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, France, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 2: San Sebastian

SAN SEBASTIAN

9-12 September 2013

We picked up “Negrita”, our black Seat Ibiza, at the Europcar without complication – and I was worried with how casually the date change had been handled sans paperwork – and took the first motions into our road trip experience.

It wasn’t the easiest of asks, having Christian execute his first left hand drive experience in amidst the bustle of Estacio de Barcelona-Sants, with me having to navigate using a city map (why oh why didn’t we bring Lixi and her mad maps skills?!)… that didn’t show the one ways!! Fortunately though, more by dumb luck than design, the station was toward the edge of town so there wasn’t too much to endure to get onto the highway out of Barcelona. And soon we were on our way – the 573km from Barcelona to San Sebastian.

It was slow going at first, while Christian found his feet (on the wrong side of the car), but at least the open road offered fewer challenges while we got used to our new appointments.

There wasn’t much of interest in interior Catalunya – although I’m sure that there must be more to offer slightly off the beaten track since Lleida (about 2 hours inland from Barcelona) is a relatively successful wine district, that we’d intended an overnight in on some of our earlier draft itineraries.

Amazingly, the landscape changed dramatically as we left Catalunya and travelled through Aragon, which was sparsely populated and known for its mountains, castles and ancient stone villages. We’d contemplated a stop in its capital, Zaragoza, which Kate (our hostess in Barcelona) had told us feels like a town out of an old Western, but were keen to get to our destination so decided to keep moving.

Our last intended stop was Pamplona but, on reading up and realising it was only really famous for Running of The Bulls on 6 July, we again decided to skip it and keep on trucking.

What might’ve been a good overnighter, had we had more time on this trip, is La Rioja, where the best red wines in Spain are produced. It would be good to enjoy an afternoon of wine-tasting on the Basque side as an introduction to Basque Country… but clearly not with driving to do afterwards!

We had some difficulty entering San Sebastian as the Google Maps I’d downloaded was quite vague and the road and offramp numbering didn’t seem to correspond with the signage. (Oh, and I’d managed to accidentally throw the print outs away at the first truck stop… but got free wifi and redownloaded them at the second). Everything made infinitely more confusing by the reference to San Sebastian suffixed with “Donostia”, its Basque name. We took a wrong turn initially and ended in the thick of a suburb completely the wrong end of town, but managed to navigate back onto the highway and instinct our way into town correctly.

I’d booked us another apartment called Carmen’s Place through www.airbnb.co.uk since we had 3 nights in San Sebastian, so the logic was to have a bit more freedom to eg make a light breakfast or just a cup of coffee (not for me, clearly). This meant we were placed in the slightly more suburban part of town, across the dividing waterway from the central sights and main beaches. Of course, this turned out to be a matter of only a few blocks – with several bridge crossings – as commonly happens when maps make cities seem bigger or more complicated than they are in real life scale.

I’d selected our location (in Egia) largely based on the promise of it being the only neighbourhood in San Sebastian with free parking (costing up to €20 per night elsewhere!), both on our one-way downhill  road (Calle Virgen del Carmen) and the parallel one-way uphill road (Avenida de Ametzagana). It was clear, however, that this was not a well kept secret! I have never seen such expert parallel parking! The kind of level of expert that is only achieved through constant necessity! Cars that had wheedled their way into a bay with mere single digit centimetres of space front and back! Worse still was the number of cars with bumpers touching both sides! What if we got parked in?? Or someone bumped us and we were liable for the hefty €780 excess on our rental?? And why oh why had we let Europcar upgrade us for free, when we could have had the halfloaf Fiat 500 to park?!

Anyway, we couldn’t worry about all those things at once, so we decided on focusing on finding our building first, a parking (big enough for an amateur left-hand driver and reasonable parallel parker) second and the courage to leave the car there last.

Fortunately, the very blurry seemingly-not-to-scale map got us to the right apartment block, where Christian parked in the loading bay across the road to offload our bags and then set off to hunt down a parking while i sorted our check-in and induction.

There really wasn’t much to induct since our “apartment” was little more than a room. Obviously our landlord had converted a room of their apartment into a flatlet by adding a built-in kitchenette unit and a minute bathroom. But, it was lovely and modern and new, with clean and soft bedding on the 3/4 bed, so no complaints.

Christian took some time to find a parking, but in the meantime I managed to get some great advice on local sights and eating spots from residents on their way into the building. By this time it was well after 21h00 and, on the good advice of our new neighbours, we nipped straight out to a bodega called Beti Boga in the next road to grab a quick bite.

Tapas has now been replaced with pintxos (nibblybits), racions (bigger portions of nibblybits) and bocadillas (baguettes). The bocadillas were very good with generous amounts of meats and grilled cheese, with fresh garnish for crunch. All washed down with a cervesa, of course.

It had been a long day on top of a short night so we were finished and hunkered down (relatively) early, comparatively.

TUESDAY

It was disappointing to wake up to grey skies, especially since Tuesday was supposed to be our San Sebastian beach day. Christian had popped down to the shops to get supplies so he made us scrambled eggs on fried bread (genius, since we had no toaster) in our kitchen (which is also our bedroom), while I started plotting a walking tour at our desk (which was also our dining room, coffee table and bedside table).

We crossed the bridge and made our way into Centro, did a turn through the Parte Vieja (where the old and famous buildings are) and were heading for a stroll along the waterfront at Playa de la Concha when the heavens opened.

We sought solace in Garagar… the local Irish pub… and listened to not very  Basque international chart tunes while we sipped not very Irish Cokes and played cards.

Luckily the rain ebbed long enough for us to find the tourist office so we could source a local map to organise our walking tour further and another to prepare our day trip to Santander in France the following day… and get to McDonalds to do all that over a McBacon!

With renewed energy and ambition, we took on Mont Urgell, climbing the steep hill to get to the bastions, castle walls and enormous statue of Christ that overlook the city and, best of all, Isla de Santa Clara (700m into La Concha bay, that I fondly refer to as “My Island”). It was a hefty climb, but so so worth it.

San Sebastian was really easily navigable once you had a tourist map, so it was easy peasy to then wander over to Playa de Zarriola and back again for a promenade stroll and some very civilised sundowners at La Perla overlooking Playa de La Concha.

It was a great section for people-watching. It was a far more glamourous and sophisticated city than Barcelona, probably largely due to an older population. The hotpants jeans shorts from Barcelona are replaced with lots of beige and twin sets in San Sebastian. And all the old ladies have dogs – Yorkies, Maltese, Boston Terriers… – which has made me very houndsick for the Sausages!

And sausages make me think of food…

Which makes me hungry…

So we went in search of food…

Which is an odd affair here.

Restaurants and pubs had their pintxos displayed on the bar counter and you picked and chose what you want. Hot pintxos were either displayed in “raw” form on the counter or listed on boards. It was sub-optimal thinking for me. I disliked the idea that the baguette open sandwiches are left lying around to get stale and I couldn’t reconcile eating a mouthful at a time at €2 – €4 a pop! So… we only had Txakoli (local wine) and moved on.

… finding a rock bar called Minuto Y Medio.

A tiny little place at the edge of town that caught our attention with their heavy metal themed menu and endless complimentary crisps. If it hadn’t been for the Kantxa (a shooter cross between Jagermeister and Sambuca) we might still be there!

WEDNESDAY

We were relieved when Wednesday morning was cloudy but bright, concerned that another day of rain would ruin our planned daytrip to France.  We celebrated with homemade boiled egg and soldiers, innovatively served in carved-off sections of the egg carton and prepared for evac.

HONDARRIBIA
We entered the city quite blind since we didn’t have a detailed street map, but instinct told us to stick to the marina, which we did and it paid off with a brilliant parking bay perpendicular to the road, that we could drive forward into! Simple pleasures indeed!

We’d seen a Turistico sign when we entered town so headed off on foot in that general direction. The town was very patriotic, with lots of houses, shops and apartments displaying the green, red and white Basque flag and the Hondarribia red cross and crest on white flag. This might not be a year-round phenomenon though as we found out later that 8 September sees the commemoration of victory over the city’s worst siege in history (in 1638), still celebrated annually with the Alarde parade.

There remained an air of festivity,  especially as we approached the old city, where there were families being entertained with music and people dressed up in strange caricature costumes with quite dramatic overgrown head masks.

Although this area has been inhabited since the Paleolithic Age,it only started fortifying in the Middle Ages after being granted its town charter in 1203. It was during the Renaissance that the city took on the form still showing (in part) today – the robust walls, strongholds, drawbridges and moats – and was so sturdily built that it resisted nine major military blockades, with a well preserved grid of cobblestone streets, stately buildings, wrought iron balconies and finely carved eaves to show for it.

It was well worth the half hour or so trot around the old city and, having secured a free walking tour map from the tourist office on Arma Plaza, we easily navigated around the narrow cobbled streets – and the bitesize snippets of info on the map tell you what you’re looking at.

As luck would have it, the exit gate at the end of our tour was right near our car so, all in all, it was quite an effortless stop!

BIARRITZ
Christian masterfully negotiated a seemingly endless series of roundabouts to get us on the road to France. A €1,70 toll (bringing tolls from San Sebastian to France to a total of €4,30) saw us cross the border with 25km to go to Biarritz.

It was a beautiful town with big elegant buildings lining a spectacular seaside, with a warm blanket of shops cushioning the shore – enough that there was everything you’d need; not so much to intimidate the day-visitor.

Again we easily secured a tourist map (available at any of the many hotels) and saw that there aren’t many formal sights per (discounting the naval museum and aquarium), so we busied ourselves with a review of the esplanade and an enormous filled baguette lunch in the Port Vieux enclave. This tiny beach was a genuine natural swimming pool with high rock walls on 3 sides facing the open sea. Napoleon III opened baths here in 1858, but subsequent the bathing huts have been replaced by the stairs and a horseshoe of freestone for bathers and sunworshippers to enjoy.

We opted to take on the more ambitious sights to work off lunch, including the best vantage points at Belle Vue and then top of the lighthouse – all 248 steps to the top of it! Built in 1834 and standing 73 metres above sea level it offers exceptional views over the Basque coast the sea and the mountains, but is very windy. Worth the €2,50 entrance fees, but not for the faint of heart with the number of stairs and the stairwell quite dark at the bottom and snug at the top where the lighthouse narrows.

The other option for similar views is then to walk across the footbridge to Rocher de la Vierge, which is a big rock in the sea that Napoloeon III planned to use to anchor a port he planned to create. He apparently didn’t get that far, but at least built the bridge so there was access to this peninsula from which you can admire the vast ocean in front and the landscape behind.

We’d planned our time well and as our 3 hour parking (metred at €4) was up, we were done. A very pleasant roadtrip all in all.

Back in San Sebastian, we deposited the car in the same neighbourhood it had been parked the night before – at the top of the hill near a grand old cemetery. It was a beautiful sunny evening so we decided to redo the walking tour from the previous day, with more patience and for better photos.

We didn’t even need to follow the map and as we now seemed to know our way around San Sebastian, even being able to find our favourite pintxos spot in the heart of the muddle of crossroads in Parte Vieja!

Back at Astlana 1960, we had txakoli and Keler and made an attempt at pintxos, ordering bacalao croquettes and bacalao with onions (bacalao is cod, which I’d never had before). The place was as full as the previous night, but luckily we got a table (well, a keg barrel and barstools). We seemed to be the only people that lingered and in the time it took us to have 3 drinks and pinxtos – which we ordered one at a time with our drinks – the clientele had turned over several times.

With the food all laid out on the counter, the experience seemed unlike any restaurants we have at home – people walk in and join the queue that runs the width of the bar; when they get to the front they load up a side plate with cold tapas off the platters on the bar counter and order hot tapas and drinks from the barman; then they move away and stand (mostly) around little cocktail table peninsulas affixed to the walls (some inside, mostly on the outside walls in the street; barman delivers hot tapas; eat, drink, move on… and presumably repeat. It didn’t seem like a whole lot of food was eaten in a meal – and it was a very expensive way to eat (although there is no obvious price displayed so this didn’t seem to be an issue). It also seemed to follow the Spanish disregard for mealtimes and as many people were filtering in at 22h00 when we left as were there when we arrived two hours prior!

Europe, Spain, Travelogue

Travelogue Iberia 1: Barcelona

BARCELONA

5-9 September 2013

The trip started with a giggle  as an old dear struck up a conversation with us on the ramp to the plane as we had just cleared passport check at the boarding gate at ORT. She passed comment on how difficult it must be to travel with children, prompted by a man distracting his sobbing son by pointing at planes on the runway through the bay windows on the ramp. We nodded and mumbled vague but agreeable response.

When there was a second child further down the ramp *wailing*, the little old lady leaned in and told us proudly that her kids have never acted like that, not “to this day and they’re 59 and 54, mind.” She was quite conspiratorial when she shared the wisdom that in her day children were taught manners and “to be seen and not heard” and her kids were good as gold and always been complimented by people they’d visited. Just when we thought butter wouldn’t melt in the mouth of this sweet-as-sugar super-mom granny, she concluded the exchange with a “they need a bloody good klap, these little shits! And the shitty parents too!” You could have bowled me over with a feather!

The flights (from Joburg to Dubai for 8 hours and Dubai to Barcelona for 7) were easy, as they always are with Emirates – undoubtedly the best airline in the world at the moment. Their planes are all new, there’s more legroom, the entertainment is abundant and the food compares to real life meals. We had an excellent chicken fillet in creamy paprika sauce with baby potatoes on the first flight and shared a herby cajun chicken and a delicious creamy lamb curry on the second, with desserts like blueberry cheesecake and banana tart with apricot mousse. They do unnecessarily fussy concoctions of this and that, but still manage to please a limited-list eater like me.

Sadly, they do continental breakfasts, which really let down an otherwise flawless execution… especially when accidentally served the Arabic mese (olives, artichokes, hummus and tapanade) instead of the deli platter (ham and cheese with croissant and preserves), which still wasn’t very exciting… but much better!

Lixi and RoRo were at the gates and waiting when we landed at El Prat. They’d flown in from London Stansted and the hour delay on their side had worked in their favour as they’d ended up landing just before us.

We decided to grab a cab to take us to our digs rather than brave the public transport system with all our luggage. 30 Euros later we were deposited at our home for the weekend – “Kate’s Place” that we’d booked on www.airbnb.co.uk for a bargain price bearing in mind its view of the very famous Sagrada Familia. The special rate was offered so that Kate could vet her prospective tenants in their willingness and ability to look after her cat, Muffin. After some back and forthing – telling the story of who we are, why we’re coming to Barcelona and our views on flat life and pets – it was quite a sense of achievement to have passed the audition and been granted the reservation.

Kate is an extremely gracious host and had even been so kind as to provide a bottle of Cava (sparkling wine), ice cold beers, plate of jamon (Iberian cured ham), bowl of olives and bag of kettle-fried crisps for us to snack on while she inducted us to the flat, the cat and the sights of Barcelona, which she circled and highlighted on a city map she had for us. She really went above and beyond, spending well over an hour giving us advice, answering our questions and sharing her travel stories.

Armed with a plan and a map, we hit the streets of Barcelona. Kate chaperoned us to the corner, where we got to see Sagrada Familia up close, right there on our corner… with a Burger King and a KFC manning the opposites. Two major To Do items so close to home… oh yes, and that famous Gaudi churchy thing. 😉

Not often referred to by its full name, The Temple Expiatori de a Sagrada Familia is a massive privately-funded Roman Catholic church. Considered to be the master work of 19th century Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi, it is one of Barcelona’s top attractions with its interesting detail, Christian symbolism and 18 striking spindle towers.

There are 2 major roads that run inland vertical from the seafront – the beautiful Passeig de Sant Joan and the vibey Las Ramblas. Being about 16h00 – middle of the day Barcelona time – we opted for a leisurely stroll down Passeig Sant de Joan. It’s so easy to find and, being a gentle downhill, so easy to do that the daunting length of it on the map doesn’t translate in real life. It’s a really lovely avenue, enjoyed by many on foot, bicycles and rollerblades, and dotted with interesting monuments along the way.

The furthest inland is the Monument of Doctor Robert, which is open for children to climb and play on, which is far more laissez faire than most places where precious landmarks are kept arms’ length from appreciative eyes lest they be damaged or defaced. This open policy seems to have paid off as there appears to be a mutual respect from graffiti artists, who only tag on gates and grills and not on the beautiful brickwork. Very civilised indeed.

Next milestone down Passeig de Sant Joan was the Arc de Triomf, which was the same sort of archy thing as the one in Paris, but much smaller and it was pedestrians rather than cars that passed beneath it on the wide road, which wound all the way downhill to the Zoo at the t-junction at the bottom. In the Zoo Parc de Ciutadella was a huge statue of a mammoth (called, rather uncreatively, ‘Mammuth’), whose curled hanging trunk makes a perfect nest for a photograph. Around the corner from that was the Cascada Fountains, with their enormous wishing pool and winding escalier on either side leading up to the enormous arches with gaudy chariot and charging horses orange-gold statues on top. It was a bit much, to be frank, and would be easily and forgettably housed in the Lost City!

In desperate need of a rest from the long walk, Villa Olimpica glistened like an oasis! We grabbed a table sea-side at Vitaminus and settled in for a local cervesa and some of the tapas we’d been told needed most urgent attention – patatas bravas (fried potato wedges with spicy garlic cream) and  pa amb tomaquet (toasted bread rubbed with garlic and fresh tomato). Incredibly, the sun was still in full force even though it was well after 6pm and the beach was still full of people sunbathing and swimming. We left at about 20h00 and the sun was only really then starting to set properly.

Our plan from there was to wind our way back to the apartment through Born, which is known for being Bohemian and teeming with restaurants and bars. This was no understatement and we were spoilt for choice as we wound our way through charming roads, alleyways and placas, stopping for a cava here and bits and pieces of tapas there (most notably jamon and nachos in La Ribera). Of course, when we got home our road was still quite lively so we had to stop in and support the local shopkeepers.

We washed down the jamon, pimento padron and calamari rings with ice cold cervesas and soaked in the lively atmosphere, with people eating dinner around us, as normal, at 23h00. All the while our holiday cat Muffin surveyed us from his spot on the balcony overlooking the central placa. Sadly, I had a headache from the cava (and likely the long day on top of a long journey) so headed to bed, but Lix and RoRo did us proud for a little while longer.

FRIDAY | BARCELONETA

Day 2 began, as every day should, with a natural awakening and a gentle ease into the day with couch time and some laughs with good friends. High on the list of priorities was a breakfast forage (seeing as we technically hadn’t had dinner the night before… although we had had sooo much tapas). The day had been declared Beach Day, so the only requirement for breakfast spot was that it had to be en route to the sea. Super simple seeing as half of Barcelona seems to be restaurants and cafés!

We took a turn past Sagrada Familia (already having to decided we were not going to bother with the hours-long queues and hefty entry fee) and stopped at a pavement café to share a selection of bikini (toasties) and bocadilla (baguettes) at La Pedreta. The ice cold bottled choc milk stole the show though!

Kate had advised us that the smartest idea was to get a Metro T10 pass (10 trips for 10 Euros) seeing as there was a Metro station on our corner and the whole of the inner city is comprehensively covered by the network of lines. The ticket entitles access on busses and trains too. There were loads of other intricacies that add benefit – like each journey being open for 1 hour 15, so if you’re doing a quick to and fro, you can get it count as a single click – but really the economy and convenience were a strong enough proposition on their own.

We took the yellow line down to Barceloneta and started our walking tour (downloaded from the internet, what did we do before it?!) with a visit to the Barceloneta Mercat (market). Quite uninspiring inside with all the fresh fruit, veg and seafood you’d expect, but quite impressive outside with its rooftop bank of solar panels that provide 40% of its power requirements.

Barceloneta wasn’t given good recommendation anywhere – neither Internet nor personal references – so we were expecting cramped and dirty streets, smelly and noisy. This was actually what put us off staying in Barceloneta, when our original envision was a beachy weekend in Barcelona. It was not like that at all. It was charming, had broad pedestrian-only roads with trees and benches and was definitely a strong contender to house me on future visits.

The beach was also much better than it was painted to be, with a perfect stretch of powdery (if not a bit chalky) sand and lovely shoreline… which we admired from one of the cafés dotted along the beach. Prime table right on the sand, the view was perfect… well, except for the people.  This part of the beach – Playa de Sant Miguel seemed to be more touristy so the bodies were mostly white and dimpled, in stark contrast to the slim and trim orangey-brown Spanish ones. Heaven only knows how they all stayed in such good shape with all the tapas being perpetually consumed, but their brazen victory over modesty (and more jean shorts hot pants than can be believed) leaves no doubt whatsoever.

In need of tapas top-up, we took a break from our beach-watching to pop into a gorgeous old taverna called Can Ramoneta (a traditional restaurant serving freshly-caught fish and seasonal local produce from its 250 year old house location). We indulged in some jamon, pimentoes fritos and deep fried brie en route to the next beach, Playa de la Barceloneta, where we spent the rest of the afternoon frolicking and basking (under our 6 Euro beach brolly).

Then it was time to eat. Again. We had planned to eat an early dinner at La Fonda on Moll de Gregal, which was recommended by Kate as having decent food and a reasonably priced set menu, so much so that it’s frequented by as many locals as tourists. We got ourselves a table, ordered a jug of sangria, but were put off by our table neighbours, a couple of Cockney girls who were so unimpressed by their food that they were paying up and leaving despite only picking on their meals.

Sounded like they were ill-fated overall though since it was the one’s hen do and their third amigo had broken her collarbone, had stitches in her head and was covered in bruises from their misadventures the previous night. We counted ourselves lucky for the narrow escape (from poor food and these accident-magnets), bid them adieu and headed back to the Can Ramoneta to see if they had fideua (paella made with noodles instead of rice, which Catalunya is known for).

Sadly, the luck had rubbed off and Can Ramoneta was between meal settings so, while they could feed us, it would be amid waiters unlaying day settings and replacing them with night ones. Hardly optimal.

We decided instead to move in the direction of the famous Las Ramblas and seek supper along the way. We found instead an Irish pub called Paddy Lane. It was primely sited overlooking Passeig de Colom and Guinness and Cava were the order of the sundowners! We had such a good time, we even forgot to log on our Guinness Index! 🙁

Wanting to maintain some sense of decorum, I negotiated a pizza from the Italian restaurant next door to be delivered to our pavement table at Paddy’s and we were soon chomping down on mozzarella and pepperoni in not-so-traditional Catalan (or Irish) style.

It did the trick though and spirits were high as we entered the Barri Gotic, stumbling upon a wonderful rock bar called Rock and Rolla. Christian was thrilled when the (at first) taciturn barlady allowed him several requests for his favourite band to be played on the bar’s sound system. The barlady took a shine to us when we upped our 3 shot order of Leche de Pantera (Pantera milk, similar to the milk tarts we have at home, creamy and topped with cinnamon) to a full litre jug and settled in, clearly enjoying ourselves.

We didn’t have much left in us thereafter to fully explore Las Ramblas, but we did crawl the length of it and caught the tube home at Diagonal.

SATURDAY | PASSEIG DE GRACIA AND LAS RAMBLAS

Christian and I awoke, as always, starving. Since the others weren’t awake yet, we had a protein shake (in wildly romanticised “chocolate mousse dessert” flavour) to maintain good humour. Being Saturday there was, of course, rugby that needed watching and the prearrangement was to watch SA vs Australia ( being played in Brisbane, so televised at midday) at the Michael Collins Irish pub around the corner from the apartment.

Unable to do this on an empty stomach, we had to go past Burger King en route for a cheese burger and chips. Worth every penny of the R200 fortune we paid for 2 medium combo meals!

While the boys watched the rugby, Lixi and I missioned to
Europcar at Estacio de Barcelona -Sants to change my car booking. We were supposed to collect the car on Sunday, but at 20 Euros a day for parking, it didn’t make sense to collect the car a day before we really needed it! Having mastered the Metro system it was child’s play there and back – and more fun for me than rugby anyway!

Then we hit the Passeig de Gracia – a veritable shopping mecca and just all round pretty place to be. Wide roads with broad pedestrian island in the middle, tree-lined, lots of pavement cafés, just more of the same awesome we were getting used to seeing everywhere really! We did more atmosphere -soaking than shopping, but did pop into firm favourites like Mango and Zara.

Interspersed between the shops were some Gaudi gems. He was the architect fella who was responsible for really putting Barcelona on the map. It would seem that he initiated a one-man decorating wave and transformed the city with the buildings, trimmings, park and viaduct he imagined and realised. I say “realised” since those things he actually completed, unlike the Sagrada Familia which he designed and which is still being built today, with completion date unknown. He was a busy little bee in Barcelona, to be sure!

We oooed and aaaahed at La Pedrera, which added another tick to our UNESCO World Heritage Site list. Gaudi was very averse to straight lines and this building particularly has a wobbly quality from the wavy balconies that frame the outside of the building. He designed it this way because he wanted everyone in the building to get to know each other, so the exterior construction is such that residents can easily interact and communicate with each other. Obviously things were a little different in 1912 when the building was completed.

We got down the Passeig and stopped for a wettie in the “heart of Barcelona”, Placa de Catalunya, when we got more wettie than we bargained for with the heavens opening. And when it rained, it poured! What a pity we’d chosen a poor spot, with overpriced uninspiring looking food… so we chanced it and finished our drinks when the rain seemed to ebb and dashed out into the road in the direction of Las Ramblas.

It was really only spitting so not terrible to get down the street to our next pit stop… yet another Irish pub! Called Cheers, the pub had the usual Irish charm decor and obligatory Guinness paraphernalia, but the music was so dire that we decided to rather brave the rain than suffer the earbashing. So we made a mad dash past the Colom (which, even as a famous landmark, wasn’t worth stopping in the rain for a photo) and across the bridge to the shopping centre “island” in Port Vell called Rambla de Mar,to seek asylum in a lovely tapas bar (no surprises there) overlooking the old port sipping on cava and nibbling on croquettes.

Dinner had been predecided to be at El Chipirito downstairs in the same centre since it had been recommended to RoRo, so we proceeded forthwith and delighted on a seafood banquet, watching an enormous cruise ship parallel park in the port, which is indeed a sight to be beholden!

Luckily the rain had cleared (we’d been told it would, Barcelona not being one to dwell on inclement weather) so we headed back up to Las Ramblas to find the Fairy Bar, which Kate had told us about. Bosc de les Fades was a bar in the city’s wax museum, that had been decorated within an inch of its life in the theme of a fairy grotto. It was dark inside, with walls that are made to feel like those of a cave, trees with hanging branches and leaves, a pond with a little bridge and little twinkling lights everywhere giving a magical glow to the place. Really nice spot – and cheaper than the other pubs we’d been to, which defies logic.

We wound down the day with a walk up Las Ramblas, stopping only to forage for croquettes (definitely overtaking jamon as our tapas du jour) at Burger King of all places. Divine! They tasted like mini toasted bacon and cheese sandwiches!

SUNDAY | ARC GUELL

Sunday began promisingly, with a delicious homemade breakfast courtesy of LoRo (name revised post revelation that he is in fact landed gentry with official title, Lord Robert Birkmyre Ross III) and we managed to avoid any vodka making its way into the OJ, as had been our downfall at breakfast in Venice 2010.

The day’s main attraction was to be a visit to Parc Guell, which is a garden complex designed by (none other than, you guessed it) Gaudi. Located in our home district, Gracia, the only mission to get there was the trek up El Carmen hill, although the built-in public escalators helped enormously. It was worth it though and highly recommendable as a “must do” in Barcelona.

The focal point of the park was the main terrace, surrounded by a long bench in the form of a sea serpent. The curves of the serpent bench formed a number of enclaves, creating a social atmosphere (which appears to be one of Gaudi’s big drivers). There were lots of good photo opps, including Gaudi’s house (now a museum), the lizard fountain, the mosaiced column hall that supports the terrace, the viaduct and of course the panoramic views of Barcelona and its bay from the large cross monument at the park’s highpoint.

Having only ever heard of Gaudi in passing (and even being artistically challenged, as I am), it was hard not to admire the chap and all that he did. There was not a conventional bone in his body and his ideas were of epic scale, translated ingeniously.

All this trekking and gawking wore off breakfast pretty quickly and a lunch on Passeig de Sant Joan was the next order of business.

Christian and I each ordered a grill platter of sausages and steak, which seemed like a bargain at less than the steak sandwich and including a beer and bread! But, as with most things that seem too good to be true, it was too good to be true and the steak was a translation error and wasn’t supposed to be included. The waiter/chef/barman/cleaner that was serving us was quite flustered, but did bring us a steak anyway, which made for a lovely – if not slightly unconventional – rare beef dessert.

Fed and watered, we were ready for the next round of adventure. Lix and LoRo were off to the Picasso Museum and we were going to take another turn past the Zoo, Cascades and Mammoth. The plan was to meet back at what we called The Antonio Banderas Monument, which is actually a monument to the martyrs of the 1714 revolution that happens to have the word Benderes inscribed on the main message. No matter, we knew what we meant.

Born is a gorgeous part of the city and Christian and I were quite happy to sit on the church steps at Placa de Santa Maria and people-watch to pass the time until our meetback. Being an apartment lifestyle, there are always loads of people out, eating, drinking, socialising and walking dogs. Lots to see and do. Their clocks are obviously very different too since there are kids out playing in the placas until all hours – close to midnight from what we saw while we were out.

We met at a very cool bar/restaurant by the “Antonio Banderas Monument” called Bastaix. We had wanted to go there a few times, but it had always been full, having only 3 keg tables with low milking stools outside and 6 or so tables inside. Downstairs was a gorgeous bodega (cellar restaurant) with 8 or 10 small tables and a skylight onto the placa, which looked like it would make for a memorable meal.

The last thing on the To Do list was to find a bar called the Quiet Man which Christian had spotted in the Lonely Planet guide. Located at the far side of the bottom of Las Ramblas, it was an easy walk through the Barri Gotic to get to the general area, but then a bit more of a challenge to get to the exact location because the smaller side roads weren’t marked on our (tourist) map. We did find it and it turned out to be (yet another) Irish pub. Anyway, when in Rome and all that, so we ordered a Guinness and scoured the local mag for a suitable venue for our last night together.

We decided on a rock bar called The Bollocks in Barri Gotic and decided on a rest and refresh at the flat as the interim plan – easily done by nipping back and forth on the Metro.

Before Bollocks we tried a last attempt at getting in the elusive Fideua (paella with spaghetti instead of rice), stopping in at a little diner on the corner before the bar. The others ordered Cava, which seemed quite ambitious in such a down-to-earth eatery, but not only did they have it, but it came with free tapita too. This included a side plate of Russian salad (peas, egg, carrot, mayo), tuna salad (tuna,onions, potatoes, peppers) and a delicious warm Spanish tortilla (potato bake sort of thing).  In our second ordering mix-up of the day, the fideau never came, so we still haven’t had it!

We did enjoy Bollocks though. Possibly a little too much, which necessitated a taxi home and meant our evac morning started a little later than planned.

MONDAY

We opted to have our farewell breakfast at the placa opposite the Sagrada Familia to take last advantage and feasted on enormous Club Sandwiches and fry-ups.

Then it was home to pack up the last few things and say (long) goodbyes to Muffin before lumbering to the Estacio de Barcelona-Sants (on our trusty Metro) to collect our rental car to begin the roadtrip part of our Iberian adventure.

We really had a good time in Barcelona and while a lot of it was having the ideal flat (and cat) and perfect company, I reckon there was so much to love about Barcelona that anyone could enjoy it. It had made my Top 3 places in the world, alongside Berlin and Bratislava.

Europe, Travelogue, United Kingdom

Travelogue Canada 6: Preston

PRESTON

6 -8 November 2009

Let’s set the scene for pre-Preston to get things into context…

Thursday night in London went south. Then further south. Tres typical considering the guest list. Was a laugh though, including beers, stories old and new, nostalgia, giggles, jagerbullets, photos, snacks, haircuts, cider, towel capes, seeing the whole of the moon, brandy (?) and OJ, leftover lamb, Rocky Horror Picture Show and much much more ’til 4 in the morning.

Unsurprisingly Friday morning was a dog show. And the first morning I had to wake up with an alarm at 07h30.

Faye and I trotted down to the corner shop which, mercifully, was on the closest corner to the house, making for a 3.5min round trip including acquiring the shopping – bread and tins of All Day Breakfast. Yes, finally sampled it. Although was a different brand so it had ‘egg omelettes’ instead of ‘egg nuggets’ and didn’t have the ‘chopped pork’ so this still remains a mystery. The verdict? It’s like tinned beans, but with bits in with a different texture to the beans. Not unpleasant, but not something you’d crave (distinct from craving for tinned beans).

Felt a bit better after brekkers, but this clearly isn’t saying much. The (usual and inevitable) teary farewells as was once again parted from some of my favourite people in the world 🙁 Fortunately, retained custody of Faye, who accompanied me to the tube station and all the way to Stockwell. We parted ways none too soon as was suffering from an extreme bout of claustrophobia from being squished on the Tube with too much clothing and luggage and not enough space or air. Was all too rushed a farewell from the last of my merry London friends, but probably for the best in that more time probably just opens the door for more trauma.

Took a moment or 2 to catch breath, regain normal body temperature, attempt composure, realise 2 out of 3 was good enough, and head for Heathrow. Largely uneventful and, for once, had planned so much buffer time, that arrived and 15 minutes ahead of time and headed for the check-in counter.

Am not sure why they bother with the self-serve check-ins seeing how much time the baggage check-in takes anyway – had plenty of time when i started in baggage queue and left with 5 mins until boarding closed… with my backpack which I’d planned to check-in but they made me keep since my suitcase was overweight. Got to the security queue at the gates and realised that I had all my toiletries in my backpack as this was the bag I was using for the weekend so as not to have to repack my suitcase.

What a process!

They emptied the toiletry bag, individually bagged the liquid items (which I still don’t understand seeing as the bags are clear and the toiletries can still see each other, so surely if they’re the aggro types they’d find a way to still box each other??) and put them through the scanner. Everything passed except the body lotion. Maybe because it wasn’t rose-scented aqueous cream which we know is the lotion of love…?

This mission left me VERY late. High-tailed to the gate – typically the furthest gate possible – complete with PA announcements telling me of last warnings and such other totally unhelpful things. So very almost missed that flight.

Was hot, bothered, tired and miserable by the time I sank into my seat. Fortunately a relative empty flight so I had my own row and could whimper softly to myself with no obvious loss of dignity.

Was yet another delight to be told that the flight was to be delayed because some starter function on the plane wasn’t working (very reassuring) and they had to wait for some outside unit to come and start the engines. Of course, said miracle starter was busy starting another plane (again not assured that there are so many flying machines out there requiring the AA) and by the time the starter thingie was ready we’d lost our take-off spot <sigh> ended up taking off after we wwere scheduled to land in Manchester! (which sounds a lot more dramatic than it is seeing as it’s a half hour flight). managed to grab a nap en route, which did me a world of good.

My cousin, Mikayla, fetched me at the airport and it was a giggly and excited reunion with lots and lots news (from the 16 years – yes, half a lifetime! – since last we were in the same place at the same time) to catch up on, making the drive from Manchester to Preston feel a lot quicker than it is (or should have been in my unfortunate state).

Back to Mikayla’s to chill and couch a bit while she went off to fetch her daughter, Isla (2,5 years), and whizz past her goddaughter’s birthday while I showered and tried to regain personality.

Was a gloriously chill night in, with couch, telly, easy company (Mikayla, her other half Dave, and Isla ’til her – very envious – bedtime at 19h00) and perfectly-spot-hitting curry take-aways.

SATURDAY

Saturday we did some grocery shopping (still excited by the prospect of finding a new weird and wonderful that we don’t get at home) and some banking for me and then headed off to visit our Great Grandma – a spirited little (literally, she’s like a tall midget!) old lady who turned 99 in June! I don’t remember her really, having only seen her when I was an infant and then for a quick visit in ’93, but I’m glad to have touched base with my namesake (the middle one I don’t talk about) nonetheless. And a bonus to be there during the ‘Birds of Prey’ matinee.

Was a bit of a family reunion all in all as Marie and Paula (my father’s mother’s sister’s daughters, so technically our second cousins although they’re mid-30s so feel more like cousins) came as well along with Paula’s 11 year old son, Brandon (a strapping lad who looks more mid-teens). Lots and lots to catch up with them not having seen Paula since 1998 nor Marie since 1977 (!!!)

We retired to McD’s (light snack: deli sweet chilli chicken sandwich and Caramelicious McFlurry) and more chatting and catch-up. As usual, no problems with conversation flow or speech speed, so I think that we’ve covered more ground than the amount of time normally would allow! :o)

Saturday night we were off to a tapas dinner. Just Mikayla and me, with Dave dutifully staying home to babysit. Was awesome. So well suited to my indecision by being lots of bits of lots of stuff. We narrowed our choices to end up ordering:
– fillet (medium rare) with mushrooms and Stilton cheese
– king prawns in garlic butter
– sweet chilli chicken breasts with extra chilli
– black pudding with chourico and caramelised red onions (was unsure about this one, but M’s insistence proved right)
– honey-glazed baked baby potatoes
– ciabatta with garlic oil and balsamic (that was interestingly so thick it was more the consistency of runny Bovril)

Was a great 3-hour+ dinner catch-up. Nice and leisurely. And excessive. And yum.

SUNDAY

Resolved to call Grandmother to try and go for a visit. No answer, left voicemail. No reply. So, better option: go for breakfast (at least we know we’ll enjoy that!!)

After that we popped past Great Grandmother again to drop off some lilies and then off the airport (again) to get back to London (again) and finally head for home.

Was super-ready to get back – even though I’d had a blast – after a mammoth trek of a holiday!

Europe, Travelogue, United Kingdom

Travelogue Canada 5: London

LONDON

3-5 November 2009

Nabbed a nap on the train from Wales to London – helped that we got one of those double seats that face each other with the table in middle. Light snack of roast ox kettle-fried chips, quavers (Chipnik style cheese chips) and a rocking tomato juice that was all spicy ‘n stuff and BEGGING for a splash of vodka!

Deftly maneuvered the undergrounds to get to Balham (no mean feat since Barry’s new cruise mode is 30 miles an hour, which is 50km an hour… and I now do ‘whoosh’ sounds and motions to anything faster *warning to new party car drivers!!*) and a short walk later were presenting ourselves at Lix and RoRo’s door! And Faye had missioned through for a sleepover so it was reunionreunion! Cuddles, giggles, excited chatter… and a glass of red!

Lix made a superlative Chicken a la King with rice and deep fried chicken skin bits (GENIUS!). I had brought a bottle of Jagermeister. Barry had sorted bottles of red. There were cameras clicking and flashing and the usual random assortment of (mostly non-PC) conversation topics, catch-ups on who’s been doing what (no movement left unturned, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant just in case it had bearing somewheresomehow, who’s seen who and what they’ve been up to and much general merriment! :o)

One by one, people filtered to bed. Except me and faye – seasoned experience at slumber-party giggling and serendipitously surrendering to adjoining couches.

WEDNESDAY

Woke up at some ridiculous hour (like 4 maybe?) with a dire need for a kilolitre of water. En route to the water bottle in the back of the fridge I stumbled across leftover roast pork, so I felt obliged to make sandwiches (god bless Kingsmill bread- still the best ever) for me and Faye. I think I may have saved 2 young lives (and by that I mean mine and Faye’s).

In no time at all, the house was awake and in relay doing tea, toast, showering, the odd bit of ironing etc etc. Saw everyone off: Barry headed for the tubes, Lix and Faye cycle to work. Yes, really.

Me and RoRoRo (did I mention that I gave him a gratuitous Ro from a middle name I’ve never wanted and could never escape?) did something that very few Londoners have ever done – we traversed the city.

From south west to north east to get Faye a clean set of clothes. Totally my fault <ie: took me minutes to convince her to stay and L&R the rest of the week based on first night’s dinner and promise of confirmed menu for night 2 and 3, on the proviso that I/we would trek the length of London to get enough mix-and-match workwear to make said slumber party practical). ended up being a 3 hour round trip, with a 5 minute packing at Faye’s house respite in between… oh ja, and Burger King at Liverpool Station (dbl cheese and bacon whoppers, chips and coke each, 7 chicken nuggets and 4 chilli bites to share).

Got back in time to watch Lix make dinner. Lordylordylordy. Roast salt marsh lamb, mash taters, cauli cheese, carrots, roasted shallots, garlic and brown onion gravy. G-sus. More chats around the table and then retired to Couchville for sitcom marathon. Nice.

THURSDAY

Finally the stupid body clock works for me. Sat at the table while everyone missioned around me doing the usual ironing, breakfast, head-holding, work-hating, why-can’t-we-be-rich-and-retire-now-ing etc… and then napped on the couch snuggled in purple fleece blankie and sleeping bag for an hour… to be up and fresh and head onto high street to find elusive ‘cheaper’ dry cleaner for B’s dry-cleanables, then grocery shop (too many undiscovered canned pleasures to mention), hit Subway (ham, salami, pepperoni, cheese, lettuce, tomato, jalapeno, sweet onion sauce and ranch sauce on cheese and herb italian bread) and BACK TO THE COUCH *bliss*

The kids came home and we feasted on Welsh black beef sirloin steaks, baked taters with butter and cheese, ciabatta and caramelised red onion… and then off to Bonfire Night (which I think is a sad sell-out to the infinitely more marketably-cos-more-opportunity-for-lewd-jokes Guy Fawkes) for very lovely fireworks. stopped at Threshers en route of course and almost missed everything for 4 Fosters, 4 Carlings and some Bulmers cider. nonetheless, we’re blessed folk and got there in time for a manageable amount of chinese-badly-marketed (ask Alex for details) pyrotechnics. enough for me finally to get (bad) photos of us with fireworky things (that largely look like dysfunctional hats!).

We got home, finished the Jager, had midnight snacks, chatted and laughed, laughed and chatted, commented inappropriately on FB stuff, sent the odd (both sense of the word) SMS to home… and photos of course.

Taking an ad break. Stay tuned for the next adventure in Preston.

Europe, General, Travelogue, United Kingdom, USA

Travelogue St Louis 2: London – St Louis

April 2008

Sooo…. it’s been quite a week in St Louis since Travelogue I. They’ve actually had me <gasp> working. Gggrrr. To make matters worse, there was a dark patch from bedtime on Tuesday (later than I care to remember, but late enough that I’m constantly getting thooose impression-inspired reminders!) to lunchtime on Thursday where there was no computer time at all. I KNOW!!! Can’t remember the last time I was offline for that long!!

Now, where were we? … Mmmm…. at Faye’s lounging and slothing.

Post watching bubblegum horror film, having a superlative daytime nap (which NEVER happens) and much-needed showers all round, we headed off for Lix and RoRo’s place. Plan A (some schmancy restauranty thing) had been fraught with too many possible temptations for our resident Athlete – who we all know would have been led down the evil path by us, being Satan’s children wildly and freely wherever we can as we do <throaty> hahaha – so we cast aside all idea of going out into public and headed for Plan B – the ‘burbs. What a marvy idea!

Lix outdid herself with ridiculously juicy and tender chicken Schnitzels, with the most scrumptious mushroomy garlicky white winey sauce. Which we made her make twice ‘cos it’s one of those things where you just. Can’t. Get. Enough!! Gggrrr (in a nice way). Complemented with a great vintage… erm… beer…. erm… or 7.

A great afternoon led to a great evening and into the inevitable grrreat night :o) lots of crap-speak, bonding, larfs and good times. Yay us! Got to bed way later than expected, after the usual bouncing around the lounge, with the added spice of Alex The Helicopter and a fun chapter called Clarks and Lix Fall Into The Telly. <blazing blushing stuff>

Thought I was going to die when I woke up on Sunday morning. Real early. Keeping real still so as not to turn queasy to dry heave (and / or worse). Didn’t help. After fighting for hours I had to leopard crawl to Lix to seek direction on The Strongest Drugs Known To Man Which Clearly Are The Only Thing That Could Save Me Now.

Dunno what them little effervecenty things are, but man oh man – The Bomb. The world stopped spinning, thoughts of solid food (in the distant future of course) didn’t cause shudders and shiverless thoughts of day, outside and bright gave me hope that we might actually make it to the marathon that we’d travelled 11,000kms to see. Happy happy days.

Am so pleased too ‘cos the race vibe was rocking (or maybe that was just me, being noticeably shakier than ever before) and Faye was considerately on time-ish so there wasn’t too much arsing about with all them family and athleticky types. Dry heave returned briefly when a runner in a Borat cozzie passed us. Gave me a new mental image for next time I hear “Jump Around” hahaha.

Sadly, had to hit the road straight after seeing Faye in an effort to automobile, train and plane to the States. Burger King saved my life. had a Number 1 with cheese and bacon, which was a trifle dry. Mental note to self, First World countries don’t give you any condiments unprompted. Suck suck suckedy. <how ungrateful am I>

Got to the airport on time. And was first in the airline queue, which I have never ever had before… would be the one time I didn’t need it! My colleagues (bless ’em) had checked in my suitcase so I sailed through and had time to chill with an ice cold coke.

American Airlines food is superlative. Had a chickeny cheesy pasta-y thingy. And a pizza later for a snack. Actually, if that’s what they serve you gotta wonder about what Italia serve. Mmmmm.

Got in about midnight. Great time to check in ‘cos there are no queues. I also had no strength and no power of speech and the receptionist clearly no training and no logic. So, all in all, it was a worker of a moment, missing only someone to capture it in a moooooovie to make America’s Crankiest Home Videos.

Alrighty, so now that we’ve put the ho into hotel, it’s a good time to take a repose and keep you hanging for the next gripping installment. That and I have to leave for the airport now (or you’re going to continue to get Travelogues cos i’ll never get home!!)

Toodles xxx

Europe, Travelogue, United Kingdom

Travelogue St Louis 1: Jo’burg – London

April 2008

Sooo… landed in London all safely and stuff. The pilot seemed to know what he was doing (we should really see if his natural talents extend to party-car designated driving) but the food was a bit drek. I think airline food and hospital food have flip-flopped positions on the blah scale, which is crap in context of which I am likely to frequent more (nooo! I meant ‘airlines’ for the pessimists among you).

It’s FREEZING in London and I’ve hence easily figured out what it was I left behind (you know there’s always something). It’s my gloves. You know, as in the category that I already had too much of and still bought another 2 pairs last weekend (under something I like to write-off as duress, but that was clearly somewhere more the off-handed suggestion side of the subtle persuasion spectrum).

Spent the day doing store visits. I’m pleased to tell you (more for my
enjoyment than for your edification) that our stores are waaaay
superior. And consistent. And clean. So always good to have a trump
card up one’s sleeve <bright side: don’t have to fight aforementioned left-at-home gloves to get trumpcard up sleeve> when going to one of these conference thingiemes. Or I might be COMPLETELY biased… which would ruin it for me. So for sake of argument let’s assume i’m right (that should spark a barrage of protest).

Had the world’s best chicken, ham and mushroom pie for late lunch. it was an unusual interpretation on the whole pie thing, with the base being big black mushrooms, then the chicken and ham bit being in a white wine and garlic sauce and the whole lot being topped with a light and flaky pastry cap. Had it with mash…. and an incredulous –
and scathing ‘peasant!’ – look from the waitress when I asked for
onion gravy for the mash. Good thing I stuck to my guns ‘cos it was a truly superlative brown onion gravy and made the mash really be all it could be :o)

Met up with Barry in the evening to have farewell drinks with his workmates. seemingly great bunch of people. Real modern day Londoners <read: few people actually from London, or Britain even. good representation of order proportion South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Venezuela, Belgium, Scotland, Wales and someone suspected to be from England, but who be can sure since no clue what the accent is like anymore>

A few swift pints later, we took on public transport and bussed our
way over to Faye’s. On best behaviour because of (Faye’s) impending
participation in the London Marathon, we nursed a pint. The pub we
were in had run out of everything we wanted to order for dinner so we beat a hasty retreat, it being 21h40 and most kitchens closing between 21h30 and 22h00. Tried a few spots without success and ended up at a Moroccan spot. Tres pleasant. Had a mezze of all sorts of things (I ordered lots of bits and pieces wildly and freely knowing Barry would ‘sort it out’, despite his protests of not being at all hungry). It was delightful, way too much… and all finished (of course).

After a great night’s sleep, we’re embracing a (whole day early!)
Sloth Sunday (on Saturday), with duvets and fold-out sleeper couches and bacon butties and bad daytime TV and chitchat and larfs. Later we’re going to mission out and lunch with Alex and Robbie (detailed menu review to follow i’m sure hehe), which holds the promise of madness and mayhem.

Congratulations on surviving Travelogue I. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures and misadventures in Travelogue II (to be posted at a time as yet unbeknownst to me). All feedback, commentary and news from home welcomed :o)

Europe, Italy, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 7: Venice

VENICE

20 – 22 August 2010

The bus trip from Split to Venice turned out to be not so bad after all. Would have been better without the waft of the French stinky cheese feet from next to us (worsened by them having the seats after the middle-exit so they had their legs draped over the railing in front of them and their Pieds de Fromage at our nose level), but still not so bad.

Pulled into Trieste around 7am and were delighted to find out trains run to Venice less than an hour apart. Booked seats on the 08h18 one and busied ourselves with polishing off the picnic pack and playing some cards. Would have liked an hour or 2 to explore Trieste as it seems really quaint (and wouldn’t have taken much time to cover the 5 or 6 worthy sites).

Timing worked out perfectly. Alighted at Venice train station just after 10h30, discovered that the bus station was indeed literally across the road (those ‘just around the corner’ descriptions rarely tend to be literal – especially when there’s heavy luggage involved) and were happily reunioning with Faye, Alex and Robbie 20 minutes later.

Being only 11h00 with check-in at 13h00 (which apparently took quite some negotiation to move forward from 14h00 so was not negotiable), we set to finding somewhere to kill the time. Popping heads in here and there, scanning menus and exchanging snippets with the odd host, Faye and I visualised the perfect spot… And it appeared. Well, there was no fountain and the beer wasn’t free, but it was an awesome little spot down a side street, so was shady and away from the madding crowds on the main drag.

We caught (who turned out to be) Julio as he had just opened the door and was turning the first bar stools off their overnight-on-the-table-upside-down positions. His eyes were bright and his smile welcoming. He had no idea what he was getting himself into.

We managed to avoid economy completely and take up most of the pavement section of the cafe/bar (staunchly to be called “Julio’s” by us, despite considerable branding claiming the place to be called Taverna Ciardi  – and apparently on Facebook so we were told repeatedly) with ourselves, our luggage and our animated conversations and lively hand gestures (no mean feat since the Londoners had been up since 4 and we’d onlysortofslept on the bus).

Before we knew it, it was 13h00 and we were off to our apartment to meet Fabio, our landlord. High 5 to Lixi for her – as always – internet research magic, our place was awesome!!

Double-storey and very modern (like VERY modern with electric shutters and stuff) and light and bright (sky lights, a lovely little terrace) and… Air-conditioned! Even the artwork on the walls was too holiday to take seriously – a series of 3D pieces by Marin Claire with random items (like VERY random things like pepper, paint brushes and flower pots) popping from oil-painted canvases.

After opening and closing the shutters several times (small things amuse tired small minds even more), basking in the air-con, leisurely cool showers and clean clothes, we were ready to hit the streets (and canals) of Venice.

First up, feeding the machines. We found a taverna serving a bargain 2 course plus accompaniment set menu for €11.50. Had a great lasagne (very relieved, Italy was under pressure to deliver me this lifelong favorite) for starter and seafood plate with calamari, shrimps and squidheads with chips for main.

Lix had constructed the world’s best map so we were able to (relatively) easily get our bearings to see where to get to for the touristy stuff. Venice is not an easy city for that. Lots of winding and narrow alleyways, piazzas that look the same, too many churches for them to serve as landmarks anymore, buildings that look like an endless Monte Casino and bridgesbridgesbridges.

Still, we managed to find the highlights, get the right pics of the right things (Rialto Bridge, St Mark’s Square, some buildings and monuments and some things that hordes of other people were posing around so must be important surely), including settling in next to Tina Turner’s leather skirt and Madonna’s black sequinned hotpants for sundowners at Hard Rock Cafe.

Had a stab at the local supermarket (Billa) en route home. Very different to home. Even the simplest things take the longest time as their are new and exciting choices to evaluate in almost every category, new procedures to muddle through and all sorts of absolute essentials that ‘these people surely can’t not have?!’

A few nightcaps at our happy home and, all exhausted, we conceded to Friday being an early night.

What a great night’s sleep! The electric rolldown shutters are masterful and the room is dark as night, even when day comes!

SATURDAY

Saturday morning brought all new good humour. A beautiful sunny day in Venice and we were ready to enjoy it!

Lix whipped up some French toast with a tomato/bacon/onion/garlic salsa side (mmmm), which we tucked into at a lovely breakfast on our terrace that was all very civilised… until RoRo got the party started with healthy doses of vodka. Chris and I had been delighted to find a bottle store on Trogir Island the day before and had splashed on 2l of vodka (and a litre of each of our four favorite Croat draughts) in our morning orange juice. This, combined with our obligation to wait for the ice to set so we could empty and refill the trays to make another batch while we were out, led to things heading decidedly in the direction of messy.

We ended up ‘waiting for ice’ until about 3 o’clock, when we headed for the local Irish pub to watch the rugby (SA vs NZ, so I’m told). Several shooters (enough that I had Jager splashes on the back of my t-shirt), a bleated national anthem (us, ours, on the bar counter) and many spurts of photos later, we’d lost Faye and Lix. Completely.

Never ones to fret, me and the boys went next door to McD’s to have a Mighty Bite bacon and cheese burger meal and discuss strategy.

That was the plan. What ended up happening was Robbie engrossing himself in our neighbouring table, while Christian ate his AND all but 2 bites of Robbie’s burger and then replacing the remnants in Robbie’s container – and Robbie not realising that most of his burger was missing!

Somehow we managed to get separated in our exit and I ended up manning the bridge to the right of us while Chris went to see if Robbie had gone left. No sign of him anywhere!

I’m super-glad it wasn’t me. With my sense of direction and that labyrinth (and no map nor any idea of our address) I’d still be looking for home!

However, Christian navigated with ease – and who should we bump into at Julio’s…? Faye and Alex having very civilised drinkies. The details are a bit blurry (to all) but we were home shortly after, safe and sound… For midnight snacks (chips and verysloppysortof spaghetti pomodoro) and nightcaps.

Robbie came tumbling in an hour or so later – very short on details on where he’s been, but safe, sound, in one piece and very merry.

Luckily there was a tres bizarre TV game show to keep us entertained (Italian terrestrial TV only seems to be infomercials dotted with cartoons and weirdy gameshows) and we had a very low brain-power, high-relaxation end to an eventful day of mishaps and misadventures.

Then it was Sunday…

SUNDAY

Bizarrely, our wonder apartment didn’t have a toaster. But we did have the Alex 2011 with us, so were able to regain signs of human life with fried sandwiches of the best cheese, ham, salami and sliced beef Italy (well, Billa and then our fridge) had to offer. Enough butter to clog an artery… Or in this case jumpstart the zombies on the couch (we were now quite into the infomercials and there was quite pacey discussions about the Stanner Stairlift, the Relax and Tone, Water Smile filters).

Fortunately a channel hop during breakfast left us on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (in Italian, which is weirdly fitting with their Italian painter names and penchant for pizza) and was the perfect impetus for discussing plans for the day’s sight-seeing, which centred around a visit to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum and a trip to Giorgio Island to get pananoramic views of the Venice coast- and skyline.

The walk to the Guggenheim was enough to require a refuel, so we stopped in at a little bar/cafe for a quick snack. They have a brilliant snack strategy – a glass counter displaying a wide selection of wraps, tramezzinis, sandwiches rolls, all cheesed, meated and garnished and ready for a quick whirl in the flatbed toaster before a delicious steaming hot and fresh baked item is served to you moments later. Genius!

Having gotten all the culture behind them (we left the others to go to Guggenheim while we window-shopped and got hopelesslessly lost on our way back), we bought vaporetto tickets to see the city from the waterways, get over to Giorgio and take the long way home around the only unexplored side of the island. Bloody marvellous to just sit and let the view come to us for a change 🙂

Made our own Spag Bol for dinner and did a worthy job of it too! A very lovely and cultured dinner at the table and everything – even with champagne for an early celebration of Lix’s impending birthday.

Did the right thing and popped in at Julio’s for a last fond farewell. Having been sane, sober and present at our communal meeting place of choice, he was able to provide some interesting insights into our comings and goings the night before that cleared things up a bit. And opened up all new questions too! All good though and he said we were all fun in our muddle, so no real harm done. :o)

The Londoners headed off at an ungodly hour to catch their flight, while we enjoyed our last lie in with the heavenly electric blinds (would make a great name for a band). Scoffed down a real patchwork breakfast with eggs and cheese scrambled with spaghetti and top with a spoonful of bolognaise mince, and half glasses of this and that to finish them off (thankfully not the vodka or beers, which Alex, Faye and I had had the good sense to finish off the night before).

Headed to Marco Polo Airport via vaporetto without incident despite having not bought a ticket – €13!! And standing next to not one but two conductors most of the way. And an incident where our driver managed to play dodgems with another vaporetto and a private speedboat causing much arm-waving and heated Italian from the shore, causing the vaporetto to reverse to assess the damage, but seemingly only for curiosity’s sake as no details were perceptibly exchanged, bar a few middle fingers which I’m relatively sure weren’t insurance-related.

We found lockers at the airport to store bags (after runaround from the Lufthansa call centre who said we could check in at midday, the check-in desk who said we couldn’t and the luggage check-in guy who had to wait for the security guy to return – newspaper under his arm, clearly having gone off to do his official ‘business’ – to xray our bags). Baggage-free, we caught the local bus for a few stops to get off and amble through the greater Venice countryside, popping in here and there for a drink and to play some cards to soak in the aircon.

Got back to the airport and checked in uneventfully. Grabbed a slice of sausage pizza (big enough to be half a pizza at home) and a Peroni and we were off again.

Croatia, Europe, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 6: Split

SPLIT

18 – 19 August 2010

We started the day with the 230km trip from Dubrovnik.

To our great delight our accommodation in Split turned out to be in the Diocletian Palace, a 1700 year old city built by the Romans for their Emperor, Diocletia.

Not that our digs are *that* swanky, mind… Our landlord is an oddball to say the least. He wasn’t there when we arrived (we were tipped off by the note on the door that said ‘Gone out. Back soon’) but the old lady upstairs heard me knocking. I’d gone up the 2 flights alone, leaving Christian on the ground floor with the luggage (in an attempt to out-karma a repeat of the Zagreb 6 floor mega-haul) and conferring with some English tourists making their way up the stairwell and went into the unlocked ‘reception’ (the entrance hall of an apartment) and called the landlord who said he’d be there in 2 minutes.

He was super-quick, rushing in all flushed and heavy-breathingy, in what looked like a jogging outfit, but surely can’t have been in the searing midday heat..? He’s a strange looking man, tall and reed-thin, with a shock of mousy (greying hair), skinny discoloured teeth and blue eyes that are pale so should be cool and tranquil but that somehow always seem shocked and panicked. Oh yes, and he has purple legs. Apparently circulation problems from falling victim to ‘some shrapnels’ in the war. Hectic.

He started off our first engagement with ‘so, I need you to do me a favour’. Not a great start (well, restart if you count the wait), and we feared the worst, having already discussed our lucking out with palace accommodation as too good to be true.

Turns out all he wanted was time to clean the apartment as he’s been very busy with all 5 of his apartments and tending to a sick girlfriend (who he periodically shouted to through the – presumably – bedroom door from the ‘reception’ we were all crowded into. No response from her didn’t seem to faze him, so we’re assuming she’s either imaginary or been dead a while). We were planning on heading out to explore anyway so we agreed that he’d keep our bags and we’d return at 7pm.

First on the agenda – food. We walked the length of the Riva (promenade) to get our bearings and suss our options, having decided that sea-view trumped the search for local delicacies (which nobody seems really interested in educating us on, leading to the inevitable answer: Fish? Pasta? Pizza? *groan*)

Found an excellent spot right at the end, next to the famous (apparently) St Francis Church and at the base of Marjan Hill, which offers the best views of the Split panorama. We shared a chicken and mushroom penne (as closest possible homage to the pie that should have been) and a shrimp and scampi creamy tomato spaghetti. With Coca-Cola and lots of iced water, nowhere near brave enough to dabble in the world of beer quite yet!

Walked off lunch with a trek up Marjan. Got to the look-out point and ooo’ed and aaah’ed at the views and ditched the idea of climbing to the top – no energy for missioning to see more churches and old buildings (and feet tender from the sharp rocks in the sea at Lokrum the day before).

On our descent, we pinpointed what would become our sundowner spot for the day (constitutions permitting). Teraca Bamba – a modest, spirited outdoor terrace with amazing sea views… And 12 kuna beer (R15 for 500ml draughts).

The mission for the remainder of the afternoon was to scope out the local beaches as we’d dedicated Wednesday to be ‘do nothing’ day (except for marking territory on loungers with our towels, out-licking the sun on ice-cream cones and floundering in the turquoise ocean). Plan seemed a little more challenging when we got to Bacvice Beach and discovered their beaches are concrete with ladders into the water like the ones at public pools. And the concrete is quite narrow, so it’s PACKED!

Snap decision – we’re hitting the islands! Popped into the tourist office for advice. There are loads of info/tourist offices and they are all stocked with helpful A3 double-sided maps of tourist sites and transport options that they doodle and circle to show you where you are and where and how you are going to get to where you want to be. Combined with free info brochures that sometimes are glossy and comprehensive enough to outdo their Lonely Planet type counterparts. Our local office happens to be right on our doorstep (in our Palace) in what looks like a converted (teeny tiny) church on the main square, which was just outside the Emperor’s Apartments and was where all the important stuff went down in its heyday hundreds and thousands of years ago.

Based on their recommendations we decided we were going to try a hop to the nearest island, Brac, the next day to spend it languishing on the ‘most famous beach in all of Croatia’, called Zlatni Rat. With a full ferry-bus-bus-ferry plan for the next day, we retired (satisfied) to our sundowner spot of choice.

It wasn’t to disappoint, nice vibe with all but one table occupied when we got there. Perused the menu and settled on sampling another local brew, Karlovac, to celebrate new town, sea views, returned good humour and the impending beach day.

We marvelled over the new move to measuring everything precisely and metrically, eg the sandwich options of cheese (50g), ham (50g) or ham and cheese (100g). Doesn’t do much to stimulate a clear image in the imagination and is quite off-putting when the going weight of main courses seems to be around 300g (of pasta, curry etc steaks seem to be between 100g and 200g) when we’re used to much bigger servings. Always seems to be enough though so perhaps portion control might be a half-birthday resolution worth considering.

Anyway, the beers were consistently cold and 500ml and we’d probably still be there if it wasn’t for ordering what turned out to be the world’s worst beer – Tomislav. Thick and dark and tastes like treacle with a hint of coffee.

We headed for home and managed the opening credits of an ancient episode of CSI (subtitled) while applauding the inventor of the air-conditioner, then was comacomacoma.

WEDNESDAY

Up in good time for our ferry to Supetar to get to Zlatni Rat, we popped into the supermarket to grab our usual picnic pack to nibble on board.

We were lucky enough to be the last 2 people to fit on the bus to Bol (where the beach is, on the other side of Brac, 33km away) even though we had to stand in the aisle most of the way. Still, the people left behind would have had to entertain themselves at the ferry port while we were already lazing sea-side!

Brac is a really pretty island. Even the middle bits which are all olive groves and stone quarries (the marble mined there is so good it was used for many of the surrounding palaces and was used in the US’s White House).

20 minutes later we were dropped off at bus station, which is at the one end of the Riva (promenade) and walked the length of the coast on the wide white stone paved walkway, mercifully shaded by overhanging, to Zlatni Rat.

Gorgeous coastline, famous for its peninsula, which is like a triangle with its pointy bit in the sea, with pine trees forming a smaller triangle within it (providing shade and a natural calming aroma) and with water that is crystal clear at shoreline and goes through the turquoises and azures to a rich navy blue where there is coral and flora on the sea bed.

Heaven.

Except it’s a pebble beach.

Really not funny on the (office) feet. We placed our towels almost at the water’s edge – which is quite static and predictable since the sea is calm and waveless (to the point that people were lurking around on lilos) – and still struggled with hobbling the metre or so up to the water and the next metre or so into the sea so we could swim.

Still, it was an excellent day of fun in the sun and a good time was had by all (especially when we snuck into the pool area of the swanky hotel to revel in the smoothness of the floor of the pool, languish on the (free) loungers and prepare for the return journey with a lovely warm outdoor shower.

We returned to the same restaurant as the previous day (the promenade was heaving and we didn’t want to queue) for a delighful dinner of (me) veal medallions with mushroom sauce and croquettes (of course called muschroom sauce and crochets – lots of Engrish here, like the ‘salty cocked’ potatoes and ‘ball cheese’ as a pizza topping) and (Christian) salmon, chips and a potato and spinach mix.

THURSDAY

I finally got my Cevapi for breakfast on our last morning. It’s a tough, round ciabatta-like roll, as big as a pita, filled with meat fingers (beef mince chipolata), a red spicy relish and a choice of the usual schwarma-style garnishes and fillings. Very yum. And pleased to have managed a local dish. Disappointed to have not managed to find the other local dish that appealed – pasticada, which is apparently a meat stew to die for. Might have to look it up on the internet for a Slow Cooker Monday.

Had a bit of a drama when we tried to book our connecting train for that night (Zagreb to Venice) only to be told it was full. Panicked investigations resulted in ditching our existing Split to Zagreb plane tickets and booking an overnight coach to Trieste instead, from where we would take the last leg as it came (assured that Trieste to Venice is a regular and frequent route).

Plans in place we were able to enjoy our last day in Croatia in Split’s neighbouring town, Trogir, which has the notable feature of closest island to the coast – a 50 metre bridge joins it to the mainland. The town spans the mainland and the island houses it’s original Old City (the usual castle, churches and old buildings) and is allegedly nicknamed Little Venice (not sure why, maybe can tell you when we get there).

Had a relaxing afternoon at Kaleta Kanoba (tavern). Spaghetti Genovese, pizza with Dalmatian ham (called prsut, more or less proscuitto) and more beers.

Soon enough we were on the bus, headed for Trieste (to get to Venice) and hoping for the half sleeping tablet to make the 10.5 hour trip mercifully fly by!

Croatia, Eastern Europe, Europe, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 4: Zagreb

ZAGREB

14 August 2010

Having done one helluva music festival and all our sight-seeing in Budapest (including some things we didn’t want to see, like the punk assuming the number 2 position on the pavement right outside Sziget on a road full of people making their way to the station), we were very ready to move on to Croatia. And very ready meant up and out in a 05h45 taxi to catch the 06h30 train!

We nonetheless managed to pass pleasantries with the driver, who was very well-spoken in English (very uncommon in Budapest based on our experiences) and apparently a few other languages, which he learnt on course in winter when it was quiet season for him. He told us that the lack of English was because kids had to learn Russian in school as a mandatory second language during the communist regime so English was optional. Makes sense.

The train trip from Budapest to Zagreb was 7 hours, made easier because we’d left so early (and been out so late the night before) and slept the first 3 away. A few games of Spite & Malice and a happy picnic pack (our now usual smokey bacon chips, bananas, drinking yoghurt, chocolate milk and choc chip cookies) helped pass the rest of the journey relatively painlessly.

Got to Zagreb and were immediately enchanted. It was a city that neither of us had any burning desire to go to, but had included primarily compelled because it’s the capital and seconded because Budapest to Dubrovnik direct would have been a hell of a journey to tackle in one go. There was no direct flight – we would have had to go via Paris if you can believe it! And no online train routes because too many stops, and car and bus simply too long to want to do.

Zagreb is a lovely city and very easy to move around. Trams and buses right outside the train station, with simple and logical routes covering all sides of the city – a welcome change from Budapest’s complicated mesh (made more irritating by how unbelievably close together the stops are – no more than a couple of hundred metres each, making for a very stopstart journey!)

A short tram ride and we were at Ban Jelacic Square, which is the hub of the city, with parks and museums between the station and the square, restaurants, shops and hotels around the square and presumably residential and suburbs up the hill and beyond.

We found our hotel with little trouble. Hotel might be a strong word though. We made our way to reception, which was housed in a third storey apartment and were met there by 2 stoner types who look like they don’t leave the apartment much (and are happy with that). One had a glass eye – an odd running theme with the guy on the Gautrain sitting in front of us who had an eye-patch (and moved because the sun was in his eye!), a fellow patron at the table next to us later that day with a noticeably lazy eye and a chap called Istvan Kiss we’d spotted on a Budapest House Of Terror monument that had the squintest squint eyes we’ve ever seen.

Anyway, turns out we’re in the 3rd storey apartment – but they count from reception up, so we had to put the lug into luggage and haul them up SIX flights of stairs. The stoners had warned us that we might happen upon an old lady who cleans the apartment. Also turns out that the ‘cleaner’ is actually the primary inhabitant of the flat and ‘our apartment’ really is a sleeper couch in her front room! This was hardest on Christian with his aversion to shared bathrooms, but softened with the building’s prime positioning on the main happening street in town.

Said street’s name was something wildly unpronounceable – like a lot of things here. Between the lack of vowels and a whole bunch of accents, kappies, inverted kappies and double dots, we don’t have a hope of phoneticising anything so have taken to renaming almost everywhere and everything to suit our tongue better. Our ‘cleaner’ had also provided FIVE ply toilet paper. We joked about it being so absorbant that it just about cut out needing the toilet as the middleman! *grin*

Grabbing a quick pizza slice (despite ourselves, being fascinated then horrified how traditional food has been quite hard to come by while there is a pizza bar or spaghettaria on every corner) we hit the sight-seeing. The tourist bureau at the station had given us a lovely glossy book, with routes mapped and pictures, descriptions and historical significance of everything we needed to see. A very manageable walk and we saw almost everything – lots of parks, museums, fountains, statues, old buildings and churcheschurcheschurches.

With best intentions of pausing for sundowners and a bite before seeing the last quadrant of the city, we settled into the brauhaus we’d earlier pinpointed as watering hole of choice. We’d narrowed the search from a leaflet at the train station and that serendipitously happened to not only be across the road from our lodgings, but was also recommended unprompted by Glass Eye Guy. The pub was called Pivnica Mali Medo (mountain of the bears). We were lucky enough to get an outside table on this stiflingly hot (mid 30 degrees!) and humid day. All the restaurants have pavement tables, but the roads are narrow so tables are limited and there were loads of people out and about being Saturday evening in downtown Zagreb.

We shared 2 excellent local specialities: goulash pasta and mixed grill of Medin Brlog pub sausage, chicken fillet, minced meat fingers, braised potatoes, overdone beans, and mustard. Christian’s beer was a darker red ale called Mrki Medvjed and mine a light lager called Zlatni Medvjed. We had several. We also had a few Jagermeisters, which they serve in a tumbler with ice and lemon – we got some funny looks when we threw it back so surmise that it was considered a sipping drink in Croatia.

We ended up rolling out of there the better part of midnight, having had a most excellent time (and having only spent about R220 for the whole bangshoot! Bargain!)

SUNDAY

Word to the wise planning a stay in Zagreb. If you’re only spending one night (as we did) and think you may end up overdoing it on bar street (as we did), do it on a Friday night, not a Saturday night (as we did). Church bells start chiming at a ridiculously early hour. Every few minutes another church starts its sequence. We’re guessing it’s because there are so many churches in such a small town that they all need to get a go and – rather than a deafening cacophony on the hour – they’ve dished out random times, so you’ll for example get a church that relishes it’s turn and goes hammer and tongs celebrating the 23rd minute of each hour or somesuch. Not easy the morning after the night before… When it’s already sweltering outside! … and your ‘apartment’ only has net curtains!

We did manage to pull ourselves toward ourselves and do a flash half hour trot around the last quadrant ticking the last few must-see checkboxes. We were very sorry to say goodbye to Zagreb – it was an amazing little city and well worth including in your itinerary if you’re ever in the neighbourhood.

But super-excited to see what was going on in Dubrovnik.

Eastern Europe, Europe, Hungary, Travelogue

Travelogue EE 3: Budapest / Sziget

BUDAPEST / SZIGET

11 -13 August 2010

Got up and breakfeasted Kyjev-style and then in a taxi and off to Hlavni Stanica (train station – the very ‘humble’ one mentioned in Travelogue 2) to board for the train to Budapest. Fortunately only a 2.5 hour ride as people fall over themselves to get the seats with a table (the ones where the seats face each other with a table in between), which wouldn’t be so bad if they actually used the table… but most just go to sleep or read a book, which leaves us card-playing-surfaceless for nothing 🙁

Fortunately had emailed beforehand and gotten very clear and literal directions from station to hotel because Budapest is far bigger and more confusing than the previous cities. There’s very little English signage (or spoken) and far more public transport options. Of course, by following the directions so literally when we arrived – in our excitement to get to the festival – ended up at Sziget without having taken down our address, so in essence not knowing where we live!

Where we live…

We were staying at Hotel Lucky. A nice enough place, where we were lucky enough to get the round turret room which makes for easy identification and good story 🙂 The day concierge was a bit of a challenge. We’ve taken to calling him Basil (Fawlty)… and not calling him at all. He’s got an annoying habit of echoing questions, eg:

Christian: if we take the blue metro line…

Basil: the blue Metro line?

Christian: yes, the one that connects to the red Metro line…

Basil: the red Metro line?

Christian: the one that runs this way *points to map of underground system*

Basil: runs this way? *adjusts specs*

Christian: how do we get to Obudai Sziget?

Basil: Oboduai Sziget?

Christian: never mind.

Hence, we left ‘home’ without thinking to ask for an address.

With some effort, we did manage to suss the trams, trolleybusses, busses and trains to get to Sziget Festival. Incidentally, ‘Sziget’ means ‘island’ in Hungarian, and the festival is held on an island in the Danube in Budapest.

The festival was amazing! People streeeaming in all afternoon and evening, but no queues. Very well organised. Sadly, the beer sponsor was Dreher, which wasn’t one of our favourites, but the blow was softened when we got to do the free ‘Dreher in the Sky’, which was like the Dinner in the Sky concept they had at Monte Casino a while back (which cost R1000 or more) and we were strapped into a seat and suspended at a table 50m in the air to enjoy(ish) a cold (and free) pint of Dreher – and the views of the festival below, the city beyond and the countryside for miles around. Very cool. And free (foreign concept for SA, where am sure they’d have charged a fortune).

All the bands we saw were brilliant as well.

First on our roster was The Toy Dolls. THIRTY years they’ve been doing their thing! They were amazing. Never had been on my ‘must see’ list, but super-glad we saw them. Nelly The Elephant seems to be as much a classic here as it is at home and all sorts were jumping around singing along about Nelly’s absconding from the circus. And by all sorts, we mean all sorts – punks, trendy sorts, preppy lots, princesses, mohawks of all descriptions, you name it, they were out to play! Funfunfun.

Caught the tail end of Ska-P, who are a Spanish ska band. Have noted to look them up as their performance was excellent and they seem to be really well known by lots of people (here). Don’t necessarily agree with all their politics (inevitable in this genre), but we can overlook that (especially the bits sung in Espanol hehe).

Then off to grab a slice of pizza (seemingly the staple fast food source of Eastern Europe) and hit Ill Nino. Can’t believe I only heard them for the first time a few weeks ago – very sad that i have wasted so much time!! They were madly excellent. They played in the MTV Headbangers Stage, so was a trifle warm (Mick’s phone weather app would have called it an ‘flan-flopping high 30-somethings and sweaty’… and been right for a change) but still, was totally worth losing the moisture. Definitely going to spend more time on them when I get home.

Managed to work our way back to main stage to catch the last few songs of The Hives. Good performance, lead singer is a bit up his own though.

Beers and Jagers later plus a whirl past the merch stand to see what was on offer (and narrowing down to about 10 tees we simply couldn’t live without) and a flit through the market. Lots of food and drink options … and a Vans stall with prices so heinously low that I was credit card ready… but Christian seems to hate shoes and not want me to have any more ever… and something about impractical to carry around a festival or something.. and I left empty-handed. And -souled. (And -soled).

Madness was incredible. Also a 30 year commemoration tour, with all the favourites and some more fan-pleaser oldies. Awesome stage presence, album-perfect delivery, a TON of fans pogo-ing and walk-dancing about the place. Lots of fun.

Last but not least, Christian’s favourite band of all time – Bad Religion. Also a 30 year tour for them! Am so glad I did the research I did (had been warned) as REALLY enjoyed their show… alongside Christian who was so in his element that there are no words to describe 🙂 They delivered an hour and a half of literally back-to-back songs (not a word or a breath between tracks, just straight from one into the next!) and sounded like I’m sure they did 30 years ago – only giveaway of aging was the bald and balding band and the lead singers ensemble of jeans and red plain golf shirt (which I’m sure that no new punk band would dare, opting rather for some long shorts / angry-message tee shirt and certainly dreads / mohawk / unnatural coloured hairdo). Still, books and covers, they were as energetic and spritely as any of the young bands we’ve seen or saw there). Good on them.

NEEDING merch to commemorate the experience, headed to the tee tent only to be told they’d closed for the night (despite us having checked twice earlier in the day to ensure we didn’t miss out and being told both times that it was open until 3). This was about 1.30 so we weren’t having any of that. After extensive debate we managed a Bad Religion shirt (shh, don’t tell Christian cos it’s a bday present), a The Hives tee for me and a festival tee each.

Then headed for home. Bustling train station, packed train and we ended up at a station we didn’t know (having followed to advice that C got from the Van’s attendant while i was shopping), so ended up looking up the hotel’s address on the internet (what did we do before it?!) and getting a cab. Only got home about 3 in the end, can’t imagine what time it would have been if we’d persevered with public transport!

All in all, an awesome festival. Highly recommend to anyone considering it! (and so civilised to be able to festival and then commute to a warm bed and running water etc).

THURSDAY

Thursday we did some sight-seeing. Hadn’t intended to do much with the day having gotten in so early (late), but it’s a city that sucks you in because everything is so close together. Started with the Buda side, checking out the Citadel and Gellert Hill, then on for a walk around the Buda Castle (a whole mountain top complex), through the Palace (which is the opening of the Castle), onto the Church of St Michael and the Fisherman’s Bastion – a look-out point with spectacular views over Pest.

Taking the Chain Bridge (famous as the first bridge to connect Buda and Pest across the Danube) to St Stephen’s Basillica, the largest church in Budapest (and there are many!). Then potentially the most exciting stop of the day – Burger King! Christian had the special – California Whopper, beef burger with guacamole and salsa – and I had the cheese and bacon whopper (obviously). The special also has kettle-fried style chips (but hot like fries), really excellent and we intend to try and microwave Flannigan’s at home to see if we can get the same effect.

All fuelled, we took a quick walk to Parliament Square. What a breath-taking building!! HUGE (691 rooms – largest building in Budapest) and all neo-gothic ‘n stuff…

Had a bit of a hitch there. Decided to go to Acquincum, which is a Roman ruins town just past the Island we’d been on the day before. We had little trouble finding out where it is, nor mapping our route, but couldn’t find the Metro station! Barely perceptible nestled in among the office buildings alongside all the splendour and wonderment of Parliament and Kossuth Park. Eventually found it – and enjoyed the downtime, letting the train do the work for a change. Quite interesting, but the (local) staff didn’t do it justice with their lacklustre attitudes and seeming indifference to us as patrons and interested tourists. Those Romans were a clever bunch, they had underfloor heating and running sewerage systems even back then in 100 AD.

Had a marvellous sundowners session on Margit Island – the one before Sziget Island – named after the poor princess whose dad promised to confine her to a nunnery on the island if some political thing or another was ceded to him. It was and he did. She was only 9, poor thing. Place was a bit more upbeat for us and it was great to kick off shoes and sip daiquiris watching the sun set over the Danube.

Stayed a bit too long and ended up on a fruitless mission to try and find a late dinner. But it’s holiday, so still fun to make way back to hotel and have a dinner of plain salted chips over pints of (our least favourite so far) Dreher and playing some cards. 🙂

FRIDAY

Friday was chill day. Headed out of town a bit to Memento Park, which is an outdoor exhibition of communist statues and plaques, with memorabilia (that’s what they call it, really just some t-shirts, caps and postcards) and there’s a phone booth where you can listen to communist dictators’ speeches. Was cool to see Stalin’s Boots, which is the remains of a Stalin statue that was toppled during the 1956 revolution and never rebuilt because Stalin was already dead, so they just left the boots. Wouldn’t rush to recommend the park to anyone (except Neal).

Headed back to town – more trains, trams and busses – and another Burger King. Got a ‘Party Pack’ of 2 double cheese and bacon burgers, 2 XL fires, 5 chicken pieces (mini), 6 burritos (more like little deep fried Mexican spring rolls) and onion rings. That ruined our plans of traditional Hungarian dinner; who has space after all that?!

Walked the length of the picturesque, but underwhelming, Andrassy Avenue to see Heroes Square and Varosliget Park and stumbled across a mini German beer fest. Good laugh. And left us on the right side of the park to head to Mexico Street station and catch a tram back to the hotel. We had finally got the hang of this transport system – it can get you from anywhere to anywhere, but every journey is complicated with multiple changes and multiple modes of transport.

Found a gem of a spot called Randevu (there are lots of cute anglicisations, like ‘csendvic’ which is totally phonetic for sandwich) – where we had a quick beer while waiting for our tram… at R14 for a 500ml AND a 300ml Arany Aszok! We were so marvelling at our bargain that we missed the tram – and had another round while we waited for the next one *grin*

Overall, Budapest was a bit of a surprise after Prague and Bratislava. It is much bigger and more bustling. The people are very unhelpful (we’re inconclusive as to whether they don’t speak English or don’t want to). The transport systems are very complicated, not helped by all signage being in Hungarian only and the language is VERY foreign with long words and all sorts of punctuation we don’t have. The Communists clearly let the place go to rack and ruin and it was such a shame that beautiful old buildings were in such a state – grotty and dirty and unkempt – and there was graffiti everywhere. The funniest of which we saw on Gellert Hill’s look out point where people have tagged the pillars with their favourite bands, reading from left to right: Megadeth, Kiss, Satan, Slayer, Warrant, Metallica, Def Leppard, early Bon Jovi. Got a pic of that teeheehee.

Back at the hotel and destined for bed, we were prepped and ready for our super-early start for Zagreb in the morning *yawn*