Redbeard Travels

Madrid one more time 15

2012-01-30T23:56:00.000Z

The fascist dictator General Franco left one admirable legacy to Spain: the cheap three-course lunch. Come midday and practically every eating establishment in the country advertises their menu del dia, a filing lunch with wine on the side.

There were many different restaurants competing for our attention when we left Toledo's cathedral and we chose one that offered a bit of shade on a pedestrian street. This provided plenty of people-watching opportunities while we enjoyed our long lunch.

To start we had a green salad with plenty of sweet sun-ripened tomatoes and bread on the side.

For the main course we had a thick pork stew with garden peas, spiced with smoked paprika.

Dessert was only a pot of ice cream and the white wine accompanying the meal was a bit astringent, but for €11 a head it was a bargain.

Around the corner we found the church of Santo Tome which is famous for its massive painting by El Greco showing the Count of Orgaz’s funeral. It’s one of his more accessible and cohesive works.

Certainly his largest!

Again, no photos were allowed so I’ve had to find these images elsewhere.

The painting dominates the church, covering the first wall you see as soon as you enter. The rest of the small church is surprisingly plain, but with a few interesting details like a modest painted altar.

Madrid one more time 14

2012-01-30T23:25:00.003Z

For someone who spends most Sunday mornings making pancakes and brewing decaff coffee, on my travels I always make a point to have a look inside the local church. They have free wine!

I’ve ticked off quite a few German doms, Italian duomos and English minsters, but I can report that Toledo’s cathedral ranks as the most extravagant place of worship that I have seen to date. Every inch of the interior has been decorated, carved, gilded or embellished over the centuries.

It felt like a million pair of eyes looked down on us sinners: cherubs jostled with saints, while any gaps between angels were filled with bodiless faces. A fair few thousand earthbound eyes stared back up at the heavenly host. I’ve no idea what the floor is like, it was impossible to see for all the hundreds of other tourists milling about!

Regular announcements in several languages insisted ‘silence – no photos’ so the images for this entry are ones I’ve had to crib from elsewhere.

Several coachloads of tourists of were being marched around and the herds caused jams in the choir stalls, so it was hard to appreciate the wooden carvings here.

Most panels were dedicated to the Christians laying siege to the Moors occupying the city, but there were also the more imaginative flights of fancy that you often find in this part of a church.

The altar, both front...

...and back,

was an astonishing exercise in over the top glamour in the name of God. It was hard to tell if there was a Biblical message to be gleaned from the cavalcade of bejewelled bishops and other men wrapped in satin.

The sacristy houses a Prado in miniature with paintings by El Greco, Bassano, Van Dyck, Goya and Ribera. Most canvasses though were dull portraits of church leaders and interchangeable idealised saints.

Caravaggio’s St John the Baptist (one of several versions he painted) was pick of the bunch, dramatic and effective, but like the rest in need of a clean.

I suppose you can expect a bit of dust and grime in a 785-year-old building. Work on the present structure first began in 1227 atop the foundations of a 6thC church which had been used by the Moors as a mosque.

According to the brochure, ticket sales help maintain the building as well as the ‘charitable goals of the church.’ Standing in the Treasury and looking agog at the gold reliquaries...

...illuminated manuscripts and jewel-encrusted goblets all locked up behind glass, the thought occurred that perhaps the bishops could sell off a couple trinkets to tend to the sick, house the poor and feed the hungry.

Speaking of hungry, let’s go find somewhere to eat!

Madrid one more time 13

2012-01-25T21:03:00.002Z

As well as all the tasty food, good beer and free museums that Madrid can offer, the city is surrounded by plenty of diverting places that would make an ideal daytrip. Whether you want beautiful mountain scenery, lavish palaces or historic old towns you can be sure to find a worthwhile excursion.

The only problem we had leaving Madrid was buying advance train tickets, at least for the high-speed AVE trains which are the only practical way of having adequate time in a place like Segovia. After the bum start to that particular outing, we set aside an afternoon to buy our tickets for Toledo. We called in at Atocha station, made our way to the ticket office and took our ticket to reserve a place in the queue. There were 60 people ahead of us. Thankfully Atocha is a splendid station, with a rain forest on the concourse, plenty of shops and ample seating.

One hour and 15 minutes later we were called to the ticket counter. One minute and €36 later we had two tickets to Toledo for later in the week. At the appointed hour, we returned to Atocha, went through the airport-style security check-in and found our seats. The 40-mile journey south was not particularly interesting, as the landscape is flat and barren and largely covered by suburban Madrid. After only about 20 minutes we rounded a corner and caught site of Toledo, which sits on a sheer bluff in a river bend.

This defensive site has been inhabited for thousands of years, attracting the Romans, the Moors and everyone else in between. Because of the topography, the train cannot approach very close and the station is well outside the city, below its walls. The old station provides a lovely welcome to the city. It's a gorgeous Moorish fantasy of tiles, stained glass, Arabic arches and polished woodwork that hints at wait awaits in the city above.

A fleet of tour coaches waited outside the train station's doors, with a crew of touts ready to take the trainload of tourists in tow. We spotted a small sign pointing to a bus stop on the main road out front and within a couple minutes we had flagged the next bus and were on the way.

The views along the way were gorgeous as we crossed the river and followed the city walls, catching the occasional glimpse of a clocktower or church. We were deposited outside the fortress (alcazar) which has been rebuilt after being obliterated during the Spanish Civil War and is now an army museum (yawn). The narrow streets did mean it was hard at first to tell where we wer in relation to anything else, but then we spotted the spire of the cathedral beckoning through a cleft between the tall buildings.

Click back next time for a trot around the cathedral and other monuments scattered around beautiful Toledo!

Your comments are like...

2012-01-24T00:37:00.001Z

...CRACK: very addictive!

Apparently I've had over 35,000 hits on this site so far. Thanks for reading!

Don't let me feel shattered though...

Please get in touch if you have any questions or comments.

Madrid one more time 12

2012-01-24T00:21:00.002Z

Cats and food are not an appetising mix. How often have you drank a glass of cheap white wine and thought to yourself: 'how does the cat manage to balance on top of a bottle long enough to fill it?' And we all know about the lost kitten posters you supposedly see near Chinese restaurants. So most people might think again about ordering the lager in a place literally called 'The Cat Beerhouse'!

Don't worry, because Cervecerias Los Gatos is named in honour of the Madrid citizens who frequent it. The Madrileños call themselves 'cats' possibly because they sleep in the afternoon and stay out all night, caterwauling.

Los Gatos came recommended to me as a decent 'pick and point' tapas joint. Yes, I can still remember a bit of Spanish from university and had a phrasebook tucked in my pocket, but sometimes you just want to point at what you want and be eating it as soon as possible, without trying to remember the Spanish for 'is that fried in beef tallow or vegetable oil?'

Sure enough, in about two minutes flat we were feasting on the tapas we'd pointed at (4 for €10) and knocking back some reassuringly ice-cold beers (€2.40 each). Each tapa was a thick slice of chewy bread with a different topping (a cold slab of egg & potato tortilla on one, anchovy on another, crabmeat on the third and then tomato with mozzarella). These came out on a platter with potato crisps piled in between the gaps.

In between bites we absorbed the wacky interior of the place. We were stood at a marble countertop in front of an antique mirror, with an old-fashioned streetlamp stood in the middle of the room behind us.

Above us was a copy of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, albeit one where Adam was holding out a pint of beer towards God and the angels were sat on kegs. In another mural, skeletons were getting sh*t-faced. Behind the bar, what may what once have been reliquaries or other repositories for religious artefacts were now filled with liquor bottles. Very fun and inventive!

It was quiet that time of afternoon, but the server was busy slicing paper-thin pieces of ham off the leg of pork kept at the bar. About half the ham slices went onto small plates to be served later, the rest she was eating. We were full ourselves for the time being, so headed back to the hotel via some gift shops along the way.

A few hours later and we were out on the tiles again after our siesta. As I have mentioned before, there is a fork in the middle of Madrid and of an evening the tourists go down one way while the Madrileños head the other. For a change this evening, we took the tourist trail through the Huerta district, but none of the touts could tempt us in. Before we knew we were back at Los Gatos, which is on the outer fringe of Huerta, past the point where most tourists probably poop out.

This time it was heaving, but a chap greeted us and found us some space at the counter near the server, who was still slicing away at the ham. This time we had only the two tapas (one slice of bread with salmon, the other with goats cheese). The server handed over a slice of ham gratis and we agreed it was delicious (melt-in-your-mouth soft and not at all greasy), so she started assembling a large plate of ham for us. 'That is going to cost at least €5 alone,' Christian said at the time.

The ham came with toasted bread smeared with tomato and some crackers. Needless to say all this bread was filling after awhile, so we asked if we could pay. While waiting for the bill we finished our second (or third?) round of beers. The server put down her carving knife, took our glasses off of us and filled each one up about halfway. She indicated we didn't have to pay for this and commented it was early for us to leave already: Que temprano! It was only midnight, after all and the cats were only starting to come out to play.

With tip, the bill came to €40. Although we were stuffed and had lost count of the beers we'd had, Christian was agog we had spent quite so much. I confirmed that according to the receipt, our big platter of ham alone cost €18. 'Yes, ' I said, 'we just paid £15 for a plate of lunchmeat.'

But it was the best baloney we've ever had! If you want to know where the cool cats hang out, make your way to Calle Jesus 2.

Madrid one more time 11

2012-01-18T19:00:00.000Z

MORE freebies? Of course! You can never have your fill of freebies, so take my tip and make the trip to Madrid's finest art gallery in the evening when it's free. That's right, the Prado is free after 6pm, giving you a couple hours to look around one of the world's best art collections. You'll save yourself €12 and have plenty of time for the highlights.

I took a couple of university courses in art history so I can tell my Vermeers from my Van Goghs, but I don't agree with people who say 'you'll need at least a half day to see a gallery properly.' Doing what exactly? It's not like you can take rubbings. A painting either speaks to me or it doesn't.

This particular one says 'hold me, thrill me'!

As much of southern European art consists of interchangeable fat babies and various pious virgins, it all starts to blur after awhile. While the Prado is large and comprehensive, it's not completely unmanageable and you can trot through in a couple hours.

Be warned though every single other tourist in town will have the exact same idea and when you show up a few minutes before 6pm you may find thousands of people queuing up literally around the block. Don't worry, once the doors are flung open the line moves quickly, with attendants dishing out free tickets as fast as they can.

I admit the paintings by Bosch and Brueghel do demand a lot of your attention, so it was good to have a brief spell to admire them again. Although we also revisited our favourites by the likes of Cranach and Velazquez, we had time to see some paintings which we'd not spotted before, mainly 19thC Spanish canvasses. Some of these were immense, with an easily-followed narrative.

For instance, in one a Jewish leader approaches the king and queen, offering to give them money towards their military campaign to fight off the Moors, but only in exchange for being allowed to stay (both the Moors and the Jews were being expelled from Spain at the time). With a dramatic flourish, a priest witnessing the scene intervenes and throws down his jewel-encrusted, solid-gold crucifix. Seemingly without any irony, he appears to warn the royal couple that they risk selling Christ to the highest bidder.

I believe the priest depicted is the Inquisitor himself, Torquemada.

This painting is also from the same period and gives you an idea of the story-telling quality I mentioned.

The title And They Still Say Fish Is Expensive explains everything. What's hard to convey is the massive scale; this one for instance is about 5 feet high and the figures seem almost life-size. By this time of evening we had massive appetites, so we headed around the corner to a tapas place I'd heard about. To hear more about what turned out to be our favourite tapas hotspot in town, click back again soon!

Madrid one more time 10

2012-01-01T18:31:00.002Z

Leaving behind the Fundación Lázaro Galdiano we made our way to one of Madrid's main thoroughfares, the Paseo de la Castellana which eventually becomes Paseo de Prado further along where it passes the city's three major art galleries.

At this end of the boulevard and near the junction with Calle de Juan Bravo is the rather grandly named Museo de Escultura Al Aire Libre, or Open Air Sculpture Museum.

To you and me though, it's a few lumps of stone and metal strung along an underpass, but it's a free diversion if you find yourself in the neighbourhood.

Honestly, I was more impressed by the reflections that a nearby office block was making on the pavements.

Further along and the National Archaelogy Musem was closed for a complete refurbishment, so we'll have to leave that for another trip. This did however give us a chance to admire in the plaza next door what must be Spain's largest flag which flies over a rather lumpen monument to the country's 'golden age' of discoveries.

Evidently the flagpole is 150 feet tall and the flag is 60 feet long so it's hard to miss.

The last stop on our day of freebies was to return to the royal palace to see if the crowds had eased off a bit (they hadn't). And who can blame them? Admission is usually €10 a head, but free on Wednesdays.

Although there were probably 100 people in front of us the queue went fairly quickly. Also, the place is so massive (33 acres!) that the crowd dispersed - there are 2800 rooms here in Europe's largest palace.

All I managed to put in my journal at the time was that these were the most sumptuous rooms I'd ever seen, so the sheer vastness and vulgarity of it all must have knocked me speechless because that's all I had to say about our visit! Visitors are only allowed to take photos while in the courtyard, so I have had to crib a few photos of the interior which are below to give you a taste.

I did sneak this snap from a window that overlooked one of the internal courtyards:

Back outside and there is a finely framed view of the Almudena Cathedral, the foundations for which were laid in 1879.

Not completed until 1993, it's one of the least interesting places of worship I've ever visited and nearly featureless inside.

Elsewhere in the palace complex there is large hall of armour to round off a full day of freebies. Click back next time for more photos, more places to eat and a trip out of town to beautiful Toledo.

Madrid one more time 9

2011-12-29T17:56:00.003Z

Most of the freebies in Madrid depend on good timing. It's all about showing up on the right day, or at the appointed hour. For instance, show up at 3.30pm at the Lazaro Galdiano Museum and you're free to walk around this private art collection housed in a lovely old villa.

Or you can show up like we did right after lunch and be asked to fork over €4 each.

The main reason this freebie didn't work out for us is that many guidebooks and websites claim that the Lazaro Galdiano Museum is free all day Wednesday. I had not bothered to check the museum's official website which confirms free entry actually applies the last hour it is open Monday-Saturday (closed Tuesday) as well as Sunday afternoon 2-3pm. Next time, I'll click the Google Translate button!

As it was, the €4 each we paid at the time was about right for this small but rich collection. These days though admission has gone up to €6, so I recommend visitors take the effort to visit during happy hour! One hour may not seem like much time to explore a musuem, but as mentioned this is in what used to be a private residence (albeit one with four floors to visit).

Senor Galdiano trained as an art critic and journalist, not exactly the professions you'd expect that would enable a person to amass a fabulous collection of Old Masters, but then he did establish his own publishing house in 1888 and married into money. At the time Spanish art was not fashionable so he picked up some relatively cheap late medieval Spanish painting, although by artists whose names have been lost to history.

Famous names like Goya, Greco, Murillo, Velazquez and Zurbaran do feature in the collection, as well as Italian and Flemish painters like Tiepolo and Bosch, as you can see in the selection below. Interspersed with the paintings are many examples of applied arts like medals, coins, intricate carpets, carved ivories, bronze statuettes, Limoges enamels and miniature portraits.

To be honest some of these decorative items were for me a bit too precious (ie, overly fussy) and towards the end it felt like there was one display case too many. Thankfully there is an elegant cage lift with a plump velvet sofa inside where you can regain your composure while descending from the top floor.

Fancy more freebies? Click back soon to hear about the sculptures lining one of the city's busiest streets and the city's royal palace.


Bosch - St John the Baptist

Goya - The Coven

El Greco - St Francis of Assisi

Murillo - Santa Rosa de Lima

Anonymous - St Jerome

Velazquez - Little Miss Cobos

Zurbaran - St Diego of Alcala

Madrid one more time 8

2011-12-28T13:19:00.000Z

You're no doubt familiar with a particular chain of sandwich shops which claims you can 'eat fresh' (they are after all the world's largest franchise). Watch out Subway, because there is competition in town and they are going to make you eat your words!

Specialising in bite-size baguettes called montaditos, on which they offer 100 different toppings, there is a fairly new restaurant chain in Spain which calls itself (are you ready for this?): 100 Montaditos. Best of all, on a Wednesday everything is €1, including a frosty stein of ice-cold lager!

First opened in 2000, they have taken Spain by storm with their fresh-baked bread and huge variety of toppings (not to mention the cheap beer). Such is their success, the company is aiming to open 4000 outlets in the USA over the next five years, with the first branches open already in Miami.

The bread is crispy (you can choose white or wholewheat) and there are indeed dozens of toppings to choose from, so many that the menu comes on an enormous sheet of paper. Next to each item on the menu is a line where you indicate how many sandwiches you would like (they are small, so you'll want three or four). Most sandwiches cost around €1.20, so it's a bargain any day of the week (with half-price beer on Sunday, when a stein sells for 50 cents).

Hand over the menu when ordering, give your name when paying and about 5 minutes later someone will announce over the tannoy that your sandwiches are ready. These come out on a wooden platter, with potato crisps piled around them, so it's surprisingly filling.

Our favourite was the tortilla, which in Spain is a potato omelette served cold. Other simple toppings include tuna, chorizo and several varieties of ham and cheese, although they offer more involved versions like roast chicken with smoked bacon and salsa. Spaniards aren't fans of butter or things like 'honey-mayonnaise' but the bite-size bread is so chewy you won't miss the grease.

The chain bills itself as a cerveceria or beer joint and sure enough the first thing you notice when going inside are the frosty taps at the bar. The dark wooden floors and painted tiles give a traditional feel, while each of the three branches we visited in Madrid had ample outdoor seating for soaking up the sun (there are four locations in the historic centre of Madrid, mapped here). Not that we had too much time to linger, as more freebies beckoned!

Madrid one more time 7

2011-12-06T21:00:00.000Z

We were so poor growing up, we had to go to K-Mart if we wanted to watch TV. We ate our cornflakes with a fork to save on milk. The first time we went to McDonalds, we had to put my Happy Meal on layaway.

Needless to say these days I am in the first in line for most anything free or going cheap, so during our trip to Madrid I couldn't wait until the Wednesday when many of the city's galleries and attractions are free. With the promise of freebies galore (and some cold beer at €1 a glass!), we had the makings of a grand day out.

First on our list of freebies was the Royal Palace, but there were hundreds of other people with the same idea.

As we had a long list of other things we wanted to do, we decided to come back later and instead headed for El Monasterio de Las Descalzas Reales, the 'Monastery of the Barefoot Royals.' Just steps away from some of the city's busiest shopping streets and rowdiest tapas joints, visitors will find this 450-year-old convent which happens to house a fine art collection.

Tours are limited to groups of 20 and the guidebooks warned us to show up early, so we took our place outside the heavy wooden door and watched as the queue behind us grew and grew for the next half hour. Only when the wooden door was heaved open were we able to see the notice inside stating that tours alternated between English and Spanish...with the first tour of the day being in Spanish.

'Que pais?' the doorkeeper asked when we stepped up ('which country?'). I told her 'Inglaterra' and she pointed at the sign. I didn't fancy sitting around for another half hour, so I shrugged, dredged up some vocabulary last used in my Spanish class at university about 15 years ago and said 'Ahora es mejor' ('now is better').

And so we found ourselves with a Spanish-speaking tour guide and surrounded by other native Spanish speakers. Who cares, we thought, as long as there's not a quiz at the end: we understand the international language of art!

Founded in 1559, the convent became one of the richest on the continent. A woman joining a convent has to bring a dowry, because she is getting married to Christ. This particular convent became the destination of choice for many an aristocratic young lady who was surplus to requirements or causing embarrassment to her family. Anytime a Duke So-and-so couldn't marry off one particular daughter, he'd ship her off to the convent, with a Tintoretto painting in her trousseau.

And so the nuns here accumulated dozens of fine paintings and sculpture through the centuries, but they could hardly afford to feed themselves when the convent fell on hard times. Although surrounded by the works of Zubaran, Titian and the like, the nuns were not allowed to sell any of the masterpieces to support themselves. With the agreement of the church and government, the convent was allowed to open as a museum.

There are not many nuns left and they make themselves scarce during the hour-long tours which take in two floors, the cloisters, innumerable gaudy chapels and several large rooms given over almost entirely to art.

During the tour I was able to pick out the names of most of the artists, although there wasn't much time to linger along the way and no photography was allowed. Honestly, little of it left any impression on us anyway. After picking up a guidebook in the shop (in English!), it became clear why so much of the art seemed rather second-rate. It turns out most are copies, attributions or simply works 'in the style of...'.

If we had had the time, we also could have visited the Real Academia de Bellas Artes, or Royal Academy of Fine Arts, which is also centrally located and free on Wednesday. However, listening to an hour-long art and history lecture in Spanish had left us starving so we made a beeline for 100 Montaditos. For all the dish about this fantastic sandwich shop and its cheap beer, click back next time as we hunt down some more freebies in Madrid.

Madrid one more time 6

2011-11-30T22:53:00.001Z

That same night after polishing off our delicious onion rings and organic burgers, we had a nightcap at Mama Ines, a cafe in the Chueca district. Most mornings we had our breakfast here as well, since it was only about a 5-minute walk from our hotel on Plaza del Sol. At night, they serve more cocktails than coffee, but it's a relaxing spot at any hour.

We were back at Mama Ines the next morning for yoghurt with honey, muesli, a platter of fruit and decaff coffee for only €4 each. By now it was nearly noon (well, we were on holiday after all) and time for some fresh air and sunshine.

First, we rode a couple stops on the metro and walked up the road and through a rose garden until we found the terminus for the city's famous cable car, the Teleferico. West of the city centre is Casa de Campo, a vast forest and scrubland which is the city's largest park. The cable car trundles across the woods and takes visitors to an amusement park and viewpoint.

Along the way it crosses over the 'blink and you'll miss it' River Manzanares, which only has water in it because it is dammed up.

Back on land and we passed on the thrill rides at the nearby Parque de Atraciones in order to spend awhile just sat under a shade tree (even in September it was 90F or more each day). There isn't much else in the vicinity to do except walk around the woods, enjoy the views...

and maybe have a cold drink in the cafeteria (at nearly €3 for a Fanta, you can see how they make their money). A there-and-back trip on the cable car cost €5.20 at the time.

Back on the cable car and this dropped us back off near La Ermita, a small church which is rather fancifully known as 'Goya's Sistine Chapel.' There are actually two identical chapels next to each other, one being the deconsecrated original and the other a 1920s copy which was built so worshippers would no longer disturb the paintings by Francisco Goya which date back to 1798.

I wasn't allowed to take photos inside, so I've had to track down some other images. The paintings depict the miracle of St Anthony, when a murdered man was supposedly brought back to life in order to point out who had really killed him, thus saving the life of someone who had been wrongly accused of the death.

Goya (who had not long before gone deaf) attracted controversy by using people off the streets of Madrid for the characters that populate the scene, especially as this was a royal chapel. Some of them look like real oddballs!

Not far down the road from La Ermita is the royal palace and gardens. The last time we had tried to look around El Campo del Moro, the gates to the gardens below the palace were shut. This time the gates were wide open so we popped in for a quick look. Despite the name, 'the Field of the Moor' is traditionally English in style: wild and lush, more like a forest than a pleasure garden.

This also means that aside from wandering the shady paths there is not much to see, aside from a grotto and a couple of fountains which weren't working at the time. The other two gates were both closed, so we could only make a circuit before making a beeline for an ice cream place around the corner.

Next time...Madrid on the cheap as we take advantage of some freebies!

Madrid one more time 5

2011-11-29T18:07:00.000Z

Despite being one of the food and drink capitals of Europe, Madrid can be a frustrating experience when you're starving at 7pm and nothing is open yet for dinner. And although the locals prefer a series of light bites for their evening meals, sometimes nothing will do other than a plate of greasy chips and a pint of fizzy lager.

That's when there's no place like Home, a gourmet diner in Madrid that serves organic burgers. Unfortunately, the shutters were down when we showed up at 7 in the evening after our daytrip to Segovia. This gave us time to head back to the hotel, freshen up and look up the Spanish phrase for 'well done' (bien cocido!).

Because they had not been opened long when we arrived it was easy to grab a booth, but apparently most evenings they do fill up and reservations come in handy. The vinyl blinds, curved ceilings and retro lamps convinced us we were sat in a real diner, complete with a perfect selection of 1950s & 60s tunes in the background (visit their website for a sample of their jukebox).

The kookiness continued when we were handed the menus, which are printed onto paper grocery bags.

We decided to start with a platter of onion rings. These were quite pricey at €9.50, but turned out to be plump and crunchy, with an authentic spicy BBQ sauce on the side. Without a doubt the best I've ever had outside the USA.

Our burgers came with an abundance of leafy salad (in fact, there were so many exotic varieties they were a bit intrusive once piled atop the burgers) as well as a side of fries which were on the small side and rather greasy (although they do recycle their grease from the kitchen and turn it into bio-fuel). The beer came in Budweiser glasses (and may even have been Bud, it wasn't clear though from menu).

Overall though it was worth the trip and we had a fun night out.

If you go: Segovia practicalities

2011-11-26T18:22:00.001Z

Segovia would be the perfect daytrip from Madrid, if it weren't for the hassle of buying a ticket for the superfast train service which makes the journey in a quarter of a time. As it was, we didn't leave Madrid until after noon, arriving in Segovia nearly two hours later.

Luckily the city is compact and it's easy to navigate between the three big sights (the Roman aqueduct, cathedral and castle). The aqueduct is free to view and climb alongside, while we were charged €2 each to visit the cathedral and €6 each for our visit to the castle (in September 2010). We felt we had seen all the town's highlights in the four hours or so we had before heading back to Madrid.

There are two train stations in Segovia, the original one for the slower trains which is closer to the old town (but still a 20-minute walk) and the new station much away, for the faster trains. There is a completely new town being built around this new station as Segovia transforms itself into a bedroom community for Madrid, although at the time of our visit it was largely a wasteland of empty lots, lonely streetlamps and redundant roundabouts.

To or from either station you'll want to flag down a bus for connections with the old town (line 8 from the old train station and line 11 in order to reach the new train station). Buses stop almost right under the Roman aqueduct, so you can't get lost. A single trip on the bus cost 88 euro cents at the time. Although the bus back to the new train station in time to catch the 6.20pm train was standing-room only, the queue for tickets at the station was very short because most everyone already had their return tickets.

At the time a single ticket on the slow train from Madrid's Chamartin station to Segovia cost €6.55. By comparison, a single ticket on the superfast AVE train cost €10. The extra cost was worth it given the speed and comfort. The AVE train is much like flying, starting with the security checks and X-rays. The train itself is white and sleek inside and out. The pristine condition of the carriages with their white lino floors and the strong whiff of lemon cleaner put me in the mind of a hospital.

We had lots of legroom and reclining seats even in 2nd class. We coasted along and almost immediately entered a tunnel. Instead of winding through the mountain passes, we shot through tunnels under the mountains. There was no telling the speed we were travelling, except that the lights in the tunnels zipped past awfully fast. We merged into a lovely valley filled with a reservoir at the foot of jagged mountains, then it was right back into another tunnel.

On exiting that tunnel, we spotted the skyscrapers of Madrid and less than a half hour of leaving Segovia we had pulled back into Madrid Charmartin station.

Unfortunately because we had a picnic lunch on the train, I don't have any dining recommendations for Segovia. Click back though and I'll tell you all about a gourmet diner in Madrid which dished up the best onion rings I've had on this side of the pond!

Madrid one more time 4

2011-10-24T23:31:00.001+01:00

Cobbled streets lead away from Segovia's cathedral for our third and final destination of the day, the alcazar or town castle. All of Segovia's old town sits atop a lump of rock which narrows towards the western tip. Separated by the town by a deep chasm and overlooking a river, this strategic site has been fortified at least since Roman times over 2000 years ago.

Probably the most significant occupants here were the monarchs of the Kingdom of Castile. It was in Segovia that Queen Isabella I was crowned, who later helped finance the voyages of Christopher Columbus. After the royal court left, the alcazar became a prison.

The stone fortress that now greets visitors is a fairly recent structure and a rather fanciful one at that. In 1862, a devastating fire within the castle burned for three days, leaving a shell that took decades to restore. The castle eventually re-opened as a military academy.

The history of the castle makes little impact on visitors today. Instead, it is known for its beautiful chambers and stunning views. The ceilings in several rooms are remarkable.

In the less ornate rooms, visitors are drawn to the windows or out onto the battlements.

Aside from an armoury, there isn't much on display about the building's history as a strategic fortress.

Climbing one of the towers rewards visitors with even more far-ranging vistas, including the postcard view of the skyline.

The castle is surrounded by gardens. Here is a bird's eye view down.

Other points of interest like a monastery and this ancient church beckon nearby, but according to my watch it's time to catch the bus back to the station.

Click back next time for some more photos from Segovia, plus some practical tips on making the trip from Madrid.

Madrid one more time 3

2011-10-23T12:42:00.000+01:00

Segovia earned its world-class status as a UNESCO heritage site by having three stunning structures crowded together in a small city of about 50,000 people. It makes an ideal daytrip from Madrid (or even a half-daytrip after the nightmare we had booking a train for the trip from Madrid).

After taking in the awesome span of the Roman aqueduct, it was time for the steep climb into town to see the next of the town's three architectural achievements, its 16thC Gothic cathedral. It dominates the town and is so large and distinctive that we had spotted it from the plane when flying into Madrid a couple days earlier.

Despite being such a vast structure, it is highly decorated outside

and surprisingly intimate inside, crowded with almost two dozen side chapels.

Construction work on the cathedral began in 1525, soon after a war had destroyed the town's previous 15thC cathedral. Quite a lot of the stone, iron grillwork and wood carvings were rescued from the rubble and put to good use in the new building. Even the cloisters (the arcade surrounding the garden which would have been tended by the monks) were pieced back together for the monks' living quarters.

A walk through the light-flooded cloisters led to a small treasury room and the chapter house, a chamber hung with Flemish tapestries.

I took many, many photographs of the highly-ornate interior and you can find a full gallery on my Facebook page.

Next stop, the third of Segovia's crowning glories, its fairytale castle.

Madrid one more time 2

2011-10-20T22:43:00.001+01:00

If I had known the near impossibility of buying a train ticket for our outing to Segovia, I would have set the alarm for about 6am and skipped our lovely breakfast at a Chuecatown cafe. You just don't expect to spend half of the day trying to buy a train ticket for your daytrip!

All attempts at buying a ticket in advance through the otherwise helpful national rail website proved futile. I found an online travellers' forum where hundreds of people were lodging their horror stories and complaints. Some blamed the servers as being too slow, others said their banks had declined the transactions, while a few stated that the website would not accept overseas bank cards. For whatever reason, I simply could not book ourselves on a train in advance.

Giving up on the online discount, we showed up in person at Chamartin mainline station with about 20 minutes before our train. In Britain, this is not a problem, there is always a ticket machine or you can buy your tickets from the conductor on the train. Worst case scenario is maybe having to queue up for 10-15 minutes to be served at a ticket window.

Arriving mid-morning on a weekday in September (in other words, nowhere near rush hour) and the Chamartin ticketing hall had five ticketing windows mobbed by dozens of travellers. We swooped down on the handful of automated ticket machines. There were two types. The first only seemed to be for printing pre-paid tickets off the aforementioned worthless website. The others only sold tickets for the slower regional trains (we were hoping to catch the superfast AVE service).

We gave up on catching the AVE train which meant waiting an hour until the next (slow) train. We bought our tickets from the machine, which on my first try spat out all my change right when I was ready to put in my last 10 cents. For shits and giggles, we queued to buy tickets for our trip to Toledo we had planned for later in the week. I took number 823. The counter was serving ticket number 784. And I knew every single one of those 40 people ahead of us in the queue would be asking the Spanish equivalent of: 'What if I travel on a Tuesday, changed in Crewe and caught the 18.24 to Newton le Willows, is that any cheaper?'

This gave us time to buy snacks, sandwiches and water to tide us over during the 1 hour 45 minute journey from Madrid to Segovia (nearly the time it takes us to travel between Manchester and London). At least it is a scenic journey, through forests and up into the Guardarrama mountains, the first half or so we recognised from our trip to El Escorial.

The train pulled into Segovia and we soon surmised that the fast AVE trains depart from a different station, so there was no means of buying our return ticket just then. We stepped outside and caught a bus from out front which saved us a 20-minute walk into the old town.

The bus dropped us off practically underneath the magnificent Roman aqueduct.

It's amazing to think that nearly two thousand years ago the Romans could build such a structure (167 arches without mortar), all part of a network that transported water down from the mountains over 10 miles away and into their city along a steady 1% grade.

The aqueduct acts as a bridge in order to maintain the flow of water right into the fortified town, soaring over 90 feet into the air in order to span a gap nearly a half mile wide.

In my mind's eye, it ranks alongside Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids as one of the great monuments of the ancient world. Well worth all the rigamorale for getting here on the train!

The whole town of Segovia is a UNESCO World Heritage site and you'll find out more in my next post.

Just published

2011-10-19T20:36:00.002+01:00

And just in time for Halloween, here is my newest book: a collection of photos ranging from the scenic to the spooky during a visit to the English seaside resort of Whitby, the legendary landing place of Count Dracula.

Whitby (Day & Night) is printed on-demand by Blurb. That means each bookstore-quality copy is individually printed the same day you place your order and should be in your hands within 2 weeks.

Blurb accepts payment via PayPal or credit card in 5 currencies and can ship to over 70 countries all over the world.

My book is available in softcover or hardcover, measures 7x7 inches, runs to 40 pages and contains a mixture of black & white with full-colour photography.

Madrid: una vez mas!

2011-10-16T13:59:00.000+01:00

Madrid, one more time!

Lilttle more than a year after our first trip to Madrid, we found ourselves returning for another week to what has become our favourite city on the Continent (to date). Thanks to the delicious food, abundant wine and laidback vibe, we had had our first-ever relaxing city break here the spring before. What he hadn't had much of was hot sunshine (the city was having a freak cold snap in June). Nor had we ventured much away from the city, which is surrounded by beautiful scenery and some of Spain's finest historic cities.

Two hours after jetting off from England, we stepped into blistering hot sunshine which assured us that our shorts, T-shirts and sandals would not go unworn this time. In fact, such was the heat that the first item on our agenda was a flop in front of the hotel's aircon until the scorching mid-afternoon sun eased off a bit. Even at 6 in the evening though it was 100F as we strolled the gardens in front of the royal palace with our ice creams. Later we had a few drinks and a meal, nothing memorable, but then we were wiped out from the day's travelling and unpacking.

Early Sunday morning and half the city manages to turn out for the infamous El Rastro street market, despite the excesses from the night before. El Rastro is depicted as the crack heroin of Madrid's sights: dirty, dangerous and addictive. Its name after all means 'the bloody trail', when these streets were smeared with the blood of slaughtered animals being dragged to the local tanneries. All the guidebooks are filled with stories of thieving gypsies and leprous pickpockets. Buyer beware, indeed!

In actuality, the street market turned out to be rather middlebrow and dull, at least along the upper reaches along Calle de Toledo near the La Latina metro stop. The stalls here sell staple items for the tourists like simple handmade jewellery, T-shirts, sunglasses, handbags and even pashmina scarves. The tall trees lining the steep avenue made it thoroughly pleasant, even.

Things became much more interesting at a plaza at the bottom end of the market which was filled with people young and old alike swapping sports cards, like kids in a playground during recess.

Huge volumes of cards were laid out on the walls and benches, with most people carrying a tick list so they could scour each other's offerings in order to complete their own collections.

Deeper down the back streets and things became even interesting (or chaotic, depending on your point of view). The crowds here were more local and the whiff of criminal activity more noticeable. During whispered conversations, vendors would produce bags from under their tables for quick perusal. A chap with a box full of books made himself scarce when policemen came around the corner. Amongst the rusty old keys, plumbing fixtures and dusty trinkets were a few electronics that had the appearance of being, shall we say, re-appropriated from one careless owner.

But there were also some lovely old antiques to admire and plenty of curiosities, so there were photo
opportunities galore. I've put some more photos on my Facebook page. Just keep a hand on your wallet!

Berlin 8 - Goodbye, Lenin

2011-10-01T17:41:00.001+01:00

We had already had a peek across the wall and into the former East Berlin earlier in the trip, when we had walked around the posh bits like the Hakesche Hofe (courtyards done in a Art Nouveau style)

and the New Synagogue.

We'd even spotted a buxom German woman who was a walking bratwurst grill, so the former Communist side of town couldn't be all bad, we thought.

Time now for the full-on Stasiland experience, starting with the hideous concrete wasteland that is Alexanderplatz. Surrounded by stark high-rises, its sole decorative features include a fountain surrounded by boozing ne'er-do-wells

and the rather fabulous World Clock which allowed us to check the current time in Mexico Stadt. One of the tower blocks on the square is now a Park Inn Hotel and most of the square is surrounded by shops, including one called New Yorker (specialising in clothes for the non-discerning Turkish gigolo).

All this is overlooked by a massive TV tower.

We searched high and low for our Fraulein Bratwurst, but had to settle for a low rent fish-n-chips style place. You've heard of fish fingers? This place served what I can only describe as fish thumbs.

A tram from here took us deeper into East Berlin. We made the trip in order to stroll back towards Alexanderplatz along Karl Marx Allee, the city's centrepiece of Stalinist architecture. In the GDR days this was the boulevard along which lines of tanks and ranks of soldiers would have marched on May Day in a display of Communist might.

By chance, on the day of our visit it was May Day, but these days it's the Kreuzberg neighbourhood which attracts thousands of radicals, vegans, anarchists and ex-Methodists for a day of drink-fuelled demonstrations. Despite being packed, the tram was peaceful, like the left-wing teens were on their way to a concert and not a borderline riot.

The avenue is impressive because of its symmetry: perfectly matched blocks in the stepped-back 'wedding cake' style facing one another for about a mile.

Plodding along though past identical tower blocks does become tiresome after a point, so we were glad to see the sign for Cafe Sibylle.

When it opened originally in the 1950s, the establishment had the generic name Milchtrinkhalle ('milk drink hall'). These days it feels like a living history museum that does cold drinks on the side. Locals have donated memoriabilia from the GDR days and there's even some old kitchen appliances and furniture so you can get a taste of what it might have been like living along what was then called Stalin Allee.

The wallpaper alone is worth a visit.

Some of the people sat around us looked old enough to have had Communist ice cream in this very spot.

So what better way to end our trip to Berlin than with a Marxist milkshake?? Auf wiedersehen, au revoir, so long!

Berlin 7 - mein hostess with the mostest

2011-10-01T17:19:00.001+01:00

Someone say time for ouzo?? A quick word first about the B&B, the aptly-named Berliner Bed & Breakfast in the leafy Schoneberg neighbourhood.

Walking to the B&B in the hot sunshine of early May, it felt as warm as an English summer. The streets of Schoneberg are lined with a seemingly never-ending assortment of cafes, bars, delis and restaurants on the ground level of apartment blocks. It was all extremely pleasant, prosperous and bustling with many places catching our eye as potential places to eat and drink during our visit.

The B&B is on the ground floor of a fine old block, but no-one was in when we knocked at our agreed time. We went next door for a curry lunch, which was a bit watery and came with soup to start instead of the usual poppadums, but it was cheap and filling plus bided the time until 'mein hostess' arrived. At last a woman arrived with her shopping in tow, nearly dragging a decrepit dog along the pavement which must have been the reason for her tardiness.

She took us into the lounge/diner to show us the fridge, kettle, stocks of tea, etc. She didn't know all the words in English so it was like a language lesson for her. Our room at the end of the hall must have been a family suite because it had FIVE beds and two wardrobes, plus an enormous table surrounded by mismatched chairs. Posters of Marilyn Monroe and Breakfast at Tiffanies assured us this was indeed the Hollywood suite.

On the way back out the owner arrived to greet us. He gave us a map, indicating 'this is the circle in which you move' (meaning the main underground lines - I think) and sent us on our way.

For the evening's meal we decided on Ousies Taverna, a piece of Greece transported to the German suburbs. Despite being on the ground floor of an apartment building, the interior felt like an authentic Greek establishment right down to the dusty bottles of wine lining the walls. They must have imported their chef from Greece too because it was the finest Greek meal we've had, even better than the best island tavernas.

The only slight problem is that the secret is out and every table was full or reserved for the evening. We were granted the use of a tiny table right in front of the door as long as we didn't linger.

To start, we were given a huge bowl of olives, each the size of an egg and dressed only in oil with maybe a drop of vinegar. Even the green ones were divine. A salad soon followed, called dakos: stale chunks of crusty wholewheat bread left to soften in ripe tomatoes, garnished with dill and olive oil (a recipe that has since become one of our favourites at home).

More crusty bread and heavenly olive oil was on the table for us, which we washed down with ample amounts of beer. For mains I had a simple bowl of cubed roasted pork in thyme with lemon drizzled over, while Christian had a huge platter of skewered meat, sausage and roast veg like courgette, potato and aubergine with a side of refreshing tzatziki.

Right when I thought it couldn't be even more authentic, our host presented us with two complimentary shots of ouzo (I downed both). All this for only €35, so I gave our host a hearty 'efkaristo' when we left after our allotted hour.

We walked off our meal for a spell, just soaking up the atmosphere of the busy boulevard of shops and eateries on a balmy spring evening. On a whim we went down a side street and pitched up at a random pavement cafe where we sat under a string of fairy lights and sank a couple more pints of a dark wheat beer by the local Schneider & Sons. Drink up, because tomorrow it's time for a proper look around the Stalinist relics of East Berlin!

Berlin 6 - wandering around West Berlin

2011-10-01T16:11:00.000+01:00

The Communists got the good stuff! When the city was split after WWII, the old historic heart of Berlin ended up under Soviet control, while the Allies focused their rebuilding efforts of the western half of the city around a district called Kufurstendamm (Ku'damm for short).

As you'd expect from the capitalist western powers, much of the development was given over to shops, offices and neon signs so it feels a bit soulless in parts. One of the chief attractions is the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church, or its ruins at least. Built in 1895, it was nearly obliterated by Allied bombing in 1943.

A portion of its clock tower remains as a sort of peace memorial and is flanked by a 1960s carillion.

The original church has some of its mosaics intact plus a display of photos from its heyday, while a new church next door has huge panels of deep blue stained glass surrounding a dour modernist crucifix.

Calling in at a nearby U-bahn stop felt like stepping back in time, with what initially seemed to be old billboards from maybe the 1920s. On closer inspection, these proved to be clever reconstructions (with website addresses, for instance).

Still, a welcome change from the usual adverts for scary clowns.

Nearby Potsdamer Platz has been one of the city's largest building sites for almost 20 years, a vast new commercial space which attempts to knit the two halves of Berlin back together. A hundred years ago, this was the Times Square of Europe, crisscossed by 30 tram lines and overlooked by the continent's finest hotels and cafes. Much of the neighbourhood was demolished in WWII before being divided by the Berlin Wall.

Huge sums of money have been spent over the past few years in an effort to return the area to its glory days, with hotels, theatres, casinos, apartments, offices and shops being built by some of the world's best-known architects. The impressive roof shelters a huge gathering space amongst the office blocks, but it's very much a playground for the rich who are content with upmarket eatery chains and overpriced clothes shops.

Potsdamer Platz turns its back on West Berlin's equivalent to the Museum Island of East Berlin, a series of low-slung buildings which house the Kulturforum.

The Old Masters are to be found in the New Picture Gallery, so-named because the building dates from 1998. We had the gallery almost to ourselves and in some rooms it was only us and a guard whose job it was to insist we stood behind a line on the floor away from each painting. The labelling was sparse (just an unobtrusive caption on the skirting boards near the floor) and the floor plan gave no clues on where to find the best stuff, so we tried to look into each and every room. This became a tiresome exercise in back-tracking, which became more confusing because each room is painted the same. I've been in far older galleries which were designed much better.

It was also a case of quantity over quality: entire walls by the likes of Rembrandt, Cranach, Drurer, Hals, Rubens and Tiepolo but very little that could truly be could a masterpiece.

It was a treat though seeing two Vermeers side by side (Young Woman with a Necklace and A Glass of Wine), when you consider only about three dozen of his paintings have survived. By comparision, the museum has 39 Cranachs alone (but then they were a father and son outfit).

They were by no means Vermeer's finest pieces though (one was not entirely successful as a portrait and the other did not have a compelling narrative like you find in his best work).

The Caravaggios somehow eluded us (what was I saying about the lousy layout!) but I was drawn to two Venuses by Cranach (including one that features Cupid being stung by a swarm of bees, yet at the same time he is unwilling to drop the honeycomb he is holding - an allegory for the sweet torments of love), as well as his Fountain of Youth and a copy he made of Bosch's Last Judgement. There was a proper Bosch, but it was a fairly straightforward devotional piece of St John (of Revelation fame).

A canvas by Brugel was a real puzzle. At first glance I took it to be a village of idiots, there were so many odd details. I gathered from the German caption that it was in fact illustrating 100 Dutch proverbs of the time, showing the chaos that would ensure if people did follow all the old adages.

Other Dutch paintings included a cat fight at a bordello and a knife fight at a tavern. Balancing out these bloodbaths was Hooch's nearly photographic The Mother with everything caught in mid-motion.

As for the Italians...all I will say about Canaletto is that he certainly could churn them out. The bits by Botticelli weren't his best. The one work that stopped us in our tracks was a portrait by Moroni. A very powerful and realistic work.

Velazquez and Zubaran represented Spain, while Reynolds and Gainsborough flew the colours for England. Altogether not the finest collection we've seen, but certainly one of the most thorough.

Just time enough the visit the new Holocaust memorial nearby. From the perimeter it looked like a cobbled square, although the grey concrete pillars turn out to be monolithic in size as we walked through them. I've found this aerial view. There are nearly 3000 stones. Each is rectangular and they look a bit like coffins.

Although the tops of the stones are almost level at the top, the ground between them is in fact uneven. As the ground falls away, the stones soon towered over us. Some are nearly 12 feet high and lean at almost imperceptible angles, so there is some chaos amid the uniformity.

The stones stand so close together people have to walk single-file. The stones are laid out in a grid, so we could see across to the other side, but we never knew what we might encounter at each intersection. Other people walked among the stones, but we'd only catch disconcerting glimpses - someone's foot as they strode past, a child's laugh, a couple ahead suddenly disappearing off to the side - which meant at each crossing we worried whether we would collide with someone else. Escaping to the other side and looking back, the tops of the stones appeared more uneven, unsteady even, as it being heaved up by the earth. It's not often a brief visit to a memorial turns into a nerve-shattering experience, so all credit must go to the designers for this unsettling creation.

With the cultural portion of the day over, it was time for a drink! Ouzo, anybody??

Berlin 5 - crossing the wall

2011-08-13T15:51:00.000+01:00

Fifty years after the Communists sealed off West Berlin, I'm sure many visitors to the reunified city will be surprised to find there are remarkably few remnants of the Berlin Wall.

Since 1989, the Germans have taken great pleasure in obliterating it and people have helped themselves to chunks of it (I know of a Las Vegas casino where several concrete slabs are now a urinal). What little remains is still the target of souvenir seekers, so this section remains behind fencing.

That's right, a wall for the wall!

The most significant section is now known as the East Side Gallery, the world's largest open air art gallery. There are about 100 panels along a half mile of the old Berlin Wall painted by artists from all over the world who turned this into an impromptu 'memorial to freedom' right after the wall itself began to be dismantled.

Money is being spent on actually rebuilding part of the wall, with all the paintings being restored using weather-resistant materials.

Not all artists agreed to renovation, while some painted entirely different works.

Although this means visitors will be able to appreciate the artwork for longer, little of it is original and it is still a target for vandalism. But I suppose that's all part of the transient nature of open-air art.

Graffiti is bit of an art form for Berliners and there is certainly plenty nearby, not just on the old wall.

The wall may be gone, but there is still a language barrier!

IF YOU GO
Closest U-Bahn station is Schlesisches Tor on the U1 or a short walk from Warschauer Straße (U1, S-Bahn) and the terminus of tram line M20. Look for the red brick turrets of the Oberbaumbrücke which cross the river nearby.

Berlin 4 - just photos from the Bode Museum

2011-08-07T13:19:00.000+01:00

Berlin 3

2011-08-07T13:14:00.000+01:00

At the heart of Berlin is the 'museum island' of Museumsinsel, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999. All these years after re-unification and the buildings are still being renovated while the East and West Berlin collections are being pieced back together.

There are five museums, the Altes (Classical antiquities), Neues (mainly Egyptian artefacts), Alte Nationalgalerie (19th Century art), Pergamon Museum (ancient Middle East) and Bode Museum (sculpture). We visited only the latter two and I think the ticket seller was miffed that we had passed on the newly rebuilt Neues Museum which is packing in so many crowds that visitors are allocated a timed entry. Maybe next time?

The Pergamon Museum is a bit like a theme park for ancient architecture, with several huge setpieces where it feels you have travelled thousands of years back in time. The namesake of the museum is the Pergamon Altar, a Greek temple built nearly 2200 years ago in what is now Turkey. These days its steps are a handy spot for pouting Eurotrash teens to congregate en masse.

Similar in some ways to the Acropolis in Athens, there is a distinct difference in scultpural styles. In the waning days of the Greek influence on the Mediterranean, the stripped-down and idealised Classical forms were replaced by Hellenistic fashions. Just look at all the curls, the drapery and the tortured poses.

Another highlight of the museum is the Gate of Miletus from Roman times, where again visitors have the opportunity of walking around buildings which aref thousands of years old.

Most stunning of all are the blue gates dedicated to the goddess Ishtar, dating from the reign of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II about 2600 years ago in what is now Iraq.

The glazed bricks are decorated with wild bulls, slender dragons and even unicorns while a procession of 120 lions stretch about 90 feet away from the ceremonial entrance.

As impressive as the gate stands at nearly 50 feet high, this is only the shorter of the pair of gates that stood in the middle of ancient Babylon.

The much larger inner gate remains in storage, too large for the museum to rebuild. In addition, the original processional way was about a half mile long.

This illustration gives some indication of the structure.

Plenty more sculpture and carvings are found in nearby rooms, although overall we found the museum fairly compact and well worth the admission price.

On to the Bode Museum, a gorgeous domed palace sat at the tip of the island. Stuffed with sculpture and altarpieces, the museum's main focus is religious art.

For anyone more used to the stark interiors of English churches, it is a novelty seeing such colourful and extravagant devotional pieces, but after awhile we were overwhelmed by the sheer number of fat babies and tortured saints (St Vitus cooked in a pot, St Bartholomew flayed, Mary Magadelene clothed in her own matted hair during her years in the wilderness, etc etc).

Still worth a look if you have the energy, because there are also an abundance of beautiful artworks throughout the building.

Berlin 2

2011-06-12T10:06:00.001+01:00

First stop after coming down from the amazing glass dome atop the Reichstag, it was time for a brief detour into the Tiergarten, the largest park in the centre of Berlin. During a particularly harsh winter after WWII, local residents stripped the woodland bare for firewood. These days it is a green lung again for the city, but some relics from wartime remain.

Just a few steps from the Reichstag is a Soviet War Memorial which is flanked either side by the first two Russian tanks to enter the city in 1945.

These days they make a handy bird perch.

The brown marble of the memorial is said to have come from one of Hitler's key government buildings.

Heading back east from the Tiergarten and all eyes latch onto one of the city's best-known landmarks, the Brandenburg Gate. The only remaining gate into the city, it once sat on the boundary between East and West Berlin. Back then, this was no man's land, but today everyone is free to walk through the columns which support the goddess of victory in her chariot pulled by four horses. Truth be told, it's a lot smaller than we envisioned.

The large pedestrianised space on the other side of the gate is Pariser Platz, known decades ago as 'the emperor's reception hall' because of the number of diplomats who lived here. It has regained its status as Embassy Row now that the ambassadors of the USA, UK and France have relocated here.

It is also busker central, where you can pose for a photo next to a Soviet 'soldier' in vintage wartime uniform and (why not) an Imperial Stormtrooper from Star Wars.

Further down the street is the former Soviet Union embassy, now occupied of course by the Russian Federation although the building itself remains recognisably Stalinist from the outside.

All this area has always been at the centre of Berlin and remains home to many of its oldest and most distinctive buildings.

The square of Gendarmenmarkt is home to not one, but two cathedrals, one French and the other German. They are nearly identical and I can't remember which is which!

Not far from here is Bebelplatz, which was the site of the Nazis first official book-burning, on 10 May 1933 according to this plaque.

It's a place to stand and wonder how a country can give so much music, poetry and philosophy to the world (for centuries Germany was the cultural powerhouse of Europe and the highlight for any Grand Tour) - then it only takes one generation to come along for everything to be literally reduced to ash.

On a lighter note: here's an odd little building, covered with mice dancing about, even dangling off the doorknob...

looked over by this cat, who looks a bit stern (or harassed, who knows).

Plenty more still to discover in Berlin, click back soon!