Off to Austria today, a country I will never tire of going to, and am looking forward to it. I have pretty much a full load with 47 passengers and only one empty seat. I wish they were all as full as this.
We also have a tour going to the Scottish Highlands which Robert is going to do in his own coach.
Before I left home this morning I filled up the two thermos flasks, that are on the coach, with hot water as a back-up to the hot water system. With a full coach it is difficult to serve everyone without the hot water staying hot for 47 drinks. The flasks will help.
I only have two pick-up points – Petersfield and Liphook – so am soon on my way. Another chance to drive through the Hindhead Tunnel! As if I won’t be seeing any other tunnels this week!
We are not leaving Petersfield until 07;00 which has given me a bit of a lie in this morning as we normally leave at 05:30. Being a Saturday the traffic shouldn’t be too bad and I am hoping to catch an earlier shuttle than our booked one at 11:42.
I have tried to change the time to an hour earlier but to no avail. So I will chance arriving early and changing the time at Folkestone, which is never normally too much of a problem.
Nicola has kindly offered to serve drinks and she sensibly waits until after we have stopped at Clackett Lane to come round. It would be tight serving everyone before.
We have a slight problem though, the drinks machine is not heating up the water so the only drinks we can do are those served from the flasks. The problem with this is that the flasks would be okay serving 20 people but they do not stretch to 47! Bum!
I arrive at Folkestone by 09:30 and it is busy. I don’t think I will have much chance of a change.
I don’t! There are no spaces anywhere until 15:00 and the current trains are running 30 minutes late! Bum!
I drive to the terminal and am confronted by a completely full coach park! I have never seen this before. The only trouble is that there is only one other coach there, the rest of the space is taken up by caravans, bloody hundreds of them! And not one lady walking about selling lucky heather!
This could be a long wait.
I give the group an hour in the terminal which you need as the queues are longer than usual. I joined a long queue for a sandwich and a coffee and was pleasantly surprised at how quick it went down.
You are given a letter that represents your train time, T is for 10:26, U for 10:56 etc.
We are C and our train is due to depart at 11:42.
A is departing at 11:38 and they run every 20/30 minutes!
At least the loading system is better now making you wait in the terminal area rather than the loading area where there is nothing to do other than sit on the bus or go to the loo!
By the time our train departs we are about 25 minutes down, which considering the amount of traffic is not too bad.
I now know why we leave at 05:30 on most continental holidays. I am not doing this again.
Our overnight hotel is in Koln tonight and I drive there via Brussels, Liege and Aachen.
I would normally stop immediately before the Brussels ring road but as I approach the service area I can see the traffic running smoothly onto the ring road. Good enough for me! I don’t stop but continue around the ring road taking advantage of the light traffic and stop half an hour the
other side. A bit late for lunch but a chance for the passengers to have a decent stop and to stretch their legs.
It is less than two hours to Koln from here and we arrive at the very comfortable Novotel Koln Centre at 18:45.
As I have said before in previous blogs this hotel makes an excellent overnight stop with good rooms, decent dinner, superb breakfast spread and parking right outside for the coach. The old town and Cathedral are all within walking distance although we maybe a little late tonight for too much walking.
Dinner is at 20:00.
I have showered and dressed by 19:30 and am about to go out the door when my room telephone rings.
“Hello are you the group leader?”
“Yes”
“We have a problem”
“Oh!”
“This is the restaurant here and nobody has told us you are having dinner tonight and all of the chefs have gone home!”
“This cannot be right we only booked the hotel a year ago! I will be down immediately.”
And I was!
I showed the waiter the menu we should be having and explained that the menu choice was sent to the hotel last week and wondered how on earth they could not know we were eating dinner.
I am not impressed.
I am promised dinner will now be cooked and I insist on it being of the same standard as we usually enjoy here and I want something at 20:00 (25 minutes away).
“We will do our best but it may be 5 minutes (he means 15) later than eight o’clock.
I am not happy but it is pointless having a go at the waiter as it won’t cook our dinner any quicker.
We are all seated at eight and eagerly awaiting dinner.
A drinks order is being taken at each table with one drink each free which is not a bad delaying tactic!
In the end we enjoy a very similar meal to the one ordered and seeing as I am the only one who knows what was ordered nobody is any wiser.
Anne Evans got a shock on entering her room to find a couple already in there! Not the hotel’s best night but I have enjoyed many pleasant stays here so I think we can forgive them this once.
Some of the group did manage to walk into town and reported that it was extremely busy with a lovely atmosphere. I am pretty sure there was some kind of celebration going on and that there were a few cooks enjoying themselves!!
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