Tag Archives: Travel and Tourism

Real Venice

11/16/2011 By in Arts & Culture Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

A realist, in Venice, would become a romantic by mere faithfulness to what he saw before him.

Arthur Symons

As beautiful as a thousand suns, the lagoon port of Venice is too romantic to survive. From a distance it is like waiting for your heart to die. How such a place could ever come into being is beyond the imagination of the modern traveller. Once the greatest trading port of the Mediterranean, this extravagant casket of wonders is ravishingly sad, but no longer has an imperative. It merely exists for the eyes of others. There is a melancholy sadness on the fairytale bridges, as the inevitability of the city’s fate has become a metaphor for life itself.

Facing aquatic extinction from rising sea levels and mass tourism, Venice is most definitely in peril. Capturing the magic of the city at Somerset House, the Real Venice exhibition highlights the unique beauty of its walkways and vulgarities of modern tourism. With subsidence rotting the fabric of the city, the La Serenissima faces an irreversible numbers of visitors and slow death of its indigene population. For Venice has no purpose in the modern world. In this city of footsteps, the sadness lies in the visitors, the starling masses who take a million pictures but never open their eyes.

As a contradictory rule of travelling, mass tourism is generally regarded as a crass and vulgar phenomenon. With the world becoming increasingly familiar due to affordable air travel, the paradox of the modern traveller lies in visiting the same places but simultaneously wanting to avoid people just like them. Having previously been a recreational playground for the Victorian upper classes, the city of Venice attracted tourists long before travelling went plastic. Back then, of course, travelling had been the reserve of the rich and famous. In this nostalgic world full of surprises, the fantasy of travelling in another era feels impossibly romantic or to quote Woody Allen a ‘denial of the painful present’.

However, it is now the painful deluge of foreign visitors that spoils it for everyone. Even in a city as beautiful as Venice, there is no escaping the banality of multi-lingual tours, guidebooks, suitcases and universally branded hotels. With progress comes opportunity for all and with progress there will come a price. Venice is suffering from rising house prices and the local Venetian population are slowly being erased from history in favour of foreign tourists. The most romantic city in the world has now become a lavish peacock serving the whims of visitors from overseas. A city submerged not only by rising tides but a lack of opportunities. Nobody lives there, except on holiday. A sad reminder that you are nothing but a passing visitor, and yet that is what we all are really.

Real Venice
Somerset House
Strand
London
WC2R 1LA

Exhibition runs until December 11th 2011.


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Nobody Expects the Spanish Revolution

06/20/2011 By in Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

As Madrid is more of a national capital than an international one like London or Paris, the British press have perhaps not given Spain’s “los indignados” the attention they deserve. Over 60, 000 Spanish youths held spontaneous protests in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia in May 2011, rebelling against the socialist government’s austerity measures. A decade of unemployment and emigration beckons for tens of thousands of Spanish graduates. Youth unemployment among 16 to 29-year-olds is estimated to be around 45 per cent. Upturned in the Puerta de Sol are stolen crates, graffiti slogans and multiple plastic tents full of sticky protesters eating tinned food in brutally hot temperatures. Indignant in their defiance, the “los indignados” are demanding new jobs, public investment and changes to the government’s austerity plans but their wishes have fallen on deaf ears. Spain like so many other debt-ridden European nations has elected a centre-right government into power.

Madrid’s tent city should perhaps serve as a reminder that political dissent has not always been tolerated in Europe. For this red scar of rebellion may be gathering momentum in 2011 but situated in a former hospital is a heart stopping reminder of Spain’s fascist past. Forming an integral part of the holy trinity of Madrid’s historic art museums, the Museo Reina Sofía is renowned throughout the world for hosting Picasso’s Guernica. Awe inspiring and superbly displayed, this icon of twentieth-century European art is one of the few universal masterpieces that commands a religious silence from all visitors. Displayed on the second floor, the art crowds flock to Guernica all year round and cross-legged school children listen attentively to the horrific origins of the painting. Picasso painted it as a response to the Luftwaffe bombing of Guernica for the Spanish Pavilion at the Paris International Exhibition in 1937.

As a universal symbol against the fight against fascism, Guernica is a brutal reminder that under General Franco Spain was a military dictatorship until the late 1970s. On forming a one party state, the Falange, political censorship was vigorously enforced under Franco. Trade unions were banned. Catalan, Basque and Galician languages were severely censured and political opponents were mercilessly executed. The majority of Britons will be unable to comprehend the level of repression suffered in Spain during this period. Most people in the UK understandably take the liberal fruits of universal suffrage and freedom of speech for granted.

Britain is one of the oldest and most stable democracies in the modern world, and has enjoyed peaceful growth from 1945 until the present day. Guernica is a potent reminder that Britain has enjoyed its most comfortable, safe and prosperous period in its living history. The global recession of 2008 has triggered violent rioting in Greece and led to tens of thousands of protesters kicking spokes in the hub of Madrid’s wheel.

Britain’s anti-cut march in London attracted over 200, 000 people but it feels strangely weak and deeply uninspiring compared to the demonstrations in Madrid. The protest was quickly forgotten after a day’s headlines. And it will be most likely remembered for the self-aggrandising violence of a hundred upper-middle class anarchists. Spain feels different. Although history will judge how effective the Spanish revolution will be in what is going to be a very difficult decade for Europe. A generational time bomb is slowly ticking because of this economic crisis. Unemployment and living costs continue to rise across the continent. But if history is to offer any guide, and hard as this is to admit, sometimes you have to travel across your own borders to realise how lucky Britain really is.

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Lost in Lisbon

05/19/2011 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 7 Comments

A fading imperial city on the westernmost fringes of Europe can proudly boast of beautiful cheekbones and ageing skin. Lisbon is a secretive and romantic place. Portugal’s largest city suffered a devastating earthquake in 1755 but survived the wars of the twentieth century largely unscathed. Instead of war monuments or plaques to our glorious dead, Lisbon boasts grandiose statues of ancient explorers and outlandish works of modern art. Elegantly designed by architect Santiago Calatrava and inspired by Gaudí’s love of trees, Oriente Station’s dynamic white arches and double decker flashing tubes make for a truly marvellous spectacle.

Overlooking the River Tagus, the de facto Portuguese capital offers a fairytale vision of Europe. Although the stylish regeneration of Parque das Nações ensures any visit to Lisbon is not just confined to an open air museum or a monolith but somewhere vibrant, secretive and highly sophisticated. Subject to enormous EU investment throughout the 1990s, New Lisbon is home to one of Europe’s largest and most popular aquariums. Oceanário de Lisboa inspires children, tourists and adults alike with its stunning exhibitions of sea life from the blue planet.

Portugal’s capital is a romantic throwback with its ornate piazzas, lush fountains and a street plan that ranges from serenely rational to bewilderingly crooked and steep. From the triumphal arch at Praça do Comércio to Rossio Square everything feels so meticulously planned that you feel every footstep has been accounted for on a map. There are beautiful inter-linking grids, which are all connected by flash yellow buses and rickety wooden trams emblazoned with fifties style Coca-Cola logos. Arguably the best way to see the city is by tram and the iron tracks slice deliciously across some of Lisbon’s steepest gradients – where standing like so many other forms of public transport is the norm.

Down at sea level and incessantly noisy at peak periods, the Restauradores district is home to swarms of tables with napkins, menus and diminutive waiters. It is an intense and deeply pressurized environment, especially at night, where the area is like walking through a lake of food straddled by purple faced managers thrusting menus instead of oars. Elsewhere the city is exceedingly romantic and carries a feminine and luxurious charm full of civic delights.

Although this doesn’t stop pathetic little men offering Class A drugs to every man under the age of forty on every street corner. Portugal became the first European nation to officially abolish all criminal penalties for possession of drugs in 2001, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and amphetamines. According to reports this radical policy has been remarkably successful in reducing drug addiction, but it does mean you will get verbally pestered by sinister looking men on holiday.

Luckily these shady forces hover around the Rossio Square and are nowhere to be seen on the ascent to Bairro Alto. The hilly ascent towards Lisbon’s vibrant clubbing and shopping district is home to one of the few areas unaffected by the earthquake of 1755. Effortlessly youthful and lively in the evening, the cobbled streets are laden with housewives hanging their washing over ornate iron balconies and Mediterranean birdsong throughout the day.

The city’s architectural splendour ranges from 18th century buildings, crooked hilly streets and dilapidated baroque squares with flaking ceramic tiles. Although there is a creeping sadness in the dying of the streets – pigeons can be seen flying out of broken windows and beautiful skin that once sparkled is often seen withering in neglect. Visitors should look beyond the grandiose monuments in the historic centre and wander along the side streets for a glimpse of the city’s soul. Like the decrepit side streets, the city is often overlooked in an era of cheap air travel, which is a shame for Lisbon remains the essence of cool. With its fading glamour and effortless style, the Portuguese capital is one of the most understated and romantic cities in Europe.

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A View from a Bridge

05/10/2011 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Dream Collapsing

On flying over Northern Spain on route to Oporto, I remarked to a Portuguese nurse sitting next to me about how wonderfully green the landscape appeared from above. With evergreen forests and misty pockets of silver trailing in my wake, the descent upon Portugal’s second city had already begun to take shape. Any assumption that Portugal is a geographical extension of Spain is woefully misleading on a number of levels. Unlike the Iberian aridity of the south, the Douro region is predominately Celtic and Germanic in stock. Situated in the corn, cabbage and port region of Portugal, the northern green fields could easily pass of as Ireland to an unknowing visitor. For there are more flowers and bushes in Portugal and there are more trees, including the sprawling eucalyptus, which are noticeably absent on the neighbouring Castilian plateau.

Somewhat fittingly Portugal has now followed the Irish Republic to become the third member of the eurozone to be bailed out by the EU and IMF. Economically weak in an uncertain world, the Portuguese frontiers have remained virtually unchanged since 1139. They removed their last dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar, in 1970 and had a democratic revolution in 1974 and like the Portuguese nurse on the plane; they are one of the most congenial of Europeans.

Youth in Revolt

According to my erudite source on the plane, the country’s student population celebrate Queima das Fitas (Burning of the Ribbons) in the first week of May. On arriving in a university town on the verge of a drunken apogee, I checked in at the Porto Spot Hostel, and booked myself a sleepless night inside a white walled dorm. Despite my room having the capacity to host three weary bodies, I fortunately only had to share with a pepper bald German man.

Travelling is a privilege and after exploring the continent in my early twenties, I still have fond memories of budgeting every penny and dining in car parks eating ripped bread and cheese. Despite growing up and finding myself desperate to progress beyond shared accommodation, I all too frequently discover the invisible hand of economics has a far greater influence over my upwardly mobile pretentions.

Fortunately the money you might save on accommodation can be invested elsewhere and on departing the boutique hostel, I began to explore the melancholy splendour of Porto. Most normal cities would consider being labelled ‘workmanlike’ an insult and the commercial district does stir with ordinariness. Deeply atmospheric and exceedingly ramshackle in places, many of the city’s buildings are in a dilapidated state of repair. Most of their finest religious buildings are adorned with blue mosaic tiles, which are the ubiquitous emblems of Portugal, and provide the country with a truly beautiful motif.

Close to the Praça dos Leões lies one of the most outlandish and beautiful bookshops in Europe. Opened in 1906, Livraria Lello is an intricate wooden cathedral with a stunning fairy tale staircase inspired by the Parisian galleries of Lafayette. There are not too many bookshops in the world with a neo-Gothic staircase and a stained glass skylight. With a luscious red carpet leading its readers towards a literary heaven, English speakers may not be able to buy a book in a familiar language but the art nouveau exterior is worth the hike up Rua das Carmelitas on its own.

On arriving at the 18th century quayside, the iconic double-decker bridge, Ponte Dom Luis I, provides a truly magnificent spectacle across the River Douro. This marine blue bridge is one of the wonders of Portugal. Hosting a progressive and modern tram network and providing stunning views of the Cais de Ribeira quayside and Vila Nova de Gaia. Squawking seagulls can be seen following wooden boats full of white-shirted visitors from Germany and the Home Counties. And old ladies and housewives can be seen hanging their washing out to dry.

Porto’s charms lie in its unspoken cracks and idyllic forgetfulness, something no tourist board could ever successfully advertise. More discerning visitors to Porto like to enjoy samples of Portugal’s famous port lodges such as Sandemans or Grahams in the independent municipality of ‘Gaia’. Famous brands advertise their lodges using large Hollywood signs in a bold attempt to seduce tourists over from the Cais de Ribeira to the rickety winding lanes of time forgotten.

Bom Apetite

Vila Nova de Gaia is a romantic throwback to the 1930s and grapes have flown down the river for over three centuries. This historic process helps provide wine lovers across the globe with ruby, tawny and white tipples, which are traditionally enjoyed at the end of a beautiful meal. Fittingly back at the river front, I enjoyed my first evening dish with a regional Porto delicacy – the infamous Francesinhe. Scotland would never have been able to live it down if they had served up this culinary invention. Drenched in saturated fat and quite literally a heart attack on a plate, Francesinhe means “little French girl” in Portuguese. Inspired by the story of a returning emigrant, the sandwich’s composition involves multiple layers of bread, cured ham, sausages and steak, which is outrageously soaked in melted cheese and tomato beer sauce.

Sitting on one of the hundreds of outdoor café tables looking across the river, I instantly regretted not eating one of their freshly caught sardines. The local ‘delicacy’ is so violently nefarious, I personally believe the Francesinhe should made be illegal under European Law. Alas not all southern Mediterranean cuisines are healthy but Porto remains a city with a poetic sensibility. From the lush vegetation of its surrounding countryside to the urban charms of the city centre, rarely if ever will visitors be offered such a rich casket of wonders.

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Runaway Train

04/28/2011 By in Travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.  ~ Mark Twain

As the country basks in Spanish sunshine over the Easter holidays, the temptation to jump on a train and feast your eyes on an unfamiliar town is enormously tempting. Robert Louis Stevenson once said the best way to see a country was by train. With millions of workers receiving four bank holidays in eleven days courtesy of the Royal Wedding, time is now available to pursue those novelty travel plans. Unlike the previous months of being cooped up inside a sterile office, watching the deathly drag of grey clouds pass by the window. There is now time to fully unwind, relax and celebrate the virgin birth of spring. Although the irony of an extended holiday is that time usually accelerates as fast as the trains that take can you to far flung locations.

Anyone familiar with the British transport system knows that buying a train ticket for a destination more than twenty miles away is ludicrously expensive. Spontaneous day trips are virtually impossible when tickets for a two hour journey can cost over a hundred pounds. With an unregulated privatised transport system, the only affordable way to travel is to book six weeks in advance and naturally it is not always possible to know what you will be doing in the forthcoming weeks and months ahead.

Walking along Kings Cross or Euston’s northbound platforms and seeing the trappings of wealth inside the first class carriages is incredibly seductive. No one should under-estimate the silent power of aspiration and it is extremely hard to resist the calling of privilege. However, on grounds of fairness and equality, first class travel has no place in the 21st century. Millions of ordinary travellers lose out and end up paying ridiculous prices to cram into cheap seats or stand for hours in rattling cattle cans. Worse still the majority of the first class carriages lie empty and remain reserved for businessmen and ladies of leisure.

First class travel is completely elitist, immoral and the vast majority of people lose out to benefit a privileged few. It should be scrapped! There is absolutely no justification for first class travel at all. Then again most people have to accept the horrible contradiction of secretly wanting to travel in luxury and being a lip-service Marxist with two sticks and a balloon to spend.

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Paradise City

03/22/2011 By in Arts & Culture Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The slippery side streets of Soho have entertained the capital’s residents for centuries and it remains one of the most seductive landmarks in Central London. Renowned for its trashy lingerie, drug dens and peep shows, the unofficial red light district is a honey pot of illegal activities. Despite frequent attempts to clean up its image in advance of the 2012 Olympics, the back alleyways of London’s West End retain a downtrodden appeal. Blue tooth messages are sent to visitors walking past illegal brothels, and friendly Russian gangsters are fond of marching their customers to nearby cash points for bonuses. These are obviously not the type of establishments you check in on Facebook but anyone who goes for a “massage” at 5am probably does get what they deserve.

Although to dismiss Soho as a magnet for illegal vices would be extremely misleading. For while some men wander in search of foreplay with their trousers on, Soho is also home to some of the finest restaurants and bars in London. The relationship between sex and food is the belief that one tends to lead to another, irrespective of which comes first. Soho luckily provides both in abundance and anyone caught stumbling along say Green Court will realise that Yalla Yalla is one of the finest cheap eats in London. The Beirut food court is notoriously difficult to find but one of the attractions of eating out in Soho is that you get lost every time and nothing ever feels the same.

Attending restaurants in Soho is a bit like going to the theatre, where customers find themselves auditioning to play the lead role in a make believe world. Foreign themed restaurants are fond of describing themselves as ‘authentic’ but the word is misleading. A murky back alleyway in Soho is nowhere near the Middle East and while the rural taste of Lebanon at Yalla Yalla has never been in doubt. There is nothing remotely authentic about Soho.

Whether its old men drinking in 1940s pubs, PR darlings sipping cappuccinos or film journalists scribbling inside darkened rooms; the Soho peep show continues to entrance and deceive its audience. Constantly on the run and never dull, the side streets are awash with sexual favours and androgynous ecstasy. Soho meanwhile remains as slippery as ever and will put on magic shows for its audiences longer after 2012. Whether the law authorities will continue to permit such activities remains to be seen.

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Think before you click

01/09/2011 By in Press & Media Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

On becoming increasingly worried I am becoming addicted to Facebook, I began to investigate why I incessantly clicked on my smartphone for messages and comments I knew weren’t there. It made no sense for me to continually log in for updates when I had checked 14 seconds earlier. Alas I continue to tap away at my glass pane for salvation and while I might have a case of undiagnosed OCD, I suspect something more profound is controlling my urges. By clicking compulsively I am sub-consciously longing to be rewarded by some form of human attention.

Social networking is highly addictive and one of the dangers of this artificial world is that feeds into a particularly modern form of estrangement. Never before has society been so well connected yet the bite-sized nature of the internet often leaves me feeling empty. More so I find myself longing for when people wrote or described their experiences rather than just upload photographs. Writing is never static and can be magically conjured up in a letter, email, blog or an even an instantaneous conversation with a likeminded friend. The danger with the transient nature of modern communications is that any prose will be lost at the time of delivery and there will never be an effective method of preserving your electric thoughts.

When I found myself on holiday in St Ives last year, I had to endure the trauma of my phone dying and being without the internet for three days. Suddenly I had to physically buy a newspaper to satisfy my hunger for stories, news and articles. Once my compulsion could no longer be satisfied, I relaxed and began to enjoy my immediate surroundings and forgot about the trivia electronically stored in my pocket. On returning home to London and logged into Tweetdeck, I was enormously deflated by how utterly inane some of the messages were. Violent streams of spam, link repetition and empty RIP tributes to dead actors, whom the majority of tweeters had probably never heard of until Gabriel blew his horn.

What I fear the most about the proliferation of social networking is the uniformity of taste on applications such as Facebook, Twitter and the truly awful Foursquare. When the majority of people use the same websites, it ruins a romantic idea, of there being a sense of depth or continuity with previous generations. As while there are tremendous benefits in the evolution of technology, I also think it will be responsible for the end of a specific type of geographical culture. The world is getting smaller and mass production is getting so big. If everyone orbits the same ubiquitous superbrands then we are in serious danger of becoming the same.

While discovering new technologies can be exciting and rewarding, I find the lack of originality of the people using these applications to be very unimaginative. When I ceased to have internet access in St Ives, I began to compose my own thoughts, explored the world with virgin eyes and documented my thoughts with a pen. Then I began to remember the great travel writing of Patrick Leigh Femour, Laurie Lee and George Orwell and how their journeys painted new landscapes, religions, people and culture in such a vivid and beautiful way. Their prose remains highly original and distinctive pieces of work, which retains an individuality and a romantic sense the writers were genuinely living their experiences rather than inanely reporting them.

The medium isn’t the only message and while I don’t want to reject new technology, I feel there is some value in disconnecting from the emptiness which pervades social networking. Living in a world where everyone is their own personal marketing assistant, I find myself immersed in this digital matrix. But like junk food on the high street, I recognise it’s not always good for me. Switching off might well be preferable to refreshing an overpriced glass screen and hoping to see a red digit on Facebook.

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