A friend of mine posted a photo summarizing his two years in Europe. In it was a wall covered in graffiti and a bike lying against the wall. I don’t know about the graffiti, but I can tell you bikes are big here. And it doesn’t matter what country you’re in. I thought it was a Dutch thing in Amsterdam, until I started to get almost-run-over by bicycles in Brussels on a regular basis. They get special sections of the pavement to stick to. And woe is to the sorry soul who tramples on this sacred Earth. Many a time I was faced with the annoyed staccato “Brrring! Bring!” of a bike bell when I stepped onto the dark red brick that was “pour bicyclettes.”
Even here in London, they’re passionate about their bikes. A few days ago I stepped onto the street and was almost run over by one. I think he yelled, "Moron!" after our near fatal collision, but I can't be sure.
Aside from the rudeness of the cyclers themselves, I think bikes are a great part of Europe. They’re quick, fast, cheap, good for you and don’t emit pesky fossil fuels. And they’ve got it down to a science. In both Brussels and Lille there were Velo stations or Velib (pioneered in Paris) where you go to rent bikes. It works like renting a car but on a shorter term.
“To access the bikes, riders can select a one-day card for 1 euro, a weekly card for 5 euros or an annual card for 29 euros. After the purchase of an access card, riding for the first half-hour is free and a supplement of 1 euro will be charged for an additional half-hour, 2 euros for another 30-minutes and 4 euros for every addition half-hour after that. Example: a 25 minute trip = 0 euros, a 50 minute trip = 1 euro, an hour and 15-minute ride = 3 euros.” (source)
And it’s not just the French speakers. Barcelona and Rome have them and now London is thinking of tossing its hat in the ring. A big push for the bikes are that they reduce traffic jams in Europe’s massively congested city centres. Every time I see these stations I think what a great idea they are and that Canada should definitely do that. Well, it turns out we are.
In September, Montreal started a pilot program similar to the Velib program, called the BIXI, part bike, part taxi. It costs $28 a month and the city hopes to have 2,400 BIXIs by next spring. Stationnement de Montreal, the company that manages the city's on-street parking is picking up the $15 million tab and expects to recoup costs through membership fees (read here for more).
I’m game to see how the experiment goes, especially in the frigid Montreal winters. That’s a problem Paris never really had to deal with.
After walking to Notre Dame, Nicole and I strolled along the islands located in the Seine, Île de la Cité and Île Saint Louis. These islands are two of three islands in Paris. They are naturally occurring, as opposed to the other, Île des Cygnes, artificially made and home to the Statue of Liberty. Aside from being a natural wonder, these two islands are home to the Notre Dame de Paris, the Palais de Justice and as well as other notable attractions. They are also a keen assault on tourists to make sure those who have not already fallen in love with Paris do so immediately. I say this because it was at this point that I feel in love with Paris.
The weather that weekend was rather dreary and the day we went to Notre Dame was no exception. It had rained quite extensively. We stepped out of Notre Dame and began walking along the River Seine and all of a sudden, the sun came out. The sun peaked out from the clouds, started shining and soon rays were bouncing off the river and windows of the lovely buildings along the river and I found myself in a painting.
Île de la Cité, with Notre Dame on the right
Gorgeous buildings
Adding to the scene are the small stalls, called riverside bouquiniste.
"The first Seine-side salesmen appeared in the 19th century on quai Voltaire and sold many of the same items you still see sold today. In 1993, President Jacques Chirac created legal standards for the wooden stands. Today, around 250 vendors—bouquinistes—can be found in the city of light. Peppered along the right bank, on Pont Marie, at Quai du Louvre, the left bank, at Quai de la Tournelle, and the original quai Voltaire, they carry cheapo souvenirs in abundance.” [EuroCheapo]
Nicole at a bouquiniste
They may be cheap souvenirs, but I find them quite charming. On display is everything from vintage magazines and newspapers, as well as old maps of Paris, art reproductions, and French books. And in case you're wondering, it's all very highly regulated.
"Each bouquiniste is given four boxes, all of a specified size, and rent is paid only for the stone on which the boxes rest (less than €100 per year). The most coveted spots are awarded based on seniority. Maintenance costs, including the required vert wagon paint (the green color of old train cars), are paid by the bouquinistes. With little overhead, prices are usually cheaper than in most shops. And yes, they do leave everything inside when they lock up at night; metal bars and padlocks keep things safe." [Rick Steves' Europe]
They may seem like a small thing, but they really add to the character of the area. And it’s not just the riverside vendors. The whole island has a beautiful, laid back, small village feel to it. We crossed into Ile Saint Louis for ice cream. The ice cream—I got praline—was exquisite as was the island.
The back end of Notre Dame. The road is the entry to the other island, Île Saint Louis.
The following are pictures of London from February 2nd to 3rd. For average Canadians, this could be a picture of a normal day from December to (sometimes as late as) March. But for London, England, theses scenes represent the apocalypse.
It started Sunday night when it started snowing and, two hours later, was still on the ground. This already distinguished it from other snowing episodes I’ve lived through here. It was still snowing at 1am when I went to check out the Super Bowl half time show. The British kids and some other Europeans who’d never seen snow before were having a jolly old time looking out the window, throwing snowballs and making snowmen. Being Canadian, I went to bed unimpressed at the few centimeters on the ground.
Eight hours later, when my alarm went off, I heard the city had shut down: the highways (or motorways) were a parking lot, buses weren’t running, the Tube (subway) was closed save for one limited line. Airports were closed, flights were delayed, schools were closed (including mine) and they were encouraging people to stay at home and make no unnecessary travel.
Still in bed and a bit groggy I texted my friends to cancel our plans to go to the library that morning. As I did I absently wondered at how much snow had fallen to make London (population 7.5 million) come to a complete standstill like this. There was barely 10cm outside! Ten lousy centimetres of snow brought London, a great city that had withstood bombings from Nazis in WWII and angry rebellious Protestants during the 80s and 90s to a grinding halt.
I read later that up to 20 cm fell that day. But the problem isn’t snow it’s infrastructure.
“We're not in Russia here," said Guy Pitt, a Transport for London spokesman. "We don't have an infrastructure built for constant snow."
He’s absolutely right. London doesn’t have snow-plows or salt to deal with the snow. So they let it be, accumulate, freeze and turn into ice. All the while people are trapped in their homes. And they have to wait for it to melt. School was cancelled Monday and Tuesday as the city slowly recovered from it’s “onslaught” of 20cm of snow. We didn't care. I had an extra day to do work and some people went tobogganing on nearby Primrose Hill.
But, as a Torontonian, who is the perpetual butt of every "wow-it's-snowing-why-don’t-you-call-in-the-army?” joke, I was mortified to find myself in another city that can’t hack the elements.
My grandmothers are two of the toughest women I know. One is the finest lady I know and I’m sure could make a gangster feel ashamed of his profession. The other, in her 80s, makes her own cinder blocks and wakes up with the roosters. These are strong Portuguese women and I’m very proud to come from such strong stock.
But, there are just some things that an 84 year old women shouldn’t do. One of them is picking alfarroba. For those of you unaware of what an alfarroba is, don’t worry, it’s a Portuguese word. The English word for it is a carob tree. I’m not going to pretend I know what they are. I didn’t know there was an English equivalent and I still don’t know what is. All I knew was that they could be used in chocolate and that my grandmother picks them and then sells them.
Alfarroba's aka carob pods. The black kind play the starring role in this story.
That’s how it started. My mom’s mom has a house in the country. She spends her days in her garden tending to her flowers, plants and doing other upkeep. She also has a giant carob tree on her property. Lucky for us, our time in Portugal happened to coincide with the time of the year when alfarroba’s are ripe for picking. Not one to actually come out and ask for our help, my grandmother spent two days subtly (or not so subtly) hinting that she'd like us to help. We would ask her when she’d come to the beach with us. She’d sigh heavily, look out the window point at the carob tree and say she had so much work to do. Keep in mind that there is no real obligation to the tree—there is no law to pick the tree. But it was on her property and she wasn’t going to neglect it. So we made a deal: she would come stay with us for a few days and we (me, parents, my sister and brother-in-law, Steve) would devote our Saturday to picking this tree.
“It’ll take a morning, probably less with all of us helping,” my dad assured us, himself a veteran of the task.
We began early: up at 8am and after a wake up coffee for the oldies (Jen and Steve I’m talking to you) we were off. Our task was to get the alfarroba pods off the tree and collected in sacs. In some cases this was easy. Some had fallen off the tree and all we had to do was pick them off the ground.
Others were not so accessible. In order to get at them we resorted to different tactics. The first was to use giant sticks to smack at branches of the tree. This would send pods falling to the ground and usually hitting whoever was picking them up— in this case me—on the head (imagine raw lima beans smacking you in the head).
In order to get at the hard to reach branches, some of us would climb the trees to smack at the branches with our aforementioned big sticks. This was both a test of balance (standing on the branch) as well as coordination (using the stick to smack the branches).
But perhaps the most efficient way was Steve’s, “making it rain.” It involved Steve climbing the tree, going deep into the brush and with each hand holding a different branch and either jumping or shaking the branches. This would cause the pods to cascade to the ground in large numbers and “making it rain.” It proved quite successful as it maximized the amount of alfarobas and minimized the effort of everyone—except maybe Steve.
But it was not without its dangers. There were a few times when Steve neglected to tell us it was about to “rain” and those on the ground—me and Jen—where assailed with bean shaped missiles smacking us in the head from great heights and at greed speeds.
In the end, collecting all the alfarrobas took a full day. To amuse ourselves we sang out loud—Pretty Woman, Bon Jovi and others. By the end, we were exhausted, full of back pain and covered in battle scars.
Scraps and scuffs from the carob tree
And to add insult to injury, my grandmother welshed on her bet. She never came with us to the beach.
One thing I was struck by in Madrid was the frequency of parks and gardens. I’m no stranger to European parks—Brussels has two formidable ones which I was a frequent visitor of— but the scale of Madrid’s greenery is quite opulent (there's that word again). Most date back to the grandeur of the Spanish Empire when having a large, well-tended garden was a matter of pride. In any case, they’re gorgeous. The royal gardens (the ones beside the royal palace) where pretty impressive in their scale.
Then there were the Royal Botanical Gardens. These were for more scientific purposes than for show. There were flowers and cacti and other groupings of plants that I can't name. Each had the name of the plant and throughout there were statues of famous Spanish botanists. Can you every imagine a Canadian botanist getting their own statue? Can anyone even name a Canadian botanist?
Pretty flowers
Did I mention they have a greenhouse on site?
Royal cacti
Rows upon rows of famous botanists
By far the best is El Retiro. The Central Park of Madrid, it is located right beside the Prado. I meandered into it after my foray into the Prado and I was looking for a quite spot to read. It offered that and more.
This isn't even the half of it. Maybe 1/24
It's what I call perspective. My shadow and the length of the park
After I read a few chapters, I remembered that there was a memorial to the victims of the Madrid bombings in 2005 located somewhere in the park. I set out to find it, not knowing where it would take me. What I realized is that they should really offer maps of the park itself. There are so many things to see inside it. There’s the memorial, then there’s a pond where people row boats in front of a huge statue of Alphonso XII. There’s also various statues to famous Spaniards.
The pond and row boats
But the real interesting thing is the Crystal Palace, which is indeed made of crystal—OK, glass, but that ruins the romance of it. I spent, without exaggeration, 2 hours in there looking for the Palace and memorial. And I still didn’t find the memorial, try though I did. But here’s the palace.
Notice how the light has changed. That's how long I was there.
I almost forgot about this. One of the good things about staying in Brussels through August is that I got to see the flower carpet. The night before, crews set up in the Grand Place and cover it with flowers. A tradition dating back to the 1970s, they do this every two years. It only lasts three days so it's a major event that happens on a long weekend and brings hundreds to the Grand Place.
Some people viewed the spectacle from the ground. But I joined the eager beavers and took in the view from the top of City Hall. Here are some of the pictures.
There’s a park near my house. I don’t know if “park” is quite the right word for it. There are some trees and shrubs around it but it is mostly taken up by a huge pond. Again, I wouldn’t use the term pond to describe it. I would use “lake” but Cassandra says it’s a pond and I’ve never professed myself to be an expert in geography.
In any case, there’s a huge pond with a fountain sprouting water into said pond. Carelessly swimming in the pond, are cute little ducks. There aren’t many of them, but they make a funny noise when they quack now and again and are amusing to watch.
Around the pond there are signs in both official languages—French and Dutch, in case you were wandering—warning not to feed the ducks. Every four or five feet is a new sign. And there is a barricade set up around the perimeter of the pond, to dissuade any wise guys from taking the law into their own hands and feeding these ducks. They’re not killer ducks. They’re not particularly brazen either. We were there for about 20 minutes and none of them bit me or attacked me with their wings or beaks. But there is a reason for this insane precaution. It’s because these ducks already have a food source. It’s this:
The city provides them with their own supply of food. As you can see from the picture, it’s quite appetizing. No wonder there’s only about 4 of them in a huge park.
Since this weekend was one of the few days we have off I decided to make the best of it.A few of us made the trek to a near-by monastery for the cultural experience, to spend some time in nature (the monastery is accessible only through wooded paths) but also to partake in the homemade beer the monks brew—who said beer and the divine don’t mix?
We were told the monastery was a good hour’s walk.But the guide had prefaced the announcement of the monastery by asking if anyone liked “hiking.”Right here was where I should have clued in. I wasn’t prepared to hike. I didn’t have hiking boots—or running shoes for that matter.All I had was ballet flats, stilettos high heels and Converse sneakers which I thought I had broken in.Oh, how wrong was I. Since we had all afternoon, I was ready for the adventure. What I wasn’t prepared for was the unbearable pain my shoes were about to put me through.
It started out well enough but as we left the city centre and were treading on more and more dirt paths, my feet started to throb. A tough guy through and through, I ignored them and concentrated on the beautiful panoramas of green fields, flowers and hills.
Oh, the hills. With “the hills are alive with the sound of music…” playing in my head, we ran down steep hills and walked wooded paths that easily could have been Amazon rainforests—save for the sweltering heat—while birds chirped around us. It was so tranquil I had to capture it.So my camera is flooded with greenery shot after greenery shot.
It continued like this for miles so much so that, except for the path, it felt we were completely removed from civilization. That is until we got to the monastery and saw a paved parking lot plunked right after the bridge that connected the. Welcome to civilization.
By this time, I had developed a slight limp. But I refused to let the pain dampen my experience. The church and grounds were beautiful. No matter how many European churches I see (and I’ve seen my fair share), they never cease to amaze me at the expense (gold, everywhere) and sense of tradition that overwhelms me. You’d think this being a German church (and Germany being home to the Reformation), they’d be a bit less opulent. Not really. It wasn’t as obvious as Portuguese churches, but it was still there.
Then there was the beer. I sampled my fair share. As a beer newbie, I can’t vouch for the quality, but I’m told it was great.
So after a half hour siesta, we headed back and oh how the hills (and shoes) took their revenge. The same hills that had been fun to run down (or roll down for some people) an hour earlier now became unscaleable mountains. I trudged up them while my companions (hardened nature lovers from Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia) laughed at me. But I made it.And I have the blisters to prove it.
A twenty-something J-school grad embarks on a European adventure. This blog documents her musings about politics, life, culture and everything in between.
Aside from the rudeness of the cyclers themselves, I think bikes are a great part of Europe. They’re quick, fast, cheap, good for you and don’t emit pesky fossil fuels. And they’ve got it down to a science. In both Brussels and Lille there were Velo stations or Velib (pioneered in Paris) where you go to rent bikes. It works like renting a car but on a shorter term.
is thinking of tossing its hat in the ring. A big push for the bikes are that they reduce traffic jams in Europe’s massively congested city centres. Every time I see these stations I think what a great idea they are and that Canada should definitely do that. Well, it turns out we are.
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