Cologne

Patrick Travel

A few weekends ago, I got up the earliest I’ve had to for some time on a Saturday to catch one of the first flights out of Stansted Airport to get to Cologne. The airport buzzes at that time of the morning with lots of people wanting to catch cheap flights out. When flying to Cologne, you end up at Cologne-Bonn airport and it’s easy enough to catch a local S-Bahn train to Cologne only costing a few euros.

The first thing you catch sight of stepping outside of the central station is the Cologne Cathedral one of the largest gothic cathedrals in Europe. With plenty of steps it seems to be a very central place where lots of people hang out.

You can even go up the tower, although you need to be ready to ascend the 500-something winding steps. Given how temperatures reached the early 30 degrees I can attest it’s not the easiest feat. The number of people blocking the path also demonstrates this.

It’s pretty funny to see how all the locals know to have fun with a spontaneous water fight bursting out of the fountain at the base of the cathedral. I even saw a number of poor tourists getting drenched in the process.

Speaking of fountains, at the local Lindt Chocolate museum, they have one of the biggest chocolate fondue fountains I imagine you’ll ever see in the world. They even had a staff constantly dipping wafer sticks and handing them out.

The rest of the museum is pretty interesting, going into a very in depth look at the history of the where chocolate comes from including a production line of chocolate blocks.

Cologne is located next the Rhine and plenty of bridges crossing it to the other side both the more residential and conference zone area of the city. The other side of the city has more of the interesting tourist attractions and plenty of the local establishments serving the local brew, Kölsch served in tiny 200ml cups though constantly replaced.

Cologne also has a ton of museums to visit ranging from an unsurprisingly, underwhelming mustard museum through to the very moving NS Dokumentationszentrum (Nazi Gestapo Museum). The Nazis took over this house during the war and was preserved to serve as a reminder of the actions and events that unrolled.

Breakfast Problems Solved

Patrick Food, General, Travel, UK Life

As a consultant, you move around projects much more than you would if you worked for the same company. Living in London adds another dimension where going out during the week is more than normal and keeping a regular routine fairly difficult. As a result, it’s difficult to be sure that you eat a proper breakfast before heading out and, the end result, is normally doing the continental breakfast when I have my coffee, buying a Pain Aux Raisin, Pain Au Chocolat, or my (wickedly) favourite Croissants Aux Amandes (Almond Croissant).

My mission is to cut down the number of breakfast pastries, yet still have a decent meal thus, the acquisition of the Fresh Traveller.

Looking it up on the net, it was invested by very practical designer, Arjan Brekveld, and I managed to find a store in London stocking them (the very cool Do Shop). I’m hoping this lets me pack my breakfast for consumption when I get to work. My only tip for an enhancement would be to have some way to pack a spoon with it.

Local Animals to Liverpool

Patrick Travel, UK Life

Walking around town, it’s hard not to notice the breed of very strange animals habitating in Liverpool. They had a huge assortment of them down near the wharf, painting in various colours much like the Cows of Chicago (1999).

Without knowing what they were, their head looks slightly fox like with a moon-crescent like tail. The one below is one to be pretty creeped out about.

They seem to be all around the city as well, like this one caught watching from the 7th floor of one of the buildings around town.

Looking them up on the internet, they are all Super Lamb Bananas.

Liverpool Football Club

Patrick Travel, UK Life

Everyone who visits Liverpool needs to make a trip to the Liverpool Football Club. As those fans might say, there are only two good football teams, Liverpool and Liverpool reserves (I never got that joke until I found out that Everton was just a stone’s throw from the Liverpool stadium). Strangely I ended up with an Everton supporting cabbie who took me out of the city to where the football stadium was.

The tour lasts about an hour and departs every fifteen minutes. I didn’t think that there would have been so much demand for the tour, yet given the size of the group I went with (about 25) and the fact plenty more people queued to order tickets for the next tour, I shouldn’t have been surprised as much.

The tour takes you around the historical Liverpool stadium starting where the press room is with cardboard cut outs of Gerrard and Torres. As pointed out by the tour guide, the press room is surprisingly plain – in fact the entire place is surprisingly plain and that’s because they like to keep everything traditional.

They took us to the changing rooms (just as plain and traditional as everything else) although they pointed out that the shower rooms were locked because too many fans wanted to spent time in it (how weird!). We got to amble around the other rooms for a while including a number of other press rooms and the visiting team’s changing room apparently bigger because they need to bring many of their own staff.

We also got pointed to the famous, “This is Anfield” sign hanging on the walkway that apparently is really lucky if you touch it. I’m surprised more people didn’t give it a go like I did. Apparently the reminder does plenty to shake a visiting team off their game.

Our next stop was the stadium itself, and whilst it’s not the biggest stadium, apparently it’s popular enough that there is a 20, 000 person waiting list to get tickets. As a result, we were told a new stadium (just down the road) is being built and that a shopping centre would be built on the grounds – except for the pitch were many a fan asked their cremated ashes to be scattered. This will eventually be turned into a garden path leading to the new stadium.

The Kop is well known in this club and despite a terrible history where 96 fans lost their lives in a landslide crush, is still a popular seating area today. Even with the tiny little chairs, I was honestly shocked to hear they used to fit four times as many people into such the tiny little area. Today, the row of seats is apparently the longest, unrestricted view of the football stadium.

Next time I visit Liverpool, I’ll do the decent thing and try the Everton tour (if they have one) but I definitely enjoyed the passion that all of the Liverpool guides brought as well as the lively set of fans.

Weekend in Liverpool

Patrick Travel, UK Life

Touted as the European Capital of Culture just under two years ago, Liverpool has a reputation to uphold. Home to The Beatles and a once, famous shipping port of England, there is plenty of interesting historical buildings and things to see and do in this city. On the flip side, you have its infamous reputation as a rough part of the country and its chav-friendliness for hordes of hen and stag weekends. Seeing that almost every chain bar seems to exist in the city centre seems to be proof enough. It might even be the first city to support, three, separate Revolution chain bars all within walking distance of each other.

Fortunately Liverpool’s gastronomic experiences seem to be promising as long as you step away from the chain restaurants and various pubs littered around the city. A combination of several blogs, websites and Harden’s guide helped me enjoy most meals with great food and reasonable value. I’ll promise to post reviews of the places on my other blog when I get around to it.

There’s even one great boutique coffee store serving a mean flat white called Bold Street Coffee. I wanted to enjoy the coffee at Rococo as well but despite its great takeaway value (£1), seemed to lack that important pre-requisite – well made coffee (sorry!).

There are plenty of things to do as a visitor with much of the tourist action centred around the docks. Not only do large cruise liners dock in, but the famous Mersey Ferries that carry people to the other side conduct regular tours travelling up and down the Mersey accompanied by a voice recorded tourguide. Down at the Albert Docks you’ll find the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum, both with very good installations at the moment.

You’ll also find the Tate Liverpool currently exhibiting a really well made, and free, sculpture exhibition as well as a two floor, paid for, Picasso exhibit. There’s some great videos of some residents critiquing the art and discussing amongst themselves whether or not they think they are good pieces of art. It’s hilarious. There’s also a really interesting interactive exhibit where you put headphones on, entering a floor where disco lights flood and you’re encouraged to dance to form part of the artwork. Pretty decent soundtrack as well.

At the other end of the docks, you’ll find one of the two locations of The Beatles Story detailing all you ever wanted to know about the original boy band (and more!) in an audio tour guided museum. Be warned that you will need to queue and, once inside, will generally be pretty packed with visitors. I think it’s still worth the money with some really great recreations, memorabilia and things that make you feel like you’re a part of it.

As I mentioned earlier, Liverpool is dotted with plenty of historical buildings and one piece of mesmerising public art is the building just outside of Moorefields train station. Richard Wilson, the artist behind this work, “Turning the Place Over” creates a strange sensation as you watch the egg shaped disc rotate around to expose raw building work only to seal up moments later.

More than that, Liverpool has some really friendly people although the Scouser accent really takes some getting used to (and I thought I’m generally pretty alright with accents).

Paris in July

Patrick Travel

After getting home from the Jack Johnson concert, I ended up with about four hours sleep before having to get up early to catch the Eurostar to Paris. Unfortunately for me, I ended up getting the earliest train I could of the day so I could turn up to a conference I had been invited to present at and I knew that my speaking slot was sometime in the afternoon. As dead-tired as I was given the minimal sleep, I ended up learning my essential French phrase for the day, “un café s’il vous plaît” (or one coffee please).

The temperatures in Paris were scorching, reaching something like thirty three degrees during the day. Figuring I should attempt to blend in with the European attitude towards fashion, the practicality of long-sleeved business attire with slacks didn’t seem particularly practical. However, given the number of people still opting to wear suits, I definitely wasn’t under or overdressed for the occasion. The conference was wonderfully organised and despite many of the sessions spoken in French, I talked with quite a number of interesting geeks who attended.

I spent the rest of the weekend walking around Paris and enjoying the laid back, cafe atmosphere. The heat and humidity built up over the Thursday and Friday, resulting in the heaviest down pour I’ve experienced for sometime. It was almost quite tropical. I can only thank the weatherman for their forecast and my decision to bring my heavy-duty umbrella. Even with this, I thought it’d be best to stick to some museums so I went to their Pompidou Centre that effectively holds their modern art collection.

The building is massive with plenty of floors and plenty of art work. If you were really that into all the art, you could easily have spent all day there. They did have some interesting exhibits and I’m glad that some kinetic art had a whole, interesting section of their own.

Sunday turned out to be a much better day, where I spent most of the time simply walking around enjoying the atmosphere. I attempted some of the different things I missed out on last time, such as going into the Notre Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower, but the lines seemed every longer than when I went here a few years ago. Despite the nice weather to queue, I still wasn’t in that much of a mood so I move on.

One thing noticeably different in summer were the huge tour groups descending – many of them American school kids that you can hear from miles away. I guess it’s not really different from the large groups currently parading (and blocking pathways) around London. A wonderful weekend and thumbs up to the Eurostar for being a nice way to travel.

Trondheim

Patrick Travel

I spent last week in Trondheim for the XP2010 conference. I found myself particularly busy for the entire week not only running my single workshop but helping chair a number of sessions and invited to help out with someone else’s. I’m really glad a few of us decided to stay around for the weekend and with the spectacular summer weather we had on Saturday definitely made the most of it.

Trondheim is really far north. So far north that the sun doesn’t ever really go down. The picture below is what Trondheim looks like at midnight and it never got any darker. I can tell you this because many of us had troubles sleeping throughout the week without even with blackout curtains in our rooms.

For the conference, we stayed at the Rica Nidelven hotel, serving what was acclaimed at Norway’s best breakfast. I regret not taking as many great photos of the offerings although I will remember the three stations very clearly for some time. One of them, operated by a very efficient lady serving some of the best coffees (cartado is closest the flat white), another with a person freshly slicing smoked salmon and some other sort of fish, and another operated by a person concocting fresh juices and “energy shots” made with things like ginger and other juices. The conference hotel was lovely and this was the view from my room (below).

As expected, things in Norway haven’t got any cheaper and with the weaker pound, even more expensive. This pint of local beer brewed at Trondheim’s Microbrewery cost more than £7. Ouch!

Fortunately spending all day in a pub isn’t your only option when there is sunshine all over the place. Visiting their Cathedral and surrounding grounds is definitely worth visiting for its amazing interiors. As part one of the welcoming events, we got to sit inside as they had someone perform a song on each of the two organs contained within.

We can definitely recommend walking along the river as well since the scenery is quite spectacular, and when you’re done with that, head up to the fort where you get a decent view of the surrounding area. It’s not too far from the central part of Trondheim at all.

Even the Norwegian’s get in on the whole BBQing season with their versions of the portable BBQ lighting up many of the different parks. It seems like the popular game Kubb is just as popular here as everywhere else with wooden blocks out on almost every patch of green in one park.

We had a bit of time on our hand, even after visiting the local Island where they executed people in the past although I wanted to go and take the bus out to a small town called Hell. Admittedly there’s nothing out there to do although the bus ride was nice and scenic, following the coast line as it took us there and back. We even had the same bus driver on the way back who had a big grin on his face when we boarded the second time.

I also finally got to see one of those buildings I thought they might have this far north, where they grow grass on the roof of their house.

We had a great time chilling after the conference in Trondheim and although the weather and the conference definitely had something to do with it, I will look back at that week rather fondly.

For a place to hang out, we can also recommend The Good Neighbour (Den Gode Nabo) (pictured above) with its floating deck providing an awesome place to settle back for a drink and sun yourself.