On the tourist trail...

By Paul Scraton:

From dawn until late into the evening, long after dusk, they gather on the street beneath our hotel room window. They come for the famous view, the one that adorns the front covers of guidebooks sold in a multitude of languages in the town’s souvenir shops; the one that features on postcards of the town in spring sunshine and winter snows; the one that provides the backdrop for an early 1990s computer game. It’s the view of the town that appears at the top of the town’s Wikipedia page and is the number one sight on Tripadvisor. 

It is also the title picture for this piece. To the outside world, this view is Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and beneath our window visitors to the town gather, waiting patiently for their turn at a safe social distance, to take their own version home with them. Only, as our hotel receptionist could tell us, this summer there are far fewer amateur photographers than there might normally be. 

The world doesn’t need another piece of writing about how strange this summer has been, but on a long trip south from Berlin to the Alps it was actually possible, on the high passes and hanging valleys, on the ridge line and down by the lake, to feel as if nothing was actually happening. Walking in the mountains it was possible to pretend, if only for a while, that the world was as it was before. But in between, in those places that form the highlights of many a grand European tour – Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Neuschwanstein Castle, the Rhine Falls – it was clear that this was a summer like no other.

Perhaps in any other summer, right in the middle of school holidays and the peak tourist season, we wouldn’t have even bothered to brave these places. Because of course, like all travellers, we like to think we are different to those crowds of tourists who follow the well-trodden trail through the checklist sights, ticking them off before shuffling back onto the air-conditioned coach. Indeed, these are the places we strive to avoid, even though they have become wildly popular for a reason, whether for their beauty, their location or simply the stories and the place in our culture they hold.

We are tourists too. We travel to escape the everyday and to see new things. This is our chance. In Rothenburg ob der Tauber we walk the city walls and soak up the atmosphere of the old town as a thunderstorm rolls in. At the Rhine Falls we follow a group of Dutch motorcyclists, sweating in their leathers, down the steps to where we can see and feel the power of the water rushing by in front of us. In Neuschwanstein we realise that even a pandemic cannot stop of the lure of this fairytale castle on the hillside, as all the tours are booked up and the only option, the friendly young man in a facemask tells us, is to join the queue at six in the morning and hope for returns.

But the absence of crowds is unsettling too. These are places that live from their visitors. What happens if they don’t come back? We cannot know what travel and tourism will look like in the short to medium term, let alone further into the future, but in Rothenburg ob der Tauber empty shop fronts on the main street tell the story of businesses that haven’t made it out the other side of the pandemic. And what we also can see is that it is not just about coronavirus. The clues were there on higher ground. Beyond the current situation, the climate crisis requires that we rethink all aspects of our lives, including how we travel. In the mountains it was possible to feel like none of this was happening, but it was only if we refused to look closer.

A guesthouse called ‘Glacier View’ has long been a misnomer, as the ice has retreated around the corner. It’s out of sight and will soon disappear entirely. Local newspapers write of dangerous rock falls on the high peaks, of unstable ground caused or at least exacerbated by climate change. And as the cable car carries up higher than our legs or mountaineering skills could ever manage, we can’t help but wonder what a ski season looks like without any snow?

We might have been able to escape the pandemic by climbing ever higher on the trails, but the feeling that up there things were as they ever were is just an illusion. We can’t go back, even if we would like to. The real question is – where do we go from here?

***

Paul Scraton is the editor in chief of Elsewhere: A Journal of Place and the author of Ghosts on the Shore: Travels along Germany’s Baltic coast (Influx Press, 2017) as well as the Berlin novel Built on Sand (Influx Press, 2019).  

Postcard from... Tarragona

By Tim Woods:

A string of global top ten hits; a world-famous fashion icon; the star of era-defining TV shows. But when you hear ‘Minogue’, do you immediately think ‘Dannii’?

Tarragona suffers from a similarly overbearing sibling. It has everything a visitor could want from a Spanish excursion – coast, culture, cuisine and cerveses – yet for many, Catalonia means one thing: that overcrowded, football-famous metropolis up the coast. Even names such as Sitges and Salou will often chime more readily. These nearby resorts offer little more than sun, sangria and “Full English, only €15!!!”, yet still attract more tourists. Some hotels even offer trips to Tarragona as an afternoon excursion: “Only four hours there and back!!!”. Being little more than a time-killing detour from these culturally devoid upstarts must be hard for a former Roman capital to bear.

Yet could the times be changing? Barcelona’s authorities are actively turning tourists away, and there are only so many boiled-lobster beach-lovers that can be squeezed onto a beach. There is a void to be filled, a market to be served, and Tarragona is more than equipped to step up.

Late afternoon, I lose myself in the constricted alleys of its honeycomb old town, the docile ochre of the buildings disrupted by the Catalan flags that flap from every other balcony. I am hardly alone; a steady stream of tourists meander with me, and we are all eventually drawn to the steep steps of the cathedral, where perching space is at a premium. But drift along any of the streets that radiate from this central point and you have space, time, quiet; a stillness rarely found in Barca.

I head to the rambla, where I can actually ramble, rather than being jostled along with a crowd’s haste. Fish and tapas restaurants flank either side, but there are spaces to be had at the tables. The tiny bars selling home-flavoured vermouth are hidden just a couple of streets away. Later, I head to the Balcó del Mediterrani. It’s a hazy, lazy evening, perfect for outside, yet there is still ample room at the city’s prime lookout, from where you can soak up the ancient Amfiteatre to the north, or the fishing boats spinning around at sea.

Humbler Roman sites crop up unexpectedly. Next morning, in search of watermelon for a hungry toddler, we stumble upon the Teatre Romà de Tarragona. This spectacular site pops up unexpectedly; there are no signs, no tour parties, no fuss or fanfare. It’s just there, should you want to see it.

Or not. Up to you.           

Tim is an editor on Elsewhere: A Journal of Place and the author of Love In The Time of Britpop. You’ll find him on twitter here.                 

Postcard from... Cafe Leopold, Mumbai

By Marcel Krueger:

In the sweaty humid madness of the cyberpunk city that is Mumbai, where 60-storey skyscrapers rise into the night sky behind crumbling British colonial buildings and where men with typewriters and computers sit in little wooden booths offering letter writing and translation services on the streets, Café Leopold has been haunted by generations of foreigners. Lonely Planet calls it a ‘clichéd Mumbai travellers’ institution’, and it features heavily in Gregory David Roberts’ 2003 novel ‘Shantaram’, about an Australian hiding from the authorities in Mumbai and a staple in the literary diet of backpackers coming to India – they even sell it at the counter in the café.

The café itself however does not seem to live up to its reputation. Its small entrance is almost completely immersed in the tourist infrastructure of the equally touristy Colaba Causeway, the main street of this southern Mumbai neighbourhood. It’s flanked by small stalls and shops selling trinkets, fake jewellery, smart phone covers and T-shirts, and only the two security guards wearing ‘Leopold’-T-shirts at the entrance give it away (and check your bags for dangerous items). What I like about the place is its matter-of-factness. Despite being in business since 1871, there is no European café grandeur amidst the languid air pushed around by the many ceiling fans on the ground floor, only Indians and foreigners, backpackers and businessmen who come here for cheap food, cakes and cold beer.

Maybe it is this matter-of-factness that made it one of the targets in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, when the attackers sprayed the café with bullets from their AK-47s, killing ten guests and injuring many more. Some of the bullet holes can still be seen in the walls, between old beer advertisements and Pulp Fiction posters. Café Leopold defiantly re-opened only four days after the attack, and I for one believe that cold beer and cake will always beat terrorists and their bullets.