Scotland

So, we arrived in Scotland refreshed after an overnight trip from London on the Caledonian Sleeper and were met, as promised, by the lady from the rental car place. This was our first visit to the "true highlands" and what better way than to drive slap bang right   through the middle up past Loch Ness to the Highland's capital, Inverness. This area had also featured in one of the canal journeys in a series on TV with Timothy West and Prunella Scales. It is a pleasant drive with plenty of great scenery along he way.

Urquart Castle on the shore of Loch Ness

No monsters were encountered along the way unless one counts roadworks and slow drivers.
What we had failed to realise was the fact that this was mid term break for the schools and this increased the road hazards tenfold but it also reduced the available accommodation to almost zero, nothing was showing up on "Bookings.com". Fortunately we encountered an hotel without a "No Vacancies" sign as we drove along and so we were soon sitting in the bar enjoying a pre-dinner drink. The following morning we headed down the coast where it was our intention of catching the ferry across to Mull, but "oh noo ye canna doo that we are fully booked for the weekend, sorry". Never mind the west coast of Scotland offers plenty of other sights for us tourists so off we went in search of them. Well we had a brilliant time and didn't regret a moment of it.

I just couldn't resist these reflections

An Ex Scotland Yard Flying Squad car. It's roof was made six inches higher to accommodate the policemen's helmets...It's a Lagonda.

The highlight, though was the drive to Mallaig and our driver's guide to scenic Scotland encouraged us to take the coastal road, which has been superseded by one of those flash new ones with the help of some EU money (I wonder what's going to happen after Brexit, if you listen to the Brits it is them who are paying for other EU roads and don't seem to realise that the reverse is also true.) We were heading north to Fort William and there was a sign showing the way to a ferry and Tom Tom seemed to encourage us to take it so we paid the few pounds ticket price and enjoyed the ten minute ride. Turn right for Mallaig the sign proclaimed, so why was everyone else turning left? Turn right we did however and enjoyed 40 miles of some of the best scenery so far, albeit from a narrow mainly one way road, at breakneck speeds sometimes getting over 30 mph. We met but two other cars along the way, it was marvelous. At the end of the sea loch we crossed a small isthmus back onto the mainland and soon were directed to the famed coastal route that we thought that we had just completed. Oh well never mind.

We had intended to catch the steam train which plies between Fort William and Mallaig and were a little disappointed when we found that it to had been booked by half term breakers some weeks ago. 

 We were not disappointed with what thew alternative had forced upon us. Mallaig, also, is a great little town but completely devoid of parking spaces for the casual traveler in need of a coffee or cup of tea. 

 More reflections.

Ma sheep (or is it Pa) keeping 

            an eye on us.

When we did stop for a cuppa on the way back, at a wee station and we were in time to see the steam excursion coming through.

Quaint wee station.

We were due in London around mid day the next day, but no worries the Caledonian sleeper seemed a particularly reliable, if a wee bit dated, train and was due in around 7 am so gives plenty of time to get from Euston to Paddington by cab and then the Heathrow express for terminal 3 and a leisurely book in with BA for a flight to Warsaw. Sure enough bang on at 18:50  we glided away from the platform and settled back for a quiet night. At 18:50.5 however we came to a graceful stop. 18:52 we were of again. 18:52.5 we stopped again. This went on a couple of more times until there was no more "we were off agains" and we sat there and sat there. We could feel the leeway that we had for our flight t Warsaw evaporating before our very eyes.

Eventually the guard knocks on our cabin door. "The locomotive is faulty and they are sending another""...about another hour " he added in response to out obvious question. He was a little out in this as we were away again within 15 minutes, " That'll be ok, only 1.5 hours late should make it to the plane on time if there are no more hold ups." Of course when a train is running late it misses its allocated slots fro signals etc. and has to take it's turn so this makes for a slower trip.

The Guard  turns up again, this time with a form for us to fill in. It seems that if your train is more than one hour late then you gets your money back....in full! Now all we had to do was to get to London in time to catch the train and it could be regarded as a good night's work. We did and so it was. By evening we were in Warsaw with a new group of traveling companions and a new set of expectations for what was ahead,  but that's another story.

Go Makos

All the best and take care

David

P.S. We have actually completed our tour of the Baltic and leave Helsinki for London his afternoon and so there are many more unwritten adventures to be narrated, keep tuned or the trash bin handy whatever your preference. I am a little bit behind with my ramblings but have faith. 

STOP PRESS - Breaking News

I interrupt this blog to bring you a breaking story from the Latvian capital Riga. 
We were been booked to stay in the Radisson Blu for two nights, this was one of a pair of upmarket hotels built in the closing stages of the Soviet occupation where foreigners were allowed to stay. Both were built with listening devices in all rooms and the KGB agents would be in their basement offices eavesdropping on the conversations of the unwary guests. Anyway, on our arrival, we noticed what seemed to be a heightened level of security and by the time we were returning  to our rooms post dinner there were several large men with shaven heads in suits with bulges where there should have been no bulges. Upstairs from our room and a door or two to the left sitting in the open door of a guest room one of these gentlemen sat throughout the night. Others were around the lifts etc. Now even I could work out that something was going on!
Next morning as we left our room for breakfast there was a strange chanting going on and it seemed the level of security had gone up another gear. Below in the foyer there were some hundreds of people lining the way in from the front door to the dining room. We were ushered around them into said dinning room and commenced our breakfast. No one seemed to have much idea what was happening, there were TV cameras, very near our table, and what appeared to be reporters. Soon people started standing and forming a reception line beside the tables in the dinning room and I asked one of the ladies what it was all about. It's the Dalai Lama she replied, he's coming through. Sure enough the great man arrived and people were getting into quite a frenzy trying to catch his eye. He reached put and touched a small girl and acknowledged a few others.

Many more lined up inside hoping for a glimpse 

The entourage made it's way to pass our table and stopped, the only one where he did so,  he reached out and briefly took my hand and then turned to Lee, held her hand and asked "Where are you from?" "New Zealand" She replied. "You were there a couple of years ago" I offered.  "Ah, New Zealand" said he. "Maybe you would like to come back." said she. He put his hand to his chest and said "I am too old and it is so far." With that he let go of Lee's hand and disappeared out through the door to where he was to have his own breakfast. I asked the TV camera man, tongue in cheek, if I could have a copy of the video. He gave me his card and said that if I Email him he will send me the link to the program. I did and so did he. As we left the breakfast room the lady who had first told us of what was happening stopped Lee and said that was the most amazing thing and that she must have real karma and wanted to hold the hand that had held the hand of the Dalai Lama, real celebrity stuff!

http://uudised.tv3.ee/eesti/uudis/2017/09/26/latis-loengut-pidanud-ja-opetusi-jaganud-dalai-laama-meelitas-kohale-tuhandeid-huvilisi

The program was due to be played next day in Estonia.







He was at the hotel for two nights and the security men never seemed to rest.

The way to the bus (that blue one at the end of the red carpet) was like going to the Oscars

The Dalai Lama's room top floor right hand door, our room next floor down left hand door.

It was great excitement all round and the topic of conversation on the bus for the next hour or so.

As we made our way around the beautiful Art Nouveau buildings later that morning we came across a small ooompah band playing, who claimed to have a piece in their repertoire from every country in the world. We had a few bars from Rule Britannia, the Mongolian national anthem, or some such, and then one of our party (an English friend, we are the only Kiwis) asked for a New Zealand piece and this is the result. It needs very high volume to hear it.

Po Kerikeri ana,   Latvian style.

Later that day we passed "The Kiwi Bar" and so it was a Kiwi day all round.

I just thought this a story worth telling as if I had to have a religion I think Buddhism would be the closest to my thinking.

Having told this story I have missed out our trip to Scotland and also that to Lithuania but I shall catch up. Today we catch the ferryboat from Riga to Helsinki so I may have a bit of time to catch up a little .

Not what you expect to come across in downtown Riga.

The KGB are probably worth a bit of a mention as they seem to come up time and again when our guides are talking to us. Their offices are regarded as being the highest place in the land as "you can see Siberia from there". In Estonian the mere possession of an Estonian flag was sufficient to be sent to the labour camps in Siberia. Only about 10% ever survived the experience. One guide told of her mother who had been rounded up for some indiscretion and was told to pack some food and clothes. She was a stubborn and proud woman and refused as she claimed they would have to feed her in prison. She was put in a railway wagon and spent weeks locked inside on her way to Siberia and only survived by the kindliness her her fellow prisoners for food and as it was bitterly cold, for clothes as well. Tens of thousands of Baltic people were transported in this way and many more tens of thousand rounded up and taken into the forest to be shot. They would subsequently use other prisoners to bring the bodies back into the main square and when relatives would come to pay their last respects, they too would be rounded up.

It seems justice to me that the Russian Orthodox Church in Riga had it's gold gilt stripped from it's domes and sold to Britain to buy arms for the ongoing struggle against the invaders.

That then ends this news update and I shall get back to normal blogging as soon as possible.

Go Makos

All the best and take care

David

Winter, Summer....a Palace for every occasion

We arrived St Petersburg and found it a little disappointing after Moscow which was surprising as we had expected just the opposite. Dinner was supplied at our hotel that evening and as most were a little tired I think it suited to have an early night.
Next morning we had a bus tour of the city and included in this was a walk around Hare Island, so called because of the translation from Swedish or some such language of the original name of the said island. Anyway true to form, or should I say name, there were more Rabbits or Hares on this island than you could shake a stick at.

 There were rabbits for every occasion, large ones small ones and in between ones. However this is not the main reason for a visit to Hare Island. This was the beginnings of St Petersburg and was where Peter the Great built a fortress to protect the new capital from a feared 

 Swedish counter attack, it was named Peter and Paul Fortress, fortunately this was never put to the test. The Island has been used as a base for the city garrison and as a prison for political prisoners including Maxim Gorgy and Leo Trotsky among many others. In 1917 

the Bolsheviks stormed it and freed the prisoners. When the Winter Palace was captured many of the nobility were incarcerated here and at least 112 were executed. The Tsar was to be imprisoned here but placed under house arrest in he palace instead......for the time being.
The fortress was turned into a museum in 1924 and has remained as such ever since.

  

Life must have been very grand for the Garrison in the 1700s

As the next couple of days became a bit of a blur there may be some issues with the chronology but who cares. The Winter Palace or Hermitage as it is some times known cannot be properly completed in the half day that we had available to us but we gave it a good shot and I for one enjoyed the many art works on display here...they don't come much better than this with da Vinci, Titian, Raphael, Angelo, and Goya with the usual smatterings of the likes of  Rembrandt and van Dyke etc.

Madonna Litta, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

Michael Angelo's "Crouching Boy"

All to soon our tour of the Hermitage was over, but grand as this was it was to be surpassed next afternoon when we visited the Summer Palace, an immense edifice built by the Empress Elizabeth and if there is one building one must visit in St Petersburg then surely this is it. Around 100 kg of gold were used to guild the statues etc.

The Catherine ( or Summer Palace) or at least some of it.

Impressive as this building looks from the outside it is even more opulent inside, Empress Elizabeth, wife of Peter the Great  certainly enjoyed the finer things in life. It is a pity that so many other Russians were not enjoying life very much at all. It took a while but eventually something had to break and when it did it was, as we all know, quite spectacular. Anyway back to the past and Elizabeth and her excesses.

The Palace was largely destroyed during the siege of Leningrad.

The extravagance was almost obscene, or was it more than almost.      Restoration continues.

The Summer Palace's Summer House.

Needless to say the gardens were of equal grandeur and must have kept an army of gardeners very busy.

It seems that Elizabeth became bored in the Palace and so had the pavilion built so that she had somewhere to go and admire the garden

Looking across the lake.

And so that was our visit to The Catherine Palace and the end of our tour to St Petersburg, or at least a contracted version of it.
Oh....there is one other thing that I almost forgot, the Faberge Museum and the treasures contained within.

All by Faberge....many millions of dollars and many rooms full.

On our way back from the Catherine Palace we stopped by a memorial to the siege of Leningrad regarded as the most destructive siege of a city in history. 1.5 million people died in the 2.5 year siege in which German and Finnish troops encircled the city allowing no supplies in forcing the population to survive by eating grass and even resorting to cannibalism. A further 1.4 million, mainly women and children, managed to be evacuated before the siege was complete.

The memorial to the siege of Leningrad

We flew back to London the following day and as we had a fairly tight schedule to catch our train to Fort William that evening we hoped for minimal delays. Arriving in Heathrow we were separated from   EU citizens and forced into the queue for the great unwashed which make up the rest of the world . It took over an hour to reach the front and be allowed entry into the UK and this caused Mrs Currin's anxiety to increase with each passing minute. We still had bags to collect, customs to clear and Heathrow express to catch before a black cab ride to Euston and the sanctuary over the Caledonian Sleeper. On arrival at baggage claim there were no bags left on our belt, it was chugging around completely empty. Was this to be our worst nightmare, but wait, there sitting on a bench with our bags in front of them was my old navy colleague  and his wife. They had been waiting there for the best part of an hour as they didn't want to leave without saying goodbye and again offering any help they may be able to give us. Give that man a medal!

As it happens we made the train with plenty of time to spare and arrive in Fort William next morning after a good nights sleep and refreshed  with a Highland Breakfast. Not a bad way to travel. Now the treats of the highlands awaited to be discovered, but thats anther story.

I see the Makos are continuing on their winning ways........YIPEE

All the best and take care

David

   

In the footsteps of Peter The Great

Lunch was finished and it was off to the Kremlin without having entered even one shop within rym just a nice cup of tea and on our way. The Kremlin is not, as I had envisaged, a building but rather the name Kremlin refers to a fort and is a large walled area containing many buildings. Now what these buildings were used for in days gone by was for those of that era to dwell on, but now it is largely a tourist spot and military barracks. There is an immense building which was formerly the party congress hall with 6000 seats for delegates to represent all corners of the then Soviet Union. Also built in the earlier days of former government was the Hotel Russia which by coincidence had some 6000 beds, one for each of the delegates. This hotel was not in the Kremlin and no longer exists. There are also several Russian Orthodox Churches  one of which we visited it is quite spectacular. It was this church which Napoleon had used for a base for a while in 1812.

Napoleon looking as though he had just remembered that he had too carry all his loot back to France, there was a lot of it and it was a long way to go

The main reason for our visit to the Kremlin however was to visit the Armoury, now this has nothing to do with where the Armour is housed but rather more like the Tower of London and is now a museum and houses a magnificent collection of stuff from the by-gone imperial era including the crown jewels. 

Inside the Kremlin's walls are (top and bottom) some of the gold leafed domes which adorn the Russian Orthodox Churches and in the middle the Congress Hall and what is reputed to be the worlds largest canon.

It far exceeds what is in the Tower and the value must surely be in the hundreds of millions if not billions. Included are some fine examples of Faberge's art including one, a miniature train made in gold and in such fine detail to be absolutely amazing. It alone would have set new records on the Antique's Road Show. There is a large display of clothing, original, belonging to the Royal Families over the centuries and another of Royal Coaches dating back to the 17th century. Unfortunately no cameras allowed so no pictures. Within the Kremlin there are many areas where tourists are not allowed to walk including a large square and should someone stray into such an area then one of the many guards around the perimeter blows their whistle very loudly and motions you back from your wayward path. We watched one Korean lady who didn't seem to understand all this whistling and much to the amusement of all and sundry was escorted from the area. I never did work out exactly why we couldn't walk there but rules is rules I guess. Altogether a pretty remarkable day out, I like Moscow very much, it is clean and a lot of fun. The Metro is very easy to use and only costs a little over a dollar to go anywhere. The trains run every 2-3 minutes and are usually pretty full so it is well used. (Later in St Petersburg we found that their trains were but 1 minute apart). With this in mind we paid our dollar and set off on the brown circle line to have a look at the stations, you can hop on and hop back off to your hearts content for your dollar and we had heard that these stations were well worth a look at.

Moscow's stations are works of art in many cases.

Getting around by Metro is not too difficult providing you know 

1) The Russian name of where you are and 

2) The Russian name of where you want to eventually get off.

There is very little consideration to English speakers in Russian signage in Moscow although there is  a little more in St Petersburgh.

So we wanted to go from краснопреснепнская and get at off at до6рынйнская. 

EASY!!!, anyway it seems to work.

Next morning we had two visits to make and as this tour is themed "Tolstoy's War and Peace" it was appropriate that we were to go firstly to a museum of the Battle of Borodino, a beautiful reconstruction of the battle on a 115 m long by 15 m high painting of the battle which wraps around the central hill on which you stand to view it. Between the viewing hill and painting backdrop is a life size foreground model making a seamless panoramic view of the entire scene. The battle is incidental, the artwork and craft so realistic one could almost be there.

I took many a photo but these will do.

The painting is by Franz Roubaut and was completed 100 years after the battle and was based on an earlier original.

During this visit one of our party tripped on the stairs going down to the toilet and damaged her knee. An ambulance was called but would not attend the poor woman until the insurance aspect had been sorted. Now insurance companies are sometimes unjustly berated in such circumstances for being somewhat tardy in sorting things out, this one deserved all everybody was thinking of them. They bucked they squirmed they quoted non existent small print and the injured couple were faced with putting it all "on the card". "The card" was soon a full card and still no insurance acceptance, in the meantime it had been found that the lady had fractured her knee in some way and an operation would be required. Two days later the insurance company accepted the claim but not without pressure from Travesphere (our tour company) who recommend them to all there customers. All is well that ends well. A few days later another party member, a rugby playing No 8 had his wallet picked from his pocket whilst getting on the Metro. He caught the guy and was about to hammer him senseless when he realised that they had been working as a pair and the wallet passed to the accomplice who was well gone. We had watched (this was in St Petersburg) at the ticket barrier, where you put you ticket into a machine and it releases the gate for you to proceed, as youth after youth vaulted over the barrier. Alarms would sound, but nobody did anything. Fortunately for our man he only lost 3000 rubles and a credit card which was soon cancelled so not too bad.
The afternoon was spent at the Leo Tolstoy house (no photos) and a bit on the boring side, as pick pocket victim said, knowing who ate from which soup spoon was a bit over the top but I guess they have to spin out a visit around a reasonably modest house to two hours somehow.

Leo Tolstoy's house and a bit of folk dancing.

All in all our visit to Moscow has been a resounding success but tomorrow sees us on the train to St Petersburg some 700 km to the north west a journey of some 4 hours.

Our train from Moscow to St Petersburg, it was very long, over 20 carriages and it seemed many thousands of passengers.

First impressions of St Petersburg were disappointing, but I think it was just the way we came from station to hotel. Next morning and we were hitting the sites and things seemed much better and by the time we left St Petersburg was right up there with what had been our expectations. This once imperial capital was on the very grand scale, maybe not as well preserved as Vienna but certainly has many of the same sort of buildings.

Anyway more of that later, now I have a plane to catch and then a train and then I shall be in Scotland so goodbye and good health to all.

GO the MAKOs

David