Experimental Reynolds leaves legacy beyond the pretty faces

There's a small show on at The Wallace Collection right now that will captivate anyone interested in the process of creating art.  But more importantly, it will shed new light on an artist we tend to take for granted in England:  Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Anyone with even a cursory interest in art history knows Reynolds was a famous portraitist and an important man in Georgian England.  He founded the Royal Academy, knew everyone who mattered, was exceedingly popular and very rich.  But it's that very popularity which allows us to ignore him.  His paintings seem to be in every English country house, his statue stands over us in the RA courtyard, his portraits of the great and the good illustrate history books.  He's become 18th century wallpaper.

Joshua Reynolds: Experiments in Paint focuses on the innovation of his technique.  It's a small show, with only about 20 paintings in two rooms, but it makes its points brilliantly.

Reynolds was the first portraitist to get his subjects moving, painting them in action shots.  Soldiers on the battlefield, actresses on stage in their best roles and here, the young painter himself.  Palette in right hand, left raised to shield his eyes as he stares out at you, he's cleverly turned the tables so that the viewer becomes the sitter.

When he painted people more than once, he made sure the second portrait looked nothing like the first.  That's illustrated here by two takes on the courtesan Kitty Fisher, hanging together for the first time ever to allow you to compare and contrast.

Much of this innovation was, no doubt, driven by marketing.  Reynolds was working in a competitive market and wanted to stand out.  In the crowded group hangs that characterised the art shows of his day, his creative compositions would have ensured that.  Keenly attuned to modern fashions, he made sure he showed his subjects at the height of current trends.  There's a fascinating pair of portraits of sisters here, in which x-rays revealed he re-painted the hair of the canvass he did first to ensure that both ladies appeared with a current coif when the pair was complete.

Most of the paintings have x-rays displayed beside them, and it's fascinating to see the choices and changes Reynolds made. A neckline lowered here, an arm raised to a pensive pose there, all are carefully considered edits to get to his final result.

If Reynolds was an innovator with composition, he was a bit of a mad scientist with painting materials, and that's explored here as well.  We learn that even at the time he was working, this was an issue, with potential clients worried that his experiments would go wrong.  Some did at the time, more did over time.  Exemplary disasters are displayed here.  Some of those 18th century aristocrats weren't as pale and pasty as you think; the carmine he used for fleshy pinks has faded away.  Other problems have plagued an infant John the Baptist who's been so heavily restored over the years all of Reynolds' nuance has been stripped away.  It's an insipid, uninspired thing now, giving brilliant insight into how the little touches separate the ordinary from the masterpiece.

The show left me hungry for more.  Specifically, for more about Reynolds' relationship with women and their role in the 18th century.  His "proper" ladies are gentle and demure, never meeting your eyes as they coyly look down, or thoughtfully contemplate the horizon.  The actresses and women of more flexible morality stare frankly out of their frames.  In portraits like the extraordinary one of Mrs. Abington displayed here (on the far left of my photo above), Reynolds makes it obvious that these were fascinating, compelling women brimming with confidence.  Were the aristocrats the same, and unable to show it?  Or beaten into submission by social norms?

I know Constable is all the rage right now, but I'm ready for more Reynolds, please.

Joshua Reynolds: Experiments in Paint is on at The Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, until 7 June.  It's free, and open until 9pm on Fridays.  There's an elegant cafe in the building's glassed courtyard if you want to combine culture with dining.

Club Gascon confirms why we're off to cooking school

Balancing dinner and a show is never ideal.  You're either bolting down a pre-theatre meal at a ridiculously early hour, or your stomach is growling by Act 2 and you find yourself dining on a Waterloo burrito on the train home.  This time, with theatre on a Friday night and us both off for the afternoon, we thought we'd take another tack:  a big, leisurely lunch.

Our choice was Club Gascon.  As the only restaurant in London celebrating that particular region of Southwest France, I thought it was fantastically appropriate.  We're off to cooking school in Gascony in two weeks.  What better way to set the mood, and do a bit of research on the wines we might look for once we're there?

As it pushes past 17 years in operation, Club Gascon is one of the most dependable and well established of London's fine dining restaurants.  I'm not sure why I haven't mentioned it here before, since I've been here several times. Its location in Smithfield market made it an easy outing from the office when I worked at BT, and I've enjoyed many business lunches there.  All of them with exquisite food and, when we were drinking, an impressive wine list.  The menu has its gastronomic heart deep in Southwest France, with duck, foie gras and armagnac all given near-sacred prominence.

"But don't expect to find this in Gascony," the maitre d' warned.  "We've made it a bit more sophisticated."

Indeed, you're firmly in Michelin star territory here (they've held one since 2002) with artistic presentations, fanatical attention to detail, plates specifically designed for certain dishes, etc.  All served in an elegant, intimately-sized dining room with marble walls, neutral colours and an enormous, seasonal flower arrangement on the bar that could compete at Chelsea. As with any of the capital's pricier restaurants, a weekday lunch allows you to push the boat out for less money.  Currently, the five course spring tasting menu (seven if you count the amuse bouche and pre-dessert) is £65 and the matching five glass wine flight is £35.

Our two revelations of the meal were cardinale pulp and foie gras for dessert (pictured above).  The former is a tangy sauce made from carrots, beetroot and Worcestershire; given my constant quest to find red sauces in the face of my husband's tomato allergy, I need to play around with this one.  The concluding foie gras served with three kinds of strawberries (fresh, compote and dried) and a sweet Jurancon wine made perfect sense the minute the first bite hit my mouth.  Rich, soft, succulent and sweet.  Why didn't anyone think of this sooner?

On the long road leading up to that, we'd started with a creme Catalane (something like a loose flan) heavy with spring herbs, given a sense of the beach with a sea urchin jus.  Next up, white asparagus (pictured left).  I've never really grasped the Franco-German obsession for the fat, pale stalks.  Give me the English green version any time.  But if you're going to do it, then a black pudding emulsion and pork crackling beats the hell out of the usual hollandaise.  The umami blasts continued with the violet tea smoked trout, which made beautifully subtle use of a flavour that, when overdone, can taste like your grannie's talcum powder.  This is where that cardinale pulp came in, adding a nice kick of sharpness to the mild fish.

The wines were all white up to this point.  Each excellent, the unfamiliar Bergerac, Corbieres and Tolosan made me eager to get to know this region better.  The only red, as is usual with most tasting menus these days, came with the main course.  Domaine de L'ocre Rouge's merlot gets my vote for the most interesting wine of the flight, bound to fool anyone into thinking it was something else ... I would have said syrah ... in a blind tasting.  It had all the fruit of merlot but was also elegantly light and a bit peppery.  Probably from the mineral rich soils on this estate where Provence, the Languedoc and Rhone come together.  Perfectly paired with the roast guinea fowl.

My only disappointment?  Having stated our impetus for coming, I'd dreamed that Gascon's staff was going to deluge me with recommendations of quirky little wineries, armagnac distillers and foie gras producers to visit.  I'd pictured the sommelier pulling up a chair, sitting down with a map and giving us some hot tips.  No such luck.  Polite, efficient and pleasant, the staff had a no-nonsense approach, a successful restaurant to run and a private event to set up for that evening.  The quirky discoveries will have to be our own.

In two weeks, we'll be settling into the Gascon Cooking School, surrounded by similar ingredients and ready to drink in the same traditions that inspired this tasting menu.  While I don't expect to create anything at the Club Gascon level, I do believe my cooking will get more sophisticated, and I'll be happy to incorporate more of this kind of French into my repertoire.  Our long, lingering lunch was a fine amuse bouche for the holiday to come.

Here's why you should make an effort to see Shakespeare's King John this June

It was a chilly, grey spring evening in London.  An expectant, sold-out crowd chattered quietly outside historic Temple Church, waiting for the doors to open on the Globe Theatre company's production of Shakespeare's King John.  It's one of The Bard's least-performed plays and, when I saw the exceptional venue, I knew I needed to book.

The 12th century Temple Church is all that's left of what was the vast and prosperous headquarters of the Knights Templar in London.  It's now hidden away in a warren of Georgian legal buildings off Fleet Street, but its distinctive round ante-church, 13th and 14th century stone effigies and association with the romantically doomed Christian military order mean that a steady stream of tourists find their way there during its opening hours.  Despite WWII bomb damage and extensive restoration, it remains one of the most evocative Medieval spaces in London.  What's more, the building actually served as the royal treasury when King John was on the throne.  What better place to see a play about England's least-loved ruler?

I knew it would be special, but didn't realise how special until we started filing in.  They took us
through the main door, at the end of the round bit, which is never open.  We filed through the early gothic portal to enter the year 1216.  The round church was illuminated only by tall, beeswax tapers.  A forest of them cast a golden glow on the bier of the king, on which he lay at rest in his robes of state, golden crown gleaming above his closed eyes.  Around him, brown-robed monks with their cowls pulled far over their faces processed, holding candles and singing Gregorian chant.  I was so stunned by the scene that for a moment, I forgot where I was and couldn't move.

Then we remembered there was no assigned seating, and made a scramble deeper into the church to find a pew.

Staging theatre here is a brave decision and, without the novelty factor of a little-performed play and the rousing action of the plot, I wouldn't recommend it.  A raised, cross-shaped platform made the stage, with a throne where the altar lay below and the audience seated in four pits below each corner of the cross.  It was a clever way to bring the audience into the action and reminded me of the thrilling experience of seeing a production at the Wanamaker Theatre (reviewed here).  But the elevated stage, forest of columns and division of audience means that everyone has a restricted view, and everyone has bits of dialogue they can't hear.

In King John's case, it doesn't really matter.  This is the Elizabethan equivalent of Sir Kenneth Branagh directing Thor.  Hints of the elegant poetry, masterful plotting and well-placed comic quips are here, but it's mostly a convoluted action flick with a lot of excuses for great costumes and rousing sword fights.  It's not high art, but it's good fun and I can see how it would have been a great hit with 16th century audiences.

The plot basically condenses all of the disasters of John's reign into a short period, as if all of his troubles came in a rapid domino effect, and takes plenty of artistic license.  The character with all the best lines, for example, is Philip Faulconbridge, an almost entirely fictional riff on Richard the Lionheart's one documented, illegitimate son.  Eleanor of Aquitaine makes a magnificent appearance in her traditional role as one of the most powerful women in history, while her daughter-in-law Lady Constance turns up to portray a particularly vicious mother-in-law nightmare.  In fact, the strength of the female roles is one of the best things about this play.

The plot is a complicated one, and I'd strongly suggest brushing up on the history before you go.  Shakespeare manages to pack in the papal interdict, battles over John's legitimacy on the throne, court intrigue, rebellion, French invasion, young lovers torn apart by politics and a nephew and potential heir to the throne who dies in mysterious circumstances while in his uncle's care.  The latter, of course, must have been a plot twist so compelling Shakespeare revisited it in Richard III a few years later.

This certainly isn't one of Shakespeare's masterpieces, and I wouldn't bring any first timers to whom you're trying to give a sense of what makes the man great.  It's great fun, however, carries on at a rapid pace and is elevated by a strong cast, many playing multiple roles.  Music plays a strong role throughout, in both church and folk forms, so much so you could call this a Medieval musical.

The Temple Church performances have concluded, but King John returns for a 20-performance run at The Globe in June.  You won't have the frisson of dropping in on a Medieval funeral or sitting amongst tombs, but I'll wager you'll be able to hear more of the dialogue.  One performance is already sold out.  I'd recommend that any Shakespeare fans who'd appreciate bragging rights on seeing his least-seen play, or appreciators of rip-roaring action, get to booking now.

Boutique hotels and historic restaurants crown this Southern Belle

Savannah is awash with gorgeous hotels and tasty, atmospheric dining opportunities.  Your greatest difficulty will be making a choice.

Types of accommodation fall roughly into one of three categories:  chain hotels ... from luxury down to budget ... boutiques and B&Bs.  The B&Bs in restored homes in the historic district look amazing, but getting in to them requires planning far in advance, and they're all geared to doubles (where our annual girls' trip needs a triple).  We went the boutique route with The Brice, a Kimpton Hotel on the Northeast corner of the historic district.  This is a pricey option, but is about as perfect an example of "boutique" as I've seen anywhere.

This old cotton warehouse turned Coca-Cola bottling plant has been wonderfully converted; simple touches like long sailcloth drapes to mimic pillars and wrought iron set into balconies manage to keep the industrial modernity of the place while also evoking plantations of the Deep South.  The grey and white colour scheme, with the odd pop of bright colour, extends through the hotel and is very much the feel of old Savannah, as are the staff uniforms of linen, seersucker and the occasional madras plaid bow tie.  Homey small touches abound:  signs point to the "living room" rather than the lobby; dogs are welcome and a big water bowl and jar of biscuits greets them inside the front door; bikes are available on loan; free coffee is laid out at breakfast time and the management pours free wine at happy hour.  The laid-back atmosphere means you're likely to meet and mingle with other guests as you're relaxing on the comfy, all-weather sofas in the courtyard.  It all felt more like a trendy house party than a hotel.

The historic district is small enough to be easily walkable; we reached all of the dining options discussed below on foot.

For Sunday breakfast, we discovered the Goose Feathers Cafe.  We'd had visions of a long, lingering brunch accompanied by the enticing bacon bloody Marys we'd heard tell of at the Andaz hotel.  Sadly, upon arrival there we thought the breakfast options looked poor, we discovered the drink was simply a regular bloody Mary with a strip of de-hydrated maple bacon added as garnish and, worst of all, that Sunday laws prohibited any alcohol being served before 1pm.  Locals directed us to the nearby Goose Feathers, where a queue out the door and beautiful options on current diner's plates told us we were on to something.  The breakfast menu includes expected items like pastries, breakfast "sandwiches" combining eggs, sausage, bacon, etc, omelettes and daily specials.  I went for the special shrimp and grits, which fulfilled the desire for local comfort food, yet kick-started the day with a well-judged lacing of jalepeno.

Elegant lunch options are The Collins Quarter Cafe and The Gryphon Cafe.  They're both just off

historic residential squares, well away from the main strip of bars and restaurants in the market district, so manage to have a quieter, less touristy feel about them.  Collins is a relatively new place, and one of the tourism office people told me she'd been wanting to go since it was getting great reviews.  It's a clean, airy dining room with friendly staff dishing up simple food that celebrates its farm-to-table heritage, but mixes up the local sourcing with exotic elements.  I had, for example, a Moroccan scramble with house-made merguez sausage, and ras al hanout scrambled eggs over chickpeas.  It was just a pinch of chili and a few shakes of salt away from perfection.  Tastes of the local catch (cubes of fried fish mixed with Mexican elements and served on a tortilla) and the smashed avocado on toast were equally impressive.  In retrospect, our quick Saturday lunch should have been at Goose Feathers, and our lingering Sunday brunch (sans bloody Marys) would have been better here.

We only stopped for drinks at The Gryphon, but the lunch menu looked good and the atmosphere is exceptional.  It's set in an opulent, late-19th century pharmacy, with dark wood shelves and service counters intact and an ornate stained glass dome overhead.  A player piano pumps out classics from one corner, and there's a raised area where you can sink into wingback chairs.  It's very much a ladies' lunch/tea shop sort of place. It's owned and run by the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), which owns buildings throughout town, and staffed by students.  Note: because of the student involvement there's no alcohol license.  After eating, you can nip across the street to the SCAD shop, an art gallery where students and alumni sell their work in a variety of media.

For our main meals we opted for two of Savannah's most classic, established restaurants:  Garibaldi's Cafe and The Old Pink House.  (We didn't realise until after we'd dined at the first that they're sister restaurants.)

As its name implies, Garibaldi's menu has a slight Italian skew, but I'd call it a classic fish and steak restaurant with influences from around the world.  It's signature dish, for example, would be at home in an upscale Thai restaurant.  Evidently people drive for miles for this crispy flounder with its sweet, sour and spicy sauce spiked with coriander.  I made that lucky menu choice and understand why the dish is famous.  It was the best of all the fine things I consumed in Savannah.  Elsewhere on the table, Denver ribs and Savannah shrimp and lobster were good, but not as good as my flounder.

The restaurant itself, like The Gryphon, is a sight to behold.

This time you're in an old firehouse, converted to an elegant dining room with a pressed tin ceiling, columns, mirrors and an ornate late 19th century bar.  It's black and gold and elegant while also being a bit louche, as if courtesans were waiting to entertain the great and the good upstairs.  It also features some of the finest service we've ever had on any of our trips, with the team giving us great advice on menu choices, working to get us out in time for our 8pm ghost tour, and sending us off with our excess wine safely transferred to go cups.  There's a lot of drinking while walking in Savannah, but I doubt many plastic cups hold a pouilly fuisse of that quality.  You'd expect no less from these girls' trips, right?

We had far more time to linger at the Pink House since that was the only event on the agenda for the evening, and was a belated celebration of my birthday.  (The last, I trust, of a jubilee year that's now stretched to 16 months!)  Even in Europe, there aren't many restaurants that allow you to dine in such historic surroundings.  This is one of the oldest buildings in town, little changed from its original
form as an elegant Georgian town house of 1789.  Indeed, having considerably more buildings of that provenance in London, I was surprised to see that the Georgia colonists certainly didn't seem to be behind the times.  The architecture and amenities included by the builder, James Habersham Jr., weren't that different from its contemporaries in the mother country.  The only obvious difference I noted was the treacherously shallow tread on the stairs, which almost sent me flying headlong into the entrance hall at the end of the meal.  I somehow managed to regain my balance at the last minute; I like to think it was Habersham's ghost, who's supposed to turn up frequently and who loved to entertain, who extended his hospitality to not letting me break my neck.

The current owners have added a large garden room onto the back which extends the possible covers, and they've done a good job retaining the Georgian feel.  But if you're going to dine here, make an effort to plan far enough in advance to be in the main house.  Tables are generously spaced, lights are low, there's plenty of candlelight and 18th century portraits stare down benignly.  It's tremendously atmospheric.  There's an equally characterful bar in the cellar, all rough stone, dark wood, stained glass and more candlelight.  It's an English West Country pub as we all fantasise them to be, rather than any actually are.  They feature a live pianist, and the same menu as upstairs with no reservations, so if you haven't planned ahead and want to try the place, this is a good option.

We started out downstairs for drinks; their signature Pink Ladies make a grand start to the evening.  (And, admittedly, might have contributed to the danger of the stairs.)  In what was once a grand bedroom on the top floor, we settled around a table overlooking Reynolds Square and launched into a feast of Southern cuisine.

Even though I lived in Texas for three years and was an avid subscriber to Southern Living magazine, it didn't occur to me that "Southern" was a distinct and potentially gourmet cuisine until I went to Washington D.C.'s Vidalia (reviewed here).  I loved it, and haven't had anything like it since, so was delighted to find the same spirit in the Pink House menu.  Our starters included more of that ubiquitous and tasty Southern shrimp (here in a classic cocktail), a salad with goat's cheese and candied Georgia pecans and some exceedingly wicked balls of deep fried jalepeno macaroni and cheese.  Once again I felt that I made the winning menu choice with a pork tenderloin, beautifully complemented by collard greens that had simmered for a good, long time with bacon, and sweet potato, all robed in a maple pecan sauce that was both sweet and a bit spicy.  Hillary's fried chicken tasted exactly as my grandmother's used to.  Indeed, the staff reported that the chef soaks the chicken overnight in buttermilk, just as Nana did. Mahi mahi stuffed with crab was an elegant lighter choice.

We split a couple of desserts, both of which celebrated the native pecan.  The pecan pie was the best I've ever had, and the praline pecan basket with vanilla ice cream was a gourmet take on simple ingredients.  All this fine food came with a great wine list and a serving team as good as the impressive one the night before.  We had a marvellous time, and found ourselves chatting to the staff for so long we were one of the last parties out the door.

At which point, I'll stick to my story and say that Mr. Habersham helped me down the stairs and into the night.  Thereby preserving me to want to come back to dine and explore this gorgeous city again.

Gracious Savannah on par with any European destination for sightseeing

Savannah is a fraternity party with great architecture.

As the oldest city in Georgia (est. 1733), world famous for its historic squares and gracious hospitality, I expected plenty of culture during the weekend road trip from our base on Amelia Island.  The party took me by surprise.

The historic district has no open container law.  Simply stated:  in most of the United States, it's illegal to walk around public spaces while drinking alcohol.  In Savannah, it's positively encouraged.  Bars and restaurants have take-away windows selling cocktails to go.  Restaurants offer you "go cups" to take leftover wine with you.  One bar, called Wet Willies, has made its reputation on this loophole, serving up frozen daiquiris, coladas, margaritas, mudslides and the like from a long bank of colourful, spinning "icee" machines.

With most of the tourists in town wandering about with plastic cups of alcohol in hand, you'd expect things to get out of control.  In fact, I found it surprisingly restrained.  Sure, there were the obvious bachelor and bachelorette parties (aka hen and stag dos), but the girls were often dressed to the nines and I didn't see anyone get make-a-fool-of-yourself drunk.  It also seems to be the destination wedding capital of the South; we saw at least eight ceremonies taking place in those picture-perfect squares, all devolving to receptions elsewhere in town.  I saw no misbehaviour.  In fact, there was far less unruly public drunkenness than you'd see in any English town centre on a Saturday night.  Maybe it's the sophisticated history of the place that keeps people in check.

Because Savannah is, without doubt, one of the most staggeringly beautiful towns in America.  The whole historic district feels more like a stage set than real life.  Every angle begs you to take a photo.  Every house facade is an architectural gem.  Every garden looks like a Chelsea Flower Show exhibit. Peek in the windows, and every interior looks like it belongs in a design magazine.  Do they vet these people before they're allowed to move in?  It's all too perfect.

It's the squares and the trees that make the place completely unique in my experience.  Georgia founder James Oglethorpe is said to have had the urban design in mind before he ever set food on American soil.  Inspired partly by the squares of London, and partly by military practicality (the squares could quickly be converted to a network of defensible forts in the early days), they now provide a network of green space throughout the town.  Unlike London, all the squares are public and are mostly surrounded by their original buildings.  The latter is due to a massive preservation effort chronicled (along with a sensational murder case) in the bestselling Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil; a must-read if you're visiting.  It's no surprise to learn that most directors setting films in 18th- or 19th-century America come here.

The live oaks draped with Spanish moss add to the atmosphere.  Their ancient, spreading arms make green tunnels out of the roads.  The moss gives a ghostly, elegiac feel to the whole place.  If you walked through a door and came face-to-face with Oglethorpe himself, or with General Sherman ... who was said to be so taken with the beauty of the place he refused to burn it as he had Atlanta ... you wouldn't be surprised.  This is a place where both ghosts and time travel seem possible.

Which may be why ghost tours are one of the top recommendations for any visitor.  There are a variety from the kitschy hard drinking cruises in a converted, open-top hearse to the serious walks with earnest historians.  We opted for the latter, with the highly-rated Blue Orb Tours.  We saw no ghostly orbs, either live or in our photographs, but we learned a lot more about the town's history while being richly entertained.  You'll see, or hear about, vile rooms and tunnels where slaves were once penned; a square where no Spanish moss grows because of the displeasure of the man buried in the middle; the angst of an ignored Indian chief, a shell-shocked WWI soldier, a plague hospital nurse; victims of prohibition-era shootings looking for retribution and plenty of spirits still fighting out the issues of the Civil War.

In daylight hours, a handful of trolley companies offer less spectral tours.  With so much history, I'd recommend this as an essential introduction.  On our hotel's recommendation we did the hop-on-hop-off with Old Savannah Tours.  As with so many of these tours, of course, it comes down to the quality of the guide.  Our first was an army veteran who'd written books on Savannah and was both highly informing and entertaining.  The second appeared to have memorised a script and had an irritating style of repeating every key point in the sing-song most appropriate for 5-year-olds and stubborn spaniels.  I was also irritated that you couldn't hop on and buy a ticket, but had to take one bus to their main depot and, once on the trolley, be taken to another lot to buy tickets, eating up a good half hour.  If we'd had more time, I suspect we'd have gotten more out of it had we hopped off in more places and experienced more guides.  Despite my lukewarm impression, it added to our understanding of the place and I think it's a necessary introduction to fully appreciate the city.

With just two days in town, we only had time to tour one of the grand houses.  We opted for Mercer House which, architecturally, is a poor choice.  In a town that holds some of the country's finest, most elegant Federal-style interiors, Mercer House is a heavy, graceless Victorian property with a pleasant but average collection of art and furniture.  It is, however, one of the few houses open on a Sunday.  On this one day, Savannah turns its Bible Belt face to tourists, banning all alcohol until 1pm (so much for our bloody Mary-filled brunch ideas) and only allowing libations with food for the rest of the day. A high proportion of shops and attractions are also shuttered.  More significantly for most tourists, however, Mercer House was the setting for the murder at the centre of Midnight, and was used as the set in Clint Eastwood's film of the book.  Thus, the tours that run every 20 minutes are constantly booked and the house is one of the most visited in town; much to the irritation of the more historically, architecturally and artistically significant competitors.

Still, if you've read the book, you really need to see the house.  Although don't expect any insight into, or gossip about, the crime.  The family still owns the house, so there's not a single mention of the murder or the series of four trials that finally resulted in acquittal of antique dealer Jim Williams.  The tour is instead a respectful and adulatory exploration of Williams' contributions to historic Savannah's restoration in general, and this house in particular.  Of course, they clearly operate on the assumption that most people on the tour have read the book, and they do drop some interesting titbits from the film production.

As with any great tourist destination, Savannah's beauty and history is augmented by some great food and drink, served in memorable places.  That's my next entry.

America's oldest city has improved greatly as it reaches 450

At the grand old age of 450, you'd think that St. Augustine ... the oldest continually occupied European settlement in North America and a city that makes its living off its history ... would have settled like a bug preserved in amber.  Not so.  In fact, it's a fair contest who's changed more in the past 47 years: the town, or me?

The place seared itself onto my memory as a small child, when my parents decided it was a logical stopping off point between the long drive from Missouri (14 hours by that point) and the final push to Fort Lauderdale (another five hours).  It was here that I got my first taste for castles, grand architecture and pirates, and started to see the grand play of history stretching back before the America I knew.  It's probably not an exaggeration to say that Saint Augustine lit the fires that eventually sent me to live in England.

In the late '60s and early '70s, however, it was a sleepy place.  The fort, then as now, was the centrepiece.  There was a dusty old museum, a rickety historic district of collapsing buildings (mostly private houses) and some derelict grand hotels.  Our sightseeing choices were always the fort, the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum (the first in the world was here) and the Old Jail.  I usually got to choose two; it was always the fort and something else.  I certainly don't remember crowds.  When I returned to school in the autumn, I was always unique in having travelled to this forgotten backwater.

These days, as you fight the crowds to get into the fort, you'd swear that every school child in America is sent here on a rotation.  The old town is a fully-restored wonderland of tourist boutiques buzzing with more visitors.  The grand hotels have all experienced renaissance.  Indeed, the town is such a tourist hot spot that there's now a 1,200-spot parking garage to leave the car before you explore, and you'd better get there before noon if you want a decent spot.

Whilst I missed the romantic atmosphere of mouldering decrepitude, and I could have done with a few less people packed into the fort, the changes are overwhelmingly positive.  Nobody should come to this part of Florida without visiting.

The logical place to start is the Castillo de San Marcos.  It's the oldest masonry fort in the United States, built in the late 17th century to replace older wooden models.  It bounced in use and ownership between the Spanish, the English and the Americans and, in the Civil War, between North and South.  These days, the National Park Service makes a real effort to bring the history to life, with displays throughout the building (the cannons are particularly popular) and costumed volunteer re-enactors.  Time it right and you can watch them fire a cannon a couple times a day.  There's also a lot here on how American Indians and women wove into the history of the place; things that wouldn't have troubled the curators of the early '70s.  If you're a child, frankly, none of this matters, because its round towers, pointed battlements and waterfront location make it look like the perfect pirate palace from every old swashbuckler you've ever seen.

The old town is just a few hundred feet away, across some tidy lawns.  Here, I admit to being somewhat disappointed.  I'd seen news reports that suggested St. Augustine had become a Spanish colonial version of Williamsburg, and I was ready for more costumed re-enactors in blacksmith's shops, taverns, churches, etc.  The serious history stops at the fort.  Architecturally, the old town is now a delightful mix of 17th century Spanish and 18th century English buildings, but their use is purely commercial.  It's basically the same mix you'd find in any tourist hot spot ... souvenirs, crafts, hats, jewellery, restaurants, ice cream parlours ... but without the thoughtfully selected offerings of Fernandina Beach's boutiques.  There, we lingered, shopped, and spent money.  Here, we appreciated the setting but weren't tempted to much browsing.  We had other sights to see.

Historic St. Augustine had two zeniths.  The first was the colonial era.  The second, the Gilded Age.  In the 1880s Henry Flagler, a phenomenally wealthy partner (with the Rockefellers) in Standard Oil, "discovered" the place and thought it had potential as a winter resort for other rich elites of the Northeast.  He commissioned grand hotels to house them, and built a railway to get them here.  Just as Disney basically created Orlando and kept a stranglehold on visitors in its early years, so Flagler did with St. Augustine.  The resort had four decades in the limelight, but fashion, war and the economy eventually conspired to shut the hotels down, and by the 1940s, the town had entered the decline I remember.

The grandest hotels of that era are now two must-see attractions.

Flagler's original hotel, the Ponce de Leon, is a fanciful palace built in Spanish Renaissance style, with no expense spared on details. Murals, stained glass windows, terra cotta and glazed tile detailing all add to the magnificence.  These days it sparkles like new.  In fact, at the moment the facade is sheathed in scaffolding for further renovations.  It's now the campus of Flagler College, founded in 1968, and must be one of the most beautiful places in the United States to get a liberal arts degree.  You can wander in to see the grand courtyard and the main lobby, but for more you'll need to book on to one of the tours given by current students.  This would certainly be worth the time, but you won't manage it in a day if you want to do the fort and the Lightner Museum across the street.

As an adult, this is my top sight in St. Augustine.  I've seen a lot of forts and castles since my childhood visits, and the Castillo de San Marcos suffers in comparison.  But I've yet to see anything exactly like Lightner's collection.

The eponymous founder was a wealthy Chicago publisher and collector, who started accumulating his treasures in the 1930s as so many families of the Gilded Age were going bust and liquidating their family palaces.  He bought.  Not just with an eye for the valuable, but for the quirky and the interesting.  Indeed, sometimes for the hideous.  (There's an English Victorian tall case clock, encrusted with characters telling the story of Dick Whittington, that is one of the ugliest pieces of furniture I've ever seen.)

Lighter bought the second of Flagler's hotels, the shuttered Alcazar, in the 1940s to house his collections.  He then left the museum to the city.  They didn't have the money to renovate the whole hotel or display the entire collection, leaving the dark, dusty and rather creepy museum I remember from childhood.  Even then, it was a remarkable mix of stuff.  Natural history displays (Churchill's lion and a taxidermised alligator), an Egyptian temple, a buttons collection, early music-making machines (twice a day they play a few for you), Victorian shop displays.  I remember my father sighing:  "this is the kind of collector I'd be if I were rich."

Today, much more of the hotel has been renovated and the collection is displayed in glory.  The main galleries are in what was the Alcazar's turkish baths.  Cut, blown and stained glass make a dramatic statement in this elegant, light-filled space.  For sheer visual impact, however, head to the ballroom ... which is actually a broad gallery encircling the old swimming pool, two stories up.  Sadly, the restoration didn't include what was once a glass roof, but enough light streams through the windows to give an impression of how glorious this place must have been.  Bands in alcoves on either side (John Philip Souza played here), guests promenading, dancing or pausing to gaze down at others enjoying the water below.  Today the old swimming pool is dry and holds a restaurant and some shops.  The ballroom/gallery shows off the larger pieces of Lightner's collection: monumental furniture, vast paintings and ceramics created for showy display.

There are few other museums that combine building and collection so well.  This is a snapshot of the gaudy conspicuous consumption of America's Gilded Age, laid out in the very rooms where the stories took place.

Where to Eat
If you're in the mood for something a bit more sophisticated than the usual tourist fare, try the Old City House Inn.  Their lunch menu offers an intriguing variety of tapas, much of it fish-based, to match the atmospheric Spanish revival building.  (It was built in the late 18th century, at the same time as the grand hotels nearby.)  Combine small plates, or opt for sandwiches and salads with a stylish flair.  Everything is deftly prepared and presented with style.  (See the example of the mussels tapas plate, right.)  The dark, traditional dining room offers a cool respite from a hot day; there's also a palm-filled courtyard if you want to eat outside.  The Old City House is just across the street from one side of the Lightner Museum, and is also a B&B.

Amelia Island: Sweet home, Florida ... but not quite as I know it

My God, I've missed Florida.

I consider it my home state almost as much as Missouri.  My grandparents had a house in Ft. Lauderdale and I spent all my childhood summers there, switching to the Christmas holidays after university.  Occasionally we diverted to Sanibel, Orlando or St. Augustine, popped down to Miami or did road trips to Key West ... but the Sunshine State was a constant.  Body surfing the Atlantic waves, picking stone crabs and wrapping a palm trunk in Christmas lights are as "native" to me as going to a Cardinals game, drinking Budweiser or ascending the Gateway Arch.

So how is it that, in the eight years since this blog started, Florida's only featured once?*  Life got in the way.  But now, gloriously, I was back.  Rolling the windows down on a late night drive from the airport after 23 hours en route.  Feeling the warm, moist air.  Smelling the salt tang of the sea.  Passing roadside orange stands closed for the night.  I've been on some exquisite beach holidays in recent years.  But none felt like coming home.

The irony is that I'm here on our annual girls' trip, which usually involves extended weekends on our own side of the pond, in exotic locations rich with culture, food and wine.  But Hillary's parents live here, and we thought we'd take advantage of their hospitality.

Amelia offers a stereotype of affluent American retirement.  On an island 13 miles long and four
wide, you'll find seven golf courses.  They're anchored by two luxury resorts, an Omni and a Ritz, and the main road through (the A1A) is dotted with upscale shopping villages offering resort wear, luxury delis, cigar shops and wine stores.  Most of the southern half of the island is filled with gated communities, with housing ranging from modest condominiums for the downsizers to rambling manses for those with big families who are always dropping in.  Some overlook the ocean, but most are nestled along winding lanes shaded by live oak trees and tendrils of Spanish moss.   Our home base for the visit looked to the west, out over broad salt marshes to the Intercostal waterway and the mainland.  In between golf rounds or visits to the beach, you can sit on your rocking chair on the deck, using binoculars to check out a vast variety of bird life.  Or simply pour yourself a cocktail and take in a magnificent sunset in the pristine quiet.

Amelia isn't just about retirees and holiday-makers, however.  It had a population, industry and history long before Florida was discovered by tourism, giving it distinct differences from the South Florida of my youth.

The mangrove swamps, featureless coastline and brackish, gator-filled marshes around what's now Miami and Lauderdale had little to offer the Europeans.  Here, up against what's now the Georgia border, were forests and arable land.  Abundant rivers flowing from the interior offered both fresh water and deltas that gave safe anchorage.  Amelia is the southernmost of the great range of barrier islands that runs down the Carolina and Georgia coast and, as such, limits the damage caused by hurricanes.

The Spanish were the first Europeans here, but the area bounced back and forth between them and the English throughout the colonial period.  The evidence is in the names.  Amelia, for English King George II's daughter.  Its main town, Fernandina Beach, named for Spanish King Ferdinand VII.  Recurring waves of settlers put down roots, then were ousted by the next change in regime.  Pirates took advantage of the political uncertainty and the safe anchorage in the river network; there's a rich history of buccaneering here that's now merrily exploited by the tourist trade.  Things started to quiet down when Florida finally joined the USA in 1819, but there were a few more volleys in the ownership match during the Civil War, when Fort Clinch on the island's northern tip bounced between Confederate and Union.

Once that war ended, stability finally reigned.  By the second half of the 19th century, paper milling had begun; a logical industry given the local pine forests providing raw materials and the new train lines that would take the finished materials north.  The mills are still there today, as are many of the ornate Victorian homes that came with that prosperity.  A thriving shrimping industry ran out of the small harbour.  Rising prices have pushed many of the workers to the mainland, but the existence of industry, history and a working class gives Amelia a very different feel from much of the rest of Florida.  It's much more like the Deep South.

Fernandina Beach these days is a charming place to wander and ... if you can't crash with a friend's parents or afford the luxury resorts ... offers a range of attractive B&Bs and small hotels.  The main street is filled with independent retailers.  A cozy, proper bookstore.  An old fashioned beach "5-and-dime" selling souvenirs and all the bits you need for your holiday.  Quirky clothes shops and gift boutiques demand a browse.  And then there's the oldest bar in Florida.  The Palace welcomes you with a life-sized statue of a pirate and encourages you to stay with an ornate Victorian interior and a great range of boutique brewery beers.  There are, of course, plenty of restaurants, many overlooking the Amelia River.  (Fernandina Beach is on the west side of the island, taking advantage of those protected waterways.)  If you're lucky enough to have a kitchen, you can hit the fish shack in the morning to pick up some of the day's catch.  Though the shrimping industry has declined in the face of the big, industrial Asian fleets, a few boats still bring in the sweet, local treasures.

For the best introduction to the area, try an Amelia Island River Cruise.  The company ... fronted by the creatively named and appropriately dressed "Pajama Dave" ... does a variety of tours, but the locals know that the adult's only BYOB cruise is the one to take.  On our evening, passengers were mostly comprised of small groups who'd brought not just drinks, but snacking buffets.  We had room to spread out and the congenial atmosphere of the beach bum prevailed, swapping supplies (can I trade you a tequila shot for a few slices of lime?) to a soundtrack of Jimmy Buffet and the Zac Brown Band.  Once you're underway, you'll get live music from talented local musicians the likes of Yancy Clegg (who you can check out here).

The cruise heads up the river to the Georgia border, where a channel between Fort Clinch and Cumberland Island flows into the Atlantic.  Cumberland, a part of Georgia, is the largest of all the barrier islands.  Once the private holiday retreat of the Carnegies, it's now a national park and known for its wild horses, which you'll probably see grazing as you pass by.  The cruise is timed to take in the glorious sunsets of this part of the world, and gets you back to the dock in time for a late dinner at one of Fernandina Beach's many options.

It was a great way to start the annual girls' trip.  Lying ahead:  time in the sun, shopping, fine dining and road trips to St. Augustine and Savannah.  Read on.

Follow these links to stories from my last Floridian trip
Even Disney feels recession, to benefit of guests
Change is subtle, but inevitable, across Disney attractions
Disney dining plan offers great value and holiday cost control

A phoenix and three pigs top the Copenhagen logistics list

Having consumed our fill of traditional Danish cuisine at family tables, and having ticked the boxes on Danish fine dining last trip, we were rather relieved when the hotel concierge suggested a French restaurant.

"Reasonably priced, good food, far enough from the centre to draw locals but close enough to make it an easy taxi ride ... we've been getting raves about this place."  That was the report on Les Trois Cochons, and reality lived up to expectations.

The restaurant is in Vesterbro.  Formerly the red light and meat packing district (interesting confluence of trades there), it's now a hipster neighbourhood heaving with trendy restaurants and cool boutiques. We were a bit anxious about those "hip" and "trendy" labels.  Face it, that's not really us.  But the Danes have a flair for laid-back inclusivity.  So while I might have been in one of the hottest spots in town, I simply felt like I was in a cozy, welcoming bistro with friendly service and a nice buzz.

In this hideously expensive city, the Cochons keeps prices down with a limited menu.  If you're coming through the door, you'll be having three courses for 295 kroner (about £30).  The starters will be a grazing platter of three items to share (a jerusalem artichoke bake was our favourite), and they take the same approach with dessert.  Creme brûlées, chocolate pots, crumbles, etc. served in homey mason jars ready for friendly sharing.  You'll probably have a choice of either fish or meat; again, two people need to choose one dish to share.  We went for the catch of the day mostly to keep the wine choice simple.  Alcohol taxes are very high in Denmark, so even when you find a reasonable restaurant, your drinks are likely to double the bill.  You can make your meal here more special by adding on extra courses (foie gras in between starter and main, cheese at the end).  We did this, as of course I can never resist foie gras, but it was actually a mistake.  Portions were hearty, and it was really too much food.  The three courses were ample, and the dining deal of the trip.

The local knowledge came from the front desk at the Hotel Phoenix, much better than our last Copenhagen hotel and a place we're likely to return based on a combination of price and location.  Just behind Amalienborg Palace, a quick walk from Nyhavn, you could survive nicely here without ever needing transport beyond your two feet.  Decor is white and gold, marble and pale wood.  The rooms have an old fashioned, unfussy elegance and those with exterior views have tall windows taking in some impressive architectural views.  I was less enamoured with the public spaces, which felt a bit like a marble sarcophagus crossed with a conference centre.  The breakfast room was perfectly functional and served a great morning buffet (hot and cold, fabulous pastries), but looked like an awkward pop up when transformed to a restaurant at night.  We didn't eat there.

We did, however, dine across the hall in the bar.  Murdoch's Books and Ale is accessible from the main street (Bredgade) through a separate door, and its English library decor (dark wood, glass-fronted bookshelves) with somewhat painful 1970s retro carpeting looks nothing like the rest of the hotel.  This odd cognitive dissonance was further enhanced the first night, when a Dane with a Yankees cap occupied the bar and country music played on the sound system.  But it's worth a visit for the range of tasty Danish beers.  Many of them aren't exported, and are definitely worth exploration.  The biggest surprise?  One of the best hamburgers I've had in years.  Better than any of my "go to" places in the states.  Brioche bun, loaded with extras, generous patty tasting of proper meat, soft and juicy and served at a perfect medium rare.  If I lived in Copenhagen, I'd be a regular here.


Our first night, having arrived late and being travel weary, we followed the tourists to Nyhavn.  The street along the dock is a restaurant row laid out for foreign visitors, and every one has a similar menu.  Pickled herring platters, fresh fish, pork.  After a wander down the row we returned to the first one that caught our eye, at the very start of the options.  Restaurant Barock was perfectly pleasant, if nothing to write home about.  Its high points are an opulent room with painted ceiling (hence the "barock"), a good view and a jazz standards soundtrack.  We dined on lobster and veal, which I suspect they turn out night after night all year.  It tasted a bit like upscale banquet food.  Which is probably what we deserved for venturing onto tourist row.  Fortunately, it wasn't a tourist trap, being tasty enough and decent value for money.

Had I known just how amazing that burger would be, however, we would have dined in at Murdoch's two nights in a row.  The place is another reason for returning to the Phoenix.

Shared stories, shared meals; family and countryside show off the real Denmark

Most tourists to Denmark don't leave Copenhagen.  Here's what I learned when I did.

• It's not the flat, Netherlands-like landscape I was expecting.  Quite the contrary.  A gentle, rolling countryside alternates farm fields with strips of forest and charming villages advertising prosperity with their grain silos.  At times, it reminded me of mid-Missouri.
• Denmark may be edging out Germany in my best bakery products race.  The stuff we had in Copenhagen was good; the cakes that came out to grace family tables were astonishing.
• Undulating coastlines and abundant valleys mean lots of lakes and marshes.  Ergo, lots of birds.  No wonder the Danes are so fond of eating duck.  (My husband tells me the same conditions breed monster mosquitos in the summer; that's still to be discovered.)
• Danish vernacular church architecture is beautiful and worth exploration.  A distinctive look combining stepped gables, interesting towers and decorative brickwork creates the focal point for rural views.  

First, a bit of geography.  Denmark is comprised of one big peninsula pushing north from Germany, plus a bunch of islands.  Copenhagen is on the east coast of the island of Zealand; our travels were confined there.  The roots of the modern Bencards lie in farming country to the south, on a big bulge of land that pushes eastward beneath the long bay that sits south of Copenhagen.  We spent one day exploring there.  Another trip took us northwest to a summer house -- now converted to year-round use -- in a nature sanctuary brought to life by some of those previously mentioned wetlands.

Our southern swing was exciting as it brought all the family stories I've heard for the past five years to life.  Here was the rambling farm at Hojstrup, where my husband's grandparents ... like so many Danes ... helped their Jewish fellow citizens to escape the occupying Nazis.  Seeing the farm and its outbuildings, with the Baltic Sea and the tiny port of Rodvig in view over the field, it was easy to imagine the fearful, fleeing refugees hiding, then slipping away in the darkness.  And to both wonder at, and admire, the risks those helping them took.  As the invaders started to suspect something was up, the Bencards eventually had to leave the farm and go into hiding themselves.  After the war they returned, and continued as tenants here for decades.  In typical Danish fashion, nobody in the family finds this particularly extraordinary.  It's just what the Danes did.  Others work this land now, but family members still own farms in the area.

We gathered at one of them for dinner ... a table groaning with delights, surrounded by cousins of our generation and the one below.  You'll get plenty of traditional Danish seafood in Copenhagen: fish roe, pickled herring in multiple varieties, salmon.  It might taste similar to the "at home" table, but the tourist will never be able to match the family experience of toasting.  The Danes love to raise a formal one.  A tap of silverware on crystal demands silence.  Then a raised glass, the spoken toast, an exchange of glances with everyone around the room (no clinking, heaven forbid!), then a sip, then another exchange of glances before conversation resumes.  This takes a bit of getting used to, and the regular injection of silent pauses within a dinner party adds an interesting dynamic.  But I found it an excellent way to bring a big table together.  Because just about everyone at the table gives a toast

over the course of the evening, you get to know them ... and get quite merry!

Get past the nuances of language, food and tradition, of course, and people are people.  By the time we moved past the lip-smacking venison stew, into a decadent stack of dessert pancakes, it could have been a farm table in the American Midwest.  A feeling exacerbated by the fact that the next generation, who studied English across the pond, have flawless American accents, and the cousins put classic country onto the sound system to make me feel at home.  (Except that this was the tidiest farm I've ever been on, from the raked gravel of the courtyard to the gleaming surfaces of the combine harvester to barn floors swept clean enough to eat off.  I'm not sure if this is all Danes, or just the cousins, but I suspect even Marie Antoinette's play farm at Versailles was never this pristine.  Yet this Danish model produces mountains of wheat and barley.)

While in this part of the world we also had a wander around Vemmetofte, the former royal country estate that spent time as a retirement home for genteel ladies in the last quarter of the 20th century.  Though she only occupied one apartment, the American in me ... still delighted and impressed by all things royal ... loved the idea of my husband's grandmother living in a palace.  The grand building also had lovely formal gardens and an historic chapel where the cousins showing us around got married, so it was a trip down memory lane them all.

Should you be heading this way as a tourist, however, the most significant sight is Stevns Klint.  Those are the cliffs where the county of Stevns drops into the Baltic.  Yes, cliffs.  Think Denmark is flat as a pancake?  Think again.  These white chalk walls rise up to 130 feet and, like their geological cousins in the UK, are topped by protected countryside.  The area is a Unesco World Heritage site and the length of the cliffs is a popular and picturesque walk.  On a clear day ... which our visit was ... you can even see the suspension bridge to Sweden hovering, ghostly, on the horizon.  The most popular stop along the cliffs' length is Hojerup Church, where half the ancient monument tumbled into the sea in 1928.  It's been restored and shored up since.  Now you can see medieval wall paintings revealed in the restoration, but the real point is to step onto a balcony occupying the space where the rest of the church would have been, and take in the view.  Locals know that this is a top picnic spot; we observed many families sharing a meal amongst the nodding spring flowers.

Our weather held the next day as we headed to a point on the coast almost diagonally opposite.  Here the landscape was more wooded and, being that much further from Copenhagen, more populated by small summer houses than permanent settlements.  It's easy to see why people would want to spend time here.  Spring bulbs dotted the forest floor with colour, light glinted off watery inlets, reeds danced in the marshes and birdsong combined with the wind and creaking branches to create a calming soundtrack.

Two generations under the benign gaze of another

Before our walk through this sylvan peace, we had another traditional Danish lunch.  The Bencards have a long history and plenty of good storytellers to relate it; much of this visit was spent sharing those tales.  And now I'm finally starting to grasp why my husband doesn't immediately open the pickled herring I occasionally buy.  Like any country's sacred family lunch traditions, it's only half about the food.  Without the family, the conviviality and the toasts, it's not the same.

These are the truly Danish experiences a tourist will never have.  I'm delighted to have "married in", and am appreciating the country, its people and its culture more each year.  My prized souvenir from this visit?  A rullepolse press. This item of kit will allow me to attempt the spiced, rolled pork belly sausage that is an element in many of those festive meals.  Now ... I just need the convivial table companions ready to raise a toast or two.  Who's in?

Spring sunshine gilds Copenhagen with magic

Copenhagen undergoes a Cinderella-like transformation in the sunshine.  I enjoyed my first trip here*, but besides the palaces and Tivoli, the cityscape didn't charm me.  What a difference it makes when you can look up, rather than snuggling into multiple layers of warmth and keeping your eyes on the snowy pavement.

Turns out Copenhagen is a city of fanciful rooflines, gold-gilt spires and glimmering windows.  Look up and be rewarded.  The exuberantly decorated loggia of Danish Royal Theatre tries to out-do the Italians at their own game.  The gilded spiral of the tower of Our Saviour in Christianshavn is truly a stairway to heaven.  The magnificent dragon spire of the old stock exchange, comprised of the twined tails of four beasts who glower protectively at the city below, is worthy of a fantasy film set.  The Marmokirken (marble church) is a small St. Peters.  The stepped rooflines of Nyhavn combine the look of the Netherlands with the crazy colours of the Caribbean.  (The Danes did, after all, once own St. Thomas.)  Every so often, one of the giddy towers of Tivoli's rides comes into view on the horizon.  The city hall bristles with neo-Gothic crenelations, growling bears, dragons and copper-topped pinnacles.  And it's not just old-world architecture.  The new extension to the Royal Danish Library,  nicknamed the Black Diamond, leans out over canal and pavement at irregular angles to reflect the city back on itself.  Copenhagen's architecture is exuberant, even frivolous.  I'm not sure how I managed to miss it the first time around but, with a backdrop of blue skies, it's unforgettable.

The best way to drink all this in is from one of the canal tours that leaves regularly from Nyhavn.  You'll see the city from a whole different perspective, and get a chance to glide through Christianshavn, a mainly-residential neighbourhood filled with hip flats in renovated warehouses and industrial buildings that's off the tourist track.

Palaces dominated my sightseeing favourites last trip, and I added a new one this time.  Christiansborg houses the prime minister's office, the parliament and the supreme court.  This is the only country, according to the tour, that has all three branches of government in the same building.  The royal reception rooms are also here, and that's the highlight of a tour.  The grand architecture and lavish decor may deceive you into thinking this is a relic of the 18th century, but what you see was only finished in 1928 after a fire devastated its predecessor.

The highlight of a visit, in my opinion, is even more modern.  Queen Margrethe II's tapestries were a gift commemorating her 50th birthday, completed and installed in 1999 to mark her 60th.  Based on sketches by well-known Danish artist Bjorn Norgaard, they tell the history of the country in vivid colours and modern style.  Despite the cutting-edge Scandinavian design, they were woven by the Gobelins factory and fit comfortably in this traditional interior.

And here I confess a family link.  My husband's uncle was involved in their creation and is actually pictured in one of them, so this immediately tops my Copenhagen favourites.  Other sights include the throne room, with its parquet floor designed as guide to help people who can't turn their back on the queen to reverse out gracefully; a massive group portrait of the extended royal family in the early 1900s hinting at the personal frictions that would play into World War I; a drawing room where the Italian style "grotesque" decorations on walls and furniture feature a Noah's Ark of animals, painted by an artist who did posters for the Copenhagen zoo; a sumptuous black and gold ballroom and a display closet off to one side filled with Royal Copenhagen Flora Danica china.

Sitting in Christiansborg's shadow you'll find Thorvaldsen's Museum, certainly one of the quirkiest I've ever wandered through.  Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844) was a Danish sculptor who spent most of his life working in Rome,  highly influenced by ... and working in the style of ... Canova.  In fact if you knew of Canova but had never heard of Thorvaldsen (my situation until recently), you might think his neo-classical nymphs, youths and heroes were more of the older Italian's work.  I discovered Thorvaldsen thanks to my husband's cousin, who works here (museums run in the family).  It was well worth a visit, even without the personal link.  Thorvaldsen ... obviously a man with a serious ego ... established and designed it himself.  The architecture is a quirky mix of Greco-Roman with hints of Etruscan and Egyptian thrown in, the outside is covered with a fresco of the artist's triumphant return to his native city, and he's buried in the courtyard.  Inside, beautifully proportioned neo-classical rooms with appropriately painted walls and ceilings provide a dramatic setting for scores of the master's sculptures and original plaster casts.

We also visited the much larger Glyptoteket, a major national museum that's like a cross between the British Museum (sculpture, antiquities) and the National Gallery (paintings).  Opened in 1906, it's right next to Tivoli and it's admittedly a bit weird to be contemplating artefacts of ancient Rome to the screams of fairground rides, looking over the heads of marble emperors to see the loops of a roller coaster through the high windows.  The Glyptoteket is more memorable for its interiors than for any specifics in its collection.  This isn't the kind of place to which you make a pilgrimage to see some famous item featured in your art history textbook, but you'll take a lot of photos of beautiful combinations of interiors and antiquities.

There are some temple-like neo-classical spaces populated with picturesque crowds of 19th century sculptures.  An impressive colonnaded courtyard shows off full-length Roman statuary in imperial grandeur.  The Winter Garden, a semi-tropically planted courtyard at the museum's heart is an excellent place to stop for lunch.  In addition to lots of Greco-Roman stuff, there are representative collections for Egypt and the ancient Near East.  To me, the only collection that felt world class was the Etruscan, which was the most comprehensive I've seen outside of Italy.  We didn't make it upstairs to the paintings; we'll have to save that for another visit.

Having drunk our fill of culture and architecture, we spent our last day ... a satisfyingly sunny and relatively warm Easter Monday ... at Tivoli.  Once again I was struck by the similarities to Disneyland (California) which Tivoli inspired when Walt visited.  And like the Disneyland of my childhood, you can pay one price just to get in to stroll, another to include the rides, or buy ride tickets separately.  We just did the first, happy to wander and enjoy the sights.

The gardens here are as good as the rides, and at this time of year it's a mini Keukenhoff, with impressive massed plantings of tulips and hyacinths at ground level, and flowering trees above.  Areas of the park are themed to match the rides, flowing from an alpine village to a Hans Christian Andersen-style high street to the exotic East to a lagoon dominated by a pirate ship.  Yes, Disney didn't stretch too far from the original concept, he just made it bigger.  There are a lot more restaurants and entertainment venues here than in the American copy, however, making this a much
more grown up place to come for a pleasant day out.  We stumbled upon the Tivoli Boys' Guard just as they assembled for their regular march through the park, playing rousing tunes in classic marching band style.

Sitting in the sunshine, eating ice cream, listening to the boys with a field of tulips stretching in front of me and a mish-mash of fantasy architecture around me.  Happiness.  All the magic of a sunny Copenhagen, distilled and echoed in one place.

*For past Copenhagen coverage, you can check out these links:
Copenhagen sparkles through the Arctic chill (Sightseeing favourites of my first trip)
Copenhagen sightseeing:  The best of the rest (Including Tivoli in the holiday season)
From honey to high cuisine, Danish food surprises and delights

New Somerset House restaurant will put a Spring in your step

London's Somerset House continues its transition from grand office building to entertainment complex with a new restaurant in its northwest corner.  You'll fall in love with Spring, the latest venture from Australian Chef and food writer Skye Gyngell, before you taste your first bite ... because this is one of the most elegant, soothing and refined dining rooms in all of London.

From the potted trees in the hall, leading you to the front door like a trail of arboreal bread crumbs, to the garden room ahead of you when you come into the reception and bar area, to the colour pallet of light, fresh whites, green and greys, the look evokes the name.  Add a forest of stately white columns holding up the roof, massive, arched Georgian windows and modern art that looks like colonies of abstract butterflies have settled on the walls, and it's hard to believe one of London's busiest roads is just outside.  The whole place feels marvellously pastoral.  That extends to the staff, who wear a range custom-created linen outfits in those delicate spring colours.  Frankly, they're missing a trick not opening a clothing boutique next door.  I've often envied a restaurant's china or crystal; this is the first time I've wanted the maitre d's dress.

The food lives up to the surroundings.  Light, fresh, locally sourced, elegantly presented.  The menu's classic European with an in Italian bent.  My salad of burrata, san daniele prosciutto and baby greens showed off how good their sourcing was.  The cheese was so fresh it had hardly completed it's transformation from cream.  The ham was of a quality un-obtainable in regular markets and the greens had the sharp bite and clear flavour that fades soon after harvest.  Around the table, everyone else's eyes widened and lips curved into a smile as they moaned appreciatively over delights like crab ravioli and nettle risotto.

The mains kept up the excellence.  My rabbit ... which I contend is the hardest of all meats to cook well ... was succulent perfection.  Game birds and fish of the day underpinned the seasonality of the place.  On to some soul satisfying chocolate.  The details of which, I must admit, I can't really remember because we were pairing everything with some stunning wines.  Kudos to a wait staff who could sensitively and helpfully steer us from our original choices to something just a little more perfect to match the dishes.  Including a range of dessert wines and after dinner drinks to seal the warm afterglow.

There's only one problem with Spring:  it's solidly in "expense account" territory.  I was the guest of some very special colleagues who were giving me a send-off from my last job.  With sta
rters averaging £15, mains £30 and desserts £12 ... with an accordingly-priced wine list ... you're not going to be popping in here every day.  Although there is a set three course lunch for £29.50, which would give you a taste of the place if not the full indulgence.

As more of the Inland Revenue packs up and abandons Somerset House, I look forward to the Spring boutique and then, please, the Spring Spa.  With this combination of design, food and drink, I never want to leave.