Guerilla lighting

I've just come across an intriguing press release. The BDP Lighting Group turned up in the middle of Manchester last week with 60 people and a load of LEDs, and proceeded to transform the centre of the city with transient lighting designs.

Apparently, Manchester is way behind the game in lighting up its architecture - which is odd if you consider the wealth of lighting talent that must have been nurtured in Madchester nightclubs... Other cities are way in front.

For instance Chartres has 'Chartres en lumieres' which lights up not just the cathedral, but other medieval churches and streets within the city. Chartres' heritage of fine medieval stained glass inspires much of the design, and there's even a recreation in light of the famous Chartres labyrinth in the cathedral pavement. Sées, in Normandy, lights up its gothic cathedral every July and August. And Amiens cathedral lights up at Christmas, with a 45 minute show hoping to show the cathedral facade as it would have been in its pristine medieval glory - painted and gilded, only this time just with light.

Well, I suppose the French did invent the term 'son et lumière'.

No food please, we're Belgian

We're so used to many symbols that we don't question them. No entry signs, one way signs, signs for men's and women's toilets...

But I came across one in Ghent that amused me, because it was slightly different.

I've often seen, in Italy, the 'no food in the church' message with a picture of an ice cream.

But in Belgium, of course, ice cream is only one of the two ubiquitous foods.

So the sign gets a picture of a cone of chips, with a big red X through them.

Academy of Urbanism

I've just seen the Academy of Urbanism Awards 2006. They include one of my favourite places - Borough Market,  London. It's a great story of regeneration.

Borough Market was always a thriving market, just on the south bank of the Thames, across from the City of London. With Southwark Cathedral, the new Globe Theatre, the remains of the Bishop of Winchester's medieval palace, a wonderful galleried inn, and some fine pubs, as well as the market underneath the railway viaducts, it was a great area to explore - slightly seedy and undiscovered, but full of interest.

Borough Market has now become a mecca for foodies. It still supplies fresh produce for the restaurant trade, but it also has a good retail trade. My one doubt, though, is that it's no longer a food market for ordinary people - it's expensive deli land.  Even so, it's good to see new life being breathed into markets. Others in London have been killed off, or like Covent Garden have just become heritage-style shopping malls.

Gothic collapses

Having been amazed by the octagon of Ely cathedral I got round to wondering how many cathedrals had their towers collapse.

Quite  a few it turns out. Winchester in 1107 - the central tower collapsed. They should never have built so close to the river - the entire cathedral needed underpinning in the 1900s.

Lincoln's tower fell in 1237. Ely's in 1322. Looking at the west tower that still survives, if Ely's central tower was taller it must have been impressive - and was definitely dicing with death, structurally speaking. Chichester lasted out the middle ages only to collapse dramatically in 1861.

Beauvais, probably the most adventurous technically of all the French cathedrals in its pursuit of sheer height,  had two major upsets. First, the vaults of the choir collapsed in 1284. When it was rebuilt, the number of piers in the apse was doubled, making the whole thing look rather squashed and dark. Then the central tower fell down in 1573.  The cathedral was never finished and the back of the transepts is still just shored up, over four hundred years later.

And at Norwich, though the fine Norman tower still stands, two spires were lost before the one that survives today.

It seems that medieval builders lived with the risk of catastrophic failure - and sometimes with the reality.

More fun for less

Travel can be expensive. Loads of hotels would like to relieve you of a couple of hundred euros a night, and restaurants aren't much less greedy for your wallet. Add in a few visits to the sights and you can end up spending more than you want to.

But you can have more fun for less. My tips?

- seek out the places behind the railway station. Quite often, a few hundred yards away there are some great little bars and restaurants.

- use the markets. I lost weight, kept fit and saved money in Venice going down to the Rialto market to buy strawberries, grapes, satsumas, and apples to keep hunger away during the day. Many markets have great fast food for very little. It's usually local-style fast food, too - churros y chocolate in Spain, choucroute or andouillettes in France (though I don't do andouilletes, they're just too rank for me, I eat merguez sausages in a baguette instead).  And you get a great atmosphere. Restaurants near markets are often good - they're using today's produce, fresh.

- Find small, family run hotels. Sometimes you don't strike lucky - more often, you find a cheaper hotel than any of the chains, with a bit of character. Often, too, you'll find whoever's  behind the desk is a mine of information on the town and its customs.  They may be able to recommend good places for a meal. Use resources such as www.tripadvisor.com to look for somewhere.

- Get off the beaten track. In Bruges, for instance, just heading out of the touristic centre of the city towards the north or east can save you money on your dinner or drink.

- Swap traveller's tales. I met up with a couple in the de Garre bar in Bruges who told me where they usually stayed - a nice hotel I had passed up as looking too expensive! They also recommended me some great places to eat. And don't overlook the locals as a source of information. I stopped for a bottle of beer at the beer shop in Akademiestraat in Bruges - and managed to find out where I ought to stop for beer and a bite.

- When you do want to splurge,  do it properly. One really fantastic meal every week is worth it. Go for the best - don't be at home to Mr In-Between. On Mont Saint-Michel, it's La Mère Poulard - just omelette and lamb gigot is the traditional meal, and you wouldn't believe the difference between eating it there, and in one of the other places on the island. The omelette is delightfully fluffy and the lamb tastes wickedly sea-salty.

- Eat seasonal! If you're in Holland at the right time, try an all-asparagus menu (yes! even asparagus ice cream!). In Cefalu, Sicily, one restaurant does an almost all artichoke menu - that's the local crop - though they don't do ice cream (or didn't, when I was there).

- Make sure to look around for the best room rate. Hotels don't have a single rate - you could pay a range of different prices for the same hotel, sometimes depending on the web site you booked through. If you're going to arrive late, sometimes local tourist offices have bargains going just before closing time - this worked well for me in Cologne, Worms and Speyer a few years back.

- Get return tickets or weekend tickets on public transport. Bruges to Ghent is seven euros each way - or seven euros return, at weekends. That's quite a saving.

- Go off-season. It's obvious, but just a few weeks either side of the season can make a big difference. Don't go to Venice during Carnival unless you're really, really determined to see it. You might also want to check out commercial exhibitions - for instance anywhere around Hanover is going to triple in price and halve in availability when the big computer fair CEBIT is on in March.

- Remember the metro exists! You don't have to stay in the centre of London or Barcelona - or Paris. Look for hotels out of town, but close to the underground or Metro system. I quite like La Villette/Porte de Pantin area in Paris -  still a bit edgy, but with fine walks along the Canal de l'Ourcq and in the Parc de la Villette, and just a few stops from Gare du Nord on the metro. Prices are a lot lower than in the centre. And there's an Ibis hotel with lots of little ethnic restaurants charging relatively little for a solid dinner.

A day in Ely

Off to Ely to research a podtour. I already knew the cathedral well - so I thought.

But I obviously didn't know the town. There are some lovely medieval buildings tucked away around the cathedral, all part of the monastery in the Middle Ages, and many now part of the King's School. I hadn't given them a glance before.

Prior Crauden's chapel is a particularly nice building. It's tiny - well, compared to most churches. And it's beautifully delicate; a narrow, high box, with turrets, buttresses, and the most lovely traceried windows. A perfect miniature which feels just as if it's come out of a medieval manuscript.

Then there's the Great Hall.  Boring, I thought, looking at it from the front - a classical frontage, probably seventeenth or eighteenth century. Go the other side, though, and you can see the original medieval fabric. As so often, appearances are deceptive!

I think for me that's the fascination of touring in Europe. Sometimes you do come across a building perfectly 'of its age' - Versailles, for instance, or Chartres Cathedral. But more often, you find layers upon layers of history.  Rome, in particular, is a city like an onion - peel off one skin and you find another layer underneath.

Anyway, I now have to write up and record the Podtour. It should appear on www.podtours.co.uk towards the end of this year.