May 15, 2022
What a day… We headed to the Malta Airport right after breakfast to pick up our rental car…. Which was fairly simple and straightforward, except for the rental car guy who was a great salesman about getting their insurance, despite the fact that AmEx covers all damages related to rental cars charged to that account and the fact that our regular insurance has some kind of clause related to rental cars worldwide. Anyway, we got out in our little Hyundai and Mike was the designated driver for British style driving. I was actually glad he chose to be the driver. It was a little scary at first, but he quickly seemed to get into the mode, remembering all the other times we had to drive British style, including in Thailand.
Our plan was to head north and take the ferry (as passengers, leaving the car in a lot on the Malta side). The hotel reception person and the rental car guy, as well as the taxi driver who took us from the hotel to the airport to get the car all advised us to take the car with us to Gozo so that we’d have more flexibility and we were contemplating the options. One great comment someone said was: “It’s really nice to drive on Gozo because they don’t have those cameras that monitor traffic and driving!”
The drive did give us a chance to see the Malta countryside. The terrain is mostly low hills with some fields terracing on the slopes; there are lakes and streams and many ridges and valleys. The shorelines are pretty rocky, but there are also good beaches and I learned today that it is one of the best places for diving. The water is unbelievably clean and you can see down to the bottom. The route was dotted with huge cacti. Gozo has more arable land than Malta.
And everyone told us the drive to the ferry would be 45 minutes and we’d just drive right on to the ferry. Still we thought maybe it would be easier to go on the ferry as passengers and take a taxi. We had already booked lunch at a little restaurant in Victoria, Gozo; then we thought we’d either walk around or maybe walk all the way back to the ferry – about a 90-minute walk. Well as it turned out there was a ton of traffic; seemed like everyone in Malta decided to head to Gozo on this bright sunny Sunday. And apparently even though it was the weekend and no work was being done, the workers keep the equipment on the road and so the roads are closed down over the weekend. Anyway, it took us more than an hour and 45 minutes to get to the ferry and then we waited on the car line for a quite a long time before we actually got on the ferry.
So we didn’t expect all the traffic and road delays. We contacted the restaurant we had booked for lunch and learned they would close at 2:00, and that most restaurants are closed on Sundays. Malta and Gozo are pretty Catholic; Gozo—with only 30,000 residents, has more than 40 churches, basilicas, and cathedrals—and they are huge, what you’d normally find in much larger cities. Not sure if this is tied to restaurant closures on Sundays. We told the restaurant we’d do our very best to get there by 2:00, and then searched for a backup plan. By the way, everyone says that it’s not possible to get lost in either Malta or Gozo as they are so small. But I think that is an exaggeration. And everyone says it only takes “5 minutes” to get to anywhere, but that too is a bit of an exaggeration.
Enroute to the ferry we came upon a little promenade of old Mustangs—one following the other on the highway. Maybe some kind of club outing. The ferry was full of families with young children, and I did spot a woman in a string bikini wearing a “cover-up” over the bikini, but the cover-up was totally sheer; Mike seems not to have seen this. Anyway, we managed to make it to the restaurant—Maldonado’s Bistro—exactly at 2:00 and they could not have been nicer, and the food was great. All locally sourced and some new takes on very traditional dishes. Malta (and Gozo) is famous for a particular kind of sheep’s cheese and they are pretty creative in how they use it. We had chicken that was raised on Gozo, local Gozo wine, house-cured olives, and a ravioli dish that used the local cheese and was laden with all sorts of wonderfully fresh herbs that were growing right outside the window. At the end, the waiter presented us with some wonderful limoncello that was also house made—apparently a Covid project that took all of Covid to perfect.
Another interesting thing to note: nearly all of the service people we have encountered come from outside Malta— Tunisian taxi driver, waiters from Albania, Italy (Amalfi to be exact), Spain, southern and eastern France, Philippines, etc. The Albanian waiter was especially impressed that we had been to Albania and traveled throughout the country.
And I should mention that the whole country is built of sandstone, creating a unified visual vocabulary. Much of the country is from the 17th Century when the craftsman building these structures were amazing.
After lunch we strolled the center of the town and also decided to go inside one of the basilicas. I’m still trying to figure out why a town of 30,000 would have so many churches and who built them all. Then we drove to the sea to look at the “salt pans”… Pythagoras said: “Salt is born of the purest parents: the sun and the sea.” And so it goes in Gozo.
We then raced to get the return ferry; according to Google maps we were just 15 minutes away… and most of the drive went as planned with remarkably accurate instructions from both Google Maps and also Waze. But as we approached the ferry, we realized something was wrong and we were guided to join the mile-long queue!! By our calculations this meant we would probably need to sit out the first three ferries and hope to get onto the 4th one. The ferries only go twice each hour, so that meant 90 minutes or two hours. And we patiently waited and inched up whenever a ferry departed. It took us close to two hours to wait of the ferry and then sail. But we made it back. Only glitches were that we realized it would be dark by the time we got close to the hotel (and navigating those narrow winding streets in the medieval town of Valletta would not be easy; we would again be late for a reserved dinner and were unsure how late the restaurant would be open on a Sunday; and we didn’t know where we would be able to park the car. Our hotel doesn’t have parking.
In conclusion, we made it back, we found a parking garage, we walked from the car to the hotel, we made it to the restaurant (Grain Street) just in time to order before the kitchen closed, we ate and walked to the hotel. And here I am to tell you my tales. Oh, the photos of Mike squeezing into the car is on the ferry. They guided us to park really close to the wall and then Mike couldn’t quite get out of the car,. And then back into the car. But, alas, he managed to will himself to be skinny.
Stay well. A little on Malta’s politics tomorrow.
Fern
Day Two Malta: 5/14/22. Valletta, The Three Cities, Protected by Saints; Ferries, The Hotel, and More
After breakfast at out little hotel –66 St. Paul’s, a delightful and well appointed small hotel in the thick of Valletta – we set out to walk and see the town (city). The hotel is set inside a 17th century palazzo, and has been modernized into a wonderful set of 11 or so spacious rooms with great bathrooms and a pleasant lobby space. Our room also has a balcony from which we can see the sea and the tops of some interesting nearby buildings.
Malta has a complicated history including being controlled by the Romans, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, British, Spanish, Turks, Arabs, French, Italians, and more (not in that order); during WWII they were bombed extensively by the Germans and the Italians. And the Inquisition lasted until 1798. The Maltese language is tied historically to the Arabs, they drive like the Brits on the opposite side of the road. The food is a true combination of all of the cultures who created the island. There are London style public telephone booths scattered around, although I don’t know if they are functional or decorative. The food is clearly fusion. Another point of note, apparently Malta was the most bombed place in the world during WWII; 154 days and nights and 6,700 tons of bombs.
Facts: Malta is really tiny—about 17 miles by 7 miles and only has 40,000 people. Valletta, the capital is only 1 kilometer by 600 meters (.6 miles by less than 1.2 mile). So everything is really close and I assume that everyone knows everyone?
We strolled the narrow streets that change in elevation and have tons of steps that rise and fall depending on location. Throughout the walk, music is wafting in the background—Classical, Beatles, punk, and more from the open windows and radios of residents and contractors. We walked about three miles by then and tried to stay on the shaded side of the street. After a brief stop for a light lunch, we headed to the ferry which involved us getting in the middle of a wedding (or maybe two weddings—hard to say) that was taking place at an outdoor high-end restaurant and hotel, as we walked to the ferry. We had decided to take the 15 minute ferry to what is called “the three cities.” And then we walked some more… always “protected” by the many, many statues and reliefs of saints throughout the area.
Eventually we took the ferry back (Oh- turns out the wedding folks were on our ferry and they were all dressed up and walking to another venue—but perhaps it was another wedding; hard to say). Then we walked back to the hotel and set out for dinner… at Taste, which like many of the restaurants have most of their tables outside. And many, like Taste are located on streets that slope precariously down toward the sea; the streets are actually all stairs that are about 2.5’ deep non a 16% slope (I think).
So they all have little tables whose base fits on the 2.5’ stair and chairs that also fit. If there are more than two people they use two tables, one on each step.. so the table tops don’t line up. The tables and chairs line the entire street as the restaurants sort of blur one to the other. People going from one street to another are walking between two sets of tables. But it all seems to work. (Photos of this arrangement to follow tomorrow.)
Tomorrow we will rent a car and drive north to take the longer ferry to Gozo, a separate island, where we will explore Victoria and have lunch… and be back for dinner. We’ll use the car on the subsequent days to explore the island more… On Wednesday we shift hotels to stay in Mdina for our last two nights here. Mdina is really only a 20 minute drive, but we thought it might be fun to be in another setting while we are here. I may regret that decision when I start packing and unpacking for this mini-trip. While we could probably rely on buses and taxis, it seems like a car will enable us to feel more free to roam around and stop and go as we please.
14,000 steps today!! And lots of stairs.
Take care-
Fern
Day One Malta: 5/13/22: Flying to Malta; Timing; Covid
Greetings from Malta-
After a simple breakfast in the little park around the corner from the hotel (Cottage Café), where the birds swept in as soon as it was clear we were finished eating, we headed to the Geneva Airport to move on to Malta. While the Swiss are super-efficient, their boarding process for planes never ceases to amaze us—it’s a bit of a free-for-all. We flew to Zurich and then had an hour or so layover for our flight to Malta on Air Malta. Interesting, we needed to show proof of vaccines for the Malta flight and they were very serious about the process. And, after being in the airport for more than an hour without masks and where no one was masked, we needed to be masked on the Air Malta plane. The flight was late to take off and they forced us to check baggage so we were pretty far behind schedule by the time we landed.
Normally wouldn’t care, but we had dinner reservations at Noni and it’s a very tiny restaurant (only 11 tables) and it is booked months in advance. As many of you know, we had planned to come to Malta in December 2020 and then again in December 2021 and both trips were canceled due to Covid. We were supposed to eat at Noni on New Year’s Eve 2021, so when we could finally make this trip we re-booked dinner and were worried that we would never make it. We called to delay the reservation by 90 minutes. We hopped in a taxi at the airport and headed to the hotel (more on that tomorrow). The taxi driver must have been trained for the Indy 500. I think he was going about 100 kph in 60 kph zones; maybe even faster. Anyway, we made it to the hotel… checked in and ran out the door to get to Noni, which was well worth the exhaustion of dashing the ½ mile on the stone streets and steeply graded passageways.
The town looks great. Lots of life and people (mostly young) filling the narrow cobblestone streets with restaurants and bars spilling onto every possible flat area and even on steps that cascade down the slopes. But we’ll know more tomorrow.
Noni (with its Michelin stars) was wonderful with each dish and all the extra “nibbles” they kept bringing to the table beautifully arranged and utterly fantastic. We decided on the three-course meal rather than the four course or the “tasting menu” that had eight courses. The first set of “nibbles” included a little cup of some kind of soup that was made of cauliflower and vanilla and some green oil; little gems that had some kind of cheese-like quiche with the freshest peas you can imagine (it was about 1” tall and 1” circumference); a little parmesan crisp filigreed to be like a leaf with tiny dabs of a fruit and something else, and a few other dishes that I cannot remember at the moment. For our “starters” Mike selected the risotto with sea urchin and I went with the rare tuna which was a little work of art striated with radish and one other fish. For the main courses, Mike went with the rabbit which was sort of deconstructed and I had the bass which had a crisp skin and totally luscious flesh underneath and it was all sitting in a dashi. For dessert Mike had the apple tart which looked nothing like a tart but was definitely apple and it came with some “milk ice cream.” I had a chocolate thing which I first thought would be a little like a mousse but in the center there was a mixture of caramel, banana, and miso! I should report that the little restaurant with its 11 tables for two is inside a 250-year old building, whose interior for the first floor restaurant has been beautifully restored and modernized as a great contrast to the exterior and the structure.
While I thought they would need to roll us out—there appeared little ending nibbles—chocolates, fruit jellies, nougats, and more. Good thing we still had some wine with which to finish it all.
Then we strolled back to the hotel and the streets were still popping at midnight. After we got back to the hotel, I had to go to the reception desk to ask for an extension cord and met the owner who was very surprised we were able to get a reservation at Noni. Deciding that I was some sort of culinary aficionado, he then listed all the best places to eat in Malta. I was pleased and pleasantly surprised that we already had reservations at many of his picks! We rarely do this much pre-planning, but we figured we’d be gone most days exploring the island and it would be good not to have to be figuring out where to eat each night. So we did a little research.
Tomorrow, I’ll fill you in on Malta’s history and politics and what we see. For now, glad we chose this little place which is elegant and right in the center of the oldest section of the city. On Sunday we will rent a car at the airport to be able to explore well beyond this area. There won’t be anywhere to park the car so we are prepared to leave it in some car park each night and walk to the hotel. And we are bracing ourselves for driving British style on the other side of the street, something we haven’t done in years.
Last thing.. they speak Maltese which doesn’t seem to sound like anything I’ve ever hears before. But everyone also speaks English (and Italian and French and lord knows how many other languages). A good line from one of the three waitresses at Noni who told us she had live in the US for two years, and worked in hospitality at Disney in Florida: “I learned while there that I really didn’t see or live in America—I lived in Florida and that was very different!”
Best –
Fern
8. Birdie, Evian les Bains, and BBQ in Troinex. 5/12/22
Happy Thursday (although for me the clock has passed midnight and it is already Friday)
We headed out to Birdie this morning, a little organic breakfast place that we’ve eaten at many times before when we stayed on the other side of the town. It was about an hour walk at a leisurely pace. When we got there it was undergoing renovations, but its sister café (which is usually just for take-out with a more limited menu was operating more like a regular café so we ate there—I had the Birdie Brekkie, an avocado toast with beet hummus and tahini/lemon, pomegranate, and chili on the side and fresh herbs and greens, and a carrot-apple-ginger root lemon fresh juice. Mike had the yogurt and granola with stewed fruits and honey.
Then we headed to the tram to meet Elizabeth in Carrouge and head to Evian les Bains (yup where all that botted water comes from) which is about an hour’s drive from Geneva. Like Geneva it is on the southern part of the lake but further east (and in France). It’s halfway to Montreux which is at the easternmost edge of the lake on the southern side. The drive to Evian goes through really beautiful countryside that is super lush. And the town of about 9,000 people is considered a spa town. We walked along the water’s edge which included a municipal park, complete with a public miniature golf course. As with everything else, the public domain is kept clean, lawns mowed, and not a candy wrapper to be seen. Evian is also home to two casinos although they seemed to be undergoing big renovation at the moment.
Then we headed back to Geneva and to Troinex for a BBQ with lots of wine in the backyard. Once sufficiently stuffed and after some ice cream we bid farewell to everyone as we head to Malta in the morning. And actually we will be back in September for Julia and Julian’s wedding.
It was a good trip and we look forward to seeing everyone again soon.
More from Malta, which is a place we have never visited before and also where I hope to get some work on the book done.
Fern
7. Family and Food. 5/11/22
Greetings
Low key day that began with a slow stroll to meet Julia and Julian and Louis (who had just completed his pony lesson) at the Rive Halle, a market hall with 23 different vendors—each displaying yummy specialties. Among others there is a butcher, a poultry stand, a pork butcher, a baker, a cheesemaker, a fruit and vegetable vendor, a chocolatier, a pastry chef, a fish vendor, some caterers (or kiosks with ready-made goodies), a florist, and more. Within the Halle is a restaurant: Bistrot des Halles, which is where we had lunch. We feasted on several starter dishes including: carpaccio, escargots, a wonderful pate (maybe venison) encrusted in some kind of baked dough and more. We followed this with main dishes including a wonderful ravioli stuffed with crayfish (my main), some amazing cote de boeuf with vegetables, and at least one other dish. Ended with fantastic tarte tatin. I think we downed a few bottles of wine along the way. And then we headed to see Julia and Julian’s new house, and got a tour by Louis. And by then, Ella was up from her nap so it was a full house.
The kids were fun now that they are very bilingual and curious about everything. The house is located in what they call a suburb but it is only 15 minutes to downtown Geneva and they have access to public transportation. Geneva, by the way, is a rather small city with only about 200,000 residents (smaller than Boise, ID) but cosmopolitan as a result of all of the international institutions in its midst.
After spending several hours at the house, we headed back to the hotel and set out for dinner by ourselves. We hadn’t booked anything and didn’t want to eat at either our hotel or any of the nearby hotels so we ventured across the bridge and ate at a little place called Au Coin du Bar. It’s an old- fashioned bistro complete with bistro furniture in a charming small space. Seems like a place for a lot of locals who hang out at the bar. We shared two dishes which were quite good and upped our consumption of meat for the day to about what we normally consume in a week! And our wine consumption is also topping the charts.
After dinner, we strolled back across the bridge to the hotel—with the Jet d’Eau (the fountain or the Water-Jet) in full view. The fountain , which you see in all pictures of Geneva is probably the city’s most famous landmark. It’s situated where Lake Geneva exits as the Rhone. When you fly into Geneva the Lake is very visible. I think it is the largest lake in Europe and part is in France. The water jet spouts to about 450 ft. It’s been interesting to stay in this part of the city and to see the lake every time we enter or leave the hotel. For all previous visits to Geneva (and there have been many) we stayed in other parts of the city where we had to walk to the lake. But nothing is very far given the size of the city.
A bit more on the lake: there’s always a lot of activity with hotels, restaurants, and beaches surrounding the lake on the Geneva part. The lake is also clean and lots of people swim in the lake (even at lunchtime if one’s office is close to the lake).
For us, it was a light walking day. I think we only totaled 8,500 steps and about 3.5 miles.
Now to respond to some emails and to do a little work on my book. Tomorrow is our last day here and then we head to Malta.
All the best –
Fern
6. 5/10/22. Geneva and Environs
Greetings from Geneva. Hope all is well.
Started the day a bit late—- finished dinner late last night and we were probably on London time… and exhausted from our new ritual of walking at least 7 miles each day. Anyway, headed to lunch at a little place called White Rabbit, not too far from the hotel. I may have mentioned that we are staying at the Ritz Carlton (a little above our usual jaunts), but I had a lot of points and we decided to use them here. Everything is soooo expensive in Switzerland that you’d be paying a lot for a mediocre hotel so the points idea was a good one we thought. Anyway, breakfast here at the Ritz is about $60 per person. So we walked across the bridge to the other side of the lake and had a nice leisurely breakfast. And then we walked (mostly uphill) to the International Red Cross Museum which, despite having been to Geneva so many times, we had never visited before.
We knew it would be about a 5-mile walk, but given our newly found walking ability we figured that would be fine and we could taxi back or take public transit. We were supposed to head to Elizabeth’s house at about 4:00. Had we realized when we set out that the walk to the museum would be mostly uphill, and that it would be an unseasonably hot day here, we might have opted for a taxi or transit for the outbound direction. Anyway, we survived the walk… barely, and the stairs to get up to the museum which is situated atop a hill. We learned later that the American Embassy is up above that museum. Glad we didn’t know that. We did walk past the Russian Embassy and saw all the barbed wire and multiple steel gates and the armed guard with a bullet proof vest. I’m sure the American Embassy (having been to other American embassies) is equally if not more guarded and has at least as many deterrents, Anyway, the guard didn’t look really happy.
We had no real information about the museum and sort of went on a lark. It turned out to be a really good decision. Dedicated to “promote understanding of the history, current affairs and challenges of humanitarian action in the world,” the very well-designed building (the result of an architectural competition) is divided into three primary areas, each of which has an exhibit that was created by a well-known architect and some well-known artists. Each explores different challenges faced by today’s societies: Defending Human Dignity, Restoring Family Links, and Reducing Natural Risks. The exhibits are interactive, emotional, and extremely well presented. There’s also a chronology that tracks 150 years of humanitarian history. I was impressed.
We then ventured out to figure out our route to Elizabeth’s house in Carrouge (a sweet village adjacent to the city, but far less urban… although Geneva itself is—to my mind—a fairly calm, clean, safe, quiet city. We decided to take public transit and started out on a bus which took us to the train station where we got the tram; once on the tram it was a familiar route as we’d done that many many times before. However, as we left the museum we realized that we had neither a ticket for the bus or tram nor any small money to pay for the journey. I asked the woman at the reception desk at the museum if she could break a 50 CHF bill and she was happy to do it. I then asked how much the ticket would cost and if we needed exact change. She obviously is not a public transit user since she was unable to give us the information. She did, however, tell us that we needed to pay as close to the actual amount requested as possible since you don’t get any change back. She then went on to say how angry it makes her that the system takes all this extra money and decided to give me a 10 Franc bill and 40 Francs in coins!!!
We got to the bus and there wasn’t any ticket machine so we went onto the bus and tried to explain to the driver, who just shooed us away and we took seats, without paying. When we got to the train station we tried to buy a ticket but somehow couldn’t get the machines to work. On prior trips the hotels always gave guests day passes for the entire stay so we never had to deal with this before. Anyway, at the station we had a bit of trouble finding the right tram, so I approached an African woman waiting for a tram and while she didn’t speak any English, my French was sufficient to ask where to get the number 18 tram. But she was frustrated that she couldn’t explain where we had to go, so she walked us around the corner to the right place! We thanked her profusely and boarded the tram (again without a ticket). Apparently it’s an honor system.
We had stayed longer at the museum so we got to Elizabeth’s a bit late and to our surprise when we arrived Julia (Mike’s other niece) and her two children (Louis-4-1/2 and Ella – about 2-3/4 ) were there. Julia had just returned (a few hours earlier) from Maui—a grueling trip: Maui to Seattle; Seattle to London; London to Geneva—and the kids hadn’t seen their parents for about 10 days. We hadn’t expected to see them until tomorrow. So that was good fun. And despite the fact that everyone seemed tired, it was fun to see the kids. Ella is definitely in the two-year-old phase of saying “no” to most everything, especially going to bed. Louis has definitely matured since we saw him before Covid. It will be good to spend more time with them tomorrow.
Then Elizabeth, Mike, and I went to visit an old friend of Elizabeth’s whom we had met once before, some years ago. Her father had been the director of the Whitney Museum in NY and she has lived in Geneva since 1960. She’s quite interesting having lived in many places and been involved in the arts for decades. She also lives in a wonderful, modern house that she had built many years ago. We had champagne and smoked salmon and good conversation and then strolled back to Elizabeth’s for dinner. We chose to take a taxi back to the hotel as it was already past 11:00 and we probably would have collapsed enroute had we decided to walk back to the hotel.
Tomorrow is another day.
Stay well.
Fern
5. Taxi to the Train; Train to the Airport; Flight from London; Arrival in Geneva. 5/9/22
Greetings from Geneva-
Before talking about today (which was pretty much a travel day), some of you asked about dinner last night (Sunday). I failed to mention the restaurant where we ate with friends.
We met them at Dishoom in Kings Cross. We had been to Dishoom in Shoreditch several times and the food is great and very low key; we had never been to the sister restaurant in Kings Cross. Since Somya and Sarauv are vegetarians we went with an all-veggie meal which was really good including a margarita-like drink that had tamarind in it. Got back to the hotel around 11:30 and then packed to make life easier for this morning.
We set out for breakfast at about 9:00 and headed to a nearby place, but they only had a fixed-price breakfast and we knew we wouldn’t eat any where near that amount, so we looked for another place but were running late, so we wound up at “Eggslut” and had some quick eggs. Then we took a taxi to Paddington and caught the Heathrow Express to Heathrow Airport. In 15 minutes we were at the airport and hiked (and I do mean hiked) to the Swissair area of the terminal (The Queen’s Terminal — #2); made a quick stop at the Lufthansa Lounge, and headed to the gate. Lots of walking—always—at Heathrow.
The flight to Geneva from London is less than two hours and poof.., we were in Geneva. The customs guy asked the usual three or four questions:
- Where did you come from (London)
- Why are you here (family)
- How long will you be here (4 days)
- Where are you going next? (Malta)
But then it was surprising… he asked us to repeat where we were going several times and each time we responded the same – Malta. And then he asked “where is Malta?” We obliged and he seemed quite curious.
We took a taxi to the hotel. We are actually at the Ritz Carlton, right on the Lake and downtown Geneva. We’ve been to Geneva many many times and usually stay in one of two very small hotels on the other side of the Lake. But we decided to try this pricier side. I had a lot of American Express points, so here we are! The service people are practically everywhere and whenever you turn around they are ready to help. But we don’t really need any help.
By the time we unpacked and changed clothes, it was time to head to dinner. We met Elizabeth, Mike’s sister-in-law, at Balilia a really wonderful Lebanese restaurant just on the other side of the Lake. We opted for five wonderful small plates (which weren’t all that small) and dessert. We were stuffed and happy. If you’re in Geneva, Balilia is a good choice.
So now it is after midnight and I’ve got a bit of work to do before crashing. By the way, travel has been good for my book as I seem to be able to fit in time on it in between other stuff and on planes.
Take care. More news tomorrow.
Fern
4. Art, Walking, Orange Wine, and the Unmasked. 5/8/22
Began today walking and taking tube to the 180 Strand Gallery to see the Future Shock exhibit: a series of subterranean spaces transformed through various forms of immersive digital technology, artificial intelligence, and some kind of 3D mapping—all with electronic music and lasers. Each space was handled differently and they represented the work of many different artists from across the globe. It was mesmerizing, as well as disorienting… and the content was definitely unclear. Frankly it was like a light show rather than art making a statement about the future which is what it purported to be. Seemed like a lot of escapism and contemplating one’s navel rather than being at the forefront of real ideas. But that’s just my humble opinion. On the other hand Finn seemed to like it—the bright colors and the motion, I suppose. We bid farewell to Hem and Finn who went off to a birthday party; Mike went back to the hotel and Emma and I hopped on the tube and headed to Broadway Market to get some lunch.
We had several small plates and ‘orange wine.’ I’ve never seen that on American menus—it’s made from white wine grapes and as I understand it, the grapes skins are not removed as they are in typical white wine production and the skins stay on for weeks or months. It’s an organic non-fermented wine. It’s very dry and also pretty strong, but tastes good.
After that Emma left for home and I took the bus back to Shoreditch. And then it was time for dinner.
We met up with friends we hadn’t seen in about 20 years, since they moved from NY to London. It was good to reconnect and hear about their work and their kids (one of whom is already at the university).
And then we headed to the hotel to pack… we’re off to Geneva tomorrow.
Finally for those who have asked: Covid is just not a thing in London or the UK… any more. No masks anywhere (??) No checking of vaccine information. And our friends said there is virtually no reporting on the news or in the press about numbers of Covid patients or positive tests. They said they went from daily reports to no reports. People we know here are all vaccinated, but they too are shocked at how behavior has totally changed. That’s it for today. Stay healthy.
Fern
Greetings from London –
Today we headed to Brighton from the London Bridge Rail Station. We met up with Emma and Hem (Hemma for short) and Finn to take the one-hour train ride to Brighton, at the sea. Mike and I hadn’t been to Brighton in decades and when we were last there it was a honky-tonk working class vacation place; no frills; inexpensive; and the visitors were clearly there to spend hard-earned and saved money to take their annual seaside vacation from northern England. Today, it’s a hip place where Londoners have their bachelor/bachelorette parties and where Londoners have pricey homes in the Hove area.
The train was efficient and we watched Finn play numerous games, put dinosaur stickers into scenes, and eat about every ten minutes. Mostly he was looking forward to seeing sharks at the aquarium. We arrived in Brighton and walked the ¾ mile to the aquarium—the oldest aquarium in the world, built in the 18th Century.
After checking out all the various fish, we walked to Salt House for lunch where we were joined by two old friends from Finland who now live in Brighton. After living in NY for decades they relocated to London and then during the pandemic while working remotely they decided to see if they liked Brighton as the thought of living by the sea was appealing. They found, after two years, that they really liked it and bought a place in Brighton Hove (which they will move into on July 1). It’s an hour train ride to his office in London and post-pandemic he is only going into the office on Mondays.
Good lunch – all fish—and then Hemma and Finn left for the train. We strolled with Pia and Sami, reminiscing and talking about Finland’s potential to join NATO. They left us off at the Royal Pavilion and they headed to their team’s football (soccer) game. They became fans of the Seagulls when they moved to Brighton. I get the sense that it’s not a very good team but it has a lot of loyal supporters.
They encouraged us to visit the Pavilion and we did. The Pavilion—built in Indo-Saracenic style has an interesting 200-year history. It was built to be the seaside pleasure house for King George IV. Its dozens of rooms are furnished both elaborately and eclectically with a good deal of Chinese artifacts. The current look of the Pavilion, with domes and minarets, came from the extension of the building in 1815. When George’s successor, Victoria, visited for the first time, she supposedly stated that she didn’t like the ostentation and also didn’t understand why a palace would be built at the sea and not have views of the sea. Apparently George’s interests in being at the sea had little to do with the waterfront and more to do with his own activities inside the palace with his women friends. Bottom line… amazing craftsmanship and upkeep—definitely not my style!
We then walked uphill through the town to the train station. By the time we reached the station we had clocked in at nearly 17,000 steps and over 7 miles, so it felt good to sit on the train. And once we reached London, we decided to take a taxi from London Bridge Station to the hotel. Just enough time to freshen up and head for dinner.
Off we went to Oklava where we had been once before but for lunch… tiny, tiny place with amazing Turkish food. We started with tomato rice stuffed courgette flowers and ox heart skewers with some kind of molasses and cumin; followed by this amazing pide (sort of a big bialy with some kind of cheese baked and an egg yolk floating at the top and some garlic and I think za’atar; and then we had the sweetbreads and a salad (with lots of ingredients). And for dessert—an amazing concoction of warm pistachio halva with tahini and fresh grapefruit, topped with a small serving of ice cream (flavor unknown)… And as usual a picture can replace a thousand words.
Strolled back (or rolled back to the hotel).. OK… that’s it; tomorrow is another day.
Stay well.
Fern
Greetings from London
We had a big agenda for today, and some went as planned, some fizzled, and some new things popped in. Our plan was to visit the Museum of Everything – dedicated to “outsider art,” with which I have a long-time fascinations, beginning in art school. And we thought we might go to the Gallery of Everything as well. But we hadn’t really looked into the details. As we finished breakfast at The Breakfast Club, we checked timing and location and learned that the Museum had closed and that the Gallery was installing a new show so we dropped those plans.. and decided to walk the two +/- miles to the Tate Modern. Frankly, for those of you who know me and my basic distaste for museums… I wa more interested in seeing the bubble gum art that someone had done on the Millennium Bridge…which you cross when walking to the Tate Modern. But as we walked the bridge that leads to the Tate Modern it seems as if (perhaps during Covid) the city had cleaned the area and the gum art was gone.
Thus we went into the Tate Modern and figured we’d see the Kusama show but tickets were sold out until October! So, we walked through the Lubaina Himid show which was interesting, but also a little problematic for me. Himid’s work depicts scenes from of the African diaspora and a quasi-everyday life of contemporary Africa. She has a very “studied” primitive style, having attended art schools and institutions of higher education. There are also two sound installations—one of which is really good, using interviews (or supposed interviews) where people state their real name (African roots) and what they are called now… and what they did in Africa and what employment they have today.
Then we headed to the Blackfriar Bridge to walk again across the Thames. We took the tube to Belsize Park in Hampstead area to see the Isokon Flats which I had read about some time ago, but never visited. It’s a modernist building built in the 1930s as an experiment that was the dream of Jack Pritchard, a furniture designer in the early 20th century. The apartments were purposefully small to accommodate working adults who Pritchard felt wouldn’t have time to cook and entertain. There was a communal kitchen and other spaces to be shared by tenants. Pritchard engaged the architect Welles Coates for the design and it has a ship like metaphor for the building’s vocabulary. The Pritchards had their own penthouse at the building. There are some interesting stories tied to the building as Agatha Christie lived there for many years and several famous architects from the Bauhaus lived there after the war. And interestingly at one point there were at least five Russian spies living on the block and in the immediate neighborhood, including one famous one living in the building. It fell into disrepair in the 60s and was eventually restored in the 80s. As we were photographing the building, an older man got out of a car and started to talk with us. Turns out he has lived in the building for about 20 years and gave us some additional information. He is a retired faculty member from Cambridge and University of London—in psychology and philosophy.. and a bit of an architecture buff.. however he didn’t pick the flat because of its fame or who had lived there (Chermayeff, Moholy-Nagy, Breuer, etc.). He picked it because he likes the neighborhood and its proximity to transit. He has another place in Cambridge.
We then took the tube back to the hotel to relax before heading to dinner. We had tried to get reservations at about a dozen places without success. People are truly out and about and Shoreditch is a popular zone. Finally, we landed a reservation at Bubula – a modern Israeli restaurant that is super-tiny. We got reservations for 9:45. That was the best we could get. Turns out Bubula was quite good.. vegetarian, fixed menu, and very very tiny.. about 36 chairs. We feasted on the set menu of 11 different dishes—all sharing style. From pickled veggies to amazing flatbread with hummus and labneh with roasted garlic and herbs and some kind of oil to roasted fennel with pear and I have no idea what else to aubergine to a “deconstructed” potato latke that looked like a piece of cake to skewered oyster mushrooms marinated in tamari, zaatar, to a wonderful baked haloumi and some other goodies to a bunch more things that I cannot remember. Good wine and homemade date ice cream… We floated back to the hotel about a half mile away.
Didn’t feel too guilty about dinner since we walked about 8 miles today and I’ve been getting well over the 10,000 steps each day. OK.. that’s it for me today… We head to Brighton tomorrow with Emma, Hem and Finn. Keeping fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain.
Best –
Fern
