Ffestiniog Travel

We welcome a second travel blog from David Grosvenor, an artist based in North Wales, who returned to travelling further afield with gusto this year by joining two of Festiniog Travel’s Small & Traditional escorted holidays. In this write-up David offers further, frank insight into our ‘away from the tourist trail’ tours when he travelled with a small group to Albania (including visits to Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia) to explore this mountainous and sparsely populated country and encountered a very warm welcome, delicious food and spectacular scenery that he struggled to find the words for!

Having spent the last 50 years travelling thousands of miles around the world by train, how do you choose your top ten rail journeys?

As part of rail tour operator Ffestiniog Travel's 50th anniversary celebrations, its founder Alan Heywood was invited to do just that. Since leading his very first tour to Switzerland in 1974, Alan has escorted hundreds of rail travellers around the globe – and continues to do so at the age of 83! In 2024 he will once again return to Switzerland and lead tours to Romania, Georgia, Armenia and Slovenia!

With so many rail journeys to choose from, he has managed to select his top 10 personal favourites and briefly explains why:

A regular traveller with Ffestiniog Travel, David Grosvenor has shared his thoughts and photographs of our recent escorted tour to Kyrgyzstan. This Small and Traditional tour is the most remote destination in Ffestiniog Travel’s tour portfolio and certainly lives up to its ‘small and traditional’ tour status. A small group departed on this inaugural tour in July 2022 followed quickly by a second departure in the same month due to popular demand. David provides a candid account of his experience in Kyrgyzstan in this travel blog, which also serves to capture the authenticity of our Small & Traditional tour range. These escorted tours visit countries that still remain untouched by large scale tourism and discover remote areas, true nature, rich culture and wonderful history with the services of a knowledgeable local guide.

David describes his words as “a personal blog written during this amazing tour.”