Happy Travels with a ‘Dodgy’ Heart

By David Cross

This is not a guidebook, though I hope it gives the reader some ideas on places worth seeing, accommodation worth considering, and decent restaurants worth dining in. It does not normally give a list of possible places to stay (only places I have experienced myself being included), but at the end of each chapter, there will be a Practicalities page containing the following:

1 Useful websites on places, maps, and transport. In general, sites relevant to more than one chapter will be found the first time they are relevant and are referenced in later chapters.
2 Accommodation on these pages will be only where I have stayed. I go for cheaper places when I travel alone, although I nearly always choose en-suite rooms as I got older, and moderately cheap when I went with Pam. In general, absence of comment means it is OK, bearing this in mind.
3 Restaurants are only mentioned on these pages if they are particularly good, either absolutely or in terms of value for moneyor if definitely not recommended.
4 Must-sees appear in the chapters themselves but will be summarised on these pages.

The index is based on my historic fury at finding pages, only to get a totally uninformative mention of the place in passing. Text (normal print) references are meant to show the first or only page with information about the place. Those planning holidays may find it more helpful to go immediately to pages shown in italic print, where they will often find helpful URLs.

I have checked all the multitude of URLs in this book in February 2012, inserting a lot of new ones in place of dead sites. Occasionally my comments on a site may be a bit dodgy now, but there are some great sites here. Im not sure how I overcame temptation to spend ages just looking at some!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467890410

Book preview

© 2012 by David Cross. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/23/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4678-9039-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-9040-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-9041-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Preface

About this book

Chapter 1 Once upon a time—

Chapter 2 Andalucia—1989 to 1994—pre-illness

Chapter 3 Gibraltar—1991

Chapter 4 Norway first trip—July 1998

Chapter 5 Abruzzo—November 1998

Chapter 6 Portugal—March 1999

Chapter 7 Norway [most of a nutshell]— June 1999

Chapter 8 Catalunya—October 1999

Chapter 9 Some Spanish Cities [and Bragança] March 2000

Chapter 10 Spanish Pyrenees—September 2000

Chapter 11 Sicily—February, 2001

Chapter 12 Sweden and Finland—May 2001

Chapter 13 Paris—September 2001

Chapter 14 Galicia, Spain and Minho, Portugal October 2001

Chapter 15 Norwegian Coastal Voyage—April 2002

Chapter 16 Mallorca—December 2002

Chapter 17 French Pyrenees—May 2003

Chapter 18 Short time in Belgium—September 2003

Chapter 19 Andalucía again—February 2004

Chapter 20 Finland again—May 2004

Chapter 21 Prague—November 2004

Chapter 22 Valencia, Teruel and area—March 2005

Chapter 23 Peru—September 2005

Chapter 24 What’s Next?

Dedication

TO MY FAMILY

AND IN MEMORY OF PAM, MY LATE WIFE, AND IAN,

ANOTHER FORMER TRAVELLING COMPANION.

Preface

I never meant to bother with a preface to this book but there have been numerous changes since I first planned it. People I expected to get particular enjoyment from reminiscences connected with it, my wife Pam and my friend Ian, Have died. I had already written some (Ian) or all (Pam) chapters, where they are portrayed as living people. My revulsion at the thought of changing these means that they remain as written and therefore they appear as living. I hope nobody finds this confusing or distressing.

I also take the chance to thank my Internet friends Maria Lorensen [proof reading and general advice] and Marianne Crone [suggestion about publishing.]

About this book

This is not a guidebook as such, though I hope it gives the reader some ideas on places worth seeing, accommodation worth considering and decent restaurants. It does not normally give a list of possible places to stay [only places I have experienced myself being included] but at the end of each chapter there will be a ‘Practicalities’ page containing:

1 Useful websites on places, maps and transport. In general, sites relevant to more than one chapter will be found the first time they are relevant and referenced in later chapters.

2 Accommodation on these pages will be only where I have stayed. I go for cheaper places when I travel alone, although I nearly always choose en-suite rooms as I get older, and moderately cheap when I went with Pam. In general, absence of comment means it is OK, bearing this in mind.

3 Restaurants are only mentioned on these pages if they are particularly good, either absolutely or in terms of value for money—or if definitely not recommended.

4 Must-sees appear in the chapters themselves but will be summarised on these pages.

The index is based on my historic fury at finding pages, only to get a totally uninformative mention of the place in passing. Text [normal print] references are meant to show the first or only page with information about the place. Those planning holidays may find it more helpful to go immediately to pages shown in italic print, where they will often find helpful urls.

I have checked all the multitude of urls in this book in February 2012—inserting a lot of new ones in place of dead sites. Occasionally my comments on a site may be a bit dodgy now but there are some great sites here. I’m not sure how I overcame temptation to spend ages just looking at some!

Chapter 1

Once upon a time—

A well known summary for job applications is ‘Fully fit; have car; will travel.’ A similar summary, adapted to my situation, might be ‘Not fully fit; don’t drive; love travel.’

pdf_Page_006_Image_0001.jpg

The picture shows me eating a guinea-pig,

which would exact a terrible revenge, in Peru

Not fully fit

Not fully fit would have seemed a strange description in December 1994, when I was doing some quite difficult walking in the Alpujarras. My friend Iain, who was with me, had not been to the Alhambra and we went there after leaving the Alpujarras, This is one of Europe’s musts and I enjoyed my third visit as much as my first and more than the second, when the views were curtailed by low cloud.

As we walked back into Granada, we were approached by a few Roma women. That ends the use of the first person plural for a moment as they completely disregarded me, while telling Iain he would enjoy a long life and hanging chains of leaves round his neck—spooky!

Just over two months later I had flu badly and developed heart problems. If you are not interested in the technicalities, skip this paragraph and the next. Apparently I had a heart attack at some time prior to this—nobody could say when—and one of my three main arteries was knocked permanently out of action. As apparently happens reasonably frequently, subsequent scar damage produced arrhythmia. I was rushed into hospital and will always remember the words, ‘Don’t worry if you see blue lights flashing but I am in a bit of a hurry.’ I was bundled rapidly into bed and an anaesthetist was called. I woke to find all sorts of drips and bits sticking out of me. I was in intensive care for about a week—I completely lost the use of my legs and had to be taught again with two sisters supporting me. I was in hospital just over a month. ‘Not fully fit’ would then have seemed like a monstrous understatement!

When I returned home, Pam [my wife] used to walk me around the large park in Todmorden every day and the walks gradually became longer and included a bit of uphill. However I reacted badly to one of the drugs I was prescribed and on two occasions I had to go back to hospital for cardioversions. I was then referred for further treatment and by September 1996 I was fitted with an ICD [implanted cardioverter/defibrillater.] I seemed to be very gradually recovering from the side effects of the drug but the machine—as I will call the ICD henceforth—did not take kindly to my trimming the bushes in February 1997 and gave me three shocks. I was more careful for the next year but, in February 1998, just after I had started to renew my driving licence, the machine gave me nine shocks in about half an hour on the moors above my house. It was after this that I had to add betablockers to my medication. I know they do not suit everyone and indeed Pam reacted very badly to them once, when they were tried to reduce her blood pressure. So far, for me, I regard them as miraculous; long may it continue.

Even if you have skipped the last paragraphs, it will help if you understand roughly what my implanted machine does. It is, speaking in very lay terms, almost the opposite to a pacemaker. It detects when the heart goes too fast, speeds up to a higher rate and tries to take the natural beat of the heart down with it as it slows down again. It is when this fails that it gets interesting because it has a further trick left which is to deliver two electric shocks almost simultaneously to stop the heart and start it again, hopefully in proper rhythm. The literature says it is not as bad as a shock delivered by the mains or by a car’s sparking mechanism—maybe not; but of course you can stop these latter shocks instantly and nobody but a fool would suffer another—whereas this is beyond one’s control. Anyway, other than this my general condition appears to have improved considerably since 1998 and I have felt for the last few years that it has reached a plateau.

Initially I was very uneasy about doing anything on my own and my wife and daughter must have enjoyed shoving me about as much as I enjoyed being shoved but eventually they persuaded me to go off on holiday on my own in summer 1998.

Don’t drive

No misunderstandings please—I am not at all an anti-car person. When I was employed as a trade union official, I used to drive all over Yorkshire and Humberside and in my final year over much of England and Wales. My last three years at work saw me driving for about three weeks through France to various campsites and Logis de France each summer, though I also enjoyed car-free holidays in Andalucía on my own or with a colleague just before Christmas.

I stopped driving after my illness in 1996 but was doing a [rather minor] share of long distance driving in the summer. I stopped again after my shocks in 1997 and surrendered my licence. A year later I applied for [but fortunately had not yet received] the return of my licence, when I had nine shocks without any warning. I cancelled the application and I shall not drive again. However I am still happy to be in a car when anybody else—almost, anyway!—is driving.

Pam does not fancy driving on the ‘wrong side’ of the road so any foreign holidays we take together are by public transport as, of course, are those I take on my own. By and large I don’t mind finding my way by public transport and I enjoy discovering information about it on the internet but it would be good to be able to get to a few places without public transport links—and it would relieve frustration if more bus companies, especially in France, had findable web sites.

Love travel

This needs a bit of interpretation as many people who would say the same would not think of going to some of the places I like best and I positively hate many popular tourist resorts. I never really did as much back-packing as I like to think, but now I should certainly call myself a backpacker in spirit since the places I like best are those that real backpackers frequent. This does not prevent me liking and admiring cities such as Sevilla, Córdoba, Palermo, Oslo, Prague and Helsinki—to name but a few, or from liking to travel by boat, coach and train.

A bit of history

Prior to 1995 most travels which involved staying away from home were in one of five areas.

Scotland

This was always one of our favourite destinations. When I was teaching, we [the College] took students on walking and canoeing courses to Glencoe, Torridon, Skye and Ullapool.

However I first went to Scotland—Skye mainly—with Pam in 1963. Later we went with various numbers of children as the family increased in size to five. We were usually either camping or in the caravan which we towed for a number of years. Areas where we stayed included Ardgour and Ardnamurchan, the Western Isles, Skye, Sutherland and, frequently, Torridon. Before we had a caravan ourselves we found a delightful, cheap, old one magnificently placed at Lower Diabaig, beyond Torridon, where we stayed several times for a week.

We certainly regarded this last place as a firm favourite and I think it might have provided us with annual visits, perhaps combined with discoveries of new areas such as the Orkney and Shetland Islands and Glen Affric in a future which then seemed to be foreseeable. However I should not recommend Diabaig as a holiday destination for young children, beach fanatics or people who require some local facilities. There is no shop or pub for some distance! It is a place for those who love remote country, scenic coast, long walks and high mountains, though those who want to get as near as possible to the mountains would perhaps prefer Torridon itself or Inver Alligin.

For a place which combines some social life with great views and good access to numerous mountains [including many of Torridonian Sandstone] Ullapool would take a lot of beating. Lockerbie has less by way of social amenities but does have a hotel and a couple of shops and is superbly placed for some glorious beaches. For somewhere nearer to England for fine mountain walking, anywhere near Glencoe is bang on and, even closer for a short break, Arran or the area around Arrochar leaves little to be desired.

France

I should not want to get into abstract discussions of whether France could be called an area. Certainly we went to a number of areas within it, usually for nearly three weeks in the summer. We first went with our three youngest children in their teens round about 1980 to Orlu in Ariège. The Pyrenees are terrific and it is possible to start walking very high; it seems odd that our next visit was as late as 2003. However in the meantime we have spent time in Cantal, Chartreuse, Queyras, Alsace, Annot [on the private train line from Digne to Nice,] Doubs, Hérault and Cevennes.

The trip to Annot stands out in our minds because Pam and I went together without the car and enjoyed it tremendously. This memory was overwhelmingly important both for me alone, planning for winter car-free trips to Andalucía, and for us together, when our car jaunts abroad were ended suddenly early in 1995. We did a lot of walking that holiday and the area was one of the least spoilt we have been in.

Andalucía

From 1989 to 1994 I went each year for a week just before Christmas, using flight-only charters, which were cheap at this time of year, landing in Málaga. I found no appeal in tourist coasts and used to head for the city of Málaga and then by train and/or bus to the interior. For the first two years I went alone, then two with Ian—a late colleague and friend—who had retired. Then, when Ian had a long visit to his son in Australia, I had another year alone and the last time was with Iain, a different colleague. To anyone planning a first trip to Andalucía I would say:—Granada is not a place to stay long but contains the Alhambra which is one of Europe’s great sights; Córdoba is a marvel and should not be missed; Sevilla is a grand city; not just Ronda but the area round it as well could absorb many good days.

The second chapter describes these trips more fully and is the only one, other than this, to describe my travels with a supposedly healthy ticker.

Pembrokeshire Coast

We took a farmhouse for a total of eight weeks in three years between Haverfordwest and Newgale. This was when the children were young and they simply loved it. I cannot think of a better area for children than this, with its enormously varied beaches of yellow, red or black sand and cliffs and a number of things called mountains which are actually quite small hills but with ‘real’ tops.

Yorkshire [or to be more precise, Ingleton]

Last and nearest—but in terms of enjoyment this was as important as any. When our caravan became too old to tow, we placed it permanently on a site part way round the Ingleton waterfalls walk, later replacing it with a bigger static one. We had some really good breaks here for weekends and often for longer periods. Wherever I have travelled in Europe, the Yorkshire Dales remains one of my favourite areas as does the South Pennines area of Yorkshire where I live.

Exceptions

Southwest England [I used to live in Plymouth,] Snowdonia and Galloway have all served for particular holidays and Pam and I have had various weekend breaks in other parts of England. However the main exceptions to the norm have been for four weeks at a time, a round trip in 1976 through France and Switzerland to Italy and Yugoslavia returning via North Italy, Austria, Germany and Belgium being the first.

The second was a visit to an ex-student and his wife in Zimbabwe in 1991. How hopeful it seemed then! We were staying with black people and travelled around the country with them. There clearly were people who found this hard to understand but on the whole it was accepted and we went to some family functions where everyone else was black. Mixed marriages seemed to be becoming more normal. We find current news absolutely heartrending.

First post-illness phase

Both my parents and four uncles had died in their late fifties and sixties from heart related illness and I had been far too close myself to engender optimism. I was just glad to be alive and the blossom on the city trees and our own lovely area were quite enough to rejoice about. I’d never expected to see them again. Fortunately the walks in and around the park here are very good and I was able to make slow progress with Pam’s help. We lived on a hill and this meant that I had to walk steeply, either at first or to get home, if I went out of the door. Thus I was totally dependent, which was bearable as long as I seemed to be progressing towards being able to walk from the house. I did actually get to do a couple of circuits but as drug induced side effects worsened it seemed a more and more ridiculous place to live. Eventually we moved—of which more later.

We thought it important to continue to have breaks and Pam drove for a short break on the North York Moors which was very successful. Then came the period when I started a bit of driving again and we decided to head for our old favourite of Diabaig, stopping two nights en route each way.

Pam certainly had the lion’s share of the driving to do but I was able to do enough not to feel a complete burden. We stayed at Callander and near Fort Augustus on the way up and at Crieff and Hawick on the way back and we were able to see a number of places which would have been overlong diversions when we used to go right up in a day. I think the most interesting of these were the road towards Kinlochourn and the fabulous historic town of Culross north of the Forth. Oddly enough my one real scare of the holiday came not from walking about Diabaig, of which, though very restricted, I did more than I could have expected, but through standing still on part of a visit to the old printing shop at Innerleithen. I felt as though I should loose consciousness and had to sit on a table for a few minutes.

In 1966 we had booked another week at Diabaig and one in Orkney where I rated my chances of being able to walk quite like a human on the flatter islands. Sadly I was suffering badly from drug side effects at this time and I was waiting to go to hospital, I thought for an ablation [destruction by laser of the part of the heart causing trouble.]

When it became apparent that the wait was going, at best, to take the procedure very close to the time of the booked holidays, I had to cancel them and we managed to get a short holiday in Shropshire near to the Welsh Border. I was still driving a bit but only for short distances. It is as well I cancelled the other holidays as the stay in hospital was delayed until late August by which time I was really ill again—mainly as I understand it from the side effects of the drug [I know what it was of course but I am not naming it as it works wonders for many people.] After an angiogram it was decided that an ablation would not be an answer and I should wait in hospital until finance was approved for an ICD to be fitted. The wait seemed endless but in retrospect it does not sound so very bad. Certainly it was [and I gather still is] a very costly treatment.

At this time there were only about fifty people in all Northwest England and North Wales who had these machines fitted so that we were surprisingly near to the frontiers of knowledge. An example of this was the inevitable vagueness about something like exercise, where the advice was that exercise was absolutely necessary but not too much. Since then a lot of research has been done and exercise programmes can be devised which are suitable to the particular needs of those with newly fitted machines. Trial and error seemed a frightening idea at first but after a time we became accustomed to it. I say we advisedly because I think the problems are as great, though obviously different, for anybody living with an ICD patient.

In the summer of 1997 we took a city break in Amsterdam. The hotel was excellently situated, close to the Concertgebouw and fairly near the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. Our room was minute, however. Swinging cats was not something we missed particularly but it was irksome being unable to stand between the beds at the same time! I am sure that Amsterdam was an excellent choice for a first break of this nature. Lovely as it is, it is not noted for its mountains and in fact the steepest slopes encountered were those onto the bridges!

I think it was during this visit that I started to develop a philosophy which seems crucial to having a satisfactory life after your activities have been curtailed, though it took considerable effort, close to bullying at times, from the family before I grasped it properly the following year. This is simply never to brood about what you cannot do but to maximise what you can and enjoy it. When people now say things like, ‘You seem back to where you were now, the sort of places you go,’ I know that they are completely wrong but it does not seem to matter too much. You plan for what can be done and therefore barely wish for what cannot. I shall exemplify this a number of times in subsequent chapters but it may be useful to see how it affected our trip to Amsterdam before the philosophy was properly developed.

A number of things were simple. For instance, Pam always walked up the stairs at the hotel. I never did and always used the lift to conserve my energy. Again it was obviously a good idea to plan any walks in fair detail so that they would not be too long. It also seemed a good idea to recognise that I might need to return to the room for a rest if I became tired, though in retrospect I believe it was not necessary on the one occasion I did so. Obviously we avoided anywhere which meant going up a lot of stairs; the Rembrandt House and Anne Frank’s House were both eliminated on these grounds.

Other things are less obvious and rather time-consuming but seemed well worth while. Taxis are never cheap and that makes it a good idea to have the best possible information on public transport in case anything goes wrong. When checking out accommodation it is necessary to find somewhere with a lift or to book accommodation on a manageable floor. Crowds can be exhausting and thus it is sensible to think about the best time for going to favourite sites. In a popular museum it is as well to arrive early and know where to go in advance to see the things you most want to see that will attract crowds later. On this visit we were able to walk around some of Van Gogh’s most popular paintings twenty minutes before it became really crowded. We picked early on Monday as the best time and headed straight for the lift.

One very important thing is never to be forced into hurrying. If it’s a bus, tram or train, get the next one—if it is not a frequent service allow masses of time.

We returned from this holiday to find that our daughter was pregnant for the first time. This is a private subject but certainly it became necessary for Pam to be available for support in a way that precluded her from going away for some considerable time. This was the difficult period. It took a long time to persuade me that there was no reason why I should not arrange to go somewhere on my own. I think somewhere in this country was meant but there was one major factor impelling me to go farther.

I think I was probably in my late teens when my father first told me he had always wanted passionately to see the Norwegian Fjords. There always seemed to be a reason why this was considered impossible at the relevant time, though both my parents would have enjoyed it immensely and most of the reasons seemed pretty slender to me. When my mother died in 1965, my father talked about travel alone not appealing very much, whenever I tried to persuade him that he should go. I found this extremely annoying and I remember it still irked me considerably in 1973 when he died that he had never done something which had clearly meant so much to him. I inherited his desire to see Norway and I had come close to dying without doing so. Now I was being urged to go somewhere and I was being resistant—but as I became less so it did occur to me that here was a chance to get to Norway and that I was imitating parental behaviour in a way I had sworn I never would. Thus I started looking at brochures which offered trips to Norway. Obviously it made sense to go on some sort of conducted tour and I think that was what Pam thought I would do but it does not make much sense to urge someone to get off their backside and do something, while you are actually determining what would be suitable for them—so it was left to me to decide. The Norway Only brochure had two independent tours which particular appealed to me. One started with a night in Oslo then a train ride to Stockholm followed by a long train ride up through Sweden and across to Narvik. Then there was a coach to Harstad and the Hurtigruten Coastal voyage to Stamsund in the Lofotens. After a free day here the boat trip continued to Bodø, from where the train was resumed first to Trondheim and then to Oslo. The idea of this appealed enormously but I was not really surprised when my GP advised against leaving the mainland on my first solo trip. My machine had given me some shocks that February after all.

I moved to my fallback position. This was a night in Oslo followed by two at Røros, two at Trondheim, three at Åndalsnes and a further two at Oslo, all travel being by train. There were hospitals at Oslo and Trondheim which provided all facilities for my machine and the GP, who was very supportive of the idea of a good holiday, agreed to my going.

Before describing this holiday in a later chapter I shall clear up some general considerations.

General Considerations

Once I had been successfully to Norway in 1998 [later chapter,] I had to make decisions on where I most wanted to go and which of these places were feasible. There were a number of considerations. There are places I would not go for lack of facilities. Portugal appeared innocent of any connection with my type of machine at the time so I would only go anywhere in Portugal with simple access to an appropriate place in Spain—and never to Madeira. [The last sentence was written a bit ago; I now have a different machine and a number of Portuguese hospitals provide facilities for it. However the sentence still illustrates the problems and feelings of the time. Funchal, in Madeira, has now joined the list abd we look forward to a week there in April 2007.] When I actually went to Portugal in March 1999, I erroneously believed that it had facilities, having been told that anywhere in Western Europe was ‘OK.’

At first I avoided mountainous areas on the grounds that I should not enjoy a holiday where I felt irked by not being able to do things I most wanted to [and that I should formerly have done.] As time has elapsed I have come to view being in such areas at times as streets better than not being. As for the things I cannot do, everybody has a limit and feels a bit sore when they realise that a desired activity is outside of it—it is just that my limit is more restrictive and this happens to an extent even to the completely able-bodied through the ageing process. The only thing I find hard is not doing walks I think I could manage easily, which might take me out of sight of any people for a significant time but, as the times of arrhythmia are completely random, it is necessary to avoid these walks. On the other hand it is not the least irksome to carry a whistle on the simplest of walks when I might be out of sight for short periods.

That brings me to flights and other travel. I live between Manchester and Leeds. Althams, a Burnley based travel agent which has won the Guardian/Observer annual poll a couple of times, has a shop in my home town and if I book through them, I can get their taxi service for a very reasonable price to either of the airports (Manchester or Leeds/Bradford.) On the other hand, until now Liverpool has provided the only northern source of cheap flights with Easyjet. At the time of writing Jet2 operates from Manchester and from Leeds/Bradford. For the first two years I only travelled from the first two airports, though by 2000 I was using Liverpool as well. Actually I did not use Althams every time I travelled from Manchester as my friends, Ian and Judith, live near the airport and Ian travelled with me on two occasions. I have stayed there and used a taxi sometimes on other occasions. In general I am averse to too much expense on initial flights, accommodation or meals when I go on my own and this has been a factor in determining where to go. Sicily was the only exception and that was a sort of reward in February 2001 for a pretty harrowing autumn before it.

I’m surprised at how easy I find train and bus travel on the whole. I suspect I might still not realise this if I had not been so taken with the idea of the rail trip in Norway but since then I have not avoided moving around quite a lot—in Sicily I stayed in eight different places in twelve days. Even changing planes, which I should not have considered for the Norway trip seemed OK after it, which was as well—as will emerge.

On the question of luggage I always seem to end up with some things I do not use, however hard I try not to. Sometimes this is not a cause for regret; I received enough awful warnings before I went to Galicia in November 2001 to have made me into a nutter if I had not gone with enough to wear. I was in rain for less than an hour in ten days! Again Pam and I both felt pretty stupid on the Norwegian Coastal Voyage but it was our good luck that Kirkenes was registering seventeen degrees when we were there—and minus one the next day! Even so I have tended to take too much clothing and am gradually cutting down. What to take it in is a more difficult question. I bought a middle size suitcase with wheels but I really needed overmuch help going up stairs or getting onto foreign trains—that was quite a pain on the Norway trip. So I bought a small case with wheels. I can manage that on my own anywhere but it is still a bit on the heavy side. What is more, I have been robbed twice when using it—nothing too terrible fortunately as will be seen later—and Pam thinks I look too vulnerable with it. Last time I used a fairly small rucksack and this seemed OK but there are awful warnings about not letting the straps rub on or pull my machine. I am sure it doesn’t and I think I have found the answer at least for the time being.

Then there is the matter of books and maps. In Sicily I was trying to see a lot as it is quite disproportionately expensive to get there and I was glad I took the Rough Guide with me. However I am getting more concerned with the weight as time goes on and I spend a lot of time scanning, seizing or copying vital information onto a few sheets of paper. I still think travel without a good map loses too much of its appeal. In compiling necessary information, one thing I do is to create a database of possible accommodation. To be included on this requires reasonable accessibility and miserly cost; I usually only book ahead for the first night(s) but the database means I have phone numbers ready each time I am ready to move on. Obviously some of them will be wasted, as I like to leave open plenty of choice on where to go as well as where to stay. Then I have another list of possible modes of transport—giving plenty of choice over the main planned route and sometimes a sort of Plan B lifeline for escape to an area less likely to be experiencing rain [or more suitable if it is still raining.] For instance, when I went to Galicia, I had a timetable of four linked trains to get to Portugal near to the border at Badajoz; perhaps this is what kept the rain away from Galicia in November! The number of papers could be prolonged indefinitely but at some point to increase the number would become inconsistent with the idea of minimum weight.

Something I still do not have for Norway [but I have one for many places] is a brief personal instruction on what to do if I become unconscious [this can accompany shocks] in the language of the country I am visiting. For Norway and Finland I actually carry one in English as so many people speak English and there is nobody I can ask to translate. These always show the hospitals nearest to my area of travel that have the necessary facilities for the machine, and my current medication. I also permanently wear a Medic Alert bracelet. I received it first the day I was flying to Gerona. I thought the whole point of carrying notes was that they should be easily noticeable if needed; mine were so easily noticed that I was robbed of them in Barcelona and was I glad I was wearing the bracelet.

On the question of insurance, I do not trust any company that does not seek full medical information. The small print would often work against compensation in the event of any medical problem arising from a known pre-existing condition. It is interesting how much some of the others diverge from the ‘from’ price they are so fond of quoting, when they do have the medical information. Nor am I keen on firms that will not even give a quote without consulting the GP. I always think he might well have one or two other things to do. For some considerable time now I have used the service provided by Post Office Counters. The only thing I have against this is that each time they issue a fresh booklet, which they do often, it seems a little less helpful than the one before! Last time two omissions were the premiums for over-sixtyfives [actually now always more than double those for ‘humans,’] and the telephone number for medical pre-checking if you do have a condition. I discovered both these things on the web, but went down to pay at the local office to support it. They do run a very good series of questions for the pre-check and then allocate a personal reference number. They explain clearly whether you will be covered and whether any special conditions apply. In my case it has sometimes involved payment of the first £150 for anything related to my heart condition. Now, however, they insure through a different company and I have to pay a bit extra [only a bit] to gain normal cover. [December 05—Post Office Counters now charge more than double the rate for humans and will no longer cover my pre-existing condition since my trouble in Peru. I have turned to Insure and Go]

Change of home

In December 1996 we removed. A number of factors should probably have occasioned an earlier move and there were certainly improvements for us quite unconnected with my illness. This was the catalyst however. We knew we had either to find a bungalow or somewhere that could easily accommodate a stairlift and we expected the process to take some