The highway above Riomaggiore
Church of San Giovanni Battista — originally built in 1340 with modern changes added in 1870
Oratorio San Rocco, built in 1480 after a plague
Cross opposite the Oratoria San Rocco
An inner square with a wall mural tribute to the fishermen of Riomaggiore
A small chapel along one of the inner streets
The railway connecting the Italian Riviera
I awoke to the chimes of tinny church bells, sunshine and blue skies and villagers of Riomaggiore greeting each other below my windows. The plans for the day were to explore the town. Looking out a window to the alleyway below I saw an older man carrying one of those supersized IKEA bags and thought he must be a tourist going out for the day. An older woman, laden with the day’s groceries, pulled herself up the stairs to a landing .
I wasn’t sure if I could find breakfast in town but went out in search of it. There were quite a few older women and men doing their day’s shopping and I noticed now that there were at least two co-op shops, one almost directly across from my street. I checked out menus on closed restaurants and wandered down to the marina where a cook at a trattoria told me it didn’t open until 11:30 a.m. My Italy guidebook too said that Italians don’t really ‘do breakfast’ and that restaurants open at midday until about 2:30 and then again in the evening from 6:30 until about 9 p.m.
I love breakfast and needed a full stomach for a day of wandering so decided I would buy Italian. First, I went to my local cocktail bar/cafe and after a ‘buon guorno’ ordered ‘uno americano con latte, per favore …. grazie’ (one americano with milk, please … thank you), which is how I began every morning that I was in the Cinque Terre. Then I went to the co-op and bought some lovely young zucchini, tomatoes, a red pepper, garlic and a lemon along with a bag of pasta and some oranges. I could cook up a pasta dish quickly and easily and be ready for the day. I bought a rather greasy salami sandwich at another cafe to take in a packed lunch for later.
In the afternoon, at the high end of the street, I noticed a handmade sign marking a new trail to the nearby town of Manarola, in place of the closed seafront walk. It estimated it was about two hours, and only moderately hard, and I thought I can go to the summit and come back in that two hours. It would be a good warmup for the five-hour hike to Portovenere the next day. Oh, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.
I imagined switchbacks and instead found myself, for most of that hour, lifting my body weight up ancient vineyard step after ancient vineyard step. My calves burned and became heavy bricks. I stopped and rested often, wondering if I had somehow missed the trail, realizing later that, no I hadn’t, I was on it.
No switchbacks. You can’t even see the stone steps that went straight up — and I wasn’t carrying a load of grapes on my back.
It was almost the last week in March; the vines are just sprouting.
A view of Riomaggiore near the summit
Looking north along the Ligurian Coast
My view of Manarola from the summit. I stopped, ate lunch and called my stepmother in Florida to tell her where I was sitting.
Going down is easier than going up, but I was feeling very decrepit and was seriously concerned about my planned walk the next day. Walking along summits is fine, it’s getting to them that can be a challenge.
There are so many stunning views in Riomaggiore — so many little streets and alleyways that turn you up in the most unexpected places. The light in the Cinque Terre at dusk is utterly beautiful. It’s no wonder it is called ‘the golden hour’. I took more photos, walking down through the town. Along the inner streets I saw the giant IKEA bags, as a man was carrying in the morning, hung on wall posts. As they were open at the top, I was able to see in and they were filled with clean, folden linens. This seemed to be some kind of laundry service for larger objects. Theft doesn’t seem to be a concern in Riomaggiore either. Down at the marina the motors for the boats were kept out in the open unlocked — though it would also be difficult to make an escape with them, I suppose.
I wanted to eat by the sea and there were only the two restaurants down at the marina; actually one was a restaurant and the other a trattoria (a more relaxed dining experience) and the trattoria’s patio had a higher, better view of the water. I decided to go for their tourist menu. My guidebook had explained all the hidden charges that can crop up in Italy (they often charge extra for service) that tourists don’t necessarily understand, so the tourist menus are there to simplify matters, not to necessarily give you a lesser experience.
Saying that, I’m afraid my dining experiences in Riomaggiore were quite ‘hit and miss’. They start with amazing ingredients, but much of the local food and bread in Riomaggiore was very greasy (good for climbing and hard days’ fishing). Even my morning coffee was just coffee — I’ve had better coffee and Italian meals here in Cardiff, and back home in Windsor, Ontario on Erie Street. It was disappointing not to be wowed by the food, especially in Italy. My dinner by the sea was memorable because of the location and the sounds of the water. Unfortunately the tiramisu was some kind of mass-manufactured dessert exactly like one that I had here in Cardiff (the same glass container, too) and which at the time I thought was not tiramisu at all, but more like an unflamed brulee.
The next night I got smarter and studied the restaurants on main street a little closer, picked and chose instead of taking the preset meal and had a very memorable experience of calamari as a starter and a deeply flavoured seafood pasta at Il Grottino.
And a grand ‘hit’ — the gelato! Authentic gelato was a revelation: Gelateria Centrale in Riomaggiore has at least two locations: one on the main street and one or two in the marina. I have never had anything so heavenly, melt-in-your-mouth creamy — two scoops gave you a choice of two flavours. My favourite was a scoop of hazelnut and one of pistachio. I could happily become an unofficial gelato sampler, though I could as happily just eat pistachio gelato for the rest of my days.
After my dinner down at the seaside I made my way back up the steps from the marina to Via Colombo, up the street to my alleyway, up the steps to the other set of stairs and then to the bottom of my stairwell. My stairwell was dark even during the daytime and had a timer on it that lasted approximately 25 seconds. The first few times I didn’t make it to the top before the light went out and I had to turn the key, fumbling in darkness. Now, as a veteran of a day in Riomaggiore, I was able to get to the top and into my room with light.
I closed my shutters and collapsed into bed, not certain if I would be taking, or could physically take, the five-hour hike to Portovenere the next day.
the golden hour
The trattoria down in the marina where I ate a mostly satisfying meal to the sound of the waves.
Riomaggiore from the Sanctuary of the Madonna di Montenero
I wanted to travel to Italy and bask in sunshine, away from doing the ‘tourist thing’. I wasn’t ready to ‘do’ Rome, especially after getting a hint of lovely, tourist-besieged Venice. My sister-in-law recommended the Cinque Terre in the northwest corner of Italy on the Italian Riviera. Two years ago she and my brother were on their way to Venice and got no further than the Cinque Terre’s Vernazza. They arrived, liked what they saw and stayed put.
The five villages of the Cinque Terre cling to cliffsides and are primarily linked by rail. The villagers dug and carved and raised their towns and vineyards to dizzying heights. They lived off the land and off the sea for hundreds of years. It was a hard life and when the railways came in the late 1800s a lot of them left. In many ways it is still a hard life, though tourism now supplements it.
From northwest to southeast, the five villages are Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore. The two most popular villages with tourists are Monterosso and Vernazza: consequently they are more expensive. I chose Riomaggiore for my four-night stay as it was much cheaper and I also liked the fact that it was the most eastern village. I had read on a blog that one of the best walks in the Cinque Terre is the five-hour clifftop walk from Riomaggiore to Portovenere further east. More on this false advertising later.
For four nights, from Thursday through to Monday morning, I was able to get a self-catering flat in the centre of town for 40 euros a night. This is about as cheap as it gets, almost hostel prices, though it was also at the end of March which I was expecting was still out of season. The reviews on most of the lower-priced accommodations were very mixed, everyone agreeing only that the roadways are steep.
And here is my alarm bell: the Cinque Terre, or at least Riomaggiore, is no place to visit if you have any mobility issues. (Monterosso and Vernazza are on flatter river basins but the buildings are still stacked.) I do physical work cleaning rooms and do lunges and squats and twists and turns all day. I love hiking and walking but the rates of difficulty of trails and walks in the Cinque Terre seem to have been set by Amazonian Olympians. I am 5 ft. 1 and was lifting my legs almost a foot on many of the steps that link everything everywhere. Not a single walk was rated more than moderately difficult, yet I would venture a section of my walk to Portovenere was downright dangerous. Unfortunately, while I was there, all the shoreline walks between the villages were closed. These are the most popular and probably relatively easier than going into the hills. However, my warning still stands unless all you are going to do is take the train into a town and then leave again.
Via Colombo, Riomaggiore’s main street
My train from Genova arrived in Riomaggiore around 5:30 in the evening and according to my hotel’s website if I didn’t arrive by 6:30 p.m. there would be no one available to give me my room, so I set off through the pedestrian tunnel to the town’s main street. Via Colombo is narrow and as I emerged from the tunnel I felt the eyes of a group of older Italian women watch me with what seemed like bemusement as they took their evening repose. My suitcase had wheels, bought in preparation for what I had read about the steep climb to my hotel’s front desk.
I couldn’t find corresponding numbers on the street for my hotel and put to use, for the first time, phrases I would use very, very often: Buon giorno. Mi scuse. Non parlo italiano. Parli inglese? (Good day. Excuse me. I don’t speak Italian. Do you speak English?) Most would say ‘a little’ and we would begin a fruitful exchange, mixing gestures and a little of the two languages. My hotel was further up the hill by a little church.
The proprietor of my hotel, the Locanda dalla Compagnia, was a brusque man in his late 30s, early 40s sporting a version of a mohawk hairstyle. He probably also had tattoos. I knew I wasn’t staying at the hotel itself and we set off back down the street, he at a brisk pace. I was practically running behind him, my luggage rattling over the stones. He stopped abruptly to greet a woman he hadn’t seen in awhile and gestured for me to halt as well. We began again and as he asked if he could assist me with my luggage, he took two quick steps away from me, before I had a chance to reply.
We reached the point on the street where I was to enter to go to my flat and he quickly pointed out the bank across from it as a marker. With the first unpracticed words that I heard from him, he said, with genuine respect: ‘an old fisherman used to live here.’
Scalinata della Tagliata : Flight of steps of the Tagliata — the street leading to my flat
The homes of the people of the Cinque Terre, and many of the bed lettings, are built into the cliffsides, in tower-houses. It is a complex system hidden behind the facade of the main street, where stairways lead to smaller walkways, up one or two or more levels. Through a doorway off the Via Colombo, we went up stairs to a smaller street, made a small turn to the left, then a small turn to the right, up another short set of stairs to the outside door of the building I was staying in. My flat was up twenty very, very steep, narrow stairs made of marble that made a 90-degree turn midway. I had to walk up them sideways, pulling my bag a foot high with each step.
He showed me how to lock the door, told me I didn’t have to return to the hotel when I left but to leave the key inside, and off he went. And, except for the stairway, I loved this place. I had a finely finished modern bathroom, a new small kitchen, an old couch, an Ikea-looking table and chairs for dining, a big double bed and a little alcove room for storing luggage. I had windows everywhere along the seaside of the building (though no seaview) — large, new windows with green shutters that I could open and close in varying degrees to let in air and light. I had never used shutters before and decided I liked them quite a bit.
I could hear people greeting each other in Italian below my windows, look outside over the inner alleyways and see their heads as they passed below, see the laundry hanging, as it does everywhere in sun-drenched Italy, outside their shutters — and all the walls in warm shades of yellow and terracotta.
I was stunned by the weather. It was the last week in March and all the forecasts I had seen before I left the U.K. did not predict this lovely heat. And though the vineyards and some of the trees were not yet green, everything else was. Every garden had a lemon tree and every lemon tree laden with fruit.
I left my flat to get a sense of the town. The marina and sea is reached via another tunnel (and more steps). There were a couple of restaurants there and blue fishing boats and rocks and a patio on which to drink on another rise. Returning to Via Colombo, I now saw the various restaurants, all with a tourist menu as well as the menu in Italian.
Upon entering Via Colombo from the pedestrian walkway there is a little grocery store on the right with fresh fruit and vegetables outside and pasta, cheese, meats and everything else you’d need inside. It was expensive though and I thought it must be mainly for tourists. Surely there is a modern grocery store at the edge of town where the locals shop? I walked up Via Colombo, which is not long — probably only a few city blocks in length — but which has a steep gradient. Three-quarters of the way to the top of it, as it peters out to a parking lot, there is an ambulance permanently parked.
There was no modern plaza strip. There were a few municipal buildings and a Cinque Terre park information centre. Walking back down I noticed a co-op grocery store, set up much like the store at the foot of Via Colombo. There were some local people inside and I bought a bottle of pear juice and a roll of chocolate-almond cookies. (These are probably the best cookies I have ever had, like a biscotti — I haven’t been able to find anything like them here in the U.K.)
I wandered up by the main church in the heart of the town and could hear singing coming from inside. Following another walkway up and back towards the sea I found one of the town’s high points by an ancient castle and old chapel. A simple wooden cross stood between two conifer trees, silhouetted against the sea and setting sun, with benches set along it. This became not only my favourite spot in Riomaggiore, but is probably one of my favourite spots anywhere in the world: stunningly meditative and beautiful.
With the sun gone down and the town quiet, I followed Via Colombo back down to where the street for my flat opened to it, almost at its bottom. A cocktail-coffee bar was invitingly open on to the street with modern music on the radio and cushioned chairs outside. They had a limited menu and I ordered a pesto pizza to go, which the young bartender made as if for the first time. He opened a jar of pesto sauce (pesto is a regional specialty) and spread it on the dough. I was dubious as to how good this pizza was going to be but was not disappointed. I enjoyed it back in my flat accompanied by pear juice and chocolate-almond cookies.
This little cafe was a meeting place for tourists and locals and did a booming business from early morning until its relatively early closing time of 9:30 p.m.
Last spring, upon turning 60 years of age, I received a senior bus pass which allows me to travel for free upon most civically funded buses. And, I put it to use! Villages and towns here in Wales, and much of the U.K., retain their individuality and uniqueness, so even a trip of 30 minutes in either direction is a journey to a place of discovery.
It’s a wonderful way to unwind on a day off — and there’s plenty more within two hours’ distance. This is just a sampler.
My favourite seaside town is Porthcawl, here in early April before their Coney-Island-type beach is hit by the summer throngs.
Dinas Powys: Vale of Glamorgan Walking Festival
A country stroll in Dinas Powys as part of the free Vale of Glamorgan Walking Festival held in late May, early June.
Last summer was the first ‘real’ summer of sunshine and heat since I moved here in 2010, so no, the summers are not usually so bright — but I am hoping for a repeat in 2014.
Llantwit Major is a well-maintained village with a bit of money.
The beach at Llantwit Major was a good half hour or more from the town centre — distance signs tend to be lacking. This is an entry point to a trail.
Big Cheese Festival, Caerphilly — late July
The Big Cheese Festival at nearby Caerphilly — a wonderful family summer weekend. It is not, however, a cheese festival! Caerphilly itself is and produces the Big Cheese.
Caerphilly Castle — my favourite castle in Wales (of which there are many) — so dramatic.
The beach at Barry Island Amusement Park, where I believe half of Wales lost their virginity or was conceived. It’s a hot, hot spot!
Part of the Wales Coast Walk heading from Penarth.
Wild garlic covers woodland floors and scents the air in the spring — here, in the city centre’s Bute Park.
Keeping the neighbourhood watch
Cardiff Castle and grounds — one of my favourite spots to soak up the sun when it makes an appearance.
World War II air raid shelter in the castle walls — very evocative
St. Teilo’s Church at St. Fagans National History Museum.
14th century wall murals were found under plastered walls.
Healthy pig on a St. Fagans farm
Garden at St. Fagans
New in 2013 — urban beach down at Cardiff Bay! — here at the last festival of summer
Dr. Who’s Tardis mysteriously appeared atop Cardiff Castle in November
as part of the 50th year celebrations for the Cardiff-based sci-fi show. No sign of the Doctor.
The Tardis left just as mysteriously about a week later.
I’m still here. I’m been absent from my blog for about five months — one reason being that last year’s output, small as it was, had gotten to be frustating on the Cardiff Library’s computer system and I guess I needed the break, but another more pressing reason is that I’ve been busy using my computer time to make holiday plans.
Soon, at the end of March, I will be making a mini Grand Tour of Europe! Thanks, once again, to the amazing Mark Smith and his website The Man in Seat 61, without whose impeccable guidance I would never have been able to navigate the Italian train sites. There were many details to arrange and except for some minor last-minute preparations, everything is set.
I will be taking the rail-ferry once again overnight from east England to Amsterdam, something I enjoyed very much last year, spending a day in my favourite European city so far — Amsterdam!– to visit the War Resistance and Jewish Synogogues museums (and to have some more herring — and it’s spring, there should be tulips!). I will attempt, again, to get some shuteye on a sleeper train overnight from Amsterdam to Zurich where, the next day, the rails will take me through the Swiss and Italian Alps to Milan. From there I change to a local train for my final destination of the Cinque Terre town of Riomaggiore on the Italian Riviera. The Cinque Terre was recommended to me by my brother and sister-in-law as beautiful, relaxing and Italy at its best. Riomaggiore is one of five cliffside towns in the area protected as a UNESCO site. I will be staying there three full days and four nights and hoping that the sun shines in northern Italy at the end of March — though I expect to soak up the atmosphere and feast on fresh sardines regardless of any sun.
On my return Turin (Torino) beckons. Leaving Riomaggiore in the morning by train I will reach Turin mid-afternoon and stay the night in the city centre, boarding a train in the morning through the French Alps to Paris. I should have time to make an hour’s leisurely walk through Paris from the Gare de Lyon to the Gare du Nord where I catch the Eurostar back to London, and from London, a bus back to Cardiff. That’s a long day. I won’t arrive back in Cardiff until after midnight, but I will have travelled from Italy to Wales via land and Channel tunnel and seen most of the landscape. There will be a day of rest and recovery before going back to work.
Also heading home to Canada at the end of June for a week and a half — all booked as well. My niece Kate is expecting their first child at the end of May. I’m sad about not being there during her pregnancy, but glad that she and baby are doing well.
This could be my last full year here in the U.K. My visa expires in September 2015, but my passport expires in May 2015. I still have to find out if I can renew my passport at this end and also need to consider what I will be doing if I’m not allowed to stay longer. I also don’t know what I want to do and have mixed feelings. I will probably try to stay by applying for citizenship which would give me more options. I don’t plan on staying forever, but feel the best scenario may be a few more years here. Once again, not sure — part of me is ready to go home to Canada, but a part of me wants to take the best of Europe home with me, and I can’t really do that.
In September I will most likely make a smaller trip. I have Copenhagen in mind, as I’ve heard good things about it and the airfare there is pretty reasonable. If I can, I will try and go to Amsterdam again on the same trip.
In the meantime I had expected to post photos from daytrips made last year, in 2014, throughout south Wales. I have been preparing them and hopefully will get them posted before the Grand Tour starts!
New funky architecture in Amsterdam’s Westlands
The EYE Film Institute
Out of the tour boat and walking now, along the Reguliersgracht
Many of Amsterdam’s buildings look as if they are sinking — but there are no visible cracks in the structures. They appear to be melting. I don’t know if they level the insides in order to make the floors straight. I hope so.
The tilt forward on this building’s facade has been purposely done. The Dutch designed it this way in order to prevent loads, which are hoisted to higher floors via a roof pulley, from hitting the building’s front.
Oh, I like Amsterdam. I like it a lot. And I like the Dutch people, too — unexpectedly very kind and thoughtful.
I will go back at any opportunity. As I usually fly through Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport when I fly to North America I can extend my travelling a day or two and make a visit to the city as part of my travel plans. The city is only 15-20 minutes from Schiphol via trains which leave every ten minutes. It couldn’t be easier. And though I packed a great deal into my two days, there is much, much more that I would like to see and do there.
Amsterdam is expensive to stay in though — it can cost double to stay in a hostel than what I paid for a small room in Paris. And it can be very pricey to fly there. Once there, food and everything else is fine and about the same as here or in N. America. I took the Dutch Flyer return with Stena Lines, a combo train and ferry trip out of London. This gave me a night each way on the ferry with two full days in Amsterdam (but only one night) and I was able to begin and end the trip with a day in London.
The Quentin Amsterdam where I stayed: much better
than its online reviews.
The view from my room.
I dropped my luggage off at my hotel after about a half hour’s walk from the Central Station, though my map wasn’t adequate and I got a bit lost, worrying that I wouldn’t make my slotted time for the Anne Frank House. I was packing my visit with lots of museum time and had bought my tickets online beforehand in order to avoid long lineups. This is really recommended for the Anne Frank House. I walked right in through a side door, but with two groups of students who also had passes. We were inside almost two hours and I don’t think the lines outside moved much in that time.
The Anne Frank House is sobering. Her diary of the years she spent in hiding from the Nazis with her family is one of the first books I remember my mother giving me to read when I was just a bit younger than Anne was when she began her writing. What impressed me the most was just how very well-hidden they were. Up flights of stairs, we went behind the actual bookcase that hid their living quarters. From the outside you never would have guessed that so much space was above the business that her father once ran. From the inside the claustrophobia of those rooms with their blacked-out windows weighs heavily. I was very glad to get out into the fresh air afterwards. The reality, that of so many Jewish families in World War II, is heartbreaking — you know that the father Otto Frank did everything he could to save his family, beginning with their exit from Germany in 1933 and his preparations for their hiding in 1942. Another mindnumber is seeing Anne’s room with the photos of movies stars she pasted on the wall.
Statue of Anne Frank in the Westerkerk (Western Church) square next
to the Anne Frank House.
Amsterdam is easy to find your away around (despite my early dislocation) and with a couple of hours before my visit to the Van Gogh Museum, I walked along the canal away from the Anne Frank House towards Vondelpark, one of the city’s largest parks. I was hungry and wanting to try a herring sandwich, which is a Dutch favourite, but all I could find was hotdog stands. (I later found out herring is seasonal, though I was able to eat two the next day.) I began walking towards the museum, found an excellent sandwich shop, and continued to the Museumplein, the large green lawn space surrounded by the Van Gogh Museum, the modert art museum, the Stedelijk, the majestic Rijks and the Concertgebouw, and sat on a bench to each my lunch.
One of Amsterdam’s ubiquitous bike paths cuts through the centre of the square and right through tunnels in the Rijks Museum. Across the field from the bench where I sat school boys played football (soccer). It was midday midweek and the sessions seemed to be school outings or classes. However at one point, a mother drove up in one of the cargo bikes, a bakfiets, and out jumped her son, about nine years of age, to join the game. Besides the regular bikes that threaten pedestrians everywhere, the baksfiets are a cycle version of the family van and you see parents with one or two children (not necessarily small ones) enroute with groceries.
Concertgebouw on the Museumplein.
Vincent Van Gogh is my favourite artist. He is probably one of the world’s most misunderstood artists as well, not really as crazy as he has been portrayed, though he suffered from some form of mental instability . The book Dear Theo, a collection of his letters to his brother Theo, edited by Irving Stone, is an eyeopener. I read it years ago. Van Gogh was a beautiful, prolific writer, a sensitive philosopher and a keen observer — a man juggling deep gifts and energy. The Museum has since collected all of his letters and they are available in book form for a hefty price or online for free. His writings and those of Anne Frank have been cornerstones — and revelations — for me.
The Van Gogh Museum closes a little earlier in late September and the two hours slotted for my visit were not quite enough. I did a quick dash through the top floor which contained many of his last works. Now, unlike during his life, his paintings are so well known. However, I was very struck by the intensity and darkness of his famous Wheatfield With Crows, so much darker than any print I have seen. Everyone was taking photos inside the museum, on every level, of every painting. Any museum I have ever been in has forbidden photo-taking. This appears to be a new trend in museums, as the same was allowed in the Rijksmuseum when I visited there, though certainly not in Venice in the churches. I didn’t take any photos inside, but I see now on their website it is encouraged.
The brilliance of Van Gogh’s images was uplifting. I wandered by the Rijksmuseum where I would start the next day and headed back towards the Leidseplein area where my hotel was situated and began the search for a place to have my dinner.
The Leidesplein, the Rembrantplein, and Amsterdam’s city centre by the Centraale and probably many more areas of Amsterdam of which I’m not aware, are heavily frequented by tourists and have that frenzied energy along with a little worse-for-wear tackiness and weariness about them. The Dutch are not particularly known for their cuisine and in these neighbourhoods you run the gamut of the usual suspects of international fastfood chains and a lot of pizza joints. Being a lone traveller I’m not particularly comfortable in these places and after walking up and down a lot of picturesque sidestreets and being approached by a lot of front-of-house pitchmen, I found a little Greek restaurant on the edge of all the madness with a few inviting outside tables.
It was a good choice. I ordered grilled sardines, which were excellent when they finally came as I think they sailed to Greece to catch them. This was alright though as the evening was mild for late September and the cafe bordered a living neighbourhood. I was able to see Amsterdammers coming up to their homes after their workday or going out for a night-on-the-town. They park and lock their bikes so quickly — to anything not moving. Guys pick up their girlfriends and the women ride double on the backs of the bikes or the handlebars. Young ladies dressed up for the evening hop off their bikes and look none the worse for their mode of travel.
I haven’t really talked about THE BIKES. The bike culture transcends everything else in Amsterdam. One can read about the Dutch and their love of bicycles, but it in no way prepares you for the actuality, which bears no resemblance to what most of us would consider a leisurely ride or a road-race challenge. There is no lycra, there are no helmets in sight. There are no fancy bikes — bikes are utilitarian with fenders front and back, crates and baskets and paniers. Most of them seem to be black and nondescript. They are parked everywhere and often in tangled masses around trees. How they find their own particular bike at the end of the day must be a talent embedded from childhood.
A bakfiets — a cargo bike. It is not unusual to see a parent with one or two children enjoying a ride in the front.
As a novice pedestrian in this whirring world of wheels I had spent most of the day unintentionally walking on bikepaths I thought were sidewalks and narrowly missed being hit by a flying bike or motor scooter several times. It can take a long time to cross a street away from a light — there are bikes going in both directions at differing speeds on the same paths as motor scooters (very scary) as well as automobiles and trams. Bikes seem to have right-of-way over all other forms of transport. Yet the Dutch don’t look harried or annoyed about all these people wandering into their paths. They all appear to have a happy secret and probably also consider it part of the fun to weave in and out of walkers and cyclists as part of a giant dance choreographed from above. For a wonderful sense of all things bike-related to Amsterdam and the Netherlands, visit Mark Wagenbuur’s excellent blogsite Bicycle Dutch.
As I finished my dinner, and the neighbourhood cat Tom circled my table over the promise of leftover sardines, dusk had fallen and I began to notice that along with very few Dutch using their bellbikes (very Zen of them), they also didn’t seem to believe in nightlights. This prospect made me consider self-preservation. Running a gauntlet of tipsy, night-enclosed cyclists was something for which I wasn’t ready. I’d had a wonderful day and had a full one the next, so I headed back to my hotel room for some solid sleep. I’m afraid I didn’t do Amsterdam’s night scene any justice.
The Rijksmuseum as seen from the Rijksgardens with an exhibit of sculpures by England’s Henry Moore.
My second day in Amsterdam began with included breakfast at my hotel and then on to the Rijksmuseum for several hours. The Dutch have an inordinate number of Master painters from their lot — a stunning history of art. I am particularly fond of Vermeer’s sensitivity with the domestic and women and Rembrandt’s etchings were a revelation. My favourite was this whimsical Grandfather clock by Dutch designer Maarten Baas as part of his Real Time project; it will take about five minutes to get a real sense of it.
Dutch design and engineering are intriguing and fascinating.
A leisurely canal cruise awaited after my last museum bout. On the boat there is a central hub on each table where you plug in with earphones to a tour given in your own language. It is less personal than listening to the pilot give an insider’s view of his city, but only practical given the tourists from all parts of the world. I haven’t mentioned that the Dutch all speak English and with ease and no negativity or resentment. They all speak Dutch as well. They are so kind and considerate that it makes you want to learn Dutch in gratitude and consideration.
Following the hour-and-a-half cruise, thankful as well for the chance to just sit back and relax, I was once again in search of a herring sandwich and on to the Albert Cuyp street market. This is real Amsterdam and wonderful with side streets full of small cafes. I had a broodje haring (herring sandwich) and liked its delicate sweetness so much I went back for a hungry second. I was also able to sample a traditional Dutch dessert, a stroopwafel, which is two flat waffles lined with a honey syrup. Ymmm — very satisfying.
A small redlight district off Albert Cuyp street — note the red awnings.
It is strange to see women in windows like merchandise.
Uncomfortable viewing in broad daylight, or probably at any time.
Albert Cuyp street market
The stroopwafel man
Mike Tyson makes an appearance.
My train back to the Hoek of Holland to catch my ferry didn’t leave until late afternoon, early evening so I wandered back to the city centre along the picturesque Reguliersgracht, with photos in the next post.
A stall at the Bloemenmarkt on the Singel canal.
Amsterdam makes the extraordinary ordinary and the ordinary extraordinary, existing in a state of practical magic. The Dutch capture this sense of playfulness and practicality well in this video created by the city’s transport division. It is all about Amsterdammer’s and how they love their bikes. Enjoy!
Charge of the Bike Brigade
with apologies to Lord Alfred Tennyson
(and no disrespect to the original 600)
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All through the streets of the ‘Dam
Rode the six hundred.
Forward, the Bike Brigade!
Charge for cycle paths laid
Into the streets of the ‘Dam
Rode the six hundred.
Forward, the Bike Brigade!
Was adult, child dismay’d?
Not tho’ the rider knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to spin and fly:
Into the streets of the ‘Dam
Rode the six hundred.
Tourists to right of them,
Tourists to left of them,
Tourists in front of them
Wander’d and stumbl’d;
Storm’d at with ‘buy and sell’,
Boldly they rode and well,
Thro’ the arches of Rijks
Rare in use of their bell
Rode the six hundred.
Flash’d all their grey spokes bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the canals there,
Charging from A to B
As the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the hazy smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Walkers and stragglers
Reel’d from the tires’ stroke
Scatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back again
Rode the six hundred.
Tourists to right of them,
Tourists to left of them,
Tourists behind them
Wander’d and stumbl’d;
Storm’d at with ‘buy and sell’,
While tram and auto fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ arches of Rijks
Rare in use of their bell,
Zen-like from A to B
Rode the six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Bike Brigade,
The ‘Dam six hundred.
After three days of tripping through Venice, the Alps and Munich I was headed back to the U.K. as Kelly and Wendy moved on to Mannheim and a Pink concert.
The trip ain’t over though ’til it’s over.
I had never slept horizontally on a train before — only upright in a seat heading west in Canada, which I don’t recommend. On arranging this trip I was glad to see that a sleeper train left Munich late at night, arriving in Paris early the next morning. I could travel and save accommodation costs at the same time. I could have hours in Paris before I boarded the Eurostar back to London. From the invaluable website The Man in Seat 61, I garnered the information I needed and booked my bed-for-the-night.
With hindsight and first-hand experience I can now recommend that spending a little more money on train accommodations is hopefully worth it, because taking the cheapest option — the couchette — is not recommended: not if you have sleep in mind.
I was a little sad to say goodbye to Kelly and Wendy through the train window as I surveyed my tiny block for the night. I had splurged an extra 10 euros for a four-berth instead of a six-berth and even this was pretty tight. There was little more than a foot of space between the bunks. I am not a big person and I found it a challenge to climb the ladder to my top bunk and place my one piece of baggage at the foot of my cot. I didn’t know which way to face, so decided that I would feel safer looking towards the door with my head at the window. Only later did I find out that this is backwards from the way the train is laid out, with the nightlight at the other end. I don’t know if this would have made a difference regarding the physical comfort of the ride.
I do know that it made a difference regarding the emotional comfort of the ride. I realized my mistake when one of my sleeper comrades joined the train. Fortunately, he was a handsome, bookish German in his 30s who had travelled in the sleepers often enroute to living in Paris, and fortunately he spoke English. He set up in the assigned bunk across from me, only half-an-arm’s length away, with his feet at the window, across from my head. I was glad I was facing towards him, because the awkwardness of turning around in your sleep and seeing a total stranger’s face only a foot away would have been distressing.
It was past 11 p.m. when I boarded the train and probably half an hour later we began to move away from Munich. There is no club car on the City Night Line, and it was late, so after the conductor came through it was lights out. The conductor spoke in German and when he left my cabinmate explained, thankfully, how to unlock the door if needed, and that the travellers filling the two lower bunks would be getting on in Stuttgart in about three hours.
I had assumed, but never checked, that the train was direct. It wasn’t. Every time I began to drift off to sleep I would awaken with the motion of the train slowing as it came into a station. It slowed down and started at least four times before we reached Stuttgart when the conductor turned on the cabin lights to full brightness and let in the remaining two travellers.
The train rolled and pitched, cool air blew on my head from a fan or vent, and once, upon rolling over without thought, I whacked my arm against the ceiling. When the announcer came on in the early morning as we approached Paris, I was just looking forward to sitting or standing upright. I can’t say I’ll never travel this way again — I think there are probably ways to make it better. I love train travel. Sleeping with my head towards the centre of the train might make a difference. I know that travelling in a group of friends or family would be a great comfort and ease as you could rent the whole cabin and even use a berth for storage. Upgrading to a cabin with your own toilet and washbasin would be a luxury.
So, I was in Paris … for the second time in my life. The sleeper train arrived at Gare de l’Est shortly after 9 a.m. and the Eurostar left from Gare du Nord in mid-afternoon. The two stations are conveniently only blocks from each other, so I left my luggage in a locker at Gare de l’Est and headed outside into a grey, cloudy Paris.
The Gare de l’Est in Paris
My plan was to visit the former home of Victor Hugo, a free museum, in the Place des Vosges, a famous square I hadn’t seen on my first trip to Paris. I was hungry though and my first stop was a bench outside the train station where I ate half my made-in-Germany sandwich that I had packed the night before.
I was also pretty tired and of two minds as to whether I really wanted to walk anywhere or just sit in a cafe. But I was in Paris and it seemed a crime to just sit, even in a cafe. I walked for about twenty minutes and found a little park where I ate the rest of my breakfast. The Square Emile Chautemps, with its formal lines and greyness, seemed coldly formal after the green expanse of Munich’s open parklands and I remembered a British gardener, Monty Don, who spoke on T.V. about the French love of lines. A few Asian tourists or residents talked at the far end of the garden and a child played in the structured playground as I sat on a bench by a carved fountain.
A lady tried to sell me a bouquet of drooping lilacs as I wandered to the Place des Vosges, getting a little lost along the way among real streets of Paris, rather than the touristy trails. When I arrived, unfortunately underimpressed with this larger, very formal garden, I decided to leave the Victor Hugo home until another time when I could do it justice and realized that what I really wanted to do before catching the Eurotrain in a few hours was to enjoy a meal in a cafe.
Heading back along different streets I made my way to the train stations and found a cafe bustling with local people — university students and business people at lunch. Ordering the plat du jour off a small blackboard on my table, I had my first taste of ratatouille (very, very good) and a tasty fish. Food as art! Excellent!
Fountain sculpture from the 1800s at my lunch spot.
Le Place des Vosges
Eglise Saint-Paul-Saint-Louis on rue Saint-Antoine in the Marais district.
Heading back to the Gare de l’Est and le Bistro du Faubourg
After my Parisian lunch it was time to collect my luggage and head for my Eurostar connection. An hour and a half after boarding I was in London on my way to my coach ride back to Cardiff.
Four memorable days with more memories in the making.
a canadian in cardiff 