No time for a detailed blog post today, but just back from a sunset tour of Yevpatoria with the rest of the Veloforum delegates.
Fascinating.
Tag Archives: Architecture
Padua is a great place to be a cyclist – and with added Cycle Chic
Although it is much less well known than some of its more famous neighbours Venice and Verona I think Padua is a great place to ride a bike and should make a good stopping point for any passing cycle tourists or advocates interested in seeing a fully traffic calmed city in Italy. (Thinks out loud “Padua for my English readers or Padova out of respect for its proper name? No idea – use a bit of both.”)
Last week in Verona I was lucky enough to be guided and helped by the cycle tours organised by local volunteers but here in Padua the local FIAB volunteers were flat out proving cycling fun for children visiting the Padova Expobici cycling show so I was a bit more on my own.
However they did provide the equipment, a mountain bike that was a reasonable steed for the cobbled streets throughout the city centre. Unfortunately when I first collected it from the hotel baggage room it had a flat which did lead to one of the most entertaining misunderstandings of my ventures into Italian.
My hosts asked me to bring the bike to the children’s try out area at the show where the volunteers had said they would stick in a new tube. So of course along I pop pushing the bike and wander up to the desk. Unfortunately the chap on the desk was the one person not in the know and he was convinced I was a 50 year old juvenile who wanted to play on the kids track! I was sent off to play with the big kids despite all my attempted explanations. It was all resolved with considerable amusement a bit later by the rest of FIAB Padova.
Anyway back to my trips into the city.
The photos here come from two excursions into the town which I fitted around my work at the Expobici. On Saturday morning when the flat tyre was discovered I walked the city which led to my early discovery of the great contrast with Verona that I blogged about last week.
I keep mentioning in my posts how much I like mornings, there is something quite different about a city waking up, especially when the dominant noise is the rattling of bicycles and the shouts of the market traders , not to mention the fact that you can actually smell pastries and coffee everywhere.
On Saturday evening I also had a ride into town but unfortunately no time for photos as I was off to dinner with my hosts. This gave me a ride through the city from north to south and a great chance to zig zag around the narrow alleys and short cuts. However I was stopped in my tracks when I emerged into Piazza Prato della Valle. It is the most enormous open square that I have ever seen in a city of this size. I was immediately reminded of Plaza de Espana in Seville but this seemed even bigger.
This gave me the itinerary for my Sunday morning ride because I really wanted to see the Piazza in daylight, even if the morning was a bit gloomy. But this time because I had a bike I was able to take a slightly longer route and I decided to circle around the branch of a river which serves as a historic moat around the inner city. Riding along waterways you often see bits of architecture and heritage that survive from different eras and the water itself can be great. Turned out that Padova was no exception, the western branch of the river took me along quiet streets with some gorgeous old bridges, buildings and perspectives on the city.
With time running out I swung back towards the centre of the city along the ample cycle lanes and came to Piazza Prato della Valle again. The translation is “Meadow of the Valley” so I can only imagine that at one time this was a vast open space leading to the river. Today it is a formal square with a ring of water features, statutes and seats in the middle and a vast open expanse of walking and cycling space. At one end Abbazia di Santa Giustina is a huge church and abbey but even it seems lost in the corner of the open space.
The cyclists mooching through the square just showed the scale, they looked tiny and even a club group of 20 road riders turned out in immaculately matching club colours could not make it look busy.
Great place to ride a bike. And on a human level some final thoughts. When Venice was a city state Padua was its university town, a tradition it keeps up today. So the first thing I noticed about the cyclists and pedestrians was the large numbers of young people, something cycling shares with other great university centres, surely something we must keep building on throughout the world. 
And also in keeping with the great cycling centres of Amsterdam and Copenhagen I am sure that a significant majority of the cyclists I saw were women. 
As advocates we are always told that when you make your cycling cities female friendly 
you are on the right path, Padua cycling culture must be a great example because it is young, female and wearing ordinary clothes.. The Cycle Chic movement writ large, excellent.
Now if only the cycling shows could understand that ….. But that is another story.
Wandering Verona – first impressions
I wandered Verona in the late afternoon – still probably 25 degrees temperature and a glaring sun.
Odd mixture of a place – the main central attractions were interesting enough, but slightly lost in people and traffic, not least the terrible tourist trap that is Juliet’s house and balcony.
But on the banks of the river Adige I found some wonderful spots – the old roman theatre clambering up the hillside with multiple layers of medieval development on top of the roman base. Views across the river to St Georgio church and a tower way up on a hill beyond. The Castelvecchio with its calm inner courtyard and then access onto the delightful walled bridge the Ponte Scaligero which was wonderfully picked out in the evening light and thronging with walkers and cyclists using it to get home. If I lived here I would go a long way round to use this traffic free route on my way home to avoid the busy streets.
And of course as always in Italy the gems. Tucked away in side streets are tiny scenes of calm, balconies and porticoes with tables to eat and swathes of greenery.
My favourite so far? The Roman Theatre is set up as an amphitheatre for plays and music and while I was wandering up its many layers a band was doing sound checks and playing odd tracks through the speakers. The sound was muffled outside, but as I climbed up the many chambers, cloisters and secret gardens the perfect acoustics of the theatre forced it to well up and drifted through windows, around corners and into private corners where I was almost alone and away from the city. Precious.
When you open the shutters in an Italian hotel room it is essential that…
….the sky is blue, the rooftops are red and the street is bustling with noise.
Welcome to Verona, city of Romeo and Juliet.
More from the weekend at the EICA bike show to come later.
My best day’s photography ever? The light of Venice
My old camera died last week, probably battered to death by the constant bashing in and out of pockets when cycling. A sad end to a regular companion of nearly eight years, but I can never say that I didn’t get value from it. Birthday coming up, so the present is decided.
It seems amazing to me that I have only been blogging for less than a year and already I can see a change in my photography, thinking of more interesting approaches and images than I did before so I can describe my travels. I feel quite embarrassed when someone asks about how I took a shot or what camera I use because I really cannot compare to the work that I see on the web and I am using a small eight year old camera. But there are shots from earlier years that I am quite pleased with and I thought I might put together a self-indulgent set that deserve to join more recent ones in the blog to close the door on that camera.
However when I was looking I came across just one set of shots that stood out above the rest and deserved a post of their own. So indulge me – RIP Fujifilm Finepix E550.
Spring three years ago I went to Venice for the first time.
We arrived on a horrible wet day and stayed in a hotel on the mainland. In the evening we took the train over to the island city. I must admit I was completely underwhelmed as our hosts dragged us through a maze of dark, rainy and graffiti strewn alleys to a restaurant and then back in the evening. Clearly a place that was over-rated and ruined by its own reputation.
However I went back on the Saturday morning with a free day and the most extraordinary light burst from a cloudless sky, especially out on the ferries from the Grand Canal into the surrounding lagoon. From a photographic point of view the best opportunities I have ever seen, and a small chance to capture why Venice is “Serenissima, Queen of the Adriatic”. Possibly my best day with a camera. So far?
Vancouver – meanderings, musings and buildings
Last two days in Vancouver before I move into holiday mode.
Rounding up some incidental photos from across the week, wanderings on Saturday and then off to watch the European Championships finals in the Italian area of Vancouver – which was achieved by way of a few discoveries on the way.
So this is a messy post, but one that closes the week nicely.
Mood – chilled out. Everywhere should have a cycle route called Chilco, but it sums up the weekend mood in Vancouver just nicely.
And Saturday’s ride was a gentle meander after the rain which took me to Inukshuk.
T
he symbol of the stones is actually seen all over BC as a welcome, but this one on the Seaside was oddly accompanied by pillars of stones set on the rocks by the sea. I am sure I could look up why, but they seemed oddly apt beside the larger piece.
Nearby I also saw the most over-ambitious roof garden I have ever seen. It’s a bit grainy, but yes there is a tree on that roof facing the sea winds. “More money than sense” as your granny would say.
Sunday
And to today’s ride. Out from the city centre to Commercial Road which is lined with Italian cafes and restaurants, so the obvious spot to see Italy play Spain in the Euros.
And handily marked a quiet streets cycle route out to my destination and back.
Diverting slightly off route via Chinatown on the way out I found this amazing mural.
The Chinatown is not as ornate as those in London or Manchester with such defined entrances, it seems to be a more authentic Chinese living and trading area than a tourist trap.
Chinatown then gives on to some lovely residential streets with what I would call “colonial” style houses, although that is probably not the politically correct term in the 21st Century.
To Commercial Road where throngs are gathered on the pavements outside every cafe, although it appears the Spanish are almost as populous as Italians, and even more so when they won – resulting in a street parade of honking horns and flags.
So finally I drift back towards the railway and bus station for my bus to Whistler.
And I am rewarded by excellent views back over the city, some great cycling themed murals and then finally the outstanding modernist 1920s interior of the Vancouver main railway station – a building lost well out from the city centre. A shame because the interior is a treat.
Porticoes of Bologna – symbol of a city
The city of Bologna has over 30km (20miles) of porticoes, the covered walkways in front of its shops and city buildings, perhaps the most distinctive feature of this former walled city which grew rich on trade routes of northern Italy. I had always heard of Bologna as an industrial town, giving it a somewhat dreary image that meant I had missed it for Rome, Venice and Florence.
But of course I have been distracted by guide book tourism. Outside its old centre Bologna is part of Italy’s industrial north and the roadsides have many factories and warehouses. But in a country like Italy, bursting with gems of antiquity and culture, it is easy to overlook places that in any other country would be star attractions. It was only after visiting the centre this weekend that I found so much more. As a morning person I loved the tranquillity and the hazy sunshine as the city came to life. 
At the weekend Bologna’s mediaeval streets are closed to traffic and after slow relaxed early morning the city gradually starts to bustle and then bursts out into lively evenings as the student population of the oldest university in the world hits the streets. The porticoes themselves create an interplay of light and shade which lends itself to photography and the weekend scene is wonderfully undisturbed by engines.
My host was proud Bolognese Moreno who was determined not only to give me the tour but to represent the sights as a symbol of the city’s population – hard working and business-like, none of your fancy types of Florence or Milan here.
He identified the porticoes as the symbol of this industrial culture. Today they are shopping heaven. Each portico has its own character, differing slightly in the height of the arches, the spacing of the columns of the colour of the plaster. But they provide the model for the shopping mall of the 20th Century – cool in the heat, dry in the rain or snow, cover for eating and drinking. 
Their origins actually are in sales, but the portico itself was the sales space, craftsmen acquiring a bit of the street to lay out their wares while the building behind was the workshop and store for each craft. Fed by the trade routes between the many cities there was an abundant supply of material which the craftsmen converted for sale. Each street has its own trade, from fishmongers to jewellers, bakers and woodworkers.
Bologna Sala Borsa – original stock exchange
This trading pattern also brought us other features of modern commercial life. Bologna has one of the first stock exchanges in the world, financing the business ventures of the larger families and merchants, not to mention the towers they built to show off their power and status. And I learned the origin of two of the most feared phrases of commercial life – “bankrupt” or “broke”. When you defaulted on your debts in mediaeval Italy the bankers would come to the display in front of your workshop and break your shelves to stop you trading. The bank “ruptures” your shelves and you were indeed “broke”.
Older portico in wood
The very oldest porticoes surviving today didn’t have the more modern columns, they have just timbers or arches supporting the lodgings above the store. You can see examples down some of the narrower side streets and over the older shops. But gradually the city insisted that property owners build and maintain the columned walkways which feature today. However to underline the workmanlike image which Bologna cultivates the columns here were built of brick, not the marble that adorns Rome and Florence.
Heavily damaged in the Second World War many have been restored.The more pretentious arcades are clearly prized by the most aspirational brands, but of course there are just a few that really feel like they shouldn’t be here.
OK call me a culture snob if you must, but it just isn’t right – is it?
After trade the other cultural icon of the Bolognese is food. The city has apparently been called la Grassa or “Fat one” and all food lovers know Bolognese sauce. But other pasta such as filled tortellini have equal billing here. Without understanding a word of the Italian it was enough to listen to Moreno and our waiter argue about whether it was ever acceptable to serve tortellini with sauce to know that this really matters in Bologna. Moreno lost the argument too, a rare occurrence. The restaurant would clearly rather we left than defile the tortellini with sauce, but the broth in which they came was exquisite, a delicate clear consommé.
These bakers making the craft breads in front of the old church on Sunday morning were representing the artisan bakers of the whole district with a constant bustle of locals buying by the bagful to go with Sunday lunch.
I could get very, very attached to a historic and attractive city that has thousands of bicycles, clears its streets for its people and places such value on community, work, food and education. Bologna has clearly been hard-done-by in the competition for guide book reviews, it provided a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.
Houses, gardens and architecture of the Danube valley – Lower Austria
Gallery
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Spring sunshine, sharp sunlight. The colours of the buildings, houses and gardens are brought into sharp focus while cycling along the Danube Cycleway and the Franz Schubert Cycleway between Vienna and Krems. I especially like the old wine houses and … Continue reading
I Do Not Despair 