Norway – August 2010

Oscillating round Oslo

The Guinness

I had my Guinness in the Dubliner Pub in Oslo. A nice pub indeed. The only shock comes when you pay for the beer. The Guinness was £8 a pint. I think we only had the one round!

Our drinks which were poured by Jemma from Birmingham. That’s the second place running where the barmaid has originated from Birmingham. So what used to be the engineering export capital of the UK is now exporting barmaids.

My goodness, my Guinness ........how much?????

Jemma - having a laugh at someone else paying £8/pint

My cousin kindly did the honours and picked out my next destination which was Copenhagen. Was she trying to get rid of us I wonder?



Getting There and around

We flew with Ryanair to Oslo Torp airport, and straight onto a bus to take us into Oslo and the driver told us in perfect English that our ticket would be 900 Kroner (£100). Our flights only cost £130 for the three of us. He wasn’t joking – that was my first question too. There were some mitigating factors. Firstly, Norway is probably the most expensive country in Europe, now that Iceland has gone down the pan. Secondly, Ryanair were being their usual cheeky self in calling this Oslo airport and 110 km into the city and takes 2 hours. That’s like calling Manchester, London-Manchester airport. Thirdly, it was a return ticket and it was for three of us etc, etc,

We travelled by train from Oslo to Bergen on one of the most scenic routes in Europe. The train takes six hours and goes from sea level all the way up to 4000 feet where glaciers can be seen from the train. We looked out on lakes, tumbling rivers and wild scenery.

We took the Norway in a Nutshell tour that includes a train from Bergen to Flåm. The Myrdal to Flåm section of this journey is famous for its steepness and sheer feat of engineering. The line was only completed in 1940. The following day the trip continued with a boat ride around the fjord and then a coach journey around the winding roads back to Vos. The boat journey was an excellent few hours. The scenery was spectacular.


Team Makeup

A family holiday with my wife and youngest son.

Accommodation

We stayed with a relative of mine in Høvik, just outside Oslo. In Bergen we stayed in a YMCA hostel. I think this was a bit of an unnerving experience for my son who had never experienced mixed- sex dorms before. Most of the other occupants seemed to be there to attend the farewell Ah-Ha tour. Next to the fjord in Aurland we stayed in a hotel – now there’s an unusually extravagant occurrence for us!

Food

Cheese: For some reason the cheese in Norway seems to be brown. I never did understand why. It looked very much like mislabelled peanut butter to me.

We struggled a bit with the food when away from our hosts as the choice of where to eat was somewhat challenging. At one end of the scale there was take away pizza slices were readily available and at the other end there were expensive restaurants but nothing much in between. One evening in Bergen we ended up eating in a kebab shop which was perfectly adequate and authentic judging by the proprietors.



Sightseeing highlights

Bygdøy, the museum area on a peninsular to the west of the city. There was a whole host of museums out there and it was a case of choosing which one to visit. We sat outside the Kon-Tiki museum in the sunshine and looked at the inuksuk which was a gift of friendship from Canada to Norway on the occasion of the centennial celebrations in Norway. An inuksuk is a stone statue and ancient symbols of Inuit culture traditionally used as landmarks and navigation aids. We looked in through the window at Fram, the wooden ship used by Norway’s Polar explorers including Roald Amundsen when he was the first man to the South Pole.

The Viking museum was very good, not huge and exhausting but light and airy and just the large enough to get around in an hour or two. It had about four actual Viking boats that had been found over the past hundred years and a good range of other archaeological finds. The ships have been found in royal burial mounds in the Oslo fjord. The burial ships, carrying the dead over to “the Other World” were discovered packed full of treasures such as wagons, horses and especially textiles.

In another direction out of the centre of Oslo was the Vigeland Sculpture Park. I’d imagined this was a park with sculptures by different artists but instead all the works were by the one artist, Gustav Vigeland, hundreds of them, none with any clothes on. The park is almost 1km long and divided into various sections such as the bridge, lined with sculptures, the Fountain and the Wheel of Life. The most imposing is the Monolith, a column of interwoven figures all struggling to reach the top. Transferring of the figures from Vigeland’s design began in 1929 and took 3 stone carvers 14 years to accomplish.

The coastal city of Bergen with its historic houses, fish market and Nautical Museum.



Quirky moments

One evening we took a trip out to Café Seterstua at the top of a hill outside Oslo. It’s an imposing wooden cabin called Frognerseteren, erected in 1867, where there was a meeting of the Morgan car owners club. We enjoyed a coffee with views over Oslo and the traditional grass roofed buildings in the foreground. On the way down the hill we stopped off at the new Holmenkollen ski jump,

Spain - June 2010

Mad Dash to Madrid

The Guinness

It was all a bit rushed having arranged this trip at short notice and only having a day in Madrid. It’s amazing what you can do with a little iTouch and WiFi access. I’d managed to book two hotels, look up trains and have a brief look at Guinness outlets, all before I’d left Andorra. On arriving in Madrid though things were different. As I interspersed the sightseeing with tracking down a pub serving Guinness it quickly became apparent that there were a lot of ex-Irish pubs around that had either now shut down or no longer selling the black stuff. I eventually found one open.

Much relieved after finding a Guinness at the Triskel Tavern

Wendy kindly pours me another before picking out my next destination - Oslo. 

 That should do nicely for a summer holiday!

Getting There and around

From Andorra I took the coach back to Barcelona and then jumped on the new high-speed train to Madrid. It wasn’t cheap but it certainly saved making a return trip at a later date. And a great train journey it was too gradually getting more arid as we approached Madrid.

The Alta Velocidad Española (AVE) high speed trains modelled on a duck?

Team Makeup

A solo effort on this trip.

Accommodation

I failed to find room in any of the hostels at such short notice so ended up at the Aristos Hotel on Avda Pio XII.

Don Quixote I do believe.

Food

Such was the brevity of my trip that I ended up eating snacks rather than a traditional Spanish meal.

Those lions must be well trained to pull a chariot.

Sightseeing highlights

Lots of classic architecture and wide boulevards lined with state buildings and shops.

Plaza de Cibeles with the Cibeles fountain built in 1777 which depicts the roman goddess of nature in a chariot pulled by two lions.

The Callao cinema art deco building with its curved corner built in 1928.

The very impressive Royal Palace, Palacio de Oriente and nearby ornamental gardens built in the 1750s.

Plaza Mayor, a giant old square, teeming with people

Real Madrid’s Bernabéu stadium.

Quirky moments

Not realising that Madrid is Europe’s third largest capital city behind London and Berlin. No wonder I kept getting lost.

The architecture of the Atocha railway station itself was also impressive as was the atrium complete with indoor tropical botanical garden, pool and turtles, some of them pretty large.

Andorra – June 2010

Ambling Around Andorra

The Guinness

Guinness was somewhat hard to find in the capital Andorra la Vella. I hadn’t bought an ‘emergency can’ with me so I was glad that on my first day I managed to find some on sale in a supermarket. That would be my fallback is I failed to find any elsewhere.

Phew.  My fallback position is sorted

After much searching I did eventually find a bar that sold Guinness though not quite as I knew it. A can was emptied into a glass and the glass put on an ultrasonic platform to encourage a true head to be formed. To add insult to injury it was served in a San Migel glass.

It may be Guinness but not quite what I was expecting.

I did a bit of travelling around the country and eventually had a true pint of draught Guinness in the Quo Vadis pub in Arinsal. They kindly agreed to pick out my next destination – Madrid, Spain. Ummm, I thought, hardly worth going home. So as I supped my pint my mind turned to how I could get to Madrid.

Now that's more like it.  A pint of draught Guinness in Quo Vadis, Arinsal.

Looking a bit happier now.  That's hitting the right spot.

Ana picks out my next destination - Madrid. 

Getting There and Around

I took a budget airline flight to Barcelona and from there took a direct coach up to Andorra. The only issue was that the coach arrived in the middle of the night and rather foolishly I hadn’t booked a hotel. Not to worry, I soon found one open and luxurious by my standards it was too.

Travelling around Andorra isn’t difficult. It’s a small country with an efficient bus service though most busses start from the capital so if you want to travel across the country you’ll normally end up coming back into the capital.

A well maintained hillside track

Team Makeup

It was just me on this trip and it wasn’t even a sort of trip where I met other travellers, so I’m glad I had a good book with me.

Accommodation

In Andorra de Vella I spent a night at the Novotel. In Meritxell I stayed in Hotel Ermita which was lovely and in a tiny hamlet with good scenery. In Arinsal I stayed at the Hotel Arinsal. It was certainly low season there – I think I was the only guest. It looked like the sort of place that would be busy with skiers in winter and holidaymakers in the summer. I was told to make sure I took my key with me if I went out!

Looking down into the hamlet of Meitrxell and Hotel Ermita

Food

The food at Hotel Ermita in Meritxell has to be the highlight. One evening I had scrambled eggs with peppers to start, duck with a roasted pepper for main course and brownies for desert. The other night I was served with starters of pasta soup, the main course was Catalan sausage on a bed of haricot beans and crème brulee for desert

Sightseeing highlights

I didn’t go high into the mountains but I did do some walking on the lower slopes. The area has lots of well marked footpaths. At Arinsal I found a lovely track up a valley. This place was idyllic. A river tumbling down through the trees, and plenty of butterflies and wild flowers. Amongst the butterflies was the Burnet Companion (a moth in reality) and meadow fotilia. I settled down and read my book for an hour or so.

Lovely valleys full of wild flowers and butterflies.

Quirky moments

There are some pretty wacky things to see in the capital itself. Some of the sculptures are worth seeking out.

Some pretty bisare headgear being worn in Andorra's capital

Lasting Memories

Lovely as the area was it was quiet even for me. I cut my visit short by a couple of days so I could make a mad dash down to Madrid.

What do you make of all that then?

Switzerland – August 2009

Burning a hole in the pocket in Bern

The Guinness

I’d only found one pub on the Internet that served Guinness in Bern, Mr Pickwick’s, so had taken the precaution of forewarning them of my arrival and making sure that they had Guinness in stock.  It took a little finding even with a map but turned out to be very pleasant and welcoming. I even got a complimentary pint of Guinness which I think is the first I’ve had when doing this caper.  Jonas kindly poured the beer and picked Andorra out as my next destination.

Jonas kindly pouring me a Guinness

And very nice it was too

Getting There and around

 Whatever happened to those cheap direct flights to Bern I seem to recall that existed at one time?  There were none to be found when I looked on the Internet so we plumbed instead to fly to Geneva from East Midlands.

We stayed in Geneva, Bern and Lauterbrunnen and used the very efficient Swiss railway system to get around with the tickets mainly purchased in advance in the internet. The odd cable car was also thrown in for good measure.   

Team Makeup

Fantastic. The crowds turned up for this one.  Margaret, Gareth and Penny travelled with me and Heidi, Nick, Sarah and Amy joined us in Bern. 

Team photo time

 Accommodation

We used Youth Hostels in Bern and Geneva and rented a chalet in Lauterbrunnen.

Food.

Muesli is a Swiss invention apparently. Judging by the muesli I sampled in Switzerland, the stuff on sale in UK has been adapted for our pallets i.e. lots of nice sugar and fruits added. The potato bread and Swiss wine are to be recommended as was the fresh cheese we got from a cheese factory near Mürren. We wondered why we never see Swiss wine on sale back home. Enjoying the full delights of Swiss cuisine in restaurants however was somewhat beyond our budget.

Bern Minster

Sightseeing highlights

The Zytglogge clock with its host of different faces giving all sorts of information. It’s a fascinating thing. The astronomical clock beneath the main face shows not only the hour of day, but also the day of the week and of the month, the month itself, the zodiac and the phases of the moon. When the bell rings out every full hour it is struck by a large clockwork-operated hammer of a figure in full harness moving its arm to strike it. The larger-than-life bearded figure is Chronos, the Greek personification of time, or known locally as Hans von Thann by the Bernese.

The Zytglogge clock

The cathedral or Minster itself is impressive. The first thing that greets you on the outside is a very impressive depiction of the Last Judgment over the main door which contains more than 200 carved wood and stone figures. The saved are on the left and the damned are on the right.  The carvings rather surprisingly survived the Reformation but apparently the graphic depictions of salvation and damnation appealed enough to the Reformers to spare it from destruction.  It’s a climb of 300 feet up the tower.  At least it has two advantages for those that are not too clever on their pins with heights.  First there is a rail all the way up and second there is one tower for people going up and another for those coming down. From the top there are good views across the city and down on all the red tiled roofs.

Quirky moments

The monument to the Universal postal Union which I thought was a trade union but then later found out it was the organisation where member countries guarantee to deliver post that originates in another country.  Its only when you think about these things do you realise that without such agreements the place would be chaos.

What on earth is going on here?

We were rather shocked to look out into the river at this stage to see a body floating downstream, then another, then another.  They turned out not to be dead after all but swimmers making the most of the strong current and floating downstream.  

Lasting Memories

The Alpine scenery of the Bernese Oberland. The train journeys and in particular the Zweisimmen to Montreux train with its glass topped carriages enabling travellers to view the wonderful scenery.

The Bernese Oberland

Lake Geneva and the Jet d’Eau. The jet spurts 140 meters into the air on one side, over the path and falls back down to the lake on the other side. The original jet was only 30 meters high and on River Rhone.  It was a relief valve when the local reservoir was being built.  When the time came to turn it off some wise people realised it had started to become a tourist attraction so had one built purposely further down into Lake Geneva itself.

Luxembourg – June 2009

Lank Luxembourg

The Guinness

I stumbled on Oscar Wilde’s Bar.  It didn’t take long for me to decide to go into the dry bar as I was getting pretty wet wandering around in the rain.  What a wise decision.  It was just five minutes before a rugby match started on the TV – the British Lions versus the Cheetahs (a great combination of team names!), one of their warm up matches on their tour of South Africa.  The Lions scraped a 24-22 win.  I sat at the bar and soon got talking to the Mark, man next to me, an ex-pat and ex-president of Luxembourg Rugby Club and a Northampton supporter.

 

He was kind enough to talk to me, even though my team, Cardiff, had beaten the Saints in the semi-final of the EDF energy cup which I had seen a month or two earlier at Coventry’s Ricoh arena.  It was a good couple of hours and at half time I explained to Jan, the owner, what I was up to and she poured me another Guinness and picked out the next destination – Berne, Switzerland.

Oscar Wilde's Irish Pub

Getting There and around

I calculated that this trip in total involved 34 legs of transport via six countries, all in search of a pint of Guinness!  I’d had business meetings in Gothenburg, Sweden and in Brussels Belgium and combined them with the trip to Luxembourg.  First I flew to Gothenburg, then took the train down to Brussels including an overnight leg from Copenhagen to Cologne.  After my meeting in Brussels I took a train down to Namur in southern Belgium and stayed there a night before going to Luxembourg.  I was away for some nine days and in Luxembourg for less than 24 hours.

The ups and downs of Luxembourg

Team Makeup

There was just me on the Luxembourg leg of the journey.

Accommodation

In Luxembourg I stayed in a large newly built youth hostel next to the river with a couple of hundred beds.  With lifts, Wi-Fi, a restaurant it had all the mod cons.  Even the shower worked.  They had been fully booked the previous night so I had had to stay in the Youth Hostel in Namur. 

Luxembourg City

Food

I’d eaten well in Sweden and Brussels but it was downhill from there.  In Namur I had to resort to chips from a chip shop followed by a bottle of Trappist beer back at the hostel.  In Luxembourg I ate in the hostel refectory; an appetizing salad, chicken dish and a banana for desert for €10

Sightseeing highlights

Not many if I was being honest.  For part of the afternoon I explored the lower parts of the city, the pretty areas in the ravines.  There was a row of street stalls with artists displaying their wares but in the rain I was the only visitor.  Later in the day I walked around the lank streets of the town but it wasn’t the weather for doing much sightseeing.

Quirky moments

That evening, in one of the city squares, a brass band played under an awning with no more than five people watching and sheltering under umbrellas.  A day’s rain wasn’t going to put them off.

Getting talking to Father Christmas, or a gentleman who looked just like him, at the bus stop at 6.30am the morning I was heading home.  He was off for a day’s walk and looking at the badges on his rucksack he’d had a lifetime of walking behind him. 

Lasting Memories

Wet feet – it rained most of the day I was in Luxembourg.  I can’t remember the last time my feet were this wet.  It wasn’t so much the fact that it was raining, I think it was the cobbled streets of Luxembourg that retained the water and squished it up into your shoes.

Yes, it was still raining!

Out of the City

Most of this trip was actually spent out of the city, just getting to Luxembourg.

Greece - April 2009

Attacking Athens

The Guinness

The James Joyce Bar is in amongst a restaurant area of Athens and was busy with people socialising eating and drinking Guinness.  It was well decorated with Irish paraphernalia and had plenty of  atmosphere.  A fine pint of Guinness was consumed before I explained to the French barman, Nickolas, the purpose of my visit. 

Nickolas pours me my Guinness

 He then poured me another Guinness before choosing a straw out of the box.  It contained the name of Luxembourg. 

Enjoying a Guinness at the James Joyce Bar

Getting There and around

We flew with EasyJet from Luton to Athens.

After striding out of the airport and across to the station and trying on our best Greek to buy tickets for the metro we were told the metro was closed down.  Built for the Olympics and then closed down afterwards – supposedly so that more stations could be built. 

The bus driver wouldn’t accept that my son (14) should go half price on the bus.  Their excuse  – because he’s taller than me.  I guess they have a point. 

Team Makeup

Another family holiday – though this time without eldest son.

Accommodation

Athens Studios hostel in the heart of Athens, in the Makryanni district, at the foot of the Acropolis. Refurbished straight from Ikea with flat screen TV included – hardly the type of hostel we are used to and most welcome.  Breakfast was always delivered to our door in small individual wicker baskets with a napkin over the top to keep the hard boiled eggs warm. 

Food

The Greek coffee is thick, black and sweet with a caffeine kick to it enough to wake up even the most weary tourist. 

Orange trees in the street

The Greek vegetarian dishes were by far the best.  We had salads and beans, dolmades and sausage. Musaca and the other meat dishes were OK but stodgy and lacked inspiration whereas the vegetables were more appetizing altogether. 

Sightseeing highlights

Most of Athens is flat but three hills rise out of the plane and on one of them is built the Acropolis.  It was a mere hundred yards or so to the entrance from our hostel and from then on you escaped to noise of the streets and wandered around the ruins of ancient Greece.  With the guide books to accompany us we took it easy in the sunshine and tried to picture what it all used to look like. 

Dionysus Theatre

The Dionysus Theatre, the larger of the two on the site, held some 15,000 spectators. The actors must have had some voice to be able to be heard.  The only noise today was the lady blowing her whistle telling tourists off for straying off the approved paths. 

It became evident that quite a bit of the treasures had been removed and are now in the British Museum, including the Elgin Marbles.  I used to think they were small round glass objects but apparently not.  Must take a trip to London to see them one day to see the other half of what we missed today.

Be nice when it's finished

The queues to get off the Acropolis were equally long as those to get in, if not worse.  I’d hate to think what would have happened if there was an emergency.  I guess the ancient Greeks didn’t have to think that much about emergency planning procedures.  The sun shining off the stone was strong and made our eyes hurt.  The Parthenon was built to honour Athena in the 5^th century BC.

That night we climbed one of the other nearby hills. The view from the top of the floodlit Acropolis as spectacular and one of the highlights of the holiday

Then the next day it was onto Agora, which together with the Acropolis was a place well worth wandering around if only because of its vastness and tranquillity.  It has lots of paths and pleasant vegetation.

 The place is in ruins

Quirky moments

We headed off to parliament to see the weekly changing of the guard ceremony. We joined the rest of the tourists amassed on the central reservation of a dual carriageway.  Just before 11 o’clock the massed guards marched around the corner.  Although there is strong competition worldwide for which national guards look the most ridiculous, these must sure win with their cream woolly tights, white frilly skirts, pom-poms on their shoes and silly looking red hats.  

The National Guards

South of the gardens, in the heart of the city, is the Temple of Olympian Zeus, the largest temple in Greece.  Only a small section of 15 upright pillars remains today. There were originally 104 pillars.  Construction began in 500 BC and it was completed by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 132 AD.  It was my turn to get told off here.  I mistakenly sat down on the grass.  You can stand and walk all you like on the grass but not sit down on it.  I never did find out why. 

Out of the City

We thought we’d go to the seaside.  A tram from Athens went all the way to the coast.  The ride on the tram was quite exciting at first but then dragged on a bit.  Glydfa doesn’t half sound like it should be in Wales to me.  It took us about ten minutes to explore Glydfa and decide there wasn’t much there for us.  It looked to be uninteresting shops and expensive restaurants and cafes to us.  Down at the waterfront wasn’t too much better.  There were loads of marinas, tennis courts, scruffy promenades and not a lot else.  We did find some rocks to sit on for half an hour and take in the air but not a lot else. I found a sea turtle sanctuary was the most interesting place there but no turtles in sight. The cafe was called in did do soft drinks but at £6 a bottle so we gave tat a miss to and jumped on the long tram ride back to town. 

Luxurious lingerie - with new openings?

The next day we headed for the Olympic stadium, the modern one which held the Olympics in 2004.   A brave move this as it wasn’t in any of the guidebooks (we had three – one each to stop the squabbling). I’d seen it marked as a stop on the metro line so thought it would be interesting to visit.  It was however a bit like the beach – interesting if you were passing but not if it’s going to take an hour on the metro to get there.  Unfortunately it’s a desolate place and makes little if any attempt to welcome visitors.  You can wander around between the various stadiums but there was no way to go into them.  The odd statue was looking forlorn and abandoned and the only sign of life was in the open air pool where a team of synchronised swimmers was warming up.

Athens by night