A long weekend in… Milan

It was music that took me to Milan, Italy’s second city, twice in the space of a month. First I saw Radiohead at Monza and then Elbow on the Gardone Riviera, by the shores of Lake Garda. People’s reactions to Milan went from “Oh, now why would you do that?” to “Hmm”. People said it’s not as nice as the rest of Italy, it’s industrial, it’s boring. This was confirmed to me when on my first flight out, a priest described it as the Birmingham of Italy. As a Brummie, I knew full well what he meant, but if Milan really is the Birmingham of Italy, then let’s call it what it is – a city that doesn’t immediately charm but one that is full of interest when you scratch the surface. And Birmingham has more canals than Venice (but the canals are in Birmingham, so…).

Street sign

Of course, there are negatives in Milan’s column. The traffic is incessant and cars would be parked in doorways if only the drivers could fit there, there’s a lack of parks in the city and the ones that are there looked a bit barren and unloved, the homelessness is endemic and the city can feel a bit claustrophobic with endless rows of imposing buildings. But there are plenty of positives, too. Being Italy, culture is never far away, eating and drinking can be a genuine pastime, there are cool districts to the city just waiting to be explored, the city is very elegant in places and some of the architecture is flat-out stunning. An early indicator of charm was Milan’s old trams that criss-cross the city, which really add to the street scene. Over 200 trams from 1930 ply the streets, yet it’s cities like Lisbon that I associate trams with, so whoever does Milan’s marketing can have that insight for free. You are welcome.

Old Tram

You’ll probably start your trip in Milan at the central railway station, which is based on Union Station in Washington D.C. Once Mussolini arrived on the scene, the station grew more monumental, to demonstrate the fabulous power of Fascism. Its dimensions are the architectural version of a mid-life crisis. It is 200 metres wide and 72 metres high, so when you pass through it, you cannot help but feel overwhelmed but the building is deeply beautiful at the same time. I always felt a little thrill to walk through it, looking at the giant eagle statues around the station and craning my neck to see the roof. Stepping outside, you can’t miss the homeless people. It should be a sign of intense national shame to see so many people using the station gardens and verges as a bed, the fountain as a shower but in Milan, it seems even more hideous when there is so much visible wealth everywhere.

Train Station

The best way to start your day is like an Italian, by which I mean have coffee and a pastry in any of the cafes around the city. You can’t miss them, for they are everywhere. It was like a tragi-comedy when my friend ordered a latte in a café, only to find that latte in Italian is milk. But like a good Englishman, he drank his milk, though he would have preferred some coffee in it. Note to self; start learning Italian before the trip starts, not after. For guaranteed excellence, Princi makes excellent coffee and pastries and has five branches across Milan, with a bonus outlet in London. People order their espresso at the counter, sipping from the cup before fleeing. We didn’t see takeaway cups anywhere and the comparison with London is striking as a woman just came into this café, asked to “grab” a coffee and ran out the door, like she’d remembered her house was on fire but needed a caffeine buzz.

After coffee, orienting yourself in Milan is easy. Just head for the Duomo and you’ll be confronted by one of the great cathedrals of the world; it rises up in magnificence – it’s the largest church in Italy when you strip out St Peter’s Basilica in the State of Vatican City and the third largest church in the world. Construction started in 1386 and was completed only in 1965, so no rush there. There are 135 spires and it’s the most marble you’ll ever see outside of a 1980’s school playground. The Duomo first enchanted me in Luca Guadagnino’s gorgeous film I Am Love. Tilda Swinton would gracefully sweep along the church – at times it felt that’s all she did – and I decided that at some point, I would see the building. Getting inside or on top requires you to buy a ticket at the ticket office before queuing up; you can go inside the church for €3, get combined tickets to see the church interior and the terrace for about €13. Or do as we did, enter round the side and climb the stairs to the terrace for €9. The climb is fairly taxing but it is broken up by a few terraces along the way to the top of the building. The views from the top are far-reaching and the workmanship up close is incredible. Large parts of the building are covered in scaffolding currently but you are still likely to be blown away by the sheer scale of the church. We saw a man get told his shorts needed to be at his knees before he could enter this house of God. Odd, really, that the church would worry about boys in shorts. I thought it was their thing.

From the roof of the Duomo

Outside the Duomo is Piazza del Duomo, with the Galleria Vittorio shopping arcade opposite. It is grandeur itself, with stunning mosaic floors, beautiful lamps and a vaulting iron and glass roof that if nothing else, signifies the prices you are going to encounter in the arcade. Stores include Prada, Versace, Louis Vuitton and Gucci and when their sale prices have jumpers at €300 you can see why I passed through to take photographs and not stop off en route. If you’ve some cash to burn, Savini restaurant has tiramisu for only €19. Despite the absurd prices, the area around the Piazza del Duomo is one of Europe’s great squares and without realising it, hours can pass by as you soak up the atmosphere. The Museo del Novecento is worth a visit for a walk through 20^th century Italian art such as Futurism, abstract art, some fascist stuff, pop art, and Arte Povera. I was really interested by the art that came about during the fascism era, where things looked the same and interesting creases were ironed out – the future of Italy under this regime was to look back before awful outside influences arrived and took away some of what made Italy so Italian. It was all quite chilling. The collection also throws in some Picasso and Kandinsky for good measure. We went into an exhibit where you needed to sign a release form. I was expecting some Arte Porno, but it was just a series of rooms with strobe lights and uneven surfaces, which is still worth a visit. As you reach the top of the collection, you can view the Duomo out of the windows and admire the neon above you.

One part of the city with plenty of greenery and the glorious joy of shade is Sforza Castle. Within the castle complex are many museums and galleries, including Michelangelo’s last sculpture and a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci, based on a book by Dan Brown if I’m not mistaken. There is parkland around the castle and in a noisy city, it could have been a refuge from chatter and cars. Instead a man played a guitar loudly for cash. I never did find out if he’d accept cash to stop playing.

The Italians are so classy. While we in Britain call drinking before going out pre-drinks – the idea being to basically move to drinks and then more drinks – the Italians have aperitivo, which fast became by favourite thing that’s ever been invented. It is said that Milan is the home of aperitivo and the idea of having a cocktail and some snacks before dinner is delightfully sophisticated. We had Aperol Spritz with some bruschetta and a rice dish, and it really unravelled my childhood where mum wouldn’t allow snacking before dinner as it would ruin my appetite. And all along, the Milanese are getting tipsy and then going on to eat dinner. I feel robbed.

Navigli district

After our aperitivo, we walked down to the Navigli district, where a series of canals linked together provided a gorgeous backdrop for an evening of dinner and drinks. We ate at Gnocco Fritto, where they serve baskets of fried dough parcels alongside meats, cheeses and pasta. We indulged in four types of sheep cheese, from crumbly through to salty, and a pig’s worth of ham, all washed down with wine. It may not be among the most healthiest of meals, but it was entirely worth the resulting reduction in life expectancy. After the meal, we took an evening promenade. I do love to do this, especially when the scenery is so good. All the lights of the streets bounced off the water, people were relaxed and enjoying their evening and, most remarkable of all, music was kept at a minimum. Even as the night progressed, there wasn’t a switch from music burbling in the background to becoming the main focal point, rendering conversation pointless. We found a wine bar by the water, called Il Vinaccio and had another glass, deeply relaxed and in love with Italian nightlife. Our final stop of the night was on the way home, the remains of the San Lorenzo Roman columns where hundreds of people were gathered in a square sandwiched between a church and the columns. A drunk or high man was cross with us because we didn’t want to buy his drugs and then when he swung back a moment later, he seemed to love us. We didn’t buy whatever mind-altering madness he was on. The police idled at the sides, there in case anything out of hand happened, but generally in the shadows. The atmosphere was electric and rounded off a visit in which all my ideas of what Milan was like evaporated into the night air.

Roman columns

A long weekend in… Warsaw

Here’s a fact that will make you a pub quiz hero. The population of Warsaw before the second world war was 1.3m people. At the start of the Warsaw uprising, in August 1944, 900,000 remained. In 1945, once the uprising had failed and the Germans had finished their systematic destruction of the city, 1000 people remained and Warsaw was dead.

Human spirit is an incredible thing, because the Warsaw of 2017 is a vibrant, modern city boasting the newest old town in the world and an atmosphere far removed from what you may read in the press about a far-right lunatic government. Oh, that Government, let me count the ways… The environment minister Jan Szyszko said that “human development is not detrimental to the environment” and thought it would be a good idea to allow logging in the primeval Białowieża forest. He somehow squares the destruction of Poland’s wildest spaces with something he completely misread in the bible. He’s an idiot.

Back to human spirit, which Warsaw has plenty of. It’s an underrated city absolutely worth a visit. In a region with the opulence of Vienna, the old town charm of Bratislava, the beauty and stag-dos of Prague and Budapest, Warsaw has had to go back to the drawing board on what it can offer as a city. It has a wealth of history, a history so violent and shocking that much of my long weekend there was taken up in museums, mouth agape at the sheer horrors that Warsaw and Poland has gone through. But, modern Warsaw also has some great attractions for hipster living, and just general fun times. I left Warsaw feeling it struck a note between Stockholm and Berlin, with a mixture of beauty, gritty realism, a lust for life and sitting on deckchairs. Deckchairs were everywhere; outside the front of the Palace of Culture and Industry, up on the viewing platform of the Palace of Culture and Industry, outside the Neon museum, along the river and many places in between.

Warsaw is a messy bedroom when it comes to architectural styles, there’s a bit of everything scattered around. From the Stalinist wonder of the Palace of Culture and Science, where a New York skyscraper may well have flown into the centre of the city, to the other major communist gem, Constitution Square, Warsaw announces itself as somewhere important. Constitution square is a slice of socialist realist architecture that really captures a moment in time, when the Soviet Union could do anything in its imagination, if not in reality. The square is surrounded by grand blocks that gracefully echo the strengths of the union, sculptures of heroic workers adorn the sides of buildings in a celebration of soviet myth. An updated version might show a bored woman giving you change at a supermarket, but it would somehow lack the power required to carry everyone forward into the light. On the square are three glorious oversized lamps that add a touch of brute elegance. This architecture of power is always fascinating to see, and there’s some irony in the enormous Samsung illuminated logo on the top of one of the buildings, bringing brazen capitalism into view. The square and immediate surrounding remind me of Karl-Marx Allee in Berlin, but more glitzy.

If I was to think of glitz and Warsaw, I would be drawn to the biggest building in the country, the eighth biggest building in the EU and a testament to the ways the USSR would wield their power. The Palace of Culture and Industry. Back in 1950’s Warsaw, Stalin was keen to offer Poland a gift. With Warsaw in ruins, you might think a hospital, a university or even somewhere for people to sleep might be a good gift, but as our tour guide said, when Stalin asks if you want something, there is only one answer. It was constructed in three years and in making it, 16 people died, which we were told was pretty good going for the 1950s. A sobering thought for the pointless 2022 Qatar world cup is that over 1,200 have died to make their vanity project. The rush to build the Palace was intense, and construction went on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A benefit of having no neighbours, I suppose. It is, I’m sure, a symbol of the evil of Stalin but the Palace is a marvel and we had a commanding view of it from our rooms in the Intercontinental hotel. Never having to live through communism, I can appreciate the structure, without having to worry about the morals of it.

The building today is a genuine people’s palace, unlike in the days of Stalin where only members of the communist party could attend events, by invitation. It is rumoured that new year’s parties here went on for four days. Keeping that spirit of booziness alive, in 2012, I heard that Roman Abramovich hired a hall in the Palace for Euro 2012 and turned it into a strip club. Today it holds a cinema, four theatres, two museums, a bookshop, a swimming pool and a viewing platform on the 30th floor. You can also go on fascinating guided tours of the building, some taking you down to the basement to see the antiquated machinery and up to the viewing platform.

The history of Warsaw’s near-total destruction is covered in forensic detailed in the Warsaw Rising museum. By January 1945, 85% of Warsaw’s buildings were destroyed, with an estimated 40% of the city levelled by the Germans once the uprising was over, with the population gone aside from a thousand people hiding in the rubble. Germans went around the city with flamethrowers and explosives to gut every building they could, focusing on anything of historical value or national pride, with the aim of reducing Warsaw to nothing more than a military transit point. The biggest building in the old town is the Royal Palace, which Hitler wanted destroyed as early as 1939. During the war, the Nazis conducted aerial bombardments of the palace, removed precious artefacts, tore off the roofing to quicken the building’s demise and in 1944 they spent six days blowing it up. All that remained was two small fragments of wall. Today it stands as the focal point of the reconstructed city and is an attraction worth visiting to understand the history of the building, a fascinating microcosm of Poland’s ups and downs over hundreds of years. One room, the Knight’s Hall, was removed and transported to Russia in 1832 and returned to Poland in 1922. It survived the onslaught of 1939, was removed again by the Germans and only returned to the castle in 1984. This is just one of many original fragments of the Royal Palace that through chance, brave Polish workers spiriting away contents in secrecy and the evil efficiency of the Nazis, managed to survive. The Knight’s Hall is a true gem, with a glorious wooden floor, busts, opulent chandeliers and more.

The Knight’s Hal

Similarly, the Conference Room survived by workers managing to remove many features of the room in 1939, including a chimney piece, wall murals, portraits and even a floor made from thirteen types of wood. In our minds, perhaps a war seems very immediate, but history shows it to be something very different, where people don’t flee their cities but do their best to stall the senseless damage.

The reconstruction of pre-war Warsaw was partly down to the work of Canaletto, who was commissioned to paint twenty-two street scenes of Warsaw. These paintings, like much in the city, was first nabbed by the Russians, then by the Germans, and they somehow all survived the turmoil, now sitting in one place in the Royal Castle. We visited the Castle on a Sunday, when it is free to visitors.

The old town is so remarkable, it’s hard to take it all in. You see what looks like a fairly standard eastern European old town; buildings painted many beautiful shades of green, peach, yellow, crooked rooflines, enchanting views from all angles. But it’s all of 60 years old, if that. The reconstruction of the city is a glorious act of defiance that stands at odds with how Britain rebuilt after the war, in a festival of concrete and ring roads.

All of this…about 60 years old!

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews is a spectacular building, designed by Finnish architects and every bit as adventurous as that would suggest; the exterior is relatively square in shape making the interior’s grand curved entrance even more startling. The building opens up to represent a parting of the seas and is lit from above allowing shadows and shapes to dance over the sprayed-concrete interior. Shapes are everywhere, from the spiral staircases to the slanted doorways. The main exhibition space is below ground and traces the history of the Jews in Poland since the middle ages and it would be fair to say that squabbles and power play have been a constant between the Jews and the Polish, with both sides enacting petty rules against the other whenever it suits. As we travel through history and edge towards the Holocaust, the space feels more oppressive as you get closer to the second world war and the tone is more frantic as history takes one of its bleakest turns. It is important to note that the Holocaust is just one aspect of the museum and the story ends in the modern world, reminding us that Jewish history did not end in the 1940s.

Museum of the Polish Jews

A much smaller museum is the Museum of Life under Communism, which squeezes hundreds of artefacts, photos and tat into a few rooms that imitate a home in communist times. A cheesy record plays on an old record player, with the staff coming along to start it up again. Every room has information in English to tell you about the great time-saving abilities of the commie kitchen – stuff that Westerners will probably look at half in interest and half in amusement, but across the homes of many millions of people would be the same sort of products and the museum is a great time capsule. The house was stacked with Zenit cameras with old film stock, cleaning equipment called Prozek and Wedel Chocolate. Wedel is an interesting company; in the war, the company refused to collaborate with the Nazis and so they were persecuted, with their factory being destroyed in the uprising. Afterwards, the company made attempts to get back on its feet when the communists nationalised it. Since then, it’s been owned by a bunch of global names and now one of Poland’s best- known brands is owned by a Japanese-Korean conglomerate. A history lesson in a bite of chocolate.

A few minutes’ walk more and you’ll find the Neon museum, a celebration of liquefied air that when illuminated, makes everything look immediately cooler. Discovered by Brits, but finessed by the Polish, the neon museum has a heap of Warsaw’s old neon signs that adorned the buildings of the city during the Cold War. Some of the pieces include depictions of bikes zooming off, milkshakes, flowers bursting with colour and the symbol of Warsaw, a Mermaid. The museum also restores iconic neon in their original locations, and it looks like the museum’s work has made Warsaw reminisce for the illumination of old because the city crackles with the sound of neon on many shopfronts.

If the weather’s good, head to the University of Warsaw garden, a huge green space around the university and on top of it. The gardens are separated into two sections; the lower gardens with a pond, many spaces to sit and sculptures by Ryszard Stryjecki. The upper garden is even more impressive as it covers the roof of the university building, with four areas full of paths and differing plants and trees. The views of the riverside and the city centre are remarkable, with clusters of skyscrapers here and there and the familiar outline of the Palace of Culture and Industry dominating.

In the breaks between history and culture, a drink is always welcome and you can’t go wrong if you head to the bars of Pawilony, the cluster of little bars tucked away behind a gate at 22 Nowy Świat. Despite it not being announced by any signs, beyond the gate is pivo enough for everyone. The atmosphere is relaxed yet busy, the clientele a mix of young and older and choosing somewhere to go is really just a lucky dip. As we left the bars, a stag-do came along, singing their songs of fighting and so on. Actually, we had no idea what they were singing but the guttural chanting didn’t sound sweet in nature.

Hala Koszyki

For food, Warsaw packs so much on your plate that you’re going to need elasticated trousers for a few weeks afterwards but it’ll be worth it. A new food outlet is Hala Koszyki, a gorgeously renovated market hall transformed into a grand food hall with tiny bistros nuzzling up to food stands and restaurants. Finding a table was hard to do, so you might find that you eat wherever you can, rather than where you want. Spend some time here checking out the lighting which is an artwork in itself. Just looking around the market is entertainment enough. We had a great brunch at Sam, which sprung up in 2012 and has a deli, bakery, bar, and food through the day. They bring you many, many menus that offer you all sorts of food options, so you can even bring along your fussiest. I’ve noticed this in Poland; some menus will have little arrows telling you that chia seeds are “blah blah good for you” and the omega 3 is “blah blah whatever it does” and that the meat is from some special Polish place with the eggs being from blessed chickens. Menus are turning into little booklets on nutrition and I swear it worked its magic on me when I ordered Shakshuka, which is full of “blah blah all good eggy things”.

We had dinner at Stary Dom, inside an unprepossessing façade a tram ride outside town. The interior is high on rustic charms, with a wooden vaulted ceiling, lots of pictures of old people and generous sized tables with room for all the food and drink you’ll order. It’s genuinely nice to go to a restaurant and have space. It’s not all that fun doing Tetris with your pierogi. Our waiter had a good sense of humour and coerced us into downing shots of the strongest vodka known to man. Clever man. To balance out new Warsaw and old Warsaw, we visited a milk bar. For the uninitiated, a milk bar is a communist-era cheap cafeteria serving up dairy-based food, so expect mashed potato with everything. We visited Bar Sady, where the interior seems little changed from communist times and it’s all the better for it. The extensive menu offers Polish staples like soup, meat and veg with sides of cabbage. I had a mushroom soup with pasta in it, breaded chicken cutlet with potato and red cabbage. The entire meal with a soft drink cost under £5.

Warsaw has many great bakeries, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll stumble over one but here are my highlights. For pastry needs, there’s Vincent where I had an orange croissant. For beautifully structured cakes you can head to Lukullus or Odette but be warned that you’ll not want to eat it because it’s like a work of art. Then you’ll eat it and just buy more.

I went to Warsaw expecting something altogether more grim; after all, I was told it was an “interesting” city with rough edges. Seeing Warsaw in excellent spring weather was a genuine delight. The city might not appeal to those looking for something like Prague, but it has a real depth of character that gives the city a sparky personality. Resilience turned Warsaw from a charred wreck into what it is today, and that’s a thoroughly enjoyable destination I’ll want to visit again.

Many of the photos courtesy of my friend Rokos who has an eye for detail and a head full of 80s pop tunes.

My 2016 in photos

Two thousand and sixteen promised us lots of futuristic things, but when they arrived, I got fed up of them pretty quickly. It seemed to be a year of hoverboards that didn’t hover, people doing selfies and strange orange-skinned men banging on incessantly. Photography is something good to hold onto. Photography can’t tweet at 3am.

Invisible Dot, King’s Cross

The invisible Dot, now sadly closed, was a fantastic venue for comics to warm up for new shows or for new acts to get a food on the ladder. I saw Sheeps, Liam Williams, Kieran Hodgson, Joseph Murpurgo and many more there. No round up of my year would be complete without it.

Algiers

Algiers is a wonderful assault on the senses. Jasmine, herbs, spices, barbecued meat, diesel and industry all fight to capture your attention against the sounds of cars beeping and police blowing their whistles for a purpose barely fathomable. At once, you are in the Maghreb, the middle east in outlook if not geographically and with French signs everywhere, you feel like you’re in Europe. The other places we visited in Algeria were very different altogether.

Timimoun

The Sebkha Circuit outside Timimoun was one of the most exciting things I have done in my travels. Getting to Timimoun itself was an adventure – after flying on a Turboprop for four hours into the Algerian Sahara, you land in a tiny airport and wait while the police do various things with your passport. Then you need to have a police escort to take you the ten minute drive to your hotel. Going on the Sebhka Circuit requires a police escort as well, but soon you forget them and their guns and focus entirely on the stunning beauty of the ksar (old castle) and the underground dwellings where people would store dates and seek sanctuary from the blazing sun. Even in April, the difference in temperature underground was significant. We were able to walk around the abandoned caves, drive across dunes, see our driver rescue the police escort when their 4×4 was stuck in the sand and have sand blown in our faces for an hour thanks to a mini-sandstorm.

Ghardaïa

The magical town of Ghardaïa exists thanks to an oasis. In fact, it is one of fiive hilltop settlements that have their own oasis to draw from. Ghardaïa has a relatively new town but the real draw is the ancient town, which you can only access with the help of a professional guide. Photography is permitted, but you are not allowed to photograph the women, dressed in a white veil with only one eye peeping out. They swap the eye in use around so they don’t end up ruining their vision. We stayed at what we assume was our guide’s summer house, which looks like something fresh out of Tatooine. On our second day there we were invited to a wedding, where men danced around, occasionally stuffing antique guns with gunpowder and firing them at the floor. We drank mint tea and shuddered at every gunshot.

Røros

In May I visited my friend Dave in Norway, and we went to the delightful small town of Røros. It was founded in 1644 and for 333 years was a hotbed of mining shenanigans when it wasn’t burning down. The town and mine seemed to be on fire a lot. Working in the mines would have been exhausting work, and the sub-arctic temperatures could hardly improve the moods of the workers, so the brightly coloured buildings of the town make perfect sense. There is a wonderful cluster of the oldest wooden buildings near the old copper mine. The copper works museum is full of artefacts and a model reconstruction of the works, showing men and horses deep underground. As ever, Norway stole my heart with its good looks and charm.

Tate Modern

In the summer, just after Brexit, the will of the people opened up the Tate Modern extension. The building looks like a fortress and it suited the climate of the country. Luckily, inside it is a wonderland of modern art, with a new 360 degree view over London and those horrid flats on Bankside. A nation fed up of millionaires was able to glare directly into their sterile living rooms and gasp “it looks like a show home”. Tate Modern put up a tiny sign asking for resident’s privacy to be respected. It was in every respect, the art event of the year. Here, my friend Leanne is risking it all with an umbrella opened up inside!

Man. Mourning a bucket.

Here is a man looking sad by a bucket in the horrid flats on Bankside. The Switch House viewing platform is another highlight of the Tate Modern extension.

Berlin

One of the first photos I took when I landed in Berlin was this sneaky one of a man, wearing bleachers, drinking beer from a roadside kiosk, holding flowers. The relaxed atmosphere of Berlin is just one reason why I love it.

Ferry to Skye

In October, we took the ferry to Skye from Mallaig. After a stunning train journey it made sense to take a beautiful ferry ride. This girl proclaimed that her pose was “a Titanic reference!”. Meanwhile, Skye rose majestically in the distance.

The Old Man of Storr – Skye

Words, photos and memories do not do the Old Man of Storr justice. A steep walk up slippy paths in ever-apocalyptic weather got me thinking I should look more at my footing, but every second spent staring at the rock formations was a second well spent. An ancient landslide caused the startling rock formations, visible for miles around and the height of 11 double decker buses. Breathtaking.

The highlands to the islands

In October 2016, I had planned to go to Andalucia to bask in the sun, thrilled to still be a part of the EU. A few days prior to the vote, I reasoned that in case of emergency, a plan B (B for Brexit, B for Britain) should be made. So, the people revolted and Brexit means Brexit.

As the pound plunged, we swapped Andalucia for the Scottish highlands and it is the only good thing about the shambles thus far. We started in the superb city of Glasgow and travelled to the village of Staffin on Skye. The journey was a greatest hits package that any country would be proud of.

Scotland is a country that punches above its weight, or to give it the correct term, gives a Glasgow kiss above its weight. It is home to just over 5 million people, but the roll call of Scottish fame is intimidating. Sir Alexander Fleming invented penicillin, which is great even if I am allergic to it. Sport is represented by Andy Murray and the thighs of Chris Hoy. The otherworldly Tilda Swinton and the people’s James Bond come from there. There’s the inventiveness of the country, from adhesive postage stamps, Dolly the cloned sheep, TV to the flushing toilet. And breakfast would be poorer if a Scot hadn’t turned bitter Seville oranges into marmalade.

Another star is the Scottish landscape, when autumn is a painter’s palette come to life. The grey mountain tops are scattered with outcrops of greenery clinging on, contrasting with the russet of the deer grass. The landscape glows a deep gold with evergreen pines, glorious beech and oak adding to the view. Framing this, a big sky of blues, whites and greys. The end result is a landscape that can be described as romantic and cinematic. Scotland’s history seems deeply ingrained in the texture of the land and I fell wildly in love with it all.

Our holiday was a cobbled together affair of trains, planes and other people’s automobiles, where the journey from Glasgow to Fort William was by way of one of the greatest railway journeys in the world. That’s not just hyperbole; in 2011 readers of Wanderlust magazine voted it the best railway journey and The Telegraph rated it higher than the Oslo to Bergen line, which I have waxed lyrical about here.

The horseshoe curve

The journey to Fort William takes you along the shores of Loch Lomond, onto Tyndrum with its ‘horseshoe curve’, so-called because the train line has to take a meandering route around a glen in the shadow of three mountains. This is one example where budgetary restraints end up creating accidental beauty and the view from the left-hand side of the train was enchanting. The sun broke through the clouds, beams of light tumbled down the mountain like a torchlight showing us the way ahead. It lit up the small bridge we were gently curving towards, a brief moment of magic.

After some hours, we reached the moor of Rannoch, which the railway crosses for 23 lonely miles of bog, rivers and rocks. Here, the colours became predominantly rusty and a great sense of serenity washed over me as the landscape grew ever more barren. This moor provides ideal thinking time; with such immense emptiness all around you, becoming hypnotised by the sound of the rails and gentle movement is assured. The fact that the trains on the West Highland line are old and the rails are jointed, rather than welded, means you get the clackety-clack sounds. Is there anything more evocative in travel than that? The good news continues for those not fussed by old rails! The trains have a trolley of snacks if you’re in the market for Irn-Bru.

Rannoch Moor

Approaching Fort William, the landscape becomes less barren as Ben Nevis smashes into view. The UK’s biggest mountain is 1,344 metres, which may not be all that impressive in comparison to Mont Blanc’s 4,809 but it’s a beautiful piece of rock. From a distance, it looks like a giant is hiding his head behind his shoulder and arm. As the sun sets, the mountain is lit in a pink hue that makes it hard to look away from. The first part of the train journey is over, so we stayed a night in Fort William.

Ben Nevis – a big rock

We stayed at a hotel I won’t name, because there’s no need to advertise anyone with such an obvious dislike of customers, paying money and such horrible things. We were brusquely checked in, with a sense that we ought to apologise for our behaviour in advance, then we headed to our fabulously chintzy room. It may be the place that taste forgot, but the views of Loch Linnhe were nothing short of sensational. With a few hours of daylight still available, we headed out for a walk to Old Inverlochy castle, via the high street liberally sprinkled with drunk men and the picturesque park caught between two roundabouts and a Morrisons. Looking out onto the water, you are transported to the perfection of nature. Just don’t turn round. We hug the banks of the River Lochy and the town quickly disappears, with Ben Nevis making the occasional cameo through the breaks in the trees to our right. It is very pleasing. Soon, we come to a railway line, walk through the bridge and the castle appears, eerily empty and nestled amongst trees. The population of sheep eye us with vague interest, before continuing their baahing duties by the river. The castle is well worth a visit, the walk there alone is good enough reason to go.

Old Inverlochy Castle

The walk back to town was done at a clip as we had a reservation at Crannog seafood restaurant. As a fairly recent convert to the fishier end of the spectrum, it always feels like a major event going to a place that specialises in that which used to scare me. I had a special of scallops and pork belly, with potatoes and pureed carrots. Washed down with wine and a pudding called Crannog Tipsy Laird (it’s trifle with whisky) I left a very happy man. Such a wonderful evening needs only one thing to top it off, a visit to Wetherspoons. After all of this, we got back to our hotel room to find it was barely ten in the evening. As I succumbed to a mildly boozy slumber, I had a grin on my face from a day of great beauty.

Fort William

Tate Modern – Switch House

The ziggurat

On a visit to Tate Modern a few years ago, my mum reeled out the line that she could make the art on display in front of her. I recall it being some sort of dystopian metalwork thing. My response was what you’d expect from a loving son… “Well, you haven’t made it and you’re not a famous artist so…” which ended that conversation. Without a doubt, art galleries can be difficult places, where the art can seem distant, elitist even. But when they succeed, galleries can become meeting places for people, places to wander about and relax in a stimulating environment. And don’t get me started on the bookshop at Tate Modern.

Tate Modern has redefined the idea of what a modern art gallery can be, and with 5.2 million visitors in its first year, Tate Modern showed there was an intense appetite for a new space for art. Even in 2015, it remains a blockbuster of an attraction, the fifth most visited attraction of its kind in the UK, with 4.7 million visitors.

Tate Tanks

A blockbuster it may be, but when I first saw the designs for the Tate Modern extension, I had to suppress a scream, because on paper it just looked a mess hurled up with no thought to the surrounding environment. With time I have come to love the new bold statement. Starting with the outside, the ziggurat shape is not some fevered dream of the architects as much as it a realistic use of the space available; there are still turbines generating electricity within the old power station and over-priced, under-nice flats have sprung up around the Tate Modern, making the new structure seem like “like a defensive watchtower” in the words of Oliver Wainwright. Unusually, the new structure is built of brick, 336,000 of them, demoting glass to mere strips slashing the buildings surface, yet allowing the interior to feel bright and spacious, which is an impressive feat.

The bright interior is filled with exciting spaces

Heading into The Tanks, an underground cavern where oil used to be stored, there is a genuine sense of excitement at what has been accomplished. Being given the gift of grit and industry, the architects have finished the space off as rough-hewn as imaginable. Above one doorway is a set of concrete steps, leading nowhere. The walls are uneven and the concrete seems to have retained scars from its former use, dank stains are everywhere. The Tanks are said to be the world’s first permanent space for video installation and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Primitive is nine videos set in Thailand. The videos are not seemingly in order and all play over each other, creating an uneasy viewing experience made somewhat surreal by cushions strewn across the gallery floor. People lay down, some looking up at the ceiling, others switching position to see what’s happening on another screen. Couples are inter-twined and a sense of calm pervades.

Cushions and videos inside the Tanks

Robert Morris Untitled

There’s also a massive room filled with interactive art, my favourite being Robert Morris’ Untitled, a series of glass cubes that reflect the room around you, perfect for photography.

The grand staircase leading up to the new floors is reminiscent of Tate Britain’s new staircase. Where Britain’s staircase is a marble wonder with intricate art deco detailing, Modern’s staircase is of gorgeous twisting concrete. You are led up past one of the endless, excellent, shops to the new collections on levels 2-4 where you can appreciate just how much new space there is. I was surprised to see works that were so immersive; Ricardo Basbaum’s Capsules were little nap stations but one couple also took it upon themselves to start spooning, which is one interpretation of the artist’s intention. But also, they could just not.

Capsules

Staircase of dreams

What is particularly impressive about the new levels is that the rooms are so vast and open as well as lit from above, so any future re-hangs can take place with maximum flexibility. Coming across a pile of bricks on the floor, I was struck by my mum’s argument that she could have made the art. Carl Andre’s work, not called A pile of bricks, but Equivalent VIII was controversial when the gutter press got involved, but here it is displayed again, looking like a pile of bricks. Is it art? I guess if someone in art calls it art, it is art.

Chicken Feet

On Level 3, we encounter a load of Chicken Feet by Meschac Gaba, which I must have loved because I took a photo of the artist’s details as well as the picture of the feet. Perhaps I just enjoyed the colour. But if my tone suggests I am losing interest in the art, it’s just down to fatigue. I always get gallery fatigue about 90 minutes into my excursions. With that in mind, it’s straight up to Level 10 for the 360-degree viewing platform. A great new addition to every Londoner’s favourite past-time of looking out over the city, the viewing platform offers outstanding views of St Paul’s, the existing Tate Modern tower and excitingly, right into the glossy flats opposite. I spot a man looking dolefully at a bucket in the sharp corner of his living room. He has become art, and is paying a fortune for it. Luckily for the rest of us, visiting the Tate is free and the new extension is a great new addition to London’s cultural life.

Man and Bucket

View from the top

Chelsea Physic Garden

I’ll never tire of what small treasures London can throw up. As Samuel Johnson said “when you get through all the museums and galleries, it’ll be time to start over again”.

And so to the Chelsea Physic Garden, a 3.5 acre patch of beautifully floral, dazzlingly colourful and enchantingly peaceful London. It’s been around since 1673 and is advertised as London’s secret garden, which suggests to me that London is rather overwhelmed with gardens if this is a secret.

Rockery – flowery

While it costs £10.50 to get in, comparing unfavourably to Kew at £15, the garden is a private charity and offers free guides and tours. the theme for this year is captivating scents and the garden is filled with flowers that smell heavenly, from the Sweet Peas and their summery scent, essential oils from Australia like tea tree bringing back memories of teenage acne. There’s an amphitheatre of perfumed plants with information boards telling you that your expensive aftershave is often based on scents like black pepper, lavender, coriander and cardamom.

As you move around, you can enjoy the garden simply as a stroll that rewards your vision and sense of smell. But there’s so much information here that part of the pleasure is to learn about what plants do for us. There are plants that help fight cancer, parkinson’s disease as well as plants used for childbirth. You can find out how humans have been harnessing the power of plants for thousands of years, but before you get too close, look out for signs warning you of poisonous plants!

One of them is ricin, naturally-occurring in the seeds of the Castor plant. A fatal dose of ricin can be the size of a few grains of salt. There’s the possibility that in the future, cancer will be treated by ricin, but only if the ricin doesn’t go rogue and instead of killing the cancer cells, starts to devour the healthy cells. This is not a plant to mess with!

Near a major road – all this peace!

On the site is a restaurant and gift shop; the restaurant was heaving with people paying princely sums for food that looked outstanding but to my mind, this is where the reality of Chelsea creeps back in. A lunch costing £20 and upwards is not on my to-do list. Instead, we walked to the Royal Court’s restaurant on Sloane Square where I had a marvellous burger and salad.

Royal Court burger. Very, very good.

You can find the garden here: http://chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/

March for Europe

If I had followed through on my plan to write a “Brexit diary” chronicling the tragedy that has befallen the UK and civilisation, I would have become pretty exhausted pretty fast. In meteorological terms, a year’s worth of news fell in a week and the showers continue over a fortnight later. We are sodden. The diary would probably look a little like this:

Thursday 23rd June: I hope this weather doesn’t put people off! Nigel Farage is roaring away on the telly about remain voters being “soft” because he’s such a hard boy – he even went to fee-paying schools, so hard, so in touch with everyone. I bet Gordon brown will be the one to save us yet again. Oh, Gibraltar! Oh, Sunderland, you’ve crossed me. I will never visit you. I never was going to anyway.

Friday 24th June: ….. Ohmygodwhatjusthappened?

Queen’s Birthday flags meet the EU flags

And since that exceptional unspooling of everything that has made Britain the country people thought it was; reliable, a safe pair of hands, good in a disaster, that’s all gone out the window. In its place, we’ve seemingly become a shrieking shack of racist bile, of protectionism, of people quite openly saying their lives were shit, so economic meltdown wouldn’t exactly affect them, of a country almost too neatly split along lines of being comfortably off and those unhappy with their lot.

Brett is the result of a surgeon telling the patient to do all that ails him, before the sober realisation that in the end, something’s going to go wrong. As the surgeon’s scalpel cuts into the patient, it turns out the tumour isn’t nearly as small as imagined. The tumour has spread everywhere. The surgeon, not liking the result of his goading, runs and leaves the split-open patient to a whole bunch of devious surgeons who not liking anything approaching hard work, also run away.

There’s something bad on the table, the tumour is a mess and a sticking plaster isn’t going to fix anything. That’s Brexit. And looking around, the patient realises it has to heal itself, cos nobody else is coming to the rescue.

Parliament Square

Unexpectly, I am sanguine about Brexit. Obviously, it is a gross act of self-sabotage, bought on by a Prime Minister too obsessed with power for his own good. In fact, Prime Minister’s are famous for going mad at some point in their career. It’s around the sixth year of power. Blair took us to war for his sixth year madness. On madness, Cameron said “I’m not saying all prime ministers necessarily definitely go mad or even go mad at the same rate.” Brexit is Cameron’s madness in full throttle; his entire plan was to rescue the economy, and his last roll of the dice led to the most damaging shock to the economy in my life. How much wiped off the world stock market in the first few days after Brexit? That’s £2,000,000,000,000.

Dogs like the EU

There are positives, and they shine out like a diamond in a cow pat. There was the peaceful, almost-joyous March for Europe which I went to on the 2nd July, along with up to 50,000 other people. The rally seemed deadly quiet at the Hyde Park Hilton, but as we slowly weaved our way towards Parliament square, you could sense momentum building up as well as the genuine feeling that we could add something to the national debate. I am not naive enough to think we’d get to Parliament and the vote would be overturned, but the march was offering positive, peaceful protesting that was something akin to a mass counselling session after the shocking bereavement of the Brexit vote. Perhaps like me, people were getting out and stating their feelings for the first time ever, or at least since the Iraq war. It is the easiest thing to tweet a picture of a protest you are not at, but to get out and march is something different altogether.

It is an act of positivity in a country that has felt like an ugly place to be. Odd then that London positively glistened as we marched towards Parliament, knowing people were launching racist attacks on other because the national mood seemed to give this despicable behaviour a hall pass.

The gorgeous St Jame’s Palace

Being able to traverse London’s roads in a convoy of people gave me a chance to see at close quarters how beautiful the city is. London will always be a wonderful place to walk around and here we were, the 48%, the metropolitan elite, walking down Piccadilly, St Jame’s Street and onto Pall Mall. It makes sense to guide people down the less populated routes of central London on a Saturday, but if people in the country felt ignored and left out, this route is only going to bring back the point that the country is in them-and-us mode.

Central Methodist Hall

But I mentioned positives, and there are more. Austerity is now being talked down as something a bit daft, after Osborne unleashed his budget-apocalypse, we don’t have to worry about Boris Johnson or stabber Gove as Prime Minister’s, there may well be attempts to engage the vast swathes of the populace who feel forgotten and, oh, Nigel Farage might not be on the telly with his scabby populism. We’ll deal with Andrea Leadsom in time – the UK might have voted for self-destruction, but we certainly didn’t vote for her type.

And above all else, London remains a tolerant, beautiful city full of joy. It might be a bubble, but it’s one I am happy not to pop.

Green Park nap time

London is beautiful even in the apocalypse

What have you done today, to make me feel Pride?

Thursday 23rd June: Britain goes to the polls to stay or leave the EU. The pollsters, never the most reliable, give a comforting lead to Remain.

Friday 24th June: Oh my god.

Morning of Saturday 25th June: If there’s one place where positivity will trump hate, it has to be London Pride. A gathering of up to a million people, in an atmosphere of acceptance, celebration and a chance to forget that Britain had lost its collective mind and had become some fascist backwater. Alighting at Charing Cross, we exited onto Trafalgar Square, trying to find my friends outside the Trafalgar Studios. Easier said than done, what with the whole “up to a million people…” thing rendering movement next to impossible. Trying to use the crossing points was like trying to punch a fly in the face, so we zig-zagged back and forth in a torrent of humanity until a lovely policeman suggested a route that didn’t make me want to flee back home on the train. I hate massive crowds and this was getting perilously close to crowdageddon.

Remarkably, popping down Great Scotland Yard saw the crowds thin out into single file and a Stoli of Patsy’s from Ab Fab. What would a collective of Patsy’s be? The Ab Fab film promotion is genius because it doesn’t feel like advertising, seeing as its popularity amongst the LGBT+ community exceeds Nigel Farage’s popularity amongst unsavoury people. Watching a man spin around a martini glass on top of an Ab Fab-themed truck was a sight to behold.

United with my friends, the parade just kept going and the positivity in the air was a truly beautiful thing to behold. It was a dose of cheer to brighten up a sometimes rainy day with the addition of a Red Arrows flypast to make us all feel a bit special. It’s a strange sort of time, in a post-Orlando, post-Jo Cox, post-Brexit world where it can be all to easy to think the baddies have won and will continue to win, but that doesn’t have to be the case. There is a majority in this country that want people to be theirselves and enjoy their lives, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

It is the job of everyone to just look a little harder for the good stuff. To that end, I found Pride a superb time of unity and reflection, and an event I will want to return to again, after a long period of absence.

11 reasons to visit Trondheim

It took eleven visits, but I have finally cracked why I love Scandinavia; by now I have written about it so much that a definitive reason was bound to percolate through. There is a sense of peace that comes with a trip to the region which positively affects my mood. In the UK, life is fast-paced and even if we want to slow down, we often get caught up in the speed without realising. In Norway, when it’s you, nature, some local food (and probably some great wifi), your pace and mindset dial down.

My May 2016 trip to Norway was my fourth to the region in a year. In May 2015, I visited Skåne and Copenhagen, August 2015 was Oslo, Flam and Bergen and October 2015 was Stockholm. This trip was my third to Trondheim, where my friend Dave from Life in Norway lives and I feel duty-bound to give you eleven happy reasons why you should visit Trondheim.

Reason 1: Getting a direct flight to Trondheim is hassle free from London Gatwick; for under £90 you can get a return on one of Norwegian’s shiny new planes with intermittent wi-fi on board. Booking ahead will help keep the cost low, so save spontaneous trips for elsewhere!

Reason 2: Coffee and cinnamon buns. I love Dromedar cafe with good latte’s and good buns coming in about around £7.50 together. This is a small chain with the best location being on Nedre Bakklandet, right by the Old Town bridge, Gamle Bybro, which dates back to 1861 in its current form.

Gamle Bybro

Reason 3: The Nidaros Cathedral. It’s one of those places that seems to be super important but without anyone ever having heard of it. But it’s the most northernmost medieval cathedral in the world, the most important cathedral in the country and parts of the Cathedral have been modelled on Lincoln cathedral. We took the tour of the Cathedral and found it informative without actually focusing on the religious stuff. Phew. The most eye-opening fact was that sections of the Cathedral were used as stables for hundreds of years – but to find out why you’d need to visit.

Reason 4: The cafe at the contemporary art gallery. Trondhjems Kunstforening is a modern art gallery I haven’t managed to visit but I have ordered the chicken salad three times. Every time, the salad has been a highlight of my food year. It is enormous and bursting with fresh flavours, this is the salad of the kings. The garden is a lovely spot for eating and people watching.

Reason 5: Trondheim Microbrewery. Aha! Just my sort of place. The website might not have an English translation, but beer is a universal language. The IPA stands out in particular and my tireless experimenting of their beers has given me the knowledge to say this is a good place to hang out. You are welcome. It’s relaxed, people are drinking for pleasure rather than as a sort of bloodsport (at these prices, etc…) and the music isn’t ramped up to the point where you might as well forget ever talking to your friends again.

Reason 6: Solsiden. Fifteen years ago, an industrial part of Trondheim was transformed into Solsiden, a shopping, nightlife and restaurant location. The landscaping is gorgeous, ideal for sitting outside for a spot of people-watching. We chose Bare Blåbær for this task and, of course, there are many restaurants to throw your money at. Which leads me to number 7, in another part of town…

Reason 7: A reasonably priced Chinese restaurant in Trondheim! Shanghai Restaurant, on the banks of the river at 21 Kjøpmannsgata, offers large, tasty meals for about £13 with beers around the £6.50 mark. I ordered the pepper beef which came with a ton of rice. Even when my fellow diners were nibbling at my meal, we couldn’t finish it.

Reason 8: Rockheim! One thing I really like about Norway is that each city feels important in some way. Trondheim doesn’t feel like some provincial city and giving it the national museum of Norwegian pop and rock music sets that tone. Rockheim is as about as fun an afternoon as you can have for £10. It is all about interactivity here and if you ever come across my song – mostly me saying “Lindaaaa” like Jill does in Nighty Night over some confusing drums, feel free to draw up the record contract. It turns out I am not a talented guitarist, but I can dress boys up to look real pretty if given access to a dressing up box.

The building is fantastic, the exhibits are much more interesting than you would expect and the views from the top floor are superb. Rockheim is how all museums should be!

Reason 9: Trondheim’s ‘alternative district’. Ok, it’s small but it’s cute and as you’ll walk past it if you go to Reason 10, there’s nothing to lose. As Dave writes here, the bar called Ramp is where hipsters can go and be tattooed and beardy, free from the daily oppression they never face. Actually, I wonder if a hipster in Trondheim would wear one yellow and one pink Converse like one I recently saw in Tesco metro in Walthamstow? Around the area is a brilliant installation made of…bits of old plastic I suppose.

More information on the district is here.

Reason 10: Ladestien, the trail leading past the Lade peninsula is a great walk that starts with the fantastic megasized megaphone that the University of Science and Technology gave to the city to play with. I had hoped it would blast out Lana Del Ray across the city, but that didn’t work. If it looks like a megaphone, you’d assume it is a megaphone. But still, it’s fun to run about on it.

The walk leads on to the usual Norwegian trio of big sky/water/trees, leading me back to my happy place. Along the way was a piano high above the path that is terribly out of tune. Who would take a piano, carry it about fifty feet up a hill? A cool Norwegian, that’s who. Legend has it that the piano has moved to another location in the city, so be on the lookout! Carry on along the water and you’ll reach a beach area where Ben, my friend on the trip with me, dived into the water immediately, like a true Norwegian. I am British so I ate my sandwich on a picnic table. It rained, then it stopped, then it rained again.

Reason 11: No trip to Norway is complete without a hike in the hills, with the big skies that make you feel smaller but equally remind you that you’re part of nature. When I lived in Devon, I started to develop a love for the open air, with Dartmoor’s piercing cold, windswept afternoons. None of it mattered because Dartmoor is Dartmoor. Now I live in London, the first spot of rain sees me scurrying into a cafe for fear of a head cold. Our walk around Bymarka was blissful. It’s a city forest with hundreds of kilometers of marked trails and once you get beyond the initial throng of people, you can find yourself alone, picking berries and in time, without a thought in your head. From the city centre, we took bus no. 10 right to the forest and walked a route marked as 5km, but with our meanderings, selfies and diversions, it was more like 8km. We walked to the tram stop at Lian where we took the tram back into town.

170,000 people call Trondheim home, and I bet every one of them is content to be there. It’s a real charmer of a town, in a country I adore going to. But there’s so much more to Norway for me to see, as Dave loves to point out. There’s Tromsø, there’s the Lofoten islands and maybe even Svalbard. Until next time!

The Bergen Line Railway will change your life!

There are some things that should be on every travellers bucket list and the Bergen Line railway is one that feels pretty mandatory. It really is a wonder of technology and a showcase of Norway’s beauty. I was lucky enough to take this train journey as me and a friend went to see why our friend had upped sticks to Norway. It became apparent pretty soon why he moved there. His website, on life as an expat in Norway is here.

On our first night in Oslo, we found ourselves invited to a party in a great old pub in the centre that fulfilled all my Scandinavian dreams of dark wooden beams, old tables and weird bar staff who claim only girls drink cider. Granted, the only cider on offer was the reliably girly Kopparberg, nothing like the manly scrumpy I drink in England. The Norwegians we met told us about the journey to Bergen and agreed it was average for the first few hours before becoming beautiful.

The journey is around seven hours and so I decided to sleep for the first 2 hours; when I woke I noticed the landscape had already changed dramatically to one of lakes and big hills…not quite mountains. Even this landscape was undeniably impressive!

The early stages of the train journey

A while later, as the landscape became ever more dramatic, the time came when words such as “epic” and “awesome” became default to describe the views from the windows, but equally they felt insufficient to the task of getting across just how… epic and awesome the landscape looked.

As the landscape changed, we became more and more excited, jumping from one seat to the next. This is where we found paying for the Comfort Class came in handy; it’s like First Class but still remarkably cheap for Norway. Nobody was in our way as we hopped from seat to seat and basically acted like we’d never been on a train before. For a one-way trip on the Oslo-Bergen railway, you’ll be looking at about £40. This may be the best deal in Europe.

One of the most arresting sights on the journey was a valley filled with mist. At the moment the mist was most apparent, the view cleared up and we could admire it in full.

Misty

We were able to track the temperature and the height above sea level on the train and over time, we noticed we were gaining altitude without ever being aware of it; the temperature outside was hovering close to zero and at every stop, we rushed out to take photos and just breath in the air that was bracing and sweetly scented. As we reached 600-800m above sea level we started to see the beginnings of snow in the distance and so we recommenced being as excited as puppies.

Lake Silencio

Little did we know as we spoke of how this was the most beautiful thing ever that in fact, we were seeing the pre-amble to ascending Europe’s highest mountain plateau where the beauty was cranked up to 11. Here, the mountains were dusted with snow, the lakes were half-frozen and it was hard work getting back on the train, such was the desire to just explore the area, move into a wooden hut with a grass roof and marry a woman called Helga.

Sigh

After we reached the peak, 1,222 metres above sea level at Finse, we could feel ourselves heading downwards, and the snow started to dissipate. It was a really surreal train journey, going from 10c in Oslo, to -3 in Finse, to 8c in Bergen, seeing the weather change so dramatically.The station at Myrdal, 880m above sea level, is the stop for the Flåm railway which is another trip I will have to do. It is Europe’s steepest railway line and looks every bit as spectacular as the Bergen line.

Myrdal Station

This journey is wonderful for anyone who is in Oslo and who fancies a day out that will live with you for years to come. For us three, the trip was just for the railway, we weren’t expecting Bergen to be as charming as it was. For a town that rains 220 days a year, it was utterly delightful and rain free!

More photos here! http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbutler/sets/72157627868138499/

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