It’s Nice to Feel Useful (2)

  

It’s nice to feel useful…

Six months or so ago I took a look at my statistics and was baffled by some of the search questions that seemed to have brought web-surfers by to visit my site.  I have done it again looked at my statistics for the last month and selected my favourite  Search Engine terms that brought people to my blog.

I have set them out here together with a link to the appropriate page…

I think this is probably my favourite:                                                                                         “do flights landing in Naples fly over Vesuvius”

Now, this seems to me to be an especially dumb question.  I am not an expert on aviation or air traffic control but it seems very unlikely to me that aeroplane carrying over three hundred passengers landing at an international airport in Italy would want to fly over the top of a 1,300 metre high active volcano because it sounds full of potential hazards to me.  The page they were directed to was probably my post about my visit to the mountain.

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Now, I like to think that my posts are occasionally informative and the contents have some useful trivia but I really don’t see how I could possibly help with these two searches because it seems to me that someone is looking for a level of detail that I just can’t get down to:  “Montreuil sur Mer allotments” and “the name of the street behind the Moulin Rouge”.  I have posted on these two locations so perhaps this is where they were directed: 

  

Montreuil-Sur-Mer                                      Moulin Rouge

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This one cropped up before but it’s well worth repeating again here because I can’t believe anyone would google this – “How big are Ryanair seat belts” – I dealt with flying with Ryanair in my post Travel Tips When Flying Budget Airlines - These people are going to be really disappointed when they get the answers!

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This is a really good one, I like it – “committing suicide on p&o mini cruise”. Some people go to Switzerland to end their lives unnaturally whilst others look for a solution on line.

I have been on a P&O mini-cruse from Hull to Rotterdam and although it was not what you would describe as a luxury experience, the food was good and the bar prices reasonable so I can think of no really good reason to throw yourself overboard!

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Another dumb historical question next – “how wealthy are the Romanovs” and dumb because most people know that the entire Romanov family were killed by the Bolsheviks in 1917 during the Russian revolution.

There are some claimants to the titles of the Russian Tsars but even if they were confirmed to be true descendants they would be extremely unlikely to be wealthy because the Russian communist regime confiscated all their money and valuables.  I visited Russia in 2012 and posted about the fate of the Romanovs so I guess the enquirer might have ended up on my post about the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.

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I rather liked this question and for once I can be certain that I have the answer:  “Is it always raining in Wales” and the answer in my personal experience is YES!  I went to Wales in 2011 for a week and it rained so much that after four days I gave up, abandoned the holiday cottage and drove back home.  This is my account of the journey!

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I was also delighted to be able to help with this enquiry – “seagulls on my roof” because I have had exactly the same problem and posted about it last year when the fledgling chicks started to fly – I called it ‘The Seagull has Landed” because although Seagulls may well be a feature of the seaside when I moved to Grimsby I didn’t expect to get a pair nesting on my roof!

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Whilst it is nice to think that sometimes my posts might have been useful I have saved my absolute favourites for last and to be honest I have no idea at all where this search led people to on my blog pages – First: “Bodrum handbag prices”, because anyone that reads my posts will know that I am not by any stretch of the imagination what you would call a shopper.

But here is my absolute favourite, probably of all time:

“can pubic  hair grow more with regain”

because I don’t think I have ever written a post about pubic hair!

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I’d love to hear from you about weird search results on your sites!

Around the World in Eighty Minutes – Part Eight

So, that’s it, I started off with a simple recollection post about EPCOT World Showcase at Disney World, Florida and then I took off around the World to compare Disney with the real places that I have visited.  I have taken a look at the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Norway and Morocco but I can’t post about Canada, Mexico, China or Japan because I haven’t been to those places yet.

In the course of writing, dragging up memories and doing some research I started to think more deeply about World Showcase and became intrigued by the rationale behind the concept, design and construction and in particular the reasons why these eleven countries in particular were chosen for inclusion in the park.

This is partly explained by the fact that the Walt Disney Corporation, strapped for cash, tried to find sponsors for the showcased countries and failed in all but one attempt – Morocco.  This in turn explains why some of the Pavilions are so disappointing, the absence of rides and attractions and the over reliance on shops and restaurants all designed to get visitors to part with their money.

But the failure to attract government sponsorship or private sector investment still leaves us with eleven countries and no explanation why these eleven so I have been giving the matter some thought and whilst at first the inclusion appears to be rather random I think there is a credible explanation for almost all of them.

The United States is of course obvious and requires no explanation for its inclusion or for the fact that it occupies the prime position on the World Showcase Lagoon and is the biggest and the most lavish and expensive of all the Pavilions.

  

Canada and Mexico are easily explained.  It would be rude I suppose not to have your nearest neighbours but there are some important statistics that reveal that it is not just about being neighbourly.  In terms of tourism by international visitors these two countries make up over half of all travellers visiting the United States and according to official data in 2011 Canada with over twenty-one million visitors provided 38% of all international visitors and Mexico with thirteen and a half million contributed 24%.  The inclusion of Mexico is even more easily explained by looking at population statistics that reveal that the second highest number of foreign born residents in the United States (by a very long way) is Mexican.

It is easy to see therefore that the inclusion of these two countries makes obvious commercial sense.  Strange however, and this is just a personal view, that the two Pavilions provide the contrast between the best (Mexico) and one of the worst (Canada).

   

And so we move on to Europe with five of the eleven Pavilions coming from the second smallest continent but why these five, why not Spain or Greece, Poland or Sweden and once again I am convinced that it is based on US ethnic ancestry and visitor numbers.

In terms of ancestry the top ten European nationalities (in this order) are Germany, Ireland, England, Italy, Poland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and Sweden.  Germany (at 17%) genuinely surprised me and explained immediately why it is at World Showcase but (at almost 11%) why no Ireland? Why Norway and not Sweden? I suppose Poland, at the time of construction, was part of the Warsaw Pact alliance and that might have ruled it out but why not Holland because surely all of those windmills and canals would have made a great attraction.

Visitor numbers also explain why these countries are here because four of the five (but not Norway) are in the top ten of international visitors to the United States.

  

Japan and China must be explained by visitor numbers.  After Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom Japan contributes the fourth most visitors to the United States and China is firmly in the top ten. Conversely, in the top ten but not represented at EPCOT are Brazil, South Korea and Australia.

Of all the countries at the EPCOT World Showcase I suppose the easiest to explain is Morocco and this is in part due to the fact that the Pavilion was the only one in which the country’s government aided in the construction and they did this so that they could retain some measure of Islamist control over the design of the mosaics and to ensure that everything was as authentic as possible in the representation of the Muslim faith.

I cynically conclude that any country could potentially be included if the government of that country was prepared to stump up the cash.

So who is missing?  Well, there is nothing from South America but the United Kingdom itself provides more visitors to the USA than the whole of Latin America combined so perhaps there is a clue there?  And apart from state funded Morocco there is nothing from Africa which might be considered surprising when 13% of the US population are of African descent but (and here is the crucial commercial factor) visitor numbers from the African continent are the smallest of all at only three hundred and twenty-seven thousand in 2011.  There is a small African Trading Post and Disney excuses the omission by pointing out that there is an entire African themed park at the nearby Animal Kingdom.

Finally, I have been giving some consideration to an alternative World Showcase and here are my suggestions:

  

First, Australia with an IMAX film narrated by Rolf Harris and Kylie Minogue.  Russia  because now the Cold War is ended there must surely be space for Red Square and the Kremlin.  Brazil, with a ride based on the Rio Carnival.  Peru because Machu Picchu would be a good replacement for the Mexico Aztec pyramid. Egypt with a Nile Cruise ride.  India and a train journey ride to visit the Taj Mahal and the Golden Temple of Amritsar.  Equatorial Africa, which was once suggested but abandoned.  And from Europe:  Greece with a visit to Mount Olympus to meet the mythical gods; Spain and the legend of El Cid and the Conquistadors and the Netherlands with a cruise of the Amsterdam canals (leaving out the red light district as not being entirely appropriate).

And finally, wouldn’t it be fun to include the World’s smallest sovereign state – The Vatican – with a roller coaster ride around St Peter’s Basilica!

  

Whoops, Sorry, I nearly forgot Ireland, lets have twelve countries (it’s my list and my rules) and let’s  have a visit to the Giant’s Causeway.

Please let me know your suggestions, I would be interested in your views…

Freshly Pressed

WordPress seem to go to a lot of trouble to convince users that ‘Freshly Pressed’ is fair, impartial and based on critical selection.

Consider this then from a blog page I chanced upon…

It has been interesting to look back over 2012 to see which posts were the most popular. Bagni di Lucca and Beyond has been Freshly Pressed twice this year, which has been great fun. Thank you WordPress for choosing.

It is a nice blog but it isn’t brilliant (sorry).

I say no more…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Delicate

GUM – the most famous department store in Moscow

This mall was built in the late nineteenth century to replace a covered market and originally contained over a thousand stores.  It is built on three levels with a vaulted glass roof and even today resembles a modern cathedral.  On this first visit, thirsty and hungry we ignored the rows of designer shops and made for No. 57 CTOΛOBAЯ, the recommended restaurant on the third floor with a noble history of providing good quality, reasonably priced food for the proletariat.  We picked up a tray, waited in line, selected our food and took it to our chosen table and it turned out to be really, really good, probably the best meal we had had so far in Russia.

Read the full story…

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Reflections

The Skyline Bar, Hotel Latvia, Riga

The Hotel Latvia is a modern high quality tourist hotel but has a sinister and secretive past.  It was built by the previous communist regime and was one of the few State approved tourist hotels run by the Russian travel Agency, Intourist.  Intourist was founded in 1929 by the dictator Joseph Stalin and was staffed almost exclusively by the KGB secret police. It was responsible for managing the great majority of travellers access to, and travel within, the Soviet Union and it grew into one of the largest tourism organisations in the world, with a network embracing banks, hotels, and bureaux de change.

Read the full story…

Russia – St Petersburg and Moscow

  

Travelling to Russia was always inevitable because Saint-Petersburg and Moscow were always high on my ‘must visit’ list and at last I have fulfilled an ambition to visit the country of Cossacks and Tsars, Vodka and Caviar, Tolstoy  and Pushkin, Fabergé Eggs and Matryoshka dolls.

Read the full story…

Russia, Final Day, Reflection and Assessment

I was woken in the morning by the sound of squealing brakes and the unmistakable sound of metal on metal which means two vehicles have a collision.  I leapt out of bed and from the eighth floor window I could see two cars joined at the bumper and blocking the busy intersection outside the hotel front door.  There was chaos all around and this was going to last some time because after an accident in Russia the drivers are not permitted to move their vehicles until after the police have attended the scene.

I imagine what caused the accident had something to do with the weather because overnight it had completely changed and instead of the blue sky and sunshine that we had become accustomed to there was a steely grey sky, pavement puddles steadily filling up with rain water and raindrops running down the window like tiny pearl drops but as this was our last day and we would be leaving by midday this really didn’t seem to be too much of a problem.

After breakfast Kim decided to stay in the hotel but this seemed a waste of the last morning to me so I decided to walk to the local shopping centre to have a final look around and so I set off in the rain and took the underpass route to the other side of the main road.  The underpass was lined with tiny shops, no more than kiosks really, selling a wide selection of goods – among them clothes, shoes, pastries, souvenirs and cigarettes and they seemed to be doing rather brisk trade – brisker trade indeed than the surface kiosks at the other end where the heavy rain was keeping people away as they rushed from the shelter of the underpass to the nearby shopping centre without looking left or right or stopping.

It was a modern shopping centre with a supermarket and a department store and although it was nothing like the boutique interior of GUM the prices were still quite staggering.  So staggering in fact that there were hardly any shoppers and I found myself alone amongst the merchandise except for a heavy presence of security guards and I think they were glad of something to do or someone to watch because wherever I went there was always one of these guys to accompany me – or perhaps I just looked shifty and suspicious!

I didn’t stay long inside the store but went back outside to see where all the people might be but the wet streets were still deserted and then I spotted some women with shopping bags going into a shabby building with blue swing doors and I followed them to investigate.  Here the mystery of the missing people was solved because inside the not very promising exterior was a market hall that was bustling with activity.  Rows of florists, dairy stalls, butchers and fish mongers and they were all busy because here the prices were much more reasonable and the local people were sensibly shopping here rather than in the pricey supermarket next door.  I walked around the stalls and enjoyed the sights and sounds of a real local market and then with time passing by returned to the hotel for check-out and pick-up.

The bus arrived on time and Galina explained that the reason we seemed to be leaving so early (our flight was not for another five hours) was that the traffic could be unpredictable and that she didn’t want to take the risk of running late and missing the plane home.  An hour later she rather sheepishly apologised for this being the quickest airport transfer that she could ever remember and this would mean longer than usual waiting in the airport departure lounge.

Nothing slowed us down – the automatic airline ticket machine dispensed our tickets and we were quickly through passport control and the security checks so we found some seats and while Kim enjoyed the unexpected duty free shopping opportunity I went over the notes of our holiday and thought about setting out the top five highlights.

And here they are:

1              Peterhof Palace and Gardens

2              The Moscow Kremlin

3              The Moscow Metro

4              Red Square and St. Basil’s Cathedral

5              The Hermitage in Saint-Petersburg

That was a difficult list to compile I can tell you!  This had been a wonderful holiday and one that only a few years ago I would never have imagined possible.  Saint-Petersburg was much as I expected, a northern European Imperial city with large squares and fabulous architecture but as I have said before I was totally unprepared for what I saw in Moscow which took me completely by surprise and I am left with one overriding thought – I’d really, really like to go back!

Russia, Moscow and Victory Park

We planned to visit a few more Metro stations so we started at Prospekt Mira with its polished walls and vaulted ceiling and then the short journey to Arbatskaya with its cream walls and elegant chandeliers and designed to be used alternatively, should the need arise, as a nuclear fall-out shelter.

Our destination was Victory Park at Poklonnaya Hill on the outskirts of the city and this meant leaving the Metro at Park Pobedy which, at ninety-four metres, is claimed to be the deepest Metro station in the world. I know, I know, if you have been paying attention then several posts ago I told you that Saint-Petersburg was the deepest Metro in the world but, depending upon what measure you use, it seems that both claims are true.  Saint-Petersburg is the deepest overall on average and this Moscow Station has the actual deepest single point – so there you are!

The escalator is one-hundred and twenty-six metres long, has seven-hundred and forty steps and takes three minutes to get from the platform to the surface.  We took the ride and left the station entrance into the fading light of the evening and walked the short distance to Victory Park.

In the United Kingdom it took over sixty-years to erect a monument to World-War-Two Bomber Command but in Russia the previous Soviet regime erected obelisks and memorials all over the place.  This huge open air museum commemorates victories in probably the two most misguided military adventures in the last few hundred years, firstly Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and having learned nothing from that Hitler’s operation Barbarossa a hundred and thirty years later in 1941.

I found it to be a strangely solemn sort of place and we walked through the flower beds and the water fountains with their crimson lighting displays (was that meant to symbolise blood I wondered?)  I was bought up on tales of the war told to me by my father, these were always gallant tales about impossibly brave paratroopers and square jawed commandos, about fearless desert rats and valiant fighter pilots, about courageous heroes and stiff upper lips, about medals and honours; I am certain that he never really understood what the war was like in its brutal reality.

He had books about the war; ‘The War’s best photographs’, ‘The Empire Youth Annual’ and three bound volumes of the weekly newspaper ‘The War Illustrated’. These told the stories of the sinking of the Bismarck, the Dam Busters raid and Montgomery’s victories in the North African desert.  The horror of the war in the East and the inhumanity of the Nazi concentration camps didn’t feature quite so predominantly and so fuelled by dad’s stories and patriotic British war movies starring Kenneth More and Richard Todd I grew up in some way thinking war was glamorous, brave and worthy.

At the centre of the park is an obelisk, exactly 141.8 meters, which represents 10 centimetres for every day of the War, a towering monument where St George (Patron Saint of Russia as well as England) slays a dragon below a monument that sets out the faces and instruments of war, soldiers, civilians and weapons are represented here to set out the horror, suffering and ultimate futility of it all. Starting at the bottom and reading upwards are the names of the besieged Russian cities until victory is finally reached at the top and behind the obelisk and the museum is a memorial to the victims of the prison camps and the sinking sun cast moody shadows of the suffering people depicted there.

It was getting quite late now and the shadows were lengthening and somebody somewhere flicked a switch and the fountains were turned off so we retraced our steps and left Victory Park, descending the elevator back to the Park Probedy Metro station and then took the short journey home where leaving the Metro at Rizhskaya, the scene of the 2004 Chechen suicide bombings that killed ten people, we were pleased to see that the old lady had finally sold all of her simple flower bouquets and was on her way home.

Russia, Caviar, Millionaires and Paupers

Red Square is a place that I think I would find difficult to tire of and we walked through Resurrection Gate and in the shadow of the red brick history museum looked down and marvelled again at the multi-coloured domes of St. Basil’s, at the granite blocks of the Lenin Mausoleum on one side and the cream facade of GUM shopping arcade on the other.

I think I would have been happy to wander around here for the rest of the day but it was lunch time, Kim was hungry and so we went again to No 57 CTOΛOBAЯ for something to eat and after the meal we walked through the malls to see the shops.

In 1996 when my son Jonathan was about twelve years old in I took him to London for the day and we visited the major sights and attractions.  On the way home I asked him what he liked most about the day and confidently expecting him to say the Tower of London or Trafalgar Square or Buckingham Palace I was taken aback somewhat when he declared the highlight of the visit to be the twenty minutes or so that we spent in Fortnum and Masons!  I was intrigued by that but he explained that he just thought the high prices were really funny – he wondered how they priced such an everyday item as Yorkshire tea bags and concluded that they must take the basic price, double it and then times it by ten before putting it on the shelves for the tourists.

Well, he would have found this place amusing as well then because the prices were truly astronomical and way off my scale of affordability.  In one shop a linen jacket cost £400 and that, I can tell you, is more or less my clothing budget for the year.

There was no doubting that they were nice shops, well laid out and all clean and tidy and clean and tidy no doubt because there were no shoppers inside them.  The prices everywhere were huge, in a food hall we bought some confectionary at massive prices and our knees buckled at the cost of champagne and vodka.  We took some photographs and were promptly told off for it.  The photographs were of the caviar where a tin about the size of a John West can of tuna was a heart-stopping 60,000 roubles and give or take a few kopecs that is about £1,200 and I don’t spend that much on groceries in six months!

Somebody must buy it though because it is apparently extremely perishable and will only last on display like this for a maximum of six weeks.  Worst still, once opened it has to be consumed within three days so if you are going to share a tin of this between two of you that is an eye-popping £600s worth of fish eggs each over a weekend!

And herein lies the paradox because the gap between rich and poor in Moscow and Russia is huge.  According to research, the richest slice of Russian society has doubled its wealth in the past twenty years, while almost two-thirds of the population is no better off and the poor are barely half as wealthy as they were when the Soviet Union collapsed.  The wealthiest fifth of the population receive a pay cheque equivalent to nearly double its value in 1991, while the poorest fifth made only half in real terms.  In total, 60% of the population has the same real income or less than the average of twenty years ago and some people are now looking back fondly at the days of the managed economy.

Moscow is now officially the third most expensive city in Europe after Geneva and Zurich and whilst some people might be able to afford to shop in the GUM boutiques most have absolutely no chance of doing so.

It was late afternoon so we did some final souvenir shopping in the street market stalls outside Red Square and then took a Metro directly back to the hotel district.  After the GUM experience I took more notice of the people rather than the architecture.  Ordinary people trying to supplement their income by selling a few items – hand made crochet, second hand clothes or garden produce.  At the station an old lady at the entrance had a few bunches of ragged flowers from her garden or balcony, Kim gave her a 100 rouble note, which is only a couple of £s but the look of gratitude on her face was distressing, Kim turned down the flowers and she pushed the note deep inside her coat for safe keeping.

Two hours later when we returned to the Metro station to go back to the city she was still there so Kim gave her another 100 rouble note and I reminded her that the last time she showed an act of kindness like this thirty minutes later she was robbed on the Athens Metro.

Russia, Red Square and My Top Ten Piazzas, Plazas and Squares

A couple of blog posts ago a fellow WordPress blogger, Victor Tribunsky, left a comment and asked if I agreed with the assessment of Jeremy Clarkson that Moscow’s Red Square is the most beautiful in the World and this set me thinking.

Not being as widely travelled as Jeremy Clarkson I am hardly qualified to make this statement but in no particular order I have compiled my own personal top ten. These are places that I have enjoyed visiting, photographing and simply sitting at a pavement café enjoying a beer. Red Square, Moscow has gone straight in there and here in no particular order are the other nine:

Rynek Główny, the Main Market Square in Kraków, Poland

This is claimed to be the largest medieval square in Europe and remains the most important market square of the Old Town in Kraków.  I liked it there –  the centre of the square is dominated by the Cloth Hall rebuilt in 1555 in the Renaissance style, topped by a beautiful attic or Polish parapet decorated with carved masks.

On one side of the Hall is the Town Hall Tower on the other the tenth century Church of St. Wojciech and the Adam Mickiewicz Monument. Rising above the square are the Gothic towers of St. Mary’s Basilica which has a tower where on the hour a bugle call sounds out.  The story says that it was played by a guard during the Tatars’ invasion in the thirteenth century, who used it to warn citizens of an attack. Unfortunately for him, he was shot in mid tune and since that day the melody breaks off just at the moment he died and then starts again a few seconds later when someone else picked up his bugle and carried on in his place.

Piazza del Campo, Siena

Even though it was raining this did not spoil my visit to the Piazza del Campo to see the venue for the famous annual Palio horserace.

This is probably the most famous festival in Tuscany and was first raced in the year 1273 and is a colourful medieval pageant that takes place twice a year on 2^nd July and 16^th August.   It is so called because riders race each other for a Palio or winners banner and it is a competition where seventeen seriously crazy jockeys hurtle bareback around a confined square with dangerously adjacent buildings and perilously close spectators; I have concluded that they are probably taxi drivers for the rest of the year.

Trujillo, Extremadura, Spain

I have posted before about my favourite Plaza Mayor in Spain and this one certainly makes the list.

All around the square there are grand palaces and mansions and outside the sixteenth century Iglesia de San Martín in the north-east corner is the reason why – a great equestrian statue of the Spanish conquistador, Francisco Pizzaro.  It is an interesting coincidence that many of the sixteenth century explorers and adventurers who carved out the Spanish Empire in South America came from Extremadura and as well as Pizzaro, Hérnan Cortés, who defeated the Aztecs, Hernando De Soto, who explored Florida, and Pedro de Almagro, who accompanied Pizzaro, all came from this south-west corner of Spain.

St. Mark’s Square, Venice

Napoleon may or may not have called the Piazza San Marco “the finest drawing room in Europe” but whether he did or he didn’t it doesn’t really matter because it is indeed one of the finest squares in all of Europe.

San Marco or is the principal public square of Venice where it is generally known just as ‘the Piazza’.  All other urban spaces in the city (except the Piazzetta) are called ‘campi’ (fields). The Piazzetta (the ‘little Piazza’) is an extension of the Piazza towards the lagoon in its south east corner and the two spaces together form the social, religious and political centre of the city.

Trevi Fountain, Rome

There was no need for a map to find it, we just followed the swarm of people, because this has to be one of the busiest places in Rome with the huge fountain almost completely filling the tiny Piazza with people crammed in and shuffling through as they squeeze slowly past the crowds.

There is a tradition of throwing three coins in the fountain guarantees that you will return one day to Rome.  These days’ tourists with a desire to return to the Eternal City deposit an average of €3,000 a day in the fountain and this is collected up every night and is used to fund social projects for the poor of the city.

Old Town Square, Prague

The streets were busy and we walked until reaching the old town, which opened up into a spacious and welcoming central square with elegant pastel coloured buildings and it was free of traffic so we were able to wander aimlessly around looking ever upwards and admiring the houses that surrounded it.

In the centre is the Jan Hus monument, a religious reformer who was burnt at the stake for his beliefs.  In the Middle Ages there always came a time where persisting with a point of view became dangerous to life and limb and poor old Jan obviously did not get his timing right, a bit like Thomas More and his out of touch views on King Henry’s wedding plans.

Djemma el Fna, Marrakech

This was quite unlike anything we had ever seen or visited before and it was everything we had expected but more with a riot of colour and frenetic activity that was exciting and vibrant.

I took a picture of some musicians who demanded money and became rather agitated when I refused and then we walked past the snake charmers and the men with Barbary Apes all trying to sell photographs, fortune tellers and soothsayers and my favourite the tooth puller who would have provided dental surgery at a fraction of the cost of the National Health Service if we had been brave enough to allow him.  There were rows and rows of market stalls selling fresh and dried fruits and others competing to sell a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and all around the square were cafés and restaurants with high level balconies where people were sitting and just enjoying the random entertainment.

Pula, Croatia

This has been Pula’s main square for a long time because in one corner, close to where we were sitting was the two thousand year old Roman Temple of Augustus which was in surprisingly good shape for all its years. It was hot now and the sun was trapped in the square and the heat intensified as it bounced off the white walls and pavements made of dazzling Istrian stone.

Bruges, Belgium

Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium.  In the middle ages, thanks to the wool trade, it was one of the most important cities in Europe and the historic city centre is an important UNESCO World Heritage Site because most of its medieval architecture remains intact.

I had visited Bruges before in 1981 so I thought I knew what I was looking for but over the years I must have got mixed up because the place looked nothing like I remembered it.  I knew that we were looking for a large square and I had in mind something classical like St Marks in Venice so I was surprised when we reached the famous market square to find nothing like that at all.

This is my personal Top Ten and it could change tomorrow – leave a comment and tell me what you would have included!