FROMS BOGS TO BRAMBLES

2300-year old Grauballe Man

 

I am enjoying breakfast at the Helnan Marselis Hotel when a Danish lady with a beaming smile literally bounds into the room. This is Elisabeth Fogh, my guide for the visit to the Moesgard Museum. Elisabeth is hugely enthusiastic about Aarhus, Denmark and life, having had an amazing recovery from a bad head injury following a horse riding accident.

Moesgard, a 15 minute drive south from Aarhus through some delightful beech woods, has a wealth of treasures on display from Denmark’s Viking past amid some splendid surroundings. Many years ago I attended their summertime ‘Moot’, an atmospheric and realistic display of Viking role-play.

But there’s no doubt that the star attraction is the 2300-year old Grauballe Man, discovered in a peat bog with his throat slit in 1952. There’s much speculation over whether it was a ritual killing, but Elisabeth and I (neither qualified in archaeology!) don’t think the evidence supports the theory.

The museum has a fascinating collection of local finds, including a hoard of coins which prove that the Danes were trading with far off lands such as Iraq and Iran as far back as the 10^th century. So much for modern-day globalisation!

Elisabeth, who speaks fluent Spanish as well as English, is a delightful and charming host and I’m sad that we don’t have more time together.

I’m having a quick trip to Aalborg, 80 minutes north by Express Train. It’s a nostalgic trip because I first visited there in a warship some forty years ago, docking on the Limfjord, right at the bottom of the main street.

It’s a gorgeous autumn day and the journey through some beautiful rural Jutland countryside is simply wonderful. My time is short, so I walk up the main street to the river, take some pictures and head back home again.

Back at my hotel, I am startled when a man in a paraglider appears within a few metres of my second floor window. He repeats this act a dozen or so times until, after landing, his foil becomes tangled up in a bramble hedge!

It’s been another splendid day.

Paragliding in front of my hotel window

Jens Bang's 1624 house in Aalborg

In the 'Quiet Zone on Danish Railways First Class

Aarhus

The grocer's shop at 'Den Gamle By'. The man is real.

I’d forgotten what a splendid place Denmark is. The people are friendly, their skin looks unbelievably healthy and there’s a general air of tranquillity which is very much to my taste.

I’ve slept very well in my giant bed, eased into slumber by the waves crashing against the nearby shore. But, yet again, I have a tiny duvet which, reception tells me, is the norm in Denmark.

I’ve got an Aarhus Card (www.visitaarhus.com) which allows me unlimited use of the local buses. The yellow ones, not the blue ones, as I found to my cost last night.

The very friendly receptionist at the Hotel Helnan Marselis has kindly printed out bus timetables for the connections I need to make to get to one of Denmark’s most splendid attractions, ‘Den Gamle By’, which translates as ‘The Old Town’.

Founded in 1909, there are now some 75 historic buildings, brought from all over Denmark.

But it’s not just the splendid buildings. A great deal of care has been taken to make each property a living museum with people acting out roles as shopkeepers, bakers, stable lads and much more.

I first visited the museum more than forty years ago and I’m delighted to discover that they haven’t rested on their laurels. There is now the old town, locked in 1864, a new town, which looks at life in 1927 and, currently under construction, the 1974 town. Funding permitting, that will be complete in 2014.

Over a third of a million people visit in a year, with the busiest time being in the Christmas period, when the town takes on a very special atmosphere indeed.

I love the latest developments and I am hugely impressed with the whole place, especially the 1683 Mintmaster’s Mansion, lovingly reconstructed by Den Gamle By’s skilled craftsmen after the building lay in storage in Copenhagen for several decades.

There’s so much to see that I hope to fit in a return visit.

I ask my lovely guide about Danes and their duvets. She confirms that the single duvet is the norm but, having just spent two years in Boston, confesses that she’s brought back a big one for her marital bed!

Aarhus is bathed in autumn sunshine, which makes the buildings look their best. The nine-storey ARoS art gallery is one of the largest in Europe. I admire the work being done for its’ latest attraction, a 150 metre walkway being built on the roof. The five-metre tall sculpture ‘Boy’, by Australian artist Ron Mueck, is just one of many exhibits in this 17,700 square metres of art, dating from 1770 to the present day.

I’m glad that I’ve added an extra day in Aarhus. There really is a lot to see and do.

A typical street scene in 'Den Gamle By'

Danes love their bikes!

Lovely colours and shapes in an Aarhus supermarket

Ron Mueck's 5-metre tall sculpture 'Boy'

Norwich to Aarhus

Writing in First Class on NXEA

 

I’ve planned my trip today using Traveline (www.travelineeastanglia.org.uk). The site has come on apace in recent years and it correctly lists my journey, including my bus connections in Norwich and the fact, being Sunday, there is a bus replacement service from Ipswich to Manningtree.

Everything works exactly as Traveline predicts although I do find it odd that National Express have programmed the bus to arrive just a few minutes after the train to Harwich has left. It’s not the first time I have spent an hour at Manningtree waiting for a connection and it’s not something I recommend.

I’ve had to leave my big Live Luggage bag (www.live-luggage.co.uk) as the tyre came off one of the wheels last week.

Boarding at Harwich is very easy, especially as the ferry seems to be pretty quiet. Dana Sirena is, in any case, not principally a cruise ship. She was built as a cargo vessel and was converted in Poland seven years ago to carry passengers. But she still carries more trailers than cars, something that’s essential when, in winter, the leisure market can drop to forty passengers per crossing.

I would describe the four-berth ‘Seaways-Class’ cabins as functional, more than anything and that is possibly the best word to describe the ship. Certainly the catering is not up to the often lavishly- presented smorgasbord buffets you may remember from former ships on the line such as the Dana Anglia. At around £26 for dinner and £13 for breakfast, it’s also not exactly cheap.

As an ardent non-smoker, I am not hugely impressed by the smoking area inside the Columbus Lounge but the charming and warmly-welcoming Henrik at reception points out that sending smokers onto the open deck in the North Sea in winter is not really an option.

DFDS (www.dfds.co.uk), unlike many other lines, still allows visits to the bridge. Andreas, who lives in Aarhus, the same town to which I am headed, tells me that officers work a two-week on, two-week off routine which allows some planning towards, if not a normal, family life.

We dock at Esbjerg exactly on time after an impressive pirouette and reverse into our berth. It’s a brisk 20-minute walk right through the town centre to the station. I have to change at Kolding and was planning to do so again at Fredericia, but the guard, who’s been the only person so far to ask for ID with my InterRail ticket, says our regional express train will get into Aarhus ahead of the following Inter City train.

At Vejle, I sit in the train waiting for our departure, while a lot of my fellow passengers rush across the platform to catch the Inter City train, which pulls out ahead of us.

At Aarhus, after waiting for a bus for twenty minutes, I discover that I am waiting on the wrong side of the road. If I’d been told the stop was right outside the tourist office, it might have helped.

The bus driver tells me where to get off and I luckily find a lady who knows the location of my hotel.

The Helnan Marselis (www.helnan.info) looks to be in a splendid location, right on the beach, although the North Sea is looking very cold and grey, with a positive gale blowing.

I’m slightly worried that I am a bit out of town, but I’ll find out the lie of the land in the morning.

I’ve just thought. In nearly a month of writing about coastal rail trips, this is the first place I have stayed that actually overlooks the sea. 

All the photos from the trip are at http://picasaweb.google.com/MDSouter/2010CoastalRailJourney#

The bridge on the Harwich Esbjerg Ferry, Dana Sirena

First Class on Danish Railways

My room at the Helnan Marselis Hotel, Aarhus

A 'Seaways Class' cabin on Dana Sirena

View from the Drivers' Cab of a Danish Railways train at Kolding Station

Sunlight and Submarines

Leverhulme Hotel desk light

Port Sunlight

The damage caused by Liberators to U534

So minimalist is the décor in the Leverhulme hotel, that there is no provision for tea and coffee making in the bedrooms. I really do not want my privacy invaded by room service, especially not at 5.30am. So I forgo the offered £25 breakfast and enjoy some water and a Marks and Sparks sandwich. The glamorous life of a travel writer!

A couple of hours after rising, I collect my newspaper and my freshly polished shoes from outside the bedroom door.

Despite my window being wide open all night, the room is still baking hot. After abluting, I rearrange the table lights, replacing the hideous, supposedly art deco, lamp on the desk. Call me pernickety, but the telephone handset is not charged, the electronic calendar says it’s the 19^th January, the Airwick electric air freshener is empty, there’s candle wax all over the bathroom floor and the hotel web site isn’t working. Oh, and the wifi password in the room folder is wrong.

Attention to detail? Clearly lacking.

A couple of minutes walk away is the Port Sunlight Museum (www.portsunlightvillage.com). There I get a really good introduction to the Port Sunlight village, founded by Lord Leverhulme for his Sunlight soap factory workers in 1888. Some of the exhibits are charming including the revelation that the prize in the allotment competition was two tons of manure! I also learn that Unilever was former after Lever Brothers merged with the Dutch Margarine Union.

I am met by the splendidly knowledgeable and enthusiastic Maureen, who takes me round this 900-home estate, nearly all of which are Grade 2 listed. Just as in the original concept, all the front gardens are maintained by a Trust, which was set up in 1999. So, even though around 75% of the properties are now privately owned, the front gardens are never part of the deal.

This of course gives the village, built in squares amid large swathes of green space, an uniquely tranquil feel. Unilever still operates from the next-door factory, but almost nobody in the village now works there.

Lord Leverhulme built a school, church, sports facilities and much more. The cottage hospital was built in 1907, some 41 years before the formation of the National Health Service.

While the men were given a splendid building for their bowls club, the ladies had to push for their own facility. The little wooden hut is still in regular use.

The impressive Hulme Hall, formerly used to feed 1500 hot meals a day to single women workers, is now a venue for weddings.

Ten minutes along the line is Birkenhead, where, forty years ago, my ship was in refit at Cammel Laird’s, where there is now a business park. The adjacent Woodside Ferry Terminal has a new £5M display of one of only four remaining WW2 German U Boats. U534, whose sister I have seen at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry, was bombed by Liberators and discovered in the silt of the Kattegat near Denmark. Paul, who started life at the owners, Mersey Ferries, by tying up boats, gives me a great introduction. I look in awe at the damage caused by the depth charges dropped by the aircraft.

The silt preserved a fascinating time-capsule of life on board, including gramophone records, uniforms, playing cards and cigarettes, all of which are on display.

I’ll confess I wasn’t sure what I’d think of a submarine, which has been sliced up like a giant sausage, but it really works. You get a fascinating insight into what U-Boats were like and the exhibition (www.u-boatstory.co.uk) is quite splendid.

The ten-minute trip across the Mersey reminds me just how much it looks like Shanghai waterfront (or should it be the other way round?). Nearing completion is the futuristic Museum of Liverpool, due to open next year.

I wish all train operators looked after their first class customers like Virgin Trains. They really go the extra mile to win business. There’s a nice lounge at Liverpool Line Street and I hugely enjoy the journey to London on the tilting Pendolino, with a slick service of endless hot and cold drinks as well as tasty snacks and fresh fruit.

In two hours, the Pendolino travels 195 miles; my journey to Norwich takes the same time to go just 115. With not even a free plastic cup of tea in sight.

Museum of Liverpool

First Class in a Virgin Trains Pendolino

FROM LAKES TO LIVERPOOL

Bed in mirrors at the Leverhulme Hotel

Northern Rail's dirty windows

The Ravenglass to Eskdale Railway

The cosy bar at the Bower House Inn, Eskdale

The Bower House turns out to be the most perfect stop over point. Low ceiling, creaking floorboards, plumbing that gurgles. Eminently more to my taste than a soulless chain hotel. The bar has a roaring log fire, a mixture of walkers and people from the big Windscale nuclear power station just down the road. There’s a splendid menu and the food turns out to be excellent in both taste and presentation.
Dave Jenner picks me up and gives me a splendid behind the scenes tour of the railway (www.ravenglass-railway.co.uk). The museum gives a splendid introduction to the line’s origins, as an iron-ore railway. Beckfoot granite, which was extracted until 1952 is especially hard and it is said that Waterloo Bridge in London was built from the stone. Trevor in the signal box shows me the low-tech way of graph and tracing paper that control up to 150 train movements a day. I am fascinated by the engine shed, where the steam locomotives are ‘plumbed-in’ to pipes, which extract all the smoke and fumes while they are sitting there, gently cooking.
But of course the highlight is the seven mile trip through some splendid Lakeland countryside to Dalegarth in the foothills of Scafell Pike, England’s tallest mountain.
There is a large group of Japanese schoolchildren who are visiting from a school in south west Scotland where they are staying for six weeks. They are busily entertaining themselves by having an apple-polishing competition, amid much amusement.
I am hugely impressed that the current timetable of seven round-trips a day will be maintained until the end of October. Coaches pile into the car park from as far away as Scotland and Somerset and one coach operator even has their own special train.
Dalegarth has a splendid cafeteria with some splendid home baking. I can certainly vouch for the chocolate cake!
On the return journey, my special treat of a ride on the footplate of ‘Northern Rock’ is almost ruined by a sudden downpour. But, at the first passing loop, I move up to the front of the train after the rain stops and the sun comes out.
Unlike many preserved railways, the steam locomotives on the ‘Rattie’, as the line is affectionately known, are driven not by volunteers, but by full-time staff. Steve is a former baker from Merseyside and, although he says he is ‘not a puffer-nutter’, he is about to spend a few days on the Bure Valley Railway driving their trains.
There’s quite a link between the three main 15 inch gauge railways, with locomotives regularly being loaned out. Staggeringly it costs around £2000 to transport a loco from Cumbria to Norfolk.
It’s my first ever trip to the Lake District and as unlike my preconception of the area. ‘That’s because you only know about Windermere and places like that,’ I am told. ‘Blackpool with a puddle’.
Certainly I am charmed by this part of the country and by a little railway which nobody wanted in 1960 and which now attracts 125,000 visitors an annum.
I head to the mainline station for the train to Barrow. One of the reasons for the huge cost of maintaining the line is, I am told, the 28 manned level crossings between Whitehaven and Cumbria.
The views from the train, of the fells on the left and the sea on the right are splendid, if somewhat marred by Northern Rail’s filthy windows. At Barrow, I connect to the very comfortable (and clean) First TransPennine Express service to Preston. The views, as we head round Morecambe Bay, continue to be splendid. The mudflats of Grange-over-Sands, the station and folly at Ulverston and much more.
I join a virgin Pendolino tilting train for the short hop from Preston to Wigan, just enough time to have a cup of tea and download emails. Northern takes me to Liverpool Lime Street, where I pick up one of Merseyrail’s frequent services towards Chester to reach my final destination of Bebington.
I am spending the night in the Leverhulme Hotel (www.leverhulmehotel.co.uk), housed in the former cottage hospital of Port Sunlight village. Port Sunlight was built by industrialist, Lord Lever, to house his employees and I’ll be exploring it in the morning.
My luxuriously appointed room (£175 per night, not including breakfast, which is £25 more) is a classic case of an architect having loads of clever ideas, without actually thinking of the practicalities. All the lights are controlled by a credit-card shaped remote control which needs a degree course to operate it correctly. Of course it always seems to get lost under papers. If you want a ceiling light, you have to have nine. There’s no decent reading light at the desk, which entails one of the bedside ones being pressed into action. Electrical sockets are not where they are needed, the worst example being the shaver socket in the bathroom which is about four feet from the sink. Barmy. The room is impossibly hot caused, the receptionist tells me, by the lights.
There’s also a secret staircase, partially obscured by a very wobbly and heavy folding mirror, which protrudes into the room. I think it’s positively dangerous.
The bed is luxurious, though, although I am not at all keen on the mirrored ceiling above.
I leave the window wide open to try and cool the place down and go to bed.

York to Eskdale

Monkbar Hotel Courtyard

Newcastle First Class lounge

Newcastle Station

1130 is long past my bedtime

I am never at my best when I’ve had a disturbed night’s sleep. I shudder to think what the noise in the courtyard must be like at weekends. In addition, I have discovered that my king-sized bed was equipped with something I absolutely hate – two single duvets.

So, rather than linger till  my intended 1100 departure time, I head down for an early breakfast. It is a buffet, another pet hate. A coach load of elderly Americans are busy squirreling away (they thought, surreptitiously!) croissants and pots of yoghurt into their bags, presumably for their lunch.

As York wakes up, I enjoy the 20 minute walk up the hill to the station. The choristers from the Minster School being led, crocodile-style across the road, to the Cathedral. Cycling commuters, many still bravely (or stupidly) in shorts, despite a distinctly autumnal chill to the morning.

I’m just in time to catch the Cross Country Service from Birmingham to Edinburgh, although I am only going as far as Carlisle. It’s very pleasant, but not a patch on the comfort levels onboard East Coast trains’ HST’s..

I wave my ticket in front of a camera to gain admission to the First Class lounge at Newcastle and help an old lady make sense of the high-tech tea and coffee machine.

The Northern Rail service to Carlisle is formed of two ancient diesel carriages, long overdue for refurbishment and much in need of a decent clean. But the train is quiet and the journey turns out to be a gem. The route follows the Tyne Valley and its splendid countryside. We trundle through stations with names like Haltwhistle and see endless flocks of sheep and dry stone walls. It’s an unexpected treat.

We are held up by a signal outside Carlisle and although I alert the conductor to my short connection to Whitehaven, that (also Northern Rail) train disappears off to my intended lunch destination as we are pulling in. Such things would not happen in Germany!

So instead of a nice lunch in Whitehaven, I sit on Carlisle station for an hour.

I make sure I am sitting on the right hand side of the carriage, because, after Maryport, you have a splendid view of the seaside. At least I would have done if the windows had not been, like the train, filthy. I fully realise the difficulties of trying to run rural railways, but there can be no excuse for sloppy cleaning.

We pass lovely St. Bees with the impressive buildings and grounds its’ public school, followed shortly afterwards by the enormous nuclear power station at Sellafield/Windscale.

One is left wondering if the line would exist at all, were it not for the constant stream of nuclear and other materials being delivered as freight.

As we have headed south down the Cumbrian coast, the weather has deteriorated to become torrential rain. Dave Jenner, my host at the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, agrees with me that the best bet is to settle me in at the splendidly characterful Bower House Inn in Eskdale (www.bowerhouseinn.co.uk) and we’ll do narrow gauge steam trains in the morning.

STEAM AND VIKINGS

I never tire of rail travel. There’s always so much happening around you that, unlike driving, you have time to observe and to enjoy. Norwich to York is achieved in three easy hours. East Midland Trains Liverpool service deposits me on the opposite side of the platform of the Edinburgh-bound East Coast mainline. I’m sad I am only spending an hour on this one. The ambience in First Class is so tranquil, with an at-seat service of complimentary hot and cold drinks and sweet or savoury snacks. There’s even free Wi-Fi.

York is such a lovely station, with its lovely curve, that I linger before checking in to the Best Western Monkbar Hotel. (www.monkbarhotel.co.uk). The location couldn’t be better, within a few steps of York’s splendid city walls, the Minster and much more.

York is a very walkable City and I am able to enjoy part of the best-preserved town wall anywhere in the country on my way to the National Railway Museum (www.nrm.org.uk).

Unbelievably, entry to this wonderful Aladdin’s cave of railway memorabilia is absolutely free. It’s easy to spend three hours looking around. I adore the stunning streamlined lines of the Duchess of Hamilton, which used to break speed records up the West Coast line. The warehouse is crammed full of old dinner sets, station signs and a lovely jumble of assorted bric a brac.

They are well on the way to raising a quarter of a million pounds to fund the complete refurbishment of the Flying Scotsman. She should be back on mainline service next summer.

I am using the Yorkshire Pass (www.yorskhirepass.com) which gives me entry to 75 of the county’s attractions. But, at £50 for adults, I think I’d be hard pressed to get full value from it. York Minster costs £8, the Jorvik Centre is £8.95 and, if I’d used the little land-train between the Minster, which would have been £2.

I first visited the Jorvik Viking Centre soon after it opened. Then it involved large queues. On an autumn midweek afternoon, I had the place almost to myself.

Pottering around York’s little lanes is delightful. It’s a lovely city.

I’ve planned an early night. Unfortunately my room overlooks the hotel’s courtyard, where folk seem to be partying noisily. Not good.

Mainly ships and water

SS Rotterdam, one of the most successful passenger liners of all time, started her commercial life in 1959 and ran for over half a century. On February 15th this year, she opened as a museum and hotel ship. It’s perhaps no surprise that, after 38 years full and part time service in the Navy, that she transfixed me. From the bridge to the engine room, from the captain’s cabin to the first-class lounge, she is an absolute delight.

Her more than 500 cabins have been tastefully converted into 254 rather larger en-suite accommodation than that experienced by her original passengers.
The self-guided tour is excellent, although I did get lost on a couple of occasions.

After lunch at the excellent Maritime café, with its’ plethora of ship models and nautical memorabilia, a ninety-minute tour on the 600-passenger Spido boat is hugely enjoyable and gives a really good insight into Rotterdam’s position as one of the world’s major ports.

I’ve spent so much time on the water that there’s only a short time left to pop into the bizarre Cube Houses, designed by Piet Blom. I have no idea what living in them is like, but I found them odd and claustrophobic.
Despite Rotterdam Central Station being under major renovation, the passage from Metro to train with my luggage is easily achieved, via a combination of lifts and escalators.
The modern Sprinter train to Hook of Holland is splendid, although the new station is a bit of a trek from Stena Line’s (www.stenaline.com) modern ferry terminal.

I’m very impressed with the ‘comfort class’ cabin. It’s very well equipped with both a double and foldaway single bed, a fridge stocked with complimentary drinks, as well as snacks and fresh fruit. It’s only after I have settled into night attire to watch a live football match on the flat-screen TV, that I discover that my ticket includes a voucher for dinner. Too late!
The multifunction telephone allows me to set an alarm call, ninety minutes before arrival. I am showered and dressed before I realise that it’s still only 4am and that we won’t be allowed off until half past six. The early arrival is for the benefit of freight drivers only.
Manningtree's steps provide a tough test for my Live Luggage Sports bag, which now weighs around forty kilos. But its’ large wheels and solid construction allows it to deal rather better with stairs than any other bag I have found.
A weekend at home, then off up the east coast main line.

Dieppe and Rotterdam

View straight down from the Euroscope

Naming and shaming a Rotterdam taxi driver

Belgian Conductor on the train from Antwerp to Lille

DIEPPE

The Villa des Capucins in Dieppe (www.villa-des-capucines.fr) is an old presbytery, stepped in history. The rooms are small, but very pretty, overlooking the pretty gardens. Mt host, Mlle Bore, tells me that her tabby cat, Mme. Poussette, won’t stray far from her kitchen. Shortly after, I have a visitor outside my room. Cats know who their friends are!

 It’s quite a while since I have been to Dieppe. It’s a town which seems filled with the colour of flowers, the sound of church bells and the smell of lovely coffee.

It’s thirty years since the town launched its kite festival, now a nine day event which attracts entries from forty countries and a total of there quarters of a million visitors. It’s a wonderful spectacle, with kites of all shapes and sizes dancing around the skies above the beachfront venue.

I note with interest that the town has thousands of free parking spaces, something which some of our seaside resorts would do well to emulate.

I have been invited to dinner at ‘Au Grand Duquesne’, in the shadow of the impressive 600 year-old St. Jacques Church. On my way there, a couple ask me the location of another restaurant. I tell them, with the authority of someone who has just peered through the window of said restaurant, that it is closed on Monday and recommend the one to which I am headed.

The meal is excellent. The place is packed. Le patron tells me that it’s because a lot of restaurants close on Monday, but I think it’s rather more than that. The thirty or so diners are served by the boss and 16 year old Gabriel, who’s only been there for two weeks, but is clearly under strict tutelage.

As I leave, a couple dining on the pavement outside stop me to thank me for my recommendation.

Dieppe’s old swimming pool complex has been much modernised. Now ‘Les Bains’ incorporates a splendid indoor and outdoor pool and a big spa.

I am given a fifty minute ‘Sea water ritual’ treatment, which involves seven different creams being plastered on my face. I liken it to being iced like a cake. Jacques Pradines, the boss, tells me how wonderful my skin is looking, but the face that looks back at me from the mirror doesn’t look 50 quid younger to me. But I have enjoyed teaching English to my plasterer, Alexandra.

On a previous visit to Dieppe, I was entertained by the splendid Claude Olivier at his eponymous epicerie. Now, daughter Benedicte runs this glorious emporium of fine cheese, wine and much more besides. She entertains me over a lovely local cider and two local cheeses.

Interestingly, she advises that a dry white wine is a much better accompaniment than red for most cheeses and tells me that, at Christmas, the Olivier family always enjoys Stilton and some mature cheddar. Sacre bleu!

After a dismal meal at ‘Le Bistro du Pollet’, where Madame refuses to replace my inedible steak, it’s early to bed. I have to catch my train to Rotterdam at five thirty am.

TO ROTTERDAM

A Global Rail Pass gives you, in theory, unlimited travel on the rail services of twenty European countries. In practice, making reservations on the fastest and busiest routes can be difficult. Hence my early start.

Instead of travelling via Paris, I have selected a route via Rouen, Lille and Antwerp. While not quite as fast as the TGV’s of France and Belgium, I think it’s a much nicer journey, with morning commuters coming on and off at various stages. Having started 90 minutes earlier than I might have done, I arrive in Rotterdam within a few minutes of my original scheduled time.

My taxi driver is incredibly grumpy as he takes me the short distance to the Hilton Hotel and wants to extract double the seven euro fifty minimum fare. As if, as a stranger in town, I am supposed to know it would be quicker walking. My mood is not brightened by the Hilton Hotel giving me a room next to the lift and wanting to charge me 22 Euros to use the internet. Unbelievable.

But lunch at the eclectic Bazar restaurant, with its fusion of African and Middle Eastern dishes does much to improve matters.

It’s a windy day, which makes my trip up the 100 metre high Euromast interesting to say the least. At the top, you can take the Euroscope, a rotating lift, another 85 metres to the top. Wonderful views, if slightly scary in the windy conditions. I declare no interest in the abseiling and rope sliding options for descent.

To end my day, I climb on board the Splashtours bus, which can travel on land and water. To my mind, it’s more gimmick than practical and, if you sit at the back, incredibly noisy when you are in the water. But, travelling in a bus with lifejackets under the seats is odd, to say the least.

My Rotterdam Welcome Card gives me unlimited travel on the city’s excellent public transport service, so I take the metro home for an early night.

Brighton to Dieppe Via Newhaven

Sunday Brighton to Newhaven

It’s one of those gorgeous late summer days in Brighton. It seems that the sunshine has brought out every motorcycle and scooter within driving distance of the town. I have never seen so much black leather and tattoos. Every spare inch of concrete near the seafront seems to have been taken up by the noisy beasts.
I enjoy the trip on a packed Volks Electric Railway and have the pleasure of sitting in the drivers cab – although the driver herself is in the corresponding position at the other end of the train.

There is much partying on the beach, so much so that I witness the local constabulary removing some over enthusiastic imbibers.
The local town band is billed as appearing at the lovely bandstand, but there’s been a change of plan. Some sort of amplified country/celtic/rock fusion band is there instead. Somehow it’s not the same as a decent bit of brass and I don’t linger for long.

I’m impressed with Southern Railways’ arrangements for the bus replacement service to Lewes. They’ve laid on direct buses as well as the ones that call at all stops. So it’s a much less arduous experience than I had feared.
I am booked into a little guest house, (www.newhavenlodge.co.uk). Phil and Jan have been running the ten-bed business for 10 years and they seem to have thought of everything. There are even scissors in each room to open the little sachets that, so often, resist every attempt to get to their contents.
It’s my first visit to Newhaven and I set off to explore. The town centre is very run down, with a lot of empty shops. But they’ve built some smashing new apartments down at the harbour with a very smart area near to the marina to sit and watch the comings and goings.
Tomorrow, I set sail for France.

Monday Newhaven to Dieppe

I have an extra hour to wait at Newhaven ferry terminal. Due to tides, the Seven Sisters is having a later sailing today.
The terminal is a pretty soulless place, long overdue for replacement. It looks as if it hasn’t had a decent clean in many a long year with the gents loo like something from a third world country.
LD Transmanche Ferries (www.transmancheferries.com) is the operator of the service. It’s my first time with them. I like the way they sweep up heavy luggage into a secure container, which is taken on board and delivered at the other end. There’s a mystery on board. I have a habit of finding the a la carte restaurant on any ship and passing the journey by having a meal. There are signs to the Royal Pavillon a la carte restaurant all over the place, but it turns out to be a sealed off room, Except the doors are open one deck up. Very odd.
But it’s a pleasant enough crossing and we arrive in the lovely port of Dieppe right on schedule.
It’s the 30th year of Dieppe’s annual International Kite Festival and we can see some of them from the ship. I am looking forward to seeing them – and the town - close up.

Changing Plans

I am supposed to be in Weymouth for the weekend, but, for a whole raft of reasons, I have had to change my plans. After consulting my excellent Rail Map of Britain (£8.99, www.thomascookpublishing.com), I decide to head to Brighton. Apart from anything, I have never been there before and it will mean much less travelling on a Sunday, with the inevitable delays caused by engineering works.

First Class in Great Western is again an excellent travelling experience, although part of the coach has had to be ‘declassified’ as there’s one standard class coach missing and people less fortunate than I are standing.

At Westbury, there’s a mad scramble to make the connection to Southampton and I have to bump  my Live Luggage bag up and down two flights of stairs. With its big wheels and sturdy back plate, it’s so far coped with the journey pretty well. In the event, the train is held for a few minutes to let us all scramble on board.

As with all of the smaller lines on which I have travelled, it’s only standard class, but I manage to get a seat at a table, my preferred option.

There’s a disappointing amount of coast to be seen between Southampton and Brighton, with houses and other buildings constantly getting in the way. Having travelled with Southwest Trains from Westbury, I am now on Southern Railways. They have a small First Class section but, somewhat bizarrely, there’s no door and, apart from white headrest covers, I see no difference from the adjacent standard coach.

Brighton is the 19^th stop on the line on the 1 ¾ hour journey, but when I decide to go to the loo, the passageways are so packed with Friday afternoon commuters, I decide to wait.

Brighton Tourist Office (www.visitbrighton.com) has scurried around at short notice to fit me in, after I had to pull the plugs on Weymouth. I am lucky. A German journalist has cancelled a visit, so can have the bed that had been booked for him in the bijou Whitburn Lodge. (www.whitburnlodge.com).

Phil and Louise are in their fourth season of running their tiny, five bedroom, guest house and have clearly spent a great deal of time and money on improvements. What they lack in space is more than made up by the warmth of their welcome and their ‘can do’ attitude. (My English mustard at breakfast was changed from Waitrose brand to Colman’s of Norwich on my second morning, maybe to make this traveller feel at home!)

My first impressions of the town are not good. It’s pretty run down and dirty. There are little huddled groups of folk from foreign lands everywhere and, even in daytime, I don’t feel especially safe. It’s the weekend and clearly Brighton is living up to its’ reputation as a party town. Packs of alcohol-fuelled young men and women roam the streets on stag and hen parties. I don’t find it a pleasant experience, but that may be simply because I am there on my own.

The burnt out remains of the west pier are very close to my accommodation, although there’s still no sign of any construction work on the i360 observation tower, on which work was originally due to have started in 2007. In the current economic climate, don’t hold your breath. Nearby, the splendid old Victorian bandstand has been lovingly restored by the local council, but it’s surrounded by much evidence of neglect and near dereliction.

I enjoy the Royal Pavilion, which Queen Victoria sold to the council. But it’s yet another attraction inside which photography is banned. It’s ludicrous. Will more people buy souvenir guide books because they can’t take picture? Not this one, for sure.

While the banqueting hall under its massive dome is impressive, I am much taken by the music room, beautifully restored after an arson attack and, just as that restoration was nearing completion, the building was badly damaged in the Michael Fish hurricane.

Brighton Pier is longer than I had imagined and nice for a stroll, although it’s just a funfair with music that is far too loud, with associated sideshows.

The Sea Life Centre in the old aquarium is both expensive and disappointing.

I had hoped to go to the Toy and Model museum, but it’s closed on Sundays and Mondays.

Reflecting Brighton’s multicultural diversity, I see in a park, the aftermath of a gay wedding and visit a branch of Taj Grocers, with an amazing array of world foods.

To end my visit, the town band is performing on the bandstand and the Volks Electric Railway is still clattering up and down the prom.

And engineering work means that buses have replaced the train to Lewes. Oh joy.