Wednesday we went to Vicenza by train to look at the town and try to see some buildings by the Renaisance architect Palladio. Walking around town the lack of flatness seemed disorienting after our time in Venice. With one exception the Palladio buildings that we tried to see were inaccessible. The exception was the Villa La Rotonda, about 2 miles from the town center, situated on a hill top. It was opened to the public on Wednesdays for a few hours, and worth a visit. One sees only the first floor, but this gives a good idea of the building which was, perhaps, an inspiration for Jefferson's Monticello. The building conveys an elegant symmetry. 

Thursday evening we continued a small tradition of going to Harry's Bar for a martini and dinner. This small restaurant near San Marco was a favorite of Hemingway. And on Friday we took another walk in various neighborhoods for our last time on this visit. We located the hotel where we stayed the first time we visited Venice. I did not remember that it was a one star place. We have moved up a few stars, but not many. We found again a small plaque near San Marco that commemorates an event in 1310 when a woman threw a bowl of hot soup out of a window to stop a rebellion. She became a local hero. To us this illustrates the dense history of the place.

While on this trip I have been also reading, or trying to read, an Italian novel. The novel is by an Indian writer now living in Trieste. (I will probably finish it when I return.) The novelist is Laila Wadia, and the book is called "Amiche per la pelle", or roughly, "Sisters under the skin". It deals with 4 poor women, foreigners, who live with their families in a small ramshackle apartment building in Trieste. The protagonist is Indian and the other three are from China, Albania, and Bosnia. They become friends and have various small adventures while dealing with their lives. The book has a Triestine flavor and also involves larger themes including the Risiera di San Sabba, which was the only concentration camp on Italian soil; the struggles of the Bosnian woman in dealing with her own latter day holocaust; and the struggles of assimilation in a foreign (namely, Italian) situation. The book was suggested to me by a friend who lives in London. Reading it has been a perfect complement to our Adriatic journey. 

Villa La Rotonda

Gondolas on a canal

The revolution is thwarted by a pot of soup

Here we have 8 photographs of ceilings from the Fondazione Querini Stampalia. One gets a little dizzy looking at them.

We have gotten used to our neighborhood. Although we are across from the train station, it is also a half block to a side street that sends us along a series of canals by the German Embassy and into Campo Santa Margherita, and then through some more streets and canals to the Academia Bridge. Thus 35 minutes. From there we go here and there. The Peggy Guggenheim Museum, an elegant 20th century collection, not large but well selected. At the Dogana, on the tip of the island, there is now an exhibition space somewhat like the Tate Modern in London in size and scope. The stuff on exhibit at present is somewhat disquieting but I suppose that is the (modern) purpose of art. We walked along the Guidecca Canal and had a drink at a fancy new hotel there, built in an old warehouse. And we went to the Venice Jazz Club. A small group but fun to see, on Ponte dei Pugni, a bridge named for fistfights that took place there in the 1600s.

I can report a mullet that was excellent, and Mary Jo had a warm octopus salad that she liked very much.

Also, we have done some laundry at a local laundromat.

Our last day in Opatija was spent in a by now familiar manner. Leisurely breakfast consisting of yoghurt and fruit, a cappuccino and brioche a little later, then a 40 minute walk to Volvosko for a fine lunch at one of the fish restaurants. A cold octopus salad for Mary Jo and a seafood pasta for me, preceded by a clear fish soup with some quinoa, and followed by some cheese. Then a walk back, a nap, packing, and a light snack.

Sunday we were up at 5AM, walked to the bus station for the 6:20 bus to Trieste. There was a 40 minute wait at the Croatia - Slovenia border for no apparent reason. Then the train to Venezia-Santa Lucia station and a vaporetto to the Lido stop. The hotel is at Piazza Santa Marie Elisabetta, which is also just at the vaporetto stop. There is a pleasant feel to the neighborhood. Children going to and from school, commuters going to and from work. I understand that Venice is largely an artificial city that subsists on tourism. Perhaps the Lido is more than this.

Our room is adequate. There is a charge for internet service, which makes a change in our habits. We are now reading a paper copy of the IHT, as in the old days.

There is a unity of design in this trip that is pleasant to contemplate. Trieste in the upper east side of the Adriatic, then a little south to Opatija, then north and over to the Lido on the northwest side of the Adriatic, then next week to Venice proper. Always with a view of the Adriatic Sea. 

In the morning we took a 2 hour walk south of the vaporetto stop and back. Nice houses or apartments, a neighborhood feel. There are many small canals that go in from the lagoon but do not go all the way over to the Adriatic side. The island is a long sandy spit of land. We walked back along the Adriatic, noting the beach cabanas. There used to be several grand hotels along the beach, one of which is feathered in Thomas Mann's novella "Death in Venice". Ten years ago, we stopped with Carolyn at this hotel for a coffee. Now the hotel has vanished, an appropriate end to the decay and death which the story commemorates.  

In the late afternoon we went out again and as a lark took a bus at random from the Santa Marie Elisabetta piazza. The bus went down to the south end of the Lido, and then got on a ferry crossing to another island, with a full load of passengers. As the trip continued and it started to get dark, we asked ourselves, might this be the last trip of the day? Near the end passengers started to disembark, and at the end Mary Jo asked about the return, and there was no problem. The trip was along a rather narrow stretch of land with a high dike on the sea side and low flats on the lagoon side. It seemed to me that there were fish farms and perhaps other industrial activity there, as well as some small towns. I suspect we were also not far from the major industrial area (chemicals, petroleum) of Marghera. By the way, I can attest to Mary Jo's verbal skills in Italian. 

Tuesday, a chilly clear day, we went to Torcello to see the mosaics there. This involved 3 boats but worked out well once we mastered the system of boats, more complicated than a subway system. These mosaics were done in the 11th century, are in very good condition, and are lovelier than I had remembered from the first time we saw them. Dinner involved Scotch eggs, which in this case means 3 egg yolks, soft boiled and then breaded (unless the process is the reverse), and then served over some spinach.

Went to Venice proper on Wednesday, walked around a lot, got lost, then came back and went to an Indian restaurant for supper. 

Thursday we packed and took the vaporetto to our last stop in Italy. The hotel is near the train station and not large but pleasant. A good view of the canal overlooking the station, and the breakfast (I am writing this on Friday) is not too bad. Internet is not as good as in Croatia but not bad.

The trip down the Grand Canal to the hotel is surely one of the fine sights in the world. There will be a few pictures that will not do it justice. This trip was also enlivened by a phone call received by the woman on the seat behind us. Clear reception, distinctive American accent, somewhat loud voice. The gist of the conversation seemed to be that she wants an immediate separation, does not want to continue living in the same house. They  have been married 25 years and she can not face the prospect of another 25 years with him. There is no one else, but she does not rule out the possibility. Repeated several times with more emphasis. Then, conversation broken off and she left at the next spot. I did not have the wit to stand up and applaud.

The first 2 pictures are of the entrance to the Grand Canal.

Now we see the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, a place we like to visit.

The next 7 pictures are just of scenes taken while traveling down the Grand Canal.

Here we have a shot of Fr. Paolo Sarpi, who in the 1500s argued against the pope and for the independence of Venice.

We arrived in Opatija on Feb 29. The bus from Trieste took about 2 hours and went through some pleasant upland rural areas in Slovenia before crossing the border and descending to the coast. As we have learned, Opatija is an old resort town from the middle of the 1800s, near the somewhat larger rail and sea hub of Rijeka. Our hotel is spacious and the third floor room faces the water with a balcony. On our first evening we had an unwise not great meal and I at least have felt the effects, but now that we are settled, things are better. The weather continues to be great, sunny days, cool nights. This is predicted to continue into next week with possibly some rain this coming Sunday.

There are 2 main roads in Opatija: Marshal Tito Street, which seems to extend along the coast, and a walking road, Emperor Franz Joseph road, which hugs the coast for about 10 kilometers, extending on either side of the town. In addition there are side roads going into the hills and even what looks like some fine walking trails extending even to the top of the local mountain. We seem to be sticking to Franz Joseph walking road. This is very pleasant and wanders around coves, through some gardens, by various restaurants, coffee bars, a roast chestnut vendor, etc. We spend some time relaxing and reading and some time walking around. The internet is excellent here. 

Today we walked for 30 minutes to the nearby fishing village of Volosko  for lunch. The meal was of high quality and started out with an "amuse bouche" consisting of a hake fish ball. Then some bread with 3 choices of pepper, 3 choices of salt, and 2 choices of olive oil. Then Mary Jo had a puree of pea soup with thyme, while I had a fish soup. The fish soup had a somewhat thin broth with a chunk of sea bass and several pieces of squid rings. Then Mary Jo had a fish dish consisting of several large chunks of monkfish, while I had a seafood risotto. We finished by sharing some small dishes of sorbet. 

There are 2 scientists who were born in what is present Croatia: Leo Henryk Sternbach, who lived in Opatija as a child (in fact, near our hotel) and invented valium, and Andrija Mohorovicic, who was born in Volosko and discovered the inner layers in the earth using seismic evidence. Some of my pictures relate to these people. In particular, there is a nice artistic representation of the earth's layers that I may put into Wikipedia when we get back.

We have now made a decision about the "gap" in our travel plans. On Sunday we will leave Croatia and take the bus, train, and vaporetto to the Lido, in Venice. We will stay there until Thursday when we will occupy our hotel in Venice proper for the rest of the trip.

Plaque commemorating the inventor of valium.

Mary Jo near an outside coffee bar in Opatija.

Three types of pepper, three types of salt, at a restaurant in Volvosko.

Fish nets in Volvosko.

The house where Mohorovicic was born.

Bust of Mohorovicic

This sculpture represents the layers in the earth which were first found by Mohorovicic.

Sunday we went to the opera: a performance of La Batiglia di Legano by Verdi. The theatre, Teatro Verdi, is not large. There is seating on the main floor and 5 rows of box seats wrapped around the theatre. Our seats were excellent, in the first row of box seats and in the center, making for a most enjoyable evening. There were some fine solos, duets, and 3 part singing. The staging included a person pretending to paint the scene as the action went along, but not singing. At the end, a framed canvas briefly appeared encompassing the whole stage. The audience was a mixture of furs and more informal wear.

Monday there were no special plans, but Tuesday we went to the Sartorio Museum. Sartorio was a wealthy merchant in the late 1700s, with many descendants who had more interest in art than in making money. (Will the wealthy descendants of the current billionaires have similar interests?) The museum is in the family domicile and has many rooms containing too many objects to describe. A portion of the collection consists of some drawings of Tiepelo which are interesting but not, I think, his best. The museum is in the university district of the city. Then to a "historic coffee bar" frequented by Joyce, Svevo, etc., and to lunch at the same arab restaurant at which we ate several days ago. I have picked up a few thin books in Italian that I will try to read.

Summarizing my impressions of Trieste, I think it is a fine town. I could easily spend a month here. We have had fine weather here, clear and not much of the strong wind for which Trieste is well known. Tomorrow we pack and move to our next destination, Opatija. We have already bought bus tickets. 

Statue of Italo Svevo

Plaque below the statue

Friday was rather quiet. Walked around, did some shopping but no buying, had a not great dinner at a Croatian beer joint. (Probably not an accurate description.)

Saturday, however, we sprung into action. First a second cappuccino in a historic Trieste coffee house. These coffee houses were the places where Joyce, Svevo, and others congregated. Then walked to the "Grand Canal" of Trieste. The canal is about 6 blocks long, built into the water's edge, in the 1800s to promote shipping at the Port of Trieste. (Trieste, as we have learned, was promoted and indeed had it's heyday, in the 1800s as a shipping and insurance center, shipping goods to and from middle Europe to the Mediterranean.) I have posted a picture as well as a picture of James Joyce, who spent some years here teaching English at a Berlitz school, writing Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners, and starting Ulysses, etc., and promoting the writing of his fellow writer, Italo Svevo.

Then we took a tram up a steep incline to the town of Opicina and walked around a little. Here we also took a picture of the obelisk, built by the local business interests to thank and commemorate the finishing of the road linking Vienna and Trieste. It is a pleasant spot with some nice walking trails.

Next, we took a bus to the Miremare Castle and related park. This castle is a small gem and the pictures I took do not do it justice. It is situated perhaps 10 miles north of the city center, on a piece of land that sticks out into the Adriatic Sea. It was built in the 1850s by Maximilian for his bride Charlotte, a Belgium princess. They occupied it for a very short time. Then Max and his princess went to become Emperor of Mexico. This did not work out so well and Max was killed in 1867 by Juarez. His wife lived until 1927 and died, insane, in Belgium.

We are gradually adjusting our schedule to dinner at 8PM. This evening we are at a pleasant nearby trattoria. Each of us had a pasta of some kind, and then carpaccio. 

View of the Grand Canal of Trieste

Statue of James Joyce near the Grand Canal

This obelisk marks the high point on the road from Vienna to Trieste.

A statue, one of many, found on the grounds of the charming Miremare Castle, north of Trieste.

A half hour before landing in Venice we had a fine view of the snow covered, rugged, Alps. The plane flew south of the city, then turned and, it was a clear day, I saw the lagoon, then the Salute and San Giorgio, then the curve of the Grand Canal, then the San Michele cemetery, and then down for the landing. Taking the train from Mestre to Trieste, at first we saw the Alps in the distance, then the view dissipated as it became darker. On the train a young woman reading Charles Bukovsky in Italian. In the Trieste  train station the Libraria Joyce Svevo (Joyce Svevo bookstore). Evidently a literary town.

Note: all literary stuff in this blog comes from conversations with David and all mistakes and mis-judgements are mine.

All hotel choices are a gamble. This gamble paid off very well as we have a large room, large bed, small kitchen, fine bathroom. In the evening we walked through a small labyrinth of streets to find a restaurant.

Thursday we got a late start and after breakfast wandered the streets to get oriented. The lower part of town is flat, contains the Piazza Unita adjacent to the waterfront, government buildings, and the main shopping area. Clear day, view of snow covered alps in the far distance, some broad avenues. Eventually had a snack and went back for a nap. Then we went out to the Revoltella Museum. The founder, Baron Pasqualle Revoltella, was a wealthy businessman in the first part on the nineteenth century. The museum is lodged in his mansion. The top floors contain modern Italian art, then depictions of local worthies and scenes plus household furnishings. A complicated group of statues commemorating the creation of the Suez Canal which he help finance. 

After this a prosecco and a rather good dinner. We shared a sea bass carpaccio, thinly sliced with oil and lemon, excellent. Then some other items, and a bottle of local Trieste white wine. We brought the unfinished bottle to our rooms for another evening.

The day's plan was modest: a trip to the John Lewis department store for a little shopping. Our morning cappuccino was had near the store; then we browsed in the kitchen section. I bought a small item for Leigh.

While Mary Jo and Alice did some serious shopping in the woman's department I walked to Regent's Park and back. This walk, more of an amble, took about 3/4 hour including stopping for traffic lights. The route was along Harley Street, famous for its high end medical offices sometimes featured in P D James mysteries involving mysterious ailments or poisonings. The buildings, I suppose Georgian, are handsome. On the walk I saw my first Fiat 500 Abarth, which is a slightly higher powered Fiat 500. Mary Jo had seen one earlier in Eastbourne.

Back at John Lewis I found that Mary Jo had shopped but not bought, while Alice had shopped and bought: one dress, one blouse, one pair of jeans (not distressed), and 3 pairs of socks. Then Chris arrived and we went to lunch at the John Lewis store, where I had a vegetarian risotto and a glass of wine, and the others had other selections.

We plan for an early departure tomorrow for Gatwick/Venice/Trieste. The next entry will be on Thursday at the earliest.

There are often a group of men sitting outside the Turkish coffee shop where we have our morning cappuccino. Yesterday morning as an elderly woman approached, they burst into song, singing "happy birthday". We sometimes see another elderly woman in the shop who is said to be 104.

In the morning Mary Jo did some laundry. After lunch Alice went to her exercise class while Mary Jo and I took the tube the Bloomsbury area to browse through some bookstores. One could have bought, for about £50, a thick tome by Charles Lyell on geology, 7th edition. Lyell a friend of Darwin. Would Louise have liked this?

Then walked to the theatre district where we ate at a Belgium pub recommended by Chris. Mussels for Mary Jo and a warm salad involving goat cheese for me. Each dish paired with a beer recommended by the menu. Mine was a lambic beer with a definite, but not dominant, fruit flavor. 

Then to the theatre for the play, War Horse. The play is set during World War I and involves a young man and his horse. The horse is enrolled in the war, the boy follows, and they survive, battered and bruised, to the end of the war. The main interest in the play is how the horses (and other animals) are handled. Using the scaffolding of a horse, 2 men inside, another man by the side, to handle the movements. It was amazingly effective and by the end one had great sympathy for the horse as a character in the play.

Coming back we took the tube, then decided to walk to the house instead of taking a bus, then took a wrong turn and wound up taking a taxi the rest of the way.

Not so much activity yesterday. A cappuccino after breakfast. I took a long walk on the heath,  and a nap. Alice prepared a meal for Chris and the three of us. Roast leg of lamb, potatoes, salad, some ice cream. Excellent. Conversations about old times, how we are handling our aging processes, David and Leigh's new dog.  To bed in good time and had an excellent sleep.

Up in good time and to the bus stop for our excursion of the day. The bus took Mary Jo, Alice, and I to Victoria Station where the train took us to Eastbourne. The town is on the end of the train line, seems somewhat isolated, and is on the English Channel. Katherine plus her small dog met us, and we walked to her flat. The neighborhood is spacious and the flat is in an old stately home built in 1798 by a wine merchant who made his money smuggling rum from the West Indies. It developed that Katherine is trying to sell the flat, so we first went to a neighboring flat while Katherine's flat was looked at. Tea and conversation with this neighbor, then to Katherine's flat when someone else looked at it while we were there. Then five of us (Mary Jo, Katherine, Alice, the dog, and I) went for a walk of an hour or so along the water (the English Channel). The day was windy and somewhat cold and threatening rain, but the setting was fine with a good view of the South Down and the chalk cliffs. Then back to the flat where we left the dog and picked up the neighbor, and the five of us went to a modest looking but rather nice fish restaurant for a dinner. The neighbor turns out to be a good friend of Katherine's. She has lived all over the world and has done many things; in particular, some fine watercolors. So the dinner conversation was interesting. During dinner it started raining so we had a wet walk back to the train station. We were back at the house by 8:30 and had a little brandy before retiring for the night.

A 10AM start to our touristic activities this morning. We took a bus, and then several underground trains to the Tower Hill station. At 11:30 we started the "Old Jewish Quarter" London walk. About 25 people plus the guide, an energetic somewhat older woman. The neighborhoods were part of the City and part of the East End. Many plaques on walls signifying old events, crowded streets, a very new building nicknamed "The Gherkin", some time spent in an old synagogue. The walk ended at the Liverpool Street train station where we saw a statue commemorating the events of the Kindertransport, in which a number of Jewish children were brought from Germany, out of harms way to Great Britain in August, 1939. Peter Gutkind was one of these children, at age 13. 

After the 2 hour walk we went to a local pub. Mary Jo had fish and chips, Alice had a hamburger and chips, and I had some soup. Exhausted, we came back home.

Later I went for a short walk on Hampstead Heath.

Kindertransport Memorial

Kindertransport Memorial

Bench on Hampstead Heath with a (hard to read) memorial plaque. The plaque says:

For Ben Weinreb whilst he can sit on it (1912 - ??)

Now in years bestride my eighties, This Elysian seat I have vacated,

But gentle neighbor sigh not yet, I've only moved to Somerset. (died 1999)

Alice and Mary Jo at an old Roman and medieval wall near the tower of London

This morning, after some porridge, a few errands and a cappuccino, we took the "overground" train to Islington and the Estorick museum.  This museum has a rather small collection devoted to twentieth (and twenty-first) century Italian art. There was an special exhibition of work by Alberto Burri, which I did not find so interesting. The (to me more interesting) permanent collection had cubist paintings by Severino, Balla, etc., and etchings by Giorgio Morandi. Gino Severini was an Italian, from Cortona, who lived in Paris in the first part of the twentieth century and wrote an engaging memoir of his painterly life. The photographs show a few of his paintings.

Afterwards, we walked to a restaurant of Yotam Ottolenghi for lunch. We have read some of his recipes in the Guardian. They are complicated affairs with long lists of ingredients, so naturally we were curious to try them. I had a soup and a plate consisting of 3 salads. The soup was a puree of turnip, pear,  Roquefort, and pumpkin seeds, which was excellent. Salad #1 had roasted eggplant with turmeric yoghurt, crispy onion, basil, and pomegranate seeds. Salad #2 had roasted baby potatoes with samphire [an obscure plant], broad beans, lemon, and pink peppercorns. Salad #3 had roasted squash with cardamon and preserved lemon yoghurt, spicy pumpkin seeds and parsley. In each of these the flavors were not melded, but instead mingled and distinct.  An excellent meal. Mary Jo liked her selections but Alice was not so happy with hers. There are many restaurants and interesting shops in Islington.

Then home for a nap and a short walk on Hampstead Heath. 

Etching of Giorgio Morandi

Picture of Gino Severini

View from Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath

We arrived at Gatwick after an uneventful flight. Inspired by Newt Gingrich I selected a book about Saul Alinsky from our bookshelf, and this helped pass the time. We found  Alice her usual energetic self. The week's activities have been planned: a trip to the Estorick museum on Thursday, a "London Walk" on Friday, a trip to Eastbourne to see Katherine on Saturday, dinner with Chris on Sunday, a play on Monday, and a bit of shopping on Tuesday. Can we maintain this frenetic schedule? We shall see. In the meantime, several long naps have been taken while Alice has prepared a fragrant veal casserole for this evening.

Preliminary Post

We will use this blog to post our adventures traveling to London - Trieste - ?? - Venice in February and March. The trip starts Feb. 14.