Visiting the Brontë sisters in Yorkshire

by Sean McLachlan on

People say literary genius is a rare thing, something seen only once in a thousand or a million people. Maybe so, but the Brontës had three (and maybe five) literary geniuses in the same family.

From their father’s parsonage in Haworth, Yorkshire, in northern England, the three Brontë sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne produced some of the most popular books in the English language. Works like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are still read more than 150 years after they were published. They’ve survived the test of time. The ebook edition of Wuthering Heights is currently ranked number 457 at Amazon’s Kindle store, and number 5 in the fiction classics category. Their work has been made into numerous movies and another version of Jane Eyre is coming out next year.

The sisters also prompted literary tourism to Haworth. It started not long after they died and has steadily grown ever since. While everyone comes to Haworth to see the Brontë home and related sights, they also enjoy a beautiful and well-preserved nineteenth century village full of shops and fine restaurants.

Now I have to be honest here and admit that until I went on this trip I had never read a Brontë novel. They were the classics I never got assigned in school and I figured I’d get around to whenever. Before I left for Yorkshire I read Jane Eyre and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The rich prose and sedate pacing definitely belong to the nineteenth century, but the smartass, independent female protagonist belongs to the modern world.

Much of Haworth remains as the Brontës knew it. The Brontë Parsonage Museum preserves their home and tells their story. House museums are tricky to do well. Despite being a museum junkie, some historic homes bore me to death. This one, however, gripped my attention. Besides the usual stuff like the desks they wrote at and the sofas they sat on (and Emily may have died on), there are the little details that make it stick in your memory. In the nursery where they spent their childhood faint pencil drawings can be seen on the wall. While it’s impossible to say if these literary giants doodled these when they were small, it makes you wonder.

There’s also the story of Branwell Brontë. Who? Yeah, that was always his problem. He was their brother, a failed artist and struggling writer living in the shadow of his superstar sisters. He fell into a downward spiral of alcoholism and opium addiction before dying at 31. The above painting of his sisters is Branwell’s work. He originally included himself in the portrait, then unsuccessfully erased himself. He doodled constantly, illustrating letters he sent to friends. One at the museum shows himself in two images. The first is labeled “Paradise” shows him drunk off his ass and shouting, “I am the lord of the manor!” The other is labeled “Purgatory” and shows him hunched over an opium pipe.

%Gallery-104264%The museum also tells the story of their father Patrick, the local pastor who was also a published author. Many a young woman’s ambitions were crushed in those days by domineering fathers who wanted them to get married and get pregnant. Patrick Brontë was progressive enough not to feel threatened by his daughters’ talent and encouraged them in their careers.

Beyond the Brontë parsonage you can see traces of their life everywhere. Patrick Brontë’s church stands nearby and houses the family’s memorial chapel. The pub where Branwell got drunk is just a short stagger away from the apothecary where he bought his opium. The Black Bull Inn still serves up fine Yorkshire ales, but the apothecary shop stopped carrying opiates when they started requiring a prescription. Otherwise it’s a good replica of an early apothecary and still sells traditional cures.

Haworth’s main street is down a steep hill lined with little shops. You can find delicious local cheeses and preserves, a couple of fine tearooms, some excellent secondhand bookshops, and more gift shops than you can shake a copy of Wuthering Heights at. Several historic inns offer beers and beds. At the train station a traditional steam railway offers rides.

But Haworth isn’t all tea and scones and twee little shops. There’s a dark side to the town’s history, full of ghosts, death, and despair. On my second day I discovered I was all too close to the supernatural. . .

This is the first of my new series Exploring Yorkshire: ghosts, castles, and literature in England’s north.

Coming up next: Three nights in a haunted hotel room!


This trip was sponsored by VisitEngland and Welcome to Yorkshire.

[Photo courtesy user Mr. Absurd via Wikimedia Commons]

Marseille’s Noailles quarter: a taste of Africa, in Provence

by Laurel Miller on

The Provencal port city of Marseille has historically been associated with bouillabaisse, and, to a lesser extent, whores, thieves, and the usual debauchery that goes with being a sea port. Things started to turn around about a decade ago, and today it’s a safe, vibrant, thoroughly charming city whose cuisine and culture reflect its past as a colonial trading port with North Africa.

When France acquired Algeria in 1830, Marseille, the second largest port in Europe, saw a major influx of immigrants from North and West Africa that continues to this day. You can even take a ferry to Tunisia, 550 nautical miles away.

I was in Marseille researching a bouillabaisse story when I serendipitously discovered the Noailles, the city’s Arab quarter. It’s located a short walk from the Vieux Port, Marseille’s bustling, bar-and-restaurant-lined waterfront, off of the main artery of La Canebiere. It was like stumbling upon a Moroccan souk: narrow, cobbled streets lead away from a central square that is home to a daily outdoor produce market. Small, dark, cluttered shops sell tea sets and spices; markets carry everything from meat and seafood to Middle Eastern pastries, dates, pistachios, glass-like, crystallized whole fruits, and tubs of olives and harissa, a fiery red North African chile paste. It’s the ideal place to pick up edible souvenirs or picnic fixings.

Men in djellabahs sit at outdoor cafes, talking loudly over bracingly strong demitasse’s of coffee, while women draped in sifsaris paw through bins of vegetables. The quarter is a kaleidoscopic mélange of colors, sounds, and smells: rotting produce, incense, sizzling kebabs of chicken and lamb, and the comforting aroma of baking flatbreads and sugary almond cookies. My favorite part of this untouristed neighorhood, however, are the tiny Egyptian, Tunisian, and Algerian food stalls and bake shops that specialize in mahjouba–giant, rectangular-folded crepes filled with sautéed tomato, red pepper, onion, and harissa.

The takeaway shop Le Soleil d’Egypte makes a particularly delicious version, as well as selling a variety of North African flatbreads that are baked fresh throughout the morning. Mahjouba are a satisfying, inexpensive (under two dollars) snack–I was so besotted, I even took a couple on the train to Cassis with me. But they’re also special in that they’re a nod to the Marseillaise love of street foods.

All over the city, particularly near the port, street food vendors sell everything from croque monsieur and pissaladiere, to panisses–delicate, fried chickpea flour cakes. I love them all, yet visiting the Noailles for mahjouba is my pick. They’re a quintessential–if little known–Marseillaise treat: a melding of sunny Mediterranean vegetables, classic French cuisine, and North African culture.

For a harissa recipe, click here.

[Photo credits: man shopping, Flickr user Trilli Bagus; buildings, Flickr user Marind is waiting for les tambours de la pluie; rooftops, Flickr user cercamon]

Colchester Castle celebrates 150 years as a museum

by Sean McLachlan on

It’s not often that a museum becomes a museum piece.

The Colchester Castle Museum recently celebrated its 150th birthday. Located in Essex, England, and housed in one of the best preserved Norman castles in the world, the museum boasts a massive collection of Roman artifacts.

Colchester used to be the capital of Roman Britain until it was leveled by the warrior queen Boudica in 60 AD. As the leader of the Celtic Iceni tribe, she had defied the recent Roman conquest of England. As punishment she was whipped and her underaged daughters raped before her eyes. Boudica raised an army and wreaked a terrible revenge across Roman Britain, slaughtering an estimated 30,000 people at Colchester alone before she was defeated at the Battle of Watling Street.

The Normans built a castle here around the year 1076 on the foundations of the temple to the Emperor Claudius. The foundations were so large that the castle ended up being the biggest ever built in England. After a stint as an interrogation center for suspected witches, it eventually became a museum in 1860. Today it houses an excellent collection of Roman artifacts as well as collections from other periods. An interesting article in the Chelmsford Weekly News reports the collection is the product of generations of collectors and includes not only priceless archaeological treasures but oddities such as a crab with oysters growing on its shell.

[Photo courtesy Filip Walter via Wikimedia Commons]

Beer logistics at Munich’s Oktoberfest

by Gadling Staff on

“It’s a panic,” remarked Michael Bannister, a distinguished gentleman visiting from Cambridge, England. “The thing is they all know the songs.” The crowd — some ten thousand strong — sang along with various German tunes but the real gusto was reserved for intentional hits. They belted the chorus from “Hey Jude” so loud the rafters seemed to shake. People inside the Paulaner tent danced in place for hours and did all the right moves from “YMCA.” Moreover, songs like “Sweet Caroline, “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Country Road” brought the crowd into frenzy. And you’ve never heard the song “Tequila” until hearing it on tuba and accordion! “There is so much energy here,” said Jo Wegstein from Fremont, California, visiting Germany on biotech business.

The logistics of Oktoberfest are impressive, and large festival or event planners might consider studying their methods. The beer logistics alone are amazing. For instance…

  • The Paulaner Brewery, the largest in Munich begins making Oktoberfest beer in late July and delivers about 3,000,000 liters during Oktoberfest. That’s a lot of beer, consumed one liter a time. And Paulaner is just one brewery out of 12 functioning at the annual event.
  • Paulaner brings its beer from the brewery to its Oktoberfest tent in huge tanker trucks able to transport 270 hectoliters at a time from midnight until right before the tents open in the morning.
  • The brew is connected directly from the tankers to the beer taps using a sophisticated, patented system.
  • Munich-area breweries, hospitality vendors and politicians all vie for tent space, which is highly coveted and incredibly lucrative. A tent owner or brewery can be kicked out of Oktoberfest if there are problems — and they’ll never be allowed to return.

Particularly now — the last few days of Oktoberfest — the brewery tents are usually entirely packed with attendees who’ve reserved tables months in advance.

%Gallery-7107%The Spaten tent was packed, the doors shut tight, and only those with a wristband or VIP access were allowed to enter. There are also biergartens outside, but alas, also full. I ambled over to the nearby Paulaner tent and was fortunately able to jostle and push my way in, but every seat or bench was taken. Still, I was inside and able to watch the action. However, the servers were only serving within reserved designated areas.

Eventually I started chatting with a nice young guy wearing a traditional red and white checked shirt, and he invited me over to meet his little group. Instantly I was “in,” and one of the family. Very friendly, the people at this table included his mother Monica and her husband Mark, plus a few friends and relatives. Her friend Sandy said she was with, “My man, my ex-man, my son and his girlfriend, and my sister.”

Another couple, Rolf and wife Shannina, originally from Romania, rounded out the group. These folks were accommodating and friendly and of course, everyone was enjoying the fresh Paulaner Oktoberfest brew. Dressed in traditional Oktoberfest garb, Rolf was very proud of his custom-made lederhosen, which cost 600 Euro and took six months to deliver. “They are from Stangassinger,” he said proudly. “The best.”

Yes, his lederhosen looked very nice, not that I am up on the nuances of this product. Apparently, every Bavarian man should buy a good pair, which may last a lifetime though fitting into them years from now may be another story. At one point, everyone stood and sang out as the band played a rousing rendition of “New York.” I found out that Monica’s son Danny, who brought me to the table, was only 14 years old. He looked much older. His mother said that he’d been very good this year and thought it best that he would drink under her supervision. She allowed him to drink one big beer. I saw him drink at least two.

Previously:
Arriving at Munich’s Oktoberfest
Munich, Germany’s 200th Anniversary of Oktoberfest

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Bob Ecker is a Napa, California based travel writer/photographer providing worldwide magazines and newspapers with compelling travel, hospitality, wine, culinary, skiing, film and innovative feature content. He is constantly on the go, traveling the world, unearthing new stories and uncorking emerging regions. He is current Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) member and former President of the Bay Area Travel Writers (BATW).

Bowermaster’s Adventures: Navigating the hordes of jellyfish

by Jon Bowermaster on

Jellyfish — those gelatinous, stinging, floating-condoms-of-the-sea, the pint-sized boogeyman of the ocean are fast becoming the equivalent of a coal mine’s canaries. Appearing this summer en masse along coastlines around the globe, jellyfish are evidence of just how badly we’re treating the ocean and with painful results.

During the last days of summer jellyfish swarmed the Atlantic coast of Spain stinging hundreds on a single day, sending many swimmers to the hospital. While most of the stinging effects would go away in a week or two, many can still itch months later and sometimes require surgery to remove the affected area.

Dubbed a couple years back by the New York Times as the “cockroaches of the sea,” hordes of jellyfish have been showing up in similar abundances along beaches in New York, France, Japan and Hawaii, stinging innocent passersby and clogging fishing nets.

While jellyfish do little more than float with the currents and sting only when bumped into, last year more than 30,000 Australians were treated for stings, double the year before. Such swarming used to happen on occasion, but last just a couple days. Now some are lasting for weeks. In Spain this summer a fishing boat from the Murcia region reported an offshore swarm of iridescent purple jellyfish spread over a mile.

“Those jellyfish near shore are a message the sea is sending us saying ‘Look how badly you are treating me,’ ” jellyfish expert Dr. Josep-Maria Gili with the Institute of Marine Sciences of the Spanish National Research Council told the New York Times.

Experts believe this is a problem that’s only going to grow in years to come, thanks to a variety of environmental ills bearing down on the ocean simultaneously:

1. GLOBAL WARMING increases sea surface temperatures, which encourage jellyfish growth, as does a corresponding lack of rainfall. Typically freshwater from rain aggregates near shore and helps keeps the jellyfish at a distance; lack of rain due to a changing climate – as they’ve experienced along the European coasts this summer — means jellyfish float closer and closer to shore.

2. COASTAL POLLUTION reduces oxygen levels and visibility in the water, which scares most fish away from the shoreline but is conditions in which jellyfish thrive. While most fish have to see their catch, jellyfish filter food from the water, so eat passively.

3. OVERFISHING eliminates natural predators of jellyfish like tuna and swordfish, which also allows for more plankton growth, which helps the jellyfish proliferate.

One bright note to the boom? Some predict in the not-so-distant future jellyfish may be the only marine life left and thus may become a dietary staple. Savvy scientists, like the University of British Columbia’s Daniel Pauly, believe thanks largely to overfishing that we better start working on some jellyfish recipes … and fast.
Eating jellyfish is already prevalent in some Asian and Third World countries where sea cucumbers and sea urchins – “which live off dirt,” notes Pauly – are already on menus. When Pauly first suggested the notion of jellyfish sandwiches, it was intended as a joke. Not today.