Lisbon is an easy enough city to navigate, the four cardinal points on its compass – North, South, Up, and Down, are catered for by a clean and efficient public transport system. Yesterday we headed South to the town of Cascais.

The journey there and back was by train along the Targus coastline. It reminded me somehow of the Rosewood to Grandchester rail journeys I made as a child in that both were by train. The trip yesterday, however, had a coastline dotted by castles, old palaces and newer holiday resorts, something that the Rosewood to Grandchester journey lacks.

Many of the old palaces were built by the Portuguese nouveau rich in the mid-1800s. Sugar and cattle barons had made their fortunes in Brazil and returned home. They brought with them money, a sense of independence and often Brazilian wives, mistresses and children, legitimate or otherwise. They had strong ties to England – their major market, and were far more liberal in their outlook than the old moneyed classes of Lisbon. The scene was certainly set for later strife.

Cascais itself was disappointing. Its name translates as ‘Surfers Paradise’, the same tacky gift shops, the same white-shoed businessmen, the same propensity for over-the-top. Instead of schoolies they have Brits and Irish hoards, hence Irish Pubs, British Pubs, fish and chip shops and Indian takeaways. We ate lunch in a very good seafood restaurant, but were more than willing to head home early.

Our meal last night however was superb – tapas made by a couple from the Portuguese mountains in a restaurant that seats just 10 people. They were immensely proud of their city, their restaurant, and their food. A very simple meal, but memorable because of the hosts’ passion. Sometimes contrasts like that can make the rest of the day seem even more disappointing. If only I could somehow learn to love schoolies and Surfers Paradise, British pubs and tacky gift shops. Then I might even go back to Cascais…

F C-S

The Nata World Titles

There is a competition between bakeries in Lisbon each year for the best natas in all Portugal (in some ways a bit like the World Series Baseball actually being a competition between 24 American cities). Every bakery has its own recipe, its own method. Some newcomers have attempted different shapes and different sizes, obviously with no effect on the judges. There is no room in traditional Portugal for punk natas – caramel or strawberry natas would obviously be a threat to good public order.

The same bakery, one in the suburb of Belem, won the comp for 153 years in a row – although their recipe is a closely guarded family secret, their natas always looked and tasted very nata-like. Whole families make excusions to this bakery so that they can take their nata communion together. Then last year a place that had only been around since 1932 took out the title!

I haven’t been able to find out how nata are judged, I suspect uniform size, colour and shape are important criteria- although I have seen the incredibly dispuptive blueberry nata on display at one establishment. Natas are delicious, addictive and omnipresent. As an act of kindness to my reading public I am going to research this topic further and attempt to form an independent opinion, one not swayed by petty rivalries. I will eat as many natas as I can in the next three weeks. This is my solemn promise.

I do wonder however what the effect would be on tourism if I started the World Series Vanilla Slice Competition between bakeries in Rosewood, Lowood, Gatton and Laidley? After all, it worked in the fields of baseball and nata……

Yours in pastry

Farley

The incredibly disruptive strawberry nata! SACRILEGE!

Sometimes the flights are just back to front. The 15 hr one to Dubai seemed awful on paper, the 7 hr one to Lisbon – a breeze. We were moved to the baby row next to the toilets and actually slept through parts of the long haul. The Lisbon leg was diverted by storms and took an extra one and a half hours. Boredom, jetlag and a sore bum can play tricks on a grown man’s mind….

Lisbon will be wonderful. We have already discovered the essential ingredients for a good stay, a great coffee shop, local food markets just up the road and we have an excellent apartment. Today has just been a day to orient ourselves, tomorrow will be the first day of real exploring.
Keep in touch

F C-S

Graz has been a surprise, it is a wonderful city to wander around, and like all cities in this part of Europe, its history is fascinating for a lad who thought Ipswich was entirely worthy of a week’s holiday and two years of schooling.

This city completes part of a holiday history circle for us as Archduke Frank was born in Graz, lived in Vienna for most of his life, often ‘took the waters’ at a thermal spring outside Zagreb, and was assassinated near the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo. His palace is still here, but is now an excellent museum showing the history of the city from the early Middle Ages. We enjoyed that place BUT completely out of left field was our visit to the City Armoury Museum. It was just wunderbar!

It was the central armoury for all of Styria in its time. After Napolean came through and beat the Austrians at the battle of Wagram the 30,000 weapons inside were simply locked up. Fifty years later everything was obsolete, so it was locked up for another hundred years. Then,  after the Russians left in 1955, it was turned into a museum. We could only visit by taking a one hour guided tour- something we usually avoid at all costs.

Some of my vast audience of five will remember the stories of our guided tours of Auschwitz and Gallipoli. In both cases we were totally defeated by the guides and their incomprehensible attempt to explain things in English as she is goodly spoked. In both cases we were ready to fling ourselves onto the razor wire in order to bring our sufferings to an end.  In both cases we made an oath to never again put ourselves through this special form of frustrating hell. This tour was nothing like that.

The guide was knowlegable of course, but, more importantly, you could sense his passion for history and a deep love for his place of employment. He has even written to Warner Brothers on a number of occasions attempting to correct inaccuracies in the way the studio has dressed and armed actors. He has taken five hour private tours for school classes just because they were so fascinated with his stories, wit and specialist knowledge. Most importantly, however, there was no hint of ASD. He was engaging and genuinely funny. I was perhaps a tad miffed when he pointed out that I would have been a goliath of a warrior in the 17th century – 5ft would see out most common soldiers – quite unnecessary i thought. However I forgave him eventually because of his funny but less pointed lines later in the tour, and because he let me play with a musket.

Graz seems to be defined by two things. The hill with the remains of a fortress atop that overlooks the old town is the geographic centre and is visible throughout the city. It is the landmark that features in much of the city’s history of invasions and the ebb and flow of Grazian power over the Mur River valley and Styria itself. Seven universities in the town define Graz demographically, it is full of students and the energy they bring. Although Lady C-S managed once again to book accommodation in the lap-dancing and happy endings district, one gets the impression of this being essentially a vibrant, diverse and tolerant city. It is certainly worthy of another visit.

Finally, it has been pointed out to me, that, in the past when travelling abroad and particularly when journeying home, the posts lack any sense of denouement – instead tend to suddenly come to an abrupt halt.

Better let you go then.

F C-S

We are now in the land of lederhosen- Graz, Austria. Graz was once the capital of a place that included most of Austria, all of Slovenia and parts of Italy, depending on who was married to whom. We have become used to borders being decided by courts not counts, but for centuries Central Europe was divided into hundreds of entities with fluid borders. Nations came later.

A town we went through in Slovenia has been at various times been ruled by someone from Venice, Sicily, Rome, Turkey, The Vatican, Lombardy, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, France, Austro-Hungary, Italy, Nazi Germany, Yugoslavia – et al. This does not include occasional sackings by Turks, Alans, Mongols, Crusaders or Huns.

We were driven through country Croatia by our hosts, they are immensely proud to be finally Croatian, rather than Sicillian, Turkish, Yugoslav or someting else. We saw Tito’s home town and the ‘house’ he was raised in. As a wise man from Rosewood one said, ‘All humans, no matter whether they were born in a mud hut, an igloo or a gilded, marble palace really just want exactly the same thing for their children. A bigger kitchen.’ Tito sure did.

Lunch was on a farm somewere vowell-less, Krchzdch or the like. A stunning meal with every ingredient coming from within a five kilometer radius – a superb wild mushroom soup, roast veal and turkey with pasta and veges, corn bread. This was followed by a trip to a great museuem with a collection of Neanderthal artifacts and animal bones from a cave where the museum is situated – really well done.

It traced the movement of hominids out of Africa and in particular the lives of the people who lived in other caves like this one, from the Neander Valley in Germany, and other sites in France and Spain. It certainly put the tiny speck that is my 60 years on the human timeline into perspective. And it showed that real driving force for survival and evolution -the constant search for food and, of course, a better cave in which to cook your wooly rhinoceros.

Grandad Johnson was probably right about the kitchen.

Better let you go Farquar – time to go foraging for breakfast.

F C-S

I know about 50% of my vast reading public have been to Ljubljana, however the other three have not. Therefore I feel it is important to explain what a trip from Zagreb to Ljubljana entails. It is a two and a quarter hour train jouney from Zagreb to Slovenia’s capital. You need a passport, a detail that was noted at dinner the night before, and during the walk to the station. Nat forgot her passport.

When we arrived at the Croatian/Slovenian border she was told to get off the train.She did so of course, but instead of waiting on the platform as expected she headed for the heated ticket office to buy a ticket back to Zagreb and gain reprieve from the minus something conditions and ‘warmth’ and personal charm of several Croatian and Slovenian Atilla the Hun look-a-likes.  A full search of the train ensued with police looking for a stowaway. “Where is your daughter?” they demanded, and Lady CS and I suspected that we may have been the next to be unceremoniously removed from the train.

I do know that many police forces have done significant work in the introduction of Restorative Practices as part of their policing work. I suspect the Croatian Border police are yet to do that course. The train, and therefore our journey to Slovenia was only allowed to procede after the fugitive was located. We continued to Ljubljana without knowing what had subsequently happened to our daughter. Needless to say, we were more than pleased that an unshackled Natalie was in the unit in Zagreb, upon our return. The joys of international travel, Farqhuar.

The city of Ljubljana was almost totally desroyed by an earthquake in 1895 and totally rebuilt by the architect Joze Plecnik -a devotee of the Achingly Beautiful City Centre school. No building is above three stories, there are wide promenades for more than a kilometer along both sides of the river and the entie old town is pedestrian only.  The bridges were all constructed with local stone and were deliberately made to be unsuitable for most vehicles. The castle on the hill above the city completes the scene We had a great meal at a restaurant that we knew, bur really were content to just wander, even if could only imagine having Natalie with us.

 F C-S

The entire group  (including Imagine Nat next to Phil) at Cafe Cokl

Phil with Imagine Nat waiting for a taxi

I love the Cheese Ladies in Zagreb. Every day they come to the main market and set up their displays in the outdoor area. The cheeses they sell are made by their husbands either in the Alps or, during Winter, in barns at home. In spring the men take their cattle up to the alpine pastures and stay there until the cold weather sets in. The women go up once a week taking food and supplies, when they come down they bring back cheeses and yoghurts to sell at the markets.

There is a whole row of outdoor cheese stalls set in the freezing cold of a Zagreb winter. The women have a real sense of humour and have the cameraderie that is nurtured by the shared trials of a tradional way of life. In other parts of the market are the Zagreb Potato Women with their gnarled hands, another section is home to the Saurkraut Guild, and so on. It is the same throughout Eastern Europe.

Regular customers are greeted by name, foreigners are still provided with banter and laughter despite an inability to communicate in a shared spoken language. And, at closing time, there are small amounts of produce at most stalls left out for the homeless and hungry to collect – dignity still intact as there has been no need to beg for food or money.

In Australia this has all been stolen from us by Woolworths and Coles – our communities are so much poorer because of it. I would willingly trapse through snow to buy my potatoes from an ancient woman with dirt-worn, arthritic hands. I don’t like saurkraut enough to stand in a queue but I love watching it being sold.  I am still moved every time I see the little piles of cabbages,  packs of saurkraut, or mounds of fruit and veg left out daily for others to collect at closing time. Also, I would really love to be able to go to the market each day and listen to the stories of the stoic but cheerful Cheese Ladies. Sigh…. We have supermarkets that make sure this will never happen at home. I must be dreaming ….

F C-S

Miss Moneypenny  (yes, her real name) was educated in an all-girls school in Brisbane, and did teacher education in Brisbane. She was the first person I knew who had travelled overseas, been to an opera or eaten snails. The snails impressed us. She could speak three languages, she could play a number of musical instruments and had done ballet. In 1969 however she was assigned to my class- Rosewood Yr 8 -to teach French, Music and English. Miss Moneypenny had been thrown to the Rosewood wolves.
I am just a litte ashamed now to reflect on the lengths the boys in our class would go to in order to make her life hellish. She required a hearing aid, my best friend discovered that blowing through a Bic pen would set up some kind of weird interference that drove her mad. We all bought and blew through Bic pens. We realised that if we took it in turns to start miming in music lessons she would eventually turn up the volume of her hearing aid. We took it in turns to start miming then, when the hearing aid went full volume we would all start yelling.

Her English classes were standard fare for the time but they always had the potential to be made more interesting by her worldliness. I’m sure she could have shared stories of Paris, Rome, or London – but may as well have been telling them in French. This was a town and a time that saw a trip to the Brisbane Ecca as an exotic, once a year adventure.

Miss Moneypenny started taking more and more sick leave, then one day she didn’t come back at all. Our Principal took us for music – he would put on a record over the loudspeaker and we would do marching on the parade ground. Another teacher took us for French and English, she didn’t have a hearing aid and was obviously told to belt anyone who caused disruption. Bic pens lost their appeal, as did French,  English and Music. But Miss Moneypenny did leave one legacy. I became fascinated with all things French or foreign. I didn’t study any language after Yr 8 but still have some (very limited) comprehension of French. I have a deep and abiding  love of travel and music. I sometimes even watch dance and enjoy it.. And I have eaten snails many times.

Miss Moneypenny, I am grateful for a year of French, albeit in a Rosewood kind of way. I am grateful for the fascination with language, travel and gastronomy that ensued. And I do wish to apologize about the Bic pen thing -it really was Steve Clark’s idea. And it was his idea to mime during music lessons, not mine. 

For all of this, I really am so sorry. (Kevin Rudd, eat your heart out)

F C-S

Linda did the research. Incredible views over Sarejevo is what Trip Advisor said. The taxi cost 20BM  each way. 

This was the view, and they didn’t serve breakfast.

You can’t win them all Remington!