Leaving Brussels behind we travel, by train, further north and arrive forty five minutes later in Antwerp on Saturday Afternoon. Our accommodation looks directly out onto Theaterplein which is the home of not only the city’s main theatre but also a Saturday market which is in full swing when we arrive. Our Air BnB host, who owns the restaurant downstairs, explains that it is a Holiday Weekend and therefore the market will be there for all three days. Having unpacked and made ourselves at home we popped across to the market to explore and amongst the many stalls selling produce, fish, cheese, meat and clothing were some food sellers including an oyster bar! We bought ourselves some great Thai street food and a good supply of fruit and veg to eat over the next couple of days.
We have a full plan of activities lined up for two days of our stay but have left Monday free. Checking out the dates of Public Holidays in the countries you are visiting is a must. Not only might you find some additional events that interest you but also tourist levels and traffic can increase whilst shops etc may close for the duration of the holiday.
I learnt this lesson, ten years ago, when I embarked on a month long trip of America with my children. My son wanted to visit New York and I wanted to go to San Francisco and then drive Highway 1 down the west coast. LA promised my teenagers Disney, Universal and Hollywood! Then from LA we were going to drive across the desert to Las Vegas.
Two thirds of the way down Highway 1, I got chatting to the owner of a restaurant in Morro Bay and discovered it was Labour Day weekend starting tomorrow! “You will need to get on the road early” she exclaimed “traffic will be nose to tail!” I managed to get us to LA without straying off Highway 1 but the hotel we had booked in Anaheim was heaving as was all of the theme parks. Luckily we were there a week and I could rearrange everything in order to avoid the crowds but my lesson was learnt!
On Sunday morning we set out reasonably early to start our explorations. Walking to the Grote Markt or Great Market Square, the streets were still fairly quiet which always gives a better sense of authenticity to a place.
Standing in the square dominated by the elegant and grant Renaissance style City Hall on one side, the Baroque guildhall on another and set back a bit further but looming over it all The Cathedral of Our Lady, I take time to absorb the history around me. The cathedral’s single Gothic spire seems to be reaching for the sky, standing at 123 m (404 ft); plans to build a matching partner were never realised but look up wherever you are in Antwerp and you will catch a glimpse of this edifice. The surrounding guild houses and old patrician homes housed powerful artisan guilds who looked after each other and protected the techniques of their craft for future generations. The square is definitely a magnet for those who love studying city architecture.
We leave the cathedral for a future visit and walk instead towards the river. Antwerp sits 55 miles from the North Sea on the River Schelde. The busiest part of the river lies between Antwerp and Ghent and during the war Antwerp was a primary target for German forces. Following the destruction of Rotterdam in 1940, Antwerp was the largest surviving port in Western Europe, and the obvious choice to support an invasion of Germany. Of all the Belgian cities, Antwerp was the hardest hit during the German bombardment with flying bombs and rockets. Historians estimate that some 3,000 civilians were killed in Greater-Antwerp during a six month period. An additional 600 Allied soldiers also died.
Sitting on the river today is the Het Steen, a medieval fortress which controlled the access to the Scheldt. The surviving structure was built between 1200 and 1225 as a gateway to a larger castle. However, there was a castle here as early as the Carolingian period in the 9th century. As the first stone fortress of Antwerp, Het Steen is Antwerp’s oldest building and used to be its oldest urban centre. The words “Het Steen”, are dutch for The Rock. Today the renovated Het Steen is home to The Antwerp Story where you can learn all about the history and identity of the city.
Walking further north along the river and then branching inland you arrive at Museum aan de Stroom or MAS. The building is designed to resemble boxes stacked in a spiral tower, and it offers great views of the city. Housing 600,000 pieces it tells the story of Antwerp, the river, the port and its place in the world. Whilst some exhibitions are permanent there are also ever changing exhibitions which are detailed on their website. You can take the escalator up to the ninth floor for free, and enjoy views through glass walls as you make your way to the top. On the 10th floor, there is a 360-degree panorama over the city, the harbour and the river.
Further north and tucked away in a quiet street -Montevideostraat is the Red Star Line Museum. This specialist museum outlines the story of immigration. The history of humanity is presented as a history of migration and begins with a timeline of twenty personal stories. Each of the twenty stories represents a period of massive migration, from the dispersion of modern man (60,000 to 40,000 BC) to the migration crises of today.
Its main focus, however, is on the Red Star Line which transported 2 million people from Antwerp to North America. It is the most amazing story and one which I am writing a post about separately to publish on Tuesday.
Our day ended here at this museum but on Tuesday we also explored the Antwerp Train Station, voted one of the most beautiful in the world.
We went down into the old sewers of Antwerp with De Ruien
and visited the Diamond District. As well as being the second-largest port in Europe, Antwerp is also known as the diamond capital of the world. We finished that day in the Botanic Gardens.
We have only scratched the surface of this wonderful city. There are so many neighbourhoods to explore. There is the Meir shopping area which stretches from the cathedral all the way to Central Station. It doesn’t get its reputation of being the fashion capital of Belgium for no reason. There’s the city park, the zoo, a walk along the River Scheldt, many other museums and the largest chocolate museum in the world……………………. Tot ziens Antwerp, we will return!
NB:
We are now in Belgium and this is part fifteen in my series of posts about our tour of Western Europe. Why not read the previous posts and then follow us on our journey as we continue to explore this lovely part of the world?
We left my new friend Lille (see previous post) last Saturday and travelled north east to Brussels. The capital of Belgium since the country became independent in 1830, with a population just over 2 million, one tenth of the size of Greater London and since 1958 the seat of the European Economic Community, the precursor to today’s European Union.
As part of our exploration of the city we visited both the Museum of European History and the Hemicycle -the centre for the European Union of which we were once a member. Since our country voted to leave the EU on June 23rd 2016 I have wanted to understand more about the purpose of the Union, what it set out to achieve and perhaps begin to understand the effect of leaving.
I learnt there were twenty key pioneers, of various nationalities, who inspired the Europe we know today. Listed in alphabetical order, based on their Christian names, number twenty on the list is Winston Churchill. Having led us through the Second World War, this was a man who was revered by many, not least our own Queen Elizabeth II. He was committed to the idea of European integration and as a former army officer, war reporter and British Prime Minister, Churchill was convinced that only a united Europe could guarantee peace. In his address to the University of Zurich in 1946, Churchill urged Europeans to turn their backs on the horrors of the past and look to the future. He declared that Europe could not afford to continue in an atmosphere of hatred and revenge springing from the injuries of the past. For Churchill, the first step in recreating the ‘European family’ of justice, mercy and freedom was ‘to build a kind of United States of Europe.
It’s not surprising, therefore, that when you visit the Hemicycle you learn the key principles behind the European Union are freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law, promoting peace and stability. Why would anyone not want to be part of that?
The European Union is based on the rule of law. This means that every action taken by the EU is founded on treaties which are binding agreements, approved voluntarily and democratically by all EU member countries. These treaties set out the EU objectives, the rules for EU institutions, how decisions are made and the relationship between the EU and its member countries. For example, if a policy area is not cited in a treaty, the Commission cannot propose a law in that area. As a member of the EU the UK initiated, took part in the process of defining and adopted 97% of EU law. Margaret Thatcher actually negotiated with the EU and secured a UK veto to any law we didn’t like. Are we, therefore, now saying by leaving that we were wrong in what we agreed to?
The European Parliament who vote on these policies currently has 705 members. Since 1979, the members of this Parliament have been directly elected every five years by the citizens of their respective country, to represent the wishes of their country in the European Union. Could it be any more democratic?
Since 1957, the European Union has delivered peace throughout the continent. It’s the world’s biggest single market. It has delivered aid and development assistance for millions of people worldwide and also plays an important role in diplomacy and works to promote these same benefits – as well as democracy, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law – across the globe. On December 10th 2012, when we were still a member of The European Union, it received the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo. The prize recognised the EU’s contribution over six decades to promoting peace, reconciliation, democracy and human rights. We helped contribute to this success so why would we no longer wish to be part of this and what it stands for?
The European Union operates as a single market. It enables most goods, services, money and people to move freely throughout most of the continent. All EU citizens have the right to live, study, work or retire in any EU country. As an EU national, for employment, social security and tax purposes, every EU country is required to treat you exactly the same as its own citizens. We voted to give up these opportunities and rights within our parent continent. Are we really ok with this?
Now made up of 27 countries, the total value of all goods and services produced (gross domestic product or GDP) in the EU in 2021 was € 14.5 trillion.These 27 countries account for around 14% of the world’s trade in goods. The EU, China and the United States are the three largest global players in international trade.The UK doesn’t even appear in the world’s top ten so what makes us believe that we can play a key role in world trade? And given we have now lost the freedom to move goods throughout the continent how can we not expect prices to increase? We now have increased paperwork that adds additional costs when we import and export goods from the EU.
Finally one of the key ingredients of being an EU member for myself personally, given my working background, was the amount of laws that covered workers’ rights. These laws were agreed and introduced when we were still part of the EU and thus covered all member countries. When the Working Time Directive was implemented in the UK in 1998, it introduced a maximum 48-hour working week (normally averaged over 17 weeks), a daily rest period of 11 consecutive hours, a weekly rest period of 24 consecutive hours and rest breaks during the working day. Although UK workers can opt-out of the maximum working time limit, the introduction of these rights reduced the number of people working excessive hours in the UK. 700,000 employees benefitted from this when it came into effect and thousands more have been protected ever since.
The Directive also gave UK workers a statutory right to paid annual leave for the first time. This resulted in 6 million workers gaining improved entitlements to paid annual leave, two million of whom previously had no paid annual leave entitlement (many of these were part-time female workers). This amounts to a significant financial transfer (in the form of pay) from employers to predominantly low-paid female workers. On annual leave, the European Court of Justice or ECJ has ruled that workers who fall ill during a previously scheduled period of leave have the right to reschedule that leave. And another ECJ judgement led to the calculation of holiday pay being extended to include commission payments and compulsory overtime
The EU Pregnant Workers Directive 1992 led to substantial improvements in the health and safety protections for expectant and new mothers in the workplace. It gave women paid time off for ante-natal appointments and placed duties on employers to assess the risks and to adjust working conditions where harm is identified. The ECJ has had a positive impact in tackling the disadvantage and discrimination that many women face in the workplace when they become mothers. For example, it made clear that treating a woman unfavourably because of pregnancy or maternity leave was direct sex discrimination. The Parental Leave Directives that we follow also came from the EU.
The right to equal pay for equal work between men and women is a fundamental right enshrined in the EU Treaty which is directly enforceable in UK courts. The ECJ first established that paying part-timers who are mainly women a lower hourly rate than full-timers was indirect sex discrimination, as was excluding them from an occupational pension scheme. Legislation on age, religion or belief and sexual orientation discrimination was introduced as a direct result of the EU Framework Equal Treatment Directive in 2000 and protection from discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment came from an ECJ ruling.
Have we willingly sold all this progress down the river? What protection do we all have now? Since the Brexit deal came into effect, the UK is no longer bound to adhere to EU employment law. Hence, the UK government is in talks to change UK employment law in December 2023.
I have now visited Brussels and having learnt more about the history of Europe and the evolution of the EU I have the following unanswered questions: Why, during the Brexit debate prior to the vote we all took, was this history not relayed to the UK public? Why did the current Government, at the time, who apparently were in favour of us remaining in the EU, not broadcast as strongly the benefits the EU had brought to us as a country to counter the strength and breadth of the anti EU campaigners? The Brexit campaign seemed to me to be reliant upon people wanting to stop immigration and save bureaucratic expenditure to the EU in Brussels which could otherwise be spent on the NHS.
We are now seven years into our new status as a free country but have we seen any changes to the NHS? Have we seen improvements in immigration?
I am a midlife adventurer and it didn’t take me a great deal of effort to find out all these facts for myself. I’ll leave you to decide whether the decision we made was correct or not.
NB:
We are now in Belgium and this is part fourteen in my series of posts about our tour of Western Europe. Why not read the previous posts and then follow us on our journey as we continue to explore this lovely part of the world?
Having left Paris on Friday we took the train an hour north to the city of Lille. Sitting just 10 miles from the Belgium border, it is the tenth largest city in France with approx a million citizens and was the original capital of Flanders.
We had been drawn here, en route to Belgium, by a Lonely Planet article and having slept well in our hotel room we set off on Saturday morning armed with a self guided walk to explore the centre. I have an app on my phone called GPS My City which I find really useful when we want to explore a new place, but at our own pace, without any pre booked tickets or devised plan. On this occasion we were given two options: City Introduction Walk or Historical Buildings and chose the former.
It was a little overcast and there was the occasional shower but we soon arrived ten minutes later at the Porte de Paris. Built by Louis XIV in 1692 to celebrate him conquering the city and as such is an Arch of Triumph.
Close by is the Belfry of Lille Town Hall, the tallest municipal building in France but a belfry without any bells! Built in classic art-deco style with Flemish elements common to this region.
Walking on we soon reach the Palais des Beaux Arts, which is the second biggest Fine Arts Museum in France in terms of the number of exhibits on display. If you wish to go inside you will find a Middle Ages and Renaissance department, as well as European paintings with Rubens, Goya, Van Dyck, Delacroix etc, French paintings and sculptures from the 19th century including Rodin, a magnificent collection of ceramics from the 17th and 18th centuries and a room of drawings including some by Raphael. Being slightly museumed out, having just left Paris, we chose instead to merely admire the beauty of the building built in a French end of century style with elements of Italian Renaissance.
Our walk then led us to Bethune Street, a pedestrianised old street at the centre of the city and this is where temptation led us astray. But that’s the great part of a self guided walk, you can wander off at will and come back to it when you are ready. We are not shoppers, let me make this clear! I still remember my peers at senior school taking off to the local town every Saturday Afternoon to shop. I couldn’t understand the allure then and I still don’t get it now! However one element that Lille has is an abundance of independent shops. You will still find some well known brands but it is these sole traders that always tempt me in if I’m in that frame of mind to explore. I like to support local business and I always feel you are more likely to spot that unusual memento of your visit in such a place. Along the cobbled streets that radiate off from Bethune Street you also start to see an plethora of individual coffee shops, patisseries, small cafes and bistros.
We also stumbled across the Grand Scene whilst looking for a public toilet. This is an indoor food court. As we wandered through, the toilets were at the back, the smell of food starting to cook and the absolute buzz of the different unit holders was a scene to behold. Music played in the background, statues of African animals are interspersed between the seats and the whole place just exudes atmosphere. But for the fact that we were too early to be considering lunch we would have definitely chosen from the many varieties of food on offer and stayed.
Back on track we make our way to the Grand Place, Lille’s main square. It is surrounded by a number of buildings including the Theatre of the North and the Old Stock Exchange and paved in check of pink and blue granite. The architecture of the houses and shops around the square brings a smile to my face. I love these grand old market squares and always take a moment to savour the ambiance. In this case inside a cafe, oddly called ” The Notting Hill” where we partake of coffee and wonderful cake!
The Old Stock Exchange is definitely worth a visit with its Renaissance Flemish architecture, columns adorned with garlands and at the top of the bell tower a golden image of the god Mercury. It consists of a quadrangle of twenty four lookalike houses surrounding a large courtyard where today you will find florists, book stall holders, coin collectors and people selling old fashion board games, all plying their trade. My husband naturally gravitates to the record stalls. Meanwhile locals gather at the adjacent eateries and even the odd game of chess is being played, under cover from the raindrops. Again it is full of atmosphere, a bit like a step back into a bygone era.
Also on the square you will find Librairie Furet du Nord or the Ferrets of the North Bookstore. I love a book store and this shop has been operating since 1960! It claims to be the largest book shop in Europe but I’m not sure having visited Blackwells in Oxford? Obviously most of the books are not written in English but there are sections, here and there, where a display of English books on a particular genre are available for sale. The only catch is the price. I spotted, for example, a copy of a recently released paperback by one of my favourite writers but it was nearly three times the price I would pay back home. I’m not sure why?
Moving on from the square we make our way to Lille Cathedral, the Hospice Comtesse Museum and the 13th century Church of St Catherine. But the highlight again of walking around this area of the “Old Town” is how easy it is to wander off, to go and explore down an alley or an old narrow street. We even manage to stumble across Place aux Oignons or Onion Square. Lined with houses dating from the 17th and 18th century, they were originally homes for artisan weavers who used the attics and cellars as workshops. Now you will again find independent cafes and restaurants and just such a lovely olde worlde atmosphere.
In case you’ve not realised I’m beginning to fall in love with this city. It’s my kind of place!
To finish off our walk we head to the Citadel of Lille and whilst I could include a photo and give you the historic background to this last piece of architecture, I will leave you to discover that for yourself and instead extoll the virtues of the beautiful walk we took to get there. Leaving the Old Town behind we suddenly find ourselves on the side of a canal and entering the Parc de la Citadelle. This park, of 123 acres, encircled by the Deûle canal, is an unexpected surprise. The sun has started to peep through the clouds as we take a stroll along the canal, admiring the bulbs poking through the grass and watching the moorhens feeding their young. Several bridges span the water and, but for the fair that is in town, this would be a great place to bring a picnic on a dry day.
We also come across a monument that on further research we find “honours the memory of members of the Jacquet Committee who, during the First World War, were shot for having helped French and English soldiers who took refuge in the city to escape. Sculptor Félix Desruelles chose to represent the resistance fighters at the moment of their execution, on 22 September 1915. The young Léon Trulin, although shot on 8 November, lies face down on the ground. The work, inaugurated in 1929, was destroyed by the Germans in 1940 and restored identically by the sculptor’s widow.”
Lille has been a city full of surprises. Sometimes when you visit a new place with no expectations, other than to explore, you walk away with what feels like a new friend. Lille is my new friend, a walkable city full of hints of a bygone era, with friendly shopkeepers and an array of differing cuisine that we are already planning on returning to for Christmas shopping.
NB:
This is part thirteen in my series of posts about our tour of Western Europe. Why not read the previous posts and then follow us on our journey as we continue to explore this lovely part of the world?
Last week in Paris, as part of our current adventure, we visited the Memorial de la Shoah – The Holocaust Memorial. For us it was the amalgamation of three adventures that began back in December 2016 in Berlin, moved through September 2019 in Krakow and ended here.
This is an apt follow up of my earlier post “The Instagram Society -Am I Too Old to Understand?”
1939-1945 is a six year period in history that can never be allowed to be repeated and that the whole world should have learnt from. This is where prejudice of all forms: racism, religious, sexual and social discrimination can ultimately land up. I challenge anyone to visit this Holocaust Memorial in Paris, Auschwitz-Birkenau near Krakow or The Topography of Terror (also known as the Gestapo Museum) in Berlin and not to leave unchanged. If at no point do you wipe away a tear from your eye or feel a knot in your stomach or a lump in your throat then frankly you are inhumane.
Shoah is the Hebrew word for “catastrophe”. This term specifically means the killing of nearly six million Jews in Europe by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during the Second World War. English-speaking countries more commonly use the word Holocaust, which is Greek for “sacrifice by fire”. Access is free and when you arrive at the Memorial de la Shoah you are immediately met with factual evidence of the genocide of the Jews. They don’t hide it, it’s there in your face, the Memorial Wall of Names. 76,000 names of Jewish men, women and children deported from France between 1942 and 1944. 11,000 of those names belong to children! And only 2,500 of those names you read survived. The purpose of the wall is to ensure that they will not be forgotten.
People come here from all over the world to find the name of a loved one. Someone who they may never have known in life but who was sacrificed at the behest of Hitler. The museum contains a reading room and documentation centre which anyone can gain access to. Within the centre are 50 million archives, some 320,000 photographs, 14,000 films (2,500 testimonies),1500 sound archives and more than 80,000 books and periodicals all testifying to the life of the Jews in Europe and France under the Nazi occupation. The staff will willingly assist families to find their relatives.
Inside the museum on the first floor is the permanent exhibition which traces the history of the Jews of France during the Holocaust in chronological order. During the period of 1940-42 you can read about how the French Jews suffered from both French and German legislation, about their internment and ultimate deportation. The Jews, at the time, believed themselves to be fully accepted into French society and that they would be protected. However as the war raged, support from their fellow Frenchmen was distinctly lacking and ultimately the French Vichy Government delivered Jewish children under the age of sixteen to the Germans occupying France, along with all the Jews rounded up by the Vichy in southern France which was still under French administration. After years of ignoring this involvement, France finally acknowledged the responsibility of the Vichy government in 1995.
The museum doesn’t hide what happened, it is hard hitting and so it should be. New generations need to learn and understand about these atrocities. It’s impossible to take everything in on one visit and to be frank your emotions, like mine, may get the better of you. I’ve attached three photos that give a small insight into the journey the Jews suffered.
At the centre of the museum is the crypt where you can see the black marble Star of David which sits beneath the forecourt and is the symbolic tomb of six million Jews who do not have a grave. Gathered from the death camps and the Warsaw Ghetto’s ruins, the ashes of Jews are mingled in this place. Grand Rabbi Jacob Kaplan buried them, with soil from Israel, on February 24, 1957 in accordance with Jewish tradition.
Additionally, in the crypt, on the occasion of the 80thanniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, the Shoah Memorial invited the contemporary artist Adel Abdessemed to present a set of works entitled “My child”: a sculpture, and a series of drawings inspired by the emblematic photograph N° 14 that SS Jürgen Stroop sent to Krüger and Himmler, documenting the suppression of the insurrection in April-May 1943.
The current temporary exhibition, housed on the ground floor, was devised to mark International Women’s Day and features the work of Julia Pirotte (1907-2000). Pirotte is known worldwide for her photojournalism during the Second World War. Jewish, communist and in the Resistance, Pirotte, who did not think she would survive the war, took her Leica camera with her wherever she went, capturing faces, scenes of life and scenes of war to leave a trace. She eyewitnessed the internment of Jewish women and children in Bompard, Resistance operations in the South of France, the liberation of Marseille and the immediate aftermath of the Kielce pogrom in 1946.
Antisemitic violence did not end with the Second World War. In 1946, a pogrom broke out in Kielce, Poland. As rumors circulated that Jews had kidnapped a Christian boy, a mob attacked Holocaust survivors in the town, many of them former residents who had returned home. Forty-two Jews were killed and approximately eighty wounded. The Kielce pogrom showed that even after all the Jews had endured they were still not wanted, they were still spurned by certain elements of society. This was a key factor in the refusal of many Holocaust survivors to return home and spurred their immigration to the British Mandate of Palestine or the United States.
This exhibition about Julia Pirotte also ties in with the Wall of the Righteous outside. Located in the walkway alongside the Memorial and bearing the names of over 3,900 people who risked their lives to save Jews in France during the Second World War. They received the title of “Righteous Among the Nations”, which the Yad Vashem Museum Memorial in Jerusalem has awarded since 1963. So far, the honor has been bestowed on over 24,000 people all over the world.
Places like this memorial not only educate me in the horrors that took place but humanise the experience. I cannot even begin to imagine how these French Jews felt. They trusted the French administration only to be betrayed in the worse way possible. Having been to Birkenau and seen those train tracks and stood there and imagined the fear as they were ordered off the train, naked, humiliated and cold, leaving behind those already dead or dying, I still feel that emotion today. We need to learn from this. We need to promise each other that this atrocity will never be repeated.
NB:
This is my third post whilst we are in Paris, why not learn a little more about Paris in my previous two posts? We are currently on a tour of Western Europe, you can catch up with where we have been and follow us as we progress. It would be great to have you with us on our journey!
Whilst in Paris we have visited both Versailles and Chantilly. What a totally different experience! This is certainly a tail of two chateaux! The aim of this post is to hopefully enable you to decide which property you would prefer to visit assuming you have a choice.
Versailles is of course a Palace and not a chateau. It was in the top three of my list of places to visit whilst here in the French capital. I’d been before but a long time ago and by a long time I’m talking the late eighties! Chantilly, in contrast, was a new idea which stemmed from an article my hubby had read.
We were staying in the 18th arrondissement of Paris which is centred around hilltop Montmartre, a former artists’ village once inhabited by Picasso and Dali, and home to the majestic Sacré-Cœur basilica. In visiting both estates we needed to make public travel arrangements.
Tickets and Arrival We set off, for Versailles, early on a Saturday morning and we were, unfortunately, not blessed with a sunny Spring day. It was instead cold, wet and at times raining. With 15 million visitors a year, you have to book your tickets for Versailles in advance in order to secure your visit, so if it’s raining there isn’t a lot you can do but just get on with it. We purchased the “Passport” ticket, at 28.50 euros each, which gives you admission to everything there is to see. From the local metro station it only took us about an hour via metro and the RER C service (8.10 euros each) to reach Versailles Château Rive Gauche. From the station it is about a 10-15 minute walk to the Palace itself. On arrival we joined the queue assembled for the 10 a.m. entry.
Organisation was poor and it wasn’t long before people started to sneak into the queue and double if not triple and quadruple up. This then gave the impression that there were in fact two separate queues. Grumbles began to echo around us, but no one wanted to be that person who caused a fuss and maybe risked being asked to leave the queue. The staff member, to be fair, did at one point come along and explain there was only one queue but it was all a little too late and the guilty parties just ignored him.
Tickets for Chantilly can be bought at any time including on the day. With about half a million visitors a year your ticket is valid for a full twelve month period following purchase if you want to revisit. We bought our tickets (17 euros each) the night before, travelled by metro to Gare Du Nord and then caught the train to Chantilly Gouvieux (15.20 euros each ). The journey again took about an hour in total with a slightly longer walk of about 25-30 minutes to the chateau which opens up before you surrounded by it’s moat.
Interior: Versailles has 2300 rooms of which you can view about 2%. I paid for an audioguide (5 euros) in advance in order to fully understand the history and the purpose of every room. Visitors follow a predetermined route so your progress is somewhat determined by the amount of people there at the time and the size of each specific room. On our visit there were times where we were queuing up to walk and in order to listen to my audioguide I often had to find small spaces near the windows to stop and absorb the information. There is an interactive guide on their website which shows a short precis of each room in advance.
The tour starts on the first floor and the first ten rooms you pass through in succession are mainly devoid of furniture and hung with paintings relevant to the theme of that room. Personally this was a disappointing start for me as I like to absorb the whole history of a Palace including understanding how the residents lived. The next six rooms are all dedicated to individual Gods such as Venus, Diana and Mars etc. These rooms all have decorative ceilings painted upon the theme of the God for which the room is named.
You then move onto the opulently decorated War Room depicting Louis XIV as a victorious King before the centre point of Versailles which is The Hall of Mirrors. This luxuriant room measuring 73m long holds 357 mirrors covering the 17 arches opposite the windows. It’s difficult to record it’s majestic beauty because of the sheer volume of visitors, hence my photo doesn’t include the bottom half of the room.
You then move onto the Peace Salon and the Coronation Room alongside the Queen’s chambers before heading downstairs.The twelve rooms on the ground floor are those of the Princesses Victoire and Adelaide and the Dauphin. These surround the Marble Courtyard. The remaining fourteen rooms are only accessible as part of a guided tour.
Chantilly begins with a video presentation, in the chapel just to the left of the main entrance, which introduces the chateau to the public, its history and eleven centuries of ownership. Again I opted for an audioguide to learn as much as I could, along with a map of the rooms available to view. Whilst there is a suggested route you can wander at your leisure. With the decreased number of visitors compared to Versailles no one is rushing you along.
The chateau is the work of a man with an extraordinary destiny: Henri d’Orléans, Duke of Aumale, son of the last King of France, Louis-Philippe. He was considered to be the greatest collector of his time and made Chantilly the showcase for his countless masterpieces and precious manuscripts. He designed the art galleries as a showcase for his exceptional collections, putting together the second largest collection of antique paintings in France, after the Louvre Museum including three paintings by Raphael. In keeping with the Duke of Aumale’s wishes, the layout of the paintings have remained unchanged since the 19th century.
There are 27 rooms open to the public and highlights include The Reading Room or Library where over 1,500 manuscripts and 17,500 printed volumes are housed, along with part of the collection of over 700 incunabula and some 300 medieval manuscripts. An incunabula is a book, pamphlet, or broadsheet that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. They were produced before the printing press became widespread on the continent and are distinct from manuscripts which are documents written by hand.
You can also view the Grande Singerie, a salon with paintings on the walls of monkeys engaged in human activities, once a fashionable salon motif, but with few examples surviving anywhere today.
In contrast to Versailles all the rooms are fully decorated with original furniture. Located on the 1st floor of the Château, the large suites were used as reception rooms by the Princes of Bourbon-Condé. They are a wonderful example of the ceremonial decors in fashion in the 18th century and provide a broad variety of decorative arts, furniture and Old Master paintings. This feels more like a home preserved for future generations.
Exterior and Gardens The Gardens of Versailles to the west of the palace was one of the key draws for my visit. Covering some 800 hectares of land, much of which is landscaped as a French formal garden, it was created predominantly by Andre Le Notre. If you did not purchase the “passport” ticket the gardens come at an extra cost so all visitors are channelled through another gateway to enter. We picked up a leaflet outlining everything there is to see, intent on enjoying the rest of our day regardless of the weather.
Look at any images on Google and you will see flowers in abundance in Spring and Summer with the classic Latona’s fountain in the foreground and the Grand Canal tempting your view to the landscape beyond. The reality was much different. The gardens didn’t appear to have been planted this year and the Latona wasn’t working? The Apollo fountain further down before the Grand Canal is also under reconstruction.
The grounds at Chantilly are a lot smaller at 115 hectares but also feature a French-style garden created by André Le Nôtre in the 17th century along with the Anglo-Chinese Garden from the 18th century and the English Garden developed at the beginning of the 19th century. As you walk the grounds you feel at one with nature and armed with the leaflet, previously mentioned, it is easy to find your way around. Keep your eyes peeled for wildlife, we managed to catch sight of a beaver!
Additionally across the road from the main chateau is the famous Chantilly racecourse, home of the French Derby. The stables are an architectural masterpiece of the 18th century and when en route from the train station can be easily mistaken for the chateau itself! Built from 1719 to 1735 to house 240 horses and over 400 hounds, it recently celebrated its three hundredth birthday! The Great Stables are also home to the Museum of the Horse, which presents the relationship between humans and horses since the beginning of civilisation. They are also home to an Equestrian troop that stages original creations all year round in the purpose built arena. We were able to see a 30 minute demonstration at 2.30 on the day of our visit.
Finally Food! Food and drinks are not allowed inside the museum at Versailles and picnics are not allowed in the gardens. However, it is possible to have a picnic in the park. On the first floor of the Palace of Versailles, the restaurant Angelina tea room offers sweet and savoury dishes all day long. As quoted from their website “The space combines elegance, charm and refinement. With its exceptional pastries, the Angelina tea room is a place of gourmet delights.” Alternatively you can dine at Ore. “This specially-designed restaurant facility created by Alain Ducasse is an elegant contemporary cafe in the French spirit on the first floor of the Dufour Pavilion, looking out onto the Royal Courtyard.”
If like me you don’t require fine dining whilst on a visit to the palace you can choose between the Grand Café d’Orléans which is described as “a series of lounges, decorated in a contemporary style where all visitors can enjoy fast food, sandwiches and desserts in the cafeteria to eat in or take away without needing to book.” The reality is a mile long queue, which in itself should tell those managing the estate the preference of the majority of its visitors, followed by a frantic search for somewhere to sit in the dedicated room which is overflowing with people and looks like you have been relegated to the old staff quarters!
Another option is to walk out into the grounds and partake of takeaway food at either Girondole or Dauphin Grove. The only slight hiccup is there is no indoor seating here so if it is raining as it was on our visit you are slightly stuck!
Chantilly allows picnics and provides benches all around the gardens along with picnic tables near the playground. We came prepared for this. If, however, you do want to buy food the Chantilly website says “under the arches of famous 17th century French chef François Vatel’s old kitchens, at the heart of the château, La Capitainerie restaurant offers during the winter holidays hot and cold drinks, sandwiches, waffles and chips for sale or to take away. “ Alternatively in the grounds “The Hameau is located in the peaceful surroundings of the gardens, at the heart of the Anglo-Chinese garden. These seven small rustic-style houses inspired Marie-Antoinette’s Petit Trianon in Versailles. Le Hameau restaurant, famous for its Chantilly whipped cream, is located in one of these small houses.”
Conclusion I am fond of reducing decisions to a base level and to me it seems to come down to whether you want to follow the multitudes and visit the grandiose Palace of Versailles with all that comes with it. Or do you want to step outside of the masses and have a quieter but just as fulfilling day at Chantilly?
NB: This is my second post whilst we are in Paris, why not learn a little more about Paris in my first post? We are currently on a tour of Western Europe, you can catch up with where we have been and follow us as we progress. It would be great to have you with us on our journey!
We arrived in Paris on Tuesday after a 7 hr train journey from Barcelona. Having booked our tickets before we even left the UK, we had secured first class tickets for a minimal increase on the second class price. On arrival on the train we discovered that there was very little difference between the two types of seats except perhaps a bit more space. The configuration in the cheaper seats is two seats on either side of an aisle whereas first class is two on one side and one on the other. What would have been useful was Wi-Fi that actually worked!
Stupidly I had planned on posting some photos on both Instagram and Facebook and typing a couple of blog posts. It took me the first ninety minutes to post my photos and my blog would not auto save! The train Wi-Fi was rubbish and my own UK network connection which chooses a local country network to connect into was no better. I learnt an important lesson. Next time chill n relax and don’t rely on the internet!
The train (our first evening train journey) pulled into Gare De Lyon twenty minutes late at 9.40 pm, due to police boarding the train at the French / Spanish border. Having searched the whole train they left empty handed! We had left Barcelona on a warm afternoon at around 22 degrees and on arrival into Paris it was dark, cold and raining! The queue for taxis was horrendous. I’m not exaggerating when I say there must have been 150 people in front of us and probably another 100 people behind us in the queue, that snaked around the pavement and back into the station itself. We had arrived during Ramadan and there was a shortage of taxi drivers.
Our Air BnB host was getting more and more frustrated, given she had a check in window of 6-8 pm and had given us a concession for a late arrival, expecting us at 10 pm and it was 11 before we got there!
With a full list of key sites to explore and three trips out of the city planned over the next nine days, we were tired midlife adventurers waking up on our first day in an overcast, set to rain, Paris!
If you had asked me, beforehand, what I was likely to write about from our Paris adventure I would probably have said a précis of all the places we have covered. However as with a lot of my posts, I am instead focusing on the one that has evoked the biggest emotional reaction so far and that believe it or not is Notre Dame! Notre Dame I hear you question. Wasn’t it burnt down? Yes! Has it been reopened ? No! However much to my amazement it brought tears to my eyes.
On April 15th 2019 it did indeed catch fire whilst the spire was already under refurbishment. Like so many people around the world I watched it on the news. I had no reaction to this except perhaps a little sadness, that such an historical building that I had once visited with my children on a cultural tour of the city probably about 15+ years ago, was going up in flames. Over the following days the news regularly featured the money being wired across the world to help with the restoration. If I’m honest I remember thinking – wow imagine what that money would do for refugees all around the world trapped in countries where they don’t know the language, have little or no access to basic facilities and currently no future. People who have left their homes because war has been forced upon them, with often only the clothes they have on their backs. What could all this money do to help them? Why are people sending it instead to rebuild a cathedral which isn’t even in their own country?
Initially I wasn’t even going to include Notre Dame in our plans whilst in Paris but given we were in the locality on one of our days in the city centre I did.
To my surprise whilst the cathedral is obviously completely blocked off to the public and still looking far from it’s former self, the Parisian authorities have erected a series of display boards that surround the reconstruction to explain how they are going to rebuild it.
Systematically working around the site reading this information, and despite my coat zipped up to my chin in the drizzling rain, I was enraptured and was totally surprised by the emotion that overcame me.
Notre Dame, originated in medieval times on the Ile de la Cite, (an island in the Seine River), as a Catholic Cathedral. Dedicated to the Virgin Mary it was considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and a widely recognised symbol of both the city of Paris and the French nation. Whilst it was completed in 1260 this magnificent old masterpiece lived and breathed through many historical events. In the 1790s, during the French Revolution it suffered extensive desecration with much of its religious imagery damaged or destroyed. In the 19th century, the coronation of Napoleon I was held here and with the publication of Victor Hugo’s book “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” in 1831 it attracted more interest which led to restoration between 1844 and 1864.
It was also here on August 26, 1944 that the French celebrated their Liberation from Nazi occupation. In 1963, the facade of this old beauty was cleaned of centuries of soot and grime. A second cleaning and restoration project was carried out between 1991 and 2000.
Over time, it was stripped of many decorations and artworks. However, the cathedral still contained several Gothic, Baroque, and 19th-century sculptures, 17th- and early 18th-century altarpieces, and some of the most important relics in Christendom – including the Crown of Thorns and a sliver and nail of the true cross.
No doubt, like my children, when Disney released their film “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” in 1996 the story of Quasimodo ignited new interest in this masterpiece and suddenly not just adults but children alike wanted to explore its gargoyles and bell tower. The film, taken from the book, gave this piece of architecture life, suddenly it took on its own character and it soon became the most visited French monument.
Having reminded myself of all this history and, if I’m honest, with pictures of Quasimodo in my head, to then see pictures of it going up in flames (it burned for fifteen hours) it did feel emotional. As if France was losing an old friend.
It sustained serious damage and so how do you rebuild this faithful friend? Initially it was suggested that the cathedral should be modernised but this idea was rejected by the French National Assembly and instead, on 29 July 2019, a law was passed that required the restoration preserve the cathedral’s “historic, artistic and architectural interest”. Firstly the building had to be stabilised against potential collapse, this work was completed in November 2020. The reconstruction could then begin in earnest.This is where the information displayed at the site comes into play. It doesn’t focus on the planning committee or the hierarchy involved, instead it focuses on the trades people without whom none of the reconstruction would be possible. I photographed some of the information to use in this blog. They might not be fantastic photos taken in the pouring rain on a Parisian afternoon in April but they say it all and for me they yet again humanise this grand old building and take me back to Hugo’s story.
Such was the heat generated during the fire that the scaffolding, that was in place for the restoration at the time, melted.
Largely gutted and damaged by heat and water, Notre Dame’s immense vaults are extremely fragile. Since the fire the nave, the transept, and the choir have been inaccessible so robots have been brought in and are currently clearing them. I wonder what old Notre Dame would be thinking about this new technology?
It was hoped that the reconstruction could be completed by Spring 2024, in time for the opening of the Paris Olympics, but it is now expected that the building will remain closed until December 2024. President Macron actually visited the site the same day we did! He has confirmed that Notre Dame will be formally returned to the church on April 15th 2024, five years since the fire and that the first mass would be held in the cathedral nave on that day, even if the reconstruction has not been finished.
I will be watching the news with interest. To see this grandfather of a cathedral back, filled with music and life will no doubt once again bring a tear to my eye!
NB:
This is part twelve in my series of posts about our tour of Western Europe. Why not read the previous posts and then follow us on our journey as we continue to explore this lovely part of the world?
Whilst I left Barcelona feeling as if it had sold it’s soul for the tourist dollar ( see my previous post published on April 11th) I also left appreciating and acknowledging that the city has some rare and beautiful modern architecture. You cannot help but be in awe of Gaudi’s work, Barcelona’s most famous Modernist architect, and whose buildings are targets for the flocks of tourists that come to the city. I have personally decided not to write a post about his work for no other reason than I honestly could not do it justice and if you are in Barcelona, despite the crowds, you have to visit Palau Guell, Casa Mila and Las Sagrada Familia. There is also, however, a great deal of art nouveau architecture to be seen in the city aside from his, examples that are tucked away in everyday streets, which also deserve credit.
As midlife adventurers we don’t always want to follow the tourist trail and so will quite often look out for unusual self guided walks which allow us to see a bit more of a city. In this case we took in some Modernist architecture whilst also learning a bit more about the Gracia area of Barcelona, where we were staying, before heading down into the centre. I make no apologies for the amount of photos included in this post as the beauty of the architecture should be displayed.
Some highlights of our walk included Casa de les Punxes or Casa Bartomeu Terrades i Brutau which is three houses in one. It was built in 1905 by Josep Puig i Cadafalch and Terrades’ three daughters each lived in one section of the house. It looks like it could belong in Bavaria and yet somehow tourists wander past without blinking an eye. Cadafalch built many houses in and around Barcelona so this is just one example.
We also saw examples of sgraffito which is defined as a form of decoration made by scratching through a surface to reveal a lower layer of a contrasting colour, typically done in plaster or stucco on walls. Casa Manuel Llopis (below) is an example of this, built in 1903 by Anton Gallissa i Soque with sgraffito by Josep Maria Jujol, who also worked on several of Gaudi’s projects.
Another example of sgraffito was evident at Casa Francesc Cama built by the architect Francesc Berenguer i Mestres in 1905. Unfortunately he couldn’t actually sign the facade because he didn’t possess a university degree so it bears his boss’s signature Miquel Pascual i Tintorer. This house also features some beautiful stained glass windows in the lower section.
Another example of Mestres work is Casa Cama i Escurra which has beautiful stained glass oriels. Imagine what those windows look like on the inside!
All of these houses are sitting on ordinary roads in Barcelona, clearly visible and yet invisible to the majority of tourists.
One of Gaudi’s first commissions, however, is in the Gracia neighbourhood -Casa Vicens on Carrer de les Carolines, where we saw our first small gathering of tourists that day. It was built between 1883 and 1888 as a summer house for the tile manufacturer Manuel Vicens. When Gaudi first visited the site he found a yellow zinnia flower and used this as the motif for thousands of tiles that clad the exterior of this Moorish-style building. He also used a palm leaf discovered on the ground to inspire the wonderful iron railings that surround the courtyard. This was an idea that Gaudi went on to use again at Parc Guell.
Further into the centre of the city, surrounded by people, we admired the Manzana de la Discordia. Here you find three houses built by three leading Modernist rivals forming one of the most famous architectural bodies of work in Barcelona.
On the far right, as you look at the houses, is Casa Lleo Morera, an ornate remodelling of an existing building by Lluis Domenech i Montaner completed in 1905. I’ve not included a photo as his work features later. On the far left, built by Josep Puig i Cadafalch five years earlier in 1900, is Casa Amatller. Built to resemble an extravagant version of a Dutch or Flemish step gabled house he utilised sgraffito but then enhanced it with fanciful ceramic motifs which I, personally, felt took this art to a higher level.
Finally the third house, in the middle, is Casa Battlo designed by Gaudi and completed in 1907. It is several metres taller than the other two and Gaudi’s idea was to utilise the exterior to illustrate the legend of St George (who is Catalonia’s patron saint) The green and blue ceramic cladding on the walls represents the dragon’s scaly skin, the curved roof-top it’s crested back and the balcony railings and pillars the bones of the dragon’s victims. He had quite an imagination!
Finally our walk ended at the Palace of Catalan Music where we had organised to join an English speaking guided tour. We are not massive fans of choral, chamber, symphonic or classical music for which the internal Palace is famous. But the building itself is widely regarded as a masterpiece of Catalan architecture, a majestic example of the Modernist style and a magnificent end to our day. The architecture throughout is to die for!
Built in 1908 by Lluis Domenech i Montaner, the outside is currently undergoing refurbishment work and is partly covered with scaffolding and plastic shielding but you can still admire some of the mosaic covered columns.
Internally much of the work is on a floral theme. Roses, lilies and other beautiful flowers climb up pillars, trail across the stained glass windows and cover the ceilings. The Modernist style abounds and the auditorium is the central masterpiece. Viewed from the upper floor, celestial stained glass windows surround the organ below which behind the stage you can see muse-like figures with mosaic tile bodies and terracotta statues for heads. On either side of the stage are marble sculptures. On the right hand side Richard Wagner’s Valkyries ride over a bust of Beethoven whilst on the left a tree of traditional song provides leafy shade to Anselm Clave, a Catalan composer.
Finally look up and you see the piece de resistance, the absolute gem that is the blue and gold stained glass skylight encircled by forty women’s heads to represent the heavenly choir.
What an ending to our exploration into Modernist architecture!
NB: This is my second post about Barcelona. Why not have a read of the first post? We are currently on a tour of Western Europe, why not catch up with where we have been and then follow us as we continue to explore this lovely part of the world?
Despite being a midlife adventurer I have some understanding of social media. Both of my children are in their mid to late twenties and as such social media started to really take off when they were in their teens. However the more recent trends really have me flummoxed, trends that I’d love to ignore but seem to be forced upon me regardless, wherever we travel.
Let me take you back to September 2017. We were in San Francisco, specifically walking up the hill towards Lombard Street. Known as the “Crookedest Street in the World,” Lombard Street is one of San Francisco’s most popular landmarks. Every year, millions of visitors walk or drive down its eight sharp hairpin turns.
As it came into view all we could see was total chaos. A tourist bus had obviously just dropped off a large group of Asian tourists and they were everywhere, posing for photographs, selfie sticks held high, in the middle of the road with the twists and turns of Lombard Street securely behind them in their photos. Drivers were becoming impatient as they reached the bottom of this famous street and were trying to avoid running them over. I couldn’t decide whether they were totally oblivious, entitled or just mad? Then again are we British tourists just too polite? This was obviously not a one off incident because shortly after we arrived a traffic cop showed up, to try and direct the traffic whilst keeping the tourists safe!
This was my first taste of how recording those precious holiday moments was evolving.
Fast forward to the summer of 2021. We were on an eight week road trip of the UK. As part of the trip we covered the NC 500 around the coast of Scotland where there were moments of pure beauty and amazement. We travelled anti clockwise and on our return journey, therefore, down the East Coast we stopped at Dunrobin Castle renowned for its 14th century turreted castle and elegant gardens.
Photography is one of Phil’s hobbies and he particularly enjoys taking photos of nature be it a bird, a bee, a flower etc. So there we are in the gardens of the castle. I have settled myself on a convenient bench to take in the beauty before me and Phil is off somewhere taking his photos.
A family make their way onto the lawn surrounding the flowerbeds in front of me. There is Mum, Dad and a young boy probably about 11 years old. Mum appears to be of possibly Malaysian heritage. My eyes are drawn to them because at first I cannot quite make out why the Mother keeps strutting up and down the lawned pathway. Then I realise that the husband is taking a video of her and every time she completes her walk along the lawn that is now her “catwalk” she is checking what he has recorded. He must have recorded her at least half a dozen times before she is happy with the result. At this point I think they are going to walk away but no it’s now the young boy’s turn to become the “catwalk model” . I’m just sitting there flabbergasted. Is this what the world is coming to? Are we really turning into such a vain society or am I missing something here?
A year later we are on our honeymoon, island hopping in the Greek islands. We stayed in Paros and having hired a car for a couple of days we had driven up to Lefkes, a beautiful village in the centre of the island and then dropped down into Naousa, a small but popular fishing village on the north east coast. It was a lovely Greek summer’s day and we wandered around the harbour exploring. Suddenly we came upon a queue of young tourists. They seemed to be waiting to take a photo in front of a “pink door”. Phil and I were bewildered. There didn’t seem to be anything special about this particular pink door or any great landscape that you could include in your photo shot. So why were they all taking this photo?
On our return to the UK, still questioning this incident, I did a bit of research into it. It didn’t take me long to find out that the number one instagram photo spot in Paros is listed as the Naousa pedestrian area. Take it a step further and look at Google images and there’s the pink door!
This is where my logic starts to go into overdrive:-
Firstly why are you taking a photo purely to put on Instagram and not to actually record your visit to this wonderful Greek island?
Secondly if everyone is taking the same photo of the same pink door, how is your photo unique? Why is your photo going to be any better than the last person’s photo? It’s a pink door for goodness sake!
Finally and I’m only guessing here, this is not factual, what about the person who lives there? Can you imagine how you would feel? The invasion of privacy.
And so to 2023 and having finished our tour of Spain and now en route to France let me bring you up to date. Throughout this adventure I have watched many tourists doing exactly the same sort of things as I’ve narrated above. Some specific examples being:-
The two female Spanish friends, probably in their late teens, walking the catwalk of the Plaza de Espana in Seville. You are surrounded by amazing architecture but instead of appreciating it or even photographing it for posterity you are strutting up and down, trailing your scarf along the floor, whilst your friend takes a video that you assumedly are going to post on Instagram. Sorry but I just don’t get it!
We were in the Jardines de Alameda Apodaca in Cadiz. Again a beautiful park. As I entered there was a young Asian couple standing right in the middle of the main pathway. I assumed, like many others, they were going to take their photograph and then move off. There was a lovely photo to be had from this entrance, stretching all the way along the path to the other end bordered by trees. After several minutes of waiting it was obvious that yet again the young lady wanted the perfect photo and until her partner achieved this she was going to continue posing on the pathway. I’m not sure what the other visitors did but I walked away.
Later when I reached the other end of the park I thought I would try again and take my photo facing in the opposite direction. No word of a lie the couple were still there! Totally oblivious to everyone around them and evidently still trying to get their perfect photo. Now I’m beginning to question not only the vanity of this feat but also the lack of consideration for other visitors.Again I ask the question-are they totally oblivious? Too fixated that they just don’t care? or just an entitled generation?
On a day trip to Segovia, whilst based in Madrid, we took the bus alongside many other tourists from the train station to the centre of the city. It drops everyone off right next to the Aqueduct. This unbelievable feat of Roman engineering is astounding. Like everyone else we want to take a couple of photos and trying to do so without a group of tourists in it isn’t easy. We understand this and remain patient but while we are waiting we can’t help but notice those around us. So many young tourists get off the bus, take a couple of selfies and move on.
It’s like Aqueduct. Tick. Go! There doesn’t seem to be any appreciation for the history that surrounds them!
Later in the day we are in the cathedral in Segovia. The main altarpiece is made of marble, jasper and bronze and was consecrated in the year 1768. It is truly special. In front of the altar there is a glass casement through which you can view some Gregorian hymn books used by the choir. The size of them is ridiculous! Like so many before, and no doubt after me, I reach for my phone to click off some photos as reminders of my visit. However it is initially not possible to get a photo of the altar as a young lady of Afro/Caribbean descent appears to be posing in front of both the altar and also the display books. I can’t quite make out what exactly she is doing but after she departed Phil enlightens me. It transpired he could see her operating her I-phone which was strategically placed on the floor with her Apple Watch timer in order to pose in front of the altar and books whilst ensuring her rather shapely bottom was sticking out in various poses!
I was so stunned that again I had to research this and in so doing discovered that this is not as abnormal as I believe. It’s another trend to enhance Instagram photos to secure followers and likes! Whatever your belief this building is a consecrated House of God, this is an altar! To utilise it in this manner is totally beyond me!
I’ve come to the conclusion that photos to attract followers and likes on Instagram are never natural. They are all posed, whether it is the girl whipping her dress around, the girl or guy walking away from the camera towards the wonderful view or classic building beyond or the catwalk strut. All of this came to a bit of a climax last week in Barcelona. We visited many places but this is about three particular incidences:
Firstly we were in the The Basilica de la Sagrada Familia. The altar, in this church that remains as Gaudi’s legacy, is somewhat unique hanging from the ceiling suspended from a canopy. Everyone wants to take a photo and we politely take turns.
Many visitors are seated in the pews taking in the magnificence of the place (including me), or maybe are taking a rest but some are also in prayer, after all this is a Catholic Church. As I am sat there a young couple of South American descent stand in the aisle to take their photo. But yet again this is not to show appreciation of the altar’s design but a posed instagram photo. The young lady is wearing a rather fetching red and white spotted dress and as she stands there she is whipping her skirt back and forth as if she is dancing a Paso Doble. The guy is desperately trying to get the right photo. Eventually they return to their seat so she can inspect the photos. Evidently they are not good enough so up she gets again. This happened three more times before she was satisfied! And then of course it was his turn. Only as he stands proudly for his photo she is on the floor taking the photo upwards (again I’m led to believe this is another new trend) in order to enhance the photo and give it a special quality. This is a House of God and while all this is going on the everyday folk are waiting patiently to take their memento!
We also visited the Palau Guell, another architectural masterpiece. I am following my audioguide and Phil is way ahead of me taking his photos. I am alone in a room, which I appreciate is unusual when the site is quite busy and manage to take a photo while it is devoid of tourists.
Suddenly a group of about forty Asian tourists accompanied by a guide enter the room. I am completely caught off guard as I find myself surrounded by them with the guide literally stood in front of me! I must be nearly breathing down her neck while she is explaining to them the significance of the room. This is where everything steps up a gear for me.
I cannot believe the rudeness of the female guide. I cannot believe that I am basically invisible to this group of people! I find it really insulting. How dare you surround me in this way! I deliberately move forward and in a calm voice ask the guide if she could please move to let me out. She makes a slight leftward movement but there is no apology, not even recognition for her behaviour. Who on earth do you think you are and what gives you the right to act in this way?
Finally I am on the rooftop of Casa Mila -the last house that Gaudi designed. The floor surface undulates and so if you are a midlifer like me, you do have to take care as you walk. There are many beautiful examples of Gaudi’s work up here. I start to take a photo of a wire statue and just as I’m about to press the button a family of Asians (Mum, Dad and two girls) move in front of it and the Dad starts giving instructions to one of the daughters of how he wishes her to pose for his photo. I cannot help but make a frustrated sound. Mum hears me and assumedly explains to her husband that he has just taken over my photo and they move to one side. I make a point of saying thank you, because I was brought up to be polite, and then move off to admire more of the Gaudi art.
I walk through an archway and in so doing I nearly trip over three young Asian girls where one is posing for a photo and the other two are supervising and taking the photos. They don’t flinch, they don’t move, they seem to actually expect me to go back from whence I came! You are seriously joking! I mutter an “excuse me please” and walk through the middle of them. On the opposite side of the rooftop is another archway and admittedly I can see a queue of young people the other side waiting to take photos. Again I walk through the arch. I then politely ask the young lady on the other side if she realises there is a queue developing? In broken English a young Spanish guy who along with his girlfriend, are first in the queue, then raises his voice at me and tells me “yes there is a queue so hurry up and get out of the way!!! Is this how I should expect to be treated when I interrupt a precious Instagram picture? The irony is that young people are so desperate to get that unique photo that they are prepared to queue. The fact they are queuing for this opportunity is in itself is a total contradictionor can’t they see this!
This was going to be my final example but I have had to add this last photo which I only took today. This photo shows a young girl and her male partner, both of Asian descent, walking up the centre line of the Champs Elysee in order to get the perfect picture of the Arc de Triomphe. If you have ever been there you know how busy it is with traffic! What possesses people to do this? Does Instagram rule their lives?
I have deliberately mentioned people’s heritage in this article not for any other reason than to illustrate that this is a worldwide phenomenon. Worldwide people are taking photos for no other reason than to attract attention to themselves, to collect followers, likes and views. The crazy part of this is that once these photos are posted on their Instagram account a lot of these youngsters will then delete them. They are of no further use to them. They aren’t going to keep them to look back upon, to recall where they have been and what they have seen. It’s just another example of the throw away society we now seem to live in!
Do they do all this purely in the hope that they might be the next Kym Kardashian? Who don’t forget got herself noticed after always being present in shots taken of her then boss -Paris Hilton. Is this exploding vanity purely aimed at securing an advertising deal which means they can throw in their resignation on Monday morning and stop going out to work for a living? Where will this end?
I’m a midlife adventurer, perhaps I’m just too old to understand?
As part of our explorations of this wonderful city we visited the Museo Fallero or Fallas Museum. From the outside the museum looks fairly small and unassuming. It costs just 2 euros per person to enter. The attraction for us stemmed from a previous visit to New Orleans where you can visit Mardi Gras World which gives visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the magnificent floats used during the Mardi Gras parade. We had no expectations on entering this museum other than to view the sculptures that had been saved from the flames.
Wow! What a surprise! I left not just with loads of photos of my favourite figures but also with an insane desire to learn more about this Valencian Festival which I’d previously known nothing about.
Every Spring, from March 15th-19th, Valencia celebrates Las Fallas in honour of Saint Joseph, the patron saint of the carpenters. This festival stems from the mid-18th century when carpenters disposed of pieces of wood they had saved during the winter. As spring arrived they would apparently celebrate it’s arrival by burning it. As this tradition grew over time so these pieces of wood were made to look like human figures, using clothes and wax (presumedly from candles), a bit like the scarecrows we have at home.
Gradually the characters became more complicated and became known as fallas, which is derived from the medieval Valencian language meaning “torch”. Each fallas would have a theme or “title” and were built by the people living in each neighbourhood working together with help from carpenters and painters.
As cardboard gained in popularity during the first half of the 20th century, the wax was replaced by this more pliable material and the fallas would be made up of several characters known as “ninots”, each ninot forming part of the story being told. As we learnt in the museum from the 1970’s expanded polystyrene started to be used for the outer shell of the ninots and instead of dressing the figures they began painting on the polystyrene instead. This picture shows the ninot from 1935.
As the festival gained traction so the demand for specialist creators grew and the profession of artists fallers (fall artist) emerged in the city. These artists have their own workshops and continue to develop and evolve their own style.
The festival grew and more and more people were supporting and sponsoring the creation of these yearly fallas. These groups of people known as “comisiones falleras”, began to compete against each other with the winning fallas creating great pride amidst the neighbourhood that had created it before being burnt on the evening of March 19th.
Fast forward to today and there are over 350 “comisiones falleras” in Valencia each building not only the main falla but also a falla infantil which is a smaller falla, family friendly and thus aimed at entertaining children. This is one of my favourite falla infantil called Solidarity saved in 2009.
Each community also elects a Fallera Mayor -a Queen of the Faller neighbourhood and a Fallera Mayor Infantile who is the child equivalent. From these a Fallera Mayor de Valencia and a Fallera Mayor Infantil de Valencia are chosen. This is a great honour with many responsibilities. Painted pictures of previous Fallera Mayor de Valencia, dating back to 1995, are on display in the museum and I’ve attached a picture of my personal favourite here.
To give some idea of how big this festival now is. The most impressive fallas form part of sección especial and they cost well over €100,000 each. The most expensive falla ever built was in 2009 and cost approx. 1 million euros. The two main winners are placed next to each other and burnt the same night, first the falla infantil, then the falla principal. The winning fallas are the last ones to burn.
The ninots on display in the museum date back to 1934 after a new tradition, in recognition of the skill and dedication used to create them, of pardoning ninots from the fire was started in the 1920s. In 1934, the first Ninot Exhibition was organized so that the people of Valencia could choose by popular vote which ninot to pardon from the fire. This ninot receives the name of ninot indultat. Nowadays the Ninot Exhibition is organized inside the City of Arts and Sciences. Anyone can vote, even visitors and the winning ninot infantile and ninot indultat are spared from the flames! It is interesting to view them all in the museum in chronological order. You can clearly see how everything has developed and improved over the years including the themes that have been used.
This spectacular yearly event has grown from the burning of fires on March 19th to a full five day festival. Posters advertising the events taking place started back in 1929 and, as a result, the museum displays a collection of these across the years.
This festival is an essential part of the city’s culture and heritage bringing together communities to party and celebrate Valencian music, costumes and food.
It excites me to learn that in a world that is so disparate at times here in this Spanish city communities are still working together each year to create their own bespoke fallas. I cannot wait to return and savour it for myself!
NB: This is my third post about the great city of Valencia. Why not have a read of the other two? And then catch up on our tour of Western Europe thus far?
I would normally be sat here writing about our adventures in Barcelona rather than an opinion piece. We had arrived here by train from Valencia on Monday and settled into our Air BnB late afternoon with a view of La Sagrada Familia from our balcony. I guess this is still an adventure but it’s hard to know how to write a positive piece when for me it is so marred by the reality. I know my opinion is going to be contentious. I’m sure there are people who have been here and loved it. I, however, am slightly at a loss.
The city, itself, is the second largest in Spain with 1.6 million people living within the city limits but put it into google and the first thing that comes up is FC Barcelona, what does that say about it? Is the football team it’s saving grace?
I came here expecting so much more. This is the capital city of the Catalan region of Spain. An area that historically has been proud of its heritage to the point that it has looked to seek independence from Spain itself.
My first impression is of dirt and grime. Every city we have visited thus far has kept their “old town” streets clean with daily cleansing but not Barcelona. This city is being spoilt by tourism. Suddenly it’s like we are back in London again with litter on the streets and pollution discoloured buildings but with the added ingredient of just being totally underwhelmed despite the fact it dates back to pre Roman times.
Las Ramblas This is the description I was given by my Guide book in advance of our visit: “To stroll through this bustling district is to walk through the history and culture of one of the world’s most exciting urban centres. Celebrated poet Federico Garcia Lorca once described it as “the only street in the world which I wish would never end” . Famous for its throbbing urban energy, this colourful avenue and tree-lined walkway are one of the busiest areas in the city so it’s not surprising that it is constantly thronged by tourists.”
The only part of that narrative that is true is the latter part. Yes it is full of tourists but why?
Something is definitely missing because I didn’t experience any atmosphere. I was expecting Covent Garden in London but in avenue format. With pavement cafes, independent traders selling flowers, souvenir sellers, street performers, human statues and benches with people watching the world go by.
Did Covid have an adverse effect on trade which never recovered? Have the police clamped down on the street performers to such an extent as they are no longer welcome? Las Ramblas is as dried up as the old river bed it was built on. There are many pavement restauranteurs plying for your trade charging exorbitant prices for food and drink, a few trading stands selling souvenirs and flowers and some cartoon artists down the far end near the port but that is it! There is no excitement, no atmosphere and it just seemed pointless to me.
Mercat de la Boqueria This market housed in an airy and glass structure is about halfway down Las Ramblas on the right hand side if you are walking towards the port. My guide book quotes it as “the place that the city’s top chefs come to buy their ingredients”. Are you sure?
Maybe in it’s heyday that was the case but now around 50% of the stalls sell food purely devised and aimed at the tourists. Pre made fruit smoothies, pre prepared fruit selections in plastic cups, ready prepared meals that the stall holder can throw in a microwave and zap on reheat before exchanging for tourist cash, Barcelona burritos, chocolate fruit on sticks and so it goes on.
Don’t get me wrong I can understand how this has happened. The market opened in 1836 selling a wide range of local products including fish, meat, vegetables and fruit but ultimately traders need to make money particularly since Covid hit and so they give up their traditions and trade it in for tourist food. To describe this as the country’s most well known market is probably true but NEVER describe it as the country’s best market because it is definitely not. It’s a market that has sold its soul to commercialism.
The Cathedral This is described as ‘Barcelona’s Gothic gem, at the spiritual and physical heart of the city. The cloisters are listed as one of the best parts with orange and medlar trees, palm trees, a mossy green fountain and the thirteen geese kept as the cathedral’s tradition to honour St Eulalia’s life.
The reality is that the building is so affected by pollution it has to be systematically cleaned which no doubt costs a fortune. I managed to get a picture which shows the variation.
The interior compared to many other cathedrals we have visited on this tour lacks the wow factor but this is a typical situation where an ecclesiastical building is being held up as a tourist destination when in fact it is purely what it set out to be, a church of god.
The garden in the cloister looks bedraggled and in desperate need of water and as for the geese? I just felt sorry for them in their stone floor enclosure with no grass and only cabbage/lettuce leaves to remind them of what green food actually is and a dirty, smelly, equally green pond to swim around in. Sorry but I’m sure St Eulalia would agree with me, let these poor birds go free.
The Beach Barceloneta beach is the nearest to the city centre and accessible from the end of Las Ramblas. A statue of Christopher Columbus pointing out to sea sits atop the Monument a Colon marking the end of Las Ramblas itself. From here it’s about a 15 minute walk into the centre of Barceloneta.
Traditionally this was the fisherman’s quarter and this still looks like a very working class neighbourhood with apartment buildings strewn with balconies full of washing hung out to dry alongside children’s toys and other stored items. In front of the market is a plaza where locals congregate to play table tennis, young aspiring Messi’s play a game of footie with their mates and the older generation chat with friends and watch the world go by. Also on this square, to one end, are two or three restaurants overflowing with tourists sipping wine by the glass whilst enjoying tapas and other traditional Spanish fayre. It’s a huge contradiction and one I couldn’t fail to notice when I stopped on a bench here for a breather.
We reached the beach early afternoon. It is nothing like the beaches you see all around Spain. This is probably because it is manmade. The city built the beach for the Olympics back in 1992 creating around two miles of sand.
It’s the start of Easter week and even though the temperature is still in the low 70’s it is rammed. Not only is the sand full of people but so is the boardwalk! It is nearly at the point where you are queuing up to walk. We have just left Valencia with it’s lengthy avenue bordering the beach allowing visitors to walk, cycle and skate and I’d go back there tomorrow rather than face this heaving mass of humanity.
According to Google, 27million people come to Barcelona every year – about 16 times more than its standing population.
I cannot help but conclude that this is a city that has given up its heart and soul in favour of tourism.
I’m sure during Covid when the streets were empty and the beach was clear, many local Barcelona inhabitants took pleasure in having their city back and no doubt wish their Government would stop selling their identity in exchange for the tourist dollar!
NB:
This is part eleven in my series of posts about our tour of Western Europe. Why not read the previous posts and then follow us on our journey as we continue to explore this lovely part of the world?
A Midlife Adventure 