Travel Archives - A Life in Books

Twelve Days in Germany, Two Days in Austria, Three Days in Hungary and Two Books

We decided to break the first part of this year’s railway jaunt, meeting up with friends in London and arriving in Bonn early the following evening after a long day’s travel, including an hour’s delay, hardly unexpected given Deutsche Bahn’s recent lamentable performance. That and the fog shrouding our top-notch Rhine view meant an uncharacteristic

28 October 2026 / 13 Comments

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Two Days in Yorkshire, Almost One in Lancashire, One in Shropshire and a Book

H and I loved last year‘s Airbnb so much we booked it again for our annual visit to our lovely friend M. Not going to pretend I hadn’t hoped for a repeat of supper on the sun warmed terrace looking out over the beautiful Holme valley, but it seemed increasingly unlikely. We did get to

24 June 2026 / 30 Comments

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Four Days in Paris and Two Books

H had been wanting to go back to Paris for some time but I wasn’t so keen; then a friend raved about an art deco exhibition she’d seen there. That, and her reassurance that queues to see the newly restored Notre Dame weren’t nearly so horrendous as I assumed, convinced me to go. Walking down

29 April 2026 / 40 Comments

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Four Days in Copenhagen and One Book

H and I had been toying with going to Oslo or Helsinki for this year’s chilly break but decided to plump for Copenhagen instead which we’d visited twice before in February and enjoyed. A lucky choice as temperatures sank to -10 C in Helsinki last week. I had my eye on the Design Museum for

18 February 2026 / 28 Comments

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Three Days in London and Half a Book

Our London break got off to a slightly sticky start thanks to train problems which meant we arrived later than expected. We dropped our initial plans in favour of wandering over to Waterstones Piccadilly for a browse then H suggested a visit to the National Gallery to look at the floor. You might think that

14 January 2026 / 34 Comments

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Eight Days in Austria, Two Days in Switzerland, Five Days in France and Three Books

H and I had planned a German rail jaunt which would take us back to Budapest but reports of Deutsche-Bahn’s service were so discouraging we decided to give it a miss using Salzburg as our starting point instead. Best skip to the end if you’re only here for books: this will be a long one.

8 October 2025 / 32 Comments

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Three Days in Yorkshire, One in Shropshire and Most of a Book

Once a year H and I travel north to see our dear friends M, who lives one side of the Pennines, and N, who lives the other. This year we rented a cottage in Holmfirth on the Yorkshire side planning to meet N later in the week, sadly scuppered as he and his partner had

25 June 2025 / 31 Comments

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Three Days in Ghent and One Book

I had two reasons to feel a little superstitious about our Ghent trip: firstly, we’d planned to go in March 2020 days before lockdown at home – Belgium got there before us – and secondly the last time I travelled on Eurostar we both caught covid. H and I gathered our courage and set off

7 May 2025 / 37 Comments

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Four Days in Stockholm and One Book

H and I had been to Stockholm years ago arriving in the middle of an August heatwave so humid we didn’t do nearly as much as we’d planned. Consequently, my memories of the city were hazy, although the image of a young woman taking a piglet for a walk has stayed with me. We thought

12 February 2025 / 30 Comments

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Three Days in London and One Book

Aiming to break up the winter gloom, H and I took ourselves off to London for a few days planning to catch up with a few friends and family plus take in a bit of culture. We arrived on a gloriously sunny afternoon and decided to visit the National Portrait Gallery which underwent a substantial

15 January 2025 / 39 Comments

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Fourteen Days in Portugal and Two Books

We’d had such a lovely time when we last visited Portugal, pre-pandemic, I suggested a Portuguese railway jaunt to H. Our plan was less ambitious than our Central European holidays with just three stops and a flight either end, the first one to Porto. We’d visited the city back in September 2001, a strange time

25 October 2024 / 26 Comments

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