timharnesstravels

Firstly forgive me for typos, I’m writing this blog on a mobile phone and I have fat fingers. The new security rules mean that I can’t take my iPad Mini to Turkey unless I put it in a suitcase in the hold, which would cost another sixty quid.

Gradually we are getting Istanbul sussed out. Walking from our hotel this morning we discovered a street of good restaurants that we can go to later and made a booking for this evening at the Balikci Sabahattin which was recommended on TripAdvisor. So no more swearing from me about crappy food, hopefully.

We took one of the many excursion boat trips on offer from Eminonu near Galata bridge that take sightseers up the Bosphorus.

From the water there were splendid views of all the mosques we visited yesterday in Sultanahmet. The white stone and lead domes of the Suleymaniya looked fantastic against the vivid blue sky. The boat took us as far as the suspension bridge joining Europe to Asia.

A mosque and the Bosphorus bridge

Along the western bank of the Bosphorus is a mix of new development on reclaimed land, and 19th-century palaces and mansions.  Just before the Bosphorus bridge I saw a crowd of birds and then three or four dolphins arcing through the water! It was an unexpected and wonderful sight. A little later on Tommy shouted and there was a black porpoise swimming beside us. All that wildlife in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world is amazing.

Returning to Eminonu after 90 minutes we walked over Galata bridge and past the mighty Galata Tower, a relic of the occupation of that area by people from Genoa. Julie tracked down a cafe mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide, and I had chicken and chips followed by chocolate cake, bloody lovely. Man cannot live by kebab alone.

Tommy wanted to find a record shop in the area, and a friendly local lady gave us a lift in her car most of the way to Kontra Plan. He then spent 45 minutes talking to the owner and listening to Turkish rock music and emerged with three albums.

 

 

The road went uphill to Istikal Avenue, Istanbul’s own Oxford Street, with many familiar shops. It is a packed pedestrianised street that terminates with Taksim Square. Taksim is big but not beautiful, so from there we walked back to our hotel.

Today we walked eight miles around the city, up hill and down dale, so I’m ready for a shower and dinner.

We went to the fish restaurant Balikci Sabahattin that we found earlier. There were more waiters than customers, and the one we got was brusque, to say the least.  He behaved like we were spoiling his evening and we were in his way. We asked for calamari for three people and got six pieces! The grilled snapper was tasty, but can with half a tomato, a small spud and a piece of lettuce. They didn’t get a tip.

I had a proper Turkish breakfast today; boiled eggs, olives, bread, yoghurt and mysterious pink meat. The coffee was out of a machine and made with UHT milk, but it was strangely tasty. Underneath our dining room is a Roman era cistern, Sarnic means cistern in Turkish. There whole of Sultanahmet is full of archaeology, there is a huge amount of history in Byzantion/Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul.

History of Istanbul

The Blue Mosque is literally round the corner so we went their first. Julie put a scarf on her head and we all took our shoes off, so the beautiful mosque smelled of sweaty feet! The mosque is famous for the Iznik blue tiles that cover much of its interior.

 

 

Next stop was Aya Sofia, inaugurated by the Roman Emperor Justinian in 537, so it is almost 1500 years old! After the Ottoman conquest by Mehmet the Conqueror in 1453 it was converted into a mosque, and in 1936 it became a museum.

The original Christian gold mosaics were plastered over and minarets were constructed by the Ottomans, but some of the original features have now been exposed. The dome is 180 feet above the floor, it is an ancient and genuinely awesome building.

The security is tight, there are plenty of armed police around and scanners at the entrance to major buildings.

For lunch we had doner kebab sandwiches, simple and tasty. Following the tram route up the main road we found the Grand Bazaar, a huge covered market that was the Westfield of Ottoman Istanbul. Today it is a vast tourist market selling jewellery, Iznik pottery, tee shirts and all manner of tat. Tommy bought some colourful dishes for Chloe and a Tin Tin in Istanbul tee shirt for me!

Between the bazaar and the Golden Horn are more shopping streets which have stuff that you might want to buy. I got a nice brown leather belt for 20 lira, less than a fiver and it is holding up my trousers right now.

Next stop on our whirlwind tour of the Great Mosques of Istanbul was the Suleymaniya, built by the chief architect of Suliman the Magnificent, Sinan. It was competed in the mid 16th century and has been beautifully restored. It is full of light and is much less busy than the other mosques. The gardens have fabulous views over the Golden Horn to Galata.

Walking downhill and past the boats moored at Eminonu we started to cross the Galata Bridge, but we’re persuaded (very easily) to stop for a beer, which is was just what we needed.  The bridge has a road over the top and restaurants beneath it, with only a small section to allow tour boats to pass beneath.

Across the Golden Horn in Galata we once again failed to find a good place to eat and settled for mediocre meatballs. Tomorrow we are going to find somewhere better on TripAdvisor !

The BA flight from T5 LHR was only three quarters full and pleasingly uneventful.  BA had got over its recent IT cock-up and was operating without a hitch.  We arrived on time at Istanbul and got a taxi to the old quarter called Sultanahmet, the heart of ancient Constantinople.

The taxi driver was a master of multi-tasking with one hand. He kept his left hand planted on the roof of the car, and his right hand was used for steering, changing gear and operating his mobile phone for directions. He was a really cool guy, but I was a nervous passenger.

We are staying at the Sarnic, a cheap hotel in spitting distance of the Blue Mosque. It is clean and simple, but you won’t find it in any travel magazines.

Right now I’m sat on the roof terrace drinking an Efes beer. Looking one way I’m looking at the Sea of Marmara, the other way is the Blue Mosque. Between my terrace and the Blue Mosque is a partly demolished building, which takes the edge off the view, c’est la vie. The Sea of Marmara is connected to the Black Sea in the north by the Bosphorus and to the Mediterranian to the south by the Dardanelles. From the terrace, we could see at least fifty ships anchored and waiting to either enter the port or take the passage to the Black Sea.

We ate dinner at the New Season restaurant round the corner from the Sarnic. It was a mistake. I have had much better Turkish food at my local takeaway, and more of it! I was still hungry after and bought a corn on the cob from a stall.

After our disappointing first meal, we walked up the street and went past all the restaurants we should have gone to, Doh! But that’s what happens on your first night in a big city. This happens every time we visit a new city. For the first two days, you are disoriented and can’t find want you want and generally get annoyed. Then you figure out what the place is about, and start to relax and enjoy the place. After three or four days you really feel comfortable and can get around with ease and the local waiters wave at you like old friends.

We walked past the Blue Mosque at about 8.40 pm just as the muezzin announced that the Ramadan (Ramazan in Turkish) fast was over, very very loudly from a loudspeaker system. Everyone in the shops immediately ate their dinner, they had been fasting all day.

In the gardens between the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia, families ate picnics on the lawns by a fountain which was  lit by lights of changing colour’s.

We found a busy street with the tram line in it and a friendly waiter persuaded us to go to his rooftop bar in Pierre Loti Hotel. It had an amazing view of the great mosques and the Galatea Bridge over the Golden Horn. It was so good up there that I almost forgot about the lousy meal we ate earlier!

I worked up and read the terrible news on ththe BBC on my iPad, a bomb had gone off at a pop concert in Manchester. I felt the same feelings of grief, horror and helplessness as everyone else. Why? How can killing so many innocents make sense? 

Two cruise liners had arrived in Funchal harbour overnight, unloading more tourists into central Funchal. In the old town the streets are lined with restaurants, and each of them has a waiter or waitress trying to ensnare passing peckish visitors. On Sunday I got away from a cheerful waiter by pretending I would go back later on. On Monday I saw him again, and had to face up to my lie! So I literally sprinted past him like I was running for a bus, luckily he didn’t give chase and try to rope me in.

So far today we have mostly done not much at all. I didn’t fancy the museum this morning in the Quinta da Cruzes, I knew it would be lots of dull religious pictures and pottery. The central market turned out to be a tourist trap selling ludicrously overpriced comestibles. Some peculiar tropical fruit were going for almost €20 a kilo, they have got to be ‘avin’a larf! The fish market was more interesting, with huge pieces of tuna and trays of deflated octopuses.  There were plenty of the local delicacy of Espada or Scabbard Fish. They are like a fishy version of Dementors, long and black with ugly pointed teeth. But they do taste very good in a light batter.

Most of the afternoon has been spent at lunch (grilled sardines) and in a bar at the  Marina slowly drinking a beer and watching cruise ships leaving and arriving. The weather is overcast, the sun has barely made an appearance today. I can see the Islas Desertas about twenty miles away in the distance, and they are bathed in sunshine. It feels like Madeira is an island of cloud sitting is a sea of sunshine, reflecting my mood.

But you know what, beer is a great mood enhancer! I hiked back to the flat, got changed and we went back to Taberna Madeira for dinner. I tried Pigs Trotters tonight because I haven’t eaten them before. Unfortunately they tasted as good as they sound.

I didn’t know before I arrived in Madeira, but it is a good place for walking. Not just ordinary Going from A to B style walking, but proper boots and telescopic walking sticks style walking. We joined a coach load of people in proper boots and rucksacks with lots of pointless straps on them, to travel to a tiny village called Ribeiro do Frio, which is Cold River in English. Getting there involved climbing and climbing and climbing and lots of hairpin bends. Madeira is the land of hairpin bends and tunnels through mountains. There are very few flat bits to the island, and many mountains and ravines that need to be bridged or cut through. 

Our guide was a genial local man in his late sixties called Ali (that’s an abbreviation) who could speak several languages. He lead the walk along an irrigation channel or levada, which  winds around  the contours to take water from the wet northern part of the island to farmers fields in the drier south of the island. The levada is a concrete channel with a footpath along side it, and there are 2,000 kilometres of them on the island  which move water around very efficiently and provide excellent walking routes for tourists. 

The route we took is through the ancient laurisilva, which literally means laurel woods. This type of forest covered much of Southern Europe before the last ice age, but is now only found in Madeira, the Canary Islands, the Azores,  Cape Verde islands. These archipelagos are jointly known as Macronesia, I bet you didn’t know that did you? The main trees are bay (a type of laurel) and heather, which grows into big trees with trunks up to 18 inches thick! There is also types of giant Dandelions and Lily of the Valley, both growing up to two metres high. It must be something in the water.

The levadas are cut by hand on the side of cliff, so often there is a wall of rock to the right and sheer drop to the left. There is a wire fence to stop you from plummeting to your death, but my buttocks were tightly clenched like a choirboy at vicars conference. 

The walk was supposed to be eleven kilometres longs, but our Fitbits and phones said it was sixteen, and that’s how far it felt. 

Returning to our flat we rested for a while and then walked down to a restaurant called Taberna Madeira that we had read about on Tripadvisor. It was really, seriously good.

• Nice vibe and modern decor
• Charming waitress and engaging funny owner
• Delicious house wine that was also very good value
• The best tuna steak I have ever eaten. Ever.

If you go to Funchal go to Taberna Madeira, you won’t be disappointed.

But the walk back to the flat from the city centre is up a very steep hill, like the Hard Knot pass in Cumbria. Julie complained about having to walk up it AGAIN and that she had walked thirteen miles today. I congratulated her for completing a Half Marathon, and she told me to Go Forth and Multiply.

Last night there was a party in Funchal somewhere, and there was lots of party music booming over the city until the wee hours. Julie tells me that it went on until 1.20, when I was snoring. So I was up a little before her, bright eyed and bushy tailed. Once she had showered away the sleep, we walked a few hundred yards up hill to a pastelaria for breakfast. We had the breakfast of champions, custard doughnuts and milky coffee, (galao). I think that all the hiking up hills will wear off the calories (possibly). 

It felt like time to get into the middle of Madeira, so we caught a number 81 bus from the sea front towards Curral de Freiras, the Valley of the Nuns. In the 16th century, Funchal had a serious pirate problem. I’m not talking annoying blokes in striped shirts at stag parties, these pirates were very mean and deadly. So the Nuns of Funchal took sanctuary in a secluded valley high up in the centre of  the island.

The bus ascended a winding road out of the city, and went up and up and up! I have never been on such a circuitous and precipitous road. A crash barrier separated the bus from a thousand foot drop to the valley below, and the bus driver honked his horn in warning as he went round blind bends. Before we reached our intended destination, the bus stopped at Eira do Serrado and most people stood up to get off. Some English people told us that there was a walk from there to the Nuns Valley, so we got off as well. The views from there were amazing, steep side valleys clothed in Eucalytus trees and mountains topped with yellow flowering broom.  The strata on the mountains showed how they had been built up from many volcanic eruptions over millions of years.

After a coffee in the tourist trap cafe, we deccended down a path. It was about a metre to two metres wide and was paved in stones. The stones are flattish and laid edge up, so they form a serrated grippy path. We zig zagged down through wild flowers and saw tiny lizards on the rocks. It was gorgeous in the warm sun and fragrance from the grass and flowers. Halfway down we stopped to eat the ham rolls we  purchased at breakfast, it was a fantastic location for a picnic.

At Curral de Frieras we had a small beer in the cafe, and got the bus back to Funchal. Madeiran buses are not designed for men over six feet tall, I sat with my legs spread like a lout on a park bench.

Back in Funchal we took a walk down the seafront, which is a bit utilitarian. There is no beach, and a big dual carriage way runs along the front cutting it off from the old and quaint town centre. There are no nice bars or cafes overlooking the sea, unless you are in one of the big hotels on the seafront.

All the restaurants have waiters posted outside to persuade you to eat in their place. It was like avoiding chuggers on Kingston High Street, so we pretended we had eaten already and went to the same place as last night. Wanting to fit in with the locals, we tried a Maderian speciality, Picador. It was a sort of tomatoey beef casserole served with chip and salad. The waiter said the traditional way to eat it is with a toothpick, so I did! It was bloody lovely.

The only blot on the days copybook was that I LOST MY PHONE! 

OMFG.

It got taken by leprechauns somewhere between the walk down the mountain and eating in the restaurant. I hope the little buggers have fun with it.

C’est la vie, shit happens.



I worked up this morning dreaming that my teeth had fallen out, perhaps I shouldn’t have eaten the dessert last night at dinner. We found a local cafe up the hill for a ham roll and coffee for breakfast, and then walked down some steep roads into the city centre. Most of the roads are Hills, and often steep. The drivers are very adept at tearing around at steeep angles. Funchal is a very neat, clean city with whitewashed houses and red Roman-tiled roofs. The old centre by the harbour is quite small, and the twentyth century part of the city spreads for miles up the surrounding hills. Everyone gets a great view of the sea, and probably have strong hearts, if they haven’t expired hiking up a hill.

The cable car station is near the big indoor market on the front by the sea. Since we are here out of season, the queue for the cars was short and mostly retired people from Northern Europe. The trip is delightful, travelling a hundred feet over the rooftops up hill to Monte. The ticketing system is a bit confusing, since there are multiple gardens at the top, and various combination tickets that you can buy.

Below us we coiled hear the chickens and dogs, and saw plantations of the local bananas, which are only about 5 inches long (the bananas, not the trees). Monte is where the famous sledge rides start, wood and wicker sliding sofas that are guided by two men with ropes.  It’s fun to watch but as a means of public transport it has severe limitations.

Monte has some lovely views over the city, and I had a swift half of Coral, the local lager. I reckon that all continental lager is made in one giant brewery in Düsseldorf and is then shipped to all the EU and stuck in bottles with a local label, it all tastes the same to me.

There was a choice between th sun tropical gardens or the Botanical Gardens, so I decided on the Botanical Gardens, since I love reading small signs in Latin. Getting there required another cable car across a massive ravine and entry charge  to the gardens, €13.50 combined. 

Kew Gardens, it ain’t. It’s a nice place to spend a couple of hours, but there are no greenhouses and very few little Latin signs. The cactus and succulent garden is impressive, with lots of big mean looking spiny plants. The museum takes the award for The Crappest Natural History Museum I Have Ever Seen. The tatty stuffed fish and birds are even crapper than those in the museum in Prague, my previous award winner.  But I do have to bear in mind that Madeira has the same population as Plymouth, which doesn’t have a Botanic Garden at all!

I needed another small beer and a bit of cake, all that vegetation exhausted me. Being mad and English we decided to walk back to the flat, it didn’t look far on Google maps. In actuality the road was steep, twisty and without a footpath all the way down to the city centre. Once we got to the bottom, we then had to walk up a hill to get back to the flat. Man we wuz knackered when we got back.

After a rest we examined a heap of leaflets to decide what we are doing on Sunday. It’s going to be a journey into the mysterious Nuns Valley, I’ll bet you’ve never seen one!

Dinner was enjoyed at a restaurant called Trigal. I had Espada, a delicious fish with a banana on top. Wierd I know, but that’s the way they eat them here.

It’s my birthday, I’m 61 today. It doesn’t feel as exciting at last year when I was retiring and recovering from My Operation (more about that one day), but it still feels good to be fit and well and on holiday.

We flew from Gatport Airwick with Monarch, my first experience with this package airline. The flight was no frills, no leg room and instant coffee, but it was cheap. I’m a man that loves a bargain, so having cramp in my left leg was all part of the “fun”. 

Madeira is out in the Atlantic 500 miles off the coast of Morocco, and has been Portuguese for almost 500 years. It’s a volcanic island poking up from the depths of the Atlantic! With peaks that rise up to 6,000 feet above sea level. The top of the island gets lots of rain, which is channeled down to the fertile sunnier parts of the island using irrigation channels.

Our Air b’n’b is in Funchal, the busy capitol of Madeira. It’s a city spread along the side of the central mountain, so there are lots of steep hills. Our place overalls the historic centre of the city and the harbour. It’s only took 10 minutes to walk down hill to the old town and tourist centre. A waitress charmed us into the Spotlight restaurant and I had a steak, it is my birthday after all! 

Now we need to plan what to do tomorrow, which means engaging our brains, not so easy after a 3 course does none and a bottle of very good vino tinto. I think we will find our way round town and get properly oriented. I would discuss it with Julie, but she has fallen asleep!


“Villa Hundira is great, so great” as Donald J Trump would say. It’s the kind of place where you don’t need to go anywhere else, you can just sit and listen to the wind in the trees and the birds. There is an occasional bloop sound as a fish breaks the surface of the water. Mangroves grow at the waters edge, and their stilt roots are full of tiny fish seeking refuge from the bigger fish in the creek.

Breakfast was the Full Monty, Sri Lankan style., a buffet served in heated tureens. To start I had egg hoppers with curry, a solid start and something for my intestines to grab hold of. Next I had frankfurter and bacon, the real thing not crappy turkey bacon. After that came the fruit course; pineapple, watermelon, papaya and bananas. To top it of and I finished with fresh bread and jam. What a glutton! That will keep me going until dinner this evening, possibly.

There appear to be almost as many staff as guests here, and they are all busy maintaining the property. Other hotels we have been to are quite scruffy and the staff just sit around doing nothing most of the time. It’s clear that this place is very well managed and they keep high standards.

We borrowed a sit-on kayak and went for a paddle into the Lagoon. It is only a few feet deep, and is fringed by mangroves. The Lagoon is open to,the sea, so it is tidal, but the range is only a foot or two. There were plenty of birds to see; crows, cormorants, herons of various types, terns and distant eagles. I feel more at peace here than anywhere I have been in Sri Lanka. It’s such a contrast from all the turmoil that we have seen on TV  on the BBC World News. DJT appears to be making enemies of everyone apart from white American conservatives.

So far we have stayed in eleven different places. The worst was Sunny Hills for one night in Kandy, which cost £12. The best is Villa Hundira which costs about £45 a night, and by far the best value. The priciest was Muhsin Villa in Galle which was £48 per night.  This place is so beautifully furnished with interesting pieces, including a life sized white wooden bull sat in the middle of a huge lounge. The whole hotel looks like something out of a glossy magazine or a book on architecture.

In theory I could sell my London home and buy a big beachside home here in Sri Lanka. But in reality I would be bored within a week! I have lots of interests in London that keep me busy; skiffing, running, cycling, cinema, country walking – none of which I could do here. The weather is wonderful for a few weeks, but I would miss the change of the seasons at home. Of course the main question is, could I live on curry? Well I have enjoyed it every day since I have been here, so I probably could. Sri Lankan curries are much lighter and more interesting than the typical “Indian” available at home, and they are an compliment to the rice, which is the main dish. My final Rice and Curry is at 6.30 tonight, in half an hours time, so I had better go and put a shirt on for dinner.

To get from Galle to Columbo there are three choices. The Express train leaves Galle for Columbo at 10.55 from the station close to the cricket ground. The train takes two and a half hours to Columbo, then we would have to a get another train to Negombo followed by a tuk tuk to the hotel.

The second choice is to get a bus to Colombo which takes three hours, then a train and tuk tuk.

So we choose the easiest and most expensive route, we got a taxi all the way. I rang up a Galle taxi company and they quoted me 8.000 rupees, a thousand less than the price from our hotel.

So the taxi picked us up at 9.30, and headed up the very quiet Southern Expressway. It’s Sri Lanka’s only motorway from Matara to Colombo. We came off it in the Colombo suburbs, then the driver go a bit lost. He confessed that he’d never driven to Negombo before, and didn’t have a map. They have Muppets in Sri Lanka as well. We are experienced travellers, so I had the map saved on my iPad, and we helped him to find our destination with that.

We arrived at Villa Hundira at about 1pm, the driver didn’t get a tip, in fact we should have got a discount for finding the route for him! 

The hotel is several beautiful buildings on the edge of the Negombo Lagoon, and is the best hotel I have EVER stayed in! Our room is about thirty feet long by twenty wide, and has waxed, polished concrete floors with rugs and heavy wooden furniture. There are two huge windows so it’s very light, and looks over a creek on one side, and a swimming pool on the other.

Lunch was (another) magnificent rice and curry; I had pork and Julie had fish. Then we waddled over to one of the swimming pools and collapsed on a sun bed and looked out over the lagoon. Hundred of crows flew low over us on their way to roost, and a water monitor swam across the lagoon.Julie found this place on Booking.com, and I had a look on Expedia and found a better price, £45 a night. I suppose they need to fill the rooms and sometimes let them our cheaply.

So now I’m slumped on a very comfy sofa watching the Fast and the Furious  on the satellite TV. God it’s going to be a shock to the system going back to London in the winter.