Category Archives: Europe

A collection of travelogues from my trips in Europe, peppered with reviews and recommendations of accommodation, walking tours, restaurants and pubs.

Europe, Russia

Travelogue Baltic 6: St Petersburg – City Tour

BALTIC CRUISE |  ST PETERSBURG – CITY TOUR

21 June 2016

Our second day in St Petersburg started quite the opposite to the first, where we had visited Peterhof. Both of us had a restless night, fearing we’d oversleep… and got up half an hour earlier than planned (which was *early* seeing as we had to be on the bus by 07h15!)

Fortunately, on this cruise there was no such thing as too early for breakfast and, in fact, the main dining room was ready and waiting to serve us. The main dining room offered a combination of buffet and table services, with waiters at the ready to bring you a plate of your own design.

That seemed – even after the opulence of St Petersburg – a bit too decadent to be practical when there was a buffet right there, so we dished for ourselves and were soon happily munching our gravlax/bacon/eggs/sausage etc, at leisure with plenty of time to spare. As was typical, people at the table complained at how long their food was taking (no more than a few minutes), but they were damned if they’d get up and serve themselves!

Passport Control was even quicker than the previous day as they just checked the existing stamps, and we were among the first to meet on the platform, before the coach had even arrived.

The drive into town seemed that much quicker the second time around – possibly because more familiar – so we were anticipating the destination with some sense of the route (you know how the way home always seems quicker than the way to a new place).

Our first familiar sight was the Neva River, the main waterway in the 6 islands that make up St Petersburg. We’d passed over it the previous day; now we stopped alongside it to cash in a wish by rubbing the brass gryphon heads that sat alongside the Egyptian sphinx statues.

This was also an ideal vantage point to get a good look up and down the wide river. It was obvious to see why it was called the City of 1000 Palaces. St Petersburg was nothing short of magnificent with the grandiose facades along the riverfront of a bygone era where bigger was better and detail essential. No cost was spared in the elaborate designs and adornments that distinguished one mansion from the next in the single continuous row. Even the exterior paint job was meticulous, with a pretty consistent palette of dusky pastel colours with the slatted columns painted white.

We made another roadside stop further down the river at the Rostrums. These were tall terracotta twin columns with ships’ props embedded. At the base of each was a huge statue of a Poseidon/Neptune type chap. This section of the river was even wider (apparently it was a kilometre wide – in the middle of town! – at some points) and the row of riverfront palaces as grand and consistent, side-by-side, as far as the eye could see in every direction. This city was nothing short of awesome, in every conceivable most literal sense of the word!

Even the roads were broad, which is unusual for an olden times city. Bearing in mind it was by now around 08h30 on a workday, traffic was thick, but not unmanageable (especially for us, long-suffering Jo’burg drivers). I suppose everything is relative though because even in the 1800s there was considered to be too much carriage traffic… but then the solution was simple: only nobleman could use the roads. That wouldn’t fly nowadays where it’s all for one and one for all and the parking is even free to be fair to everyone.

The next stop was St Isaac’s Church. The previous day’s tour had ended with a visit to a souvenir shop. We’d been assigned 20 minutes to shop but since Uda had flippantly pointed out some pretty notable sights through the window a few blocks earlier, we sprinted down the street retracing our bussteps to get a photo of the church, Palace and statue she’d printed out. Little did we know that we were returning to these the next morning!

The Church was a behemoth of a building, able to seat (well, stand, since Russians stand while worshipping) 14,000 people! It was adorned within an inch of its life and surrounded by the more of the same massive mansion block buildings in every direction. Words cannot describe the scale of everything in this city to the point that your imagination can form a true picture from my words!

The statue across the road from the church was of Nicholas I, Catherine the Great’s grandson. The (magnificent) palace behind it was built for his granddaughter, Maria, who refused to live in it because she couldn’t bear the thought of the view being her grandfather’s ass. Proper First World problems.

The big excursion for the morning was a visit to the Hermitage Museum. It kicked off with a bang when even the entrance Baroque staircase was a sight to behold. The decoration accent colour was gold. As in gold leaf, not golden-coloured paint. Not my idea of a good time, but gives you an idea of the reckless abandon with which construction and decorating was undertaken. It was mostly the Empresses (Catherine I, Anna, Elizabeth and Catherine the Great) that were credited with the elaborateness and, as Christian said, it was easier back then when the Csar/ina had complete control over all the wealth and could spend on whatever they chose. He further said it was a good thing too because otherwise we wouldn’t have these magnificent things to admire now, in a world that was a lot more selective in its opulence.

The Hermitage tour kicked off with the Winter Palace, built for Elizabeth but used first by Catherine the Great. Catherine ceded to Alexander I, her favourite grandson. Then his brother Nicholas (from the statue) became Emperor. It was a tricky story to follow.

“Hermitage” literally means “place for solitude” since the buildings were never meant to be public. Ironic for a building now this busy – as in queues out the door, down the street, around the corner, across the road and through the park! Fortunately we were there as it opened and had a pre-arranged group ticket so were just ahead of the rush.

The Small Hermitage is 2 buildings running parallel with a garden between them. This is where Catherine housed her art, which she was known to have never liked (but collected because collecting was fashionable). Since the art was hung as her private collection in her place of solitude, she is known to have said “only me and the rats can see it. And I think the rats like it more”

It was a formidable collection of legendary artists – so legendary that even I know them and I know less than nothing about art!

The first masterpiece I recognised was Rembrandt’s “Return of the Prodigal Son”, which he is credited as painting in 1669, the year he died, but had etched 30 year’s prior so really was a life work. This painting was in a whole section of tens of Rembrandt originals… and I now mustered an appreciation for his talent. While I was sure one is supposed to appreciate brushstrokes, paint texture and whatnot, the ones that appealled to me were where the paint was smooth and the likeness so good the painting could be a photograph.

The Hermitage also housed 2 of the only 14 Da Vinci originals that can be found outside of Italy, both of Madonna and Child (the religious icon lady, not the singer).

The full tour was about 2 hours and took us through the Winter Palace, Small / Old / New Hermitages and the Hermitage Theatre. We also saw some of Rafael’s paintings and a Michaelangelo sculpture, so were only a Donatello short of a set of turtles!

The next stop wasn’t far from the Hermitage, but took some effort for a bus in the traffic. We found a good drop off point outside Michael’s Palace – another magnificent hunk of building, which cost 7 million Roubles to build in a time when the entire social budget was 700k!

Our destination was the Church on Spilled Blood, which was located on the spot of assassination of Alexander II (son of Nicholas I). He was very popular because he abolished serfdom and made military conscription compulsory for all (previously noblemen were exempt). He also encouraged Finland’s autonomy, liberated Bulgaria and sold Alaska to the USA. Obviously though you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs and thus this was the 8th attempt on his life – and was aimed at overthrowing monarchy. Terrorists threw a bomb under his carriage. He wasn’t injured but the General next to him died immediately. The Csar – being the good guy he was – got off his carriage to see if anyone was hurt or needed help and the assassins got him with a second bomb. He was badly injured and died 2 hours later in the Winter Palace.

Alexander’s son commissioned the church at the place of his death in his honour. He was so popular that the nobles donated a million Roubles and the common people another half bar. 700 square metres of mosaics didn’t come cheap! … Although they did save a fortune on pews since Russians pray standing.

We were running a bit ahead of schedule so Uda called ahead to see if we could go straight to lunch. We were initially batted, but the host venue called back about 5 minutes later saying we could come in 15, so we took a walk down to Nevsky Prospekt (the main shopping street) to get better photos of the big church monument thing that commemorated the victory in the 1812 Napoleonic Wars.

Lunch was served at the Museum of Fine Arts. Based on how particular they were about our time of arrival and the fact that we were served at tables in the middle of the foyer, I surmised this to be a limited offer for which they closed the museum over lunch.

Salad was already plated at our place settings, with caviar canapés and bread on the table for self-service. Then followed a bowl of borscht and a plate of chicken stroganoff. Strawberry sorbet to close. It probably was a treat of a meal… but we’d been spoilt by the restaurants on the cruise ship. We may never be able to eat normally again!

Last on the itinerary was the Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, another baroque construction, consecrated in 1733. This was the first main cathedral built in St Petersburg, as a memorial to their 18th century military glory and is the burial place for the Imperial House of Russia.

Peter the Great’s daughter Catherine had been buried in 1708 in the wooden church that stood on this spot and which laid foundation for the creation of this Cathedral to house the Royal tombs of the Romanov Imperial House, and which was currently the final resting place of 46 members of the dynasty.

We were starting to piece together the story and from what we could tell it was:

  • Peter the Great (unified Russia, moved capital to St Petersburg)
  • Catherine I (Cinderella)
  • Peter II (Peter the Great’s grandson, last of the male direct line of Romanovs)
  • Anna (Peter the Great’s niece)
  • Ivan (Anna’s niece’s infant son, ruled for a year… as an infant)
  • Elizabeth (seized throne from Ivan; Peter the Great’s daughter)
  • Peter III (Anna’s nephew; assassinated within 6 months by his wife, Catherine the Great)
  • Catherine II (Catherine the Great, ruled 34 years)
  • Paul I (Catherine’s son; ruled 4 years, 4 months, 4 days, strangled in his bed)
  • Alexander I (Paul’s son, ruled 24 years and died of typhus)
  • Nicholas I (Alexander’s brother, ruled 30 years and died of pneumonia)
  • Alexander II (Nicholas’s son, assassinated at Church on Spilled Blood)
  • Alexander III (Alexander II’s son)
  • Nicholas II (Alexander III’s son, married to Alexandra)

The Romanov line ended with the October Revolution where the Bolsheviks murdered Nicholas and his family so that there was no chance of returning to a Csarist regime. The whole family were buried unceremoniously at the time, but much later disinterred and brought to their own designated tomb in the Cathedral.

Quite a maudlin end to the day, but reaffirmed St Petersburg as a place rich in history and stories of great victories and great tragedies.

Driving out of the city once again, it was such a contrast of the beautiful elegant mansions built in the age of opulence versus the functional-to-a-fault grey compounds so obviously built by the Communists. Still enormous though, which seems to just be the St Petersburg way.

It was with regret that we said our goodbyes to St Petersburg as it grew smaller on what should have been the sunset, but of course wasn’t seeing as it was the longest day of the year, with darkness of less than 40 minutes, so the sun was still high in the sky at 8 o’clock at night!

Europe, Russia

Travelogue Baltic 5: St Petersburg – Peterhof

BALTIC CRUISE | ST PETERSBURG – PETERHOF

20 June 2016

The day started with a mad dash. We had overslept and woke – with panic! – at 07h48, almost an hour later than planned since we needed to disembark by 08h30 and of course still needed to get breakfast on board!

Fortunately the weather was good so less layers (and no brolly hunt!) meant quicker prep and we were pounding the passages just over 10 minutes later, hair-wash day ‘n all!

Christian, ever-cautious planner as he is, insisted we go past the meeting place (on the other end of the ship from the Windjammer breakfast bar) first. Turned out to be a good call as we were issued our stickers and instructions on where to meet the bus (in 45 minutes; on the other side of immigration) leaving just enough time to have a flash breakfast. Well, hopefully enough time; there was still the gamble of how long passport control would take (but it was a risk we were willing to bear).

We probably did ourselves a favour by being that little bit later judging by the queues, which were virtually non-existent. Other passengers hadn’t been so lucky, had overestimated the time required and consequently been sitting on the bus for the better part of an hour already.

A visa was required for shore excursions in Russia. If you made your own plans, you needed to arrange your own visa. If you did the ship’s excursions you travelled on a “Captain’s visa”, which really just meant it was included in the package and didn’t require any additional paperwork. We’d done the latter since it was so much easier and visas were an expensive exercise, so sailed (pun intended) through passport control.

We were perfectly to time, arriving at our assigned coach just before the prescribed 09h00 meeting time. Our guide, Uda, greeted us warmly. She gave it another few minutes before expressing that we were waiting on the last 5 guests on our roll for the day. When they still weren’t with us 10 minutes later, she did a few rounds of hurried counting up and down the aisles, double-checking herself. Counting sounds like hard work in Russian (although they probably say the same about us).

Starting with the usual pleasantries, Uda told us we were lucky to have such a warm, clear blue-skies day, sharing that St Petersburg usually only enjoys around 60 sunny days a year. She wasn’t surprised at all that it had been cold and wet in Tallinn the previous day. So much for summer!

The drive into town was about 20 minutes. Uda filled the time with stories about the city, its history and its name.

The city was obviously named after St Peter. The name was changed during first World War because St Petersburg sounded too German, so it was changed to Petrograd (“grad” means city in Russian) to make it sound more Russian. In 1924 it was then renamed Leningrad after Lenin died and was only changed back to St Petersburg in 1991 with the fall of the Communist Empire.

The city was held in esteem to this day by the rest of the country, having gained hero status in the 900 day siege in WWII. The city held the Germans at bay for almost 3 years, but not without loss. Desperately starved of food, the siege shrunk the population by half (mostly because of starvation and exposure) to 1,5 million people. Soldiers and workmen were rationed to 250 grams of bread (or similar substitutes when there was no bread) and general populous half of that. To top it all off, they were subjected to one of the coldest winters, with temperatures dropping to up to 40 degrees below, with no electricity and no heating.

Now the city is back up to 5 million people, thanks to the immigrants who come to work and study (being the cultural and educational capital of Russia) and the second biggest city behind Moscow, which was 600 km away and had in excess of 15 million people.

It sounded like St Petersburg had had more than its fair share of strife, in the early days attributed to its position as strategic trade route between Scandinavia and the Mediterranean. This sparked the 21 year war (1700 – 1721) with Sweden. Peter the Great won back St Petersburg against Charles VII of Sweden – a highly revered military leader of the time so it was quite the coup – and established his summer Palace, Peterhof, as monument to the victory. His visions were completely OTT, using the Palace of Versailles as his muse, complete with mansions, gardens that went on for days and endless fountains.

Peterhof was our destination for Day 1 of the tour.

On our way out of town, Uda shared with us about how the people of this city lived and live. In olden times there was a big divide between the haves and the have-nots.  St Petersburg was dubbed “The City of 1000 Palaces” because it was so grand with a more than representative sample of mansions and stately buildings. The royal and noble people built enormous places, ridiculously decadent in both size and decor. The ground floor would house the hundreds (or in some cases, like the Winter Palace, thousands) of staff required to maintain the place. The owners would then occupy upper floor/s, hosting parties with reckless abandon… if they were there at all.

The Bolsheviks confiscated these inner-city palaces from the aristocracy during the Revolution and nationalised them, turning them into communal flats. The palaces were reallocated room by room, such an entire family would occupy a single room, sharing kitchen and bathrooms with other families. The palaces went from being decadently airy to providing an average of 5 square metres per person.

Uda told us that most families had a dacha (modest chalet) or cottage (quite roomy generally double storey house) outside the city too. This is where they would escape the city in the summer to go to the forests or swimming at the lake (presumably dropping everything on those 60 sunny days she spoke of). From what I could gather, these may have been the family homes that they occupied before moving into the allocated quarters in the redistributed Palace accommodations. Uda’s family dacha was 100km south of St Petersburg, she told us, which had been very far out back in the day, but was the perfect “just out of town” now that the city had grown so much (sounds a bit like Hartebeespoort back home).

We arrived to Peterhof, able to see immediately the grandeur old Peter had intended. Enormous buildings in yellow with white columns and trim, expansive cobbled and gravelled courtyard and walkways, sculpted and manicured gardens in perfect symmetry as far as the eye could see and fountains. LOTS of fountains.

The tour ended up being a walk through the gardens, pointing out notable fountains from the 150 on the property. Not naturally being one excited by such things, it was impossible not to be impressed. If not by the magnitude of the project, then by the impressive application of rudimentary physics and technology, using gravity to move the unbelievable amounts of water to these (largely aesthetic) features. There was no internal recycling of water at all. The water moved from springs about 4km away to the storage lakes, through the fountains and then out to the Baltic Sea.  30 cubic kilolitres of water a day!

There were some fountains of deep symbolic intent – eg the Eve fountain in the Western end of the garden symbolising the end of paradise, with her matching Adam on his own fountain in the Eastern end – and some where enormous effort had been put in above and beyond the fountain, like a checkerboard cascade which had been designed to match the Palace’s blue and white checkerboard floor and which had all sorts of statues (including some oddly out of place dragons) on either side and at the top.

Peter I also had some whimsical ideas like the water road he had put in. With jets on either side of the sand road, twice a day the road became impassable because of the solid water arch they created. He also conceptualised the trick fountains, where jets strategically hidden behind benches would be activated when certain stones in the cobbled pathway where stood upon. There were some proper upside down smiles from some of the grumpies on our tour who got “tricked”!

There was a “should have been” trick in the monument just outside of the trick fountain garden, where legend was that one could gain a wish by throwing coins at the metal figure. It was fortunate if your wish was for more coins because this come true simply by visiting the other side of the statue!

On our way out of the gardens we passed Catherine the Great’s swimming pool. It was enormous. Pity the pool guy who had to maintain that! Couldn’t imagine she had much time to linger in the pool though, what with her husband being killed and her claiming power via coup d’etat n all. It is now the only mechanically pumped fountain in the Gardens.

The end of the circuit deposited us back in front of the Palace building, with a magnificent view surveying everything we’d walked over the past few hours. And that was only the Lower Gardens. Who knew what the Upper Gardens held.

Despite ourselves, we’d enjoyed it. We had been very fortunate with the weather; I’d imagine if it were cold and or rainy, we’d have had less good humour for the anecdotes and water features.

The stories of the Royal family, their eccentricities, extravagances and anguishes was intriguing.  Mental note to self was to figure out the chronology of the Catherines, Peters, Alexanders and Nicholases in the City Tour the next day!

Estonia, Europe

Travelogue Baltic 4: Tallinn

BALTIC CRUISE | TALLINN

19 June 2016

Having elected to forego the tour and transfer options for Tallinn (based on our rudimentary research indicating that the town was less than a kilometre from the pier), it was reassuring that we could see the Old Town skyline from the ship as we disembarked at 09h00. It was drizzling, but we were prepared this time so wouldn’t be buying any more umbrellas!

Our cruise ship was docked in the Old Harbour with a pleasant thoroughfare through a curio store and a coffee shop, where we picked up a free tourist map. Not that we needed one; exiting the shops, it was impossible to miss the city gate atop the hill directly ahead.

We entered the Old Town through the aptly named Great Coastal Gate, protected by “Fat Margaret” – a 25m high grey stone tower with little red tile kepi roof and walls up to 5 metres thick – who has been standing guard over the entrance since the early 1500s.

The town was still fast asleep, probably because it was still relatively early and also it was a Sunday (although one might assume that a town with such a concentration of churches might call Sunday their busy time!), so we did a spot of window-shopping as we made our way up the cobbled streets to the town square, passing the St Olav’s Church, which benchmarks building height in Tallinn and is the reason there were only 6 skyscrapers in the (new) town.

Tallinn’s Old Town was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997 and its town square, Raekoja Plats, built in the beginning of the 1400s, was arguably Northern Europe’s best preserved medieval town hall square, so even walking past the quaint “unnotable” buildings was picturesque. The old town was divided into lower and upper; the lower being the hanseatic traders and the upper (Toompea) was inhabited by nobility.

There was some activity on the square, with people setting up their market stalls as well as what seemed to be some sort of festival stage and benches. It was still drizzling though so we kept moving to get a head start on the tourist sites before the inevitable hoards descended.

We managed to get ahead to the “Kiek in de Kok” tower; the entrance to the historical underground bastion tunnels, which were supposed to serve as bomb shelters for the Communist elite in case of war in Soviet times. The name means “look into the kitchen” (we had a far less mature guess) referring to its view into the surrounding homes and because that’s exactly what the soldiers spent most of their time doing while they were supposed to be on the lookout for intruders.

They would have had a grand old time if they were to be posted there now; there is a pub and cafe on top of the wall so they’d be able to warm their cockles with some of Estonia’s finest rum, Vana Tallinn, while keeping an eye on things.

The rain was putting a literal dampener on things – and ruining the view from these excellent vantage points we were visiting – so we decided to turn our efforts to the Guinness Index to wait out the weather.

A very pleasant hour in the Albion and a 4 Euro Guinness later, the rain had stopped and we were on our way again.

We retraced some of our footsteps to get a better view / pictures, but we had really already seen everything we wanted to see, so just had a bit of a wander up and down cobbled walkways, popping into the odd shop and perusing the odd menu (for nothing more than idle curiosity, mind).

The town square concert was now in full swing, with a spirited accordionist whipping up frenzy in a large group of fans in front of the stage that had organised themselves with interlocked arms into concentric rings that were twirling – at pace! – in opposite directions. The song’s tempo was getting faster and faster, as were the dancers in response, until suddenly with a few crescendic bars, the accordionist called the song to a close and everyone roared cheers, threw arms up with thunderous applause and there was laughing and hugging all round.

Since many were in traditional dress (the typical embroidered medieval derivatives), this excitement was obviously no coincidence and this concert must’ve been a big event to these local people. We were glad to have caught the tail-end of it.

We’d seen in a tourist map that there was a KGB museum in (new) town, at Viru Hotel so planned to take a turn past that on our way back to the ship. It was unfortunate that the hour-long tours were sold out for the afternoon because the exhibitions looked interesting, constructed from a old spy room that the KGB used to use back in the day to monitor the goings-on (by hidden cameras, holes in the wall and the like) in this notorious hotel.

The walk back to the ship was quite pleasant; leisurely, downhill, familiar and dry! We had plenty of time to go until curfew for boarding so got to explore the market on the harbour. We were tempted to try the Tallinn rum – based on the number of commemorative empty bottles “decorating” the pub on the old town wall, it must be quite special – but resisted seeing as we couldn’t take any aboard with us anyway (thanks to security at the embarkation points) even if we did like it.

First order of business when back on the Serenade of the Seas was lunch. Perfect timing for some mid-afternoon casual dining! Intending only to take a morsel (seeing as dinnertime was only 3 hours away), the buffet once again got the better of us with delicious pasta and con carne.

Fat and happy, it was essential that we kickback and flex our lounge for a couple of hours!

Dinnertime came all too soon. We had had to book in the first sitting because we’d designed a series of activities for ourselves that required us to be either ready by 19h00 or eating very late (which we don’t do).

The formal dining room was a la carte from a limited (about 10 options per course) but varied selection. The chef’s recommended 3 course combination was printed on the menu and the waiting staff – who get to know you (by name) since you always sit in the same section – gave further advice based on your previous selections. Our waiter knew us a bit too well and surprised us with a bonus third dish when he served main course – a lasagne, adding to the tiger prawns and pork shoulder roast we’d ordered – which would certainly have gone to waste if everything hadn’t been so ridiculously tasty!

Our expanded dinner put some time pressure on us to get to our 7pm show – a comedy / magic show in the Theatre, but we were grateful for the leg-stretch to get the enormous feast settled.

The show was light and fun, with the host, Mel Mellis, maintaining a buoyant  monologue, heckling peppered with amusing anecdotes and punny one-liners, while performing some simple magic tricks. It was a laugh and we agreed we’d support Mel again if he had another show later in the cruise.

Next stop was a high-tail to the Schooner Bar for a music trivia quiz. Tonight was the night of Michael Jackson and the audience was tasked with identifying hit and obscure songs from snippets that the host teased. Old MJ is pretty prolific so we did rather well.

Better than the poor hopefuls participating in the game show in the Centrum. Being in the horizontal centre of the ship, the Centrum was an open 9-volume cylinder where all the decks look down onto a central floor and little stage.  There was a bar and collection of chaisses, cocktail and bucket chair tables ensconcing the performance area, but the majority of the audience settled in the protruding balconies and chairs alongside the glass dividers on the upper floors, with a perfect view of whatever spectacle was for offer below.

Tonight’s show was “Complete the Lyric”, where contestants were offered a section of lyrics which then cut short and they were to continue the song.  Contestants buckled to the likes of Britney Spears and Kelly Clarkson until finally ‘Chris from Tennessee’ was able to  annex the missing 26 “I Know” suffixes from Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine”. It was quite a coup for him. And the whole show was quite entertaining for the rest of us.

Europe, Germany

Travelogue Baltic 2: Rostock

BALTIC CRUISE | ROSTOCK

17 June 2016

The beauty of the cruise was that the vast majority of the sailing was done overnight, so you woke up (almost) every morning in a new port in a new country.  Today was the turn of Rostock, Germany.

Organised excursions for the day varied from a day trip to Berlin, a tour of beachtown Warnemunde and a tour of university-town Rostock. None appealed to us since Berlin was a 3 hour bus trip each way, it wasn’t the weather for the beach (barely 20 degrees and gloomy) and we felt a group tour might frustrating, constantly being herded and hindered (especially since we were a good 20+ years below the average age on this cruise!)

We made arrangements to catch a shuttle into town to make our own way around Rostock and headed for the gangway (which was conveniently on our deck!). The disembarkation process was simple enough, just requiring a flash of the sea pass to log our departure, so within minutes we were in Germany. Of course, I can’t say “on dry land” because, as dumb luck would have it, it started to rain the moment we disembarked the ship.

It was only a very light drizzle, but it brought out the crazy in everyone, apparently! A short walk down the pier and we were at the bus stop. The only thing that demarcated this was an actual bus stopped there.

We arrived to mayhem. A beanpole of a young German chap in cruise uniform was in the doorway of the bus, taking a heated verbal lambasting from some fiery Mexicans at the foot of the bus’s steps who were clearly displeased at not being able to fit on the current bus, which already had its full complement of passengers – and was clearly subject to the “only want to hear one click” German flexibility when it came to allowing additional, which the troupe of Mexicans were animatedly asserting was the solution.

It escalated to the point that the little cluster tried to storm the Bastille and push their way onto the bus and had it not been for the fact that the German chap was a quarter of their age and twice their average height, they might very well have succeeded! Despite a little old lady trying to squeeze her way past him (squealing in the process), his superior wingspan outed and he scooped the lot of them out of the bus, yelling for the bus driver to close the door quickly behind him.

Poor fella then found himself on the ground outside the bus with all sorts of yelling and hand-waving in his face. He did his best to get everyone to form a line, but there was to be none of that – nobody was prepared to concede even a single position in case they didn’t get their seat on the next bus. Giving up, the German retreated to his box of supplies, swearing audibly to himself and pretending to look busy counting tickets. I walked up to him to ask for a tourist map and he gave me a death stare… calming only (marginally) when he realised I wasn’t there to complain.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute or two later that the next bus arrived. The German had given up; he didn’t even try to get the orderly queueing system line in place. Good thing too as there was physical violence in the doorway of the new bus as an American almost leapfrogged over the Mexicans to embark. It was almost comical as the American pushed them aside with his best “talk to the hand” palm, shouting justification that he’d already missed 3 busses and wasn’t missing this one, as 2 tiny old Mexican ladies grabbed at his shirt and one of their husbands threw punches.

The American landed on the top step, swiveled around and was squashed flat against the driver as he tried to get in position for his old school thumb-in fist slow rotation circular undercut punching. His wife had been left behind in this skirmish and was now looking bewildered at him through the bus window as he took his seat in the front row, disheveled but smug.

We had no such trouble. We asserted ourselves into the throng and rode the wave onto the bus. It was like very noisy body-surfing. Most of the people who missed that bus did so because they were so busy faffing with their brollies, which made us almost glad that we’d (already!) misplaced our Copenhagen one.

It was about 20 minutes into Rostock and we were deposited on Long Street, aptly named for being the longest street in the historical centre, reconstructed into a parade street of monumental buildings in the GDR era.

We were grateful for the buildings to get out of the rain – and fortuitously found ourselves in the Galleria where we got new brollies, down from 49 Euros to a bargain 5 Euros (the Germans do know how to have a decent sale!) so we got 2.

The brollies made it more comfortable to walk to the tourist office, where we sought refuge for the 15 mins of hard rain while collecting tourist maps and plotting our course.

Rostock was a perfect day trip stop as everything was within walking distance in a convenient circuit with no double-backing required. A quick review of the map and its accompanying legend determined that our day would be a university-church-market-hall-wall-gate-church-church-harbour-church-church tour. Somewhere in the middle there would also be a leisurely visit to the craft brewery.

The tour started with a single step. Literally. The University of Rostock’s main building was adjacent to the tourist office, so taking a step outside revealed the first sight on the map. The university was one of the oldest in the world, founded in 1419, and was in a beautiful terracotta Renaissance style building so we felt we’d already achieved something just by seeing it.

A walk down the main shopping street, Kropeliner, got us to the New Market (well, as new as new can be, being almost a thousand years old) and town hall (“Rathaus”, built in 1270). The square was surrounded with a facade of pastel gabled houses and was a bit like Warsaw’s square, but filled with fruit and vegetables stalls instead of cafés and restaurants.

We ticked off the gates and the city wall, built in 1350 and large sections of which were still preserved. We skipped most of the churches in favour of a walk along the harbour’s popular promenade, the end of which housed the microbrewery we’d been recommended.

Zum Alten Fritz was cosy and warm inside, with traditional German wood-intensive decor. The middle of the room was dominated by a huge wooden bar with all copper vats and pipes (presumably) delivering fresh beer to the stations piled high and wide with beer glasses of various sizes. Between the bar and the front bay windows that overlooked the (damp) beergarden were a handful of high tables, where we sat, and the rest of the space was restaurant tables and booths, with people eating enormous eisbeins and other great big pork dishes. The local brew, Stortebekker, was very satisfying so we settled in and enjoyed the view and the atmosphere.

The trip to Rostock would not have been complete without at least sampling the famous Rostock beer though so we went back into town to source some.

Ironically, the first venue with Rostock branding was right underneath the famous St Marien church, renowned for its astronomical clock (built in 1472)… and now for some pretty formidable free wifi! Fortunately the beer wasn’t as strong as the wifi, so we were soon able to mobilise to get back to the bus stop to catch our shuttle back to the ship.

The bus stop was manned by a different tour director, who had effortlessly lined the guests up in single file, had everyone waiting patiently for the next bus and managed an uneventful embarkation. It was almost disappointingly orderly after the kerfuffle in the morning!

Denmark, Europe

Travelogue Baltic 1: Copenhagen

COPENHAGEN

15 – 16 June 2016

The Baltic cruise had actually originally been our second choice for honeymoon destination (behind a Costa Rica and Panama combination), but trumped thanks to our – in retrospect very wise – decision to opt for the “one stop shopping” cruise option. The first half of the year had been very hectic, so having a single booking translate into the majority of an itinerary was an absolute blessing! (Not that all the busyness has prevented us from booking our next 3 getaways already, mind! 😀 )

Quite used to our usual double-barrel flight arrangements through Dubai, the journey was as painless as any, marred only slightly by my sinus infection’s insistence on using cabin pressure as a valid reason to flare up, leaving me gasping for breath, sniffing and sneezing. Fortunately we had a row to ourselves, so tissue plugs in the nostrils and full horizontal allowed me to sleep through the worst of it. A very glamorous and romantic start to the honeymoon indeed!

We arrived to a very moderate 20 degree Copenhagen. As per pilot’s update, a smattering of cumulonimbus threatening some light late afternoon showers in an otherwise perfectly pleasant day.

The airport was really tourist-friendly with English translations on all the signage and simple options on how to move from the airport to Copenhagen Central (or catch a train to Sweden, or a host of other presumably popular options).

We mastered the automated ticketing machine and were soon headed to Track 2, which we trusted was the correct one since we arrived to a platform of tourists all equally unsure of the same decision – and all audibly joyous (little more than 10 minutes later) as we all pulled into the Central Station, as planned.

We’d picked up a tourist map at the airport and the short train ride was more than enough time to navigate our path from Central Station to our hotel, which was only a few hundred metres and an almost straight line away.

Cabinn Inn is a very functional and conveniently located hotel in a city where the word “bargain” simply did not apply to accommodation. The rooms were tiny, with a small double bed taking up the majority of the floor space, a single bunk fitted above the head of the bed and the en-suite little more than a shower head above a toilet cubicle. The Rand:Krone might literally be more or less 2:1, but you’d get way more than double the value for this R1600 room (excluding breakfast, which is another R170 each for a continental selection) back home. Nevermind though, it was just a place to rest weary heads – and, no doubt, good practice for our cruise cabin.

Denmark is a Nordic country attached to Northern Europe by a bulb of landmass, with a collection of islands – called the Danish Archipelago – stretching into the Baltic Sea. Copenhagen is the capital, situated on the Eastern side of the largest island Sjaelland (Zealand) and spilling over to the Western side of neighbouring island Amager (which is where the airport is).

Denmark is joined to Sweden by a combination of tunnel and an 8km suspension bridge over the Oresund strait which houses both rail and motorway. I could imagine this modern convenience would have been quite handy back in the 10th century when the Vikings established their little fishing village and more so in the 15th century when Christian IV started working his magic to elevate Copenhagen’s standing – and in so doing, requisitioned many of the regal buildings which were among the numerous tourist attractions in the modern city.

Our plan for the arvie was to move immediately towards the main canal (running between Sjaelland and Amager) to walk the length of the waterfront until Christian Bridge and then veer inland to meander the main city centre en route back to the hotel, catching some dinner somewhere along the way.

Well, that didn’t happen.

Mostly because a) things are a lot closer together than they appear on the map and b) there are some supremely consequential things that maps don’t show, like bridge maintenance that rendered a route unplayable. A good combination of problems to have seeing as the former diluted the latter.

Our walk was very pleasant. And a lot less traumatic than me having to bicycle, like 9 out of 10 residents of Copenhagen do, apparently. The lay of the land was very flat so consequently there were hoards of bicycles everywhere. Fortunately for us, being the middle of the work day, we saw them in slots in parking lots. Could only imagine there must have been a proper cycling rush hour before and after work!

Barely a block and we were at Kalvebod Brygge. The waterfront consisted of wide wooden decks fringing the canal on our side and what looked to be restaurants and cafes dotted along a similar waterfront on the other side of the water. There were no railings separating deck from water and there were several people socialising, sprawled out on the wood, chatting on the steps and sunning themselves on deck chairs, like the canal was a beachfront (and like it was hotter than it actually was). All very orderly good clean fun, which was probably why there were none of the usual barrage of signs prohibiting this, that and the other.

We detoured from our waterfront walk when a pole of tourist signs caught our attention with a pocket of places of interest a block or two inland and, in so doing, wandered along Hans Christian Anderson Boulevard. With the Glyptoteket and Tivoli in front of us we realised we’d come full circle, so took a turn into Ny Kongensgade figuring the ‘kongen’ bit was something to do with king, royal etc. It did. And we caught the (outside of) a few museums, churches and the Christiansborg Palace a block or so in.

We learnt that a “lapidarium” was where stone sculptures and carvings were retired to; Copenhagen’s Lapidarium of Kings is found in Christian IV’s brewhouse. We also learnt that The Glyptoteket was an art museum, built around the personal collection of Carl Jacobsen, son of the founder of Carlsberg Breweries. Combining these bits of information with a sighting of a BK billboard announcing that beer was an option of drink in their meals meant we learnt a third thing – beer was a big part of Danish culture – and a fourth thing – we were going to like this place!

We extracted ourselves from the cultural part of the walk to cross the bridge to Christianshavn, a semicircular island pocketed in the close section of Amager.

The buildings along the water on this side were quite different to their historic counterparts on the side we’d just come from, with lots of metal, glass and shiny facades. With no particular agenda in mind, we wandered along Christianhavns Canal – a bit like Amsterdam, with all the brightly coloured boats moored on either side and the bars and cafés spilling onto the streets – thinking we’d reconnect with the Sjaelland side over the next bridge.

Our plan was thwarted however when the next bridge, which also seemed to be the last bridge, was under construction. A pity too because we’d spotted a hive of activity on the other side that we wanted to check out… but now that would mean walking back all the way we came and then retracing all those footsteps on the other side. Typical.

We did also see a couple of big cruise ships docked and assumed one of them to be our destination for the next day (excitement!), so logicked that we could do that end of the waterfront along with the citadel and Little Mermaid the next day when we moved over that side to board our cruise. Thus, we followed the next part of the plan and took Borsgade towards Stroeget (the main shopping street).

All the walking had activated our appetites, but it was awkwardly too late for lunch and too early for dinner so we reverted to Old Faithful from previous travels and hit the 7Eleven. This was our first real exposure to Copenhagen prices and we got quite a fright when a slice of pizza and a Carlsberg each was about R250!

It was good (pepperoni!) pizza though and the beer was cold, so it was hard to complain when we were able to sit on the steps at the base of a regal horseman statue, in the sunshine, with a view across a pretty canal at a collection of beautiful centuries-old buildings… when one could just as easily have had to be working in the winter back home. Not that (m)any seemed to be working here – there were swarms of people “beaching” canalside!

Stroget – at 1.1km, the longest pedestrian street in Europe – stretched from Radhuspladsen (City Hall Square) where we were all the way up to Kongens Nytorv Square (the back end of Tivoli), with a healthy collection of high-street shops, restaurants and bars. We combined our sight-seeing with hunting for a dinner place, for which we were hoping to do something traditionally Danish since we only had one evening in Copenhagen.

Also, it seemed like as good a time as any to tick the traditional Guinness off our list. R312 for 2 pints of Guinness at The Dubliner officially put Copenhagen in first place on our Guinness Index!!

We had happened upon a tourist publication while in The Dubliner that suggested Vesterbro (the suburb on the far side of Tivoli) as a good destination for casual dining, which made for as good as any a next mission.

We walked a fair way down the Istedgade and didn’t see anything by way of traditional food – although by their sheer numbers, you’d think schwarmas, burgers and Italian food were local specialities! – so sought refuge in an grungy alternative bar called Simpelt V instead.

Hard to say how long we were there since it was as light as day when we left as when we arrived – our first taste of white nights on travel-fatigue day (compounded by my watery-eyed sinus haze) was very confusing!

It had also confused our bellies so, determined not to have the Tuborg and Carlsberg be our welcome dinner, we got a bacon and cheese hotdog at the 7Eleven. The Danes were as passionate about hotdogs as the Icelandics, so it was a legit bit of on-the-go dining, mastered by the 1-man-band who was working the tills, toasting our rolls and even catching a shoplifter simultaneously – easily a 3 or 4 person shift back home (and the shoplifter would have gotten away, for sure).

Flaking while it was still light felt very defeatist, especially on our first night.

… but a long night’s sleep (plus a Med Lemon, an Allergex and a generous slathering of Vicks) did me the world of good and I woke in a far better state.

THURSDAY

Pity the weather wasn’t as complicit. We woke to grey skies and it was already drizzling as we hit the streets in search of breakfast.

It was coming down a fair bit by the time we got to the top end of Stroget so we sought solace in, you guessed it, 7Eleven. It didn’t disappoint and we procured delicious fresh Danish pastries (in both sense of the word) with melt-in-your-mouth pastry, light creamy custard and rich smooth glacé icing.

With renewed vigour, Chris then very cleverly sourced us a cheapo brolly, which made our walk in the rain that much more manageable.

Beyond wanting to tick the few sightseeing boxes we’d missed the day before, our new mission was a (warm, dry) place that served smorrebrod, the Danish traditional open-faced sandwiches.

We struggled on the main shopping street since most places only serve from 11 or 11h30. We should have guessed as much from the day before where there was much advertising (and reviews in the travel guides) for brunch and lunch, which seemed to be the focal meal for the day.

We eventually came right with nondescript Restaurant and Cafe Nytorv (which I later found out is actually a bit of a heritage site, being 150 years old and one of the oldest inns in Copenhagen), where a humourless hostess looked very unimpressed that we wanted to order off the lunch menu a full half hour before time! She did begrudgingly concede – although it took so long for the food to come we thought she might be holding out until the legit serving time!

When it was served, we could see why it had taken a bit of time. Each plate was a beautifully constructed pile of things atop a dark crusty bread base. This was no simple “grilled cheese sarmie”!

Unwilling to try the adventurous traditional herring smorrebrod, we’d opted for one meat and one seafood to sample a variety. The meat one was a thick wedge of warm liver paté with sautéed mushrooms and crispy bacon; the seafood was (cold) shrimps with sliced boiled egg, caviar and lemon. Both were very tasty… but certainly not the portions one would expect Vikings commanded (especially not at R160 apiece!)

The rain had stopped, so it was a good time to get back to the hotel and make our way to the cruise ship.

It was very easy to do since the front desk called a taxi for us and we paid with credit card so didn’t have to worry about running out of or having too much currency (which was a double relief since we hadn’t drawn any cash since Copenhagen was so card-friendly).

The harbour was further on the other side than we’d thought so we didn’t get a chance to see those last few sights… but it didn’t matter because we were so excited to be at our big ship, Serenade of the Seas.

Checking in was easy enough and soon we were footloose and baggage-free, etc exploring this sea hotel that was to be home for the next 10 days.

The ship had everything we expected and more – multiple pools, multiple restaurants, countless bars, indoor and outdoor cinema, video game arcade, casino, HUGE gym, running track, basketball court, climbing wall… etc. We also ended up accidentally having (second) lunch when we wandered through the Windjammer Cafe and the curry looked and smelled too good to pass up!

By then our room was ready so we made our way to 3554 and were delighted to find that we’d been upgraded to an outer cabin, which had a porthole and lounge area – and was easily 3 times the size of our Copenhagen hotel room! Being on such a low floor, it felt from the view of the liquid horizon like we were just above the waterline. Very lush indeed!

On a less delightful note, my suitcase had already been portered to the room but, sadly, the trolley handle was broken. This compounded what can only be described as a fail for my poor luggage this trip since my personalised belly band had gone AWOL on the international flight, I’d accidentally left the pullover protective sheath cover at Cabinn Inn, Christian had lost the keys to my lock (very unlike him) and now the handle. So much for bad things happening in threes!

Guest Services were quite calm about it, gave me a form, logged the case (no pun intended) and said housekeeping would pop by to take the suitcase to the carpenter for fixing (not entirely sure what a carpenter can do for a plastic handle, but was ever hopeful and preparing to be awed).

They also dispatched a fella with a big pair of bolt cutters to clip off the offending keyless lock, so I could unpack my suitcase into the spacious wardrobe before my suitcase went off to be repaired.

With all that excitement behind us, there was little else to do but leisure in our “stateroom” and Christian utilised our lounge room and the Danish cable feed on our flat-screen telly to watch the Euro Champs England/Wales game. I’m sure most of our neighbours appreciated (I know all of our neighbours must have heard) the high-volume jubilation when “our” team won.

We joined the welcome party on main deck at 5, which was (at best) very average. We had a beer to be social and cringed at the $$ pricing and mandatory 18% gratuity on everything. Fortunately though, all meals were included in the cruise cost so it numbed the pain a bit – especially when dinner was a multi-course feast at the a la carte restaurant, as we’d chosen to do. (Nevermind the cheeky quesadilla we’d munched in the Park Cafe in the Solarium en route to dinner! It was impossible to go more than a few hundred metres on the ship without eating *something*!)

After dinner we caught a show in the Tropical Theatre. It was a frothy variety show featuring all the artists doing full shows during the duration of the cruise. Great idea to help (us) decide what to hit and what to miss.

The cruise director gave us the stats on the nationalities on the guestlist. Over a thousand Americans in the overwhelming lead, with British in second, Canadians in third and a handful of Spanish-speaking countries peppering most of the remaining Top 10 slots. No mention of Saffas; guess we had the sorry state of the Rand to thank for that!

Europe, Travelogue, United Kingdom

Travelogue Newcastle 2

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE 2

08-11 October 2015

Our walk to the bus station in Reykjavic at 5.30am (!) was easier than both our arrival walk and our expectation. Apparently bloody cold doesn’t feel any bloody colder bloody early! As if by way of an approving farewell after our awesome adventure, the Northern Lights blinked green flashes on the few clear patches of the otherwise cloudy sky, by way of farewell.

We made good time and immediately boarded the bus (with 15 minutes to spare) to nap on the 40 minute commute to the airport which, as usual, was a waiting game with little but foraging for breakfast to keep us entertained until departure.

It makes good sense to be knackered for an Easyjet flight though. The seats are wide and comfortable enough but with no reclining and no entertainment, it’s best to be tired enough to sleep away the journey. Fortunately, my niggling cold and antihistamines from the airport rendered me unconscious, so I’m sure it was a lovely enough flight for those that were “there” to enjoy it.

Manchester Airport is another thing entirely. The car hire is at an off-site ‘village’ so we were guided to a shuttle bus stop that would lead us to the chariot that would get us back home to The Toon. It took forever to come…

And then – horror of horrors! – I found out that Alex had booked with Europcar… which anyone who lived through our Spain Great Car Hire Saga of 2013 would know was questionable territory for us. But, when we made Christian co-driver on the rental agreement our agent, Yakov, said he was already loaded on the system and upgraded us to a large Skoda stationwagon “for all our luggage”, which totalled 2 small carry-on cases and 2 togbags. Still, it was very roomy and comfortable so small mercies from the karmic wheel turning.

The English countryside is prettier than its given credit for and we all wondered why we never road trip the journey rather than mapping the destination.

We made it back to Tynemouth in one piece, largely thanks to Alex’s tireless driving and navigating (with a small special mention to the Burger King at the truckstop), in time to refresh and jump on the Metro to Newcastle Central for our concert.

The concert venue, the O2 Newcastle, has the feel of a converted theatre in size and layout, but must’ve been a concert hall for a fair amount of time based on the lived-in wooden flooring and the smell of stale beer.

The tickets had advertised starting time as 7pm – which seemed fitting with Bad Manners‘ frontman (Buster Bloodvessel) well into his sixties – so we were relieved on arrival to see it was still a supporting act on stage. There was, in fact, still another supporting act to follow – a tribute band called The Extra Specials, who specialise in covering The Specials’ songs – and soon the fatter aging fans were huffing and puffing from their pogo’ing and carrying on.

Most of the audience had made efforts to dress the part for the evening and there were more Oxblood Doc Martens in one place than I can remember ever seeing, even in our heyday. Braces, brogues, monochromatic outfits – the uniform for the non-conformist!

Bad Manners gave an excellent (and lengthy) performance and the crowd gave an equally enthusiastic response, with some of the older fellas taking survival breaks along the way.

We shouldn’t point fingers too much though since after the concert, early hours of Christian’s birthday ‘n all, our after-party of choice was not to party all night in Newcastle, but to go home and midnight snack on toasted cheese sarmies!

FRIDAY

The weekend’s arrangements in general were much looser since we’d done all our sightseeing the previous weekend. We’d already made plans to meet Natalia and Uncle Bill at Lui’s for a coffee at 11 and Lucy, Mick and the kids at the new fish shack on King Edward Bay for lunch, so had the luxury of a lie-in and breakfast of choice for Christian’s birthday, bacon sandwiches. Alex and Robbie had been nice enough to sneak out and drop off the car (in Newcastle Central) so met up with us at Lui’s.

It’s always nice to meet in person people who you’ve heard so much about or sort-of know from Facebook. Feels like you’ve got so much catching up to do with people you’ve never even met before!

Our coffee date went all too quickly so we convinced Natalia to come to lunch with us. Uncle Bill was having none of that (“in my day fish ‘n chips were for poor people!”) but was easily talked into a lunch date for noon the following day for a carvery at The Gibraltar Rock, so there was no need for long goodbyes and we all had something to look forward to.

That said, we were off to lunch. The Riley’s Fish Shack was quite a surprise – far off the usual greasy chippie, the choices were mackerel, red mullet or monkfish all served in a paper basket lined with a wood-fired oven bread akin to a naan, with the fish and 3 scoops of 3 different salads nestled around the edges and an artistic swirl of 2 different sauces to top it off. Everything was fresh and crunchy and between the naan-like bread, the sambal-like salad and the curry-like sauce swirl, Christian was pleased as punch with his birthday lunch!

We’d been very lucky with the weather (enough so that there had been half-naked swimmers at the fish shack! Not that it was anywhere near warm enough to warrant that, mind!) so decided to make the most of the clear day and enjoy a beer at a pavement table in the sunshine on Front Street. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea and the only available table was at the Working Man’s Club, which was good enough for us.

As soon as the sun started setting behind the church it started to get chilly, which was perfect impetus to get us moving to get home and into warmer evening gear for the trip to Newcastle for the New Zealand vs Tonga game.

It was the last game of the day so, at a19h45, allowed us opportunity for a civilised dinner in Tynemouth, rather than competing with the crowds in town.

The pie, mash and gravy at the Turks Head was so good it felt like it was MY birthday! The menu format is very simple and effective, guiding you through choice of pie flavour (chicken & mushroom, steak & ale, venison or potato & leek), choice of mash variant (plain, cheesy, horseradish or mustard), choice of side (peas, mint peas, mushy peas or beans) and then sauce (gravy or red wine sauce) so you get the exact combination you want. And for a fiver it was a quality bargain meal! It was so filling that we were all a bit sluggish on the journey and the boys didn’t even have a drink in the first half of the game!

There had only been 2 rugby tickets for this game so Alex and I had a wander around the town and the fan park then cut through the China Town to get to Harry’s, where we’d planned to meet the boys later. Even with our walking, we were still a bit full so nursed a drink while we people-watched.

The boys joined us soon after and showed us a video of the stand-off between the Kiwi’s Haka and the Tongan equivalent. The stadium was pin-drop silent during the performance but roared in appreciation when the players were done. I zoned out on the rest of the feedback from the game since NZ always win, don’t they?

We caught a cab back to Front Street, where it looked like things were winding down… but we still managed to get in last rounds with Mick at a spot we hadn’t yet tried, called Lola’s.

SATURDAY

Our last day allowed us a very leisurely start, only needing to be at the carvery for noon. Of course, this also meant we were *ravenous* when we got there and dished up *way* too much food… and finished *all* of it. Three roasts, four veg, two (types of) potatoes, Yorkshire pud; all swimming in gravy and all gone very quickly!

The Cain contingent across the table (Uncle Bill, Natalia and Aunty Mary) had dished more conservatively, but seemed to enjoy their meal just as much so we can conclude that it’s a winner even when the meal isn’t as much of an emergency life/death situation. (And a bargain at 2 people for 10 Pounds!)

Even with the frenzied feeding upfront, we still enjoyed a leisurely lunch date and a lengthy chat. We bid farewell to Uncle Bill and Aunty Mary from there, but Natalie caught the Metro into Newcastle with us because she had a shopping date planned with her friend, James. She also tipped us to visit the Grainger Street Market if time allowed after the game.

We made it to the stadium in the nick of time, hearing the Samoan anthem as we were walking in and getting to our seats just in time for the opening bars of “Flower of Scotland”. Our seats were near the front of the section behind and just to the right of the posts that saw all the action in both halves – the Samoan offensive in the first half and Scotland’s in the second. To my mind, we could not have asked to be better placed for a game that seemed to have more than the usual tryline action.

After the game we made our way back to Grey Street so the boys could watch the Australia game while we went to investigate the market. It was relatively late for the market so most of it was shut already, but there were still a few shops worth investigating.

Intent on (another) curry dinner, we made our way back from Newcastle to Tynemouth to have a sit-down at Gate of India. It had other ideas however and we were put off by the long queue for both in-dining and take-away so cut our losses and headed for home for sausage sandwiches instead.

SUNDAY

Our quiet night had us up and fresh early on Sunday for our final packing and cleaning before meeting Mick and Lucy at Lui’s for breakfast at 9, so that Alex and Robbie could be off for their 10h30 train back to London, Mick could get to work and Lucy and the girls could get Christian and I to the airport for 11.

Another brilliant holiday all wrapped up; thanks to all the people that made it possible and special! And thanks to Newcastle Upon Tyne; we will be back!

Europe, Iceland, Travelogue

Travelogue Iceland

ICELAND

04-07 October 2015

I’d wanted to go to Iceland since about the time I first encountered the Chappies fact “Did you know? Reykjavic is the world’s most northerly capital”. It sounded so far. So remote. So exotic. Very alluring.

I’m not sure I ever really seriously thought I’d get to Iceland though because it’s so far. So remote. Very expensive.

But opportunity presented itself when the Rugby World Cup 2015 placed us in Newcastle Upon Tyne in Northern England with games a week apart… leaving the week in between as the perfect chance to sandwich the bucketlist trip. And we do love a good sandwich, so it was an easy sell to Christian, and our trusty travelmates from London.

The hardest part was coordinating the planes, trains and automobiles (or, more literally, the taxi, plane and bus) to get us from Newcastle to Reykjavic quickly and economically. Fortunately, Alex can Google a travelplan like nobody’s business so with her masterplanning and my negotiating on Airbnb, we soon enough had the method and the destination sorted.

Opting for a private taxi to get us to Edinburgh was genius, door-to-door with no worries and no mucking about. The bus on the Iceland side was simple enough since the locals are very smart in coordinating shuttles to coincide with flight arrivals. Sounds obvious, but I’d bet OR Tambo International Airport would never come up with something so practical.

Iceland had a tiny population of approximately 330,000 people, most of whom live in the capital. This has always been the case, with the founding population burgeoning in the first 25 years (from establishment in 874) to about 10,000 people, and then rising to 30,000 by 930. Interestingly, Iceland’s tourism is growing so rapidly that they’re now seeing multiple times their population in people from all over the world (mostly in summer, I suspect).

Reykjavic was discovered in 874 AD by a Norseman emigrating from Norway at a time when high taxes were being imposed and land becoming scarce. He named it “Smokey Cove” because of the smokey haze created in the bay by geothermal steam. This natural warm water has longsince been piped into the cities and used for heating houses, but is so abundant that they have now even laid plastic tubing below the pavements in town and run natural heated water through it to defrost them in winter. Iceland is very proud to create all of its power from renewable energy sources, with 25% coming from thermal and 75% from hydro.

Our welcome to Reykjavic was bittersweet since it was drizzling and we had a very sketchy tourist map to get us to our quarters…. which we knew was supposed to be an easy walk from the BSI (central bus station). Alas, we took a wrong turn, took the long way around and were very grateful when we found our road and our wonderful house.

We’d managed another Airbnb win with this booking – a large Victorian looking home, with spacious unkempt front garden and welcoming driveway. Knocking at the (wrong) door revealed an old lady who was nice enough to let us in anyways, even though we were supposed to have gone around to the entrance at the back of the house. We were led along her hallway to a door that opened onto a landing. Her son was actually our host and he lived upstairs and our apartment was downstairs in the basement.

The whole house was warm and our flat had big rooms and soft lighting, so was very inviting after the long journey.

Nonetheless, we didn’t get to enjoy it for long as it was edging on 10pm and we were long past dinnertime, so we kitted up again and headed into the night to find somewhere to feed us.

Fortunately that turned out to be no more than a block away and we were soon settled in a bustling and lively kebab shop, devouring very tasty lamb schwarmas and washing them down with Viking beer.

It was a short and functional dinner because we had to get to the supermarket before it closed at 11pm. Our host, Sigurjon, had been nice enough to stock us a loaf of bread, a big block of cheese and some basic breakfast items like coffee, bread and milk, but we needed supplies for our planned tour the next day.

The shop was an education in itself. Everything is SO expensive in Iceland! Our picnic pack ended up being very modest – hotdog rolls (that come in packs of 5, oddly), some ham (to partner with Sigurjon’s cheese, which looked to be something in the lines of Emmenthal), a small pot of mayo and a dozen eggs – and it was over R220!

Still, not enough to lose sleep over. And our house proved to be very comfortable and warm, thanks to the thermal heating, and we slept the sleep of cocooned babies.

MONDAY: GOLDEN CIRCLE TOUR

Monday was an early start with our tour company collecting us from our house at 08h30.  Nonetheless, we were up early enough to boil some eggs and toast some bread to ensure we were heading into the Golden Circle on the best footing.

Our driver/guide was an excellent storyteller and kept us updated and entertained as we picked up the last passengers and headed out of town.

He gave us a crash-course in geology, explaining how tectonic plates float on the Earth’s mantle and how shifting plates lead to eruptions, which cause lava to flow onto the surface and create new crust. Iceland is positioned above very active plates with volcanic eruptions on average every 5 years. That said, there have been 3 eruptions in the last year illustrating that the island is actually – in cosmic universe time – still very much in formation phase.

Our first destination was Thingvellir (Parliament Planes) National Park rift valley lake, which is about 84 square kilometres in size (about the size of the island of Manhattan). Thingvellir lies on the junction of the plates which is more clearly visible here than anywhere else in the world because the two plates are constantly diverging, causing fissures and gullies throughout the zone.

We alighted at Logberg where we followed a walking trail that illustrated the areas claim to fame via a series of info boards. Apparently back in the day, when Iceland was little more than a series of fledgling settlements, this was the area where chieftains from all around the island met up annually to discuss things and stuff, deal with matters affecting everyone (in a seemingly very civilised democratic manner) and dole out justice on criminal enquiries. As per legacy of Viking violence and vengeance, the legal council would decide on crime and punishment but it was up to the aggrieved party to enforce – mostly beheading for men, drowning for women and hanging for thieves who were seen to be the lowest of the low, even behind those found guilty of incest and infanticide, which were both rife.

The location is breathtaking and the council meetings must have been something to look forward to, especially for the people representing the Northern parts with their long relentless dark and freezing winters.

The guide pointed out the spots where the TV show Game of Thrones was filmed, most recognisable being where Briana battled The Hound and where the Wildlings fought off the Cannibals. He told us other references of arthouse films that were shot there, but none rang any bells.

Back on the bus, we headed to Gullfoss (“Gold Falls”); a wild waterfall that falls a combined 31m between a 11m fall narrowed from a wide river with an abrupt 90 degree right turn and immediate secondary 20m fall. The water rages and torrents and it was obvious that all the signs warning not to cross weren’t being dramatic in the slightest.

Of course, one of the storyboards tell the legend of how a fella from the side of the river we were on was enamoured by a farmgirl on the other side of the river and thus braved the river to swim across to her. Comically, the story concludes with saying that they’re unsure of the girl’s response to the boy’s arrival… but they “had many well-respected children”. Sounds like they know exactly what the girl’s response was!

On our drive from the falls to the geysers, our driver pointed out that there are no reptiles or insects, no cockroaches, no ants, no rodents in Iceland, just an abundance of birds. *No Spiders* has to be big tourism (immigration even?) booster!

There are also no trees, per se. The biggest “trees” are no more than thigh high. This is because Iceland used to be mostly under the sea, back in the Ice Age where hundreds of metres of ice was so heavy that it weighed down Iceland, which essentially floats on magma, such that the lowlands were submerged (forming the sea bed) and the highlands would have been a collection of small islands.

The soil is consequently still rich with seaweed composites and minerals, making it very fertile… but not enough so to counterbalance the conditions above ground. Consequently, the majority of ground cover is mosses and grasses. And the Icelandic, with their offbeat sense of humour, enjoy the often-told joke: What do you do if you get lost in an Icelandic forest? Stand up!

The stop at the geysers was scheduled as 90 minutes so, despite having scoffed our cheese and ham sarmies, we opted to try the traditional kjotsupa (lamb soup) in the restaurant to kill some time. Over R1000 for 4 soups and 4 beers – eeek! Luckily the soup was really excellent – a broth full of flavour with chunky potatoes and veg and a generous portion of lamb – which took the sting out a bit.

Warmed from the inside by the soup, we were ready to watch the geyser. The main geyser, Stokkur, erupts every few minutes so we’d been advised to be poised finger-on-the-button to snap photos as the hot water gushed from the crater into a plume several metres in the air. We were lucky and got it first time!

We’d also been warned to stay on the path since the geysers obviously emanate from underground and there’s no guarantee how deep the crust is closer to the craters (but the paths have been reinforced). Apparently every year there’s *someone* who falls through the crust and gets scalded by the hot water below. We didn’t venture off the path but had to marvel at the fools that did, and at the curious who’d remove a glove to test the rivulets streaming away from the geysers… and then, everytime, flick their hands in disbelief when the water burned them.

On the way to the last stop, the driver made an unplanned diversion when he saw a paddock with horses. He stopped the bus and had us line up at the fence even though the horses were far away at the other side of the field. Sure enough they all came over to visit with us and the guide told us that Icelandic horses, while descended from Norwegian horses, have been bred to be quite unique, specifically in terms of size and sociability. The horses are distinctly middle-sized, are very friendly and have a lovely thick coats creating duskier colouring than other horses.

The impromptu horse experience stole the thunder of the last sight, a waterfall not particularly high but wide.

We were dropped off back at our house at around 5pm. We confirmed our return with our South African friend who had recently moved to Iceland on work contract, so that she could make her way over to our house.

We were smart enough to have acquired vodka at duty free (having been warned about the extortionate prices in Iceland) which we combined with orange cordial and genuine, fresh, icy-cold, straight-out-of-the-tap Icelandic water for not-so-fancy but will-do-nicely-thanks sundowners.

Jean-Leigh had only been in Reykjavic for 6 weeks but had much to tell about the life, logistics and must-see of the city. She also told us that her arrival brought the South African contingent living in Iceland to 94 people, which is way more that we’d have thought.

There was some conjecture about what to do for dinner since Icelandic specialities stretch beyond the food of bygone eras to include very accessible categories from the Western world, no doubt largely owing to the large American base in Reykjavik that was maintained from World War II until relatively recently. This in mind, we bowed to the highly recommended (by Jean-Leigh, the internet and the selection of travel guides we’d browsed along the way) Lebowski’s, named after the cult classic movie, “The Big Lebowsky” and famed for amazing burgers in a highly stylised setting.

The call was a good one and we all ordered different things and all the food looked amazing. Using this as the benchmark and making a pointed effort to observe burgers wherever we went, it was easy to see why Western food was becoming an Icelandic speciality – they just do it better than we do.

The burgers (standard 150g) are perfectly proportioned to generous amounts of topping, that include sweet streaky bacon, melt-in-your mouth cheese and bearnaise sauce popping up frequently and when you’d least expect it. We also later found out that all their meat is organic, still farmed the old way where animals are left to graze in the hills and the mountains all summer and then herded (with horses) at the end of the season.

Now based in the centre of Reykjavic’s happening bit, Laugevegur, it was easy to pub crawl around town since everything was one road up or a few doors down.

Coming home we realised that town was much smaller than we had thought and already the city grid was forming in our heads. It certainly helped that our lovely house was in the road that ran along the pond, but on the side closest to town – the perfect address for anything you want to do in Reykjavik!

TUESDAY: REYKJAVIC

Tuesday was a late start after our welcome to Reykjavic-by-night, because we had no formal tour arrangement and because our wanderings around the city had shown us that it was compact and easy to navigate so we wouldn’t need a full day to see what it was we wanted to see. It was great to have a sleep-in and lounge about in our cosy lair all morning.

Lunch became the motivator to venture out and we made it our mission to find a hotdog which, bizarrely, is something Iceland has become known for.

We tried a hotdog stand at the waterfront, encouraged by the queue of people surely meaning it must be good. And it was good, if not a bit plain. Soft roll, meaty vienna, crunchy diced shoestring onions. R40 for a “nice” hotdog the length of my wrist to fingertip.

We had to have a second hotdog from somewhere else to yardstick. We opted for one from the 24-7 supermarket since I’d seen the earlier and been drawn by the viennas wrapped in bacon. It didn’t feel very authentic… but we did it anyway… and it was great! Another delighful coup de gras presented itself in the condiments with a mayo-like “hotdog sauce” (that’s all the bottle said in English) and potato salad with bacon bits, as well as the usual onions (fried or raw), ketchup and mustard. Same price as the hotdog from the stand; we’d found a winner.

We took a walk to the Harpa events complex, a very noticeable modern glass building on the harbour. And, by contrast, the very modest Prime Minister’s office which, built in the 1700s, looks like a farmhouse and acted as a prison in the 1800s before it became the official government building in the 1900s.

From there it was very easy to find our way up Laugevegur, browsing and stopping in at a few shops of interest along the way, as we wound our way up the hill to the famous church that looks like a rocketship.

Quite pleased with our outing so far we took some time out in Reykjavic’s oldest café, Prikid, on our way back down the hill.

Amazed at how easy it was to navigate through Reykjavic now that we had our bearings, we made our way past the duckpond on our way home to pick up our things and go sample one of the outdoor thermal baths.

The boys decided not to go, but Alex and I braved the unknown and were soon neck deep in hot water.

We started with the smaller pools, which seated about 12 people in a circle, sort of like a jacuzzi, but deeper and still. We did the 3 warm pools, each rising a few degrees until we were in the hottest, being early to mid 40 degrees. We only managed a quick toe dunk in the cold pool that was signposted as 8-12 degrees!

Then we moved onto a bigger pool which had sections marked as warmer but you could wade from one area to another rather than having to get in and out like in the small ones. Our favourite was a shallow section where you could lie in the warm water with the nape of your next resting on the boundary wall.

We ended off with the steam room, which was so hot you couldn’t stand in one place for too long without burning the soles of your feet.

All this in the outdoor 6 degrees temperature while we were willing it to get dark so we could see if the Northern Lights would present themselves.

In keeping with our chill day, we took a wander into town to look for a traditional Icelandic meal. We ended up at Loki Cafe opposite the spaceship church with lamb soup with smoked lamb on flatbread, lamb paté on rye and tasting bits of Christian’s very experimental platter that had dry fish, fermented shark and trout on rye.

With another early tour in the morning, we were soon heading toward home and were lucky enough to be treated to a Northern Lights show in the clear nightsky right above us, then and there. Green ethereal and smoky stripes that made the skyline look eerie, like aliens had landed!

WEDNESDAY: SOUTH COAST AND WATERFALLS TOUR

It was coming down in sheets in Reykjavic on Wednesday morning, which must’ve been lousy for the driver but, combined with the steady motion of the bus and monotony of long-distance travel, made for a good naptime on the first bit of our tour – the hour-long drive To Get There.

The journey was punctuated by a refreshment/comfort stop and a few photo opps, including a waterfall that appeared to flow upwards since the wind was so strong against the mountain that the water didn’t get to complete its fall. Our guide told us that the name ‘Iceland’ is a bit of a misnomer because they island is far more windy than it is icy… but obviously Windyland didn’t offer the same allure.

The first main stop was at Myrdalsjokull in Katla Geopark, which is a glacier mounted atop a volcano. The glacier gains and loses ground depending on weather conditions, for example it melted by almost a kilometre between 1930 and 1969, then grew by almost half a kilometre until 1995 and has been ebbing ever since with the prognosis being that if global warning continues then the glacier may have as little as a century left before it’s gone completely.

Katla, the volcano, is part of a much larger (110km) volcanic system that erupts on average every 80 years and is overdue an eruption since its last episode was in 1918. It’s quite a thing too since the glacier sitting on the volcano compounds the effects of the eruption itself (lava, ash etc) with the gush of water from the melting ice, which can accumulate as much as 300,000 cubic metres of water in a few hours – not a lot of warning to evacuate the affected areas, especially when the thick toxic volcanic ash and fumes make visibility little more than arm’s length!

Fortunately today was not Katla’s day to make up for lost time eruption-wise and we enjoyed a short hike to the edge of the glacier and admired its enormous face… me from the cosy comfort of today’s “outfit” consisting of thermal vest, long sleeved shirt, jersey, hoodie, jacket, scarf, tights, jeans, ski socks and gloves. Basically, everything I’d been able to pack in the silly togbag that had been allowed on our Easyjet flight! Can’t complain though, when you bear in mind this is fishing territory and the fisherman have for centuries been pushing the boats out into the water, waist-deep in these icy seas.

As beautiful as the Black Beach, Reynisfjara, is to stop at, I draw the line at emerging hand from glove to take a few snappies; no chance of toe out of sock for a swim!

The scenery is very dramatic with the shiny black sand against a backdrop of volatile crashing sea with whiter-than-white foam in front of you, and behind you sky-high cliff face with jagged rocks and jutty sections from a lifetime of extreme conditions and every force majeure imaginable.

Just around the cove, we visited Vic (named after one of the many Icelandic words that cover English’s simplistic bay/fjord spectrum), which was made a settlement because the lay of the land allowed equally for farming and fishing. Rolling green mountain, black beach and (marginally) calmer sea, smattering of brightly coloured tin houses and a Little House On The Prairie church up the hill surveying it all. While we ate our packed lunch chicken sandwiches and surveyed it back.

The sun had come out and so, since we were at the seaside after all, I unzipped my jacket and took off my gloves. We took some snappies of seaside and rainbows and then were on our way again.

The last 2 stops were both waterfalls:
Skogarfoss (“forest falls”) and Seljalandsfoss. The first being a very high and majestic waterfall and the latter positioned in such a way that you can walk on a ledge behind it and see through the waterfall’s curtain.

The drive home to Reykjavic was an anticlimax, mostly spent deciding where to have dinner. We had the driver let us out at Laugevegur and walked to the Dubliner Irish Pub which had been perpetually closed on the several times we’d checked in on it. Success! It was open!

Traditional Guinness In A Strange Land down (and logged on our Guinness Index), we were released from the shackles of having to do anything conventional so we went to Chuck Norris diner and ate baskets of burger goodness, Reykjavic-style.

Europe, Travelogue, United Kingdom

Travelogue Newcastle 1

NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE 1

01-04 October 2015

Having sworn I’d never holiday in the UK again (because of the dreadful state of the Rand and a worldful of as-yet unexplored destinations), the last thing I’d imagined was breaking the pledge to attend a sporting event, of all things.

But Christian was very excited to have been (a bit too) successful (if you ask me) in the IRB lottery and had secured tickets to all 3 Rugby World Cup 2015 matches being played in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Since I’d never been to Newcastle, wanted to see his birthplace, would get to see his favourite cousin and had our trusty travelmates joining us from London, it all seemed like a swimming idea!

Better yet Christian’s aunt and uncle offered to house swap for us and (favourite) cousin Lucy volunteered to fetch us from the airport. So, since it was homeground and there was no “what to do” research to be done, there was little else to do but book flights and wait impatiently for what promised to be a cracking holiday.

The wait was well worth it and we were greeted with warm welcome – by the Newcombe ladies: Lucy and her daughters, Nell and Effie – and warm weather, which I’m told is a rarity.

The airport was close to town and it was a pretty scenic drive through the countryside and winding village roads, so it was more of an experience than the chore it is back home. We were soon at our holiday digs, a charming home in the very lovely Tyneside; parallel and one road in from the Whitley Bay beach and a short trot into the action on Front Street.

Keen to take advantage of the perfect blue-sky day, we were out the door a quick shower-and-change later, and headed on foot to see some of what our locale had to offer.

Tynemouth is beautiful and quaint, like a slice of history untouched by time. Some effort and dedication must have been put in to maintain the turn-of-the-last-century-and-before buildings and retain the elegant facade of the much-prettier architecture from a time where form surpassed function.

We took a turn down Front Street, which was a buzz of activity with patrons from generous helping of coffee shops, pubs and restaurants spilling outside to pavement tables, enjoying the sunshine. Lucy pointed out the highlights as we listened intently and mentally mealmapped feeding times for our short stay.

The end of Front Street brought us out at at The Priory, where we turned left and walked along the coastline to Longsands for a nibble at Crusoe’s on the beachfront – delicious steak pie and sausage roll (made with real pork sausage).

Little Nell had a lovely runaround in the sand but – lacking the necessary play paraphernalia since our excursion had been spontaneous and on foot – had to settle for the promise of a return visit the following day for a proper beach playtime in the “sandysandsand”, as she called it.

It was only a short walk back to the house, to my surprise still moving in the same direction as we’d come from; revealing we’d walked in a big loop and reinforcing my shocking sense of direction.

Wanting to make the most of our time together, we tagged along with the Newcombes to their house, where we had a leisurely mooch-about until Mick got home from work. Nell insisted on a “walk around the block”, so we went to the shops. Another lovely neighbourhood, we enjoyed the stroll around Whitley Lodge, appreciating how different everything was to home and feeling quite content with clean and open suburbanness of it all.

With the girls fed and off to bed, we called in for a curry and settled in at the diningroom table for a yummy dinner and quality time with quality company.

On Friday morning Lucy called in for us just after 9 and we took an amble to Front Street for breakfast at Lui’s.

And what a breakfast it was! Cumberland sausages, Lorne sausage, black pudding, white pudding, doorstop toast, eggs, beans, mushrooms, tomato… spoilt for choice! We vowed a return over the weekend with the London contingent.

… who were due to arrive imminently, so we made our way back to the house…

… with 20 minutes to spare.

The usual joyous reunion, our friends were as delighted as we had been to see how lush our accommodation was and just as eager to see what Tynemouth had to offer based on our enthusiastic reviews of what we’d seen and done so far.

We took then down the now-familiar route to Front Street, where they oooed and aaahed as we had about the prettiness of it all.

We started the walking tour with a stop-in at “The Land of Green Ginger“, an old very traditional-looking church that had suffered waning parishioners and thus had been converted into a shopping arcade in 1980, despite religious influences wanting the church to be demolished rather. It’s quite comical to see an old school church with a giant plastic ice-cream cone model at its door, beneath a banner pronouncing the church to be the home of an ice-cream parlour.

As you walk into the church, there’s a big brass plaque with a list of names of parishoners who volunteered to fight in the second Anglo-Boer War (the one that the British won), counting among them Christian’s great-grandfather, Peter Slater.

We then walked the length of Front Street – pinpointing establishments we intended to sample – and walked up to the Priory. We decided to forego the tour, opting rather to walk the length of the pier to the lighthouse at the end. The pier is quite a length and has a twin eminating from the opposite bank of the river, together guiding ships safely into the mouth of the Tyne.

From there our next stop was the Collingwood Statue – a monument to the Admiral who led the first British ship into the Battle of Trafalgar. The statue of Collingwood himself is set high atop a stone column, with wide stone steps below flanked by four of the actual canons from his ship, The Sovereign. The view from the monument’s park looks out to sea and was particularly spectacular with the sunny clear day contrasting the bright green grass with the backdrop of blue skies and seas.

From there it was a stone’s throw to our ultimate destination, Northshields Fish Quay, for lunch. A bit hot under the collar though, we stopped in for a Magners cider in The Quay Taphouse before making our way to have fresh and plentiful fish and chips at The Waterfront restaurant.

A bit overspent on time, we hightailed back, deftly navigating a shortcut through town, to Longsands to meet Lucy and the kids.

The beach was quite busy, with people clearly making a plan to come and enjoy the quite unseasonal summer’s day in Autumn. While warm and sunny, it certainly wasn’t swimming weather by home standards and we didn’t want for swimwear nor regret being in jeans.

On the beach Lucy had spotted people she knows and on our way out we all bumped into some people Christian had met when he’d been out a few years ago so. Combined with our confidence at navigating around the town, the welcome was as warm as the weather to feel like a local on our first full day of holiday!

We celebrated our good spirits with a stop in at Copperfields, a traditional pub located behind the – one would guess aptly named – Grand Hotel, and then were back on the road for a sunset walk along the waterfront.

Not really sure of where we were or where we were going, but knowing we couldn’t go far wrong as long as the sea was on our right, it took encountering a tourist sign to realise we’d walked from Longsands, through Cullercoats and almost missed Whitley Bay!

We turned inland and had a pint at the King George pub, momentarily homesick from other patrons who had their dogs with them. That said, none of our lot would behave well enough to socialise in this manner, so we’d miss them just as much even if we had brought them with us!

We decided our next stop would be the Avalon biker bar that Christian had visited and enjoyed on previous visits… but were disappointed when we found the venue and the bar had been closed down. The entire street was largely boarded up pubs and clubs though, so we surmised we’d stumbled into the graveyard of what had previously been the thumping heart of The Best Stag Do Destination of not so long ago.

Never known for dwelling on disappointment for too long, we went into Fitzgeralds instead – a large pub, oddly empty, especially bearing in mind there were 2 burly bouncers manning the entrance. That said, they spent the entire duration of our pint denying a girl access to the pub despite her heatedly and stubbornly negotiating at them.

Turning the corner and going into the Fire Station, we got a taste of what the Stag Do phenomenon was all about, thanks to a large and rowdy group of lads circling their victim – a poor chap in a fullbody penis costume – goading, issuing dares and plying shots and beers at a rate of knots (no doubt enabled by the crazy “buy in bulk” drinks specials).

We escaped to the pub next door, The Victoria, only to be exposed to more of the same. Literally. Penis Man and Friends had trailed in behind us.

Christian, in a well-timed display of voice-of-reason, bundled us into a taxi back to the far more civilised Front Street, where we ticked Cumberland Arms and The Priory off our list with quick nightcaps before walking home.

SATURDAY

Saturday was grey and overcast, but fortunately still dry. Christian and I were up early so we wandered up to the shops to source orange juice and such, and were rewarded for our efforts by a magnificent find: Heinz tinned pork sausages and beans! Which made an excellent pre-breakfast, in advance of the brilliant bacon butties that would ensue when the others rose.

Fed and feeling far better than we ought to, we headed out to see what Newcastle Upon Tyne had in store for us.

The Metro station hosted a market on weekends which, with a random mix of bric-a-brack new and old, looked like it warranted some time to be earmarked for a proper look the next weekend.

The Metro was quick and easy – but quite pricey at 3 Pounds some change for one way – and we were soon in Newcastle.

Right in front of us was the first sight of relevance – the Earl Grey Statue. We stopped to take a group photo and a kind passerby offered to take the pic for us so we could all be in it. Sadly, she was more enthusiasm than talent so, while she was painstaking about getting the 4 of us all into the pic, she cut off poor Earl Grey. Since she was so nice about being part of the whole moment, we were too polite to reset for the pic… and I was going to have to settle for including a Google pic into the photo album for the holiday!

Grey Street was a very elegant road of serious buildings, unfettered by modern glass skyrises, that leads down to the river at the Tyne Bridge (which Christian revealed is an exact replica of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, built for practice at exactly a third of the size).

Walking along the river took us to Millennium Bridge, where we were highly amused by a busker passionately singing (clearly a song penned with his own ink judging by his emotional and animated delivery) about how London is full of “aliens, paedophiles and Tory twats!”

We were still laughing when we got to the other side of the bridge… and were still humming his tune as we walked around the Baltic Art Gallery on the Gateshead side of the river.

All our walking necessitated a whistle wetting, so we popped into the Pitcher & Piano back on the Newcastle side of the bridge, near to our busker who unfortunately seemed to have run out of steam and apparently had no more eccentric episodes to share. No mind. His one hit wonder was unexpected and unforgettable.

Next I was treated to a first-but-no-chance-last experience at Gregg’s Bakery, a chain of pie shops. I had a baked bean, cheese and banger pie. What an epic combo!

Our return journey up Grey Street was quite different since everywhere was heaving with rugby supporters – lots confusingly in Bok jerseys and kilts – and the Samoa vs Japan game was being projected on a big screen at the base of the Earl Grey Statue.

We paused to enjoy this new atmosphere, taking in a pint at Harry’s and grabbing a pulled pork roll from one of the food stalls (who were coining it, churning out rolls at no less than 5 Pounds a pop).

The St James Park Stadium was conveniently located just up the road and we’d timed it perfectly, arriving minutes before the opening ceremonials.

The atmosphere was electric, with quite an even representation of South African and Scottish fans fuelling the friendly rivalry of warcries and chanting. Even I, not one for sport at the best of times, couldn’t help getting swept up in the moment and yelling at the field, mostly encouraging but with intermittent exasperation when the Boks hinted at lagging performance. Either way, we won the game with a convincing 34-16 and all of us but Robby were thrilled with the outcome.

The roads were carnage after the game so we quit while we were ahead and jumped into a cab back to Tynemouth.

… which was also heaving when we got back, thanks to (what felt like) the entire town’s contingent in the pub to watch the England vs Australia game.

We had a quick drink in Barca and then moved over to The Turk’s Head pub across the way because it was conveniently situated next to the Gate of India restaurant, where we planned to source dinner from.

Our thinking was solid and our order placed at halftime was ready just as the game concluded, meaning we could escape the air of disappointment in the pub following England’s loss (and consequent ejection from this World Cup) and retreat to our very lovely holiday house with (another) curry feast.

SUNDAY

Sunday was slated to be a late-start morning, with nothing to do except be ready for our cab, which was booked to collect us at 13h30 to drive us to Edinburgh to fly to Iceland.

We’d scheduled a brunch with Lucy at our now-favourite Lui’s and were well-rested and spring-stepped when we left home at 09h45 for the short walk to the breakfast heaven that awaited us.

It was just what the doctor ordered and we thoroughly enjoyed the blur of eggs and pork products that constituted what can only be described as a “generous” breakfast.

Bursting from our feasting, we volunteered to walk the long way home, up toward the local Sainsbury’s, overshooting past the soccer fields and emerging opposite the far end of our road and were still home with an hour to spare to pack, relax and have a laugh with some Friends reruns on telly before our cab driver arrived bang on time.

There’s something to be said for the comfort and convenience of door-to-door cab service… especially if you’ve got 4 people to share the 120 Pounds fixed fare. We were delivered to Edinburgh airport in perfect time with nothing to worry about except being excited for the next episode of our adventure.

Europe, France, Travelogue

Travelogue: Champagne

CHAMPAGNE

22-25 August 2015

The plan to visit Champagne was hatched when Lixi’s milestone birthday reared its very lovely head on the horizon. It was clear that a plan needed to be made; and the plan needed to be epic. There would have to be Bubbly. LOTS of Bubbly. So what better place to celebrate than the home of Bubbly itself?

After deftly overcoming the usual obstacles (leave, flights, budgets, itinerary) in a matter of days, the plan was made and we were set for Epernay. And stoked for another visit to our beloved France!

Our first validation that our decision had been a wise one was when we were upgraded to Business Class on the Dubai – Paris second half of the outbound leg of the journey. Having both achieved Silver status on Emirates, Christian and I had taken advantage of the free Business Lounge access to pass the time between flights. It makes the world of difference to the 3 hour stop-over to have an abundance of comfortable armchairs, extensive buffet and open bar at our disposal!

The lounge also has its own boarding gate, which is where we were told by the lady checking boarding cards that we’d be travelling on a brand new A380 and she’d taken the liberty of upgrading us. What a pleasure!

It was a tough job balancing enjoying all the extras that come with the premium service and getting some shut-eye. Just a couple of glasses of Champagne (to fit the theme of the trip, of course) and a few episodes on the big-screen telly, before transforming the seat into a flat bed for a perfect sleep… until a delicious Eggs Benedict breakfast with crispy light croissant, Bucks Fizz and an assortment of other accompaniments.

Our excitement at landing at Charles de Gaulle was dampened by an hour-long wait for our luggage. Clearly the downside to travelling on such an enormous aircraft. When we finally had our bags, there were still loads of people waiting for theirs and we thought that the (real) Business Class and Emirates Skywards Gold members (who had their own carousel) couldn’t have been very impressed having paid all that tom and then having to wait around forever to get their stuff.

While our wait at the carousel didn’t feel like time best spent, we still had just enough tome to catch the RER to Gare du Nord and connect with a Metro to get to Gare L’Est in time for our midday meeting.

It was, as always, awesome to meet up with our friends and, as usual, our communal holiday began with excited chattering about the journey, news from home and impressions on what lay ahead on our shared adventure.

The others had already bought train tickets for all of us, so all that remained was to make our way to the platform for our 12h36 train to Epernay.

We’d picked a perfect day to arrive and emerged from the station into a warm and clear day in the town that was to be our home base for the next 3 nights.

First stop was to pick up our rental car. Easily done since the agent office was conveniently located behind the town’s church – a landmark impossible to miss. Soon we were in our electric blue hatchback and headed off on the wrong side of the road (well, right side for France, but wrong side for us) to try and find our house.

A few wrong turns – which we wrote off as “sightseeing” – and we found our house. It had been another Airbnb booking and proved to be a gem.

The house was triple storey, with living area (lounge, dining room, kitchen and guest loo) on the ground floor, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom on the middle level and the main loft-style en suite bedroom and a big sewing room on the top floor. The coup de gras was a lovely back garden, where we enjoyed a celebratory bottle of chilled champagne to welcome our arrival.

Our host had left the bottle for us as a gift for Lixi’s birthday, indicating that it was from her father-in-law’s vineyard and that there were more bottles from his range in the fridge, should we so wish to purchase them. We rated this Goulard Brut a 5.5, but appreciated the gesture and could envisage ourselves dipping into the stocks should the need arise.

Tastebuds piqued, it was time to do some real tasting! Epernay is famous for Avenue de Champagne, so that made a logical first port of call on our mission. We trooped down our road, past the church and into town. We did a loop through the centre, round the traffic circle and into Avenue de Champagne, facing up the street, with its wide cream pavements and grand buildings lining either side, with regal black metal palisade fencing and gold lettering spelling out names famous and aloofedly unfamiliar, but all classy and French. The first door on the left was a Tourist Office, so we stopped in and got a map and advice on Epernay and the popular Route de Champagne (in anticipation of a roadtrip).

Map in hand and plans in the making, our first tasting was at a Champagne bar called Comme, which Lix had already pencilled in our preparatory research phase. It was a good call and we bullishly started our tasting with a bottle of Pinot Meunier (6.5) and Rosé de Saigner (4), beautifully paired with a pork and mushroom ribelette, portion of ham and a cheese board, served with a basket of toast and French loaf. Obviously.

The summer sun is deceptive so even though we only left Comme in the evening, it still felt like daytime… so we stopped for sundowners en route home, where we had a very lovely time people-watching (well, mostly people’s plates-watching) and soaking in the Frenchness of it all.

Exercising our own Frenchness, dinner supplies were sourced from the Carrefour and consisted of paté, chicken, ham, cheeses, breads, chianti and 1664 (beer). It was a divine night for a walk home and a lingering evening around the diningroom table.

SUNDAY

Christian and I were in the top floor loft room, so the early sunshine through the uncovered sky lights ensured we were awake and ready to make the most of Sunday morning. Feeling ambitious, we kitted up and took a jog around the town.

This proved to be a marvellous plan because we not only got a better lay of the land (which revealed that our house was super conveniently located), but also managed to catch the town market. While this was little more than a flower stall, a green grocer stall and a lady selling rotisserie chickens and roast potatoes (that very nearly had us doing Sunday roast for breakfast!), the market did lure us to what must – without any exaggeration – be the most heavenly store in the world! A deli that had so many delicious things that there are too many to even begin describing! We exercised enormous self-control and just nabbed a couple of crêpes stuffed with cheese, ham and bechamel sauce and considered ourselves blessed to have been exposed to such a sacred place.

Returning to the nest with our spoils, we regrouped and hatched the day’s plan: Catch a train to Reims, where some of the bigger houses are open on Sundays. This would be easy enough to do as the trains between Epernay and Reims are regular and (relatively) inexpensive (assuming you’re not travelling on the Rand).

We decided on the midday train, giving us enough time to go via Avenue de Champagne for a quick sneaky tasting en route to the station. We picked Collard Picard – for no reason other than it was the first gate that was open – and sampled their Brut (6.4) in a very civilised fashion at one of the table and chair set-ups neatly arranged in their perfect white pebble garden.

A good starter to the day’s main event; we nipped down to the station and were soon on the train to Reims.

The tourist office is right outside the station, so it was a simple task to review the big map to decide where we were going and to get a take-away map to get us there.

The destination of choice was Taittenger; the route set to take us past the other big attraction in town, the Cathedral.

Sadly, the weather had taken a turn and it had started to drizzle but, fortunately, it wasn’t cold and we were on a mission, so it didn’t dampen our spirits.

Luck was on our side and we arrived, by complete serendipity with not a stitch of pre-planning, with 5 minutes to go until the next tour, which started with a video presentation on the usual history of the estate and an introduction to Champagne and its terminology, preceding a guided cellar tour and concluding with a tasting.

We were taken 12m underground, where it is a chilly 12 degrees, and shown the vaults where the 4km of chalk-walled tunnels house 2 million bottles of arguably the world’s finest Champagne. These bottles are stored for years and turned by hand (alternating a quarter revolution one way and an eighth revolution the other way bi-weekly) to ensure the perfect fermentation and meticulous sediment extraction, so that anywhere from 7 years upward, perfect Champagne can be distributed all over the world.

The tour was also interesting since the tunnels themselves are so steeped in history, having housed clergymen escaping persecution hundreds of years ago and creating an entire underground village for locals during the World Wars. The chalk walls are soft enough that many people have carved messages and drawings and it was fascinating to see how these have transcended time, while the Champagne sits waiting to be ready.

Best part of the tour though was of course the tasting… and it was well worth the wait. Our group rated the Brut a solid 8.1 and the Vintage 2008 (meaning all the grapes from that bottle were from the 2008 harvest) a respectable 6.3.

We hadn’t eaten since the morning crêpes and it was by now well into the mid-afternoon, so lunch was most certainly the next order of the day.

We easily retraced our footsteps to the main avenue that led up from the station, that was lined with cafés and restaurants.

We sat at the first that appealed… only to be told that the kitchen was closed until dinnertime. It made the next best choice somewhat easier though, since there was only one place clearly open. Fortunately, it proved itself to be both quick and amazing, which were the exact two qualities we were looking for and soon I was happily munching on a 300g “French mincemeat”, which is sort of a flat meatball or a burger without the bun, and very good crispy pomme frîtes.

The boys managed to wolf their food down so as to pop into the English pub across the Avenue – lured in equal parts by the big screen football and an enormous neon Guinness sign – to gullet a stout before we had to get back to the station.

We got back to Epernay just after 5, leaving an hour to do some more tasting. De Castellane was an obvious choice since it was near the station and had a big imposing branded tower above the building that implied it must be something special. We sampled the Grand Cru, which only earned a very average 6.3 on our (now known to be tough) scale.

Up the hill and back onto Avenue de Champagne, we chose A. Bergère because it was still busy with patrons – usually a good sign. We tasted the Brut (5.2) and the Grand Cru (6.2), while reviewing all we’d seen and done on our afternoon in Reims.

Needing a palate cleanser, we stopped off in a brasserie en route home for a pint, enjoying the evening sunshine after the damp afternoon.

Dinner was then a very French affair with baguettes and paté and cheese and chianti… and 2 bottles of our host’s Goulard Brut (which earned a much higher rating on this second time round and seemed more fairly priced – at 15 Euros a bottle – after having a better idea on the going rates).

MONDAY

Monday morning was not sunny, but much brighter than the previous, no doubt thanks to the previous day’s exuberance. The plan was to roadtrip the region and find a nice chateau for lunch.

We hit the road and headed for Verzy… only to find a ghost town. NOTHING is open on a Monday! Not even the lighthouse… so we’ll never know why in the world they even need a lighthouse!

The drive was still nice (for everyone but Lix, who was tasked with winding around the narrow streets on the wrong side of the road) and it became clear that it would have been a mean feat to taste all the Champagne houses in Champagne in a lifetime, let alone our long weekend! The one little village had its own mini tour route laid out from the town square, with 31 houses in walking distance.

Our ultimate destination was Chalons en Champagne, where we knew we were bound to find something open. And we did.

A delightful bistro that had a perfect set menu offering duck paté, bavette (steak) with shallots and frîtes and a scrumptious crème caramel to finish off.

Returning to Epernay, we went straight to drop the car off so we could resume our mission: complete Avenue de Champagne.

The plan was to walk the full length and do Mercier at the top, but when we got there and found out that we had to do a tour in order to do a tasting, we passed. We’d had the tour the day before and figured there was unlikely to have been any major breakthroughs in Champagne-making overnight, especially since the region doesn’t seem to operate at all on a Monday.

So we went to Michel Gonet instead – a beautiful old house, which has apparently previously housed the British Embassy – and did a leisurely sampling of the Blanc de Blanc (7), Vintage (6.2), Chardonnay (5.2) and Rosé (5.3).

With little time to go before the 6pm closing, the last option available to us on the Avenue was, conveniently, 2 vineyards exhibiting their wares (for free) in the Tourist Office. There we were given background and samples of the Lorint Brut and Rosé (both 5) and the Alain Mercier Chardonnay (5) and Meunier (7.5). We liked the Meunier so much that we asked to buy a bottle. No such luck, the exhibitor loudly told us that he couldn’t sell from the Tourist Office… then whispered his address and told us to meet him in 20 minutes.

Fortunately there was a brasserie next door, so we waited out the time until our “deal” with a pint. We learned a little lesson about experimentation: for me having ordered a Panache (a shandy of sorts, more unusual than unpleasant) and for Robby who had what might very well be The Worst Beer In The World.

Chalking it up to experience, we headed back up the road to meet our Mercier man. True to form, he was waiting in the parking in front of his (gorgeous) boutique hotel, with the back of his van open and ready to effect our transaction. We bought four bottles to reward his efforts.

On our way home, we stopped at L’Univers pub outside the Church and enjoyed our last evening in the company of what is clearly Epernay’s version of Gathering of the Clans. The pub cleverly has a little Tabac in the entrance – a kiosk selling basic supplies – and we marvelled at the simple genius of the one-stop shopping (and how many of our “married with children” friends would offer to pop out for bread or milk to get a quick pint in).

We had planned our supplies perfectly and made a slap-up picnic dinner with the last of the bread, paté, chicken, cheese and garnishes we had leftover from previous meals. Enjoying our last night together at our trusty diningroom table.

TUESDAY

Tuesday was the big day. The day it was all about. Lixi’s birthday. We got up, dressed and packed and made our way downstairs to do presents and have a lingering Champagne (literally) breakfast. Lixi seemed pleased with her haul: a set of engraved Champagne glasses from us and a very lush spa day from Faye. How awesome that was as old friends – as in going way back, not being old ourselves,  obviously – get to spend such auspicious occasions together!

We’d opted to catch the earlier train to Paris so as to have less rush on the other side to get to the airport, so our evac from our wonderful holiday house was set for 10, to get us to the station by 10.30 and in to Paris just before 12.

We surfaced from L’Est onto the streets of Paris and made our way toward Gare du Nord, where Lix had earmarked Terminus Nord as our destination. A surreal restaurant with classic decor and antique pieces that looked like it had been frozen in time; like Hemingway or Picasso could have sat at our table in their day.

The service was exceptional and the food exquisite. Those that did, got the escargots they’d been after all holiday – served in the shell with a light parsleyed garlic butter – and we all had steaks of some persuasion for mains, with melt-in-mouth crunchy frîtes. Add a bottle of white and a bottle of red and the bill was gasp-worthy… but you only live once, right?

Europe, General, Poland, Travelogue

Travelogue Poland 3: Warsaw

WARSAW

11-12 June 2014

We’d done the right thing booking the first flight out from Katowice to Warsaw because, while it was a mission to get up early after the NIN concert festivities, it meant that – even with commute and transfers – we had a full day in the nation’s capital.

We caught a taxi from the airport for about R200 that dropped us almost at our lodgings, unable to drop us at our door as we’d booked to stay right on the Old Town Main Square (Stare Miasto Rynek), which was pedestrian-only for a few blocks around it.

Our apartment was a bit like the one we had in Zagreb; quaint, perfectly appointed, huge wooden bay windows, translucent curtains… but minus the unexpected old lady live-in landlord (and hopefully minus the church bells at dawn!). The building must’ve been super old, with its entrance a mere tunnel off the Square, the wide and winding staircase (we were on the 4th floor; no lift!) in the original bare wood, the front door thick, heavy and solid with the original brass key (and a collection of deadbolts that the door had obviously collected over the various periods of strife it’d lived through).

We were an hour early, so literally bumped into the caretaker and his wife (as they were coming up the stairs and me careening down the stairs to tell Christian the bad news, that there was nobody to let us in). They were more than happy to let us deposit our bags as long as we got out of their hair to make up the flat. Not that we needed any encouragement on that front; we were out the door in a flash!

As luck would have it, there was a Tourist Information office right beneath our apartment, so we grabbed a free map… and were almost immediately able to tick off number 10 (The Old Town Square), 11 (The Warsaw Mermaid Statue), 12 (The Historical Museum of Warsaw) and 13 (The Museum of Literature) of the Top 30 Things To See in Warsaw!

Founded in the 13th century as a prince’s headquarters and a fortified settlement, the Old Town is an exceptional place. Almost entirely destroyed during World War lI, it was restored so faithfully to the original that UNESCO still listed it as a World Heritage Site. The Square is a constant hub of activity, with cafés and restaurants on the fringe spilling out umbrella’ed decks and beer gardens, artists exhibiting sculptures and paintings, children playing in the fountain, and buskers creating a continuous melodious soundtrack making every moment a memory.

In the centre of the Square is the Warsaw Mermaid Statue, paying homage as the mermaid is Warsaw’s symbol and on its coat of arms. Legend has it that a mermaid swimming in from sea stopped to rest near the Old Town and liked it so much that she stayed. The local fishermen thought she was interfering with their hauls so intended to catch her, but fell in love with her instead when they heard her sing. Along came a baddy rich merchant and actually did capture her, so when a young fisherman mobilised his mates to free her, she took arms with sword and shield and vowed to protect the city and its people.

Our walking tour next took us one block down to an even bigger square, Plac Zamkowy, in front of the Royal Castle. This had been the headquarters of kings and authorities since the 16th century, was the place where the Constitution – the first in Europe and second in the world – was adopted, and is now a museum. It was almost completely destroyed in the war, but was rebuilt using the parts that survived.

Again the Square was there to be enjoyed and people were darting in and out of purposefully-placed sprinklers to soothe the searing heat. There was a lively atmosphere and the resonance of people enjoying themselves – in the restaurants as well as just hanging out, walking or cycling. Not entirely sure why so many people were free on a Wednesday afternoon, but that’s a different discussion entirely.

We walked past the Waza Column – erected in 1644 by King Wladyslav in honour of his father who’d moved the capital to Warsaw from Krakow – and down the road. While there weren’t any places of interest according to the tourist map, the road and its buildings are still surreal and breathtaking. Double lane wide pavements on either side of a double lane road, everything immaculately paved and cobbled, dotted with neat street lamps and flower boxes. Grandiose buildings on either side hosting all sorts of things, arbitrary and otherwise. And ice-cream shops. Lots and lots of ice-cream shops.

Every second person has a varigated chocolate and vanilla softserve cone, with the ice-cream spiralled gravity-defyingly taller than the depth of the cone below it. Ice-cream is a big business in Warsaw, it seems. Apparently it’s all year round too; obviously in the blazing summers, but also in winter where people bundle up so much that they get hot in all their thermals and buy ice-cream to regulate their body heat!

By now it was lunchtime and so stumbling across a Molly Malone’s was all the serendipity we needed to get a grazing happening. We still went local though, sharing a wicked but delicious chleb (lard with bacon bits served with slices of sourdough and rye to smear it on), a bigos (sour stew made from cabbage, sausage and mushrooms) and a plate of pierogi (mushroom and cabbage). Polish food is really tasty – and of course agrees with me since their main food groups being sausage, potato, cabbage and mushroom!

Lunch gave us quite a bit to work off! Luckily all the sites are walking distance, in a convenient loop and – like Krakow and Katowice – Warsaw is completely flat, making walking a pleasure.

We tackled the inland sights first, heading for the Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier where, fortuitously, we caught some sort of military parade with loads of soldiers dressed in different types of uniforms were marching with all the usual pomp and regalia.

On the road again, we headed through the Barbican and curtain walls into the New Town, which is not so new now having been around since the 14th century. Until the 18th century it was a completely separate town, with its own town admin, city hall and church. Its Rynek (Square) doesn’t hold a candle to Old Town though, being a fraction of the size and – besides living up to the by now quite passé breathtaking beauty of the buildings in general – quite unremarkable, with its only piece of interest being a cast iron well adorned with a virgin and a unicorn.

We’d long-since gotten church fatigue, which is a pity because, of course, all of them are magnificent. They stand out even among the rest of the picture-perfect city… but there are just too many to make any stand out as of consequence. We did however pop our heads into the St Francis Seraphic Church as it is famed for its original 17th century baroque interior escaping the fires ensuing from the War’s bombings. And we were walking past. And it was open. And it was free. And there was no queue.

That was the farthest point on our plan, so we changed direction toward the Vistula on a road that junctioned at a panoramic viewing deck. Sadly, Warsaw has opted to put a double lane freeway along the bank of the river, so it’s not as pretty or serene as Krakow’s. They do however have a Multimedia Fountain Park on the riverside, with literally hundreds of fountain nozzles ejecting water in sequence for a constant show, which apparently is accompanied with lights and music on Friday and Saturday nights. The fountains are all housed in pools the size of Durban’s paddling ponds, but swimming is not allowed, just dipping of feet, made comfortable by a thick flat lip around the pools for people to sit on.

We of course were on a mission, so no time to dillydally in the fountains! We had a few last things to see before sundowners at the oldest pub in Warsaw (not that there was any danger of the sun going down for hours yet, just that our body clocks are preprogrammed on SA time and you can’t mess with that!)

The most notable stop was a turn through Kanonia, a small triangular square behind the cathedral where the canons (priests) had been housed in the 17th century. Besides being charming in its crude rickety cobbledness, it also houses a large gunmetal bell, which was never hung. Apparently, going round it 3 times brings luck so, never one to turn back on a superstition (as Granny said, just in case), that’s what we did.

We also saw the narrowest house in Warsaw, which is only one window wide. This shrewd builder avoided taxes as back in the day land tax was based on the width of your facade, just like in Hanoi). Still, more scientific than our dear City of Joburg who seem to do property valuation using ouija boards and bingo balls!!

Sights done and dusted – and probably a good 10km of tread clocked – we crossed the river to the oldest pub, Pod Barnlka, for a Guinness. We thanked our lucky stars that we booked the apartment we did as we’d very nearly booked one on this Square (almost expressly for its reference to the oldest pub!). While still ok and still an easy walk into the Old Town – everything is after all walking distance from everything – it didn’t hold a candle to where we were based, right in the thick of things!

Having seen everywhere on our walking tour, we’d pinpointed New Town for our dinner so wound our way slowly back there, taking time to stop at some of the sights that had been busy earlier when there had been lots of tour groups (refreshingly seemingly mostly young Poles) out. The most notable was the Little Insurgent Monument – a statue of a little boy wearing a helmet way too big for him and carrying a big machine gun, commemorative of the contribution made by the heroic children who took part in the Warsaw Uprising. Scary that times were so awful that small children were actively fighting wars.

The day had provided lots of good fodder for dinnertime conversation at our chosen destination, Podwale Piwo Kompania, which we’d chosen for the setting, the atmosphere and – most importantly – gabolki on the menu… which turned out to be so delicious that we contemplated ordering a second round!

But we didn’t, and rather went for a second round of sundowners outside the Palace. Very confusing with the sun only setting so late and throwing everything out of sequence!

When we were finally en route back home we considered stopping for a finale at the beer garden outside our apartment, but were lured into the Shamrock underground (literally) pub. With a normal (but small) entrance on rhe road level you enter onto a landing and then veer down some steps, snaking to the tunnels below, where the pub itself is housed. They reckon some of the cellars date back to the 13th century and are naturally the best preserved because they’re underground so they avoided all the chaos of the wars and whatnot.

The tunnel we were in was semi-circular and only just high enough at it’s highest point for Christian to stand upright with a smidge to spare. Couches were built into the low part on the one side and a well-stocked bar ran the length of the other. Not a window in sight! Moving to the end of the bar we saw a few steps down, which opened into a full blown (big!) undeground tavern, with the only natural air or light coming from a small delivery chute at the far end.

What a wonderfully weird and wicked place to conclude our trip!