It’s Thursday morning as I write this in readiness for tomorrow. The wind is howling somewhat, the sea is grey and troubled, the Patmos is currently still in the Saronic Gulf, but at least it is on its way, and it’s due into Symi tonight at 19.30, instead of yesterday morning – news of which will be of no use to anyone reading this. I’m just catching you up with my Symi news as I sit here in my dressing gown, sniffing and coughing, but getting on with it. This warm, wet and windy weather is forecast to stay with us off and on until after the weekend, during which time, I must finish off these travel tales. Which brings me neatly onto the next one.

Today, because this is a shorter and rather dull text compared to the others, let’s start with a bonus picture. The bear I was talking about yesterday.

To Prague on an unusual Christmas Eve
The itinerary of this trip had been spreadsheeted to death, and the column of ‘Main Event’ for the sixth day of the journey read, ‘Travel. Travel. Soup in a bread roll and beer. Melody Apartment, Prague.’

It was a day for being on the move, and, thanks to the preplanning, it all went smoothly. The 10.07 from Salzburg to Linz – on time. Half an hour or so to wait in Linz. Onward 11.45 to Prague, a 3.45-hour journey where it was possible to see the countryside and culture change outside the window.

From the industrial sites on the edge of Salzburg, and stops with Teutonic sounding names, to flat landscape, snow, and changing architecture.

There was plenty of time for eating, much to the delight of at least one member of the party, so the day began with breakfast aboard. This involved shopping in Salzburg station for anything that would go with apple strudel, and enough supplies to see us through the long journey, which was to be a total of nearly six hours from station to station to station accommodation.

During the journey (I forget what train we were on, but it was before Christmas Day), we had Christmas carols playing on Jenine’s phone. We were in our own compartment, like old-fashioned corridor trains had, so we weren’t disturbing anyone, and there was no chance of being told off by a bullying Italian as it wasn’t a quiet carriage anyway. Whatever, this gave Neil and I the opportunity to present a little present. Having found Michael Bauble’s version of Silent Night on the phone, it played and we signed along in BSL. We’d only learnt the second verse the night before, so that was a bit touch and go, but we managed. Then, all four of us learnt the first verse, and from then on, every time we heard it playing throughout our journey, at least one of us would sign along.

[Here’s the link to the YouTube video we learnt from. Apart from anything else, it’s lovely to watch.]

There’s not much else to tell you about this day, which was the most un-Christmasy Christmas Eve I’ve yet encountered. It was easy to forget what day it was, not because of doing too much in a short time, but because the day didn’t matter.

Since moving to Symi in 2002, we have spent every Christmas bar two with the logical family, and over the years, a Christmas Eve routine has evolved. The day usually starts with last-minute purchases of wine, sherry, port, and other unnecessary extras, and the last-minute gathering of presents. Around midday, to save too much haulage on Christmas Day, we’d shuffle off to Jenine’s house ladened with bags of gifts, games and bottles. There, we’d sit at the table en famille, peeling potatoes, making stuffing with the boys (not a euphemism), wrapping bacon around sausages (nor is that), and keeping an eye on Neil so he doesn’t throw the sprouts in the bin. Later, in the afternoon, we’d wobble home to watch a Christmas film (either Polar Express or Die Hard), and wake the next morning to do it all again with more excess.

This Christmas Eve morning passed by in a blur of railway stations, views and later, snow. I have to admit, we were ladened with bags, and weighted down with shopping before we reached our rented apartment not far from Wenceslas Square in Prague, so that could have been construed as Christmas Eve-ish, but what a place it was.

New to the dreaded Airbnb market, the owners had given us a special price, and what we had in return was outstanding. I made a video, but the soundtrack isn’t suitable for sensitive ears, so walk with me…

A security number to enter the lobby, a key to operate the lift up five floors. Enter the apartment through a secure door to find a hat stand… A Hat stand! My Hiker had a home.

A long hallway full of cupboards, and a double bedroom with a bathroom opposite. (Heated towel rails – I’ve just ordered a small one for home.) Then, we come to a dining/sitting room with a table large enough for eight, a large TV, a fully-equipped kitchen, including baffling coffee machine and dishwasher, a sofa bed made up for our fifth member who couldn’t make the trip, and plenty of heating. Then, a second wing with a huge bedroom and en suite bathroom, and all kitted out in a modern, elegant way. We could want for nothing in this place, and we soon made ourselves at home. It became Christmasy when Jenine blew up an 18” inflatable Christmas tree from Temu and plonked it on a random table.

The only thing on the to-do list that evening was a pre-booked meal, because turning up on the doorstep in such places on Christmas Eve would only lead to disappointment. In this case, we saved the ‘Soup in a bread roll and beer’ for another day (when we would include an appropriate comma), because we hadn’t been able to advance book a restaurant close by that served it, and so, we had an Indian meal at an atmospheric and well-designed basement restaurant not far from the apartment. Apart from Jenine leaving her new and much cherished bobble hat there (or losing it on the way home), everything was wonderful and dandy.

As was the cold walk back among more twinkling lights. I think we watched a film… Or was that before going out? I know we moved the dining table, and at one point, us three blokes were camped out on the sofa bed having a laugh about something, and it was below zero outside, but it didn’t matter, and there were no potatoes to peel, and no sprouts to guard. All was well, and we were looking forward to our two Christmas Day treats – which I will talk about next week.

The Gallery

So that you have something to view over the weekend, the gallery today includes some images that Neil took with a real camera. There are more somewhere, and these are mainly Innsbruck, but among today’s gallery photos, you will see: Jenine’s bobble hat (before it went missing on Christmas Eve), the hideous but award-winning funicular railway station, Santas in gondolas in Venice, a lot of snow, and cathedral details. Enjoy your browse, and have a good weekend.

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You know, it’s a good job I’ve got all this to talk about because, apart from Epiphany yesterday, there’s not much going on in Symi right now. Not that I would have seen it had there been. It’s windy, cloudy, sometimes wet, not too cold, I’m pleased to say, but still, not even the Rainbow Bar is open. Although other places are, it’s that staying-in time of year for me. Which gives me time to continue wittering about the recent trip. I hope you are keeping up.

Innsbruck to Salzburg

All but four of our 15-day trip began with a journey. Innsbruck was no different, except the usual order of breakfast, pack, railway station became pack, breakfast, railway station, because rather than pay €14.00 each extra at the hotel, we used a local café. Harry was, by eight o’clock, twitching for a caffe Frodo, or whatever a shot of caffeine with watery ice is called, but could we find one in Italy? No. Could we find one in Austria? Nein. Not even in our little café, where they hid us and our 10 bags of luggage around a corner.

Cosy breakfast done, we waddled towards the railway station like refugees bearing our entire world, through the cold morning, to another cold, but always interesting railway platform. I’ve never used a Greek overland train (not even the one on Symi), but I’ve used trains in the UK, which, in my experience, have always been hit or miss. My journeys with various companies there, and even good old British Rail, have either been as smooth as you like, or as tedious, delayed, crammed, and as filthy as you wouldn’t like. The stations themselves were never very helpful either, but in Austria, and other parts of Europe, there’s this thing called Customer Care, or Passenger Thoughtfulness, in this case. Not only is the displayed information accurate, and not only are the trains (usually) on time, but there is also a guide showing you where to stand on the platform. You are here, and carriage 233 will stop there… So, you can be in the right place when the train pulls in. Very helpful for us bag people, and helpful and more efficient for the train company too – fewer delays.

Nice. Of course, the surrounding views of mountains and ski slopes add to the charm. I mean, it’s not Folkestone, is it?

Our train, this Christmas Eve eve, left precisely at 10.16 and took us north through more scenery none of us had seen before, to arrive in Salzburg at 12.03 as promised. From there, it was another case of following the bouncing puffer jacket through streets broad and narrow until we reached our hotel not far from the station. In other words, it wasn’t among the Old Town and Christmas markets on the other side of the river, but somewhere quieter and more unused. A working district, if you like, and I don’t mean for workers of the night, but for offices. It was also the first hotel so far to not allow an early check-in, so we dumped the bags and headed straight out for some Mozartian adventures.

Well, for some sightseeing of the ‘must do’, like the Mirabell Palace Gardens famous for that Sound of Music fountain moment. [Inserts yawn emoji] We viewed it through the railings, as we were in a hurry to find food for the teen before it erupted, and so, after the obligatory pic, a little tram spotting, and after crossing the river, we came to the part of Salzburg famous for commercialism. In other words, the Christmas market.

When I last visited Salzburg with my Kiwi friend, Bernie, back in 1995 (or ‘96), we entered the Cathedral Square to find only a few people outside a café and a duo busking under the arches. They were singing duets from The Magic Flute, and it felt as though we had the town to ourselves, even though this was late September. This time, to reach the square, we weaved through hordes of people, past glittery shops selling all manner of things you never knew you wanted until you saw them, and stopped for lunch in one of the few places that had free tables. After another local feast (I think sausages were involved), we continued, and entered the square not to the sounds of Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen, but to the sound of something ‘pop’ blaring from a live radio broadcast beside the cathedral. This was backed by the chatter of a thousand people, and the screams of delight and otherwise of twice that many children. Wading through, we gazed dazed on the live broadcast stage and whatever was going on, and like many persecuted before us, took sanctuary in the cathedral (where Mozart had been an organist when a teenager – but only after breakfast, I suspect).

The cathedral is dedicated to Saint Rupert and Saint Vergilius, which is lovely because they don’t get many dedications – not even played for them in the live radio broadcast. This time, H and I looked at each other, knowing the routine, and I suggested we go together. Passing through the narthex, we took the nave to the transept, there to stop, agree the spot, and turn to see the organ. The cathedral actually has seven, which seems a little greedy, but also rather delicious, just like the main instrument. Which we admired, before viewing other interesting things and moving on.

It was at this point in the trip that educational side quests came into play.

My motivation for revisiting Salzburg was to take my piano student to the place where Mozart was born, and I mean, the very room. For Jenine and Neil, it was something far more cerebral and industrious, worthy and technical: an apple strudel baking class.

Our party divided at this point, each pair with their own side quest to accomplish, and Harry and I set off towards Getreidegasse 9, otherwise known as ‘The Mozart Birth House.’ This, to me, sounds rather too functional; as if it is still in use as a public facility. ‘Husband! The child comes. Haste! We must away to the Birth House.’ (Bequeathed by Mozart for the good burghers of Salzburg.)

Again, on my last visit here, Bernie and I wandered in from a street with few shops and fewer pedestrians, paid our tuppence to a lady at a wobbly table in a courtyard, and took the stairs up to the apartment. There, with two other couples, we admired the little there was to see, stood in the very room, and wandered out again. Simple.

This time, I was able to secure tickets in advance through the phone, and had them electronically delivered while I was on the loo. So, that was taken care of, and just as well, because the ‘attraction’ was popular. However, showing the lady (now in a glass booth with a heater and coffee) your phone is easier than using cash, and apparently saves trees while feeding Chinese hackers. The process, though, was made farcically complicated by the Greek electricity company, ΔΕΗ. For weeks, they had been plaguing me with phone calls at inconvenient times, so I had done a lot of ignoring. They’d tried me when I was in Rhodes, eating, then again during the transfer in Athens, and even when I was sightseeing in Verona. I’d become adept at forgetting about them, thinking I would deal with them on my return.

So, there I am, phone out, showing the lady the first ticket, and scrolling down to find the second when a thing pops up on the screen. It’s only the bleedin’ ΔΕΗ, isn’t it? I press the button to turn it off, while apologising to the nice lady, and the queue building behind me, but somewhere, a voice starts jabbering in Greek.

‘You answered,’ Harry tells me.
‘Well, how do I turn it off?’
I’m pressing buttons and sliding fingers, and nothing’s working. She’s still jabbering about plans and policies, and the queue starts tutting.
‘Talk to her,’ the teen sniggers.
‘I can’t talk to the electricity board. I’m in Mozart’s house.’ I swipe and slide, and the second ticket appears. ‘I don’t want to speak to the bloody woman while…’
‘She can still hear you.’
‘Oh, bloody hell…’

The nice lady is now also sniggering as she scans, and a woman in Piraeus is trying to sell me electricity, while a distinctly deviant child is preparing to kick me in the back of the knees.

‘Done it!’
Both tickets shown, and off we march to the stairs. Once deserted, they were now overrun with fake fur and Gucci… And I can still hear Mrs ΔΕΗ jabbering.

‘You’re still connected,’ H tells me, and I hand him the phone in desperation.

Dear Passepartout. So resourceful. He defeated and banished the ΔΕΗ in one fell swoop, and we pressed on, our side quest nearing its finale.

Yes, it was busy, and yes, they have had to put in a one-way system, toilets, and a shop, but on the other hand, people from all over the world were there to see where Mozart was born. There to see, as you now can, a lock of his hair, some of his belongings, such as small cigarette boxes given in lieu of payment for an opera, and even the violin he played when he was five. Being in such a place can still be moving if you block out the background noise, fur, and Gucci, and this is what we did as we stood in ‘The Birth Room’ and took photos for posterity.

Escaping from the side quest was tricky, and involved seeing a few more rooms that I don’t remember being there before – museum rooms which were simple, but informative. It also involved negotiating those incapable of reading signs and following large arrows, the backflow of people who hadn’t meant to find the shop, and passing the toilets which smelt much as they would have done in Mozart’s day. Had his family had one.

Back in the open air… Sorry, back in the crowded streets where the air was scented with sugar and baking, and where the approaching dusk was challenged by thousands of twinkly lights, we had time to kill before meeting the B Team. To start with, we wandered more streets, and Christmasy enclaves we found in 18th century courtyards, and we paused to admire a shop that sold teddy bears. One of these was actually a full-sized brown bear guaranteed to traumatise any child who didn’t settle down at bedtime. We considered taking it home, but it would have needed its own seat on the plane. Then we considered taking the stuffing out, putting one of us inside, and seeing if we were challenged at customs. Then we saw the price of €2,200 and moved on.

To buy a hat! There are not enough hats in the world, so I did my bit to water the drought and bought what I was told was an ‘Austrian deer hunting’ hat. I think the guy was a temp and not a hatter, so I took that with a pinch of cinnamon. Later research has proved the hat to be a ‘Hiker’ made (probably) in Italy of 100% wool fine felt. It features a teardrop crown, leather band, and downturn dimensional brim. This hat is water repellant, packable, crushable and will never lose it’s shape! (The spelling/punctuation is all sic. See Mike the Hatter.)

Hat bought and worn at a jaunty angle, we did what every music lover should do in Salzburg, and had a beer in an Irish pub. This was near where the Team B side quest was taking place, and we were prepared to wait for them to succeed before regrouping. However, we received a communique stating they were delayed by a free bowl of goulash while the strudels were baking, so we should press on.

Beer downed, we did, and our route took us past the theatre of strudel war, so we pushed our noses up against the window to see how things were going. Neil and Jenine had their station not three feet away from us, and although they had their backs to the window, they seemed to be having a great old Todd & Lovett time rolling biscuits.

We left them to it, took the riverside path to a bridge and over, past the famous gardens, and into the deserted district to finally check us all into the hotel. I just had time for a quick shower when my phone buzzed, and I received one of those passive/aggressive inquiries from a teenager. ‘Are you hungry yet?’ In other words, ‘I need feeding.’

To finish the day, we found a café/restaurant that was all about health food and other such horrors, but where they advertised tomato soup, and that being one of my weaknesses, we set about ordering. Trouble was, not only did you have to order through an electronic menu, so the server not two feet away could make up our order without actually having to speak to us, but there was no such thing as a simple bowl of tomato soup. One had to add a ‘base’ of rice or noodles, and a ‘complement’ of this or that, and there was no way around it. Anyway, we were able to order, silently collect our trays as though partaking in an ancient rite, and find a table at the window where we could watch for the returning Conquerors of the Strudel.

They arrived, we caught up on news, ate healthy things and drank beer, before returning to the hotel so the B Team could finally land.

Day five done. Level accomplished.

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The next day began in what was becoming a standard fashion: a walk to a train station. Actually, before that, we took advantage of the hotel’s breakfast room, and at the Hotel Mastino (the one beside McDonald’s in Verona), you get more than your average continental. There was an array of baffling coffee machines, a samovar with warmish water, and other contraptions such as one of those toasters that take half an hour to do half a toast, lukewarm eggs and bacon, and so on. But they also had fresh honeycomb and other things of interest, so we fed ourselves up on as much as we needed, packed the bags, and checked out, ready for the next stage of the journey.

We’d had on our list of things to see, ‘Juliette’s Balcony’, because, of course, we were In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, but, I suspect at around the 99% level, that the much advertised (and soon pay-to-view) balcony is another tourist board scam, like Bran Caste/Dracula’s Castle (more about that in the future). So, we hadn’t bothered with that and were once again on our way to somewhere else. This time, Innsbruck.

Why?

You mean, why were we visiting one of the top winter sports locations in Europe? Was it for the skiing? No, there hadn’t been as much snow as usual (global warming but no-one listening, was the cause, they said), and we had no intention of throwing ourselves off the famous Birgisel Ski Jump in the manner of Eddie the Beagle, or whoever – although Jenine did try to impersonate a ski jumper while on the Innsbruck station platform, with the jump distant behind her. However, with knees tucked and butt out, she looked like she was trying to pass a Käsekrainer and much hilarity ensued, although you can probably imagine the indignant complaints of ‘Mum! What are you doing? Stop it…’ from the teen.

We were going there because it was on our way to somewhere else, and we knew there would be snow and mountains – two things a young man growing up solely on Symi doesn’t see and hadn’t seen. Also, for me, a journey through the Brenner Pass sounded romantic. I don’t know why, but it sounds like something from an adventure, a Lord of the Rings kind of thing, where Legoman the elf says, ‘The sun shines this morning; there has been nighttime this night. We must take the pass of Breen.’

‘No!”’ thunders Grandelf. ‘We must risk the Pass of Brenner.’

Well, there was no risk, just miles of scenery none of us had seen before, snow on mountain peaks, amazing engineering on high road bridges and small villages by the grey-water streams alongside the tracks. In three and a half hours, the 9.01 from Verona took us all the way along the 271 Km route to the surprisingly interesting town of Innsbruck. I’d only driven past it before, on my own youthful Grand Tour back in the 90s, and from that, I remembered only office blocks and the usual stack-‘em-high housing. Things, in the centre of town, were and still are very different.

There was plenty to see, but after dumping our bags at the ‘Basic Hotel’, we set off immediately for the point of the day; the funicular and cable car up to Nordkette, also known as the Top of Innsbruck, though the very top was closed. We followed Harry the Map along the riverbank, over the road, around some stunning Baroque and Classical buildings, to a horrible modern thing which was the start of the route up the mountain, and about half an hour later, there we were, above the snowline.

That sounds awfully knowledgeable, doesn’t it? As if we were experienced mountaineers, retelling acts of great derring-do to a packed lecture hall. ‘We were above the snowline watching the spindrift coming off the summit of Piz Buin in the Silvretta Alps, and considering who would make the summit team…’

Yeah. No.

Neil and Harry grabbed the first available sledge, joined the queue of little’uns waiting to scream their way down 100 feet of snowy slope, then made snowballs and attacked each other with squeals and swear words. Jenine and I considered the view, the clean air and an Aperol Spritz.

It was one of those days when we were ‘lucky with the weather’, and there were to be many more. Although when you see the photos taken from the almost-top of the mountain, it looks cloudy and grey, that was all part of the spectacle. “The sun was white, as though chidden of God”, as Hardy wrote, setting a gloomy scene which doesn’t suit my scene, but allows me to show off that I know at least one line of poetry by Hardy. It wasn’t too windy, either, or even too cold (ha ha), and, later in the trip, we would have snow when it mattered, and the weather would be clear on other days. Watch out for blue skies in future posts. [Inserts winky emoji]

Lunch outside at 7,000 feet isn’t as bad as it sounds, and the soups and stews were spot on, and the cable car and funicular weren’t too busy, despite this being high winter season (because of Christmas rather than skiing, I suspect). Later, back at sea level, we were able to change and prepare for the evening, and while Neil and I were out searching for a pharmacy — I can’t remember what for; ChapStick, non-allergenic soap, warmth maybe — we received a message from the B Team to be back at the hotel by five, because they had a surprise for us. Eek.

The surprise began as a pleasant walk through the dusky streets, beside the Christmas market, through older streets and finally, to a large square and an even larger cathedral. The eighteenth-century Baroque cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Innsbruck, dedicated to the apostle Saint James, and known also as the Dom. St. Jakob. Why there? The reason was about to become clear, but first, there’s some backstory…

Yesterday in Venice, we took a peek inside a large church (I forget which one already), where I told H to ‘Come with me and don’t look back.’ We walked up the aisle towards the apse, and about halfway along, stopped, and I told him to turn around. That, for me, is the best way to see a church/cathedral; organ when one has been built up in the west gallery – and it was a reasonable sight. (See above.) In return, he’d looked for a similar sight in Innsbruck, and found the cathedral was open until six. When we entered, he said, ‘Follow me and don’t look back.’ This view was just as stunning, if not more so, as the Baroque instrument was a riot of silver and gold. Not only that, but an orchestra was practicing for a concert, and we sat and listened to some free classical music while admiring the architecture.

And I thought Innsbruck was just office blocks.

On the way to the Dom, we’d crossed a road, and I’d noticed a man carrying a tuba, as you do, and, in the cathedral, I wondered if he was then up in the gallery tuberign away, but it wasn’t tuba-suited music. Later, though, while wandering the – you guessed it – Christmas market, we discovered a four-piece brass band playing from the gallery of The Goldenes Dachl (Golden Roof), so that was what tuba man was all about. More free music, this time seasonal, including Austrian carols, and we could have stood and listened for ages, except…

Of course, when you have a teen in tow, you can never be far from food, and it was that time of day again. A hearty dinner served by unbelievably cheery staff considering they were run off their feet, a slow walk back to the Basic Hotel, and time to put the feet up and watch Indiana Jones dubbed into Austrian before falling asleep.

I have to say, the Basic Hotel in Innsbruck is designed to be, clearly, basic, but it had everything we needed, was very clean, had towels and soaps, and TV, etc., and was hardly basic at all. It had its quirks. Like the lip between the bathroom and the bedroom, which caught us tripping a few times, and the smoked glass pattern on the bath/bedroom dividing wall wasn’t completely smoked. One assumes this is so kinky guests can spy on their companions in the shower, and the really perverse ones can do the same with toilet occupation. I don’t know, but then, we were in Austria.

And would remain in Austria the next day too, as you will read…

Meanwhile, here’s the gallery.

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Monday (Yesterday). Woke up to heavy skies and the threat of rain. Well, as far as I can see, I did, because it’s only possible to see out of the bathroom window at the moment. Every other one is shuttered, so the house is dark, but it’s also being kept warmer and drier. Also, yesterday-yesterday (Sunday), we saw the news that Greek airspace had to be closed due to a technical glitch (sounds like a bit more than a glitch), and there was disruption all of Sunday morning and most of the day. Well, weren’t we lucky to have flown in on Saturday morning? 24 hours later, and we’d still not be home (Tuesday).

For now, it’s back to the trip…

Venice

The Verona hotel was situated beside and above a branch of McDonald’s and on the way home on our first night, we were thrilled to see we had a police escort. That they were tending to someone from the fast-fat outlet rather took the thrill off the moment, but there appeared to be no bloodshed involved. I think the dispute was over the finding of a hamburger inside a cardboard bun. Apparently, the young man had not only discovered some reconstituted meat, but he had also taken a bite and was severely upset by the false advertising. I don’t know; I sailed past and into our hotel thinking, ‘Serves him right.’

The morning brought a breakfast room with the expected selection of hot and cold this-and-thats, people of various nationalities, and the usual morning conversations and greetings. That done, and wrapped up against the expected cold, we hiked off back to the train station at dawn, and later, caught our booked train onwards to Venice.

This meant we were now day trippers, but not the type who can only holiday in guided packs. We had no stick and flag to follow, no constant voice in an earpiece, and no coach to collect and spew us from one location to another. Intrepid, ready for adventure and keen to discuss what we might see, we watched the distant Dolomites, and (I think it was on this journey) got told off for talking in the ‘silent’ carriage. It wasn’t, actually; it was a quiet carriage, which meant soft talk and no phones. This hadn’t computed with the Italian couple at the end, who clearly enjoyed mobile phone use. They, however, were left unchallenged by the diminutive and dare I say it, rather rounded, woman who marched past, challenged Jenine with a stare and said, at mezzo forte, ‘You do know this is the silent carriage,’ with such an accusatory tone I half expected to be led away. Replying to such self-appointed officialdom is pointless, and the likes of this woman are best ignored with enthusiasm, so we did just that and let her go on her way. The four of us spent the rest of the journey taking the pizzicato out of the diva at the same pianissimo volume we had been before, until we arrived in Venice.

When one thinks of railway stations, one usually pictures their facades. St Pancras, in London, for example, has one of the most outstanding frontages of any building. However grand and wonderful the station, the locomotives, the carriages, journey and service, the splendour of an arrival is often ruined by what you see as soon as you step out of the station’s own world, and into the real one. Usually, as in Milan, you have streets, tall buildings, cars, buses, trams, whatever, and a load of people trying to push past you to get in. When you leave the arches of St Pancras, what greets you? Camden Town Hall and the Euston Road, but in Venice, when you leave the station, you enter upstage centre onto the set of an opera. A piazza. A canal cuts left to right, there’s a bridge, a copper-domed church with classical portico, colourful buildings built, it seems, on water, and the early morning light of a clear, blue-sky day, and somewhere, sadly, some malaka singing ‘Just one Cornetto…’ Though, if you are lucky and happen to be standing by an opera malaka, you might hear a whispering of, ‘O Solo Mio’, but either way, nothing compares to the sight.

The sights continue as we offer Harry the Map a glance of the map in the manner of a handler giving a hound a sniff of the fugitive’s vest, and the chase is on. It’s on, and over, under, around, through, by and finally, to St Mark’s Square, where, at midday, Neil had gifted us all half an hour with a gondolier and his gondola.

Before that, though, there’s time to admire, learn, see, wonder, and, after a good long walk, sit. The first treat of the trip comes in the form of four Aperol sprits at €20.00 each. (You want to gulp at that, but at those prices, you can only afford to sip.) Still, once in a lifetime, and it’s a clear, crisp day, not yet too busy, and the drinks tray comes laden with the best nibbles Carrefour have on offer.

I’ll let the gallery speak for the rest of the day, but along the way, and during our ten-mile walk of Venice that day, we saw many sights, including a flotilla of father Christmases, cathedrals and their interiors, the winding canals and backstreets, a pizza shop where we had a rather confused lunch that was very tasty, the gondola ride of course, where our man didn’t sing, and a long walk back to catch the train. On the way, we stopped at a random doorway so Jenine could photograph us three ‘boys’ in an old doorway which, she realised later, had been the same one she’d photographed her travel mates in back in 1867 or whenever it was. Spooky coincidence, or what?

Back to the train (and our Club Class seats), and back to Verona at dusk, where, after a quick wash-and-change stop at the hotel, it was back out to tramp the streets to find something more to eat, and see some more nighttime sighs before packing for the next day’s journey to Innsbruck via the Brenner Pass.

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Hi, all, and Happy New Year!

Yes, we’re back, and yes, we have been away, and yes, some of you may have seen these images and heard these stories before via Facebook, and, yes, the next several days will all be about our recent trip. I don’t know about you, but I like reading other people’s travelogues, but if you are not of the ilk, then don’t panic. As I write these posts and share these galleries over the next several days, I will drop in any Symi-related thoughts that come to mind.

The galleries will come at the end of the post unless a specific illustration is needed along the way.

My last post of 2025 (below) provided a map of the trip we had spent over a year planning and saving for, but as must happen on Symi, all trips begin with a boat. Or is a ferry a ship? ‘You can put a boat on a ship, but you can’t put a ship on a boat,’ my dad used to say, and although I agree, I still call the ferry (which carries lifeboats) a boat.

Whatever. Here’s the story.

It’s ten past five on the morning of January 2nd, 2026, and our party has gathered outside an unusual hotel ten minutes’ drive from Athens airport. We have an included transfer booked for 06.15, and the boarding of our homeward flight to Rhodes begins at 07.10 – so there’s plenty of time. We are already checked in, because we came down from Bucharest to Athens last night, landing at 22.50 and arriving at the hotel at just before midnight, as we had to wait for the transfer. Although I’ve only had three hours’ sleep since New Years’s Day morning, I have wrestled with a baffling automatic coffee maker machine thing with pods, had a spit of cold espresso, and I am functioning in a bleary kind of way. Still, no worries, the car will be here…

A phone call…

The driver is running ten minutes late. We are back in Greece, so this turns into 25 minutes late, and boarding time is fast approaching. And, as we are approaching the airport, we get caught in slow-moving traffic because it seems the rest of Greece is also flying home early that morning. And then there’s the queue at security, and time is ticking away…

Will we make the flight, and how did we get to be there?

The story unfolds…

Leaving Symi, we were among the passengers on the last Friday boat before Christmas, and, despite the queue of cars reaching back to the main road, and the other half of the Symi population being on foot, the boat left only a couple of minutes late. We were in no hurry, as we had a day and night in Rhodes. We had booked into the Castellum Suites, the all-inclusive hotel we now use in the winter, because it has to be the best value for money I’ve yet found in Rhodian accommodation. More about the hotel in a future post, for now, we are doing last minute shopping, before having an early dinner and an early night, because the alarm is set for 04.00 the next morning. Taxi at 04.30, airport at 04.50, check in for the flight which leaves on time at 06.00 to take us to Athens. I love Rhodes airport in the winter, even at that time of day. There’s something about walking from the departure gate, down the slope, across the tarmac and onto the plane without having to take a bus. It suggests the airport trusts us, and that’s a cosy feeling.

Then, there’s the usual 40-minute flight to Athens, which is more like catching a bus than a plane, then there’s a short wait and a transfer, and we’re off to Milan, where we take our first train of the trip. This one has not been booked, as there was no need, though by the time we find the ticket office, we’ve missed one and have a two-hour wait for the next. By the time we’ve opted for the first-class cabin on the train (as it was only €20.00 more than normal class), found a loo, as older men in the cold must, and bought our tickets, we have 90 minutes to wait. However, with the tickets comes access to the 1st class lounge for free drinks and snacks, so we sit and look down on the travellers below for some time while enjoying railway hospitality.

[For a look into the world of railway hospitality in ‘the old days’, take a look at ‘1893’, my second Clearwater Tales novella. Click here.]

The train arrives, we board, and find we do indeed have our own four-seat enclosure, and we enjoy a very comfortable ride to Verona, where we find a distinct drop in temperature. Quick loo stop, and on to the hotel, which is a 20-minute walk away. Luckily for us, we have the male equivalent of Dora the Explorer (which, admittedly, I’ve never seen, but…) in the form of Harry the Huntsman who has the ability to glance at a map of a foreign city and get from A to D without having to fuss about the B and C, so we follow him off towards the older part of town. We will soon get used to following the bouncing puffer jacket as he takes on the role of expedition map reader, and the pounds simply drop off us as we double-time to keep up.

We could easily have spent a week exploring Verona, but the idea of the trip wasn’t so much full explorations of the destination, but to grab a quick bite of each while making ‘the journey the thing’ as Homer never said. So, it’s two nights in Verona with a day-trip to Venice planned for the day in between, and that will be coming along tomorrow. Meanwhile, Verona is in full swing, and we swing by the Christmas market on the hunt for dinner. This ended up being in a small pizzeria away from the main drag, and there, I had my first proper Italian pizza. Well, we all did, because when in Rome (or nearby), act like a Veronese.

Did we get a chance to visit the amphitheatre? Sadly, no, but we walked for miles, saw loads, ate too much, and, after a long day, fell into the hotel early to prepare for a grand day out on the Grand Canal the next day.

[Meanwhile, on Symi yesterday, as I write, it’s raining, we’ve had a brief power cut, I’ve tried to fill some cracks on the bathroom roof as the paint has failed a little, and we’ve got three heaters running. Eek.]

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