It is rather strange that I only heard the term “bucket list” less than ten years ago. Now that I have heard it muttered by a number of people, I have learned to respect the truths surrounding it.
It is a habit in Australia to drive around the whole “island” normally starting in the Winter season which makes Queensland and the Northern Territory a little more friendly with regard to climate.
Listening to two German immigrants talking to one another about their recent travels, I heard them express disappointment that they had missed out a couple of important towns a little inland from the coast road that they had traveled. “I’ll have to do the trip again”, said one to the other. This was a remarkable statement because he could simply have flown to a nearby airport and hired a car. Instead of doing this, he was about to do a “perfect trip” including absolutely all the important places just off the route.
Yes, there are places we simply must visit before we die. For myself, I definitely do not agree with this. I watch these wonderful BBC documentary films and thank my lucky stars that I now do not have to visit the places which are shown and described so well in those films.
Rick Steves in Seattle is someone who has created a career for himself doing exactly what he loves to do; travel around Europe. Not only does he make television films and write books about his beloved Europe. He also runs small group tours around Europe where Americans meet the locals in the “bucket list” towns of their choice. I cannot think of a better way of doing this if you want to travel with a group of like-minded folks. He has also visited other places to the east of Western Europe.
But Rick Steves advises those who visit Oxford, not to bother with visiting Cambridge. They are so similar that you probably would not know which place you were in. This is difficult if your bucket list includes both places.
I have always loved maps especially the ordinance survey maps which have been changed into tourist maps by colouring in the contours. I can enjoy hill walking even when it is misty and rainy without leaving the house.
But we now have books full of overhead images which are even more attractive. We can peer into those huge estates which seem so forbidding from the road as we drive past. The BBC even uses drones to give us views on video of large buildings and fortresses around the country. If these places are on your “bucket list”, you will see more of them in a BBC film than you will ever see walking around the perimeter.
But, even for me, there are exceptions. I had never even dreamed of visiting Jerusalem but, when the opportunity presented itself, I seized it. After all, my motto is “Carpe Diem” and this, in retrospect, should include legendary places.
To stand where David put together the psalms which are sung every day in the Anglican Church was an amazing experience. Then, not far away, is the place where Zadok the priest and Nathan anointed Solomon. I visited Nazareth where Jesus learned his craft and other places I had read about for many years. These places surely must be visited as well as watching any number of television documentaries about them. If I ever thought of having a “bucket list”, perhaps this should have been on it.
I remember living in Florence when the tourists began to arrive. I simply escaped as far South as I could go. I first went to South Crete and then to Gavdos, the southernmost place in Europe. Florence is definitely on the tourist “bucket list” but Gavdos is not there yet thank goodness.
Sometimes it is puzzling to know why particular places are on some tourists’ “bucket lists”. In Florence, I lived next door to the Duomo and Giotto’s Bell tower. One morning, I was walking behind a couple of tourists when we came into the square where the Duomo dominates the surroundings. One of the two exclaimed, “What’s that?”. The other said, I’d better look it up in our guide.
This seemed to indicate to me that people put places on their “bucket lists” without really knowing why. It is understandable that people certainly do not place Florence on their bucket list because of the Duomo but surely they should be prepared to enjoy all the assets of each place on their list?
Cambridge seems to be on a number of “bucket lists”. The town has problems with tourists because the roads and pathways are so narrow. The town council has even requested that parties as large a hundred should split into smaller groups. I have never seen a group of a hundred but groups as large as thirty can be annoying if they occupy the whole width of the path.
How do you assemble a bucket list? If I ever had a list, it would have begun by including all the pleasant coastal towns of Italy and Greece. The democratic problems of Greece was not a deterrent but they seemed to deter me from Spain.
Later, I would choose places because of their history. This is why I recently chose Florence, Venice and Vienna as places in which to live and Prague, Leipzig, Siena and similar cities as places to visit.
Sadly, Siena, where I was a student for a short while, has changed beyond belief. There were hardly any places to stay when I was there. We would watch coaches arrive in the morning, knowing that they would be gone by the evening. It’s now a busy tourist destination on many people’s bucket list. I presume it was in one of those books with a title like “100 PLACES YOU MUST VISIT BEFORE YOU DIE”.
I’ve noticed an unusually large number of people on our beach near Sarasota recently. Perhaps our beach is in one of those bucket lists. If it is, I suppose we’ll have to move.
Today we travel to Orlando from wet and cold Cambridge. Of course, today is the first day we have seen a completely blue sky first thing in the morning. It’s as though Cambridge were saying, “See, I can do it when you’re about to leave!!”
Travel from Cambridge to London is fast. In fact it is scarily fast when going over points or the more difficult sections of track. This morning it actually takes less than the normal fifty minutes to reach Kings Cross station.
Just across the concourse is St Pancras station where, below the surface near the Harry Potter platform, runs a rather slow direct train to Gatwick Airport. However, this slow meandering train through the bowels of the City of London more than makes up for the inconvenience of the tube to the Gatwick Express which runs from busy Victoria Station.
Today are travelling in a brand new 787 “dreamliner” flown by one of the most successful new budget airlines.
First we have to obtain boarding passes. The machine does not work. As usual, a helpful Polish gentleman appears to help us. It doesn’t work for him either. So we retire to his office where he manages to get us our passes. Then he tries to print luggage labels for us on another check in machine and that doesn’t work either. Back to his office and at last we are fully equipped to check in our bags. I am delighted to see that my bag weighs 19.7 kg; just under the 20 kg maximum so my small bottle of brandy can travel with us to Orlando.
There’s a certain ritual associated with budget airlines and some shops in the terminal have adapted their stock to take advantage of this. Boots sells their normal “main plus side plus drink” lunch for almost a duty free price and we notice that even Smiths has included a similar selection of food between their books and magazines. We buy a couple of wraps in Boots (I choose the falafel wrap and Theobo takes a chilli wrap) plus drinks and crisps. Although we had ordered and paid extra for a meal, we were now equipped to deal with any prandial crisis.
Boarding this flight is very ordered and serious as befits an efficient budget airline. Sitting at the front of the budget section of the aircraft – the “first class” section in front of us is tiny – we board last. During the melée of passengers stowing oversize carry-ons, I hear an announcement by somebody but his comments were wasted because of the cabin activity. After we have all settled down, we and the serious cabin staff sit there in silence for twenty minutes before the plane starts to move and takes off.
The first thing we notice is that the wonderful “dreamliner” in-flight individual entertainment systems aren’t working. Then the screens at the front of the cabin also black out. After take off, we see the youngest member of the cabin crew looking very busy as he tries to get the screens working. He manages to get the screens going at the front of the cabin but it is some time before he emerges smiling to our applause as our individual screens come into action.
Of course, the star of the show is the aircraft.
It is a magnificent feat of engineering; the delivery time only held up by the Japanese-built wings arriving over three years late. Boeing engineers had told me that lawyers were calculating compensation for late delivery “plane by plane” so this outsourcing cost Boeing a great deal. We used to see Boeing’s Everett field surrounded by 787s before they were accepted by airlines. So we were attracted by this airline which uses these planes on long haul flights between USA and Europe.
We fly a great circle route south of Greenland to Canada and then bump our way down the East coast of the USA to Orlando. Extraordinarily, the skies are clear over Orlando but the landing and the sickening collision with the runway is one of the most awful we have ever experienced. It did bring to mind the profile of one of the pilots, published in the onboard airline magazine, who had been driving taxis just three years ago.
The plane taxis off the runway towards the gate. We passengers all remain silent after the shock of landing so violently. But we are happy to have arrived safely.
Our happiness is short-lived. The plane sits in the correct place but nothing happens. After about fifteen minutes, the engines are switched off. Another ten minutes later, the lights go out and the air conditioning stops. There is still silence in the main cabin. Thankfully the lights come on again but not the air-conditioning.
I make the remark, “There are no Australians or Americans here.” Most of the passengers are from the UK. This polite English reaction to the situation is overwhelming. We question the cabin crew member sitting in front of us. He knows nothing. But he picks up his phone and reports that there is a technical problem with the airbridge.
We are now becoming worried that there is no fresh air reaching most of the passengers. I wonder whether those little oxygen masks will fall down when the carbon dioxide level reaches dangerous levels if the plane is only using emergency lighting.
We question the cabin staff member sitting in front of us and find that his name is David. He speaks fluent Russian and Polish. He has been in the job for just two months. He makes another phone call and informs us that they are still having problems with the airbridge. It will soon be fixed as they have called a technician.
Another ten minutes pass and suddenly David looks up to see the airbridge reaching over to the plane. Instead of being happy, he becomes concerned. He rushes over to the other side of the plane. We see him typing things into a computer then returning with four sheets of printout.
He approaches the door and examines it carefully whilst consulting his sheets of paper. My friend Theobo jumps up and helps him by holding sheets in front of him whilst he works out what to do. Eventually he decides to move a huge handle with an enormous arrow pointing counter clockwise. It also has “OPEN” written above it in letters about one foot high.
The door opens to reveal a group of smiling people welcoming us to Florida. Even the balmy air of Florida feels welcoming. We have arrived!!!
As usual, I am fingerprinted and photographed by the immigration person who again warns me not to overstay my time in the USA. “You were in the plane that long without air con?” he says in amazement.
As usual, our checked luggage is last to arrive. After extensive legal negotiations we pick up our hire car and drive to Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club arriving just after eleven o’clock. We remark that there were no signs or lights helping us to find the Club. The lobby staff tell us that “We like it that way”.
Apparently Arnold is due here in a few days time.
We have a room overlooking the tenth green where greenskeepers are moving the pins on the greens ready for next days play by clients of Bay Hill. Others are doing routine maintenance. All this is being done in the dark so they all have lighting on their vehicles. By morning every inch of the fairways has been mown. Every micron of the green has been coiffured. All the features have been manicured. Yes folks, we’re in the US of A!!!!!
With all the news of a takeover of London by foreign billionaires, I have been reluctant to venture into Central London. But, determined to bite the contemporary bullet, I am going forth into areas I knew well as a child when many of the city’s buildings were still in ruins.
Arriving in Victoria station, I walk up the familiar Buckingham Palace Road to “Buck’ House”. (It isn’t REALLY a palace the REAL Palace is across the road as St James Palace but, as the Queen sometimes lives there, I suppose we must call ‘Buck House’ a palace also.)
It is fairly early so the road in front of Buckingham ‘ Palace’ is almost deserted. So is Birdcage Walk in front of Wellington Barracks. The lack of people in St James’s Park is wonderful. Having stretches of this lovely park to myself is a great way to spend Sunday morning.
After enjoying the lake, I cross the Mall, along which the stage 3 of the ‘Tour de France’ has recently finished, and then come up to Green Park. It seems as though NOTHING had changed there. Not many people and it seems very peaceful.
There are a three police horses under a tree with kids stroking them. I have a chat to the rather older lady on one of them and she says this job is the answer to a dream. She has been on front line policing for the last ten years and NOW she is very happy on a horse!!! (She had been a “horsey girl” since she was a baby!!) But, although this seems like a ‘easy’ number for a police person, it is VERY serious work these days. A police person on a horse probably has a better view of a terrorist than a helicopter and, of course, a terrorist has a good view of the police horse person.
I walk through Green Park then up Constitution hill and across Hyde park Corner into Hyde Park.
This brings back an old memory when I was working in Piccadilly. I used to go to work late morning as I was always at performances in the evening. I arrived at my tube stop which was Hyde Park Corner and walked up the stairs into the sunlight by the gates into Hyde Park. The gates were open but the whole of Hyde Park Corner seemed deserted. Anyone who knows London will realise that this could only happen if the world had ended!!
Coming up constitution Hill I spied a number of cars travelling quite fast. They drove across the area heading for my gate. They seemed full of very official people and they were in open cars. As they reached me, I saw the Queen was in the third car.
What do you do if the Queen looks at you wondering why you are there? Nervously I raised my hand. Her response was a very professional slight movement of her hand. Then they were gone followed by more cars full of even more extremely official people.
After recalling this horrifying memory I walk into Hyde Park. There’s a long road just inside the park along which the Horse Guards trot to mount the guard just inside Whitehall. Half way to the Household Cavalry Barracks is a monument to the time when the IRA blew up the procession and killed a number of men and horses.
An old school friend became the Director of Music of one of the Horse Guards. He had to spend a lot of time learning to ride a horse. He told me that the procession would stop by the memorial in order to remember their dead comrades. On his very first day, his horse stopped as usual but slowly slid its legs out either side until its stomach was resting on the ground.
My friend was naturally very alarmed and called back to the NCO in charge of the band. “what do I do?” The band sergeant called back, “just hang on for a bit!”. Slowly bit by bit the old horse stirred and gradually got up, blood coming from its wounds. eventually the horse regained its stance and the procession continued. The old horse completed the morning’s guard mounting and was immediately retired.
The replacement horse was another problem because it insisted on crossing its legs when standing still in front of the band. During part of Trooping, this meant standing opposite the Queen, one of the best judges of horses in the world. As she probably selected this horse for the Household Brigade, I’m sure she had second thoughts about that second replacement horse!!!
Walking past the Household Cavalry barracks I see the names of the horses which have served the regiments in recent years on the walls surrounding the barracks. It is difficult to understand the enthusiasm of these soldiers who return from Afghanistan to ride to the standard required of them to mount guard on horseback.
Probably the most useful memorial to Queen Victoria’s beloved husband Albert is the Albert Hall just along from Hyde Park opposite Kensington Gardens.
But just opposite in the Gardens themselves is the Albert Memorial. We used to regard this as the ugliest and most OTT memorial in London but perhaps things have changed? It is certainly a very positive Victorian statement, as well it might be!!!
I walk across the road to the Albert Hall. They often have concerts at three o’clock on Sunday afternoons but I am glad they don’t have one today as I would be tempted to stay here for a concert and see those ‘flying saucers’ which I helped put up 46 years ago.
I walk down the steps to the RCM then left past Imperial and turn right into Exhibition Road to reach the Science Museum. This is still FANTASTIC!!! You need a few days to appreciate that place but I stay to see two people get a huge steam engine going with a HUGE flywheel about 20 feet across!!! An amazing museum!!! SO exciting. It hasn’t changed its approach.
I now rather reluctantly leave the Science Museum and venture next door to the Natural History Museum. Whereas the Science Museum is rather thinly populated, the Natural History Museum is filled with people mostly seeking out the dinosaur skeleton collection.
When I was a kid I would spend most of my time in the Science Museum sometimes attending a few lectures. Before I did this, I always paid my respects to the Blue Whale. Every time I looked at this huge animal, it reminded me of how small we humans really are. Squeezing my way through crowds of kids enjoying the dinosaurs, I once more see my blue whale. It still amazes me.
After the Natural History Museum, my next stop is the Victoria and Albert Museum. Only a brief visit this time. I notice that a lot of ladies are attracted by the special exhibition of wedding dresses.
I exit through the front door on to Brompton Road and walk along to Brompton Oratory, a very famous Catholic centre for religious music. I manage to hear some singing at the end of the last Mass of the day then some wonderful organ music.
Walking further along the street, I come to some rather famous shops with crowds of mainly Middle Eastern visitors issuing from them. Further along the road I return to Hyde Park Corner and, instead of walking along Constitution Hill again, I take the direct road back to Victoria past rows of imposing but slightly seedy old buildings. One of them contains the headquarters of the Tata group.
There’s too much traffic on the main roads but, on my walking route, there has been very little traffic for most of the way. There were very few people around until I reached the sports areas of Hyde Park. Plenty of visitors in the Science Museum but the only crowded areas were around the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum.
At last I reach Victoria and catch the train home after a walk which which has not taken very long. It seems longer because it has stirred many of my childhood memories – Guard mounting at Buck House – feeding the ducks in St James’s Park – listening to the band in Green Park – walking around and rowing on the Serpentine – wandering in Kensington Gardens – working and listening in the Albert Hall – Sitting in the orchestra for conducting exams in the RCM and visiting Tristram Cary’s studio – SO many visits to that treasure house of science, the Science Museum – the Blue whale – the V & A museum where we all saw a copy of the complete Bayeux tapestry – the tunnel from South Kensington station to the museums . . . . . . . .
A child can have a LOT of fun and learn a lot of things in Central London!!!! OK, I missed a lot of places where I went elsewhere in London but THOSE childhood memories around Kensington are SO precious!!!
I’ve heard a lot about EasyJet. It is apparently a larger airline than British Airways and it has a direct cheap flight from London to Vienna. There was even a long series about them on television some time ago.
So I think it is about time I tried them out.
The flights to Vienna leave from Gatwick Airport South of London so my first part of the journey is from Ely to London, Kings Cross. The train is very comfortable and smooth running and doesn’t rattle too much as many other trains. It takes us twenty minutes got reach Cambridge then another fifty minutes before we arrive in Kings Cross.
Kings Cross is a magnificent station.
Just next to it across a beautiful concourse is St Pancras station.
Years ago I would have needed to take the tube to Victoria station then catch the train South to Gatwick. Nowadays, there is a direct train from St Pancras to Gatwick Airport. The train does take a strange route through London but it saves a lot of trouble especially when the tube is extremely busy.
The Gatwick Airport railway stain is under the concourse of the North terminal of Gatwick Airport so it takes hardly any time before I am being turned over by TSA. EasyJet sends you the boarding pass after checking in online so there is no delay unless you choose to check luggage for which you pay extra.
My flight boards at the gate which is the very furthest from the centre. It is a very long walk but I finally get there to hear a very authoritative voice telling us exactly what we have to do. As a result, we are soon sitting down awaiting a takeoff which is on time.
This is a “no frills” airline so I notice experienced EasyJet flyers opening their sandwiches and some people appeared to have prepared lunch boxes which I assume they bought in the terminal after passing through TSA. Everything anyone might want WAS available but at a price based on the “user pays” principle rather than, as many other airlines, charging everybody for services they might not want.
The plane is the usual small airbus which zooms up to cruising height and makes light of the journey to Vienna.
Arriving at the entrance to the airport I take the coach to Westbahnhof near to the apartment where I am staying for the next few days. This costs 8 euros whereas the tourist CAT train into Vienna will cost a total of 16 euros. The normal train which I usually take would have cost 4.40 euros.
Back in Vienna I enjoy performances of ’Tosca’ (that ALWAYS seems to be on when I am here!!!), a’ charming production of Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen’, and an extremely long five hour Ballet Gala with all the ‘pops’ which everybody enjoys. After all, the Staatsoper is closed for July and August.
But I DID enjoy the last two operas of Wagner’s ‘Ring’. I missed ‘Valkyrie’ but I was glad of this because Siegmund actually lost his voice and had to mime with a singer at the the side of the stage!!!
But our Siegfried in ’Siegfried’
and ‘Götterdämmerung’ did NOT let us down and a magnificent Brunehilde screamed her way magnificently to her fiery end.
10 hours of great wonderful sound and a story of a simpleton who talks to birds, slays a dragon, finds his soul mate then gives her away only to be stabbed in the back for his pains. To be honest, it is worth the ten hours just to hear ‘tunes’ played by those magnificent eight horns!!! What a sound!!!
After all that, I am ready to spend the Summer in Seattle. Al Jarreau has booked the Staatsoper for the first week in July!!
I’ve flown all over Europe with Air Berlin. They are similar to many of the other point-to- point airlines but they also allow 23 kilos of checked luggage without having to pay extra.
As with others, you can check in online. This seems to be important in this day and age. So I dutifully check in for the first leg of my journey online but I fail to check in for the second part. This means that I will have the ordeal of carrying out the whole operation in Vienna Airport.
After turning up at Vienna Airport, I manage to find the Air Berlin desks and I see a long line for one of the desks. When I get closer, I see that this desk is for people who have checked in online!! The other desk for people like me has nobody waiting!!! So my details are processed immediately while the other more considerate clients are left waiting. I’m sure that my desk could have dealt with that line of considerate online checkers.
The plane arrives on time so there is no delay in boarding. My seat is in front of the wing so I am not disturbed by the slight turbulence on the way to my first stop in Dusseldorf. I order my usual drink of tea plus fizzy water but I pocket the sandwich given out to eat for lunch later on as I have neglected to bring any euro small currency.
We are soon bumping down through cloud to Dusseldorf airport. Being on time means that I have a fairly long wait for my flight to Stansted. I still remember my last journey along this route when we arrived at a time well after the departure time of the Stansted flight. We were all taken personally to the aircraft waiting for us. I was very impressed by the way we were treated then so I am looking forward to this Stansted flight.
But this is not to be. We are shepherded on to a bus and taken for a long trip along lines of planes until we reach . . . . . a wind-up propeller plane!!!! My last trip on this route was by a small airbus. It was a short flight but with the degree of comfort which we have all become accustomed.
Instead of the adjustable seats we had on the airbus, this plane has fixed seats. I cannot see why the comfort within such a plane should be so limited just because it is not an airbus.
We take off and don’t have too much turbulence at all. One lady, who seems to have some ‘help’ somewhere elsewhere seems to be doing everything except fly the plane. She literally runs up and down the plane to collect stuff for our quick drink and munch. Somehow we are all watered and fed by the time we arrive at Stansted.
Stansted is a good airport at which to arrive in England. Heathrow is not pleasant these days. Getting through passport control and customs takes very little time and the checked luggage also seems to arrive very swiftly indeed.
The next advantage of Stansted is that it has a mainline station just below the arrivals hall. In no time, I am on the train to Ely via Cambridge. It’s countryside all the way until we reach Cambridge where commuters come aboard on their way home. They tell me that the train is cheaper than driving and more restful.
The train continues on its way through fens; a type of country similar to Holland on the other side of the North Sea. Before the fens were drained, Cambridge used to be a port. Now the River Cam is a very unimpressive stretch of water used by ‘bumping’ oars and punts.
We soon reach Ely after a very pleasant run through more fenland. I see a smiling face in the front of a taxi outside the station and I dump my heavy case in the back of her van. We drive towards the amazingly huge Ely Cathedral and I am dropped very near at my new abode.
My first call is to ALDI just opposite. Then I make my way into the Cathedral for Evensong; a service completely sung every evening, In Ely, they still sing the office hymns which have been sung here for over a thousand years. The sound in the quire is wonderful. It may not be Vienna but I am happy.
Traveling by train in Switzerland is a dream most of the time. One of my favorite train journeys is from St Moritz over the pass into Italy.
It is possible to have a very enjoyable holiday simply traveling on railways throughout Switzerland.
The only problem with Switzerland is the Swiss!!! OK, There are lots of lovely Swiss people especially when you rent their lovely chalets and apartments in places with incredible views but I would just like to give just one example where a Swiss gentleman did his job in an extraordinarily exemplary fashion.
We were staying Wengen and decided to take a gentle ridge walk which, I have to confess, we took the cable car up to the ridge. I know it is good practice to walk up the hill but the weather was beautiful – the scenery was beautiful and we felt beautiful as a result. But not strong enough to manage the ascent unaided.
The cable car ride was beautiful and the gentle ridge walk was just what was needed after the spending the day before traveling across the country and up the short section of mountain railway to Wengen where we simply walked around until we found somewhere to stay.
The arrangement then was, if you bought a return cable car ticket, you could return by the mountain railway. Standing on the ridge we spied a railway station. We realized that this was the ideal way to return to Wengen.
We rested in the local hostelry and awaited the arrival of the train. Somewhat refreshed, we boarded the train and began to enjoy the descent into Wengen.
Until . . . a very smart uniformed man appeared in front of us and demanded to see our tickets. The demand seemed more like a military order than a request from a servant of the railway company.
We dutifully proffered our tickets. The uniformed man lent forward as if to inspect our tickets to see whether they needed fumigation.
“And where did you get these?”, he snapped in his most formal voice.
We replied that we had bought the return ticket which allowed to return using the mountain railway.
“You can NOT use these on THIS railway!!!”, he spluttered in what seems to be the ultimate level of astonishment.
We explained our understanding of what the tickets said but he just stood shaking his head in what appeared to be disbelief.
“No, No, No, No, . . . . . “, he kept muttering to himself. “I will keep an eye on you until we arrive. Then I will take you to the inspector!!!”
I think we were supposed to be terrified by all this. For the whole journey, this very correct man stood in front of us seemingly restraining us from any thoughts of escape we might contrive.
At last, we arrived.
“Follow me!!!”, our officer snapped.
Of course, we followed him until we were confronted by an even more important official. He looked us up and down then had a private consultation with his junior.
All four of us then trooped into the ticket hall and the very important man took our tickets from his junior then reached into the window and produced two different tickets. He then handed these to his junior and gave a parting judgemental gaze to us all.
The three of us then went on to the platform and we looked at this man who had made our journey down the mountain so terrifying.
“These are the CORRECT tickets!!
With an extremely professional flourish, he held the two tickets up in front of him, drew his clipper from his holster and clipped the tickets presumably in order to cancel them.
With one smooth even more professional gesture, he enabled the tickets to drop straight into the rubbish bin on the platform.
For the first since our ordeal had begun, he gave us a wry smile then, with a wave, departed on the train.
Choosing an airline to fly from Seattle to Vienna should not be difficult. You can fly from a number of USA and Canadian cities direct to Vienna but Seattle does not share this convenience. London is still the biggest hub from which to travel to most European destinations but the conditions in the extended waiting areas of Heathrow are terribly congested and unpleasant sometimes. Our friend Boris, Mayor of London, has proposed many solutions to this problem including a new airport in the Thames Estuary. In my opinion this is the only logical way in which London can remain an important hub for Europe but I suspect that it is already too late for it to remain THE main hub for Europe. One suggested ‘band aid’ solution to the “slot” time problem is to build a third runway for Heathrow but I suspect that this would only make transit problems worse. However, London Heathrow Airport is still the best place from which to enter London as the Piccadilly Line “tube” actually starts its journey into the heart of the metropolis from there.
British Airways runs a daily service between London Heathrow and Seattle using ancient 747 400 series planes in the Winter and sleek 777 Boeings during the Summer. I have travelled on both planes but it is the transit area of London Heathrow which persuades me to look elsewhere for a route.
Perchance to dream, my eye alights on the Lufthansa site wherein I see a nice airbus which runs between Seattle and Frankfurt each day. It leaves early in the afternoon and arrives in Frankfurt around nine o’clock next morning. This allows a relaxed transit to the Vienna connection which arrives at a decent time of day in Vienna. I book this route allowing plenty of time between my arrival in Frankfurt and the departure time of the Vienna flight.
Lufthansa only allow 23 kilos of checked luggage and mine comes to 22.6 kilos, thanks to a portable luggage scale which I discover is thankfully very accurate. But later, when we are waiting in the boarding area, a Lufthansa lady comes round and attempts to lift passengers’ hand luggage. The hand luggage of a nearby passenger weighs 16 kilos!!! Instead of charging a massive amount, the nice Lufthansa lady tells everybody that overweight or oversize hand luggage MUST be checked in but Lufthansa will charge NOTHING for this privilege. Very different from other airlines which we will not mention.
But before this comes the dreaded TSA. As I have arrived very early, I decide to refuse to be checked by a machine, even if the radiation level is very low. The TSA people are very polite and ask me to step aside and they will get a “specialist” to check me over. For this, I do not have to remove my belt or other appurtenances but I do have to take off my boots as usual. I am frisked very efficiently with no problems or embarrassment then the gloves worn are tested for drugs using the machine we have all seen on a television programme called “Border Protection” or something like that.
Next comes my contact with Homeland Security which is very important to me after the awful warning I received in Hawaii on my arrival, “Make sure you do not overstay this time or we will hound you for the rest of your life!” I somehow find the USA Customs in the bowels of the Airport Building and question a friendly officer on my status. He is appalled at the “hound you for the rest of your life” warning and assures me that, because I have stayed four months and a day in Seattle, they will definitely welcome me back in four months and a day’s time. This is good news because I have already booked my ticket!
The flight from Frankfurt has arrived on time
so, having completed my pre-flight duties, I relax and wait until my flight is called. On my way into the plane, I see piles of almost every German newspaper plus a number of English language newspapers including the FT. As I enter the aircraft I hear all the announcement being made in German!!! For various reasons this has a very emotional effect on me. We are ALREADY in Germany!!! I LIKE this. The aircraft looks brand new and very comfortable. I have reserved a centre aisle seat, knowing that nobody will book the two centre seats.
For some reason, Lufthansa cabin crew love to do the Seattle run. A couple of them told us that they must put their names down up to a year in advance to get this run. Of course we met them at the Seattle outlets where I buy most of my stuff at an average discount of 95% at least. A European visiting the outlets on just one day can save an amount equalling the airfare to the USA. But they also seem to like the city and perhaps the clean air which comes in from the Pacific. But it does mean that they are as sorry to be leaving as I am.
A self defence regime which many of us use on international flights is to order the vegetarian option on the menu. You get served first. But before this come the drinks. I am determined to sleep on this flight so I have three plastic tumblers full of red wine with my delicious huge meal . After the meal, I am offered a nice liquor but I choose to have a large brandy. That should really help, I think. The cabin crew keep plying us with drinks all through the night and even force us to devour delicious chocolates which they hand out in packets of three.
As usual, I hardly sleep at all. As usual I use the latest hi-tech video system to watch the route being followed by the plane. This system uses something like Google Earth prompted by the global position of the plane. This means we get a beautifully clear picture of the land below even when it is completely obscured by cloud. I notice that the pilot is not taking us by the normal route over South Greenland near Iceland but a longer route far South of this. In fact this looks like a straight line on out normal map projection instead of the grand circle route with which we are familiar. This results in a very smooth ride with hardly any turbulence and a picturesque ride over the Irish, Welsh and South England countryside before encountering the European mainland. Breakfast is yet another huge incredible meal – more like a dinner than a breakfast but of course in Seattle it IS dinner time.
In contrast to London’s Heathrow, Frankfurt is a vast expanse of countryside. I love it because it has a main DB station through which all the main trains run. You simply walk out from the customs hall down a corridor into the station. It’s that easy. But this time, I am changing on to another flight. I take the precaution of asking an attendant about my flight and he tells me that the departure gate has been changed.
The Vienna flight is fully booked and another nice Lufthansa person is rounding up all those naughty passengers who have exceeded their carry-on allowance but again checking them in with no charge. Passengers have the use of a rather nice coffee machine which makes coffee of various types directly instead of using capsules. I have a few hot chocolates as I wait for the flight to board.
I have travelled on the small 320 airbuses all over Europe and for some reason I love them. We shoot up to cruising height and have a very smooth ride into Vienna. I talk to a group from Texas who work in the IT business. I thought I had escaped from these sorts of people when I left Seattle.
I find my luggage and mosey down to the suburban rail link into the city. You need to know about this line because it is the only train which connects directly with the Vienna underground trains. It’s also a third of the price of the “Airport Train” which is advertised all over the place. You also cannot buy tickets before actually arriving on the platform. Luckily, more and more tourists are discovery that this train is actually more convenient, not just cheaper, than the “Airport Train”, thanks to the internet. I change at ‘Mitte’ on to the city underground system and must go two stops to Karlsplatz where my apartment is situated.
I dump my stuff and immediately rush to the nearby ALDI for supplies. (ALDI here has taken the name of the great Austrian hero HOFER – his name has been used and misused so much over the centuries – now he is a shop!!!!)
But my real arrival in Vienna comes a little later. I find that the Vienna Ballet is doing ‘Dornröschen’ tonight. They are doing the Peter Wright version of the great Marius Petipa masterpiece. A few weeks ago I had the privilege of seeing the older Ronald Hynd version of this classic
(some spiele)
(some dance)
also completely based on the Petipa choreography. Peter Wright had a very different entry into ballet from that of Ronald Hynd, who had a more traditional background. I will be truly rewarded by also seeing the Peter Wright version here in Vienna.
I also discover that my favourite baritone is singing ‘Wozzeck’ later in the month.
and there are also three performances of Евге́ний Оне́гин ((Yevgeniy Onegin as Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский’s grand niece taught me to say!!) which should also be marvellous.
I drink two cups of coffee and discover that the performance starts in thirty minutes. Enlivened by the coffee, I take the five minute walk to the Staatsoper. I approach the ‘secret’ side box office and pay my three euros. The box office man grins at me and says, “You’ve got the last one!!”. I reach my seat over the orchestra just in time to hear the beginning of this great work. Now and then I wander to the centre and actually stand to watch the whole stage. I’m home!!!
One day, when I was about ten years old and one of my sisters was about seven, my father gave us a sack and a little money with the request, “Go out into the country and fetch me a sack full of sheep manure”. I should perhaps add that sheep poo is regarded as an excellent fertiliser for chrysanthemums or dahlias – I can’t remember which – perhaps it is for both? It’s apparently also good for other plants.
At the bottom of our road was a number of bus stops, one of which was for the Green Line buses. The Green Line buses used to travel from one green area into London then out the other side to another green area on the other side of London. So we waited for the bus and , when it came, I asked the driver to stop when we came to a farm with a lot sheep poo in the fields.
When the bus driver spotted a decent haul, he stopped and let us off with a wistful gaze, hoping I suspect that we weren’t going to catch HIS bus on the way back.
We walked into the field and started collecting, watched by a bunch of surprisingly inquisitive sheep. “What are you doing with our poo?”, they seemed to be saying. The question that we had NOT asked was whether we should collect the fresh smelly gleaming poo or the dried up older stuff. Being a brilliant decision maker, even at that age, I decided that we would collect some of each. I can’t remember seeing the farmer but I’m sure he had a good laugh if he did chance to see us.
When we had finished filling the sack until it was almost to heavy to lift, we hailed the next bus and were taken back to our bus stop in Sudbury Town. I should add that we had always longed to travel on those fast single decker buses so this trip was really very exciting to us, travelling on a green line bus out into the countryside!!!
I used to love visiting the South Kensington museums. Here I would pay my respects to the enormous whale in the Natural History Museum
then go downstairs in the Science Museum where we could play with various devices and later perhaps attend one of the lectures.
For these visits, I would buy a “half ticket”. The man in the ticket office would take the ticket for South Kensington and ceremoniously snip it at exactly 45 degrees in half. He handed me one half and I have no idea what he did with the other half.
When I was about nine, I was a junior exhibitioner at Trinity college. This meant that every Saturday I would walk down to Wembley Central station and take the train to Baker street with my precious half return ticket. I would then enjoy walking through the lanes of Marylebone to Mandeville Place and back again later in the day.
In the Summer, we would sometimes take another type of train from Sudbury which would take us to Ruislip Lido for the day. One day we walked to Regents Park and got into the London Zoo by digging hole under the fence. But it was by underground train that we travelled back to Wembley. The network of different types of trains which ran through Wembley and Sudbury was amazing. we could travel anywhere for very little.
Later, when I lived in Chiswick, things were even better. Granted I could walk to the Polytechnic Harriers running track and the Boat Club by Chiswick Bridge. (It’s SO nice to row down the Thames in an eight when you are NOT racing!!!) I could even cycle to the the Bank of England Sports place by Richmond Park with a banker friend. But when I needed to go anywhere else in London, I would go from Chiswick Park on the “tube”or from another station for a curious Cross London line. For the South Bank concert halls, the Film Insitute(with that creepy voice doing the translations!) or the Hayward, I would take the direct District Line to Charing Cross and walk across the railway bridge with hundreds of others. For the Charing Cross Road bookshops or the Covent Garden Opera, I would change to the Piccadilly Line at Hammersmith. For Mornington Crescent BBC, I would change to the Northern Line. It was SO easy, as long as you avoided the Rush Hours!!!
But the most exciting journey we ever took was to Liverpool Street station where we caught the train to the Essex Coast. We were incredibly excited to be travelling to the seaside! Later, I found that you could drink Guiness in the pub’on the platform while you waited for the train.
Even in car country USA there is public transport. For example, there are two trains into Seattle from Everett in the morning and two trains back from Seattle in the evening. Bus transit stations are mushrooming all over the outskirts of the city with already full carparks and the centre is well served by all forms of transport including the famous monorail constructed initially for the 1966 exhibition. Then there are the famous ferries which run regularly and reliably from very early in the morning until late at night. All this is nothing compared with the amazing road system. It has always been evident to me that just stealing one lane from the major freeways would give any city in the USA another wonderful rail network. San Francisco has some railways in the middle of the road. At the moment car pooling is encouraged by HOV (High Occupancy Vehicles) lanes which can only be used by vehicles carrying two (sometimes three) or more people. Unfortunately I have often seen buses running along these freeways in off-peak times with no passengers. I suspect that this may soon change.
I can remember when London and Sheffield had excellent tram services. These were changed to bus services. In London, they even got rid of our favourite 662 trolley bus line into Paddington from Sudbury Triangle. Now they are coming back in Sheffield with their “superTram” – really just the same old trams.
City of London Mayor Boris, who often cycles into work, wants “bendy buses” for London and also wants to reinstate the OLD double deckers instead of the “very safe” buses that replaced the iconic Route-masters but not trams at this stage.. Buses even run throughout the night. But Boris has also introduced bikes throughout his city, has organised the Olympic Games, helped set up a thriving IT industry, and no doubt will be meeting the 2014 ’Tour de France’ when it arrives in London.
He has even managed to get Arnie’ on a bike!!
Boris is a REAL character whom many people feel would be a colourful Prime Minister if his old school mates at Eton and Oxford would let him. His reference to the present Prime Minister’s Oxford degree “PPE” is to a degree which has soupçons of Politics, Philosophy and Economics whereas Boris is a REAL scholar!! Look at the bewilderment on the face of his interviewer!!
Five years ago, when I was living in Florence, the city was building tram tracks. It was heartening to see the care with which the cobble stones were being replaced between the rails. Two years later I returned and was pleased to see that one route was already in operation. The city has a decent bus service and small electric buses for the back streets of the Old City.
The city rail services of Paris, Chicago and New York are well known from the many films made around them. When I see trams running down the streets of the old DDR at dusk, I immediately remember the spy stories that I have read about the East Germany. And then there are those amazing street cars of San Francisco; many of them retired trams from Melbourne Australia.
We all know the vaporetti and gondolas of Venice which often appear in movies but did you know that you can take a traghetto (public gondola) across the Grand canal for 50 cents? I used to take a traghetto from Cannaregio to the Rialto when I felt a little lazy. So public transport can be an evocative experience.
It’s difficult to assess the cities which have the best transport system for travellers without cars. On a recent trip to London I found the District and Piccadilly line trains to have plenty of seats at off-peak times. Arriving at Heathrow airport, it is still a good idea to travel into London by tube rather than by any other means of transport. But you will soon need an oyster card as many ticket offices are closing. The oyster cards enable travellers to prepay fares and operate the automatic gates leading to the trains. They can be recharged anywhere the ticket offices have been closed!!!
Australian cities have excellent public transport. Melbourne still has its trams and the suburban trains. Sydney also has excellent services and Brisbane also has a similar system using trains and buses.
From my house in Brisbane, I have a variety of choices if I want to use public transport to get into the city. At one end of the street is a bus service which runs every ten minutes during the day. At the other end of the street is a “glider bus” service also running into the town on a very tight schedule. “Glider” buses only take “goCards”. Like an oyster card, you wave the card in front of a machine as you enter and your fare is deducted from the card when you wave it again as you leave the bus. The whole idea is to speed up the buses.
If I walk down the road, I can catch the CityCAT into town. This catamaran uses the same fare zone system as the buses and travels very fast. It’s probably the most pleasant way to reach the city.
Another way they speed up the Brisbane bus services is to build “busways” through Brisbane. They go under buildings and over other roads to move buses quickly towards the suburbs. Buses travel along these busways at a good clip and the stops on the busways look like normal train stations.
One thing I like about the Brisbane system is that buses and trains coordinate quite well. A website will give you several options when asked how to get from one place to another at a certain time. When travelling from Brisbane to Noosa, a distance of over a hundred miles, the Noosa bus will actually meet the train at Nambour.
Of all the places I have visited,Vienna seems to have the best best inner city public transport system. Trams run everywhere and nobody has told the city that underground trains simply do NOT have to go that fast!! There is another train system altogether which runs into the surrounding countryside and also services the airport. If you travel from the airport on THIS system, it will cost a fraction of the cost of the highly publicised “Airport Train”. There is also an equally large bus system, as if that wasn’t already enough. There is an amazing network of cycle tracks alongside the roads with their own traffic lights. Yes, we really have to treat cycling as a form of public transport when it is organised SO well!!!They also have carriages drawn by two horses taking tourists around the old city.
One day, we tasted some wine in BILLA which purported to come from North of Vienna. Determined to find these vineyards, we jumped on a tram and stayed on until it reached the terminus. We walked up the valley looking for the vineyards and, seeing nothing, began our walk down on the other side of the valley. THEN we looked up!!! A huge hillside vista opened up above us and there were the vineyards. There’s wine in them hills!!! I suppose we should call that tram a Green Line tram?
Train travel has it’s poets. For me, it also has its composers. In one of my favourite films, ’Sun Valley Serenade’ with the actual Glenn Miller band performing, we hear them rehearsing my favourite railway song “Chattanooga Choo Choo”.
One of the first musique concrete pieces I ever heard was Pierre Schaeffer’s “Etude aux Chemins de Fer” based on railways sounds.
A very popular piece by a train addict and composer Arthur Honegger, who was heard to say, “”I have always loved locomotives passionately. For me they are living creatures and I love them as others love women or horses”, wrote a piece which sounded so much like a train that he changed the title to ‘Pacific 231’. That title helped the piece attain considerable popularity
Music in a different genre describes this journey on Canadian Pacific
And this describes a journey from Vancouver to Whistler.
Judging from these songs, people seem to like Canadian trains. Looking at the scenery in this video makes me want to travel to Canada immediately!
There are many folk songs about the railways and the people who built them, for example, ‘Paddy Works on the Railway’.
This is Cumbrian folksong about the Settle To Carlisle Railway. Many people died building those great railways.
I have it on excellent authority that this is an Indian Independence Day song dedicated to Indian Railways.
Many great authors and poets have written about the railways. Here’s Walt Whitman’s “To a Locomotive in Winter”
and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “From a Railway Carriage”
Even T S Elliot – Yes, the chap who wrote “Four Quartets” and “The Wasteland” !!! – has contributed some of his verse to railways in the form of -“Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat”
They even have poetry competitions about the railways. Here’s a very young poet.
Here’s an older competition winner – if you can hear her above the railway noise!!
But here is a poem in words and pictures from East Lancashire.
One of the earliest innovative use of poetry, music and film was produced by the British GPO (General Post Office) in 1936. It’s interesting that the Post Office felt the need to employ film directors, poets, composers and actors to inform the public about the night mail from London to Scotland. The poet is W H Auden and the music was written by Benjamin Britten.
“Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, the adoring,
The cold and official and the heart’s outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong”
It is difficult to visualise a world where the only modes of travel were trains, water transport and horse drawn vehicles. Railway travel was by far the most comfortable means of travel until the advent of the modern design of car.
One of the greatest British contemporary poets of the railways was John Betjeman. Some of his observations about the habits and demeanours of the English can be seen in this BBC documentary which is based on his poetry. (Only the BBC dare make a film like this!!!)
He was largely responsible for preventing the demolition of St Pancras railway station. Until he began speaking of its beauty, we all thought that all those Victorian monstrosities should be pulled down. But he touched on one aspect of travel which affected me personally.
The London “tube” trains did not just run underground in the centre of London. They ran out into the suburbs and beyond to the green countryside North of London. For example, here’s the line from Rickmansworth to Amersham.
We lived in Sudbury, part of Wembley town, where the 1948 “Austerity Olympics” were held. The other side of our road was green where we used to catch newts which flourished in the numerous bomb craters. When we wanted to travel further into the countryside, we would take the Piccadilly, Bakerloo or Metropolitan Line “tube trains”.
This idea of building a “tube” line into the open countryside entranced John Betjeman. Of course, this invited people to move out into settlements near the line as this ‘Metropolitan Line’ ran directly through London into the city of London where bankers and stockbrokers worked. So Betjaman wrote about ‘Metroland’ – Ruislip, where we used to catch the train for Ruislip Lido – Rayners Lane and all stations North in a Middlesex which was mainly countryside when he wrote this poetry. “London Wall” and “Farringdon” are in the city of London and “Oxford Street” is in the City of Westminster, renowned for the post Christmas sales. Here they meet at “Bakers Street Station” – not mentioned in this section of the poem – and catch the Met’ Line whose first stop is “Willesden” and a subsequent stop at “Rayners Lane” in the county of “Middlesex”. He buys a dozen plants for their Ruislip home before meeting that “evening at six-fifteen” under the platform indicator.
And all that day in murky London Wall
The thought of Ruislip kept him warm inside
At Farringdon that lunch hour at a stall
He bought a dozen plants of London Pride;
While she, in arc-lit Oxford Street adrift,
Soared through the sales by safe hydraulic lift.
Early Electric! Maybe even here
They met that evening at six-fifteen
Beneath the hearts of this electrolier
And caught the first non-stop to Willesden Green,
Then out and on, through rural Rayner’s Lane
To autumn-scented Middlesex again.
Below he describes a journey INTO London from the “leafy lanes of Pinner”, wherein is “Your parents’ homestead set in murmuring pines”. The train passes “Harrow” and “Preston” stations where green fields can still be seen but “Neasden” is where the metropolis of London really makes itself evident.
Early Electric! With what radiant hope
Men formed this many-branched electrolier,
Twisted the flex around the iron rope
And let the dazzling vacuum globes hang clear,
And then with hearts the rich contrivance fill’d
Of copper, beaten by the Bromsgrove Guild.
Early Electric! Sit you down and see,
‘Mid this fine woodwork and a smell of dinner,
A stained-glass windmill and a pot of tea,
And sepia views of leafy lanes in Pinner –
Then visualize, far down the shining lines,
Your parents’ homestead set in murmuring pines.
Smoothly from Harrow, passing Preston Road,
They saw the last green fields and misty sky,
At Neasden watched a workmen’s train unload,
And, with the morning villas sliding by,
They felt so sure on their electric trip
That Youth and Progress were in partnership.
I must admit that it is pleasing to read poetry about my home town of Wembley even though it is now largely a Hindu settlement with probably the funniest show on television “The Kumars at No. 42”
(Cliff Richard)
(Elis Costello mentions the song he wrote about the Hoover factory in Hangar Lane, Perivale)
(Alan Alda)
(Jennifer Saunders)
and a magnificent temple in Alperton, on the site of one of my sister’s high school, which would be on everybody’s “bucket list” if it were in India.
I used to love walking around the old stadium built for the 1924 Exhibition. There were various amazing buildings with great statues which had been converted for use by various companies. But apparently they have all now been destroyed. Here is the last building, the Palace of Industry, biting the dust.
The Met’ Line station for Wembley Stadium is “Wembley Park” and other ’stopping’ trains also serve the same station.
WHEN melancholy Autumn comes to Wembley
And electric trains are lighted after tea
The poplars near the Stadium are trembly
With their tap and tap and whispering to me,
Like the sound of little breakers
Spreading out along the surf-line
When the estuary’s filling
With the sea.
The next section of poetry mentions “Harrow-on-the-Hill”, another favourite walk of mine. The “constant click and kissing of the trolley buses hissing” talks about the trolley bus route which started in Sudbury and ran into the town at Paddington. They had very large tyres and the power supply cables made the sounds he describes. He mentions other localities such as “Wealdstone” and “Perivale” where the old Hoover Factory stood.
(I can remember doing a New Year’s gig at the old Hoover factory. Elvis Costello even wrote a song about it)
Benjemann is probably comparing the sea off his favourite Cornwall coast with the suburbs of London, about which he was writing at that moment. (By the way, there is a school on top of Harrow Hill!)
Then Harrow-on-the-Hill’s a rocky island
And Harrow churchyard full of sailors’ graves
And the constant click and kissing of the trolley buses hissing
Is the level to the Wealdstone turned to waves
And the rumble of the railway
Is the thunder of the rollers
As they gather up for plunging
Into caves.
There’s a storm cloud to the westward over Kenton,
There’s a line of harbour lights at Perivale,
Is it rounding rough Pentire in a flood of sunset fire
The little fleet of trawlers under sail?
Can those boats be only roof tops
As they stream along the skyline
In a race for port and Padstow
With the gale?
Here we see a commuter arriving home by train to her house in Ruislip. “With a thousand Ta’s and Pardon’s”. English people are usually extremely polite. If someone steps on your foot, it is ‘de rigour’ to say “Sorry” or “Pardon”. A polite reply might invite a “Ta” or “Thank you!”. But this area really WAS “our lost Elysium – rural Middlesex again”, a delight to come home to! A small suburban house with a garden was a dream realised by many people at that time. And television was improving enough to occupy people for much of the evening.
Gaily into Ruislip Gardens
Runs the red electric train,
With a thousand Ta’s and Pardon’s
Daintily alights Elaine;
Hurries down the concrete station
With a frown of concentration,
Out into the outskirt’s edges
Where a few surviving hedges
Keep alive our lost Elysium – rural Middlesex again.
Well cut Windsmoor flapping lightly,
Jacqmar scarf of mauve and green
Hiding hair which, Friday nightly,
Delicately drowns in Drene;
Fair Elaine the bobby-soxer,
Fresh-complexioned with Innoxa,
Gains the garden – father’s hobby –
Hangs her Windsmoor in the lobby,
Settles down to sandwich supper and the television screen.
It’s SO nice to read Betjeman waxing lyrical about Wembley and the River Brent. Here he talks about many other areas around the Metropolitan Line. I once saw an aircraft sitting on top of a house in Northolt. He compares the city places like “Kensal Green and Highgate”, where Karl Marx in buried, “silent under soot and stone” with Perivale, “Parish of enormous hayfields” and “Greenford scent of mayfields”. This is how it was. But times have changed. We have some beautiful parks in this area of London but Middlesex is no longer the county that Betjeman knew.
Gentle Brent, I used to know you
Wandering Wembley-wards at will,
Now what change your waters show you
In the meadowlands you fill!
Recollect the elm-trees misty
And the footpaths climbing twisty
Under cedar-shaded palings,
Low laburnum-leaned-on railings
Out of Northolt on and upward to the heights of Harrow hill.
Parish of enormous hayfields
Perivale stood all alone,
And from Greenford scent of mayfields
Most enticingly was blown
Over market gardens tidy,
Taverns for the bona fide,
Cockney singers, cockney shooters,
Murray Poshes, Lupin Pooters,
Long in Kensal Green and Highgate silent under soot and stone
Although he seemed to love a “tube” line, which still runs from the London Stock Exchange into the countryside North of London, he chose to be buried in his beloved Cornwall. (‘Port Isaac’ shown in part of this video is the setting for our favourite TV series “Doc Martin”)
I LOVE trains!! When I was very young in London, we all wanted to be train drivers of locomotives like this . . .
We stood by the lines and watched trains go by. We even donned anoraks and stood on railway station platforms.
(This video shows one of my favourites – the Kyle of Lochalsh line which starts at 47.47.)
The most popular short film on television was a very fast journey by (boring electric) train from London to Brighton. The BBC even used it for “intervals” between programmes instead of a kitten playing with a ball of wool.
Trains give you freedom of movement to a degree that no other form of transport allows. You can enjoy the countryside as it flashes by and normally arrive in the centre of the city or town to which you are travelling.
There’s a fascination about train travel. When we travelled from Chicago to Los Angeles some time ago, each day we were served the best Prime Rib I have ever tasted! Travelling with us for part of the route was a couple who told us that they lived “over there!” pointing out of the window in a northerly direction. They explained, “We have a farm which borders the railway. We promised ourselves that one day WE would travel on one of those trains! So here we are!!!”
On the way to Denver, there was a terrible BUMP and it felt as though the train was about to leave the rails. The train stopped and we all got out, looking for what could possibly have caused the bump. We found nothing.
The main city railways stations in the USA have always looked magnificent to me – temples of travel – so it is sad to see the decline of some of the long distance routes they serve. The good news is that Warren Buffet has been buying into US railways in recent years. Perhaps he sees a future for these enormous lengths of real estate?
Australia has few large cities but they are far apart. There are railways between cities but they can never rival flying as a means of travel. Now and then, plans emerge to build high speed rail links, but it may be some time before they eventuate due to the enormous costs involved.
It is in Europe that trains really rival air transport, thanks to TSA waiting times, the weather and volcanoes in Iceland. It eliminates the travel between city centres and airports, although Frankfurt has a main line station actually in the airport. Europe offers all sorts of “specials” and advance purchase deals, too numerous to describe, allowing unlimited travel in a variety of countries.
I began my European travels using “autostop” but, as soon as I started earning money in my vacations, I would leave a few weeks in September free to travel by train in Europe using a student rail pass through France to Italy where the sea was warm, unlike England. I stayed in youth hostels like the castle in Scilla, Calabria and the huge palace in Florence. It was wonderful to meet the people on the journeys by train and confront Italian history through the wonderful sites all over the country.
Later on, we used the Eurail pass to travel, a first class advance purchase deal. The seats could extend from one side of the carriage to the other, allowing us to sleep only three to a compartment at night. I remember one journey from Holland where a great flute player played us into sleep when he discovered that I knew the people with whom he had been performing in the Hague Festival. We slept well!! On that particular trip, we travelled down to Verona for the opera but later we travelled north to Norway and south as far as Sicily.
It is in Switzerland that railways REALLY come into their own. We spent much of our time in Switzerland simply enjoying the scenery from the many amazing rail lines throughout the country. My favourite train journey is from Tirano in Italy to St Moritz in Switzerland and I have used this route many times. It takes much longer than any other route but I LOVE that journey and, of course, the route onwards from St Moritz initially to Chur. and then there are the mountain railways with spectacular views
Travel around Europe can be very cheap. To make travel even cheaper, I have the Itralian Carta d’Argento, the Deutsche Bahn BahnCard and the ÖBB Vorteilscard. These give discounts of up to 50% in their home country and a “rail plus” discount in all other EU countries.
I like to take the ICE trains in Germany, the Railjet trains in Austria and the equivalent high speed trains in other parts of Europe. German Railways has a wonderful website with which to plan journeys. Other countries have equivalent sites but I have often found it easier to plan journeys in these other countries using the DB site deutschebahn.com.
Some aspects of travel cannot be totally planned. I remember waiting on the Munich train station with some other people for the train to Venice. The train carriages were pushed into the station and the condition of the carriages was terrible. The last carriage actually had the doors tied on with string!!! Believe it or not, we actually got in the train and had a good laugh together on the way over the alps!!! Train travel can be fun if not always perfect!!!
British rail travellers to Europe are lucky as there is an excellent website called “The man in seat 61”. For example, here’s his video on the ‘special’ from 45 GBP starting in London or anywhere in East Anglia to anywhere in Holland.
And here is his video showing you how to take my favourite train route between Italy and Switzerland.
There are plenty of videos on the internet produced by people who love trains or love travelling by train. But Michael Portillo, besides his very serious ‘Moral Maze’ programmes, has made it his business to make a large number of television programmes on train travel often quoting from the Bradshaw guides of 1913 and earlier. Many of us may not have been impressed by his activities whilst in the British Government but he is certainly in the right groove when exploring the railways of Britain and Europe. I’m putting selection of his videos in the page in the sidebar but here’s an example first of his programmes on Britain.
And here is one of his programmes on Europe.
If I ever visit India, it will be by train that I will travel. But meanwhile I can do this part of my ‘bucket list’ completely by means of internet videos!! Thank you to all those people who have taken the trouble to film all those wonderful journeys!!
The reasons why we all seem to ‘up and go’ when we have time must, needs be, remain personal. Therefore I can only discuss these reasons from a very personal point of view. But there must be extremely good reasons why we are prepared to squeeze ourselves into metal tubes for long periods of time and be transported to places far, only to return some time later.
The philosopher Alain de Botton has attempted to analyse why people travel in his book ‘The Art of Travel’. He observes that few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains but I cannot believe that this compensates for the discomfort of travel these days? He also thinks that few things are as exciting as the idea of travelling somewhere else. Of course, when you get back showing your videos or photos, there is an urge to say, “I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.” But I wonder how many people agree with him when he writes, “The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.” Mindset is MORE important than the destination? But it must be important, if not the most important factor affecting the way we enjoy other cultures.
I should also add that, although I have never been on a cruise and never intend to go on a cruise, I know many people who do enjoy cruises, unlike Alain de Botton.
Here in Seattle we have our own travel guru – Rick Steves one of the USA’s most active travel enthusiasts. In Edmonds not far from here, he runs classes on travel not directly connected to his commercial activities of running tours and writing guide books.
Rick Steves has concentrated almost entirely on European travel in his business activities. Recently, he has widened his personal activities and has also taken an interest in the purpose of travel.
Although he terms one purpose as “A Political Act”, I feel that he is talking more about international relations and global communication than politics.
But he is repeating his mantra on the value of travel. He runs travel groups which are small enough to enjoy the culture of the countries they visit.
On the other hand, personally I only recently discovered what “bucket list” tourism actually is and the effect it has had on various places on that “bucket list”. But who could argue with the theme of this film?
Apart from this, I couldn’t believe that people were prepared to travel to distant places just for the purpose of actually having been there. But who can see anything terribly wrong with these aspirations?
I presume that, for some people, there is an element of “keeping up with the Jones’s” but I DO know that some people simply enjoy travelling to places with different cultures and traditions. These people, I DO respect. They are not “bucket list” tourists, although they may have an agenda which looks very similar to a ‘bucket list’.
I remember walking behind an American couple in Florence. As we approached the Duomo, I heard one of them gasp and say, “Wow!! what’s that?” The other said “I have no idea!! I’d better look in the guide.” I had the impression that, not only did they not know anything about Florence, but they had no idea in which city they were walking.
Where do I fit into this?
I find that any ‘bucket list’ I have is quite adequately serviced by watching television programmes and excellent videos on YouTube. These are the videos which sell those huge flat screens in shops. I remember flying over the Grand Canyon in a Disneyland cinema many years ago before we had flat screen televisions
and diving deep in the ocean with Jaques Cousteau. The great thing about this type of documentary is that I simply don’t need to do this myself!
But there will be some who have been ‘turned on’ by these early programmes. Some will spend the whole of their vacation time under the water somewhere in the world. Others will hike all the great trails of the world. An introduction to an activity through video can lead to a very satisfying life.
In Europe, climate drives people south, although I am rather puzzled that this now happens mainly in the summer when temperatures in places like Italy, Spain and Greece can be excessively high. In Australia also, people will travel North towards the equator but this avoids the extremes of temperature well over 40 Celsius which can occur in cities in the South like Melbourne. In times past, the English, rich enough to travel, went south also in the Winter to places like the French Riviera.
This still happens in the USA where the “snowbirds” from the North will travel South in the Winter. Some of the best ballet performances I have seen in recent years were in Sarasota.
These “snowbirds” put their money where their passions lie! They also support a fine enthusiastic orchestra which makes up for the fact that they are not in New York or Boston for the Winter.
My interests are history and music history. But I have travelled to other places without being driven by these interests. I can remember being invited to smoke opium with the guardians of a sufi shrine in Iran – being one of only six people who managed to get on our flight from Jordan after the King had decided to fly the plane to London together with his entourage – surviving a force ten gale in the Bass Strait – camping on the Plage de Pampelonne St Tropez for several summers –
– ski mountaineering with the Austrian Alpine club (The Zuckerhütl (3.507 m) in den Stubaier Alpen is an up – down – up job but a lovely ski down)
– hiking the Rosengarten with a German group who wanted the Sud Tyrol ceded back to Austria(!!!) –
– spending a whole summer on Sweetwater beach in South Crete and other such memories, the sort of which we all treasure.
When I was first able to travel for unlimited times, I chose Florence as my first port of call for a period of three months, despite having hated Florence many years before when I had spent the summer in a very quiet Siena. I chose Florence because I regarded the history of Florence as MY history. Everything that went on in Florence years ago has affected my life directly and indirectly. In a similar way, I found that Jerusalem was not only part of my history because of my Christian experience. I found that standing in the City of David where the psalms were put together was an amazing experience as I had chanted and sung those psalms so many times.
Even standing where Zadok anointed Solomon was almost as amazing because of the British Coronation anthem.
Here’s the Coronation anthem.
All these modern associations convinced me that the history of Jerusalem and Palestine was also my history.
I must confess that, when the Summer tourist season approached, I simply ran away to South Crete where there were fewer tourists. My ultimate escape was to Gavdos, the southernmost point of Europe in the Libyan sea, with a tiny resident population of less than 30 but a larger number of enterprising visitors.
Of course Gavdos has its own history. St Paul was wrecked there on his way to Rome and it is probably the island called Ogygia where Kalypso kept Odysseus a prisoner. (Who could be so unfortunate?)
After most of the tourists have returned to their lairs, it is time to return to the centre of Europe. Vienna is a no-brainer for musicians and people interested in Music History. It’s the birth place of both Classical Music beginning with Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and Modern Music beginning with Schönberg, Webern and Berg. As we know, there’s also other history. For example, there was a street called ‘Blutgasse’ a few metres from my first room in Vienna.
Most people have heard of Salzburg, the birth place of Mozart, and the setting for ‘A Sound of Music’. It’s also the place where Michael Haydn produced most of his masterpieces. You can view the actual rooms where Mozart was born and the larger premises which the family later occupied. But it does not have the feeling of Vienna. When I walked round Vienna, it still had the feeling that it was the centre of Europe.
Leipzig is the centre of the world for Bach lovers. The choir Bach worked with still sings Motets on Fridays and Saturdays. The legendary Gewandhaus orchestra still occupies pride of place on the European music scene and you can visit Mendelssohn’s house which he occupied as the first real Music Director of any orchestra.
It was no surprise to me that, after hearing the great Masses of the first Viennese school in Vienna, St Marks was performing music of the great age of Venetian music with the customary polyphonic layout of the choir.
La Fenice has been rebuilt in the old horseshoe shape so we were still not able to see the whole stage anywhere but in the centre of the auditorium but I suppose the old story of the new theatre rising from the ashes of the old was fulfilled.
These are obvious places to which a person fascinated by music and history can go to meditate. I have enjoyed music in many other European cities including Prague, Budapest and Köln to say nothing about many years in London. I still hate TSA and squeezing into a metal (or carbon fibre if you are lucky enough to travel in a 787) tube for up to 14 hours – in fact I can thoroughly recommend the European express trains as I then pack all my Eurogear plus printer into my heavy duty wheelie and stretch my feet out!!!
In fact I HATE travelling but it’s SO nice when you get there and stay for a LONG time!!!
It was during one Summer long ago that I first attended the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. I attended the conducting course run by Sergiu Celibidache and actually took the Italian course run by Siena University.
The conducting course was held in the town theatre.
Celibidache had been conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic before Karajan. Incidentally, the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic after Karajan was Claudio Abbado, who had attended Celibidache’s class in Siena.Other people who had been in Siena included Zubin Mehta and Daniel Barenboim.
Celibidache was into Zen Buddhism and would rise early each morning to meditate before classes. He believed that hearing music live can induce a transcendental experience in those present – something I also believe. He therefore reckoned that recordings that did not induce this experience were worthless.
Later, I was present at one of the first rehearsals he did with the London Symphony Orchestra. At the time, the wind section of the LSO was the finest in the world, including Barry Tuckwell on the horn, Gervese de Peyer on clarinet, Anthony Camden on oboe. In one section where the wind section was playing on its own as a group, he stopped conducting. The orchestra played on then stopped looking very puzzled. Anthony Camden asked, “Why did you stop conducting?” The maestro replied, “You were playing so well – you didn’t need me to conduct you”. This reminded me that the best instrumental performers are usually the best listeners. He seemed to get on well with the LSO.
The Accademia Musicale Chigiana was set up by Count Chigi of Saracini. The story went that Count Chigi had no heirs and was devoting his fortune to music. There were scholarships and the fees were tiny. I also believe that the fees for the hostel room in which we stayed were also subsidised by the Count. The teachers were great performers like Segovia on guitar, Fernando Germani on organ, Nicanor Zabaleta on harp plus many others.
Arriving at the hostel was interesting as pianos were being hauled up the stairs for students to use during the course. I was amazed that one man would carry a piano all on his own up the stairs to the room.
Coming from uncultured Britain, we needed a little tutoring in Italian manners. The first lesson in manners was in the student mensa. We were each given a serviette (table napkin or tovagliolo) with a ring and assigned a pigeon hole in which to keep it. They were changed each day. “Only barbarians eat without cloth serviettes!”, said our server. Amongst other useful skills, I learned the correct way to approach a plate of pasta lunga!!! We found out that we could have a really nice shower in a petrol station at the bottom of the hill on which Siena is built. We also learned that the real Italian, as promoted originally by Dante, has only ever been spoken in Siena. (They sure don’t speak it in Firenze!!!)
If the days were stimulating with very individual views on music from Celibidache, the evenings were amazing treats. Count Chigi brought in some of the finest performers in the world who gave concerts in his palace. One interesting feature of the performances was that, at the end of each piece, they would bow to the Count before acknowledging our applause. We had no worries about that. We were so grateful to be able to hear these great players. The only slight annoyance was that the flunky on the door insisted that we were “dressed appropriately” which could be hot in the rather warm Siena Summer evenings.
The funniest feature of living in the hostel was the “eight o’clock chord”. Students were allowed to practice their instruments in the rooms but only after eight o’clock in the morning. So, at exactly eight o’clock, every instrumentalist in the hostel would play an enormous chord or note and we would rush out to buy fresh rolls for breakfast.
We were in a room next to a student learning the Shostakovitch first cello concerto. So, every morning at eight o’clock, we heard those four notes which begin that piece. And we heard the rest again and again more often that we wanted! When we attended a concert recently with Pieter Wispelwey playing this Shostakovitch concerto, I realised that the solo part was still engraved in my memory!!
Life in Siena back then was a dream. There were hardly any hotels around the city at that time, in fact there were none that I knew of, so any buses which pulled into the campo at lunch would leave before the end of the day. The only time that the city became busy was during the ‘Palio’ times.
Here is a better view of the actual race.
There were many distinguished teachers around. I ‘hung around’ Alfred Cortot’s class one day. This must have been almost his last utterance and I didn’t understand a word but it was Alfred Cortot!!! We heard talk of Pablo Casals still arguing with Gaspar Cassadó despite Yehudi Menuhin persuading Casals to “forgive” Cassadó some years earlier. John Williams, a student in the Guitar class around that time, has recently been very critical of Segovia’s approach to teaching so all was not smooth in the interaction between students and tutors.
The composition course was run by Vito Frazzi whose “scala alternate” represented a considerable musical mountain to scale before students could compose much music. But the film music course was run by Angelo Lavagnino, a much more colourful composer, to say the least.
One day Lavagnino announced to students that the next meeting would be in Cinecittá Studios in Rome where he had a gig in two days time. I immediately changed from the Conducting Course and travelled down to Rome on the back of my friend’s motorbike to the studios where we saw music being added to what seemed to be a slightly risqué film. We also took the opportunity to go down to Casino. Caserta, Amalfi, Cumae, Sperlonga and other places on the way back to Siena.
Cumae was a great experience because of the acropolis under which the famous Sibyl was said to have resided. Virgil describes the place where the Sibyl prophesied the future and it is possible to work out, from book 6 of the Aenied, where she sat.
Riding away from Cumae, the most strange thing happened. As we rounded a corner, there was a car facing us travelling quite fast. To avoid collision, we went to one side – the LEFT side!! Much to our amazement, the approaching car ALSO went to their left side. The people in the car were also British so had instinctively gone to the left. The sibyl was obviously looking after us all!
Palio week was very busy and it was said that the Count produced sufficiently large bribes to enable our contrada to win the horse race. This meant that there was loud ringing from a huge bell just outside our hostel window for a couple of days.
When the course finished, I sat and watched Celibidache rehearse a single symphony for almost a whole week. He knew exactly what he wanted and the orchestra loved him despite the frequent very direct comments. I do remember one piece of ‘tongue in the cheek’advice to students. “If you stop the orchestra and do not know what to say, just say the second oboe is flat – the second oboe is ALWAYS flat”
If you are in Tuscany, you just have to visit Siena. Unfortunately this message has reached the whole world and the place has changed in response. It’s contemporary “bucket list” tourism!!
If you do take the trip, you’ll probably feel a different person because ley lines meet there and there are fresh breezes on top of the hill. However, the most important thing to do on a hot day is to take that hill into account. That’s why we take the bus there so we can be transported to the top.
I visited Siena a number of times during the sixties. I even took an Italian language course at the university and attended courses in the Accademia Musicale Chigiana. It was worth it just for the concerts in the evening held in Count Chigi’s palace. The downside was the fact that we had to ‘dress appropriately’ even in the hot summer weather. The list of performers was amazing. Count Chigi had no heirs so he was spending all his wealth on musicians, or so the story went. The quaint thing about the concerts was that performers, when they took a bow, would bow to the side of the stage where the Count had his seat and virtually ignore us. But that is so long ago!! What would the place be like now?
We take the ‘express’ bus to Siena. It takes ages just to squeeze the bus through narrow streets and escape from Florence into the country outside. When at last we reach the autostrada, we find a very bumpy road, desperately needing a complete rebuild as far as I could see. It’s a relief to climb the hill and arrive at the Siena bus station at last.
The outskirts of the city have changed beyond belief in the last forty years. Suburbia surrounds the city. I remember my last visit to Aspen which has been affected in a similar way. As we walk towards the campo. we see clumps of tourists in similar numbers to those you would find around the Palazzo Pitti or Santa Croce in Florence. At least it has not yet reached the numbers that Florence experiences around the Duomo.
We order coffees and sit undercover gazing at the campo as people are supposed to do. The campo has an oval saucer-like shape designed so that, if you stand anywhere within it, you can see every other part. This comes in useful during the palio when the whole place is packed full of people trying to watch the horserace around the perimeter. I like the idea of this horserace because it is the first horse with or without jockey that wins.
I walk down the street where the student hostel used to be and recognise some of the shops which used to sell very strange bits and pieces for dead people. Instrumental practice was allowed in the hostel during the day but not until eight o’clock in the morning.
There weren’t many tourists around in the sixties. We would see the odd bus drive into the campo, knowing that it would soon leave because there were no hotels in the centre of the city. That’s changed. Some buildings even within the old city have been converted into very swish hotels. They run tours around Count Chigi’s palace but we resist the temptation to join one. The lanes of Siena seem a tiny bit more spacious than in Florence but that campo is still amazing.
We had planned to have a gourmet lunch but we see a buffet full of about twenty to thirty antipasti and primis in a restaurant just near the Duomo. This looks too good to ignore. But I do warn you not to go to this lunch unless you forego breakfast!!
The MD is a jovial man who rushes off to get our wine only to return immediately saying, “Sorry but we don’t have your choice. How about one of these?” I see St Gimignano on one of the labels and I say, “Our friend Tony Blair lives there!”
“What a coincidence!”, he says. This is made by a friend of mine who is also a good friend of Tony Blair!!” Obviously, if you come across a good local wine, you immediately befriend the chap who makes it!!
We have recently discovered a good selection of decent but cheap whites from this area. and, of course, I have tasted some good reds as well two weeks ago. So we have no hesitation in ordering a bottle of the Tony Blair. As expected, it is a beautiful delicate white wine which goes down well with the enormous selection of goodies on the centre table.
After another afternoon walk we decide to head for the station. I remember it as a simple downhill walk but the route is now a winding road which seems to take for ever to arrive at the station. We just manage to catch the train by running across the tracks.(No worries!! It’s Italy!) and at last enjoy the delights of an extremely smooth air-conditioned ride back to Florence. Take the train – it’s a more comfortable ride.
My conclusion? The world has changed. I’m now glad that I chose Florence in which to settle rather than any other place in Tuscany!
“Ah!!! The Outlets!!!”, many of us might say. Things are a little different in the USA from many other countries but this style of shopping has been with us for some time. Here’s a “haul” from the Prada Outlet in Florence . . . .
First there are the Shopping Malls which have spread everywhere. Is this really a video advertising Portland Mall?
In Seattle, there are outlet shops of various types selling stuff which has failed to catch on in the major stores. Nordstrom even has its own outlet called “The Rack” which sells at down to a third of the original price; lower when the stock doesn’t move.
Here’s a good “haul” from “The rack”
Admittedly, the original Nordstrom prices can be somewhat confronting but the main store in Seattle and others has a pianist playing at the bottom of the escalators and sometimes even its own choir at Christmas!!!
For the largest range of bargains, you have to go outside the main city to ‘The Outlets’. Our nearest is the ‘Seattle Premium Outlets at Tulalip’. This centre is regularly invaded by Canadians and there is even a direct bus from Vancouver hotels and the airport.
The number of stores here is enormous as can be seen from the following list. I only quote the URL because the list is so long.
So what do you do when faced with so many discount stores?
The first thing is to bone up on your arithmetic. One of the most amusing discount signs I have seen is . . .
EVERYTHING IN STORE REDUCED 70% THEN TAKE OFF A FURTHER 30%
I hope that most people will realise that something starting off at $100 will be reduced initially to $30 and the further reduction of 30% will reduce the price by $9 giving a sales price of $21. It’s NOT free – only a total discount of 79%.
As you enter each store, you are surrounded by signs advertising myriads of discounts. In some stores, if you message the store while you are actually in it, you will receive a 10% discount on the bill you are about to pay. On Tuesdays, seniors receive an additional 10%. If you join the club connected to the store, you get a further 20%. The “club” will also email discounts up to 40% and sometime details of amazing “flash sales”. The offers are never ending!!! I can remember one of my first purchases in Calvin Klein, made of the softest material I had ever felt, being marked down with various discounts – because it was one of my first buys – until the price was four dollars. Unbelievable!!
For the male buyer, things are fairly simple. You enter the store and head for the clearance racks at the back. They usually say “80% off the lowest advertised price” or “70% off” so you might end up paying less than one tenth the of the original outlet price or less. In the Burberry store I found a reduction to one ninth of the outlet price even though the item was in the window. In Hilfiger some time ago, they even hid their most incredible reductions – some around $5 or so – in the changing room corridor which was very confusing.
Here you can view somebody exhibiting their “haul” to all and sundry . . .
The disquieting side of all this is that it looks as though the Outlets represent a significant sector of the retail clothes trade. Not only are Amani, Burbery and Tommy Bahama represented in this sector but almost all our favourites are there. Only distance separates the retail shops from their outlets and, as mentioned above, Nordstrom has already changed that aspect. From the the European, British and Australian perspective, visits to the Outlets can actually pay for the air fare to the USA.
At a recent International Dentists Conference in Seattle, the spouses were not to be found at the Space Needle. They were in the Outlets. One German dentist’s wife had bought two enormous white fluffy bathrobes. When I asked why she couldn’t buy them in Germany, she answered, “These have the Ralph Lauren emblem on them. They are a steal here – probably a fifth of their cost in Germany.”
But it is only by visiting the Outlets once every few weeks and buying only the items you need and only when they are priced at about 90% discount that you can accumulate a decent “haul”. The stock changes all the time and the item you dearly desire will eventually appear at incredible discount. Luckily, I live not too far from the Seattle Premium Outlets in Tulalip so I can actually do this. Now I need a larger closet!!!
Leaving behind the sad farewells, I endure the terrors of TSA before enjoying the pleasures of the overpriced duty free area. As usual, my plane is late and I have plenty of time to convert my remaining Australian change into US dollars before boarding my 767 flight to Hawaii.
We have been told that the plane is “full” but the forward cabin of economy has empty seats . We all move around and I end up with a aisle seat plus the window seat. The larger rear cabin is full of people joining a relocation cruise in Hawaii which goes via Tahiti and other exotic islands en route to Sydney
The engines sound a little labored as we take off but they settle down as soon as we are cruising around 33,000 feet. The plane is old and rather primitive without any of the luxuries normal on a flight heading to Europe. The sound channels do not work very well and we cannot hear any of the announcements from the crew; even on the cabin speaker system.
I have some tablets from my doctor “to help me sleep”. The airline has supplied us with earplugs. I have been informed by “a reliable source” that these tablets work best after a glass of wine so I make sure I have two beakers full of wine with my meal which consists of chicken and rice, a piece of cheese with a cracker and – the grand finale . . . . a tim tam!!!!
I take the tablet and I don’t experience the slightest hint of drowsiness. So I take another one. That doesn’t seem to make any better either. No worries!!! I just sit there for nine and a half hours. I try sleeping on my side using both seats but that isn’t any better. Being in the forward cabin means that the continual slight turbulence doesn’t bother me – or is it the magic pills? – but, as usual, I hardly get any sleep.
I am SO happy when the plane begins its descent into Honolulu. Our “breakfast” was a bag full of goodies given to us by the cabin crew who did manage to rustle up a fairly decent cup of tea, thank goodness.
My interview with Homeland Security is NOT pleasant. I am given a stern warning before having my photograph taken. “If you overstay your visit by even one day, WE will hound you for the rest of your life!!!” Two years ago the Canadian border control took the date card out of my passport and apparently did not send it to Homeland Security. When I tried to enter the USA again soon after, the Homeland Security man gave me a long lecture, saying that I must stay away for over a year before entering the USA again. I had been good and had stayed away the required year despite an incident which made me want to return during that time. I remember the comment by the Homeland Security before taking my photograph back then. “We have enough work to do with illegals without having to worry about YOU!!!!” But they are really a nice bunch of people trying their best to protect the USA giving me excellent advice and I DO appreciate it when he lets me in!!!!
Now I have a problem. During the journey, one of the cabin crew brought me a beaker of pineapple juice just before a turbulent bump which spilt juice all over my trousers. As the juice poured over on to me, I made efforts to escape from my seat but only succeeded on ripping one side of my trousers. The rip was over two feet long (OK about 600 mm or 0.6 metre for the rest of the world!) on my right hand side. I managed to get the cabin crew to give me a cleaning cloth but they did not possess any sewing skills or materials. I therefore approached the oldest and kindest looking lady in the airport bookshop for help. She had some sellotape which she used to tape the lengths of trouser together. Nice lady!!! I had bought the trousers from the Tommy Hilfiger Outlet two years ago for eight dollars but, as they had five pairs in my size, I bought the lot. So I now have one pair left in Brisbane and three pairs in Seattle. No worries about this pair!!!!
I had booked an aisle seat in the rear cabin for the flight from Hawaii to Seattle but, I manage to persuade a staff member to book me another middle seat in the forward cabin, hoping to grab any vacant places in front. He also gives me a little ticket which enables me to go through the TSA line where you do not have to take off your belts and shoes. The line for the normal TSA is about a hundred yards (We’re in the USA now!) long and the “quick ” line fills the departure hall and goes about fifty yards outside in the rather humid early morning air.
This time, it really IS a full flight. To get to the departure point we must all be scanned for vegetables and fruit!!! As I enter the plane, I ask if I can move to an aisle seat. Much to my amazement, they give me an aisle seat level with the back seats of the first class cabin. Fantastic!!! The short five and a half hour flight is not as awful as the previous nine and a half hour flight but the primitive “entertainment” is exactly the same as the first flight. First we see a film about Hawaii which seems to have been filmed in super-eight followed by “The Great Gatsby” and an episode of a TV soap. I really must try to see the Gatsby film again so I can find out what the characters are saying.
As we approach Seattle, the captain tells us to prepare for “turbulence just before we land due to a 120 knot jetstream”. As it is now over 20 hours since Brisbane and I am sitting almost at the front of the plane it bothers me little!! I breathe a sigh of relief as I greet the New World.
Keith of Ninewells 