After a rail journey from Luton Airport, via London, I arrived into Leamington Spa and then walked to the Woodland Grange hotel. This is where the LDWA Groups’ weekend was taking place from Friday to Sunday.
The venue is one which the LDWA (I should note that this is the Long Distance Walkers Association) has used before and I recall the friendliness from the staff and the cleanliness of the hotel. It’s a lovely hotel and after an initial piece of confusion where they thought I was sharing a room with Richard, I was allocated a lovely private room.
Madeleine, the rather wonderful LDWA chair, also presented me with a chicken bake and that’s why she’s my favourite NEC member 🙂 I doubt any other NEC member will read this (other than Richard), so I’ll get away with that.
Here’s Penny, the Volunteer Support Officer, giving a talk about the weekend. Engagement with groups is important to the LDWA as we’re a volunteer led organisation and the NEC needs to get feedback from individual members and groups to properly deliver what the organisation needs.
I’d add that I won’t reveal any private discussions, but for those going, a report will be produced and all members will be able to see the various things that the LDWA is doing.
Everyone taking part got a free drink from the LDWA, which is rather lovely. I won’t name people individually as I’ll forget someone and that might annoy them, but it’s always lovely to see Chelle, Andy and Sarah from Norfolk & Suffolk LDWA. Richard was also there from the group in his national IT role.
It’s important to be well fed on these occasions and we weren’t let down by the venue.
And a little dessert to go with it (I didn’t have all of what’s in the photo).
And the highlight of the evening was the talk from the LDWA Vice-President Ken Falconer. He walked Lands End to John O’Groats fifty years ago and thought it would be a good idea to do it again fifty years later. It all led to one of the most entertaining talks that I’ve heard at an LDWA event, all really rather lovely.
I was rather pleased to actually get to Leamington Spa given the complexities of the travel arrangements, but this is an exciting and important weekend with the whole LDWA waiting to be surprised and delighted by the IT announcements.
A new JD Wetherspoon has opened at London Bridge station in what was formerly the London Dungeons. The entrance here is the former way into the London Dungeons, which was here between 1974 and 2013. This venue is a considerable project for the pub chain and it’s open for long hours, between 06:30 and 00:30 every day of the week.
As usual, I’ll take the pub’s history from their own website:
“Next to London Bridge station’s entrance, 48–50 Tooley Street are distinctive brick arches. Until 2013 (almost 40 years), this had been The London Dungeon. The arches were occupied by importers and provision agents, whose livelihoods depended on the warehouses opposite. Many have survived (Hay’s Wharf, now Hay’s Galleria). Fenning’s Wharf and Sun Wharf were replaced (in 1984/85) by the huge No.1 London Bridge complex. During that site’s redevelopment, a Bronze Age burial mound was unearthed.”
The bar which is bright and open.
Some of the brick arches and I can see why this was a suitable place for the London Dungeons. The rooms flow into each other, I like this sort of quirky thing.
The new coffee machine and there’s only hot milk, with no jugs for the cold milk.
There’s a bank of three coffee machines.
The unique carpet.
There’s a display about the carpet and why they’ve designed this one in this manner.
The menu.
Part of the support elements that I assume stop the building from falling down. The trains are evident running above both by noise and also because things vibrate a little.
This feels like a really well designed building, there is a choice of seating styles including low and higher tables. There are quieter areas, open-plan areas and plenty of power points. The team members seemed engaged, helpful and I saw numerous positive customer service interactions. As a conversion into a pub, this is one of the best that I’ve seen.
Although the venue has only been open for a few weeks, I thought I’d see what the few online reviews posted are like so far.
“Had had a lovely evening here but sadly the dessert menu isn’t clear enough – says “vanilla ice cream” as if it’s plain but it actually comes with sauce and the staff member wouldn’t switch it for plain despite asking. It’s a scoop of ice cream! Don’t argue the toss just switch it hahahah. Sauce was horrible by the way”
The printed menu and the online menu both mention toffee sauce and Belgian chocolate sauce. And then to give the venue 1/5 after a lovely evening….
“Told off for bringing in a fully wrapped Greggs Muffin.”
Probably best not to bring in a Greggs…..
No-one has complained yet that they can’t bring their dog in, but I imagine that’ll be coming soon. Anyway, this is a large venue that has lots of little smaller areas, something forced upon the chain by the historic nature of the building. It all felt well managed to me, spotlessly clean and evidently already popular with local office workers. All rather lovely.
After a long-distance rail journey from Warsaw to Budapest the day before, I had a few hours of sleep before getting up at 02:30 to get to the airport for a 06:00 flight. Here’s the Ibis Budapest City, a rather lovely hotel from what I saw of it.
There’s an airport bus every ten minutes so I wasn’t entirely broken hearted when I just missed this one by just seconds.
The 100E airport bus is a well managed operation with staff always available by the bus stop, even throughout the night. I got a seat on the bus, which filled up at the next stop, and within thirty minutes I was at the airport. In terms of efficiency, it’s one of the best airport buses and there are numerous ways to pay, including just using a contactless card on the bus.
Mine was the 06:00 flight to London Luton, visible about halfway down the left-hand column.
It all felt busy in the airport, but the signage was clear and the security process took under ten minutes. A lot of bags were caught for manual check and there were some annoyed people that their liquids and pastes were removed. My bag, unusually, was included for manual check but the security officer by the second machine looked at the x-ray and just handed me my bag back without checking anything inside.
There were lots of sleeping people in the airport and also lots of quiet places to sit.
To kill some time I popped to the external observation deck, which was of limited excitement in the dark. It also doubles up as the smoking deck, not something that I have much use for, although I liked the temperature out here.
My flight was at 06:00, the gate closed at 05:30 and so I pondered whether I should go into the lounge at 05:00 when it opened.
I did and I was the only person in there (other than the staff obviously).
Breakfast for champions…. Chips with a spicy sauce, jalapenos, tomatoes, chicken wraps, a dessert and an espresso.
It was a lot busier last time I was in this lounge. I charged my already nearly full devices a little, had a final coffee and then left for the gate.
I got to the gate just after 05:20, which is cutting it fine for me. I was pleased with my breakfast, it was quick, but helpful for giving me energy. It will surprise no-one when I say that the boarding process was efficient and well managed.
After a wait of five minutes standing on the airport bus waiting to be let out, we were allowed to board. The aircraft is HA-LZM, one that I haven’t been on before.
The seating Gods had allocated me an aisle seat, but a crew member came over during boarding and asked if I spoke English. This is something that is within my skill-set and I was ushered to guard the emergency exit door. The helpful crew member told me that I could have all three seats if I wanted to lie down to sleep after take-off.
The extra space was very useful in terms of having a nap and I spent most of the flight asleep. The flight was yet another well managed arrangement from Wiz Air, the aircraft was clean, the crew were friendly, the operations were smooth and nothing annoying happened.
Here we are in sunny Luton, the beating heart of Bedfordshire.
Just under thirty minutes waiting for border control, but the queue moved constantly which helps in feeling that progress was being made. It had been quite an expedition to go from Genoa to Warsaw to Budapest to Luton, but I was pleased to be safely back in the UK. And so was Madeleine, the very talented national chair of the LDWA, as I had to get to Leamington Spa for the Local Groups’ Weekend…..
I’ve created myself a precedent now by merrily writing about Müllermilch whenever I try a new flavour, so I don’t want to end that routine in case it’s unlikely. Anyway, for my long rail journey from Warsaw to Budapest, I had a couple of these and they were both really rather lovely.
The Angel Hair one tasted of pistachio and was really quite sweet (who would have thought….), although there’s a place for such things…. I preferred the Apple Pie style one, a richer and more decadent taste.
And they’re about 90p each, seemingly with some addictive qualities as I keep finding myself drawn to them…..
After a quick visit to Carrefour for snacks, I embarked on what was the longest rail journey that I’ve taken in Europe (I went for over 24 hours in the US….) from Warsaw to Budapest. Here’s the display screen at Warszawa Centralna, with the departure being second from top on the right-hand screen.
Waiting at Platform 3.
Here’s the train layout, and I had gone for first class as it wasn’t much more expensive as I’d booked it at the last minute.
It’s all happening now with the departure board on the platform updating to show the train. I had a flight booked for very early the next morning, so if something went wrong here, it would be hard to resolve. Well, hard to resolve cheaply anyway.
The train after it had pulled into the station and I was glad to see it.
I was disappointed that it was a compartment train, it wasn’t meant to be and I assume it was swapped in at the last minute. These are old fashioned and being removed from the rail network with a preference for open seating which feels safer. It transpired that the lady in the window seat (who had briefly left the compartment when I took the photo) was only going a short distance, so I had that window seat with table for nearly all of the journey. This did make me happier at matters as I do like a table for my laptop.
I switched this down to cold at the first available moment.
A view down looking at the compartments. There was a refreshments carriage next door, but it didn’t look very exciting.
For a long time, it was just me (and my bag and laptop) in the compartment, although a couple came in later on and were annoyed it was a compartment train.
Being in First gives no luxuries other than a free bottle of water and a little more space. It was a nice bottle of water to be fair as far as these things go.
Not only was I going from Poland’s capital to Hungary’s capital, but the train also stopped in Slovakia’s capital of Bratislava. I must admit that I was tempted to get off here as it’s one of my favourite cities, but that would have caused me some logistical issues….
And here’s the train in Budapest Nyugati railway station at the end of the journey. I did take a lot of photos of stations en route, to remind myself I quite fancy going to some of those locations (Ostrava in the Czech Republic looked interesting which has the nickname of Black Heart which I like), but there were no great pieces of scenery that I felt the need to photograph. There were a lot of fields though.
And safely in Hungary.
Overall, I rather enjoyed gazing out of the window for hours, but there was no wifi and the phone connection was poor for much of the journey. It’s generally cheaper by plane, it’s obviously quicker and ultimately much more convenient. Flying isn’t though very environmental and there is a push towards more long-distance trains, although this was 11 hours in total so it’s hardly a fast-paced arrangement.
The cost was relatively expensive for European rail at £50, although as an experience it was worth it. But, there’s going to need to be modernisation here, basic things like allowing for ordering food and drink on the train for either collection in the refreshments car or delivery to the compartment. I had no idea when meal service was, they needed to be clearer about that. They also do need wifi, although they did have power outlets and they were useful.
I had eight ticket checks during the journey, which is excessive by any means. The US system is better here, they check tickets on entry and write the journey on a card above the seat. I also didn’t like the compulsory reservation system, I was lucky to have a quiet carriage because there were no-shows, but I’d rather just sit where there’s space and not be tied to a certain seat (although I had moved across one from my middle seat I had been allocated). I thought that it all went quickly, so I certainly enjoyed the restful nature of the whole arrangement.
The whole thing felt a little old-fashioned and there’s a place for that, but I can’t see passenger numbers ever soaring for services like this unless they can speed them up a bit and make them more comfortable and modern. However, there is a sleeper version of this service so you get a choice between the two trains and that makes more sense in terms of time efficiency. However, I wanted to look out of the window at things as this was more of an experience.
The train arrived into Budapest just twenty minutes late, which isn’t bad given the complexity of going across four countries, namely Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. There were announcements throughout the journey, just about all of them in English. The service is run by České dráhy, who are the national rail operator in the Czech Republic, and I’d say that this sort of long-distance train service is certainly an experience worth trying at least once. So all really rather quite lovely and a reminder that I’ll take more trains on the European mainland.
After flying back to Warsaw from Genoa, I was able to catch one of the last trains of the evening which got me into central Warsaw by midnight. There was a ticket check of everyone on the train, but in typical Polish fashion, everyone had one.
Safely into Warszawa Centralna and the ticket cost about 90p.
Walking past the Palace of Culture and Science….
Free fries in the late night opening KFC…
I had had a long day….. And Polish KFC is much better, and cheaper, than KFC in the UK.
After getting through the main door entry panels this was the entrance to the hostel…. It looked a bit much at first, but they did send clear instructions in advance, so it didn’t take too long. Incidentally, the main door downstairs to get into the building was also the entrance to Thai Me Up and PiwPaw, two rather lovely food and drink options in the city.
I paid just under £30 for a private room for one person with two beds. They’d run out of those so they gave me single occupancy of a room with eight beds. It felt like slight overkill….
It’s certainly spacious and I wasn’t going to run out of power outlet options either. There was free wifi and the beds were sufficiently comfortable.
As for the hostel, it’s a particularly good option for larger groups as they can just book an entire room for themselves and the prices were very reasonable. I’d never stayed here before, but it was sufficiently clean and there were no internal or external noise disturbances. It was just a shame I couldn’t have arrived back in Warsaw an hour earlier so that PiwPaw was still open….
After two interesting days in Genoa and environs, it was time for the next £8.99 adventure and it was back to Warsaw. I had taken the train to the nearest station and enjoyed a pleasant ten minute walk to get here.
They’re reconstructing the lounge here and that reopens next year, but the airside space was sizeable and had power points. I think that there are plans to increase the size of the airport and make it a more important one, so there are a series of renovations taking place.
This is not a major international airport and Wizz Air have quite a limited presence here. There’s certainly potential for more passengers to use this airport, there is a decent public transport link, the terminal is large and Genoa would likely benefit substantially from more tourists and commercial connections.
I’m conscious that I’m very much repeating myself here, but, yet again, the boarding process was well managed with friendly gate agents. Everything was clearly signed, it was efficient and it felt organised.
Boarding the aircraft, which was registration HA-LXS which I last went on in February 2022. Boarding was smooth and efficient, with the aircraft being clean.
The seating Gods had given me a window seat and my bag is visible there having a little rest. But, since the entire row was clear, I moved to an aisle seat. The aircraft was about 60% full which makes matters more comfortable.
I nearly never get anything from the trolley on flights as it’s far too decadent, but I was hungry and so felt the need for some noodles. These are around £4, which doesn’t feel unreasonable for an aircraft.
Delicious, although I won’t get used to this level of decadence.
And safely onto the bus to take us to the terminal and as this was a Schengen flight with no border controls it meant I went from here to the train in just five minutes.
The flight cost me £9 and once again I was surprised and delighted by Wizz Air. Everything was smooth, well managed, comfortable and organised, with plenty of space on board. I accept that my splashing out on fine dining took the price of this to £13, but that still feels decent value to me.
In a similar vein to my photos of Rapallo, I’m going to admit to myself now that I’m getting behind with this blog and so I’ll have to do another job lot of photos to excite and delight my two loyal blog readers.
I rather liked Genoa, the old town is still full of small streets and interesting corners, there’s real evidence in the buildings at how powerful Genoa once was. There are few chain stores, just a lot of smaller shops which do add considerably to the atmosphere. That also makes for lots of small cafes, bars and restaurants, with supermarkets struggling to fit themselves around buildings.
The city does look like it needs a lot of investment, the marina area was improved a couple of decades ago, but there’s a lot of money still needed. I saw one “tourists go home” sign along the lines of those in Barcelona and numerous other cities, but I’m not sure Genoa can easily afford that little plan. I’m sure that Airbnb and the like are damaging, I hope they’re much more heavily regulated and taxed in the future.
It’s definitely a vibrant, and even grimy, city, but it does have some considerable charm because it feels authentic. It’s not as touristy as many other Italian locations and it was also a bit dented by air raids during the Second World War, but it’s still quirky and real.
One thing that I hear in the UK is something like “you don’t hear English any more”, which I’m not sure is entirely true given that just about everyone speaks it. Anyway, I won’t get political…. But, in many cities, English is the language I hear the most because of the number of tourists. That might be convenient for me, but it doesn’t really lead to an authentic charm when overdone. In Genoa, I rarely heard anything other than Italian, but the locals (or the ones I encountered in the hospitality industry) spoke perfect English and were all welcoming.
It’s a city that I would return to, I think it’s likely a harder city to penetrate and fully understand than many others, but I like places like that. I didn’t have time to visit the museums or the largest aquarium in Europe, but I’ll work my way around those if I come back. Anyway, now a heap of photos….
NB, several people thought that the figurehead looked like Richard, but I don’t comment on such things.
After my success earlier in the day getting to Rapallo on a modern and functional train, I thought it would be an easy matter to get a similar service to Genoa Airport. It transpired that it wasn’t.
The ticket purchasing was via machine and that element went well, so I meandered up to sit on the platform confident in my abilities to navigate the Italian rail network.
The view from the platform over the town square.
The sleepy town and its railway station which they didn’t burden their resources by actually staffing it. However, the whole affair is better than Deutsche Bahn, that’s something that I do need to mention.
The waiting room had a few seats, but it needed more and it hadn’t had the modernisation that most UK railway stations seem to have had which has put in not just more seats, but also power points. I found a validation machine in the waiting room, I think I would have put it on the platform rather than hidden around a corner, but I’m not an expert in these matters…..
The board was working, but these rickety old display systems don’t photograph well. Not that I’m complaining, but this said that the next service in was the one that I wanted.
This train trundled in and there was evidently a problem as there were lots of Italians asking each other questions. That meant they didn’t know what train it was and there was no signage which indicated which it was, something that wouldn’t happen on the UK rail network for all its faults. Anyway, that will be the end of my comparing the networks….. Unsure of what to do, I just got on this one as it was going in the right direction.
The train was clean and comfortable, with numerous power outlets. The on-board screens were broken and there were no announcements, but it was evident that I was on the wrong train as it was stopping at stations that I hadn’t expected it to.
However, after some slight concern that I was going to Milan, I realised that this train was actually heading to Genoa and so I could remain on board and just change in the city centre. Some quick Googling also showed me that I had boarded an RGV train rather than an R train, but my ticket was still valid. It meant that it was going to the airport stop that I needed, but at least I wasn’t going to end up somewhere a long distance away.
This all meant an unexpected stop back in Genoa city centre.
I popped to Carrefour to get some drink as it was so hot. I don’t think I’ve mentioned the heat in the last few posts but there were still Italians visible wrapped up in their coats whilst I was still fending off potential heatstroke.
I’ve had these a few times, they’re rather lovely and they calmed my stress levels. Actually, I wasn’t stressed, but it was a handy excuse.
Back on the platform, this is the train that I needed to get to the airport stop.
As a network, it’s evidently understaffed with nearly no-one about. If there is some crisis, it would take some time for anyone to be found to offer assistance. Fortunately, I was very brave and dealt with my little adventure on my own.
Here’s my Rock train sweeping in. My ticket was still valid and so I didn’t have to acquire a new one which made matters easier. Although it seemed unlikely that anyone would actually check the tickets.
This looked like the train I had been on earlier, so all was well as the on-board signage was good and indicated the train and I had the same plan on where we were going. Again, a fair few of the power outlets were broken but the working ones light up which makes it easy to establish this without plugging my phone into each one. I liked this train though, it was clean and comfortable.
And into Genova Sestri Ponente, which is the nearest railway station to the airport. It’s about a ten minute walk, but it’s cheaper than getting the airport service and I’m not made of money. And I like walking.
There’s the old bridge over the tracks to the left and the new one to the right. I’m surprised by looking at it that the old bridge hasn’t fallen down over the rail track, although I’m conscious that the Ponte Morandi road bridge in the city collapsed (my friend Liam must be a very good civil engineer as nothing he has built has, to my knowledge, fallen down) a few years and so I’m sure that this smaller arrangement is safe as it’s at least closed off.
The new pedestrian bridge and they’ve made this an accessible route to the airport as there’s a lift option here as well.
It is really quite a pleasant little walk to the airport.
The airport was constructed by using land reclamation, so much of this area is new.
And eating the last of my chocolates before heading into the airport.
As I’m getting behind with this riveting blog, I think that it’s easier to do a job lot of the remaining photos from Rapallo that intrigued me….. It’s a lovely little coastal town, they’ve been very brave coping with all the attacks made on them over the centuries.
