The London Years · 1999–2002 · Europe Weekends
Short Trips
Living in Barnes from 1999 to 2002, Sharon and I had a couple opportunities to visit Europe for short trips without the kids. Quick flights to Vienna for sunshine and palaces, Bruges for canals, St. Petersburg on the longest day of the year, and Monaco. Additionally, Alexandra and I went to Antwerp on a mission and I visited Budapest solo for under $100 with a spa that was mostly torture and a guide who took me to where communist statues go to die.
(These posts were written during the Great Shutdown of 2020. Memory isn’t this good — internet searches filled in a lot of holes.)
My parents came to visit us in London so we were able to get away for a couple of quick weekends, first weekend to Vienna and the second weekend to Belgium. We had a glorious couple of days of sunshine and visiting palaces in and out of the city.
Schönbrunn Palace was the main summer residence of the Habsburg family and is one of the largest palaces in the world, built in the 1700s. Prior to this trip, I didn’t know the details of the Habsburgs and the Austro-Hungarian empire, but we read a book on the history and how all the non-British royal families continued to intermarry, conspire with the church, became very rich, and pretty much messed up Western Europe. Then were on the wrong end of the assassination that started World War I. But all of the palaces and churches are spectacular — so at least a legacy was left behind.
The most famous work of art in Schloss Belvedere is “The Kiss” — I wasn’t particularly aware of this work when we went, but over the years it has become much more well known (at least to me).
Because the weather was so nice, much of our time was spent outside and walking through the city and the outdoor cafes on Kärntner Strasse.
Schloss Schönbrunn has 1,441 rooms and was the primary summer residence of the Habsburg dynasty, which ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire until its dissolution in 1918. The empire at its height encompassed over 50 million people across Central Europe. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914 — the event described here as the “wrong end” moment — triggered a chain of alliances that became World War I. The palace is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Austria’s most visited tourist attractions. The painting “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt (1907–1908) at the Belvedere is Austria’s most visited single artwork and is considered a masterpiece of the Vienna Secession art movement.
My first trip to Antwerp was with Alexandra in 1999 to buy an upgraded wedding ring for Sharon (as a bribe for moving to London). Alexandra was very excited for the trip and was excellent at keeping the secret — her bribe was a trip to the zoo. It was pouring rain and I had found a diamond wholesaler through the internet and we met at a McDonalds. He gave Alexandra an umbrella and we went through a maze of alleys into a building and down a hallway into a small office. Outside of a couple of locks on the door, it looked like a standard office until he unlocked a desk drawer and probably had a couple of million dollars of diamonds neatly organized by size and quality. He was Israeli and a big NBA fan and my knowledge of basketball got me a “friends” discount. Everything he said regarding the size, quality, appraised value, and mall retail cost was 100% correct…so very successful trip.
About a year later, my parents came to visit us in London so we were able to get away for a couple of quick weekends — the prior weekend to Vienna and this weekend to Belgium. Unlike the glorious couple of days of sunshine that we had in Vienna, a week later in northern Europe was pouring rain. We flew to Antwerp and spent most of the day touring and then a short train ride to Bruges.
We generally went running from place to place in the central area of Antwerp near the Grote Markt to avoid the rain. Spent a lot of time in waffle houses and pubs — chocolate covered waffles and beer is one way to deal with the rain.
Antwerp’s diamond district — the Diamantkwartier — is concentrated around four streets near Antwerp Central Station and handles an estimated 80% of the world’s rough diamonds and 50% of all cut diamonds globally. The district has been a centre for diamond trading since the 15th century. The Israeli and Jewish communities have historically dominated the trade — which explains the NBA-fan Israeli wholesaler encountered here. The back-alley meeting described — a McDonalds as the introduction point, then a maze of alleys to an unmarked office — is a fairly accurate description of how private diamond wholesale transactions in Antwerp actually work. The district processes roughly $54 billion in diamonds annually.
I had never heard of Bruges before we moved to London — but a lot of people recommended it as a trip. An old city with canals — but different from Amsterdam and known more as the “Venice of the north” than the “Amsterdam of Belgium”. Definitely worth a visit even though it is very touristy in the central area of the city. Even though Belgium is a small country, it has several distinctive regions that speak different languages. Both Antwerp and Bruges are in Flanders and speak Dutch.
Our first and only trip to Russia (at least through 2020). Alexandra and Annelise stayed with friends so this trip was just Sharon and I. Unlike other trips where I usually seek the most inexpensive option, because I had concerns on security and there was no middle option, we stayed at the Grand Hotel Europa and hired a hotel driver for airport transfers and the day trip to the Summer Palace in the countryside. The hotel bill alone was more than the cost of most of the entire trips we took, but St. Petersburg was always on the top of my list to visit. I had studied Russia and the transition from the Soviet Union quite a bit as I thought (incorrectly) that the former Soviet Union and satellite countries would be the growth economies of the 21st century — wrong!
We were there the longest day of the year as well as the sunniest / hottest days of the year. In the morning, you would see scantily dressed Russians (both men and women) and after a day of day drinking in the sun, you would see a lot of severely sunburned people lying around about 9pm.
We visited the major sites in the city, the Hermitage (Winter Palace), The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, and took a boat ride through the canals.
We took a day trip out to Peterhof Palace which was built by Peter the Great in the 1700s. It was built to compete with the Palace of Versailles as Russia wanted to be seen as equal to the empires of Western Europe.
We also went to the little known Museum of Political History — had a lot of Soviet propaganda and was very interesting. We also went to a Russian dance show and the lead guy looked like he could be related to me.
The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg is one of the largest and most visited art museums in the world, with a collection of over three million items spanning prehistoric to modern times. The Winter Palace — the main building — was the official residence of the Russian emperors from 1732 to 1917. St. Petersburg’s “White Nights” season, when the city experiences near-continuous daylight around the summer solstice, is the setting for this visit. During this period (roughly late May to mid-July), the sun barely sets, and outdoor celebrations continue well past midnight. The Peterhof Palace and its Grand Cascade fountain system — often called the “Russian Versailles” — was indeed built by Peter the Great specifically to rival Louis XIV’s palace.
“I thought the former Soviet Union and satellite countries would be the growth economies of the 21st century — wrong!”
I took a quick trip on my own to Budapest on a cold weekend (I think the airfare was less than $100) and on a recommendation stayed at the Hotel Gellért. The hotel was designed in an Art Nouveau style and connected to a spa. So first thing Saturday morning I headed to the spa…it was world famous and was fed directly by hot springs. First step was a massage which consisted of getting your entire body slapped by a big guy. Second step was to jump in the cold pool — it was pretty much torture. The third step was a lukewarm pool with no jets…but at least it wasn’t painful.
Did the hop on / hop off bus tour for the rest of the day, hitting the main sights of parliament, Chain Bridge, Széchenyi Square, and the Citadel. Took the tour at parliament and by the time the bus got to the Citadel it was pretty late (the bus ran later than I had seen in other cities) which was close to my hotel. After a quick bite, I took the tram and walked across the Chain Bridge back to Pest and visited a couple of pubs on the way to the casino. Won quite a bit at the casino and took a taxi back.
On the bus tour, the guide mentioned a park which had all the Soviet era monuments but they had no official trips there. But he would be happy to give me a private tour. Memento Park is where communist statues go to die. He picked me up early the next day and he was only a couple of years younger than I was (thus a teenager when the wall fell) and very interesting to talk to as we went through the monuments. He and his friends were always very pro-USA growing up so once the opening came, most everyone embraced it.
Budapest is formed from two cities — Buda on the western bank of the Danube and Pest on the eastern bank — unified in 1873. The Chain Bridge, walked across here at night, was the first permanent bridge connecting the two sides and opened in 1849. Hotel Gellért, the Art Nouveau spa hotel described, was built between 1912 and 1918 and sits at the foot of Gellért Hill on the Buda side. Its thermal spa draws water from springs below the hill. Memento Park (Szobor Park) was opened in 1993 to house the Soviet-era statues removed from Budapest’s public spaces after the fall of communism in 1989. Hungary was one of the Soviet bloc countries that transitioned most smoothly — the guide’s description of a generation that grew up pro-American and embraced the opening reflects the broader Hungarian experience.
I took a quick trip on my own to Budapest on a cold weekend — I think the airfare was less than $100. This captures something important about the London years: from Barnes, the whole of Europe was accessible on a short-haul flight for very little money. Vienna, Antwerp, Bruges, St. Petersburg, Monaco, Budapest — all within a long weekend’s reach. The budget airline revolution was in full effect by 2001–2002 and it fundamentally changed how people living in Britain used their weekends.
Sharon came back over to London for her birthday — we had a party in Barnes then flew to Nice for the weekend. It was much colder than we were expecting for March — definitely wasn’t beach weather.
We drove along the French Riviera to Monaco — was cloudy when we were there. I was pretty excited when we got to the Casino but (for a reason I can’t remember) it was closed. Not really much to do in Monaco on a tight budget on a cloudy/chilly day.
We left late in the afternoon and drove towards the Italian border and had dinner in Italy before returning to France and staying the night in Menton before heading to Nice to fly back the next day.
I was pretty excited when we got to the Casino but (for a reason I can’t remember) it was closed. Not really much to do in Monaco on a tight budget on a cloudy/chilly day. The Casino de Monte-Carlo is the centrepiece of Monaco's identity and visiting it closed on a cold March day with a tight budget captures something real about the gap between Monaco’s reputation and its experience on a budget in the off-season.
Monaco is the world’s second smallest country by area (after Vatican City) at just 2.02 square kilometres, and the most densely populated sovereign state. It has no income tax, which has made it a magnet for the ultra-wealthy. The Casino de Monte-Carlo, opened in 1863, was built to save the ruling Grimaldi family from bankruptcy and has been central to Monaco’s economy and identity ever since. The French Riviera drive described — Nice to Monaco — is approximately 20km along the Corniche road, one of the most scenic coastal drives in Europe. The stop for dinner in Italy would have been in Ventimiglia, just across the French border.