Berchtesgaden

Monday 14 August 2000. We are startled awake on the first morning of our stay in Austria. Is it an avalanche? Is it the jangle of cowbells from the cattle on the hills? Is it the yodelling of a herdsman high on the hills above Schüttdorf?

No... it's the church bells of this church directly opposite our window! It started at 6:00am with four bongs for the hour then six bongs for the time then every 15 minutes, a bong for each quarter hour, i.e. one bong at quarter past the hour, two bongs at half past and three bongs at quarter to the hour. Hence the four bongs at six o'clock denoting the hour had been reached then another six bongs for six o'clock. At 7:00am the bell ringer took out all of his frustrations on yet another bell... After four for the hour and seven for the time, he rang out three sets of twenty bongs presumably to call people for morning prayer. There was a bit of moaning at breakfast from some sleepy tourists, though I always take the view that if you travel in foreign climes you don't start off by complaining about their traditions.

This was our hotel: the Pinzgauhof in Shüttdorff. I learned another important fact to bear in mind when using a back-to-front toilet (see first article in this series). Gentlemen with dangly bits should stand before flushing as the jet of water slides everything behind you forwards. A collision can be traumatic...

Ok, first excursion time. It took a while to find the coach - Driver John told us to look for and go down an alley. He must have had a different definition of an alley to me! They must be a lot bigger in Kent and Essex to Lancashire... The coach had brought holidaymakers on two trips. The other was a walking holiday so the coach had a few spare seats! We allowed ourselves to spread out a bit.

First stop was Berchtesgaden for which we crossed back into Germany - Bavaria. We hadn't brought any German money out with us (this was before the Euro came in), not realising that we were going to be leaving Austria but in the event it didn't matter as we shall see.

From here you could take an optional extra trip to see Hitler's wartime bunker which is nearby - just about where the von Trapps would have been arrested had they really attempted to walk over the mountains as depicted in The Sound of Music. We opted to look around the town. Wartime coal storage bins hold no interest for me...

Picturesque views were on all sides! Each house or hotel had its own colour scheme for the flowers and we seldom saw two the same next to each other. We saw many roadside shrines and some buildings also had saintly figures cast in relief on walls or corners or over porches.

Fran and I on the hill overlooking the lower part of the town and with a splendid backdrop of mountains. It was now getting towards lunch!

We went into a cafe and, apologising for my terrible German, I asked if Austrian schillings were acceptable. I was pleased when without even a flinch the proprietess answered back in German that they were. She turned out to speak excellent English, as did her staff. So, as she had answered me in German, I presumed I must have got it right!

We had a light snack then went berserk and undid all the good dietary self-denial with a slice of apfel strudel with ice cream. Iss gute... iss fielen gute!

Then feeling suitably guilty we had an urge to walk it off! We had another quick turn around the town and then decided that we had enough time to venture a bit further.

As the coach had come into the town earlier, the road went alongside one of the wonderfully clear pastel blue-green rivers. The river had passed under a covered bridge - just about unknown in England - and I fancied a photo of it. The hill was steeper and longer than I had thought! However, we made it down to the bottom and just look at the colour of that wonderfully pure meltwater from high in the Alps. Then back up to the coach in time where we fondly imagined - wrongly - that we had made up for the apple strudel...

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A Day in Perth, Scotland

Wednesday 21 June 2023. We are on a coach holiday in the Scottish Highlands. "Beautiful Trossachs" someone said - I knew I shouldn't have worn that kilt in the wind...

Today we were to spend the day in Perth. The church is St John's Kirk - kirk being the Gaelic for church.

High Street. Perth Theatre is No.185, but this is now the rear entrance as the theatre address is Mill Street on the next street running parallel. It was opened in 1909 and extended in 1980.

In 2016 the extension was demolished and rebuilt and the entrance moved to Mill Street opposite the theatre's sister venue, Perth Concert Hall.

Also on High Street, lower down towards the River Tay is this cafe with an imaginative use of flowers. I'm not sure whether they were real or artificial but they do look good.

Between Nos. 13-15, an alleyway of 1699 with a dated pediment with carved head and the initials of RG (Robert Graham) and EC (Elizabeth Cunningham).

We walked down to the River Tay. This view is looking down Tay Street and the river itself is to our left. The church is St Matthew, 1871.

Smeaton's Bridge, aka the Old Bridge or in local dialect: the Auld Brig. A bridge had existed earlier but was demolished in 1621 and ferryboats had to be used until the construction of this bridge 1766-1771.

Having passed underneath the bridge via a pathway that dipped below road level, we came out to some gardens.

I started this sketch of St John's Kirk from the photograph seen earlier whilst we were sitting in the lounge one night. It didn't get finished until a fair few days after we got back and is pencil crayon over pencil drawing in the A4 sketch book.

Coming back to the hotel we stopped at Queen's View, a viewpoint over Loch Tummel that Queen Victoria had visited with Prince Albert. It was apparently on this trip that Albert decided to buy Balmoral.

Before starting the sketch of Perth, I finished the pencil sketch started the previous night of the view of Loch Tummel from the front lawn of the hotel.

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Off To Austria in Winter

Friday 25 January 2002. Well, we've never done this before! We are setting off to have a holiday in Austria - in winter! Yes: January, cold, snow, rain, sleet, blizzards, ice, breath steaming in the freezing air - and that's just the early morning wait for the coach...

Friday is spent driving south down the motorways, occasionally nipping off sideways and picking up other freezing passengers, then rejoining the road south until we come to Dover, where we exchange the feeder coach for our main tour coach and get onto the ferry for the crossing to Calais.

Suitably garbed in hat - er... Miss Franny, has yours blown away in the wind? It's proper chilly on deck and as can be guessed from Miss Franny's hair - er... me, has yours blown away in the wind? - there's a howling gale blowing. Sod this for a lark, we're going below!

England slips away behind us, the rest of us just slip as the ferry rolls about. Only one thing to do at a time like this - eat! Never let a tilting floor put you off!

It's slightly foggy off the coast of England anyway and, as it's only January, it's inclined to go dark early still, so there's not a lot of scenery - not even as much as there usually is - in the middle of the English Channel!

By the time we come into Calais, it is getting dark. It's raining and very windy, especially when looking forward towards the port down the side of the ship. As soon as I stuck my head around from the shelter of the ship's structure the wind whipped tears into my eyes.

Then we were off and away towards Liege for the night. Our two drivers introduced themselves as George - a Geordie whose mobile phone played The Blaydon Races and Jock, a Scot whose phone alternated between Auld Lang Syne and Scotland the Brave! The last time we went to Austria we had two excellent drivers both with a great sense of humour, but these two were equally as good and had the whole coach in stitches throughout the holiday. The main journey down through Luxemburg and Germany to Austria would be tomorrow. Meanwhile the Belgian autobhans had a few surprises for us.

Fran and I were on the second row of seats - probably the best to have in a coach as there is not a lot of leg room on the front seats. Suddenly there was an intake of breath from Jock who was driving and a wheel - on its own - rolled across the roadway in front of us from right to left, coming from a looming exit slip road. Traffic slowed down apart from a BMW in the fast lane who simply drove smack into it at around 100 miles per hour. The tyre disappeared and the whole of his bonnet was stoved in. He slowed but I don't think he'd even realised what had happened. It took around 15 seconds for the tyre to come down - he must have knocked it straight up. Luckily it hit empty road and bounced away safely to the verge. The BMW pulled eventually onto the hard shoulder and we saw the damage to the front as we drove past. The photo was taken from our hotel room in Liege.

Saturday, 26 January 2002. After a night at the Post Hotel, Liege, we enjoyed a cooked breakfast. We sat opposite a couple of ladies who were both travelling alone. Sheila was from Whitby and Diane from Cardiff. We made friends and stayed together for meals and at times out on excursions throughout the week. We saw what seemed like a horrendous number of crashes on the way down to Austria, though thankfully only the afternaths and not the events like last night. Most were where cars or lorries had gone off to hit either the central barrier or went off the side of the road. We must have seen 10 such incidents during the day.

Eventually we arrive at the Mariasteinerhof hotel in the Austrian Tirol village of Mariastein. We sat with Sheila and Diane for a welcome meal but when waitresses started carrying it in at the far end of the room Fran said, "It looks like a pile of mash with a fried egg on top!" And indeed it was. Several guests started to complain, greatly upsetting the hotel manageress. Apparently it is considered a favourite dish in Austria and she had thought we would be appreciative of this. To be honest after two days travelling it did us very well! Sheila insisted on paying for a glass of wine for us all but could not make the waitress understand. I cut in with "für alle bitte," at which she (the waitress) said, "Ah!" and took the correct money. "That was impressive!" said Sheila, looking at me.

Return to Austria in Winter 2002 Index

Travel to France

It's Friday 28 May 1999. Ugh! What's this??? 4:30am and we are tumbling out of bed to get down to Blackpool Tower to be picked up by a feeder coach taking us to Dover to catch the ferry to Calais. The majority of the photos on this holiday were taken on a very early digital camera and the quality may be not quite as pristine as I would normally like! We are on a weekend trip with Leger Coach Tours to Paris and the Palace of Versailles.

We got to Blackpool Tower a bit early for the coach and crossed to sit on a bench on the Prom. This at 5:30am! A family came and stood in the lay-by, then a couple and we stayed on the Prom until the bus came and then got on still half asleep after the others had got on. Then we made a few more stops to pick people up and then motored south, stopping for breakfast on the motorway.

As we stood in the queue for breakfast Fran said "I know that woman!" and the couple who had been picked up in Blackpool turned out to be one of Fran's work colleagues and her husband! One of the feeder coaches had missed someone and had had to go back for them, so many of the tours including our own had to wait for them to get back to Dover. Above we see the coach interchange where the coaches line up in order - each tour is numbered - and luggage and passengers transfer from their pick-up coach to their tour coach before the crossing to France.

Miss Franny's not looking too happy here and this is before the ferry had even moved away from the dock! I knew I shouldn't have taken her to see Titanic at the cinema... In the background a P&O ferry, freshly arrived from Calais, prepares to reverse into its docking bay. A couple of floors below us, the trickle of cars and wagons onto the ferry has stopped and preparations are being made to cast off. Miss Franny is probably contemplating whether she wants to eat or do a little reversing herself...

The ramps are lifted and the water churns as the ferry slowly pulls away from the dock, the land, and England. This will be our first visit to mainland Europe and our first to a country that speaks a different language to us. I won't call it a foreign language because this time it will be us that are the foreigners!

We stood along with a few of our fellow passengers at the ship's rail, feeling the hitherto unknown sway of a ship larger than the local boating pond rowing boat and staring at the receding line of Dover cliffs, wondering whether we would make it across the 20 odd miles of mountainous seas, crowded navigation ways or whether we might be struck by the kraken or plucked from the deck by a giant octopus, only to be half drowned then stung by thousands of irate jellyfish... It were proper boring in th'end though...

Even Miss Franny decided it was calm enough to risk eating something and by the time we re-emerged onto the deck, Calais was only a short surf, swim or jet-ski away.

We were herded back onto the coaches - "Shep, come by...". Once off the ferry, our courier for the weekend boarded the coach and introduced himself as Vallaire. Hailing from Belgium, he kept up a steady patter throughout the weekend and ensured that we knew what it was we were looking at. We motored south through France, staring at all the countryside and wondering where they hid the towns...

We still had a spell in the coach before us, and it was to be gone midnight by the time we reached our hotel in Bougival. We stopped for a break at a rest stop and I tried out my French for the first time since school almost! All went well happily and although Miss Franny ended up with a toastie instead of a sandwich I felt good that I had managed to avoid having to call on the staff's knowledge of the English language - which would have undoubtedly been better than my French!

Return to Paris and Versailles 1999 Index

Niederau, Achensee and Tratzburg Castle

Sunday, 10 August 2003. It was our first full day in Austria for this trip and we are booked on an excursion to Lake Achensee and Tratzburg Castle.

Our coach is picking up from our sister hotel, the Schonnschein or "Sunshine" hotel. We were first meeting our holiday rep here before the trip, to take up or otherwise any optional outings.

There is only one day we don't fancy which would be our last day. I start to plan an outing for that day and then it's time to get on the coach for today's trip. We travel through some typical Tyrolean landscapes. Many of the buildings have large stores of wood for burning fuel over the winter. Some have sheds, others pile it around the house for added avalanche protection.

I thought at the time that we had been to Achensee before, during our 2000 trip. But that had been Königsee. So I didn't recognise anything particularly!

It was quite dull when we arrived but before long the sun came out, turning the lake a bright and beautiful turquoise colour and raising everyone's spirits.

We heard the deep note of a diesel engine and turned to see the arrival of the Nostalgia Bus. This was a regular service and although our schedule didn't allow us to go for a ride on it, it was worthy of a closer look.

The driver was in full traditional dress, complete with lederhosen, leather shorts.

Then it was back to our own bus for the trip to Tratzburg Castle. This was taken from our moving coach so is a little blurred. Unfortunately no photography is allowed inside.

Outside though was the mangled wreckage of a car. Maybe you had been wondering from a previous comment why the Austrians might need to stack wood against their buildings in case of avalanche? This is why. The damage to the car was caused by something slightly larger and weightier than a snowball...

We arrive back at Niederau following our tour and the coach driver is good enough to drop off the Schonnschein guests and then carry on up the hill to our hotel. The local pony club is setting off for a late afternoon ride.

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A Weekend in Amsterdam, 2001

A set of articles covering our long weekend trip to Amsterdam with Leger Coaches in 2001.

Each article can be accessed by clicking/tapping the seven photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.

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