As a four-decade Licensed Journey Agent, worldwide airline worker, researcher, author, instructor, and photographer, journey, whether or not for pleasure or enterprise functions, has at all times been a major and an integral a part of my life. Some 400 journeys to each portion of the globe, via highway, rail, sea, and air, entailed locations each mundane and unique. This text focuses on these in Europe.
Eire:
Eire, the emerald inexperienced isle, was additionally visited on various events, and its sights included Trinity School, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Phoenix Park in Dublin. A Glens of Antrim itinerary included Belfast; Ballycastle, Dunluce Fort; the Outdated Bushmills Distillery; the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge; and the Big’s Causeway, which was comprised of volcanic hexagonal basalt columns, all in Northern Eire.
Morning tea within the Marine Lodge in Ballycastle included scones, butter, jam, whipped cream, and pots of the tea itself, and lunch within the Royal Court docket Lodge featured recent fruit; a topside of beef, gravy, horseradish, a pastry cup, roasted potatoes, boiled potatoes, carrots, and cabbage; strawberry and kiwi pavlova with whipped cream and strawberry sauce; espresso; and chocolate mints.
Nice Britain:
Nice Britain accounted for quite a few, multiple-mode journeys to its three England, Scotland, and Wales divisions and a number of other of the British Isles.
Sightseeing in London encompassed all of its very symbols, together with the Parliament, Huge Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, the Jewel Home, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Quantity Ten Downing Avenue (the official residence of the English Prime Minister). Buckingham Palace, the altering of the Guard, a cruise on the River Thames, the Nationwide Maritime Museum in Greenwich, the Cutty Sark, the Royal Naval School, and the Greenwich Observatory, the place Greenwich Imply Time was decided.
A keep on the Hansel and Gretel Lodge in London, whose fairytale served as its ornament theme with gingerbread and witches’ brooms within the eating room, included a every day English breakfast of eggs, bacon, and racks of toast.
Southampton was a frequent pre- and post-cruise and -crossing port of embarkation and disembarkation.
Scotland protection included Glasgow, Greenock, South Queensferry, and Edinburgh, the latter with visits to its New City, the Outdated City, the twelfth century medieval Edinburgh Fort, and the Royal Mile.
The prehistoric archaeological website of Skara Brae, courting from 3,000 BC, he Skaill Home, the Ring of Brogar, Scapa Movement, and Kirkwall have been all explored within the Orkney Islands north of Scotland.
A narrow-gauge rail journey threaded its method via Snowdonia Nationwide Park in Wales.
Journey to Guernsey, one of many Channel Islands, accounted for sightseeing to St. Peter Port, Sausmarez Manor, and an island drive that took in St. Martin’s Parish, St. Pierre du Bois, Rocquaine Bay, St. Saviors Parish, Reservoir, Little Chapel, and St. Andrew Parish.
Scandinavia:
Quite a few journeys have been made to the 4 Scandinavian nations of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden in Continental Europe.
Denmark:
Denmark, the primary of them, noticed each strolling and motor coach excursions of Copenhagen’s vital sights, together with the Radhuspladsen or Metropolis Corridor; Nyhaven or New Haven, a canal lined with colourful 18th-century homes and loved on a ship cruise; Christiansborg Palace, Rosenborg Fort, Amalienborg Palace, the famed Little Mermaid, the Ny Carlsberg Glyypotek artwork museum, the pedestrian-only Stroget buying avenue, the Spherical Tower, and Tivoli Gardens.
A ferry created distance from Copenhagen to the island of Funen, its metropolis of Odense serving because the gateway to the Hans Christian Andersen Home, the Hans Christian Andersen Museum, the Manor Home, a Danish Nation Church, a Danish Farm, and the Oak Forest Fort.
Copenhagen hotel-included breakfasts at all times featured wienerbrod, or Danish pastries, and a smorgasbord fats the central railroad station entailed greater than 60 dishes, from appetizers to dessert.
Finland:
Coated in mild snow, Helsinki, an in a single day cease on an easterly international circumnavigation flight, entailed sightseeing of its Market Sq., its Helsinki Cathedral, its Railway Station, and rock-built Temppeliaukio Church.
Excessive costs necessitated “vacationer fixes” of crusty baguettes and comfortable cheese for breakfast bought within the bakery across the nook from the resort and smoked salmon for lunch eaten within the airport earlier than departure to Tokyo.
Norway:
A cruise via the Norwegian Fjords, solely a prelude of what was to later come, proved a spotlight to Oslo, together with visits to the Fram Home, which contained the restored, fully-rigged ship that undertook each North and South Pole expeditions, the Kon-Tiki Museum, the Norwegian Folks Museum, Viigeland Sculpture Park (dubbed humanity on this planet’s largest sculpture park), the Viking Ships Museum, the Holmenkollen Ski Soar as soon as used within the Olympics, Stortovet Cathedral, the Flower Market, the Royal Palace, and Akershus Fortress, a medieval fort in Oslo that was constructed to supply a royal residence within the metropolis.
Intensive protection of the Norwegian Fjords was additionally made.
From Olden, sights included Kjonesfjorden, the valley; Undeelva, the glacier-fed river; Tverrfjellet, the mountain throughout the highway; Ostedal Glacier, Northern Europe’s largest; the Norsk Bremuseum, the Norwegian Glacier Heart; Jostedal Glacier, from a second vantage level; the Julestova Christmas Store; the Audhild Vikers Verstove; and Nordfjorden.
A sometimes Norwegian buffet lunch, served within the Skei Lodge within the city of the identical identify, included smoked salmon with mustard sauce, egg salad, potato salad, and skinny, crispy Norwegian flat bread; gratinated fish, roasted potatoes, lasagna, and darkish Norwegian goat cheese; and chocolate flan, Norwegian rice pudding, and recent raspberries.
From Flam, a drive to Stalheim on the Stalheimskleiva Highway, Europe’s steepest with 13 hairpin turns, preceded a cease on the Stalheim Lodge for flaky apple, raisin, and nut Danish pastries coated with maple syrup and served with tea, earlier than continuation to the ski resort city of Voss to see the Tvinde Waterfall. A lunch buffet within the Lodge Voss itself, which included smoked salmon and smoked trout; a salad of lettuce, cucumber, Norwegian cheese, and Russian dressing; French bread; a meatloaf patty, frikadeller, and boiled potatoes; chocolate flan and caramel custard; and occasional, grew to become the prelude to a rail experience from Voss to Myrdal on the Bergen Railway after which a switch to the well-known Flam Railway, which pursued it mountain-hugging, tunnel-boring, 886-meter observe descent. A go to to the Kjosfossen Waterfall alongside the best way and a go to to the Flam Railway Museum at its terminus capped the unimaginable day of experiences.