- MikeP
- (10)
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Authentic Indonesian restaurant, bustling with locals and tourists. Efficient and informal service, excellent food, good value.
Spuistraat 291-293;
tel: 020 620 0994;
www.kantjil.nl
Icelanders love to quote facts about their country. Not the usual mind-numbing statistics about how many tons of iron ore they export (they don't!) or what the gross national product per capita is (actually higher than many industrialised countries, but mainly because they have a very small population). They will tell you that until a few years ago, beer and dogs were not allowed, that they have no trees, that all homes are heated by geo-thermal energy, and that Iceland has one of the highest literacy rates and life expectancy ages in the world.
You will very soon learn that Icelanders have a fierce pride in their country, its history and its achievements. One of the first things they will tell you is that they read and write more books per capita than any other nation on earth. Every Icelander is an aspiring poet, and many do more than merely aspire. The total population of the country is 300,000. The central plateau is uninhabited and uninhabitable, with the majority of the population living in the Reykjavik area.
This might be the only country in the world where the telephone directory lists people under their given names. This is because if Sigurd has a daughter, called Helga, she is known as Helga Sigurdsdottir. When Helga marries Sven, she doesn't change her name, but their son Arni would be known as Arni Svensson, or if she were unmarried and had a son, he would be Arni Helgasson. Complicated? It's almost too simple to be true. And in order to help things along, if there are 6 Jon Olaffssons, then the profession of each is listed next to his name.
This is a country where crime is almost unknown. People leave cars unlocked in the street, even in Reykjavik, and see no reason why they should not do so. Friday and Saturday night in Reykjavik downtown can be pretty rowdy affairs, with all the young people out in the streets and circulating around the bars and discos. By 3 or 4 in the morning most of them are pretty much the worse for wear, but there is little or no violence and they all return safely to their homes, or at least to someone's home, to do the same thing the next weekend.
The Icelandic Parliament (the oldest in the world) meets in a small brown building in the centre of Reykjavik, and anyone can walk in and go up to the public gallery and listen to the proceedings. There is no security whatsoever. That made me realise, more than anything else what a close knit community this is. Why, my Icelandic friend said, would anyone want to do any harm to one of our politicians? Another quaint touch is that when an Icelandair plane touches down at Keflavik, the country's international airport, whilst the English announcement made by the cabin crew is 'Welcome to Iceland', in Icelandic they say 'Welcome home'.
The Icelandic language is related to the modern Scandinavian languages, but these have evolved so far from their medieval roots that an Icelander and a Scandinavian would not be able to understand more than about a third of each other’s conversation. Paradoxically, if an Icelander of today met up with his 12th century counterpart, they would be able to chat to each other with no difficulty, so little has modern Icelandic changed over the centuries. Many English words are derived from ancient Norse roots which gave birth to Icelandic, and it is interesting for example to read the Icelandic subtitles of films whilst listening to the English soundtrack, and to hear words like 'svindel', meaning 'to cheat'.
Iceland is closer geographically to North America than to Europe, and despite the name of the country, it is not as cold as one might imagine, being surrounded by relatively warm water. Of course there is a lot of ice around, in fact much of the interior is covered by glaciers which can be crossed by specially adapted vehicles, this being one of the many interesting and attractive physical features of the country. Notwithstanding the country's northern latitude, the temperature when I arrived on a late November afternoon was + 2'C, compared to the chilly -9 of Luxembourg at lunchtime.
Iceland lies on a very thin part of the Earth's crust, a physical phenomenon which literally made Iceland what it is - a volcanic island still in formation. Only 23 years ago, a new island, Surtsey, was born. Visitors can see and touch living proof of the ongoing activity when they visit the area of the Geysirs, some 50 km outside Reykjavik, with natural hot springs bubbling up from the interior of the Earth. It is almost uncanny to walk around in the silence, standing on snow, with the ice-capped mountains in the background, and to look down into the crystal clear water and your feet, knowing that it is at boiling temperature! Every few minutes the silence is broken by the sound of one of the Geysirs going off, as the pressure of the water bubbling up from underneath breaks through the cooler layer on top, throwing jets of boiling water and steam high into the air at regular intervals in one of nature's most impressive live shows.
It's one hell of a place ... go and check it out!
The Albert Dock, the largest group of Grade 1 listed buildings in the UK, hosts the Beatles’ Story exhibition, an excellent Maritime Museum, the Liverpool Tate Gallery, shops, restaurants, and coffee bars, all in a picturesque and safe setting, close to the Mersey Pierhead, point of departure for the famous Mersey Ferries. It is a few minutes walk from the Royal Liver Buildings and the imposingly massive Liverpool Cathedral.
www.albertdock.com;
www.merseyworld.com/albert;
www.nmgm.org.uk/maritime
Watch the taxis in Bratislava. We paid SKK 400 for the 5 minute ride from the station, even though the driver had the meter on, he'd clearly done something dodgy.
When we left, the pre-booked taxi charged us SKK 250 for the 20 minute ride to the airport.
Liverpool is a vibrant city with a great deal of culture and history and a restored docklands area with much that is of interest to the visitor. For me, the outstanding feature is the Beatles’ Story, an animated reconstruction of the history of this iconic group from its beginnings, through the loss of two of its members, to the present day. Visitors are provided with a headset through which they can listen, on demand, to explanations, and in many cases recordings of the band members themselves, appropriate to each of the 50 or so sections of the exhibition. The average time from start to finish is an hour and a half but you could easily spend longer there, especially if you choose to browse in the shop at the end of the visit. I think it says much for this Museum that my 10 year-old son found it even more fun than Liverpool Football Club.
Britannia Vaults, Britannia Pavilion, Albert Dock, Liverpool;
tel: 0151 709 1963
Open 10am-6pm;
www.beatlesstory.com;
www.merseyworld.com/albert/beatexp/
www.merseyworld.com/albert/beatexp/
We found 'Apartment Blue' in Heydukova Street through this company. Our booking was processed quickly and courteously and everything was as described.
The apartment was newly renovated, spotless and well equipped, in a quiet and safe, if somewhat unprepossessing, area just 5 minutes walk from the historic centre of this lovely city, once the capital of the Hungarian Empire.
Well worth visiting before it gets spoilt by lager louts (I hope it won't be).
Even if you are not a lover of classical music, just to experience the rich decor and the ambience this is worthwhile.
I paid less for a good ticket to a symphony concert than I would have paid for a coffee in the interval at a western European concert.
This city has so much to offer. It’s a shame it is often given such bad publicity. It is cleaner and safer than many others and excellent value.
1 Franklin Street, by Piata Revolutiei (Revolutiei Square);
tel: 01 315 6875
I do not recommend the restaurant U Golema. From the moment we walked in the two waiters on duty acted as if they were doing us a favour, although only one other table was occupied. The service was slow and surly, in fact our only bad experience during a lovely 5 days in Prague. Even our smiles and few words attempted in Czech produced no more than a scowl. I was not with a 'stag party' - it was myself, my wife, our 10 year old son, and another young friend. None of us were drunk, rowdy, or in any way offensive.
After our not inexpensive meal I was shocked to see that 20% 'service' charge had been added (the bill was CZK 1530 and the amount added was 290.) When I queried this with the waiter he asked me how much I thought the service was worth, adding 'This is not McDonalds'. I was now so annoyed at this attempted imposition that instead of adding the normal 10%, I told him I was not prepared to pay anything for service - and I paid the exact amount of the bill, minus the 20% - in cash (no credit cards accepted there anyway).
All I can say is although the food at U Golema was good, the experience wasn't and left a very sour taste. At least at McD's we'd have got a smile without having to pay 20% for it!
Maiselova 8, Jewish Quarter, Old Town, Prague;
www.inyourpocket.com/cr/prague/en/venue?id=czpgenr0289
Ten minutes walk from Leiden Centraalstation, a delightful old-fashioned hotel with charm, for €79/night. My wood-panelled deluxe room with a four poster bed was tastefully decorated as an artist's studio, but unfortunately the noise of revellers emerging from the night club in the alley below drove me to a quieter room facing the canal. Despite this, I've booked for my next stay and look forward to it.
Boommarkt 23, 2311 EA Leiden;
tel: 00 31 (0)71 5126358;
fax 00 31 (0)71 5142674;
email: hotel@nieuwminerva.nl;
www.nieuwminerva.nl
A canal linking the Mediterranean with the Atlantic, an engineering feat of such complexity that many thought it impossible when it was started in 1663, but it was completed some 17 years later, proving the cynics wrong. This is the Canal Du Midi, one of the most famous in the world, passing through areas of natural beauty such as the Camargue and the Pyrenees, and boasting attractive man-made features too, vineyards, villages, the famous humpback bridges, oval locks, and the ‘staircase’ of seven locks near Beziers.
It took us a week to cruise the hundred miles from Carnon, near Montpellier, to Homps, near Carcassonne, a journey which by car could have been done in under two hours. It was a journey back to a bygone age, where speed did not exist, where activity stopped at lunchtime and again at nightfall, and where instead of grey miles of motorway disappearing under the car at eighty miles an hour, and a motorised French maniac half way up your exhaust pipe, we had the tranquil view of the canal meandering through the countryside. Approaching each gentle bend at little more than walking pace, we never knew what to expect next. Sometimes it was a straight stretch with tall plane trees forming a perfect natural archway above our heads and shielding us from the scorching sun, other times it was panic stations as all hands were shouted on deck to cope with the complexities of navigating and operating the many locks, whilst the seasoned and cynical lock-keepers looked on at the antics of the greenhorn holidaymakers. There were delightful medieval villages, with stone cottages covered in flowers and old locals sitting on benches, contentedly watching the passing scene and always ready to offer a friendly word of advice or guide us to a local tavern or shop. Sometimes we tied up at a vineyard, sampling wines and other local produce at prices so low that we wondered if they had made a mistake, or if this part of France used a different currency to the rest. We constantly found ourselves rejoicing at the warmth and hospitality of the people in this area, so different from the mercenary and grasping attitudes of the Cote D’Azur, just a couple of hundred miles further east.
Controlling the rented barge was, in theory at least, easier than driving a car. A steering wheel, a throttle, and two gears, forward and reverse, with neutral in between. That was the theory. The practice was rather different. Turning left caused the stern (back, for the landlubbers) to swing viciously in the opposite direction, usually meaning that you would hit the bank that you were leaving, or worse, another boat. The maximum speed of the barge was perhaps 10 miles an hour, so that controlling it should have been childs’ play. Slowing down was achieved by reversing thrust, but judging this was a tricky process which could take you hurtling forwards or backwards at what seemed as frightening pace, until you hit the canal bank with a resounding thump. Steering should have been a simple question of just that - steering. Again, theory and practice diverged so that what should have been a straight line became a series of zigzags resulting from constant overcorrections, leaving a telltale wake like a pair of snakes fighting. Eventually we got the hang of it after a series of misadventures which left the boat with a few additional battle scars.
It may have been unfortunate that we cut our teeth crossing the Etang de Thau as nightfall approached, on a windy evening. Precisely what the people at the boatyard had told us not to do, and precisely what the rather confusing and disjointed instructions on board told us not to do. Despite fears of ending up impaled on the oyster beds, we made it safely to the far side and moored in a calm backwater to watch a beautiful sunset.
Our greatest challenge was the locks. A sneering audience of more experienced (if only by a few hours) cruisers would grin broadly, and the lock-keepers, who’d seen it a million times before, watched on, expressionless, as the greenhorns committed every error in the book. These included barging into the locks with nobody ashore to tie up, ramming the closed gates at the far end, hitting the sides, tying the ropes tight leaving the boat dangling as the water drained out, or waiting patiently for the lock keeper to appear during the sacred French lunch hour, when nothing, except mad dogs and Englishmen, moves more than three inches from the dining table. On our last day we realised that, as masters of the art, the locks were a large part of the fun.
Our party of six adults, two large teenage boys and a six year old fitted uncomfortably into the 5 cabins of a canal barge designed to sleep, according to the brochure, ‘10 in comfort.’ Perhaps brochure writers find lying on their back with insufficient room to sit up or turn over to be comfortable. I didn’t, and slept comfortably and in splendid solitude on the sun deck most nights. The exception was the night that the area experienced 90% of its annual rainfall in one night.
Overall though it was better than we had expected, especially as we spent most of the long daylight hours round the table on the sundeck enjoying the excellent local cheese, bread, wines and beers. We did cheat somewhat on the wines, and our evening meals were accompanied by some excellent South African reds that we’d smuggled in, and Mrs. Ball’s chutney put in appearance at our evening braais on the canal banks.
A relaxing experience, despite the initial stress induced by having to negotiate the locks, and one made more enjoyable by the lovely surroundings and the slow pace of life. We survived, and we’ll do it again.
We started at Carnon, near Montpellier;
www.midicanal.fr/
www.midicanal.fr/
www.le-guide.com/boatrentalsfrance/canaldumidi/
Send your feedback or queries to been.there@guardian.co.uk
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