Home to Tucson

We made it safely back to Tucson, where our neighbors, the Brucatos, met us at the airport. The trip was relatively uneventful and "only" 21 hours or so door to door. Air travel is becoming such a trial that we're planning on taking only this one airline trip this year. Happily, it was a good one.

On the Town and on our Way

This morning, all four of us--Karin, Susan, Bob, and I--walked to the Wallace Collection, a nearby museum that I last visited nearly fifty years ago. It has aged much better than I have. Almost all the rooms in the mansion have been refurbished with period cloth wall coverings and gold accents on the elaborate moldings. If only grants from large trusts and wealthy donors

could do the same for me, I might get over my distaste for fund raising.

The collection houses a lot of romantic and sentimental paintings I don't care for, but then you notice a Velazquez portrait, Hals' The

Laughing Cavalier, Fragonard's naughty The Swing, and, of course, half a dozen or so Rembrandts including an early self-portrait and one of his son Titus.

Like most museums in the city, this one is free, and always, you run into small groups of school children on tour with note pads and teachers. Despite the economy, England still treasures its art.



Unfortunately, it no longer treasures theater the way it used to by underwriting ticket prices, but on this trip, we did not let that stop us. Already we've seen Sondheim's 'Merrily We Roll Along' (magnificant), 'Billy Elliot' (tired), and, tonight, Alan Bennet's 'Untold Stories.'

For lunch today we were guests of Sandra Soriano, a friend of Karin's, at a restaurant in town, and tonight, our friend of almost fifty years, Tosh Lee, is joining us for dinner and the play. Sadly, we'll have to say goodbye to Tosh tonight and tomorrow morning to London itself. We leave for the airport fairly early, so this may be our final post on the blog--or maybe I'll add a P.S. when we're back in Tucson.

London Lessons

Karin's friend went on her own today, so that left her to go with Bob and me.  The three of us have traveled together to St. Petersburg, Berlin, Rome, Florence, and Venice, but none of these provided the lessons she needed in London to fit in.

First, get used to the London tube. It feels as if you're headed to the center of the earth. Then, when we buy tickets to West End shows at the discount ticket office in Leicester Square, be sure to queue up. Wait your turn. We picked up tickets for tonight to "Billy Elliot." Karin got tickets for tomorrow night's "The 39 Steps."

We then went to the National Gallery to visit some old friends--Rembrandt, Velazquez, Caravaggio. Then, after a quiet lunch in the crypt of St. Martin in the Fields Church, we stopped by the gelato shop that Bob discovered yesterday where he found his Holy Grail of flavors, frutti di bosco. Thus fortified, we headed to the National Portrait gallery to visit some more old friends--Elizabeth I, Winston Churchill, Samuel Johnson, E. M. Forster.

On the way to the second museum, Karin, now properly trained, saw another queue and promptly joined it . . . until the headmistress said,

"Terribly sorry, no more room on the bus."

London

Yesterday, we took the Chunnel train from Paris to London, a ride that took 2:15 hours. Amazing. After checking into our hotel near Marble Arch, we took the underground out to Acton to visit our longtime friend, Tosh Lee, and have dinner with her and her daughter-in-law.

Today, we visited the British Museum to see how its display of Western art compared with that at the Louvre. Its three must-see objects were the Rosetta Stone (couldn't get past the crowds to photograph it), the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, and the Portland Vase. Bob did take photos of his favorite marble, the horse's head peaking over what would have been the very end of the front frieze, and the Portland Vase, which was certainly worth writing an ode about.

The number of  items owned by the BM are similar to those at the Louvre, but they are much better displayed, and not just because all the signs were in English. I did ask Bob to take a photo of the Roman Emperor Markus Aurelius, whose Meditations I read from time to time, particularly when our broken political system gets me down.

Although we have no photos of it, I do want to mention an astonishing discovery in the collection, an almost-complete frieze from an inner room from The Temple of Apollo at Bassi. Why this has not gained pop-star status, I  don't know.

We then bought two bottles of cold sparkling water from the gift shop, which they put in a BM shopping bag for us to display on the underground and the aboveground. We never cease to be amazed at the seemingly endless escalators that take you deep under the city for the former, or having the latter turn into a perfect, sunny day in the 70s. And the water was excellent too.

Next stop was Leicester Square, where Bob picked up tickets that he'd ordered on line for Steven Sondheim's rarely-produced musical, Merrily We Roll Along. We are seeing it this evening with Tosh and our next-door neighbor from Tucson, Karin Lahnam, who just happens to be in London for the next three days with one of her employees, Susan Carlson.

A Touch of French History

Today we explored the Marais District that lies between our hotel at Place de la Republic and Ile St. Louis. It was the place to live back before Louis XIV built Versaille, and the museum we visited is housed in two of its elegant town houses.

Musee Carnavalet traces the history of France (with special emphasis on Paris) from prehistoric times (closed for renovation) into the 20th century. What makes it especially

delightful is the number of furnished, period rooms that show how the very wealthy lived in the 17th and 18th centuries. And their little dogs too!

We had expected to see displays of the French Revolution (1789) that ended all of this opulence, but it too was closed for renovation. Just as well. All that blood and gore.

Instead, we skipped ahead to La Belle Epoque,where we were taken by a portrait of a fashionable lady and a satirical piece by Albert Guillaume 
about more fashionable folk carrying on at some theatrical performance.

Somewhere along the line, we also saw an elegant, framed tapestry of a still life. What made it so special was the warm, fuzzy feeling that the unexpected medium  gave it. (Woven, not painted, fruit?)

Oh, and the gardens too were elegant. We'd seen them yesterday wandering by the gate, but Bob snapped a photo of one as it was intended to be seen--from above.

This museum, unlike the Louvre, was almost empty . . . and it was free! 

After, we wandered through the Jewish district and had lunch at Finkelsztajn's, a father and son place that had been in business since 1946. Our hot borek au fromage de brebis (cheese in philo dough) followed by a kind of apple pie and a raspberry cheese cake amply demonstrate why they've been in business so long.

A Night to Remember

After a picnic in a park on Ile de la Cite, we attended a concert of mostly Vivaldi in Sainte Chapelle, a 13th Century royal chapel that miraculously has survived wars and revolutions for over six  hundred years. It is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

On previous visits, I've wandered around for half an hour or so marveling at the amazing colors--especially the vibrant blues and reds--but this time, I could lose myself for almost two hours studying the amazing stained glass windows that seem to soar above me supported only by flimsy columns. How anyone could have created anything so beautiful, I don't know. It was definitely sensuous overload.

Here are random pictures of Sainte Chappelle.

Closer Looks at the City of Lights

Although the Louvre is the western world's largest

museum, its collection of western art from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance can not begin to match what we saw last year on our trip to Rome, Florence and Venice. Yes, there are the three masterpieces that everyone comes to see--The Winged Victory of Samothrace, Venus di Milo, and Mona Lisa--but after that, the collection is spotty at best.

I had hoped to see more works of the Italian Renaissance, but there was only one Caravaggio, and it was a copy (or vice versa) of the one at the Capitaline Museum in Rome. There was, however, a rare Michelangelo masterpiece, one of the series of slaves that he had begun sculpting for his patron's unfinished tomb. The others are in Florence.

I may be grumpy, though, because I hate crowds almost as much as I hate guided tours. We picked up our tickets for the museum yesterday, thereby avoiding the endless line waiting to buy them at the I. M. Pei pyramid in the Louvre's square. (See Bob's photo.) 

Once inside, though,

you had to fight your way through the throngs to get anywhere. I asked Bob to take a photo not of the Winged Victory, but of the flood of tourists flowing up the stairs to see her.




We left after a couple of hours and enjoyed a quiet luncheon with a glass of red wine. That helped a lot.

After, we returned to the hotel by Metro, using an entrance built to look like the gaudy crown that Louis XV used. Bob's apt comment when he saw the real thing was, "It looks like something out of Toys R Us." Maybe the French had more than one reason for their Revolution.

The City of Lights

We arrived in Paris at 3:25 and found our way by subway to our hotel (The Hotel Paris France) on the outer rim of the Marais District, which is like New York's Greenwich Village. After settling in, we walked to the Louvre to pick up tickets for tomorrow, had dinner with a full bottle of wine, and somehow managed to find our way back to the hotel. From our window, if you crane your neck, you can see the Eiffel Tower. At ten o'clock its lights sparkled like the 4th of July--or rather, the 14th. Couldn't find the camera for that shot, but this is the view from our hotel window. The little lit tower in the distance is Tour Eiffel.

May Day! May Day!

Like much of the world, France celebrates May Day. It's

like our Labor Day, only more so. It's a day off, but it's often a day of protest. So it was only fitting that our walk brought us first to a May Day march. A flyer called for the creation of a 6th Republic in France, one that is for people, not bankers. 

All those in favor were encouraged to join others on May 5th to march to the Bastille in Paris. (One slight problem is that the Bastille no longer exists.) And Bordeaux being such a clean city had a group of street cleaners (who did not have the day off) follow the marchers to pick up trash.

Our next stop was the Jardin Public (1755), which includes a small botanical section with all the plantings labeled. Then we wandered toward the river front, where we discovered a large open air antique and flea market in full swing. There we split a ham and cheese 

panini while listening to four musicians play 'La Vie en Rose,' 'Hello Dolly' and other traditional French favorites.

Rain began to fall more heavily as we continued along the waterfront where our umbrellas were less hazardous for other pedestrians. 

We passed the beautiful Place de la Bourse with its 18th century commercial buildings and discovered the Porte Cailhau  that was built to celebrate the famous Franey victory of Fornoue in 1495.

Extra Edition--A Correction

Just found out the cathedral listed in the last blog was not Notre Dame. It is call St. Andre Cathedral. Hope we didn't confuse anyone!