Rome to Napoli Saturday 22 April 2017

We were up early to pack and head to Termini, Rome's rail station. After a coffee, we boarded a fast train to Napoli. Seventy minutes later, we arrived, grabbed a cab to the hotel , and checked in.

First stop was a walk up the hill to the archeological museum, where we hired a guide to take us around and put the exhibits into context. hundreds of bronze and marble statues, most from Herculaneum, destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD. Some amazing mosaics, in extraordinary  detail, which were originally used on the floors of the various villas and public buildings. A room of erotic statues and mosaics from the brothels of Herculaneum and Pompei, and some lovely roman jewellery.

After a vegetarian lunch in a nearby restaurant, our friends headed back to the museum, while we headed to the funicular to take us up the mountain top overlooking the old city and the port. After a slight divergence from our planned route (code for getting lost), we fell in with a young Parisian photographer who lives here with  his Spanish girlfriend and spends his time photographing the people and barrios of Napoli.

Upon reaching the summit, a man exiting the funicular station started a conversation with boronia, told her that she looked very Italian (he said that was a compliment) and explained that he and his four brothers ran a cameo factory which had been in the family for three generations. He invited us into his shop where his brother was hand carving various cameo broaches, lovely work, but not really aligned with modern sensibilities. I suspect that he deliberately targeted Boronia in order to try to gain a customer.

Next we visited the museum (art gallery) on the summit, a little tired and under-managed, in what appeared to be an old monastery next to the castle which had been used as a former marine headquarters for the Napolitean state in the 18th century. I was very tired, so found it difficult to concentrate. There were exhibits around Italian theatre in the 19th century, Italian boat building and naval history, and more, but it had all become a blur!

We walked back down , a fifteen minute stroll through narrow streets of the Spanish quarter, very gritty (code for dark, dingy and dirty), but the most frustrating issue for me is that the the streets have been entirely colonised by motor vehicles with no concessions to pedestrian traffic. Boronia said she liked the feel of the neighborhood.

Once we entered the old city, the throngs increased, the streets narrow, and traffic blocked off in some parts. Many shops selling a wide range of pastries, clearly showing a mediterranean influence, akin to turkish or african sweets. They looked extremely tempting (in fact i did succumb to ordering one with a coffee earlier in the day) and while it was tasty, it wasn't as delicious as my memories of my childhood and my mother's cooking. I have particularly fond memories of cupcakes presented on special occasions.

After a rest in the hotel we went out to an unprepossessing restaurant recommended by the Guardian newspaper, Stanza al Gusto. The food was interesting and the service was excellent. Conversation with our friends ranged across theology, family, our plans for tomorrow, and much more I have already forgotten. An enjoyable day.

Rome Friday 21 April

While our friends headed to the Vatican City and St Peters, we decided to walk across the Tiber to Trastevere, spent some time looking at the art in Santa Maria de Trastevere, and then headed down to Santa Cecilia where there are underground excavations of old roman foundations and mosaics. As we emerged some texan tourists mentioned a fresco in the monastery next door, so we tagged along s they rang the door bell, and were granted admittance. After paying a small fee, we were taken by an ancient nun, the size of a hobbit, with large knowing eyes, but a blank face, into a lift, where she deliberately pushed the button and we ascended to the second story and were guided into the room of the fresco. It was only two thirds complete,very old,at least five hundred years, and i gained the impression that the small guardian of the fresco had been oversighting its continued preservation for at least half of that time...after a respectable ten minutes viewing, we were guided below again, the procedure of the the deliberate pushing of the correct button being undertaken in reverse....

We wended across the river, into the jewish quarter, with a dozen or so hebrew /italian restaurants the most visible presence of its existence...heading east we found our next objective, a church in the piazza minerva, next to the pantheon. This was less impressive, so after some lunch, we headed home for a rest.

Later in the afternoon, we headed across to the cathedral of san giovanni di laterano, the pope's personal cathedral. For my taste, this church was completely over the top, a literal product of the gilded age. The most interesting sight was of an elderly monsignor sitting alone in a confessional, reading his kindle while waiting for penitents. He didn't seem to have many takers, indeed he didn't have any at all. Boronia suggested that I must have something to confess, which i clearly do, particularly my backsliding around the rules for placing the washing up brush on the sink. In any case, as contrition and a commitment to not sin again is essential to a true confession, I decided to give it all a miss.

After a short visit to the la scala sancta,which can only be ascended on your knees. I gave that a miss. As we emerged, past the two military guards with their sub machine guns, and below the huge huge advert for a Toyota yaris, I felt strangely moved to take a greater interest in agnosticism.

These journey there and back was interesting, mixing with the roman workers heading home for the evening. We headed back to our own neighbourhood, a drink in a bar, which merged into a light meal,.

Rome Thursday 20 April 2017

After an early pre-breakfast walk, we spent an enjoyable day getting oriented by taking a tour bus around tome. We spent most of the day in the region of the Galleria Borghese, although we didn't manage to gain entry.

Instead we went to the National Gallery of Modern Art nearby, where the main exhibition was titled 'time out of joint', a quote from Hamlet which pleased me no end. The curators had contrasted modern and older artworks, which worked quite well, juxtaposing the differences time inflicts while preserving the timeless essentials.

We all had different favorite art works. One of the most memorable for me was a spiral made of nails inserted into the wall at different angles, a metaphor for the individual vicissitudes of life creating a much more structured pattern which is greater and more beautiful than the sum of its everyday parts.

Boronia liked an iron sculpture of a man with a goat on his back, stylised and streamlined. I liked it too, though I am not sure what it was attempting to say to us.

One smaller exhibition in the gallery was on the theme of the people who visited the gallery, with lots of photos of people viewing art, and spending time in galleries. Boronia dared me to do something interesting, so I whipped off my shirt and lay on the floor bare chested. I was about to take off my trousers, but Boronia threatened to scream. Anyway, there is photographic evidence available to any interested parties for a price.

After a pleasant lunch in the Gallery, we headed home. I went off to find an adapter. Boronia and our friends went to see the church of Santa Maria di Maggiore, which they reported had wonderful mosaics, a particular interest of Boronia.

Dinner was according to Ligurian cuisine in a small nearby trattoria which had been recommended by our landlord. I ordered lightly grilled peppers basted with anchovies, a salad, and pasta with tomato and mushroom sauce. No dessert, but too much bread and wine!

All agreed a very pleasant day.

Rome: Wednesday 19 April 2017

We flew into Frankfurt just before 6.00 am, chilly at zero degrees, but lovely to exit the plane after 12 hours from Singapore. Flight was uneventful, we both managed five or so hours sleep plus a movie.

After  along walk, I estimate more than a kilometre to the far end of the terminal, we boarded our flight to Rome. A short hour-long hop across the alps, saw us in Rome by around 9.30 am. Our friends arrived from London around ten thirty am, and we travelled into our apartment located near the Piazza Navona.

The apartment is a fascinating melange of the old and the new....the hallway is literarily a cobbled path many centuries old which has been incorporated into the design of the apartment. Exposed beams of oak. Exposed brickwork which is clearly many centuries old. There is a new annex with steel building framework reinforcing the far wall,and creating a loft above the living room, the art is modern classical, with lots of baroque mirrors, tiled floors in faux mosaics, plus lots of steel sculptures which while quite heavy looking are quite interesting; not my taste, but I admire the innovation and willingness to be different.

After we had settled in a little, we headed to a nearby restaurant for lunch, very pleasant roman meal. An Australian living in Rome came up to us to say how pleased he was to hear our accents.Then a walk around the neighbourhood taking in three impressive churches (the size of most Australian cathedrals, full of fifteenth century art, saints relics, and a sprinkling of tourists. 

The highlight was undoubtedly the Pantheon, full of tourists , but extremely impressive. Rebuilt by Emperor Hadrian in the first century AD, he must have run out of money as he failed to finish the cupola leaving a hole in the roof. Budget constraints and reining in the deficit are clearly longstanding issues.

A quick peek inside a modern art gallery, plus the odd jewellery shop, and we headed home, all of us feeling quite tired.

As I write, we are about to head out for an early dinner, so that we might get an early night. While I have up till now deliberately not been focussing on the trip, having finally arrived, it feels relaxing and a nice change from the busyness of the ANU!

I have been missing my regular coffees at the ANU though!

Italy calling

Preparations for our 2017 trip to Italy are almost done. Boronia has done virtually all the work, planning, booking travel and accommodation, and all the loose ends to which I am oblivious. This post is one opportunity to acknowledge her hard work, and say thank you, and help me to refocus on the trip ahead. I will try to keep the blog updates so that those few souls who are interested to know what we are up to can log in. While Boronia has a Facebook account, I have an ideological objection, and so am left with google blogger!

Final days in London

Our final days in London passed quickly.

Wednesday morning we headed off by bus to Islington to visit the Victoria Miro Museum in Wharf Road, a contemporary art venue with a fairly minimalist style. The gallery was presenting an exhibition of Paintings and mirror installations by Yayoi Kusama. The installations were all quite breathtaking, but required the suspension of intellect to allow the imaginative force of the visual spectacles created by mirrors and light to emerge and suffuse experience. I found this harder than one might imagine, but once you let go, the visual panorama created by Kusama has the appearance of infinite presence. In once case, she created an immense world of lit cityscapes, quite amazing. another installation involved scores of floating silver balls slightly smaller than basketballs, al mirroring each other and the gardens and us the observers. Her paintings were very similar to western desert acrylic dot paintings, swirls of abstract shapes and colours.

From there, we walked to Ottolenghi's Islington café for lunch, which was superb.

Then into the city on foot, eventually arriving, almost serendipitously, at the Sloane Museum, a rather idiosyncratic, indeed one might say eccentric or bizarre, collection of statues and objects from ancient Rome and Greece, filling this small three story house near the city to overflowing. Sir John Sloane, who lived and collected in the late 1700s, was an architect, and had a clear passion for classical sculpture and architecture. When I suggested to a young attendant that he must have been quite eccentric, she courageously disagreed with me, quite politely, and suggested instead that as the collection was designed to be a teaching aide for classics students who might not easily get to Rome or Greece, he was clearly very public spirited and not eccentric at all.

That was enough for the day, and we headed home arriving around five pm. The evening was largely spent packing up.

Thursday was quiet. We checked out, dropped our luggage at a storage facility in St Pancras, and then walked to St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square to hear a short choral concert on sacred opera music. It was very enjoyable.

Afterwards, Boronia went shopping for fabric while I paid a short visit to the National Gallery. From thence, we headed back to St Pancras, picked up ur luggage and headed to Heathrow.

Our flight home was unexceptional, albeit very long.

We departed Thursday evening at nine thirty pm, stopped in Dubai for an hour, and then onwards to a very wet Sydney and thence to Canberra. We arrived around nine am Saturday, thirty four hours after we took the train to Heathrow. Despite the wet cold weather, it is great to be home!

Betroffenheit

Tuesday 31 May. We split up for the morning, Boronia heading into the city, I went to St Pancras station to sort out a place to leave our bags on Thursday, and then walked through the rain into Trafalgar Square, through a lovely burial ground whose name i can't recall, but which contains the grave of Oliver Cromwells daughter.

After I spent some time perusing in some antiquarian bookshops, we met up late morning at Dover Street markets (no longer located in Dover Street, but in Haymarket), an incredibly upmarket store selling clothes and accessories, many with four figure prices. We had lunch at the cafe, light and enjoyable.

We spent an hour and a bit in the National Portrait Gallery, which was very enjoyable. I enjoyed the section on the Tudors and their times, admired a replica of the Chandon portrait of Shakespeare, the original being on loan elsewhere, and spotted good portraits of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, both seventeenth century diarists.

After an hour back in Shoreditch, we headed out to dinner with Elisabetta and her partner Richard at a lovely Tapas Bar called Moritos in Exmouth Market. Then on to Sadlers Well for a performance of Betroffenheit. The word refers to a state of shock, or deep consternation.

And what an extraordinary performance it was. Directed by Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite and theatre director and actor Jonathan Young, the performance was a dazzling combination of confronting sounds, searching lighting, constraining spaces (at times actually compressing the physical shapes of the actors/dancers into miniatures of themselves. Above all, it combined dramatic intensity and brilliant choreography (including puppetry) to bring the audience into the mind of a person confronted with an overwhelming shock or crisis. All this was delivered with technical sophistication and precision and masterfully mixed to achieve a level of psychic symbiosis or empathy between the audience and the actors, and in particular, the plight of the main character whose mind is being shredded and reassembled before our eyes. After three standing ovations, we emerged with a sense of having experienced something quite special, having been granted access to the experience of deep shock without the associated pain. Strangely, it left me at least uplifted, as its ultimate message appeared to be optimistic and positive without in any way erasing the existence or meaning of the pain that inevitably accompanies any (or more appropriately) every life.

So after the previous days workmanlike performance of Romeo and Juliet, we both felt extremely privileged to have had the opportunity to be part of a performance which soars, and is truly extra- ordinary. Our thanks to Lisabetta for encouraging us to book tickets!