Tallinn

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Tallinn guards the southern entrance of the gulf of Finland. Built atop a steep hill it nurtures the centuries it as known. Ancient walls and turrets survive, bell towers and onion domes shape the skyline, a labyrinth of streets entwine within its walls, like some mad, medievalist fantasy. Not just that, mind you; this is no theme park, no historic splinter suspended in amber. The modern city has grown around it, recording both the dour order of Soviet days and the sometimes crass exuberance of a westward looking independence.

  Climbing to the highest point in Tallinn is the sort of journey through time that medieval cities provide. The streets wind upwards between close grouped tall buildings. Archways lead off into beckoning squares and courtyards, flights of steps lead to flights of fancy. Rising higher than the high pitched roofs are a host of towers. The sleek spire of St Olaf’s church was once the highest building in the world, surpassed in the 17th century. The onion domes of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral strike an eastern chord, signaling the long dominance of Russia over Estonia. 

  More than forty per cent of the population still speak Russian and the cathedral’s size and prominence is a mark of that culture’s persistence. Russian rule began in the early 18th century when the Swedes ceded their authority. After the First World War the Estonians gained brief independence, but the recommencement of hostilities in the 1940s saw Russia annex the land once more.  

  Age drips from Tallinn, but most becomingly. At the summit, land and city fall away and the eras through which the city has journeyed become visible. The regimented streets of the communist age form one zone, the brash spires of consumer capitalism another. Beyond the city the flat lands merge in an infinity of Baltic blue. The air itself seems scarcer here, the buildings white and calm above the bustling city.

  Tallinn retains much of its impressive walls and guard towers. These sport colourful names, there is Fat Margaret and, intriguingly, Kik in de Kok. Sounds painful, but it’s old Low German meaning ‘peep into the kitchen’, the vantage point allowing such snooping, apparently. The city grew in the heyday of the Hanseatic league and many original merchant houses survive. Some have been converted into restaurants and bars, and occasional street theatre breaks out as players attempt to lure custom with costumed displays of local legend. Typical Paddy abroad, I suppose, but I wind up parked before some seriously frothy beer at Mad Murphy’s in the Town Hall Square. Irish tricolours flutter in the brisk breeze; they’re fond of flags here, the flapping colours and emblazoned pennants underlining the medieval atmosphere. 

  It’s not all gaiety. St Catherine’s lane is lined with ancient tombstones, the pressing walls on each side kept apart by buttresses. Outside the city walls the atmosphere changes markedly. Trams skate along straight boulevards, Soviet era apartments and powerful public buildings assert themselves. In the New Town glass towers take the eye upwards, street signs, neon and tacky commercial joints vie for attention. Still the ancient peeps through like a palimpsest. Old wooden churches are left marooned in the concrete and neon. 

  At one redevelopment site the foundations of an old building remain. Along the ground, beneath glass, a timeline of Tallinn’s history is laid out. From Danish invaders to Teutonic knights, the Swedes were followed by the Russians, then a brief flicker of independence before the dark Soviet days. As the Iron Curtain evaporated, Tallinn became independent again. It is now in the Eurozone and prices are cheaper than its Baltic neighbours.

  Amongst Europe’s oldest capitals it was Europe’s Capital of Culture last year. We can be sure the blossom of Tallinn will not fade away. Its citizens provide a streetlife that’s lively and bright, with a keen sense of style and modernity too. But they are wise enough to hold onto their past, building on its firm foundations for a promising future. 

 

St Petersburg …

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St Petersburg

St Petersburg is the epitome of the early modern idea of what a city should be. It grew out of the mind of that harbinger of enlightened despotism,Tsar Peter the Great, becoming a focal point of an empire straddling Europe and Asia. East may be east, west may be west, but there is a meeting of sorts here.

Peter was looking west when he founded St Petersburg. Paris provided something of a template, its triumphal arches and long wide boulevards harking back to ancient Rome. The city is built on the marshy delta of the Neva River where it meets the gulf of Finland. This watery environment allowed St Petersburg to be fashioned as something of a northern Venice, it was envisioned its citizens would commute by an extensive grid of canals. This plan didn’t come to fruition, freezing winters making canal travel impossible for half the year. But the city established itself as a trading port, its merchants ensconced in fabulous palaces, retaining enough rivers and canals to make the comparison valid.

Approaching St Petersburg by sea seems appropriate and alluring, but is rather more banal these days. Communist ideals established rudimentary living conditions with rows of shabby tower blocks ringing the city. Soviet Russia may be gone but it is not yet buried. Commerce is something of a delicate flower, restaurants, bars and stores are beginning to pop up amongst the crumbling fabric of its streets. There should certainly be call for it, main street Nevsky Prospect throbs with streetlife, cars and pedestrians hurrying along in a constant torrent.

Citizens pour in from the suburbs through the impressive metro system. Stalin saw the stations as palaces for the workers, kitting them out with chandeliers and artistic mosaics. Though multitudes descend into the bowels of the earth, an eerie sense of calm prevails. Brash consumerism or panhandling do not intrude here, nor are we advised to take photographs. Petersburghers do not take fondly to strangers, and westerners setting off cameras in their faces is too invasive by far.

There is something futuristic in all this, in an old-fashioned way, as in Fritz Laing’s Metropolis or Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four. Nevertheless the fabric is real enough, some facades decay where others are gilded, golden spires punctuate the skyline speaking of great wealth in bygone days. St Petersburg is a peculiarity in Europe, it is new, rather like an American city in that respect, yet there are ancient echos in its churches with their Byzantine faith, while arcane elements of empire and sovietism still persist.

By the mid 18th century St Petersburg was achieving its golden age under the guidance of Catherine the Great. German by birth she came to embody her adoptive city. Enlightened at first, she believed rulers were called to serve, founding hospitals and schools for the betterment of her people.

Such high idealism would fade, but her most enduring legacy is housed in the sprawling Hermitage, an array of four palaces on the Neva River. Catherine occupied the Winter Palace in person, also in mind and spirit. She initiated the acquisitions that would see the Hermitage Museum become one of the world’s greatest art museums. The range of work is astonishing, spanning the history of visual art from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century. A roll call of old masters is on show, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Botticelli, El Greco, Durer and Renoir to name a very few. Most captivating is a fine selection of Rembrandt’s, exhibiting a majestic range of skill and emotion from the erotic Danae to the deeply moving Return of the Prodigal Son.

Awe inspiring as the collections are, they are almost upstaged by the opulence of the interiors. The baroque Jordan Staircase at the entrance is a hard act to follow, yet still to come are the State Rooms, the Malachite Hall and the Hall of Twenty Columns, amongst other delights.

The Hermitage hosts three million visitors a year, it is as busy as the Metro stations at rush hour. Our guide, Irina, marshals us well. Holding a delphinium aloft, we acquire a sense of identity with her. We can even take turns at the delphinium. She exhorts us not to be shy. Later, on a tour of the Cathedral on Spilled Blood, she makes us push through other groups to ensure we see everything – it’s a jungle out there in tourist land.

What a name that is, the Cathedral on Spilled Blood. One of the few quintessentially eastern buildings in a neoclassical city, it was built as a shrine to the reforming Tsar, Alexander II, assassinated on this spot by a terrorist bomb. Alexander III, was, not surprisingly, less keen on reform. If anything, the old Russian style of the church was a reassertion of traditional values, its swirling golden domes rising above an exuberant confection clad in mosaics. The interior is no less impressive, covered in mosaics on religious and historic themes, pervasively blue, almost a calming influence on the constant throng of visitors.

Spilled blood has been a constant theme in this city. Pushkin, who died following a duel to uphold the honour of his wife, died in a house nearby that is now a museum. There is also a monument to the ‘Russian Shakespeare’ in the Square of the Arts.

Rasputin’s  baleful influence on the doomed Romanovs caused Royalists to plot his demise. The monk was plied with poison, enough to kill a horse it is said, yet remained unaffected. A bullet to the head was no more lethal and several shots and stabbings later the assassins dumped a trussed Rasputin in the icebound river. That did it, although he still managed to undo his bonds before drowning.

The Great War was exacting untold misery as the country lurched towards revolution. Trotsky’s plot was to occupy strategic buildings in the capital, now called Petrograd, effecting a coup d’etat with minimal fuss. With the empire disintegrating he was pushing an open door and the, misnamed, Bolsheviks came to power. Civil war followed as the capital shifted back to Moscow. Renamed Leningrad the city once more rose from the ashes. World War Two would visit more horror and Leningrad would withstand an epic nine hundred day siege where over half a million died.

So good they named it thrice, it finally reverted to its original name following the fall of the communist regime. These days it struggles to again wear the mantel of sophisticated European city. New shoots of culture are blooming, yet those shabby clothes of paranoia and conservatism are hard to shake off. Buskers, street artists, even some graffiti are invading the streets and alleys. Canal boats ferry tourists about the city’s waterways and sidewalk cafes are sprouting, Europe is coming back.

The floating world, the dreaming spires, are infected by a riotous gothic. A dangerous energy seeps through the streets and canals. Sordid and sacred history is never far from the surface. The spilling of blood, the swelling of symphonies, poetry and polemic are in the spit of the citizens. This city has always been central to the conveyance of ideas, the creation of art, music and literature. They flowed as ink on a page or flame from a torch, ultimately engulfing the globe for good and ill. Dostoevsky called St Petersburg “the most abstract and imaginary city.” So it was in Peter’s conception that raised it from a swamp, so it remained through its achievements and intrigues. After leaving, long after passing through the jaws of the sea locks at Kotlin Island, it lingers in that special place in the mind where cities form, attaching themselves to endless convoluted dreams. St Petersburg floats on, within your presence or beyond.

Vancouver

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Vancouver.

Vancouver is on the same latitude as Ireland and suffers nominally the same marine temperate climate. It rains, man, it pours. The city is set on a peninsula against a dramatic backdrop of snow capped peaks. Not that we can see them on the first day as it lives up to its sodden image with a welcoming downpour. By the next day however the clouds have lifted to reveal the highrise city and the Coastal Range across the bay.

Vancouver’s population density is said to be second only to Hong Kong and has all the rich and varied hum of city life which that implies. It is very modern and preserves only isolated scraps of its heritage. Even the landmark monoliths of the early twentieth century are dwarfed amongst the skyscrapers, they’re still impressive though. The Fairmont Hotel is in the signature Canadian style with a steep bronze roof like a French chateau. The Marine Building is an exuberant art deco building from 1929, designed to appear like a ‘great crag rising from the sea.’

Something of a coherent urban heritage survives in Gastown. The area takes its name from English adventurer Jack Deighton who established the first saloon here in 1867. Deighton earned the nickname Gassy Jack for his voluble espousal of any worthy cause in the growing city. He died in 1875 and his body lies in an unmarked grave but there’s a statue to him on Water Street standing atop a beer barrel.

Gastown remains a picturesque enclave of late nineteenth century buildings with a good concentration of bars, restaurants and clubs.

Chinatown is nearby. The second largest Chinatown in North America after San Francisco, Vancouver’s is more downbeat and edgy. Tens of thousands of Chinese arrived in the eighteen eighties to build the Trans-Canada railway and formed a shantytown here. The Chinese community was ghettoised for decades but, as builders of Vancouver, they cleverly constructed a network of tunnels allowing them quick access to the city from which they were forbidden. An ornamental, traditional gate now marks the entrance to Chinatown but it is the streets between here and Downtown that have developed into a modern ghetto. The area is reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead, with crowds of those who have fallen through the bottom of society congregating, zombie-like, in the streets and squares.

While much of Downtown gleams new, Granville Street remains a shabby but seductive slice of fifties Americana. Glorious old film theatres jut into the street which is low-end shopping by day and thronged with rough edged nightlife after dark. Where the street crosses False Creek Granville Island is an oasis off the city grid, a maze of markets, restaurants and cafes. There are art galleries and buskers and along by the Creek is a great place to admire the city skyline.

Modern Vancouver is more than highrise Condo heaven. The library at Robson Street resembles Rome’s Coliseum, but its nine floors are devoted to more intellectual pursuits. Entrance through an outer spiral arm leads into an impressive concourse with several cafes. Light pours in through an atrium six stories overhead. The library itself is airy and spacious, creating an overall effect of calm within a busy maelstrom of human traffic.

After feeding your head you won’t need to go far in Vancouver to feed the body. The rich ethnic mix means there’s no shortage of variety and, not surprisingly given that it is the Pacific out there, there’s plenty of Chinese and Japanese cuisine. Davie Street is Vancouver’s Castro and lined with restaurants and clubs. It is friendly and unapologetic, self-contained to an almost parochial degree.

Granville Street at night is more hetro and there’s an even more butch option at GM place which is home to the Canucks ice hockey team. Canada’s national sport is incredibly fast and skillful, but there’s more than that, you’re guaranteed a night of beer, loud music and regular punch ups. What more could you ask for? Well, the Stanley Cup, hockey’s premier prize, would be nice, but as yet it has eluded the grasp of the boys in blue.

More natural and timeless pleasures can be found in Stanley Park on the northern tip of the city. The thousand acre expanse of parkland is in sharp contrast to the metropolis looming over it. Vancouverites and visitors flock here for sport and recreation and its many attractions include a vivid reminder of the areas origins. The Totem Park is a startling collection of totem poles by local ‘Indian’ tribes. The Canadian term is First Nation, after all, they were here first. They’re still here, and the timeless visual narratives of the totem poles is a fascinating counterpoint to the exclamation mark of modern humanity, the two facing each other across a short stretch of grass and water.

Reykjavik

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Iceland loomed large last year, not so much as a destination – more a roadblock. Eyjafjallajokull sent a pall of ash over the North Atlantic disrupting flight services all over Europe. It’s not the first time Icelandic volcanoes have had a baleful effect on Europe. Three thousand years ago the explosion of mighty Hekla contributed to the eclipse of the early Mediterranean civilisations of Minoa and Mycenae. It won’t be the last.

Iceland straddles the continental divide between Europe and America. The faultline is visible in the region of Thingvellir where the continental plates rear in sheer walls above a steaming plain. It is the site of the world’s oldest parliament, the Althing. Here, in 930 AD, ancient Icelanders gathered to hold court and elect their parliament. Irish monks were the first people to reach Iceland but the Vikings would supplant them and become the were the first Europeans to colonise the North Atlantic and ultimately reach America.

Four hundred years before Columbus, Leif Eriksson founded Vinland (Greenland) and the colony lasted a couple of centuries before fading from sight and memory. In the 1930s the Americans commemorated the explorer with the donation of a dramatically heroic statue which guards the plaza before Reykjavik’s landmark Hallgrimskirkja. The church is named for Hallgrim, a 17th century devotional poet. He married Goethron, a Westland Islander captured by Algerian pirates in 1620. She was amongst a fortunate few to be ransomed by the Danish king and Hallgrim was dispatched to reacquaint the freed captives with Christianity – thus do love stories begin.

At the top of Hallgrimskirkja’s immense spire you can see all of Reykjavik neatly laid out below. There’s a palpable sense of drama and contrast on this fulcrum between the old world and the new, where Europe meets America. Powerful organ music pushes up from the stark church full of gothic power, while the modernist spire feels like a spaceship to heaven. Meanwhile, the city far below has a feeling of toy town. The buildings are clad in corrugated iron, painted in primary colours tumbling down to the harbour, beyond which jagged snow-capped  mountains pin down the deep blue horizon.

Iceland’s modern parliament building dates from 1880 and is set in a pleasant square in the city centre with the small Cathedral, Domkirkjan, nearby. I shelter from the cold in a pleasant bar opposite the park and enjoy a pint of the local brew, Gull, the rim of the glass frosted with ice. There are large photos on the walls of the recent disturbances after the financial crash. The black and white prints give a feel of ancient history, the scenes themselves, featuring police in riot gear, look improbable in such a placid square amongst an amiable people. The crash and the anger were real enough though.

There is political fire too in the work of Erro at the City Arts Museum. Iceland’s most significant visual artist was a prolific exponent of the collage, depicting a strange synthesis of propaganda, sex and consumerism. His most appealing series shows Mao and the Red Army leading a communist invasion of Europe and the USA. There is much reference to classical painting and iconic advertising such as the Rothman’s ad. Perhaps the east will rise, as Erro hints, or perhaps the twain should never meet. Iceland itself is finely poised, ever growing, ever changing.

Madrid

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The Irish Celts are supposed to have come from Spain, the Milesians setting out from that land of the dead to the fabled isle of destiny in the western ocean. It would not be the last time a great voyage of discovery initiated in Iberia. It is in a state of constant change, sending voyagers outwards, receiving the insanely talented too. Columbus, the Italian, sought out Spain to back his ambitions. El Greco found acceptance for his otherworldly paintings here. There were the Conquistadors, the doomed Armada of  King Philip, poets, artists, and the ubiquitous Spanish student.

Madrid is central to this country, this fulcrum between Europe and Africa, stepping stone to the new world. The joining of the thrones of Aragon and Castille under Isabella and Philip brought Spain into being and the King chose Madrid as the capital for its central location. What had been little more than a small town on a bleak plateau became the capital city of the greatest empire of the early modern world. The city is built in overlaid layers, medieval lanes merge into grand boulevards, spacious squares are hidden amongst warrens of tiny streets, there are regular, elegant streetscapes in the European mode and sudden eruptions of art deco highrises in the American style. The stroller is rewarded with interesting shops and intimate taverns and the city plan is sufficiently confusing to make walking a pleasant adventure.

In terms of fine art Madrid ranks with the best. The Museo del Prado at the edge of is the most famous with an enormous collection of art from Spain and its colonies. The exuberance and hot colours of Spanish art are immediately addictive as is the passionate, baroque take on faith. The Cretan immigrant, El Greco, most captures the heart. Sinuous figures wave upwards like flames flickering in adoration. A more cautionary take on life is embodied in the work of Hieronymous Bosch, it is also more fantastical than one would think possible. My fevered teenage brain had been captured in a pocket-sized book on El Bosco, how great it is to stand before the original triptych of the Garden of Earthly Delights.  Goya also spanned the worlds of horror and sumptuous wealth, his truth and disturbing vision reaching deep into the soul. To simply enumerate the other artists would fill this article and the Prado could sustain a whole week’s visit, but there is more too see.

The Centro de Arte Reina Sofia is the place to see modern art. The collection includes Dali, Juan Gris and Miro. Picasso’s Guernica is understandably a powerful magnet; passionate, rough hewn, it appears incomplete, as if it were an emergent apparition about to engulf us. He is otherwise not my favourite, I must say, but this is the real thing. That other Catalan, Salvador Dali, moves us in a different way, the landscape of madness that he depicts is within us, his stunning technique inspiring awe and making the impossible certain.

The Museo Thyssen Bornemisza is a private collection bringing both strands together. Eclectic and extensive it spans five hundred years of Western art, ricochets amongst cubism and surrealism, explores Russian graphics and dazzles with the American Hyperrealists. So, here I stand in a gallery in Spain looking in through the reflections in the window of a New York diner conjured up by Richard Estes.

There are other theatres of art. At the Santiago Bernabeu stadium we bear witness to the stoic resistance of  Real Madrid to the wizardry of Barcelona FC. One hundred thousand passionate Spaniards are packed to the rafters, a sea of banners waving to the beat of drums, chants and songs. The great masters of the game, Messi and Ronaldo supply a goal apiece, honours are shared, the war goes on.

At night La Latina is the place to go. Narrow winding streets are packed with revellers, there are ornate bars and fragrant restaurants. We searched for Flamenco but found the blues instead at a hopping little club on the Calle de los Huertas. There are other delights to dip into. Deli food and wine are an excellent start to the evening at the lively Mercado de San Miguel. The Plaza Mayor is a signature for the city, but everywhere you emerge into magical plazas – Sol, Angel and Santa Anna thronged with diners, buskers, performers and hustlers. Art Deco architecture draws the eye upwards in delight. The Circulo de Bellas Artes is a particular gem – a slice of 1930’s New York containing a cultural foundation with a beautiful café. On our last morning we enjoy the ambience and watch the bustle of Gran Via  and Calle de Alcala pass by.

Our Easter vacation started with the sombre gaiety of Holy Week. Processions redolent of medieval intensity mark the days, the bond of spirituality runs deep. Religion, art, sport and society are entwined. This is the land of Death but so full of life. You can be seduced  to look at reflections in the glass of a shop window and pass through into a hyper-realist vision and see the possibilities of the whole world.

Lisbon

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From Lisbon the lines radiate around the globe – Africa, South America and Asia – a web of names heavy with history and adventure: Vasco Da Gama, Pedro Alvares Cabral, Magellan. The Tagus estuary is a tongue of the Atlantic, licking the feet of Lisbon’s hills. It laps against the southern flank of the Praca do Comercio which has traditionally been the grande entrance to the city. This huge square was the site of Portugal’s royal palace for four centuries until the revolution of 1910. Framed on three sides three by elegant arcades here we find Lisbon’s oldest cafe, Martinho de Arcada, a favourite with the literati it seems. This is the place to start, so, in cool spring sunshine I relax over a drink and watch the world go by.

The towering triumphal arch on the northern side is the gateway to the city’s commercial hub, the Baixa. The cobbled streets are lined with craft shops, boutiques and cafes, abuzz with musicians and hawkers. A swarthy man sidles up to me selling sunglasses. There’s more besides, hashish he whispers, and whips off his shades to eyeball me earnestly. The best of Moroccan, I am assured. Some time later, I make my excuses and leave.

The filigreed iron tower of Elevador de Santa Justa rises from the regular streets of Baixa. It carries a lift up one hundred feet to the Bairro Alto, giving the walker a welcome break from climbing Lisbon’s steep streets. After the lift, there’s one steep flight of spiral steps leading to a dizzying platform, open to the sky and with a stunning panorama of the city.

The platform floats in tourist photo-heaven and I take the essential shots. A girl stands in my frame, dividing it according to the Golden Mean. Her eyes, obscured behind dark glasses suggest depth, amusement. Still, I can’t be certain; they are shadows, yet a reflection of the life and gaiety of this city. I sense that her iris will glimmer the blue of the globe, that lines of navigation will radiate from the infinite depth of the pupil, like a spider’s web connecting all places and times.

After a beer on the giddy heights of the causeway, I enter the Bairro Alto by the ruined Carmelite church, destroyed in the earthquake of 1755. Human rivers join and divide along winding streets. The famous yellow trams provide a good way of navigating this undulating city, on a rollercoaster ride through swirling streets. I go where they take me, alighting at stops where I can surprise myself and explore. Clinking and clattering through the Bairro Alto, my first voyage deposits me at the Jardim da Estrela, where I take a burger and a glass of wine at a kiosk by the pond. Nearby, the grave of Henry Fielding, eighteenth century English novelist and satirist, came here to die, at the age of forty seven. I’m a bit worried about the burger, to be honest.

Taking a stroll down the grimy thoroughfare of Avenida Infante Santo I arrive at Avenida Da India. This hectic motorway mars much of Lisbon’s coast, forming a barrier between the city and its lifeblood – the riverfront. This is Alcantara, the port area, a bustling, edgy zone, built for passing through. The upper frame of this streetscape is the magnificent Ponte 25 de Abril, modeled on the Golden Gate, stretching across the Tagus like a bridge across the sky.

Further west is Belem, point of departure for Portugal’s great navigators. From the mouth of the Tagus they sailed across the Atlantic and carved a new world. They crowd the carved pedestal of the Monument to the Discoveries: Henry the Navigator, Vasco da Gama, Cabral, the discoverer of Brazil – illuminators of a once darkened globe.

Belem is fronted by a beautiful urban park, overlooked by the Jeronimos Monastery. Dating from 1501 it is the jewel of Portugal’s golden age. Funded through tax on the rich bounty of empire, spices, precious stones and gold, it is a masterpiece of exuberant architecture. The interior of the church of Santa Maria is a serene forest of pillars, drawing the soul upwards in elation. Here we find that most restless of seafarers, Vasco Da Gama who established the sea routes to India and the Orient in the early 16th century.

The Maritime Museum showcases Portuguese shipping through the ages. From ancient barks to the lateen rigged caravels and on to faster, sleeker ships, the story is told in beautifully constructed replicas. 16th Century maps show the world as then known, complementing the world chart at the entrance which encapsulates the awesome scale of the exploration. This is a window to the Portuguese soul, a people with a deep affinity for the sea and a heart hungry for discovery.

I stand at last on the roof of the Tower of Belem, built as a fortress to defend the port in 1515. I can smell the Atlantic here, feel its pull. Buildings ancient and modern crowd the hills and sky to the north. To the east, the great bridge spans the river. Looking south to the Outra Banda, I see the figure of Christ, Cristo Rei, arms outstretched, give His benediction to the city of Lisbon.