Quote:
Originally Posted by ssp
It's different in different parts of the country. I used to live in Rotterdam. Sometimes I was the only guy speaking Dutch or ABN on the tram. People got shot dead in front of my eyes. I used to live in the shittiest grey harbour city of Holland.
Now I live 10 minutes away from the beach in a place with fucking palm trees believe it or not. The clubs and pubs are open 7 days a week and people are friendly. If I want to go shopping at 3am in the morning, I go to Tesco around the corner. It doesn't rain that much here because of a tropical sea wind or something.
I wouldn't want to live anywhere above London and my city isn't really a real representation of the UK but I must say, moving was the best thing I ever did. It just goes to show that the UK has many sides and it's not only the thing you see in movies with youngsters wearing trainers and tracksuits.
BTW You're more than welcome to visit.
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This was from a New York Times series on the world's best beach areas:
These Days Surf's Up on Cornwall's Northern Coast
By JENNIFER CONLIN
WALK through Paddington Station in London on a Friday afternoon in July or August, and you might think you're in Laguna Beach. Students dressed in Rip Curl tank tops, Quicksilver shorts, Ray-Bans and flip-flops amble through the crowds of commuters rushing for their trains. While the suits are off to the suburbs, the kids are all headed for the coast. Specifically to north Cornwall on the 4:05 train, which will deposit them some six hours later in a region that's become known for offering some of the best surfing - and socializing - in all of Europe.
Cornwall, which was once celebrated for its more elderly pursuits - Cornish teas, watercolor galleries, coastal walks and seaside gardens - is now considered one of the hip places to visit in England, no matter what your age. With numerous beaches for all levels of surfing, an outpost of the modern Tate Gallery in St. Ives, and the environmentally avant-garde Eden Project in St. Austell, Cornwall is increasingly becoming a popular family destination, particularly for those families with painfully trendy teenagers.
"Just look at the Live 8 locations," says Helen Gilchrist, editor and publisher of The Stranger, a year-old lifestyle and arts magazine based in Falmouth. "You had London, Philadelphia, Paris, Berlin, Moscow - and Cornwall," she says, referring to the recent Live 8 Africa concert in the world's largest greenhouse, the Eden Project. "It was great publicity for this area," says Ms. Gilchrist.
Indeed, the most buzzing place in Cornwall, at least for backpacking college students, is Newquay, which offers truly challenging surf. With music festivals, impromptu beach parties and an array of extreme water sports like waveskiing (on a cross between a surfboard and kayak) and kite surfing, Newquay is all about youth culture and night life.
As a result, some families tend to avoid Newquay at all costs. Instead, they flock to the extremely upscale area of Rock, Polzeath and Padstow. Known as "Knightsbridge on the Sea" because so many well-heeled Londoners own second homes there, Rock is a favorite summer haunt of Princes William and Harry, who like to surf on the Polzeath beach - a mere 10 miles away - and dine at the popular Rick Stein Cafe in Padstow, a short ferry ride from Rock across the Camel Estuary.
If Cornwall is England's answer to California, the seafood chef Rick Stein, 58, is its Alice Waters. Mr. Stein has single-handedly made the fishing port of Padstow a dining destination for sophisticated travelers from all over the world. The Seafood Restaurant, opened in 1975, is now just one small part of the culinary empire he has built up over the last 30 years. Mr. Stein's numerous Padstow establishments now include the cafe, a bistro, a fish and chips shop, a deli and a patisserie, as well as 33 hotel rooms, which house both diners and the students who attend his seafood cooking school. All his restaurants are decorated in sea shades of blue, gray and white, complementing his imaginative menus, which always feature the freshest fish and seafood available.
"This area used to attract a sort of down-market tourism," says Mr. Stein, who spent many childhood summers at his family's home in Cornwall. "But I always saw it as a quality place, which is why I chose to open my first restaurant here. I had a desire to see the area flourish. It has a mystical quality to it like the west coast of Ireland or Scotland," says Mr. Stein, who is well known outside of Britian, specifically in Australia and New Zealand, for his cookbooks and numerous BBC cooking series.
But it is the explosive growth of the lucrative surfing industry that has truly transformed the region. Nearly every institution in the area pays tribute to the sport. This summer the Eden Project, known for its "global garden," is playing host to an exhibition charting the history of British surfing. The National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, whose mission is to "promote small boats," is celebrating the long board with an exhibition called "Surf's Up," which will run for the next six months. Even the Tate Gallery in St. Ives, which was built by the magnificent Porthmeor Beach, overlooks a busy surf school.
"Cornwall is now one of the surfing and water activity capitals of the world," says Rhona Gardiner, a co-founder of Big Friday, a weekend travel company that caters exclusively to urban surfers in need of a quick Cornwall getaway. "Ten years ago, before surfing took off, this was a backwater place with old men's pubs. Now a lot of young entrepreneurs are moving here from London to start new lifestyle businesses that will meet the demands of this growing market," says Ms. Gardiner, who recently moved to Newquay full time from London after learning to surf there five years ago.
Peter Craske, who runs the Surf's Up Surf School with his wife, Jane, on the family-friendly Polzeath Beach, agrees. "I started this school 11 years ago. In the last eight days I have had 300 clients per day. That is more than I had in my entire first year," says Mr. Craske, who has 17 instructors (all certified lifeguards) to help him keep up with demand. "It used to be that the parents would drop off the kids for lessons," he explains. "But now they sign up, too. It has become exactly like the ski holiday and, in fact, attracts the same families."
Frances Stokes, an American mother raising two teenagers (aged 15 and 17) in London, fits that profile perfectly. Every winter the family skis in Switzerland, and every summer (for the last three years) they surf in North Cornwall. "It is so much easier to learn here than in Hawaii," says Ms. Stokes, who has surfed in both places. "Polzeath is a beginner's beach where you don't feel embarrassed learning. It is also the perfect place to bring teenagers since they all get to know each other in surf classes."
Perhaps too well. This summer the police have had to patrol both Polzeath and the nearby Daymer Bay beach in an effort to deter the area's teenage visitors from making bonfires out of old fences and hedgerow branches and cocktails out of whatever alcoholic beverages they can find.
That crackdown may have put a certain damper on the partying, but it hasn't seemed to diminish Cornwall's appeal. "Surfing is a great family sport and Cornwall is beautiful," says Ms. Stokes, who says that she and the other families she travels with set a 10 p.m. curfew for their teenagers. "That is the real reason families like it here so much."
