1991 Berlin

30.8.91 Gatwick airport

I was here on Monday; and less than two weeks ago.  Life is so...hectic; interesting.  I can barely keep up with myself.  Work is crazy – editor of PC Magazine, Personal Computer Directory launching, publisher of Windows User, Electrical Retail Trade and (until today) Electronics Weekly.  Freelance stuff for the Daily Telegraph had to be done this week.  The novel barely touched for months…

Well, I sit now in the café of the main museum at Dahlem. Amazingly, outside, in the entrance hall, there is still (still? - the same one?) an exhibition of musics from the ethnomusic collection.  And one of them is Balinese.  So I came here to complete that cycle.  Alas, not symbolic, I hope, the headphones had been removed.

A strange day so far, but not unpleasantly.  Due largely no doubt to its sheer speciousness – there was no real reason why I shouldn't have come on Sunday – except that I wanted to see a little of the new Berlin.  So a little work this afternoon – more problems – but hey.  Then out to Dahlem.  Always so strange going back after all those years.  Too soon and things are spoilt, but leave a decent decade, as the memories begin to fade or simply get slightly mislaid, and the re-visit has a real charm.

So I recognised the museum and some of the pix.  And as for the Balinese and Sumatran musics…  Some new discoveries – the Burgundian stuff, Weyden, Campin, two great Canalettos – a pair of night scenes, one of which I saw in New York, probably on the day the Berlin Wall came down...ah, the connections, how I luv 'em…  But given the limited time, my main advance today was the Central American collection.  

Well, it had to be.  Having found an Afghan restaurant recommended by one of the guide books (Cadogan, which really seem to be taking off – some are quite good – lovely typeface too), Katschikol, Pestalozzi 84, I had to go.  Suitably Afghani cimbalom in the background, very full menu – better than Caravanserai in London by Paddington.  

Long walk here through mainly residential areas [Dooch turns out to be cool, milky, with cucumber and herbs – lovely for this weather.  Wow – vorspeise Torschi very hot – gherkins and fruits in vinegar and chili etc. - yow.]  I find it hard to get a feel for Berlin.  It is undeniably busy, but looking through the inimitably named "Zitty"(City Limits here) I'm not impressed by what's available.  The contrast with somewhere like Paris is painfully clear: there I felt immediately that this was a bustling city I could live in.  Here… [Main course badenjan, bonani, tschalau.  Dessert – falooda, plus Afghan tea – scented, quite strong.  Heavy but pleasant meal.]

31.8.91 Outside the Pergamon Museum

Strange to be back here.  It is all so different – just walking in – and yet the same – the wrecked or decaying buildings, the strange absence of something – liveliness? Museum not yet open.

On the way back last night, I walked along the Ku'damm.  Very like Champs-Élysées.  Interesting the prostitutes out – in regulation gear of body-hugging pants.  Many quite attractive – and young.  But what a life – what prospects.  Odd little Trabis everywhere – along with the huge, squat-brutalist architecture – damning evidence that architecture reflects the soul of a nation.

Sun very pleasant now.  Along to Alexanderplatz.  Amazing – a kind of grey Milton Keynes, now suddenly gone very tacky.  Poor Döblin.  To Moskau restaurant – very quiet, very civilised – fish soup (Baikal) followed by Uzbek plov (whatever plov is).  Opposite, across the eight-lane road, a cinema is showing Lawrence of Arabia… Behind looms the Hotel Berolina.  The air-conditioning whines.  The food – and general ambience of the place, with shapes and objects all slightly foreign – reminds me strongly of Moscow – not surprisingly.  The same is also true of East Berlin generally so far.  Strange to be here again after so many years.  Impressive main course – served in a hollowed-out cabbage, with lamb, peppers, mushrooms, rice, cream – huge and good.  Good value too – about £6.

Back to  Alexanderplatz, where I have to stop to read Döblin...but now how things have changed.  The U-bahn number 2 to below Unter den Linden, which I walk along.  The Oper, rather fine, a good square with crazy Pantheon-like church (hallo, Peter Greenaway).   Unter den Linden busy – I can almost imagine it as the centre.  To the Brandenburg Gate, now looking rather sordid with the Imbiss stands everywhere – the obligatory lumps of "wall" being sold.

S-bahn not open here, so I walk through the Tiergarten to the Neue Nationalgalerie – lovely cool woods – where I sit again now.  I vaguely remember the Neue Nationalgalerie – a huge bright slab – of nothing – typical van der Rohe.  The galleries are below.  It all works pretty well.  Lots of good stuff, but I am particularly struck by the integrity (sic) of the Lovis Corinth.  I must find out more.

1.9.91 Kleist's Memorial, Wannsee

I think I must be getting into necrophilia or something: first Proust's grave, now here.  So morose these krauts...but what a wielder of the German language. 

2.9.91

I'm getting behind, as ever.  Yesterday after Kleist to the Schloss Charlottenberg.  Rather rushed alas – I was meeting someone for business at 1pm.  So along to the Galerie der Romantik – for the Caspar David Friedrich – wunnerful.  Then outside to admire the facade – and enjoying the sun (too much, I fear).

Lunch um die Ecke of our street and Ku'damm.  Not much good – and lousy service.  Then into the former East Berlin on U-5 to Friedrichstrasse.  To the Brandenburger Tor along Unter den Linden for coffee and cakes in the café by the Oper – very nice, waiters with strange accents.  Very civilised.  Then back to the hotel for a shower and a rest.

Afterwards, we went looking for "Istanbul" – a Turkish restaurant, not surprisingly.  Closed for repairs.  Wandered around and found a Greek dive (ha!).  Eat there – with various fun trying to get what we wanted.  Had fun also trying out a list of Greek.  Walking back past the deceptively attractive prostitutes on Ku'damm.

Today, along to the Funkausstellung – not as bad as I expected, but bad enough.  Lunch up in the Funkturm restaurant – very nice.  Lovely view, cool and good food.  Then walk to here – after buying a ticket for the Israel Philharmonic tomorrow – an open air concert.

3.9.91 Waldbühne

Where I sit now, in a huge natural amphitheatre, to the west of the Olympic Stadium.  The sun has just set, casting a slight orange glow to my left; the sky, blissfully, is utterly clear.  The day much the same as yesterday: long, hot and sweaty, lunch up in the tower again – very nice – could get used to it.  Back to the hotel, quick eats, then out to here.  One bit of nonsense: I follow everyone out of the U-bahn, after buying my ticket for the return – and throwing away the old one.  But following everyone, I find buses to take us the rest of the way: will I be done for travelling without a ticket?  No, in fact…  Good few thousand around, eating, drinking, smoking.  We were given small candles as we came in...could be good.

The concert about to begin.  As the light changes, so does the aspect.  I see now the candles already lit being used by people for their supper – especially where they have a ledge for cloth and appurtenances.  Nice.  Pity about the smokers...

As I suspected, this place becomes more magical as night descends.  Sunset turned into a peach blur, the podium gradually stood out, and then the candles were lit.  Hundreds – thousands soon – of points of light, wonderful ancient symbols.  I shall light mine now...

More destinations:

1990 Munich

1994 the Danube: Neuburg, Vienna, Budapest

1999 Weimar, Venice

Moody's Black Notebook Travels

1994 Rome

 6.9.94  On the Pendolino

From Piacenza to Roma.  Lovely train – red and sleek like a long stickleback.  In the Rome guidebook (one of the new visual ones from DK – excellently executed), page 87 – there is a patron saint of drivers: Santa Francesca Romana.  Rome.  Good to be back.  Driving through the streets I'd forgotten how beautiful – no, grand – it is.  The churches, the striated golden stone.  And motorini dappertutto.  Fine weather.  To Il Miraggio restaurant – fine spaghetti with a sprinkling of fish.  Bad news: I have seen the Mémoires of Saint-Simon in a second-hand bookshop…  To our room – number 106 – tremendous view of Trevi Fountain – tremendous noise too.

I sit outside San Pietro – refused entry because of my shorts - don't you just love the church's mercy? (Ironically, too, they are letting in others with shorts…)  A walk to the Spanish Steps.  Erroneously, I have to say, since I thought I was heading due west.  The sun moves to the west early here it seems.  Sun very strong – almost Yogyakartan at times – but there is a good breeze.

Down to the Tiber – very French, with trees (unheard of in Italy) along its banks.  Pass a square with bookstalls (but no prices).  So to here, driving up past the restaurant where I remember distinctly (why, I know not) eating Fegato alla Veneziana.  It's amusing (ish) watching everyone with shorts stride purposefully up to the cerberi, only to be refused (mostly).  To the Villa Sciarra (Trastevere after the Gianicolo (fine view).  Melancholy beauty of the ochre house.  Lots of kids, lovely evening.  Cats everywhere – Egyptian cats…

Now in Piazza della Santa Maria in Trastevere – a "characteristic quarter…" waiting for our Negroni.  Which turns out to be about four times stronger than any Negroni I've ever drunk.  Return to the hotel smashed.  Eat pizza (50 metres from the hotel), then gawp at the fountain.

Bella….

7.9.94 Hotel Fontana

The view from the third floor breakfast room (light with black grand piano) stunning down to the fountain (the coins visible).  The sun catching the papal stemma.  Last night very strange: smashed out of my head (I've never had such a strange single drink in my life), there were various loud noise – the police, cleaning lorries, who knows what.  But bed hard and comfortable.

The Pantheon - much bigger that I remember – really such a palpable demonstration of Roman power and ingenuity. M.AGRIPPA.L.F.COS.TERTIUM.FECIT in huge letters.  Behind me the restaurant/café where Mr Greenaway made The Belly.  On the way the strange wall of colours from the Temple of Adriano – now part of the Stock Exchange.  Motorini – lots of superb romane on them too, charging around.  Bikes less common. Inside the Pantheon – stupendo – such power and lightness – and that massive hole punched heavenwards.  The porch reminds me of Dendera – and perhaps has a similar function in a way.  

Sant'Ignazio – fine, powerful church, and even finer building outside – rare movement in the Piazza.  Wonderful ceiling in the church – extreme perspective.  Chiesa del Gesù – little to see because of restauri – but OTT.  Church of St. Louis of the French – three marvellous Caravaggios – especially the Calling of St. Matthew – those fingers: pointing à moi? - and à toi?  To the Piazza Navona – surely one of the most beautiful and dramatic of all – the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone, pure baroque, pure Borromini – I must learn more of him.  The manhole covers here have SPQR.

By Marcus Aurelius column, at the end of Via Tritone/Largo Chigi a wonderful pedestrian subway that is a bookshop. To Tazza d'Oro – wunnerful – near the Pantheon, too – my centre of Rome, my omphalos.  Bus ride (hot and crowded, Lire 1,200) to Stazione Termini, then to Santa Maria Maggiore.  Big, very big – I was able to see thanks to my long trousers over my short ones, carried all day.  Fine march of columns.  

Now at Da Giggetto – near the sinagoga, and the Portico of Octavia (by taxi – about 7,000 Lire for three people – very reasonable, and the taxisti always polite with their Roman drawl – one, yesterday, reading "Greek philosophy"…).  We sit near four free-standing columns from who knows when, and the remains of a portico.  The synagogue heavily guarded…  On the way here, the Vittorio Emanuele monument, a hideous pink…

Typical sounds – bad rock from a window high above us, a ball being bounced by bimbi, motorini (many), car alarm going off.  We try: artichokes a la juive, baccala' spinati (cod, fried), and – da-da – suppli al telefono (is there a wire?).  And then we'll see…  The Romans with their eternal telefonini (I went into SIP today to ask about modems and telefonini – they knew nothing even though they had some ads in their window.)  Opposite us, the old women out on their chairs in the street…

8.9.94

Basilica of Constantine – a bit impressive. Lovely in the early morning, cool shade, the deep green – especially the pines – which we can smell sometimes.  Truly romantic mixture of churches, trees and awesome ruins.  The fused bronze coins in the marble floor…  To the Capitoline Museum.  The Roman statues remind me of Musée Rodin – except that here there's a crowd.  Fine views of Campidoglio and Sindaco's place.

For no very good reason, down to E.U.R. on the metro – full, smelling like Jakarta.  On Linea B, a mad accordionist – earning around 10,000 Lire for five minutes…  Metro dull – functional, no ads.  Very sparse coverage of the city.  Just not part of Italian culture (even in Milan, very half-hearted).  cf. London and Paris – almost defines the city.

To the Colosseo Quadrato, the strange Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana – pure arches in the famous building (also called Palazzo della Civiltà del Lavoro, closed off), elsewhere columns reduced to rods.  The metro long and dull back.  The image better in films in this, cross between La Défense and Crystal Palace.

The wind is rising: a storm is on its way…

9.9.94

Café Greco – rather impressive, like a gallery – wonderful green conservatory before us.  Elsewhere plush scarlet velvet.  Some of the pix really very good.  The waiters in smart black tie and tails.  Marble table tops.  Fine.  Unlike the weather, which is turning.  To Piazza del Popolo – the double churches, but not as I remember them from winter.  

Motorini di Roma – along with the fountains, and pines, and ruins – Respighi – Rome is mopeds – the motors of the city – for a population too lazy to move – "Jump on me/Leap on me, O desire to work…".  Motto of the city – mopeds – they jump on their mopeds instead – fountains of youth, of history, La Dolce Vita.  Carbon monoxide or Cinquecento – renaissance/Fiat.  So be it: Roman Holidays...

More destinations:

1987 Italy

1993 Urbino

1994 Trieste, Ljubljana 

1995 Siena, Bagno Vignoni, Pienza

1996 Torino

Moody's Black Notebook Travels