Europe – Page 6 – Where is Phil now?

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

A wee stroll in the sun – in London !

Day 262, Saturday 22 September 2012 – London

A much better sleep was had last night and I took the opportunity to doze for a little bit before having breakie in bed and a session on Skype with a friend back in NZ.

It is a lovely day today and with rain forecasted for the rest of the week ahead I took the opportunity to head out for the day with the intention to see some of London’s parks and meet Elias, an old friend from my Richmond days in the mid-eighties.

I walked down to Dartford town centre, past the local – I will try it out before I leave 🙂

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And then strolled through the market, it was busy but uninspiring – maybe an unfair call on Dartford market as markets are not my thing anymore – I have seen too many! The highlight, which I did not take a photograph of, was a stall blasting out and selling reggae CD’s, in a seemingly white middle aged suburb it was rather incongruous – good luck to them!

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I took the train into London, I was going to pick up a tube to Tottenham Court Rd and check out some of the camera shops for some pricing for future reference. However, the line was closed from Charing Cross so I alighted there and went straight to Trafalgar Square – which was on the plan for the day anyway.

What wasn’t on the plan was the National Gallery – it should have been ! I really enjoyed my time walking though the gallery – sadly no photos allowed, but I did sneak a quickie of Leonardo De Vinci’s “The virgin and child with St Anne and St John the Baptist” from 1500.

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Wow ! I have never been a De Vinci as an “artist” fan (ignorance ), much preferring art from the turn of the 20th century. However this drawing blew me away, the detail was stunning and I just loved it. Definitely my favourite piece from the gallery; a massive call given some of the works there. Another big call is – I enjoyed this more than the Louvre, it is smaller and simpler, but it does have a different focus so unfair to compare I guess.

What did I like? Seurat’s “Bathers at Asniers” – I love that painting, awesome to see it in the flesh. It was also great to see some nice Signac, Pissaro and Monet. My favourite Manet – “Execution of Maximilian” was here along with Renoirs “Umbrellas”. I am not a huge Renoir fan, but really like Umbrellas’. It is the same with Van Gogh, I have never been overly excited by his art, I do like “Van Gogh’s Chair” and Flowers is here as well, though that painting is all a bit ho hum IMHO.

I had an unexpected good time at the gallery – and it was a 4 pound donation, rather than a massive entry fee- good on you London!

This chewed up a chunk of my wandering around time, so I stopped for a sandwich and coffee in the sun on Trafalgar Square than walked through Admiralty Arch.

Past the stature of James Cook.

Round to the back of Horseguards Parade.

Past Downing Street.

And on to Waterloo station to meet my old friend Elias. It was great to catch up with him, haven’t seen him since 1987 when I left England. We walked along the South Bank of the Thames for a couple of hours and chatted about our lives in the past 25 years. We headed over to Embankment and had a drink before wandering back to Waterloo so Elias could make his next appointment. I strolled back over the Thames.

And got the train back to Dartford.

It was a really good day, the gallery was fabulous, the walk refreshing and enjoyable and it was great to catch up with Elias, we will meet again when I return from Africa for sure.

Adios Espana

Days 242- 48, Sunday – Saturday, 02 -08 September 2012 – Alcaucin

No surprises that Sunday was a quiet day, nothing much to do and not very inspired to do it anyway. Though it was cloudy again and by local standards was quite cool for most of the day, being only 22 degrees at mid-day. I spent most of the day reading with occasional bursts of housework, eating and looking up things on the internet – pricing up the things I will need for my run and Africa. It is my last week of working in Spain and last week in Spain.

Autumn pretty much arrived on the 1st September, almost on schedule the temperature dropped a few degrees from last week. It is still warm by my standards, getting up to 27/28 degrees at its peak, but 5-6 degrees cooler all the same. With the cooler weather and the darker mornings I was working 7.45 to 4:00 pm with a lunch break rather than knocking off at 2:00.

Painting Monday to Friday was pretty much it really, I mostly finished the house I was doing, it probably needs another two or three days – and someone more willing than me to stand on balustrades and lean backwards over space to paint more of the eves.

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On Tuesday morning, with the aid of my son I finally managed to Skype my mum and had a great chat with her and both my boys who were around at her house for dinner.

That night I gave up on the whole idea of finding a job and booked myself on to an African tour starting at the end of the month in Cape Town, but I have already posted that ! I am very excited about it and the more I ponder on it and research it the more excited I get. Today (Saturday) I discovered there is some great diving to be had off of Zanzibar – something I wasn’t expecting when I booked !! I also have a Leonie, a friend from New Zealand meeting in Cape Town to do the tour as well. Leonie is a seasoned traveler and I spent a couple of days with her in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, way back in May.

On Thursday evening Ian and I went up to the village for a couple of beers and some dinner, and that was pretty much it for the working week.

I have slept really badly all week and am knackered as I sit here on Saturday morning writing this post. I had weird dreams most nights and I actually remembered Wednesday nights. Vicki – I am never letting you be a support driver as I run a ultra distance race, your driving was terrible !

One of the things I have really enjoyed over the past few weekends that I have been home alone in Alcaucin is the opportunity to cook for myself. I used to love cooking back in New Zealand and travelling of course means I just do not get a chance to do it. it is very simple fare only using local fresh vegetables – that is pretty much all there is – no imported stuff here, with the occasional piece of fresh chicken. So lots of pasta dishes with garlic, onion, tomato, peppers and zucchini based sauces. Just love it !

Saturday was cleanup and packing day, I also tossed out my paint spattered clothes and finally bade farewell to my faithful Keen sandals as they were falling apart again. I will buy another pay for Africa for sure. And damnit I loved those shorts too, bought em in Bangkok for $4.

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I took a final walk up to the village, intending to go my most visited location, the supermarket, as I wanted buy some beer and chippies for tonight – but true to my Spanish experience, it and all the other shops were closed.

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One week until I am running a 55.6km section of the South West Coast Path from Budleigh-Salterton in East Devon to West bay in Dorset!

So tomorrow morning I say adios to Spain and Hello to ole’ blighty. Looking forward to seeing my daughter again and getting things organised (read shopping) for my run and my trip to Africa.

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The last training run

Day 241, Saturday 01 September – Alcaucin

Another month has just started and my fiftieth is drawing ever closer.

I really hated turning thirty, forty just happened and I was not bothered by that at all and now I am not sure how I feel about being fifty. Fifty is getting old! and I am not ready to be old yet, but then I don’t feel old so maybe it won’t be so bad, bah – who knows. Even though I planned on travelling away from home for my birthday, being unemployed, single and homeless as I roll the decade over is a situation I occasionally struggle to see the good in. Yes I am being overly dramatic ! To counter all that I am doing what I wanted to do, I am fit and healthy (though ache from this morning’s run), am not encumbered by anything and I can choose to do what I want – where I want to do it.

With two weeks to go until 50for50 this morning was my last longish training run and I was planning on getting into the hills for four hours. I was up at 7:00 and after walking the dogs and fueling I was on the road for 7:45. It was quite cool for a change, though very cloudy with heavy black clouds sitting over the hills, I pondered going back and getting a jacket in case it was wet up there, but decided against it – I am usually soaked in sweat anyway, so rain would be blessed relief.

The run to the top car park was hard, I even stopped to take a photo of where I was heading – up into that !

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The first couple of kilometres of every run I do is a bit of a shakeout, all my joints are stiff and the little aches and pains work their way around my legs and lower back and once everything is warmed up they go away. Today that didn’t happen, the niggles did move around, they just kept repeating with my hip being a constant nag.

I had decided to take a trail from the top car park up the other side of the steep valley I ran a couple of weeks ago. This fire road goes up and over another peak, though I was not intending to get to the peak today as it was too far. This trail was even marked ! when I entered the trail I expected this would be the last marker I saw but I was wrong, this was a well marked trail.

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Once again, I briefly questioned the wisdom of running alone in the hills, in a strange location where no one knows where I am. – and once again I carried on regardless. However, as I hit the cloud I did vow to stay on the fire road and turn round if it turned to single track.

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This all became moot as once I passed the tree line after an hour and half of running and walking up hill I knew I was not going to get much further, the niggles had not gone away and frankly, I was buggered. Out of the gloom a small peak appeared so I walked to the top and sat down for a snack, a drink and a rest.

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My trusty Saucony’s – maybe their last run 😦

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After ten minutes rest I started to head back down – and realised I could not see the trail at all, I did know where I was going and it was a only short distance, but I would have been stuffed if I was caught in this on the peak two weeks ago. I am glad I had decided to stick to fire roads. (the photos sort of makes the trail look more obvious than it was !)

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I decided to open up on the way down the fire road and run rather than jog back – a decision I am regretting now as my knees are very sore, but it was nice to feel the breeze. On the way down I met a Spanish trail runner who had turned around once he hit the thicker fog, he didn’t speak any English, but we ran together for a while, though he blew out on the small climb and flagged me on. I ran back the last few KM’s to the house in a bit of pain – the usual ankle, but I had sore feet. I think my shoes are worn out which is a real pain as I was not planning on buying new ones till after the 50kmer.

Tempreture wise it was the best day for running I have had in Spain, probably late teens in the hills and the fog was nice and damp with just a hint of a breeze. I would have loved it last week on the longer run when I was just pounding the unsealed road.

All up two and a half hours, not the four I wanted, but the body has had enough of all the running in the past five or six weeks. I just hope it is all enough training for 50for50, I will find out in fourteen days I guess.

I did not do much with the rest of the day, mooched, cooked, ate and drank until the early evening when I hit the internet and started looking more deeply in to an Africa tour. This is looking to be the more likely scenario than finding a job in the next two weeks, so a decision will need to be made fairly soon, at least there are spots on the tour.

I also emailed a car rental company to clarify if I will be able to rent a car in England without my drivers licence, which I lost way back in Laos. Hopefully my international permit will suffice, if not I will have to rethink my plans for my first week in England.

The BBC news had some graphic footage of the damaging forest fires yesterday that had devasted the hills along the Costa del Sol from Marbella almost to Malaga, which was a bit closer than I thought – though still far enough away for safety 🙂

Another fantastic sunset again this evening.

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Another week goes by.

Days 236-240, Monday-Friday 27-31 August 2012 – Alcaucin

Another fairly standard and non-eventful week, just how I like them!

On Monday I started painting the downstairs of No 20, balustrades – if I never see another one it will not be too soon, this lot took me three days to paint. It is fine until the sun hits about 10:00 and then it is hot work – and very dry.

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The sun is rising later in the day now so working 7:30 – 2:30 after that it is just too hot to work directly in the sun, even sitting or kneeling down.

Tuesday night there was an excellent sunset, the first really colourful sunset I have seen here, I sat on the deck with a glass of vino tinto and watched it all unfold, lovely.

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Thursday night the sunset was even better !!

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Friday I was back working at the original house I was painting, the house has now been vacated and I will get as much as I can completed before I go. Instead of painting balustrades today I washed them – ready for painting on Monday and Tuesday – oh joy : ) It was quite cloudy today and I was hoping for some rain, which never eventuated, but it was gloriously cool for most of the day. Ian has gone away so I am dog-sitting again for the weekend.

I did get some good news this week, my Uncle Jim has said I can come and stay at his place in Dartford, which is on the outskirts of London and only a short train ride away. Jim lives by himself in my late nana’s house and I have fond memories of it from when I was a child. It was here that I learnt that one should not pick up a cactus.