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The Rest of November

Posted in Archaeology, Architecture, Art, Classical Music, Contemporary Music, Design, Film, Opera, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 1, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Contemporary Music

I saw her several times with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, but her concert at the Anvil Basingstoke was the first time I saw Rhiannon Giddens without them, but with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. It was an eclectic selection, consummate musicianship and great sound / acoustics. She also engages with her audience, so it becomes an evening with her.

Opera

The rarely staged Haydn opera La Fedelta Premiata was given a brilliant production at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. It was a touch long but it was an absolute hoot, and the standard of singing and playing, and the production values, were sky high. As good as anything I’ve seen in an opera house recently, and better than most.

Having fallen out of love with ENO I didn’t go to see Akhenaten, so I went to the Met Live relay of the same production, which was brilliant. I ‘got’ the music better than when I first saw it decades ago, when I didn’t even realise there were no violins in the orchestra! The juggling synchronised with the music was inspired and the costumes were extraordinary, though I did find two long intervals (with Joyce DiDonato’s overly sycophantic interviews) spoilt the dramatic flow, but producer Phelim McDermott is a magician nonetheless.

Like the proverbial bus, two Haydn operas came along this month at two different ‘conservatoires’, with the second one – Il Mondo Della Luna – at the Royal College of Music was another absolute hoot. Brilliantly designed and choreographed, they got every ounce of comedy out of it, and more, and both the singing and playing was glorious; perhaps the best I’ve heard from the RCM Orchestra

The best staged performance of Britten’s Peter Grimes I’ve seen was on the beach in Aldeburgh during his centenary year, but the best musically was the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra under Edward Gardner, with Stuart Skelton as  Grimes, at the Edinburgh Festival in 2017, so I pounced when I heard they were going to reprise it at the Royal Festival Hall and it was just as wonderful. The orchestra, four choruses and another eleven fine soloists delivered musical perfection and the RFH audience erupted as the Usher Hall one had.

Classical Music

Another fine lunchtime concert with the Royal Academy SO under Robert Trevino. I enjoyed Igor Stravinsky’s fascinating dance music Agon, which was new to me, but it was a stunning performance of the much heard Elgar’s Enigma Variations that blew me away. The talent is extraordinary and Trevino is clearly very nurturing.

The Philharmonia Orchestra played William Walton’s complete score for Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film of Henry V synchronised with a screening of a restored print at the Royal Festival Hall, helped by Crouch End Festival Chorus, and it was brilliant. Its ages since I saw a film with live music and I’d forgotten how good it can be.

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas chose Berlioz monumental Romeo & Juliet choral symphony for the 50th anniversary of his first concert with them and the LSO and LSC rose to the occasion, filling the Barbican Hall with a glorious sound.

Tilson Thomas’ celebrations continued at the Barbican with one of the LSO’s ‘Half Six Fix’ series, one hour early evening concerts with digital programmes and illustrated introductions by the conductor. This was insightful, and Prokofiev’s 5th was thrillingly played.

A revisit to Beloved Clara, one of Lucy Parham’s ‘composer portraits’, at Milton Court proved very rewarding. The fifteen piano pieces are interspersed with readings from the letters of Robert & Clara Schumann and their friend Johannes Brahms, by Dame Harriet Walter and Simon Russell Beale no less. Civilised entertainment, and ultimately very moving.

I love single composer evenings and it was great to hear the very animated Doric String Quartet give all three of Britten’s quartets together. The third references his opera Death in Venice which I will be seeing next month (and visiting the city for Christmas and seeing the play in April!). These are challenging works, but their musicianship was extraordinary and the usually reserved Wigmore Hall audience cheered. One of the best chamber recitals I’ve ever been to.

Back at the Royal Academy of Music, where my classical month stared, Mark Elder conducted their Symphony Orchestra in a Berlioz programme which included two rarities. They sounded great, as ever, and it was good to see personal favourite Elder again after two concerts he was too unwell to conduct.

Film

Ken Loach brought shame on our benefits system so effectively in I, Daniel Blake, and now he does the same to the gig economy in Sorry We Missed You, more specifically parcel delivery and care in the home. These are hard films to watch, but they have to be seen. Campaigning film-making at its best.

I enjoyed The Good Liar, though with all its twists and turns it oddly left me wishing I’d read the book. In many ways it’s an old-fashioned film, but there’s nothing wrong with that and it does have two national treasures, though Ian McKellen playing a man pretending to be someone else resulted in something a bit odd.

Art

I became an instant fan of Lisa Brice when I saw her small exhibition at Tate Britain last year, and this was confirmed by her selling exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery. Again, it’s mostly semi-clad women smoking (!) but the work is extraordinarily original and mesmerising. Up the road at Sadie Coles HQ, I was less enamoured with Dutch artist Co Westerik’s body and landscape. It was clearly technically accomplished, but I found a lot of it a bit disturbing.

Though there were some lovely pictures and objects, the British Museum’s Inspired by the east: how the Islamic world influenced western art was one of those exhibitions where they took a chunk of their collection, added a few loan items, and made it into something you pay to see. In the print gallery upstairs there was a better (free) show of drawings by 20th century German artist Kathe Kollwitz, who I’d never heard of but whose work in Portrait of the artist bowled me over.

I was a bit surprised that The House of Illustration was five years old as I’d never heard of it, but Made in Cuba: Cold War Graphic Art is an excellent exhibition that puts it on the map for me. They also had a lovely small display of Quentin Blake work-in-progress to add a lighter touch.

One of my gallery wanders brought rich rewards, starting with Peter Doig, back on form at Michael Werner after a disappointing selection at the same gallery a while back, continuing with Grayson Perry’s brilliant new work on a theme of inequality at Victoria Miro, on to the Photographer’s Gallery for the excellent Shot in Soho and the quirky Feast for the Eyes – The Story of Food in Photography and ending with three stunning light, video and sound installations Other Places at 180 The Strand. I am so lucky to live in this city. All of this cost £2.50!

At the Guildhall Art Gallery, they’d assembled an eclectic selection of paintings of London spanning 500 or more years for Architecture of London. From Canaletto to contemporary works, from cityscapes to back gardens, I loved it.

I didn’t think the Taylor Wessing Photographic Prize exhibition at the NPG was as good this year, the selection seeming more pointed and quirky. While I was there, though, I caught the rest of Elizabeth Peyton’s portraits that they’d hung with the Tudors, Stuarts, Elizabethans and Victorians, which was a brilliant idea, and another twenty excellent works to see by this great new find (for me).

The Barbican Art Gallery’s exhibitions are not always as good as Into the Night: Cabarets & Clubs in Modern Art. It featured cabarets & clubs spanning eighty years in twelve cities in Europe, Latin America, Africa, USA and the Middle East and included four recreations as well as pictures, photographs and objects. I thought it was absolutely fascinating. In the Curve Gallery downstairs, Trevor Paglen has covered the walls with 30,000 photographs drawn from the ImageNet database of many millions by word searching, often resulting in surprising images. It’s called From ‘Apple’ to ‘Anomaly’ and I thought it was also fascinating.

The National Gallery was also at its best with the Gaugin Portraits exhibition, really well curated and lit with an excellent accompanying film. The interpretation of ‘Portraits’ was sometimes a bit loose, but justified. A real one-off.

Revisiting the Sir John Soane Museum reminded me how wonderous it is, though I was there specifically to see Hogarth: Place & Progress which brings all of his series paintings and engravings together for the first time. I loved it, though after I’d left I realised that, in the maze that the building is, I missed two rooms, so I’ll have to go back!

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Athens, Samos & the Dodecanese

Posted in Archaeology, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 4, 2018| Leave a Comment »

I so much enjoyed island-hopping The Cyclades on an archaeology trip two years ago that I pounced at the chance of doing the same in The Dodecanese. This one also allowed for overnighters in Athens both ways, and also took in Samos, technically not part of this chain, but hey…..

Here’s a link to some photos, well a lot of photos, because that’s what it deserves ………… https://photos.app.goo.gl/eMwTcWA6FgB5A4ex9

You have to sympathise with the Greeks. Let down by their governments and the EU, no sign of ever paying off their debt and refugees still using their island coasts as their entry point to Europe. They deserve our support and I for one was happy to make another small contribution to their economy. The islands seem to be faring better than the mainland, as they get a much higher number of tourists per capita, and tourism is just about the only industry left. Athens is faring better too, as we found on the outward stopover, as the city is still a magnet for tourists around the world, and rightly so. Our visit was specifically to see the new(ish) Acropolis Museum, built next to the hill, housing the artefacts found there and affording views of it, the top floor the footprint of the Parthenon with whatever they have in situ. The entrance to the galleries is like that of the Parthenon; it’s a brilliant building with stunning contents; well worth a stopover.

Samos lies virtually parallel with Athens, just a few hundred metres off the coast of Turkey, an island of just 30,000 people. It’s famous for being the wedding venue of Anthony and Cleopatra, who I’d seen on stage just two weeks before! Amongst it’s surprises is a successful wine industry. It now seems to be favoured by German sun-worshipers, a relatively small number still there at the fag-end of the season. We stayed just outside the old capital, now renamed Pythagoreio after the local mathematician who went global with his theorem, on the south of the island, built on the Greco-Roman ruins whose walls were still visible, the finds in their outstanding archaeological museum. The recent refugee influx was evident in the present capital Vathy, a bigger town on the north coast, rising from the sea and climbing the mountains (we did it in reverse!), with a lovely harbour and another excellent archaeological museum. Near Pythagoreio we were able (me just!) to enter the 2500-year-old 1 km long tunnel which contained an aqueduct to bring spring water from the north of the island; an extraordinary achievement. Nearby the sanctuary of Hera, Zeus’ wife, showcased her cult with the ruins of a temple three times the size of the Parthenon, where 100 oxen were regularly slaughtered in their ceremonies. With a good archaeologist and more than a modicum of imagination, it came alive.

The ferry to Patmos, our second island, was delayed and mostly in the dark, so we could hardly see the islands of Aganothisi and Arki where we stopped, but as the latter had a population of 44, I suspect there wasn’t a lot to see anyway. The Aegean sunset was some recompense. This island has a population of just 3000 and the visit brought a change from archaeology to religious history. At the top of the hill overlooking the main town there was the Monastery of St. John the Theologian, and below this a cave church where St. John is believed to have had his revelation. A service was in progress when we visited, but we were welcomed and it enhanced the visit, even for a non-believer like me! A lovely wander through the hilltop Hora was the icing on the cake of a brief but unexpectedly delightful overnight visit before we continued our archaeological pilgrimage by ferry to Kos, with stops at Leros and Kalymnos.

A much busier island, though still only a population of 30,000, this came as a bit if a shock to the system. We spent the first full day in the town of Kos, built amongst the Greco-Roman ruins, not unlike Pythagoreio, but on a larger scale with Ottoman and 20th century Italian additions. The overgrown agora was hugely atmospheric and the Casa Romana a brilliantly reconstructed Roman home. One of the surprises of this trip has been the revelation (well, to me) that, in addition to Roman occupation, the Italians occupied these island in the 20th century, until after the Second World War in fact. The following day we explored the island, visiting another spectacular early Greek site at Asclepion, a healing centre dedicated to Apollo’s son of the same name. The setting was spectacular and the climb through three terraces gave you a real feeling for the place. At Kefalos a couple of small basilicas had a lovely beach setting with a picturesque off-shore island adding to the charm, and at Antimachia, a ginormous crusader fortress (the Knights of St. John) dominated all around. Our last morning was spent at yet another fine archaeological museum, looking at the finds from the sites we’d visited.

On to Rhodes with stops at Nisyros, Tilos and Chalki, an island I’ve wanted to visit for decades. A much bigger and busier island, pop. 115,000, and it wasn’t long before I fell in love with the old walled town of Rhodes and its harbour, a lovely collection of buildings from many historical periods. Walking the entire dry moat – a few kms – was exhausting but satisfying, but not as exhausting as the climb to the LIndos acropolis, but I managed it! The views were more stunning than the ruins, but with a tightly packed white village at the foot of the hill too, visiting is a must, despite the surprisingly large off-season crowds.

When I was last in Athens in 2004, the National Archaeological Museum was closed, to be spruced up for the Olympics, and on my previous visit 24 years before that, I wasn’t so interested in archaeology, so I spent an extra two days there on the way home to see it, and also took in the Byzantine Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art and a return to the Benaki Museum. By the end I was all museumed out, but it had to be done; the National collection is one of the greatest in the world.

The sun shone, the sky was clear and the seas relatively calm. Add in excellent rustic food, a little too much wine and good company and it proved to be a fine trip indeed.

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Gastronomic tour of The Veneto – A travelogue with photos

Posted in Archaeology, Architecture, Art, Design, Food & Wine, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 17, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Starting in Verona, our base for three nights at http://www.duetorrihotels.com and ending on the island of Mozzorbo in the Venice Lagoon, this trip took in the towns of Vicenza, Basano del Grappa and Treviso, with the lovely hill town of Asolo our second base for four nights. Thirteen meals, from simple plates of pasta or asparagus to three at Michelin starred restaurants, were supplemented by visits to prosecco, wine and grappa producers and rice, olive oil and cheese makers. I feel stuffed and pickled.

Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/MRU5fJhtBCnaNCfH9

Verona was the only point of the trip where I was retracing my steps, though only for a morning, as we headed out of town to the lovely winery of http://www.seregoalighieri.it in Valpolicella, the estate of Dante’s family, rice grower http://www.risoferron.com at Isola della Scalla where the 17th century mill was still in use and olive oil producer http://www.oliosalvagno.com At Riso Ferron, chef Stephano showed us how to cook risotto in a rather unique way (that’ll come in handy!) and served up three for us to eat, with a starter including leftover risotto and a dessert which substituted rice flour. Dinners in Verona were at http://www.12apostoli.com, built upon Roman and Mediaeval ruins still visible from the cellar where we had our aperitif, and the rather quirky Michelin starred http://www.ristorantelafontanina.com

Our journey to Asolo was broken in Vicenza, a terrific city with a fine main square, famous for Palladio buildings, including a spectacular 16th century theatre with life-size streets on stage providing ready-made sets – one of the greatest theatres of the many I’ve visited – and our one-and-only art gallery. Here we tried four different baccala (salt cod) dishes for lunch. On to our second base in the lovely hill town of Asolo  – http://www.albergoalsoleasolo.com – whose only downside was that our vehicle couldn’t get within a half-mile of our accommodation – but we discovered the shuttle for our very steep uphill returns.

Sunday saw us worshiping the god of prosecco at http://www.villasandi.it, another Palladian building, a long walk through the cellars and an alfresco tasting in the Cartizze vineyards of Valdobbiadene, where the very best prosecco grapes are grown, followed by an alfresco lunch washed down with local wines. The following day, we climbed 3000 ft (no, not on foot!) to an alpine plateau to visit a small Asiago cheese maker, whose cheeses changed with the seasons and in particular his cows’ food. Back down on the plain, Bassano del Grappa proved to be another lovely town with a Palladio wooden bridge, a lunch of white asparagus (which I didn’t know until then was grown underground) & eggs mashed with olive oil and a grappa tasting, obviously, at http://www.nardini.it A visit to Treviso was a bit of a damp squib. Cities never look good in the rain, but I’m not convinced it would have matched the other visits in the sun. We lunched at http://www.ristorantetonidelspin.com

We ended with two Michelin starred restaurants, http://www.fevaristorante.it in Castelfranco, which I thought was good rather than great, and http://www.venissa.it on the island of Mazzorbo in the Venice Lagoon, a short journey by water taxi from Venice airport from which we were flying home, which lived up to expectations, and more. Here the winery ceased production after the infamous 60’s high tide, but they have begun again, just one hectare producing a few thousand bottles of a very distinctive wine from grapes grown in saline soil giving it a unique mineralogy.

History, food, wine and good company; what’s not to like……

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The Rest of April

Posted in Archaeology, Architecture, Art, Classical Music, Comedy, Dance, Design, Film, Opera, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Opera

There was much to like about Coraline, the Royal Opera at the Barbican Theatre, but I’m not sure the adaptation and production served both Neil Gaiman’s story and Mark Anthony Turnage’s music well as neither were dark enough. Good to see a family friendly opera at accessible prices though.

I didn’t go and see the Royal Opera’s 4.48 Psychosis first time round in 2016 because I didn’t like the Sarah Kane play from which it is adapted. The reviews and awards propelled me to this early revival, again at the Lyric Hammersmith, and I’m glad they did. Philip Venables work makes sense of Kane’s play, a bleak but brilliant exposition of depression and in particular the treatment journey in the eyes of the sufferer. Words are spoken and projected as well as sung and there is recorded music, muzak and sound effects. The artistry of the six singers and twelve-piece ensemble was outstanding. Not easy, but unmissable.

Classical Music

The new Bridge Theatre put on a lunchtime concert of Southbank Sinfonia playing Schumann’s 3rd Symphony, which was a delight, particularly as they unexpectedly blended in poems read by actors. I only wish I’d booked seats within the orchestra, as that would have been a rather unique experience; let’s hope they do it again.

At Wigmore Hall, a young Stockholm-based chamber ensemble called O/Modernt gave a recital spanning almost 400 years of English music from Gibbons to Taverner with an emphasis on Purcell & Britten. They were assisted by a mezzo, a theorbo and vocal ensemble The Cardinall’s Musick. There was even a quirky improvisation on a theme by Purcell. It all sounded very fresh, though there was a randomness about it.

At the Barbican, a delightful double-dip started with a concert of Elgar choral works by the BBC Singers at St Giles Cripplegate. I particularly loved the fact the Radio 3 introductions were made by members of the ensemble. Then at Barbican Hall the BBC SO & Chorus under Andrew Davies gave a wonderful WWI themed concert bookended by Elgar pieces and featuring the London Premiere of a contemporary song cycle and a lost orchestral tone-poem, the highlight of which was an Elgar piece this Elgar fan had never heard, the deeply moving but thoroughly uplifting The Spirit of England, so good I will forgive the ‘England’ that should be ‘Britain’.

Another LSO rehearsal at the Barbican, this time with their new Chief Conductor Simon Rattle, a man who knows what he wants, if ever I saw one; Mahler’s 9th and a new work. It proved to be a fascinating contrast with Mark Elder’s less directive rehearsal method. Again, I wanted to book for the concert.

London Welsh Chorale did a good job with Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus at St Giles’ Cripplegate. It’s one of the first oratorio’s I ever heard (my mother was in Caerphilly Ladies Choir!). They were accompanied by a small orchestra and had four fine young soloists.

I actually went to the LSO Tippett / Mahler Barbican concert to hear Tippet’s Rose Lake again (I was at its world premiere) and as much as I enjoyed it, it was Mahler’s unfinished 10th which blew me away. A highlight in a lifetime of concert-going.

The British Museum reopened the fabulous Reading Room for some concerts and I went to the quirkiest, obviously, for Lygeti’s Poeme Symphonique for 100 Metronomes. They were all set off at the same time, but ended individually, with the fifth from the left on the back row hanging in there the longest for its solo finale followed by a minute’s silence. Strangely mesmerising.

Dance

The Royal Ballet’s Bernstein Mixed Bill was a lovely addition to his Centenary. The first piece, danced to the Chichester Psalms, was wonderful, and the last, to the Violin Serenade, was a delight. Though I love the 2nd Symphony, which provided the music for the middle piece, it was a bit dim and distant to wow me as the others had.

The Viviana Durante Company’s short programme of early Kenneth Macmillan ballet’s, Steps Back in Time, benefitted from the intimacy of Barbican Pit, but could have done with programme synopses so that we could understand the narrative, better recorded sound for the two works that had it, and on the day I went some aircon! Lovely dancing, though.

Comedy

Mark Thomas’ latest show tells the story of running a comedy workshop in the Jenin refugee camp in Palestine, two Palestinian comedians with him on stage and four more showcased on film. In addition to a good laugh, you learn a lot about life in occupied Palestine. The post-show Q&A at Stratford East was a real bonus. Important and entertaining.

Film

Love, Simon is as wholesome and sentimental as only American films can be, but its heart was in the right place and it was often very funny.

The action was a bit relentless in Ready Player One, and the ending a touch sentimental, but it’s a technical marvel and proves Spielberg can still cut it, now with mostly British actors it seems.

Funny Cow was my sort of film – gritty, British, late 20th Century – with some fine performances and some really funny stand-up. Maxine Peak was terrific.

I enjoyed The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, though it was a bit slow to get off the ground. Particularly lovely to see Tom Courtney at the top of his game.

Art

A bumper catch-up month!

I was impressed by Andreas Gursky’s monumental photographs of the modern world (ports, factories, stock exchanges…) at the Hayward Gallery. Much has been said about the gallery’s refurbishment, but I honestly couldn’t tell the difference!

I’m not sure I understand the point of an exhibition about performance art events that have taken place, so Joan Jonas at Tate Modern was an odd affair; intriguing but not entirely satisfying. However, Picasso 1932, also at Tate Modern, was astonishing – work from just one year that most artists would be happy of in a lifetime, with an extraordinarily diverse range of media, subjects and styles. Wonderful.

I love discovering artists and Canadian David Milne at Dulwich Picture Gallery was no exception, his Modern Painting exhibition is a beautiful collection of landscapes, with one room of early city scenes, all very soft and colourful.

Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins at the Barbican Art Gallery brought together some world class, cutting edge photographers, but it was all rather depressing. The quality of photography was excellent, but all those prostitutes, addicts, homeless people…..Agadir by Yto Barrada downstairs in the Curve didn’t do much for me and the wicker seats you sat in to listen to the audio aspects of the installation were excruciatingly uncomfortable.

At the NPG, Victorian Giants: The Birth of Art Photography consisted entirely of portraits, mostly from the mid-19th Century, by four photographers. They were surprisingly natural and technically accomplished, but I’m not sure it was the ‘art photography’ it said on the can. At the same gallery Tacita Dean: Portrait consisted mostly of short films of people with loud projector sound as accompaniment and it did nothing for me.

At the RA, a small but exquisite display of Pre-Raphaelite book illustrations by the likes of Millais, Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Holman Hunt. A little gem, but oh for a much bigger one.

Ocean Liners: Speed and Style at the V&A was a brilliantly presented exhibition which conveyed the glitz and glamour but also covered the wonders of the engineering and the historical significance of the mode of travel. Unmissable.

At the Photographers Gallery the annual Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation Prize Exhibition had a real political bite this year with swipes at Monsanto, the US justice system and former Soviet and East European states. Downstairs Under Cover: A Secret History of Cross-Dressers was difficult to take in as it was a load of standard size snaps found in flea markets and car boot sales, but the accompanying display of Grayson Perry’s Photograph Album covering the early days of his alter ego Clare was fascinating.

The content of the Sony World Photography Awards Exhibition at Somerset House was better than ever and it was much better displayed, though it made me feel like a rubbish photographer again. In the courtyard, there were five geodesic domes, ‘Pollution Pods’, replicating the pollution in five world cities with live readings. New Delhi and Beijing come off particularly badly but London wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. It really made you think.

All Too Human at Tate Britain was another of those exhibitions where the premise was a bit questionable, but there were enough great paintings to forgive that. Wonderful Lucien Freud and Bacon pictures and a lot of 20th century British artists new to me. In the Duveen Hall, Anthea Hamilton has created a quirky swimming pool like space with sculptures and a performer moving around all day. Called The Squash, it was momentarily diverting.

Rodin & the art of ancient Greece places his sculptures alongside some of the British Museum’s collection of Greek pieces and it works brilliantly. Rodin apparently took inspiration from The Parthenon sculptures and was a regular visitor and lover of the BM. Wonderful.

The Travel Photographer of the Year Award exhibition moved completely outdoors and to City Hall this year, but the standard was as good as ever. The young photographer entries were particularly stunning.

I was overwhelmed by the scale and beauty of Monet & Architecture at the National Gallery. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see 78 pictures together, a quarter of which come from private collections, a third from public collections scattered all over North America, and only 10% in the UK, half in the NG’s collection. Going at 10am on a Monday was also a good idea, seeing them with a handful of people instead of the crowds there when I left. While there I took in Drawn in Colour: Degas from the Burrell, thirty lovely works, but as always with pervy Degas all young women and girls, Murillo: The Self Portraits, which isn’t really my thing, and Tacita Dean: Still Life, which I enjoyed marginally more than her NPG show!

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Encounters with Shakespeare

Posted in Archaeology, Architecture, Theatre, tagged , , , , , on May 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

My two encounters with Shakespeare in this Globe mini-festival to celebrate his birthday earlier in the week were in Westminster Abbey and on the streets of The City and Southwark.

In the Abbey, we were invited to wander amongst the tombs of many of his historical characters, with actors popping up all over the place, individually, in pairs and small groups, speaking lines from his plays to individual visitors or small groups. Within minutes of entering, my first encounter was Mark Rylance close up in the transept giving Hamlet’s To Be Or Not To Be soliloquy; many more followed. We ended up in a circle in the nave around the actors with lanterns, singing before they left the abbey in procession through the front door. A really unique, uplifting and emotional experience.

Forty hours later I arrived at St Leonards Church in Shoreditch, famously connected with James Burbage, who built London’s first theatre down the road, and his son Richard, the first Hamlet and the first Richard III. Collecting a map and a red rose, we set off in small unguided groups on the Sonnet Walk East, which took in the site of this first theatre, appropriately called The Theatre, the recently discovered Curtain Theatre, where Romeo & Juliet was first performed, and the site of the first and second Globe, ending at the third present day Globe where we wove our red roses with the white ones already in the theatre gates.

At ten points en route actors popped up to read sonnets or speeches, one a song. My first encounter, as it had been in the Abbey, was Mark Rylance, but you could only identify him by his voice as he read Richard III’s battle speech from inside a tent on the site of The Theatre (probably wise as he’s now been in three Spielberg films!). We were fooled several times when the people we encountered seemed to be someone else (well, they are actors) until they began speaking verse. This included the site foreman in hard hat at the building site on top of the ruins of the Curtain, who described the find and its preservation, then spoke his lines just as we were about to leave, a lady asking for a photo and a Globe volunteer. Sometimes we imagined passers by were actors, mostly wrongly but occasionally right.

Like the Abbey, this was a lovely experience and together bookended a great weekend. Mark Rylance devised both, so hats off to him.

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Minoan Crete

Posted in Archaeology, Food & Wine, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2018| Leave a Comment »

It’s just over 40 years since I visited Crete, a lovely villa party in Agia Galini on the South coast. I remember visiting Knossos, walking the Samaria Gorge and getting stranded at the bottom and spending the whole night on the veranda after too much retsina. This was a much more grown up Minoan archaeology tour. Can you have too much Minoan archaeology? Well, maybe, but with good weather, fine company and good food & wine…..

Crete is Greece’s largest and most southernmost of its 166 to 227 inhabited islands (no-one appears to have done a proper count, not even the EU, it seems), the fifth largest island in the Med. It’s only 160 miles from Athens, but not much further from the African coast. A very mountainous island, reaching up to 8000ft, it’s long (160 miles) and thin (between 7 and 37 miles). The population is only 600,000 but there way more goats and beehives and 35 million olive trees!

First inhabited 8000 years ago, it’s the origin and home of Europe’s first great civilisation, the Minoans, who lasted for almost two thousand years, pre-dating both the Greeks and Romans by almost a thousand years, and exceeding the longevity of both. British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans is regarded as the godfather of Minoan archaeology, his partial reconstructions controversial, but responsible for ensuring everything stayed where it was found on Crete, unlike just about any other find in the world. There are palaces, towns, villas, cemeteries and museums full of astonishing finds. Lets start with some photos:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/70FvToq1zYE5uHYs2

We based ourselves first in Heraklion, where we visited the wonderful archaeological museum and nearby Knossos, the palace at the centre of the civilisation with Evans’ partial reconstructions, the Phourni Cemetery and the villa at Vathypetro, with finds in the Arhanes Archaeological Museum. We also ventured south to the Minoan town of Gortyn, the palace of Phaestos and the villa at Agia Triada. On our return, the sand-laden Sirocco wind had turned the air orange and deposited a significant chunk of the Sahara on the land. It was a three-day total immersion that I struggled to keep up with, but the boozy late lunches and dinners helped – Crete has an excellent rustic cuisine with goats cheese, olives, salad and vegetables dominant, and decent local plonk.

Our journey East to our second base, Sitia, took in another Minoan palace at Malia and another Minoan town at Gournia, popping into the popular coastal town of Agios Nikolaos for a non-Minoan break. One of the finest days saw us cross the spectacular mountains to the rarely touched East coast for another Minoan Palace at Zakros, close to both the beach and the mountain gorge. There was a treat on the way home, at the hugely atmospheric Toplou monastery, which now only appeared to have a couple of monks. Back in Sitia, on a sleepy Sunday, Greek Independence Day meant site closures but offered a street parade of just about every school, service and association, in costume or uniform, with a randomness and slickness in keeping with a Mediterranean island rather than a European state.

It was a long journey to our third base in the far West, Chania, but we broke it with a visit to Evans’ atmospheric 1906 Villa Ariadne and the lovely Venetian port of Rethymnon; oh, and another of those spectacular late lunches. Chania was our best hotel, the Kydon, right on the edge of the old town, which we explored after a hazy but lovely visit to Greco-Roman ruins, a Byzantine monastery and a Turkish fort at Aptera, a deeply moving visit to the Commonwealth War Graves at Souda Bay and another lovely visit to a Byzantine monastery on the Akrotiri Peninsula.

I did overdose a bit on Minoan ruins, but Evans’ reconstructions and the extraordinary museum exhibits brought the civilisation alive for me. The big revelation was Cretan cuisine, unique in Greece and Europe and appallingly underrated. A busy but lovely trip, and great to revisit after all those other places in-between.

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The Rest of May

Posted in Archaeology, Art, Comedy, Contemporary Music, Dance, Film, Opera, Photography, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Contemporary Music

It was obvious from the second number that Elvis Costello had a problem with his vocal chords, but he didn’t acknowledge it until two-thirds of the way through the main set. It’s a pity because the set for this London Palladium concert was new stuff and less obvious things from the back catalogue (only four or five crowd pleasers) which for me at least was very welcome. He was upstaged I’m afraid by two sisters from Atlanta going by the name of Larkin Poe who’s 30 min set as support was terrific. The evening partially redeemed itself by another 30 min set of Costello with the girls and a couple of crowd-pleasing solo encores, but in truth he should have postponed. There’s nothing sadder than seeing a hero die on stage.

Opera

How can you resist an opera set in a gay club with the toilet attendant played by Lesley Garrett?! As it turned out, Mark Simpson’s 70min 4-hander Pleasure at the Lyric Hammersmith proved rather good, and a hugely impressive operatic debut for this prodigious 28-year-old. The music suited a very dramatic story and the tension built well.

Many years ago I went to a shed in East London to see a bunch of mad Catalans perform a show in which they raced around wheeling supermarket trollies full of dead babies, throwing real liver around. That same company, La Fura Del Baus, are now at Covent Garden staging the UK premiere of Romanian composer Enescu’s only opera Oedipe, one of three 20th century operas based on the Oedipus myth and the most epic, telling the whole story from birth to death. Such is the world of opera in the 21st century. As it turns out, it’s a stunning production of a superb opera which was played and sung brilliantly. Why on earth has it taken 80 years to get here?!

Dance

I loved everything about the Royal Ballet’s Frankenstein. Liam Scarlett’s staging and choreography is excellent, there’s a great dramatic score from Lowell Lieberman and John Macfarlane’s designs and costumes are terrific. Pity the critics were so down on it. Why?

Film

Midnight Special is one of the best SciFi films of recent years. I was gripped throughout. The young actor playing the eight-year-old boy was extraordinary.

Eye in the Sky was another cinematic treat which I almost missed by reading the crits. Its edge of the seat stuff, but very objective in its examination of the ethics around drone attacks. One of Alan Rickman’s last roles, and he was great.

I have fond memories of Peter Quilter’s play Glorious, where Maureen Lipman played Florence Foster Jenkins, now played brilliantly by Meryl Streep in a film that is more poignant though also at times hilarious. A lovely film where even Corrie’s Mavis gets a bit part as a New York socialite!

The Hank Williams biopic I Saw the Light was a good rather than great film, but it was well worth catching. Tom Hiddleston is excellent and I understand he does the singing himself, which makes it an even bigger achievement, as the segments when he’s onstage at the Grand Ole Oprey are particularly good.

Our Kind of Traitor is another good rather than great film, different from the normal spy movie, let down by an ending that was a bit too low key.

I went to see Everybody Wants Some!! on the strength of the director’s last film Boyhood and rave reviews for this. I’m afraid I was underwhelmed. It wasn’t exactly Porky’s 8, but it wasn’t far enough away from it.

Though its ending is somewhat implausible, Sing Street is a delightful Irish coming of age story, real feel-good stuff, with terrific performances from its young cast.

Art

Sicily: Culture & Conquests at the British Museum is a lovely presentation of the history of an island almost everyone visited, but most particularly the Greeks and Normans. It made me want to go back to Syracuse post haste.

I didn’t know much about the work of American photographer Paul Strand until the Strange & Familiar exhibition at the Barbican. In his retrospective at the V&A I loved his B&W portraits and films but the abstracts and B&W flora & fauna did nothing for me. Lots to like, though. Across the road at the Science Museum they look at the birth of photography with an exhibition featuring William Fox Talbot, who just about invented it. The thing that grabs you most is how much the art / science moved forward in its first decade; the difference between the 1834 pictures and the 1845 ones is extraordinary.

Other Worlds at the Natural History Museum was a spectacular exhibition of photographs of the planets taken from satellites and spacecraft then touched up in a real meeting of science and art. Across the road at the V&A again there was a hugely clever exhibition called Botticelli Reimagined which showed the influence of this 15th century artist on 20th & 21st century design, then on late 19th / early 20th century artists like the Pre-Raphaelites before leading you into the biggest collection of Botticelli ever seen in the UK. In this last section, I overdosed on Madonna’s and other religious subjects, but it was a highly original exhibition nonetheless.

Other

Trespass is the latest in the series of passionate, funny, campaigning shows from one-man opposition Mark Thomas. This one, visiting the Tricycle Theatre, looks at the erosion of our rights to roam this green and pleasant land. He was his own support, with different material. Great stuff. If only the real opposition could pack such a punch, as entertaining as they are!

 

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The Rest of December

Posted in Archaeology, Architecture, Art, Design, Film, Opera, tagged , , , , , , , on January 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

 

Opera

I liked the music of The Firework-Makers Daughter at Covent Garden’s Linbury Studio but I wasn’t that keen on the production. I usually like this lo-tech style but there was too much I shouldn’t see and too much I couldn’t see in this production. The narrative isn’t the clearest, so I was surprised it was billed as suitable for over-6’s.

Art

The World of Charles & Ray Eames at the Barbican Art Gallery was much broader and deeper than I was expecting. The American design couple are best known for their iconic furniture, but they designed so much more. Like Mackintosh, Lloyd Wright and Gaudi, they covered almost every aspect of design including architecture, exhibition spaces, film and printed matter. Fascinating – and way ahead of their time.

Even though eighteenth century portraits aren’t my oeuvre, I admired the skill of the work of Jean-Etienne Liotard at the Royal Academy, even though he was better at fabrics than faces and some of his men were feminine and his women masculine!

There were some beautiful and stunning items in the British Museum‘s Celts exhibition, but by challenging and questioning modern thinking, it rather muddied the waters and became more of a review of North European history of 1500-3500 years ago.

Film

I rather liked Star War: The Force Awakens; it was well paced, didn’t lag and sustained its 2h15m running time. The 3D was above-average and the story seemed to flow and follow logically from the third film (the 4th to 6th being prequels). I’m now looking forward to the next two!

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US Road Trip I – Denver to Helena

Posted in Archaeology, Architecture, Art, Food & Wine, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 15, 2014| Leave a Comment »

This one month / 3000 mile trip started in Denver on 1st September and it’s now the half-way point and I’m in Helena, the capital of Montana, the 4th largest state by area but the 44th by population. Walking around the deserted city (pop 28k!) on a Saturday afternoon was proof enough of the state’s low density. I’ve already driven 2500 miles, so it will come in way over 3000! Anyway, here’s a resume of the first part. I’ve tried inserting photos but the iPad doesn’t seem to want to, so you’ll have to wait until my return or look at my daily tweets http://www.twitter.com/TootingGareth…..

Denver is a delightful city and exceeded my expectations. For a mid-West Colorado city, it’s sophisticated and cool with great art and food. My B&B was an old mansion located right in the Civic Centre and the owner made spectacular & original breakfast dishes and provided excellent restaurant recommendations. The Art Museum, with its new Daniel Libeskind wing, is one of the world’s greatest; in addition to an unrivalled collection of Western US art, there were four temporary exhibitions and I had to drag myself away. Over in the Botanical Garden, glass sculptor Dale Chihuly has scattered his works amongst the flora and fauna, as he did at Kew but with more water here it was more effective. He comes from Seattle so a stop at his museum is a must later in the trip.  When you’re in a State capital, a visit to its Capitol building is a must. They all seem to have the same shape, modelled on the US Capitol, but each has its own decorative spin and Colorado’s was a fine example. My second day was spent in the Rocky Mountain National Park which was a thrilling introduction to my 16 days in the mountains, though when I got to have lunch at 12,000 ft I was feeling a bit light-headed. I’d have liked another night in mile high Denver (and high in another sense now that marijuana is legal and sold in all sorts of forms on main street!).

The first part of the journey to Durango, 350 miles south-west, was a bit dull, following the highway to get some distance behind me. Then a stop at the Great Sand Dunes National Park brought the first scenic spectacle (sand dunes in The Rockies!) and the rest of the journey through the San Juan mountain range was lovely. Durango is a bit touristy, and the food a disappointment after Denver, but The General Palmer Hotel was a pleasant period piece and I had selected Durango anyway as a base for two trips, the first of which was to Mesa Verde NP. The landscape of canyon and table (mesa) isn’t the main reason for visiting it; its the remnants of 3300-year-old settlements, abandoned mysteriously 700 years ago. The first settlers occupied the mesa (table) top, but they later moved to precarious buildings built into the cliffside (security?). A fascinating trip. The second trip was a ride on the Durango-Silverton narrow gauge steam railroad, first built in the late 19th century, when silver was mined at one end and transported to the other. It isn’t much more than 50 miles, but at 13mph rising 3000 ft in the Rockies, it takes 3.5 hours! I chose to ride it both ways in the more comfortable period car with external platform and hostess service, which was a great choice as it was spectacular but also very sociable. A treat.

I started early on the 400-mile trip to Salt Lake City when I discovered both Arches and Canyonlands NPs were en route, thinking I’d make a stop at one.  Arches was like a moonscape, acres of red stone of all shapes and sizes (only some of which form arches) scattered amongst the desert landscape. I decided I had enough time to take a look at neighbouring Canyonlands , but wasn’t expecting to be quite so blown away by the vast expanse of canyons that take your breath away as soon as you set eyes on them when you walk to the edge of the tableland. I stayed so long I arrived late in Salt Lake City, having to navigate myself to my B&B in the dark and miss dinner!

SLC was as much of a break in the journey as anything else, but it was a pleasant surprise. Another nice B&B, this time in an Arts & Crafts building near the Capitol called Inn on the Hill, and a return to more sophisticated city food courtesy of the recommendations of a man from Portland also staying at the Denver B&B! The Mormon religion pervades everything in the city, the heart of which is Temple Square, containing a somewhat kitsch temple (which you can’t enter) and a host of other church buildings, the best of which was a reused ornate grand hotel (which in all fairness they had restored beautifully). ‘Sisters’ from Tuvalu, The Philippines etc do their missionary work offering to help you find your way around the square but it’s fairly innocuous. US ‘elders’ running tours of buildings are more hardcore though, pushing some – including me – over the edge with tales of Jesus’ visit to the US in biblical times. When a Dutch lady commented on a wall of pictures of former ‘prophets’ and ‘disciples’, all men, he got very defensive, making things worse by saying women have their place, just not in church leadership! On my second day I ventured to the lake which gives the city its name and was surprised they didn’t make more of it. It’s still and rather eerie.

The next journey, to Yellowstone, was much longer than its 400 miles because it was so scenic that I kept stopping to take it all in and photograph it. It took me from Utah to Montana, through a bit of Idaho and a lot of Wyoming! After another dull start on the interstate highway, I headed into Logan Canyon where autumn colours were already evident and made me excited about what might come later. The drive above and past Bear Lake provided yet more stunning views and then I entered Grand Teton NP, where the snow-capped mountains and glaciers followed me all the way to the entrance to Yellowstone. This is where things turned a bit rustic on the lodging and gastronomic front. I’d been unable to get into any of the park lodges six months ago, so ended up just outside in West Yellowstone, a somewhat downmarket tourist trap just by the entrance, in a 100-year-old hotel made of logs surrounded by ‘restaurants’ offering a choice of burgers, pizzas, Chinese, burgers, pizzas…. Its the scale and diversity of scenery that surprises you at Yellowstone. 1m acres of mountains valleys meadows & canyons, rivers waterfalls lakes cascades & streams, and all sorts of thermal activity. It’s 100 miles north to south and 80 miles east to west and in 2.5 days I hardly touched the surface, but it was indeed spectacular.

Another lovely journey, though less than 200 miles this time, through agricultural valleys between the mountains, with a breakfast stop in Ennis, an archetypal small town with an archetypal diner, took me to Helena, Montana’s capital. I’m breaking my B&B policy here as both were fully booked (!), but after rustic West Yellowstone, it’s actually rather comfortable in a chain hotel! Helena is a delightful town, with a ‘mansion district’ of 19th century homes including the original governor’ s house, a Capitol that punches way above its weight, a spectacular neo-gothic cathedral with more stained glass and gold leaf than a handful of normal churches and a main street called Last Chance Gulch! The main reason for this stop, though, was a river trip on the Missouri through a canyon. It was named Gates of the Mountains by the 1805 Lewis & Clark expedition launched by President Jefferson just after the Louisiana Purchase, the land Napoleon sold. It was (another) glorious day and yet another scenic treat.

So tomorrow it’s another 400 mile trip to Glacier NP, close to the Canadian border and as far north as I go before heading west into Oregon & Washington. Can it possibly be  as good as the first half? To be continued…..

 

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Naples. Amalfi & Cilento – wine, food & archaeology

Posted in Archaeology, Food & Wine, Travel, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Start with photos if you wish….

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/sredir?uname=101106171778113312583&target=ALBUM&id=6004368413784280193&authkey=Gv1sRgCJOgntaf78GRrwE&invite=CPL3j9AK&feat=email

Three things brought about this 10-day trip to Italy. The first was seeing the Danish-English film Love is All You Need, set in Sorrento; I wanted to get on a plane there and then. A month later I went to the Pompeii & Herculaneum exhibition at the British Museum, which made me want to return to Pompeii after c.30 years and to visit Herculaneum for the first time. Then a specialist wine tour company I’ve traveled with twice before emailed about an Amalfi & Cliento trip run by the wine guide who gave us such a good time in South America six years ago. I needed no further encouragement.

Sorrento is a great place to base yourself to see the wonders of The Bay of Naples – it’s less than an hour from just about anywhere and it’s a relaxing spot to chill out when you’ve finished exploring. Apart from wandering in it’s narrow streets and eating & drinking, I took two side-trips, one by train to Naples and one by hydrofoil to Capri.

Naples is a very lived-in city, rough & ready, a bit edgy – a city with attitude; I rather liked that. The Archaeological Museum was extraordinary, with so much wonderful statuary, frescos & mosaics from the hugely important nearby sites. Even though it seemed like half of the rooms were closed, it was still a feast of wonderfulness. The rest of my visit was wandering down Via dei Tribunali and back down ‘Spaccanapoli’, taking in food smells, kitsch tat & grot and churches! It’s a wild city without gentrification and few compromises to tourism, though they’d do well to deal with the graffiti (the worst I’ve seen anywhere) and litter – there ‘s a fine line between rough & ready and dump!

Capri provided a lovely Sunday diversion. From the Marina Grande port to the town of Capri by funicular and the much nicer Anacapri by bus, it was pretty, with stunning views wherever you looked. The highlight was undoubtedly the Garden of Eden ceramic tiled floor of the Santa Michele church in Anacapri, though I rather took to the Red House, former home of a US military medic, too.

I joined the wine group in Amalfi. The bus journey from Sorrento was spectacular and scary in equal measure. During the first half I was on the cliff side, so less scary and less spectacular, but the second half was full of turn-away moments as you got close the the edge of this steep, windy, narrow road. There were times, going through Positano, where I honestly didn’t think vehicles could get that close without scraping each other’s paintwork.

The first base for our wine & food tour was Furore, just outside but way above Amafli. The Hosteria Bacco was a Cuomo family affair with the son in the kitchen, a cousin with a winery just across the road, and the rest also involved in some way. When it wasn’t misty, the sea views were sensational, the food was simple & fresh – la cucina povera! – and the wines (a lot of them) lovely. Pietro taught us to cook the four dishes we ate on the first evening (well, I watched) and between tasting as he cooked and then dinner, I rather overindulged.

Our first winery visit was Sammarro in Ravello. It was an uninspiring location in a sort of cave cut into the side of the road, but the family were very welcoming and the wines more inspiring than the location. They couldn’t match the next location, though, which was Tenuta San Francesco in Tramonti in the gorgeous Lattari Valley. Again lovely people, but this time with such a gorgeous location and some nice simple food to accompany their delicious whites and reds. Back in Amalfi, we visited the extraordinary cathedral and wandered up the main street and along the beach. It’s a popular place, but even crowds can’t detract from the charm and beauty of its location.

Two visits en route to our next base, Santa Maria di Castellabate in the Cilento region, and both treats. One of the partners of De Conciliis wines is a jazz buff, so the names of their wines often reference this in some way. The sparking is Selim, an anagram of Miles (Davies), and Perella is ‘for Ella’ (Fitzgerald)! Fortunately, they also tasted great, washed down with a light lunch to stop them going straight to our heads. The next stop was a white fig producer which I frankly wasn’t much looking forward to. Santomeile’s premises oozed style in a modern spin on B&W Italian movies of the 50’s and 60’s and their inventiveness with a simple fruit was breathtaking – jams, syrups, chocolates….. It was the most professional tasting I’ve ever experienced, and the figs a revelation, presided over by the young dottoressa in her white coat!

Our next base was a lovely seaside town and Villa Soria was on the water’s edge. It was a good location for our remaining Cilento visits, starting with a buffalo farm. Now I hate buffalo mozzarella with a vengeance – tasteless and chewy – but the yogurt and ice cream were great and there was lunch with more wine; oh, and the buffaloes were rather cute, particularly when using their mechanical back-scratchers. Then time for some history and a visit to the Greek temples of Paestum and the excellent on-site museum. These didn’t have the setting of Agrigento in Sicily, but the temples themselves were the most spectacular I’ve ever seen.

Our final winery was on our doorstep but required switching to 4WD vehicles, such was its remoteness. Sitting on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea on the site of a former monastery, Sangiovanni was paradise. Owned by a young couple, refugees from corporate life, the setting was spectacular and the wines matched this. This was our best visit and we had to be dragged away, but there was an olive oil co-operative waiting with lunch further south! Here we were taught (and I instantly forgot) how to make simple pizza and sampled their olive oils – not as much fun as wine tasting, or figs come to that. There was a great back story about how they rescued a declining town by setting up the co-operative and the people were lovely.

Our final day took us for more history to Herculaneum, once buried like Pompeii under the lava and ashes of Vesuvius. It benefited from being a fairly compact site that you could do justice to in a couple of hours and it gave you a real sense of the shape of a Roman town – roads still intact, frescoes and mosaics still in place and partially ruined buildings that didn’t require much imagination to envision as complete. We’d earned our final lunch in modern day Ercolano, sat in the wine store like kids in a toy-shop, and the food was great, washed down with six wines, bringing our total for six says to somewhere between fifty and sixty! Only the goodbyes and a short taxi journey to my next base Torre del Greco kept me from my afternoon nap.

My final day was split between Naples and Pompeii. The weather was the worst of the trip, so I decided to go to Naples first, which proved to be a good decision as I came across a palace showing a recently restored Caravaggio and got to tour the Teatro San Carlo opera house, which I thought was closed on Sundays. Galleria Umberto I was grand and Palazzo Reale faded and run down. but with spectacular interiors. A long walk along the seafront completed a very satisfying return to Naples before a funicular, metro and train trip on to Pompeii.

The site is daunting as it’s so vast and I found it hard to get my head around it and navigate what is effectively a complete city. The rain returned intermittently, which didn’t help, but I was glad I returned here – the only revisit of the trip – as it is awe-inspiring and it completed the circle back to my second inspiration for the trip at the British Museum.

What I liked most about this holiday was the variety – the combination of food, wine, archaeology, scenery and city / town wanders. I packed a lot into ten days, even by my standards, but it was well paced and I came home rested. Now it’s time for a couple of Scandinavian cities – Stockholm in May and Copenhagen in July – before a 30-day 3000-mile US road trip in September; well, for September…..

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