Finally, Venice

The journey ended with three nights in Venice, an architecturally magical city I had visited for several days in May 1994, and been captivated by then. This time I arrived at the end of an exhausting journey, still badly bruised from the fall in Giverny (my ribcage has only just returned to unpainful, but my right knee hasn’t quite yet), and still fearful of carrying insect stowaways. The original plan was to be a houseguest in a family-owned apartment, but rather than risk leaving said stowaways with them, they generously put me up in a nice air-conditioned vacation rental a short walk from their apartment.

Venice in July was hot, humid, and burgeoning with tourists and mosquitos. My body craved rest. These conditions were not ideal for enjoying the city. But I did thrill in seeing the buildings and bridges and boats, eating some very yummy meals and gelato, and visiting the La Fenice, which we toured during the second day and to which we returned for an evening of chamber music. The day before, we visited San Michele, which was beautifully peaceful and fragrant of cedar (or some tree that reminded me of cedar), but uncomfortable in the heat and limited mid-day shadows. The highlight of my last night there was a lovely evening cruise around the city on a vaporetto.

The vaporetti are Venice’s water-borne buses, and practically demanded Sailor Babo coverage, as did the ubiquitous gondolas, which I rode once to cross the Grand Canal in a form of public transit service called the traghetto.

Look closely, and you may notice that the gondolier is doing something on a hand-held mobile device.

For a glimpse of what else caught my eyes during this time in Venice, I invite you to scroll through the photos posted here.

(Eventually, photos of Milan, Giverny, and Paris will be uploaded to Flickr as well. I’m slowly working my way backward through thousands of images.)

At long last, the swans

Friday, July 7: So after another high-speed train ride — through the southern Alps! — I made it to Milan.

Milan, more specifically seeing Alexei Ratmansky’s Swan Lake at La Scala, was the impetus for this whole trip.

Milan was the city in which I was only looking forward to La Scala, having read that it wasn’t very scenic or some such. But turns out I really liked Milan. It helped that I had splurged on a lovely terrace room in a lovely little hotel in the historic district (to be able to easily walk to and from La Scala) for the two nights spent there. And it helped that I met up with my brother and sister-in-law there, and would be going to Venice with them, so would not have to struggle with language (they have learned to speak Italian) (not that it was an issue in the touristy area). But I liked the city itself enough to want to return some day.

The highlights this visit include:

• La Scala and Il lago dei cigni, of course.
• The bella locanda, to which I sincerely hope I did not bring any unwanted guests along with me. It was too hot to really enjoy the terrace after about 10 a.m., but I have no regrets on the splurge.
• The roof of the Duomo, despite the heat, the crowd, and the scary last-flight-of-stairs-to-the-top climb.
• The Sforza Castle, where I only had time to see a handful of its many art and history museums.
• The cozy, friendly Caffe Vecchia Brera, where I enjoyed two meals on Saturday.
• Gelato. Twice!
• The public transit system.  I only rode a couple of subway lines – very easy to use – but enjoyed ogling the streetcars and trams and buses (remember, I’m a transit geek). Next time, I’ll ride them and explore some other neighborhoods.

Exiting the locanda

The ceiling above Michelango’s Pieta in the Castle Sforza

The dome of the old fancypants shopping mall

At long last!

Caffe Vecchia Brera

Milanese street art

La Scala

Lots of shared-use streets in Milano

In the Castle Sforza

light and shadow in the locanda breakfast room

A view from the Duomo

At the Museum of Musical Instruments in the Castle Sforza

the terrace

Somewhere in Milano

Streetcar action

Locanda breakfast

A view of the Duomo

A view from the Duomo

beer from the minibar

From my seat at La Scala

Caffe Vecchia Brera post-ballet

La Scala

A view from the Duomo

flowers on the terrace

A view from the Duomo

A view of the Duomo

what brought me here

Lunch at the Caffe Vecchia Brera

 

Ciao until next time, Milano!

And finally on to Venezia…

Of swans and sylphs, nymphees and nymphs, trains, planes, and vaporetti

Yesterday (or was it last night? isn’t it now morning?) I returned from a 10ish-day journey in France and Italy: Paris, Giverny, stopover in Lyon, Milan, Venice.

For a transportation planner, it was an exercise in logistics that worked out well on paper and worked in a geekily thrilling variety of public transit experiences.

For a human with an aging body in need of more than fleeting moments of restorative stillness, it was an ordeal.

For a dreamer in love with beautiful old buildings, cobblestones, flowering gardens, winding passageways, lyrical languages, and 19th century ballets featuring enchanted ladies in white, the journey was overflowing with delight.

The Paris part of the trip

Sunday, July 2: Boarded a plane in Seattle. Sleep did not happen during the 10.5 hour flight.

Monday, July 3: Disembarked at Charles de Gaulle airport. Waited two hours in the border police immigration control queue, served by a single station (surrounded by closed stations) that was itself closed for 20 minutes. What was this, border patrol strike day?  (Note to self: accept that parting bottle of water offered on the plane because there will be no fountain nor cafe nor vending machine to procure a beverage until after passport stampation.)

RoissyBus to the Opera Garnier. Slow hot walk to the Hotel 3 Poussins (near the Saint Georges Metro). Lunch at a small Himalayan restaurant nearby (momos!) until check-in time. I had booked this particular room for the view from the terrace and was not disappointed.

Can you spot the opera house?

First outing: a quick visit to the Musée de l’Orangerie to revisit Monet’s nymphées.

First ice cream: a gelato from a cart near the Pont des Arts, staffed by a friendly young woman who took great pride in sculpting the gelato she served. I should have photographed the lovely flower of ice cream she created. This sustained me for the walk to dinner.

Determined this time not to subsist entirely on food in boxes from the Monoprix, I had reserved a table at a fancy Italian vegetarian restaurant called Sense Eat, near the Mabillon Metro station. The food was exquisitely prepared and served, though not aligned with my flavor preferences, except for dessert.

second gelato of the trip

So I put down two gelati on the very first day, and successfully stayed awake until sunset. This felt like an achievement.

bonne nuit, Paris

Tuesday, July 4: I explored the Gare Saint-Lazarre to get my bearings for upcoming train travel, the kindness of a Parisian lady on the street directing me to the Jardin du Luxembourg, the Musée du Luxembourg (Pissarro exhibit), Monoprix (mais oui, as there would be no time for a real dinner tonight), and the ballet La Sylphide at the Palais Garnier. Seeing this ballet in this theater was a dream. I sat very close to the stage, in a box on the extreme side, so didn’t get to see all the specially flying effects, but still.

 

View of the house

From this view I saw the trap doors used in La Sylphide

 

Hugo Marchand and the sylphs bask in the applause

Back at the Trois Poussins, I enjoyed some wine with the Eiffel Tower before a good night’s sleep.

That’s the moon in the upper left corner.

To be continued…

About last Paris

So seeing the Paris Opera Ballet and orchestra perform Swan Lake (three times!) was a dream come true.  (The mini-subscription I sprung for early last year was well worth the ability to get tickets to additional performances before they went on sale to the public.)  The swans were magical, and the entire production was magnificent.  I won’t nerd out about the dancing here, other than to mention that the male leads were particularly extraordinary on the first and third nights.

And the rest of the trip, other than the not sleeping and sad eating parts, was highly enjoyable, with early December having certain advantages.   It was lovely to visit L’Orangerie, the Musee Cluny, the Louvre, Sainte-Chapelle, and the Musee des Arts et Metiers with few tourists, virtually no lines for the museums, and room to breathe (except the air quality was very poor the first four days I was there, but as a result the transit was free).  I liked riding the bus more than the Metro.  I got to practice my rudimentary French.  (It is getting better.)  The Medici Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens was my favorite place of beauty, other than the stage of the Opera Bastille and Monet’s water lilies in L’Orangerie.  The apartment was in a lovely neighborhood and had a nice view.

There are photos here that I will probably never get around to organizing.

The one disappointment was that I did manage not sit in a cafe and sketch.  Surprisingly, I also drank no wine (wanted to keep my wits about me being a solo traveler, until that very last night and then cider was what beckoned).

And of course I want to go back.

If the stars align, I’m going to do so for just a few days, before heading to …

Because, after all, I still have that last ticket in my mini-subscription to see La Sylphide at the Palais Garnier in July, the one I was planning to resell or just consider a sunk cost, since I really didn’t expect to return to Paris in 2017.  But Swan Lake at La Scala also happens in July, and the real water lilies in Monet’s garden begin blooming in July.  And it’s not going to get easier to travel and I’m not going to get any younger.

An open letter to anyone considering bringing a child to Swan Lake

Dear parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles,

If you think bringing a child younger than, say, eight years old to see Swan Lake is a good idea, please note the following:

The story is a tragedy.  It involves a creepy evil sorcerer, a cruel temptress, devastating heartbreak, and, in most productions, at least one suicide.

It is about 2 hours and 45 minutes long.  That typically includes two 20-minute intermissions during which chattering, eating, seat-kicking, and whining are welcome, but when the lights go down and the orchestra is playing, it is time to sit still and be in listen-only mode.

In many opera houses and theaters, probably including the venue where your Swan Lake is presented, eating and drinking are not allowed.  This means no slurping from sippy-cups or straws from the bottom of cups with ice, and no crunching on something from a crinkly bag.  It is not only prohibited by the venue (didn’t you see those signs by the concessions stand and at the auditorium entrance, and the message printed right there on your ticket?), it is disrespectful to the artists (hint: the violin soloist is one of the performers!) and your fellow audience members.  Those intermissions?  That is the appropriate time for your child to eat.  If they cannot possibly abstain from eating during the show, please at least have the courtesy to provide them with something they can consume quietly (how about a soft cookie or piece of bread from a package that does not crinkle?).

Your fellow audience members paid quite a bit of money to hear the live orchestra, not your child’s ongoing narrative, singing along, and definitely not their consumption of a bag of chips/popcorn/cheese curls/whatever was being consumed in row D seat 121 or thereabouts in the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House during last Sunday’s matinee of Swan Lake.

Thank you for you consideration.

Paris, day 2 (to the Opera Garnier and back again)

After a tiny, tiny bit of sleep, it was thrilling to wake up in Paris to beautiful morning light over the rooftops.

I was smitten with the terra cotta chimney pots, and the light.

We enjoyed breakfast, including scrumptious Twinkie-esque madeleines and delicious from-a-pod espresso that were stocked in the kitchenette, with other things we had picked up from a nearby grocery the previous evening.

And then lunch from Mi-Va-Mi:

And then we ventured out, walking to the Palais Garnier, because I would be seeing the ballet there that night and wanted to know how long it would take to walk there.

So we walked there twice that day (and walked back the first time, Metroed back the second), with a visit to the gift shop the first time, and picking up some more comestibles on the walk back.  Dinner was baguette and the stinkiest of camembert wolfed down in the apartment.

The only photos I took that evening were of the interior of the magnificent Garnier.  I had a side seat in the third level of loges.

The program included Harald Lander’s Etudes (which is a delightful display of the amazing classical technical proficiency of the Paris Opera Ballet dancers) and two works by William Forsythe, whose choreography is very interesting, but whose choices of music don’t appeal to me, so I didn’t enjoy those as much as Etudes.  Of course no photography was permitted during the performance, but I did manage to get a screen capture from Etudes from a web broadcast of the same program the very next night:

Alas there wasn’t time to linger and draw the theater that evening.  (Too bad I felt it necessary to make that walk twice.)  Next trip.

Good night, moon.  Good night Eiffel Tower way off in the distance. Good night, Paris.

Cincinnati and Louisville and the photos I finally got around to posting

So two weeks ago I flew to Cincinnati, on a red-eye.  M—–l graciously met me at the airport at 6:30 on a Sunday morning, and we went out for breakfast.

That Sunday night I got to experience fireflies again for the first time in a couple of years. (They don’t live in Seattle.)

Then on Monday we drove to Louisville for the already well-reported concert (as relayed by M—-l here and here, and by Scott here, and here are Lord Mariser’s photos) and meet-up with Crankypants, Mariser, Lord Kalvan, and Scott, at the first show of Cranky’s thematic road trip.

I should point out that I did not partake in this experience as a fan of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds; I came along to meet up with the ex-Voxers and see Louisville (which for some reason I thought I might like).  However, my first Nick Cave concert experience was very positive.  It was also great to meet Mariser and Lord K, and see Cranky and Scott again!

The concert was at the Louisville Palace.

It’s very ornate inside.

Sailor Babo thought so, too.

I liked Nick Cave’s dance moves and as well as the moves of the Bad Seeds crazy fiddler/flautist (whose name I later learned is Warren Ellis).

(Lord Mariser’s photos are so much better than mine.)

After the show, Mariser, Lord Kalvan, and Cranky drove us back to our hotel, the 21c.  It contains a contemporary art museum, and we explored the various art things.  My favorite art thing was the interactive video installation thingee at the elevators.

But that was trumped by the quiet appearance of Mr. Cave, followed by a couple of Bad Seeds, apparently headed to their rooms for the night.  Mr. Cave himself went into the hotel bar/restaurant, emerging shortly thereafter carrying a drink and a cigarette which he took outside the hotel.

M—-l and I said goodnight and headed upstairs, and missed out on this.

Our room had a view of art.

It also had special safety instructions that apparently no one bothered to proofread, but I guess that wouldn’t matter in the event of actual zombies.

The next day we dined in the hotel bar/restaurant, where earlier our waiter had met Mr. Cave and Mr. Ellis, and reported that Mr. Ellis breakfasted on oatmeal, dressed flamboyantly, and rolled cigarettes at the table. 

Then we briefly ventured into Old Louisville, and then record-shopped a little in the eastern part of the city before heading back to Cincinnati.  Other than the Palace and the excellent hotel, I was disappointed by what we saw of Louisville, but then I would probably be disappointed by anywhere with the heat and humidity of that day.

On Wednesday I splurged on a new toy, an iPad (mini), discovered apps for drawing and painting, and began to produce digital diarrhea (electronic fingerpainting, that is).  You can see some of that over here.

 

p.s., here is the actual “guide” part

• Like I suggested for the opera, opt for an inexpensive seat for your solo subscription, and then upgrade it for the productions you really care about (and add on for anything you want to share with someone else).

• Figure out which productions you really want to see particular leads in, check the cast lists a week or two before the production begins, and switch your ticket or buy tickets to additional performances accordingly.

• Take the bus there and back.  You’ll need to save your dollars for tickets.

• Do bring a sketchbook.  That way you will have something to do while waiting for the curtain to go up…

… and during intermission…

… and maybe even in the dark while the performance is going on …

This is a swan.

This is two swans.

I don’t really know what this is.

• During intermission, seek out magical things that may be on display.

yes, please

it’s fun to draw them sometimes

• If you liked the performance, applaud like you mean it.   Holler and stand up, dammit!  It usually feels good to do, and those dancers worked very hard for your entertainment.  Example:

• Go home and dream of swans or nobel princes or princesses or whatever beautiful images stay with you from the experience.

recent drawings and snacks

in approximately retrograde order …

Saturday:

Last Tuesday:

The Saturday before that:

The Thursday before that:

I need to remember to post some photos from this day:

Richard Buckner Day (March 7):

Family night:
1

 

Late February:

homebody’s guide for livin’ large at the opera on a budget

1. Go by yourself.  You can apply your ticket budget to a far superior seat if you’re only purchasing for yourself, plus there are many more good seating choices for single tickets than pairs, especially if you’re getting a last-minute ticket.  Plus you’re fully in charge of where and when, you won’t have to make conversation, and it will take pressure off to dress up, eat out, and other spendy things people do because everyone else does.
2. If you can swing the advance purchase, and are interested in seeing at least half of the productions in the upcoming season, become a season subscriber.  Buy the least expensive nosebleed seat, pay in installments, upgrade your ticket for those productions you are excited about seeing, and sell the rest on Craigslist.  At least in Seattle, subscribers can easily exchange their tickets and get a discounted price on upgrades and extra tickets as well as ability to exchange/buy extras before the rest of the world (so you can grab a pair of good seats for those shows you do want to share) as well as various other useful perks.
3. Splurge on the best seat you can manage for those productions you are excited about.  For me, this means a box as close to the stage as possible, even if it’s really high up and a “partial view”, because  I like to see the orchestra and make out the performers’ faces, and I don’t like crowds.  You are buying an experience.  Make it the best experience it can be.  You are unlikely to regret getting a great seat.
4. Take the bus there, thereby saving money and eliminating the need to park.
5. Go to a matinee.  They generally cost less, the level of audience dressiness is lower, and taking transit home afterward is less scary.
6. Don’t get too dressed up, and certainly avoid adding a dry cleaning expense to your outing.  Besides, you’re taking the bus.  Wear shoes you don’t mind walking in, and a warm-enough coat and hat.
7. Always bring a book, and maybe a sketchbook.
8. Don’t go out to dinner.  If you really need a restaurant meal to make your experience complete, opt for a nice lunch before the matinee (and make a reservation to make sure you have enough time to eat).  My preferred approach is to eat lunch at home first, then splurge on a glass of wine at intermission (which can be preordered before the show to avoid the lines at intermission).
9. Plan to get there really early, use the ladies, park your coat in your seat, and then go pre-order your wine for first intermission.
10. Carry a water bottle in your purse and fill it at the fountain.
11. Pee during the second intermission, so you can make a quick getaway afterward.
12. Avoid the gift shop unless you want to get something specific to that production.  (If you are a subscriber, don’t forget to take advantage of any discount or coupon you may have for the gift shop.)
13. Avoid the staircase closest to the parking garage, even if you have to walk out of your way.
14. Take the bus home if the timing’s right and it’s not dark/ raining/very cold.  If taking the bus would be scary, miserable weather-wise, or a long wait, definitely splurge on a cab.
15. Carry that wonderful experience home inside you, and sing it to yourself all evening.  Dream in arias.

The view from a second tier box