Berlin 2: What I did on my Winter hols.

Early morning queuing for Berlinale tickets.

 

On any given night, the city hosts dozens of events, your job is to pick one. I arrived on Saturday night, so headed for the Homeless Veggie Dinner. Volunteers take donated food and cook a delicious meal, for the homeless and for those who want to support them. Everyone eats together, so that nobody is automatically identified as homeless, and you can donate if you wish. There’s the added bonus that someone who may be socially isolated by poverty gets to talk for the evening, while having a really nice dinner served to them.

At the other end of the week, my friend A posted an event on Facebook “At Another Country with Lulu” (I had truly turned into a celebrity). This is a quirky English-language bookshop and library, where you sit amongst the stacks having aperitifs and smoking cigarettes, and the owner, Sophia, serves a hot buffet dinner on Friday nights (€6) for members of her supper club (you can join on the spot for €2). All Human Life Is There. You have no idea who you’ll meet or whether you might have a very talkative evening or a quiet one. We started as a small group and ended with a big table, talking about Brexit, rightwing happenings in Europe and elsewhere, the propensity of the Southern Europeans to kiss when they meet (while us Northerners shake hands), personal stories, how we all ended up in Berlin. One of my favourite places in Berlin.

In between, I went to four great films, two great gigs, the tailend of a birthday party, and Tango for beginners. The first gig was in Weserstrasse, which is a fashionable part of town for cafes and bars. My friend Lisa Akuah was playing in a cafe, along with two other performers (an all-female line-up for a gig called “The future is Female”). A small crowd did their best to enjoy lovely music in arctic conditions in the cellar venue – such a pity they weren’t in the cozy upstairs room, where we gravitated to anyhow. First up was Aloo, a Danish Pop/Synth musician, performing her own music on various machines, singing over her own (prerecorded) voice. Following her was ” She goes North”, dreamy folksy sound, and lastly, Lisa, who sings a sort of sean-nos style folk music. Nice variety, good sounds.

The second gig was a duo singing Argentinian Tango/folk music in a packed tiny venue. The Argentinians speak a very Italian form of Spanish, most especially in hand gesticulations and facial expressions, which added hugely to their passionate delivery, along with special guests, several encores, great wit. The guitar player accompanying the pint-sized singer was very tall and also blind, which made for a very tightly bonded pair, who delivered tremendous harmonies on cue. They travel Europe for a large part of their year, we were lucky to catch them.

I ended up going to the tailend of my friend R’s birthday party, after I’d had dinner with my old roommates N & S. I was already reeking of cigarette smoke from the great evening we’d had (I was just the second-hand smoker and enjoyed it thoroughly), and it was past midnight, so I thought the party would be over. Not at all! The core group were still ordering shots and smoking cigarettes and enjoying Leydick’s wonderful premises. In the family since 1877, its the authentic mahogany and brass kind of place that has mostly disappeared from Dublin. The owner is an older man that lives over the shop and opens when he feels like it – though you can request him to open for something like a birthday. An ancient cigarette machine hadn’t stocked cigarettes since the 1960’s. On the walls were portraits of his mother (or grandmother?), posters from long-past events, genuinely smoky mirrors. I was lucky to get in, he was just about to put the metal blinds down, but continued to serve us til about 2am. Although this was, I suppose, a Berlin lock-in, there are no closing hours here, there isn’t the thrill of illegality that you get in Ireland, its just a private party.

On the Monday night, my friend A brought me to Tango Argentina, beginners class. Most people arrive all dressed up, with specific dancing shoes. My travelling-light plan included no dancing shoes, just walking boots, so I was obliged to dance in socks. We learned some basic moves, then had to try moving round the room with a partner. I was hopeless. I asked the girl dancing with me (dressed in pink tulle) if she was a beginner too; “oh yes” she replied “I’ve only been doing this five years”.  Berlin has embraced the tango like no other place in Europe, and have, in some ways, modified it. This class of ” beginners” had a group hug, some voice exercises to bond and relax, and lessons in how to ask someone to dance by using eyes (and one lifted eyebrow), followed by lessons in how to hold your partner for maximum impact before taking steps. Apart from walking on peoples toes and being the most ancient person in the class, I also had to deal with my inner cynic, who was comparing this to traditional Argentinan tango. Afterwards, I realised that this was a sort of contact healing, in a society that doesn’t touch, how to be sexual without having sex. There was social tango-dance after the class, where totally professional types whizzed around the floor, and one very kind, very tall man took me on the floor, where I tried my best to avoid his feet and reach his shoulder. In the second room, there was “Neo-tango”, which is however you want to adapt it yourself, total floor-show, with a selection of pro’s simulating passion or cruelty, flinging their partner hither and ton, or doing acrobatics. This was Monday night, people were arriving at midnight, dancing til four, and it was packed out.  This is where I realised I may not be ready for Tango, Berlin-style.

Potsdamer Platz, centre of Berlinale.

When this trip evolved, I realised I’d finish up in Berlin for the week of the Berlinale, their amazing film festival. I thought there’d be about 100 films to choose from, but about 500 films are shown, along with workshops, events, exhibitions. Certain films book out fast, and the queues look daunting, but there’s often a single seat left.  Choosing what to see is a major operation. I chose documentaries in the end, a favourite category for me. The first was an Afghan film about making propaganda movies for the Communist government after the coup in 1978. Unable to get blanks to use during filming, they used live ammunition, resulting in pitched battle with the Mujahedin, who didn’t realise they were a film crew, and the odd casualty (“but all the actors were ex-army, crack shots”). The second movie was Chinese, and was a daughters questioning of her mothers experience during the Cultural Revolution, using stock shots from the time. Although these were fascinating films, the two stand-out films had to be Kim Longinotto’s study of Laetitia Battaglia, a brave older (83) woman who has devoted her life to documenting via photos the effects of the Mafia on life in her native Palermo (Shooting The Mafia).  The last film was “Varda par Agnes”, an autobiographical film about 90-year-old director Agnes Varda, with reference to a lifetime of feature films that incorporated documentary or social commentary moments within them. These last two films are inspiring, especially for people like myself, trying to make the most of a glorious Third Age.

Berlin 1 (Die Andere Heimat)

Berlin deserves more than one blog post. Back in my old home, I’m in love with the quirks and tics that make Berlin what it is, a sort of ideal city that’s a separate state and psychological mindset from the Germany that I have just left.

I’m still in love with the S&U bahn, over and underground railway, mixed-vintage carriages with utilitarian design, efficient, regular, cheap, and an endless source of people-watching. I had forgotten that people don’t talk on the trains, which made me and my pal sound like we had microphones. There’s quite a number of buskers and beggars on the train and in the stations. The beggars come in all shapes and sizes – perfectly ordinary looking women who you wouldn’t expect would be begging, a one-armed man who got on the train and told us his life story “…did the Abitur, (high school diploma), went to University, fell on hard times….BTW! children! don’t do the same as me, you’re young and pure….”. Then a young man in an ancient threadbare patched grocers dustjacket, bent double, leaning on a walking stick, patently pretending to be a hunchback. A couple of people just pass through the carriage, saying quietly ” any spare change…any spare change…”. Sceptics will say that half of them don’t need to beg, that they’re working for some organization, but they’re a very gentle bunch, and its hard to say no. The buskers I encountered today were an older African with a guitar, singing something like a reggae version of “I know that my Redeemer Liveth” but the words changed to make a sort of pop song. Then there was an Eastern European, with a backing machine strapped on his back, playing wonderful accompanying violin music. And lastly, a young Turkish woman, all dolled up, sitting on the floor of Hermannplatz Station, singing loudly out of tune with a sparkly microphone – she got my money, just had to admire her guts.

There are cafes on every corner, people use them as their living rooms, their meeting places, their office space. I’ve been to some of my favourites this week, great coffee and cakes, strange teas, WiFi access, and no hurry to move you on. I also went to a typical Turkish/workman’s cafe, where hardbitten types were drinking beer for elevenses and talking about last nights’ conquest or football game.  I had no bike this time around, I didn’t think the weather would be nice enough. As it turned out, the weather was a wee bit wet earlier in the week (when I was watching films in the Berlinale – film festival), bright sunshine for the end of the week, when I was out and about in Berlin. Initially, I began to get panicky about trying to fit in all the things I wanted to see, then I realised I couldn’t possibly get to see everything I wanted, that deserves a longer stay.

Padlocks on a piece of old Imperial Germany, the bridge over the Spree (television tower in the clouds).

I’d forgotten that Berlin is all water, the river Spree, the canals, the big urban lakes. It’s a big, spread-out city, a series of Kiez, neighbourhoods, which are like small towns or villages. Some of them are elegant, tidy, quiet; others are ratty, tatty, deliberately down-at-heel or windswept, industrial, spacious. People are often very proud and loyal to their Kiez, loving the cheesy Turkish furniture/clothing shops or artspaces from converted factories or small urban forests, parks or gardens, or just the graffiti everywhere, which is often political.

Turkish shop for high class items.

I met up with my old housemates, N & S for dinner in N’s apartment. Up til this point, they have always shared apartments with others, but now there’s the serious business of growing up (they’re both over 30), and a young man wants his own space. Traditionally, this would have been possible in Berlin. 50% of apartments in Berlin are occupied by one person, probably on low fixed rents. Rents took a big hike at the end of 2013, when (the mayor) Wowereit’s 10year moratorium on rent increases finished, and many people found their own rent too high, but had real difficulty finding an affordable new place. N found his apartment through word-of-mouth, realised there was an empty space and contacted the owner himself. N has customised his space to make it into a very Berlin apartment – peeling plaster, low-light lamps, interesting art. His main room is what architects call a “Berlin” room – a walk-,through room between hall and kitchen, with the bathroom off the kitchen.  S is still sharing an apartment, but is on the hunt for a new one, to live solo. He’s completely committed to living in Neukoelln, and Neukoelln only, a luxury that may disappear shortly in this as-yet-unspoiled-by-capitalism city. However, everyone talks about rents, and everywhere you go, the traditionally tatty areas have been improved and upgraded. Gentrification usually pleases everyone initially, until the prices rise. No such thing as a free lunch.

Favourite haunt.

Bad Kreuznach

Leaving Neuchatel, I was astonished when the train ran 15 minutes late, which had me miss my following connection – so much for Swiss timekeeping and efficiency! This left me stranded in Freiburg, the most southerly town in Baden-Wuerttemberg, on the border with Switzerland, at the beginning of the Black Forest. A much later bus took me on the Autobahn right through the area I used to live in, 43 years ago. Unfortunately, the Autobahn didn’t travel into hugely forested areas, I had just those exit signs to help reconstruct the area.

We lived in Bad Herrenalb, a small town outside Baden-Baden between 1976-78, and worked in Moenchs Posthotel, a rather grand place, run on strickly heel-clicking lines by the older Herr Moenchs. Myself and my then-husband were trained in the best German organisation, in a hotel full of guests who returned every year for their kur-urlaub (“healing-holiday”). Germany has a lot of towns beginning with Bad, which denotes that there is probably thermal springs in the area, often harnessed into a nice “healing-baths” complex. There were guests who spent quite a portion of their year “taking the waters” in various thermal baths throughout Europe. I’m not sure anybody has the time (or can afford time away from the stock exchange), not to mention the money and aristocratic title, to spend on thermal baths or touring Europe. The hotel was luxury, owned by the same family for 100 years, bulletproof, it seemed. However, the mysterious death of the incumbent (younger) Herr Moenchs (he fell from a top balcony through the glass roof of the kitchen below – or was he pushed?) means the hotel has been closed for years, with various consortia (Dutch, Siberian) trying (and failing) to open it fully. I’m so glad I learned my heel-clicking when I did.

I arrived later than expected to Bad Kreuznach, a city sitting on the Nahe river, a tributary of the Rhine. This area of Rheinland is both agricultural and industrial. Every small town you pass has at least one or two factories, and the towns are surrounded by both farmland and vines as far as the eye can see. Travelling through rural Germany, I was comforted by the familiarity of the scenery, the ease of speaking German (after having spoken halting Italian, Spanish and French over the past month), the reassuring feeling that you’re in the hardworking, serious, honest, reliable north. Bad Kreuznach is a small city, its population is around 50,000, something similar to Waterford.

The towns main claim to fame are the Bridge Houses, beautifully constructed buildings which support the main bridge over the river Nahe. The history of the town is a litany of occupation – firstly by the Romans, then the whole of the Middle Ages, along with doses of Plague, the Nobels and the Church squabbled for power over the unfortunate peasants. The 17th century was bookended by the The Thirty Years War (which saw incursions from Swedish, Spanish, English, Saxon, French, Croatian and Bavarian forces, so that “He was born at Kreuznach” became a byword in German for somebody who had to struggle with a great deal of hardship in their life. Then, the Nine Years War led into the 17th century, which saw Kreuznach involved in the routing of the French. This exhausting and endlessly changing political and physical scenario continued, with parts of Germany vying for control over Bad Kreuznach. They survived both wars and I imagine they’re happy now to be a backwater without strife.

I stayed with friends K & L in Bad Kreuznach. L. took me on tour in the town, up the Castle Hill behind, walking through vineyards, looking down on the rushing weir. From here, there was a nice view of the Heilbad, thermal pools with salt water (minerals), enclosed in glass, with an outdoor pool that you could access by swimming through a flexible barrier. Immediately, I suggested that K & I should go there when she finished work on Friday. She had never been there, despite living there, so we had a great opportunity to have a decent chinwag while lolling around in warm or hot water, inside or out. It’s exceptionally good value, not only do you get to float around with your best mate and exchange life stories together, but the benefits of the mineral water are working away on your rheumatism all the time. There’s also the possibility of getting radon therapy (something I’d never heard of), or breathing in the essence from the spring water via wooden logs that emit vapour – people sit around these stacks in good weather.  There’s a certain type of client that you get in German thermal baths, retired, often over 70, a bit tubby, conservative, greying or balding, who are still on the lookout for a wife or “girlfriend”. Or perhaps that’s everywhere, its just more obvious in the thermal baths, bobbing around.

Thermal baths overlooking Nahe river.

We eventually dragged ourselves out and headed to the packed cafe attached to the cinema, where two teas and a homemade pizza cost €7. Almost a shock after Switzerland’s prices. After the thermal experience, you sleep like a baby. I adore thermal baths, if there’s a heaven, it has to be a huge thermal bath, but perhaps without the hopefuls bobbing around.

Below: wood exuding goodness to inhale for health benefits.

Neuchatel

Crossing the border into Switzerland, gruff customs men boarded the bus and cross-examjned anyone who they might suspect of smuggling. At least I think that’s what they were doing. One of the officials got quite chummy with a Chinese student, asking about what he was studying. Then, on came the sniffer dogs and the bus went silent. I have to admit I was riveted, watching the dog get interested in some smell here or there. I was wondering if he’d even take a sniff of my big bag of Herbes de Provence that we’d picked on the plateau above Ventabren, but no chance – this was a well-trained Swiss sniffer dog, he knew exactly what to look for. A young American sitting opposite remained in a relaxed state of studied casualness until the officials waved goodbye, then rescued a plastic bag from some niche beside the loo, and returned to his seat, relieved. No other border crossing had such drama, but then, this is the only border in central Europe, my friend A calls it a bubble in the middle of the EU.

I went to stay with A in Neuchatel, where she is doing a PhD on languages that have evolved both in Switzerland and France. Fascinating, in a country that speaks several languages, but adapted to local usage and culture. My German is actually quite good, but I couldn’t possibly speak or understand Swiss German.

I arrived late on Sunday evening, to a town where everything was closed except one bar, and most people were tucked up in bed by 10pm.  Neuchatel is perched on the edge of Lake Neuchatel, with a stunning view of the Alps on the opposite side (when the clouds don’t block the panorama). Truth be told, I hadn’t expected a wild ol time here, Switzerland is generally a fairly sedate place. Its a small city, 33,000 people, which is about the same as Bray. However, there’s a well-established University in Neuchatel, which augments both the kudos of the place and the population. The university is right at the shoreline of the lake, which must be tempting for a swim during boring lectures in good weather.

The town centre was beautiful, quaint buildings with coloured or striped shutters, the chateau courtyard, the church overlooking the town, the traditional clocktower. This area was the centre of the clock and watchmaking industry, initially started in 17th century. Pier Jaquet-Droz is the local man credited behind expanding this business, by creating the “automata”, automated figures that can are mechanised, so as to perform wonders such as write out a poem on demand, skills which he transferred to the watch and clock industry, for expanding into automated timepieces, watches and clocks, for export around the world. His original “automata” can be seen in the local museum.

We took the Funiculare railway up the side of the snow-topped mountains to Chaumont, to find snow. As the train climbed higher and higher, through thick dark woods, the clouds cleared somewhat, and we caught a glimpse of the Alps on the far shore. These were much higher up the horizon than I had expected – I’ve only ever seen the Alps a long distance away, and here they were, much nearer, in all their dramatic gloriousness. When the little carriage pulled to a creaky halt, we stepped out to a winter wonderland. We climbed up a bit higher in search of better views, passing kindergartners playing in a homemade igloo, and realised there must be a hinterland of people living up this high, perhaps families who like to ski.

This town was in its heyday at the Fin de Siecle, when those who could not afford to visit the Alps would come to look at the spectacular view from the shoreline.  There are two bronze figures at the lookout point, commemorating this era, both in typical clothes from the day, gentlemen in their three piece suits and boaters, ladies with hourglass figures, wearing corsets, long skirts, frilly blouses and very dramatic hairdos and hats.  Walking through the town itself, the shopping area is a collection of regular high-street names, chic boutiques with no prices displayed, the odd clockmaker, specialist bio or butcher shops. I was overjoyed on my last day there to discover a bar where all the lowlife in town hang out. I had begun to think that all the people we saw were actually robots.

My friend A and I talked about the Swiss experience. The shops all close at 6, nothing open on Sunday. When they tried to get workers to open on Sunday, they voted against it. They run referenda for absolutely everything. The latest being voted on was to do with whether they should allow further building and development in Switzerland, or should they halt it. A recent one was to vote on whether cows horns should be cut off – it lost, cows still retain their horns. There’s no need to have long opening hours because the shops make plenty of money. Nobody talks about money in a place where everyone has money. When we went out on a Monday night to have the local (delicious) speciality Fondue, the place was packed, we had to book. Prices initially appear very high (and some of them are), but when you convert over, its not too hair raising.

A. wrote a piece about the oddness of Switzerland, from which I’ll quote a line or two: “its rich, its beautiful, its clean,; its inhabitants do yoga, they do meditation, they walk. They must learn to breathe, to think, to move; they believe everything except their neighbour, they avoid sitting beside their neighbour on the train; a country where women have short hair and carry mountain boots, but only have the vote 40 years. We walk fast in this bubble of Europe, which is not Europe; the country of the red cross, of charity, composed, organised, well done, in an island that is not an island, old couples in elegant, pastel colours, everyone wears watches, nice shoes, they vote, they eat very little meat, they do charity, they’re environmentalists, they’re consistent, you can talk or argue about everything, and yet, they’re prisoners in a fish tub, day after day, like when you narrow the sea to a mountain pond”.

I have to agree with everything she said. As soon as you’re over the border, you lose your roaming internet connection, your euros are useless, you’re in a country where they haven’t ever been involved in World Wars (but have remained friends with everyone), famous for clocks, banks, cheese and chocolate. They’re conservative, polite, very well-behaved, but after stints in Italy, Spain & France, they’re neither passionate or dramatic. Though I imagine there was some drama or passion in 1959, when the referendum as to whether to give women the vote in Switzerland had a resounding two-thirds of the (men-only) vote say no. It took until 1971 to finally pass.

Wintering in the South of France 2. Aix-en-Provence.

U

Festival Saintes Mairies de la Mer.

The journey from Perpignan to Aix en Provence took me through places whose names I was familiar with from Barry’s life in the South of France – Beziers, where Barry worked as a shepherd, Sete, where he lived on a yacht, Nimes, where one of his girlfriends was part of the cast in a production during the Festival, and Saintes Mairies de la Mer, on the edge of the Camargue, where he camped out for the festival of the Black Madonna. I thought perhaps some unknown offspring of his might appear at any minute, big mop of curls, cheeky smile, strumming a guitar, image of Papa. The area was full of vineyards, resting up for the coming season. How different the landscape was, with greenery and farmland, sea just over the hill, compared to the dry centre of Spain.

I managed to get the wrong connection from Marseille, a town that could be beautiful, were it not for the oil refineries, and got a train that took an hour to do a journey that should have taken 10 minutes by fast train. There I was welcomed by U, an old pal from Germany, living in a small town outside Aix. If I thought we did a lot of talking in Perpignan, it was nothing compared to this. We worked together in a small town in the Black Forest in 1976, and hadn’t seen each other in twelve years. She warned me that the weather was a bit dodgy, due to the sometimes presence of the freezing cold Mistral wind.

We spent a lovely afternoon in Aix en Provence, a town that’s a good deal more stylish than Perpignan, only 100km or so to the “South of France” that people aspire to – Cannes, St Tropez, Nice, and something similar north towards Avignon and Luberon, where many English and other ex-pats have settled after the success of Peter Mayle’s “A year in Provence”, published almost 30 years ago. Many people would deny that his book was the spur for people to move to France, but he was one of a slew of movers-and-shakers who changed our concept of “retirement” forever. However, despite the fact that Aix has a tremendous old centre, there was no sign of any visitors, save myself. Perhaps people had read the weather forecast, and had realised that we were to wake the following morning to dramatic thunder-and-lightening, followed by giant hailstones, which looked like snow in the garden.

Now there’s an ideal excuse to stay in pyjamas, turn up the heating and spend the day storytelling, laughing, eating our favourite things, drinking too much tea, laughing again. The rain cleared, and we managed another lovely walk on the plateau above Ventabren.

Wild Herbs de Provence.

U picked thyme and rosemary, big bunches, growing wild on the plateau, the aroma of which took over the car on the way home. Then she made potatoes with Herbes de Provence, foraged. We visited the market next day, a huddle of stalls mostly covered against the threatening clouds. Fishmongers talk knowledgeably about their fish, advise on recipes that work. Everyone knows exactly where their fruit and vegetables are from. You’d expect Gerard Depardieu to pop up at any moment to talk about local wines, except that now he lives in Russia, for tax reasons.

What a luxury to properly catch up with a friend, in a fabulous location, at a time of year when nobody chooses to come. We never stopped talking the whole time, in fact, we were so engrossed in talking about the Marseille mafia that we missed the exit and U had to expertly navigate a round-the-world-for-sport detour to get me to the bus station, where we had no time for goodbyes, and I made the bus with 30 seconds to go.

Wintering in the South of France 1. Perpignan

In France, I heard a couple of Citroen Deux-Cheveau’s – an unmistakable sound of my past – I drove both a 2CV car and  2CV van back in the day. They are no longer available in Ireland (they were so popular in the 1970’s), probably because, like the Cinque-cento in Italy, with available parts, they can last forever. There’s no way of identifying the age of a car by its number plate (as we do in Ireland), but easily accessible and cheap insurance for older cars seems to be available all over Europe, aimed at older, more careful drivers. Ah one of the pitfalls of living on an island, with limited shopping choice.

I took a series of buses from Madrid to Perpignan, moving from one country to another, with a gradual change of scenery. Stopping in Barcelona, I realised I was at the wrong bus station and had to make a bit of a dash across town on the Metro, helped by lovely Catalans, who smiled and gave directions to me. The bus station was like something from another era, a big long polished wooden buffet, full of cakes and croissants, warm lighting and an obliging man behind the counter. I got on the bus as the driver and a passenger had a big altercation. This went on, in Catalan, North African French, maybe Arabic, for half an hour, getting more and more heated. Initially entertained, I began to get alarmed as I thought it would end in a punchup, but they ended up the best of friends, and off we drove, half an hour behind schedule and happy.

In Perpignan, I took a taxi to a bar called l’Atmosphere, and was dropped outside the closed premises in a square reminiscent of Clochemerle. There wasn’t a soul out, save a cat, and we walked back up narrow silent streets to my friend J’s tiny square.  The houses are tall, three or four floors high, and every house has shutters, and very often, like my friend, a bockety-looking entrance to a clutch of apartments up an ancient staircase. I knew almost nothing about Perpignan, except that its a destination for cheap Ryanair flights. I don’t know anyone who’s actually been there, and there’s no feeling of being in a tourist town. There’s nothing trendy about it – its a typical sleepy rural French town.

Nestled between the Pyrenees and the sea, the population of Perpignan is 120,000, but its a spread-out town with pockets of different types of housing. My friend J lives in an old part of town, cheek-by-jowl with one of the largest communities of Roma in Europe (up to 5,000), the Saint-Jacques quartier. These “gitanes” are a different strain to the gypsies or Roma from Eastern Europe, they have no genetic match with them, and they speak Catalan. They have been in this quarter since the 1930’s, when they were rehoused in buildings left by the fleeing Jewish community, who had been there since the Middle Ages. The annual feast of Sainte Marie de la Mere (near Arles/Nimes) is a huge gathering point for Roma from all over Europe to pay homage to the black Virgin. In Quartier Saint-Jacques, the women and children stroll down to the shops in dressing gowns and slippers, somewhat like people in UK or Ireland may go to the shopping centre in PJs. Their area is a maze of small streets, which strike you as being so incredibly cute. However, the houses are in such bad condition that there were steel or wooden struts in place to prevent collapse, something I haven’t seen since slum demolition in Dublin in the 1960’s.

Approximately three-quarters of the community are unemployed, 60% living below the poverty line. There are plans afoot to raze the whole area to the ground and rebuild apartment blocks, since 40% of the buildings are empty. There are, of course, objections from environmentalists and the people themselves, who see the area as not just cute but culturally and historically significant, and where their families have lived for generations. During the summer, there were marches to object to demolitions which had taken place, to force the crew to stop and to halt any further demolitions, which was supported by their neighbouring North African community. The city itself argues that its cheaper to demolish and rebuild rather than renovate the existing structures. However, I know from Ireland that people in damp (but so appealing) cottages often plump for moving to brand-new featureless bungalows that are insulated, warm, efficient and easy to clean. The same may yet apply here in Perpignan.

We walked from the Roma Saint Jacques quarter to the market square – we had spent the morning talking, so were too late to buy groceries – the market was just closed. But of course, for slouchers like me, coffee is what you do when you want to get a flavour of a town. At an old-fashioned wooden counter, the matriarch served us coffee, and suggested we pick up pain au chocolat at the boulangerie opposite. Cue a heavenly moment, with everything so soaked in Frenchness, the cafe, the pain au chocolat, the coffee, the owner leaning on the counter chatting to a customer, the men clearing the market, the crowds of Moroccans in the cheaper cafe next door, the way people shrug when they don’t know the answer, the funny lilt and twang of the southern French accent.

We walked from one end of town to another, by the canal, past a theatre shaped like a huge wine-red egg, covered in writing, through the commercial district, upstairs to see the view from Galleries Lafayette, where the Pyrenees can be seen in the distance.

The newer part of town is nice, but less attractive than the traditional squares and shops in the older part. What you notice is the presence of water, presumably the Pyrenees provide plenty of water from ice and snow melting – compared to places I had been to in Spain, where water is strictly rationed out. The weather was an ideal mixture of dry days with warm sun at noon, then chilly evenings with the odd spot of rain. J suggested that I could take a local bus (cost=€1) which would drop me to Les Angles, a local ski resort, up the Pyrenees, where I would find snow (she had been there the previous week). Myself and my sister B took my Dad to Lourdes in the late 1990’s. She warned me that we should expect “Butlins with crucifixes”, but we were pleasantly surprised by how utterly charming and indeed, spiritual, the place was. In the background, the massive Pyrenees showed snow-capped peaks, and we swore we’d make it back to go up for a look.

It took me twenty years to get back to a place with access to the Pyrenees, but I set off for the bus station with high hopes. The busdriver very kindly explained that there had been a snowfall during the night, so the road was impassable beyond Villefranche. Still, there were views of the Pyrenees all the way (halfway up to the usual destination).  On arrival, I asked the driver about the bus schedule and he said he’d pick me up in an hour and a quarter. When I put my hand out for the schedule, he shook my hand, and was probably about to kiss me on both cheeks, when I explained I just wanted to see the schedule. (I noticed in Spain and in France, that people who you are meeting for the first time kiss cheek-to-cheek three times. I had thought that was only for people you knew well – how uptight we are!)

And Villefranche turned out to be a wonderful one-horse town, whose main claim to fame is the chateau built into the mountain, the tunnel/cave underneath the mountain (and everyone seemed to be advertising their very own cave for a tour), the spelunking club and a mushroom festival, displays of which were curling up and dying since the Autumn. I lunched in the local Taverne, full of families, stove roaring in the corner, while everyone spoke Catalan. I found this surprising, because we were 30 miles or more from the Spanish border, in France. However, I simply didn’t realise the extent of the area where Catalan is spoken, including Andorra.

J and I studied together in Berlin, five years ago, so it was difficult for us to draw breath, we had so much to share. She was working in a challenging job for most of my stay, so we made the most of chatting over dinner in the evening and, though we planned to go to the bar, l’Atmosphere was closed for holidays, and somehow we never got there.

Yo soy una Madrileña

 

I’m not sure how to even begin writing about Madrid. Before you go to a place, you have a funny homemade version of it, cobbled together from dozens of impressions, that disappears as soon as you get there. Childhood memories of Spanish dancers in elaborate frilled dresses, with combs in their hair, Bullfights with Matadors and Torreadors in skintight pants, pompoms on their hats, bleached sunshine, huddled buildings, a bit tatty, paella, tortilla, cheap wine, good coffee.  There were bullfights up til recently, then they were stopped temporarily for renovations or some reason, and now they’re having difficulty reopening because of objections from animal rights organizations and the general public.  Flamenco dancing can be seen, but I gather its all a bit Riverdance for tourists, whereas the Madrileños are very fond of nightclub dancing themselves, all night long. My daughter C. was surprised to see a queue to get in to the nightclub after 4am, when she was leaving.

I took a high-speed train to Madrid, arriving in Atocha, the main station, and took a Metro to Sol, which is one of many Plazas in Madrid, alive with people eating, drinking coffee, watching the world go by. I met up with old pals M & S, who took me walking through the city centre. Around every corner are elegant squares, impressive buildings, huge trees, green parks and a great feeling of spaciousness, between which run tiny streets, with high buildings either side. On arrival, I had thought that the drivers were an incredibly noisy lot; afterwards I realised the taxis were on strike and were protesting every few days by driving down a main street honking their horns.

What I hadn’t really expected was the elegance of Madrid, the Opera and Teatro Real, the military barracks Plaza Mayor,  the Gran Via, lined by Edificios, with its oddly shaped Metropolis building, the stunning Catedral de La Almudena, beside which is the Palacio Real, where we just happened to catch King Philip VI (no, he didn’t wave) who had dropped in for a meeting in the palace. Queen Laetitia wasn’t with him, a journalist-turned-Queen, she shot to fame when she interviewed the King some years ago on TV about his Mystery Girlfriend, without disclosing that it was herself. They subsequently married among much People magazine flurries and the prospect of a TV film of their romance.

Then there are the fabulous fountains, Fuente de Neptuno and Fuento de Cibeles (where Real Madrid celebrate their futbol victories with a splash), beyond which the Paseo del Prado (bookended by Museo Thyssen and Caixaforum, with its vertical garden) leads to one of the most famous art galleries in the world, El Prado, and its sister gallery, La Reina Sofia.

My friends took me to eat Spanish tortilla in a little lunchtime place, Buho – a 3-inch high, 10-inch wide fantastical egg-and-spud concoction, deliciously filled with cheese. I had initially thought we’d order one each (without realising the size) – thank heavens we shared, we couldn’t finish it. After this, S brought me on a quick tour, got me a map and pointed out some Must-See’s (he works as a tour guide). I knew I had very little time to actually see Madrid, so allotted some time to major sights, then just enjoyed the streets the rest of the time.

In the evening, I headed for the Prado, where admission to the museum is free every evening 6-8pm. I was the first in the queue (at 5pm) and spent most of my time trying to prevent tourists playing dumb, trying to skip the queue. I found this an interesting feature in Rome, or on the Rome-Malaga flight – Italians seem to just insinuate themselves into the side of a queue and gradually push themselves in. The amazing thing is that nobody objects, so its quite common, because it works (just not with me). Eventually, the gates opened and we were allowed in. Because of time constraints, I had googled in advance the “12 best pictures in El Prado” and managed to see El Greco, Velasquez, Messina, Goya, Zurbaran, Raphael, a little room of triptyches by Hieronymus Bosch and my favourite Caravaggio. Without doing this shortcut cheating, I imagine I’d never have got beyond the ground floor. Although originally opened in 1785 to house the kings Natural History Cabinet, its current use was launched by King Ferdinand VII and Queen Maria Isabel de Braganza in 1819 (hence its celebrating its bicentenary this year).

The Prado is a huge museum, with an amazing collection, plus interesting temporary exhibits, but you’d need weeks to actually view it. When I lived in Paris, I made attempts to see the Louvre, but its exhausting to even try. I tried to get into the Prado the following morning, but the crowds drove me to La Reina Sofia museum, just opposite.  The building is reminiscent of the IMMA building in Dublin, with a central courtyard surrounded by cloistered arches, and was originally opened as the San Carlos Hospital in the sixteenth century. Its current use as a museum of modern art was initiated in

1990. The most famous of the exhibits is surely Picasso’s “Guernica”, worth the price of admission just to see it close up.  It focusses on 20th century art, most especially Spanish artists, (Dali, Miro, Gris), but includes international Cubist artists. Once again, I felt as if I barely had a taster of a museum that would require a fortnight to explore.

In the evening, P&I took me to Templo de Debod,  an ancient Egyptian temple that was dismantled and rebuilt in Madrid as a gesture of thanks from the Egyptian government for the help the Spaniards gave in saving the Abu Simbel temples, when the Aswan Dam was built. From here, there’s a spectacular view of the sunset over the city, and tons of Madrileños gather here to watch, talk and take pictures. (We tried -and failed- to get into two commercial buildings another evening, to view the sunset from the uppermost level, once again there was a queue of locals trying to get in).

We tried (and succeeded) to get in to Pez Tortilla, a place serving slices of tortilla with different toppings, so popular that most people stood while they ate. P&I walked me through a colourful, comfortable gay district, Chueca, both evenings ending up in cafe/bars where you’re as likely to drink green tea as beer and wine. We sat with people who speak at least two languages, live in two countries, understand cultural nuance, enjoy meeting new people. Even though my friends warned me that not all parts of Madrid are safe, it certainly felt that way to me – no drunks, no obvious dodgy characters, few hustlers. But in every town I’ve been, there’s a big presence of police and army, with guns at the ready. This has become completely normalised in big European cities – and you would wonder do they make any difference to criminal activity or is it just to make us feel safe?

On Saturday, P&I took me to the El Retiro park, a huge public park that once belonged to the king, and is now municipal. Families gathered in playgrounds, groups of rollerbladers skeeted around, a collection of silent men did Tai Chi, a Romanian jazz band set up to busk. P walked us across the park to see the Fisherman’s Cottage and hill, which features in a thriller he’s reading at the moment. The highlight had to be the Glass Palace, a building not unlike the tropical glasshouses in The Botanic Gardens, but this is an exhibition space. On show were steel mesh heads by the sculptor Jaume Plensa, enormous pieces that you could get up close to, or move back from to appreciate them.

The highlight of my stay in Madrid had to be meeting up with a long-unseen niece, L, her husband O, and their son, A. We met in the kind of typical plaza, with tables and chairs, umbrellas and heaters in winter, to eat tacos, patch together the last 20 years and catch up. Its so great to meet someone who you haven’t seen since they were perhaps a teenager, and realise that they have fulfilled all the potential you could see way back then. Wonderful too, to meet an extended wing of the family and have my heart stolen by a new (to me) grandnephew.

What struck both myself and my daughter C (who just happened to be in Madrid the same weekend) was the lack of tourists. There was the odd ex-pat trying to become a Madrileño and there were Spanish tourists, but there was no feeling of being crowded out by tour groups, nor even much Tourist Menu In English featuring. The Madrileños seem to love getting together, to play sports, to eat and drink, to watch the sunset, without any qualms about appearing cool or uncool. Is Madrid a sort of secret destination? The big destinations in Spain are Barcelona and Malaga, Madrid is less trendy. This gorgeous city still has places that accept and smile at your halting Spanish, cheap midday Menu del Dia, cheap public transport, museums that are either half-price or free for pensioners, and a compact city-centre that I found totally walkable. If you read this, don’t tell anyone about it – we’ll keep Madrid as our secret.