Author Archives: Janette Griffiths

janette

Janette Griffiths

New York on the Queen Mary 2

01/09/2015 by .
QE2 NY

When was the last time you danced in a conga line round Heathrow’s Terminal 3 just because you were headed to the USA?  Well, on the Queen Mary 2 you might well go all celebratory despite yourself.  It’s that sort of a ship.

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The Lakeside Hotel.  Lake District

08/03/2015 by .
Lakeside

It seems The Lakeside Hotel can cure all ills. Just lately I’ve noticed myself growing a little grumpy about hotels. Twenty years on the road as a travel writer have turned the old excitement of walking into a new and different foyer and sleeping in cool clean sheets into a grouchy wariness. Add to that the advent of the designer hotel and these days I’ve found myself snarling my way through the revolving doors. I’ve had my share of sliding off armchairs that looked like Dali’s ”melting” clocks or hitting my head on oversized ’ironic’ chandeliers in cold, unwelcoming dining rooms decorated in the requisite charcoal and grey. And I’m tired of  trying to make myself heard in the cacophonous acoustic of bars with stripped pine floors and formica.

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Night Train to Berlin

27/11/2014 by .
ICE

On a rainy night in February, I was waiting in Paris’s Gare de L’Est station for the night train to Berlin. Those last four words are loaded with romance. And I was taking this winter journey in search of the romance of rail travel in a European winter.

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On the trail of Richard Strauss in Germany

26/03/2014 by .
P2180948

This is the view from composer Richard Strauss’s house in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Is it any wonder that he wrote the “Alpine Symphony”?

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Southern Bulgaria. Beautiful and bargain friendly.

29/01/2014 by .
plovdiv house

There’s a lot of “awesome” about these days. Handbags, vegetable fritters, sneakers all seem to earn the label.  So  when Bulgaria recently served me two slices of genuine ‘awesome’, I  thought it was worth documenting.

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The Loire Valley: Enchanted gardens

16/01/2014 by .