I got off the train in Brno on pretty much a whim. For all that interrailling is supposed to be a pretty spontaneous affair, travelling alone meant a lot of preplanning and scheduling to keep my parents irrational fears about me disappearing into the night somewhere at bay. And also the far more likely concern about being stranded somewhere with nowhere to stay.
I’d managed some mini adventures from my city bases at the start of my journey (popping off on day trips to Versailles and Tarragona) but those had tapered off as the reality to reservations, timetables and frankly time constraints kicked in. But I was determined. I was getting off the train somewhere, and seeing something unexpected. So I correlated the train timetable and my guidebook to see where I could get off and go exploring that actually looked interesting. And ended up with two hours to spend in Brno.
Rookie mistake was in not leaving my luggage in left luggage, and my adventures nearly came to a screeching halt when – Czech being the only language NOT covered by my phrase book – no one in tourist information spoke any English. (My gran travels all over the place with only a handful of badly pronounced French to her name, I don’t know how she does it, I hate not speaking at least a little of the language) Handily sign language and a willingness to repeat ‘mapa’ and ‘Spilberk’ until they gave me a map with the castle circled on it won the day.
However after a bumpy start, I escaped the station and headed off into the sunshine. Brno was beautiful on that stiflingly hot summers day, the architecture wasn’t much to write home about, but taken together the streets and squares were charming and picturesque. Fountains burbled quietly and pastel painted buildings gained a sort of washed-out Mediterranean charm. The castle when I eventually tracked it down was picturesque and pleasantly cool after the heat of the town. Also it had a cloakroom in which to abandon my rucksack briefly.
The really weird thing about European castles when you’ve grown up in Scotland is how intact they all are. Scotland has an abundance of castles of all shapes and sizes, but they are mostly ruined (well we did loose that war) there are a couple in pretty good nick mostly by dint of still being occupied by the British Army until fairly recently or still belonging to the crown. However, travelling around Europe, other than the notable exception of Heidelberg, every other castle I encountered was not just mostly intact but frankly quite opulently decorated. As they went then, Spilberk was quite sparse with its whitewashed walls, but then it did spent a lot of time as a prison so heavily fortified, well maintained yet sparse seems about right.
And it was here that I met the ladies of the Czech WRI…Actually I refer to them as that, but they were actually more like the Czech WRVS. Wee, immaculately dressed ladies of a certain age, bearing laminated placards in multiple languages, poised on every corridor to provide info on the various displays and exhibits in each room. Politely but firmly redirecting you if you tried to skip a room (‘you missed that one’) or corridor. It was a fascinating, if time consuming and a little surreal experience.
On the way out I accidentally, having spent much of the previous week in German speaking countries, said ‘bitte’ to the cloakroom assistant. Who instantly struck up a cheerful conversation with me about travelling, where I was going, how I was getting there, the joys of interrailling etc. with me in German. She was an adorable old lady and I really wished I had longer to spend in this strange cool castle and the baking hot town below. If only I’d known to try that in the Tourist Office earlier that day…
I made it back to the station by the skin of my teeth – running down a hill to a station, wearing a large rucksack on a hot day is not a form of transport I recommend to anyone ever – so of course the train was 20 minutes late. But I made it, quite enough adventure for one day…
I’d managed some mini adventures from my city bases at the start of my journey (popping off on day trips to Versailles and Tarragona) but those had tapered off as the reality to reservations, timetables and frankly time constraints kicked in. But I was determined. I was getting off the train somewhere, and seeing something unexpected. So I correlated the train timetable and my guidebook to see where I could get off and go exploring that actually looked interesting. And ended up with two hours to spend in Brno.
Rookie mistake was in not leaving my luggage in left luggage, and my adventures nearly came to a screeching halt when – Czech being the only language NOT covered by my phrase book – no one in tourist information spoke any English. (My gran travels all over the place with only a handful of badly pronounced French to her name, I don’t know how she does it, I hate not speaking at least a little of the language) Handily sign language and a willingness to repeat ‘mapa’ and ‘Spilberk’ until they gave me a map with the castle circled on it won the day.
However after a bumpy start, I escaped the station and headed off into the sunshine. Brno was beautiful on that stiflingly hot summers day, the architecture wasn’t much to write home about, but taken together the streets and squares were charming and picturesque. Fountains burbled quietly and pastel painted buildings gained a sort of washed-out Mediterranean charm. The castle when I eventually tracked it down was picturesque and pleasantly cool after the heat of the town. Also it had a cloakroom in which to abandon my rucksack briefly.
The really weird thing about European castles when you’ve grown up in Scotland is how intact they all are. Scotland has an abundance of castles of all shapes and sizes, but they are mostly ruined (well we did loose that war) there are a couple in pretty good nick mostly by dint of still being occupied by the British Army until fairly recently or still belonging to the crown. However, travelling around Europe, other than the notable exception of Heidelberg, every other castle I encountered was not just mostly intact but frankly quite opulently decorated. As they went then, Spilberk was quite sparse with its whitewashed walls, but then it did spent a lot of time as a prison so heavily fortified, well maintained yet sparse seems about right.
And it was here that I met the ladies of the Czech WRI…Actually I refer to them as that, but they were actually more like the Czech WRVS. Wee, immaculately dressed ladies of a certain age, bearing laminated placards in multiple languages, poised on every corridor to provide info on the various displays and exhibits in each room. Politely but firmly redirecting you if you tried to skip a room (‘you missed that one’) or corridor. It was a fascinating, if time consuming and a little surreal experience.
On the way out I accidentally, having spent much of the previous week in German speaking countries, said ‘bitte’ to the cloakroom assistant. Who instantly struck up a cheerful conversation with me about travelling, where I was going, how I was getting there, the joys of interrailling etc. with me in German. She was an adorable old lady and I really wished I had longer to spend in this strange cool castle and the baking hot town below. If only I’d known to try that in the Tourist Office earlier that day…
I made it back to the station by the skin of my teeth – running down a hill to a station, wearing a large rucksack on a hot day is not a form of transport I recommend to anyone ever – so of course the train was 20 minutes late. But I made it, quite enough adventure for one day…
So apparently I'm now doing all the posts I owe from when I was travelling 3 years ago, I dunno. Have some nice photos of Amsterdam...I did a post ages ago, just under 3 years ago in fact, about the elephant sculpture parade I saw in Amsterdam to cheer up a friend and then never got round to posting the rest of the photos from my time there. I had one of those city cards that so many European cities do, where you pay a set fee up front and then get into a whole bunch of museums and public transport for free. The Amsterdam edition was quite expensive so I wanted to squeeze in as many things as possible and I decided that they should include as many unlikely and non-tourist-trap places as I could manage. (I am, forinstance, the only person I know who has managed to spend time in Amsterdam without encountering the Red Light district. Even my mother had a racier time in the city than I did and all she did was walk round a corner and see more of a couple of very bored-looking lassies then she ever wanted to. The nearest I got was standing at the traffic lights and seeing an aging hooker on a Harley, wearing an ankle length leather coat - it was raining - fishnets and not a lot else, pull up at the lights.) I did go to the Van Gogh museum (largely because it was almost next door to my youth hostel and also because I love Van Gogh's work and they had an exhibition of these recently recovered early sketches by him), but otherwise managed a fairly eclectic experience hopping on and off trams, guided by the little book they gave me with the card, visiting lesser known attractions, seeing some really lovely and/or moving photography exhibitions and even occassionally hearing people speak Dutch!
( views from the canals )
( assorted buildings )
( views from the canals )
( assorted buildings )
[4/100] Paris behind the Gloss
27 Dec 2012 11:10 pmParis. City of Romance. City of Love. City of Really Smelly Drains.
There's a reason the song praises Paris in the Springtime and the Autumn, because in late Summer the place stinks to high heaven. I suspect most cities that size do after long, hot, dry Summers but it colours almost every memory I have of my second visit to the city.
Paris is the city where the dream the dream of travelling begins to crack and the reality of it all begins to sink in. On the Champs Elysée there is fabulous opulence and excess (rich girls in ridiculous heels toting designer shopping bags and tiny dogs) and abject poverty (brassy Romany girls with perfect English ply their patter, whereas their elderly counterparts settle for kneeling prostrate on the ground) rub shoulders, each as unignorable as the other.
I'm returning to a city I've visited before, though only as a young child. I figured it was best to start somewhere I had been before, somewhere I could retrace my steps while making new memories, break myself into this inter-railing lark gently. Sometimes like standing in Sainte Chapelle, childhood claustrophobia forgotten in the face of all those beautiful blues and that stained glass, its a good thing. Others, like the decidedly surreal experience of shuffling round Notre Dame in the tourist queue while badly amped priests give (take?) mass – I presumed they only let you in during actual ceremonies if you were you know there for that, by the time I realised queue of shuffling tourist photographing everything never stops it was too late to fight the tide and get out – were less so. Still it was this city that set me on this journey. Marianne Faithful singing of sports cars, warm Parisian wind and regret, spurring me on to chase this dream.
I take the suburban train out to Versailles, travel through gentile suburbs and ordinary streets where ordinary people live. People get on and off the train, young couples, parents with small children both harassed and calm, old people of all ethnicities shuffle on and off while the guard waits patiently for them to pass. My notebook is open but my pen is still, its really just an excuse to people-watch, to stare out the window a contemplate the ordinary sights of the city beyond the romance. To disguise myself as a student rather than a tourist for a while. For all this train goes to Versailles there are few tourists along with me for the ride. When I arrive at the station those that get off are mostly changing trains, popping to the shops or heading home from the city. There is no easy crowd of tourists with a map to follow but I find my way nonetheless, taking the wrong turn a few times and getting to see more of the town of Versailles itself than I expected and finding a dozen interesting-looking restaurants that I cannot afford to eat at. I presume that the lack of tourists on the train is because its September and tourist season must be winding down (away from the tourist pullers, it was possible to walk through whole galleries at the Louvre without seeing another soul), its not until I reach the Palace itself with its vastness and even more vast coach park that I realise how wrong I am.
I eat instead at a Italian takeaway just round from my youth hostel, which is both the only thing still open and exactly what I was looking for. The pizza is cheap and filling and familiar; it won't be the last time I take refuge in an Italian eatery on my way round the continent. In the morning I will pack my case again and trundle away towards more adventures, eat breakfast in the tiny hidden park beside the supermarket and lunch in a bakery on a busy intersection opposite the Gare d'Austerlitz. Not one of those picturesque patisseries they show on the TV (though I'll eat truly delicious food in one of those in suburban Geneva) but something generic and open plan, tending to busy commuters grabbing their lunch on the go – like the French equivalent of Greggs. I'll find a park (Jardin des Plantes – best park name ever) tucked round the other side of the station and while away the afternoon in the two vastly different natural history museums at either end of the park. I'll remember that park and its museums under grey skies and spitting rain, just as fondly as my far more 'perfect tourist' encounter with Tuilleries Gardens under perfect blue skies two days before.
This isn't the Paris the brochures and the movies promised me. (There are no sports cars or whirlwind romances, but the wind is warm in my hair and it blows away a lot of regret with it.) The city is smelly and messy and rude and friendly and ordinary. It's better; it's real.
There's a reason the song praises Paris in the Springtime and the Autumn, because in late Summer the place stinks to high heaven. I suspect most cities that size do after long, hot, dry Summers but it colours almost every memory I have of my second visit to the city.
Paris is the city where the dream the dream of travelling begins to crack and the reality of it all begins to sink in. On the Champs Elysée there is fabulous opulence and excess (rich girls in ridiculous heels toting designer shopping bags and tiny dogs) and abject poverty (brassy Romany girls with perfect English ply their patter, whereas their elderly counterparts settle for kneeling prostrate on the ground) rub shoulders, each as unignorable as the other.
I'm returning to a city I've visited before, though only as a young child. I figured it was best to start somewhere I had been before, somewhere I could retrace my steps while making new memories, break myself into this inter-railing lark gently. Sometimes like standing in Sainte Chapelle, childhood claustrophobia forgotten in the face of all those beautiful blues and that stained glass, its a good thing. Others, like the decidedly surreal experience of shuffling round Notre Dame in the tourist queue while badly amped priests give (take?) mass – I presumed they only let you in during actual ceremonies if you were you know there for that, by the time I realised queue of shuffling tourist photographing everything never stops it was too late to fight the tide and get out – were less so. Still it was this city that set me on this journey. Marianne Faithful singing of sports cars, warm Parisian wind and regret, spurring me on to chase this dream.
I take the suburban train out to Versailles, travel through gentile suburbs and ordinary streets where ordinary people live. People get on and off the train, young couples, parents with small children both harassed and calm, old people of all ethnicities shuffle on and off while the guard waits patiently for them to pass. My notebook is open but my pen is still, its really just an excuse to people-watch, to stare out the window a contemplate the ordinary sights of the city beyond the romance. To disguise myself as a student rather than a tourist for a while. For all this train goes to Versailles there are few tourists along with me for the ride. When I arrive at the station those that get off are mostly changing trains, popping to the shops or heading home from the city. There is no easy crowd of tourists with a map to follow but I find my way nonetheless, taking the wrong turn a few times and getting to see more of the town of Versailles itself than I expected and finding a dozen interesting-looking restaurants that I cannot afford to eat at. I presume that the lack of tourists on the train is because its September and tourist season must be winding down (away from the tourist pullers, it was possible to walk through whole galleries at the Louvre without seeing another soul), its not until I reach the Palace itself with its vastness and even more vast coach park that I realise how wrong I am.
I eat instead at a Italian takeaway just round from my youth hostel, which is both the only thing still open and exactly what I was looking for. The pizza is cheap and filling and familiar; it won't be the last time I take refuge in an Italian eatery on my way round the continent. In the morning I will pack my case again and trundle away towards more adventures, eat breakfast in the tiny hidden park beside the supermarket and lunch in a bakery on a busy intersection opposite the Gare d'Austerlitz. Not one of those picturesque patisseries they show on the TV (though I'll eat truly delicious food in one of those in suburban Geneva) but something generic and open plan, tending to busy commuters grabbing their lunch on the go – like the French equivalent of Greggs. I'll find a park (Jardin des Plantes – best park name ever) tucked round the other side of the station and while away the afternoon in the two vastly different natural history museums at either end of the park. I'll remember that park and its museums under grey skies and spitting rain, just as fondly as my far more 'perfect tourist' encounter with Tuilleries Gardens under perfect blue skies two days before.
This isn't the Paris the brochures and the movies promised me. (There are no sports cars or whirlwind romances, but the wind is warm in my hair and it blows away a lot of regret with it.) The city is smelly and messy and rude and friendly and ordinary. It's better; it's real.
Adventures in Morse Country
19 Nov 2012 07:08 pmAnother very overdue photo post. As in one from when I was travelling...three years ago? These are from when I stopped off in Oxford to visit ![[livejournal.com profile]](/makepkg/implementing-https-www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mmaxwell. I really liked Oxford so it seems a great shame that I haven't shared my photos. Even if they were taken on a disposable camera...
Jericho Community Mural
( When I'm thinking I get thirsty )
mmaxwell. I really liked Oxford so it seems a great shame that I haven't shared my photos. Even if they were taken on a disposable camera...Jericho Community Mural
( When I'm thinking I get thirsty )
There's something charming and surreal (charmingly surreal perhaps?) about Heidelberg. I decided to stop off there for a few days as I inter-railed around Europe, mostly on the strength of some photographs that Dune took of its medieval architecture when she was there for a conference some years ago.
The architecture was every bit as stunning as I was promised, but it didn't feel fake and conserved like some places do. Buildings had been repurposed, things were in use and not just as museums, it felt alive and vibrant, the old seemed to blend into the new rather than feeling stuck on and awkward. I stayed in a youth hostel that was inexplicably right next to the zoo. I mean, right next to it, there was a bear almost close enough to touch from the grounds of the hostel. I saw pretty much every possible contraption you could legally use to carry a child on a bike – and some I wasn't so sure about – my personal favourite was a bike with what seemed to be essentially a four foot tall box on the front (presumably with a hole cut out for the front wheel), containing two young boys of about 7 or 8 peeking over the top while their mother propelled them along at a decent rate of knots. Late night shopping on the main pedestrianised shopping precinct was livened up by stalls doing hot takeaway food (mmm free samples) and bars doing takeaway cocktails, and shoppers could be seen pottering happily round fashion boutiques, record shops and the like totting multicoloured drinks and carefully balanced munchies.
(There's an anecdote that Nanci Griffiths tells at the start of the version of 'Love at the Five and Dime' that my mum has on CD, about her childhood memories of Woolworth stores. Her description pleases my mum inordinately as its the way she remembers them in her youth, the way they weren't - hadn't been for a long time - by the time they closed down here a few years back. But the bit that always amused me most was Nanci Griffiths recounting her first trip to London and coming round a corner a chauffeur driven car to find that 'by golly there was a Woolworths store'. I found myself standing at the tram/bus station in Heidelberg that evening, casting about to spot which stance I needed to get my tram back to the hostel. I turned around and...yup by golly there was a Woolworth store. It took my breath away, I'm not sure why, I didn't even go in but I felt simultaneously a very long way from home and very close to home too. I had to sit down and text my mother to tell her and she text back to tell me not to fill up my suitcase with unnecessary plastic objects...I'd come across unexpected branches of C&A in Munich and Brno but maybe because they were gone from home much longer - C&A in the UK closed down when I was about 14 or 15 - or maybe they'd never been as integral a part of my childhood landscape, they didn't have the same impact. Tesco in Prague weirded me out but in a different way, more of a – is there no end to your expansionist ways, sort of thing. By the time I'd gone back to Berlin for the film festival last year, I'd got over the Woolworth thing enough that I could go in and buy an excellent and cheap pair of gloves to replace the ones I'd accidentally left on the metro...)
The abiding memory I have of the place though, is sitting half way up a mountain in Heidelberg, enjoying the view of the castle and the town below. In the background I can hear both the gentle electronic whirr of the modern funicular railway and the slightly louder but somehow friendlier clunk and clatter of the older funicular that takes you the rest of the way. There are some American tourists off to one side be annoyingly stereotypical, but both the waitress and I are pretending that they're not there and enjoying our respective hot beverages. It's peaceful, the summer has ended but autumn is looking pretty promising from where I'm sitting.
The architecture was every bit as stunning as I was promised, but it didn't feel fake and conserved like some places do. Buildings had been repurposed, things were in use and not just as museums, it felt alive and vibrant, the old seemed to blend into the new rather than feeling stuck on and awkward. I stayed in a youth hostel that was inexplicably right next to the zoo. I mean, right next to it, there was a bear almost close enough to touch from the grounds of the hostel. I saw pretty much every possible contraption you could legally use to carry a child on a bike – and some I wasn't so sure about – my personal favourite was a bike with what seemed to be essentially a four foot tall box on the front (presumably with a hole cut out for the front wheel), containing two young boys of about 7 or 8 peeking over the top while their mother propelled them along at a decent rate of knots. Late night shopping on the main pedestrianised shopping precinct was livened up by stalls doing hot takeaway food (mmm free samples) and bars doing takeaway cocktails, and shoppers could be seen pottering happily round fashion boutiques, record shops and the like totting multicoloured drinks and carefully balanced munchies.
(There's an anecdote that Nanci Griffiths tells at the start of the version of 'Love at the Five and Dime' that my mum has on CD, about her childhood memories of Woolworth stores. Her description pleases my mum inordinately as its the way she remembers them in her youth, the way they weren't - hadn't been for a long time - by the time they closed down here a few years back. But the bit that always amused me most was Nanci Griffiths recounting her first trip to London and coming round a corner a chauffeur driven car to find that 'by golly there was a Woolworths store'. I found myself standing at the tram/bus station in Heidelberg that evening, casting about to spot which stance I needed to get my tram back to the hostel. I turned around and...yup by golly there was a Woolworth store. It took my breath away, I'm not sure why, I didn't even go in but I felt simultaneously a very long way from home and very close to home too. I had to sit down and text my mother to tell her and she text back to tell me not to fill up my suitcase with unnecessary plastic objects...I'd come across unexpected branches of C&A in Munich and Brno but maybe because they were gone from home much longer - C&A in the UK closed down when I was about 14 or 15 - or maybe they'd never been as integral a part of my childhood landscape, they didn't have the same impact. Tesco in Prague weirded me out but in a different way, more of a – is there no end to your expansionist ways, sort of thing. By the time I'd gone back to Berlin for the film festival last year, I'd got over the Woolworth thing enough that I could go in and buy an excellent and cheap pair of gloves to replace the ones I'd accidentally left on the metro...)
The abiding memory I have of the place though, is sitting half way up a mountain in Heidelberg, enjoying the view of the castle and the town below. In the background I can hear both the gentle electronic whirr of the modern funicular railway and the slightly louder but somehow friendlier clunk and clatter of the older funicular that takes you the rest of the way. There are some American tourists off to one side be annoyingly stereotypical, but both the waitress and I are pretending that they're not there and enjoying our respective hot beverages. It's peaceful, the summer has ended but autumn is looking pretty promising from where I'm sitting.
100 Places I Have Loved [1/100]
22 Apr 2012 10:48 amWell I need to start somewhere, so I'll start in Zurich. Zurich Hauptbahnhof to be precise.
As Swiss cities go, Zurich isn't my favourite, I preferred Geneva. (In its defense I only spent 24 hours there, but I was generally glad about that.) But the lunchtime I spent in Zurich Hauptbahnhof waiting for a train to München has stuck in my memory as a warm and happy one.
The station (in my memory) is just another Victorian confection, all wrought iron and glass. It's got lots of levels, but the main hall with all the departure boards is all polished stone floors and high ceilings. When I'd arrived the previous afternoon it had been half empty the way stations outside of rush hour times always are. Just a stand advertising the Zurich film festival which would start the following day. (While I was standing in Zurich Bahnhof, Roman Polanski was being arrested at the airport, I had no sympathy for him then, I have no sympathy for him now - you don't want a crime to bite you in the ass 30 years later, then don't do the damn crime. It's rape not shop-lifting that's not 'youthful indiscretion'.) But that lunchtime the huge space was filled. There was a market taking place. I don't know if it was a one of or a regular weekly/monthly event, but the crowd seemed to be a mix of passing tourists and regular shoppers. At home I'd have called it a farmers market but market culture has remained much more in tact on the Continent so I'm not sure if it was a speicialist event or not. There were stalls doing breads, bretzels and bagels, others doing cheeses or meats, some stalls had little national flags and did speciality foods. Another sold a variety of home-made drinks, I bought freshly squeezed cloudy apple juice for the train, and admired the variety of fruit juices and fruit wines, along with the homemade lemonade. Others had honey and preserves with home-printed labels and still others would roast nuts while you waited. Many of them gave away samples to the determined foodies and baffled looking tourists.
I got on the train to München with a white paper bag holding possibly the best bretzel I've ever eaten - filled with cold meat and cheese and lettuce - and a big smile on my face. That's how I remember Zurich, not the high prices in the shops and grey skies, but the food and the laughter at that market, with the sun shafting through the glass roof above us.
As Swiss cities go, Zurich isn't my favourite, I preferred Geneva. (In its defense I only spent 24 hours there, but I was generally glad about that.) But the lunchtime I spent in Zurich Hauptbahnhof waiting for a train to München has stuck in my memory as a warm and happy one.
The station (in my memory) is just another Victorian confection, all wrought iron and glass. It's got lots of levels, but the main hall with all the departure boards is all polished stone floors and high ceilings. When I'd arrived the previous afternoon it had been half empty the way stations outside of rush hour times always are. Just a stand advertising the Zurich film festival which would start the following day. (While I was standing in Zurich Bahnhof, Roman Polanski was being arrested at the airport, I had no sympathy for him then, I have no sympathy for him now - you don't want a crime to bite you in the ass 30 years later, then don't do the damn crime. It's rape not shop-lifting that's not 'youthful indiscretion'.) But that lunchtime the huge space was filled. There was a market taking place. I don't know if it was a one of or a regular weekly/monthly event, but the crowd seemed to be a mix of passing tourists and regular shoppers. At home I'd have called it a farmers market but market culture has remained much more in tact on the Continent so I'm not sure if it was a speicialist event or not. There were stalls doing breads, bretzels and bagels, others doing cheeses or meats, some stalls had little national flags and did speciality foods. Another sold a variety of home-made drinks, I bought freshly squeezed cloudy apple juice for the train, and admired the variety of fruit juices and fruit wines, along with the homemade lemonade. Others had honey and preserves with home-printed labels and still others would roast nuts while you waited. Many of them gave away samples to the determined foodies and baffled looking tourists.
I got on the train to München with a white paper bag holding possibly the best bretzel I've ever eaten - filled with cold meat and cheese and lettuce - and a big smile on my face. That's how I remember Zurich, not the high prices in the shops and grey skies, but the food and the laughter at that market, with the sun shafting through the glass roof above us.
100 Things Blogging Meme
16 Apr 2012 02:50 pmNicked off ![[personal profile]](/makepkg/implementing-https-www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
eumelia because I want to get back into posting.
I'm going to do '100 Places I have been and loved' because, quite frankly, there are posts I've been meaning to make about places I've been and loved since I came back from inter-railling 2 and a half years ago that I still haven't made. I love travel blogging and I'm really rubbish at remembering to do it. Sometimes they might be photoposts, sometimes they might only have one photo or none. The might be places I've been dozens of times or a train station I passed one golden lunchtime in, could be a whole city or just a museum or individual street. Could be just up the road or half way across the world. Might be anywhere. Gonna do this thing.
eumelia because I want to get back into posting. I'm going to do '100 Places I have been and loved' because, quite frankly, there are posts I've been meaning to make about places I've been and loved since I came back from inter-railling 2 and a half years ago that I still haven't made. I love travel blogging and I'm really rubbish at remembering to do it. Sometimes they might be photoposts, sometimes they might only have one photo or none. The might be places I've been dozens of times or a train station I passed one golden lunchtime in, could be a whole city or just a museum or individual street. Could be just up the road or half way across the world. Might be anywhere. Gonna do this thing.
I normally do photoposts for more joy day and document a place I've been and loved. So when I was writing yon Being Human fic the other week I was looking at my photographs from Bristol for inspiration and realised that I never did a photopost about my trip there, so I figured it's long overdue a post. I did actually write about it a little while I was there but I hadn't had the photos developed yet so I obviously couldn't post them.
So we'll start from in front of the youth hostel where I was staying. I stayed in a lot of youth hostels of varying quality/comfort/privacy levels but I can highly recommend this one.
( swimming the Bristol Channel doesn't look quite so intimidating from here )
So we'll start from in front of the youth hostel where I was staying. I stayed in a lot of youth hostels of varying quality/comfort/privacy levels but I can highly recommend this one.
( swimming the Bristol Channel doesn't look quite so intimidating from here )
Dutch Elephants!
23 Mar 2010 01:30 pmFor lefaym, something silly for your amusement.
While I was in Amsterdam there was a big public art thing with elephants going on. Lots of local artists had been given these elephant templates to design/paint/decorate as they saw fit. They were then placed around the city and once the exhibition was finished they were being sold off to raise funds for the conservation of Indian elephants.
( The Elephant Parade )
lefaym, something silly for your amusement.While I was in Amsterdam there was a big public art thing with elephants going on. Lots of local artists had been given these elephant templates to design/paint/decorate as they saw fit. They were then placed around the city and once the exhibition was finished they were being sold off to raise funds for the conservation of Indian elephants.
( The Elephant Parade )
The world is full of sadness but today is apparently 'more joy' day. So in honour of that I give you a Brussels pic spam. Because my adventure brought me lots of joy, still does whenever I look at the photos, and I'd like to share that with all of you.
( How you eat your waffles says a lot about you )
( How you eat your waffles says a lot about you )
Very over-due photopost.
Cardiff. I love Cardiff.
We went on holiday by train one year when I was about 14? I think my dad had done an awful lot of driving so wanted a break and I got to choose our destination (probably because we were away over my birthday). It was glorious for the three days we were there, and I quite fell in love with the place. Coming back 11 years later I was no less in love with it, even if the weather wasn't quite as consistently gorgeous this time. I stayed in this tiny youth hostel (it felt like one of the old style rural ones, and was in the middle of some random Cardiff suburb), where the rooms were all named after actors that had played the Doctor. Mine was the Troughton room, I was terribly pleased. Went to the Nation Museum, which is a lovely building and made me long for a camera, but I was out of film by that point. Being a Saturday it was full of kids, a lot of whom were doing activities organised to celebrate Diwali which was rather cool. I was really taken with the exhibit blurbs being in Welsh as well as English, because I'm a language geek and I love things like that. I'm so glad I decided to stay down south for a bit and visit here. *happy*
( How do I love thee, let me count the ways... )
Cardiff. I love Cardiff.
We went on holiday by train one year when I was about 14? I think my dad had done an awful lot of driving so wanted a break and I got to choose our destination (probably because we were away over my birthday). It was glorious for the three days we were there, and I quite fell in love with the place. Coming back 11 years later I was no less in love with it, even if the weather wasn't quite as consistently gorgeous this time. I stayed in this tiny youth hostel (it felt like one of the old style rural ones, and was in the middle of some random Cardiff suburb), where the rooms were all named after actors that had played the Doctor. Mine was the Troughton room, I was terribly pleased. Went to the Nation Museum, which is a lovely building and made me long for a camera, but I was out of film by that point. Being a Saturday it was full of kids, a lot of whom were doing activities organised to celebrate Diwali which was rather cool. I was really taken with the exhibit blurbs being in Welsh as well as English, because I'm a language geek and I love things like that. I'm so glad I decided to stay down south for a bit and visit here. *happy*
( How do I love thee, let me count the ways... )
Just sit back and watch the bed burn
7 Oct 2009 08:26 pmSo, I'm in Denmark. I know, I know I owe you all a bunch of posts on Germany but what can I say good internet was used to write fic instead. Ummm oops? (In Germany - Also Austria and Czech Republic - the Y and X keys are the other way round, it took me ages to get used to that when typing and now that I'm in Denmark they've switched back...and yes I keep typing the wrong letter again *laughs at self*) I'll do a proper post on Germany tomorrow - though possibly I should do Austria and the Czech Republic first...
On that note fic ideas/WIPs that I have ongoing in my head/notebook at the moment:
- Rose/alt-Reinettem, Gelth in the Palace of Versailles
- Mickey/Jake, ghost-hunting adventures (a la TW ep Captain Jack Harkness with the timeslíps) around the museums/historical monuments of Britain/the rest of Europe
(Those two were originally going to be one story but they seem to want to get epic on their own)
- A couple of fics for![[livejournal.com profile]](/makepkg/implementing-https-www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fanfictarot, I've got Lancelot in battle and Gaius dealing with Nimueh and Uther after Igraine's death both finished. A pregnant Igraine story (worrying about her fate and her brother) half-written and stories about Morgana as a druid priestess and Mordred as her acolyte sitting in my head.
- Eight and Charley in future Hamburg with strange creatures lurking in the underground tunnels (also the Old Elbe tunnel) possibly Macra possibly some sort of psyonic aliens.
- Possibly Eight and Charley on a ship fic. This has no plot yet but I went to the Maritime Museum in Hamburg and was attacked by plot bunnies.
Also speaking of mad fannish challenges, I've signed up fordw_femslash which I'm hugely excited about seeing as I wasn't expecting the ficathon to run this year - go livii! Also I've signed up for a couple of seasonal exchanges. I'm doing camelotsolstice which is due and the end of November and 3_ships (Merlin just lends itself to threesome/moresome fic, it really does) which is due at the end of December which I feel is nice a spaced out.
On that note fic ideas/WIPs that I have ongoing in my head/notebook at the moment:
- Rose/alt-Reinettem, Gelth in the Palace of Versailles
- Mickey/Jake, ghost-hunting adventures (a la TW ep Captain Jack Harkness with the timeslíps) around the museums/historical monuments of Britain/the rest of Europe
(Those two were originally going to be one story but they seem to want to get epic on their own)
- A couple of fics for
fanfictarot, I've got Lancelot in battle and Gaius dealing with Nimueh and Uther after Igraine's death both finished. A pregnant Igraine story (worrying about her fate and her brother) half-written and stories about Morgana as a druid priestess and Mordred as her acolyte sitting in my head.- Eight and Charley in future Hamburg with strange creatures lurking in the underground tunnels (also the Old Elbe tunnel) possibly Macra possibly some sort of psyonic aliens.
- Possibly Eight and Charley on a ship fic. This has no plot yet but I went to the Maritime Museum in Hamburg and was attacked by plot bunnies.
Also speaking of mad fannish challenges, I've signed up for
dw_femslash which I'm hugely excited about seeing as I wasn't expecting the ficathon to run this year - go livii! Also I've signed up for a couple of seasonal exchanges. I'm doing camelotsolstice which is due and the end of November and 3_ships (Merlin just lends itself to threesome/moresome fic, it really does) which is due at the end of December which I feel is nice a spaced out.And you know a keyboard that I can type at a half decent speed on (only the z and y are transposed - who knew how often I used the letter y? - plus a bunch of extra punctuation)
Geneva!
Only an hour and a half from Lyon and I`ve got another new country under my belt. Today I went to the Red Cross/Crescent museum, the UN Europe HQ, ate frogs legs in a Chinese restruant with my Serbian dorm mate Eva, visited the Jet D`eau (which was off :( ) and had a lovely walk round the Lake. I'm a bit in love with Geneva`s trams I must say - there's this whole thing where if you`re staying at a hotel/hostel in Geneva you get a travel card that gives you free travel on public transport for the duration of your stay. Given all the recycling and other environmentally friendly campaigns I`ve seen here I presume it`s to discourage tourists from hiring cars.
On a more fannish note my train journey's have allowed me to catch up on some audio books so expect a pile of reviews when I return home. I'd forgotten how much I love Eight&Charley. Also writing fic long hand on paper is hard - not done it in years and man does it take forever. Either the fic I`m currently writing is going to be epic or I just cannot write fic long hand anymore.
Geneva!
Only an hour and a half from Lyon and I`ve got another new country under my belt. Today I went to the Red Cross/Crescent museum, the UN Europe HQ, ate frogs legs in a Chinese restruant with my Serbian dorm mate Eva, visited the Jet D`eau (which was off :( ) and had a lovely walk round the Lake. I'm a bit in love with Geneva`s trams I must say - there's this whole thing where if you`re staying at a hotel/hostel in Geneva you get a travel card that gives you free travel on public transport for the duration of your stay. Given all the recycling and other environmentally friendly campaigns I`ve seen here I presume it`s to discourage tourists from hiring cars.
On a more fannish note my train journey's have allowed me to catch up on some audio books so expect a pile of reviews when I return home. I'd forgotten how much I love Eight&Charley. Also writing fic long hand on paper is hard - not done it in years and man does it take forever. Either the fic I`m currently writing is going to be epic or I just cannot write fic long hand anymore.
