Sunday, 6th October 2019 Today starts a new tour: Rail Discoveries’ Railways of Wales. This is based in one hotel in Llandudno. As is similar to most UK based tours I meet the tourees on the first day at 16:00 in the hotel. This means that they can choose their method of travel to the venue, most will have chosen to drive. I, however, travel by train. Bromley South to Victoria, then tube to Euston. From Euston it is a train to Llandudno Junction. Unfortunately, on a weekend, there are no trains that go to Llandudno Station which is more central. This means traveling by taxi from Llandudno Junction to the hotel on the Promenade. When I tell the taxi driver the name of the hotel where I am staying he duly replies with “I can’t take you there, there is a car rally going on”. “Oh” I reply, “Get me as close as I you can”. As we are driving along I get out Google Maps on my phone and suggest the odd route alteration to the driver. He says to me in a quite astonished voice, “How have you got the new car satellite thing on a phone?” Arriving at the back of the hotel he says “Wow, I didn’t know that you could go that way”. “Just download the Google Maps app on you phone” I reply. “I’d have to get a phone first,” he says. True enough outside my hotel is the finish of the Wales […]
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![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 […]
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 […]
Friday 30th August 2019 This tour starts with the Tour Manager, in this instance me, meeting the tourees at the first hotel, in Glasgow. So I have a relatively early start to get the train into London before catching my onward connection from Euston at 10:30. During the four and a half hour journey up to Glasgow Central I spend the time working on the plans and arrangements for my next tour, in two weeks’ time, which is to the Isle of Man. The Great Central Hotel is located at Glasgow Central and has an entrance in the station concourse as well as one on the road next to the main station entrance. The hotel has been refurbished to very modern standards and features a champagne bar with views over the station concourse. And a spectacular chandelier, that reminds me of something. Having arrived at the hotel and checked in at 15:00, I take a quick stroll in the pouring rain to familiarise myself with the 15 minute walk to Glasgow Queen Street: the route which I will be escorting the tourees along on the following morning. When I get back to the station I first have to sort out an issue with the evening’s hotel booking. From 16:00 to 18:00 I wait around in the hotel reception, meeting and greeting each of the tourees. This is the time when I can give them the evening dining arrangements and ensure that they have the special luggage labels for the next […]
Sunday 16th – Monday 17th June 2019 This tour starts with me meeting the tourees at Durham railway station at 16:00. From here our coach takes us to our hotel – Lumley Castle. Originally a manor house, in 1389 Sir Ralf Lumley received permission from the Prince Bishop of Durham to convert it into a castle. Unfortunately Sir Ralf was executed in 1400 after a failed coup to overthrow Henry IV and Lumley Castle was subsequently confiscated by the crown, but it was returned to the Lumley family in 1421. In the early 1800s the castle came under the ownership of the Bishop of Durham after he had given his home, Durham Castle, to the newly created University of Durham. Later, Lumley Castle became a hall of residence for the university. The university sold the castle in the 1960s to fund the development of new halls of residence in the city. In 1976 it was established as a hotel with great historical character. My room, reached by a typical medieval spiral staircase – [see video of the day, below] – was the window seen top right in the above picture and featuring a four poster bed, pull cord light switches and rope ties for the curtains. Monday started with a 15 minute coach journey into Durham where we picked up Jan, our local blue badge guide. Jan and Eric, our coach driver, gave us a 30 minute coach tour around the outer part of Durham where we saw the river, […]
Tuesday 4th – Wednesday 5th June 2019 The first day of this tour is a travel day for me, the Tour Manager. Following a train into London and tube from Victoria to King’s Cross I caught the 12:00 train to York and then the 14:11 train on to Harrogate. The tour is based in The Old Swan in Harrogate from where we will travel out each day. The Old Swan is a large period hotel and is renowned for being the hotel where Agatha Christie was found staying when she famously disappeared for 10 days. What interested me was the fact that she checked into the hotel using the name of her then husband’s mistress. From 16:00, for an hour, I waited at reception to meet all the tourees so that I could greet them and give out the details of the evening meal. After breakfast, on the Wednesday, we walked as a group down to Harrogate train station to make the 25 minute train journey to York. Some tourees opted not to join us in York, instead preferring to spend the day in Harrogate. At York Station we were met on the platform by our two local guides. The group duly split into three as some passengers opted not to join the walking tour and set off to explore on their own. I had distributed their return tickets in readiness so that they could travel back to Harrogate on any of the hourly trains at a time of their […]
Thursday 16th – Friday 17th, May Today was an early start. Having stayed in a hotel in London overnight, I was up at 05:00. With no breakfast available in the hotel at this ungodly hour, I walked to St Pancras International railway station for a quick coffee before meeting and greeting the tourees between 05:55 and 06:55. All the tourees made the meet and greet on time. As I met each of them I handed over their Eurostar tickets and explained the security and border control procedures. Although we were booked on the 07:55 train, unfortunately it did not leave until 09:05. We arrived in Paris 1h15m late and were expecting our transfer coach to be waiting outside at the side of Paris Gare du Nord. Unfortunately, for various reasons our coach was absent. After waiting, and a few telephone calls, it was all down to Tour Manager’s plan B. All 25 tourees were bundled into taxis and a mad dash across Paris ensued. We arrived at Paris Austerlitz with only time for a quick pit stop before joining our train with two minutes to spare. It was a good job the RailDiscoveries planners had factored in a three hour transfer time, otherwise we would have missed our connection. A pleasant five hour train journey followed. We were met at our destination station of Souillac by our coach and transferred to our hotel. Dinner was at 20:30 followed by my welcome speech. Friday morning was a free morning, this allowed […]