Last night away

So, I now know that my last day with my current employer will be Friday May 2nd and unless something odd occurs next week then my last overnight trip will be the one last Wednesday in Birmingham. An early morning meeting in Walsall was the reason to be down there and I thought it might be the last one so I thought I would try something different. Still part of the Holiday Inn chain as I always like to collect the points from them but this time it was the Staybridge Suite in Birmingham for the night. Now, I have stayed in Staybridge Suites in the USA many times and they are perfect destination when on a road trip, big spacious suites with min kitchens and quite often the bedroom(s) as an actual separate room (ideal when you are touring with a little person in tow). never stayed in a Staybridge in this country though so I was curious to se what it would be like.

 

For some reason the UK Staybridges don't do 2 bedroom suites like their American counterparts but the room I ended up in was still very nice. Small kitchenette, comfortable double bed, nice armchair, little desk, breakfast bar and spacious bathroom. I have never actually lived in an apartment but if I did and if I was single then this would have everything I needed. Only down side was the hotel doesn't have its own car park and the local NCP one has to be used instead. If you know your way round Birmingham then this wouldn't have been a problem, but I don't and its was fairly dark by the time I arrived so I spent 20 minutes traipsing around towing a suitcase trying to fin the front door to the hotel. A little unnerving but all part of the experience.

A very nice holiday

It's taken me a few days to catch up after holiday but I have to say all in all it was a excellent trip. Some bits were not so good. Belgium roads are terrible in many ways and having to do an emergency doctor visit whilst in Luxembourg due to my daughter getting a bad bought of Bronchitis is something I could do without but she got healthy within 24 hours and the views and scenery whilst we travelled were truly awesome.

 

The final couple of days were spent travelling from Brussels to Calais and then from Calais to home. We left Brussels in the morning and headed north to Bruges. Bruges is a wonderful historic city full of brilliant things to see and explore. Unfortunately I saw none of them due to crazy traffic and insufficient parking. After an hour of trying to find somewhere to stop we headed back out of the city, parked up by the edge of a canal and had a picnic. Heading on up to Oostende we picked up the coast road and trundled along that to Dunkirk. Had to stop a couple of times, once to paddle in a very cold north sea and a second time to watch the kite surfers. Those kite surfers are amazing. don't know how they had such amazing control but the ability to leap 20ft into the air and come back down safely is impressive.

 

On the final day the brilliant weather finally gave way. It drizzled in Calais and by the time we came out of the tunnel in Dover we had achieved torrential downpour. Welcome back to Britain!

Belgians are a menace when it comes to roads

Brussels is an interesting place and no where near as dull as it has been made out to be, but having spent around 50 hours of this holiday in the country of Belgium, I have 3 main observations.

 

1. Belgium needs to invest in roads, specifically hard wearing tarmac and most particularly on motorways. Four inch deep potholes on a motorway are just ridiculous!

2. Belgium drivers need to learn about indicators. If they see one flashing they need to consider that the driver in question might be trying to tell them something and not just blindly carry on. Similarly if they try to use them themselves, it might help other drivers have a some sort of clue as to what they hell they are doing on the road.

3. Linked to point 2 above, Belgium pedestrians really do need to be more careful, their drivers are a menace so don't walk out in front of moving cars in Belgium, its plain stupid.

 

As you may have guessed I have not appreciated driving in Belgium, somewhat nerve racking at times and I was pleased to cross into France having neither damaged the car, damaged someone elses car or having run a deserving idiot over.

 

As for Brussels itself. Good museums, pretty parks, could do with being cleaned more often, nice waffles, an alarmingly large proportion of lingerie shops, completely mad car parks and please stop digging up the roads, their are enough holes already.

Luxembourg is an actual real place!!

Did you know their are more than three people living in Luxembourg and that Luxembourg is not a made up place? I spent a couple of years at university feigning complete ignorance of the country of Luxembourg in order to tease a Luxembourgish housemate but after finally giving in and visiting him and his family a couple of days ago I suppose I will have to concede. To be honest though quite small it turns out to be a perfectly formed little country thriving on some curious tax laws, squashed between France, Belgium and Germany and speaking a curious combination of German, French and Dutch called Luxembourgish. Luckily a lot of the residents speak English as well so my (admittedly awful) grasp of any language other than English was not tested. A pretty capital city spread over two hills and the gorge in-between makes for a pleasant amble round for a couple of hours and I would suggest anyone visit if they are in the area.

Zurich: City of... well... hills and churches really.

We spent a full day in Zürich and manage to not visit the car at all, Seemed a bit odd after doing at least 200 miles for echo of the 5 previous days but it made a nice change. Walked to the local station and after checking the timetable found two trains into the city. On at 26 minutes past and on at 38 minutes past. At precisely 24 minutes past a train arrived and precisely 2 minutes later it left. I checked the on-board timetable for every station we stopped at and that train was exactly on time everywhere. Bet it never sufferers from leaves on the line or the wrong kind of snow!! Swiss precision in train form!

 

Zürich was a nice city to amble around but seemed to specialise in two things, churches and hills. I think perhaps the churches were there so that you had something impressive to look at once you had got to the top of the hill but I know it meant my legs were tired by half way through the day. Found. A park for lunch and watched some elderly Swiss gentlemen have a very long and intense game of boules. Tried to explain the rules to my daughter but as I didn't know them myself it was slightly more complicated than anticipated.

 

A chance conversation earlier in the week had reminded ourselves that my wife had an ex workmate now living in Zürich so we met her and her family as well. Its strange to think how many people you can know in so many far flung places but its always nice to catch up when you can.

The beauty of Switzerland

I have travelled a fair bit in my life so far. Many many miles around the UK and more than the average around Europe and the USA but I think several of the views from yesterday will beat everything I have ever seen before.

 

We started off the day with a trip to the swimming pool attached to the Bern Westside hotel. Slightly disappointed to be honest that their wasn't a pool in the hotel grounds and that we had to put in the effort to go to the local aqua-park. Very tempted when I got up to not bother going but so very very glad I did. The pool was a marvel of Swiss engineering situated below a shopping cents and including a large pool, another large pool, a small pool for children, a super cool plunge pool, and outside pool and more slides and flumes than I could keep track off. Everything immaculately clean and designed in a stylish but elegant manner. I think I am safe in saying this was by far the best swimming pool complex I have ever seen and ever the better for being free to hotel guests. If they made something that good back home I would swim every day.

After the pool we set off for Zürich but as we had a shorter journey than usual, we took a diversion along the shores of Lake Thunerzee and through the town of Interlaken. That lake is truly gorgeous, a brilliant turquoise blue fed by the glacial snow melt of the surrounding mountains. At one stop it was 21 degrees Celsius outside as we stared across the lake but we could still see snow on the distant Alps. Awesome does not even come close to how beautiful it was and I already know I want to return to the area to swim at the pool again and to explore the surroundings more.

 

We ended the day crossing the Albis pass and arriving in our hotel for the next two nights, the Holiday Inn Express at Affolten Am Albis about 15 miles south of Zürich.

 

So many countries, so little time.

Days 3 and 4 of the holiday have passed by in a bit of a blur of amazing sights and curiosity at the differing European logics.

 

Day 3 began in Calais. Quick breakfast and then set off down the road. We drove passed the edge of Dunkirk with a promise to visit again and then round the side of Lille and across the border into Belgium. With the EU border logic in full force all you get when changing countries nowadays is a tiny blue sign but the most obvious difference about Belgium is the quality of the roads, they are terrible, pot holes I am fairly sure you could loose entire cars in. I am sure by driving deteriorated rapidly as I started to drive around the holes instead of just gong in a straight line. Later on in the day we crossed another border into Luxembourg and straight away the roads were good smooth tarmac! We did stop of in Rochefort in Belgium looking for where they make the cheese. Turns out that Rochefort is in France but the one we found was very scenic and enabled a very pleasant walk along the river. The hotel for that night was the Luxembourg Hilton Doubletree. Nice lobby but the room was not as nice as the cost would suggest and the Wi-Fi was only available in the lobby and very very slow. I did expect better.

 

Day 4 took us south from Luxembourg and back into France, south towards the hills of the Ballons des Vorges. Beautiful scenery especially in the Valley of Munster. I only wish I had a sports car and an empty road to do it justice but steady safe driving did enable me to see the scenery a little better. In the afternoon we crossed briefly into Germany and then across the border into Switzerland. I did expect passport checking or some interest on the border as it is not an EU country but I was happily waved on through. It does worry me what you could get away with if you wanted too. Around the edge of Basel and then along the extremely well signed Swiss motorways until we got to the Holiday Inn in Bern. Nice hotel, though a very peculiar glass door into the bathroom but everything else was simple, effective and fresh. I know I am terrible for swing stereotypes in different countries but parts of this holiday do reinforce it. The Swiss do seem so very very organised and efficient. Its impressive!

A car, on a train, under the sea!!

So we put the car on a train and we put the train under the sea. It seems very very wrong but I have to admit the channel tunnel is an impressively easy process, just follow the signs and the bilingual instructions and you will find yourself in Calais in next to no time. A slight concern is that as soon as you are off the train you are straight onto a motorway and haying to remember which side of the road to come off at but I m sure I will suss that one out over the next week or so.

Tonight we are in the Holiday Inn in Calais Coquelles. Nothing special but serves it's purpose in providing an easy destination (less that 5 miles from the exit of the tunnel) and a comfy bed for the night. Tomorrow will be more interesting as we know where we want to end up but have no real thoughts on which route to get their. I suppose that one might be made up as we go along. Need to thing about driving on the right as well, suspect that might be more tricky.

Hoory, hooray, it's a happy holiday

It's Easter holidays so it must be time for me and my family to go on holiday. For the last 7 years we have gone on holiday in the US at this time of yard but this time we decided to save some money and go to Europe instead. So we have zero car hire cost (by taking my car), cheaper fuel costs (by filling the car up in Dover using the company fuel card), no flights (we are taking the channel tunnel and even managed to pay for that using Tesco vouchers) and reduced hotel costs (staying with a friend for one night and using points to pay for 4 of the other nights). All in all it should be damned good value for money.

I will admin that setting off this lunchtime and not expecting to end up in my favourite country in the world (the good old US of A) was a bit disappointing but I am sure it will be fun, I have my family beside me and we get to explore somewhere different. Today we made it about 250 miles down the road and ended up at the 5 Lakes Crown Plaza hotel in Colchester, somewhere I have been many times for work reasons but never before with family. Its still a lovely hotel and I hope for a decent nights sleep before heading further south and putting the car on a train and putting that train under the sea!!