It seems I have stumped the complete Liberal Democrat Voice readership with my fun photo quiz from this morning.
Here is a wider version of the scene pictured this morning. This should give you a clue as to the category of location that we are talking about…
I took this photo while on my holiday last week.
Can you guess where it was taken? It is a location mentioned wittily in a distinguished Liberal MP’s auto-biography.
Another clue is that the Liberal MP in question was a leader of the Liberal Party.
Please use the comments field below to have a stab at the answer.
Comments will be held in our “pending” file until 4pm and then released to reveal the winner.
The prize will be the much coveted accolade of “LDV Super-Anorak” – a title which will be yours until a successor is appointed, a bit like being Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds or of the Manor of Northstead.
As an EXTRA PRIZE, to up the ante a little, I will send a “very good condition” copy of the said former leader of the Liberal Party’s memoirs to the winner.
You are disqualified from this quiz if I have told you where I went on holiday.
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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10 Comments
Waterloo station on what looks like a good day?
Penzance railway station?
Clearly a terminus, but with not many tracks. Also a tourist destination and point of departure for walking judging by the number of back-packs. The bas-reliefs on either side also point to a place famous for its scenery. It is an old station with a fairly recent internal refurbishment. The lack of chewing-gum on the floor suggests that it is not in England but the signage looks typical of the UK. But I am still stumped.
Paddy. Somewhere in Hong Kong.
Is it Bergen train station, in Norway, which Jo Grimmond said was the nearest train station to his constituency?
The earlier picture shows a board advertising coffee with an English slogan (the coffee name is in Italian, of course). Although Norwegians educated since World War II are often proficient in English, this counts out Bergen.
I think its an Amtrak station in the USA, a country that Paul and I have both visited recently.
Ian Sanderson, one quite often does see English slogans in non English speaking countries, so I don’t think that rules out Bergen in Norway. Paul said “you are disqualified from this quiz if I told you where I went on holiday”. So I don’t think its America. All regular readers of Lib Dem Voice know Paul has been to America quite recently. So this must be another holiday, that hasn’t been mentioned on Lib Dem Voice. I still think its Bergen. Can you think of any other station memorably mentioned in the memoirs of a Liberal leader (not Lib Dem)?
Thank you for your answers and interesting rationales. I have now posted the answer (Bergen railway station) and the names of the winner and runner-up.
After I posted the original photo I noticed the Ritazza sign in English and realised that it might provide a “false steer” for some. There is a smattering of English in Norway’s signage. I think this particular sign is fully in English because it is aimed at the large number of tourists who come past it from the train from Oslo.
‘one quite often does see English slogans in non English speaking countries,’
When I visited Norway regularly, some decades ago, I didn’t see signs in English; I would expect Bergen signs to be in Nynorsk – one of the two Norwegian official languages. (In those days both were used on the (only) TV channel, plus about an hour a day in Sami (Lapp)).
Back in the twenty-first century, I visit the Czech Republic around six times a year, and English phrases are used. Some phrases are in English, but not as we know it, such as ‘Non-Stop’; this is confusing when used on motorway service stations, because it actually means ‘we never close’
I have made a short journey on Bergensbanen from Ustaoset to Finse. Finse is a ski-resort village in the Hardangervidda and has a railway station but no real road connection. The Samvirkelag (Co-op) shop is on the platform. It is rare passing place on the single-track line and our return train was delayed as two passenger trains and a freight train manoeuvred around each other.
Finse also had a memorial to Captain Scott and his companions, who prepared for their Antartic expedition there.