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"Crash, clang, ding-ding, BANG!"
The incessant din, hurtling up from the road below our mountainside homestay, bounced off the eaves into the bedroom, waking me from a deep sleep. Jamie and I dragged our sluggish bodies downstairs for breakfast.
Darjeeling, like most places in the Himalaya, is a Buddhist community. And like the rest of India there is a parade, festival or celebration nearly every week. Today a colourful banner declared, “2600 years of the enlightenment of Lord Buddha".
We gobbled up our toast and drained cups of sweet masala tea before heading out to join the procession.
Orchestral manoeuvres in the alleys
Maroon and orange-clad monks banged drums and cymbals with devoted concentration, or blew as hard as possible on a variety of horns, without varying the note. One instrument was around ten feet long: the business end held by the 'blower' (to call him a musician would be a stretch too far), while at the other end a second man supported two of these gigantic musical pipes under his arms.
As one band receded with its crowd of followers, the next little group arrived. The percussion sections beat out an impressive rhythm, but I tried in vain to identify a melody among the single-layered notes blasting out from the wind sections. To add to the cacophony a few high-spirited young men set off deafening fire crackers down dark, side alleys.
Not all blessings are disguised
Some of the monks carried ornate and colourful statues of Buddha in palanquins. Arranged across two parallel bars they held Him on their shoulders. Devotees, with serious expressions or a surreptitious smile, lowered their heads and threaded their way underneath the icons between the monks.
Towards the end we broke through the throng and joined the worshippers. It was a happy occasion, and away from the bands people walked in silence or chatted quietly as they slowly followed behind the monks. We walked side by side with tiny, ancient crones in tribal dress; young mothers in tight western clothes, holding babies; groups of schoolgirls; bent grandfathers; brightly coloured, swaddled toddlers; and wiry mountain men.
Some devotees carried rectangular prayer boxes brought from the temples. with which they blessed the crowd by touching the boxes to bowed heads. I was blessed, but to the amusement of my neighbours the sharp wooden corners crashing onto my crown made me yelp. Someone was listening because my prayers to not end up bleeding and bruised were answered.
Sweet smelling smoke
The procession lasted until lunchtime and took us on a thorough tour of the eastern 'Queen of Hills'. At small stations along the route we were offered water and orange juice to keep up our strength.
We passed quietly along steep, narrow passages in the town centre where women in open windows, or standing on balconies, gently fanned plumes of incense through clothes lines strung with washing. Snatches of music drifted towards us.
The fragrant smoke filtered downwards in the chilly mountain air, mingling with the damp, earthy smell of this magical autumnal day.
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Darjeeling. Take a jeep from New Jalpaiguri station in West Bengal. Expect to pay around 150 to 200 INR per seat, but the space allocated for a 'seat' is tiny. Buy two seats per person, better still rent the whole bench seat behind the driver (the equivalent of four seats).
You could take Unesco World Heritage 'Toy' Train all the way, but it's a long, slow boot. Better to take an excursion on the train from Darjeeling to Ghoom for a morning.
"Would you like to have lunch in Nepal?" said Pramod, the headmaster of RIBS primary school in Manebhanjang, Darjeeling district.
We had just spent the morning talking to his bouncing pupils, aged three to ten, and were ready for a break. So we strolled up the road, nodding to the disinterested border patrol guards, and jumped over a storm drain into Nepal. It hardly felt like moving into another country, but the frisson that goes with flouting the rules turned lunch into a small adventure.
Over a few ill-gotten Nepali beers and nefarious noodles with our new friends, we asked where we should go for the best view of Kanchenjunga, India's highest peak. They told us to avoid Tiger Hill where droves of "those noisy Indian tourists go by Jeep every morning". Instead, they insisted we should try 10,170ft Tonglu, because it offers a closer (just) and clearer view.
"It’s also a very pleasant morning's walk," said our friend Jiwan over the top of his beer glass.
It didn't take them long to persuade us that despite our creaky knees and general lack of fitness we'd easily manage a two day trek in the Singalila National Park. By the time we arrived back in India they had arranged for Pemba, a recently qualified guide, to accompany us.
So the following day off we set, just after sunrise.
Easy trekking
Our guide turned out to be a 21 year old local student eager to practice his new job and excellent English on us, we were delighted to be his guinea pigs. We soon learned, however, that the Nepali idea of an easy walk is quite different from our own (either that or Jiwan had a mischievous sense of humour). The first day included the steepest part of the journey and took eight hours. It drizzled. It thundered. The lightning crashed around us. Not for nothing was Darjeeling named by Tibetans the ‘Land of Thunderbolts’. In fact it rained during the entire trek.
We met some of Pemba’s friends and family along the way, and drank an odd (to our western palettes) salty, buttery tea. In fact we gulped down anything they threw at us, including rakshi, a kind of Himalayan poitín – this one flavoured with rhododendrons – and several bamboo mugs of tongba, millet beer.
At Tumling, after a toasty night under thick blankets in an unheated mountain hut, Jamie dutifully got up before dawn for a hike up to Tonglu, hoping to catch the sun hitting Kanchenjunga through his lens. Unfortunately this vision lasted only a few seconds before the clouds came lumbering across the horizon, gobbling up the mountain and valley.
Mountain folk
On our way back Chitray (‘Bamboo House’) was a welcoming pit stop comprising a collection of timber and bamboo buildings which make up a farm, complete with goats, dogs and chickens mooching around the yard. The largest building doubles as a family home and workers' kitchen. We fell into the warm, dimly-lit dining room, steam pouring off us, and knocked back masala chai while chomping on biscuits. After a while a young Lama and his entourage of monks arrived and were ushered – with great respect and much bowing – into the back room. We noticed an old man sitting in the shadows between the kitchen and dining room. He smiled and raised his glass to us, so we nodded and waved hello back.
Eager to learn his story, we chatted to Chitray Pala (‘Bamboo House Papa’) and through Pemba learned he was 80 years old. Fifty-eight years previously he was imprisoned in Tibet by the Chinese. He knew he would never get out alive, so after twelve days escaped taking his mother and father with him. He didn’t know how many miles they walked over the mountains, but he reckoned it took two months to get to here, where they built their first farm out of the local bamboo. He finished his coffee and went off to be blessed by the Lama.
As we finished our second cup of tea Chitray Pala shouted goodbye to us and set off up the hill in the rain. We watched him disappear into the mist, carrying a heavy piece of corrugated iron on his back.
“He’s going to mend one of the shacks on his farm,” Pemba told us.
We didn’t see much of Kanchenjunga Massif during the trek, the clouds never parted at the right time. But we found other delights: we saw garlands of orchids hanging from forest trees; we filled our tummies with wild strawberries; we spotted eagles flying beside us; and watched maroon-clad Tibetan monks and a young Lama playing football with a can.
For more tales have a look at www.lizcleere.com
Trips can be arranged by hotels in Darjeeling or local tour companies
"I promise this walk is not long and nor is it steep," said Jiwan.
If our recent experience of what a Gorkha regards as an 'easy walk' was anything to go by – a one in three incline through forest and driving rain for eight hours – we were not entirely convinced by Jiwan Rai's assurances. Still, today he was wearing a suit and shirt, black shiny leather shoes and an umbrella hooked over his arm: it couldn't be that difficult, could it?
When we accepted an invitation to stay in Jiwan's family home in the mountains we hadn't realised it would be quite so far off the beaten track. Remote Barranumber village, like many settlements in this region, clings to the side of a mountain miles from the road. The only way to get there is to trek beside the quinine plantations and jungle surrounding Kalimpong. It was too precious an opportunity to miss, so we equipped ourselves with walking boots, sensible trousers and waterproofs. I carried bottled water, cans of beer, a few bananas, biscuits, hats, a good book, torch, loo paper, matches, incense sticks, mosquito coils, spare sheets and the kitchen sink. Jamie carried his camera bag.
A WALK IN THE PARK
We were prepared for vertical climbs, knee wrenching drops, and driving rain, but the weather was sunny and dry, and the walk turned out to be a gentle afternoon amble. We walked in single file: Jiwan at the front, me in the middle on his heels (eyes peeled for snakes), and Jamie lagging behind with his camera. The only noises came from the insects, birds and other small creatures hidden in the trees and undergrowth beside the trail. Stopping on a narrow path with views down into the Rangpo Valley, we could just make out the river sparkling below in the afternoon sun. On the opposite side of the valley Sikkim stretched into the distance.
"Next time you come we will make a camp, catch fish and have a picnic on the riverbank together."
Surrounded by all this pastoral glory I half expected a unicorn or a satyr to come strolling round the corner. Instead a stream of clear, mountain-cooled water running across our path reminded Jiwan that we had beer with us.
"Let's stop and rest," he said, placing our cans mid stream.
BEERS AND BALLOONS
While we waited for the beer to chill Jiwan pulled out some leaves by the roots, explaining that as a boy he used to eat them when he had no water (he used a local word to describe the plant which I can't remember, I don't suppose it would help identify them, but they were fern-like).
“You bite the balloon on the root, here.” He pulled the 'balloon' off and popped it in his mouth.
I bit into the first one and a refreshing liquid burst onto my tongue. It tasted of the mountain. Jamie, not one to shirk a new gourmet experience, spat his out declaring it disgustingly bitter. Jiwan laughed, explaining a little late that, "yes, sometimes they are a bit sour".
When the other two had downed their mountain-cooled tinnies, and I'd had my fill of balloon roots, we continued our idyll. As we entered the village we passed a gardenia bush with a scent so heady it obliterated all its competitors. The top noses at Dior couldn't come up with a more intoxicating fragrance. Jiwan picked us each a bloom and we arrived at his family home smelling of perfumed Parisian courtesans.
DID THE TUDORS LIVE HERE?
Houses of the Lepcha, Nepali and Bhutia tribes are constructed from wooden frames, using local trees. Latticed bamboo is then fixed between the frames and filled with cow dung. At first glance they are indistinguishable from our wattle and daub Medieval buildings at home, and it can be disorientating to see what appear to be Elizabethan houses lining the roads in the Himalaya. The roses, geraniums and other English herbaceous border flowers arranged outside in pots only adds to the familiarity. Sometimes the exteriors are painted in pastel shades, but inside there's no wallpaper or chintz. Instead a kind of slip is painstakingly smoothed over the walls to create an even finish. The corrugated iron roofs, often painted a terracotta colour, are the most obvious difference between our Tudor houses and these Himalayan counterparts.
At the Rai mountain home we drank tea and talked about the village of Barranumber. Containing 90 households, most of its inhabitants work in the quinine plantations for about 2500INR per month (around £35), supplementing their incomes by growing crops on the terraced hillside. But, like everywhere else, changes in the world's climate have reached this small mountain enclave.
"One year recently we had hail stones for two hours," said Premika, Jiwan's sister, "and the villagers lost all their crops."
They have had some good luck, though, with a donation from the Mondo Challenge Foundation. This meant they were able to build their own school a few years ago. All the children from the surrounding villages now have an education, at least up until the age of 11.
In the evening we watched Jiwan's sister-in-law, Kabita, stoke the hearth in preparation for dinner, while her fifteen month old daughter, Sumnima, played in the ashes.
DUNG AND DINNER
Without a whiff of the farmyard, and just like their neighbours' houses, Jiwan's family kitchen is coated in a yellow-ochre smooth cow dung, the low double range appearing to grow out of the floor. Its two open fires gave off plenty of smoke as Kabita's husband, Santa, cooked the food directly on the flames. In the semi darkness we sat on ankle-high stools to eat fresh momos, noodles and pork. Santa plied us with 'Tiger's Milk', a gently fermented maize left to work its magic in a bucket. The baby greedily sucked the opaque liquid from her cup as we moved on to 'Tongba' (millet beer) then 'Rakshi (pronounced 'roxy') a hot version of schnapps.
Later that night we floated back to our room and slid under soft blankets and freshly laundered sheets. As I inhaled the scent from our gardenia blossoms placed on a saucer by the bed, I just had time to notice that the facing window looked directly up the mountain. Then I slipped off into Arcadian dreams.
Apart from managing the Mondo Challenge Foundation in West Bengal, Jiwan's family also runs 'Village Discovery Tours'. This not-for-profit business offers visitors to India the chance to experience how local people live in the eastern Himalaya: stay in a village home, eat home-cooked food, walk in the fields and forests and fish in the river. Any profits are ploughed directly back into the participating villages. The business has been on hold for a year and they are in the process of re-launching the website. If you would like more details please 'contact me here' and I will forward your enquiry. As soon as the website is up and running I will add the details to this page.
For more tales have a look at www.lizcleere.com
Contact me, inerantwritersclub@gmail.com, until the Village Discovery Tours website is up and running properly. I will add further details when they are confirmed.
Beirut is an amazing city but after a few days there I kept wondering about certain things like how the civil war affected the city, why there were parts you couldn't go through and why some buildings were still in a state of ruin. All those questions and more were answered when on the penultimate day of our stay we did the Walk Beirut tour. I only wish we had done it on our first day instead.
Cumbrian folklore says that Long Meg and her daughters were witches turned to stone as a punishment for dancing here on the Sabbath. Take care. If you count the same number of stones twice, they will come back to life.
But Long Meg and her daughters are not related. Long Meg, at twelve feet high, is made of local red sandstone. She stands back from the main circle to catch the dying winter solstice sun. The other 50 stones are granite.
Together, they make one of the largest stone circles in Britain, dating back to 1500 BC. Yet so few people have heard of them. The mysterious cup and ring marks, like carved tattoos on Long Meg’s shoulders, face all four corners of the compass.
Wordsworth wrote a poem about the “sisterhood” of the stones urging their “giant mother” to speak.
We found them after an autumn walk along the river Eden, near Little Salkeld. Just before we emerged from a wood to the stone circle, our children spotted a red squirrel, which brought a different kind of magic to our day.
www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=101
Key in Long Meg Walk for a Discover Eden walk from Little Salkeld taking in River Eden, De Lacey’s cave and Long Meg.
Google map: bit.ly/smBwX9
Out running on Ilkley Moor recently, I bumped into two walkers searching for the 12 Apostles Stone Circle. Although drawn to the stones by their spirituality, a simple map reading error was taking them in completely the wrong direction. Storm clouds were gathering and Ilkley Moor's famous song was plainly not known to them as neither wore hats. I suggested that they abandon their search. This is my bid for their forgiveness. The 12 Apostles sit high on the summit plateau of Ilkley Moor with magnificent views in all directions. Take a hat, a good map and a flask of coffee (bible optional).
www.theaa.com/walks/ilkley-moor-and-the-twelve-apostles-421294
Google map: bit.ly/u0aiYk
The North Yorks Moors are awash with standing stones, circles, burial mounds and markers from the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages. New ones come to light from time to time that have been covered by heather and bracken for hundreds of years, and a walk on these glorious moors reveals a surprise cross or stone at almost every turn.
Some served as markers on the pannier tracks that connected Yorkshire's monasteries, and some are boundary stones - such as the aptly named Fat Betty on the road between Castleton and Rosedale. Two miles inland from Robin Hood’s Bay are the three Bronze Age stones of the Ramsdale Circle. This is an unsurpassable site for a picnic, with a wonderful view of the coast across rolling moorland, which has probably changed little since the stones were erected.
Google map: bit.ly/qO90XR
The walk John Keats took when he was inspired to write his ode "To Autumn".
What better time than now to follow the route Keats took one autumn Sunday in 1819? You start out in the High Street where he lodged and end up at the Hospital of St. Cross which still doles out alms to the needy. It not only takes in many of Winchester's places of interest: the Cathedral (burial place of Jane Austen), Wolvesey Palace, Winchester College - but also passes along the beautiful banks of the River Itchen, which Keats described as "most beautifully clear". He also described the air as "worth sixpence a pint" - not sure how that rates after inflation!
www.visitwinchester.co.uk/site/keats-walk-introduction
Google map: bit.ly/nkMdDA
The Bone Caves in Sutherland, Scotland.
Between Ullapool and Lochinver, just before arriving art Loch Assynt, is a signposted car park and walk to the Bone Caves, so called because the remains of now extinct bear, lynx wolf and arctic fox have been found there. A wonderful walk on a good path then a final scramble takes you back 7,000 years to one of the earliest signs of habitation in Scotland. In this primeval landscape it is easy to sit there and imagine how it must have been to live there. This is limestone country and on the way there you pass by springs welling up from under the ground and entrances to the passages they have carved through the rock. Here is the longest underground cave system in Scotland and over two kilometres have been explored so far but they are for experienced cavers only so stick to the ones above ground.
www.walkhighlands.co.uk/ullapool/bonecaves.shtml
Google map: bit.ly/qh0oEY
Start at the Linen Hall Library to travel in time from the Enlightenment’s United Irishmen to today’s award winning poet Sinead Morrissey; travel in place from Louis McNeice’s drawing room on the Malone Road to C S Lewis’s East Belfast (wardrobe optional) via Van the Man’s Cyprus Avenue. Poets and writers abound, stories still being told and written.
Dunbeath Heritage Centre sits just off the A9, from Inverness to Wick and on the top edge of the UK. Here you can learn the history of Neil M Gunn (1891-1973), and immerse yourself in his books. Read the heartbreaking account of Scottish fishing folk devastated by the Highland Clearances in The Silver Darlings (1941). Or, while staying in Dunbeath, read Gunn’s Highland River (1937), climbing from childhood to manhood as he wanders further up Dunbeath River to its source, and then follow the path of the atmospheric novel at your leisure. This is not a well-trodden tourist track, with plenty of ancient sites, ensuring your time spent in Gunn’s company becomes a gentle and spiritual experience. Gunn's story can be found in the centre.
www.dunbeath-heritage.org.uk/
The Old School, Dunbeath, Caithness, Scotland, KW6 6D
+44(0)1593 731233
Google map: bit.ly/oYV2QP
I've used the service of this company for my transportation in Istanbul and all was arranged in a perfect way.
www.vipserairporttransfers.com/
Ogut Sokak No: 10,
Beyoglu 34437 Istanbul
Tel: +90 532 608 1470
Fax: +90 212 244 0649
Email: sales@vipserairporttransfers.com
A walk along Buckinghamshire's Chess river, through ancient forests, past water meadows, and through fields teeming with wild flowers, lined by cob nut trees and blackberry bushes, is a wonderful way to clear the smog from your brain.
Best of all, it's accessible on the Metropolitan tube line and a round trip will cost all of £7. En route, the Cock Inn at Sarratt and the Rose & Crown at Chorleywood make splendid stopping off points for sustenance and liquid refreshment. We passed a watercress farm too, and a huge bunch of freshly-harvested greens cost £1.50 and tasted a hundred times better than the stuff from the supermarket.
Take the Metropolitan Line from Baker Street or Marylebone Station to Chalfont & Latimer. Follow the river walk along the Chess river to Chorleywood village.
Chorleywood is on the Metropolitan tube line also.
The walk is about 7km.
www.roseandcrownchorleywood.co.uk/
Chorleywood Common, Chorleywood, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, WD3 5LW
+44(0)01923 283841
Google map: bit.ly/reCtPs
www.cockinn.net/
Church End, Church Lane, Sarratt, Herts WD3 6HH
+44(0)1923 282908
Google map: bit.ly/nI5yiW
We recently did the gangs of Manchester tour. Starting at the Barton Arcade on Deansgate, Emma Fox, the tour guide takes you round sites relevant to the stories of The Victorian Scuttler Gangs and tells you tales of violence, poverty and squalor. She manages to recreate a sense of the time through her accounts, tales and poetry and having been resident in Manchester for 18 years, I ended up in areas just a few miles from home that i would never had known about. The tour finishes in the wonderful Marble pub just right for a thirst quenching beer!
www.showmemanchester.com
+44(0)161 431 7030
The walk focuses Exeter's City Wall, almost 70% of the approximately 2000-year-old wall remains.
There are nine information panels (with quizzes for children) along the walk pointing out at each site the key events that have affected the wall and the city of Exeter.
The circular tour of this Roman settlement starts in Castle Street and continues into Northernhay Gardens, and to Rougemont Gardens to the Norman Gatehouse, where William the Conqueror established a stronghold within the city. The walk then takes in the city defences, the four main gatehouses from which entry to the city was controlled. At the North Gate discover how Exeter was threatened during various rebellions. The South Gate is arguably the most impressive of all the gates - follow the footpath alongside the city wall to Cathedral Close, turn right on to Southernhay, at Southernhay turn left then continue to the East Gate, the principal entry point into the city, which also played a vital defensive role during the English Civil War and the Perkin Warbeck Rebellion.
The walk takes in Exeter Cathedral, one of the finest examples of the decorated Gothic style in the country. Opposite the cathedral are many cafes to have lunch. The walk is around two miles.
www.exeter.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=2299&p=0
+44(0)1392 665700
Google map: bit.ly/n3sZ01
To walk from Balerno to Leith Docks, along the Water of Leith is truly a walk through this city – as you stroll along sparkling water and weirs, you’ll see all manner of Edinburgh – ancient, old and new, rich and poor; grand-scale housing, colony housing, tenement housing; a glimpse of the lives people live, stunning scenery, many birds, industrial sites, a shout of graffiti and Anthony Gormley’s six times. New flood defences are also being built along the way. Passing strollers will greet you with a smile and a nod to the day.
Take the 44 bus to Balerno High School, the walk is signposted to the left. Part railway path, mostly riverside there is countryside, Colinton Dell, allotments, the Water of Leith Visitors Centre (an unimposing building and gives the history of this once hard-working river) onto industrial areas, then a beautiful stroll from Roseburn to the Modern Art galleries (great art, great café) and is where the Anthony Gormely 6 Times begins, onto historical Dean Village and New Town, St Bernards Well, Stockbridge, Bonnington where industrial meets regeneration and on to where the Water of Leith meets the Firth of Forth at Leith Docks and AG #6 looks out to sea, (well worth the walk) on one side adjacent to the Royal Yacht Britannia, the other to working dockland.
One of the beauties of this urban walk is you can jump off the beaten track at any time – to have a break, explore (and you will be tempted!) or get a bus! I’ve lived around the city centre most of my life and I love walking here, and never fail to see something new.
www.waterofleith.org.uk/
24 Lanark Road, Edinburgh EH14 1TQ
+44(0)131 455 7367
Google map: bit.ly/qb4oGh
'Walk the walls' run by Southampton Tourist Guides Association is a guided walk which gives you a fascinating insight to the Old Town, hidden behind the fairly soulless city centre. Southampton boasts the third longest original uninterrupted stretch of medieval defensive walling of any other town or city in Great Britain. The walk includes a long section of the walls, towers, and gates. Also a couple of medieval vaults that are not otherwise open to the public, some of which were used as air raid shelters in WW2. The walks are varied during the year to look at other historical aspects of the city as well, such as the Titanic Trail, or you can book tailor-made group walks. I went on one of the night walks when I first moved here and although I am not that into history the guides made it all so interesting and I got to view parts of the city that I wouldn't have given a second glance to in a different light. The walk is 90 minutes long, covers about four miles, and has some steps. They say they can offer alternative more accessible routes as well. Cost £3 for adults, free for children. You could also combine a walk with a visit to the Tudor House and Garden, which has re-opened 30th July after a long restoration project.
www.stga.org.uk/free-walks.html
www.tudorhouseandgarden.com/
Tudor House Museum, St Michaels Square, Southampton SO14 2AD
+44(0)23 8083 3007
Google map: bit.ly/qgfAf4
Castlefield in Manchester is a great starting point for waterside walks in Manchester. It’s across the road from Manchester Science and Industry Museum, an exciting place to visit even before you start walking! Follow the Bridgewater Canal south west as far as Old Trafford (where a stadium tour is available), and then walk across to the Manchester Ship Canal. On the Trafford side there is the Imperial War Museum, or cross the footbridge to visit the Lowry Gallery and theatre complex (and outlet shopping mall). If you don’t want to walk back, you can always take the tram. In the other direction from Castlefield, follow the Rochdale Canal to walk under central Manchester’s busiest streets whilst watching barges negotiate locks. There is plenty of choice for refreshment with the bars and restaurants at Deansgate Locks and along Canal Street. At Piccadilly Basin you can either return to Castlefield by walking through the city centre, visiting museums, art galleries (or shops) along the way – or continue walking along the towpaths of either the Rochdale Canal or the Manchester and Ashton Under Lyne Canal. The latter leads to Manchester’s other football stadium.
www.penninewaterways.co.uk/manchester/castlefield.htm
www.visitmanchester.com
Museum of Science and Industry:
www.mosi.org.uk
Liverpool Road, Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4FP
+44(0)161 832 2244
Google map: bit.ly/qiM1Hu
The Lowry
www.thelowry.com
The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ
+44(0)843 208 6000
Google map: bit.ly/oTOCEe
Imperial War Museum North
north.iwm.org.uk
The Quays, Trafford Wharf Road, Manchester M17 1TZ
+ 44 (0) 161 836 4000
Google map: bit.ly/pDppEq
I like to take visiting friends on a walk through a cluster of modern university buildings, just outside the main city area of Cambridge. From West Road university library through to Sedgewick Street. Many interesting buildings. Faculty of Divinity by Ted Cullinun, Faculty of Law by Foster, Faculty of Music by Lewlie Martin, Faculty of History by Stirling, Faculty of English by Allies and Morrison.
Walk down Garret Hostel Lane from Trinity Street in the centre of Cambridge. Cross over the river and cross Queens Street at the lights. Continue up the footpath until you reach the university library. Walk across the front of the university and continue on a straight path through the buildings, until you reach Sedgewick Street and then turn left back into the town for pubs and cafes.
Google map: bit.ly/q1u0x5
The Rheinuferpromenade is a leafy urban walk on the east riverbank that runs between Dusseldorf Aldstadt (Old Town) and the rejuvenated Media Harbour. The harbour is home to an eclectic mix of architecture, including the quirky Gehry Buildings, which are the city’s newest landmark, and a clutch of upmarket restaurants and bars. Zip up the 70’s TV tower, the Rheinturm, for a panoramic view of the city, and as you head back, stop for coffee (above ground) and culture (underground) at the Kunst im Tunnel contemporary art gallery.
Stroll along the avenue of sycamores back to the Aldstadt, where there are numerous small cafes and bars at the water’s edge. Or indulge in some utterly wonderful local beer (altbier) and a traditional German lunch at the Brauerei im Goldenen Ring, an atmospheric old brew pub.
Google map: bit.ly/prCgdZ
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