Ireland day 1283. Thursday 03 April 2025- Banchory 3

Today’s summary	A 6:30 am frosty start from Banchory this morning then drove to Glasgow airport for a flight to London. Arrived Heathrow a few minutes early then transferred from T5 to T3 (took 45min and a bus ride) for a flight to Zagreb. Departed a few minutes late because of congestion at Heathrow but on time at Zagreb around 1755 local time. Met David, who had flown from Manchester via Vienna, at the airport then taxi to Best Western Premier Astoria hotel in Zagreb and dinner with David in the evening. Jonathan’s funeral is tomorrow. Val drove the car on from Glasgow back to Malahide via the ferry.
Today’s weather	Bright clear and sunny all day in Scotland and Croatia. No wind. Minus 2 first thing in Banchory, appx 15c for the rest of the day in Scotland and Zagreb.

Today’s overview location (The green mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Zagreb

Commentary

Today marked the start of the second stage of my European funereal tour. Not the happiest of circumstances but these things happen. So most of the day was taken up with travelling from Banchory, in Scotland, to Zagreb, in Croatia.

Getting flights at reasonable times and reasonable prices and all at short notice involved a bit of fiddling around. But eventually I settled on what seemed to be the best compromise – an 11:30am flight from Glasgow to London Heathrow, then a 14:35 onward flight to Zagreb, arriving at 17:55 (CET). All with BA.

Getting to Glasgow for the 11:30 flight meant leaving Banchory at 6:30 am – it’s a surprisingly long way. The drive was fairly straightforward although the service station where we stopped for fuel had no petrol, and we got caught up in a huge traffic jam through Glasgow. The whole journey took almost three and a half hours.

Once I had been safely deposited at the terminal, Val took over the helm of the Trusty Yaris and drove solo back to Malahide via the Cairnryan ferry. A massive effort on her part, and very much appreciated.

Meanwhile, back in Glasgow and rather to my relief, my flight was on time and actually landed in London a few minutes early. That was fortunate, as I only had about 90 minutes to connect onto my Zagreb flight and I had to get from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3.

Anyway I made it successfully in about 45 minutes, though it involved lots of walking, a bus journey and numerous scans of boarding cards and luggage checks. I was glad I was hand-baggage-only but I’m not sure I’d risk making such a tight connection again. I only just had a few seconds to grab a cup of tea at Terminal 3 before I was on a bus again, transferring to the aircraft parked way out on the tarmac, for my onward flight.

I was soon boarding the second aircraft of the day – a relatively straightforward process though I did have to do a bit of negotiating with the gate staff about my hand baggage. They said the flight was “very full” and that I “needed to check my bag into the hold”. Fortunately I managed to persuade them that it contained vital possessions and they grudgingly allowed me to put it in the overhead locker.

The flight was uneventful and pushed back on time. But there was a bit of a delay before take-off, as a result of congestion at Heathrow. Anyway, it’s only 2 hours to Zagreb so despite the late take off, we arrived more or less on time at 17:55 CET (1 hour ahead of UK/Ireland).

I was joining Jonathan’s brother David for the next couple of days, and he arrived at Zagreb a few minutes after me. He’d flown from Manchester via Vienna. So we met up at the airport and shared a taxi into town. We are staying at the Best Western Premier Astoria hotel tonight and tomorrow night. Jonathan’s funeral is tomorrow, and I return to Dublin on an early (direct) flight on Saturday morning.

David and I spent the evening making arrangements for tomorrow, sharing memories of Jonathan, and having dinner at the hotel. Afterwards we had a quick stroll around the city environs from the hotel. So quite a long and rather tiring day, and there are still a couple more to come.

And on that note, I’m going to sign off now and retire to try and get an early night. I need to rebuild my energy reserves for Friday and Saturday!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


First jobb this morning – removing the ice!	Glasgow airport. Note the authentic Celtic and Rangers memorabilia

Both flights today were completely full	Inter-terminal transfer bus at Heathrow. Not terribly slick!

A glimpse of the Alps	In the Trg bana Josipa Jelacica square this evening. Buzzing with trams and people, and feeling very European

Zagreb city skyline from my hotel room this evening