The Travelling Life of Silvan Colani
Summer 2006 - Wales, Scotland & Switzerland
Here’s another trip report to my favorite two destinations: Wales and Switzerland, only this time it is spiced up with a side trip to Scotland and a long overdue visit to a Rolling Stones concert.
After a short weekend in Wales we flew from Cardiff to Edinburgh to attend a wedding of a former colleague of Mei. Although both bride and groom were Chinese with little or no Scottish connection they decided to get married in a castle outside Edinburgh. Fair enough. The setting was great: a traditional castle with meticulously manicured lawns, ivy-clad tower … and highly overprized rooms: GBP 200 per night for a simple, worn, standard room. That’s just nuts! But I’ve never stayed in a real castle before so we forked out the money (actually Mei did). The wedding was blessed with fine weather – which I hear is rare in Scotland – and Mei and I got a few ideas of what-not-to-do for our own wedding in December (the release of the doves was a bit too tacky for my taste…)
Edinburgh itself seems a nice enough place. We only had a little time to explore the city and we also happened to visit right during the Edinburgh Festival, the world’s largest art festival.
I also made a point of visiting the Royal Yacht Britannia, which is permanently moored outside Edinburgh since its decommissioning in late 1997. One of the last voyages of the Royal Yacht was to Hong Kong for the handover in that same year and I have fond memories of chasing Prince Charles and former governor Chris Patten out of the harbor with our junk in the early hours of July 1st, 1997.
As Admiral of the Liechtenstein Princely Navy I have a keen interest in all things nautical and I was particularly pleased to notice that the draft beer served to both officers and crew on the Britannia was FOSTER’S! The self-guided audio tour of this magnificent ship is well worth it but I recommend you go early in the morning as crowds grow quickly.
In Edinburgh we rented a Peugeot 206 convertible which we then drove through Scotland, England and Wales back to Swansea. The drive through Scotland was pleasant – lots of empty space and little traffic. We stopped for the night at the Lake District at another overprized hotel (GBP 70 per person).
Back in Wales the program was pretty straight-forward: eat, drink, sleep,… eat, drink, sleep… and watch Takeshi’s Castle, my favorite TV show, every night on Challenge. We also spent time looking after Mei’s nephew who is now 2 ½ years old and much more articulate then when we last visited (and almost potty trained!) He also has a three-week old sister, but she only eats, sleeps and poops at this stage. The weather in Wales was surprisingly good: cold, but sunny most of the time. The best part of course was the Chinese cooking of Mei’s mum, which meant that I did not have to rely on British ‘cuisine’ for survival.
For our last night in Wales we had tickets to see the Rolling Stones in Cardiff. The thing is, I’ve always been a bit of a Stones fan but somehow always missed them in concert. I had tickets when they were supposed to play in Hong Kong in 2002 – but that concert was cancelled because of SARS. When they came back in 2003 for the Harbourfest I was climbing Ama Dablam in Nepal. Given the age of Mick & Co. I figured this would be my last chance to see them live, although judging from Mick Jagger’s level of activity on stage I don’t think he will retire soon. The Millennium Stadium has a capacity of some 70,000 people, but I must say I was rather disappointed with the audience participation. The entire stadium was seated and almost nobody got up during the first half of the concert. But then again, given that the average age of the audience must have been about 65 it wasn’t such a big surprise. In the second half – after Keith Richards sang his obligatory two songs, where everybody leaves to get a beer or have a pee – the atmosphere picked up with a lively rendition of “Start Me Up” and “Honky Tonk Woman”. Predictably, they ended the night with “Satisfaction”, of which I got plenty in these two hours.
We were now off to Switzerland for our final stop of the journey. In Zurich, we ate the obligatory Bratwurst at the Sternengrill and proceeded to my traditional get-together-with-old-friends at Acqua. I was pleased to see some 15 to 20 people turn up, given that last year a meager two showed up.
Next morning we drove from Zurich to Ticino in our rented VW Polo, which at 1.2l must have been the smallest engine car I have rented in years (must save money for the wedding!). They initially wanted to give me a Lancia Ypsilon, possibly the ugliest car in history, which I promptly returned. Due to some poor navigation skills on my part it took us an hour to drive through Zurich before hitting the highway south. We crossed two passes, Oberalp (2044m) and Lukmanier (1914m) before eventually arriving at my dad’s place in Intragna.
My dad Jimmy, a.k.a. Pagadache, being the artist that he is, basically built the place by himself. It’s a large living room with one bedroom downstairs and a toilet/bath without doors. For the first night, we shared this humble accommodation among six of us together with my brother and his girlfriend, growing to nine the next day and eleven by Sunday as more friends joined. We had to play cards for the few available beds every night together with a host of other punishments (see the Cho Dai Dee Gallery for details). The weather was brilliant and we spent four days hiking, sunbathing, eating, drinking and carrying sacks of cement (see the Cho Dai Dee Gallery).
From here it was back to Zurich for a quick lunch at mom’s, a short flight to London … and … a long series of queues to connect at Heathrow Airport. First, we queued in a wrong queue. Then we queued for a bus to another queue. There we queued for a queue where a uniformed man informed the assembled queuers that everybody was only allowed one bag of hand luggage. If you have two, you need to put one bag into the other or go through immigration and check in your extra bag. One ingenious Chinese guy tried to hide his extra bum bag under his jacket and thus looked a bit pregnant. It didn’t work.
Then we queued for the security scan where you take off all your clothes and lie on a conveyor belt to pass through the x-ray machine. They found a FOSTER’S leak in my liver but no explosives. I’m kidding of course, but you do have to take off your shoes and your belt which makes me wonder why anybody would apply for the job of the person that has to push the smelly footwear into the x-ray machine. Yech!
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