train – Tango's Baking

Since I have been a little kid, I have always loved trains (like honestly who doesn’t lol? 😂) Building model trains and watching the trains moved across the landscape as I fantasied about travelling on them were all such wonderful times back then. 🚂 🚂 So it should come as no surprise that a long dream of mine is to ride a steam train across the British countryside (and watching great railway journeys during lockdown definitely made me feel more enthusiastic about it haha!) At last, this dream finally came true!

For the start of our road trip up north, my mum and I dropped by Aviemore, a town situated within the Cairngorms National Park in the Scottish Highlands. The town itself is a popular tourists’ destination (evident in the lack of vacancies for accommodation when I booked two weeks ago! 😅) and the Strathspey Steam Train is a particular attraction there. The train journey itself is about 1 and an half hours long and travelled across the scenic countryside, passing Boat of Garten and Broomhill stations on the way before returning along the same route back to Aviemore. The afternoon tea ticket cost a very reasonable price of £35.25 each (comparing to the more luxurious train journeys in London such as the British Pullman which are more than 10 times the price. Probably will never be able to get on those in my lifetime! 😭 😭)

Strathspey Steam Train in Aviemore Station (Everyone was marvelling at the steam engine taking photos. This is my first ever time seeing one in front of me!)

Afternoon tea tickets for the train (costing £35.25 each totalling £70.50 for the two of us)

The afternoon tea set is all inclusive in the price including teas/coffees plus a free, small bottle of Prosecco per person! 🍾🥂 You will be asked to pick the options for the sandwiches (we chose the egg mayo and tuna mayo) which will come along with the scones and cakes. Honestly I didn’t have high hopes for the food, but they all turned out to be of good qualities. Tuna sandwiches and the fruit cake tasted great! And I have never been a fan of scones and Victoria sponges, but they were both surprisingly good and moist. (I used up that whole jar of delicious strawberry jam 🍓🍓 to spread on the scones hehe. Perfection with the clotted cream! 😋)

The Prosecco with the view is just simple perfection! 🌸🌸🌸 (Think we got a little tipsy at one point haha…)

FYI the first part of the journey was very bumpy, so we were swinging side to side as we drank our tea/coffees. (Almost spat it out! It was hilarious!! 🤣🤣🤣 🫖 ☕️ 💦💦)

Beside the food and wine, we certainly made sure we didn’t missed any of the beautiful scenery along the route! So many cows and sheep 🐄 🐑 across the vast land and the nature just looked amazing!

Wonder how life is like living on a farm? 🤔

The train making a stop at Broomhill Station

Baa baa baa 🐑🐑🐑 (You can even hear them from the train!)

Finishing the train ride, we settled for an early evening in our B&B and were greeted by the two very friendly owners! They were both so attentive and welcoming that they have made it such a nice stay! (We got some Chinese takeaways for dinner and they were so nice setting up tables for us to eat the food in their dining room. 🥰)

Cute little pug in the B&B 🐶🐶💕💕💕 (sat there and ate dinner with us)

The next morning we explored Aviemore a bit more before departing on the bus to Perth, changing to Aberdeen.

Vegetarian Scottish Breakfast the next morning (Loved that veggie haggis! 😋)

Came back for a second serving of this delicious green apple 🍏 ice cream! (Had it twice in the two days hehe!) Also ordered the melon 🍈 ice cream too!

Such clear water and you can see the fishes in there!

Into the woods – felt like a scene from Totoro

Did a bit of re-enacting of the movie before we left 😂

‘So excited for Paris!’ I thought to myself after I woke up early at 7 this morning and finished my last bits of packing. With everything ready to go by half 8, I steadily made my way to St Pancras station (which is a quick 10 mins underground from my home) to meet my Eurostar train at 9:24. Even when I looked at the time on my phone, I thought to myself that there was still plenty of time. How wrong I was…

Now, in all fairness, I could only blame about what happen next on myself. When I arrived at the Eurostar entrance at 9am, it turned out that the gate had already closed for my train. 😱 I was unaware that the gate would close about an hour before the train’s designated time (which was stated in very small writings on the ticket). It turned out, however, that I wasn’t alone in that boat as I queued outside ticket office among many people who had also similarly missed their trains. I did have a brief chat with the guy in front of me (who was from Paris and was heading back after few days of training in London). He told me that he too made the same mistake the first time he took a Eurostar train, which made me felt a little better about myself haha (he was late this time because of his friend who was late picking him up to the station).

Now, just to make matters slightly worse, the queue in the ticket office was moving very slowly as they only opened one counter (which probably was the thing that irked me the most at that point 🙄). It turned out though that the ticket change can be done on the self-service machines next right to the ticket office (which the friendly guy in front of me quickly advised me to go over after he went to try them himself as I watched his bags 😁). The two ladies over the self-service counters were very helpful. I had a minor panic attack when I thought there were no later trains to go to Paris today. (It turned out that because I booked my tickets through an agency, replacement trains don’t show up on the screen…. Don’t ask me why lol!)

After paying a bit of a hefty fee of £44, I was finally able to get the ticket for the train at 12:24. This gave me about an hour to kill in the station, which involved me buying a small sushi from M&S and calling my mum on the phone. (‘I told you to go to the station earlier!’ she said. 😓) I was surprised by how packed it was at the gate by the time I went over. And there was a little story saga when I bumped into the lady who sorted the new ticket for me (she was ushering people forward at the passport control). She instantly recognised me and said, ‘Oh, you again?’ To which, I said, ‘I am not late this time!’ 😂 (which earned a ‘well done’ from her lol!)

First thing I ate as I stepped foot into France (or rather the train did lol!)

While there was a slight minor delay with the train, but things got moving pretty fast after and I snatched an empty row that no-one ended up sitting on. 😏 The train ride was only 2 hours and to be fair, it felt even less. The train was moving so fast that I was swaying from side to side as I walked down the carriage to the mini bar!

I could literally feel the heat by the time we arrived in Gare du Nord station. It was a warm day in Paris (and part of me is now dreading about the fact it will be getting hotter in the coming days 😓), and I wasted no time to get to the hotel first. The feel of air con after 10 minutes walk from the station was well worth it!

However, I was starving by that time (having only ate a sushi and two madeleines throughout the whole day), so I was honestly ready for a big meal! I searched up places to eat nearby online and found Terminus Nord which is right opposite Gare du Nord station. It is a classic French restaurant opened since 1925, and I was most definitely in the mood for some classic French dishes.

Crêpes Suzette flambéed in Grand Marnier and Lime Sorbet

If you are wondering, this was not the first time I ate snails (In fact I had it many times before. For some reasons, they were common in many European restaurants in Hong Kong…) The duck breast and the crêpes suzette were both delicious, and I was quite surprised by how much I liked the latter. (It was one of those dishes I always knew about but never had lol.) Here is also a video of the server doing the flambé for the crêpes in front of me. 👇

To end the day, I leapt to the supermarket after for some sweets and drinks in preparation for the upcoming hot weather.

I’ve never seen this version of Haribo in the UK before. Is it only available in France?

Anyway, that’s it for now. Hopefully, I will be sharing more with you all over the next few days. The adventure has only just begun! 😀

Tag: train

Aviemore: The Highlands Train Ride 🌲🌲

Day 1: Runaway Train