We went to see Suzanne Vega on the Wednesday night (23 July) at the Stodola in Warsaw. I preferred the Progresja the night before when we watched Kansas. The Stodola had big bouncers (for a folk concert - please!), it was an all seater affair. I think the venue makes the concert don't you? When we watched the Kansas gig the night before. There were no seats and people took photographs and freely walked about to the bar, toilet and different parts of the venue.
The Suzanne Vega Stodola concert was over by nine O'clock and photographs were strictly forbidden. Not forgetting the pedantic punters who insisted we were sitting in their seat (was she called Goldilocks?) and we moved along the bus/seats and we had an even better viewer of Suzanne Vega in her Marlene Dietrich style collapsible top hat. It reminded my friend of one of his friends visiting a museum and taking some photographs and a chorus of German tourists told him:
"It is forbidden."
Any way Suzanne Vega I enjoyed your concert. Especially the old classics and the Horizon ("There is a road")off your new album and your drummer reminded me of a classic progressive rock musician. It was a bit different to last time I saw you when I was half drunk at Glastonbury in 1989. Sorry there is no photograph of Suzanne Vega:
"It is forbidden."
Next morning we got up at 3.30 AM and we had a breakfast of bananas and peaches and turned off the gas and water and set off on our epic adventure to Austria via Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria. We caught the 6.15 train to Vienna. This was a very long journey (nine hours) and we traveled through many miles of flat countryside. I was surprised that we only saw 3 cows grazing in the whole of Poland. We were accompanied in our compartment for the majority of the journey by an elderly Polish man who spoke to us in German and Polish. My friend told him I was an expert in malt whiskies and I attempted to tell him that Dalwhinnie is of course the best and his favourite Jamesons wasn't bad.
We crossed over the border into the Czech Republic and two soldiers asked for our passports. They smiled when they saw we had English passports and wished us a good journey.
We finally got into Vienna something passed two and negotiated the underground to our accommodation. I was knackered, blistered feet from wearing synthetic leather boots and just wanted a pint or two of Dunkel. My friend had other ideas. We dropped off our rucksacks and travelling bag and went on a sightseeing tour of Vienna. Here's some photographs:
The Suzanne Vega Stodola concert was over by nine O'clock and photographs were strictly forbidden. Not forgetting the pedantic punters who insisted we were sitting in their seat (was she called Goldilocks?) and we moved along the bus/seats and we had an even better viewer of Suzanne Vega in her Marlene Dietrich style collapsible top hat. It reminded my friend of one of his friends visiting a museum and taking some photographs and a chorus of German tourists told him:
"It is forbidden."
Any way Suzanne Vega I enjoyed your concert. Especially the old classics and the Horizon ("There is a road")off your new album and your drummer reminded me of a classic progressive rock musician. It was a bit different to last time I saw you when I was half drunk at Glastonbury in 1989. Sorry there is no photograph of Suzanne Vega:
"It is forbidden."
Next morning we got up at 3.30 AM and we had a breakfast of bananas and peaches and turned off the gas and water and set off on our epic adventure to Austria via Poland, the Czech Republic and Austria. We caught the 6.15 train to Vienna. This was a very long journey (nine hours) and we traveled through many miles of flat countryside. I was surprised that we only saw 3 cows grazing in the whole of Poland. We were accompanied in our compartment for the majority of the journey by an elderly Polish man who spoke to us in German and Polish. My friend told him I was an expert in malt whiskies and I attempted to tell him that Dalwhinnie is of course the best and his favourite Jamesons wasn't bad.
We crossed over the border into the Czech Republic and two soldiers asked for our passports. They smiled when they saw we had English passports and wished us a good journey.
We finally got into Vienna something passed two and negotiated the underground to our accommodation. I was knackered, blistered feet from wearing synthetic leather boots and just wanted a pint or two of Dunkel. My friend had other ideas. We dropped off our rucksacks and travelling bag and went on a sightseeing tour of Vienna. Here's some photographs:
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| Picture of the famous Danube river. |
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| Photo of a Dunkle beer tap. It was like drinking a really good pint of home brew. Not that I can make it like that. |
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| The famous Wiener Riesensad ferris wheel. Constructed in 1897. It's 200 feet high and it's at the entrance of the Prater amusement park. The wheel is featured in the films. 'The Third Man', Scorpio and the James Bond film The Living daylights'. |
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| How the othe half live. Private berths on the river Danube. Once again readers I am sorry for my silly digital camera displaying the wrong dates. I can assure you all photographs were taken this year.
Next time I will show my photographs of my day trip to Bratislava.
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Certainly a different holiday experience with big bouncers, forbidden photos and 3:30am starts.
ReplyDeleteSure the happy border guard soldiers made up for it though?
And of course the Dunkel.
Hi Cumbrian. Yes it was a very tiring week full of rock and folk concerts, war memorials(the Russian Red Army Cemetery in Warsaw is awesome), rail travel, different languages, great German beers, different countries and some great tales to tell. Have you been anywhere interesting recently? The old veg plot needs a thorough weeding and the old Doctor flies (mosquitos) are biting us like mad at the moment - tropical Ireland? The Czech guards were really nice people and I wouldn't mind a trip to Prague some time.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment.
Been to Amsterdam for a day, Thursday North Shields overnight ferry to IJmuiden, Friday in the centre of the Dam then return overnight again arrived back Saturday morning.
ReplyDeleteGay Pride week started Saturday, which explained how busy it was, and all the gangs of young men wandering about with back-packs looking for hostel accommodation.
Pleasant 25 and sunny there, just a slow wheelchair push along the pedestrian shopping street paralleling Damrak, called in a couple of bars to say hello to some old acquaintances, bought Mrs some horrendously expensive fair trade organic hand-made scented soap from the Lush shop, and a pouch of pipe tobacco as a present for a friend, fruit & vanilla flavour of all things, his face lit up when he smelled it though.
Tropical West Cumbria as well, it's been a bit cooler these last few days, can't say I'm sorry, the heat get oppressive, I'm not a tropical animal.
Raggy cat waiting for us, straight in to the bowl, ate some tongue and straight out again, it seems to like the weather, hardly been indoors for 3 weeks.
Hi Cumbrian. Never been to Holland. Would like to visit it some time along with a lot of the twenty + European countries. It fluctuated between 25 - 30 degrees when I was away.
ReplyDeleteWe are just not use to the tropical conditions are we? Spent today (bank holiday in Eire) hand weeding the veg plot. Lots of doctor fly bites and nettle stings.
Rain forecast here for Tuesday. Glad to read that Raggy cat is OK.
Think you'd like Holland, land of the bicycle, they have their own lanes everywhere and multi-storey bike parks even. Of course it's all flat, and when you see the traffic in Amsterdam you realise why bicycle is the fastest means of transport.
ReplyDeletePleasant day here, warm without being too hot, sun and blue skies.
Holland sounds fantastic, Cumbrian. Never heard of multi storey bike parks. Saw a lot of cyclists in Warsaw and Vienna. It's very easy to hire a bike and the pavements have bike lanes.
ReplyDeleteI wish there were bike lanes where we live. So many of the road hedges are overgrown and the speeed limit is 80 KM. We could also do with some pavements. I have noticed that cars seem to be on the increase everywhee these days. So many households have 3 or 4 cars.
Perhaps if we weren't so reliant on oil, we wouldn't have so much trouble (wars) and pollution in the world? Wish we could go back to the 1950's with bicycles, horses and carts, pony and traps, electric milk floats and just a scattering of cars.