London, Holland Park and then an Eastbourne Day Trip

Our home away from home in London is an excellent mews house,
The Kiln House, which actually includes an old brick kiln, in Holland Park, one neighborhood west of Notting Hill. Our host, Lee Bender, is a designer who ran a chain of very successful women's clothes boutiques in the 1970s in Britain and through Bloomingdales in the U.S. Her home is 1970s contemporary so it feels very comfortable for us--reminiscent of Tennessee Avenue.

We're around the corner from a park where last night you could hear a soccer game as we were collapsing into bed. The local streets are mostly columned row houses, but at the corners are small groups of shops and restaurants. Portobello Road and its Saturday madness is about five blocks from here. We had a good walk through until the crowds overwhelmed us. Notting Hill is about half a mile away with its street scene, and upscale Wesbourne Grove is providing occasional retail therapy, read window shopping, for Ben.

We bought Oyster passes for the busses and the tubes but have avoided the tubes. They are not so quick, because of construction and the transfer times between lines, as the busses, and nowhere near as fun to see London. The busses, though, are quite crowded and we have only once managed two front seats upstairs.

On Friday night we dined locally at Julies, an Italian restaurant around the corner. We enjoyed a lovely half-bottle of red burgundy from Beaune, and I had sauteed calves liver and Ben had escalopes of bream. An early night.

Saturday we went to the National's Cottlesloe Theatre on the South Bank to see "Or You Could Kiss Me", a South African production about the death from emphysema of one of two lovers after 65 years together. The wonderful thing about this is that the two lovers are puppets, voiced by actors and moved by the cast. The lead, a black South African woman, plays housekeeper, doctor, analyst and narrator. It's an excellent production. Would it do well at Signature?

Dinner in Soho after the show is a show. Not only was it Double 10 in Chinatown, the streets were alive with birds in five inch heals and boys in low slung jeans. Bad hair designs, a true street scene. Balans, the gay restaurant on Old Compton St, provided a good meal. John had a meat pie, which he couldn't finish, and Ben had a pseudo-Thai curry. There was nothing Thai about it.

Sunday was family day in Eastbourne. John's cousins, Pat, Andrea and Frances, had recently lost their mother, so we went to see them and had lunch with them and Pat's husband Noel in Eastbourne. We visit the women's dad, Bert, whom John has known since infancy, but he scarcely recognized his visitors. He is 97 and in a home.

Lunch in Eastborne at Pomodoro e Mozzarella, was a good time. Ben had veggie lasagne, while John had excellent Italian sardines.

In the later afternoon we enjoyed the view from Beachy Head above Eastbourne, a high point on the south coast with a pub with a 360 degree view. We made it back to the train with five minutes to spare and had sandwiches before collapsing into bed--we had been up since 6 AM.

On Monday, our interests centered on museums. We got on the bus for the Science Museum and the Victoria and Albert with two goals: the Dan Dare exhibit of mid-century Britain at the Science Museum and the Raphael Tapestries at the V&A.

The Dan Dare exhibit brought back memories for John of the days before his family left Britain for America and for Ben was an introduction to the Britain that "was" and is part of John. Dan Dare was an English comic-book hero, an interplanetary pilot, battling the genetically altered Venusian dictator, the Mekon, a little green man.

While the show wasn't what you'd call high impact, it documented the hopefulness of the post-World War II period, then the horrid life of the late 1940s when everything, including bread and potatoes was rationed so exports could pay for basic imports, and then the loss of competitiveness to American and then Japanese and European products.

Last night we had planned to go to Polpo, on the Currans' recommendation, in Soho, but we walked into a wall of ear-splitting decibels and decided a quiet Chinese restaurant down the street would be more fun. It was excellent, good guo-dz, duck with bean sprouts, sauteed bok choy, and salt fried squid with chilis.

Today we decided to bite the bullet and change our reservations to come home tomorrow. This meant cancelling the party on Saturday night in Paris, but I am not really feeling 100%, so we changed the flights and arrive in Washington tomorrow evening.

Surrey and the Thames

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, October 6-8

Not feeling totally on top of it, we drove the five hours from Cornwall to London--remind me never to plan on driving in the UK again unless it is absolutely necessary. The roads are narrow, as always, but now they are so busy with cars, trucks and busses that it seems as though you're driving on Constitution Avenue in the middle of English trees and fields. I see nothing except the road, I feel nothing except anxious that I shall stall in a roundabout--which I did regularly, shifting gears with the left hand--and thinking about the speed cameras marked everywhere. The Skoda Octavia diesel, a Czech version of a VW Passat, though, was an excellent car.

We made it to Surrey, though, the home John's cousin Hilary, her husband Frank, and daughter Maddy. We were joined by daughter Elizabeth and boyfriend Tim, for a lovely evening of conversation, good red, and roast beef.

On Thursday, not wanting to do anything in particular, since this was a family visit and family time, we went to the Swan in a nearby town on the banks of the Thames for lunch. Since it was a lovely day (20C--68F) with the sun shining we ate out lunches outside. A good pint of bitters, meat pies, and potatoes from Frank and me, dumplings with mince for Ben, and a salad for Hilary, made a fine lunch.

Friday, we took an excellent train from West Byfleet into Waterloo. 25 minutes on a train that appeared to glide on the welded tracks, almost silently through the suburbs. We sat directly behind a group of young English soldiers recently returned from Iraq or Afghanistan and listened as they discussed being under friendly fire from the Americans!

Cornwall: Falmouth and St Ives,

October 3

Bristol to Cornwall is a long way, particularly if you head through the beautiful tiny cathedral city of Wells, home to the bishop of Bath and Wells. Wells, of course, is a tourist attraction, with its run of tea shops and pubs along the edges of the old market square, but once inside the cathedral grounds the awesome might of the structure overwhelms you. It is all of a piece, not bits and pieces from one or two eras (at least it seems that way) in a light sand colored stone, with intricate carvings and a lovely cloister.

It's famous for its scissors arch in the middle, built apparently to stop the main tower from sinking, but intricately beautiful to behold. The windows are not so grand as many others we have seen, such as Lincoln, York or French cathedrals, but the arrangement of the stone against the glasswork and the woodwork of the quire make up for it.

The Bishops Garden is nearby and surrounded by a moat of swans and ducks. You glance in and realize that Wells is known as a prime destination for Anglican bishops because of the beauty.

The drive down to Cornwall is busy, mostly 4 lanes and the countryside is gorgeous across Somerset and Devon. Yellow gorse bushes, green pastures of cows and sheep, distant copses of trees, very English. The town names all seem familiar to us, since many New England settlers came from the region, and the physignomy of many faces is identical to the WASPs of New England.

The Highcliffe House Bed and Breakfast is a contemporary BnB in a 19th century house overlooking the town of Falmouth, and a four minute walk down the hill to the main street...and a ten minute walk back up. Simon and Vanessa, the innkeepers, are delightful and very helpful.

Because we arrived on a Sunday, dining options tend to be limited, but we were suitably overfaced at the Balti Nepalese Restaurant where we ordered far too much food for our still limited appetites. Ben ate a vegetarian biriyani while John had chicken korma. We had nan bread Nepali style, which is sweet, and onions fried as an appetizer, much like an Indian version of onion rings. Served with a mint yogurt sauce.

Monday, October 4

Not feeling up to a lot of traipsing about, we decided to go to St. Ives, to the Tate and the rugged coast. We drove to a station where a park and drive train picks up visitors and runs along the coast to St. Ives. St. Ives is an artist colony of long standing, home of Barbara Hepworth, sculptor, and the Tate. Regrettably the Tate was closed for the week, while exhibits were changed. But the Hepworth lived up to all expectations for a sculpture garden.

Set on the side of a hill behind her house and studio, the studio is full of work of various shapes and sizes, almost a feminine version of Brancusi's. One of her pieces stands before the Secretariat building of the United Nations in NY.

St. Ives has enough surf for the never say die surfer to try, though the waves were not great. We saw two people swimming but I would guess the water might have been 60F (15C), crazy. The beaches are golden sand, for which S.I. is famous.

Back to Falmouth, naps and dinner. This time at Harbourview, a fish restaurant with a view of the harbour (yes, really). We had two bowls of seafood soup, croutons, and a bottle of local ginger beer, no alcohol. Just perfect for a lovely day. On the way home sheets of drizzle blew in the wind coming over the hill behind the town.

Tuesday, October 6

We set out to see the coastline, visit St. Mawes across the bay, perhaps even the Eden Project. Health did not cooperate. John is suffering a recurrence, and despite a fine visit to the National Health Service surgery in Falmouth, is being anti-bioticked and pain-killed enough to get to an emergency room in suburban London

However, we are trying to make the best of a bad deal: We decided to do some local site-seeing and if we felt well enough, extend it. First we crossed by chain link ferry over the deep fjord-like River Fal, used as heavily for anchorage by container ships today and the US and Royal Navies during World War II.









We visited a gorgeous little 13th century church and graveyard, St Just of Roseland, and the had a walk around St Mawes, which is very pretty but it was cloudy and cold so the thatched houses and lovely little streets leading down to the harbor did not shine, so to speak.

Tomorrow we head off to London and John can quit driving, which he is finding difficult, probably because we have a fairly large Czech Skoda Octavia, the same size and car as a VW Passatt (VW owns Skoda). It's not much different from my Acura in size and it's a diesel.

Our Friend Jo Gets Hitched

We'd been looking forward to meeting our friend Joanna's fiance but didn't quite manage it until the day before her wedding. Looks like she picked a gem..Simon has the good looks and the personality to fit with her vibrant life. They seem to share interests. The wedding ceremony took place in a typically gothic 19th century village church on the site of a much older building. The Anglican rector knew how to involve the congration as she proceeded through the service, the some of the body gymnastics she requested, simple though they were, outpaced John's abilities, which was duly noticed since he was sitting on the aisle. We also had the distinction of being the only Americans, though there was a visible Scot in his Black Watch tartan kilt.

Many of Jo's friends were just delightful, a cross section from her life. The reception site, the Bristol Zoo, turned out to be a locale with something to interest everyone, though John did not find the giraffe he had hoped to ride. Ben found his big kitty, an Asian lion pacing his cage, with the good taste not the lick his over the two-to-four year olds ogling him. I guess his appetite got dampened later in the evening when it started to pour.

Ruth, the mother of the bride, made the multi-layered English fruit cake wedding cake. Took her several days as she built up the layers, held together by supporting dowels so the cake would not flatten

Our hotel, the Redwood Country Club was excellent, though overpowered by weddings--there were three while we there. Young people do like to shout in the halls at 2:30AM.

We would like to have had a bit more time in Bristol. Our hosts,Ruth and Andy,took us to a fine fish restaurant, Loch Fyne, in the old dock section, now full of restaurants and nightclubs. John had an excellent smoke mackerel pate, and really good fish and chips as the main. Ben started with seafood soup, unlike chowder with no whole veggie pieces. His main course was a grilled whole bream (which is similar to a sea bass).

Bristol is full of marvelous engineering projects---and they are marvelous since it was the home of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The Clifton suspension bridge, and the SS Britannia, the , orlds first ocean liner, are part of the general feel of the city. Of course, Bristol got very rich transporting slaves and tobacco in the 18th century, much like its namesake in Rhode Island.

La Belle Epoque and the Canal du Bourgogne

Monday, September 27, 2010

As we rise gently in a lock about two miles from Tonnerre, the adventure really begins. The countryside is gently rolling to slightly hilly. Over the hills is Chablis, around and about are the vineyards of chardonnay and pinot noir. The canal follows the river Armançon through the valley, taking a course laid out in the reign of Louis Quatorze. Now the Canal du Bourgogne, though, is only used for recreation. According to the crew it is only open from 8 am to noon and from 1:30 to 5 in the afternoon. All green and lush.

Getting here was easy. All flights were on time, we had a good lunch of andouillette for John and duck parmentier for Ben at the Bleu Express in Gare de Lyons after a five hour Ambien-induced sleep on Air France's 777.










We met the group in Paris: Friends chosen for their abilities to converse and be interesting, according to our hosts Jane and Peter. The discussions never stop, from politics to business affairs to social issues to travels.

We're from all over the country. Jane and Peter from Atherton, Dick and CB from Russian Hill, Ed and Gigi from Portola Valley, all in Northern California, Angie and Bubba from Houston and us, the Washingtonians. Very successful people who have had very full lives. Three of us are British-born but all are now from the USA.

Part of the trip is getting to know local foodstuffs and wines. Emma, the chef, puts on a good feast. Last night we embarked to mushroom risotto balls as one amuse-bouche, and then saucisson, hummos, and roasted pepper. Our first course, with a chablis from a local winery, were scallops with roe attached on a bed of pureed leeks with a sliver of bacon. The main course, with a local Irancy pinot noir, was chicken stuffed with cheese on a bed of white beans and chopped red cabbage. Three cheeses, one morbier with ash, cheaurce, and langres. All are local from Burgundy. Dessert was a crepe stuffed with chocolate custard and entwined with a licorice stick.

As the evening progressed, we found we are a liberal bunch, too. Conversation ranging from perceptions of the president to gay rights to an impending California bankruptcy.

This morning as we moved from Tonnerre to Tanlay, we walked along the side of the canal for several miles. The river Armançon, a few yards from the canal, winds through the fields lined with trees and an occasional weeping willow. The walkway alongside the canal, the home of the donkeys who pulled ancient canal boats, is now the home of little red-brown slugs. Although the staff moans about the poor condition of the canals and paucity of state funding available for maintenance, to us it looks good till the boat rubs the bottom. It doesn't happen often, but the Burgundy regional government isn't doing proper upkeep, they say.

Lunch: to accompany a bourgogne aligoté, cream of vegetable soup, caremelized spinach and feta tart, blood orange salad, rice and bacon salad with mushrooms and pesto. Brie queen of all cheeses—bloomy and creamy.

For dinner we started with a somewhat heavier white burgundy with a touch of oak in it and followed with a light red burgundy. Both were very fitting to go with the goat cheese bonbon that was the starter and the roasted salmon on ratatouille with a polenta stuffed mini poivron. Our cheese selection included a reblochon, an ashen pyramid valançay, and livarot.

Our conversation centered on journaling which is a technique for self-discovery and how it works discovered by Angie, traveling with her friend Bubba, who runs an energy company and maintains a significant interest in her techniques. Both are from Houston.

Our evening finished with a few heading into the hot tub on the deck. Today, we head off for an off-boat luncheon and a wine tasting at a appelation chablis winery.

Tuesday morning, September 28

We are anchored at Tanlay, a petite village with a grand chateau.
On arrival yesterday afternoon we walked through the village to the chateau for a look at the Renaissance castle. It's not really a castle though it does have a moat; it once was a real castle but a variety of owners expanded it into a country chateau. Now the same family which has lived there since the days of Henry IV of Navarre still remain the owners and use about half the chateau. The other half is full of the old antiques and the various awards and paintings colllected by the marquises and counts who have held the domain.

The castle is a collection of towers and gates, spiral staircases and rooms of paintings and frescoes, some of which are magnificent. It's also hosted visiting royalty with pictures of Queen Juliana of Holland and Queen Ellizabeth II of England visibly shown. The last count, father of the current family, was a diplomat around the world and shows off his decorations from countries as different as Laos and Ethiopia, where he had been stationed.

John can note one thing for this trip, the wine flows continuously and it is uniformly interesting and excellent, though from various wineries and vineyards in various styles. The captain, Stephan, clearly knows his stuff and is most helpful.

Yesterday's things to note: light brown slugs, mistletoe, manicured fields, 10 Americans arriving at a pharmacie—the only store open in the village in the mid-afteroon.

Wednesday, September 29

Imagine yourself on a hill overlooking a premier cru vineyard in appelation Chablis. It's harvest time in this part of Burgundy and we spent the day in and around the wineries of the commun de Chablis.

We learned at a wine tasting at the Domaine Servin the differences between petit chablis, chablis, premier cru chablis and chablis grand cru, tasting each kind and deciding that petit chablis was lovely but light, to the grand cru which can age for many years. The visit in Chablis included lunch at an old moulin converted into a first class restaurant, Cafe Laroche.

Lunch started with a light amuse-bouche of shredded salmon with vinaigrette and fresh dill, followed by a starter of pâté de fois and pain grillé. The main course, a paleron of Irish beef, pork belly and bacon with creamed potatoes was sweet in its red wine sauce, but also slightly peppered. Both wines fit the meals, a chablis Domaine Laroche, and a Mas la Chevaliere, Vignoble Rioqua Bianca from the south of France.

Since the harvest was in process, we hiked the vineyards to see the pickers at work. Then we went up into the vineyard to see the mechanical harvesters moving through the vines. These machines shake the clusters of grapes just enough to loosen and then collect them. Do they use them in California or Texas? A question yet to be answered.

Then dinner, we had chef Emma's repas of pea, ginger and coriander with chili cream, roast lamb stuffed with olive, garlic and lemon, potato daphinoise with red wine jus; orange polenta cake with chocolate custard and cointreau soaked oranges.

This morning we enjoyed a trip to the market at Noyers. Noyers is one of those cute little medieval and renaissance villages that has winding streets, homes from the last five hundred years, and nice, really nice, people. We enjoyed blood sausages, poached in a huge cauldron, a pleasant older French lady who showed us her garden, chickens and honey her husband makes. She asked if we were Dutch!

Coffees in the local bistrot completed the morning. This afternoon we travel.

Lunch,back aboard, warmed Dick's palate with its pate, and those into vegetables with a cauliflower salad and French past dish, crozet with a reblouchon topping and two wines, a sauvignon blanc from eastern burgundy and a light burgundy from near Beaune.

The highlight of the afternoon: Chateau d'Ancy-le-Franc, owned now by an American who is restoring it. The design is strongly Classic Roman, a product of an Italian architect, whose work was mostly in Italy. The interior took many years to complete, but the exterior was done in three (?) years. Many of the rooms were designed to praise Henri III, who never visited. There are paintings that show the face of Henri IV (of Navarre) in place of the actual victim. John wonders how Louis Quatorze reacted to the face of his ancestor beheaded.

Another highlight of the afternoon was Ben's first bike ride since 2002! He managed it beautifully, though John feared he would misengage a gear, topple over and fall in the canal--which is not as deep as Ben is tall, so it would not have been a fatal swim.

We celebrated Peter's birthday last night, chocalate cake and vin mousseaux de Bourgogne. Preceded by cod on potatoes and passion fruit, and a boudin noir tarte with onions. The wines were Loire valley, a chinon and a sauvigon blanc, les Beaux Jours.




Thursday, September 30

Thursday was Ben and John's last day with the group, whose trip would finish on Saturday morning. We arose late to fog, thick fog obscuring the buildings bordering the canal. One thing you can say about canals and barges is -- they are damp...



Our visits during the day were to the Fontenay Abbey, a complex of religious buidlings now a Unesco site, nestled at a junction of two rivers ad built starting in the 12th century. It was deconsecrated during or after the Revolution and during the nineteenth century the nave was used as a paper mill.The Abbey is Cicsterian, an offshoot of the Benedictine monks.
The Cisterians were founded by Bernard of Clairvaux who brought a group of friends into Burgundy where they were given the land the Abbey stands on today.

The buildings are breathtaking in their simplicity. They do not have the ornamentation of a similar vintage church.



Being rather stark, almost Puritan in their stature. Much of the place has been restored by its current American owner. The forge is of particular interest where the monks worked iron with water power and a Chinese water powered hammer by the 14th century.

Along the way, we enjoyed the trout in their ponds and the multihued snails on the walls.Thinking of dinner. We returned to the boat, Ben and John packed and we had a last excellent dinner together around the table where so many conversations had taken place.

Dinner included roast duck breast, a starter of potato blinis, and sticky toffee pudding, which appealed strongly to Jane and Dick! We enjoyed an excellent premier cru chablis 2007 from the Servin winery where we had tasted and a red Givry domaine masse 2007. Both outstanding. This was the Captain's dinner...Stephane, along with this crew, Rudy, Emma the chef, Kaeli the cheese person and Lindsey,newly arrived from British Columbia. The heartfelt thanks went to them, and to our hosts for sharing the trip with us.