Category: Travel

Berlin, 26 to 30 October 2007, placeholder and links

Berlin had been on our list for some time and we hadn’t taken one of these short city breaks for a while, so a late October slot ahead of the pre-Christmas madness seemed like an excellent idea. It was.

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This was another job for “Auntie Janet” of Ultimate Travel fame. All done by e-mail – how wonderfully modern.

Further to our telephone conversations today, I confirm that Kirker Holidays could arrange a four night holiday to Berlin for you staying at the Brandenburger Hof Hotel in a de luxe room for four nights on a bed and buffet breakfast basis.  They can also book the following British Airways flights for you:

26 October      BA 982          Depart Heathrow: 08.55          Arrive Berlin: 11.40
30 October      BA 985          Depart Berlin: 16.25            Arrive Heathrow: 17.20

You will also be met at the airport and taken to the hotel and transferred from the hotel to the airport on 30th October.

Sounded good to me.  Further correspondence booked a restaurant table and a chance to see a concert.  Me to Janet:

Please confirm booking for hotel’s amazing restaurant 26 October as originally requested and please also book the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra concert for evening 27 October.

…but we’d left it too late for the Rattle/Berlin Phil. Me again:

Shame about the Rattle concert.  Can you please instead book us for the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin concert at 16:00 on the Sunday, 28th October.  Hopefully there’ll be good tickets remaining for that concert.

There were; it was wonderful to see them play at home. I’ll write up the concert when I get around to fleshing out my notes etc. from this short trip.

Interestingly, these phone calls and e-mail exchanges with Auntie Janet started about five weeks before dad’s demise (so indeed before we knew that anything was badly wrong with him) and concluded just a couple of weeks after he died. I don’t recall how I felt about this at the time, but Janie and I must have decided that we’d need the break by then and I’m sure that decision was the right one.

Here is the hand-written journal, with only some fairly duff scanning possible from that particular notebook, so good luck to you if you try to read this: Berlin October 2007 Journal Notes. There’ll be a few good yarns once I write these up.

Here is a link to photos on Flickr; some interesting, some wacky, some neither, some both.

 

Cuba and Jamaica, Placeholder and Links, 17 February to 9 March 2007

Janie and I took this great trip to the Caribbean in early 2007.

We used Abercrombie and Kent as the agent for this one – at that time it was hard to find an agency well geared up to do Cuba in an interesting way – A&K’s ideas were top notch – click here to see our itinerary.

I kept loads of notes and shall write up the events from those notes in the fullness of time. For now, here are links to the notes for those who can deal with exotic cyphers:

Lots of great photos split into five Flickr albums – click on the image for each album to view the pics:

01 18 February - Daisy relaxes in our Hotel Santa Isabella Suite P2180001B

01 21 February 2007 Pigs at a tobacco farmer's house, Pinar del Rio province. Guess the bacon here is smoked P2210067A

001 24 FebruaryCentral Square, Cienfuegos. Jose Marti (who else) statue P2240101A

001 27th February 2007 Bayamo scenes P2270005D

01 5 March 2007 Some sunset P3050001E

 

Lunch At La Guarida, Havana, 1 March 2007

Janie was very keen to try the famous paladar, La Guarida, in Havana and had been much frustrated by our inability to get in, even for lunch, while we were in Havana in mid February.

So, before leaving Havana to tour other parts of Cuba, we booked ahead; a lunch at La Guarida for our action packed last day in Cuba before flying off to Jamaica that evening. Not the way we would have chosen to do it, perhaps, but as it turned out a very memorable and successful day.

Does Daisy look eager to go in or what?
Is that a happy face chowing down or what?

But when I say memorable, what I mean is that we both remember the event so well. The name, La Guarida, for some reason keeps evading us both whenever we try to remember the name. I can remember that it was in the film Fresa Y Chocolat – you’d have thought it was easier to remember the name of the restaurant…

…anyway, this is what I wrote about the first half of that day – the Havana/La Guarida half:

Despite the late night we both rise early so we take a pretty ordinary breakfast and then (after a short aborted attempt to get money and water) we head towards Old Town, buying water and changing money on the way.

We have a quick look at the Cathedral and then the Museum of Colonial Art. We try to see the Wilfred Lam Museum but it is closed for refurbishment, so we visit the Taller Experimental instead & see etching turned into print and buy the pressing from it (from Pedro Redonet).

Back to hotel for tepid, feeble shower (water problems) & then “checkout” & get cab to La Guarida paladar for the last and best meal of our holiday in Cuba.

Ged started with marinated fish in a subtle herb dressing with avocado & tomato. Daisy started with tuna in sweet pepper with a creamy, tomatoey sauce.

Mains of grouper (Daisy) and swordfish with seafood sauce (Ged). Dessert of Fresa Y Chocolat ice cream (naturally as that film was filmed here).

Lingered over coffee and looked around the tenement-like building before strolling back to hotel.

Tiny place, tiny kitchen back then:

Talk about a galley kitchen
Starters…yum.
Would you like the tenement roof view or the tenement roof view, sir?
Busman’s holiday for Daisy, this tenement, if she sticks around

If you want to see more pictures and or look up other parts of this holiday, there is a placeholder and links page – click here or below:

Cuba and Jamaica, Placeholder and Links, 17 February to 9 March 2007

Journey To Ethiopia & Zanzibar, Placeholder & Links, 16 February To 9 March 2006

We went to Ethiopia and Zanzibar in early 2006, using Ultimate Travel as our agents. Here is a link to our itinerary in glorious technicolour and detail.

I kept a detailed journal and shall Ogblog the whole adventure in some detail in the fullness of time. But for now, the itinerary above and photo album links below will have to suffice.

The photos are well labelled in those albums, so should serve as a pretty useful travel log in their own right.

Below are the links to all of the labelled photos, divided into half-a-dozen conveniently sized albums.

First up, Addis To Jinka:

01 Addis Ababa's Merkato Market is famous for its spices P2170002

The second set, below: The South Omo Valley. Possibly the most eye-catching photos, especially if you like tribal photography.

04 ...the breasts are most likely unaltered P2190042

Third up: Axum To Lalibela – below:

01 Kiddist Selasie (Holy Trinity) Cathedral 35M1_Photo33_2

Fourth: Lalibela to Gonder

001 After breakfast we mount our mules for the morning outing, aided by our mule teers and a worried-looking Dawit 140M4_Photo32_XA

Fifth up: Bahir Dar to Addis

01 We fly to Bahir Dar and our boat comes to our hotel to meet us P2270006

Last but not least – Zanzibar – below:

01 We start our Stonetown tour in the market P3040134

If you are crazy enough to want to wade through my hand-written journals before I transcribe/translate/write up from them, here they are in three batches:

Plenty more to follow.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala, Placeholder & Links, 7 to 27 April 2002

Janie and I took a wonderful (but at times gruelling) trip to Nepal, Tibet & Kerala in April 2002.

This placeholder and links piece provides links to the full itinerary and photographs from that trip. I kept a good journal and have now uploaded blog pieces for individual days. If you want to start on those from the very beginning, start here or below:

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Days One & Two: Getting There, 7 & 8 April 2002

Here is a link to the itinerary.

There are three photograph albums (i.e. the photos that made it with labels and comprise a pictorial travelogue in their own right) covering the whole trip, the first being Nepal and Lhasa, the second being the remainder of the Tibet trip and the brief return to Nepal, the third being Kerala:

08 Courtyards inside the Potala Palace, Lhasa G1_16
128 ...followed by Daal at the Thamel House restaurant D7_2
001 17 April 2002 Coconut water on road from Trivandrum to Cochin with our driver, Sharji D7_7

In addition to those labelled albums, there are the raw negative uploads available to view if you just cannot get enough of such pictures. There is an “album” of those that went through Daisy’s canera and an “album” of those that went through Ged’s. We have been known to take pictures with each other’s camera.

First Daisy:

TK_D1_ (28)

Then Ged’s:

TK_G4_ (17)

Some of the raw ones might be sideways and in the wrong sequence unless or until I do some more work ordering them, but they should at least be complete sets by the time you get to them, dear reader.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Twenty-One: From Kovalam To Home Via Red Tape & Doha, 27 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Rise early – 5:30, early breakfast 6 o’clock, depart 6:45.

Say goodbye to Lerhic and Sharji, to embark on one of the most bureaucratic check-ins we’ve ever had – business class or no!

Final straw – after being told to go through security before going to the Business Lounge, we were told that we should not have gone through security before the Business Lounge and were stuck.

First world probelm this, i do not need to be told, thank you.

Mr Anonymous-Officious really got my goat by pretending he would help and then obfuscating obstructing.

As I made increasing loud and threatening complaint, charming Kochi (Qatar’s answer to Mr Sharma) saved the day, so we spent 30 blissful minutes in the best Business Lounge this side of Bangalore.

That’s all I wrote, folks, so the rest of the journey home must have passed incident free.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Twenty: Marari Beach To Surya Samudra In Kovalam, 26 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Head off for Surya Samudra quite early so rise at six, take early breakfast, saying our goodbyes and paying bills.

Lerhic accompanies us to Kovalum along with Sharji driving (perhaps the namedrop of Purves earlier on the trip triggered this). We chat about Kerala tourism and hotels along the way and the four hours pass quickly.

I also clearly remember discovering that Lerhic and I had a “difficult client” in common; difficulties for Z/Yen were ancient history by 2002 (mid 1990s) whereas Lerhic had just suffered at the hands of this larger-than-life notable woman.

Surya Samudra is beautiful and Lerhic– Mr Fixit – has organised the Octagon for us – the Professor’s former digs and Bertolucci’s favourite room.

Importantly, The Octagon is right by the pool, enabling us quickly to change, lounge, take a club sandwich and chips, read, take shade, lounge, take sun, swim, take sun, read and finally stroll the grounds and dodge the local touts.

Rest, wash and prepare for dinner. We take prawns in creme de la mere (no lobsters today), plus grilled king fish, plus chapatis, carrots, spinach with coconut, coconut rice and lemon rice plus afters is banana and chocolate ice cream.

Meet lovely lady (Hilary) while dining and chat to her while waiting for monsoon like storm to pass before retiring early.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Days Fifteen To Nineteen: Five Full Days At Marari Beach, 21 to 25 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

We took a lovely pool villa at the Marari Beach Resort; we had a walled garden and our own small pool, which was glorious luxury.

We learnt from starstruck staff that Paul McCartney and Heather Mills had spent their honeymoon there a few weeks before our stay.

The Marari Beach Resort also had/has a superb Ayurvedic Centre where we could enjoy therapies galore.

Below is my journal for those few days and a sample of the photos. My entreaties that we were busy and having nightmarish days are very tongue in cheek. It was several days of sheer bliss.

21 April 2002

Busy day at Marari Beach resort.

Up early, played tennis, watched cricket highlights, ate breakfast, lounged around, checked out Ayervedic Centre with afternoon massage – also checked out shop.

Lounged around some more (poor weather now) slept, read, rested.

Had a lovely dinner of jumbo prawns thermidor washed down with a bottle of wine.

22 April 2002

Another busy day. Rose a little later today – Janie checked out the yoga class…

Krishnakurup the master, Anthony and Janie the apprentices

– short game of tennis afterwards – then breakfast – then lounging.

Cashews for lunch – I have Ayervedic massage again – more lounging – meditation class – rest – and then supper of butter chicken masala with butter nan bread washed down with beer.

23 April 2002

Another hectic day. Wake a little later and it is too hot for tennis. We sunbathe instead, take breakfast (I tried bacon and beans but realise that I prefer the Indian stuff– dosas, sambal, coconut chutney, puris etc plus fresh fruit and yoghurt).

Anthony (he was in the yoga class) shows us the organic garden and sewage plant (yes really).

Cashew snack lunch followed by Indian foot massage by [Krishnakurup] the yoga master (who is also the meditation master, foot massage master, formerly a maths master and was a headmaster)! Amazing treatment.

Then we take the late day sun and relax followed by cookery exhibition (fish curry and gourd and coconut).

Rest, then dinner of prawns mouli with coconut milk (aka “Prawn Shmuli”) with lime rice and some of that snake gourd stuff washed down with wine.

24 April 2002

Frantic day here at Marari Beach Resort.

Up early for tennis – fail to get cricket broadcast but learn that India won a nailbiter.

Take early morning sun – then breakfast.

Then early massage as Benny (my masseur) has afternoon off.

Then lounge – then snack toasty at beach grill – then lounge – then choose our crustations – then lounge – then try to stroll beach but the sand is much too hot – then lounge until dark – then rest…

…then go to beach grill and eat our lobsters, jumbo prawns and tiger prawns with wine.

25 April 2002

Nightmare of a day!

Play tennis a little later than Daisy would choose – took a little sun before breakfast, more sun, massage at noon, reading in the shade, cashew nuts, more reading (Daisy is rushing to finish The Age Of Kali so that she can give it to Sandeep.

Sandeep was the charming young man who looked after us at the Ayervedic Centre. We had several intertesting chats about ife, the universe and everything.

We take sun, we swim, we take sun, we read – nightmare.

As the sun fades we shower, pack, drop off the age of Kali, say goodbye to Sandeep and have a final stroll along the beach – lovely.

Finish packing and rest before supper – go to beach grill to share a seafood platter (squid, local fish, small prawns, tiger prawns, jumbo prawns) plus the smallest snapper they had which was gluttonously large and delicious grilled, with garlic butter, lemon butter and shrimp cocktail sauce. And wine.

Said goodbye to waiter Joice and returned early.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Fourteen: Cochin To Alleppey To Marari Beach, 20 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

Late start despite strike warnings yesterday (Lerhic has a cunning plan).

Two cars (one private) pick us up at 10.00 to ensure we can get through any pickets. Get to Alleppey incident free for rice boat on time – amazing boat trip – Alleppey round trip – including super seer fish, daal, cabbage and coconut and green beans lunch.

After lunch stop at Saint Mary’s church Champa Cullum – good look at the snake boat which allegedly wins prizes. Super day out!

At end of day drive circa 30 minutes to Marari Beach resort…

…where we are deposited in our pool villa. Got our bearings. We end of the day at the beach Grill with a seafood platter (tiger prawns, jumbo prawns, small prawns, local fish and squid) and the shellfish platter (the same, minus the local fish and squid but with extra big prawns and rock lobster). Beer to wash it down.

Nepal, Tibet & Kerala Day Thirteen: At Large In Cochin, 19 April 2002

There is a placeholder with links to the itinerary and all the photos from this trip – click here or below:

After breakfast (same except for hot pineapple jam) go into New City (Ernakulam) shopping. Success with shalwar kameez and sandals and skeeter beaters, but not so with cutlery and crockery.

Into Fort Cochin & Jewtown to one or two Emporia. Brought bronze man and silver pillbox for Daisy. Looked at and booked Brunton Boat Yard for dinner.

Returned lunchtime with purchases.

Snacked on beer and cashews – then relaxed on our balcony in the afternoon until the rains came.

Later had Keralan massage (not quite Ayervedic). Two onto one – Daisy in our room, me in the therapy room. Amazing.

One thing I particularly remember about the massage was how incredibly knowledgeable my masseurs were about cricket. When they found out I liked cricket they wanted to discuss England cricket with me, but seemed to know more about it than I did.

Watched sunset again and took took took to Brunton boat yard for a good meal with the first wine of the holiday – £50 price tag high for these parts. Prawns in coconut milk soup (both) plus spicy grilled mullet plus prawns Tandoori style (Daisy).

Returned on foot, dodging savage dogs watched a little more test match [West Indies v India] and slept.