An Untravelled Man

I would readily admit that I'm not well-travelled. Family holidays were not spent in what could be described in any way, shape or form as adventurous or exotic destinations, and since moving out from living with my parents nearly fifteen years ago travel and holidaying has not been a major priority.

This in itself is ironic perhaps since for almost ten years I've lived on the doorstep of London Luton Airport, thus providing access to a whole host of interesting European destinations; however, despite this relative ease with which we could take ourselves off to any manner of up and coming city destinations pretty much anywhere in Europe, I've probably used that airport more in the past twelve months for travelling up to Glasgow with work than in the last ten years overall.

My job does require me to do a fair bit of travelling, but unlike some of my colleagues who are regularly jetting off to Malta, or at the very least some slightly different places within the UK, I seem to travel to or through the same places over and over again – typically Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Birmingham and London (where the office is). Generally any places I do travel to will be for one day only and so I never really get a perspective on the town or city itself, which is quite sad. Tourists can of course be extremely annoying, but perhaps it’s more disrespectful to not be in a position to take an interest whatsoever.

Take Bristol, for example. I've probably been to this South West city maybe fifty times since I started working in this role, and yet all I seem to do is arrive by train, walk to my client’s offices or the neighbouring Marriott hotel, and then head back to the station. I know very little about the city or its history and yet I'm there probably once per week. During the summer last year I was lucky enough to take a taxi from Bristol Temple Meads station up to Clifton, which opened my eyes to the very beautiful architecture that I had no idea existed, whereas another taxi ride took me from Temple Meads to Clevedon where this time it was the surrounding countryside that caught my attention; previously I'd considered Bristol a dirty, soulless place with no appealing features, which I now concede was extremely naïve, and I feel compelled to apologise.

A colleague with whom I travelled to Exeter last year observed how much of a nice city this was, but then made a very obvious but no less important assertion – any city will appear more beautiful on a sunny day, which indeed it was when we were departing. When we arrived the weather was far from pleasant, and my initial feelings toward this place that I'd never been to before were not exactly positive, particularly the area at the end of the high street where unsympathetically-designed post-War concrete abominations nestled uncomfortably next to other, no doubt listed buildings.

I was reminded of my colleague’s astute observation when I travelled to Harrogate earlier in the year; many people have remarked to me how beautiful this Yorkshire town is, and so it was with a sense of keenness that I accepted the invitation to visit a client here. However, the weather was as it seems to always be whenever I head up to Yorkshire – cold, wet and damp – and thus Harrogate, for all its beautiful buildings and stored-up wealth, initially disappointed. I must learn to approach things less superficially in the future.

Birmingham I have known for many years owing to having been born and having lived in the area, but only recently has my interest in a location changed from being about the quality of its shopping complexes to the quality of its public spaces and retention and restoration of original buildings. And Birmingham, much to my delight, doesn’t disappoint. Of course there are ugly post-War concrete constructions in the city centre, but head along Corporation Street from New Street Station toward Centenary Square and the grandeur of the surrounding buildings is truly breathtaking. Then again, at the other end of Corporation Street, the new Bull Ring shopping centre is a master stroke of modern construction; give me a preference though and I'd prefer to have a coffee outside one of the cafes on the approach to Centenary Square and bask in the imposing glory thereof rather than struggle to find a seat among the shoppers at the Bull Ring.

Glasgow for me follows the same theme as Bristol – my only knowledge of Glasgow is the taxi ride from the airport to my client’s offices on West George Street. I've done this journey perhaps six times in the last two years. Taking a taxi is often the best way to see a city, but in the case of Glasgow there is very little of interest on the motorway that takes you from the airport and which essentially drops you right into the centre of Glasgow with nary a glance of any of the beautiful architecture that Scotland’s second city is renowned for. Again, two occasions more recently – one where I stayed at a city centre hotel and one where I was driven between meetings in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh over the course of two days – have enabled me to see and appreciate much more of the city and its surroundings.

As for London, as I've said here several times, working in the City has given me the freedom to get to know a place which has fired my imagination from my earliest years. With London the balance between hugely impressive, grandiose buildings from various points in the city’s history, balanced alongside exciting and innovative modern constructions does not irk me at all. There are offices in the Holborn area, for example, which cast a shameful shadow over London’s eloquence and majesty, and I'm all for tearing these atrocities down and making our capital a shining example of how old and new can nestle comfortably together. Am I traditional enough to suggest that they shouldn’t be constructing buildings that have the potential to obscure certain views of St Paul’s Cathedral? Not especially, so long as the views I do cherish, such as from the South Bank next to the Tate Modern or the way the great dome seems to rest atop the neighbouring buildings of Paternoster Square until you get up close; as long as these are retained I’m pretty comfortable.

The freedom to explore London gives you a very clear exposure to its history, which is writ large throughout the roads, alleyways and landmarks. The investment in London’s heritage is evident wherever you turn, and one cannot help but feel an intense sense of pride in our great Capital; the tourists who flock here every year are truly spoilt if they are following a historic trail, and even if they come to London for the shopping alone then they cannot help but be exposed to a sense of London’s splendour and grandeur just by sticking to well-trodden retail walkways.

If I'm rather under-travelled in this country then I am even less so abroad. Faced with the choice between a ‘beach’ holiday or a ‘city’ break, I'd prefer the latter, but I've been on far more of the former. Of the European cities I've been to – Bonn, Barcelona and Prague – I can recall little of Barcelona, a sense of awe but little else of Bonn and a blend of fascination and disappointment when it comes to Prague. When we went there back in 2003, our friend commented on how beautiful the city would look in the snow. In direct contrast to my colleague’s observation about how anywhere looks nice in good weather, Prague is indeed a place which one could imagine as much more romantic in the snow. Sadly, my views on this are rather tainted by the fact that it didn’t snow while we were there, but rather started just before the taxi came to pick us up from our hotel, leaving my wife and I to spend a night in the airport waiting for it to reopen the following morning. Let me tell you, there is nothing worse than queuing at a transfer desk all night, only to end up in a fracas with a Lithuanian when you finally get to the front of the line. Consequently, the notion of heading back to Prague to soak up any sort of Christmas-y atmosphere is likely to fill me more with dread than wistful romantic longing.

My major disappointment with Prague was the way the city completely changed as nightfall descended. In the daytime, the Czech capital is an architectural delight, glorious, ambitious and decadent in equal measure; its bridges, palaces and cathedrals are second to none. By night however, doors that are shut during the daytime reveal themselves to be adult-oriented clubs, and the city’s attraction to hen and stag parties becomes evident. It’s a sad state of affairs when such an incredible location becomes marred by the sort of lax sex tourism which reverses much of the good work establishing the Czech Republic as a worthy destination for international business and commerce.

The destination that has had by far the biggest impact on my interest in travelling is definitely New York. This is no surprise – most people are captivated by the Big Apple when they first arrive and so they should be. Perhaps it’s the way that Manhattan’s unfeasibly vertical landscape reveals itself so dramatically, almost theatrically – one imagines the orchestra pit sounding a grand, rousing crescendo as the first glimpse of the Empire State Building fills your eyes – on the approach from JFK or the sense of bizarre familiarity from seeing NYC in so many movies and television shows. In any case, New York is a topic for another day, but suffice to say that nothing about New York City disappointed, and I have no doubts that when our daughters are old enough we will be making many, many more trips there.

The planning and research that my wife and I (though she did far more than I) did before heading out to New York, and our appetite for soaking up Manhattan’s many landmarks, both obvious and hidden, has fundamentally changed my attitude to travelling, whether it be with work or as a leisure traveller. I am now much more keen to soak up a destination’s history, architecture and culture, much more keen to make that effort rather than breezing in and out again. No longer will I write off a place on either first glance or reputation, which was my previous inclination, and which was evident in the comment from the train guard on the Birmingham to Bristol service I was on and which prompted me to start tapping this piece out; as we approached Cheltenham – a fine, regal Spa town – the guard commented ‘We are now approaching Fred West land. Sorry, I mean Cheltenham.’

This is the kind of crass generalisation which I myself would have been guilty of in even the recent past. It’s the kind of narrow-mindedness which means people still think of a majestic city like Manchester – a modern, thriving and above all progressive city – as being filled with gun-toting drug barons; or Liverpool being populated by scallies with curly hair and tracksuits in the manner of Harry Enfield’s comic creations; or of Glasgow being filled with Trainspotting­-esque characters belting down the streets to Iggy Pop tracks while high on smack. Besides, anyone with a modicum of general knowledge would know that the serial killer the announcer was mentioning lived in Gloucester, not Cheltenham.