Autumn 2019 - Vienna Episode 3

Now look, I know that you’re all itching to hear about the tram museum, aren’t you? Well, all good things come to those that wait. Let us first, though, begin with the Hundertwasserhaus. Gesundheit. 

I set out at 9 this morning, and, knowing that the aforementioned tram museum doesn’t open until 10, I walked for about 20 minutes to see a rather rum concoction called the Hundertwasser House. You can see it in the sketch, and I have to say that the sketch doesn’t really do justice to how odd it actually is. The House was the brainchild of artist Friedenreich Hundertwasser. After making a number of television programmes outlining his views on architecture, he was invited in 1977 by Leopold Gratz, then the Mayor of Vienna, to design an apartment block.
His working relationship with the architect Joseph Krawina was stormy to say the least. I’m not surprised, mind you. I can just imagine what some of their conversations might have been like:-
“So then Fred, let’s talk about some of these ideas you want to incorporate into the house.”
“Ja, ja, all ist gut.”
“Now, you want as many roof gardens as is humanly possible?”
“Nein.”
“Nine? Oh well, it seems a bit excessive, but I’m sure we can – “
“Nein. No. Not gardens. Forests.”
“I see. Roof forests. And while we’re on the subject of roofs . . . an onion dome. On a skyscraper. What’s that all about?”
“The onion as der symbol of life itself, the tawdry outer layers, yet with each new layer unwrapped we come closer to der shining pearl of understanding. . .”
“Hmm. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, Fred, but have you seen a doctor recently?”
In the end the house was finally opened in 1985, although it took a court case ending in the noughties to have Krawina recognised as its co-creator. 

The house really is a most remarkable looking thing. What you can’t see in the sketch is around the other side where the entrances on the ground are all rounded – not an angle in sight, and look like the kind of place you’d see Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry emerging from. Well, on a sunny day, anyway. On a murky day like today, Smaug seemed more of a possibility. In all fairness I should probably mention that the house is an extremely popular tourist attraction, and by the time I finished my sketch, it was absolutely thronged with camera happy tourists.  

Today was a cold day in Vienna, colder than yesterday, and the wind was cutting. So I dashed off that sketch in about 30 minutes, and then sought the nearby U Bahn station and rode the train the two stops it took to get me to the Remise tram museum.

What can I say? I loved it. Now, when it comes to museums, I’m not that fussy – as opposed to art galleries. I like them all, but especially I like them if they tell a story, and the Remise definitely told a story. Yes, it was the story of the Vienna tram system, but in essence this was also the story of Vienna in the 20th century, and it was a story that I probably learned more about here than anywhere else I’ve been in Vienna. The museum is illuminating about the struggles Vienna faced after the peace treaties after world war I, and is also quite candid and honest about the period between the Anschluss with Hitler’s Germany and the end of World War II, for example. 

I sat down, and made the sketch you can see with this post. To me this shouts from the rooftops that it’s a product of the 50s – at one point Vienna had some trams which had been scrapped from New York running in the post war period, and I’m sure you can see the influence in this. 

It was while I was sketching that a very nice Hungarian lady with a large brood of children in tow came and sat down. The kids were bouncing – literally in the case of one who was sitting on the other end of my bench, and the way they started to unpack a picnic gave me a hint that they weren’t going to be getting up any time soon. How do I know they were Hungarian? Well, she started talking to me about the sketch, and my lack of understanding of German or Hungarian led to a longer conversation. Her family lives in Budapest, and they had just come for the day because one of the boys loves trams. I predict he’ll go far. The round trip is between 3 and 4 hours apparently. We did actually get onto the subject of Brexit, which she summed up rather succinctly with,
“Well, we do have some stupid people in Hungary too.” I couldn’t top that and so I didn’t try. 

It was about a 20 minute walk back to the hotel, which kept me from freezing, and gave me the opportunity to put on another layer of clothing. The day had already been a great success, and I wanted to maintain it as much as possible. So the next step was to take a tram from Schottentor U Bahn station to the Belvedere Palace. Alright, I know that this has been a bit of a tram-heavy episode so far, but I’m just trying to tell it like it is. And I have to say, that with the sun out, standing in the back of the tram in the standing only area as it trundled along the Ringstrasse just left me with a massive grin on my silly old face. I can’t help it.  

As for the Belvedere, well, that was the second museum of the day. Put simply, the Belvedere is a palace built as the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy. However, what we’re interested in about it today, is that the Upper Belvedere – the main palace – is the home of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. I think it’s probably fair to say that The Kiss is, along with Mozart, one of Vienna’s real star turns. Never mind all the other great paintings in the museum, the signs, which direct you to it, make it perfectly clear that most people are there for Klimt’s greatest hit. And it is a wonderful painting, no doubt. But what was just as interesting was looking at some of Klimt’s other work, and seeing just what a great traditional portrait painter he was as well. Of all of his paintings, though, even more than The Kiss I was drawn to his Judith. This is a painting I’ve seen reproductions of, but never knew it was supposed to represent Judith of Judith and Holofernes fame, nor that she is actually holding the severed head of Holofernes. Incredible.  

With tempus busily fugiting, I left the Belvedere, and headed back on the tram to try to squeeze in another sketch. This time I got off opposite the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which you may recall from yesterday’s episode, and walked along to the Hofburg, where I sketched the geegee carriage. I did wonder whether one horse was asking the other how the accordion recital had gone the day before. 

I treated myself to a melange – a Viennese coffee – on the way back to the U Bahn, which was well needed since the light had faded by this time, and the clearness of the sky suggested that it was probably going to get a lot colder any time soon. So there we have it, dearly beloved. A very good day indeed, and one more full day left. Tune in tomorrow to see where Fortune – and the U Bahn – takes us. Goodnight Vienna.

Summer 2019 Episode 8- 31st July - Murcia

Right then, I know you’ve probably been unable to sleep for worrying about where I was going to end up going today. Well, fear not. All will be revealed. But not right this second. Firstly, though, today’s shoutout. This episode is dedicated to my grandchildren, Ollie, Mimi and Alfie. Grampy misses you loads.

So, today’s lucky winner was . . . Murcia! Yes, I could easily have gone to Alicante or Elche again, today, but in the end Murcia was the clear winner. Why? Well, you may remember that I visited Murcia last year, and it was only after I’d been that I realised I’d missed out on something while I was there. What’s that? I hear you say. (Go on then, say it.) Well, what do Prague, Berlin, Budapest, Alicante, Birmingham, Amsterdam and Stockholm all have, that Ieper, Kaunas and Madrid don’t? Yes, you’ve got it, trams. I’m not saying that you can’t have a good holiday without going on a tram, since I’ve done it several times. However the tram is usually the icing on the cake.

I set off from the Casa Me Duck at just after 9. I didn’t borrow the Smart this time, because it’s only a ten minute walk to the station. Bearing in mind how likely I am to burn, I borrowed John’s hat. Which was the cue for the sky to cloud over, and the sun to disappear, never to seriously threaten to break through until I returned back to the casa. All in all, though, it made for a very pleasant walking day. At one point the temperature was down to a bracing 25 degrees. And me without my scarf and gloves.

Unbeknownst to me, the new timetable for the Cercania line between Alicate and Murcia starts on the last day of the month rather than the first. My first clue that I could be in for a long wait was when I noticed that the Spanish for Waiting Room is Sala de Espera. From Latin and French I know that Espera is derived from the word for hope as well. Be fair, even in the 70s, British Rail never tried to get away with having a Hoping Room instead of a waiting room. Might have been a bit more honest, however, I digress. Still, at least the 50 minute wait at the station gave me the opportunity to make the first sketch of the day.

It takes slightly more than half an hour to Murcia by the train, but it’s a very pleasant journey, passing close by the mountains between Callosa de Segura and Orihuela. I was somewhat distracted by the lady who got on and plonked herself opposite me at Callosa de Segura. Judging from her somewhat homely appearance, her headscarf and her age, she might well have been called Senora Norabatti. She kept trying to engage me in conversation, despite the fact that I assured her “No hablo Espanol” at regular intervals. Actually, I say she tried to engage me in conversation, but actually no. She just wanted me to be an audience to her monologue, and didn’t seem to care in the slightest whether I could understand what she was saying. Come to think of it, I’ve taken part in Parents Evenings like that.

Having visited Murcia last year, I had a pretty good idea where to go when I left the station. Luckily the route took me over the River, then past the Cathedral, to the southernmost point of the Murcia tram network, the Plaza Circular – so named after the 19^th century dramatist Juan Pablo Circular, best known for his riotous farce, “Toreador, Don’t Spit Upon the Floor” I believe. The Plaza itself is round, which is a bit of a coincidence, too, I suppose. The tram stop just around the corner thankfully had some benches, so it wasn’t really a hardship to sit and work on the tram sketch you can see as three trams went by. Time was getting on, though, and so I did photograph the actual tram I got on, in order to help me cheat to finish the sketch later on. I’ll come back to that.

So, having ridden on a tram network that I’d never used before, the day had already become a huge success for me. So the big question was what to do for a lap of honour. Now, on the Gran Via leading off from the Plaza Circular there’s a tourist information booth. If you know me, then you know I love tourist information booths and offices, because I love free maps. The one I had from this booth had, I noticed, numbers between one and the high 40s in blue circles liberally sprinkled across it, with the majority clustered between the Plaza and the cathedral. Each of these was supposedly a place of interest. So I set off to find as many as I could. To be fair, some of them are fantastic. If you’re in the centre of Murcia, you need a church and you don’t fancy the Cathedral, well, I can guarantee that you won’t be far from another church which might be more to your taste. On the other hand, though, some of them are, well, I’m not saying they’re not worth looking at, but I did walk past them three or four times before I realised they were there. So alright, I am saying that some of them aren’t worth looking at.

I stopped briefly in the Plaza Santo Domingo, where I made one of my favourite sketches last year, and almost immediately wished that I hadn’t. I was called over by a group with a little stand with the words Testivos de Jehova. You’re probably reacting to that word Jehova the same way that I did, and you’d be right. They were in fact Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now look, I have no quarrel with and would make no criticism of any religious group or religion, and I certainly haven’t got anything better to offer anyone. But I don’t wish to discuss it in detail in public when I could be sketching. The thing is, though, my Spanish just isn’t good enough to convey all of that, so I resorted to the universal language of scarper.

I shan’t lie to you, Dearly Beloved. I’ve had a terrific day, but my head is hurting. I’ve taken some tablets, but I think it would be best if I shut this down for tonight, and then took up the story again in the morning, when I’ll also post the rest of the sketches.

See you then.

Stockholm - Monday 25th February 2019

Well, hello, and thanks for tuning in to the first edition of An English Fool Abroad With His Sketchbook of 2019, Stockholm Edition.

I’ve wanted to visit Stockholm for a long time – believe it or not ever since I saw the huge photograph of Gamla Stan ( the island which has the old town on it)which they used to have in the restaurant in IKEA in Cardiff. Sad. It’s one of quite a few cities which calls itself the Venice of the North, and not without good reason. Still, we’ll come to that all in the fullness.

A 7:25 flight this morning from Bristol necessitated a very early start, but even so I still only arrived about 20 minutes before the plane started boarding. For once I have nothing unusual, funny or annoying to report about the flight. We boarded on time, and we left, well if not quite on time to the dot, at least not more than a few minutes late. Something for a first for EasyJet, I fancy.

Arlanda airport is about 20 minutes away from the centre of Stockholm using the Arlanda Express. Now, I think that I was in a bit of a funny mood when I got off the plane, because for some reason discovering that the Swedish word for lift is Hiss set me off on a fit of giggles which lasted halfway into the centre of the city. When I arrived at the Central Station my first priority was to get a 72 hour travel card. This necessitated – gulp – talking to people. And it was when I was buying my card from the tourist desk in Central Station that I first encountered the Swedish Hej. Hej- pronounced hey – is a pretty ubiquitous greeting in these parts. Which is fine, except it sounds like an accusation the first time you hear it. It sounds like it ought to be followed by – what the hell do you think you’re doing? – You do get used to it pretty quickly, though.

There was no necessity to go to the hotel right away, especially since the central station is rather obviously, right in the centre of Sweden, and therefore very handy for lots of interesting things to see and sketch. I made the 4 sketches you should be able to see with this post. Coming back to the point about Stockholm being nicknamed The Venice of the North, there’s a good reason, being that the city stretches across no fewer than 14 islands. I crossed to Gamla Stan, which literally means the old town. It’s an attractive place, no doubt about that. Going across to Gamla Stan also meant that I got to fulfil one of the required elements for any visit to a capital city, namely a ride on the metro. Stockholm’s is the T (for tunnel) Bana (for Bana). I only went the one stop back to the Central Station, and was about to go and find where the splendidly named Pendletags (commuter trains) departed from, when I saw a word which will always gladden my heart. Trams, and a helpful arrow. That’s how I ended up with a sketch of the tram, and yes, of course I went for a tram ride.

So, back to Central Station for the third time, this time I really did take the Pendeltag to Alvsjo, and was delighted to find that you can actually see the hotel from the station. So far so good. Inside the hotel the reception is up several flights of stairs. When I found it, I announced to the chap behind the desk that I would like my room please, he looked at my piece of paper with the booking reference, then looked at my passport, then looked at both again, and said,
“You are not Yennifer.” No flies on this guy, I thought to myself, but decided that sarcasm was probably not the best idea at this time. I explained that Yennifer, sorry, Jenniffer, is my daughter who made the booking. In her name.
“She is not coming?”
- Yes, me old china, she’s in me rucksack here – I made a point of not saying, and explained that Jenn had made the booking, and that’s why it is in her name. He wasn’t that happy, but got a lot happier when I offered to pay the full amount up front in cash.

After unloading the bag, and removing a couple of layers of clothing – look, I know that the forecast said that it is going to be unseasonably mild in Stockholm this week, but I wasn’t taking any chances – I took the pendletag (love that word) back into the centre. My planwas to take a walk to the National Museum and have a look and thus cross off one of the items from my to do list. Good idea. Or at least it would have been if it had not been stangd pa mandag. Yes, if you haven’t worked it out that means closed on Mondays.

By the time I’d walked back to the Central Station – again – the sun was sinking low, and a bit of a bitter wind had started to blow. Also, the 4am start this morning was beginning to take its toll. So I headed back to the hotel to conclude day one.

Amsterdam - 29th Oct - 1st November. Part One

Hello, good evening, and welcome to the first episode of the Autumn 2018 series of An English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook. I’m sorry I didn’t post yesterday, the first day of the trip, but for reasons I will explain I was just too tired and it was too late by the time that I got to the hotel.
Now, departure lounges are not my favourite places at the best of times. They’re currently giving Cardiff’s departure lounge a bit of a makeover. Judging by what they’ve finished, if they’re going for ‘early 21st century tacky’, I’d say they’re succeeding.

Still, I did find a corner of the quaintly named ‘Beer House’ where I could actually see out onto the apron for a bit, and that’s when I produced the sketch of the Flybe plane. Not mine – I was with KLM.

Funnily enough, I have actually flown with KLM once before. . . sort of. I say sort of. I was on an Air Kenya flight to Nairobi via Rome – where I was getting off, and Air Kenya were borrowing a plane from KLM. A DC10 as it happens, and if you’re a similar vintage to myself, then you’ll know that DC10’s did not have the best reputation for safety. Still, this was 1983 and I lived to tell the tale. As for yesterday, I could say that the flight itself was pretty uneventful. I could say it, but it would be a pit of a porky. This was a small plane – only two seats on either side of the aisle. So when we hit turbulence, it really started throwing the plane around. We were all ordered back to our seats and told to buckle up, which was a bit awkward because I’d just got up to go to the toilet. Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever sat through a 30 minute bout of severe air turbulence with a full bladder, but if you haven’t you can take my word for it that it’s overrated.
Before I left home, I’d done a bit of research on the route from the airport to the hotel. The average taxi fare would work out at about 50 euros. Google told me that I could do it for about 6 Euros if I took a bus to the Olympic Stadium, got off, walked around the corner, and took another bus to Surinameplein. Fair enough.
Not as easy as it sounded, frankly. For a start, I was on the wrong bus stop. I got on the right bus, but it was going the wrong way. So I got off again. Then I got on the right bus going the right way and got off at the right place – Olympic Stadium. All I had to do was walk around the corner. Well and good – but which corner? Thankfully, one of the useful things about Amsterdam is that every local person I’ve met speaks English. Very good English at that. So I broke the habit of a lifetime and asked a stranger for help, and eventually found the right turning. It was getting on for about half nine, and I should have been at the hotel within a few minutes. Half an hour later I jerked awake when the bus I was on came to the end of the line. I’d fallen asleep as it sailed way past my stop, and to add insult to injury, I had to get out of the bus, and wait 20 minutes in the freezing cold before getting back on the same one to go back the way I’d come.
Well, soldier on. Things began looking up today. For one thing, the best and quickest way into town was by tram. I love trams. I spent an hour and a half riding from Birmingham to Wolverhampton and back on a tram last Sunday, and considered that paying 4 quid for the privilege was cheap at the price. So I made my first Amsterdam sketch at the stop while waiting for my tram – a 17 – to come along.

Unfortunately a lot of today the weather has been what I believe the locals call pisshingdown, so opportunities for sketching have been fairly few and far between. As the rain eased off a little, though, as I was passing the old town hall which is also called a Royal Palace, I chanced upon a Sandeman walking tour about to start. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Sandeman tours. Basically they present themselves as ‘Free tours’ – which they can be. But at the end you’re offered the chance to pay your guide whatever the tour was worth to you. Which means you have the opportunity to pay nothing if you have the brazen cheek. I paid. Our guide was called Kendra, an American whose lived for 14 years in Amsterdam and has just passed her Dutch citizenship exam.
Now, in the last couple of weeks, when I’ve told people that I’m going to Amsterdam, a certain number – men mostly although not exclusively – have smiled and asked if I’m going to be eating ‘funny’ cakes or smoking ‘funny’ cigarettes, and if I’m going to be ‘visiting’ the Red Light district. To which my answer was of course, no, no and no, this is a cultural trip where I will be broadening my mind and employing my meagre artistic talents in immortalising the uniqueness and beauty of the city yuttah yuttah. So of course, Kendra first of all took us through the Red Light District and past a lot of cafes offering various ways of intaking cannabis. Which is still actually illegal in Amsterdam, but let that one go for now.
To be fair, I did enjoy the walking tour, which only passed through the red light district briefly, and learned quite a bit about the history of the city .

From a walking tour, then, to a canal tour. If you’ve followed my misadventures in the past you’ll know that there’s a number of things I want to do when I visit a city I’ve never been to before. One is ride the trams if they have any. Done that. Another is use the Metro if they have any. Did that a bit later. Another thing I do like, though, is a river cruise. Well, if you substitute river for canals, I guess a canal cruise in Amsterdam must have a pretty good claim to being the daddy of them all. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
The biggest disappointment of the day was finding out that since last year, if you want to visit Anne Frank’s house, you have to book online. I tried booking at 6am this morning, only to find that all of the times for the whole of this week are sold out. Thankfully, I did manage to book a ticket for the Van Gogh Museum for 9 am tomorrow. Speaking of museums, after backtracking to a place I’d seen during the walking tour to make the street corner sketch you can hopefully see as part of this post, I did take a gamble that I’d be able to get into the Rijksmuseum just by turning up. This was at about 3 pm, and it worked. In fact the queue for the cloakroom to put my backpack away safely was far, far longer than the queue for tickets.
They have a Van Gogh self portrait which simply blew me away. I’ll maybe say more about this tomorrow after I’ve visited the Van Gogh Museum. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch was breath taking too – I think it’s bigger than my house. On the whole though, I have to say that for my money the Prado was slightly more impressive. And that, my friends is pretty much all of the exciting stuff for today. I did walk to a Metro station and rode to the next station down the line, but I have to say that I wasn’t blown away by what is obviously a very modern system. I felt the platforms were bleak, and the whole thing was just a tiny bit soulless.

Alicante 14th August

es, the English Fool Abroad with his Sketchbook has been out and about in Alicante today. After yesterday I made sure that all the water I was carrying was still. So was the train I was on for some reason, but what the hell, I wasn’t exactly in a rush, and so arrived in Alicante dry, and in pretty good spirits. Spirits, I should add which rose even higher when I saw signs in the station pointing out that the tram station wasn’t at al far away. This came as news to me. I didn’t even know that Alicante had trams. Well, be fair, I’ve only been coming here for about 10 years now.

Right, just in case you didn’t see any of my posts from Prague, Berlin or Budapest I think I’d probably better explain that I have a bit of a thing about trams. I like trams very much, and always try to take a ride on one whenever I’m close enough to do so. I only found out after I left Murcia yesterday that there is also a tram system impinging on the north of that city too. So there was no way that I was going to miss out today. The trams go quite some way out of the city. One of the lines even goes as far as Benidorm. Well, that wasn’t on the schedule for today, so I contented myself with a very short hop. How short? Well, when I walked between the stations on the way back later it took about 5 minutes. My two stations, Lucero and Mercado, were both underground, and it did actually make the whole thing feel as much of a light railway as it did a tram system, but hey, who am I to point the finger. I was too busy making the sketch you should be able to see with this post to indulge in any gratuitous finger pointing anyway.

Mercado station was chosen because it is at the foot of the hill on which my main tourist objective for the day stood, the Castillo de Santa Barbara – or Barbara Castle as I can’t help but call it. (We will all wait here for a few minutes while younger readers go to ask their elders to explain the Barbara Castle reference). Okay – all back? The Castle is a really impressive building complex, but it has the drawback, for the pedestrian, of being right at the top of the hill, rather than the bottom. Even taking the quicker route by climbing seemingly endless flights of steps, it still took a good 20 minutes or so in the increasingly hot sun to get to the part where the castle actually started. My mood was not improved at all when a tourist bus arrived in the car park about 30 seconds after I did.

Mind you, even if you took the bus to the castle car park, you’d still quite a lot of climbing to do if you wanted to see most of the castle. It’s a shame that they never had escalators in the 18th century when a lot of the buildings were built. Well, at least , when I found a convenient set of steps in the shade on which to sit and make a sketch, I had several people stop to have a look and a chat, which, all joking aside, is something I really enjoy. Which surprises me somewhat since I’m not a very sociable person.

When I came back down the hill, which took about half the time going up it had taken, I went to see the market from which the Mercado station takes its name. It’s a pretty impressive building – late 19th century I would guess. Murcia’s yesterday was pretty impressive, but I’d have to say that this one took the prize. I had about an hour before the whole place would start shutting up shop for siesta time, and so used it to sketch part of the market and some figures. They weren’t all there at exactly the same time, but they did all pass during the time that I was sketching, and so I used them to make the composite scene that you see in the sketch.

I walked down to the Marina, where I had a bit of lunch, and had a look to see if any of the boats grabbed my interest in a sketching context. This was a very frustrating experience. I walked past a shopping centre, and could clearly see what I guess was a replica of an old sailing ship. Actually clearly is not correct. I could clearly see the masts and some of the rigging, and the impressively ornate stern of the ship. But that was all. The view was blocked by some buildings which I guessed were the customs house, and there was no way for me to get a view of the rest of the ship. Frustrating.

It got to about 3pm, and the legs were hurting. I think I should report that after several days in the sun, in a certain light they do appear to be taking on a very slight tinge of pink, although that could just be wishful thinking on my part. I haven’t planned any excursions for tomorrow. It is literally a red-letter day, being the Feast of the Assumption, and a Bank Holiday in Spain. But fear not, there will still be another episode tomorrow , although it will probably be a short one.

Even Closer to Home - Swansea

Swansea is the nearest city to my home. It's a city with an industrial heritage which goes right back to the industrial revolution, and a maritime heritage which goes back further, although it only received the Royal Charter granting it city status during my own life time, in 1969, to commemorate Prince Charles' investiture as the Prince of Wales.
Here's a selection of my Swansea sketches: -

The full figure just above is Captain Cat, a character from Dylan Thomas' play for voices, "Under Milk Wood". That play is set in the fictional Llarregub, which is supposedly based on the sleepy seaside village of Laugharne, further west along the coast of the Bristol Channel. However Dylan himself was born in Swansea, and as one of the most important poets of the 20th Century Swansea is justly proud of him, and actually takes its role as a cultural centre for the area very seriously. This statue, and the statue of the seated Dylan Thomas himself also picture above, are in Swansea Marina, and literally yards away from the Dylan Thomas Theatre and centre for the arts. 

The Marina itself was constructed from the Swansea South Dock, which was closed at the end of the 1960s. It took over a decade for plans to be approved and for construction to be carried out, but the Marina now is possibly the most vibrant and interesting area close to the centre of the city. If you look at the sketch on the immediate left, you can see the Pump House restaurant which was built inside the shell of the Victorian former pumping house of the docks.  Fairly close by are two of the country's collection of Historic Ships which are moored outside the Waterfront Museum, which is the more modern and interactive of the two museums close by, and which pays special attention to the city's Maritime and Industrial History.

As I've already mentioned, the Marina is one of the more vibrant areas of Swansea. This next sketch shows the luxury flats which have been built on the old docks, and also gives a hint of the wide variety of boats moored there. Funnily enough, despite me saying it's a vibrant area, which it is, I do find it a calming and peaceful experience to take a sketchbook to the Marina in the middle of the day, and just sketch anything that takes my fancy.

One historical fact that most people who don't live in or near Swansea don't tend to know, is that Swansea was the home of the world's first ever passenger railway. It opened in 1807, but it was horse drawn rather than steam powered for several decades. In the 20th century it was really a tramway, although the decision was made to close it in 1960, scrap the trams, and rip up the tracks. Sadly only one front end of one tram remains, and this is on display in the tramshed adjacent to the Waterfront Museum, which you can see in the sketch alongside. 

The Waterfront Museum houses a replica of Richard Trevithick's first ever steam locomotive. This actually first ran in relatively nearby Merthyr Tydfil, which problems with the cast iron rails cast doubt on its potential. Trevithick was one of those inventors who sadly never received much wealth from his invention, and had to watch credit go to later work by the Stephensons, amongst others. 

13) Hungary - One Day in Budapest - November 2017 - Required Elements

Alright, it wasn't exactly 1 day. I flew out on Tuesday 31st, but didn't arrive at the hotel until after dark. I did go into the centre of town by tram and metro, but it was too dark to make sketches. I spent all day in the centre of Budapest until after dark on Wednesday 1st, and flew home early on Thursday 2nd. Well, half term holidays are short, and you have to make the most of them. As such, I was pleased with the number of sketches I made on the day - although I will admit that a few of them were started on site, but finished in the evening back at the hotel with the help of photos I took at the same time.

Budapest - Chain Bridge

 I first saw this iconic bridge lit up at night. When I looked at it, being a Londoner, my first thought was - Hammersmith Bridge. Only, it doesn't look like the current Hammersmith Bridge very much. But I must have been thinking of the previous Hammersmith Bridge, since not only were they very similar, they were also designed by the same man, an Englishman called William Tierney Clark. Once I'd started comparing these Budapest bridges to bridges on the Thames, I couldn't stop. The next two bridges struck me as being like Chelsea Bridge and the Albert Bridge - even though the similarity is slight at best. As for the Chain Bridge, the original Hammersmith Bridge has gone, but Tierney Clark's Marlow Bridge in Buckinghamshire , which was built as a dry run for this one, is still there for a comparison if you're interested.

Castle - Buda - sketched from boat while waiting for sightseeing trip to start

 I did take a sightseeing boat trip down the Danube for an hour or so. Not as interesting as the Spree trip in Berlin, but more interesting than the Vltava trip in Prague. This is the castle complex in Buda. You can either walk up to it, or do as I did and take a ride in the funicular railway.I made this sketch while waiting for 15 minutes or so for the boat to depart.

Heritage tram - Danube riverbank - Pest side

 The most interesting - slightly older looking trams in Budapest run along either bank of the Danube. I sketched this one by the stop just along from the Chain Bridge. Not one person in Budapest stopped to look at any of my sketches at all. I must be losing what little touch I ever had.

Number 50 tram - Hatar Ut metro station

One of the things I love about a European trip is when you can leave your hotel early in the morning, and walk down the road a short way then hop on a tram. From my hotel you just had to cross the road to the tram stop, and take a 15 minute ride on the number 50 tram to the end of the line at the Hatar Ut metro station. These trams are pretty much as modern and efficient as you could ask - almost up to Berlin standards. In which case its such a shame that some of the passengers take them so much for granted, and show so little respect as to leave half eaten pizza on the seats and on the floor.

11) Germany - Berlin - late August 2017 - Required elements

Next on the itinerary, and the last chance to go anywhere during the long school Summer Holidays, was Berlin. My wife bought me this trip as a Christmas present back in Christmas 2016, and I'd been really looking forward to it. It was another European capital city, which was reason enough, but more than that it was fair to expect that Berlin is one of the great European capitals.

I had two full days and another half day in Berlin, and I found that I did spend most of that time in East Berlin. So let's get to the trams and the river and the bridges.

Bode Museum - Museum Island

 Okay - now I didn't actually make a sketch while I was on the river - although I did take a sightseeing trip along the Spree. I have to say that I enjoyed it more than the trip on the Vltava in Prague too. Berlin 's river, the Spree is home to an island which houses five of the world's great museums - hence its name of Museum Island. This is the Bode Museum, at the tip of the island, and is one I made sitting on the opposite bank of the river. It was one of several sketches which passers by stopped to talk about, I'm happy to say.

Oberbaumbrucke bridge

 Ah yes. Now, I wouldn't say that the bridges in the centre of the city crossing the Spree are ugly. They're rather nondescript, though, and I was starting to despair of finding a real signature bridge for Berlin, until I found a photo of this, the Oberbaumbrucke, online. This is actually a road and rail bridge, as it carries one line of the U-Bahn, the Berlin underground railway to its ending. You have to go East to the end of the line, mind you, but it's worth it. I mean, let's be honest, this bridge is mad, almost Wagnerian, and I like it very much. It was a burningly hot day, though, and I burned my bald spot while I was painting this.

Hackesscher Markt S-Bahn Station

 The Hackescher Markt is a large market in the centre of East Berlin. It's also a rather nice station of the S-Bahn, Berlin's other, rather grander metro system. This was another one which attracted some nice comments, from a group of Spanish people no less, who turned out to know Catral quite well.

Hackescher Markt - catching the M6 tram to the hotel

I'll be honest, I couldn't get much enthusiasm for sketching Berlin's sleek, modern and highly efficient trams - this is the only sketch I made on the spot. This one was done from photos later-

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7) Czech Republic - Prague - Other sketches - April 2017

Vintage style car cruiser - Prague Old Town

 These stylish car tour vehicles were everywhere. You can't drive through every street in the Old Town, but through the few that you can drive, these were a constant.

St. Nicholas Church - Prague

This is y favourite church in Prague, and it's pretty much as good inside as it looks outside. It's a baroque masterpiece which sits on the same hill as the castle complex, only a little lower down.

Watercolour - Prague Old Town Powder Tower

 This is the only true watercolour I made in Prague, and I won't lie - it's based on a photograph. This illustrates one of the great things about the Old Town - you can literally turn a corner and find a medieval remnant just waiting for you to admire it, like this one.

Prague Legionariu Bridge

 You can see the dome of the St. Nicholas Church here in the background. This is a perfectly tidy metal arched bridge which only suffers by comparison with the Charles Bridge, which is really unfair competition for most bridges.

Prague - Number 23 tram approaching Legionariu Bridge

 Yes, as well as bridges I also have a thing about trams. This is the number 23 tram which I used to get to and from my hotel in Kubanski Namesti. I won't lie. I had to sketch incredibly quickly, but even so I needed three number 23s to stop there before I had the tram finished. The figures were sketched in the same way as I often do to form a composite sketch - as I've said before, they were all there, but not necessarily at the same time. This next sketch was made later from a photo that I took at the time: -

Prague Tram Café - Wenceslaus Square

 Imagine my delight to discover the café to one side of Wenceslaus Square made out of 2 vintage trams. I sat down and ordered the most expensive cup of coffee in Prague ( I can't prove this, but I can't believe anywhere else charged more) while I sketched this.

Prague - Church sketched while sitting on a bench in the street market off Wenceslaus Square

I made this sketch about an hour before my airport transfer was due to pick me up just off Wenceslaus Square, and finally a couple of passers by reacted and took a good look at my sketch. I was beginning to get paranoid through lack of feedback.