Category Archives: Europe

city, Europe, food, history

Dublin

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The drive to the airport was considerably shortened by choosing Southampton instead of Gatwick for a weekend away – however that was largely undone by an afternoon of fog cascading delays through the evening. Nevertheless, I made it into Dublin in good time to settle into my room & have a brief wander around Temple Bar & over and alongside the Liffey.  The slightly cooler air necessitated a winter coat & beanie/toque, but it was hardly uncomfortably cold.

My airbnb host had previously sent me a useful Google map with places to visit/eat/drink around the city.  Immediately catching my eye was small the eatery named Brendan’s close by that apparently served the best full Irish breakfast in the city – for those working at the adjacent produce market.  It was a good meal to get me fuelled for a day wandering – & I got to meet a fellow Brendan.  It was a little strange being in Ireland for the first time & seeing my first name plastered in all sorts of places (it’s an Irish name if you haven’t joined those dots yet).  Along with the coffee shop, there was St Brendan’s Hospital and then a minor character with the same name popped up in the book I was reading.

My first encounter with an Irish accent that completely bamboozled me was here

I found Dublin a great city to wander around and get glimpses of a long and varied history.  Unsurprisingly, a lot of this was to do with rebellions and struggles.  I spent a good hour or so at the National Museum at Collin’s Barracks where there was an intriguing exhibit detailing all the various places Irish have fought around the world.  It seemed to me that there were Irish fighting in most of the major conflicts around the world in the centuries before WWII, even when it seemingly had nothing to do with them.  Either they’re always spoiling for a fight, they liked to fight oppressors or were just looking to be somewhere else.  I was puzzled that the republic refrained from sticking it to one of the biggest oppressors in WWII, but by then I suppose they had their independence & didn’t fancy all the bombing.

Wishing I had a wider angle or could get a bit further from Collin’s Barracks

The most interesting place I found to visit during my stay was Kilmainham Gaol a little west of the city centre.  Entry was by guided tour, but it was only six euros & it would have still been good value at twice the price.  The building itself wasn’t particularly interesting, but the endless self-deprecating stories told of failed rebellion after failed rebellion were fascinating.  It was rather chilling, & not just from the mid-afternoon gloom & wind, standing in the windowless courtyard where the key figures from the 1916 Easter Rising were executed.  Obviously, that rebellion was also pretty rubbish & mass support for the independence movement only really got going after the harsh punishment handed out in that cheerless stone enclosure.

The Victorian addition to Kilmainham Gaol

General Post Office – one of the key buildings seized during the Easter Rising

It turns out that that famous stout does taste better in Dublin.  It may be accentuated by my only previous Guinnesses were consumed on the other side of the world, where all that shipping may have done something to it.  Still, it was good fun (somewhat surreal) sitting in a neighbourhood bar nursing a pint, reading Rebus and explaining the differences between Kindles & tablets to a guy setting up the karaoke whom I could hardly understand.  Dublin sure is not short of bars & pubs (I saw quite a few claiming to be the oldest around) – that is to be expected; but oddly, almost as plentiful as watering holes are convenience stores and, even more bizarrely, American diners.

Sunday was spent walking around a lot – two walking tours probably contributed to that.  The guides were excellent, with gentle ribbing of the hated English and yet more stories of disastrous attempts at overthrowing the rulers.  The intervening pub lunch was interesting – I quickly saw why a potato blight would lead to an awful famine.  I ordered Irish stew – the first guy behind the carvery put a healthy serving of mashed potato on my my plate & then covered it with stew.  The next guy then loaded more mash on & then thought I could do with four pieces of baked potato as well.  I don’t think I’ve ever had so much potato in my life, & I didn’t even finish it all.

The oldest part of Dublin Castle – the tower at the back

The filled in bit where the black pool (the literal meaning of Dublin) used to be beside the castle. The River Poddle still runs underneath – what a great name

The weird bit of Dublin Castle – it’s only a castle, why not use vivid primary & secondary colours? Bare stone is so last century

Of course, no visit to this city could be complete without visiting the Guinness factory.  Well, the Storehouse which is quite the behemoth of an old building surrounded by the still working factory.  With seven, or so, industrially-sized floors there’s plenty of space for all the necessary visitor experience bits & bobs.  There were quite a few old industrial artefacts – even older than some of the stuff we’ve got at work, hard to believe as it is.  Getting to pour, & then hastily consume, my own perfect pint I then had to dash off to walk across town, get my bag & head to the airport.  No time for dinner that night, just as well all that spud meant I wasn’t hungry or in need of a meal.

So a very good weekend in Dublin & I think I got a good overview of Irish history – I now look forward to visiting other counties, perhaps some of the southern ones.

city, Europe, travel

Barcelona

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A pesky little cold turned up the night before I was due to fly to Barcelona, but a curtailed day at work enabled sufficient midday napping to make the drive to Gatwick and subsequent flight possible (the fantastic wild boar at Jamie’s Italian at Gatwick deserves a mention – especially as I didn’t have that much of an appetite [OK, that last part is hardly ever true of me]).

I had about an hour that Friday night after finding my airbnb accommodation to have a quick look around the local neighbourhood and grab a quick bite before crashing for the night.  The highlight of that was seeing a mob of Halloween costumed inline skaters – completely bizarre.

Saturday is mostly a bit of a cold-fighting induced daze as I walked around the central area, the harbourside, Las Ramblas and sat in the sun watching Catalonian life go by.

Christopher Columbus set off from this city for the Far East

Cold kicked & just leaving me an irritating cough for the rest of the week (“Would you call that moss green or forest green?”), I was well enough to wrap up too much for a mild evening at Camp Nou.  The home of FC Barcelona, it is the biggest stadium in Europe nudging one-hundred thousand capacity.  It’s not exactly new & I was up in the rafters (well I would have been if the section I sat in was roofed).  I was surprised at how good the view was from the top – it was easy to see the skill of the Barca passing as they relentlessly attacked the Celta Vigo goal in front of me during the first half.

While it was only a La Liga game (the Spanish football league), the stadium filled up to 83000 and it was excellent to get along to one of the great sport venues in the world and soak up the atmosphere – even if I didn’t understand much of what was being said; at least football is pretty easy to understand.

I must have been feeling better by then as over the dinner menu, convinced I wanted some lovely chanterelles I thought it would be a good time to try lamb brains for the first time.  Strangely, the brains were the highlight – not that the mushrooms were bad.  One just had to get past the whole zombie eating brains & texture thing.  The pitcher of sangria may have helped a little.

Not quite early & out on the metro early enough to avoid the regular large queue at Sagrada Familia, I climbed from the metro tunnel, turned around and was suddenly struck by a sight I’d waited twenty-odd years to see.  Of all Dad’s travel stories from when he was tripping around Europe in his late twenties, the story of Antoni Gaudi who started a huge church in Barcelona and was killed by a tram before it was close to completion & how it was now standing unfinished always did the most to capture my imagination.  I always knew I’d see it one day & I finally did; I was not disappointed – it’s a staggering project that is still some years off completion.

Nativity Facade

The intricately decorated Nativity Facade forms the largest & most spectacular part of what Gaudi managed to complete in his lifetime (it also forms part of the World Heritage Site, along with his crypt).  All through it are various parts of the nativity story along with an awful lot of nature – plants & animals abound.

Passion Facade

The more recently completed Passion Facade on the opposite side of the basilica is not just geometrically opposite – there is a lot of bare stone & it’s austere & somewhat chilling in its simplicity.

Only very recently has the church part of the complex been enclosed and I’m not sure what is the most impressive thing inside.  For me, it was probably the huge pillars of varying heights and width.  The pillars get more sides the further up you go, so they almost end up being completely round as they branch like trees near the roof.

I paid my extra three euros for the elevator up, walk across and down the towers of the Nativity Facade – well worth it to get a much closer look of the stonework.  The audioguide, for the record, is also worthy of the extra euros.  I’m not sure I’ll ever see anything quite like Sagrada Familia – & am already looking forward to seeing it after it’s completed (there is a huge tower still to go on top).

Spiral staircases abound – this one in the Nativity Facade

Back to the Nativity Facade

The towers on the Passion Facade

I had been told that Park Guell was also a Barca sight not to be missed.  Post lunch I strolled in that direction – it turned out to be quite a walk up a long hill that gradually increased in steepness.  But it was worth it to see more Gaudi work – the gingerbread-esque houses were quite something.  The park was very popular despite the hill and there were plenty of entertaining musicians around.  It was a little cloudy by then, but the views over the city were still good.

So that was Barcelona, a little less than I perhaps would normally do on a weekend break – but I saw all that I wanted to & loved it.  I hope it’s not twenty years again before I fulfil my desire to visit the city.

city, engineering, Europe, food, history, travel

Ravenna & Venice

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Barely having recovered from the exhausting journey back from NZ, I was off to Italy less than a week after getting home.  It was a little odd going back to work after NZ & having all sorts of people telling me I was going to visit one of our sister plants for a week to see how they operate their similar plant better.  It was a very productive, informative & interesting week spent with my boss & workmate as the Italian process engineers showed us around and gave us plenty of ideas to try out back at Hythe.  For the most part, the language difference wasn’t a problem as most, except some operators, spoke reasonable English; Steve (my boss) knows quite a bit of Italian & Henry (workmate) knows a little – I of course only know the tiny amount I remember from previous Italian trips.

Ravenna is a very nice little city (~160000) & fortunately we were staying close to the centre – so it was very easy to walk around town on the warm evenings.  We didn’t have a lot of time to see some of the renowned early-church mosaics (eight UNESCO World Heritage sights to be seen), but Henry & I managed to see a couple once Steve had gone back to England early.  Of course, being Italy, the food was fantastic & as the capital of Romagna region we were able to sample quite a bit of the local food & wine.

The SBR (styrene-butadiene rubber) plant was on a huge industrial site, a similar size to the Port Kembla Steelworks – but with more space dedicated to plant, rather than stockpiles. There were an incredible number of bicycles and small Fiats all around to save much walking.  There was an appropriately sized canteen, where the lunches were bountiful & cheap.  Perhaps I ate too much pasta last week.

It wasn’t too difficult to get my return flight pushed out by two days so that I could have a free day exploring somewhere else in Italy.  Conveniently, Venice is on my list and only a short, cheap train ride away from Ravenna.  I rolled in Friday evening & then had a twenty minute walk rolling my cases along a lot of cobbles and carrying them over many bridges.  The end of September is a good time to visit: it’s warm, but not hot; the famous stink wasn’t there; and the crowds are tolerable.

But what an absolute nuts city – built on (& sinking into) the water, it’s just mad.  Being so flat, it’s a very easy city to walk around & get to the main sights & even outlying neighbourhoods – pre-cached maps on one’s phone really help in not getting lost in the labyrinth (the GPS signal was surprisingly strong in such skinny streets surrounded by tall stone buildings).  While I expected no cars, the lack of bikes took a little more to get used to – especially after the proliferation of bikes in Ravenna.

Grand Canal

Rialto Bridge

St Mark’s Campanile

As usual, I walked an awful lot around the city popping in to a few of the famous buildings & museums – Scuola Grande di San Rocco (filled with huge Tintorettos – said to be his Sistine Chapel) was my favourite.  The Jewish Quarter was nice & quiet, but then so were a lot of the neighbourhoods away from the Grand Canal & associated crowds.

Somewhere along the way I stumbled across some sort of musical museum, so I took a peek and learnt all sorts about Vivaldi – I didn’t know he was from Venice.  But that’s not surprising as I am musically ignorant.  Which makes it even stranger that I somehow ended up at a concerto that night in a packed hall listening to (what seemed to me, at least) an incredible string recital.  It can’t have been just me that thought so as the applause was prolonged – they came back three times just to bow and another two times for encores.  Most of the evening was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which as well as being brilliant kept on fooling me into thinking that another summer of NZ cricket was here – thanks National Bank.

So that two hours of the four violins, a viola, a cello (the cellist was particularly exuberant and highly entertaining), a double bass & a harpsichord turned out to be the highlight of Venice for me.  A great place to visit, but with so much stone, so many people, no grass & few trees I don’t think it’s a city I could spend much more than a few days at a time in.

city, Europe, food, friends, history

Prague weekend

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Just in case I needed an excuse to visit another great European city for a weekend, good friend (& one of my oldest) Levi having been somewhat exiled to Czech while he tries to get back in to the UK provided such a reason. As Levi was travelling in by train from the east of the country, he arrived at our apartment (but fifty metres from Old Town Square) a little before me.

Although so close to the centre of the old, & therefore most visited, part of town the apartment was set well back in a big, enclosed courtyard & was super quiet & conducive to sleep. We were bemused by this door as we eventually wandered out to explore the city Saturday morning.

It became apparent quickly that Prague is filled with beautiful buildings.  This is the Rudolfinum – a concert hall home of the Prague Spring Music Festival.

Crossing the river (Vltava), we were wandering towards the castle to have a look. I spent a little bit of time explaining to Levi modern-European history – well, as much as I know – when we came across this monument marking the German occupation before and during WWII.

Spying a small gate in a large wall, we somewhat stumbled across the beautiful gardens of the Senate.  Eventually we found our way to the one exhibition I particularly wanted to see – the Lobkowicz collection.  A family collection, there was more fascinating history here as the family had their extensive property confiscated & regained not once, but twice over fifty-odd years in the twentieth century.  The first time the Nazis took it all and shortly after getting it back from them, the Soviets came & took it all again for much longer.  The audio tour, by members of the family, was surprisingly good.  The highlight of the entire collection was Haymaking by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, part of his seasons series – another one, The Harvesters, I remember vividly from the Met in NYC.  A couple of large Canolettos of London panoramas were also particularly interesting.

By now we were within the walls of the castle (which is much more impressive from a distance).  In the middle of it is St Vitus Cathedral:

All around Prague were these old open-topped cars for showing tourists around, the one on the right is an old Skoda that somehow is still going.

We were both intrigued by the patterns on the side of this building:

There were plenty of trams around, some sleek & new – others like this one below made me feel like I’d stepped in to an old Bond film.

This poster, on a rather circuitous walk to more fantastic food, I found deliciously ironic:

National Museum

It’s not quite the Kaituna River

In between watching the Olympics (with the Czech commentary very quiet), there was plenty of time to wander around & look at the beautiful sights.  This is the Prague Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square – the oldest working example of such a clock in the world, dating from the early 1400s.  It puts on quite the show on the hour, but as a timepiece is extremely difficult to read – we got more enjoyment looking at the crowds delighting in the clock & even cheering it on.

With more delicious gelato & smooth beer consumed, at different times, it was very nice to end up relaxing on one of the islands in the middle of the river.

Dancing house down near the river

Plenty of people out pedalloing

Did I mention we ate a lot? Gorgeous salmon down near the John Lennon wall.

So a fantastic weekend hanging out in Prague with Levi, strangely we talked an awful lot of cycle-touring – must be a good place for it, seeing the sights & enjoying the local food & beer.