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Travel Stripe - July 2007

Hamburg, the port on the River Elbe

July 31st 2007 10:58
Hamburg evolved from a tiny settlement established between the Elbe and the Alster Rivers. It took its name from Hammaburg fortress which was built to protect the settlers against invaders. By the year 1000, the settlement had grown to a city of 500. A port was built and the city rapidly established a reputation as a merchant centre. It became a member of the Hanseatic trading cities in 1356 and was soon one of the richest trading cities in Europe. Today Hamburg's harbour on the River Elbe is the largest river port in the world and the second largest container port in Europe.

The River Elbe
The Elbe



Down among the sprawling quays, docks and 19th century warehouses, is one of the most important urban development schemes in Europe, comprising a residential area of more than 5,000 appartments, a business district with shops, restaurants, bars and cafes, as well as vast recreational spaces.

The Elbe
The Elbe


The port, the riverside walks and the great Elbe itself continue to attract thousands of visitors both international and local. every year. Along its banks are picturesque streets, bordered with quaint cafes and restaurants, shaded by avenues of trees.


The Banks of the Elbe
Picturesque walks on the banks of the Elbe


In summer, on the Elbe "beaches" Oveigonne and Finkenreich, the full spectrum of Hamburg society, from bohemians and punks to tycoons, can be seen, taking the sun and enjoying barbeques, while container ships, as tall as high-rise buildings pass seemingly just within a hand's reach.

Barbeque on the Elbe
Barbie on the Elbe


Sadly, swimming here is only for the foolhardy, as the wake and swell of these gigantic vessels make "conditions hazardous for bathers" on the Elbe.
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Hamburg, Motorbike city

July 30th 2007 07:56
What is it about motorbikes? Is it the gleaming chassis and the complex web of pipes and cogs and tanks - the mysterious power and beauty of the machine? Or is it the mighty roar and the rush of wind as it speeds away at full throttle? Is it the leather, the helmets and the kinky boots or that heady scent of petrol and rubber? Just what is it that engenders in so many of us, that fascination with motorbikes?

Bike Rally Hamburg
What is it about bikes?


It was a tranquil Hamburg Sunday morning.. The sun was slanting on the lake and piercing the green depths of the canals. A boat-load of early-bird tourists waited for the water to rise and the gates to open on the locks. Families breakfasted in the cafes. Elderly couples strolled along strade on their way back from church. A busker sang Edith Piaf in the square. Slowly, faintly, like the far-off drone of a flight of planes, another sound rose under the idling boat engine, the clatter of plates, feet on pavements, the strains of Rien de Rien and the mumble and screech of voices, It grew louder, drawing closer.. Heads turned, waiters and chefs came to cafe doors, their customers rose in their seats, people on the pavements stopped and stared. All other sounds vanished under the deafening roar. Then they appeared; thousands of motorbikes, swarming past like giant insects, flashing chrome, metal and leather in an endless procession. In the waiting, watching crowd fear and apprehension gave way to excitement and awe. There was cheering, laughter, applause.. Finally, the last bike passed and you hear again. Like the children of Hamilin after the Pied Piper people followed the bikes to nearby Willy Brandt Strade, where they came to a rumbling halt, filling the street almost from end to end.

Hamburg Bike Rally
Bikes On Willy Brandt Strade


This Hamburg Motorbike Rally had drawn people from all over Germany. There were bikers of all ages and of every iminaginable type from the hobbyist to the weekender, to the dedicated gang biker to the biker family.

Hamburg Bike Rally
The Family Bike


Bikes too were of every make and vintage.

Hamburg Bike Rally
An old trooper


Hamburg Bike Rally
Red Beauty


But perhaps most interesting were the passers-by who all stopped stared wishfully, examined the machines, swapped bike stories with anyone who would listen, took photgraphs and movies, stayed for hours, gazed in fascination at the riders, then tore themselves away, looking wistfully over their shoulders as they walked slowly off down the street. Is there old biker, or a wannabe biker at the secret heart of all of us?

Hamburg Bike Rally
A work of Art
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FIFA Fever in Hamburg City

July 29th 2007 00:54
Hamburg, July 2006
Flags dress appartment windows


At the time of our visit, Hamburg city was high on the FIFA fever that had gripped Germany when their team won that gripping quarter final game against Argentina. It wasn’t just the German flag, out of the closet where it had been banished to gather dust since World War two, now waving from apartments and fluttering from cars, or the bright blue neon soccer “goals” that beamed down from high rise buildings, or the festive feeling of the city, where the smell of sizzling bratwursts filled the air, where beer flowed and friendships formed while oompah bands in lederhosen tootled away on street corners; it wasn’t even the brother-and-sisterhood of football jersey; it was that nothing else seemed to matter, that the cup was the star and the centre of everything, that the world had stopped and everyone had stepped off for the moment.

The city was dressed for the Cup. Department store window displays were all about football. Inside the trail of paraphernalia led from floor to floor; Food Hall - chocolates and sweets; China – cups, glasses and plates; Haberdashery – scarves, hats, wallets and bags; Stationery – pencils and rulers, pens and paper; Toys – teddy bears, dolls, figurines, games, stickers and posters; Intimate apparel – undies and socks; Nightwear – pyjamas and nightshirts; Menswear and womenswear – t shirts and shorts; Sports goods - where among balls, bags, and boots, the highly priced colours of the victors had pride of place, while squashed all together, on a hanger with wheels, were the sorry, discounted strips of the defeated. Outside in the streets, stalls offered more; clackers and hooters, pennants and badges, whistles and streamers, caps and headscarves, bunches of flags of all sizes and colours and a united nations of disembodied jerseys swinging from poles.

The blue neon goals held the high places of Hamburg, beaming down after dark from rooftop to rooftop, glittering strangely in the daytime sun. Lower down apartment windows flew an avenue of German flags. Below on the roads, they fluttered from the windows of passing vehicles.

Hamburg, July 2006
The German Flag at a taxi window


In the streets, squares, parks, cafes and shops the football jersey held sway. They were every where – from every country and corner of the world, on people of every age, race and colour.

Along the lake there was a village of food tents. People dithered in salivating huddles before an a to z of sizzling wursts, then there was the strudel, the brot, the puffe the ban and the kuchen and after that the doner kebab, the hot dog, the hamburger, the chips, the crepe and the panini. In the beer tents, choices seemed simpler but still there was a palette of shades between blond and brun.

Hamburg - July 2006
Food tents on the lakefornt


Bands and buskers filled the air with music. People partied in the streets.

Hamburg, July 2006
Music in the streets


The weather was a hot - unheard of twenty eight degrees! The sun was shining and the sky a perfect blue. Locals shook their heads in disbelief. They’d never known Hamburg weather like this. They’d never seen Hamburg like this; never seen their flag fly proudly like this; never known a time like this.




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World Cup Wedding

July 26th 2007 09:42
The FIFA World Cup was on when we were in Hamburg last July. But Football fever seemed hardly to touch the peaceful Treudelberg Hotel, at the edge of forest on the outskirts of Hamburg, until that memorable day when Germany met Argentina in the quarter final.

The Treudelberg Terrace
The deserted Terrace at the Treudelberg

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Hamburg

July 25th 2007 08:44
The Treudelberg Hotel
The Treudelberg


I enjoyed my first two days in Hamburg, luxuriating on the outskirts, at the edge of the forest. The Hotel Treudelberg Golf and Country Club is only 10 kilometers from the city centre but it seems a world away. Its roofs and gabled windows look out across a tranquil garden, over a thick curtain of trees into a flawless sky. The “outside world” stays discreetly between the covers of brochures, maps and guides. Life, as it is known to tycoons and top end escapists goes on undisturbed. On one side of the building, behind the closed doors of conference rooms, the machinery of global business ticks and whirrs. On the other, the corridors echo with the muted beat of aerobics from the Fitness Centre and the soft splash of swimmers at the pool. A scent of crèmes and oils drifts under the doors of the Center Estetika and robed wraiths slip noiselessly from sauna to solarium. Outside golfers trundle along a fairway lit vivid green by a bright summer sun and beside it a path leads away to a fairy tale forest. The blue sky, the warm sun, the clear air and the beckoning path outside are irresistible. Feeling like Little Red Riding Hood, but without the basket of goodies for Grandma, I lift the latch on a dark green gate at the back of the hotel and set off along the path. It weaves along, through and around the golf course, under canopies of shady trees, past sunny fields of long grass. There’s a distant thuck of everyday clubs on ordinary golf balls, but it’s underscored with magical birdsong and the mysterious whisper of wind in leaves. At a junction of tracks, a white arrow, on a pitted, mossy, brothers-Grimm rock


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London City Airport, another way out

July 24th 2007 11:15
Buckingham Palace - London
Buckingham Palace - London


Sometimes the Heathrow hell just can't be avoided. There's simply no other way in, or out


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Heathrow Hell

July 23rd 2007 07:32
Tower Bridge lLondon
Tower Bridge London


Been through Heathrow recently? Hell isn’t it? Arriving or departing there’s no easy way. For entering aliens like us there are long, nerve-racking immigration queues – altercations up ahead, protesting travelers led off to side-rooms and a terrible, escalating feeling of insecurity. When you finally reach the portals of the realm at the head of the line, there’s a barrage of soul-searching questions from an officious gate-keeper “How long are you staying? Where are you staying? What will you be doing here? Will you be visiting anyone? Who? What do they do? Where do they live? Are you going anywhere else? Where? When are you going back to …?” each one punctuated by a penetrating stare and a slow scrutiny of another page of the passport. Your every response sounds shifty, defensive. Your eyes, dry and glazed from lack of sleep, slide away past him/her to the procession of blameless EU passport holders, dashing past to baggage retrieval. You mumble, trying not to breathe, because you left that zip-lock bag with toothpaste, make-up and deodorant in the seat pocket on your first flight 24 hours ago. Your face is pale. It looks nothing like the carefully made-up, gently smiling one in your passport photo. Neither does the wild wreckage of your hair and besides, it’s a different colour. Sweat prickles in your armpits. You press your arms stiffly to your sides. Now you look as if you’re hiding something You shift uneasily, glance over your shoulder, waiting for a hand to fall. But finally, there’s the clunk of the stamp, a last long, hard look, a grudging, loaded “Enjoy your stay” and you’re in. Now there’s only the tussle with the carousel and, perhaps, the hunt for lost luggage to contend with. After this how can the pearly gates be hard to broach? How can St Peter’s interrogation be anything but a breeze


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The other Bledisloe Tour

July 22nd 2007 01:48
Jonah Lomu
Jonah


If Twickenham, England, is the Rugby Mecca of the Northern Hemisphere, then Eden Park, Aotearoa, New Zealand, is its South Seas equivalent. Perched in the lee of Mount Eden on Auckland's inner fringe, it's a national icon. Every young kid, playing barefoot Saturday morning Rugby on a frost covered paddock up and down the islands, imagines one day running onto the historic ground, wearing the black and the silver fern. Many a grandfather has dreamed of shuffling off his mortal coil in those weathered stands, watching a grandson put the ball into touch for the All Balcks. A former French "Rugbyman" turned entrepreneur, even named his "Rugbywear' label after the famous park


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Tragedy at Twickenham

July 19th 2007 12:10
Twickenham – every armchair Rugby head down under knows it. They probably also harbour secret dreams of sitting, crowded in the hallowed stands, wearing the national colours, singing the national anthem and cheering the home side on. Some who’ve ventured out of the armchair and off to Pomgolia have even lived it. But for most, even there, it’s not entirely straightforward. As with the realization of all great dreams, the planets, the stars and a few other factors have to configure - first, your team has to be in town; second, so do you; third, you have to source some tickets; fourth you have to have the funds to buy them – if they don’t, you do the tour, you buy the cap and scarf, you take the photos, you go back home to the armchair and the dream.

Some weeks ago, the planets and stars lined up for us - the New Zealand Maoris played England Saxons at Twickenham, we happened to be in London, there were tickets available and we had the money. We set off to live the dream


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Faraway corners in London parks

July 18th 2007 07:02
The pomp and majesty of Buckingham Palace, the razzle-dazzle of the West end, the splendour of the Houses of Parlliament, Westminster Cathedral and St Paul's, the jewels and the dark stories of the Tower, the beauty of Tower Bridge, the shabby fascination of Soho, the exquisite opulence of Harrods, the bargains of Oxford Street, the quaint treasures of Portobello Road, the cosy companionship and the inimitable character of the Pub, those clubs where anything is possible and you never know who you'll meet, the slow grind of the London Eye's giant wheel against the ever-changing sky, the reflection of the passing clouds in the glass walls of high-rise, the buzz of Picadilly and Trafalgar Square, the bustle of Covent Garden, the streets crowded with faces and costumes from the world's every corner, the babel of languages, the endless whoosh and rumble of big red buses, the edgy rush and clamour of the tube, the chug of engines and blare of horns on the Thames - the noise, the colour, the movement. - this is London - but only part of it.

Scattered throughout the chaotic and crowded cityscape are over 300 hectares of park land. Inevitably, there are the kiosks, the cafes, the crowds of city workers on lunch breaks, the inevitable tourists and the lawns peppered with pink hopefuls on striped deck-chairs in London's parks and gardens


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Kylie at the V& A

July 17th 2007 06:29
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum


I confess I was surprised and intrigued when, on my way from Heathrow to London city last month, I spotted a giant gold and white billboard across the sombre grey façade of the Victoria and Albert Museum. “Kylie, the Exhibition” it read. My memory of the venerable old institution was an early eighties one; grim statues of the noble queen and her consort guarding the entrance, a cavernous lobby echoing with hushed voices and muffled footsteps, halls lined with towering antiquities, rooms full of dark Victoriana, glass cases crammed with booty from the vanished Empire, serious students with shushing teachers and stern, hovering, hmmhmmming attendants. What then, was our Kylie doing here in this bastion of old colonial conquest, of “seen but not heard” patrons and stiff-lipped custodians? And Kylie, what kind of exhibition was it, anyway? I had to find out


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A trip on the Thames

July 16th 2007 10:16
‘There’s nothing, simply nothing like messing around in boats’ Wind in the Willows.

If, like Ratty, Mole and Toad you like messing around in boats, then London’s Thames River cruise on the Lady Margaret definitely isn’t for you. There’s absolutely no messing about with this boat. It makes a first business-like beeline from Westminster Bridge to Festival Hall where it loads more passengers, then another to St Katherine’s pier at the Tower of London, dropping off visitors to the Tower and picking up people who've already been, before steaming back up-river to the home landing


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Lost Night in the West End

July 13th 2007 02:25
London Night
Southbank by night


The West-End show was always a huge feature of the London visit. Every day In Leicester Square eager travelers queued for cut price, last minute tickets and every night, crowds swell ed outside theatres, buses dropped package tourists in stoles and suits; school-groups milled with anxiously shepherding teachers; there was a babel of chatter in many languages and that unmistakable little thrill of anticipation


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Life imitates art on London's Southbank

July 12th 2007 08:34
Just as In Oslo's Vigeland Sculpture park, art imitates life in statues which look just like people, so on London's Southbank, under the London Eye, life imitates art in people who look just like statues.

The London Eye
The London Eye

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Between Planes

July 11th 2007 07:50
Hong Kong
Hong Kong

Is there anything worse than those bad connections, the really long ones? You’ve come halfway round the world but you’re only half way home. You’ve zipped from day to day; night and sleep have vanished between time-zones, it’s too late to check into a hotel but too early to hit the town and anyway, you’re down to your last dollars and reeling with fatigue. You’re suspended in airport purgatory and deliverance via your onward flight is an infinity of empty hours away.
At 6 a.m., HKIA was eerily quiet. The couches and armchairs were empty, the departure lounges deserted, the shutters still down on the shops and the lonely corridors echoed with the creak of the almost empty people movers. I had 18 long hours to fill before my midnight flight


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On Lake Mountain, in our own snow

July 10th 2007 11:29
Until I went to Oslo, I'd never fully appreciated snow - its layers of different white (I once counted twenty three on a sliced away bank on the side of a road) - its textures (wet and slushy, melting on the pavement, fine and powdery in the untouched corners of the parks, hard and icy in the shadow of the castle wall) - its lights and its reflections (sparkling and glittering in the sunshine, softly glowing in the dark) - its exhilarating, inviting cold. I'd never ski-ed, tobogganed, made a snowman or messed about in the snow. I wasn't a snow person. I wasn't even a winter person. But after Oslo, all that changed. i was ready for the mountains, the snow, the cold. I was ready to try all those winter things. So, on Sunday, with the car loaded with winter woolies we headed out of Melbourne to the mountains. starting at the bottom, so to speak, on the gentle toboggan slope at Lake Mountain. We were five; three adults and two kids. Dan and six-year-old Otis had already conquered Mt Hotham's toboggan slopes several weeks previously, but Gerard and I were novices and little Matthew, almost five, had never seen snow before. The excitement and anticipation grew with every bend as we wound up through the trees from Marysville. All eyes were on the sides of the road, scanning for the first glimpse of white.

Suiting and booting up in the carpark
Suiting and booting up for the snow

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There's more to Oslo than....

July 9th 2007 11:31
Oslo - Bygdoy
Bygdoy wharf

It was pure chance that took me to Oslo. My guy had a meeting there, I just happened to be free, so I seized it, after all carpe diem!. It was chance too that it happened to be spring - that the days were lengthening and although the air was cold it was a bracing, inviting, energising cold - a cold that made the cheeks tingle but left the core untouched. There was snow but it was soft, crunchy, scattered snow - snow that shrinking back, making way for flowers and grass. Trees were layering themselves with green - soft, pale and delicate but the green, nevertheless of leaves. There were cloudless blue skies and warm sun. It was a great time for exploring and discovering. I loved it - the still, glassy, half frozen fjiord; the white carpeted parks; the trees with their dusting of tiny buds; the escape into a warm museum world when the sky turned white with snowflakes; the view on the chilly dusk street from a cosy cafe; the long, slow sunset from the hills; those Oslow nights, with party-people, just out of hiberenation; the shops bright with wooly jumpers of many colours. But there were, in that spring Oslow spring, glimpses of the dark, freezing winter just passed, with roaring fires and thick, heavy, clothes; of thick flying snow and the frozen fjiord; of companionship in warm bars, too cosy to leave. There were glimpses too of the summer just around the corner, with long, long days, the reflection of a golden sun and a dark blue sky in the fjiord, green, thick-leaved trees on rolling lawns in the palace park and families picknicking with the statue people in Vigeland Park.
I left Oslo, not just feeling but that I'd left so much unseen and so much undone. I hadn't seen the fjiord from a ferry, or stopped off on one of its 42 islands. I hadn't sun-baked at Langoyene, the famous nude beach or swum and been seen at Bygdoy's Paradishukta. There were still a dozen museums I hadn't visited. I hadn't been to Garage, the rock n' roll venue, featuring hot Norwegain bands. I hadn't cycled or tramped any of those famous Norwegian woods that lie on Oslo's doorstep. I hadn't caught one of its wonderful summer festivals, (like Norwegian Wood - the roots and rock extravangaza) where you can watch the sun go down over the stage at midnight. I hadn't bought paper clips (a Norwegian invention) or eaten the best waffles in the world at Ekeberg's Cafe Utsikten, with the town's best view over the Fjiord. I haven't tries snus - a kind of viking chewing tobacco, that you put under your top lip until it gives you head-spiuns and trickles out of your mouth and down your chin - well perhaps I'll give that one a miss - but I'm definately going back to Oslo, in the winter, in the summer and in the autumn too, to see and to do all those other things. Has anyone else out there


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Oslo Shopping

July 6th 2007 10:23
For a fashionista like myself, shopping is an integral, if not essential part of any trip. Although Oslo probably couldn't and wouldn't call itself a fashion mecca in the league of Paris and Milan, it has a wonderful range of shopping centres, department stores and boutiques offering all the great global labels, including many of our own from down under.
Karl Johansgate, Oslow
Karl Johansgate

Paleet, on Karl Johans gate is the most glamorous and luxurious of Oslo's commercial centres. Its central lobby houses a dancing bronze sculpture, surrounded by potted palms and tiny glass encased boutiques full of gorgeous, glittering wares. Music plays softly, seducing one to spend, spend, spend. The spiral staircase and glass domed ceiling beckon to galleries above. Fortunately price-tags tend to bring me to my senses and many of Paleet's are as exquisite as its wares. This is no place for bargains, but it's a great place to dream and gather ideas. It also has a lovely cafe, under the dome, at the edge of the gallery, with a great view over thpalm and the statue in the lobby. Aker Brygge, down on the wharf, has its fair share of expensive designer shops too but it also has the bargain EU chains like H&M and Etam. Here I found some of the best boot bargains in the known (to me)world. Over the hill from the Royal Palace is Majorstua the largest shopping area in the city. Its main streets Hegdehaugsveien and Bogstadveien where most of Oslo's designer label boutiques are concentrated


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A day in Oslo's museums and sculpture park

July 5th 2007 02:30
It’s another morning of sharp, contrasting blue, yellow and white but the snow has peeled back to uncover patches of bright grass and dark brown soil and there’s a fine, barely visible dust of palest green on the branches of the trees.
Today I take the tour bus from beside the huge red-brick Rathus (Town Hall) to see some of the parks and museums of outlying Oslo. Oslo has a plethora of magnificent museums and fascinating attractions – impossible to see and absorb them all in just one visit, let alone just one day. The tour takes me to five. We begin at Vigeland Park, Norway's most famous and popular attraction, visited by over one million people each year. Oslo is a city of sculptures – people, animals, ancient ship-parts, abstract plinths, obelisks and stone chunks – they’re everywhere. They hide behind bushes in Karl Johan’s central garden, stare out over the fjiord from Aker Brygge, crouch on the hillside in the park by the palace and guard in every room of the National Art Gallery – it’s a sculpture-lover’s dream. But the park designed by Gustav Vigeland and peopled with over 200 of his statues, is sculpture paradise. At the gate our guide, a statuesque figure herself, with hair like iron filings, the stance of a solid stone block, a concrete-coloured military great-coat and a flinty expression, explains the rules “When I am talking, you are silent” Who could speak anyway? We follow her, dumb-struck and awe-struck, through rows of restlessly flexing, twisting, leaping, thrusting, crouching, clutching, clinging, embracing bronze, granite and cast iron humanity. There are old men and women with expressions of despair and hopelessness, ecstatic lovers, anguished parents, bereft-looking babies, rebellious youths, playful children, all individual and perfect in every detail. They’re knotted together in groups and bound together in pairs. They’re tossed on top of one another in bunches and clusters. They sit back to back and lie front to front. They stalk off alone. They stand in splendid isolation.
Vigeland Sculpture Park
Vigeland sculpture

Vigeland Sculpture Park
Vigeland sculpture

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Norwegian Nights

July 4th 2007 11:14
Oslo Sunset
A spring sunset seen from Holmenkollen
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The spring sunsets in Norway are long, slow and spectacular, starting with a fade down from the brilliant blue, bright yellow and vivid white of the day, into subdued grey, subtle orange and soft pink. The contours of the forests and coastline blur, and mist, like cotton wool, gathers in the dips and folds of the hills.
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A walk around Oslo

July 3rd 2007 06:52
A walk around Oslo
A walk around Oslo
Oslo in spring
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From the corner window of the baroque Grand Café, in the Grand Hotel, where one hundred and one years ago, Ibsen held after theatre soirees, I watch apple-cheeked children pass on their way to school, their breath blowing before them in white wisps. Over the road, are the frozen ponds, piled snow and closed-up kiosks of the garden that runs up the centre of Karl Johan, Oslo’s main, and most picturesque street. Beyond it, buses trams and rattle to and fro


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The Bledisloe Tour

July 2nd 2007 00:13
All Blacks
All Blacks warm up at Bledisloe 2007 game

This trip isn’t about the bargains in Melbourne’s department stores and malls, its fabulous fashion outlets and historic market, although, no doubt, there is some shopping done. Nor is it about the museums or the galleries or the theatres. It isn’t about the city’s cultural diversity, although it is about a meeting of nations. It isn’t really about the restaurants or the cafes or the groovy bars or the clubs, although the pubs are a highly important part of it. It isn’t about the beaches, the gardens and river walks, although it centres on one of the parks. This trip is, first and foremost, about a game – a game of Rugby, the first of two, between arch foes, the Wallabies and the All Blacks for that famous and hotly contested icon of the great sport down-under, the Bledisloe Cup.

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