The travels of Tim and Megan: January 2008

Sunday, January 20, 2008

From Cottage to Castle

Craven Cottage

Tickets to Fulham v Arsenal at Craven Cottage in West London were sold out weeks ago. Megan was pretty upset that we wouldn't be able to support Arsenal in an away match in London, so Tim had been trying to find tickets being re-sold on the internet but without any luck. So when Colin said that his mates (who don't particularly care for the Gunners) had season tickets to Craven Cottage and were willing to sell him their tickets to the match, Tim jumped at the chance. Megan was very surprised!

On Saturday morning we set off for Putney (one of our favourite old stomping grounds) and stopped in at Gourmet Burger Kitchen for lunch before the game - excellent burgers!!! Then we wandered across Putney Bridge and in to the Larrik pub for a pre-match beer and to get our tickets for the game from Colin's mates (the Larrik is their local). We hadn't realised that it was the official "away team" pub, so it was packed with rowdy Gooners drinking and chanting. We liked it.

After struggling to understand the weird gates and numbering systems in the stands at Craven Cottage, we eventually found our seats and watched a really good game. Arsenal played well and won comfortably, 3-0. The away section of the crowd (where we were not sitting) was brilliant, easily making more noise than the home fans. Despite the 3pm kick-off, it's like the old day-night cricket matches. The lights come on at half-time because it's dark by 4pm.

It was a nice little ground to watch football at, with the historic cottage in the corner of the ground...it's a shame that Fulham (owned by Muhammed al-Fayed) are relegation-bound and we probably won't be back there. After the match we made our way back to Islington and had a few celebratory beers at The Famous Cock.

Windsor Castle

On Sunday we decided we would venture out of London and visit Windsor Castle. For Tim this was quite exciting, as it was the first time in the 9 months since we arrived that he has been anywhere in the UK outside of London! We got a train from London Paddington to Windsor via Slough, which was entertaining in itself. For those of you who are fans of the BBC comedy "The Office", you will understand that visiting Slough was a special moment. Slough was chosen especially as the setting for "The Office" as it is typical of small town England - sterile, grey, unexciting and miserable...the Gore of the UK. Sadly we just changed trains at Slough and we didn't explore the town.

Strangely, Windsor (which is a beautiful, vibrant little village) is just a few minutes on the train from Slough - stark contrast! There are a few old cobbled streets lined with pubs, shops and plenty of restaurants, all surrounding the enormous Windsor Castle (the floor area of the castle is 45,000 square metres!!!).

After lunch, we headed up to the castle and started our tour. As we lined up for tickets we were surprised by the big banner on the wall that read: "Windsor Castle: Home of the Sovereign for over 900 years". Tim had no idea she was that old!

But some form of castle has stood on that spot for over 900 years. It began as a fortress to protect the monarchs from invading forces, but was gradually transformed into a palace. It has been added to and improved many times over the years, most recently following the fire in 1992. Apparently the Queen spends most of her weekends there, but she was not there on Sunday.

The tour begins in the castle grounds, where you can examine the 4-metre thick walls surrounding the castle, with thin slots in them where the archers would stand and fire arrows outwards at invading forces. On the inside of that wall, there is a large moat (which interestingly has never been filled with water) and is now home to a beautiful rose garden with a water feature in the middle.

Sadly, St. George's Chapel was closed to the public on Sunday, so we didn't see inside that. Once inside the castle itself, the first stop was Queen Mary's Dolls House. Almost everything in the huge dolls house (designed in 1924) was commissioned on a scale of 12 to 1. The detail is phenomenal - with household items right down to linen and cutlery at the dining table included. The tiny plates on the dining table are made of solid silver!!! More impressive though, is that the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems in the house are made to work, including running water and elevators that operate!

Next stop was a drawing room containing original sketches by Leonardo da Vinci amongst other famous artists, followed by an exhibition on Royal Weddings, from Queen Victoria's wedding (to her first cousin Prince Albert - interesting) to the current Queen's wedding to Prince Philip.

The State Rooms were amazing. Much like when we toured Buckingham Palace, we were blown away with the extravagance and wealth everywhere. Every one of these rooms contains some form of enormous paintings, exotic furniture, porcelain or china, carvings, statues/busts of monarchs or war heroes etc. In a few of these rooms there were huge paintings on the ceilings, as well as all over the walls! Obviously we were not allowed to take any photos, but we have cheated and added a couple of pictures below that we found on google.

The fire in 1992 raged for 15 hours and destroyed 9 of the state rooms and damaged over 100 more rooms. The restoration took 5 years and cost over £37 million, mainly funded by a decision to open to the public for the first time the state rooms of Buckingham Palace. In a "convenient" turn of events, many of the irreplaceable paintings and furniture in the state rooms survived as they had been removed before the fire for maintenance and renovation...

Our favourite room inside the castle was St George's Hall, a long narrow hall where state banquets are held (see picture below). On the walls and ceiling of the Hall are hundreds of crests or coats of arms (one for every knight going back hundreds of years). Some of the crests have been painted over with white paint to signify knights that have committed crimes and been stripped of their titles. Our very Sir Edmund Hillary made it on to the Honours Board (although we couldn't find his crest), along side the likes of Prince Charles, Prince Andrew and Sir John Major.

After our castle tour, we wandered the pretty streets of the village and stopped in at The Royal Oak pub for a drink before heading back to London. We will definitely be back in Windsor - we still have to check out Eton College and Legoland!!!

Craven Cottage

Tim in the home
fans area -
Arsenal shirt
under jacket...

Arsenal
dominat-
ing

Beautiful
Slough

Windsor Castle

The driveway

Tim by the
gates

Megan in the
castle grounds

The Crimson
Drawing Room

St George's
Hall

More
castle

The 'quad'
in the middle of
the castle

Monday, January 14, 2008

North London derby and Clink Prison

Fans

We braved the cold weather mid-week to go to our very first North London derby - Arsenal v Tottenham at the Emirates. It was the first leg of the semi-finals of the Carling Cup. Despite the fierce rivalry / hatred that exists between the teams, it was still a surprise for us to see hundreds of police escorting the Tottenham fans into the ground (with trucks full of police dogs on stand by).

Sadly the young Arsenal side that took the field did not play well and should probably have lost by 2 or 3 goals. However, we hung in there and Theo Walcott scored a late goal that salvaged a 1-1 draw for the Gunners. There were plenty of chants coming from the Tottenham fans, their favourite seemed to be "Just like the library" after they took the lead and the Emirates went quiet. The Gooners responded after Theo's goal with "You'll never beat the Arsenal" - reminding them that Tottenham last beat Arsenal in November 1999 - 21 games ago...

We had a reasonably busy weekend in London. On Friday night Megan and I checked out some more of Upper Street, which was still quite busy despite the rain! Friday night drinks and dinner on Upper Street is becoming a bit of a habit!

On Saturday, it was game day for Arsenal, so Holloway Road was packed almost all day. All of the fried chicken and kebab shops (and there are plenty) would have done a roaring trade!!! We didn't go to the game this time, and it sounds like it was just as well, as Arsenal had a disappointing draw with Birmingham.

We headed into the city on Saturday night to meet up with some ex-Russell McVeaghers (and some current Russell McVeaghers too - Marcus and Toni were visiting London in the weekend) for drinks at Covent Garden. From Covent Garden we made our way to Piccadilly Circus to meet up with Simon and Anthea. They had managed to secure a table in a cosy little pub, where we spent the rest of the night drinking and listening to tales. Simon always has a crazy story or three!!!

Sunday was a much quieter day, although Megan was quite active, making it to the gym again and also wandering around the Upper Street shops. In the afternoon we visited the Clink Prison museum. Sadly we have no photos for the blog, as the camera battery died just as we were about to take our first snap at the museum.

The Clink Prison museum is built on the site of the original Clink Prison, which was constructed in the 12th century and lasted until its destruction in 1780. The prison was known as "The Clink" from the 15th century onwards and was owned by successive Bishops of Winchester. Our museum tour was very informative. We saw some particularly gruesome torture devices and read about the revolting conditions that the prisoners lived in. The prison was built on the south bank of the Thames so, unsurprisingly, it often flooded. The cells would often fill up with a foot or two of water and sewage, not to mention the rats!

After the Clink, we wandered along the South Bank, which is one of our favourite London spots, and had a drink in The Anchor pub before grabbing some dinner at our favourite little Greek restaurant.

Emirates
Stadium

Theo celebrates
his equaliser

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Switzerland - Bern and Geneva

Bern

Friday saw us on the very fast 8am train from Zurich to the beautiful medieval city of Bern. Bern is the capital city of Switzerland, founded in 1191 by Berchtold V. It was named after the unfortunate bear ("barn" in local dialect) that was Berchtold's first hunting victim. The bear remains the mascot of the city today - there are statues and pictures of bears all over the city - and there are actually some real bears too!

Upon arrival, Tim got a fine hot dog down him and then we wandered the pretty streets, stopping to photograph the impressive clock tower (very similar to the Astronomical Clock in Prague) and the many statues lining the streets, including the rather odd statue of an ogre eating children!!!

We were told it was only -2 degrees in Bern, but it felt just as cold as Prague, so we still had to employ the "duck inside every 4th shop" tactic. We were very disappointed to discover that the Albert Einstein museum was closed for the festive season. It looked really interesting in our travel guide! Lunch was really tasty - pizza and pasta in an Italian restaurant - just a shame that it was excessively smokey in there!

We were in the capital for one night only, a bit unfortunate for Tim as he was struck down in his prime with a vicious dose of Man Flu, relegating him to bed for most of the afternoon. Megan soldiered on and took in (another) church, some chocolate shops and, after a bit of a struggle, a restaurant that would serve a meal for one.

Geneva

After a much slower start on Saturday, we caught the last of our extremely fast and efficient trains from Bern to Geneva. It was slightly warmer and very sunny in Geneva - a welcome change from the dull, grey skies that had followed us elsewhere on our travels.

After checking in to our "4 star" hotel (we would have given 1 star, if that), we wandered the streets and crossed the bridge to the happening side of town. Our first stop was the famous Jet d'Eau, a massive water fountain that sits out in Lake Geneva and shoots water 200m up in the air. It is quite impressive, but it appears that Geneva is so proud of its water fountain that it has become THE feature of the city. We were stumped as to what used to be on all of the postcards before this was created!

We were a little disappointed with Geneva. It was a lot dirtier and seedier (strip clubs everywhere) than the rest of Switzerland and there were far too many people everywhere! We suppose it didn't help that we happened to be in town the same time as the Young Christians' world conference!!!

We roamed the shops and enjoyed a hot chocolate before heading out to dinner at a big Swiss pub. Megan tried the local delights of Swiss Fondue, while Tim stuck with safety first and got a cheeseburger and fries.

On Sunday, we popped out and found some breakfast at a little bakery and then set off on the trams in search of the Red Cross Museum. On our way there, we stumbled across not only the World Headquarters of the United Nations, but also the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO). Megan was a little kid at Christmas... Nestled between these buildings was an enormous sculpture of a chair, which was getting plenty of attention from the tourists.

The Red Cross Museum was again a little disappointing. It was interesting enough, but poorly laid out which made it difficult to follow and it was very dark, making it hard to even read the exhibits! After our morning adventures, we had wanted to explore some more shops, but it turned out that almost everything in Geneva was closed - who knew?!

So after a big walk we decided to brave the outdoor ice skating rink. Being the only thing open in the city, it was packed, making it even more dangerous. Tim now not only had to try to stand up and move, but also avoid crushing several thousand small children...After 20 minutes, we would have put Torvill and Dean to shame - naturals! OK, so we exaggerate, but we weren't too bad.

It was slim pickings for restaurants that night, but our last dinner in Switzerland was at a little Chinese restaurant and it was very nice. Then it was back to the hotel to pack our things and off early Monday morning to London to bring in the New Year.

Hunter and
Bear statue

Clock Tower
in Bern

Statue of ogre
eating children

City street
in Bern

Clock Tower
again

River around
Bern

Swiss
Parliament
buildings

Bern

Jet d'Eau
Geneva

Megan by
the shops

Geneva

Megan by
WIPO building

United Nations
head-
quarters

Very large chair
sculpture

Megan
ice skating

Switzerland - Zurich

Zurich

We awoke on Thursday to find that Zurich had been dusted with snow overnight, which made the city even prettier but also meant grey skies and very chilly temperatures. By this stage, we were getting adept at the on-and-off-with-layers dance so the cold wasn’t too much of a problem for us.

Since we only had one full day in Zurich we awoke extra early to fit in as much as possible. As it turns out, not much opens in Zurich before 10am! However, once 10am chimed we were able to visit two lovely churches, first the Grossmunster (big church) where we were able to climb up one of the towers via a rickety and worryingly narrow staircase. It was worth the effort, as the views from the top were spectacular, as you can see below. Then we were off to the Fraumunster (girl church) for some excellent stained glass window action (no photos allowed).

After paying homage to these two famous sights of Zurich, we enjoyed a hot chocolate and a snack at the Gran Cafe - very nice, fully recommended. We were then free to wander the cobbled lanes and the wide expanses of the high street. We were impressed by how clean the city is (actually spotless) and what a rich and sophisticated life its inhabitants seem to have – it was a bit of a paradise really. The city was, as you might expect, littered with places to buy watches and army knives. Tim purchased a Wenger Swiss army knife which is sure to come in handy... There were also many souvenir shops selling traditional Swiss cuckoo clocks - very fun but not sure it would look so good in our lounge!

To round off the morning, we walked up a little hill just across the river and got another good view of the city centre and down to the south where Lake Zurich begins. After some lunch we visited the National Museum. This was rather disappointing, as very few exhibits were labelled in English (despite claims that everything was in English) and the exhibits themselves were pretty dull and poorly laid out. Perhaps we have been spoiled by London's fine museums?!

After the museum, a little more exploring and a ride on the tram, we went to a beer hall for dinner. This was quite an experience; it was absolutely packed and there were people lining up outside (in the snow) to get in!!! Megan got to try what we were told was some of the finest sausage in Switzerland. For our entertainment, the big screens were showing a replay of the 2006 Champions League final, we made sure we left while Arsenal was still leading... Then we made our way around a few bars to round off the night.