Devon Dorset August 26-28

Tues Aug. 26.  We caught the train to Devon to visit Guy and Geraldine.  Dinner at a good Thai place in Paignton:  mixed starters, pad Thai.  We are in Dartmouth.

Wed. Aug. 27

We got a late start driving from Dartmouth.  11AM.  Geraldine is at a funeral, so Guy  is driving and we’re to meet for dinner.  The weather is terrible.  The countryside is English-pretty.

We stopped at the Five Bells for lunch.  

Chicken rillette (Leslie liked) and duck liver pate.  

We inspected the 13th century church at Ottery St. Mary.

The lectern is as old at the church:

They have a working 14th century “astronomical clock,”  showing earth at the center of the universe:

We then drove to our inn, the Larksbeare.  Five rooms, in the middle of nowhere.  We find many Moehrings in the living room.  Astonishing coincidence:

(The Moehrings were our next door neighbors in Bethesda - Anne Merete.  The young ones are Scott and Kirsten, Marina and Ralph's kids.)

Dinner at The Jack in the Green.  Top flight meal.  Fish stew; scotch  egg;  Loin and braised sholder of Whimple lamb wth giner roasted carrots, caper & raiso puree , creamed cauliflower; Pork belly, braised lettuce, peas, mint, & pork tenderloin with pancetta.  Cotes du Rhone Villages.  Blackberry creme brulee & apple sorbet, sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce and clotted cream.

Aug 28  Thurs

Good breakfast.  Weather cleared up.  We drive to Dorset Steam Fair.  It takes longer than expected -- 2 hrs.

Appalling conditions.  Thick, smelly mud, 8 inch deep grab-your-shoes mucky mud.  (The mud refused to make a demonstrating photo.)  Disgusting portapotty.

We saw some interesting steam vehicles, but could not enjoy

Shuttle bus service cancelled.  We quit.  Rain begins as we leave.  Long walk, drive back.  

Redeeming dinner at Jack in the Green:  Duck, chicken, otter ale, claret (2010 st. emillon ).  

 

Leaving London Aug 24 &25

August 24.  Sunday.

The Victoria and Albert Museum is a fathomless compilation roughly based upon craft and decoration.

A very interesting Ghandaran  panel, showing an attempt on the Buddha's life:

Details of the highly hellenized figure and architectural elements.

From the glass galleries:

This "Fractal Table" was made from resin deposited by a 3-d printer:

The was a temporary exhibit called "Disobedient Objects" of the material culture of protest movements.  New to us -- protesting sexual stereotypes by switching the voice chips between Barbies and GI Joes in the 80s:  

Contemporary ceramics:

Wagamama noodle joint:  not great gyoza

Monday, August 25

The National Gallery, perfect place for a rainy day:

Note the new LED spotlights in the skylight.  They are adjusted automatically by light sensors near the pictures.

Limiting photos to new or loaned objects:

Corot, Italian Woman

Caillebotte, Bridge at Argenteuil and the Seine:

Rysselberghe, Coastal Scene.

Degas, Portrait of Cezanne (Bruce’s favorite retired lawyer):

And one Andrea Montagne, Agony in the Garden, to point out obsessive attention to detail.  The picture is about 2 feet square, so the detail of the figures, below, covers maybe 3 inches.  No one would see these figures unless they were within a foot of the canvas.

Red Sun Chinese:  crispy duck, roast pork with ginger and spring onion.

London Aug 21-23

Thurs.  Aug. 21.  

Our Hotel, the Sumner, is close to Marble Arch.   We took  a taxi to the Zoo.

It is a pretty old zoo and is small by US standards.  Also, at 23 GBPs each, we miss the National Zoo.   Bruce thought we were the oldest patrons there; Leslie thought we were merely the oldest customers without grandchildren in tow.  It was blustery and quite cool.  

Pictures of a few things that were new to us:

The Jamaican Boa has a blue iridescence:

Caiman Lizard:

Fiji Iguana:

Sacred Ibis (with chick):

The aquarium is one of the London Zoo’s strengths.  The facility was installed in 1923.

Importation of live corals is illegal here.  The customs inspectors confiscate contraband corals.  The Zoo propagates them and gives the progeny away to try to dry up the market:

Dinner was at an Arabic restaurant, a welcome break from Italian.  The decor was extraordinary.  The floors were paved with copper, steel, and brass tiles.  The furniture and ceiling has Syrian-style wood inlay work.  The walls were covered with colorful lights.  We had a few mezzes.  We are enjoying take-out baclava with coffee and tea brought up to our small room.

Friday, Aug 22

 

We are learning to use buses.  The tube is not reliably accessible.  The buses are much better fior the short, central journeys anyway.

We spent the day at Westminister Abbey. The architecture is advanced gothic, designed around 1250.   It remains a beautiful church.  No photos inside the church, but OK in the  chapterhouse:

Leslie completed her pilgrimage to the Cosmati pavement. Two past trips have found the floor closed to the public. This is said to be the only Cosmati floor outside Italy:

From the cloister toward Big Ben:

The London Black taxis aren’t always black now:

Window boxes at the abbey school:

 

We stayed for Evensong

Dinner at the Portman Restaurant over the pub next door. Steak, pork roast.

Saturday, Aug 23

Bus problems.  The bus stops are far apart and separated according to route.  We ended up with a taxi to see the Courtauld Gallery.  It is now part of an Art Institute affiliated with the University of London.  We had never been there before.  A few favotites:

An early Monet from the Riviera:

Manet’s iconic  Barmaid at the Folies Bergiere:

Virgin & Child with Angels.  Massys.  Astonishing:

It turns out that the Courtauld collection is housed in Somerset House, a restored 18th century complex mostly turned over to art galleries.  We saw an exhibit of work by Joseph and Annie Albers.  A lovely piece that is not an Homage to the Square.

A rug of Annie, who taught textiles at the Bauhaus.

The exhibit was actually about modern weavings based on their work.  Those were interesting, but the originals were better.

We also saw Time: Tatoo Art Today, a collection of paintngs of some of the most popular contemporary tatoo artists.  E.g, this vanitas by Jeff Gogue:

We had a light lunch, raclette, at one of the restaurants that line the courtyard at the Somerset House.   The courtyard itself is filled mostly with a fountain, with frolicking children oblivious to cold:

Later, we shopped at Fortnum and Mason.  Leslie’s favorite tea was in stock.

We had dinner at an Indian restaurant, Zayna, near our hotel.  Lamb curry, dal, eggplant. Excellent

We had post-diner tea and coffee served in our room.   A major perk.

Leaving Venice

August 19, Tues. It was a good last day.   We spent our it travelling by vaporetti to Burano and Torcello.

Burano, an island to the northeast of Venice, was the center of lace making. There used to be a  school for teaching the craft there. The school has been converted into an excellent little museum that shows examples. The films of the women sewing lace were particularly interesting.

Burano lace is needle lace; it is made up of stitches and knots; it is not tatted.

Lunch:  Ravioli with a pumpkin sauce.  Local white wine.  A lovely outdoor setting.

After lunch, we went on to Torcello.  Torcello was one of the first islands in the Lagoon to be settled by refugees from Attila the Hun in the 6th century CE.  Today, there is little left:    Torcello has largely been abandoned.

The original basilica and the related museum.

The Basilica of S Mary Assunta has splendid mosaics.  The earliest ones are made from Ravenna materials.

THe hell in the lower right includes  has the damned being raked into hell.

Also, it has a wonderful floor:

The museum is small.  The archaeology section has artifacts from around the Lagoon going back to the paleolithic times.  A lot of Greek pottery reached here through trade.

On the way back we stopped at the Church of Santa Maria Assunta dei Gesuiti.  

Dinner.  We crossed the Grand Canal and went back to Donna Onestia.  Pasta dishes and a local merlot.  Panna cotta and lemon sorbet.

Wednesday, August 20

Our last vaporetto ride - to the airport.  We are in London, Sumner hotel.

roast beef and horseradish sandwich at the pub next door.  Excellent cider.

Venice Aug 16-18 Vicenza, Scarpa Querini

Saturday, August 16. Vicenza

This morning we caught the vaporetto to Ferrovia (train station) for a day trip to Vicenza. Vicenza is a city of the Veneto about 60 km from Venice.  On arrival, we were immediately aware of how different the air was.  Not salty.  Not rotting.

Vicenza is known for the work of the famous architect, Andrea Palladio (1508-1580).  He was born in Padua  and moved to Vicenza when he was 16 to apprentice to a stonecutter.  He designed many buildings in Vicenza.
 

We started at the Teatro Olimpico.  There Palladio is said to have designed a stage set, although it was not built until much later.  It is seven streets of Thebes for perfomng Oedipus Rex.  It's claim to fame is the way it uses perspective to show several fairly long streets in several directions.  It was interesting but seemed quite inflexible and only really visible from straight on.

Good porchetta pizza for lunch.
 

We tried the museums.  Of course, the most interesting sounding ones were closed and the most interesting floor of another was closed.  
 

We got to see the terrace and loggia of the Palladian Basilica, a municipal administration building (not a church) in this instance.  But the show piece great hall was closed (for the installation of a exhibit on futbol).

We visited the Tempio di Santa Corona to see Giovanni Bellini's Baptism of Christ.  Why it is called tempio (temple), we have not found; it is a church.

We stopped by the Cathedral of S. Mary Annunciata.  The altar was beautiful.

A stonework detail:

August 17, Sunday
 

We are becoming more acquainted with Carlo Scarpa.  You may recall his name from the Olivetti store we visited shortly after we arrived in Venice (July 24).
 

Today, we went to the Fondazione Querini Stampalia to see an exhibit on Scarpa in conjunction with the Biennale.  The exhibit was not so exciting, but we found that, in the early 60s, Carlo Scarpa was commissioned to redesign the ground floor and make other moderninzing modifications.  He embraced the high water and integrated the tidal pattern with very horizontal fountains in the garden and brought the water into the building.  The result is very successful and should be better known.

The Palazzo has a permanent art collection, mostly not to our liking.  It included many interesting, but poor quality paintings of events and routines of Venetian life just before the end of the Republic in 1797.  Also this renowned Presentation at the Temple by Giovanni Bellini:

The men on the right are probably Giovanni and Andrea Montegna:

 

Lunch was sandwiches from the Museum.  Wine and cheese in for dinner.

Aug. 18. Monday

Went to see a new Museum, the Pinotececa Manfrediana.   It’s collection is comprised of works donated by marquis Federico Manfredini to the Patriarchal Seminary near the Salute in 1839.  The Seminary has converted a chapel and a couple of rooms into pretty nice gallery space.  The new lighting was angled too close to the picture planes, eliminating reflections but interfering with the viewing more directly.  The collection ranged mostly from poor to mediocre, with maybe 4 exceptions.  No photos.

We then went to San Marco again, spending our time with the Pala d’Oro, a famous altarpiece.  The oldest parts date back to 1102.  Its current form was finalized in the 15th century. 

 

 And the mosaics in general.


Spotted in a shop window, a very tacky souvenir:



Our closest church, San Stephano, has a roof structure similar to that of the chapel in Padua.

Back to St Stefano for dinner (angler fish, salad, veal al limone, amaretti mousse).