Page 24 of 33

Mt Washington Cog Railway

27 October 2016 / admin

Saturday 8 October 2016

An early start this morning – we are leaving the hotel in the dark.

We are heading to the Mount Washington Cog Railway via Crawford Notch. As we head along in the coach we are generally half asleep when suddenly the sun peeps over the horizon lighting up the adjacent hillside with a blaze of autumn colours – and of course none of us get the picture as we were not expecting it! Absolutely stunning.

On our way we see signs to Bretton Woods. In 1944, 730 delegates from the 44 nations forming the Allies met at the Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods and laid the foundation for post war economic activity – the Bretton Woods agreement. This underpinned world economics until 1971.

The Mount Washington Cog Railway was the first rack and pinion railway opening in 1868 and it remains the second steepest line in the world – not bad for the first of a kind. Snowdon did not come along until 1896! Mt Washington is only 3 miles long and has an average gradient of 1 in 4.

The reason for our early departure is that we have to be on the 08:00 departure as it is steam hauled, later trips are handled by the fleet of bio-diesels. The locos are at the rear of the one coach on the ascent to the summit and then lead on the way down. As I recall our steam train was followed to the top by a couple of bio-diesel powered trains which then had to return before we could do so – so we had a longer period at the top.

There are some wonderful photos of the railway, the views themselves and the autumn colours.

On arrival the view is very clear and we can see all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. Whilst we were there it seemed to get colder (not very warm in the first place) and the the weather closed the view down a little – so the early start was extremely worthwhile.

Our coach returns us to North Conway and in consequence we do have a part day off. This enables Jackie and I to wander into the adjacent shopping mall so that as is usual on trips to the USA I can acquire some inexpensive jeans. As with our last visit to Florida I am also looking for some trainers but for some reason (I think my feet must have gone funny shaped) none of them seem to fit well – even if I try different sizes. We also eat in the mall – very convenient for the hotel as it could not be closer.

Falmouth to North Conway

27 October 2016 / admin

Friday 7 October 2016

Our coach takes us back towards Boston. On the way there we head into Plymouth (sometimes Plimouth) which was the landing point for the Pilgrim Fathers.

Our first stop is what used to be known as the “Pilgrim Monument” but is now officially the “National Monument to the Forefathers” which is a single piece of granite, possibly the largest single piece in the world, commemorating the Mayflower pilgrims. There are other “Pilgrim” related monuments hence the renaming!

Also in Plymouth and our next stop is Plymouth Rock which allegedly markes the first landing point of the Mayflower pilgrims, although it was not mentioned until much later. It has moved several times and has split into several pieces. Since 1920 it has been covered by a Roman Doric portico.

Nearby is the Mayflower II an English reconstruction of the original built in 1955/6. We were somewhat lucky to see as she had been away for some work and shortly after our visit departed again. The intention is to ensure she is entirely sea-worthy in 2019 to mark the 400th anniversary of the original arrival of the pilgrims.

Photos of the above can be found here.

We rejoin the coach and our destination is Boston North station where we join our train to Portland. We are aboard the Amtrak “Downeaster“. The current service is relatively new having been re-established in 2001. Much of the route is heavily wooded and there are no great views as we meander along.

The catering car is at the rear of the train but it is closed until we have been underway for about half an hour or so. There were about three wraps available and I buy two of them – train catering is even poor here. And additionally they were not particularly nice! One of those rare times when USA food is not great!

And the train photos mainly at Boston are here.

The coach has taken our cases and meets us at the far end of the line. We now commence heading west and uphill and we can see a real change in the surrounding colours. Fall is here. Within a month the country will be voting for a new President and it is demonstrably clear that Trump has a lot of support!

Our destination for the next three nights is North Conway so we have moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. “New England” comprises six states – those two plus Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut and essentially runs from New York state to the Canadian border on the East Coast.

Martha’s Vineyard

25 October 2016 / admin

Thursday 6 October 2016

We recommence the organised tour with a coach to the Falmouth terminus of the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard. This is an island famous for its residents who can achieve a certain amount of privacy on the island – such include Carly Simon, Maria Muldaur, Judy Blume and historically Jackie Onassis, James Cagney and Patricia Neal lived here, whilst many more film stars, politicians and other well known people visit for holidays.

The island also has the notoriety of the location for the filming of “Jaws” and the sad death of Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969 at Chappaquiddick; later in 1999 John F Kennedy Jr and his wife and her sister died in a plane crash just off the coast.

We are met by a “school bus” type coach and are driven around the outskirts of the island. The driver is also our guide and she manages to drive and talk more or less without pause as the tour progresses. She named many more celebrities.

Our trip reaches Edgartown which is the largest town on the island for a lunch time break and we wander around the pretty town in some pretty hot sunshine reaching the waterside. The pubs close to the water are all busy so we wander back towards town and find somewhere to sit in a bit of shade but outdoors as the weather is so nice.

Photos of the trip to Martha’s Vineyard are here.

After lunch we rejoin the bus and wandering off her normal route our driver takes us to a point from where we can see the Chappaquiddick bridge in the far distance. Our journey then resumes back to Oak Bluffs where we also have a chance to see the local houses before catching the return ferry.

In the evening we take the bus to Woods Hole which is at the end of the mainland. I had hoped for a nice little harbour with some bibbly bobbly boats and so on. Instead there is a nasty stench of diesel hanging around. We end up in the Landfall restaurant which delivers a good meal in a nice environment. I choose the local delicacy of stuffed Quahog but unusually I am not particularly taken by this particular clam.

Picture by Jackie Whitbread

We take the bus for the return journey and sort of parallel to the road is the Shining Sea Bikeway which is a conversion of the former railway line (there was evidence of an old railway bridge at Woods Hole) built by the Old Colony Railroad into a cycle route. At Falmouth the bus actually wanders into and out of the old station area.

Time to move on.

Falmouth / Hyannis / Hyannis Port

24 October 2016 / admin

Wednesday 5 October 2016

We have a little trouble finding the breakfast room this morning – it is downstairs and does not seem open when we get there – we are up quite early as we have not quite adjusted to the time differences. An adequate if not an outstanding repast this morning. Here is the clock in the breakfast room – although I have no idea which Southampton is the source of the clock!

Great Rail are very keen on inserting free days to ensure that their clientele do not overdo it – although their customers do tend to be the older age group which these days includes me but not Jackie! So our first day in the USA is a free day which helps adjust to the time difference.

Our first task this morning is to walk along the main street to find the post office and despatch a couple of post cards. Also they helpfully tell us where to find the bus stop – which might seem an odd form of transport on a rail based holiday. The tour guide recommendation is to take the bus to Hyannis which is about 20 miles east of here. Whilst reckoned to be about an hour the journey is closer to 75 or more minutes.

When I was growing up in the Sixties there would often be mentions in news reports of the “Hyannis Port Compound” which was the summer residence of the Kennedys away from Washington and where they could enjoy some privacy. This was someway out of Hyannis itself along on the coast.

These days on Main Street of Hyannis there is the John F Kennedy Hyannis Museum which we wander around – I think they are somewhat limited in the material to which they have access as I spot the same photo being used several times – which perhaps confirms the privacy which applied. An interesting reminder of that period of history.

In need of sustenance we head to “Spanky’s Clam Shack and Seaside Salon” for lunch. It is right by the water and we are able to watch boats coming and going. Once again stunned by portion sizes, hopefully we will adjust our ordering to match before too much longer. Photos of Hyannis are here.

We catch the bus back. At one location outside (I think) a supermarket we circumnavigate a huge selection of pumpkins as we are not far from Halloween. When we get back to Falmouth there are some wild turkeys walking on the green.

All the photos of Falmouth are here.

This gives me a chance to use the indoor pool and to spend some time by the side of the pool reading and listening.

In an effort to get something more suitable in size terms we eat in the local pizzeria this evening and do not overload ourselves, having had a decent lunch as well!

New England in the Fall

24 October 2016 / admin

Tuesday 4 October 2016

We are on our third Great Rail Journeys holiday (India [Palace on Wheels] and Canada [Rocky Mountaineer] were the previous trips); this time we are going to visit New England in the Fall. We are on what I think is an “extra” trip as it is not a normal departure day for GRJ and unusually is a BA flight, so adding air miles for our future holidays!

Our flight destination from Heathrow is Boston but we return to visit the City at the end of our holiday and we are soon on a coach down to the coast staying at ShoreWay Acres Inn, Falmouth. The coach journey along the US highways is smooth but most of the foliage we can see remains green and although there is some evidence of colour changing it is not significant. Are we going to be denied the autumn colours which are the entire point of the trip?

Falmouth is south south east from Boston and being an early settler location we pass signs for Braintree, Weymouth, Plymouth and Barnstaple (among others) as we head to our destination which is still on the mainland. We are however not far from the island of Martha’s Vineyard which we shall visit in a couple of days and we are right on the coast.

The hotel is perhaps a little old fashioned but reminds me very much of the TVs view of the world in the nature of ‘Murder She Wrote’. We wander out to the small Main Street which has an interesting variety of shops, including a bookshop. We had previously identified a restaurant (the Quarterdeck) which is packed with customers. We order a starter and main course each, forgetting we are in America. The starter is large and the main course larger still; not surprisingly many customers seem to order only a main course. Jackie hears another customer order a martini and regrets not being able to follow her example! Jackie then orders a white Zinfandel. This of course turns out to be slightly pink and we all know how much Jackie enjoys a rosé! We stagger back to the hotel feeling somewhat bloated to say the least.

Back Home

14 October 2016 / admin

Friday 2 and Saturday 3 September 2016

Friday is spent entirely at sea as we head back down the North Sea and through the English Channel to berth at Southampton, right back where we started from.

A day at sea allows the shipboard team the opportunity to arrange extra events. We have a look around the specialist restaurants and will probably take advantage of them if we ever come on the Celebrity again as they break up the dining. Jackie usually partakes in a bingo session on a sea day, although I do not always accompany her I do this time. Just as well as she enjoys a small win on this trip, mainly because one number flashes up but was not announced by the caller – although I spotted it! Lucky!

The evening entertainment has been pretty good throughout the trip – a Freddie Mercury impersonator one night and an excellent girl singer who has worked on UK X Factor and won (I think) the Dutch version. I am told we will be doing a Celebrity cruise again in the future, it is more relaxed than Cunard and the entertainment is better – of course the ships are much larger which gives greater capacity but the ratio of staff to passengers is not so good – but the service seems pretty good to me.

On Saturday morning we cannot be sure when we are disembarking as it is done in stages and we are given estimates of when it is likely that we can go and collect our luggage. The more expensive staterooms tend to disembark first. We have time for a breakfast but they are ahead of schedule and we are about half way through breakfast when we are told we can go. Finding luggage is always fun in the adjacent “warehouse” and unlike when we arrived we have to walk back to the car – when we arrived the luggage was collected at the car and that was the last we saw of it until we were in our cabins! Luckily the wheels on the cases work and we are not in a great hurry.

Steve and Veronica have definitely enjoyed the trip and are looking at what might be worth booking for the future.

Route segment	Distance in Nautical miles
Southampton to Bergen	805
Bergen to Flam	100
Flam to Geiranger (approx)	256
Geiranger to Alesund (approx)	65
Alesund to Stavanger	250
Stavanger to Southampton	635
Total (approx)	2111

And with that summary another holiday comes to an end.

Stavanger

13 October 2016 / admin

Thursday 1 September 2016

We have now effectively commenced our return journey as we reach our final port of call in Norway – Stavanger. Here the port is immediately adjacent to the city and we can walk off the ship and just meander along the dock side and into and around the town centre. Just a few photos here.

Once we have finished wandering around the shops we find a coffee shop with wifi so that we can catch up on communications as we will have no wifi tomorrow.

The ship did give us some free time each, but the whole of Jackie’s was swallowed by an Apple operating system upgrade for Jackie’s phone so I passed her my time as well so that she could stay up to date – well she is online with her social group far more than I am and her friends are expecting decent updates on her activities.

We do visit the Watchtower which has views over the city. This was used until 1922 to spot fires in the city as it was above most of the surrounding area.

The main industry in Stavanger days is the offshore oil and gas industry in the North Sea which for the Norwegian fields is operated from the city, in the same way as Aberdeen does for the UK fields.

There has been something of a food festival along the dock and we look into a couple of the outlets on our way back to the ship. Not much we can do with fresh shellfish or other fresh products this far from home.

On looking at the captured images I have none of the old town which was adjacent to the ship. Mistake!

Alesund

12 October 2016 / admin

Wednesday 31 August 2016

We are back adjacent to the North Sea having spent the last two days tied up at berths deep inside the fjords. We are on a booked trip again today. Our first stop is the Town Mountain and a view down to the town and the houses all look a little like a Toytown, and they are dwarfed by our cruise liner! We see other smaller boats skittering around the port. The weather is much brighter today and we can appreciate the views.

The photos from the mountain can be found here. The consistent style of buildings is down to them nearly all being constructed following a major fire on 23 January 1904. As Wikipedia reports Kaiser Wilhelm had visited here previously and he sent significant help to the residents following the disaster. The rebuilding then took place over just a few years and is largely in the Art Nouveau style.

Our other destination on the trip is the Sunnmøre Museum which has a large collection of rescued Norwegian buildings. There is also a collection of boats and reconstructions some of which have been captured in my photos.

The houses are described in this part of the Museum website. The Church booths were interesting as journeys to Church for Sunday attendance were so long through the mountains. These little booths were used to allow for a change of clothing for church and eating on Sundays. The other buildings demonstrated how people lived and how the houses grew over the years.

Similarly the collection of boats is explained on this part of the website.

My own photos from this location are here and this includes a few photos of the town from ground level.

On sailing away we will start our return journey; we have one more port of call tomorrow. Compared to some of our other holidays being on a cruise saves the packing and repacking and the food does tend to be consistently good.

Gerainger

11 October 2016 / admin

Tuesday 30 August 2016

We are today deep in another fjord at Gerainger where slightly unexpectedly we are tied up at a major new facility so that it is now possible to walk ashore and not be transported by boat. We were originally told that this was a tender transfer so it is pleasing to be able to walk off.

The weather is distinctly less pleasant today and we are glad we are not off to visit the glacier which is the main reason for stopping here. Walking into Gerainger is the limit of exposure we fancy and almost immediately into a coffee shop – mainly for a decent wifi connection.

On our way back to the ship I see some slightly less expensive reindeer pelts and one is bought. Sadly we find it moults extensively once on the bedroom floor at home and it is soon despatched to the shed.

Given the weather the photos are less than illuminating.

Whilst we are passing the afternoon taking life easy on board we watch other vessels coming and going including a Hurtigruten operation. These provide a mixed service – moving mails and goods as well as people. It is a little disconcerting to see people moving to and from tenders as the vessel heads towards its mooring point. They are seeking to maximise passenger time ashore and the tenders are therefore moving before the ship comes to a complete halt.

Steve and Veronica only make it back to the ship shortly before sailing time – and look somewhat tired. We have had a gentle day in comparison!

Dining is well organised. We wander down to the main restaurant and we get given a flashing box which illuminates when a table becomes available. We are on a drinks package which also works well. If we are sharing a bottle of red it is left on the table. The white sits in an ice bucket nearby and we get regular top ups with no real queries over entitlement once they have seen the relevant card. All works very smoothly.

Flåm, Railway and Scenic Norway

10 October 2016 / admin

Monday 29 August 2016

Overnight we have sailed around the fjords and we arise to find ourselves moored at Flåm adjacent to the railway. Not particularly bright today unfortunately. Our trip today was booked almost with the cruise itself as I was insistent that having missed the line when I did my Interrail I had to do it on this visit.

The Flåmsbana is famous for the quality of the scenery and for being the steepest gradient, averaging 1 in 18 over the 20km of the line as it rises from Flåm to Myrdal. It is pure adhesion worked, no cogs or other clever gubbins and it has been electric since 1947, after 7 years of steam operation – the steam locomotives were modified with additional braking capacity because the line is so steep.

Passenger numbers have grown rapidly in recent years as cruise liners such as ours disgorge huge numbers of passengers. Near the top of the line the route passes the Kjosfossen falls where to entertain the passengers we can hear music and are entertained by “maids” dancing at the side of the waterfalls. Jackie’s eyes reckon at least one if not more of the maids is actually male!

The trip and falls are in photos here.

We disembark at Myrdal and we take a main line train onwards to see some of the beautiful countryside leaving the train at Voss. This is part of the line between Oslo and Bergen so I have already covered this piece of railway. A large hotel at Voss provides a huge number of lunches via a very good buffet – Fleicher’s hotel and we can walk down to the lake before taking our coach onwards.

The aim of today is to see some of the sights of the Norwegian countryside and our first stop after lunch are the impressive falls at Tvindefossen, where I seem to have gone completely arty in terms of the photos – not sure how good they are!

Our onward journey to Flåm takes us slightly off the main road – we descend a very twisting road at Stalheim – we use the old Stalheimskleivi road which can still be used with its hairpin turns and 20% grade. The new road descends into tunnels and is the only uphill route. The old road is one way only. We are three coaches in convoy but one of the coaches lost its suspension and the passengers are transferred into the other two and have to stand until our next stop when a replacement vehicle arrives.

We halt at Gudvangen to admire the views along the lake. On leaving we plunge into a tunnel and certainly I (and I suspect many others) go to sleep. The tunnel is over 7 miles long and is the second longest tunnel in Norway. There is one more tunnel before Flåm and two the other side – of which one is the longest in the world. Before the tunnel I suspect that a ferry was needed between Gudvangen and Flåm!