Memories and hints of a travelling IT professional.
Time for a walk in the park while being at Bologna? Then head to the Porta Castiglione or Porta Santo Stefano city gates. Behind them you’ll the find the largest green space of the city, created in 1879 to honor Italian queen Margherita of Savoy – yes, the one that the famous plain vanilla pizza is named after. The garden is great for doing some sports and there is also an artificially created lake with a bar next to it.
Continue reading “Giardini Margherita”
If it rains at Bologna, you do not need to worry: You can endlessly walk through the city center without being exposed to rain (or sunshine). The reason for that are the Portici; arcades next to the street that sometimes are also decorated very nicely. Astonishing 40 kilometers of streets in the city center have these roofed passages. In medieval times multiple European cities had these arcades but only in Bologna they were later protected on large scale – making the city a UNESCO world heritage site today.
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When you’re thinking about leaning towers in Italy you’ll probably think a bit the famous one at Pisa. Another city of towers was in the past Bologna, as many families had their own ones (giving the city the name La Turrita). And in the center you’ll find two towers that are leaning like the famous one: the Torre Asinelli and the Torre Garisenda. They are not so beautifully decorated as in medieval times they were used for military purposes; today they are the icons of the city of Bologna.
Continue reading “Due Torri”
As in every German city, right-hand traffic is the rule of the road at Göttingen and therefore also bus stops are always on the right-hand side. But there is one bus stop that is on the left hand-side: the one for city tours with a classic London bus behind the old town hall. The bus company of the city (Göttinger Verkehrsbetriebe, GöVB) has acquired an old iconic red bus built in the United Kingdom in 1960. It is named ‘Miss Marple‘ after Agatha Christie’s fictional character and it is the gem of their fleet; something they really need to care about as spare parts aren’t available anymore for this classic.
Continue reading “Miss Marple”
It is an unusual place to visit at London, but also an impressive one: the Victorian-era Crossness sewage pumping station. The fast growing city had a massive problem to get rid of the human waste produced by the rising number of inhabitants. Initially, cesspits were used that had to be emptied by the night soil men: they’ve put the solid remains (and ‘night soil‘ was the euphemism for them) on their carts and sold them to farmers on the land surrounding the city as fertilizer. On the way back they used the same carts to transport grain into the city. Well, hygiene wasn’t so well developed in these days.
Continue reading “The Great Stink”
It was a Saturday morning when I was walking through massive fields of high fern in the west of London when a white stag appeared in front of me on the path. What sounds like the beginning of some fairy-tale is daily routine at Bushy Park: the vast park is roamed by many deer that are pretty much used to visitors. Every now and then you will see one pass or you can see a group of horns peaking out of high grass. They are in this place because of king Henry VIII who was a passionate hunter.
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Wetlands at todays London, is that even possibly? Well it is, but of course the Walthamstow Wetlands aren’t natural. A city like London needs to do water management and that is how these artificial lakes between Walthamstow and Hale were created between 1863 and 1904. The first reservoirs protecting the city from droughts were even dug by hand. Today the wetlands are a protected nature conservation zone which is especially used by birds passing through the metropolitain area.
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2024 was the year when the famous British band Oasis announced their reunion and a tour in 2025 – more than fifteen years after the brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher had split up. And it was also the year in which Millennials where stuck for hours in online queues trying to buy overpriced tickets, failed and then complained for days about the horrible dynamic pricing system and the many guys buying tickets just to get a lot of money by selling them to the real fans afterwards.
Continue reading “Don‘t look back in anger”
In 1969 The Beatles published their 11th album, one of the most successful albums of all times with still today well known songs like Come Together, Octopus’s Garden and Here Comes the Sun. It was the last studio album of the band and recorded at the Abbey Road Studios in the city quarter St. John’s Wood of London. The band initially wanted to name the album Everest and fly to the Himalaya to shoot the cover picture, but then found it more convenient to just walk out the door and take the picture directly in front of the recording studio.
Continue reading “Abbey Road”
If you’re looking for a viewpoint with a good view on the skyline of London you’ve got multiple options in the north of the city. The closest one is probably Primrose Hill in Regent’s Park, close to the zoological garden of London . It is a steep 78 meters high hill and that many people get here at sundown you can already see by the various paths leading up the hill.
Continue reading “Primrose hill”