Arrival The last trip of 2020, and for an as yet indeterminate period thereafter, was once again to London. Outbound travel was on Sunday 13 December. The first two nights

Arrival The last trip of 2020, and for an as yet indeterminate period thereafter, was once again to London. Outbound travel was on Sunday 13 December. The first two nights
Coimbra is a city of around 145,000 people, situated 125km south of Porto. A three-night stay there formed the second part of our trip to northern Portugal. Coimbra is Portugal’s
As previously mentioned, the urban area south of the Douro and opposite Porto is officially a separate city: Vila Nova de Gaia (“New Town of Gaia”), or simply Gaia. It’s
With a city population of 240,000 and a metropolitan area that is home to 1.7 million people, Porto is Portugal’s second city. Its ancient name, Portus Cale, may even be
Our second full day in northern Portugal was dedicated to another day trip. The Douro Valley is one of the world’s oldest winegrowing regions and is a UNESCO World Heritage
Thursday On returning to the city from Aegina on Thursday, we had time to fit in a visit to the National Museum of Contemporary Art, also known as EMST. This
Monday The transition from weekend to new week brought a move from ‘settling in’ to serious sightseeing. Top of the list were the city’s most popular attractions: the Acropolis and
That’s what I managed to clock up over just two days in September, albeit two days that were separated by a weekend. Scottish National Gallery (Friday 11-Sep) The Scottish National
Our base Our London base for this visit was relatively unusual: the Holiday Inn Express, Limehouse. It certainly didn’t represent IHG at its finest: the neighbourhood was slightly dodgy, it
Tempelhof Airport Tempelhof was Berlin’s first major airport, operating between 1923 (making it a similar vintage to Croydon Airport) and 2008. The former airport’s main claim to fame is the
Background I suppose I must have come across the name Barnard Castle prior to the year 2020: I know for a fact that I have driven the A66 several times,
Arrival I travelled from London to Norwich on a Greater Anglia express train, using a heavily discounted ‘Advance First’ ticket. It was one of the company’s brand new, Swiss-built Stadler
I arrived in London from Amsterdam, unusually, and a little later than planned (thanks to issues with the GWR service from Bristol), met up with Bruce at our base for
Barely a few days after my previous visit to London, I found myself flying south once more, this time on the Saturday itself – the last day of a leap-year
As I have written previously, albeit not here, London is not necessarily my favourite place in the world, but it is easily my most visited destination outside my native Scotland.
Today, like Thursday before it, was neatly subdivided into three sections. After sampling a McDonalds breakfast (which, if anything, was marginally better than the previous day’s Starbucks experience), we set
Morning … Today started with breakfast at a local Starbucks – the coffee was nice enough, but the food wasn’t so great. After a brief return to the room to
Morning: Cruise to nowhere Spoiler alert: the header image above is what we were MEANT to be doing this morning. We got up nice and early, had breakfast at the