Let's hear it for National Rail Services!

We had a bit of merrie olde England visit us at home in Texas the other day.

When Henry visited Norwich on a family history quest in November, the train he took was delayed on the way there, and he was told to make a request at the station for a partial refund of his ticket. (His experience at the station actually led to more connections with his family history in Norwich, as you can see by reading the blog entry linked above.) And, good to their word, we got the pictured check for £12 in the mail, a few days after getting a very polite (of course!) letter telling us to expect the check and apologizing for the inconvenience of the delayed train.

I loved the trips I took on National Rail while I was in the UK (see the "trains" label at the right). My trains were all on time, it was easy to know when to get off (a major concern of Americans like me unused to public transport), staff was always helpful at the ticket windows and on the coaches, and the accommodations were comfortable and well-equipped—you can't get better than wifi on the train!

And it seems they aren't just nice when you're there in front of them, but even after you're all the way across the ocean. Now, we just have to figure out how to get a check made out in pounds into our bank account!

Off we went, into the wild green yonder....

This really was an adventurous day. We wanted to visit the Imperial War Museum annex in Duxford, which is where this vintage Spitfire is resting, in the lovely Cambridgeshire countryside. But there isn't a train that goes directly to the town where the museum is. However, the wonderful Visit Britain website, which has never steered me wrong, indicated that the Museum is not far from the train station in Whittlesford, so we bought tickets for that worthy village and hoped for the best.

After a few false starts in Whittlesford, like trying to get on a bus going the wrong way, we finally got some very good directions from a couple of friendly Whittlesford women, and were able to walk to the next town and get to the Museum in less than 20 minutes. We spent the whole afternoon there and enjoyed it very much. They have a large collection of flyable WWII-era planes (unfortunately no B-26's, but a few P-51's) that are lovingly preserved, as well as some others in the process of being lovingly restored. Also some informative exhibits about the Battle of Britain and the Blitz.

They have a whole section of the museum, this very impressive structure (shown with tourist for scale), devoted to the American contributions to the war and post-war defense efforts. There are a lot of planes in there, plus some very well-thought out exhibits giving details. There's a great map showing where U.S. airmen were stationed during the War that I plan to incorporate into my Dad's Journal website.

A very moving tribute to the many airmen lost from British bases lines the walk to the entrance. Here is the mercifully lightly inscribed panel which included Dad's Bomb Group. Some of the panels were literally covered in planes representing losses during the war.

Thanks to the help of the friendly Museum staff, we were able to find the correct bus to take us back to Whittlesford when our sight-seeing ended. We boarded the train, right on time, soon after being treated to this gorgeous sunset over the tidy homes of Whittlesford:

But our adventures weren't completely over. We still had to either hunt or gather provisions for a dinner in the London wilderness. Which actually seemed that way when we exited the Liverpool Street train station on the side full of office buildings that were empty for the night. However, we finally found our way to the City Road, and a yummy Indian restaurant called the Curry Leaf East (Henry was in the mood for spicy, and he got it!).

Then, rather than just head home, I thought H needed to see the Houses of Parliament in the nighttime, and he must have because he took a LOT of pictures there. Here is one of mine, which I might replace with one of his better ones later.

A very civilized way to travel

Gotta make a short shout-out post for UK's National Rail. I'm on the train back to London, and my comfortable (though not overly roomy) seat has a plug for my computer and the wifi's working great. (Google seems to think I'm Danish, but other than that, all is well, and the commands are readable enough.) Plus we just stopped to pick up folks in Durham and I got a splendid view of its enormous cathedral out the window. (Unfortunately I didn't have the camera handy.) Lots of rolling hills with sheep and hay are on view as well. Only problem with using the computer is that it's terribly SUNNY today and that sometimes makes the screen hard to read. I hope Hal and Sally are having as smooth a trip back to London on the highway as I am.

What a wonderful way to travel!

A Taste of Edinburgh

I was pretty pooped last night (it's actually Sunday morning here) but did intend to submit a brief post. However, blogspot seemed to be down and I was really too tired to stay up waiting for it to recover. I've got some time before breakfast is served in our wonderful B&B, the kids just left to get their bus back to the car park, so I'll try to at least "publish" Edinburgh, part 1 this morning.

To begin with, I don't know the name of the lovely church we caught in the photogenic sunset light last night. There are a ton of picturesque churches here, and we only know what a couple of them are. Only having one full day here, we really didn't get to do much more than scratch the surface of this very rich tourist and cultural environment.

I have to start with the train ride here, though, since it was a very pleasant experience. About 5 hours all together, with 3 or 4 brief stops along the way, it was comfortable, convenient, and even had wireless access on board! What a civilized way to travel. And it gave us a great view of some lovely English and Scottish countryside, of which the scene at the left is typical.

Today we have to take a bus from here to Newcastle, since they're working on the tracks, but then will take up with the train from there. A new and hopefully interesting experience. Hal and Sally tell me that driving on all roads other than the freeways in the UK is very exciting (putting a positive spin on it) so we'll see how it looks from the bus window.

After depositing the kids at their hostel, my colleagues and I found our B&B, the Grosvenor Gardens, which is lovely, well-run and commodious. I'd recommend it in a heartbeat to Edinburgh travelers. The amenities in the room included this goodie tray. Yes, that's a small decanter of Scotch! I did sample it, but am not knowledgeable enough to say how good it was. But it certainly looks lovely, doesn't it?!

Not long after I settled in, and right on schedule, the kids showed up. They used a free carpark on the outskirts of town and took a bus in, which deposited them about 5 minutes away from me. We then proceeded to have a fine Indian dinner at Omar Khayyam, during which I got a blow-by-blow description of their fabulous hikes and interesting travels through Wales and the Lake District. I'm sure in the days to come Hal's blog will have lots of info on these adventures (at least, after the internet problems get fixed at the flat, which will hopefully happen Monday).

I'm going to have to quit in a second and go grab breakfast before heading to the train station, so I'll just leave you with a couple of glimpses of what I'll try and cover in the next post or two: a view from Arthur's Seat, the wonderful hike we took yesterday morning...
...A sample of exhibits at the National Museum of Scotland (that's a replica of Mary, Queen of Scots' tomb in the foreground—the real one is in Westminster Abbey but you can't take pictures there—and Sally (one of Mary's descendants? Mamaw always said....) is in the background examining the "Maiden," a sort of guillotine).



We also saw the famous Edinburgh Castle, but I'll save pictures of that for the continuation of our Edinburgh activities.