Copenhagen Friday 23rd September

We indulged in a wee bit of a lie in this morning, which was a good start to a day that was planned to run a fairly gentle pace.   After a welcome croissant we rode the rails back to Copenhagen Central Station from whence we walked to Gammel Strand where we boarded our vessel for the Grand Tour of Copenhagen cruise. It didn't quite live up to its hyperbolic billing but was a pretty impressive trip that took in a lot of the sights from a watery perspective. Copenhagen could be be described as Venice meets Amsterdam. Have a look at the pictures to see what I mean.

The Marble Church in the Amalienborg Palace.

Canal leading to the Nyhavn (New Harbour, getting to understand this Danish then?)

A rather elegant pedestrian bridge trying to be a schooner.

Hans Christian Anderson's famous Little Mermaid Mermaid statue. Apparently he goes down particularly well in China.

 The Danish National Opera House. We're have a tour planned for tomorrow.

Part of the Charlottenborg Palace with the facade covered by what appears to be old sacks. I don't know why but as it is Copenhagen's equivalent to Tate Modern maybe it is an artistic installation in itself. A sort of ironic Banksy.

A photograph of a chap rudely taking a photograph right in front of me, meanwhile just behind me there is a chap...........
There follows some pictures on the theme of cycles. Copenhagen is the most cycle friendly city that I have ever encountered. It goes without saying that a huge percentage of the population appear to be cycling around the city all the time. The rest have left their bikes all over the place.

Next some of Copenhagen's inspiring structures.

See what I mean? Long live the Rococo!

And some are less inspiring but towering achievements nonetheless.

After the cruise we sat outside a restaurant and enjoyed a selection of open Danish sandwiches. Next stop was a visit to the Opera house which you have already seen if you have been paying attention. The journey involved a metro ride followed by a bus. Unfortunately the Opera was closed so we arranged to go on the 12 o'clock English tour tomorrow.
On our way back we wandered into Chistiania and could have spent a long time there. Most people seem to spend a lifetime albeit a short one, but certainly a happy one.
Here is how a guide book describes the place.
"Far out, man! This self-governing community was founded by hippies in the 1970s." Freetown Chistiania" is part utopian commune part-illict pleasure town. Pleasingly ramshackle dwellings sit amongst foliage and funky sculptures pepper the pathways. And in Christiania's "Green light district", knowing visitors are drawn by the sweet smell of independence. "

Well I feel a bit better about my writing after that. Have a look at some images.

I'm sure you get the idea. For some reason a very high percentage of the people seem to smoke. It was a self-sufficient community with all you needed contained within. There was also a huge warehouse that could have had the entire contents of ebay available inside. Resisting all temptation we returned to the hotel for some less ethereal pleasures. 

Fifty up but one more to do. Denmark and Copenhagen Thursday 22 September

I have for a while thought that there are 50 sovereign states in Europe and after visiting Denmark I thought that I would have completed my European oddesey.  Only while researching this trip did I discover that Kazakhstan is considered part of Europe. It is the only European country that you need to travel through, or fly over Russia,  to reach. Another challenge then.
Meanwhile back to the delights of Denmark and a little historical and geographical background.
Denmark is the southernmost and smallest of the Nordic states. It consists of a peninsula (Jutland) and an archipelago of 443 named islands including Zealand and Funen. Also included are the two autonomous constituent countries of Greenland (50 times the size of Denmark) and Faroe Islands (one 30th the size of Denmark). Sort of little and large relations. The 5 and a half million Danes are ruled by a parliamentary democracy and the Head of State is Queen Margrethe II.
The country is up there with the other Scandinavian states with its standard of living. It ranks very highly in world indeses for education, health care, prosperity and civil liberties. It has the world's highest level of social mobility and the lowest level of perceived corruption. The downside of all this is that it has one of the world's highest levels of personal income tax along with one of the highest levels of per capita income.
We left about half an hour later than planned so we were now a little tight on time but should still be fine........  until the expected traffic delays on the A47 at Peterborough but we avoided these by cutting through Eye.......  until we realised that everyone else had the same plan. By the time we got onto the A1 our arrival time gave us less than an hour to park, clear security and get to the gate which is a trek of, seemingly many a mile at Luton. The mid-term car parking that we had booked into contained about 5000 cars and 1 free space so that we had to drive around to find the needle in the car stack. Suffice it to say that we reached the departure gate at least 5 minutes before it was closed.
The flight was about one and a half hours and easy, as was entry into Denmark. We bought 2 tourist travel cards that last for 72 hours and cost £20 each. With these we travelled one stop down the line to Tamby where our hotel is. In the picture below you can see the station, a Danish bike (looks Dutch to me), Helen and a local postbox.

Only another 2 stops down and you arrive at Copenhagen Central Station. The architecture is interesting as it it was built to minic a gothic cathedral with germanic schloss undertones to the exterior. Note especially the "oak hammer beam" roof. How about the steam train weather vane?

Right opposite the Central Station is the one place most people associate with Copenhagen, the Tivoli Gardens. The other, of course is the disappointing small Little Mermaid but I suppose that the clue is in the name. We spent the rest of the evening in the gardens, a magical mystery land opened in 1843. It had 4.7 million visitors in 2015 which made it the second most visited theme park in the world. It has everything from white knuckle rides,  concerts, fairground stalls and bars and restaurants. Exciting by day but wonderful by night with twinkling fairy lights and culminating in a laser lightshow climax. I went on  the scariest ride I have experienced whizzing round on the end of a huge arm in a tiny open plane which twisted round whilst looping the loop at 100 kph. We also watched the comedy ballet. Have a look at some pictures. 

After that lot it was time to catch the train back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.

A drop into Pegasus bridge Saturday 9th July 2016

Helen doesn't really know any details of her Dad's activities other than that he was in 7th Parachute (light infantry) Battalion and that he was there.  It would be a real bonus to find direct evidence of Jock himself, but just being there today will be great. Let me show you round the memorial.

This picture shows the front entrance to the museum. Note the stylised para wings badge built into the porch. This motif is repeated on the side of the building as you can see in the next picture. Also note the flags of the Allied combatants, I'm sure you can work these out for yourself. 

The memorial itself is dedicated to the 6th Airborne Division and rather sidelines the role of 7th Parachute. The 6th Airborne did take the bridges but it was the responsibility of the 200 parachutists to defend the crucially strategic targets against the inevitable German counter attacks which came in the form  of planes, tanks, gunboats and heavy infantry fire. All of these were successfully repulsed at some considerable cost until the arrival of Lord Lovat's commandos at 13-30.

In the background here is the original Pegasus bridge. It was built in 1934, liberated in 1944 and replaced in 1994 when the canal was widened. It now stands in the memorial grounds. As does a replica of the Horsa glider and a section on the remarkable Bailey bridge. See below. 

You can see the present day Pegasus bridge in the background of this picture. As you come to expect with "other ranks", there is not much mention of names unless they are casualties so it came as no surprise to find no reference to Jock in the museum. Except..... he is in here somewhere! 

The next picture shows the famous Gondree Cafe as it was next to the bridge it trades on the epithet "first house to be liberated" in France. It has done so successfully for 74 years and is still run by the granddaughter of the war time owners. 

Back to Caen for an evening out. The efficient modern tram runs past our road end, so it's the obvious choice. Caen was of course flattened in WW2 with little surviving  except for the Abbeys where 2000 locals optimistically sheltered from the bombs. 

The Abbey aux Hommes built by William the Conquerer to atone to the Pope for his religiously illegal marriage to Matilda. 

The architectural style is of course Norman, as you can see inside and out.

Also inside you can see the last resting place of the good King. 

Finally some pictures of  "old" Caen. Tomorrow will be much the same as Friday only the other way round as it were. 

We did indeed have a good run back, enhanced by Lewis Hamilton's win in the British Grand Prix and Andy Murray's Wiimbledon title. 

A drop into Pegasus bridge Friday 8th June 2016

Just after midnight  on the morning of 6th June 1944 Helen's father Bill (Jock) Mitchell  landed by parachute in German occupied Northern France. He was part of Operation Deadstick and the mission was to capture the road bridges over the Caen canal and the Orne river and thus prevent a German flanking attack on the landing beaches.
Just before midnight the 6th Airborne Division arrived silently by 6 Horsa gliders. These were navigated expertly right up to the bridges allowing the 180 members of the Oxon and Bucks light infantry to capture their objectives. The 7th Parachute Battalion dropped in a few minutes later with a strength of 200 men. Their  job was to secure the bridges against German counter attack for the next 24 hours until Lord Lovat's commandos could arrive from the beach landings to reinforce them. Below I have a contemporary photo of the bridge two days after its capture.

Until this weekend Helen has never visited the site of Pegasus bridge, so we decided to take a break from the builders and drive across to Normandy to put matters right. Leaving promptly (nearly) at 8am, we encountered roadworks at Peterborough but otherwise made good time to Dover and even got on the same ferry that we had booked. We enjoyed an alfresco and expensive drive on the peage through France and even the inevitable bouchon provided some entertainment in front. See below (circa 1958? Porsche geeks might enlighten me). Further research suggests that this might be a scruffy 356 (1948-56), is this right?

Pont du Normandie is another memorable feat of French engineering. This crosses the Seine just upstream from I' Harve and carries the motorway over the estuary to Caen.

After a coffee and refuelling stop we eventually book into our accommodation at Apart'city Caen at about 7.30. Thank goodness for our EU sat navigation. What a shame that the government will be collecting them all in now that we have voted out. Finally for today, a couple of shots of the apartment which will do very nicely.

A Heart to Heart with Crete Monday 16th May until Monday 23rd May 2016

Before we left for Argentina last year Helen knew that she was suffering from angina. It was only on our return that she got the results of her tests that showed a blockage in her coronary artery. The treatment to alleviate this is to insert a stent at the position of the problem. This is done via the radial artery.

She underwent this procedure on Monday 9th May and happily it seems to have been a complete success. After an OK from the heart Doc, we arranged to fly out to Crete on the 16th May for a week's R and R. Return flights from East Midlands to Hania were £60 each and we managed to secure a self catering maisonette for under  £25 a night. Add on  £80 for car hire  (the same price as taxi transfers) and we were away.

The accommodation was brilliant and I can't recommend it highly enough moreover the owner, Andreas could not have been more obliging. Have a look at the place for yourself. The pool and sunbeds all come with the package as does the beach front and bar/restaurant.

This is the living room with a spare bedroom on the mezzanine level. 

This is the kitchen and looking towards the bathroom and our bedroom. 

The view from our balcony towards the pool restaurant and beach. 

A view of the pool from the pool. 

Our restaurant also served outside on the beach. 

Nobody mentioned the elephants in the room, but then you don't, do you? 

I should have posted these chaps on dogbook as well.

A day trip took us up the gorgeous Theriso Gorge. The subtle shades of green in the Crete landscape could be seen at their best. 

We saw lots of interesting wild flowers. Does anyone know the names of this one and the large flowering cactus below? 

This mountain range is called the White Mountains. It was from this inaccessible area that the Cretans centred their formidable and extremely courageous resistance to the Nazi invasion. It was also through here that they helped evacuate the allied troops to Egypt via the isolated south coast ports. 

The village of Theriso witnessed ferocious fighting and consequent reprisals which is remembered through the museum today. The field guns are some German survivers, along with a 19th century anachronism. 

We had a day trip out to the West coast and visited the wonderful sandy beach at Falasarna which was beautifully clean and tidy and almost completely unspoiled.

As the beach faced west and the prevailing wind, there was a constant pounding of rollers which made swimming a most exciting experience. I think I'm coming up for the third time!

This is in the notorious village of Kandanos. Try to read what the notices say if you can. The village has been completely rebuilt since 1945. It stands at a strategic junction high up in the White Mountains and in 1941 the Nazis burnt the village to the ground and murdered all the inhabitants. This was as a reprisal for the local resistance to the invasion  (stones and daggers against sub machine guns ).  It is a very moving place to visit and today 75 years on you must respect the great courage that those people possessed.

The rebuilt Orthodox church in Kandanos. The one on the left hand tower shows the correct time, the one on the right tells the time when the village died.

 We went south from Kandanos to the small south coast ports of Sougia, below and Palalochora next picture below that.

The small roads that connected these two places and back over the top towards Hania represented some of the hairiest driving that I have ever experienced and certainly not for the faint hearted or those of a nervous disposition.

The sunsets over the Mediterranean Sea from the west coast of Crete are justifiably famous. Unfortunately we overlook a penninsular to the west so miss out on the watery reflections.

So, it's goodbye from him and

goodbye from her.