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Email – a message from London-in-a-heatwave
From: “Thea Stainsby”
Subject: a message from London-in-a-heatwave
Date: Wednesday, 22 June 2005 10:38 PM
You can’t anticipate the weather – but even this has taken us by surprise!!! London in a heat wave. Hot, clear days, warm nights and sticky, stifling undergrounds.
We had a good flight here and were welcomed by Hayden & Elisse at 6am – yes they got up for us. We spent our first day exploring Ealing and watching Hayden fall off his unicycle. Seriously – he can get on and off and go around in circles. He can also ride a straight, albeit shaky line.
We had promised H&E some Australian Beef, which we lugged from Melbourne airport. British customs wouldn’t allow it in – danger of mad cow disease. Now I have heard the lot.
Elisse showed us the important sights of London, the Royal College of Music and Albert Hall, Greenwich, The Eye and her favourite flute shop. Yesterday we ventured on our own and discovered the Grand Union Canal, another lovely spot to spend a warm day.
Tomorrow we are off to Durham and I hope not to be embarrassed by the baggy greens.
cheers to all
Bruce & Thea
Email – another update from London
From: “Thea Stainsby”
Subject: another update from London
Date: Monday, 27 June 2005 6:21 PM
English weather remains kind – we missed the thunderstorms of the south and no we didn’t go to Glastonbury…
The cricket was a great success for us – it was interesting sitting amongst the ‘poms’ as we were trouncing them. Our biggest challenge was buying a beer – a 25 minute queue was hard to take, and like all good cricket venues in the world – they wouldn’t sell me any wine. Seriously have to question cricketer’s style.
We found Bruce’s dad’s birthplace – Cockerton Green in Darlington and then the village of Stainsby with its common, pond, heath and mill in Derbyshire, a lovely part of the world. There are nearly a million photos but no time to upload them.
From there to visit very special friends in Manchester and find the amazing changes in the city. Couldn’t even find our old home in Stockport without driving around in circles for some time. The house we lived in is still there and looks exactly the same but the city has changed enormously.
A delightful stroll on the Lancashire Moors followed by a beer at the ‘Church Inn’ who claim to be the purveyors of distorted memories!
Driving back to London we called on the Strachan’s to catch up with news of Tank & Ian, school mates of Hayden & Evan. It was lovely to see Jill & Peter at home and will make writing to them much more fun.
Today it is Brighton, tomorrow Berlin. This is great fun, think we might stay!
love to all
Bruce & Thea
Email – Berlin to Paris
From: “Thea Stainsby”
Subject: Berlin to Paris
Date: Thursday, 7 July 2005 2:51 AM
The warm weather has followed us to Europe. Berlin was delightfully warm, certainly not the stifling heat of London. I understand Wimbledon was washed out after we left.
We were both in Berlin over thirty years ago and the boys have visited there more recently. Hayden liked it, Evan found the smells unpleasant and didn’t like it.
Checkpoint Charlie is now a tourist museum, fragments of the wall are there as a reminder but covered in graffiti, and you can even buy bits of the wall.
We saw an enormous change – frequent contrasts of the old and the new, both integrated into the architecture and sitting side-by-side. Buildings that are complete look magnificent, however the infrastructure seems to be suffering with the economy. Lots of holes to lay pipes and cables, cobblestones breaking away, long grass in the parks, shells of old buildings they are struggling to restore. We saw many street people.
Business and commerce appear to be moving back to what was the Russian or eastern sector. Certainly that is the more beautiful part of the city and many old damaged buildings are being rebuilt from the ground up.
Berlin is a shoppers paradise – more shoe shops than Australia and some very classy stores.
It will be another 10 or more years before Berlin is a beautiful city again, but the potential is certainly there.
Our next stop was Alte Klostermuhle a delightful old monastery in the Hessen region north of Frankfurt. Our reason for visiting here was to find the village where my gggrandmother was born – Nieder-Weisel. We visited other villages in the area famous for castle ruins, beer breweries and the half-wooden houses. The countryside was beautiful, but the sky overcast so our photos are mixed but memories wonderful.
We hired a car to drive to these places, and I was none too comfortable about Bruce driving at 160kph and me sitting in ‘the driver’s seat’, however we made it to Heidelberg safely and were wined and dined in great style there by our ‘St Leonard’s’ friends. On Monday ‘the kids’ took us sightseeing around Heidelberg and it was a heap of fun.
A train ride to Paris and now we are staying in the 7th arondissement which is very central. Whilst we suffered finding German restaurants in Germany there is no problem finding a French restaurant in Paris! …and the food has been very good.
From here we go to Spain and back to London for Elisse’s concert.
love to all
Bruce & Thea
Email – all safe in London
From: “Thea Stainsby”
Subject: all safe in London
Date: Friday, 8 July 2005 4:38 AM
We have heard news from Elisse that she and Hayden are both safe, although Hayden was on his way to work and we don’t know yet when he made it there and if he made it home again. From the news I have seen to date, London transport has virtually shut down.
We are in Paris and not affected.
I just hope there are no more days like today!!
best wishes
Bruce & Thea
Email – from London again
From: “Thea Stainsby”
Subject: from London again
Date: Friday, 15 July 2005 9:15 PM
Spain was wonderful. We were taken by the ambience in Barcelona. We studied the Gaudi architecture and the Picasso museum which concentrated on his earlier works. He was a incredibly fine artist.
Barcelona is Gaudi is Barcelona. We spent hours at La Pedrara, examining Gaudi’s style and then at La Sagrada Familia. I was pleased to see that quite a lot had been added since I visited it with mum 33 years ago, but it will not be finished for another 30 years.
We took an overnight train to Bilbao and awoke to green hills and blue sky.
We spent a whole day at the Guggenheim, where an Aztec exhibition was the highlight. I must say the building is by far the most impressive aspect of the whole museum.
By the time we left Spain we had nearly sorted out their eating timetable! We found wonderful Paella in Bilbao and Tapas in Barcelona.
Back to London to see the impact of the July 7 bombings. Londoners are as stoic as always and life goes on. Police and security transport personnel are everywhere and their patience is amazing. The underground runs slower than normal, often stopping at a station for up to 5 minutes. There are parts that are still out of action.
Debates here are interesting, talking about ‘shoot to kill’ identified terrorist as in Israel and talking about teaching children in school to identify terrorists. Also, trying to clean up bomb sites as soon as possible so as to avoid the public becoming depressed by the sights (in Israel they aim to clean up bomb sites in 2 hours). Most shocking of all is that all the suicide bombers are British born, and in most cases showed no or little sign of being fundamentalists.
Elisse’s long awaited concert at St Martin’s in the Fields is tonight and as I write she is running up her scales – what a treat to hear! Then it is a very early start to fly to Rome for the weekend.
Hayden and Elisse will go on to Elba and Venice, we will go to Cinque Terra then Switzerland, and home on 29th July.
We have had a lot of fun with our new cameras and have already accumulated 1,500 photos – should be an interesting slide show…
love to all
Bruce & Thea
Email – We are home, but more to report
From: “Thea Stainsby”
Subject: We are home, but more to report
Date: Sunday, 31 July 2005 11:56 PM
Elisse’s concert was memorable – it was one of a series of Concerts by Candlelight. In the flurry of a hot and humid Friday evening in London the Brandenberg Simphonia was a very serene event. Elisse’s flute solo was stunning, but then I am biased.
I don’t think Elisse slept, in any case there was only 3 hours after arriving home before we set off for Rome. The early flight was numbing however we arrived on a bright and warm morning and were met by my cousin, Anthony. He had arranged for us to see all of Rome in 3 days. He and Bruce had a wonderful time sharing their art and architectural knowledge.
We saw the big and famous sights, but also walked the squares in the evening as the Romans were relaxing and drove to the hills to eat Porchetta (cold roast pork with bread) and drink Frascati. Art highlights were the Villa Borghese and the Vatican Museum, both treasure troves of art from Roman Empire to 19th century.
Hayden and Elisse left us in Rome and were going to Elba to find some sun and sand and to Venice for some romance before flying back to London.
Our next stop was Cinque Terra (five lands) in northern Italy, on the Mediterranean coast. The villages are linked by train and walking paths and we explored both. Some of the walks were quite challenging, climbing hundreds of steps through vineyards and olive groves to find the most stunning views back and forth. A beer tasted delicious after any one of these walks! The local food includes pesto, foccacia, lots of fish and delicious but earthy wines.
Photos are now uploaded to share at…
Our last week was in Switzerland, more good food and wine, more hiking. That update is to come.
love to all
Bruce & Thea
Email – The last report
From: “Thea Stainsby”
Subject: The last report
Date: Monday, 8 August 2005 1:09 PM
The last report is from Switzerland, and although we have been home for a week, I have only just found the time to upload a few photos. All Mr Howard’s fault – he wants some BAS stuff completed this week!
We met Denis & Martine in Switzerland. First couple of nights at Arnex sur Orbe, their tiny village north of Lausanne. We went to the Paleo music festival, the highlight was Rammstein – lots of noise, truly amazing pyrotechnics and lighting – no wonder our boys love their performances. The music? Well…
Then spent 4 magic days in Zermatt, under the Matterhorn. I fell in love with the flowers, much to Denis and Martine’s horror as it took twice as long to cover the mountain walks so I could stop and take ‘…yet another photo…’. That will be another web site!
Unfortunately the weather was grey and cool and the Matterhorn mostly out of view, so we stayed lower – to 3000m.
On our last day the clouds moved briefly and we were able to see the grand dame. We took a series of cable cars to ‘Klein Matterhorn’ to get a closer look, but the clouds beat us. Nevertheless it was a true experience to be at 3883m, 0C in a 60km wind in our summer walking clothes. Interesting as well to visit the ice museum – built into a crevasse – with a wine tasting bar!
Denis and Martine were the last of many friends we visited on this holiday, sadly there were many goodbyes, just hope we can get back there again one day.
On a brighter note, Hayden at last has a ‘real job’ out of retail and working for the Titan Publishing Group in their small IT support group in London. His first week has been a buzz, will we ever see him here again?
This is the last of the newsletters for this trip – I look forward to writing to you individually.
love to all
Bruce & Thea
Photos were initially uploaded to share at Yahoo. Now they are part of my blog at Europe 2005
