France to go

Though it seems like we were in Bath many many moons ago, it’s only been about three weeks since Evan, his parents and I journeyed Westward through the countryside to spend a day exploring Roman baths, checking out a fashion museum and walking along some rather impressive crescents.

The Roman Baths

The Roman baths were definitely the highlight of my trip — the complex was bigger than I anticipated, we actually tasted the hot spring water (which was a bit gross), and we got to listen to a ridiculously over-narrated audio guide, which delved into rather long and semi-salacious stories of imaginary bathers like the rich aristocrat Octavio and the widow Flavia hanging out together by the bath.

Check out that steam!

We also got to check out some of the inner workings of the complex. Here we can see the naturally hot water flowing down into other channels.

The wishing well bath

And there was a fun, glittery room towards the end of our tour, which had a sort of funny video display of men walking around the baths, chatting about their days and drying off. There were some slight technical glitches, though — you can see that the projector wasn’t exactly showing us the most interesting display here.

The belle of the ball?

Then there was the fashion museum. I had higher hopes from this well-reviewed museum. Some exhibits, like the one on Victorian clothing, were interesting. Others were a little less interesting. My favorite part was the interactive element — we got to try on a corset and crinoline. I couldn’t find one that fit — the medium ones were already being tried on, so I was left first to struggle with one I couldn’t get anywhere near closing and the one in the picture, which left me swimming. It wasn’t exactly authentic either — it had laces up the back, but plastic clasps like a life jacket on the front.

You can more photos from the day on Flickr.

It’s been a busy weekend! After my trip to Oxford yesterday, I was inspired to venture out of the city yet again — this time, taking advantage of the lovely sunshine and heading to the seaside — to Brighton.

The train was packed on the way down. I was lucky enough to get a seat, but there were lots of passengers left standing or sitting on the floor. When we finally got to Brighton, there was this huge flow of people heading downhill from the station toward the water.

West Pier

The first thing I did was check out the coastline. I was surprised that there was no sand, just pebbles. I took some photos of the old, twisted metal pier frame still standing in the water (though just barely), and also photographed the current pier, with its rides and arcades and traditional piery things.

Brighton Pier

It seemed like every shop was hawking fish and chips, and there were signs for eels and puns with plaice and even a giant lobster by a poster that said “I got crabs in Brighton”!

A giant lobster, lots of fishy signs and beach kitsch

I decided to do a little sightseeing before relaxing, so I went to the Royal Pavilion, the bizarre Asian-inspired seaside palace of George IV. From the outside it was striking, with its white pointed domes, and from the inside, it was truly spectacular.

The Royal Pavilion

Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photos of the inside, but the highlights were the dining room, which has a 30-foot-long chandelier with dragons holding lotus-flower light shades in their mouths suspended from a giant dragon’s claws in the middle of a domed ceiling painted with plantain leaves. (Seriously, it’s sort of shockingly insane.) The music room was also interesting, with a similar shockingly dramatic look. And it was interesting to see the king’s chambers and some of the more private areas like the kitchen, which came complete with stuffed animals (including rats!) to make it seem like it would be used today.

After the Pavilion tour, I went to check out the Lanes, a shopping district of alleyways, which was once a fisherman’s village. I was surprised by the quality of goods there, especially their fair trade, locally made and recycled/reused offerings. I was tempted to buy a lot, though I didn’t indulge. There were also some spectacular looking bakeries and ice cream shops. One particularly cute cupcake shop even sold little felt cupcakes and other goodies.

Cute fake cupcakes!

Once I was done window shopping, I took a stroll down the crowded pier. It seemed like everyone had an ice cream cone with a flake bar sticking out of it in hand, and everyone also had a sunburn. Almost as soon as I started walking the pier, I saw some guys jumping off and even diving — a big no-no according to all the signs posted. There were some angry looking security guards around and tons of spectators.

Boys jumping off Brighton Pier

Some of the guys tried to climb back up onto the pier, but I think they all ended up just swimming to shore. There are plenty more pictures, including ones of divers and the boys climbing back up on Flickr.

Once I was done on the pier, I went to North Laines to walk around a bit and see the artier side of the city. I caught an interesting street performance where people dressed as mimes were putting on a show for a person sitting in a peep-show sort of contraption that had lots of windows that someone would open to tell the story. I only watched it from the outside, but it was pretty funny and most certainly absurd. There was also lots of street art to check out, and I took some good photos of the graffiti and graffiti-style murals in the area before catching the train home.

Take a look at the rest of the day’s photos on Flickr.

Today I finally made it to Oxford for the day! I took the X90 bus, and got there in about an hour and forty minutes. I met up with friends (well, connections — I’d never met them before) and wandered around the city with them for a bit, then went out on my own to explore the many colleges, churches and gardens Oxford has to offer.

Christ Church College and gardens

I started with the obvious choice — Christ Church College, the biggest and most renowned of Oxford’s colleges. I got to go into the dining hall, a room full of historic portraits, excessively long tables and a giant pump bottle of Heinz ketchup. Yes, it’s still in use for students today, who all eat their meals in the hall — on Christ Church-imprinted plates, no less!I also checked out the large quad and the cathedral. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen so many churches crowded into a small town like at Oxford. Each college seems to have at least its own chapel, and there seem to be spires everywhere you look in the city.

The colleges also all seem to have their own beautifully manicured gardens, which are off-limits to visitors, and I could spy students picnicking, tanning and drinking beer beyond the gates in many of the colleges.

Punts in Oxford

After Christ Church, I wandered into a few other colleges, then walked down to the river, where I watched people going punting. I would have loved to go, but I wasn’t going to try to manage a boat on my own or hire someone to push me along in my romantic ride for one. I considered just trying to make friends by asking strangers to hop in their boat, but I never got up my nerve. (For anyone who doesn’t know, Evan is out of town this weekend, so I was exploring on my own.)

After checking out the river, I walked down a long alleyway by Magdalen College and ended up walking under a replica of Venice’s Bridge of Sighs, which curiously just crosses over a street. This brought me to the concert hall and library. I could hear a concert going on, but it was well underway and the doors were shut.

Bridge of Sighs

From there, I walked to the Radcliffe Camera and University Church, where I climbed the tower to get a view of the city.

View of the Radcliffe Camera from University Church tower

I walked around a bit more, back through the center of town, and went to check out “Oxford Castle,” which is apparently a center full of chain restaurants — quite disappointing.

The best parts of the day were definitely seeing all the gardens and Christ Church College, and climbing up the tower at University Church. Just walking around town was also really nice, since there are lots of beautiful buildings with ornate details and the weather was perfect. Some close-up shots are on their way!

You can check out all my photos on Flickr.

Saturday, Evan and I went to Leeds Castle. It all started in a pretty dramatic fashion, when we nearly missed our train. Evan rushed to buy one from an automated kiosk, while I tried my luck standing in line. Of course, we both reached the front of our respective lines at the same time, and while I was being hassled by the Victoria Station ticket agent, who told me I really should just go to Leeds Castle another day since it was already the afternoon and kept hassling me about our travel plans while refusing to let me purchase a ticket, Evan managed to get them.

We ran through the station, rounding a corner where we could see our train beyond some gates, and the large digital clock, which was ticking down about 30 seconds from departure time. We struggled with our tickets to get through the gates, and finally hopped on the train — hoping it was the right one — before the doors shut right behind us. Whew!

The train ride itself was thankfully uneventful, and we had a rather relaxing, hour-long journey to Bearsted, despite the looming clouds which threatened rain. By the time we got to Bearsted it was quite rainy, the coaches had stopped running to the castle and the number outside the coach and car hire office wouldn’t connect us to anyone. So we walked into town and stopped at a pub for a bite to eat and directions. The pub, The Oak on the Green, turned out to have some good food, and our server helped us call a cab to take us to the castle.

Once at the castle, the fun really began. We walked through the duckery, where I got quite close to an albino peacock, which really became the theme of the day — me trying to get close to the birds, that is. And we caught some very nice views of the castle in the distance.

We then walked along a winding garden path, and finally approached the castle. We passed black swans, some sort of snake sculpture that emerged from the grass and a whole bunch of very whiny children (they all seemed a bit tired and on their way out of the park). We entered the castle through the gatehouse across the moat, then walked around its outside to a back entrance.

Inside the castle, we got to walk through a large number of rooms, mostly decorated for the castle’s most recent owner, Lady Baillie. There were also some really nice and clear exhibits on royal coats of arms, and the castle had an interesting history — it was used as a hospital during WWII, and Lady Baillie’s daughters served as nurses. And there were lots of bird drawings and sculptures decorating the rooms.

Once we finished the castle tour, we headed to the dog collar museum (sort of interesting, though small), another garden, the aviary and the labyrinth, which were situated along a river.

The labyrinth, though it looked small, still took a while to figure out, and we spent a good amount of time wandering its green corridors trying to find our way to the center. Once in the center, we got to climb up to see the top view of the hedge maze, then descended into the cool, watery grotto to make our way out underground.

Though we could have stayed longer, had a picnic and caught one of the falconry shows or duck feedings, half a day was enough to have a good time at Leeds Castle. We wanted to check out the Go Ape adventure experience, but they seem booked up for a long while, so it wasn’t an option. And our only slight hassle was getting a cab. But once we got the number, they came quite quickly and were pretty inexpensive — £6.80 each way, I believe.

Also, admission was £15 a person, which lets you return anytime for an entire year after purchase.

Check out more photos on Evan’s site.

Our last stop on Monday was Parc de Ciutadella, which we entered through Barcelona’s Arc de Triomf. We also learned that unlike the arches in Paris and London and other European cities, this one isn’t commemorating a war victory, it’s just for show.

We go to the park at sunset and snapped some photos in the remaining light, walked around the little lagoon where people were taking out row boats, and helped retrieve a stray soccer ball (Evan kicked it back).

Saturday, on our way up to Miriam’s brother’s house, we stopped by Montserrat to have a look around the monastery on the mountain. The views were great. I only wish we had more time to explore.

The hill Montserrat is on, itself, is actually quite different from the surrounding scenery — it’s much craggier, with rock pillars jutting up like fingers, instead of the smooth ridges found on the nearby mountains.

We also learned that Montserrat is a common Catalonian woman’s name, most often abbreviated as Montse. We’ve met a Montse before, but didn’t make the connection until Miriam told us that it’s also her mother’s name.

Check out more Montserrat photos on Evan’s site.

One of our first Barcelona photos when walking around the city Saturday morning, looking towards Placa Colon (aka Columbus). The first (and only other) time I went to Barcelona, we rode up the elevator in the central column to catch the view from up top, underneath the half-globe. It’s quite a scary, narrow, ride.

Check out more Barcelona photos on Evan’s site.

We’re back from Barcelona and yet another whirlwind weekend. The quick rundown (um, it didn’t end up being that quick… we did a lot!):

We left Friday night and our otherwise on-time plane was delayed about two hours by a passenger who apparently was too scared to fly. The pilot said he has been flying since 1981 and has never had to let someone off a plane because he was afraid to fly — and that he was scared of what the passenger might do if forced to fly. Apparently he had some sort of “crazy look in his eyes.” We didn’t really notice any commotion, though. It just felt like a lot of waiting.

The delay, subsequent search of the plane and refueling, put us into Barcelona late. We had a light dinner at Bernat and Miriam’s apartment, where we stayed, and rested up for the next day’s activities.

Evan and I started the day by checking out the main cathedral, walking down the the sea, strolling up La Rambla and some other big streets, and checking out some of the many back alleys. We met up with Bernat and Miriam at the Santa Caterina Market, where we saw all sorts of meats and fishes (we got some good photos, coming soon) and Spanish foods. After buying plenty of food, it was time to head out of the city and towards the mountains.

Our first stop was Montserrat, the monastery and church high up in craggy mountains. We walked around a bit, had lunch and checked out the sanctuary. The views were great, though we didn’t stick around too long — we were heading further into the mountains to visit Miriam’s brother.

By the time we got to his house, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, it was dark and rainy. We made a big dinner over an indoor fire pit, drank wine, played games and watched movies. I also got to practice my fake — or more like paltry, though never actually learned — Spanish. Evan said was better than his fake French, though, and gave me plenty of help putting together phrases. We forgot how quiet it could be away from the city, and we woke up the next morning to birds chirping outside.

In the morning, we walked around outside and enjoyed stunning views of snow-capped mountains, then took a short walk to a small church. On the way back, we ran into Miriam’s brother, who let us take turns riding one of his horses. I don’t even remember the last time I was on a horse, so it was quite a treat. Late in the afternoon, we had lunch, relaxed, and finally said our goodbyes, smelling of wood smoke.

That night we had dinner, and the next day, Easter, Evan and I headed to Parc Guell, a huge modernist park on a hill with views of Barcelona and the Mediterranean, and plenty of bizarre buildings, sculptures, structures and mosaics to check out. We continued our Barcelona tour with a trip to Casa Batllo, the Gaudi apartments, which looked like a house for a family of mermaids. The tiles, ocean theme and undulating spaces were fun to walk through, and from the roof, we saw plenty more buildings we wanted to check out.

We ended up at the Parc de Ciutadella at sunset, where the sky glowed peach, pink and blue behind the Arc de Triomf, and we took a stroll around the lake and headed back to the apartment to relax before dinner. We went out for drinks, dinner, and drinks again, and left the next morning, flying out over the blue sea and snow-capped mountains, to come back to London.

What an amazing weekend. We couldn’t have asked for better hosts for our trip — we felt like part of the family and saw a side of Barcelona and the Spanish countryside neither of us had ever seen. I can’t wait to go visit again, and I can’t wait to look through all the photos Evan took on his new camera.

Update: Photos are up on Evan’s site.

I’m sure I’ll be posting a bit more, with photos and better descriptions, but Evan and I got back from our New York weekend today.

We left from Gatwick airport Friday morning and had a 2-hour delay off the bat since our plane didn’t arrive on time. After an uneventful flight — Evan slept and I finished reading Youth in Revolt (very funny) — we got to Newark, took the train to our hotel (the W, very nice) and got ready to go out to dinner.

We had Greek food (yum), went to see Towards Darkness (unfortunately the theater wasn’t very full, though it was well-received by the friends and family who came), and went out for drinks at the Thirsty Scholar (fun!).

Saturday we went to MoMA (very cool, check out the photo), walked through Central Park (always lovely), had Mexican food in DUMBO (quite an adventure to get to, though the food was delicious), and went out with friends at B Bar.

Sunday, we had brunch (I miss American-style brunch), Evan bought a camera, we had drinks with a friend, then spent a long time in Newark airport waiting for our flight (we were early). The flight was bumpy. Evan slept; I didn’t. I did, however, completely conk out on the train in from Gatwick. I also managed to take an accidental 6-hour nap this afternoon (oops) while Evan was at work.

More about the weekend soon.

Also, check out my latest Hitched article, “Online Tools to Keep You Organized.”

Since I only posted a small photo of this earlier and it was really pretty, here’s another photo of the Champs Elysees at night, line with blue-lit trees, facing the Louvre (and the ferris wheel, which you can see at the end of the street).

After our lovely long walk to our hotel, we dropped off our bags and headed to the Eiffel tower, which was only a few blocks away. We had to wait in line for a while, and decided to take the stairs up to the second floor then the elevator up to the top, since the line was shorter to do it that way.

It was a bit cold and windy, but once we started our climb, we got warm quite quickly. We stopped on the first floor to take a look at the vistas and check out the touristy attractions up there. The biggest surprise was that the outer ring of the observation deck was covered in snow and people were snowshoeing for some sort of special exhibit. We didn’t put on snowshoes, but we did walk through the snow almost the whole way around.

Getting up to the second floor seemed to take even longer. And I just found out that in total, we climbed 1,652 stairs. And we took them back down again, too. By the time we reached the second level, it was dusk and the city’s lights were starting to come on.

The views were even better than from the first floor, though the smaller area was more crowded, and we spent a lot of time taking photos.

From there, we took the elevator up to the top of the tower, which was a bit of a scary ride, though the views were wonderful. We were squished like sardines in a little elevator, and Evan and I managed to be against the windowed walls, so we had some quite breathtaking views. It was quite a sizable ride.

Once up top, it was fully dark and the tower’s strobe lights were turned on, which were really dizzying when we were on the outdoor observation deck. We took even more photos — of us, the views, the lights… you can see them all on Evan’s photo site.

We took the elevator back down to the second floor and walked down the 1,652 steps we came up, stopping along the way to take even more photos. And on our way back to the hotel, we stopped in the Champs de Mars park to take even more photos.

We found that you also have an amazing view from across the Seine at the Trocadero, and stopped later on for even more photos, and had a midnight drink outside on the heated patio of a cafe behind the Trocadero which had wonderful views, too.

After checking out the Louvre, we walked through the Tuileries, down the wide main boulevard through the park, taking some time to look at all the statues and fountains. I can’t wait to go back during the spring and see it all in bloom. At the end of the garden, there is a ferris wheel, an obelisk (a real one from Egypt!) and a neat view of the Eiffel tower, which looked kind of gloomy the first day we saw it. There were also some neat fountains and a view of the Arc de Triomphe.

Sunday, we went back and walked the other way down the Champs Elysees, and we stopped into a really interesting Toyota concept store/design gallery that had concept cars and other interesting design objects relating to technology and communications.

We also got to see the street at night. It was lined with trees with blue lights on them and they also had these long light tubes that light would fall down in that gave the impression of snow falling through the trees.

Since we would have been transferring at the Notre Dame metro stop anyway, we decided to get out and check it out — how couldn’t we, really?

The outside looked just as I’d expected it to, though its clean, light stone makes it look like a much newer building than it is. The stone carvings are wonderfully intricate, but since they’re all in one color, very symmetrical and very formal, Notre Dame looks quite restrained compared to a lot of other Cathedrals I’ve been to.

Once inside, the place is light and airy, with extremely high vaulted ceilings, some very impressive stained glass and towering stone support columns. I was surprised by how comfortable I felt there. I usually find Catholic churches quite scary — they can be so dark and have so many wounded and bleeding icons that I find it hard to relax and really enjoy what I’m seeing. Thankfully, there was no gore here, and a surprisingly lax policy about letting visitors wander about while a service was going on, which was a little odd, but nice that we weren’t shooed away.

We wanted to climb the towers, but the line was very long, so we decided to move on, but not before walking around the whole building and getting a view of all the flying buttresses and rose windows.

Saturday morning, Evan and I took the Eurostar train to Paris. The trip got off to a bit of a rocky start because we didn’t know that we needed to get to the train station 45 minutes ahead of the departure time and due to problems retrieving our tickets and a lot of running back and forth between electronic kiosks and the ticket office and really long print time for our tickets — actually, the agent hand wrote one, which seemed to take forever — we missed our train. Apparently this happens a lot, though, and we were able to switch our tickets for the next train, which was leaving an hour later, at no charge.

The train ride was quite quick, and in both directions, I missed our English Channel chunneling time — I guess it was unremarkable. Or I was sleeping. I don’t know. My ears popped a few times, but it never seemed like we were underground for all that long.

Once we got to Gare du Nord in Paris, we hopped on the RER train to St. Michel/Notre Dame and started our sightseeing on the way to our hotel. I’ll post photos and more detailed explanations in other posts, but I have to say that Paris is the most beautiful city I have ever seen.

I’ve wanted to go for a long time, but I really didn’t expect to be so blown away by all the sights. I felt like every direction I looked had some sort of sculpture, elegant building, manicured garden or spectacular vista. And the city was incredibly walkable — on our walk to the hotel, we saw Notre Dame and all of Ile de la Cite, the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Musee D’Orsay, the Grand Palais, the Arc de Triomphe (off in the distance), the obelisk, the Champs Elysee, the Eiffel Tower, grandiose former palaces and bridges of all styles, from simple and traditional to ornate to modern. And we couldn’t help ourselves from salivating at all the delicious-smelling patisseries and boulangeries.

When we finally got close to our hotel, we were surprised by a wonderful view of the Eiffel Tower. We were just a few blocks down the street in the photo and a couple buildings in to the left. We stayed at the Hotel de Londres Eiffel, where we had a very small, but clean and comfortable “poet’s room.”

Update: Take a look at all our photos on Evan’s site.

To top off our trip to Vienna, we had dinner at Do & Co, a beautiful restaurant with amazing views of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral. We were lucky and got a table that looked out over the bar on the floor below, the cathedral and the city lights.

We started off with some simple but delicious salads–Evan had an arugala and tomato salad, while I had one with arugala, tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella and figs in honey. It was simple and sweet and was accompanied by a nice bread basket.

We had a nice and sweet Austrian bottle of riesling to go with our meal, and Evan had some sort of beef (I know… I’m not good with the meats) while I had a vegetable stir fry.

Everything was great, including the service, and we struck up a conversation with the two girls sitting next to us who were also from the U.S. They had just arrived in Vienna that day and were heading to Budapest later in the week. We gave them some tips on what to see,  where to eat and how to get to their hotel from the train station.

Of course, we had to have dessert–I got a chocolate souffle with fruit, and Evan got apricot crepes with chocolate sauce. By the time we were finished, three hours had passed and only one or two other parties were still in the restaurant.

We decided to have one more drink downstairs at the bar, which had equally impressive views–the only problem was that a good part of the large windows were covered in Christmas lighs–and headed back to Budapest in the morning.