by Neil Matthews
We had chosen Renshaws Hotel in University Street, as it was relatively cheap and close to Queen’s University Belfast, the venue for the education conference we were attending. (As it was the Easter holidays, student accommodation was available, but this did not appeal, due to the lack of double beds and for other reasons obvious to anyone who has stayed in student accommodation.) Unfortunately, the cardkeys which are a staple of modern hotels were not working. We had to ask a member of staff to let us into our room whenever we returned in the evenings.
Although the hotel would probably be classified as basic in these days of Western luxury, its location is its strength. You can spend a lazy morning reading the paper in Starbucks on Botanic Avenue, or a few doors down in Clements Café, which serves possibly the largest hot chocolate in the UK. Local restaurants specialising in Chinese, Thai, Asian fusion and Italian are close at hand, and the city centre is only 15 minutes walk away.
Sunday in the Park with Gerry?
In advance of the conference, we went for a morning stroll in the Botanic Gardens. Although clearly not at their best in April, the Gardens provided a haven of peace in a busy city. A few pensioners walked their dogs, but I saw no students or paramilitaries behind any bushes, thus ruining the chances of recounting an experience of Sunday in the Park with Gerry (or Ian or anyone else). However, colleagues who took an organised excursion to view some of the political murals from the times of the Troubles swore that they got a glimpse of Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.
The same day, an organised bus trip took us to the province’s one World Heritage Site, the Giant’s Causeway. The Causeway is justly famous for its 40,000 stone columns, many of extraordinarily precise hexagonal formation. If you are a geologist, you believe the theory that the Causeway was born 60 million years ago by the cooling of molten lava off the coast. If you are a mythologist, you prefer the story of Irish giant Finn MacCool creating a pathway across the sea so that he could fight a Scottish rival. If you are lucky, you will have time to explore and admire the Causeway on a reasonably clear day.
We were unlucky. The biting cold turned the rain into sleet and even briefly snow. Our time was also limited by a visit to the Old Bushmills Distillery, which claims to be the world’s oldest licensed distillery and will celebrate its 400th anniversary in 2008. Whiskey drinkers may be fascinated; I was not. Struggling back up the pathway, cold and wet, to our coach, I felt some sympathy with Dr Samuel Johnson’s summary of the Causeway as “worth seeing, but not worth going to see”. But don’t be put off: it is worth going to see. You need more than the hour we had, though.
So is Belfast City Hall, for different reasons. 2006 was the centenary of its opening. Queen Victoria conferred city status on Belfast in 1888 and a new City Hall was built, on the site of the old White Linen Hall, to reflect Belfast’s enhanced prestige. The result is an ode to classical Renaissance architecture, using three Italian marbles and rich reds and creams to create beautiful staircases and a rotunda. The Whispering Gallery – so called because a whisper against its walls is audible on the other side - is apparently very alike to that in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The 51 members of Belfast City Council sit on either side of the Council Chamber, with a table for journalists between the two sides - directly in the crossfire, as it were. The reception, banqueting and Great Halls are a pleasing combination of vaulted oak; stained glass windows showing coats of arms and various themes such as the Famine Window to remember all those who died from famine-related diseases; and even (replica) chandeliers with a nautical theme.
For all the grandeur of the building, its inhabitants remain cheerily informal. When asked whether photography was permitted, a security guard said: “It’s compulsory!” In less than an hour, we met both the deputy Mayor and Lord Mayor, who were happy to exchange a brief word or two. As the Lord Mayor did so, a door opened behind him. Out of the office behind the door stumbled an unshaven young man, with a vacant expression, a rolling gait and a tie at half mast. If he had met this gentleman, Oscar Wilde - who went to school in Belfast - might have amended one of his aphorisms to “only dull people are brilliant before noon.”
Schizoid building
The next couple of days were spent in Queen’s University itself at the conference. The perhaps unintended highlight was the fact of a keynote speech on New Labour and higher education being immediately followed by a speech (on organisational management methods) entitled “How to lose friends and turn people against you”. The University itself reflects modern Belfast with an architectural version of schizophrenia. The main buildings, completed in 1843, are classic Victorian redbrick. In an echo of early reaction to Belfast City Hall’s Whispering Gallery, the architect was accused at the time of plagiarising the design for the University’s main tower from Magdalen College Oxford. The more modern additions – concrete monstrosities of tower blocks - do not exactly fit with the character of their surroundings.
Once the conference ended, we strolled towards the waterfront for a view of some of the more quirky attractions. The Big Fish on Lagan Lookout, a sculpture by John Kindness, depicts a different aspect of the city’s history on each scale. Its glassy eye looks disdainfully away from the Clock Tower in Victoria Street, which leans in Pisa wannabe fashion to the right. The angle of lean, as with the man in the Mayor’s office, was amiable rather than alarming.
Nearby is the Belfast Waterfront Hall, a performing arts and concert venue which was hosting the World Irish Dancing Championships that week. Inside, hordes of young dancers kept their arms resolutely by their sides as they flapped their legs frantically, like the secret love children of the Minister for Silly Walks.
Samson and Goliath
There was much talk, and some evidence, of major property redevelopments in the city, such as an entertainment centre planned on the theme of the Titanic – which was built in Belfast. It may seem odd for the city to be looking to make money out of a famous disaster, but as one local is said to have told a sceptical tourist: “The ship was all right when it left Belfast.” In the meantime, Samson and Goliath – the two giant cranes used by Harland and Wolff in the city’s shipbuilding heyday – continue to loom over the city.
It remains to be seen whether Belfast can harness its past to reinvent a prosperous future. However, a recent report on tourism trends indicates that visitors to Northern Ireland are staying longer and spending more than before. So the peace dividend has not yet disappeared. Perhaps, for Belfast, the worst of times are over and the best is about to come. Let’s hope so.
First published in VISA issue 71 (Feb 2007).
by Neil Matthews
How do you get two whales in a Mini? Down the M4, of course. As the owner of a Mini, I derived a perverse pleasure from bringing this particularly old quip to life by visiting Cardiff for a weekend in February 2006. The journey was swift and smooth, although it was scarcely a pleasure to be charged £4.90 just to get into Wales.
Cardiff itself soon beckoned. This was the first time I had ever stayed in a hotel based on a trading estate. The Future Inn, on Hemingway Road, has only just been built and is therefore suitably high rise and shiny. Road signs since the Severn Bridge had used English and Welsh, but the voice of the hotel lift stuck resolutely to English only. The most futuristic element of the hotel was probably the easy Internet and webmail access in the rooms. On the other hand, some elements of traditional service were present: biscuits in the rooms - always a good sign - and, less positively, the extraordinary difficulty in obtaining a pot of tea with breakfast.
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| Millennium Centre |
The future - or at least the vision of the future - for the city lies in Cardiff Bay, a previously down at heel area which has benefited from substantial redevelopment in recent years. The bay itself, all steel and silver with a plethora of smart bars and restaurants, made for an attractive spectacle in the cold winter sunshine. The windows of the nearby Millennium Centre, a performing arts venue (not to be confused with the Millennium Stadium), are shaped to create a bilingual message. The English version, shorter than the Welsh, reads: “In these stones, horizons sing.” Presumably this refers to the fictitious horizons of the many theatrical and musical productions which the Centre hosts. On that basis, and feeling charitable because of the sunshine, I decided not to send in the words to Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner, and to overlook the hideous purple stone cladding around the edges of the Centre.
Cardiff’s national and international profile is on the up, for various reasons. The aforementioned Millennium Stadium has hosted FA Cup Finals and promotion playoffs for the English football leagues while Wembley Stadium was first demolished and then rebuilt. It is also the home venue for the Welsh rugby union team, which won its first Grand Slam for over 25 years in 2005; and Sophia Gardens is set to host its first cricket Test match in 2009. On the media side of things, BBC Wales has been responsible for some of Britain’s best known TV productions in recent years, notably the revitalised Doctor Who as re-imagined by Swansea boy Russell T Davies. A small free exhibition of some of the sets and costumes from the show, which is filmed primarily in Cardiff, made for a diverting hour or so. Children aged between 5 and 15 swarmed round to gawp at Slitheen, Daleks and so on. A missing E caused the sign at the main entrance to proclaim, in Freudian fashion, that Doctor Who is “Mad in Wales”.
However, when we ventured into the centre of Cardiff itself rather than the bay, a different picture emerged. Many British town and city centres now look more and more similar, with the chain stores conquering all before them. I wonder whether other cities also have café restaurants with quite as much 1970s brown as the one in which we ate our Saturday lunch. Even Peter Mandelson would have found it hard to confuse mushy peas for guacamole here. The city centre is also home to an inordinate number of shoe shops. If you seek knee length pink fluffy boots for ladies, then this is the place to come. There was a surprising number of stretch limos cruising the streets, and several gangs of women dressed somewhat optimistically, considering that this was Britain in February. Taken together, perhaps these pieces of evidence point to an exciting future for Cardiff as the hen party capital of Europe. Charlotte Church may have much for which to answer.
The legacy of conquerors and visitors from another age is visible at Cardiff Castle. The castle was first established by the Romans in the 1st century AD and passed through the hands of various aristocratic families, and most famously the 1st Marquess of Bute in the 18th century. By then, the castle house had fallen into disrepair and the castle fortifications were decaying. The 1st Marquess employed an architect to begin a sympathetic restoration. His grandson, the 2nd Marquess, opened the Bute West Dock in Cardiff, bringing in a period of industrial expansion and prosperity.
The most conspicuous effects of the Bute family on the Castle as it stands today, however, are attributable to the 3rd Marquess, an eccentric with a passion for building and restoration. He employed William Burges as architect over 15 years to turn the Castle into a neo-Gothic fantasy. Not all the rooms were open at the time of our visit, but those which were open could not be accused of being understated. The Winter Smoking Room in the Clock Tower uses zodiac signs, stained windows of Norse gods and carved friezes to illustrate a theme of “Time”. The walls of the Nursery Room depict Aladdin, Ali Baba, Jack and the Beanstalk and many others. The wooden window screens and ceiling of the Arab Room are complemented with carvings of eight parrots of various types. Whether the 3rd Marquess had more money than taste is, perhaps, open to debate. However, the Castle must have been an inspiring home for the College of Music and Drama, which resided there from 1949-1974.
The briefness of our visit did not give time to see much else of Cardiff. But, returning home by a less direct route than the M4, we were able to pay a brief visit to Tintern Abbey. The ruins of the abbey lie between the A466 and the River Wye. Tintern Abbey was founded by Cistercian monks in 1131 AD and, by 1301, around 400 monks lived in the complex. After 1536, when the Abbey was part of the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII, the building began to decay.
Around 1760 the site was cleaned up and visitors to the Wye Valley began to be entranced with the beauty of the site and surroundings. The most famous visitor was William Wordsworth in 1798. His poem Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey put Tintern firmly on the tourist map.
Even a freezing morning and scaffolding on part of the ruins could not detract from the simple magic of the location. As long as some ruins remain, and as long as Wordsworth is still read, Tintern will be a magnet for visitors from round the world.
First published in VISA issue 68 (August 2006).
by Eunice Kirby
I had always wanted to see New England and although I know that most people visit in The Fall for the famous colours, I was worried that if we went then, we would spend all our time chasing the colours and not seeing the place itself, so off we went in June. There are no direct flights to Boston from Birmingham so we flew to Newark and drove round the coast.
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| The Charles W Morgan |
As we drove along Interstate 95, we had some wonderful views of the New York skyline including the Twin Towers; how I wish now that I had taken photographs but as we knew that we were returning to the city in December it did not seem worth it. We crossed over the George Washington Bridge and into Connecticut, staying for the night at Branford, and after an early night we were up and raring to go the following morning. We carried on along I 95, taking a short detour to ride on the Essex Steam Train and Riverboat.
Steam trains in America do not travel very fast in our experience, but we enjoyed the trip through the woods and the cruise along the Connecticut River was very relaxing and a wonderful way to see the countryside. It would have been even more relaxing had we not arrived on the same day as Theodore Tugboat (an American children's character, on a par with Thomas the Tank Engine, they do have them both there on the same day at times!) The children on board thoroughly enjoyed our boat having to be “rescued” by Theodore.
We then carried on along the coast and spent the afternoon at Mystic Seaport, "The Museum of America and the Sea". This village-museum is well worth a visit, the seventeen acre site includes all the shops and businesses that would have been found in a 19th century seaport along with several museums and of course the ships themselves, including the Charles W Morgan, the only remaining vessel from America's 19th century whaling fleet. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we were allowed to go on board and explore all the ships, with no restraints as to where we could go and what we could touch. There were museum staff on board to answer any questions but nothing formal at all. We enjoyed lunch in the tavern and watched a demonstration of climbing rigging where we learned the origins of many of today's sayings.
We left Mystic and spent the evening driving through Rhode Island, the smallest state, and on to Hyannis on Cape Cod where we had pre-booked a hotel room for the following two nights. We knew that we would need an address to put on our immigration forms, so we booked this one hotel on the Internet before we left home; for the rest of the trip we found places to stay as we went. At this time of year, this was relatively easy to do (in some places we were the only guests), but later in the year it would be advisable to book ahead.
The following day we spent exploring Cape Cod. We had breakfast in Hyannis, drove along to Chatham to wander in the shops, then followed the coast road stopping at Marconi Beach, where the remains of a transatlantic wireless station can be seen. The first formal transmission from here was on 19 January 1903, between Theodore Roosevelt and King Edward VII. Unfortunately, only scattered remnants remain, most has been destroyed by erosion. We carried on to Race Point Beach, the furthest that you can go by car, then drove into Provincetown, the town at the tip of the Cape. During the summer months, the population swells from 3,500 to around 75,000 - thankfully it was not that crowded in June. We spent a very pleasant couple of hours here, enjoying clam chowder for lunch, then a cold drink as we sat in the sun and started writing a few postcards. We then returned to Hyannis, following the road on the other side of the Cape as much as we could.
We rose early the next day and drove down to Woods Hole at the southern end of the Cape to catch the ferry across to Martha's Vineyard. We walked round Vineyard Haven before catching the local bus to Edgartown where we looked across to Chappaquiddick. After lunch, we caught another bus to Oak Bluffs, a lovely old town famous for its “Gingerbread Houses”. From here we caught the ferry back to Woods Hole then drove up the coast road, crossing Cape Cod Canal by The Bourne Bridge and carried on up to Plymouth where we easily found a room in a sea front motel.
We were glad that we had already seen photographs of the famous “Plymouth Rock”, as it is not as large as we had previously thought. The “boulder” is traditionally regarded as the stepping stone used by passengers of the Mayflower as they disembarked at Plymouth, and is sheltered by a granite portico.
One monument that did impress with its size was the National Monument to the Forefathers, the largest free-standing granite statue in the world at 36 feet tall, well worth the ride out of the town centre and no other visitors when we were there.
We also spent some time at Plimoth Plantation, a reproduction village, set out as it would have been in 1627. It is very interesting to view the houses and other buildings, furnished and decorated as they would have been in the 17th century, but be warned - the staff all take the part of a real pilgrim and while in costume they live as that person, talking in the old dialect, which is quite difficult to understand, and they know nothing of modern life. They will answer questions as to what they are doing, and why they are doing it that way, and it is fascinating to see how things were done in those days.
While there, you can also visit Hobbamock's Wampanoag Indian Homestead, where you can watch Native Americans demonstrate the skills of their 17th century ancestors, building their domed shelters and carving out canoes, amongst other traditional chores such as raising crops, drying food and weaving. An interesting and educational day, it made me appreciate the trappings of modern life.
After leaving Plymouth, we headed north to Boston and had the shock of our lives when we encountered the traffic and the roadworks! Boston is in the middle of what they call “The Big Dig”. A ten lane highway is being built under, over and through the city and the noise and disruption need to be seen to be believed. We took a trolley tour round the city hopping on and off as we pleased and at times it was far quicker to hop off and walk. We managed all the traditional Bostonian things including The Freedom Trail, the famous red line on the sidewalk leads you round the most historical places in the city including Boston Common, The Old Granary Burying Ground where you can see the graves of Paul Revere and Samuel Adams amongst others, The Old State House, City Hall, Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. When we were there, the market place was full of flowers and plants and the scent was amazing, and the oldest building in Boston - Paul Revere's house, a 17th century wooden structure. We also went up The John Hancock Tower, joined in the fun aboard The Boston Tea Party Ship, and went in the bar where everyone knows your name - Cheers. Parts of Boston are stillquiet, the area round Beacon Hill is lovely and we walked down Acorn Street, the most photographed street on the hill. Boston Common is lovely but gets very crowded when the weather is good, and The Waterfront is the ideal place for an early evening stroll. We also caught the “T” out to Cambridge so that we can say we have been to Harvard. I would like to return when The Big Dig is finished as I do not think that we saw the city at its best.
Having learnt so much about Paul Revere and the events of 19 April 1775, we decided to follow his ride out to Lexington, where the first shots of the Revolution were fired, and then on to Concord and The Old North Bridge where was fired the “shot that was heard round the world”. We had not planned this detour but it was well worth it, the scenery and architecture was wonderful and we felt that we would remember far more about America's history than we would by just reading about what happened. There are plenty of things to see and places to visit and it all brings the past to life. We left one area of history for another as our next stop was Salem.
It was in Salem that we decided to treat ourselves to a stay in one of New England's famous bed and breakfasts instead of the usual motor inn and we checked in to The Inn at Seven Winter Street. This was a delightful old wooden house with just one ground floor room vacant. The room was furnished with old furniture including a four poster bed that I almost needed steps to climb into, and the hospitality ran to a decanter of sherry on the dresser and a plate of chocolate mints at bed time. Breakfast was as many muffins and as much fruit as you could manage, lovely; we enjoyed our stay.
We then carried on up the coast to Maine and a visit to Kennebunkport, now famous as the summer residence of George Bush (both father and son). We found this a delightful seaside town and our last stop on the coast as our route next took us inland to New Hampshire and the Lake Winnipesaukee Region. We drove round the south shore of the lake, stopping for a break in Meredith before carrying on round the lake to visit The Castle in the Clouds in Moultonborough.
En route to the car park, you pass “The Pebble”, a boulder taller than either of us, and Bridal Veil Falls, well worth a stop and short walk. Once at the car park a jeep pulls carriages to take you up to the house itself, which offers outstanding views across the lake and the country side, back in the car park and another jeep takes you through the grounds to see the spring and bottling plant for Castle in the Clouds water; more water bubbles up than can possibly be bottled and sold, so it is used for every day purposes on the estate, including flushing the loos! We also went on to visit the estate brewery and sample the different beers brewed using the spring water. We found them to be very pleasant and, at less than a dollar a bottle, decided to purchase a six pack to bring home for presents. We were the only people on board to purchase any, and everyone else looked in amazement at our box of six bottles - I was almost made to feel like an alcoholic because I was sitting holding them. I might add that we were the only English people visiting that day, so that may have had something to do with it. After our visit we drove on to Squam Lake, pausing in Holderness to photograph this picturesque lake where they filmed On Golden Pond, then carried on to Lincoln where we checked into The Kancamagus Motel for a few days so that we could explore The White Mountains.
We drove along The Kancamagus Highway which I should imagine is amazing in its fall colours, it is pretty wonderful in June. The 34.5 mile road runs from the Pemigewasset River in Lincoln in the west, to Conway in the east, climbing to nearly 3000 feet as it crosses the flank of Mt. Kancamagus. There are several places to stop to take in the spectacular views, or walk into the mountains. We took the short walk to The Sabbaday Falls, so called because early explorers of the Passaconway Valley reached the falls on a Sunday and during the following years they became a favourite "Sabbath Day" journey. All the stopping places have machines to pay for parking (different coloured tickets at each) so, if you intend stopping at several of the viewpoints, it is better to purchase a single multi-stop ticket before you set off.
We ended up in Conway and took a ride on The Conway Scenic Railway, a 50 minute round trip in the mountains, very relaxing and the railway station has to be one of the prettiest I have ever seen, there are also plenty of steam engines behind the station to wander round if you are interested in trains. While making our way back to Lincoln, through Crawford Notch, we saw our first moose on the side of the road; we have seen herds of them in fields before, but this was the first one out and about on his own.
The following day we drove up to The Mount Washington Cog Railway, and booked tickets for the 11 a.m. train. The track is at such an incline all the way up that the seats in the carriages are angled. We were lucky enough to get the front seats on the ride up and we were told that our feet were at the same level as the heads of the people on the back seat! The track climbs the mountain entirely on trestles - the only railway in the world to do so, the steepest part being Jacob’s Ladder, over 37 percent gradient - difficult to stand up here - we tried. We spent twenty minutes at the top of the mountain before the ride back down; unfortunately, the cloud was down, so we could not see much and it was rather cold and damp, also windy. It was here on 12 April 1934 that the highest wind ever observed by man was recorded, 231 mph. The summit is known as the “home of the world's worst weather”. We drove back down Franconia Notch, stopping to take in the views of the “Old Man’s Foot”, The Old Man of the Mountain and then again at Flume Gorge where we spent a very pleasant couple of hours walking the gorge and enjoying the tranquility of being in the country.
We left Lincoln and carried on to Vermont, our first night was in Danville where we stayed in another wonderful bed and breakfast, Hamilton House. As we were the only guests, we had our choice of the rooms; all five were gorgeous. The one we chose had another bed that I could only just climb into without steps. The breakfast here was stupendous. We had seen a list of things on the blackboard in the dining room the previous evening as we enjoyed coffee and home made cake after a walk round the village, and thought that we would have a choice from this list. But no, we got everything on it! We had coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice, fresh fruit salad, bacon and muffins then fresh strawberry waffles and cream, all for breakfast! We needed a walk after all that and we were told that there was a Farmers Market on the village green that day so we took a walk over. I bought quite a few bottles of maple syrup to bring home both for myself and as presents. It was made on a local farm and cost a lot less than I had seen it in the shops so I was very pleased. The service was also so friendly - everyone wanted to know where we were from, they already knew where we had spent the night - news travels fast in a small community. We eventually managed to drag ourselves away and set off for Stowe where we visited Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory. It was a shame that we could not bring loads home, but we enjoyed seeing how it is made and of course the tasting afterwards; they had several new
flavours that we cannot yet get over here.
We finally dragged ourselves away from the ice creams and drove down to Barre (pronounced Barry) to visit the Rock of Ages granite quarry. There are two quarries on Millstone Hill; the smaller one - 475 feet deep, is half filled with water, the other - over 600 feet deep is still in use, the men and machinery looking like toys from our viewpoint.
From here we drove down to Woodstock, said to be one of the prettiest villages in America, and checked in to The Shire Inn. This side of the road motel has wonderful gardens sloping down to the Ottauquechee River and all the rooms are furnished differently - another four poster bed for us, and wooden rocking chairs on the deck outside our doors. The village really is lovely and we enjoyed our visit to Quechee Gorge, six miles east of the village. The sheer walls can best be seen from the bridge that carries Route 4 over the gorge, it is worth parking next to the gift shop and walking over the bridge to gaze down at the sheer rock walls, and the river 165 feet below. We also walked down the steep trail to the end of the gorge but were disappointed to find that by the time you are at river level, the gorge and the bridge are both out of sight round a bend. Still, the exercise was good for us.
Our route then took us down Highway 91 which runs alongside the Connecticut River and the border between Vermont and New Hampshire. We stopped at Old Fort No 4 at Charlestown then back into Massachusetts and Historic Deerfield. The main thoroughfare of this small town is known as The Street and is home to many 18th and 19th Century buildings, fourteen of which are open to the public. It needs at least two days to really see all the buildings and the admission ticket is valid for 7 consecutive days. It is also worth taking the Channing Blake Meadow Walk through farmland, meadows and wetlands. The village is bypassed by the main roads and is a haven of tranquillity.
Our next scenic drive was the 63 mile long Mohawk Trail from Greenfield to North Adams. We took a slight detour to visit Shelburne Falls to see the glacial potholes and also found the delightful Bridge of Flowers. The 400 foot long bridge was originally used by trolleys but, when it was no longer in use, it was turned into a pathway between flowers and trees spanning the river. As we were there in June, the scent along this path was beautiful and we were pleased to see that all the plants (including trees) were labelled. It really was a lovely surprise.
At the entrance to the Mohawk Trail State Forest stands the bronze sculpture “Hail to the Sunrise”, an Indian brave, arms reaching for the sun. The statue was erected as a memorial to the five Indian tribes that once lived in this area. The highest point on the trail is Whitcomb Summit - 2,240 feet, with stunning views in all directions and also a statue of an Elk, in memory of the brothers of the Massachusetts Elks Association, who died in the world wars. Just before we reached North Adams, we went to The Bridge State Park to see a natural bridge made from white marble, natural wonders abound all over; you just have to know about them. In North Adams we visited the Western Gateway Heritage State Park and learned the story behind The Hoosac Tunnel, the 4.8 mile tunnel took 25 years to construct (1851-75) and was the first time nitroglycerine had been used as a blasting agent. At the time it was the longest tunnel in America but it was built at a cost of nearly 200 lives.
We spent our last day at Hancock Shaker Village, a museum that demonstrates the history of the sect. The village was an active community from 1790 right up until 1960. The buildings are all open to wander round and most have guides, some in character, to explain and demonstrate how things were done. The round stone barn is perhaps the most famous of the buildings here. It was built on three levels, the top level was where the wagons emptied their load into the central haymow, the middle level housed the cattle, the stables radiate out from the central manger so only one person is needed to attend to all the animals, and the lower level housed the manure pits. Banking round the barn ensured easy access to all levels. When we left the village we drove south, into New York State and down Interstate 87 to Newark and home.
We thoroughly enjoyed our trip and the smell of the flowers everywhere will stay with me for ever. Most people go for the colour in autumn but I am glad that we went in June; it was quiet and hot, too hot most of the time as they were having unseasonably hot weather when we visited - most days it was in the 80's and 90's. I would definitely go back, some of the places we saw are really worth going back to and there was so much that we did not have time to see in 15 days - no matter how much homework you do before you go, there are always so many other things to see and do once you get there. New England has something for every taste, mountains, sandy beaches and rugged coastline, quiet villages and bustling cities, steam trains and museums. I'll be back.
First published in VISA issues 48-49 (winter 2002 and January 2003)
by Neil Matthews
It had all started when Helen had found out that a meeting of a national committee of her professional body was taking place, for a change, in Edinburgh. The meeting was on a Friday. Helen had never been to Scotland and I hadn’t set foot in Edinburgh for twenty years. So we decided to use the Saturday to get a glimpse of the city. One day could only afford a glimpse. So we hit on the idea of visiting as many sights as possible for free.
Time constraints led us to focus on locations in and around the Royal Mile. It was a cold and wet day, which only seemed to heighten the imposing effect of the grey stone from which Edinburgh had been hewn. The city seems to be making a statement: whatever comes and goes, no matter what, it is there to stay and endure.
Happily, the outward dourness belies some fascinating visitor attractions. In Lady Stair’s House, Lawnmarket, sits the Writers’ Museum. Although temporary exhibitions remember other writers, the Museum is primarily an insight into the lives of Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. For a small property, the Museum packs in a lot of portraits, manuscripts and personal exhibits such as Burns’ writing desk and Scott’s chessboard.
The life of Stevenson - a sickly boy from a middle class Edinburgh family, who died in Samoa aged 44 - is probably impossible to make dull anyway. From Travels with a Donkey to Kidnapped, Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Stevenson’s work amuses, enthralls and intrigues readers of all ages even now. Much of his work focused on Scottish character and history - something he had in common with Scott, another son of Edinburgh. Scott was also sickly as a child and polio left him with a lame leg, but this did not prevent him becoming one of the best known and most revered figures of his time. His work as a lawyer did not prevent him from producing an outstanding body of novels and poetry, and even masterminding arrangements for the visit of George IV to Edinburgh - the first royal visit in many years. Scott’s legacy to Scotland took many forms (for example, the novel Heart of Midlothian led to a dance hall of the same name, which in turn inspired some of its patrons to found the football club).
Burns was the odd man out, being born not in Edinburgh but in Alloway. He might have emigrated to Jamaica but for the unexpected success of Poems, chiefly in the Scottish dialect when it was published in 1786. Only after then did Burns decide to further his literary ambitions by visiting Edinburgh, an adventure which is recollected by the Museum’s audio reconstructions.
For those of an artistic bent, the five buildings which comprise the National Galleries of Scotland may provide many hours of pleasure and enlightenment. We only had time to visit the National Gallery itself, situated between the Old Town and the New Town on The Mound. Although it claims the largest and most comprehensive collection of Scottish paintings in the world, the Gallery is also home to a number of Impressionist and post-Impressionist works by Gauguin, Monet, Cézanne and others. Bernini, Canaletto, Canova and many other masters are also represented. The rich reds and greens of the traditional décor, including period furniture, are easy on the eye and do not detract from the art.
For a focus on Edinburgh, look no further than the Museum of Edinburgh itself at 142 Canongate. Huntly House, a restored 16th century mansion, hosts various collections and artefacts relating to the city, such as the National Covenant which Scotland’s Presbyterian leaders signed in 1638. There is a section devoted to Field Marshal Earl Haig, but sadly this was closed at the time of our visit. The collections of Edinburgh silver and glass are particularly fine.
The Museum of Childhood, at 42 High Street, will take you from centuries of history to an almost inevitable nostalgia if you are of a certain age - and may even intrigue the children of today. It was opened in 1955, so is coming into middle age itself. There are exhibits of how children were dressed, how they played and how they were educated in generations past. For me, the interesting point was the overt educational content of most of the board games on display. It was a mite alarming, on the other hand, to read on one board of the player finding “something nasty in the hedge” as he attempted to visit his granny. If dolls and dolls’ houses, train sets and teddy bears are your cup of tea, you will love this museum. Or, as Miss Jean Brodie remarked in another context: “For those who like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing they like.”
We almost broke our pledge to avoid spending when we entered St Giles’ Cathedral. The central pillars date from around 1120 and the church was burnt by an English army in 1385 before being rebuilt over the subsequent 530 years. As a result, it is a mish-mash of styles and content, but charming all the same. The cost of taking photographs is £1, but the little old lady to whom we enquired advised us to walk around before parting with our pound. We might prefer to buy a (cheaper) postcard, she said.
Our final free visit was an external gawp at the new Scottish Parliament. The building has an impossible task - namely to fit in with the rest of this very distinctive city, but also to assert its own identity. As with most impossible tasks, this one has failed. The curious mixture of grey stone and bent bamboo sticks round the doors and windows lends the Parliament a temporary air which was surely not intended. Given the controversy over the excessive amounts spent on its construction, it reminded me of a remark attributed to Dolly Parton when asked why she didn’t retire: “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”
Having spent precisely no money at all on seeing any of the sites mentioned, it was only fair that we should pay a brief visit to Harvey Nichols. Crowds of enthusiastic shoppers swarmed around us as we gazed disbelievingly at a pumpkin. This unimpressive object and its ludicrous £4 price tag seemed totally out of kilter with all that had gone before. Scots presumably know a bargain when they see one; on our way out, we did not pass any new proud owners of overpriced pumpkins.
First published in VISA issue 66 (Apr 2006).
by John Keeble
I’m relaxing next to our RV just outside the centre of Sedona, Arizona’s Glastonbury, enjoying the evening after finishing my fifth Tony Hillerman novel about the Navajo cops Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee.
There’s a temptation to write a Hillerman-style description of our journey through Navajoland but, thankfully, there were no bodies in our version ... as far as we knew at the time.
Hillerman has been writing for more than three decades about the land between the four sacred mountains and each book, as gripping as it is as a crime thriller, has subtle lessons on Navajo culture and spirituality woven into the plot along with descriptions of real locations.
At one place – Sand Island, in the Navajo north not far from Four Corners – we stumbled into our own mystery by the fast-flowing San Juan river in the deserted twilight alive with the sounds of the wilderness.
A slight map mix-up, always a good plot switch and never for the good, left us at a gate with a sign for Sand Island campsite. It was getting late and we had driven a long way. So, rather fatefully, we decided to see if it was okay for us for the night.
We pulled in, round a hairpin bend and down to the camp by the river. One of the Rangers was just leaving and their offices were closed. A dozen or more cars and pickup trucks were parked by the river... but without a soul anywhere in sight.
We parked the RV, got ourselves organised, and went for a stroll along the river. No one would survive a fall into that ... The cars and pickups were still there, abandoned and silent in this strange place scores of miles from anywhere.
The late afternoon slipped into dusk and dusk slipped into night – we cooked a meal, read our books, waited for some sign of the return of the people who owned the vehicles. Nothing stirred in this land rich in the dead of the ancient Anasazi Indians, their chindis (evil ghosts) roaming in the realm of the living.
In the morning, the vehicles were still there as we pulled out, on our way deeper into the Navajos’ territory. It was many days later that Joe Leaphorn, Hillerman’s legendary lieutenant of the Navajo Tribal Police, picked up the mystery for us – but I’ll get back to that and why we have to return next year to follow the trail.
Our journey from white America into the Navajo Nation’s territory started with a visit to the thin slot canyon at Antelope near Page in Utah.
Land belonging to the Navajos is mostly bleak, sunbaked scrub and bare rocks. It was this quality that left the 8,000 surviving Navajo in possession of their homeland when the settlers grabbed the best land in the 19th century. Today, the Navajos have a population of more than 250,000 living on 27,000 square miles, an effective three-tier government along the lines of the US government, and the Navajo Nation is regarded as rich with oil, power stations, tourism and, soon perhaps, its first casino.
At Antelope, as in other places, the population is thinly spread and in the area where we climbed into the lower canyon, there was a small wooden ‘office’ and a few portable lavatories in a large makeshift vehicle park. Beyond that, just flat rocks and scrubland.
Four Navajos were sitting in the shade, talking, when we arrived. One got up to take our money – there is usually an entrance fees to Navajo parks – and, after a chat, he issued us with four-hour photographer passes.
Another walked us down, past the memorial to people who had died in flash floods in the canyon, across the rocks already burning in the June heat – and to the narrow slit where we could slip down into the Slot Canyon.
It is hard to say how far that section of the canyon stretches as it heads for Lake Powell, but every step was wonderful: the architecture of the gods or the elements, whatever you believe, with light seeping in from the top to turn the twisting walls yellow and orange, coral and red, and casting shadows as black as a land grabber’s heart.
We edged our way down, too early for others to be around, squeezing through tight openings, skidding down sharp drops and all the time trying to capture the magic of the place with our digital cameras.
Later we heard voices behind us and, slowly, they caught up. A party of Japanese tourists were politely overtaking us in a gaggle led by a Navajo and after that the silence never returned, as more people inched their way down the canyon to pass us and quickly return to the light above.
On our way back from the bottom, we climbed from one level to another, making our photographs as we went, and headed into a section too dark to see... except there was movement, and a head, its dreadlocks hanging around a good Nikon SLR, eased into the light and peered at us. We pulled back, let him get his shot. He was another on a photographer pass and we stood for some time, in this beautiful place, talking pictures with him and what he described as ‘spiritual photography’, before going our separate ways ...
From Antelope, we drove on to Monument Valley, turning into the park area... for a few dollars we were granted a place on the park’s Primitive RV site. It does not have water, or electricity, or sewer link, it was not flat and the night was wild with gusting wind that rocked the few overnighting vehicles to a degree that brought to mind the 50ft drops round much of the site (especially where we were parked).
But, without question or doubt, it was the most staggeringly beautiful site you can imagine: there, in front of us, were the iconic red rocks towering into the dusk sky and the surrounding desert dropping spectacularly into darkness.
The Navajos welcome the sun as it rises and so did we: 4.45am and the light on the horizon was silhouetting the rocks and, as the sun lifted, giving colour and form to the timeless wilderness so familiar through the lenses of Hollywood.
The other end of the day found us in the company of Richard, a Navajo, who was taking us to all the big sights and a few unusual places in his 4WD. And, once off the tourist trail, we definitely needed the 4WD.
Teardrop Window... the Totem Pole with the Ceremonial Dancers next to it... the petroglyphs... all the big rocks, known through the ages to Navajos but named in recent centuries by white men – Richard took us to them all and, when the sun was almost down, we stopped at a hollowed-out rock known as the Big Hogan and, while we rested, he played his flute and sang a plea to the Great Spirit to watch over us all.
For a few moments it all seemed idyllic in the silence but then I recalled, far overhead, a jet stream flaring white in the sky and, as Richard had pointed out earlier, the pressures on the valley increasing all the time – then, in particular, as some people wanted to authorise low-level tourist flights over the rocks and others fought to stop them.
Early the next day, we fuelled up (at a third of the price of UK fuel) and set off on our odyssey into the heartland of the Navajo people.
The first destination was Mexican Hat – a rock that looks like, you know, a Mexican hat. After the fantastic sights of Monument Valley, where at times you could think you were on another planet, we just went by with a casual ‘oh, yes, that’s interesting’... without realising, then, that it was destined to be part of our own lives and a key element in the mystery to come at Sand Island.
It was soon afterwards that something strange happened. We were on track for Shiprock when we suddenly came upon a road not shown on our map but going where we wanted to go. We were travelling too fast – 50mph is too fast in a large RV to quickly turn – and we sailed past, managing to slow and stop exactly at the fateful entrance to Sand Island campsite. That’s when we pulled in.
The whole region is covered with sites of the Anasazi, an Indian people who simply vanished – perhaps to become the Hopi tribe – leaving their homes and their dead ... and among the ruins, say Navajos, the chindis roam.
By strange coincidence, it was in just this area that Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn was doggedly pursuing someone or something terrible as I read my way through A Thief of Time. And it was the horror he found that opened our eyes to our mystery of disappearing boats and people – a strange and daunting trail we are determined to follow when we return next year.
From Sand Island, we stopped off at Four Corners, a very popular place where the state boundaries meet for Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico... a novelty set among the splendour of the vast open Navajo lands.
And finally we got to Shiprock, sprawling and welcoming, where we spent an interesting couple of hours in the flea market, buying goods we had not seen anywhere else. But the beauty of the visit was in Ship Rock, the sacred Navajo rock – again, it was named by white men and, from some angles, it does look like a ship. In Navajo legends, it is the Winged Rock, nearly 1,800ft high, that carried the first Navajos from the dangerous north to a safer life.
By chance and our usual temptation to use minor roads, we stayed on the road that passes closest to Winged Rock and headed towards Canyon de Chelley further south. The road rose steadily and then steeply until, near the summit of the mountain range, it offered glorious views across the long valley to Winged Rock before dropping down towards Canyon de Chelley. It was a spectacularly beautiful drive.
Long before nightfall, we were in Canyon de Chelley, deciding the bottom campsite was not exciting enough and opting to add an 18-mile climb to a Navajo site near the fabled Spider Rock.
We sorted out the usual campsite formalities and drove even higher - to an elevation of nearly 8,000ft – to photograph down to the colossal natural column named Spider Rock, where the Navajos’ Spider Woman first taught them to weave.
Twelve hours later, we edged our way down from the campsite, stopping at all the sights, and checked into the Rangers’ easy and free campsite before dining at the Thunderbird canteen, a huge Navajo self-service eatery where we seemed to be the only non-locals.
June ate well with veggie fare and I got a vegan taco: Navajo fry bread the size of a family pizza base, half a tonne of beans and salad on top. Bit of a family joke: as a vegan, wherever we go, I end up having baked beans on toast ...
We were taking it easy but in our parallel lives, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee were having a terrible time, criss-crossing our route, and the dead Anasazis were drawing them inexorably into our Sand Island mystery.
Next day, we trundled on through small towns and a gas station in the middle of nowhere but frenetic with Navajo traffic ... lots of pickup trucks, one towing the contents of a home, cars, trucks ... women and children emerging from the shop with gallons of soft drinks and piles of fry bread ... it wasn’t the only gas station and store in 30 miles but it was the favourite – one man said he drove 50 miles to use it.
We refuelled and the long straight road out led, eventually, to the Navajo Nation’s capital, Window Rock, named after the great rock with its centre worn out by eons of natural erosion. The modern town - with a very welcoming library and exhibition centre, plus a supermarket offering a deli counter and a big selection of horse feed - has a second area dedicated to running the Navajo Nation.
The government is modelled on the national system: a President and Administration, a Council of nearly 90 elected delegates and a judiciary, plus of course its various ministries dealing with specific subjects like permissions for Navajos to build and live on the land.
But pride of place, under Window Rock itself, goes to the memorial for the Navajo Code Talkers – the men who, in the Second World War, developed and used combat communications that became the only US system never cracked by the Japanese.
As we walked back from the memorial, past the President’s office, to see and photograph the hogan-shaped council chamber (then being renovated) we met Elmer L Milford, the elected delegate for Fort Defiance and a specialist in education. He was in the middle of his busy day but gave us an hour, explaining the government system, telling us about the people and today’s Navajo life, and inviting us to return some time and spend more time with him.
"We have to change, we have to adapt to the modern world,” he said. “Education used to be about how to survive in this land, how to live, how to defend the people and the land. Now we have to educate to meet the challenges of today. It is also our job to get the jobs here, or we lose our young people to the city businesses.”
Elmer, wearing a beautiful bolo tie clasp that he crafted himself after 9/11, travels widely to bring the benefits of the modern age to the Navajos but he never forgets the tribal roots. “I get a lot of the wisdom from my mother,” he told us. “She knows the traditional ways and sees things that others do not see. I bring her wisdom here [to the council] and people say ‘I hadn’t thought of that’.”
With impeccable timing, that evening Leaphorn and Chee reached the denouement of their mystery in the canyon of the dead Anasazis as we sat between the interstate highway and Santa Fe railroad at a campsite at Gallup on the southern edge of Navajo territory. The solution to our own Sand Island mystery unravelled too, along with the realisation that we must return to venture into the forbidding waters of the San Juan.
If, like Leaphorn and Chee, we survive, we’ll tell you about it next year.
First published in VISA issue 75 (Oct 2007)
by David Gourley
Previously we had dipped our toes into Normandy a couple of times. The first had been during a stay in Brittany when we’d visited Mont St Michel. This is so near to Brittany that some think it is in Brittany. It was very picturesque - and very, very crowded. The second time had been when I stayed overnight in Rouen. This trip featured in a Visa article though it was really a piece about Eurostar. It was the last time I travelled from Waterloo that way, before the opening of the hi-speed route from St Pancras.
We rather wanted to see more of Normandy. In particular we were keen to see the D-Day landing beaches and the Bayeux Tapestry. We found a trip that suited us in this respect, again travelling with Eurostar, upgrading ourselves to Leisure Select, and again based in Rouen, this time for four nights. Eurostar was not at the time riding high in public affection. When it is good, it is very, very good but when it is bad...
Not long before, there had been the disastrous breakdown when trains had been held up for many hours due to the intense cold on land and the inability to cope with the change of temperature in the Tunnel. It is easy of course to sit in a comfortable chair and criticize, but weren’t there people who were paid rather a lot of money to anticipate such problems? Compounding matters was the anything but professional response of Eurostar to the crisis, with train staff apparently locking themselves away from everyone.
Nothing so dire happened on our trip. We made it to and from Paris on schedule. But travelling out, we waited ages for the complimentary drinks and meal, and no menu was produced. I cannot accept that staff are too busy to put a menu onto tables as they pass down the carriage. When we finally enquired, a charmless steward told us that they were short staffed and had to give priority to the people in Business Premier. That put us in our place. To be fair the lunch, when it finally arrived, was good, the main course being an unusual kind of cottage pie made with ham hock, and service on the way home was faultless.
There was a surprise on the journey out. Our guide came round to introduce himself. It was Tony, the same chap that we’d had the previous year when we’d had a very pleasant stay, organized through the same tour company, in Sorrento. He had been a good guide so we were pleased. He didn’t, though, remember us. There were we, thinking we always stand out, in pleasing fashion, from the crowd. Clearly we don’t.
Another surprise, again pleasant, awaited us at Gare du Nord. We were transferring to Rouen by coach and I’d assumed that we’d take the Périphérique out of Paris. Our driver, however, informed us that it was very busy and that we’d do better to drive through the centre of the city. So we had an interesting drive that took in some of the main sights and included a section of the Champs-Elysées. There were memories of Princess Diana. As we passed the Ritz Hotel, Tony pointed out the door where the last ever photographs of her were taken, before that fateful car journey. Then we drove through the very tunnel where the accident had happened. It felt just a bit strange.
We drove along a street in which there are statues, some distance apart, of both Churchill and de Gaulle. Tony was a mine of information but this time he got things a bit wrong, for he told us that the two couldn’t stand each other. That really wasn’t true. The relationship was more one of love-hate. The real loathing was between de Gaulle and Roosevelt, with Churchill sometimes finding himself uncomfortably in the middle. It was certainly true that de Gaulle was a haughty and in many ways difficult individual, who did not at all mind annoying the Anglo-Saxons. But he is deservedly remembered as one of the heroes of the twentieth century. He stood for freedom when the government of the day surrendered to the Nazi invaders. It is said that when he boarded his plane in Bordeaux in order to come to Britain and establish the Free French movement, he carried the honour of his country in his briefcase. On earlier visits to Paris we had been moved by the words of his first broadcast from London, reproduced beneath the Arc de Triomphe. There is a statue of him in London, located in Carlton Gardens, outside the building where the Free French were based.
Rouen is one of those cities that I would describe as a hidden gem. I don’t entirely understand why some places become tourist hotspots and others don’t. In Italy visitors rightly acclaim the beauty of Rome, Venice and Florence, and of some smaller cities such as Siena. But we have marvelled at the beauty of Mantua whilst, in Tuscany, Lucca, save for the fact that it doesn’t have a leaning tower, beats Pisa hands down. In the Czech Republic, Prague, again justifiably, is lauded but one hardly ever reads about Karlovy Vary. This is a beautiful city, still sometimes known by its old Habsburg name, Karlsbad, where the crowned heads of Europe once came to take the waters. We went there a few years after the Velvet Revolution and I was sure that before long western tourists would be flocking there. Likewise in France, provincial cities such as Lyon, Toulouse and Bordeaux take their bow and Lille was ‘discovered’ after Eurostar opened. But it is surprising that there is relatively little interest in Rouen.
Rouen is a beautiful city with an unspoilt medieval centre. That might not, it is true, be the first impression as one enters the city having taken the motorway from Paris. One is here travelling alongside the Seine, a target for bombing after the D-Day landings as it was vital that the Allies destroyed the bridges and thus blocked the path of counterattacking Nazi troops. The area was rebuilt after the war in unsympathetic fashion. But if one goes a couple or so blocks away from the river, one is in the medieval heart of the city. We saw this on a stroll from our hotel, located just outside the centre, and again on a walking tour the next morning.
Our tour took us along cobbled streets, stopping to go inside the magnificent Notre Dame Cathedral, where Claude Monet had put up his easel. Then it was along the main thoroughfare which is graced by, and indeed named after, the Gros-Horloge, the resplendent clock tower that bridges the street and boasts one of the largest clock faces anywhere. We finished in the Place du Vieux-Marché. It was here that Joan of Arc was burnt at the stake and a huge cross marks the spot where this happened. Close by is the church that is named from her; this is decidedly modern, but all around the buildings are medieval.
On the way back, we saw that the Gros-Horloge could be entered free of charge as part of a Printemps au Normande promotion. That was the good news. The bad news was that there was a queue and it was getting on for lunch time. In France it is not unusual for attractions to close for fully two hours at lunchtime and they won’t let you in after 11.30 for fear you might not be out by twelve. The people at the end of the queue had been led to understand that they were the last who would be admitted before lunch. We chanced our arm, joined the queue and were admitted. As well as the fascinating museum and the views of the clock’s mechanisms from inside, there were fine vistas over the city, which is scenically located amidst low–lying hills, to be enjoyed from the terrace.
In the afternoon we headed a few miles north to Fécamp. This is a pleasant resort but probably would get far fewer visitors if it didn’t have the magnificent Benedictine Palace. This is a delightfully eccentric building. To start with one might think one was in a stately home but then one comes to the distillery where the liqueur is produced. One ends the tour with a tasting. Tony had warned us that it tasted awful but I quite liked it and told him so. Only one other person in our rather large party had liked it, he told me.
For dinner we pushed the boat out and dined at La Couronne, which is France’s oldest inn, dating back to 1345. So old in fact that it was there when Joan was burnt just outside in the Place du Vieux-Marché. It was very atmospheric and we enjoyed an excellent meal served by friendly and attentive staff. Over breakfast next morning, we wondered what the oldest inn back home is. We were sitting with just the couple who could tell us. They hailed from Nottingham and England’s oldest inn is Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, located in that city and dating back to 1189.
The next day we headed to Honfleur. This has some claim to be Normandy’s most beautiful town; I have even seen it included in the itineraries of coastal cruises around Britain, the deviation southwards clearly being thought worthwhile. Its charm derives from the fact that this is old Normandy, untouched by the fighting in World War II. Normandy, of course, was where the Allies launched, from the D-Day beaches, their drive across Europe that was to end in the defeat of Hitler (though Allied forces were, it should be remembered, already on the Continent, battling their way up the Italian peninsula: Rome was liberated on the same day as the landings). The people of Normandy are grateful to their liberators, but they paid the price of living in the first part of France to be freed, for the Nazis put up a stubborn resistance that led to many towns and villages, above all Caen, being virtually destroyed. Once this resistance was defeated, the Allies were able to advance with relative ease through the rest of France. Honfleur somehow managed to survive intact, as did the medieval centre of Rouen.
The drive to Honfleur was mainly along motorways but one part was interesting for we crossed the spectacular Pont de Normandie, which crosses the Seine near its estuary. From here Le Havre and its industry could be seen. We greatly enjoyed our time exploring Honfleur and there was also a bit of time for exploration when we got back to Rouen. We used this to have a look round the Joan of Arc Church and the rather upmarket market that is outside the church itself, but under its vast roof. The striking modernity of the church might be thought to be at odds with the medieval surrounds but somehow it works. Continuing with the Joan of Arc theme – she is the city’s revered daughter though she only went there to be executed – we went to the nearby museum that is dedicated to her life, a charming and well laid out place with earphones offering a commentary in inter alia English. We were reminded, of course, that it was the perfidious English who were responsible for Joan’s demise (with a bit of help from the Burgundians) but Rouen has, as they say, moved on and the English visitor will feel very welcome there.
The last of our full days was taken up with the longest of our tours which was really our raison d’être for coming to Normandy, though there are plenty of other good reasons to visit. This took us to Bayeux and the D-Day beaches. First stop was Bayeux. Sometimes a well-known attraction disappoints when one actually gets to see it but the Tapestry certainly doesn’t do that. It is thought that the Tapestry – an embroidery rather than a tapestry as such – was commissioned by Bishop Odo, half-brother of William the Conqueror. It depicts the Norman Conquest of England. Across the channel it inspired the splendid tapestry in the D-Day Museum in Southsea that depicts that momentous event in 1944.
The commentary in our earphones went at a cracking pace. At the end of it we wanted more time to admire the Tapestry so we went round again, sans earphones and at our own pace. There was plenty more to look at in the building that houses the Tapestry, including a model of an English village, East Meon in Hampshire, at the time of the Conquest. We could have spent all our time there but did not want to miss out on looking round the town of Bayeux, which is a place of great charm.
Like Honfleur, Bayeux was spared destruction in World War II. This was because it was the first city to be liberated after the D-Day landings and the surprise element enabled allied troops to take it without any fighting. As such it was the first to be visited by General de Gaulle, who arrived soon after. He was determined that his first step onto free French soil would not be on land liberated by the Anglo-Saxons. So Omaha and Utah Beaches (where the Americans had landed) were ruled out, as were Gold and Sword (ditto the British). It had to be Juno, liberated by the Canadians, including of course French-speaking Québecois.
Soon after leaving Bayeux, we stopped on the outskirts of the town in order to visit the immaculately maintained British and Commonwealth War Cemetery, a moving experience which brought to mind our visit to El Alamein a few years earlier – without that victory in Egypt, there would have been no D-Day landings. It is the largest such World War II cemetery in France, containing 4,648 graves, some poignantly recording the death of an unknown soldier. Across the road is the Memorial to the Missing, which bears a Latin epitaph that translates as ‘We, once conquered by William, have set free the Conqueror’s land’.
We continued to Arromanches. Parts of the famed Mulberry Harbour are still visible out at sea. This was the brainchild of Sir Winston Churchill. In 1942 Canadian forces had raided Dieppe. This was an abortive foray but a lesson learnt was that it would be virtually impossible to launch an invasion of the European mainland through an established port, as it was bound to be very heavily defended. A port would thus have to be created, hence the artificial harbour which was assembled in Britain and towed out to Arromanches, which was transformed overnight from a sleepy fishing village to the world’s busiest port.
We had some spare time in which to wander around Arromanches and also to have lunch in the June 6th restaurant, named from D-Day. I had a good Normandy-style meal of pork cooked in cider, washed down with a glass of cider. We then reassembled as a party for our visit to the museum that commemorates the D-Day landings, the Musée du Débarquement. It would have been good if it had been a bit less crowded. Nevertheless it was an enjoyable and thought-provoking visit that included the Admiralty film of ‘Port Winston’. There is an exhibition commemorating the various nationalities that took part in the Landing. One might, if asked to say who these were, reply that they were the British, Americans, Canadians and, last but certainly not least, the Free French. But there are others who are remembered: the Belgians, at the start of a long march that would take them back to their homeland; the Danes, Norwegians, Dutch and even Luxembourgeois; and the gallant fighters whose own countries would remain unfree until the very end of the eighties, the Czechs and the Poles.
We headed eastwards, paralleling the landing beaches. A bit disappointingly, there were not many glimpses of the beaches themselves and at one point there was an annoying diversion inland. But finally we stopped at Sword. For our first two full days we had had glorious weather. It was still dry on this day, but the temperature had dipped considerably. We were dressed for the earlier period and an extra layer or two would have been sensible. The fact that it was freezing cold was not, of course, going to stop us going onto the beach, but I confess that we didn’t linger. We reflected as we reboarded our warm coach that the brave soldiers who’d landed on that beach 66 years previously were completely at the mercy of whatever the elements threw at them.
We now turned inland and headed back for our last night in Rouen. A final recollection of the momentous events in 1944 came as we passed though the village that had once been known simply as Colleville. It is now Colleville-Montgomery. There is a statue of the great man. Apparently there was much debate about which direction it should face. One option was for it to look towards the sea and thus at the beaches where his troops had landed. It was decided, however, that it should look inland, towards the rest of the country which he had played such a vital part in liberating.
First published in VISA 93 (Oct 2010)
by Neil Matthews
“I’m going to kill Huw,” Helen muttered, repeatedly and with increasing venom. “Mmm,” I replied non-commitally, “If we ever get back.” For the moment, all I wanted was to get to sleep. Perhaps I could dream our predicament out of existence. We were halfway to heaven in a nowhere world of white, with only two men called Alex for company.
Huw, the travel agent with whom we had planned our trip, had described the Torugart Pass as “one of the grandest overland journeys in central Asia”. Sitting in his comfortable office in rural Oxfordshire some months before, we had eventually agreed after much discussion to include it in our itinerary. Huw said the views would be stupendous and the experience unforgettable. He was half right.
We made an early morning start from Kashgar in a 4WD, with our Kashgar guide Ali, a slim moustachioed Uighur, and our tall, burly Chinese driver, Mr Gao. The drive was quiet, as Mr Gao couldn’t say a word of English and Ali wouldn’t. In some ways this was welcome: the previous two weeks of the (mostly) official Chinese view of everything had been wearying at times. But Ali’s total silence disconcerted me.
The merciless heat and sun of Kashgar were a memory by the time we reached the cold isolation of a Chinese customs post. Ali’s silence now turned from a social quirk into a definite hindrance. We asked what we were supposed to do; he said nothing. We had to look into a camera – for a “health check”, allegedly – and then to show our visas to Chinese officials while waiting for customs officers to turn up. To pass the time, I showed the photos on my digital camera to an official, who seemed suitably fascinated. Maybe the sights of Beijing and Xian were more foreign to him than to us.
Finally a customs officer arrived and switched on the X-ray machine. He wanted to see our ‘book’ (the itinerary) and then a cloisonné plate Helen had bought, with the receipt. There are heavy fines for attempting to export out of China illegally. The customs room suddenly seemed very small and menacing. Eventually, the official smiled and let us pack the plate away and proceed. So it was back into the dirty 4WD and a further climb into the mountains, during which it began to snow. We arrived at what seemed to be the border and parked. An hour or so passed, in silence. There was nothing to see, and nothing to do except to eat the grapes we had bought in Turpan. The snow was thickening and closing in.
Finally, Mr Gao let a small exclamation pass his lips, opened his door and leapt out of the van. A few seconds later, he gestured for us to do likewise. I landed in the ankle-deep snow and realised, just too late, that I had forgotten to change my trainers for something more sensible. After farewell handshakes with Mr Gao (smiles, firm handshake, tip) and Ali (no smiles, limp handshake, no tip), we shuffled over with our luggage to meet our new guide – a short young man with Far Eastern features.
“Hi, I’m Alex,” he said. “Welcome to Kyrgyzstan.”
He led us to a second, even dirtier 4WD, in which we would journey on. The driver looked like a mafia heavy from every thriller film ever made: tall, heavily-built, blue eyes, brown hair. Confusingly, his name was Alex. As the 4WD drove further into the mountains, we found out that short Alex was a Korean Christian, but a Kyrgyz citizen, with an Uzbek father and a Tajik mother. Tall Alex, on the other hand, was Russian, just to add to the Cold War atmosphere of this strange day. For the next few hours, we bumped and scraped and slalomed along. Frequently, we had to slow or stop, to allow one lorry after another to creep by in the opposite direction, carrying electrical goods (we assumed) into China. The van’s rear and side windows were caked with snow and dirt. The view through the windscreen was an expanse of white. The majestic mountain views Huw had promised were probably out there, somewhere.
We came to a Kyrgyz customs point, where tall Alex had to drive the van into a shed and over an ‘inspection pit’. It looked like it went a long way down – as far as I could tell, standing back from the edge with a hand over my eyes. A queue and a conversation with a greatcoat later, we got back in the van.
“Now we’re going to the border,” said short Alex.
This confused us. Where were we?
“Between China and Kyrgyzstan,” said short Alex.
So this was no man’s land. It certainly felt like it. The 4WD resumed its slow, grinding, bumping, sliding odyssey through the whiteness. I can sleep through car, coach or train trips in almost any circumstances. This time, my body perversely refused to relax into sleep, though there was nothing to see. Helen amused herself by thinking up a variety of demises for Huw.
Two precarious hours later, we reached another checkpoint – the real border.
“Welcome to Kyrgyzstan,” said short Alex, his smile even wider.
First published in VISA 90 (Apr 2010)
by Elizabeth Johnstone
I shop a lot at Tesco and end up with fistfuls of their loyalty coupons. Since my family is long past the Legoland stage, I use the coupons for Eurotunnel. They have been worth four times their face value. Yes, that’s right. I haven’t paid anything for my Eurotunnel crossings for years now. The day return ticket for my last trip cost £63, but by using four £15 Tesco coupons, I paid a mere £3 for it. Sadly, Tesco have wised up to the fact that this is a fantastic deal and, from December onwards, the tokens will be for three times the face value of the Tesco vouchers. Never mind. It won’t stop me. We generally set off about 7 am, get the 9.50 crossing, arriving 35 minutes later, do a big hypermarket shopping, then go for a four-course lunch at one of our favourite restaurants. The Toques d’Opale is a group of restaurants in and around Calais where you will get a three/four course meal for 20 to 30 euros. We have been to several and have never been disappointed.
As for the actual crossing in the train, it is pretty dull but perfectly bearable for 35 minutes. You could easily spend as long as that on the London Underground. You sit in your car (armed with crossword, I-Pod etc) and if necessary you can stretch your legs or go to the toilet. I have loyalty cards for Carrefour in the Cité d’Europe and Auchan which is slightly out of town but more accessible for parking. Some French groceries such as confit de canard and cassoulet are hard to get hold of in England other than at overpriced food fairs so we stock up on those. Obviously, we also get a couple of cases of wine. When will the English realise that a dry fruity rosé is the perfect all-round food wine?
We are usually booked on to a crossing about 4.30 pm but, if we arrive earlier, they can often move you up to an earlier crossing. The drive home takes about an hour and a half, so we are back home in the early evening, having had a gourmet lunch and shopping experience. It’s not a booze cruise, or really any sort of money-saving activity, although it is well worth going with an empty tank to fill up at £1 a litre or less, even with a poor rate of exchange. It is an opportunity to have a delicious lunch and, if you are me, to discuss each course with the waiter who is invariably astonished that an English person (a) speaks French and (b) (even more surprising than (a)) appreciates good food.
I should be on commission from Tesco, considering how often I have told people about this. However, I’m not going to tell you too much about my favourite Calais restaurant. You’ll have to find your own. Bon appétit!
First published in VISA 95 (Feb 2011)
by Maxine Bates
As part of an organised tour of Central Europe with Archers / Cosmos in October, fellow TravelSIG member Helen Bennett and I spent a day in Vienna. It’s amazing what you can fit into 24 hours if you try!
Arriving in the city at 12.30pm, we were dropped off in Schwedenplatz near the Donaukanal and made our way along Karntnerstrasse, the main shopping street. This led us to the Opera House where, as luck would have it, a guided tour in English was about to commence at 1.00 pm. For €5.00 we were taken into the auditorium by a very informative guide and also saw the elaborate adjoining rooms with busts of famous composers and artwork depicting their operas. The Opera House had partly been destroyed by fire many years ago and the areas unaffected were even more elaborate. We were amazed to discover the complexity of stage management - the practice sets are trucked in from the outskirts of the city each morning - and that the Opera House plan their performances up to seven years in advance!
Next stop was Stephansdom (St Stephen's Cathedral). The medieval spire has dominated Vienna since the 14th century. The cathedral has an unusual mix of Gothic towers, Baroque altar and Romanesque facade. We took the lift up the North Tower for fine views of the city and a closer inspection of the colourful roof. Outside there are 'human statues' performing for your coins. With half an hour to spare before our coach departed for the hotel, we just had time to visit the Figarohaus on Domgasse where Mozart and his family lived and where he composed The Marriage of Figaro. Rather than furniture, the rooms now contain displays about the composer's life and headphones to listen to his music. Bizarrely, there were many photos of his family and friends, but very few of Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791) himself!
In the evening we made our own way by tram and metro, passing Schonbrunn Palace en route, to Prater Park to ride the famous Reisenrad (Prater Wheel). Some of you may recognise this attraction from the film The Third Man. Built in 1897 it is one of the oldest and largest ferris wheels in the world. Originally the wheel had 30 wooden carriages but, due to its age, it was felt to be unsafe so every other one has now been removed. Before riding you may visit the exhibition depicting the wheel over the last century. It was one of the first things to be rebuilt after being bombed during World War II as the locals felt it was their symbol. There are also fairground attractions in Prater Park.
We purchased a "Kombiticket" for just over €9.00 for both the Reisenrad and Donauturm (Danube Tower), which is a metro ride away over (or rather under!) the river. The tower is 252 metres high with a viewing terrace and revolving restaurant. The food was good with some typical Viennese dishes on the menu and not too expensive considering the location. For the daring (or foolish?) there is the opportunity to do a bungee jump from the top of the tower! The Donauturm is quite a walk from the nearest metro station, but well worth a visit.
At 9.00 am the following morning we were buying another "Kombiticket" for €14.50, this time for the Lipizzaner Museum and morning training session at the Spanish Riding School. Show tickets are sold out months in advance (see the website www.spanische-reitschule.com for available dates), but tickets for the training session can only be purchased on the day. The training sessions take place Tuesday to Saturday except in January, February, July and August. Though not a 'horse person', I found the museum interesting as it told the story of how the graceful Lipizzaner horses are bred, how they were moved to safekeeping during the war and how the famous Spanish Riding School is now run. At 10.00 am we entered the baroque hall to watch the horses training to classical music. Some of the riders looked most uncomfortable! How strange to see ornate chandeliers overhead and sand on the floor!
We left before the finish at midday in order to visit the nearby Sacher Hotel to try the famous and delicious Sachertorte. There have been legal wranglings over who can call their chocolate cake “Sachertorte” with the Sacher Hotel winning. The recipe is said to have been created by an apprentice chef, Franz Sacher, in 1814 for the Congress of Vienna. So an unhealthy early lunch that day before we departed the city at 12.30pm for our next destination. Like I said, it's amazing how much you can do in 24 hours!
First published in VISA issue 49 (January 2003)
by David Gourley
Venezuela has not of late had a particularly good press, due to political upheaval. However it is, apart from Costa Rica and (more questionably) Mexico, the longest established democracy in Latin America. Before 1958 the country was ruled by a brutal dictatorship but since then it has been the ballot box that has prevailed. Democracy remains, though, a rather fragile plant. Since the oil boom of the seventies, when the country earned itself the sobriquet Saudi Venezuela, the economy has gone downhill and resultant discontent led to an attempted coup a couple of years or so before our trip. It might be thought that there would be dire consequences for the coup leader, Hugo Chavez. Not so. He was gaoled, true, but not only was he released after a fairly short period, he was allowed to run for president – and to be elected. Now, having himself seen off a coup attempt, it is Hugo Chavez who presents himself as the defender of Venezuelan democracy. This year’s unrest on the streets was the result of the concerted attempt by his opponents, who consider him to be too left-wing, to get rid of him. However he has survived a recall vote and one must hope that both sides will now go forward peacefully to the next presidential election.
Britain does not have many direct flights to Latin America. All too often a change in Miami is necessary, something of an ordeal post-9/11, as we ourselves found when flying recently to Costa Rica. Fortunately BA do run a direct flight to Caracas, which continues to Bogotá. Our first sighting of South America was impressive, for Caracas enjoys a spectacular location, a couple of dozen miles or so inland, between mountain ranges.
We were rather less impressed with our arrival: our driver had not turned up to meet us. We do not speak Spanish and in Venezuela, as in Latin America generally, English is not widely understood. We were nevertheless able to ascertain that he was on his way. He then insisted on taking us a slow route through the city centre albeit our hotel, the Avila, was to its north and could be reached via a fast motor road. It’s as if a visitor to London had to be shown the delights of Hounslow, Brentford and Hammersmith rather than be whisked along the M4. Moreover these were the western suburbs and in Caracas the classic east-west division is reversed. In most cities, the areas to the west, upwind of any industry, are generally more prosperous - London, with its East End and West End, is a prime example. But in Caracas the wealthy elite congregate in the eastern suburbs and the west is rather poor.
Like many other South American cities, Caracas has its shanty towns, known here as barrios, though we were assured the next day by our charming guide Januth that they were better than, say, the favelas in Brazil as they are made of brick. In any case, she added, their inhabitants come from poorer countries such as Ecuador or Peru, people who’d ideally like to go to the States but settle for comparatively wealthy Venezuela.
Our hotel, built by Nelson Rockefeller, is something of an oasis in what the locals themselves call “crazy Caracas”. There was a fine view from the hotel gardens towards the downtown and its skyscrapers. Also visible in the distance was a hillside barrio, its twinkling lights, powered by electricity illegally tapped from the grid, almost picturesque seen from afar at night. A city tour was included the next day. We headed out via the rather inaptly named El Silencio district. It cannot be said that this is likely to figure on anyone’s list of the world’s most beautiful cities. The location is beautiful, and the French or Italians might have seen to it that the city was beautiful too, but much of old Caracas was torn down during the oil boom and little of architectural distinction was put up.
There is however a small historic centre. As in towns throughout Venezuela, there is a Bolivar Square. Simon Bolivar liberated not just Venezuela, his own country, but five others in South America, one of which bears his name. Sadly he died in poverty and obscurity, fearing, all too prophetically, that South America would prove, in the coming years, to be virtually ungovernable. Today he is revered in his native land and Hugo Chavez has rechristened the country the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. We visited the nearby Capitolio, or Congress Building. Here the fine paintings include one of the British soldiers, the Legion Britannica, who joined Bolivar’s revolutionary army.
We finished our tour in the affluent eastern suburbs. Rather than go back to our hotel in our bus, we elected to make our own way back using the metro. This was newly opened and is Caraquenos’ pride and joy. There was extensive preparation, indeed education, of the locals for this new mode of transport, with the result that it is spick and span, as well as efficient. “But,” lamented Januth, “You go back outside and it’s still the same old Caracas.” It is virtually the only railway in the country. Just one overground railway line remains, running from Puerto Caballo on the coast inland to the city of Barquisimeto. It’s as if the only line in Britain was the one from Hull to Sheffield. Venezuela did once have a proper railway system but the oil companies lobbied for it to be closed down. We broke our journey to wander along one of the main shopping thoroughfares, the pedestrianised Sabana Grande. Crime is a problem in Caracas but by day it is reasonably safe.
The next day saw us fly to the remote southeast of the country. We were staying for one night in Canaima National Park, an utter contrast to “crazy Caracas”. En route our plane had a stopover in Ciudad Bolivar and there were fine views over the mighty Orinoco as we descended. Our lodge enjoyed a spectacular location; we looked across the lake at a magnificent waterfall and at one of the tepuis, or flat-topped mountains, that are a feature of this area. They inspired Conan Doyle’s Lost World. He imagined there were dinosaurs roaming on top of them. However, we didn’t see any.
The Canaima Lodge was simple but offered decent accommodation, in our own straw-thatched hut, and meals. A contrast with the lodge by the Peruvian Amazon where we were to stay a couple of years later, where food and accommodation were poor. One does not go into such a location expecting luxury accommodation and gourmet meals and it might seem churlish to complain. But we felt that if the Canaima Lodge could meet acceptable standards, others in remote locations ought to be able to do so as well. My only problem here was when I went to pay for our drinks with my credit card. “We only accept international cards,” said the barman, eyeing my National Westminster Gold Card. Fortunately a colleague put him right.
Our excursions here included a trip across the lake and then a jungle walk and, the next morning, a flight to Angel Falls, the world’s highest. The scenery en route had a surreal quality to it. We were lucky when we got to the Falls as they were clearly visible; sometimes they are obscured by cloud. They are not spectacular like Niagara or Victoria Falls. Their interest, and their beauty, derives from their amazing height. The name sounds romantic but isn’t very. It was an American airman, Jimmy Angel, who discovered these falls. His plane crashed in the area, but he lived to tell the tale. The plane was in due course retrieved and is on public view in Ciudad Bolivar.
We then flew the length of the country to Merida, in the Venezuelan Andes, changing planes in Caracas. To get around in Venezuela one generally depends on internal flights and these can be tedious, not so much the flights themselves but the waiting around. We got to know Caracas Airport all too well. Merida is an attractive city, a centre of academic learning, but there was little to see as we arrived in driving rain. For some reason there is a statue of Charlie Chaplin, which was pointed out to us.
Merida provided the biggest disappointment of this holiday. According to our tour company’s brochure we were here going to ascend the world’s longest and highest cable car line. There were other reasons, of course, for wanting to visit Venezuela but there are other places too that one wants to visit and the promise of this cable car ride helped clinch our choice of this particular holiday. We had in fact already learnt, through chatting to someone in Canaima, that the cable car line was closed. This was not because of some unforeseeable act of God; it had been closed for three years or so, due to an accident. Thus the brochure had been misleading, the result, no doubt, of sloppiness rather than downright lying. We took the matter up with the tour company, Hayes and Jarvis, on our return. They reacted with the kind of defensiveness one all too often finds from travel companies and the compensation was meagre.
We were glad nevertheless that we did choose Venezuela. And the cable car has since re-opened - one of the reasons I’d like, one day, to go back there. The next day was still a very full one as we drove through the Andes to the high mountain pass at El Aguila. It was still raining in the morning, but not heavily, and our enjoyment of the magnificent scenery was not impaired. A distinguishing feature was the ubiquitous frailejon, a plant with spiky leaves and yellow blossoms which is native to this area. In the afternoon we spent some time in the museum village of Los Aleros, located up a steep roadway which we ascended in a special bus. This preserves the Andean lifestyle of the 1930s. The rain left off just as we got there and by the time we departed it was bright and sunny. Exploring this village was good fun. We were presented with special passports which were stamped each time we went into a building. A good souvenir.
We had a second night in Merida and there was the chance, at last, to explore the city in good weather. At one point we went into a travel shop, run by a Swedish chap. He had lived elsewhere in South America and considered Venezuela to be relatively Americanized. He was probably right. In an otherwise football-crazy continent, the national game here is baseball! If we wanted to see a more traditional way of life, he said, Peru was the place to go. We were to see that for ourselves a couple of years later.
Our final two nights in Venezuela were spent in the second city, Maracaibo. Another flight – and another delay. But at least there was no need to change plane, though we did have a stopover in San Antonio, which is right on the border with Colombia. As we drove into the city, we saw a tall building, in an area unenticingly described as being near the “industrial zone”. I enquired what it was and was surprised to be told it was our hotel, the Maruma, as it was a good distance from the downtown. This was supposed to be a five-star establishment and, for all I know, is today a fine hotel. But it had been barely finished, indeed parts of it had not been finished. Their cuisine rather reflected this unfinished state of affairs; they seemed not to appreciate that, if one orders a hot meal, one likes it to be, well, hot.
We then had a fascinating excursion to the nearby oil field which took us across Lake Maracaibo via one of the world’s longest bridges. Maracaibo is the centre the Venezuelan oil industry, and the city and its surrounding province of Zulia are relatively prosperous. There is some resentment of the capital. Maracuchos complain that Caracas’s metro was built with Maracaibo’s money! In a shop the next day the avuncular old gentlemen who owned it exhorted members of our party, as he wrapped our souvenirs, to “remember, Maracaibo is Venezuela”. I don’t think he thought we needed reminding what country we were in, the message of course being that Maracaibo is the real Venezuela. Somehow I can’t imagine a shopkeeper in our second city telling customers to “remember, Birmingham is England”.
We alighted the other side of the lake to view the awesome sight of numerous oil derricks and nodding donkeys, the nearer ones being no longer active. Night fell as we re-crossed the bridge and the lights of the big city made for a striking sight. So far so good but the evening was a bit of a fiasco. Our local guide, Klaus, had recommended a downtown restaurant. A taxi was ordered and the driver didn’t baulk when we gave him the name of the restaurant. It then transpired he didn’t know where it was. By way of stopping passers-by in the centre of the city, he finally found it, only for us to discover it was closed, due to its being a bank holiday. We were thrown back onto our hotel’s less than sumptuous cuisine. We consoled ourselves that we’d had an unscheduled “Maracaibo by night” tour!
In spite of this we greatly enjoyed our stay in Maracaibo. Klaus was very apologetic the next day and undertook to accompany us himself to the restaurant that evening. Being tall and fair he was not at all a typical Venezuelan. His family were of German origin and he was the subject of much teasing, generally good natured, about being a “gringo”. I think he rather liked meeting someone like myself who’s of similar height and pallor. He started a conversation with the two German ladies in our party about the Nazis and war guilt, which he seemed to carry as a personal burden, albeit he was young and his own country, Venezuela, had been on our side in WW2. They were a charming pair of middle-aged sisters, one of whom had lived in England for many years, and I think this was just about the last thing they wanted to talk about.
The next day started with a city tour. As in Caracas, much of the historic downtown was torn down in the seventies and it cannot be said that this is a city of outstanding beauty. There isn’t even the scenic mountain backdrop which Caracas enjoys; this is a hot and humid coastal city. It was interesting nevertheless and we were pleasantly surprised to turn into what looked like a nondescript side road to find a pedestrianized street of beautiful colonial-style single-storey houses, each painted a different pastel colour with contrasting window frames.
We then headed westwards towards the Colombian border. Maracaibo sees itself as a frontier city and we were advised to take our passports, the actual ones, not photocopies. We were not actually going to cross into that troubled country, but apparently the local police are liable to stop anyone they think might be young and Colombian. Precious little chance of me being taken for either, I would have thought!
We transferred to a motorboat which took us for a thrilling ride through the jungle along the Limon (Lemon) River to Sinamaica. Here are the palafitos, or dwellings on stilts. They reminded early explorers of Venice hence the name of the country: Venezuela means “Little Venice”.
In the evening we finally made it to our restaurant, accompanied not just by Klaus but his lovely girlfriend, Claudia, who was of Italian origin. South America is a meat eater’s paradise - the vegetarian might do better to choose another continent - and Venezuela is no exception. We enjoyed a superb steak meal in convivial surroundings.
First published in VISA issue 60 (April 2005)
