Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Braintree

Berlin Trip : Berlin Brandenburg to London Stansted (Ryanair)

I’ve already mentioned the limited gate size at Berlin Brandenburg, but the Ryanair side of matters was efficient and timely. There was a delay on the aircraft which worried me slightly as I wanted to catch my bus to the bustling rural hotspot of Braintree, with a wait of nearly two hours if I didn’t catch it. However, that 30 minute delay was clearly communicated and the boarding process was efficient.

The aircraft is EI-IJN, I don’t think I’ve been on it before, although it’s relatively new as it was only delivered to Ryanair in January 2024. The flight was, once again, not particularly worthy of note as everything went as it should and the flight caught up a few minutes en route. The random seating Gods had given me a middle seat, but it’s a relatively short journey.

I’ve never been so pleased to see a bus to Braintree. I caught this with just a few minutes to spare, I was fortunate that we weren’t delivered to a gate at a satellite terminal and that the border was relatively quiet.

The fare from Stansted Airport is just £2 thanks to the ticket cap, which is unfortunately rising to £3 in January as the new Government continues its attack on public transport. To be fair, for this journey, that’s still very good value and I mustn’t get political.

We were delayed just slightly as they were putting Christmas lights up, but it livened the journey up a bit.

I seem to have had a run of Travelodge giving me rooms with extra beds. Anyway, safely at Braintree Travelodge and that’s the end of the Berlin trip…… All really rather lovely and my little birthday treat to myself.

December 20, 2024
Katowice Trip – Getting to Stansted Airport

Another week, another adventure. And yes, it’s all relative, I’m not Bear Grylls and so my adventures don’t require me to jump out of a plane or anything similar. This time it was a return to Katowice, one of my favourite cities in Poland. Liam kindly agreed, once again, to pick me up on his way to London, and initially I was planning for him to take me straight to Stansted Airport. However, the potential lack of sleep before the morning flight didn’t feel entirely optimal, so at the last minute (which required me to call Liam when he was ten minutes ago asking him if he fancied a trip to Braintree) I booked a Travelodge as it was an affordable price. My room overlooked my chauffeur, who isn’t allowed to leave until I’m safely checked-in.

A comfortable room at Braintree Travelodge, all quiet with no internal or external noise disturbances, it’s a reliable hotel this once. I’ve only been twice, so maybe I don’t have enough data points, but I’m happy with it so far.

Leaving the hotel, just after 06:00 in the morning.

Fortunately, the coach station is just outside the Travelodge, so it was not a long walk.

There we go, the X20 service to Stansted Airport which is operated by First Bus. The service costs just £2 because of the bus cap, something which made this whole little diversion to Braintree feel more affordable.

And safely on board. And, although I rarely stray into politics, I’m unimpressed by Louise Haigh who is the new Transport Secretary. She has refused to say whether there will be an extension of the bus cap, despite it being painfully aware that this should be confirmed by now and numerous figures in the transport industry have been asking for some clarification. Short-termism is detrimental to any sort of planning and this feels very unfair on the bus companies and risking showing contempt for the travelling public. And, yes, that was quite political, but I’d add that it’s just Haigh in the Cabinet that has significantly disappointed me with almost childlike media appearances. I really will now return to the main matter, which was that the bus arrived on time and was reasonably clean and tidy. It’s a very handy service operating across Suffolk, running around every 60 minutes for 24 hours a day.

October 2, 2024
Braintree – The Picture Palace

On the way down to London last week, we popped into this JD Wetherspoon pub in Braintree (a town we were near as Liam want to charge his electric car there, as he’s very environmental) as I hadn’t visited it before, and I felt that this was a sufficient reason to go there.

The entrance to the former cinema, which was purpose-built in 1935 as the Embassy (the name of which is still visible on the exterior of the building, as can be seen in the top photo). Before it, the Picture Palace had stood here, which was built in 1912 on the site of a former sand-pit and this name has been brought back by JD Wetherspoon. Braintree was growing by the 1930s (and has grown almost exponentially since) and the demand for a larger venue was required, hence the construction of the Embassy.

The pub is located to what was the bottom left corner of Fair Field in this map from the early twentieth century and Victoria Street now cuts across this site from west to east.

My friend Richard will be delighted at this, he adores Bells and would swap his entire whisky collection for a few shots of this.

The interior of the pub and it appeared to be a sensitive conversion into a pub which hasn’t damaged the historic integrity of the building (or at least as little as shoving a pub into an old building can damage it). It’s not brilliantly reviewed on-line, although there’s nothing too serious.

I couldn’t find any amusing reviews, but I liked this:

“Came in at 8 to order food. Didn’t order any alcohol. Got harassed at quarter to 8, trying to rush us to eat our food. Wasn’t even 9 yet. No sign showing that was there policy on the door. Rude staff. Extremely rude staff. Do not go here if you want a nice night or evening.”

I guess that there was a child in the group and the pub were honouring their licence restrictions,something which seems to infuriate no end of customers as they feel their children should be exempt. But, I noted that they arrived at 20:00, but complain that they were being hurried at 19:45. Anyway, I digress in a pointless manner.

I had a quick half of the Ridley’s Rite beer from Bishop Nick brewery who are from Braintree itself, which is at least some effort to stock local drinks. That tasted very acceptable, although the others on the table just opted for coffees, although I didn’t say anything of course….. As a pub, it wasn’t entirely clean (as Ross discovered when put his sleeve into a pool of tomato sauce, although we all saw the funny side in that – other than Ross), but it’s keenly priced and a decent transformation of what is a relatively grand building.

November 10, 2021