Return to Europe (in style)

[VPS]

Really enjoying the photos, I think Strasbourg has entered my 'want to visit' list. Looks lovely!

Well worth a visit

 

[RooFlyer]

Come on! He’s on a holiday! Encore le Riesling s'il vous plaît!

Blood oath, Narelle

 

[bPeteb]

I'm Accor Gold (via QFF). Welcome amenities were:
* usual 2 drink vouchers
* ice bucket with 4 cans of Sydney Brewery beers
* 2 small muesli-type bars
* packet of chips
* usual 2 bottles of water

and a 5 line welcome note. Nice.

View attachment 324738

I'm sure I didn't get this much with Accor gold before? When we checked in to Peppers on Maggie on Saturday we found a really good cheese platter in the fridge, muesli bars and two .5% beers and a hand written card. Agree RF, nice. Plus the drink vouchers and water of course

 

[craven morehead]

Agreed, I'm Accor+ Diamond and don't get this many treats

 

[RooFlyer]

TKWIA

 

[MARTINE]

TKWIA

Are you disguished as Boris Johnson?

 

[Quickstatus]

@RooFlyer
How long did it take to clear LHR formalities (international arrivals)

 

[luckypierre]

@RooFlyer
How long did it take to clear LHR formalities (international arrivals)

We arrived LHR last Tuesday 2/5 from ZRH approx 830 am and cleared customs immigration via the smart gates in about 15 minutes. Seemed less busy than what I can remember a few years ago.

 

[RooFlyer]

@RooFlyer
How long did it take to clear LHR formalities (international arrivals)

Arrived T5 (via a bus) - very few people in the arrivals hall at 8:30am on a week day; walked straight up to the scanners in business/first area, but my new passport didn't work in the scanners (again), so walked to a manual desk. Couple of minute wait behind 1 other person then no probs. So 5-10 mins, max. If not for second process, would have been virtually walk straight through.

 

[RooFlyer]

Destination today was the Holiday Inn Express - Kriens in suburban Lucerne, via Evian les Bains by Lac Lemont.




Lac Lemont from Evian les Bains (quick lunch)





HIEX Krians was basicplace. I was offered an upgrade to a 'mountain view' room, but I declined in favour of a quiet room down the side.





The mountain view - it disappeared quickly!



Parking was in a Parkhaus across the road. You also get a day pass on the local trains with the room. The train station is a few minutes walk away, with Lucerne central the second stop away, so that works really well. I made a trip into the city shortly after I arrived, but it was rainy, so retreated fairly quickly.

The hotel's restaurant appeared not to be functional, so I ate at a Balkan restaurant a minutes walk away (there is also a good cafe and a minimart very close). "Jacks cevap place'. Cevap being Balkan snags etc. With a beer, pretty nice.

 

[RooFlyer]

First stop off the train was the Kapellbrücke (Chapel Bridge). First built abt 1360, its the oldest covered wooden bridge in Europe - except, it was mostly destroyed by fire in 1993, so most of what you see, including the well-known triangular paintings is mostly a recreation. I'll have to compare with my parents pics when I get home. The 'water tower' is a bit older than the bridge, and still original.









A bit downstream is the Spreuerbrücke (Spreuer Bridge), finished in 1408 and still original since being rebuilt in 1566 after a flood. The triangular paintings are the largest known example of a 'Totentanz cycle' and 45 of the original67 paintings survive. The Reuss River turns to rapids here and there is a small run-of-river hydro plant.

Looking downstream



The Spreuer Bridge

 

[RooFlyer]

From the river, this chap beckons you from a tower up the hill



He's atop one of the nine towers along the 800m surviving of the Musegg Wall, the old city wall up on the hill. Pretty easy to walk along







The funicular opposite



Climbed the tower Männliturm (little man) (natch) and great views







Walking back to the train station

 

[RooFlyer]

Then onto Zurich airport, via touching Liechtenstein - sort of like a status run, but this is a country-run. #95.



Sunny day, zoomed through some glorious countryside. In a former life did some investment banking business in Switzerland, and a few places I passed brough back wry memories - Zug especially, home to Glencore a huge mining/trading company. They used to send a chauffeured black Merc, with tinted windows, to ZRH to pick us up and drop us off afterwards - and no doubt to listen in on out post-meeting conversations conversations.



A lot of the Alps I saw that day reminded me very much of the Rockies. The Walensee, like Peyto Lake in Alberta





The houses on the far side, left in the above pic



Mountains near there, much like the Rundles at Canmore at the beginning of the Banff National Park






And thrust faults, exactly like at Banff (fault planes = the slopes upper L to lower R, parallel to bedding). Fabulous stuff.

 

[RooFlyer]

Vaduz (population 6,000) is the capital of Liechtenstein and winds itself up a steep mountain slope.



If anyone wants a hotel there, the Hotel Oberland is in about the middle of the settlement in the above pic, and where I took most of the pics below. Switzerland is over the river and off to the left.





How would you like views like these places?

 

[RooFlyer]

Back to ZRH, returned car and caught the 'hotel bus' to the Movenpick. An older place, in the 'V' between runways, so not totally devoid of noise, but OK. I again declined an upgrade in favour of a room with a quiet aspect.







Floor tiles you can admire and contemplate





A long drive and the Accor welcome drink voucher was put to quick good use.



Of course there is nothing nearby, so dinner in the 'Chalet' restaurant of the hotel and it was quite OK. Spring asparagus menu, but I went the traditional - tomato gazpacho soup and 'farmer' rosti

 

[RooFlyer]

Up early the next morning for my 7:15 am BA flight to LHR. Shuttle bus from the Movenpick took abt 10 mins. Check-in almost deserted.



You have to scan your BP to enter security area; a Biz/First queue and a whY one. At the x-rays, Biz had abt 10 people in front of me and I cleared security in about 5 mins. whY had a fair few people, but you wouldn't have been shocked to join the queue.



BA biz offer the Aspire lounge and from it, you can see the entry to the security area. Within 10 mins of me arriving in the lounge, 15 mins after I cleared security, the whole security area was jammed with pax, flowing out well beyond the scanning points. This queue grew to abt 50 pax outside the scanning area. Oddly, it occasionally quickly cleared and then banked up again.



The Aspire Lounge was decidedly uninspiring, and very disappointing for a BA lounge at an airport like ZRH.





So I decided to wander towards the gate early. Hmmmm ... E67 - I'll just follow the signs. Well, E67 was the gate most distant from the lounge. This is where I ended up, with he lounge at about the bed symbol in the terminal arc. The Movenpick is where the blue 'direction' symbol is.



It involved 3 or 4 escalators down, passport control and a subway ride - none of which I was told about at check-in (the gate didn't change).



There is even an Aspire lounge at the remote terminal; again, I should have been directed straight there. I ended up at the gate just 5 mins before boarding was called. And of course the gate agent really didn't have a clue how to scan BPs. Honestly, he faffed about and faffed about with the first one, until his colleague opened up the other scanner to get things going!

 

[RooFlyer]

ZRH-LHR BA709, A319, seat 3A, dep on time 7:15 am arr LHR 7:55am local, 10 mins early, but we parked at a remote stand and waited 15 mins for a bus to show up.

Euro-business; I know, a waste of money but not really, it was part of the overall SQ fare, so didn't cost extra.





Pulling out of ZRH, fabulous view of the alps





And wow - pre-range foreland tectonic hills, again, just like the Rockies between Calgary and the range-front leading to Banff.



"English breakfast'. I was starving after abandoning the Aspire lounge early.



Fields of canola in France



Descending over Windsor, and marquees etc for the Coronation events - the Concert area immediately in front of the castle, and parade area beyond that.

 

[RooFlyer]

Picked up my Avis car. Was offered an upgrade but I declined again - I didn't want a bigger one, more expensive to drive and harder to park, but this was a mistake. I got a horrid little Vauxhall something, no reversing camera and no sensors! Clutch with about a foot of give so you never knew when you'd get traction. How do you reverse park without a camera??

Anyway, I headed west. In England this time, its a tour of the grand cathedrals: Winchester, Wells, Lichfield, Durham, York, Lincoln and Ely. (Done Westminster before!) Plus a few stops to see friends - and the Coronation on TV on the following Saturday.

Today is first stop Winchester, before visiting an old friend in Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, then calling in on Avebury henge before ending up at Wells.



Going a bit out of sequence, as I haven't downloaded the cathedral pics yet.

I did detailed family history for many years and one of my lines came from Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire. 'Machine Breakers' - men who protested about the industrial revolution in the 1830s by going about breaking threshing and other machines that were putting them out of jobs. Got arrested and shipped off, pronto!

When I was there maybe 15 years ago I met a lovely lady who know a lot of the history of the area and we've stayed in touch. She's now quite 'senior' so I just had to visit her and I'm so glad I did.



Coronation coming up!



Her place just lovely.





And, just what I was hoping for - lardy cake!! Wikipedia: A traditional English tea bread popular in country areas in England. It is made from plain bread dough which is enriched with sticky sweet lard and sugar and as well as dried fruit and mixed spices.

Just yum. We had a piece each with tea and I was sent away with the rest.

 

[RooFlyer]

Winchester Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun is at Winchester, about an hour west of LHR. Its one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in northern Europe and the longest. The first church in the area of the cathedral built in about 648 and this became an Anglo-Saxon cathedral. Expansion and duplication occurred in the 900s. After William the Conqueror became King, a new cathedral was built adjacent to the old pair and completed by 1100, incorporating many of the tombs and relicts of the previous churches/cathedrals. This makes up the core of the present cathedral.

The Catholic priory of the cathedral surrendered to Henry VIII in 1539 after the 'dissolution of the monasteries'. Some disrepair occurred after that, but restoration occurred under the Victorians and another major cleaning and restoration project occurred in the 2010s.

Notes here from history leaflets from the Cathedral, supplemented by Wikipedia (sorry - its convenient!)

West facade





Vaulting of the nave





Presbytery vault:





Choir stalls and screen



The wooden fan vault under the Norman tower, 1600s.





The reredos and Great Screen, dating from the 1400s

 

[RooFlyer]

Jane Austin has a memorial here





Roof of one of the chapels







These are neat. 'Mortuary chests' , with the remains, amongst others of King Canute, King Egbert and Alfred the Great. They were thought to have been moved from the original Anglo-Saxon cathedrals to the new Norman one in the 1000s and put into chests. However action during the English Civil war severely disturbed the chests, and the bones were put back haphazardly into the various chests.





Many memorials and tombs of various worthies



This shows the surviving Norman tower and the North Transept to the left