Dutch are exceptional at mixing old and new in their museums

The Rijksmuseum; Het Scheepvaartmuseum; Anne Frank's House

The Dutch take their museums seriously.  With modern attitudes to display, a commitment to interactive education and a willingness to put high culture at the middle of their civic life, they make the most of an artistic tradition that saw them dominate the 17th century.  Their national wealth allowed them to  collect the best for centuries more.

The finest example of this is undoubtably the Rijksmuseum.  This neo-gothic pile at one end of the grassy sward of the Museumplein is the national art museum.  Last year it completed the largest renovation of any museum in the world, closing completely for a decade to allow a complete transformation.  (In the intervening years they set up a highlights collection in a side building; my visit described here.)

The most noticeable difference comes with glassed-over courtyards (like the British Museum) and an excavated modern space beneath them to create a new entry plaza (like the Louvre).  This grand mezzanine has all the necessary services: coat check, tickets, information, shop and restaurant.  In the last, you can recover your energy while watching the spectacle of the endless flow of bicyclists speeding through the cavernous gallery between the two wings.  Buy and print your tickets online and you're straight in, after flashing your bar code at a guard.

Once in the galleries, everything is sensitive, tasteful and roomy.  Everything manages to look traditional, yet modern at the same time.  Lighting is fantastic, whether natural or with sensitive artificial spots.  Colour schemes are all carefully selected to highlight what's in the room.  Paintings, decorative arts, furniture and the odd war trophy are arranged chronologically to tell the story of the Netherlands.  So a gallery on Dutch sea power combines paintings of naval battles and nautical commanders with a massive ship's model, the ornamental stern of a captured English flagship and the gold cup awarded to the Dutch Admiral who captured it.  The mix means every gallery is fresh and there's always a surprise around the corner, whether it's a giant doll's house, ornate table settings or the largest painting you've ever seen (of the battlefield at Waterloo).

While technology isn't obvious, the museum is flooded with free WiFi and the website is full of different routes through the collection, with pictures and descriptions.  So all you need is your phone and some time to guide yourself.  For a small sense of this mix of the traditional and modern, check out the extraordinary flashmob the museum put on to promote their re-opening last year.

The highlight for every tourist must be the Gallery of Honour, and the processional stairs and hallways around it.  All these rooms have been restored to their neo-gothic glory, stained glass and marvellously frescoed walls brought back after some modernist idiot whitewashed the whole thing last century.  It would be worth visiting for the architecture of these rooms alone.  But, of course, you're here for the art from the Golden Age.  And the renovation obligingly puts all the masterpieces in one gallery, stretching down from Rembrandt's Night Watch.  Paintings hang in logical groupings in alcoves, like side chapels leading up to the high altar presented by the country's most famous work of art.

Like any of the world's great museums, it's impossible to "do" the Rijksmuseum in one visit.  You can just about zip through the Golden Age … masterpieces and secondary galleries … in two hours.  But if you're not time constrained, consider a whole day.

A couple of hours will suffice at the national maritime museum, Het Scheepvaartmuseum, though that doesn't mean it's any less interesting.  In fact, if you want to see how technology and sensitive design can take a basic collection and make magic from it, go here.  I've never seen better.  There aren't many galleries, but they're all exciting.  Down the hall of ship's models "sail" more than a score of exquisite scale models in a glass corridor.  You can move video screens on sliding rods up and down, back and forth, picking out the model about which you want more info.  Once positioned, light comes up on your choice and more info displays on the video.  Upstairs, a gallery of ships' figureheads cuts through a virtual-effect sea complete with sound effects.  Next door, navigational equipment is displayed in a star gallery worthy of a high tech planetarium, introduced with a ships log that magically writes itself thanks to some trickery from the camera above.

A very worthy collection of nautical art is more straightforward, though still uses video tables for some
of the major paintings to allow you to move spotlights and display details.  Our only complaint about all this technology: though beautiful, it missed the opportunity to dive deep.  We frequently found ourselves wanting more detail than was on offer.

That was particularly true when we went outside to the copy of the 18th century Dutch East Indiaman moored next to the building.  For the child, or child at heart, it's a blast.  Scramble into cabins, hang off rigging, peak in crates in the hold, pretend to fire the cannons.  There's no help from display technology out here, and very little descriptive text.  A few fact filled, National Trust-style guides willing to share their information with visitors would have improved the experience considerably.  But if you're interested in history and boats, this is a hot spot, and ranks amongst the best maritime museums.  (It made the deeply disappointing Venetian naval museum look even worse, and saddened us as we contemplated what that collection could be if it had Amsterdam's money and designers.)

Clearly, mixing history with technology and modern relevance is a Dutch skill.  We even found it at the Anne Frank House.

I had managed to avoid this "must see" across all my trips.  Yes, I read the diary and was captivated by its romantic tragedy, like all early teenaged girls.  But I'd never wanted to visit the house.  First, because on a limited agenda I'd rather spend my time in the 17th or 18th century than the 20th.  Secondly, because I'm the type of person who tries to avoid heartbreak and emotional trauma, and I knew damned well that's what waited behind the inconspicuous facade.  But it was high on my husband's list, so I gave in.

It is as poignant, soul wrenching, traumatic and absolutely horrible as you can imagine.  Technology doesn't need to enhance that.  Just tell the story, then let people squeeze past the hidden-door-bookshelf and file respectfully through the little warren of rooms.  They are empty now, as Anne's father willed it.  But you see a model of how they would have been furnished before you go through.  It's enough.  The windows are blacked out.  People stay silent as if in church.  You hear every floorboard squeak, and imagine the pressure of staying up here day after day, avoiding the slightest sound.  Imagine the pressure of living at close quarters with so many.  Imagine the mounting stress on the friends … employees, really … who hid them.  And confront the horror of that final, early morning raid, so close to the end of the war, when Anne, her family and friends were swept away to something even worse.  Her father was the only survivor, and returned to make this place a monument to all she stood for.

The foundation that runs the house has acquired the modern building next door, thus has been able to provide the build up and the conclusion of the story in larger and more modern surroundings.  You emerge from the secret annex into a long room with videos of the detention camps, and an interview with a friend of Anne's … briefly reunited with her at the camp … who tells of her death.  Next floor down you see the diaries themselves, both Anne's originals and the many printed versions, and discover how her father learned of them, and turned them into what you see today.

Finally, once again, the Dutch ability to use technology to bring relevance kicked in.  You end in an open theatre, where short films about modern conflicts like free speech, immigration and minorities run, and you're invited to vote on the issues.  Group results are immediately projected on the walls.  Showing that today, just as in Anne's time, there's actually no black and white.  No easy decisions.  Just individuals who mean well, groups that can turn dangerous, and a lot of grey, treacherous territory.

The Anne Frank house was just as depressing and horrible as I'd anticipated.  But I admit it was worth doing.  One of those character-building things you resist, but makes you stronger.  Next visit, I'll be back at the Rijksmuseum, letting Frans Hals cheer me up.  But Anne's story will stay with me for life.

Easy transport, abundant WiFi make Amsterdam easy for tourists

Amsterdam is a city of curious contrasts.

It's ringed by miles of characterless apartment buildings and office parks, but its city centre is a beautifully preserved architectural gem.  It's a casual city in attitudes and clothes, yet we found ourselves woefully underdressed amongst an elegant and formal classical music audience.  Its tourist attractions go from the academic highs of some of the world's best museums to the lowbrow depths of the Red Light district and marijuana tourism.  During the week, it's a quiet place filled with business people and older, cultural tourists.  By Friday night it's throbbing with packs of young people … often loud, drunk and in ridiculous costume … out to have a good time.  It's a city that, as a search on previous blog entries will prove, I didn't used to like much.  But it's grown on me.

Whatever your taste on the spectrum, it's a fantastically quick and easy hop from the UK.  Under an hour's flying time from most airports (we arrived early traveling both directions) and a cheap (4 euro) 20-minute train ride to the city centre.  Once arrived, there's a dizzying array of sightseeing within a central area that is easily walkable.  And there's even fine food to be had if you work at it.

My excuse for travel, as my last article stated, was primarily to visit Keukenhof gardens.  But Amsterdam and environs are so compact and convenient that we seemed to pack a week's worth of sightseeing into four days, with plenty of stops for rejuvenation. Thus, in addition to that garden, we managed three museums, one concert, two city centre tours, a ramble along a beach and six restaurants worth mentioning.  In three nights and four full days.

The way to get acclimated in Amsterdam is a canal boat cruise, because almost everything you want to see is either on the harbour, the river Amstel, or the ring of four canals that circle the historic city centre.  The tour I took last time was better value with more detailed commentary, but it was a hike across town to pick it up.  Instead we opted for the Holland International 100 Highlights tour, which left regularly from in front of the train station.  An hour's trip cost euro15 (though we had a euro3 coupon from our hotel) and takes you past all the key sights.  The commentary is pretty basic, necessitated by the fact that the English is followed by French, Dutch, Russian and Chinese.  That doesn't give the speaker much time before what you're looking at glides by.  But it does the job.

The cruise was so convenient because we were staying just a few hundred yards down a main road from the station, at the MGallery Convent Hotel.  It's hard to beat for placement.  Dam Square is a bit further along, the street is filled with restaurants and the tram outside cuts across town to the museum district.  A disappointment, however, in decor and comfort.  MGallery is the flagship brand of the Accor chain, a set of hotels that are supposed to be distinguished by their housing in distinctive, historic properties.  The Amsterdam location is much celebrated for its convent past, but it turns out that was more than a century ago and the building had been a newspaper office since.  No distinctive architectural features, just a worn bust of a nun in a low-ceilinged, pokey lobby.  Our room was large but lacked comfort, thanks to a lumpy mattress, sagging chair and ineffectual heating and air conditioning.  As we'd cashed in Accor Club points for our stay we could hardly complain, but I wouldn't be quick to return for any reason other than the location.

I might not have slept well, but there's plenty about Amsterdam to make sightseeing a pleasure.  The top three factors are:

• Cheap transport.  I mentioned the airport train above.  An hour on buses or trams costs less than euro3.  A round-trip to Den Haag, 38 miles away, was 11.  (Compare that to my local line to London, where 48 miles in an hour costs almost triple that, you may not get a seat and even if you do, it won't be nearly as comfortable.)   Tickets for events at the Concertgebouw even come with free public transport for two hours on either side of the concert.  Although this benefit is set to end in a cost cut next year.  Still, it's all very civilised.

• Near-ubiquitous free WiFi.  Another area where the Netherlands is miles ahead of the UK.  There was free wifi on the train to and from the airport and Den Haag (something else I don't get from Southwest Trains!), and on the bus to and from Keukenhof.  Most tourist attractions and restaurants offer it, as did our hotel from public areas through individual rooms.  I was online more, for free, than I am using my paid-for provider's service in London.  And what perfect PR sense this makes, as tourists fuelled by connections tweet their discoveries and update review sites.

• Abundant cafes.  Amsterdam, like Paris, is flush with places in which to linger and watch the world go by.  Depending on the time of day, you might punctuate your stop with coffee and some Dutch apple cake, or a beer and bitterbollen.  The pastry is a local speciality and is a distinct take on deep dish apple pie that must be tried.  Less remembered is that this is a great place to drink beer.  Near neighbour to the renowned brewers of Belgium, and savvy hands at the process themselves, even humble spots tend to have a variety of beers on tap, a much broader range in bottles and servers who know their list and can make recommendations.  The traditional accompaniment are balls of beef thickened with a stiff gravy, then coated with bread crumbs, fried and served with mustard.  Bitterballen are close cousins to Spanish croquetas, leading us to ponder if their development was related (the Netherlands was part of the Spanish empire, after all) and, if so, which came first.

Those frequent pit stops were the secret to seeing so much.  Sadly, a lingering after-effect of my cancer treatment is weakened legs.  I just can't walk like I used to.  The frequent rests recharged my batteries, while inevitably providing free wifi to plan what we were doing next.  Details of those further adventures to come.

Keukenhof gardens blaze with glorious colour, indoors and out

I planned a whole holiday around one garden.

Though most people will think that's crazy, the gardening fraternity will understand.  It was March, my husband and I both had to use up holiday before the turn of the financial year, but didn't want to go far.  It was a prescription for Keukenhof.

This 79-acre garden about half an hour outside of Amsterdam is the most spectacular place in the world to see spring bulbs.  They plant more than 7 million here each year.  Some are in regimented beds, some naturalised, some meandering in swathes through woodland or around lakes.  The garden began as a communal project by Dutch horticultural companies to resuscitate their industry after the second world war.  It's evolved into something reminiscent of the Chelsea Flower Show, though devoted to just one season of gardening.

Keukenhof is only open for two months every year and, as every gardener knows, bulbs flower and fade so quickly that the place will look different from one fortnight to the next.  We were here early in the season, for a garden dominated by crocus, late-flowering daffodils and stretches of hyacinths in every colour available, loading the air with heady scents.  The supporting cast included early-blooming dwarf iris, grape hyacinths and chionodoxa.  (The last is something I planted just a single clump of in my own garden last year, and was so impressed I want more.)  Flowering quinces, cherry trees and modern sculpture get the colour off the ground.  Perfectly maintained lawns provide a green backdrop, making the colours all the more vivid.

For the most iconic Dutch flower, the best weeks are still to come.  But there are early tulips.  The short varieties showed up as blocks of colour in formal parterres, while others added a shocking pop to mixed beds with hyacinths or daffodils.  One eye-wateringly magnificent bed of reds and pinks was a joy to
look at, though too bright for most home gardens.  Tulip lovers aren't left disappointed, however, because pots of later-blooming varieties that have been forced are moved out along the paths.

Things get more serious in the pavilions dotted around the park.  These are reminiscent of the marquees at the Chelsea or Hampton Court flower shows, with some devoted to flower arranging, some to specific species.  (All with restaurants or coffee shops in which to take a break.)  It's here that the avid gardener could get out her notebook and start working on her wish list.  Colour blocks of named tulips … some of them with flower heads the size of large soup bowls … divide displays on specific species.  Every hyacinth you could imagine here.  A forest of every variety of lilac branch in bloom there.

Also like the RHS flower shows, one part of Keukenhof was dotted with purpose-built, themed gardens.  A recycling garden, an exercise garden, an outdoor kitchen bordered by raised beds.  These, and everything else, sponsored by different companies, of course.  The serious gardener can buy a programme listing all of the sponsors, so you can track any particular bulb back to its originator and buy some for your own garden.

It's in the buying that I was disappointed.  I visited Keukenhof almost 20 years ago.  Before I lived in Europe and had my own garden to fill.  It was less sophisticated then.  The swathes of formal planting were here, but I don't remember the pavilions or the themed gardens.  I vividly recall, however, ending the visit in a vast shopping area, where different sponsors sold summer bulbs to take with you and let you place orders for autumn delivery.  I had gone this year expecting that, but it's no longer a feature.

Presumably the internet has made that redundant.  Lord knows, it probably saved me a few hundred euro.  Sitting in my own garden with a laptop, buying for specific bare patches, will be a lot more controlled than impulsive purchases on site.  The internet also makes the visit planning easier.  You can get tickets, complete with transport from the airport or central Amsterdam, online in advance.

Most gardens can't justify devoting so much space to plants that require such effort and time for a short blooming season.  No flower show can approach this scale.  Keukenhof is unique; a destination for every serious gardener at least once in his or her life.

Veronese and Vikings: Odd couple worthy of attention, though perhaps not on the same day

Someone in the Twittersphere dubbed this "Museum Week", and I'm doing my part.  A week's holiday ahead with plenty of museums to come, starting with a London double header.

The National Gallery's spring offering is Veronese: Magnificence in Renaissance Venice, while the British Museum gives us Vikings:  Life and Legend.  The former is the largest retrospective of that painter ever put on in the UK, the latter the first major Viking show in London for 30 years.  Both deserve a look, with Vikings, especially, demanding advance booking thanks to a universal appeal (a favourite with boys big and small) likely to result in plenty of sold out days.

And they're not as far apart as you'd think, each revealing a beauty and opulence within their respective cultures.  They're not natural bedfellows, however.  I'd probably recommend seeing them with enough time between to let your brain digest.  But I had the day off, I'd spent the money to get to London, so I thought I'd tackle both.

Veronese first.  Lush, opulent, sun-drenched splendour … like going to Italy without having the hassle of Heathrow.  This painter was one of a handful that glorified Venice in the 16th century, and if you've ever visited that city you've seen plenty of his work.  (My favourite, however, being inland within the Veneto, where he worked with Palladio at the magnificent Villa di Maser.) In Venice, his work is often wrapping around you on palace walls, drifting above you on ceilings or looming over church altars.

The Venetians are pretty far down my Italian art hit parade, to be honest.  I think of them as dark and gloomy; the Accademia … their prime museum … a somewhat oppressive place.  But Veronese, as his name hints to us, wasn't Venetian-born.  He was a child of Verona, city of pink streets and pastel stone.  And a child of cloth merchants who made their fortune kitting out the bling-loving Italians with sumptuous silks, brocades and cloth of gold.  All of this is richly on display here.  Veronese is perhaps the finest painter of clothing ever.  It's no surprise that a costume expert is one of the commentators on the audio guide.

So is one of the directors of the Royal Opera House.  Everything about Veronese is big, including his
sense of drama.  (So big, in fact, the show is up in regular galleries rather than in the usual exhibit space, which couldn't handle the size of some of the works here.)  Most canvases here tell exciting stories, capturing the climax in a celebration of beautiful people and fine architecture.  Here, a catwalk-ready St. Catherine marries the baby Jesus.  There, the family of Darius meets Alexander the Great, all looking like models at Renaissance fashion week even though they've just wrapped up a war.  St. George is about to be martyred; surrounded by bad guys; angels swirling above him, all framed by a magnificent set … it's the show stopping scene you get at the opera before the curtain falls for intermission.

I was particularly impressed by two massive adorations of the magi, hung facing each other.  The annual deluge of cheap Christmas card reproductions has dulled our senses to the pageantry and wonder of this tale.  The glorious kings and their gifts, the humble crowd of shepherds and their animals (Veronese also happens to be one of the best dog painters in European art), the strange setting, the loving little family at the centre.  It's worth the price of admission alone to stand between these two, note the differences and similarities, and recover the wonder of this particular Christmas story.

It's only in the last room where Veronese starts looking like a typical Venetian.  At the end of his career he got darker, graver, more serious.  The room is necessary to complete the picture of his career, but it does end things on a gloomy note.  I prefer the rest of his work, colourful and bathed in an eternal Italian sunlight.

If the Vikings had had more sun, perhaps they wouldn't have gone wandering.  Which would have saved many communities from pillage and plunder … but would also have deprived us of the wonderful works on display here.

The British museum is clearly on a mission of image transformation, from the piratical raiders of the North to a complex society rich in art and trade.  This show does indeed plumb those depths, but it's still the savage beauty of the weapons and the technical prowess of that ultimate tool of raiding, the Viking ship, that are the stars of the show.

We attended on a members' open night; the first since we've joined the museum.  We quickly realised this was not a way to get a quiet, considered view.  The exhibit was packed shoulder-to-shoulder, three people deep, a crowd level I haven't seen since the Da Vinci show.  This was a real shame because, especially in the early galleries, the items are small and require detailed examination.  Jewellery, drinking horn mounts, portable trading scales, all richly ornamented and indicative of a sophisticated culture.  But there was really no time or space for contemplation.

The first two galleries lead up to a "big reveal", enhanced by a soundtrack of the sea and a play of light and dark.  You emerge from a dim ramp into the vast, brightly-lit cavern where the largest Viking ship ever unearthed takes pride of place.  It's impressive.  But mostly because of the modern frame that shows you what the complete size would have been.  Truth is, the actual timbers that remain wouldn't be much to look at without that.  For anyone who's been to the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark, (described here) this isn't much in comparison.  It makes for a dramatic backdrop for the massive gallery that comprises the rest of the exhibit, and shows off what's possible with the British Museum's new, state-of-the-art exhibition hall.  Displays here not only talk about the boat and the Vikings' navigational skills, but delve into weaponry, religion and everyday life.

Maybe it was the crowds, maybe the fact that we didn't do the audio guide, or maybe the fact that we're too well-informed on this topic already …. but neither of us emerged learning much that was new.  My husband, of course, is far from the average visitor on this topic.  Half Danish, nephew to an archeologist who spent much of his career digging stuff like this up, regular childhood visitor to Roskilde, it would have been hard to impress him.  His favourite part was a full scale model of the Jelling Stone.  King Harald Bluetooth had its intricate carving done as a monument to his parents; the copy here restores its vivid, original painting and comes closer than anything else here in connecting us to a world that could be as vibrant and colourful as Veronese's.

Member's night did come with Viking weapons experts in period costume on hand for demonstration and discussion.  Which ranked right up there with the Jelling Stone for Piers.  He may look like a city
banker, but there's a Viking in his soul.

Lacking any of my own Nordic DNA, I think I'm going to need another visit on a quieter day if the Vikings are going to leave me with the same feeling of wonder and delight as Veronese did.

Chocolate for every course? It's not as good as you'd think

Restaurant Review:  Rabot 1745, Borough Market

Chocolate is a great gimmick, but Rabot 1745 is going to have to stretch beyond that if it's to become anyone's regular haunt.

This new restaurant perched in the middle of Southwark's Borough Market is from the team behind the Hotel Chocolat chain, and the idea is to extend the range of their already-beloved cocoa into savoury courses as well as sweet.  It does so while embracing a decidedly Caribbean vibe, inspired by the owners' cocoa plantation and existing restaurant in St. Lucia.  To quote the web site, they're going for "the polished elegance of a Saint Lucian plantation house stylishly transported to the heart of London, featuring authentic touches like hurricane-felled Ironwood, brought home from our own 250-year-old cocoa estate."

It is a beautiful place, helped by the dining room's first floor location and glass walls looking over the market below.  The smell of roasting cocoa embraces you from the moment you enter and a striking, dark-skinned beauty with tiny braids piled atop her head welcomes you with the accent of the islands.  Your waiter explains the concept and demonstrates how to shell the beans waiting there for you, and then sample the nibs inside.  It's a fabulous start.

Next comes one of those really interesting menus that makes you work hard, because there are at least three choices you want to try for each course.  I could have happily eaten off the set lunch menu, a deal at £22.  Cacao spiced eggplant (aubergine), braised beef hot pot (with cocoa and balsamic), and chocolate and coffee mousse was tempting.  But even more so was red mullet and olive gnocchi followed by creole monkfish, finished with a chocolate fondant.

And here's where things start to fall down.  Starter: average to poor.  Main:  fabulous.  Pudding: like many others.

The mullet was on its own, not incorporated into gnocchi, overcooked and lacking enough interesting sauce to enliven it.  The so-called gnocchi were small balls of tapenade in a crispy crust, deep fried to the look and consistency of small marbles.  I applaud the experiment, but it shouldn't have made it out of the kitchen.  My colleague's beetroot carpaccio was pretty but tasted, she said, only average.

The monkfish, however, was good enough to tempt me back.  Pictured above.  Succulent and rich with Caribbean spices, this lived up to the early promise.  Though cocoa featured in both dishes, in neither was there enough differentiation in taste for you to pick it up.  Not like, for example, a Mexican mole sauce, which is wonderfully savoury yet unmistakably chocolatey at the same time.  Maybe they should get it on the menu.  We did have a side of white chocolate mashed potato which fell into that mole magic category.  Hard to put your finger on the exact taste, but the potatoes were noticeably different, richer and better than normal.

Pudding wasn't bad, but it was just … a chocolate fondant.  Like fondants I've had at many other restaurants.  No twist, nothing special, no better.  Which is not what you want when you get to the dessert course at a place run by one of the country's leading gourmet chocolate brands.  I shouldn't have let myself get talked out of the trio of chocolate mousses, made with escalating percentages of cocoa solids.  Confessing myself to be a milk chocolate lover, the waiter worried I wouldn't like that.  Perhaps not, but I do think it would have showed off the restaurant's strengths more.

For the concept, Rabot 1745 is worth a try.  And I may try it again.  But unless they get their dishes up to more memorable standard, it's hard to justify spending the money to eat here when a world of exotic food carts offers budget sampling in the market below.

At Lord Mayor's Mansion House, bombastic architecture loses out to subtler art

Location, location, location.  It's as true in the world of corporate event planning as it is in finding the right house.

Execs in most industries have a mailbox flooded with invitations.  These days they're rarely pure hospitality; that's more covert, and for existing clients.  If you're trying to sell something, from taxation services to sophisticated IT consulting, pairing an unusual venue with a good topic generally does the trick.  Sometimes, you can even get by with having just one of the two.

Which is how I found myself at London's Mansion House last night.  Though I've walked by the building a hundred times, I'd never managed to get inside.  The fact that there's no public admission adds to the allure.  This is the official residence of the the Lord Mayor of London, and you can only get in by invitation.

It is a bit of a disappointment.  At least for an architecture geek like me.  The main draw, at least according to textbooks, is the famous Egyptian Hall.,  It's the ceremonial centrepiece of the building.  I knew it wasn't going to be filled with pharaonic motifs.  It's called "Egyptian" because the architectural historian Vitruvius deemed this arrangement of columns to have originated along the Nile.  But still, I was expecting more mystery.

It is an over-blown, over-grand froth of white and gold that's trying too hard.  Eight massive columns on each side, topped with glistening gold Corinthian capitals, hold up a coffered barrel vault decorated with gold gilt bosses.  A balcony runs around the top, connecting the columns, and under that are aisles over which Greek gods, muses and the embodiments of virtues stand guard in sculptural form.  At each end are vast stained glass windows showing scenes from the history of London, and in niches under those you can see the City's silver gilt (that's silver plated in gold) on display.  Directly across from the entrance, set between two columns, is a throne-like podium that displays the Lord Mayor's processional sword and mace.  Gold again.

It appears to be the money men's riposte to the Banqueting House in Whitehall.  It is remarkably derivative.  But there's no Rubens on the ceiling to dignify things, the scale is all wrong and it's all just a bit too blingy.  As my fellow Missourian Mark Twain once wrote of it, its crass display simply brings to mind the fact that the people who funded it "played games of the sort that has given their race a unique and shady reputation among all truly good and holy peoples that be in the earth."

Other rooms are actually more gracious and worthy of more attention.  The ante rooms in the basement
put on a classy show, as does the main staircase.  The salon the stairs bring you to is, for my money, the finest part of the building, with pale peach walls, stunning chandeliers, screens of columns (Doric, better proportioned) and some truly magnificent plasterwork.  There's a fine set of ceremonial Regency chairs here and some worthy sculpture.  None of which has any explanatory labelling.  Clearly, the 230 other people who were here to hear about the future of cities and to drink Champagne didn't care much.  I would have liked to have learned as much about the interior as I did about infrastructure funding.

All of this, however, can be seen at a large handful of country houses around England, and arguably done better.  If there's just one thing that justifies making an effort to get in to the Mansion House … it turns out it's the art collection.  And that's a recent addition.

Wealthy property developer Harold Samuel spent the third quarter of the 20th century assembling one of the finest collections of Dutch old masters in private hands.  He gave it to the Mansion House when he died in 1987, ensuring that the walls of that salon are covered with exquisite landscapes, portraits and genre scenes you won't see in this quality and quantity outside of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  The best of these are, oddly, on the stairs, where Frans Hals' magnificent Merry Lute Player toasts you as you arrive.  Next to the cheerful musician hangs a fascinating set by David Teniers portraying the five senses.  A grumpy gardener holding a pot of lilies for scent, a ribald piper about to blow us away with the bag beneath his arm for hearing, and so on.  It's an inspired set, dripping with humour and real life, saying all it needs to in small and humble frames.  Ironically, quite the opposite of the bombastic architecture in which it's set.

If you get an invite, by all means, go.  The catering staff is top notch and the space lends itself to a fine event.  But do try to slip away from the champagne for a few minutes to admire the plasterwork and the art.  You won't be disappointed.

Manor house tastes on a suburban budget: it's look, don't buy, at London Design Week

William Morris, that giant of the English Arts and Crafts Movement, celebrated the beauty of simple  objects from the hands of true craftsmen.  He dreamed of a world of art for all, but the hand crafting part of his vision meant he was creating a world only the rich could afford.  (I've written about this before here.)

I thought about that again yesterday, as I stood in awe in the showrooms of Lewis & Wood, trying not to drool over some of the most exquisite wallpaper I've ever seen in my life.  Extra-wide, hand printed, designed by a woman who paints murals.  A lush yet pale blue undulates behind delicate branches occupied by doves so real they look as if they'll take off any minute.  It was the paper of my dreams.  Specifically, of my dream entry hall.  That is the big, oval one with the sweeping staircase, the wall behind which is done in a magnificent, mural-style paper.  (Well, it's either my dreams or a stage set for Gone With the Wind.  It's all merged together.)

My actual stairs don't sweep, they just go up.  But they do offer an unbroken expanse of wall seen from the front door.  This paper, I thought, was exactly what I needed to complete my fantasy of the dream entry.  The kind of place that sets the tone for a whole house, by making you gasp at the beauty when you walk through the front door.

Problem is, when I got home I did a bit of measuring and mocked up a rough cost, based on the retail price.  With the labour to hang it?  Probably well over £1,000.  Crazy.  It might be a valid investment for a manor house but is ridiculous overkill for a suburban home on a lovely but middling estate.  And if the dogs bit a piece out of it, I'd collapse with the tragedy.  So I won't be doing it.

But it got me thinking about the William Morris conundrum again.  More than a century after his death, in a world of digital printing, global outsourcing and armies of workers in developing nations driving down costs, why can we still not produce the beautiful and unique at a reasonable price?  Why does exquisite elegance have to be the province of the rich?

No answers to be had, but plenty of examples of the trend as I wandered around the trade day of London Design Week with my mother-in-law.  Carrying on from our visit to Decorex last autumn (covered here), I saw more evidence that there is no mid market in this world.  The well-heeled can put a unique stamp on their homes, the common man will look like everyone else with this year's selection from Dunelm Mill.

This is a world where fabric is considered cheap at £40 a metre and twice that isn't unusual.  An average chair could take three or four meters to dress, the average window the same.  Then you need to pay an expert for hours of his time to transform material into finished product.  You do the maths.  And yet, there's clearly a market out there as the design magazines keep flying off the shelves and these trade shows are filled with people working at the customised end of this world.

Should you decide to invest, what trends did I pick up yesterday?

Continuing on what I saw in September, bright colours are still hot.  As we roll into summer, they're even hotter.  I saw a lot of neon florals and oversized tropical patterns that would be perfect for kitting out a house in Florida or Hawaii.  The seem a bit surprising for the British.  (You think I'm kidding?  Check out the flower arrangement one of the design houses did to match their wallpaper.)

There's a heavy seam of the exotic that's flowing one of two ways.  First, an 18th century explorer vibe that plays off botanical drawings, sailing ships and old maps.  Second, a resurgence of Chinoiserie.  Although, picking up on the first trend, it's in colours that fans of the original Georgian trend might not recognise.  (You can get these Chinese Imperial horsemen from Colefax & Fowler in bright pink, too.)

Sadly, the exotic trend has not extended to Moorish/Arabic, which is what I'm looking for to offset some artwork along those lines for the guest room.  Maybe next season.

Everything is BIG.  I lost track of the wallpapers and fabrics I looked at and thought "If that were 30% smaller, it would be lovely.  Check out the scenic wallpaper from Cole and Son, below, to prove the point.  In fact, it brings together all the trends I spotted yesterday.  It's big, it's bright, and it's drawn from 18th century explorers' adventures.

This might work on a sweeping staircase in an ante-bellum mansion, too.  But I prefer the doves.  I will be living, however, with a marvellous shade of Dulux paint that happens to be called … dove grey.

Making your own bacon's surprisingly easy and offers creative variety

My lesson of the day:  The Chinese don't eat bacon.

This was a surprise.  One thing I've always respected about the Chinese … they like their pork.  I just
assumed that they wouldn't have missed this classic preservation method.  Wrong, my friend Joe tells me.  He's an Irishman working in Shenzhen, missing his bacon, and I thought he could use the knowledge imparted to me by the master butcher at Newlyn's Pig Perfection course.

The basic concept is simple:  Get some good pork belly.  As with anything, the better the quality of the meat, the better the end result.  Whip up a curing mixture.  Cure it for a week in the fridge.  Rinse.  Dry.  Eat.

On our cooking course my husband and I worked with two different pieces of belly.  Both about six inches wide by 10 inches long, skin on.  We did this because we wanted to try different flavourings.  And, frankly, because we didn't want to screw up a beautiful piece of meat with any failed experimentation.  But once you're comfortable with the process, there's no reason not to do a whole belly.

Our version did not use saltpetre (potassium nitrate), which is the magic ingredient you need for proper preservation.  Thus this version doesn't keep as long.  If you search the internet you can find all sorts of "proper" recipes, but saltpetre can be problematic to get.  Thus I'm sharing the standard grocery shelf version.

The base of any cure is salt and sugar. Good proportions to start with are 60g rock salt, 40g table salt and 40g sugar.  To this, add the seasonings of your choice.  Pepper, sage, thyme and bay are classics.  Piers went down this route in our test.  I went for rosemary and a tablespoon of maple syrup.  The only limit is your imagination, and common culinary sense.  Bash up whatever herbs you're using in a mortar and pestle and mix in with the salt and sugar.

Now, slather it all over your piece of pork belly.  Put it all in a tightly-sealed plastic bag.  Put it in the fridge.  Shake it about and turn it over once each day.  If you get a lot of excess liquid forming in the bag, pour it off.

After a week, take out the piece of belly and rinse off the cure.  Trim the skin off the meat.  Dry it with some kitchen roll (paper towel).  Now you need to let it dry in the air for a couple of days in a cool, dry place.  Laying it on the grill of a roasting pan and leaving it in an unused oven works well.  It should shed some more liquid.  At the and of a couple of days, pat it dry again and put it back in the fridge.

Though the salt should have preserved it for a while, without the saltpetre you can't absolutely guarantee that all bacteria have been eliminated, so it's best to use your home made version within a few days.

The last essential requirement, of course, is a good knife.  Thin strips to go with your eggs at breakfast, lardons for some pasta carbonara, medium slices for a sandwich.  The world's your oyster.  Or, rather, your pork belly.