Vintage Railway Travel Posters

From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches,

And charging along like troops in a battle,

All through the meadows the horses and cattle:

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as driving rain:

And ever again in the wink of an eye.

Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;

And there is a green for stringing daisies!

Here is a cart run away in the road

Lumping along with man and load;

And here is a mill and there is a river:

Each a glimpse and gone forever!

Many of these vintage railway posters were designed and illustrated by well known artists of the day such as the one above by Stanhope Alexander Forbes, a founding member of the influential Newlyn school of painters. His father was a Railway Manager in London, and his elder brother was also a Railway Manager who worked for the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway.

via

............PRELUDE............

Taking a blogging break - using the dulcet tone and words of Sir David Frost "the clues are there"!!!

Palacio Real de Aranjuez and some tilting at windmills

The Royal Summer Palace and gardens of Aranjuez grew up around a medieval hunting lodge standing beside a natural weir, the meeting point of the Tagus and Jarama rivers.

Today's palace of brick and white stone was built by the Hapsburg's in the 18th century and redecorated by the Bourbons. Inside there are numerous Baroque rooms, among them the Chinese Porcelain Room, the Hall of Mirrors and the Smoking Room modelled on the Alhambra in Granada.

The royal gardens - Jardín de la Isla - are freely open to all, and well worth taking a walk through.

Peeling bark has created an interesting camouflage design on the trunks of the Plane trees 

These are the plains of La Mancha - the land where Miguel de Cervante set his novel 'The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote' who mistook the windmills to be giants!!! These plains are also the home of the Crocus sativus - saffron crocus, and the largest area in the world for producing wine.

The small town of El Toboso celebrates its literary connection being the home of Dulcinea - Don Quixote's sweetheart.

Here I spied something that could be a future 'quess the quiz'!!!

Qingdao to Shanghai in 1985 - third post on China

View first and second posts here 

Initially, we had set out for China 12 months earlier. We had arrived at Heathrow ready to travel to Paris where we would be catching an Air France plane to Beijing, only to find that the French Air Traffic Controllers had gone on a lightning strike. There was nothing for it, but to return home and for the UN to contact China to inform them. Our travel arrangements in China were quite complicated and it took another year to rearrange everything.

A year later as we once again embarked on our Chinese odyssey, 'China' the very first edition of the Lonely Planet guide was published. The book was packed with everything you needed to know when travelling in China. It became compulsive reading, our bible, which we always kept close at hand. 

On our last evening in Qingdao before flying to Shanghai I looked up what the book had to say about CAAC - Civil Aviation Administration of China - these carriers are the only domestic flights available within China. I learnt that CAAC also stands for China Airlines Always Cancels (the biggest excuse being bad weather) but more importantly China Airlines Almost Crashes. This information was the last thing that I needed to know. I said to H "have you read the chapter on CAAC?" his reply "it would have been far better if you had not read that!!!"
The tales surrounding CAAC were legendary, the one that I particularly recall is this one: passengers watched the pilot returning from the toilet to find he was locked out of the cockpit by a jammed door. The co-pilot opened the door from within, then both men fiddled with the catch and succeeded in locking themselves out of the cockpit. As passengers stared in disbelief the pilot and co-pilot attacked the door with a fire axe, pausing for a moment to draw a curtain between themselves and the audience.
This story made me feel even more nervous, but for goodness sake these were just folktales!!! weren't they?
On looking out at the night sky everything appeared to be looking good for the following day.

Evening in Qingdao

In the morning we gazed at a brilliant blue cloudless sky, the air was calm, nothing stirred, and thought the day could not be more perfect for our trip. We came down into the hotel foyer to be greeted by our hosts who informed us that CAAC had cancelled our flight due to bad weather conditions!!! and that they would return for us in the morning - alarm bells began seriously clanging in my head. 

H took advantage of this time to relax a bit and decided to take a swim in the sea. We had been watching people swarming all over the beach every day turning over every stone and boulder in search of anything that moved to put in their baskets for the cooking pot.
I watched H walk back up the beach from his swim when suddenly he became surrounded by young men. They came up to the middle of his chest, all I could see was H in his swimming costume surrounded by a ring of heads. They wanted to know whether there was a 'backdoor' to success in Britain and his views on so many different topics.

The following morning we came downstairs in perfect weather again only to be told the flight was cancelled, but finally on the third morning we were on our way.

We never imagined the airport would be such a long journey away. Our vehicle bounced along deeply rutted mud roads with big old trucks abandoned along it. Some had men crawling all over the bonnet in a vain attempt to get them moving again.

The airport was an eye opener. A vast area of scrubland covered in Russian military MiGs under wraps, but where was the airport? There was only one small building not much bigger than a public convenience and that turned out to be it. It was dark by the time the Shanghai plane arrived, there was no runway, just a rough area  that was lit up by switching on the lights from parked lorries.

Our plane was a vintage Russian turbo-prop. The services - basically there were none. We climbed up a ladder to get in the plane, and to our dismay discovered that all of the passengers luggage was in the cabin with us sitting loosely on the spare seats!!! now I was getting really anxious and wondered whether I would ever see my two beloved sons back home in the UK again.

via wikipedia

The air hostesses handed out little bags of strange White Rabbit creamy sweets - our only form of refreshment. I sucked hard on them as I noticed via the light of the moon string tied around the turbo-prop as if holding it together. 

What a relief to see the bright lights of Shanghai and to land safely.

Having passed through customs our next surprised was to find that the Harbour Master of Shanghai and his retinue had been waiting for us at the airport for the past three days. Nobody had bothered to inform them of our delay, we were upset for them, but it was all out of our hands. They just accepted it in a good natured smiling spirit as if it was normal, and then hastily whisked us away for our first Shanghai banquet.

courtesy wikipedia

Shanghai today, definitely not the Shanghai we saw.

Next post Shanghai to Hangzhou

Stourhead House

The jewel in the crown at Stourhead are the world famous landscaped gardens, but at its heart is a wonderful Palladian mansion built by  Henry 'the Magnificent' in 1721. It is one of the first of its kind to be built in this country following the demolition of the original manor house.
It has a unique Regency library, Chippendale furniture, inspirational paintings, many of which were as a result of Sir Richard Colt Hoare's Grand Tour.

There are several of these gnarled old Sweet Chestnut trees lining the entrance drive. This one is believed to be nearly 700 years old.

In the entrance hall a painting shows Sir Richard Colt Hoare with his son Henry standing in an Italianate landscape, but it was Henry's son - Henry 'the Magnificent', who was responsible for the magnificent landscaped gardens and the house.

Alda, Lady Hoare

The last members of the Hoare family to live at Stourhead were Sir Henry and Alda Hoare. Their only son, Harry, was a sickly boy, but still went to fight in the First World War. Tragically he was killed following a battle in Palestine. His parents were devastated. With the loss of their heir, plans were drawn up to give the estate to the National Trust. Henry and Alda were devoted to each other, and they both died on the same day in 1947.

Sir Richard described the paintings in the Music Room as his 'fancy pictures'. The painting above the fireplace is St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. Horace Walpole saw the picture when he visited Stourhead in 1762 and attributed it to Giovanni Paolo Panini. In fact he was wrong it is a copy by Francis Harding.

Sir Richard lost his beloved wife Hester soon after the birth of their second son, who also died. A month later he lost his grandfather. He fled to Europe in his grief leaving his first son, Henry, in the care of staff and a governess. He returned after two years, but found that his father was very ill. He later wrote in his journal that 'the joy at seeing my son was counter balanced by the decline of my father and his death'. His father's death sent him back to Europe for a further 4 years. One does wonder about his poor son, who saw his father only once for a short period during the 6 years. You can see his son on the first portrait in the entrance hall.

The Regency library via wikipedia 

An extraordinary lunette window in the library based on Raphael's fresco The School of Athens.

When Sir Richard eventually returned home for good he liked entertaining friends to a meal whilst regaling them with his exploits on his Grand Tour. He wrote books with hints for travellers in Italy, and turned his sketches done whilst travelling into ink, or watercolour pictures.There are some 600 in the collection at Stourhead, and another 100 are at Yale. He wrote lots of letters to his friends and his son Henry. However, having spent so much time in Europe while his son was growing up perhaps it is not surprising that their relationship was strained.

Above the fireplace in Sir Richard's bedroom hangs The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, a capriccio painting. A capriccio painting is a form of landscape picture where the artist creates an architectural fantasy - a typical souvenir of the Grand Tour.

Sir Richard's writing desk

To end I must include this wonderful urn made out of Derbyshire Blue John. Only small pieces of Blue John are found today. I recently found a modern small Blue John bowl for sale measuring 7.5 cms dia/4 cms high which cost £1,250

Northern Ireland

We know and love Southern Ireland well - Dublin, Galway, the Burren, the Cliffs of Moher, Killarney, Tipperary, the Dingle peninsular, but had never visited Northern Ireland. Unbelievably, our journey took us from England to Wales then over the Irish Sea (3½ hours) to Dublin, and finally Northern Ireland. The return was via Scotland, so all parts of the UK were traversed one way or another during our week away.

Rain could have stopped play, but it didnt. Although Ireland is known as the Emerald Isle, it received much less rain than England for our first two days.

Rowallane Garden was created in 1860 by the Rev. John Moore to celebrate exotic species from all over the world. The house and gardens are situated on land which was once owned by the O'Neill clan. The house is now the headquarters for the National Trust in Northern Ireland.

Rhodochiton atrosanguineus - must give these a try next year, they were happily growing outside.

It was impossible to do the gardens justice - time to retire indoors for some hot sustenance.

The Argory via wikipedia

Built in the 1820s this Neo-classical Irish gentry country house has remained completely unchanged since the beginning of the 20th century thus evoking the family's Edwardian taste.

I love this entrance hall with its marbleised walls, the robust bronze statuary and stove, along with the brass balustrade supports.

Throughout the house are the most wonderful gas lights. Originally they were oil, but the house eventually had its own acetylene gas plant. Housed in the stable yard, and installed by the Sunbeam Acetylene Gas Company of Belfast in 1906 at an all in cost of £250.

The gas lamps can be manipulated rather like an anglepoise lamp

Portmanteau almost packed and ready for travels afar.