I’m in Cardiff now; I’ll look for Torchwood Three when I spend Thursday around Cardiff Bay. But getting here was more annoying than usual. I eschewed an earlier departure from Aberystwyth (wherein I would have changed from bus to train at some point) in favour of a single bus all the way to Cardiff. Unfortunately, I had to be on that bus for four and a half hours, with little chance for a stretch break. I ended that trip stiff and in need of a massage. That was two long bus rides in three days. I might take the train to London this time.
What I hadn’t counted on when I set up my itinerary is the fact I have to get from place to place, and in some cases (Glasgow to Skye, for one), the journey took up the whole day. And there’s the cost of it all: even though I scored discounts (like a €12 train from Westport to Dublin bought online when a walk-on fare could be three times that), it all adds up in the end.
Maybe I was a bit ambitious trying to squeeze in as many places to go. But I’m rationalizing it with the fact that I may never visit these places again, and it might be a while before I have this much time to travel anyway, so the fatigue is a necessary evil.
UPDATE: I’ve booked my Eurostar train from Paris to London. I was all ready to book a one-way fare for USD 190, but I’m still getting cold feet. Enter Seat 61’s guide to Eurostar. I had to clear my cookies (a necessary chore anyway) and come back to the Eurostar site and pretend I was a UK resident (or some other country that’s not necessarily your own – Seat 61 recommended Spain, but I got a higher converted price). Long story short, I booked my train to London, but I needed to add a return trip (Seat 61 claims that even Eurostar recommends this for one-way passengers). I can print off both tickets at Paris’ Gare du Nord and the return becomes a souvenir that just isn’t used. The total of £86 is still better than USD 190.
A couple of contrasting pictures from around Aberystwyth, on the mid-Welsh coast. The second one involves a local legend about how, in medieval times, a crossing was constructed near the base of a waterfall.
