Travel Stuff
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Looking Up and Looking Down
Berlin is blessed with lots of green spaces, but none ar as grand as the Tiergarten. An ancient hunting ground, the sprawling parkland was badly damaged during the Second World War but has since become a focal point for joggers, doggers and walkers. During. A mid morning stroll I see two of those (I won’t…
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Der Muggelberge und Der Blues
Like many big cities, the best way to deal with Berlin is by treating it as a series of smaller towns and neighbourhoods. And the city is surrounded by a series of interlocking canals, rivers and lakes. Which gives the locals plenty of messing about on the water, and the tourist industry plenty of money…
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A Home Fit For Heroes
On an ordinary street in the Shoneburg district of a Berlin is an ordinary looking door. It sits among a row of run of the mill cafes and shops. But its door was used for a couple of years in the mid seventies by anyone other than ordinary. Because this was David Bowie’s home. …
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You’re Very Wilkommen
I’ve always tried to support my local area, using its services whenever I can. Previously I’ve praised the facilities at East Midlands Airport – which were never going to match anything that the big boys could provide – but at least the place ran efficiently. But no more. There must be a dozen early morning…
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Original Oregon
There are few places where I’ve managed to encounter a city’s mayor, live band karaoke, really bad stand up comedy and a post midnight doughnut all in one evening. It started off quietly enough in the Davis Street bar, one of the huge, converted old buildings which is now embracing one of Oregon’s biggest industries…
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The right side of the tracks
Monday, and it seems that more people want to use the train today than my previous encounters with North America’s rail system. Seattle’s King Street terminal is bustling this morning with two popular services. The first is heading all the way to Los Angeles. It’s one of those grandiose double decker units, complete with an…
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Lift off
It’s certainly the most touristy thing I’ve done so far in this trip, but you can’t visit Seattle and not go up the Space Needle. Built in the early Sixties, the landmark dominates the skyline, and greets you as you arrive by that other notable sixties development, the Monorail. The guidebook tells me I can…
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Bed and border
If hardly anyone in the United States travels by train, even fewer take the Thruway buses which connect the network when the trains aren’t running. This 1130 from Vancouver to Seattle has fewer than a dozen passengers, though annoyingly one is a small child, frequently screaming loudly. The journey begins at Vancouver’s Pacific Central station,…
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At the hop
The Steamworks is Gastown’s showpiece brew pub, and at 7.30pm the atmosphere is a happy mix of after work drinkers and visitors. Steamworks itself does an impressive list of in house beers and it’s a good starting point for a bar hop around Vancover’s oldest neighbourhood. There are dozens of places to choose from here,…
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A walk in the woods
Shopping in downtown Vancouver is just like any other Western city, with grand chain stores and big brands. Yet I’ve also noticed a thriving independent trade. If Robson Street is like London’s West End, Main Street takes you back in time – literally. John’s Jukes is a wondrous collection of bar entertainment from a different…
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