We set off in our normal style, leaving our car at Peters and catching the X22 bus to Norwich. As we bowled along the A146 one of the passengers tapped on the drivers screen to ask why we weren’t going via Loddon, the driver did a 360deg, turn round the next roundabout, retraced his journey and went via Loddon. We were only a few minutes late getting to Norwich.
Being Sunday no one travels on coaches and buses so the café is closed. This means we sit and wait for our coach to London. Traveling through London is a bit slow as today is marathon day, lots of roads closed, but we are in no hurry so all is well. Once at the coach station its into a cab and off to the Premier Inn Hub by St. Pancras.
We have never stayed at a Hub before, so it was a new experience.
The rooms are small but adequate with a double bed set against to wall so you can only get in from one side, it is also high so you can store you luggage under it. The shower room/Toilet are in a frosted glass enclosure, all the lights , heating/cooling are controlled by touch switches on the headboard, the lights can be turned on and off by a bald head. (how do I know)
The Hubs don’t have proper restaurants like the other Premier Inn’s and only serve snacks and continental breakfast in the bar.
Monday, 24 October 2022
Highlights of Tuscany 3-12th Oct 2022
Highlights of Tuscany–We’re Off
Monday morning and we are off to St Pancras station to meet the rest of our group and our tour leader Kate. Unlike other Great Rail Journey holidays we have done we didn’t need to be there by 6am but a reasonable 8am. We hadn’t had breakfast as traveling Standard Premier, breakfast was included. The staff at Eurostar have it well organised dividing customers into two lanes depending on train time so the people on the earlier train get to the passport control and security first. Once through two lots of automatic passport control and them a manual stamp in the passport to say we were entering the EU we were through with time for a coffee and bun before our train left.
The plan for today was to leave St Pancras at 0931hr arriving at Gare du Nord at 1247hrs. we would then transfer by coach to Gare de Lyon to catch the 1443hr train to Turin. We would stay in a hotel overnight, evening meal included which we ordered this morning and then tomorrow afternoon we would catch the train to Florence then coach to our hotel for the week in Montecatini.
However Eurostar had other ideas with an announcement that a technical fault meant out train would be 15 minutes late leaving. This was followed 15 minutes later by, we would be getting a replacement train but that would be an hour and a half. The strange thing was the technical fault on our train affected all the others waiting to go out. It was obvious with this delay we wouldn’t get to Paris in time to catch our connection so Kate and GRJ were making plans.
When we finally arrived in Paris it was on to the coach and slowly wind our way through the Paris traffic. Kate had a couple of options but the traffic reduced that to one, so instead of Turin we went to Lyon for the night where we were all booked into the Mercure Hotel,, literally 5 minutes walk from the station. However at short notice they were unable to feed us all so a wander into town was called for to fend for our selves with GRJ giving us a rebate to pay for it. It was a charming old Château hotel with wood panelling in the public rooms.
Our bedroom was on the fifth floor, the first on the roof area, the doors to the rooms were in such thick walls that they had both an inner and outer door.
Below is our planned itinerary for the duration of our holiday.
Highlights of Tuscany Day two
7am and its not really light yet, although we are only 5 minutes from the station its the wrong station, so Kate calls in a fleet of taxis to take us to the other station. Each driver wanted paying individually before they would go anywhere so Kate is going round with her credit card paying them, giving us strict instructions to stay where the taxi drops us off until she arrives in the last taxi. This would have worked well if all taxis had gone to the same entrance, 3 taxis went one side and 2 the other. I got a call from Kate asking where we were and how may of us, mine was the only mobile number she had. I was asked to take our group to the platform barrier where she would meet us, on the way I picked up another 4 members of our group who had walked into the station after being dropped off. The next problem was they wouldn’t let Kate buy a group ticket on line, she had to go and queue in the ticket office. She returned to the group seconds before they closed the platform gate, 2 minutes before the train departs. We all sprinted down the platform, some using walking sticks, how we all made it I don’t know. There were two trains on the platform and or course ours was the far one and we all got in the first door available. It turned out that Kate had wedged the door open with her foot until everyone was onboard, something that risks €100 on the spot fine, but it seems being a female blond in France still has some advantages.
We arrived in Turin, where we should have been last night about three quarters of an hour before our original scheduled train was due to leave for Florence. We just time for a roll and coffee under the massive solar panel covered concourse, which is producing a lot of electricity.
We were now back on schedule heading to Florence, here a coach was waiting ready to take us to Hotel Francia e Quirinale where we would be staying for the next 7 nights in Montecatini Terme.
Highlights of Tuscany – Montecatini Alto
Montecatini Alto is a small medieval town standing some 290 Mts above the much younger Montecatini Terme. Its accessible by car, walking, or the cable operated funicular railway which is said to be the oldest in the world. It runs a half hour service until late at night, slipping an extra run in at busy times.
The fare is surprisingly cheap at only €7 each,return. The system consists of two cars counterbalancing each other on a single track with a passing loop at the half way point.
The regulations for passengers are quite interesting to say the least.
A few more photos of the funicular railway
The town only has a small square where all the restaurants and bars are situated and a few small shops, the streets are very narrow with very sharp bends but the
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One of the unusual features of the town are the towers and this one in particular that houses a clock with only 6 numbers on its face.
Highlights of Tuscany–Montecatini Terme
Our hotel for the week was in Montecatini Terme. This really was our base, the area we went out to eat in and where we spent free time. In reality we only stayed in a small section of the town but it was the area of the parks, funicular and railway station, plus lots of places to eat.
At one time it had been an important spar town with several spars for taking the water in the park, unfortunately most of these have fallen into disrepair, but on Sunday one was open and being used as the headquarters for a cycle race, so we took the opportunity to look round.
The bedroom of our hotel was on the third floor facing out the back, far better than overlooking a road. When I first looked out and saw the swimming pool it was a bit of a downer until I realised it was next door’s. The whole next door hotel was closed up and looking neglected. thankfully our pool was to the side.
Also looking out from our window we were able to see some lovely sunsets, the phone camera doesn’t do them justice.
The hotel had two lifts both with totally mirrored walls, I couldn’t even imagine what Harry Worth would have thought of it. (that should test your age)
Towards the station there was a large pedestrianised square with what I could only describe as a star shaped church.
While we were here we visited Montecatini Alto a couple of times using the funicular railway, the station is to the top right hand side of the park and is quite an imposing building.The railway was originally constructed in 1898 and only takes 10 minutes to cover the 1077Mt. long track.
Highlights of Tuscany–Florence
Thursday morning and at 0930 we wandered out of the hotel heading for the railway station for a day in Florence. We had a guide waiting to meet us at the station and as half the day would be free time we were shown where to meet at ten to four for the train home.
A short walk from the station and we were standing in the first square near the Basilica Di Santa Maria Novella. From here we all queued up and paid our €1 to use the loo.
We slowly made our way to the centre passing this building, like many others it has rings fixed to the walls, we were told these were for tethering horses, but they are a good 8 feet from the ground.
In the centre we saw the Baptistry, Battistero di San Giovanni and of course the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. This is the third largest church in the world.
| The Baptistry | Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore |
Unfortunately to go inside these buildings require tickets bought in advance online.
This area is considered to be an open air museum with all the statues dotted around the place. This one of David stands in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the Town Hall of Florence.
As we walked round the City we saw these small doors in the walls of buildings. In the past a traveller could knock on the window above and be given a glass of wine through the door, today they expect you to hand over a few Euros for that glass of wine and some cafés make a feature of it.
Although Florence has several large open squares in the City, where they have built, they have used every available inch of land, like here where two roads meet at an acute angle, there is a building using the land right to the point.
Our guided walk ended on the Ponte Vecchio bridge, home to 43 jewellers shopsThese shops still have their traditional overhead wooden shutters that would have been there when they were butchers shops, but of course today, what would have
The river like most rivers around the world this year had very little flow on it and was a nice muddy brown colour as can be seen from these views both up and down stream.
We found a nice little café down a side street with just 3 tables on the side of the road where we had lunch before making our way back to the railway station via a visit to the river further down stream
On our way to Florence I had noticed some old steam railway engines just lying in a siding beside the main line. I was able to get a couple of photos on our way home.