European Tour

---

I am on a delightful terrace in the old city of Sarlat. On the table, next to ‘Blackie’ (our laptop,) I have crusty bread, a fresh, creamy, herb cheese and a glass of red to wash it all down, (Saint Emilion.) Love France! We are having some R & R with Rosie, a neighbour from Mosman who has sorted this delightful old home as a base for her ‘walking’ adventures through Italy and France. In a few days we will start our walking adventure. Glenda and I take a train to St. Jean Pied de Port to start the Way of St. James, (El Camino de Santiago de Compostela,) a 775 km ancient pilgrimage.
I am waiting for Glenda, who is browsing through the markets in the old town, so what better time than to finish off the second instalment of our travel notes………

Our last days in India seemed to have whizzed by, even the 7 hour train trip from Rishikesh to New Delhi was a breeze. On this occasion however, we had booked well ahead and managed to get first class tickets that ensured a comfortable trip with just 2 people allotted to a seat - 4 in the cabin. This was such a contrast to our first train trip in India from Alleppey to Kannur. We pretty much got the last booked seats on the train in 3rd class non AC. Our carriage was not too difficult to locate, nor was the cabin and even our seats were easy to find, the small issue however, was that there were people sitting on them. By people, I mean people. Glenda had about two sitting on her allocated space and mine looked like 3 or even 4, hard to tell really as each compartment has two bench seats facing each other, with allocated space for four people on each bench. There were 17 people in the compartment including 3 up top on the luggage racks. Although I feel I was able to confirm, with smiles and nods, that we did in fact have the right reserved spaces, it really didn’t make much difference. In 3rd class non AC; even if you have not paid for your train ticket, it’s more a case of first in best dressed. Armed with this knowledge and at the next stop as throngs got off and throngs waited to get on, Glenda and I dived for the few free spaces that opened up and had somewhere to sit, more or less, for the next 6 hours.
We arrived into New Delhi train station at midnight and had the usual swarm of rickshaw and taxi wallahs surrounding us, offering us best prices, best taxis etc. All you normally do is push on through the mob until you get to the official taxi stand, which generally has the same wallahs touting there as well. On this occasion however, we negotiated our price with one particularly persistent man, on the move. Negotiations completed, he directed us to a small side exit at the station, where we were asked to wait whilst he got the car. A few minutes later he appeared in a beat up old car (not a taxi) with one headlight missing and stops a few meters away. He seemed a bit flustered and called over to someone to help him move what appeared to be a load of stuff on the back seat. Worryingly, however, the load of stuff that gets hauled off the backseat and plonked onto the footpath appears to be a seemingly lifeless body. Glenda and I look at each other in absolute disbelief and horrifyingly run down the road toward the main entrance of the station with the ‘taxi’ guy chasing us. At the real taxi stand we sort out a new quote that involves a huddle of drivers conferring, before a young driver is appointed to take us to our hotel. That marks the end of yet another travel adventure with us both pondering on our own episodes of what the likely state of the seemingly lifeless body really was.
Our flight from Delhi to Amsterdam was leaving at 6am, so we booked and paid for a hotel that was close to the airport. However when we finally arrived there … yes, you guessed it; there were people in our room! Well at least their bags and personal possessions were, they had been unable to check out and were stranded somewhere else in Delhi due to some political demonstrations or similar issues of which I was not quite sure as the manager’s English seemed to slip more and more during the explanation. All got sorted however as he escorted us down the road and organised us into a comparable hotel.
We took off from Delhi on time and as the lights below us dimmed in the distance, I was amazed to feel some pangs of loss in leaving. India had certainly impacted on me. During the first couple of weeks, in such a confronting manner, that I felt I wouldn’t be able to handle the time we had allocated to this part of our journey. India, however, is a great teacher and together with Glenda’s patience and encouragement I became more and more adapt at travelling and experiencing this amazing country and its wonderful people.
I believe I was a more enriched traveller, sitting; chin resting on my hand looking out of the window of seat 8a.The new dawn was breaking. There was a fine slither of light on the horizon and the sky was blueing up from dark to light. There is nothing quite like a dawn at 35,000 feet, especially when you are offered a fresh coffee and a nice breakfast. No first class here mind you, however economy class in air Jordan was really cool.
Flying into Schiphol airport, there is no mistaking that you are arriving in Holland. There are green fields, tulip farms and patchworks of canals everywhere of varying size, ferrying out water. More so as you taxi towards the terminal, the interactive passenger flight information tells you that you are one meter below sea level.
Holland is a bit of a homecoming for me. Not just because of catching up with “Dutchies” (the name I have affectionately given to my relatives living there,) however there’s something more. On this trip I put it down to hearing the language. Dutch was the language I heard during my babyhood and I feel that there is some grounding happening deep in that head of mine when I hear the language spoken around me. There are also so many things I like about the country. I love the way so many people use bikes as their method of transportation and the wonderful bikeways provided for them. I feel the people are really easy going and you are made to feel very welcome and although Holland is a modern country there is a fairy-tale cuteness about the place through maintaining the older buildings, cobbled stone streets and windmills.
Staying with the Dutchies helped us assimilate quickly into the cultural experience of Holland and we started to feel like locals. Glenda certainly looked like a local on one particular morning, as she set off on a borrowed bike with her yoga mat strapped onto her back to join one of my cousins at her regular Yoga class. Actually there is quite a strong Yoga history amongst some of my overseas family and I dare say that puts me in good stead to assist at more of Glenda’s future Yoga retreats.
Glenda had prepared me for the cultural shock that I would experience in the modern world after having left India and this obviously was instantly recognisable in an organised and functional country like Holland. Having said that … a trip to Amsterdam can also be quite confronting. Things that are often hidden behind closed doors in most countries are life like and real in Amsterdam with shop front billings. The famous Red Light district, the Sex Shops and the “Coffee Shops” (that openly sell marijuana) are all there for everyone to see. There was one particular Dutch ‘must do’ on my agenda and that was to have fresh herring washed down with a cold beer at a footpath stall. Mind you, no kisses from Glenda until I had thoroughly brushed my teeth later that evening!
Whilst in Holland, we took the opportunity to do a mini road trip with the Dutchies to Brussels and Luxemburg. In Brussels, it was off to a restaurant for mussels and Belgian beer then a wander around the famous Grand Place-Grote Markt Square and a look at the Manneken Pis. It was in the Grote-Markt that my father insisted on the rather risky action of having his photo taken during his escape from occupied Holland in 1941.
Our time to escape Holland was also fast approaching; however we were escaping from the wonderful hospitality of the Dutchies. Had we stayed much longer we would have needed to upgrade the sizes in our wardrobes!
Our next destination was never in our plans. Whilst we were travelling, Glenda got a Facebook “how about visiting me” message from her old AFS Exchange program friend Anna, who lives in Mansala, a small town 60k from Helsinki, Finland.
“Are you sure we should go?” I asked Glenda, whilst checking the 7 day weather forecast for Helsinki. It turned out to be such a great experience and the weather also turned out great. Days of minus 35 evaporated before we arrived and we were blessed with early spring weather, sunny skies and mild days of minus 10. Just ideal for long rugged up walks along snow covered footpaths, particularly the one that leads to Anna’s mother’s house where a traditional and lavish Finnish home cooked lunch awaited us. More meatballs, John? “Well just one or two……..”
Anna and her family are all musicians and I was in heaven. One evening we even drove 40 K just to see one of Anna’s daughters play a gig in a small pub venue. Anna’s lounge room was filled with a piano, double bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, drums, a cello and a violin so it was cool to cut Glenda plenty of space to chat old times with Anna, whilst I hung in the “music room.”
Our European tour started in Berlin, a city that also was never in our initial plans. During our travels we had met many Germans who suggested “you must see Berlin”… so we did. After throwing the backpacks in the room, our first sortie from the hotel had us stumbling upon the KaDeVa department store in Wittenbergplatz (got to love names like that!) This department store is amazing with a food hall to rival Harrods. Berlin in fact was amazing, we had a ball. The hotel we stayed in gave us an upgrade, the nearby restaurant where I had my obligatory sauerkraut mit wurst, threw in free apfelstrudel, we watched our first big screen movie (The Kings Speech) not dubbed or subtitled at the incredible Sony I Max Centre. We also enjoyed whirling around on the most up-to-date metro and bus systems for hours on end for only a few euros.
It was in Berlin were Glenda introduced a new program to our travel collection, “The Guided City Walking Tour” It is a program we have subsequently used many times since and is really a worthwhile exercise (excuse the pun) to get a knowledgeable and quick overview of a new destination. In Berlin we saw and learnt heaps and there certainly is a heap to see and learn. (I never knew that between 40,000 and 50,000 Russians soldiers perished in street fighting in Berlin during the last 6 days of the WW2.) We also got a good history lesson about the Berlin Wall, which we both found fascinating.
We broke out our Eurail passes for our trip from Berlin to Prague and joined a guided walk tour soon after our arrival to see and learn about this beautiful and classical European city. We both loved Prague. It has a wonderful, young, bohemian energy about it. The metro is a hoot, built by the Russians during their “occupation” of the city it would be something you could use in a spy movie to get a ‘cold war’ feel. There was nothing cold about the amazing black light theatre show we saw. There are nine active black light theatres in Prague and the show we saw; ‘WOW’ is the biggest and most modern of them all. It was an amazing and interactive show that uses UV light and the performer’s costumes, make-up and props that ‘glow in the dark’ to create various illusions and special effects. At one stage giant fluorescent balloons descending from the ceiling to be pushed and rolled by the audience. This latter was topped by huge human sized “spiders” climbing through the crowd. It really was Wow! We also got to a jazz club, not to see a jazz band but a young three piece rock band playing Jimmy Hendrix covers. The lead guitarist going well with tricky Hendrix riffs on an old battered but much loved 1960’s Fender Telecaster guitar. A great night supported by a few Czechoslovakian pils beers, arguably the best pils in the world.
The train from Prague to Vienna takes in some wonderful scenery and like all European train travel is comfortable and fast. We stayed a little out of the old city; however jumped the metro and we were soon in Stephansplatz looking at the fascinating roof of the St Stephens Cathedral.
Nearby at the Albertina Gallery we saw a great collection of pop art by Mel Ramos and Roy Lichtenstein. The following day was devoted to music. The day started with a 4 hour visit to the Haus der Musik, where there are individual displays dedicated to many of the great composers including Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Johann Strauss. There are many other interesting displays involving sound, including a chamber that replicated the sounds that a foetus hears in the womb. That night it was off to the Imperial Hall to see a concert featuring the music of Mozart and Strauss, with a bit of opera and ballet thrown in. The following day (after so much culture) we used the metro and a bus connection to escape the city and headed to the Vienna woods. We rewarded ourselves, after a long afternoon walk through the woods with one of the best and biggest apple strudels we have ever had (it was important to keep our strength up as we were booked on the overnight train to Venice). This was going to be a bit of a highlight for me. I was really excited when we boarded the train and were shown to our cabin complete with beautifully made up beds that pull out of the wall. There was even a little cabinet door that opens to reveal a sink and small wardrobe (quite a step up from our overnight train cabins in Egypt and India). Sadly the trip was a bit of a fizzer and certainly not the best night’s sleep for either of us.
The destination was no fizzer, Venice is absolutely wonderful and St. Marco Sqaure an iconic highlight. There are no cars or noisy scooters on the narrow cobblestone footpaths, only the occasional push barrow loaded up with deliveries needing to go past. Even that is limited as most of the deliveries go directly to the canal front doors. The canals are used for everything from public transport to the police and ambulance “vehicles.” Venice was the start point of our Italian adventure. An adventure that immersed us in renaissance art and architecture in Florence, wine and food in Chianti, mountain walks in Biforco, and engineering feats in Pisa. As close as it is to travel from one European country to another it is quite bazaar how different every region is from a cultural, culinary and peoples point of view.
Our 3 weeks in Italy was over far too quickly. We decided to fly from Pisa to Barcelona rather than take another overnight train and within an hour and a half of our arrival in Barcelona we were unpacking our backpacks and hanging up our stuff for a 3 week travelling moratorium in the delightful seaside town of Sitges.
Glenda and I had visited Sitges 12 years ago and had stayed at a hotel on the beach. This time we were staying in the little house where my Aunt and Uncle once lived, it’s now used as a holiday home by my cousins (more Dutchies.) It was during our stay here, that I had to question one of my travelling theories. I have been working on this theory about how unravelling yourself from your daily routines gives a sense of freedom. Well, no sooner had we stopped in one place … Glenda and I were establishing daily routines, mirroring the ones we had broken away from in Sydney. We were doing Yoga 3 times a week, swimming 3 times a week, (in a brand new 25 meter indoor aquatic complex) and talking long walks in the evening. We were cooking at home, mainly lots of vegies, cleaning, washing and generally having a very fun but settled life. When Glenda was asked to help out the yoga teacher and teach a few yoga classes, it felt like another step closer to what we had left behind. I am not quite sure what this does to my theory, maybe it’s something I will have to meditate on during the Camino.
After 3 weeks in one place I was even a bit hesitant about having to pack up and head off to meet our friends from Perth for birthday celebrations in Bilbao and then on to San Sebastian. I felt that about 10 months of travelling was probably enough. Having said that … once we were on the train to Bilbao, relishing the view of the beautiful Basque country, I had settled somewhat and by the time we had walked through the old city, spent a half day in the Guggenheim museum and enjoyed some fine dining with friends … I was ready for another 12 months on the road ... well maybe not … something more to meditate on during the Camino? There certainly will be plenty of time, we are told the pilgrimage takes about 4 weeks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_St._James
I will finish this rather lengthy travel blog on an interesting note. I celebrated my 62nd birthday whilst we were in Bilbao a few weeks ago and I was amazed when my sister told me that 70 years earlier Mum had celebrated her 22nd birthday in the same town. It was 1941 and Mum and her sister were escaping Holland and taking passage to South America. There is still much unrest and many problems in the world today, however I am thankful that for most of us, our lives are much easier than it was for my Father and Mother and countless others in 1941.

---

Photos

Blog writing Sarlat France
Sitting on the patio, with bread, wine and Blackie the computer.

Tabla Lessons Rishikesh
Easier then it looks harder then it is.

Offerings Ganga River
One of many offerings floating down the Ganga river

Late Evening Chai
Great view!

Amsterdam
Should we walk or ride?

Amsterdam
The compulsory photo opportunity

Great day for a ride!
Mantsala Finland

Early Spring Weather
February, 2011 near Helsinki Finland

Learning the Bass
A lounge room full of musical instruments - Yeah!!

Berlin
Propaganda but cool graffiti in a way.

Rock Cellar
Great music and the best Pilsner in the world!

Albertina Museum Vienna
Good timing for a great expedition

Backpackers
Even in the streets, err canals of Venice

Tourists
You can always tell a tourist

Sitges
Feeling at home!

Happy Birthday
My birthday lunch, Bilboa, Spain.