Bills Posts

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 bright and cheerful, as people went about their various activities.

I knew from Tuesday, that demolition of the old bus station hadn’t started. What really surprised me today, was that not only had demolition not started but the machines, the demolishers, have been taken away. Now, they had been sat there for several weeks and had not moved. I wonder how much that cost, and why they hadn’t started? Disappointingly, I take that to mean that the take-down is not due for quite a while, but you never know.

I bought lunch in Greggs, and went and sat on the waterfront. Very nice to see the Mon St Michell come in, haven’t seen her for a while. The temperature on my phone was saying 23C, it felt comfortable,

The comment in the title of tonights post about Facebook; I am asking myself the question as to why I was blogging here about our holiday, but not on FB. I can’t really answer that. It’s not that i didn’t have time for both, in fact I even took my paper journal with me, and didn’t use that at all. I think the main thing from the blog point of view was to make sure I recorded at least some of the memories, and of course the post-count.

I also need to do a bit of planning for the upcoming camera club walk.

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 both out and home went very smoothly (one minor episode on the return, more down to the imaptience of the mob than the tour managers fault) and of course there is no accounting of traffic in Paris or Brussels. I liked it, thought it went very well.

The ship, the Amadeus Star a new-ish boat, built in 2019, Accommodation was excellent, the cabin itself may have been slighty smaller than it’s equivalent on on a sea cruise ship, but the bathroom was quite a bit bigger, and the shower was lovely;. Absolutely no complaints at all. Our cabin was on the same level as the restaurant, which was nice.

Oh yes, let’s talk about food. Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and late night snack. The quality if the food was outstanding. The approach was simple with some basic choices, but the quality of the cooking and the delivery were superb.

One thing we very much appreciated was the absolute lack of pressure to buy services or things on board ship, which made things very nice.

The trips, which were all included were well organised, time was a bit tight on occasion, but IU had no issues with that.

Like at the beginning of this pose, if anyone were to ask me if I would recommend a river cruise, my answer would be a very simple and emphatic Yes.

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 us back to the UK. Our bags were sorted and taken to loading point, all we had to do was see them stowed away and get on the coach. Yes, for us the rail strike went ahead, and we were coached to Eurostar, Brussels. The journey took about three hours, and like France, Belgium likes to put its important stations in the most awkward spots they can think of. This all went very smoothly though.

There was a brief moment of confusion when The Tour Manager had to retrace steps to recover a slow-walking member of the group. We quickly recovered though and had very smooth trip through The Chunnel.

Not after 5:30 pm we were sat having a nice cup of tea and letting all and sundry that were safely home.

I think I’ll save any thoughts I have on the holiday; river cruising in general and this trip in particular to tomorrow’s post.

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. Yep. The second really annoying thing is I woke up with a massively ricked neck, down the left hand side. Agony to move. I started popping paracetamol, that helped a little. Everyone suggested I get a massage.

I booked one before we went on the canal river cruise, which even though I was in pain, I thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately no slots available until 1600. Those of you with a certain frame of mind can get back in your cage. The Massage was on board ship.

The tour was very interesting, taking in the delights and issues of canal-culture. We ended up at the grand central,station which is only about ten minutes walk from the boat’s mooring.

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 four surviving rack (a cog wheel on the train engages with a rack between the rails to haul itself up the 1-in-5 slope). Because time was limited We only stayed at the top for about 30 minutes.

Back on the boat for a midday is departure, and we were on our way to Cologne (Köln) where I had not been since the early 1980’s. Obviously, things were different to what I recall them. It was nice though to revisit the magnificent Cathedral, and with the help of our guide learn a few more things about the city.

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…..

About 2/3 of the way when we had been going too slow because of the traffic ahead the boat had to turn round as the river would not be wide enough later. The rest of the way the captain drove backwards.

So our time on the lovely little town was cut short but enough to buy some local wine and have a beer. Back on board for dinner ( rack of lamb. Lovely). Then leaving back down river overnight to Koblenz. The right way round.

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 be healthy, but it is delicious. I was determined to have at least one.

Today, we sailed from Ruddesheim to Koblenz. We’d had a Land train tour of the vineyards of Ruddesheim and got dropped off in the centre of town, which is only a few minutes walk from where the boat was berthed. I think it was around midday we set off for Koblenz.

To sail downstream through the Rhine Valley-Gorge is to float through the turbulence of Germanic history in chapters marked by Castles, built on what seemed to be the most awkward hillsides (are 160 metre high almost vertical cliffs really just hills?) – to even begin to appreciate the effort that must have been expended to build these places, you really do need to see it.

We arrived in Koblenz in time for afternoon tea, of which, we did not partake. Instead, we headed for the cable car that would take us over the Rhine to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, where we spent only just a few minutes (no, we certainly did not do the place justice. Time, unfortunately, was against us).

From the cable car,we tried to visit the Deutsches Eck, a large monument marking the meeting of the Moselle and the Rhine. Unfortunately, it was blocked off from the public due to an event taking place.

This is where I saw the imbiss and had the Brattie. A perfect end to that part of the day.

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 a full sized 747 mounted about 100 feet in the air.

The kings castle of Heidelberg dominates the town below. We visited both today. The city is one of those places that I have heard so much about but had never gotten around to visiting, so it is nice to be able to that now, I have.

That occupied the morning. This afternoon we relaxed on board ship as it moved from our pick up point at Mannheim, also a city with a lot of history.

Unfortunately, I think the travel and sun, and a bit of over-eating caught up with me, so I went to bed early.

Leaving Strasbourg we had about an hours drive to reach what really is a lovely spot about 1,000 metres up in the hills that carry the Black Forest. I’m going to say that normally I really don’t like places that have been heavily commercialised for tourists, but for some reason I didn’t feel the same with this spot, Mummelsee, which most definitely has been (heavily commercialised).

Perhaps the reason was the chance to have a piece of Black Forest Gateaux, whilst in the Black Forest. Come on, it would have been churlish not to. So once again, I let myself be that tourist and I have to say it tasted really nice. I also went for a stroll around at least part of the lake, so I a genuinely say that I went for a walk in the Black Forest.

As we descended from those mountainous heights we had a brief walking experience in one of the small towns that cling to the hill side. It was a lovely experience.

In the afternoon, we went to Strasbourg City Centre. We had a level walk around and visited the lovely cathedral with the unusual organ with the pipes halfway up the wall, which really must be difficult for maintenance. Still, interesting.

It should start yesterday, with the journey to london, nothing special just a nice train journey. We had a nice meal in the evening (I’m missing out chunks of the day) at an Italian restaurant next to the hotel, but we didn’t linger too long as we had to be up at 0400 to get checked in for the 0701 Eurostar departure – nice rail journey to Paris.

Interesting drive across from Gare du Nord to Gare du Lyon, the amount of infrastructure work on the roadside needs to be seen to be believed, it was chaotic and sooo slow. We barely had time to grab stuff for lunch from a stand before getting the SNCF to Basel.

The SNCF run, in comparison to Paris was an entirely different kettle of fish. Between Dijon and Basel we were touching 302kmh (188mph). I think that’s the fastest I’ve ever been in a train. A double decker, and first class as well. Very comfortable – well almost, difficult to sleep in the seats.

On board the Amadeus now, heading up the Rhine. Next stop The Black Forest. I always think of “A Walk in the Black Forest” which in my head was played by Russ Conway, but actually it was Horst Jankowski. Either way, it’s still a favourite of mine.