From London Independent.
For those of us who are even more addicted to British murder mystery programs than to Downton Abbey – news that there will be more episodes of both Inspector Lewis AND Endeavour is really, really good! The Brits get to see them before anyone else, but surely something to look forward to!
From Prague Post.
The program for September’s Dvořák Festival in Prague is shaping up. Start making plans and get your tickets now!
There are tons of cozy little streets all over London known as “mews”. On my daily stroll to Paddington station from my hotel last year, I passed a couple of these and decided I would looove to live on one of these (often dead-end) streets were money no object. See, money would have to be no object – properties in these locations are seldom less than £1 million and often millions run into the multis. Yikes.
Conduit Mews
These courtyards sit at the end of arched, narrow, cobbled lanes, making them even more intriguing and exclusive. The covered arch (see the last photo below) shuts out a lot of local noise even on a thoroughfare as busy as Praed St near Paddington Station.
Smallbrook Mews L
Smallbrook Mews R
Note – Most of these properties are freeholds, meaning outright ownership of the structure and land (the typical American model of property purchase), rather than leaseholds, which is essentially a variable term rental – sometimes up to 90 years – with a bunch of additional rules that don’t have an American equivalent of who-owns-what except for maybe the regulations surrounding mobile home park properties (and THAT is a bizarre comparison since it’s all the way at the other end of the income scale!)
In the end, of course, unless I win some 7 or 8-digit lottery pile, none of this really matters.
Even so, I’ll be seeking out more of these snug byways on future visits to London.
Most of the Tube work is again outside central London this weekend. Note Embankment partial closure through early November and changes to Covent Garden thru mid-November.
Central line – North Acton to West Ruislip
Jubilee line – Waterloo to Finchley Road, Sunday closure complete by 11.00 am
Northern line – Kennington to Morden
Emirates Air line – was closed all week; reopens on Monday, 24 March
DLR – Bank/Tower Gateway to Canary Wharf/Canning Town and Stratford to Canary Wharf
London Overground – New Cross Gate to Crystal Palace/West Croydon; a late start time (8.00 am) on Sunday between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate/Clapham Junction.
TfL has also announced improvements to accessibility. Lots to absorb.
Long term change concerning Embankment station – Bakerloo and Northern line trains not stopping from Wednesday 8 January until early November 2014 due to replacement of four escalators.
Long term change for Covent Garden station (this will confuse the tourists!) – Exit only until mid-November. Also, on Saturdays and Sundays, westbound trains not stopping.
This is while we replace two lifts.
From the website I found when searching for info on this year’s Tartan Day parade in NYC. The parade will be held on Saturday, 5 April, 2014 along Sixth Ave, beginning at 2 pm.
When I was in Edinburgh this past January and trying to figure out the best way to reach Glasgow Airport, I had hopes that my journey would take me within sight of at least one of Andy Scott’s monumental outdoor sculptures. His most recent work, The Kelpies, erected alongside a canal near Falkirk in Scotland, was the one I most hoped to see (see photo below). No such luck, but here we are just a couple of months later and ten foot high scale models of Scott’s two gigantic (100 feet tall) metal horses will be installed in Bryant Park for a month! I was already planning to a trip to the Big Apple; Bryant Park is only a couple of blocks from my arrival point at Grand Central Terminal, so I’m sure to see this version at least once. Yahoo! Probably won’t satisfy my craving to see the real deal, but it’ll have to do for now.
Here are a couple of stories from Dutch news from last month…
The Hermitage’s Amsterdam location is now home to thirty Golden Age paintings by Rembrandt et al., similar to his masterpiece The Night Watch, which lives at the Rijksmuseum across town. I didn’t make it to this Hermitage last time (misread the closing time), so now there’s even more reason to put it on the list.
Here’s a story about Imagine Nation, a new theater group in the Netherlands. I don’t particularly care where their funding is coming from, and I’m not a big fan of musicals, but I’m intrigued by the sound of the production being described, not only because of the unusual venue, but also because of the powerful story it tells. [There’s a 1977 Dutch movie, Soldier of Orange, that tells the WWII story of a group of Dutch students caught up in the Nazi occupation and how their lives and sympathies unfold. Rutger Hauer played one of the lead characters. Described as a war film, it is also a phenomenal anti-war film. Catch it on Netflix – hopefully they stock the Dutch-language version; the dubbed version is nowhere near as good].
Most of the Tube work is again outside central London this weekend. Note Embankment partial closure through early November and changes to Covent Garden thru mid-November.
District line – Aldgate East to Bromley-by-Bow
Hammersmith/City line – Moorgate to Barking
Metropolitan line – Wembley Park to Northwood/Uxbridge
Northern line – Camden Town to Edgware open after 8.30 or 9.00 am Sunday (presumably this means closure on Saturday? Dunno.
Piccadilly line – South Harrow to Uxbridge (not part of the line to Heathrow)
DLR – beginning 23.00 Saturday thru Sunday – Bow Church to Stratford
London Overground – Saturday only – Highbury & Islington to Clapham Junction/Crystal Palace/New Cross/West Croydon. Sunday disruptions – Watford Junction to Queen’s Park, Richmond to Camden Road, Sydenham to Crystal Palace, Shepherd’s Bush to Willesden Junction, Highbury & Islington to New Cross/New Cross Gate/Clapham Junction. Late start times on Sunday – South Tottenham to Barking from noon, Queen’s Park to Euston from 12.15 to 20.45.
Long term change concerning Embankment station – Bakerloo and Northern line trains not stopping from Wednesday 8 January until early November 2014 due to replacement of four escalators.
Long term change for Covent Garden station (this will confuse the tourists!) – Exit only until mid-November. Also, on Saturdays and Sundays, westbound trains not stopping.
This is while we replace two lifts.
A view of the Þingvellir rift valley (mid-Atlantic Ridge) from overlook point at Hakid on a cold, dry day in mid-January, 2014. Iceland’s first national park, founded in 1930. The site of Iceland’s Parliament from 930 to the end of the 18th century.
By Icelandic standards, there are a LOT of trees behind those buildings.
Þingvellir National Park, Iceland
Most of the Tube work is outside central London this weekend. Note Embankment partial closure through early November and changes to Covent Garden thru mid-November.
Bakerloo line – Sunday only – Stonebridge Park to Harrow & Wealdstone
Jubilee line – Waterloo to Finchley Road
Metropolitan line – Harrow-on-the-Hill to Uxbridge
Northern line – Camden Town to Edgware
Piccadilly line – South Harrow to Uxbridge (not part of the line to Heathrow)
DLR – beginning 23.00 Saturday thru Sunday – Bow Church to Stratford
London Overground – Richmond to Camden Rd and Shepherd’s Bush to Willesden Junction. Sunday only – Queens Park to Watford Junction.
Long term change concerning Embankment station – Bakerloo and Northern line trains not stopping from Wednesday 8 January until early November 2014 due to replacement of four escalators.
Long term change for Covent Garden station (this will confuse the tourists!) – Exit only until mid-November. Also, on Saturdays and Sundays, westbound trains not stopping.
This is while we replace two lifts.
Edinburgh Zoo has a large and renowned collection of penguins – renowned for their daily “Penguin Parade” – when a (variable) number of penguins will take a short stroll along the pathway outside their enclosure at 2 pm each day if they are so inclined. They are prevented from going farther afield by a tight wall of spectators lined up along the edge of the path and a moving barrier of zoo guides in front of them making sure the parade ends with the birds going back into their area. It all started when some penguins got loose quite accidentally some decades ago (1951 to be precise) and were such a big hit that it became a regular zoo feature.
Their habitat was renovated last year, so the parade was suspended for a while; luckily the new digs were in place and the parade reinstated recently, just in time for my visit. (Let us, for now, not think about any possibility that Edinburgh Zoo could be thinning any of their critters and feeding them to the carnivorous residents. When I was in Edinburgh, Copenhagen’s activities had not made the news).
Only four penguins went walkabout the day I was there which made for a brief event and no real chance for a decent photo. Not to worry, the new penguin enclosure keeps visitors up close and personal, whether the penguins are getting fed, waddling around in a chummy penguinly fog or clustering around the guides during the penguin-spiel. Make no mistake, the penguins knew the routine; they were just jostling to be in the best position when the lunch bucket appeared!
a muster of penguins, mostly Gentoos
The cutest and most numerous penguins in residence are the Gentoos. They sport a white strap of fur across the tops of their heads, stand two to two and a half feet tall.
Then there are the King penguins; looking a lot like Emperors only shorter.
Zoo guide Barry and the five Kings
The flashiest species here, even if only medium-sized as penguins go, are the Rockhoppers, with flowing blond eyebrow plumes and spiky top hair that make them look like a bunch of mad orchestra conductors.
a cluster of Rockhoppers
Rockhopper closeup
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Lunchtime for Penguins
One activity that the penguins are guaranteed to participate in is feeding time.
Assuming that a penguin will fade to the back of the pack after gulping down its share of flipper-sized fish would be wrong. There’s a definite skill to feeding a large bunch of jostling critters and making sure that they all get the correct amount of food. Different colors on their flipper-bands helps identify each individual. These guys were like little Hoovers! They reminded me of the seagulls in Finding Nemo (“Mine! Mine! Mine!”)
swallowing fishes whole – how do they do dat?
From London Independent.
A fantastic slide show of Auroras around the northern hemisphere recently. I knew when I booked my trip to Iceland in January that the lights were more likely to appear in March and April, but I had other things to do in January. I did, however, get to visit Vik, one of the towns featured in the slide show. I’ll post some of my fotos from there soon.
Maybe next time I’ll pay more attention to the odds. Enjoy!
For the almost three year life of this blog, daily hits to the site have numbered in the single and low double digits most of the time. Statistics automatically generated by WordPress include the daily numbers of hits and showed that this blog’s “personal” best hit 51 back on April 22nd of 2012. My laziness at posting interesting stuff likely contributed to that milestone not being bettered for almost two years.
This week, there have been two new daily highs – 76 on Feb 5th of this year and a ridiculous 154 on Feb 11th. This also meant that February has already set a new monthly high.
Why silly/ridiculous? This new daily record was almost entirely from people seeking updates on the London Tube strike earlier this month! Now, I don’t believe that anyone spent more than a few seconds on my blog; I did not post any special information except for a link to the TfL website and judging by news reports things were much more complicated and chaotic than first seemed to be the case. I’m sure the people who clicked on my posts went elsewhere almost immediately.
There has been a slight uptick in visitor numbers since then and a couple of new followers, though I doubt that the London Tube mayhem will increase the number of regular visitors beyond that, but one never knows.
I’m thrilled to have a record number of visits to my blog. Still… weird! And unlikely to be duplicated any time soon (and shame on me for crossing fingers for another Tube strike!) Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.
From Prague Post.
A look at Český Šternberk, a place I’d not heard about before now. An interesting add-on possibility outside Prague. The end of the article mentions two different buses to get you there but, since it’s only 30 miles from Prague, both of these bus routes sound like “locals” – taking two hours, more or less, to get there. Could be a good reason to rent a car!
Back to the normal weekend closures – minimal Tube closures this weekend. Note Embankment partial closure through early November and changes to Covent Garden thru mid-November.
Bakerloo line – Saturday – Queen’s Park to Harrow & Wealdstone
Northern – Archway to High Barnet/Mill Hill East
DLR – Canning Town to Beckton and, beginning at 23.00 Saturday, Bow Church to Stratford
London Overground – Richmond to Camden Rd; Willesden Junction (all day). Saturday only – Queen’s Park to Harrow & Wealdstone and Shepherd’s Bush to Willesden Junction. Sunday only – Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction, as well as a late night Sunday closure between Camden Road to Stratford after 2145.
Long term change concerning Embankment station – Bakerloo and Northern line trains not stopping from Wednesday 8 January until early November 2014 due to replacement of four escalators.
Long term change for Covent Garden station (this will confuse the tourists!) – Exit only until mid-November. Also, on Saturdays and Sundays, westbound trains not stopping.
This is while we replace two lifts.
In addition to taking day trips into the phenomenal countryside on my visit to Iceland in January, I was lucky enough to catch a classical concert at Harpa, Reykjavik’s new concert hall, open since May of 2011. The Iceland Symphony Orchestra presented a program of Brahms, Schubert and Enescu (him someone I’ve never heard of). A lovely evening.
Harpa concert hall, Reykjavik
Harpa is ultra-modern in design, with a honeycomb exterior that sits quietly during the day but turns into a multi-colored light show after dark. The colors trip across the entire facade in horizontal bands that reminded me of a rainbow or maybe of the nighttime aurora I was still hoping to see.
The designer of the building exterior is Ólafur Elíasson, a name I recognized from an art installation several years ago at London’s Tate Modern (The Weather Project, consisting of a giant sun projection inside that museum’s Turbine Hall that made the space look like a foggy beach from some other planet, where visitors sprawled on the floor, looking like post-apocalyptic sunbathers). Elíasson has done other public building designs that I really like, so I felt sort of clued in.
Harpa interior – note tables along the outer wall!
The orchestra has a lot of young musicians who look to be in their twenties or thirties, including their first violin. I guess I’m used to seeing orchestras with older members, especially in the case of featured musicians but the quality of the performance didn’t suffer in the least.
The pianist featured in the Brahms was a(nother) young Icelander named Víkingur Olafsson.
Eldborg – Harpa symphony hall
Two interesting side notes – I was sitting in my seat during the interval, catching up on my journal, when the fellow next to me asked if I was a journalist. I smiled and told him I was a day behind on my travel journal and just trying to catch up. We chatted about music and I remarked on the incredible beauty of the venue. He explained that there was a certain amount of controversy surrounding the construction of the hall, coming as it did during Iceland’s financial crisis. I offered that I was glad the building had been completed and hoped that Reykjavik was happy with it as well.
The other amazing incident – on one of the day trips following my night at Harpa, we stopped at a small shop for a toilet break (no, that’s not the amazing bit). The shop had an interesting selection of locally made gifts and I struck up a conversation with the woman at the counter. I mentioned the concert at Harpa and she asked about the program. When I told her about the young pianist, she knew who he was and rattled off his name immediately. We were not too far from Reykjavik at this point, but it reinforced the fact that most of Iceland’s population lives in and around that city and gave me the feeling that Iceland as a whole is like a small town, and one I could feel comfortable spending more time in (whale killing aside).
Back to the normal weekend closures – not too many Tube issues this weekend. but London Overground is mostly shut. Note Embankment partial closure through early November…
Metropolitan line – Wembley Park to Northwood/Uxbridge
Northern line – Camden Town to Edgware
Piccadilly line – South Harrow to Uxbridge (not part of the run to Heathrow)
London Overground – Richmond to Camden Road both days; Saturday only – Shepherd’s Bush to Willesden Junction; Sunday is the worse day – Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction, Sydenham to Crystal Palace and Highbury & Islington to Clapham Junction/New Cross/New Cross Gate
London DLR – Bow Church to Stratford beginning at 2300 on Saturday, thru Sunday
Long term change concerning Embankment station – Bakerloo and Northern line trains not stopping from Wednesday 8 January until early November 2014 due to replacement of four escalators.
The latest in a continuing series of artworks, each of which resides for about a year on the previously unoccupied fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. It’s a giant blue rooster entitled Hahn/Cock.
blue rooster in Trafalgar Square
I especially like the pigeons sitting below this big blue bird. I should figure out how to add thought bubbles to my photos for them. If pigeons could talk, might they be imagining themselves just as big and imposing as the sculpture?
blue rooster on fourth plinth
From London Independent and Univ of Glasgow.
The Hogback Stone, one of the thousand-plus year old Govan stones which live in a Glasgow church, is going on exhibition at the British Museum in London. Here’s more info and a photo, from the University of Glasgow.
Let’s hope this stone goes back home on time this June. We all know what happened to the Stone of Destiny!
Back to the normal weekend closures – minimal Tube closures this weekend. Note Embankment partial closure through early November…
Jubilee line – Sunday – Waterloo to Finchley Road until 1100
Northern – Archway to High Barnet/Mill Hill East
London Overground – Sunday only – Richmond to Willesden Junction (all day). Clapham Junction to Wandsworth Road northbound until 0815, Shepherd’s Bush to Willesden Junction and Willesden Junction to Camden Road until 11.15.
Long term change concerning Embankment station – Bakerloo and Northern line trains not stopping from Wednesday 8 January until early November 2014 due to replacement of four escalators.
From London Independent.
Ten great places for that special weekend getaway. I especially like the gypsy caravan. Let’s hope none of them are plagued by the disastrous floods currently inundating the island.
From London Independent.
Ten top Scotches, a mix of single malts and blends. Blends? Really? I bought a nip of Highland Park in Edinburgh last month; quite nice but, admittedly, not the 25 year old stuff – more like 10 or maybe 12.
I’ve got some other wee drams that made the trip back in my bag, as well as a full bottle of Isle of Jura; I lost track of Burns night (don’t tell the clan, I’ll be drummed out) but winter’s not over yet!
From London Independent.
Trevor Nunn has staged 30 of Shakespeare’s 37 plays and wants to do the rest before retiring. Something to look forward to!!
The strike set for tomorrow is likely to affect Tube services beginning around 9.30 pm, all the way ’til Friday morning. Oy! Nice that things are supposed to be “normal” come Valentine’s Day.
Here is more information from TfL…
Here are the Tube closures for this weekend. Central London is mostly spared; nice after the two day strike.
Metropolitan line – Harrow-on-the-Hill to Uxbridge
Jubilee line – Sunday only – Waterloo to Finchley Road until 1100
Northern line – Kennington to Morden
Piccadilly line – South Harrow to Uxbridge (fyi – not the branch that goes to Heathrow)
London Overground – Sunday only — Richmond to Camden Road; Shepherd’s Bush to Willesden Junction; Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction.
The strike set for today is likely to affect Tube services all the way ’til Friday; next week may be similarly dragged out.
Here is more information from TfL…
Sorry about slacking off the last couple of weeks with the Tube closures. Working on my blog with my tablet while on vaca can be a real pain, so I skipped it these past two weekends.
Today and next Tuesday, however, there are one-day strikes scheduled. Today’s action is supposed to start around 9.30 pm and continue through tomorrow morning. Next week, the routine is expected to be the same.
Check the Transport for London website for up-to-date info.
I admit that the first two reasons for my trip to Iceland were to see the Aurora Borealis in a fantastic setting. As it’s turned out, the Lights have been disappointing. Solar activity that generates the phenomenon takes two to three days to reach Earth, so that’s the most notice anyone can provide. Of course, the weather needs to be clear and, here in Iceland, the winds should come from the north; southerly winds usually bring clouds and precipitation of one sort or another.
I went Lights-hunting twice, a few days apart when all three conditions were in place. Reykjavik Excursions, a huge tour and day trip company here, and the outfit I booked with, does not go out otherwise. Gray Line’s Iceland Excursions have similar schedules, I think. The second night was much the same as the first; one small burst of pale green and a couple of larger shadowy blurs of white that looked like clouds that just happened to be more noticeable than anything else in the sky – but only just. To give you an idea how faint these were, think about the times you looked into the night sky at the Milky Way or a small cluster of stars. You had trouble seeing it unless you looked away and used your peripheral vision.
So much for Northern Lights, at least for now.
In addition to attending a classical music concert at Harpa, the new concert hall that sits at the edge of the harbor, I took several other tours into the country away from Reykjavik to experience the unique natural environments of western and southern Iceland.
Snaefellsnes peninsula has rugged beaches with rock features that create wave activity almost like tidal bores. Geysir is the home to thermal springs and regular spouting sprays of near boiling water – and added its name to the English lexicon. Gullfoss is a mini Niagara Falls that, to my eye, is more spectacular in winter, with ice encrusting the banks of the gorge and mist icing the footpaths. Thingvellir (I’ll find the Icelandic letter for ‘th’ when I’m writing on my laptop, instead of this finicky tablet!) is a vast panorama of plains, streams, mountains, snow and ice spread out below the perfect viewpoint. Those three destinations are packaged into the famous Golden Circle tour.
Finally, a day trip to the south coast – some new beaches and visits to the area at the base of the infamous Eyjafjallajokull volcano and its next door neighbor, a rapidly receding glacier called Myrdalsjokull.
An amazing folk museum at Skogar and stops at two of the more spectacular waterfalls in the vicinity completed my introduction to the breathtaking natural beauty that is Iceland in winter.
Heading back to the grim old USA in a few hours. There are other places to see and things to do here that will have to wait for another visit, not least of which is the Blue Lagoon.
After all the nature here, the Lagoon seemed a good candidate for postponement; I’d rather keep my memories of this country’s amazing natural beauty in the front of my brain to savor after I’m back in the land of unplowed snow, bills and our constipated government.
I obviously hope to put together some posts soon, with more complete stories and the best fotos of the hundreds and hundreds clogging the camera’s memory chips.
Stay tuned!
Take a look at the comment/s for my previous post for an update on my visit so far to Iceland. Big news, too – I walked down to the local ‘Home Depot’ type place using directions from the hotel staff – in the dark – and still found my way back in time for the Northern Lights pickup! Scary. The other thing I forgot to mention is that the Lights were too faint for my camera. Even some folks in the group with fancy gear and tripods and long exposures were not getting much. We were far away from the light pollution, so that was not a problem.
My advice to anyone who wants to try seeing the Lights and have a better shot is to stay somewhere away from the city where they call you when the lights show up, even if that is the really wee hours (our tour ran from about 9pm until shortly after midnight). Very often, the best displays are more likely at 2-3-4 in the morning. There is a place in Finland, one of several similar Arctic region glamping places, where the rooms are individual climate-controlled ‘igloos’ so you can lie on your bed and have a cozy view of the heavens around the clock.
Just a quick update… I’ve just come from 5 days in London, where I saw two plays, a ballet and the French Property show. Also spent a day out in the countryside with a friend where we played with birds of prey – holding them on fast-wearying outstretched left arms in a heavy leather gauntlet. Eagles, hawks, owls, kestrels. Played come and get ’em holding out parts of dead day-old baby chicks (you hafta forget about that) and getting cool photos of the birds landing with outspread wings.
Now at the end of my 2nd full day in Edinburgh. Visited the Royal Yacht Britannia and I’m on my way to the Castle for the first time in 5 visits.
Tomorrow, head to Glasgow for the flight back to Iceland for a few days, hoping to see the Aurora Borealis.
Pictures and more complete posts in a week or so.
SuzanneTheTravelMagpie 