Our trip to the Harz Mountains began with a flight from Birmingham to Dusseldorf on Thursday evening with Flybe that was followed by a quick trip by train into the Hauptbahnhof. Our bed for the night, at an IbIs Hotel, was located right on the railway station so this meant we were in our room around 45 minutes after touching down in Germany. Given the reasonable arrival time into Dusseldorf there was a chance for a quick nightcap or two with friends who had arriv...

Flying to St Lucia there are two airports, one at the north end (Castries - SLU) and one at the south end (Hewonarra/Vieux Fort - UVF). We were flying into SLU, which is the smaller of the the two airports with Caribbean Airlines from Trinidad, but will be flying out of UVF, which handles long haul international flights, with British Airways back to London Gatwick. SATURDAY Upon arrival we should have been collecting a hire car in Castries but there was an iss...

The flight across to Tobago from Port of Spain, Trinidad was just about 15 minutes from take off to touch down. We spent longer in the departure lounge than we actually did on Caribbean Airlines flight BW1814 hopping between the two main islands of Trinidad and Tobago. After collecting our hire car we started the hour long drive from Crown Point, through the outskirts of Scarborough (the capital of Tobago), to Castara. Until we got away from Scarborough we were ...

Our flight to Port of Spain, Trinidad, was with British Airways from London Gatwick. Pushback of flight BA2159 from the gate was delayed by around 50 minutes but some of this time was made up at the intermediate stop in St Lucia. By the time we arrived at Piarco International Airport at Port of Spain we were around 25 minutes late. The immigration queue was fairly slow and the questioning was thorough. We finally got a stamp in our passports and were allowed t...

This trip to Ireland was almost scuppered before it began on the Friday afternoon! We were planning to drive to Birmingham airport as our return flight, on the Sunday evening, had a tight connection with the last train of the day to Derby off of our Aer Lingus flight from Dublin. The car would have been a bit of an insurance policy and mean no need for a taxi (or hotel) if the flight was delayed. However after driving approximately 100 yards from the office,...