Bath in Somerset - rubber duck not included

Bath, Somerset, England. Ancient city. Honey-coloured Georgian architecture. Roman ruins. World heritage site. Plug holes on their hop-on-hop-off tourist buses in case the open-air top level takes on rain and it slushes around like in a bath and they can pull the plug. I’m quite sure all topless buses have this feature, but the lowkey delight of it all that this happened to me in Bath. No rubber duck though, alas.

Before you even enter the city, you have to contend with Somerset, the county that houses Bath. It is comprehensive lovely and just so English. Vast green pastures and rolling hills, endless hedges to stop cars falling into the vast green pastures. There is evidence of humans being around in the area since the paleolithic period (see: Fred Flintstone). Subsequent settlements include the Celts, Romans and Anglo-Saxons. 

There are some archaeological digs too, such as Cheddar Gorge, which houses the complete skeleton known as Cheddar Man, which dates to 7,150 B.C. (the skeleton is not made of cheese, in case you were wondering). Glastonbury is also in the area, and is known as a ‘dry point’ (an area of flood-free ground), which is interesting given it is known for the great muddy music festival.  

In Bath, you will find the Royal Crescent, a row of 30 terraced houses in a sweeping curve. It’s known as one of the greatest examples of Georgian architecture in the UK and is a Grade I (building of exceptional interest) listing.

On the other side of town are the Roman Baths. In Ancient Roman times, it was an ancient practice to steam oneself and then slip into a relaxing bath to ease one’s muscles after a hard day building Roman type things and running Roman errands, and attending Roman parent/teacher nights. It gave you a zest for life. It was the zeitgeist.

And the bathing culture lives on. In 2021,  Bath was added to the World Heritage list of  'Great Spa Towns of Europe’, that were developed around natural mineral spring waters. I wonder who funds the payments on all the filtration systems.

On a side note, Bath is also the location where Uranus was discovered. In 1781, William Herschel was outside in his backyard with a homemade telescope when he discovered the planet. Without question one of the most awkward discoveries, but, alas, his Georgian home is now a museum dedicated to him, so there’s that.

Bath is a quick train ride from London but you'll want to give yourself more than a day to have a look around the area. 

Harrods - and that time they sold lions

Today the writing challenge is heading to one of the most celebrated department stores in the world, Harrods of London. It might not strictly meet the brief of places of historical significance, and I appreciate any concern you might have on the matter, and any confusion or inconvenience caused, but Harrods has a long history. And it’s my blog. Also, disclaimer, Harrods is absolutely my favourite. 

In term of shopping centres, it doesn’t get any more exclusive that Harrods, which has voted itself the “world’s most famous department store”, and who can disagree with the GOAT. 

The largest department store in Europe, it is the land of opulence and luxury, lavishness and magnificence, with more than 300 in-house departments in store, and 100,000m2 of fancy handbags, Prada gold clubs and all of the other fabulousness they stock on their shelves. They probably don’t call them shelves; that is too…..Sainsburys. They probably call then product royal mantels, or something. 

Harrods came from modest little beginnings, as everything must do at some point. In 1832, a wee London East End grocery store was established and named after its owner, Mr Harrod. Mr Harrod developed a business portfolio and had some stores about town, that sold various items for which Harrods is now synonymous, but on a much less grander scale. 

The site on which Harrods stands now became a key asset for Mr Harrod and sold perfumes, stationary, medicines and fruit and vegetables. It was not unusual to bump into Sigmund Freud or Oscar Wilde at the checkouts, with Freud psychoanalysing your shopping basket and determining that your Id is well and truly in charge of your grocery list.

Harrods was first to introduce an escalator, because you can’t have Mr Freud wasting all his thought time trying to negotiate stairs when he’s busy psychoanalysing customers. Speaking of psychotic, in the early days, Harrods used to also sell cocaine. In 1916, it used to sell a kit containing cocaine, morphine, syringes and needles, as a present to send to friends on the front in the war. 

And at one point, the store used live snakes to guard expensive jewellery and also introduced the selling of exotic animals including panthers, alligators and lions. Which is awful and extremely random but also so very Edwardian era. In more uplifting news, Harrods has a chip shop in its food and beverage enclave. 

It also has a fabulous souvenir gift store. I own one of Harrods signature items, a shiny olive green tote bag that they sell to the innumerable tourists who pass through the checkouts. I also own a grey one. I’m a sucker for this sort of stuff and have never met a London souvenir that I have not fell instantly in love with in a very serious way. I’ve got three pens that look like the London Buckingham Palace guards, and you press their fur hat to click the pen open. Adorable.

And here’s a cool thing. The new head honcho pastry chef at Harrods is an Aussie. Philip Khoury started working there in 2018 and in December 2021 he was appointed the boss of all things sweet tooth. What a gig! 

In this time, he has begun pioneering plant-based dessert, which he calls the “last frontier” of vegan cuisine, rethinking the traditional eggs and dairy based model as the holy grail of exceptional desserts. Apparently kicking out dairy from the recipe allows other flavours to pop. 

This is interesting, as the global plant-based food market is expected to reach $USD70 million in the next five years, and certainly is projected to double in the UK in that time. Presumably this is a calculated move by Harrods to play in the USD$7 billion plant-based food market (up from USD$5.5 billion in 2019) as consumers are more and more aware around issues relating to food sustainability and nutrition of the products they are consuming. And with up to 300,000 customers a day at its peak, Harrods has an influential role to play.

And if you are lucky enough to visit the beautiful, gargantuan money spinner that is Harrods, and need somewhere to park the Ferrari or the Vauxhall Astra, there is a single carpark nearby that you can buy for a cool £85,000, which is ostensibly about £84,995 more expensive than other parks in the area. 

It comes with a fob, CCTV, a water supply (unclear if they mean a tap, or an Agean Sea type body of water), and a 960 year lease. Yeah, I give the Ferrari engine three months before it blows, let alone 960 years. Or you can just take the Tube like the rest of London.

Egypt - and the big pyramid scheme

Today in my writing challenge of places of historical significance I’m heading to Egypt – which is exciting I guess, but I’m a little confused as to why I chose it. Do they have anything old antiquey, or ancienty? I guess I can take a look to see what I can find but, the last time I checked, they just had those giant Ikea triangles scattered around Giza.

Okay let’s hit up those wonders of Ancient Egypt, the tombs built for three different pharaohs – Ronald McDonald, Hamburlar and Grimace. I present to you… McDonald’s Cairo! Just kidding. 

There is currently no evidence, in prevailing archaeological theory, that Giza’s 4,500-year-old Pyramids, sitting on the ancient necropolis, are memorial structures for the three kings. But they look remarkable, and I feel like the view is unimprovable. The Pyramids look like they would have been an almost supernatural achievement for people to build thousands of years ago, but if really could not have been that hard because there is now one at a hotel in Las Vegas. 

“Being in a pyramid is like being on the internet. It’s full of people worshiping cats, writing on walls and using odd symbols” – The Internets

In Ancient Egypt, the Leader of the Central Government was the pharoah. There were about 300 of them over Egypt’s long history. He was in charge of the yearly rise and fall of the Nile, the fertility of the soil, the keeping of peace, and the fortunes of the army, and was also high priest of all temples, commander-in-chief of the army and head of state administration.

It’s a bit like the current French Government, where Emmanual Macron is charge of national defence down to who is going to fix a Normandy village’s potholes. But the pharoah mostly had minions to do all the work for him. In carvings the pharoah is portrayed as colossal - larger than life - which is to convey a message that they were important and powerful.

We know a lot about the everyday Ancient Egyptians. They lived beside the Nile River, some were poor, some were rich. They worked as farmers, clerks, government officials, craft workers, soldiers, traders, priests. They were foodies. They played games - possibly an early Nintendo, they sang songs - potentially did some rapping, and told bad jokes. They were religious. They made gorgeous building for their gods and made the gods offerings. They believed in life after death and taxes. They travelled. They traded and went to war with other countries.

They were family folk. They loved some of their neighbours, but not all of them. They used makeup and wore different hairstyles. Some were schooled and could read and write. Some went into the family trade. Sometimes they got sick with a toothache, broken bones, malaria and called in the doctor. They rarely lived more than 40 years. They shopped, they fished and hunted. They had pet dogs and cats and gazelles.

How do we know all this? Well not too many of them had Instagram so it’s largely through hieroglyphs; their ancient written and drawn communication method that some people have learnt to read. One day, in thousands of years, someone is going to come across an old Apple iPhone with a cracked screen and think, well they should have carved their thoughts onto a real wall rather than a Facebook feed, because this thing is broken and additionally rechargers haven't existed for 1,500 years. But I digress.

The way to read hieroglyphs was actually forgotten about for 1,000 or so years before Napoleon of France invaded Egypt and the Rosetta Stone was found, which described how to reach them and hieroglyphs were discovered again.

In Ancient Egypt times, people would place everyday and objects in their tombs that would be useful in the next life. If you were poor it might be some pots, but if you were Elon Musk it would furniture, weapons, food, jewellery, a few Teslas and Twitter.

Often they were looted, but some were so well hidden they are preserved to this day – like the pharoah Tutankhamun’s. 2000 of his possessions were in there, many made in gold, including his solid gold death mask (which sounds like something from the disco era). Tutankhamun was not even an important pharoah so we can only imagine what the powerful pharaohs had in their tombs.

Athens speak louder than words

Athens is the heart of Ancient Greece civilisation, with 5^th century BC landmarks just completely littering the place, so move along, nothing to see here.

Today we are heading over to the Acropolis (High city) of Athens, a stunning citadel that sits atop of a rock in the middle of the ancient city. The Acropolis dates back to 447 BC (5^th century BC thus 2,468 years thus 128,793 weeks ago*), and its Parthenon was dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare (the jury is out on whether those things go together).

The Acropolis contains the ruins of ancient buildings of great historical and architecture significance, with the Parthenon famously sitting in the centre. While the white marble of the Parthenon has suffered damage over the centuries its basic structure has remained stunningly intact. The structure consists of Doric (ancient Greek style architecture) columns and extremely detailed friezes (a fancy panel of decorations on the roof, but not like bunting) and pediments.

Over its lifetime it’s been used to store munitions, converted into a church and then a mosque, an army barracks, and has widely been looted and bombed. 

The Parthenon is known as a symbol of Athens political, economic and cultural superiority and its democracy, and was built to celebrate the victory over the Persians who had been occupying Athens. It was dedicated to Athena to thank her for her moral support and cheese and olive toasties she provided during the war.

The artwork that was saved in mostly in the Acropolis Museum in Athens.  Back in the day, an interior designer/sculpture was commissioned to decorate the newly established Parthenon. His team whipped up a set of classic Greek marble sculptures – now known as the Parthenon Marbles. 

In 1812, an English aristocrat – the 7^th Earl of Elgin – removed/bought about half of the surviving marbles (other half being in the Athens museum) in a potentially shady business deal, shipped them to Britain, and sold them to the UK Government. I’m just wondering about the shipping costs that Amazon would have charged for that, and what type of ship, and how long it took, and did they get bubble-wrapped for shipping? But that’s not important right now.

Anyway, fast forward to 2022, and a squabble continues between the Greek and UK Governments over who legally owns the Parthenon marbles (colloquially known as the Elgin Marbles), with Greece saying its Acropolis "is the only place you can admire them in context”, and the UK saying it legally acquired them in accordance with laws at the time of them been moved to UK, and probs won’t be giving them back.

Alright, well let’s keep moving through the Acropolis then and try not to get involved in any more international legal disputes. Is Greece looking after its ancient artifacts? One could certainly argue that the preservation of ancient ruins are better off in the gloved hands of museum curators, wherever those museums may be, than laying around the grounds of ancient ruins in Athens.

My mum visited the Acropolis in the 2000s and told me that the columns are just laying around everywhere and she was able to sit on one. 

While the aesthetic of the Acropolis’ skyline is iconic, one could also reason more could be done to prevent erosion of marble and structural damage of temples from acid rain. What about a giant tarp over the top? I don't know, obviously, but researchers must be looking into it surely.

Other things about Athens that are nice to know: 👇

It’s the oldest European capital – 3,400 years oldest 

The Ancient Olympics were never held in Athens – wait, what 

Athens had the first ever democracy, known as demokratia 

Athens has the most theatres in the world, more than Broadway and London’s West End combined 

During construction of transport lines to support the Athens 2002 Olympic Games, one of the greatest archaeological hauls of ancient artifacts were uncovered. How very Athens.

* if this maths is wrong let the record show that I don’t know maths. 

 

Stonehenge - the enigma but also the secrets

Oh Jimmy Christmas, it’s only day two of my A-Z Writing Challenge and I’ve already skipped the letters A through R, which is most definitely a recipe for disaster. That’s okay, we’ll circle back. Speaking of circling back, let’s turn our attention today to the iconic Stonehenge circle of stones, created back in the day (I think that’s one of my finest ever segues actually).

Today on the blog I discuss the mysteries and ambiguities of Stonehenge, that baffling prehistoric iconic circular monument on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England. 

One of the many things I treasure about England is you can have a 16^th Century church next door to a Sainsbury’s supermarket (or sometimes the Sainsbury's has its own fancy Grade II status endowed upon it by Historic England), or an ancient Roman ruin in the vacant block next door to Doris, an 86-year-old pensioner who lives on Hedge Row in Upper Brampton. The locals find all of this rather ordinary. The historic and the modern sitting side by side is quite perfect.

Look at all the mystery and intrigue dripping off the stone...hedges.

While Stonehenge has had no shortage of attention over its beginnings throughout innumerable periods from scientists, archaeologists, academics and other learned individuals who have had five pints at the local The Haunch of Venison pub in Salisbury, just up the road from the stones, we just don’t really know with any certainty why it is there or where it came from. A bit like the Kardashians really. 

Whoever built it was one of those people who steadfastly refused to advertise their breakfast, their activewear or their weekend stone projects on The Instagrams, thus denying us the truth.

What was its intended purpose? It has been theorised that Stonehenge was intended as a religious site, a cemetery, a celestial space to monitor the sun and moon, a clock, a giant solar calendar, a farming calendar, a site “dedicated to the world of the ancestors, separated from the world of the living" (yeah, that’s a cemetery, just say cemetery), a healing centre. But there is “no definite evidence” as to its intended purpose.

When was it built? This is mostly agreed - it was built in six stages from 3000 to 1520 B.C., from the New Stone Age period to the Bronze Age. It took 1,500 years to 'complete', which is coincidentally about the same amount of working life I have to endure before I retire, or die.  

How was it built? Look, I have no definitive answers here, and neither does anyone else. Were the stones magically transported by Merlin (the wizard of Arthurian legend) from Ireland – yes, magically - and put together by giants, as per the folklore? Did the Danes do it when they stormed into England uninvited? Was it constructed using pulleys and ropes and ye oldey lever things to hoick the stones up by the Romans? I want answers. 

In 2018, a man in the United States returned a piece of a core sample of one of the stones to England, that he had been holding on to for decades. Conventional wisdom and sciencey tests confirmed that the “geochemical fingerprint” (nerd alert, nerd alert!) on this core sample matched sandstone from all but two of the stones, to sandstone about 25 kilometres away! But more testing needs to take place. Of course it does. The ploteth thickeneth. 

All that is clear to me is that any self-respecting modern construction company would have their company emblem and ‘tough guy, build things’ slogan all over the stones had they built it. The scaffolding and surrounding construction site would be completely littered in their signage and livery and they would have charged an outrageous fee to move the giant stones from one county or country to the next. And we would not be left in the dark like this. Surely there are some old selfie photos in attics somewhere in England from 6,000 years ago that have a guy pushing a giant boulder through town in the background? Everyone check their attic please.

The builder of Stonehenge is a mystery. Look, there are no known knowns with this thing. Was it built by the druids (Celtic priests), aristocrats, chieftains, Merlin the wizard of Arthurian legend and his giants, the Romans, the Danes? Why did nobody take credit for it. 

Whoever built it left no records. Under modern Work Health & Safety Regulations, construction companies are required to erect a builder’s sign stating the builder and contact details at all building sites. If only they had this regulation 6,000 years ago we would have definitive answers. But maybe we all just love a bit of intrigue anyway. 

For scale - they are normal heighted people, not the alleged giants who built it under Arthurian folklore.

Cyprus - Halloumi to introduce myself

I’m starting one of my A-Z writing challenges today to get the creative juices flowing. The way this challenge works is I pop the ingredients into a blender - motivation, inspiration, creativity, spinach, maybe some kale for encouragement and disappointment – whip it up, and a delicious and nutritious glass of blog post will emerge every single day (sorry, my brain is like a drunk baby). 

The idea is to write up to 500 words on a different topic on 26 occasions, not necessarily on successive days, and each topic will be based on that letter of the alphabet. 

This challenge will mostly (maybe) be about countries of the world, maybe e-travelling to its places and cities, review things here and there, and maybe venture into ancient civilisations that inhabited those countries - I shall see how it goes. I don’t have to have been to the country either, or indeed the ancient civilisation, which is good, because, well, you know, I’m a bit late for that.

First on my world traveller list is Cyprus. Straight up, I’ve skipped A and B, so that’s great, but that’s okay, I’ll circle back. Nobody said anything about the alphabet having to be in order. I chose Cyprus because it's a (like) Greek island. And that’s absolutely enough reason. 

Where is Cyprus? Well, that’s an excellent and worthy question, and quite rightly something you may wish to know before jumping on a plane to go there, or indeed before you drop a Google maps pin right on top of it. Let’s find out together. 

Cyprus is a tiny island country entrenched deep in the Mediterranean Sea, actually more in the Agean Sea, surrounded by - loosely - Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt, and at a stretch, Tunisia, Bulgaria and Italy. All undeniably charming neighbours who all get along all of the time and don’t participate in civil wars with each other ever. 

Cyprus is well known, at least in my head, as one of a throng of sun-drenched islands in the Mediterranean, replete with white sand, turquoise water and ancient ruins.

Disregarding all practical and well-intentioned recommendations of trusted, complete strangers (Google - I consulted Google) who had maybe potentially or at the very least hypothetically but not necessarily literally travelled to Cyprus, I did ignore  the very handsome coastline as a first destination and instead dropped my first Google maps pin fairly haphazardly into a backstreet behind a bar in downtown Nicosia, the country capital and largest city, containing 1.2 million Cypriots.

If you listen to DFAT’s SmartTraveller, this was doubtless my first red flag, as y’all need to watch out for bag-snatching, pickpocketing and petty theft in tourist areas in Cyprus. 

But it’s all good SmartTraveller, because like all smart travellers, the first thing I did - after accepting a drink from a backstreet boy stranger called Yiorgos who appeared from a dark corner of the backstreet and kindly offered to carry my backpack containing my whole identity, and also offered to get me some money out of my bank account if I gave him my pin number - so thoughtful! - was to get myself out of that backstreet, because sometimes backstreets are not safe, even when they look safe with kind and helpful strangers like Yoirgos. 

So let’s see what’s going on in Cyprus.

You can not possibly journey to ancient terrains and not visit an active archaeological dig. I think they brand your passport at the airport that says as much. So, rules being rules, I Google maps pin dropped at Kato Paphos Archaeological Park. 

Built likely around the end of the 4^th century B.C. (2,407 years ago), its significant remains discovered include four large and elaborately decorated Roman villas with beautiful mosaic floors (the Pathos Mosaics) and also a necropolis; a series of underground tombs carved out of solid rock, known as the Tombs of the Kings. There are no kings buried there, but the name gives a clue to its grandiosity.

A Pathos mosaic

Next up I Google maps pinned at Aphrodite’s Rock, a mass of rocks in the shallow sea and is famous as the birthplace of the Ancient Greek goddess of love. Cyprus might be small, but it is historically and mythically mighty. 

According to Greek mythology, Aphrodite emerged from the waters at the sacred site and presumably headed into town to meet up with her other goddess single ladies for a night on the mosaic tiles. The beach looks a little pebbly but the waters are turquoise and the sand is white and no wonder she alighted from there.  

Aphrodite's Rock

How pretty is Cyprus (photo courtesy of
the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs SmartTraveller website).
I mean, those coastal curves.

After a big day of touristing, it's time to tourist at the beach. Nissi Beach is one of the best in Cyprus according to The Googles. We got ourselves white sand and clear waters until it meets the ocean in a blur of deep azure. 

You’ll likely have to battle the mass of tourists, so best to fly there during a pandemic. The water can reach 29 or 30 celsius (!!), and the Cyprus Sea is very salty, so you can just float around and ease your feeble and fatigued tourists muscles.

You can also explore ancient hiking trails – my ancient spidey senses are telling me you’ll trip over an ancient relic or two, or visit tiny villages containing cafes and yummy food - Yasou means ‘greeting’ or ‘welcome’ to help you on your way.

Yasou!