With grapes and bronze, artists bring the world together

In between the two starry dinners of the last entry came the Caviste game night and wine tasting.

Wine is a highly personal thing, with an almost infinite variety of choice. The ideal is to have a trusted vendor who combines knowledge of their stock with an understanding of your tastes, thus being able to match you with interesting options. We undoubtably have this at Berry's warehouse shop, where we've bought most of our decent stuff since moving to Basingstoke. But Berry's is unashamedly a French specialist. I've always felt we were missing new world options there, and though they offer great deals on fine wines you almost feel embarrassed buying too much that's under a tenner. Enter, quite possibly, Caviste.

This little store within a store is effectively the wine counter at Newlyn's farm shop, so we've bought bottles sporadically from them over the past couple of years. But it's thanks to their union with Newlyn's cooking school ... first at the Spanish tapas night, and last Thursday night over game ... I'm getting the idea they may become our go-to consultants and providers in the future.

Mark Bedford, who ran the tapas tasting, was on hand again but this time for a more formal matching of food and beverage.

We started with a cremant de Bourgogne from Domaine Deliance which, in common with most of its Burgundian cousins, is a head-to-head competitor to really good champagnes for about half the price.  An excellent consideration for holiday tippling at £14.95 a bottle.

On to dinner, prepared by head chef Hannah who's appeared in these pages before as chief instructor at the cooking school.  First course, a game bird terrine with dense layers of partridge, pheasant and grouse bound together in minced pork with pistachio and cranberry, bound tightly in prosciutto.  Vegetarians need not apply.  We tried two whites with this, first a South African chenin blanc (AA Badenhorst Secateurs 2011), then the Domaine Cheveau Pouilly-Fuisse Trois Terrois 2010.  The first was a great deal at £9.95, with a depth and richness you don't normally get in bottles under a tenner.  But the second ... at just under double the price ... was a knockout, with rich fruits to stand up to strong flavours cut with a minerality that kept things clean and not too heavy.  Six bottles joined the Bencard cellar, for very special dinners.

Second course a venison stew draped over Hannah's silky, creamy mash.  The pungent flavours needed a bold wine for balance.  Mark's first option won a smile with its Sicilian origin, but the high tannins made the Gran Feudo Paradiso Rosso 2010 too astringent for me.  That contrast, possibly, made the New Zealand Pinot Noir that followed all the better.  A magnificent glass exploding with berries, big, bold, smooth; just the kind of thing I'm always going for.  The equivalent of a really fine, old Burgundy, Mark pointed out, but at half the price.  (£17.95)  So six of those came home, too.

With all the week's food and drink I needed some exercise.  Sadly, the most I got was walking around the Bronze exhibit at the Royal Academy.  But if brain waves trigger any caloric use, it was the equivalent of a big workout.

This is the first exhibition catalogue I've bought in more than a decade, because the show was so fantastic I wanted to bring it home with me to live over.  It's only on 'til the 9th of December, but if you can fit it into this busy season you really should.  It's one of the finest exhibits to hit London in years.

The concept is unique.  Rather than focusing on one artist, time period or movement, the RA picks a medium:  bronze.  Something that most cultures have worked in.  A material that has infinite variety and an almost spooky ability to convey movement and life.  It wasn't much of a stretch to imagine most of the beings in this exhibit giving a good stretch and climbing off their plinths for a party when the punters go home.

And what an eclectic group that would be.  Renaissance Christian saints, greek youths, Roman senators, Hindu gods and American cowboys, joined by a whole zoo of lions, elephants, horses, dogs and one particularly impressive Roman ram.  Familiar icons of Western civilisation are here.  In fact, any fan of Florence will feel in such familiar surroundings you'll swear you can feel the sun on your shoulders and the taste of pistachio gelato on your tongue.  There's Ghiberti's St. Stephen, liberated from his niche on Orsanmichele; Giambologna's Mercury and his quirky turkey from the Bargello; il Porcellino, the magnificent wild boar whose snout you've stroked before shopping the central market; the Medici Riccardi horse and Cellini's Perseus and Medusa, which you've probably lounged beneath while shaking off tourist exhaustion in the Loggia dei Lanzi.  And that's just the tip of the classical iceberg.  This is one of those exhibitions where, at every turn, you see something familiar and famous.

But it's the unfamiliar that's perhaps most memorable.  A 19th century Japanese incense burner held aloft by three almost-life-sized demons of terrifying but compelling fury.  One of Remington's famous slices of the wild west, with four cowboys and their horses galloping toward you at full tilt.  An elegant and streamlined horse pulling a cart with an intricately engraved gold and bronze disk from prehistoric Denmark, more than 3,400 years old!  A 17th century Dutch pug, so lifelike you instinctively stand back to prevent the spray of drool you might get when he shakes his noble jowls.  The beguiling dignity of the heads of African nobles of the Benin tribe.  A hindu god and goddess, their multiple limbs entwined in a sensuous dance and their bodies polished to a golden sheen.

Taken together, this is a testimony to man's ability to create beauty.  Through thousands of years, over multiple continents, in radically different cultures, artists have taken the same base metal and made magic.  Drink it in.  And then, maybe, kick back with some nice wine.  The story of the grape isn't so different.

It's a starry week as L'Ortolan delivers once again, and Murano changes my mind

I knew the week was going to be a Weight Watchers disaster when I brought up my diary on Monday morning. Here's what I saw.

Wednesday: Lunch with Martin (at Michelin-starred L'Ortolan)
Thursday: Game dinner/wine tasting at Newlyn's
Friday: Dinner for Lisa's Mom (at Michelin-starred Murano)
Saturday: Penny's birthday party (expect heavy drinking)
Sunday: Medill Dinner (Bumpkin, South Ken)

Oh, dear. Dangerous. But a great deal of fun. Let's start with the starry spots for this entry. 

It was my third time at L'Ortolan, but my first on a business outing. I already knew the food was good, but now I can add that the venue is quiet enough to have undistracted conversations, it offers broad tables for spreading out documents and has a staff ready to work around the ebbs and flows of your business conversation. And who'll tuck you away in the conservatory with more coffee when your meeting goes on so long they need to start setting the place up for dinner. Additional kudos to the sommelier and head waiter who recognised me and treated me as a returning regular. (Either they have remarkable memories, or we made a very big impression at last month's anniversary dinner.)

The food on this third outing was consistent in quality of taste and presentation, but completely different once again in specific dishes. No resting on laurels here, rather a consistent rotation of food influenced by the seasons. Lunch is always the most cost-effective way to try a Michelin-starred place, and this is even more true outside of London. The five course tasting menu at L'Ortolan is £38, with no difference in quality from dinner. (But perhaps slightly smaller portions.)

We started with a plate elevating the humble beetroot to art: slices of red and white root, cubes of solid red accenting scorched, smoky goat cheese. On to a duck bon bon. A meatball of confit leg, rolled in strands of something delicate and crispy, fried and served on a bed of celeriac remoulade, with a couple slices of fir-smoked duck on the side. Absolutely exquisite. I could eat that for lunch daily! The fish course was a delicate morsel of plaice served with a finger-sized cannelloni stuffed with brown shrimp and chicken, brought together on the plate with ribbons of zucchini on a bed of very light red sauce. Finally onto a dish that heralded the oncoming winter: oxtail filled with mushroom mousse with a turnip puree. Hearty, substantial flavours made delicate by its small serving size. Just a few bites to satisfy.

And, of course, to leave room for pudding. Billed as a dark chocolate mousse, I would have described it as a lighter chocolate truffle rolled in dark chocolate shavings. Better, to my mind. Served with a sheet of salt caramel jelly draped enticingly over a scattering of toasted hazelnuts. Perfect. And, because my colleague Martin and I are as serious about our food as about our corporate copywriting, we had to order an extra dessert. Because we were both keen to experience squash ice cream. More delicate than pumpkin (which is, of course, very familiar to the American palate), served on gingery biscuit with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg. This would be an exquisite gourmet twist on Thanksgiving tradition.

 That amazing meal would satisfy most people as their special meal out for months. Thus it was with just a hint of embarrassment that I crossed the threshold at Angela Hartnett's Murano 50 hours later. Don't blame me, blame Lisa. Her mother was visiting from Minnesota and we were giving her the star treatment. Readers may remember that Piers and I dined here for his birthday in July and, though we were impressed, I questioned whether the Michelin star and the price was worth it. Was Murano that much better then less-famous Italian spots in London? Then, the answer was no. This week, it was a definitive yes. 

Perhaps it was that dinner there is superior to lunch. Perhaps we got lucky at Como Lario our first time around, since our return visit in September was decidedly average. Perhaps it was the fact that the maitre d' not only remembered us from July, but remembered Piers' tomato allergy. And perhaps it was that our hostess Lisa, one half of that dangerous duo of Northwestern Girl wine expertise, teamed up with the sommelier to keep a steady flow of unique and memorable bottles coming with each course. Whatever the reason, the combination jumped Murano into the pantheon of one of the best Italian meals I've had in London. Or maybe anywhere.

One of the innovations of Hartnett's place is that, though the menu is organised roughly into starters, pastas, fish courses, etc., you can have anything you want, in any sequence. The kitchen simply adjusts the size to match your order. We went for five courses at £85. Knowing two of those would be dessert and cheese, the five of us set to work choosing our trio of savouries.

I started with slow-cooked aubergine (eggplant) with tomato, mozzarella and basil, one of those dishes that shows off how, when you have the best ingredients, you don't have to muck them up with complexity. On to quail agnolotti (a type of ravioli typical of the Piedmont region) with white onion puree, rosemary jus and black truffle. Delicate pasta, rich meat, the foresty flavour of the fungus. Wow. Building up to monkfish on a potato puree with smoked bone marrow and glazed chicken wing, demonstrating that particular fish as worthy of 

appearing on the meat menu as on the watery one.

There were many shared forks and eyes rolling in ecstasy around the table, though I can happily report that none of the samples I had of other dishes made me wish I'd ordered differently. (Although Piers' astonishing pork belly, pictured, came close.) There's the standard of a perfect meal, I'd say, when everyone has tastes of each others' plate, agrees it's all good, yet each individual is convinced she or he made the best choice.

Dessert was a heavenly pistachio souffle that managed to be light and airy while capturing a strong essence of the nut's flavour, spiked by the dark chocolate sauce poured down a hole poked in the souffle's centre. And then the cheese cart. Heavily French with a few Italian and English choices, notable for my favourite pouligny-St.-Pierre (a pyramid-shaped, crumbly goat's cheese) and a baked vacherin they brought out of the kitchen and served in steaming tea spoons.

The wine list here is a weighty, hard-backed tome, difficult to navigate without the sommelier because it's skewed towards tiny organic, bio-dynamic vineyards that supply the restaurant direct. Everything we tasted was a wonderful discovery, but this isn't stuff you're likely to find on offer in your local shop. The most memorable bottles were Sicilian and French. The first a frappato, a little known blending grape used exclusively in the 2010 from the Occhipinti vineyard. The light colour belied a deep, complex wine loaded with soft fruits. The second, from La Terrasse d'Elise, was the 2009 Le Pradel. Another red, this one spicier and moving to a port-like flavour, perfect with the diversity of the cheese course.

Most people don't eat this well in a lifetime, and I've done it twice in a week. Yes, life is good.

Not the usual grand tour, we wrapped things up in the Low Countries

Our European wanderings ended in Belgium and the Netherlands.  This might seem a surprising choice, but we were thinking value for money.  We'd splashed out on Eurail tickets, and there are few places on the continent where so many major sights are packed in such a small area.  

Wednesday, July 10, 1986

Amsterdam.  We bought a museum card that lasts for all of 1986.  It's a good deal.  $7.50 for a student (my ID still works) and $20 for mom.  It gets you into all the museums in the country.

We started with the Rijksmuseum Van Gogh.  He's not my top artist, but the museum is impressive.  Over half of all his paintings are here, kept and passed down by his brother.  The museum is now run by a nephew.  The museum is a big, modern cube with lots of natural light.  Paintings are arranged chronologically, and there's plenty of room to back up and appreciate things from afar.

Back to the main Rijksmuseum with room after room of old masters, Dutch history and furniture.  I was particularly captivated by the magnificent ship's models.  Then to Dam Square.  Into the main church there, which has a magnificent pulpit and organ, but is plain otherwise.  For the first time in this trip we encountered the horrible scourge of Protestantism, stripping away all beauty.  The royal palace on the square is a dingy place with bums asleep under its stairs.

In fact, the whole town is grubby.  When we checked into the hotel the bell hop asked if we wanted to know where the Red Light district was.  Why in the world would a middle-aged mother and her daughter want to go look at that?  There's so much culture here, but it sits side by side with legal prostitution and drugs, making it a more tawdry and dangerous place than anywhere else we've seen.

In another square there is a flower market with such color and variety, and amazingly cheap flower bulbs.  We found delicious broodjes (Dutch sandwiches) and pastries to eat in Rembrandt Square, then we walked to his house.  It's not what I expected, in that it's not furnished, but rather a gallery with a collection of his drawings.  I was more impressed by the Hinlopen Huis museum, a magnificent 17th century town house on the Keizersgracht canal.  It gives a sense of how the wealthy lived.  Its marble stairs and foyer are gorgeous, and there's one blue room that's especially beautiful.

Afterwards we rented a canal bike, a paddle boat you can use on the canals.  They're $7 an hour and you can get everywhere.  It's a very tranquil way to explore, and good exercise.

July 11
We took an early train to to Delft.  What peace there is here!  We explored the Het Prinsenhof, an old palace of the House of Orange.

And here the diary ends.  I know we loitered in the china shops in Delft and went home with tiles; they eventually ended up set into the shower in the master suite at my mother's house.  We spent a couple more days in the Netherlands.  We went to The Hague and toured the government buildings there.  I remember Ghent, where we went primarily to see the altarpiece by van Eyck but discovered the magnificent Castle of the Counts.  We spent another day in Bruges, beguiled by its charming canals and grand medieval architecture.  I remember gawping at all the most famous Flemish art in the Groeninge Museum and seeing Michaelangelo's only work outside of Italy, a perfect madonna and child, in the Church of Our Lady.  I don't know if it would have made the diary, but what I remember most is tasting Belgian chocolate for the first time:  White and dark striped sea shells, sold in paper cones by a little old man off a canal-side cart.

We moved on to Brussels, where I recall the Grand Place, tasting French fries with mustard/mayo sauce for the first time, and springing for a proper dinner in a fancy restaurant since we were nearing the end of our trip.   I remember few sights in Brussels, but do remember leaving my grandmother's umbrella in that restaurant after hauling it all over Europe with me.

And I remember the luggage getting heavier and heavier.  Clearly, these were the days before weight limits.  Bavarian carvings, German beer steins, Austrian clothing, swiss watches, Italian jewellery, Delft tiles, big bags of tulip bulbs and stacks of guidebooks.  I can still recall running for a train in Amsterdam, carrying all those bags, and my heart almost bursting with the effort.

We ended our trip back in Luxembourg, from where we needed to get our Iceland Air flight.  We stayed in what's now the Sofitel, and what was then a newly-opened luxury hotel offering introductory deals to travel agents.  We were exhausted and the room was gorgeous.  We never left it.  After more than a month in Europe, mostly sightseeing at an aggressive pace, I didn't need to see anything else.  Luxembourg would be left for another time.  I never would have guessed that, more than 20 years later, it would be come the familiar home of dear friends.

There were so many reasons not to take this trip.  We didn't have the money.  The world was a dangerous place.  A month was excessive.  ANY international travel was wildly extravagant, and I should have been getting straight to work after getting my degree.  My mother's sister and brother in law, playing pater familias, expressed the gravest disapproval.  Mom didn't care.  She wanted me to have a proper "Grand Tour" and she wanted to come.  She was convinced that such travel would have an enduring effect on the rest of my life.

You know, I think she was right.

McDonalds in Milan? I still had a lot to learn in 1986.

I like to think I was born with good taste and culinary sophistication.  But diaries don't lie.  When in Italy my 20-year-old self sought out American food, eschewed rare meat and had never heard of insalata caprese.  There's no doubt, however, that this was a turning point in my life.  I mention food more in this part of the diary than in any other, and it's clear from these brief entries that I was open to new things and starting to learn.  Some fertile seeds were planted in these days.

July 4, 1986
I'm homesick.  It's strange to be in a foreign place on this big holiday, with nobody celebrating and it just being a normal day.  But it's important in its own way.  We were meeting the Bozzis, old Italian friends who lived in St. Louis for two years before returning to their native Milan.  (This was the family with whom I spent the summer when I first visited Europe in 1979.)

Mrs. Bozzi met us at Milan central station.  She looks exactly the same.  Slim, sporty, elegant, maybe a dusting of grey at the sides that wasn't there before.  We went to their Milano apartment which, like so much in this city, is ugly and unremarkable on the outside but gorgeous inside.  Lots of space, towering ceilings, heavy antique furniture, big pastoral paintings.

We headed out for a cappuccino, which Mrs. Bozzi explained was a morning drink.  No Italian would use milk in their coffee after lunch.  Then on to San Ambrogio.  It's Mrs. Bozzi's parish church, and she's in charge of their fund raising.  Thus she pulled strings and got us into the crypt, currently closed for restoration.  They're stringing the bones of three skeletal saints back together.  These preserved skeletons in their glass coffins are one of my clearest memories from my first trip to Italy, so macabre and alien.

Next on to Sforza Castle, which is a huge place.  There's lots there as you tour through the castle rooms, including a wine arbor room by Leonardo.  There's religious sculpture, armour and an unfinished Michaelangelo pieta that's very famous, but which I didn't find that thrilling.  I've never really warmed to unfinished art, though it is interesting to see a work in process.  Nearby we wandered through the Brera, a small museum with a famous collection.  It's not really geared for foreign tourists, as all the labels are in Italian.  The biggie here is Raphael's wedding of the virgin and Mantegna's Dead Christ.

We walked to La Scala.  After all those wide, straight Northern Streets I admit to being annoyed with the narrow, crowded ones.  The combo of heat and hunger made me and mom grouchy, so we stumbled into a burger joint in the Galleria.  I must give fast food joints at home more credit.  Hamburgers here suck.  But it was a needed energy boost to get us to the Duomo.

This is the most magnificent Gothic church in Europe.  Still, after I have seen so many others.  At about 4:30 we left the city and headed up to San Vito, the Bozzi's country place.  Nothing has changed but the faces.  It's still an idyllic place, though the view was hazed in today.

Elena is the same.  Over-energized, studying hard, gorgeous.  We swam and caught up.  Eventually we headed off with the family and some of their friends to the Varese Golf Club for an excellent dinner of pasta followed by some of the finest fillet mignon I've ever seen.  Only problem was that it was almost raw.  Evidently that's the way they do it here.  Mom and I sent ours back for more cooking.  They came out still too rare for us but we felt we had to be polite and eat them.

July 5
I was sad earlier in the trip that we couldn't get to Isola Bella, but we got there today.  It was just mom and me, and it was very foggy again.  I had an odd sense of deja vu; it's been eight years but not a thing has changed, and I remembered all of it as if it were yesterday.  I'd loved it so much then, and I loved it now.

The fading opulence perhaps didn't impress me quite so much, as I've seen so many other historic palaces since.  But it was the first palace I ever saw, so will be special.  Mom loved the gardens.  Later, back at San Vito, we went to mass and then had a simple supper of spaghetti carbonara on the terrace overlooking the valley below.

July 6
So, this is how rich people live.  We went to a tennis tournament at one of the other villas.  Each of the villas in the area is like San Vito, big estates owned by families with multiple generations and friends staying there.  The villas put together tennis teams and play each other at different courts throughout the summer, with buffets and drinks afterwards.  I wandered around formal gardens with Roman statuary, just like places we paid to get in ... but people live here.  The buffet table was groaning with delicacies, rice salads, quiches, marinated vegetables and fruit tortes.

July 7
It's finally clear.  We can see all the way to the mountains.  What a great day to go to Sacro Monte for the views.  There's a village at the top.  It's a place of pilgrimage.  There's a small Baroque church at the peak with a glass encased black marble madonna.  There's a chapel going up the hill for each of the mysteries, with life-sized wood carvings of the events.  It's all beautiful, but in disgraceful shape.

We headed back to Milano where lunch was a tomato salad with really soft mozzarella called insalata caprese.  I'd love to try this at home; I wonder if we can get this kind of cheese?  And then back onto the train, our time in Italy over all too quickly.

We have our own little cabin this time with a sink, luggage compartments and a steward to bring us food and make up the beds.  Despite being so comfortable I had trouble getting to sleep.  I was too fascinated looking in the illuminated windows of houes as we road through Switzerland.  Eventually, though, I slept soundly as we went over St. Gottard's Pass and back through Lucerne.

Looking back, the German trip had a lot of highlights, but not much depth

One of the differentiators of this trip, my old journals remind me, was just how empty Europe was.  International travel was a lot rarer then, of course.  European schools would still have been in session.  More importantly, most Americans were holed up at home, terrified of the thought of overseas.  The USA had bombed Libya in retaliation for terrorist attacks a couple of months before, it had triggered mass cancellations of European travel.  Not for my Mom, however, who would laugh in the face of any terrorist who kept her from a planned vacation.

Today I look back and wonder about seemingly inexplicable sightseeing choices in Munich.  Garmish?  A whole day back to Salzburg which we'd covered well earlier in the trip?  Shame, as I haven't been back to Munich since.  Octoberfest calls...

Sunday, 29 June, 1986

Munich.  Our city tour is on foot, with a guide who's slow but interesting.  There's so much to see.  The charm of the city is evident immediately when you stand under the glockenspiel in the town square.  The music is magical, knights joust, and the crowd stops to watch.  Though that crowd is, they tell us, much less than usual due to the political situation.

We had lunch off the Marianplatz.  An ideal atmosphere, with an accordion playing down the street overlaid by occasional glockenspiel rings.  No time to linger as it's to the bus for the afternoon tour.  We drove out to Neuschwanstein Castle.  It's incredible to finally see it.  I just sat in awe.  We didn't go up to it, though, as the guide said there's not much inside and the better interior was our next stop, Linderhof.  It's another of mad King Ludwig's palaces, just a short ride from the fairy tale castle on the crag.  This one is a mini Versailles, ornate to the extreme, yet small and intimate.  You can almost feel Ludwig's presence here.  And you pity him, all alone in his magnificence.  I was impressed enough to buy a guide book.

At 6:30 we stopped at Oberamergau, the picture-postcard village famous for its passion play.  It's filled with Disney-cute houses and souvenir shops, all still open early on a Sunday evening.  We suspect our tour guide, Rita, called ahead to tip them off to our presence.

Back at the hotel, it's the last night of our group's travels together.  One of the party is a priest so offered to say mass for us.  It was very emotional, and everyone cried when Rita led us in singing Edelweiss.  We headed off to the famous Rathskeller for dinner.  It's good and pretty reasonable.  Lots of beer and the knowledge that we'd all be parting tomorrow made it a late night.

June 30
Breakfast was one long goodbye to the gang.  Most people are heading back to the States, but we still have two weeks of wandering ahead.  We packed and caught a cab to the Penta, a bigger hotel and a nice change with air conditioning.  Then an S bahn train to the main station to validate our Eurail passes.  We were lazy and headed to the familiar Ratskeller for lunch, then to Dallmayr's food halls for wondering at the luxuries.  We resisted temptation, went back to the hotel via a normal grocery store for some dinner, allowing us some naps and a quiet night in the room.

July 1
Off to Garmish, an hour and a half by train from Munich.  It's nice countryside, mostly soft mountain foothills.  The town, however, has very little charm.  It's modern.  We found great deals at a small shop.  Mom bought a long boiled wool coat with a hood, I bought a traditional Bavarian dress called a dirndl.

Back in Munich for mid-day, we want to the sausage market for lunch, then to the Residenz.  What a place.  Far more impressive than any other palace I've seen, by sheer size alone.  I counted five different throne rooms, 3 mirrored galleries and many different styles.  Three floors of one stately room after another, filled with porcelain collections, reliquaries, inlaid marbles, portraits, silver services, etc.  But not many people!

Back to the hotel to drop off packages, and then to the Hofbrau House for dinner.  This huge, state-owned beer hall is inexpensive and fun.  Traditional German bands play all night and in their hit parade is, believe it or not, the chicken dance.  I always figured it was some goofy American beer fest thing, but it looks like it goes back to the old country.

July 2
Back to Salzburg for the day.  (We'd gone earlier in the trip, with the bus tour, but for some reason I kept that diary in a different journal, which is long gone.  Shame, as I remember it as the highlight of the tour.  Mirabel Palace, Mozart's house, the Sound of Music tour, all on the way to Vienna. ) It was a pleasant ride, and customs at Salzburg station were quick.  We took a bus downtown and immediately set off to shop.  The people here are so courteous.

We were fascinated by a button store, where mom lingered for ages before picking out buttons of silver Austrian coins to adorn the coat from Garmish.  We went to the market for lunch, where we had sausages with that great sweet mustard.  Cutting through the square in front of the cathedral we saw them setting up for a big music festival, clearly a huge operation.

We took a funicular train up to the castle.  It's a huge place, with successive building starting from the 11th century.  It was hot and dry.  We saw the hatch where supplies got lifted in from the town below, and a confusing mix of rooms.  It reminded me of Edinburgh Castle.  There's a military museum with some Nazi uniforms.  Next down to St. Peter's graveyard, which is the one you see at the end of the Sound of Music but is very different.  It's not on a roof and there's no room to hide behind those tombs.

We walked to Mirabel Palace Gardens.  Lovely.  All the old people come here to sit; every bench was full.  We caught the train back to Munich at 5:30 and found ourselves in rush hour.  Dinner was the McDonalds at Marianplatz.  Not really the same as at home, but it tasted great.  We saw the 9 o'clock glockenspiel and put Munich to bed.

July 3

We had a good sleep, packed and checked our luggage at the hotel for storage before heading to the Alte Pinakothek.  You can only take the train as far as Konigsplatz, then you must walk.  And today was a scorcher.  Those white stones soak up the heat.

The museum is extensive, in a very modern building.  Great Rubens et al.  Check the guidebook for more details.  We had a good lunch here, then headed back to the city center where we relaxed with a magnificent fruit ice inside the town hall.  It's a great interior, neo gothic, with an exterior stair.  Most importantly, cool in the afternoon.

We walked to St. Michaelskirche to see Ludwig's tomb.  The church was basically gutted during WWII, and the photos at the back are a revelation.  The rebuilding is very plain in comparison.  Back to the Marianplatz for the 5pm carillon.  Then to the Theatrinkirche on time for mass.  It's odd to hear it in German; it takes so much longer!  Lots of royalty is buried here but the crypts are closed.  The church is all white stucco work like I've never seen.  As if some cake decorator went wild.  Putti, garlands, triumphant angels.  The whole place looks like it will melt in the rain.

We wandered around the square in front, and around a nearby palace, where there were no people it all.  It was strange, but let us imagine we were those old Bavarian royals who owned all this.  In a grotto we saw a cocktail party of chic-looking locals, then passed the riding school and the theatre on our way, once again, to the Hofbrauhaus.  Where else on our last night in Germany?

We had virtually the same meal as last time, and just sat around for a long time watching.  There, a man who comes in just to have a beer and read the paper.  Here, a group of German workers with thick, simple faces like peasants in a Breughel painting.  Vendors sell giant pretzels, the band plays and a their trumpeter chugs steins.

We picked up our luggage at the hotel and headed for the train station.  With all this shopping, the pile is building.  We had to buy snacks in the station as there was no dining car on the train.  It's one of those old-fashioned train compartments with space for six, but Mom guarded our door like a basilisk so no one else would invade our space.  Frankly, I think we have so much luggage people figured the rest of the seats were taken and the people were coming back soon.  Mom's stance is partially due to a man in Munich who talked about the thieves on the overnight train to Milan, and how there are armed guards on board because it's so dangerous.

So sleep was tough.  Guards seem to flip on the bright lights every hour or so to demand a pass or ticket.  So it's goodbye Germany, hello Italy.

Old world Switzerland dazzled my young eyes

More from the 26-year-old travel journal, in which a Midwestern girl sees her first proper mountains, discovers duvets and tastes muesli and proper coffee for the first time.  While I doubt there are still people in local costume cutting their fields with scythes, a Google search shows there's still a goat parade in Zermatt.  Good to see some things don't change.  

June 21, 1986

Today we experienced the full grandeur of the Alps.  It is hard for me to describe, especially since I have never seen mountains before.  (Yes, I've driven over the Appalachians on the way to Florida, but they're nothing like this.)  Each new turn brought another craggy peak, another magnificent waterfall, another glacier glinting blue-white in the sun.

Through the first mountain pass to Brienz, where we stopped at a wood carving factory. It was swarming with bears; the animal is the symbol of the canton. I bought one, of course.  We're in the Bernese Oberland, known for spectacular scenery.  Farmhouses dot the green slopes and people in native costume cut grass with scythes.  This really is the old country.

We stopped at Interlaken for lunch.  It's a chic, English-speaking resort beneath the peak of the Jungfrau.  Trying to save money, Mom and I hit a grocery store for picnic supplies again, where a cute English man showed me the local beer.  We ate in a daisy-filled meadow looking towards mountain tops.

On to Bern, famous for its bear pits, the barengraben. The bear is part of the legend of the city's founding, and is everywhere.  The bears here eat carrots, and dance when the guides wave to them.  Beyond, it's an old-fashioned town with large markets, distinctive fountains and government buildings.

The scenery flattened as we approached Geneva.  As the view outside the bus windows became less spectacular, everyone caught a nap.  We finally came out above the lake, but haze made it difficult to see anything.

The city is French speaking.  The hotel tolerable.  The city tour wasn't included; that cost us $10 each.  We saw UN buildings, the Red Cross, embassies, old palaces across the lake and the famous fountain, the jet d'eau.

We had dinner at the Movenpick where, surprisingly, I ate the best tortellini I've ever had.  We've come to town at the same time as a national costume fest, held once a decade, so we just looked out the window at the crowds, their costumes and the lake.  People were singing and dancing, lots of diversity for one small country.  It was a parade of great faces, all showing pride and joy at their togetherness.  We walked back to the hotel, deciding on our way that it's in a rotten neighbourhood.

June 22

Back along the lake to Zermatt.  We left the bus and took a cog wheel railway up the mountain, from which I had my first sight of the Matterhorn.  Thanks to all those childhood visits to Disneyland it's a familiar profile, but so much more magnificent in reality.  The chug-chug of the train mixed with the hum of conversation and the clang of bells (goats? cows?) in the fields. 

In town there are no cars; people with carts collect our luggage.  We walked around the town of stereotypical Swiss chalets, but our eyes were constantly drawn to the mountains around us, glinting with waterfalls from the summer melts.  The sun set between two peaks, putting on quite a show. In the local graveyard we see how dangerous those mountains can be.  Many of the tombstones commemorate people who died trying to scale the Matterhorn.

Dinner most memorable for discovering the local Cardinal beer and ending with really magnificent coffee.  Wow.  It doesn't taste like this in America.

June 23
Great night's sleep with the windows open and mountain air pouring in.  Strange beds: no sheets, just a down comforter.  But very comfortable.  Breakfast also very different, more what we'd call lunch.  Lots of rolls, sliced meats and cheeses, plus a big bowl of very rich, thick yogurt and some granola-type stuff with lots of nuts and dried fruits they encouraged us to try as a topper to the yogurt.

Off to the grocery store, we picked up a bottle of wine, more cheese and sausage and some local bread for our lunch picnic.  The bread has a really hard crust (they warned me I'd need the saw on my Swiss army knife to get into it), made so that you can carry it while hiking for days, and the bread inside stays soft.

Up the Gornergrat!  Breathtaking.  Up we rose past the tree line.  Snow.  Purple moss.  Hikers.  I pressed against the window of the train to see each new angle of the mountains.  At the top there's an observatory, a restaurant, and a slight climb to the peak.  Mom was scared, but made it.  Little wonder.  The world falls away, everything is hundreds and hundreds of feet below you and all that's at your level is air and space.  It's like being on the top of a really high skyscraper, but there's nothing else around you and you're in the open air.  No wonder Mom froze for a bit; it was indeed overwhelming.

It was sunny and warm, but we were so high up there was still snow cover, so we had a snowball fight while wearing shorts and tee shirts.  Strange.  We started down the mountain about 2:30, and I got off the train at the last stop with a guy named Sean to walk the rest of the way down.  We followed a cold, rushing stream through pine forest and dappled sunlight.  Gorgeous.  It took us about two hours to make it back to Zermatt, and when we entered town it was with the afternoon goat drive, when the local herders bring their bell-bedecked flocks through town.  Absolutely magical.  I was too tired to do much before bed.  We rejoined the others, drank Cardinal beer and all retired early.

24 June
A lot of driving with a nibble at Italy.  The air conditioning is not working on the bus.  We're getting a new one tomorrow, thank God.  More mountains, more scenery, then over the Italian border through deep crags of rock.  The guide switches the on board music from oom pa pa bands to Luciano Pavarotti.

We stopped for lunch at Locarno, a picturesque town on Lago Maggiore.  I'd been here before, when I spent the summer outside Milano with the Bozzi family.  (Who we're meeting later in this trip.)  We saw the boat dock to go out to Isola Bella, with its magnificent palace of the Borromeo family.  Oh, how I wish Mom could see it; she'd love it so much.  But we didn't have time.  We had to get to San Moritz for dinner.

Back over the border, then, to Switzerland.  San Moritz is a fancy ski resort, filled with a lot of upscale 19th and early 20th century buildings and many designer boutiques.  We walked around and gawped at some window displays.  Still surrounded by mountains and thus beautiful, but I thought it lacked charm and character.  I miss Zermatt!

Blast from the past as the move turns up old travel journals

Heidelburg Castle was the first blockbuster
sight on our northern European tour

While organising to move house, I found my diary for my "Grand Tour" of Europe after graduating from Northwestern.  Couldn't resist publishing some extracts, for a view back to my early travel writing.  The illustrations are modern.  I haven't found the photos that go with the 26-year-old notebook.  This was my third trip outside of the United States.  Money was tight but we certainly weren't slumming it.  Mom was working part time as a travel agent, so had snagged all sorts of deals. Everything was very foreign, and very impressive. The modern me is most impressed that the 21-year-old me had a conversation in French.  How the brain forgets...

Tuesday, 17 June, 1986

Layover in Reykjavic, consequence of very cheap Iceland Air flight.  It's 3:30am by our watches, but it's a cold (45 degree) morning in Iceland.  Desolate place.  Flat, black.  No trees, people or houses except for this airbase, US military.  Short stop, nice shop for sweaters but they're still $60.  No thanks.

Luxembourg.  Arrive about 2:30pm.  Easy luggage claim and customs in tiny airport.  Outside to bus, slapped in face by language barrier.  Driver speaks no English, but passengers all American tourists.

Five hour drive isn't pleasant after long flight, and the countryside looks like Missouri.  A bit disappointing!  It's a German holiday and the border crossing is backed up, then a detour because the driver forgot to drop a woman off.  Finally arrive at the Frankfurt hauptbahnhop, a huge Baroque-style building, and a cab, at last, to our hotel.

Intercontinental is lovely.  Big room with view of river.  Too tired to look for a restaurant, so downstairs to hotel place.  Expensive, but worth the convenience and the quick transition to bed.

18 June
The Hauptwache is a small, red, Baroque buiding once used as a military baracks.  Now at the centre of a very modern and rather featureless town.  Nearby is the Thurn and Taxis gate and the palace of that family, who started the concept of a modern mail service.  Logically, it's now the post office.

Frankfurt's Kaiserdom

The Eschenheimer tower is the last of the old city fortifications, and the Goethe house is a neat example of an upper middle-class German house of the 19th century.  The house was actually rebuilt to look like the original after the war, though all the furniture is original.  There's a magnificent grandfather clock, and the desk where he wrote the first draft of Faust.

Off to the Kaiserdom, a grand old gothic church.  It's just up from the Roemerplatz, a square of typical Bavarian-looking buildings, exactly what you'd expect from Germany.  After a puzzling time figuring out trains, we arrive in Darmstadt to meet our group.

19 June
Our tour guide is Rita Struder.  A striking blonde swiss woman in her early 30s, professional to the point of being a bit cold.  Off to the tour bus, filled with Americans, a mix of families on a big vacation, school teachers on break and retirees.  First stop, Heidelberg.

The red, Baroque, sandstone castle has a striking view of the valley and the university city of many spires below it.  The first notable sight is a giant wine cask, filled as part of tax collection.  Can't imagine the mix of all those wines was any good!  Huge houses on the other side overlook the Nekkar river and this castle.

Baden-Baden for lunch.  Like Bath, it's a town built around mineral waters.  Palatial homes and hotels from the 18th and 19th century in classical style make this a very gracious place.  There's a theater and many official bathing buildings.  Lunch was my first proper wurst.  Yum!

Next comes a long drive, with a rest stop on the Swiss border where we change money.  Fortunately the Swiss franc is very similar to the DM, so I can cope.  Upon arrival in Lucerne we have a so-so dinner at our hotel.  Rita says "1000 steps" after dinner is a Swiss custom, so we go for a walk.  It gets dark late, so there's light to see and people around.

It's a big college town and the streets are crowded.  In the distance we can see the first gentle slopes of montain country, filled with little farm plots for city people.  We walked over the gorgeous medieval kapellbruke, decorated with 100 different gable paintings.  Walking through town at night I can't help noticing the magnificent windows of the florists, filled with Edelwiess.  More affordable than the Bucherer watches we're lusting after in other windows.

20 June - Lucerne
We were up early today, thanks to the awful location of the hotel.  The Schiller's rooms are cursed with the double disadvantage of no air conditioning and a boisterous, noisy location.  Then a jackhammer started at 8am.

My first encounter with the
German baroque was
a surprise

After our breakfast of rolls and hot chocolate, we walked the two short blocks to visit St. Francis Xavier, the jesuit church here.  It's known as the finest Baroque/Roccocco building in Switzerland.  Of plain, eggshell coloured stucco on the exterior, it is charming but not impressive.  Two onion-domed towers flank the central door, and a small, paved court leads to stairs descending to the street below.  Once inside, the beauty changes from simple to ornate.

The first impression must be the brightness.  The walls are a shocking white, adorned with garlands and curlicues of plasterwork.  Most of these are either salmon pink or gold gilt.  Paintings of Xavier's life are set into the ceiling.  Each color is so bright and fresh, the church looks as if it were completed yesterday.

We left there, crossing the Reuss to submerge ourselves in a maze of cobbled streets and small shops.  All the clothese are modern and high fashion.  She shops abound and the prices aren't bad, though we wandered in a department store and a grocery where prices were more in line with home.  Collecting goods as we walked, we crossed town and ended up at Lucern's second well-known church, the Hofkirche (aka the collegiate church of St. Leodegar).  It has some impressive side altars, but on the whole is less memorable than the Jesuit edifice.

Wandering through the town we caught frequent views o fhte nine towers remaining from the city's old defensive network.  Switzerland has been a peaceful republic for 700 years.  But before that time it, like other European countries, was forced to fortify its towns.  Lucern's towers are unusual i that thay are each of a different design; most with curious wooden roofs and polychromed Medieval figures.

The people here seem to be a warm, friendly crowd.  This afternoon we paused on a bench on the kapellbrucke for a rest.  The man next to me tried to strike up a conversation.  We weren't doing so well in English and German, then we both hit upon French and had a pleasant chat.  He even invited us to a coffee, but our conversation had pushed the limit of my meager vocabulary and I figured I'd pass before running out of things to say.

Dinner was the bread, sausage, cheese and wine we purchased in the afternoon, served in our room.  Afterwards we walked behind the hotel to a park.  There, two men were intent on a game of chess played on the pavement with 3-foot-high pieces.  Perhaps the most amazing part of hte sight was the face that the pieces are stored, unlocked, and that no one steals them.

At 8:45 we trudged through a downpour to board the Nite Boat, a tourist attraction plus, put a good value.  Mother and I paid 32 swiss francs each (about $65) for the boat ride, one drink and a folklore show.  The latter featured regional costumes and some lovely music.  The banks of Lake Lucerne are well worth viewing, as they are lined with quaint chateaux and massive estates.  The highlight of the night: with engines cut, the boat sat beneath the mountain face as a man played an alpenhorn in the stern and the hills gave back the echo.

Honoured to be at this Twelfth Night, I thank my lucky stars

The illuminated dome of St. Paul's loomed over the horizon like a rising full moon.  It was only the brightest of the eye-catching monuments on the other side of the river.  The wedding cake tower of St. Brides, the neoclassical river frontage of Somerset House, the familiar bulk of the BT Tower.  The South Bank was quiet, aside from the cathedral's sonorous bells tolling 11 given counterpoint by the gentle lapping of the Thames on the beach below.  And the hushed but excited conversation of little groups of people around me, all talking about the same thing.  The amazing performance at The Globe we'd just finished watching.

The minute it was announced last spring, everyone knew it was going to be one of the hottest tickets in London.  Mark Rylance, making his return to The Globe after last year's much acclaimed performance in Jerusalem, to take the role of Olivia in a traditional (all male) production of Twelfth Night.  If that wasn't exciting enough, Stephen Fry as Malvolio, in his first London stage role since the notorious episode in the mid-90s where he disappeared off stage and into a nervous breakdown.  Fortunately my friend Hillary pounced on the tickets almost as soon as they went on sale.  Thus we were amongst the privileged few spilling out onto the South Bank last night, agog with the wonder of what we'd experienced.

First came the magic of a full period recreation, in that most perfect of settings.  From the exquisite Jacobean costumes to the Renaissance players providing music in the balcony above the stage to that riot of garlands, swags, urns, goddesses and jewel tones that is The Globe, it was a night Shakespeare himself would have recognised.  Of course, that meant men playing the women's parts.  But, unlike Macbeth earlier this summer, you forgot these were men.  The weren't camping it up, nor were they so ridiculously disguised you couldn't tell their sex.  Simply, the costumes were good enough and their acting so compelling that it didn't matter.  Perhaps because of that, I've never seen Viola's gender bending played so well.  The period costumes also played their part.  I doubt men's fashions have ever been more feminine than at the turn of the 17th century.  (Check out the Earl of Southampton's portrait at right to see what I mean.)  Using these costumes, and emphasising Viola's line about dressing like her brother to honour his memory, Viola and Sebastian were indeed almost identical.  That made the mix up between the two siblings more believable than I've ever seen it, and added a wonderful, comedic sexual tension.

Then there's the play itself.  Magnificently clever, side-achingly funny, yet with its poignant moments.  Characters you really care about, and a delightful ending.  The fool here is one of the wittiest of Shakespeare's creations, with dialogue so rapid fire that at least half must have gone over the heads of the original audience, who heard it in their vernacular.  With 400 years of linguistic evolution it's even harder to grasp the wordplay, but you get enough to appreciate its sparkle.  Oh, for a video version of this production so I could recline in my sitting room with text, play and rewind button, to get it all.  It's far more than the words, however.  Marvellous stage direction, shrugs, screams, pratfalls and capering eked out even more comedy than I realised was in the play to start with.

Peter Hamilton Dyer gave Feste, the fool, a calm, almost elder statesman demeanor beneath the wordplay, and the incorporation of the Renaissance music, with him a singing bard rather than just a fool, brought a sweetly melancholic touch to proceedings.  His words made it a comedy, his subtleties reminded us there were some serious themes to attend to.  The rest of the supporting cast was equally strong, and a few carried very familiar faces.  Samuel Barnett, who played Sebastian, printed himself on our brains in The History Boys.  And after spending all evening wondering why the mincing, hysterically funny Sir Andrew Aguecheek looked so familiar, a web search revealed that the last time I'd seen actor Roger Lloyd pack he'd been a megalomaniac madman inventing cybermen in Doctor Who.

Although it was a balanced and universally strong cast, Rylance and Fry delivered on their starry promise.  We all know Fry's voice is a wonderful combo of honey and power; what I'd never have guessed is how beautifully it would fill that wide open space.  His Malvolio made us laugh, but without going for the absurd or the easy caricature.  Here was a man who dared to dream above his station, whose pride triggered his fall, but whose pain we feel.  And Rylance as Olivia?  Extraordinary.  I'm not sure I've ever seen love at first sight done on stage so well.  Again, he avoided all the obvious cliches.  It was Olivia's mood swings, her uncertainty, her stammering awkwardness in her love's presence and her gauche attempts to win him that felt so painfully real.  Rarely have I seen an actor use his full body to the effect Rylance does.  Every shrug, wave or inclination of the head equalled a line of dialogue.  And to watch him glide across the stage, as if there was machinery rather than legs under that farthingale, then do a precise three point turn before sitting down, was worth the price of admission.  (And told the story.  The way she moved at the start told us Olivia was in precise control.  Before she let her heart go.)

There's a lot of great theatre in London, but this was the first time I actually felt honoured to be in the audience.  It wasn't just a play.  It was an experience.  It kept the audience hanging on every word, and wrapped us all in delight and wonder.  Leaving us all giddy with the poetry of it as we wandered home along the Thames.  Just as audiences have been doing for the past 400 years.

I smiled across the river at St. Pauls and wrapped my coat a bit tighter around me.  After all these years in the UK, there are still nights of wonder like this.  Nights when I have to pinch myself that I'm awake, and I really live in this magnificent place.  Zounds ... as The Bard might say ... but I am a lucky woman.

First dinner party distracts from the unpacking

We're to that inevitable stage in a house move.  About 80 per cent of our stuff ... all the bits we really need ... is unpacked.  Then there's the 20 per cent we can live without, piled in boxes in a guest bedroom and the garage.  We had the best intention of continuing through the task.  But the kitchen called instead.

There were six of us around the table for our first dinner party at the new house.  And four others tucked about the house.  We'd been particularly brave and invited friends with children.  Two little ones went to bed upstairs with the starters.  Two older ones turned my office into a playroom.  All conveniently freeing their parents to enjoy themselves.

We started with champagne while picking at quartered figs with prosciutto and honey and tortilla chips served with corn and avocado salsa.  Yes, an unusual combo, but this was supposed to be a casual, simple supper and the produce in the fridge dictated the nibbles.  Just as I suspected, the kitchen island with the double doors behind spilling into the dining room is perfect for entertaining.  I can be cooking at one side of the island while guests talk and graze from the other.

The nibbles might have been simple but the starter sure wasn't.  Once we settled down at the table, Piers presented his smoked salmon mousse with freshly baked rye rolls.  A towering success, I thought.  Rich, smooth and silky fish spread over still warm bread, flavour picked up by the rye flour and a bit of caraway.  Poor Piers had spent 40 minutes pushing the mousse through a fine strainer to get the light consistency, wearing a blister on his thumb in the process.  We really need to buy a food mill.  The fact that we'd broken out a bottle of our Patrick Jevillier meursault from our wedding gift cache helped things along.

The oven was doing the hard work with the pork shoulder, thankfully.  Eight hours slow cooking.  It was tasty, though in the excitement of the guests we forgot to add the white wine or to make the sauce. Unsurprisingly, it was a bit dry.  We ate it as leftovers two nights later, with the sauce, and it was actually much better.  (Hush.  Don't tell our guests.)  On the night itself, some buttery mashed potatoes and spinach added moisture.

I defaulted to one of my simple standbys for dessert:  key lime pie.  No key lime juice here in England, of course, so I use about 20 per cent lemon juice to the remainder lime.  Top with white chocolate shavings and smile.

The sharp, citric pie is light enough to leave room for a cheese board. Essential at the Bencard household.  I do miss our Sainsbury's cheese counter; neither Tesco or M&S, the options at this end of town, have the selection.  M&S' cheese counter got me through, but with fairly traditional selections.  (Mature cheddar, goat, camembert, emmental.)  Must remember to plan a trip across town or special order for more unusual stuff next time.

One consequence of having parental types around the table, with kids in the house, is that the drinking is relatively modest and the departures are early.  We were tucked up in bed by 1am, exhausted but happy.  A good start to what we hope is a long and legendary tradition of dining chez Bencard.