awakethevoice: travels 2003

uk
Kate and I travelled from Leicester to Oxfordshire, to the village where her mother grew up. In Oxford, we strolled through college grounds and city streets, admiring the peace and beauty.

"The free-thinking of one age is the common sense of the next"
Matthew Arnold from God and the Bible, 1875

belgium
We stopped off in the medieval town of Bruges, exploring its laneways and canals, and admiring its vibrant market square; and then briefly travelled through Brussels - centre of the European Union.

Bruges

netherlands

Amsterdam is a calming, colourful city, and here I discovered many endearing nooks which made me vow to return. We smoked a joint at Bulldogs and explored the canals by boat. I loved the historical museum - which tells the story of the uniquely-constructed city in a particularly engaging way. But if you have to choose one museum in Amsterdam, let it be the Anne Frank House, which is a museological masterpiece. Here you see Anne Frank's actual bedroom and the pictures of Hollywood pin-ups she pasted on the wall. There is an interactive room which asks you to challenge your own prejudices. Finally (and for me most powerfully) there is a room which is filled with hundreds of different publications of her diary - in a hundred or more different languages, whilst a documentary film of her father plays in the background, with him speaking of how proud she would have been to have known of her impact upon the world. My favourite calming nook in Amsterdam was the Begijnhof - an enclosed courtyard dating from the 14th century. It was built as a sanctuary for the Begijntjes - a Catholic sisterhood - and its quietness in the midst of a thriving city seemed other-worldly.

Some public art in the chilled-out city

switzerland
Travelling through Switzerland, we stayed in Lauterbrunnen with the mountains looming over us. We saw the bear pits at Bern which, as a fan of Gwynnedd Rae's children's books about Mary Plain [a bear from these pits and a pre-cursor to Paddington] was a place I had always wanted to go because I had spent a good deal of time imagining what it was like. However the reality of it disturbed me, it being sad to see these great animals caged. Lake Lucerne was like glass - crisp and Swiss and perfect.