After Fingal’s Cave, the next goal I had for my Europe trip was to take a train through the Chunnel from England to Franch (and generally take as many trains as I could). Piecing together the puzzle, I could take a train from Glasgow to London to hop on the Eurostar. Then, I needed a destination on the Eurostar, so I picked Brussels, Belgium since that seemed like the shortest trip.
To fit this in to the rest of the trip, I gave myself one night in each city. I usually try not to do that when I travel (similar to how I try to avoid redeye flights), but this time I decided to do it for the plot.
On the plus side, I got to check out a lot of new-to-me cities!
Glasgow
From Oban, I took a quick two-hour bus to Glasgow. I noticed a bunch of cars parked on the street that said Gotham Police Department, and then I remembered that some folks in Oban mentioned they were filming the next Batman movie in Glasgow.
I heard that the Pollok County Park had some of the famous highland coos, so I headed over to find some. I got off the bus a little far from the park, which gave me time to wander through the nearby neighborhood to find the park.
Highland Coo
Museum cafe
London
The next day, I took a train from Glasgow to London Euston. Out of all the cities on this trip, London was the only one I’d been to before.
I was hoping to stop by Red Dot Cameras and pick up a copy of their Leica Pocket Book. So I took the tube to the Barbican and walked over, but because it was the Friday before a UK bank holiday, they were closed.
I wandered around the Barbican and then across the Thames. Since I had an early train the next morning, I made it back to the hotel, grabbed dinner, and called it an early night. I like the mix of new and old buildings, and the mix of heights in London.
I love how the gray sky almost looks like a filter
Rangefinder selfie
First shot off the next roll at St Pancras station
Taking the Eurostar through the Chunnel was pretty cool. It was a very smooth ride. I was suprised that I had to go through customs (x-ray, passport control, etc) for a train, but it makes sense as an international trip. It took only two hours to get to Brussels, much fater than my English Channel swim.
It also makes for my second channel tunnel-swim combo, after swimming the [Tsugaru Strait] in Japan in 2024 and taking the shinkansen through the tunnel underneath it a few days later.
Brussels
The last city in this run was Brussels. I didn’t do too much research ahead of time and didn’t know what to expect, but I did make sure to eat some frites and waffles.
Visually, I loved the architecture. By this point in the trip, I was pretty worn out from so many travel days in a row so I mostly laid low.
