Walking in Menorca

Written for Monarch airline's Explorer magazine: http://www.monarchexplorer.co.uk/1V4dfa22707d3c1012.cde

Extract:

...In search of wilderness, I choose a section of the Cami de Cavalls from Cala del Pilar to Algaiarens, an 8km/5 mile ramble which reveals a stunning range of habitats. It begins and ends in peaceful picture-postcard coves with soft white sand and clear turquoise waters lapping gently against the shore; the only other sound comes from the breeze caressing the pine and the occasional cry of a tern. An invigorating climb to the cliff-tops, past red and black rock, accompanied by the regular booming of the waves, reveals stunning views out to sea.

It's easy to imagine Neptune rising from the wildly frothing waters; yet today it is only a lighthouse guiding the ships safely home looking strangely vulnerable on the tip of the cliff edge, its white-washed wood standing out against the deep blue Mediterranean sky. The path climbs up and down the coastal gorge, where low hedges hunch like old men, cowering close to the cliff-face in an attempt to avoid the bracing tramuntana wind which snatches my breath, flinging it out to sea. Clusters of daisy, springy moss and bright yellow chamomile draw the eye, as do stones marked with honeycomb erosion. Red kites, kestrel and eagle wheel overhead, adding to the impression of wilderness...

From the cool of the woods, the path leads to another scene change: wildflower meadows. A riot of colour, the fields are waist-high with incredible displays of orchids, gladioli, sainfoin and ragwort, creating a sumptuous visual portrait - and the sudden urge to tumble and frolic through the overwhelming reds, yellows and purples. Butterfly dance from plant to plant, the sunlight highlighting their fragile wings...

read more: http://www.monarchexplorer.co.uk/1V4dfa22707d3c1012.cde

Menorca's secret marvels

Written for Walk magazine:
http://www.walkmag.co.uk/features/menorca%E2%80%99s-secret-marvels/

Extracts:

As the path turns inland through oak and olive groves the scenery changes radically. The island is extremely green. From the air the main impression is of impenetrable pine forests, yet on the ground – as these groves attest – there is also plenty of oak, olive and fig. The air cools and path narrows as we enter the trees’ shade, and the noise of the sea gradually fades to be replaced by birdsong. It feels hushed here, like a sanctuary. Ancient and gnarled, the olive trees bend upwards like old men, bearing the weight of their still-forming black olives. Oak trees, completely unrecognisable from the English Quercus, add to the tranquil green shelter. We’re not the only ones appreciating the peace: a Hermann’s tortoise is basking in the dappled sunshine to the edge of our path. Not so slow when it feels threatened, the small yellow and black-shelled reptile scurries for cover as we approach...

Beyond fields of long grass stirred by the breeze, we pass through a small wooden gate. I lift back the overhanging branches of an oak tree to see an incredible T-shaped stone construction before me, like a gigantic altar, surrounded by wildflowers and olive trees. It’s reminiscent of Stonehenge, and I’m struck dumb by its strange, mystical beauty and filled with wonder and awe. It’s preternaturally quiet, yet far from eerie, and feels entirely separate from normal life. The boulders which make up the stone table are immense – too big to lift, particularly in prehistoric Menorca when there were few sources of power to harness....




read more: http://www.walkmag.co.uk/features/menorca%E2%80%99s-secret-marvels/

Big up to The Man in Seat 61

My recent train trip across Europe would never have got going if it hadn’t have been for this fantastic website (www.seat61.com). One of the things I love about travelling and which people who don’t travel never really understand, is the kindness of strangers. And this website sort of exists as part of that concept - it isn’t a commercial site, but put together by someone who loves overland travel and wishes others to indulge in this crazy but wonderful past-time. I have other entries on train travel and in each of them I describe what a wonderful way it is to travel: far superior to aeroplane travel. You get to to see these beautiful landscapes unfurling, becoming something else. Nothing beats those crazy night train tilts; passport checks in the middle of your dreams; random couchette companions; not being entirely sure when you will arrive and how long your food/beer supplies will last for. It's fantastic. It feels to me like the definition of 'adventure'. Getting on a plane is so dull. You check in. 3 hours later you board a small box with crappy air circulation which breeds germs like its a sport. You get sat next to someone who doesn't stop talking and then falls into a deep, unshakable sleep when you desperately need to escape your seat to pee. All you can see out of the window is endless cloud and sometimes a bit of sky and sun. Pretty yes, educational no. You could be anywhere. The only good bit, which I do concede is thrilling, is the take-off. I admit the adrenalin rush of defying gravity and rushing up to meet the sky is something I still enjoy. But it lasts like 5 minutes and then you are trapped in a little box in the sky, trying not to think about how you are a million miles up in the air and how exactly does aerodynamics work again? And when you arrive and eventually navigate yourself through the hell known as Arrivals, you learn that, sorry madam, your baggage never left your departure point, or, sorry sir, your luggage was not unloaded from the plane and is now on its way to Singapore/New Zealand/Bangkok [circle the one furthest from you].

No, no. Trains have always been the best way to travel. For a start you are never entirely sure whether they will run, be on time, call at the place you want, work. My recent mission through Europe was an absolute revelation. All 12 trains/ferries (through 8 countries) were on time and called at the places I wanted to go (always a bonus) with my luggage always happily accompanying me. Two small exceptions: one in Italy when the train left Bari an hour later than planned, and one in France when the train bound for Paris had an engine problem and arrived an hour and a half late. Small beer really. The point is though that you never quite know. It's an adventure. Which is what travelling should be about, I think. No announcements, train information boards often in another language, no buffet cart. You have to take a chance and hope. And what's the worst that could happen? You end up somewhere different to where you intended, possibly hungry - and...? If you like travelling that isn't exactly an inconvenience. As we all know, getting lost often finds you the best things. I would have been so stuck without Seat 61 though. My trip was lengthy and I was going solo, therefore I needed to be bit convinced I wouldn't get myself stranded in some dodgy hinterland in the middle of the night (despite my protestations a paragraph ago that this is fun, and not problematic in the slightest). I couldn't guarantee I wouldn't, and to be honest I didn't want to guarantee it, but I wanted a pretty good outline of a journey at least. Especially as rather boringly I had to be back in the office in 2 weeks time, pah. Two wonderful things: Seat 61 and bahn.de website (German network detailing all trains in Europe, in many languages. Bar Greek trains - no-one knows when they run, not even the Greeks). Invaluable tools. But Mark Smith, the guy behind The Man in Seat 61 just does it cos he wants to, which is the best reason of all.

Thanks Seat 61, it would have been rubbish without you.

Walter Mosley's 'Black Betty'

"A week later desert blossoms, so tiny that you have to get on your knees to see them, break out everywhere. They're bright and strawlike; dry and rough because the desert will suck any moisture right away like some insane god pulling the souls out of his children before they've had a chance to live."

The Weary and Unwanted Road Home: Munich to London via Paris

We leave Munich Friday night to a strange chanting noise, as though a crowd of football fans are working their way through the station. Boozy shouts and cheers. I am beyond tired, as though all the travelling has meshed together with my malaise at returning home, like some bad romance. Being that I was by this point as broke as a pebble, I paid for a seat (€4) and not a couchette (€20) and made a space for my aching limbs to curl up to a deep, dark sleep. Woken only briefly by a train guard who gently taps me on the shoulder and then kindly brushes aside my apology for fumbling with my now battered and travel stained interail pass (he tells me off later though, for resting my feet on the chair in front. I like him less then).

I share a cabin of seats with a very stiff and formal Indian man, about 30 years old, though aged by his old-fashioned neat suit and fastidious attitude. he continually sets his hair down just so, adjusts his watch to the exact position on his wrist and flicks the curtains across the cabin windows into place. I feel slightly uneasy about sharing a cabin with a male stranger, but it turns out I have little to worry about; he is more concerned with order and neatness. Goodness only knows what he thinks of me, looking as crumpled as my interail pass.

Saturday dawns as cold as the night before, mist curling around the edges of the train. We appear to have lost some compartments at some distant stop (in Germany or France?) and I find that I am in the last cabin on the last compartment, which means I can stand at the end of the train and watch the track curve into the distance. I am so glad of my Arron jumper and leather jacket. The train is delayed and my companion begins to panic. He seems remarkably clueless about where he is going and I take pity on him, helping him plan his route on the Metro which baffles him hugely. I explain its workings again and again but he insists he comes with me on the Metro as we are going the same way. I take him as far as I can and when I come to say goodbye he gets a scared look in his eye and keeps saying, "I go with you!" He can't though as he is going a different way to me, so gently I leave him with the copy of the Metro map and the reassurance that the guards will help him if necessary. He seems as innocent as a babe and for a long time after I worry he will be wandering around the Metro tunnels for days trying to find his way out.

My Eurostar train leaves at 12.13 and this time, I pay attention to the Channel Tunnel. It takes about 15 minutes to pass through. I compare my excited, energised self travelling out towards Paris two weeks ago, with this sad creature returning home. Damn how I wish there could be a way to avoid it. The only silver lining is the fact that I will see friends and family, but I want to be back in Budapest and not hurtling back towards work and 'real life'. I hope this trip will have subtly transformed me. Imperceptible to others, inside there is the other me, the free spirit, the one who doesn't get chained to a desk and a small world. I want to try to maintain the psychological distance I have achieved from work these past two weeks, try not to get so involved. I need to remember the distance, remember the fact that it's a small box in a huge world.

The Wonders of de Bahn: Budapest to Munich

Friday morning, distressed beyond belief, I bid my farewell to Budapest, set for Munich. Even Keleti pu, one of Budapest's city stations intrigues me with its chess players who set up their patch with a roll-up plastic chess mat and wooden pieces in plastic carrier bags. Like a small child I watch eagerly, almost willing one of the men to invite me to play, but when one does I shy away, partly because I have never played and also because I have no spare change to pay.



You cannot accuse the Germans of not knowing what they are doing. Okay so they are the butt of many a joke in the international community for their rigid efficiency* but their trains are bloody amazing. I only travelled to Munich, a relatively short trip at approx 7 hours, compared to the epic train journeys I have taken of late. But listen to what DB say about their City NightLine service: "A good night’s sleep is guaranteed – even at speeds of 200 km/h the cushioned axles ensure you sleep undisturbed throughout the night. The new sleeper carriages also provide a deluxe suite with two to six beds! This spacious compartment offers, for example, two wash basins, an optional shower and toilet, and two tables at which you can enjoy your complimentary breakfast." I am salivating at the thought. The Bahn whisks me from Communism the moment I step onto it. Check out the features! From sparse, basic couchettes I am now faced with tv monitors which kindly display a map with the route of the train, a list of stations we will call at (with arrival times to the minute) and all around me clean, shiny surfaces and ingenious side trays from the table with which to balance my cup or notepad. A pleasant android reminds us to check under our seats to make sure we haven't forgotten anything, as we arrive at each station, and as we pull away, same pleasant voice welcomes new passengers on board. It is very strange after being without any comfort or gadgets across eastern Europe; now I am firmly in the world of efficiency. It seems a fitting way to prepare for being back in London - not that London is efficient, but it does like to use automated machines when giving information. I think on the whole I'd rather have a rumpled looking train guard.



I cross into Austria with a lovely, chatty Irish fella who is on his way to Salzburg to work at a school. He is a constant traveller and how I envy him! We talked politics, music and travelling and yet we didn't even exchange names. I love that transitory experience of people passing each other by. I wish I had time to stop in Austria, it looks exquisite with its wooden chalet style houses, backed by masses of bristly dense trees and shadows of snow-topped mountains. It's like something from a dream. I wonder if the people that live here get used to the beauty of their every-day environment, if it ever becomes normal and dull to them. If they get fed up of the equal long winter nights and long hours of summer daylight, courtesy of the high latitude.

I arrived in Munchen at 20:30 and have a relatively short wait for a train to Paris at 22:44. I feel like I really am homeward bound now and it wearies me. The thought of no more adventures, no more random kindness of strangers, no more playing with time. Back to the office and the daily grind of small-time politics and big egos. I can't bear the thought of it and wildly dream of getting on a train to somewhere other than Paris.

* Le Carre's famed The Spy who came in from the Cold has a good passage at the start of Chapter 18 summing this up. It is a conversation between the British spy Leamus and GDR (German Democratic Republic) Comrade Fiedler:

'Leamus, "Why didn't they pull us both in at once? Why put all the lights out? If anything was over-organised, that was."

Fiedler: ""I am afraid that as a nation we tend to over-organise. Abroad that passes for efficiency."'

Martyed Bishops and Thermal Spas: A Day in Budapest

If you were to cut me open, my veins would follow the shape of Budapest, my blood would flow like the Danube. Many cities have the same qualities: fast-paced, anonymous, grand historic buildings and run-down pockets, aggressive traffic, cosmopolitan mixtures of people, pollution, green spaces and a river flowing throughout. Yet each city has a character and Budapest is distinctive by its reaction to the influences of east and west, its history of fascism and communism and its melancholic air. There is something of the noble about Buda and something of the street about Pest and the two contrasts in one city make an alluring mix. Budapest is cut in two by the River Danube, with Buda to the west, characterised by beautiful green hills and a formal, patrician feel, and Pest across the river with its younger, slovenly, more hip vibe. The city is accessible on foot (aided by the simple and efficient Metro) small enough to enable visitors to wander about and stumble across sights without getting too lost. The city is divided into districts, shown by Roman numerals and historic names, which appear confusing at first, yet are really quite simple with both parts of the city easy to navigate to. It’s entirely possible to visit a lot of the main sights in a few days although it would not be a mistake to dedicate one day or more to the thermal spas, which are rather like churches with their attention to beautifully crafted decor (stained glass windows, classical figures, mosaic tiles) and the focus on ritual, as people carefully plunge scour and steam.

I arrive in Budapest after a three day trip from Greece, through Bulgaria and Romania and I have been looking forward to my stay in the capital of Hungary. As soon as I take the Metro from Keleti train station to the centre of the city, I start to experience a strange sensation. On assessment it is akin to falling in love, with a tingling sensation in my stomach, a giddy feeling in my head, and a bittersweet excitement that makes me want to laugh and cry and dance all at once. I feel as though I have inhaled some kind of euphoric drug, as though I've gone slightly mad. My hostel (The Red Bus) is housed within a faded beauty of a building. Imposing windows and black steel staircases all with an air of proud and disdainful dilapidation. It reminds me of Rome and Venice and the dirtily glamorous fall-down buildings, all sinking into noble disrepair. I feel like I should respond in kind to this building, show some glamour, perhaps strut languidly with a cigarette in its holder, wearing a 1940s get-up. The building must find it tiresome to home straggle-haired and combat-trussed travellers who hang off of the balconies swearing and kissing, flinging fag butts down spiralling staircases and dropping food wrappers in their wake. The dorms are spacious and basic, the manager professionally friendly. Like most Hungarians, thankfully, he speaks fluent English. Hungarian is renowned to be impossible to learn. The language seems to be strung together with impossible to pronounce combinations of letters mostly featuring 'szv's. You literally bite your tongue off trying to get around all the consonants. I always try to learn the basics of a language when I travel and yet Hungarian defeats me very quickly. The inner workings of my mouth and throat just aren’t made to voice these strange sounds. I have to fall back on English and German, the latter being as well-used as English.

After a brief shower and relieved dropping of rucksack weight at the hostel, I let my feet lead me and head for the river. I stop at a cafe and purchase a little pizza and tea for two pounds and then I find myself on Erzsebet bridge (although I am sure it has more 'v's and 's's in it than that). Ambling across the Danube from the noisy Pest into the lushly green and quiet hills of Buda is a wonder. In front of me is Gellert-hegy (Gellert Hill). It is gloriously green and it rises high into the sky from a busy knot of roads, into a three-tiered refuge with stone steps disappearing into thick trees and a waterfall. Here I confront my first colossal statue, the first of many. It sits on the second tier of the hill, and represents a proud, bearded and robed man holding a cross, with another man crouching at his feet. I venture up into this oasis, the pent-up fury of the traffic receding into a tranquillity of bird song and trickling water. Again I think of Rome and the Palatine hill above the Forum where the bustle of the city becomes harmonious peace. Gellert Hill is charming. Winding paths twist and turn to the top, filled with lush trees and a cool breeze and look-out points across the whole city. I reach the statue of the two men.

My first thought is that the crouching man is in this posture out of deference but that shows how wrong first impressions can be. It would seem that the crouching man has a more sinister objective. The cross-wielding man depicts Bishop Gellert (or Gerhard), who was acting under King Stephen’s instructions to convert the pagan Magyars to Christianity. Unfortunately for Bishop Gellert, once King Stephen died, the Magyars revealed the extent of their displeasure by sealing him in a barrel (or onto a barrow, the facts are unclear) and throwing him down the hill to martyrdom. Yet, the Bishop got his way in a sense, as here he stands holding his cross over the city, and the hill bears his name. Perhaps more tellingly, the 2001 census revealed that 45% of the population declared themselves to be Roman Catholic. At the very top of Gellert Hill stands the Citadella, and even if it serves no real purpose anymore, it still stands proud, it far above the city and oblivious to all those miniature cars beeping at one another. The Liberation Monument stands here, a testament to when Communism freed Budapest from the Fascists, though the fact that only a few remaining Communist statues remain here (the rest got trucked off to a park outside the city to exist as a tourist attraction) speaks volumes about the tumultuous history of the city. It is such a beautiful and tranquil place, it is hard to imagine the horrors of two repressive states on the psychology of the city.

Next stop: a thermal spa. After travelling across Europe on trains for nearly two weeks, the thought of relaxing in a heated pool is more than I can bear. Gellert Baths are of Roman influence and can be identified by toga clad and bare-chested Romans winding around the frontage of the building, situated at the bottom of Gellert Hill. It is like entering an upmarket hotel and I experience a moment of discomfort until I realise I am in the right place. The foyer is complete with stained glass windows, classical models and mosaic tiles. It feels like entering a religious building and I realise very suddenly how serious the taking of the waters is. Through a warren of rooms I find where I should change; a stocky square woman frowningly efficient shows me to a curtained room where I can lock my things and change. I think there must be a mistake - I have paid the basic rate yet this is the height of luxury - a private changing area, a polished wood locker, stained glass above my head… yet I retreat behind the misunderstanding of a tourist innocent and enjoy it. The pools are beyond anything I imagined and so overwhelm my senses that an article springs to my mind of sharks when they have sensory overload (they apparently float over on their backs and roll their eyes up into the back of their heads). I feel like one of these sharks as I float about in 36 and 38 degree pools. It is like the dream sequence, one minute I am wandering happily through a city free and happy, the next minute I find myself floating in heated pools, surrounded by Art Nouveau and classical decor.

Finally, all desire sated, I glide home to my hostel, crossing the Danube, watching a glorious red sunset, wondering to myself if this is all part of a strange dream. Do people really live like this all the time here? I can’t imagine how wonderfully enriched life would be to have such spas at your disposal, and how less stressful life would be. A bad day in the office? A few hours in a spa would wash away any residue irritations. I round up my day with some goulash and I conclude that I am going to like Budapest.