Gone wandering.

I left London a week ago to go on vacation, wandering in the mountains and valleys of Bavaria and Austria.
I keep a separate storyline for this trip located at bavariaaustria2015.blogspot.com. Feel free to stop by and read!

A city that stole my heart

There is a small city 2 hours drive from London with a population of 163,000 where sometimes you think you are in England, sometimes - in France, sometime - in India, sometimes - in Barcelona and in general - in paradise. This city stole my heart today. This city is Brighton.

It became a city in 2000, when a town of Brighton was joined with a town of Hove and became a city of Brighton and Hove. It is located on the shore of the Atlantic ocean, on the south of England, overlooking the English channel.

I only tasted a resort piece of Brighton today, but it was so yummy and pleasant, I am sure I will come back for more.

The drive from London to Brighton took 2 hrs, just like Google Maps said, and most of the time it took to drive around London. Endless greenery, rolling hills and bright dots of sheeps on the grass - such was an enjoyable scenery we saw while driving south. Brighton met us with sun, fresh air and beautiful turquoise ocean.

We parked the car in one of the underground car parks and strolled down the cheering pier, full of food, drinks and attractions. Views were amazing.

It wasn't crowded, but the water was full with yachts, boats, water scooters and even a rocket-man!

After the pier we visited the Sea Life aquarium, conveniently located next to the pier and the beach and got lucky to enjoy a sharks and turtles feeding session. Then we took the ride on the Brighton Wheel. It promised at least 3 revolutions, but there was no queue at all, so we got 6! and even got bored, but still took some really nice pictures from above (pardon the glass reflections).

It was time to have lunch and we headed to the "restaurants quarter". During the day there we tried three different cafes/restaurants: Cafe Rouge, Bella Italia and Zio Peppe. The last one was slightly disappointing - the food almost had no taste, but the other two were quite good, especially Cafe Rouge.

Next on our list was Royal Pavilion. It caught our attention on our way to the beach leaving us wondering, what Indian? Marocco? palace is doing here. With a small garden behind it the pavilion, which was a seaside retreat for George, Prince of Wales, it looks exotic and calm.

The Museum in one of the buildings promised a collection of amusing machines, of which we found only one

but it was still very amusing - built from hundreds of seemingly incompatible parts like teaspoons, toy kitten, an umbrella, badminton shuttle cock, a chest and teacup and many many other things.

Then we stumbled upon an exhibition of 50 world best wildlife photographers and enjoyed it alot as well.

After the museum we took the car and drove to the east of Brighton to discover Brighton Marina Village. Aside from 9 stressful floors of driving down the super-narrow passages of the car parking (I somehow managed to enter the parking building on the 9th floor, but the way out was only on ground floor), it was the most related and lazy part of the day. It reminded me of Barcelona marina, but cosier.

Closing the day, we drove even further east until Eastbourne only to gasp in awe and turn back north since the sun was setting soon. Eastbourne left us wanting to come back and enjoy Sussex more later.

  

Bonjour de Bordeaux

Today's post is a "guest" post from South-West France. I flew to Bordeaux for a short weekend break, aiming to land in a quiet and nice city with good food, good wine and lots of beautiful architecture.

I’ve got what I wanted, and more.

It’s funny, how trip to the airport to fly to continental Europe is twice as long as the flight to continental Europe itself. I took 2 buses to central London, then an intercity bus to Gatwick and only then did I actually fly to France.

Taking a train feels more like traveling from London to Bordeaux, but 6-8 hours is too much even for an introverted travel lover like me.

In Bordeaux it’s easy. Airport is small and deserted, so deserted in fact that it felt creepy for the first minutes, after London, packed with people.

But then the beauty of small city descends upon you - starting with the vineyards outside the airport walls, that you can touch and feel, to the bus, stopping at the airport door and taking you to the very heart of Bordeaux in mere 40 minutes!

(In Tallinn it is 10-15 minutes - noone can beat that!)

A bus ride from the airport gave me a glimpse of suburban life - clean, quiet, green and spacey. 2-3 floor apartment houses, areas of detached housing, flooded with greenery, blooming apple trees and evergreens. Wide roads, little traffic, parks, even forests here and there - very calming and nice. 15 minutes into the ride I suddenly realized - they drive on the right side of the road! My instincts are happy, my mind can relax.

So, I arrived happily to the Old Town of Bordeaux where we had an apartment rented for the weekend, just 100 m from the main shopping street, Rue de Sainte-Catherine. The apartment was very modest, but had everything in it needed for a 3 day stay. Hotels in France are said to be very expensive, or, if the price is OK, they are tiny. Apartments are a good tradeoff if you want something more comfortable and spacey, and is ready to exchange hotel breakfast for a morning coffee in the closest Patisserie or Brasserie (which feels like a very wise idea in France).

Central part of Bordeaux is beautiful to say the least. The city was called a "Sleeping Beauty" and "Pearl of Aquitaine" in the past. It has seen various stages of its life, but by now it is largely renovated and is elegantly nice.

Compensating the narrow streets between the 18th century architecture masterpieces, the riverside walk is very broad and majestic. 

Wide road with 2 lanes in both directions, spacious tram lines with trams running right on the green grass, wide walkway with flowerbeds and colorful lights and even more walkway right next to the river. 

The river Garonne itself is also wide in this area. The two bridges in sight crossing it look magnificent.

   

By the way one of the 4 bridges inside the city is known to be the longest span vertical-lift bridge where the whole middle section of it slides up on the four giant pillars. This looks mighty even when the bridge is down, I imagine the look is even better when the bridge is open.

The area around it, looking like docks in the past are being rebuilt - construction is going on everywhere around it and this is where the promenade starts (or ends).

The most famous landmark of Bordeaux (aside from it being one of the wine capitals of the world) is Place de la Bourse and its famous Mirror of Bordeaux - a small square covered with thin layer of water, that reflects the beautiful Place de la Bourse. Unfortunately, it is only functioning in summer, at the moment it is just a nice spot for rollers and bikers to do their tricks.

The city itself is very clean. Even on the meandering narrow backstreets, where historical buildings are not so much renovated any more, there is not much litter on the streets. I imagine this is conditioned by the relatively small number of people living here - just under 300,000 inhabitants without suburbs. Also, right now is not a tourist season, in summer the population of Bordeaux significantly increases. There are not so much cars, 3 tram lines, 18 bus lines, buses are hybrid, running on fuel and electricity, lots of bikes around. 

It is easy to bike here, I imagine, since there’s a lot of space and it’s not crowded, so people bike a lot. There are bikes as public transport, similar to London Barclay bikes in the center of the city, and people use them extensively. We also saw electric cars, parked here and there, which also seemed “rentable”. However, the center is so small, that walking is the best way of getting around if you are a tourist.

To say that Bordeaux architecture is beautiful is to say nothing. It is rich in details, yet not overwhelming or tasteless. Buildings are made from the sandstone, which is carefully cleaned regularly (at least on the frontline of the riverside), which makes them look bright and nice especially in the morning spring sun. 

But not only in daylight...

Bordeaux is also beautiful at night.

There are lots of trees in the city, which were not that obvious now, that it’s still early spring, but in summer, I imagine, the city is becoming very green and colorful. In Jardin Publique with its beautiful flowerbeds and an original sculpture made from the old tree, I found a blooming magnolia with no leaves at all just huge white and rose flowers.

Jardin Publique was a place where I had one of the most enjoyable cafe experiences - extremely green, with blooming magnolias and great tea that I enjoyed outside, covered in warm blanket on a cosy sofa.

Cafes and restaurants in Bordeaux are open from 8-11 AM until 2 PM and then from 7 to 11 PM, which is illogical for a person like me, having lunch around 2-3PM on weekend, but besides traditional french places with a french schedule there are also numerous coffee places and international eating spots that serve food and drinks all day long. 

Personnel do not speak English. Or maybe they do not want to. In any case knowing only “Bonjour”, “Merci” and “Au revoir”  and guessing words on the menu (English menu is non-existent, English translations on a French menu are rare, and Google Translate failed me completely without internet connection :( ), I still managed to eat and drink what I wanted and get smiles from baristas for my obviously very funny accent.  

Tea is good, coffee is even better, wines are pleasant, food is delicious. The only negative aspect I noticed is that everybody smokes. Women, men, teenagers - everybody is smoking everywhere.

On the other hand I saw lots of people with e-cigarettes around. I also noticed that people … look at each other and talk to each other, they are no so much immersed in their phones and tablets as you can see people in London (or any big city for that matter). Teenagers sitting in cafes chat, not message, people riding the bus look out the window, not into the phone. This makes the city feel very alive.

Living next to Rue de Sainte-Catherine, we walked down this street alot. Shopping aside, there are lots of fun stuff to be found. Like this guy...

... and macaroons paradise ...

 In another part of the city we stumbled upon a bus stop that puzzled us (the toilet picture here is for the sake of Ville de Bordeaux sign above, although it looks quite funny altogether).

To sum it all up, I loved Bordeaux and I have it now on my to-go list some weekend in summer, to indulge myself in greenery, take a wine tasting tour and a riverboat ride.   

For more information on visiting Bordeaux, there is a detailed wikitravel article for more thorough dive into the city.  

London in pictures vol.1

Last weekend was a Lazy Saturday. After one busy week before another busy week, inspired by the camera experiments for my son's school Art lessons, we spent the day looking at central London through the camera lens. Son learnt composition and (photo)shooting basics, I revived my long forgotten passion for  amateur photography - the results of the trip are below.

The Queen's Walk

The Queen's Walk is a beautiful walkway on the banks of Thames river, passing numerous historical buildings and places and offering amazing views to the river and landmarks on the other side. We entered the walkway near Monument underground station and turned in the direction of St. Paul.

Morning view to the Twer Bridge

The bank, wide at the beginning, went narrow as we got closer to St. Paul's.
Have you ever been under the London Bridge? In case you are among those tourists who cannot distinguish London bridges aside from the very obvious Tower Bridge (and even it is often confused with the London Bridge), I suggest you dive (not literally though) under the bridge. You might find the truth there:

The Shard on top of the office building

The bank is full of both old victorian buildings and new modern structures, the latter, ironically, often being just a mirror for the old classics:

What is real and what is a reflection?

There are however some modern riverside architecture, that is worth a picture by itself, as if only from a very specific angle:

Vapiano

For lunch and some rest we went to Vapiano. There are three Vapiano restaurants in London, all located in the center: Great Portland Street, Soho and Bankside. We used to visit the one on Great Portland Street. Although tasty as usual, the overall experience was unpleasant. Saturday afternoon the place was packed. No available tables, long queues to order and get the food, very noisy, it was hard to actually make staff understand what it is that we wanted, not even mentioning some exceptions to the menu. We spent about 15 minutes wandering between tables on both first and second floors and tea with dessert was not at all relaxing in this atmosphere.   

In contrast Vapiano Bankside was amazingly quiet and roomy : high ceilings, lots of space between tables, glass floor to ceiling windows, the building itself was in a quiet residential area with the majority of customers - families with small kids. There were no queues whatsoever, I was able to order a tricky combination of pasta and meat and chatted with the guy cooking it. We took 3 small tables and the sofa and stretched our legs after a long walk. On our way out I chatted with the cashier and she recommended to try also the Soho restaurant for its beautiful design. Yet to see that one.

The area where the restaurant is situated is obviously very biker-friendly. You can pump your tyres and even make minor adjustments/make minor fixes if needed:

When the living room is scarce, people use all available means to extend it.

Restaurant windows were decorated with names of cities where Vapiano is present. We were happy to see Tallinn and Vilnius present as well as giants like Washington and Taipei.

Full and rested we set out to look at St. Paul both from below ...

...and well advertised terrace on top of One New Change shopping center. To be honest, my expectations were too high for this place. The promotional picture is well done and attracting. The reality looks like this:

I wouldn't call it "spectacular views of the London skyline from our breathtaking public roof terrace".

It's just another view from the 6th floor level.

Canary Wharf

Next stop planned was Canary Wharf - the all-new-modern business district of London. It has always fascinated me with the elegant combination of concrete, glass and water producing a neat and beautiful look and feel. With the little bays around every corner it looks like the business City floats on water. Kind of business-Venice.

The vicinity has a collection of beautiful and original restaurants - spacious, both modern and old-style.

There is a special symmetry to the buildings and roads and walks, with interesting sculptures telling their story. Walking there feels like you are walking in an absolutely different world, another planet compared to old-central London.

Three pillars of business

You walk up from one water bay to the fountain, around it and then down again, to the next water bay.

We peeked under yet another bridge. No truth there, but the lighting was fun.

All in all, that part of London is amazing. I am looking forward to explore it more and report in the next London in pictures posts.