My retirement trip - the highlights

It's now just over two weeks since we returned from our inter-rail trip to Europe. In some ways it still feels very fresh in my mind, but in others it feels like another life. It was an amazing and fun experience, and we started looking at the stats:

So we visited 8 countries, stayed in 13 cities/towns, travelled approximately 5000 miles on 22 trains and we walked at least 200 miles.

The tired saying that it's the journey rather than the destination that matters definitely applies to this trip; travelling on the comfortable, clean and punctual European trains was a real pleasure, offering the opportunity to sit back and relax, read, write my blog posts and look out and watch the world go by, often passing through wonderful scenery.

On the plane home, we were discussing our individual highlights and although these did differ slightly, for the most part we were in agreement. So here is our top ten (as I'm writing the blog, I get the last word!) in chronological order, rather than ranked:

1. Lunch at le Train Bleu at Gare de Lyon, Paris
2. Visit to Evian across Lake Geneva from Lausanne
3. Meeting my cousin in Frascati and being treated to a lovely lunch
4. Verona Wine Festival
5. The day trip to Hallstatt from Salzburg
6. The sights and bierkellers of Bamberg
7. The lovely and interesting day trip to Potsdam from Berlin
8. The whole experience of Berlin and its turbulent history, particularly lunch up the Radio Tower and the Reichstag dome visit
9. The bars and restaurants in Copenhagen, particularly War Pigs
10. Staying on board the yacht in Stockholm and visiting the old town.

This leaves out a number of other great memories, so we would give a mention to five outstanding train journeys:

1. From Lausanne to Milan, particularly through the Simplon tunnel from Brig to Italy, and along the shores of Lake Maggiore
2. From Verona to Salzburg, up through the Alps over the Brenner Pass, changing trains at Innsbruck
3. From Fredericia to Copenhagen, via the Odense railway crossing
4. From Copenhagen to Stockholm, passing over the Oresund Bridge to Sweden, travelling through restful pine forests and beautifully clear lakes
5. From Sundsvall to Trondheim, across from the East coast of Sweden to the West coast of Norway, climbing through high mountains, deep snow, glaciers and frozen rivers.

This trip was an opportunity to look back to my pre-working, student days, when  a few people I knew went inter-railing. It really appealed to me then, but for various reasons I never made it. Having regained that freedom over my own time through retirement from paid work, and being free to travel for over a month, was an endorsement of the decision to retire. It felt very liberating to choose our routes and destinations, and to realise that there is nothing stopping us boarding a train and going wherever we fancied. I am also very lucky to have a supportive husband (and with understanding colleagues) who was up for this trip and entered fully into the spirit of it, despite a dodgy knee which has felt the effects of all our walking.

I have come home even more committed to travel while we are still fit and healthy enough to enjoy it, and already have a number of trips on my wish list for the future. We certainly learned a whole lot about the similarities and differences in lifestyles across the countries we visited, and it has helped me to feel that the European Union is about a lot more than simple economic gain/loss for individual countries. The visit to Berlin, in particular, reminded me of the original rationale for building greater European unity and understanding and has pushed me further towards voting to remain in Europe.

So, we are back now. However, I have spent a few days away since our return, visiting my Mother in hospital in the north of England. Tomorrow my sister and I are travelling to Majorca for some walking and hopefully some relaxation. I won't be blogging while I'm there, but will write a post about our experiences there when I return home.

At home with cats

It’s just over a week since we arrived back from our inter-railing trip and I’m away from home again, staying with my family in the north west. While we were in Europe, my Mum fell and broke her hip and is in hospital following a partial hip joint replacement two weeks ago and we (my youngest son and I) are here to visit her.  

I had already agreed to pick up my son and some of his “stuff” from University this weekend and so it’s been possible to put together a short road trip taking in visits to a number of family members. I drove up to the Midlands at the weekend and spent the day and evening with my daughter and her partner, staying the night there before driving up the M1 to pick up my son and “stuff.” We then drove over to the north west to see Mum. She looks amazing for someone of her age who had a major operation only 2 weeks ago and she is really benefitting from the physiotherapy. In fact, we are delighted that she is well enough to return home this week, a much shorter recovery time than we’d first thought.

Meanwhile, I am intending to pull together some of the stats and highlights of our trip to share in a later post over the next few days.  All I will say here is that during our four weeks of making extensive use of rail services across the 8 European countries we visited, our experiences were totally positive - comfortable and clean trains, running on time and most offering refreshment facilities at reasonable prices. This warm and fluffy feeling was stretched to the limit when we walked into Gatwick railway station on Bank Holiday Sunday around 8pm, reaching home, a distance of approximately 50 miles, 3 hours, 2 trains, a bus, with someone threatening to throw up on board, later! Quite a contrast with what we’d become accustomed to. 

One very positive note has been the fantastic weather that we brought with us from our trip. It’s been wonderful to be able to spend time out in the garden, pegging out the washing and getting it dry within a day. There’s only been one fly in the ointment (or rather 2 cats)!  

Two cats in the yard

Yes, we have not only one cat visiting each day, but two, and the black and white nameless one, Cat X, is not a gentle pussycat and not averse to showing his claws. A couple of times I have been hanging out the washing and on turning round found my way into the house barred by these fiends. The consequence is that, rather than trying to get into the house, I have embarked on some weeding, waiting for Cat X to give up and go away. This can take up to 30 minutes or so, and I’m not too sure how this is going to work once the weather changes! However, the garden is looking a bit tidier!

Trondheim - final destination

After an extremely nice breakfast, including "make your own waffles", and a leisurely morning in the hotel, we went in search of a packed lunch in Sundsvall. We had a long journey ahead, crossing the Swedish and Norwegian mountains on stopping trains, so we didn’t expect any refreshments to be available onboard (in fact, there were!). An internet search revealed a bakery cum cafe just round the corner of an unpromising street en route to the station and what a fantastic bakery it was! The cakes were to die for, and the shop was packed with locals coming in and taking away boxes of these amazing confections, many had obviously been pre-ordered for the weekend. The cafe was a bit of an education as you ordered your coffees at the counter and the waitress put a cafetiere per person into a machine which dispensed a measure of coffee and hot water, and then you pointed out which of the cakes you wanted. I was still full of waffle (what’s new?) so decided to abstain and just have coffee and order a cake for the packed lunch. We were given the cafetieres and sat down, a bit puzzled as to what we were supposed to drink out of, but learning from the regulars, we helped ourselves to crockery, spoons, sugar etc from a dresser at the end of the room. 

Stenstans Bageri in Sundsvall

We went back and ordered sandwiches and drinks, and I chose my cake for the journey and we made our way down to the station to catch the 2.08 train to Storlien, 2 kms short of the Swedish/Norwegian border, for an amazing 4 hour journey through pine forests, passing waterfalls, frozen rivers and lakes, and steadily climbing. 

By the time we got to Storlien, the ground was covered in snow and it was pretty cold.

Snow in Stolen

Fortunately, the train to take us to Trondheim, the last train of our fantastic trip, was already in the station 

Boarding the last train of our trip

and soon we crossed the border and started to descend into a different landscape with crystal clear light and very distinct colours. We even passed through Hell, but if this is Hell then bring it on! 

The railway station at Hell

Twenty minutes or so before we were due to arrive in Trondheim, the train went into a long tunnel and we came out with the majestic, so blue, Trondheim fjord on our right 

The Trondheim fjord

and were soon off the train and in our treat hotel, the Scandic Nidelven, which overlooked one of the channels flowing into the fjord, in a brilliant setting. 

Just a side note, I've betrayed our age by a few references to Monty Python, and this cropped up again as every time I thought or said 'fjord" it would bring back John Cleese bewailing his dead parrot, "Pining for the fjords, is he?" 

If we thought Denmark and Sweden were expensive, well we hadn’t been to Norway, and if we thought it was about time to start getting ready for home and curbing our alcohol intake, then this was the way to do it, paying £20 for a glass of wine and a large beer. There was a strike of ancillary staff across all the hotels in Trondheim over the weekend, so there was a limited menu and we ended up with a burger for my husband and a fish soup for me, again not exactly cheap.

One of the reasons we had chosen this hotel was because for many years it has been voted top for breakfast in all of Norway, and it didn’t disappoint. It was literally overwhelming; there was such a massive range of choice and everything was of high quality from the fantastic homemade jams and breads to salmon eight different ways to pancakes made to order, including gluten free options.

Our exploration of the ancient city of Trondheim started after breakfast in bright sunshine and temperatures of about 12 degrees, a long way up from the seasonal average of 4 degrees, and my thermals got thrown back into the holdall. Trondheim is the third largest city in Norway, after Oslo and Bergen, and was the ancient capital. All Norwegian royalty are crowned in the Nidaros Cathedral at Trondheim, so we made that ancient building our first port of call. It is a beautiful, very dignified, cathedral, built of the local blue-grey stone which I found very attractive. The most striking thing inside was the stained glass, including a gorgeous blue and pink rose window. 

Exterior view of rose window

This was one of the very few places we went to where photography was totally forbidden, although some people were taking pictures of the rose window until one of the priests came and asked them to stop. The ticket price also included a chance to see the Norwegian crown jewels and associated regalia, so we had a look at those while we were there.

The city square was host to a farmers market, selling fabulous fish, meat, cheeses, breads, cakes, honey and jams, but unfortunately we were too full to get beyond the odd tasting morsel. 

Trondheim farmers market

My favourite stall was selling pure wool yarn in a lovely range of colours. 

Market stall selling wool

We found a number of shops specialising in knitting and other crafts, and they were all very busy, reflecting the popularity of traditional crafts - a way to keep busy and warm in the cold winter evenings maybe?

Our Rough Guide had picked out the Trondheim Micro-Brewery as worth a visit, and we found it fairly easily as Trondheim is a small city. It’s a pleasant hostelry where everything looks fresh and new. 

Trondheim Micro-brewery

We decided to share a Tasting Tray, which was a tray with 10 x 0.1 litre samples of each of their beers, which ranged from a light lager to a thick black ale and not all of which I found palatable; however, between the two of us we managed to finish them. 

A litre of craft ales

A walk along the Esplanade looking out across the fjord seemed like a good way of blowing away the cobwebs 

Trondheim Esplanade

and brought us eventually to Rockheim, the Museum of Norwegian Rock, an intriguing prospect which drew us in for a couple of hours learning about Norwegian music from the 1950’s to the present day. I must admit my previous knowledge extended no further than A-ha (rock music?). The museum was fun though, interactive and quirky, and the enthusiastic staff were always keen to help us to use the equipment and to tell us about the music. Who knew that a genre of particularly loud and screechy rock music called Black Metal originated in Norway? It has gone worldwide and many fans around the world are learning the Norwegian language specifically so they can fully engage with this music. An acquired taste, I think.

We also got to play some real instruments - electric guitars, keyboards and drums, so that was fun.

We had planned that for the last night of our trip we would have a nice dinner in the hotel and a few drinks in the bar. However, the hotel was absolutely packed, the menu was still restricted and we decided to go out, but quite a few restaurants were affected by the strike. We found a pub which served nice hearty food but the choice was narrow and the service was very quick so we soon found ourselves back at the hotel in a busy, overcrowded bar. We didn’t stay there long, but went back to our room and after scanning the tv channels found an American WW2 B-movie with Norwegian sub-titles. This matched up well with what we normally do on Saturday nights at home when we don’t go out, which is to watch Scandinavian crime or thriller serials on BBC 4 with English sub-titles. The film didn't match up with these, and I managed to wake myself up a couple of times with my snoring! 

We reprised the heavenly breakfast on our last day and passed the time gently before catching the Flybussen to the airport and taking off for Gatwick.

Trondheim: distinguished and ancient

We stayed at the Scandic Nidelven, which we'd booked as a treat for our last stop, to experience the breakfasts and to be somewhere warm and comfortable if it was really cold (which it wasn't). I would certainly like to stay there again, just so I could try some of the 75% of the breakfast content I didn't get to.