Inside the Fiction Factory
Koblenz The weather had been very hot on this trip, but on arriving in Koblenz, the rain came down in an absolute deluge. With limited time, there were a couple of things to see, so despite a little flooding here and there, it was a matter of getting on with it. The town is a … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 177
The Clydeside Distillery Took a trip through to Glasgow on Friday last week to visit the Clydeside Distillery. I started the day by taking some time to wander around Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. I saw the Dali again as usual – see Part 139 of this blog – along with Van Gogh’s Portrait of … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 176
Lake Windermere This summer I made my first trip to the Lake District. Staying in Windermere, England, it was a short walk to the town centre and then down towards the lake itself. I was really taken with the area. It wasn’t too busy, though clearly most folk there were tourists. It has a real … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 175
Castles of the Middle Rhine The Upper Middle Rhine Valley, between Rudesheim and Koblenz, is a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its castles, fortresses, and vineyards. As a huge fan of castles this was the highlight of highlights. I’m not going to list the castles here, as apparently there is more than twenty-eight according to … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 174
Imperial Cathedral of Speyer Leaving Strasbourg, I returned to Kehl, and then back on the boat, with the next stop Speyer in Germany. The highlight here was a visit to see the Imperial Cathedral of Speyer, which is one of the world’s finest and largest Romanesque cathedrals and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 173
Strasbourg Back on the Rhine, the next stop was Kehl, in Germany. From there a bus journey took me over the border into France and the city of Strasbourg. This has to be seen to be believed. I can imagine looking up the word picturesque in the dictionary and see the name Strasbourg. It is … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 172
Piano Revisited Looking back through this blog I see that in Part 33 from February 2023, I noted, “…something on my bucket list is to play the piano for the public in a railway station. We have pianos in stations here for anyone to sit down at and entertain the public. I thought doing a … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 171
One Hundred Thousand Words A milestone has been reached in this blog series. After publishing I always cut and paste a copy of my latest post into a word document as another backup. That word document containing all the posts from Inside the Fiction Factory to date, now amounts to a little over a hundred … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 170
Ancient Egyptian Collection I make a point of visiting the National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh a couple of times a month. It’s one of my favourite places and although I have only an hour for lunch, I manage to get around most of it during the year. There are always changes of course, … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 169
The Black Forest On leaving Basel in Switzerland, next stop was Breisach in Germany and from there a bus up into the Black Forest, which is quite amazing to see. It’s been the background for many a fairy-tale that came from the brothers Grimm and although a number of the stories they collected came from … More Inside the Fiction Factory – Part 168
The Fiction Factory 