All too soon our stay in Trieste was over. And as we left on an early morning train, duly fortified by a station café breakfast, for the first time of the trip there were clouds looking like there may be rain to come…

Heading past Miramare, Duino and Monfalcone, we then skirted the head of the Adriatic, across flatlands covered in agriculture and viniculture, fields dotted with three species of egret and Red Kites overhead.

Venice Mestre station was only a destination for onward travel, so no time to poke our noses into the waterworld of the city; instead, looking at our immediate surroundings, there was something very appealing about the cast-iron manhole covers with bird footprint ornamentation. Through the magic of Google Lens, it seems these are quintessentially Italian. Designed by Giulio Iacchetti and Matteo Ragni and produced by the Montini foundry over the last two decades, their four designs aim to go beyond mere function and tell a story. Those with birds’ footprints are mostly used in public parks and gardens, and (it seems) station platforms. A good reason to look down as well as up, and a testament to the importance of style in Italian culture.

Then it was across the plains of Lombardy, through many familiar names – Padua, Verona, Brescia and others, always mindful of the foothills of the Alps rising to the north (and clouds hanging over the higher ground) – before we reached Milan. From there, another quick change and a sharp right turn up into the mountains, the views became ever more verdant, and before long we were arriving into Como, as the first spots of rain fell. The first for us since a light shower in Brussels.

Nestled on the edge of Lake Como, the mountains and their uncertain weather was never far away: at least it was now worth lugging our waterproofs all across Europe!

The lake waters clearly must support good populations of fish, to judge from the number of predatory birds around the edges: Cormorants, Goosanders and Great Crested Grebes, with Hooded Crows scavenging on the shoreline.

At the marina, all boats and reflectascapes, there is a striking piece of abstract sculpture on the end of the pier, Life Electric by Daniel Libeskind, dedicated to Alessandro Volta, inventor of the electric battery and who was born in Como. The reflective surfaces are intended to mirror the shifting, transient light from water, mountains and cloud.

Public art is quite a theme in Como, and we had seen the first large example of that as soon as we got out of the railway station: The Hands features one hand defending institutional values, while the other, fallen hand symbolizes those killed and injured in the line of duty. Another interpretation is one of international dialogue and unity, exemplified by Como and its sister city Tokamachi in Japan. There is of course no reason why both, equally worthy, interpretations cannot be true!

In the lakeside park, there is more: Volta Temple, a museum housing many of his original scientific instruments, and a monument to Princess Mafalda of Savoy to commemorate the Princess (daughter of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy), who was arrested by the Nazis and died in 1944 in the Buchenwald concentration camp, a tribute to all women who suffered and perished in concentration camps during World War 2.

On a similar theme although, to some maybe, more skate ramp than traditional sculpture, is the Monument to the European Resistance, a memorial to the pan-European resistance against Fascism, the resonance of which is brought into focus by the inclusion of stones and rubble taken from Hiroshima and eleven different Nazi concentration camps. The unequal angles of the staircases are intended to convey the constant danger felt by resistance fighters everywhere.

Alongside are metal plates with the poignant final words of condemned resistance fighters  before their execution, translated into seven languages on the boards beside them. Taken together the components of this installation could almost be seen as too much… until of course you realise what is happening right now (or, maybe, was happening until certain  elections over the past month?), a world sleepwalking into the unspeakable horrors that it thought were ended, just 80 years ago.

And there is yet more, a looming 33m-tall Rationalist (the Fascist precursor to Brutalist) stone tower from the 1930s installed as a memorial to the fallen of WW1. Designed by Giuseppe Terragni, it was based upon a 1914 sketch for a power plant by futuristic architect Sant’Ella. In a direct link to our previous few days, the inscriptions read ‘The city exalts with the stones of the Karst the glory of its sons 1915-1918‘ and ‘Tonight we sleep in Trieste or in paradise with the heroes.‘ Stripped of any other decorative elements, it now stands surrounded by Funeral Cypress trees: shivers down the spine time under the grey skies. Especially when you learn that its construction was to mark the visit of Mussolini…

Links with past evils run elsewhere. The Sinigaglia Stadium was built on the orders of Mussolini, and its design by Giovanni Greppi is considered one of the first examples of Rationalist architecture. It is named after the champion rower Giuseppe Sinigaglia, who was born in Como and died in the WW1 battle of Isonzo.

And just across the road, another architectural feature was the Novocomum building, with the late-1920s Rationalist extension (again by Terragni) to the exiting Art Nouveau building: a contrast in ornamentation, but very complementary in their curves.

Time to head into the old town, and forage for dinner. We settled on the Touring Café Restaurant in the square overlooking (at a distance) the lake as a good shelter from the now persistent rain. We were alright, watching the incessant tour groups being dragged around the sights under their umbrellas! And the food was very good, some of the best of the holiday, ravioli for Jude and, for me, ham hock on a bed of saffron and parmesan risotto. Add into the mix a good bottle of local white wine, a flyover Peregrine, singing Tree Crickets and Italian Sparrows after a crumb or two, it proved a good choice!

The old town provided the usual array of interesting streetscenes, decorative buildings and historic churches, although appreciating them is sometimes more difficult in cool, dull and damp weather than when the sun is shining!

The cathedral was pre-eminent among the historic buildings; construction started at the very end of the 14th century, on the site of an earlier Romanesque church, and it has been claimed as the last Gothic cathedral to be built in Italy. The richly decorated, semi-freestanding western end was erected a century later, and the whole construction was completed in 1740 with the topping of the cupola.

Inside, the blue and gold decoration on the vaulted ceiling was impressive, and appealed to me as an unashamed EUropean!

But the most striking feature overall was its beautiful tricoloured pillars and walls, built using different colour forms of a local crystalline limestone. The birds seem to like it too, with Crag Martins breeding in the upper niches, and Black Redstarts singing from the parapets.

Next morning it was still raining, but fortuitously it was the only hotel of the trip with which breakfast came as standard. And very good it was too, a sumptuous spread to linger over. Then it was back to the station for our northwards Alpine crossing, starting with a view of the flora of the rail tracks in Como. Narrow-leaved Ragwort was everywhere, as it has been all across Europe, perhaps surprising given that it has been naturalised in the region from its native South Africa for only a couple of decades. But of course the genus Senecio has form: Oxford Ragwort, from the volcanic slopes of Mt Etna, spread throughout the UK on the emerging rail system in the 19th century after its seeds escaped from Oxford Botanic Garden. Alongside at Como, and only there, were some large patches of Red Hemp-nettle, a critically endangered plant of arable, disturbed and shingle places in Britain.

Our journey into Switzerland started with some blue sky, illuminating the landscape drama we were traversing…

… but not for long. The cloud came down, the light fell from the sky, and then so too did the rain!

Changing trains in Zurich gave us the opportunity to poke our noses out: cloudy, but barely raining! And just across the road, the Swiss National Museum, a beautiful building for sure, but no time to explore. The next leg awaited us!

Through Switzerland to Basel, then a left turn: this was the train to Paris, but we were not heading there just yet… the practicalities of a 24-hour day! When planning the trip, I had stuck in an intermediate overnight stop at Dijon, ideally placed for the final step home the following day.

Why Dijon? Because it was there. We had no preconceptions, apart from mustard. But in the event it turned out to be our favourite destination of all: a triumph of happenstance. First of all, it is in France, with a language I can handle. Second, it is in France, a simply huge country with enormous tracts of countryside between settlements. And the city was just remarkable: I would love to live there. BUT – Brexit. And BUT – the rise of the abhorrent Far Right there too….

But let’s live the dream … and we did for a night! Our Ibis hotel was ideally situated next to the station, and unlike some of our hotels, our room had expansive views over the surrounding suburbs and countryside…

Our stay started well. The sun was sinking into the evening sky and illuminating the church and cathedral towers and spires as we went out to find food. As we passed the Cathedral of Saint Benignus, there were a few eateries, but the chime of seven reminded me that I had spotted online a highly rated bistro that opened at seven. And so we tracked down Chez Ti in Rue Berbisey: serendipty again. Another of the best meals of the trip, in a local restaurant for local people, the sort of place where all who come in are welcomed by all with a genial bonsoir, and everyone, even obvious outsiders like us, were welcomed as friends.

The cuisine may have had a northern French, or even Belgian, twist, but it was almost without exception delicious. Ok, Jude’s fish and chips wasn’t quite up to Cromer seafront standards, but my jambon fumée grillé with Maroilles sauce (using a cheese from Picardy) was simply gorgeous. But the others’ beef carbonnade was equally toothsome, and the chips (outstandingly cooked in beef fat!)…well, I cannot go on as the gastromemories are just so unctuous!

After a nightcap in the hotel bar, the sounds of the city were no more than a whisper, and when we rose, the chill spoke of an autumnal frost, under blue skies and without winds rustling the leaves. Perfect conditions to explore the city.

But not before brunch. For us that was at Chez mes Sœurs, a local chain that deserves to be much more well-known: brioche with bacon and egg, carrot cake and cappuccino were all excellent, with Notre-Dame cathedral in view.

Then it was to Les Halles, a covered market, the superstructure of which was deigned by Gustave Eiffel, he of the tower, who was born in Dijon. To anyone who worships Borough Market, think again and visit Les Halles. Why would you shop anywhere else than under the cover of that market, the quintessence of all that is good about France? Enjoy the sight, smells, tastes and people of the land.

But that is far from all. The Musée des Beaux-Arts, housed in a stately palace of the Dukes of Burgundy is one of the oldest museums in France.

Its contents, from ducal relics and historical artefacts to much more modern options, were remarkable, and tastefully displayed.

Not just the two dimensional art…

… but also the glass by Emil Gallé, the like of which we loved in Nancy a few years ago, and the naturalistic sculptures of François Pompon. Polar Bears and Eagle Owls, les Grand-Ducs, featured heavily, as they did on our walk around the city.

But the feeling of pleasure rose to a climax when we became aware of music. Beautiful music, in rehearsal, from a floor above. Utterly bewitching sounds from the singer, a pipe organist and a wielder of ancient trumpets: it was one of those serendipitous moments of sublime joy that we count ourselves privileged to have come across.

Outside the museum, the natural world came to bring us joy too, in the form of Hummingbird Hawkmoths nectaring at the potted Verbena.

As for the rest of Dijon, where to start? Well, the churches for one, although being ‘churched-out’ over the past few days, we didn’t enter any of them. Notre-Dame was actually closed anyway, but lost nothing of its splendour, from the rows of gurning gargoyles to the owl carved into a buttress, the owl that has watched over the city for eight centuries, progenitor of the owl symbolism now used throughout the city.

Jude did as every good tourist should and stroked the owl for good luck (BUT no long waits for this – Dijon still seems to have kept off the mass tourism trail, and is all the better for it). Hopefully she didn’t cast her eyes skyward to see the owl and pussycat up there, the sight of which would have negated the good luck. Apparently!

So many churches, all with architectural merit…

… and so many buildings with patterned, coloured tiled roofs, bringing colour to the streets…

… as indeed did the mosaics inlaid into the pavements.

Street scenes over the ages, from rustic French traditional stone…

… through the half-timbered Middle Ages…

… the monumental period of the Dukes of Burgundy at the their peak…

… through to the Art Nouveau flourishes of the late 19th century, a feast of architecture that spanned more than half a millennium.

Public art too, in a multitude of forms, including a return to M. Pompon and his Polar Bears.

All of this in just three hours. Almost too much to take in, so a large glass of local white Burgundy under the shade of a Plane tree was an ideal lunch!

Time to head back to the hotel, but just a moment to poke into the Jardin de’l Arquebuse, absolutely filled with charming Red Squirrels, as well as a singing Short-toed Treecreeper.

Nearly at the end now, it was back to the hotel, though still time for a final taste of the local landscape in the form of a pint of beer from the nearby Brasserie Elixkir microbrewery, le Péché du Chanoine, a blonde malty ale with strawberry overtones, to my tastebuds at least.

A great fortification for the final couple of hours into Paris (albeit struggling with the online ticket purchase system for the metro), round the metro without a hitch, and into Gare du Nord in good time. In such good time that a glass of wine and a celebratory tartalette au citron was just what we needed.

On to Eurostar and home by 21.30, slightly amazed that it had all worked. Yes, it was hard work sorting it all out, but worth it: not once did our app-generated tickets or the seat bookings let us down, except for Liverpool Street. In both directions. Of course…

Nine days, seven countries, 33 hours and 16 minutes on 18 trains, we covered 3162km with barely a hitch, and no more than ten minutes’ delay at any juncture. And just 4% of the carbon cost of flying. The travelling was the holiday: the destinations were more like the filling between the fun – crossing Europe by train without breaking the bank, or the planet.

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Part 1: The way there Eating & Drinking our way across Europe: to Trieste by train… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

Part 2: Three days in TriesteEating & Drinking our way across Europe: three days in Trieste … | Chris Gibson Wildlife

And so we eventually rolled into Trieste after a three-day adventure on the railways of Europe. But first impressions were not entirely favourable: the roads and pavements were chaotic, and there were people scurrying everywhere. Much of the chaos stemmed from the preparations for the Barcolana, the largest sailing regatta in the world, due to start a week hence, but in addition there was a cruise ship in port, and it was a sunny Sunday afternoon! A recipe for chaos … but our hotel, the Savoia Excelsior Palace, proved more than a match for that: a serene, stylish, palatial place designed to soothe. Maybe a little more expensive than we are used to paying, we got a very good price and it was worth it for the little taste of luxury.

Suitably restored, after an hour unpacking it was off to explore our immediate surroundings to continue our gastronomic wander across Europe. And found it very close by in the Piazza Unità d’Italia. Already we were becoming accustomed to the bustle, and even the marquees and other paraphernalia from the Barcolana were not enough to stop us settling down at the nearest hostelry, the Caffè degli Specchi.

A bottle of local wine was duly ordered, a splendid zesty Friulana with sparkling overtones of grapefruit and orange peel, which came with the usual nuts and crisps. And then an unexpected selection of savoury canapés for each of us, followed by a hearty bowl of tuna and tomato pasta!

So it would have been rude to move on as we’d planned….so we stayed put, ordered another bottle, got the cold snacks again, and left comfortably full. Four of us satisfied for the princely sum of €48! A bargain, very tasty, and a wonderful introduction to the food of Trieste. Then back to the hotel, time for a nightcap which also came with snacks, including watermelon with feta and local cheese with raspberry jam…

Trieste has always been an important port, indeed it was considered the most important seaport of the Habsburg empire which controlled much of eastern Europe for more than 500 years up to WW1. So it isn’t surprising it has so many wonderful buildings, although it is a little sad that, like Hastings or Southend, most are cut off from the sea by a main, busy road. But there are some that keep their maritime links, including the Port Authority building that doubles as an Italian flag at night; the Statzione Marittima, an Art Deco passenger terminal turned conference centre; and the Aquarium (sadly closed for redevelopment), an Art Nouveau former fish market, adorned externally with all manner of marine life.

Otherwise sailing and cruising dominate the scene, providing reflectascapes at every turn:

The promenade has its own art, both sculptural and horizontal, in the form of quartzite seams spearing through the flagstones:

Moving inland, across the road, monumental historic buildings are everywhere, many in a baroque Austro-Hungarian style from the latter part of the 19th century. Around the Piazza Unità d’Italia, for example, sit both the City Hall and the Palazzo del Governo, with its colonnades and intricate mosaics, and capturing the glow of the setting sun in its limestone blocks.

A centrepiece of the waterfront is the Canal Grande completed in 1756 as a sea-trading dock, and now surrounded by another array of historic buildings and eating establishments:

Of course we made full use of the restaurants, both by day and by night: a perfect combination of pasta or pizza and seafood. And especially by day enjoying the scavenging antics of Yellow-legged Gulls and Hooded Crows and fishing Mediterranean Shags, while the walls of the canal revealed Rock Samphire and Pacific Oysters, a gastronomic combination seemingly not on offer on dry land.

But perhaps the greatest delight came just along from the James Joyce statue, the best ice-cream we have ever tasted, from the Bar le Delizie. Sadly no photos, as the late afternoon sun was melting them rapidly, but my two scoops of white chocolate and lemon were superb, and Jude felt the same about her dark chocolate with yoghurt and berries. We felt that the ice-cream slot on our holiday food scorecard was comprehensively ticked!

The reason we were dawdling with beer and then ice-cream by the canal in late afternoon was that we were waiting for the two churches that overlook it to open. Sant’Antonio Taumaturgo stands at the former head of the canal, now overlooking a tree-fringed piazza. Dating from the early 19th century, it was imposing although in a rather lifeless way …

But in sharp contrast the Serbian Orthodox Saint Spyridon was full of light, music, colour and life, both inside and out.

Away from the honeypot squares, fascinating architectural and artistic detail appeared in every street view. Always look up!

Heading further inland, the city started to rise up the slope, and largely pedestrianised streets felt more real, without the pristine veneer of the showpieces lower down:

… with wall art, ramshackle doors, rooftop jumbles and displays of fruit and fungi for sale adding to the experience.

But the history goes much deeper. Roman sites in the old city all dating from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD included the remains of the settlement of Tergeste, the Arch of Riccardo and the Roman Theatre, around which Hummingbird Hawkmoths were very actively feeding on flowers growing out of the walls.

Moving up the hill and forward in time, Tor Cucherna is a mediaeval stone tower forming part of the old city walls.

And within those walls at last some green spaces, with flowering Oleander, Platycladus orientalis and Gledistsia triacanthos in fruit and both Pokeweed and Wild Clematis tumbling out of the walls.

The terraced Garden of Via San Michele gave views of the lower part of Trieste, and Jude was able to help a local chap in a successful search for his two wandering cats …

… while I focussed upon the insect life on the festoons of flowering Ivy: Single-dotted Wave moth, a soldier-fly Sargus bipunctatus, lots of Honeybees and Eristalinus taeniops, a hoverfly with remarkably striped eyes. And trawling among them, like sharks around a coral reef, several large Oriental Hornets Vespa orientalis. Possibly native in Mediterranean Europe, this hornet is not the Asian Hornet Vespa velutina that is spreading across Europe and into the UK, but both species are voracious predators of other insects including Honeybees. Oriental Hornet is also spreading northwards under the influence of climate change and may be one waiting in the wings to establish at home, and indeed does occasionally appear with imported produce, although it is not considered to be as much a risk as Asian Hornet.

Continuing ever upwards we arrived at the Cathedral of San Giusto, dating from the 14th century but built on top of a Roman temple.

The interior of the cathedral features frescoes and other artworks…

… including mosaics, both on the floor and most impressively in the three internal semi-domes, glittering with colour and gold when the lights are on. Take a pocketful of loose change to activate the lights and see the mosaics at their best!

The cathedral is perched high on the hill, alongside the castle, clad in Italian Cypress trees, and the Monument to the Fallen of WW1.

And the hilltop also provides views across the whole city, including two further churches, both Brutalist in design: St Aloysius Gonzaga, with wave-like roof and offset concrete belltower, and perched atop the Karst limestone ridge the Temple of Monte Grisa, modular concrete triangles with a shape that gives rise to its nickname of il Formaggino, ‘little cheese wedge’.

Around the sides of the hill, there is space for more green, with Hooded Crows in the trees, lichens on and Pellitory-of-the-wall growing out of the rocks and bricks, and Tunic-flower and Lesser Calamint in the dry grassland.

And more flowering Ivy, here with legions of Ivy Bees and Drone-flies…

… while the leaves harboured the spider Nigma walckenaeri, Ceroplastes wax scale-insects and a beautiful array of (presumably) moth eggs that had just hatched.

For our second full day we headed out by boat to Miramare Castle, a few kilometres up the coast,  on a millpond sea, surrounded by lots of Yellow-legged Gulls and with views across the Gulf of Trieste, including a rather forbidding looking superyacht at anchor.

Menacing indeed, this is known as the White Pearl, and is owned by the Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko. 144m long, its masts are taller than Big Ben…

Launched in 2017, it was almost immediately impounded in Gibraltar over unpaid construction costs, and subsequently seized by Italian authorities in 2022 as a result of sanctions stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Mr Melnichenko may come to regret his $600 million outlay….

Looking landward, we passed the Victory Lighthouse and the Formaggino, skirted the Barcola pinewoods, and looked up to the Karst, a wonderful mix of woodland and scrub, with limestone outcrops.

Rounding the peninsula, with views up the coast to Duino Castle, we docked at Grignano marina and naturally first stop was the beach bar! A delightful ‘special local menu’ brunch consisted of seafood and vegetarian fried nibbles, including pickled sardines on bread. Yum! And of course a glass of local wine, under the shade of the Aleppo Pines.

Built for Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian of Habsburg in the mid-19th century, Miramare Castle and the adjacent castelletto are often described as ‘fairytale’. So, eschewing the whimsy of the not-too-distant past, we instead explored the park and gardens within which they are set.

The formal gardens, set with many sculptures, are Italianate in style…

… but the more interesting wilder areas of Holm Oak, pine and Strawberry-tree woodland, were reassuringly informal, albeit that (it is claimed) the Archduke oversaw all the planting here on what was an exposed limestone promontory.

Strawberry-tree in fruit called us to search for the eggs or larvae of Two-tailed Pashas, but to no avail. We did however see an adult fleetingly, regally circling a clearing, brushing off the unwanted attentions of both a Vagrant Emperor dragonfly and an Oriental Hornet.

Other shrubs and small trees included Laurustinus, its leaf-edges much munched by Vine Weevils:

And Downy Oak and Hop-hornbeam, both trees that are often proposed as future garden/forestry species for us in the UK as climate envelopes are shifting. For the latter at least, it was good to see it being used by a leaf-mining micromoth, so if brought here, the birds might still have something to eat.

In the shade of the trees, Cyclamen purpurascens provided shots of colour, and Brown Marmorated Stink-bugs were active. These bugs which originated in the Far East were accidentally imported, it is thought, to Zurich in 1998 from whence they have spread, causing much consternation because of the damage they cause to agricultural crops.

In the clearings, Speckled Woods were flying, these being the same cream-blotched subspecies as ours: draw a line from here to Cornwall, and everything to the south-west will be of the orange-blotched form. And Ploughman’s-spikenard was in full flower:

On the shady side of rocks and walls, Maidenhair Spleenwort was a familiar face to us, with the equally familiar herb Winter Savory on the sun-blasted faces, the same places as favoured by basking Common Wall Lizards.

The natural attraction of pools on a hot day was obvious around the garden, with drinking Red Admirals and Oriental Hornets, bees and hoverflies basking, and hunting Western Willow Emeralds and Common Darters.

As ever, a plethora of wildlife was not photographed, including Cleopatra, Painted Lady and Small Copper butterflies and Migrant Hawker dragonflies around the garden, with Nuthatches and Great Spotted Woodpeckers among the trees.

Then continuing the walk round the peninsula, we watched Mediterranean Shags on the rocks, found Cottony Cushion Scales on Spartium junceum, Sticky Fleabane and Rock Samphire on the cliff edge, along with a broad-leaved rock-dwelling sea lavender. The genus Limonium is difficult, with a multiplicity of local species, but this looks not unlike Limonium latifolium, a native of the Black Sea coast, but widespread now in gardens.

Which brought us very neatly back to the coast road, and a bus stop back into the city, for beer and ice-creams to celebrate a lovely day out.

For our final evening meal in Trieste we headed away from the honeypots and into the pedestrianised back streets. A great decision, as Anema e Core (‘soul and heart’) provided one of the very best meals of our entire holiday: my spaghetti allo scoglio was just perfect. And the atmosphere of the street as the day came to a close, with the beautiful people of the city wandering past, all confident in their own beauty, was captivating, as we enjoyed  a delicious bottle  of Friulano, a crisp white packed with the aromatic notes of local herbs and meadow flowers.

And so back to the hotel. This time it was cocktails, whiskey sour for me, and margarita for Jude, time to relax, enjoy the ambience of the hotel setting, and prepare for an early departure the following morning.

After the chaos of Sunday evening, Trieste had got under our skin!

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The way there: Part 1: Eating & Drinking our way across Europe: to Trieste by train… | Chris Gibson Wildlife

Still to come: Part 3: The journey home, featuring stops in Como and Dijon.

It was an idea hatched over too much wine with a couple of friends almost a year previously. But at the start of October, fantasy became reality: Interrail passes, train seat bookings, hotel rooms sorted: we were on our way! A trip by train to Trieste, in northeast Italy, right on the border with Slovenia. A long way, but nine days to play with, three nights at our destination with five at intermediate coaching stops, taking in six countries, traversing the Alps twice.

Our first experience of interrailing, we tried to limit the journeys to between 5 and 6 hours a day. Clearly we needed to approach it with the attitude that the travel is as much a part of the holiday as the destination, watching the landscape unroll and evolve as we passed through each region, experiencing the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of all our stopping points. Looking, learning and enjoying every step of the way!

Our trip started in sunshine, and so it remained for almost the whole of the time. Eurostar to Brussels by early afternoon, so of course it was time to start our gastronomic extravaganza in our favourite from previous visits, Brasserie Belge, right by Bruxelles-Midi: chips and mayo, cheese and salami chunks with mustard, and of course Belgian beer. We were back!

Duly fortified, it was into the city to find our stylish hotel, the Bedford...

… and then, via (of course) the Manneken Pis, which was very crowded, to the Grand-Place, which surprisingly was rather quiet.

Such magnificent built surroundings of course called for another drink, which for some involved tasting flights of Leffe!

A great opportunity to stop and stare, to appreciate the artistic detail as well as the architectural grandeur, and enjoy the sinking sun illuminating the gilded scene.

The whole city centre seemed stuffed with sights to savour, both historic and modern, at every turn:

Among the plethora of eating-places, we chose Falstaff, with its original stained glass dating from the very start of the 20th century:

And I got my mouth-watering moules, with garlic sauce that stayed with me (and Jude!) for the next day! But such was the meal that waffles, despite the enticing shopfronts, had to wait until the following morning, breakfast back by the station ready for the next leg to Frankfurt.

Leaving Brussels in our wake with the Atomium twinkling in the distance, before long we crossed into Germany, clocking Aachen as an interesting-looking destination for the future, through Cologne (another of our past favourites) and to Frankfurt by mid-afternoon. This leg picked up a delay of ten minutes, but that was the only significant delay of the entire trip, and that meant we were able to check in to the Holiday Inn Alt Oper as soon as we arrived.

Ours was a lovely airy room, but no time to sit around: at this time of year sunlight is at a premium! Frankfurt is another city with remarkable buildings, another set of photo opportunities as we made our way to the Palmengarten.

Rather than head straight away deep into the gardens though, the café summoned us, with tea and cakes for some and a lovely weissbier for me, already developing a taste for the evolving gastroscapes of the trip.

And so into the gardens: flowers, seeds and fruit …

Insects included a few Firebugs, although not their favoured on mallow or lime seeds, a phenomenon we are starting now to see at home as their population has exploded this last summer. And sitting in full view was an Amber Wood Cockroach, a species that until the start of this century was restricted to those warmer parts of Europe south of the Alps. But as with so many insects it is spreading north, now well into Germany and elsewhere, and even into the UK, although probably not established with us yet.

Then there was the largest bee hotel we have ever seen, one with seemingly high occupancy rates, and a scattering of Red Squirrels (including blackish morphs), busy burying caches of food for the winter.

The glasshouses are very impressive, with interesting plants from around the world and over a wide range of ecological conditions:

And finally another glasshouse, hosting tropical butterflies and plants that support them or, like Begonias, thrive in the same jungly conditions:

And not just the adults, but some larvae as well, including perhaps the most dramatic caterpillar we have ever seen, that of an Owl Butterfly.

From there it was onto the metro, emerging in the heart of Frankfurt Old Town. Or more accurately, the New Old Town: the city centre was largely flattened by WW2 bombing, and then replaced with car parks and a Brutalist town hall. But between 2012 and 2018 the old town was rebuilt, in part faithful historical reconstructions along with modern buildings designed according to historical precedent.

Is this history or pastiche? Nowhere is that question more relevant than in the Cathedral. The site of a church since the ninth century, it became the main church of the city until it was destroyed by fire in 1867. Rebuilt in its present style, it was then severely damaged during the war, and rebuilt yet again in the 1950s.

It is certainly an impressive space, and a symbol of defiance against the horrors of war. But in the same way as one cannot recreate an ancient wood, maybe you cannot rebuild the time that constitutes patina of history.

And to add to its almost Disneyesque character, scratching the surface reveals the artifice. Local red sandstone may have been used in some of the the rebuild, but why then are the joints between the building blocks seemingly painted on? And indeed in places, the red colour seems to be wearing off? How much of its terracotta splendour is skin deep? But then again, one of the purposes of monumental buildings should be to make one think and question!

By now it was dinnertime: currywurst and weissbier for me, a giant pretzel for Jude, and bratwurst for the others. All very pleasant sitting outside, accompanied by a street opera singer, but the Nazi helmet he seemed to be wearing was a little discomfiting…

Then walking back to the hotel, we turned a corner and found ourselves right in the glow of the red light district. It was a bit of a shock, upsetting to think of those trapped in the trade by force or economic necessity, and those equally trapped in the very evident world of drugs. But at the same time, it was almost thrilling to witness the vibrant night-time economy in full flow, a city within the city. And at no point did we feel threatened. Next morning, as we headed back through to the station, the nightlife had been absorbed back into the fabric of the streets, leaving a vague atmosphere of the morning after the night before: revellers who had not made it home, addicts in corners oblivious to the dawn, a few ladies even then on offer in the breakfast cafés.

From Frankfurt the train took us into Bavaria, through Nürnberg and to Munich, where we had half an hour to wait for our connection to Salzburg. Munich was mayhem… we hadn’t appreciated we were passing through during Oktoberfest! The surge of lederhosen in the station concourse drove us outside, where Jude spotted a hotel across the road. It was worth paying a little extra so we could enjoy a glass of wine and get to a loo as we waited.

From Munich southwards, the landscape turned ever greener and the Alps drew ever closer. Onion-domed churches started to appear in the landscape, with Ravens and Buzzards in the skies above.

And then in mid-afternoon we crossed from Germany into Austria over the River Salzach, with Salzburg nestled between river and mountain, a chocolate-box image.

Maybe it was because we had little time to explore, or that we were there only for a busy Saturday evening, but the ‘picture postcard’ failed to engage me. Salzburg proved to be my least favourite of all the places we visited.

Although our hotel had little in the way of facilities (like a bar!), it was close to the river, where we headed for the evening, crossing a footbridge to the Altstadt. No time or opportunity to visit the cathedral or Mozart’s birthplace, but houses hewn into the cliffs were impressive. And the road verges featured both Ragweed and Shaggy Soldier.

By the next bridge a spot to sit and drink, the palatial residences and hotels dominating the far bank but almost inconsequential given the grandeur of the mountain backdrop. Grey Wagtails flickered along the water’s edge and high in the sky a flock of Alpine Choughs played around the peaks to the gentle chiming of a busker playing a hammer dulcimer.

Time for some food, and here the Altstadt provided an ideal biergarten experience,  an open courtyard where plate-filling pork schnitzel laced, as is tradition, with cranberries provided what some of us wanted. Simple platefuls, and so filling that the apple strudel was never contemplated. And a bottle of flowery Riesling really hit the spot!

Walking back through the city in the dark, there was a consensus for a nightcap, and I came across the highly rated Hirschen hotel bar close to our hotel.  A good choice: schnappes or white wine all round, and we were well fed and watered for another early start, the final leg of our outward journey.

Perhaps being Sunday, the station was very busy, but we eventually managed to eat breakfast and buy our usual travelling lunches. Cans of G&T may have been involved! And queueing gave us the chance to appreciate the historic Art Deco booking hall.

And we were off through the Alps in perfect blue sky weather, remarkable vistas at every turn of the track, although only a couple of snow patches spotted on the highest tops.

We almost ran into a problem at Villach, where our planned transfer time was only ten minutes. Our train was nine minutes late…but our connection was also delayed, so all turned out fine.

And so we crossed into Italy, with the wonderful rugged peaks of the Slovenian Triglav mountains forming a spectacular backdrop. This train was supposed to take us all the way through the mountains to Udine, but came to a halt at Tarvisio Boscoverde. It was going no further. A wait on the platform allowed me chance to look at a few plants, including Tunic-flower Petrorhagia saxifraga flowering resolutely in the platform paving cracks.

And shortly a train arrived from Venice, decanted its cross-alpine travellers into our train, while we climbed aboard the new arrival. What I found utterly remarkable, given the often chaotic state of seat bookings in the UK, was that the self-same booked seats we had occupied from Villach were waiting for us!

All too soon the high mountains were behind, woodland clothed the landscape and in the foothills our route crossed several large expanses of outwash gravels, currently dry valleys filled with the river-borne load from glacial and fluvial erosion higher up. In years past I have visited some of these, and yes, they are as desert-like as they appear, although as always, even in deserts special wildlife has adapted to fill the space.

Udine was our final transfer, onto the regional train service to Trieste. Now we were in the Mediterranean lowlands, with the Karst limestone rising up to the east, and before long the north Adriatic came into view. Passing the industry of Monfalcone and Duino Castle, and heading through Sistiana, memories came flooding back of the Honeyguide tours I led around there in the past, in 1997 and 2006.

And so we rolled into Trieste, exactly on time, after our longest day of travel, six-and-a-half hours on four trains. All tickets worked, all transfers worked, all seat bookings worked – better that I could possibly have imagined. The months of getting to grips with the Interrail app had paid off. Time now to relax!

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Part 2: Three days in Trieste

Still to come: Part 3: The journey home, featuring stops in Como and Dijon.

Just an hour from Amersfoort on the intercity train brought us to Den Haag, The Hague, clearly a booming city, to judge from the skyline of cranes and high-rise glass and steel, especially around the station.

But the charm of the old city is only a block away, embracing more modern fare like the former US Embassy, built in 1959 and now one of its many art galleries. And water and greenspace (with some fine displays of Honey Fugus) are never too far beyond that, in which the noise of Parakeets is rivalled by that of the Jackdaws.

Our hotel, the Townhouse, proved another good choice, in terms of location and comfort, although let down by the lack of atmosphere in the bistro, something to do with the lack of food, apart from rather good fruit pies and (free) soup! And it provided shelter from the showers,  watching earnest people of all nations  coming and going, perhaps related to Den Haag being at the epicentre of international jurisprudence.

And there was no shortage of real food just a couple of minutes’ walk away around the main square next to the government buildings; indeed here, in Leopold’s, we had the best meal of the holiday on our first evening. The second evening was less successful  though as the eateries were crammed: perhaps Thursday is the new Friday in a country that is on its way to embracing the four-day week.

Art is everywhere, including homage on the hoarding, behind which the former Ministry of Justice is being converted into a museum, to MC Escher. Fittingly so as Escher’s prints feature in an excellent museum nearby, a former Royal Palace:

There we spent a very happy morning exploring his work,  from the early, technically superb but hardly ground-breaking realism…

… to distorted and unexpected perspectives …

… through geometrical shapings and  fascinating, morphing tessellations…

…to his most famous, mind-bending impossibilities.

The inspiration for the impossible staircases was clear from a photo of his school in Arnhem: if that is ever opened to the public we could well be tempted to visit.

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There is probably much, much more to Den Haag than we found on this, our first visit, given that we spent much of our time using it as a centre to travel out from.

One such trip was by tram to the coastal resort of Scheveningen, complete with requisite pier, grand hotel and broad sandy beach. Where better to eat mussels than in a beach bar with the smell of the salt and sound of the distant lapping waves?

This is a place that would be worth revisiting at other seasons. The dunes had Marram and Lyme Grass, , thickets of fruiting Sea Buckthorn, and a few plants like Sea Rocket, Dwarf Mallow and Narrow-leaved Ragwort in flower. How much more would there to be found in summer in the vast dune field that stretches north from the town?

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Den Haag was also the ideal stepping stone from which to visit Leiden, just ten minutes away by train. A small city, it wasn’t really on our radar until we noticed an advertisement (and voucher for reduced price entry!) for the botanic garden Hortus botanicus, but much of a day visiting there was time very well spent.

Of all the places we visited it was the one most reminiscent of home, especially of Harwich and the Dutch Quarter of Colchester, due to its geographic similarity and the commonality of architecture and boat design, indicating strong cultural links. Little did we realise the commonality until we saw the name ‘Mayflower’ appearing regularly: yes, the Mayflower that sailed from Harwich in 1620 collected some of its Pilgrim Fathers from Leiden (to which they had exiled themselves following persecution for contravening religious orthodoxy back in England) in Southampton.

The waterways were flanked by old brick-built houses, many with a familiar stepped profile: one of these, the former carpenters’ house was a gallery and open to look around, revealing an interior tiled with Delft tiles.

Old, attractive buildings everywhere, including two windmills:

The larger canals and rivers, branches of the former Rijn (Rhine) delta, had numerous historic trading boats, as well as those for modern tourism, all of which provided a very pleasing backdrop to our al fresco lunch on the floating Vlot Grand Café.

Another name to put Leiden on the map is Rembrandt, who was born there in 1606:

Leiden is also prestigious academically, home to the country’s oldest university, founded in 1575. Hence its equally prestigious botanic garden (I had forgotten I knew that!) whose origins date back to 1590, making it one of the oldest in the world. And its collections have been built up by a veritable Who’s Who of botany through the 16th to 19th centuries, including Clusius, Linnaeus and Siebold.

Despite the season there were plenty of interesting flowers in the garden…

… with autumnal colours and fruits from many others.

Add in the fungi, including a honey-fungus (probably Armillaria ostoyae on account of its scaly cap),  the bracket-fungus Ganoderma lipsiense and The Prince Agaricus augustus…

…and a scattering of invertebrates, such as Dogwood Aphid, adult Syrphus ribesii hoverflies along with their tartan-clad larvae, some well marked Common Carder-bees and a Clubiona sac-spider.

And of course the birds: Great Crested Grebes on the canal, and Ring-necked Parakeets everywhere, competing with the acorn-foraging Jays for the label ‘noisiest birds’.

The glasshouses too were impressive with all sorts of frost-sensitive and therefore unfamiliar blooms.

And in the warmer greenhouses, it suddenly became clear the trilling sounds came not from a speaker but from living frogs. Poison dart frogs at that, in which their skin can contain a chemical hundreds of times as strong as morphine. Perhaps fortunately, the toxins are in part derived from the plants growing around them, so if the environment is controlled, so too can be the risk of visitor poisoning!

Clearly an impressive botanic garden and one that would repay visits at different times of year.

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And so our holiday finally drew to a close with a last example of the efficiency of public transport. Our intended train was going to stop short of our destination due to weekend rail works, but we were able easily to change plans and get back to the Hook of Holland by metro instead, in the same length of time.

Onto the ferry for a comfortable, calm overnight crossing, we were back in the UK as dawn broke, under the same leaden skies as when we departed a week previously. There was still not a stirring of breeze, as though autumn had held its breath for the whole of our trip, a holiday that left us wanting more so I suspect we will be back before too long!

Just forty minutes out of Rotterdam on the Intercity train brought us to Utrecht, our destination for the next two nights. The journey was almost all across flat, drained, agricultural former marshland, and the upper deck of the train made for good viewing. Half a dozen Great White Egrets and a Kingfisher were the most exciting sightings amongst the Coots, Mallards and Canada Geese.

And from one futuristic station to another: the entrance to Utrecht Centraal is overtopped by a massive honeycomb canopy.

The old city itself is contained within, and presumably formerly defended by, a perimeter canal, alongside which we needed to walk to get to our hotel. But the newer parts of the city, outside the canal, had some pleasant surprises including the massive hulk of the headquarters of ProRail, responsible for the railway network infrastructure of the Netherlands. This is the largest brick building in the country, dating from 1921, Art Deco in style and made of more than 22 million bricks. Put that into perspective: our iconic equivalent Battersea Power Station in its current restored state contains 7.6 million!

And what of the flying saucer on top? Well that is not original – it was part of a Millennium art festival, and has somehow survived, giving the hulk a very distinctive profile.

Right next door, and going back an era architecturally is the Art Nouveau building of the former Hygenic Laboratory, a reminder of Utrecht’s historically prestigious university. The façade of the building is decorated with memorials to some of the important scientists of the time, some of whom like Davy, Bunsen and Priestley are still household names today.

The canal too is fascinating. It seemed timeless, but we learned that in fact once the city walls were demolished in 1830, its defensive function faded and it fell into disrepair. In 1973 it was drained and in part converted into a sunken motorway, but from 2010 the motorway has been removed and the canal restored as part of a general pedestrianisation of the old city. And importantly most of it now is flanked by greenspace, good for people but also for wildlife. There are now some splendid trees, dead wood is celebrated, fungi (like Shaggy Ink-caps) were springing up and there were even a few flowers for autumnal nectar, including Duke of Argyll’s Teatree and Shaggy Soldier, the latter seemingly everywhere in the urban parts of the country, perhaps an indication of what will happen in the UK.

And right next to the canal the Muze hotel, our very pleasant home for two nights in stylish surroundings, our room being themed on the nearby Centraal Museuem. On the first evening we stayed local, found Piero’s, the local Italian restaurant, and had one of the best meals of our whole trip.

For much of the following day we also stayed close by, visiting places just across the canal. We had intended to go out to see the iconic Rietveld Schröder House, built in 1924 at the very dawn of Modernist architectural design. but the Centraal Museum was so good we spent much longer there than we had expected to. A very good excuse for a return visit!

The museum was eclectic and well laid-out, exhibits ranging from the tenth-century Utrecht ship (more than 17m long and hollowed out of a single oak trunk) in the basement to a reconstruction in the attic of the studio of the graphic artist Dick Bruna, creator of the Miffy character, who lived and worked in the city.

Between the two were numerous other delights, including chairs by Rietveld (designer of the Modernist house), ladies’ fashion, a full-sized papier-mâché horse stripped down to its internal anatomical details and art from across the ages. Of course there were Mondriaans (he hailed from nearby Amersfoort), although not the abstract forms most associated with his name now, but what struck me most was a 1923 drawing of trees by Dick van Luijn, the perfect natural model for the Cube Houses we had seen in Rotterdam the day previously.

There were also cyanotypes of local ‘pavement plants’ and a 1913 Tourism Club poster discouraging littering: worthy messages all round and to judge from our experience the anti-littering message seems very largely to have worked.

The museum is housed in a former monastery, and its associated church was worth a visit, especially for some lovely stained glass:

Just around the corner for the museum is the Oude Hortus, the historic former university botanic garden (the main botanic garden is on the outskirts of the city, beyond the Rietveld Schröder House, and so must await a return visit). Although quite small, it packs in a lot of features:

Autumn colours were starting to blaze through the foliage…

… and special trees included a vast, ancient Ginkgo, a fruiting Medlar (showing blatantly the reason for its French name ‘cul de chien’) and a Paper Mulberry with its distinctive orange fruit clusters.

Among the herbaceous plants out in the garden were Pokeweed, Deadly Nightshade and Castor-oil Plant. All are deadly poisonous to us, but the latter two species at least hosted the sap-sucking Southern Green Shieldbug, seemingly oblivious to the toxins. And not just surviving but thriving to judge from the clusters of multicoloured nymphs, quite a contrast to the green adults.

Other invertebrates included both Roman and Banded Snails, and a few fungi around the garden included the ink-cap Coprinus micaceus.

And then there were the glasshouses, with the less hardy and often showy plants:

Of course none more showy than the centrepiece Giant Water-lilies. Interestingly one old leaf had been laid out in the dry but upside down, showing well the struts that support such a vast leaf and the fearsome prickles that presumably give it protection from aquatic herbivores.

Later in the day and on the next morning we walked up into the centre of the old city, along the attractive canals that run through as well as around the centre, forming watery threads among the many historic buildings.

But pride of place among the historic buildings must go to the fourteenth-century Dom Tower, centrepiece of the city and visible from almost everywhere, at 112.5m the tallest church tower in the country.

The cathedral that was intended to accompany the tower was never completed, and a portion of it stands across the square as the Domkerk. It may be only a portion, but it is a towering space inside, and again features some impressive stained glass.

All this in one day, followed by an al fresco dinner (with excellent local beer) under the watchful gaze of the Dom Tower…

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Next day it was back on the train, first to Amersfoort, just 15 minutes’ east, a journey which took us through some rather different countryside, of dry, sandy lowland heath and woodland.

A small city, Amersfoort comes with the seemingly de rigeur modernised railway station, and as the home of Mondriaan, his artwork (or copies thereof) are everywhere. It was also one of the few places we noticed unofficial graffiti, and even that was really quite charming in its simplicty!

Like Utrecht writ small, the old city is surrounded by a canal, with further waterways running through it, including the Eem (or Amer) river which lends its name to the town.

The watery entrances to the old city are fortified, most impressively the Koppelpoort, completed about 1425.

And of course there is also the huge tower in the centre, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwetoren, more than 98m tall, the third tallest church tower in the Netherlands.

Its associated church was destroyed by a historic gunpowder explosion, but that has left us with a pleasant open square with good food and drink outlets, and a very helpful Tourist Information Centre that kindly looked after our bags while we did our walk around the city. All very pleasant, and clearly on the tourist trail, but after a couple of hours we were happy to be back to the station, to head off for the next stage of our holiday, a couple of nights in Den Haag…

And so for our (first) February break, we decided to head to Disneyland Paris – not, you realise, for ourselves but as a treat for Eleanor. At the age of seven, we thought it was time! Eurostar to Lille and then TGV straight to Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy was all very efficient, and gave us a sense being abroad, with changing church architecture and electricity pylon design, along with the most dense Mistletoe populations we have ever seen.

Disneyland was pretty much as expected: brash and busy, albeit perhaps not as rammed as we feared. But still plenty of people there, hence the interminable queues, to get in, to go on the rides, to eat or drink. One has to admire the business model that charges a large sum of money to get into the park, then you spend 80% of your time standing in line…but at least it was calm and sunny, if cold. And the smile on Eleanor’s face made it all worthwhile…

But as everywhere there are nuggets of delight for anyone with an eye to see it. Personally my favourite ride was ‘It’s a Small World’. Notwithstanding the psychedelic/nightmare sight and sound of hundreds of dolls singing, it really chimed with my worldview of harmony and diversity (and couldn’t help but wonder just how much Donald Trump must hate it!).

And while we were queuing for that the pastel shades of the façade made a very pleasing reflected liquid mosaic on the water:

Around the parks, the plantings are generally ecological as well as robust and ornamental, including a good range of early nectar and pollen sources.

And every tree was planted within a rain garden to help it survive and thrive – trees were very much in our minds with our previous month of tree protecting back home, and news of rapidly unfolding events on WhatsApp (this saga will be the subject of a future blog!).

We stayed a short shuttle bus (free) ride from the main resort, in a B&B Hotel (a chain we have always found to be to our liking) on the edge of Magny-le-Hongre, a very pleasant retreat from the razzmatazz of the parks.

It is one of a series of hotels stretching around an inviting greenspace with a large reed-fringed lake at its heart, home to Cormorants, a Kingfisher, Great-crested Grebes and Rose-ringed Parakeets.

But after three nights, it was homeward bound, and an hour exploring the wonders of Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy station. Ultra-modern inside, with interlocking escalators giving an impression of being inside a work by M. C. Escher …

… whereas on the frontage is the retained façade from a previous Brutalist incarnation, now repurposed into homes for House Martins.

Except of course it wasn’t: Wikipedia indicates the TGV station was opened in 1994, concurrent with the theme park. As with all things Disney, all is not what it seems – the edifice is artifice!

Antwerp: another country, another city, another railway station of architectural wonder, although one of a very different vintage to that we departed from in Rotterdam…

Great food and beer made Antwerp a fine place for three days, surrounded by Flemish architecture, laced with its share of mad baroquery, no doubt reflecting its importance as a world trading port, then as now.

Probably the pinnacle of baroque ornamentation, Onze Lieve cathedral pierced the Swift-laden, scream-filled sky, with Black Redstarts singing from its heights, drowned out only for half-an-hour of carillon tunes at noon.

As with any city, there were green oases. The botanic garden may be small but it is space to escape the relentless shoppers, find interesting plants and a few insects and other creatures too:

Then across (or rather under, through the 500m-long Sint Anna foot-tunnel) the River Scheldt …

… to the grassy parks and marshy fringes, full of the song of Reed and Cetti’s Warblers.

Our second full day in the city was very different: we headed to the port, specifically to the Harbour Authority building, in fact the reason we decided to take this break in the first place. We had glimpsed it tantalizingly on  both the previous days, from the train as we arrived and from the other side of the river, but nothing could have prepared us for its close-up reality.

It is a brave architect who can take one redundant, historic fire station and land a huge glass airship (or is it a boat?) right on top: a magnificent shapeshifter of a building, its glass skin cut like the facets of a diamond, reflecting Antwerp’s position at the centre of the world of diamond trade. Zaha Hadid was one such brave architect, who sadly died just as this remarkable building was completed.

I have spent many hours working in ports and port buildings, and the usual impression is of barbed wire and Keep Out signs. But not here – we just walked up to it, and inside to enjoy coffee looking up at the structure above!

Of course being a port, there were boats, fences, rubble and buildings in different states of repair, all the better for Black Redstarts to thrive…

… with green roofs, each an artwork in their own right with half a dozen or more species of Sedum melded together in a succulent mosaic.

Sown patches of pollinator-friendly plants duly attracted insects, including a Bee Chafer, and various bees (what’s not to love about a Honeybee with a pink-pollen-powdered face?!) …

… plus self-sown brownfield plants and their insects, including  Little-Robin, Hybrid Lucerne and Common Blue butterflies, and (a new one for us) 13-spot Ladybird, a species only recently rediscovered in south-eastern England after apparent extinction for several decades.

Ports have a vitality that reflects their focus on the worlds beyond the horizon. And not surprisingly this includes social history museums like MAS, itself a work of art in the regenerated former docklands. The historic inner ports may now be trading mainly in art, culture and ideas but those are as important as goods in any modern culture.

For our last half day the weather took a turn for the worse, so it was a morning of shopping, followed by a sumptuous beer, mussels, chips and mayonnaise lunch at Bier Central. And the sun came out for a final flourish as we headed back to the station, taking in the area round the Zoo, before heading to Brussels and home by Eurostar. A fantastic trip, and each and every one of our transport links on what turned out to be a holiday weekend on the Continent was dead on time!

For our main May minibreak we took the leisurely way out of the country, on a daytime ferry sailing from Harwich to the Hook of Holland. A lovely restful start – ok, we could have done it more quickly but we are fortunate that time is not an issue.

Sliding past the familiar sights of Harwich and Felixstowe, in flat calm conditions, and at first a little warm sunshine, we were on our way….

… but before long, cloud and mist settled around us adding an ethereality to the Roughs Tower and the Greater Gabbard Wind Farm, its giant turbines in stately motion despite the light winds.

Only as we headed past the Maasvlakte container port did the sun re-emerge. From there into port and straight onto the equally restful half-hour metro ride, past lights and onshore turbines.

Disembarking in the middle of Rotterdam, all of that changed. From placid calm to raucous street life in a matter of seconds. It was Saturday evening, a warm one at that, and we were staying in Witte De Withstraat, which we later learned was the ‘liveliest’ street in the city. Quite the contrast!

But just a block or two away down by the docks relative serenity returned, time to eat a great Italian, to appreciate the historic boats alongside new development, including the quirky Cube Houses and the amazing almost-cylindrical Markthal, the inner wall of which is occupied by what is claimed at 11,000 m² in extent as the largest artwork in the world,  Horn of Plenty by Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam.

At this point, serendipity swept in as Jude recognized the artwork as the self-same pattern as on the shirt I wore when we got married, exactly eight years ago to that very day!

Next morning, early, while the revellers still slept we walked the streets and chanced upon the museum quarter. It was sculpture that drew us close; we then got sucked in by the sound of Egyptian Geese serenading us from every tall building, and competing for soundspace with the equally strident Rose-ringed Parakeets and Great Spotted Woodpeckers.

Here were more remarkable buildings, especially the silvered bowl-shaped Boijmans van Beuningen Museum Depot. Its mirrors present an ever-changing panorama of the city skyline, one we thought at first must be painted on.

Around it there were other museums and galleries …

… all set amid the ecological plantings of the museum gardens …

… which include ponds and marshes, with Water-hawthorn, Water Crowfoot, Spiked Water-milfoil and Sweet Flag in flower …

… and Small China-mark moths and damselflies (Azure and Blue-tailed) together with hundreds of dragonfly exuviae. But no sign of the dragons themselves, apart from later on a Green-eyed Hawker cruising the shopping precinct.

From there it was into the older, landscaped Het Park, now overlooked by the Euromast, and a lovely brunch. Just half a day here meant we could not even start to cover it properly, so we didn’t try. Instead we resolved to return, maybe next year, armed with a Museum Pass to really get to know the area properly – including the enticing roof garden on the Depot.

But time was pressing, so it was through the city centre, past all manner of modern edifices (Rotterdam was flattened by both sides during WW2) to the most remarkable of all, the metallic golden Centraal Station, and from there the hour-long train ride to Antwerp…

There are a few calling points on the ICE trains between Regensburg and Brussels, but we thought for our first trip of this type we would stop over in the largest city, Frankfurt, for a couple of nights. Having travelled down the Rhine then up the Main on the way out, we had already had a snapshot of the riverine views, and once there, the pleasant river walks between lines of hydra-like Plane pollards and cotton-drifting Black Poplars casting some welcome shade gave good views of the economic powerhouse that is the city…

… an urban jungle with canyons of glass and steel which harboured (as expected) Peregrines, along with city-centre-dwelling Buzzards, and surprising densities of House Sparrows, along with hordes of screaming Swifts.

An evening in the ‘old’ city was eye-opening for the attention to detail that has evidently been given to its restoration after the area was flattened during WW2.

And even the cathedral, the red stone and its crisp edges and straight lines the product of its 1950s reconstruction.  Almost a pastiche we thought at first, until we realised this in fact the third church on the site during its venerable 1500 year-old history: nothing stands still, not even buildings.

Then there is the organ, an object of pure architectural beauty, which one imagines will produce sounds to match…

Our day to the north of the city centre in and around the Palmengarten was a hot one! So much so that we were rather pleased one of our intended destinations, the Botanic Garden, was closed (another time maybe…).

Not dissimilar to Kew Gardens, this has  extensive greenhouses coving a whole range of biomes, and a tropical butterfly house.

The outdoor gardens are many and varied, and full of interest to the botanist, even though the labelling  is rather patchy and, sadly, all too often wrong.

One pleasing feature though is the extensive area of long grass, well signposted as being for wildlife (butterflies especially) alongside showier, less naturalistic, but still valuable prairie-style swards.

Around the lakes there were Terrapins, both the native European Pond and North American Red-eared species, while the smaller ornamental pools were full of Edible Frogs, their loud quacking choruses audible from a long range.

What seemed to be lacking, sadly, was insects  not (presumably) as a result of pesticide use, more the weather. But as it warmed up, next door in the Gruneburg Park we found plenty.

Of particular interest were a ladybird Oenopia conglobata , which we have never seen before but is considered as a possible future colonist of the UK, and families of Fieldfares hopping around, something we see only in winter…

… and as seemingly everywhere in both Belgium and Germany, large tracts of recreational grass turned over to nature. What’s more, signposted accordingly!

And so it was back into Brussels, with a clear hour to get in a last Belgian beer in our favourite bar before the Eurostar home!