Lenin faces out to the river, mid-speech, arm-raised, cap tucked in his pocket, oblivious to the harsh wind blowing off the Neva. There are some dying carnations at his feet and behind him, the red flags with the hammer and sickle fly confidently in the wind and the façades of valiant workers on the front of Finlyandsky Station can just be made out. No, I’ve time travelled back in time to the USSR, I’ve just trekked over the river to Lenin Square. As a lover of Soviet retroness, I wanted to see a Lenin statue still standing and I was not disappointed. Admittedly, the hammer and sickle flags aren’t actually USSR ones, they are a modern variant put up for the Victory Day celebrations in a couple of days time which celebrate the Red Army’s triumph over the Nazis, but I like the ambiance it creates. It wasn’t easy to get here, earlier it had chucked it down and my trainers are still soaked, and a cold wind blasted me as I trudged over the bridge, but it’s worth it. The only tourist, I take a few pictures then head into the station to get the Metro. I am rooting through my bag to find my purse and when I look up, I’m confronted by a huge mural of the little dictator, a worker at his feet handing him a pitchfork. I had to smile, this was more Soviet retroness than I had bargained for.

Sure, Saint Petersburg in beautiful and The Hermitage has a whole load of mega-star artists in the gorgeous setting of the Winter Palace, but this is one of my favourite Saint Petes memories. This was my first day in the Motherland. Out of all the countries in the world, Russia has been the one I have most wanted to visit. I’ve grappled with the language, read (some of) the great

Victory Day banners on Nevsky Prospeckt

novels, studied the history, taken up some of the politics and wasn’t quite sure what to expect at all. I’d heard Russians are cold and unfriendly, but the girls running the hostel treated me like an old friend. I thought I would struggle with the food, but so far, I was doing OK. I’d already discovered the blini fast food chain Teremok’s ‘Blini Email’, a pancake filled with delicious creamed mushrooms and cheese, and I’d already figured out the Metro.

Just walking the streets of the city was fascinating, there were traders with boxes full of eels, Russian girls teetering about in pin-thin stilettos and old babushkas with bright coloured head-scarves selling vegetables and eggs. Outside the hostel, an old man in military fatigues was loitering who bore a passing resemblance to Fidel Castro and the Nevsky Prospekt is decked out in the red, white and blue flags, Red Army badges, red and yellow stars for the Victory Day parade, above the designer shops and Western fast-food chains.

Dostoevsky’s study

So I’d paid tribute to the history and the art, but couldn’t not pay tribute to St. Petersburg’s greatest, adopted, literary son. The Dostoevsky House and Museum is located in a building where he spent some time when he was older, married and successful. The apartment has been faithfully recreated and the museum is designed to reflect his fantastical, dream and nightmarish-like visions of Saint Petersburg. I left feeling awed and also slightly depressed because however hard I try as a writer I know I’ll never write anything as good as The Devils (which featured Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky who liked to complain of the aforementioned ‘summer cholera’) or Crime and Punishment. I understand why Dostoevsky was so drawn to the darker side of the human condition though as I am myself. He didn’t have an easy life, being banished to a labour camp amongst murderers and thieves (which proved to be a great inspiration) and getting tied into crap publishing contracts, but I got the impression he was a man with a great sense of humour and a real devotion to his family. Great taste in wallpaper too if the apartment is really authentically recreated.

On my last day, before the midnight train to Moscow, I hunted down a vegetarian restaurant, The Beautiful Green, where I had some ‘pelmeni’, Russian dumplings. Maybe this is going to get the FSB on my case, but I have to say, I preferred Polish ‘pierogi’.

It was my first taste of Russian night trains, and I can only hope they all live up to this one. As I struggled along the platform to my carriage with my backpack, smaller rucksack, handbag and bag of food which contained half a quart of Lithuanian vodka, I was suddenly serenaded by rousing, triumphant orchestral music. Cymbals crashing, brass, that kind of thing. Music for a solider returning from War, or a girl on the start of an epic Russian adventure.

My Kupe cabin on the midnight train to Moscow

The train was gorgeous. All red and yellow inside and I had a whole kupe cabin to myself. The bed was ready-made to climb into and I slept so well I woke up and wondered where the hell I was and why was the bed moving. It was a pleasant surprise when the provodnista (the stewardess allotted to each carriage) came and brought me breakfast – an aeroplane style box full of bread, cream cheese, yoghurt, orange juice. Ok, so there was some kind of meat with gherkin and olives that I couldn’t eat and don’t think I’d have fancied even if I was a carnivore, but it a nice touch.

Moscow Maddness

So, to Moscow. I arrived at rush hour and navigating the Metro was not fun. I didn’t even notice the ornate decoration at Komsomolskaya station, I was too busy trying to figure out the system,which seemed totally confusing. There was no time to recover from this ordeal though once I’d reached the hostel because I had to SIGHTSEE and there was no time to lose. I’d realised three days in Moscow wasn’t going to be enough even before I got there. So I valiantly hopped back onto the Metro and heading to the flea and souvenir market near Izmaylovskaya Park. I was still searching for a Russian stacking doll of the Soviet Leaders, staring with Gorbachev and going back chronologically to a tiny Lenin. I’d seen them in Berlin but they were too expensive there. Well, it seemed that Gorbachev is out of favour here. There were dolls of Lenin, a large, nine piece set starting with a large Stalin (perfect for any mantelpiece), followed illogically by Putin, but none of Gorbachev! Why have the Russians rejected their Nobel Prize winning, perestoyka-introducing last Communist leader? By the end of my time in Moscow I can’t help but think it’s because they deem him responsible for breaking up the USSR. Anyway, not only was a really disappointed not to find my coveted Soviet doll, but it was from here on in that Russian food took a turn for the worst. I chanced some street food, a pasty type thing that was supposed to be cheese and ‘ne meerca’… no meat. It was tasty but halfway in and I discovered a strange substance that was definitely flesh-like. I was convinced I was going to get food poisoning and throw up on the metro or in the Kremlin which I was visiting that afternoon. Thankfully, this didn’t happen.

Finding the Kremlin ticket office was easy, but reaching it was not. Because of Victory Day, Red Square and half the streets and Metro exits around it were

The megaroad you have to cross to reach the Kremlin

closed. After a detour that had unintentionally taken in the Bolshoi theatre, Lubyanka, home of the KGB HQ, G.U.M department store and Revolution Square, I stood on the other side of the road, remembering how in Rome a Canadian woman in my dorm had warned me of the Moscow traffic and said ‘I was like, I can see The Kremlin, but it’s over ten lanes of traffic’. My God, I totally got this now. I was ready to strangle someone by the time I finally managed to get to the other side of the road. Sod the churches, I thought, and just bought a ticket for The Armoury. At the princely sum of seven hundred roubles it wasn’t cheap. ‘It had better be good’ I muttered to myself, ‘or else I’m going to… smash up my audio guide… or something’.

Well, The Armoury is a unique museum of decorative items and the sum total of all the dazzling gold, silver, diamonds and other gems in there must be worth more than Roman Abramovich: there were medieval filigree gold bible cases, ostentatious Baroque cups decorated with solid gold fruits, gold candle holders with figurines of nymphs and Greek Gods, Ostrich feather fans with jewel encrusted handles and all sorts of other treasures.  My favourite things were the Fabergé eggs though. Sadly, the one mentioned in my guidebook, dedicated to the Trans-Siberian railway, with a little train inside, was out on loan, but the others were so beautiful – like the glass egg decorated with hundred of tiny, sparking diamonds, with a little ship inside, a gift from one of the Emperors to his wife. Oh, to find a man who gives a girl Fabergé eggs!

That night me and some of the others from the hostel ended up at the Propaganda nightclub. If there was one nightclub in the world I’ve always wanted to go to it was this one, even if it was playing house music. No stiletto heels and micro-skirts here, I was totally at home in my jeans and Converse trainers. I even accidentally smuggled the Lithuanian vodka in (long story). I stayed out until half two and then had to get up for nine because the next day was Victory Day! Me and Ros, another English girl from the hostel, went to try to see the Victory Day parade. We hung around at the end of the road where a load of locals had assembled, but after about forty five minutes realised there was actually nothing to see here and we’d be better off watching it on TV back at the hostel. On the way home we did, however, see the fly overs: the Russian air force showing off all their best planes, I think. All round the city, stages had been set up with WWII-themed entertainment and the street stalls were doing a brisk trade in little Red Army hats. Some Russians even donned the garishly

A Victory Day reveller

coloured, fake fur Cossack hats with the Soviet badge on that I though were only for stupid tourists. I saw a man in a white one passed out in front of the souvenir shop he may well have bought it from down on the Arbat.

Best thing in Moscow though? For me, the Memorial Museum of Cosmonauts. As a result, I have become obsessed with the Soviet space programme. The building it’s in is impressive enough: the roof turns into one giant metal ‘whoosh’ rising about a hundred metres up and tapering at the end where there is a little metal rocket. Along the sides of the building are one of the best Socialist Realism tableaux I’ve seen. Some people knock this somewhat contrived genre of art, but the composition of this scene of all the workers involved in getting Yuri Gagarin to the stars, including one of the dogs, flowed so well. And it was so touching, it almost brought a tear to my eye.

Inside the museum, although most of it’s in Russian, there are the stuffed

The Cosmonaut Museum roof

bodies of Belka and Strelka, two dogs who made it back from space, real space suits, Yuri Gargarin’s electrogram showing his heart going haywire the night he went up, and lots of photos including one of Yuri meeting Che Guevara. Whilst I don’t agree with all their practices, particularity the use of animals, it is staggering that the scientists and engineers managed to invent space travel at a time when there were no computers, mobiles phones, internet, just a few years after a crippling war. And how cool must it be to go into space. The pictures of the Cosmonauts training and on missions made it look like fun, though I know some of them (Astronauts at least) go a bit mad or join weird cults when they come back down, still wonder if I too old to be a cosmonaut when I grow up.

Afterwards we went to the All-Russian Exhibition Centre Park. Today was another public holiday and it seemed the whole of Moscow had come out. As we approached the entrance, a huge neoclassical arch topped with some victorious workers, we passed people selling puppies, a competition to see how long someone can hang onto a metal bar, people dressed as Red Indians playing pan-pipes, lots of flashy-looking motorbikes, including one with a real live monkey on the back and all sorts of other madness. Inside the park, in front of huge there was a fun fair, stalls selling Victory Day flags and hats, and USSR ice cream for sale. I had one – it was like Mr. Whippy but encased in chocolate, delicious but it fell apart towards the end as ungraciously as the Soviet Union itself did. There were even Soviet-style water dispensers. Yulia, my new Ukrainian friend, had told me about these the night before when we were having a pint by Red Square– back in the old days they didn’t have plastic cups so one cup was placed under the dispenser and constantly reused. This, so she told me, became known as the ‘cup of the USSR’. The two Russian guys who’d attached themselves to us looked too young to remember communism but still knew about ‘the cup’.

On the boulevard leading to a huge building with Romanesque columns and a

Go-Kart Lenin

hammer and sickle crest, guys walked with their girls who were wearing heels far to high for a sunny day in the park, as rollerbladers tried to weave through the crowds. Others sat around the fountains and drank beer. There was a kids go-kart track, built around a large statue of Lenin. We walked though all this – we were looking for the Friendship Fountain which had been mentioned in my guidebook as something to see, well, nothing can quite prepare you for the first glimpse of it. It is a Socialist-Realist/ Neoclassical monster of thing, the audaciousness of which is only matched by Rome’s Trevi Fountain. Golden maidens, each representing one of the USSR republics stand around the giant centrepiece, and enough water gushes out that I’m sure, if you stood on the right side, on a windy day would give you a great shower I loved it. Around it, buildings fashioned on Rome’s Imperial Fora, but with the obligatory communist touches, rose. The place was epic.
If I hadn’t got David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ stuck in my head, I would surely have had ‘Back in the USSR’ after today.

That epic fountain

Afterwards we went to a terrible restaurant which had nothing vegetarian on the vast menu but a ratatouille and left me thinking I should stick to pizza and pasta for the rest of my time here.

Towards Siberia

The next day I bid a sad ‘dosvedanya’ to Moscow and headed to Suzdal, a Golden Ring town, that despite only being a few hours out of the capital felt like a world away. No metro rush hour here, to reach the hostel I walked down a cobbled road, past a wooden bridge over a sleepy river, and down a dirt track. The only sounds here are birdsong, the regular chiming of church bells (Suzal has more churches per person that anywhere in the country I think) and a strange squawking noise that I at first thought was ducks but then surmised was coming from hundreds of frogs hiding in the river reeds. I have a phobia of frogs so it’s a credit to Suzdal’s charm that this didn’t put me off the place. A quick glance at a restaurant menu that had not a single vegetarian item on it told me I should head to the supermarket instead. Ah, slices of cold pizza were available in the chilled section! But then I discovered that even the margarita had chicken on it! I had to make do with some dry bread, some cheese spread and a disgusting ready made beetroot salad (this hostel had no kitchen… I hate hostels which have no kitchens). I think it’s only going to get worse. I was glad I’d stocked up on instant noodles and porriage oats for the two day train I was about to take to Novosibirsk.

My Baltic sojourn started in Vilnius, Lithuania. I would say it’s a quaint little

The constitution of Užupis

city but one of the guys who was staying in my hostel got pepper-sprayed and robbed when coming home from a club one night, so it’s not that quaint. Still, they a little area of artists, bohemians and other open-minded types that has discovered has declared itself a republic. The Republic of Užupis has it’s own quirky constitution and a plethora of small art galleries of varying quality. They also have a street dedicated to writers, which I think everywhere should have. Oh yes, and then there is the very quaint Museum of Genocide Victims, set in the old KGB-HQ. After the Museum of Terror in Budapest, the Stasi exhibition and the Third Reich tour in Berlin and Auschwitz I wasn’t sure I could hack any more of the Twentieth century’s bloody violence, but it started raining so I thought I’d give it ago. The museum mainly focused on the story of those who were sent to labour camps in the USSR but you could also go down to the prison cells and into the old execution chamber where a very explicit video reconstructing of what happened there was playing.

Absinthe… just say no

After that I needed a drink and fortunately, on returning to the hostel, found that everyone else in my dorm did as well: Denis from Italy, Niklas and Daniel from Germany and Jerry from Hong Kong, yes, all guys but I’ve always thought I can keep up with the boys when it comes to drinking. We ended up in some club that fitted every stereotype of an Eastern European nightclub, and then a bar where we did some very nice tasting absinthe. After that, it’s all a bit of blur and the last thing I remember was chewing poor Niklas’ ear off back at the hostel, lamenting why people are so evil.
I was supposed to be getting the twelve o’clock bus to Riga, but I set my alarm wrong and woke up at twenty to twelve with a sore head, around which that Carly Rae Jepson song was firmly circulating. Way after that twelve o’clock coach had gone, when I finally got to the coach station and went to buy a new ticket, I found my purse was full of Euros. How the hell did they get there? Must have happened when I was drunk and I couldn’t work out if I’d been scammed out of Lithuanian Litas. I was too hungover to think about it. Having experienced severe ‘coach sickness’ numerous times on the rail replacement bus back to Runcorn the morning after wild nights out in Manchester I dared eat nothing but a few Tuc biscuits and so the several hours long, hot, stuffy journey was somewhat painful. I was so grateful to discover, upon reaching Riga, that there was a branch of Latvia’s version of Pizza Express just over the (admittedly very wide) road from my hostel.

And then the Russian classes started. This was why I’d come to Riga, to brush up on my ‘nemenoga’/ not-very-much-at-all Russian. By a coincidence as huge as the one towards the end of The Place Beyond the Pines (which I went to see at Riga’s multiplex), my hostel was in the very same building as the Russian school, and my room was one floor below. What a result. Not that there was any need to stay in bed until ten minutes before class… there was no partying at this hostel. Thank god. Trying to learn Russian would be excruciating with a hangover. I only had one classmate, Maria, and she was German so had learn it in school a bit. Most of my knowledge came form a textbook I picked up from a charity shop with dated from the days of the USSR and instructed you to call everyone ‘comrade’. I struggled with those pesky, and may I say, nonsensical adverb and article endings.

But Riga, wow, who would have thought it would be such a fabulous city for vegetarian food? The first day Maria and I went for lunch to Double Coffee, a sort of Latvian Starbucks, I was shocked to find the whole lunch menu featured not a single scrap of flesh. There was bean soup, pancakes with vegetarian toppings, and all sorts of other delights. I found the nicest hummus ever in the supermarket and there was a really cheap Hare Krishna café, serving wonderful vegetarian Indian food.

Riga… veggie capital of the Western world?

I have to commend Riga as well on having the most impressive Indian restaurant of my trip so far. Yola, a girl I met off couchsurfing, and I sampled this one evening and my vegetable Jalfrazi was genuinely spicy. Later we sampled the local drink – Black Balzam. It’s some kind of spirit made with lots of herbs and spices. I had some with hot blackcurrant and it tasted like Lemsip. Better was the a drink called Green Day I had in a coffee shop – gin, warm apple juice, honey and a stick of cinnamon and fruit: really, really delicious. I declare that warm cocktails are the way forward!

With that revelation I shall finish, tune in for the next installment to find out whether my Russian is proving good enough for navigating the mean streets of Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

Transport so far:

63 bus from East Dulwich to Kings Cross, Eurostar to Paris, Paris metro to Odeon, bus to Gare du Lyon, overnight train to Florence, train to Assisi, car up the winding roads to the artist residency.

4×4 back down the mountain, Assisi to Rome train, the notorious number 64 bus, number 23 bus.

Train from Rome to Ancona, overnight ferry to Split, coach from Split to Mostar, coach from Mostar to Sarajevo, coach from Sarajevo to Belgrade.

Train from Belgrade to Budapest, overnight train from Budapest to Berlin, lots of travels on the Sbahn and Ubahn and numerous trams.

Night train to Krakow, day train to Warsaw and then too many long, long coach journies through the Baltic States. Missed this off the last post… is any actually bothered??

I read Primo Levi’s ‘If This is Man/ The Truce‘ some years ago and to be honest, I think reading that was a more powerful experience than actually being there, in the museum part at least (there are two sights – Auschwitz I, the museum, and then Auschwitz-Birkenau, the more intact and more harrowing site).

The guide hurried a herd of us round, past the piles and piles of suitcases, shoes and human hair, and then before I knew it we were standing in the gas chamber. It would have been nice to have spent some time alone, processing it all at one’s own pace, but I guess the sheer volume of visitors prevents this.

At Birkenau you see the intact train tracks running under the entrance building and stopping abruptly a few hundred metres from the destroyed gas chambers, which is the thing I found most chilling. We were standing, the guide told us, on the place where the ‘selections’ were made. Part of me felt they should have just raised the thing to the ground, such an awful place is it, but I guess there are good reasons for keeping it there.

I fell asleep on the bus back to town and woke up to find that the radio was playing ‘Runaway Train’ by Soul Asylum, a song I used to listen to incessantly when I was a young teenager. God, but now, all I could think of were those train tracks and in my mind I saw the pictures in the museum of the kids and teenagers who were sent there, flashing by like the pictures of runaway American kids did in the pop video. I had to put on my sunglasses and turn to the window to save myself from drawing strange looks.

Krakow main square

I won’t remember Krakow for just Auschwitz though. I was couchsurfing with the lovely Agata and her boyfriend, Piotr. We discussed Lech Wałęsa over beer, Agata told me what it was like being a kid under communism and they took me to a great Polish milk bar (milk bars are cheap canteens that survived the Communist era). I was expecting Poland to be tough for vegetarians so was delighted by the ‘pierogi’ – a staple Polish food of dumplings, they come with meat fillings but also ‘rushki’ (potato and cottage cheese) and with spinach and cheese. Only a few zloty and super cheap! Potato pancakes with a creamy mushroom sauce was another great veggie Polish dish.

The next day I arrived in Warsaw. I’d read it isn’t the prettiest city, but wasn’t

The crap ‘botel’

expecting it’s ugliness to almost bring me to tears. At first glance it seemed to be dominated by hideous shopping malls and huge roads. I was staying in a ‘botel’, a boat turned into a hotel though hotel would be rather a rich word for this particular place. It sounded nice on paper, being on the river and all that, but I wasn’t expecting this stretch of the river to be separated by about six lanes of traffic from the ‘mainland’. Warsaw is not a pedestrian friendly city and God help you if you’re in a wheelchair. It takes about twenty minutes to cross a road, and often pedestrians are forced underground where they must navigate subterranean labyrinths of cheap shops and fast food joints, just to get from one side of the street to the other. I badly needed to do some laundry but after three hours of walking around, only to be told by some snooty woman in the pay-per-item laundry I had been mistakenly directed to, that ‘there are no launderette in Warsaw’, I was so frustrated I felt like committing a random act of violence, or just plain bursting into tears.

The next day, Warsaw grew on me. The botel gave me a really useful map, which directed me to the best paczki in the city. Paczki are sort of like doughnuts. The bakery was down a very gentrified street, but there, just as the map described, was the grubby awning and the queue of people outside the hatch. Unable to decipher the labels, I pointed at the type that looked nicest. The one I got was was so fresh it was still warm and contained cherry jam and some kind of sweet cream cheese filling. I almost forgave Warsaw for having no launderettes. Then I went to the Zacheta art gallery and checked out their cool textiles exhibition which featured an Cold War-and-space-themed installation and a rug-crossed-with-Space-Invaders thing. By the end of the day I wished I could have stayed here a bit longer. I think Warsaw has something cool going on under the underground subway hell.

Groovy art installation

The first thing I notice about Belgrade is how absurdly friendly people are. From the old man who helps me get my huge backpack off the tram, to the

Nikola Tesla Museum

hostel owner, to the woman in the tourist office who greets me with a cheery ‘Welcome to Belgrade’. The second thing I notice is the absurd number of fast food joints, predominantly serving pizza by the slice, but also particularly Serbian delicacies such pancakes with fillings like Eurocrem e plazma (Balkan’s Nutella and biscuit crumbs).

It’s my duty to sample some of this local fodder so for lunch I try Pizzeria Trg, an eatery esteemed by local teenagers, who frequent it in force, eating pizza slices smothered in ketchup and chilli sauce. To the ambient soundtrack of loud nineties dance music I dine on a pancake filled with copious amounts of cheap cheese and mushrooms in some kind of sour cream sauce. Simply divine.

Having visited the only thing worth visiting, the Nikola Tesla museum, where you get to play with lightening and hear about the AC/DC wars, I returne to the hostel and find two Turkish guys are now sharing my dorm room. Do I want to join them for a drink they asked, before bringing out some cheap Serbian brandy. Well, so far this trip hasn’t really been that rock’n'roll so I think ‘why not, this is what travelling all about isn’t it?’. We end up getting so drunk we can’t find a bar when we finally go out to look for one so we just go back to the hostel and get even drunker. The next morning that proliferation of junk food really comes into it’s own. Perfect hngover food is a greasy slice of pizza, augmented by one of those Eurocrem and plazma pancakes later on.

But it’s my last day in Belgrade and I have to go and see Tito’s mausoleum. Another great thing about this city is that all the trams and trolley buses are effectively free. The city government is so corrupt that the drivers don’t bother to charge anyone in protest. I get the sense Tito is still quite respected across the Balkans, they have a street named after him in Sarajevo and here there is a regular flow of visitors to the ‘House of Flowers’ mausoleum. He did, after all, keep Yugoslavia united. They are selling Tito’s Cookbook in the gift shop, which I would so have bought if I could fit it in the backpack.

The next day I have an early morning train to Budapest so there was is more partying for me, but this doesn’t stop my dorm mates. They are out drinking with some girls from another room. In the morning I find four shot glasses in the sink and feel a prick of jealously, but I guess this is the nature of travelling… single serving friends as Chuck Palahnuik would say.

Budapest

St. Stephen’s Cathedral at night

Budapest is, at first, less welcoming. As we cross the border from Serbia to Hungary, police and customs officials swarm onto the train, demanding every Serbian guy with a big suitcase opens it so they can check for bootlegged fags. They take bits of the toilet apart to see if anyone is hiding in there and ask everyone questions about where they were going and why. I guess this is the frontier of the European Union. So, then, after a long journey with no buffet car, the train rolls into Budapest and I find that no currency exchange offices in the station will accept my Serbian Dinar and the only ATM in there wants to charge me about seventy quid to make a withdrawal!

Laden with backpack, I stagger around outside Keleti station and almost cave in and go to Burger King but they don’t do a veggie burger. Not that I have any Forints to buy a veggie burger with anyway. I felt feeling rather depressed and was missing Italy. But I do finally obtain some Forints, find my the hostel which is in a gorgeous old apartment block near the the river and then, to my absolute delight, find that just along the road there is a Middle Eastern café/ takeaway which does hummus and falafel. The falafel sandwich and chips I have that night was one of the best meals of the trip so far. I’ve not had chips for over six weeks!

Budapest is a beautiful city and, after the rough-around-the-edges Balkans, it’s nice to be firmly back on the tourist map. They really don’t like the communists though here. As a Cold War fan, I’m interested in how these old Eastern Bloc cities present there history. Well, here in Budapest I visit Memento Park, where you can look at old statues and buy tins supposedly containing the ‘last breath

One hell of a statue at Memento Park

of communism’. Then there is the Museum of Terror, a really good exhibition about the double occupation Hungary suffered under first the Nazis, then, effectively, the USSR. I don’t blame them for being bitter. I had no idea Hungarians were sent to the Gulags under Stalin, and, though released after Stalin’s death, were forced to remain in the USSR. The last one came back in the year 2000! In the gift shop there were candle busts of Lenin and Stalin for sale, presumably so you could enjoy watching them melt like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz.

After reading Michael Meyer’s ’1989: The Year That Changed the World’, I can’t help feel sorry for the communist party reformers including Miklos Nemeth and Imre Pozsgay, who bravely pushed through the reforms that led to the iconic image of Hungarian soldiers cutting the barbed wire border fence between Austria and Hungary, setting off a chain reaction that ultimately led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. They seem to have been forgotten. It is these great politicians, and of course, Imre Nagy, who I think of when I stand in Hero’s Square on the eve of Thatcher’s funeral back in England.

But whilst Budapest may have given me chips, I also have the worst curry ever here. The Govinda café gets glowing reviews on Trip Advisor, which I am never going to trust ever again. A vegetarian curry house? It sounds amazing. So off I trek, though the back streets and arrive at the top of the flight of stairs leading to the café, from which the scent of Indian spices floats. I almost faint with delight. But it’s hort lived. The daily deal, admittedly very cheap, consists of a dahl, some kind of curry and a naan bread. Well, each dish is so devoid of spice it is completely tasteless. The so-called curry is like cheap tomato soup with pasta in it (pasta?) and the naan bread, well let’s just say, I’ve made better ones myself. There is no time to make amends, I’m on the night train to Berlin out of here.

Berlin

Getting the night train to Berlin sounds very cool doesn’t it? Well, I arrive first thing in Hauptbarnhof and am met by a towering stack of giant Ritter Sport chocolate bars. What better way could one be welcomed to a new city? Sadly, they weren’t edible.

For the next four days I am no longer a lone intrepid vegetarian, but am joined

Me and Liz at Checkpoint Charlie

by my omnivorous best friend and fellow history geek Liz. As soon as Liz arrives we book onto both an GDR walking tour, to satisfy my Cold War obsession, and a Third Reich one, as we were both schooled by the great Hitler specialist Sir Ian Kershaw (well, he gave us one lecture anyway).
Berlin seems to have a much more comfortable relationship with it’s communist past. Maybe as the whole tourist industry seems to be based on it. You can buy USSR-themed tat galore, along with chunks of the wall and magnets of the Checkpoint Charlie sign. The tour really gives us a sense of what it was like to live in the GDR though. I think there is a dirty glamour attached to the idea now, not least as a few bars near the East Side Gallery seem to be rocking the tatty and tacky East German look. But the Palace of Tears museum tells some personal stories of what it was like living in a divided city, and the tour guide, who is kind of cute and whose cuteness only increases by his impassioned talk of Marxism’s potential, tells us about other strange features such as ghost stations – Ubahn stops in the East which West German trains looped through but never stopped at.

The Third Reich tour takes us round all the Nazi sights… it’s not aimed at EDL members though but those who want to discover more about this period of fascinating if awful history. Sitting on the blocks of the Holocaust memorial talking with the guide about how people could participate in such an evil system will be, in a strange way, one of the most memorable things from my trip around the old Eastern Bloc and Germany. All these countries seem to still be very much dealing with their pasts.

Anyway, the Third Reich guide is kind of cute too, so we toy with going on yet another tour on the third day but are too hungover and in the cold light of day, this seems a little excessive.

Only in Berlin!

The next day, still not GDR’d out, we headed to the Stasi museum about which we had heard great things but which turns out to be one of the most crap museums ever. It’s based in the Stasi HQ which looks, as Liz points out, like a regular civil service building. There are lots of old spy cameras and all the captions are in German. Disappointed and miffed at why so many people recommended this we head back into town to search for lunch and inadvertently stumble upon a better much Stasi exhibition, just called ‘Stasi’. Later, we hang out in one of those GDR-chic bars, so communist you could even smoke in there.

Liz departs back to England the next morning so I wander down Karl Marx Allee and then back to Checkpoint Charlie to try to haggle a good price on a Russian doll set of all the Soviet leaders. Fifteen euros was a bit pricey, considering only Gorbachev is totally recognisable to the untrained eye I thought.

I am taking the night train to Krakow that night. On the tour we’d seen some ‘stumbling stones’ in the Jewish Quarter… the names of a whole family who had perished at Auschwitz, so I can’t help think of them as I board the the train. Berlin is a city moving forwards, you can’t deny, but I can’t help think of the past.

Transport so far:

63 bus from East Dulwich to Kings Cross, Eurostar to Paris, Paris metro to Odeon, bus to Gare du Lyon, overnight train to Florence, train to Assisi, car up the winding roads to the artist residency.

4×4 back down the mountain, Assisi to Rome train, the notorious number 64 bus, number 23 bus.

Train from Rome to Ancona, overnight ferry to Split, coach from Split to Mostar, coach from Mostar to Sarajevo, coach from Sarajevo to Belgrade.

Train from Belgrade to Budapest, overnight train from Budapest to Berlin, lots of travels on the Sbahn and Ubahn and numerous trams.

I’d arrived here after several hours on a sweltering coach from Split, Croatia, where I’d spent a couple of days wandering around Diocletion’s Palace, it’s nooks and crannies, courtyards and alleyways like a film set. It’s a different film here in Mostar though, or the aftermath of one. I wasn’t expecting the war to be this evident – there were bullet holes in the metal gate of the hostel I stayed in and inside the owner had some pictures to show how the house was pretty much destroyed, like 95% of all the buildings here and, of course, the famous old bridge.

The old bridge has now been rebuilt and it looks stunning. The place is gearing up for the busy summer season. Now they make pens and model tanks out of the spare bullets and you can buy them with either Bosnian marks, Croatian Kuna or Euros in the streets of souvenir shops around the bridge. I had to buy one of the pens, as personally I thought it was a great use for the bullets, the pen being mightier than the gun and all that. It writes beautifully. In the early evening, with the call to prayer echoing through the streets and the air around the bridge filled with the scent of intense, Mostar feels very peaceful now.

I was a little apprehensive about the veggie options in Bosnia, but my fears were unfounded. There’s a definite middle eastern influence, with grilled vegetables and lots of aubergine-based dishes. For dinner I had a bowl of Djuvech, which I have to admit tasted like a Vespa rice dish with a few more vegetables added,. The Sarajevska beer, brewed in Sarajevo, was good though.

And it was to Sarajevo I was headed the next day. The coach journeyed through mountains, rivers and lakes to get there. I was coachsurfing for the first time, staying with a guy called Oli, who runs a nightclub in Sarajevo. His beautiful house up in the hills overlooks the city. We went into town with two of his other guests, Americans who were trying to rent an apartment here in the huge tower blocks near the old frontline (think Peckham with real bullet marks). It’s amazing that some of these tower blocks withstood the war…I’m crediting that to the fact they were built under socialism. We joked that the landlord was going to do a runner with the money they’d given as a deposit, and then when he took ages to come and meet us, actually started to think he was really going too, but he turned up, his tardiness probably due to the fact that the bus and tram workers were striking for five days. After going to Oli’s club and sampling another local delicacy with some of his friends, far too early in the day, we picked up some Pita, a type of pastry filled with cheese and spinach. It’s made in impressive metal ovens cooked in a open-air over and is absolutely delicious.

Another night, another sunset and this time me, Kurt (another American who is working at Oli’s through the HelpX scheme), and Blackie the dog went up to the watch it on some rocks on the top of the hill. Oli had warned us that there might be unexploded mines in the area, but I can’t resist a good photo opp. Having climbed up there without getting blown up, the view was worth it. The city entire city was sprawled below us, filling the valley. As Kurt remarked, this unfortunately made it so easy to attack and in fact, these rocks were also sniper positions. Seeing this gorgeous sunset and the countryside the day before, I wondered how such atrocious violence could happen when humans are dwarfed by such stunning natural beauty, the whole conflict seemed so pointless to me.

The next day I went on a free walking tour with Neno – something I’d definitely recommend if you ever find yourself here. Neno spent three hours telling me all about the city, from its formation under Ottoman times to the current day, now the Bosnians are facing economic crisis like everyone else in the Europe. Many of the old Austria-Hungarian buildings were completely destroyed in the war, and have been rebuilt pretty much exactly the way they were.

A ‘Sarajevo Rose’… resin filling in the holes made by a shell that killed someone.

Neno was just a child in the 1990s and spent the whole of the siege living in a basement. He told me how his mother, unable to bear staying underground, decided to go and work to help some public services keep running, but this meant walking though one of the most dangerous places on earth every day. I just can’t comprehend what it must be like to be a child in a war, cooped up in a basement and wondering if your Mum will come home each day. We had a Bosnian coffee and Neno preferred to eat the sugar lumps, dipped in coffee over the Turkish Delight that came on the side, it’s a trait developed in the siege when he would eat grains of sugar as there were no other sweets.

It was over coffee that I plucked up the courage to ask my burning question: why do Bosnia and Serbia give twelve points to each other in the Eurovision? Neno reckoned that it’s probably because of the number of Bosnian Serbs that live in the east of the country, but also the fact that Bosnians like Serbian pop music, and yes, for the Serbs, their twelve points is a small peace offering. Neno was optimistic, despite the high unemployment in the county, that things would continue to get better. Whether it is really is progress or not is debatable, but looking out across the city from Oli’s house, you can see the few shiny new glass buildings built with Russian money and I expect more will go up in the future.

I’m writing this blog on the coach to Belgrade, a torturous eight hour journey that seems to stop at every single service station in Serbia. I am hungover (thanks for the wine, Oli!) and have spent the whole journey being serenaded by bad Slavic pop music, though now the radio is actually playing Emile sodding Sande. Not wanting to end this blog with the words, Emile Sande, I’ll end by saying that at one of these service stops, I treated myself to a Serbian Kit-Kat-like chocolate bar and I can report that is actually tasted better than a real Kit Kat.

Transport so far:

63 bus from East Dulwich to Kings Cross, Eurostar to Paris, Paris metro to Odeon, bus to Gare du Lyon, overnight train to Florence, train to Assisi, car up the winding roads to the artist residency.

4×4 back down the mountain, Assisi to Rome train, the notorious number 64 bus, number 23 bus.

Train from Rome to Ancona, overnight ferry to Split, coach from Split to Mostar, coach from Mostar to Sarajevo, coach from Sarajevo to Belgrade.

Easter breakfast at Arte Studio Ginestrelle

Of course, it was sad to leave Arte Studio Ginestrelle.  We had a fantastic Easter breakfast there, with traditional cheese bread and a shot of fortified wine. I’m seriously missing the breakfasts there!  I managed to get up to the fifty thousand mark on my new novel there which I was pretty impressed with.

Last night here in Roma, I went up to Ganicolo Hill, which is just behind the hostel here in Trastevere, to watch the sun go down over the Eternal City. I took a bit of cold pizza, even though I’m sick of it, I’d bought in a Trastevere bakery, some salad, which I’ve been desperate for, and a little bottle of prosecco not only as a farewell drink but also as a little celebration as Vanity Game is released in France today.

The day before I was feeling a little depressed as last time I came here I was twenty one, was with my best friend, Liz, and had free interrail tickets. Eleven years later and I’m not spending my nights on the Colosseum Pub Crawl, but going out with my camera to take pictures of the sights in the dark. I went up to St. Peters and found that the Via della Concillazione is lined with drunkards and vagrants at night. I was a bit paranoid I was going to get mugged, which would have been quite embarrassing as Vatican City must be the most absurd place you could get robbed. Then I went to Piazza Navona, which eleven years earlier was scene of the end of that famous pub crawl. Last night I almost stood in a pile of vomit as I lined up my long exposure shot of Bernini’s fountain. Bernini’s fountain was the last thing on our minds back when we were twenty one. Anyway, tonight, sitting there watching all the lights come on across the city with my plastic mug full of prosecco getting some funny looks from the passing couples who’d come up there for a romantic schmooze, I thought ‘fuck it’, back when I was twenty one I wouldn’t have had the balls to do that, the sense to bring a plastic mug with me, or or have the appreciation for fine wine (well, not that it was that fine).

The Caravaggio Odyssey

Diligent readers of the blog will recall that when I came to Rome on a day trip a couple of weeks ago I mistakenly went to the wrong church in my search for Caravaggio’s The Calling of Saint Matthew. Well, I looked up the right church and went off to find it on Tuesday. It’s in the San Luigi of Francesci church, but I got there too early and found it was shut. ‘oh well’, I thought, I would continue my Caravaggio odyssey with a trip to the Palazzo Barberini. As I trekked along the Via Tritone the sky turned decidedly grey and by the time I got to Palazzi Barberini and was being told that it was, in fact, closed today, it was chucking it down. I ended up going to the Carpuchin Crypt instead, which is the weirdest fucking thing I have ever seen. First, you walk through the most boring museum in the world, which tells you how, amongs other things, how pious and holy the monks are, then you enter into the crypt, of which the thing is that a couple of hundred years ago some monk decided to dig up a load of his dead colleagues and arrange all their bones into various ‘scenes’, like the ‘chapel of the pelvic and thigh bones’ and such, plus some full skeletons dressed in monks habits. There were even lampshades fashioned out of human bones. To make things even more disturbing the whole thing was prefaced by a quote from the Marquis De Sade. Sadly, pictures were not allowed. It mad me feel a little bit sick but after I’d traipsed back to the Pantheon I’d worked up quite an appetite. I was browsing the savoury counter in Caffe Giolitti when the heavens really opened. There was a waterfall thundering off the awning of the cafe and I had to shout my order over the thunder.

When the rain eased I went back to the church of San Luigi. There were the Caravaggios over several banks of pews! I began to walk towards them, elated that I was finally in the church, when a grumpy warden came and shooed everyone out, as the church was closing for the lunch time interlude. By now, as you can imagine, I was feeling rather fed up. I wanted to go home and put Alice in Chain’s ‘Dem Bones’ on really loud, but I don’t think my hostel dorm-mates would would have appreciated it.

Caravaggio’s The Calling of St Matthew, Finally!

Wednesday was better though, I got to the church and it was open and no one threw me out and I spent a wonderful few hours in the fully open Palazzio Barberini. If Galleria Borghese was sexy and a bit sleazy, Palazzo Barberini is a cool, stylish beauty. None of that gawdy pink and peach interiors here, just some subtly decorated rooms chronicling art through the ages, up to the perfection of Caravaggio and a little afterwards, when it went down hill again. It was so quiet, I had Caravaggio’s Narcissus all to myself, to bad he was too absorbed in his own reflection.

To get up to the second level a polite sign asked if you would ‘Please take Bernini’s staircase…’

What a pleasure this was, walking up those pure white marble steps, between the graceful columns in complete solitude. It was such a contrast to the rowdy scenes outside the Colosseum where I walked earlier in the day, with the hordes of tourists and the tour hawkers.

 Kitties

I went and saw a load more sights today, including the Largo Argentina, where there are a load of ruins, including the place Julius Caesar was murdered. It’s also a cat sanctuary. Those who know me will know that I find it hard to resist stroking a cat should one be unfortunate enough to cross my path, so I couldn’t resist the sign inviting my into the shelter. All the cats were so friendly and very cute. There are over two hundred and though I didn’t meet them all I managed to maul quite a few. I left with a ten euro fridge magnet (ten euros?! And I don’t even have a fridge) but had the sense not to adopt a cat.

Food

Oh, yes, this blog is supposed to be about food, right? Well, what can I saw… I’m eaten so much ice cream I don’t think I could bear anymore. I think my favourite was the chocolate one I had from Cremerie Montefortie near the Pantheon. The best pizza I’ve found is served at Pizzeria Dar Poeta on Vicolo di Bologna in Trastevere. So good, I went back twice which is probably why I’m sick of pizza too. And the coffee… well, Caffe Sant’ Eustacio likes to think it’s the best, but I wasn’t that impressed by their two euro odd ‘gran caffe’. The mini-brioche filled with cannolo-like sweet cream cheese was delicious though. For coffee, though, I preferred the bitter espresso at the unassuming but highly-rated Caffe Tazza De Ora – and it was only ninety cents.

Now it’s onto Croatia on the overnight ferry. No idea if I suffer from seasickness, I guess I will find out though.

Transport so far:

63 bus from East Dulwich to Kings Cross, Eurostar to Paris, Paris metro to Odeon, bus to Gare du Lyon, overnight train to Florence, train to Assisi, car up the winding roads to the artist residency.

4×4 back down the mountain, Assisi to Rome train, the notorious number 64 bus, number 23 bus.

Crap map

It was off the ‘tourist map’ (beyond Villa Borghese), so I drew a map myself from the National Modern Art museum onwards, and found as soon as I was past the museum that this map corresponded in no way to the actual streets (more of getting lost in the Villa Borghese later). Anyway, when I finally found the place it turned out not to be some gigantic thing with big flags like most embassies but a few rooms in what looked like a posh apartment block. You ring the bell to gain admittance. I left my passport there, walked the length and breadth of Rome and then returned to Arte Studio Ginestrelle, where I’ve been powering though the first draft of my new novel – on the cusp of 30,000 words already. I think it must be the mountain air.

So, I went back to Rome and to the Mongolian Embassy yesterday. A very sweet lady told me to take a seat before I could even say anything, disappeared into a room then came out with my passport, complete with visa. I didn’t even have to say my name. Either Mongolians have super-impressive memories, or they don’t get many applications here.

I returned to the main drag and had a cannolo and cappuccino to fortify myself at the Caffe Giolitti, near Marcus Aurelius’ column. It’s meant to serve the best ice cream in Rome, but I’ve become obsessed with finding a good cannolo and I can highly recommend theirs. I’m going back to try to ice cream as well, don’t worry. I was fortifying myself because I’d planned an afternoon visit to the Galleria Borghese, which I’ve heard is quite an experience – some people have been known to suffer from Stendal Syndrome there… perhaps the cannolo wasn’t a good idea. They run a reserved ticket policy, so everyone turns up for their timeslot at once, which is slightly chaotic and leaves you all hot and bothered. Then you’re thrown into this explosion of art. Immersed in total art, as the Borgheses envisaged it. I can see why some people have a funny turn in this gallery. It’s only two floors, but the window seats were crammed with people looking exhausted by it all. Even before you consider the paintings and sculptures, every room is a riot of pink, peach, gold, ceilings frescoed to the nines. The rooms fold out of each other, some tiny, some large, and you find yourself going round in circles. You have the sense of being trapped yet not wanting to leave.

But still, to induce nausea and dizziness? Is it because people can’t handle the

Caravaggio’s ‘Boy With A Basket of Fruit’, Galleria Borghese, Rome

fact that so much genius is crammed into one small gallery? Like Bernini’s gravity defying, belief-suspending sculptures, Caravaggio’s perfection, the ingenuity of Roman art? Or, my theory, is it’s all the sex thrown at you in such a small space. I mean, the place seethed with it… take Bernini’s The Rape of Proserpina, which depicts Pluto grappling with the goddess. How Bernini managed to convey the violence/ eroticism of the story in marble is just amazing, the way Pluto’s hand grips the goddess’ thigh, as if the stone is the softest skin. Or take Caravaggio’s wet-lipped young boys, or Raphael’s topless, flirty La Fornarina, just a few of the carnal delights.

Apparently Cardinal Scipione Borghese liked young boys, so he was particularly drawn to Carravagio’s Boy With A Basket of Fruit, one of my favourite pictures as well… right now one of my favourite things in the world. I like to think the boy was some hustler Caravaggio picked up from the Piazza Navona, it’s probably not too far off the mark. Did the lad know what he was getting himself into? He seems kind of wary, like he’s unnerved by Carravagio’s (lustful?!) gaze. There was a couple snogging in front of this picture, and on the other side of the room there was a guy sitting in the window seat with his head in his hands looking severely worse for wear. Sounds like a student disco, right? It’s testament to Caravaggio’s talent that these 500 odd year old paintings can do this to people.

I left the gallery and it was like coming out some strange, beautiful time machine, back into the dreary, ugly present, but thankfully it didn’t induce nausea. I found myself wandering aimlessly in the rain through the Villa Borghese. It took a while for me to realise I was lost and that it was totally chucking it down. Finally I found my way onto Via Veneto which in the rain didn’t look quite as cool as it did in La Dolce Vita.

Attempting to take a picture of the rain falling through the Pantheon roof

One drawback of Rome is they’ve never really cottoned onto pavements, so you, the cars and mopeds are all sloshing about down those cobbled streets together. But the sight of rain falling through the hole in the Pantheon ceiling makes up for soaking trainers.

I had lunch at the Cul-De-Sac restaurant on the Piazza Pasquino, named after the ancient and much battered, but talkative, torso that’s propped up on the corner. Cul-de-Sac is one of the oldest wine cellars in London and so I couldn’t not have a glass of vino with my tagliatelle with broccoli and Pecorino cheese. Both the food and wine were gorgeous and very reasonable. Ever so slightly tipsy, I wandered back towards the train station, stopping by a church which I thought had Caravaggio’s The Calling of St. Matthew in it, but it turned out to be the wrong church… easy mistake to make as there are so many of the things. It did have Michaelangelo’s Risen Christ in it, whose nudity the clergy were so shocked by they to make him a bronze loincloth. Honestly, them old artists and their boys.

One visitor to Rome not put off by the rain

So, only about a week left at the Art Studio Ginestrelle now… I wish I was here another month. But alas, I must return to Rome for a few days and then onwards to the Balkans.

It is due to be released in France on the 5th April.

It’s strange trying to start a detective novel set on the dirty streets of London and finish a screenplay set on the Yorkshire coast while trying to embrace the Umbrian way of life but I am just about managing it. Last night Marina, who runs the residency, and the wonderful cook and house keeper, Adria, showed me how to make proper Italian pizza and I’ve already learnt how to make

My homemade pizza

proper Italian coffee which I am consuming in suitably vast quantities. The house where me and three other (proper!) artists (Lena from Denmark, Linda from the US and Lisa from Berlin) are living is absolutely stunning. The porch has a money-shot view of the mountain, though it’s not been quite warm enough to sit and sip wine out there in the evening yet. There are plenty of log fires and wood-burning stoves in the house to keep us warm though.

I’m still getting used to the geography of the surrounding area – it would be easy to get lost amongst the forests here, and there are wild boars, wolves, venomous snakes and the odd hermit monk roaming around out there. Yesterday  Lena, Marina and myself went to by eggs from a nearby farm. I say nearby – it took us about two hours there and back walking up the steep mountain paths, but it was quite an adventure. The sun came in and out of the clouds as we walked, illuminating fields, patches of forest and scrubland in turn. The landscape is a tableau of greens, from dark teal to shimmering lime green grass – an epic countryside landscape that Constable would be envious of. As we passed by a farmhouse, the farmer appeared from his field, quite an apparition in the morning light, in his woolly hat, tweed jacket and wellingtons, brandishing a bright green lettuce like a bouquet.

The view from the porch of snow-topped Mount Subasio

Further on, we met two old women – they’re sister-in-laws and live with three brothers and another wife in a huge, rambling farmhouse. One of the women stood, leaning against her mop, chatting with Marina, looking like the perfect Italian version of Hilda Ogden. The farm was still further, up past the shrine to the Virgin Mary and the cemetery. As we approached we saw fat brown rabbits romping in the field, and the hens who laid the eggs were were about to buy picked about in the grass, as free range as you are ever likely to get. After a lengthy conversation about quantity and price, in Italian, between Marina and the female farmer who was dressed up in a Addidas tracksuit suit pants and a milkman-style coat, we received our eggs wrapped in newspaper and tied in plastic bags. Then we had to walk all the back down the mountain without slipping over and breaking them. We took a short-cut through Ginestrelle’s own fields – full of the Ginestra bushes after which it is named – and passed art works left by previous residents. One the hill opposite, the eye is caught by a slick of aqua-marine: the recently installed swimming pool at the back of a house owned by a film producer. He’s not there at the moment. He must be off living in some other place which is a world away from the old Umbrian farmers who’ve lived their whole lives in these mountains.

Also nearby is a deserted house. I went up there one day to have a look. The roof has totally gone and the some of upper floors has collapsed, so it’s just a shell filled with rubble, tree trubks and twisted machinery. The sun was out so I sat on grass for while and listened – no sound but birdsong. I wish I could have bottled that feeling of absolutely serenity – I know I’ll wish I was back here when I am lost in some chaotic, polluted South East city or sterile, CCTV infested airport.

This week I also I undertook the two and a half hour walk to Assisi…and when I got there it started raining which soon turned into a downpour. Still, at least you can take shelter in the Basilica San Francisco… I could spend ages looking at the frescos. I’ve noticed some cool looking skeletons along the bottom of huge scene which decorates the alter. I think they are the dead being woken up to be taken to heaven, or else zombies were invented in Assisi, I don’t know. Hmm, has anyone done a Biblical-epic-zombie movie? I think I feel an idea coming on…

Neroni, the residency’s aloof cat

So the Eurostar set off for Paris and I was serenaded all the way by the raucous chatter of a group of middle aged Brits (definitely Brits, not Englishmen like the guys in the coffee queue). The Brits drank champagne and talked loudly of pubs in Paris. They looked too old to be on a stag do, and Paris isn’t a stag do destination, but they certainly sounded like a stag do. I was embarrassed because there were French people on the train trying to sleep.

The Eurostar arrived at the Gare du Nord and disgorged the suspected stag do, the sleepy French, myself and everyone else into the chilly Parisian afternoon. I took the underground, where I was stared at by teenage girls and old men who couldn’t work out why anyone would want to carry so much luggage.

The first stop on my round-the-world trip was a meeting with my French publishers… yes, you don’t get that with an STA ‘RTW’ deal do you? I was rather nervous but everyone in the office was very friendly and it was exciting to see the latest cover of my novel, Vanity Game which is coming out in France in

Trying to see the Mona Lisa

April. My editor, Sylvie and translator, Fanchita took me for a scrumptious lunch (potato and truffle salad, goats cheese encrusted in wonton-like pastry on a bed off posh coleslaw) at the lively Brasserie Balzar, and then, after a couple of glasses of wine, I went the Louvre. This is a bad idea after lunch with wine. I must have looked pretty pathetic as I stood there under the glass pyramid, totally dumbfounded by the whole thing. A girl breezed past me and handed me a free ticket, which spurred me on. Into the Denon Wing I went, following the sign to the Mona Lisa with what felt like every school child in Paris. I was underwhelmed as I stood there by the barrier, being jostled by the scrum, staring at the petite painting. I tried to assess her beauty but her face was obscured by the flashes of the scrum’s camera phones. I decided to go and look for Eugene Delacroix’s ‘Liberty Leading the People’ instead, but there was an empty space on the wall and a notice saying it had gone to Louvre Lens. I was missing the National Gallery already.

It was only a flyby visit to Paris as I had to take board the night train to Florence. No stag parties on this train, in fact there was hardly anyone. I was alone in my compartment and couldn’t work out how to turn the lights on so I went to the next one along, and asked the guy in there if he spoke English. ‘Non’ he said, so I said ‘lumiere’ and waved my arms around. After that he came and sat in my compartment and we managed to converse for about three hours on everything from Zinedine Zidane to the advantages of living in Paris compared to Cairo.
It was a rough night’s sleep though and when I finally drifted off I dreamt of Russian trains. I awoke at about 5am paranoid I was going to miss my stop. We were going through the mountains somewhere near the French/ Italy boarder. Outside in the half-light everything was covered in snow.

A few hours later the train pulled into Firenze. My backpack felt even heavier as I traipsed around Santa Maria Novela station looking for the Left Luggage. Unable to find it, I went into the coffee shop and was met by the sight of crowds of Italians downing espresso at the counter and munching on brioches. It was all very confusing working out which counter you had to pay at and which you got what you paid for from. I ended up with espresso so strong it would send a pacemaker haywire and a brioche filled with jam so sweet it could rot teeth on the spot. How do the Italians all look so good eating a breakfast like this every morning?

View from the Florence to Assisi train

I finally found the Left Luggage, left my cursed backpack, and wandered aimlessly round Florence for a few hours. It was strange being back in a city which I feel I know better than maybe any other in Europe, despite only visiting twice before. There, like old friends, were the preposterous piles of garishly coloured gelato, the huge bronze doors of the mighty Basilica, and the Uffitzi gallery which I contemplated going in but couldn’t face after the Louvre experience. It was freezing cold and I was glad to get on the 12:09 to Assisi, where I was met by Marina from the Arte Studio Ginestrelle which will be home for the next month. It’s a stunning old house in the foothills of Mount Subasio. I was tired and hungry and was so grateful for the delicious home-cooked meal of locally-sourced foods, and locally brewed wine. After a nip of the local spirit – truffle liquor – I retired to bed and slept for about nine hours, and no longer dreamed of trains.

Blue skies over Umbria

Transport so far: 63 bus from East Dulwich to Kings Cross, Eurostar to Paris, Paris metro to Odeon, bus to Gare du Lyon, overnight train to Florence, train to Assisi, car up the winding roads to the artist residency.