Rose early and walked across the river to the central Dublin bus depot, from where my guided coach tour to Newgrange was due to depart at 9.40am. I had a sinking feeling as I started walking there, and decided about halfway through the walk that I should abandon the tour and make my own way to Newgrange. This would involve a 50-minute train trip to Drogheda, perhaps a wander around the town, and then a bus to the Brugh na Boinne. Sadly, once I got to the railway station I realised that I'd forgotten to include Ireland as one of the five countries on my Eurorail pass, so instead of paying extra for the train I resigned myself to the coach tour instead.
We left just after 10, with a fairly small contingent of 20 people, the majority of them aged 50+. The coach driver was informed and chatty, but by the end of the trip I just wanted him to shut up for five minutes so that I could soak in some of the landscape undisturbed.
Our first stop was Monasterboice, a monastery founded by St Buite (who died in 521 AD). Its main claim to fame are the three tall crosses, weathered and lichen spotted, which were carved and erected around the 10th century, that stand in the cemetery that dominates the site today; the tallest of the three crosses stands an impressive 6.5 metres high. Little remains of the monastery itself, save a few weathered walls, and an impressive round tower, standing some 35 high and built as a refuge for the monks and their holy treasures to keep them safe from maurauding Viking raiders.
Yew trees sprouted in the graveyard, their roots digging down into the fertile soil; rooks cawed and croaked above; and cows watched impassively from the surrounding fields. Many of the graves dated from the tragic times of the 19th Century Potato Famine, while the most recent burial was that of a local farmer killed in a car accident in the USA only a few weeks previously. It was an attractive and atmospheric site, but I felt a bit frustrated being there when I really wanted to go straight to Newgrange.
Back onto the bus and on to Mellifont Abbey, the picaresque ruins of the first Cistercian abbey in Ireland (founded in 1142 AD). Again, interesting and attractive in a gothic sort of way, but still not really my thing; on another day, had I wanted to embark on a tour of 10th century Ireland, I'm sure I would have found the place fascinating, but goddammit I wanted megaliths and Neolithic chamber-tombs!
Back onto the bus, and at last, off to the Boyne Valley: past the site of the 1690 Battle of the Boyne, a grassy field by a river intermittently lined with fisherman; in the distance the Hill of Slane, where St Patrick lit his beacon to announce the arrival of Christianity in Ireland in 433 AD; and finally, following the narrow road beside the River Boyne, to Newgrange. As we approached I felt a similar excitement to that I'd experienced at Stonehenge welling in my breast, especially once I caught my first glimpse of a burial mound atop a neighbouring hill...
Sadly, I found Newgrange itself disappointing: mainly, I think, because the site has been 'restored' to an informed interpretation of the way archeologists think it would have looked in its heyday in 3,200 BC instead of being left to nature. Even though the site is older than the Pyramids, indeed even older than Stonehenge, I found it difficult to feel any sense of atmosphere and mystery; it felt all too pristine and manufactured. It didn't help that we were herded into the passage tomb itself in groups of 25, meaning that you can't really see anything of the ancient carvings that adorn the stones, or hear the whisper of the past due to the inane babble of your fellow tourists...
That said, the nearby tourist centre, from which you have to catch a shuttle-bus to the tomb itself (one of over 30 Neolithic sites in the Brugh na Boinne area, including standing stones, barrows and enclosures) was informative, well-structured, and distinctly non-tacky. A definite relief!
Thereafter we were bussed back into Dublin (I napped part of the way, if only to avoid the driver's constant commentary) just in time to catch the peak hour traffic snarl.
I went and grabbed a quick bite, bought a copy of Jamie O'Neill's novel At Swim, Two Boys, and then went to see my final Dublin Fringe show for this trip: the passionate and dynamic hip-hop interpretation of Romeo and Juliet, Rumble. Fuck this was good! Simple staging, inspired use of multimedia (especially in the scene where Juliet was dreaming of her Romeo), and totally superb displays of physical prowess from its multinational cast. Great to see so many kids in the audience too. Definitely a winner.
Thereafter I checked out a local gay bar (underwhelming, but aren't all gay bars - especially when drag shows are placed centre stage as the ultimate in so-called entertainment?), and eventually staggered bedwards to pack and prepare for my flight to Amsterdam the following day.
Thurs 15th September
Wearing my Melbourne Fringe board member's hat, I started the day with a meeting with Wolfgang Hoffman, the director of Dublin Fringe, to talk about potential opportunities for cultural exchange programs and forging stronger links between our festivals. Hopefully it will lead on to some productive outcomes.
Then it was on through the rain to the airport, and a cheap flight to Amsterdam. I found myself giving assistance to a fellow tourist at Amsterdam Airport, who didn't know which train to catch to get into the city or how to work the ticket machine. The latter I could master because I read English and the ticket machine was bi-lingual; the former I knew about thanks to my Lonely Planet guide (my backpacking bible!).
Here's what I wrote at about 5pm on this day, within my first hour of arriving in Amsterdam:
Just arrived in Amsterdam Centraal (and no, that's not a spelling mistake) after getting a cheap flight over from Dublin this afternoon. I've checked into a small, cheap hotel - a very basic one, one step above a hostel - and have quickly dropped into a internet cafe that doubles as a 'coffee shop' to check the address of The Paradiso, a converted church turned live music venue and indie club where I'm hopefully going to go and see Mum tonight - Mum being an electronic band from Iceland whose music I love. It's delicate, sweeping, cinematic music, all rippling glacial tones and chimes, grandeur and drama. I don't have a ticket but as they still have tickets on sale at the door, I should hopefully get in.
Edit: I did get in, and fuck Mum were good. Plus they played their entire first album from start to finish as part of the show. Who-hoo!
And The Paradiso was amazing - great atmosphere, great DJ and superb acoustics - definitely somewhere to check out if you're in Amsterdam and want to catch a band or dance to some damn fine indie/alternative music. Check the above link for venue details if you need to know more.
After the gig finished I caught a tram back to my hotel (yes, a tram: I had a wave of homesickness and nostalgia when I boarded!), finished off the very mild joint I'd specifically requested from said earlier coffee shop (I hardly ever smoke choof these days so I wanted something very weak and very gentle, which was exactly what I got) and then crashed: I was knackered.
Friday 16th Sept: Day 22
I decided to stay in Amsterdam another night (which meant I basically resigned myself at this point to missing out on either Paris or Berlin; oh, would that it had been Paris, in retrospect...) so that I could soak up some of the atmosphere and sights of this tranquil, friendly and beautiful city.
I spent half the day avoiding being hit by bicycles: most major streets have four lanes: bike, car, car, bike - and of course people drive on the opposite side of the road from what we're used to in Australia, so half the time I was looking in the wrong direction when I stepped out onto the road, and consequently almost got clipped by pushbikes whizzing past on a number of occasions. By the end of the day I was almost paranoid, and was looking in every direction possible before attempting to cross the street.
I started the day with a couple of tokes on a fresh joint, and then a one-hour, rather impersonal guided tour of the canals, with a pre-recorded commentary delivered in bursts of Dutch, English, German, French and Japanese. Yes, another guided tour that I didn't like: by this stage of the trip I was starting to realise that guided tours just aint my thing! That said, I probably would have enjoyed a smaller tour more...
Travel Tip No. 2574: If you're in Amsterdam, shop around with the canal tours until you find a company that sends you out on a small boat, not a bloody great barge absolutely jampacked with tourists.
For the rest of the day I walked absolutely everywhere, which meant that even when I got lost I was still enjoying myself, because I was meandering and drifting and discovering new sights around every corner or across every canal...
As an aside: A couple of people had warned me about pickpockets in Amsterdam and indeed Europe generally. Be alert, they said, pickpockets might lift your wallet from your back pocket (not mine, I have a chain wallet) so wear a money belt or a bumbag (which to me sems like a great way of advertising where you're carrying your money, passport etc, although thinking about it I guess a chain-wallet is no different). Even Lonely Planet's Europe On A Shoestring guide mentioned occasional instances of people's backpacks being sliced open while they waited at traffic lights to cross the street, resulting in their valuables and travel documents being stolen in a matter of seconds.
Nothing like that happened to me, but as an example of how seriously people take this kind of thing, at one stage today I stopped on a bridge in order to open my backpack so I could pull out the camera and take a photo. Task accomplished, I slung my backpack back over on my shoulder, the camera in my hand. I'd only taken a few stops when a polite young man - a local I think, from the accent - stopped me and warned me that my bag was still open. It was indeed still partially unzipped; only a couple of inches, but presumably enough for an accomplished pickpocket to reach in and grab whatever they could find - which would only have been my journal, a novel and my Lonely Planet, as it happens, but still it aptly illustrates how seriously people take pickpocketing on the continent...
Anyway, rather than blather on endless, it's time for a quick summary. My Amsterdam highlights included:
- The cobbled expanse of 13th century Dam Square, and the grandeur of the Royal Palace, originally built as this proud merchantile city's Town Hall in the 17th century, which I literally stumbled upon by accident the previous night while taking my first tentative steps about the city, and which I had to see again by daylight.
- The Amsterdam Historical Museum, housed in what was once the city's orphanage, built in the 15th century and then extended in the 17th. While the museum concentrates on Amsterdam's golden age, the 17th Century when the city was the rich capital of a vast merchantile empire, I was most intrigued by the exhibitions which explored Amsterdam in the 12th - 15th centuries, as it slowly grew into the city of canals and bridges that it is today. I scribbled down several notes about this period, which I'm sure will be useful one day... In addition to this, there was a great exhibition focussing on the art and history of modern tattooing, whose centerpiece was a recreation of a tattoo parlour from the late 50's/early 60's. Cool stuff indeed.
- The awe-inspiring Rijskmuseum, which I hadn't actually intended to visit, but which I found myself in front of as I was trying to find the Van Gogh Museum. What the hell, I thought, I may as well go inside. Because it's being renovated, the bulk of the museum, a vast and beautiful building in its own right, is closed until 2008. While parts of the collection tour the world (including, recently, Melbourne) the "crème de la crème of its permanent collection" was on display in one wing of the museum. Sadly I forgot to take my journal and a pen out of my bag when I handed it over to the cloakroom staff, so my smoke-clouded recollections of what I saw are a trifle hazy, but this 400-piece survey of the Rijskmuseum's collection of 17th Century masterpieces was definitely a marvellous aesthetic experience, even it the bulk of the works were from an historical period I'm not especially smitten by...
- The marvellous Van Gogh Museum (where I had a momentary frisson of impending doom as I gazed into the painter's eyes, in a series of four of his self-portraits hanging side by side, and recognised certain similarities in our expressions...or maybe that was just the effect of the joint I'd smoked in the park before I went inside...). Here I saw some truly magnificent art, including a temporary exhibition of cabaret posters, theatre programs, handbills and other ephemera by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec; the Fauve-influenced masterpiece Portrait of Guus Preitinger, the Artist’s Wife, by Kees van Dongen; and of course countless works by poor tortured Vincent himself. As it was a Friday the museum was open until 9.30pm so I had plenty of time to stroll around and gaze in awe at the artworks, despite having already had a busy day.
Next I'd planned to go check out a couple of other bars before finishing my evening sightseeing in the infamous Red Light District, but as I was a touch tired and footsore, I decided to skip the bars (after all, I figured I was pretty unlikely to find a gay bar that played the kind of music I like without doing at least a half-hour's research beforehand) and head straight to the Red Light district.
Colourful, is one word that springs to mind. There were plenty of other sightseers like myself, but there were also a lot of serious customers perusing the charms of various women in the windows, haggling over services and prices, or queuing up to enter one of the several clubs touting live sex shows on stage. While the latter had a vague, perverse appeal (if only to say that I'd experienced unbridled heterosexuality live before my eyes) the fifty euro cover charge, about AU $100, was enough to ensure that I stayed a sightseer - especially as it only included one drink!
Having squeezed a lot of Amsterdam into one day, and yet still only having scratched the surface, I called it a night. A good night's sleep was in order, seeing as tomorrow the final leg of my trip would begin.
Onwards, to Paris!
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