Travel travails

We had a ferry ticket to Holyhead. Train tickets from Holyhead to Crewe and from Crewe to Stratford upon Avon. Seemed simple enough, one ferry, two trains…

Our car picked us up at the motel and started out of town. The friendly driver chatted away with us and at one point asked us what airline we were flying. Not flying we told him, taking ferry. Oops, were on our way to airport. We showed him our agreement with the car company and our ferry ticket which was good from either of two ports near Dublin. Which, he asked. Like we would know. Told him we thought it was Dublin Port which is where he took us and proved to be correct but it was a harbinger of the day.

Got to Holyhead which is actually in Wales. Bonus! Didn’t think we would be in Wales so we will be in all of the countries in the isles. Asked at the train information about our train to Crewe and he told us that it was on platform 2. Went out to platform 2 and since we had reserved seats we asked the platform agent which car we needed. “That’s not your train” he told us. “Yours will be a big red one.” We presumed that it would be on the same platform so we watched for it and it got close to the time when we ought to be leaving so we went out and found our big red train on a different platform, not visible from the waiting room. Got on the wrong car but a nice gentleman pointed us in the right direction and we got to coach L and found our seats. Here, to our great good fortune we ran into the most useful person we met all day. The nice ticket checker lady on coach L of Virgin Rail service from Holyhead to London. Our connection at Crewe allowed for 6 minutes between trains and the Crewe station web page says to allow a minimum of 10. I know this and had been worrying about whether we’d be able to make it schlepping our bags along with us. Nice lady printed us off three options. If we made the connection and two for if we missed it.

A digression here, our train from Holyhead to Crewe was Virgin Rail. When we changed at Crewe we not only changed trains, we changed operating companies. The rest of the trip was BritRail (British Rail) much more spartan. And our ticket from Crewe to Stratford upon Avon was a bit misleading as while one ticket it was for three different trains. In addition to changing trains at Crewe we had to change again at Wolverhampton and yet again at Smethwick. The only tight one was the one at Crewe. The nice lady in Coach L had told us what platform we would need at Crewe so we went up the lift, across the bridge to the platform 5 access, down the lift, and as we stepped off the lift here came our train. Incredible timing. Anyhow we are here in Stratford upon Avon. Registration for the Sasha Festival is this afternoon and we’ll be here a week so we can relax and enjoy…

So many thanks to all the helpful folks who offered to assist two very lost and confused travelers.

I did grab a couple of shots off the ferry dock in Holyhead so as to have at least one photo from Wales.

Tom