The end of an era for the McDonald’s near the railway station in Luxembourg city. After 35 years of trading in its current location, the restaurant has just closed with the above poster now in the main window. There is a recently opened Five Guys outlet nearby and the Quick restaurant a few doors down has been rebranded into a Burger King.
I hadn’t realised that BA has introduced this into Heathrow T5, what could also perhaps be known as a job replacement programme. There were rows of manned check-in desks here once (well, last year), now just self-service kiosks for bag drop. Such is progress I suppose….
I haven’t been at Heathrow T5 at night for some time and I had forgotten just how impressive a building it is. It has been open for twelve years now, but it still has a modern feel to it and it’s one of the more impressive structures when looked at from the side.
Inside the terminal. I think that passengers are discouraged from staying in the terminal at night, instead it’s better to be at terminals 2 and 3 which have a more conducive environment for resting. T5 is big, empty and also quite cold….
Looking down from the departures floor all the way down to arrivals, a reminder of just how big the building is.
I was pleased with just how extensive the views of the city of Bern were from the top of the tower of Bern Minster. There’s a charge of €5 to climb the tower and the steps go inside a separate circular staircase which is on the exterior of the building, with two levels to visit. Fortunately there’s also a separate staircase down so there’s no need to worry about bumping into people on the way up.
The lower platform level of the tower is 254 steps up, with another 90 steps for those who want to visit the upper platform. Being brave, I of course did both. There’s plenty of space on the platforms and it’s also possible to look at the Minster’s large bell on the way down.
Below are some of the photos over the city and surrounding area:
The bear is the symbol of the Swiss city of Bern and there’s a depiction of it in the city’s coat of arms.
The Bärengraben, or bear pit, was first opened here in 1857, although bears had been kept on public display in numerous other locations in the city before then. It was a rather basic way to keep bears and it meant that they were exposed to anyone who wanted to throw things at them, so it was taken out of use in 2009. Looking back, I’m surprised that it remained in use for as long as it did.
The replacement for the bear pit is the new bear area which is a short distance away on the banks of the river, offering the bears much more terrain. They also have their own section of the river that they can swim in and there’s much more space and foliage for them.
There are currently two bears at the site and they were kept separate for a while because they decided that they liked fighting. There’s the possibility that more space might be opened up for the bears in the future, but at the moment everything feels quite spacious.
Views of the beautiful city of Bern and the Aare River from the Bärengraben, which is the bear pit area of the Swiss city.
This large statue rather dominates the main square and it’s an intriguing fountain which was designed by Manon Bertrand and was installed in 2004.
The sculpture is designed to represent the public washing area which was once located nearby.
Entitled ‘Les Lavandières’ in French, the dog adds rather well to the whole piece.
At the meeting place of Germany, France and Luxembourg there is this display of flags, all part of the Schengen Agreement complex. The flags include countries in Schengen which aren’t in the EU, such as Switzerland and Iceland (I hadn’t realised that Iceland were members of the agreement).
The country flag of Hungary.
A nicely presented little area by the river and there’s also plenty of seating.
This is, to my knowledge, the only piece of the Berlin Wall which is displayed to the public in the country of Luxembourg. It was placed here because it’s near to where the Schengen Agreement was signed in June 1985 which did away with border controls between many EU nations.
The segments of wall were placed here in 2010 and they marked the 25th anniversary of the signing of the agreement. The segments overlook the banks of the River Moselle and they were donated by the Sony Centre and the City of Berlin. Before being moved here, the pieces of wall had been located at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin.
For some reason the base of the plaque which gives information about the wall notes that the segments aren’t for sale. I’m not quite sure what prompted that useful information to be added, perhaps tourists from certain nations tried to put an offer in…..
This is the evening flight from Luxembourg to Heathrow T3 as the earlier one had gone tech. The forlorn and lost looking aircraft can be seen towards the back on the tarmac above, with the nice and shiny new aircraft waiting at the gate. Well, relatively shiny.
The aircraft was an A320 with the registration G-EUYC, the same aircraft that I was on when I flew out to Luxembourg last week.
I arrived a little early at the gate, which was the quietest that I’ve ever seen at Luxembourg. In terms of boarding, this was a bit of a mess and the staff didn’t make any audible announcements about who was supposed to be boarding when. This meant that people were queueing up in the wrong place and blocking the priority lines, although there were no particular delays.
The crew from the aborted earlier flight were also no doubt keen to get home and they were seated in Club Europe. One of them said to their colleagues that they thought they should be professional and hang back for other customers to board first, although the others collectively agreed that they didn’t like that idea.
I boarded early and so the flight looks quite quiet from the above photo, but the aircraft soon filled up because of the delayed earlier flight. The captain apologised for the problems with the morning’s cancelled flight and the rest of the announcements were also professional and helpful. BA’s communications had been good all day and I didn’t hear any customer complain about the situation.
I don’t know if the engineers from Heathrow had arrived on the inbound flight to Luxembourg, but work was starting on the slightly stranded BA aircraft.
Waiting to leave Luxembourg airport. The crew on board seemed efficient, although they didn’t manage to complete the buy on board trolley service, a situation caused by BA’s policy rather than a lack of ability from the crew. There’s been great play made by BA about the 12 different covers they have this month on the new in-flight magazine. It’s fortunate that I hadn’t got myself over-excited about this, since the aircraft didn’t have any in-flight magazines.
Arriving back into London, landing around ten minutes ahead of schedule. The pilot did say that he hoped that the ten minutes made up would be useful for those who had been delayed earlier on in the day, although since that flight was nine hours earlier, I’m not sure that the ten minutes made much difference. Anyway, all was professional and the disembarkation process was well managed.
All in all, I thought that BA managed the problems delay well. I got to sit in the lounge for eight hours (in addition to the two hours before my first flight) and the rebooking process was simple and easy. I was given a window seat and was able to confirm everything via the app, so the technology worked well. Another customer told me that they had gone into Luxembourg for the day, but I had rather got myself settled in at the airport and decided against that idea.
But, that’s my first flight which has been cancelled due to technical issues, so I’ll probably remember it for many years to come. Although goodness knows why, I’m sure there are better things to remember.
