Kate's CELTA blog

Personally, I've always found speaking English very easy. Being English tends to give a useful head-start and I did grow up in the UK with English-speaking parents, so I admit I've had some natural advantages in this area. I remember doing the occasional English grammar lesson at school - indeed, I have an O' level in English Language, which just goes to show how old I am. But most of the rules I learned about the building blocks of language were derived from French, German and Latin lessons. Especially Latin, god bless Mr Eddy.

So, while I was able to conjugate the latin verb, "amare", I was hazy at best when it came to explaining the things I do instinctively to someone who grew up speaking Spanish. Or any other language, for that matter. Enter the CELTA. Despite many years spent as a professional communicator in English, both written and spoken (I was a BBC broadcast journalist for more than a decade), until November this year (2008) I would have struggled to explain when and why you use the present perfect tense and what rules govern its formation.

Now, after four weeks spent learning-to-teach and learning-about-the-language-itself-so-I-can-attempt-to-teach-it at International House, Barcelona, I can make a fair crack at helping students of English through the maze of tenses, shwas and phrasal verbs that make up our wonderful and frustrating tongue.

Actually, one of the most important things I learned during my CELTA course was that we're not actually teaching at all. We are guiding discovery. Our worshipful tutor, Gerard McLoughlin was keen for us to take to heart the following quotation by a seventeenth century man called Von Humbolt: "You cannot teach a language, only create the conditions under which it might be learnt."

Thankfully, nowadays those conditions can include pop music, Youtube clips, lonely hearts adverts and celebrity gossip. Then, there are the old faithful grammar gap-fill exercises and True or False quizzes. Of course, you can teach English - sorry, guide the discovery of English - in more serious ways as well, but the point is, it doesn't have to be a load of dusty old writing exercises, translation tasks and verb-drills. In fact, the most important exercise at all involves the tongue, teeth, lips and jaw. It's called talking. The more your students do - and the less you do - the better. Probably the most important thing I learned doing my CELTA.

So - was gaining my CELTA hard work? Yes. Was it rewarding? Thrice, yes. Was it fun? Oh, yes. What was the best bit? For me, the teaching practice. The satisfaction of realising your students have gained some extra understanding of the English language and are successfully putting it into practice thanks to something you did is hard to equal.

When I began the CELTA course one thing I worried about was that I had misjudged my vocation and teaching was not actually for me - or that the course would kill off any enthusiasm I had for teaching. In fact, Gerard, Susannah, IH Barcelona and all our students have achieved the opposite - I can't wait to get myself in front of more students and start flying the flag for the English language. Now, I just need to elicit myself some paid employment (noun, uncountable).

Is there something wrong with this blog?

Apparently Facebook and Yahoo both think this blog is malicious - we're not that mean are we? What the hell is going on?

I take it all back...

They offered us a job! Not actually the one we were being interviewed for but a very similar one. They offered it to both of us and asked us to choose - so now I'm working for them!

Ha!

Kate was promptly offered another job, but she ended up turning it down as the hours meant we would never have seen each other. Not to worry as she has a couple of interviews arranged for when we get back.

Job Hunting

It's been 5 years since I last went job hunting - I thought that was a long time until I realised that Kate hasn't had to look for work for 15 years! Sure there have been internal applications and interviews - I had to apply for my own job not that long ago - but it is still a very alien process for us. As a result we're probably going about it all wrong. Scratch that, we're definitely going about it all wrong! Here we are in France sending off applications for English Teaching jobs in Madrid and being consequently unavailable for interview when potential employers get back to us wondering when we can come by the office!

However, after finding a useful agency's email on a notice board, we did manage to squeeze in one interview before we left Spain. Boy was that strange! It was a bit of a pain in the first place, being scheduled for 6pm on the last day of Vaughan Town at Barco de Avila - we had planned to head straight for France, but instead we frantically changed plans and scrambled to find somewhere to stay on a holiday weekend when most Madrilenos were heading out of town. Thank goodness for lovely Olga and Fernando, whose hospitality frankly made the whole escapade worthwhile. The interview did not go well. Firstly driving in Madrid is not a lot of fun, especially after a late night and a long drive. In the end we accepted we were lost, parked, and jumped on the underground to get to where we were meant to be. Or not, as it turned out; we walked in the office to be greeted with "Ah! You've come to the wrong place!" The Director of Studies of the School in question was meant to have sent us an email with details of the interview; she didn't and consequently I had to find the address for the school on the internet (which I sent to her for confirmation) and which turned out to be the other end of town from where the interviews were actually being held. Still we did at least get interviewed - together! Bit strange, seeing as we were technically competing for the same job. Hmmmm.

Funnily enough we've yet to hear anything back from that school. Back to the job pages!

Barco de Avila

Surrounded by snowy mountains and living in a four-star hotel where every room has an en suite whirlpool bath...well, I can think of far worse places to be spending the first week of December. I didn't expect to feel Christmasy in Spain, but the hotel's habit of playing gentle choral music at breakfast time and the white-dusted hill-sides around us are putting me in a distinctly Yuletide mood.
The other participants on this English immersion programme are friendly and fun and I fully expect Theo and I to have added more people to our swelling collection of good friends and acquaintances, not only in Spain, but around the world. Here, we have people from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland and Wales - as well as the English and Spanish people.
It's also giving us a lot of opportunities to find out about the ways our Spanish friends have been learning English - what methods they've been exposed to and what they think of them. One thing they all share is a hunger to truly get to grips with the language, in all its irregular, absurdly-spelled splendour. The other common feeling they have is frustration. Frustration with their own education system, which left them so incapable of speaking or making sense of English, despite so many years of learning the language at school. And frustration with the English language itself. Why are the vowel-sounds so difficult to hear and to pronounce? Why do so many verbs change their meaning so radically when you add tiny words like to, up, at or in to them? Why is it so difficult to predict how to say an English word out loud when you have only seen it written down? Why do the stressed and unstressed sounds change in a sentence?
I have a lot of sympathy for them. Since learning to be a teacher of English, I often wonder myself.

Room with a view...

Not bad here really....

Bye bye Barcelona

It's nearly time to go.....

Our fourth week in Barcelona and it's nearly time to move on. Our lovely landlady Ilse has already gone - she flew back to Germany on Tuesday - and on Saturday it'll be our turn to leave the house in Poublenou.

Kate taught her last CELTA course lesson this afternoon - a skills lesson based around lonely hearts adverts - and mine is tomorrow - I'm using "Money (that's what I want)" by The Flying Lizards and an article about the relationship between money and happiness. I'm the last up in our teaching practice group. The course has been great fun; sure it has also been stressful and frustrating at times, but we have both enjoyed the buzz of teaching, while our tutors, class mates and students have all been lovely. We've also learned a huge amount about the English language, and we're pretty sure the knowledge will be useful to us in our attempts to learn Spanish!
On Saturday we're driving to Madrid to stay with our friend Belen and hopefully see a few more of our Pueblo Ingles chums. Then on Sunday we're on the road again, this time to a plush hotel in Barco de Avila where we'll be spending the week talking English with Spanish learners at Vaughan Town. We're taking our Irish classmate Eoin with us, so we'll have some company on the road and lots of fun watching the Spanish learners try to get their ears round his thick Kerry accent!

the joys of living in Barcelona

What with the stunning architecture, vibrant nightlife, cosmopolitan vibe, shops, monuments, parks, the football club, the festivals, and the state of the art public transport, it's easy to forget that one of the attractions of the Catalan Capital is the 2kms of sandy sea front.

Taking a break from our lesson planning this afternoon, we strolled the 500 yards or so from Ilse's flat in Pouble Nou down to the beach, past busy skate ramps and basketball hoops. While not as packed as it must be in the summer, the seafront was still well populated with family picnics, courting couples, cyclists, rollerbladers, fishermen, strollers, surfers, sunbathers and swimmers.

Yes you read those last three right. Here in Barcelona the typical weather for November is cloudless blue skies from dawn til dusk. Water temperature a balmy 18 degrees. It's strange to think that while our Northern European neighbours are shivering under slate grey skies, Barcelona is basking in sunshine and it's warm enough for us to go swimming. Which we did.

Crooked Timber

This a public service announcement from the People's Committee for Good Taste in Music.

Comrades,

We've been a bit slow on the uptake here, but one of the best bands that you've never heard off have just released a new album.

Those of you who were at our wedding might remember the fabulous Babel who played a storming set to round off the celebrations. Well their long awaited new album "Crooked Timber" has just come out on a small UK Independent label called People Tree Records.



You can buy the album from itunes, amazon and play.

Do it. Do it now.

A quarter of the way through...

One week of our month-long teaching course has gone by and Theo has already presided over three lessons, while I've been in charge of two. We've got loads more to learn, but at this stage we don't seem to be doing too badly and I'm convinced my students almost learned something during my last lesson. It was a close-run thing, anyway.

Apart from the general affability of the students, trainees and tutors, I've had two more pleasant realisations this week:
1. I really like teaching. With a couple of provisos. That the subject is English (I don't think quantum theory would do it for me, somehow. You probably need at least GCSE Physics, which would be a bit of a stumbling block in my case) and the students are adults (I'm quite happy to leave the challenge of trying to teach surly teenagers who're more interested in chewing gum or texting their mates to other people, frankly).
2. I like being back in the classroom as a student myself. If you ask me, further and higher education is wasted on the young. I definitely wouldn't have been so enthusiastic if I had done this course fifteen-odd years ago. Now, even the homework is quite satisfying, in the same way as going for a run or doing a work-out in the gym. It's a bit of a slog and you keep wishing it'll be over soon, but when it is you get a definite feeling of achievement and even, dare I say, a touch of euphoria. Or maybe that's just the relief you naturally feel, say, after overcoming a bout of constipation.

In my short time as a trainee teacher, I've also had a couple of insights about the habits of my own schoolteachers. The obsessive break-time cigarette-smoking and coffee-drinking, for example. Theo and I aren't doing the former at all and my consumption of coffee is so far under control (one con-leche and one contado per day - I could stop any time, honest...) but our fellow trainees are puffing away like the regular Strawberry Line service and I'm sure some of them are mainlining caffeine in the bogs. One thing you don't appreciate when you're a pupil or student is how damn terrifying you and your peers can be to the less experienced pedagog. By the time the teachers are too experienced to feel the fear, their addictions are too far gone to even attempt giving them up. Thus, the delightful ash-tray and coffee-breath cocktail of halitosis that let's you know they're reading your answers over your shoulder, even without looking.

Over-flowing bag syndrome is something I've often wondered about, too. Actually, it would be an exaggeration to say often, but since my initiation into the realm of the schoolroom, I've been frequently reminded of the seemingly endless books, papers and pens carted around by my former teachers, even as my own bulging backpack tips out all over the classroom floor.

So, three more weeks to go and major cock-ups notwithstanding, Theo and I will both be certified. It's a heady prospect.

New people in our lives

These last few weeks have opened up a world of new friends for Theo and me - it's almost overwhelming. Our week with Pueblo Ingles at La Alberca has left us feeling slightly bereft because we became so close to so many people then had to be parted from them almost straight away. Slightly bereft, yes, but also richer in new relationships, many of which I feel sure will last indefinitely.

The experience at La Alberca was special partly because we felt we were doing something helpful, but mainly because the intense programme of conversation - much of it highly intimate in nature - led to a deep appreciation of and affection for the other people involved.

Our weekend in Madrid only added to these feelings as Belen and her boyfriend Cesar made us feel so very welcome in their flat and our other Spanish and Anglo friends organised a joyful reunion in the centre of the city. Extra thanks to Andres, Max and Cesar for their kind chauffeuring too!

It was hard not to feel a little flat as we tackled the seven-hour drive to Barcelona on Sunday then arrived in the middle of downpour. But our new landlady soon helped to lift our dampened spirits. Ilse is a German translator who lives and works in Barcelona and lets out one of her rooms to visiting trainee teachers. As soon as we had arrived and got our stuff inside, we were offered home-made pumpkin soup and told to help ourselves to anything in the kitchen. Not only is Ilse friendly and generous, she is also providing us with a well-furnished double bedroom plus en-suite bathroom. Yay!

For the last three days the weather has been warm and sunny, our tutors, fellow trainees and our students are all likable people and the teacher training course we are doing is challenging but enjoyable.

If we didn't have so much homework, we might even find the time to feel exceedingly smug.

Let loose on unwitting learners

Theo and I have both completed our first twenty minutes of classroom teaching. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you have a class of expectant faces in front of you (at least I assume that was the expression. I suppose some of them might have had wind or something) and zero experience at the chalk face (it's a white board nowadays, but that doesn't seem to sound as good) it's a tad daunting. However, Theo and I reckon we both did okay - at least, none of our students nor ourselves felt compelled to run out of the room screaming - whether any actual learning took place is a moot point. Mind you, I think we both learned that it is better to appear fairly relaxed, even if you want to run out of the room screaming, so that's something. Perhaps in the next couple of weeks we may actually manage to teach our pupils to speak some English. Although they appeared to be doing a lot of that without too much assistance on our part, luckily.

But in all seriousness, the fact that we have just spent the last week helping Spaniards improve their English (when we weren't dancing, drinking or telling filthy stories to one another) certainly gave our confidence levels a huge head-start. We both quite enjoyed it, too.

leaving La Alberca

We've had a fantastic and inspiring time on the Pueblo Ingles week at La Alberca, but it's nearly time to say goodbye. Tonight is the last night, so naturally we're having a big party - lots of drinking and dancing to a mix of Spanish and English pop music. It's been a fantastic week, we've met so many wonderful people, both English and Spanish speaking, and have had fantastic weather for the most part allowing us to appreciate the beautiful countryside.


We start our TEFL course in Barcelona on Monday, but first we're going to spend a couple of nights in Madrid with our new friend Belen. However, assuming they let us, we suspect we'll be back at Pueblo Ingles in the not too distant future.

Speaking for our supper

Kate and I are currently staying in a beautiful 4star Hotel just outside the picturesque village of La Alberca, high in the Sierra del Gredo to the west of Madrid. We are sharing a two-bedroomed en suite cottage with a lovely Madrilena called Olga, who is here to improve her English.

We aren't paying for anything (except the odd beer from the bar). Instead we are, quite literally, talking for our supper. Along with a dozen other "Anglos" (in this case Americans, Canadians and English) we are here to talk to another dozen or so Spanish (and one Portuguese) people who want to improve their English. This is Pueblo Ingles.

This morning I've had hour-long one-to-one conversations with Olga, who is a very high powered business executive it seems, Jaime, a Basque speaking advertising executive working in Madrid, and Daniel, who works in telecommunications solutions. The telecommunications industry is well represented here. I'm one of the youngest, but it doesn't seem to matter. Everyone here is charming, friendly and interesting, and naturally Kate - with her welcoming smile and BBC-honed enunciation - is going down a storm.

It's now siesta time - that's actually on the schedule! - so I'm going to take advantage; we've got more activities scheduled tonight!

Pena de Francia

As we were early for Pueblo Ingles we decided to go up the local mountain for the stunning views.

Segovia

When we first arrived in Spain last May, Miguel told us we'd be daft to pass up the opportunity to visit Segovia. While we were sitting in the kitchen of his house near Bilbao he enthusiastically recommended places in Spain to visit and further whetted our appetites by showing us photos he'd taken during his own forays in his homeland. Miguel told us as impressive as the architecture and historic remains are in other parts of the world, Spain can almost always match or better them. Including, he said, cathedrals and Roman ruins.

For a modest-sized place, Segovia seems to be trying to justify Miguel's Spanish pride all on its own. Its importance has waxed and waned over the centuries, but in the course of its history, it's been equipped with an imposing gothic cathedral, a fairytale castle (Walt Disney based his iconic turrets on the Alcazar) and an almost intact Roman aqueduct. Not to mention the various monastery, church and old synagogue buildings, whose towers and spires add their elegance to the Segovia's cobbled streets, colonnades and half-timbered houses.

Of the various monuments, I think Theo and I liked the aqueduct best. A simple, yet epic design, you often come across it unexpectedly by turning a corner in a random street. Or you cross and re-cross beneath it as it stretches between roadways and buildings, until it reaches its zenith in a kind of soaring, arched splendour over the Plaza de Azoguejo. It is 800 metres long in total, is 30 metres at its highest point and was built without mortar or cement. It doesn't carry water any more, but it really is a sight to behold and as Theo and Miguel both observed, it easily rivals Italy's own remnants of the Roman age.

The Alcazar is very pretty - especially when set against a glorious sunset or perfect blue sky (we were lucky enough to catch it in both settings), but it lacks the authenticity of the aqueduct, especially when you realise it was entirely reconstructed in the 19th century in an even more stylised version of the original. It's not surprising old Walt was so keen to adopt it for Disneyland.

Other than its splendid sights, Segovia also endeared itself to us by being generally cheap. Or should that be good value for money? Giving up on finding an eatery that opened on Wednesday nights and served some vegetarian food, we opted to fill ourselves up with beer and tapas. Which we did for less than 7 euros the lot. Bargain!

Andorra

Andorra, the 21st and last country that we've visited on our 6 month long tour around Europe, suffers somewhat by comparison with where we've been before. This tiny country (which calls itself a Principality even though it is now a democratic republic and was formerly an episcopality) is sandwiched quite neatly between France and Spain. So neatly in fact that you don't notice any disruption to the outline of either country, which I'm sure is one of the reasons why it still exists. It's also the only country where Catalan is the official language.

Having been to all the other European micro-states, it seemed silly not to satisfy our curiosity and pass through Andorra on our way to La Alberca, especially as, of all the micro-states, Andorra is the most curious. Squashed between two powerful neighbours, both with rival claims to sovereignty - France through the Count of Foix and Spain through the Bishop of La Seu d'Urgell - you would have thought it would have ended up being partitioned like Navarre, another Pyrranean state. Instead the joint sovereignty arrangement lasted all the way from 1278 right through to a referendum that lead to formal independence in 1993. I could only come up with Anglo-Eygptian Sudan when trying to think of other joint-sovereignty arrangements, but that didn't last a century and can hardly compete.
I'm sure Andorra was quite pretty once, and indeed the roads into the country from both France and Spain offer spectacular views as their hairpin their way up the Pyrenees through woods turning red and gold (on the French side; on the Spanish side they were still a lush green). Once inside the country, however, the views are marred by tangles of cable cars and urban sprawl.

Andorra is basically a series of steep river valleys in the middle of which sits the capital, Andorra la Vella, and ski slopes. The bland apartment blocks and bargain-stuffed shops (Andorra has a sales tax of only 4%) hem in the road, which only increases the claustrophobic feeling the steep valley walls create. A European cul-de-sac until the 20th century, Andorra took off as a smugglers' crossroads during the Spanish Civil War and WWII, and since then it seems to have been trying to turn itself into the world's biggest duty free hall. Ironic really, seeing as it doesn't have an airport.

We stopped for a coffee and then bought some supplies in one of the supermarkets before having the novel experience of a customers officer examining Sheena and quizzing us on our purchases - we've been asked before (Switzerland, Croatia), but nobody has ever bothered to look thus far! Our three bottles of port and slab of beers didn't qualify as contraband so within a few minutes we were back in Spain.

Learning to speak English

Kate and I have been accepted on a CELTA Teaching English as a Foreign Language course in Barcelona, starting November 3rd. So for the past week we've been trying to learn how to speak English!

Luckily we're staying with Kate's mother Cathy this week who is (like my Mum actually) a TEFL teacher, so she's been helping us with our pre-course homework. 6 months on the road without having to work have made this a bit of a culture shock, but Cathy has more or less guided us through the 3rd conditional, phrasal verbs and progressive tenses.

Next week we're off to warm up our language skills a bit more, spending a week in a four star hotel (expenses paid) near Salamanca talking English to Spanish learners on a Pueblo Ingles week. Should get us in the mood.

Then a month in Barcelona, lodging with a German translator, working 9 to 5. Culture shock alert! We're quite excited though.

Underground Railroad

http://www.the-fly.co.uk/words/reviews/live-reviews/3208/underground-railroad

We went up to Toulouse yesterday to see Underground Railroad a French band we know quite well; I once organised a UK tour for them. My review for The Fly is above - it was an ace show and wonderful to hang out with Raphael, Marion and JB again.

Turns out they are playing Barcelona next month - we'll probably see them there too!

The Vines

When we embarked on our travels more than 6 months ago, at the beginning of April, the landscape that greeted us here in France was full of fields dotted with brown stumps. Gradually, over the following weeks, a few touches of green appeared on them and now, as we return to France those leaves are slowly turning red and the heavy bunches of fruit are visible from the roads. They are of course the vines, and in a way they have marked our travels around Europe, a natural calendar charting the time scale of our trip.

Yesterday was my birthday, my 27th, but instead of a lazy day after 3 days of driving, we were up at 7 to take part in le vindage - grape picking. Jean-Christophe and Christiane are a little like a French version of the Larkins, except they have fewer chilren and probably pay their income tax. Their little farm about 5 minutes from Cathy's is a menagerie of donkeys, horses, chickens, ducks, patridges, pigeons and finches, while they grow sunflowers, grapes, oilseed and plums.

We and about a dozen other people - friends, family, neighbours - were helping them pick grapes for their own home-made red and rosé wines. There was no cash payment involved, just endless food and as much booze as was safe to drink while wielding a pair of secatuers. Beers were handed round the vines by way of mid-morning refreshment, while the four-course lunch was preceeded by copious potent apertifs of which Pa Larkin would have approved. Lunch itself was accompanied by the house vintage and afternoon tea (complete with pastry turned into a birthay cake for me) was washed down with sweet cider. When we were invited back for dinner (along with half the neighbourhood) and of course, more booze. Perfick!

The work itself wasn't hard - 3 hours in the warm morning sun then another one and a half in the afternoon when there were even more helpers got the job done.
Christophe stacked the crates on his forklift, emptied them into a machine to separate the grapes from the stems and got the fermentation process under way. Naturally all this was done in a very French way - everyone watching, momentarily taking charge or giving advice. Vastly entertaining for us though. All the gloom and doom in the news about the financial markets seems a world away from this rural idyll of helpful neighbours, home brew and rustic feasts. A perfick birthday.

a bit of brimstone

Vesuvius might be a sleeping beast nowadays, but the area around the Bay of Naples is still volcanic, the west side in particular, which sits on a lava plateau. After spending the night in a campsite on the outskirts of Sorrento we decided we couldn't leave the area before getting a taste of some live volcano action.

Not far from the fishing town of Pozzuoli is the Solfatara volcano. Muttering "serenity, serenity..." to himself, Theo threaded Sheena through the Neapolitan vehicular nightmare and one wrong turning later, we were at the so-called Fields Of Fire.

It's not exactly a boiling caldera of molton lava, but Solfatara has some excellently bubbling mud flats, a few busy fumeroles and a pervading smell of sulphur. We were suitably fascinated by it all, although not as much as one lone Italian visitor for whom it was clearly more akin to a religious experience. She stood with closed eyes and a rapt expression, breathing in the swirling warm mists of malodorous vapours coming from the crater.

It's supposed to be therapeutic, but I'm not entirely convinced a chemical soup of arsenic, alum, sulphur and various hydrocarbons is really such a great thing to inhale. Still, there have been plenty of people in the past who've gone in for such a thing, as one of the sights at Solfatara is a now-derelict sauna building for people who wanted the full effect of all the thermal activity. The steam room at the Budapest public baths was about as much as Theo and I could endure, I don't think we'd have been first in the queue for the Solfatara sauna.

Pompeii

We didn't get as far as the Amalfi coast. But we made it to the Bay of Naples where we witnessed the inspired lunacy of Neapolitan driving, the warmth and volatility of southern Italians and explored the ruins of ancient Pompeii.

Vesuvius, the volcano which dealt out such overwhelming destruction on Pompeii and its neighbour, Herculaneum, still looms over the bay but dormant for many centuries, it now appears lost in its own memories rather than a source of any present menace. It's hard to imagine the mountain spewing out pumice, poison gasses and pyroclastic clouds in the warm October sunshine. Nowadays, its summit tends to be wreathed in clouds rather than smoke and fire.
Pompeii's preserved mosaics, frescoes and statues are all pretty impressive. But it's the city as a whole which exercises the greatest fascination. The streets with their cart tracks, the grid layout and the rows of dwellings, ranging from public buildings to shops, villas, cafes and whorehouses. More than two thousand years after its ancient inhabitants met their violent deaths, Pompeii teems with tourists rather than residents and if you close your eyes, the bustle and voices help conjure up an idea of the city as it once was. Without the fake shutter sounds of digital cameras and the SMS alerts of the mobile phones, though.

here comes the sun... again

It's hard to believe that only a matter of days ago we were bundling on jumpers and coats before going out and once the sun had gone in we were making mist with our exhaled breaths.

Now, here we are in Italy again and with every kilometre we go south, the air feels warmer and we are back in our short-sleeves and sandals.

We have just visited Mantua, granted its UNESCO World Heritage status within the last four months and buzzing with Sunday afternoon crowds visiting a regional produce market. It made for a lovely pit-stop on our journey down to the Amalfi coast.

Having a little more time at our disposal before we're expected back in France and Spain, we've decided to explore a bit more of Italy. Last time we were in this part of the boot, the heat was almost unbearable and the grapes were just forming in tiny nubs along the lines of vines.

Back here in October, we are warm and relaxed rather than fried and frazzled and the vines, stripped of their fruit, are turning into shades of bright russet around us.

It also helps that this time our rear windscreen is intact, which means we can open the back door for extra ventilation and thus avoid the sauna effect whenever we want to cook anything. The fact that Theo's window winder has also been fixed is another small but important element in our overall comfort. Shame neither of those

Feeling a bit land-sick

After three days in Venice I'm starting to feel a bit land-sick; when I get back to our camp on the Lido di Jesolo I feel like I'm still at sea, swaying a bit to remembered waves and generally feeling a bit woozy. The cold I have is playing havoc with my ear canal and that probably isn't helping, though strangely I feel fine when actually on the vaporetti or Venice proper. Odd.

Making best use of our 72-hour travel passes we've ridden the boat-busses (that's what the vaporretti are) all across the lagoon, visiting not only the six sestiere of Venice, but also the Lido di Venezia, Burano and Murano, other inhabited islands in the lagoon. In Venice itself I think we both liked the Carnareggio district best; not quite so spectacular as other areas, though still beautiful, we at least stood a chance there of escaping the worst of the crowds and finding a reasonably priced drink. Early October has been a beautiful time to visit, with brilliantly huge skies and warm sunshine and if there was sometimes a stiff breeze on the sea front, then we could always find a still, calm spot alongside one of the inner canals. We've done touristy things - looking around the spectacular Doge's Palace and St Mark's Cathedral, crossing the Rialto and riding a Traghetto - the 50 cent, 2 minute grand canal crossing in a gondola piloted by trainees - the budget gondola experience! But mostly we just saw Venice - on foot and on the boats, a sight to see and a marvel to gawp at.

This evening we were treated to the spectacle of two massive cruise ships being tugged down the Guidecca. As the sun set over the lagoon, lighting up the jagged peaks of the Dolomites, our vaporretto kept an easy pace with one of them all the way back to Jesolo. The silhouetted shapes lining the cruiser's rails probably had an amazing view of Venice, but I hope they had a chance to look up close too.

That Sinking Feeling

If I'm honest, I expected to be severely disappointed by Venice. I suspected it would be an overpriced, overcrowded tourist trap, existing only to feed the curiosity of its millions of visitors. In some respects, that is a reasonable summary. But it doesn't do Venice - the true city of Venice - justice. What surprised me most wasn't how touristy Venice is, but how touristy it isn't.

Oh yes, if you confine your wanderings to the area around Piazza San Marco, Ponte Rialto and all the other sights, you will be continually reminded of the main source of Venice's income. But Theo and I found ourselves quite quickly away from The Grand Canal and inside an area where ordinary corner shops sell ordinary groceries, where a group of children were playing football on a sports court and the people sitting drinking spritzis outside the slightly scruffy cafes were locals enjoying a gentle sundowner after work.

But no matter how ordinary are the everyday lives of its citizens, Venice is still, inescapably, like a film-set. The place where we chose to drink limonata and caffee macchiato may have looked at first glance like many a high street in many a European city, but the fact that it began, ended and was bounded by canals immediately set it apart. Venice is exotic and ridiculously picturesque, even in the districts where graffiti, dog-walkers and fast-food are more commonly found than churches in the High Renaissance style.

The whole city has a feeing of elegant decay as centuries-old buildings lean towards the sea, which is always, always ready to receive them once their resistance to nature has crumbled away. And one day, the sea will have its way again. We watched epic earthworks taking shape around the lagoon as man tries to outwit the rising water with multi-million pound feats of engineering. But one day the islands of Venice will surely be overwhelmed as climate change takes its toll. I just hope it isn't in my lifetime.

North American Chums

Lil and B are not Americans. They were, back when they first met at Woodstock in 1969, B using the awesome chat up line of "have you got any uppers?" However, a few years later they were Canadians, and now they're in Italy for a month and may even meet up with some distant relatives they didn't know they had down in Sicily. But yes, distinctly Canadian and keen to make the distinction, as had Thor, Monica and Matt back in Bremen. But regardless of their distinct North American identity, B and Lil are a lovely, chatty couple and we were very pleased our tiny table in the tiny Venetian Pleasure Cafe ("good things come in little packages") was pressed up next to their tiny table.

We had been equally pleased when we bumped into the International Student Brigade again on the shores of Lake Bled, having first met them up the top of the Ljubljana Castle the day before. Two of the Americans in their midst, Noah and Keith, promptly gave us their email addresses and told us to drop them a line if we fancied a trip to Trieste. Which we did, so a few days later we met up with both of them in Trieste's stunning Piazza Dell'Unita and were treated to a guided tour of the city plus a blagged pizza in the University Cafeteria.

Both Northern boys from up near the Canadian border (Keith from Montana, Noah from Vermont) they were full of enthusiasm for their new situation and stunned to find out how popular Americans are in Italy. (This may have had something to do with the fact that Trieste only remained Italian after World War Two thanks to the presence of Allied forces, otherwise the city - previously Venetian, then Hapsburg - might have been absorbed into Yugoslavia along with the rest of Istria.) We had a great evening hanging out with them and, depending on their travel plans, may very well end up seeing them again.

Becalmed at Lake Bled

How recent history repeats itself! Six months ago, the day after our wedding, Theo and I were both afflicted with various maladies, namely a stomach bug (in both our cases) and severe laryngitis in mine (which had robbed me of my voice for my wedding day). Today, half a year on, we have postponed our planned return to Italy because we've both been struck down by a chest infection. Well, struck down is maybe a little overdramatic. We don't feel too bad, but our lungs are rather tight and tickly and our voices have taken a husky dive into our boots. You would have thought with all this fresh mountain air and our reasonably healthy lifestyle would see us in the pink, but no. Still, you can't argue with Lake Bled as a stunning place to convalesce. The nights have a distinct autumnal nip in the air, but the sky is blue and it feels very warm in the Slovenian sunshine. Even the snowy caps on the alps overlooking the lake have quite melted away. We are now doing what invalids are supposed to - eating grapes, lazing around and reading books - while taking advantage of the pause in our journey to do a bit of laundry.

So I thought I would mention one of the other attractions of Slovenia aside from its stunning scenery. The Slovenians themselves.

The fact that they are multilingual, with just about everyone able to manage a bit of English, German and Italian as well as their own language, makes life much easier for the visitor. But time and time again we have also seen how friendly, helpful and kind they are - as well as having a sense of humour we can easily understand.

When we shopped at the large outdoor market in Ljubljana, one stallholder threw a few extra onions and small bulb of garlic into our bag after we had paid, another gave us each a generous slice of cake on the completion of our transaction. In Italy you get that sort of thing all the time if you happen to have a small child in tow, but this was just us.

You never get the impression that tourists are a necessary evil to be simultaneously endured and ripped off, as we have found in some other places. Here, the attitude is welcoming and patient. Letting visitors endlessly ring the bell in the church on the island in Lake Bled would surely drive most people crackers quite quickly, but here they encourage you to have a go. Mind you, it makes life confusing if you happen to be wondering what the time is.

Which leaves me wondering why my bank views Slovenia with suspicion and won't let me access my bank account online from here. Of all the Balkan countries, it's easily the most up-to-date and efficiently run.

Still, what do they know?

Six Months Today

Kate and Theo have been married for six month today!!!!

Yay!!!

Bloody Gorgeous

...and the scenery isn't bad either.

We're in Slovenia and it's beautiful. Currently camping on the shores of the picturesque Lake Bled, looking forward to a spot of gentle rowing tomorrow.

Luvverly Ljubljana

If Bratislava was unprepared to become a capital city what of Ljubljana, the tiny, bijou capital of Slovenia? Ancient Emona (as was) founded, as legend has it, by Jason of the Argonauts - a case of bad navigation as they were trying to get back to Greece but mistook the Danube delta for the Dardenelles - was for years under the sway of either Venice, Vienna or, until 1992, Belgrade. It's a bit like Cornwall declaring its independence and Truro taking on capital city status.

However, of all the former communist cities we've visited, the Slovene capital seems to have suffered least from the usual contagion of concrete blocks. Or at least that's how it seemed to us as we admired the panorama from the top of the Castle's tower (like the city, the castle is tiny and understated but very pretty and well situated).
Instead the city makes the most of what both nature - in the form of the ring of snow capped mountains and forested hills surrounding the Sava River plain that it sits on - and previous rulers have bestowed upon it - quaint bridges, colonnades, art deco houses and market squares. It doesn't bowl you over, just gently seduces.

Ljubljana also has quite an alternative streak to it and we got a little taster of this. We had picked up a flyer in, of all places, the tourist information office, for a Tribal Infusion night, promising belly dancing, body paint, turbo folk, live music and DJs. Sounded fun (and it was free) so we headed along about 11ish (it went on til 6am!) to find that the venue was situated in some kind of artists' collective in a half derelict factory. If you are from Bristol, think The Black Swan meets The Cube. Donations on the door, dreadlocks everywhere, lasers, smoke... all that was missing was a few dogs on strings and we could have been back at the Rocket Festival. It was ace. We drank, danced and tried to take half-decent photos before finally calling it a night at 3am.

We love Ljubljana. Even if only Kate can say it properly.

Hats off, Cravats on

How on earth did we come up with "Croatia" as a pronunciation for the country actually called by the people who live there "Hrvatzka"? A pretty poor approximation, really - the word we use for the Croatia-created necktie, "cravat" is much closer. Not that the Croatians - the Hrvatski - seem to mind, the English rendering - or should that be mangling? - of their country's name is used almost interchangeably with the Slavic version.

Theo and I spent a little under three days in Croatia - just enough time to get thoroughly lost, stressed out and fed up trying to find a campsite close to the capital, Zagreb; a day to wander around and see its main sites; and another day extricating ourselves in the direction of Slovenia. Incidentally, Slovenes do pronounce their land as "Slovenia", so we were closer with that one.

Most would agree that Croatia's strongest suit is its incredible coastline, with more idyllic Islands to boast of than Greece and the dual jewels in its crown of Split and Dubrovnik. But Zagreb is not without its charms by any means.


The Dolac fruit and vegetable market was well worth a visit and there we got some of the sweetest plums and mandarins I've ever tasted - for a very decent price, too, although Croatia isn't nearly as cheap as, say, Slovakia ("Slovenske"...hmm).

The snappily named Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was also of interest, although its most intriguing feature was the prone effigy of a Cardinal on his way to sainthood and currently celebrating ten years since his beatification. He could be seen laying in state in a glass coffin and the brass emblem on its front was shiny from the number of hands reverently (superstitiously?) placed upon it by the people paying their respects.

That same ritualistic approach to Croatia's Roman Catholicism could also be seen at the Holy Virgin icon contained within a shrine at the 13th Century Stone Gate. Inside the gate, all was a-flicker with candles, there were a few people praying in the three pews placed before the shrine and the walls surrounding it were crowded with plaques proclaiming the grateful thanks of the faithful. As we watched, a crowd of noisy teenagers passed through the gate, but almost all of them crossed themselves as they approached the shrine, although they continued their conversations as they did so.


A final hats off to the splendid restaurant, Kaptolska Klet. Despite specialising in indigenous dishes and Zagreb specialities like strukli (a sort of savoury boiled cheesecake, which is much tastier than it sounds), it also offered the most extensive list of vegetarian options Theo and I have yet come across outside an exclusively vegetarian eatery. We were spoiled for choice and as a result, over-ordered and both had to leave half our very tasty main-courses uneaten.

Bath Time in Hungary

It's hard to put your finger on the appeal of swimming in water that smells like it's just been used to poach two dozen eggs. There's the alleged healing qualities of the mineral-rich springs bubbling up from subterranean Hungary - does wonders for your rheumatism, I'm told. The novelty of doing the breast-stroke in an outdoor pool, kept comfortably warm by natural aqua thermals, while surrounded by pink and purple water lilies, must count for something. It's also kind of soothing to watch so many of the geriatrically challenged (I'm trying to be politically correct about the huge numbers of wrinklies and crumblies - oh, damn, sorry) bobbing about in their swimming caps and rubber rings.

Whatever the reason, Theo and I certainly enjoyed ourselves taking the waters at the world famous Heviz crater in Hungary, close to the largest European freshwater lake outside Scandinavia, Lake Balaton. The wooden-built bath house can be reached through a number of walkways jutting into the centre of the thermal pool. From the outside, the spa complex looks turn of the century. Inside, parts of it are so bang up to date, the lockers are managed by an electronic system where each bather is given a watch-type device which, when scanned in the changing room, allocates a vacant locker. Henleaze Swimming Lake it is not!

Theo and I spent an hour or so in the water, first swimming outdoors, then floating around and underneath the struts holding up the bath house and jostling for position close to the warmest part of the pool, where the thermal spring bubbles up at an initial temperature of 37 degrees C. By the time you get into the open air, the water has cooled to around 27 degrees, but is still very pleasant for swimming. Probably about the same temperature as the Adriatic when we swam in it near Rimini back in June, but not as murky.

I'm not sure if our sojourn in the thermal waters cured us of any bodily ailments, but they did have one dramatic result. The hydrogen sulphide (or whatever it was) giving the water its distinctive eggy smell reacted with the solid silver of our wedding rings turning them both an oily black. And despite both of us taking showers after our dip, it wasn't until the next day that we managed to wash away the subtle whiff of eau de scrambled oeuf.

Budapest - The Sociable City

I think our main impression of the Hungarian capital is how its citizens love to be part of a big crowd. On our first night in Budapest, we watched intrigued as several hundred young people wearing red or yellow armbands amassed in one of the city's main squares. As Theo drank dark Magyar beer and I sipped a palinka, they stood around in groups, then dispersed and re-grouped with occasional breakaway contingents suddenly chasing one another pell-mell through the chairs and tables set up outside the bars. Our waiter was similarly nonplussed, but eventually he discovered it was a game of "Capture The Flag". We were greatly taken with the scale of the event, it made quite spectacle.

The next day our sightseeing was livened up by big screens, amplified music and a hell of a lot of flags. Twenty thousand or so Hungarians had taken to the streets in a pro-democracy march, concerned by the faltering economy and the country's vociferous fascist minority. "It's all a bit bullshit, really", commented the TV journalist who told us what the protest was about, "They don't really know what they want." It didn't stop us feeling impressed, though.

Mind you, it wasn't long before we saw the focus of those people's worries - particularly the sizable group of Roma demonstrators. Having just had an afternoon cuppa in the gorgeous, Art Nouveau cafe Lukacs, we intended to visit the Terror House - the museum chronicling the atrocities experienced in Hungary under the communists and before them, the Nazis. Ironically, our plan was scuppered by the appearance of another march, which turned out to be the modern fascists, the ultra right, complete with skin-head haircuts and racist chants.

As we watched the thousand or so marchers pass us on Andrassy Utca, the owner of Cafe Lukacs stood beside us, bemoaning the demo's effect on his business. "It's all a bit bloody bullshit, really," he told us. "They don't really know what they want."


The next day, Sunday, we decided to take a dip in Budapest's famous, century-old public thermal baths. Once again, there were crowds of people. Many were obviously tourists; as one French girl said to another "c'est plein d'Anglais". But many were clearly local and came to enjoy the twenty or so different pools, saunas and steam-rooms as much for the socialising as their health. It was a grand excuse to hang around and have a bit of a chit-chat with your mates or, indeed, a game of chess. We saw at least three boards set up on one side of the outdoor pool, while various middle-aged men stood chest-deep in the water, solemnly working out their moves.

If that wasn't enough, we also wandered through a free, green-themed street party, complete with children's games and outdoor concert and a market with another stage and yet more live music.

And then there is the willingness with which various people joined us in conversation. As well as the journalist and the businessman, a teacher of English and ice-skating had helped us on the trams and ended up sharing a bit of her life-story as we all negotiated the public transport disruptions. For all our wanderings in the various foreign capitals we have visited, we have seldom managed to talk to the people who live there, unless we already knew them. Budapest is different. It's a lively place and I think I can honestly say we both got thoroughly caught up in the action.

Vienna: Kate's Birthday City

Vienna is a confection. It can't help it, with all its elaborate Baroque stylings, its frills and whirls, its gold leafed edging and its ostentation. Very little is free in Vienna, but it costs nothing to stroll among its decorative architecture and manicured parks and you will always be given an unasked for glass of water when you order coffee. "Mit schlag", as the waiters say - topped, more often than not, with a ripple of whipped cream.

Vienna is very like one of its most famous cakes - the Sacher Torte. Very elegant and very rich with a hint of sour cherry lying just below the thick chocolate surface.


We saw it in the groups of street drinkers using the city's immaculate metro system to shelter from the cold. We saw it in the smoky cellars of the micro-wineries. We felt it as we were attacked by a ratty, one-legged pigeon with a psychopathic streak in one of the Austrian capital's genteel parks. And we couldn't miss the election posters emphatically proclaiming "unsere Osterreich, fur unsere Kinder" for the Right Wing.

Not so sweet, then. More like a well-bred but slightly eccentric elderly aunt. After all, Vienna is the city which turned an old chemical works into a building that could have been decorated by Gaudi on acid. And every year, amateur aviators crash a succession of bizarre machines into the Danube as they race to get airborne.

Vienna is Marie Antoinette, Mozart, Klimt and The Third Man. High culture abounds. But there is also a bar beneath an old railway bridge where you can hear the latest electronic music.

Sacher Torte? Perhaps the gateau best resembling Vienna would be a wedding cake - impressive on the outside and plenty of layers.

Vienna

"London. Vienna. Unreal City." That's (roughly) the way the line goes in Eliot's The Wasteland. It couldn't be further from the truth. Many of the cities we've visited, even some of the bigger ones like Rome, Paris and Amsterdam, seem to be merely giant amusement parks, designed to entertain the world's tourists. You had to struggle to imagine people actually living and working there, and not just passing through for a couple of days sightseeing. Not so Vienna: this was a real city, with a strong sense of inhabitation and purpose, existing for reasons other than tourism. "Come here if you like," the Viennese seemed to say, "but don't expect us to pay much attention." This reverse-psycohology aptly employed by the birthplace of modern psychoanalysis definitely works - unlike the half-deserted, almost ghostly campsites we'd encountered in Prague, Krakow and Bratislava, the one in Vienna positively buzzed.

Once we'd ventured in we could see why the tourists flock to Austria's capital. It's strange but after only days in Berlin we had the (probably totally mistaken) sense that we'd seen and done all it had to offer us, or at least all we wanted to do and see. Ditto Paris. Not so Vienna: we could have stayed a week and still felt we'd left significant bits unexplored. Yet why is hard to say.

Vienna lacks a defining monument - it has nothing to rival the status of the Eiffel Tower or the Berlin Wall - but that probably works to its advantage. There's no one thing you can do or see to feel that you have "done" Vienna. Go to Pisa, see the leaning tower, tick box. Go to Cordoba, see the Mezquita, tick box. The closest you get in Vienna is going to coffee houses for torte mit schlagobers, a box we ticked several times, though even those listed in the guidebooks had a larger local contingent than a tourist one.

We did go to the Belvedere Museum to see Gustav Klimt's "Kiss", though I was more taken by some of his other, smaller pieces, plus other assorted artworks. We did wander along the Danube, taking a ride to the long, thin, Island park that runs between two of its widest channels. (I was actually quite surprised at both the size of the Danube this far from its mouth - it's huge! - and also at the fact that old Vienna isn't actually all that close to the river so synonymous with it. In fact the city is named after the Wien river which flows through it to the Danube.) We admired the various parks, museums, palaces, monuments and churches. Kate bought some new boots - shopping is definitely a prime tourist pastime in Vienna. And yet, from the U-bahn and tram windows we could see miles and miles of intriguing unexplored city stretching before us.

I'd happily go back.

Travelling Top Trumps

Well, we already knew that we hardly ranked alongside Phileas Fogg or even Michael Palin in a Travellers Top Trumps set, but we didn't think we were doing too badly at being adventurous. Not just in where we've been and where we're going, but the lifestyle change it has meant for both of us, the huge down sizing required to live out of the van which has been our home for 5 months now.

Today though we met the Millers. This American couple with their FOUR children aged 6 to 12 have sold their house and quit their jobs to travel around Europe and North Africa for 15 months. By bicycle. Wow! We are in awe. Check out their website: www.edventureproject.com

It made a fantastic contrast to the (very friendly) antipodean types who rolled in to the Viennese campsite on the Kontiki Express. 22 countries in 46 days - made us feel knackered just thinking about it.

Bratislava - The Accidental Capital

A rainy Monday is probably the very worst time to visit the Slovak capital, Bratislava. Not being the best endowed city when it comes to noble architecture and showpiece buildings anyway, a damp day only serves to enhance the considerable amount of concrete that holds the place together. Also, on Mondays almost everything is closed, including the inside of the old town hall, which enticingly offers a room of mirrors and English tapestries dating back to King James I to savvier tourists than us, who turn up on any other day of the week.

The next worst time to visit Bratislava is at the weekend, specifically Friday or Saturday night. Then the historical centre becomes filled with those excellent cultural ambassadors for the UK, hen parties and stag groups. Committed to the cause of plentiful cheap booze, they liberally spray the old town's streets with their urine and vomit, to the charming accompaniment of their shrieking and brawling.

Bratislava has only been the Slovak capital city for a short time. Previously, as part of Czechoslovakia, the country could look to Prague. In the centuries before that it was German (when it was called Pressberg) and at one time it was the seat of Hungarian royalty under the Habsburgs, although many of its finest buildings from that time have since been destroyed.

So it's not surprising Bratislava has the air of a city struggling to match up to the greatness that has been thrust upon it. The castle was once a very fine edifice and no doubt will be so again, but at the moment the place is a building site as work to restore it continues.

It's worth walking up to the castle, though, as its dominant position above Bratislava's centre affords a great view of the city as a whole. True, when Theo and I took in the cityscape, it was dank with persistent rain, so not a great advert. Among the landmarks that struck us was the ugly UFO new bridge, one of the Communist regime's gifts to Bratislava in the 1970s. We also marvelled at the rows and rows of slab-like housing blocks on the horizon. And above all was a huge Euro sign, rising above the rooftops like a prophet proclaiming the coming of a new dawn. January 2009 is when Slovakia is due to covert and you could put several thousand of the current koruna on a general twenty per cent price-rise soon after.

The Velvet Divorce - when the Czech Republic and Slovakia parted company in the 1990s - was not as kind to the Slovaks as it was to their Czech neighbours. Accounts suggest that there is a sense grievance about the parting of the ways among Slovaks, who were not consulted about the decision. The economic miracle affecting some former Eastern Bloc countries hasn't been seen to the same extent here. As you take the number 4 tram from the chemical works next to Zlate Piesky and on into the city, you are struck by how heavily graffitied it is. A sign, I suspect, of a lack of money to clean it all off.

But the Slovaks are doing their best with Bratislava. As well as the works on the castle, they've hit on a pleasing strategy to bump up the tourist experience by placing quirky bronze statues in unexpected places. A Frenchman leans on a bench, a workman peeks out of a manhole and a photographer waits to capture a snatched shot with his telephoto lens. It's all rather cute.

Bratislava doesn't need more than a day to take in its main sights and like the ubiquitous stags and hens, I have to admit that part of the appeal lies in the cheap food and drink to be had. Another part of the appeal lies in the Slovaks themselves. As a chatty Iranian checkout man pointed out to us in the supermarket, they are naturally warm and cheerful and respond very readily to overtures of friendship. He himself had chosen to move to Slovakia for that very reason.

The wonderful landscape of the Tatra mountain range is the other thing Slovakia has going for it. If you can ignore the insensitive industrialisation of the Communist era sticking dirty great power stations in areas of outstanding natural beauty, the countryside is really rather lovely.

Bratislava, although trying hard, still needs to grow into its role of capital city. And it can't help being massively overshadowed by its grand and ornate neighbour of only a few kilometres away, Vienna. We're going there tomorrow.

I wanna live like common people

So much of being a tourist, particular in Europe it seems, is checking out how the rich people lived. In towns and cities your guide books direct you to the posh bits, the former homes of burghers, merchants and bankers, with their richly decorated squares and attractive town houses. Or else you might go really up-market and check out the former abodes of royalty, the castles, palaces and mansions of lineages current and ancient. Even those represented in museums tend to be those better off, which is hardly surprising seeing as those with wealth were better able to document and preserve their lives in diaries, letters and business ledgers for those to come.

So yesterday in Slovakia we did the exact opposite. Heading to the Museum Slovenske Dediny (The Museum of Slovak Villages) just outside the Mala Fatra National Park, we spent an hour or so nosing round four preserved villages from different regions of Slovakia. With some of the earliest buildings dating back from the beginning of the 1700s this was a chance to see how the vast majority of people - landless peasants, farmers, cloth makers, weavers, hatters, smiths - lived while their so-called-betters were swanning it about in the various (now ruined) castles we've seen dotting this country's beautiful landscape.


It was a charming place, the buildings with their thatched roofs, cheerful market gardens and dark timbers giving the whole place a picture postcard look, especially in the warm autumn sunshine under clear blue skies. However there was no escaping the functionality of these buildings - there was no false glamour. Peering in through doorways or tiny windows we could see small rooms clearly used for both sleeping, eating and cooking and perhaps more: several were occupied by looms, spinning wheels and wool carders, the means by which agriculturalists would supplement their income on cold winter days.

Today we followed this up by detouring (on our way to Bratislava) via the little village of Cicimany which, our guidebook said, is a fine example of village tradition. The dark wooden houses decorated with geranium filled window boxes and painted white patterns on the timbers were charming as were the little wooden footbridges crossing the stream. But two things really made it for us. The first was venturing into a local cafe for a coffee at 10am and finding it full of merry male locals hard at work drinking beers and shots of Slovakian gin while singing at the tops of their voices. Brilliant. One of them spoke a bit of English and when we asked what the occasion was he simply said "alcohol." Apparently they'd been at it for three days. Hurrah! Equally entertaining was the "guide" in the village-life museum down the road. All the exhibit labels for the traditional costumes and craft items were in Slovak, so we asked if they had an English version. The receptionist obligingly put on a CD which then played on speakers throughout the museum describing for us what we were seeing. As far as we could tell the text was perfect English, but whoever was reading it had obviously little skill with the language. As a result the heavily-accented speech moved at a monotonal snail's pace, as the female narrator not so much stumbled as tripped, slipped and fell headlong over the words giving us such gems as "Frish Vorld Vah" (WWI). Special.



Although going from gorgeous city to gorgeous city is hardly a tiresome experience, it made an extremely refreshing change to go rustic for once.

Ponderings about Polski

Reading the two previous blogs you'd be forgiven for thinking we were having a less than excellent time in Poland. True, the zany driving, the fact the entire country is being dug up for new roads and other public schemes (thanks, EU) and the stealing of Theo's sandals all gave us some trying moments. In fact, the disappearance of Theo's footwear is possibly a blessing in disguise as the weather has just become too chilly to wear open-toed shoes anyway and as they emitted a rather strong aroma, the prospect of stowing them in the van wasn't exactly enticing.

I digress. Minor inconveniences aside, Poland is a very likable country, as are the Poles themselves. The beauty of places like Wrocklaw and Krakow speak for themselves. Their inclusion on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites is fully justified and they deserve to be visited by all self-respecting Poland tourists. Also on the UNESCO list is the Auschwitz-Birkenau former Nazi death camp, an unholy testament to barbarity and inhumanity on an industrial scale and a chilling, yet fascinating place to visit.


It was at Auschwitz, as we perused the various exhibitions in the former dormitories, prison blocks and sanitarium, that the courage and indomitable spirit of the Poles came through. Millions of European Jews were murdered in the death camps, but Polish Jews fared the worst, with more than 2 million of their number being slaughtered by the end of the Second World War. Many Poles were put to death merely for being Polish - the Nazis had decided they were not racially acceptable and that they could never be trusted to behave under their occupation, so they exterminated them. Thousands more Poles died at the hands of the Bolsheviks and Ukrainians. Then, at the end of WWII, came a liberation which effectively delivered Poland into the hands of her old enemy, Russia.


We looked at an outdoor exhibition in Wrocklaw celebrating the organised protests against communist repression by the Solidarity union, Polish students and the Catholic Church at the beginning of the 1980s. Despite the movement being squashed by the regime, it went underground, continued unabated and resurfaced in the '90s to finally lead Poland to true self-determination. It made an interesting counterpoint to one of Woclaw's great tourist attractions - a huge panorama painting, 115m long, of Poland's death throes as a nation state in 1794. The enemy then was Russia.

These people have a history of suffering at the hands of their more powerful neighbours, of authoritarian rule and countless atrocities, yet the thing that strikes you most about the Polish is how cheerful they are. They are constantly chatting, smiling and laughing, are generally helpful and for the most part, seem to treat life as a chance to have fun.

And they have some great quirks. Their love affair with the Fiat 126, for instance. The little car is everywhere. I have a lot of sympathy with the Poles here, because my first car happened to be a 126. They may not go very fast, but only an old-fashioned Mini comes close for cuteness.

I also love the way foreign words are "Polishized". Generally by adding "ia" or, more frequently, "y" to the end of the word. Thus you get "delicatesy", "materialy", or my favourite, "komputery". Crisps are "chipsy".

I like their little street kiosk-shops, which sell everything. I can also recommend obwarzanki, crimped bread rings similar to bagels, traditional to Krakow, sold throughout and eaten by all.

True, there is plenty of ugly industrialisation and unappealing Eastern Bloc housing developments all over Poland. And boy, do those relentless roadworks sap your strength. But overall, the country has an optimistic air and it was a pleasure to visit. Meanwhile, Theo will just have to make do with his flip-flops. Though seeing as we went from summer to autumn overnight while in Krakow, he probably wont be wearing those much either.

Woke up this morning, felt round for my shoes....

And some bugger had nicked them!!

Bastards!!

Cross Town Traffic

It's true - the Polish really are terrible drivers. With the sole exception of Belgium (and elsewhere when it's Belgians doing the driving) we haven't witnessed such appalling impatience and blatant illegal manouvres anywhere else on our trips. Jumping red lights (not just going over them a fraction of a second late but having a look, thinking "oh well nobody's coming" and driving across), speeding, overtaking on suburban streets when you are doing the maximum, cutting up, beeping, flashing and generally being total, utter, ******* ***** (insert SJ Esau lyric here). I even saw - amazing!! - a guy in a tiny Fiat mount the pavement and drive along it 200 yards to turn right, rather than wait in the traffic queue. Kate reckons this is why First Bus was so keen to recruit Polish drivers for their Bath and Bristol routes. Those boys will stop at nothing to own the road.

And this was all before we got to Wroclaw. Arriving a 3pm we thought it would be relatively straightforward to find one of the two listed campsites as one was by the river and the other by the Olympic Stadium. Unfortunately we reckoned without the massive roadworks currently taking place, which of course made the already less than polite Polish drivers even less forgiving of two lost Brits attempting to navigate their way around. It took all of my Bristol-city-centre-in-rush-hour training to keep Sheena scratch free (touch wood). After consulting a map in a petrol station we eventually found one of the campsites. This nice riverside location was home to some not very welcoming New Age squatters and their even less welcoming, loud dogs. Hmmm.

Luckily some Germans turned up and being the organised types, they had a SatNav. Hurrah. After we telephoned the other campsite to check it actually existed, we had another fraught journey following a German caravan back across town through some very busy junctions and major roadworks to another, thankfully open, campsite. It was now 6.30pm. Perhaps sensing our urgent need, our new German friends graciously offered us some chilled Polish vodka which we very gratefully drank. We can understand now why the stuff is so popular.

Prague

This has been my second visit to Prague and I've enjoyed my return - a very different experience to last time, though both trips were enjoyable in different ways. But while certain streets and sights were familiar - Prague Castle, the Old Town square, the Charles Bridge, the Jewish cemetery and, er, Tesco - I wouldn't claim to know Prague well. At all.

It's true that pretty much everywhere we've gone we've just seemed to scratch the surface, but it is especially true for Prague. If Bohemia and Moravia made it into our history classrooms it was merely as a mention in the list of Hapsburg possessions, or perhaps as the subject of the Munich Agreement. The amount that we knew about the Czech Republic - which seems almost synonymous with Prague in the English imagination - before we came here could fill, well, a short blog entry.

We're slightly more clued in now, but only slightly. We've learnt about Hussites, defenestrations and quite a bit about the Prague Spring thanks to several street displays marking the 40th anniversary of this ultimately doomed attempt to liberalise the Czechslovakian communist regime. Another helpful outdoor display alongside owls, peacocks and a wall of fake stalactites in the gardens of the Czech Senate taught us about the abdication of the last King in the Czech lands and about the last Czech King. However all these history lessons, while appreciated, always created more questions than answers; we were still no closer to understanding the Czech people or their history. Which is not surprising really, as we can't understand a word of their language and despite repeated attempts we still can't pronounce their word for "thank you": dekuji.

But we're going to have to leave it there. Tomorrow we're off to Poland, feeling slightly guilty that we're only visiting the capital of this 10 million strong nation and doing nothing to shake preconceptions of the Czech Republic as being the land of cheap beer.

It is cheap though.

Czech us out....

We're in Prague, staying in a slightly faded and decrepid campside by the river manned only by an old boy whose only English words are "whiskey" and "yes".

The adventure starts!!!

Ich bin ein Berliner

Berlin. Of all the cities we have visited so far it's easily the one which has had the greatest emotional impact. Probably because some of Berlin's most significant historical events have happened within our lifetime, or at most, only a couple of generations removed.
As you stroll through the German capital you get the feeling the once-divided city is gradually becoming at peace with itself, as well as with the rest of the world. Theo remarked that it carries the weight of Germany's recent past and that is clearly something it takes very seriously.
We were both compelled and appalled as we read the searing accounts of the holocaust by some of its millions of victims in the bleakly honest information centre beside the Memorial For The Murdered Jews Of Europe.

The memorial itself is an extraordinary piece of work - an expanse of ground given over to thousands of "stelae", huge, dark grey slabs of concrete laid out in a grid. At first you look at it in some doubt as to what it signifies and what emotional response it demands. Then, when you walk among the stelae until they tower over you and you are completely surrounded, trapped and overwhelmed, you understand.

But only a few hundred metres away is the triumphalist Brandenburg Gate, the chariot on its summit turned to face west since the reunification of Germany in the '90s, signifying glory and a nation holding its head high.

I vividly recall my emotional reaction to the news the Berlin Wall had come down in November '89 and seeing some of the few remaining sections of the hated Mauer - the much-graffitied East Side Gallery and the recreation of the Death Strip in Bernauer Strasse - brought it back. As we read the history and looked at footage of the Wall's construction, the escapes and its ultimate demolition, I don't mind admitting that at times I was moved to tears.

Yet, even now there is an invisible East-West divide in Berlin, increasingly blurred though it is. Theo and I found ourselves most drawn to the East side, especially some of the anything goes districts like the grungy, alternative Friedrichshain or the laid-back cafes and bars of Prenzlauer Berg.

The latter set the stage for a somewhat alcoholic and suitably pan-European night out on the eve of our departure from Berlin after a four-day stay. We met up with Theo's doctor friend, Dora, her half Iranian boyfriend and a couple they knew, an Italian and a Greek who had met in San Francisco and now lived in Berlin. With neither speaking the other's language, English is their lingua franca, which certainly made life easier for Theo and me as our German is patchy to say the least.
We partied in four different bars, including one where you paid a Euro for a wine glass, refilled it as often as you liked then paid what you thought it was worth at the end of the night. With admirable stamina, as they all had to work the next morning (Dora having to start a 24-hour shift in the hospital from 0800), we parted company with our new friends after two. But, despite the late-night public transport's Teutonic efficiency, we didn't get back to our campsite at Kladower Dam until half past four.

Finally, it should be mentioned that Berlin is big. It spreads out over a great, flat expanse of land, further than the eye can see. As we stood looking out at the city from the Norman Foster-designed Reichstag glass dome, Theo and I marvelled at the widely-spaced, sprawl beneath us. There are scarcely any hills to be seen, the main landmarks being the once East German TV Tower, the Angel of Victory, the glass skyscrapers of Potsdamer Platz and the cranes building Berlin's next shopping super centre at Alexander Platz.

It is an impressive sight of an impressive, visceral, fascinating and compelling city.

found it...

We´ve found the summer - it´s here in Berlin masquerading as Autumn.

Round Berlin (for a fridge)

It shouldn't be possible, but today we managed to drive across the centre of Berlin, West to East then East to West, twice. I say this because just imagine trying to go across London or Paris. Not fun, not easy. But in Germany, crossing the capital city (population 3.5 million) was a bit of a cinch.

The reason for our grand traverse was that we had a couple of tasks to try to achieve today before we got on with the business of being tourists. Firstly we had to go to Steglitz to try to get our MacBook fixed - it's developed an annoying line down the middle of the screen. This meant an 8am departure from our campsite in Potsdam in order to be there when the shop opened at 10am. Now our experience trying to find glass for Sheena should have taught us a thing or too about how chains work. We had been to the Mac store in Amsterdam who had told us, after examining our laptop, that we needed a new hard disk, which would take a week to order. As we were leaving Amsterdam the next day this wasn't an option. However, we struck on a plan and with the help of my German friend Franzi, we had telephoned the Mac store in Berlin a week ago with this information, asking them to order in the relevant part ready for us. Unfortunately the store assistant (who hadn't seen our laptop) we spoke to decided he knew better than the technician in Amsterdam (who had seen our laptop), and said it wasn't a disk problem. Be there at 10am Monday and we should be able to get it done by Thursday. We were there at 10am Monday. "Oh it's probably a disk problem. This may take between a week and ten days." We should have known! Anyway rather than faff around any more, we've decided just to put up with the line - it only really impinges on our ability to watch films.

Our second task - to find a new fridge for Sheena, our previous one having expired in Lubeck - was succesfully accomplished. After a quick, google in German - an interesting experience, rather like attempting to buy clothes for somebody you've never met - we found a likely looking caravan centre. The extreme opposite side of the city. It being 11am we decided to go for it. We were there by 12pm. Driving in Berlin you see is simply a matter - based on one day's evidence - of surfing a massive green wave down long, straight 6-lane streets with amazing names like Karl-Marx Allee and Strasse Parisienne Commune, full of Eastern Bloc block housing. Once we got there and bought our new fridge (or rather, electric cool box) we realised that the campsite we wanted to go to was back the other side of town, in Spandau. Back we drove, this time going right past the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag and through the Tiergarten. Amazing.

You couldn't do it in London. In fact, 20 years ago, you couldn't have done it in Berlin. Perhaps that's why it's so easy now - the Germans are making up for all those years when you couldn't go West-East without passing Checkpoint Charlie (which I think we drove through) and are now determined to make it as easy as possible to traverse Berlin. It's bizarre to think the journey we did today in just a couple of hours would have been inconceivable 20 years ago. A strange notion for all, I suspect, excepting perhaps the residents of Jerusalem.