Karen & Robert Killington

Holiday blog, September 2010

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:25:00 -0700

15 September 2010

Here we are on the train to Brussels on the second stage of our journey to Hamburg for a week's holiday. Sadly there's a good chance our holiday is over when you are reading this as connecting to the Internet will be kept to a minimum.

Why is this the second stage of the journey? Because the first stage was the trip from home to St Pancras International to catch the Eurostar train. We left home at six o'clock and left behind a puzzled cat, Pooh, who will no doubt spend the day in the garden looking huffy and waiting for another cat to pick a fight with. That or he'll catch an innocent bird to vent his frustration. And for an eighteen year old cat that's some feat! I'd love to include a photo of him in this blog but most of the pictures of him shoe no detail as he's black, so no much detail shows up in the photo.

And now we're on stage three of our trip today: from Brussels to Köln. As I write this we've just left Liege. Next stop Aachen. The weather's brilliant, but that's easy to say sitting on an air-conditioned train! This is just the sort of weather we want for our holiday: dry, bright and preferably not very windy.

Whilst we were waiting at Brussels we listened to the announcer who had to repeat most announcements three times in three different languages. The speed with which she did this left her sounding as though she was out of breath. I wonder: was she on a bonus for finishing all the announcements in record time?

We noticed at Brussels that not all trains on the Continent run to time. The departure board showed at least one train that was 45 minutes late and the train to Paris was gradually getting later and later. Fortunately the train to Cologne was running to time!

We've left Aachen. The next stop is Köln where we change trains again for the final leg to Hamburg.

So, here we are in Köln waiting for the last train on our journey today. Having a little time in hand we had a bite to eat at a ... Pizza Hut!

Now back to my earlier comments about the smooth running of trains on the Continent: it's a myth! As we were approaching Köln there was an announcement that our train, which was supposed to go on to Frankfurt was terminating at Köln, and would be returning to Brussels. No reason was given. The train was apparently working fine. There must have been a reason that the controllers decided to take the action they did. Who cares? It hasn't affected our journey! (Does that seem a little callous? Sorry, that's how I'm feeling just now :-) )

Arrived in Hamburg at around 19:30 and found the hotel very easily. It is only about 150 metres from the station! To get to our room was the usual long trek through a rabbit warren of corridors, and as far away from the lift as possible. This seems to be usual for our stays in hotels. In this case it was worth it as there were quite good views out over the city.

16 September 2010

First real day of the holiday. Breakfast in the hotel was great! A really good selection of hot and cold foods. We ate well.

Next thing on our list was a walk into the city before meeting up with Claus and Christina at around 12:00. We visited a couple of shops to have a look at shirts - I hadn't taken enough, deliberately. Unfortunately all the great colours were in the slim fit style which I think is not a good choice for me. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Met up with Claus and Christina and went off to see the 'Miniatur Wunderland' with a whole series of model scenes of various places. See the photos for some idea of what was on display. It certainly seemed to attract a lot of visitors. It was fascinating to see the attention to detail that the model makers had put into the displays, although there seemed to be a morbid fascination with car crashes and fires!

After spending quite a while looking at the models we went for a walk around part of the newly modernised area of the port where the warehouses have been converted into apartments and offices or new buildings have been built to replace those that could not bee reused. We eventually made our way into the city centre and found a place to have a belated lunch before heading for 'home'.

The weather has been kind to us today, albeit rather windy. The forecast for the next few days appears to be more of the same: sunshine and showers. Here's hoping that it will be more sunshine than showers!

17 September 2010

Today, it rained -- but not for long!

We went to the Welt Vogelpark, Wolsbade. An incredible place with many birds from around the world of which I hadn't heard. We spent several hours looking around. A place worth visiting with extensive grounds and a lot of well looked after birds on display.

18 September 2010

Not such an action packed day as the weather was against us. We went out to do some shopping, returned home for lunch and had intended to go out for a walk. The fast approaching black clouds put us off. It seemed better to stay in and keep dry!

19 September 2010

Christopher, Eva and Theo came for a Brunch today. Theo has grown and has found his voice - what a chatterbox he is! He soon lost his shyness and was happily playing with his toys soon after Brunch was over. The rest of us sat and chatted for the rest of their visit. All too soon we were waving them off.

As the weather was better than expected we went to a Flohmarkt and later for a walk around a nearby lake. As it was rather a large lake we only walked part way round and retraced our steps. We had some tea when we got home.

Karen and Christina went out to the DVD rental shop in the village and came back with a film for us to watch this evening.

20 September 2010

The wettest day of our holiday so far. We spent most of the day pottering around Hamburg. In the evening we met up with Caroline and had a meal at a local Tapas bar. We enjoyed the evening, even if it was raining when we left that we got rather wet on the way back to the car park.

21 September 2010

The last day of our holiday and the weather is wonderful. We went to Friederichstadt. A pretty little town near the North Sea coast. The streets in the town centre are cobbled. There are canals around the town which appears to be on low lying land, so probably liable to flood. Boat trips on the canal had been cancelled because of the high water level.

After lunch we went to Husum, a small port a few kilometres away from Friedrichstadt. This was pretty with a harbour almost in the town centre. We walked around the town centre through narrow lanes and returned to the waterside where we had left the car.

The sun shone most of the time today, making it possibly the best day of our holiday.

We return home tomorrow. :-(

22 September 2010

We're on our way home :-( We've had a lovely week away from work and are again testing the German trains as we travel back to the UK. We're on the first leg from Hamburg to Köln. The train was a little late leaving Hamburg, but we have plenty of time to make our connections. We'll be home about 20:30 this evening.

Fun and games! We arrived at Dortmund on time, and about the time we were supposed to leave it was announced that the train was being diverted. Lots of passengers travelling to the stations we will no longer be stopping at were jumping up, grabbing their bags, and getting off the train to get connecting services to their stations. We're now travelling along the route that we travelled on the way to Hamburg.

Well, we got to Köln a little later than scheduled but with plenty of time to get a drink and food without any visible signs of panic! Got on the train and found our seats. Seems most of the passengers in this carriage are English. This does not apply to the little man from North America who was upset, and proclaimed it loudly, at being turfed out of his seat as someone else had the reservation for it.

Next stop Bruxel.

We're feeling right at home on the Continental trains. We arrived in Bruxelles ten minutes late - just like a train at home! We're now sitting on the Eurostar waiting to depart at just before 18:00 local time. Time to put our watches to BST.

An easy journey from Brussels, arriving on time at St Pancras. After the long walk through to Customs, and out to the station concourse, there was just enough time to get a newspaper, buy our tickets and get to the platform with just enough time to get on the train. Home just after 8:30pm and a warm welcome from the cat!

Thank yous

First, thank you to Claus & Christina for hosting our stay and making sure we had a fantastic time.

Second, thank you to Steve Ody at Citrus Travel for organising the travel and hotel stay for us, and making it all work like clockwork.

Finally, thank you for reading, if you have been :-)

Karen & Robert Killington

Holiday blog, September 2010

Snow in Crawley

Smudge

Studio Theatre: Preparing for Oh, What a Lovely War!

Oh, What a Lovely War!

Smudge Hiding under my chair

I've been playing with the camera in my iPhone and an app called Best Camera to manipulate the pictures I take.

Learning German (and the Power of Twitter)

final day of the staycation

Staycation trip 4

Tweetie's adventures at Leeds Castle

Tweetie goes to Leeds Castle

Alzheimer's Society Walk, Tilgate Park, Crawley

Staycation day 2

The first day of our 'staycation'

Shoreham Air Show

Woohoo! Just extended my wireless network...

Test to see how tags work