Looking for a place to stay in Lyon I came across a small, attic apartment on AirBNB, it was not too far from the main railway station - Lyon Part-Dieu - and seems to have good transport connections. So I booked, it was in a suburb called Villeurbanne, and as it happened, my hosts were …
Ambilly, near enough to Suisse …
I had wanted to visit Geneva - Genève to give it the local spelling - for a while, the United Nations is headquartered there, and there is the lake, Lac Leman, and its steamships. Warned that it could be expensive I settled for an AirBNB in Ambilly, across the border in France and a short …
The Venice of the Alps …
Annecy, sometimes known as the Venice of the Alps, is a lovely town and best of all, no cruise ships in the canal ... actually the canal isn't big enough to host cruise ships. A good friend of mine was there last year and she sent me some photos, I wanted to see for myself, …
Munich, the start of it all …
After Salzburg I thought that I would gradually head across towards France, with ideas for Munich and Switzerland on the way. I had wanted to see Munich for several reasons, it was the site of the Olympics in 1972 when the Palestinian group Black September took eleven Israeli Olympic team members hostage and killed them …
Salzburg, zweiten teil …
And so back to Salzburg, a couple more days en route to, maybe, Munich, Geneve and elsewhere. Apart from a few set dates, I'm now going where the wind blows. This time I was in the modern Pension Elizabeth, not far from the hotel where I stayed first time, but a much better room, with …
The hills are alive with the sound of music …
When I decided to get out of Salzburg for a short trip, I wasn't aware that Mondsee was one of the locations for filming The Sound of Music. Nor did I know that there was a big cycling event on that weekend, or that my bed was quite that far from the town. So we …
Continue reading The hills are alive with the sound of music …
Salzburg, ersten teil …
After the conference ... I spent a couple of days in Znojmo looking around, the new railway station next to the old one, the castle and the church on opposite sides of the valley, a dam on the river and another look at a museum of transport. ... and then to Salzburg. I had stayed …
Any old bikes ? How about old castles ?
The venue is a former monastery, that has had a varied life and a near death since the church was booted out during the Czech equivalent of Britain's Reformation. At one stage it was home to part of the Army, and they are not usually careful about the buildings that they own, or manage. As …
Lovely town, how do you pronounce it ?
It is Znojmo, and the 'z' is pronounced a little bit so it sounds like 'shnoymo' To get there from Vienna it is a short train trip, or for today, a train to Retz (still in Austria) then a bus because it is summer and the rail works are done in summer. The people here …
The name’s Lime, Harry Lime …
The 'Capital of Spies' according to local writer Emil Bobi. In his book Die Schattenstadt (The Shadow City), he estimates that there are more than 7,000 secret agents and spies currently working in Vienna, more than in any other city. Tourist operators in the city refer to this, some more than others. There is a …
EUlogising Europe 2019 