Europe – Page 3 – Where is Phil now?

Pisa to Florence

Wednesday 18 October 2023 – Florence.

As anticipated the rain came in the early hours and was still with us when we got up. With no early attractions booked and a checkout at 10:00 there was no need to move fast. We had breakfast at the same café as yesterday, and we had the same breakfast, though unlike yesterday the place was packed. I guess no-one was rushing out into the weather. We were very pleased we had the opportunity to climb the Leaning Tower yesterday when it was sunny. I discovered this morning that I’d left my umbrella at home. I realised I hadn’t packed in the middle of the night the night before we left but had completely forgotten I’d had that thought by the time I got up. At least I’d remember to pack a rain coat, or two.

After breakfast we packed and then took a rapid walk, sheltering where possible, to Pisa Station to get a train to Florence. We were lucky and got most of the way to the station between heavy showers, though the last 100 yard dash was in a sudden downpour.

We’ve taken the approach of dealing with today one action a time rather than trying to book and plan things ahead, so we arrived at the station with no stress about getting pre-paid tickets and finding a specific train. As expected it was all very easy and there were plenty of working ticket machines and they were simple to use. Train travel in Italy (like all of Europe) is significantly cheaper and easier than the UK. It poured with rain all the way to Florence, but I didn’t care.

I was kinda of expecting the view from the train to be all beautiful Tuscan villages and green rolling hills layered in vines and fruit and olive trees. For the first quarter of the journey we seemed to be passing industrial estates, (yeah, yeah). It was not as scenic as expected. There wasn’t a lot of interesting things to see but I enjoyed gazing out the window anyway.

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The journey to Florence took an hour and it was still raining when we arrived. We had planned to get a bus from the station to the hotel we had booked so joined the queue for the bus ticket machine. It was slow, then got slower and more and more people crowded around trying to help those in front to get tickets; it turned it had basically stopped working. We both downloaded the bus company app to our phones and I managed to get a reliable enough connection to pay for two tickets. Annoyingly the tickets didn’t arrive in the app, grrr. I tried again with a different card and the same happened. Double grrr, though the language actually used was a lot more ‘colourful’ shall we say. I wasn’t a happy bunny. We thought sod it, lets take a cab, but the cab queue was absolutely huge; apparently there was a big football related event at the Fiorentina stadium out of town and all the cabs were taken up ferrying big wigs out there. Eleanor managed to actually buy two tickets for the bus on her phone so we joined the bus queue.

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There was a sign board telling when buses were coming though it was as useless as the app. I got grumpy standing in the rain and when the bus arrived after 30 minutes t was packed; though we managed to squeeze on and our stop was only four away from the station on the far side of the River Arno, so it wasn’t terrible.

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The hotel Ad Astra was a two minute walk from the bus stop and I suspect they don’t get too many guests who arrive by bus carrying a wet backpack, though they were very welcoming! It’s a lovely place, our room was gorgeous and the staff are fabulous. the hotel backs onto the largest private garden in Florence, though the garden isn’t accessible by guests. It almost had a country villa feel to it. The presenter Clive Myrie stayed and filmed here when he made his recent BBC series on Italy,

After unpacking we had a glass of wine in a shelter on the hotel deck and unwound after the morning; writing notes, reading and gazing out over the very peaceful garden.. We had an early evening table booked in a vegetarian restaurant in a book shop so didn’t do much in the late afternoon before leaving for a slow walk to dinner.

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I’d loved Pisa and its lanes and old buildings, the slight smell of damp and sewers, its age and history, but it has nothing on Florence. Florence is just amazing and by the end I never wanted to leave. The Ad Astra is located on the southern side of the River Arno, the opposite side to the centre, in the Oltrarno district. It’s a nice area, old of course, less busy than the centre, but there are still nice places for coffee, wine and food. It is my sort of place and I would stay in Oltrarno again for sure. Like Pisa, Florence felt like a safe place to walk and get lost in, there always seemed to be others out walking the streets and at no time did I feel we were unsafe, it is a tourist town after all. Like Pisa there were few cars moving on the roads outside of the various rush hours and this made walking around almost a joy. There are still lots of motor scooters and cyclists, though in general they were polite and not intimidating.

We reached the Arno as the sun was dropping below the horizon, sadly not a night for a sunset over the Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s most well known and loveliest bridge.

We passed Plazzio Uffizi, which we will visit tomorrow, one of the many places I’m super excited about visiting over the next few days. The Uffizi Gallery is one of the major tourist attractions and we have pre-booked tickets for tomorrow afternoon.

Dinner at Libreria Brac was delicious, I wasn’t expecting to find excellent vegetarian or vegan food here as Tuscany is quite a meaty region. It was busy so must be doing something’s right. We had vin santo for desert and OMG! I’ve not had this before and can’t believe I’ve missed it for the 61 years I’ve been on earth. Vin santo (holy wine) is a luscious thick and very sweet, dessert wine, it comes with a small plate of cantuccini, a typical Italian hard biscuit, that you dunk into the wine and let it soak a bit before munching the biscuit. Lovely. I had it every night and it will be a Christmas treat this year.

With very full bellies it was a slow meander back to the hotel. There is always one more narrow street to take a photo of.

This bust is in the entrance to our hotel. The building has been owned by the same family for a very long time and I wonder if this was an ancestor?

I was loving Florence!

Pisa

Tuesday 17 October 2023 – Pisa.

I was surprised, and pleased, to wake up under a clear blue sky. It was unexpected as the forecast had shown rain for most of the week. The B and B room came with a voucher for a coffee, pastry and a glass of juice breakfast in a café around the corner. The café was very modern and could have been anywhere in the world, though it was the only really modern place we entered on the trip. I liked it and the coffee was superb; as was most of the coffee we had in Italy. Coffee is important, as is red wine, and I had lots good wine too; just not for breakfast.

Our first, and only appointment, of the day was a 9:15 visit to the Leaning Tower. We’d booked online for an early visit to get in before the rush. It was still busy, but not as busy as it was later in the day. We arrived early so took a walk around the site, popping outside the ancient city walls to look at the souvenir stalls (Messi, Neymar and Mbappe shirts. None of whom played football in Italy, let alone Florence). Eleanor was looking for a dayglo David statue, though she didn’t find one here.

I’m glad we got into the queue to enter the tower early as we were advised that bags were not allowed inside, and that free baggage storage was nearby. I should quickly note that the organisation at the big attractions we went to in both Pisa and Florence was utterly superb. Walking into the base of the tower I was surprised to see it was completely hollow, with just a stairwell winding round the empty core. What was very weird, though on reflection it should’ve been expected, is the floor slopes inside. It felt really odd walking into a building that sloped downhill.

Construction of this most famous of towers began in the twelfth century from a design by the architect Diotisalvi (possibly as there are contentions about the original architect) and it started to tilt almost immediately due to the soft ground it is built on.

The bell tower was added in 1372 to finish off the build. By the time remedial works starts in 1990 it was leaning at a precarious 5.5 degrees. It is now stable at 3.97 degrees, though it looks worse. There are seven bells in the tower, one for each musical note. The largest bell was installed in 1655.

Though free standing, it was built as the bell tower for the cathedral nearby, the construction of which started in 1064. It also tilts, but only slightly. The cathedral, tower, baptistery and the monumental cemetery make up the Piazza dei Miracoli, a UNESCO world heritage site, and it is all rather lovely. I wanted to visit the baptistery as it’s supposed to have the most magnificent interior of all the monuments, but it was closed in this off-season for renovation work.

There are 251 steps to the top of the tower and one bi-directional staircase. Visitor numbers are, as you would expect, restricted, so it wasn’t too busy, though passing those coming down as we headed up was tight in some spaces. There were some conveniently placed ‘viewing’ stops on the way up; puff, puff…

The view from the top was, as you’d imagine, wonderful. We were lucky with the day as the rest of the week was rainy or cloudy or both. We got the view. It was a little un-nerving standing outside at the top, when you leave the stairs you come out on to a fairly level platform, but as you walk round and get to the section where the tower is tilting down its slightly unpleasant. A narrow marble step, tilting down and eight storeys up. Not my thing. It was nice going back down to the ground. It was fantastic going up though; it’s a marvellous construction and should be on everyone’s to do list.

Back at ground level the tour bus tourists had arrived in force; there were thousands, and this is off-season. I wanted to mock the dozens of folk striking the various Instagramable ‘holding up the tower’ poses, but it was somewhat endearing, though I’m way too cool to do it myself, obviously.

After the rush of the tower and the exquisite view the cathedral was a little ‘meh’, maybe I’ve been in too many. I mean it’s huge and beautiful and the art is stupendous, but I’ve seen it all before; there was some repair work going on as well so scaffold all over the place and I guess that broke that special ambiance of sacred places. At least they didn’t have builders radio going.

The doors of the cathedral are fabulous, with intricate bronze carvings from 1602 in panels on all the doors. I particularly loved this panel where centuries of visitors have been rubbing the naked bum…

After collecting our bags from the baggage office and stopping for coffee and a snack at a nearby tourist joint (expensive) we took to the streets of old town Pisa and wandered randomly for a few hours. I very much enjoyed it.

We crossed the River Arno, which also flows through Florence, we will cross it a few times there as well, and took in an avantgarde exhibition in Palazzo Blu which was really interesting. other than the tower there was one other thing we both wanted to see in Pisa and that was Keith Haring’s Tuttomonda mural. Painted in 1989 it was one of the artist’s final works. It’s huge and rather beautiful and we return here on our final day.

We meandered back towards the B and B, ducking in and out of narrow cobbled streets as the fancy took us. I immensely enjoyed the walking in both Pisa and Florence; there are cars, just not many, and away from the main roads people mainly walk in the street. It’s the way it’s always been and will continue to be as more and more young folk (and some of the not so young) choose to not rely on a car to get around. I also enjoy walking down narrow lanes surrounded by 4 or 5 storey residential buildings; these places feel lived in with a sense of community and I always want to live in one. Though I know the ‘sense of community’ is likely just as much as a fantasy as my dream of a perfect local pub that only really exists on the telly; at least in England anyway. I particularly like the religious images on the walls, the small shrines, and the paintings with a donation slot on the side of churches. This is all so not-England, or New Zealand.

We stopped for lunch (gnocchi for me and a duck bolognaise for Eleanor) and a glass of wine or two in a café on a small square surrounded by young folk from the nearby university. It was entirely pleasant and energising, though we did go back to the B n B for a brief rest after eating. The B n B is just off another, larger square, through a small road arch with the most remarkable and faded painted ceiling that I know nothing about, and don’t want to. It looks very old and the fact it is just there in the street with cars and bikes and pedestrians passing through, or stopping for a smoke and shelter from the rain, is just lovely.

The building our room in has a small shrine on it.

Our final tourist activity was to head back to the Piazza del Miracoli (or Piazza del Duomo depending on who you read) to visit the Camposanto, the memorial cemetery. Construction started in 1277 to house the growing number of graves that were scattered around the cathedral grounds.

The frescoes that cover every wall were finally finished 200 years later. It was my favourite building in Pisa and I’m very glad we decided to visit. The frescoes are amazing and in hindsight I wish I’d spent more time looking at them. Work continues to restore the site and it seems to be being done very sensitively, the work done on the frescoes for instance looks almost as dated as the originals.

My favourite was the depiction of the torment of sinners in hell. It reminded me of similar works I saw in SE Asia and I love that no matter the religion there is always eternal damnation for those who transgress the, often arbitrary and confusing, rules.

The site houses numerous statues and memorials of wealthy and famous Pisans from the past, including Finobachi, the father of mathematics as we now know it. With Michelangelo, Galileo, De Vinci and others Tuscany was well endowed with visionaries.

There are a number of plague death victims here too. The plague didn’t really care who you were or how much money you had when it visited.

We wandered the streets again, stopping for a magnificent gelato before heading out for the evening. We hoped to find a bar to watch England host Italy in an international football match, but we didn’t have any luck so watched it on the TV in the room. We were exhausted and it was only day one, but man it was a good day. I really could holiday forever.

I will give a hard recommend for Pisa, and if you read this and want to visit, stay overnight and walk to the tower, it’s magnificent and comparatively peaceful; then book your tower visit early the following day.

A night in Pisa

Monday 16 October 2023 – Pisa.

I’ve not been to Italy since 1986, sort of. I spent 48 hours on a bus from Bari to London, after getting off a ferry from Athens in 1987, but I don’t recall anything more than getting off the ferry and taking a seat in on the bus. It was a long journey a long time ago. I’ve never been to Pisa, Florence or anywhere else in Tuscany. Weirdly Tuscany and its famous towns haven’t been very high on my ‘must visit’ list until recently, and I lay that positive change squarely at the feet of the actor Stanley Tucci and his fabulous recent BBC series on Italy through the lens of Italian food. Surely, Pisa’s famous leaning tower should have been on my list of wonders of the world/monumental architecture that I must visit, but it wasn’t. That was rather stupid.

Eleanor hasn’t been to Florence or Pisa either so it was the ideal location for a week way, cunningly planned by me to be at the end of the main tourist season, but the week before most schools have their mid-term break. It was so cunning that there were still thousands of people there, but not tens of thousands. I took too many photos and we had too good a time to try and fit things into a single post so this one will just cover the first day, or rather, night we spent in Pisa. I suspect the holiday will take a few days to write up and the photos even longer to edit. I’m happy to say it was a wonderful week away; other than the torrential rain on the last day.

I’ve been finding it difficult to book holidays these last couple of years, I’m wanting to be more eco-friendly and use trains were I can, I’m not worried about the slower journey, but Christ, going anywhere by train from the UK is expensive. Flights have gotten expensive as well, so it took an age to find something that suited our budget and timing, and my desire to never fly Ry*n Air or E*syJ*t again. We flew BA out of Heathrow on a very convenient mid-afternoon flight, arriving in Pisa just after dark. It’s much less stressful travelling later in the day.

We had a lovely room in a B and B a ten minute walk from the tower so set off soon after dropping our bags to get a quick glimpse before the tour we’ve booked for 9:15 tomorrow. We stopped for food and a drink on the way at a small osteria (a local wine bar serving simple food, usually without a menu). They only served one thing, a massive plate of cheese, preserved meat, olives and the local pomodoro, something I’ve never had before; a mix of tomato, garlic, olive oil and bread mashed into a gooey paste and spread on bread. With a glass of local red wine it was a perfect introduction to Tuscan eating.

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After eating we headed off to find the tower, before discovering that my sense of direction was 180 degrees out of whack and we were going the wrong way. We realised this as we arrived at the River Arno, 10 minutes in the wrong direction. The good thing about walking around these ancient towns is no walking is wasted, every narrow, cobbled street is unique to my day to day existence. I felt like I can walk here forever and there will always be something new to see.

I never really recovered my sense of direction after that early blow. However, we did get back on track and eventually hit upon the right path, following a noisy group of ‘jocks’ that really didn’t lift my feelings about Americans overseas, though, admittedly they had better map reading skills than me. We’d just passed the ‘jocks’ along a fairly typical Pisan narrow, gully-like street when we popped out into a square and ‘boom’ there it was, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, gloriously lit and looming imperiously above the buildings surrounding the square. It was a proper OMFG moment. I was unexpectedly and massively excited to see it. It’s magnificent, but not as tall as I expected.

It was only a couple of minutes more to the area around the cathedral and tower. Surprisingly, there were hardly any other people there and we got to wander about and take photos pretty much as we pleased.

We went for a walk around the old town, not getting too misplaced too often now I knew my usually reliable sense of direction wasn’t working. I really like it here, it has a decent vibe and I’m loving the old architecture. At night it had the feel of an ex-European old town somewhere in SE Asia, a little bit crumbly, mouldy and close, and there was a slight smell of sulphur and drain to add to the illusion of being somewhere ancient and barely discovered. I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow when we can explore in the daylight.

Gent and Brussels.

Saturday 02 September 2023 – Gent/Ghent.

I’ve struggled with getting the time and energy to write this post almost as much as struggled with choosing and editing some of the 173 photos I took. I (we) had a good time in Ghent/Gent and I’m happy with the photos I took as well, but I’m just knackered and have no mental capacity for anything, again. Work has been mentally draining this past month, and I must admit that I’m not loving this new role either. I’ve also been suffering from ‘tennis elbow’ for the past three months and while it’s mostly OK during the day, the way I sleep means I wake in the middle of the night in pain and struggle to drop off again. To add to the night time joy the UK has just come out of an autumnal heatwave with the hottest ever recorded September days. So, yes, I’ve been too tired and grouchy to think about writing, or much of anything else once the day’s work is over. However, posts will back up if I don’t do something, so here is something.

Eleanor had a ‘significant’ birthday in July and good friends of ours very generously treated the four of us to a couple of nights in Ghent, and it was a very nice time too. Eleanor and I have previously visited and I still had an OK layout of the town in my head and there were a couple of places I wanted to see again; and at least one gin bar to return too; though my main objective was to get some frittes/fries as we didn’t eat any last time, and oh lordy they were good!

We arrived late morning on Thursday and after checking into the very modern and art focused Air B n B, we went off to find those magical frittes, and beer. Only one mind, beer that is not, fries. I ate a lot of those.

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We were lucky with the weather, the forecast hadn’t been inspiring before we left London, but we ended up with one nice day and once not so nice. The not so nice day, Friday, meant I got some ‘cobbles in the wet’ photos, which I was happy about, and it also gave us the perfect excuse to visit one of the many bier bars; this one had 366 beers on its menu. We had three. Burp.

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Ghent is one of those towns that is just built for aimless walking; there are a few named tourist things to see, castles and cathedrals, town halls and museums, but equally there are just loads of lovely streets with great examples of old Flemish homes and of course ‘t Dreupelkot, that wonderful quirky old fashioned gin bar.

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I even took photos that had people in them.

We found a list of seven modern buildings to see on the internet, just for something different to look for and managed to find most of them, though most of the finding was by accident. These include the new library (free toilets ), the ‘Modern House’, found in one of the lovely cobbled streets I was photographing, and the Ghent Market Hall.

Though it was the narrow cobbled streets, wet or dry that I was after, and I found plenty of those.

We had a late afternoon Eurostar back to London from Brussels on Saturday so with nowhere to store bags in Ghent we took the 30 minute train ride into Brussels Midi and used the left luggage storage there and went for a walk around Brussels. Our first stop was the Mannekin Pis; it has to be really, its Brussels main tourist attraction.

Last time Eleanor and I were here it was really wet and the square was packed with some event, I can’t remember what, this time it was packed with a beer festival, but at least it wasn’t pouring with rain.

After a waffle snack (mandatory in Belgium) we took a slow walk up to the European Parliament buildings and then took a train back to the station for the journey home.

It was a fabulous few days away and we really appreciated the lovely gift from our good friends xx.

Lille; A short break.

Thursday 26 January 2023 – Lille, France

It was cold in Lille, much colder than London; the shock of the cold cutting through my open jacket as I got off the train. We stopped in the almost empty concrete wind tunnel that is Lille Europe Station to don the scarves and hats we pocketed when we got on the tube in Leytonstone almost four hours earlier. Eleanor wore gloves, I was map reading on my phone as we walked the 20 or so minutes to the guest house.

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It was Tuesday morning, Europe is in the grip of an air pattern generated by storms in America, the sky is a solid even block of grey and there’s a firm but gentle breeze that feels like it could cut through lead, its sharp. The light is weird, and would remain so until Thursday morning when the rain finally comes. Though we are six hours early the guest house owner shows us to our room and we can dump our bags; I change into a warmer jumper, then we head back out to explore Lille. Neither of us has been here before so everything is new. Other than some recommended places to visit over the next couple of days we have no plan. The best way to travel somewhere different; slow and at the whim of fancy.

We’ve come to Lille for a short break to celebrate the 25 of January, when, 10 years ago I met Eleanor for the first time over a drink or three in Camden’s famous rock and roll pub, the Hawley Arms. They’ve been a very happy 10 years and life without her would be a lot less bright. We chose Lille as it’s easy and quick to get to on the train, it’s not in the UK and we want to travel in Europe more than we have and, as I said earlier, we’ve not been here before, so there’s plenty to explore.

We spent Tuesday afternoon walking aimlessly around the old town, a lot of the shops were closed, early in a winter week I guess. nothing seemed permanently shutdown or derelict mind, a healthy sign for the city. I have the camera with me though don’t take a huge amount of photos.

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Lille is in northern France, close to the Belgian border and architecturally is a mix of French and Flemish, a lot of the old houses would not be out of place if they were picked up and dropped into Ghent or Bruges. I like the mix of styles.

There’s a lots of churches; including a Notre Dame. The touches are so gothic (it is a famous gothic cathedral), but also a touch Gaudi-esque; though of course he was Spanish.

One of the things I like most about European towns, and it does seem to be unique to mainland Europe rather than the UK, is big old double doors, either as an entrance to a courtyard or directly into a house. I particularly like them when they are faded, grubby and time worn.

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I also found the narrowest building ever, none of those big old double doors would have worked here.

We had an amazing run of finding great places to go for a drink or an evening meal during our short European break in September and I’m pleased to say that luck stayed with us on this trip as well. I found Soultrain bar online, I was looking for an ‘alternative’ bar and one that was preferably a few minutes walk from the guest house. Soultrain met those requirements and lived to up to expectations. We were the oldest people there, though we loved the vibe. The food was a choice of simple bar sharing plates, the cocktails were cheap and smooth and the bar staff were uber friendly. I didn’t expect that a bar playing a mix of American and French hip-hop would be my sort of place, but it was. Thanks internet. This was only our second drink, honest.

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Anniversary night was Wednesday; Eleanor had been recommended a small local bistro by a friend of a friend who lives in Lille and made a reservation before we left London. I booked the guest house based on its close proximity to the bistro. Bistrot Brigand is small, maybe a dozen tables, the music was soul/funk/jazz, and like Soultrain the night before, it was unobtrusive. The food was fabulous, with combinations of things we hadn’t eaten before, mainly vegetarian, which seems unusual in Lille, and the staff were brilliant; this is a small inner suburban bistro, not a tourist place, and we were welcomed even though we have speak French.

There was no rush on Wednesday, breakfast in the guest house; coffee, cheese, bread, fruit and pastries, more coffee. It was cold again, grey, low clouds, we wrapped up and walked to the nearby Metro station and caught a train to nearby Roubaix, near the border with Belgium. Our destination is La Piscine Museum of Art and Industry, recommended to us by my cousin’s wife who is from Lille; she recommended a few places to us. The gallery was the day time highlight of the three days, not so much for its art, there was little that wowed me specifically, it’s the building that is the real highlight of the show.

The gallery first opened in Roubaix in 1835 with an emphasis on textiles, a key industry in the city. Like many museums and galleries across France and western Europe it was closed during the Second World War and the artworks secure elsewhere. What is somewhat ironic is the gallery had just finished an exhibition of textiles by the great Victorian socialist and craftsman William Morris, who’s home and now museum is a five minute walk from our old house in Walthamstow. You can take the girl out of Walthamstow…

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The museum had trouble finding a new base until 1990 when the city council agreed the 1932 municipal swimming pool building, closed in 1985, would make a good home for the collections. No-one who has visited since it reopened could argue that this was not an inspired, if very brave decision. The place looks fabulous and I particularly liked the way the old dressing cubicles are being used to show art works. The tiling is beautiful though, stupidly I didn’t take any photos of it. I did take a photo of this bath though.

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We had lunch, I had a very nice 4 Euro glass of red wine to wash it down, in a nearby café. We hen took in the town square before catching the tube back to central Lille.

An afternoon nap was in order, but it was slightly too early so we wandered about the old town a bit more. I finally found a few narrow streets with not too many cars in to take some photos. I love these cobbled lanes as much as I hate there being cars in my photos.

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I was a bit gutted that the book, record and print market wasn’t properly open on either of the days we walked through it.

This is a holiday, so we picked up a bottle of cheap wine before climbing the three flights of stairs to our room then slobbing on the bed with books for a couple of hours before dinner. Note to self, next time you go to France take a cork screw as virtually no wine comes in a screw top bottle.

Thursday, today, our last day, dawned wet, though much warmer than the last two days. We’d planned to walk to a nearby market for a look and maybe pick up some cheese to take home, but decided in the end to just hang out in the guest house room, enjoy another leisurely breakfast then walk to the station when the rain abated; stopping for a decent coffee on the way.

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I’d booked us seats on the 13:35, giving us time for a last walk if we’d wanted to get wet, but early enough for us to be back home by mid-afternoon, leaving time to unpack and get ready for work the next day (Boo hiss).

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It was a very enjoyable 10^th anniversary trip and I’m looking forward to more visits to Europe this year and of course 10 more years plus with the lovely Eleanor. xx

Amsterdam

Wednesday 21 September 2022 – Amsterdam, Holland.

Amsterdam. The final city in our three city whistle-stop holiday, which sadly was all over far too quickly; both the holiday and our stay in this wonderful city of canals and cobbled streets.

I deliberately chose to go to Amsterdam on a Monday rather than over a weekend, I’m not a party person and the thought of a city full of stag-dos and hen parties was horrifying. I want some semblance of peace and quiet while I holiday and don’t want to be lumped in with the louder drunken English tourist.

All our inter-city travel has been via train, it’s long been my favourite form of travel. Headphones on and gazing out the window as we move through the world is one of the true joys of travelling. I like to take photos through the window as we go, mostly unsuccessfully; a lot of attempts went into a virtual bin to get a couple that I liked. The countryside is mostly flat and rural, I was looking for olde worlde windmills but didn’t see anything other than large modern wind turbines; though there is a beauty in those as well; I’m glad I don’t live near them though.

We loved Amsterdam, as in Brussels and Gent we stayed outside the centre but within easy walking distance; though we really didn’t do much in the centre, a quick walk through and that was it. We missed all of the central city attractions, mostly deliberately. I’m not that sort of tourist.

We walked past Rembrandt’s house, I knocked, though he wasn’t in.

The view from our hotel room in the Jordaan.

We spent most of our time walking around the canals that fringe the centre of town. Canal side walking was such a joy, just like Gent the inner suburbs were dominated by cyclists and pedestrians. There were cars, but few and they all seemed to give way to those not in tin boxes, it was quite civilised. I don’t recall the constant blaring of horns at any minor inconvenience caused by someone cycling slowly up a cobbled single lane road. The Heineken sign is above the door of my favourite bar of the whole trip.

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One of things that I found very amusing was the number of (often white) vans parked on bridges, I have so many photos with unexpected and unwanted vans in them.

I took a lot of photos of canals and bridges. Did you expect anything else?

There were some great houses here, though not all of them were straight. I like the variety of residential architecture in the different European towns and cities I’ve visited over the years; different weather and environmental conditions has led to a different style of building. This makes urban walking so much more interesting.

I loved these tiny cars, there were a lot of them about, some powered by cranky old petrol engines that sound like they’re held together with gaffer tape and ancient congealed grease and street dust, the newer ones are electric and silent; neither seem to move very fast. I’ve not seen these anywhere else.

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As in Gent and Brussels we found a number of quite chilled cafes and bars (not the ‘special’ kind’) to hang out in, mostly out of the main tourist areas. There was a bar round the corner from the hotel that I spent a couple of hours in over a couple of small beers while I read my book and listened to the dub reggae they were playing. It was the local bar I dream of having where I live but have never found. I guess everything looks better through the rose-tinted glasses of a holiday. On our last night we found a whisky bar that had a nice range of whisky based cocktails, we stayed for a couple; the music was good and they place felt nice; admittedly there weren’t many other customers. Like the gin bar in Gent on our first night this place also had ladderlike stairs going to the toilet, not a place for cocktail wobbly legs.

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When we planned the trip we intended to visit the world renown Rijksmuseum art gallery, but wow, it’s expensive!

We decided we would visit the MOCO Modern Art museum instead, it was a bit cheaper and was focused on street and pop art rather than the classics. Amongst the Banksy and Warhols they were exhibiting a couple of Stik paintings, the kind of thing you normally see painted on city walls.

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MOCO was in the same precinct as the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum, another nice part of Amsterdam about 30 minutes from where we were staying. There were quite a few people here, probably the largest volume of other tourists we’ve seen. A lot of accents and languages being spoken around the coffee and waffle cart tables. It was nice and I miss that sort of thing quite a lot; I find a joy in being amongst strangers, who have all come to somewhere else to gather a drink coffee. Of course I don’t talk to them, that would be madness.

All too soon it was time to head back home; a week away was enough to refresh, and enough for a taste of the low countries, but I left wanting more; which is a good thing. Like most other places I’ve visited, I would willingly come back.

The train back to London was really busy and I really should have checked out seats before we left, our view was, um, limited. At least we were near the bar.

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Brussels, Belgium, where I turn 60.

Monday 19 September 2022 – Brussels, Belgium.

I was 60 on Saturday 17 September, a milestone that pretty much snuck up on me. I don’t feel 60, it sounds old and most of the time I don’t feel old; I feel like a young 59. This trip was primarily to celebrate my birthday and I wanted to, and should have, spend more time on planning it. I’m good at planning holidays and get almost as much pleasure from the planning as I do from trip.

I struggled with organising this trip, possibly due to being too busy, but I mainly think it’s a Covid hangover; a lack of trust that we will actually be able to go mixed with a nervousness about being in crowds again and not being in the mood to ‘have fun’. I had a few attempts at making a trip work but couldn’t get time, location and budget to fit. In the end I just thought ‘fuck it, let’s go to Brussels’. I chose Brussels as it isn’t Berlin or Amsterdam, Rome or Paris; it’s not a city you go to celebrate something and it’s the centre of the ‘hated’ EU. It sounded perfect, and I don’t hate the EU by the way. I would rejoin tomorrow if it was my choice.

We arrived in Brussels after two great days in Gent on Friday afternoon, it wasn’t raining then, it saved that for my birthday. Not that rain put us off roaming the streets to check a place out. As with Gent we stayed a little off the beaten track in what seemed to be a largely residential area in the suburb of Ixelles, a thirty minute walk from the old centre and a similar distance from the EU Parliament sector. It was a great spot, close to some good places to eat; a critical consideration when I book a holiday. We had three great meals in Ixelles, all different; including a very nice birthday dinner I had booked before we left London.

We enjoyed Brussels; of course it’s a big city, and it isn’t particularly touristy though it has a number of interesting attractions. I took a few photos, as you would expect.

On Saturday, we took a walk into the centre, it rained off and on during the morning, getting quite heavy at times. It didn’t put us off too much; it also kept the crowds down.

We took a break from the drizzle over beer and cider in a small bar before visiting the Magritte Museum, an adjunct to the art gallery. I quite like some of his work; especially his later ‘apple’ series.

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There is a bit of art around the place, both modern street and the more traditional sculpture, including Brussels number one tourist attraction, the Manneken Pis fountain.

I especially liked this terrible statue of Jacques Brel.

We went into a couple of churches, one had the most amazing modern abstract stained glass windows, which is very difficult to see in this photo.

I was really surprised to find a Phlegm painting in the city; one of my favourite British street artists.

We spent Sunday walking to and then around the European Parliament area and up to the Parc du Cinquantenaire and the Triumphal Arc. The walk through the lovely old cobbled streets of Ixelles towards the EU Centre was so quiet and pleasant and we wondered at the absence of cars and the abundance of pedestrians and families on bikes.

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It was not till we were in the centre that we realised it was Brussels annual car free day… It explained a lot, we thought this bit of Brussels was just like this all the time; a dream for me is a mostly car free city.

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Sadly the Royal Court of Justice was covered in scaffold.

I want trams back in London.

Gent, Belgium.

Friday 16 September 2022 – Gent, Belgium.

There won’t be a lot of text in this, nor the following couple of posts, though there are quite a few photos in all three. Gent, Brussels and Amsterdam are photogenic in their different ways.

We loved Gent, I think we possibly could have done with one more day, though we saw most of the things we planned on seeing. The main thing we missed was the ‘Adoration of the Lamb’ altarpiece in St Bavo’s Cathedral. Something for next time; I like to think we will go back one day, it is a place to return to.

Gent is a medieval town surrounded by canals, very similar to the more classically beautiful Bruges. Gent had the edge for me as it has a student population and is a little more ‘grunge’ than Bruges; there is street art and some graffiti and student type bars with decent music. It’s not just a tourist town, though tourism must be one of its primary income sources, it’s a lived in and loved place. For an ancient town it is young and it felt right.

Some highlights.
Gin.

Le Alchemist. We popped in because it was raining and stayed for two very nice, and expensive, glasses of gin and tonic each. They had a nice range of different gins and tonics, the music was great and we were the only customers for a while; it was mid-afternoon. The steps to the bathroom were not for the faint hearted; nor the drunk.

t’Druepelkott. A number of people advised us to visit this tiny canal side bar in the tourist area, and all those people were right. What a place! The (I assume) cigar smoking owner only serves hots of flavoured gin, poured into a large or small shot with a shaky hand. The glass is filled to brim and you have to sip from top before lifting it from the bar to take back to your seat. 70s and 80s funk sound tracked our couple of drinks and it is up there with the top moments of the trip.

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The food was great as well, vegan food is common, we found a couple of places that were 100% vegan; it’s not overly cheap, but it was very nice and we ate well.

Walking.

Gent is an easy town to walk and cycle, there were definitely fewer cars than most other places. The narrow and cobbled streets twist and turn and cross the canals that edge the town. We walked a lot, an awful lot. It’s the only way to see and feel this place.

I took a lot of photos. Castles, cathedrals, wonky ancient houses and street art from throughout the ages, who could ask for more?

Street art.

Castles and cathedrals.

Streets and canals.

S.M.A.K. The museum of contemporary art is lovely gallery with a great exhibition featuring some small works by Derek Jarman part made from items found around his Dungeness Beach home. As a recent Jarman convert these were the first pieces of his I had seen up close.

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A 60th birthday treat to Gent, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Wednesday 23 September 2022 – Gent, Brussels and Amsterdam.

Theoretically there’ll be individual blog posts with photos from all three places, though I can’t promise anything as I’m not enjoying the blog that much anymore. I feel it’s time is done, so we will have to see how it goes over the next few weeks. This could be the last one for a while, but then again it might not who knows.

I’m in a small neighbourhood bar a short way off the beaten track in Amsterdam as I type these first words into the laptop I’ve been lugging around for a week and not used until now. I like this bar, it’s small and dark, other than the Heineken the tap beer is all new to me so there is plenty of choice and the music playing at a sociable volume is some obscure (to me anyway) reggae. It’s all quite conducive to scribbling a few notes. In fact we haven’t been into a bad bar in the three cities we’ve visited on this, my 60 birthday trip away and the first time we’ve been to Europe since July 2018 when we last visited Valencia, a situation we have to change this coming year. I love and miss Europe, especially places off the beaten track like this small backstreet bar. Experience says bars in Europe are different to bars in the English speaking world, and different in a good way.

I spent far too much time to work out an affordable and sensible break for my birthday, initially trying to link a stay in a town to a concert by a band I liked. Nothing really made economic or time sense so I stopped trying and chose a simple train based trip to three towns in close proximity (read cheap) to England. I’ve not been to Gent (Ghent) or Brussels and last visited in Amsterdam almost exactly 35 years ago, very close to my 25 birthday. Eleanor’s experience of these places closely mirrors mine; she’s been to Amsterdam but not Gent or Brussels.

It’s now a number of days later and we’re back in London, Eleanor’s house sale and purchase is getting close to being finalised and we had a good weekend down at my flat. Work has been as busy as you would expect after two weeks away and I’m just getting my head back into writing a bit more of this post. Thankfully all the photo editing is done. I still stand by my earlier thought of winding the blog writing down, but aim to at least upload some of the edited photos I took in each city. There isn’t a lot of point in taking photos if they just stay on a hard drive in a dark drawer somewhere. Anyway….

It was a fabulous, awesome, wonderful holiday. It was so nice to be out of the UK for a few days and to spend that time in three great cities. We had nothing planned, other than the train back to London and a birthday meal in a restaurant in Brussels. We could do what we wanted, when we wanted; perfect.

It’s impossible to name a particular highlight and there is no way I can nominate one city over each of the others, I liked them all. So, here are some overall impressions and things I learned.

Cities with lots of cycling and walking and fewer cars are so much more pleasant than cities dominated by cars. In all three places non-car based transport was king.
I like trams.
Lots of young people smoke cigarettes in NW Europe; there was very little vaping going on. I was surprised.
The music in all the bars we went into was way better than most bars in London and Auckland.
The gin in Gent is lovely, as were the bars we drank gin in.
Every bar we visited I felt like I could rock up on my own, order a small beer and read a book in a corner on my own and the other customers would not make me feel like I was weird.
Canals are awesome.
Walking 20,000 + steps a day seven days in a row is tiring; though not walking up steps meant my knee survived the trip.
Neither Gent nor Brussels are dead flat.
Brussels had a car free day on the Sunday and I loved it.
Everyone speaks English; my constant shame is not speaking another language.
Good coffee can easily be found everywhere.
Excellent vegan food is easy to find.
The trains in Europe are cheaper than the UK by a long way.
In Amsterdam vans park on canal bridges.
I still love castles and cathedrals and cobbled street and anything that is a bit old.
I still love mainland Europe a lot and feel I’ve wasted years not coming here as much as I should have.

A favourite photo from each city; not for the quality of the photo, just for the memories.

Gent
Gravensteen Castle and the lovely Le Alchemist, a gin bar over the road from the castle that we nipped into as it was raining.

Brussels
Car free Sunday

Amsterdam
Vans parked on photogenic bridges over equally photogenic canals.

Europe 1987 – Part three.

The plan to do a two-part post seems to have been completely blown out of the water, though this will be the final in the Europe 1987 series. My diary suggests the journey was more action packed the further south we travelled, or maybe I just wrote more. The diary is certainly a lot more verbose in the latter entries, perhaps this was due to me spending more time on my own? Sadly, it appears that the more I wrote the fewer photos I took; most of the photos I have left were taken early in the trip.

We take up the journey on 28 October 1987, soon after crossing the border into Greece from Yugoslavia, after what seems to have been a couple of miserable days; with poor weather, a lack of places to camp and hard driving on busy and winding mountain roads not making us the happiest of campers.

It turned out Northern Greece was a continuation of the Southern Yugoslavia experience. It was cold, it was wet, it was very deprived and there were few places to camp. I note that one night we slept in the van in a field and were surrounded by feral dogs in the morning. I have no photos from that period. I noted in my diary that we were almost killed on the road somewhere between the border and Thessalonica. I was driving and barrelling along about 50 miles an hour when someone pulled out of a side road in front of me, forcing me to swerve off the road into the dirt and back onto the road again. It was very scary and the closest we came to dying. I can still visualise the car coming out of nowhere, me wrenching the wheel to the right, hitting the dusty bank, then wrenching left and back on the road again. I cannot visualise the swearing, though I suspect some bad bad things were said.

Thessalonica was effectively closed as a senior government official was visiting, there were armed police and soldiers everywhere, including tanks on the main roads. We didn’t stay, but found a campground somewhere between the city and the Turkish border, and blessed relief, there were hot showers. It had been a long time between showers and sometimes it is the little things that make all the difference.

After two days driving across Greece we entered Turkey. I noted in my diary that there was loud cannon fire near the border and a lot of soldiers on manoeuvres on the Turkish side, though the border crossing was straightforward. Turkey was my second favourite country after Germany; and the polar opposite of tidy, clean and organised West Germany. I seem to enjoy the really tidy and strict countries like Singapore AND the mad, loose and scruffy countries like Cambodia and Laos. It is the in between I dislike more than anything.

I only saw a fraction of Turkey, just Istanbul and down to Bodrum on the coast, and it was the country I wanted to return to the most when I got back to New Zealand. In the main it was very friendly, the people were open and generous, the food cheap, tasty and plentiful and I liked it very much.

We arrived in Istanbul during rush hour on a Friday night. The roads were complete madness, five lanes of cars on a three lane road, honking and yelling, cars all over the shop. I noted that I loved it, the Kiwi driver in me looking for a challenge. We had no maps or guidebooks for Istanbul and Turkey so just drove toward the centre of town looking for signs pointing to campgrounds or hostels. Driving down a one way street we saw the ‘True Blue Souvenir’ shop with a small Aussie flag painted on the front. I stopped the van so Sam and Trudy could run back to the shop to ask for advice on places to stay, they came back with Simon and Typhun from the shop (No idea of the spelling of his name). They told us we could park and camp outside of their shop for a small fee, it had 24 hour security (armed policeman outside the station two doors up) and we could nip into a nearby hotel to use the loo and sinks. It sounded perfect to us, so much better than fields and wild dogs.

Simon said he would direct us to the shop, and jumped in the van. We drove round the corner onto a rammed three lane highway, approaching a roundabout Simon jumped out of the car, walked into the middle of the road and stopped all the traffic so I could cross the three lanes. He then move the barrier blocking the road entrance to the Blue Mosque, and we drove through its car park, across the front of this glorious building and out the other side. To cap it off we drove up the one way street the wrong way, past the police station, parking outside the shop. I wasn’t sure whether to laughing my head off at the madness of it all, or be fearful of spending 10 years in a Turkish prison. Once parked and not arrested, I chose the first option. Welcome to Istanbul!

Nov 1987 Istanbul Campsite

We spent three days in Istanbul, parked up outside the shop, other vans joined us and it was largely a lot of fun. I loved Istanbul, the old town, the mosques and the market were all highlights, as was being shown around by our hosts, eating in local cafes and drinking copious quantities of apple tea and brutally strong coffee. I am surprised I have so few photos.

Nov 1987 Blue Mosque Istanbul

Typhun and Simon.

Nov 1987 Soluman and Typhun Istanbul

Hubbly Bubbly cafe.

Nov 1987 Istanbul with Typhun

I noted in my diary that there was a bus strike in Turkey, and I could not get back to London for a few days, so after a short, interrupted phone call I agreed with Deana that I would carry on to the coast and then get a ferry to Athens and bus it from there. I could not afford to fly. So, on 2 November we carried on south, taking two days to get to Selcuk.

My diary says ‘I liked Selcuk’. We spent the best part of four days here, the most we spent in any small town. The first night was spent sleeping in the van outside the public toilets with a bunch of other van tourists. The second night we stayed in a guest house as it had been six days again without a shower. I noted it was nice to sleep in a proper bed. I also noted that I lost my wallet, but didn’t think it had been stolen and thankfully it didn’t have all my cards in it, and only a small amount of cash.

Nov 1987 Selcuk Turkey

We hung out with quite a bunch of people, including a Kiwi hitch hiker Pete who stayed with us to Bodrum. The main reason for coming to Selcuk was to visit the ancient Roman ruins of Ephesus, made famous in the book, ‘The Bible’. We arrived in town too late to visit on the first day, and the second day it rained for the first time in eight months (the Phil holiday curse). We finally made it there on day three. Pete had a guide book which was really handy.

Nov 1987 Ephesus

These were my first proper ancient ruins, none of this 1000 year old stuff like you get in the UK, these were 2000 years old. Proper ancient, and what I had been really wanting to see, the legacy from my childhood neighbours. I really liked exploring Ephesus, I liked the fact that nothing was fenced off and I could roam all over. I liked it that I didn’t accidently destroy something which I almost did when visiting the Roluos Group of temples in Cambodia. I liked that I could sit on the old toilet and read my book. I would love a pair of Doc Marten boot that look that worn in now!

Nov 1987 Ephesus Turkey

The next day we carried on south stopping at some even older ruins, the Greek ruins of the Temple to Athena in Priene, these ruins are from 1000BC. Wow, 3000 years old! Fabulous. There was no one there except us and while not as extensive as Ephesus they were still mighty impressive, and we had a bit of fun with mock sacrifices on the alter. Not that the ancient Greeks did human sacrifices!

Nov 1987 Greek ruins of Priene Turkey

Nov 1987 Priene Turkey

As we were leaving Priene Trudy realised she had been short changed that morning by the bank in Selcuk when changing Japanese Yen for Turkish Lira, by two zeros, a not unsubstantial sum. We shot back to Selcuk just in time, arriving before the bank closed. The bank knew they had made a mistake and there were no issues in getting the extra money. We spent the night parked outside the toilets again and went to our favourite cafe for lamb stuffed peppers and beer. The next morning I almost got busted by the toilet cleaner who arrived while I was still in there after climbing over the wall, I made a rapid exit the same way. He knew and stood there glaring at us until we drove off.

The next morning we drove south again, this time making it to the port town of Bodrum, and my final destination. It was Trudy’s birthday and my last night in the van with the Grieve sisters. We had cake and wine, and most of us were sick, we were all tired. It was not the bestest of nights to say goodbye.

I see a couple of dogs came to farewell me as well.

Nov 1987 Bodrum Turkey

Goodbye Turkey. kiss kiss.

Nov 1987 Bodrum Fort from the Ferry

Early the following morning I was on the ferry to the Greek Island of Kos, where I stayed for a few hours before getting on another, overnight ferry to Athens. I slept on the hard metal deck with a load of other tourists. Arriving in Athens I discovered there were still strikes and I had to wait three days for a bus to London.

I was not very excited by this and this was reflected in my negative feelings for Athens and my predicament. I only have a couple of photos from the three days I spent in an ancient and interesting city, and that is of the Acropolis. I didn’t even like that as it was behind a fence, there was construction going on and there were loads of people all around. My diary also says a lot of the museums were closed due to strike action, and the ones that were open were too expensive. I must have been pretty broke by then. I seemed to have spent a lot time hanging around in a youth hostel, talking and eating.

Nov 1987 The Parthenon Athens

Eventually I got a ferry to Brindisi in Italy and then a bus which took three days to get to London. I arrived back on the 14 November 1987. Apparently I smelt and looked terrible after three days on a smoke filled bus.

Not long after I arrived back Deana and I flew to Australia where we stayed for three months with her family on the Gold Coast before flying on to New Zealand in February 1988 where I stayed for the next 23 years. Which loops back to the start of this blog in 2011.

I very much enjoyed that trip, I didn’t see anywhere near as much as I would have liked, but it opened my eyes to the world and the possibilities of travelling and seeing things differently. There is a great world out there and I deplore the views of the narrow minded nationalists that want to shut borders and blindfold our young to the possibilities that should be available to them. I cannot wait to get back on the road again and would love to ‘do Europe’ one more time. Maybe with more showers.

The photos posted in these four blogs are from an album I put together after the trip and are all I have left of the between 250 and 350 I took over the ten weeks. I know I used 12 rolls of film and am sure these would have been a mix of 24 and 36 shot rolls. The other photos would have been tossed out when I sold the house in 2011 and had a massive cull of my possessions.

The diary is going in the bin now. It is time to declutter just a little bit more. As LP Hartley most famously wrote ‘The past is another country’, but it is one I have visited.