Europe's "Cities on the Edge" fight back

On January 1, two years after Liverpool and three years before Marseilles, Istanbul becomes European Capital of Culture for 2010.  For five years these great ports, together with Bremen, Gdansk and Naples, have been trying to form a network of European cities "of ill repute". 

Marseilles: a "City on the Edge"?

They are the cities that love to be hated: rebellious and out of the ordinary, founded as ports but largely insular in outlook, they are cities of football and plunder.  But they are fighting back, turning to culture to help them on the road to recovery.  In 2010 Istanbul is European Capital of Culture, two years after Liverpool and three years before Marseilles. Almost by chance these three multi-cultural cities, together with Naples, Bremen and Gdansk, have embarked on an adventure known as "Cities on the Edge", a support network of the “most hated cities in their own countries".

Crocodiles and jellyfish in the Sahara

A guelta in the Algerian Sahara

Algeria isn't the easiest country to do business in - in fact, it's the most difficult destination that we operate in - but it is the most diverse and above all, the most beautiful and the most unspoilt.

Footprints in the desert

Algeria's mountainous Tassili region, bordering Libya to the east and Niger to the south, is distinguished by its towering dunes of sand, its sheer-sided canyons and its beguiling "forests of rock". The Tassili - "plateau of the rivers" in Arabic - is an open-air treasure-trove of more than 15,000 rock carvings and cave paintings that depict pre-historic crocodiles and cattle, giraffes and jellyfish.

Starting from the white-washed oasis town of Djanet, we recently navigated the Tassili's intoxicating landscape of palm-groves, wadis and dunes by camel, on foot and by jeep. Our tour (and, remember, Culturissima wasn't in the Sahara here on holiday - this was business!) - spent three nights under the Saharan stars as we tracked down the region's gueltas, the desert water-holes that sustain the Tassili's Tuareg nomads.

On the horizon

We also sought out the tarout, the endemic Saharan cypress trees that are over 2,000 years old... but we didn't encounter one of the Sahara's most extra-ordinary living creatures - crocodylus niloticus, an indigenous dwarf crocodile! Maybe next time!

F N Born 12 May 1820, Died 13 August 1910

At the moment I am putting together a collection of historical and cultural tours, many of which have a strong biographical element, for a British heritage organisation.

Next year (2010) sees the 100th anniversary of the death of a veritable heroine, Florence Nightingale. I've begun researching Florence’s life, and one of the first things that has struck me is Nightingale's strangely silent grave, where the memorial for one of the 19th century’s most lauded figures is no more eloquent than:

F.N. Born 12 May 1820, Died 13 August 1910.

"A wild swan" to her mother, "the lady with the lamp" to the readers of the contemporaneous Illustrated London News, the founder of modern nursing was many things: a tireless campaigner, an accomplished mathematician and statistician, and, I’ve just discovered, even the author of a novella, Cassandra.

Following in Nightingale’s footsteps has led me to stumble on one of London’s most unexpected curiosities. I already knew about the newly-extended Florence Nightingale Museum, located on the site of the pioneering nursing school that she founded at St Thomas’ Hospital in 1860. But the remains of the original St Thomas’ - named after Thomas Becket and Thomas the Apostle - lie eastwards around a bend in the Thames. Tucked away at the top of a rickety spiral staircase in the attic of St Thomas’s Church is England’s oldest surviving operating theatre, constructed in 1822, and, believe me, it doesn’t require much imagination to hear the screams of those pre-anesthetic days! Equally fascinating is the lonely garret used by the hospital’s apothecary to store and cure the medicinal herbs used during the operations.

Algeria celebrates victory over Egypt

This article was first published in When Saturday Comes November 19, 2009

They think they've won it already

I have to admit that I was scared for ten or so minutes after the final whistle blew here in Oran, Algeria last night. I watched Les Verts' World Cup play-off game with Egypt in a cafe in darkened streets of a city that I don't know. Anthar Yahia's 40th minute goal, a Van Basten-esque angled volley, unleashed the country's wildest celebrations since July 1962 – the month Algeria secured its bloody independence from France. Chairs flew over the road, aerosal sprays flashed into the sky, cars vroomed down the streets backwards and sideways, kids slalomed between klaxoning motorbikes and I had to duck once or twice to avoid the fireworks thrown like confetti.

More than 12 hours after the game ended, I've had to close my hotel window to keep out the noise of honking cars on the street 13 floors below. Even the barbus – the Islamic fundamentalists who for ten years brought the country to its knees – are dancing in the streets.

On the streets of Algiers

It is impossible for a European to imagine the rivalry that exists between the Fennecs and the Pharaohs. In Algiers, the offices of Air Egypt were burnt down two days ago. As the final qualifying group match drew to a close last Saturday, with Algeria minutes away from automatic qualification for South Africa, Algerian television's John Motson could restrain himself no longer. “Win it boys, win it for our million martyrs, show Egypt that Algeria never retreats," a barbed allusion to the fact that Algeria won their war against France but Egypt lost theirs against Israel.

After last weekend's two-nil defeat, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika commandeered half of Air Algérie's fleet to convey supporters to neutral Khartoum for yesterday's play-off match – a move that nearly backfired when disappointed fans ransacked Algiers airport on learning there were not enough planes to go around. Such disappointment is a distant memory this morning as Algeria unites in ear-splitting harmony. Chanting supporters, young and old (including a fair helping of women) are once more bringing the streets, and the entire transport network, to a halt. Want a taxi, train or plane? Ask again in a couple of days.

Today's mass-selling Le Soir d'Algérie, normally a French-language newspaper, is headlined with a single word in Arabic: Dernaha (We've done it!) and inside we learn that the mountains, wadis, villages and dunes of the Algerian Sahara are emblazoned with a familiar-sounding slogan: "Impossible n'est pas algérien." Both on the streets and in the media everyone is hoping, everyone is – ironically – praying that football fever will hammer the final nail in the coffin of fundamentalism.

Do you speak Malti?

Valletta, capital of Malta

I'm in Malta again, having spent the day in the heavily-fortified capital, Valletta, trying to find someone to open the ever-locked doors of the Church of St Paul's Shipwreck. Tomorrow, it seems, I'll be able to get inside... though I was told the same thing yesterday, as I recall, and the day before.

Something that strikes me every time I walk around the narrow streets of Valletta - surely one of Europe's most unsung capitals - is the "foreignness" of the Maltese language. Last night I was waiting to buy a ticket for the Manoel Theatre; the receptionist was talking to her friend in Maltese and not a single word, not a single syllable, even, was intelligible - just a series of guttural sounds (and lots of Italian-like arm-waving). Once I got her attention, though, she burst into perfect, unaccented English. In fact, everyone I have ever come across in Malta, with the exception of one very old man I met who lived on an isolated farm, speaks first-rate English.

The Maltese have two official tongues: Maltese - Malti - and English, with Italian also being widely spoken (and Juventus being one of the most popular football teams!). In public life, though, including parliament, the church and the press; as well as in quotidian conversation; it's Malti that is the preferred choice. No surprise, really, as this unique language has been one of the most important factors in enabling Malta to maintain it's status as a separate nation state.

If you think about it, none of the other Mediterranean islands - Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica; is a country in its own right (in spite of repeated attempts to gain independence in some cases). To the ears of most Western visitors, including me, the Malti language sounds distinctly like Arabic (just as parts of the countryside, dry and dusty, resemble Tunisia or Libya). And, sure enough, the origins of Malti can be traced back to the North African Arabs who invaded Malta and Gozo in 870 AD. In fact, Malti is the only Semitic language to be written in the Latin script - with the addition of special characters to accommodate certain Semitic sounds.

Whilst Malti has always preserved its Arabic roots, its development owes much to the Romance languages of the Normans, who occupied Malta in 1090, and the Italians some 500 years later; and, of course, to English.

Temple of the Giants

Azure Window, Gozo

The fortress island of Malta - known to the Romans as Melita - must be one of Europe's most unsung destinations. Malta and her rural neighbour, Gozo (a 35 minute ferry ride from the northern tip of Malta), revel in a boggling array of historical sites - and that's the reason I'm on my fifth visit here.

I'm based, as ever, in the south-west of the island, and have just returned from a visit to the fishing village of Marsaxlokk, invaded by the Ottoman Turks in 1565 and by Napoleon's army in 1798. In more recent times - exactly 20 years ago (I think!) - Marsaxlokk harbour hosted the Bush-Gorbachev summit.

The world's oldest human structures - more ancient than the Pyramids, more antique than Stonehenge - are to be found on Malta and Gozo. Perhaps the most bewitching testimony to Malta's pre-historic past is the Hypogeum, an elaborate burial chamber plunging three storeys beneath the earth.

By contrast, the time-worn, sea-blown stones of Hagar Qim and Mnajdra occupy dramatic sites overlooking the Mediterranean. Gozo is home to Ggantija, the Temple of the Giants, as well as the Azure Window, where every year I meet the man who, it is claimed, is Malta's richest resident.

Steve's ruse is simple: he waits for the tourist buses to decant their contents and then simply walks up to each tourist in turn and puts a guide book or a selection of post-cards in their hands. If they want them, they buy them - at a hefty mark-up, of course (and, it goes without saying that he never has any change and we're in the middle of nowhere). If they're not turned on by his tatty old postcards or dog-eared guides, well, that's when the fun begins.

Temple of Ggantija, Gozo

Because Steve won’t take them back. He only has one arm and he keeps that steadfastly locked to his side, his hand jammed in his pocket. What is the tourist to do? His only option is to drop them on the floor. But the rocks are riddled with puddles, and this will only ruin poor Steve's stock. And who wants to ruin the livelihood of a one-armed man? So, inevitably, the visitor ends up paying up... and Steve, with a wink and a nod in my direction, gets rich.

New England in the Fall

Shaker Mill, earlier this summer

Few destinations can match the range of historic towns that New England has to offer: not just Boston but also Salem, inextricably linked to the witchcraft hysteria of the 1690s, and Stockbridge, scene of an early social experiment in "Englishing" the Native Americans.

Concord is doubly famed, both as the site of the second engagement of the Revolution, when embattled farmers “fired the shot heard around the world”, and as the home of the celebrated literary flowering of the first half of the 19th century.

The Mount, home of Edith Wharton

Indeed, a panoply of literary and artistic figures has made this corner of North America their home: Nathaniel Hawthorne (author of The Scarlet Letter), Edith Wharton (the first woman of American letters) and Robert Frost (America’s unofficial poet laureate) all lived in New England, and it was here that the continent’s most engrossing novel, Moby Dick, was penned.

On a recent research trip to New England for Culturissima I also familiarised myself with two painters dear to American hearts, Norman Rockwell and Grandma Moses, along with one of the country's most beloved sculptors, Daniel Chester French.

Chesterwood

The cultural delights of New England stretch far beyond the shores of America; we also visited three art collections of international repute: the Clark Art Institute, so unexpected a discovery amongst the remote hills of New England, houses a striking collection of Renoir, Monet and Degas, not to mention a captivating selection of Winslow Homer. The chefs d'oeuvre in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts range from Italian and Dutch Old Masters to van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso, whilst the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum displays work by Titian and Botticelli, Whistler and Sargent.

The Safir

The Safir, central Algiers

Central Post Office, Algiers

On my visits to Algiers on behalf of Culturissima I invariably stay at the Hotel Safir on the city's esplanade. Built by the French in the early 20th century, the Safir is located just next to the Assemblé Nationale and overlooks the port of Algiers.

For first-time visitors to Algeria's capital, arriving at the "four-star" Safir can be something of a disappointment.

Before the disappointment, though, comes the fear: Why is there a road-block outside? What are all those policemen doing with guns?

The answer to the second question is simple: bugger all - they are trained by the French, after all. And the road-block? Well, because of the threat of terrorist attacks, security is pretty tight outside all the major hotels in Algiers. At the Aurassi, for example, cars are banned from parking within bombing distance of the hotel. At the George you have to endure three separate security checks before you're allowed to enter the historic interior (such draconian measures might seem something of a fag, but, once it's dawned on you that the George is one of the few places in Algeria that openly serves booze, well, they seem a small price to pay).

When I'm showing English guests around Algeria on behalf of one of Culturissima's clients, I usually advise them that, though they might be disappointed in the Safir on arrival, by the time they've tasted the other hotels that Algeria has to offer, they'll come to view the Safir as a pleasure palace. Sure, it's crumbling at the seams; sure, it's home to the world's oldest, scariest lift; sure, the staff all seem to have been trained under the Soviets" but it has a certain je ne sais quoiand, as most of the guests are Algerian, you're far less likely to be kidnapped here than anywhere else. 

The Safir - or the Aletti as it was known under the French - has a fascinating war-time history. More on that later. For the time-being, here are some photos taken in and around the hotel.

Harraga and Hittistes II

It gets worse (see Harraga and Hittistes I).

There are reports coming out of Algeria that towards the end of August the Algerian coast-guard intercepted two-dozen would-be clandestine escapees, known as harraga and the subject of my earlier post.

Nothing new in that, except to say that one of these 21st century "boat people" was a man aged 70.

Why should a man in his twilight years flee the only country that he has ever known for seven decades?

"I wanted to get to France"

"But why?"

"To see my five children who've been living there for years and years. I've asked (the Algerian authorities) so many times for a visa to visit them, but each time en vain".

Pockets of England II

I take that back.

Having previously written that it's the unknown treasures of the south-east of England that have most fascinated me over the last few weeks, I now think that the south-west has as much - if not more - to offer the cultural traveller.

Devon seems to have everything, from the vast expanses of Dartmoor to small towns and villages such as Sidmouth and Budleigh Salterton. What's equally amazing is that the tranquil countryside is so easily accessible: within five minutes of leaving Exeter airport, for example, you find yourself driving through country lanes past traditional English pubs - a world away from the hustle and bustle of Paris, where our journey had started just over an hour earlier.

South Devon is graced with a generous collection of small manor houses, many of them privately-owned and seldom-visited.

Mothecombe, blessed with an estate running down to the sea, is a perfect Queen Anne doll's house with later additions by Sir Edwin Lutyens, whilst Sharpham, set in a Capability Brown landscape overlooking the River Dart, is an exquisite Palladian villa by Sir Robert Taylor.