Sidd Gets Some Culture - Ontario Style

It's been almost a year since we had the pleasure of Sidd's company on one of our travels.  The last time the Hounds from Hell were left to the gentle mercies of their Uncle Pervy Sidd was off gallivanting around the United States of America with another colleague from work.  At that point we had the pleasure of Juan's company for a jaunt through Germany and Austria.  He attended the opera, several impressive exhibitions and even had caffe and strudel mit schlagsahne at the Zwinger in Dresden.

Juan has an afternoon coffee with a rather taciturn but seemingly contented Matrone aus Dresden in the
square in front of the Zwinger.  Her strudel was - you should excuse the expression - smothered in schlag.

However now it's Sidd's turn to join us for a bit of culture - Ontario style as we head down to Stratford.  Sidd has travelled on trains in Europe but this will be his first adventure on Via Rail - going to have to see how it compares.

Sidd was a bit overwhelmed by everything that's on offer this season but decided that for
his first go at Ontario Culture he'd try Shakespeare, Brecht, Gershwin and Farqhaur.

And though he's been to the theatre in London, Salzburg and several other places he's never seen anything by that Shakespeare guy.  And apparently this Stratford Shakespeare Festival has been going on for a while and has a reputation for doing the guy's stuff up pretty good.  And Sidd's heard there's a chance he'll be able to try some fancy stepping and learn a number from Crazy For You at one of the extra events.  Plus he'll get to meet Spo and Harper's Other Daddy and have some good food and wine.  Now if that ain't culture I don't know what is.

August 17 - 1959: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, the much acclaimed and highly influential best selling jazz recording of all time, is released.

Sidd in Spargel

Since our friend Lara introduced him to us Sidd has been on two trips with Laurent and I and two with me to England.  Unlike a few of our friends we haven't been able to take him to exotic places like Tripoli or the North Pole but we have shown him a few bits of the world.  We've also sponsored one of his relatives - you may remember Jööhann his cousin from Sweden who now has a job at Foreign Affairs - to come to Canada.

Sidd thought the smell of pizza as the Flight Attendant
came down the aisle with the trolley very appetizing.
He thought it tasted pretty good too.

As always where there is Sidd there is food, drink, sights and a camera.  I was going to get a photo of him in,  what seems to be his accustomed seat, Business class on the flight from Ottawa to London but he waved the camera aside.  Been there!  Done that!  Move on!

He wasn't too thrilled with the wait in Heathrow - and that silly episode with the shoelace put a bit of a kink in things - well actually took the kink out and had me landing flat on my face.  However he did experience the service on Lufthansa from London to Munich and seemed to enjoy his pizza and trying to make eye contact with the friendly fight attendants.  Once we had checked in at the Eden Hotel Wolff and we had unpacked, much like us, he decided that a nap would be in order.  After all it had been a bit of a journey: 17 hours to be exact from door to door.

But needless to say he woke up in time for diner.  And of course it's May in Bavaria and there's a saying in Germany that a day in May without asparagus is like a ... well May day without asparagus!  Well okay it really isn't a saying but it probably should be!  May is spargal season in Germany - and Austria too - and the markets are filled with plump white stocks of asparagus and they are on the menu of every restaurant in town.   At this time of year spargel season is hard to miss!  And neither Sidd nor Laurent and I missed.  Last night it was dinner at the hotel - asparagus, boiled potatoes, hollandaise sauce perch for me and a schnitzel for Laurent.  Sidd had a bite of each and pronounced them good - as was the local Riesling that washed it all down.  And the rhubarb compote (another seasonal treat) with sour cream gelato that finished the meal was found more than satisfactory.

Spargal, schnitzel, boiled potatoes and hollandaise sauce!
Many a gnome has made a meal of less.

You have to admit those are some spargal spears!

But there's always room for rhubarb compote, sour cream
gelato - and the mint leaf makes it healthy.

And there's small chance that after all that flying time even
this cafe-latte would keep Sidd awake.

At that point Sidd was all set for a good night's sleep and an early morning wake-up call.  We may have seen Munich before but to Sidd it was all new and exciting.  He had places to go and things to see.

More Travels with Sidd can be found by right clicking the link.

May 15 -  1858: Opening of the present Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London.

Sicilia or Bust

Well after months of anticipation and planning the vacation to Sicilia has come and gone. Its been a busy – at times maybe too busy – 16 days: food, wine, sights and sites. I'm not sure how many kilometres were clocked up on the car but its probably more in that two weeks than have been put on it in four years in Italy. And I'm not sure that even driving in Mexico City, Cairo and Roma had prepared Laurent for the singular style of driving that we encountered in the towns and road of Sicilia. Ah well we're in one piece which says more about him than it does the local drivers.  One thing: I wouldn't have wanted to do it without the help of a GPS – that smarmy British voice telling us to “bear left” may be irritating at times but damned he knows the roads – or a least the ones that haven't been changed and not updated. Note to TomTom – there's an entirely new subdivision on the main road in Gela that nobody told you about!

The overnight crossing (12 hours) from Civittavechia to Palermo was smooth sailing however the good ship Splendid was not - splendid I mean.  Grandi Navi Veloci should either update their website or their fleet.

The first and last legs of the trip were on car ferries – Roma to Palermo/Catania to Napoli. The Grandi NaviVeloci to Sicily was, to put it kindly, an interesting experience. Shabby would be too polite a word. Let's just say that the boat had seen better days and I was afraid of walking barefoot on the carpeting.   The TTT ferry back from Catania to Napoli, though smaller, was clean, cabin at the bow spacious and staff helpful - too bad they don't do the Civettavecchia to Palermo run.

The first part of our travels took us from Palermo along the Tyrrhenian Sea to the West and than eastward along the Mediterranean Coast.

Laurent has written extensively on his blog about the various stops on the itinerary and I'll be posting a few items on thing that caught my fancy as we travelled from Palermo to Trapani, Erice, Marsala, Mazara del Vallo, Agrigento, Ragusa, Siracusa, Noto and Catania. Looking at that list – and a general sense of fatigue at the end of the trip – make me aware that this is a trip that should have broken into two trips; in fact I said only the other day that had we been wise we would have spent a week in a different area of Sicily each year that we were here. But should, would and could are all conditional verbs – and in this case conditional past – so no point in labouring over what we should have done; just sit back and enjoy the memories of what we did.

Continuing on from Agrigento we headed a bit inland to Ragusa and then back eastward to the Ionian coast and the two major seas ports of Siracusa and Catania.

And the memories are varied.  Wonderful music - an emotionally charged performance of A Greek Passion in Palermo; wonderful food - an unexpected lobster fest at a local trattoria in Marsala were the room was filled with groups of men sharing a meal with their friends and only three women in the whole place and no it wasn't a gay restaurant; great wine - quite a few Enoteche but particularly Michelle's in Trapani and Salvatore's in Marsala; over the top baroque churches - the Duomi in Mazara del Vallo takes the prize with Ragusa running a close second; antiquities galore - the Valley of the Temple leading the pack; and friendly, warm, welcoming, if at times slightly suspicious of strangers, people. 

The departure from Catania and the trip up to the Straits of Messina  on TTT's Partenope was a bit on the rough side but once into the Tyrrhenian it was a smooth sail up to Napoli and then on to Roma by road.

The one thing that struck me the first time I went to Palermo and was confirmed on this trip as I saw more of the island is that Sicily may be part of Italy but it isn't really Italian. It shares a common language and some history but the people, the food, the landscape has been molded by the influences of the Mediterranean in a way that makes it a place unto itself.  A succession of occupiers - the Greeks,  the Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Normans, the French and the Spanish - have left their mark. As it always is Nature has been both kind and cruel: the sea, earthquakes and volcanoes have formed, enriched and scarred the terrain making it both welcoming and hostile. Religion – Pagan and Christian – has molded the architecture of cities and minds. And a wry sense of survival on the part of the inhabitants has taken all these things – the good and the bad - and created a place that is Sicilia.


24 maggio - Santa Maria Ausiliatrice

Perché non?

I’ve always hated the conditional tense, particularly the past conditional: would have, could have, and should have are such sad conjugations. And I find as I get older than I like them less and less.

I was mentioning to a colleague today that I’d decided to go up to Milano next Wednesday to catch the last performance of the Robert Carsen production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at La Scala. She casually asked how long I planned on staying – with that slight raised eyebrow that most Southerners give you when you mention spending any time in Milano. When I said just overnight, she gave me an astounded look and said: All that way for one night? You’re mad you know?

And I guess in a way I am. So far I’ve journeyed up to Milano, Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Parma, Torino and Genova for short periods of time to go to operas or theatre that I particularly wanted to see. But in discussing with Laurent– who often can’t accompany me because of work – whither I should go or not, his response has always been: Why not?

And why not indeed? If I don’t take advantage of the opportunities that are being presented I'm the only one losing. Probably in two years time it will be back to Canada, the winter cold of Ottawa and the mundane existence of a Civil Servant. La Scala, Salzburg, a box at the Opera and travel to the Dolomites, Greece and the Adriatic coast will all be in the past tense. And I would rather that not be past conditional.

And frankly I am getting too old to want to have regrets about not doing something. And not meaning to sound dramatic – Cecilia you know this is to set your mind at rest – but given the on-going health issues, more a matter of not being able to find the parts on E-bay than anything else, I should be making hay while the old sol is shining.

So next Wednesday I will board the 0930 AV for Milano, arrive 4 hours later, check into the Hotel Felice, meander around the neighbourhood, head down to Scala around 1800, get my ticket, grab a bite to eat in the Galleria and be sitting in my palcho at 2000 when Sir Andrew Davies mounts the podium. Next morning after a leisurely breakfast I’ll leave Milano Centrale at 1130. God and the deities of train travel willing I’ll be back in the house by 1600 – much lighter of wallet but a bit higher of heart.

And notice at no point in that last paragraph did I use the conditional – future or past. I really don’t like the conditional tense.

These pictures are from the Carsen Dream when it was presented last year in Athens - my good friend Parsifal took them. For more a few more just click here. It is an incredibly beautiful production.

10 giugno - Santa Diana

Singolo

Often when I go on my little opera jaunts around Italy Laurent - because of work or as in the case last month because he was elsewhere in the world - is not able to come with me. As a callow youth I travelled alone on vacation to England and Europe at least once or twice a year - ah the advantages of working for an airline. For the last half of my 33 years working at Air Canada I was on the road solo two or three times a month. Living in hotel rooms and eating alone in restaurants never seemed to bother me back then but recently I find I'm not happy travelling on my own. Now part of that is because I miss having Laurent around to nag at but there are other things too.

Take accommodation. In North America when you ask for a single room you'll end up with a queen size bed and the price is almost as much as a double. In Europe when you ask for a single room that's what you get - a single room (il singolo) at a reasonable price. Usually its about as wide as a monk's cell and as sparsely furnished. A single bed, a chair and small desk and that's it - though at the hotel in Torino there was a credenza that revealed a small hot plate and sink when I lifted the top. I suppose that was for the long term guest who wanted to drive themselves crazy by not escaping to a wider outside world. Now none of the hotels I stayed at this trip were less than adequate, in fact the Hotel Torino in Parma (shown in the pictures) was exceptional, and in all three the staff were friendly and helpful. And in all cases they were more than happy to recommend restaurants - all of them good - in the area.

Which brings us to the next thing - eating alone in restaurants. In North America you take a book, your laptop or suddenly find the tent cards on table the most fascinating piece of literature since Harry Potter. But that just isn't done here. Eating is an event not a necessity - or rather a necessity that becomes an event. And food, in Italy particularly, is a communal thing - its an excuse to socialize, meet friends, family and colleagues. An excuse to gossip, talk - and they do love to talk - and while away the time in the sunshine or the cool of an evening. The single diner is met with a look of sympathy: poverino, he has no woman to look after him; sometimes with an arched eyebrow: what's the matter with him doesn't he have any friends; and occasionally with simple curiosity: why would anyone be alone? I found it particularly difficult as I tucked into my Polenta Grantinée with Brie and Porcini mushrooms at I tre porcellini at Sunday lunch. Sunday lunch (pranzo) is a sacred institute here and to be alone at that time of the week is to be truly alone.

Understand that none of this is said in self-pity, more like self-realization - I don't enjoy travelling alone! And having said all that I'm off on my own next week to Bologna, just for the evening, to see Heinrich Marschner's rarely perfomed Der Vampyr. I've covered the hotel problem by booking a double for single use - got a great deal at booking.com. That just leaves the dinner alone problem? So how does this sound: Harmless gentleman of advancing years desires the company of an intelligent ... Nah, think I'll just have a tramezzino at the Teatro bar.

06 novembre - San Leonardo di Noblac

The Navel of the World!

That's where we going for our 30th anniversary - who says we don't know how to celebrate in style???

Okay I should clarify - Laurent is scheduled to work in Athens the last week of November. Because our anniversary is the weekend before we decided to leave a few days early and celebrate in Greece. Yeah so what's that got to do with navels? you ask. We're going to head up to Arachova, a charming hillside town on Mont Parnassus near Delphi.

Clear now? No?

Okay, well according to the ancient Greeks, Zeus sent two sacred eagles from the ends of the earth to find the centre of the world. The eagles met over Delphi and it was declared the omphalos or "navel of the world."


View Larger Map

With the help of my friend Yannis we found Xenonas Iresioni, a lovely guest house in Arachova. We've booked a room with a fireplace because by November there should be snow on the ground and skiing season will have started. Skiing in Greece? Yes it appears that Arachova is a popular ski destination for upwardly mobile - and mobile equipped - young Athenians. According to my friend Parsi we can expect to see all the smart set with their SUVs converging on the ski slopes. That really won't bother us as neither one of us skis - but they'd better leave room at the bar cause we both can do apres-ski very well thank you!

09 ottobre - San Donnino di Fidenza

One Year On - I

What is left of my addled brain boggles when I think that we arrived in Rome a year ago. An entire year since we hit the chaos that is Fumincino and confronted what we have come to know as the “Roman” attitude.

We arrived with two laptops, 7 bags – Laurent was en route from Beijing and we had to bring enough clothes to last until our personal effects arrived in late September – and a dog kennel with one pissed off puppy inside. After being deserted at Dorval Airport, subjected to the cargo hold of an airplane for 8 hours, the p/o’d puppy had been left at the locked door of the baggage room just after the flight arrived and stayed there until an hour later when a porter let us in on the secret of his whereabouts.

Prior to that the wait for our luggage was only 45 minutes (fast for Rome) but our attempts to get baggage carts had been complicated. The automatic cart dispenser would only accept E1.00 coins and all we had were bills; all the change machines, conveniently located right next to the baggage carts, where out of order; and the Exchange counter didn’t make change only exchange as the young lady laconically advised us when she could tear herself away from her conversation. So we accepted the services of that porter, who up until then had been eying us in an amused fashion – is it too cynical to think he may have sabotaged the change machines?

We had spent the previous days in Montreal completing the last of the required paperwork for importing a dog into the EU including a document signed and dated by a Vet the day before departure!!!!! With a file as thick as Gibbons’ Decline and Fall we marched up to three Customs Officers busily reliving the wrong plays in Sunday's football match. Reese, us and our reading material where of no concern, Roma had lost and it had to be explained. We were impatiently waved along as the inconvient nuisances we would become if they were forced to complete those silly formalities imposed on the Italian worker by the arrogant EU. Despite what Mr Gibbons says it wasn’t debauchery that destroyed the Roman Empire it was total disinterest.

Then for the next two hours we sat in a typical Monday morning Roman traffic jam.

I suppose at that point a sane person would have turned around and boarded the next plane for home but sanity has never been one of my strong points. So I stayed – at times questioning why, but stay I did.

05 agosto - Dedicazione di Santa Maria Maggiore

The Best Planned Lays

As I've mentioned before none of our travel plans here ever quite come off as I've mapped them out. Since late January we've planned to head up to Salzburg for the Pfingsten weekend - that would be Whitsun to my Anglican friends, Pentecost to others . This is the second year of Riccardo Muti's Neapolitan-themed music festival and based on Opera Chic's report on last year's event it's worth the detour for fans of slightly obscure classical music. Also Laurent has never been to Salzburg and I haven't been since 1978 so it would be a chance to visit/revisit a fascinating city.

Plan A was to drive, but rather than the 9 hour direct drive we were going to take our time. Do it in stages, a stop in San Marino and Padova on the way up and Trieste and Modena on the way back. That was before Laurent was taken out by acute bronchial asthma during our trip last week to the Veneto. He's feeling much better after five days in bed and our doctor has cleared him to go away but the course of 5 pills twice a day has us a bit uneasy about him at the wheel of a car for long distances. So why don't you drive asks you? Well to be honest I don't feel that my reflexes are good enough to drive here in Rome or much of Italy for that matter. I just can't handle the constant gnat-like swarm of motos and even 5 years of Montreal driving hasn't prepared me for the aggressiveness of Italian drivers. So for the safety of all I restrict my driving to a turn around the parking lot!

So Friday I started working on Plan B and once again grappled with the dreaded TrenItalia website - I know I should just give up but I'll be damned if I'll let a website defeat me. Since we had two weeks we didn't want to just head up to Salzburg and back so again we planned a trip in stages but this time it took a bit more work. Though there are no border crossing here in the EU, there are invisible protection barriers - it is not possible to book a Innsbruck-Salzburg train on the TrenItalia website and this time it isn't TrenItalia's fault. For anything out of home-country you have to go to a travel agent or the train station. By the time we got all our hotels booked and itinerary figured out all the agencies were closed for the weekend, so we headed off to Termini and the International booking desk. The very pleasant man there was more than happy to make the reservations for us but.... but.... he couldn't book the Innsbruck-Salzburg portions, we'd have to do that in Austria! There was not point in asking why then the website instructions to go to the train station for International tickets - just smile, give him the credit card and take the tickets. There are 25 trains a day between the two so I'm sure we'll get there somehow.

The plan - as always subject to last minute changes - is now Rome to Salzburg with a two day stop in Trento in the Dolomites, staying at Agritur Maso Wallenburg for a few days then on to Salzburg for the Festival. While in Salzburg the cast and crew of Hobbs-Beaulieu productions will be staying at the lovely Hotel Stein . It was where I stayed on my first trip to Salzburg in 1969. Back then the Stein had the look of a slightly past-it matron who still tried to get tarted up for Festival time. I had a small single room with a washbasin, bath down the hall (5 Shillings extra - now how did that stick in my mind?) and the WC next door. But there was an incredible view across the river to Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Altstadt. I remember one night sitting at the window watching a wild thunderstorm in the mountains behind the Fortress - it was worthy of a James Whale .

The Stein has been turned into a "boutique" hotel - baths are en-suite and, if the website is to be believed - rooms are spacious. But just in case I've made sure that we booked a room with a view!

On the way back the train schedule pretty much forces us to stop over in Innsbruck for a day on our way to Verona. A few days in Verona, of course we'll take a look at the spurious Juliet balcony, should help us adjust to being back in Italy after the cool Austrian Alps. Then back home to Roma and that's the last trip for a while.

The above picture of Salzburg Altstadt was taken by Thomas Pinatric and published on Wikipedia. I think it is a truly remarkable photo. Looking at it brought that thunderstorm in 1969 to mind.

04 maggio - Ascensione di Nostro Signor

Parlo del Piu e del Meno

Just some odds and ends - separated by a few of those leftover pictures from last year.

The Temple of Aecespius at the Villa Borghese in August.

• Next week I head off to London for a few days - 1 cent euro each way on Ryanair plus Euro 48.98 in taxes and services fees for a grand total of Euro 50.00 . I've heard some bad things about them but at that price as long as its got wings and a good safety record I'll try it. Oh did I mention I'm deathly afraid of flying - yes 33 years in the airline business and I'm terrified every minute I'm on a plane.

From our balcony - terraces and the Pines of Rome.

• Why London? To visit my friend Deb and her SO James for a few days and take Deb to lunch at the Fountain Room at Fortnum and Mason's and the Panto at the Old Vic. Its become a tradition - if you can call twice a tradition. Last time it was tea at the Savoy and Sir Ian McKellan playing Aladdin's mother, this year it's Stephen Fry's version of the Cinderella story and some very camp carryings-on. I'll blog about that later.

Towards the Foro from the restored Mercato di Trainao.

• The following week I'm planning to join Laurent in Athens. He's going for work, I'm going to wander around the Plaka, drink ouzo and check out some of Matt Barrett's helpful suggestions on restaurants etc. Matt has never been wrong where Athens is concerned.

A galleria in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele.

• Since the truckers' strike last month food prices have gone up here anywhere from 10 to 20% depending on the product. And after the December taxi strikes our beloved Mayor Walter "Give 'em bread and circuses" Veltroni has announced that taxi fares will go up 18% with a new Euro 2 surcharge for taxis from the railway station. Wine, however will remain the bargain it has always been. Some things you just don't screw around with!

Almost finished polishing our balls.

• And Wally V. has also announced that Euro 2 billion and a workforce of approximately 5,000 will be thrown at the city parking problem. By 2010 there should be 41,000 new parking spots. Of course by then there should be 100,000 additional cars.

The table set for Christmas Dinner

• I finally got tickets for Tosca - showed up at the Box Office on Tuesday and nabbed 4 seats for the Sunday matinee. Its the first cast so I'm happy with that - explanation: since performances are given on successive nights here they often have two, sometimes three, casts alternating. Sunday will be the same singers as Opening Night - including Marcelo Alvarez and Renato Bruson - so I'm quite content.

10 gennaio - San Aldo

There's More to It Than Ham

They were right! Our friends and colleagues have been telling us that the only way to deal with living in Rome is to get the hell out of town at least once a month. And it works - the week or two before my trip to Parma I was on the verge: a trip back to Canada was looking awfully inviting. And that after only three months in Rome! The problem was we really hadn't left Rome with its chaos, traffic, noise and what my Italian teacher Eugenia called "nervosa." Two days, some good food, some music and I returned a happier, healthier human being. Now we have to get Laurent away for a weekend.


I'm sure Parma has its downside but I was charmed by fact that one of the major modes of transportation was the bicycle - for young and old. Cars were not parked on sidewalks or across pedestrian crossings, the streets are clean and the center of the city - on Saturday and Sunday at least - is restricted traffic and largely a pedestrian zone. The pace is slower as can be expected in a small city.

I didn't have time to see anything other than the outside of the Cathedral, Baptistry and Palazzo Pilote and the only museum I visited was the charming puppet museum Il Castello dei Burattini. All of which means I will have to go back and next time take Reese and Laurent with me.

I took far too many pictures so I'll post them in the next few hours by subject and avoid any further long-winded travelogue writing.

06 novembre - San Leonardo di Limoges

Gondoliera???????

It appears that Venice's macho Gondolieri - much fabled in Gilbert and Sullivan as the gay gondolieri but that's another story - are up in arms. These men's men of the canals - I've included a few pictures taken on a vacation back in 2000 to show just how macho these boys are and 'cause hell beefcake is beefcake - are horrified that a woman is attempting to break into their manly domain. Alexandra Hai - a foreigner and a "gasp" woman - has won the "limited" right to navigate through the waterways of la Serenissima.

An article in today's NYTimes quotes one veteran gondolier as saying "Let's leave one tradition intact." And Venice is a city that loves its traditions. However you will notice that none of these gentlemen are wearing the traditional straw boater with the long flowing streamers - guess it just isn't manly and besides it would get in the way of those traditional Armani sunglasses!