Fighting Deer and Wild Parrots in Richmond Park

Visiting Richmond Park was on my list of things to do in London since I've heard you can see there free roaming deer! How cool is that? The park is situated within borders of London in a rather rich area called Richmond. The difference between Richmond and other poorer areas of London is visible with a single glance. Classy shops, clean streets, expensive cars and houses, and foremost elegant people with even more elegant dogs ;) Since I've spent most of my time here in East London, and most of my life in rather grey Poland, it wasn't hard to spot this! Also add to that all the narrow streets with lovely cafes, intriguing pubs and restaurants and it all gets really enchanting, especially with Autumn colors and weather! Yes, I know, some of my friends probably wouldn't really appreciate foggy and drizzly Autumn weather here, but I did! The only problem with Richmond is that it is quite far from the city center, but oh well, sometimes we need to sacrifice our commute time to live in such a good place, and it seems people indeed do that!

Richmond Park was founded in 1634 as a deer park and is one of the largest Royal Parks in London. What is really amazing when you're there is that the deer aren't at all afraid of people walking their dogs, running, cycling and doing other sport activities. I was finally motivated to visit the park by one of my friends. There was few of us  and seems we were really lucky, because we actually saw a deer fight! From my very quick research on the Internet it looks like the reason why deer fight is quite obvious.

Deer typically fight in order to state that they are the dominate buck in the area and although it may seem like they are trying to hurt one another, it is more of a playfull competition.

It indeed looked more like there were playing with each other rather than fighting, although we preferred to keep a safe distance and not get too involved in their private matters ;)

Curious detail of this trip was spotting quite a lot of parrots! Not dead parrots like from the Monty Python sketch, but real wild parrots! I found an interesting article about it "The tropical birds who have made their home in Surrey". Where do they come from? Seems no one is quite sure, but their numbers are growing, mostly thanks to mild winters. Well, my parrot friends, I've heard that this year in the UK we'll have hell of a winter, so keep warm and don't fell off the trees! We don't want you to end up like Monty Python's Norwegian Blue!

Bern

Time has come to tell you a bit more about the second part of my trip to Switzerland. First thing to mention here is Swiss Pass. Basically it's a ticket only tourists can buy that allows you to freely travel around the country with trains and it is also valid for local transport within cities. Mine was valid for four days and I simply shipped it to my friends in Zurich. I didn't have to worry about buying tickets on the stations and it is particularly useful when you have to quickly change between trains. I guess that you can easily buy tickets from the conductor, but I advise to invest in a Swiss Pass and make your life simpler especially when you plan to commute a lot. Equipped with my Swiss Pass I set off to do a trip around the country of the happy cows! First stop after Zurich was Bern, the capital of Switzerland.

The place I really wanted to visit in Bern was Einstein's house. His second floor flat is situated in the city center at Kramgrasse No. 49. Entrance is not free, but if you have a Swiss Pass you get a discount, so that's another reason to have one! As far as I know it also allows you to enter certain museums all around Switzerland for free.

Bern is situated upon the river Aare which makes a nice U-turn around the old town. Some old legend says that the founder of Bern named it after the first animal he met on a hunt and that was, you probably guessed by now, a bear! Highly likely then that's the reason why close to the old town there are bear pits. Don't mistake with beer pits :) One of the best tourist attractions in Bern is the Zyttglogge, but personally I liked Rosengarten the most. These are situated on a small hill just across the river with a stunning view on the city.

You can also get on top of the Berner Munster and I do recommend doing this! The view is fantastic, unfortunately my camera battery was already dead at that point, so I don't have any photos. Actually it was dead earlier as some of you probably already noticed that photos stopped matching the description :(

Now a short story why you should always have a travel insurance! Switzerland is considered to be one of the safest place in the world, but the wind is blowing there too! Why is that important you may ask? Let me explain. I met my Couch Surfing host in a small Cafe close to the train station. We were sitting outside and having a nice chat about different matters when the wind started to blew stronger and a big metal holder standing on a pole right next to where we were sitting fell off and almost hit me in the head! Fortunately the only part of me that suffered was my shoulder, but I tend not to think what if I would get hit with that thing in the head. Ouch! The cafe owner wasn't really concerned and nothing serious happened, so I just let it go. As an act of compassion he took the bill on him. I should have ordered more stuff :P I've secured myself for this trip with the World Nomads travel insurance.

My Couch Surfing host was living outside of Bern, in Bollingen. His hobby were butterflies, so I found out quite a lot about the butterfly surveillance project, sponsored by the Swiss government, he has been working on for the past few months. He even went to Iran to study butterflies. That's what I call commitment :)

When planning the trip I was first pushed off by the fact that I'll be travelling by myself, but now I think that it was a perfect setup, i.e., it meant total freedom when it came to any kind of choice! I didn't feel completely isolated too, because every night I had either an interesting Couch Surfing host that I could talk to and share my experiences from the day or weird people in a hostel to which I could babble about all kind of stuff.

Zurich

Before this trip I visited Switzerland only once, but that was when I was a little boy. At that time we visited Geneva and actually I don't remember a lot, but it made huge impression on my parents. My dad always wanted to get back, probably because of beautiful nature all over the place and dreams of a much better life than in Poland, that was around 1992. After all, we didn't go back, so when I left to London he started gently pushing me to go and live there, if there's possibility like that, to fulfill his idea. I'm not planning to do so in near future, but I thought that at least it's a great idea to do a round trip around Switzerland and visit my old friends living in Zurich, refresh my eye contact with mountains and just look around! Off I went.

It was my first flight with Easy Jet airlines and I have to admit, it was really good. Everything went smooth, the hand baggage allowance is very reasonable, quite important bit. Different people may have had different experience, I'm just saying my was very pleasant. Now, there's time for a small digression, during the flight I read an awesome article in Easy Jet's "Traveller" magazine about surfing and yoga courses in Spain. Literally it was about becoming a surf guru with help of yoga, sounds quite awesome. If you're interested you can get information about the article and offered courses here. Maybe next year!

It felt good to see my old friends from Poland and have a pint... well not a pint unfortunately, but there are plans to meet in London as well. So, Zurich, personally I was expecting a super clean city with super nicely dressed rich people all over the place, no drunk people on the train station, no trash on the streets etc., these were the stories I've heard about Switzerland, but we all know that these are only fairy tales, still, it was good! Anyway, my first impression of Zurich was much better than that I had when I first came to London with regards to cleanliness and general order. Our first stop was the old town which resides on both sides of the Limmat river. The amount of Swiss flags around the area proved that Swiss people are really proud of their country and their identity.

After that we went to take a bath in lake Zurich! That's really an awesome thing, It's a pity we don't have access to a lake somewhere in the center of London in which on hot days you could just swim a bit, I already forgot how pleasant experience that is, I think I did that last time many years ago probably somewhere in Poland. In other words +1 for Zurich for that!

I tried Swiss beers, but frankly, after coming to England I became a true fan of ales, so I'm kind of not the best person to say something about quality of Swiss lagers, but these were ok. Since we were close to ETH, we naturally felt like students again, so we bought few beers in the shop and went to sit on a bench to see the sunset on a close by terrace ;)

Since my friend works at Google in Zurich (I hope that's not a secret by itself) I was lucky enough to see their office. We went there by bikes and we were accompanied by Tyrion! No, no, not the little man from Game of Thrones, but by their dog, lovely creature I need to admit! Anyway, there is dozen of words I could use to describe the Google office in Zurich and amongst them are awesome, cool, stunning, wonderful, inspiring etc. I hope you know what I mean. The area around the office was quite nice too.

The same day we've climbed a small mountain called Üetliberg with a stunning view on Zurich and its areas, including the lake obviously, from the top.

Up there I had a chance to try for the first time some traditionl Swiss food and that was Rösti mit Bratwurst und Zwiebelsauce. Simple as hell, but very good indeed!

Huh, Zurich, in two words, beautiful city! Next part of the trip was a lonesome, mostly supported by CouchSurfing, 4 day trip starting in Bern, through Lausanne, Montreux, then Luzern, finally Lugano and back to Zurich to catch a flight to Poland, but that's material for the next post! See you!

Bristol

This time I got an invitation from my friends living in Bristol to finally visit them, so yes, why the hell not :) I forgot the ticket price, but I do remember that getting from London Paddington to Bristol Parkway was pleasant. What I also remember was meeting a bit weird family trying to find through the whole time of the journey a place to sit. They were sending their children in both directions of the carriage and gathering reports that all the places are taken, unfortunately for them, but that didn't stop them against sending them again back and forth to amusement of all the passengers :) Anyway, the trip was 1,5h and that night in Bristol wasn't particularly interesting, I went to sleep :P

Somewhere around 10AM next day we set off to see the famous Clifton Suspension Bridge, also known as a suicide bridge! I guess the designer of the bridge, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, didn't envisage his creation with a jumper on it. This bridge has some serious suicide barrires... but I don't want to make suicide the main reason why I'm writing about this superb piece of civil engineering :D Obviously the bridge itself  and the views are awesome! It was opened in 1864 and is situated upon river Avon. Actually the view from the bridge is less enchanting than the view of the bridge from a nearby hill :)

Now the stuff that was really cool! Street art, graffiti or however you call it. It's totally astonishing in Bristol. I haven't seen so many street art work in London, maybe I hang out in the wrong places? Not sure, but I've heard from few people here and there that Bristol is quite active when it comes to art. Also, very famous guy is from Bristol, so no wonder there's so many art work there. Who? Banksy, I probably don't need to say any more. Maybe short quote from Wikipedia is appropriate here:

"was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s."

The great Bristol aerosol boom! That explains everything :) No, seriously, he's work is really great! If you want to see more of Bristol's street art work I advise to visit for example this website http://www.bristol-street-art.co.uk/, I think it contains all of it.

Being tired and hungry we went to have lunch in a Jamaican restaurant. Goat curry, quite spicy, a lot of sharp bones (really sharp!), eat on your own responsibility. Jerk chicken was a better option, maybe next time.

Oh, and that's the coolest Police Station I've ever seen :)

We've also visited the port district with a lot of stylish cafés and restaurants. Basically, looked like the city's chill out area. Last stop was Bristol Cathedral, the first pieces of the Bristol Cathedral were build in 1140! Here's a bit psychedelic version of the interior plus a really interesting ornament on one of the tombs ;) This guy needs to be really happy in his afterlife! :D

This trip proved to me that London isn't the only cool city in the UK, Bristol definitely deserves this title, so I strongly encourage to plan a visit! Cheers!