Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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  • Streets of Norwich – Eastbourne Place

    Streets of Norwich – Eastbourne Place

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    Not much has changed on this little street since the above map was published in 1885. The only change is to the name, as St. Faith’s Lane used to go all the way from Tombland to King Street. It sort of still does, although St. Faith’s Lane as a road name stops at Prince of Wales Road, then becomes Eastbourne Place and then becomes Mountergate.

    This map, from twenty years earlier, seems to suggest that Eastbourne Place was constructed in the early 1860s as there are no buildings marked here. Why they choose the name Eastbourne, I have no idea…..

    And the building would have been possible because of the construction of Prince of Wales Road, which was in the late 1850s (the above map is 1849), which finally opened in 1862.

    The area in front of Eastbourne Place has been messed around by the council on numerous occasions, the once little wooded area barely now exists, although at least the nearly always broken public toilet has been removed.

    The building on the left-hand side, which is now blacked out, was until the 2019 a branch of Domino’s, but it has a long history of being a food outlet, as in the 1860s John Sword opened up a refreshment rooms here which sold tea, coffee and other drinks. He also provided accommodation, which I assume was in the rooms which are now occupied by the nightclub Loft.

    The Presto Bar was also here, which housed a 60-foot long model car track, which still exists as Presto Park, although has been much changed over the decades. I think the Presto Bar occupied the same space as the refreshment rooms opened up by John Sword.

    This area looks better now than it has for some years, the space in front has been opened out and the number of cars reduced, although some more greenery would be nice. And someone needs to open up where Domino’s once was….

  • Toronto – Toronto Zoo

    Toronto – Toronto Zoo

    Just photos from Toronto Zoo, and these are from a phone camera in 2015, so they’re not very sharp. The other highlight of this large and well managed zoo were the pandas, now sadly departed to another location. On the suburbs of the city it took me a relatively long bus journey to get there, but it was worth the trip and wasn’t particularly busy. The zoo first opened in 1974 and has been expanded on numerous times over the years.

  • Toronto – Toronto Zoo (Pandas)

    Toronto – Toronto Zoo (Pandas)

    These photos date back to 2015 and were taken when Toronto Zoo had two pandas on loan, the female Er Shun and the male Da Mao. The pandas were on a ten-year tour of Canada, spending five years in Toronto from 2013, until they moved to Calgary in 2018. They were to give birth to two cubs whilst they were in Toronto and the whole family later moved to Calgary, although the two young pandas (named Jia Yueyue and Jia Panpan) went back to Chengdu in early 2020.

    I was impressed at this display at Toronto Zoo, as although there was a bit of a queue, it got visitors nearer to the pandas than in some other zoos. This didn’t detract from the amount of space that the pandas had and they seemed happy enough. It seems that several videos of the pandas went viral from their time in Toronto and it helped the zoo reach some record attendances. It must have been quite sad for the keepers to have to say goodbye, as it also meant the closure of the entire panda area.

    One of the information boards.

     

  • France – Olive Crisps

    France – Olive Crisps

    It’s difficult to deny that French cuisine is one of the best of the world when they produce such culinary excellence as this…. Part of the Tapas Collection released a few years ago, this was the best of the range. Not that this was hard, as there was only one other to my knowledge, which was pesto. I need to get out more….

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Thirty-Two

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Thirty-Two

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Blue Flag

    I’ve never heard of this phrase, but the dictionary defines it as “he has hoisted the blue flag; he has commenced publican, or taken a public house, an allusion to the blue aprons worn by publicans”. Other dictionaries at the time also referred to it as being a name for those becoming fishmongers, for the same reason of the blue aprons. The term now is better known for representing clean beaches, but I like the phrase, which was used between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries.

  • Streets of Norwich – Bank Street

    Streets of Norwich – Bank Street

    Part of my Streets of Norwich project….

    The above map is from the 1870s, with no substantial changes to Bank Street since then, although the area to the south of it was turned into a hotel.

    On the left is the entrance to what was Wade’s Court, although has also been known, and is now signed as Wade’s Yard. On the right is the back of the Royal Hotel, which takes up the whole block and which was built between 1896 and 1897. When they were demolishing the buildings on the site they discovered archaeological remains from the outer precincts of Norwich Castle. Built with 65 bedrooms for guests, the hotel remained trading until 1977 when a lack of car parking saw its demise. Fortunately, plans in the 1970s to demolish it and replace it with a glass office block were rejected, with the building more recently being used for offices.

    The second building on the left, with the sign hanging up above the door, is the former Bank Tavern. Later on part of the Steward & Patteson brewery, this pub first opened in the early part of the nineteenth century and it remained trading until November 1965.

    Looking back down Bank Street towards Bank Plain.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Thirty-One

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Thirty-One

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Blue Devils

    The dictionary defined this as “low spirits”, although it’s today more commonly used in reference to military regiments and sporting teams which have taken on the nickname. However, its original meaning of depression and feeling down is still in usage, more commonly today just as ‘the blues’ and is where the term ‘blues music’ came from. There’s a theory that the original ‘blue devils’ came about from the hallucinations which came after withdrawing from alcohol, although that isn’t entirely certain.

  • Norwich – TGI Fridays

    Norwich – TGI Fridays

    Back to 2017, and the much missed (well, by me) unlimited appetisers which were offered by TGI Fridays in Norwich.

    That’s the offer, you can order endless appetisers for £9.99 if you want huge amounts of the same thing, or £12.99 to order from any of the dishes listed. The staff member told me that no-one had ever ordered the same appetiser for £9.99 to his knowledge, I suspect it’s just there to lower the headline price so they can say “from £9.99”.

    My visit here was with Liam, and we planned to get through all of the options between us if we could, with a few exceptions obviously such as the salad. The options were a pulled pork sundae, garlic ciabatta bread, taquito bites, BBQ houmous, mozzarella dippers, nachos, potato skins, loaded fries, bruschetta, chicken wings, house salad, onion rings and crispy fries.

    The pulled pork sundae, which consists of mashed potato with BBQ pulled pork, bacon, cheese and jalapenos.

    Chicken wings in a cola sauce (there were a choice of different options for the chicken wings, with the others being BBQ, hot, scorpion hot and boneless).

    Um, I have no idea, but I think it might be the garlic ciabatta bread with cheese.

    Potato skins.

    Onion rings.

    Taquito bites.

    Boneless chicken wings, which were very moreish.

    I’m not that keen on mozzarella dippers, so fortunately Liam went for those.

    Nachos.

    They definitely need to do this again. The service was efficient and engaging, although it’s hard for the waiting staff to be able to offer any upsells, so it’s a different style of service to usual, especially since the soft drinks have free refills. There were no real delays in more food being brought out, noticeable by how much we got through. The highlights for me were the onion rings, boneless chicken wings and the taquito bites, with only the pulled pork sundae being a bit of a mash of tastes and textures that I wasn’t that thrilled about.

    The food at TGI Fridays is usually reasonable, although priced at the higher end of the scale, so this was a useful offer in terms of getting better value for money. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that they’ve repeated this offer since 2018, but perhaps when Covid-19 is over then it might come back.

  • Oradea – Oradea Neolog Synagogue

    Oradea – Oradea Neolog Synagogue

    Located in a prominent riverside site in the heart of Oradea is the Neolog synagogue, which is one of the largest buildings of its type in Europe. There were two Jewish communities in Oradea, the Neolog and the Orthodox, which jointly made the city one of the hearts of Judaism in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

    The stone records the completion of the synagogue, which was in 1878, with work having started in October 1876. The building could house over 1,000 people and was similar in design to the synagogue in Nuremberg, which the Nazis ripped down in 1938.

    When the building was restored recently, this letter from 1878 was found in a sealed container.

    This photo is taken from upstairs and it’s a beautiful building, being spacious and light. I didn’t expect this synagogue to be open, it’s rare to find a building such as this which survives, given the damage done to them during the Nazi years. There was a small admission charge to get in (5 lei, so just under £1), but they’ve allowed access to nearly all parts of the building.

    However, the restoration of the building is recent and must have been a real labour of love to get to this stage. The Jewish community in the city was nearly destroyed by the time that the Second World War had ended, so the synagogue fell out of religious use. There had been efforts to keep the synagogue open for religious services in the late 1940s, but the new communist regime didn’t take positively to this plan. The small Jewish community that had survived the war, which was just a few hundred, decided though that they wanted to try and keep the building for what might be a more positive future and so they maintained it as best as they could.

    Another photo from upstairs, looking towards the rear of the synagogue.

    The organ.

    Looking down into the synagogue.

    Two photos of the dome.

    The whole building is ornately decorated. One mystery to me is how the Jewish community managed to keep ownership of this building during the communist era in Romania, I’m surprised that this piece of prime real estate wasn’t taken off of them. I can only imagine that there were some determined members of the community who fought to prevent any such action.

    Two panels, which again I’m surprised have survived as so many of these were lost during the Second World War and the run up to it. The last rabbi of the synagogue was István Vajda, who was forced to become a member of the Jewish council overseeing the new ghetto, and he had to endure the knowledge that his wife was being tortured. He sadly died in a concentration camp.

    Standing proud once again in the heart of Oradea.

  • Oradea – Crișul Repede

    Oradea – Crișul Repede

    Just photos, this is the Crișul Repede, which runs through the heart of Oradea. It would be nice if they could complete a riverside path all the way along, but unfortunately there are some buildings where access isn’t possible at the moment along the bank. Some of the buildings also need some repair, although when I visited in 2017 there were numerous projects to fix things up, so I assume progress is being made.

    The building at the rear of the below photo is Oradea’s Town Hall, it’s not possible to walk along the left-hand side bank to get to it, but that would make a marvellous little promenade area.