London

I didn’t think I would ever be relieved to be back in a country where the language and the public transport system was comprehensible, but I was. The advise from the help desk at Pancreas Station was useful, thorough and mostly unsolicited. People were friendly and getting there was going to take less effort, and we were ready for it, but our renewed joy of travel was not to last long.

Thirteen degrees Celsius - Maximum! “It’s a mild Autumn” they all said, “It hasn’t started to get cold yet” We had to wear everything we had, in layers, something we hadn’t done since San Francisco.

Our hotel was right on the Thames near Pimlico, and with in walking distance of Westminster. The Irish owners were very friendly and had offered all the information we needed to know before we had asked. Unfortunately, Grosvenor Road, which passed within 20 metres of our bedroom, is a main access to London centre, and must be the noisiest road we have ever encountered, 24 hours per day. With little sleep we were now exhausted and freezing. We walked to Harrods to shop, bought a salmon roll and a Belgian chocolate for lunch, which we ate in Hyde Park.            Then walked onto Buckingham Palace, up the Mall to Trafalgar Square. Foot weary, we wandered into the warmth of St Martin-in-the-Fields, where The New London Singers were rehearsing Victoria's Requiem for the evening's concert. Only about ten others were listening to one of the most beautiful sounds Del and I had ever heard, and it was free. We stayed till they threw us out, then sought out the warmth of the crypt, where we were pleasantly surprised to find a reasonably priced, popular café. Walked home via Downing street and Westminster Bridge. Discovered that the public was not allowed anywhere near No 10 anymore, as they were when I was last in London in 1980. With no double glazing on our hotel room windows we resorted to a bottle of Brazilian wine to get to sleep. Next day we caught a ferry East along the Thames, to Greenwich. Very cold and grey day, with buildings down the river disappearing in the mist(?) and the sky blending into the river, exactly like a Turner painting. Walked through Greenwich town and into the National Maritime Museum (said to be one of the top ten maritime museums in the world, along with Fremantle.) Fascinating collection of sextants and astrolabes, amongst so many other interesting displays. I really wanted to visit the ‘home of time’, Del was developing a cold, so she curled up in the café with a soup and I walked up the hill to the Royal Observatory. Unlike most other visitors who wanted to be photographed standing on the prime meridian, I headed straight for the Harrison clocks. Ever since reading Dava Sobel’s captivating story of the quest to reliably determine longitude at sea, I have wanted to see the series of four Harrison chronometers. Sat inside the ferry on the way back to London and walked up to Trafalgar Square to have dinner at a pub which served cheap ales and reasonable quality English fare and was warm and fairly quiet. We wanted to stay till morning, but we had to walk back out into the cold and return to our noisy room. Starting to wish we had gone to Spain instead of London.

Next day visited Tate Modern, walked across Millenium Bridge and then to National Gallery. Took a long double decker bus ride from Piccadilly Circus to Portabello Road. Del bought some earings and things while I sought out number 147, where my great grandmother was living in 1871. We had to rush back in the Underground to get to St Martin-in-the-Fields for the evening concert of Vivaldi and Bach. We opted to leave at interval because Del’s cold was worsening. In the morning, the friendly staff at the pub looked after Del and later drove us to Victoria Station for our harrowing journey to the hire cars at Heathrow.

Paris

“French are Italians who think they are Germans “


Walked an easy 20 minutes to Ile de la Cite, in the centre of Paris. Our plan was to spend the day casually wandering around and getting orientated. We needed an easy day after the 10 hour days of walking in Prague, Venice, Florence……. Wandered into Saint Chapelle to look at the brilliant stain glass windows. We ended up buying two 2 day museum passes for 32E each. So now we had just one and a half days to see over 60 galleries/museums/cathedrals. If we could visit four we got our monies worth. We had to keep moving.
Musee d’Orsay was second. Contains all the modern art from the Louvre (1848 to present), impressionists, realists, cubists, and was top of our list to visit. When we left we were exhausted mentally and physically, but we still had time to cross the Seine to visit Musee de L’Orangerie. Specially built to display the ‘Water Lilly’ paintings of Monet, in two large oval shaped galleries. To sit in the centre of either gallery, and squint at the surrounding blue and green impressions was like being in his garden at Giverny. Especially in our state of exhausted delerium.
In the evening we walked around the Latin quarter at St Michelle. It is a meeting place for large numbers of students, who stand around chatting in the squares. As eating out is very expensive in Paris we went to a restaurant popular amongst students, because it is cheapish, a Saracen crepes restaurant.
Second day of 60 galleries started at the Pompidou building. Looking like a building constructed inside out, it displays contemporary art, but more importantly had a great view of Paris from the top floor. There was a feminists artists exhibition on one floor. The Louvre engaged us for most of the day, 1000 km of corridors and we picked the eyes out of only about 10 per cent. After we desperately needed to have a sit and a cuppa. We walked into the Jardin des Tuileries, where I cued at an outdoor café kiosk, for too long, standing, only to be scoffed at by the waiter when I attempted some ‘school boy’ French. Place de la Concorde is a very important landmark in my mind because of it’s significance in the ‘Tour de France.’ The last stage rounds the obelisk several times, and it is the final corner leading to the sprint finish on the Champs- Elysees. I had to see what the corner looked like to a sprinter, and was very surprised to see the size of the cobblestones they have to race over. It has doubled my respect for those super athletes.
We caught the metro up to the Arc de Triomphe, and then walked down Champs-Elysees, past very expensive cafes. Even Maccas charged $8 for a burger, so we sort out a Lebanese restaurant down a side street. Later joined the circus at the Eiffel Tower. African spruikers constantly trying to sell models of the Eiffel and flying disks. Every hour the lights on the tower sparkled.
Next morning walked to St Denis and did what locals did on Sunday mornings. Had coffee in a café on the narrow little street, with vegie markets and bakeries nearby. Watched the locals walking by with their mornings shopping and bought some fruit ourselves. Dogs and smoking welcomed in cafes. Almost felt French for awhile! Booked dinner for Del’s birthday (and our final night in Paris) at Brasserie Julien, over the road. French a la carte, excellent service and art nouveau decorated restaurant.
Walked up to Sacre Coeur. Lots of tourists and young alternative locals enjoying the festive atmosphere - good view of Paris with market stalls selling wine and stuffed snail shells. Caught the metro to Pere Lachaise cemetery. Some family mausoleums are bigger than the homes of some people in other parts of the world. Oscar Wilde’s grave had kisses all over it and messages in lipstick. Jim Morrison’s was almost hidden and quite insignificant, but the most popular. There was Modigliani & Jeanne, and Chopin’s with candles burning and fresh flowers. There was even an admirer tending to the little garden.
Caught the metro to Grande Arche de La Defense - walked Esplanade du General Gaulle, through the modernistic sculptured buildings, reflecting distorted images of each other.
We had left some flexibility in our itinerary from Paris, so Del didn’t book tickets on the Eurostar to London. An expensive mistake. Ended up wasting 2 hours at Gard de Nord and costing $600 more. There was only first class tickets left, at full price. Still champagne & smoked salmon was quite nice.


Paris Metro is possibly the most practical transport system we encountered in our travels (second to Tokyo). Trains are frequent, stations are clean and closely spaced. We felt safe, but had been warned. As I was stepping through the doors of the train I felt fingers in my right hand pant pocket. I grabbed his hand and checked there was nothing in it, there was only maps and tickets in that pocket anyway (my wallet was safely zipped in a leg pocket.) I glared at him, he looked nonchalantly straight ahead. Just before the doors closed he stepped out, and a large African-Parisian suggested I should bop him.


The French are very image conscious, but dress casually, chic with understated jewellery. Slim skin tight jeans are in, with boots, scarves - it was very cold (for us). They do however smoke heavily and everywhere. Compared with Italy, Paris was clean, organised and things worked, on the whole. But Parisians can be rude (they might say proudly indifferent) when tourists ask questions in English. Hence the opening quotation.

Prague

Even though we had no idea what the sign posts were trying to tell us in Czech, the directions we had been given by phone, from the extremely helpful hotel staff, were simple to follow. It was relaxing to be able to understand the public transport system, and so once we emerged from the Mustek underground, we only had 50 metres to walk in the rain. After 2 weeks of rooms where only one of us could stand at a time, it was a joy to have a huge room again. We were in a hotel above a puppet theatre in the old town at Mustek. The reception staff were friendly, a breath of fresh air after the tourist weary Italians. Some of the staff doubled as puppeteers in the puppet theatre. 

The hotel overlooked a pedestrian mall, which was very busy in the evenings with young people walking between Wenceslas and Staromestske (the old town) Squares. Prague is visited by masses of students in school tour groups (seemed to be mostly German), and so there is an atmosphere of young people out enjoying themselves. Even though Czechs are heavier beer drinkers than Australians, there was no feeling of tension or aggression in the bar areas. It made us wonder why Australians can’t behave in a similar manner.

Beer. I was in beer heaven. Czechs have been brewing beer since the 12th century. One of my favourite beers, Pilsner Urquell, brewed only a few kilometres away in Pilsen, was on tap. So too was a caramel tasting dark lager by Kozel and the real Budweiser, Budejovice Budvar.

We saw the beautiful Astronomical clock in Staromestke, a mechanical marvel. Finally created in 1490 by a master clock-maker, who was blinded, according to legend, so that he could not duplicate the work elsewhere. Many bridal couples gathered here for wedding photos. We always try to have food native to the area, which in Czech means lots of warming stodge. Lunch from a stall in the town square was a very large chunk of spit roasted pork, rye bread and a large beer. In the afternoon I got peckish and had a Langose, a large hunk of deep fried bread dough covered with tomato paste, crushed garlic and grated cheese. (It seemed like a good idea at the time). For dinner we stopped a friendly local, asked for his advise, and was shown to a downstairs Czech restaurant, to have beef goulash for Del, and a mixed sausage, pork and dumplings dish for me.  

Prague is full of beautiful old decorated buildings, preserved like no other European city, because it wasn't bombed during the war. Some interesting modern architecture as well, including the ’Dancing Building’, sometimes nicknamed (‘Fred and Ginger‘)

Prague Castle, the largest ancient castle in the world (7 football fields long), took us 5 hours to explore “quickly”. The cathedral with expressively painted faces in Art Nouveau stained glass, countless chapels, and a huge solid silver statue/mausoleum which contained somebodies tongue? A laneway of craftsmen’s cottages, built against the wall of the castle, which were only 3 or 4 metres wide. And the palace with various halls and chapels and views over the city.

One evening we went to a Classical concert in the Art Deco Municipal House next to the Prasna Brana (city gate). It was very grand, with the Prague Royal Orchestra, opera singers and ballet dancers, but designed primarily for tourists (a bit like a corroboree in Perth). Another evening we walked into a courtyard bar off Celetna street, where two friendly Czech singer/guitarists were playing laid back songs from old jazz to U2. There was only two other couples listening. 

Prague has art and architecture from every period of European history, and it has a sense of humour. Saint Wenceslas is the hero of Prague, and the Square named after him features a statue of St Wencelas riding proudly on a horse. In Lucerna Palace, off Wenceslas Square, hangs from the ceiling, a contemporary statue of St Wenceslas astride a decidedly deceased mount.

Venice

VENICE IS SINKING

Venice didn’t start off well. Refuelling the Panda at the auto petrol station meant we had to return there during normal hours to get our change (~ $80). It was early evening, and whilst waiting for the water bus into Venice Island, a plague of mosquitos attacked. Water taxis are beautiful wooden speed boats with a low luxurious rear cabin. The driver stands at the bow, steering with one hand and talking on a mobile phone in the other. They fly along (too fast for the mosquitos) but cost 4 times as much as the water bus - $140! Venice looked very pretty at night, with the lights of Piazzo San Marco reflecting in the lagoon.

Next morning was a very different story. Tourists, tourists and nothing but tourists, and the things they like to buy. Souvenirs, jewellery, hats and t-shirts and Murano glass.

Venice is sinking. In St Mark’s Square people had to walk on temporary platforms to avoid the rising water. Police stood in the water at the junction of these platforms, directing pedestrians. The stinking water from the lagoon was bubbling up through the drains and flooding the square. The only dry pavement was a 10 metre wide strip down the middle. Water was lapping at shop doorways. Waiters, wearing gum boots, were moving chairs and tables out of the water. A pianist played on a grand piano accompanied by a violinist, on a raised platform, as the water rose. Was it “Nero fiddled while Rome….. “ or a scene from “Titanic“? It was surreal and pathetically comical.

When we returned in the afternoon the square was dry again. The tables were back, the musicians were still playing and the waiters had taken off their gum boots. We visited St Mark’s Cathedral and the beautiful gold mosaics. Free to visit except paid E2 to see the gold and jewel encrusted altar piece behind the altar. Down every alley were magnificent marble buildings and picture postcard views of canals. Quite a few Venice Biennale exhibitions/installations dotted around the city. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to visit very many. Some quite wacky. Like layers of steel cages in a church (not sure what it all meant).

Venice is a theme park. Tourists dominate. They’re everywhere, in their thousands, getting in my way, me getting in their photographs. Almost no one lives on Venice Island anymore. It’s too expensive, so the workers now live on Lido (a nearby island) or the mainland. The beautiful old buildings of Venice are either tourist accommodation or just empty. By walking down some small, off the tourist route alleyways, we saw a few locals doing local things. One man was lifting his boat out of the canal by crane and swinging it into his ground floor garage (I think he might have been able to float it in).

Nothing is free in Italy, especially Venice. There are no public toilets anywhere, so you have to buy a coffee to have a pee. Locals are sick of tourists, and so are not very friendly. Maps in English had always just run out. Directions to use public transport were harder to find than in Tokyo. Now that we have left, let Venice sink, and take the mosquitos with it.

Siena, Florence, Pisa

We took a diversion from our journey north from Rome to visit the medieval town of Siena. Once we had found a safe deposit for our Panda (so it seemed at the time - we discovered it was locked in when we returned) we walked up very, very steep and narrow cobblestone streets, past beautiful old buildings to Piazza del Campo. The town centre is a sloping, semi circle shaped piazza, full of tourists and surrounded by souvenir shops. Duomo di Sienna, is a Gothic cathedral beyond gothic. Stunning, every inch covered in marble and so many elaborate statues, so that it would be impossible to add another feature without removing something else. The Cathedral is famous for the incredible mosaic floors, some dating back to mid 14th century. A side room of the cathedral is a library, Libreria Piccolomini, built to house the books of Enea Silvio Piccolomini (known as Pius 2nd by his friends). High on the walls were colourful frescoes by Bernardino Pinturicchio depicting highlights of Piccolomini’s life.

Feeling more relaxed about following the instructions of our silky voiced lady of the GPS, we arrived at our Florence hotel, which she located amongst an impossible tangle of narrow one way footpaths. We were near The Duomo, right in the centre of the old town, and had free parking (very rare in Florence) in the building’s courtyard. All we had to do was find the rear entry. Without the assistance of “she who knows where we are,” we negotiated a very complicated spaghetti bolognese of one way streets, to find No 12; an archway as wide as a horse, through a building, from a street no wider than a cyclepath. Negotiating the entrance required a 6 point turn in the Panda (which stayed there until we had to leave). Our room faced onto the courtyard, which was dominated by a 4 storey high magnolia tree, said to be 350 years old. Florencian home life centres on the building’ s courtyard. Children play, neighbours sit and chat or garden, whilst the street is merely utilitarian; an artery which is almost ugly, but provides essential access, something like our suburban back lanes.

At Piazza Vecchio we found another great busker, this one playing the flute amongst all the statues of naked men. (no double entendre intended)

Bicycle is the only way to travel around the ultra narrow streets of Florence and as it is a university town, everyone was getting around on bicycles, except us.

Beat the queues into the Uffizi Gallery with our online purchased tickets. The world’s most significant collection of Florentine and Italian art. Room after room of Gothic and Renaissance masterpieces, and too many alter pieces from 15th and 16th century.

Later we visited Galleria dell’Accademia and sat in awe of

Michelangelo’s ‘David’. There was a special exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs, comparing himself with Michelangelo, in their belief that the body is godlike and their fondness of the male form. (“I’ve had enough of male bottoms and genitalia, looking forward to the Impressionists“ said Trev.)

Walked to Ponte Vecchio, for some wonderful photo opportunities at sunset. The area was jammed with tourists and expensive jewellery shops. We discovered a small monument on the bridge with a steel bar fence surround. Attached to the fence were hundreds of padlocks of various sizes. Lovers write their names on the padlock, then throw the key in the river, thus creating an eternal bond. They have become a nuisance, and there are now fines of E50

From Florence we took the autostrada over the mountains for a quick look at the Tower of Pisa. Del held it up for a few minutes and I pushed it back over again. We later discovered several bell towers in Venice leaning in a similarly alarming manner.