Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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Reading – Three Guineas

This is the only Good Beer Guide pub in Reading that I haven’t been to, as I had a rather comprehensive stay in the town a few years ago. There’s plenty of history in this Grade-II listed building, which was constructed to be the main entrance and booking hall to what was then known as Reading General Station. It was designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel between 1865 and 1867, but the station was reconfigured in 1989 with a new entrance and this building was turned into the Three Guineas.

The real ale selection was extensive although it’s all quite mainstream and it didn’t seem entirely well curated as they’re missing some beer styles here with some heavy duplication. The welcome was immediate and friendly, with the venue being relatively busy with mostly mainly weary looking commuters just arriving back from London.

I went for the Lavender Hill from Sambrook’s Brewery which I hadn’t realised I’d had before a few years ago, but it was well-kept, clean tasting with a floral and sweet flavour to it. The pricing was towards the higher end of the scale, but not unreasonable.

I wasn’t looking to eat here, but there’s a relatively extensive food menu and there’s an open kitchen which always gives me a feeling of some confidence.

This is the main room of the station’s former ticket office, but it’s not that spacious although there are plenty of external seats available. The pub wasn’t that clean, the team members were ignoring the fine array of empty glasses on tables, surfaces were sticky and it didn’t feel that loved. The venue was reconfigured and redesigned in 2017, although it feels just a little tired now.

The history of the pub name.

I rather suspect that this venue is clinging onto its place in the Good Beer Guide given the choice that there is in the town, but the beer was well-kept and the surroundings were comfortable. I like the heritage of the building, although that’s perhaps a little understated and I’m pleased to have visited, I’m fairly confident that they were doing some construction work when I last came to Reading and that’s why I didn’t visit.

September 4, 2025
Dachau – Dachau Concentration Camp (Former Dormitories)

Although there is one recreated dormitory building at Dachau, all of the former dormitory buildings on the left and right of this rather stately looking poplar lined main avenue (known as Camp Road) have gone with only their footprints remaining. The long rows of prisoner accommodation that once stretched across the roll-call square are now reduced to just these outlines on the ground, faint concrete or gravel borders marking where walls once stood. Walking down here in the rain, it was hard to really imagine just how noisy and unpleasant this area would once have been.

These footprints are the remains of the camp’s other dormitories, the majority of which were demolished after liberation. Their traces are preserved not as reconstructed facsimiles but as bare, skeletal floor plans so visitors have to use their imagination to contemplate the scenes that once unfolded here. The choice not to rebuild them all was deliberate as to reconstruct twenty-odd barracks would have risked creating something that looked too complete, too much like a functioning place rather than a memorial.

From 1942, medical experiments used to take place here at Barracks 1, although by 1943 they were using prisoners to supply the medical care. Initially, the medical barracks was well-equipped and had the facilities that it needed, but that situation didn’t last long and they were soon struggling to get hold of medical supplies. There’s a hollowness to all of this now, but there’s enough left to be able to understand the scale of what went on here, architectural order and human chaos.

Here’s what the scene looked like in 1945, shortly after the American liberation.

September 4, 2025
Dachau – Dachau Concentration Camp (Recreated Dormitories)

There’s one accommodation block at Dachau, although it’s not original but it still tells a harrowing story. The first set of barracks built in the 1930s have long since been demolished, erased as part of the camp’s post-war dismantling. What stands in their place was put up in the 1960s as part of the memorial site’s efforts to give a sense of the living conditions without pretending that the wood and nails themselves date back to the darkest years. It is, in other words, an interpretation based on plenty of evidence rather than an untouched relic.

The decision to rebuild was controversial at the time, not least because it risked accusations of falsifying history. But the curators argued, and still argue, that leaving the ground bare would rob visitors of any real sense of what life looked and felt like inside. The result is a set of reconstructed barracks, faithful to the original dimensions, where one can move from one dormitory style to another and see how the regime altered living space over the course of the war.

Inside, there are three types of dormitory arrangement, staged in sequence. The first represents the early years of the camp, when conditions were already harsh but still allowed something resembling order with neatly aligned beds, lockers, and a sense of regimented, almost military discipline. It wasn’t comfortable by any modern measure, but it was structured, a vision of a barracks meant to break individuality but still keep the veneer of control. At the time the intention was still to operate as a form of prison and although the Nazis strongly disliked their political opponents and weren’t afraid of killing some, the arrangement wasn’t designed to be a mass killing machine.

The washroom facilities.

The second reconstruction shows how the accommodation degraded as prisoner numbers grew. Here the beds are closer together, storage space has vanished, and the atmosphere is more obviously oppressive. It is a space designed not for discipline but for crowding, with privacy and dignity stripped back even further. The physical closeness illustrates what documents and testimonies often describe, namely overcrowding that was deliberately allowed to spiral.

The third dormitory shows the final stage, when conditions collapsed entirely into rows of bunks crammed together with little more than straw and blankets. It is the starkest of the three, stripped of any pretence of order and with no living space supplied as had previously been the case. This space is meant to demonstrate the extreme overpopulation of the camp in its later years, when disease and exhaustion became as much a part of the environment as the walls and ceilings. The contrast between this room and the first is brutal, and that is very much the point.

The reconstructed barracks are not there to trick anyone into thinking they are standing in untouched history. Instead, they function as a visual and spatial narrative, walking visitors through a steady decline in living conditions, from rigid control to chaos. By building them in the 1960s, the memorial’s designers created a tool to teach rather than a relic to worship. They remain one of the most immediate, unsettling parts of the site, not because of their authenticity, but because they distil the story of degradation into something that can be seen and felt in the space of a short walk.

September 4, 2025
Food from Every Stall on Norwich Market (2025 Edition) – Week 27 and Tasty House

We’re approaching the end of visiting every food stall at Norwich market and this week’s expedition was to Tasty House, which we visited before when we did this before in 2023. I very much liked the food on this previous visit and everything felt organised and well managed, so my expectations were high. After we waded through the throngs of middle-class people that James knew, first impressions this time were positive as we reminded that the menu is actually rather exciting.

The menu options with most of the dishes already being pre-cooked, although a couple are made fresh to order. There was also a daily special of ribs available as well, so the menu options felt extensive, with a choice of sticky rice, jasmine rice or noodles with each main course. There’s one vegan and vegetarian option, which is listed top of the menu, but all of the others are meat based.

The counter and the stall accepts card and cash. The service was friendly and helpful, although there wasn’t much engagement beyond the minimum needs but there’s a lot to be said for efficiency. We had a wait of around thirty seconds to be served as the customer in front was asking quite a lot of questions, but James pretended not to be annoyed and obviously I’m always calm.

I like the variety of free condiments that can be added to the food, although there’s a sister stand opposite the shop which sells all these raw ingredients. There was quite a lot of general litter on the counters such as abandoned water bottles, coffee cups and other detritus, so that didn’t feel entirely optimal. There’s a small seating area at the end of the stall, but we had our food standing near to the condiments.

I went for the large panang chicken curry with jasmine rice which came to £9.50, an increase of £1.50 from when we last visited. This arrangement seemed a little odd as they were quite stingy on the portion of rice, but very generous with the amount of chicken. However, this meant that the meal seemed a little unbalanced as I had plenty of chicken curry, but nowhere near as much rice as would have been ideal. Given rice is a cheap ingredient, it’s usually the other way around. The curry was though aromatic, rich in flavour, the chicken was tender and moist with the vegetables taking on the flavour of the sauce. I can’t say that the lettuce does much here, but the quality of the arrangement was high and the curry was at the appropriate hot temperature.

James’s food and he went for the Korean BBQ beef, the regular £8 size, but they forgot to ask him if he wanted noodles or rice, but he was satisfied with the sticky rice that he was automatically given. I’m not sure that there was much kimchi which was mentioned in the menu description, but James said that the food was agreeable although the beef a little dry.

I left feeling satisfied with the lunchtime snack, it was filling and had a depth of flavour to it. Ideally they could have packed the large bowl out with a little more rice, but I have no complaints about the quality of the curry itself. The service was friendly, there was a minimal waiting time and I’d merrily recommend this stall to others once again.

September 2, 2025
Munich – Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism (Thomas Wimmer)

Thomas Wimmer (7 January 1887–18 January 1964) was the Social Democratic mayor who became the public face of Munich’s post-war recovery, one of the heroes of his generation. He had been born in Siglfing near Erding, the son of a blacksmith and a domestic worker and he trained as a cabinet-maker, joined the woodworkers’ union in 1907 and the SPD in 1909 before settling in Munich after years as a journeyman. In the First World War he served briefly at the front before being released as an armaments worker and after 1918 he worked at the city labour office and was active in municipal politics. He sat on the city council from 1924 to 1933 and, with the collapse of the Weimar Republic, was arrested a day after the Nazi takeover in Munich, spending time in Stadelheim prison and at Landsberg, and later facing repeated Gestapo detentions. After the 20 July 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life he was held for six weeks in Dachau concentration camp, perhaps very fortunate to have managed to stay alive during this process. I rather suspect that if the Nazis had remained in power for just a little longer, his future would have been more in doubt.

After liberation the American military authorities reinstalled Karl Scharnagl as mayor, Wimmer returned to City Hall as third, then second mayor, and in 1946 served in Bavaria’s constitutional assembly and entered the Landtag. When the SPD topped the 1948 city elections he was chosen as Oberbürgermeister, a post he held until 1960 while also representing Munich in the Bavarian parliament through the 1950s. These were hard years of shortages and ruins and Wimmer pushed pragmatic measures such as the “Holzaktion” to secure winter fuel and, most famously, the citizen clean-up “Rama dama” on 29 October 1949, when more than 7,500 volunteers, shovel in hand, the mayor among them, shifted an estimated 15,000 cubic metres of rubble in a single day. The Bavarian dialect slogan stuck, and the image of a hands-on mayor helped rally a city to reconstruct itself.

Politically he resisted post-war schemes to drive a motorway-scale traffic cut through the historic centre, arguing that the city should be rebuilt for people rather than exhaust fumes. Twice directly re-elected (1952 and 1956), he left office in 1960 with a reputation for plain speech and practical administration. Wimmer died in Munich in 1964 and was buried at the Ostfriedhof. The city named the Thomas-Wimmer-Ring on the Altstadtring after him, and he was made an honorary citizen of Munich in 1957, receiving the Bavarian Order of Merit in 1958 and the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1955 (with Star in 1959). For many Munich residents, though, his memory is still tied most strongly to a broom, a shovel and the decision to clear a path back to normal life.

As a politician, his strength must have been substantial to have resisted the Nazis for so long and to have remained steadfast in his views. To have then been given the opportunity to influence the post-war Munich was at least some justice in his life and it’s evident that he continued to surprise and delight the communities which he served. I hadn’t heard of him before visiting the museum, but I very much like that they have a section on those heroes of their generation who stood up to the Nazis.

September 2, 2025
Munich – Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism (Puppet Chanele and Maria Luiko)

This exhibit at the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism is a little tricky to photograph because of the light, but it’s an important part of their current exhibition. The puppet is Chanele, created by the Munich Puppet Theatre of Jewish Artists which was in existence between 1934 and 1937 when it performed five plays and three musical dramas.

The central person featured by the museum is Maria Luiko (1904-1941) who was a founding member of the theatre group and she made the puppets and most of the stage sets, so she was likely the first person to pull the strings of Chanele. Maria was unable to join the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts when it was created in 1933 as she was Jewish, which also meant that she couldn’t display or sell any of her works. Maria had ideally wanted to move to Palestine, but she was arrested and deported on 20 November 1941, along with her sister Dr. Elisabeth Kohn and her mother Olga Kohn (nee Schulhöfer), from Munich to Kaunas in 1941 and she was then murdered on 25 November 1941. These murders became known as the Ninth Fort massacres, the first systematic mass killings of German Jews during the Second World War.

The museum notes:

“Chanele still remembers what it was like to move on the stage, to tell her story, to play a role. She remembers the excitement and the applause, the hands that made her and the held her on the stage. The hands of the people who believed in the magic of theatre and the power of stories to transform, to comfort, to hold people together.”

The puppet’s survival feels a little remarkable, but its existence means that the story of Maria Luiko is at least not lost to history.

September 2, 2025
Dreiländereck – Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland

I’m very engaged with borders and their meeting points, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to visit the Dreiländereck which is the meeting point of Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland.

And there we go, the actual spot is in the middle of the river and I decided against wading in.

We were standing on the Swiss side of the river, over there is Austria to the left and Liechtenstein to the right. There’s nothing evident to mark the actual spot where the three countries meet, so we were reliant on looking at a map to ensure that we were at the right place.

Walking back to the rather interesting place that Richard left the car. It’s the Rhine and this is near the start of this river before it goes off thundering through Germany and then entering the North Sea via the Netherlands. It’s all very peaceful and there were plenty of cyclists and walkers on both sides of the river.

And we saw what I think is a grey heron.

September 2, 2025
Austria – Pitztal Valley

Richard and I went for a walk in the Pitztal Valley last week and I was so inspired that I’m taking my friend Liam there next year for mountain biking, walking and climbing (by climbing, I mean walking up slight slopes).

Richard was terrified by this, but I was calm and collected when walking by. The rest of this post is just the photos of the walk, it really was a beautiful area.

September 1, 2025
St. Leonhard – Pilgrimage Church of St. Maria am Bichele

As part of our Austrian adventure in the valley of the Alps, we walked to a few churches and this included the rather lovely Pilgrimage Church of St. Maria am Bichele. The name ‘Bichele’ (or little hill) suits it rather well, a modest whitewashed chapel in a clearing which feels more like a woodland sanctuary than a grand shrine and it’s protected today as a historic monument.

The walk up the hill which has wayside shrines whose reliefs narrate the fourteen Stations of the Cross.

Here comes Richard jogging up the hill.

The story of this goes that in 1610 a beggar named Michel is said to have seen an angel who told him to seek the Mother of God near St. Leonhard and after much searching he found a small statue of Mary on a tree stump. A chapel promptly went up at the spot and drew steady devotion. The present church dates to 1828, built by the curate Josef Neururer, partly because the parish feared the main church might be unsafe on shifting ground and wanted a worthy substitute for worship and pilgrimage.

The grotto, which has inspired Richard.

The interior of the church.

The chancel.

The statue of the Virgin Mary on the altar.

Looking back along the nave with the organ on the upper tier.

An interesting votive painting which I think is expressing delight at some miracle taking place, perhaps relating to this location.

September 1, 2025
Munich – Klinglwirt

We veered to the Au-Haidhausen district of Munich in the evening of our relatively short stay as there looked to be some rather more on-trend options in this area, not least some decent beer options. This restaurant, Klinglwirt, is very focused on organic and sustainability, with the online reviews being positive to match that. We walked to the restaurant, but it’s located a short distance away from the Rosenheimer Platz underground station.

There was a friendly welcome, as well as a relaxed and inviting atmosphere in the restaurant. It was relatively busy, but they were able to seat us without a reservation. The prices were a little towards the higher end of the scale, but the standards were evidently high. There was a bustling element to the restaurant, but it was never noisy and the child at the neighbouring table watching his mobile phone helpfully had it on silent.

I went for the sausages and mash, which cost around £16, so slightly pricey but the quality of the meat was high and the mustard wasn’t too harsh in its flavour. The portion size was a little better than the photo suggests, but I could have done with a little more. The sausages actually had a meaty profile rather than spice and bulking agent, with the restaurant being proud to advertise that their pork comes from the organic Herrmannsdorfer Farms. The actual real highlight of this dish was, perhaps not entirely predictably to me, the sauerkraut which was punchy and even slightly decadent.

The beer is the Franziskaner Kellerbier from Spaten-Franziskaner-Löwenbräu-Gruppe which isn’t my usual style of choice, but it had a pleasant depth of taste. It was a clean tasting drink, which was a little sweet with slight tastes of toffee, a generally well rounded beer.

Richard spent more, as one might expect, getting a charcuterie type board which he was pleased with.

He’s abandoned his diet now in the name of research and is ordering desserts all over the place.

I don’t usually do desserts, but the apple strudel option was too tempting to resist. The vanilla custard added positively to the arrangement, with the pastry being light but tasty with not sogginess ruining the dish.

All told, this was a positive visit and the strongest element really was the welcome and comfortable nature of the venue. It’s not always guaranteed, but they accepted cards here, although Richard had taken out cash just in case. The food and drink all met my expectations, with an evident depth of flavour and taste. It might not be the cheapest option in the neighbourhood, but the quality of the food was high and I’d recommend the venue to others.

August 31, 2025