Category Archives: Off Season

Starlings on the pier, Brighton

By Matt Lancashire:

Brighton has a split personality – it can’t shake off the fact it’s a Victorian seaside town of arcades on the pier and sticks of rock, but it’s also a vibrant, gay-friendly and modern town which hasn’t just rested on its laurels wondering why no-one comes to visit any more. Commonly known as London-by-the-sea, it’s only an hour away from its big brother by train and similarly filled with boutique shops and fashionable media-types. It exists as a half-way house for Londoners to dip our toes into the rest of the country and clear our lungs, without ever feeling that we’re out of our depth or too far from home. Continue reading →

Close to the border, the Franco-German Garden

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Saarbrücken straddles the river Saar up against the German-French border, and this part of the world has been much disputed by those two great European powers as the Saarland passed back and forth depending on the movements of history. After the Second World War there was much discussion about what to do with this little wedge of territory, and it was only at the end of the 1950s that a decision was finally made and Saarland became the 10th state of the Federal Republic of Germany.

To mark the occasion, and in the spirit of friendship between the two nations, the Franco-German garden was built, a stone’s throw from the border. The park occupies two valleys; one named in memory of the victims of the infamous Battle of the Spichern Heights in Franco-Prussian war of 1870, and the other for the mill built by Teutonic knights in the Middle Ages. Continue reading →

Winter in Rocquetas, Spain

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A Journal Entry from December 2008:

Ten at night in Roquetas. Waves crash against an empty beach, a cold wind chilling the few hardy late-night promenaders. From the sands the town is dark, with only a few buildings showing signs of life. The hotels, if they are not closed entirely for the winter season clearly have rooms to spare. It feels lonely on the beach, the wrong time of day in the wrong time of the year. But under the warming winter sun the following morning, it becomes clear that even in December there is life in the town. Continue reading →

Sunday by the seaside, Whitby

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Jasmine Salmon on an off-season jaunt to the North Sea coast:

Whitby. Wintery, wild and windy. Doesn’t sound too promising, but when you’ve got two children under the age of four with cabin fever – and possibly harbouring chicken pox – a two hour drive to the coast seems an attractive prospect.

And in fact many would argue that Whitby is at its best in January. Devoid of tourists, the weak winter light and grey skies add to the dramatic atmosphere of the North Sea coast and fossil-rich cliffs, with the headland topped by the gothic architecture of the ruined Abbey and surrounded by the bleakly beautiful moorland of the North York Moors National Park. Continue reading →

By the Weißer See, Berlin

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We take a Sunday walk around the Weißer See, at the heart of its near-namesake neighbourhood of Weißensee, to the north east of Berlin and a short tram ride from the popular and supposedly hip neighbourhoods of Prenzlauer Berg and Mitte. The cultural centre on the edge of the park that leads down to the lake looks as if it has seen better days, like the area as a whole, but there is no denying the small but important role this corner of Berlin has played in the city’s cultural history. During the early years of cinema, the Weißensee Film Studios produced a number of legendary films, most famously The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The Antonplatz – the central square of Weißensee – once boasted no fewer than eight cinemas, such was the influence of the art form on the neighbourhood. Into the 21st Century, only one remains. Continue reading →