A Long Weekend In Poland - Part 1

Day 1 – Krakow

Over the last 15 years or so, we have holidayed in Poland on a number of occasions, especially in the south of the country with the fine city of Krakow and the mountain resort of Zakopane being firm favourites.

Cloth Hall in the centre of the main square

The Town Hall Tower ....

.... with its display of traditional costumes ....

.... has views from the top across to Wawel Hill ....

.... the Church of St Mary, with its asymmetrical towers,
where the truncated bugle call sounds every hour .... 

.... and out over the shops and cafes

In the course of those visits, made both summer and winter in all kinds of weather, we’d explored city streets and mountain trails, made new friends and seen old friends get engaged, tried new food and drink, learned a little of the language and culture, and generally fallen in love with the place.

Looks like Ray Harryhausen has left some old props
from the Jason and the Argonauts movie

Our early experiences were tinged with a kind of post-Soviet mystique. Like many children of our age group, growing up in the 1960s and 1970s the Cold War loomed large, and little was done to dispel the film noir image we had of the Eastern Bloc. Anywhere beyond the Iron Curtain was seen as a permanently frozen place of crumbling tenement blocks where life was grim and lived in black and white, security secrets were traded over shots of vodka, sinister secret police loitered at roadblocks and there was a spy on every corner.

Nowadays, that stereotype seems long-gone, and presumably much exaggerated. Modern Poland is emerging as a vibrant and confident nation. It’s only a couple of hour’s flight time from East Midlands Airport to Krakow, and connections to the city and beyond are good. It’s also culturally, linguistically and gastronomically different enough to feel sufficiently “foreign” as a destination, but not so exotic that it removes you too far from your comfort zone.

So what better place to take our niece and nephew for their first trip abroad?

After a lunch of assorted pierogi ....

.... we checked in at the hotel ....

.... situated beneath the massive walls of the Royal Castle on Wawel Hill ....

.... where Krakow cathedral stands ....

.

.... and whose archaeological remains show this highly defensible position 

overlooking the river has been inhabited since ancient times

We’d picked them up at a time they considered to be “a very late night” and we thought of as “a very early morning”. Either way, the 6.30am flight time meant setting off in the middle of the night. But all went smoothly and according to plan, and by mid-morning Poland time we were alighting the shuttle train in Krakow city centre.

We diced with death in the Dragon's lair ....

.... Sam shook hands with Sherlock ....

.... Tom drew water from a working standpipe ....

.... and we bumped into Pope John Paul II ....

.... in the grounds of the Paulite Church

Our first port of call was the Rynek Główny – the huge main square, located in the Old Quarter of town, where we stopped for a drink and to get out bearings. As usual, the square was busy, but we had a good look around and climbed the Town Hall Tower for wide-ranging views before making our way to the Mały Rynek where the annual pierogi festival was in full swing, which provided an ideal lunch opportunity.

We took a stroll round the Jewish Quarter, relaxing for a while
with diplomat and resistence fighter Jan Karski ....

.... before stopping at the Alchemia bar ....

.... where base metals (well, water, barley, hops & yeast actually)
are turned into gold!

Suitably replete, we went to check in at our hotel. Once settled and rested, we set out again – this time for a walk around Wawel Hill, by the River Vistula and through to the Jewish Quarter, before heading back to the main square for dinner – Bigos (the spicy stew of sauerkraut, sausage and meat) for me, meat-filled dumplings for Missy G, and pasta for Sam and Tom.  

By night, the main square is busy with people taking a stroll ....

.... or feeling like royalty in a horse-drawn carriage ....

.... or just having a drink or a meal ....

.

.... and enjoying live music, like Andy Grabowski's
cello-and-live-loops performances

As we took a last stroll before returning to the hotel, the evening’s entertainment was completed courtesy of the abundant buskers and street entertainers.

A Capital Idea - Part 1

Capital Ring

Day 1 - Wimbledon Common to Richmond

7.00 miles

Isn’t it funny how it’s often the little things in life that give you the most pleasure?

You know, those little happenings or events that are pretty minor in their own right but that take on a bigger-than-expected meaning in your life?

Choose one path, and life trundles on much as before. Choose another, and you experience something new that brings unexpected reward – a parallel universe where life is much as it always was, but slightly richer.

The start of our Capital Ring walk, entering Wimbledon Common

This time last year, we had only the vaguest notion of a walk circumnavigating the capital, but a get-together with friends last summer in Bushy Park had introduced us to the London LOOP, a project we went on to complete in stages over the winter months of 2015/6 and enjoyed very much.

Details of this circular walk were to be found on the Transport for London (TfL) website, and it was while planning our attempt on the LOOP that we came across details of a second circumambulation of the conurbation – the Capital Ring.

With Nick & Celia

Because of its circular trajectory around the outer fringes of London, the LOOP is considered by some to be the M25 of walking routes. If so, then the Capital Ring equates to the North and South Circular, describing a smaller circle closer to the city centre – around 80 miles compared to the LOOP’s 150+.

However, the raison d’etre for its existence is much the same, connecting green spaces and interesting places as it goes.

Queensmere Lake

So once again we found ourselves with an early morning tootle on the train, crossing the city by tube and rail to Wimbledon to meet up with our friends Nick and Celia, who had kindly agreed to walk the first couple of miles with us.

A short bus journey later, we alighted close to where the Capital Ring enters Wimbledon Common and took our first steps along the route amidst the finest of mizzle.

How wide do you want the bole?

Now readers of a certain age will probably be thinking “Wimbledon Common, eh?” And indeed we did see hundreds of short, fat, furry creatures in funny outfits shuffling around in the undergrowth.

But enough about the competitors in the Wimbledon Common Half Marathon, we wanted to see Wombles.

Mind you, if the Wombles were about and wanting to make good use of the “things that the everyday folks leave behind” they’d need a lot of ideas for things to do with empty plastic water bottles.

In Richmond Park, near Spankers Hill Wood

After a lovely couple of miles ambling across Wimbledon Common, it was time to say goodbye to Nick and Celia. They went off to catch the bus while we continued along the Capital Ring, entering Richmond Park via the Robin Hood Gate.

We climbed a gentle incline past the indelicately-named Spankers Hill Wood, and stopped for lunch on a bench overlooking the open grasslands. Richmond Park covers 2,500 acres, is a national nature reserve and SSSI, and is one of the largest urban parks in Europe. Plenty of room, then, for the herds of deer we were watching to roam freely across the Serengeti-like plains.

Deer in Richmaond Park

Moving on, we followed the track between the two lakes of Pen Ponds. Away to our right stood White Lodge, now the home of the Royal Ballet School.

Looking back to Pen Ponds

Coincidences and connections intrigue me. The initial reason for our visit this weekend was to see an evening performance of Swan Lake by the Bolshoi Ballet at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Swan Lake and Pen Ponds, the ballet school and the best-known ballet company in the world – symmetries thrown up by a random choice of activities on one particular weekend.

Old oak tree

Passing an old, hollow oak, we crossed Queen’s Road by Pembroke Lodge, one-time home of former Prime Minister Lord John Russell and of his grandson, philosopher, logician, writer and historian Bertrand Russell.

Pembroke Lodge stands on a ridge overlooking the Thames valley, and you can see the logic behind the location of this historic house. The views from here are splendid, and we could see Twickenham stadium, Ham House and the river.

Descending into the Thames valley

Nearby Henry’s Mound (a burial mound so named because Henry VIII is said to have waited here for news of the execution of Anne Boleyn and the freedom to marry Jane Seymour) offers one of London’s protected views – a view which no tall buildings are allowed to obstruct – which stretches to St. Paul’s Cathedral 12 miles away.

Cattle grazing in Petersham Meadows (after John Constable)

After a steep descent, we crossed the road and entered Petersham Meadows, where a tarmac path led us on to the Thames towpath (part of the Thames Path National route – now there’s an idea!). Needless to say, on a warm, summer’s weekend in the school holidays, it was busy with families and tourists strolling and picnicking beside the river.

Beside the river

Richmond marks the end of this section of the Capital Ring. Having arrived in good time, we decided on an impromptu river cruise along the Thames – something neither of us had done before – around Eel Pie Island (a famous venue for jazz and blues music, where acts such as The Who, Genesis, Hawkwind and The Rolling Stones performed back in the 1960s) and back.

Richmond Bridge

A performance of a different sort beckoned in the evening. Covent Garden was busy and buzzing as we shoved our way through crowds and past street entertainers en route to the Royal Opera House.

Street entertainers, Covent Garden

Although not our usual choice of gig, we were familiar with much of Tchaikovsky’s music and the traditional choreography. Like with much “live” entertainment, you get a far more visceral sense of the performance seeing it on stage, and in this case the effort put in by the orchestra and the physicality of the dancers really impressed.

Inside the Royal Opera House, waiting for the curtain to rise

The journey home was a late affair, and it was no surprise we were sleepy after a long day. A good day it was, though, and we look forward to more of the Capital Ring over the winter of 2016/7.

"We All Came Out To Montreux ...

... On the Lake Geneva shoreline”

So begins the song Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple, a song from their 1972 album Machine Head that tells the accident-prone story of their recording sessions there and which was inevitably running through our heads this weekend as we did, indeed, head “out to Montreux” to see Corsican folk/rock band I Muvrini.

Our first view of the lake Geneva shoreline

Lake Geneva is one of the largest lakes in western Europe, and is surrounded by mountains on most sides: the Jura to the west, the Chablais Alps to the south, and the Bernese Oberland to the east, with snow still draped across the higher slopes.

Distant snowy mountains

Montreux lies on the north east shore where the lake is more alpine in character. It’s certainly beautiful, and never more so than on a sunny spring morning such as the one we encountered on arrival, and the whole impression gained was much more “Riviera” than “mountain resort”.

Spring blossom

Magnolia

“To make records with a mobile”

Well, not to “make records” exactly, but music was certainly the focus for this short, sharp trip.

The origins of this weekend go back a decade or more, when we first came across the music of I Muvrini on a visit to Corsica in the early 2000s. Since then, we have harboured the thought that we might one day like to see them play live, but opportunities to do so proved few and far between as they rarely play outside of francophone countries. So, while the thought never quite disappeared, with the passage of time it had gradually worked its way to the back of our minds.

One of many sculptures beside the lake

Until August last year, that is, when Missy G spotted they were playing in Montreux on a Saturday night. Soon after, I received a phone call.

“What are you doing on the night of 19^th March next year?” she said.

“Why?”, I asked.

“Well, I’m going to see I Muvrini in Montreux”.

"Can I come, too?"

OK, so Switzerland is not exactly on our doorstep. It’s a long way to go for a gig! But we had wanted to do something like this for a good few years, and I’m a firm believer that “whatever will be will be”. We were free, could get modestly-priced flights at convenient times and knew it was an easy transfer directly from Geneva airport. All of a sudden the stars came into alignment: this was our opportunity, and we should take it.

Looking back along the lake

Of course, taking just a weekend over the trip meant “we didn’t have much time”, but that which remained allowed us to explore the town and lake-side. Prompt transport and gloriously spring-like conditions meant we had the majority of Saturday and Sunday morning in which to do so.

We opted to follow the shoreline path towards the next town, Villeneuve. Walking beside the lake on a gorgeous spring day was a delight. There was a good sprinkling of waterfowl dotting the surface – Coot, Great Crested Grebe, Goosander, Tufted Duck and Red-crested Pochard, to name but a few – and we ambled along enjoying the relative quiet of the morning.

Chateau de Chillon #1

Chatueu de Chillon #2

Along the way we passed the Chateau de Chillon, an imposing castle on the lake shore, and passed the local fire service out on manoeuvers. Perhaps “some stupid with a flare gun” had been making mischief?

Before long the outskirts of Villeneuve came into sight. Amazingly, this route forms part of the Via Francigena, a 1,100-mile pilgrimage route between Canterbury and Rome. We keep happening across these ancient routes: perhaps it’s some kind of omen?

Route 70: the Via Francigena runs from Canterbury to Rome

Anyway, it was precisely the sort of day that an idyllic lunch would consist of delicious pizza from a wood-fired oven and a glass of chilled white wine. So that’s exactly what we had, and very good it was too. Then we retraced our steps along the shore back to Montreux in time to prepare for the evening’s concert. 

Igor Stravinsky / Firebird

The arts, and music in particular, has played a significant part in Montreux’s recent heritage, the peace and beauty providing inspiration and the chance of creativity since the early part of the 20^th Century. Igor Stravinsky lived here for a time, there is an internationally-acclaimed jazz festival held each year, and Queen recorded their seventh album Jazz here in 1978.

Statue of Freddie Mercury

I Muvrini’s brand of Corsican-influenced folk rock might not be to everyone’s taste, but the 2,800-strong audience lapped up every minute of the almost 3-hour performance. The band perform in both the Corsican and French languages, and there is a strong political dimension to the songs. The music employs the unique paghjella polyphonic vocal style which has become synonymous with the Corsican sense of national identity.

I Muvrini

During the evening such subjects as the Paris bombing, Corsican independence and the Environment were touched upon, and the new album Invicta covers the subject of “music for non-violence”. Here is a link to one of their songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPZkYcuUO7Q

I speak little French and no Corsican, but such music – emotionally-charged and beautifully played and sung – easily transcends the language barrier, and the impact of the songs and the message within them was not lost on me - or the rest of the crowd. It was a fabulous night, and we left on a high.

“Swiss time was running out”

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny. After an early breakfast, we were out and about again, looking to make the most of our morning.

Sunday morning lakeshore

Marina at Clarens

First off, we headed along the lake shore in the other direction as far as Clarens, then decided to climb up into the hills behind the town. 

Looking out over Montreux

Following our noses, we ascended through the suburbs and through a couple of villages whose names I forget as we reached the edge of the woods and an enticing number of footpath signs. I do remember we turned round shortly before reaching Glion – our time was running out, and we had a train to catch.

Near Glion

Good walking tantalisingly close

  “I know we’ll never forget”

It was, of course, a memorable weekend. Not only because of the band and the walking we managed to fit in, but for the lovely scenery and ease of access. In fact, we were really surprised how easy it was, how much time we had to play with, and how much walking there was to be done. 

45 minutes from the centre of Montreux and the walking options open up

If you ever wanted a quick weekend getaway, then Montreux makes for an excellent choice. There is much to explore, especially along the lake shore and in the mountains behind the town. It's easy to get to, there is loads of choice when it comes to hotels and food, and the whole trip probably came in at no more than a weekend in London with dinner and a show or an away game in the Champions' League.

We certainly won't forget our time there, and who knows: one day, we may be back!