Holiday Rock

I've been on holiday.  

I had a very relaxing week of doing nothing by the pool in a villa in Arborim, Portugal.  I'd show you the pictures but this blog is boring enough already; you don't need all my snaps as well.  I will share this one of me in Barcelos, however, because I have no idea what this statue is and its hideousness needs to be recorded.

However, I did do a little station spotting while I was out there.  I kept it to a minimum out of respect for the BF, though I should point out that when we were in Porto, he was the one who suggested we ride the trams.  He'll soon be one of us, I promise.

Tamel

This was the closest station to where we were staying and was an archetypal Portuguese station for a small town.

A whitewashed two-storey block with wings either side and tile work around the bottom.  (There was a sign on the building warning against stealing the tiles.  People are awful, aren't they?)  The ticket office seemed permanently closed, though it was early evening so I couldn't be sure.  It did have a working clock, which is always good to see.

The normally single track line here expands to two, with neat concrete shelters on each one and a barrow crossing.  This lead to the only example of multilingual signage on the platform:

The implication being that British people are too thick to know how to cross a railway track without someone giving them instructions.  Fair.  

Tamel also had another feature you don't often get on provincial stations in the UK: a working public toilet.

Admittedly it was little more than a row of urinals with no door or hand washing facilities (and I didn't poke around the ladies', for obvious reasons) but still, well done.

Barcelos

The local large town, Barcelos's station featured a whopping three platforms, and a pleasingly 1930s ambience which had been preserved and scrubbed up.  (Wait, who was in charge of Portugal in the thirties?... oh.)

Note, in particular, the little steam train on the weather vane.  Again, the ticket office was closed, though in this case it seemed to be because of the lateness of the hour rather than a permanent feature.  I peered through the glass and saw a neat little square of tiled floor with benches.  

There were no actual trains, mind; the service through Barcelos is erratic.  As I write this, the next trains are at 10:07, 10:36, 11:09 and 13:15; there seems to be no rhyme or reason to when they show up.

I had a wander round, snapping my pics, ignoring the man on the platform listening to music on his speakerphone.  He was in his sixties, at least, showing that antisocial behaviour crosses all boundaries and age gaps.

 An empty station is a lonely place. 

Nine

Those first two stations I didn't actually take a train to; the BF dropped me off in the car to indulge myself.  When we headed into Porto for a day trip, though, we decided to Park and Ride, and headed for the nearby town of Nine (which I believe is actually pronounced Ninny, but don't quote me on that).  

Nine gets a far better service into the city - you could change here for Barcelos and Tamel, but you might have a wait - so I bought our tickets from the office using my brilliant Portuguese ("Two to Sao Bento please", while holding up two fingers).

Nine also had a cafe, one which, unlike your average British station caff, looked like it served edible food and good coffee and seemed to be a place people came to even if they weren't getting a train.  Why do Europeans get this sort of thing and we have the odd Pumpkin churning out ready packed sandwiches made of grim?  Even their petrol stations have charming little cafes attached where you can get a hot meal, not a Costa machine and a Mars Bar.  (Although I have noticed that a lot of Portuguese people hang around these petrol station snack bars with a lit fag dangling out of their mouth, so while the Brits may be lacking on the culinary front, we win when it comes to health and safety).

There are five platforms at Nine, which sounds like the start of a riddle, and as such it gets a subway under the platforms with white tiles and electronic signs.  You probably don't care about that sort of thing so I won't put up a picture, so here's a picture of a Portuguese train instead.

I don't know what sort of train it is, obviously, but it was relatively ok inside.  There were plenty of seats, though the moquette was a little threadbare, and a couple of the windows had popped and were full of condensation. 

There was a nice map over the doors with the local commuter services though, and you know I love a map.

I confessed to the BF that there was a part of me that wanted to jump off at each station on that map.  He may have rolled his eyes.

Special mention to the accessibility doors which provide space for wheelchairs, prams and surfboards. 

The Porto Metro

We had a lovely wander round the city of Porto.  We'd been to Lisbon once, on a day trip about a decade ago, and didn't like it at all.  We've since agreed that we must've gone to the wrong bit of Lisbon, a sort of grimy area that wasn't its proper heart, because everyone else seems to think it's fantastic.  Certainly Porto was a delight - lots of beautiful streets, a wide river with boats on it, fascinating architecture, and very walkable if you don't mind the odd slog up a near horizontal road.

The Dom Luís I bridge is the city's icon, a two level metal structure opened in 1886.  The decks show just how great the height difference is between areas of the city, with the river Duoro running in a gorge.  The lower deck carries traffic and pedestrians between the quaysides, but the top deck was turned over to the Porto Metro in 2003.

We crossed the Dom Luís I on the lower deck then climbed a very steep hill to reach the top and the tram stop at Jardim do Morro.

Porto's Metro is technically a pre-metro; it's a tram network that runs in tunnels through the city centre but on the surface outside it.  

There's a long central tunnel that crosses the city, which is shared by most of the lines, while line D runs perpendicular to this in a different tunnel.  Jardim do Morro is on line D and so after crossing the high level bridge we descended underground; an interesting combination.

Trinidade is the hub of the network, the only station served by all six lines, and its design is typical for the underground stations.  The Metro was constructed in the 21st century (though a lot of the central tunnel is much older) and so there's a certain uniformity to its architecture; plain tiles, simple signage, escalators.

Small shops have been squeezed into the design, both at the platform level and on the extremely wide cross passage for interchange.  The station was clearly built with an eye to future crowds.

We changed to the purple line, E, which goes to the airport (its station is literally outside the terminal) and went a couple of stops to Casa de Musica.  

At the moment this is simply another stop on the common tunnel, but there is currently work underway to build a new line, Line G, also known as Linha Rosa because it'll be pink on the map.  You can't miss the works - the line goes from Casa de Musica to Sao Bento via the historic portion of the city, so every now and then you'll encounter a street closed off and marked with tatty signage.

Reading up on the Metro before I'd left I'd been irritated to learn that Linha Rosa was due to open in July 2025.  I was one month too early to visit!  As it turned out, I didn't miss out on much.  Judging by the works I could see through the Heras fencing, it'll be more like July 2026 at the earliest.

Can't see anyone nipping down there for a train in the next four weeks, can you?

I'd picked Casa de Musica as our destination station because I wanted to see the large rotunda nearby.  I'd not realised that metro works would make this impossible; virtually the whole thing was screened off.  In  addition to Line G, there's also a Line H under construction, in a fetching shade of burgundy.  Linha Rubi will connect Casa de Musica to the end of Line D at Santo Ovidio, relieving some of the pressure on the only north-south route across the city.  It's due to open next year but please see that picture above of the Linha Rosa station and adjust your expectations accordingly.  

We walked through a district that seemed to be nothing but hospitals, nearly getting run over by a Land Rover swinging into the military infirmary, and diverted to the next station along, Carolina Michaëlis.  (New drag name right there).

You have to climb some stairs to reach the subsurface platform, but it's been extensively landscaped with this elaborate flower bed.  There was a gardener tending to the plants when we arrived.  It was charming.

Below ground you can see why this is technically a pre-metro rather than the fully-fledged real thing.  The platforms are short and low, and it feels very much more like a tram stop with a roof than anything else.  

Officially, the jury's still out on whether Porto's Metro has been a success.  Ridership has been good but it still hasn't turned a profit.  The common tunnel doesn't really go into the heart of the city, the place where people want to actually go, and the Linha Rosa will only partially solve this: its original route had two more stations but it was cut down to make it more direct.

In my opinion though, it's a triumph.  This is the kind of thing every city of a million people or so should have, everywhere.  As I wandered around Porto, news broke of the UK Governments "massive" investment in regional transport, which will enable Merseyside to get three new railway stations and some posh buses.  It couldn't help but feel inadequate.  

Sao Bento

Our final stop on the Metro was Sao Bento, Porto's finest railway station.  Beneath ground it's much the same as the other D Line stations: some blueish tiles, thin san-serif typeface, plenty of space to move about. 

Its real triumph, however, is topside.  The railways first came to Porto in the late 19th century, with a station at Campanhã.  As at Crown Street in Liverpool, this stop on the edge of the city was immediately judged inadequate, and so plans were formulated for deep tunnels to be constructed under the city to a new terminus that was handy for the residents and businesses.

In a story that will be familiar to anyone with a passing interest in European history, this ran afoul of the Catholic Church.  The site picked for the new station was a run down convent which the Church suddenly decided was extremely important and shouldn't be demolished.  The city compromised, and decided to knock down only parts of the convent itself, including preserving the church at the site.

Works dragged on for decades.  Finally, a temporary station was opened at the site in 1896: it's worth noting that the first train of dignitaries was two minutes late because they were still laying tracks.  They then began to look at plans for a permanent station, with budget restrictions hanging over their head, and bosses in Lisbon cutting where they could.  By this point the demands of the railways had shifted, and the city realised they'd need more space for the station.  Enter the Catholic Church again, objecting to the destruction of the rest of the convent and the church next to it, so negotiations began once more.  A plan was formulated by 1904, the construction actually began, and the station was finally inaugurated.  In 1916.

Look, you can't do anything really good really quickly.  Sao Bento quickly established itself as an icon of the Portuguese railways and has been preserved for the nation.

The main reason for this is the tilework in the entrance hall.  Designed and installed by Jorge Colaço, they track the history of the north of Portugal, the history of transport, and the delights of rural life.

 

People come from all over the world to see the tiles, which was very irritating to me personally.  I'm used to visiting railway stations and being overawed by their magnificence while regular members of the public flit about in ignorance.  I shouldn't have to elbow my way for photos past school trips and gangs of random Iowans.  Don't they know who I am?

Perhaps this contributed to my lack of enthusiasm for the station.  It was very pretty, of course, but it didn't wow me.  I think it's perhaps down to the fact that the station's actual architecture was quite ordinary.  It was the tiles that made it, not the building.  I like to be wowed by a space and this didn't really do it for me.  This is the problem with hype.  If I'd known nothing about Sao Bento I might have been blown away but I walked in expecting "one of the world's most beautiful railway stations" and it wasn't that for me.

 

 

Obviously it's far more attractive than, say, Bootle New Strand, and I'm being a miserable sod.  That may be because I'm in England writing this instead of larking about in Europe again.  Take me back.

Pub Walks

 

Climb the footbridge at Berkswell and you get a pretty standard view of a railway station.  Tracks, a car park, gantries.  Turn to the left though and you can see the future.

One day this will be the Balsall Common Viaduct, a blade of white and grey concrete scything through the countryside and carrying HS2 trains to Birmingham.  The high-speed railway project continues, quietly, avoiding controversy, avoiding attention, a massive construction project that is cutting a diagonal across England.  When it's finished, we'll all be convinced it was always a great idea and we were actually always for it and complaining it doesn't go to more places.  Right now, it's a series of cranes and exposed earthworks that point to a brave new world.

Berkswell is actually closer to the village of Balsall Common, something which clearly irritates the local who wrote the Wikipedia page ("Even though the station is situated in the far larger community of Balsall Common, there are currently no plans to revert its name back to the more accurate ‘Berkswell & Balsall Common’).  British railway station names are a special magic, dear, and actually telling you where they are is probably about eighth on their list of priorities.

They did have a point, mind, because stepping out of the station brought me immediately into Balsall Common.  A long road of executive houses, two stories, each one subtly different enough to its neighbour to make it exclusive.  Wide stretches of driveway and carefully tended lawns, some of them with the must have 21st century addition, automatic gates with a video keypad.

It brought me to a pleasingly dense village centre.  My main beef with country living can be summarised as where do you get a pint of milk?  You're making a cup of tea, you've run out of milk; can you get somewhere in ten minutes to buy a replacement carton?  Usually the answer is a village store where the prices are hiked and the opening hours are erratic, which is why I prefer city living, but Balsall Common had a Tesco Express, as well as a Costa and a Domino's.  There were local businesses too, a pharmacy, an estate agent, a smattering of restaurants and takeaways - yet it was still unmistakably a village.  This was perhaps the halfway house between town and country I'd been looking for.

I followed the A452 north for a while.  Somewhere, behind the trees and the houses, construction work for HS2 continued, but I couldn't see any sign of it, and the traffic noise drowned out any digging.  I ducked down a side street lined with Victorian villas and thick hedges that overhung the pavement until the houses gave up completely and I was striding down the centre of a country lane.

There were two possible routes from Berkswell to my next station, Hampton-in-Arden: one to the east of the railway line and one to the west.  The one to the east had more appeal for me at first.  It was the one that would shadow the HS2 works, and would have avoided Balsall Heath entirely for a completely rural walk.  However, looking at the maps, I became anxious that footpaths and back roads would be severed by the construction.  I didn't fancy walking three miles to find myself in a dead end and having to turn back.

The western route wasn't quite so exciting but I swiftly fell for it.  Walking across fields and through trees, totally alone, the only accompaniment the sound of birds and the rustle of leaves.  I fell into a gleeful stupor, lost to my thoughts, lost in the landscape.

It wasn't anything special.  There weren't mountains or epic water features.  It was quiet, gentle.  The land rose and fell without drama.  It was still, unmistakably, undeniably, beautiful, a swathe of spring that I was happily trekking through.

My reverie was interrupted by a police helicopter swinging overhead.  We were still close to Birmingham Airport, and the motorways, and the city; this wasn't anywhere near as isolated as my fantasies told me.  The helicopter swooped once, then back again, then back again, and I suddenly realised that I was a man all alone in a field and that might be exactly what they were looking for.  They were barking into their radios - we've found the pervert sarge - and I was blithely strolling.  I tried to make the top of my head look as innocent as possible and finally it vanished from sight.

I cut across the backs of farm houses, long lawns scattered with plastic children's toys, and then behind a row of holiday cottages.  Each had a glass conservatory on the back and a mean fence with barbed wire and gravel on the path to give away intruders; an unpleasantly cynical spot.  A couple of stiles, a walk through some stinging nettles that decided to scrape every inch of my naked shins, then I was approaching a golf club.

I had built up a small fantasy about this part of the walk.  My Ordnance Survey had shown a large lake on the edge of the golf club, with a public footpath running down one side.  I imagined the ruddy-faced golfers, furious at me wandering onto their hallowed patch, while I produced the map and shouted "right of way!" at them.  I pictured them impotently cursing - perhaps throwing their silly little golfing tam o'shanters on the floor in frustration - while I strolled alongside the lake, smug.

Virtually every part of this little playlet I'd concocted was incorrect.  The golf club didn't turn its back on walkers round the lake; in fact, it encouraged them.  There were fishing spots built into the banks and numerous signs encouraging people to use their facilities.  The gentle, lonely, waterside stroll, meanwhile?  Absolute nonsense.  I'd seen fewer pedestrians on the A452.  There were dog walkers, hikers, elderly couples out for an afternoon stroll.

And the fishermen! Every other spot was occupied by a single man with a vast array of very expensive looking equipment.  Rods in various shapes and lengths.  Nets and tents and wagons.  Mysterious electronic devices.  These weren't fishermen, they were fishermen, taking their sport incredibly seriously and spending accordingly.  It was a weekday afternoon and yet they'd all carved out time and energy to sit by a lake.  I didn't see a single fish, by the way.

I followed a young couple with a pitbull who were unashamedly smoking a joint until I found a spot I could overtake them and get out of their oversweet wake.  I crossed a small wooden bridge and emerged from the woods to see Hampton-in-Arden in the distance.  It wasn't quite the shining city on the hill, but it was much welcome.

By this point I was starting to flag.  It had been a long, active day, in roasting heat with very little cover.  I could feel my skin prickling and burning, and in the next few days it would turn a lovely shade of brown.  My knees were starting to complain - I may not be young - and I was down to my last bottle of water.  It didn't matter though, because there was a pub.  A little country pub.

I crossed a field of random horsey material - jumps, barrels, and a white plastic chair for the overseer to watch from - then walked down a narrow alleyway to the fringes of Hampton-in-Arden.  I was, it turned out, at the bottom of the hill, and the village was at the top.  With a sigh, I hauled my flagging carcass up the slope, pausing to rest on the odd wall, thinking about that pub.  That pub.

Hampton-in-Arden looked exactly how a village called Hampton-in-Arden should look.  Rustic weatherbeaten cottages.  Painted plaster exteriors.  A quiet church surrounded by trees and a silent graveyard.  A coffee shop, closed, but promising sweet treats and locally sourced produce.  It was English to an embarrassing degree.

I headed for the pub.

I will admit, I was slightly put off by the blackboard outside.  Next right - Ibiza-style garden.  That wasn't why I was here.  An Ibiza-style garden would wreck my English fantasia.  I didn't want to have teenagers "largin' it" and drinking fishbowl cocktails while pounding Eurobeats shook the foundations.  I consoled myself with the thought that I didn't want to sit outside anyway; I wanted to be inside with a nice cool pint.  I worked my way round the building to the entrance.

The Ibiza-style garden turned out to be some plastic grass with garden chairs on it; if that's what Ibiza's like I'm not sure why Pete Tong keeps going back.  There were a couple of ladies sat on the chairs, vaping, while indeterminate music played.  I tried the door.  It was locked.

"It don't open until five, love," one of the women called.

NO! screamed my brain.  NO NO NO!  That pub had kept me going,  I had two hours until my pre-booked train home.  I was going to spend it getting lightly toasted in a genteel English pub.  This ruined everything.  

I smiled at the woman.  "Oh really?  Thank you."  Inside my brain said burn in hell, harlot.

Hampton-in-Arden was dead to me after that.  It could be as charming and pretty as it liked; having one pub and not having it open in the day meant it was basically a cultural desert and deserved to be bombed into a crater.  

Oh look, a characterful war memorial on a picturesque village green surrounded by trees.  Go shove it up your hoop.

I grumpily stalked to the railway station.  Instead of loitering on the platform until my scheduled train I'd buy a ticket into Birmingham; at least I could find something to occupy me at New Street for a couple of hours.  (A pub, perhaps).  Fortunately, Hampton-in-Arden's station wasn't especially pretty.

I headed down to the platform and drank my bottle of water.  It tasted like ashes in my mouth.  It could've been a lovely beer and instead it was water.  I hated it.  I hated this village.

I may have a problem.