Author Archives: Bill

Well, most days do start like that, and each day in some subtle way is different, and this one was no different, in that it was different, look I’m beginning to confuse me, so let’s just get on with it. We had a taxi booked for 0720, that took us to the Fort Blockhouse carContinue reading “1675 – it started when we got up!”

St Pancras Station is very photogenic. We had a bit of time before processing through border control. I really quite like the colour and lines in the picture. I’m starting to think about getting g back in to the normal swing of things, so that means what to consider for this blog, and also re-startingContinue reading “1674 – Getting back to normal”

I took a walk in to town today. The first time in about 10 or 12 days. Obviously, I wanted to find out what was going . I wasn’t surprised to see that McDonalds isn’t open yet. It was nice to see people working on site. The high street, I must admit, looked quite brightContinue reading “1673 – Gosport & Facebook v Blog”

Last night, I sold that I would comment on the holiday, and river cruising in general. I think one very simple question is would we do another, and the answer to that is equally simple; Oh Yes! The whole travel arrangement, From Baggageman, through the tour manager meeting us at St Pancras, train transfers bothContinue reading “1672 – Holidays and River cruising”

Our Canal Tour Boat, about to go under the skinny bridge in Amsterdam. Although I talked yesterday about having a massage, I didn’t mention how effective it was. I think it might have worked better, but circumstances were beyond my control. Today though, was our voyage home. Our Tour Manager had returned to escort usContinue reading “1671 The Voyage Home”

After a night and a mornings sailing, we have moved from Köln to Amsterdam. Two things are a bit of a blight on the cruise today both, I hasten to add, absolutely outside the control of Great Rail Journeys. Firstly Dutch railways are on strike tomorrow. Not all trains are affected, but guess whose is.Continue reading “1670 – Amadeus Star at Amsterdam”

Firstly, Thank You to Mark for last nights guest appearance on the blog, his occasional contributions are always welcome (Clive, if you ever wanted to do one, I’d love it). So today saw us moving further up the Rhine to Königswinter where we visited and took a ride on The DrachenfelsBahn one of only fourContinue reading “1669 – DrachenfelsBahn & Köln”

Goodbye….. Today it’s Mark’s turn. We moved up the Moselle to Cochem. There were 3 locks all really tight but the sides of the valley were all covered in vines. There were tracks likes continuous ladders going up step sides where small trucks went up to collect the grapes. I thought it was interesting….. AboutContinue reading “1668 – going backwards”

It’s not often I would post a picture of food, but this is is classic stuff; Bratwurst im brotchen, mit Senf; Roast sausage, in bread with mustard. Now, it is roughly 40 years since I last had this meal in Germany. It remains to this day, one of my favourite fast foods. Might not beContinue reading “1667 – Ruddesheim & Koblenz”

The ship berthed at Speyer, it would move after we had left the boat. I’d never heard of this city, but it has a lot of history. It also has an amazing science & Technology museum which unfortunately we were unable to visit and just drove past. Lots of aircraft on display outside, including aContinue reading “1666 – Heidelberg”