An Intensive Week of Planning

Lots of Exciting Leisure Trips Coming Up! 

Having "ticked off" the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express last autumn I never expected to travel on it again (and if I had any financial sense, I probably never would!), but there came a rather splendid Great Rail Journeys Independent itinerary that we really could not refuse ... although we must stop or we'll burn through our life savings long before we expect to run out of life. I'll talk about that in a moment, but soon after we booked that, some other things cropped up and the next few weeks are beginning to look like we shall not be putting our suitcases away for quite a while. Let me start at the beginning ...

Some months ago we had booked our long-planned main holiday for the spring, a Great Rail Journeys escorted tour of some of Spain's great cities and historic sites, and we have been learning Spanish at evening classes our local college in preparation for this, just as we learnt Italian before we began travelling to Italy. 

Then just before Christmas we had a call asking if we could look after our London grandchildren for a few days while their parents attended a family birthday party in Scotland. That will be nice, and we'll have some free time while they're at school, too, but there is more to come and I spent the best part of one January day booking hotels and train tickets and planning itineraries for a couple of short breaks in England which we do need and had not yet been able to fit into our diaries. 

I had a message from The Royal Hotel, Bath, offering room, breakfast, dinner, cream tea and Champagne for about the usual bed & breakfast rate, and we had been considering a short winter break so this would be ideal, and we took up the offer with enthusiasm, shuffling the diary slightly to fit in a couple of nights away. As it happened this coincided with the "rail sale" and we were able to get discounted train tickets, too! Then my wife received a message from the Knoll House Hotel in Dorset offering two-night breaks there at a reduced price, so we grabbed that as well and again were able to get reduced-price train tickets in the rail sale. We had never been there in winter, so that would be interesting.

Coming soon after those two short breaks in England, but booked before them and requiring a considerable raid on our savings, though, is the Venice Simplon Orient Express, Glacier Express and Bernina Express with Great Rail Journeys Independent. Like the English breaks this gives us two-night hotel stays, but in three different places with three interesting train journeys, and fulfilled my wife's wish to see the Alps again in winter.

I look forward to sharing all these with you when we return. First up, London!