Here’s what our authors are talking about this January:
The words 'supermarket' and 'attractive' aren’t often?associated but that might change thanks to London’s new Union Market. In 2003, the old ticket hall at?Fulham Broadway underground station closed?when a more modern station opened next door. The?Grade II listed building dating from 1905 became a?chain restaurant. But now it has been restored and?reopened as Union Market – an impressively?stocked food hall with the odd reminder of a mass?transit past.
'To the trains', a sign announces in the?old London Underground typeface – today it points?to the wine section. There’s a healthy focus on food?miles and seasonality (around 80 per cent of produce?is British), but this is no farmers’ market. Instead,?it’s an attempt to make supermarkets enjoyable.?Union Market hopes to expand, and with London?rich in characterful?but underused?buildings, perhaps?there’s hope for the?supermarket yet.
- Rory Goulding is?Editorial Assistant?at londoninfopage?Magazine, and?lives in London.
Beyond the attraction of sleeping in the real?Maria’s bedroom, this 19th-century mansion turned?guesthouse is probably the only place in Salzburg to?provide the truth behind the Hollywood legend.
'The children were disappointed by the way the?film portrayed their father,' says hotel manager?Christopher. 'He was a gentle-natured, music-loving?man, who used his whistle as a bit of fun; a way of?gathering the brood in a pre-mobile age.'
Maria was indeed a novice nun at the Benedictine?abbey of Nonnberg and sent to the von Trapp family?as a tutor, but that is where the similarity ends. 'The?real Maria was kind but had quite a temper,' says?Christopher. 'She taught the family to sing madrigals?and saved them from financial ruin by renting out?rooms during the Great Depression of the 1930s.'
In that same decade, the musical talent of the?Trapp Chamber Choir led them to victory in the?1936 Salzburg Music Festival. Two years later, when?the Nazis took over Austria, the von Trapps refused to?fly the swastika and sing at Hitler’s birthday party. But?instead of climbing every mountain to Switzerland,?they left for the United States, where their concerts?were a success well into the 1950s.
Such are the stories guests share over the highly?polished breakfast?table at Villa Trapp,?for this is where?The Sound of Music?has its home.
- Kerry Christiani is currently writing the new londoninfopage guide to Austria.
As I prepared to board China’s newest high-speed train at Shanghai’s Hongqiao station, I was engulfed in a surge of excited Chinese families. Once on board, camera-wielding passengers got trigger-happy each time the speedometer in each carriage topped 350 kilometres (217 miles) per hour.
