| Friday, 23 February, 2018 |
| I’d worked from home in the morning so after lunch it was a quick dash down to Gatwick for my late afternoon flight out to Vienna… |
| Saturday, 24 February, 2018 |
| The previous evening the train I’d taken from the airport to the hotel had been going through to Graz… |
| Sunday, 25 February, 2018 |
| Breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel and caught the tram into the centre of the city… |
| Monday, 26 February, 2018 |
| I’d packed the night beforehand, so I could make more of the Monday morning… |
| Wednesday, 16 April, 2014 |
| Just two weeks out from the trip, and by pure chance, I discovered that rather than departing Gatwick at 15:10 my flight had been retimed to 13:00 |
| Thursday, 17 April, 2014 |
| With a very large breakfast inside me I headed out into town to hit the sights… |
| Friday, 18 April, 2014 |
| Another hearty breakfast consumed I headed on into town and over to the main station to pick up the bus out to Schloß Hellbrunn… |
| Saturday, 19 April, 2014 |
| Fortified with breakfast my first stop of the morning was to head up to the Fortress to take in the sights… |
| Sunday, 20 April, 2014 |
| A nice long lie in, followed by a leisurely breakfast then it was time to pack the bag, check out of the hotel and pick up the bus back to the airport and the flight home… |
| Saturday, 07 January, 2017 |
| It was a very early flight, so thankfully I’d come down to Gatwick the night before… |
| Sunday, 08 January, 2017 |
| I looked out of the window to find that there had been quite a bit of snow fall overnight… |
| Monday, 09 January, 2017 |
| Overnight the city’s workers had been out in force and all the pavements and roadways were clear of ice and snow… |
| Friday, 18 November, 2005 |
| After having landed and got through the airport, I caught the train into the centre of town… |
| Saturday. 19 November, 2005 |
| With more chicken pate and cheese inside me than is really sensible I headed out from the hotel to the U-Bahn station to catch the train into town… |
| Sunday. 20 November, 2005 |
| It has taken then a while, but in 2000, the Austrians unveiled their first monument to commemorate the (specifically Viennese) victims of the Holocaust… |
| Monday, 21 November, 2005 |
| You would have though that with a stunning (and rambling) palace in the very centre of Vienna, and another palace in sumptuous grounds in the then outskirts of the city (Belvedere) the Habsburgs would be content.. |
| Tuesday, 22 November, 2005 |
| Sadly, I hadn’t packed spare limbs (I'm getting so forgetful these days - I blame the booze!) so with slightly aching legs I treated them to a nice hours rest as I caught the train out of Vienna.. |
| Wednesday, 23 November, 2005 |
| With my bag neatly stowed in the left luggage locker at Wein Mitte station I caught the tram out to Schwedenplatz… |
| Thursday, 23 January, 2020 |
| I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel so was able to get a bit of lie-in before hopping on a bus… |
| Friday, 24 January, 2020 |
| I had wanted a bit of lie-in, but that wasn’t to be as Housekeeping decided to barge into the room at 08:20… |
| Saturday, 25 January, 2020 |
| Another water torture shower first thing and then down to a relatively empty breakfast… |
| Sunday, 26 January, 2020 |
| Sadly, I got another poor nights sleep due to the paper thin walls of the room and another less than adequate shower and good breakfast later I was ready to check out of the hotel… |
| Friday, 03 March 2006 |
| After an exceptionally pleasant journey on the Eurostar… |
| Saturday, 04 March, 2006 |
| After one of the most comfortable nights sleep I had had in a very long time, and a breakfast that should have kept me fed for the whole week… |
| Sunday, 05 March, 2006 |
| After breakfast, I headed for the central station and out to Ghent… |
| Monday, 06 March, 2006 |
| With a large breakfast inside me, I left the hotel and headed back to the central station to store my bags before attempting to find… |
| Friday, 18 June, 2004 |
| Leaving London in glorious sunshine (well it was dry and only slightly grey) it was a little depressing to arrive in Brussels in what appeared to be a monsoon. |
| Saturday, 19 June, 2004 |
| First stop of the day the main tourist office to get a Brussels card and then onto the most famous attraction in Brussels, a small statue of a young boy having a leak (well it is Belgium!) |
| Sunday, 20 June, 2004 |
| Sunday and up early to get the train out of the city to the medieval city of Brugge (Bruges) |
| Monday, 21 June, 2004 |
| Only part of a day in Brussels as I my train back to London was booked for that evening. After dropping my luggage off at the station I caught the tram out to Heysel. |
| Friday, 21 December, 2007 |
| After a quick lunchtime exit from work, I headed up to St Pancras to catch the Eurostar… |
| Saturday, 22 December, 2007 |
| The mists and fog of the previous night had cleared completely and a clear blue sky heralded a crisp but sunny morning… |
| Sunday, 23 December, 2007 |
| Having checked out of the hotel and dumped my bags into a left luggage locker at Gare du Midi, I caught the bus out of town… |
| Thursday, 17 May, 2018 |
| In the original plan for the weekend I’d been intending on catching a late Eurostar on Friday… |
| Friday, 18 May, 2018 |
| I’d arranged a late checkout with the hotel… |
| Saturday, 19 May 2019 |
| I had a nice long lie-in and a leisurely breakfast before heading out into town and over to the Cathedral… |
| Sunday, 20 May, 2018 |
| I had another long lie-in and slow breakfast before checking out and heading out into the city… |
| Monday, 26 June, 2006 |
| After two and a half hours slumped in the train seat my blistered foot had cheered up, though my back was now wishing to register its complaints… |
| Tuesday, 27 June, 2006 |
| With a hearty breakfast inside me, I headed off to the station to catch the train to Maastricht… |
| Wednesday, 28 June, 2006 |
| I checked out of the hotel and for the second time within three days took my bags to the luggage lockers at the station… |
| Friday, 20 December, 2013 |
| Despite the train from work grinding to a halt outside London Bridge for 10 minutes… |
| Saturday, 21 December, 2013 |
| A late rise and breakfast and then out for a quick wander around town, and a check to see when the river cruise boats ran… |
| Sunday, 22 December, 2013 |
| After the rain of the previous evening it was quite a surprise to wake to a clear blue sky, albeit with a hefty wind rushing through the street my room looked down on… |
| Monday, 23 December, 2013 |
| I checked out of the hotel and had a bit of a wander around Ghent… |
| Thursday, 23 February, 2017 |
| Storm Doris had been pounding the South East… |
| Friday, 24 February, 2017 |
| I had a long lie-in and a late breakfast before heading back to my room to pack… |
| Saturday, 25 February, 2017 |
| There were clearly a large number of people staying at the hotel… |
| Sunday, 26 February, 2017 |
| Breakfast was as chaotic as the previous day… |
| Friday, 19 December, 2008 |
| Having bumped into a friend at St Pancras station and had a spot of lunch with them… |
| Saturday, 20 December, 2008 |
| I made sure I filled up at breakfast, with the pound in free-fall against the Euro the idea of stopping at restaurants during the day for a lunch wasn’t one that I wanted to contemplate… |
| Sunday, 21 December, 2008 |
| After another massive breakfast I headed out of the hotel on the second of the two walks the hotel suggests… |
| Monday, 22 December, 2008 |
| Having made sure that I had consumed considerably more food than the €13 charge would cover; I checked out from the hotel and headed through town to the station… |
| Friday, 15 September, 2017 |
| It was a very early alarm call for the taxi to get up to St Pancras in time for the early morning Eurostar… |
| Saturday, 16 September, 2017 |
| Looking out of the window it was onto a scene of a massive downpour that was pummelling the canal below… |
| Sunday, 17 September, 2017 |
| The Sunday was a car free day in the city centre and consequently there were no vehicles – not even buses – allowed in the city centre… |
| Friday, 20 April, 2018 |
| I’d worked from home in the morning, so I was able to make a quick dash up to town and over to St Pancras in time for check-in to open… |
| Saturday, 21 April, 2018 |
| After a pleasant breakfast I headed out of the hotel and caught the tram along the coast to the outskirts of the town and the dunes at Raversijde… |
| Sunday, 22 April, 2018 |
| After checking out of the hotel I headed over towards the harbour to have a wander around that part of the city… |
| Thursday, 24 March, 2016 |
| I had a half day from work and so a little before 1pm I headed out of the office… |
| Friday, 25 March, 2016 |
| I had a quick breakfast in the hotel before heading out into town… |
| Saturday, 26 March, 2016 |
| I had a large breakfast as I was intending on doing quite a bit of walking today… |
| Sunday, 27 March, 2016 |
| Breakfast completed I headed over to the impressive Cloth Hall to have a look around the In Flanders Fields museum. |
| Monday, 28 March, 2016 |
| I’d originally booked the trip nearly a year beforehand… |
| Tuesday, 29 March, 2016 |
| Breakfast completed I reconfirmed I had a late checkout… |
| Friday, 04 July, 2014 |
| Turning the getting out of work at lunchtime on a Friday into a habit I headed up to St Pancras and the Eurostar across to Brussels… |
| Saturday, 05 July, 2014 |
| After the storm of the previous evening it was nice to see a nearly clear blue sky as I left the hotel and headed out for the longest tram journey of the trip… |
| Sunday, 06 July, 2014 |
| Breakfast consumed, and all checked-out from the hotel I headed back over to the tram stop and picked up the tram to De Haan, just this side of Oostende to pick up the journey up the coast… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Thursday, 10 October, 2019 |
| I’d stayed overnight at a Premier Inn near Terminal 4… |
| Friday, 11 October, 2019 |
| I had intended on having a leisurely breakfast, but due to the number of people staying at the hotel, and the lack of tables in the breakfast area… |
| Saturday, 12 October, 2019 |
| Thankfully breakfast was a lot quieter this morning when I got down… |
| Sunday, 13 October, 2019 |
| Sunday was the day of the Sofia Marathon and I spent quite a bit of the day moving round the course so that I could cheer on my colleague and her running club friends… |
| Monday, 14 October, 2019 |
| Due to the timing of the flight it wasn’t possible to really do any sightseeing in the time I had before I had to head to the airport… |
| Thursday, 19 October, 2023 |
| After a full days work I was going to take public transport over to the airport and to my hotel for the evening... |
| Friday, 20 October, 2023 |
| I was awake just before my alarm went off which was about the only blessing for being up at this time of the morning… |
| Saturday, 21 October, 2023 |
| I had an early start to get breakfast and be out of the hotel just after 8 to make it up to the cathedral for 8:45 and the start of my day tour out into the Bulgarian countryside… |
| Sunday, 22 October, 2023 |
| Another pre-dawn start to have a quick breakfast and then head into town to pick up my day tour bus… |
| Monday, 23 October, 2023 |
| After several early starts in a row I decided, as I didn’t have much planned, to have a bit of a lie-in… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Tuesday, 23 January, 2024 |
| After work finished for the day I headed over to Heathrow and my hotel for the night… |
| Wednesday, 24 January, 2024 |
| The poor quality of the hotel room continued the following morning in the pretty lacklustre breakfast which I had included in the room rate… |
| Thursday, 25 January, 2024 |
| After a decent nights sleep, and a filling breakfast, I headed out of the hotel via its entrance down onto the beach… |
| Friday, 26 January, 2024 |
| When I’d visited Paphos in late 2022 I’d taken a day trip that included a stop at the ancient city of Kourion… |
| Saturday, 27 January, 2024 |
| I had a later start to the morning, not being amongst the first down for breakfast and consequently was able to sit out on the terrace as they had opened it up for breakfast this morning… |
| Sunday, 28 January, 2024 |
| I think it would be fair to say that there was less to do in Limassol, at least in January, than I’d accounted for in days spent here… |
| Wednesday, 12 October, 2022 |
| I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel so it was a relatively quick, if slightly chilly journey into the airport… |
| Thursday, 13 October, 2022 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and then wandered down to breakfast… |
| Friday, 14 October, 2022 |
| I had to get up relatively early this morning as I was booked on a day tour, and the pickup was at 08:30… |
| Saturday, 15 October, 2022 |
| After the previous days early start I had a bit of a lie in and was quite late down for breakfast… |
| Sunday, 16 October, 2022 |
| I was woken about 3am by a spectacular thunderstorm that was raging across this part of the island… |
| Wednesday, 11 April, 2001 |
| So here I was… |
| Thursday, 12 April, 2001 |
| First day in a new city… |
| Friday, 13 April, 2001 |
| We decided to visit the castle today… |
| Saturday, 14 April, 2001 |
| Back to the castle for a second day… |
| Sunday, 15 April, 2001 |
| First stop for the day was the funicular railway… |
| Monday, 16 April, 2001 |
| One of the more peculiar attractions of Prague is the television tower… |
| Tuesday, 17 April, 2001 |
| For those of you who are of a morbid fascination… |
| Wednesday, 18 April, 2001 |
| After nearly a week in Prague it was sad to be leaving… |
| Saturday, 23 June, 2001 |
| ...After getting back from Prague I met up with some friends from University (my ex-flatmates) in Brighton and chatted about my trip… |
| Saturday, 20 October, 2001 |
| And here we go again… |
| Sunday, 21 October, 2001 |
| With the problem of not knowing your way round a foreign city already disposed of… |
| Monday, 22 October, 2001 |
| After having completed most of the towers in the centre of town… |
| Tuesday, 23 October, 2001 |
| More sightseeing and coffee… |
| Wednesday, 24 October, 2001 |
| Off for another bit of Morbid fascination… |
| Thursday, 25 October, 2001 |
| Up another tower… |
| Friday, 26 October, 2001 |
| Visit to Vysehrad that I hadn't managed to do on the first trip… |
| Saturday, 27 October, 2001 |
| This time as the taxi pulled away I felt that I had finally done justice to the city… |
| Tuesday, 23 July, 2013 |
| The train had been making pretty slow going over the final parts of Germany, which was good for the views and the scenery was stunning, but not so good for its timekeeping… |
| Wednesday, 24 July, 2013 |
| A relatively early Breakfast compared to the previous day and then out for the first stop of the morning the walled fortress at Vysehrad… |
| Thursday, 25 July, 2013 |
| I had a slightly earlier breakfast and headed out of the hotel quickly to get over to the castle early… |
| Friday, 26 July, 2013 |
| I had a couple of hours to spare before my train to Brno, so I headed down into town and over to the Wallenstein Palace and gardens… |
| Friday, 16 December, 2016 |
| Normally the journey to Heathrow takes around 90 minutes to two hours… |
| Saturday, 17 December, 2016 |
| I had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel… |
| Sunday, 18 December, 2016 |
| As it had been a relatively early start the previous day… |
| Monday, 19 December, 2016 |
| As it was a Monday quite a few sites in Prague were closed… |
| Tuesday, 20 December, 2016 |
| I left my bags with the hotel and headed out for a final couple of hours in Prague… |
| Friday, 26 July, 2013 |
| Thankfully I’d checked on line a couple of days earlier so was aware of the ‘alterations’ that were in place… |
| Saturday, 27 July, 2013 |
| Unfortunately, with the temperature quite high and a hotel room with no air-conditioning I didn’t get the greatest of nights sleep… |
| Sunday, 28 July, 2013 |
| If anything Sunday dawned even hotter than Saturday had been, and this was born out after breakfast when I wandered out of the hotel and the first temperature reading I saw was already at 34C… |
| Monday, 29 July, 2013 |
| Even with the fan going at full blast and the window wide open it made no difference and sleep didn’t come…. |
| Friday, 11 March, 2005 |
| After checking in to the hotel I caught the train out to Charlottenbourg. I had a pleasent walk around the grounds of Charlottenbourg Slot (castle) - you can only walk around the grounds as the building is now used for government offices before wandering |
| Saturday, 12 March, 2005 |
| After a leisurly breakfast we set out to wander around the city centre stopping first at the Rådhuspladsen (townhall square) and then moving on down the main padestrianised street into the cenyre of the old town. |
| Sunday, 13 March, 2005 |
| A later start than expected, due to delays in getting everyone together to get out of the hotel. |
| Monday, 14 March, 2005 |
| First stop of the morning is the station to buy some tickets to Roskilde. |
| Tuesday, 15 March, 2005 |
| With Spring starting to set in (i.e. the snow was now falling as rain) we set off for a walk through the city. |
| Wednesday, 16 March, 2005 |
| And so back to the airport, and just time to experience the wonders of the end of the morning rush hour on Danish railways (i.e. lists of canceled trains and lots of delays!) |
| Thursday, 29 July, 2010 |
| From the airport I hopped on the metro all the way to the stop by the hotel and within 30 minutes of stepping off the plane I was checking in to the hotel... |
| Friday, 30 July, 2010 |
| I didn’t sleep particularly well, I’m not certain if it was the noise from the street or the fact the bed was only a couple of inches wider than my body... |
| Saturday, 31 July, 2010 |
| A much better night’s sleep was only interrupted (rudely) by my alarm going off... |
| Sunday, 01 August, 2010 |
| After a quick breakfast I headed back to my room, packed and then made my way out to the airport to catch my flight north... |
| Tuesday, 03 August, 2010 |
| I walked to the hotel, checked in and dropped my stuff off before heading out into the city to do some sightseeing... |
| Wednesday, 04 August, 2010 |
| I had a brief wander around town, mostly trying to find the bus stop for the bus out to the Moesgård Museum... |
| Thursday, 05 August, 2010 |
| I left my luggage in the baggage room at the hotel and wandered into town for a final couple of hours before I had to catch the train out of Århus... |
| Friday, 06 August, 2010 |
| I had intended on having a nice long lie-in and then going for a late breakfast. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be... |
| Sunday, 01 August, 2010 |
| The plane landed ten minutes early and the luggage was round within minutes, but that still didn’t stop us from missing the bus into town... |
| Monday, 02 August, 2010 |
| First stop of the morning, after another hearty breakfast, was the cycle hire shop to pick up a bike for the day... |
| Tuesday, 03 August, 2010 |
| I dropped the bike back to the hire shop early then had some breakfast and packed my bag... |
| Coming Soon… |
| Wednesday, 03 October, 2018 |
| Another week, another work trip – this time to Denmark and I’d been able to tack the weekend on… |
| Friday, 05 October, 2018 |
| After my meeting on Thursday I’d swapped hotels… |
| Saturday, 06 October, 2018 |
| After breakfast I headed out of the Hans Christian Andersen Hotel… |
| Sunday, 07 October, 2018 |
| Bags in the luggage store I headed back out into the city into a brilliantly sunny morning… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Friday, 27 March, 2015 |
| I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel as it was going to be a relatively early flight, and I was very glad I did… |
| Saturday, 28 March, 2015 |
| An early breakfast and then out over to the other side of the city centre to pick up the first tour bus of the morning… |
| Sunday, 29 March, 2015 |
| Breakfast and checkout complete I headed down to the side of the hotel where the tour boats depart from… |
| Monday, 30 March, 2015 |
| The weather had improved marginally on the previous evening so after a long lie-in and a late check out I headed out into town… |
| Thursday, 19 February, 2004 |
| After a very short journey from the airport, navigated totally in German (to my own amazement)… |
| Friday, 20 February, 2004 |
| After a gorgeous breakfast in the hotels breakfast room… |
| Saturday, 21 February, 2004 |
| After another gorgeous breakfast it was off into another clear and cold day… |
| Sunday, 22 February, 2004 |
| After what should have been a very pleasant holiday I made my way back to the airport where I found no record of my flight… |
| Thursday, 16 February, 2006 |
| Today was always going to be a long day, I had not realised it was going to be so long… |
| Friday, 17 February, 2006 |
| Another earlish start as I had to get to Berlin Zoologischer Garten station for my train to Dresden by nine… |
| Saturday, 18 February, 2006 |
| Yet another early start to get to the station, today Leipzig… |
| Sunday, 19 February, 2006 |
| Its Sunday, I am in Berlin and I have already been messed up by an airline this holiday, so it must be time to visit Potsdam… |
| Monday 20 February, 2006 |
| A day spent exploring Berlin's civilian life in both W.W. II and the cold war that followed… |
| Tuesday 21 February, 2006 |
| After having checked out from the hotel and dropped my luggage at Freidrichstraß station… |
| Wednesday, 30 July, 2008 |
| Two things happened as we crossed the border… |
| Thursday, 31 July, 2008 |
| I had set my alarm for late, working on the basis that breakfast was served until 11.. |
| Thursday, 02 August, 2012 |
| From the central station I caught the S-Bahn round one stop… |
| Friday, 03 August, 2012 |
| I had a nice long lie-in and woke up to see that the weather had deteriorated overnight… |
| Saturday, 04 August, 2012 |
| I woke up feeling a lot less stiff than I had expect to do after an afternoons cycling… |
| Sunday, 05 August, 2012 |
| I had a very long lie-in and by the time I got up any idea that I had been cycling the previous day appeared to have gone away… |
| Saturday, 03 August, 2013 |
| Whilst the bus connection at Munich hadn’t changed we were at least only about 5 minutes late landing… |
| Sunday, 04 August, 2013 |
| Breakfast and then check-out… |
| Wednesday, 20 December, 2017 |
| I’d worked from home in the morning, and after clearing the last email I quickly packed my bag and headed to the airport… |
| Thursday, 21 December, 2017 |
| I had intended on having a nice long lie-in and getting a late breakfast… |
| Friday, 22 December, 2017 |
| Thankfully the fire system commissioning had been completed successfully so I was able to have a bit of lie-in… |
| Saturday, 23 December, 2017 |
| I had a bit of lie-in and a late breakfast before checking out of the hotel and heading over towards the East of the city… |
| Friday, 11 February, 2022 |
| I had the afternoon booked off of leave, and had worked out of a hotel near the airport for the morning… |
| Saturday, 12 February, 2022 |
| I had a relaxed breakfast and then headed down into the U-Bahn to catch the U5 line out into the Eastern suburbs of Berlin… |
| Sunday, 13 February, 2022 |
| Breakfast taken and my luggage left with the hotel I headed over to the Humboldt Forum to explore the inside of the building… |
| Friday, 26 August, 2016 |
| I’d worked late earlier in the week so was able to knock off an hour or so early on the Friday afternoon… |
| Saturday, 27 August, 2016 |
| 5:30 came rather too quickly… |
| Sunday, 28 August, 2016 |
| I was up relatively early… |
| Monday, 29 August, 2016 |
| Breakfast completed and my bags packed… |
| Monday, 25 July, 2011 |
| Thankfully, mine wasn’t the Berlin train which was running over 70 minutes late… |
| Tuesday, 26 July, 2011 |
| A quick breakfast and then it was out to the funicular railway that runs up past the castle… |
| Wednesday, 27 July, 2011 |
| I had a couple of hours to kill before my train on to Mainz, so after dropping my luggage off at the station I wandered into town and had a long walk around the old town centre… |
| Friday, 31 March, 2017 |
| Having stayed overnight near City airport meant that I could still be having breakfast in the hotel 90 minutes before departure… |
| Saturday, 01 April, 2017 |
| I had a long lie in and a late breakfast before heading out into town… |
| Sunday, 02 April, 2017 |
| I didn’t have that much time left in Mannheim before I needed to start heading back towards Frankfurt for my flight home… |
| Thursday, 14 July, 2005 |
| After the fortnight from hell (Everyone I work with was under threat of redundancy) I left work safe in the knowledge that my job was safe but with far less time than I wanted to get across London and out to Stansted… |
| Friday, 15 July, 2005 |
| With a leisurely breakfast behind me I caught the U-Bahn into town and went to the Tourist information centre… |
| Saturday, 16 July, 2005 |
| An early breakfast and then off on the S-Bahn to the town of Esslingen… |
| Sunday, 17 July, 2005 |
| An early start to the day to get the train out of town to Hidelberg… |
| Monday, 18 July, 2005 |
| The usual ritual for the last day of a holiday in Germany… |
| Saturday, 23 July, 2011 |
| Heathrow on the first day of the school summer holidays is never a nice place to be… |
| Sunday, 24 July, 2011 |
| After a filling breakfast I headed out into town and straight back out again to Schloß Solitude on the outskirts of the city centre… |
| Monday, 25 July, 2011 |
| Out of the hotel early, dropped luggage off at the main station and then out to the Schloßplatz to join the morning bus tour of the city… |
| Friday, 01 October, 2004 |
| After an early flight and an early arrival in Munich we dropped off our bags at the hotel… |
| Saturday, 02 October, 2004 |
| Saturday morning and it was an early start to get to the Oktoberfest early so that we could get a table… |
| Sunday, 03 October, 2004 |
| Sunday dawned clear and sunny… |
| Monday, 04 October, 2004 |
| After checking out of the hotel and dumping our bags in the lockers at Munich station we headed into the centre of town and to the Marienplatz… |
| Friday, 30 September, 2005 |
| With a tear (crocodile) in my eyes I left work at 11 a.m. with queues starting to develop at all the service points to head off to the airport… |
| Saturday, 01 October, 2005 |
| Oktoberfest Day meant an appalling 6:30 alarm call to make early breakfast and then a walk to the Oktoberfest site about 1 mile away… |
| Sunday, 02 October, 2005 |
| With the others nursing hangovers (what a surprise on only 14 hours of drinking!)… |
| Monday, 03 October, 2005 |
| An early start for the morning and off to the Hauptbahnhof to catch the train over the border into Salzburg in Austria… |
| Tuesday, 04 October, 2005 |
| My friends had to catch the 7 a.m. flight back to Gatwick, so at something horrible AM they left the hostel… |
| Wednesday, 05 October, 2005 |
| With more breakfast than was probably wise inside me I headed off to the Hauptbahnhof… |
| Thursday, 06 October, 2005 |
| After another massive breakfast I checked out and headed out to the airport… |
| Wednesday, 15 April, 2009 |
| Having landed and made it through the airport in record time, I arrived in the city centre and hopped onto a tram to the hotel… |
| Thursday, 16 April, 2009 |
| An early start, out to the station and onto the train to Garmisch-Partenkirchen up in the Bavarian Alps… |
| Friday, 17 April, 2009 |
| The weather forecast for Friday hadn’t been good… |
| Saturday, 18 April, 2009 |
| Saturday, like Friday was supposed to be a bit miserable in the morning… |
| Sunday, 19 April, 2009 |
| I had had great plans for going on another walking tour, or taking in one of the many other museums in the city which I had not yet seen… |
| Friday, 19 December, 2014 |
| Last day in work before Christmas and it was either going to drag until lunch, or I was going to end up in a frantic rush… |
| Saturday, 20 December, 2014 |
| A long lie-in and a large breakfast meant that by the time I finally left the hotel and started to make a move towards the city it was already long gone 11am… |
| Sunday, 21 December, 2014 |
| Having not really done very much the previous day I decided I was going to hit the high-culture today… |
| Monday, 22 December, 2014 |
| I had another massive breakfast and then headed out into Munich… |
| Tuesday, 23 December, 2014 |
| Breakfast completed and checked out of the hotel I headed into town to deposit my luggage in the lockers at the Ostbahnhof… |
| Sunday, 20 December 2009 |
| For the last couple of years I have been going to Belgium just before Christmas. Thankfully I didn’t this year... |
| Monday, 21 December, 2009 |
| With a “full-German” breakfast inside me I headed out into the snow to take the tram out to my first destination of the day... |
| Tuesday, 22 December, 2009 |
| Another filling breakfast under my rapidly tightening belt and I headed out towards the city centre. |
| Wednesday, 23 December, 2009 |
| I checked out of the hotel, chucked my bags into a left luggage locker and hopped on the train out of Nuremberg for a day-trip to Bamberg... |
| Thursday, 31 March, 2021 |
| The original plan was to work until the late afternoon and then get a cab over to the airport for my evening flight over to Munich… |
| Friday, 01 April, 2021 |
| I worked out of the airport hotel until midday and then quickly hopped onto a bus over to Terminal 3… |
| Saturday, 02 April, 2022 |
| After breakfast in the hotel I headed out into town to explore… |
| Sunday, 03 April, 2022 |
| I had a quick breakfast and checked out of the hotel… |
| Monday, 04 April, 2022 |
| My alarm woke me up as planned and after a quick shower and checkout I was at the bus stop with a couple of minutes to spare… |
| Thursday, 14 December, 2023 |
| When I’d originally booked the trip, nearly a year earlier, I had a late night flight from Heathrow over to Frankfurt… |
| Friday, 15 December, 2023 |
| I had a relaxed start to the morning and headed over to the station with plenty of time to catch my 11:30 train for the first of three legs to get over to Rothenburg… |
| Saturday, 16 December, 2023 |
| Whilst the hotel was very comfortable and warm, and the breakfasts were excellent, the pillows or more importantly pillow was a major downside… |
| Sunday, 17 December, 2023 |
| A second slightly unsuccessful nights sleep mostly down to the worlds worst pillow, but helped by another strong coffee… |
| Thursday, 08 December, 2022 |
| I made it to the airport just as the evening rush was subsiding so the queues for security were pretty lengthy… |
| Friday, 09 December, 2022 |
| I worked out of the hotel in Frankfurt in the morning and then headed over to the station to catch my train over to Würzburg… |
| Saturday, 10 December, 2022 |
| After a leisurely breakfast I headed out of the hotel and wandered over to the tram stop to get a day ticket… |
| Sunday, 11 December, 2022 |
| I had another late breakfast and then checked out of the hotel before heading into the neighbouring parklands… |
| Monday, 12 December, 2022 |
| The original plan for the day was to get up about 7am, have a quick breakfast, catch a train from the nearby Ostbahnhof just before 8… |
| Friday, 20 May, 2005 |
| Most of the day spent travelling. Despite having checked in the previous afternoon from home, I still arrived at Heathrow almost 2 hours before departure (I don't trust London's traffic!) Very fast through checkin, just dropping my bag off in the hope t |
| Saturday, 21 May, 2005 |
| As breakfast was being served till late, I took advantage and slept in until gone nine. After a hearty meal I headed next door to the hauptbahnhof to catch the train to Oldenburg. |
| Sunday, 22 May, 2005 |
| A slightly earlier start to the day failed to materialise so I ended up getting the same train as Saturday from Bremen to Oldenburg. |
| Monday, 23 May, 2005 |
| Monday's in continental Europe need planning. I'm sure if you've read any other entries you have seen my experiences of finding things to do on a European Monday, especially in Germany. Today was going to be different, because I had put off to today all |
| Tuesday, 24 May, 2005 |
| An early start today as I wanted to go to Lübeck. Originally I was thinking of spending the day in Hamburg, where you have to change trains to get to Lübeck, but there is so much to do there that I thought I would leave that for a separate holiday. |
| Wednesday, 25 May, 2005 |
| Last day in Bremen and with still a lot to visit and do. First stop of the morning, after checking out of the hotel and dropping my bags off in the left luggage lockers at the station, was a walk around the former defences of the city. The centre of the |
| Friday, 23 July, 2004 |
| German efficiency as ever got me to the hotel far quicker that it took me to get from Work to Gatwick, even if it was a similar distance. After checking in and unpacking I wandered in towards the centre of the town, with the intention of visiting the Main |
| Saturday, 24 July, 2004 |
| After the cloudbursts of last night it was almost fitting that Saturday should dawn with barely a cloud in the sky. First stop of the morning after Breakfast was back to the Römer and to look at one of the oldest surviving churches in the city the Alte Ni |
| Sunday, 25 July, 2004 |
| Final day in Frankfurt and after depositing my luggage at the station I caught the S-Bahn out to Höchst in the Western suburbs of Frankfurt. |
| Friday, 17 December, 2010 |
| The weather forecast had been pretty OK, with snow not forecast until late afternoon, so I was a little perturbed to look out of the window at work a bit before midday to witness a blizzard whipping across Croydon… |
| Tuesday, 20 December, 2011 |
| To minimise the potential delay we were facing because of snow at Frankfurt the Pilot decided to take the slow and winding taxi route down to the far end of the airfield… |
| Wednesday, 21 December, 2011 |
| Out early to head out to the Roman fort at Saalburg and to have a short walk along the Limes, the German equivalent of Hadrian’s wall… |
| Thursday, 22 December, 2011 |
| I wandered out of the hotel into a slightly damp morning and headed over to the Archaeological museum to have a look around that… |
| Friday, 23 December, 2011 |
| After checking out of the hotel and dropping off my luggage at the station I headed back out to the front of the station and caught the hop-on-hop-off sightseeing tour from the front of the station for a tour of the city from a different angle… |
| Friday, 04 September, 2020 |
| In the original plan I had a late night flight from Heathrow, but that plan had been put together in October 2019… |
| Saturday, 05 September, 2020 |
| I hadn’t realised the night before that the hotel had only re-opened after its Covid closure that lunchtime and I was amongst the first guests to check-in… |
| Sunday, 06 September, 2020 |
| I grabbed another makeshift breakfast from the station and, after consuming it, checked out from the hotel… |
| Friday, 23 September, 2022 |
| After the last experience of getting a cab over to London City Airport I’d left quite a bit of extra time… |
| Saturday, 24 September, 2022 |
| I had a decent nights sleep and a good lie in before wandering down for a late breakfast and then heading out of the hotel to pick up the bus to my first stop of the morning at the Neroberg… |
| Sunday, 25 September, 2022 |
| I had another lie in and a late start, and after checking out headed over to the Hauptbahnhof to put my bag into the luggage lockers there… |
| Friday, 15 June, 2007 |
| Checkin was due to open at Gatwick at 6. This means being on the 5:53 train from East Croydon, and this always meant getting the 4:45 night bus from home… |
| Saturday, 16 June, 2007 |
| Taking advantage of the free use of an umbrella that each room is equipped with I ventured out into Hamburg… |
| Sunday, 17 June, 2007 |
| Most of today was to be spent travelling… |
| Monday, 18 June, 2007 |
| I finished breakfast and checked out of the hotel and, as per usual, put my luggage into the left luggage lockers at one of Hamburg’s many stations… |
| Friday, 20 September, 2019 |
| Throughout the afternoon I’d had a series of texts from easyJet telling me that my flight was going to be delayed and checking online showed that this delay was increasing as each hour went by… |
| Saturday, 21 September, 2019 |
| I had a bit of a lie-in and a late-ish breakfast before heading out of the hotel and heading over to Landungsbrücken to pick up one of the open-top bus tours around the city... |
| Sunday, 22 September, 2019 |
| I had intended on getting up earlier than I eventually did… |
| Tuesday, 24 July, 2012 |
| I needn’t have worried too much about sticking out a like a sore thumb, as after my little episode with the passport checks someone got on at a stop further down the line and proceeded to much on raw garlic… |
| Wednesday, 25 July, 2012 |
| First stop of the morning was the Hauptbahnhof to pick up tickets for the following day and then down into town for some sightseeing… |
| Thursday, 26 July, 2012 |
| I was out early to head to the station and off up to the island of Rügen off the Baltic coast of Germany… |
| Friday, 27 July, 2012 |
| I checked out of the hotel and took the tram over to the Hauptbahnhof to drop off my bags before heading back into town… |
| Friday, 27 July, 2012 |
| I arrived in Schwerin and walked to the hotel (it turned out via the long way)… |
| Saturday, 28 July, 2012 |
| Breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel and down to the lakeside to pick up the open-top tour bus of the city for a look around… |
| Sunday, 29 July, 2012 |
| In the end, at about 4am after failing to get any sleep I decided I had to give up and open the window and accept that sleep would be accompanied by bites… |
| Thursday, 07 September, 2023 |
| I was starting to get convinced that any attempt to get to Braunschweig was doomed to failure… |
| Friday, 08 September, 2023 |
| I had a relatively early breakfast before heading out of the hotel and back over to Hannover Hauptbahnhof to pick up my train over to Braunschweig… |
| Saturday, 09 September, 2023 |
| I had a bit of a lie in as none of the museums I wanted to visit opened before 11am… |
| Sunday, 10 September, 2023 |
| I only had a little bit of time before I needed to start making the journey home… |
| Friday, 05 November, 2004 |
| To get an impression of the city I started by following the walking route around the city stopping off at the Kestner Museum. This has an eclectic collection of artefacts ranging from ancient Greece & Egypt to modern art & contemporary design. The buildin |
| Saturday, 06 November, 2004 |
| After a leisurely breakfast the first stop of the day was the town internationally famous for it's rat problem, Hameln (Hamelin). |
| Sunday, 07 November, 2004 |
| Sunday in the end proved to be a bit of a disappointing day. |
| Monday, 08 November, 2004 |
| After checking out of the hotel & leaving my bags at the left-luggage lockers I headed out to do some final sight-seeing before the flight home. |
| Friday, 18 September, 2020 |
| When I originally booked this trip back last December I had an afternoon flight from Gatwick to Geneva… |
| Saturday, 19 September, 2020 |
| First stop of the morning, after breakfast, was to walk through the station to the square in front of the Hauptbahnhof… |
| Sunday, 20 September, 2020 |
| I checked out of the hotel and headed over to the Hauptbahnhof to both drop off my luggage and to pick up a day ticket for the wider region transport… |
| Friday, 28 August, 2020 |
| As it was an early evening flight I finished work a little early and headed down to Gatwick… |
| Saturday, 29 August, 2020 |
| Given the checkin time for my hotel in Aachen I had intended on having a bit of lie in and taking a late morning train over… |
| Sunday, 30 August, 2020 |
| I actually managed to get a bit of a lie-in this morning – with no dawn chorus of bells filling my room at an ungodly hour… |
| Monday, 31 August, 2020 |
| The rain had continued hammering most of the night and was still going strong when I woke up a little after 8am… |
| Thursday, 08 July, 2010 |
| An utterly uneventful journey across to Bonn, apart from the long queues at immigration where they were questioning everyone entering the country... |
| Friday, 09 July, 2010 |
| Had I realised first thing how warm today was going to get I might have moderated the speed with which I attacked things at first... |
| Saturday, 10 July, 2010 |
| I had a leisurely breakfast and then set out into the wall of heat that met me as I opened the door of the hotel... |
| Sunday, 11 July, 2010 |
| An early checkout as there was still quite a bit I wanted to see... |
| Friday, 30 April, 2010 |
| The flight landed on time in Dusseldorf at 16:45, this of course meant that I would have to negotiate my way from the airport via the central station to my hotel at the height of the rush hour... |
| Saturday, 1 May, 2010 |
| There is a problem with a very good hotel with exceptionally comfortable beds... |
| Sunday, 2 May, 2010 |
| Another relatively late start and it was almost 11 by the time I finally left the hotel, which proved to be to my advantage, as all the trams were really messed up... |
| Monday, 3 May, 2010 |
| It’s Monday, so Europe is closed!... |
| Saturday, 11 January 2020 |
| Originally I’d booked the hotel at Heathrow as I was supposed to be going on a work trip, but that got cancelled a couple of weeks earlier… |
| Sunday, 12 January, 2020 |
| I had a really good nights sleep, waking just after 8am… |
| Saturday, 17 April, 2004 |
| At one point I thought we might be taxing all the way to Germany as the plane wandered round Heathrow for nearly 30 minutes before finally taking off. |
| Sunday, 18 April, 2004 |
| An early start to the day and off to the cathedral. As there was a service in progress I took the opportunity to climb to the top of the tower, all 507 steps, including going past the main bells of the cathedral. After taking in the views from the top I c |
| Monday, 19 April, 2004 |
| Monday was an early start to get to the Station so I could catch an early train to Aarchen, on the border with Belgium and Netherlands, once the most important city in the known world during the reign of Charlemagne (Circa 794AD). |
| Tuesday, 20 April, 2004 |
| After checking out of the hotel and depositing my luggage in the scarily high-tech left luggage lockers at the Hauptbahnhof, I got the tram out to the Zoo to pick up the Rhine Cable Car. |
| Monday, 18 December, 2006 |
| After landing in Dusseldorf and getting the train down to Cologne, I checked into the hotel and then went into town for a wander… |
| Tuesday, 19 December, 2006 |
| Following a pig out at breakfast, I wandered down to the tram stop and caught the tram into town and onto the Hauptbahnhof… |
| Wednesday, 20 December, 2006 |
| Wuppertal doesn't actually exist… |
| Thursday, 21 December, 2006 |
| Time to complete a Roman hat trick this morning… |
| Friday, 22 December, 2006 |
| I checked out of the hotel and walked the short distance to the station to pick up the train to Düsseldorf… |
| Thursday, 04 August, 2011 |
| Thankfully the train pulled into Köln Hauptbahnhof on platform 1, so it was a simple walk off the platform onto the Cathedral terrace, then down a short flight of steps to the hotel… |
| Friday, 05 August, 2011 |
| After a late breakfast I headed over to the station to catch the train out to Aachen… |
| Saturday, 06 August, 2011 |
| After a long lie in and a late breakfast I headed out into town for a wander around… |
| Sunday, 07 August, 2011 |
| After checking out of the hotel and leaving my bags in the left luggage office I caught the train out to the small town of Brühl about half way between Cologne and Bonn… |
| Friday, 15 June, 2018 |
| I’d stayed overnight in an airport hotel as it was a relatively early flight… |
| Saturday, 16 June, 2018 |
| I had a nice long lie in and a quiet breakfast before heading out of the hotel and over to the cathedral to pick up the open-top tour bus… |
| Sunday, 17 June, 2018 |
| Given it was going to be a long journey at the end of the day… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Thursday, 21 September, 2023 |
| Another Thursday evening flight from Heathrow and once again I took advantage of my lunch break to head over to an airport hotel to work out of… |
| Friday, 22 September, 2023 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and a later breakfast before heading back to my room to pack my bags and head downstairs into the station to pick up my train out to Wuppertal… |
| Saturday, 23 September, 2023 |
| After a decent night sleep and a good breakfast I headed out of the hotel to head over to the city’s gallery and museum the Von de Heydt Museum… |
| Sunday, 24 September, 2023 |
| I had a relatively early start, mostly because the queues for breakfast the previous day had been quite big and I’d wanted to avoid that again… |
| Friday, 29 July, 2011 |
| Whilst this train was at least on time for it’s journey, that didn’t make up for the fact that it was absolutely packed… |
| Saturday, 30 July, 2011 |
| Today was about visiting the Horticultural show… |
| Sunday, 31 July, 2011 |
| First stop of the morning was the station and the train south a little way down the Rhine Gorge to the town of Boppard… |
| Monday, 01 August, 2011 |
| I had an early breakfast and then headed down to the riverside to take another of the tours that operate from the piers on the Rhine… |
| Wednesday, 27 July, 2011 |
| Given that the train was already 5 minutes late by the time it reached Heidelberg things weren’t looking too good for the myth of the efficient German trains… |
| Thursday, 28 July, 2011 |
| By the time I woke up the storm had cleared and the sun was just starting to break through the clouds… |
| Friday, 29 July, 2011 |
| After a quick breakfast and pack I checked out of the hotel and dropped my bags off at the station before hopping on a bus round to the Guttenberg museum… |
| Monday, 01 August, 2011 |
| By the time I arrived in Trier the temperatures, which had been climbing through the morning, showed no intention of stopping, and as I stepped off of the train I was hit by a wall of heat… |
| Tuesday, 02 August, 2011 |
| I was up early as I wanted to get out to the small town of Cochem before the worst of its onslaught of tourists turned up… |
| Wednesday, 04 August, 2011 |
| First stop of the morning was the open-top bus stop… |
| Thursday, 05 August, 2011 |
| I had a quick breakfast and, after a much speedier checkout than the one a couple of days earlier in Koblenz, headed into town to take in the last couple of sights… |
| Friday, 11 November, 2016 |
| I’d travelled down to an airport hotel the previous evening as I had an early flight… |
| Saturday, 12 November, 2016 |
| I had a nice long lie-in to make up for the early start the previous day… |
| Sunday, 13 November, 2016 |
| I had a quick breakfast, checked out of the hotel and put my luggage in a locker at the station before heading off into town… |
| Wednesday, 11 April, 2012 |
| With an earlyish flight in the morning, I had booked into the hotel attached to Terminal 5 so that I could get a bit of a lie-in… |
| Thursday, 12 April, 2012 |
| Normally, with a flight from Heathrow it’s a 90 minute commute across London, which for an 08:30 check-in time would have been through the most packed part of the rush hour… |
| Friday, 13 April, 2012 |
| With a massive breakfast inside me I headed out from the hotel over to the station to pick up the train towards the North… |
| Saturday, 14 April, 2012 |
| After a late start (I thought I’d hit snooze on the alarm clock, but had actually switched it off), I headed out to the station to pick up the train south to the town of Lüneburg… |
| Sunday, 15 April, 2012 |
| After breakfast I headed into town to “do” Lübeck and started by visiting the museum in the Holstentor… |
| Monday, 16 April, 2012 |
| After packing I headed over to the station and caught the train back to Hamburg, where I dumped my luggage in the lockers at the station and headed out into the city for a couple of hours before I had to head back to the airport… |
| Thursday, 15 October, 2020 |
| I had a half day’s leave and as soon as the laptop was powered down I headed to the airport… |
| Friday, 16 October, 2020 |
| Breakfast in the hotel was a slightly odd affair… |
| Saturday, 17 October, 2020 |
| Breakfast this morning had to be ordered in advance and was delivered to me in the restaurant on a tray … |
| Sunday, 18 October, 2020 |
| I woke up to a thick fog blanketing the city, with the opposite side of the river barely visible from my hotel room… |
| Friday, 19 July, 2013 |
| As it was an earlish flight in the morning from Heathrow I’d decided to stay overnight at an airport hotel to make the following morning a little less stressful… |
| Saturday, 20 July, 2013 |
| Waking up at the same time as checkin was due to open is made so much less stressful when you are only five minutes’ walk from said checkin… |
| Sunday, 21 July, 2013 |
| Woken early by a blazing sun shining through the floor to ceiling windows in my hotel room, I had a large breakfast and then headed down to the centre of town… |
| Monday, 22 July, 2013 |
| A surprisingly busy late breakfast which ended up taking longer than expected as I had to queue for everything… |
| Tuesday, 23 July, 2013 |
| My train was booked for 11:08 which meant I didn’t really have enough time to do anything in Dresden before needing to check out and head off, so I took advantage of an extra-long lie-in and being one of the last people down into Breakfast… |
| Friday, 04 April, 2014 |
| An earlyish flight from Heathrow so I’d stayed over the previous evening at an airport hotel… |
| Saturday, 05 April, 2014 |
| However, around 1am I was woken by a shooting pain in the muscles at the back of my knee and no matter how I tried to lie down, sit down, stand up or walk around I couldn’t find any position that was comfortable for more than about 10 minutes… |
| Sunday, 06 April, 2014 |
| I woke after a decent nights sleep with no pain in my leg, so I decided that was a good enough sign to take in a lot of stairs… |
| Monday, 07 April, 2014 |
| I was booked on a train out of Leipzig before 10, so I had to get up and have an early breakfast before checking out and heading over to the station… |
| Sunday, 29 July, 2012 |
| Just under two hours and 200Km later and you wouldn’t have known that the weather had been so bad earlier… |
| Monday, 30 July, 2012 |
| After a restless night caused by an annoying mosquito in the room, that I finally managed to kill just after midnight… |
| Tuesday, 31 July, 2012 |
| After breakfast and packing I headed out briefly into town to enjoy the last hour or so in the city before I was due to head on to Erfurt… |
| Tuesday, 31 July, 2012 |
| I caught the tram from the station over to the hotel, checked in and then headed back out into the city… |
| Wednesday, 01 August, 2012 |
| I had a large breakfast before heading out for a day’s sightseeing, with the first stop being the hefty climb up to the Citadel that overlooks the city… |
| Thursday, 02 August, 2012 |
| Following another spectacular breakfast I popped back to my room, packed the remainder of my stuff and then checked out of the hotel and headed to the station… |
| Friday, 21 July, 2006 |
| I was catching the same flight to Helsinki as I had last year… |
| Saturday, 22 July, 2006 |
| Sadly my early night didn't have much effect as by midnight I had gone down with some kind of bug… |
| Sunday, 23 July, 2006 |
| After breakfast I caught the tram round to "Fat Margaret" gate on the city walls… |
| Monday, 24 July, 2006 |
| Most of the morning was spent taking in the sights of Tallinn and the surrounding countryside from the top decks of three different hop-on-hop-off busses… |
| Tuesday, 25 July, 2006 |
| My concerns the previous evening about the weather were partly about not getting photos, but also quite heavily about the fact that I had booked to go on a three hour bike tour of the city… |
| Wednesday, 26 July, 2006 |
| Finishing breakfast I quickly packed my bag and ordered a cab to the airport for my flight back to Helsinki… |
| Monday, 12 August, 2002 |
| If you get a clear day the flight over to Ireland is spectacular and sitting on the left hand side I got an unparalleled view of where I had been only a couple of months earlier. Being able to trace the route from London to mid-Wales accurately as we flew |
| Tuesday, 13 August, 2002 |
| Tuesday was my day for doing Cork. |
| Wednesday, 14 August, 2002 |
| Up bright and early to do two places today. Blarney and Midleton. |
| Thursday, 15 August, 2002 |
| Thursday and it must be Kinsale. |
| Friday, 16 August, 2002 |
| Friday and It's Cobh (pronounced Cove). |
| Saturday, 17 August, 2002 |
| After two days of sunshine (and for the second year on the trot getting sunburned in Ireland) the weather broke and I got the bus out to the airport in a prolonged drizzle. |
| Thursday, 30 July, 2009 |
| The bus pulled into the new bus station in Cork 10 minutes early, and that wasn’t the only surprise… |
| Friday, 31 July, 2009 |
| I had a little bit of time to spare after breakfast before my train north to Dublin, but it was raining quite heavily, so I got the open-top bus tour… |
| Saturday, 18 August, 2001 |
| As I landed in Dublin for my first ever tip by myself I found that it was going to be a "soft" day (i.e. pissing it down). |
| Sunday, 19 August, 2001 |
| When you only have 2 days in which to cram the whole of Dublin into your itinerary there is no time for lying in and waiting around. First task of the morning go on one of the open top bus tours. These are useful for a number of reasons |
| Monday, 20 August, 2001 |
| 1 Day down and just a couple of hours left until the flight back home required yet more rush sightseeing. |
| Sunday, 06 April, 2008 |
| Waking up on a Sunday morning to snow would normally be a good thing, when you are intending on flying it is not such a good thing. |
| Monday, 07 April, 2008 |
| Up and out quite early as I had booked to go on a coach tour to the Neolithic tombs at Newgrange. |
| Tuesday, 08 April, 2008 |
| Another tour today, though this time the pick-up was just around the corner from the hotel. |
| Wednesday, 09 April, 2008 |
| I packed my bags, grabbed a quick breakfast and then walked down to Busáras to leave it in the luggage lockers. |
| Friday, 31 July, 2009 |
| Nearly three hours after leaving Cork the train pulled into Heuston station in Dublin… |
| Saturday, 01 August, 2009 |
| I had a quick breakfast and then negotiated the walk ways over the motor-way back to the tram stop. |
| Friday, 17 February, 2017 |
| I’d been at a conference for work for the previous couple of days… |
| Saturday, 18 February, 2017 |
| Breakfast was very busy and slightly rushed as there weren’t nearly enough tables for the number of people who wanted to eat… |
| Sunday, 19 February, 2017 |
| If anything, the breakfast this morning was even more chaotic and busier than the previous day… |
| Sunday, 26 July, 2009 |
| The journey may have been uneventful from Derry, but you couldn’t say the same about the weather… |
| Monday, 27 July, 2009 |
| I caught the bus into town and headed to the tourist office to book up for a tour the following day, get some postcards, and then pick up one of the many open-top tours that run in Galway… |
| Tuesday, 28 July, 2009 |
| I checked out of the hotel and took my luggage down to the left luggage office at the train station, then walked the short distance to the coach station to join my day tour of Connemara… |
| Tuesday, 28 July, 2009 |
| Just over two hours after leaving Galway the coach pulled into Limerick station and I got off, recovered my luggage from the luggage compartment… |
| Wednesday, 29 July, 2009 |
| I headed out from the hotel in the direction of the waterfront as a quick look at the map showed that most of the attractions that the city had to offer were on the river… |
| Thursday, 30 July, 2009 |
| After a decent breakfast I packed my bags and wandered the short distance from the hotel up to the bus station to catch the bus onto my next stop, Cork… |
| Tuesday, 03 August, 2004 |
| After a delayed flight into Cork, I landed into the fine rain of a typical Irish summer. Waited 20 minutes for the bus into town and then made my way from the bus station to the hotel. After checking in and grabbing a bite to eat I had a quick wander arou |
| Wednesday, 04 August, 2004 |
| Wednesday was the first of two coach tours that I had booked myself onto, both run by Bus Éireann the state bus company. |
| Thursday, 05 August, 2004 |
| Second coach tour, this time to the Cliffs of Moher. First stop though was Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, located just outside Ennis (The capital of County Clare). The Folk Park is based around the well preserved castle and have a collection of "Typical I |
| Friday, 06 August, 2004 |
| For the fist time I had planned a holiday that was in more than one location so Friday was spent travelling. It shouldn't have taken all day, but in the end, thanks to a massive traffic jam on the motorway outside Dublin the coach ended up taking over 6 h |
| Saturday, 07 August, 2004 |
| Saturday morning and I caught the open top bus out to Kilmainham Jail. The Jail is only viewable by going on one of the guided tours, but are well worth waiting for as it gives a very moving insight into the state of conditions that prisoners where held i |
| Sunday, 08 August, 2004 |
| The original plan for Sunday was to check out of the hotel, drop my bags at Busáras, and wander around Dublin until mid afternoon before getting the bus to Kilkenny. Unfortunately the Irish weather conspired against me and by 11am I was starting to get qu |
| Monday, 09 August, 2004 |
| First stop on Monday was going to be St Mary's Cathedral, but it was closed for a service so I took the opportunity to wander down to the castle and booked myself onto a tour for the late afternoon. |
| Tuesday, 10 August, 2004 |
| After packing my bags, again!, I wandered up to the station and caught the Intercity Express (1 hour to go 30 miles - the Irish view of express differs to most other peoples!) to Waterford. After dropping my bags off at the station I wandered over the mai |
| Wednesday, 11 August, 2004 |
| So for the final time this holiday I checked out of the hotel and wandered over to the bus station. Caught the bus out to the airport and got the plane home, which - like the start of the holiday - was delayed for no apparent reason! |
| Tuesday, 13 March, 2012 |
| For once an utterly uneventful trip to the airport (other than the usual rush hour crush) and bang on departure time the fully loaded plane pushed back… |
| Wednesday, 14 March, 2012 |
| After a massive breakfast I checked out of the hotel and headed for Atocha station and my train south through the centre of Spain… |
| Thursday, 15 March, 2012 |
| After a quick breakfast I headed out to the bus stop on the main road to catch the coach tour out from the city to the Madinat al-Zahra… |
| Friday, 16 March, 2012 |
| With breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel and down to the Mezquita to have a look around… |
| Saturday, 17 March, 2012 |
| I’d pretty much done most things that Cordoba had to offer, so I had a bit of a lie in and after a late started headed out into town visiting Casa Andalusí… |
| Sunday, 18 March, 2012 |
| After a quick breakfast and packing it was time to head out to the station and the train back north to Madrid… |
| Thursday, 16 March, 2017 |
| Having worked from home in the morning I was on a lunchtime train up to Clapham… |
| Friday, 17 March, 2017 |
| Up early for breakfast and to checkout so that I could get the shuttle bus back to the airport… |
| Saturday, 18 March, 2017 |
| I had a quick breakfast in the hotel before heading out across the square to the Cathedral… |
| Sunday, 19 March, 2017 |
| Breakfast completed I headed out to pick up the morning tour bus… |
| Monday, 20 March, 2017 |
| I had to get up for the early breakfast as I had a long day travelling due to lots of poor connections… |
| Wednesday, 11 March, 2008 |
| I’d stayed in a hotel in central London overnight so that I could get up later to catch the train out to Stansted, rather than having to catch a night bus… |
| Thursday, 12 March, 2009 |
| After a less than filling breakfast I headed out from the hotel for a morning walk through the Albaicín… |
| Friday, 13 March, 2009 |
| Today was going to be about the Alhambra… |
| Saturday, 14 March, 2009 |
| After a quick breakfast I grabbed my things and headed to the bus station to go to Jaén for the day… |
| Sunday, 15 March, 2009 |
| Another early start and out to the station to catch the train down to the coastal city of Almería… |
| Monday, 16 March, 2009 |
| A quick breakfast and then it was time to check out, catch the airport bus and head home… |
| Wednesday, 09 March, 2010 |
| In spite of being five minutes late pushing back, and the usual queue to get onto the runway at Heathrow, the plane touched down in Madrid 20 minutes early… |
| Thursday, 10 March, 2011 |
| A quick breakfast down I caught the shuttle bus out to the airport to check in for my flight down to Jerez… |
| Friday, 11 March, 2011 |
| After a filling breakfast I headed back into town, this time taking the bus up the hill, arriving at the Cathedral a few minutes before it was due to open… |
| Saturday, 12 March, 2011 |
| I just about managed to make it to the bus stop shelter before the first hefty downpour of the morning fell… |
| Sunday, 13 March, 2011 |
| The carnival celebrations were due to kick off at 3pm today, so I thought I would stand a much better chance of seeing some of them… |
| Monday, 14 March, 2011 |
| After breakfast and checking out I walked over to the bus stop and caught the bus back into town… |
| Friday, 12 March, 2010 |
| In spite of the terminal transit being upgraded at Gatwick and having to catch a bus from the station to the North Terminal, I was walking up to the checkin desks less than 30 minutes after leaving my desk at work... |
| Saturday, 13 March, 2010 |
| Having taken on and defeated the impressive breakfast that Ibis laid on, I headed out into the city... |
| Sunday, 14 March, 2010 |
| A very leisurely start to the day and I finally emerged from the hotel just after 11 to have a wander around town for a while... |
| Monday, 15 March, 2010 |
| Another slow breakfast, and after checking out of the hotel, a leisurely walk along the riverside to the open-top bus tour bus stop... |
| Sunday, 09 March, 2008 |
| The flight landed a full half-hour earlier than it was scheduled to… |
| Monday, 10 March, 2008 |
| If the Sevillians have an earlier attitude towards dinner than their countrymen in Madrid, then the same could not be said for Breakfast… |
| Tuesday, 11 March, 2008 |
| With a repeat of the Phantom Driller and a decent breakfast I headed out of the hotel and back to the river and the Torre del Oro… |
| Wednesday, 12 March, 2008 |
| This morning the Phantom Driller was not around so I managed to get an extra hour in bed… |
| Wednesday, 11 March, 2015 |
| With a very early flight I’d booked into a hotel at Heathrow for the night and so to much grumbling from commuters about someone bringing a bag onto their train I made my way over to the airport through the evening rush hour… |
| Thursday, 12 March, 2015 |
| For once I’d actually asked the hotel for a wake-up call as I thought there was a chance I might not wake up of my own accord… |
| Friday, 13 March, 2015 |
| I had a nice long lie in and eventually made it down to breakfast gone 10 to discover I had the whole of the breakfast room to myself with most people clearly having eaten earlier… |
| Saturday, 14 March, 2015 |
| A slightly less excessive lie-in meant that the breakfast room was actually quite busy by the time I got down… |
| Sunday, 15 March, 2015 |
| With the train not due to leave until 13:40 I would normally have got up relatively early checked out and tried to see some more of the city… |
| Thursday, 14 March, 2024 |
| With a late evening flight, I was able to finish work at the normal time and then head down to Gatwick… |
| Friday, 15 March, 2024 |
| The hotel I was staying in was a very business oriented one… |
| Saturday, 16 March, 2024 |
| The bed in the hotel room turned out to not be that comfortable… |
| Sunday, 17 March, 2024 |
| As my coach back to Madrid was booked for 1pm, and I didn’t have to check out until midday… |
| Thursday, 10 March, 2022 |
| I’d stayed overnight near the airport as it was a very early flight from Heathrow… |
| Friday, 11 March, 2022 |
| I had an early breakfast as I had two tours booked for today, with the first one picking up at 9am… |
| Saturday, 12 March, 2022 |
| I had to be up and at breakfast for when it opened as I had an 8am pickup for a jeep safari to the south of the island… |
| Sunday, 13 March, 2022 |
| If the tour the previous day had been an example of how not to organise things then my booked tour for today, to Lobos island a nature reserve just off the coast of Corralejo, was a model in how to do things right… |
| Monday, 14 March, 2022 |
| Another early start and down by the doors of the restaurant before they had even opened so I could have a quick breakfast, go back to my room, grab my bags and checkout… |
| Saturday, 23 February, 2019 |
| I’d stayed the night before in an airport hotel as it was a relatively early flight… |
| Sunday, 24 February, 2019 |
| I had a filling breakfast in the hotels top-floor restaurant, before heading back to the open-top bus tour starting point and taking the bus round towards the cathedral… |
| Monday, 25 February, 2019 |
| Another really good breakfast and a walk over to the tour bus stop to catch the bus round to the Cathedral… |
| Tuesday, 26 February, 2019 |
| I only had a couple of hours before I had to head back to the airport so after an early breakfast I caught the local bus round to the Castillo de la Luz… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Monday, 22 November, 2021 |
| I finished work a little earlier than normal and headed over to the airport… |
| Tuesday, 23 November, 2021 |
| The hotel turned out to be a bad choice as the bed was about a solid as a block of concrete… |
| Wednesday, 24 November, 2021 |
| I had a day tour booked to take in the key sights of the island, which had a very early pickup… |
| Thursday, 25 November, 2021 |
| I was able to have a bit of a lie in this morning as the tour I was booked onto was picking up last from Costa Teguise… |
| Friday, 26 November, 2011 |
| I had a late breakfast and then headed out of the hotel to the bus stop to catch the bus out to the village of Tahiche… |
| Saturday, 27 November, 2021 |
| Breakfast complete and the most convenient tour pick up of my stay was from the bus stop right outside the hotel… |
| Sunday, 28 November, 2021 |
| I had a transfer booked for 10am so I was able to have a relatively relaxed start to the morning with a later than normal breakfast and finish packing before checking out of the hotel and waiting for my transfer… |
| Friday, 13 March, 2020 |
| My flight was at 7am so I’d stayed overnight at the airport… |
| Saturday, 14 March, 2020 |
| I had a filling breakfast in the hotel before heading out to walk over to the main intercity bus terminal on the opposite side of the city centre… |
| Sunday, 15 March, 2020 |
| Despite the original news being that the lockdown would come into force on Monday morning clearly overnight that position had changed… |
| Monday, 16 March, 2020 |
| As my flight wasn’t due to take off until 4pm my transfer was only booked for 2pm, but checkout was at midday… |
| Wednesday, 22 February, 2023 |
| When I’d originally booked the trip, nearly a year earlier, the flight times had been later in the evening… |
| Thursday, 23 February, 2023 |
| As my next flight wasn’t until the late morning I was able to have a bit of a lie in and a later breakfast before catching the 9am shuttle bus back to the airport… |
| Friday, 24 February, 2023 |
| I had to be up relatively early to catch the bus on into the capital Santa Cruz de La Palma as I was due to join a 5 hours tour in the late morning there… |
| Saturday, 25 February, 2023 |
| I had a late breakfast before heading out of the hotel and catching the bus out to Santa Cruz to explore more of the islands capital… |
| Sunday, 26 February, 2023 |
| I had an all day tour booked, with a pickup time just after 9am so I had to have an early breakfast to get out to the pickup point in time… |
| Monday, 27 February, 2023 |
| I needed to get the bus that left Santa Cruz at 08:45, so I had an early breakfast and had checked out of the hotel shortly after 08:30… |
| Wednesday, 21 February, 2024 |
| I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel and had taken advantage of night before checkin so that after a quick breakfast… |
| Thursday, 22 February, 2024 |
| The main reason for staying in Los Cristianos was actually to make it easy to hop across the strait to visit the neighbouring island of La Gomera… |
| Friday, 23 February, 2024 |
| I hadn’t originally planned very much for the day, thinking I might just have a day relaxing in the pool or on the beach… |
| Saturday, 24 February, 2024 |
| I had a bit of a lie-in as my activity for the day didn’t start until 11am… |
| Sunday, 25 February, 2024 |
| I had a relatively early start so that I could grab breakfast and check-out of the hotel in time to walk round to the harbour and pick up my whale watching tour that I’d booked for 10:30… |
| Friday, 11 March 2016 |
| As it was an early flight I’d stayed over the previous night at an airport hotel… |
| Saturday, 12 March, 2016 |
| If sunset was a quick affair, sunrise was even quicker… |
| Sunday, 13 March, 2016 |
| Another early wakeup call from the sun and another early breakfast… |
| Monday, 14 March, 2016 |
| I only had a little time to finish off looking round the city before I had to head back to the airport… |
| Friday, 11 December, 2020 |
| I’d stayed overnight at the Sofitel at Heathrow, mainly as they offered a special Covid-19 test … |
| Saturday, 12 December, 2020 |
| I had an early alarm call, and was down to breakfast shortly after they opened, as I was due to be picked up for my booked tour at a little after 08:30… |
| Sunday, 13 December, 2020 |
| Another early start to the day, but todays tour would be markedly different to the previous days one… |
| Monday, 14 December, 2020 |
| As I’d had so many early starts for the previous days I had a bit of a lie-in and a later breakfast … |
| Tuesday, 20 January, 2004 |
| After an exceptionally sweet breakfast (honey coated croissants with jam!) and solid tar for coffee we set out on our first day in Barcelona. First stop was just across the Ramblas to have a look at the Palau Güell one of the many buildings that Gaudí bui |
| Wednesday, 21 January, 2004 |
| After a long night dealing with an upset stomach it was time for a quiet day. First stop was the Block of Discorde. Three Modanista buildings in the same block that are so different to each other that they clash against each other. |
| Friday, 14 March, 2014 |
| Despite having stayed overnight in an airport hotel it was still a horrific time of the morning when I had to get up, check out of the hotel and walk the short distance to the North Terminal… |
| Saturday, 15 March, 2014 |
| I woke to a clear blue sky and a blinding sun pouring through the windows in my 14th floor hotel room… |
| Sunday, 16 March, 2014 |
| Having checked out I headed back into town, avoiding the Barcelona Marathon that had closed a large part of the city centre, and over to Montjuïc, taking the cable car up to the castle at the very top of the hill… |
| Thursday, 03 November, 2022 |
| I’d stayed overnight at a hotel near Hatton Cross tube station as it was an early flight from Heathrow… |
| Friday, 04 November, 2022 |
| I had a really good nights sleep and woke up at 7am feeling really refreshed… |
| Saturday, 05 November, 2022 |
| Breakfast completed and I headed out into town, wandering in a different way so that I could cross over the river on a bridge further up into the old-town… |
| Sunday, 06 November, 2022 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and a late breakfast before checking out of the hotel and heading on into town to visit the last two museums I wanted to see… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Wednesday, 17 February, 2016 |
| I’d been working from home… |
| Thursday, 18 February, 2016 |
| A breakfast taken watching the building work… |
| Friday, 19 February, 2016 |
| Up and out early I headed back down to the harbour area… |
| Saturday, 20 February, 2016 |
| When I opened the curtains it was clear that the weather forecast… |
| Sunday, 21 February, 2016 |
| Having checked out of the hotel I headed over to the base of the Dalt Vila to have a look around the Necropolis… |
| Wednesday, 13 March, 2013 |
| As it was an early flight from City I had booked into the Ibis Budget hotel near the airport so that I could get a good night’s sleep and wouldn’t have to try and get to the airport through the morning rush hour… |
| Thursday, 14 March, 2013 |
| After a decent night’s sleep, helped by not having the sound of a dripping toilet filling the room, and a quick breakfast… |
| Friday, 15 March, 2013 |
| Still feeling slightly full from the previous evening I topped up the food levels at breakfast before heading out from the hotel and over to Poble Espanyol to have a look around that… |
| Saturday, 16 March, 2013 |
| Having consumed quite so much it really wasn’t much of a surprise that I didn’t have a particularly great night’s sleep. Not helping was the knowledge that I wanted to be up relatively early… |
| Sunday, 17 March, 2013 |
| Breakfast consumed I checked out of the hotel and headed into town for the day… |
| Friday, 09 June, 2006 |
| After leaving beautiful sunny skies at work at lunchtime and zipping down to Gatwick, I arrived in Madrid 25 minutes late, because of a damaged wheel on the plane, into a massive thunderstorm with torrential rain… |
| Saturday, 10 June, 2006 |
| After the thunder of yesterday, the air was much less humid and uncomfortable this morning. I headed back out to the Royal Palace, this time to look around the inside… |
| Sunday, 11 June, 2006 |
| After another plentiful breakfast, I headed out into the pleasant morning sun, with a light breeze, making 19 feel very pleasant, knowing full well that it was rapidly going to rise from there… |
| Monday, 12 June, 2006 |
| After checking out of the hotel, I caught the metro over to Atocha station to put my bags into left luggage… |
| Friday, 11 November, 2022 |
| My first evening flight from Gatwick since before the pandemic… |
| Saturday, 12 November, 2022 |
| I had a nice long lie in and then a big breakfast before heading out of the hotel and into town… |
| Sunday, 13 November, 2022 |
| I ended up having a bit more of a lie-in that I’d expected, which was no bad thing… |
| Friday, 22 September, 2017 |
| I was booked on a very early flight, so I’d stayed overnight in a hotel near Heathrow… |
| Saturday, 23 September, 2017 |
| Around 2am it was clear that all the walking of the previous day had had a less than positive effect on my right knee… |
| Sunday, 24 September, 2017 |
| My knee was feeling better so it was a slightly quicker walk down from the hotel to the riverside after I’d checked out to pick up the boat tour I’d booked… |
| Friday, 12 January, 2018 |
| Despite booking into an airport hotel and having checked in my luggage the night before it was still an un-holy hour that I had to get up… |
| Saturday, 13 January, 2018 |
| I had a bit of a lie-in, and a quick breakfast in the hotel, before heading out into the centre of town and picking up the tram… |
| Sunday, 14 January, 2018 |
| First stop of the morning was the very impressive roundabout above the tram terminus in the centre of town… |
| Monday, 15 January, 2018 |
| I checked out of the hotel and wandered down to the bus station through a very light drizzle… |
| Friday, 18 January, 2019 |
| Having had a work function the previous evening, and a late night dash down to the airport… |
| Saturday, 19 January, 2019 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and a late breakfast before heading out from the hotel… |
| Sunday, 20 January, 2019 |
| A relatively late breakfast and then out of the hotel and over towards the other remaining city tower… |
| Monday, 21 January, 2019 |
| There wasn’t much point in getting up early… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Sunday, 22 July, 2007 |
| Within a couple of minutes of crossing into Finland… |
| Monday, 23 July, 2007 |
| Sadly sleep no did not appear to want to visit me… |
| Tuesday, 24 July, 2007 |
| …which it was, including the lack of sleep… |
| Thursday, 21 July, 2005 |
| With my alarm going off at silly o'clock which only felt like a couple of hours after I had gone to bed… |
| Friday, 22 July, 2005 |
| With a massive breakfast in my belly I left the hotel to the first stop of the day… |
| Saturday, 23 July, 2005 |
| First stop of the morning was the Finnish Central Bank Museum… |
| Sunday, 24 July, 2005 |
| Located just on the edge of town on a separate island and based around a hill is the Seurasaari open air museum… |
| Monday, 25 July, 2005 |
| It's Monday, it’s continental Europe and yes most things are closed… |
| Tuesday, 26 July, 2005 |
| After the customary putting of the bags into the left luggage locker at the central station… |
| Wednesday, 26 July, 2006 |
| After catching the bus from the airport and checking in to the hotel I caught the tram into town and out to the fish market… |
| Thursday, 27 July, 2006 |
| A relatively early start to the day so that I could get to the station in time to catch the mid-morning train to Turku… |
| Friday, 28 July, 2006 |
| Another early start this morning, again to get to the station, though this time the destination was Tamperer… |
| Saturday, 29 July, 2006 |
| lf I had thought the previous two mornings were early starts, they were nothing in comparison to Saturday… |
| Sunday, 30 July, 2006 |
| After a proper breakfast I packed my bags and check out from the hotel… |
| Tuesday, 24 July, 2007 |
| Having locked all my stuff in the locker… |
| Wednesday, 25 July, 2007 |
| Some point around 6 or 7 am I woke up… |
| Thursday, 26 July, 2007 |
| Another stunningly solid sleep… |
| Thursday, 22 June, 2017 |
| The weather had been getting increasingly oppressive and overnight it was almost impossible to sleep… |
| Friday, 23 June, 2017 |
| The best nights sleep I’d had for several days meant I woke refreshed, and after a good breakfast at the hotel I caught the train into the centre of Helsinki… |
| Saturday, 24 June, 2017 |
| Another really good night sleep, only slightly disturbed by the fact it never properly got dark at any point… |
| Sunday, 25 June, 2017 |
| I had another excellent night’s sleep and a good breakfast before it was time to check out and head back to the station and my train back to Helsinki… |
| Wednesday, 31 August, 2022 |
| After finishing work for the day I headed over to Heathrow Airport and my hotel room for the night… |
| Thursday, 01 September, 2022 |
| I worked out of the hotel in the morning, finishing at lunchtime and checking out of the hotel to head on down to Heathrow… |
| Friday, 02 September, 2022 |
| Because in the original version of this trip I wouldn’t have gotten to bed until gone midnight I’d booked myself onto a late morning train… |
| Saturday, 03 September, 2022 |
| I had a nice lie in and a late breakfast in the hotel before heading out to have a wander around some of the nearby parks and gardens… |
| Sunday, 04 September, 2022 |
| I’d decided to use Sunday as my museum day to try and tick off several of the city’s free museums… |
| Monday, 05 September, 2022 |
| I woke up feeling surprisingly not stiff as I was expecting the unplanned hike of the previous day would have had an effect… |
| Friday, 06 May, 2022 |
| As the flight was quite late in the evening I was able to work from home for the whole day and only headed over to the airport after I’d powered down the laptop just before 5… |
| Saturday, 07 May, 2022 |
| I had an OK nights sleep… |
| Sunday, 08 May, 2022 |
| I booked an unpleasantly early breakfast slot for the Sunday as I wanted to make most use of the day taking in the surrounding countryside on the Kut’zig bus… |
| Monday, 09 May, 2022 |
| I had a much more leisurely timed breakfast that the previous day and headed out of the hotel a little after 10am to start my tour of some of the attractions of Colmar… |
| Tuesday, 10 May, 2022 |
| Another lie in and a late breakfast before I headed back out into Colmar to visit some of the museums that had been closed on Monday… |
| Friday, 12 April, 2024 |
| I was booked on the last Eurostar of the night out of St Pancras… |
| Saturday, 13 April, 2024 |
| I had a quick breakfast in the hotel and after dropping my key off in the express checkout box headed back over to the Gare de l’Est to wait for my TGV out to Reims… |
| Sunday, 14 April, 2024 |
| Another quick breakfast a speedy checkout from the hotel and I headed over the road to pick up the course of the canal that runs through this part of the city… |
| Thursday, 13 December, 2012 |
| At the end of a long week (which had included long days on both the Saturday and Sunday) I was glad to get away from work on the spot of five… |
| Friday, 14 December, 2012 |
| After an OK night’s sleep and a good breakfast inside me I headed over to the Gare du L’Est to pick up my TGV across to Strasbourg… |
| Saturday, 15 December, 2012 |
| A massive breakfast and then out into town… |
| Sunday, 16 December, 2012 |
| I had arranged, the previous evening, to be able to have a late checkout, so I didn’t need to worry about dropping luggage off… |
| Saturday, 25 October, 2003 |
| Leaving from my friends in Worthing at 7:00 on a Saturday morning for a sailing from Dover just 60 miles away at 10:30 would seam to be perfectly doable. If it wasn't for the actions of the highways agency it would have been a very quick trip but in the e |
| Friday, 28 April, 2017 |
| I’d left plenty of time to get up to St Pancras, and to get through the likely crowds trying to use Eurostar on the Friday evening of a Bank Holiday weekend… |
| Saturday, 29 April, 2017 |
| After a hearty breakfast I headed out of the hotel into the centre of town and over to the Tourist Information Centre… |
| Sunday, 30 April, 2017 |
| I’d done quite a lot of walking the previous day, and slept very well and quite late… |
| Monday, 01 May, 2017 |
| Another late lie-in and breakfast, after which I packed my bag and checked out of the hotel… |
| Friday, 21 March, 2003 |
| There are some distinct advantages to working in SW London. One is having Heathrow on your doorstep and the other is having trains that run direct to Waterloo for the Eurostar. |
| Saturday, 22 March, 2003 |
| Early start to the day leaving the hotel and walking to the Metro station to get the Metro to the Eiffel Tower. Being out in Paris that early on a Saturday morning you feel as though you have the city to yourself. There are no tourists, virtually no local |
| Sunday, 23 March, 2003 |
| Sunday was going to be a rush day as the train left that evening to take us back. In an attempt to see as much as possible we boarded one of the open top tour buses that go round the city. |
| Sunday, 16 December, 2012 |
| I arrived at Gare de L’Est and headed into the Parisian rush hour to Les Halles and my hotel for the night… |
| Monday, 17 December, 2012 |
| I had a pretty massive breakfast as I intended on it lasting me most of the day, to avoid the temptation of snacking on Crêpes through the day (fat chance I knew, but it was worth a try). |
| Friday, 28 October, 2016 |
| I’d worked from home so was able to quickly head up to St Pancras to pick up the train… |
| Saturday, 29 October, 2016 |
| Given it had been such a late arrival the previous evening, I would normally have had a nice lie in… |
| Sunday, 30 October, 2016 |
| After a much later alarm call and breakfast… |
| Friday, 18 July, 2014 |
| Originally the flight I’d booked had been just before midday, so I’d taken a day’s leave… |
| Saturday, 19 July, 2014 |
| After a pretty sultry night, despite having the asthmatic air-conditioning on, I got up, had breakfast and headed out into town… |
| Sunday, 20 July, 2014 |
| Breakfast consumed I headed out into town and the first stop was the bell tower of the cathedral. A quick ascent up to take in the stunning views that rapidly started to disappear into clouds… |
| Monday, 21 July, 2014 |
| With a late breakfast under my belt and checked out with my bags at the hotel I headed into town for a full days sightseeing… |
| Friday, 30 August, 2019 |
| After finishing work I headed over to the station and caught the train up into London… |
| Saturday, 31 August, 2019 |
| I had a nice lie-in and a late breakfast before checking out of the hotel and wandering over to the airport… |
| Sunday, 01 September, 2019 |
| I had an OK breakfast and then, after arranging a late checkout, headed out of the hotel to continue exploring the city… |
| Friday, 19 May, 2017 |
| I’d headed down earlier in the day and spent the afternoon working out of the hotel in Newhaven… |
| Saturday, 20 May, 2017 |
| I was up so early that after showering and getting dressed I ended up being stood outside breakfast for a good five minutes before it was due to open… |
| Sunday, 21 May, 2017 |
| I had a relatively early breakfast and checked out of the hotel… |
| Friday, 06 July, 2018 |
| The previous day a power failure just up the line from me had wiped out our train service with the station closed for most of the day and nothing running until late evening… |
| Saturday, 07 July, 2018 |
| I got about three hours sleep… |
| Sunday, 08 July, 2018 |
| I had a very long lie in and a late breakfast… |
| Monday, 09 July, 2018 |
| I woke up around 7am and had a quick shower before heading down to the ship reception to find out if there was any more information… |
| Tuesday, 10 July, 2018 |
| I’d been tweeting throughout my journey… |
| Wednesday, 14 September, 2022 |
| After finishing work for the day I headed over to the airport for my evening flight to Toulouse… |
| Thursday, 15 September, 2022 |
| As the flight had been quite regularly late, even when I was booking many months earlier… |
| Friday, 16 September, 2022 |
| I had a good nights sleep and with a filling breakfast inside me I headed out to explore more of the city… |
| Saturday, 17 September, 2022 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and a late breakfast before packing up my bag and checking out of the hotel… |
| Sunday, 18 September, 2022 |
| I didn’t have the greatest of nights sleep and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it… |
| Friday, 25 March, 2022 |
| I’d stayed overnight near the airport as the flight was very early in the morning… |
| Saturday, 26 March, 2022 |
| I had to be up and out of the hotel early to get the tram out into the town of Blagnac… |
| Sunday, 27 March, 2022 |
| I managed to have a bit of a lie in and a late breakfast, so it was already gone 11am by the time I left the hotel and headed over to the Capitol… |
| Monday, 28 March, 2022 |
| As it was a Monday most of the attractions in the city were closed, but what wasn’t were the public gardens… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Friday, 24 November, 2023 |
| 04:30 is a really unpleasant time for the alarm clock to go off, but with a 05:15 checkin it was my fate this morning… |
| Saturday, 25 November, 2023 |
| I had to be up early to grab breakfast and then walk down the stairs to the bus station underneath the hotel… |
| Sunday, 26 November, 2023 |
| A well deserved lie-in after the previous days early start and then out to explore more of the city… |
| Monday, 27 November, 2023 |
| I checked out of the hotel, leaving my luggage with reception, as I had a couple of hours to kill before my train back to Marseille… |
| Friday, 12 December, 2014 |
| From my Gold card discounted ticket operating the barriers at East Croydon on the dot of 10 without requiring going to the side gate and missing the train, through the cheerful guard on the train; the friendly lady on check-in… |
| Saturday, 13 December, 2014 |
| Thankfully I’d also consumed nearly a litre of fizzy water in the restaurant so by the time I woke up, just before 9, I felt fine. I headed down for a late breakfast and then out into town for the day… |
| Sunday, 14 December, 2014 |
| I had another breakfast almost completely to myself in the deserted hotel café before packing and heading out into town… |
| Thursday, 10 December, 2015 |
| A very quick and scarily easy journey across town… |
| Friday, 11 December, 2015 |
| A filling breakfast completed I headed down into town… |
| Saturday, 12 December, 2015 |
| I took advantage of breakfast being served until later on the weekends… |
| Sunday, 13 December, 2015 |
| A late breakfast and after checking out of the hotel… |
| Friday, 13 December, 2013 |
| I dislike cutting things fine, but with work being busy the check-in desks at Gatwick had already opened by the time I finally got out of work just before 5 and made a dash for the station… |
| Saturday, 14 December, 2013 |
| A surprisingly quiet breakfast room greeted me when I wandered down a little after 9:30, with only three other tables occupied… |
| Sunday, 15 December, 2013 |
| Having consumed another massive breakfast and checked out I headed down to the sea front to pick up the open-top tour bus… |
| Friday, 13 February, 2015 |
| I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel, partly as didn’t want to try and get in with luggage during the morning rush-hour… |
| Saturday, 14 February, 2015 |
| At only a two hour time difference from the UK I didn’t think this was going to cause any problems… |
| Sunday, 15 February, 2015 |
| Up in time for breakfast this morning and after topping up the cucumber tomato and feta levels… |
| Monday, 16 February, 2015 |
| I headed out of the hotel into town and the first stop was Hadrian’s Arch and then the neighbouring spectacular Temple of Olympian Zeus… |
| Tuesday, 17 February, 2015 |
| Breakfast completed and all checked out of the hotel I headed into town for the last couple of hours of my stay in Athens… |
| Thursday, 18 July, 2019 |
| It was an early flight, but I was up even earlier than I needed to be… |
| Friday, 19 July, 2019 |
| I had an early breakfast, during which I checked my baggage claim and saw that it stated my bag was being loaded onto the morning flight out to Corfu… |
| Saturday, 20 July, 2019 |
| Given I had all my new clothes, that would last for the whole trip… |
| Sunday, 21 July, 2019 |
| I had an excellent night sleep – the combination of a swim and hot shower immediately before bed clearly had relaxed my quite a bit… |
| Thursday, 13 October, 2016 |
| Southern were once again embroiled in another strike… |
| Friday, 14 October, 2016 |
| I’d set multiple alarms as my small cabin had no windows… |
| Saturday, 15 October, 2016 |
| I had an early breakfast and headed off into town to pick up the first tour bus of the morning… |
| Sunday, 16 October, 2016 |
| I had an early breakfast as I’d noticed that a lot of the sites I wanted to visit only opened 8-3… |
| Monday, 17 October, 2016 |
| I had a bit of a lie-in and then headed down for a later breakfast… |
| Saturday, 25 July, 2020 |
| I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel, which meant I only had to get up at 4:30 rather than 3:30… |
| Sunday, 26 July, 2020 |
| After a good nights sleep I headed down to the Covid-Secure breakfast… |
| Monday, 27 July, 2020 |
| Breakfast completed I headed off out of the hotel and down to the offices of the tour company who I was booked with for the day… |
| Tuesday, 28 July, 2020 |
| I had a bit of lie-in and a late breakfast before heading out of the hotel… |
| Wednesday, 29 July, 2020 |
| In the original plan for the day I was supposed to be booked on jeep tour up into the White Mountains… |
| Thursday, 30 July, 2020 |
| My last day on Crete and time to hit the museums. After a little bit of a lie-in and a final breakfast in the hotel I headed out into the city… |
| Friday, 09 June, 2017 |
| I’d been at a conference for work all week in Athens… |
| Saturday, 10 June, 2017 |
| Despite wanting a good nights sleep a combination of the heat and the thin curtains… |
| Sunday, 11 June, 2017 |
| I had another disrupted nights sleep |
| Monday, 12 June, 2017 |
| Breakfast completed, and my bag packed |
| Wednesday, 13 October, 2021 |
| Despite it being an early afternoon flight I’d booked into a hotel near Heathrow the night before… |
| Thursday, 14 October, 2021 |
| I had an all day tour booked for today, so I had to be up relatively early… |
| Friday, 15 October, 2021 |
| Originally, I had another full day tour of the Island booked… |
| Saturday, 16 October, 2021 |
| I had another early start as I was being picked up a 9am by the coach to take me over to the town of Lindos… |
| Sunday, 17 October, 2021 |
| I’d booked an all day boat cruise to the island of Symi… |
| Monday, 18 October, 2021 |
| I took advantage of not having much booked to have a nice lie-in… |
| Saturday, 10 May, 2008 |
| Six AM on a Saturday morning is not a time I normally like to be familiar with, and originally I wouldn't of had to be, but BA had moved the flight forward by two hours from the time I originally booked, and so bleary eyed I set off for Gatwick Airport… |
| Sunday, 11 May, 2008 |
| I wandered back down the hill towards the old town. First stop of the morning was a short walk along the city walls. These are impressive for a number of reasons… |
| Monday, 12 May, 2008 |
| It was a relatively early start as I had booked to go on a day excursion to a beautiful medieval town, better known for it's more recent history… |
| Tuesday, 13 May, 2008 |
| The walk to the first attraction of the morning was a long and arduous one, across the road to the bus stop to pick up the Cabriobus, Dubrovnik's "open-top" sightseeing bus… |
| Wednesday, 14 May 2008 |
| Overnight I had been proved right about the weather. There had either been a big downpour, or it had been lightly raining for many hours. With breakfast inside me and my bill paid I wandered down into town whilst there was a break in the rain… |
| Friday, 25 July, 2014 |
| Having managed to avoid a large number of showers over the course of the afternoon I ended up delaying heading off to the airport to avoid yet another one… |
| Saturday, 26 July, 2014 |
| I woke a few minutes before my alarm was set to go off, which at least meant I wasn’t woken by the alarm, but did still mean having to try and function at 6am on a Saturday morning… |
| Sunday, 27 July, 2014 |
| A nice long lie-in, unlike the previous morning, and a leisurely breakfast meant that it was heading towards midday before I made it out of the hotel and into town… |
| Monday, 28 July, 2014 |
| Given it was Monday, very little was going to be open, so I had a very late breakfast and then wandered down to the Botanical gardens a short walk from the hotel… |
| Tuesday, 29 July, 2014 |
| Breakfast completed it was time to check out and head over to the bus station… |
| Saturday, 09 August, 2014 |
| A very comfortable and smooth flight and straight through the airport at Zagreb onto the airbus meant I was back in the centre of Zagreb less than an hour after landing… |
| Sunday, 10 August, 2014 |
| Sadly the combination of being opposite the lift, and an internet router being in my room with its flickering green lights illuminating the room all night, I didn’t get a good night’s sleep… |
| Wednesday, 19 February, 2020 |
| I’d worked from home in the morning as I’d booked the afternoon off as leave, so as soon as lunchtime arrived, I was able to log off and head down to Gatwick… |
| Thursday, 20 February, 2020 |
| I had a decent nights sleep and after a filling breakfast headed out of the hotel to go for a wander… |
| Friday, 21 February, 2020 |
| I had a quick breakfast and headed out to catch the open-top bus tour round to the town hall square… |
| Saturday, 22 February, 2020 |
| I had a bit of a lie-in and a late breakfast as I was planning on heading out of town for the day … |
| Sunday, 23 February, 2020 |
| I had wanted to have a bit of a lie-in, but as I was wide awake by 8am I decided I might as well get up and head down to breakfast… |
| Friday, 30 September, 2011 |
| The internet managed to conspire to make me have a very bad feeling about the flight as I set off to head to the airport… |
| Saturday, 01 October, 2011 |
| Up early, and after a disappointing cold shower (there appeared to be no hot water in the apartment), I headed out over to the train station to catch the train out to the first stop of the morning Ercolano… |
| Sunday, 02 October, 2011 |
| At 6am when they woke me up with their crashing and banging I had wanted to do something nasty to the people in the next door apartment, but in the end they did me a favour… |
| Monday, 03 October, 2011 |
| Another early start, this time down to the harbour to get a relatively early boat out to one of the islands in the Bay of Naples, perhaps the best known of them – Capri… |
| Tuesday, 04 October, 2011 |
| After a leisurely breakfast in a little café near the station I wandered over to the city sightseeing bus stop in time to take the first tour of the morning… |
| Wednesday, 05 October, 2011 |
| I had a quick shower, grabbed my bags, handed back the keys and headed for the station to catch an relatively early train up to Naples… |
| Thursday, 27 September, 2012 |
| A quick journey through Gatwick soon ground to a halt with the news that the flight was already heavily delayed, and the delay was slowly creeping later… |
| Friday, 28 September, 2012 |
| With a stunning and sumptuous breakfast inside me I headed out into town to explore… |
| Saturday, 29 September, 2012 |
| Saturday started off badly as I discovered my camera was playing up and had decided it no longer wanted to take any photos… |
| Sunday, 30 September, 2012 |
| With my bags packed and left with the hotel I headed back into town for a final morning looking round… |
| Saturday, 13 April, 2019 |
| I’d stayed overnight at Heathrow as it was an early flight… |
| Sunday, 14 April, 2019 |
| I had a bit of lie in and a late lunch before heading out to pick up the open-top bus from outside the hotel back to the Piazza Maggiore… |
| Thursday, 21 March, 2019 |
| Having stayed overnight in a hotel by Heathrow I didn’t have to have quite such an early start as I would otherwise had… |
| Friday, 22 March, 2019 |
| I had a nice long lie in and then a leisurely breakfast… |
| Sunday, 24 March, 2019 |
| The bus from San Marino arrived back in Rimini just as the bus out to the hotel was departing… |
| Monday, 25 March 2019 |
| I had another great breakfast in the hotel before packing my bag, checking out and catching the bus back into town for a bit more of a wander around… |
| Monday, 04 August, 2014 |
| The taxi ride was, in fact, considerably more useful than if I had been able to come in via public transport as he dropped me off right outside the hotel… |
| Tuesday, 05 August, 2014 |
| Breakfast consumed I headed over to the harbour area to pick up the City Sightseeing tour of Trieste… |
| Wednesday, 06 August, 2014 |
| I headed out of the hotel and wandered over to have a quick look round the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral… |
| Thursday, 07 August, 2014 |
| A final Italian breakfast consumed and then it was time to check-out and head over to the bus station to catch the bus out to Friuli-Venezia Giulia Airport… |
| Tuesday, 20 February, 2007 |
| No trip to Italy would be complete without taking in the full Italian experience… |
| Wednesday, 21 February 2007 |
| Having finished a decidedly sweet, and not particularly filling breakfast… |
| Thursday, 22 February 2007 |
| Termini is the first stop of the morning to pick up the Archeobus… |
| Friday, 23 February 2007 |
| Friday was time for a day-trip to another country… |
| Saturday, 24 February 2007 |
| First stop of the morning was the Baths of Caracalla… |
| Sunday, 25 February 2007 |
| I checked out from the hotel and walked back to Termini where I dropped off my luggage… |
| Friday, 10 November, 2017 |
| It was an early flight, so I’d stayed overnight near Heathrow… |
| Saturday, 11 November, 2017 |
| I had a quick breakfast and then headed round to the metro stop to catch the train into town… |
| Sunday, 12 November, 2017 |
| I had a bit of a lie-in and a leisurely breakfast before checking out of the hotel and heading on into town… |
| Thursday, 26 September, 2013 |
| Having spent the night at an airport hotel it was a very quick walk from my bed to check-in, and with an uneventful journey through the airport, and an on-time departure… |
| Friday, 27 September, 2013 |
| Given I was on leave, it didn’t feel right to be getting up at half seven, but with breakfast only served until 9, and needing to get an early train, I had to head out early… |
| Saturday, 28 September, 2013 |
| After all the exertions of the previous day I did at least sleep well, and with breakfast being served until a reasonable time, was able to have a bit of lie in… |
| Sunday, 29 September, 2013 |
| The previous evening there had been a wedding reception taking place in the hotel bar, and, possibly because I left it late, and possibly because the weather was pretty awful, breakfast was absolutely heaving… |
| Monday, 30 September, 2013 |
| An amazing difference from the previous morning, not only was the breakfast room deserted, but the skies were blue and the sun was out… |
| Friday, 21 September, 2018 |
| I’d arrived at the airport the previous evening on a flight back from a work trip to Madrid so had made a quick change of clothes and rechecked my bags back in… |
| Saturday, 22 September, 2018 |
| I had a bit of lie in to make up for the previous day… |
| Sunday, 23 September, 2018 |
| I had breakfast then packed my bags, checked out of the hotel and headed over to the bus stop… |
| Friday, 25 September, 2009 |
| I’d been delayed getting away from work, and got to Gatwick 20 minutes after checkin had opened, and given the size of the queue I was confronted with I was slightly concerned about getting through in time... |
| Saturday, 26 September, 2009 |
| With my first ever large Italian breakfast inside me (the hotel went for the Full continental route, rather than the coffee and a croissant normally associated with Italian hotels), I headed out into town and the first stop of the morning, the castle... |
| Sunday, 27 September, 2009 |
| It was the point at which I set my alarm for 7am on a Sunday morning last night that I really resented booking a hotel so far out from the city centre... |
| Monday, 28 September, 2009 |
| A very leisurely breakfast this morning to make up for yesterday, and then a gentle wander into town to go on the open-top bus tour... |
| Tuesday, 29 September, 2009 |
| I checked out of the hotel and caught the tram and trolley bus round to the central station to drop by bags off for the morning, and then wandered back over to the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie... |
| Friday, 24 September, 2010 |
| At one point it had looked like I might have a very long delay to my flight... |
| Saturday, 25 September, 2010 |
| I headed out of the hotel into town to carry on having a look around, this time in the dry... |
| Sunday, 26 September, 2010 |
| I’m not quite certain what was in the Risotto last night... |
| Monday, 27 September, 2010 |
| I checked out of the hotel and headed out into the city to try and find things open on a Monday... |
| Friday, 28 September, 2007 |
| Despite a slightly delayed arrival into Pisa, and the discovery that the airport station and the train ticket office are at completely different ends of the airport building… |
| Saturday, 29 September, 2007 |
| With a good nights sleep, and a decent breakfast inside me I headed out into the city… |
| Sunday, 30 September, 2007 |
| Having discovered that this weekend was effectively see Europe for free weekend… |
| Monday, 01 October, 2007 |
| A good long sleep later I woke up fresh and ready to face the worst day of the week… |
| Tuesday, 02 October, 2007 |
| An early start, a quick breakfast and then out into the Florentine rush hour… |
| Wednesday, 13 July, 2022 |
| As is so common with flights during the summer of 2022 the flight out to Pisa was heavily delayed… |
| Thursday, 14 July, 2022 |
| We spent the whole day in meetings with our customer, which given the heat was quite exhausting… |
| Friday, 15 July, 2022 |
| I did several hours work out of the hotel in the morning and over lunch… |
| Saturday, 16 July, 2022 |
| I had a bit of a lie in as it was a Saturday and took a late breakfast… |
| Sunday, 17 July, 2022 |
| The weather was forecast to be even hotter today than the previous day… |
| Friday, 30 September, 2016 |
| As it was an early flight I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel… |
| Saturday, 01 October, 2016 |
| I was up early to have a good breakfast… |
| Sunday, 02 October, 2016 |
| Breakfast completed I packed my bag, checked out of the hotel and headed on into town… |
| Thursday, 25 September, 2014 |
| After the not quite a full week from hell at work I was glad to be getting away on the dot of five to head down to Gatwick… |
| Friday, 26 September, 2014 |
| I didn’t bother with breakfast in the hotel, instead checking out then a few minutes later checking in for the flight and hitting breakfast in the terminal… |
| Saturday, 27 September, 2014 |
| A thoroughly disappointing breakfast in the hotel wasn’t what I’d have liked after such a good night’s sleep… |
| Sunday, 28 September, 2014 |
| Second disappointing breakfast of the trip completed it was off out into town, and first stop of the morning was the Cathedral… |
| Monday, 29 September, 2014 |
| I decided to abandon the hotel breakfast and instead had a significantly better breakfast at one of the cafes on the Campo before heading up the hill to the bus station to head out of town for the day… |
| Tuesday, 30 September, 2014 |
| After packing and checking out I headed to another café on the Campo for breakfast, possibly the best one of the trip… |
| Friday, 02 May, 2008 |
| I met my friends on the train at East Croydon, them having got on in town, and we all headed out to the airport… |
| Saturday, 03 May, 2008 |
| After breakfast in a little café just down from the hotel, and locating a small kiosk which sold Verona cards, we had a daylight Wander through city to the Torre dei Lamberti, the large tower overlooking the city centre… |
| Sunday, 04 May, 2008 |
| Verona is home to the third larges Roman Arena and this was our first stop of the morning… |
| Monday, 05 May, 2008 |
| A final short morning in the city, and the glorious weather of the previous couple of days had broken with a light drizzle in the air when we woke, replaced shortly after by a brief, but beefy, shower… |
| Saturday, 27 September, 2008 |
| The last time that I had flown from the South Terminal at Gatwick it had been a little bit of a traumatic experience… |
| Sunday, 28 September, 2008 |
| A typically Italian breakfast (i.e. a croissant and a coffee, and not much else) and then out to St Marks Square to join the queues… |
| Monday, 29 September, 2008 |
| Out slightly earlier today to head over to St Marks Square and the cathedral… |
| Tuesday, 30 September, 2008 |
| With my luggage sitting in the hotel reception, I headed back out into Venice for my final day… |
| Tuesday, 17 May, 2011 |
| The last time I had come to Venice it had been late in the evening when I arrived so I’d taken the bus into Venice from the Airport… |
| Wednesday, 18 May, 2011 |
| I hadn’t had the world’s greatest of nights sleep, mostly caused by the number of mosquitoes in the room… |
| Thursday, 19 May, 2011 |
| Another poor night’s sleep, once again caused by the mosquitoes, but after a cup of coffee it was time to head out… |
| Friday, 20 May, 2011 |
| Having carried out a mass killing on Mosquitoes before going to bed I actually slept pretty well… |
| Sunday, 30 January, 2005 |
| After an uneventful flight we arrived in Riga ahead of time and went to look for a cab into town. A very helpful lady from the cab firm told us she could get a large cab for all 6 of us if we were willing to wait about 25 mins. As she also offered to come |
| Monday, 31 January, 2005 |
| After a filling breakfast we headed out of the hotel into a biting wind and nasty gritty snow. Our destination for the morning was Darzini. First to the station to get tickets. At the equivalent of £3.60 I thought it was good value for a return, until I w |
| Tuesday, 01 February, 2005 |
| The morning was spent wandering around the city taking in the sights. |
| Wednesday, 02 February, 2005 |
| The final day in Latvia and only one stop on the agenda. The Ethonographical museum, located just outside of Riga houses a collection of typical Latvian buildings - houses, churches, halls, etc that have been moved there from all around the country. It is |
| Friday, 25 May, 2007 |
| Having escaped work early I headed down to Gatwick… |
| Saturday, 26 May, 2007 |
| With a full Lithuanian breakfast (personally couldn't spot the difference between a Lithuanian and a continental cheese and ham breakfast but… |
| Sunday, 27 May, 2007 |
| After yesterdays increasingly oppressive heat it was inevitable that something would give, and shortly after having drifted off to sleep I was woken by a spectacular thunder storm… |
| Monday, 28 May, 2007 |
| Despite the pleasant finish to the evening, another storm moved over Vilnius during the night with yet more thunder and rain… |
| Tuesday, 29 May, 2007 |
| The now customary overnight spectacular storm was delayed… |
| Wednesday, 30 May, 2007 |
| I left the hotel at a little after 9:30 so that I could wander down to the town to catch the 10:00 sightseeing bus… |
| Thursday, 31 May, 2007 |
| The most sensible time to go on a guided minibus tour of a city is when you arrive, lets you know where everything is and builds an map of the city in your mind… |
| Friday, 23 June, 2006 |
| Fartoearly O'clock: UK: After spending most of the night trying to fend off the particularly viscous mosquito in my bedroom I blundered through the shower, forced two slices of toast down my throat and headed out into the early morning mist… |
| Saturday, 24 June, 2006 |
| I caught the bus into the centre of town and after stopping off at the Post Office to buy some stamps and a shop to buy some postcards I walked to the Place de la Constitution… |
| Sunday, 25 June, 2006 |
| After breakfast I wandered over to the station to catch the train North from the city centre to Ettelbruck and from there onto Diekirch… |
| Monday, 26 June, 2006 |
| After checking out and dumping my luggage in the left luggage lockers at the station (now where have I done that before...?) |
| Friday, 07 February, 2020 |
| After finishing work, I headed over to Heathrow airport, battling the traffic on a Friday evening at home time for everyone, but I managed to make it to the airport in time… |
| Saturday, 08 February, 2020 |
| I had an early breakfast before heading out of the hotel and over to the railway station to pick up a day ticket for the public transport… |
| Sunday, 09 February, 2020 |
| I had a bit of a lie-in and a later breakfast before checking out of the hotel and heading out… |
| Thursday, 15 January, 2015 |
| I’d been suffering from a heavy cold for almost two weeks by now, so it wasn’t particularly surprising that I stood on the platform of the station realising exactly what I’d forgotten to pack… |
| Friday, 16 January, 2015 |
| The first decent night’s sleep in nearly a fortnight was brought to an abrupt end by the church on the hill opposite starting to sound the quarter hours from 7am onwards… |
| Saturday, 17 January, 2015 |
| A quick breakfast and then out of the hotel down to the harbour to pick up the open-top sightseeing tour bus of the island… |
| Sunday, 18 January, 2015 |
| Breakfast completed and all checked out of the hotel I caught the bus over to Xaghra to visit the stunning pre-historic site of Ggantija… |
| Saturday, 13 October, 2018 |
| Yet another crack of dawn flight from Gatwick, yet another overnight airport stay… |
| Sunday, 14 October, 2018 |
| Overnight the weather had taken a bit of a turn for the worse… |
| Monday, 15 October, 2018 |
| By the morning the storm had blown itself out and the skies were clear with bright sunshine… |
| Tuesday, 16 October, 2018 |
| We had a late breakfast and checkout and then asked about getting a taxi down to the harbour… |
| Wednesday, 17 October, 2018 |
| The timing of the flight was such that there wasn’t any time to do anything today… |
| Monday, 18 January, 2016 |
| I felt very guilty as I put my out of office notice on my work email… |
| Tuesday, 19 January, 2016 |
| At a very unpleasant hour of the morning I got up… |
| Wednesday, 20 January, 2016 |
| The hotels breakfast room is located on the 8th floor… |
| Thursday, 21 January, 2016 |
| Using some of the knowledge I’d picked up the previous day… |
| Friday, 22 January, 2016 |
| The original weather forecast for Friday was not good… |
| Saturday, 23 January, 2016 |
| I was intending on having a bit of a lie-in… |
| Sunday, 24 January, 2016 |
| Originally I had planned to have a full day on Malta today… |
| Thursday, 25 May, 2017 |
| I’d worked from home in the morning so it was a quick journey down to Gatwick and through to departures… |
| Friday, 26 May, 2017 |
| An early breakfast and out of the hotel to pick up the first open-top bus tour of the day… |
| Saturday, 27 May, 2017 |
| Early breakfast again, and once again out for the first bus of the morning… |
| Sunday, 28 May, 2017 |
| A bit more of a lie-in this morning as we went for a later breakfast and then out in time to catch the first harbour tour of the morning at 10am… |
| Monday, 29 May, 2017 |
| A late breakfast, or as late as it can be when the hotel stops serving at 9:30… |
| Friday, 16 March, 2007 |
| There is something rather pleasant about leaving work at 1 in the afternoon with a packed suitcase… |
| Saturday, 17 March, 2007 |
| After a filling breakfast I left the hotel and walked the couple of yards to the end of the road, which was also the coast… |
| Sunday, 18 March, 2007 |
| For some unknown reason the hotel had decided that everyone should have a full cooked breakfast this morning… |
| Monday, 19 March, 2007 |
| When I originally booked I had not looked at the dates in any guide book… |
| Tuesday, 20 March, 2007 |
| An early start this morning to get down to the bus station in Sliema to catch the early bus out to Cirkewwa and the ferry across to the only other inhabited of the Maltese Islands, Gozo… |
| Wednesday, 21 March, 2007 |
| The first day of spring and the wintry weather of the previous day had most definitely gone… |
| Thursday, 22 March, 2007 |
| After a final breakfast, I packed my bags and headed off to the bus stop… |
| Wednesday, 27 March, 2002 |
| The day had started so well that it was almost inevitable that something would go wrong. At least it was something spectacular. Got to the airport early, had a nice lunch in Garfunkles overlooking the check in point and then deposited the baggage with BA. |
| Thursday, 28 March, 2002 |
| Budapest is not as an attractive city as Prague is. Thanks to it's history large swathes of it have been leveled every 40 years through war or revolution so there are not so many historic buildings. |
| Friday, 29 March, 2002 |
| One of the most useful inventions is the Budapest Card. |
| Saturday, 30 March, 2002 |
| Back to the castle for a second day (now where have I done that before?) to look at the cathedral (A cathedral in a castle complex on the top of a hill overlooking a major river surely there can be no other place like it in the world!!), the Fisherman's B |
| Sunday, 31 March, 2002 |
| Easter Sunday so do as all the residents of Budapest are doing and head to the main park with the Zoo. |
| Monday, 01 April, 2002 |
| Budapest has an eclectic collection of transportation. |
| Tuesday, 02 April, 2002 |
| When the communist regime fell in Hungary the remnant of it were quickly ripped down. This included all the statues that had littered the city. |
| Wednesday, 03 April, 2002 |
| As we waited for the airport minibus to go back to the airport it was nice to note that the glorious weather that we had enjoyed since day one was just changing. Budapest may not be as beautiful a city as Prague but it has it's own charms that still makes |
| Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 |
| The train slowed to a stop within a few hundred meters of crossing the border into Hungary, made a clunk and a loud humming sound before the air-conditioning burst into lung busting life and the train took off… |
| Thursday, 01 August, 2013 |
| After a good nights sleep and a decent breakfast I headed out of the hotel and over to the Buda Hills… |
| Friday, 02 August, 2013 |
| First stop of the morning was back up the hill to the castle to have a long explore through the labarynths that are underneath many of the buildings at the fisherman’s bastion end of the complex… |
| Saturday, 03 August, 2013 |
| Breakfast done and dusted and with my bags all packed I checked out of the hotel and headed out to the airport… |
| Thursday, 07 August, 2014 |
| A quick journey through the airport, with baggage coming round very quickly, and a few minutes later I found myself on the 200E bus heading to the metro station and then on into the centre of town and the hotel… |
| Friday, 08 August, 2014 |
| The excellent breakfast in the hotel that I remembered from the previous year was still there and so very sated I headed out into town and up to the starting point of the Big Bus Tour… |
| Saturday, 09 August, 2014 |
| Another excellent breakfast and then it was time to check-out and make my way back to the airport for the flight back to Zagreb… |
| Saturday, 19 December, 2015 |
| An early flight, so at an unpleasant hour of the morning I exited the airport hotel… |
| Sunday, 20 December, 2015 |
| In the morning I was feeling quite a bit better… |
| Monday, 21 December, 2015 |
| Breakfast proved that things were improving slightly… |
| Tuesday, 22 December, 2015 |
| Breakfast and check-out completed I left my bags with the hotel… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Saturday, 30 April, 2016 |
| As it was an early flight I’d stayed overnight in an airport hotel and only had to get up 2 hours before the flight was due to leave… |
| Sunday, 01 May, 2016 |
| Given I’d eaten quite a bit not that long before bed the previous evening I had a really good night’s sleep… |
| Monday, 02 May, 2016 |
| Another long lie in and after breakfast and checkout I headed out of the hotel and wandered over to the nearby Kronenburgerpark … |
| Friday, 21 June, 2013 |
| I’d booked a half day’s leave so I could get an earlier flight to Amsterdam, and as usual it was a struggle to make sure I got away from work on time… |
| Saturday, 22 June, 2013 |
| I had a nice long lie in and then a leisurely breakfast before heading out of the hotel and wandering into town, heading first off for the Grote Markt in the centre of the old town… |
| Sunday, 23 June, 2013 |
| Another long lie in and a very late breakfast meant that I missed the worst of the morning’s weather and it was almost sunny by the time I left the hotel… |
| Monday, 24 June, 2013 |
| With a final big breakfast inside me I checked out of the hotel and walked back to the station to pick up the train to Schiphol… |
| Friday, 31 October, 2014 |
| As it was an early flight the following morning I’d headed down to Gatwick to stay overnight in the Premier Inn by the terminal… |
| Saturday, 01 November, 2014 |
| At an hour that even for a weekday morning would be a little early, but for a Saturday was positively obscene, I was woken by my alarm… |
| Sunday, 02 November, 2014 |
| A chaotic and poorly organised breakfast (hotel was full to capacity and had issued guests with time slots for breakfast, which clearly hadn’t worked… |
| Monday, 03 November, 2014 |
| With the hotel almost empty, breakfast was a considerably better organised and more pleasant event than the previous day… |
| Monday, 09 April, 2007 |
| With the end of a heavy cold still rattling around my lungs and consequently insufficient sleep for the previous three nights or so I headed out from home to the airport… |
| Tuesday, 10 April, 2007 |
| I headed out into town and first stop of the morning was going to be the Anne Frankhuis, home until her capture by the Nazi's of one of Amsterdam's most famous residents… |
| Wednesday, 11 April, 2007 |
| I set off from the hotel with the intention of heading up to the tourist information office to get some ideas for things to do… |
| Thursday, 12 April, 2007 |
| After a less than impressive breakfast (all that was left at 9am, with an hour of breakfast left, was a slice of cheese a piece of dried out ham and a couple of pieces of white bread)… |
| Friday, 13 April, 2007 |
| After checking out from the hotel and dumping my bags in the luggage lockers in Centraal station I headed off towards the resistance museum… |
| Saturday, 30 November, 2019 |
| As it was an early flight, I’d stayed overnight near the airport so the 5:30 checkin wasn’t quite as horrific as it might have been… |
| Sunday, 01 December, 2019 |
| I had a good night’s sleep and a decent breakfast before heading out of the hotel and aiming to go into town… |
| Monday, 02 December, 2019 |
| As part of the I Amsterdam City Card you get free entry to a number of the big museums of the city, and for the Van Gogh museum the ability to get priority on timeslots for the ticket… |
| Friday, 07 July, 2017 |
| Having worked from home in the morning I had the afternoon booked off so I was able to travel down to Gatwick on a relatively uncrowded afternoon train… |
| Saturday, 08 July, 2017 |
| A relatively early start and after a good breakfast I headed out into town… |
| Sunday, 09 July, 2017 |
| I’d realised pretty early on that there wasn’t that much more to do in Amersfoort so I’d decided to have a bit of a lie-in and a lazy start to my Sunday… |
| Friday, 07 August, 2020 |
| In the original version of this plan I’d work until the end of the day… |
| Saturday, 08 August, 2020 |
| Breakfast at the hotel was still a buffet – but it was no longer help-yourself… |
| Sunday, 09 August, 2020 |
| I got up relatively early as I had a busy day planned visiting a local castle… |
| Thursday, 03 August, 2023 |
| As my flight had moved earlier in the evening that originally booked… |
| Friday, 04 August, 2023 |
| A bit of a lie-in and a leisurely breakfast, and then I checked out of the hotel… |
| Saturday, 05 August, 2023 |
| Originally the weather forecast for Friday had been pretty bad but turned out very pleasant… |
| Sunday, 06 August, 2023 |
| Overnight there had been a few more torrential downpours as a storm that had been battering the UK the previous afternoon and evening passed over The Netherlands… |
| Friday, 25 October, 2013 |
| By the time I’d left work the BA app had already informed me of the lengthy delay to the flight, so I wasn’t really surprised when I dropped by bag off and was told the delay was likely to be over 90 minutes… |
| Saturday, 26 October, 2013 |
| First stop of the morning was the Haagse Toren, at 42 stories the highest viewpoint in the Netherlands… |
| Sunday, 27 October, 2013 |
| Overnight the clocks had gone back, and with them a significant change in the weather with the wind whipping round the windows of my 9th floor room… |
| Monday, 28 October, 2013 |
| At an unreasonable hour I got up to head over to the airport, with the wind rattling round the hotel even more than it had been the previous evening… |
| Thursday, 04 August, 2022 |
| I’d timed a minicab to pick me up from home at the end of the working day… |
| Friday, 05 August, 2022 |
| The hotel let me have a late checkout, so I was able to work out of the hotel all morning through until 2pm when I checked out… |
| Saturday, 06 August, 2022 |
| I had an early breakfast and was out of the hotel and back in the centre of town in time to catch the first canal tour of the morning… |
| Sunday, 07 August, 2022 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and after a late breakfast checked out of the hotel… |
| Saturday, 24 October, 2015 |
| It wasn’t the earliest flight I’d ever had… |
| Sunday, 25 October, 2015 |
| A filling breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel over to the Centraal station to pick up the hop-on-hop-off tour bus… |
| Monday, 26 October, 2015 |
| Slightly disturbed to spend part of breakfast watching the BBC London travel news on Breakfast… |
| Tuesday, 27 October, 2015 |
| Following a late breakfast and checkout from the hotel I headed out over towards the river… |
| Wednesday, 30 May, 2012 |
| With an early-ish flight from Heathrow in the morning I decided to get a head start and spend the night near the airport… |
| Thursday, 31 May, 2012 |
| I woke looking forward to a day spent mostly travelling… |
| Friday, 01 June, 2012 |
| I headed out from the hotel to the tram stop and caught the tram over to the Cathedral Island towards the north of the City centre, the birthplace of Wroclaw… |
| Saturday, 02 June, 2012 |
| Breakfast completed I headed back into the city centre and first stop was the Mary Magdalene church and it’s Penitents bridge… |
| Sunday, 03 June, 2012 |
| I had originally intended on visiting the Panorama Raclawicka, but when I got there the next available ticket wasn’t for a couple of hours… |
| Monday, 04 June, 2012 |
| After breakfast I headed into town and made a second attempt to visit the Panorama Raclawicka… |
| Tuesday, 05 June, 2012 |
| Breakfast completed I checked out of the hotel and headed back to the airport to start my long journey home… |
| Wednesday, 02 August, 2017 |
| I’d stayed overnight at a Heathrow hotel, but that still meant my alarm went off at 4:45… |
| Thursday, 03 August, 2017 |
| I had a nice long lie-in – so long in fact that I nearly missed breakfast… |
| Friday, 04 August, 2017 |
| Not quite such a late lie-in and a fuller breakfast, as they did replenish some of the dishes rather than clearing them away… |
| Saturday, 05 August, 2017 |
| I had an earlier breakfast than I had had on the previous day as I wanted to squeeze in a trip to the Tourn Historical Museum… |
| Sunday, 06 August, 2017 |
| I’d managed to arrange a late checkout from the hotel… |
| Friday, 22 July, 2016 |
| I’d had to travel up to Scotland for work the previous Sunday so I was able to finish work early on the Friday… |
| Saturday, 23 July, 2016 |
| My first good night’s sleep in several days thanks to the air-con… |
| Sunday, 24 July, 2016 |
| I had a filling breakfast and then headed down to the tram stop… |
| Monday, 25 July, 2016 |
| After breakfast I headed back up towards Manufaktura… |
| Tuesday, 26 July, 2016 |
| The weather still wasn’t great when I got up… |
| Wednesday, 25 July, 2018 |
| I’d stayed overnight at the airport to avoid having to get up too early… |
| Thursday, 26 July, 2018 |
| The hotel was very busy so breakfast was a chaotic mess with people hunting for tables and food… |
| Friday, 27 July, 2018 |
| Breakfast in Lublin was a significantly more civilised event than it had been in Warsaw… |
| Saturday, 28 July, 2018 |
| I had a late breakfast before heading off into town and over to the castle… |
| Sunday, 29 July, 2018 |
| Today was just going to be about travelling…. |
| Wednesday, 31 May, 2006 |
| Following a range of problems (mostly all caused by the pope!) it ended up with me and my friends booked into different hotels… |
| Thursday, 01 June, 2006 |
| I met up with my friends at their hotel before we caught the tram into town… |
| Friday, 02 June, 2006 |
| First stop of the morning was a museum to the North West of the city centre… |
| Saturday, 03 June, 2006 |
| Recipe for an Eastern/Central European capital: |
| Sunday, 04 June, 2006 |
| Up early this morning to head to the station and the train to the small town of Oswiecim… |
| Monday, 05 June, 2006 |
| After a good night’s sleep, that I feared I might not get after yesterdays emotion… |
| Friday, 25 July, 2008 |
| By the time the train eventually pulled into Warsaw it had managed to slip from on-time to late and then to quite late indeed… |
| Saturday, 26 July, 2008 |
| I headed out early from the hotel and was in the Old town shortly before ten… |
| Sunday, 27 July, 2008 |
| The day didn’t get off to the best of starts… |
| Monday, 28 July, 2008 |
| All over Warsaw are kiosk that sell tickets for the trams, busses and Metro… |
| Sunday, 26 May, 2013 |
| …Unbelievably, the train made up all the time that it had lost, and by the time it pulled into Warszawa Centralna station, next to the Moscow departure it was actually a minute early… |
| Monday, 27 May, 2013 |
| The original plan had been to just have a wander around town for a couple of hours before heading off to the airport… |
| Monday, 21 July, 2008 |
| The original plan, as set out last October when I booked it, was that Monday would be a relaxing day with a gentle journey mid-morning up to Luton airport to catch an early afternoon flight to Gdansk |
| Tuesday, 22 July, 2008 |
| The bed in the hotel turned out to be exceptionally comfortable, and I had the best nights sleep in a long time… |
| Wednesday, 23 July, 2008 |
| With my stomach bulging from another massive breakfast I headed out into town… |
| Thursday, 24 July, 2008 |
| The usual routine of breakfast and bus into town was quickly dispensed with and by 10:30 I found myself in the queue at Gdansk Glowney ticket office to buy a ticket to Malbork… |
| Friday, 25 July, 2008 |
| I checked out of the hotel and temporarily left my luggage at the station… |
| Thursday, 23 May, 2013 |
| With a very early flight I’d decided to stop overnight at the Ibis near Heathrow so that I didn’t have to get up quite so early… |
| Friday, 24 May, 2013 |
| I had a long lie-in and by the time I’d had breakfast and headed out of the hotel it was already gone 11… |
| Saturday, 25 May, 2013 |
| Another late start and very filling breakfast. I headed out of the hotel and over to the Rynek to pick up the tram out to the Park of Culture and Recreation… |
| Sunday, 26 May, 2013 |
| I had another long lie in and a late breakfast, so by the time I had gotten back to my room it was time to pack and head out on my way… |
| Monday, 28 July, 2008 |
| Of course, there was no way the train was going to stay on time, but it did a valiant job, and we left the last stop before Poznan just a couple of minutes late… |
| Tuesday, 29 July, 2008 |
| A pleasant, but soulless breakfast in the gigantic restaurant of the hotel set me up for the day so I headed into the Old Town to knock off a hefty number of the cities museums… |
| Wednesday, 30 July, 2008 |
| After a less than satisfactory breakfast (it would appear that all the businessmen had cleared the entire place out of food before I arrived)… |
| Friday, 20 July, 2012 |
| As it was an early flight the following morning I headed over to the Travelodge in Feltham so that I didn’t have to get up so early the following morning… |
| Saturday, 21 July, 2012 |
| I checked out of the hotel and headed down to the bus stop to arrive at exactly the same moment the bus to the airport did… |
| Sunday, 22 July, 2012 |
| First stop of the morning was the train station to visit the tourist office. I had intended to go their directly, but on the way I spotted an automatic ticket machine for the station… |
| Monday, 23 July, 2012 |
| After a hearty breakfast, to make up for the lack of dinner the previous evening, I headed out over to the Cathedral to have a look around… |
| Tuesday, 24 July, 2012 |
| I had a leisurely breakfast, popped over to the tourist office to pick up some postcards and send them off and then it was time to check out and head down to the station… |
| Friday, 02 March, 2018 |
| I’d stayed over in Gatwick the night beforehand, partly as it was a very early flight, but also due to the impending poor weather in the UK with heavy snowfall expected… |
| Saturday, 03 March, 2018 |
| When I woke up the day looked a little more overcast than the previous one, but I was pretty certain the wind had died down a bit… |
| Thursday, 23 May, 2019 |
| I had a half days’ leave so after powering down my laptop I grabbed my bags and headed for Gatwick. |
| Friday, 24 May 2019 |
| My flight time was such that I was able to have a bit of a relaxed morning… |
| Saturday, 25 May, 2019 |
| The apartment I was staying in provided breakfast hampers… |
| Sunday, 26 May, 2019 |
| Overnight the tour company had emailed me to let me know that they were going to have to pick me up from a different point today… |
| Monday, 27 May, 2019 |
| I had a relatively early flight the following morning… |
| Friday, 22 February, 2012 |
| As it was an early flight I’d stayed overnight in a hotel attached to the airport so I was able to meander across to check-in after a hearty breakfast at a more reasonable time… |
| Saturday, 23 February, 2013 |
| When I woke up and looked out of the window I did have to wonder if I’d been transported to another city overnight… |
| Sunday, 24 February, 2013 |
| I had another leisurely breakfast, albeit in a completely deserted restaurant with only the waiter for company then checked out leaving my bags with the hotel. |
| Friday, 14 February, 2014 |
| Heading out of work into the rain that had been plaguing Britain for the previous 8 weeks it wasn’t to the thought of sunnier climbs as the weather forecast made it clear that Portugal had been hit by pretty much the same continuously wet weather… |
| Saturday, 15 February, 2014 |
| If the previous evening had been foul then the morning after the night before was, as so often is the case, glorious. The sun was shining, an almost clear blue sky and a massive breakfast buffet after a lovely long lie-in… |
| Sunday, 16 February, 2014 |
| Another long lie-in and massive breakfast combo set me up for the day… |
| Monday, 17 February, 2014 |
| Yet another long lie in and large late breakfast before it was time to pack up and head back towards the station… |
| Wednesday, 15 February, 2012 |
| Given the last time I had tried to stay at the Travelodge near London City Airport they had sold the room out from underneath me because I didn’t get there until after 10 I was determined this time to be there before they could do that… |
| Thursday, 16 February, 2012 |
| In the end I must have slept through the first couple of dozen DLR’s as by the time I looked at the clock on my phone it was a minute before my alarm was due to go off… |
| Friday, 17 February, 2012 |
| I had a late breakfast and then headed out into town for the day, walking the 2KM in rather than catching the bus… |
| Saturday, 18 February, 2012 |
| An early start, and a quick breakfast, before I walked back into town and to the station to catch an early train west along the coast to the town of Lagos… |
| Sunday, 19 February, 2012 |
| What should have been a long lie in was slightly disrupted by the cleaners deciding that 8:30 on a Sunday morning was the ideal time to hoover the corridors… |
| Monday, 20 February, 2012 |
| I checked out of the hotel, leaving my luggage in the store, and headed into town and the train station to catch the train partway along the coast to the town of Tavira… |
| Thursday, 17 August, 2006 |
| After getting in from the airport and dropping my stuff off at the hotel I went for a wander… |
| Friday, 18 August, 2006 |
| Having spent a large proportion of the night being woken up on a regular basis by a car alarm I was in the need to something to properly wake me up… |
| Saturday, 19 August, 2006 |
| With another sugar rush breakfast inside me I headed out of the hotel to the Metro and caught the train out to Sete Rios station… |
| Sunday, 20 August, 2006 |
| After breakfast I wandered down to the ferry terminal at Cais do Sodré and caught the ferry across the Rio Toja to Cacilhas… |
| Monday, 21 August, 2006 |
| First stop of the morning was back to Praça do Comércio and onto the other open top tour that Carris run, the Tagus tour… |
| Tuesday, 22 August, 2006 |
| Some of the temperature may have gone, but if anything the conditions were far more unpleasant today as the humidity… |
| Saturday, 17 November, 2007 |
| An uneventful trip through the airport was only hampered by an hour delay to the flight… |
| Sunday, 18 November, 2007 |
| An early breakfast and out to Sete Rios and the train to Sintra… |
| Monday, 19 November, 2007 |
| The first stop of the morning was the castle… |
| Tuesday, 20 November, 2007 |
| Out of the hotel and back onto the tram to Belém… |
| Wednesday, 21 November, 2007 |
| Bags deposited in the luggage room, though with the thought would it still be the luggage room when we got back… |
| Friday, 08 April, 2016 |
| I’d been working from home during the day… |
| Saturday, 09 April, 2016 |
| A painless journey through the airport and onto the early morning flight to Madeira… |
| Sunday, 10 April, 2016 |
| With an OK breakfast inside me I headed out into town… |
| Monday, 11 April, 2016 |
| I had managed to get some sleep… |
| Tuesday, 12 April, 2016 |
| I had a decent night’s sleep and headed out into town… |
| Wednesday, 13 April, 2016 |
| With breakfast completed I only had time to head back to my room to pack… |
| Friday, 02 March, 2018 |
| I’d stayed over in Gatwick the night beforehand, partly as it was a very early flight, but also due to the impending poor weather in the UK with heavy snowfall expected… |
| Saturday, 03 March, 2018 |
| When I woke up the day looked a little more overcast than the previous one, but I was pretty certain the wind had died down a bit… |
| Sunday, 04 March, 2018 |
| I’d had an email overnight from the company running todays tour confirming that I would be collected at 08:30… |
| Monday, 05 March, 2018 |
| Todays tour started a little later with the minibus not arriving until just gone 9am… |
| Tuesday, 06 March, 2018 |
| It was still raining when I got up, and it rained all the way through breakfast and the first part of the morning… |
| Monday, 27 May, 2019 |
| …2 hours later and we had started the third circuit round the stack to the north of Madeira… |
| Tuesday, 28 May 2019 |
| From all my previous trips to Funchal I had pretty much exhausted all there was to do in the city… |
| Thursday, 24 February, 2011 |
| In spite of massive queues at security, the whole process through the airport was amazingly smooth… |
| Friday, 25 February, 2011 |
| I open the curtains to a beautiful sunny morning with a clear blue sky, so after a very hearty breakfast, I headed down to the riverside area to pick up another of the tour bus routes, this time one that runs up along the coast… |
| Saturday, 26 February, 2011 |
| I decided to take advantage of the later breakfast to have a bit of lie-in, so by the time I left the hotel it was almost 11am… |
| Sunday, 27 February, 2011 |
| After another filling breakfast I only had a couple of hours to kill before having to head back to the airport, so I caught the funicular down the hill to the Ribeira to have a final wander along it… |
| Thursday, 26 January, 2023 |
| I had a smooth journey over to Hatton Cross and my airport hotel room for the night… |
| Friday, 27 January, 2023 |
| I checked out of the hotel and headed over to Hatton Cross tube station where I caught the next piccadilly line train direct to terminal 3 with a couple of seconds to spare… |
| Saturday, 28 January, 2023 |
| After a nice lie-in and a leisurely breakfast I headed out of the hotel and wandered the very short distance over the road… |
| Sunday, 29 January, 2023 |
| Another slow start to the day, but I was still early enough to be out of the hotel and across the road to pick up the first open-top sightseeing bus of the morning from it’s starting point… |
| Monday, 30 January, 2023 |
| My final breakfast in the hotel and after a very leisurely start to the morning I finally checked out just before 11am… |
| Friday, 20 October, 2017 |
| I’d stayed overnight at a hotel near the airport… |
| Saturday, 21 October, 2017 |
| I had a nice long lie-in and a good breakfast, so by the time I finally made it out of the hotel it was already well gone 11am… |
| Sunday, 22 October, 2017 |
| Another lie-in and a filling breakfast and then it was off out… |
| Monday, 23 October, 2017 |
| Given it was Monday a lot of sites were going to be closed… |
| Friday, 25 May 2018 |
| I finished work at 4 and headed straight to the airport… |
| Saturday, 26 May, 2018 |
| I had a quick shower and headed down to breakfast… |
| Sunday, 27 May, 2018 |
| I had a quick breakfast and then headed out into town… |
| Monday, 28 May, 2018 |
| It may have been a Bank Holiday in the UK, but for the rest of Europe it was a normal Monday… |
| Wednesday, 20 July 2022 |
| Just before I set off from home I’d checked and everything was running fine… |
| Thursday, 21 July 2022 |
| I had a very good, if short, night sleep and woke up just before 10am… |
| Friday, 22 July, 2022 |
| I was up relatively early for a quick breakfast before heading out of the room and into town to go exploring… |
| Saturday, 23 July, 2022 |
| I had a nice long lie in and only just made it down to breakfast in time to catch the end of it… |
| Sunday, 24 July, 2022 |
| Sunday was just going to be a day spent travelling… |
| Tuesday, 31 May, 2022 |
| We arrived at Heathrow with plenty of time to spare for the flight, little to know that waiting time was something we wouldn’t be short of… |
| Wednesday, 01 June, 2022 |
| Despite the very late night I got a decent few hours sleep, but we were still up in time for the surprisingly early finishing breakfast… |
| Thursday, 02 June, 2022 |
| Our train was due to leave at 09:48, and to avoid any stress we’d booked a taxi for 09:00 to do the 6 minute drive down to the station… |
| Friday, 10 April, 2015 |
| I’d stayed overnight at the Premier Inn at the airport as the flight was relatively early and I wanted some extra time in bed, but that still meant being up before the sun was… |
| Saturday, 11 April, 2015 |
| I had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel before heading out to the station and out of town for the day… |
| Sunday, 12 April, 2015 |
| The hotel was clearly close to full overnight as Breakfast was heaving and I only just managed to find a table… |
| Monday, 13 April, 2015 |
| Breakfast and checkout completed I wandered into town… |
| Wednesday, 01 June, 2005 |
| After a good flight and a speedy run through the airport I caught the Express train to the central station and then caught the metro to the hotel. |
| Thursday, 02 June, 2005 |
| The morning started off very bright and clear, but by the time I left the hotel there were already clouds gathering I’m the sky. I caught the metro out to Kungsträdgården where all the sightseeing tour boats leave from. |
| Friday, 03 June, 2005 |
| After buying a Stockholm Card from the hotel reception I headed out to the metro and back to the area around the Royal palaces. |
| Saturday, 04 June, 2005 |
| Saturday morning dawned with heavy rain, settling down into prolonged drizzle. Not good for sightseeing, but no doubt welcome to the thousands who were running the Stockholm Marathon, that scuppered most of my plans. On the upside, today was the officia |
| Sunday, 05 June, 2005 |
| After checking out of the hotel and dropping my bags of in the left luggage lockers at Stockholm Central Station, I headed back down to the palace to use up the remainder of my hop-on-hop-off boat ticket for the remainder of the circuit. After that I got |
| Friday, 27 July, 2007 |
| Technically I should be feeling like something unmentionable… |
| Saturday, 28 July, 2007 |
| Up early and out to the station… |
| Sunday, 29 July, 2007 |
| I checked out of the hotel… |
| Thursday, 20 December, 2018 |
| I’d finished a little early so that I could get over to the Airport in time… |
| Friday, 21 December, 2018 |
| I was intending on having a nice lie-in, but the hotel only did breakfast until 09:30… |
| Saturday, 22 December, 2018 |
| The hotel bed was very comfortable… |
| Sunday, 23 December, 2018 |
| I had another long lie in and excellent breakfast before packing my bag and checking out… |
| Saturday, 04 June, 2022 |
| We arrived at Arlanda, where once again we had to get a bus back to the terminal… |
| Sunday, 05 June, 2022 |
| The previous day had been the Stockholm Marathon, and it was the weekend of the National Day holiday so the hotel was very busy… |
| Monday. 06 June, 2022 |
| When the trip was originally booked the return flight was at 8pm which gave us ample time to explore the city… |
| Thursday, 08 October, 2020 |
| When I’d originally booked the airport hotel and the annual leave for today the plan was an early morning flight to Sofia… |
| Friday, 09 October, 2020 |
| An early start from the hotel and over to the airport to checkin and head on through to the departure lounge… |
| Saturday, 10 October, 2020 |
| The hotel only had limited slots for breakfast, which had to be pre-booked at the weekend, so I was forced to have a lie-in and a 10am breakfast… |
| Sunday, 11 October, 2020 |
| Another healthy lie-in and late breakfast and then it was time to head out of town for the afternoon… |
| Monday, 12 October, 2020 |
| I had a bit of an earlier breakfast and then checked out of the hotel, leaving my luggage with reception, before heading out to the north of the city… |
| Tuesday, 13 October, 2020 |
| I had set my alarm for 5am, but in the end I was awake before then, partly from a not particularly great nights sleep… |
| Friday, 16 September, 2016 |
| I’d managed to finish work a little early so headed down to the airport… |
| Saturday, 17 September, 2016 |
| The fact we had a gate still didn’t mean we had a plane… |
| Sunday, 18 September, 2016 |
| The hotel, very conveniently, offers a 6pm checkout on Sunday’s… |
| Friday, 30 June, 2017 |
| As it was a very early flight I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel… |
| Saturday, 01 July, 2017 |
| I had a good breakfast in the hotel and then headed out… |
| Sunday, 02 July, 2017 |
| The hotel very conveniently offered a super late checkout time of 6pm on Sundays… |
| Monday, 29 July, 2013 |
| …Sadly setting the air-con at cold didn’t appear to make much point once we entered Slovakia as the power being supplied was clearly different to that in the Czech Republic… |
| Tuesday, 30 July, 2013 |
| There was no comparison between the two night’s sleep. I was woken by my alarm which is a rare occurrence; I’m normally awake long before it goes off… |
| Wednesday, 31 July, 2013 |
| After breakfast I had time to rearrange my luggage ready for the final couple of legs of the journey… |
| Friday, 01 August, 2014 |
| Thankfully I’d booked a transfer in advance… |
| Saturday, 02 August, 2014 |
| First stop of the morning, after breakfast, was to head up to the castle… |
| Sunday, 03 August, 2014 |
| I’d booked onto a tour called “Slovenia in one day” which is a pretty talk ask, even for a relatively small country… |
| Monday, 04 August, 2014 |
| Having checked out of the hotel I had a few hours to fill before the train towards the Italian border… |
| Friday, 27 May, 2011 |
| By the time I left work I already knew the flight was going to have a substantial delay on it, as my electronic boarding card was merrily updating itself regularly with the estimated departure time creeping further and further away from the original… |
| Saturday, 28 May, 2011 |
| Up early for a quick breakfast before checking out of the hotel and heading down to Queen Street station to catch my train to Oban… |
| Sunday, 29 May, 2011 |
| Overnight the rain and wind had continued and I woke to a pretty dismal looking day, but as so often happens in this part of the world, but the time I left the hotel after breakfast it was blue skies… |
| Monday, 30 May, 2011 |
| I checked out of the hotel and walked down to the station to pop my bags into the luggage lockers. I then popped round to the tour shop to get my refund for yesterdays cancelled tour… |
| Wednesday, 18 January, 2012 |
| A bit of a frantic dash from work as the training session I was on overrun and I was left with 90 minutes to make the flight… |
| Thursday, 19 January, 2012 |
| A relatively late start to the day and I went for a long wander around the city centre. Unfortunately a lot of the tourist attractions in Aberdeen are closed on a Thursday in mid-January… |
| Friday, 20 January, 2012 |
| Up earlier than the previous day and down to the bus station to catch the bus out to Stonehaven and then onto the ruins of Dunnottar castle… |
| Saturday, 21 January, 2012 |
| Up early and down to the station to get the train north out of Aberdeen to Elgin… |
| Sunday, 22 January, 2012 |
| Having dropped my bags off at the left luggage office I walked round to the bus station to pick up the coach out to the small town of Crathes… |
| Tuesday, 18 December, 2001 |
| From the moment that I left the terminal building at Edinburgh I was aware that I had probably not packed enough warm clothing. It was rather cold. The sky was so clear and so blue that the only two things it could be were a baking day in the Mediterranea |
| Wednesday, 19 December, 2001 |
| First on the list of things to do in Edinburgh must really be the castle. So at 10 o'clock sharp I was almost at the head of the queue for tickets (just behind an American couple and ahead of a small Japanese tour party). |
| Thursday, 20 December, 2001 |
| Final half day in Edinburgh and I couldn't leave without seeing one of the most spectacular pieces of engineering in the UK the Forth rail bridge. |
| Friday, 01 November, 2002 |
| Less than 11 months later and possibly 10 degrees warmer the flight from Gatwick landed early to empty us onto the wet (correction very wet) tarmac of Edinburgh airport at 9pm on a Friday evening at the end of the wettest and windiest week for several yea |
| Saturday, 02 November, 2002 |
| Depending on which forecast on which day you had listened to the weekend was either going to be cold and wet, warm and wet, sunny with showers or heavy rain. In the end it turned out to be gray and overcast (not predicted) until the early evening when the |
| Sunday, 03 November, 2002 |
| When it was finally decommissioned in 1997 the former Royal Yacht Britannia had many suggestions made as to its future. One was to scuttle it (this came from the royal family - probably to stop the peasant's from seeing it!) |
| Tuesday, 27 January, 2009 |
| My train left Carlisle on time and speeded its way north... |
| Wednesday, 28 January, 2009 |
| My previous evening wanderings had taken me past the new bus station... |
| Friday, 25 November, 2011 |
| Given that British Airways gives you a free baggage allowance, it’s always a mystery why people still insist on taking massive bags onto the flight… |
| Saturday, 26 November, 2011 |
| The hotel bed turned out to be particularly comfortable, and it was only the sound of the wind howling that finally woke me up around 10… |
| Sunday, 27 November, 2011 |
| I checked out of the hotel and walked the short distance to the train station to get the train into town, only to discover that ScotRail had decided to cancel both of the next two trains… |
| Friday, 28 February, 2020 |
| After finishing work I headed down to Gatwick. It was a quick and smooth journey through the airport and onto the plane… |
| Saturday, 29 February 2020 |
| I had a decent nights sleep, but was still awake before 8am, so, after a leisurely shower, I headed down for breakfast… |
| Sunday, 01 March, 2020 |
| Overnight the weather had continued to be vile… |
| Thursday, 04 May, 2006 |
| After finishing a late shift at work I headed up to London to catch the sleeper train up to Edinburgh… |
| Friday, 05 May, 2006 |
| 07:17 The train should, by now, be sitting in Edinburgh Waverley station… |
| Saturday, 06 May, 2006 |
| With more grease than is health flowing around my veins… |
| Sunday, 07 May, 2006 |
| With my luggage checked into the left luggage office in Waverley… |
| Monday, 08 May, 2006 |
| 00:30… |
| Saturday, 24 August, 2013 |
| Having solved the problem of an earlyish flight by staying overnight at the Travelodge just down the road from the airport it was a short walk to the terminal building… |
| Sunday, 25 August, 2013 |
| What I had intended on being a quick breakfast turned into a much longer experience as it took more than an hour from leaving my room to actually getting some food in front of me… |
| Monday, 26 August, 2013 |
| I woke up to a thick wall of fog that was enveloping the whole of the city, giving me slight cause for concern that my flight in the evening may not run, especially as a quick check online showed that the 6:30 flight had been cancelled… |
| Friday, 01 June, 2018 |
| As I was having to head up to Dundee for work I was able to get an afternoon flight to Edinburgh, so shortly after lunch I headed out to Heathrow… |
| Saturday, 02 June, 2018 |
| I had a nice lie-in and a decent breakfast before heading out of the hotel and down to the bus station… |
| Sunday, 03 June, 2018 |
| As I had to change hotels from the one I’d paid for… |
| Wednesday, 23 October, 2002 |
| Travelling straight from work to Heathrow and then onto the plane meant that I was looking forward to getting food (that's why I had paid a few pounds less to travel from a convenient airport with a flag carrier!!). |
| Thursday, 24 October, 2002 |
| With a dubious weather forecast for the day and a bad forecast for Friday I though that it might be sensible to see as much as possible out doors today. |
| Friday, 25 October, 2002 |
| With a gentle drizzle in the sky I set out for the second day with the knowledge this morning that the sightseeing buses actually stop outside the hotel and I don't need to go into town to pick it up. |
| Thursday, 28 May, 2009 |
| From the Murk of England into the full blown downpour of Scotland… |
| Friday, 29 May, 2009 |
| The original plan was to have been a relatively leisurely morning, with a 9:30 flight to London… |
| Saturday, 22 November, 2014 |
| It doesn’t feel right to be getting the train on a Saturday morning at the same time as I do on a weekday, but for the long journey north it was best to get going early… |
| Sunday, 23 November, 2014 |
| Breakfast consumed we headed out from the hotel and over to George Square to pick up the open-top sightseeing tour bus. |
| Monday, 24 November, 2014 |
| Another big breakfast and back out to pick up the tour bus slightly closer to the hotel than the previous day, and slightly further round the route… |
| Tuesday, 25 November, 2014 |
| Having eaten and checked out we headed out across town to go back to the university and visit the Mackintosh house… |
| Friday, 06 April, 2018 |
| I had to attend a three day conference for work on the following Monday, and work were fine to book me a flight up to Glasgow on the Friday… |
| Saturday, 07 April, 2018 |
| I had breakfast in the hotel and then headed over to George Square to pick up the open-top bus tour of the city. |
| Sunday, 08 April, 2018 |
| I had a bit of time to spare in the morning… |
| Thursday, 03 May, 2012 |
| Based on previous experience of using the sleeper I wasn’t massively surprised when we ground to a halt in Watford Junction station for the best part of 40 minutes… |
| Friday, 04 May, 2012 |
| I must have gotten some sleep as I slept through the stop at Carlisle to pick up breakfast and was only woken at about 4:30 by the rattle of the train coming through the Haymarket tunnels and across the points into Edinburgh… |
| Saturday, 05 May, 2012 |
| As the room hadn’t included Breakfast I’d grabbed some breakfast things from the Tesco’s near the hotel the previous evening… |
| Sunday, 06 May, 2012 |
| I treated myself to breakfast in the café in Morrisons before setting off for a Sunday morning walk along the first part of the Great Glen Way… |
| Monday, 07 May, 2012 |
| Before checking out I had just enough time to visit the West Highland museum in town. Then it was time to check out, head over to the station and catch the train south… |
| Friday, 26 March, 2004 |
| Time for another new experience, this time the sleeper train. It felt vaguely strange to know that in this instance falling asleep on a late night train is what I wanted to achieve rather than avoid. After a pleasant two hours sitting in the lounge car I |
| Saturday, 27 March, 2004 |
| Slight rude awakening at 3 in the morning as the train in split into 3 separate trains (mine for Inverness plus one for Fort William and one for Aberdeen) and the jolting of the trains being split and then joined to their engine woke me up, but I soon fel |
| Sunday, 28 March, 2004 |
| I had already pre-booked myself onto an all-day tour of Loch Ness and the surrounding areas so Sunday was pretty well mapped out for me. After a leisurely breakfast and checking out from the hotel, I wandered down to the Tourist Information Centre to pick |
| Friday, 02 May, 2014 |
| As it was an early morning flight I’d headed over to the airport the evening beforehand, so at a little after 5am I was checking out of the Premier Inn and heading towards the terminal building at Gatwick… |
| Saturday, 03 May, 2014 |
| I had to be up early to grab breakfast as I had an early train to catch from the station across the top of Scotland to Kyle of Lochalsh and across to Skye… |
| Sunday, 04 May, 2014 |
| Another early start to head over to the station, this time to head south to the small town of Aviemore, the self-proclaimed gateway to the Cairngorms… |
| Monday, 05 May, 2014 |
| As I didn’t have anything planned for the morning, and my train wasn’t until just before 1, I was looking forward to a nice long lie in… |
| Thursday, 30 April, 2015 |
| With utter chaos raging on the trains I was really quite glad I’d changed my plans and brought all my stuff with me to work, rather than trying to pop home and come back out again… |
| Friday, 01 May, 2015 |
| A healthy breakfast and then out of the hotel and onto a tram back to the airport to check-in for flight number 2… |
| Saturday, 02 May, 2015 |
| I headed out of the B&B early and had a wander up above the harbour and onto the headland leading away from the town centre and towards the castle… |
| Sunday, 03 May, 2015 |
| The weather forecast had not been good for Sunday and for once it turned out to be as awful as they had been predicting… |
| Monday, 04 May, 2015 |
| Today was going to be about travelling, and after an early breakfast and checkout I started the journey with the walk across town to the station to pick up train number one… |
| Friday, 04 August, 2006 |
| I left the house at 7pm, knowing that I had 23 hours worth of travelling ahead of me, and I wasn't even leaving the country… |
| Saturday, 05 August, 2006 |
| I briefly woke up and realised that I was in Edinburgh as the train jolted a couple of times and then promptly accelerated away in the opposite direction… |
| Sunday, 06 August, 2006 |
| With a full breakfast inside me I headed out into a bright Orcadian morning… |
| Monday, 07 August, 2006 |
| One of the things that first planted the seeds of the idea of visiting the Orkneys into my mind is my liking for Highland Park whiskey… |
| Tuesday, 08 August, 2006 |
| With a hearty breakfast inside me I headed out to the bus station and caught the bus out to Tingwall… |
| Wednesday, 09 August, 2006 |
| It had taken 23 hours to get to Kirkwall (I could have done it in a little over 4 if I'd flown, but where is the fun in that!)… |
| Thursday, 10 August, 2006 |
| I woke up at some point during the night, by then the train had changed directions… |
| Friday, 22 August, 2014 |
| As it was an early flight the following morning I headed down to Gatwick and checked into the Premier Inn by the North Terminal… |
| Saturday, 23 August, 2014 |
| The goodnight guarantee from Premier Inn lived up to its promise and consequently I was rudely awakened by my alarm at an unreasonable hour… |
| Sunday, 24 August, 2014 |
| An excellent night’s sleep made up for the previous night’s missing hours of shut eye and I was pretty much convinced I had slept through my alarm when I woke up feeling totally refreshed, only to be surprised that it wasn’t yet 8am… |
| Monday, 25 August, 2014 |
| I had a significantly less good breakfast than the previous morning so checked out of the hotel less than impressed with the service… |
| Tuesday, 06 November, 2007 |
| Having worked a late shift, I leapt straight onto a train at East Croydon, and headed over to London City Airport… |
| Wednesday, 07 November, 2007 |
| Heading out from the ETAP I walked the 15 minutes or so up to the airport and checked-in… |
| Thursday, 08 November, 2007 |
| At conference all day |
| Friday, 09 November, 2007 |
| The conference finished a little before 1, and after a brief lunch I picked up my stuff and headed towards the station… |
| Saturday, 10 November, 2007 |
| I had an early start as I had booked to go on a sightseeing tour today… |
| Sunday, 11 November, 2007 |
| After the early starts for the conference, and yesterday for the tour, I had intended on having a nice long lie in this morning… |
| Monday, 12 November, 2007 |
| Another early morning fire alarm call courtesy, this morning, of a guest and their want for “crunchy” toast at 7am… |
| Thursday, 02 May, 2013 |
| Whilst I’ve been booked on late flights before, I’ve never been booked onto the very last flight of the night, so it was a weird experience wandering through a Gatwick Airport that was quite as deserted as it was… |
| Friday, 03 May, 2013 |
| Refreshed and with a large breakfast in me I walked the couple of yards from the hotel to the bus stop and caught the bus into Paisley… |
| Saturday, 04 May, 2013 |
| After the awful weather the previous day, the most noticeable thing when I drew the curtains was not only the blue sky, but the visible presence of Arran out in the Firth of Clyde which has simply been shrouded in weather the previous day… |
| Sunday, 05 May, 2013 |
| I’d had to get up early the previous day, so with breakfast being served later I took the opportunity to have a bit of lie-in… |
| Monday, 06 May, 2013 |
| Having checked out and left my luggage I walked the couple of yards from the hotel to the bus stop and caught the bus out to the small harbour town of Dunure, a few miles south of Ayr… |
| Friday, 05 August, 2005 |
| My trip actually started the previous evening when I took advantage of BA's on-line check-in and boarding card printing… |
| Saturday, 06 August, 2005 |
| After a stunning breakfast (scrambled egg should be cooked fresh, not reheated at 33,000 feet!) I wandered down to the bus station to catch the bus to Scalloway… |
| Sunday, 07 August, 2005 |
| First stop of the morning was a massive 20 yard walk from the Hotel… |
| Monday, 08 August, 2005 |
| Off to the Viking bus station to catch the bus to the Airport… |
| Tuesday, 09 August, 2005 |
| I had already pre-booked onto an afternoon boat trip around the islands looking at the sea-birds and seals, so I had a little time to kill… |
| Wednesday, 10 August, 2005 |
| With my bags packed, a hearty breakfast in my stomach and a cheque in the hands of the landlord I set off to the airport… |
| Friday, 06 June, 2014 |
| It was always going to be a late-ish night as the flight wasn’t due to get into Glasgow until gone 22:30… |
| Saturday, 07 June, 2014 |
| I had a late breakfast and after checking out wandered over to Queen Street station to pick up the train up to Stirling… |
| Sunday, 08 June, 2014 |
| Breakfast consumed I wandered into town and walked up through the old town past the Mercat cross and tollbooth to Mars Wark and the Holy Rude Kirk… |
| Monday, 09 June, 2014 |
| Checked out and with my luggage being kept at the hotel I headed back over to the bus station to catch the bus out to the nearby town of Doune… |
| Friday, 03 August, 2007 |
| With my clothes barely dry… |
| Saturday, 04 August, 2007 |
| After a belated start I finally made it into the centre… |
| Sunday, 05 August, 2007 |
| Wales is a little devoid of rail links… |
| Monday, 06 August, 2007 |
| I checked out of the hotel… |
| Friday, 11 February, 2005 |
| Due to the delay leaving Paddington & speed restrictions along the line we eventually arrived in Cardiff 7 minutes late. |
| Saturday, 12 February, 2005 |
| After the rain of yesterday it was a relief to wake up to find Saturday was dry & bright. I walked from the hotel to Cardiff Queen Street station and an early train out to Caerphilly. About 10 minutes walk from the station is Caerphilly Castle. The castle |
| Sunday, 13 February, 2005 |
| First stop of the morning was Cardiff Castle. The site has been fortified since Roman times, with remains of part of the old Roman walls still visible and on display within the site. |
| Friday, 21 June, 2019 |
| I’d been at a conference in Birmingham… |
| Saturday, 22 June, 2019 |
| I had an early breakfast and headed over to the station … |
| Sunday, 23 June, 2019 |
| A couple of days before I’d headed to Wales the Met Office had been issuing weather warnings for the Sunday into Monday for most of the country… |
| Monday, 24 June, 2019 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and a late breakfast before repacking my bag and heading down to checkout… |
| Tuesday, 25 June, 2019 |
| Whilst having to pick up the roller banner had meant I had to travel via Birmingham and ended up getting stranded… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Friday, 28 June, 2013 |
| A very hectic day at work meant that despite making it very clear I had to get away by 5pm it was still nearly 5:20 when I finally managed to get out of the building and head over to the train station… |
| Saturday, 29 June, 2013 |
| After a very long lie in, I checked out of the hotel and headed back to Piccadilly to pick up the train out to Llandudno. |
| Sunday, 30 June, 2013 |
| A large breakfast inside me I headed out of the hotel and up the street to the tram station to catch the Great Orme tramway up to the summit. |
| Monday, 01 July, 2013 |
| After a late breakfast and checkout I headed out into a clammy damp mistiness that had enveloped Llandudno. |
| Friday, 5 May, 2017 |
| I’d been in a meeting in the morning near Colwyn Bay… |
| Saturday, 06 May, 2017 |
| I was up early as I wanted to make sure I made the early Welsh Highland Railway train… |
| Sunday, 07 May, 2017 |
| Another early breakfast and then a stiff walk out of the town centre up to the site of the former roman fortress Segontium… |
| Friday, 29 April, 2011 |
| I had spent the night in Birmingham as I wanted to get the early train from there out to Porthmadog… |
| Saturday, 30 April, 2011 |
| Another early start to get to the station for another long train ride… |
| Sunday, 01 May, 2011 |
| Not quite such an early start to the day, but first stop was once again the railway station… |
| Monday, 02 May, 2011 |
| My original plan had been to spend part of the day on the Ffestiniog railway… |
| Friday, 05 July, 2002 |
| After a long journey down the motorway from London stopping for a traffic jam virtually every other junction we arrived at the hotel after 5 hours, thankfully just in time for dinner. |
| Saturday, 06 July, 2002 |
| Off to Hay, the home of the second hand book. |
| Sunday, 07 July, 2002 |
| Back into the car for the drive home but via Worcester and a glorious meal at a pub on the outskirts of Bromsgrove next to the canal. |
| Thursday, 23 April, 2015 |
| I’d had to come to Port Talbot for a meeting, so rather than trekking the 200 or so miles back to London it made more sense to take Friday off as leave and head further on into the west of Wales… |
| Friday, 24 April, 2015 |
| I was up relatively early as I wanted to get the 10am bus out of Tenby and towards Pembroke… |
| Saturday, 25 April, 2015 |
| Breakfast completed I headed out into town and over to the museum and gallery to have a look around… |
| Sunday, 26 April, 2015 |
| Another filling breakfast and then quickly out into town to have a look around the Tudor merchant’s house… |
| Friday, 28 June, 2019 |
| I’d been at a work conference in Liverpool all day… |
| Saturday, 29 June, 2019 |
| I had an early breakfast as I wanted to pack as much into the day as possible… |
| Sunday, 30 June, 2019 |
| Another early start and after a quick breakfast and checkout I once again headed to the bus station… |
| Tuesday, 19 January, 2010 |
| Despite Southern’s best efforts I made it to Euston with time to spare for my train north... |
| Wednesday, 20 January, 2010 |
| After my self-catered breakfast it was off out of the hotel, onto the bus and out of Holyhead... |
| Thursday, 21 January, 2010 |
| I headed over to the station to buy a “North Wales Rover”, these are fantastic tickets which let you travel around, depending on how many zones you buy, all or part of North Wales on buses and trains... |
| Friday, 22 January, 2010 |
| Up even earlier this morning and back to the station for a two zone rover ticket, even cheaper and I worked out by the time I hit the first castle of the morning I would be up... |
| Saturday, 23 January, 2010 |
| I headed out of the hotel and back over towards the Country Park to have a wander around... |
| Friday, 06 October, 2023 |
| I did a full days work from home before heading down to the station to pick up the train into London… |
| Saturday, 07 October, 2023 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and a relatively late breakfast before heading out of the hotel to explore the town… |
| Sunday, 08 October, 2023 |
| Another relatively late lie in and breakfast before checking out of the hotel and heading over to the nearby bus stop to pick up the bus |
| Friday, 03 September, 2021 |
| As I’d done on so many other occasions recently I used my lunch break to head out to my hotel… |
| Saturday, 04 September, 2021 |
| I had a long lie in and a late breakfast at the hotel before heading out of the hotel and picking up the bus into Dunstable… |
| Sunday, 05 September, 2021 |
| As expected I didn’t have a great nights sleep… |
| Friday, 11 September, 2020 |
| I used up part of my lunch break from work to get out to my local station and up to Clapham Junction… |
| Saturday, 12 September, 2020 |
| After a slightly weird breakfast in the hotel I headed out for the short walk down the road to the impressive Victorian Town Hall and Reading Museum… |
| Sunday, 13 September, 2020 |
| I had a nice lie in and a later breakfast before checking out of the hotel and wandering across town to my first stop of the morning, the Museum of English Rural Life… |
| Friday, 31 August, 2012 |
| Given how long it has taken to get to some of my destinations in the past, it felt slightly odd that I was stepping off the train barely 60 minutes after leaving home… |
| Saturday, 01 September, 2012 |
| I had a long lie in and by the time I finally left the hotel it was already late morning… |
| Sunday, 02 September, 2012 |
| There had clearly been a big wedding reception that was being held in the hotel the previous evening as breakfast was very busy, taking nearly 5 minutes just to get a seat… |
| Friday, 23 June, 2023 |
| I worked from home in the morning before using my lunch break to head over to Amersham and then worked out of the hotel in the afternoon… |
| Saturday, 24 June, 2023 |
| I had a relatively early breakfast, mostly because the person in the room above was up at the crack of dawn and the old wooden floorboards made quite a lot of noise with even the slightest movement… |
| Sunday, 25 June, 2023 |
| Thankfully the person in the room above was having a bit of a lie in this morning… |
| Friday, 09 June, 2023 |
| After finishing work for the day I headed down to the station, into Victoria and across London to catch my train out of Marylebone… |
| Saturday, 10 June, 2023 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and a quick breakfast before heading out of the hotel to actually visit the sites of the town… |
| Sunday, 11 June, 2023 |
| Given I’d had an early night I got up relatively early and had an earlier than planned breakfast before heading back to my room to pack and check out… |
| Friday, 30 June, 2023 |
| I took advantage of my lunch break to head up to High Wycombe, with a quick change at Oxford Circus between tubes letting me catch the earlier much faster train directly to High Wycombe without stopping… |
| Saturday, 01 July, 2023 |
| I had intended on having a bit of a lie-in, but the rather efficient air-conditioning had managed to make the room so cold overnight… |
| Sunday, 02 July, 2023 |
| I had an early breakfast and checked out of the hotel before heading down into town… |
| Friday, 16 June, 2023 |
| I took an extended lunch break to head up to Milton Keynes and shortly after checking into my hotel was back on my work laptop finishing off my day… |
| Saturday, 17 June, 2023 |
| I had a relatively early breakfast and then headed out of the hotel over to the nearby bus stop to catch the bus over to my first stop of the day… |
| Sunday, 18 June, 2023 |
| Another late breakfast and after checking out of the hotel I headed over to the bus stop to catch the bus down to the southern suburb of Milton Keynes – Bletchley… |
| Saturday, 20 January, 2007 |
| After two days of management training in a conference centre on the outskirts of Bridgwater in Somerset… |
| Sunday, 21 January, 2007 |
| After a refreshing shower and a less than impressive breakfast (my definition of selection of cold meats and cheeses would normally require there to be more than one of each)… |
| Monday, 22 January, 2007 |
| After checking out I walked through the city centre to the bus station and caught the bus out to Glastonbury… |
| Friday, 15 April, 2011 |
| Straight through London faster than I think I’ve done it for a long time; I ended up being at Paddington with nearly an hour to spend, so I had a large lunch at the station before catching the train out to Bristol… |
| Saturday, 16 April, 2011 |
| After an early start I headed out of the hotel to the bus stop near the station to get the bus out to Wells, and from there on to Cheddar… |
| Sunday, 17 April, 2011 |
| After breakfast I headed into the centre of town to pick up the open-top sightseeing tour bus. I did a complete tour of the route before stopping in the city centre for a late morning coffee… |
| Monday, 18 April, 2011 |
| After a leisurely shower and breakfast it was time to head back into work, for a while I thought it was the longest commute I had ever done, but then remembered… |
| Friday, 13 July, 2018 |
| I’d been in Bristol for most of the week at a work conference, but after that had finished I walked the short distance across town from the conference hotel to my hotel for the weekend… |
| Saturday, 14 July, 2018 |
| After breakfast in the hotel I headed down through the recently redeveloped and pedestrianised cenotaph area to the city quay… |
| Sunday, 15 July, 2018 |
| After breakfast I headed out of the hotel and had a bit of explore of the area around the hotel before heading up to the castle park to pick up the sightseeing bus back round to the city quay… |
| Friday, 18 February, 2022 |
| In the original plan for this weekend I was down in Somerset for an all day work meeting… |
| Saturday, 19 February, 2022 |
| I got up relatively early for breakfast, meeting with colleagues, on the idea that we’d all be making an early get away from Bridgwater… |
| Sunday, 20 February, 2022 |
| Overnight the wind continued to howl around the hotel, rattling the double glazing units in the hotel… |
| Monday, 21 February, 2022 |
| With the effects of two storms in a couple of days still causing havoc with the rail network in the UK… |
| Saturday, 16 November, 2013 |
| Having been at a conference for the previous few days I woke up in the Premier Inn in Manchester after a nice long lie-in feeling refreshed and ready to go… |
| Sunday, 17 November, 2013 |
| Breakfast completed and I walked back into town, and the first stop of the morning was the heritage bus tour of the city, on board a working early 20th Century London Omnibus… |
| Monday, 18 November, 2013 |
| All checked out, but with my luggage still at the hotel, I headed down to the station to catch the train out to Hooton and then onto Ellesmere Port… |
| Friday, 18 June, 2021 |
| I used an extended lunch break to head up to Cambridge… |
| Saturday, 19 June, 2021 |
| When I’d booked the hotel, it was still touch and go as to whether we’d be able to travel within England… |
| Sunday, 20 June, 2021 |
| With all the Covid regulations in place it’s not possible to just turn up at a museum and visit these days (with some exceptions)… |
| Monday, 21 June, 2021 |
| I worked out of the hotel for most of the morning, before taking an extended lunch break and using that to check-out, head over to the station and catch my train home. |
| Friday, 20 August, 2021 |
| I headed up to Peterborough during my lunch break and then worked out of the hotel for the afternoon… |
| Saturday, 21 August, 2021 |
| I had a pretty full day planned… |
| Sunday, 22 August, 2021 |
| I had another early start to the day, and once gain back over to the bus station… |
| Monday, 23 August, 2021 |
| I worked out of the hotel during the morning… |
| Friday, 02 October, 2020 |
| After work I headed over to Heathrow for my evening flight down to Cornwall… |
| Saturday, 03 October, 2020 |
| The hotel could only offer me a slot for breakfast at either 07:00 or 10:15… |
| Sunday, 04 October, 2020 |
| I managed to get a reasonable nights sleep, despite the howls of wind and the hammering of rain on the windows… |
| Monday, 04 April, 2005 |
| I arrived at Paddington 2 1/2 hours before the departure of the sleeper. Unfortunately this coincided exactly with all the café's and restaurants closing! |
| Tuesday, 05 April, 2005 |
| Tuesday started earlier than planned. I had booked an alarm call and breakfast from the steward for 7:30, instead my alarm call was the sound of "...03:40 First Great Western service to Penzance calling at..." |
| Wednesday, 06 April, 2005 |
| After a very comfortable nights sleep, and a delicious breakfast I headed out to the bus station and on to Geevor. Tin has been mined here for hundreds of years and Geevor was one of the last to close as foreign competition and falling prices made Cornish |
| Thursday, 07 April, 2005 |
| Early start to the day as I was catching the 9:20 flight to Tresco, one of the Isles of Scilly. After checking out of the hotel (but the landlord very kindly allowing me to leave my bags) I got a cab to the Heliport, as the only way onto Tresco is by heli |
| Thursday, 30 September, 2021 |
| Its quite a long way down to the tip of Cornwall, so I’d split my journey up into two legs… |
| Friday, 01 October, 2021 |
| As I’d been able to come down the previous evening to Plymouth it meant I only needed to book a half days annual leave… |
| Saturday, 02 October, 2021 |
| I’d packed my waterproof clothes as the weather forecast for most of the preceding week had suggested it was going to be wet… |
| Sunday, 03 October, 2021 |
| I had breakfast in the hotel and then checked-out and headed, once more, over to the bus station to pick up the first bus heading up the coast to the neighbouring town of Marazion… |
| Friday, 22 September, 2006 |
| I finished work at lunchtime and headed up to Paddington. An eventless, but slow journey later… |
| Saturday, 23 September, 2006 |
| The weather forecast for the previous week had been predicting gloom and doom for the whole South West portion of England… |
| Sunday, 24 September, 2006 |
| There are two major issues I have with Cornwall. One is the fact that the public transport, whilst reliable, isn't… |
| Monday, 25 September, 2006 |
| Despite feeling quite so sleepy the previous evening, it had taken some time to fall asleep on the train, and I had assumed that I would keep waking up through the night… |
| Friday, 26 June, 2015 |
| Out of work and across town as quick as I could I made it to Euston with about 40 minutes to spare before my train… |
| Saturday, 27 June, 2015 |
| A late start, though early enough to avoid the massive rush for the end of breakfast, and then out of the hotel and back over to Piccadilly… |
| Sunday, 28 June, 2015 |
| A good night’s sleep and I woke to the predicted drizzle lashing at the window of my hotel room… |
| Monday, 29 June, 2015 |
| Breakfast completed I checked out and headed over to the main bus stops in town to pick up a bus out to Furness Abbey… |
| Saturday, 23 May, 2009 |
| With a long, but uneventful journey behind me I hobbled the short distance from the station to the hotel… |
| Sunday, 24 May, 2009 |
| No rodents woke me up during the night, it was just the large, loud stag party at about 2am that woke me up, but you can’t really blame Travelodge for that… |
| Monday, 25 May, 2009 |
| An even earlier start today to head off down the Cumbrian Coast… |
| Tuesday, 26 May, 2009 |
| The pain in my foot had suddenly come on nearly three weeks earlier… |
| Wednesday, 27 May, 2009 |
| Given that on the previous couple of days I had got up quite early to get pre-9am trains I had intended on having a nice long lie in and getting up quite late… |
| Thursday, 28 May, 2009 |
| An early start and out to the station to catch my train north… |
| Wednesday, 28 July, 2021 |
| My train from Hexham arrived early into Carlisle… |
| Thursday, 29 July, 2021 |
| I was up early for Breakfast and then quickly over to the bus station to pick up an early bus north out of the city… |
| Friday, 30 July, 2021 |
| Another early start to the day, this time to get over to the railway station to pick up the train south down the Cumbrian cost… |
| Saturday, 31 July, 2021 |
| I had another early start to head over to the bus station for a day out exploring the Lake District… |
| Sunday, 01 August, 2021 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and a late start as I didn’t have much planned before my booked train back across the top of England… |
| Friday, 21 July, 2017 |
| Another week and another conference had me staying over in Lancaster… |
| Saturday, 22 July, 2017 |
| I woke up to yet more rain and decided that given how wet it was looking I would try and do indoor stuff in the morning to see if the weather would get any better… |
| Sunday, 23 July, 2017 |
| The original weather forecast had been dire for the whole weekend… |
| Friday, 01 September, 2017 |
| The 33rd day of strike action on Southern had very little effect… |
| Saturday, 02 September, 2017 |
| I had an early breakfast and was up out of the hotel in time to get back up to the station to pick up the first open-top bus of the morning out into the Northern lakes… |
| Sunday, 03 September, 2017 |
| The weather for today wasn’t looking so good… |
| Thursday, 20 October, 2022 |
| As there was major engineering works taking place at the weekend the coach actually turned out to be the quickest option for getting back from Bournemouth… |
| Friday, 21 October, 2022 |
| I worked out of the hotel all of the day on Friday, only popping out to grab some lunch… |
| Saturday, 22 October, 2022 |
| After an earlyish breakfast I headed out of the hotel and wandered down to the top of the East Cliff promenade high over the beach… |
| Sunday, 23 October, 2022 |
| Breakfast completed I packed up my bag and checked out of the hotel before catching the bus down to the pier… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Friday, 11 July, 2003 |
| Was going down to Weymouth to see a mate and then, as he had never seen his town as a tourist, do all the sights. |
| Saturday, 12 July, 2003 |
| Saturday dawned gloriously. Almost perfectly clear blue skies and the sea looking tourist brochure blue! |
| Sunday, 13 July, 2003 |
| Sunday dawned, if anything, even brighter than Saturday. |
| Friday, 24 September, 2004 |
| The main purpose of this weekend was for me and a friend to go down and celebrate another friends, belated, birthday. |
| Saturday, 25 September, 2004 |
| Weather forecast from the BBC - Warm, Sunny and Dry; Actual weather - Wet. |
| Sunday, 26 September, 2004 |
| Finally some good weather and after checking out from the hotel and picking up the rest of the party we headed off to the Dorset coast and the Isle of Purbeck. |
| Monday, 31 May, 2021 |
| I caught a taxi down from Darlington station to the hotel to check in and drop off my bags before heading back out… |
| Tuesday, 01 June, 2021 |
| An early breakfast to be out of the hotel quickly and onto a bus for my first stop of the morning… |
| Wednesday, 02 June, 2021 |
| Darlington is perhaps most well know for it’s connections to railways… |
| Thursday, 03 June, 2021 |
| After packing my bag, leaving it with the hotel and checking out… |
| Friday, 28 May, 2021 |
| I’d stayed overnight at Newcastle airport and worked out of the hotel for the morning, before my half day’s leave kicked in just before midday… |
| Saturday, 29 May, 2021 |
| I had an early breakfast in the hotel before heading out for a morning of exercise… |
| Sunday, 30 May, 2021 |
| I had a decent nights sleep after all that exertion the previous day… |
| Monday, 31 May, 2021 |
| I had a later breakfast than the previous mornings and then headed out from the hotel to go for a little walk along the river… |
| Friday, 12 October, 2007 |
| The only problem with going on holiday in the UK is the time it takes to get anywhere… |
| Saturday, 13 October, 2007 |
| We set out from my friends house, with them driving, to explore North Devon… |
| Sunday, 14 October, 2007 |
| After a late start, we headed out into the heart of North Devon… |
| Friday, 26 June, 2009 |
| An uneventful journey up to Barnstaple. I walked across town to the hotel and checked in... |
| Saturday, 27 June, 2009 |
| A very early start to the day to get the bus into Biddeford... |
| Sunday, 28 June, 2009 |
| I had time for breakfast this morning, and then it was time to check out... |
| Friday, 27 May, 2016 |
| I’d been working from home during the day… |
| Saturday, 28 May, 2016 |
| I looked out of the window in the morning expecting the clouds and rain that had been forecast… |
| Sunday, 29 May, 2026 |
| Another pleasant breakfast completed and I headed out to the station to pick up the train to Okehampton… |
| Monday, 30 May, 2016 |
| Having checked out of the hotel I wandered through town to the Cathedral… |
| Sunday, 15 June, 2008 |
| It’s nearly four hours by train from London to Plymouth, a journey made even longer by engineering works on a weekend… |
| Monday, 16 June, 2008 |
| After an unconvincing breakfast “box” from the hotel, I headed up through town to the train station… |
| Tuesday, 17 June, 2008 |
| After another quite frankly useless breakfast box, I checked out of the hotel… |
| Friday, 31 May, 2019 |
| I had a meeting in Exeter the following Monday so I was heading down on the Friday evening rather than the Sunday… |
| Saturday, 01 June, 2019 |
| The hotel was very nice, but did have some strange rules over breakfast… |
| Sunday, 02 June, 2019 |
| Another early start to get breakfast and then after checking out a wander over to the bus stop, hoping to avoid the impending rain… |
| Tuesday, 23 June, 2009 |
| A smooth journey down as far as Newton Abbott, with the only hold-up being caused by the train prior to mine at Exeter having problems joining with another train... |
| Wednesday, 24 June, 2009 |
| After being woken early by the majestic heard of stampeding Wildebeests that were the school kids heading towards the station... |
| Thursday, 25 June, 2009 |
| I had intended on visiting the castle at Berry Pommeroy today, about a 50 minute bus ride from Torquay, most of the way to Totness... |
| Friday, 26 June, 2009 |
| With my bags all packed I headed out of the hotel for a final morning in Torbay. My stop for the morning was Kents Cavern... |
| Coming Soon… |
| Thursday, 20 July, 2023 |
| After finishing work for the day I headed out to catch the penultimate train of the day… |
| Friday, 21 July, 2023 |
| I worked out of the hotel in Birmingham in the morning and then at lunchtime headed over to New Street Station… |
| Saturday, 22 July, 2023 |
| Of course, what I’d forgotten to take into account was with the power off my phone was no longer charging… |
| Sunday, 23 July, 2023 |
| Strangely, when you don’t have an air conditioning system screeching at you every 90 minutes it is possible to get a reasonable nights sleep… |
| Friday, 28 February, 2014 |
| Having left work I just caught the FCC train, which in hindsight was probably a mistake… |
| Saturday, 01 March, 2014 |
| The contrast to the previous evening could not have been more stark, on pulling back the curtains in my hotel room I was greeted with a glorious clear blue sky and bright sunlight… |
| Sunday, 02 March, 2014 |
| Any hope for a repeat of the nice weather was dashed the second I drew back the curtains and saw the wall of grey sky hanging over the city… |
| Friday, 09 December, 2011 |
| It was an uneventful, if packed journey down… |
| Saturday, 10 December, 2011 |
| Up early and out to a beautifully sunny morning. I had breakfast in a little café on the beach taking in the millpond still sea and the light glinting off the pier… |
| Sunday, 11 December, 2011 |
| Another early start and I caught the bus out to Pevensey just a bit further down the coast to have a look around the castle there… |
| Monday, 12 December, 2011 |
| At an awful hour I got up and caught the commuter train back out of Eastbourne and back to work. |
| Friday, 15 August, 2014 |
| Saturday, 16 August, 2014 |
| An excellent breakfast consumed I headed out of the hotel to have a bit of a wander round the Airbourne site before meeting up with my friends… |
| Sunday, 17 August, 2014 |
| Another stunning breakfast completed, I headed out onto the seafront and picked up the open-top bus tour up for a quick outing to Beachy Head, Birling Gap and East Dean… |
| Monday, 18 August, 2014 |
| Even getting up early and being at the Breakfast rooms doors as it was due to open I still wasn’t the first person in… |
| Friday, 24 September, 2021 |
| Another Friday, another quick journey down during my lunch break and then finishing off my working day in the hotel… |
| Saturday, 25 September, 2021 |
| Whilst I didn’t have much booked in for the day the less than convenient timings of rural buses in East Sussex… |
| Sunday, 26 September, 2021 |
| I had a much later breakfast than the previous day… |
| Friday, 17 September, 2021 |
| I’d travelled down to Ashford the day before so had been working out of a hotel there in the morning as I had a half days leave booked… |
| Saturday, 18 September, 2021 |
| As the whole area, apart from the towns of Rye and Winchelsea, is a marsh down at sea level… |
| Sunday, 19 September, 2021 |
| The previous night before I’d gone to bed I’d predicted I would either have a really good nights sleep, or I’d spend it slowly cramping up and unable to get comfortable… |
| Friday, 27 January, 2012 |
| Having finished a meeting I was having in Chelmsford I headed over to the station and caught the train north a couple of stations to Colchester… |
| Saturday, 28 January, 2012 |
| I woke to a stunning morning, and after an excellent breakfast headed out to the station to catch the train one station north to the town of Manningtree… |
| Sunday, 29 January, 2012 |
| Checked out, but with my luggage in the hotels reception office I went into town to take in the main sights… |
| Friday, 11 June, 2021 |
| I had a half day’s leave booked, so after shutting down the laptop I was able to head out for a lunchtime train up into London… |
| Saturday, 12 June, 2021 |
| I was up early, partly as the dustcart was emptying the glass recycling from the neighbouring pub at 06:30… |
| Sunday, 13 June, 2021 |
| I had a slightly later breakfast than the previous day and, after checking out of my room, headed down to the seafront to pick up the open-top bus… |
| Friday, 10 August, 2012 |
| I had an uneventful and speedy journey from work up to Kings Cross and then on up to Hull… |
| Saturday, 11 August, 2012 |
| The forecast had been for a sunny day, but that obviously wasn’t taking account of sea mists as it was pretty foggy when I woke up… |
| Sunday, 12 August, 2012 |
| The city run museums didn’t open until the afternoon, but after breakfast I headed to the town’s impressive aquarium… |
| Monday, 13 August, 2012 |
| After an early breakfast it was time to check out of the hotel, walk the very short distance out of the door and onto the platform and my waiting train back to London and then on to work… |
| Friday, 17 January, 2014 |
| Ninety minutes, in theory, should be more than enough time to get across London to catch a train from Paddington… |
| Saturday, 18 January, 2014 |
| Having discovered quite how close to the hotel the bus stop was, I wandered over there after Breakfast and headed into town… |
| Sunday, 19 January, 2014 |
| With breakfast consumed and my bags left in store in the hotel I headed out into a glorious crisp winters morning… |
| Wednesday, 08 November, 2006 |
| I’ve had something that I always thought was probably true confirmed to me… |
| Thursday, 09 November, 2006 |
| The whole day was spent attending a conference in Manchester… |
| Friday, 10 November, 2006 |
| The following morning was spent congratulating conference members… |
| Saturday, 11 November, 2006 |
| With the conference having finished the previous evening I now had a long weekend to my self in the North West… |
| Sunday, 12 November, 2006 |
| Another day that I’m late out of the hotel, though this time it was caused by my typing up the previous days being late out of the hotel… |
| Monday, 13 November, 2006 |
| Having left my luggage in the hotel storage room I headed over to the station to catch the tram to the Western side of the city… |
| Friday, 09 November, 2012 |
| I’d been at a conference in Manchester for the previous couple of days, so it was a very short walk after the conference ended from the hotel it was being held in to the slightly better hotel that I’d booked into for my holiday… |
| Saturday, 10 November, 2012 |
| With a very good night’s sleep, and a massive breakfast inside me I headed out from the hotel and took the short walk to Manchester Oxford Road station… |
| Sunday, 11 November, 2012 |
| A very lazy start to the day meant that by the time I finally left the hotel it was almost midday… |
| Monday, 12 November, 2012 |
| Waking up to a typical Mancunian morning with the rain beating down on the window, I had a fortifying breakfast, checked out of the hotel and headed out into the weather… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Friday, 21 February, 2014 |
| I finished work just after midday and made it down onto the platform at East Croydon with a couple of minutes to spare before the Portsmouth train pulled in… |
| Saturday, 22 February, 2014 |
| After a filling breakfast I headed over to the bus stops near the station and caught the bus round to the seaside town of Southsea… |
| Sunday, 23 February, 2014 |
| Breakfast completed I checked out slightly perturbed that the Ibis was charging for luggage storage… |
| Friday, 04 February, 2011 |
| I just about managed to squeeze myself and my luggage into the already heaving train... |
| Saturday. 05 February, 2011 |
| One of the main reasons for coming down to Southampton had been to meet up with friends... |
| Sunday, 06 February, 2011 |
| I checked out of the hotel and left my luggage in their storage room before heading out for a wander around the city... |
| Friday, 03 April, 2015 |
| It was quite refreshing to get away to a holiday quite so quickly… |
| Saturday, 04 April, 2015 |
| The comfy bed combined with the hot bath the evening beforehand meant that I was glad breakfast was being served until late… |
| Sunday, 05 April, 2015 |
| Another long lie in and big breakfast before wandering up to the station to pick up the train out to Fareham… |
| Monday, 06 April, 2015 |
| Having done the key sights away from the city centre I was left with today to do a quick lap of the town… |
| Friday, 10 July, 2020 |
| So, first trip as the Covid-19 restrictions started to ease and by pure chance the first trip to survive the rounds of cancellations and postponements… |
| Saturday, 11 July, 2020 |
| Breakfast was a paper grab-bag containing some muesli, a croissant, cheese and a yogurt – accompanied by a small americano coffee which I took back to my room to consume... |
| Sunday, 12 July, 2020 |
| Another grab-bag breakfast and then off out into the city centre to have a wander around… |
| Friday, 17 June, 2022 |
| The previous couple of days had been hot and today was due to be the hottest day, and night, of the year so far… |
| Saturday, 18 June, 2022 |
| Needless to say with the first night of decent sleep for a couple of days because of the aircon I woke up feeling much more refreshed than I had done for several days… |
| Sunday, 19 June, 2022 |
| Given the weather forecast for the morning I had a bit of a lie-in and a late breakfast before heading out of the hotel… |
| Monday, 20 June, 2022 |
| I had an early breakfast and worked out of the hotel for most of the morning before using my lunchbreak to hop on a train back home to finish off my working day. |
| Friday, 12 September, 2014 |
| A quick dash across town and then onto the HighSpeed at St Pancras… |
| Saturday, 13 September, 2014 |
| A very pleasant breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel and went for a wander around town in the warm morning sun… |
| Sunday, 14 September, 2014 |
| Another excellent breakfast, and after checking out of the hotel I headed over to the neighbouring Dickens House museum… |
| Friday, 11 September, 2015 |
| I’d had a bit of emotional rollercoaster of a week, mostly caused by quitting my job of 12 … |
| Saturday, 12 September, 2015 |
| A very filling breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel to have a bit more of a wander around the marina area… |
| Sunday, 13 September, 2015 |
| Breakfast completed I checked out of the hotel and headed the short distance over to the historic dockyard to have a look around… |
| Friday, 11 April, 2014 |
| A quick dash across town after finishing work saw me make the train at St Pancras with plenty of time to spare. |
| Saturday, 12 April, 2014 |
| Breakfast consumed I headed the short distance over to the bus station to pick up the 9:45 bus out to Sandwich, from where it was a mile or so walk along the side of the River Stour to reach the Roman fort at Richborough… |
| Sunday, 13 April, 2014 |
| After breakfast I headed round the corner from the hotel to the ruins of St Augustine’s abbey, the first Christian site built in England since the fall of the Roman Empire… |
| Monday, 14 April, 2014 |
| In the end I was quite glad I’d had an early night as it meant I managed to get some sleep in before dinner decided it wasn’t going to go down without a fight… |
| Friday, 09 August, 2013 |
| From work it was a short journey up into town and then back out to North Kent, arriving in Faversham a little over 90 minutes after switching off my PC at work…. |
| Saturday, 10 August, 2013 |
| After breakfast I headed out into town for a bit more of a wander, before heading over to the Shepherd Neame brewery for my pre-booked tour… |
| Sunday, 11 August, 2013 |
| I checked out of the hotel and headed over to the station to pick up the train along the coast to Herne Bay… |
| Friday, 12 April, 2013 |
| An amazingly smooth journey came to a grinding halt within touching distance of the end… |
| Saturday, 13 April, 2013 |
| There’s something very comforting to be curled up under a big warm duvet whilst rain hammers at the windows and the wind howls round the outside of the building… |
| Sunday, 14 April, 2013 |
| Despite the weather forecast claiming it was warm and sunny they clearly hadn’t taken the readings for this corner of Kent as I looked out of the hotel room at a grey and overcast sky that was still slowly eking damp over Hythe… |
| Friday, 14 January, 2022 |
| I had my lunch break on the train down to Maidstone and then quickly headed across town to the hotel to checkin and finish off my day… |
| Saturday, 15 January, 2022 |
| A quick breakfast in the hotel and then the 10 minute walk down to the bus stop for the bus out to my first stop of the day at Leeds castle… |
| Sunday, 16 January, 2022 |
| I had a bit more of a lie in this morning as my first attraction was only a 15-minute bus ride away, and didn’t open until 10am… |
| Friday, 03 January, 2014 |
| When I originally planned to go down to Margate after New Years it was the early summer and my major concern, based on the previous few years, was would I get down there through the inevitable snow… |
| Saturday, 04 January, 2014 |
| Breakfast consumed I headed out of the hotel and along the sea front, up past the gallery and onto the Eastern cliffs, taking in the views from the former fort… |
| Sunday, 05 January, 2014 |
| Breakfasted and checked out I headed out into a gloriously sunny morning, with just faint wisps of fluffy clouds in the sky… |
| Friday, 22 May, 2015 |
| With the threat of a train strike causing chaos on Monday and Tuesday lifted I headed from the office and up to London… |
| Saturday, 23 May, 2015 |
| I hadn’t booked breakfast in the hotel and instead popped out to a nearby café for a spot of breakfast before going for a wander round Ramsgate… |
| Sunday, 24 May, 2015 |
| Another café based breakfast and then I picked up the bus up to the station and from there the train down along the coast to the town of Walmer… |
| Monday, 25 May, 2015 |
| With a sense of Groundhog Day I headed out of the hotel… |
| Tuesday, 26 May, 2015 |
| After a nice lie-in it was time to get up, check out and start the journey into work… |
| Friday, 12 November, 2021 |
| Originally this was supposed to be a weekend in Bavaria… |
| Saturday, 13 November, 2021 |
| An early breakfast and then out of the hotel and over to the station to pick up the train to my first stop of the morning… |
| Sunday, 14 November, 2021 |
| I had a bit of a lie in and a late start, as my ticket for Knole house wasn’t until late morning… |
| Monday, 15 November, 2021 |
| I worked out of the hotel in the morning and then used my lunch break to head back home. |
| Friday, 27 October, 2019 |
| I arrived in Tunbridge Wells in the middle of a sustained downpour… |
| Saturday, 26 October, 2019 |
| Overnight the weather had improved quite considerably and after a quick breakfast I was able to finish off exploring the Pantiles… |
| Sunday, 27 October, 2019 |
| I had a quick breakfast, checked out of the hotel and then walked the short distance round the corner to Tunbridge Wells West station… |
| Wednesday, 14 April, 2010 |
| I arrived at Blackpool South station and walked the short distance to the hotel... |
| Thursday, 15 April, 2010 |
| At some point during the night an idea had started to form in my mind... |
| Friday, 16 April, 2010 |
| I was left with a couple of hours to kill in Blackpool before I needed to be on a train to Preston... |
| Saturday, 15 November, 2014 |
| Having been at a conference in Manchester for the preceding few days meant that rather than a very early start from London to travel up to Lancashire I instead had a very late breakfast in the hotel… |
| Sunday, 16 November, 2014 |
| Up early and out into the grey day for a trip out to the coast… |
| Monday, 17 November, 2014 |
| A nice long lie in so that I didn’t have to compete with salesmen for breakfast and then it was out of the hotel and over to the bus station to catch the bus out to the small town of Clitheroe and it’s equally compact castle… |
| Friday, 26 April, 2013 |
| The morning rush hour had been an almost total wipe-out because of the main signalling centre being evacuated due to fire alarms… |
| Saturday, 27 April, 2013 |
| Having topped my stomach back up to bursting on the buffet breakfast I waddled out of the hotel and across town to the bus station to catch the bus out to the first attraction of the day, the castle at Kirby Muxloe… |
| Sunday, 28 April, 2013 |
| After a slightly disrupted night’s sleep, almost exclusively put down to eating too much good food, I compounded the issue by having another large breakfast… |
| Friday, 19 July, 2002 |
| After dropping my stuff off at the hotel I decided wander up into town and I do mean up. Lincoln is on a hill and all the sites are at the top. There is only one suburban location with steeper hills and that's San Francisco!!. |
| Saturday, 20 July, 2002 |
| Aim of today to cram in as much as possible into a short a space of time as possible as the weather was not good. |
| Sunday, 21 July, 2002 |
| New day and no showers means that there is more time to look around more of the museums and sites of the city. |
| Monday, 22 July, 2002 |
| Just time before my train back home to have a look around the inside of the Cathedral from the ground rather than the rafters. Regular tours of the cathedral are conducted and give an interesting insight into parts of the cathedral and stories that you wo |
| Friday, 22 October 2021 |
| I’d travelled up as far as Peterborough the afternoon before and had spent the morning working out of the hotel… |
| Saturday, 23 October, 2021 |
| I had an early breakfast before heading out of the hotel and over to the bus station where I picked up the bus out to the South Lincolnshire town of Tattershall… |
| Sunday, 24 October, 2021 |
| I had a bit of lie in and a late breakfast before wandering over to the Bus station to catch the bus up the hill to the top of town… |
| Monday, 26 October, 2021 |
| I spent the morning working out of my hotel room, with a late checkout of 1pm, meaning I could work until lunchtime, pack-up and head over to the railway station and then continue working from the train back to London. |
| Friday, 25 August, 2023 |
| As the journey was less than 45 minutes across town I took a late lunch break and headed over to my hotel for the next three nights in Greenwich… |
| Saturday, 26 August, 2023 |
| I had a relatively early start and after breakfast I headed out of the hotel and over to the nearby bus stop to pick up the bus the couple of stops to Greenwich Park… |
| Sunday, 27 August, 2023 |
| Breakfast completed I headed out of the hotel to the DLR station and caught the train a couple of stops to the end of the line at Lewisham… |
| Monday, 28 August, 2023 |
| I checked out of the hotel and left my luggage with reception before heading out into Greenwich for a wander… |
| Friday, 10 December, 2021 |
| The original plan for this weekend was to be in Nuremberg for the Christmas Markets… |
| Saturday, 11 December, 2021 |
| I had a relatively early start and after a quick breakfast headed out of the hotel… |
| Sunday, 12 December, 2021 |
| I had a bit longer of a lie-in and after a quick breakfast checked out of the hotel and headed over to the bus stop to pick up the bus out to Hampton Court… |
| Thursday, 26 August, 2021 |
| I finished work at lunchtime and headed straight up into London and over to my hotel… |
| Friday, 27 August, 2021 |
| I had an early start and breakfast so that I was out of the hotel a little after 9 to catch a tube round to Temple station… |
| Saturday, 28 August, 2021 |
| An even earlier start this morning as I’d booked a 9am entry ticket for the Tower of London… |
| Sunday, 29 August, 2021 |
| I allowed myself a few extra minutes in bed on Sunday morning… |
| Monday, 30 August, 2021 |
| I’d learnt from the previous days mistake and moved back to getting up early so that I had a smooth breakfast before heading out round to Tower Hill to pick up the tube… |
| Tuesday, 31 August, 2021 |
| I had my final early breakfast and checked out of the hotel before starting what I was calling my Orange day… |
| Thursday, 25 August, 2022 |
| After finishing work I headed up into Central London and across to my hotel, taking less than 50 minutes to get from home to hotel… |
| Friday, 26 August, 2022 |
| I had an early breakfast and was out of the hotel just after 09:30… |
| Saturday, 27 August, 2022 |
| My first stop of the morning was back along the Cromwell Road to the third of the big three museums in South Kensington – the Victoria and Albert… |
| Sunday, 28 August, 2022 |
| I had a bit of a more relaxed start to the morning and after a late breakfast headed out of the hotel… |
| Monday, 29 August, 2022 |
| I had an early breakfast and checked out of the hotel, leaving my luggage with them, before catching the tube into town to Charring Cross… |
| Sunday, 11 April, 2010 |
| I would have hoped it was déjà vu, but that only applies if you think something has happened before, but it hasn’t... |
| Monday, 12 April, 2010 |
| I pulled back the curtains to reveal a stunningly clear blue sky, a distinct improvement on what the weather had been like a week earlier... |
| Tuesday, 13 April, 2010 |
| First stop of the morning was the Williams tunnels out the back of the city centre... |
| Wednesday, 14 April, 2010 |
| Having dumped my luggage in the left luggage office at Lime Street Station... |
| Friday, 14 July, 2017 |
| I’d been at a conference all week in the city… |
| Saturday, 15 July, 2017 |
| The hotel’s breakfast space was way too small for the number of guests who wanted to eat… |
| Sunday, 16 July, 2017 |
| A slightly less chaotic breakfast meant I actually had a table in the breakfast area but it was still very cramped… |
| Monday, 31 May, 2010 |
| An achingly slow journey across London on the coach... |
| Tuesday, 01 June, 2010 |
| I hadn’t booked breakfast at the hotel and had intended on picking up something for breakfast the previous evening, but had forgotten... |
| Wednesday, 02 June, 2010 |
| An early start to get out to the station for the first train I could catch out to the coast at Sheringham... |
| Thursday, 03 June, 2010 |
| Not quite as early a start as yesterday, but in a repeat it was back down to the station and onto the train... |
| Friday, 04 June, 2010 |
| Having paid for a late checkout from the Travelodge, so I had somewhere to store my luggage before my train I had a couple of hours to take in some of the attractions in the city... |
| Friday, 25 June, 2021 |
| I travelled up to London during my lunch break… |
| Saturday, 26 June, 2021 |
| I had an early ticket to visit the Castle Museum… |
| Sunday, 27 June, 2021 |
| I was up early again as I needed to get the train out to the North Norfolk coast… |
| Monday, 28 June, 2021 |
| After breakfast in the hotel restaurant I headed back up to my room and worked through until just before checkout time… |
| Tuesday, 28 October, 2003 |
| After leaving London at the end of the rush hour we made good time up to Norwich, reaching the hotel a little after 11pm. Though this was too late as the room had been double booked some time before so we had to set off again to the hotel room that we had |
| Wednesday, 29 October, 2003 |
| After going back into Norwich and checking back into the hotel it was time to explore the city. |
| Thursday, 30 October, 2003 |
| A Day spent exploring the broads. |
| Friday, 23 January, 2009 |
| My first trip of 2009, and possibly one of the slowest and most relaxed starts to a trip ever... |
| Saturday, 24 January, 2009 |
| I was up early as I had to catch the 10:15 bus from the station... |
| Sunday, 25 January, 2009 |
| After a late wake up I wandered into town to have a look around the town centre and take in all the attractions which were open... |
| Monday, 26 January, 2009 |
| I was up and out of the hotel relatively early to get down to the station to catch the train to North Berwick... |
| Tuesday, 27 January, 2009 |
| Up relatively early as I had to catch the train to Edinburgh... |
| Sunday, 25 July, 2021 |
| I’d stayed overnight in a hotel near Heathrow… |
| Monday, 26 July, 2021 |
| I had an early breakfast and was out of the hotel and at the station before 9am to catch an early train across Wall Country… |
| Tuesday, 27 July, 2021 |
| Another early breakfast and start to be out of the hotel and up to the bus station in time to make the first AD122 of the day… |
| Wednesday, 28 July, 2021 |
| I took advantage of it not being such a packed day to have a little bit of a lie in and a later breakfast before checking out of the hotel… |
| Friday, 18 March, 2011 |
| Apart from a 15 minute delay due to emergency engineering works in Watford, the journey up was pretty much uneventful and shortly after arriving I found myself in the hotel… |
| Saturday, 19 March, 2011 |
| With no sign of a major police presence in the reception this morning I headed down for a quick breakfast before heading out for the morning… |
| Sunday, 20 March, 2011 |
| I checked out of the hotel and joined my friends (who had also been staying over) for a late breakfast… |
| Thursday, 06 June, 2002 |
| Considering what had happened the last time I went away on Holiday in the UK (Bath) things had gone so wrong I was a little apprehensive about this trip. |
| Friday, 07 June, 2002 |
| Nottingham is dominated by the castle that stands on the hill. |
| Saturday, 08 June, 2002 |
| After a quick wander round the canal area near the hotel I decided to visit a couple of the museums in Nottingham. |
| Sunday, 09 June, 2002 |
| Nottingham has a lot to offer in terms of museums, attractions and things to do and you really need more than 2 and a half days. |
| Friday, 05 January, 2018 |
| I’d been up in Nottingham for a couple of days, following a work meeting in the city, so as soon as I powered down the laptop I was able to head out into the city… |
| Saturday, 06 January, 2018 |
| I had a filling breakfast and headed out into town to take in some of the key sites… |
| Sunday, 07 January, 2018 |
| After checking out of the hotel I caught the tram round to the station and the train out of town and along the Trent to the market town of Newark… |
| Friday, 20 May, 2022 |
| I’d come up to Leeds the afternoon before so I was able to work out of the hotel in the morning and make the final leg of my journey to Harrogate over my lunch break… |
| Saturday, 21 May, 2022 |
| I ended up having one of the best nights sleep I’d had in a very long time… |
| Sunday, 22 May, 2022 |
| I was up relatively early, which turned out to be a good plan as I was able to walk down to breakfast and get a seat straight away… |
| Friday, 22 October, 2010 |
| With an uneventful journey up I arrived in Middlesbrough in the gloom of an overcast autumn late afternoon... |
| Saturday, 23 October, 2010 |
| I decided to have a bit of lie-in, so by the time I finally left the hotel it was already gone 10, which left me with only 25 minutes to walk across town to catch the train... |
| Sunday, 24 October, 2010 |
| If yesterday morning had been the epitome of damp, then this morning was the complete opposite, a clear blue sky, that kind of clear blue that means only one thing, cold... |
| Monday, 25 October, 2010 |
| My plan for the day, as the weather was supposed to be good, was to head for the coast, which meant much of my itinerary would be based around getting there... |
| Tuesday, 26 October, 2010 |
| If yesterday had been a glorious day then today was the exact opposite... |
| Wednesday, 27 October, 2010 |
| I’d booked myself on a stupidly early train out of Middlesbrough as I’d wanted to have a full day in York... |
| Wednesday, 19 October, 2011 |
| With an uneventful journey up from London and a quick walk across town I was checked into the hotel…. |
| Thursday, 20 October, 2011 |
| After quite a late lie in I headed out into town and to the first stop of the morning, the impressive castle that dominates the town…. |
| Friday, 21 October, 2011 |
| Compared to yesterday it was a relatively early start as I needed to get to the station to catch a train before 10… |
| Saturday, 22 October, 2011 |
| After a quick breakfast in a coffee bar near the hotel I headed down to the sea front to catch the open-top bus along the prom… |
| Sunday, 23 October, 2011 |
| Up early again to get a bus out onto the Moors and over to the town of Helmsley… |
| Monday, 24 October, 2011 |
| With my luggage securely stored in the left luggage office on York station I grabbed a ticket and headed over to the town of Knaresborough near Harrogate… |
| Saturday, 20 December, 2003 |
| After an trouble free journey up (I expecting the worst using the trains the Saturday before Christmas) I arrived in York about 5pm and quickly checked into the hotel. After that I wandered out into the city to have a look around at one of the UK's oldest |
| Sunday, 21 December, 2003 |
| Sunday dawned bright, clear and cold over the city so the obvious thing to do was to warm up with a quick walk. The biggest site (in terms of scale) in the city are the old medieval city walls. Despite the best efforts of the English Civil War, The Georgi |
| Monday, 22 December, 2003 |
| After an exceptionally comfortable night with the heating on full blast it was almost inevitable that I would wake to the sight of snow covering the ground. Overnight winter had made it's way to Yorkshire and had left a good inch of snow on most things. S |
| Tuesday, 23 December, 2003 |
| Thankfully overnight the temperature had risen again and by dawn all the snow was gone. On my way to the station to drop off my luggage I had a further wander round the ruins of the Abbey of St. Mary's. |
| Friday, 07 June, 2019 |
| As I was transporting a hefty suitcase and a roller-banner I’d already booked a taxi to get me to city airport weeks in advance… |
| Saturday, 08 June, 2019 |
| I was booked on an early train from Manchester Airport so I had to skip breakfast in the hotel and get an early shuttle bus round to the station… |
| Sunday, 09 June. 2019 |
| I had a nice lie in and a late breakfast before heading out in the sun to the bus stop near the hotel to pick up the sightseeing bus… |
| Monday, 10 June, 2019 |
| I was due to be at a conference for work in Manchester later in the day… |
| Friday, 17 May, 2013 |
| A quick run across town from work and despite the best efforts of First Capital Connect I made it to Marylebone just before my train got its platform number… |
| Saturday, 18 May, 2013 |
| I had a late breakfast and then headed out into town to take in the key sights of Banbury… |
| Sunday, 19 May, 2013 |
| Another late breakfast, and taking it almost to the wire with checkout time I left my bags with the hotel and wandered back into Oxford for the day… |
| Friday, 25 February, 2022 |
| I headed up to London during my lunch break and over to Marylebone station where I caught the train on up to Oxford… |
| Saturday, 26 February, 2022 |
| I had a quick breakfast in the hotel before heading out across the road to the City Sightseeing tour office to purchase a 48 hour ticket… |
| Sunday, 27 February, 2022 |
| I had a nice lie in and a late breakfast before checking out of the hotel and heading round to my first stop of the morning the Ashmolean Museum… |
| Thursday, 01 July, 2021 |
| The advantage of home working is that home can become quite a relaxed definition… |
| Friday, 02 July, 2021 |
| I worked out of the hotel in Peterborough for the morning, finishing just before checkout time at midday… |
| Saturday, 03 July, 2021 |
| Oakham isn’t blessed with a large number of attractions for the tourist to see … |
| Sunday, 04 July, 2021 |
| I hadn’t done as diligent research when I booked this trip as I normally do… |
| Friday, 12 August, 2011 |
| The original plan had been that I would race up to town from work to get an early evening train up to Birmingham… |
| Saturday, 13 August, 2011 |
| I had thought sitting at home listening to the sirens and helicopters on Monday evening had been a pretty unpleasant experience, but I now realised that was nothing compared to the train journey to Telford… |
| Sunday, 14 August, 2011 |
| Out early, onto the first Gorge Bus of the morning and up to the Victoria town at Blists Hill. |
| Monday, 15 August, 2011 |
| Out early again, this time heading beyond the gorge to another part of what is now sleepy rural Shropshire, but in its time one of the most important places in England… |
| Tuesday, 16 August, 2011 |
| I had quite a bit of time to kill today, having to check out of the hotel by 11am, but my train not leaving Birmingham until nearly 7pm… |
| Friday, 13 November, 2015 |
| I’d been at a conference for a couple of days in Manchester… |
| Saturday, 14 November, 2015 |
| The mornings weather appeared to be better as I checked out of the hotel… |
| Sunday, 15 November, 2015 |
| The heavy driving rain of the previous day had been replaced with a light mizzle… |
| Monday, 16 November, 2015 |
| Breakfast completed, room checked out of and luggage left with the hotel… |
| Friday, 08 March, 2002 |
| I'm not going to go into the horror story of the start of my trip to Bath here. To view that go to the Hall of Horrors. Suffice to say that thanks to the booking agents at nearly 9pm on a wet Friday I was left stranded in the middle of a city I had never |
| Saturday, 09 March, 2002 |
| There are two major important sights in Bath. The baths and the Abbey. |
| Sunday, 10 March, 2002 |
| In an attempt to hide from the showers I looked around as many of the museums as possible. |
| Friday, 06 August, 2021 |
| After working from home during the morning I used my lunch break to head over to Paddington, grab a bite to eat and then pick up my train over to the West Country… |
| Saturday, 07 August, 2021 |
| An early start as I had a two part tour booked for the morning… |
| Sunday, 08 August, 2021 |
| I had an early breakfast and checked out of the hotel to head over towards the Pulteney Bridge… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Friday, 10 September, 2021 |
| Another location that is reachable in an extended lunchbreak… |
| Saturday, 11 September, 2021 |
| In my original plans for the day I was aiming for a later breakfast and heading out of the hotel about 10:30… |
| Sunday, 12 September, 2021 |
| I had a nice lie-in and a relatively late breakfast before heading out of the hotel and up to the train station… |
| Monday, 13 September, 2021 |
| I worked out of the hotel for most of the morning, before packing up and heading back home over my lunch break. |
| Friday, 24 June, 2022 |
| I used my lunch break to head over to Woking… |
| Saturday, 25 June, 2022 |
| An early breakfast and I was out of the hotel before 9am to head over to the bus stops near the station to pick up the bus out to Brooklands… |
| Sunday, 26 June, 2022 |
| Another early breakfast and out of the hotel to pick up an early train down to Guildford… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Friday, 24 June, 2011 |
| A Friday evening trip across London is always an unpleasant experience and this was no different. Thankfully I’d left plenty of time and the journey was pretty smooth, if very full… |
| Saturday, 25 June, 2011 |
| After an excellent breakfast I staggered out of the hotel to have a look around the town. I had a long wander and ended up at the town’s museum… |
| Sunday, 26 June, 2011 |
| With another stunning breakfast inside me and my bags stored in the hotels luggage room I headed out for the day, over to the bus station and out on the bus through Felixstowe… |
| Friday, 09 July, 2021 |
| Unlike previous weeks where I’d been able to make a dash for my destination during lunch… |
| Saturday, 10 July, 2021 |
| With all honesty I hadn’t heard about the Netflix drama The Dig until a colleague mentioned it a couple of weeks earlier… |
| Sunday, 11 July, 2021 |
| I was able to have a bit of lie in this morning as my first port of call didn’t open until 11am… |
| Monday, 12 July, 2021 |
| I had another early start as I wanted to head back out to the coast and the pretty Suffolk seaside town of Southwold… |
| Tuesday, 13 July, 2021 |
| After checking out of the hotel it was back over to the bus station and onto another bus… |
| Friday, 04 November, 2016 |
| I had a meeting booked with a customer in Doncaster for Monday… |
| Saturday, 05 November, 2016 |
| I had a nice long lie in and a very pleasant breakfast… |
| Sunday, 06 November, 2016 |
| Another long lie-in and pleasant breakfast before I headed out of the hotel… |
| Saturday, 25 August, 2012 |
| Despite leaving plenty of time to make it up into town, First Capital Connect conspired to ensure that there was a lot less waiting time at St Pancras than was healthy for my nerves… |
| Sunday, 26 August, 2012 |
| I headed out of the hotel down to the station to catch the train to the Victorian spa town of Matlock Bath and its key attraction the Heights of Abraham… |
| Monday, 27 August, 2012 |
| I checked out, left my bags with the hotel and headed out to the edge of town and the Botanic gardens… |
| Monday, 10 August, 2009 |
| Arriving at Kings Cross to find there are no trains on any platform is never a good sign… |
| Tuesday, 11 August, 2009 |
| First stop of the morning was the change machine at Central metro station so that I could by a day ticket for the metro… |
| Wednesday, 12 August, 2009 |
| An early start to the morning as I had to be at the station before nine to catch the bus up onto Hadrian’s Wall… |
| Thursday, 13 August, 2009 |
| Whilst my going to sleep may have been disturbed by a fire alarm, I was slightly less impressed when I was rudely awaken by yet another fire alarm… |
| Friday, 14 August, 2009 |
| I headed out from the hotel to the station to drop off my luggage before heading down onto the Metro and out to my final Roman fort of the tip… |
| Friday, 25 September, 2015 |
| I’d booked a half day of work… |
| Saturday, 26 September, 2015 |
| Breakfast eaten I headed down to the Metro station… |
| Sunday, 27 September, 2015 |
| Quite an early start to get out of the hotel and into town to pick up a train… |
| Monday, 28 September, 2015 |
| Given the late night I had a bit of a lie-in… |
| Tuesday, 29 September, 2015 |
| Having checked out of the hotel and left my bags with reception… |
| Friday, 26 November, 2010 |
| After a mad dash up to Waterloo I managed to make the train with a couple of minutes to spare... |
| Saturday, 27 November, 2010 |
| I had breakfast and then phoned the Cathedral to see if there were any spaces left on the morning’s tower tour... |
| Sunday, 28 November, 2010 |
| The hotel had an “Holistic and Psychic Fair” taking place during the day and consequently had closed the restaurant for the morning, so everyone could either have breakfast very early, or take it in their room... |
| Friday, 17 December, 2010 |
| The weather forecast had been pretty OK, with snow not forecast until late afternoon, so I was a little perturbed to look out of the window at work a bit before midday to witness a blizzard whipping across Croydon... |
| Saturday, 18 December, 2010 |
| I’d left myself over two hours to get from home to Euston (a journey that should take less than 30 minutes), but based on previous experiences, and with the weather, I thought it would probably be best to leave some extra time... |
| Sunday, 19 December, 2010 |
| The snow had stopped falling and the sun was trying to breakthrough when I got up... |
| Monday, 20 December, 2010 |
| In the original plan I was going to be spending today travelling between Frankfurt and Birmingham... |
| Tuesday, 21 December, 2010 |
| I headed out from the hotel and over to New Street to pick up the train out to Bournville and Cadbury World... |
| Wednesday, 22 December, 2010 |
| I had originally planned to spend today visiting Wroxeter Roman City out in Shropshire... |
| Thursday, 06 June, 2013 |
| I’d had a meeting in Leamington Spa all day, so it was a pretty simple journey from Leamington the 30 minutes or so into Birmingham… |
| Friday, 07 June, 2013 |
| After a leisurely breakfast I walked down to New Street station to catch the train out to Shenstone and from there walked the two miles or so out to the small town of Wall… |
| Saturday, 08 June, 2013 |
| It wasn’t that long after Breakfast that I realised I should have gotten up a little earlier as the journey out to Dudley proved to take a lot longer than I thought it would… |
| Sunday, 09 June, 2013 |
| Having checked out of the hotel I walked over to Brindley place and picked up one of the narrow-boat tours that leave from there… |
| Friday, 22 June, 2018 |
| I’d been up in Birmingham for a work conference that continued on until just after 6pm… |
| Saturday, 23 June, 2018 |
| I’d forgotten to switch the alarm on my phone off… |
| Sunday, 24 June, 2018 |
| After yesterdays alarm issues I made sure it was switched off and instead had a long lie in before a slightly more crowded breakfast… |
| Saturday, 20 February, 2010 |
| What should have been a relatively easy journey was turned into a near nightmare by chaos on the tube caused by something thinking it would be a good idea to close most lines at the same time for engineering work... |
| Sunday, 21 February, 2010 |
| 07:30 is not normally a time I am familiar with on a Sunday... |
| Monday, 22 February, 2010 |
| After a quick breakfast I headed out to catch the bus out to Kenilworth and its castle... |
| Tuesday, 23 February, 2010 |
| I checked out of the hotel and wandered back to the station and caught the train up to Birmingham to put my luggage into the left luggage office there... |
| Thursday, 27 April, 2006 |
| The second and final day of the annual trade fare for the profession so I found myself being sent to Birmingham… |
| Friday, 28 April, 2006 |
| Following a delicious and filling breakfast, I headed out from the B&B to Foregate street station to catch the train to Craven Arms on the English/Welsh borders… |
| Saturday, 29 April, 2006 |
| I had a busy day planned for Saturday and so, after another hearty breakfast, headed off to the bus station to catch the bus to Witley… |
| Sunday, 30 April, 2006 |
| The Malvern Hills is one of the wealthiest areas in the country; large mansions line the streets, originally built to house the doctors and visitors who came to the area in the Victorian era to take the water cure… |
| Monday, 01 May, 2006 |
| This part of the country was once a web of railway lines, most of which has closed. One such line, which re-opened as a heritage line (i.e. Using steam trains), is the Severn Valley Railway… |
| Friday, 02 January, 2015 |
| It was a smooth a seamless journey down to Sussex on a virtually empty train, and after a quick check-in at the hotel I headed out into the city… |
| Saturday, 03 January, 2015 |
| A late breakfast, and then out into a light drizzle to catch the train along the coast to Portchester. |
| Sunday, 04 January, 2015 |
| Another late breakfast and after checkout it was over to the bus station to pick up the bus out into the South Downs national park. |
| Friday, 19 April, 2024 |
| It was just over 50 minutes to get from Home to the Hotel, so I worked through until a late lunch and then headed down to Haywards Heath… |
| Saturday, 20 April, 2024 |
| Along with being a commuter town, it’s also a quite well-off and car rich commuter town… |
| Sunday, 21 April, 2024 |
| Not quite such an early start to the day as I only needed to catch the bus at 09:50, but given this is a Sunday and there was only a bus every 2-hours… |
| Sunday, 15 August, 2010 |
| An uneventful journey up to Leamington and then a much quicker walk than I was expecting from the station to the hotel meant that I was checked in and ready to go just a couple of minutes after midday... |
| Monday, 16 August, 2010 |
| An early start as I was meeting a friend who was going to show me around Warwick Castle... |
| Tuesday, 17 August, 2010 |
| I headed out of the hotel and straight to the bus stop to catch the bus out to Charlecote Park. This is a large National Trust property half way between Warwick and Stratford-Upon Avon... |
| Wednesday, 18 August, 2010 |
| I’d paid for a late checkout so with all my stuff safely left in my room I headed out for a final couple of hours in Leamington, just enough time to finish off the towns sights... |
| Wednesday, 12 July, 2023 |
| I travelled up to Stratford during the day as I had a work conference for the next couple of days in the town, that I was tacking a weekend away onto… |
| Thursday, 13 July, 2023 |
| Conference all day… |
| Friday, 14 July, 2023 |
| The conference finished just before 4pm… |
| Saturday, 15 July, 2023 |
| I had a relatively early breakfast before heading out of the hotel and wandering down to the bridges by the river… |
| Sunday, 16 July, 2023 |
| I had intended on having a bit of a lie-in, but the creaking of the floorboards from all over the ancient fabric of the Tudor era building ensured that I was awake by 8am… |
| Friday, 14 January, 2011 |
| I had a very smooth journey up to Leeds, and thanks to the wonder of Google street view managed to take a very short cut to my hotel… |
| Saturday, 15 January, 2011 |
| An early start as I headed out to the station to make the journey to the pleasant North Yorkshire market town of Richmond… |
| Sunday, 16 January, 2011 |
| When I looked out of the window at around 9:30 the skies looked pretty clear and whilst it was damp on the ground it looked as though it was dry… |
| Monday, 17 January, 2011 |
| Up early and out to the station. I wanted to do visit two towns today so I needed to make an early start… |
| Tuesday, 18 January, 2011 |
| Another early start, this time to get over to the bus station to pick up the first bus in a carefully choreographed journey… |
| Wednesday, 19 January, 2011 |
| Up early and time for a long commute to work... |
| Friday, 28 September, 2018 |
| I’d been up in Leeds for most of the week already for work |
| Saturday, 29 September, 2018 |
| Feeling a bit more alive after a reasonable nights sleep I had breakfast in the hotel and then headed out to the station… |
| Sunday, 30 September, 2018 |
| Breakfast completed, and my bags being held by the hotel reception I headed back over to the station to visit Saltaire… |
| Friday, 13 August, 2004 |
| After the shortest and possibly one of the most bizarre flights (The ground crew have to seat you as access to some of the seats is by pushing the set in front of you forwards and the flight only has a pilot, no other crew!) I landed at the portacabin tha |
| Saturday, 14 August, 2004 |
| After an early start I wandered back out to the cliff path and walked to the Wildlife bunker. Utilising an old German fortification the Alderney Wildlife Society has put together an exhibition on the unique flora and fauna of the island (including the uni |
| Sunday, 15 August, 2004 |
| After an early morning wander down the hill into Bray, and the lazily catching the bus - the one and only bus on the island - back up the hill, I visited the Alderney museum. |
| Monday, 16 August, 2004 |
| With a flight at a little after 10:30 the only task of the morning was to eat breakfast, pay the bill and then walk back to the airport. At the end of 3 days I felt that Alderney was a place that I really wanted to come back to... |
| Thursday, 01 August, 2019 |
| Given the time of the flight I’d booked lounge access for myself and had headed down to the airport over my lunchtime so that I could work from the lounge for the afternoon… |
| Friday, 02 August 2019 |
| I got up relatively early as I wanted to make a late morning sailing over to Herm… |
| Saturday, 03 August, 2019 |
| I had a bit of lie in, though I couldn’t stay in that late given the hotel only served breakfast until 10:30… |
| Sunday, 04 August, 2019 |
| Whilst breakfast may have been served until 10:30 you had to check out of your rooms by 10:00… |
| Thursday, 07 August, 2003 |
| The only advantage of getting an early flight out is that you do get a large part of the day to do exploring. With the 9:40 flight touching down on-time and getting to the hotel a little after 11am, I had a full afternoon to start exploring Guernsey. Firs |
| Friday, 08 August, 2003 |
| First stop for the morning is Cobo bay, purely as this is where I need to change buses from the one that runs past the hotel to the 7A on the west coast. The bay itself is very pleasant with a wide sandy beach and beautiful scenery. |
| Saturday, 09 August, 2003 |
| It's a Saturday so it must be another chance to stupidly expend vast amounts of energy. Had I known that today was going to be the hottest day on the islands ever, and that there would be no wind, not even a sea breeze, I might have reconsidered the idea |
| Sunday, 10 August, 2003 |
| First stop of the morning was Castle Cornet. The site is quite large and has 4 museums housed in various parts that look at different aspects of the military. At 11am one of the guides runs a tour round the whole of the site that ends up back at the noon |
| Monday, 11 August, 2003 |
| Monday was a much more sedate day. Getting the 10:30 sailing from St Peter Port to Herm. The crossing takes about 20 minutes and once there Herm is a beautiful island. |
| Friday, 13 August, 2004 |
| Another early arrival in Guernsey, with almost 5 hours to kill before my onward flight to Alderney. After dropping my bag off with left luggage I caught the bus out along the coast to Pleinmont and then walked along the beach to L'Eree bay and the Neolith |
| Monday, 16 August, 2004 |
| After landing and catching a bus quickly into town I realised I was having a race with the weather which was closing in very quickly. In the end, after hiking up the side of a big hill I got to the hotel just a few seconds before an absolutely spectacular |
| Tuesday, 17 August, 2004 |
| Plan for Tuesday: Sandals, Beach Towel, Suntan Cream, Book, Ferry ticket to Herm, Relax |
| Wednesday, 18 August, 2004 |
| First stop for the morning was Fort Richmond, which looks quite similar to many of the forts on Alderney. Like most of the forts in Alderney it is not open to the public and in a state of decay! Nearby is more evidence of the length of time that humans ha |
| Thursday, 19 August, 2004 |
| I had a couple of hours to kill before my flight so I left my bags at the hotel and wandered into town and out onto the pier before catching the bus up to the top of the hill that St Peter Ports is at the bottom of. The views from the top are spectacular |
| Friday, 25 July, 2003 |
| This trip started with me completing the full set of London airports. The flight from London City airport is strange as you take off from land recovered from the docks, the runway surrounded on both sides and at the end by water and then take off over the |
| Saturday, 26 July, 2003 |
| For an island that is at the forefront of banking and finance (UK Tax haven!!) it is amazing how much of the island is set in a different age, not only do horses still pull the trams on the seafront, and the carriages on the electric railway to Ramsey dat |
| Sunday, 27 July, 2003 |
| Sunday, to work off the previous evenings Chinese involved going up the 2036 feet to the top of the islands only mountain Snaefell. |
| Monday, 28 July, 2003 |
| No time to do anything on the Island before catching the plane other than cow spotting. Like so many other places, the Isle of Man was having its own Cow Parade and across the whole of the island a large herd of concrete cows have been released. My favour |
| Friday, 29 June, 2012 |
| A disarmingly smooth journey through the airport with the entire process from getting off the train to leaving the security area being done and dusted in under 10 minutes… |
| Saturday, 30 June, 2012 |
| With breakfast consumed I wandered down the hill to the prom and then walked along the front the mile or so to the tram station at Derby Castle… |
| Sunday, 01 July, 2012 |
| With another stunning breakfast inside me I headed out of the hotel and down to the train station to catch the first steam train of the day south towards Port Erin… |
| Monday, 02 July, 2012 |
| I only had part of the day to explore, so after checking out of the hotel I headed down to the centre of town and picked up the bus into Peel… |
| Tuesday, 03 July, 2012 |
| A quick breakfast as I had to be at the airport early, and things weren’t looking great. It was still pretty foggy, but the sound of turbo-props starting up drifting through the fog from the airport implied that some flights were leaving… |
| Friday, 27 June, 2014 |
| Having finished work at lunchtime I headed over to the station and caught the train down to Portsmouth, where I picked up the disappointing Hover bus… |
| Saturday, 28 June, 2014 |
| Breakfast completed I wandered down to the bus stop and picked up the bus back towards East Cowes and the former summer home of Queen Victoria – Osborne… |
| Sunday, 29 June, 2014 |
| With another stunning breakfast inside me I headed out the other side of town and into the neighbouring settlement of Carisbrooke… |
| Monday, 30 June, 2014 |
| If I done a little more planning I would have realised that going via Cowes and Southampton would have made for a significantly less potentially stressful journey up to Birmingham… |
| Thursday, 09 August, 2018 |
| I was making my way over to the Isle of Wight in stages… |
| Friday, 10 August, 2018 |
| I had a late checkout arranged with the hotel that meant I could work out of it up until 5pm if needed… |
| Saturday, 11 August, 2018 |
| I had a very pleasant breakfast in the hotel before heading out over to the bus station to pick up the Downs Breezer open top bus… |
| Sunday, 12 August, 2018 |
| I woke up to heavy rain and a check of the weather forecast revealed it wasn’t likely to get much better for most of the day… |
| Coming Soon… |
| Saturday, 30 November, 2002 |
| After a very hearty breakfast (with full silver service!!) it was time to hit the island (in a light drizzle). |
| Sunday, 01 December, 2002 |
| Sundays in December without a car are not a good idea on Jersey. |
| Thursday, 31 July, 2003 |
| Coming back to island in the summer seamed a good idea to compare what was available then and what is available during summer season. The most noticeable part was the fact that it is possible to get round the airport by public transport! After checking in |
| Friday, 01 August, 2003 |
| First full day and after breakfast the first stop was La Houge Bie. This is the largest Neolithic passage grave in the Channel Islands and one of the largest in Western Europe. The grave itself is about 40 Yards long and you have to duck down to walk alon |
| Saturday, 02 August, 2003 |
| Saturday morning and another Early start, this time so that I could walk along the northern cliff path from Rozel, in the very North West corner of the island to Bon Nuite Bay, almost in the centre of the north coast. The walk itself is only about 6 miles |
| Sunday, 03 August, 2003 |
| Sunday is not a good day to try and visit remote parts of the island as even during summer the busses are less regular. In the morning I decided to visit the Elizabeth castle. This was the main defense for St Hellier, but is actually situated 1 mile off t |
| Friday, 08 November, 2011 |
| I had a quick journey down to Gatwick and through the airport… |
| Saturday, 09 November, 2019 |
| I had an early start as I wanted to pack as much into the day as possible… |
| Sunday, 10 November, 2019 |
| I originally had big plans for sites I wanted to visit today… |
| Saturday, 08 November, 2008 |
| When I last popped across the Irish Sea, my flight had been delayed by over six hours because of snow… |
| Sunday, 09 November, 2008 |
| An early rise today as I had booked onto a tour up to Northern Irelands most visited tourist attraction… |
| Monday, 10 November, 2008 |
| I checked out of the hotel, caught the bus into town and dropped my luggage off at the tourist information centre… |
| Saturday, 01 August, 2009 |
| 10 minutes late by the border became 20 minutes late by the time we finally pulled into Belfast Central station… |
| Sunday, 02 August, 2009 |
| With my bags safely stowed in the hotels luggage room I wandered across the road to the bus station to head south to the Mourne Mountains… |
| Friday, 15 May, 2015 |
| An 8:45 departure from City on a Saturday morning was never going to be doable from home so instead I headed over towards the Excel exhibition centre to stay at one of the hotels there for the night… |
| Saturday, 16 May, 2015 |
| One of the major advantages of using London City Airport is its fantastically short checkin times… |
| Sunday, 17 May, 2015 |
| Usual excellent Premier Inn breakfast and then out onto the open-top bus tour to head over to the Ulster museum for the morning… |
| Monday, 18 May, 2015 |
| Given I’d been staying in the Titanic quarter it did make sense to actually visit some of the attractions around me… |
| Wednesday, 22 July, 2009 |
| Given that it was the Wednesday after the schools had broken up, I was fearful that Gatwick was going to be horrendously busy… |
| Thursday, 23 July, 2009 |
| From the hotel it was a very short walk to Great Victoria Street Station, to pick up the train to Derry… |
| Friday, 24 July, 2009 |
| I wandered down into town and started to have a bit of a walk along the riverside to take in the views… |
| Saturday, 25 July, 2009 |
| After a very healthy (portion size not wellbeing) breakfast I headed out into town and over to the railway station… |
| Sunday, 26 July, 2009 |
| After another stunning breakfast it was time to checkout and head down for the bus… |
| Wednesday, 17 June, 2015 |
| With both the train into work in the morning delayed and, in the end, the bus home from work because the trains had completely failed, it was almost inevitable that the train back down to the airport would be delayed… |
| Thursday, 18 June, 2015 |
| A good night’s sleep despite being on an industrial estate and I caught the shuttle bus back to the airport to check-in… |
| Friday, 19 June, 2015 |
| I had a quick breakfast and then headed out of the hotel to the Old town to pick up the tour bus for a morning tour… |
| Saturday, 20 June, 2015 |
| Another early start and back to the old town… |
| Sunday, 21 June, 2015 |
| Having checked out and left my bags with the hotel I went out for a wander around town by the river… |
| Friday, 25 August, 2017 |
| It wasn’t a particularly early flight, but as I’d managed to get an incredible deal on first class… |
| Saturday, 27 August, 2017 |
| I had a really good nights sleep and it was 6am before I woke up… |
| Sunday, 27 August, 2017 |
| I slept through to 7am so I thought it must just have been tiredness rather than jet lag… |
| Monday, 28 August, 2017 |
| I was up again at 7am and after breakfast and packing I checked out of the hotel and headed to the metro to head out to the North of the city… |
| Thursday, 22 August, 2019 |
| I had a half days leave booked… |
| Friday, 23 August, 2019 |
| Probably because I’d been so tired, I had a good night’s sleep and slept through until just after 8am Canadian time… |
| Saturday, 24 August, 2019 |
| I had another good nights sleep and a late breakfast before heading out of the hotel and pickup up the bus up to the city’s mountain (albeit its only a hill) – Mont Royal… |
| Sunday, 25 August, 2019 |
| I had a bit more of an interrupted nights sleep… |
| Monday, 26 August, 2019 |
| Clearly the time zone differences had started to catch up with me as I had another disturbed nights sleep… |
| Tuesday, 14 August 2007 |
| I had another restless nights sleep, something that was becoming quite common this summer… |
| Wednesday, 15 August, 2007 |
| In the four weeks prior to this trip I had already subjected my body to massive sleep deprivation… |
| Thursday, 16 August, 2007 |
| After the glorious weather of yesterday, which had allowed me such spectacular views from the mountains, Thursday brought the payback… |
| Friday, 17 August, 2007 |
| I had decided to leave my choice of what to do up to fate… |
| Friday, 01 August, 2008 |
| I quickly stowed my luggage in a locker at the station, as the hotel wouldn’t be starting checkin for a couple of hours I decided it would be a good time to head into the mountains… |
| Saturday, 02 August, 2008 |
| A day spent travelling today, without actually changing locations… |
| Sunday, 03 August, 2008 |
| I only had a couple of hours between checking out and catching the train through the mountains to Geneva, so I didn’t want to stray too far from town… |
| Saturday, 29 August, 2015 |
| The plan of staying overnight in an airport hotel so that I didn’t have to rush in the morning went out the window… |
| Sunday, 30 August, 2015 |
| After breakfast I headed back out into town for a bit more of a wander around… |
| Monday, 31 August, 2015 |
| I checked out of the hotel and then headed over to the station… |
| Saturday, 08 May, 2004 |
| With the alarm going off at an ungodly time and the first part of the journey to the airport conducted on a night bus in the rain this wasn't the most glamorous of starts to a holiday. |
| Sunday, 09 May, 2004 |
| Sunday dawned...grey and miserable with the cloud possibly looking heavier than it had the previous day. |
| Monday, 10 May, 2004 |
| Monday dawned a completely different day with sun and not a cloud in the sky. |
| Sunday, 03 August, 2008 |
| I arrived at Geneva station and quickly made my way to the trolley bus out of town to my hotel, which was near the airport… |
| Monday, 04 August, 2008 |
| As with the rest of Europe, Geneva is closed on a Monday… |
| Thursday, 19 December, 2019 |
| I had a half days leave, so was heading down to Gatwick shortly after lunch… |
| Friday, 20 December, 2019 |
| The fog of the previous day had been replaced by heavy rain, that showed no real sign of stopping for any time during the day… |
| Saturday, 21 December, 2019 |
| The difference from the previous day couldn’t have been starker as I pulled back the curtains in my hotel room and looked on out a clear blue sky… |
| Sunday, 22 December, 2019 |
| Whilst the weather didn’t look as bad as Friday, it was still grey, overcast and drizzly as I left the hotel after checking out… |
| Tuesday, 12 April, 2022 |
| With the number of cancellations that BA had been announcing over the previous couple of weeks… |
| Wednesday, 13 April, 2022 |
| After a reasonable lie-in and a quick breakfast in the hotel I headed out to the tram stop and caught the tram into the centre of Zurich… |
| Thursday, 14 April, 2022 |
| I had an early start as I wanted to get quite a bit packed in today… |
| Friday, 15 April, 2022 |
| It was up early again and back down to Davos Platz station to catch the train… |
| Saturday, 16 April, 2022 |
| My final day in Davos and I had a slightly later start than the previous days so I could have a bit of a lie in… |
| Thurday, 31 July, 2008 |
| After all the “fun” of my travels through Poland with the “On Time” trains, it was something of a relief, but not a surprise, to be in the hands of the ruthlessly efficient German and Swiss transport networks… |
| Friday, 1 August, 2008 |
| Sadly a good nights sleep is what I didn’t really get… |
| Thursday, 20 April, 2023 |
| With a late flight to Zurich I didn’t need to take any annual leave or book into an airport hotel… |
| Friday, 21 April, 2023 |
| A relaxed start to the day at the hotel with a decent length lie in and a late breakfast before it was time to check out of one hotel and make my way over to the second one… |
| Saturday, 22 April, 2023 |
| I was up relatively early so that I could head down to the station and catch the train back round to Pfäffikon… |
| Sunday, 23 April, 2023 |
| Sundays in Switzerland are very quiet with most shops closed, but thankfully at least some of the museums are open… |
| Monday, 24 April, 2023 |
| I had a couple of hours to kill before I could head back to the airport… |
| Friday, 07 October, 2022 |
| With a late afternoon flight I’d taken a half days leave, so I finished work, had lunch and then made my way out to London City Airport… |
| Saturday, 08 October, 2022 |
| I’d already seen that the weather wasn’t supposed to be that good today, so I decided to have a lie in… |
| Sunday, 09 October, 2022 |
| After a bit of a lie in and a relaxed breakfast I checked out of the hotel and headed over to the tram stop to catch the tram to the edge of the city centre… |
| Monday, 19 December, 2005 |
| Having landed at 10:30 and managed to get to the centre of town by 11:30 it was a little early to go to the hotel; instead, I dumped my bags in the left luggage lockers and headed off into town… |
| Tuesday, 20 December, 2005 |
| First stop of the morning was the impressive Swiss National Museum in a castle looking building next to the Hauptbahnhof… |
| Wednesday, 21 December, 2005 |
| The sight that should dominate the skyline around the city (when it is not covered by clouds) is the summit of the Uetilberg. At nearly 900m, it towers over the surrounding landscape… |
| Thursday, 22 December, 2005 |
| Normally at this point in a trip, I would say something fatuous like "Early start this morning to get to..." Thankfully this is Switzerland… |
| Friday, 23 December, 2005 |
| Cut and paste job from most other trips - checkout - station - drop bags - final day etc. etc! And that will teach me to write the first part the night before!... |
| Friday, 17 August , 2007 |
| I arrived in Zurich and headed straight for the hotel… |
| Saturday, 18 August, 2007 |
| I left the hotel and headed to the Hauptbahnhof to catch the train to Sargans… |
| Sunday, 19 August, 2007 |
| Up early and out to the train station to catch one of the earlier trains to Luzern… |
| Monday, 20 August, 2007 |
| The last time I visited Zurich I had real problems trying to find a left luggage locker at the main station… |
| Saturday, 16 April, 2022 |
| By the time my train arrived into Zurich Hauptbahnhof from Landquart the sun was already starting to set… |
| Sunday, 17 April, 2022 |
| I had a bit of a lie-in, which turned out to be a mistake as the queue for food at breakfast was a bit of a scrum by the time I got down… |
| Monday, 18 April, 2022 |
| Although it was also a public holiday in Switzerland far fewer people appeared to have stayed the previous night at the hotel… |
| Thursday, 16 March, 2023 |
| When I originally booked the trip almost a year ago I’d booked a night in an airport hotel so that I could have a relaxed start to the day prior to a mid-morning flight… |
| Friday, 17 March, 2023 |
| It was for the best that I went to bed early as at about 05:40 the electricity on this end of the island failed and the backup generator kicked in… |
| Saturday, 18 March, 2023 |
| What I hadn’t realised the previous day, given I was up before 6am because of the generator… |
| Sunday, 19 March, 2023 |
| I wasn’t so worried about the early wake-up this morning as I had a whole day tour of the island booked… |
| Monday, 20 March, 2023 |
| Up again at 7 with the cleaners I had a slow breakfast and spent a bit of time packing before heading down to reception a little before 11 to checkout… |
| Monday, 26 July, 2010 |
| The final approach to the Faroe Islands turned out to be quite bumpy with a couple of sudden drops and quite a steep approach, but the final few minutes of the flight, once we had descended below the level of the clouds were stunning... |
| Tuesday, 27 July, 2010 |
| An early start to the day, as I had booked onto a full day tour, so I needed to be out of the hotel before 8am... |
| Wednesday, 28 July, 2010 |
| After a foggy start to the day the clouds started to lift quite rapidly and it looked as though it would turn into a good day, so, after having a brief wander around town and taking in the views from the Kings monument... |
| Thursday, 29 July, 2010 |
| I had a final breakfast, packed and checked out of the hotel, leaving my bag behind the counter, for a final few hours in Tórshavn... |
| Thursday, 18 August, 2005 |
| After a bizarre arrival, the airport at Gibraltar is very odd… |
| Friday, 19 August, 2005 |
| After a disappointing cold shower and an equally disappointing breakfast… |
| Saturday, 20 August, 2005 |
| As I could see it from my hotel room, the first stop of the morning really had to be the cable car… |
| Sunday, 21 August, 2005 |
| Not much to do in the morning as I had already arranged to have a go at Scuba Diving in the afternoon… |
| Monday, 22 August, 2005 |
| Despite being my last day in Gibraltar, I had almost the whole day to do things, as my flight wasn't due out until 19:30… |
| Thursday, 01 December, 2016 |
| I’d had a business meeting out in Gibraltar on the Thursday… |
| Friday, 02 December, 2016 |
| Up early and after a quick breakfast I headed over to the cable car… |
| Saturday, 03 December, 2016 |
| I woke up feeling less stiff than I had been fearing but still a bit achy from the previous days walking… |
| Sunday, 04 December, 2016 |
| I was woken around 8am by the sound of thunder reverberating off the side of the Rock… |
| Monday, 03 April 2006 |
| Keflavik airport is stuck out on a peninsular at the end of Iceland, 45 minutes coach ride from Reykjavik… |
| Tuesday, 04 April, 2006 |
| After popping in briefly to the town hall to look at a small exhibition of Icelandic photography and having a quick wander up to look at the rather plain and stumpy Catholic Cathedral… |
| Wednesday, 05 April, 2006 |
| First stop of the morning was the museum of Modern Art, which was showing an exhibition of broken… |
| Thursday, 06 April, 2006 |
| After an early breakfast we waited for collection for another tour… |
| Friday, 07 April, 2006 |
| After an early breakfast and checkout, we were picked up by cab at a little after 7:30… |
| Saturday, 04 May, 2019 |
| After a smooth journey through Gatwick and a comfortable flight over to Iceland we exited the airport and caught the shuttle bus into the centre of Reykjavik… |
| Sunday, 05 May, 2019 |
| A relatively early start to the day as we were booked on a day tour to the south of Iceland and the hotel pickups were due to start at 08:30… |
| Monday, 06 May, 2019 |
| Another early start as the pickup for our Golden Circle tour was at 9am… |
| Tuesday, 07 May, 2019 |
| We had considered taking the open top tour of Reykjavik in the morning… |
| Friday, 28 April, 2023 |
| I had a half days leave booked, so after powering down the laptop at lunchtime I headed out over to Heathrow for my afternoon flight straight back to Zurich that I’d only left on Monday evening… |
| Saturday, 29 April, 2023 |
| I arrived down to breakfast shortly after a large coach party had departed… |
| Sunday, 30 April, 2023 |
| I had a bit of a lie in for the morning and then, after a quick breakfast, headed out of the hotel over to the bus stop to pick up the bus back to the south of the country… |
| Monday, 01 May, 2023 |
| With breakfast completed I checked out of the hotel and headed down into the basement of the hotel where they had complimentary left luggage lockers in a secure area… |
| Thursday, 08 November, 2018 |
| I had a half days leave, and had worked from home in the morning so I was able to quickly dash down to Gatwick once I’d finished for the day… |
| Friday, 09 November, 2018 |
| I woke to the sound of the heavy rain still hammering on the windows and did wonder how wet I was going to get on the 5-minute walk from the hotel to the train station… |
| Saturday, 10 November, 2018 |
| I woke up to a still grey and overcast morning, but at least the heavy rain had given way to drizzle again… |
| Sunday, 11 November, 2018 |
| After checking out of the hotel I headed down to the station and picked up the bus out (and up) to the exotic gardens and observatory cave… |
| Friday, 05 May, 2023 |
| My flight was one of the last to leave London City Airport for the day… |
| Saturday, 06 May, 2023 |
| Overnight there had been quite heavy rain in Luxembourg and in the morning there were still showers passing through… |
| Sunday, 07 May, 2023 |
| I had an early start, in part due to the curtains in the room not being particularly heavy and letting quite a bit of light in… |
| Monday, 08 May, 2023 |
| My main aim for the day was to conquer the fortress at the top of the hill overlooking the city… |
| Tuesday, 09 May, 2023 |
| Given how much exercise I’d had the previous day I, unsurprisingly, had an excellent nights sleep and woke up much later than planned… |
| Wednesday, 10 May, 2023 |
| I didn’t have a particularly great nights sleep, in part due to the room being rather warm and stuffy… |
| Saturday, 12 April, 2003 |
| A day of firsts today... First time I have flown from Terminal 4, first time I have flown on a 747, first time I have left Europe. |
| Sunday, 13 April, 2003 |
| 2am saw a slightly more interesting experience, the plane suddenly, over the middle of the Sahara, hitting turbulence, or something similar, and then rapidly moving several hundred feet down in a very short amount of time!, 5:00 and as we fly over Swakopm |
| Monday, 14 April, 2003 |
| This is the life, just sitting out on a balcony overlooking the South Atlantic with a slight breeze making the warm sun all that more pleasant. |
| Tuesday, 15 April, 2003 |
| Time today to just look round the town myself, I looked in the museums that the town has to offer, the Aquarium with its collection of local marine wildlife and models of the coastline of Namibia showing that within a couple of hundred meters of the coast |
| Wednesday, 16 April, 2003 |
| Very early start today as we have to be in Walvis bay by 7:45 to go Kayaking with dolphins and seals. After an hours drive round the coast, past the salt pans and over the desert we reach the spit of land that forms the outer part of the natural harbour a |
| Thursday, 17 April, 2003 |
| Last nights storm took a slightly different turn during the night and the winds came across from the desert, subsequently the whole of the town has a slight surplus of sand that has blown in! |
| Friday, 18 April, 2003 |
| Setting off from Spitskoff we drive round to the side of the mountain to go to the Bushmans pass, a clamber up the side of the mountain (at least they provide you with a chain to hang onto) to see spectacular views over the desert and to view what remains |
| Saturday, 19 April, 2003 |
| The plan for the morning is to visit the petrified forest, which we do. Trees that were washed onto the plain many thousands of years ago then covered by the desert and perfectly preserved as rocks before being uncovered again when the sands moved away. A |
| Sunday, 20 April, 2003 |
| A full day in Etosha with a game drive before breakfast, a drive across the park to the middle camp for lunch and then a drive across the remainder of the park to the evening campsite. |
| Monday, 21 April, 2003 |
| Another game drive before breakfast. This time in the van which had been repaired and delivered late last night to the camp. |
| Tuesday, 22 April, 2003 |
| A very, very early start to climb to the top of Waterbergplateau so that we could watch sunrise over the hills. It was a spectacular sight watching the colour slowly appear across the sky and then across the landscape. |
| Wednesday, 23 April, 2003 |
| After a very, very comfortable sleep on a mattress, for the first time in 6 days I left the hotel and got the courtesy minibus to Eros airport and then my flight back to Walvis Bay. |
| Thursday, 24 April, 2003 |
| Final full day in Namibia and my Sister took me out to the Camel farm in the desert to go camel riding. |
| Friday, 25 April, 2003 |
| And so my time in Africa was coming to an end. I was picked up from my Sisters flat and driven to the airport to catch the (uneventful) flight back to Cape Town where I had a 5 hour wait before my flight to the UK. |
| Saturday, 27 May, 2023 |
| As soon as the northbound train appeared around the corner pulling into Dombås station the train manager hurried people back onto our southbound train… |
| Sunday, 28 May, 2023 |
| We had a relatively early breakfast and then caught a taxi over to the bus station in the centre of Olso… |
| Monday, 29 May, 2023 |
| We had a relatively late breakfast before checking out of the hotel and heading down to the bus station to catch the bus back into Oslo, with the journey being a repeat of the previous days, just in reverse. |
| Thursday, 05 September, 2019 |
| After the previous weeks experience of my first time using London Southend, this week I had my first departure from the new Heathrow Terminal 2… |
| Friday, 06 September, 2019 |
| As my flight wasn’t until lunchtime I was able to have a bit of lie in and a late breakfast before heading down to catch the shuttle bus back to the airport to checkin for my flight to Ålesund… |
| Saturday, 07 September, 2019 |
| I woke up to almost clear blue skies, so after a good breakfast I headed into town to pick up the bus out to the aquarium on the edge of town… |
| Sunday, 08 September, 2019 |
| I’d managed to arrange a late checkout so I wasn’t having to rush to get things done… |
| Wednesday, 24 May, 2023 |
| The second 100 of the day headed out of Narvik and continued the slow journey South West… |
| Thursday, 25 May, 2023 |
| We opted for a late breakfast after the previous days travel and a relatively quiet day… |
| Friday, 26 May, 2023 |
| Back to the travelling and after a leisurely breakfast we caught a cab down to the station to pick up the first train of the journey and the longest single leg by both distance and time… |
| Thursday, 02 June, 2022 |
| On exiting the snow shelter the train started it’s descent back down towards the coast at Narvik… |
| Friday, 03 June, 2022 |
| The hotel had very kindly let us have a late checkout as our bus wasn’t until 1pm, so we were able to just leave things in the room before heading out for a wander round town… |
| Saturday, 18 December, 2004 |
| After arriving from the airport & checking in to the hotel I went for a walk around the city centre. I ended up by taking a long walk around the Akershus Fortress complex taking in the beautiful sunset over the Fjord before heading back to the hotel and d |
| Sunday, 19 December, 2004 |
| After a very comfortable night's sleep and a very large and filling breakfast I headed out. As the morning was so sunny (not a cloud in the sky, not a breath of a breeze & only -2°C!!) I decided to head up into the hills (mountains) above Oslo and to the |
| Monday, 20 December, 2004 |
| Virtually the whole day was spent out in Bygdøy. First stop was the Norsk Folk museum, a collection of over 200 traditional buildings that have been rebuilt on the site. One of the most impressive is the Stave church, one of the few left. |
| Tuesday, 21 December, 2004 |
| Dawn and I'm already up and about and on a day when there is snow in the air, going up the side of a mountain!! A couple off stops down the hill from Voksenkollen is Holmenkollen, home to the first purpose built ski-jump in Norway & also home to the ski m |
| Wednesday, 22 December, 2004 |
| Just enough time to quickly pop down to Aker Brygge to take a couple of photos of the fortress and town hall. |
| Wednesday, 28 May, 2014 |
| Bags collected we headed over to the flybussen into town and walked the short distance to the hotel… |
| Thursday, 29 May, 2014 |
| After the first night’s sleep with actual darkness for several days, and a hearty breakfast, we headed down to Aker Brygge to pick up the Museum boat out to Bygdøy… |
| Friday, 30 May, 2014 |
| Breakfast was a slightly more complex affair as the hotel was obviously struggling to cope with the number of guests all wanting breakfast at the same time and there was quite a long wait before we were able to get a table… |
| Saturday, 31 May, 2014 |
| Another disjointed breakfast that was possibly even busier than the previous mornings… |
| Sunday, 01 June, 2014 |
| Breakfast was a slightly calmer affair so we were able to get a table straight away, and after packing, leaving the bags at the hotel and checking out, we headed back down to the Town Hall… |
| Friday, 01 December, 2017 |
| I’d been working at home and had to make a bit of a dash across London to get to the airport in time… |
| Saturday, 02 December, 2017 |
| The hotel was clearly designed for conferences… |
| Sunday, 03 December, 2017 |
| After another filling breakfast and checking out I headed back down to Aker Brygge… |
| Monday, 29 May, 2023 |
| The journey wasn’t quite the same as the previous day as the driver took a few diversions to avoid some heavy traffic on the E18… |
| Tuesday, 30 May, 2023 |
| Final check-out from a hotel completed we were aiming to catch the tram back down to Aker Brygge to pick up the ferry out into the islands… |
| Thursday, 18 October, 2012 |
| With just one flight leaving Gatwick after mine the airport was almost creepily quiet, with most things closing for the evening… |
| Friday, 19 October, 2012 |
| I checked out of the airport hotel, stuffed with an excellent breakfast, and walked the short distance to the bus stop to pick up the airport coach into town… |
| Saturday, 20 October, 2012 |
| A nice long lie in, followed by a massive breakfast, and by the time I finally staggered out of the hotel it was the other side of 11am… |
| Sunday, 21 October, 2012 |
| With yet another massive breakfast inside me, and another long sleep banked in the energy reserves I checked out of the hotel, wandered my luggage down to the lockers at the station and brought a ticket for the next train south to Sandnes… |
| Sunday, 25 May, 2014 |
| The flight was uneventful, however the scenery was spectacular, as we made the approach into Svalbard and the pristine Ice and snow of the island met the clear blue waters of the sea… |
| Monday, 26 May, 2014 |
| After a reasonable lie-in and a massive breakfast it was time to go on a tour of the city and surrounding area… |
| Tuesday, 27 May, 2014 |
| After an early breakfast it was outside to wait for the pick-up to go on a boat ride around some of the nearby Fjords and possibly to the abandoned Russian mining settlement of Pyramiden… |
| Wednesday, 28 May, 2014 |
| A late breakfast followed by checkout and a wait outside for the airport bus… |
| Monday, 22 May, 2023 |
| Considerably less stiff than after the 9 hour journey the previous day we picked up luggage and walked the 100m or so from the bus station over to our hotel to checkin… |
| Tuesday, 23 May, 2023 |
| The earliest start of the trip with a 10:55 departure from Alta, and once again a service that only ran once a day back down to Tromsø… |
| Saturday, 12 January, 2008 |
| The last time I had flown out of Heathrow to Norway I had had an interesting journey to the airport |
| Sunday, 13 January, 2008 |
| My alarm went off at 4:30, as I staggered out of my bed and into the shower… |
| Monday, 14 January, 2008 |
| I awoke to two startling facts… |
| Tuesday, 15 January, 2008 |
| Overnight the ferry had docked in Finnsnes and moved off again without me even waking… |
| Wednesday, 16 January, 2008 |
| In the end I hadn’t needed to worry about getting to sleep.. |
| Thursday, 17 January, 2008 |
| It had been a bumpy night… |
| Sunday, 21 May, 2023 |
| From Kunes the journey continued on much as it had previously with stunning views over mountains with wide plateaus and fast moving rivers… |
| Monday, 22 May, 2023 |
| After a hearty breakfast and checking out of the hotel we headed back down to the bus station to pick up the bus… |
| Thursday, 18 May, 2023 |
| Work finished for the day we hopped in a minicab and headed over to Heathrow for the late evening flight over to Oslo… |
| Friday, 19 May, 2023 |
| As we had a late afternoon flight on from Oslo I’d thankfully arranged in advance a later checkout… |
| Saturday, 20 May, 2023 |
| Another relatively relaxed morning as the flight we had booked had slowly crept later into the afternoon with multiple small reschedules over the preceding months… |
| Sunday, 21 May, 2023 |
| Our earliest start to the day so far on this trip as our 11:20 bus departure had to be caught, given the next service wouldn’t be until about 6am the following day… |
| Wednesday, 18 July, 2007 |
| There was once a series of adverts in the UK… |
| Thursday, 19 July, 2007 |
| After the last decent nights sleep for some time… |
| Friday, 20 July, 2007 |
| I came back down and wandered through the streets… |
| Saturday, 21 July, 2007 |
| I wandered back from the ferry to my hotel room… |
| Sunday, 22 July, 2007 |
| I must have got a couple of hours sleep at least… |
| Friday, 23 May, 2014 |
| I’d finished work at midday and headed back home to pack and head over to the airport so that I could get a decent early night ready for the early start the following morning… |
| Saturday, 24 May, 2014 |
| My alarm woke me at an awful hour for a Saturday morning and so bleary eyed I checked out of the hotel, headed over to the airport… |
| Sunday, 25 May, 2014 |
| Having checked out of the hotel I headed back over to Tromsø airport to catch flight number three of the trip… |
| Friday, 03 June, 2022 |
| After the pit stop in Buktamoen we continued on north, mostly stopping to drop people off… |
| Saturday, 04 June, 2022 |
| Today was just a day of travel, starting relatively early with a taxi through the underground tunnels of Tromsø’s city centre road network to the airport… |
| Tuesday, 23 May, 2023 |
| The crossing from Olderdalen to Lyngseidet takes about 45 minutes… |
| Wednesday, 24 May, 2023 |
| Breakfast completed, but not wanting to face another trudge through the drizzle… |
| Wednesday, 22 June, 2016 |
| I’d worked from home so that I could get down to the airport with time to spare… |
| Thursday, 23 June, 2016 |
| In the end we made up some of the lost time… |
| Friday, 24 June, 2016 |
| The shape of the windows, combined with the curtains… |
| Saturday, 25 June, 2016 |
| I was right and after another heavily disturbed night’s sleep I got up… |
| Sunday, 26 June, 2016 |
| I was clearly getting better at sleeping through the light… |
| Friday, 26 May, 2023 |
| The journey continued south, passing alongside fjords, through mountainous terrain and back down to fjord level again… |
| Saturday, 27 May, 2023 |
| Our train down to Oslo wasn’t due to depart until after 3pm so we had a bit of time to spare in the morning to see a little of Trondheim… |
| Wednesday, 25 October, 2006 |
| I sneaked away from work at a little after 3, with the aim of getting to the airport early so that I could have dinner… |
| Thursday, 26 October, 2006 |
| After a massive breakfast (and a twenty-minute rest to allow some sort of digestion to start) I staggered out of the hotel and into the centre of town… |
| Friday, 27 October, 2006 |
| On average it rains for 260 days of the year in Bergen, and October is the wettest month by some way… |
| Saturday, 28 October, 2006 |
| Almost the whole of today was spent travelling. More than 3 hours to get to a small town, less than an hours there and then another three hours to get back… |
| Sunday, 29 October, 2006 |
| Whilst it may have actually been light at 8:30 this morning, unlike the past few, I knew that it also meant that it would be dark long before 4… |
| Monday, 30 October, 2006 |
| With a final blow out breakfast inside me I checked out of the hotel and headed out to the Bergen Aquarium.,, |
| Thursday, 30 July, 2015 |
| The last stop for the transfer bus was our hotel… |
| Friday, 31 July, 2015 |
| Another early start for this trip and after breakfast out of the hotel and over to the railway station to pick up the train… |
| Saturday, 1 August, 2015 |
| Rested and breakfasted we checked out of the hotel… |
| Sunday, 27 January, 2013 |
| In the previous week Heathrow had nearly closed on several occasions… |
| Monday, 28 January, 2013 |
| Several hours to kill in the morning… |
| Tuesday, 29 January, 2013 |
| …Sleep, unfortunately, was not something that was easy to come by… |
| Wednesday, 30 January, 2013 |
| As to whether there was any rough water after leaving Kristiansund I wouldn’t know… |
| Thursday, 31 January, 2013 |
| I’d set the GPS on my phone to wake me just before we reached the Arctic circle… |
| Friday, 01 February, 2013 |
| It was still snowing heavily as we had breakfast… |
| Saturday, 02 February, 2013 |
| Despite standing out on deck for nearly an hour… |
| Sunday, 03 February, 2013 |
| After an early morning stop in Vadsø… |
| Monday, 04 February, 2013 |
| Whilst we were having breakfast we briefly stopped… |
| Tuesday, 05 February, 2013 |
| In the end we finally docked in Tromsø a little before 12:30… |
| Wednesday, 06 February, 2013 |
| By now I had clearly developed my sea legs… |
| Thursday, 07 February, 2013 |
| After a very disturbed night’s sleep… |
| Friday, 08 February, 2013 |
| It was lucky that I turned in relatively early… |
| Saturday, 09 February, 2013 |
| After breakfast and checkout… |
| Saturday, 18 July, 2015 |
| Despite most of South and West London being gridlocked because of various roadworks… |
| Sunday, 19 July, 2015 |
| Breakfast completed we checked out of the hotel… |
| Monday, 20 July, 2015 |
| Unlike the MS Lofoten back in 2013… |
| Tuesday, 21 July, 2015 |
| Following the disturbed sleep of the previous night… |
| Wednesday, 22 July, 2015 |
| Docking several times overnight ensured a disrupted sleep… |
| Thursday, 23 July, 2015 |
| After a late night, you'd hope for a lie-in… |
| Friday, 24 July, 2015 |
| Several overnight stops ensured a slightly disturbed sleep… |
| Saturday, 25 July, 2015 |
| Breakfast and then off the ship at Kirkenes to join the tour to the Russian Border… |
| Sunday, 26 July, 2015 |
| Given that dawn had been over two months previously… |
| Monday, 27 July, 2015 |
| Due to the way the ship has to manoeuvre to dock at Finnsnes it was a disturbed night sleep… |
| Tuesday, 28 July, 2015 |
| Breakfast completed and out on deck just in time to cross the Arctic Circle again… |
| Wednesday, 29 July, 2015 |
| Breakfast whilst in Trondheim… |
| Thursday, 30 July, 2015 |
| Overnight the ship went round the West Cape of Norway… |
| Sunday, 29 April, 2018 |
| We boarded about 20 minutes after the ship had docked… |
| Monday, 30 April, 2018 |
| Life on the Hurtigruten assumes a routine very quickly with a continuous conveyor belt of stunning scenery, ports stops and regular meals… |
| Tuesday, 01 May, 2018 |
| Overnight there were a couple of stops, but by the time we met for a late breakfast we were already approaching Kirkenes… |
| Wednesday, 02 May, 2018 |
| After breakfast there was the impressive, if quite ugly, view of the Arctic gas plant on the outskirts of Hammerfest before we arrived in the town… |
| Thursday, 03 May, 2018 |
| Several stops during the night, and in the morning we awoke docked at Harstad… |
| Friday, 04 May, 2018 |
| Breakfast and then shortly afterwards we reached the Arctic Circle… |
| Saturday, 05 May, 2018 |
| We awoke to a damp Trondheim and an almost empty ship… |
| Sunday, 06 May, 2018 |
| Overnight the ship went through open seas and round the Vestkapp, or West Cape, an area of sea prone to storms… |
| Monday, 07 May, 2018 |
| After breakfast it was time to checkout and start the long journey back home… |
| Tuesday, 29 July, 2014 |
| The highest potential for something going wrong had been with having to transit through Dubrovnik… |
| Wednesday, 30 July, 2014 |
| Breakfast consumed and off out into town. First stop of the morning was across the road from the Serbian Parliament… |
| Thursday, 31 July, 2014 |
| Thursday broke as an damp morning… |
| Friday, 01 August, 2014 |
| With the sun actually shining this morning I checked out, left my luggage and headed out to explore more of the lower castle area… |
| Friday, 22 March, 2019 |
| I had expected the bus to start climbing long before reaching San Marino… |
| Saturday, 23 March, 2019 |
| After a filling breakfast I headed out of the hotel and back up to the 1st tower … |
| Sunday, 24 March, 2019 |
| Another very filling breakfast and I then, after I’d packed and checked out I headed out into town and down to the Museo di Stato to have a look round… |
| Wednesday, 15 December, 2021 |
| I’d stayed overnight at an airport hotel as the flight was relatively early in the morning, so after a quick breakfast I hopped in a Uber and headed over to terminal 5… |
| Thursday, 16 December, 2021 |
| Having experienced the advantage of a personal guide, albeit by accident, the previous December in Tenerife when I was the only person on a tour… |
| Friday, 17 December, 2021 |
| Semih met me in reception at 08:30 so we could head out on the second day of our tour… |
| Saturday, 18 December, 2021 |
| My third and final day exploring Istanbul with Semih and we first headed out in the taxi up to the Suleymaniye Mosque… |
| Sunday, 19 December, 2021 |
| My three days of guided touring had given me a good understanding of the city, and Semih had given me a few suggestions of other places I might want to visit… |
| Monday, 20 December, 2021 |
| I only had a couple of hours left in the city, as my taxi was booked for 13:45… |
| Friday, 24 August, 2018 |
| I had a leisurely afternoon passing through the airport… |
| Saturday, 25 August, 2018 |
| I had a quick breakfast in the hotel and then headed out and up to the metro station… |
| Sunday, 26 August, 2018 |
| From the hotel it was a short walk a couple of blocks to Washington Circle… |
| Monday, 27 August, 2018 |
| After checking out of the hotel I headed down the road a couple of blocks to the interestingly named Foggy Bottom metro station… |
| Thursday, 19 April, 2019 |
| I’d worked from home in the morning and then headed over to the airport on a half days leave… |
| Friday, 19 April, 2019 |
| I woke up once in the middle of the night, but was quickly able to get back to sleep, but by 6am … |
| Saturday, 20 April, 2019 |
| I managed to stay asleep for most of the night… |
| Sunday, 21 April, 2019 |
| I was quite surprised that, despite the amount of food consumed, I got a decent nights sleep … |
| Monday, 22 April, 2019 |
| I had my latest lie-in of the morning and after breakfast I checked out of the hotel and headed out into town for my final day in Chicago… |
| Thursday, 28 March, 2018 |
| I finished work just in time before the taxi arrived early to take me to the airport… |
| Friday, 30 March, 2018 |
| After a full American breakfast, I waddled out of the hotel and walked down a couple of blocks to the harbourside… |
| Saturday, 31 March, 2018 |
| After another overly filling breakfast I headed out of the hotel and walked down to Boston Common and then on over to the Public Park… |
| Sunday, 01 April, 2018 |
| I had just finished breakfast and was back up in my room getting ready to head out when my phone pinged to show a text message had come through… |
| Monday, 02 April, 2018 |
| Without any worrying text messages, and another filling breakfast under my belt I checked out of the hotel and headed down to the harbour… |
| Wednesday, 05 April, 2023 |
| I’d originally planned on working from home in the morning and then heading to the hotel at lunchtime for my late afternoon flight… |
| Thursday, 06 April 2023 |
| Of course having an earlyish night with the time differences and the effects of spending half the previous day just sitting on a plane… |
| Friday, 07 April, 2023 |
| I was feeling lazy so I headed down to the coffee shop in the hotel to grab some breakfast, and shortly after vowed never to do that again… |
| Saturday, 08 April, 2023 |
| I had originally been due to go on a tour out into the Mojave desert on the Californian side and visit some of the sites there… |
| Sunday, 09 April, 2023 |
| A 5am alarm call isn’t something that you usually want when you’re on holiday… |
| Monday, 10 April, 2023 |
| I took advantage of an 11am checkout to have a bit of a lie in before dropping off my luggage… |
| Tuesday, 11 April, 2023 |
| Probably a combination of a flat bed and the better pressurisation and humidity inside an Airbus A350… |
| Thursday, 13 April, 2017 |
| I’d booked a half days leave and had been working from home for the morning so I was able to set off for the airport as soon as I hit shutdown on my laptop… |
| Friday, 14 April, 2017 |
| Possibly because it had been such a late arrival I got a good night’s sleep and woke at the relatively sensible time of 7am… |
| Saturday, 15 April, 2017 |
| I was up again at 7am so I headed over to the diner to grab breakfast and then headed down to the harbour area to pick up the river cruise that was included in the bus ticket… |
| Sunday, 16 April, 2017 |
| Another early start, breakfast in the diner and then off up to Times Square to pick up the once a day tour of the Bronx… |
| Monday, 17 April, 2017 |
| Before heading out to breakfast I asked reception if it was possible to arrange for a late checkout… |
| Tuesday, 18 April, 2017 |
| I actually managed to get a couple of hours of reasonable sleep on the flight before the pilot woke everyone up somewhere over Liverpool… |
| Thursday, 15 December, 2022 |
| I’d worked out of an airport hotel in the morning, as it would otherwise have been a very tight connection to get over to the airport from home in time… |
| Friday, 16 December, 2022 |
| Inevitably I was awake just after 5am, so I dozed for about an hour before getting up and making use of my time by having a nice long shower and unpacking… |
| Saturday, 17 December, 2022 |
| My body clock was still clearly not adjusting and I woke up again just after 5am… |
| Sunday, 18 December, 2022 |
| Another 6am wake up, so I once again had an early breakfast and then headed out of the hotel back down to the southern tip of Manhattan… |
| Monday, 19 December, 2022 |
| I was once again up at 6am so after a shower and getting dressed I had time to fully pack before it was time to head down for breakfast… |
| Tuesday, 20 December, 2022 |
| Eventually just before midnight there started to be some movement with flights being called for boarding in order at slow intervals… |
| Wednesday, 21 December, 2022 |
| The overnight flight was uneventful, and it looked like we had pulled back a bit of time on the crossing… |
| Wednesday, 27 March, 2024 |
| I’d stayed over at an airport hotel the night before so that I could have a relaxed start to the morning… |
| Thursday, 28 March, 2024 |
| I slept through surprisingly well waking up just after 6am… |
| Friday, 29 March, 2024 |
| I slept solidly through until 5am… |
| Saturday, 30 March, 2024 |
| I tried for a bit more of a lie-in, but was awake a little after 6… |
| Sunday, 31 March, 2024 |
| I had a day tour booked which meant I had to get up relatively early… |
| Monday, 01 April, 2024 |
| I woke up just before 8am to a message from my flight tracking app to say that my flight home was going to be heavily delayed… |
| Wednesday, 27 April, 2022 |
| I’d travelled to an airport hotel the previous evening, in part so that I could get the mandatory Covid test done… |
| Thursday, 28 April, 2022 |
| Considering that, by the time I turned in the previous evening, I’d been on the go for 23 hours… |
| Friday, 29 April, 2022 |
| I woke up at 06:30, which wasn’t bad considering that would be about the normal time for a Friday… |
| Saturday, 30 April, 2022 |
| As it was the weekend the hotel wasn’t serving Breakfast, instead it was serving Brunch which appeared to be exactly the same menu, just everything about $2 more expensive… |
| Sunday, 01 May, 2022 |
| After another expensive breakfast I headed out of the hotel and walked down to pick up the Monorail out to the Space Needle… |
| Monday, 02 May, 2022 |
| I didn’t have the greatest of nights sleep and ended up giving up a little after 6am… |