Friday 8 December 2023

1992 Padua, Venice

13.12.92

In the (small train), waiting to go Brescia, then Padova.  Lovely old train that reminds me of my Interrailing days.  First time I went to Padova was about 13 years ago.  In 13 years time I will be...old.

Padova.  In the Sant'Antonio Basilica.  Wow.  Very Russian from outside – all cupolas.  Inside, spacious.  Very busy – great.  Amazing south transept – huge altar.  At the tomb of Sant'Antonio – votive offerings, the pix… A wall of silver hearts in thanks.  Majestic exterior matched by the grandeur of the interior.

Through the backstreets to Caffè Pedrocchi – rather nice.  But the memory of the church lingers: the best skyline in the world? Like San Marco, but more forceful, more heavenward. To the Cappella degli Scrovegni.  New (for me) museum here: hundreds of religious pix, few much good, but nicely set out.

14.12.92

Cold today – around 2°C.  Bought gloves even (at 5,000 Lire).  Breakfast outside the hotel in café in the Piazza dei Signori.  Bustling market around loggia.  To Eremitani – lovely Mantegna frescoes, badly damaged by Allies.  The face in the middle, staring out of the pic – Mantegna?  Then to the main Palazzo della Ragione for rather small/unexciting exhibit of rings and jewels.  But the hall is magnificent – a huge rhombus, painted walls, and at the end a huge horse, like the Trojan one, made of wood.  Why?

Lunch in pizzeria nearby – excellent gnocchi (absent last night from the otherwise excellent restaurant, near Piazza dell’Erbe).  Reminded me of Venice, where I had polenta first, and also Florence, a restaurant we frequented.  After lunch  and a rather perfumed grappa, to the church Santa Giustina beyond Sant’Antonio.  Beautiful open piazza, spoilt by renovations and traffic.  Church closed...but seems similar to the Basilica.  Which we return to.  Look at the fine frescoes in the north transept of Altichiero – again a face looking at us – “that fat guy”.

Slow walk through the colonnades, which make me think of Calvino for some reason, a little stop in bookshops and a few other negozi.  A lazy, pleasant day, sunshine this afternoon, still very cold.

15.12.92 

Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Hotel Scandinavia – which despite its name is beautiful.  The train journey across to Santa Lucia must be the most romantic in the world.  Especially, as now, in the mist.  Very cold, damp, beautiful.  And eccoci.

The view from our room number 1: Santa Maria Formosa to the left, the greengrocer’s stall to the right, lights in the church and in the building opposite, above “Il Burchiello”.  Voices in the square echo hollowly.  The room small but perfectly 18th century and Venetian.

16.12.92

This hotel has an amazing view of the viavai del mondo – Calle Lunga is right next to us.  Cold again, but no fog.  Saw some quite clever pix in the trattoria last night: long exposure jobs of Venice at night – perfect for the Nocturnes of Walks With Lorenzetti.  Went to the Forestiera Valdese too: rooms available.  I must stay there when I come to photo this place.  Cheap too.

You appreciate Santa Maria Formosa from here – its mass.

In the newspaper La Nuova Venezia (ha!) says that the population of Venice has gone down by 1,000 to 75,000.  What shall we do with this impossible city?  I’d like to turn it into the world’s capital for artists: imagine.

The choreography of crowds – as I first understood at the Bolshoi in Moscow...

On the vaporetto: the gondole as they cross the Grand Canal, passengers standing stiffly as if in some ceremony…

More destinations:


Tuesday 21 November 2023

1995 Paris

8.3.95

Cinema Europa Pantheon – Rue Victor-Cousin 13.  To see “Farinelli” – not open in London.  Ah, Paris.  Very arty cinema.  The seats all sponsored – all Left Bank do-gooders, doubtless.  The film, well, nice idea, terrible structure.  For me, its main failing was to give no idea of the overmastering power of the castrato’s voice: the one thing that drove everyone nuts.   The sound quite plausible.

9.3.95

Cité de la Musique – which doesn’t exist, and what does exist isn’t open.  Strange location, on the edge of things, surrounded by 19th century buildings, glass and steel à la Crystal Palace and the rest.

Bad night – something dodgy inside wanting to come out.  Fine sunny day, cold.

1993 Paris

13.4.93

Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord – finally.  Great interior, rather like Almeida Theatre and then some.  Crumbling, red/ochre plaster on walls, the palimpsest of stucco, the dubious pillars holding it up.  “L’Homme Qui” – Sacks, of course.  Nice café next door, chaotique ticket sales at the contrôle.  Managed to phone and pre-book.  Useful habit this is getting to be.  Above, a fine, obscured oval.  The stage a deep, high space behind the proscenium.  Must be fun working here.

This morning to FNAC, near Wagram – but Matisse advance tickets sold out, alas.  Have to queue.  Prices of CDs outrageous - £17 to £20.  Book selection disappointing too. To Gare/Musée d'Orsay– we queued for 20 minutes – tiresome.  As is the arrangement of galleries, it has to be said.  I think the spell of  Musée d'Orsay has been broken for me – I love the jeu d’esprit of using a station – but after that the details don’t repay constant visits. Perhaps this is one consequence of having seen London through the proverbial fresh eyes of some guests last weekend – and really liking it.  It looked remarkably clean, well-ordered and often free (museums etc.)  Well done, UK.  

Very Almeida sort of sound here.

14.4.93

Pompidou Centre.  Two hours queuing to get in here, and I realise that this, too, is all facade: the toilets by the café terrible.  Food OK – unlike the Louvre, whose café is an insult.  Is this the terrible secret of Paris?

Huge queues still, will take hours to clear.  Why didn’t this show come to London?  Shame.


Saturday 18 November 2023

1994 Paris

26.4.94

Public architecture begins in the Charles de Gaulle Airport – a triumph of form over function (ish), with its weird subterranean links to the satellites and the interlocking glass tubes to luggage retrieval.  Back in the RER. Depressingly, the same ads as a year ago.  Building works in the station.

Back in the Hotel Ares – refurbished, and with rather nicer staff.  The elevated metro here has been repainted.  Nice that feeling of returning, of recognising, and of spotting differences.  Obviously architecture has much to do with this.

To “Le Suffren”, of course, and even here, there’ve been changes – new chairs, new interior – same wonderful dédaigneux waiters, though.  Prices seem higher – perhaps we’re poorer.  Our annual visite here provides a useful index to how things are going.  But what a lovely city nonetheless – the lights, the bloody Gauloises-smoking people in their outrageous shirts and jackets…

27.4.94  The Louvre

Nice inverted pyramid – volumes – stunning use of old foundations – the scale and breadth.  To one of the main sculpture galleries – so light, so successful.  The white marble.  Pretty impressive.  Interesting that the older part of the Louvre is looking distinctly ropey.  

To Galeries Lafayette for fine, filling lunch (72 Francs), then to Galerie de la Musique (Rue Réaumur) where I find an expensive book on French music and musicians.  Then café, then to Printemps, back to hotel – Paris, as ever, is exhausting, but pleasantly so.

28.4.94  Grand Palais

Last night re-found the fine restaurant near Liceo ItalianoLa Fontaine de Mars.  Lovely weather now – pale blue sky, cool breeze.  Grass growing greenly before us.

Rather a failed morning: both Petit Palais and Grand Palais are extra to our tourist tickets, and expensive.  To FNAC – nice and cool, but without the mad excitement of London.  Then try to see Brassaï – also extra.  Metro to hotel – to find a bottle of champagne from the wise hotel manager (he recognised us).  Back in the Grand Palais (yo! Press card).  Origine de l’Impressionisme.  Curious pic by Bazille: atelier with pianist in the corner – new twist on pianist in a brothel.  The massive pix of Monet and Manet – new to me, particularly attractive.  One – “Marine: orange” has precisely the colours and contrast of sea we saw at the beach near Merida.

29.4.94

Back in the serene, majestic Louvre.  The other sculpture court.  Bosio: amazing effect of weather on bronze in his Hercules fighting Acheloos.  Lovely serpent.  Fine Mesopotamian collection – that sense of how much was achieved 4000 years ago.  To the restaurant – surprisingly good, and well executed. Cool here, even though there is ravishing sun outside.

To Denfert-Rochereau – for “Prospero’s Books” (ha!).  After lunch at the Louvre (a really happening place) to Île de la Cité for nice sit in the sun (very warm today), then to here.  The open air cafés – or rather the tables on the street – a part of the French love of la vie en publique.  Small arts cinema (30 Francs/seat), playing “Nozze di Figaro” – too low/slowly – of a kind almost extinct in UK.  A nation of cinephiles.

To the Café du Rendez-vous 
Denfert-Rochereau, typical French roadside café .  Good caffe (I’ve been spoilt by Italy for most) and crepes.  Classic facade opposite, six storeys, white wall of sun, trees breaking into leaf. Impressionism eat your heart out.

30.4.94 Tour Eiffel

Sunny but cool. Slightly hazy.  Waiting for the third étage lift.  Of course, the Eiffel Tower is pure architecture – without form or function, pure third dimension – which is the defining characteristic of architecture.  From the top: again, striking how tall French buildings are – not skyscrapers, but blocks of flats – the characteristic grey roofs.  Looking towards Bois de Boulogne.  More than any other city I know, Paris is a city of lines – Haussmann, Mitterrand et al.

Also very noticeable is that the flats – the great blocks everywhere – have very strong horizontal and vertical lines: everything is like a grid.  Due in part to the absence of detached houses or low maisonettes that might change the rhythm.  The overall effect is very like a synthetic cubist pic: an image full of clashing lines that hover and blur.  Also: there are very few office blocks here – mostly towards the periphery.  This is a city for living.  Down on the first 
étage – feels very low and open.  Descending, very noticeable the diagonals of struts – a huge Piranesian nightmare.  

To the Institut du Monde Arabe.  Rather fine building.  To the café on the top – view from the roof over the Seine.  Nice artichoke.  Fascinated by the regulation system for the lighting: photoelectric cells control hydraulic pumps that move rotating plates, opening and closing apertures.  I’ve yet to see it in action: lots of Arabic gutturals around.

To the Syrian exhibition (last day today).  Generally disappointing, but a nice feel of tens of empires – Hittites, Hattites, Akkadians etc hurtling together, contesting this parcel of fertile land, inventing the city, writing…

Now drinking thé à la menthe on the terrace.  Very hot, very nice.  Next to us, three ladies of a certain age discuss computers remarkably sensibly.

On the Bateau-Mouches – an eternal cadence in six languages.
The smell in the Metro, pinned down: burnt wood…

1.5.94

Everything closed, of course.  Blue sky, but slight chill in the air.  Outside Saint-Roch, away form the bloody marchers.  To Le Marché aux Puces, Porte de Clignancourt.  A huge modern-day souk.  Wonderful.

2.5.94

La Samaritaine.  Fine view, good coffee.  A walk from the waxworks museum through some wonderful galleries, Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, to here.  So much to see in Paris, I feel.  Ashamed for London – whether justifiably or not is hard to say.

Lunch in Galeries Lafayette.  Walk down to La Madeleine – first time I’ve seen it: large, classical, covered in scaffolding.  Towards Boullée’s only surviving construction in Paris.  To 16, rue de la Ville l'Évêque – very strange, a bank now, with a glass portico, through which we can see Boullée’s sad remains.  Now crushed between two dull concrete slabs.  Seems to be the dining room of the bank now. Nice swags in the Corinthian columns’ eyes.  Corinthian passing to Doric. Sad.  Fine freizes in the portico, two sphinxes on the six steps.

Inside the Madeleine – much grander than I expected.  So many columns and arches and domes.  Light falls from the ceiling as if liquid.  A sea of open-backed raffia-seat chairs, surprisingly delicate, giving a refined ripple through the space.  Outrageous chandeliers like golden vines and creepers.

Outside the Madeleine, to a café behind it (or the restauration).  Ridiculously noisy, but hell, it’s the principle that counts.  

3.5.94  Carrefour Buci

Very characteristic quarter.  Sitting in the warm sun.  Clear blue sky.  Nice that though we leave at 5.30pm this evening we can enjoy Paris in this relaxed way.  Very noticeable how pleasant just walking in Paris is (from Le Bon Marché to here).  Cf. Köln or Stuttgart – dead boring, depressing even.  Here just being – 
L’être – basta.

To Loubnane, Rue Galande, for mezedes.  The parking here:  if there is two metres of road a junction, this is enough for a BMW.  Rich Turkish coffee – reminds me of Egypt.

Returning to UK, the contrast with France is clear: fluffy explosions of trees everywhere below us.  And on the tube bringing us in, greenery everywhere.  London is organic, Paris is planned and man-made.  Also noticeable how the Underground sprawls out into the suburbs – weed-like, and asymmetrically.  Le Métro is more dense and orderly, as strictly within the Périphérique – a name that says it all.

Thursday 2 November 2023

2023 Shetland

26.10.23 London Heathrow

Sitting in a dinky twin turboprop Loganair to Sumburgh in Shetland, via Dundee.  Just 50 seats.  Last time I was in a turboprop plane was in Mexico – and that was very turbulent.  The six-blade propeller just moved, then stopped… Another delay, sitting on the stand for 15 minutes more… Pushing back, props spinning up rather fast just outside my window (row 4).  Blades invisible, as you’d expect, except for a blur near the engine.  Reminds me that jets are almost magical in their invisible power.  Props make that power visible, just…  As we taxi out to the runway, Concorde is visible.  Beautiful plane, pity about the pollution. 

Pretty impressive acceleration, lifting off quickly.  Brief stop in Dundee, where most got off.  Only around 10 people going on.

Doing a go-around at Sumburgh – almost  landed, but apparently there were “birds on the runway”.  Makes a change from leaves on the line.  Cloudy, but not actually raining at the moment.  Nice sun – above the clouds.

Landed in Sumburgh.  Picked up hire car – quickly, since I was the only one doing so.  Made a nice change from the long-drawn out process at some places – samples of blood, birth certificates etc…

Wind pretty strong, but I imagine it gets much stronger.  The road from Sumburgh to here – Hillswick – hard to mistake, since it is the road running the entire length of the mainland like a spine.  The landscape fairly unchanging – moorland, smooth valleys, low hills.  Reminds me of Harris a lot.  Road good, practically no traffic.  Further north, after the metropolis of Brae – even has a Chinese takeaway – the land begins to buckle and fold, become more beguiling.  The sea makes its presence felt in various directions as the inlets – the voes – poke in.  One is Sullom Voe, which I’d known of for nearly half a century since North Sea oil was a thing.  It’s a pretty exhausted thing now, but apparently brought prosperity to Shetland at the time.

We found our Airbnb easily – it was the end of the road – not just in Hillswick, but almost of the mainland.  The accommodation a well converted barn, mercifully warm, and with good Internet connection.  Right by the sea, which runs west uninterrupted to Canada (?).  In fact we are well north: above Stavanger, where we were last year, close to Norway and the Faroes.

The lady of the nearby house, who owns and runs the barn, came to say hello.  I was surprised – absurdly – when she spoke with a juicy Scottish accent.  Somehow I imagine people here speaking with Norse twang…

27.10.23 Lerwick

In the Peerie Shop café, upstairs.  Raining down to Lerwick, past the mysterious still wind turbines.  Lots of them, and big – so I’m guessing they are a new installation.  Also lots of works signs – lorries carrying material…

Lerwick bigger than expected – we drove and drove, and finally found the centre after a few wrong turnings.  Parked by the harbour, big ships booming.  A quick walk around the old part of the town, then to here for a coffee – and warmth.

Along Commercial Street – where prices are indeed pretty commercial.  The Shetland Times Bookshop excellent – lots of local titles – “Lerwick’s Lanes” or some such – but I am brave, and manage not to buy anything.  Walking north along the street, a rainbow arch before us – rain and sun, but the rain soon passes, leaving us an un-Shetland sunny day.  Lots of cafés and restaurants here – must be busy in summer.

On the way, what is I presume a very Scottish road sign: “It is an offence to drink alcohol in designated places in Lerwick.  This area is a designated place for the purpose of this bylaw.  Maximum penalty £500”.

Past the modern Mareel arts centre to the Shetland Museum.  Quite small – two floors – but well presented, especially the early stuff.  Interesting to read about Norn…  Then back along Commercial Street to The Dowry restaurant.  Busy here, a good sign, one hopes.  The street that runs through Lerwick – Commercial Street – reminds me of Reykjavik and of St. Ives – but rather livelier and more attractive compared to the latter.  To the Broch of Clickimin, conveniently placed near Tesco, with big thick walls, chambers – and two mysterious footprints in a stone slab, possibly for ritual purposes.

Then to Scalloway, the old capital of Shetland.  Small, tranquil, with a ruined castle under repair.  The sun begins to fall down to the west, still warm now that the clouds have all gone.  By the car park, a small public garden, with strange trees.  With the low sun streaming through interlocking twig fingers creating a magic garden.  A tidy house sits behind.

Down to Hamnavoe, crossing two narrow causeways to and from Trondra.  A small but packed harbour.  And a seal bobs up the other side of the harbour wall – huge, 2 metres long.  As we take photos, it turns to regard us with what looks like supercilious contempt.

Driving back, the setting sun starts producing its customary conflagration over the Atlantic, the nearby hills tinged with orange and pink.   Up to Brae to take advantage of a rare petrol pump.  Tank now full for tomorrow’s great odyssey to the ends of the earth.

28.10.23 Toft

Waiting at Toft harbour.  Rain as we came down, now miraculously clearing.  The ferry opened its whale-like maw on arrival, disgorging a dozen or so (maybe two dozen) cars and coaches. Long valley down to Toft – felt very Viking, very Iceland. A strange effect: the wind-blown water surface alongside us make it feel like our car is moving…  Boarding soon for 9.45am sailing to Yell… on Dagalien.

Waiting at Gutcher for 11.20am to Unst.  Rained quite hard as we came off the Toft ferry, then gradually cleared.  The view back to the mainland fine – the land extending to the north more than I expected.  One main road to here, few villages en route. Flat moorland, heather fine in purple.  Blue sky now winning over the clouds, sun almost visible. 
Our ferry Bigga arrives – smaller, this one.  It comes in with its jaw wide open.

Sitting by Skaw beach – finally.  Took wrong turn to Hermaness along narrow single-track road, then back to here, along another, poorly made-up road, with plenty of Tajiki-style potholes…  Not raining, but windy.  Skaw beach red and pretty.  The main pool fed by a stream a disconcerting dark brown.  Parked alongside the most northerly house in the UK.  And this point is pretty much the end of the country.  Odd feeling, and quite a trek to get here – which is half the fun.

We then reverse our journey.  Back through Haroldswick, still unable to find the famous Unst bus stop, kitted out with comfy chairs and other mod cons.  A fast drive gets us to the ferry earlier enough to take the 13.45 instead of 14.15 – we just squeeze on the last space.  Taking this ferry means we could make the 14.30 back to the mainland. This requires a fast-ish zip across Yell.  Interestingly, there is a convoy of cars from the ferry doing the same – all conscious of how tight it is.  Now waiting to see if there is space for us, since we’re unbooked for this (I booked for 15.30).  And we’re on – sandwiched between a lorry and big van…

Back in our barn in Hillswick, via a detour that took us close to Sullom Voe terminal.  As we passed, we saw a huge tower flaring gas in a bright, twisting flame – an apt, malevolent image for evil fossil fuels, a modern-day eye of Sauron.

As with Tajikistan – fewer than five months ago – I’m all-too conscious of how thin my comments are in the above.  The problem is that I’m driving most of the time, and can only write when we stop.  And today has been under an additional time pressure, since we had four ferries to catch, and ran the risk of ending up stuck on an island if we missed one.

That sense of onward movement felt right in one way, because today was as if hurtling to the edge of the world, or at least this Westerly bit of it.  And the organisation to do that – in terms of getting to Shetland, then getting transport out across the waters to islands and then on – also felt right, as if this was some complex project to land on another planet.  In miniature it was, but microscopic in scale, and without the life-threatening danger.

Getting lost right at the end was part of this.  The narrow road to Hermaness felt right in its constant narrowing.   And the real road to Skaw, with its pot-holed, neglected surface was also right in its own way.  Skaw beach looked almost too calm, as if there should be huge cliffs and violent waves à la Cornwall.  But of course Skaw beach was on the east coast, looking across to Bergen, not at the vast Atlantic.

One curious feature was that just before the beach and the end of the road, there were building works at a site.  The site of UK’s SaxaVord Spaceport, no less, where 30 metre rockets will be launched from, allegedly.  There was a small sign on the road to that effect, and also one at Sumburgh airport.  By an interesting coincidence, a few days ago I received the official press release announcing this plan.  Not quite sure how they will get 30 metre rockets along the twisty dirt track that leads here – in pieces/by helicopter?

On the way back, as mentioned above, we missed the famous bus stop.  Looking at the map afterwards, and on Google Street View, it is evident that it was easy to miss.  And maybe nicer as a concept than in reality.

We managed to get on the earlier ferries not least because the main road on the islands – each only has one – are in very good condition, so zipping along at a fair notch is both practical and safe.  Well, apart from suicidal sheep that decided to amble across the road without regard for traffic.  I had to brake quite hard a couple of times.  Part of the problem is the sheep’s unpredictability- you’re never sure whether they will keep going or suddenly dart back.  Makes charting a safe route through them tricky.

There are sheep everywhere, far more than cows.  A few Shetland ponies were visible, huddling together against the wind and occasional rain.  Lots of raptors in the air, and geese – who left hundreds of deposits on Skaw beach, along with thousands of footprints.  No seals or whales that we saw, alas, although apparently the latter are visible from time to time, which is a good sign.  Also no otters, but they are shy it seems, so no surprise there.

Night.  The wind rising.  Broken clouds in the sky.  A patch clears, and the full moon shines with surprising brightness.  The sea below shimmers like shook silver foil…

29.10.23 Melby 

Stunning landscape here, but I can barely hold my pen – my fingers so cold from the whipping wind.  White horses on the waves, pushed into the bay here at Melby.  Long drive here through undulating moors, broken by pools and not much else.  Fab views to the north, and out to Papa Stour.  Stunning weather – we’re so lucky.  Almost clear blue sky, a few clouds, strong bracing wind.

Now sitting in Frankie’s, allegedly the best fish and chip shop in the UK/world or something.  Facing a big haddock in batter, comme il faut…  And rather fine it was, too – sweet and succulent.  Whether it is the best in the UK/world I don’t feel qualified to say...but good enough for me.

The journey out east today was enhanced by the weather; I’m sure under rain/sleet/snow it is far less enchanting.  Roads single track after the turn off to Walls, rightly “Waas” = Vagr (Old Norse for "sheltered bay").  The view out to Papa Stour and the Atlantic very fine – I could put up with a house here (provided it was well insulated).

Driving back, we did not go via Aith as we did coming, passing through several tiny hamlets, but continued on the “main” road to Sound, then cutting up through Setter to the actual main road.  This took us past the works on the wind farm.  I discovered this is called “Viking”, will open next year with 103 4.5 megawatt turbines, giving nearly half a gigawatt of peak power.  They are all still now, but the work seems well in hand.  Because they will produce far more power than Shetland needs (enough for 200,000 people, but Shetland has only 20,000) a fat new interconnect to mainland Scotland is being built too.

Travelling around several islands here, it is striking that BBC Radio 3 is always available; 4G is more localised, but when available is fast.  Impressive.

30.10.23 Sumburgh airport

Waiting for the plane, just not the plane we booked.  The inbound flight from London has an electrical fault, and thus won’t be inbound.  So we have been put on a Loganair flight to Glasgow, and then we will have to take a BA flight to London Heathrow.  All part of the fun…

After leaving our barn in Hillswick, we drove straight down...to the Cooperative supermarket in Brae.  Amazingly, this is open from 6am to 11pm.  What it lacks in depth of offering, it makes up in opening hours.  Then, straight down to St Ninian’s Isle – of which more anon – passing through some quintessential Shetland places.  To wit:

Urafirth
Mangaster
Laxfirth
Tingwall
Veensgarth
Quarff (Easter and Wester)
Fladdabister
Okraquoy
Skelberry
Boddam
Virkie

The otherness of Shetland is evident.  

So, St Ninian’s Isle.  A dramatic geography – an island joined to the mainland by a double-headed axe-shaped spit of sand.  To the south, a herd of small islands bunched together like granite elephants.  Some rain, some sun, lots of wind.  Then along the one-track road to Skelberry, rejoining the main road.  

Next task: find the only petrol station below Lerwick – necessary because our hire car was “full to full”.  We saw a sign for the petrol station, and drove on, looking for it.  On and on, until we ended up at Sumburgh airport.  Somehow we missed it – which is hard when there are almost no buildings here.  We turned around, managed to find a spot with 4G, used Google Maps to locate the phantom petrol station, finally found it hiding amongst a clump of nondescript buildings.

Down to Sumburgh, driving straight across the runway (just as you do in Gibraltar), heading to Jarlshof, a prehistoric and Viking settlement.  We park in the Sumburgh Hotel car park, march off towards the ruins – and find that they are closed on Mondays.

And so to here, to be told our plane to London isn’t coming, and that we will be routed via Glasgow.  Now I found out that Booking.com won’t change our taxi pick-up time.  Looks like I will be using them less in the future…

An update: I managed to contact the allotted driver, and we scheduled the pick up.  Then Booking.com phones, rather more helpful than before, so perhaps I was too harsh.  Glasgow airport rather nice – big, bustling, modern.  Lots of people travelling who knows where on a Monday evening.

Sitting on the plane to London Heathrow, but take-off delayed again.  It seems the plane we should be on had a fault, and that this is a replacement <sigh/>….

Tuesday 10 October 2023

1993 Western Ireland

2.7.93 Dublin

Bewley’s, just by where The Colony used to be, and where some rather tacky joint has appeared.  Multi-floor, £10 for two, full of youth – and typical university youth – good buzz amongst the steamy heat (though it’s fresh outside).  Parked by St. Stephen’s Green, jam-jar picked up at the airport after multiply-delayed flight, almost (well, ish) half caught after driving down from Great Glen, caught in the horrendous M25 roadworks.  But we made it, and found our Anglesey House guesthouse with the quadrant-shaped bath in the bedroom.

3.7.93 Galway

Across the breadth of Ireland to here.  Through a land green, under a dull sky, drizzle falling, roads all but empty, drivers as insane as ever, churches, garden centres, cows, old men on bikes, small, low villages, rolling countryside – to here, one of my favourite cities in Ireland – if partly because it is a city.

Driving around the square trying to find a place to park, a Gay Pride march...brave people here. Then in to the centre for snack lunch.  Of necessity: breakfast was splendid.  Orange juice, yogurt, fresh fruit, stewed fruit, strawberries and cream – not aut/aut, but all.  Then a wonderful home-baked cereal, rather like apple crumble.  Poached fish (plaice?) for one of us, bacon and eggs for the other.  Then toast, fresh bread, and about three types of cakes, tea, marmalade – ye gods.  Great and included in the old Anglesey House price.  Nice to know we’re going back there.

On now to Connemara, my favourite part of Ireland.  So many young people around – reminds of the experiment tagging frogs in Lake Titicaca to count them – brilliant scheme.  To Cleggan, Harbour View House (£25 a night).  Now in Oliver’s Seafood Bar – six oysters dispatched, waiting for salmon.  Fine view of the harbour, the Queen of Aran waiting to leave.  We may take it ourselves to Inishbofin.  Salmon has arrived, along with seafood platter.

4.7.93 Cleggan

It is pouring with rain (hi, Ireland weather), so it is not entirely clear what to do today.  Four Italians (from Genova) to my left at breakfast.

On the Queen of Aran, equipped with fine sweaters, one peacock green, the other royal purple – necessary in this chillsome weather.  Off to Inishbofin – well, it had to be done.  After drizzle to start, the sky lightening, some bit of sun.  Gawd.  Roughish sea (what a surprise).  An hour after departure we arrive at Inishbofin, are dumped on the quay, abandoned.

Strange feeling: being abandoned on an island at the end of the world, with nowhere to go.  Not knowing what is here, where it is, how big the island is etc.  Then we buy a map: immediately things begin to fall into place – the hotel, the pier, the extremities of the island.  As we approach the eastern hotel – Day’s – we have a sense of real arrival.

Sitting now by the dour grey church, silver angels on its gates.  Intermittent sun, warm when it shines.  By us, two cars without number plates, both battered, one literally held together with string.  Is Inishbofin the car’s graveyard?

The bar and hotel lively and elegant respectively.  The bar in particular full of picture book faces – old, gaunt men in cloth caps, young men with monstrous sideburns and glasses of Guinness.  Outside a fine view of the harbour.  A lovely beach opposite, but no quick way to reach it.

It looks like the rest of the island will remain unknown to me this time, but that’s no terrible thing.  Now that I have started re-visiting out-of-the-way places I suppose I need to exercise a little restraint.  Flying over on Friday, it occurred to me that such coming backs will be the next wave of tourism/travel writing.  The second visit gives you the dimension of time (and of photography) while the third visit lets you see whether the second was an aberration.  And the fourth…

[To our right, two flagstaffs without flags have ropes clattering against their metal poles.  I think of Sanur for some reason….]

To Day’s again for scone and tea, the sun quite scorching now (ozone depletion?).  The surrounding hills really emerald (and Lake Hunt begins today….).  Amazing number of BMWs here – for the usual reason.  Still rather incongruous.  The water in the harbour sparkles.

On the ferry, into the strait.  Glorious sun, the Twelve Pins hazy but lordly.  To starboard, clearly etched cliffs of two small islands.  But the Pins…  Totally clear sky above us, slight ring of cloud.  And in a sense today has been right: a day ending in brief sunshine, spent in gentle indolence around the focus of the island’s main bar, Day’s.
  
The end of the day after another fine meal in Oliver’s.  (But no oysters…)  9.30pm, but still so light, and the Twelve Pins still strangely lit up by a light that seems to come from within.  From our front room the view is stunning: the harbour, the inlet, the mountains; how can I not stare at it till the fading of days?

Looking at the Ireland guides, I begin to feel that I am grasping the country.  Connemara is at once like the Lake District, Scotland, the Orkneys, and yet also unique.  The hills huddle like monsters, gathering for an attack, their humps showing behind a rise in the land.  The water silvery blue, high tide.  And still the sun shines.  This is indeed a faery land.  And Inishbofin, another crossing to an isle of youth (so many young people, dressed in t-shirts and jeans, their poverty showing, but irrelevant).

5.7.93 Oughterard

Not, alas, at the flash house in Lough Corrib – only a rather modern twin left there at £80.  Meal £7.50 sounded rather fine, though.  Instead a B&B just outside the town on the same road.  Very modern and clean.  Charming landlady (young, blonde, smiling).

Rose early – too early – and then went riding at Cleggan Stables.  On horses, too, not ponies.  Went along the road to a beach just above the B&B here (thousands of dead jellyfish). Fine curve of beach, where I cantered.  Then straight [I have just noticed a place on the map called Shanaglish] along the N59.  Wonderful scenery, of course, and relatively few buildings to disturb it.  Or to eat in.  Eventually found pub full of unemployed (?), smoking, drinking, playing darts, swearing. Sad.  Then to here, tired and very burnt.  Yesterday, in five hours of sun, we are both very burnt on the face.  Very strange (Ozone hole?)

6.7.93 Athlone

A pleasant city.  Small, with fine grey granite castle matching the cloud for our drive back.  Road empty as ever.  Feels very 18th century here – perhaps this is why I hope to visit Castletown today – I need some Georgian architecture.  And so to Celbridge – to Conolly’s for lunch (alas, café closed in house), and then to Castletown.  The irony: Aztec food being the bonus and bane of Irish life…

Dublin.  Room 14 of 
Anglesey House – grand, at the front, and with a brass bed.  In to the city for a quick walk at 5pm – full of people, lovely sunshine.  Then to Oisin’s.  Door looked shut when we arrive.  We knock and are admitted – even though the place is clearly very Irish – menu in Irish/Irish script.  Green everywhere.  Excellent menu, but £35 for set choices.  We take one and add a starter.

Venison sausages and Dublin coddle; spinach soup; beef soaked in herbs; seaweed cream.  And two glasses of excellent fruity Irish wine.  Pity they cost £4 each.  Meal overall £64 – a lot, but probably the nearest thing to “real” Irish cooking.

7.7.93  Trinity College Dublin

In the Long Room of the library.  Glorious sense of words piled up, of their precariousness and fragility.  Perhaps nowhere else can you grasp the 18th century sense of knowledge.  Kells no longer here: new strong room below.  Harder to see, but more sensible.


More destinations:


Monday 25 September 2023

1993 Germany, Austria, Venice

1.9.93 London Victoria

On the train.  That same small fear in the pit of the stomach – I remember sitting on the train at Ewell East, about to set off for a month of Interrail.  Now it’s only two weeks.  And how things have changed since 1979 – the first of three years I did it (March to April, as I recall – but pity I never kept a travel diary then…)  Interesting the young people with their backpacks – these images of spotty youths – as I was, and smelly too – one shirt a week, I fear.  Now I am overloaded with stuff – socks, pants and god knows what.

France visible today… A rather undignified scrabble at Dover: on to the bus then to the boat.  It’s a pity that the Channel Tunnel is such an obviously dangerous way of going – it ought to be much simpler… Very smooth crossing – very few people on board – great, hope it continues.

Belgium.  Ages since I’ve been here.  One of those betwixt and between places – that only really exist theoretically.  But as someone said recently, asking for great Belgians is almost the wrong question: it’s more about the Flemish…  Outside, pure Cuyp: cows grazing in the twilight, rich tones of the sunset – pinks, purples, violets, mauves, oranges etc.  Strange to be pushing into Europe.  Real travel.

2.9.93 Stuttgart

Lots of lights in Germany – you get the impression everyone is working… Trains just the same – pull-down seats for sleeping – and I nearly buggered up the sliding door (as I did in one memorably long and cold journey).  Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof – frighteningly clean and efficient: 5am and everything waking up.  No litter anywhere.  Interesting collection of the usual ne’er do wells at this hour – me included.  If only Italian style could be married to German efficiency.

The train journey was a little more wearying than I recall it – old age.  Lots of PC mags to buy.  Even as I sit here, more people arrive: almost like time-lapse photography.  Since the bloody information office ain’t open until 9.30am, I have dumped my bags – too heavy – and gone for a walk.

Today cold, but crisp.  Sun out in main square, grass being cut.  Behind, by the very vertical church, the first of two flower markets.  The second reminds me of Verona – a kind of clean, updated Verona.  For some reason there are four brass players on top of the church tower, playing… 8.45am.

Well, having weighed up the pros and cons of sleeping a second night on the train, I have taken a room (without WC etc.) in Hotel Mack – 80DM – reasonable, I suppose.  I do feel better after the shower...Now in ‘Fresko’ outside Mr Stirling’s rather wonderful Neue Staatsgalerie – the use of the different marbles is simply joyous – you really feel the Platonic essence of its rockness… Parenthetically, I see that Mr S. is designing a music academy to go next door – certainly a lot of dosh here… and yet walking around this morning I couldn’t help feeling this was some shopping precinct (Milton Keynes?) writ large.  I’d say American except that there’s little evident poverty here.  In fact, in general the place stinks of money.

Very quiet generally, I’m pleased to say – hope it continues.  Lovely – and huge – park here – miles of it.  Splendid fountains.  Interesting exhibition of Hungarian photographers in a pavilion there.  That strange toggle between having somewhere to stay and not.  And yet at least I have the option to move on…

Food required.  Inside the Staatsgalerie – nice Burne-Jones’ Perseus cycle – especially the killing of the dragon – lovely bum of Andromeda.  Room 16 cool David Friedrich landscapes – 20 years ago I first saw them (?).  12: moody Böcklin.  14: fine Rembrandt self-portrait – old, thick impasto…. Not so defeated as in others.  Also very early Rembrandt – Saint Paul in prison – funny little piggy eyes.  As ever, the old German stuff does nothing for me.  Room 29: frightening Chagall in blood scarlet.  Modern collection not bad – but the setting is better. 

Back to Bahnhof – booking seats for tomorrow and changing old DM for new. To the City Gallery, using my Press card, bless its cotton socks.  To the Keith Haring, which the first time I’ve seem them in the flesh – or rather in colour, since it is the dayglo colours that strike.  What’s instantly impressive is that he evolved an iconography – the featureless babies, the cross, the space ships – and a style that is instantly recognisable, striking but not trivial.  Few can do this.  You can also see that the lines are very self assured – no fudging.  The second room even more impactful than the first – explosions of colour, striking images.  The white cross series – lovely texture – and the images are made for it.  Only the more Grosz-type “realistic” drawings do I find forced: the others are magisterial

To the Stiftkirche, inside this time.  Wonderful carvings of princes - they really leap out of the wall. (A yummy Quarktasche eaten).  As well as the extraordinary ties and coloured shirts they wear, the men are also distinguished by their little Schubert glasses.  The women, on the other hand, tend to adopt the Dame Edna approach…  And now...busking Siberians – complete with bass balalaika – not  bad either.  Also, I’ve seen people reading Russian newspapers…

3.9.93  Linz

Stuttgart station.  Typical: the plan shows almost exactly where my wagon should be.  So bloody organised.  Good brekkers this morning – pretty good value overall.  It is raining – will it always rain in Vienna…?  Very impressive the old ICE – makes British Rail look pretty sick.  Very flash, toilets five star.  Raining, but so green and wooded outside.  I find it hard to like Germans, but you have to admire them…

After the Siberians yesterday, I saw a group with a cimbalom.  Hungarian I thought: nope, Czech the name looked.  But it could have been Slovak – the world in flux.  Berge (Oberbayern) – rather fine rolling countryside here...worth returning to.  Amazing feature in Der Spiegel on an autistic man, through a PC has written a book.  He explains – partially – his situation: too much input, overload of stimulation.  As a child (5) he taught himself to read – leafing through books with a photographic memory…

Linz is as I expected: neat, tidy, prosperous – complete with busking Albanian/Rumanian? - and wet.  I’m in Hofmann Backerei, 27 Landstrasse, eating quark (again) and coffee.  Hotel very cheap – 310 Schillings (about £18) including Frühstück.  Goethestrasse, near station.  Very plain.

Too late to see anything, but I’m only really here for the river – and as part of my European update.  Again I noticed amazing variety of East European newspapers.  To the Alte Dom, awash in gilt and rococo curlicues.  But nice, very light and refreshing, partly because white is everywhere.  Outside, the main square feels positively Mozartian (remember K.425?).  In the Hauptplatz, a crazed carillon plays weird harmonics; two men play chess on a ten-foot square board… A tram passes.

I stand in the middle of the Nibelungen Bridge; under me a serious piece of water: the Danube, already as broad as the Thames, but barely begun on its journey… (hi, Claudio).  The earth/bridge moves...huge grey clouds father.  I’m off.

In a local café – having bought Oberösterreichische Nachrichten – largely because it used the honour system – you take it, putting money in.  Says something about the place.  Which I like – it’s very “carina” – bit too nice.  On the bridge again, looking back.

4.9.93 Vienna

Linz station.  Hotel had that youth hostel smell.  Opposite, a train from Skopje (? - which is…?).  Interesting magazine – News – glossy, but so parochial.  You get the impression that everyone knows everyone – and they probably do. 

Vienna.  The station a madhouse, as is outside – I discover later that today is the opening of an important section of the U-bahn.  A woman stamps about 50 tickets – for a competition, I guess.  Hotel “West End” – not over-clean, but I like the attitude of the man on the desk – and it costs just £21 including breakfast.  First place I go – Kunsthistorisches – to the café on the mezzanine.  Rather grand. 

Room VII – amazing series by Bellotto of Wien.  Interesting pic of Gluck: you get the impression he was a bit of a git.  V – unusual Caravaggio – an orgy of hands… Madonna of the Rosary. Nice Bronzino.  I almost walk past the Cellini salt wotsit… Unusual Dosso Dossi: Jupiter painting (sic) butterflies while Mercury shushes… A roomful of Giorgione – the Three Philosophers best…  Stunning painting by Vincenzo Catena (who he?).  TitianGypsy Madonna – lovely delicacy.

It has to be said that there is no room quite like X: full of Breughels.  I don’t know if its true or not, but the room feels exactly as it was 15 years ago…  Paul’s conversion - such a tiny figure amidst the tumult.  And the sea so far away.  Early Spring – what atmosphere – you can almost feel the chill in the air.  The wrecked ship, the icy mountains, the warm tones of the town.  And those distant, distant horizons: what happens there?  Winter: did he see this – or just invent it? The details – like the broken inn sign.  Tower of Babel – amazing sense that Breughel knew what the middle of the tower looked like…  and the way a mountain has been pressed into service – an obviously sensible way to build such a tower.  Even Portakabins – well, equivalents…

Strange man, Arcimboldo: the Four Seasons - Summer, Winter, Fire, Water – all faces… Too many bloody Rubens: but Das Pelzchen, the erotic pic of Frau Helene Rubens is stunning.  The Rembrandts: there is no doubt, he is king – the three self portraits here, blige…  And to end today – cultural overload – the Vermeer Allegory of Painting (hi, P. Greenaway…).

A long, long and delightful aimless walk round the centre (OK, so I was looking for an Apothek – shaving cream, if you must know).  Vienna could well be one of the most successful pedestrianised cities I have ever seen.  Thousands of people milling around, lots of cafes – but none of the artificiality you often find.

In St Stephen’s now – and here too many people – but many seem Viennese.  Sun came out as I walked from Kunsthistorisches Museum to Kärntner Strasse (to buy a ticket for Nozze tomorrow – around £20 – not bad for opera, in Schönbrunn...an allowable luxury.  Even the opera seemed vaguely reasonable: I get the feeling that the Schilling has depreciated greatly against the pound since I was last here.  Or perhaps my terms of reference have changed. 

Amazing number of tall women here: what do they put in the food?
Kärntner reminds me of the main drag in Istanbul – though rather different.  (A man is locking the gates around me: a primitive desire to flee takes hold.)  This sums it up really: eating a Viennese pizza (large but tasteless – cheap at 25 Schillings) listening to the usual Peruvian (?) pan pipes.  Back in Kärntner.

5.9.93

Down in the hotel’s little dining room.  Three serving – Russian? Czech? - East European, anyway.  Coffee surprisingly good.  My room has an outer, padded door: I can sport the oak.  In the U-bahn.  New weather forecasting method: by consensus – I look at what everyone else is wearing.  It is raining (slightly).  

In the Karlskirche.  Wow.  Amazing exterior – quite unlike any other I’ve seen – and glorious interior – huge swirls of marble – even the pews are inlaid.  Mahler and Alma married here.  This has just become one of my favourite churches – it reminds me of San Biagio outside Montepulciano. Beautiful ellipse – and only this morning, I was thinking about a schoolmate’s insight into the moment of inertia of an ellipse about a point on its edge… Happy days.

Wandering looking for a café.  To Josefplatz. Strange day: sun/rain/wind.  Not bad for walking, though I’m getting tired.  Sundays in particular are lonely in these places, when the world seems at home – and you are not.  As ever, being here, I think of Bolivia, Patagonia…

Ethnological Museum.  Good stuff on Americas – including a fabulous Aztec feather headdress – imagine what their civilisation at its height must have looked like… [A stupid git has just photographed it – with flash... "e un fatto scientifico che la luce danneggia I quadri" as someone once said…]  Back in the Kunsthistorisches Museum – bucketing down outside (thank god I went back for brolly.) 

Exhausting – the Völkerkunde Museum – but American stuff good – the sense of loss, the hundreds (thousands) of tribes whose individual wisdom has been lost.  Also an amazing map of south-east Asia showing the linguistic interpenetration.  Nation?  What nation? - and when to go there?  In the Egyptian section – and they have one of the bulls from the Serapeum – enormous.  Wonderful.  I’m really glad I wrote Egyptian Romance; I must read it one day.  Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós, 10 kilos of gold – beautifully worked, eighth century.

Looking at the Rembrandts again: when did self-portraits become common?  Bit cheeky, really, painting yourself…  With the Breughels (Mr and Mrs).  A man wearing two pairs of glasses at once.  Japs the most evident tourists here – the only ones with dosh (and a rising Yen).  Breughel’s winters seem real winters – not the namby-pamby stuff we know.

To the Upper Belvedere – whose entrance and view over the garden I remember vividly.  And the bloody rain (but at least by tram the journey was a doddle).  Wonderful Schiele – that I last saw in Zurich, I believe.  Also the Klimts good, especially Oberösterreichisches Bauernhaus where the wood cabin seems to grow into the landscape.  Schiele shows how evolving your style is crucial.  He had it; others don’t.  Giovanni Segantini did – weird, but his.  The Bad Mothers– very odd, a hellish (=cold) vision of naughty nuns, rows of them into the snowy landscape.  Klimt: Portrait of Sonja Knips – where her pink dress is a waterfall, a flower, a motion.

To the centre, and into a real café (= smoking, full of “young” people): Café Hawelka, Dorotheeergasse.  Free papers to read (some rather old), general aim of “total relax” as the Italians say.  Seat booked to Budapest (almost too early).  Nearby, a man reads a Rumanian newspaper...

Outside Schönbrunn – conkers. Autumn is here.  In the theatre – rather fine – very intimate – probably very much the kind of space Mozart would have known– and probably also the level of playing/singing (we shall see).  Lots of gilt and plush – but hard seats.  Number of Japs here too – including one bloke who got press tickets.  Humph (at least I’ve got into everything free with my press card so far – helps pay for it….). As the orchestra “warms up” I get the impression once more that there is a special warming up music written purely to impress the audience… The entrance to the right of the house, beautiful at night.

Figaro and Susanna – Japs
Cherubino – Agniezka Gertner (very good)
Conte – Kurt Schober (not bad)

For some reason the pierced cupola with the cracked plaster underneath reminds of of Istanbul, the Turkish baths… Lovely acoustic – especially for the winds – bassoons lovingly outlined.  Small string band helps.  Conducting solid – conductor plays cembalo.  Big cuts in recitatives.  Makes Wagner seem so bombastic.  Mozart is just pure lines.  The details, the bassoons.  Set quite lavish, and orchestra much better than expected – only the poor horns broke a couple of times.  The Figaro had a good voice, but lisped…

Wien is pretty clean – not as clean as Stuttgart – no dog poohs – compare Italy.  Also in various places Zettel literature – free bits to tear off and keep.  

6.9.93

The Danube.  Still a very serious piece of water.  But I can’t quite mesh this view (near the U-bahn Donauinsel) with my memories – I seem to recall clambering over railway lines (?) to get to it.  The map shows some, but the landscape looks very different.  Perhaps the flats in front of me are all new – they look less than 15 years.  Fine hills to the north – the map again shows that Vienna is really rather small, and soon passes to countryside.

To the Prater (hi, Arthur).  Interesting watching the Ferris wheel – held up by wires, I note.  The Hauptallee of the Prater – reminds me of a road we saw in Ouarzazate, long and tree lined (?), leading into the desert.

To KunstHausWien – wonderful exterior – uneven floor: “The uneven floor becomes a symphony, a melody for the feet...it is good to walk on uneven floors and regain our human balance.”  Leibovitz show interesting – though the early works indicate that she’s not that great a photographer – shrewdly by choosing famous subjects and then work with/against their grain, she is guaranteed an audience.  Nice one of Laurie A.: NMR brain scan…

Hundertwasser – clearly a loony, but an amiable one (redesigning the Australian and New Zealand flags…).  His ideas are sound, but the result very 60s and flower power.  Yuk.  Reading his biography, which is utterly extraordinary, it sounds like a parody – perhaps of what I wish my life to be.  And yet his art is so wishy-washy, so feel-good…  On the first floor, a tree grows out of the windows, as in Gormenghast.  In the café – which is rather expensive, so I’ve opted for the Tagesmenu – who knows…?  Visited Hundertwasserhaus – amazing – and a real nightmare.  Literally: the kind of thing you’d imagine in a feverish state.  Old Hundertwasser’s style is very reminiscent of Schiele and Klee – small, brightly coloured elements.  But his images are just pretty: compared to Schiele, he has nothing to say – for all his good intentions.

Drorygasse – of course, in my day, it was much tougher… found the old belfry youth hostel – but now there’s the U-bahn.  There were two lines 14 years ago.  In Kardinal-Nagl Platz – full of immigrants – Turks (Kurds?), very ethnic.  Streets as drab as I remember them.  But amazing how little I recall of them – just odd images: no travel diary, the fool…

Prunksaal – very impressive.  Strange that the steps leading up to the library remind me of another – Trinity College Dublin – though this is much more bombastic, but not more moving.  Particularly impressive the double-decker design, and the two pairs of great marble chairs – reminds me of Karlskirche.  Among the otherwise ho-hum manuscripts, amazing crossword – the cross in the centre of a running text that spells the same OROTERAMUSARAM – clever.  Hrabanus Maurus.

On the way out, copy of Mozart’s dedication: “Patience and  Tranquillity of mind contribute more to cure our distempers as the whole are of Medicine” IN ENGLISH.  Why?  Wherefrom?  (Masonic text?) (30.3.1787).  Spooky, too, to see that Ludwig’s handwriting was almost identical to this book’s scrawl…

In another coffee house – OK, but smoky again.  Topfenstrudel – cheesecake to you and me – nice.  Very civilised – foreign newspapers and books and mags to hand.  Walking, walking (Ephesos Museum closed…).  The Graben shows well what Regent Street could be without the traffic [a young man passes with his new toy: an HP calculator; is this a very male thing, gadgets.  A lot of quite attractive women here – often in the Anne-Sophie Mutter variety, with a tendency to girlish puppy fat.  A couple walking down the Graben, the steps completely synchronised, even down to the mid-air rhythm and angle.  Says it all really.

Been here for an hour or so, watching the world go by.  Opposite, an oldish bloke strumming a guitar and singing – but not busking.  Sky almost clear blue, air cold but lovely.  And so along to Trześniewski's – which I couldn’t find before, simply because it was closed.  Polish, obviously – great chopped herring, sardines, gherkins, egg, ham on small bread slices – 8 Schillings each, about 50p.  Now drinking slightly odd red wine.  This is obviously an institution (also in Dorotheergasse).  Wien really is very civilised.  I really like it here (= Trześniewski) and here (= Wien).

7.9.93

Ah well, Venice and Peter Greenaway call.  The Sezession building: yuk.  Lovely day though, cool air, bright sun.  22.22pm to Venice.  Tonight. Going to be a lazy day… Coffee at the Kunsthistorisches Museum – closed, but café open. Read newspapers.  Then sat by Karlskirche.  Then to Stephansplatz – pass Trześniewski – thinking it’s closed, but it ain’t...so here I am, eating this ambrosial stuff.

To Stephansplatz – very strange experience: because of reflected light from Haas Haus, there is sun from two directions – very disconcerting.  Schönbrunn, by the Gloriette – which reminds a lot of the Veronese Feast in the House of Levi, in the Accademia, Venice (hi).  Very peaceful here, despite the tourists.  I don’t remember this steep ramp up and the monument. Schönbrunn is a very good example of what is wrong with many palaces: it’s like a modern block of flats, lacking human scale.  Moreover, you know that most of the room are unnecessary, and merely there for scale.  

As I watch the world go by, I think of the millions of patterns there must be – and have been.  Now sitting nearby the theatre, a eating a rather nice cherry cake (the latter exactly as I imagined it – always a nice sensation).  Ich glaube dass I this cake in East Berlin eaten have – so zu sagen.

Amazing cloud formation: huge waves – not small ripples, but great strokes in high, thin clouds…

8.9.93 Venice

Strange now to be hurtling towards Venice.  Had compartment to myself – slept well, apart from the stream of passport/customs officers.  Going to Venice for the Peter Greenaway exhibition; seems a suitably apt expression of my current madcap life.  Wien Südbahnhof was rather nice – computer controlled lockers – as well as the orange and blue ones and a garderobe – Rosenkavalier restaurant etc. all very well organised.

Just arrived at Pordenone.  About to cross the bridge out to Venice: I remember the first time…  In Vivaldi’s church – the first time.  Palazzo Grassi closed – a bloody technical fault…  Very unspecial here – except for the grille – for the girls?  Vivaldi died near Karlskirche… lived in Riva del Carbon.

In Museo Fortuny – Peter Greenaway up to his usual tricks – water around everywhere – but otherwise Fortuny as it was… Intervals – Peter Greenaway film of 1969 – filmed in Venice – music is Vivaldi.  Drawings – Hangman’s Cricket.  Walk through H type stuff.  Drawing by numbers – “the relentless clicking away…”  Prospero’s books – the preparations make mine look thin – huge collections of background stuff – reference to Tulse Luper (Tulse Luper’s Suitcases – a future film).  The pages – scribbled on, painted over, with collage – remind me of Tom Phillips.  All this Dog/God stuff is very undergraduate.  

Pity the one film I haven’t seen is not working in the first room. A Walk through Prospero’s Library – very strange: uses Glass’s music at the end.  I have to say, that the female nude at the end – stunning.  “Wreck his revenge…”? I think not.  Two wonderful books about Peter Greenaway £40 and £50… I resist.  After all, I probably prefer not to know too much about his thinking – which is pretty weird.  Better to enjoy what I do.  I buy a poster instead (£5.)

23.9.93 Italy

On the train again.  North from Verona, soon amidst stunning mountain scenery and river.  Must come back.  Gray rainy day.  Have just passed Peri (and a church high among the hills).  My (German?) colleague in this compartment (couldn’t reserve anything else) is also writing – perhaps that his colleague is writing, and wondering – as I am – what he is writing.  Autostrada alongside us.  Thickly wooded hills – above Garda I would guess.

24.9.93 
Köln

Ages since I’ve taken a couchette.  I love the paraphernalia, the ordering.  One worrying thing: the guard took my tickets and passport yesterday – gave them back this morning.  Logical, but I felt very naked without the passport.  Slightly broken sleep, but pleasantly so: half awaking to hear “Gleis 1” – or some other  Bahnhof voice.  Awoken fully at 7.30 by the guard.  Outside, the Rhine.  A large but rather dull river – too tame and tamed.  Danube much more impressive.  Outside, black and white houses, stone-faced churches. Very German.  I’ve rather neglected this country – something I’ll have to remedy in the future.

In the Dom – which is certainly big...but it does not take the breath away as so many others do.  It is just big.  Even from the outside it looks rather like a small church blown up.  Spent most of today in the Ludwig Museum.  Good modern stuff – though, boy, are these 20th century Germans depressing. Other stuff more ho-hum.  Sondersusstellung – German photos – dreadful.  You can really see the pernicious effects of there being too much money for art. - 99% is disposable.

Arrived here to find a bloody Messe: obvious, really, but I’d not taken it into account.  Luckily the Tourist Office is very efficient, and found a room for m, DM115, near the station (“6 Domgasse).  Tiny but clean, central, reasonably cheap.  

Raining again.  Ate prepared rolls for dinner – I rather like this exiguous existence – for a while.  To the Westdeutscher Rundfunk concert hall, for a choral concert – and why not.  Programme nothing special.  Hall rather fine: light wood, silver glistening organ.  Quite large.  Choir rather heavy in 17th and 18th century music, better in the later stuff.  Petrassi “Nonsense Poems” rather fine – real use of different choral sonorities.

25.9.93

Raining. Hard.  Feet soaked, arm too.  But slept well, good Frühstück.  Found good bookshop in Neumarkt Platz.  The Dom full now – well, it’s dry.  Visited St Aposteln – ho-hum, clearly re-bult – and St Gereon – much better.  Very surprising form.  The Decagon reminded me of one of the most moving churches I’ve seen, in Mont St Michel – that sense that a thousand years ago, somebody worshipped here.

To the splendidly-named Römisch-Germanisches Museum, but stunning, and the mosaic not bad.  Still bucketing.  The guide book says there are a million piece to the mosaic: an interesting way to grasp the concept.  Upstairs, a strange room full of clay lamps – including a wall full of obscene ones.  In the basement, I read that the mosaic is now where it was discovered/built.  A good 20 feet from the current ground level.

Unbelievably, Köln shuts at 2pm on a Saturday – 95% of the shops.  To the Käthe Kollewitz Museum – if only because it’s open.  Unusual form – and rather relentless images.  Her women look like monkeys, and bring out well the sense of vulnerability in the world.  Also of women’s relationship to their children.  A Sonderausstellung even more depressing.  What are these artists thinking of?