culture | Go Go Chlo

Coventry has been declared the city of culture in the UK this year, and it is not hard to see why. On a weekend away in Coventry, a few weeks ago, I discovered that the city is bursting with culture, art and life!

I always like to visit new places, and Coventry was a great choice when deciding on a weekend away this year, as it is smack bang in the middle of the country, and so was easy for me to meet a friend there, who lives across the other side of the UK.

We stayed in a gorgeous AirBnB only ten minutes from the city centre. Within our accommodation, we enjoyed a full entertainment system, a garden and barbecue, a hot tub and even a lovely welcome pack of snacks. We enjoyed some late night cocktails in the tub and even saw a fox in the garden, at the ‘Foxes den‘, I would definitely recommend a stay.

I thought it would be a good idea to use the nearby park and ride to travel into the city, and better for the environment, but this ended up being a moral about never assuming you already know what is best! The park & ride ended up costing us about £8 and we still had to wait 30 minutes for a bus. I believe that just simply using the bus service from our accommodation would have been cheaper. Equally, we discovered on the second day, that there are actually some ridiculously cheap car parks in Coventry city centre, so never assume! It is always worth checking out Just Park or Parkopedia to be sure!

Visual arts

I was aware that Coventry had been declared the City of Culture this year, but I wasn’t sure how much culture was on offer. My previous experiences of the city had been rushed conferences and a university open day many years ago. From the first day of wondering the city though, I could see the reasons it had achieved this accolade.

There are thought invoking sculptures and visual art pieces throughout the city, as well as various performances and events. There were lots of colours around through walkways, decorations and painted buildings. I especially enjoyed a rolling fountain instalment in front of one of the main shopping centres.

Lady Godiva

There is quite a lot of references to Lady Godiva around Coventry. Including a large statue in the centre of a vibrant square full of restaurants. According to legend, Lady Godiva was a woman who rode through the city of Coventry, completely naked in protest against her husband’s high taxes of the poor people of the city. The story says that she asked all the town people to close their window shutters and not look upon her, but one man looked and was immediately blinded as a result. This was ‘peeping Tom’. Obviously, this story is very debatable, but it is nice to have folk stories like this and Lady Godiva, as a key figure, is clearly well celebrated by the city.

History

The city of Coventry has been around since before the Norman invasion of 1066, and dotted around the city are small remnants of the old walled city that once stood here. You can wonder through the old priory gardens, a medieval almshouse that is known as one of the finest examples of a timber work building in England, and of course the old cathedral ruins. The original cathedral was a priory dedicated to St Mary, and was founded as a Benedictine community by Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife, Lady Godiva in 1043. This fell into neglect following the dissolution of the monasteries, under Henry VIII. Later, the parish church of St Michael was consecrated as the cathedral of Coventry in 1918. This cathedral did not stand for long though, as it was unfortunately the victim of bombing during the second world war, and was burnt down a long side many other buildings in the city. Shortly after, the community decided to rebuild the new and current cathedral as an act of faith, trust and rebirth. The building was consecrated in 1962 and still stands today next to the ruins of the old cathedral.

The old cathedral still has fragments of original stained glass hanging in place, easy for passersby to see. It is also a useful open space now, which can be used for events and exhibitions. There was even a classic car show inside the space when I visited. The space also has a number of sculptures that are captivating to the eye, especially the reconciliation statue. This symbolises the reconciliation and reunion of neighbours, loved ones, and countries following the second world war.

The new cathedral

The current cathedral is a work of art in itself, it is a large cement based building, but has huge stained glass windows, and wide open spaces. It is a great example of a modern cathedral that has still mastered being a place of peace and reflection. We did have a booked time slot for the cathedral, but this wasn’t actually checked when we arrived, and we were able to just walk straight in.

Nightlife

Whilst I was visiting, the city centre was holding a cultural festival in the assembly garden grounds, which seemed to be a pop up seating area with bars, mobile catering, stages and performance tents. Something that we booked for only £20 each was the Circolumbia show, which was brilliant value for money, and a great start to the evening. This was a circus, acrobatics, singing and dancing performance, that was done entirely by Columbian artists and themed on Columbian culture and music. This was so brilliant, and i spent a lot of the time during the show, gripping my seat, as the performers were doing things like standing on top of each other’s heads!

I also had a brilliant night at a bar/club called ‘The Yard’, which is known as the best and biggest LGBTQ+ venue in the city. The venue offered such an amazing time, we were there on a Saturday night, and they run a drag / cabaret show every weekend, so we were able to enjoy this. There was seating inside and outside, and we spent the evening dancing away with cocktails in hand, and managed to get an Uber back very cheaply at the end of the night.

In conclusion, I think Coventry is certainly full of culture, and a great place to let your hair down and just have a relaxing time, with lots of entertainment and engaging arts to be engrossed in. I would definitely revisit. It is also worth mentioning that it is in close proximity to Leicester, Nottingham & Birmingham, if you wanted to make multi centre tour out of the trip!

Last week, I travelled to the capital of Spain with the aim of having a relaxing week away with my partner and put the nine months of Spanish lessons i have had into practise. The holiday in the end was quite different to what I expected.

After some very difficult months, I packed my bag and was on my way to my budget flight to Madrid, crossing my fingers and toes that the flight wouldn’t be delayed and the infamous airline wouldn’t take my cabin bag from me. Thankfully the flight was okay but I did realise that I had forgotten probably the third most important item on this holiday… the Spanish dictionary and phrasebook! What a plonker! Well now I knew that the holiday would be somewhat more challenging…

We decided to take the Metro into Madrid from the airport, which would have been fine if I had done any sort of research previous to the holiday, but instead we got to the platform and realised we had no idea where we were going. Embarrassing for me really. Eventually we realised what we needed to do but the ticket options weren’t great, we ended up opting for the 10 trip ticket + airport travel but in hindsight this was a bit of a waste because we walked almost everywhere and returned to the UK with four unused journeys. Never mind! But a tip for those of you thinking about a visit, just get the airport ticket, because your 10 trips don’t count towards your journey back to the airport and you may find yourself having to pay extra to get back through the security gates… (Not that I’m talking from experience or anything *cough* cough*)

On arrival to the address of our apartment, (another AirBnB bargain) we had to enter a local hair salon to get the keys, and the apartment owner did not speak a word of English. But thankfully! I remembered the word for keys! LLAVES! Remember that one, you never know when you might need it. So after a lot of challenging conversation and frantic hand gestures, we made it into the apartment which was in the centre of Madrid, and a great price at £49 per night, although was missing some essentials.. like toilet paper. But just a minor thing!

Next on the list was to plan our visits to attractions and local hot spots for the week, of course I was trying to relax so managed to narrow this down to only about three locations per day, not bad I’d say. We were on a serious budget, but there is a surprising amount to do for free in Madrid, even some of the top ranking attractions.

We headed out to fill our apartment with those must have essentials at the local supermercado, and then hit the Mercado de San Miguel, a classy market full of local cuisine for the all important Tapas ingredients. This market is one of many in Madrid devoted to stalls of Ham, Olives, Fruit & Veg and lots of seafood.

Parks

It was boiling hot when we were there and so we wanted to take advantage by strolling in the local parks, we spent a full six hours within the El Retiro Parque in the East of the city. This popular park is full of attractions to enjoy.

Lake at Retiro Park

Lake at Retiro Park, Madrid

There is a lake which you can sail around and a beautiful monument alongside it with strange figures of mermaid like women riding various animals. There is also a few gorgeous buildings, one is a glasshouse with a pond in front of it filled with turtles.

Hidden away on one end of the park is also a peacock park where you can spot the birds hiding in every corner and formal hedge lines and fountains.

Peacock Park in Retiro Park

My favourite part of the park though is the Rosaleda or Rose Garden, which is very pretty, full of fountains and neatly trimmed rose bushes. Very beautiful.

Me at Rosaleda at Retiro

Retiro park – rosaleda

Me at Rosaleda at Retiro

There are so many other parks and gardens in the city to relax in as well, they all seemed to be taken well care of, and are clean and tidy.

One of the other reasons we spent so long in the Retiro park was because it was close by to the Prado art museum which is worth a visit. The museum is free during the week between 6pm and 8pm and we waited outside ready to go in, but turned our back for a moment and there was a queue of hundreds of people that had been formed. It would have taken an hour so we decided to give up and come back another day and pay, which was worth while because we ended up getting buy one get one free! The museum was full of paintings and sculptures, including some really brilliant work showing examples of heaven and hell and the artist’s perceptions of those journeys.

Palacio Real

The palace is also a lovely monument to view, we didn’t pay to go in, as the queue was quite long and we didn’t feel like it but the outside was pretty and it is right next door to the Cathedral. The Cathedral has great colours everywhere and a variety of chapels.

Evenings

In the evening, the city becomes very vibrant with street performers in all the large plazas, and the Spaniards have their late night dinners and high street shopping trips. One of the nights we stayed in Madrid we booked to enjoy a tapas dinner with a show in one of the many tablaos.

We chose to visit Torres Bermejas because of the wonderful decor replicating the interior of the Bermejas Towers of the Alhambra in Granada , which has a great Arabic feel to it. We watched an hour (with a break in the middle) of Spanish Flamenco dancing, singing and guitar playing, which was excellent. You could watch the show and just have drinks for about 30 Euros, but add another 25 Euros and you will get your dinner thrown in, ( a tapas that is, of course). The food was lovely as well, so generally a splendid night of entertainment and food.

There are also a few good view points to oversee the city; the Temple of Debod which is a park with ancient Egyptian monuments as well as the tower, Faro de Moncloa, which is a little towards the outside of the city but cheap to do – only three Euros. The downside of this attraction is that it has no facilities other than a vending machine so make sure you get some food on the way from one of the many restaurants alongside the Oeste Park next door.

An overview of the city

One of the other great things to do, to get a real feel for the city is to take a tour of Madrid. We spent some time considering whether we should do a bus tour or a walking tour but after looking at reviews and considering costs, decided to go for a walking tour. We took a free city tour with a gent named Miguel, which gave us a great overview of the city and its history and allowed us to discover a number of streets, alleys and landmarks that we would have never noticed on our own. For example did you know Madrid hosts the world’s oldest restaurant? Or that in many of the convents you can go and buy freshly baked cookies from the local nuns?!

I never knew until we had the tour that we had been walking around a city with such a mixture of origins. I had been passing through streets of Austrian, African, French and Roman influences. Much of the city is also influenced by the different religions and cultures that came with these countries.

We heard that the origin of the Flamenco music and dance that we had enjoyed a few nights before was an outcome of the oppression in Madrid and the persecution of Gypsies, Jewish and Muslim people within Spain during various invasions. It remained very dominant in Andalusia in the South of Spain where much of the original African migrants were dominant. We plan to see a bit more of the Flamenco art during our stay there next Summer.

Unfortunately, we took the tour at the end of the week but it would have been much more useful to go at the beginning. That’s what we get for being indecisive!

In general, it was a pretty nice place to visit, with lots of places to see cheaply, and the culture was really interesting. Word to the wise though, many of the people living and working here do not speak English, so don’t assume that you’ll get by because your a tourist going to tourist places. Remember your phrasebook! I think my boyfriend is pretty thankful that I knew enough Spanish to ask for food and beer, shame I still haven’t mastered understanding the responses back though.

Adios!