Jonathan Gazeley

A friend visited me this weekend. His latest hobby is urban exploration so we decided to give it a go in Bristol. We considered a few sites but eventually we happened upon a factory by chance which shall remain nameless.

Entry was through a small hole in the side. The ground floor doors and windows had been bricked up with breezeblocks, but apparently a past visitor to the factory had somehow removed a block from the wall, leaving a 65 x 22cm hole to squeeze through.

Once inside, it was clear that the owners of the building had taken measures to prevent unauthorised entry.

Most of the ground floor was a no-go area, since the windows had been bricked up and we had no torches, making it impossible to see. The windows on the other floors had not been blocked so sunlight was able to come in.

It was rather creepy. There were pigeons making noises occasionally, making us freeze in our tracks in case the guards were on patrol. Perhaps worse, drips of water fell here and there, and made a rhythmic sound like footsteps. They were especially loud where they fell on sheets of metal, barrels, etc.

The smell was surprisingly agreeable, presumably because it was well ventilated due to the open windows. It smelt slightly of damp but nothing else.

We found some vats which were once used to store chocolate. 12,000 litres of chocolate sounds good to me!

There were several factory buildings and in the alleys between each, glass rooves have been added to create spacious halls. This one was used to house some water tanks.

In the main building there were several floors; all similar. The machines have almost all been removed now, leaving empty space with rows of iron columns.

The building was in generally good condition, but there were some places where wooden floors were unsafe, or walls had holes.

Another of the covered alleyways.

This office looks down upon one of the alleys. It had a huge box of investment reports still inside, but we didn’t have time to sit around and read financial documents.

We saw this sign attached to a door, and wondered what the Collision Films notice was about. Later on we found out via the Internet that McFly filmed the video for Lies in this building. We saw burn marks at odd places on the walls of the building, but from watching this video, I’m not surprised.

A view down into one of the alleyways

Looks like some water has got into this floor, either through a leaky roof or through a broken window.

Goodness knows why there was a door 3 floors up, and goodness knows why the door and its frame have been removed. I didn’t try leaning out, though.

On this floor you can see where machines once stood on the raised areas of the floor.

We found this room in the eaves of the building. It had a service lift and some other interesting features, but the floorboards were broken in places (hence the walking boards between the lift and the doorway, where I stood).

This is the other main shaft in the room, although it’s not entirely clear what it was for. Perhaps some kind of goods lift, or a conduit for some pipes.

Of course, a trip onto the roof was in order, too.

Ten points to anyone who can tell me what this machine is. Twenty points to anyone who dares put their hand in it.

Go on, grab it, I dare you…

There were some deserted offices – many with coffee cups scattered around.

A view down onto one of the covered alleyways. You can see the chocolate vats, the dial of which we saw earlier.

Some high pressure pipes emerge from the floor of this room. I don’t know what they would have carried.

As we concluded our tour, we had a glimpse of daylight from the tiny hole through which we entered and left.

I painted this scene in art class in year 8 at school.

It’s a pretty poor painting, but I was very proud of it at the time and evidently still proud enough to put it on my website!

I came across it in a box of papers the other day and scanned it in. Unfortunately you can’t see the whole image here – it’s the height of an A4 page, but almost as wide as it is tall, and it wouldn’t all fit in the scanner.

For the summer period, Stu set us Tuesday Challenge Summer Homework. After much um-ing and ah-ing, I settled upon the theme of Water. I’ve interpreted the theme quite loosely – all of these photos have water in them in some way, but not necessarily the focal point.

Llys-y-Fran dam, Pembrokeshire

Tenby harbour, Pembrokeshire

Raindrops on the top of my tent in Pembrokeshire

Sailing across the Baltic sea

Rain lashing down in Copenhagen, Denmark

Sailing through Stockholm archipelago, Sweden

A small boat in Stockholm archipelago, Sweden

Sailing up the narrow Oslofjord, Norway

Oslo docks, Norway

Sunset over the North Sea (note the oil rig)

Well, I’ve now finished posting photos from my Baltic cruise – one destination each day.

If you would like to see the whole lot (in reverse order), you can view the entire category.

And here’s a list of the individual posts:

• Harwich
• Copenhagen
• Stockholm
• Helsinki
• St Petersburg
• Tallinn
• Oslo

And last but not least, some pictures of the ship.

• Jewel of the Seas

Our final port of call was Oslo in Norway.

The port of Oslo is reached by travelling up some 60 miles of the narrow Oslofjord. Of course the ship has to slow down as it passes through the narrow channel, giving everyone on deck a stunning view. Here are my photographs of the approach to Oslo.

First we were met by a pilot boat to help guide along the fjord. The pilot boat drew up along one side of our ship then suddenly U-turned and crossed the water directly behind us, in our churning wake, before drawing up on the other side of us. I presume the captain of the boat knew what he was doing, but I wouldn’t fancy crossing only metres behind a huge ship with 20 megawatts of power!

Passengers stand on our ship and watch both sides of the fjord pass by.

It really is a strange experience, standing at the top of the front of a 90,000 tonne ship, gliding silently through a narrow fjord. Fortunately the cocktail waitress was waiting at the ready (at 9:30am).

We were treated to another day of fine weather. You can see from this photo how bright the sun is, and how little the wind is disturbing the Norwegian flag that was flown with pride on the Jewel.

And finally, the port was in sight.

Right beside the dock stands the Akershus Fortress. Once the ship was in dock, it was too close to get a good view of the fortress, but luckily I took this shot minutes before the ship docked.

Once docked, the first attraction we visited was the Akershus Fortress – a leisurely twenty paces from the ship’s gangway. Here are some of the family at the top of fortress, inspecting the ship.

The fortress also afforded nice views of the sailing boats tied up in the dock.

I saw an unusual sculpture a bit further into the town. When viewed straight on, it appears to be a standard sculpture of a face. It’s not until you see it from the side that you realise it’s carved into the stone, in a concave shape.

Perhaps not very typically Norwegian – we saw a huge bronze tiger which bit Oliver!

We went to see Oslo Cathedral but unfortunately it was closed for refurbishment. If you compare my photo with the one on the Wikipedia page, you can see how clean and shiny the spire is now – so they must be doing a good job.

The pedestrian crossing lights in Oslo have two red men and one green man. I couldn’t work out the purpose of the second red man, as you never see one without the other – only both at the same time.

The Oslo City Hall is a bit of an ugly building, and it also has too many architectural styles crammed into one build. It has brown brick, grey stone, classical carvings, modern carvings and a rather unusual carillon on the top.

This a photo of one of the more modern carvings on the side of the building.

As the afternoon wore on we returned to the ship, but not before I’d taken some photos of the sailing boats in the dock.

We were due to sail out of Oslo at 8pm (before it was dark). However, one of the lifeboats failed a routine safety check so the ship was unable to set sail until it had been repaired. It grew darker, and I went up on deck with my tripod and took some night shots of the cityscape.

Another day, another country. Today we are in Tallinn, Estonia.

Despite being quite far North and, you’d expect, quite cold, the climate was almost Mediterranean while we were there. The locals said it was freakishly hot and they never had weather like this. The sky was clear and blue and the sun was beating down.

In the port, there was a small market set up, mainly selling tourist novelties. The trademark gift seems to be palm-sized porcelain houses; some with a place to put incense so smoke comes from the chimney. But there was a large variety of different gifts, which was a refreshing change from some of the tourist markets we’d seen in other countries, where every stall had near-identical copies of precisely two varieties of gift.

This photo was taken from the dock market. You can’t really comprehend how huge these ships are until you walk between them.

It was only a short walk to reach the old town, which has a strange medieval feel and cobbled streets. For some reason, this building has a Swedish flag.

Only a few steps away from the building above, I saw this colourful door.

Minutes later, we reached the town square, Raekoja plats. There is a lively market here, and an imposing town hall (although behind the camera in this photo).

I still can’t work out what this shop sells. Textiles, glass, ceramics, and err, schmuck?

The old town in Tallinn is split into two halves – the upper and lower parts. You can get between the two parts in several places but the paths are quite steep. Here Edmund is walking up to the upper half.

Perhaps the most impressive building we saw in Tallinn is the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, an orthodox church.

I love the cathedral’s onion domes.

We went into the cathedral too. It was filled with lavish gold decorations and paintings but we were requested not to take photos. So you’ll have to make do with another photo of its beautiful exterior.

A short walk brought us to St Mary’s Cathedral, a the city’s Lutheran cathedral.

Just as we had looked up into the upper town earlier on in the day, we found a viewpoint in the upper town to look over the lower town. Here you can see the new city in the background.

This view shows St Olaf’s church, and you can also see our ship in the dock.

Descending back into the lower town on our way back to the ship, we spotted some seats on the slope for fat tourists to rest on as they climb the (short) hill. My young, fit brothers apparently needed a break on the way down, though.

After we left port it was a long journey to Oslo, and we sailed off into the sunset.

Oour route took us back under the Great Belt bridge (Storebæltsbroen) which joins two Danish islands. It was truly spectacular to sail under the bridge, but near impossible to capture on camera. These photos are awful, but hopefully interesting.

Apparently the ship was designed with this bridge in mind and passes only a couple of metres below the bridge deck! As we passed underneath, I was almost certain there would be a loud scraping noise as the Viking Crown Lounge was ripped off.

To be continued…

Our first taste of Russia, the view of St Petersburg from the ship, was unimpressive to say the least. It’s a mile or two outside the city and all we could see were some shabby, grey tower blocks. And when we disembarked from the ship, we soon discovered that the security in Russian ports is as strict as Heathrow airport.

Still, once we’d had our passports stamped there was a coach waiting for us, complete with a tour guide. She must have been about 60, and as mad as a hatter. As the party filed onto the coach, she said:

And now I count you in Russian like precious stones - один, два, три…

The Hermitage

Our first destination was the Hermitage – a museum comprised of several palaces. There are hundreds upon hundreds of rooms, each of them filled with sculptures, paintings and lavish decoration. The ceilings and walls were covered with gold leaf – I simply couldn’t comprehend how much of the interior (and exterior!) of the Hermitage was gold.

Of course, photos can’t do justice to such grandeur, but here are a few of my favourite shots. This first one is the small throne room.

Yep, this is all gold too.

You guessed it – this is the large throne room. Although if I were the Tsar of Russia, I would probably want a small table to put my drink on.

Oh look! More gold!

This urn is huge! (Yes, yes, I know. Those people are just far away). It’s carved from solid malachite.

This guy is lost because there are so many rooms. Nah, not really. This is Orpheus, sculpted in 1777 by Antonio Canova.

Leaving the Hermitage, the sun had just come out.

Lunch

We were taken to an old, converted palace for lunch. It had grand marble pillars, and we were served a traditional three-course Russian lunch, including caviar and, of course, a shot of vodka.

A traditional Russian band with singers and dancers performed for our entertainment. After a few songs, they grabbed some of the tourists and made them play musical instruments on the stage. My brother Edmund was selected to be the conductor, and given a wooden spoon and a hat, much to his embarrassment (and our delight).

St Isaac’s Cathedral

After lunch we were taken to see St Isaac’s Cathedral. It took 40 years to build and at the time of its completion, it was the tallest church in Russia. During the Soviet era the building was turned into a museum of atheism. These days it’s a general tourist attraction.

The exterior, while being large, tall, and grand barely hints at the lavish opulence of the interior. And if you were wondering, yes, that’s real gold on the roof.

The interior is incredibly grand, covered with gold leaf, paintings, sculptures and precious stones. Here’s a view looking up inside the centre of the building. In the very centre of the dome there is a metal sculpture of the dove of peace.

The inside of the cathedral is lined with yet more malachite, this time in the form of columns. Apparently each column weighs 114 tonnes!

The columns were apparently lifted into place using a huge wooden framework, with ropes and dozens of labourers. There was a model of the setup in the museum.

Above the door as we left, I saw this enormous sculpture.

And here’s the family, standing outside the cathedral. (You can see the above sculpture in the background). Aren’t we cool with our tour radios and earphones?

Shopping

We went into a shop which claimed to have all traditional Russian goods, and was aimed at tourists. The shop served free coffee and vodka – and they just couldn’t give you enough of the stuff! But the products were high quality and with a couple of vodkas inside me, what better way could there be of spending the holiday rubles?

All of the Baltic countries we’d visited seemed crazy about amber, so I bought a silver and amber pendant for Hannah, while Edmund bought a shapka (which showed up on the receipt in Cyrillic script as Шапка).

Outside the the shop, I asked Edmund to try and look cold and hungry, and I took this photo.

General sights

This is the Russian ship Aurora, which fired a blank shot to signal the start of the assault on the Winter Palace (now part of the Hermitage).

Of course, no visit to Russia would be complete without the obligatory shot of a Lada. These cars are everywhere!

This is me standing in front of the Church of the Spilled Blood. The blood reference comes from the fact that Alexander II was fatally wounded on that site in 1881.

In the evening I managed some night shots of the city skyline, as seen from the ship.

Overall, I thought that Russia was a strange juxtaposition of extreme wealth and extreme poverty – but certainly a fascinating country nonetheless.

To be continued…

I was delighted to be nominated for the Wales in Words competition for my entry about Camping in Pembrokeshire.

Hi Jonathan,

We have read your site with interest and feel it deserves to be entered into the ‘Wales In Words’ blog competition. Congratulations!

We are looking for the great Welsh stories, posts, articles and sites that will celebrate the benefits of Wales.

The competition is entirely free to enter with a grand prize of 3 nights, dinner, bed and breakfast, plus use of luxurious spa facilities at Holm House, one of Cardiff’s finest boutique hotels. For more information, visit this page.

We will be reviewing all articles before compiling a shortlist from which the eventual winner will be chosen. You will receive a ‘shortlisted badge’ should you be selected. The winner will be decided and announced on September 29th 2009.

Keep up the excellent standards you have achieved and thank you for writing about Wales!