The London Years · 1999–2002 · Short Trips from Barnes
The London
From Barnes, the whole of Europe was an hour away. Barcelona in February for sun after grey London days. Paris with the kids on a bus that rear-ended a car. Edinburgh on a 6-hour gamble in a secondhand car with 18 hours of daylight. Amsterdam on a bike path. Andalucía with a curtain rod to the eye and sold-out Alhambra tickets rescued by scalpers. Izmir on September 11th. Istanbul in the aftermath. And Stockholm in November with 6 hours of daylight and Annelise wanting to go back to the hotel.
(Written during the Great Shutdown of 2020. Memory isn't this good — internet searches filled in a lot of holes.)
Our first trip from London was for the first bank holiday in February 2000 for a long weekend. Short winter gray days start to run into each other and it was nice to see the sun. Don't remember much about the hotel and we focused on visiting the main tourist sites.
Gaudí's work is throughout Barcelona and his masterpiece is Sagrada Família — which is still under construction 20 years after we visited. Construction started in the late 1800s and is scheduled to be finished by 2026. The best picture is above and according to the notes Sharon wrote in her album, Alexandra was napping (which was probably a first). We did a partial tour and it was interesting that he designed the spires upside down — using string and weights to calculate optimal arch and spans.
Park Güell was also designed by Gaudí — it is located at the top of a hill overlooking the city. We spent a lot of the afternoon there and apparently Annelise was napping during this time as we didn't have any pictures of her.
We also went by a couple of Gaudí's other works, Casa Milà and Casa Batlló.
We also visited Montjuïc, Las Ramblas, and the zoo — the white gorilla was a highlight for Annelise. We bought a stuffed “Snowflake” which Annelise carried around for a couple of years.
The Sagrada Família has been under construction since 1882 — 143 years at the time of writing — making it the longest-running construction project in modern Europe. Antoni Gaudí took over the project in 1883 and devoted the last 43 years of his life to it, becoming increasingly ascetic and dedicating all his time to the church. He was killed by a tram in 1926 and is buried in the crypt below. The upside-down string model described was Gaudí's method for calculating the optimal shape of arches and vaults using gravity rather than mathematics — inverting the hanging chain created a pure catenary arch. The completed sections were classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. Snowflake (Copito de Nieve) was the only known albino gorilla in captivity, born in the wild in 1964 and resident at Barcelona Zoo until his death in 2003.
Our first trip from London was for the first bank holiday in February 2000 for a long weekend. Short winter gray days start to run into each other and it was nice to see the sun. This set the pattern for the entire London assignment: bank holiday weekend, short flight, sun somewhere in Europe. Barcelona was the right first choice — good weather, spectacular architecture, a white gorilla that became Annelise's stuffed companion for two years. A good beginning.
My wife's sister and her family came over for spring break and we went to Paris for a couple of days then returned back to London for a couple of days. They had a 7 year old son who was as “active” as Alexandra and they made quite a team. On the way over to France on the Eurostar, the train stopped in the Channel Tunnel for a while and the kids started getting restless and some other people on the train yelled at them…they weren't that bad but older people in Europe definitely had a view that kids should be seen and not heard.
We went to the Eiffel Tower at night — can't remember why we went at night and the only picture from the top I found was the kids eating.
We took the hop on / hop off bus around the city — the most memorable thing was the kids were bored and not sitting correctly and the bus rear-ended a car — both Alexandra and Christopher wacked their heads on the back of the hard bus seats…they started sitting correctly.
The plan was to finish the trip with a visit to the Louvre…but the sisters decided they preferred to have some wine instead of trying to force the kids for another museum visit (which had a long line), so we just let them run around outside the Louvre pyramid before catching the Eurostar.
The most memorable thing was the kids were bored and not sitting correctly and the bus rear-ended a car — both Alexandra and Christopher wacked their heads on the back of the hard bus seats…they started sitting correctly. The Eurostar stop in the Channel Tunnel while the kids got restless and the older passengers objected was the opening act. The hop-on bus rear-ending a car in central Paris was the conclusion. Between the wine decision and the kids running around outside the Louvre pyramid, the sisters clearly had the better afternoon.
The Channel Tunnel opened in 1994 and the Eurostar passenger service connecting London St Pancras to Paris Gare du Nord began in November of that year. The journey covers 494km (307 miles) and the tunnel section underneath the English Channel is 50km long — the longest underwater tunnel in the world. In 2000, the journey from London to Paris took approximately 3 hours; high-speed upgrades on both the English and French sides have since reduced it to just over 2 hours. The tunnel runs at an average depth of 40 metres below the seabed. Eurostar trains stopped in the tunnel periodically during the early years of operation due to technical and maintenance reasons — not an uncommon event in that era.
We had purchased an old car with the intent of only using it on the weekends to go to the store, but we decided to take the chance on a 6 hour drive each way from London to Edinburgh. We stayed in a spare room in a house which was a short bus ride to the city centre. This was pre-AirBNB and had to be done over the phone, but it worked out about the same once we got there.
We were there in June and Edinburgh is further north than Edmonton, Alberta with 18 hours a day of sunlight and it never gets completely dark. The first day it rained as we spent all day on the Royal Mile, Edinburgh Castle, and Holyrood Palace.
The next day we went to Newtown and Arthur's Seat and even though it was June, it was pretty brisk. We didn't make the hike all the way to the top — a little far for a 2 year old. You'll note the stuffed animal in Alexandra's hands — was left on the bus late one night — a lot of sadness.
Edinburgh is further north than Moscow and sits at roughly the same latitude as Edmonton, Alberta — which explains the 18-hour summer daylight described here. The city's Old Town, built along the Royal Mile running from the castle to Holyrood Palace, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site together with the Georgian New Town. Edinburgh Castle sits on Castle Rock, an ancient volcano plug that has been a fortified site for over 3,000 years. Arthur's Seat is the main peak of a group of hills in the centre of Edinburgh and reaches 251 metres (823 feet) above sea level. It is the remains of a volcano that last erupted approximately 350 million years ago. Holyrood Palace has been the official Scottish residence of the British monarch since the 16th century and is where the Queen stayed for one week each summer during her annual visit to Scotland.
We had purchased an old car with the intent of only using it on the weekends to go to the store, but we decided to take the chance on a 6 hour drive each way from London to Edinburgh. Pre-GPS, pre-AirBNB, spare room booked over the phone. It worked out about the same once we got there. This is the version of travel planning that has largely ceased to exist: you bought the car, you made the call, you drove 6 hours and hoped it all held together. It did.
For the February bank holiday, we took the short flight from London to Amsterdam — about the same flight duration as from Washington DC to Columbus Ohio. We stayed in the old city and the lack of GPS navigation lead to some stress points: We accidentally drove our rental car onto a bike path and ended up in a pedestrian square. Took a while to escape. We were always having to understand our location — we didn't want to turn on to a street with fancy dressed up ladies in windows…weren't ready for that explanation yet.
It snowed before we arrived and the snow had been plowed into piles in a park near the first museum of the day — this was the first time that Annelise had seen (or remembered seeing) snow. Alexandra taught her about snowballs.
We had planned on visiting a lot of museums as Sharon was in the middle of her art history classes as well as a windmill for Alexandra to complete a school assignment. But we ended up only going to the Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum as we had a mini-revolt on “sharing time”. So some sledding on the snow piles, a zoo visit, and a boat ride replaced a couple of museum visits.
We did drive south of Amsterdam to Delft (where the blue plates come from) and Rotterdam. The Rotterdam visit had an intent as we were pursuing a project there and I may have had the opportunity to be on the project and we would move to Rotterdam after my London assignment was complete. Rotterdam was totally different — completely bombed in WWII and rebuilt in the 1950–70s and is the “Cradle of Brutalism.” So — Sharon wasn't that motivated on the potential next move. Ironically, in doing the internet searches for Rotterdam — the city looks awesome now.
We accidentally drove our rental car onto a bike path and ended up in a pedestrian square. Took a while to escape. We were always having to understand our location — we didn't want to turn on to a street with fancy dressed up ladies in windows…weren't ready for that explanation yet. We did spend a lot of time walking — after the bike path incident we left the car parked. We did come across a “coffee shop” and the girls were amazed by the dogs that were lazily waiting outside as well as buying Alexandra that white Fjäll Räven hat which we may still have.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam holds the world's largest collection of works by Vincent van Gogh — over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and 750 personal letters. Van Gogh was Dutch and produced almost all of his major works in the final 10 years of his life, dying in 1890. The Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands, houses Rembrandt's Night Watch (1642) and Vermeer's The Milkmaid, among the most visited works of art in the world. Both museums are on the Museumplein in central Amsterdam. Annelise witnessing snow for the first time — or the first time she remembers — and Alexandra teaching her about snowballs is the kind of small moment that doesn't make guidebooks.
The English discovered Costa Del Sol in the late 1950s when linguists were able to translate Costa Del Sol into “Coast of Sun” and realized that long sunny days are a great break from short gray days. We went for a week during Easter Half-Term and stayed for a couple of days in a holiday resort in Fuengirola and then toured the great cities of Ronda, Seville, and Granada.
We landed on Saturday and Easter was the next day and we went to a local church — the prior year in England people were wearing jeans and sweatshirts. So this year, we didn't take really nice dress clothes, just regular nice clothes. Although the little girls and I got away with it, Sharon was given a lot of looks by the locals for not being in her Sunday best.
After almost getting my eye taken out with a curtain rod, we had a nice relaxing couple of days in Fuengirola. We spent time on the beach, did a horseback ride, a boat ride, and visited the local amusement park — Tivoli World. We also went to the “white town” of Mijas in the mountains above Fuengirola.
After leaving Fuengirola, we stopped in Marbella which was much a more upscale town and beach. Sharon insisted that we go to an expensive beach club to check out how the rich live — I was initially put off by the expensive drink menu but when the topless waitresses arrived, I had to admit that Sharon was right. Sorry no pictures.
We then went to Ronda for a stop on the way to Seville — another Spanish hill town.
We spent the day walking around Seville, visiting the sites that dated from when the Moops (or the Moors — still debated) occupied Andalucía and had a strong Islamic influence on architecture and design.
Our final destination was Granada where the primary attraction is The Alhambra. The Alhambra is a fortress complex and was originally constructed as a small fortress in AD 889 on the remains of Roman fortifications, and then largely ignored until its ruins were renovated and rebuilt in the mid-13th century by the Emirate of Granada. After the conclusion of the Christian Reconquista in 1492, the site became the Royal Court of Ferdinand and Isabella (where Christopher Columbus received royal endorsement for his expedition), and the palaces were partially altered in the Renaissance style. In 1526 the Spanish King commissioned a new Renaissance palace better befitting the Holy Roman Emperor. The Alhambra was the last of the Islamic palaces built for the Muslim emirs in Spain (a lot of help from Wikipedia on this recollection…).
For Sharon, this was the part of the trip that she had been looking forward to the most and the main reason we chose to go to Andalucía. As we arrived, we found that the tickets had already been sold out for the day. Sharon was not happy — as we were planning our next move we came around a corner and found some people selling tickets…so we were in.
The Alhambra in Granada is one of the most visited monuments in Europe, receiving approximately 2.6 million visitors annually — which explains the sold-out tickets. Entry is strictly limited and timed, with a significant portion of daily tickets sold in advance online. The palace complex represents the pinnacle of Moorish architecture in Spain and contains the Nasrid Palaces, the Generalife gardens, and the Alcazaba fortress. Christopher Columbus met Ferdinand and Isabella here in 1492 in the Hall of the Ambassadors — the same year the Reconquista concluded with the fall of Granada — to receive royal endorsement for his voyage west. The Alhambra was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984.
After almost getting my eye taken out with a curtain rod, we had a nice relaxing couple of days in Fuengirola. Sharon insisted that we go to an expensive beach club to check out how the rich live — I was initially put off by the expensive drink menu but when the topless waitresses arrived, I had to admit that Sharon was right. The Alhambra tickets were sold out and Sharon was not happy — then we came around a corner and found some people selling tickets. Three unplanned outcomes, two of which were genuinely positive and one of which required healing.
We landed in Istanbul at 7am New York time on September 11th. We had a short layover before our next flight to Izmir and went through immigration and security to catch our flight which was scheduled at about 8:45am New York time. The young Muslim lady wearing a head scarf working the immigration window was very friendly and she even came out of the booth to kiss Annelise on the head…a very warm reception to Turkey. We then got on our flight and when we landed at 10am New York time the world had changed forever.
It took a while for us to start to get information. In Izmir, English was not widely spoken and when we got to the car rental desk the agent pulled me into the office where he showed me on the dial-up internet a picture of one of the towers standing and on fire — all the words were in Turkish. I tried CNN but overloaded. Then we were informed that a car bomb had gone off in Istanbul (ultimately not related). The emergency protocol is to notify the country manager of your situation so I called him. He said he didn't know anything but we have to assume the USA is under attack and to “lay low” and head to the hotel in Foca near the jobsite as planned, confirm arrival, and we would connect the next day. Foca is the resort town and was very remote and in hindsight probably as safe as you could get. But laying low with our group was going to be a challenge. We called the USA and all the circuits were busy and finally got through to friends in Cairo and London who filled in the details that both towers had fallen and the Pentagon had been attacked as well. By then it was 9pm local time and we checked in to the hotel and walked to town to eat. People were coming up to us and saying that they were sorry in broken English — 100% supportive.
We were up very early the next day trying to find information but phone service to the USA was still spotty — Sharon was focused on trying to get through to her family to check on her cousin who was a New York City firefighter (he was OK). I headed into work to check in and when I got to work the Americans were advised that they didn't need to come in to work and to go back to their residence or hotel. We said that we were OK working as there was nothing else to do however it became clear after a while they didn't want us there as we were making them a target. I went back to the hotel and we stayed there a couple of days on lockdown and went back to the jobsite once before we headed back to Istanbul. Below are some pictures from the trip — it wasn't a vacation as we were pre-occupied and concerned with the events back home but we were safe the entire time.
Foca was about 1.5 hours from the Izmir airport and 20 minutes from the jobsite — we stayed at the Phokaia Beach resort on the Aegean Sea (I clearly had to Google to find that). We were pretty much on lockdown until the last day when I went to work and the girls went on a boat ride.
As planned, we spent a day in Ephesus which are the well-preserved ruins of an ancient Greek city before flying back to Istanbul. Ephesus is about 2 hours drive from Foca via Izmir. Ephesus is an important site in both Greek and Christian history. Generally it seemed better preserved than places I had been to in Greece or Italy and you could truly visualize the city.
When we arrived in Istanbul, we didn't know how long we were going to be there. It was the weekend and the plan was a semi-house hunting trip and dinner with work colleagues Saturday, some touring on Sunday, and the girls would fly back to London. Moving to Istanbul or Izmir was a potential option after my London assignment ended, so I wanted Sharon to see potential places to live. But it was decided to skip the day and we stayed at the hotel most of the day.
We had a hotel in Taksim Square — which normally would have been a great location but that was the location of the car bombing from the week before and we were still very cautious. When we did decide to leave, instead of taking public transportation, we got a driver and were very deliberate on where we visited. The start of each day was finding out more information from the USA (much better internet at the hotel) and trying to figure out when the girls would fly back.
Istanbul is truly one of the great places in the world to visit — it is the cross-roads of the world with the city straddling Europe and Asia. Now Turkey is secular with most of the people practising Islam (Sunni) and very welcoming (this was my circa 2000–2002 view — it seems to have changed) but the city had been known as Constantinople since the Roman Empire moved there in ~300 A.D. We focused on our visits to 3 sites, Sultanahmet Park (Hagia Sophia & the Blue Mosque), Topkapī Palace, and a boat trip on the Bosphrus.
Hagia Sophia dates to the days of the Roman Empire and was a Christian Church for 1,000 years then converted to a Mosque in the 1300s.
The Blue Mosque was completed in 1600 with the objective of being more impressive than the Hagia Sophia — both are very impressive. But considering that the Blue Mosque was built 400 years ago while Hagia Sophia was built 1,300 years before the Blue Mosque, I'd have to vote Hagia Sophia.
Our trip to Topkapī Palace was most memorable for misplacing Alexandra for a while — we found her as she had latched on to an English-speaking couple and had gone to security. I am guessing the picture below is before the drama.
I don't remember the specifics, but eventually we were notified of flights resuming and Sharon and the girls left on the second flight back to London — still paranoid so they weren't on the first one.
I made 6 trips to Turkey and spent about 6 weeks in country over three years and really enjoyed my visits and the people as well as the large projects that we were building there with our partner. We ended up never seriously considering relocating to Istanbul as after 9/11 it seemed best to head back to the USA. From a work perspective, our work outside the USA fell off dramatically for a couple of years.
Hagia Sophia was built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I and completed in 537 CE — making it nearly 1,500 years old. It served as the world's largest cathedral for nearly 1,000 years. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 it was converted to a mosque; it became a museum in 1934 under Atatürk and was reconverted to a mosque in 2020. Istanbul is the only city in the world that straddles two continents — Europe and Asia — divided by the Bosphorus Strait. The city was founded as Byzantium in 660 BCE, renamed Constantinople in 330 CE when it became the capital of the Roman Empire, and renamed Istanbul after 1930. It has been the capital of three empires: Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman.
By 9pm local time we checked in to the hotel and walked to town to eat. People were coming up to us and saying that they were sorry in broken English — 100% supportive. This was the consistent experience across 6 trips and 6 weeks in Turkey over three years. The car rental agent who pulled us into his office to show us the dial-up photo. The people on the street at dinner. The immigration officer who kissed Annelise on the head that morning. The Turkish people were warm, welcoming, and unambiguously sympathetic in a way that mattered at the time and has stayed.
“By then it was 9pm local time and we checked in to the hotel and walked to town to eat. People were coming up to us and saying that they were sorry in broken English — 100% supportive.”
After we decided to return to the USA in October 2001, we had a pretty tight schedule of buying a house and getting relocated back by January and the start of school. So we squeezed in one more weekend trip and chose Stockholm since we hadn't been to a Scandinavian country yet. November wasn't the best time with 6 hours of daylight and it was cold. We don't have any pictures and the primary memories were that it was dark and cold…and Annelise kept saying “I want to go back to the hotel”.
We went to the Vasa Museum and spent a lot of time there, it was warm in the museum and there was a lot for the kids to do. We did go to Gamla Stan (old city) but didn't spend a lot of time walking outside. Overall, a pretty quick in and out for our last weekend trip. Pictures from the internet.
The Vasa Museum in Stockholm houses the Vasa, a Swedish warship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628 — just 1,300 metres into its first journey — and was salvaged from the bottom of Stockholm harbour in 1961. It is the world's only preserved 17th-century ship and is 98% original. The museum is Sweden's most visited and one of the most visited in all of Scandinavia. Stockholm in November has approximately 7–8 hours of daylight, declining to about 6 hours by December. The city is built on 14 islands where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic Sea, and Gamla Stan (Old Town) is one of the largest and best-preserved medieval city centres in Europe.
After we decided to return to the USA in October 2001, we had a pretty tight schedule of buying a house and getting relocated back by January and the start of school. So we squeezed in one more weekend trip and chose Stockholm since we hadn't been to a Scandinavian country yet. November wasn't the best time with 6 hours of daylight and it was cold. We don't have any pictures and the primary memories were that it was dark and cold…and Annelise kept saying “I want to go back to the hotel.” This is an accurate summary of the last trip of the London years: rushed, cold, dark, and done. But squeezed in. Which is the right call.