Alright everyone
since I can’t travel at the moment
it is time for a bonus video
so here are 8 more Quirky Things To See In Europe
because I think that’s a better title than
8 random bits of unseen footage that I’ve thrown together because I’m running out of material.
And where better to start a quirky random list
than the world’s largest crossword puzzle,
which can be found on the side of a towerblock
in the suburbs of Lviv, Ukraine.
The clues are scattered around the city’s landmarks and monuments,
and the idea is that you hunt them down
and then come back here to check your work after dark,
when the answers light up.
Although you can kind of see them in the day time but anyway
It’s a lovely idea and I was looking forward to doing it
before I remembered I don’t speak any Ukrainian.
But seriously go to Lviv anyway, it’s a beautiful city,
there’s a statue of someone’s belly,
and you can visit the Lviv coffee mine
where a nice man will set fire to your drinks.
And yes I said "coffee mine"... it’s best just to go with it.
Water.
Star.
Bill.
Nipple.
There have been many great gates,
but this might just be my favourite of the lot.
Yorkshire has a reputation for good plain common sense
which doesn’t explain why York has a street called whip-ma-whop-ma-gate.
It’s also one of York’s shortest streets,
a fact that has annoyed cartographers for about 500 years.
Now there are many good reasons you might choose a hotel
like the location, the price, or the facilities.
And of course sometimes you ignore all that
and choose a hotel because it looks like this.
The Inntel Hotel in Zaandam is based on traditional houses from the Zaan region.
Many of the originals are still standing and can be found in the local area,
and the blue one can even be found in a painting by Claude Monet.
Over to Scotland now and you can barely move for castles around here
but even for Scotland this is a good one.
Dunottar is straight out of a medieval fantasy film, but it’s real.
Sitting on a rocky outcrop with a sheer 50m drop to the waves below,
it would be difficult to pick a better defensive location,
and in fact this is where the Scots hid their crown jewels
the last time they got invaded by those annoying neighbours of theirs.
Next up is the kind of scenery that is quite common in China, India, Sri Lanka or Kenya
but this is Europe – or just about, anyway.
The islands of the Azores are one of the very few places in this part of the world
with the right soil and climate for growing tea
and the Cha Gorreana plantation, in operation since 1883, is the oldest in the continent.
It is of course absolutely full of British people buying souvenirs.
Now, knowing the kind of people who watch my videos,
half of you have probably already been to Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg
so how about going to the 2nd biggest model railway in the world?
This is the Grand Maket Rossiya in St Petersburg
where you can see a miniature version of Russia,
and Russia is a big place so even the miniature version is huge,
with two floors filled with hundreds of model trains, cars, planes and boats.
Like Hamburg it is genuinely a work of art.
And speaking of works of art…
Elgin is a historic town in Morayshire, Scotland,
and formerly a cathedral city,
until 1560 when Scotland abandoned Catholicism,
and therefore abandoned this Cathedral,
which has gradually been turning into a ruin ever since.
The centre of Elgin is full of elegant 19-Century buildings
and also the Dandy Lion,
part lion, part mermaid, and part hipster,
one local councillor called the artwork “cultural and intellectual vomit”.
Whatever you think about it, the Dandy Lion is clearly not too worried
if he doesn’t fit in with what everyone else is doing,
and I kind of respect him for that.
And finally, if you ever find that normal restaurants are getting a bit boring
then how about eating on a former offshore platform?
The REM Eiland started life as a pirate broadcasting station in the 1960s
and was anchored six miles off the Dutch coast
transmitting radio and tv to the mainland for 40 years
until it was eventually decommissioned and dismantled,
but in 2011 a company bought it and rebuilt it here in Amsterdam
where it is now provides office space and a slightly overpriced restaurant
with great views of the port and city.
And that’s it for today!
Obviously this list is in no particular order,
and it’s not supposed to be a top 8 or anything like that,
it’s literally just 8 quirky places I went on my travels last year
that didn’t make it into one of my videos at the time. But now they have.
While I was digging through my old footage
I did find a couple of things that I might be able to turn into full videos
and the longer lockdown goes on,
the more possible that will become.
So until then
thank you for watching
and I will see you soon.