Travel Plans

I have finalised accommodation in Europe and am now commencing the US part of my journey.
The Round the World air fare has been paid (it sounded an awful lot in NZ dollars) and I am to fly from Dunedin to Sydney on August 7. 
I will, of course, stay with my sister and hopefully catch up with friends.

On August 19, I will fly to Bangkok staying in the hotel near the airport where I have stayed 3 times before (please red and yellow shirts, solve your differences by then) and onto Frankfurt on August 20, again staying at the same hotel near the main station as in 2008.

Then I will travel by train to Copenhagen, on the overnight ferry to Oslo and train again to Bergen where I board the Hurtigruten ship, MS Richard With, for 11 nights journey along the Norwegian coast and fiords to places like Tromso, Hammerfest and North Cape before turning around at Kirkenes and returning to Trondheim.
At Trondheim I will catch the train back to Oslo and have a good look as I stay there for 2 nights before continuing to Copenhagen for another 2 nights.  I visited both cities back in 1974 but would expect many changes since.

From Copenhagen I will catch the  train to Esbjerg then the overnight ferry to Harwich and train onto London.

I am quite excited to have just booked 3 nights at the Proms.

The night I arrive I have a program including Schubert's 8th (Unfinished) Symphony and Mozart's 40th plus some works by Schumann.  The following night is Monteverdi's vespers and then on the Saturday night I have a ticket for Proms in the Park. I do not have a Snowball's chance in Hell of getting tickets to the final night in the hall but will watch it on the screen from across the road.  However the park also has a pre-concert which will include Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Jose Carreras.

After 4 nights in London I am going to the Lakes District for 3 nights at Ambleside, hopefully relaxing with some walking after all that wonderful music.


Then there will be a rush by train with overnight stops back in London, in Luxembourg (to add another country to my list) and Mainz before meeting my friends from South Africa who started all this a year ago.

I met Kathy and Peter on the train to Oberammergau in 1980. We attended the Passion play together and later travelled part of the Romantic Road. We have kept in contact and I have had dinner with them twice when they have visited Sydney.

After the decision to have a 30 year reunion, we had a breakdown in communication and I went ahead and booked anyway. We established contact again this year but it was too late for them to gain accommodation in Oberammergau so they are staying at a nearby village and I will spend one night with them before going to my hotel in the town itself. Hopefully we will see each other at the play.

The day after the play (September 22) I am flying from Munich to Chicago and the second half of my epic journey.

Last Night at the Proms

I know this is a bit late. Way back in 1974 I attended the Proms at the Albert Hall in London, it wasn't the last night and I cannot remember the program but I have always dreamed that if I came into lots of money I would go and spend a summer living near to London and attend lots of Prom concerts and especially the Last Night. I guess with some planning I might be able to join the crowd sitting opposite in Hyde Park some year.
They use to broadcast the Last Night on television here but not for the last few years.

Classic FM here in Australia has been broadcasting all the prom concerts over the past few weeks. I have listened to a number, usually while doing other things like reading the blogs. I was feeling very down last Friday (see last post) but perked up considerably when I realised that they were going to broadcast the recent Last Night at the Proms that afternoon. I stopped doing anything else and just listened to the 2nd half. I think I am more English than the English and love the great British patriotic songs.

When I first visited England in July 1974 I thought I had come home. I may have been influenced by the fact that I had just spent a month in Asia and had been stuck in Tehran as all flights to Greece (my next ticketed stop) were cancelled due to the Cyprus crisis and I spent some time in police stations having my visa extended. I was offered flights to Moscow and Beirut by different airlines which I declined but finally Swissair offered to fly me to Zurich and onto London.

Anyway listening to the Last Night on radio cheered me up immensely and I was delighted to find this excerpt from the 2008 concert with the wonderful Bryn Terfel singing 'Rule Britannia' in the amazing costume that had been described on radio. Note the Aussie and Kiwi flags can be seen waving wildly at different times. (I bet most of you cannot tell the difference.)