Fauré and Leighton

We started the morning deciding to explore Portobello Road's antique shops.   It's a short walk from where we stayed.    The place was in its Friday state, not terribly crowded and not overwhelmed with street hawkers, but there are plenty of them.   Many of the antique shops appear to be shuttered compared to last time.   We enjoying moseying about and did purchase a small piece of silver plate, but it was more of a morning just browsing at the latest fashions both on Portobello Road and Westbourne Grove than much else.  A pleasant morning.   The food market looked good, too.

We lunched at Paul's on good sandwiches and good coffee.  Soon we will find out if the London loyalty card works in Washington.

In the afternoon, following on a piece from the NY Times, we went to the see the late 19th century home of the artist Frederic, Lord Leighton, a fashionable, rich, portraitist, probably gay, who lived in an encrusted Victorian place alone.  Much like Olana of Frederick Church, up the Hudson, the house is full of his interests in the Middle East, with magnificent tile work and an Arab domed room, but it's still a Victorian pile.    He was part of the Holland Park art group and a president of the Royal Academy of Art.   The art is very pre-Raphaelite.

On the way we passed through a neighborhood of very large, but very secure homes, with heavy police presence.  It appeared to be a street of embassy houses, but one had these two naked men over the portico.  Hmm.

We walked back through the park, stopping to watch a group of students with teacher study aerodynamics and fluid mechanics with missile water bombs.  

The evening started with a long bus ride, trapped in heavy traffic in Central London.   45 minutes to get from Oxford Circus to Shaftesbury Road (less than a mile).  But we made it to St Martin's in time for a light dinner and then the concert.

A magnificent presentation of Mozart, Vivaldi and Fauré.  The Requiem of course was the central piece.   The rumble of the organ, the excellence of the soloists and the fine orchestra, made it better than we have ever heard it.

And now this morning, Saturday, to the airport and home.

Two Full Days in London

The Heathrow Express is so easy, though a bit expensive.   The Underground with bags is not.   We thought to take the Express and then get a taxi, but then decided we'd do the Underground to Holland Park.   Don't.  From Paddington it requires a change at Notting Hill, and there is nothing bag-friendly about a line transfer.  Stairs, stairs and more stairs.  What would England do about a Disabilities Act with a system that is 150 years old!  We made it, but at significant effect on muscles and joints.

Our BnB, the Kiln House in Holland Park, is everything we remembered and the landlady, Lee, is equally as delightful as during our last visit 2-1/2 years ago.   The mews house is contemporary, probably about 40 years old, built around a  hop kiln.  Very comfortable, very good continental breakfast, and an easy walk to busses and the tube.

And a chance to look at some of the more trendy fashions--very tight jeans rolled up almost above the top of socks, along with rolled beanies.   Ah, the 60s are back!

We had a slow Wednesday afternoon but ventured out to a delightful Persian restaurant for dinner.   It is the Chelem Sotoun, on Holland Park Road.  It's only been open a few days, according to Lee the landlady, and she had not been in it.  We had two lovely eggplant appetizers, served with naan bread that they heat on a hot dome just before serving.  The appetizers were kasha-o-baadenjan, a mix of fried eggplant, walnuts, onion, whey and fried mint, and mirza ghassemi, baked eggplant, garlic, onions, tomatoes and eggs.   Our mains were equally as tasty.  Ben had a ghemieh baddenjan stew, a vegetarian dish of eggplant, yellow split peas, onion, tomato, lime juice and spices. John enjoyed a zeresk polo, a stewed chicken leg in a red tomato and red bell pepper broth, served with a mixed basmati and brown rice with pomegranate seeds.  He enjoyed two glasses of a Provençale rosé.  What was even nicer was the bill, which came in at about USD30 per person.

Yesterday we headed off to the National Portrait Galley for the Man Ray photo show.  It includes Man Ray's work from the start of his photo career in 1916 through to his death in 1976.  As the photographer of the arts crowd in Paris in the 20s and 30s he did portraits of all the greats--Picasso, Braque, Gertrude and Alice, Duchamp, Dali and so on.  One of the most interesting subjects, though, was his mistress Lee Miller, a stunning beauty of Garbo-esque stature.   

Lovely loaves on Regent St

St Martin's

Trafalgar Square

As we left walking down to Trafalgar Square, we avoided a guy passing out flyers until John noticed that it was for a performance of Fauré's Requiem at  St Martin in the Fields, just across the street.  He went back for the paper and we decided to get tickets for the performance for tonight, since SMITF is a place we have never been before.   We will enjoy it.  We're also going to do a repeat performance of yesterday's excellent lunch in the crypt for dinner.  Lunch was soup and a vegetable stew, excellent.  We'll see what they offer for dinner.

Last night we went to the West End for the slapstick farce One Man, Two Guv'nors, at the Royal Haymarket Theatre.  It was hilariously funny, very broad music hall humor, lots of sexual innuendos, and not so innuendo.  Set in the early 60s, it's a belly-laugh a minute and must be incredibly exhausting for the performers.

After the show, we had a late English dinner at Stockpot a restaurant close to the theatre, that was disappointing.   We had planned to have chicken and mushroom pot pies, but they were out of them.  Ben had "sort-of" scampi which may have had some shrimp somewhere, and John had sausages and chips.   We started with an excellent lentil soup, but the dinner did not progress to heights from there.   Best, though, was the price, at about USD30 each, including a Lancaster ale.

Easy ride on the tube home making all connections, but the transfers between lines are quite lengthy.  We had forgotten.  But the tube has been upgraded because of last year's Olympics, with most of the cars in very good shape and stations pleasant, though still small, and still without many escalators and elevators.

Finishing off Dublin

We're in Dublin Airport finishing off our visit to Ireland.   James, Priscilla and the girls hugged us goodbye and we agreed to try to meet in Washington sometime next year.   The girls will be grown more by then!   

Last night we had our goodbye dinner to Dublin at Winding Stair.   It's on the banks of the Liffey--found by Ben through a Frank Bruni column in the New York Times.  It's an old warehouse type of place with a bar and a foodie reputation, that it clearly lives up to.  The wine list was lovely, too.

We started with appetizers of salmon, Dingle Bay crab, and a sampling of other bits and pieces of fish from the waters around Ireland.  First Ben ordered a Western Australia, Plantaget sauvignon blanc with the first course.  Then Ben ordered a Cote de Beaune burgundy that was exquisite to go with the mains.  They include a filet steak for James, beef cheeks with kale for John, Priscilla had mixed local seafood and Ben a John Dory.   We walked out raving about the place and enjoyed the evening immensely.

Now to London.

We do Dublin

Dublin isn't a large city, but there is certainly enough to walk our legs to nubs for two days, and the weather was not helpful.   

It turned bitterly cold over Sunday night and snowed off and on, not accumulating as it has in England, but certainly noticeable on the ground.  And the windchill factor made it seem like 20F.  Let's say it was cold.

But we walked down to the bus, got our Leap cards for fares, like Washington's Smarttrip or London's Oysters, and board a no. 7 to downtown.  Monday is not a great day to find things open, but we  visited Merrion Square and the monument to Oscar Wilde and noted some of the interesting Dublin street lights!  We  went to the National Gallery and enjoyed listening to a talk on Jack Yeats, an artist of some Irish note.  We didn't care much for the museum's brutal concrete architecture.   We had lunch at Carluccio's, two lovely mushroom and pancetta soups and a small service of tempura vegetables (Italian style).  Then to Insomnia for coffee and a bus home.  It was really too cold to spend time out and about.

We dined at home last night on a free range Irish chicken from Co. Monaghan, which we did not know was a NORTHERN Irish chicken!  The Rhône wine we had to go with it was very nice and the whole meal was full of good conversation, politics and history, of course.

Early to bed.  

This morning, Tuesday, we took the train into Dublin center along the coast and then headed on a tour of the various literary sites in town.   We visited the Garden of Remembrance to the Irish patriots of the 1916 Easter Rebellion, James Joyce's home, the Writer's Museum and the O'Connell Street.  From there it was up to Fixx for coffees and lunch after a walk through Trinity College.   Very pretty this part of town.  

You can't say that central Dublin's monuments are spread out.  From the castle to James Joyce's house is less than a mile, but there is plenty of interesting architecture--including the Parliament House designed by James Hoban, architect of the White House.  It's a very similar design.  The flags were at half mast for the death of the foreign minister, and the photographers were at the gates pleased to have had the opportunity to take a good shot of the hearse.  

We had a look at the bog men in the National Museum--Archeology.  They were found in bogs undecomposed after a millenium or so in the acid bogs with minimal oxygen.  In effect they are mummies.

We visited the Castle, which is closed this year because it's being used for ceremonies associated with Ireland's holding the EU Presidency.   The Beattie Museum on the castle grounds, though, has an excellent book exhibit.  Then home to Dun Laoghaire and preparation for dinner tonight.  

A quick trip to Dublin and the Magpie

A long trip from Killorglin to Dublin.  It's about four hours, give or take, and only about half of it is on the motorway.   Compared to the other National highways (N routes) this route before the motorway was quite good, 100 kmh.  We made a couple of stops for gas to make sure we would not be running on vapor when I turned the car in.

Arriving in Dun Laoghaire, we felt like coming home to be met by James, Priscilla and the girls.  Great evening of conversation and a lovely dinner of pan-fried hake for Ben and fish and chips for John, washed down in John's case by a lovely couple of pints of the local Howling Gale ale.

It got very cold last night and there is some snow on the ground.  Gale force 9 for the winds:   up to 88 kmh or 54 mph.  Today it's off to see a couple of museums and meander around Dublin.  Tomorrow we will take the Trinity College tour of downtown.

Tapas and Dingle's Shore and Mountain Passes

Friday night we decided on something "different" from dinner.  Just around the corner from the Bianconi we had found a Spanish tapas restaurant, so we headed there for dinner, feeling that it was time to have some small plates!   The Sol y Sombra is in a desanctified parish church, not large, but still very impressive with its Gothic architecture.  We had one of two tables at the high altar.  Looking down on the congregation of diners, we decided that four wines by the glass, chosen from different regions of Spain, would be a celebration.

They were a jumilla, from south of Valencia, a castilla leon from the Duoro region, a albariño from Galicia, and a sauvignon blanc from the southeast.  The castilla leon and the sauvignon blanc were the two best.  We enjoyed the jumilla, which was more like a house red, and the albariño was very good, but not of the caliber of the sauvignon blanc.

We had five tapas.  The best was undoubtedly the monkfish wrapped in Spanish bacon, grilled and served in a light sauce.  The others, a small plate of albondigas, meatballs of beef and pork, a platter of grilled vegetables, including asparagus, scallions, eggplant, zucchini and peppers, a casserole type of dish of eggplant, zucchini, serrano ham, shrimp and mancheco cheese melted together, and a dish of patatas bravas.  All were as good as those we had  in Barcelona a number of years ago.  Though the variety was not so wide as in Barcelona, the presentation was excellent.  A note of the other diners--virtually all of them had an invidividual bowl of patatas bravas.  The Irish and their potatoes!

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Today, Saturday, we headed off to the Dingle Peninsula, just to the north of us.  It's similar to the Inveragh Peninsula where we have been, but in many ways different.  To begin with not all signs are in English since it is a major part of the An Ghaeltacht, the area of Ireland where Gaelic is the predominant first language. 

Our stop was the point north of Brandon where the land drops precipitously into the sea.  The cliffs are quite magnificent and the sun shone while we were there, so the views were phenomenal.  Of course, ten minutes later it was drizzling and five minutes after that pouring!  From there we 
crossed the peninsula to the town of Dingle, over the Connor Pass.  The road is single lane up the mountain- side with few viewpoints to the top.  Nevertheless, while the drive is harrowing, the views are magnificent, and I picked up a couple of Irish stones for my collection.  We bought our yoghurt and bananas for lunch, this time at a price like home:  We shopped in a Lidl store, the Irish version of Aldi's.  Very cheap.  Adequate.  Their pear yoghurt is lovely.

The cliffs west of Dingle, along the Slea Head Drive, are also magnificent, with many islands visible in the distance.  Getting down to the beaches is no easy task, taken in first gear for engine breaking going down and for enough power for a strong grade in the road coming back up.   The waves though bang into the cliffs with bubbling foam.  Very grand.  At the top, where the road runs, the fields are checkerboard with rock walls, like New England, and back up into the hills where they are covered with brown scrub, burned to grow green, as the spring begins, to feed the sheep. 

And then we headed to Dingle for coffee at An Cupán Tae, where the owner does not speak Gaelic despite the name, but serves lovely Spanish style coffee just the same, of which she was duly proud.  The young barista comes from Bulgaria.  



Dingle still has a fishing fleet, with some boats tied up at the pier, and masses of nets available.  Fish is regularly offered for sale by the side of the road, as were fresh carrots and cabbages.  A bit early for most other vegetables.

There is a large population of Eastern Europeans here:  our hotel waiter, and I think some of the staff, is from Lithuania, another waiter in Kilkenny was Slovakian.  And they are in no hurry to go back East, already acclimatized to Ireland's weather.  We ran into Lithuanian, Polish, German and South African tourists today.  No Americans or Canadians.

Tonight a meal at the Bianconi and perhaps music at a local pub, the Kingdom.

The Gap of Dunloe

Today was the Gap of Dunloe.  It's a must see, sort of like seeing Old Faithful or the Grand Canyon.  Quite impressive, and fun because you get the patter of an Irish carter who drives you up the Gap, a glacial valley created millions of years ago, at a slow pace with a moody horse.  That Donny (pronounced Dawnee) had ventured to America a few years ago made it more interesting.  Of all places, he went to Hanalei Bay on Kaua'i!  He promiseds a refund if it rained--of course he meant Irish rain, not Irish drizzle or mist, which we did "enjoy".  It's all quite hokey, but lots of fun.  

Then we had a run up the hill past Killarney to see the lakes in the region from a high vantage point.  Once again, we took a picture, but munched on our bananas and spooned our luncheon yoghurt as the rains came and went.  We found suitable coffee at Lir Café in downtown Killarney, looked around the town founded in the days of Queen Elizabeth, and then back to the hotel, feeling we had filled the day enough.  Tonight we will enjoy tapas at a local restaurant in a desanctified church here in Killorglin.