Beaches, jets and a thief

The 'W' Hotel is a massive landmark, and it's where the beaches start.

You'd never believe they were created, not natural. Imported sand where docks used to be, that sort of thing. Anyway, very popular.

Steve swam.

Then the Spanish equivalent of the Red Arrows arrived overhead, and wow!

And we were distracted, and a passing cyclist grabbed my bag off the bench. I chased, shouting very, very loudly. Someone intercepted him, I got my bag back and walloped him. Oh, and he dropped his sunglasses on the way, so actually I'm up on the deal. Drama over.

Moral: watch your stuff.

A fishy day

See fish. 
A visit to the aquarium is well worth it. There will be pictures later, and video. Sharks, eels, 'Nemo' fish, lobsters, anemones, jellyfish, sea horses, rays ... penguins. You get the idea. Well presented, informative and enjoyable. 

Sea fish. 
We tasted the beaches. Well, a beach, and a beach bar. We'll be back tomorrow for the full cruise along Barcelona's seven conjoined beaches. Or that's the plan, anyhow. 

Eat fish. 
Please, if you visit this fine city, patronise Cán Rámonet, an extremely good fish restaurant slightly off the tourist beat (don't expect good English from the staff) in the Barceloneta district. 

Steve chose grilled sea bass, I had a middle cut of hake (so, so soft) 'San Sebastian', both served with carrot crisps and a sort of compressed potato/cheese thing. 

Popular, with very professional and discreet service. Price: excellent given the quality; or expensive, if you prefer. 

Sagrada Familia

Just ... wow. Will write more when I can get my head round it.

It was Chris

Columbus, that is, on the column. From yesterday. Because after discovering the East by sailing West - or so he thought - in 1492, he came back and landed at Barcelona the next year. Only he knows why, having done a return journey across the Atlantic, he sailed three-quarters of the way round Spain before putting in to port, but hey.

Watched over by Mars

After a slow wander up a warm and packed Rambla - and a few diversions into shoe shops (and Massimo Dutti) - we found somewhere very pleasant to eat, and watch people, near the scaffolding-clad Cathedral. 

Mars rose slowly above a Gaudi gallery, in-line skaters raced by, cyclists wound between the ubiquitous sellers of illuminated blue rubber-band-propelled flying sycamore-seed-inspired thingamabobs, while we ate what seemed the equivalent of dinner, breakfast and lunch. 

Hola from Barcelona!

Up at a silly time: taxi+train to a dark, cold and foggy Gatwick. Smoothly through and on board the Airbus A319 to Barcelona.

Hot!

Easy airport coach with one change onto the Metro brought us to within a couple of hundred metres of our hotel, at the bottom sea end of La Rambla. We got a good deal on an upgrade and we're now just waiting to get into our room.

We've been for a wander, mind, down around the impressive statue (of whom we don't know, but we're guessing a navigator) above, and round a bit of the marina.

Quick guide to Europe

Netherlands: laid back.

Belgium: dirty.

France: armed soldiers on the platform.

UK: officialdom* and prohibition signs on everything.

*Why, when we've all been through UK Border Agency checks in Brussels, do we need our passports AND train tickets checked again at St Pancras? In Gare du Nord you just walk off the train onto a French street...

Well, I'm home. That was fun!

Your A Star

Geddit??

Pulling away from Bruxelles-Midi. Or is it Brussels-Zuid? Only in Belgium can a station have two completely different names. Or Wales (probably).

Boorish-Brit-deadening earphones in, bliss.

Travelling backwards. Again. Grrrr.

Flat, flat, flat

Why does it take the best part of three hours to travel by train between Amsterdam and Brussels? It doesn't look that far on the map.

Mind you, this Intercity train does a lot more stopping and travelling sedately than I was expecting. I probably could have paid extra for the high-speed Thalys train, but actually it's quite nice to see some countryside. Not to mention occasional train-set style sidings and marshalling yards, with locos and wagons waiting to head off across Europe to who-knows-where.

Flat wagons, open wagons, covered wagons, car transporter wagons, gravel hopper wagons, wagons of every colour and marking, graffiti-covered passenger cars, strange Dutch passenger trains with curious 747-type cockpit-bulges in the roof. It's the whole Hornby, and then some.

Fields, dykes, polders, other railway lines, bridges, highways and byways, rivers, container barges, gas barges, Friesian cows, football stadiums, churches, level crossings. You get to see everything when the country is so flat. There's an occasional gradient on the track, but that's to take us over a bridge or causeway, not because the land is hilly. All through Holland and Belgium.

Oh, and I'm particularly excited* to be on a corridor train, in a compartment. Just like when I was Interrailing back years ago. In fact, I might well have taken this line, thinking about it.

*Not that you'd notice. You might wonder why I'm guffawing frequently, but that's because I'm reading Paul O'Grady's At My Mother's Knee.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Once in a while I find it necessary to visit a museum of modern art, just to remind myself how some of my fellow humans are pretentious wankers.

This afternoon I went to the Stedelijk Museum, or more exactly "temporary stedelijk 2" (note the lower cas, because the main museum is undergoing major enlargement. Actually the plans for the new building look rather good.

There were the usual exhibits you expect, such as piles of coal, inexplicable video installations, and distorted bronzes. I really dislike having to read the caption to understand what I am seeing. Give me classical art any day, which, with a moderately standard education, I can 'read'.

My eye was genuinely only caught by a few things. The best was an old Super 8 projector which had been ingeniously modified, DIY-style, to show a continous loop of film. (The film was of some naked women standing, and occasionally walking, on a hillside. It was of _no_ interest.) Others, I noticed, were intrigued more by the projector too.

The best video installation was called "Mastering Bambi". Two artist had visited the American forests which had inspired the Walt Disney background animators of the classic film. They had photographed and shot video, then produced this moving montage, devoid of animals, and featuring a menacing soundtrack also inspired by the film. All in HD on a giant screen. Yes, and I had to read the csption to get all that, but it was good.

Having said everything I've just said, it was lovely to see a number of original Mondrians, and be introduced to the similar, Ukranian, Malevich. There was some Pop Art, including at least two enormous original Warhols.

And nice to note the gift shop was just part of the museum, you weren't forced through it. It was mainly a selection of art and design books, and some postcards, anyway.

€10. Regrets? No, not really.

Check-out Blues

Always get 'em. You know? You've handed your room key in, left your bag behind the desk (complete with mild theft anxiety), and wandered out for the two or three hours before your journey home starts. Not enough time to _do_ anything meaningful, yet you don't want to waste time, nor think about leaving quite yet.

Time to reflect and assess.

Love the 'dam. Could happily live here. The city's easy to get the hang of, and around; it's friendly; the boys are pretty; everyone speaks English, but Dutch is easy to listen to, and not too hard to translate, at least when written.

Missed Steve, here more than in Berlin. Berlin is _my_ city, but we have shared memories of Amsterdam, and there's lots I want to show him next time we come here together.

Barely thought about the school reunion thing yesterday, and not at all last night, which was partly the point. Good.

By the way, apropos nothing, sorry there are no pictures in this blog, but I haven't got the facilities. Travelling light, you see. Next time away I'll have my new MacBook Air - which I know is waiting for me at home.

Right. Coffee drunk, time for precisely two hours' meandering. Take a few more photos; only taken 78 so far - and three of those are of a cat.

Dammit - I mean Dam-it

Last night involved drinking etc. And choosing the wrong nightbus back, the one where you have to pay €4 instead of being able to use your tram multi-day card (hint: don't take a nightbus that has a number starting N - this ain't London). Dammit number 1.

This morning, breakfast, that meal where you get to see what your fellow guests look like. Uh-oh. Then wish you hadn't.

A planned meander with photo opps everywhere (there will be an album of the best sometime after I'm home), and a coffee outside the main theatre, people-watching, ended at what I now like to call "my coffee shop" (this is my second visit) to make a purchase for later.

Then a tram back to the hotel (no. 2 is better than no. 16, I find). After a short break, a wander into Vondelpark, very close to where I am staying. Heaving isn't the word. Well, ok, it is the word. Found a spot to sit and read and smoke. Would have loved Steve to be with me.

For some reason I then needed a nap.

After which I caught a tram again and visited a couple of bars. Very much like last night.

Except tonight, it started to rain. A few drops, then suddenly a full-blown storm, thunder, lightning, wind, the works. I'm wearing a t-shirt because it's been like 25 degrees all day, including when I went out for the evening.

I had bought a cheese and salami roll and a chocolate muffin on the way to the bus-stop, because I had forgotten to eat earlier (I have a habit of doing this on my solo holidays). I had researched the bus nunbering this time, and despite arriving at the bus shelter (and it was a shelter from the storm) just after a bus had passed so I had nearly half an hour to wait, I got myself outside my baguette, and listened to a bizarre conversation between two young Moroccan/Dutch girls who were sheltering with their bikes, and an extended Spanish family waiting for a bus. All in broken English. Hilarious.

Then, on cue, the 358 nightbus comes tanking down the road in the tram lane through the puddles. Hand out. Bus sails past into the storm. Bastard.

That was a 25 minute wait, and now I have another 30 minute wait. Bugger this. So I dash and find a taxi. That's €13 including the tip. So my 3-day tram card is working out quite expensive, all in all. Dammit number 2.

You may have remembered there was a muffin in the story earlier. I've just eaten it writing this.

Good night.

Had to be done...

Boats, trains and canals

There's a TV in the cabin showing more channels than I have at home, including views from the bridge, and a 'doggy-cam' from the kennels! And free wifi - after a fashion. The bed was comfortable even if the crossing wasn't completely smooth. Great shower as well.

At Hook of Holland it's again straight off the ferry onto a train to Rotterdam, where it's an easy change onto the Intercity to Amsterdam Centraal.

For £82 from Liverpool Street to Amsterdam, including a night's accommodation, I'm impressed and would recommend it to anyone.

The square outside Centraal Station is being dug up all over the place, but I soon bought a €15 3-day travelcard and found my tram stop. Shame I hadn't worked out where to get off the tram! Getting lost while being literally off the edge of the map, and relying on your sense of direction and a vaguely-remembered Google map from when you booked the hotel... is all part of the adventure!

Anyway, I found the hotel and was able to check in despite it being only 11 o'clock. The room is a bit shabby, but it's not expensive (well, ok, it's not cheap) but I won't be in it much, and there's free wifi.

Lunch and a coffee out, and much to see and explore!

Away to Amsterdam

Why am I going to Amsterdam? My decision was actually triggered because of a class reunion being organised at my old school - a boarding school in Bath - this Saturday. 1985 was my leaving year, so I haven't seen some of those guys (and gals - we had a few in the Sixth Form) for 26 years. After some initial enthusiasm, I started to realise what a terrible idea it was, to 'go back'. I've spent several of the intervening years coming to terms with certain aspects of my enforced life away from home. This is not the place for any more details about that, but let me just say, I am who I am in no small part through my time at Prior Park, and meeting a group of my classmates, deliberately and in those buildings, isn't going to do me any good. Going abroad seemed logical, plus Steve has his best friend staying at home over the weekend. Anyway, as you know by now, I'm rather partial to an Adventure!

Liverpool Street Station isn't the Gare de l'Est, despite being my gateway once again to Europe, but it's pleasant enough.

I settled onto the 1900 out of Liverpool Street - eventually as I hadn't initially noticed I was in someone else's reserved seat.

I found another seat, facing backwards which for some reason I don't like though I'm not quite sure why.

The man next to me got out a gigantic laptop and started watching the film Captain America. I was slightly distracted out of the corner of my eye by all the shifting in and out of focus as the 'cameraman' tried to line up properly on the cinema screen.

As we passed the building site which is the new Olympic park, I thought "wow" at a great red steel twisting structure.

On the train I misread that the wifi was free, and after a convoluted registration process, decided against paying £2.95 for the journey - or what was left of it by then.

Off the train at Harwich (after an easy change at Maningtree) straight into the ferry terminal, and on board the Stena Hollandica after very little wait. This is essentially a floating hotel across the North Sea, very spacious and comfortable. My cabin was set as a double but I'm a dab hand at getting rid of unwanted bunks now. There wasn't much to do, so after a drink and a bite I retired. Well, there is quite a lot to do if you want to eat and drink and play slot machines. There's even a cinema.