September 2017 - Solotravel

Oxford

As always a lovely train ride down through the English country side ,and a short hour or so later reaching the Oxford Station. I love my railcard for the savings its given me. A thirty pound trip for just 20 pound paid for half the original cost of the railcard.
It would have been nice to have spent more time in Oxford ,but at least I was able to spend the day there. Living just outside London I had the opportunity to reach places easily. Oxford was one of them. A long time fan of Morse and Lewis I was itching to see where they filmed the series.
A day really wasn’t long enough to do the city justice, so it was on to the Op on Hop off buses for the day. The main bus stop was outside the station ,so it was a quick start as well.

As always when you first see a place it is confusing, for me any way, but this time it didn’t take too long to get orientated, thankfully. As the bus drove past the Christchurch College it was instant recognition as also the Trinity college. I find it better to go right round the tour area to get a handle on where things of interest are, the the second time getting off to see the important items of interest to you.
After deciding on first the Christchurch college, it was off the bus and into the lovely grounds of the College. A more perfect English day I could not of wished for, with clear skies and the magnificent views of the college ,a tourists dream. I headed towards the ticket seller, but oh dear the queues were something awful. Time was something I had little of ,so decided against queing and walked on up to the shops to get a bite to eat and hopefully a place to surf on the internet while doing so. Walking up to the shops through history like this I find satisfying to say the least.

After lunch I returned to the Trinity College where I was delighted to go through some of the rooms,and chapel . The grounds and buildings stirred memories of both Morse , and Lewis but I understand some of the Harry Potter series were filmed here as well. It was easy to understand why.
The buildings and grounds all fitted the story lines of each. The gardens were a treat, particularly the lavender garden. The flowers all in bloom and a definite lavender aroma to the area.

Back on the bus again only to get off soon after to see the museums .
The one I found interesting was the astrological museum with all the old artifacts from years gone by on things astrological. I looked in vain for some mention of Mirko Ulugbek , an Astrologer I had had the pleasure of seeing the excavations of his work while in Samarkand. There was little to be seen about his work , which I found disappointing but realised they couldn’t cover every thing. It was a great museum with a lot of interesting items.
From there I wandered through some of the other old buildings. A display of Charles Dickens works and items of interest including some music that he apparently would have played was delightful and quite charming. The world famous Bodleian Library,one of the worlds oldest, just amazing. It was first opened in the 1600’s, and holds over eleven million books, for a book addict it is a must!

Hopping back on the bus I went with it back to the station as the day was gone. Enjoying the commentary of the tour as we passed huge old houses, statues, there was one of three priests who had been burnt alive for their christian beliefs. Too horrible to even contemplate, but nice ro see the statue in remembrance of their bravery.
Time for the train again into London ,before heading back out to the hostel for another night .close to the floor.

Gatwick to Vienna

Saying good bye to the young man who had shared the room with me, wishing him the best of luck in his hunt for a job in the UK. A nice lad, we got on very well I thought, considering our totally different backgrounds and ages , he was young enough to be a grandson!
A taxi ordered had me up to the station in minutes, I would not have been able to cope with the hill climb with my bags so I felt the expense waa justified.
Having bought my ticket the day before it was interestingly the same price as the online tickets but with out the rip off creditcard charge. The London train was late so I immediately caught the Gatwick express. Great way to ride the rails. It was the first time I had been to Gatwick airport, although it was still under construction, I suspect it is probably always under construction! An excellent airport, not the size of Heathrow, but user friendly ,thats for sure. I had a couple of hours to kill before checkin so its games on the iPad and food! I was dissappointed the airport din’t have a free wifi connection at the time. In todays world I should have thought it would be a standard for this sort of airport, or any airport for that matter.

I checked my bag weight on an empty scale, it came in at 19.9 kgs just under the 20 kgs I had paid for. I checked in as early as possible to get rid of the bag, it is just too heavy to pull around. Airport time goes very quickly for me and soon we were being herded on to the plane, half in the dry corridor the other half outside in the rain at the back end of the plane!
I was thrilled to get a seat next to the crew and the exit of the plane, at the time seats were not allocated. An airbus, I am never happy riding one of them unfortunately. My brother as a flight engineer never approved of them, so it remains in my mind.

It was a short flight and a relatively smooth one, a small amount of turbulence wasn’t enough to upset anyones equilibrium.
The meal I had bought filled up time as did the iPad, and soon I was looking down on the patchwork fields of Austria. I later discovered the various crops included sunflowers all in full bloom, grains, onions , and of course many other crops for animal and human use.

It was on arrival that the great flight all turned to custard! There had been power outages in the Vienna district and as a consequence the airport was on auxillary power. It also meant that the toilets had emergency lighting only and this didn’t extend to the cubilcles! This meant that the baggage coming off the planes couldn’t be put on the carousels. It was starting to pile up, when we arrived there was already huge amounts of luggage waiting. Some three hours later after standing or sitting around a packed airport with no airconditioning in a 35 degree heat, we were able to pick up our cases and move on to the city. The ipad comes into its own for helping pass the time especially if you are able to use a free wifi network. Some airports have them, other times there may be an unlocked network to hook into. Fortunately Vienna airport was a modern one.

After eventually getting my bag I went towards the Cat station, short for City Airport Transfer or transport. At a cost of €12 it was a lot cheaper than the €30-35 taxi ride . A fast and comfortable ride, still had to take a short taxi ride to the hotel but I had little choice, strange city at midnight!
It was good to see a nice bed in a private room after my stay with the nine bunk, three tier accommodation I had previously!
Unfortunately the room was very hot despite having the window open, given the outside tempurature was in the thirties, and no air conditioner or fan.
Sleeping on top of the bed, I had to flick off the occaisional insect or bug. This gave me little sleep for the night .

Last day in London

Today was going to be my last in the Uk and for me sad, I love england and don’t really want to go home despite family being there.
I took the inbound train to Blackfriars station,and made my way to the temple station to start the day. The reason was the temple area has been occupied in some form or another since the 1100’s. History ,I love and when you see something like this you can only marvel at what men achieved before ,with what we consider modern know how. I suspect they may have known a lot more than we actually give them credit for. You only have to see the number of ‘old buildings’ in London alone that stand today to wonder about building methods that out last anything todays’ builders can do.

After admiring these I found myself in Fleet street, a very famous street in the past as a newspaper publishing and journalists haven. It started to rain so I ducked into Starbucks for a coffee and a wifi fix. By the time I had finished both the rain had stopped and there were the sunny skies again. You can only wonder at the english weather and marvel at the number of seasons in a day!
Walking down here I was treated to the sight of a sole survivor of the london fires that demolished some much of the city in the 1600’s. A fascinating little place, and a living monument to those that lost their lives in the Great fire.
Todays’ goal was to see St Pauls’ cathedral. I stopped and wandered around one of the oldest churches in london. There was a service in progress so I took time to listen, and after a brief look around the building.

One of the sights of London I had wanted to see for a long time was the Cleopatras Needle alongside the Thames. Using my trusty map when I remembered I had it I was soon there. Fascinating, and at the same time concerning, how something built for the eastern climate manages the English weather. It seems to as it has been next to the river for a long time. While standing admiring this marvel ,
I figured while I was here I might as well go and see the London eye, there was absolutely no way I was going to go in this gigantic ferris wheel contraption and be suspended for the hour it took to do the loop above London. Crossing the Jubilee bridge for great views of the river and all the old buildings brought me to the South bank of the river.
I was taken by surprise by the presentation of this part of London and the numbers of people just enjoying themselves. Although the large queues at the eye would hardly call it enjoyment. There were buskers ,and photo ops galore as long as you were prepared to pay for it. Some just plain greedy like the guy playing the steel drums, I didn’t think particularly well , but the sound is certainly distinctive. We were treated to a ten minute Shakespeare production like I have never seen. It was enjoyed by all who saw it. A great pity there were passersby who spoiled it by walking through the middle while the actors were providing the entertainment. After leaving here it was back to the goal of the day.

By this time I was totally lost in so much as which direction to go. Finding the streets on the map hard to read , I really must get some new specs when I get home.As usual I went just where ever I felt was right! This time I ended up crossing one of the bridges over the Thames. What great views of Tower bridge as well as the tower of London, we visited here last time we were in London. Blue skies the order of the day now . The bells from one of the churches ringing, the noises of cars and people melted in to London. I stopped for photos along the way, by this time I hadn’t any idea where I was until a signpost that said St Pauls this way, ah, the relief! I made my way to the cathedral following the signs.
I have seen many churches ,cathedrals and abbeys on this trip but St Pauls’ lived up to its name. Truly a sight to behold. Best of all there was an organ recital within the hour. The day was nearly gone, but I stayed to listen to the recital, only a half hour, magnificent on the cathedral organ.

Strangely as I was heading back I found I had been right around and was essentially where I started the day. Yet another church ,this time a choir at its practice. Beneath the church crypts from long ago presented for todays people. These gave me the creeps for some reason and I didn’t linger in them. Strange really as I have now been in some very strange places and huge depths like the salt mines in Poland,but for these, I couldn’t stay in them.
Finding the way back to the trains easy and back to the hotel/hostel and to pack for the next day when I leave for Vienna. Flying with Easyjet I feel like a traitor for not using the trains but they are becoming very expensive, and flying on this occasion much cheaper.

Listvyanka and Lake Baikal

After checking emails , I went down to breakfast in one of the restaurants of the hotel, such a surprise I had expected just toast and coffee, but there was a table loaded with food. Many salads but other goodies like dried fruit, pancakes, egg a superb choice indeed. While I cannot face salad for breakfast, I did enjoy the dried fruit and pancakes followed by a decent coffee. Since traveling I had the packets, the problem with them is they have sugar in them as well as milk, I don’t like sugar but put up with it just for the coffee.

I had planned to go out to see Listvyanka by bus, but after a very tiring day yesterday, I decided on a taxi, certainly vastly more expensive than the bus, but it was very pleasant driving through some very different roads and scenery. The snow was still on the ground through the trees. The Angara River looked very pretty as it appeared through several inlets. The still frozen inlets of water came inland between the snow-covered trees. The Angara feeds into Lake Baikal, so we saw it several times on the way to Listvyanka.

The roads are in very poor condition with a surface that needs redoing urgently! There are many huge advertisements along the road adding a splash of colour to the deciduous trees, and brightening up the evergreens. Just not used to seeing those it is something NZ does not have or permit along our motorways.

The ride out to Listvyanka took just on an hour, the temperature dropping from 13 degrees to 7. It was obviously much higher than Irkutsk although I did not notice it. I was very disappointed with Listvyanka; I found it dirty and unattractive which surprised me, as I believed it was where the summer holidays were taken. The lake was wonderful to see, still mostly frozen, with big chunks of pristine ice close to the shore. How ever dirty it was could not detract from the view in the distance of the snow-capped mountains of Siberia across the frozen Lake Baikal. Lovely sights, somewhat limited by the cloud cover, unfortunately. Lake Baikal holds twenty per cent of the worlds fresh water .

We stopped in the fish market, and small souvenir shops, but being early in the season there was little to see, and what was there could have been had from other places. I had no real wish to stay and wander, as I like to do. Therefore, I chose to return to Irkutsk while the taxi was there.

After a lunch of noodles, of course I thought of taking a bus ride to get some postcards from a place I had seen on the map. Taking the same numbered bus as Elena and I had done yesterday, unfortunately, there are two bus companies with the same run numbers. I of course, took the wrong one and ended up far out of the city.

Many high-rise apartments for people who I suspect have very little in the way of material possessions. There was a vagrant going through the rubbish bins, whether he was looking for food or recyclable items I have no way of knowing , but it wasn’t a pretty picture. The general tone of the area was of poverty, with poor roads and services. There were taps on the roadsides with people collecting water in containers. I wondered if things were that bad or whether there was a reason for the taps being there.

The driver got to the end of the run, and there is just me left in the bus, he did not speak English, and my Russian consisted of about three words!

In the end after much smiling and trying to find a common ground we did, and yes, the bus did go back to the city it just went to other dirty places first. I heaved a sigh of relief when I started seeing familiar sights again. He was kind enough to drop me off and point in the general direction of the hotel. Just a short walk along the river, I was back at the Russian orthodox churches that had thrilled me when I first arrived.

This time the bells were ringing, all being rung by hand ringers practising, I found it delightful. At three thirty in the afternoon, I had no idea of the reason for doing so. I wandered through them again without the presence of the congregation and Easter celebrations; they were indeed lovely inside with the wall decorations. On to the hotel to organize myself for tomorrows departure to Novosibirsk. Stopping off for some food at the supermarket for tea and the train.Time sure flies when you are having fun!