there is never any difficulty finding seats at this time on trains from Lincoln. At Peterborough as usual we changed trains for Stamford and home. Another great trip. We could have done without the disruption on the railway but for us on this occasion it was OK: we coped well and still enjoyed the trip; for others with business to do or families to get home to it could have been dreadful. We could certainly have done without the disobedient shower room door ... but it gives us something to talk about! We shall not be put off using the same hotel on future trips.
