Romania - October 2016

Bucharest

A full collection of photos from this trip can be found in Romania photo album

The Guinness

The pub of choice for the Guinness was The Dubliner, the oldest Irish pub in Bucharest.  A message the previous day confirmed that they served Guinness so there was no need to look any further.  We had a warm welcome and a free pint. Many thanks.

The next country picked out of the hat by the staff at the Dubliner was San Marino.  I wonder if there is any Guinness available there?

Receiving a warm welcome at The Dubliner

We happened to arrive on quiz night and enjoyed our attempt at failing to upstage the locals.  One of the picture rounds was on famous bridges.  You would have thought I would have recognized the Second Severn Crossing given that I had visited and photographed it the week before but no.


Team make-up

I had a new travelling companion this time, Ian.  We know each other from a trip to the old USSR back in 1987.  A lot of water has passed under the bridge sine then but we have stayed in touch and suddenly found that in retirement our hobbies coincide.  Ian likes travelling by train in as many European countries as possible and Romania was one still on his list so it seemed a good idea to team up for this one, especially as I like train travel too and Ian likes a beer!

Me and Ian enjoying a Guinness at The Dubliner

The Sights

I didn't know much about Bucharest and admit to being pleasantly surprised by the city.  It is full of fine historic buildings, something I wasn't expecting at all.  Everybody tends to associate Bucharest with the giant Palace of the Parliament building but there is so much more to see there.

Library of the University of Bucharest

Palace of the Parliament that evokes mixed feelings.  The heaviest building in the world.

Transport

We flew with Blue Air from Liverpool to Bucharest and returned with the same airline from Cluj-Napoca. We spent just the one night in Bucharest before travelling though Transylvania by train spending time in Brasov, Sighisoara and Cluj-Napoca.  Booking the trains online before we went was straightforward and inexpensive.  The electric trains were comfortable and slow, just what was needed to admire the lovely scenery of the region.  The buses, trams and metro were also experienced and relied on buying single trip tickets from kiosks before boarding, again straightforward, especially if you rely on Ian kindly doing the purchasing.

Sighisoara station (before the flood)

Away from the Capital

Brasov, with its ancient town square reminiscent of many fine European squares lies between the hills.  The medieval walled town of Sighisoara was the opposite in that it is built on a hill surrounded by flat plains. Cluj Napoca is a larger university town.  The town of Transylvania had a very distinctive Germanic appearance reflecting the history of the region.  For the most part we were blessed with fine autumnal weather apart from a bit of drizzle that greeted us on arriving in Bucharest and leaving in Cluj-Napoca.

Brasov Town Hall

Sighisoara Clock Tower

Accommodation

We used booking.com and Ian's discerning eye to choose our accommodation and some fine choices he came up with too.  In Bucharest we stayed near the station in the Hello Hotel where the rooms were larger than I was expecting.  In Brasov we stayed in an apartment very close to the centre, again fine once we'd overcome the problem of finding it in the dark.  In Sighisoara we were in the excellent and very old Pension am Schneiderturm adjacent to one of the town gates.

Pension am Schneiderturm, Sighisoara, dating back from 1797

Finally in Cluj Napoca  we were in another apartment in the middle of town, the excellent Matei Corvin Deluxe Apartment where we felt more like film stars than backpackers.


Food and Drink

The quality of the food throughout was excellent. In Sighisoara in particular we got some very good recommendation from the Pension as to where to eat and enjoyed some fine Romanian food.  Soups followed by pork dishes with potatoes and a thick sauce were most enjoyable. The local Ursus beer was a good accompaniment.

When the menu said chicken in corn flakes I thought it was poor translation, but no.

Quirky moments

Ian's attempt to use the public toilet in Sighisoara resulted in disaster when the cistern fell off the wall and water began to fill the room.  Two of us ran around the station trying to draw the attention of an official to the impending problem i.e. that they were about to get flooded.  I can understand their nervousness of being cajoled into a toilet by non-Romanian speakers but we had their own interest at heart.  We beat an ignominious exit as our train was about to depart. So if you ever pass Sighisoara station and see it under water you now know why.

We were about to complain about the lack of towels till we discovered .........

Lasting Memories

This wasn't the country full of horse and carts and dreary buildings that I had half been expecting. This was a modern, vibrant country where we felt perfectly safe and welcome, even thought the UK had recently voted to exit the EU.

University Square, Bucharest

Finland - June 2016

Helsinki

A full collection of photos from this trip can be found in the Helsinki Photo Album

The Guinness

Molly Malone's provided a good venue to have a Guinness in Helsinki.  A bit of research and message exchange before mt trip  confirmed that they served Guinness so I had confidently arrived in Helsinki without my 'emergency can'.  It's always a relief therefore to walk up to the bar, order a pint, and find that it hadn't run out the night before.

Enjoying a pint in Molly Malone's, Helsinki

An hour before at my hostel, I had met Ben who had flown in from Australia that day, but nevertheless readily agreed to be my official photographer for the evening.  I explained to Carl the barman what I was up to and he quickly understood.  That's probably because he was from Manchester and not Helsinki .  Thanks to Carl's selection of random straws my next destination is going to be Bucharest.

A trip to Romania is on the cards next thanks to Carl

It was the midst of the European Football Championships and Iceland were busy punching above their weight on TV but drinking too much Guinness on an empty stomach is not necessarily a good idea so we headed out in search of food.

Giving my official photographer a break.

The Sights

I liked Helsinki I must admit.  For a European capitol city its seems relatively small, easy to wander around with wide roads and lots of green spaces and a lot of sea font to walk along.  It probably has got museums and alike but I just found it pleasure to explore the city.  After all it never seemed to get dark.

The Polka Dot trees exhibition by the artist Kusama

Transport

I flew with Finnair from Manchester to Helsinki Airport from where there is an easy and affordable train into the centre of town. I went out of town one day for a geocaching trip and again used the trains which ran regularly even on a Sunday.

Helsinki train station

To get around Helsinki I either walked or used the trams.  I made good use of the day 8 Euro transport day ticket on a couple of days

The oldest tram in Helsinki

Geocaching

I don't always mention my geocaching adventures in this blog but on this trip it played a major part so a shame to leave it our.  There was one specific cache I was aiming to find and it was called Sun Gear.  It was hidden in a forest about 30 minutes north of Helsinki and significant in that its the oldest cache in Finland and one I needed to find to complete my Jasmer challenge.  The Jasmer challenge is based on finding a geocache that has been hidden in every month since the hobby started back in 2000.  I had just one gap to fill, September 2000, and there are only two such caches in Europe, one in Denmark and this one.

After getting the train to Savio I still had a 30 minute walk to the edge of the forest and then about a 15 minute walk through the trees to the place the cache was hidden.  Fortunately it was an easy find. The mosquitoes didn't seem to like me being there so after taking a few photos I beat a hasty retreat.

Geocaching also kept me very occupied in Helsinki itself and took me to lots of pretty corners of the city that I probably wouldn't have discovered with just a conventional guidebook.  The Helsinki Geopoly series comes highly recommended.

Accommodation

I chose to stay in Eurohostel which is just a little way out of the centre on Katajannoka to the east.  It's next to a tram stop so easy access to the centre.  Most of the rooms seemed to be two-bedded as opposed to the normal large dorms.  May be it was once an office block of some sort.  The facilities were good and although the breakfasts were a bit pricey at 9.50 Euros they were of hotel standard and good quality.

The clean and functional bedrooms in Eurohostel

The only time Eurohostel almost broke my heart was when I was quietly watching Wales defeat Russia in the European football championships.  On the verge of probably ales's greatest ever win I was asked to vacate the kitchen where I was watching the match as it was being locked up.  I was almost in tears.  Luckily I persuaded some people watching the England match in the reception area that the Wales match was more important.

Food

As I was traveling alone on this trip I relied on the very adequate breakfasts in the hostel and mainly street food from then on.  The stalls selling hot food in Market Square provided most of my meals although beware of the dive bombing birds if you eat here.  I saw one man loose his ice cream in one swoop.

Frying time in Market Square.

Lasting Memories

Of a city by the sea.  You are never far from the sea in Helsinki and is a great place for exploring on foot.

'happiness' ... is walking along the seafront in Helsinki ..... but nicer again later in the day when the sun came out

..

France - April 2016

Paris

A full collection of the photos from this trip can be seen in Paris Flickr Album

The Guinness

There was no problem finding Guinness in Paris.  The challenge was deciding which of the many places selling the back stuff should we pick to spend the evening in.  There was a fair collection of the normal faux Irish bars but we ended up choosing  Autour du Moulin in the Montmartre district, a traditional French bar that both served Guinness and nice food.

The bar is so named as it stands next to Moulin de la Galette, also known as Blute-fin painted by Van Gough etc.

Cheers!  A Parisian Guinness.

Jeff, the barman, soon grasped why we were there and did the honors of picking out my next destination, Helsinki.

Angelitta pours us another Guinness

The Sights

Having based ourselves in the Montmartre district we found there was plenty to see and do there, certainly in terms of atmosphere. The area is full of cafes, craft and food outlets.  The tourist hotspots of Maotmartre include the large terraces in front of Sacre Coeur where touts sell anything from religious memorabilia to bottles of larger.  Around the corner from there is Place du Tertre where artists of seemingly every nationality sell their wares or entice passers by to have their portraits painted. It was a short walk from Montmartre down to the Pigalle area and the Moulin Rouge.

Sacre Coeur in Montmartre

One day we took in some of the more alternative sights of Paris such as the Père Lachaise cemetery, hunting down the tombs of Edith Piaf, Chopin and Oscar Wilde.

The tomb of Oscar Wilde designed by Jacob Epstein

On another day we visited some of the more traditional sights along the Seine before going to the Musée Curie, a museum celebrating the life and discoveries of Marie and Pierre Currie.

Marie Curie's desk at Musée Curie

Of course we couldn't completely ignore the traditional sights of the French capital so made sure we walked across Place de la Concorde, the Louvre, along the Seine and over to Notre Dame on  Île de la Cité.

Louvre

Transport

We took the train from Coventry to London then the Eurostar to Paris.  It almost went horribly wrong right at the beginning as there were no trains running between Birmingham and Coventry because of overhead line damage.  Fortunately we heard about this before leaving, left early and got a train to London just fine.

In Paris we used the metro sometimes which was pretty quiet.  I'm guessing that people were somewhat nervous of using it given the recent bombings in both Paris and Brussels.

Entrance to Abbesses metro

Accommodation

We stayed in a somewhat quirky hotel Hotel Jardins de Montmartre, with its colorfully decorated rooms and vertical gardens on the walls.  Each room is decorated differently and we ended up in  room where the theme was purple.  The friendly staff and complimentary afternoon coffee and cakes were most welcome.

Outside Hotel Jardins de Montmartre

Team Makeup

As you may have guessed there was little chance of me not taking Margaret with me to Paris in the springtime.  This had the advantage of course in that there were two of us to do the organizing and as usual Margaret found us somewhere ideal to stay.

Surprise, surprise!  I din't know who was going to turn up for a Guinness.  Lovely to meet up with old friends. 

Food

Montmartre offers some lovely small and quirky restaurants.  We particularly liked Bululu Arepera, a small Venezuelan restaurant that served arepas traditional Venezuelan cornflour flatbreads filled with avocado and black beans served with sweet potato chips. 

Place du Tertre - Painters of Montmartre

Quirky Moments

We met an American in the cemetery who was looking for Jim Morrison's grave.  We got onto talking about music and festivals and I was asked if I was at the Woodstock festival.  You know you are beginning to look a bit old when someone asks you a question like that.

............... and no we didn't buy one.

Something chemical seen on the side of a house.

Italy - January 2016

Rome

The Guinness

After the challenges of visiting Belarus and Armenia last autumn in search of Guinness this trip proved to be a lot more straightforward in terms of logistics and Guinness availability.  Rome is well served in terms of Guinness outlets, both Irish pubs and Italian bars.  The question was which should I choose to go to to have my pint in.

An afternoon Guinness in Trinity College bar

I'd been here previously a few years ago when the Vatican City got picked out.  Back then the staff at the Trinity College Bar had been very helpful and facilitated the whole Guinness in St Peter's Square experience from supplying the Guinness to providing a reporter.  It seemed a natural choice therefore to choose Trinity College Bar as the place to return to to have my Guinness this time.

Giovanni helps with my quest.

Sometimes when I try to explain to bar tenders the challenge I have set myself they have that worried look on their face that they are being taken for a ride.  And who can blame them.  A man walks into their bar, pulls out a tatty box containing short lengths of straw and claims that his next destination is wrapped up on a bit of paper in one of those straws, and if you don't mind, Mr Barman, please picking it out for me.  In fairness, I too would think it was some sort of drugs con and when that worry subsided I would still be concerned that this weird person was going to occupy their bar stool for the rest of the day.  Giovanni was one of those barman that just seemed a little somewhat nervous, happy to take part and have his photograph taken and take mine but still no doubt wondering to this day whether it was all genuine.  Giovanni did succumb to picking a straw that contained my next destination, Paris.

Yes, it is getting a bit tatty after visiting 42 countries.

Trinity College Bar

The Sights

Can you tire of a great city such as Rome.  I don't think you can.  Having said that I think this visit somewhat lacked the wow factor that my first visit held. That was almost inevitable, especially having seem the most famous sights last time.  I toyed with the idea of going outside the centre to the Appian Way and catacombs but just could't get enthusiastic about it, not In January anyway.  My weekend therefore was spend seeking out some new corners of this city as well as revisiting some others.

Michelanglo's sculpture of Moses in San Pietro in Vincoli

Wandering around without any sort of plan in a particular can be frustrating but does have its advantages.  For instance, when you wander past a building and follow some tourists to see where they are going, only to find its a church containing a Michelangelo sculpture, the chains that bound Peter when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem and some very Gothic sculptures of skeletons.

Difficult to visit Rome without returning to some of the old favorites - the Colosseum.

Accommodation

I suppose I could have varied things by staying somewhere different this time but I stuck with what I knew.  I Dormienti is both central, clean, welcoming and good value for money.  It's on the lovely narrow Via Urbana in the Monti district with its eateries and quirky shops and  a stones throw from the Colosseum.

No, not my accommodation which looked very bland from the outside.  The morning winter sunshine however brought out the colours on some expensive Rome residences very well indeed. 

Transport 

The sameness of this trip to Rome compared to the last even extended to the flights.  I flew with Monarch from Birmingham  to Fiumicino Airport and from there caught the Leonardo Express train into the centre of Rome which was only a ten minute walk from my hotel. There's an efficient transport system within Rome including a metro but I didn't need at this time as I walked everywhere as the weather was good.

Carry on up the Tiber - heading to St Peter's Square.

Team Make Up


This turned out to be a solo trip. We had discussed making it a family holiday but circumstances conspired against in including one member of the family putting their passport in the washing machine. It may result in a clean passport but makes it difficult to read at the same time. February half term looked a possibility at one stage but the Six Nations rugby championship has started by then and England play Italy in Rome making the flights expensive. All in all that's why it ended up being a weekend visit by myself.

Santa Maria Maggiore

The Food


One of these trips I'm going to be able to write reams about the local delicacies and the fine restaurants, but not this time. I snacked all weekend on pizzas and paninis. They just taste so much better than they do in the UK and its so easy to pop in somewhere, order and have it warmed up for you there and then.

Quirky Moments

The phone charger I'd brought with me didn't seem to like the different voltage system. Stepping out from the hotel in the morning I realised I needed to keep my eyes open for a shop selling chargers. I didn't have too far to go. About three doors down from where I was staying was a phone accessory shop selling the latest cheap imports from China. Back in my room I unpacked the charger and plugged it in. BANG. Back to the shop I go with the charger still smoldering to be greeted by a bemused shop assistant. Before I could try the replacement I had to wipe off the scorch marks off the socket and get the hotel manager to reset the trip switched. Luckily the replacement worked a treat.

St Peter's Square after the Sunday morning crowds had dispersed.

Lasting Memories

The centre of Rome is just crammed with attractive buildings of interest. In fact, it's hard to find an ugly sight in Rome whatsoever.

More photos of the trip can be seen by clicking here