Postcard from... Cwm Llan

By Paul Scraton:

From the car park we followed the procession of bank holiday walkers aiming for the top of Snowdon via the Watkin Path. Throughout the day the summit of Yr Wyddfa would remain in clouds, and descending walkers told us of the cold winds on the ridge and poor visibility. We were not aiming that high, just following the path long enough to turn the corner into Cwm Llan and up to the old slate quarries that stand in the shadow of the great mountain. Beneath huge piles of slate we picked our way through the remains of the old barrack buildings, standing solid-if-roofless on the boggy ground.

We tried to imagine what life was like for those working these quarries high in the mountains, tried to imagine the working conditions and the weather, but we failed. We could read about it, learn of the low wages and the poor life expectancy, but there would still be a gap in our understanding. We headed back down via the old tramway that had moved the slate down off the mountain to where it could be transported on to Porthmadog. It was a reminder that even the “wild places” of Britain are shaped by human hands… or the sheep they release to graze there.

Elsewhere No.03 is out now - order your copy via our online shop.

Postcard from... the Elbe

By Paul Scraton:

At Torgau we stood by the river and watched as a group of soldiers in camouflage uniforms pulled the bright pink life jackets over their heads and climbed gingerly onto the inflatable rafts. The Elbe was passing quickly beneath the road bridge, the waters of Bohemia pushing on downstream, forward, ever forward, towards Hamburg and the North Sea. We watched as someone important in a motorised launch called out instructions through a loudhailer and a chilly-looking civilian snapped a few photographs and then they were off, the currents taking them around the bend and out of sight before they could even break the surface with their paddles.

We walked back up the quiet street, towards the castle and the sleepy town centre. It was Saturday but in small German towns the shops only make a token gesture at opening on the weekend before closing in order that their owners and staff can do something more civilised instead. In front of the castle a terrace looked out over the river. It was all that remained of the old bridge, the one that used to cross the river before the Second World War.  By the time Soviet forces approached the river from the east on April 25th 1945 the bridge was collapsed, half sunk in the high spring waters of the Elbe as it rushed through war-ravaged Europe. On the other bank they were greeted by American troops who had been pushing west. And so this spot, in the shadow of the castle, was where the Allied forces met for the first time as they squeezed Nazi Germany from either side. In Berlin, down in the bunker, the endgame was in sight.

As we watched the river and tried to imagine those scenes 71 years ago, as kids played on the steps of the memorial the Soviets erected to mark the spot. With texts in Russian, German and English, the Hammer-and-Sickle flag “flew” next the Stars-and-Stripes, both chiselled out of stone, for the entirety of the Cold War and beyond. Torgau would, after the famous meeting, find itself in the Soviet zone and thus the German Democratic Republic, to become infamous as a place political prisoners were sent. And throughout it all, the Elbe kept flowing. Now the tales of war and the divided country are told on information boards and in an exhibition at the castle. Meanwhile, in the town centre and with the shops closed, the locals warmed up in the coffee shop on the main market square. We took one last look at the river, and headed into town to join them.

The new edition of Elsewhere: A Journal of Place, is out now. You can find out more and order your copy of Elsewhere No.03 via our online shop.

Postcard from... The Cafe Slavia

By Paul Scraton:

On the banks of the river we take a last look downstream, towards the Charles Bridge and the castle on the hill, before we retreat from the cold into the warm embrace of the Cafe Slavia. A chalkboard tells us we will be more comfortable, and they will be better able to serve us, if we leave our jackets with the friendly cloakroom attendant, who passes us a numbered raffle ticket in exchange for 5Kc and our things. The main room of the cafe is packed, as waiters in starched, white shirts and black bowties move between the occupied tables, the air filled with conversation, the hiss of the coffee machine, and a thick fug of cigarette smoke. The Cafe Slavia has been a meeting point opposite the National Theatre for over 130 years and today appears to be no different, and with no play on tonight across the street, no-one is in a hurry to leave.

We retreat to the room next-door, smoke-free and thus emptier. We find a table and order beers. Soon we will have placed in front of us plates of food – rabbit with thyme and cream, poached chicken, breaded schnitzel – that have probably been on the menu for thirteen decades. But like the waiters’ uniform and the cloakroom, if it has worked for all this time it still works now, so why change? We relax amidst the pot-plants and the polished wood, art nouveau theatre posters and black and white photography. The only nods to modernity are the wi-fi signals linking the laptops of 21st century poets to the outside world and a flat-screen television, hanging above the bar. But although it is tuned to music television the sound is down, and main thing we can hear is the low-level conversations at the next tables.

Two men are talking in Czech, and because of the place and the fact that I cannot understand them, I like to imagine them as the next in a long line of literary visitors to the Slavia, discussing their work or the politics of the streets outside. There is of course every chance that they are talking about the Macklemore video now being silently screened above the whiskey bottles behind the bar but linguistic ignorance allows me to pretend they are a modern-day Kafka and Rilke, with Havel looking approvingly on… although the reality is, they would probably be next-door in the main room, filled with life and smoke. Where the action is.

At another table a mother and daughter cast their eyes over the menu – recommended side dishes NOT included – as a large beer (mum) and a diet coke (daughter) are delivered to the table. The napkins that stand in a rack between them, next to the cutlery, proclaim a Cafe Slavia since 1881, although the internet claims 1884. No matter, it is long enough, and I think of the different Pragues that have existed beyond the high windows and the awnings that frame the view. The Habsburgs and the Czech national revival. Independence as Czechoslavakia with Prague as its capital. Nazi Germany and Communism. The Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution. NATO. EU. Schengen. And what next… I could ask the young men at the next table but they have already gone, collected their coats and stepped out into the Prague night. Time, then, for another beer. We can spend a little while longer in this cafe by the river.

Postcard from... Reykjavik

By Marcel Krueger:

Leif Erikson ignores me. As I walk past his statue in the shadow of rocket thrower-shaped Hallgrímskirkja he stares at the horizon, at Greenland maybe or at the planes tumbling through the wind towards Keflavik airport. The two ravens sitting on Leif's shoulders, however, croak mockery down at me. Maybe they’re not used to see a hungover tourist without colorful plastic jacket and selfie stick. Would it not have been for the appointment with a friend I would have not left my hotel bed, but we had a hot dog and a coffee and I feel good. It is 4.30 in the afternoon, and the sun is setting. 

Iceland has changed since I’ve been here the last time, four years ago. I’m thinking of Harpa, the impressive concert hall by the harbor, and how I once watched Björk making music with Tesla coils there, on an equally cold and dark day. But there are no Tesla coils now, only American tourists buying overpriced t-shirts and magma rocks that someone labelled as jewelry. The city center is as busy as the Berlin one, cranes and building sites everywhere, new hotels rising skywards where skate parks and public spaces used to be before. In 2015, the tourism industry contributed over 5% to the Icelandic GDP, and the number of foreign visitors exceeded 1,000,000; you can now purchase a special ticket for the bus from the airport: where in the past tourists had to make their own way from the main bus terminal BSÍ now there's an armada of smaller buses waiting, ferrying tourists directly to their hotels so no one has to walk through the bitter cold, as if it was a nuisance and not a feature of the land and the season. 

Before I got drunk in Kaffibarinn yesterday, I took the bus to the Seltjanarnes neighbourhood and walked along the coastal trail, towards the tip of the peninsula and the lighthouse on Grótta Island. Icelandic artist Ólöf Nordal has created a basalt sculpture named Kvika here, a hot water foot bath I planned to use, aiming to sit in the icy cold with my feet in hot thermal water, looking out over the bay and snow-covered Mount Esja rising behind it. I walked along the rocks on the seafront, while ravens sat on the street lamps along the trail. Other pedestrians I did not see. The sun was sinking fast, but the light over Reykjavik and the mountains had the outstanding clarity that only the winter sun up here in the north has. When I arrived at the foot bath it was occupied by a tall Norseman with long blonde hair, who had immersed himself completely in the small bath, his naked upper torso and legs out in the cold and his midriff covered with the hot water. I did not mind, and instead watched the ravens, playing over the water.

Image: Joseph Carr Photography

Postcard from... The Morning After

(On the Berlin S-Bahn, between Humboldthain and Nordbahnhof)

Man 1: Did you have a good New Year’s Eve?
Man 2: Not bad. With the family. How about you?
Man 1: I was in bed by eleven. Couldn’t sleep though. Not with all the fireworks…
Man 2: How come you went to bed early? I thought you were meeting the others?
Man 1: (shakes head) I wasn’t in the mood.

(Pause while Man 2 looks in his bag for a second or two before returning to the conversation empty handed)

Man 1: I mean. There’s not much to look forward to, is there?
Man 2: No?
Man 1: The things you read.
Man 2: You mean crime. Things like that. Yesterday, in the paper, there was this story…
Man 1: No. Not crime. The weather. Look at the weather.

(They both look out of the window, but in the meantime the train has entered a tunnel)

Man 1: Time was, winter in Europe was winter. Not this shit. And then they wonder why the ice caps are melting. Floods in England. And for what? So we can have more, more, more…? 
Man 2: You do think that. Christmas-time especially.
Man 1: Yep. Just so those fellas… Microsoft, Amazon, Google… just so they can buy a fifth house. A sixth. Makes you sick.
Man 2: No one needs that many houses… Two, maybe. For the weekend…
Man 1: And the floods. They have them in England now. But we will get them soon. Half of Meck-Pomm under water. Half of Belgium. France. We don’t learn. The water has to go somewhere. Has to.
Man 2: I suppose you are right.

(Recorded voice announces the train’s imminent arrival at Nordbahnhof station)

Man 2: You at work tomorrow? Shall we watch the football after? 
Man 1: Who’s playing?
Man 2: (shrugs) They’re still playing in England.
Man 1: Water polo.
Man 2: (laughs)
Man 1: OK. I’ll see you there.
Man 2: Till then.
Man 1: Till then.

(They both leave the train at Nordbahnhof and walk down the platform in opposite directions)

A Christmas card from... Crawfordsburn

By Paul Scraton:

Dusk at Crawfordsburn beach. In Belfast traffic waits at entrances to shopping centres, buses are backed up along the main roads and shoppers dodge each other, a chaotic choreography, as they make the final preparations for Christmas. At Crawfordsburn the beach is empty, except for the oystercatchers wading in the shadows, the cormorants diving for their tea and the crows and starlings occupy the sky above the trees, preparing for the onset of darkness. A Stena Line ferry leaves Belfast Lough and across the water the lights of Carrickfergus come on one by one.

Around a headland and Helen’s Bay beach is as deserted as the one we left behind. No, through the gloom it is possible to make out a cyclist on the path and a couple walking on the sands. It is hard, a few days before Christmas, to imagine the summer crowds, let alone the 12,000 that would throng the beach in the village’s 1930s heyday. The moon is bright in the sky and the stress and chaos of the city centre feels a long way away. It is peaceful here, the wind has dropped with the sun and waves are gentle. It is difficult to imagine a better spot to pause, to stare out across the water and consider the events of the last twelve months. It has been a good year.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Postcard from... Dubrovnik

The terrace of the house looked down across the bay towards the narrow streets of the old town. Orange, lemon and kiwi fruit trees provided shade, as did the line of laundry flapping in the breeze blowing in from the sea. Standing at the fence, I was ware of a presence at my shoulder. My host nodded at the fence.

“The hole. This was made by a shell,” he said softly. “You can still see shrapnel holes in the drainpipes over there. I had to completely re-do the terrace.”

“Were you here at the time?” I said, and he nodded.

“Upstairs, in the house. I was deaf for a week afterwards. The house next door…” he paused for a second. “There were five of them eating their dinner when the bombardment started. All of them died.”

I didn’t know what to say. It seemed impossible that this beautiful place had housed such horrors in the not-too-distant past. But the signs were there; in the traces of damage to houses; in the brighter roof tiles where there had once been smoking holes; in the city map that guides you from one direct hit to the next; in the memories of my host, of his neighbours, and my own of the nightly news.

Dubrovnik is possibly Europe’s most picture-perfect city, and there are likely to be many visitors today who don’t think of those days of war in the final years of the 20th century. But knowledge of events, never mind direct experience, cannot but shape our interpretation of the place. From the moment the first shells were fired the city was changed, regardless of how successful the rebuilding and many traces have since been removed. So long as we remember, the ghosts will remain.

Postcard from... New York

By Katrin Schönig:

It is late autumn. The smell of thyme is in the air and I can feel the sun burning in my face. My eyes are watering from all the dust while the rhythmic sound of sledge hammer is my constant companion.

I am walking along the Highline in New York.

I expected to be able to escape the city but I am right in the middle of it. Many people are walking with me; kids following their teachers while chatting away; tourists taking more pictures than they will ever look at; student sketching;  bankers in their suits looking for a bench for their lunch; a few, the crazy ones, are even jogging.

We are all following the old railway line. On the left many empty trains wait to be taken out of the yard, while on the right a lonely standup paddleboarder is fighting the waves of the Hudson river. Our steps take us between skyscrapers and massive building blocks, surrounded by the different colours of autumn as we cross busy intersections. Gardeners are tending the green while young sportsmen are doing a photoshoot.

It is just like New York. Busy. Beautiful. A different world.