i wake up early today, not just because of the usual 5:00 bell ringing from the monastary’s church tower, today the whole valley around einsiedeln is just drowning in the sound of cow bells and sheep bells — it’s alpabtrieb! every year in the may–june time frame the local farmers bring their stocks, mostly cows and the occasional sheep herd, from the valley floor up to the alps where they stay for the summer. from the beginning of september until mid-september, end of september we then have alpabtrieb when the whole process is reversed.

einsiedeln being a little town¹ with tourist traffic all year round it wouldn’t do to have all the farmers bring down their stock all at once, so, the whole business proceeds in stages according to a pre-determined schedule over the course of two weeks. today we seem to have the cows from our end of valley descending on us

oh, and that picture was not taken today but rather two years ago at the goldinger tal, they’ve homecoming cows there as well.

the weather is gorgeous and we are really looking forward to a day at kew: i just love the arboretum and the whole landscape. this year is particularly interesting as kew has just opened the rhizotron and xstrata treetop walk, a 200m walk way some 18m above ground winding its way through the tree tops of some very magnificent old trees!

i’m a bit apprehensive: on one hand i dearly love to get up there and have a walk-about in the tree tops, on the other hand i’m really afraid of heights and exposed places… this is going to interesting…

first things first, we register for the special 12:00 “champion trees of kew” walk — and then are off to have a go at the tree top walk.

the whole structure looks fantastic — and breathtaking. 18m above ground is quite a bit if you are not really a fan of exposed places. the walkway itself is constructed from punched and streched steel sheets, giving you plenty of the exposed stuff, enough to drown yourself in mrs d, true to form, just dances up the stairs and is on her way around the tree tops. me? well, i make it half-way up and then have to call it off and retreat down to safer grounds, where is stand with my head tilted back, longingly looking up, wishing i was made of sterner stuff and not such a wuss when it comes to heights…

…well, after about 10min i had enough of that and decided to give it another go: i must have been the slowest person ever to climb that staircase, resting every so often to get used to the height, until i finally was up on top of the first platform! wow! still scared i made my way round — and it was worth every bit of courage i had to scrape up: being up there in the tree tops was fantastic, the view across london was great and just the fact that i had made it up there was exhilarating! still scared but also enjoying it

the guide walk — champion trees of kew — was really interesting: champion trees are trees that are considered to be prime examples of their species and kew has quite a few of them.

lunch was long and leisurely at the conservatory and we really enjoyed it! most of the afternoon we spent walking through the arboretum, reading (remember the new elisabeth george? ;-), and enjoying our last vacation day in england.

a fantastic day.

the train from bangor is a direct, fast train to london euston and we are travelling first class again today (which, thanks to our britrail flexipasses, comes out cheaper than buying 2nd class tickets in bangor) — complete with free drinks and coffee

the weather has turned wet — as forecast, but we are not really concerned and as we move further south again the rain slowly ceases and it’s sunny and rather warm when we arrive in london euston on the dot at 13:40. we take the underground to earl’s court station and then head south to 6 oakfield street our b&b for the next two nights.

6 oakfield street is a narrow, three floors victorian terrace house in a side street of “little chelsea”. our double bedroom is to the front and on the top floor of the house — nicely done, has a bit of a changing rooms flair to it, “oliver heath’s grey area”, as mrs d so aptly summarizes it we even spot the famous MDF! a bit of a curiosity is the fridge, which i at first mistook to be the b&b variant of a mini-bar but which on closer inspection turned out to be the “overflow” fridge of the family fridge containing vegetables, a cake, and other stuff.¹ but, in total, a very nice room

we unpack and then make our way to the victoria & albert museum, the v&a, which is “close by”. mrs d is interested in the fashion exhibits, i’m looking forward to the photography collection. we also intend to get a little walk through south kensington in sideways to offset the hours of just sitting on the train…

it’s a bit past 16:00 when we arrive at the v&a, leaving us with just about one and a half hour to spend at the museum. mrs d decides to look at the fashion through the centuries exhibit, i make for the photo gallery…

…which turns out to be rather small but also rather interesting, motivating, and inspiring! if you are in the vicinity and have the time, go pay a visit — it’s completely free but worth the effort.

we meet again at 17:00, stroll through the v&a shops (finally pick up that birthday present for my sister-in-law, mrs a) and then go on that mini-walk of south kensington.

before returning to earl’s court we stop for a look around at a nice little independent bookshop. mrs d very kindly points out the latest elizabeth george, careless in red — a grave mistake as it turns out: once i get started on it i just have to keep reading, reading, reading…

dinner is at a local restaurant, balans, at the corner of old brompton road and redcliffe gardens. nice food, charming waiters (according to mrs d ;-).

tomorrow it’s kew gardens and, perhaps, if i dare, the new tree top walk…

all in all: nice train trip. interesting exhibits at v&a. exciting new book. nice dinner

whereas the scenery on our left and right up llanberis pass and for a couple of kilometers past pen-y-pass was rather barren and conveyed an almost alpine feeling¹, it now morphs into a more tree-d one and resembles the country side in the lower parts of the lake district at times. the road to beddgelert winds its way along the valley, passing the llyn gwynant and llyn dinas lakes before reaching a rather nice little hamlet at the confluence of the afon colwyn and the afon glaslyn rivers², beddgelert.

beddgelert is a bit smaller than llanberis but it becomes immediately clear that tourist-wise you are better off in beddgelert: a couple of decent looking restaurants and pubs, tea-rooms and nice surroundings — if we are to return to snowdonia we’d probably “take lodgings” here. after a tea at one of the tea-rooms (a bit too overstuffed with “antique” nick-nacks and riff-raff for our taste, oh, and “prices are not negotiable”) we start our (mini-)walk by walking along the afon colwyn to the confluence point and turn south after crossing over a foot bridge. at first the walk is quite level and “suitable for all ages” and abilities. a sign informs us that the former railway tunnel unfortunately is now longer open as it was becoming too dangerous and to expensive to maintain, and that the footpath now is diverted along the river bed…

…as it turns out that really is not quite true: as we progress towards the “former railway tracks” we quickly realise that those tracks are anything but “former”! before us we are seeing brand new tracks! way cool! and — that tunnel? it’s no longer closed but instead has the new line passing through it again. the railway enthusiast in me is very satisfied to see what once was thought lost being restored.³

once we have crossed the new old tracks we indeed are now following the riverbed. at first wide and more or less flat the path then becomes narrow and at one point circumnavigates a protruding rock where we have to use iron grips anchored in the rock itself to avoid having to introduce ourselves to the lovely river below. after about 30min we reach the pass and turn left into a valley which is at the same time climbing up and narrowing. the path takes us past disused mines and mining equipment. whereas the wind was initially just a breeze, the funnel-like shape of the valley concentrates it and it almost becomes a veritable storm when we reach the highest point, a style taking us across from rather rocky terrain into a moorland of sorts — and fantastic views towards snowdon but also towards the irish sea!

the path soon takes us steeply downhill past a lake and back to and along afon glaslyn in the direction of beddgelert again. about halfway there we pass a sign for the sygyn mine and mrs d suggests we pay a visit. sceptical at first — it does look like one of the typical british tourist traps — i join her…and we go on a walk on the other side of the mountain that we’ve just crossed: the inner side that is.

we enter the mine at the former base level and a long low tunnel (i’m a tad on the tall side for this adventure and am in a constant crouch state) takes us quite a bit into the mountain. this part of the mine had to be dug out again when work started on it in the the 1980s to turn it into a museum mine. finally, after what feels like an eternity, we get to a series of caverns containing rather interesting displays about the working conditions, the geology, and the everyday lives of the ancient miners. also “on display”, so to speak, are underground lakes entertaining hundreds of stalagmites and stalactites!

the path then takes us up a series of stairs (183 in total) through various work areas — the most impressive one explaining about the actual mining process itself, complete with recreating the atmosphere and a “real” underground explosion (at one point we are left in almost complete darkness with just a couple of candles burning: the working conditions of the original miners). very interesting!

we emerge about 100m above the base level and return to the visitor centre to drop off our hard hats⁴ and to have a cup of tea before tackling the last part of our walk to beddgelert.

that last part is almost flat out tarmac road and we soon reach beddgelert where we have a pint of beer each at one of the local pubs before we board our bus back to pen-y-pass and onwards to llanberis.

all in all: breathtaking landscape, exciting riverside path, satisfying rail development, a walk on the other side. would do it again

the weather forecast for today is fairly good and the bus ride (the bus stop is almost right outside our b&b) is nice and short, after 20min we are at pen-y-pass. although pen-y-pass is “only” at 360m above sea level it has a very alpine feeling to it with the barren mountains surrounding it and the strong wind blowing.

we intend to take the pyg track up to the summit of snowdon — from the 1:25K ordnance survey map it’s not entirely clear where the track starts so we follow the broad miner’s track for about 200m and then climb up a small track going off to the right which takes us almost straight up and we quickly gain height. we end up on a track parallel to the miner’s track but about 100-150m higher. eventually we join the real pyg track — it turns out that it started at the northern end of the pen-y-pass car park — and are now on a nice track leading us along the eastern side of the snowdon horseshoe up to the little col between snowdon and garnedd ugain. the track zig-zags a bit, crosses boulder fields, very occasionally requiring a scramble. the view towards the south of snowdonia is just breathtaking and become better with each meter gained. when we reach the col the wind coming from the north and the sea is already waiting for us and we very quickly don our rain jackets to block it off. from the col on we join the track coming up from llanberis parallel to the rail tracks. snowdon summit is now veiled by low flying clouds and it’s become rather cold rather quickly. after 15min we reach the summit and are rewarded with breathtaking glimpses across mountain ranges of snowdonia!

our packed lunches from our b&b turn out to be a bit of a surprise: ours must have been swapped with those of the other couple staying at our b&b — i certainly didn’t order eggs with onions and mrs d didn’t order tuna with tomatoes… oh, well.

half an hour later we are on our way back down. instead of following the llanberis path along the railway tracks back into llanberis, we decide to take the pyg track back and follow through to its starting point — the scenery inside the snowdon horseshoe is just so much nicer and “dramatic” than the easy-peasy llanberis track

back at pen-y-pass we both have a cup of tea and from the café enjoy a last survey of where we’ve been today: a fantastic walk through a breathtaking landscape with really exciting weather!

while we wait for the bus we chat with one of the café ladies and learn that this year alone there have been 10 fatalities already on snowdon; that pyg track is the most dangerous of the routes; that the sherpa buses are sometimes in a bit of a squeeze when one of those large “german made” tourist buses is coming down the pass to llanberis, forcing the sherpa buses to reverse all the way back…

it’s 16:15 when we get back to llanberis.

dinner: tandoori chicken at spices of llanberis, quite well done.

all in all: a fantastic and exciting day!

the 9:40 train to crewe does arrive on time in haverfordwest — with us on the train is the group of germans (the fischköpfe) that we met earlier this week on the strumble shuttle, they apparently are going back via manchester airport.

all seems to be going rather well, when that great british weekend railway pastime strikes again: engineering works between hereford and crewe! bummer!

the conductor kindly tells us that we are going to be over an hour late into crewe (and thus into bangor), and he kindly recommends taking a different connection to save us the hassle of the bus transfer in between (but we’ll still be over an hour late). so, at llanelli, we disembark, figure out that we need to cross over to platform 1, listen to the travel guide of the fischköpfe group trying to explain via the info phone to some arriva train wales person¹ that he is in “laneli” and would like to know the platform for the train to crewe², consequently redirect the german fischköpfe who were on their way to fall off the platform end that there is a pedestrian bridge right at the station, and make our way to platform 1 ourselves and wait for 45min for the 11:29 train…

…which eventually arrives and causes a mild deja-moo: it’s that old 1980s british rail feeling again: same old train, same old seats, same old carpet³. we stow away our luggage and start our trip through wales towards crewe. the train is very, very thorough: whenever there is a possibility for a stop, it does stop! at llandrindod we even pause for about 40min — the train’s diesel powered engine running through all the time, diesel must still be very cheap for arriva trains wales.

after what feels like two days of travel on a 1980s british rail train (where is a tardis if you need it?) we do get to crewe. at upper crust it’s a sandwich and a large tea for both of us, then we trod to the 17:02 train to bangor — which turns out to be a nice modern one; welcome back to the 21st century

the train does leave on time, but after about 20min we stop at some forlorn station and don’t leave again for another 30min due to some “service failure ahead of us”. it’s about 19:10 when we finally do arrive in bangor — mind you, the scenery all along the north wales coast is absolutely fantastic: on one side the irish sea, on the other side the welsh mountains slowly rising higher and higher!

luckily for us our taxi (arranged by our very friendly b&b landlady carol torr) is still waiting at the station front and we are finally on our last leg of today’s journey. the ride from bangor is quite nice and takes us slowly into the mountains of snowdonia.

at about 19:40 we are in llanberis at our b&b, marteg b&b. carol torr, our b&b landlady, welcomes us and makes us feel right at home. our room is a very spacious double with a nice large bathroom — the bed room overlooking llanberis’s lake. nice! additional nice feature: proper duvet on the bed! no “DIY duvet kit!” as mrs d so aptly puts it again.

as it’s getting past 20:00 and british pubs outside cosmopolitan london⁴ have that annoying tendency of stopping serving food almost the moment they started doing so we start our quest for dinner…

…it quickly transpires that llanberis is not really a haven of culinary delights:

• right opposite the driveway to our b&b is a kebab, burger, pasta, pizza take-away (hmm, no),
• further north on llanberis high street we find a fish and chips shop (hmm, no),
• then there is a chinese take-away (no customers, looking a bit un-patronised, again, no),
• then pete’s bistro which seems to be out of service (those upside-down chairs on the tables are a bit of a give-away),
• diagonally across from that it’s pete’s eats (sic!) which seems to be the place where all the climbers refuel on carbohydrates and anything that supplies energy (interestingly enough they don’t have any pasta dishes on their menu, weird; also not very enticing, so no)
• then two doors further along is spices of llanberis an indian tandoori restaurant which does look quite nice inside, so keep that one on the stack
• south of our b&b is the heights hotel looking quite a bit dilapidated and not really hope-inspiring (so: no)
• then we have the peak restaurant which looks ok-ish and is even “open from 7pm”
• then the pardan hotel (closed, not really looking very inspiring), the gwynned hotel (clearly has seen better days and will never see us inside), and the self-serve outdoor seating area at the snowdon railway (closed, but does do burgers)

basically, that leaves us — as we are not keen on take-away (neither is our b&b landlady, understandably so) — with just two options: either the spices of llanberis or the peak restaurant. not feeling very spicy this evening we settle on the peak restaurant.

the menu of the peak does look quite interesting and we do get a table for two. two other couples (two american walkers and an elderly couple) and a group of three are our fellow restaurant patrons. the beer is by the bottle and the welsh one i take (ramnesia) is actually quite nice. mrs d’s wine seems to be ok (at least she is not complaining). starters are ok-ish, the main course is less so: mrs d’s salmon clearly is not fresh and a bit on the dry side; my steak is anything but well-seasoned, it really lacks salt — in fact, cook must have plain forgotten to salt it. when we get the bill we notice that while “VAT is included, service is not” — which i don’t really like as my intention when coming for a meal to a restaurant is to get a package of (hopefully) well-tasting food and a well-working service both of which i hope i’ll enjoy, i don’t really want to have to worry about how much to pay the waitress for serving us:

• is it by the amount of time she actually spent on us?
• is it by the amount of time we spent in the restaurant?
• should we pay her more if we had lots to eat and she had lots to carry?
• do we spend more on a waitress that is experienced and less on one that is just learning?
• does all this cover at least the minimum wage?

if i really wanted to worry about all this, i might as well run the restaurant myself.

all in all: a loooong train journey with arriva trains wales, a very nice and friendly b&b, a not so impressive restaurant.

tomorrow: snowdon!

• fuelling stop at the local delicatessen (biscuits for the train ride tomorrow, burned sugar likewise)
• three very nice scarves at the fashion shop in new street
• today’s guardian at the post office
• some apples at peter’s the grocer

next, we finally visit st david’s cathedral.

st david’s cathedral is a bit unusual in that it’s the first cathedral that i’ve visited whose floor is not level but instead slowly rises from the main entrance up towards the choir. also, the main pillars are slanted outwards. very interesting. also fascinating are the different styles of ceilings each section of the cathedral has. really impressive — and we do get an almost sub-sonic blast from them — are the bass pipes of the organ: thick as trees and certainly as high.

the cathedral shop has the usual nick-nack and riff-raff on sale, nothing really tempting — and nothing suitable as a birthday present for our in-law, mrs a, meaning we’ll need to keep on looking.

after a nice lunch in the cathedral refactory we sit on the green and spend the afternoon reading

our last dinner in pembrokeshire is a the excellent cwtch restaurant again (nicely completing the symmetry of this week: our first dinner last sunday evening was at cwtch as well) — we managed to get a reservation for 20:30, leaving enough time to pack our bags, watch the latest dr who on tv, and stroll back into town.

not as energetic a day as the rest of the week, but rather pleasant as well!

the bus picks up lots of walkers today along the route. at abercastle we make a brief stop at the bend in the road, the driver opens the door — and greets the old dachshund we had seen yesterday who’s already been waiting for him: and, yes, he gets a dog biscuit, some parting words, and we are on our way again to strumble head.

contrary to the weather forecast by the met office the weather is just brilliant today — the forecast had us down for some real rain, reality has us up for some serious sunshine — and we enjoy the good weather and the fantastic scenery. the lighthouse is unfortunately not open to the public but looks like a proper lighthouse should look: on a cliff top, all in white, facing the “ferocious” seas, a schooner on the horizon crashing through waves two times it height, seamen holding on for dear life…²

…we hold on to the path and make our way west and then south. this part of the coast path has “alpine” bits and pieces sprinkled over it — some scrambling³ is called for: fun

at pwll dweri (next to the entry to the holiday cottages and just above the youth hostel which seems to be undergoing some renovation) we break for half an hour and enjoy the breathtaking views across the bay and further south.

the path from pwll dweri to tregwynt takes us further up and then past some spectacular cliffs, caves, and little bays. when we reath the pebble beach at tregwynt, it and the sunshine join forces and lull us into a bit of “sun-bathing”⁴…

as the bus from tregwynt woollen mill leaves at 16:44 we finally make our way there to have a look at the shop⁵ and also to have a cup of tea and a piece of cake.⁶

then, at 16:44 our friend the strumble shuttle picks us up again and we are on our fractal bus ride back to st davids.⁷

dinner again at the refactory, followed again by “one for the road” at the grove.

fantastic scenery, great weather: another brilliant day

our bus driver clearly knows the territory and every little corner and passing point. he also seems to be rather fond of dogs: every dog coming on board is offered a treat — much to each dog’s suprise: they clearly didn’t expect that but take the treat enthusiastically nevertheless!

also, our bus driver really knows his coast: he drops each of us walkers off at exactly the right spot to start today’s walk! very nice. we start from tregwynt and head south towards porthgain (to have lunch at the shed

the weather is fantastic — yesterday’s breeze has cranked up a couple of notches and we have veritable gusts coming in from the sea, the sun is shining (lots and lots of suncream applied this week), just fantastic!

in abercastle we meet an old dachshund at the harbour, we say “hi”, he looks at us, and we all part our ways.

about 4km away from porthgain we realize that we somehow have overestimated today’s walk: instead of the intended 20km we are just going to clock up 14.5km — hmm. oh, well, more time to enjoy the culinary delights of the shed…

…which we do! mrs d has a very nicely cooked sea bass, i enjoy my lemon sole! we finish with an apple tart tatin and a mocha coffee — excellent, long lunch.

at 17:10 the strumble shuttle comes back and we are on our way back to st davids.

dinner: again at the refactory — good food, decent prices, nice setting, and WLAN

…oh, and mrs d suggests that we “have one for the road” at the grove hotel bar, which we do.²

past solva the coast is still spectacular, but not as dramatic as the bits we’ve seen so far (porthgain to solva) — the weather is a mixture of stratocumulus clouds and sunny intervals. luckily it’s not the nimbus variant of the stratocumulos and it’s not raining

at newgale we descend down to the beach — lots of pebble collection possibilities: we end up with quite a few very nice exemplars that end up in our pockets

lunch is at the duke of edinburgh in newgale: a cawl (pronounced caul) for each one of us — the cook must be a bit absent-minded: absolutely no salt in it, lol. between mrs d and me we almost end up emptying the table salt (which is not very strong) into our respective cawls.

the last bit takes us along a bit of cliff walk to naughton haven — where the 1:25k ordnance survey map has a blue pub symbol. there is a pub, the mariner’s inn but when we try to get in at 14:30 we are told by a lady that the pub has already closed — which is a bit funny as she is having a smoke right in front of the sign telling us that the summer opening times are until 14:45. oh, well. a bit rude that — we retreat to the beach and wait for the 15:10 puffin shuttle back to st davids.

dinner tonight is at the refactory at the cathedral: interesting & well-tasting food, it’s counter-service (meaning you pick it up at the counter) but the upstairs seating area has lots of very nice tables with interesting views towards the surrounding cathedral green as well as the main cathedral building itself. oh, and they offer free WLAN!¹

the weather is fantastic still: sun shine, little cumulus clouds, a nice breeze coming in from the sea. the surf has picked up today at whitesands and lots of surfers are giving it a spin. we slowly turn the corner and leave whitesands bay behind us. the isle of ramsay is following in the west for the next two hours or so.

at st justinian’s we watch the giant kodiak inflatables come and go: think rubber inflatable with two 200 bhp motors attached, each boat carrying up to 25 persons. quite a sight — i’d hate to be the one having to inflate one of those, though…

the cliff walk is, for my taste, a bit more exciting than yesterday: a couple of straight drops down to the crashing and burning sea!

eventually we reach solva which has an almost fjord like, stretched harbour. very picturesque. luckily solva is on the main route between haverfordwest and st davids and there is a bus to st davids almost every hour — time enough for a beer back in the beer garden (at the river) of the ship inn.

dinner is back in the bar of the grove hotel in st davids: nice interior, food is good as well.

another fantastic day!

the grocer is a nice little shop, called peter’s, with fruits and vegetables. the bus stop is not really called anything aside from bus stop nun street and we wait together with an elderly lady for the 403 (not the 404 as listed in the richard bros timetable) which eventually does arrive and even takes us to whitesands bay.

whitesands bay is, well, a large bay with a white sand beach. it also features an café-cum-outdoor-shop also selling — sun hats, of which i acquire one (at £4.99 not too much of a fashion risk).

all transactions done, we head up north going out west. the coastal path takes us up and down the cliffs and in total we clock up about 618m altitude gain and about 18km in total from whitesands bay to porthgain. the original target of the day had been abbereiddy but we reached that about 1.5 hours before the bus back to st david’s would collect us, so we decided to walk on to porthgain.

the weather was almost picture-book-perfect summer weather, hot, yes, but at the same time there was a cooling breeze coming in from the sea — nice! at porthgain we were aiming for the sloop inn for a well-deserved beer, when we spotted the shed, a sea food café and restaurant recommended to us by our friends mrs and mr w — so it was high tea with freshly caught cod and potato chips at the shed! very nice and excellent food!

the bus ride back was quite nice and took us back past all the places we had visited on our walk to porthgain.

a very nice first walking day!

haverfordwest is a nice little town and the ride to st davids takes us through newgale (impressive wide beach with fantastic scenery and views of the coast curving around the bay) and solva with a nice main street with lots of old and colorful houses and a rather impressive harbour (”a bit like a norwegian fjord” one of the fellow travellers, an old man, points out to the irish young lady sitting on top of her bundled duvet on the first bench of the bus, and, “where are you from?” — “ireland” — “well, it’s much nicer this side of the sea” — “well, our side is pretty nice, too!”). just as we get into st davids i spot a sign for our b&b, the waterings and we disembark together with the old man, who very kindly points out how far back we need to walk, and, slapping mrs d on her shoulder, then makes his way across the road to the pub.

we turn around and follow the road back up the hill and then turn into the road sign-posted for the waterings. it’s about 100m away from the street and looks very nice — much nicer than on its website, i’ve to say. we check in and are shown to our room: suite consisting of a bed-room and a large bathroom, situated around a court yard with nice benches to enjoy the good weather.

excellent.

the lady at the help desk was very friendly and even produced a copy of a city map complete with instructions on how to get to cardiff TIC. so, off we went, having contemplated taking the next train in the direction of the west coast, to have a look at what the left luggage facilities would look like (and whether they were open on a sunday morning in the first place). following the route indicated by the friendly help desk lady we left the station, turn right towards mary street (first open pub with a couple of blokes having a pint), turned left and — started our slalom through broken glass, dubious things on the pavement (wet and otherwise) and past further pubs already doing business. ugh. enticing. positively scintillating. yikes. at the first arcade opening into the general direction of the TIC we turned into it and emerged on the other side at a — yep, a building site. oh, and more broken bottles and more broken pint glasses and more dubious stuff on the pavement. my motivation for actually doing a bit of sightseeing (and possibly having lunch before taking the 14:03 train to carmathen) was going down faster than the hindenburg at that fatal night in new york. checking the mood of the rest of our travel group, i learnt that mrs d was feeling likewise. the next half-decent looking arcade back to mary street was ours and we started back on our way to the station — only interrupted by a cup of tea and a coffee laté at a nice looking cafe right inside the arcade.

at the station we stock up on newspaper (today’s observer), some fresh fruit (golden pineapple) from marks & sparks, and then make our way to the train to carmathen.

we slept rather well, the british “double” bed as always takes getting used to again (there must be a little side entry in the magna charta or some such ancient document spelling out that rule that a double shall always be an oversized single with just a single cover sheet). breakfast was ok-ish and we are now packing our stuff again and am still deliberating what to do sightseeing-wise here in cardiff: clearly the construction area around the station is not really the cat’s whiskers tourism wise, the hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus sounds like a quick and painless way of getting a glimpse of cardiff beyond the construction fences, but we’ve yet to figure out where to leave our luggage — we didn’t see any facilities for that yesterday at cardiff central… we shall see.

… which we spend getting our britrail travel passes validated (quite a bit cheaper than getting direct tickets), play a round on the cash machine (we do win big time again this time), get some fruit salad from marks & sparks, a guardian (lots of paper for £1.50), and finally board our train to cardiff. the weather has improved decidedly: no more of this continental rain! form the look of it, it has been dry for quite some time.

while i’m writing the blog, the train is going at high speed through the english country side, heading west. the WLAN manager keeps detecting and loosing WLAN cells, some with “interesting” names — i wonder whether anyone has ever done WLAN cell ID advertising? the way it would work is by changing your public WLAN name to advertise your product…would probably turn out to be quite annoying.

we get to cardiff an hour late! as usual, the british rail network is being refurbished during the weekend: meaning that our train is not going via bristol but instead takes the scenic route.

cardiff central is a nice victorian remnant of a station. outside it’s just construction, construction, pubs full of cardiffians (?) watching the beginning of the euro cup 2008 (even though neither england nor wales nor scotland is playing…). the taxi takes about 20min to get through the traffic-jammed streets and we realize that annedd lon guesthouse is located on an A road, oh dear…

…luckily though it’s (a) very well insulated towards the street, and (b) our double room is towards the rather quiet back. all in all a rather nice b&b

next: off to one of the recommended pubs in the neighborhood to have some dinner

when paying our bill, the manager and i have a little chat and it turns out that she is — from wales! what a coincidence! she gets all excited about us going by train to st davids and even offers a bunch of tourist brochure (which i politely decline, we are, for once, trying to travel lightly — i hope that trick with the woollen underwear will really work out the way mrs d insists it will…).

when we get to cologne station it transpires from a look at the monitors that the ICE international to brussels seems to have a slight indigestion: it’s billed as being 10min late. hmm. mrs d spends the time buying some earplugs (claiming that i snore at night — who believes that?), i acquire today’s edition of the süddeutsche zeitung and die zeit, and we then make our way up to track 5 to check on our delayed ICE…

…to our surprise we do see two ICEs. one is going to amsterdam, the other one tells us via its LED display that it intends to go to brussels. the platform monitor, though, tells us in no uncertain terms (”nicht einsteigen” — “do not board”) that it disagrees with the ICE — which is backed by the fact that nobody has entered the train and there is a rather large crowd still on the platform. eventually we learn that the ICE from frankfurt does really do have some problems (something wrong with the frankfurter sausages it had last night? that last bottle of beer gone bad?) and is going to be swapped for another ICE “soon”…

…which does happen and we board our train to brussels and leave with about 15min delay. the belgian countryside, which we soon reach, is boring as ever and it’s also raining as ever. somehow this part of belgium is not very motivating and i end up hoping that all the rest of belgium is a more uplifting experience. our train makes good on the 15min delay and we reach brussels with just being 5min or so late. nice. boarding the eurostar is the same spiel as ever — only more and more people seem to have sussed that this is a very nice way of getting from germany to london: about 80% of the ICE from cologne is queuing at eurostar ticket control (german rail does not issue tickets with a magnetic stripe, so the control has to be done manually), eventually we are through, have our baggage x-rayed, show our passports to UK border police (who have a booth at the eurostar terminal in brussels and, if i remember correctly, in paris as well) and then board our eurostar to london at 11:40 and leave brussels at 11:59 on the dot.

travelling to the UK on board a eurostar in first class (we managed to book early enough to get a Deutsche Bahn London sparpreis at €400.00 return for two, less than €600 for “cheap” flights to london) is a really pleasant experience: shortly after leaving, you get champagne —

…give me champagne when i’m thirsty, give me a reefer to get high[^1]…

— followed by a decent lunch and coffee afterwards. at the same time we are hurtling through belgian, french, and (once we are through the channel tunnel) english countryside. this year is the first time that we travel on the new highspeed link all the way to london st pancras international (which has taken over from london waterloo as the terminus for the eurostar line) — and (it’s now 12:34) we are due to arrive at 13:03.

all in all a very pleasant way of travelling: lots of space, good wine and food, you get to see the country side, your souls has more of a chance of travelling with you and doesn’t have to catch up as much as when your are going by plane. plus, eurostar is travelling CO2 neutral now.

tonight we are going to go out for dinner, then it’s a medium short night: we need to have breakfast at 7:00 and then catch the ICE to brussels for the eurostar to london st pancras. let’s see how that works out.

in case you are interested in joining: contact fredi kälin of blue-dimension until 21:00 tonight!