Wanderlust and Words

I’m not an avid train person, but I really, really enjoyed a visit to York’s Railway Museum and would highly recommend it to anyone of any age who visits York. Queen Adelaide's carriage I lucked out and arrived just in time for a half-hour talk about the royal carriages , starting with Queen Adelaide’s, which was a glorified stage coach on wheels, through Queen Victoria’s, and up to the train the royals used to travel around Great Britain during World War II. All royal insignia had been removed from the train for additional security, so one older woman unquestioningly boarded the train thinking it was the one she was waiting for. She was very unhappy about being asked to leave before she’d finished her paper and had a cup of tea. Queen Victoria's carriage King Edward's carriage The displays are an important reminder of how train travel signified everything from seaside holidays to deliveries of fresh fish. A display of WWI ambulance train...

One of the things I most enjoy about housesitting is that I end up in delightful places (Appledore, Lapworth, Lens, Quillan) I’d never heard of and would never have visited if it hadn’t been for Trusted Housesitters . Similarly, I would normally have avoided a big, industrial city like Birmingham if I hadn’t needed to be here for a dental appointment, and that would have been a shame as the city has some hidden gems. Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter was the centre of Great Britain’s jewellery trade for over 200 years. At one point, over 80% of the country’s jewellery was fashioned in this one small neighbourhood, along with buttons , pens , and coffin fittings . In 1913, there were 70,000 people employed in precious metals businesses. It was a self-contained community of goldsmiths and silversmiths where everyone knew everyone else and relied on each other’s specialist skills. There were no outsiders so 14-year-old girls could safely take valuable jewellery to the post o...

I visited some outstanding museums in Europe that definitely weren’t your standard, run-of-the-mill affair. MAS Museum, Antwerp The MAS Museum is located in Antwerp’s port area and highlights the city’s past, its river, and its port. The first thing you notice is its height. It’s over 10 stories tall with a panorama viewing station on the top floor and walls of windows on every floor. The museum is not only about the port – it’s part of it. Each floor has a different theme and is absolutely jam-packed with material to illustrate that theme – from –in-the-round videos of political leaders to toilets you can sit on (reading material provided). My favorite floor was Food and the City. Maps showed how food sources had switched from local to global. There were displays of food that had been imported through the port – and of the brawny port workers. And, at the other end of the process, there was a lineup of toilets through the ages. You couldn’t possibly absorb all the informat...