A spontaneous day trip to Stratford-upon-Avon

Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy..
—–Hamlet, Act V, scene i

I woke up on Sunday morning with a raging, insatiable desire to visit Stratford-upon-Avon, the fabled village where Shakespeare was born. This was rather surprising. Usually, when I wake up, the first thing I want is coffee. Or chocolate. But today it was SUA.

Ever since my return from Romania, my sleeping schedule has become super healthy (which is GOOD!). I go to bed at about 11-12, and wake up at 7ish. Today was no exception. I booked my railway tickets online (19 pounds round trip with my 16-25 Railcard), and went off to Marylebone to take the 11.09 train operated by Chiltern Railways.

The air conditioning on the train was a godsend, but less amusing was the fact that there was a very noisy family in the QUIET ZONE where I was sitting. The children were screaming/caterwauling/shrieking/crying while their mother basically did nothing to rectify the situation, and we fellow passengers had to suffer the consequences.

I arrived in SUA at around half past one noon, and went to see the house where Shakespeare was born. The town centre where most of the places are located is about ten minutes walk from the railway station.

Awash with tourists..

And everything’s signposted so clearly. I didn’t have to look at my GPS or google maps, not even once.

Wish they did this in Romania

This is the house where Shakespeare was born. It’s right in the middle of the high street. You can’t miss it – and even if you did, the hordes of tourists milling around taking pictures would be a huge giveaway.

The house where Shakespeare was born

This is what the courtyard of the house looks like. Since it’s a Sunday, the crowds are everywhere (spoiling my pictures).

Talk about a photobomb

This is what the house looks like on the inside. It’s been maintained very well – if there’s one thing the English are good at, it’s taking care of their cultural heritage. They do an outstanding job.

A large relief of Shakespeare in the cafe

After I’d finished Shakespeare’s birthplace, I went to a pub called (rather fittingly) the Marlowe for a quick lunch. And I was actually rather taken aback by how GOOD the food was. (I did not see this coming.) Best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had in my life. Although I still miss polenta and Bulgarian salad.

Walked along the road down to Nash’s House and New Place, which are adjourning sites. Nash’s House was owned by Thomas Nash, who was married to Shakespeare’s granddaughter, while New House was bought by Shakespeare in 1597, where he lived till his death in 1616.

Nash House

Across from Nash’s House is a small but beautiful chapel.

A little further down the road is the chapel best known for being the final resting place of Shakespeare. It’s situated right next to the Avon, and was built in the early 13th century.

Again, you can’t really miss it.

Just a heads up

It’s 2 pounds admission for adults, and 50p for students. The people managing the till were local grandfathers, who were very sweet people and seemed to take a genuine pleasure in their work. I talked with them for a little while about things like Tory politics and EU policies (I really should stop reading the Dailymail so much), and was very flattered when they told me I was extremely well spoken.

I’ve seen about thirty chapels/cathedrals/churches on the Continent, but haven’t seen that many back here at home. The ones in England, from what I can see, are lighter and less imposing. The Continental churches (with the exception of the Eastern Orthodox ones in Romania, although those were very dark too), feature towering turrets, endless ceilings and grand, sombre facades. In England, they give off a much friendlier, relatable aura, and there is much more light. But I haven’t seen the Canterbury Cathedral yet (on my bucket list along with Warwick Castle), so I’d better not pass judgment too quickly.

The Shakespeare family crypt. It was a very humbling experience.

A marble effigy of the great poet.

Afterwards, I went out and looked around. The Avon is a very picturesque river that reminds me immensely of Cambridge. I can see why Shakespeare would want to compare people to a lovely, temperate summer’s day. There were lots of people out here enjoying the sun.

Walked back to the town centre.

450 years of Shakespeare

Caught the 17:38 train back to London. There was a French father with his young daughter in our carriage; when the little girl tried to go to the toilet and there was a woman in the aisle fiddling with her luggage, she (the little girl) said, very loudly, “EXCUSE ME!” The woman straightened up hurriedly with a grin to let her pass, while the father, clearly embarrassed by his daughter’s frankness (the whole carriage was chortling), apologized profusely to the woman before hurrying after his errant daughter. As he went past me, I could hear him muttering under his breath, “Jesus! Excuse me?”

Saw the announcement BREAKING NEWS – BELGIUM:RUSSIA 1:0, in the marquee section where they usually have things like HIGH BARNET – 4 MINS; STANMORE APPROACHING, STAY CLEAR OF THE PLATFORM EDGE. World Cup fever continues to run rampant, despite the fact that Team England’s out of the running.


(A/N: This is a post from June 23 from my old blog, which I incidentally forgot to move at the time. I had a zillion things in my mind at the time. Hence all the football commentary.)

France, part II – the journey in Toulouse continues

Toulouse’s old city centre and most of its sightseeing spots are located in their downtown district. It’s easy to get around by foot, which is what I did. I did rent a bike for a day, which was SUPER cheap – 1.20 euros for 24 hours, using the Velo Toulouse scheme, which has kiosks all over town (and one right outside my hotel). Toulouse – well, actually, all of France – is a great place to bike, with well-planned and comfortable bicycle trails running alongside their famous rivers and canals. The intrepid traveller can pick up a detailed bike trail map for free at the Tourist Office, located in the Capitolium.

One of my friends goes to the University of Toulouse, although unfortunately he was working near Paris at the time and was unable to leave. He was kind enough, however, write me a VERY comprehensive guide to the city, which was extremely helpful.

I started from the city centre, the famous Capitole/Capitolium.

The Capitole

Splurged on a French crepe. After enduring 7 months of decidedly British food, this was bliss.

Yum, though not that cheap at 4 euros

I then walked to the Église des Jacobins nearby, which was a beautiful, serene place. Admission was free.

The next place I went to was the Basilique of Saint-Sernin. I didn’t manage to get in since I couldn’t find the entrance, and there were gaggles of jaded-looking teenagers lolling about, smoking and drinking, so I didn’t stay in the neighbourhood long. My friend had also warned me that it was a bit dodgier than most of other places in Toulouse, and advised me to steer clear of it.

 

Saint-Sernin

Back to the Capitole.

There’s a very nice memorial of Charles de Gaulle in Jean-Jaurès.

After going back to the hotel to eat and rest (got some sandwiches from the nearby Carrefour), I went over to Pont-Neuf, the only old bridge across La Garonne, which was built between 1544 and 1626. My friend told me that the holes carved into it were made to reduce the pressure on the bridge during river floods.

A lovely stroll along the Garonne.

As I walked along the Quai Lucien Lombard, I had a splendid view of the Place de la Daurade and Place Saint Pierre. According to my friend, the homogeneity of the block was due to the fact that it had been planned by the government just before the outbreak of the French Revolution. In the aftermath of the Revolution, the houses were completed by various different private owners, hence the wide variety of style and technique.

A closer look

I really HAVE to write my holiday diaries right after I get back. I’m looking at these pictures right now and remembering snippets of my thoughts when I took them, but that’s all they are: fragments and bits of a much bigger picture that’s all but lost to me now. Photographs are all very good, but the emotional aspect of travelling is just as important as the travelling itself. I do remember taking numerous strolls along the Garonne, buying a chocolatine at a shop my friend recommended, and eating it by the riverbank and napping in the green shade of the weeping willows. A dog came up and practically breathed down my neck, so I ended up giving him my chocolatine, which he wolfed down eagerly before loping away. It wasn’t till much later that I remembered belatedly that dogs aren’t supposed to eat chocolate. The late afternoon sun filtering through the trees, the wind ruffling the grass and teasing out my hair – that’s what I do remember, and listening to Hotel California on replay.

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,'said the night man,
'We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!'

and I look up into the blue skies

Prologue to continental#1; France, part I – the Cite de Carcassonne

(2014/07/12 A/N: Am still migrating the contents of my old blog over to this one, and the server at blog.com is so ghastly it's not even funny any more. I have not been able to login to my account ever since I got back from Poland. Everytime I try that a huge "502 Bad Gateway/nginx/1.0.15" shows up, or the page doesn't load. I find it difficult to believe that such a bad server host could exist in today's world. I can't even get into my account to announce that I've moved over here. Wow. This world's insane.)



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This entry has been woefully late in coming. My first trip to Europe started on the 12th of May, and now it’s the 24th..of June. (A/N: Well, it WAS, when I was writing this..!)
The first few parts of this entry were written before I went to Romania, and I’ve noticed a slight discrepancy between my writing then and now. I’ve become more flippant, I think. And, of course, since it’s already been more than a month and loads has happened since then, I’ll have forgotten lots of things, but I still have the pictures, at least.

Before I go any further, I’d like to talk about what this initial trip to the Continent meant to me. I’d been abroad before on my own (that’s actually what I’m doing right now with my degree and London) and I am the sort of person who likes to spend lots of quality alone time, which means plenty of solo trips out and about. This, however, was very much different to anything I’d ever done. I was going to countries I’d never been before, where I didn’t speak the language, and I’d never planned out a proper itinerary for myself like this one (the first of many to come!). It was fantastic, tailoring a whole trip for myself, but it was also an extremely daunting and time consuming task. And to be honest, I had no idea what to expect – I wasn’t really thinking about travel dangers, not speaking the language and other things. What I did was plan my trip meticulously, right down to the last detail. I booked ALL of my tickets, be they train/bus/coach/sightseeing hotspots – online and beforehand, and printed them all out. I downloaded the offline google maps of all the places I was planning to visit – we live in the 21st century and GPS is a godsend for the intrepid hopelessly naive first-time traveller. I also took out an annual travel insurance that covers the whole of the Schengen area. It’s a long, torturous procedure, but it’s incredibly rewarding, and this whole experience has been a life-changing one, although again it’s not something I can fully express in words, but I’ll try my best, as I relive my journey through these entries.

A quick overview of my itinerary – 19 days in total, which I started off by spending 4 days in France (Toulouse and Carcassonne), 5 days in Barcelona, 3 days in Portugal, then it was over to Maastricht (a Dutch town on the Belgic/German border), which I used as a base to make day trips to Belgium (Bruges and Ghent), Germany (Aix-la-Chapelle) and Luxembourg (Luxembourg City and Vianden). I spent an average of 16 euros a day (this sum includes tickets, living expenses and so on).

So, without any further ado, I give you..the entry I wrote two weeks prior.

***

My travels so far have consisted of endless castles and gothic cathedrals which are fine and dandy but somehow all end up looking the same.

My masters life is one where I go through cans and cans of fizzy drinks. If I were the drinking type of person I would probably drink a lot. But yes, lots and lots of soft drinks, cans, and meeting beautiful boys in Europe who want to have a serious relationship with me, whatever that means. This is the life.

My dad was in Toulouse for a summit, which was the sole reason I decided to make it my first destination. The cheapest way of getting there from London was to fly to Carcassonne (15 pounds) and take a train from there (12 euros). I decided to make a bit of time for CCF, since there was apparently a lovely fortress there that I really wanted to see. I touched down in Carcassonne, France on Monday afternoon. Bit of a bumpy ride, but the incredibly hot flight attendant named Carlos more than made up for it. If heaven existed, all angels would look like him. I think he caught me staring at him on more than one occasion. He’s wasted as a flight attendant. He should become a male supermodel, or go into acting. I’ve never seen anyone as perfect as him. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get a picture of him. The plane was a tiny 737 model.

I don’t like flying, which is odd, because when I was little I loved it. Then again, there is a considerable difference between short flights and long haul flights. The 737 plane kept shaking, the seat was unadjustable and the table was wobbly. I kept wondering if the plane would lose all structural integrity halfway across the Bay of Biscay.

Anyway, I arrived in Carcassonne airport, and took the shuttle from the airport to the train station. The driver was a very jovial man who spoke splendid English.

A view from the Gare de Carcassonne

I thought Carcassonne was a very picturesque little town, with narrow streets which are typical of European towns, though I didn’t realize this until I’d reached my third city.

Carcassonne’s claim to fame is the Cite de Carcassonne, which features a rather splendid medieval citadel (an UNESCO World Heritage site), with a lovely little bridge.

The bridge

After I’d crossed the bridge, it was a rather steep climb. A rather nice panoramic view of the city could be seen, but of all the city panoramas I’ve seen on this trip (Barcelona, Luxembourg, Lisbon), the best one belongs to Lisbon, with Luxembourg coming a very close second. But that’s a detail for another entry.

The Cite

The Cite de Carcassonne, best viewed from one of the bridges. I really wish I’d gotten blue skies; cloudy days make for awful pictures. Going into the citadel was free, but it was not that impressive. I did like the conical towers, though.

Construction work being done. Again.

A chapel within the Cite.

There was too much construction work going on, which spoiled my pictures. The weather at this point had gotten kind of blustery, which is typical. It did that too in loads of other places I went to on this trip, such as Belgium, which was such a shame, because Belgium was – is – gorgeous.

Well, I reached Toulouse within an hour (the train ride was very pleasant), and met my dad, which was fantastic. One thing about travelling is that you pick up bits and pieces of their languages. Gare for train station in France, for instance, which proved to be surprisingly useful.

***

(A/N: This is the ‘present’ (well, the /6/24) me speaking, now. I am starving. Why oh why am I so perpetually HUNGRY?)

I didn’t do much after I arrived in Toulouse from CCF- had a nice soak in the tub, cooked some ramen, and went on facebook. And I think that this is quite enough for a prologue, so I’ll stop here with a teaser of Toulouse’s city square. In retrospect, this was one of my favourite Continental cities. Till then, adieu!

 

The Rue Lafayette

Traversing Transylvania in the dead of night & general wrap-up

A bird's eye view of Rasnov from the fortress. It seemed suitably nostalgic for this particular entry.

My last chapter on Romania, for the time being. For once, I am at a loss for words. I feel that I haven’t said a tithe of what I’m thinking. And I may well have to do an epilogue/wrapup of this entire trip.

I have very mixed feelings towards Romania. Safe to say, they would be a lot more positive if not for the bus 780 incident and the inbuilt tendency we have for a negativity bias (I keep falling back on this, don’t I), as well as the various racially charged encounters we met with.

Another thing is the fact that my timing couldn’t have been better/worse (depends on how you look at it). All I can say is, it affects your perspective dramatically if you actually know someone who’s from the country you’re sightseeing in. If you’re on good terms, it automatically enhances your experience – or it sets you for a huge letdown, depends which way the pendulum swings. If you’re on good terms but the country turns out to be a craphole (to the point where your friend’s awesomeness can do nothing for the general lousiness of his native town/country), it actually makes you view him/her in a less positive light. Which is not fair, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that life is rarely fair.

I also realised that I haven’t talked that much about gypsies.  Before I came to Romania, my only impressions of gypsies were the romanticised images we get from Notre Dame de Paris and Carmen: beautiful, passionate, black-eyed women with a love for freedom. The reality is harshly different. A blogger named JS Bangs has it spot on when he describes how he feels about fictional gypsies as opposed to real ones:

“Before coming to Romania I thought of gypsies basically the same way I thought of pirates: something exotic and alluring that existed only in distant times and places. I was very excited to see real, live gypsies when I came to Romania. But discovering the actual situation of the gypsies in Romania was a rather rude shock.” (source)

Technically, you learn to avoid them, and give them a wide berth, but you still can’t help observing them with fascination (from a healthy distance).

I don’t have many photos for this entry, since there was basically nothing left on the itinerary. We took the night train from Deva to Bucharest, which lasted 8 hours and cost 20 pounds. We had booked beds, and while neither of us got much sleep, it was an awe-inspiring, humbling and exhilarating experience. The heady, raw sensation of hurtling through the night-clad plains and hills of Transylvania, through the shadowy wild crags of the Carpathians, peering out of the window and watching the land beyond the forests roll behind you into the far, far distance, was otherworldly. You have the feeling that anything can happen. The fact that I was reading Dracula and had just gotten to the part where Lucy Westenra turns into a vampire, did not help my adrenaline levels – I jumped every time the train ran over an uneven welding, or someone walked by our compartment.

There were 6 bunks in our compartment, and we’d both booked the lowest bunks since we were too lazy to climb. This is my bunk.

The ladder leading to the upper bunks.

The corridor, which was actually sort of creepy..

Despite the fact that there were 6 bunks, there were only four of us there, all women. And in spite of the fact that there were only 4 people, it was still quite a squash. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have SIX people crammed in this tuna can.

Joanne and I had been agonising over how we were going to get to the airport once we’d reached Bucuresti Nord. There was no way in hell we were going to take bus 780 again. I would rather pull out my toenails, one by one.

Luckily, some people we’d met at the Sibiu hostel had informed us that the train was a very viable option, which is what we did. We bought our tickets at Bucuresti Nord once we’d arrived, and they weren’t expensive by much to be honest. You take the train (about forty minutes journey) to the Aeroport station, then a minibus takes you to the airport, which is about 10 minutes ride. The train station sells these tickets together, priced at 7 lei. No scammers, extortionists or pot bellies, plus the journey was much more comfortable. I repeat, for all of you who are flying to Bucharest and figuring out how to go from there, TAKE THE TRAIN. I can’t emphasise this enough. It’s only costs 1.5 lei more which is not that much to be honest, and an unbelievably small price to pay for your general state of well-being.

Something rather odd happened on our journey from Bucurest Nord to Aeroport. There was a boy sitting across from us in our compartment and we ended up making a bit of small conversation. He asked us polite questions like where we were from, what we were doing in Romania (cue the incredulous look when we said we were tourists) and how we liked it. The food was fantastic (another wtf look) and the Carpathians were lovely, we said diffidently. He smiled, rather wonkily, and said that it was fine we liked Romania, but he personally didn’t care much for his country. We were really surprised, since the vast majority of all the other Romanians we’d encountered were almost fiercely patriotic. (Again, there’s a wealth of information and opinions on the status quo of Romania and its citizens/immigrants, as well as their own attitudes towards their nation/identity – just type keywords such as Romanian reputation in the EU, so I shan’t comment on this, not in this post anyway.) Anyway, before we’d started talking I had been listening to another Romanian pop song I’d caught on air, Ipotecat by Delia. I had this song on replay – it’s ridiculously catchy. You might be able to get the general gist of the song from this stanza that Delia croons in her soft voice:

Viața le împarte mereu așa

Life always deals it out like this

Totul se întoarce asupra ta

What goes around comes around

Poți fugi, dar nu te poți ascunde

You can run, but you can’t hide

Soarta te găsește oriunde

Fate can always find you

(There’s a full version of the lyrics, both original and translated, here.)

Understandably, we were extremely taken-aback by his admission of how much he disliked his country, and asked him why. After some false beginnings and sheepish grins (his English was not that fluent), he took out his phone and used the google translate app to express what he wasn’t able to say in English. (Google translate again – the Romanians really like this invention.) When he was done, he held out his phone to me, and for reasons not wholly comprehensible to me, these words will always be seared into my memory:

“It is a country full of thieves and liars, like that song you like so much.”

I don’t know why these words made such a huge impression on me. Probably the fact that he was an untypical Romanian, his passive-aggressive tone that even google translate couldn’t mask, the strong words and his expression – half disparaging, half resigned, a smattering of vaguely amused – as well as the aggregation of all that had come to pass in the past few weeks: my Romanian friend, their bad rep, the way people responded when we said we were going there, all the things that had happened to us and that eureka moment when we realised that people were not wholly unjustified in their prejudice. I know that’s a terrible thing to say, but again, no smoke without fire.

We got to the airport without incident, and went back to England without a hitch. I arrived back home at about 5pm (set the clock back 2 hours to Greenwich mean time), my mind full and my thoughts tangled. It was fantastic to be back on good old British soil – Joanne said that it felt as if we had returned to civilisation. It was certainly lovely not having people goggle and make the occasional racial slur wherever we went, to be normal again.

I am still not wholly sure what to make of Romania. What I do know is that it completely bamboozled my expectations, and was nothing at all like what I had imagined it to be. To be honest I’m not sure what I had expected it to be, but it certainly was not what I found. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Perhaps both. What I do know is that my opinion of it has changed drastically; for me, it only used to be the land beyond the forests and Wallachia, the last stronghold of Christianity against the Ottoman Turks. Now, it’s a place with mind-blowingly fantastic food, and equally shocking poverty and desperation. One thing’s for certain, the Romanians don’t do things by halves. For them, it’s all or nothing. Perhaps that’s both their strength and weakness. One other thing I know for sure is that I don’t regret this trip, not even one iota, in spite of all that happened. It’s one of the best and most meaningful things I ever did in my life, and I’m so glad I went. Romania is like nothing I’ve ever encountered: simultaneously exotic and dangerous, beautiful and lethal, proud and vulnerable. And maybe, just maybe, I will be back again.