Reflections on Travel in 2018

A water taxi at Hamburg’s Fischmarkt

I wrapped up 2017 reflecting on my travel for the year, noting that I had little idea of what was on the cards apart from a couple of visits to London and likely trips to Sweden. Indeed, after a busy 2017, the beginning of 2018 saw little travel at all. It wasn’t until the end of February that I attempted to take my first trip of the year, only to find that the beast from the east stepped in to destroy my plans. A hasty replacement – a flying (and unexpected) visit to Bath took place in early March instead. As I noted at the time, I was surprised at the availability of keenly priced fares with just a few days’ notice and really pleased to find that this was a route that could operate smoothly, making door-to-door travel from Edinburgh to Somerset really quite speedy. This remained the case during the rest of the year: my best value travel purchase this year has to be the £45 paid for a one way ticket just 3 hours before departure. However, the route has the potential to go wrong too – and when it does it does so with gusto. I have received EU261 compensation on two different occasions this year on the Edinburgh-Bristol route, with substantial delays incurred.

Flying home to Edinburgh on a dark evening at Bristol Airport

In fact, this year was on where I enjoyed a range of luck in terms of punctuality. On a number of occasions when an on-time arrival really was essential, but the itinerary felt dicey, I was fortunate to have plans stick. However, I was a recipient of involuntary denied boarding compensation for a trip in July which had the rather odd result of SAS effectively covering all my travel costs. Storm Ali in mid-September also put paid to a day trip to London – regrettably only once I was in the capital. I was relieved that my travel insurer covered the costs of unexpected overnight accommodation and replacement travel on this occasion, as trees on the line saw my plans fall apart.

LNER service waiting to depart Edinburgh Waverley for King’s Cross at dawn.

In a reversal of the trends in 2017 when I travelled extensively on the ECML but didn’t make it to London, whilst making fair use of the WCML, in 2018 I didn’t make it to my old stomping ground of Greater Manchester even once, while I did several trips to London by daytime rail. These were all southbound (my only scheduled northbound trip got scrubbed by Ali). I enjoyed the more relaxing rail setting, and it provided an opportunity to work that travelling by air does not offer. However, the ride quality is not great at times – especially when trying to concentrate on work – and the journey times are extensive. The slower journeys almost feel intolerable – one Sunday night service I travelled on took more than 5 hours! That being said, the catering is appreciated. While others are excited about the impending arrival of LNER’s new rolling stock – the Azuma (currently delayed) – I’m not holding my breath. I had the chance to try the corresponding stock being used by Great Western during the summer and it was nothing to write home about – I sincerely hope we’re not stuck with them in four decades’ time!

A dreich morning boarding a Ryanair flight to London Stansted at Edinburgh Airport

I flew to London using Ryanair once following their infamous cancellation of an entire winter schedule between Edinburgh and Stansted during the preceding winter, without issue and for the bargain price of £12. I also flew to and from London City on multiple occasions using Avios redemptions. Several of these were in Club Europe due to availability issues, but truth be told there was little point given that the Embraers used by British Airways to LCY are wonderfully spacious and service remains strong in Economy. In contrast, I flew back from London on one occasion with BA in Club from Gatwick and was highly impressed at the lounge offering in the terminal and on board – especially for a cheap Avios redemption.

The (old) Caledonian Sleeper at the platform at Euston on the night the new rolling stock should have launched fare-paying service.

The Caledonian Sleeper saw me five times in 2018 – all going north from Euston. Originally, the final two bookings were to have been on new rolling stock – including an outing in the club room with a shower. Due to delays with the manufacturer, the launch has been postponed until the middle of 2019. Ostensibly, service remained the same – other than a few tweaks – and I remained happy. Indeed, since the change allowing passengers to board the sleeper from 10pm at Euston, I find the experience of travelling has improved significantly. Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the new product arriving. (The less said at this point about the heavily delayed Crossrail, the better – its launch date had been in the calendar too!)

Flying domestically with Air Canada.

Further afield, I spent just over a week in Canada in late May and early June, visiting Toronto and Regina. I reflected on my experience of travelling to Saskatchewan here, as well as how to catch the bus in the Queen City. For reasons of logistics, I needed to be in Helsinki (I wrote up my reflections on Helsinki local transit here) two days after my final day in Toronto which meant that I ended up travelling with American Airlines and Finnair via New York. While I haven’t yet had time to write it up here, I was all too happy to pay a very reasonable upgrade fee from JFK to HEL to try out Finnair’s long haul business class product. On the whole, I was impressed by my experience with Finnair – I also found their short haul product from Helsinki back to Edinburgh was up to scratch. I can only assume that the outbound economy flight with BA to Toronto from Heathrow was fine – although I remember nothing about it!

Finnair aircraft pulling up to the gate at New York’s JFK Airport.

Travel to Sweden over 2018 was smooth and unremarkable, making use of a combination of Ryanair, EasyJet and Norwegian. I didn’t run into difficulties, and with the exception of one extortionate ticket bought with SAS (flown with Lufthansa, as explained above), prices remained reasonable. I had a lot of fun returning from Gothenburg to the UK using a combination of Brussels Airlines and bmi Regional back in May, not least for the nostalgia kick of flying on one of bmi’s Embraer 145s.

The Copenhagen-Hamburg train aboard the ferry.

My travel highlight of 2018 was undoubtedly in October when I visited Copenhagen before travelling home by rail. I outlined the journey in three parts: Copenhagen to Hamburg, Hamburg to London part 1 and part 2. The whole return journey covered multiple items on my travel bucket list. I was thrilled to finally make it onto the Copenhagen to Hamburg direct train using the Rødby-Puttgarden ferry. The new Eurostar rolling stock from Brussels to London was also a delight. (And I haven’t even mentioned Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg!). It might not have been as cheap as flying direct with easyJet, but it represented excellent value for many, comfortable hours’ train travel – I’m very grateful to my enthusiastic travel companion who did most of the intricate legwork and planning to ensure we travelled in comfort and style.

My travel-planning companion admires the new Eurostar rolling stock in Brussels.

Closer to home, much of the first half of 2018 was spent preparing to move home and settling into a new area. The result of this has been lots of exploring of new travel options in a new part of the city. One exciting day in June I got to visit the Port of Leith for a guided tour. I wrote about the launch of MyTaxi, a new app, back in May – things didn’t quite work as I had hoped. It remains the case that finding a taxi in Leith can be quite a challenge, and I continue to seek out the best solution without success.

My room at London’s Malmaison.

Most travel takes place on the basis of convenience and cost. I was very pleased to secure various hotel rooms in London for well under £50/night during 2018. I made use of the hotel booking app HotelTonight several times during 2018 and was generally pleased with the results: under £50 for a good B&B room in Bath booked on the day of arrival and under £100 for a night in the London Malmaison booked at 8pm rank as highlights.

The view from the Doubletree in Greenwich looking towards the central London skyline.

However, points and status did play a role at various times. My personal highlights included the Radisson Suite Hotel at Toronto Airport, which was a very cheap points redemption where I received a full 4-room apartment. I was similarly chuffed with the bargain redemption offered by the Hampton by Hilton at Bristol Airport. I was very pleased with perks offered at the Four Points by Sheraton in Regina, where my status secured me a good room and generous breakfast credit. The absolute winner for status-related perk has to go to the Doubletree by Hilton in Greenwich, which provided an upgrade to the top floor with floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the city of London to the west, along with 2 glasses of wine per guest and the requisite hot cookie on check in. While the location is a little left field, I really like Deptford and will try to stay there again. In terms of travel redemptions, I was most pleased with a late redemption in 2018 for LNER credit via Nectar, which represented excellent value – in addition to a great value redemption of my SJ Prio points 10 minutes before departure for a train from Lund to Halmstad.

SJ 3000 waiting at the platform in Halmstad.

So, what does 2019 hold in store? There is slightly more in the diary than last time. At least a couple of impending trips to London along with the likely outings to Sweden are lined up. In early June I will be visiting Vancouver – I’m looking forward to my first visit to the Pacific northwest and trying out BA’s A380 economy product for the first time in 4 years. A trip to Italy is also likely – and perhaps a few surprises. And who knows – if Brexit leads to a travel shutdown, I might get around to writing up my outstanding blog ideas from late 2017 and 2018.

The beautiful dawn view at the Fischmarkt in Hamburg.

Touring the Port of Leith

Waiting to load up

A typical view

A few weeks ago, a colleague pointed out to me that Forth Ports were advertising free bus tours of the Port of Leith to mark their 50th anniversary.The Port of Leith is the largest enclosed deepwater port in Scotland and it handles lots of cargo, lots of North Sea oil/gas logistics and quite a few cruise ships. As a privately owned, working port, the goings on inside are a bit of a mystery to locals – until now, I’ve only ever really been aware the shape/layout of the port thanks to the map and views when arriving by air from the east. Living 15 minutes walk from the port and having wondered what lay inside, this seemed like an excellent opportunity to find out. A booking was duly made and one very, very rainy Saturday morning in mid-June we pitched up at the Prince of Wales Gate to join our tour.

It was very nice to see that they had chartered two old routemasters. Of course, filled up with a busload of passengers and on a rainy day, it took all of two minutes to steam up all the windows. Open window cracks offered some respite, and clear photos. Wiping the glass every few seconds helped too – but there’s only so much you can do.

The Normand Pioneer – an offshore supply ship

Nevertheless, the tour, which lasted about 45 minutes was good. We received a running commentary as we drove around the docks – some of it slightly heavy on marketing copy – but plenty of it informative for the uninitiated. We stopped several times to be shown things, and received two ‘guest’ talks from speakers who got on. The highlight on this rainiest of days was probably seeing the lock gates used at the entrance to the port that ensure the depth inside remains the same regardless of the tide.

The lock at the entrance to the port. In front is the lock gate, on a series of wires (just visible).

There’s not much more to add. Of course, better weather would have been nice – and more time could have been good in places. I hope this is something they decide to repeat or even develop in future. I would love to do a walking tour of the port, but this would clearly open up a whole host of other issues in terms of distance and safety. More realistic is possibly getting the chance to take the tour when it isn’t bucketing it down and the windows are clear!

Another glimpsed vessel.

On the quay where the buses departed.

MyTaxi launches in Edinburgh

Since I sketched out my thoughts on taxis in Edinburgh, there’s been a shake up, with MyTaxi (formerly Hailo) launching in the city in May. This is a particularly interesting proposition, since it is an existing platform with many customers using the app in other cities. In Edinburgh, MyTaxi have partnered with City Cabs, who are the sole providers of cars for the app. This results in the slightly odd outcome that City Cabs is now providing cars through its own app, as well as that of a ‘competitor’. It also retains the sense of rivalry in the Edinburgh black cab biz, with Central seemingly accepting the warm embrace of Gett.

The arrival of MyTaxi in Edinburgh has resulted in a marketing blitz, with billboards, press releases, and so on. As well as promo codes being handed out to provide users with £15 of free credit (which, by the way, is what you get through the standard refer-a-friend setup), MyTaxi is offering 1/3 off metered fares until the end of June. Other strokes of marketing genius include the fact that they have settled on a fixed fare to the airport – something I’ve felt has been required for a long time in Edinburgh. The fact they’ve set it at £20 is incredible – while you might pay £20 if you hail a cab on Princes Street, the metered fare from many parts of the city is far higher. This give away is compounded by the fact that for two weeks after launch, they were offering 50% off the airport fare – making airport runs a ludicrous £10.

I’ve used the app a few times now, and have been satisfied. The interface is similar to Gett/City/Uber etc. and streamlines the experience by letting you add a payment card. In practical terms, I’ve used the app to go to the airport twice, return from the airport once, and for a city centre to home run. When using the app to hail a vehicle without pre-planning, it’s clear they are suffering from some availability issues. It’s unclear whether all City Cabs cars are on the system, or only those who have opted in. I waited for more than 10 minutes in the middle of the day for a cab to go to the airport. On the other occasion, when I pre-booked, my cab arrived on time as would be expected. Booking from the airport worked, but the pick up zone is a forgotten corner of the multi storey car park and is atrociously signed from the terminal – I’m familiar with the airport but had never seen it, and had to ask for directions. This will very probably need to change. Hailing a cab in central Edinburgh (within eyesight of a cab rank, as an experiment), I discovered there was no driver nearby willing to take me – my driver came from a mile away and I waited for quite a few minutes.

It’s clear that availability will be an issue – users will expect cars to be available, particularly at times that shouldn’t be all that busy. But more interesting will be how long the fixed fare to the airport lasts. I will be directing all my airport business at MyTaxi for the time being – the rate is unbeatable. However, it has been clear from chatting to drivers that they are unhappy with the rate, which they consider too low. In booking, I’ve had drivers cancel (the app shows this), presumably due to the fixed rate. Quite how things will pan out once the marketing budget has been spent by MyTaxi remains to be seen.

2018 so far

TransportIan has been suffering from something of a lull during 2018, excused by a particularly strenuous period of work in January followed by the joys of moving home in March and April. Having believed that I would have substantially more time to write on the blog once other projects were out of the way, I have found instead that it was operating as a safety valve during periods of stress and that some of that activity has been directed elsewhere in recent months.

With one of my last posts being a travel review of 2017, I thought I would take the opportunity to briefly round up a few thoughts one what I’ve been doing – hopefully inspiring more posts to come. January and February were very low activity months from a travel perspective. In January, travel was limited to returning from a brief New Year in Cheshire by rail (with a happy over-supply of whisky in a deserted first class carriage) and 24 hours spent in Stirling by the usual means. February was even quiet on the travel front – I did not leave Edinburgh. Plans were slowly being hatched, however. I had been due to visit London on 1 March, which was cancelled by snowmageddon. This led to a surprise substitute trip to Bath in Somerset just a few days later – the only blog to have been written this year thus far.

As noted in my round up of 2017, the only certainty for 2018 was that at least a couple of trips to London were in the diary. The first of these to successfully occur was in the final week of March, when I was in the capital for three days. This trip was remarkable for a couple of reasons – it was the first time I had travelled down to London on a daytime train in almost 18 months – and I almost ended up missing the sleeper home thanks to issues on the tube network on the evening of my departure.

Just a couple of weeks later, I was back in London, and got the chance to make my first consistent (useful) use of the London Overground. Additionally, my budget accommodation directly above Wembley Central station shook every time a high speed Pendolino passed through below! Three weeks later, I was back in London again – this time making use of the recently reinstated Ryanair service to Stansted after its winter blockade. In both cases, I returned on the sleeper.

There’s lots going on in the above – not least the news that Virgin Trains East Coast is no more – to be placed by LNER in June. You’ll notice the multiple trips on the Caledonian Sleeper – now with a new pricing structure, check in procedure and approach to catering – but still no new rolling stock. I keep assuming I’m about to take my final trip on the old stock, only to end up travelling on it again.

Just a week ago I was in southern Sweden for a brief visit which involved lots of toing and froing on trains and buses, including an exciting (and intentional diversion) on the way home. And these words are being written from seat 29A on BA93 to Toronto. More on both of these hopefully to follow soon.

PS: I mentioned plans to write up blogs from my trip to Hong Kong in December – I haven’t forgotten about this, but time pressure means it has rather fallen by the wayside. I hope to get round to it – notes were taken at the time!

Edinburgh-Bath-Edinburgh

Courtesy of snowmageddon cancelling a trip to London last week, I unexpectedly ended up going to Bath in Somerset a little earlier this week. Given that I was booking just a few days before departure, I was pleased to find that it was possible to book a return trip with EasyJet from Edinburgh to Bristol for just over £60. Capacity is decent on this route, with up to 5 flights per day in each direction – passengers (based on my observations of travelling this route a couple of times) appear to be a mix of business and leisure travellers.

On Tuesday, various diary clashes meant I had to take a morning outing to Stirling before going to the airport. While the snow was all gone in Edinburgh, I found there was still a lot on the ground in the central belt of Scotland. I ended up on a train earlier than the one I was aiming for, which was fortunate given ScotRail were still struggling to get back up to speed and it transpired the one I had been aiming for was cancelled. Once I was done in Stirling, I got a lift from my father in the car to the Ingliston Park and Ride. My father needed to be at a meeting in central Edinburgh, so then hopped on the tram. Meanwhile, I decided to experiment with walking from the park and ride to Edinburgh Airport. It is all of 2 minutes on the tram from Ingliston to the airport, but the nature of the fare system means it costs £6 for a single. It only took me about 15 minutes to walk it – and there are pavements all the way, even if the route isn’t all that direct. Here is a photo of the exciting trail I followed, and another shot of two trams at the Airport terminus – without me as a passenger.

I was travelling light, and the airport was quiet. This meant I was through security and airside in under 5 minutes – even though I had to remove my shoes. After a quick lunch in the lounge, it was time to head to the gate. It was obvious that there was a fairly light load on my 3pm flight – just 80 passengers according to crew on board. I was seated in a row of three on my own. The flight pushed back on time and was uneventful. In fact, I took the opportunity to listen to the recent Radio 4 documentary Inside the world of the frequent flyer. Well worth a listen if you’re intrigued by the way frequent flyer schemes work. While I had hoped for good views of snow, there was cloud cover almost all the way en route. However, there were great views of the Severn on approach to Bristol. This was great to see, as the last time I flew to Bristol in 2015 I arrived in dense fog and saw nothing from the air!

After swift disembarkation, I headed to kerbside outside the terminal to find my onward transport, which was running late. While waiting, I got to see many many passengers board a bus to Plymouth. In contrast, very few people were waiting for the bus to Bath – I would estimate around 12 of us got on at the airport at 4.30pm. The Air Decker is the only operator of bus services from Bristol Airport to Bath – a journey of about 18 miles, which takes a little over an hour. I paid £18 for a return ticket to Bath with a student discount (it’s £20 for normals) – cash only. The buses used on this route vary – on the journey to Bath I benefited from a new double decker with good seats, and multiple tables. The tables featured USB charging (although no on board wifi so I had to use my phone), and given how quiet it was I got to have a table to myself, which was useful for work purposes. On the return journey, the older bus was far less appealing for the worker on the move. Being the middle of rush hour, the bus not only left late but the journey took an age – getting stuck in traffic in all sort of exotic outer suburbs of Bristol as we slowly made our way to Bath. Eventually, however, I made it – and checked into my pleasant but cheap guest house (booked hours earlier using the HotelTonight app – possibly more on that in a future blog.

I had a lovely time in Bath, which really is a beautiful city – with lots of good coffee. However, all good outings must eventually come to an end. I hopped on a bus at 7pm heading back to Bristol Airport, which was a much smoother run outside of rush hour. Upon arrival at the airport (just 15 mins before the gate closure time for the final departure of the night from Bristol) I headed up through the deserted terminal and cleared security – along with a handful of other stragglers – in 2 minutes. The gate had just been announced and I headed there, joining the pen. It wasn’t long before we had embarked (via a remarkable looking ramp contraption!) and we were informed we were running 15 minutes early.The flight north was smooth, with great views on a very clear night. Pictured below are the ramp and views of Liverpool.

We arrived in Edinburgh ahead of schedule on a central stand, which meant that from pulling up to the gate to my taxi pulling away took all of 5 minutes. I was home by 10.15pm, which meant I had managed a door-to-door journey from Bath to south Edinburgh in just 3.25 hours. This isn’t necessarily something I’d willingly replicate – I cut it far too fine getting to Bristol Airport – but I was impressed that it could be done. EasyJet really does provide a steady service on the Edinburgh-Bristol route, which can be used in a number of ways. However, I look forward to visiting Bath in future using the train!

 

 

Taxis in Edinburgh

All too often, I end up in the back of a taxi cab to or from the airport at times when any sane person is in bed.

I thought I would post a few thoughts about taxis in Edinburgh to mark my one-year-anniversary of (sporadically) using Gett. Edinburgh has traditionally used black hackney cabs, which are now dominated by City Cabs and Central Cabs, with the remainder made up by independent street cars. Nowadays, there are obviously plenty of minicab operators out there, with Capital Cars being the biggest provider. More recently, these have been joined by Uber and Gett. What strikes me as most peculiar is the fact that the rates for all of these are set by the City of Edinburgh Council. Consequently, what you pay is effectively the same across the board – with some minor variations.

I tend to use City Cabs for bookings from home, as it is easy to make a booking via their app (or on the phone) and they turn up. The app is a little idiosyncratic – it was recently ‘relaunched’ which meant I had to re-register to keep using it. But it comes with what you would expect. There’s GPS and live tracking of cars and you can arrange card payment through the app and so on. For me, the most useful thing is that a booking made in advance generates a confirmation email, which makes it feel more certain than simply an app-based system. City all, theoretically, take cards for payment, but they still charge 5% for this. You also run into the occasional driver who doesn’t want to, or whose card reader isn’t on or working. Most of the cabs also have free onboard WiFi, although I haven’t tried this as I rely on my own 4G. In terms of the vehicles used, it’s the usual range of black hackney cabs, although I would say that cabs in Edinburgh are typically newer and of a better standard than in many other provincial towns and cities outside of London. City often end up being the ride home as well, as they hold the contract to provide vehicles for the cab rank at the airport. This is something they struggle with at times, as they often have insufficient cars available late at night.

I’ve taken to using Gett for most other, smaller journeys around Edinburgh by taxi. I find the app is easy to use, the ability to update and amend journey details while the journey is taking place is a bonus, and paying by card through the app automatically speeds up arrival. (I suppose this sounds like Uber!) However, drivers are street car providers – which means they’re licensed black cabs but not with any radio support. Traditionally, they would drive around town waiting to be hailed, and Gett is an updated version of this. The cabs tend to be a little older than those used by City, but drivers still know what they’re doing and where they’re going. Oddly, Central Taxis often have cars providing Gett services. The biggest frustration is that there are often no cars available at all – you cannot solely rely on Gett. This is a big part of why I have not yet attempted to book a cab with Gett in advance for anything ‘important’ (like an early morning airport run).

As I found a couple of weeks ago, hailing cabs still works just fine. We were in the Old Town and needed to be at the Foot of the Walk in Leith 5 minutes ago. A cab going the wrong way was hailed, and despite it being a tricky route to navigate due to the closure of Leith Street, it made good time without needing directions or prompting. On the flipside, cars like this rarely take card payments – so you will need cash with you.

So what don’t I use? Well, I’ve tended to avoid minicabs, even from the big providers. I have an inherent preference for black cabs, whose drivers (in Edinburgh at least) tend to have a good sense for the city and don’t need directions. We may not have The Knowledge in Edinburgh, but drivers need to know a lot if they’re not to spend all day in traffic jams. Nominally, the minicab providers can only charge the same as the black cabs – in practice most run various discount schemes, although on those few occasions I have used them, they never seem  cheaper. The most common occasion for using them is from the airport if there are no black cabs available, where they offer no discounts at all. Uber, which is, in Edinburgh-terms, simply another minicab company, is something I’ve avoided. They aren’t cheaper and there have been reports of availability issues in Edinburgh. While the app-based system appeals to me, the way that Uber conducts business and treats people does not – as I have a choice I’ve exercised it.

Despite having many, many taxis, Edinburgh does suffer from availability issues. As already noted, the airport is problematic. They struggle to drum up enough black cabs to come to the airport (pick ups are expensive due to airport charges and the distance from the city, while drivers are concerned they may only get a low value job to South Gyle). This often leads to long queues in the evenings. Sometimes, the solution is to use the minicab ‘rank’ – an office will take your advance booking, but is often able to allocate you a car that happens to be standing outside. This has paid off on some occasions, but recently I arrived at 11pm on a Sunday evening to find that it too had a huge queue and no cars. The airport is worst for this, but the railway stations also suffer from the same difficulties.

I suspect I’m going to keep up the same approach I’ve been using. As of October 2017, I no longer have a Ridacard for use on Lothian Buses and Edinburgh Trams (more on that in future), which has meant that I now evaluate each local trip I need to make on the basis of cost/speed/convenience. City Cabs works well for pre-booked trips, while a mixture of City, Gett and hailing cabs works for everything else. I’d like to see the airport work out a way of getting its contracted taxi providers to get more vehicles out there, especially at peak times, but I suspect there’s more chance of pigs flying.

Late evening departures from Copenhagen

Two recent trips to Sweden have seen me return on late evening departures from Copenhagen. In both instances, the primary draw has been the departure time itself, with the added benefit that the fares have been highly affordable. In early November, I was booked onto Ryanair’s 22:50 departure to Stansted on a Wednesday night. In late November, I was on the 22:05 service to Edinburgh on a Sunday night.

For the first trip, I did it all from Haverdal by public transport. I didn’t have to leave the house until just after 6pm, and I took the bus to Halmstad. (After the only other passengers got off in the town centre, the driver turned off the GPS and drove me to the station front door instead of the bus station!). I ended up on a delayed Pågatåg to Helsingborg, where I then changed onto an Öresund train on to Copenhagen Airport. A perfectly smooth run, and I did Haverdal to the airport in 3 hours flat. Unsurprisingly, the airport was more or less dead. The lounges close early in Copenhagen, so I was left to wander the rather eery terminal before heading out to the F gates, which were similarly quiet. The Stansted flight was the last to go. After a rapid turnaround of the inbound aircraft, we made an on time departure, and actually arrived at Stansted 30 minutes early. Fortunately, my booked minicab had arrived early, and I was in my cosy Travelodge in Finchley before 1am. Under 8 hours from rural Sweden to north London seems good, especially as I managed a full writing day beforehand.

The second trip in November actually saw me leave at around the same time – 6pm – but this time in a taxi. I could probably have gone later, as the taxi to town was very fast. I put myself on a fast SJ service to Malmö, where I then changed onto an Öresund for the final hop across the sound. I managed to get it down to 2.5 hours from Haverdal to the airport, really not bad. The terminal was busier this time, but still not a patch on other occasions. Ryanair once again delivered a fairly prompt departure that had us in Edinburgh ahead of schedule. In true Edinburgh fashion, we were put onto buses to the border, which meant I was slowed down a bit. However, even after a wait there and for a cab, I made it home just before midnight. Door-to-door from Haverdal to Edinburgh in under 7 hours is pretty great – and even better given that I was able to do a full day on the ground in Sweden before leaving.

I always have mixed feelings about late flights – on the one hand, it can be exhausting to be up late, especially if delays occur. On the other hand, the benefit in terms of more daytime for other activities, and cheaper fares, often makes it worth considering. In both these cases it served me well. The biggest downside was the need to sort out a car transfer from Stansted (which went off without a hitch, as it turned out), while in Edinburgh you know that any late international arrival will see you waiting for ages at passport control and that cabs are hard to come by. In conclusion though, I was glad to discover that the travel experience can be streamlined somewhat, and I was really pleased not to have to surrender 8 hours from the middle of my day.

Lothian Buses on Doors Open Day

Edinburgh’s Doors Open Day, organised by the Cockburn Association, is an opportunity once per year to see inside some of the city’s architecturally worthwhile buildings, as well as other buildings of public interest. This year’s programme can be seen here. For several years, Lothian Buses have opened up their Central Garage on the Saturday and each time I’ve missed it. This year, they were pushing it particularly hard via various social media channels, and I managed to round up some company to head to the north side of Princes Street.

We walked over from the Southside, which gave us ample opportunity to catch sight of a few of the vintage buses that were being used to operate the number 26 in honour of the big day. Below is a 90s throwback sighted at the foot of the Mound…

Meanwhile, we captured this beauty at the top of London Road.

Once we got down to Annandale Street, we discovered an enormous queue to get in (easily 1/4 mile long), but it was making steady progress, and we probably only waited 10 minutes before we were inside. As we came past the front of the depot, we saw what lay in store for us – bus tours!

Inside there was quite the hoopla going on, with people everywhere and all sorts of buses (and quite a few other vehicles) to look at. You could generally go inside the newer ones, while the vintage ones (pulled in from museums and the like) were for outside observation only. Of particular interest was seeing a bus used by East Coast Buses on services to Dunbar (no good photos, sorry), which really sets the standard for a high quality bus for use on rural services. From an Edinburgh-centric perspective, these brand new Volvo electric buses looked interesting. You could even walk underneath one! They were rather stumpy and it remains to be seen which routes they will be used on – they look most suited to use on regular circulators, but Edinburgh doesn’t have any of those…

Here’s an attempt to show a wider spread of the buses on show.

Some buses seemed to be a long way from home…

And finally the moment we had all been waiting for. Obviously the bus wash tour was fantastic fun – although it was rather like getting onto an evening rush hour bus in heavy rain really.

All in all, it was great to have the chance to see Lothian HQ. It’d be fun if they consider opening the doors to the tram depot at Gogar in future years.

Haverdal to Edinburgh via Denmark

Our trip to rainy, rural Sweden was almost at an end and decisions had to be made about how to get ourselves back home to Edinburgh. Unlike on the way, we had most of the day to make our way to Copenhagen airport for a 17:05 departure to Edinburgh. We settled on using the Helsingborg-Helsingør ferry as a variation on the direct train. It is possible to buy a through ticket from the bus driver when boarding at our local stop all the way to Copenhagen – and by either the ferry or bridge route. Our driver hadn’t sold a “via ferry” ticket before, but it didn’t stop her from doing so! You even save around £2 per person by buying the ferry option. So, we joined the 08:41 to Halmstad, which is fairly busy bus – including passengers going to Halmstad Airport for flights to Stockholm. Despite several passengers needing to top up their travel cards onboard (ourselves included), we made good progress to town and arrived at the bus station just 3 minutes behind schedule.

This gave us ample time to loiter at a rather grey, chilly Halmstad station. What do you do once you’ve consumed your coffee and bun from the ubiquitous Pressbyrån? Why, you wander around the platforms watching the other trains come and go. Halmstad is where the fast SJ services bypass the slow Öresundståg services – and it is quite impressive to watch it happen. The SJ train arrives just a couple of minutes behind the stopper, and manages to be away in around 90 seconds (no platform dispatchers in Halmstad either, so this is all done by the conductor).

Eventually, our train, the 10:12 turned up. It was pink! (In Helsingborg, they join a second set on which was green on this occasion!). We managed to secure seats, which isn’t always a given on these trains. The journey was unremarkable until just north of Helsingborg, where there remains a stretch of single track – we had to wait for a delayed northbound train, and the minutes ticked away. So much so that we did not make our connection to the Scandlines Aurora in Helsingborg.

On the upside, this gave us the opportunity to poke around the departures area for a few minutes. It is an overwhelmingly exciting place, as can be seen from the photos.

Instead of the fancy Aurora, we ended up with the former HH Ferries vessel, the Mercandia VIII at 11:30. It is much smaller than Aurora, and rather less shiny. It was by far the choppiest crossing I’ve had in several years, and even the coffee was poor (almost unheard of in Scandinavia). The silver lining is that upon arrival in Helsingør, foot passengers disembark through the front of the cabin, providing the below view. I particularly like the juxtaposition of the prominent Danish flag and the Swedish flag-coloured markings on the car deck. In short, the Mercandia is much boatier than the other ferries plying this route – but there is little else going for it.

Upon arrival in Helsingør, there was an outside chance we could catch a train with a very short connection, and we duly paced our way along the corridors from the ferry. Unfortunately, an obstructive fellow passenger – also rushing but not quickly enough – stopped us from making it. Nevermind! A chance to poke around Helsingør station instead. Seen below is our train on the right, bound for Kalmar on the Baltic coast of Sweden, next to a local service bound for Hillerød.

Our train made good time into Copenhagen and we got off at Østerport to change onto the Metro, which we took 3 stops to Amagerbro station where I had spotted a lunch opportunity. No decent photos of the metro to share, but I remain impressed by Copenhagen’s interpretation of a metro system, which seems to work very well and has consistently decent ridership. Bear in mind that we were still travelling on the ticket bought from the bus driver in Haverdal at this point! It was about 13:10 when we arrived at Amagerbro, meaning it had taken around 4.5 hours from Haverdal. We might have cut 30-40 minutes off that journey time if we had gone on the direct train from Halmstad, but it would have been far less interesting.

After a rather good lunch at Halifax, the sun had come out, so we decided to walk the 5.5km to the airport through the Amager suburbs. Once we reached the airport, we headed for our usual hang out, the Aviator Lounge, for a quick cup of tea. Normally, it’s been a favourite for the wonderful views of aircraft on the apron and lots of daylight. As it was, the work on the new extension to the terminal meant that the lounge was very dark and that when secured one of the few seats by a window, this was our view…

Nevermind! We only had 20 minutes to spare, so we set off for the charming F gates shortly after we had finished our tea. Apparently feeling the urge to hurry things along, ground staff were already pushing the Final Call button when we appeared despite the absence of an aircraft, which turned up 10 minutes after we did. It was a decent example of how EasyJet can get it right when they try – the plane spent 28 minutes on stand between arrival and pushback – and both flights were full.

It was an unremarkable flight, but we got some wonderful views of the Scottish borders and Edinburgh as we approached our destination. Seen below is the Port of Leith.

We decided we’d take the tram to the city centre on what had turned into a beautiful evening – and it even ran quicker than usual! A quick change onto the number 33 on Princes Street had us home at 19:20 – a door-to-door travel time of just 12 hours (including a leisurely lunch and walk in Copenhagen).

Edinburgh to Haverdal

For a variety of reasons, we had booked to spend a week in Haverdal, a rural community north of Halmstad in western Sweden. This was done at short notice, but there were still good fares available a fortnight before departure for travel on EasyJet and we were able to redeem some Nectar points to take advantage of them. A 13:55 departure seems like a pleasant, middle-of-the-day flight but in reality I ended up feeling a little annoyed as we couldn’t really go to work but had to kick our heels during the morning.

In the end, we made a start from the house at about 10:30 and took the 14 to South Bridge. We then stopped in the Milkman for a good cup of coffee to kill a few more minutes, before popping round the corner to catch a 100 to the airport. I’ve already discussed the new buses to the airport,  but one feature I hadn’t noticed previously was the inclusion of live airport departure screens showing flight statuses, which I think is a good touch.

The upside of travelling in the middle of the day is that the airport bus is definitely not impeded in the way it is during the rush hour – we made good time out to the airport. Travelling with hand luggage only, we were able to pop straight upstairs and we were through security in under 5 minutes. While there were teething issues with the new security hall in Edinburgh, it really does seem to have found its rhythm. We headed for our usual hang-out, the No 1 Lounge only to be told it was full. Instead, we headed for the Aspire Lounge, which was so busy it felt like people were hovering waiting to take seats. We eventually found some nice seats by the window where we could watch the buses coming and going outside the terminal. Before long though, we headed for the gate and boarded. Departure was prompt and on-time, and we headed to the west, with a a good – if rainy – view of the three Forth bridges.

We arrived at Copenhagen Airport on time and made quick progress through the terminal. After buying a ticket to Halmstad (a source of frustration is that the Skånetrafiken vending machines won’t sell tickets to bus-only destinations in Halland), we took the first available train across the Öresund Bridge to Malmö. While border controls are no longer in force, the train still stops for an extended wait in Hyllie, which seems a little futile. Our stop at Malmö C gave us time to pick up some groceries and dinner, before we caught our onward train to Halmstad. We had a clear run up and despite picking up some delays in Skåne, we actually arrived in Halmstad on time, demonstrating that there is a fair bit of leeway in the timetable.

We easily made our 15 minute connection onto the 350 bus to take us to Haverdal. Fortunately, the buses have returned to the bus station (having been in exile on my last visit), making it easy to catch. The ticket sold to us was very cheap – I can only assume that the system calculates what we should have paid to buy a through ticket and charges the difference, but details about this online are scant. While the run to Haverdal drags a little, especially as the bus does a loop through Harplinge, it was quick enough. Living in Edinburgh, it is a novelty to be on buses doing 50mph on dark country roads.

While it felt like the journey dragged out, the door-to-door travel time was only a little over 9 hours. Even if we had driven at the Danish/Swedish end, we wouldn’t have cut much off that.