Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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  • Liverpool – Richard John Blackler

    I’ve been to this pub a few times before, but it’s in the Good Beer Guide and I haven’t posted about it, so I thought I’d better come and have a fresh look. It’s JD Wetherspoon operated, so I was expecting a decent choice of real ales.

    It’s an intriguing pub name, it’s named after the Blackler’s department store that opened here in 1908, owned by Richard John Blackler. The building was badly damaged during the Second World War, so the current pub is of a later date, but incorporates a little of the original that could be salvaged. One other claim to fame for the site is that George Harrison worked at Blacker’s as an apprentice electrician.

    And the pub didn’t disappoint, there are some interesting selections along here, including one of my perennial favourites, the Mauldon’s Cherry Porter, which I don’t see often enough. I’m not entirely sure that I’d call the Banks & Taylor SOD as a porter in the way the pub has, but, any which way, it’s another decent option. Incidentally, I’m not sure what price the pub was trying to display for the Mauldon’s, I assume £2.49 rather than £2.99.

    The downside was that the service in the pub wasn’t what I’d call ideal. I did hear another customer complain they’d been waiting twenty minutes, which I’m sure they thought was accurate, but it wasn’t. It was around seven minutes and I only know that as they arrived after me. The manager was flapping around serving customers randomly along the long bar, seemingly confused that people were telling her that she was serving out of turn.

    But, I was in no rush, so I waited by the Mauldon’s Cherry Porter, and I would have asked for a sample of Banks & Taylor SOD, but the staff looked so harassed that I thought I’d better not add to their burden. I never did quite work out how four bar staff could take so long to serve the grand total of around ten customers, but life’s too short to worry about that. Although, admittedly, not so short that I won’t write about it the day after.

    The beer was marvellous, the Cherry Porter had a depth of flavour, was light, had lingering flavours and it was at the appropriate temperature. Clean flavours, which is, to be fair, more than could be said for the state of the pub. But, for the price, it’d be hard to complain and the pub’s place in the Good Beer Guide seems entirely reasonable.

  • Berlin – Berlin Tegel Airport BA Lounge

    The BA lounge at Berlin Tegel is, as required by the airport’s layout, landside and this gives the usual limitations of having to leave in plenty of time to board. There are also no toilets in the lounge, they’re on a different floor and require a trip through Starbucks. The lounge also has a policy that visitors can’t leave items whilst visiting the toilets, although I doubt that this is particularly well enforced.

    The welcome at the lounge was better than I’d usually expect, with the staff member checking if I had visited before and then offering a quick explanation of the facilities. The lounge was also clean and the staff walked around frequently checking that everything was kept well stocked.

    There’s little point in BA investing in this lounge, since the entire building will be demolished in the next couple of years, so although it’s a little tired, it’s still holding up well.

    Not the best of photos, but this area usually had customers in and I was trying to avoid including them which meant quickly taking a photo when I had chance.

    The food and drinks bar.

    An extensive selection of teas. The coffee machine also produced some decent quality coffee.

    The biscuits and cakes selection.

    The ice cream freezer and I did enjoy the mini tub of vanilla, latte and macchiato.

    Crisps and other snacks, with olives, cold meats, cheeses, yoghurts and jams also being available. For those who preferred, there were also chocolate bars such as Twix and Bounty, as well as mini individually wrapped chocolates.

    All told, this was a perfectly acceptable lounge, and it was kept clean and well presented. The food options were unexceptional, but sufficient, although the pre-packaged sandwiches which used to be stocked here seem to have been cut (cut in the no longer available sense, not cut up in smaller portions).

    The staff announce to passengers when they need to leave to catch their flight, although I left earlier to try to avoid being at the end of a long queue for security. And as a little final bonus, the reception desk had small packs of Haribo available. What more could anyone want….

  • British Airways (Berlin to Heathrow T5)

    Every time I fly back from Berlin Tegel I wonder whether it’ll be the last time I visit the airport, with its replacement seemingly having been nearly ready for nearly ten years. Tegel has long since been unable to comfortably cope with the volume of passengers and it feels crowded and uncomfortable.

    The boarding process is unusual as the BA lounge is landside, so then there’s a long queue for the security and border checks. Above is a photo of the queue for the flight at the next gate, it’s one of the few airports I can think of where the queues to board are within a five second walk of the terminal entrance.

    The British Airways check-in desks. It took over 40 minutes of queueing to board the aircraft, with no seating for those who needed it. Interestingly, or at least I was interested, my battery pack was examined by the security personnel for compliance, which has never happened before. It is a large battery pack at 20000mAh and I was quite impressed that it was checked, since it is only just under the allowable level.

    The aircraft was G-EUPE, an Airbus A319 that British Airways have operated since it came into service in 2000. I had a window exit row seat, which was sufficiently spacious and clean. It was also a busy flight and was at near capacity, although fortunately there didn’t seem as much pressure on the overhead lockers as usual. Then flight left around ten minutes late, but the captain gave updates and it seemed to be because there was a slight delay with getting everyone through the security process.

    The crew were professional and the buy-on-board (BOB) seemed to be popular, with a new menu having come out at the beginning of October. I still don’t think it’s a very innovative on-board menu, although my views on this are a bit irrelevant since I never buy anything on board British Airways flights anyway.

    The DHL truck had appropriate branding for where I had just flown from.

    The flight arrived into London Heathrow T5 at the expected time and the disembarkation process was efficient and timely. It took around twelve minutes from the airport doors opening to my leaving the terminal, allowing me to leave Heathrow in good time.

  • Berlin – Thomas Cook

    I hadn’t realised that there were retail outlets of Thomas Cook in Germany, but these too are sadly shut. Such a devastating situation for the staff.

  • Berlin – Burger Zimmer XVI

    I felt that I deserved a reward after my morning of river walking (walking alongside it, not in or on it), with this burger restaurant being well reviewed. My first impressions were positive in terms of the cleanliness and interior, but I was slightly concerned that the staff didn’t seem to be ready and nothing was turned on.

    However, my concerns weren’t warranted on this occasion, as two staff members came over immediately, one started to cook the order and the other took payment. I had expected there to be some delay given this, but the food was brought over promptly.

    The interior was smart and looked contemporary, as well as being clean.

    And the burger meal, which I thought was particularly well presented. The chips were excellent, they were ridged which seem to catch more seasoning and they were also suitably salty. The portion size was generous, as was the size of the burger (although I did order the XL burger, so perhaps this was inevitable). The roll was fresh, as was the lettuce and tomato, with the burger being hot. The burger had a decent meaty taste and I thought that this whole combination for around £6.50 was very acceptable value for money.

    I arrived at the restaurant at 13:00 and they’d been open for two hours by that time, so I’m assuming that they’d had a quiet morning. No other customers entered whilst I was there either, but it perhaps deserved to be busier.

  • Berlin – Holiday Inn Berlin City West

    The lobby of the Holiday Inn at Berlin City West, which is my last hotel of this trip before flying back to London Heathrow. It was a free redemption night, so that proved to be something of a bargain. There was a wait of several minutes for a staff member to be free at reception, but when it was my turn to be served she was really friendly. Although the check-in process took six minutes from my arriving at the counter to leaving it, which is unusually long.

    That’s less a fire plan on the back of the door and more of an architect’s drawing….

    The room was bright and modern.

    A slightly half-arsed tea tray, three coffees and one sugar. I’m guessing that this wasn’t properly restocked from a previous guest. And the cups didn’t match.

    And on that subject of half-arsed efforts, this is cheap and nasty. Not only are they selling the water for €3.50 (which seems unnecessarily high given that all the other hotels on my trip have given it out for free), they haven’t bothered to check that the previous guest has broken the seal and drunk some of the water. If a hotel really insists on trying to charge for things like this, it could at least bother to check them.

    I’m used to drinks vouchers from Accor, but this one worked the same way, although the receptionist and bar staff seemed to have a different view on which drinks were included. Fortunately their difference of opinion had no impact on my choice.

    The bar area of the hotel, which was spacious, but became dark fairly quickly.

    The free large beer that I was given. It was cool and refreshing at least.

    I’ve never noticed the logo of this beer before.

    Overall, the room was clean and there were no noise disturbances either internally or externally. I’m not sure how much the room was as it was a free redemption, but it only cost 10,000 points which is at the very low end of the IHG redemption charges.

    The check-in process took far too long, although I was in no rush. I was though impressed at just how fast the wi-fi was, a very impressive speed and I didn’t experience any issues with this. I imagine that much of this hotel’s trade is because of the nearby Berlin Tegel Airport, so when that closes there might be decent room rates to be had here. It’s a large hotel and they’ll have to fill it somehow….

  • Opole – Mercure Opole

    The Mercure in Opole, situated opposite to the central railway station and a short walk to the city centre. Mercure is part of the Accor Group, and so I booked primarily because of that.

    After an exciting overnight coach journey with Flixbus and then a morning breakfast and coffee in Opole, I decided to try to get an early check-in at the hotel. I use the logic that even if they don’t have a room available yet, I could always drop my bag off before coming back later.

    Anyway, they had a room nearly ready, and it’s probably worth mentioning that the receptionist was exceptional. His engagement and friendliness seemed authentic (or I suppose well acted is possible, although unlikely) and the standard of his English was ridiculously good. Here am I trying still trying not to get the Polish words for nine and ten confused (dziewięć and dziesięć) and here was he with a fluency that was, if I’m being honest, better than many native English speakers.

    He suggested that as there was a short wait that I might want to have my welcome drink immediately, which seemed a good idea. So I had my Żywiec and waited for the room to be ready, which only took around two minutes.

    The receptionist (I say receptionist, but he was probably a manager, and if he wasn’t, he should have been) explained that the welcome gift of fruits wasn’t quite ready and it’d be brought to the room later on. Through long experience, these things often never quite arrive, but true to his promise, he brought a plate with fruits on, and a slice of cheesecake. This was far better than a couple of apples, which is what I was unexcitedly expecting.

    The room, which was on the third floor and overlooked the main road into the city centre. I’m clearly not normal, but I do quite the ambient noise from streets, it adds to the whole ambience of a room. There were no noise disturbances either internally or externally though which irritated me.

    A fully stocked collection of tea and coffee supplies, with two bottles of water also included. These were all kept fully stocked during my five-night stay. The room was also spotless and, indeed, was one of the cleanest hotel rooms that I’ve been in. It reached the stage that I went around the room deliberately trying to find dust or grime, but I wasn’t successful in that hunt.

    The breakfast selection. This was also a peaceful process, as although there were always several people eating breakfast, the room was large and so it was easy to find a seat.

    There were some hot breakfast options, but I was content with the breads and cold meats. My only little complaint here is that they had some peppered salami for the first couple of days, which I became quite partial to, but they didn’t have any on the other days (although that was perhaps because I’d eaten it all).

    The cake selection at breakfast.

    Bread, cold meats, vegetable things, all very lovely.

    Apologies for the gratuitous photos of teabags, but this is definitely what I call proper tea. An innovative and interesting selection. The coffee was rather good as well.

    I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels and I’ve long since given up being frustrated with incompetent hotel management. It appears to be a complete mystery to some hotel managers that guests do actually want regular restocking of in-room drinks and soaps, that they might want to know when breakfast is or have a menu for the restaurant in the room.

    This hotel managed to be the entire reverse of that, it gave me the impression of being competent. I couldn’t manage to find any fault with the hotel at any stage, with the exception that the wi-fi was a little slow at times. The room was clean, the staff were friendly, the breakfast was of an excellent quality and the rooms were cleaned and restocked efficiently.

    At check-out, there was a different member of staff who managed to perform the process efficiently and politely. And, once again, with a fluent knowledge of English. Overall, it was about as perfect a stay as I’ve had in a hotel. All very lovely indeed.

  • Opole – Opole Cemetery

    This cemetery, on ul. Wrocławska, was opened in 1813 and burials continued here until 1968. It was opened because of the fear of an epidemic spreading from the city’s existing graveyards and this cemetery was extended numerous times during the nineteenth century.

    Unfortunately, it’s not in the best of shape as there has been vandalism, theft and as the icing on the cake, the cemetery has suffered from extensive flooding. The cemetery records have also been destroyed and so it’s not the tranquil environment that was perhaps once intended.

    The cemetery is still of a large size, although a small section was lopped off the edge when the authorities wanted to build a new road over the river.

    There have been some efforts recently to tidy the area up, so although the gravestones are in a poor state of repair, the graveyard itself is looking better.

    This looks Germanic, so probably late nineteenth century, but there’s no remaining evidence of who was buried here. Opole was German until 1945, albeit with a Polish minority, so many of the burials here were German families. Unfortunately, that later on meant that some people thought it was acceptable to damage and vandalise them. In 1945, the Germans living in Opole were nearly all expelled, so families wouldn’t have been able to tend the graves of their friends and relatives.

    This isn’t my poor camera skills, more some sinking into the ground of a grave.

    The gravestone of Emilie Moebius, who lived from 16 December 1847 until 27 January 1893. Her husband, Paul Moebius, was an important figure in the local council, although his stone isn’t visible and I guess is what was smashed off the wall.

    This is the impressive tomb of Paul Vogt, who lived from 20 February 1855 until 19 May 1905. He was a lawyer and city councillor (and chairman of the council for a time) and there was once a street in the city named after him.

    This was once the decorative metal edge to one of the plots, but it has now fallen and become part of the path.

    Another damaged tomb, this one for the Godt family.

    There are, although unfortunately not marked, thirty military burials of British soldiers at the cemetery. They died, mainly of illness, whilst enforcing the plebiscite which was taking place in 1921 which would determine the future of Silesia. There were 41 burials here of British servicemen, but the Imperial War Graves Commission could only take responsibility for those who died before what was considered the official ending of the First World War, so eleven servicemen were exhumed and given new graves at Stahnsdorf Cemetery near Potsdam whilst the other thirty remained in Opole. The story of this can be found at https://www.ww1cemeteries.com/opole-town-cemetery.html.

  • Opole – St. Michael’s Church

    I don’t have much to write about this church, other than I thought it was an unusual architectural style and made quite a statement for those passing by. I had thought that the church was older than it actually was, as it was only built between 1936 and 1937.

  • Opole – Opole City Walls

    Most of Opole’s city walls were destroyed in the early nineteenth century, primarily because they no longer performed any real useful defensive function. There is though a stretch that has been reconstructed and re-opened near to the city’s cathedral. The project was completed in 2009 at a cost of 1.2 million zloty, with walkways constructed so that visitors can walk alongside the top of the walls.

    There’s just one little problem, which is that the steps have been closed off as the wooden structure has started to fall away. The steps are now barricaded off at the base, but the city is promising to have it all re-opened in 2020.