Dark Tourism and Bridges, plus new Travel Plans

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As announced in the previous newsletter, this week featured the themed post “DT and Bridges”, as requested in the poll the week before, in which this theme won the most votes.

Seven bridges were featured that represented a range of dark aspects. The first was the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo, site of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which triggered WW1 in 1914.

Next came the Tay Bridge at Dundee, Scotland, or rather what little remains of the original bridge that disastrously collapsed in 1879 causing a train to plunge into the icy waters of the River Tay and killing all 57 on board. A second bridge was built soon after the Tay Bridge Disaster parallel to the row of stumps of the supports of the old bridge, which are now all that remains of it.

Next up was another collapsed bridge, which was just left in its broken state, spotted in a remote location on the Aras Nehri river in eastern Anatolia, Turkey.

This was followed by an ex-railway bridge in North Korea, now trainless and used by pedestrians only, representing the economic/industrial decline the DPRK has experienced. Travel to this hermit pariah state, with its Kim dynasty rulers upholding a staunch Stalinist-like form of communism, is considered by many a particularly grim form of dark tourism, but can actually be quite an eye-opener … and is perfectly safe too (as long as you don't behave like a certain American tourist did a few years back and drunkenly start stealing propaganda posters).

Next in line came a bridge that has very dark associations indeed owing to the history of its construction, namely the legendary Bridge on the River Kwai in Thailand (featured in the photo above). Unlike the fictional bamboo bridge in the famous movie of the same name, the real thing is a rather plain steel bridge … it formed part of the infamous Death Railway, a train line constructed by forced labour carried out by POWs for Imperial Japan during WWII. Many of the Australian, British, Dutch and American POWs did not survive the ordeal.

Also dark but for very different reasons was the next bridge featured: Glienicke Bridge, the fabled “Bridge of Spies” in Berlin. So dubbed for the exchange of captured spies between the USA and the Soviet Union that took place at this spot on three occasions during the Cold War. Back then the bridge was otherwise closed as it formed part of the Iron Curtain, more precisely the border and front line between the American sector of West Berlin and the GDR. These days the bridge is in regular use again, connecting Berlin to Potsdam in Brandenburg.

Finally, the post featured the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. This famous and beautiful bridge has yet another dark aspect, namely that of having been one of the world's top suicide hotspots. The endless row of suicides by jumping off this bridge is now being curbed by a “suicide barrier”, in the form of steel netting underneath the pedestrian walkway along the bridge. But thousands have topped themselves here since the bridge opened in 1937.
  

And now for the second part of this Newsletter's headline: new travel plans. I have indeed decided to resume at least some travelling this summer despite the corona pandemic. My original travel plans for the year (Taiwan, Namibia, plus long weekend trips to Kosovo, Tirana and Tallinn) have all fallen through, but I'll do a couple of short trips that can be relatively safely done by train. First to Brno, Czech Republic, which is a mere hour and a half from where I live (Vienna), where I had long wanted to go back to and finally see the famous mummies in the Capuchin Crypt as well as the ossuary underneath St Jacob's square that was only opened to the public in 2012. I might also check out the old prison at Spilberk Castle and see if the 10-Z bunker is open (the website isn't really clear on that). Does anybody have any more recommendations as to what I should also see in Brno?

The week after that I'll go by overnight sleeper train to Venice, Italy, and spend four days there! Sounds more like mainstream tourism than dark tourism, and indeed my main motivation of going back there (I'd only briefly been there once before during my InterRail trip as a teenager … long ago) is the mere fact that the place will be nowhere near as overcrowded as it normally as, thanks to those awful cruise ships not operating at the moment (if I could have it my way, they'd never come back!).

So I'm hoping to be able to savour the unique atmosphere of Venice without the throngs and may even be able to take some photos without any people in them. As for dark tourism, there are a few elements too: I'll be staying the old Jewish quarter, where there are some plaques related to the Holocaust, and I'll take a boat to San Servolo island with its museum about the island's former insane asylum. Maybe I'll also manage to get to one or two of the plague islands. We'll see. Anything else any of you can recommend?

The time after Venice I've so far left open, in case quarantine rules are reintroduced, but if not I may do something else, but within Austria, on a more spontaneous basis.

And from late August I expect to receive the proofs for my book and then work on that will take over my life again. But I'll try to keep adding the odd blog post too and send more newsletters.