Trains
…our journey to Hamburg was slightly disrupted. We had to change trains unexpectedly at the Dutch/German border (we think there was an engine issue), and our connection at Osnabruck was about 50 minutes late so we didn’t arrive in Hamburg until about 7pm.
Continue reading Hamburg.
We are on our way! We boarded the Riviera Night Sleeper at 9.30 and found our cabin. It is snug but well equipped and has lots more head room in the bunks than the American version we have experienced, on those trains you couldn’t turn over in the top bunk without getting your shoulders wedged against the ceiling.
Our Steward, Dell came to introduce himself and check our tickets. Apparently we have to leave the train by 6.45 so he is going to wake us at 6.00 with a light breakfast and has booked us showers in the lounge at Paddington at 7.00.
There is no room to sit in the cabin but there is a very comfortable lounge/bar nearby serving complimentary tea and coffee and wine/beer to purchase. We are sitting here until we are ready to try out our bunks.
The Adventure begins!!
We start at Penzance station and catch the night sleeper to London. We will then make our way over to St. Pancras International. Here we will meet Terry and Jenny and board our train to Amsterdam. Here we have a two night stay and then move on to Hamburg for a one night stay.
Our next train will take us to Copenhagen for two nights. From there we will travel to Oslo again for two nights. The last leg of this section will be to Bergen for one night and then we will board our boat.
This will be a total of 1500 miles by train!
Signing off!
Well, that’s it, our round the world adventure has come to an end and we are back home in Highcliffe. Our journey home took us via Brussels to London on Eurostar and then home from Waterloo. We completed our circumnavigation when we crossed Southampton Water and could see across to the docks where we boarded Queen Mary 2 last July. What an adventure it has been, we have memories to last a lifetime and hope you have enjoyed following our journey through this blog. Continue reading Highcliffe, UK
From Kandy we headed further into the central Highlands to Nuwara Eliya, the main town in the tea growing region and historically the place the English escaped to during the hottest months attracted by the cooler climate, golf course, Hill Club (think Indian Summers) and an endless social whirl.
We left Ellerton and drove to the nearby town of Gampola where we were due to catch a train to Nanu Oya, the station nearest to Nuwara Eliya, recognised as one of the classic railway journeys. The station was very clearly modelled on Victorian stations in England but it has seen better days; this can be explained, and excused by its history of flooding. Flood markers on the platform showed water levels rising to ten or twelve feet in the first half of the C20th, and in 1947 the station was completely submerged. The last flood was in 1974, after that a dam was built on the river to create a reservoir and control the water levels. Continue reading Nuwara Eliya
Mark And Kim's Adventures 