Europe – Page 5 – Where is Phil now?

Disappointingly there were no egg cups.

Saturday February 27 – Valencia, Spain.

We were well warned before we left London that Valencia can be surprisingly cold in the night, and we were surprisingly cold at night. We had to use the heater in our room to get it warm for sleeping, but we did have a good night’s sleep. It was needed after such an early start to the day.

We were up by 9:00 and it was cold in the morning too, in fact it remained cold all day and I was slightly under-prepared for the wind and ended up being quite cold all day.

El and I were disappointed that there were no egg cups* so we had toast and coffee for breakfast, keeping it light as we were planning on trying a highly recommended restaurant for a paella lunch later in the day. Eating a lot was definitely on the cards.

The house is about 5 kms from the station in Lliria, and I am pretty sure I would have no idea how to get between them if asked! It is on the edge of the town, has very few neighbours and a nice view over orchard land. It is two stories high, both floors are stand alone, and has a nice pool and garden area. Paula and Paul are doing some renovations and the contents of a new bathroom for downstairs is in the lounge. It does not ‘need’ anything doing mind! Casa de Adams from the street.

We drove into Lliria with the intention of getting the train into Valencia, but once we got to Lliria the train was only running as far as the next major town. We carried on driving to Perata so we could catch the train from there. At least parking a car in a station car park is free! It was really cold on the platform and I was very glad when the train arrived and we could get in from the cold.

I acted as a guide and we walked from the same station we used yesterday to the central market. We passed a couple of quite nice bits of street art on the way. I will do a separate street art of Valencia post at some stage, once I have had a chance to try and work out who some of the artists are.

The central market was built in 1914 and definitely shows some Moorish design, especially in the use of tiles. I was quite surprised it was not much much older. There are around 400 stall holders in the market and in the main it sells food. I saw more than a couple of people walking around shopping with glasses of wine in their hands, which seemed so civilised to me. Paula, El and I left Paul to his browsing while we went off hunting coffee and a snack.

We reconvened with Paul and headed off right across town towards the old Turia River bed park, on our walk we passed a couple of quite nice post war buildings. I really like the mix of architecture in Valencia, a very nice balance of old, older and really old.

As it is Saturday town was a lot busier than it was yesterday, and the area we passed through in the south and east seemed to be the more touristed area with the more expensive luxury brands on sale. One of us stopped for a wee shop, no names will be mentioned, but it was not me!

The old Turia River bed has been turned into a long garden path, bizarrely I cannot find out when this happened! But anyway, the park runs for a few kilometres, under bridges, around ponds and through trees. There a sports fields, cycling and running paths and all sorts of things that make this a wonderful place to walk.

The park led us to one of our destinations for the day, though sadly after the walk, and with more walking yet to do, we didn’t have time to linger. I would love to come back here for a sunset or a sunrise, as I have seen some spectacular photos of this site.

The Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias – City of Science and Art, is a magnificent, futuristic precinct of theatres and museums and looks amazing, even in the daylight. It was started in 1995 with the last building being finished in 2005. Walking past was brilliant enough but we would have loved to have had the time to explore inside as well. I loved the clouds and the light here.

We still had almost two miles to go to our lunch date at La Pepica restaurant near the beach. t was a cold and rather dull walk through some inauspicious suburban streets and we were glad when we arrived. Even better was that it was open, they had a table and if we had been ten minutes later we would have been too late, whew ! La Pepica was first opened in 1898, and in the current site in 1923. It has always served traditional Spanish food and we were there for their famous paella. We had one of the fish and one of the meat. I should have taken a photo of the massive paella pans they had there, I would guess over a metre wide.

After an excessively large lunch and a shared ‘champagne’ bottle of cider, we wobbled out for a walk along the beach front. The clouds were still really interesting and I took a few photos of them over the beach.

And this very cool sand castle, the builder creates two a year and maintains them for as long as possible – asking a small fee for a photo.

We caught a tram back from the beach to one of the train stations and then the train back out to Perata. We were all pretty knackered, we had knocked off another 10 miles walking around today and after a big lunch, we ready for an afternoon nap.

We could see the sun setting while we were on the train, but the sky went absolutely mad on the drive back to Lliria. I have rarely seen a sunset like it, virtually the whole sky was on ablaze with orange and red, it was utterly spectacular. I snapped a few photos from the car as we sped towards home.

We stopped at a local Lidl (they are everywhere) and El and I took a couple of final images as the sun finally disappeared well below the horizon.

There was no room for dinner ! but there is always room for cheese, bread and wine, so after getting a really good fire going we sat down in front of the TV, feet up and watched three episodes of series 2 of The Walking Dead… Paul is slowly indoctrinating us into the series.

The fire place has an ingenious systems of pipes in the ceiling, driven by a fan, that blows warm air into the various bedrooms. Once the fan and fire is going, the air blowing into the bedroom is really hot, and it was a nice and toasty night in bed.

Another fabulous day !

*The no egg cup reference was made because Paula and Paul are going to rent their house out in summer, and had been looking at some other rental properties. Someone had commented on one of the houses that they were disappointed there was no egg cups.

Hola de España !

Friday February 26 2016 – Valencia, Spain.

Last summer, good friends of ours bought a home in the town of Lliria, 40 minutes away from the centre of Valencia and El and I are joining on a long weekend visit. We have been really looking forward to this trip.

Valencia began as a Roman colony back in 138 BC, located on island in, and on the banks of the River Turia, it was settled by the Roman army after a battle with Iberians. It was under the control of the Germanic Visigoths for a 150 or so years from the 6^th century before being taken over by the Moors in 714. The city remained under the control of the Moors until 1094 when it was taken by the Castilian nobleman El Cid. The city returned to Moorish control in 1109 and remained so until it was conquered by King James of Aragon in 1238.

The city went through a boom period for a couple of hundred years up until the early 1500s when the discovery of America moved commerce and trade from the Mediterranean coast to the Atlantic. It was during this period that most of the remaining ‘historic’ buildings were built – obviously they were not historic at the time 🙂 The city entered a prolonged period of decline, resulting in riots, massacres, overthrows and all sorts of unpleasantness under a range of rulers. English soldiers even ruled the city for a short period in 1706 before losing out to the Spanish. After a period of French rule in the 19^th century the city finally sort of settled down for a while and many of the mid-period buildings were built. The city went through another period of upheaval and destruction when the republican government moved there from Madrid early in the civil war. The city was bombed, shelled and otherwise treated poorly until it finally surrendered to the nationalists in 1939. There are a number of really nice post-war, semi-art deco buildings from this period. The city centre is quite attractive in its way, a mix of a range of architectural styles and design details make it at least interesting.

Under Franco’s rule the city was left to fend for itself through times of extreme hardship. In 1957 the River Turia flooded into the city killing at least 87 people. In 1961 a massive project was started that saw the river redirected away from the city, this was completed in 1973, and the old riverbed was a wasteland until recent times when it was turned into a park – we will visit the park tomorrow.

It has had a tempestuous life!

Getting to Valencia from north east London pretty much means flying from Stanstead, which means flying Ryan Air, which means getting up ridiculously early – like 3:30 am, or in my case 4:00. I hate Ryan Air and I hate Stanstead. The only bright side was we are going with friends Paula and Paul, who we are staying with, and they drive to the airport, so not having to face speaking to a taxi driver was quite a bonus.

We arrived at Stanstead soon after 5:00, it was crowded and chaotic already, with few places to sit. Most of the departure area has been turned in to retail outlets – the only good thing about that was being able to buy coffee.

Ryan Air is the most budget of budget airlines, you do not get anything on the flight for free, passengers are crammed in, there are not even pockets on the back of the seat in front, but it is cheap.

The dawn was not too bad as it broke over the runway at Stanstead.

The flight was not too bad, it was uncomfortable, but it was short, and it landed on time in Valencia at 10:30, which was a bonus. As we only had cabin baggage we were off the plane and out into the terminal reasonably quickly. Paul and Paula were going directly out to their house in Llliria so they took our bags, leaving us to head into town on the Metro for a day of exploring. One of the great things about the Metro was being able to buy a 10 ride ticket that we could share, a lot cheaper than getting tickets each. The Metro was pretty good, clean, bright trains, though they seemed to be as efficiently run as the London Overground – i.e. not very. The timetable was aspirational.

Having said that the trains between airport and city seemed to be frequent. We grabbed city maps from the airport and had a bit of a plan to try and see as much of the old city as possible today. It is easily doable on foot (we walked close to 12 miles though !). We left the Metro at Angel Guimera and headed south towards the coliseum. Well it looked like a coliseum on the map, but it turned out to be a modern bull fighting ring. I was a bit disappointed as I was expecting Roman era ruins, and thought that maybe all of the old city would turn out to be not that old after all.

Though I did like the main railway station building – Estacio del Nord. Built in 1917 it is hardly old.

The architecture in this part of town was a little disappointing really, as were the big wide streets and loads of cars, but this was the outer edge of the old town and inside was much more like my expectation.

Heading into the narrower streets of the old town, the things that caught my eye first were the small details on the buildings. These were a feature throughout the rest of our walk. With narrow streets and buildings that were all three of four stories high it was quite difficult to really see, or photograph some of the buildings.

We stopped for a light lunch of huevos rotos and coffee soon after we got into town, consulting the map we found a few things we wanted to see, but not having a guidebook, we were not really sure what to look for, or what we were looking at when found it.

Our first viewing stop was the Iglesia de San Juan de la Cruz. One of the first churches to be built in Valencia in the early 17^th century. As seems to be fairly typical in this part of Europe the church was built on the site of an earlier mosque. I liked the doors Smile

We walked up an alley alongside the church, one of many we explore today, and found this lovely little square and I just had to take a photo of El.

I think the lovely building next door is a museum of statuary – I am not too sure. I sort of planned on making notes of things I saw when we got back to Paula and Paul’s house, but I never did….

Our next stop was the church of San Martin Obispo and San Antonio Abad, the only place we went inside during our stay.

It was glorious inside, a massive renovation project was complete in 2010 bring the interior back to its baroque beauty. One of the things I liked about the churches in Valencia is that from the outside they did not look like much.

Vincent of Saragossa is the patron saint of Valencia.

We continued to randomly walk the streets, coming across the main cathedral fronted by a square full of orange trees. Orange trees are to be found growing all around the city and are grown in export quantities in the surrounding countryside.

It seems that Valencia is covered in graffiti, it is just everywhere in the city, in the main it is just tagging and straight graffiti, but there are some more artistic works here and there. I used to hate tagged walls, but in the slightly run down parts of the city and narrow alleys it made much more sense and it almost made it all seem more alive. Almost…

We really liked The Plaza de la Virgen. If it had been a bit warmer it would have been a nice place to stop for a glass of wine and a plate of patatas bravas, though I suspect it would have been very expensive.

Love the little police car! I suspect a number of the coppers I see wobbling about London would not be able to fit behind the wheel…

One of the enjoyable things about visiting a walking town like Valencia in the winter time is that so many of the streets, alleys and squares seemed to be almost deserted.

We stopped near the Torres de Serranos for a glass of wine and a well deserved sit down. A glass of wine outside a small street side bar is one of life’s true pleasures. Like everywhere we stopped the wine was cheap and very nice. The Torres de Serranos were constructed at the end of the 14^th century and were part of the ‘Christian Wall’ that surrounded the city until it was pulled down in 1857. Only this and one other gate survived. They are massive, but sadly covered in scaffolding at the moment.

After the wine we strolled around the back streets for an hour so, I loved this part of town and could easily have spent a few more hours just randomly walking down streets that took my fancy. I really liked the emptiness, the narrow streets and lack of cars as well as the old buildings and the gaps between them.

We finally started getting a bit tired so headed in the general direction of the Metro station, though there was still plenty to see on the way – we both liked the wig and moustache shop.

There is not a lot left of the Roman occupation of Valencia, though there are some, what I presume to be, Roman columns standing in the grounds of the medieval hospital.

Our final destination for the day was the other gate the Quart Towers, these were built after the Serranos Towers in the 15^th century, and they were not covered in scaffolding either. They are quite magnificent, very tall and very solid looking, and clearly stand out from the surrounding buildings.

Due to some cunning planning we were very close to the Metro station, and gratefully took seats on the train for the forty minute ride out to Lliria. The train was due at 4:08 but as we sat there we watched the time board slowly move up by the minute until 4:13 when it suddenly jumped to announce our train arriving at 4:21. The train arrived soon after, on time at 4:08, before the train that was due before it.

The ride was interesting, underground for a short while and then out into the suburbs of Valencia, before heading up the long valley west of the city and through a string of orange groves.

Paul and Paula and have bought their holiday home just outside Lliria, we arrived late afternoon and they picked us up from the station. The station reminds me a saloon from an old western.

We went for a drive up to the hillside village of Olocau, there is an old Roman house, though it was closed when we arrived.

Olocau is situated on the edge of a national park, and the bluffs on the edge of the hills were fabulous, I am sure they must glow if the light is right. I would be quite keen to do one of the marked walks in the hills next time we are here.

As it was after 5:00 there was nothing open in Olocau, one of the things that frustrated me about Spain when I was staying here in 2012 was that everything closed at 5:00 for the siesta period, something I guess you get used to if you live here. We headed back down to Lliria and finally unloaded at Paul and Paula’s place.

The view from the first floor deck is fabulous…

We settled down for a coffee and a relax before heading back into Lliria for dinner at Tapes y Arros. It was one of the best meals I have had in a very long time, complemented by a couple of bottles of an excellent local red wine, La Tribu. It was a great night. Though after getting up so damn early we were grateful when we finally lay down in bed!

What an excellent day, and only day one. Really looking forward to tomorrow!

From Michelangelo to Picasso in one day. Brugge day three.

Monday 03 August 2015 – Brugge, Belgium and back to Walthamstow, London.

Lessons learnt yesterday meant we did not rush out of bed seeking breakfast anywhere outside the hotel and we succumbed again to the offered glass of champagne along with our omelettes. We faffed a bit after breakfast and then checked out of the hotel, leaving our bags behind, for one last tour of the city.

We wanted to visit the Church of Our Lady, as it did not open until 10:30 we walked around the local canal again. Breakfast needed to be taken out for a walk.

This seems to be one of the most popular places to hang out and take photographs, when ever we passed by here over the weekend it was jammed with people.

My main reason for wanting to visit the church was it contained the only Michelangelo sculpture that left Italy during his lifetime. It was bought by two brothers from Brugge in 1504 and was donated to the church in 1514. The sculpture was looted twice and fortunately returned both times, the last time by Nazi Germany in 1944. It is a lovely lovely piece of work, and I am constantly amazed at the detail that these artists from so long ago where able to attain with what must have been quite rudimentary tools.

The church is nice, as seems to be the way for me these days, it is under serious renovation, so most of the outside is covered in cloth and half the inside is boarded up. There is supposed to be a gruesome Bosch painting as well, but I am assuming it is away for its own protection during the work.

I particularly liked this fresco taken from the tomb of Mary of Burgundy who died in 1502. The tomb was only discovered in 1979 during renovation work. I get very excited about these recent discoveries and find it remarkable that after over 450 years new things can still be found inside churches and other ancient sites.

We wandered over the road from the church to the Picasso Expo and the Oud Sint Jan (Old St John) an 11^th century hospital building – that has been expanded over the years and is now used an exhibition centre. We really enjoyed the Expo, there were a lot of minor works by Picasso as well as a small collection of related artists like Magritte, Matisse and Jean Cocteau. They were all quite simple, lots of line drawings and etchings. Small, yet perfectly formed you might say.

Magritte

Matisse

Jean Cocteau – I have not knowingly seen any art Jean Cocteau. I have heard the name but not in that context. I must do some research as he looks quite interesting.

I really liked this small Degas sketch.

And this early Signac. I like the rudimentary nature of it, that a famous artist can do something not much better than I could, is quite illuminating. Well, I doubt I could do anything this good either to be honest…

The Picasso collection was really interesting, unusual and minor works, there was nothing I had seen before, even in the two Picasso Museums I visited in Spain. It was interesting to see them, and some of the works that influenced Picasso as his career progressed. This was definitely my favourite. I like the bizarreness and the simplicity.

There was also a large Chagall exhibition as well, which was interesting(ish) he is not really my cup of tea artistically, but seeing so many sets together put them a bit more into perspective.

There was quite a nice view over the rooftops from the upper floors. I do like getting up above the roof line if I can, though we didn’t have much of an opportunity to do so on this trip. We could have taken the 336 step walk up to the top of the Belfry, but we didn’t – maybe next time.

We had a bit of a look around the outside of the hospital and I found a couple of interesting doorways…

There was also quite a nice cafe there and we finally succumbed to the temptation to have a waffle, a Belgian speciality. We have sorted of avoided the worst of the big heavy foods here, but a fresh fruit waffle sounded not too bad, and it was way better than that. We shared one, and even that was a struggle, but it was really nice !

On the way back to the hotel, the long way, we came across this sculpture by Chinese artist Song Dong, another piece for the Bruges Triennial. It is made from old window frames and was really cool.

And that was pretty much it. We stopped at the hotel for a final glass of champagne – and the accompanying plate of cheese and snacks before taking a slow stroll back to the station. On the way we stopped at Godshuis St Jozef & De Meulenaere, an alms house that I meant to explore earlier but had forgotten about. It was a lovely peaceful place and I wished we had time to explore it further – a place for next time. There are 45 alms houses in Brugge and they will be high on my must do next time list.

The train journeys back to London were uneventful, thankfully ! While they are always welcome, the journey home is never as exciting as the journey out, and I just want them to be over as fast possible. The 45 minutes it took from getting off the Eurostar at St Pancras to walking in the door at home seemed to last longer than the three hours getting there from Brugge. Naturally after three days of sun and warmth in Brugge it was grey and drizzly in London.

It was a fabulous weekend away (another one), we are very lucky that we can have them and I should appreciate that fact more. It was also a great start to four weeks off work !

Beer, canals and windmills. Day two in Brugge.

Sunday 02 August 2015 – Brugge, Belgium.

Yesterday was such a good day, so we were keen for a repeat today. Breakfast was not served in the hotel until quite late – by our standards, so with the sun shining and a busy day of walking planned we were up and out the door as soon as we were ready. Which wasn’t that early really, those massive nightcaps last night slowed the day down a wee bit. Almost straight out the front door we saw some of Brugge’s famous swans, swanning their way down the canal in the Rozenhoedkaai.

We had a brief walk immediately around the hotel looking for somewhere to eat and nothing seemed to open until 10:00am (they are missing a trick here) so we ended up going back to the hotel for a really nice breakfast, that came with a glass off bubbles… Yep, a good start to the day!

I had consulted the guidebook over breakfast and came up with a bit of a plan for the morning. There are lots of things to see in Brugge and I wanted to fit as much in as possible as we had a full day to do it. With tomorrow being a Monday I had in mind visiting some of the really popular touristy things then and avoiding them as much as possible today, so today was a walking day.

Our first stop was Sint Annakerk, which was up one of the ubiquitous canals. Walking along the canal was interesting enough as it was. It was made much more enjoyable as the only sounds were Sunday morning church bells, one was ringing ‘Ode to Joy’ and the occasional rumble of tyres on the cobblestones. It was very peaceful.

Excuse the lens flair. Not supposed to be photographically correct, but I do love a bit of flair!

Sint-Annekerk was built in 1624 and is quite lovely on a sunny Sunday morning.

The Jerusalem Church was my favourite in Brugge, and has the best story, as well as a wonderful wooden cupola at the top. The church was constructed in the mid 15^th century by the Adornes family, and is one of two privately owned churches in the city. The Adornes family came to Brugge after the father had been on a holy pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The church is modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in that city and unlike most ancient churches is unchanged since it was first built. Most have been renovated and modified since their first construction. Anselm Adornes, who finished the church his father started, was murdered in Scotland while on a diplomatic mission and while he was buried in Scotland his heart was brought home and interred here. It is a lovely building and it was a shame we could not go inside – it being a Sunday.

I also liked the square outside. You can see how so few people make it this far from tourism central, they do get to miss out on some good things!

The church and square were just inside one the edges of the city, and on one of the main entry and exit points. Each of these are guarded by large gates, with bridges over the canal. This is the Kruispoort Gate and this version was constructed in 1400, after the first two had been destroyed in previous wars. This was the gate used by both the armies of Napoleon and Adolf Hitler when they first entered Brugge after invading Belgium. I really wish I had gone across the bridge to photograph it from the far side, but it was up to let some boats pass through.

One thing I remembered from my last visit to Brugge in 1987 was that there were windmills, and I wanted to see those again today. Luckily (it was actually down to good planning) the four remaining windmills are all located just up the canal from the gate.

The first windmill we came across was Bonne Chieremolen from 1844.

The second is the most famous of the windmills, the Sint-Janshuismolen built in 1770 and it is still working today.

The third was my favourite, De Nieuwe Pappegai which was rebuilt in 1970, 200 years after its neighbour!

And finally Koeleweimolen De Coelewey which was built in 1765, but moved from its original location.

I loved the windmills, a shame all 29 of the original mills are not here to be seen! They do make for great silhouettes on a sunny day. Just past the last windmill the main canal that runs up one side of Brugge connects with the Langerei canal which heads back into town. We followed this wonderful waterway, surrounded by some beautiful old buildings back into the centre of Brugge.

There are a lot more buildings with icons above entrances and on corners.

Closer to town we crossed over the canal and walked down a smaller, more residential canal – so reminiscent of Venice.

I wonder how long the buildings will last, like Venice and other canalside towns, the water erosion on these foundations and walls, that must be hundreds of years old, must be taking its toll.

I loved this apple tree growing in someone’s garden. A reminder that this is a living breathing town, where people live normal lives. It is not just a museum piece.

The city centre was heaving with people, after an hour of meandering slowly down the canal bank it was a shame to be back into the throng – inevitable, but still a shame. It was a good place to find a cafe for a much needed sit down, a cup of coffee and some gooey pastries. After the breakfast we had at the hotel we didn’t really need a big lunch!

On the way to the Beguinage we passed the entrance to the oldest alms houses in Brugge, we should have stopped in hindsight, but it was on a very busy shopping street and these things always make me want to run and hide. The entrance was lovely – and very old.

The Beguinage is entered through a gate built in 1776 and features the image of Elizabeth of Hungary who is the patron saint of Beguinages.

From Wikipedia – “The word béguinage is a French term that refers to a semi-monastic community of women called Beguines, religious women who sought to serve God without retiring from the world.” The beguinage in Brugge is named “The Vineyard”, as this was what the land was prior and it was started in 1244, perhaps by widows left when their husbands were killed during the crusades and they needed a place of safety and comfort. The buildings that make up this peaceful enclave were mainly built between the early 1500s and the 1700s. Given its location it was remarkably quiet and deserted across the bridge. It is now a Benedictine convent.

I initially thought the huts in the trees were places where people went to contemplate, or to live a particular vow. But when researching for information when I was writing this post I discovered they are an art installation by the Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata and are part of the Brugge Triennial.

From the beguinage we popped out on to the edge of Love Lake, which was our final planned destination for the afternoon. We walked around the edge of the small lake and then popped into the run down bar on the far side for a drink and a relax.

Later in the afternoon, my football team, Arsenal are playing Chelsea in the Community Shield, a pre-season “friendly”, not that there is such a thing when we play Chelsea. I took this as a sign of good fortune. Not having the game on TV here, was probably a good thing. We did win it too, Yay

There are quite a few alms houses in Brugge, most of them extremely old.

We went back to the hotel for a rest, and another large glass of bubbles in the garden while we consulted the guide book for some ideas for the rest of the day.

We decided on a visit to the Groeninge Museum, which is an art gallery showing only Flemish painters and others who came to paint or resided in Brugge. The museum is not directly on the street so there were a few interesting things to see just to get to the museum itself.

The museum was interesting, it is in a lovely light and airy building and is nice and quiet. There are some really nice pieces from local artists like Jan Van Eyck and Gerard David. I mostly wanted to see a famous Hieronymus Bosch piece but it was not on display sadly. There was a very cool Rene Magritte – ‘The attendant’.

I also liked this piece from the Brugge town hall building from the late 1300’s.

After the museum we headed off to find a beer bar, Staminee de Garre, which had been recommended to us by some friends. We walked through the Burg, passed the lovely old town hall building, though none of my photos were post-worthy. I do love the letter boxes which I cut into the walls of the houses – or the town hall in this case.

After a bit of map reading we found de Garre, which is hidden away down a small alley way.

The place is small, and old and a bit rickety and seemed to be evenly populated with local regulars and tourists. All the tables were taken so we were about to head out when the barmaid moved a few people out of the way and found us a spot on a table with a couple of Americans and a local guy. We were given a very extensive beer menu to choose from. I was about to choose a trappist ale, when a Belgian guy at the next table told me to try the Garre, which was the beer brewed for the bar. A wise choice ! El is not a beer drinker at all, but tried one of the fruit flavoured beers – Raspberry in this case. She didn’t mind it, but I don’t think she will become a real ale drinker any time soon. After the Garre I tied a trappist ale from the Rochefort Abbey. Trappist beers are brewed in abbeys, there are 11 abbeys in Europe certified as trappist breweries. I thought the 6 was representative of the alcohol percentage – and this was the lowest in the range, but it wasn’t, this one was 7.5%. It was very nice too! One of the features of Belgian beer, is that they all have a special glass, shaped for the style of beer, with a few hundred beers on the menu, the glass selection must be massive. There was only one barmaid for this small but busy bar and she was like a machine, clearing tables, selecting glasses and bottles and pouring the correct way for the type of drink chosen. Made my life as a barman seem very easy !

We left soon after in the search for somewhere nice to eat dinner as we had not really eaten anything much since breakfast. After a while walking around we ended up in a bit of a tourist restaurant near the hotel. It was nice and not overly expensive but not as good as Est.

As we were wandering around looking for eating places we came across some salsa dancing in the old fish market. It was hugely popular with a lot of people watching on from the side.

And that was the end of day two. A lot of walking, a tiring but very enjoyable day out. Brugge just gets better the more I see of it, and we saw a lot today.

Bruges, glorious Bruges

Saturday 01 August 2015 – Brugge, Belgium.

Wahoo – I have almost four weeks off work, and loads of holiday plans to fill the time as well. The last week of work was not too stressful considering the things we had to do, it had its moments but I left yesterday feeling pretty relaxed about taking the time off. A good way to start a holiday, especially as this morning El and I are heading off early to catch a train to Bruges, or Brugge, in Belgium for an extended weekend away

As English speakers we use the French spelling and pronunciation of Bruges, though the local Flemish speaking Belgian’s use the Flemish Brugge. I will try and use that spelling throughout my posts about the city. I do not understand why we do not honour how the local people spell and pronounce the names of their countries and towns, and why we have to anglicise everything, and vice versa as well. I suppose I do understand, though I do not like it.

Brugge is an ancient place, probably named by an old Dutch word for bridge. It was first recorded in 840 though the location has been occupied since at least 1500 years BC, the earliest remains are from the Roman occupation from about 100 BC. It is a UNESCO heritage site and the buildings, mainly from the 14^th-17^th century, have been incredibly well preserved or renovated. Brugge is a canal town, it was a key trading centre for many decades and was the economic capital of Europe for a long time. Canals and rivers surround the entire old town, cutting it off from the rest of the city and leaving it relatively car free. It is just the sort of place I love to explore and I was really looking forward to returning after a day long visit as part of a tour of Europe way back in 1987.

As we were going somewhere photographically interesting I decided to take my big camera, a Canon 5d Mk1 rather than the smaller G16. Earlier in the week I got the camera out to charge batteries, give it a clean and all the other pre-trip things I do. I discovered my spare battery had totally died, so I contacted a friend who I knew shot Canon to see if he had a spare battery. He didn’t, but he very kindly offered me the use of his 5d MK3 instead. Wow, a dream camera for the weekend ! Thanks Andy.

As is our way we were up early and at St Pancras station well before time to check in. We decided to breakfast at the station so got there quite early. It is a very busy place on a Saturday morning.

As we were there early I went off for a quick explore of the station, I have been here a couple of times before, but have never seen ‘The meeting statue’, so was quite pleased to find it upstairs outside the Eurostar platforms.

It was a bit of a process getting through security and immigration control, as this is an international journey; it is like passing through airport security, with the usual lack of staff to manage the volume of passengers. I was glad to get through, and get a coffee and a muffin on the other side. The ~~flight~~ train left a bit late, but with enough time for me to get up to the front to take a photo, I love these high speed trains.

We did not have a great window seat unfortunately, but it was still good to be thundering through the Kent countryside, heading for the channel tunnel and out the out the other side into France. Though the landscape did not change much at all !

England

France

At some unknown point on the journey we crossed from France in to Belgium and changed trains in Brussels.

Three hours after leaving London we were arriving in Brugge, the station is just outside the old town and with the help of a guide book map and a printout from the internet with directions we headed off into the warm and sunny Belgian afternoon to find our hotel, which was very close to the centre of town.

Even though it was early afternoon on a Saturday in July, the outer layers of the old town were quite empty, something I have noted in other places I have been. It seems some visitors just like to see the key attractions, leaving the exploring to the likes of El and myself. Love it !

We stayed in the Pand Hotel, which was just lovely, very close to the centre of the action, but very quiet and comfortable, and a view of the window towards the Church of our Lady, which we visit on Monday.

After dumping our bags, and sun blocking up we were out the door and on to the streets, we didn’t have a plan this afternoon, just a wander around to see what we saw, and we did see a lot. The hotel is about 50 metres from the Rozenhoedkaai, one of the most popular – and photographed parts of Brugge. Over the next couple of days I took a few photos here myself !

We then headed off towards the Markt, the main square. I love it that, while there are cars around, Brugge is a cycling city, and bikes and pedestrians co-exist seemingly quite easily. The old market hall, and the back of the Belfry.

I also like it that most of the bikes are not low slung road ‘racing’ bikes and most of the cyclists are everyday folk and not the lycra clad road warriors that we see too much of in other countries.

A lot of the houses in the centre of Brugge are constructed in the ‘brick gothic’ style and were built from the 16^th and 17^th centuries, with major renovations being carried out in the late 19^th century when Brugge started to become popular as a tourist destination. Some of the houses had icons of Mary and the baby Jesus on them, I liked this – a lot, and took many photos of them over the three days.

The Markt is surrounded by lovely old buildings, the 12^th century, 83 metre high Belfry is particularly nice.

There was some weird mirror sculpture in the square, so El and I used them for some selfies.

We headed off for a bit more of a wander, and wonder at some of the things we were seeing, before finally stopping for a beer for me, and a wine for El as she does not like beer. Brugge is world famous for its beer, so I had to try some while I was here.

Brugge is also famous for it’s lace and there are a number of lace shops around the main tourist areas.

We finally ended up back at our hotel and decided to make our way to the small garden out the back for a glass of bubbles. Drinks in Brugge all come with small snacks: cheese, olives and small biscuits were the most common and was hugely appreciated. The champagne in the hotel came in massive flutes – also much appreciated !

On our afternoon walk we had reserved a table at Wijnbar Est, and after a wee rest we took a slow stroll there for an early dinner.

We had a great time, it is a lovely little restaurant, great vibe and really nice food. The main surprise for us was drinking a bottle of Belgian wine from the Landgoed Dorrebeek vineyard. I had no idea they made wine in Belgium, it was really really nice. A recommended place for a drink or a meal – and to try something different !

One of the many joys of using this great camera is the lowlight capabilities are so much better than my old version. While none of these are fantastic these are all hand held photos taken on a stroll around Brugge to walk off dinner. The Rozenhoedkaai at night.

Belgium is of course famous for its chocolate, so I had to take a photo of the chocolate boobs seen on the way to the Markt. .

The belfry and the 18^th century provincial court.

There was a free music festival on in the Burg square as we walked through, none of the music interested me at all, but it was full of families and young people having a good time and had a really nice vibe to it.

We strolled up the side of a canal for a while, crossing over a bridge before heading back towards the hotel.

The magnificent Church of our Lady at 133 metres is the tallest building in Brugge and the second tallest brick building in the world and was built from the 13^th to the 15^th centuries. It looks stunning at night.

We also had a quick peak at Sint-Salvator Cathedral, which we didn’t visit during the day. This was made the official cathedral of Brugge in 1834, soon after The Netherlands allowed Belgium to become an independent nation and a new bishop was installed in Brugge. The steeple was rebuilt in the 1830’s after the church as almost destroyed in a fire.

Back at our hotel we had an unexpectedly large night cap before finally putting our feet up after a long day of aimlessly strolling about one of the world’s loveliest cities. We were really looking forward to doing it all again tomorrow!

A photo from Bruges.

Monday 03 August 2015 – Bruges, Belgium

El and I went to the beautiful Belgian city of Bruges for a long weekend trip away. I took a lot of photos and will not get time to edit them and write a post before I head off on my mega walk on Wednesday.

So here is a taster – the most photographed part of Bruges – and probably the most photographed part of Belgium as well.

Did we love Bruges ? Oh yes…..

Copenhagen and Malmo – day three.

Monday 28 July 2014 – Copenhagen, Denmark / Malmo, Sweden.

It was a much cooler night last night, so some sleep was had, though we were up quite early as a group of Aussies decided that outside our open ground floor window was a good place to smoke, drink coffee and chat – loudly. I spent the next thirty minutes hovering by the window waiting for a courtyard table to come free so I could nip down and grab it, breakfast outside was so much nicer than inside. I am happy to report that today’s bacon was as good as yesterdays. Though I did eat some fruit today so that completely balanced out the body weight in bacon that was consumed.

Today we are off to Malmo in Sweden, it is the 58th country I will have visited, and most of those have been in the past two years of travelling as well, I had visited Denmark in 1987, though not Copenhagen, so it this is my first new country since Sri Lanka last year. After checking out we headed over to the station to find tickets to Malmo on the train that heads over the famous Oresund Bridge. We were dead keen to cross ‘The Bridge” and it was one of the reasons we came to this part of the world, the bridge is the bridge in “The Bridge” 🙂 and one of the longest bridges in the world. As we found out on the internet before we took the ride, you don’t actually see the bridge at all on the journey as it is a straight line ! Oh well, it was worth it anyway.

Though we crossed into a new country and had passports handy, they are not required. Malmo in Sweden is not much more than thirty minutes by train from Copenhagen in Denmark and it was a quick and painless journey.

We enjoyed our couple of hours in town, there was a good map available at the train station and though we didn’t really have much of a plan of what to see I was quite keen to visit St Peter’s Cathedral. The modern art museum was sadly closed on Mondays – as were quite a few things in Copenhagen as well.

St Peters is the oldest church in Malmo and construction was started in 1391 with the tower being added in the 1500s’. It had some incredible frescoes painted on the walls, but these were largely destroyed when most of the interior was white washed in the 1800s. I think I read it is the only white washed cathedral in the world and visually it is quite stunning.

I really liked the metal tombs in the floor, and wonder how many thousands of feet have walked across them since they were laid down.

The one small chapel with frescoes was beautiful to look at, the frescoes were painted in the 1520’s and are pretty much in original condition, slowly fading away. Just lovely, and the reason I wanted to visit the cathedral.

We took a walk around the main old part of Malmo, which is within a small canal system, Malmo was a lot more how I expected Scandinavia to be, clean and tidy and the buildings here were nicely presented and charming.

The main square was a bit touristy with most of the old buildings turned into restaurants with big ugly awnings outside, so no photos. We wandered back alongside the canal to the station, and back on the train to Copenhagen.

Apparently balloons are banned on the platform!

Back in Copenhagen we walked up from the station to the botanical gardens, it was another lovely, though hot day and a welcome wine under a tiny bit of shade outside the hot house was most welcome.

We had another couple of hours to kill before we needed to head to the airport so we wandered back into the city centre, passed the round tower, looking for some lunch.

We found a nice little square off a much larger square at Grabrodestraede and had a really nice lunch at Cafe Flottenheimer. The food and homemade lemonade were excellent and the location was great for people watching and grabbing an ever so slight breeze under the shade of a tree. Another eating recommendation!

The larger square looked nice for lunch as well.

We took a final walk back down to the Christiansborg Palace area to find this damn fountain from the TV series Borgen. We had been looking everywhere for it, we did find a fountain, but it was not the right one – again. Maybe it just does not exist!

And that was that ! Our next trip was back to the station and on to the airport for our flight back to London. We arrived nice and on time, two hours before the flight, just to find that there was at least a two hour delay… We tried to swap to an earlier Easy Jet flight into Gatwick, but were not willing to pay full fare for it. So after checking in we mooched, me rather grumpily, around the airport for a while before heading up to the main departure lounge. It was bit disappointing up there, there was little or no aircon, and I was still hot and sweaty from the day, and a bit uncomfortable to be fair. There were not enough seats for all the people hanging about, we managed to get a seat in a bar where I drank the most expensive pint of piss poor beer that I have ever had in my life(it was soi bad I had two), plus I wasn’t willing to sign away my children’s inheritance to access the free wifi. All in all not a pleasurable experience, sorry Copenhagen Airport, nice and modern as you are, you are no fun if your flight is delayed. Though we did share a nice pizza 🙂

The gate for Easy jet is the furthest possible from the main part of the departure lounge and quite a decent five minute walk, though I actually enjoyed the walk up this long and functional corridor, it was nice to stretch my legs. The walking time to the gate painted was on the floor.

I am not sure this sign was being ironic or not when we did arrive at the end, but I did find it amusing.

We still had a while to wait for our delayed flight, so I took some photos of us waiting patiently.

The flight was delayed even further at the gate, though not by much, as there was no plane, bad weather across Europe in the morning had caused the delay. But it was with relief when we did finally get going.

We got home about 23:15, later than expected, tired. But it was a really good holiday, and we both liked Copenhagen enough that we would go back again.

Copenhagen – day two.

Sunday 27 July 2014 – Copenhagen, Denmark.

It was another stunning day in Copenhagen! Our hotel, and it appears, most of the city as well had no air-conditioning so it was quite a hot and muggy night with not a lot of sleep – reminiscent of SE Asia!

Breakfast was included in the room and I will confess to an utter pig out on lovely smoky Danish streaky bacon – so good….
After a post breakfast recovery lie-down we waddled out the door for our days adventures – actually, it was just me that waddled, El was far more elegant than that. We had a plan for the day and our first stop was the National Gallery and its lovely garden filled with some excellent bronze work.

Once we got round to the front we discovered that the gallery didn’t open for another thirty minutes so rather than hang about we headed off to activity two, a hop-on/hop off canal boat tour. On the way we passed this interesting street sign, I have no idea what it means.

Plus a quite cool paste up.

As I mentioned in the “Whales” blog post from when I was in Australia recently, I have never really gone in for mass tourism activities, much preferring to find my own way around a city and see the things I want to see – how and when I want to see them. But with a large canal network and a very good price the canal tour just seemed like a very nice way to see the bits of the city we would not see on foot. Plus, it was stinking hot and the boat was likely to be a lot cooler than walking!

The boat is a large flat barge like vessel with about hundred passengers on board, it was pretty full, but we got good seats at the back so it was easy to snap away as we cruised. I loved the spiral spire, lovely.

We cruised up to what I am guessing is the main tourist eating area, a canal-side strip at Nyhavn. It was pretty packed and we pondered returning here for lunch tomorrow. The buildings are lovely and I am sure it is nice spot to chill, if a little busy.

This woman was really bugging me by the end of the trip – she would just not sit down, so I took to standing up when anything interesting was on our side of the boat. What I probably should have done was ask her politely to sit, but my English/Kiwi reticence shone through!

After Nyhavn we cruised up towards the open see, passing a lovely old sailing boat under full sail, some very new and quite stunning newly architected buildings.

And towards the end of the river, a horizon of wind farms.

The tour went out of the river mouth as far as Trekroner Fort, an artificial island created to defend Copenhagen’s harbour. Construction of the fort started in 1787 and it was used until the end of the first world war. We could have got off the boat for a walk around but it we still had a few things left to do on today’s list and there was not enough to see to kill the hour before the next boat arrived. It looked interesting, but not that interesting 🙂

One of the main reasons for taking the tour was to go and see The Little Mermaid statue, Copenhagen’s most famous tourist attraction and a reasonable distance from our hotel. We pondered getting off for a look but the sheer number of people there put us off. As we motored past on the boat I was so glad we didn’t stay, this would have driven me bonkers… Sometimes you just need to fence off these attractions and allow everyone an opportunity to see and photograph it without someone’s kids sitting on it.

The boat took us back up the river and into the canal heading up to Christianshavn, where we planned on stopping for lunch. The ride up the canal was quite nice.

Freetown Christiana is a small part of the area, it is partially self governing and is a bit of a hippytype commune. I was expecting it to be quite a chilled place, and certainly upon entering it looked the part, street art, cafes (closed at the time), sculptures amongst the trees and a small, Camden style market.

However as we got further in it just got sadder and sadder as the other side of Freetown Christiana is that it is place where cannabis is freely sold. No photos were allowed in this area obviously, but for somewhere that is supposed to be carefree and open there were a lot of masked men standing behind curtains selling dope to large numbers of, mainly, young people. It all looked a bit tragic to me. I guess we were there a bit early in the day, maybe it is more lively later on.

Anyway, we were disappointed by it.

We walked back across to the other side of the river across the Knippelsbro, I loved the towers in the middle of the bridge. I am a real sucker for this greening, aged metalwork and the more I saw, the more I liked it.

On the way to the gallery we walked pas tthe military history museum and its cool little jousting hobby horse outside.

And of course today’s token bicycle picture:) What really surprised is me was the fact that few of the bikes were locked to anything, a large number were not locked at all and most had very flimsy locks on them. In London this would have been stolen almost immediately… Another big yay for the people of Copenhagen.

The gallery was pretty cool, (especially where there was some much needed air-con !) in keeping with the rest of the city there was a lot of sculpture, like this roman style hall.

This rather creepy collection of statue heads,

And this awesome weeping angel.

They could film an excellent episode of Dr Who here 🙂

Though the main reason for me coming in here was the collection of French impressionist paintings, it was small, but very nice – and photography was allowed ! There were some lovely works by Monet – The lemon grove in Bordihhera,

And Van Gogh – Landscape from Saint-Remy,

And a really nice and large collection of Gaugin works. This is the Road to Rouen, and I loved the colour in this.

There was also a drinks cart on the roof of the gallery so we stopped for a refreshing drink and a rest to admire the view over the Copenhagen skyline – over the Christiansborg.

I found a couple more bits of street art on the walk back to the hotel, where we stopped for a rest before heading out again in the early evening.

Our evening was spent at the crazy Tivoli Gardens. The gardens are the second oldest amusement park in the world, opening in 1843 and we were surprised at the size and scale of some of the rides – and no, we did not do any, we are far to chicken for that sort of malarky.

The gardens also, surprisingly, have very nice gardens and that sort of cheesy amusement park side of ponds and castles and pagodas and a large Indian style building, all holding restaurants and bars. None of which sold any Indian or Asian food. The pagoda for instance had fish and chips next to it.

The balloon seller was not having the best of days.

Though we did get something to eat in the end, and just as we stopped for a final glass of wine, the skies closed in and a sudden, though short, downpour sent people scurrying in all directions. Which was a cue for us to leave.

Another great day out. Loving Copenhagen so far.

Copenhagen trip – day one.

Saturday 26 July 2014 – Copenhagen, Denmark.

El and I booked this weekend away to Copenhagen a few months ago, well before I decided to New Zealand to visit my family, it is El’s birthday and we wanted to do something different, and go somewhere that neither of us have been before. We both have a thing for Scandi-noir TV shows and with The Killing, The Bridge and Borgen (which I haven’t seen) all set in or near Copenhagen, it seemed to be a logical choice of location for a long weekend.

To make the most of the time away I had booked us on the 7:00am flight from Stanstead, which meant a 5:00am check in and a 3:30am alarm call. Ridiculously early! I am pretty sure our taxi driver had been up for most of the last 24 hours as he was nodding off on the way, I was a little concerned, but kept my concern to myself until we made the airport. I know how he felt, but I wasn’t driving.

Stanstead was madness at 5:00 am, there were a whole bunch of flights leaving early in the morning and the airport was pretty packed and rather chaotic. I was very pleasantly surprised at the smoothness and efficiency of the check and boarding process with EasyJet. I had expected long queues and therefore grumpy passengers, but we were through quickly and sucking down coffee before we even knew it. Good flight too, well done Easy Jet, a good start to the holiday.

After clearing immigration and walking ten miles to collect our bags we caught the train from Copenhagen airport into Central Station.

Our hotel was a five minute walk away and we found it easily enough, We are staying in a Best Western in the centre of Copenhagen – and as we found out near the red light district. Our neighbour was Lady Love “the best strip club in Copenhagen”. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our room was ready even though it was still only 10am, and even better it was not streetside.

Once checked in and after a wee rest we set out for our first walk, and to hunt down some food. Copenhagen was different to how I expected it, the streets were grubbier than I thought they would be and lots of people were smoking and leaving butts everywhere, there junkies and street drinkers outside the station and there was graffiti on most streets. I am not complaining, it felt a bit more lived in, a bit more London like in some ways. Not the straight up Scandinavia I expected.

There are also street defibrillators on some of the walls – just in case the excitement from Lady Love was too much.

It was hot and sunny out, far hotter than anticipated, and I am so glad I made the last minute decision to pack shorts. We didn’t have much of a plan for the walk, just heading in the direction of the Christiansborg Palace in the hope to find a fountain that featured a lot in the TV series – Borgen.

Our first stop was Kobenhavns Rathus (Copenhagen Town Hall) which had a massive atrium in the building. It was nice, cooler than outside too.

We stopped for lunch after city hall in a place called Oscars that possibly catered for a different kind of clientele later in the day, but the food was lovely, the beer cold and the service pretty good. We were pleasantly surprised at the price of food and drink, we expected it to be mega-expensive. It was not cheap, but found it to be not a heck of a lot more than what we would pay in central London. So no complaints at all. We avoided the obvious.

Next up was the national museum of Denmark, which was quite interesting, time had us skip all the general museumy sort of stuff and stick to Danish history which was quite interesting – and they had Vikings which was the fun bit.

I really liked the rune stone display, I had always assumed that rune stones had mysterious, spiritual messages of wisdom passed down from the Gods, but apparently they are a lot more prosaic – commemorating the death of a family member, or just letting people know that so and so passed this way. This head stone from the 10th century is from someone named Sser remembering his brother Asgot. It is the only rune stone found that mentions Thor or any of the pre-Christian gods.

There is a lot of Christian era artifacts in the museum including some excellent old crosses, like this very early copper cross from the 12th century and found in Orting.

There are also some partial remains of an old Viking long ship, though it was impossible to photograph it.

The Gundestrup cauldron was my favorite piece in the museum, it is estimated to be over 2000 years old and was found in a peat bog in 1891. Where it comes from and what people made it is still being debated today. It is stunning…

From the museum we crossed another of the numerous canals to get to the small island that makes up the Christiansborg Palace area.

There are loads of bronze/copper statues around the city, all nice and green with that aged bronze look – love it.

The architecture in this, the old central part of Copenhagen is all low rise and what I would call standard European Scandinavian, basically what I expected to see, and there is nothing wrong with that. Visually the city is pretty, yet functional.

Though the palace itself has one of the many towers that dot the Copenhagen horizon.

The main roads are massive boulevards but there are very few cars around – however there are loads and loads of bicycles, and excellent riding lanes as well. It is such a good move for a flat city, and one of the reasons why Copenhagen is considered to be a ‘happy’ city. I took a few bicycle photos as we went.

It was also good to see that parts of the city’s heritage are being maintained.

Wecrossed back over the canal on the Hojbro (High Bridge), and spotted this unusual underwater statue named ‘Agnete and the Merman’ near where the canal tour boats depart.

We had a quick look at Hojbro Place, which seemed all rather busy with fellow tourists,

So we ducked down a deserted side street instead.

This eventually lead us to the main shopping street of the city, which was pretty much full of the same shops you see in London – and about the same amount of people you would see on Oxford St. Basically it was horrible…

We followed this back towards our hotel and once the beer/wine fridge was discovered in the lobby, settled down in the courtyard for a cold drink.

After a rest and some research into eating houses we decided on a couple of restaurant choices for the two nights, both were recommendations and seemed quite close so we decided to walk to Pate Pate and book a table for tomorrow and then walk onto the next one for a meal – if we could get a table. What we did not count on was that most places are closed on Sunday nights, including Pate Pate, so a quick change of plans and we took the last two seats at Pate Pate – sharing the four person table with a Swedish couple 🙂 The food was fabulous, reasonably priced, but delicious. A recommend if you are in Copenhagen!

We had a walk around after dinner to see if we could find the other restaurant, but we could not find it at all. Pate Pate is in what appears to be a recently revitalised part of town, old fishing shed and shops by the look of it. It was very busy, loads of small eating places and bars and very ‘Shoreditch’ cool. Loved it.

There are some massive engineering works going on in the city centre at the moment, I am guessing they are building a new transit link of some sort as the works disappear into the train station. The hoardings had some quite interesting street art in places. Interesting for a town with so much graff and mindless tagging there is very little street art around.

The sky was still light when we got back to the hotel, so we grabbed the bottle of duty free red and sat in the courtyard for a while and stared at the sky.

A pleasant end to a lovely day.

Two weeks in London. Catching up!

Friday 31 May 2013 – London

I should confess to being really slack lately and having little motivation to write blog posts since I have been back in London, so I have now left myself with two weeks worth to catch up on. Fortunately I have not actually done a heck of a lot worth recording, though I have been managing to use up all my time. My other excuse is I have been experiencing a bit of neck and shoulder pain typing on my small travel laptop so I was waiting to get my full size laptop back from my daughter, which I did last weekend.

My flights from Sydney to London via Kuala Lumpur on Malaysian were as expected – long, tiring and rather boring ! I flew on one of the new A380s fro the first time from Sydney to KL, they are huge, they feel so much larger than a B747 – though it has been a while since I have been on one of them I will admit. Malaysian are great to fly with and if it wasn’t the fact it took almost twenty eight hours to get from one side of the planet to the other it would have all been almost enjoyable.

El took the day off work and met me at the airport, it was (of course!) lovely to see her again and I am really looking forward to spending some time together hanging out.

As I am English it is my birthright to talk and complain about the weather, so I may as well get that all out of the way now. Apart from a couple of nice sunny and vaguely warm days it has been pretty miserable since I have been here. It was reported on the news last night that it was the coldest spring since 1962 – good timing on my behalf I guess. It has been damn cold though and I am very glad I had appropriate clothing when I arrived this time around. Today was the best day of the year so far, hope it is a sign of things to come!

So, what have I done ?

I have moved back into the room I was staying in in London Bridge – which is fabulous, it is nice to know the area I am living in, but there is also a lot to explore around here as well. I have been applying for jobs left right and centre, but not having any luck so far – this was expected though and I am not too worried about it all yet, I will leave that for the end of next month ! Though next week I aim to change my strategy a bit and see if that makes any difference, it is a tough market.

I have been managing to get out and about most days, though it has been cold it has been reasonably dry so walks most days have been achievable. I even got out for a run yesterday, which was good. My first ever run along the Thames, it was almost enjoyable – I always struggle with the first run after few weeks off so it was never going to be great fun!

I have taken my camera out on most of my walks, so here are a few things I have done, starting with a visit to Canary Wharf to visit my mate John for lunch.

I have, of course, seen El a few times and after meeting her for lunch one day in Camden I decided to do one of my favourite walks and strolled the tow path alongside Regents Canal to Angel, picking up a bit of street art along the way.

I am going to say the anti-climb paint puts me off far less than the massive spikes on top of the gate!

The next day I walked along the Southbank, watching the rain coming down over the city on the north side of the Thames, fortunately it remained on the northern side until I crossed and then it swung south so I managed to stay dry on my way to the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square.

I love the gallery, (along with loads of other people !) and it was quite crowded, I was trying to enjoy a moment with Seurat’s Bathers at Anieres which I love, but it was proving too difficult – and I did get told off for taking the picture…..

Though no one saw me grab this one of this artist painting an interpretation of one of the works.

Last weekend was a long weekend in the UK and on the Saturday El and I visited Broadway Market near London Fields in Hackney where there was a couple of good bits of new street art. I really like the bird by Boe + Irony.

After lunch we took a walk along a bit more of Regents Canal and walked to and round Victoria Park for a while. Outside of the exhibition last weekend I have not seen so many Christiaan Nagel mushrooms in one spot.

After Victoria Park we walked back up the canal, past Broadway Market and on to Shoreditch. I have never seen a canal boat going through one of the many locks before so it was quite interesting to watch for a while.

We visited the Geffrye Museum of the Home. I loved the building which is a series of 18th century alms houses. The museum itself was only vaguely interesting, furnishings not really being my thing 🙂 But there was an interesting photo exhibition there which we enjoyed.

On the way back to the station I found this piece by Israeli artist Tant, part of the Broken Fingaz Crew. There used to be two Tant pieces on the front of a closed pub on Shoreditch High St, but the pub has been completely renovated since I was last there and the paintings have gone – one of things I liked about street art.

Back in Shoreditch on Sunday I met up with my daughter Mel and her BF, Rich who were up from Bristol for the weekend. They stayed at a friend’s place on the Saturday night and he joined us too. It was a nice sunny afternoon and Shoreditch was packed so we ended up buying a couple of beers and sitting in Hoxton Square park with loads of others and enjoyed the sun and a good catch up. We wandered down to Brick Lane for a curry and it was heaving with people and loads of buskers to keep the crowds entertained. I really liked this guy playing drums in a van…

Dinner was good and while we were there Mel’s friend got a text from a family member and we got invited to a rather posh infused gin tasting at the Hoxton Hotel, it would have been rude to have refused ! They were very nice too.

Mel and Rich stayed at my place on the Sunday night and after breakfast on the Monday we ventured into west London. Mel and Rich went for a picnic in Hyde Park with a friend and I met up with El for lunch in a cafe before we strolled up to the park , finally catching up with Mel at the Science Museum which was our goal for the afternoon.

After the museum El went home and I spent a short time over a beer with Mel and Rich before they caught the bus back to Bristol. It was lovely to see them both and I look forward to seeing them again.

On the Tuesday I visited my uncle over in Dartford and picked up a pile of clothes and things that I had stored there, after a reasonably fine weekend the weather returned to normal!

I did a mega walk the next day and wandered up past Elephant and Castle to Peckham and then back down to London Bridge, it took over three hours and I was knackered at the end of it. It was nice to get out for a really long walk, plus explore a potential running route, but not the most scenic part of SE1 ! I did like this old abandoned housing estate in E and C, I would love to have explored it but I am guessing it would have been seriously hazardous to my health. But there was some quite good graffiti and street art around, including an old Malarky ‘fox’ head.

That was pretty much it for the week !

I did get this email and got excited for about 10 seconds before guessing, correctly, it was a scam 😦

As a result your application, I would like to invite you to attend an interview.

You will have an interview with the department manager, Edie Wilson. The interview will last about 30 min.

Please bring three reference (If available), as well as a copy of your ID, e.g. Passport, Driving License to the interview.

Please contact me on 07064848733, in order to arrange an interview

We look forward to seeing you

Best regards

Charles Brown