Mapping bliss

I have said before how much I like maps, and for many years I have been recording our travels in electronic maps of one form or another. I have always been fascinated by maps, and I like plotting-out where we have been, or plotting (in the other sense)where we would like to go. And it suits me to organise information spatially - that's how my brain works.

Ten years ago, this meant nothing more sophisticated than manually drawing routes on a map image using PaintShop, and later using simple (crude even) GIS (geographic information systems) applications. But more recently the advent of the amazing Google Earth has meant that I can create accurate vector maps over a high quality map/image base, and include all sorts of extra information. I have found this irresistible - compulsive even, to the extent that for our last canal boat holiday I used Google Earth to produce a map showing all 110 locks we were due to pass through - to within a couple of metres accuracy. The last few times we have been away with friends they have been "treated" to detailed Google Earth files detailing the location of recommended bars and even the best route to walk from the station to the hotel. It is over-the-top I know, but I love doing it. However, I have always struggled to effectively present map information on our web pages, and until very recently I have usually had to resort to simply posting static images and screenshots.

Two fairly recent developments have changed all this. First, the excellent Google Maps service provided a method of incorporating your own information into their map viewer. This means that I can now display maps and interactive information I have created in Google Maps on a web page in any browser. And now they have introduced a simple way of embedding these interactive maps into any web page (including Blogger). You can see the results in the two examples above and below. These are both segments of our recent trip to north Norway - the first shows our route from Tromsø to the Lofoten islands, and the second is a detailed view of the centre of Tromsø. You can pan and zoom the maps, switch between map and aerial views, and if you click on the icons you will see further information and pictures etc.



It's great - I love it. Expect more!

It doesn't get much better than this

Now we are back from our trip to north Norway there are going to be a few postings like this as we go through our photos and other memorabilia. Please indulge us!

This is Reine in the Lofoten islands. In fact, this is the view from the living room of the "rorbu" (fisherman's cabin) where we stayed for a couple of days. Fantastic, isn't it?

Actually, I nearly cried when we arrived. It was perfect - the weather was bright and sunny; the scenery was stunning; the village was as picturesque as you could wish; the 'cabin' (think 'chalet' really) was spacious, comfortable, very nicely furnished, and wonderfully sited; the rorbu manager was exceptionally friendly and welcoming; it was quiet and peaceful. We had had a lovely day driving through the Lofoten islands, and I just felt very, very happy.

Cross ref: Blog Holiday!!!!!! (Wednesday, 9 May 2007) on what we were expecting.

Holiday!!!!!!

To counter Dave's rather negative post below (which largely belongs on his own blog really), I'd just like to mention that we are actually going on holiday. To somewhere we've talked about visiting for ages. Two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle actually (which I think qualifies it as being "the arctic"). So it's a nice little adventure, like we normally do, but with a little bit of extra "edge" (which I think maybe Dave is just a little bit nervous about).

It will be cold, and it will probably rain alot, but I'm really looking forward to it. OK, so we will have to endure the world's worst airport (believe me, we did try to find an alternative), but at least we get that out of the way right at the start. A necessary evil perhaps - but lets not dwell upon it. I'm looking forward.

Looking forward to visiting interesting places out on the periphery - there are going to be lots of "most northerly" whatevers on this trip. Looking forward to sailing on the Hurtigrute; to taking the train through the mountains; to visiting places only Norwegians have ever heard of. And hopefully we will get some fantastic scenery too. And good food!

We are bound to meet people who will ask us "why would you want to come here?" - we always do - to which our usual answer is "its not London", which only seems to generate more bemusement. Well, we know why we are going, even if we can't quite explain it adequately (see Islands in the stream of conciousness, below). And maybe, if we get up one morning and look out of the window to see the view pictured here, we won't feel the need to justify it to ourselves or anyone else.

Post script (23 May 2007):
Well, we got exactly what we wanted on the Lofoten islands! This is what we actually got to see from our fishermans cabin in Reine. See blog It doesn't get much better than this. However, nobody asked us "why would you want to come here?". But maybe that is not that strange. After all, it was perfect.

We love maps

Andrew loves maps, and thanks to the wonderful Google Earth and Google Maps we can now share details of the route of our trip through north Norway. If you have Google earth then all you need to do is load the following file (just click on the link, or download the file and then open in Google Earth): www.highrise.dircon.co.uk/deptlads/norway07/Norway2007Summary.KML
If you don't have Google Earth then you can still see the route on Google Maps in any web browser using this link.

We are starting at Tromsø in the north and working our way south along the routes indicated on the maps, finishing in Trondheim. The route statistics are:

• Return air travel - 4,132km
• Scheduled boats - 219km
• Internal air travel - 103km
• Trains - 729km

Total distance 5,350km (1,218km not including return air travel).

Travels in The North

Sounds a bit like a radio quiz teaser, but - what could possibly link our forthcoming trip to north Norway with science fiction writing, Janacek's operas, the fight against fascism, pen & ink drawings, and a recent play about newts on Radio 4?

Well, even Google doesn't seem to be able to get you anywhere near a meaningful answer, even though I have been quite generous with the key words in the pragraph above (try it). And that is quite reassuring really, since it would seem to indicate that so-called "intelligent" search engines cannot get anywhere near emulating the processes of the human brain or capturing even the basics of "western" culture (which is something the aforementioned newts could do). Of course, now that I have written this piece (and it has been indexed by the search engines), the mystery of these unexpected connections will no longer exist, but thanks only to human intervention.

The answer is actually alluded to in an earlier post on this blog - Karel Čapek. He is one of those people who suddenly pop into your consciousness from several directions at the same time, even though you were previously never aware of them as an individual. Čapek (pronounced "chopek") was a Czech writer who is probably best known for coining (inventing, even) the word "robot" in his 1920 play "R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)". I was aware of the Czech origins of "robot" since childhood exposure to numerous UK and US sci-fi novels (my Mum always had stacks of these paperbacks for us to read during the school holidays), but had never heard of Čapek, and certainly never realised his connections with other aspects of my life. But that all changed when we decided to go to Norway in August 2001.

One Sunday, a few weeks before going away, we were browsing around in a cluttered second hand bookshop in Greenwich. Looking along the travel shelves we were debating whether or not to buy an old Baedeker's guide to Norway (period travel books can be a good way to get a different angle on travel destinations) when I came across an intruiging yellow bound volume entitled "Travels in The North" by Karel Čapek. 'This looks promising' I thought. And I was right. Because this book had taken nearly 60 years to find me, and it was exactly what I was looking for. It was a travelogue written in the 1930s about a trip (taken some years earlier) through Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Written in an endearingly frank and reflective but humourous central European style it also incorporates many brilliant and idiosyncratic pen & ink drawings by the author. It is the sort of book that you could never imagine throwing away.

Čapek's book is not exactly a literary masterpiece, but it is charming in every positive sense of the word. The pages are stuffed full of illustrations, at least one every other page, which make it rewarding to flick though as well as read. They are mostly simple pen & ink, highly stylised and reminiscient of traditional Czech woodcuts and the newspaper cartoons that Janacek loved so much. It was the perfect companion to our trip, and will be so again when we pick-up Čapek's trail north of the Actic Circle in a few days time.

Having bought the book (for all of four pounds), I decided to find out more about Karel Čapek. The robot connection immediately struck a chord, as I have already described. Numerous SciFi authors have acknowleged this, and it has also seeped into popular culture (according to Wikipedia, Dr Who, Batman and Futurama have all paid hommage to Čapek in relation to robot characters). Then I discovered that it was Čapek who had written the 1922 play "Věc Makropulos" ("The Makropulos Affair", which might also be classed as a scifi story), which Czech composer Leos Janacek used for his celebrated opera of the same name. I am a big fan of all of Janacek's music, and although I am not usually keen on opera, Janacek's are among the few operas that I do like. I was fascinited to discover this unexpected connection. I was also pleased to learn that Čapek was a passional anti-fascist and had a close friendship with the first Czech president Tomáš Masaryk. This position is exemplified in his celebrated 1936 play "The War with the Newts", which has a poingnant relevance to issues of economic migration today - clearly evident in a 2005 BBC Radio 3 production that was recently re-broadcast on Radio 4 (and it was listening to that play that got me thinking about writing this piece).

Originally published in Czech under the title "Cesta na sever" in 1936, my copy of "Travels in The North" is a 1942 reprint of the fourth "cheap" edition of the English translation by M. & R. Weatherall published by George Allen & Unwin. The fact that it proudly proclaims that it is printed on "War Economy Standard" paper only seems to add to the appeal (the quality of the paper is acually pretty good - not too different from todays recycled paper it has yellowed a bit but is not at all brittle, even after more than 60 years). There is also a single colour plate fronticepiece (a drawing of a boulder-strewn settlement entitled "Ljusdal") bound opposite the title page.

You won't find this book in Waterstones or Borders - as far as I am aware it has been out of print for over 50 years. Occasionally there are copies available on Amazon's marketplace (and maybe ebay too). Or, just maybe, like me, it will find you in a secondhand bookshop just as you are about to embark upon your own travels in The North.

Islands in the stream of consciousness

It's odd. We are both fundamentally city-dwellers/city-lovers, but in recent years we seem to have made a habit of travelling to (mostly) remote island communities. Our trip next month to north Norway and the Lofoten islands will be just the latest in a string (an archipelago?) of visits to places many people have hardly heard of and still less have any inclination to visit.

I think that it started in 1999 when we decided to stop off for a few days in the Åland islands on our way from St Petersburg to Stockholm by train and ferry. Five years later we had no hesitation in repeating the mid-Baltic experience - in the opposite direction that time. And the following year we concocted a North Atlantic island-hopping itinerary through Orkney, Shetland, and on to the Faroe islands. Then last year we included the Danish island of Bornholm on our zig-zagging tour through Holland, Germany, Denmark and southern Sweden. And on that occasion we also managed to visit the tiny off-offshore island of Christiansø. In between there have been numerous trips to "inshore" islands in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and Dave has even managed to get to one of the Frisian islands.

I don't know quite what it is about these places that appeals. They are mostly small, remote, isolated, and on the fringe. But they have also all been friendly, welcoming and utterly engaging, at least to us as travellers. There is certainly something about island communities that appeals, but it is difficult to put your finger on it. Just getting there usually takes some effort (mostly involving catching a ferry or two), and for us at least that is something of the appeal. All these places have strong maritime associations, and maybe that has something to do with it too. Of course, many of these islands have fantastic natural landscapes and scenery, but also, as islands, rather than mainland "wilderness" areas, they also have well defined cultural and community centres, which means that you are not usually far from a decent place to stay and eat (always important for us).

So, I still can't really say why it is that I like the idea of spending a few days on a remote island 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle with a population only slightly larger that the building we live in, but in two weeks time that is precisely what we will be doing, and I am rather looking forward to it.