So definitely not a holiday, but having spent, just under a week dog sitting, and a lovely sunny weekend in Zagreb, I raced home to the UK, over land.
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| Sunny Zagreb |
A bad start as the late running train out of Zagreb meant I risked missing my connection to Munich, but when I got to the Austrian change over point, just in time, the second train was over 30 minutes late, which meant I got to Munich around 10pm, rather than after midnight which is what would have happened, had I missed the connection. The train through Slovenia seemed to run very slowly and there was an extended stop to have passports checked. (The Bangladeshi doctor, who was in the old style closed in carriages with me was given a penetrating look when his was examined) But the scenery was stunning. I think there were 5 guards who checked my tickets, but none of them knew what would happen in Austria till I actually got there.
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| Arrivals hall Stena Lines. |
One of the problems with going over land is that you have to pay for accomodation. Somehow I got a hotel room just around the corner from Munich train station for just over £50. I do not know whether it was because they were doing building works which initially made the place seemed inaccessible or I was just lucky, anyway I was very grateful for the free water on arrival and even more for the free tea and coffee in the room, which meant I did not need breakfast and could be refreshed ready to dash up to Marienplatz before my first train of the day the following day.
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| Eindhoven |
I had booked all my tickets prior to heading out for Croatia, but DB, the German company notified me that my original journey from Munich to Eindhoven was not now possible on the route I had planned, so I popped into the information service in Munich who gave me a new schedule with four changes, but which was nullified immediately when the first train left late. In the end I got into Eindhoven almost two hours late. The good thing about this was that I had time to gaze happily at Koln cathedral whilst waiting there for my second train of the day, the bad thing about it, was I spent ages on cold platforms, and by the end of the day really had run out of energy and it was wet and cold. But more good news, I stayed in a charming hotel in Eindhoven, found a nice bit of the old town to explore before woofing down a much needed warming curry.
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| Twin cathedrals. |
Koln has a special place in my heart, partly because of my school trip when I was 15 but more importantly from my time with BFBS whilst I was training to be a radio journalist. I got to "play" on their radio and had the most wonderful time in Koln. I revisited the city a couple of years later when I spent 6 weeks travelling round Europe, so have not been back for about 40 years, but of course the Cathedral still stands magnificent. Eindhoven on the other hand is mostly modern and unknown to me, and again I have not been to the Netherlands for some time, and I really enjoyed the last leg of the journey to Rotterdam and onto the Hoek of Holland. The last dash for the port and home.
I should have got off the train and headed for some breakfast in Rotterdam, and I will do that another time, but I naively thought that the next stop would have some cafes or that worse come to the worse I could get something when I arrived at Stena Lines. However, neither really was true. In fact at the place where I should have got the metro I could not even work out how to get a ticket and there were no staff to ask, but luckily a passing woman about my age was kind enough to tell me how the machines worked. So I pressed onto Stena Lines, and just found a coffee vending machine, so cracked open the small bottle of wine provided in the hotel, and using my empty coffee cup, enjoyed a drop off Merlot on an empty stomach and finished reading my book.
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| Royal Acadmy Courtyard |
The ferry was uneventful. The meal I had booked surprised me by its good quality, it was so windy, going outside seemed risky, but other than that was unremarkable and rather too long to want to do very regularly and then of course trains were cancelled on the UK side too but I got home near to midnight Tuesday night, having set off just after lunch on the Sunday, but it can be done and will be again.
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| London Marathon, the Mall, 2024. |
But boy am I tired now. I had to come home as a friend was celebrating his wedding and of course I thought I had a holiday booked, but I just did not have the energy for any more travel and felt unwell so to boost myself have enjoyed a day in London instead at an excellent exhibition and briefly some of the elite runners come home in record times in the Marathon before crashing out at home for the week to recover. .
