Wednesday, 9th October 2019 Norman, the coach driver, collects us at 08:45 and we are on our way to the railway station at Llangollen. The journey takes an hour and a quarter. The Llangollen railway is the longest preserved standard gauge steam Railway in Wales now at 12.5 miles long. Work has been undertaken to extend it from 10 miles at Carrog to 12.5 miles near Corwen. Our train terminated at Carrog, and we had a 40 minute wait at the station before our return trip to Llangollen. This allowed time for coffee and a comfort break. The railway was originally opened in 1862 to serve the mining industry. It closed in 1964 and restoration commenced in 1975. The line as far as Carrog was opened in 1996 and work on the extension to Corwen started in 2011. Back at Llangollen there was a hour to have some lunch and to walk around the town. Llangollen is an attractive town on the River Dee and its bridge from 1345 (renovated in 1960) used to be on the London -Holyhead horse drawn coaching route improved by Thomas Telford in 1815. The canal was built in 1806 and was one of Britain’ finest feats of canal engineering. It was designed by Thomas Telford to transport slates from the quarries on the Horseshoe Pass and to provide water for the Shropshire Union canal. The water is fed from the Horseshoe Falls via a very small opening controlling the flow in the pump […]
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![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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Wednesday 19th June 2019 Day three of this tour involves a coach journey from Lumley Castle to Hexham railway station. From Hexham we caught a train, along the line of Hadrian’s Wall, to Carlisle. There is about three hours’ free time in Carlisle. This allows time to visit the cathedral. You can also visit the castle [see the feature picture at the top of this blog], and spend time in the town centre. Following the return journey on the train, we had a guided tour of Hexham Abbey. The abbey features some stunning medieval paintings in the choir. RailDiscoveries Tour Map: Selfie of the day: Recent Posts: Related Posts:
Friday June 7th 2019 For the penultimate day of this tour our coach took us to Keighley railway station. Keighley is one end of the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway [KWVR]. Our journey on this line took us through Oakworth station. This was used as the location of the station in the film The Railway Children. The line finishes at Oxenhope. From Oxenhope our coach took us to the previous village on the line, Haworth. Haworth is a beautiful village on a hill. No big chain shops here. Haworth is also home to the parsonage where the Bronte family lived. It is now a museum that the tourees visited. In the earlier mentioned film, The Railway Children, it was used as the setting of Doctor Forrest’s surgery. Haworth is also the site of the engine sheds for the KWVR. As part of the trip we were given a guided tour of the engine sheds where restoration work is undertaken on old steam and diesel engines. As a Microsoft Excel addict I was particularly pleased to see their works’ planning board. From Haworth we travelled on to Ingrow station to visit the Vintage Carriages Trust. Here old railway carriages are restored and preserved. The carriages are lent to film studios and have appeared in many television programmes and films. Also the little steam locomotive from The Railway Children is situated here. Saturday is the final day of this tour and involves breakfast followed by checkout from the hotel. After saying goodbye […]
Sunday 19th May Following breakfast at 08:00 our coach collected us at 09:00 and delivered us to Martel for 09:40. This gave us an hour to explore this village. The coach then took us the short distance to Le Truffadou [the truffle railway]. Today was a steam day. Some days the trains are diesel hauled, but everyone prefers steam don’t they? With open-sided carriages and five tunnels steam does have its downside though! [See the Video of the day at the bottom of the post.] Carved into the cliffs of Mirandol, towering 80 metres (260ft) above the River Dordogne, this line used to run from Bordeaux to Aurillac, and took from 1880 to 1884 to build. It came into use in 1889 and competed with the boat traffic. The rails were taken up in 1917 to provide steel for use in the First World War. In 1919 the US government replaced them with American rails which are still here today. In the early days, the trains were used to transport truffles, for which Martel was outstandingly famous throughout France hence its nickname Le Truffadou. The line was closed in 1980, but in 1991 several enthusiasts were eager to preserve it, raised sufficient funds and worked hard to open the Martel-St-Denis section in 1997. From Martel we travelled to the amazing village of Rocamadour. Three hours free time allowed us the opportunity to: walk from the chateaux at the top; travel on the two lifts that join the three levels of […]