The Big Smoke!

They say 'variety is the spice of life' so, after all the remote and far away places we've visited, we find ourselves enjoying London and all it has to offer.

Ian is spending 2 days in the dungeons of the Natural History Museum researching turtles while I'm happy exploring above ground. At the Natural History Museum I visited the 'wild garden' exhibit, a fabulous installation of different wild environs, including heaths, meadows, woodlands, reed beds and a pond. It is surreal to find these wild places right in the middle of London.

We got a private room in the youth hostel I stayed in 37 years ago. 21st century youth hostels are a different beast from what they were in 1980. Gone are the sleeping bags, memberships and dingy shared bath rooms, replaced by all the services of a hotel, including breakfast, free wifi and a cafe. All this within walking distance of all central London has to offer. Ian walks to the museum, a bit like going to work, whilst I revisit Knightsbridge, Regent and Carnaby streets, parks and galleries.

At a visit to the V&A, I secured tickets to the Pink Floyd exhibition currently on. We go there tonight after 'museum' work - I think they must have known Ian was coming 😂

The 'wild garden' at the NHM.

The Natural History Museum dungeon

The Ritz.

Watching Nadal's epic fight at the Local.

Pink Floyd

And then it rained ☔️☔️☔️ time to go to Bali 🌴☀️🌴

Not too old for 'Red Eye' travel...?

Surfing the net for last minute connections, I came across ludicrously cheap fares, like Düsseldorf - London, by coach through the Euro tunnel, for mere €25, so we thought we'd give it a try.

We travelled from Münchberg to Düsseldorf overnight as well, so arrived with eyes already red.

Spent the day exploring Düsseldorf, as the coach to London was not leaving until 10 pm. Visited a fabulous market in the 'Altstadt' and soon realised that products sold in Peruvian markets for sheer survival, were dressed up & sanitised to appeal to the trendy, gourmet cooks; the world-economy is grossly imbalanced.

Back to our 'Red-eye' experiment - it all started well enough however after hour 3 or 4 the seats became increasingly uncomfortable. We also learned that long-distance coaches are the preferred choice of travel for the unfortunate and some very shady characters indeed, as security scanning of luggage does not happen for coaches. This meant that the passport controls on the Belgian and UK borders can only be described as midnight cattle musters. They did however weed out some suspect travellers who were refused entry into the UK. 

ALSO - the driver stopped just before the borders and police and some very vicious-looking police dogs descended on the coach. It seems that at an earlier stop a stow-away snuck into the luggage compartment of the coach, hoping to get into the UK without papers. It is confronting to experience the desperate wretchedness of people face-to-face. All was sorted by the security system and we eventually arrived at Victoria Station around 7:30am.

Are we too old for the 'Red-Eye' experience?...me thinks so and we're unlikely to do it again. Looking forward to our lovely little hire car for the next 2 weeks 🚗🚙🚗🚙

 

 

 

           

Europe - an interesting start!

After our Peru adventure came to a close, with everything going like clock-work, it was a bit of a shock when everything seemed to go wrong with our planned entrance to Europe. We seemed to have been sucked into a never-ending vortex or planes, departure lounges and trains.

Here is how the 3 day nightmare unfolded.

Friday:

Got picked up at the hotel in Lima by our pre-arranged taxi to take us to the airport. What was meant to take 30 minutes, took 1 and a half hours, at the end of which the previously perfectly reasonable driver pretended to have no change and, because we were late, had to kiss goodbye to 100 Soles.

On the plane, we noticed that they allocated seats at different parts of the plane - for an 11 hour flight- Iberia Airlines.

Saturday:

Madrid's airport terminals are a train ride apart and the individual gates miles apart. When we finally got to our gate for the Swiss Air flight to Geneva, I realised that I left my hand-knitted jacket on the plane. Madrid Aiport's lost & found department is only open 10-12 noon, Monday to Friday, so all I could do is open a lost & found case via email, but I don't hold out much hope 😩 Then the Geneva flight was announced as delayed and then I was notified via email that it was altogether cancelled. At 11 o'clock we were floundering around the airport trying to find a Swiss Air representative and finally stumbled on one who then put us up for the night in a hotel. Some consolation for the hotel booking I had to let go in Geneva. Managed to get the train ride from Geneva to Stuttgart refunded and was told that they would rebook our flights - got to bed after 1am.

Sunday:

They rebooked our flight to Geneva for 6:55 am via (would you believe) London, so up we got at 4 am to get this flight, so far so good. London's transfer to Geneva seem to go alright, although we were again at different parts of the plane, even though I asked to sit together - British Airways.

All seemed good, out we go to the runway and wait and wait - message from captain saying they have an extra piece of luggage on board and we will need to go back to gate to sort it out. Back to the gate we go - another hour - then we had to wait for them to refuel as we burnt off too much waiting - another hour. When we finally got to Geneva I was going to find another hotel, but the fast train connection was so convenient, we started our train ride through Switzerland. We finally rolled into Stuttgart Station at 9pm, having had all of 3 hours sleep for the last 3 days. I was very, very happy to see Gaby at the station. 

 

...all that was left to do is drink ...

Geneva 

  

 

      

Finally...Stuttgart - at 9 pm

 

     

Aichtal garden