scotland

Look around Europe, Stage #5

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Kraków to Kiev

Here I go, off to Kiev. I’ve wanted to go to the Ukraine, Kiev in particular, ever since the first time I played an arrangement of it’s Great Gate, although then in my naivety I thought Kiev was a part of Russia. In my defence that was in about 1985 so it was still part of the Soviet Union and visiting seemed pretty impossible then. Fiddler on the Roof is also my all time favourite hangover viewing and kicked off my general pedestrian interest in klezmer music. Now I just want to try a chicken Kiev in it’s hometown and see whether on not it can live up to my huge gluttonous expectations.

I learned a little bit more about the Ukrainian people and what they have lived through during a recent CPD course at work. I’m ashamed to say that this was the first time I’d ever heard of the holodomor and a little of the history of displacement and persecution that the Ukrainian people have had to survive as well as the ongoing issues in the East. Coming from a nice safe little town in Scotland, the strength and resilience that the people must have needed and need to survive is completely beyond my understanding. All those terrible years of Scottish suffering at the hands of the English was a bit before my time and Boris hasn’t kicked in yet.

After doing a bit of Google research I decided that driving there was probably not the best idea. I’m not sure how current most of the information was but I’m terrified of doing something irreplaceable to my van due to bad roads and potholes, and when I googled ‘driving in Ukraine’ this came up:

As I’m not entirely sure that my insurance covers me outside the European Union although my breakdown cover does, I decided to catch a train.

I’m a massive train lover in a not-very-informed type of way. Although I am generally ashamed of the UK rail system, I still do love the decadence of just getting an a vehicle and relaxing until it reaches it’s destination; it’s like a licence to nap without guilt. My new found discovery that first class can occasionally be affordable (or only very slightly more expensive than standard) still makes me as excited as a small child on a first adventure.

I’ve no idea which trains are which or how fast they go, I just like the ones with enough leg room. I’ve done a couple of epic train journeys; the trans-Mongolian route from Moscow – Beijing and Amtrak’s Southwest Chief from Chicago to Los Angeles and loved every minute of both of them. The American one was great in that all meals were provided and I had my own tiny room. That bunk was definitely invented with the napper in mind; you could essentially stay in bed all day and watch the amazing views, even the food could be ordered to the bunks. The one thing that drove me mad about Amtrak was the fact that every one of their trains that I took was at least two hours late.

A view from my couchette while crossing Arizona

My Trans-Siberian experience was a truly great adventure. Being in Russia for the first time alone was my first experience of being in a country where English is not widely spoken and so I just had to get over myself and have a go. By the time I got to Siberia I could at least buy water and noodles from a kiosk in perfect Rusglish.

I personally don’t think anyone can say that they’ve travelled by train until they’ve travelled in a platzkart carriage. I found it fascinating to see the way the Russian people travelled, often with their kids and always with a huge amount of luggage. The first lady opposite me spoke a small amount of English which was good as she helped me communicate with the provodnitsa and explained that she thought what I was doing was fairly dangerous. She was the last person I spoke to in English until I caught the train from Irkutsk to Ulan Batar three days later.

The view from my platzkart bed

I had such a great time and have so much more to say about that trip that I think it deserves a post to itself at a later date.

I got a tram to Kraków Główny and after a long wait finally managed to find my room/bed after what was a potentially quite a stressful situation. A huge train pulled up to the platform with carriage numbers ascending towards the back of the train. When I got to the end it was only carriage 19 and I needed 24 so I tried to ask any number of random train guards and they all shrugged at me. I don’t think it helped that my electronic ticket was in English. Finally I legged it to the front where there were men in different uniforms; I think maybe the sleeping part of the train is somehow separate or maybe it drops the other part off along the way. There was an American lady who was equally confused and the guard seemed a little unsure as well, but we both appeared to have three man bunks to ourselves so all seemed promising. A random man asked to take a picture of my train ticket and stole my linen pack. I’m not sure what harm he could do with this but I was slightly concerned.

At the last stop in Poland, Przemyśl Główny, two young men knocked on the door and my solitude was ended. It didn’t help that I was fast asleep and also in the wrong bunk. I didn’t sufficiently wake up to try and converse for a few minutes, but when I did they didn’t seem to mind too much that I was already settled in the wrong bed. As soon as I managed to drift off again the Polish border control came to see if we were all legitimate and then on the other side of the border a gentleman from the Ukrainian military didn’t seem to believe that it was me on the passport. By the time all of this had finished it was coming on to towards 4 in the morning and in another two hours or so we were in Lviv. The bed was very comfortable, it’s just a shame I had so little sleep. It turned out that the man who photographed my ticket has something to do with the train, so that was all good too.

My companions left the train at Lviv and so I tried to grab a little bit more sleep as the train wasn’t departing until after 11. I’d arranged with my new American friend to go and have a look around after we’d both had a nap so we found our way out and had a wander around. Lviv seems like a really fascinating place. It was a bit careworn in a rather delightful way, but I think we probably missed the more modern centre. I could have spent all day exploring the streets but we settled for a coffee and a croissant before we headed back to our train. On pulling up to the platform another two passengers arrived at my little door – I really don’t like the three bunk bed style of carriage, especially when I’m supposed to be on the top.

Some type of establishment in Lviv

The journey from Lviv to Kiev was around five hours but luckily one of my new companions was a very interesting and pleasant gentleman from the Netherlands who spoke amazing English. We chatted away until the last hour or so when my napping instincts kicked in until we got there. We parted company and I found a metro station to take me to my hostel which was just off Independence square. What a place that is!

Maidan (Independence) Square

The Fox’s last stand

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Three weeks ago I sold my car to WeBuyAnyCar.com. I don’t usually get attached to objects, but this particular car had belonged to my late mother and I did enjoy cutting around the country in it.

It was a silver 2006 VW Fox. At first sighting they are strange beasts and look too small to be practical, but apart from a very tiny boot there is actually a lot of room in these little cars. This particular model was pretty basic but it issued a warning if the lights were left on and the petrol cap was attached to the car; both essential features as far as I’m concerned.

I found it good to drive although I am by no means an expert. It was pretty good at accelerating past dangerous HGVs on the M1 and held the road well on the back roads in Scotland. It also served me very well when it came to moving house; with the back down it was excellent for trips to the skip or IKEA, it’s amazing what I have transported. I also liked the fact that it had managed to inherit a 1980s road map of Britain as well as hosting a Historic Scotland ruler in the glove compartment.

Last week I took it up to Scotland for what would be our last trip together. This was a trip of mixed emotions; it was the first time I had been up to my hometown since we sold my mother’s house three or so years ago and I went up to stay with a friend whose mother is also recently deceased. She was staying in her childhood home with her young daughter whilst trying to clear out all of those years of memories. We have been friends since we were two or three years old and so have a lot of shared memories as well as growing up in the same area. Our fathers worked together and our mothers shared a passion for gardening and botanical art, growing closer after they were both widowed.

It was strange to be back amongst familiar childhood surroundings without any real tie to any of them. I left home at seventeen and never really moved back but my mother stayed in the same house and I always felt that I had some kind of base there. Living slightly off the beaten track; my brothers and I had the run of the surrounding area and spent the majority of our free time outside during our younger years. We had dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits, various rodents and at one time even a duck called Sally. When I think back to the endless summer holidays it seems that it was usually sunny (despite being in Scotland), we had constant adventures, got into lots of minor trouble and were always half eaten up by midges. The only important rules I remember were to be back before dark and not to cross any main roads or rivers. What more could you need?

Everything now is much smaller and less shiny. The magical forests are now fairly small woods and the endless drive to the main road is now nicely surfaced and really not that long. The big house where the old ladies lived with a secret passage in the cellar is now a B&B with an unpleasant looking sign and the overgrown wilderness of a garden horribly clipped and sanitised. I haven’t been to see if the (legless) hut on hens legs is still in the woods as I think these days it would probably be classed as trespassing rather than exploring, although I still have that child’s sense that it is my world and I have every right to check on it. The track to the house where our closest friends lived is still dark and mysterious but I no longer feel the need to shut my eyes and run until I can feel the sun back on my face, and not just because these people are now long gone.

I skipped all of these things and went to see my mother’s next door neighbour. She was very close to my mother and I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people so I thought I’d drop in for the first time since we sold the house. I’m not sure what I expected but I didn’t really feel anything about passing the old house and gardens. My mother’s beautiful garden had been crudely fenced off to keep in an unruly dog and basically strimmed to within an inch of its life. The front looked waterlogged and unloved. The house itself didn’t look any different but my mother would never live in a house without a lovely garden so I knew she wasn’t in. I had a reminisce with the neighbour and endless coffee before going back to my friend who was in her own mother’s house trying to sort out a lifetime of bric-a-brac, dusty paperwork and many, many miscellaneous hand-crafted impossible-to-dispose-of items. Clearing out a dead parents house has to be up there with the hardest and most wrenching jobs of all time.

Despite the circumstances we managed to have a nice week up there. We drove round our respective old haunts and talked a lot about the past and our departed parents. We went for a lovely walk up Conic Hill and an enormous breakfast by Loch Lomond. We completed the day hike to the troll bridge in Callander in about an hour on our boring grown up legs and managed to avoid all dangerous creatures, mythical or otherwise. On the Friday morning I stopped at the butchers to stock up on scotch pies, haggis and tattie scones and drove back to the North East and the next day I sold the Fox. The car was probably my last physical tie to my mother but I don’t really need things to remember her, she’s part of me. I still miss her every day.

Friday!

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I love Fridays, even when I’m working on a Saturday – there is just something good about knowing that the weekend is upon us.  This one is particularly good because, although I did foolishly agree to do a shift on Sunday, after that I have a whole 5 days off.  I’ve managed to get a good deal on a first class train ticket from London to the North East on Sunday evening and I fully intend to enjoy the ride.

I’ve only recently discovered the joys of travelling first class, until recently I’d always thought it to be way too extravagant, and I really love it.  I love the bigger seats and tables, the fact that you can sit by yourself by a window with enough space on a table and a power socket and of course I really love that you are provided with one meal and never ending inappropriate snacks with your tea or coffee.  I only book these tickets if they’re less than £10 more than standard class but as I usually travel late at night they often come up.

The discovery of reasonably priced first class tickets has also slightly reduced the irritation that I have with the general state of the rail service in the UK.  I can’t count the times that I have run for a train at the end of a busy week to find that all of the reservations have been cancelled and I’ve had to spend almost the whole journey in the doorway of a carriage.  I may be shallow but the comfy seats and snacks further up the train go a long way to appease me for years of mild Friday evening rage.

For my week off I am going to drive up from my North Eastern home to Central Scotland which is where I grew up.  I am looking forward to this as it’s a lovely part of the country and will be staying with one of my oldest friends.  I will travel up on Monday and hopefully visit a lot of old haunts through the week – I miss the Scottish scenery.

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The top of Dumyat, Stirlingshire.

Wish this could be my maiden voyage with the new mini camper but my trusty VW will do the trick.  Not a particularly spectacular roadtrip but a roadtrip none the less.  I’ve spent most of my time on trains recently so I need to rekindle my love of driving before my eagerly anticipated adventures.  Onwards and upwards.

 

Expectations

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This vanlife trend has recently begun to appeal to me again. I have a job that I like, a home that I look forward to arriving at and a group of people that generally make me happy but for some reason I still feel the same pull to travel that I’ve had ever since I was young. This is perhaps why I’ve decided to try road travel on a very careful and small scale by acquiring a Romahome R10. While not one of my more considered decisions, now that I have made it I am very excited. My amazing converted van of the future is still looming with my next change of career but for now I plan to see how far the little R10 can take me.

In my mind I can see endless picturesque roads winding off into the hills, beaches, exciting cities with ample and safe parking facilities, many interesting yet-to-be-met people and some unexplained source of income to sustain me. Washing and power facilities are far away notions that should all fall into place without too much concern and obviously the weather will be lovely all of the time. My previous travel has been mainly by train, which I love, but this new gritty road approach will surely lead me to an entirely new far-away-land where everything will make sense and my future will be laid out… Wish me luck!

Unfortunately my first van style road trip will not be up to the fatherland next week like I had hoped, but my current little VW will do nicely until my new minihome arrives. Meanwhile instagram will just have to appease my need for instant escape until a suitable time comes. Here is an old picture of my back garden in the early 80s to get me in the mood for the long drive up north.

Sally the Duck with her family, Central Scotland 1980