The BeerTrain

Another (non-Easter) trip for the narrow gauge Alco's on the Peloponnese, south of Athens. A Roadshow of 31 Bashers including Flossie & Shovel accompanying me for most of the trip.  The really good news was that the main daytime hauled turn, although still terminating at Pirghos, then formed a service to Kiparissia. No more taxi's required to the hotels in Olympia, the Ionian hotel outside Kippy station very much back in use! Thursday 4th March 2004 91107       Doncaster – Kings Cross   0746 Newcastle – Kings Cross   156m 319429     Kings X TL – Luton Airport Parkway   1004 Brighton – Bedford   30m G-EZJB   Luton Airport – Athens   1340 Luton – Athens With a full evening here in Athens I expect we had a night in the Posh Brewpub in the City Centre, hellfire range of German style beers, including a great Schwarz (Black) beer & food like Schweinhaxe's to eat. A home-from-home! Friday 5th March 2004 A9106 is attac...

A trip to celebrate Simon Brazels birthday - his Fiftieth. A large drinking party of the 3 Brazels Simon, Sean & David, with at least Trog, Betty, Howey (armed with an advance copy of Neath's Good Beer Guide Germany) & myself. Not for the feint hearted! (New locos again denoted by #). Thursday 18/05/2006 I actually flew to Linz as required track had appeared as the Krems - Linz now ran direct instead of via St.Valentin. 1144 270#  Hörsching - Linz       1559 Attnang Pucheim - Linz 10km Unit            Linz - Grein Stadt     1706 Linz - St Nikola Studen 62km 2043 016    Grein Stadt - Linz     1701 Krems - Linz 62km Quite a few hours here I wonder what I did - of course Beers (& a little food) in the brewpub! 101 090#    Linz - München Ost  2030 Budapest - München 280km Daily Total = 414km Friday 19/05/2006 A whole morning in Munchen to kill - Rabbits! Increase my Klik...

Not a pure Crank trip this time, more something I managed to persuade the wife she really wanted to do on the way back from a Holiday in Italy! We'd rented an apartment overlooking Lake Como in Menaggio, a very well to do resort town. View from our Menaggio Apartment View of Menaggio taken from the Lake View of the Lake taken from Menaggio As usual with these types of places pretty poor for me in respect of Brewpubs and interesting beers, apart from a good shop that did sell rarities from small breweries in the local area. This meant if we weren't in town of an evening for a meal then I was more than happy to sit on our balcony & sample some of these! We hired a car for the week, good fun down some of the Lakes VERY narrow roads some of which were single track with blind bends in the middle! I drove past George Clooney's house several times but he never popped out to wave, he's been known to have a few beers in Menaggio oft times but he was a no-show this week! I wo...