http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/ Welcome to Been there. Your tips on the places you know - that you love, live in or have just visited - are what make this guide. http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32213 Malaysia, „disguising, wrapping and winding the Oriental essence, applying codes and masks as the sign of the festival this year”.
Arsenals is an event that takes over Riga in autumn since 1986 showing the most vivid
international cinema events and the latest and most interesting Baltic films. Several cinema-related events and works of art are also coming out to the streets and screenings of classical silent films accompanied by live music performed by professional musicians is a great tradition of this festival.

Since 1998 Baltic Film Competition is a special section of Arsenals and screens
films produced in the Baltic region in the last two years. Tihs is the film festival
which demonstrates and rewards the latest and best Baltic feature films, short films,
documentaries and animated films.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32213 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32067 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/32067 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31503 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31503 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31326 Chaplin’s dad used to tinkle the ivories at the 120-year-old inn and scenes from the film ‘Snatch’ were shot on location here
Situated in the historic Black Prince Road, London’s first German gastro-pub has 16 great German beers gushing from gorgeous ceramic draught taps and 32 bottled brews. There are lots of 'weiss' (white) wheat beers and I sampled a version called 'Hell'....which was heavenly.
The kitchen serves up lots of sausages, schnitzels and Bavarian specialities. Two big screens show the German Bundesliga and we watched a medley of Wimbledon matches and live performances direct from Glastonbury. I won’t even mention what a great atmosphere there was during the football World Cup…!]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31326 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31242 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/31242 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/28316 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/28316 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/28281 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/28281 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24554 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24554 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24552
The Cobb also figures in the BBC TV-film adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Here the spirited Louisa Musgrove falls hard onto the cobblestones and is rendered unconscious.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24552 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24551
Much of the backdrop for the first half of the film is the Piazza Grande, a large sloping square dominated by the Romanesque facade of the church of Santa Maria, the Palazzo della Fraternita and an arcade designed by Vasari, now occupied by antique shops and restaurants where you can watch fresh pasta being made.

However, if you look a little more closely you will notice a number of display boards dotted around the square, showing stills and dialogue from the film. Roberto Benigni, who scripted, directed and starred in the film, obviously picked his locations with care, and he won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 1999.

If you do decide to visit this classic film location you will also have the opportunity to visit one of Italy’s great fresco cycles, Piero della Francesca’s Legend of the True Cross, which adorns the walls of the church of San Francesco.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24551 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24540 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24540 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24539
Also Bradford is home of the National Film and Photographic Museum.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24539 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24538
The hotel's Queen Elizabeth Suite, complete with four poster bed, was used for the filming of the duo's love scenes at the fictious "The Boatman Inn", while exterior shots were filmed at the Kings Arms just down the road.

The room is actually an individual suite separate from the main hotel block, crammed with gorgeous antiques and lovely touches which would amuse any film buff (was the copy of "Horse and Hounds" put there deliberately?).

The restaurant was charming, serving delicious food, and you could see where all the action was filmed in the bar. When you tire of Hugh Grant, the Chiltern Hills are just a short distance away for a romantic, bracing walk.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24538 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24536
The nearest Aegean islet floats, the head of a half submerged hippo, guarding their privacy. The monastery is an enormous seagull stain on the dramatic cliffs, and preserves the tradition of a penitential climb towards the miracles and the icon. Except in August, of course, when Mainland Greeks, American Greeks, Italians, French and even some Spanish cinephiles, turn the peaceful pilgrimage into one of the more crowded circles of Hell.

Amorgos, because of the ten hours on the ferry from Pireaus, preserves other traditional Cycladic experiences; the crystal sea, the pristine beach, the picturesque eateries. The main village, Hora Amorgou, is renovating its windmills in homage to, and hopes of, the tourist trade on Mykonos, and high summer brings a tribe of jewellery making ‘trustafairians’, vaguely Goan English public school ‘hippies’ on extended gap years, ‘just travelling round the Med’. So, there are slow changes, and the island is not quite the hermit paradise it used to be. Its starring role in The Big Blue was not a killing blow, however. The virtues of Amorgos performed slow judo on the crowds pulled in by the movie, almost as if the fervent hopes of the cinema tourist had actually managed to reproduce the scenery, the characters and the atmosphere they were expecting from the island. What really happened was that the movie caught some of what was already there, and amplified it, and then the unique conditions of Amorgos, the geography, the history and the sociology, trapped the wave of tourism and coped with it, just like it coped with the tsunami at Ayiali after the 1956 earthquake. Your photographs should feature a small, dark, native and attractive bottle of ‘Psimeni Raki’ , to celebrate this success.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24536 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24531
Try the restored 1905 "Railway Childen" station, see where the 1970 film was made. You'll remember it all, from the level crossing to Perks house, to the spot where Jenny Agutter ran to her daddy.

Take this trip back in time and i promise an unforgetable day. It has so much to offer. You can even go off to other RC Locations. A must for any railway or film buff, or just for the child in you.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24531 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24526
From the early 1950’s to mid 1960’s Bray Studios, by the river Thames between Windsor and Bray, echoed to the screams of Hammer Films - its principal building, Down Place, and backlot standing in for, amongst others, Dracula’s Castle and Baskerville Hall. Nearby the Victorian Gothic turrets of Oakley Court, now a hotel and conference venue, also featured in several Hammer movies, including “The Reptile”, but gained cult horror status of its own by being Dr. Frank N Furter’s Castle in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”.

However, the rather less gothic façade of Maidenhead Town Hall provides my favourite piece of Royal Borough trivia and a link with another great British film institution. Just a mere whisper of “Ooh Matron” and you are no longer standing outside the Town Hall but Borough County Hospital, the setting for “Carry on Doctor”

Built in the early 1960’s and rather utilitarian in style the outside of the Town Hall, red brick and sturdy with manicured lawns and municipal flower arrangements, does look suitably institutional. Inside are the customer service centre, council chamber, civic offices, a coffee shop and one of the local theatres, the Desborough Suite. Externally the building featured in three Carry on films - “Doctor”, “Carry on Again, Doctor” and “Carry on Behind” - and little seems to have changed on the outside since Barbara Windsor’s bestockinged legs sashayed through the front entrance.

As to whether the local councillors are aware of the building’s “Carry On” connections I couldn’t say. Perhaps next time I am canvassed for a vote I should adopt the Bernard Bresslaw approach
“Oh I dreamt about you last night”
“Did you”
“No you wouldn’t let me”!]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24526 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24515
Ancestral seat of the Earls of Leicester, the Coke family has lived in Holkham since the 1750’s. It is still very much a family home: when I was there the present day Viscount’s wife and children were packing a silver caravan for their summer holiday. Visitors are encouraged to “walk on the carpets and get close to the ancient statues and treasures.”

The Hall is open for visitors from June to September. There is a café, shop and museum. A special exhibition shows costumes worn in “The Duchess.” The deer park is free and open every day except Christmas Day – visitors can walk around the 3000 acre grounds and are certain to see some of the 800 fallow deer. By the time we tore ourselves away it was early evening, just time to walk down Lady Anne’s Drive to the nature reserve and watch kite flyers on the beach until sunset. To spend more time in this designated area of outstanding beauty, stay in a lodge hideaway set in a folly on Holkham estate.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24515 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24511 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24511 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24499
But my most thrilling holiday movie moment took place 60 miles north of the city at the tiny hamlet of Bodega Bay, the setting of Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 masterpiece The Birds. I called into a gift shop near the Tides Inn (which also features in the film, though now totally transformed into deli, gift shop and restaurant) to ask directions to 'the centre of town' as seen in the movie. I was told by the woman in the shop: 'This is where she gets in the boat, the school is four miles inland!' I'd clearly not been the first fan of The Birds to call in to ask directions!

Inland was the classically spooky schoolhouse (very Edward Hopper) perched high on a hill, but no neighbouring jungle gym next door where the crows once perched. It was like being transported into the film and I half expected Tippi Hedren to appear at any moment. I never found the centre of town – there is no town – just cinema, the magic of.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24499 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24478
It appears in films by Malle and Kieslowski, but most strikingly in Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris. This is where tortured American widower Paul (Brando) first meets Maria Schneider's Jeanne for the first time. A sinister, beautiful and overwhelming piece of European architecture that sets the tone for the film.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/24478