The French Riviera in Pictures - Pt 1 Cannes and Antibes
The French Riviera is one of those places where a picture can paint a thousand words and I’m starting with the area around Cannes and Antibes. All these photographs were taken in 2005.
Author Archives: Easymalc
Victorian Birmingham
Victorian Birmingham
Richard Trevithick was one of the first to prove that steam engines could be adapted to haul heavy goods when he ran a steam locomotive with 10 tons of iron and 70 men between Merthyr Tydfil and Abercynon in 1804, but that was just the beginning.
Apart from a greater capacity to transport goods around, railways were also quicker and more reliable than canal barges, and if that wasn’t enough, on 27th September 1825, George Stephenson introduced steam transport to the general public by using his Locomotion No 1 to carry 450 people between Stockton and Darlington in the North-East of England.
Following the success of the Stockton to Darlington railway, Stephenson was then appointed to design and build a line between Liverpool and Manchester which would enable Lancashire’s cotton mills to be connected to the Port of Liverpool, but despite celebrating the world’s first inter-city railway line when it opened on 15th September 1830, the journey on the day wasn’t quite incident-free.
Birmingham’s Canals
Birmingham's Canals
Canals weren’t a new phenomenon of course. They had been in existence since ancient times, often for irrigation purposes, but also to connect major river courses. In Britain, the first canal was built by the Romans to connect Lincoln with the River Trent to facilitate access to York, but the 11-mile long Fossdyke was constructed over flat and marshy land, and quite different from the landscape which engineers were faced with during the Industrial Revolution.
Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter
Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter
Iceland’s Golden Circle – Pt 3 The End of the Tour and the Reykjanes Peninsula
Iceland's Golden Circle - Pt 3 The End of the Tour and the Reykjanes Peninsula
Originally posted 2024-02-09 15:54:01.
Iceland’s Golden Circle – Pt 2 Gulfoss and Geysirs
Iceland's Golden Circle - Pt 2 Gulfoss and Geysirs
This fault line is responsible for the large number of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that frequently occur in Iceland, but we’re now on our way to an area that will show us in graphic detail how these seismic events affect the landscape in other ways and why the power station is located where it is.
Part of the journey from Thingvellir meant driving along a gravel road (which has since been tarmacked) to the Gulfoss Waterfall (D on map). There is no shortage of waterfalls in Iceland but this one is special. Apparently, the River Hvita (when it’s not iced up) plunges downhill at an average rate of 5,000 cubic feet per second. I forgot to bring my cubic measuring stick with me to see if it’s true or not, but let’s just say it’s one extraordinary spectacle, and it’s not hard to believe that during the 20th century there was talk of harnessing its power for hydroelectricity. Fortunately it didn’t materialize and is now one of Iceland’s main tourist attractions.
Originally posted 2024-01-06 11:43:16.
Iceland’s Golden Circle – Pt 1
Iceland's Golden Circle - Pt 1
If I was to do this trip today I think I would hire a car, but back in 2006 it made more sense to use an experienced tour company for this 150 mile round trip. The map below shows the officially recognised route of the Golden Circle, but our journey started with a slight variation. For some reason Google wouldn’t let me chart the exact route that we took out of Reykjavik from the Hotel Centrum (stop A and I on the map), and instead of taking the main 1 and 36 roads towards Thingvellir, we headed along the minor 435 road to Nesjavallavirkjun.
Originally posted 2023-12-19 08:15:46.
First Impressions of Iceland
First Impressions of Iceland
I won’t bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say I had documentation to prove that I had booked the hotel, not just for one night, but for the best part of a week. Fortunately, there was somebody there who used his initiative and arranged for a taxi to take us to a sister hotel, and being June, it was still light by the time we clambered into bed.
The staff at our surrogate hotel were very helpful, but when I woke up I wanted to get back to the Hotel Centrum to find out why we weren’t allocated the room I had paid for. It was more expensive for a start, but it was quickly sorted out – almost too quickly if you get my drift. Last night, celebrations were taking place all over the city for Independence Day (17th June), and forgive me for being suspicious, but when we arrived back at the Centrum we were treated like royalty with profuse apologies, a better room than we had originally paid for and a free 3 course dinner thrown in, which in Iceland isn’t cheap. Whatever my thoughts were, it was more important to get on with our holiday as quickly as possible, and we were soon off out of the door exploring Iceland’s capital.
Originally posted 2023-11-29 10:46:49.
An Introduction to the Stockholm Archipelago
An Introduction to the Stockholm Archipelago
Some of the islands are large, and some are tiny, but Stockholmers love them all – and that’s because they love the great outdoors. Every summer, many of them head out to these islands where they can live in harmony with nature before winter starts to close in again.
Originally posted 2022-05-14 15:58:20.
Drottningholm
Drottningholm
Fortunately, us bloggers have our hobby to take us away to a happier place – even if only for a short while, and although it might seem frivolous to be talking about a Swedish royal palace at a time like this, I hope you can see that it’s my way of escaping from a world that one man doesn’t care if it even exists or not.
Originally posted 2022-03-08 11:08:32.
The Vasa Museum
The Vasa Museum
This maritime museum, located on the island of Djurgarden in Stockholm, was built specifically to house the Vasa, a 17th century Swedish warship, but it also has four other ships moored up in the harbour outside. The exterior design of the building uses symbolic masts that represent the actual height of the Vasa when she was fully rigged.
The easiest way of describing the Vasa is by saying that she’s like Sweden’s equivalent of the Mary Rose in Portsmouth. If you’ve seen the Mary Rose, you’ll know how impressive it is, but if I tell you that the Vasa is even more impressive, then you’ll have some idea of what this museum is all about.
Originally posted 2021-12-20 16:21:49.
Stockholm’s Gamla Stan
Stockholm's Gamla Stan
Stockholm’s historic core is Gamla Stan (Old Town) and is centred on the island of Stadsholmen. The adjacent smaller islands of Helgeandsholmen, Riddarholmen and Stromsborg are also included, but for most people, Stadsholmen is Gamla Stan.
Today, Stockholm is home to around 1.6 million people which is roughly 22% of Sweden’s total population, but with water everywhere you look, it doesn’t feel like most other major cities.
Originally posted 2021-11-18 14:54:29.
Tryvannshogda and Holmenkollen
Tryvannshogda and Holmenkollen
I’m not sure why us Brits keep banging on about the weather all the time, because living in a temperate weather zone means that we don’t get extreme conditions like other parts of the world.
I’m not saying that we don’t get our fair share of rain, but extreme heat and cold are rare in comparison, and I suppose it’s one of the reasons why you’ll find plenty of half-baked bodies from our Sceptred Isle on the beaches of the Costa del Sol every summer.
‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ may well go out in the Midday Sun, but I’m not one of them anymore. These days, I prefer taking holidays in places like Scandinavia rather than Torremolinos thank you very much.
The problem for those of us who don’t live in Scandinavia is that we find it expensive, so for someone like me, visiting Oslo in the depth of winter kills two birds with one stone – it’s cheaper and it’s not hot.
Saying that it wasn’t hot when the plane touched down at Oslo airport is somewhat of an understatement. It was so cold, that inside the terminal they were serving coffee on a stick (I made that bit up), but I’m sure you get the gist.
Norwegians, like all Scandinavians, take this sort of weather in their stride, and even though we landed and drove into the city in a blizzard during rush hour, there wasn no suggestion that there would be any trouble getting to the hotel as normal. Back in dear old Blighty the plane wouldn’t have even landed.
After checking-in, I ventured out into the bitterly cold evening air and found a local café/bar where customers were sat outside – yep! you heard that right – outside the bar. Even though it was apparently -10 degrees here, it seemed to be the norm. Mind you, the establishment provided blankets and candles to make it a more pleasant experience, but even so, I didn’t hang around too long because a) the (cold) beer was expensive, b) I didn’t want to get frostbite and c) I wanted to be up bright and early in the morning for my trip up to Tryvannshogda and Holmenkollen.
Normally, I would take a look around the city centre first before venturing too far, but as I only had two full days in Oslo and I was staying in the city centre anyway, I focused my attention on seeing things that I don’t normally see at home – and Holmenkollen was definitely one of them.
Holmenkollen lies on the north-western outskirts of the city and is an outdoor recreational area, which at this time of the year means winter sports. For somebody who’s never put a pair of skis on his life, you may wonder why I decided to venture up here, but like I said, it’s somewhere different.
I made an early start so that I could make the most of the day, but anybody with any sense would have jumped straight back under the bedclothes on seeing the weather outside. Instead I trudged through the snowy city streets to the T-bane stop outside the National Theatre where I was hoping to catch the T1 to the end of the journey at Frognerseteren.
Originally posted 2019-12-19 15:53:37.
The Boat Museums of Bygdøy
The Boat Museums of Bygdøy
This wasn’t such a bad idea on reflection because the ferries that run from Aker Brygge don’t come here in the winter – but buses do, and so I trudged through the snow for a second successive morning to the National Theatre where I caught the No.30 to Bygdøy.
Bygdøy is popular with both locals and visitors alike, especially in the summer as it has beaches, walking and cycling trails and several museums. Needless to say, I wouldn’t be lying on a beach today and I’d had enough of walking through the snow yesterday at Holmenkollen, so there are no prizes for guessing what I was coming here for.
It wouldn’t be sensible to try and visit every one of these museums in one day, even in the summer, but there were three that I particularly wanted to see, and they were all to do with Norway’s passion for maritime adventures and expeditions.
Originally posted 2019-12-30 21:23:01.
Tallinn – Pt 4 A Day Trip Across the Ice to Helsinki
Tallinn - Pt 4 A Day Trip Across the Ice to Helsinki
After getting organized I arranged for a taxi to drop me off at Terminal D down at the port. I got there at 6.40, in time to buy a cut-price day return ticket, which at 406 Estonian Crowns (€23) was at least €40 cheaper than the travel agent wanted me to buy them for the other day. Within no time at all we were all boarding the ferry and on our way out of the iced-up harbour towards Helsinki.
Originally posted 2025-01-15 16:05:04.
Tallinn – Pt 3 Snow, The Singing Revolution – and More Snow
Tallinn - Pt 3 Snow, The Singing Revolution - and More Snow
After my tour of Toompea in perfect conditions yesterday, I spent the evening deciding whether it was worth attempting to take a ferry trip to Helsinki today. I felt it was doable if I got my act together and so I made sure that I got up bright and early this morning in anticipation of giving it a go, but when I drew back the curtains I could see that it was chucking it down with snow. In my mind’s eye, I had visions of sailing across the Gulf of Finland under a bright blue sky; this wasn’t what I had in mind at all, so I decided to give it a miss and go for Plan B instead – and there was always tomorrow anyway.
Plan B involved using the Hop-on Hop-off bus tour, which coming from England as I do, sounds mad because back home a few flakes of snow means all the bus services grinding to a halt, and to be honest, as I trudged across the snow to the bus stop in Viru Square, I wasn’t convinced this was going to happen either.
When I arrived at the bus stop for the first Red tour at 10 o’clock, there was nobody here and there was snow piled up all around it. 10 o’clock came – and went – with no sign of any potential passengers or bus. It was looking ominous, and I didn’t really have a Plan C. Then suddenly, out of the blue came the big red bus – which promptly went straight past.
It pulled in just a bit further up the road at a bus stop which had obviously replaced the one I’d been stood at, but if I got my ice skates on, I might just be able to catch it. Fortunately, unlike bus drivers back home who watch you race up to the bus stop and then pull away just as you get there, Estonian bus drivers are more considerate and he waited for me. I clambered upstairs and said hello to two English ladies who were also daft enough to be on here. They say that mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the mid-day sun but, but they also go out in the bleak mid-winter as well. There wasn’t going to be any hopping on and off for me today in this weather, but at least the bus wasn’t open-top.
The bus company at the time was called Tallinn City Tour, but I think another company operates the service now, so it’s more than possible that the routes are different. There were three routes in total – Red, Green and Blue: They were all an hour long and you could hop on and off of all of them if you wanted. The Red Tour was a drive around the inner city excluding the Old Town. The points of interest were a mixed bag of museums and such like but it has to be said that the route itself wasn’t like the picturesque Old Town I saw yesterday because quite a bit of it looked as though we were still in the Soviet Union.
Originally posted 2025-01-06 16:42:28.
Tallinn – Pt 2 Toompea
Tallinn - Pt 2 Toompea
Toompea is a plateau around 150 ft above sea level, which may not sound very high, but was high enough to give commanding views of the surrounding area, and no matter who’s been in charge of the country during the last 800 years, it’s been where Estonia has been governed from – and still is today.
Originally, the main route up to Toompea was via Pikk Jalg (Long Leg Street), and was built with horse and carts in mind: It’s the oldest street in Tallinn and also one of the longest, but the shortest route up from St Nicholas Church is by taking Lühike jalg, which if you haven’t already guessed, means ‘Short Leg Street’. You may have also noticed that I said ‘shortest’ and not ‘quickest’, and that’s because it’s the steepest street in Tallinn. The names of these two streets have given Tallinn the label, the city that limps, just like I was doing by the time I reached the top, and before I forget, Short Leg Street also has the dubious honour of being the most haunted street in Tallinn. After climbing the final steps and under the medieval tower I emerged at Toompea and the Russian Orthodox Aleksander Nevsky Cathedral.
Originally posted 2024-12-21 13:48:31.
Tallinn – Pt 1 First Impressions
Tallinn - Pt 1 First Impressions
The Baltic States in the middle of winter may not be everyone’s idea of a pleasant trip abroad, but we curtailed our traditional summer holidays when low-cost flights enabled us to become travellers rather than holidaymakers. Places I would never have considered as a destination before suddenly appeared on my wish list, as I quickly realised that I was more welcome in a back street bar in Wroclaw for example than a pavement café on the Champs-Élysées.
We don’t normally get a lot of snow where we live, and although I wouldn’t be so keen now, I wanted to book a trip to Tallinn in the winter of 2010. My wife Kay was initially up for it, but after memories of our trip to Riga in January 2007 came flooding back, she changed her mind. Nothing new there then! She’s never stopped me doing stupid things though, and I had her blessing as I headed off towards Stansted Airport.
Easyjet not only had flights to Tallinn but Helsinki as well which also appealed to me, and although they’re in two different countries, I thought it might be possible to cover both cities on one trip. I’ll be talking about how I managed to get to Helsinki in another post, but for now I was just going to book a return flight to Tallinn.
For me, coming to cold places means staying in a comfortable hotel, and the one we stayed at in Riga was brilliant. It was called the Hotel Reval, which was the name of Tallinn between the 13th and 20th centuries. With that in mind, I booked the modern Swissotel in Tallinn which was a little way out of the old town but within walking distance, and very reasonably priced compared to western hotels of the same standard. Not only that, with a room on the 19th floor, I had some great views as well, or I would have if it stopped snowing. When I arrived it was not only snowing but getting dark as well, and so I decided to unpack and have a meal in the hotel and start some serious sightseeing in the morning.
Originally posted 2024-12-09 16:52:49.
Trakai – Historic Town Built on Water
Trakai - Historic Town Built on Water
I’m not one of those people who avoid such places (after all, they’re popular for a reason), but I’ll always try to time my visit accordingly. Today though, even if I could justify the effort in getting from Kaunas to Trakai, I was only ever going to be able to be there when it suited the public transport system, and not when it suited me.
After giving it some thought, I knew I would never have another chance to see the place that is so revered by the Lithuanian people, and so I decided to bite the bullet and catch the early fast train to Vilnius again – the same one as I took yesterday.
Originally posted 2019-09-23 14:24:54.
The Ninth Fort
The Ninth Fort
The Ninth Fort might not be on everyone’s list of places to see, but one of my passions, if that’s the right word, is to try and understand what caused the turmoil in Europe during the 20th century. I have always had an interest in the two World Wars as well as the Cold War: The Ninth Fort is one of those places that is uncomfortable to visit, but one that has left a profound effect on me ever since.
I don’t know if things have changed, but at the time I was here there was very little information about the fort and how to get there – certainly not in English.
Even though it’s located on the outskirts of Kaunas at Sargenai, and quite a long bus ride to get there, it wasn’t as difficult to find as I thought it was going to be.
Before the outbreak of the First World War, Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire, and as relations deteriorated with Germany, it was decided to build Kaunas Fortress to protect its western border.
The Ninth Fort was part of this huge complex that surrounded the city covering an area of 25 square miles.
To learn more about the history of the fort there’s a museum housed in a soviet concrete monstrosity, which if they leave it as it is, could become part of the fort’s history itself in years to come.
Originally posted 2019-09-26 16:54:08.