London 2014 Day 4 Part 2 – Going Underground with London Transport Museum

In the late afternoon of this day we visited Aldwych Underground Station. We had booked the tour beforehand on the website of the London Transport Museum. I started the booking process as soon as the online shop was open and when I looked again not much later all was sold out.

The station had been closed in 1994 and is now being used for example by film companies (who put most of the posters up which you can see on the pictures) and for music videos.

The toilet is still in operation ;)

We had to walk downstairs – 160 stairs. However, this number seemed to have increased when we walked upstairs again ;)

A German (or Austrian or Swiss) construction worker immortalized himself in one of the tunnels:

This hilarious music video was made down there:  

The tickets for the visit of app. one hour cost 25 GBP per person, but it was definitely worth it. We got lots of information on the tube and the station itself - a special treat for tube fans like me :)

Bollards in South Tyrol

This blog post was inspired by Bollards of London, just like my post Bollards of Stetten am kalten Markt on my Dull Village Life blog.

South Tyrol is, as the name says, the southern part of Tyrol. It belongs to Italy since 1919, while the northern part of Tyrol belongs to Austria (as the entire region had before). The people in South Tyrol suffered a lot since their region became an official part of Italy after World War I and it got worse when the Italian “Duce” Mussolini and the German “Führer” Hitler agreed to “share” South Tyrol – Mussolini wanted the country to italianize it and Hitler wanted the (ethnic German) people to settle them in his own occupied territories mainly in Poland and of course send the young men to war. The Italianization continued after World War II even under the democratic governments in Italy. It was only in the early seventies after some violence and endless political negotiations that South Tyrol finally became an “autonomous province” and the population got extensive minority rights. However, there are still attempts of the government in Rome to undermine the autonomy.

So much for the region’s history. The bollards don’t have anything to do with it, though – I suppose ;) These are just some of them which I came across when visiting places during our holiday.

Brixen (a very beautiful town):

Neustift Monastery:

Trens (the village we stayed in):

Wiesen (another village):

Guggenmusik

Guggenmusik is a special kind of music which is part of the carnival taking place in the Alemannic regions of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Here are two of the many different bands (in the first video you will be able to recognize the song from around minute 2:15 ;) ):