Category Archives: history

around home, bikes, engineering, history, MTB, UK, vehicles

Corfe Castle & Swanage Railway

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Somewhere reasonably local that I meant to go all summer was Corfe Castle, Swanage & the Purbecks.  Not being around for a single summer weekend kind of killed that plan, so with the sun shining brightly Saturday last I finally made the relatively short drive west past Poole.

A short leisurely walk from the Swanage Railway (more later) Park & Ride had me circling the base of the hill that the castle stands on.  Having been built by William the Conqueror, its a thousand or so years old, but was ruined during the Civil War when, as one of the last southern Royalist strongholds, it finally fell to the Parliamentarians.   As one would expect from a defensive position, the castle affords really good views of the picturesque Purbeck countryside.

With the castle such a ruin, although some of the walls still stand quite tall, there was plenty of space to wander around & explore – & avoid people, it’s quite a popular place to visit.  Apparently this is Famous Five country & the castle inspired the one on Kirrin Island – I was disappointed that I didn’t discover any dungeons, tunnels or bearded smugglers.

The other attraction around the village is the Swanage Railway that runs various steam locos down to the seaside at Swanage.  A much bigger operation than the Watercress Railway, I was surprised at just how popular it was – difficult to find a seat on one of the six carriages.  The Pullman Observation car looked pretty impressive too – alas, I didn’t have the pound coin needed to upgrade.

Down at Swanage it was time to finally visit the bikeshop I order quite a bit of stuff from – bit of a 29er, singlespeed, cargo bike haven.  I was quite surprised that they had Avanti bikes as their rentals – all the way from NZ.  Wandering down to the shore it was time for a late & large lunch – not much dinner needed that night.

Workmate Henry thought that eight o’clock on Sunday morning was a good time to meet on the other side of the Forest for a ride – he managed to choose the coldest morning of the season so far.  At least that meant it was clear again.  Driving out towards Burley in the mist from Brockenhurst I found all sorts of deer and longhorn cattle.  If it had have been a bit colder the ground may not have been so wet – however, we had a nice little pootle around before the others had to leave.

around home, history, UK

Brighton

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Last weekend I had set aside to be the first in over three months that I didn’t travel anywhere & instead stayed at home & did very little.  However, one can’t take brilliantly clear & sunny days for granted in this country. So shortly after waking up Saturday morning with no plans, I was joining that 170 year tradition of days out – a day-trip to the Brighton seaside by train.  It would seem many others had that idea as the train was crammed by the end of the two hour all-stops journey.

I headed straight for the seaside & the famous pier.  As expected, the beach is overly stoney – but it was all very pleasant with plenty of people out & about and many restaurants and cafes to choose from (many built in to the bottom, sea-side of the promenade).  West Pier has many similarities to the third Swamp Castle – disused for many years, it burnt down, fell over & (mostly) sank into the sea.

There’s a tiny museum devoted to the local fishing trade, & seaside attractions to some extent, tucked under the promenade as well – that gave me a bit of local history. With plenty more chances of food from enticing stalls, I strolled around the historic pier looking at the various funfair attractions and gazing back to the beach and further along to the white cliffs.

Hungry by now, I was easily tempted to shell out a few quid for a ride on the oldest electric railway still operating (Volks Railway) – it’s about a ten minute ride along the edge of the shore to Brighton Marina. That area started out looking rather shabby, but eventually I found plenty of restaurants beside the moorings – I just had to get past the encamped gypsies, a huge boarded up lot, an ASDA, a parking building and a McDonald’s.  Having had so much pasta & pizza recently, I was keen to give British Italian a miss & ended up in a small chain (there is one other in Newcastle) of American restaurants.  It was not over the top (so not really American in that respect), but I was well thrilled to be having a proper large burger with plenty of blue cheese, pickles, onion rings & sweet potato fries.  For a southwest touch, they even served pink lemonade; just as well I was wearing my Stetson in the bright sunshine.

The main thing I wanted to see in Brighton was the Royal Pavilion – the Prince Regent’s residence that he had built either side of the turn of the nineteenth century.  I was well prepared that it would look a little odd on the outside – it was built in the Indo-Saracenic style, a strange mix of Indian styles and those favoured in Britain at the time – Gothic & neo-Classical.

I was taken aback by the extent and the grandeur of the interior – I was not expecting such a Chinese influence.  The pavilion is the greatest example of the chinoiserie (French – Chinese-esque) style in Britain.  With large dragons, palm leaves & all manner of other Chinese decorations, it really was quite something.  Unfortunately, no photos inside – so an image search will have to satisfy any curiosity you may have.

I had a bit more time to wander the extremely narrow-streeted Lanes area, there are many curious looking shops – with a big student population and being the foremost LGBT centre in the UK, it does have quite a different feel to the place than most old towns & small cities in the country.

Back home at a reasonable hour, the next day I headed out for my first mountain-bike club ride in six or seven months.  Pretty flat out on the other side of the Forest, it was pleasing to have more than half of the fast group riding singlespeed.  I may need to get a smaller cog at the back as I was frequently spinning out on the flat sections & struggling to keep up – 32:16 is very achievable around here, in fact 32:18 borders on the silly.  Still, I’ve only just started singlespeeding again, so at least I didn’t have to push up the hills.

city, engineering, Europe, food, history, travel

Ravenna & Venice

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Barely having recovered from the exhausting journey back from NZ, I was off to Italy less than a week after getting home.  It was a little odd going back to work after NZ & having all sorts of people telling me I was going to visit one of our sister plants for a week to see how they operate their similar plant better.  It was a very productive, informative & interesting week spent with my boss & workmate as the Italian process engineers showed us around and gave us plenty of ideas to try out back at Hythe.  For the most part, the language difference wasn’t a problem as most, except some operators, spoke reasonable English; Steve (my boss) knows quite a bit of Italian & Henry (workmate) knows a little – I of course only know the tiny amount I remember from previous Italian trips.

Ravenna is a very nice little city (~160000) & fortunately we were staying close to the centre – so it was very easy to walk around town on the warm evenings.  We didn’t have a lot of time to see some of the renowned early-church mosaics (eight UNESCO World Heritage sights to be seen), but Henry & I managed to see a couple once Steve had gone back to England early.  Of course, being Italy, the food was fantastic & as the capital of Romagna region we were able to sample quite a bit of the local food & wine.

The SBR (styrene-butadiene rubber) plant was on a huge industrial site, a similar size to the Port Kembla Steelworks – but with more space dedicated to plant, rather than stockpiles. There were an incredible number of bicycles and small Fiats all around to save much walking.  There was an appropriately sized canteen, where the lunches were bountiful & cheap.  Perhaps I ate too much pasta last week.

It wasn’t too difficult to get my return flight pushed out by two days so that I could have a free day exploring somewhere else in Italy.  Conveniently, Venice is on my list and only a short, cheap train ride away from Ravenna.  I rolled in Friday evening & then had a twenty minute walk rolling my cases along a lot of cobbles and carrying them over many bridges.  The end of September is a good time to visit: it’s warm, but not hot; the famous stink wasn’t there; and the crowds are tolerable.

But what an absolute nuts city – built on (& sinking into) the water, it’s just mad.  Being so flat, it’s a very easy city to walk around & get to the main sights & even outlying neighbourhoods – pre-cached maps on one’s phone really help in not getting lost in the labyrinth (the GPS signal was surprisingly strong in such skinny streets surrounded by tall stone buildings).  While I expected no cars, the lack of bikes took a little more to get used to – especially after the proliferation of bikes in Ravenna.

Grand Canal

Rialto Bridge

St Mark’s Campanile

As usual, I walked an awful lot around the city popping in to a few of the famous buildings & museums – Scuola Grande di San Rocco (filled with huge Tintorettos – said to be his Sistine Chapel) was my favourite.  The Jewish Quarter was nice & quiet, but then so were a lot of the neighbourhoods away from the Grand Canal & associated crowds.

Somewhere along the way I stumbled across some sort of musical museum, so I took a peek and learnt all sorts about Vivaldi – I didn’t know he was from Venice.  But that’s not surprising as I am musically ignorant.  Which makes it even stranger that I somehow ended up at a concerto that night in a packed hall listening to (what seemed to me, at least) an incredible string recital.  It can’t have been just me that thought so as the applause was prolonged – they came back three times just to bow and another two times for encores.  Most of the evening was Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which as well as being brilliant kept on fooling me into thinking that another summer of NZ cricket was here – thanks National Bank.

So that two hours of the four violins, a viola, a cello (the cellist was particularly exuberant and highly entertaining), a double bass & a harpsichord turned out to be the highlight of Venice for me.  A great place to visit, but with so much stone, so many people, no grass & few trees I don’t think it’s a city I could spend much more than a few days at a time in.

city, Europe, food, friends, history

Prague weekend

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Just in case I needed an excuse to visit another great European city for a weekend, good friend (& one of my oldest) Levi having been somewhat exiled to Czech while he tries to get back in to the UK provided such a reason. As Levi was travelling in by train from the east of the country, he arrived at our apartment (but fifty metres from Old Town Square) a little before me.

Although so close to the centre of the old, & therefore most visited, part of town the apartment was set well back in a big, enclosed courtyard & was super quiet & conducive to sleep. We were bemused by this door as we eventually wandered out to explore the city Saturday morning.

It became apparent quickly that Prague is filled with beautiful buildings.  This is the Rudolfinum – a concert hall home of the Prague Spring Music Festival.

Crossing the river (Vltava), we were wandering towards the castle to have a look. I spent a little bit of time explaining to Levi modern-European history – well, as much as I know – when we came across this monument marking the German occupation before and during WWII.

Spying a small gate in a large wall, we somewhat stumbled across the beautiful gardens of the Senate.  Eventually we found our way to the one exhibition I particularly wanted to see – the Lobkowicz collection.  A family collection, there was more fascinating history here as the family had their extensive property confiscated & regained not once, but twice over fifty-odd years in the twentieth century.  The first time the Nazis took it all and shortly after getting it back from them, the Soviets came & took it all again for much longer.  The audio tour, by members of the family, was surprisingly good.  The highlight of the entire collection was Haymaking by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, part of his seasons series – another one, The Harvesters, I remember vividly from the Met in NYC.  A couple of large Canolettos of London panoramas were also particularly interesting.

By now we were within the walls of the castle (which is much more impressive from a distance).  In the middle of it is St Vitus Cathedral:

All around Prague were these old open-topped cars for showing tourists around, the one on the right is an old Skoda that somehow is still going.

We were both intrigued by the patterns on the side of this building:

There were plenty of trams around, some sleek & new – others like this one below made me feel like I’d stepped in to an old Bond film.

This poster, on a rather circuitous walk to more fantastic food, I found deliciously ironic:

National Museum

It’s not quite the Kaituna River

In between watching the Olympics (with the Czech commentary very quiet), there was plenty of time to wander around & look at the beautiful sights.  This is the Prague Astronomical Clock in Old Town Square – the oldest working example of such a clock in the world, dating from the early 1400s.  It puts on quite the show on the hour, but as a timepiece is extremely difficult to read – we got more enjoyment looking at the crowds delighting in the clock & even cheering it on.

With more delicious gelato & smooth beer consumed, at different times, it was very nice to end up relaxing on one of the islands in the middle of the river.

Dancing house down near the river

Plenty of people out pedalloing

Did I mention we ate a lot? Gorgeous salmon down near the John Lennon wall.

So a fantastic weekend hanging out in Prague with Levi, strangely we talked an awful lot of cycle-touring – must be a good place for it, seeing the sights & enjoying the local food & beer.