![London to Munich [for Oktoberfest] on the Imperial Cities & Danube Cruise tour](http://iciel.uk/imagesROTR/19-06-HUR1906s/Post4/19-06-04-feature.jpeg)
Monday, 30th September 2019 I was supposed to fly out to Munich on Tuesday, 1st October and then catch a train down to Passau to collect my group of passengers, but I had another idea. During the last week of September and the first week of October there is a huge beer festival in Munich called the Oktoberfest. I have never had the opportunity to visit this renowned event – teachers aren’t allowed to drop out of school mid-term to go abroad on a jolly [although I did do precisely that when the Rugby World Cup was on in France]. I have always wanted to go and see what the Oktoberfest is like. I asked my manager if it would be possible for them to fly me out to Munich a day early and I would source my own hotel. Great Railway Journeys had no issues with that, so I booked a hotel (expensive during Oktoberfest, but free for me as I was paying with accumulated stay points) and off I went. I arrived at my hotel and dropped off my bag and immediately headed off to the festival. Oktoberfest is about 15 minutes walk from the main Munich railway station and located on a massive asphalt park. It is free to enter and is absolutely HUGE. Each brewery has its own tent with outside seating areas. Interspersed between these are eating stands and a massive fun fair. I was there at 18:00 on a Monday evening. Mondays are the […]
Monthly Archives: September 2019
![Prague to Budapest [then back to London] on the Imperial Cities & Danube Cruise tour](http://iciel.uk/imagesROTR/19-06-HUR1906s/Post3/19-06-03-feature.jpeg)
Thursday, 26th September 2019 Today I am flying back to Gatwick from Budapest. The flight is at 14:15 so I have a brief opportunity to do a bit of culture before I head off to the airport. Just along from my hotel I pop my head into the New York Cafe. Unfortunately the large queue of people waiting to enter, even this early in the day, doesn’t mean I can do much more than take a photograph of the interior. Next I walk down into the old Jewish quarter of the city, first stopping at the wall memorial. The most famous tribute to the half a million Hungarian Jews who perished under the Nazis during the Holocaust is the 60 pairs of cast-iron shoes placed on the edge of the Danube’s bank in memory of Budapest Jews killed here by members of the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross Party. They were ordered to remove their shoes before being shot and their bodies fell into the river and drifted away. The old entrance to the Jewish ghetto is marked by a large memorial. The ghetto was a 0.12 square mile walled area of Budapest created by the Nazis in 1944. It only lasted for six weeks. 70,000 Jews were crammed into 4,513 apartments (14 people per room). 10,000 lost their lives during those six weeks. From the memorial I walked down to visit the Dohány Street Synagogue. This is the largest Synagogue in Europe, built between 1854-9 in a Moorish style. Unfortunately […]
Tuesday, 24th September 2019 After travelling for two days, today is a day based in one place only – Prague. It is an early start this morning because we are first going to Prague Castle, which is notoriously busy. I have been to Prague previously, on a trip with my wife, and we never ventured into the castle complex because the queues were so long. The coach, along with our guide, collect us from the hotel at 08:15 and we head off to the castle. The drive has us skirt round the centre of Prague as coaches and other vehicles are not allowed in the central area to allow space for pedestrians. From the coach we have a 15 minute walk down to the castle where we join the queue to enter. It takes about 30 minutes to reach the front of the queue, with the queue getting longer and longer as we wait. I am glad we got here early. The castle is, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the largest ancient castle in the world and occupies nearly 70,000 square meters of area. Originally built in the ninth century it was last rebuilt at the end of the 18th century. Hitler stayed here in 1939 when he forced the Czech President to hand over the Czech nation to the Germans. During the war it was used as the headquarters of Reinhard Heydrich. An old Czech legend says that a usurper who places a crown upon his head […]
![London to Prague [via Berlin] on the Imperial Cities & Danube Cruise tour](http://iciel.uk/imagesROTR/19-06-HUR1906s/Post1/19-06-01-feature.jpeg)
Saturday, 21st September 2019 This trip is a Great Railway Journeys (GRJ) tour. It is titled ‘Imperial Cities and 5 star Danube Cruise’. GRJ have a cruise ship that will travel for seven days from Budapest along the Danube to Passau. There are several options for getting to the cruise ship, these include direct flight; two days by train (first or second class) or four days by train (first or second class) travelling via either Berlin and Prague or via Bavaria. My tour is the four day tour, second class, via Berlin and Prague to Budapest. At Budapest I will leave the group on the cruise ship and return home to the UK. I then journey back later in the week to meet the group at Passau and take them back to the UK over two days, staying in Köln on the way back. Since it is an early start from St Pancras on the Sunday morning, I travel up to London on the Saturday afternoon and stay in a hotel close to St Pancras. Sunday, 22nd September 2019 I am up early on Sunday morning and meeting and greeting the tourees from 07:00 to 08:00 at the GreatRail offices, upstairs at St Pancras. This is a busy day for GreatRail with nine tours going out from St Pancras the same morning. The Eurostar train departs London St Pancras at 08:55 and arrives in Brussels at 12:05 where we are met by man and a baggage cage and our luggage […]
Wednesday, 18th September 2019 Again, today we are collected by John with his coach and are driven the opposite way down the promenade to Douglas Railway Station. This 3 ft narrow gauge railway is 15.3 miles long, and is all that remains of the more extensive 46 mile network that originally serviced Peel, Ramsey and Foxdale. The steam-hauled journey passes old-fashioned fishing ports and small towns on its way from Douglas to Port Erin. The railway is Manx government owned and still uses the original rolling stock and locomotives. At Port Erin I visited the Steam Railway Museum. From Ramsey we travel by coach to The Sound with views of the Calf of Man. Here we see and hear seals in the sea and basking on the Calf of Man. The coach then takes us on to the town of Castletown. Castletown is the former capital of the Isle of Man. Castletown has a castle called Castle Rushen. This is a very well preserved castle, built by a Norse king in 1265, then fortified and added to by successive rulers between the 13th and 16th centuries.The castle has been used as a fortress, a residence for the Kings and Lords of Mann, the site of a mint and then a prison. Robert the Bruce captured the castle three times. We then visit the Old House of Keys. Owned by the Manx National Heritage it is a museum. A private guided tour takes place and the tourees take part in an […]
Tuesday, 17th September 2019 The day starts with a leisurely buffet breakfast at the hotel. At 10:00 we gather in the hotel lounge for the brief walk down to the promenade. John, our coach driver, meets us and takes us the short distance along the promenade to the Douglas Electric Tram station. The 10:40 tram takes us to Laxey. At Laxey we change trams . . . . . to travel on the branch line up to the top of Snaefell. Snaefell is the highest spot on the Isle of Man. And on a clear day you can see England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Today is bright and sunny, but at the top it is cold and very windy. Just below the summit is another of the roads that the TT races travel along. After an hour at the top of Snaefell (most of it spent queuing to buy a coffee in the café) we catch a tram back down to Laxey. The route down is not electric powered. It is powered by gravity and as a consequence of this it is a very loud, squeaky journey as the brakes grip the central rail. At Laxey we visit Isobel Wheel. Historically the wheel, which is water powered, was used to pump water from the Laxey mine. The mine, now disused, but visitable, was a lead mine. A steep spiral staircase is used to access the platform at the top. Walking back into the village of Laxey, we pass by the […]
Saturday, 14th September 2019 The tour officially starts on Sunday 15th, when I meet the passengers at Heysham ferry port. The ferry departs at 14:15 and the only train into the port on a Sunday arrives at 12.56. I would be due to meet the tourees between 13:00 and the boarding time of 13:30. Prior to meeting the tourees I need to collect and double check tickets/boarding passes. Because this is a tight turn around and there is the risk that the train could be delayed I need to travel up to Heysham the day before. At Euston station it was nice to see a Virgin Intercity train logo-ed in tribute to my favourite architect. Having caught the 09:30 train I arrive in Lancaster at 11:55. After a short trip outside the station I am back on platform 1 for the short, old, two carriage, EMU to Heysham Port. Heysham Port station has absolutely no charm at all. Arriving at 13:17, I walk to my B&B. After I deposit my luggage I take a taxi into Lancaster. I did my degree in Lancaster, and having only been back once since, and even that was over 30 years ago, it was an interesting afternoon/evening revisiting my old haunts. Sunday, 15th September 2019 The ferry terminal at Heysham opens at 11:30 but my B&B check-out time is 10:00, so I spend some time sitting on my own in a deserted terminal. At 11:30 I am able to collect the tickets for the […]
Thursday, 5th September 2019 The penultimate day of the tour takes us from Inverness by train down to Glasgow. After a leisurely breakfast the tourees gather with their luggage in the hotel reception. A man with a van duly arrives and the luggage is loaded into the van and will be delivered directly to our rooms in this evening’s hotel in Glasgow. A coach arrives and takes us into central Inverness. The tourees then have three hours to themselves to discover Inverness and have lunch. I go for a wonder on my own, first visiting the Victorian market opposite the railway station. A walk beside the River Ness gives me views of Inverness Castle. On the other side of the river to the castle is Inverness Cathedral. Back across the river I climb up to the castle to get the views. There have been several castles built at this site over the centuries. The existing castle was built in the 1830s and is currently used a Sheriff Court. Since it is a working court you can’t wonder around inside, unfortunately. In the weeks before the Battle of Culloden, in 1746, 3,000 of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite followers seized the then castle. They plundered the stores for food and weapons before razing the site in a blaze of explosives. When Mary, Queen of Scots visited in 1562, the Governor had entrusted the castle to his Captain. The Captain refused entry to the Queen, causing great offence, so he was executed and […]
Wednesday, 4th September 2019 Today we head north from Stornoway for a trip to the beach, then some free time in Stornoway before catching the ferry across to the mainland at Ullapool and a coach to Inverness. As we drive north with our own version of the Chuckle Brothers (Chris, the guide and Jon Murdo, the driver) we pass through the village of Tunga. This is the birthplace of US president, Donald Trump’s mum. Donald’s cousins still live here and he has previously visited them. Between 1918 and 1923 the island of Lewis was owned by Lord Leverhulme [of Lever Brothers and Persil fame]. He proposed a road from Tolsta to Port of Ness. It was a time when servicemen were returning from the first world war and wanted land for crofting and not work from Leverhulme. The road was never completed. The only part ever built was a bridge at the southern end in Garry: during its construction 140 men mixed the concrete by hand. Since construction of the road stopped it is now know as ‘The Bridge to Nowhere’. The views from the bridge are stunning. Don’t be alarmed by the blue bits of sky, it was just a temporary break in the rain fall. Our driver, John Murdo, gave us a quick bagpipe recital next to the Garry beach. To watch and listen see the Video of the day at the bottom of the blog. A walk on the beach. We returned to Stornoway and were able […]
Tuesday, 3rd September 2019 Today’s itinerary is a journey, by coach through the Isle of Harris. We are again guided and driven by the double act of Chris Ryan and John Murdo. Heading south from Stornoway we travel south through the Isle of Lewis and down to the Isle of Harris. They are, in fact, one island, but were ruled by two distinct McLeod clans so have historically been treated as two separate areas and hence the names. Once in Harris we travel down to Seilebost. The landscape changes in this area to a ‘lunar landscape’. Stanley Kubricks’ 2001: A Space Odyssey’s Jupiter, alien planet surface scenes, where filmed here. At Seilebost we stop for views of the sandy beaches. On arrival in Tarbert we have lunch at the Harris Hotel. After lunch we visit the Harris Tweed shop. We then walk to the Harris Distillery. This distillery was recently built as a community project, first distilling in 2016. In order to be called a Scottish single malt whisky, it must mature in barrels for 3 years. Harris distillery plan to mature theirs for longer. As a consequence in order to generate funds while they wait to sell their own malt whisky, they distill, bottle and sell Harris Gin. The botanical that is unique to the Harris Gin is a seaweed called sugar kelp. The sugar kelp is hand-harvested by a local diver from the deep underwater forests of the Outer Hebrides. So following our visit to the stills, we […]
Monday, 2nd September 2019 Today’s itinerary is a journey, by coach, around the north of the Isle of Lewis. After breakfast at 08:00 we depart from the hotel at 09:30 with our local guide, Chris Ryan, and our driver John Murdo, from Lochs Motor Coaches,. Chris provides a running commentary as we travel throughout the day, interspersed with humorous interjections from John Murdo: a very good double act. As we travel north we pass the peat diggings in the crofts. On the left are the mechanised ’sausages’, on the right the rectangular manual diggings. At the Butt of Lewis we visit the lighthouse at the top of the island, which is unusual as it is a red brick construction, rather than being painted white. We look at the view across the Atlantic to Canada in the distance. We take in a visit to the northerly Port of Ness. As we travel down the westerly side of the island we stop to visit the Gearrannan Blackhouse Village. The village is now a museum. The Blackhouse Village features traditional blockhouses. The village has recently been preserved having fallen into disrepair when the residents moved out into more modern council-provided housing nearby. The houses are thatched and have double stone walls. There was no incentive for the residents, who had rented the properties, to make any improvements to the buildings as they did not have secured tenure. If they had made improvements the landlord could potentially kick them out and then rent the […]
Sunday 1st September 2019 Today we travel from Fort William to Stornoway. A more leisurely breakfast is available from 07:30 to 9:00 and while breakfast is eaten our luggage is taken from outside our rooms down to reception. Brian, the driver, arrives and we load the luggage onto the coach. Departing at 9:00 Brian drives us up to the ferry port at Mallaig, where we arrive at 10:15. I pop into the ferry terminal and collect all the individual tickets for the three ferry crossings that we will take during this tour. I have a quick moment to cross the road to visit Mallaig railway station. Mallaig station is at the end of the railway line from Fort William and the end of the Jacobite stream route. It is also the most westerly railway station on mainland Britain. Surprisingly, further west than Penzance. At 10:30 we begin boarding the ferry. Although we arrived on a coach, and the same coach with our luggage on drives onto the ferry, we have to walk on as foot passengers. At 11:00 the ferry departs for the crossing to Armdale on the Isle of Skye. Whilst the coach journey to Mallaig had been accompanied by rain, the crossing to Skye was dry, sunny and calm. The ferry takes 35 minutes to cross from the mainland. Arriving at Armdale . . . . . . we re-board the coach and Brian drives us for an hour and a half up to Uig at the north […]