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qoqbob · 2 years ago

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qoqbob · 4 years ago

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Iceland

A guidebook I read before going to Iceland said to be flexible planning a tour. Do like the locals, it said, follow the sun.

My partner and I arrived on a late August afternoon at Keflavik Airport. The forceful wind and 20 degree temperature differential from London had us fishing sweaters and coats out of our bags at the airport as a couple of dozen grumpy looking men circled outside customs holding signs with handwritten names and company logos, trying to catch the eyes of those coming through the gates. We found our connection after an email and text and picked up a camper van a short distance from the airport. After a series of forms and insurance choices, we had a quick tutorial on the equipment and multiple warnings about what the wind can do to the doors, we set off for the Eco Tourism campsite in Reykjavik. We found the parking lot for camper vans and spoke with two other older couples who were finishing up their tour of Iceland. They enquired after our plans and scoffed when I repeated the advice “Follow the sun,” “Good luck with that.” They had not seen much of the sun in the 10 days they drove in opposite directions around the “Golden Circle.” The paved Hwy 1 that circles by many of the major attractions of the island nation. A line of giant high chassis four wheel drive vehicles at the edge of the parking lot showed the heavy duty alternative to our boxy little van. These could take on the island’s F roads that cross the mountains and rivers of the empty white areas on the map of Iceland

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Some say that you experience all the seasons of the year in a typical day in Iceland. We saw snow from a distance. Ice up close, Lush grass and cut hay. Summery flowers and sub Arctic wind. One day touring fjords in the southeast, the sun shone all day in a cloudless sky. The North Atlantic Ocean sparkled like a tropical sea. We sought shade when we stopped for lunch in Höfn. A man pulled a picnic table into the sun so a young mother with baby twins could bask with her heavily iced cola.

The landscapes of the north and southeast were mostly mossy green mountain slopes rising at sharp angles above gravelly river beds charged with white water ,clouds touching the peaks in fluid skies. But there are also vast places as barren as the driest desert in dozens of miles of broken rock. One day I started to think that here we were crossing Arizona, an hour later, it was like Alaska, then Colorado More than enough to keep it interesting. The wind is a force to be reckoned with. Persistent, forceful, bracing, invigorating but ever present with calm spells. At the lip of a thermal pool, the water flowing out is flipped back in by the wind rushing across the fjord below. You can insure your rental vehicle for gravel damage, for volcanic ash damages but not for the wind tearing off the doors.

The end of August, beginning of September seemed to be a good time to visit. Unfortunately, the puffins had already left, and the whales are more commonly seen in July but the swans were plentiful, the seals active. Some of the days were warm enough to shed coats. The long grass was a rich green combed into silvery paths by the wind. and mown in rectangular pastures. The flicker of the aurora borealis was subtle in the late night star shine but it was there in hints and shifts.https://flic.kr/s/aHsmX428zW

#travel #summer #iceland #circuit #touring

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qoqbob · 4 years ago

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#the beatles #liverpool #liverbird #scultpure #statue #england #uk

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qoqbob · 4 years ago

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Liverpool - Maritime Mercantile City

People like me still pour Into Liverpool to get a sense of where the 1960s cultural phenomena that was The Beatles originated. Gray-haired, in sensible shoes, jeans and t-shirts venturing to Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, the Cavern Club and on the famous ferry across the River Mersey. The Beatles provided the soundtrack for our childhood, teenage years and young adult life. We never change the radio station when a Beatles song is playing. We owned their records on vinyl, cassette tape and CD, and still have Beatles songs on our smart phones. Our concept of love, freedom and life were shaped by the songs created out of the life and times of four lads from Liverpool. We barely understood their Scouse but they championed our causes - peace and love. On the Beatles Tour Bus, there are people from all around the world and every walk of life. Liverpudlians are happy you come to celebrate the Beatles, but there is a lot more to Liverpool. The old docks along the river are now places of entertainment, museums, concert venues and restaurants. The old Victorian core is being renovated or creatively decorated like the graffiti-laden Baltic Quarter, and the surrounding hillsides of Georgian districts, University and Cathedral buildings being put to imaginative uses in funky cafes, clubs and outdoor art displays. Out past leafy Toxteth restored from the 1980s rioting, the childhood home of John Lennon and the teenage home of Paul McCartney are now open to tours by the National Trust.

Liverpool rose to global cultural status in the post war 20th Century on the phenomenal success of The Beatles. The northwestern English port city had enormous economic success in International trade, first in the slave trade as ships from Liverpool sailed to west Africa bearing manufactured goods which were traded for human cargo. Captured native peoples were sold into slavery and shipped to North and South America where they were pressed into service on plantations, mines and domestic service. Raw materials were loaded aboard the ships and brought back to Liverpool. The Victorian-era Albert Docks were built of Iron, glass and brick designed to be the first fireproof bonded warehouses in the world. They were set on fire after construction to prove they worked as advertised. It was these distinctive buildings, wharves, canals and civic architecture of 18th-19th and early 20th Century Liverpool that led the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to name the city a World Heritage Site in 2004. In July 2021, UNESCO deleted that listing as it had for the Elbe River Valley in Germany and the Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman citing the warning issued in 2012 when Liverpool redeveloped the waterfront transforming the warehouses to museums like the Tate Liverpool, the Liverpool Maritime Museum and the International Slavery Museum and adding visionary modern buildings like the elongated curving trapezoidal Museum of Liverpool, the black glass rhomboid of the Open Eye Gallery and the Pier Head ferry terminal with it’s cafes and viewpoints.

UNESCO reports: “The Committee considers that these constructions are detrimental to the site’s authenticity and integrity. Liverpool’s historic centre and docklands were inscribed for bearing witness to the development of one of the world’s major trading centers in the 18th and 19th centuries. The site also illustrated pioneering developments in modern dock technology, transport systems and port management.” The City of Liverpool pushed back with a statement that they are not a monument or a museum but a rapidly changing city and points out that the Tower of London world heritage center is surrounded by some of the tallest buildings in the United Kingdom but isn’t on the endangered list. The statement adds that the Liver Building was constructed on a filled in dock, a long standing architectural and building tradition. I like the modern buildings. Their designs are innovative and add contrast to the stately old structures. The frames and viewpoints from the terraces and windows of the Museum of Liverpool are wonderful.

The World Heritage sites are worth seeking out in their own right. Like a great book, the sites should be considered in planning any visit to a new place, but I wonder if Liverpool really needs the designation. It can proudly point out the sheer scale of historic structures throughout the city. Much of its charm is in sweeping vistas the hillsides provide with pedestrian shopping zones, parks and an eclectic mixture of monuments and street art. One can imagine among the relics and uniform squares of the Albert Docks, the bustling port full of ships, porters, stevedores, dockworkers, horses and workers instead of the tourists buying ice creams or sausages from the wagons. The World Heritage designation reflected the role of Liverpool as the supreme example of a commercial port at the time of Britain's greatest global influence. Liverpool is growing from the ruins of the wartime bombing and the collapse of the former economic model. It’s a great place to visit. I’ll be back. I didn’t visit any of the three major Beatles collections, but I felt like I learned a lot about the place they found their voice and created music that rocked my world.https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWra4E1https://flic.kr/s/aHsmWra4E1

#the beatles #merseybeat #liverpool #england #travel #world heritage site #july 2021

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qoqbob · 5 years ago

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