Thursday, 10th October 2019 The final full day of the tour takes us to the Welsh Highland Railway. The coach drove a very scenic route through the centre of the Snowdonia National Park. Unfortunately, Snowdon itself was hidden in clouds today. The coach dropped us in the village of Beddgelert. It is a pretty Welsh stone built village, which has won “Britain in Bloom” competitions. It has also been described as “a wondrous valley”. Gelert was the name of a dog that belonged to Prince Llewellyn. The Prince returned from hunting one day to find the dog with blood around its mouth and his son missing. Believing that the hound had killed the boy, Llewellyn slew it. However, the child was found alive and a dead wolf was discovered nearby. The dog Gelert had saved the boy from the wolf. Llewellyn was filled with remorse and allegedly never smiled again. The legend was embellished in the nineteenth century by the landlord of the Goat Hotel. It is possible to visit “Gelert’s grave”. The train is hauled by a South African Railways narrow gauge Garratt. This is a huge 2-6-2 + 2-6-2 locomotive. The demise in 1936 and the eventual reconstruction of the Welsh Highland Railway had been a long, tortuous and of highly legal progress such that it is too long to relate here. There were legal cases, liquidations, funding issues, public inquiries and political intrigues. However there was above all else a determination to reconstruct the railway and extend […]
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![London to Munich [for Oktoberfest] on the Imperial Cities & Danube Cruise tour](https://i0.wp.com/iciel.uk/imagesROTR/19-06-HUR1906s/Post4/19-06-04-feature.jpeg?resize=570%2C350)
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 […]
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 […]
Thursday 20th June 2019 The final full day of this tour starts with a coach journey to Raby Castle. We were fortunate to have a guided tour of the castle one hour before the official public opening. This is a spectacular castle, still owned by the same family who originally constructed it, in 1367. It features a hall that you could drive a coach through. Following Raby Castle, the coach took us to the town of Barnard Castle. In the town is the Bowes Museum (Bowes was the maiden name of Elizabeth the Queen mother). I was particularly taken by the Lego model of the museum. Following the museum I took a walk along the river… …before visiting the castle. Friday was the final day of the tour. This involved a coach from the hotel at 10:00 to Durham railway station and then the train home. RailDiscoveries Tour Map: Selfie of the day: Recent Posts: Related Posts:
Monday 20th – Tuesday 21st May Monday is a free day that allows the tourees to explore the region at their leisure. Eight of the group hired taxis that took them the 20 minute journey to the caves. The caves feature an underground train that takes you to the innermost caverns, where a walk is followed by a lift to get out. Another group ventured to the railway station at Souilliac for a 40 minute journey to the much larger town of Cahors. The remaining tourees stayed in Souillac undertook a variety of adventures, including visiting the abbey, touring the distillery where they make a prune based liqueur flavoured with walnut and walks along the Dordogne. Most of us also made a visit to Lidl for components for our packed lunches for Friday. Dinner at 19:00 was accompanied by a man and his electronic organ… An early Tuesday morning. Alarm at 05:20, packing, bag outside the hotel room ready for portage down to the coach, breakfast at 06:00. At 06:45 our coach collected us and delivered us to the Souillac railway station. The Toulouse to Paris train only stops for two minutes, and with all of us with reserved tickets in the middle of coach one it required rigorous planning to ensure a smooth, safe, timely embarcation. Fortunately, the train station had a plan of the train so I knew that coach one would be at the front of the train and I also knew the direction of travel. We […]