Thursday, 20 September, 2018 – Day 6 in Copenhagen

The weather is still OK in the morning but turns later in the day as was predicted. I decided I had enough of activities and stayed in the apartment to work on the Blog. I watched the change come in during the afternoon with high winds and heavy rain.

Julie came home relatively early from the conference finding the speeches etc. getting more boring. Ryan and Tanika were having a night on their own. Julie was keen to go back to the food hall where we went the first night so we headed there, fortunately the rain let up while we were away.

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We had a glass of wine each, Chilean I think and then headed back to the apartment without getting wet. See heading of this Post for the description of the day.

Monday-Wednesday, 21-23 August, 2017 – weather: Grey, drizzling but slowly improved

Yes, so this is the end of our epic journey. However, although our boat tour is over and we fly out tonight all the way back to Melbourne, Julie still manages to crowd more in. She sets an early alarm and then goes out to the spa hotel we had stayed in last year for a booking for a spa and a massage. She walks past the 8 bridges, probably around 10 km each direction. Here are some of her photos along the way.

In the mean time, I was awakened earlier than I would have liked but probably a good thing as we needed to vacate the rooms early so they could be cleaned for the next set of passengers. After breakfast, the first thing I had to do was my packing.

Any way, I packed up and vacated the room to the lounge area. At first it was very crowded as most of the passengers on our cruise were waiting for their pickups at various times. Then as they started drifting out, including some of our good friends we had me on the cruise, the room emptied out. Then as the new passengers started arriving, it began to fill up again. One could tell the difference between the old and new passengers by their excitement or absence thereof. Julie eventually came back around 1:00 pm.

Our pickup time wasn’t until 2:40 which meant we were stuck in the lounge there for over 6 hours. Yes, it was the same as we had been doing for the last week, I had my “office” and could work on the blog, the bar was open for whatever drinks, there was a lunch, same turkey dish as when we had boarded two weeks ago, the staff were still there and very nice – but when it is an enforced stay and one just wants to get on the road, it becomes a real drag. Eventually our time comes and we are the penultimate group to go, quite a large group.

We get to the airport and things don’t really improve that much. We have a four hour wait until our first plane flight in a lounge that is not my favourite. We meet Judy from the boat there for a while which is nice but the time drags on. Julie goes walkabout and comes back and virtually drags me out the door because the TV is saying final call – an old airline trick that essentially means that boarding has started. We wait on the bus for ages and finally go out to the plane. It is a smaller plane run by Helvetic Airlines, a subsidiary of Swiss. This deepens my mood even more – if you can’t say anything nice don’t day anything at all – DEAD SILENCE!!

We arrive in Zurich, which is 100% the wrong way (hence the Super Tramp headline of this Post). We don’t have a lot of time and end up in the satellite lounge where we have been several times before. It is a nice lounge and close to the gates but the food catering is a bit lacking. We get on the plane and it is a basic business class albeit in a newish plane with lots of toilets, very important for a 12 hour flight.

The stewardess asks for our order, comes back after our takeoff and asks for the order again and then when the food is served, initially brings the wrong food.

Twelve hours is a long flight in anyone’s book. I might have slept 3 hours or so but it was mostly nine hours of doldrums, my fault of course. They eventually bring us breakfast.

Finally, finally the flight ended. We landed in Terminal 2 at SIN and it was a LONG walk to the shuttle to Terminal 4. Eventually we get there and find the SIN lounge. Now, that is a real lounge! Large, modern, good work areas and:

Funny story, one of those silver food containers was filled with nice looking Singapore noodles. The guy in front of me emptied it out loading them high on his plate.

When we boarded the plane and settled in, there was another highlight.

We had pre-booked our meals through the Net, another great feature we had used on the way over.

I was so comfortable on that flight that I watched a movie – Guardians of the Galaxy II, not my favourite. Two or 3 hours sleep and we land in Melbourne a 6:00 AM, a bit early. Although there are several other planes ahead of us, we proceed through fairly quickly and out the door. Our friend Gary picks us up in my black beauty and we are home and in the door by 7:30, not bad for an estimated 6:30 landing. Even so, it was roughly 38 hours from when I left the room on the boat until we arrived at home, which is a very long time. BTW: the weather is drizzling and grey and eventually rains really hard later in the day. Nothing new there.

So that is it the end of the long journey, 70 days all up. I have come home with severe jetlag and an ordinary cold. It has taken me 10 days to get to this last Post of the trip. I would like to discuss some of the high and low lights of the trip here.

Colin’s Gusto Tour – very good as usual. A highlight was the Paul Bocuse dinner but there were several others e.g. La Stupenda.

Barge cruise of the Thames – very good and relaxing. A special nod to Graham and Wendy.

Shows in London – Midnight Oil and then The Book of Mormon.

The Scenic Cruise – after my initial bad start it was very, very good. Loved the staff, there were lots of activities, food and drink.

The Weather – the only real lowlight on the tour. After the first 15 days, when we left Italy (and there was a bit of ordinary weather there too), the common theme was grey and drizzling with an alternative of rain. I estimate that of the remaining 55 days only about 5 were considered nice. This is during the middle of the European Summer mind you.

The Hills – OK, this was a bit of a problem for me too. All through Tuscany we had to brave a lot of hills that I was not really ready for. I think the worse was in Edinburgh where it seemed like everything was uphill and dragging the suitcases up them with cobblestones and broken footpaths was a battle.

All in all it was a very good trip albeit perhaps too long. I hope that there are some new followers, especially those on the Scenic Cruise that were advised of the Blog address. I hope to hear from you!

Friday, 18 August, 2017 – weather: Turned crappy again

At 9:00 there is a Vienna City walk tour. I decide to pass on that. Julie catches the bus into town but does her own tour, we have been to Vienna before.

Julie does not return for lunch but I soldier on with Larry and Ruth.

Julie continues her prance around Vienna. Her plan is to catch the 15:30 shuttle from town.

Julie does in fact get back around 4:00 on the town shuttle. This is important as we have an early dinner tonight at 5:00 PM. The reason for the early start as we have a formal event in town tonight. But first dinner.

The reason for the early dinner and the dressing up is because of a Private Classical Music Concert at Palais Liechtenstein.

The last piece they did, to which the dancers performed was, of course, the Blue Danube. I did not realise how much the French Horn was a part of the BD.

An easy bus ride back, it was quite difficult going there with traffic and street closures for some kind of bicycle parade.

After a long day, you would have thought that this would be all. No, there is food in the lounge, I had one small hot dog. Then that is enough for me.