Travel 2009

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Shuttleworth Collection

The final stop on my trip was London, where I stayed for most of a week (thanks, Jakob and Sarah, for putting me up!) I had big plans, but ended up spending most of my time at British Library Newspapers doing research for an article. But first I got to spend a weekend looking at old aeroplanes, thanks to JDK who put me in touch with Trevor, who kindly offered his services as a chauffeur and guide. On the Saturday, we visited the fabled Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden in Bedfordshire, which was holding an evening flying display.
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Conwy

After Cardiff, my next base of operations was to be Conwy (above), a small town on the north coast of Wales. But getting from south Wales to north Wales by rail is surprisingly difficult: there's no mainline route which doesn't spend most of its time in England, and I wanted to see some of the Welsh countryside rolling past my window! Luckily, Chris suggested a workable alternative: take a main line train to Porthmadog, take a tourist steam train from there to Blaenau Ffestiniog, and from there another mainline train to Conwy (or rather Llandudno Junction, which is walking distance from Conwy). This would take all day, but since I probably would have done one of the tourist trains anyway, I didn't lose much in the way of holidaying time. And the rail trip was worth it!
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