Central Antwerp – 19 January 2012

Unfortunately, but true to expectations, it was raining steadily when we awoke so we made a very leisurely start to the day and then rode the tram into the centre of town. First stop, to get out of the rain was the Cathedral, the largest Gothic cathedral in the Low Countries. It has four huge canvases by Peter Paul Rubens as this was his home town. Currently showing is an exhibition entitled “Reunion” which has assembled 16 altarpieces and other works that were originally painted for the Cathedral.

Over the years, especially under French rule, many were removed and dispersed to other collections or sold. Many have been returned to the Royal Collection and this exhibition has temporarily reunited works that have not been seen together for over 200 years. The temporary collection included another Rubens.

As it was still raining we decided that the next indoor activity should be the renowned Printing Museum so set of to find it. When we arrived the rain stopped and as the museum was on a walking tour we decided to continue the walking tour from that point. Guides like this are invaluable in that they lead you into courtyards you would not otherwise discover and in one case even through a door that you would not randomly walk down the street and open, without the information that you were free to do so and that there was something interesting on the other side.

The tour took us back past the Cathedral where we discovered a most intriguing cafe simply crammed full of religious statutory. Every available ledge and a few added shelves were lined with statues of saints and monks and so forth so we elected to dine with the saints for a most delicious lunch, if you are in Antwerp, head for the Kathedral Cafe for a distinctly different dining décor.

By the time we had completed the walk and returned to the Grote Markt the clouds were beginning to break up and there was the promise of some sunshine for photographs but unfortunately it was not fully delivered so we set off for the fashion district for a little window shopping. We have been surprised at how empty the shops and restaurants/cafes have been and the extent of the savings in the sales indicated that all is not well in the “high street”. Admittedly it is not prime tourist season but we would have expected some locals out at lunchtime eating somewhere.

Wandering back across town we headed for the Quinten Matsijs restaurant where we enjoyed a good hearty warming meal for a cold night for about a quarter of the cost of the previous night's meal.

Antwerp – 18 January 2012

One of the interesting features of Eurostar travel is that a ticket to Brussels actually allows you to travel to any station in Belgium. So since it was someone's Diamond Anniversary of their birth, we decided to have a long weekend in the diamond capital of the world. Apparently 70% of all cut diamonds pass through Antwerp.

With the new high-speed link from St Pancras, it takes only a hour before the train emerges above ground in France and just over two hours to Brussels. Unfortunately the connecting intercity train to Antwerp was cancelled and we had a bit of a delay before finally catching a scruffy, old, local train to Antwerp's Grand Central Station, the first we have ever visited with train platforms on three levels; one above the main concourse and two below.

It was a lot easier to find a vending machine to purchase a Metro pass than it was to find the Metro, but eventually we located the correct platform and got to our art deco hotel just as the rain began to fall.

The hotel website implied they had a restaurant and since it was late and raining and we had not had a chance to explore the options we asked the receptionist to book a table which she did and then informed us that it was actually an independent restaurant 50m down the road. The die being cast we wandered along at the allotted time to find that the restaurant was a tad classier than we had expected (and significantly more expensive). Maybe it would have been fine for the birthday night but this was just an ordinary night.

However, the “floor show” at the restaurant more than compensated: Every meal was “dressed” for the diner at a central table in the restaurant by the waiters. The meat, for example would be cooked in the kitchen and then brought out with the vegetables and the production would begin. The meat would be carved, the vegetables dished up, the sauce heated and served and so forth and then the finished masterpiece would be delivered to the guest. It was all quite remarkable and great fun to watch. The meals were very nice and accompanied by a number of “free” unexpected extras before and after the ordered courses.

In the Footsteps of Royalty – 14,15 January 2012

A TV snippet regarding The Regent Hotel in the Royal Lemmington Spa, lead to a very enjoyable weekend away. The Regent claimed to be the largest hotel in the world, when it was opened in 1819, and one of the early visitors was the Prince Regent, who graciously allowed them to use his title as the name of the hotel. All things have their day, and The Regent is now owned by Travelodge, so we took the opportunity of one of their amazing offers, to book a huge family room for £12.

A heavy white frost blanketed the countryside as we drove to Warwick. We have previously visited the castle there, but have never properly explored the town. There are two other 'must see' sights in town, the Lord Leycester Hospital, and St Mary's Church.

The Hospital is not actually a hospital, but was set up as a retirement home for 12 soldiers by Robert Dudley, favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. He converted a 150 year old building to do this, the oldest parts date from 1383. Today there are now eight retired soldiers who live there, and we were given an introduction to the building's history, by one of them. All the buildings are original, with few modern updates. The Chapel is still only lit by candlelight for example.

In the museum, we watched an interesting film regarding one of the soldiers involved in the El Alamen during WWII. The battle was desperate, but an interesting fact for us was the inspection of the battle-field by NZ VC holder General Freyburg, who added his weight to the decision made to pursue the Germans and win out. The NZ Army then allowed the 6th Hussars to incorporate the fern leaf symbol on the front of their tanks, where it still is today.

Behind the hospital, is a lovely small formal garden, where the box hedges mimic the Tudor framework in the building behind.

From here, we explored the town and climbed the tower of the cathedral. The climb is pretty torturous, but the view from the top is great. The cathedral itself is worth visiting for the elaborate side chapels and tombs. Robert Dudley and his brother Ambrose have magnificent marble tombs in the very handsome Beauchamp Chapel

Royal Lemington Spa appears to merge with Warwick, but was built in the 19th century, when the spa was made fashionable by the visits of the Prince Regent and Princess Victoria, The whole town has a Regency appearance, and the handsome white buildings are quite dazzling on a bright sunny day. There is no sign of the recession here, with a busy high street (The Parade) full of colour and busy shoppers.

Apart from being a Regency showplace, the original Pump Rooms are still open with a cafe and restored Hammam. This has been restored to how it was in its heyday in the 1840's.

Sunday was again fine and frosty, and we continued the circular driving tour, that had started in Warwick. The most appealing towns on the tour were Stretton-On-Dunsmore, with its tiny village green and equally tiny stream with miniature arched bridges. Even better was Stoneleigh, with its handsome brick homes around a somewhat larger green, which houses the Forge.

After lunch in Kenilworth, we set off for the heritage Motor Museum, only a short deviation on out route home. Murray found this very interesting, as it appeared to have a very strong MG bias, with many MG's on display, a recreation of Lord Nuffield's office and we watched a 45 minute film in the cinema on the history of MG sports-car manufacture in Abingdon. We have passed the turn off hundreds of times, so finally had time to visit, and found it very interesting.

From the Birdsnest to London Olympic Stadium – January 2012

Only two weeks after walking around the Beijing Olympic site, we had the opportunity to take bus tour of the London Olympic Park.

After enjoying the new Westfield Mall in Stratford (and being tempted into a few purchases from the famous January sales), we met up with Ngaire & Stuart to take the 40-minute bus tour.

Tight security is already in place, and although we were not able to leave the bus, airport style security applied. The tour took us around all the venues in the Park, explained their function and future use.

We learnt a few interesting facts from London's past, in particular, the meaning of the surrounding area called Mile End. Pollution in the city was so bad, that a one mile exclusion one was set up, and all industry had to be over a mile from London City - hence Mile End. The consequence of this is that the London Delivery Authority had a major job cleaning up the contaminated ground. All the soil was apparently 'washed' and is now fit for purpose.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was pleasantly whiled away in the mall, another chance for the Graingers to help the local economy!

On Sunday, it was a chance to take another country walk from our front door. With broken toe now fully mended, it was a pleasure to do a seven mile circular walk to Rickmansworth and back via the River Colne, gravel-pit lakes (the gravel was used to build the original Wembley Stadium in 1924) and Grand Union Canal to our delightful Chorleywood Common.

We discovered two of our neighboring towns excellent food outlets: the Cafe in the Park in the Aquadrome serves wonderful Turkish food and the award winning Cinnamon Square bakery in Rickmansworth. We had to check them out, and agree it has the best home baking we've had in the UK.

Chengdu and the Pandas – 1 January 2012

We had, in our party, someone who was willing to pay £130.00 to “hug a panda” so this outing was the highlight of her trip. After a relaxing start and a breakfast that was definitely not 5-star we set of for the panda sanctuary.

We were fortunate to see a group of four adult pandas enjoying their breakfast, a couple of very young ones and then a group of six or so juveniles having a great rough-and-tumble time before they suddenly all disappeared inside their “den”. There were a few red pandas to see and then another few solitary adults which meant we saw probably 20 or so of the 70 pandas at this 93-acre park.

Lunch was again highly influenced by Tibetan foods and we decided that the weirdness factor in the food served to us had increased as the days wore on. But overall, we enjoyed the experience of the varied dishes we had sampled.

There was nothing left now, but the return journey to Beijing, and following the overnight at Beijing International Hotel again, we were enduring the 12 hour flight to return us to London in time for the new working year.

Xi'an to Chengdu – 31 December 2011

Although Xi'an is not a city to linger in or stroll around at this time of the year, we had a little time before our flight to Chengdu so had a “guided tour” of the city walls. The guide's input was buying the tickets and giving us a very brief overview before letting us wander along the wall. The wall is actually magnificent, and the best example of a complete city wall left in China,

Despite this, the dreary day and surrounding smoggy city reduced the impact of the wall. But fortunately this was enlivened by the colourful preparations of the lantern festival that follows Chinese New Year and the workers were busily constructing magnificent models of all manner of things from people, dragons, scenery to “Disney” castles ready for the big day.

From there we went to the local history museum where we were inducted into the art of Chinese calligraphy and were shown local folk art.

The flight to Chengdu was courtesy of Lucky Air, who were true to their name and delivered us safely in Chengdu, which was only marginally less smoggy the Xi'an and a little warmer.

Our 5-star hotel was well out of the main centre of town and while quite nicely decorated had a few odd foibles. It was New Year's Eve and this was the first VJV trip we''ve been on at New Year, where nothing had been laid on by way of entertainment for the evening. We were taken to dinner which had a fairly Tibetan influence and some rather odd dishes.

The group decided we would have to make our own entertainment back at the hotel. We discovered that there was only one “bar”, the hotel lobby, and then discovered that they only had one wine, a Great Wall white. It was quite revolting with a vaguely turpentine smell and fishy undertones. The glasses were quickly emptied back into the bottle.

Two of us set of to see what was available in the local area and came back with a couple of reds. One was sampled by a couple of people and declared disgusting so the other, a Great Wall cabernet savuigon was finally declared “survivable”.

By 11;30 we decided to retire and one couple was left finishing their drinks when the waitress came and asked them to leave as she wanted to go home! So much for a wild New Year's Eve in Chengdu!

Terracotta Warriors – 30 December 2011

We knew that it was going to be cold visiting the Terracotta Warriors but although we wrapped up well it was still absolutely bitter and there was very little difference between inside and outside the buildings. The advantage of putting up with the winter temperatures was that it is the off-season and there are no crowds blocking the views of the warriors. The queueing barriers that we simply walked past give some indication of the numbers that are on site in summer when the temperature inside the pit buildings is 40C

Before we got to the warriors we visited the local museum for an overview of the history of the area and then went to the factory where the replica warriors are made but even though these were “inside” destinations they were still very chilly and the sales people in the museum shop were all wearing their duck-down coats to keep warm.

The money spinner at the warriors is the fact that you can have your souvenir book signed by one of the farmers who originally discovered the buried army when they were digging a well during the drought in 1974. Of the original seven only four are still alive and they presumably make a good living by signing books and keeping the sales bubbling.

Although the buried army has been well covered in articles and documentaries, the scale of the enterprise embarked on by the Emperor is quite breathtaking when one gets to see the real thing. 40 years in the making with up to 720,000 workers engaged at the peak, it is a remarkable monument to the vanity of the Emperor who was really just a child when he began to build his own tomb.

The fact that there seems to be no intention of opening and exploring the reported wonders of the tomb itself seems odd. The official reason is “to preserve it” but if it is never to be seen then what is the point of preservation? The more cynical may postulate that they have a fairly good idea it has been well looted in the past and “preserving it” maintains the mystique. It is something we will never know.