Category Archives: Video

Tervist Eesti!

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Somehow I survived the living hell of Stansted (again) – I am so not looking forward to flying back in again after Graspop. It has the worst queues for passport control of any airport I have ever been in. Madness.

Anyway, the good side is that I arrived in perfect time (10 minutes early, in fact) at Tallinn Airport in Estiona. This was a much nicer, quicker welcome than I got back into the UK and shortly after getting my bags I met up with Johnny. He and his wife Lena were to be my Couchsurfing hosts here in Estonia. I’d not expected an airport pickup, so it was a very pleasant surprise and we had a nice little natter on the way to their flat.

The area around the airport is nothing out of the ordinary as far as cities and urban areas go. It’s neither Gothic like Romania, or Communist like Belarus. It’s just… western Europe. I was surprised to see how expensive fuel was, though – around 80% of the UK price. I’d expected that to be lower.

Johnny dropped me off and gave me the front door key while he returned to work. I had a much-needed shower and got ready to go out… until the heavens started to rumble and rain bucketed down. I don’t recall the list time I could actually watch rain arriving the way it did here. You can see what I mean on this YouTube video.

The cat got a little scared, so I had a cuddly bundle in my arms as the rain powered down. I’m glad I’d taken the time for a shower indoors rather than suffer the deluge outside. Eventually it eased off somewhat, I grabbed my daybag and headed out.

Johnny had sorted me with a map and some points of interest to check out, as well as bus numbers. The distance didn’t seem too bad so I decided to walk it instead. By my reckoning, the Old Town was around 45 minutes away by foot. As I strolled, I walked past a few things of interest, some of which I had to check with Johnny afterwards as the detail on them was Cyrillic.

The Tallinn Song Festival Grounds are quite impressive with an enormous arch covering the amphitheatre. At a guess, I’d say it goes almost as high as the Millennium Bridge on Tyneside. Facing the stage is a statue of a man admiring the performance. I’m not sure who it’s meant to be, though!

Further down the road is a statue of an angel holding a cross. A quick Google got me the following information:

It’s for a Russian ship named Russalka, which sank in the Gulf of Finland in 1893. Well actually it’s for the 177 men who died there. It’s made by Amandus Adamason, an Estonian sculptor, in 1902.

The cross in her hand points in the direction of where the ship sank. It’s a great statue and you can climb up around the base for a view over the Gulf.

On I walked and made it to the outskirts of the Old Town on schedule. The map Johnny had given me wasn’t bad, but the streets in Tallinn meander in curves so it’s easy to lose track of where you are. I spent a good couple of hours stretching my legs – well-needed after the concrete floor I spelt on the previous night – and seeing the sights.

The Old Town area does have some fantastic old buildings, though they’re often mixed with more modern ones. The styles vary a lot from street to street to it’s an interesting mix. The grandest was without a doubt the Alexander Nevski Cathedral opposite Toompea Castle. You can tell it’s a Russian Orthodox church purely from the minarettes and turrets. It’s very well tended and looks 10 years old, not 200, if a little “blingy”.

There are a couple of viewpoints from the old city walls, though the only one worth checking out is Kohtuotsa. It provides a view over the rooftops of the Old Town. The other in the same area simply looks onto the train station – not much of a view any more!

I had lunch at a burger kiosk – these are eveywhere around the town but Johnny recommended this particular one. I should have taken a photo of the name as it’s definitely not one I’d remember! I do recall there being “ÖÖ” in the middle…

Taking his direction I also booked my ferry ticket to Helsinki for Thursday morning. It was a little more expensive than I thought, but still not bad at 497EEK (around £25) for the one-way crossing. My advice for anyone else is to book as early as possible and direct with the ferry company if you can. The travel agent’s fee wasn’t large by any account but every little helps. You do get cheaper fares booking early, though.

The best area for being a tourist and taking pictures is around the Town Hall Square (“Raekoja Plats”). The buildings here are pretty much all medieval and the restaurants on nearby Vana Turg try to theme themselves on this. Pride of them all is Olde Hansa, although it was far too expensive for me to even consider going in!

Anther interesting building I spotted was called “Kiek in de Kök”. Apparently it was the most powerful cannon tower in 16th century Northern Europe. I think it sounds more like a harsh way to disable an opponent in a fight.

Overall I spent around 3 or so hours walking around this small-ish area, just meandering and taking corners as I pleased. My feet were starting to ache and I was suffering from the lack of sleep so I decided it was time to head back to the flat, coincidentally as I got a text from Johnny saying that both he and Lena had returned.

I stopped off at a small supermarket to pick up some snacks and tried to aim for Estonian products, or at least something I’d not tried before. I ended up with some BBQ corn kernels, Estonian chocolate, a dark beer and some biscuits.

Back in the flat, I met Lena who’d prepared gazpacho soup (never tried it before, rather nice) and some 100% estonian fish and egg open sandwiches. Which is a problem as I don’t like fish… I did try, however! The fish was very salty and reminded me a little of the cod I tried when I stayed with with Jojo in Mons. We sat and chatted, I tried the beer (lovely) and munched way until bed-time. Despite “losing” two hours, I was shattered and my eyes were itching.

Overall, a hectic day and my feet still ache a little as I write this! I feel I’ve seen most of the city that I want to so tomorrow I’ll take it easy and run errands.

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Needles, curries and chaos

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Cable carAs detailed in the previous post, Leah arrived this week (actually, now last week) and we decided we’d do something more than laugh at her inability to stand upright on a plank of wood this time. As such, Friday saw us ascend the scarily high cable car up the Aiguille du Midi. This ain’t cheap, coming in at €38 (£30 at current rates each) for the return trip but for one of those things we’re both likely to do only once…

Was it a great experience? Yes, definitely. Was it worth thirty squids? Hmm. I suppose so, seeing as it’s effectively a unique trip. The view was certainly splendid, with clear skies giving us quite a distance to squint in the sun to see as far as we could. The local wildlife (mainly blackbirds of some description) were pretty fearless and happy to perch within easy reach of a non-zoomed camera.

BirdThere isn’t a lot to actually do up there unless you’re a particularly experiences skier/boarder with a fair amount of expensive equipment. Ropes, crampons, radio locators and so on are compulsory for anyone considering traversing the Mer de Glace. With my lack of experience and the avalanche warning indicator reading 4/5 I wasn’t really up for it anyway. A British snowboarder died up here about a month ago as well. There’s reason they recommend you get insurance when you do snow sports.

In case I didn’t get the point across, though – the view is fantastic. I took quite a few photos, some dotted around here, and a short video that I’ve posted on YouTube. Sadly, we didn’t have time to get up to the peak (accessed by a separate lift). I’ve been told that section includes an engineering museum of sorts. The last car down was around 16:30 and we were pushing it to ensure we weren’t crammed onto it like sardines. We caught the one before and “enjoyed” (OK, Leah hated) the sudden drops which were part of the descent. Not aided by some middle-aged chap screaming like a girl every time the car dipped.

Oh, the “needles” in the post title refers to this peak. The name translates literally as “Needle of Midday”, a reference to the fact that at noon the sun hangs directly over the peak when viewed from the town below.

Chamonix from Aiguille du MidiOn Saturday, Leah bent to my begging and allowed me to sit in Bar D’up to watch the football. I was only interested in the FA Cup match, and well done to Portsmouth. Shame for WBA, as I think they had it in them to at least get it to extra time.

Sunday. Ah, Sunday. That’s the “chaos” above. You know in the last post I mentioned that this was our last weekend with a full set of open resorts, and that therefore there should be less possibility of problems? I opened my gob too soon…

Combine the snow in the UK with the fact that one of our planes had been taken out for servicing (meaning that all the guests supposed to be on it were split over two smaller aircraft with an hour’s difference in arrival time) and everything went to pot. All of the coach departures had to be recalculated, people moved, extra feeder buses drafted in and guests were made to wait for the next flight to land before they could get to resort.

Having said that, we did deal with everything and the majority of guests were really nice about it. Probably as they were too tired to make a fuss. In fairness, it was obvious that the situation was completely out of our hands. Many of them had sat on the runway at Gatwick watching as a foot of snow was swept off the wings of the aircraft. For four hours. Of course, we had one or two (pretty much precisely one or two, out of a few hundred) who decided to try and take their frustrations out on some of our staff by yelling and basically being rude. The workers had likely been up from an earlier hour than any of our guests and were doing their best to deal with a bad situation. I’d recommend that if you’re the kind of person who shouts at people as a means of trying to make yourself feel better about something, you don’t try it on with one of our staff (or anyone else’s, frankly). You’ll find that the majority will just stare at you, turn around and walk off. As they should. And you’ll just get more wound up at their “rudeness”. We’re actually told to do this. Partly as you’re just being pathetic, and partly as these people aren’t paid enough to deal with abuse, especially when it’s a result of something they and we had no control over. Deal with it. To the vast, vast majority of our guests this Sunday I would like to say “thanks”.

Structure at the peakAnyway, I ended up being late back from the airport and missed the kickoff of the second FA Cup semi-final. Shame as it was a good match and well done to Cardiff (the land of my father, quite literally) in making it to the final. I’ll be rooting for them partly from heredity, and partly as it’ll cause the English FA a problem as they’re saying they won’t give the FA Cup-winner’s UEFA spot to Cardiff if they win. I’m sure that’ll be forced to change if Cardiff take the cup.

I should also mention that I kind of left the lights on on Sheridan’s car. So by the time she and Lisette got back to it, the battery was a little flat… Whoops. Fortunately they were parked on the roof of the carpark so rolling it down the ramp would be an easy way to bump-start it.

Unless the car was, let’s say, a Toyota Yaris. They have a little “feature” that means for the engine to turn over you have to have the clutch pedal pushed in. This is, I suppose, to stop you turning the engine over with the car in gear, thus lurching forward or back and smashing something. It also makes it impossible to bump start. Ah well, they got a jump start from one of the airport staff soon enough and got back in one piece. I’m blaming Lisette as I’ve never left the lights on before and this is the first time in weeks that she’s been in the car. Therefore the was the off factor out so must be to blame for me not hearing the shrill beep of the warning tone when we got out.

View over mountainsBack to the evening. After some beer/wine, we looked for somewhere to eat and ended up settling on the Annapurna curry house again. Leah had never been for an Indian before, the prices were keen and I knew the food was good. And it was. Again. The restaurant wasn’t so busy this time and by the time we left around 21:00, I think we were the only ones left. We got chatting to the man who runs it who, it turns out, is from Mauritius. Quite a jump from the splendid beached of this tiny island nation to the mountains of the Alps! Regardless, the food was superb and I’m promising myself at least one more meal there before the season ends.

Back to work today, though I have tomorrow off. Tonight’s plan is for half-price chicken wings at MBC again. I expect to be very full by around 20:00. I am almost belching in advance!

Finally, a quick “congratulations” to Delphine, who just landed herself a job in Paris. Sounds pretty cool, too. All to do with earth shifting and seismics and stuff.

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Visitor season in full swing

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The rack and pinion train at MontenversToday I just waved off Viv from the airport before getting caught in a huge traffic jam on the way back into Chamonix. In fairness, it takes a metre of snowfall for people over here to start driving like snails that have lost their way home. Significantly better than the idiots in the UK who seem to think that 2mm of snow qualifies as a blizzard and an excuse to drive their Chelsea tractor at 5mph. Usually right in front of me.

Anyhoo, Viv was last sighted by myself on Teeside when she put me up for a couple of nights and fed me too much food. Before that, we hooked up in Prague when I convinced her to have a few nights off from the day-to-day stresses of life in the UK. This time it was to be the mountains and (on the last day of her visit anyway) tons and tons of fluffy snow.

We went to the hotel where the staff had very kindly agreed to trial out their dinner service on us on the Tuesday night. Definitely worth the walk up – two bottles of Chardonnay, delicious chicken noodle soup, lamb and veg and sticky toffee pudding for dessert. This followed by a walk down to Bar D’up for a couple of beers and then oblivion as soon as we got in. I’ve not been so tiddly for some time!

Icicles at MontenversThe next day, Viv had already said she wanted to head up to Montenvers and the ice grotto. We walked up to the station, picked up our tickets (€21 each) and clambered aboard the regular train. This is one of France’s few remaining rack and pinion railways. Essentially it has gears on the bottom which mesh with a third “rail” underneath the train to provide plenty of grip as it clambers up the steep slope. It was standing room only (for me anyway) on the ride up which was hard work on the “downhill” leg!

The views from the top are amazing. We were lucky with the weather so we could see a fair distance up and down the valley, and down onto the ice grotto beneath us. Included in the return ticket is entrance to the grotto, the cable car to get to it, a small exhibition of natural crystals and a dinky “fauna museum” (collection of stuffed animals). We took the car down to the grotto area, but Viv left me to walk down the 300 steps to the entrance. She reckoned that wouldn’t be too hard, but getting back up them again afterwards would likely kill her, and I doubt her insurance would cover “death by step”.

I quite liked the grotto and took a video of my walk around it which I’ve posted on YouTube for you. It’s an impressive but strange size. One you enter it’s bigger than you expect… but once you’ve walked round it you realise it’s smaller than you hoped. Little “rooms” have been carved out with ice furniture in them, and coloured lights make it look all pretty. It’s actually carved into the Mer de Glace – the largest glacier in France. 40km2 and 7km in length is a lot of ice.

The grotto is created each year so is never quite the same. Workers called “grottus” re-carve certain parts each morning and ensure the grotto is safe to enter. This is to account for the ice moving constantly. Only 1cm per hour, but that’s still enough to require remodelling on a regular basis.

Inside the ice grotto at MontenversWe were up there for a couple of hours and I convinced Viv to accompany me to Midnight Express (of course) for lunch. Needless to say, the food was great and we nattered and watched some video before taking a walk. We popped by the office to grab a couple more films, then round by the leisure centre as Viv planned to visit the next day while I was at work. I’ve not been on point of principle – men must wear Speedos to use the pool. Ew.

Round the corner from my flat is a bar called La Terrace, and I’ve often heard music coming from there in the evening when I’m heading home. It sounded louder this time, so we investigated to discover that Juggernaut (the rock covers band who play there a lot) were doing a special set on the outside balcony. Pretty daring given the chill wind the necessity of fingers to play guitar. They started off playing to about 12 people, two dogs and a very hyperactive child. After 90 minutes or so, the crowd had swelled to something approaching 200 and most of them were singing the choruses. A great mix of tunes as well – Abba to Iron Maiden, strangely enough.

Back in the flat we watched the very entertaining Mr Brooks before narcolepsy (and wine) took hold. I had work early the next morning anyway.

Thursday was work for me and chill-out for Viv. She never made it to the leisure centre, but had a wander round the shops. Chamonix is great for this. I rustled up a rather tasty chicken curry for dinner and we ploughed through Mr Woodcock and Hitman for entertainment. Then that damn wine got the better of us again and all too soon it was crash-time.

An overhead shot at MontenversThen round to today. Overnight the snow we’d been promised for two weeks finally arrived. In droves. As I type this, it’s been snowing non-stop for at least 14 hours, with apparently no end until Monday. Great for sports (assuming the lifts are open), not so good for driving and transfers… Sunday should be entertaining, though I gather the snow will be lighter then. I feel sorry for the people transferring tomorrow as it seems a lot of roads are closed.

Well, roll on next week. I have two more visitors from Tuesday for a week!

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1000 MILES!!!

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See that pedometer? That reads “3.01”. Added to the other 997 miles I’ve done since I left Monte Carlo, that makes… 1000. A thousand. Miles. 1600km, give or take. And I hit the magic number just outside of Utrecht this afternoon. One the shorted scheduled day of walking on the entire trip!

The walk today was clocked at 7 miles, but ended up being nearer 5 as my accommodation last night was two miles north of the station, which marked the original starting point. So it was barely an hour after I set off that the magic mile mark came around.

After that, into Utrecht. A quick walk around impressed. Bustling, nice streets – a mix of narrow and wide – some lovely buildings and great buzz around the canal areas. I met my host, Andrea, at the train station and we walked back to her flat where I met a mad cat, a cute bunny rabbit and two flatmates.

Right now, I’m sat here digesting dinner and realising I only have three actual walking days left (plus some crash time in Amsterdam).

I’m coming home!

(See the magic moment in all it’s YouTubey goodness here)