Berlin 2023 – Day One -„Ich bin ein Berliner”
Our first day in Berlin sees us tackle the S-Bahn, visit a protest, and eat a “hearty” meal.
The Band CAMINO vs. Mike + the Mechanics, May 2023
I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast two concerts that I have been to recently – American pop rockers The Band CAMINO and British aging rockers Mike + the Mechanics. The Band CAMINO, O2 Institute, Birmingham The Band CAMINO have been around long enough to release an EP and their eponymous debut …
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Portsmouth Historic Dockyard (pt 2)
Thanks to the law on Gift Aid in the UK, the ticket I purchased for Dad’s birthday last year meant that we could come back multiple times for a year. You can read about the previous visit here including more discussion on the fascinating law (🥱) that allows such largess (TL;DR they are forced to …
Reading Walks Festival, 2023
I’ve lived in Reading for over 35 years now and have seen the much maligned town (Her Maj has refused on several occasions to grant it city status) go from strength to strength. This has been helped in part but a much more cohesive offering around the cultural aspects of the town such as the …
Didcot Railway Centre, Didcot
It was only a few weeks ago that I was trying to refute that I’m not some closet trainspotter, yet here I am at Didcot Railway Centre looking at steam trains. To be fair, I was there so that my granddaughter could see Paddington (the bear) but that does still seem to leave me on …
Danube 2023 – Day Eight – Budapest
Last day of the holiday and I was glad we weren’t getting the Manchester flight as that would have required a very early start since the coach was leaving the boat at 04:30! As we weren’t due to leave until 14:30 we had the rest of the morning to explore. We had decided on a …
Danube 2023 – Day Seven – Budapest
The weather certainly has been variable on this trip. We started the week in macs and ended it in tee shirts and shades. It has been beautiful today, hot and sunny, leaving its mark on the top of my head. As Uber is banned here in Budapest we used local taxis via the Bolt app …
Danube 2023 – Day Five – Bratislava
Almost every aspect of being on the river cruise boat has been wonderful with the exception of the temperature onboard – which has been boiling. The cruise director, in one of her regular talks, explained that the “ship had thought that it was winter” as if it was some sort of sentient being rather than …
Danube 2023 – Day Four – Vienna
Having been to Vienna a couple of times before we were able to quickly build an itinerary of places to visit with my parents. To do this we had decided to take the hop-on, hop-off bus – the only problem was that there was some confusion as to where the bus actually went from. We …
Danube 2023 – Day Three – Melk and Weissenkirchen
We’d traveled overnight from Linz further down the Danube to the small town of Melk. I’m told that we passed through a lock at midnight but I slept through that. I’m hoping that we pass through one in the daylight as they really are a sight to behold. Melk We’d not been to Melk before …
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