lillibet: (Default)
This story about the incident during Friday's performance of Mike Daisey's monologue Invincible Summer really struck me when I read about it in [livejournal.com profile] dpolicar's journal. In brief, a Christian choral group from Norco High School in Norco, CA attended the performance, after being told that it included profanity and adult themes. The staff were so offended by the language that all 87 members of the group walked out in the middle of the performance and one member of the group paused to pour Mike's glass of water over the handwritten outline he works from during his monologue. You can see a video of the incident here. There's a blog post by Mike Daisey and an interview with him, if you want to look into it more closely.

I was really moved by what a nightmare that must have been for Mike Daisey and what a good job he did at handling it. I decided to send email to the principal of Norco High School at john_johnson@cnusd.k12.ca.us, expressing my dismay and my hope that this individual will be disciplined in some way, that the school will find a positive way to engage with Mike Daisey, and that future school groups will be better ambassadors for their community.

EDIT: There is now an update on Mike Daisey's site. He spoke with the man who poured the water and achieved some resolution.
lillibet: (Default)
This story about the incident during Friday's performance of Mike Daisey's monologue Invincible Summer really struck me when I read about it in [livejournal.com profile] dpolicar's journal. In brief, a Christian choral group from Norco High School in Norco, CA attended the performance, after being told that it included profanity and adult themes. The staff were so offended by the language that all 87 members of the group walked out in the middle of the performance and one member of the group paused to pour Mike's glass of water over the handwritten outline he works from during his monologue. You can see a video of the incident here. There's a blog post by Mike Daisey and an interview with him, if you want to look into it more closely.

I was really moved by what a nightmare that must have been for Mike Daisey and what a good job he did at handling it. I decided to send email to the principal of Norco High School at john_johnson@cnusd.k12.ca.us, expressing my dismay and my hope that this individual will be disciplined in some way, that the school will find a positive way to engage with Mike Daisey, and that future school groups will be better ambassadors for their community.

EDIT: There is now an update on Mike Daisey's site. He spoke with the man who poured the water and achieved some resolution.
lillibet: (Default)
Many of my friends will enjoy this short film featuring works from some wonderful fantasy artists.

Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] eclecticavatar for the pointer.
lillibet: (Default)
Many of my friends will enjoy this short film featuring works from some wonderful fantasy artists.

Thanks to [livejournal.com profile] eclecticavatar for the pointer.
lillibet: (Default)
This evening I had the privilege of attending the opening of the Fenway House Arts and Creative Writing Group's Spring 2006 Show in the Wiesner Gallery on the 2nd floor of the MIT Student Center. This show contains selected work by eleven artists, mainly current residents. It includes an entertaining mix of media and subject, from photography of Wyoming and Taiwan to collage and handmade paper-based works, as well as sculpture and painting. The breadth of the artists' talent and skill is quite impressive and I was very excited to have the chance to meet some of the artists and discuss their work and our experiences of the house.

The show continues until April 5th. If you have a chance, please stop by.
lillibet: (Default)
This evening I had the privilege of attending the opening of the Fenway House Arts and Creative Writing Group's Spring 2006 Show in the Wiesner Gallery on the 2nd floor of the MIT Student Center. This show contains selected work by eleven artists, mainly current residents. It includes an entertaining mix of media and subject, from photography of Wyoming and Taiwan to collage and handmade paper-based works, as well as sculpture and painting. The breadth of the artists' talent and skill is quite impressive and I was very excited to have the chance to meet some of the artists and discuss their work and our experiences of the house.

The show continues until April 5th. If you have a chance, please stop by.
lillibet: (Default)
After another lovely slow start, including brunch at Eggspectation, across the street from our hotel, we made it to the contemporary art museum. They were having a special all-museums-in-Montreal-are-free day, so everywhere was packed, but we were mostly able to see what we wanted. The museum is favorite for their collection of the art of local pillars, Riopelle and Borduas, but neither of them rocked our world. We were very taken with a video installation focusing on the faces of girls taking part in the annual Kyoto archery contest and there were several other very interesting pieces. Leaving there we hopped on the Metro and went up to the Musee des Beaux Arts and did a whirlwind tour of their two buildings. It was a shame not to spend more time, because they had some lovely works, especially 19th century Canadian stuff and Inuit art, but it was enough for one day.

We got back on the Metro and went out to La Ronde, the amusement park on the Ile Ste. Helene. Gotta say that any city where you can take public transportation to a decent amusement park is aces with me! The weather was clouding up as we arrived and there were swarms of moths everywhere, especially around the rollercoasters, for some reason. But the lines were short and it was a perfect temperature for me and we had 2.5 hours in which to get our rollercoaster fix. Click here for details on the rides we took. )

By the time eight o'clock rolled around, we were getting cold and hungry, so we were happy to get on the bus back to the Metro and make our way back to Vieux-Montreal. We had a nice, quick Mexican dinner at Casa de Mateo before scurrying back to the hotel for the night.

Now it's time to throw all our stuff in the car and head back to Boston!
lillibet: (Default)
After another lovely slow start, including brunch at Eggspectation, across the street from our hotel, we made it to the contemporary art museum. They were having a special all-museums-in-Montreal-are-free day, so everywhere was packed, but we were mostly able to see what we wanted. The museum is favorite for their collection of the art of local pillars, Riopelle and Borduas, but neither of them rocked our world. We were very taken with a video installation focusing on the faces of girls taking part in the annual Kyoto archery contest and there were several other very interesting pieces. Leaving there we hopped on the Metro and went up to the Musee des Beaux Arts and did a whirlwind tour of their two buildings. It was a shame not to spend more time, because they had some lovely works, especially 19th century Canadian stuff and Inuit art, but it was enough for one day.

We got back on the Metro and went out to La Ronde, the amusement park on the Ile Ste. Helene. Gotta say that any city where you can take public transportation to a decent amusement park is aces with me! The weather was clouding up as we arrived and there were swarms of moths everywhere, especially around the rollercoasters, for some reason. But the lines were short and it was a perfect temperature for me and we had 2.5 hours in which to get our rollercoaster fix. Click here for details on the rides we took. )

By the time eight o'clock rolled around, we were getting cold and hungry, so we were happy to get on the bus back to the Metro and make our way back to Vieux-Montreal. We had a nice, quick Mexican dinner at Casa de Mateo before scurrying back to the hotel for the night.

Now it's time to throw all our stuff in the car and head back to Boston!
lillibet: (Default)
Yesterday morning I went down to First Church for a meeting with the Somerville Open Studios artists who are exhibiting in our chapel space this year. Halway through that meeting, the contact person for the Arlington Players, who are renting the hall that same weekend for a public reading came in, so I transitioned from one meeting to another. Meanwhile, Phil, the shakuhachi player who rents space for lessons stuck his head in to ask if the choir, who were rehearsing the gospel cantata for Palm Sunday in the Sanctuary, would be done before he started. After he left, I explained who he was and one of the artists said "You sure have a lot of cool stuff happening here," and I had to agree. By the time I had finished up with the Arlington Players guy, the choir had wrapped up and started drifting downstairs, so I got to touch base with a few of them about various details and dates. At the same time, the Charlie Brown folks were drifting in to get started on their set-building work day. I did the bulletin while they got to work and shared some pizza with them before heading home. Visual arts, music vocal and instrumental, two different theatre groups...how did I suddenly stumble into being at the hub of this vital arts community?
lillibet: (Default)
Yesterday morning I went down to First Church for a meeting with the Somerville Open Studios artists who are exhibiting in our chapel space this year. Halway through that meeting, the contact person for the Arlington Players, who are renting the hall that same weekend for a public reading came in, so I transitioned from one meeting to another. Meanwhile, Phil, the shakuhachi player who rents space for lessons stuck his head in to ask if the choir, who were rehearsing the gospel cantata for Palm Sunday in the Sanctuary, would be done before he started. After he left, I explained who he was and one of the artists said "You sure have a lot of cool stuff happening here," and I had to agree. By the time I had finished up with the Arlington Players guy, the choir had wrapped up and started drifting downstairs, so I got to touch base with a few of them about various details and dates. At the same time, the Charlie Brown folks were drifting in to get started on their set-building work day. I did the bulletin while they got to work and shared some pizza with them before heading home. Visual arts, music vocal and instrumental, two different theatre groups...how did I suddenly stumble into being at the hub of this vital arts community?
lillibet: (Default)
On the spur of the moment, [livejournal.com profile] jason237 and I decided to drive to New York yesterday to see The Gates in Central Park. We had some adventures getting there--nothing too drastic, just forgetting things and miscommunicating about routes, etc.--but turned onto 5th Avenue and found on-street parking within a couple of blocks, right near an entrance to the park. It was a gorgeous day for February--sunny and just over 40F--and we had dressed well for the weather, so we were quite comfortable.

The Gates themselves are pretty cool--they vary widely in width to fit all the different path-sizes in the park, but are all the same height. They go up and down hills and stairs, around ponds and across bridges. Their bright orange color stood out from the bare trees and paved paths and iced water, like a golden river amid the landscape. [livejournal.com profile] jason237 was reminded of Fushimi Inari Jinguua, a shrine he'd visited in Japan.

We wandered around the park for a couple of hours, mostly south of the Reservoir, but we were parked just north of it, so we did see that end of the park. It wasn't crowded, though there was a line at the Belvedere Castle, but there were people everywhere and the people-watching was a major element of the experience. There were obvious couples of every description--young, old, straight, gay, black, white, mixed and multi-colored--and lots of parents (particularly mothers) with children ranging from newborns to retirement age, gangs of friends, co-workers, and many people there alone, all dressed in everything from fishnets to hiking gear with stops along the way for a fabulous feathered coat and high-end business wear. All engaged with their space, smiling and nodding to each other as they rambled and photographed and sat. Down by one of the ponds there was a very excited dog (ducks! there were ducks! in the water! right there! ducks!) and some cute kids climbing on the statue of Hans Christian Anderson.

The artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, don't say much about the meaning of their work, but to me this was all about transformation. Every gate you pass through marks a moment in time that is gone and you are a different person on the far side than you were on the near one, if only by virtue of the time you have aged and the experience of walking through the gate. In this case, The Gates also transform their setting, defining it temporarily in a very different way and transforming the experience of the park for everyone in it. It also performed an amazing transformation on the people within the park--here were New Yorkers by the bushelful (together with plenty of out-of-towners) smiling and making eye-contact with strangers.

With the light going, we meandered back to the car and drove down to meet Susan & Daniel at their place. It is always excellent to see them and they took us to a lovely French place around the corner from them. At Cafe Loup we shared wine and conversation while devouring a beet/goat cheese Napoleon and pork loin ([livejournal.com profile] jason237 or oysters and cassoulet (me). We resisted our hosts encouragement to stay the night, hopped back in the MINI and drove home. As usual, there was nasty weather in Connecticut (is there such a thing as a clear night in that state?) but we made it with no problems and not too slowly.
lillibet: (Default)
On the spur of the moment, [livejournal.com profile] jason237 and I decided to drive to New York yesterday to see The Gates in Central Park. We had some adventures getting there--nothing too drastic, just forgetting things and miscommunicating about routes, etc.--but turned onto 5th Avenue and found on-street parking within a couple of blocks, right near an entrance to the park. It was a gorgeous day for February--sunny and just over 40F--and we had dressed well for the weather, so we were quite comfortable.

The Gates themselves are pretty cool--they vary widely in width to fit all the different path-sizes in the park, but are all the same height. They go up and down hills and stairs, around ponds and across bridges. Their bright orange color stood out from the bare trees and paved paths and iced water, like a golden river amid the landscape. [livejournal.com profile] jason237 was reminded of Fushimi Inari Jinguua, a shrine he'd visited in Japan.

We wandered around the park for a couple of hours, mostly south of the Reservoir, but we were parked just north of it, so we did see that end of the park. It wasn't crowded, though there was a line at the Belvedere Castle, but there were people everywhere and the people-watching was a major element of the experience. There were obvious couples of every description--young, old, straight, gay, black, white, mixed and multi-colored--and lots of parents (particularly mothers) with children ranging from newborns to retirement age, gangs of friends, co-workers, and many people there alone, all dressed in everything from fishnets to hiking gear with stops along the way for a fabulous feathered coat and high-end business wear. All engaged with their space, smiling and nodding to each other as they rambled and photographed and sat. Down by one of the ponds there was a very excited dog (ducks! there were ducks! in the water! right there! ducks!) and some cute kids climbing on the statue of Hans Christian Anderson.

The artists, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, don't say much about the meaning of their work, but to me this was all about transformation. Every gate you pass through marks a moment in time that is gone and you are a different person on the far side than you were on the near one, if only by virtue of the time you have aged and the experience of walking through the gate. In this case, The Gates also transform their setting, defining it temporarily in a very different way and transforming the experience of the park for everyone in it. It also performed an amazing transformation on the people within the park--here were New Yorkers by the bushelful (together with plenty of out-of-towners) smiling and making eye-contact with strangers.

With the light going, we meandered back to the car and drove down to meet Susan & Daniel at their place. It is always excellent to see them and they took us to a lovely French place around the corner from them. At Cafe Loup we shared wine and conversation while devouring a beet/goat cheese Napoleon and pork loin ([livejournal.com profile] jason237 or oysters and cassoulet (me). We resisted our hosts encouragement to stay the night, hopped back in the MINI and drove home. As usual, there was nasty weather in Connecticut (is there such a thing as a clear night in that state?) but we made it with no problems and not too slowly.
lillibet: (Default)
It's our second wedding anniversary and we're having a quiet day at home
after a fun weekend out and about. On the one hand, it's very hard to
believe that it's been two years already, but on the other hand, we fit so
comfortably that it's hard to believe it hasn't been a decade, at least.

Jason's parents spent the week touring around western England and Wales,
while Jason and I both had very productive weeks. A representative from the
removal company came to assess the volume of stuff we have and someone from
the realtor's office came to look over the state of the flat, so it begins
to feel like we'll be moving soon. I even packed a couple of boxes, mostly
to assuage my feeling that I should be doing something--the removers will do
most of our packing for us.

On Friday evening Jason and I caught a train from Waterloo out to Exeter,
where Trish & Steve picked us up. We spent the night in a B&B they'd found
there and headed out the next morning to explore Cornwall. Our first stop
was at Tintagel, the dramatic headland where legend has it that King Arthur
was born. That seems highly unlikely, but human construction has been
discovered dating back about 2000 years and some of the walls of the
medieval castle built by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, are still standing.
Jason, Steve and I climbed all around the site, enjoying the stunning
views. Trish had forgotten her inhalers and her asthma had been bad earlier
in the week, so she didn't want to risk the steep climb and strolled
around the more level sections on the mainland while we went over to the
island.

Leaving there we went on to St. Ives, a lovely beach town. We met no men
with sacks, but we did find the Tate St. Ives, a nifty modern art gallery
exhibiting works by Naum Gabo, Barbara Hepworth and other artists who worked
in the area. There were special exhibits of the work of Richard Long and
Kosh Ito, which were cool. The building has some wonderful views of the
beach and after watching from the museum's rooftop cafe, we strolled down to
put our toes in the water.

Trudging back up the hill to our car, we continued on out to Land's End at
the very tip of Cornwall. Sadly, the National Trust was outbid for the land
when last it came on the market and whoever bought it put a terribly cheesy
commercial themepark up. Fortunately, it was completely closed up for the
season. So we could park for free and stroll out to watch the sun making
dramatic effects over the lighthouse just off shore. It was amazingly still
there--I expect headlands to be extremely windy, but it was completely
calm. Sadly, this also meant that the bugs were swarming, so we decided not
to stay through the sunset.

We drove on into Penzance and finally found a B&B with rooms available--nice
rooms and quite cheap, so we felt very lucky. We wandered down the
Promenade along the ocean until we found a pub that seemed promising--the
Dolphin Inn, I believe--and had a good, simple seafood dinner in a nice
cozy ambience.

In the morning we made it up and out--delayed by a full English breakfast,
of course--in order to get to The Eden Project before the crowds got too
bad. I recommend checking out their website (www.edenproject.com). It's a
project built into an abandoned clay pit that encompasses outdoor plots full
of plantings, as well as two huge biomes. We took the tour through the Warm
Temperate Biome that features the plants of the Mediterranean Region and
California, as well as the very distinct Fynbus area of South Africa. From
there we walked across the "Link" to the Humid Tropics Biome, which includes
plants from Malaysia, South America, West Africa and others. We got to see
many of the plants spices come from as well as rubber trees, cocoa plants,
coffee trees, cola nuts, etc. The biome lived up to its name and was
extremely humid and tropical, so we were glad to finally leave the dome and
return to the lovely, sunny-but-cool English day. We wandered for a bit
through the outside plots of various plants including lavendar, hemp, tea
and sunflowers. Eventually we found a table outside the Link and had a nice
lunch before making our way back out of the pit to the Visitor Center and
the gift shop. The place is well set up to accommodate the hordes of
visitors they get, with shuttle busses running continuously between the
Visitor Center and the many parking lots, each named for a fruit--our car
was in Plum 1.

Leaving Eden we drove east along the coast for a bit--I slept through most
of this part--and then turned north to cross the Dartmoor National Park.
Around the midpoint we pulled into a car park, where we were greeted by
several wild ponies looking for handouts. There was a small peak over the
road, so we climbed up to what was perhaps the ruins of a hillfort and
looked out all around us at the rolling hillsides dotted with sheep and cows
and ponies. It was a gorgeous day.

Back in the car, we went on to Exeter, where we returned the room key Jason
had accidentally brought along on our journey and had a quick meal at ASK,
one of the many national pizza/pasta chains here. It was about 8:30pm by
the time we had finished, but Steve felt up to the drive, so we headed back
to London, rather than find a place for the night. There was little
traffic and we made it in just under four hours, with two short stops.

Today is pretty quiet. Steve and I went to return the car first thing this
morning and then he and Trish went off to see Kew Gardens perhaps. We will
all meet up this evening at YMing, where Jo will join us for dinner.
lillibet: (Default)
Our time here begins to seem very short, with only six weeks left until we
return to the States. We are trying very hard to stay focused on being
here, not looking forward to the future too intently, and getting to as many
of the sights we've missed as we can in the time remaining.

We were very sorry to say goodbye to Andrew Rose on Saturday morning. He
was a truly excellent guest--he made us dinner (rainbow trout fillets in a
lemon-ginger sauce with wild rice and spinach), he did dishes, and he was a
very interesting conversationalist. Best of all, perhaps, he took us to see
the Lucian Freud retrospective at the Tate Britain and helped us to
appreciate Freud's work and understand why Freud is such a controversial
figure in the art world.

On Friday evening we met him downtown for dinner at Orso, an Italian place
near Covent Garden that I like very much. I had courgette flowers stuffed
wtih parma ham, cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes and then deep-fried, followed
by the pot-roasted rabbit in a tarragon wine sauce with asparagus and the
poached peach with mascarpone. Jason's salad and grilled lamb were good and
Andrew seemed to enjoy his broad bean soup with artichoke hearts and very
tender venison steaks, followed by a pear and almond tarte. It was nice to
have a chance to just sit and chat together.

He went off to join his family on Saturday and we spent the day at the
National Theatre, seeing Tom Stoppard's new trilogy of plays, _The Coast of
Utopia_. It's about a group of influential Russian intellectuals (Mikhail
Bakunin, Vissarion Berlinsky, Aleksandr Herzen, Nikolai Ogarev, Ivan
Turgenev, etc.) in the mid-19th century and the development of Russian
political philosophy during that time. The same actors played the same
characters throughout the three plays and it was a very talented group. The
trilogy was very interesting and quite clever, but not terribly coherent.
The first play could possibly be staged on its own, but it is hard to
imagine the other two being successful without the context provided by the
others. As usual with Stoppard, it's more about the ideas and the words
than the characters or the story. Twelve hours at the theatre (with two
ninety minute breaks) makes for a long day, but the seats were reasonably
comfortable and it was definitely the way to make sense of the project.

While we were off learning philosophy, Wes & Michelle (an old MIT friend and
his girlfriend) had arrived from San Francisco and found the keys we'd left
from them. By the time we got home, they had succumbed to jet lag and gone
to bed. We did see them briefly on Sunday morning before they went off to
Oxford to visit other friends and we took the train out to Windsor for the
day.

After picking up our tickets to the castle at the gate, we actually headed
out into the Home Park surrounding it to visit Frogmore House. This is a
mansion, built in the late 17th century, adjacent to the royal lands and
about a mile from the castle. It was purchased in the late 18th century by
George III, who started the tradition of keeping a dairy herd on its lands.
We passed some of the cows out standing in their field on our way onto the
estate.

George III gave the estate to his Queen and it passed to her daughter, from
whose estate it was purchased by the Crown in the mid 19th century and
formally annexed to the royal domain. Victoria's mother, the Duchess of
Kent, lived there for the last twenty years of her life, and various other
royals followed her. It is no longer a royal residence, but the house and
gardens are frequently used by the Royal Family and are only open to the
public on a few days of the year, so we were very lucky to see it.

Our first stop, as we walked through the lovely gardens, was the Royal
Mausolem, where Price Albert and Queen Victoria are buried. It is decorated
in an Italian Renaissance style, with the paintings in the style of Raphael,
whom Albert considered to be the greatest artist of all time. It is filled
with gorgeous marble, sculptures of various relatives of the royal couple,
and memorials all set in chapels around the central tomb, with its marble
effigies of Victoria & Albert. One of the most touching pieces was the
plaque in memory of John Brown, engraved with the verse from Matthew 25,
`Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little,
I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.'

Leaving there, we wound our way through the gardens, past the mausoleum for
the Duchess of Kent and the Swiss Seat alongside the lake, and up to the
main house. We went through the public rooms of the house, each of which
have been restored to their appearance after one of the major renovations to
the house by Queen Charlotte, the Duchess of Kent, or Queen Mary. After
seeing the rooms we walked out to see the other structures in the gardens--
Queen Victoria's Tea House, John Brown's Water Fountain, the Gothic Ruin and
the Indian Kiosk--and then made our way back to Windsor Castle, grabbing a
quick lunch along the way.

We went through the exhibition on the castle's history from William the
Conqueror to the present, which had an extensive section about the
restoration and renovation of the section of the castle destroyed by fire in
1992. Then we strolled through the Outer Ward and along the Northern
Terrace where we found the long line to visit Queen Mary's dollhouse and the
State Apartments. The dollhouse is impressive--it's enormous and everything
in it works (the electricity, the plumbing, etc.) and the paintings are all
originals and the books in the library are genuine. But far more impressive
are the State Apartments, where the ceremonial functions take place. The
new rooms are indistinguishable from the older ones and filled with
beautiful artworks from the Royal Collection, including many famous
portraits of the royal family and paintings by Van Dyck, Durer and
Rembrandt, among others.

Leaving the apartments, we considered strolling through the moat garden, but
decided that our feet were close to done for the day. We wandered out onto
the East Terrace to see that face of the castle--it is such an enormous
place! One of the oddest things about visiting Windsor is that it is hard
by Heathrow and there are planes descending right over the castle every
minute or two. It is strange to be gazing at a medieval castle and suddnely
have a Virgin Atlantic flight come roaring over the walls with landing gear
deployed, like some monstrous mechanical hunting falcon.

Sadly, St. George's Chapel was closed for the day, but I made Jason look at
a book of pictures of the interior in the gift shop before we walked back
down around the outer walls to the train station. We were pretty pooped by
the time we got back to the flat. There was a message from Jo Guthrie and
when I returned her call she said she desperately needed to get out of the
house and would we like to meet her for dinner. I suggested that she come
over for tuna casserole, if that didn't sound too boring. She did and we
had a fun, casual supper before taking the bus up to Wood Green to see
_Reign of Fire_ starring Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey. It had
gotten pretty bad reviews, but we enjoyed its tale of survivors fighting
back--with helicopters and explosives-- against the dragons who had risen
from their subterranean sleep to devastate the world, starting with London.

Monday was a bank holiday and our net connection was down, hampering Jason's
ability to work, so we went down to see the Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Getting there was a bit complicated and took us to Brixton for the first
time, but we made it eventually and had a nice lunch in their cafe before
entering the gallery proper. It is England's oldest picture gallery, built
to house the collection of Dulwich College, just over the road. The
extensive use of sky-lights by architect Sir John Soane made this a model for
most later art galleries. The collection includes wonderful works by
Canaletto, Poussin, Watteau, Claude, Murillo and Raphael, as well as three
pieces by Rembrandt. One of those, "Jacob II de Gheyn," has been stolen
from the gallery four times. There was a special exhibit on about the Dutch
Italianates, which was interesting, and we were glad to have made it there.

Wes & Michelle came back from Oxford late on Monday night and we stayed up
too late chatting on Monday night. Jason ran off to work on Tuesday
morning, but the rest of us were slow starting. Our guests eventually went
off to explore London and I went to the Islington Chiropractic Clinic to see
if someone there could do something for my right heel, which has been
hurting for a couple of months. The four of us joined back up in the
evening at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park to see _As You Like It_.
It was a good production, with the best Rosalind I've seen and a very
interesting take on the character of Jaques. The stage business added some
very interesting undertones to the play that enriched it without distracting
from the script. I had been afraid it would be as cold as it was the last
time we were there, but it was a very pleasant and enjoyable evening.

Jason is leaving tomorrow for a wedding in California, while I stay here and
look after our guests and get ready for the next ones--Jason's parents--who
will join us next week. So I'm making dinner tonight. Tomorrow We,
Michelle and I will go to see Michael Frayn's play, _Benefactors_, together
with Jo, who knows Wes, but doesn't know that he is in town. That should
make for a fun surprise!

Hope you are all well and have fun plans for Labor Day Weekend. If all goes
according to plan, we will own a house by 5pm tomorrow, so keep your fingers
crossed that nothing goes wrong.
lillibet: (Default)
I just can't believe how quickly this month is going!

I spent most of last week working on various projects and cleaning the
house. We did get out to see _About a Boy_, which we both enjoyed very
much. They had changed a lot of the details from the book, but really stuck
to the point and sense of it very well and Hugh Grant did a great job with
the lead role.

Our washing machine having decided once again to stop spinning the week
before, I had scheduled a tech to come look at it on Monday. He didn't
actually make it until Wednesday, which was a bit frustrating, and then
announced that it needed a new motor and timer and together with his time
that would cost two hundred quid. A quick call to the property manager
revealed that a new one would cost much less than that and he promised to
get on it right away. He called back in a few hours to say that the shop
wouldn't deliver until Saturday morning, would that be okay. When we said
no, he wrangled with them a bit and they agreed to do it first thing on
Friday morning, instead. They came through on their promise and the new
machine was installed and working by ten in the morning, so I was able to
have clean sheets for our next guest, after all.

Andrew Rose arrived on Friday evening. He's from New York City and is a
friend of a friend from California. Andrew is an artist and art historian,
who had been teaching in Spain for six weeks, followed by a week in Paris
and then a week in London on his own before his family arrive from L.A. this
Saturday. He's a fun, talkative, interesting person and we had a lovely
dinner together at YMing, which never fails to impress our guests. The head
waiter there has taken a personal interest in us and started lecturing us on
what to order and in what order to eat it, which is kind of fun.

On Saturday morning, Jason and I took the train up to York. Along the way,
our train came to a stop at one point and after a few minutes it was
explained that some kids had thrown stones at the front of the train and
shattered the outer layer of the windscreen. We proceeded at a reduced pace
to Peterborough, where we were able to switch to a different train and
continue our journey. Throughout the first part of the trip the many
children in the car had been very noisy and when we settled ourselves in the
new train, another family had taken the seats across from us, so we fled
into the next car, which had open seats and was much quieter.

We arrived in York about an hour late, around 12:30pm. We grabbed lunch at
a Pizza Express located on the ground floor of what we theorize was formerly
a grand hotel, on the banks of the River Ouse. We continued through the old
town and out the Monkbar (one of the gates in the wall that surrounds the
old town) to find our hotel--the Monkbar, as it happens--just around the
corner. We checked in and found our room to be very pleasant, with a
gorgeous four-poster bed.

Leaving our bags, we headed back into town towards the Jorvik Viking Centre.
Archeologists have unearthed a significant amount of material from the
Viking period of the town's history and the centre's exhibits about that
time are divided into four parts. First there is a fairly cheesy "time
travel" motion-movie bit that shows a couple proceeding back in time, their
clothing changing at each stop along the way. After that visitors are
loaded into cars--like the ones at the Haunted Mansion in Disneyworld--and
taken through a reconstruction of a section of the Viking town, complete
with riverfront, streets, shops, houses and backyards--complete with a man
straining in an outhouse. The lack of oxygen in the soil here has preserved
a remarkable amount of material for study. At the end of the ride is a
small exhibition hall explaining various aspects of Viking life in more
detail, with a young man in a reasonable facsimile of the clothing of a
Viking craftsman striking coins for the kids.

The last section is a bit difficult to describe in words. In a darker
hall, there were several glass cases displaying artifacts of the Vikings.
Each one was split on the diagonal by a two-way mirror. In front of the
mirror in each case was a collection of artifacts, artfully arranged on
black plinths and spot-lit. Every 20 seconds, the lights behind the mirror
would come on to reveal a scene in which this particular category of items
(toys, cooking implements, tools of various trades) might have been used,
with the reflections of the items fitting perfectly into the scene. This
was one of the most interesting forms of display we had ever seen.

Leaving the centre, we headed across town to the York Castle Museum. What
remains today of York Castle is Clifford's Tower (on the mound where William
the Conqueror first built a keep in 1068), the former Female Prison,
Debtors Prison, and the Court of Assizes. The former two
buildings--constructed in the 18th century--now house the museum. This was
based on the collection of a Dr. John Kirk, who wanted to chronicle the
changing face of domestic life that he saw around him at the turn of the
20th century. From this kernel, the museum has expanded to include two
reconstructions of street scenes--one Victorian, the other Edwardian,
several period rooms (a Victorian parlor, a 17th century dining hall, a
1950's front room, etc.), a collection of arms & armor,
historical/sociological exhibits about the impact of the Civil War and World
War II on York, collections of clothing and household goods over the past
300 years, a running water mill moved from elsewhere in the county, prison
cells and an exercise yard from the functioning era of the Debtors Prison.
It goes on and on and it's all remarkably interesting and well-presented.

After a few hours there, we climbed up to the top of Clifford's
Tower--or the shell thereof--to look out over the surrounding town. It is a
strange shape, like a four-leaf clover, leading to the local nickname, "The
Mince Pie," for its resemblance to a high meat pie.

By the time we were done there, we were beat, so we went back to the hotel
for a nap. Heading out again around seven, we walked the walls of the town
until they closed at dusk, then found our way along the River Foss and back
through the center of town until we found the restaurant we'd picked
earlier, The Limehouse. Jason chose the goat cheese salad, the fillet steak
with mushrooms and onions in a red wine sauce, and the "brandy snap basket
with pimms syllabub and strawberries," a concoction of crispy cookies, cream
and fruit, soaked in three different kinds of alcohol. My picks were the
scallops with garlic confit wrapped in filo; the pastry case filled with
fish, scallops, mussels and prawns in a dill cream sauce; and a couple of
scoops of vanilla and cinammon ice creams, with a glass of muscat to wash it
down. We agreed later that while it was an acceptable meal, each of the
dishes had fallen somewhat short of its potential mark, lacking the
finishing touch that would have made it great.

After a good night's sleep in our lovely bed, we started the next day with
breakfast at the hotel's buffet. We checked out, leaving our bags, and
heading along the town walls in the opposite direction from the one we'd
chosen the night before. That brought us around behind lovely gardens and
over to the York City Art Gallery. This was a better collection than we'd
expected. It included paintings from 1300-2000, a small collection of
studio pottery, and "Mechatronic Circus," a special exhibit consisting of
various scultures animated by sewing machines and other small motors.

From there we went through the former grounds of St. Mary's Abbey to the
Yorkshire Museum. This combines the functions of a science and local
history museum rolled into one, with exhibits about flight and the local
aquatic dinosaurs from the period when York was covered by a warm salty sea,
as well as displays of the artifacts and explanations of the events and
trends making up the complex history of the area. These included items
associated with the Brigantes, the Romans, the Britons, the Anglo-Saxons,
the Vikings, and the Normans, ending with a section detailing the history of
St. Mary's Abbey and including a spot where visitors can stand to look out
at the ruins of the abbey church.

Our last stop before lunch was the hall of the Merchant Adventurers Guild.
This is a gorgeous medieval building with interesting history about the
organization of traders who monopolized imports into York from the 14th to
19th centuries.

Then we tried to get lunch. We stopped at a Greek taverna, ordered food and
drinks, were brought our drinks, and then ignored completely for 30
minutes. At that point we asked if there were a problem and were told "is
coming soon." After another ten minutes, we said we'd like to pay for our
drinks and leave and the owner came out to our table, yelled at us, made
offensive remarks about our nationality and ordered us to leave his
restaurant and never return. Happy to oblige, we went on our way, the day's
mood somewhat soured.

We picked up Cornish pasties and ate them in a pretty little square as rain
began to spit down on us. We headed up to the Minster Area and went through
the Treasurer's House. Originally built for the Treasurer of the Minster,
the house was sold off after the post was discontinued during the
Dissolution. As the last holder of that office wrote, as all the treasure
was gone, there was no further need for a treasurer. The house was
massively renovated during the first part of the 20th century and the
National Trust now own and maintain it. There was a concert of Elizabethan
madrigals being performed in the gardens and we sat and listened to them
until the rain grew heavy enough to drive the singers indoors.

We took a brief detour into a nearby shopping street, where I had seen a
couple of dresses I was interested in trying. I started to have a very bad
headache, that was not improved either by retail therapy or the
administration of Advil, which we found at a nearby drug-store. Nonetheless
we headed over to the York Minster. We wandered around there for a while,
examining the nave and the chapter house. We went down into the crypt,
where there is an exhibit concerning the previous occupants of the site--a
Roman fortress, a Norman cathedral, etc. Sadly, my head was steadily
worsening and I needed to get outside, so we did not explore that area fully
and skipped climbing the tower.

Instead, we headed back to the hotel to use their facilities and sit for a
bit in a comfortable atmosphere. Jason found some decongestants for me and
my head slowly began to improve. We collected our bags and had a cab take
us down to the station. We were in time to catch the train before the one
we'd planned to take, but that one was very crowded and without reserved
seats, we couldn't be sure of sitting together. So we waited for the later
train and found our reserved seats. Instead of children, this time we were
kept awake by two girls gabbing on their cell-phones for almost the entire
trip, despite requests from other passengers to keep it down.

By the time we arrived back in London, my head was entirely better. We made
it home, had some pizza and watched a bit more of _Mansfield Park_ before
Andrew got home. We chatted with him for a bit and then I talked to my
parents, who were visiting my sisters in Boston for the weekend.

So that was our weekend in York. It went a bit sour just at the end, but
overall we had a lovely time and would recommend the place for a brief
visit.
lillibet: (Default)
We had a wonderful week with Susan & Daniel. On Sunday evening we all met
up at Pierre Victoire in Soho. We hadn't been there in eons, but the lamb
steak is still tasty and their piano player is still marvelously
entertaining.

On Monday, Jason's 30th birthday, our guests went off to Kew Gardens during
the day--and ran into friends from Boston there--and then we all met up in
the evening to see _Lobby Hero_. Written by Kenneth Lonnergan, author of
_This Is Our Youth_, it starred David Tennant as a security guard in a New
York apartment building. He did such a good job playing a fairly whiny
loser that Susan was astonished to learn that he was the RSC's romantic lead
last year in _The Rivals_ and _Romeo & Juliet_. The script, like TIOY, is
very wordy, with lots of long monologues/rants. The situation the
playwright created was very clever and the actors did a good job of making
themselves believable, even with the added hurdle of New York accents.

After the show we strolled down to Drury Lane for supper at Sarastro. We've
seen their ads in most of the theatre programmes we've bought in the past
two years, but never made it there before. Run by an English opera
buff--a small man with an elaborately carved walking stick who reminded me
of Tom Waits' Renfield--Sarastro's dining room is a lavish den, draped and
festooned with rich fabrics. There is a loft built all around the edges,
with additional tables tucked into the "opera boxes" thus created.
Sequestered at a cave-like table in a rear corner, we had a fun meal. The
food wasn't particularly good, but the atmosphere is a hoot.

Susan & Daniel got out of the city on Tuesday and went up to see Oxford.
Jason went up to Cambridge to have Thai food with his officemates there and
they took him go-carting in the afternoon. In the evening I made chicken
Isabel (with mushrooms, artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes and capers in a
lemon wine sauce, over pasta) and Daniel beat us all at Trivial Pursuit.

On Wednesday, Susan & Daniel took the bus to Tottenham Court Road and
went book-shopping down Charing Cross Road. In the evening we all went over
to the lovely home of Linda Branagan's cousin, Jo Guthrie, in Little
Venice. She served us a tasty meal of cheeses and quiche and we were joined
in the evening by her friend, Christina, an American who has lived in the UK
for the last 16 years. The scheduled tube strike had begun, so Susan &
Daniel got a ride in a London black cab, always a treat.

They had wanted to see the Lucian Freud exhibit at the Tate Britain
(http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/freud/default.htm) and got
tickets for Thursday morning. With the tube strike on, they had quite an
adventure getting there, but eventually arrived. They enjoyed the
exhibition and then took a boat down the Thames to the Tower of London,
where Daniel got an adorable bear for his mother. It was dressed as a
member of the Welsh Guard, with a little poem on its tag that Susan amused
us all by reading, rap-style.

Fearing severe delays and heavy traffic, Jason and I left home at 4pm. We
caught the bus that goes from Manor House to Waterloo, which let us off at
the end of the bridge in just under 45 minutes--faster than we could have
done the trip by tube. With an hour to kill before our reservation, we
decided to visit the Hayward Gallery (http://www.hayward.org.uk/). Their
two exhibits of the work of Ansel Adams and William Eggleston provided a
very interesting comparison and contrast between the black and white
majestic elegance of Ansel's landscapes and the almost claustrophobic
intensity of Eggleston's color photographs.

We wandered around to the front of the Royal Festival Hall and stopped in
the bookshop there for a few minutes before going upstairs to The People's
Palace, where Susan & Daniel were waiting for us. The cavernous restaurant
with its enormous bank of windows--shaded by light-activated screens--was
surprisingly wonderful. Jason started with the tender and delicate spiced
pickled herring, while Susan had a smoked duck salad, Daniel tucked into the
arugula salad, and I couldn't resist the beef carpaccio with quail eggs.
Off to a good start, we moved on to the mains. Segregating by sex, the boys
had the lamb--marinated with mint and rosemary and served with lentils and
chorizo--while Susan and I had the roast breast of corn-fed chicken with
bacon on wonderfully smooth, buttery mash. The desserts were too good to
pass up, so Jason had the sherry trifle, while Susan took the hot chocolate
fondant, Daniel chose the lime parfait with coconut macaroon, and I had an
exquisite blackberry and apple bavarois.

Replete, we rolled next door to the National Theatre and saw _The
Mentalists_. It was presented in their new "Loft" space that has only 100
seats. It's an intimate, almost cramped space, and after a hot week it was
stifling up there in the rafters. Fortunately, the performance was
sufficiently engaging to take our minds off the heat. _The Mentalists_ is a
two-man show about old friends meeting in a hotel room in Finsbury Park to
film the utopian infomercial that one of them has concocted. The play is
interesting, but the real strength of this production was the wonderful
performances of the two actors. One interesting cultural note--early in the
play, the two characters mention that their relationship goes back to their
days at "Barnardo's," which English audience members would have recognized
as homes for orphaned/abandoned children.

By the time the show got out, the tube strike had ended, but the bus was so
easy that we returned home that way. Being on so many useful bus lines (to
Camden, to London Bridge, to Waterloo, to Trafalgar Square) is another
feature of our flat.

On Friday I went for a walk through the park and up Green Lanes a bit with
Susan & Daniel and then made my "Greek lunch" of stir-fried lamb with pita,
tzatziki and Greek salad for us to enjoy together before they needed to
leave. We were very sad to say goodbye to Susan & Daniel and see them off
to the airport. I got email to say that they made it home to New York
easily, but that their building was part of the black-out in Manhattan on
Saturday. Power restored, they should be getting back to their regular
schedule this week.

That evening we ordered Chinese food, but the chef at our favorite place is
on holiday and his replacement's attempts were sufficiently bad that we
gave up a few bites in and ordered pizza. We hope the head chef has a
lovely vacation and comes back very soon!

On Saturday we got to see Barbara and to meet her barrister beau, Philip,
for the first time. We arrived at her new flat in time to help her put away
the astonishing quantity and variety of fruit and veg she'd picked up at the
Portabello Road market, which is just around the corner. As she said, it's
like living next to Haymarket--no, of course you won't eat a whole flat of
plums, but when it's only a pound, what can you do? She had also gotten a
tasty assortment of salami, pate, chorizo and olives, so once Philip arrived
with champagne we moved out to her patio and had a lovely cocktail hour
getting to know one another before heading off to dinner.

Barbara had booked us a table at 192, a very trendy place not far from her
flat. Neither Philip nor I could pass up the seared fois gras starter,
while Barbara had the pecorino gnocchi and Jason chose the crab spring
roll. For mains, Barbara and Jason picked the sea bream, which they agreed
was delicious. Philip went with the grilled turbot and I had the "squab
pigeon" with lentils, which was fine, but not spectacular--I think it might
have been just a tad undercooked. Washed down by a citrusy Sancerre, it was
a very pleasant meal. It was hard to forego the roasted apricot crepes, but
Barbara promised us fresh fruit on the patio, so we went back to her place
and enjoyed berries over ginger ice cream with port. That was superb. We
had a great time and were so pleased to meet Philip, who is very pleasant
and seems intelligent, elegant and kind. Jason and I have decided that
Barbara may keep him, if she likes :)

We slept late on Sunday and didn't get much accomplished during the day. We
had been promising ourselves burgers for days, so we took ourselves down to
Bond Street to find the Tootsie's there. I think their burgers were not
quite as good as the ones we had at their restaurant in Brighton, but they
were still far better than anything else we've had since leaving
California.

While all this was going on, the house-buying continued. Beckie continues to
do a great job of managing the whole process. We all spent the early part
of the week biting our nails as the sellers puzzled everyone involved (their
agent and lawyer, as well as ours) with their uncooperative stance in the
purchase & sale negotiations. But in the end, it all worked out and we're
buying the place for slightly less than our offer! This week they say
they'd like to close as soon as possible, maybe by the 15th of August,
instead of the 30th. We have to see if our lenders and lawyers can actually
be ready by then, but it's fine with us. In the meantime I've been working
on finding contractors to do the minor work we'd like done on the house and
figuring out exactly what that is.

This week I'm doing house chores and getting ready for Beckie's arrival at
the end of the week. We have a very exciting visit planned for her and I'm
really looking forward to having fun together.
lillibet: (Default)
Anne & George arrived on Thursday 20 June and we had a lovely couple of days
with them. Our big adventure together was going to see _Rome & Jewels_ at
the Peacock Theatre, Sadler's Wells' West End venue. It is a very loose
adaptation of Shakespeare's _Romeo & Juliet_ in hip-hop style. Overall, the
effect was a lot like a ballet: what's happening on stage is interesting and
occasionally you figure out where in the plot they are now. One of the
different aspects was that there was no physical "Jewels," she is an idea
"conjured" by Rome--he talks to her and mimes interacting with her, but she
is invisible. The director's notes also said that he chose to spell it
"Jewels" in order to evoke the hip-hop community's fascination with jewelry.
So the woman becomes in some ways irrelevant, she is just the idea with
which the man justifies the violence in his life. I enjoyed a chance to see
the DJs spin--they had a video set-up such that we could really see what
they were doing. The dancing was incredible--such a combination of artistry
and athleticism. One interesting approach the director used was to slow
down some of the hip-hop elements, so that the audience can see the details
of the technique that are often lost in the speed of performance.

After the show we made our way through the rain to a new find in the area,
an Italian place called Orso. Everything there was very tasty--I especially
liked Jason's deep-fried zucchini flowers stuffed with cheese and prociutto
and they served me the best carpaccio I've had in ages. George and I were
very happy with our veal in mushroom cream sauce and Anne was sure her roast
pork with cracklin' skin was the winner. Only Jason wasn't entirely happy
with his braised rabbit, but he agreed we could go there again when we need
to be in that neighborhood.

Having been out late, it was difficult to drag ourselves out of bed in time
to make the first tube at 5:30am, but we did it. There was some confusion
at the airport, since our British Midlands flight was actually a Lufthansa
flight and therefore in a different terminal from the BMI desks. But we
made our flight in plenty of time and got to Cologne easily enough. The
Hotel Cerano was on a quiet street about four blocks from the cathedral. It
was very hot in Cologne that day and we were tired, but after checking in
and dropping off our bags we valiantly headed out to catch a few of the
major sites on our one day there. We started at the extremely gothic
cathedral, where we saw lovely floor mosaics and interesting chapels. One
thing that made us laugh a bit was the "Schmuckenmadonna." The word
"schmuck" apparently means "jewel" in German and this is a jewel-encrusted
statue of Mary that is reputed to have accomplished many miracles through
the ages. Just across the plaza from the cathedral is a museum of Roman and
early German artifacts from all over the Cologne area. It was an important
Roman town and they have many interesting remnants to prove it. One of my
favorite items was an actual "milestone" that marked one of the roads around
Cologne.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat and then walked down the shady riverside
promenade for a ways before cutting back into the streets. We walked past
our first German "Rathaus," or city hall, to Gross St. Martin, the other
prominent tower of the Cologne skyline. The church was largely destroyed
during WWII, but has been rebuilt according to the original plans. Sadly,
very little of the interior decoration remains, but the stained-glass
windows were very creatively restored. It looked like they had taken the
pieces of glass they could conserve and replaced what was lost with clear
glass. The overall effect was of a very serene space and it was a cool
refuge from the day.

We meant to go to the art museum, but ended up in the wrong place--our
almost total lack of German was a handicap. So instead we spent an hour or
so in the design museum, which had particularly good exhibits in the Art
Nouveau style that we both love. By the time we were done there, we were
both done in, so we walked back to the hotel, took cold showers and passed
out for a couple of hours.

Emerging into the sultry evening, we strolled through the pedestrianized
shopping area a couple of blocks away and found an Italian restaurant
serving dinner at sidewalk tables. We shared a salad of arugula with fried
speck (somewhere between bacon and prociutto) that was tasty and then both
had the grilled fillet of lamb with rosemary potatoes. We thought of an
evening stroll, but decided we were still tired and needed to be up and out
early in the morning.

On Sunday we picked up our car at the main train station, conveniently
located next to the cathedral. Hopping in our silver Skoda hatchback, we
zipped down the Autobahn--love the no-speed-limit sections--to Koblenz and
turned west on the smaller road along the Mosel river. This is one of
Germany's biggest wine-producing regions and the vineyards grow up every
hillside at angles that made us wonder how they ever manage to harvest
them. We stopped briefly to take a picture of the castle overlooking
Cochem, but our first real break was in Zell, where we got some pizza and
tasted their famous "Schwarze Katz" wine. The story is that when some
wine-merchants came through the valley, trying to decide what wine to buy, a
black cat jumped on a wine-barrel and raised its hackles, spitting and
yowling, as if trying to save the best stuff for itself. The merchants
established a very lucrative relationship with the town and the cat became
their symbol. We tried the "trocken" (dry), "halbtrocken" (semi-dry) and
"lieblich" (sweet) varieties and decided to take a bottle of the dry home
with us.

Moving on from Zell, we stopped again briefly in Bernkastel-Kues to stroll
through the picturesque streets and get some ice cream before retreating to
our air conditioned car and continuing on to Trier. Despite our hotel
having a different name than we'd expected, we found it and checked in. Set
slightly outside of the main part of town, it is an older, American style
hotel--but without the benefits of air conditioning. We opened the windows
overlooking a gorgeous view across the Mosel and headed off again,
determined to see Luxemburg while we were so close.

In an hour we were in Luxemburg City, where we parked and strolled for an
hour. Having arrived so late in the day, the only thing that was open was
an interesting church, but we walked through the main square of the old
town, where a jazz band was entertaining the summer crowd, and went over to
look across what was once a river and is now a small stream through a
gorgeous park in the gorge east of the city. On the other side was a
building that looked like a castle or palace, but which our maps identified
as the headquarters of the national bank. Our curiosity satisfied and not
yet being hungry for dinner, we retrieved our car from the lot and headed
back to Germany.

There was a huge festival taking place in the pedestrianized old town of
Trier. In addition to hundreds of booths and stands--including several
impressive temporary bars--there were at least five different stages with
bands of various types performing for the crowds. The largest was set into
the main arch of the Porta Nigra, the remains of one of the gates in the
wall built by the Romans around what was then the northernmost outpost of
their empire. Trier thus lays claim to being the oldest city in Germany.
It is also the birthplace of Karl Marx. As we strolled around town, we came
across "Modehaus Marx," a decidedly bourgeois clothing store. We also saw
the basilica originally erected by Constantine, apparently extensively
restored and now attached to an alarmingly pink baroque church with lovely
gardens. Eventually we chose an Italian restaurant for dinner and had a
mediocre meal of veal saltimboca and gnocchi in meat sauce before heading
back to our hotel for the night.

Monday morning we were on the road reasonably early and made it back to
Koblenz on the Autobahn in good time. We had a bit of trouble finding
Ehrenbach castle, but eventually tracked it down on the eastern cliffs of
the Rhine. Ehrenbach castle itself wasn't terribly interesting, but the
views from its battlements were lovely and its strategic importance obvious,
as it overlooks the confluence of the Rhine and the Mosel. We could look
across and see the "Deutches Eck," or "German Corner," where the rivers
meet. It is decorated with a statue of Kaiser Wilhelm that was destroyed in
WWII, but has been replaced as a somewhat controversial symbol of German
unity. Leaving there, to the strains of Aida being rehearsed for a
performance that night, we crossed back to the western side of the Rhine and
went down that fabled road, enjoying stunning views around every bend.

Our only stop along the way was at St. Goar, where we visited Rheinfels
castle. Towering above the town, this was the fortress of one of the
robber-baron families who exacted tolls from the river traffic for
centuries. Little remains except ruins, but there's a mildly interesting
museum and they've built a hotel and restaurant into the outer walls. The
main keep is still mostly intact and the view from the top is breathtaking.
After scrambling about the walls, we were ready for lunch and found a place
on the pedestrianized shopping street of St. Goar that provided us with our
first bratwurst of the trip.

Continuing south and east, we swung around Mainz and crossed the river again
to Wiesbaden. Just west of the city is a monastery that was mentioned in
our guidebook as being the filming location for _The Name of the Rose_.
Intrigued, we found the place and were somewhat surprised to find it looked
nothing whatsoever like our memories of the movie. Instead of forbidding
grey stone, we found cheery whitewashed buildings. Touring the church and
dormitory, however, we found one familiar room, an enormous vaulted chamber
which served as the set of the scriptorium in the movie. There was also an
interesting German variation on the cloister, much less open to the elements
than its counterparts further south. The monastery also operates a winery,
so we sampled their wares, but got back on the road without taking any with
us.

The next stage on our journey took us through the charming wooded hills of
the Odenwald. We made one stop, at Michelstadt, to see their bizarre 15th
century Rathaus, set up off the ground on arches, and to peek into the
Gothic church behind it. Back on the road, we sped along the banks of the
lovely Main river, before finally reaching the Autobahn again and zooming
south to Rothenburg op der Tauber, a charming medieval walled town on the
banks of the Tauber river.

I had received confirmation of our reservation at the Hotel Gerberhaus, but
they had no record of us. Fortunately, they were able to find a room for us
a few blocks closer to the center of town, at the Gasthof Glocke.
Unfortunately, by the time we'd sorted out our accommodations, it was almost
10pm and everything in town was closed--except the McDonald's. Not gourmet
fare, but after a long day on the road we were just happy not to go to bed
hungry.

The next morning we followed the path outlined in the hotel's brochure,
which took us to the main square, with its two-section Rathaus in Gothic and
Renaissance styles. We climed the 60-meter tower to look out over the town.
It reminded us of San Gimignano, with all the towers over the various gates
in the medieval wall. Descending to the street, we saw the fountain of
St. George and visited an insanely enormous Christmas shop with millions of
different ornaments and decorations. From there we went on to the church of
St. Jacob, mainly famous for the elaborate carved wooded altarpiece created
to house the "Heilige Blut," or drop of Christ's blood, that made the church
a major pilgrimage site in its day. We found the Burggarten, on the site of
the former castle, looking out over the Tauber. Our last stop was the
Museum of Crime, which outlines legal procedures and--most
dramatically--punishments during the Middle Ages. Jason's favorites were
the elaborate "shame masks" forced upon the perpetrators of various
peace-disturbing infractions like gossipping, lying, and gambling.

Leaving Rothenburg o.d.T. (as it is marked on all the highway signs), we
found the "Romantische Strasse" or "Romantic Road." This led us south
through more picturesque towns, fields and woods, to the Ries Valley. The
valley is 20 km across and quite circular. It was believed to be the crater
of a long-gone volcano, but research earlier in this century proved that it
was created by a meteorite impact 15 million years ago. Apparently the
Apollo crews trained here as part of their moon-landing preparations.

On the southern rim of the crater, we found Harburg castle. The seat of the
Oettingen family, it was first mentioned in writing in 1150, although it
wasn't new at that point. Starving, we decided to take our chances at the
castle's cafe and were rewarded with a tasty bowl of tortellini in brodo and
some of the best bratwurst we had on the trip. After lunch, we were just in
time to make the 3pm tour of the castle. The tour before ours was a horde
of junior-high students and the tour after ours was a special event,
complete with a period-costumed troubadour, for a group of at least fifty
people. But there were only four people on our tour and since none of us
spoke German, the guide--a very friendly, cheerful woman in her 50's--simply
switched to English. We saw the castle's chapel, redone in the baroque
style in 1720, and the wall-walk. That had several interesting protective
features, including fender beams for the hook guns--early rifles with enough
recoil to throw shooters off the wall. Another set of slots looked suitable
for pouring oil or tar on would-be invaders below, but the guide explained
that those were expensive and dangerous, so they combined limestone with
water and poured the resulting acid down on their foes. The most ingenious
devices were wooden "eyeballs" set into holes in the wall. The central hole
was big enough for the barrel of a rifle and could be rotated to shoot in any
direction or to stopper the hole entirely, protecting the shooters from
return fire while they reloaded. After that set of intriguing stories, we
continued around the wall to two different towers used as prisons at various
times. One included two torture chambers, a "dark room" used for sensory
deprivation, and a "sweatroom" by which prisoners could be dehydrated and
tortured by heat. The last stop on the tour was a gorgeous, refurbished,
baroque ballroom.

Leaving Harburg, we continued down the Romantische Strasse, which actually
runs through a tunnel directly under the castle--under the chapel's
cemetary, to be precise. We made it to Augsburg and found our hotel despite
the name again being different from the one we'd been given. After checking
in, we went out to stroll through town. This was the night of Germany's
quarter-final victory in the World Cup, so there was much revelry, including
a huge mob making havoc on Maximillianstrasse, the main drag of the old
town. We edged our way around that, noticed the fairly boring facade of the
Fuggerhaus, and stopped into an interesting church at the end of the
street. The Fuggers were the wealthiest and most influential family in
Augsburg during its heyday as a banking capital in the 15th century. They
endowed a large complex of almshouses which are still inhabited by elderly
folk for "peppercorn rent" in exchange for their prayers for the souls of
the Fuggers. We found this complex, the "Fuggerei" and wandered through
what seemed to be a very pleasant senior community. Chalked on many of the
doors was "20+C+M+B+02," a mysterious symbol we would see again and again.

We passed by the cathedral, but it was closed for the evening. We were
amused to see a young girl in the adjacent park playing ball with a memorial
statue of some dead leader by bouncing her ball off its plinth.

Making our way back toward the hotel we passed a store having a sidewalk
sale and I found two light t-shirts at a bargain price. We hadn't found any
tempting dinner options on our walk, so we decided to try a Chinese place a
couple of blocks from the hotel. It was an adequate meal, but as greasy as
I remember German Chinese food from previous trips.

We were sorry not to be able to visit more of the places we'd found on our
walk, but we knew we had a big day of driving on Wednesday and wanted to get
an early start. On the road before 8am, we made it down to the Fuessen area
a little before ten. Here the Wittelsbach rulers of Bavaria built their
mountain getaways in the 19th century. With limited time, we passed up
Hohenschwangau--the 12th-century castle largely destroyed by Napoleon and
restored by Maximillian II--in favor of his son's fantasy castle,
Neuschwanstein. The model for the Disney castle, Neuschwanstein is an
outrageously beautiful building in a stunning setting. The bus up the hill
deposited us near the Marienbrucke, the bridge over the gorge above the
castle, which provides splendid views of the castle on its crag below. The
interior of the castle--the small section that was finished--is an elaborate
tribute to the operas of Richard Wagner. Ludwig II loved opera and theatre
and the look of the castle--inside and out--was the work of set designers.
Less than six months after he took up residence at the castle, Ludwig's
councillors tired of his penchant for building projects that drained
Bavaria's coffers--Neuschwanstein was the third of four Ludwig planned.
They seized him from the elaborately decorated bedroom here--the work of 14
woodcarvers over 4.5 years--and had him declared insane and deposed. Very
shortly afterward, he and his psychiatrist drowned under mysterious
circumstances, and the castle was opened to the public five weeks later.

Leaving the castle, we had a pleasant walk down the steep slopes to the
parking area. It was hot, but there was plenty of shade, a nice breeze,
and a convenient bratwurst stand along the way.

We set off again, climbing further up into the Alps as we crossed into
Austria and wound around and through the precipitous heights. The small,
red-roofed towns nestled in the high valleys between the peaks were
intensely charming and picturesque. We found the highway near Innsbruck and
turned north, passing back into Germany briefly on our way to Salzburg. At
the Hotel Carlton we were pleasantly surprised by a very nice room, with
lovely furnishings and a cozy sitting area. We dropped our bags there and
had a short nap before exploring the city. Starting with a stroll through
the Mirabell Gardens, we found our way to the Marktplatz, where the church
was still open. After a brief visit, we passed the Mozart Residence and
wandered out to the river. The bridge immediately ahead of us was closed
for a bike race and we watched the competitors whizzing across its span
before we turned to cross at the next bridge. We walked down Getreidegasse,
a busy pedestrian shopping street, past the Mozart Birthplace. Then we
passed through the Karajanplatz with its fancy horsepond built by one of the
prince archbishops who ruled Salzburg and walked by the Collegiate Church
built for the University around the turn of the 18th century. The
Franzsikanerkirche was open for a service, so we peeked in to see the
romanesque nave, elaborate round gothic chancel, and lavish baroque altar.

Continuing through the maze of streets and passageways, we looked at the
cathedral and at St. Peter's abbey church, both of which were closed. Next
to the latter was St. Peter's Stiftskeller, which claims to be the oldest
restaurant in Europe. It was mentioned in a letter from 803, when it was
the abbot's guesthouse and provided dinner to a traveler. We decided to
give it a try and were well rewarded with a very good meal. Jason had the
cream of parmesan soup with arugula, a wonderful thinly sliced steak stuffed
with mushrooms in a sherry cream sauce, and a delightful plate of
whiskey-marinated peaches for dessert. I started with the "variation on
carpaccio," which included a small scoop of cold garlic mashed potatoes,
continued with the traditional Hungarian goulash--stewed beef and a wiener
in a sauce heavy with paprika--with an enormous dumpling, and finished off
with the wonderful apple strudel. After dinner we continued our ramble,
taking in the Kapitalplatz, where we enjoyed seeing people playing a game of
chess on the large board in the pavement there, and wandering around the
back of the cathedral to the Residenzplatz and on into Mozartplatz, where an
unworthy busker was playing at the feet of the statue.

We found an internet cafe there--the first we'd come across in our
travels--so we dove in to check our email. We are in the process of looking
for a house in the Boston area, with Beckie spearheading the legwork back
there, so there was much news to get through. It was dark by the time we
left--so far north at this time of year it's not full dark until nearly
eleven--so we simply strolled back to the hotel. With our room on the
ground floor and the need to keep the windows open, it was fairly noisy, but
we got to sleep pretty easily.

On Thursday we retraced our steps somewhat and after a quick stop at the
post office to mail some cards we visited the Mozart Residence at the
Tanzmeisterhaus in Marktplatz, where Mozart lived with his parents and
sister, 1773-1787. The exhibits there are interesting, but the audioguide
is flaky and the rooms were warm and crowded, so we moved through pretty
quickly. We also visited Mozart's Birthplace, the third-floor apartment
where he was born in 1756. That was less crowded and had such interesting
items as Mozart's first violin. From there we went to the Residenz, the
seat of the price archbishops until the 19th century, and toured the
staterooms, lavishly decorated in baroque style, including highly decorated
enameled stoves for heating the high-ceilinged rooms. Upstairs is a small
art gallery, with a special exhibit on the tulip and a permanent collection
with a few good pieces and many unremarkable works.

From there we went across the platz to the cathedral, with its intricate
stucco work all outlined in black. We wandered through, looking at the
various artworks in the nave and dome, and went down to the crypt, to see
the Romanesque crucifix from the 13th century. We wound through the
cemetery next to St. Peter's abbey church, noticing a number of unusual
metal grave-markers and lovely flower beds planted over some of the graves.
We paid our one euro each to climb up into the "catacombs" in the adjacent
cliff, but felt like it was too much work for not enough interest. Finally,
we stopped into the church itself, which is a lovely, frothy baroque
creation. After that it was another visit to the internet cafe to check
email and grab pannini for lunch and then we picked up our car from the
hotel and sped toward Munich.

Well, we tried to speed, but were thwarted by a line of traffic several
miles long created by a merge down to one-lane for about 100 yards. After
that frustration was hurdled we made good time into the city and found the
Hotel Daniel. Through an Expedia screw-up they had *five* rooms reserved
for us, but were very gracious about only charging us for the one we used.
We took a short nap and then went in search of dinner. We walked through
the pedestrianized section of the old town, past the enormous and
fantastically gothic Rathaus, and found the Galleria restaurant on
Sparkassestrasse, which had sounded good in the guidebook.

This was easily the best meal of our trip. While they have a standard menu,
their specialty is a tasting menu of five or six courses, depending on
whether you want main dishes of meat or fish or both. We both chose "meat"
and the hostess asked if there were anything we didn't eat. That and
choosing wine were the only decisions we had to make. We started off with
glasses of prosecco--Italian sparkling wine--followed by a bottle of 1998
Monsordo Ceretto, a syrah from Alba. It was very good, with a buttery
aftertaste that we'd never before encountered in a red wine.

Our meal started with a small bowl of basil-infused broth with a ravioli
stuffed with roasted tomato. That was followed by a small portion of
monkfish served with chick-pea mash and parsley puree. Next came two small
pasta courses: twisted handmade pasta with octopus and roasted tomatoes and
spaghetti Amatriciana (with bacon and parmesan). Our main course was a
thick filet of veal, served in a wine demi-glace with very sweet new
potatoes and steamed vegetables. For dessert they served us a particularly
fine creme brulee with a small salad of strawberries, kiwi and those little
yellow fruit (the hostess said they're called something like "fizuli" in
Italian, but she doesn't know an English name for them), along with a glass
of moscato d'Asti, a sparkling dessert wine. It was too hot for us to order
coffee, but our check came with a plate of tiny little sweets, each
different and wonderful. Everything was delicious and the octopus was some
of the best I've ever had. The staff were very friendly and we found that
the hostess' boyfriend is the chef and her younger brother is the other
waiter. They are all from Venice and have their seafood flown in from there
every other day. What a delightful evening!

On Friday morning we returned our car at the main train station and then
walked up to the Alte Pinakothek, which houses a major collection of
European (mainly German, some Italian and Dutch, a few Spanish and English)
works. We particularly enjoyed the paintings by Durer and they had some
particularly good Raphaels, a couple of wonderful Titian portraits, a
substantial collection of Van Dycks and an interesting series of the
Stations of the Cross by Rembrandt, along with a tiny self-portrait. When
we were finished there we took the tram back to our hotel, grabbed
Polische-wurst (what we would call kielbase) from a stand in the subway
station and headed back to the Rathaus to meet our guide for the afternoon.

This was our day to go to the site of the Dachau concentration camp. Our
guide, Charlie, was excellent and very personally interested in his subject.
He managed to strike a good balance between recitation of the facts and
evocative anecdotes and details of the horror that took place there. There
were only two other people on our tour--recent Cornell grads--so we were
able to move quickly and get a lot of information in a short period of time.
Charlie led us through the train-and-bus route to Dachau, walked us through
the museum and then left us time to explore it on our own before the next
English showing of the film. The film includes photographs and films from
the camp during its operation and liberation and is simultaneously
dispassionate and horrifying. After the film Charlie guided us to the
"bunker" of cells for prisoners not held in the barracks for various
reasons, out to the gate with its gruesomely ironic slogan "Work Makes One
Free," and to the gas chamber and crematorium just outside the main camp.
The gas chamber there was never used, for reasons unknown, and Dachau was
not one of the "extermination camps," like Auschwitz. However, it was the
first camp and the model of organization and operation developed there
became the model for all the other camps. While there was no effort at mass
extinction here, there was plenty of suffering, torture, and
death--malnutrition, overwork, overcrowding, disease and the sadistic rules,
games, punishments, and executions meted out by the SS guards. The deaths
recorded in the camp records total just under 32,000 during its twelve years
of operation, but many more were not recorded and some estimate the actual
total to be closer to 200,000. As we walked over the grounds, I realized
that I was surprised at some level that there was no smell, that the charnel
stench of the place could ever have faded. Charlie returned again and again
to the twin themes of organization and secrecy, in which records were kept
and rules promulgated in extraordinary detail about the most vicious
activities, the obsessive compulsive rituals of a collective insanity.
Dachau is horrifying, terrifying, sickening, sobering, and sad beyond all
telling.

It had been a cool, grey day earlier, but by the time we returned to Munich,
the sun had come out and it was lovely. Charlie suggested that we should
really go to a beer garden and recommended the one at the Chinese Tower in
the Englischegarten. We strolled through the Italianate gardens of the
Residenz and then through the shady paths that reminded us both of Regents
Park, earning the title of "English gardens." We found the Chinese Tower
and ordered ourselves some beer and a grill platter for two that included a
chicken breast, a slice of roast suckling pig, a steak, potatoes, and
vegetables for each of us. After devouring that, we walked through the
increasingly chilly evening to the U-Bahn and took that back to the main
train station, where I went off to find an internet cafe while Jason went on
to the hotel to try to make their wireless networking system work with his
laptop.

We started off Saturday morning with the relatively long walk to the
Deutches Museum, located on an island in the Isar river. This is the most
enormous, comprehensive museum of science and technology I have ever
experienced. There is an entire reconstruction of a coal mine, a replica of
a Spanish cave with prehistoric paintings like the one in Lascaux, sections
on electric power, aeronautics, astronautics, astronomy, geology, geography,
technical toys, paper, ceramics, glass, boats of various sizes and types,
railways, carriages, bicycles, automobiles, bridges, hydroengineering, oil &
natural gas exploration/mining/refining, etc., etc., etc. It went on
forever. After several hours there, we had some lunch in their
restaurant--"inoffensive" chicken curry for Jason and wiener-wurst with
goulash soup for me--before heading back into town for another guided tour.

We met our guide at the Rathaus and she explained that she would do the tour
if there were four people. No one else arrived and she asked what we would
do. We said we would go ahead and visit the palaces included in the tour on
our own and she decided that since she wasn't doing anything else, she might
as well get paid, so she gave us the tour anyway. Elena is originally from
the Dominican Republic, where she met her German boyfriend while she was
still in high school. She came to Munich with him five years ago, studied
marketing for a while, dropped out, and is now planning to return to the
university in the fall to study translation. Her English wasn't perfect,
but it was okay. The biggest problem was that she is not the regular
guide--or even the back-up--for this tour, but normally does the city tour,
so she didn't really know very much about the palaces. She had done some
research in the two days since she'd been assigned to this tour and it was
definitely worthwhile to have someone else figuring out which trams to take
and dealing with tickets and looking up details in the guidebooks.

First we visited the Residenz, the city home of the Wittelsbach family who
ruled Bavaria from the 12th century until WWI. Much of the palace was
destroyed in WWII, but has been rebuilt in strict accordance with surviving
pictures and memories and is an impressive place. Much of what we saw was
high baroque rooms dripping with gilt stucco-work. The Hall of Ancestors,
where the Wittelsbachs traced their descent back to Charlemagne and beyond,
was one of the most successful versions of the baroque hall we've seen,
managing to achieve a harmony and balance that too many similar rooms topple
with ornament.

Next we took two trams out to Nymphenburg, the Wittelsbachs' summer mansion
in the western suburbs of Munich. It's a lovely, Italianate Villa, with
gorgeous grounds. The most striking feature of the main villa is the
"Schoenheitsgalerie," a collection of portraits of 36 beauties of the day,
painted for the viewing pleasure of Ludwig I. The grounds include several
whimsical hunting lodges and pavilions, including a pink rococco one built
for Maria Amalia and her beloved dogs, who had their own room with kennels
built into the walls. Our last stop was in the stables, where many of the
ornate carriages and sleighs are on display, along with a series of
portraits of particularly beloved mounts and their elaborate tack. It was
clear that Ludwig II's flights of fantasy were not limited to his
castles--one of his sleighs, decorated with nymphs, made Jason think of the
Snow Queen. Leaving there, we caught the train back into the city, checked
our email and headed back to the hotel to pack and nap.

We weren't quite sure what we wanted for dinner, but as we wandered through
the old town, we saw one restaurant specializing in fondue and that seemed
appealing. We shared an hors d'oeuvres plate of house-marinated salmon with
wonderful fresh horseradish, some ham, and a couple of different types of
pate, followed by an enormous cheese fondue with bread and vegetables to dip
in it. It wasn't quite as good as the one we had in Zurich, but it made a
good meal and the dark, cozy atmosphere of the restaurant was pleasant.

After dinner we walked the rest of the way back to the Deutches Museum where
we took in the IMAX 3D Cirque du Soleil movie. It was structured as a
journey through life and included performances of Taiko drumming, water
ballet, the "cube guy," an incredibly strong man and woman doing a
slow-motion evolution of poses, and a team of acrobats, as well as the
fantastic clowns and creatures typical of the Cirque. The whole thing was
filmed in various exotic locations--underwater, in a lush forest, amid the
red wind-carved rocks of the southwest, and in a neo-classical temple. The
whole thing was shorter than we had expected--only about half an hour--but
that meant we could get back to the hotel around midnight and not be too
tired on our last day.

We checked out on Sunday morning and left our luggage with the hotel while
we took the tram back out to the museum district to visit the Neue
Pinakothek, which houses a very fine collection of 18th- and 19th-century
works, from German Romantics to French Impressionists. Our favorite piece
was one by Franz von Stuck, a new name for us. We were disappointed that
the Pinakothek der Moderne is closed until September, but one of the sales
clerks in the Neue Pinakothek recommended that we try the Lenbachhaus. This
turned out to be an Italianate villa not far from the other museums. There
was a strange exhibit of works by Lisa Unger and a collection of epic
photographs by Thomas Ruff, as well as an uninspiring set of 19th century
landscapes and domestic scenes. One of the highlights is the Kandinsky
collection, which includes many of the artist's own works, as well many by
other members of the Blauer Reiter group of Expressionist painters. We were
especially enamored of the work of Franz Marc and bought a print of a
wonderful "Tiger" that is reminiscent of the work of the Italian Futurists
we enjoy. The other interesting section is the "historical rooms," filled
with paintings by Franz von Lenbach, the last owner of the house, whose
widow convinced the city to buy it and his collection. The villa was
substantially damaged during WWII and only a small suite of rooms have been
restored to something like their original appearance.

Jason had been interested in seeing one of the several toy museums we'd
passed on our journey, so we dashed back to the Marienplatz and visited the
Spielzeug Museum housed in the tower of the old town hall. They have quite
a collection of toys, including retired dolls, vintage model cars and
hundreds of teddy bears of different sizes, shapes, functions and
descriptions.

We felt silly not to have gotten inside the Frauenkirche, whose onion-domed
towers are one of the most noticeable landmarks of Munich, so we ducked in
there for a quick look around before dashing back to the hotel, grabbing a
bite of food along the way. We thought we'd left plenty of time, but we
were delayed in a search for the right change for the train ticket machines
and the ride out to the airport was longer than we'd expected, so we ran up
to the check-in desk only 35 minutes before our flight was scheduled to
depart. The clerk checked us in and assured us the bags would be on the
flight and we ran for our gate. Of course, then we were held up by a family
in front of us at passport control, who paused right in front of the window
after they'd been checked through, to take a cellphone call. Then the
passport official's phone rang and he talked while processing our passports
with some delay. Then the guy ahead of us in the security line was slowly
emptying all his pockets in front of the x-ray machine and the guard
wouldn't let Jason go ahead of him. When Jason was allowed to put his pack
on the conveyor belt, the guard made him take out his laptop and put that
through separately. Then the metal detector went off as I went through and
I had to wait while the only female guard wanded the woman who'd been
talking on the cellphone at the passport desk. Then she had to wand me up,
down and sideways--and get no bleeps whatsoever. Finally we ran up to our
gate, were passed through and were the last people onto the bus out to our
plane. As we got on, breathing heavily, with adrenaline racing, I sat down
and said to Jason "There! Now we're not late anymore." We were very
relieved, as we boarded, to actually see our bags going onto the plane.

Our flight was smooth and there were lovely views of the countryside across
Germany and Belgium and we approached London City Airport straight up the
Thames. The M25 was backed up as far as the eye could see to the south,
making us very glad this wasn't the day we were trying to drive back from
Dover. We arrived, passed through immigration uneventfully, and walked into
the baggage hall just in time to grab our bags off the belt. We took a
shuttle bus to Canary Wharf, changed to the tube and were home about 75
minutes after landing, which makes it about 45 minutes closer than
Heathrow. Anne & George were off having dinner with Barbara, which gave us
a chance to catch our breaths, read our email, and begin to settle back into
the demands of being home. They had bought us a gorgeous bunch of flowers
to welcome us back and seem to have had a great time while we were gone.
lillibet: (Default)
We're back in London and have gone through all the piles that accumulate in
our absence, so it's time for me to collect my thoughts and decipher my
notes on our two weeks in Spain. Despite a few problems, we had a great
trip, but as always, it's nice to be home again. A warning--I think this is
probably the longest report I have ever written, given that this is the
longest trip I have chronicled in a single message. [When I transferred it into LJ, they made me cut it in half.] I hope you enjoy it and I look forward to any questions or comments that you have.

Our trip began with a Thameslink train ride to Gatwick Airport. We hadn't
flown from there before, so it was interesting to figure out the best way to
get there and to find our way around. We checked in and went through
security. The guard on the other side of the metal detector asked if I
would mind submitting to a "random" search (it seemed fairly methodical to
me :) which was over quickly. We spent an hour in the duty free area,
waiting for our gate to be posted, during which time I bought too many books
and we admired the fountain in the shape of an asymmetrical cone that led
down to one of the gate wings.

The plane was a fairly small one, with wings over the body, instead of out
from the sides. Our seats were toward the back, where the plane tapers, and
were the most cramped, uncomfortable seats we've encountered. I love
Jason's elbows, but by the time we landed in Bilbao I was ready to whack off
the one that had been planted in my side throughout the flight for lack of
anywhere else to be.

We landed in the midst of one of the most glorious sunsets of our
experience, making for a lovely welcome to this new place. Neither of us
knew what to expect from Bilbao and really enjoyed it. It's a small city of
about 300,000 people, on the northern coast of Spain, where it juts out into
the Bay of Biscay. It's the capital of the Basque (Euskadi) region, so we
got to see many signs in Euskara. It looks very different from any other
language we know and sounds something like Russian in a Spanish accent, with
lots of 'dzh' sounds. The Euskara name for the city is "Bilbo," making us
feel like we were in Hobbiton.

Immigration was a quick process and we were able to pick up our bags almost
immediately. Following the EXIT signs, we were a bit startled to be spit
out directly from the baggage hall onto the sidewalk, but that made for a
short walk to the taxi stand. In the cab our driver explained--with the
help of a line of traffic as a visual aid--that it was rush hour and a
roundabout way would probably be quicker than the straight shot to our
hotel. We agreed to that plan and were pleasantly surprised when the scenic
route lived up to its name, offering us views of lush, rolling hills in the
full bloom of a spring twilight and then a lovely panorama of the city,
nestled into the bowl of the river valley and just lighting up for the
evening.

The Hotel Nervion, on the bank of the river of the same name, was one of the
best hotels we've stayed in during our travels. The decor was elegant, in a
simple modern style, and our room was lovely and comfortable although not
large. Our stay included a sumptuous breakfast buffet, all for only about
$70. We were tempted by their restaurant's set-menu of three courses for
under $15, prepared by their Michelin-starred chef, but decided that we
really should spend our one evening in Bilbao seeing a bit more of the town.

Leaving the hotel, we first walked over to the Guggenheim Museum, our real
destination here. It was about a ten minute walk from the hotel across the
river on a gleaming white suspension bridge for pedestrians. Approaching
the museum we discovered "Maman," a twenty-foot high bronze spider by Louise
Bourgeois. Standing in its menacing shadow, we nearly jumped out of our
skin when huge jets of flame erupted in the reflecting pool next to us.
Catching our breath, we admired how the fire created dancing reflections in
the glistening titanium skin of the museum.

Continuing on around the closed building, we came to the main entrance, with
the museum's mascot--a fifty-foot high puppy made of flowering
plants--gleaming fluorescently in the streetlight. Leaving the museum, we
wandered through the well-lit streets, seeking dinner. Eventually we
decided on the Etxeko Tavern, recommended by the local guidebook we'd picked
up at the hotel. It was a brightly lit bar, with a few tables for diners in
the back room. The bar area was crowded with locals eating tapas and
drinking Murphy's Irish Red beer, but we were the only people in the dining
room until another group sat down about halfway through our meal. We shared
a sampler of Iberian ham and salami and some giant white asparagus with
garlic mayonnaise. The latter was tasty, but got boring about halfway
through. Both of us were excited by the "solomillo" on the menu, so we
ordered two of them: thick fillets of beef marinated, grilled to a perfect
"rare" and served with grilled pimientos and fried potatoes. Entirely
sated, we were glad to have a post-prandial stroll back across the river to
the hotel.

My favorite thing on the breakfast buffet the next morning was the fresh
churros--sugared twists of deep-fried dough--but there was a huge variety of
fruits, yogurt, cold cuts, cheeses, cereals and pastries, as well as a
scrambled egg station. Fortified for a day of art, we headed back to the
Guggenheim. Frank Gehry designed the building, which manages somehow to fit
into and stand out from its surroundings at the same time. His work is the
star of the place, accounting not only for the building but also for a
retrospective exhibit of his architectural designs that occupies the entire
middle floor. On the ground floor there is a room of works by Joseph Beuys,
a piece by Jenny Holzer (cryptic messages on LED displays), and a room of
German post-WWII painting (where I confirmed my sense that I really like
Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke's work is erratically pleasing to me, and I'm
completely bored by Georg Baselitz). There's also an enormous gallery of
large-scale works dominated by Richard Serra's "Snake," three curved slabs
of rusted steel, perhaps fifteen feet high and thirty feet long, set far
enough apart for people to walk between them and play with the echoes.
Upstairs there are more pieces by Bourgeois, a conceptual art installation
in travertine and television by Fabrizio Plessi, and a couple of rooms of
smaller-scale paintings on the the theme of "The Modern City" by Delaunay,
Gleizes and Grosz accompanied by videos on the same theme. There was also a
small collection of works by Barcelona native Antoni Tapies and our real
discovery of the museum, Basque sculptor Eduardo Chillida. His piece in
alabaster, "How Profound Is the Air" was Jason's favorite of those
exhibited.

After two hours there, we went on to the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts and
explored their collection, split into three segments. Their permanent
collection of classic works is unremarkable, but interestingly included a
few modern pieces mixed in almost as commentary on the earlier works. The
contemporary art galleries left us fairly cold, except for a sound
installation of speakers down the hallway connecting the sections, entitled
"Where is House?" Our favorite gallery was the temporary exhibit of
photography on modern urban life that included some wonderful images from a
variety of photographers and cities.

Full of art, we needed food. The restaurant at the Guggenheim was
recommended, so we went back there for lunch. Their set-menu for about $8
per person offered chicken salad or cream of vegetable soup, stewed veal
cheeks in red wine sauce on a bed of artichoke hearts or courgettes stuffed
with hake on a bed of caramelized onions, and an eggy cake-like dessert with
lemon sorbet. We had one of each and were quite pleased.

We strolled back to the hotel, enjoying the almost-too-warm day, picked up
our bags and waited in their very comfortable lobby until it was time to
head back to the airport. The cab ride was much quicker in that direction
and the check-in window for our flight was not yet open when we arrived. We
sat around in the cavernous ticketing hall until we were allowed to check in
and then went down to sit around at the gate. We hadn't been assigned seats
together, but were able to switch with another passenger, and even though
the plane on this leg was smaller than the one from London, our seats were
much more comfortable. Bilbao gave us another glorious sunset as a send-off
and in an hour we were landing in Barcelona.

Another cab whisked us to the Hotel Urquinaona, next to the plaza of the
same name and about four blocks from Las Ramblas, the main drag of touristic
Barcelona. The hotel was more typical of European urban hotels--slightly
bare bones--but we actually got a double bed in this one and had a tiny
balcony overlooking the street with sufficiently glazed glass to keep out
almost all the traffic noise. Best of all, they had a computer in their
lounge with free internet access, so we were able to check our email.

Having dropped off our bags, we headed out to stroll Las Ramblas. It's a
long boulevard with a sidewalk in the middle of the lanes filled with cafe
seating, street musicians, flower stalls and souvenir stands. We
investigated two of the restaurants our guidebook recommended, but one was
gone and the other was full, so we fell back on a quaint-looking little
place that smelled good. We shared some Iberian ham and had garlic soup and
a mixed salad for starters. I chose the roasted lamb and after he found out
that there was no rabbit left, Jason took the waitress' recommendation of
the "cochinillo," or roasted leg of suckling pig. The meats were tender,
without being too greasy, and we were very satisfied with our find. It was
a balmy evening and we enjoyed the short stroll back to the hotel.

In the morning we grabbed a bite from the fairly meagre breakfast buffet and
headed out to see the city by daylight. We started down Las Ramblas again
and joined the line for the Palau Guell (pronouned almost like "way"),
Antoni Gaudi's first major architectural project. We had a guided tour in
English and Catalan (the native language of the area, a separate Romance
language similar to both Spanish and French) of the building built as an
annex to the main Guell palace fronting on Las Ramblas, around the corner,
and used mainly for socializing. There were many interesting rooms and
decorative bits, but the really intriguing section of the house was the
roof, where the family never went and Gaudi felt free to run riot and
develop his broken-tile mosaic or "trencadis" style in decorating the twenty
chimney-tops.

From the Palau Guell we walked through the streets of the old town or "Barri
Gotic" to the cathedral. The most remarkable feature there was the fairly
plain cloister, surrounded by chapels--several of which had been closed up
for use as offices--but with trees and fountains in its center serving as a
refuge for a variety of geese and other birds. It was a cool, peaceful
place. Outside the walls there were street musicians tucked into almost
every corner, including one of the worst pairings we've encountered:
hammered dulcimer and accordion. They did give a fun rendition of "The
Barber of Seville," but other numbers were less inspiring.

We checked out the Museum of the History of the City, but decided that too
little time remained to see it before it closed for lunch. A restaurant on
our path had caught my eye with the promise of raw oysters, so we ducked
back there for a lunch of tapas, including some tasty oysters as well as
some Iberian ham, salmon blinis and pintxos (little bites) of toast with
some more ham and delicious pickled herring.

Back at our hotel, we had time for a brief lie-down before Sonja and John
arrived. They are friends from Maryland who visited us in London last
year. We had so much fun during that trip that we decided we should try
travelling together and they agreed to join us for their spring break from
the university where they both work. They'd had a long trip from DC via
Newark and Paris, but were ready to get started on tourism, so we walked
back to the Museum of the History of the City and started there.

There are a few relics of the pre-Roman Iberian settlement of the area, but
most of the museum focuses on the ruins of the Roman town that have been
excavated beneath the museum--including a winery and a fish-paste processing
plant, and some of the ecclesiastical buildings of the medieval period,
pre-dating the current cathedral. Besides that there was a special exhibit
on the geometrical aspects of Gaudi's architecture.

Leaving there, we made a brief stop at the cathedral and then split up, with
Sonja & John heading back to the hotel to rest while Jason and I hit the
Museu Picasso. Their collection is not large, and mainly focuses on the
artist's very early works, but it also includes most of his obsessive series
of paintings interpreting "Las Menininas" by Velasquez, and makes an
interesting complement to the larger collection of the Musee Picasso in
Paris, which we visited in January.

We met the others back at the hotel and decided to find dinner in that area,
rather than venturing further afield on their first evening. We ended up a
couple of blocks away at the Antic Olympic. We shared plates of Iberian
ham and I had a salad of tomatoes and anchovies, while Jason had their
grilled mushrooms in garlic butter. John's main dish was a mixed grill,
while the rest of us had individual paellas. It was getting pretty hot, but
we decided to stay for dessert, and I had a refreshing dish of sorbets,
while John and Jason had creme brulees and Sonja tried the lemon mousse
cake. By that point the crowd (and the smoke and the heat) had increased,
while the service-level had decreased, so we were happy to escape to the
cooler street and get back to our hotel.

On Sunday morning we figured out the metro system and made our way up to the
Monastery/Museum of Pedralbes. It is a still-functioning convent of Poor
St. Claires, but their cloister and some of the areas of the convent are
open to the public, including the refectory, kitchen, and cistern. The
former infirmary houses an exhibit of information on the founding of the
convent by Queen Elisenda of Montcada in 1326 and the evolution of the place
since that time. There's also an exhibit of what Jason described as "the
most artistic set of dioramas I've ever seen," depicting various key moments
in the life of Christ. In the former dormitory, for a separate entry fee,
there are 90 works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, the rest of which
is in Madrid. This smaller selection focuses on Italian works of the
13th-17th centuries and a few European baroque works. We left the convent
just as mass was getting out at the attached church and got to see everyone
waving the giant bundles of palm fronds, many elaborately woven into shaped
arrangements, that mark Palm Sunday there.

Hopping back on the tube, we went down toward the harbor and caught the
funicular up to the top of Montjuic, the hill on the south side of Barcelona
that provides the setting for various museums and attractions, as well as
the main Olympic stadium and pools from the 1992 Summer Games. Our first
stop was the Fundacio Miro, which houses many works by native son Joan Miro,
as well as works by other artists inspired by him and temporary
exhibitions. I had hoped that seeing enough of his art would increase my
appreciation of it, but while some of the pieces were interesting and there
are definitely periods of his work I enjoy more than others, I still liked
the few Calder pieces better than the Miro works. They kicked us out when
they closed for the afternoon, by which time we were all starving.

We made our way around and down the hill to the Poble Espaynol. Created for
the World's Fair in 1929, Poble Espaynol is an assemblage of buildings
representing the traditional architectural styles of the various regions of
Spain. It's not terribly exciting, but they do have restaurants and many
interesting shops to browse through. We had a wide variety of tapas for
lunch and then wandered through the whole place. The most interesting
structure was the Catalonian church, which was assembled using a bell tower,
front entry, cloister and nave all from different churches in the area to
create a surprisingly unified whole.

Making our way back up the slope via the extremely welcome escalators set
into the hillside, we walked by the Olympic complex and around to the
teleferic station. As we swooped across the harbor in the little gondola,
we were treated to a sunset view of the city, including the famous statue of
Christopher Columbus, inexplicably pointing at Libya. We walked along the
beach, admiring the waves of the western Mediterranean, for as long as we
could stand the wind. Then we headed around the marina to the aquarium. We
considered an IMAX film, rejected the opportunity to spend $10 each for an
hour in the aquarium, and decided to go back to the hotel instead.

After a short rest, we went down to a restaurant that was recommended by one
of our guidebooks. Housed amid the columns of the former Natural History
Museum, Taxidermista seemed like a great find. We shared a plate of Iberian
ham (are you sensing a trend yet?), Jason started with veggie empanadas,
while I had the fish soup, which Sonja also chose. I can't remember John's
starter, but I think he had roast pork as a main, while Sonja had duck and
Jason and I both went with the poularde, a small chicken breast stuffed with
spinach and served with crispy leeks. Jason and Sonja split what they said
was a fabulous tarte tatin, while John had something chocolately and I tried
the excellent lemon ginger sorbet. As we walked back to the hotel, we all
remarked on what an outstanding meal it had been, especially for such a
reasonable price--about $20 per person, including wine.

That evaluation was somewhat revised when both Jason and I woke up around
5am with our bodies clamoring to get whatever we had mistakenly ingested
OUT. Out, out, out. Out. It was nasty, but after about five hours, we
started to think we might actually have cleared our systems. John and Sonja
were both fine and very patient with us as we figured out what to do. We
were scheduled to check out that day by noon, but I talked to the clerk and
while they needed our room, they had another room they couldn't rent because
the lock was broken, but they were happy to let me spend the day sleeping
there, for no extra charge. So I stayed in and caught up on my sleep while
Jason soldiered on, going with Sonja & John to visit Gaudi's Park Guell and
unfinished masterpiece, the church of La Sagrada Familia, and to stroll
through the Eixample to see various other Modernist buildings designed by
Gaudi and his contemporaries.

Jason came back and took a short nap with me while Sonja went to the post
office and John listened to music on his new Ipod. We reassembled to walk
down to the Palau de la Musica Catala for the six o'clock tour for which we
had bought tickets on Saturday. Designed by Lluis Domenech y Montaner and
completed in 1908, the palau is the home of the Orfeo Catala, a choral
society founded during the choral music craze of the late 19th century and
surviving into the present day. It is a stunning building and the main
hall, with its gorgeous stained glass ceiling, is breathtaking. Definitely
worth getting out of bed to see it!

After the tour, we picked up sandwiches at a Pans & Company shop--well,
Sonja & John had sandwiches, Jason ate about half of his and I just ate the
bread. Then we picked up our bags and took the metro to the train station,
where we spent an hour or so waiting to board our train to Madrid. Our
sleeping cabins were compact and overheated, but we made do. Sonja and
Jason both reported sleeping soundly, while John's description of his night
as "an endless series of catnaps" summed up my experience perfectly. But by
the time we arrived, I felt so much better than I had the previous morning
that I was raring to go.

We hadn't had anything on the train, so after we put our bags in a locker,
we stopped by the cafe in the station. I ordered sandwiches and drinks for
Jason and me and we sat down at a table. After five minutes or so, I looked
around to see what was keeping the others. Apparently, Sonja had become
invisible. She had been standing at the counter the whole time, trying to
catch the attention of the counterman without success. I stepped forward,
caught the guy's eye and he immediately asked what he could get me. Weird.

Our first stop in Madrid had to be the Prado. We got there just before ten,
while the lines weren't too bad. We wandered through rooms and rooms of
Velasquez and Rubens and Goya and discovered Ribera and Muro and Murillo to
go with them. With a short break for lunch in the basement cafeteria, we
covered the whole place in five hours, developing a nodding acquaintance
with the 18th and 19th century Spanish monarchs along the way. Escaping the
galleries at last, we took refuge in the Botanical Gardens next door for a
pleasant hour strolling along the shady walks. Sonja & John were
experiencing artburn and ready for a rest, but I had some stamina left and
Jason was willing to take on the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection with me.

The Thyssen-Bornemisza is one of the best museums I've visited in the
world. The works span the last eight centuries, well-grouped and displayed
for easy viewing, chronicling all the major movements of Western European
art. We were pushed to see it in two hours, but we made it through with
time to spare for the gift shop before the museum closed.

From there it was a short walk up to the Hostal Playa, near the Plaza del
Sol. The hotel was another step down from the Urquinaona, but at 45 euros
per night, close to the metro, it was just fine. Our room actually had
three beds in it--one full-size and two singles--and felt fairly cavernous.
I'm sure the tile floors are nice in the heat of summer, but cold and
unwelcoming the rest of the time. The biggest flaw was not discovered until
the next morning, when I got what was apparently the last hot shower of the
day. But it was clean and convenient and well worth what we were paying.

Sonja & John had already checked in and Jason went off with his laptop to
download Sonja's pictures from her digital camera and compare notes on their
shots while I took a short nap. Then we headed back out to the train
station to collect our bags. Arriving back at the hotel, I sent Jason
upstairs with my bag while I went around the corner to a little grocery
Sonja & John had found, to stock up on drinks and snacks. On my way back I
noticed a restaurant on the corner that looked nice and when we'd reunited,
the others agreed we should try "The Museum of Wine."

Their wine was okay. I enjoyed their chicken noodle soup and solomillo,
while Jason was less happy with the sopa castellano (tomatoey garlic soup
with bread and egg in it) and grilled lamb chops. John also had the lamb
chops, while Sonja had scrambled eggs with mushrooms to start and a
disappointing salmon steak as her main.

On Wednesday we split up for the morning. Sonja wanted to spend more time
at the Prado, to have a chance to commune with the art without the pressure
of a group's momentum (or, I dare say, my disparaging comments about
Rubens). The rest of us tried to visit the Convent of the Royal Barefoot
Nuns, but it was closed for Holy Week. We wandered through the Plaza Mayor
and then tried another monastery--also closed. The cathedral next to the
Royal Palace was open, so we went in there. It was started in the 19th
century and finished in 1993, so there is an interesting mix of fairly
modern styles. I particularly enjoyed the geometric patterns on the
ceilings and was somewhat astonished by the statue of God in the Chapel of
the Holy Trinity.

We wandered around the back, heading down the hill into the gardens, but
when the first gate was closed, we decided not to risk finding ourselves at
the bottom of the steep hill in front of another closed gate. John decided
to sit for a while in front of the Royal Palace, while Jason and I went on
into the complex to visit the free exhibit of works painted by Luca Giordano
during his ten years in Spain around the turn of the 18th century. He was a
disciple of Ribera, a Caravaggisti painter of shadowed saints, but picked up
enough of the Bernini-style exuberance to make his later works excessively
florid. If you've never heard of him before, now I know why.

Re-emerging from the palace, we found John and Sonja met us a few minutes
later, as we waited on line for tickets to the main parts of the palace.
This is one of the most opulent palaces I've seen, with lots of ornately
decorated rooms, including a small one decorated with porcelain from the
Royal Factory in Granja. The dining room is absolutely cavernous. One of
the most interesting sections was the music rooms, which house several small
pianos and intricately inlaid guitars, as well as a complete string quartet
by Stradivarius, which musicians performing for the Spanish Royal Family may
play. The palace has not been used as royal residence since 1931 and the
current royals live in much more modest accommodations north of the city.

The complex also includes an armory with a relatively interesting collection
of armor and weapons, but I was tired by that point and let the others take
their time inside while I found a shady spot in the courtyard to sit. The
others agreed that sitting seemed like a good idea, so we went out to the
Plaza Oriente, in front of the palace, and had a protracted lunch under the
awnings of the Cafe Oriente. It had been quite warm throughout the morning,
but was cooling off quickly and by the time we had finished our pizzas, we
were ready to be walking again.

We hopped on the metro and went back down to the museum area to visit the
Centro de Arte Reina Sofia. This modern art museum in a former hospital is
vast and cavernous. Its most famous piece is Picasso's "Guernica," which I
appreciated the opportunity to see in person. I'm coming to the conclusion
that painterly technique is one of the most important aspects of painting
for me and while this is certainly an important work, with a strong concept
that makes a deep impression, I find its execution cold and perfunctory in a
way that weakens its effect. The permanent collection is enormous and there
is a wide variety of art to see there. We enjoyed more of Chillida's work,
especially "The Table of Omar Khayyam." One of the best parts for us was
the gallery exhibiting early works of Salvador Dali, mainly before his
Surrealist period.

John & Sonja headed back to the hotel after we'd done the permanent
collection, but Jason persuaded me to stay for a quick pass through the
temporary exhibits, which included a display of Cubist sculpture, works by
a Japanese-born photographer living in Wisconsin, and a series of works done
by Warhol-Basquiat-Clemente that stretch my boundaries of the word
"collaboration." Having seen it all, we headed back to the hotel. Dinner
nearby was proposed, so we set out walking and quickly settled on a place
advertising crepes and paellas. I had a small bowl of fish soup, while
Sonja got ham croquettes and John had brie with berry sauce to start. Then
the four of us split a paella, since they would only do them for whole
tables. Sadly, it was an inferior specimen and none of us ate very much of
it. Dessert was a better story, offering apple crepes with berry sauce that
were quite tasty. Best of all, we were only two blocks from our beds.

We had agreed to be up and out early on Thursday, but Jason and I failed to
wake up on time. He ran through the shower while I threw our stuff together
and we were out the door about twenty minutes after the others knocked. We
went down to the Atocha train station, much closer than the one where our
train arrived, and picked up our rental car, a silver Peugeot sedan. The
cold that had been threatening Sonja the day before had really arrived and
she was fairly low energy, which a grey, blustery day did not help.

We made it down to Toledo just after ten. The old, walled section of town
is perched up on a hill and we were very pleased to be able to park down
below and take escalators up to the streets. Our first stop was the
cathedral, the center of Spanish Catholicism. Particularly notable features
were the intensely baroque froth on the back of the high altar, the
overwhelmingly gold altarpiece, and the exquisite carvings in the choir.
The treasury's biggest claim to fame was an autograph of Pope John Paul II
from his last visit. There was a fairly impressive collection of paintings
in the sacristy, most of which were in need of cleaning and restoration. In
general, the cathedral really failed to feel like a sacred space and Jason
named it the most depressing cathedral he's ever visited.

On leaving there my biggest priority was to find a toilet. Fortunately, the
Damasceno (a local tradition of gold inlaid metalwork) shop we stopped into
had just such a service, making me very happy and willing to spend money
there. Walking on, we found one of the two synagogues left in Spain--closed
for renovation. We paused to overlook the Tagus River valley (the same
river that Lisbon is on) and then wandered over to the other synagogue, now
a church. The mudejar (Moorish-style, by non-Moors) style sections that
were the synagogue are lovely, with serene white columns and beautiful
carved sections that make the baroque altar and side chapels along the
eastern wall seem like tacky intruders by comparison.

We continued on to the Convento de los Reyes, founded by The Catholic
Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. It was closed for lunch. I bought some
tiles in a nearby shop and when I emerged, Sonja had decided that she was
done and would go back to the car to read and rest. John, Jason and I found
a reasonable place for lunch and got--respectively--rabbit stew, beef stew
and sliced veal. The boys wanted flan, so I went ahead and ordered the
marzipan cake. Marzipan is a local specialty and this was a yummy
application of it.

By the time we'd finished lunch, the convent was open and we walked
through. The coffered wooden ceiling in the cloister was beautiful and some
of the many gargoyles were inventive and even whimsical. My favorite was in
the shape of an acrobat, with his feet extended over his head to form the
spout. The chapel was fairly plain, but included the tomb of monks martyred
during the Civil War, and on the outside it was hung with chains supposedly
removed from prisoners freed from the Moors when the Christians took
Toledo.

We stopped back by the car to check on Sonja and use the WC there and John
decided to stay with her while Jason and I went back for one more go. We
had thought to visit the Museum of Santa Cruz, but it was closed. We then
spent a fairly long time trying to find the Cristo de la Luz mosque, the
oldest Moorish relic in Toledo, built in 1000 CE. We finally found it, but
couldn't see much through the white tarp engulfing it during renovation. We
took this as a sign that it was time to go and headed back to the car out
the Puerta de Bisagra and along the city walls.

Despite the grey day, it had been dry in Toledo, but as we descended into
the plains, we found the rain. It was only another hour or so to our hotel,
the Tryp Hidalgo. A roadside motel of fairly shabby exterior appearance, it
had surprisingly comfortable rooms. The dining room looked fairly
promising, but didn't open for another hour and I'd found a recommendation
for a restaurant in a town a few miles away, so we decided to see if we
could find it. La Solana was a fairly small town, out in the middle of
nowhere, but in its main square we found our first Semana Santa (Holy Week)
procession, which was fascinating.

Essentially, the processions consist of a series of floats, carried by
people underneath, and consisting of the central figure, surrounded by
flowers and ornate candelabra. While I gather there can be more floats, all
the parades we saw had four, communicating the Easter story, Spanish style:
Jesus was tied to a column and whipped, then he had to carry the cross, then
he was crucified, so Mary gets to be Queen of Heaven. In between the floats
march bands, churchmen with censors or crosses, "Black Marias" (women all in
black with mantillas and rosaries) and crowds of people called "penitents"
dressed in white robes and pointy hoods in different colors (black, red,
green and purple) carrying lamps or candles. The KKK-similarity made the
penitents kind of creepy to me, although our guidebook says that the
tradition goes back at least as far as victims of the Inquisition. The
whole thing moves very slowly. It was all very interesting to watch and we
were glad to have the opportunity to see the processions.

After the parade was over--having failed to find the restaurant on the first
pass and realizing that with the crowds out, it probably wasn't the best
night to be trying to eat out in La Solana--we headed back to the motel. As
we walked in, the clerk gave me the message that steve had called from
Boston and would try again later. We had a very nice dinner, with excellent
service. They started us off with an amuse bouche in the form of a small
cup of chicken consomme. I enjoyed that so much that I continued with a
bowl of chicken noodle soup with bits of ham in it and then went on to
rabbit fried with garlic. It was a bit of a pain to get off the small
bones, but very tasty. Jason started with roasted red peppers filled with
salmon paste, followed by a tangy duck a l'orange. John had a
simple-but-delicious spaghetti bolognese with roasted pork as his main.
Sonja went with scrambled eggs again, followed by meatballs. Just as we
were finishing, the clerk came to tell me that steve was on the line, so I
went back to the room to return his call. I had planned to use my calling
card, but was thwarted by the rotary dial phone, so we didn't talk for long,
but it was good to touch base and hear about the trial that Tom had juried
over the last few weeks--turned out it was a first-degree murder trial.
When we got off the line, the others still weren't back from dinner, so I
decided to take advantage of the deep tub and have a nice bubble bath.

In the morning, John came by to explain that Sonja's illness had either
taken a turn toward stomach flu or else she'd been struck by bad food, as
well. So the three of us were alone at the breakfast buffet. We made a
leisurely morning of it and then headed straight for the flat we'd reserved
in Granada. We had a small glitch, when the car park we'd been told to use
was full, but I dropped off the others with the bags and then Jason came
with me to find another car park--we had to get about a twenty-minute walk
away before finding an open one. We had a nice stroll back along the Gran
Via, stopped by the flat to get John, and then the three of us headed out
while Sonja slept.

We got grilled ham & cheese sandwiches at a place on the corner of our
street and went over to visit the cathedral. It was quite different from
others we'd seen, not built on the cross pattern and very white and light
inside. The central piers had huge, ornate pipe organs facing each other
with trumpets that must be deafening at full volume. The Royal Chapel was
closed, so we walked along the Darro River, in the groove between the hills
of the Alhambra and the Albaicin, and then up into the Albaicin to the
Mirador (Lookout) San Nicolas, with its stunning views of the Alhambra.
From there we wandered downhill, passing by the route of another Semana
Santa procession, and back to the flat for a nap.

The flat was fine, inexpensive (150 euros for two nights), and very
conveniently located. It included two bedrooms, a living room, a galley
kitchen with a washing machine (there was a line just out the window in the
air shaft), and a bathroom. The inner bedroom, where John & Sonja were, was
apparently reasonably quiet, despite the music pumping up from the bar
downstairs, which we also think provided the smoky smell coming up through
the pipes. The only real problem was with our bedroom, which looked out
over the street and, more specifically, the glass-recycling bin. About
every twenty minutes, someone would come out from the bar with a load of
bottles and dump them into the bin. CRASH! Around 5am on the first night,
a guy came out with a shovel and proceeded to SMASH down the contents of the
bin so as to fit in more glass. That went on for at least an hour--SMASH!
CRASH! SMASH! CRASH!--until the truck came along, already half filled with
bottles, RATTLE! RATTLE!, to pick up the bin with a small crane, GROAN!
RATTLE! CREAK! CRUNCH! GROAN!, and dump it, CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH!,
into the truckbed with the rest. The website for the flat had mentioned
that this was a busy neighborhood and we should expect some street noise and
no refunds would be provided for noise complaints. So I don't expect any
compensation, but I'm definitely going to let them know that in no way could
this be described as anything but a very noisy apartment.

After our break, the three of us went out to find some dinner. Our guidebook
recommended a place called the Via Colon, very near our apartment. We
shared some Iberian ham and salami and Jason had the cream of vegetable
soup, while John had the onion soup (I think) and I tried their version of
fish soup. I didn't like it, so after a few bites I had the waiter take it
away. Our main courses were very simple grilled meats--John and I split the
mixed grill for two and Jason had the pork tips, but we pretty much shared
it all and it was very tasty. We skipped dessert in favor of heading out to
see why a crowd was gathering and ended up watching yet another Semana Santa
procession. At this one we were particularly struck by the way the crowd
would applaud as each float came out of the cathedral. After the Queen of
Heaven float passed us, we got ahead of the procession and crossed back to
our side of the Gran Via to get back to our flat on a little side street.

We were out very early on Saturday morning, since our tickets to the
Alhambra were for 8:30am. I left the flat a few minutes ahead of the others
and picked up pastries at the corner for breakfast. Sonja seemed to be
feeling much better, but still not quite ready for food that early in the
day. It was so great to have her back with us and feeling somewhat better
and it made me realize how much I had missed her presence and conversation
over the previous two days.

In the plaza a couple of blocks away we caught a bus up to the Alhambra,
very glad not to be climbing that hill on our own. We joined the short line
for reserved tickets, claimed ours and went on into the palace complex.

Briefly, the Visigoths came down out of northern Europe in the 4th century
BC, during the breakup of the Roman Empire, and made Toledo the capital of
their domain. In 711, the Moors crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, as part of
their expansion from the Middle East across northern Africa. By 732 they
had occupied all of the Iberian peninsula except for Asturias, in the
northwest, and gotten across the Pyrrenees as far as Tours, where they were
defeated by the Franks under Charles Martel, and retreated back to the
peninsula. After a couple of hundred years at least nominally under the
authority of the Caliphate of Baghdad, a separate caliphate was established
with its headquarters in Cordoba. That was taken by the Christians in 1236,
along with most of the rest of Spain and Portugal, until only the kingdom of
Granada remained. It was after the fall of Cordoba that the Alhambra ("The
Red Palace") was built in Granada--although the hill had been fortified
since the time of the Romans--and it held against the Christians until
Boabdil's defeat in January of 1492 by the armies of Ferdinand and Isabel.

The palace complex consists of a number of different buildings, built over
the course of four or five centuries, now in various states of repair. We
approached past the ruins of the Tower of Seven Floors, exploded by the
troops of Napoleon when they abandoned the Alhambra in the 19th century.
The troops did a great deal of damage throughout the complex during their
occupation. We then walked into the colonnaded, round courtyard of the
palace constructed in the middle of the complex under the reign of Charles
V. He was the grandson of Ferdinand & Isabella and Holy Roman Emperor,
where he got his V, since he confusingly predated Charles II-IV of Spain.
We went on to explore the remains of the Alcazaba, the original Moorish
fortress, and to climb the Torre de la Vela (Tower of the Sail) with its
rooftop view of Granada.

We had a few minutes before our timed entry into the Nasrid Palace (named
for the dynasty which ruled Granada), so Jason and I ducked into the small
Museum of Archeology housed in a section of the Palace of Charles V. There
were a few interesting pieces there, including a gorgeous fluted alabaster
fountain, but we were able to move through pretty quickly.

Finally, it was time to enter the Nasrid Palace. I remember being very
impressed with it during my last visit to Spain in 1986 and I think I
appreciate it even more now, having a much greater understanding of the
history and architecture. The graceful arches and columns, the trickling
fountains and serene pools, the intricate moldings of geometrical shapes and
Arabic praises with traces of their original vibrant colors still clinging
to the plaster, the brilliant tiles so cleverly arranged in complex
patterns, the integration of nature and artifice throughout the palace, and
the panoramas of the surrounding mountains and the valley below--all of
these elements combine to make the Alhambra more than live up to its
reputation of beauty. One of the things that strikes me about the various
remnants of the Moorish domination of Spain is the sense of peace and
tranquility that pervades them, even when filled with the bustle and chatter
of tour groups.

Leaving the palace, we wandered for a time in the Generalife gardens. The
Palace of Generalife, higher up on the slope, where the rulers passed their
summers, is currently closed for renovation. Finally, after noon, we left
the complex, passing by the long lines of people hoping to buy tickets for
the afternoon. We swung around the outer walls and down to the Darro.
Jason wanted to visit the Museo de Arqueologia there, but the rest of us
were eager for a break, so we went on. Our eye was caught by a shop along
the way, so we stopped in and got a few souvenirs, including a gorgeous
platter for Sonja & John. By the time we got back to the flat, Jason had
beaten us there, even though he'd also made a quick stop at the Arabian
Baths.

We picked up sandwiches at the corner shop and it was then I realized that I
had lost my glasses on the way down from the Alhambra. I went back to the
shop where we'd stopped, on the off chance that they'd fallen out of my
pocket there, but no luck. Fortuitously, Sonja travels with a spare set of
glasses (my spare pair are my sunglasses) and her prescription matches mine
very closely, so I was able to use her spares for the rest of the trip.

After a rest, we walked over to the Royal Chapel, at the back of the main
cathedral and predating it by about a century. It's not a terribly
impressive place, but includes the tombs of Ferdinand & Isabella; their
daughter, Juana the Mad; her husband, Phillip the Fair, a Hapsburg; and
their eldest son, who died young. Interestingly, their bodies are not
inside the elaborate tombs of Carrara marble topped with their effigies, but
rather in fairly plain caskets visible in the crypt below. Isabella's
personal collection of early Renaissance religious painting is on display in
the sacristy.

Sonja headed back to the flat to rest, while I went with John and Jason to
find the Convent of St. Jerome. On our way, we noticed people going into a
building with an attractive courtyard, so we followed them into a lovely--if
somewhat run-down--patio surrounded by columns, with a fountain in the
center framed by orange trees, and frescoes on the theme of healing
throughout the ages covering the walls. We were in a hospital, with signs
pointing to the various departments. It was very surreal. Jason wondered
if the patients get to eat the oranges.

We did find the convent, which included one of the more interesting churches
we saw in Spain. The back of the nave is very low-ceilinged and then opens
up toward the center, creating a spectacular effect and highlighting the
four-story gold altarpiece. Unlike most of the religious sites we visited,
this one was covered with frescoes of saints, angels, and historical
figures. A stroll around the main cloister and a look into the refectory
completed our tour and we headed back to change for dinner.

The four of us hopped in a cab and zipped out to the lot where we'd parked
the car. We first tried to visit the Carthusian monastery on the north side
of the city, which our guidebooks indicated would be open until 8pm. Sadly,
we were deceived and it had just closed as we arrived at six. The gift shop
was still open and I found a copy of Washington Irving's _Tales from the
Alhambra_ complete with some lovely photographs of the complex. Earlier in
the day we had seen the room in the palace where he stayed during his time
in Granada.

With several hours before our dinner reservation and not wanting to deal
with redepositing the car, we decided to drive up into the Sierra Nevada.
We followed the road south and east from Granada that eventually led us up
to a ski resort. It was strange to go from a warm day up into snow, but the
mountains were lovely and we got a nice view of the sunset from up there.
Descending back into the valley, we got gas and made it to the restaurant
only a few minutes early.

La Ruta de Veleta, in Cenes de la Vega, just barely outside of Granada, had
been recommended by a couple of our guidebooks as just the best restaurant
in the area. We enjoyed our meal, but it wasn't spectacularly better than
other meals we had along the way. John and Sonja both started with onion
soup, while Jason had the baked goat cheese with honey and I tried a
delicious "cazuela," a loose casserole of spinach, mushrooms and golden
thistle, with a fried egg in it. Our main dishes were solomillo for John,
wild boar for Sonja, partridge stuffed with onions for Jason and cochinillo
for me, which I didn't think was as good as the one we'd had in Barcelona.
for dessert I think John had the tiramisu, while Sonja and Jason & I had
crispy apple slices served with ice cream and a mixture of creme anglaise
and berry sauce that was very nice.

Tired from our long day, we headed back into Granada, dropped John & Sonja
off, took the car back out to La Caleta (the two closer lots being full
again), hopped a cab back to the flat, and packed up before bed. The bar was
still emitting music and smoke and there was the occasional CRASH! of glass,
but apparently the truck doesn't pick up on Sundays and rather than smashing
down the glass in the bin, they simply placed supernumerary bags of bottles
alongside. Between the decrease in noise and the increase in exhaustion, I
slept much more solidly than I had the night before.

In the morning, I walked out to La Caleta to fetch the car--it was a lovely
morning and I enjoyed some time alone on the quiet streets--and picked the
others up with luggage. After a quick stop at the post box and ATM
conveniently located at the end of the block, we were on our way to Malaga.
We had aimed to arrive at the airport by 10:30am so Sonja & John could
easily catch their 12:15pm flight to Paris, continuing on to Newark and then
taking the train home to DC. As we walked from the parking area toward the
terminal, Sonja noticed the big clock on the wall saying that it was 11:30
and it was only then that I remembered that Daylight Savings Time was
kicking in and all of Europe had sprung forward that morning. With a
mounting sense of panic we ran into the ticketing hall, but they were able
to check in quickly and head toward the gate with half an hour until their
departure. Not the leisurely farewell we'd hoped for, but it worked out in
the end.

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