Europe – Where is Phil now?

Valencia – Fallas

Valencia
18-21 March 2026

Every March, Valencia loses its mind in the best possible way. For 10 days and nights the Fallas festival, culminating on the feast of Saint Joseph on the 19th, fills the city with towering satirical sculptures, relentless fireworks, and the kind of noise that just doesn’t stop. Not for anyone, just ask Morrissey. I have zero sympathy.

The origins go back to medieval carpenters, who’d burn off scraps of wood and their wooden candle-holders (parots) at the end of winter as a nod to the longer days ahead. Over centuries it evolved into something spectacular: over 700 enormous Fallas sculptures, months in the making, and built by community and neighbourhood groups from all over the city, are all burned to the ground on the final night, La Cremà.

In 2016 it earned UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status and nearly two million visitors turn up for the five main days. It’s loud, chaotic, and utterly fabulous, and the purpose of this visit to Valencia.

Paul and I cycled into LLiria where we rode around the centre looking for some of the local Fallas before heading down to the station, where we missed a train by a matter of seconds.

A good excuse to grab a café bonbon from the coffee shop near the station. I love bonbon; double espresso shot with sweetened condensed milk. My phone decided to focus on anything but the coffee cup.

By the time the train arrived in central Valencia it was absolutely rammed, seemingly busier than the busiest commute. We let people exit the station before attempting to make our way out, though to be fair it’s not that we needed to consult a map to work out where to go, everyone was going in the same direction.

Fallas is a big festival for Valencia, and the local authorities take the number of visitors and the income they bring seriously. It was fantastic to see the entire centre of the city was closed to vehicles, there weren’t even bicycles; though in some places there would just be no point in trying to move anywhere other than at the speed of a slow-moving mass of humanity. Luckily the atmosphere was very much one of celebration. I saw police here and there, but my experience was they were unnecessary; even though many people were walking around with cans of beer and wine in their hands. I usually hate crowded events but this was an exception.

I was blown away by the quality, and quantity, of the Fallas, the biggest we saw, and this was from a distance as the street was so packed would have been about five stories high. It was huge. Most were about 40 or 50 feet tall, and most were stunning to look at. The amount of work that goes into them is inspiring, and they all get burned….

The first one we came across was one of the bigger ones. Many of them have some political context, a lot of the political commentary is local so I was out of the joke, but the Trump with a missile for a penis, was one of the least subtle ones.

I took a lot of pictures, so this is just a collection of the best. By the time we left I’d stopped taking photos, there were just so many to see! The work that has gone into them is just awe inspiring, there is so much detail, so much colour and so much more than I exptected.

Fallas is a time of celebration, with family and community and church. Celebration comes with food and of course, as the home of paella, the was a lot of paella on the go, in huge pans all over the city though sadly just for the friends and families of those who made the Fallas their group was representing.

There are a lot of people in local dress, many walking in front with marching bands, if they can find space to march, and it’s a riot of noise, smell and visuals. Like I said, it was a lot of fun. This group walked past as Paul and I took a few moments over an iced vermouth and patatas bravas.

I like Valencia, this must be the fourth or fifth time I’ve visited. I like the mix of wide boulevards in the ‘new’ town and the narrow cobbled lanes in the old. On our first visit in 2016 (oh man, we look so young!) Eleanor and I loved roaming the graffiti covered narrow lanes with the occasional boutique or bar. Now it’s all boutiques and bars and the graffiti has mostly gone. At least the narrow cobbled lanes are still there. It remains a very attractive and very walkable city centre, one of my favourites, and especially so on a cloudless early spring day.

After stopping for a slice of pizza and glass of red we looked at trains back to Lliria. Annoyingly there were regular trains up to 10.30 and nothing until 1am. With the burning of the Fallas not starting until 10 we decided we should head back to Lliria early. There were so many people around that if we missed a 1am train we would be stuck. We’re not 20 any more!

Taking the cautious option meant we were back in Lliria in time for the local, albeit it smaller, burnings. We walked about some of the Fallas in Lliria, watching more young children throwing fireworks about, then stopped for a beer and a snack in a local bar to wait until dark.

It was an excited local family crowd that gathered around, getting bigger and bigger (not compared to the city centre mind!) waiting for the countdown to the firing. Excited kids, and a few excited adults, firecracker bangs echoing from the walls of the buildings around us and bursts of colour in the darkened sky as rockets popped overhead as the tension built. Then the man with the flame arrived….

With a bright flash the fireworks draped over the Fallas ignited, burning bright and then the fire went out and nothing happened. A team of Fallas builders came out to try and get thing to burn and slowly people drifted away. Including Paul and I.

Back to the bikes and the ride to Xerlado and home.

It had been a great day; Valencia does this festival really well. I’d like to return in the future, but will get a hotel room in the city so I can stay for the bigger burnings, I can imagine they’re a load of fun.

Xelardo

Valencia 1
18-21 March 2026

Our friends Paul and Paula have a holiday home on the northern edge of Xelardo, a small urbanisation (I guess this could be described as a distant suburb) to the north of the town of Lliria, which is about 30 km from central Valencia. It’s the final stop on the number 2 Metro line.

Xelardo is a residential area that seems to be predominately populated by dogs, especially the edgeland where our friends’ house is. The area has changed little over the last few years, though they have two new neighbours since I was there in 2018 and the view out the back over scrubland has been disrupted by a new house.

When I booked the flight, I was looking forward to getting out of grey, windy, rainy and cold England. We’ve been living at my flat in St Leonards On Sea since January and the weather has just started to perk up. It’s still cold, but the sun had been out on more than one occasion and we did have an afternoon on the seafront with a glass of wine in the sun; though we’re still wearing the big coats.

I’m flying out of Gatwick as its the nearest airport to St Leonards and there is a direct train; which naturally was cancelled at the last minute. Fortunately, there was an indirect train thirty minutes later and as I’m me, I was still at the airport early. I was through security and in the bar for a pre-flight G&T within 15 minutes of the train arriving.

I landed at Valencia airport early after a fabulously smooth flight, the new EU arrival regulations for us Brits recently started and I was photographed and fingerprinted on arrival, though there were plenty of machines to do this and it didn’t cause the delay I expected. I was soon on the train into Valencia, then on the next train out to Lliria. It’s the penultimate day of Fallas (more on that in another post) and the platform in Valencia and the train to Lliria were very busy.

Paul met me at Lliria station, with a bike helmet in his hand and two electric-bikes by his side. We were riding back to his place but our first stop was dinner in one of the local restaurants. It was dark, I’d had two G&Ts at the airport and two red wines on the plane. I’ve not ridden an e-bike before and had barely ridden a bike in months. It was fun.

Dinner was good, typical tapas washed down with more red wine. I was decidedly unsober when we finally rode the 15 minutes to Xelardo, luckily most of it was on bike paths as I’m sure I was wobbling around a bit as we rode. We made good use of those paths and bikes over the next few days.

The next day, Thursday, we went into Valencia to join tens of thousands of others for the final day of Fallas celebrations, and like I said up front I will write about that soon.

On Friday we took a walk around the bit of Xelardo where Paul and Paula’s house is. Xelardo is a residential area, I don’t think there is even a shop. It’s very quiet, a lot of the houses are second homes, and I guess most people who are here full time keep to themselves. There are a lot of dogs. A LOT of dogs, and they bark as soon as we get close to their homes. Fortunately, the dogs are behind high fences and big gates.

It’s strange on the edge of towns, especially quiet agricultural towns like this, where beyond the back fence lie empty scrubland or small orange or olive farms when picking season has passed. There are a few abandoned farm buildings beyond the fence, and these add to the eeriness of the place. It’s so quiet.

The streets we walked were largely deserted, not even parked cars to get in the way of photos. The ‘roads’ on the edge of town are still not much more than dirt tracks, perhaps flattened every few years.

Inside from the edge there has been road maintenance over the last few years, footpaths and sewage has been installed and some of the roads look like they’re about to be sealed.

On one of these streets a man came out his gate and stared at us for a while as I took photos of an abandoned ‘mansion’ over the road. His dog barked incessantly from behind the gate as he stood. We didn’t feel like we were welcome in ‘his’ street, even though it was five minutes on foot from Paul’s. Maybe he is worried someone will buy the old mansion and convert into a hotel?

There was an abandoned campground nearby that I found a way into back in 2018 and I was keen to see what it was like now. Sadly, it was devasted by a huge fire in the Covid years, and the site has largely been cleared now. I was going to sneak in again through the solitary hole in the fence, but I heard someone working in one of the buildings so chose caution instead. I was a bit disappointed to be honest as I was hoping see what 8 years had done to the place.

Next to the campsite is a small, forested area, I suspect this is used on the quiet as a firewood source by the locals. Since the campsite was cleared it’s become a bit of a dumping ground and is strewn with household rubbish. The newly laid sewage lines run to the campground and the forest so I suspect these will soon be subdivided so more empty houses can be built.

A derelict pig farm sits on one side of a sealed road on the northern edge of town, houses line the other. I can’t imagine what it was like living over the road from a pig farm, though I guess it was a local employer that hasn’t been replaced.

We loop back through the older streets, lined with houses on both sides, the barking of dogs still following us as we go. Drawing close to home we share a nod and a ‘hola’ with a woman walking a dog, the only human interaction in an hour of walking.

Living on the edge of town is weird.

P.S. I like Xerlado and it’s not weird, the people we do see are always friendly and welcoming, other than the guy outside the mansion. I wrote this slightly satirically; definitely for effect and to complement the images.

Paris 4

Paris 4, January 2026

Our final day in this lovely part of a lovely city (sad face). The rain we experienced yesterday morning had blown over and though it was cloudy and more was forecast, we entered the day with hope for a walk before heading to Gare du Nord for the train back to London and on to St Leonards.

After breakfasting in the hotel, packing up and farewelling our small but perfectly formed room we headed out the door for our final stroll up and down the hill that is Montmartre. There are so many different options to take, narrow cobbled streets and steep steps are everywhere, there is almost no need to repeat a previous walk. I just love a steep narrow cobbled street, or any combination of two of those things, especially when nestled in between tall houses that have seen a lot more history than I have.

Our main objective today was to visit the Musée de Montmartre. On the second floor is a recreation of the studio and home of the artist Suzanne Valadon, who lived in the building with her husband and son from 1912.

Valadon was well known in Montmartre, as a model (for Renoir among others), a muse, a lover and eventually as the great artist she was.

We didn’t know too much about her life or art until I read a Substack essay just before we came here. After a tough childhood in the late 1890s, from early life in rural France to desperate poverty in Paris, she lived an amazing and full life. Starting as an acrobat and street performer and then artist’s model when Montmartre was almost the centre of the artistic world, with so many (today anyway) well known artists living in this small enclave. Artists like Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec (who named her Suzanne), Van Gough, Degas, Utrillo (her husband) and Picasso all lived in the area at the same time.

We were interested to see some of her work.

We arrived at the museum a little early and were bemused at the couple of people waiting outside to go in, especially after the size of the queue at the LVF On Monday which had hundreds of people. I preferred this one to be fair.

The museum was OK, there wasn’t a lot to see that particularly interested me until we got to the Valadon rooms. These few small rooms have been designed to represent what life was like for her one hundred or so years ago.

Her paintings adorn some of the walls in this tiny apartment.

The studio was fabulous, with wonderful light and deep shadows. I love looking at how creative people work(ed), it’s slightly less interesting now, with so much work done on computers; often with ginormous monitors. Perhaps I should recreate a classic ‘creative’ space and that would inspire me to be a better writer, photographer or something else. Maybe not, I’m not so big on clutter.

Then, merde!

It was time to collect our bags and walk back down the hill of Montmartre to get the metro to Gare du Nord, the Eurostar to St Pancras, the Northern Line Tube to London Bridge and the train back to St Leonards and home.

I LOVED Montmartre 🙂

Paris 3

Paris 3, January 2026

As expected, the day dawned with rain outside the window, not too heavy but not too light either. Enough to dampen the sound of the street outside our first-floor window waking up and obscure the window of the yet to be open record shop opposite. There was no pre-breakfast walk this morning, or even a particular rush to get out of the door.

We had tickets booked for 11am at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs to visit the ‘100 years of art deco’ exhibition. We walked in the rain to the nearby Abbesses Metro station, taking in cobbled streets of Montmartre we hadn’t set on before. The seats on the platform of Abbesses station, and some of the others we had seen on the green line, were very chic. So Paris, some might say. The Metro has been very easy to use, other than the very narrow barriers making life difficult for someone with a wide backpack – like me.

We arrived before the museum opened and sheltered for a while over coffee in a Starbucks over the road. Their coffee is still too milky for my more austere taste. With a couple of minutes before opening, we crossed back over and joined the short, but growing queue.

The exhibition was interesting, I was hoping for more architecture, and it was quite small, the focus being more on art deco era jewellery and homeware rather than buildings. The clue was in the name of the museum ‘decorative arts’. I enjoyed it nonetheless, especially the travel posters, some of which would look great on my wall.

The museum was next door to the much better known Louvre. Last time I was in in Paris we queued for ages to get in and it was very busy. I think it’s even busier now, but not on a rainy Tuesday in March. While there were a few people about, and there has been plenty of selective photography and cropping in the edit, I was surprised (pleasantly) how deserted it all was at not far off midday. Pro tip; go to Paris in the rain.

We had no intention of going into the Louvre, we’ve both been before, and nor did we have any intention of going into Notre-Dame either, though that was our next destination.

Walking along an almost deserted Seine riverbank in the rain was very enjoyable, Paris, as so many people have said, is a beautiful city. As it wasn’t bombed in the Second World War, the city wasn’t subjected to the random building work that has plagued London ever since. Central Paris has largely retained its mid-1800s Hausmann design to great effect.

The rain started to fall more heavily as we walked over Pont Neuf to Île de la Cité, one of two islands in the River Seine and the location of Notre-Dame. In need of a wee, a sit down, a drink and some lunch we found a café to take shelter in just off the main square by that most famous cathedral.

We both had French onion soup (or onion soup as they call it in France), loaded with cheese and bread – perfect wet weather food and delicious. Sometimes the tourist places deliver exactly what you want.

The weather hadn’t improved while we ate so we decided to cross back to the ‘mainland’, walk through the Latin Quarter to the Pantheon and then get the Metro back to the hotel.

I had fond memories of the Latin Quarter from 2012 but was disappointed today. It was possibly the weather, possibly tiredness, but it seemed to be less interesting than I recalled.

The Pantheon was great under a dark grey sky.

On the way back to the hotel we had one of those classic train moments that just never seem to actually happen in real life. At Sèvres – Babylone station Eleanor had got on the train and I waited to allow an old couple to get on first; they took so long the doors closed and I was left standing on the platform!

Luckily, there is decent mobile connectivity on the Metro so we arranged to meet at the station where we needed to change lines. We both found it quite amusing, fortunately.

After an afternoon rest we walked around Montmartre, I had a date with a record shop which was loosely on the way to where we planned to go for dinner ( It wasn’t really). It was a great shop with a good collection of second-hand records and a friendly vibe; I bought a couple of LPs as I couldn’t help myself, I will go back next time we stay here and spend a bit more time.

We’d found a vegan restaurant online and while we were the only customers during the time we were there the food and wine were fantastic; another great evening meal. Amusingly, Tuesday night seemed to be local running club night on the hills and steps of Montmartre; as we ate our food, we watched groups and individual runners pounding up the hill to Sacre Coeur and back down again. We decided to join them in a slow walk after our meal. There are plenty if hills to walk off that lovely dinner.

Sacre Coeur was magnificent all lit up with white spotlights and the zipping and zapping of the runners, many with headlights, made for an enjoyable time on the top of the hill.

Walking back towards our hotel we spotted the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

Another fabulous, albeit wet, day in this fabulous city.

Paris 1

Paris, January 2026
Ah Paris, how much do I love thee? Quite a lot, it seems. We’d planned this trip a few months ago when Eleanor spotted that there was a Gerhard Richter exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation that coincided with the 13th anniversary of our first date. I can’t believe we’ve been together that long; the time has passed in a blur.

We’d been talking about visiting Paris for ages. We’ve both been before, but not since we’ve been together. I have a bit of a fascination with the 1968 student uprisings, and the many others that have taken place here, as well as the city’s long association with art and writing. And, well, it’s just a cool place to visit. Mid‑January seemed like a decent time to go too, as I’m not really a peak‑tourist‑season kind of guy.

We decided to stay in Montmartre, one of the old centres with fantastic steep, narrow cobbled streets – always a favourite of mine, as well as its historic artistic links. Eleanor found a great hotel named after the writer Marcel Aymé; more on him in the next post.

We took the Eurostar from St Pancras (I wish it would run from Stratford International – it was supposed to, as it’s only 15 minutes from home) at a reasonable time in the morning, arriving in Paris in the early afternoon. As I’d booked early enough, the Economy Plus option wasn’t much more than basic economy, and I’m sure we easily ate and drank the difference. Eurostar terminates at Gare du Nord, and it’s not the station I remember; it was clean, not madly busy, and much easier to navigate than I expected. Paris was the first European city I visited on my 2012 travels, and I felt much more confident than I did back then. Perhaps it was just confidence that made things seem easier? Anyway, we used the Metro and found our hotel with no hassle at all.

The ‘fantastic, steep cobbled streets’ didn’t disappoint. It’s Sunday and there are quite a few tourists about, especially at the top of the ‘Mont’, where the fabulous Sacré‑Cœur Basilica (Sacred Heart) towers over its surroundings.

We had a gentle (as gentle as is possible on steep cobbled streets) stroll with no plan in mind other than absorbing the atmosphere and spotting places we might want to check out when it’s less busy.

Surrounded by eating establishments mainly frequented by tourists, the former abbey square, the Place du Tertre, was opened to the public as Montmartre’s village square in 1635. From the late 18th century, it became a renowned hangout for painters and other artists, with many famous names setting up their easels here over the years. Many of the major figures in the French and European art world in the late 1800s and early 1900s lived or worked around here: Picasso, Dalí, Renoir, Degas, Valadon (more on her later), van Gogh, and Matisse among the big names. You can still get your portrait painted here, even on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

As expected, the area around Sacré‑Cœur and the steps down from the church entrance was very busy, even on a damp Sunday afternoon. We had no intention of going into the church on this trip, so we just stopped to take the obligatory photo from the top of the steps, looking south over the city of Paris. Which reminds me: I was geographically discombobulated on this trip. Eleanor may say that this is my usual state, but it’s embedded in my head that the view over the city is to the north, and this really messed me up the whole time we were away.

We walked down the steps and on to Boulevard de Clichy, where we passed the famous Moulin Rouge. I knew that historically this was Paris’s red‑light district, and part of the reason it attracted so many bohemian and artistic types in its heyday a hundred or so years ago. I’d walked past the Moulin Rouge when I was here in 2012. What I wasn’t expecting was that it’s still very much the red‑light district: sex shop after strip club after sex shop all along Boulevard de Clichy, all brightly lit in the early evening gloom.

As the light disappeared we headed back up the hill and stopped for a negroni (then another) in a small bar that seemed the least touristy – though of course there is no such thing in this corner of Paris. We’ve really got into negronis recently, moving on from our previous favourite, the Old Fashioned. These were good ones; hence staying for a second.

Later that evening we had a fabulous meal at Le Maître, a small modern French restaurant that we’d booked a while back. The food was very good, as was the vibe of the place. We always research and book one meal before leaving home – not always on the first night, but tonight was our 13th anniversary, and a special meal to celebrate was in order.

It wasn’t raining when we wobbled out of the restaurant with full bellies, so we took a slow walk back to the hotel; taking in a few more of those lovely cobbled streets. Roll on tomorrow!

Lisbon

Lisbon, Portugal,
October 2025.

Yay, a new country! It’s the second time in a little over year that I’ve visited a country I’ve not been to before. Norway last year and now Portugal. New countries haven’t happened much in quite some time, so two in a short period is quite some thin, and I’ve long wanted to go to Portugal. This is the perfect time of year to visit too; summer is done and the temperature is a mere 28 degrees, significantly more than the single digit days we had in Oslo. We flew TAP Portugal direct from Oslo arriving in Lisbon late in the evening, but time enough for a glass of wine in the street bar outside of our hotel.

Lisbon is a fabulous city to walk around, though I imagine many would dispute that as it is hilly, but I like hills and I like cobbled streets and old buildings, and central Lisbon has those things in abundance. We had some vague plans for things to do here, and there certainly is a lot to do, but we spent a lot of time wandering about so barely touched the to-do list. We will just have to come back.

We were blessed with weather, depending on your position on temperature it was either just right or too hot; for me it was something between the too, and we had sun for most of our visit. Admittedly, we had one quite wet morning where walking was not so practical, but there is also great food and delicious (cheap) red wine, so all was not lost.

There was a tragic incident in Lisbon in September of this year when a cable pulling one of the many famous funicular’s that ride up and down the hills snapped causing the funicular to crash, sadly taking 17 lives. All the funiculars are closed while the investigation continues. This also impacted the famous Santa Justa Lift which opened in 1902, at least the lift is still posing for photographs.

We had four nights, two on our own and two with friends who joined us from London. The same friends we travelled with last year. This sort of explains the odd choice of a joint Norway and Lisbon holiday, I mean you can’t really get two places further apart in Europe. We’d agreed to a Lisbon city break with Deborah and John after our Berlin/Stockholm/Oslo trip last year, but then the Patti Smith concert in Oslo came up so we decided to combine the two trips.

I took a lot of photos;

Twisty, steep and cobbly streets, with slight decaying and mildly decrepit buildings. I mean, there is very little that is more perfect!

We visited LX Factory on the rainy day, catching an Uber there as Eleanor had rolled an ankle and was taking walking a little easy, which fortunately did the trick. There is plenty of street art on the buildings in this little gallery/hipster shopping area in old industrial complex. There was also an amazing book and jazz specialist record shop which I poked my nose into but avoided getting in too deap.

We also visited Carmo Archaeological Museum, which is housed in the ruins of abbey and church that was destroyed in the 1755 earthquake that levelled large parts of Lisbon. It’s fantastic!

On our final evening, we planned to take the famous number 28 tram on its loop around the outer central city, but the route was disrupted with road works and there was a massive queue, so we took the number 12 for a few stops instead. It was still a great trip. We then walked up more cobbly, steep and narrow streets to the local fish restaurant Garum; which was frankly amazing.

I can’t wait to return and explore more!

Oslo

Norway
October 2025.

This whole mad Bergen, Oslo and Lisbon trip (I mean who does Norway and Portugal in the same trip with nothing in between) came about because Eleanor and I have talked about going to a concert in a different country for quite some time. I saw Patti Smith was touring the 50th anniversary of her classic debut LP “Horses”, and playing in Oslo, and decided that now was the time.

So here we are in Oslo, arriving mid-afternoon yesterday. We’re staying in a nice downtown hotel, not far from the Munch Museum; which we visited the last time we came. The hotel is nice, but the breakfast was OMG good.

It’s cold and sunny and a good day to be walking 40 minutes up the Akerselva River from where it ends in the harbour near our hotel to Grunerlokka and the Mathallen food hall. We ate in the food hall last time we were in Oslo. It’s a bit like London’s Shoreditch 10 years ago, but all squashed into one small block; loads of graffiti and bars and cafes.

What we seemed to have missed last time was Nedre Foss. A small, but quite powerful waterfall just behind the back of the food hall. It was a lovely bonus to a nice riverside walk.

It was late morning when we left the hotel and we had intended on lunching though had arrived far too early to eat, especially after a large breakfast in the hotel. The walk was shorter than I had planned and though we carried on past the waterfall it seemed that being hungry again would be quite a way off.

The river is a similar size to central London’s Regents Canal, though fast running and seemingly cleaner. There are more trees and grass on the riverbank than the canal, but it was equally popular with walkers and runners.

That night we went to the Patti Smith concert that brought us here in the first place. The concert was great, though too packed for my liking, Patti was in fine voice and the band was fantastic. I’ve not seen her perform before.

The following day we spent some time in the National Museum of Oslo, which we also thoroughly enjoyed, though it’s very modern art gallery rather than national museum. The building itself is a fine piece of modern art, and it had a version of Edvard Munch’s ‘Scream’, without the crowds of the Munch Museum.

Yesterday we late-lunched in this fabulous vegan café in one of the inner city residential areas. The food was very nice and we ended up talking to the owner about life in Oslo, he’d lived in the UK in the past so had some interesting perspectives, in a good way. One thing he said stuck with me ‘Norway is a trust based country’, admittedly we were mainly talking about tax, but the concept was on display in the basement of the museum. The cloakroom was just out in the open and there are dozens of coats just hanging there unguarded. I like it.

Oslo is a nice city to wander about, though very crowded on a sunny late autumn day. I found a bit of local brutalist architecture. It’s not the most exciting piece I will admit, but this holiday is not about brutalist buildings!

Soon enough it was time to head out to Oslo airport for a late afternoon flight to Lisbon. As we did last time, we enjoyed Oslo.

The Bergen to Oslo train

Norway,
October 2025.
We’d read about this train journey numerous times over the past couple of years, and it’s supposedly one of the most scenic train journeys in Europe, or the world, depending on the reach of whoever published the article. It would be wrong of me to disagree; it was indeed very scenic. Sublimely so in fact.

My only quibble is that we should have done Oslo to Bergen rather than Bergen to Oslo. Future articles should specifically note that this would be the most dramatic way to do the trip, if scenic drama is your thing, which it very much is for me, but seemingly not for most of our carriage mates.
It’s seven hours from Bergen on Norway’s west coast to Oslo on the east and the train crosses the mountainous spine of this very empty country. Just before we left London, I’d foolishly conducted some online ‘research’ into the journey, mainly via Reddit threads, and among the positive comments there were many less flattering; primarily about the lack of a food car, uncomfortable seats and no phone charging points and the lateness, my God, the lateness, so many complaints. I’d not shared these with Eleanor as I didn’t want her to think that I’d made a mistake booking this. Seven hours is a long time if the conditions are sub-optimal (my new favourite word at work). I’m glad I didn’t as these were all none of those things were true.
The train left Bergen station on time at 8:08, surprisingly as the inbound journey was late, it was also full which I didn’t expect as it’s off season and it’s easier and cheaper to fly that sort of distance. I guess there are still plenty of tourists about; not that you would have known as pretty much everyone else in our carriage of about 30 spent most the journey sleeping, playing games on their phones, reading books, and my personal favourite; knitting. Admittedly the knitters were obviously from Bergen and have probably done this journey a few times. Still, I would have looked out the window; which I did, for most of the journey.

We were blessed with a nice day, it was cold but sunny when we left Bergen, via a long tunnel which was a bit deflating as I expected amazing views. I didn’t have to wait too long before we were winding our way up through the lower reaches of fjord-side mountains, we passed through so many short tunnels it was hard to take pictures of the glorious, rugged country out of the train window. Autumn was such a good choice for this journey, the trees were turning red and gold and the mountain tops had a fine dusting of snow, we really did have it all to see.

90 minus(ish) after leaving Bergen the train was slowly passing through the treeline, past frosty farms, fast flowing streams and massive rocky mist draped bluffs with water pouring off the top. It was all very Norwegian. This was what I was here to see.

Soon enough we were in ski-field country, barren other than scattered ski lodges, and a convenient train station (next time), the mountains were spectacular, and I don’t really have the words to describe the mountain top lakes…

It was almost an anti-climax as we descended down the spine into central southern Norway. We passed numerous stunning lakes, all surrounded by autumn trees, it was just so beautiful, and it was like this for hours, only changing to ‘just’ lovely countryside as we approached the towns that fringe Oslo.

We arrived on time; all the keyboard naysayers were proven wrong.

It was a stunning journey, the drama is all at the start, not that the second half was a let-down at all, but WHEN we do this again; stopping in the mountains for a night on the way, I would want to do it in reverse. Oslo to Bergen and save the best bits to the end. Delayed gratification and all that.

Bergen, Norway

Bergen, Norway
October 2025.

This was our first visit to Bergen, and hopefully it will not be our last. There are so many places on my ‘must visit’ list it seems such a shame to add repeats, but we loved the one full day we spent in Bergen and I’m keen to repeat the train journey that comes next, though in reverse, so we end rather than start in this nice little city.

We arrived late last night, and even though our journey from plane door to the terminal exit was a remarkable ten minutes; made even more impressive as neither of us have EU passports, it was still midnight when we arrived in the central city hotel we’d booked.

Bergen is a small, narrow city, surrounded by large hills on three sides and a fjord on the fourth. It was sunny when we there, which made it all rather beautiful, especially with the autumnal trees on the hills. The old town’s old buildings make it all very ‘cute’. If a city could ever be cute then Bergen is it.

We started our day late and mostly missed the hotel breakfast, which ended remarkably early, don’t stay in business hotels if you want a lie in was the learned lesson. After a rushed half breakfast we went for a mostly aimless walk around the town, making sure we took in the famous port-side Bryggen and its lovely 18th century wooden buildings; old port buildings and homes, now shops and galleries and, as we discovered, at least one very good coffee shop.

After coffee we caught the funicular up the hill to Floyen, we bought a one-way ticket with a plan to walk back down again, one of the best decisions we made on the holiday; and we made some good decisions. The view from the top, over the city and out into the fjord was pretty spectacular. There are also goats and these were very popular with the tourists, I will say that this included me.

However, the walk back down the meandering footpath was stunning; the trees and the light and the wild range of green, it was a lot to take in, and it was beautiful and if the 3km walk had been twice as long it still would been too short. I took a lot of photos, only some captured just how lovely the walk was.

We were snackish by the time we got down the hill and meandered through some steep and narrow cobbled streets, past the old wooden housesat the edge of town. This would have been the highlight if not for the forest walk. I love steep cobbled streets.

Obligatory David Bowie street art

After walking past a few uninspiring looking, extremely touristy, eating establishments I took to the internet and found a small café/bar – Jest, not too far from where we were standing and feeling peckish. Jest was fab. We had a nice lunch, the vibe was friendly, the music was just up our 80s indie alley, and the cocktails we had were superb. Lunch time cocktails are a good thing.

After lunch we walked around the city for another hour, telling ourselves we must come back.

Bergen is great!

Berlin wandering

Berlin – Friday 03 – Tuesday 08 October 2024

We liked the hotel we stayed in back in June, and equally important, we also liked its location on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz so agreed that as familiarity is a good thing we should stay there again. Knowing where we going allowed a swift trip from the airport, through checking in to the hotel and getting out for a mid-afternoon walk around the neighbourhood.

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We are staying in the Mitte district, which is sort of east/north east of the centre, a bit like where we live in London. There is a bit of everything nearby; shops, bars and a variety of cafes and restaurants; there is also the Babylon Cinema with its lovely neon sign. We’ve been watching Babylon Berlin on the telly and will have to go back and finish it soon.

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On Saturday morning, we caught an S-Bahn (Stadtschnellbahn or city rapid railway), train to the Olympic Stadium; home of the 1936 Olympics, and over the railway line from the Courbusierhaus block from my last post. Disappointingly, the stadium grounds were fenced off and we couldn’t get in, though I think you can visit on an organised tour if you’re inclined to. We had a full day ahead so carried on.

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As well as being a historic Olympic stadium, and the one where African American athlete Jesse Owens managed the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to the Nazis by winning four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics and showing the world that their Aryan superiority message was baseless, the stadium is the home ground for the Herta Berlin football club. There were stickers on every lamppost between the station and the stadium advertising the fact.

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I could be 180 degrees wrong but my reading of the current situation in Germany is that the country is politically on the edge. With Angela Merkel retired, replaced with the less dynamic Olaf Scholz, the influence of Germany in Europe is on the wane and the right wing are on the march, particularly in the east of the country, where Berlin sits. In recent months the AfB, the new right wing party, has made serious political gains, winning seats and entire states. Berlin, again feels like a small liberal island in a much less liberal world. While Berlin appears to me as a tourist to not be shy in acknowledging the horrors in its past I get the feeling if we travelled not too far from the city borders we would see a much different country.

From the Olympic Stadium we jumped back on a train and continued our journey to the western suburb of Spandau. We were interested in coming here ~~for the massive Ikea~~ as it is an old town, with cobbled streets and a huge old fort on the side of a lake. It sounded pretty idyllic for a sunny Saturday lunch and very much the sort of thing we like to do. The theory was sound, the reality less so.

To be fair the streets were cobbled and there was a big old fort. The cobbled streets were big and wide, not the narrow cobbles I like, and it was a bit run down and a bit depressed and not in that ‘nice’ way some areas can pull off. I’m guessing it’s one of the places that doesn’t get a lot of tourists or investment and the young people aren’t hanging round hip cafes, mainly because there aren’t any. I’m not one to cast aspersions (OK, I am) but it felt like one of those places where the AfB would get a unhealthily large number of votes.

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We didn’t stop for lunch but carried on to the fort, which unhelpfully had a juggling and acrobatic festival and it was looking like it was of full of family groups and people dressed in cosplay outfits. I’d hoped to walk around outside the outer wall, but the way was fenced off so we left and caught the train to Zoo Station, in the city centre.

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We wandered around a bit more, ate, and visited the famous KadeWe department store and took their amazing criss-crossing escalators up to the 7^th floor where we found a champagne bar and decided it would be rude to not have a glass. It was very nice.

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We followed this with a visit to the magnificent spire which is all that is left of the 19 century Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, heavily damaged during the devastating allied bombing of Berlin in the dying months of the Second World War. The ceiling was magnificent, as was the blue glass interior of the modernist church built after the war.

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We wanted to visit some of the city’s markets and had put Sunday aside to try and get to three of them, we also discovered a Saturday night market on the rooftop of the Gesundbrunnen Centre, a shopping mall a couple of train stops away from the hotel. We didn’t buy anything but it was fun, very busy with mostly young Berliners and tourists, there was a bar and a DJ, a nice atmosphere and a not unspectacular, but rather apocalyptic sunset. A marker laid down for the Sunday’s adventures.

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We visited three markets, two were a few minutes apart and a thirty minute walk from the hotel; as I said previously there is a lot happening around us. I enjoyed the first and second markets, both had a lot of interesting stuff, vintage, junk, a few records and some decent clothes. Like the night market they both had a nice feel to them and weren’t too crowded and we also didn’t buy anything.

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The third was a train ride away and was definitely more of a flea market, it was busy and I got a bit bored as there was nothing really that interested me. And yes it is all about me. It was a great morning out, doing something different in a different city is what travelling is all about for me.

The first two markets were in the old ‘East’ and close to the Berlin Wall memorial spot just off Bernauer Strasse which we visited in June, right by the station we used to get to the third market. The Wall still evokes quite strong feelings in me, it went up a year before I was born and I saw it in 1987, two years before it came down. It has a presence in my life which I can’t fully articulate. Looking at the less glamorous of photos from the 60s, both here in Berlin as well as in London and elsewhere, things really were in a bad way for so many people, especially in cities.

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Here is a photo from when I was here in 1987, looking over from the west. I’m not sure where this photo was taken, but that strip of land still exists in may parts of Berlin, maybe with a pre-Wall road returned.

Oct 1987 The Wall and East Berlin

On Monday we went to a new photography gallery and walked around a really interesting exhibition of photos of hip-hop artists, primarily US based, but there was a section on contemporary German hip-hop of which I knew nothing about. It was challenging looking at photos of inner-city New York and how terrible conditions were in the 70s and 80s, things didn’t look a lot better than the bombed out ruins of 1960s Berlin. We have treated and continue, in some places, to treat our less well off urban areas so poorly. I suspect given recent news, and more of that at the end, that this won’t change much.

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The gallery is in a very cool building, covered in layers of graffiti; apparently, it used to be full of small bars and venues, and I would loved to have visited and perhaps gone to a gig there. The bar made a very nice espresso martini pick me up as well, and the modernist loo was superb!

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It was our last day in this most favourite of cities so wandered the streets a bit more, stopping for a monstrous and delicious kebab and large bottle of beer at a street vendor before burping our way back to the hotel and preparing ourselves mentally for going home in the morning.

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All too soon the holiday was over and the ‘facing reality’ blues hit as we sat in Berlin airport over a pre-flight relaxer, aka a gin and tonic, and for me; Berlin’s supposed favourite food, curry wurst.

Back to reality and work tomorrow. We’re going to have to come back again and next time we will stay somewhere different and experience a different area. I loved the area we stayed in, but familiarity can breed contempt and I would hate to tarnish the good memories we’ve had in this city so far.

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I’ll end this post with news that hadn’t come out three days ago when I started writing, that the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called a snap election for early in 2025. With the terrible news yesterday that the US elected the orange racist, misogynist, homo/trans-phobe as president a drift to the populist right in Germany (and the rest of the world) seems almost inevitable. The world is in a much worse place than it was when I started writing and I’m glad there is red wine.

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