A few days in Poland, specifically based in Warsaw, to visit Warsaw Zoo and Torun Gingerbread Museum. Hotels Warsaw (Poland) – Apartment Next to Central Railway Station – booked through Booking.com, a 15-minute walk from Warszawa Centralna. A young lad was waiting for us when we arrived and quickly showed us around the apartment Read the Rest…
As has been the case for the previous two years, we were both off at Christmas again this year and so made plans to head out of the UK for it. With there being a rerun, albeit with a difference, of the MAV Nostalgia Christmas Nohab outing from Kelenfold to Tapolca, we tied our plans in with Read the Rest…
Having been to Georgia earlier in the Summer, when a Wizz Air e-mail dropped into my inbox advertising their new flights direct from London Luton to Kutaisi, and that they were being released at a promotional rate, I booked almost straight away. I’d been looking for somewhere to go during the October half term and Read the Rest…
This trip was an attempt to visit some parts of Switzerland that we’d only ever been to during the Winter months. Most prominently featuring the Aletsch Glacier, accessed from the gondolas that head up towards it from stations along the Matterhorn Gotthard Bahn. As it was Summer we also planned to visit Rochers de Naye, Read the Rest…
Thursday 27th July 2017 (Madrid – Tren de Filipe II & El Escorial) Arrival at Principe Pio was quite early, for the 1020 departure of the Tren de Filipe II to El Escorial. This is a newly operated tourist train, run by bus company ALSA, who own a few old coaches and more importantly, two Alco Read the Rest…
A week away at half term, where we hoped there’d be a lack of other people doing the same thing. It was more a trip based on where we could go from Doncaster Airport, that was cheap, had reasonable flights and fitted with our plans. A with most Wizz Air flights from Doncaster they don’t Read the Rest…
I’d been to Ukraine the previous year and had enjoyed it, I wasn’t quite sure if my wife would too at that time but having been I was safe in the knowledge that it was nowhere near as bad as I’d expect it to be; in fact, quite the opposite. So, a return trip was Read the Rest…
This is an extract from a longer railway trip of mine but as railway journeys go, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway is well worth getting out of bed for. Friday 3rd March 2017 (A journey on the Nilgiri Mountain Railway to Ooty) It was definitely a rude awakening at 0430 but I was soon into my Read the Rest…
Christmas in Finland? Why the hell not! Despite planning this trip in June there wasn’t much hotel type accommodation available in the far north of Finland, only log cab type stuff; which is great if that’s what you’re looking for but I wasn’t planning on spending my limited time in Finland cooking my own meals Read the Rest…
I entered Belarus from Latvia by train and while the trip was predominantly a railway trip there was some downtime for a spot of sightseeing along the way with a day in Minsk and some time in Vitebsk. Below are extracts from the greater trip spiel only for the two days of sightseeing. Belarus Hotels Read the Rest…
Flights Booked through Wizz Air direct W6-2510 1850 Doncaster – Riga Booked through Norwegian direct D8-2361 1045 Warsaw – Gatwick Hotels Latvia Riga – Hotel Rixwell Irina – 15 minutes from the airport by road and only across the road from Riga station. Staff spoke good English at reception. The room wasn’t big and had just enough room for Read the Rest…
Who doesn’t want to say in a trip report that they’ve just been to Hel? And just for the sheer hell of it! Well that was literally what this trip was about, coupled with the fact that both Hel & Leba were apparently nice places. Flights Booked through Wizz Air W6-1615 2035 Doncaster – Gdansk (45’ Read the Rest…
Our previous trip to Peru in 2013 was so enjoyable that we decided to go back and try something different; with another trip to Machu Picchu thrown in for good measure! The basis of this trip was the dates that FCCA had advertised to run their Lima – Huancayo tourist trains and even more specifically Read the Rest…
Having never been to Bruges or been outside of railway premises in Amsterdam, Easter seemed like the sensible time to visit both; while the ultimate destination was Poland. Having booked flights back from Warsaw it wasn’t until I began looking at the trip properly that I realised just how long it would take to get Read the Rest…
Having missed a golden opportunity, which I actually blindly turned down in 2014, to go out to Chile and do the EFE run Santiago – Temuco train, I’d regretted not going ever since. So when I found out that the train was running in January & February 2016 I put together a very hastily planned Read the Rest…
Having heard via the grapevine, while I was away in India, that MAV Nostalgia were running a charter train on Tuesday 22nd December, featuring all 6 Nohabs that remained in service, a rather impromptu trip to Budapest for Christmas resulted after it actually seemed like a better idea to stay on after the tour as opposed to returning Read the Rest…
The monasteries in Kalambaka are built in the most unlikely of places, atop of the very imposing rocks that stand behind the town. Their building was something but having travelled up to see them the real extent of the engineering that had gone into the building of them became a lot clearer. The views all Read the Rest…
Having scoured the internet to find some decently priced flights for a short trip to Europe I was surprised myself when I ended up booking flights from Doncaster to Dublin! After all this was an airport I’d never used before and a country, bizarrely, that I’d never been to! Flights Booked through Aer Lingus Read the Rest…
When planning this trip in my head the only way I wanted to enter Scandinavia was by the train ferry from Berlin to Malmo yet strangely the window of opportunity is quite limited as the Snälltåget train only runs from late June until the first week in August! Once in Sweden there wasn’t really anything Read the Rest…
This trip was supposed to be a trip to see the Aletsch Glacier, based in Brig, at a warmer time of year. What a disaster that idea turned out to be when I checked the cable car timings the night before we set off and found them to be closed throughout May for maintenance! To Read the Rest…