Tag Archive | Museum of Transport

Obama Fever in Istanbul–Dolmache Palace and Hagia Sofia

Apr9

Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Istanbul, Turkey

A Presidential Visit Disrupts our Sightseeing Plans:
After another huge breakfast on the sea-facing terrace of Deniz Konark Hotel in which we slept very well last night, we set out to discover the Ayasofya—once a Byzantine church, then a mosque and now a museum. Only, we discovered, to our utter disappointment, that the entire area surrounding Sultanahmet Square had been shut down as President Barrack Obama was touring the area that morning in his intention to meet with senior leaders of Turkey’s Islamic community and students at the university. While proud of the fact that our new President was remaining true to his agenda of making peace with the Islamic world after the horrid chasms that had engulfed our world during the Bush years, I was disappointed that he chose the very week we were in Istanbul to plan his visit as we had only limited time at our disposal and wanted to cover the city’s main sights.

Since the tram station at Sultanahmet was shut, we began walking around the Ayasofya hoping to reach the Archaeological Museum which we had learned yesterday would remain open. However, on arriving at the access point to the museum, we found the entire area barricaded by armed foot police. Unable to reach the museum, we had to made sudden changes in plan and decided to visit the Dolmabahce Palace which was far away from all the political action of Sultanahmet Square. Since we were told that Ayasofya would remain closed all day, we had no choice but to plan to see it tomorrow early in the morning just before our departure for the airport. We knew we would be cutting it fine but there was no way we could leave Istanbul without seeing the famous Ayasofya Museum!

It was with some difficulty, mainly linguistic ones, that we understood that we could take a local train that ran along the waterfront past the old stone walls of the city that was then called Byzantium to the last stop called Sirkeci. However, when we arrived there, we found that the Sirkeci tram station was closed too. We were instructed to walk through busy streets lined with shops to the Eminonu waterfront and take a metro from there to Kalabas from where the Palace was only a short ten minute walk away! All along the route, both Llew and I felt as if we were back home on the Indian sub-continent. Indeed so many parts of the city were so reminsicent of Bombay to me and Karachi to Llew that we thought we were transported back in tome to our childhood years! It was all rather uncanny and we wondered what it is about the environment of the East that so blots out national borders and makes locations merge in our memories.

Needless to say, we took a lemon and made lemonade for these rather unexpected detours took us into nooks and crannies of Istanbul that were never on our agenda. Indeed, upon arriving at the Eminonu waterfront, I realized that we were very close to the Rustam Pasa Mosque which a British fellow-traveler at our hotel that told us that morning was his wife’s favorite mosque in Istanbul. It was irresistible to me and I suggested to Llew that we should try to see it. This meant walking very close by the Spice Bazaar with its gunny sacks full of ground and whole spices that presented marvelously indigenous sights.

Inside the Rustam Pasa Mosque:
The Rustam Pasa Mosque is approached by a rather novel entry—past a courtyard filled with friendly vendors. You climb a staircase and find yourself at the entrance where you take your shoes off and enter one of the most exquisite Islamic interiors with amazingly beautiful Iznik tile work and evocative mood lighting. Indeed, we found the space quite enchanting and were very glad we made the effort to see it. Best of all, we had a chance to see the local Turks go about their daily routines—praying, shopping, sipping tea in the bazaars, bustling about as they went from one location to the next.

On to the Asian Side of Istanbul:
It was with some difficulty that we found the metro station that allowed us to cross the Golden Horn and take us to the Asian part of Istanbul. For truly, Istanbul is the bridge between the Western and Eastern hemispheres, between Europe on the one hand and Asia on the other. The Dolmabahce Place lies in the Asian side of the city and in the metro we were carried deep into its heart until we arrived at the last stop called Kalabas where we hopped out. On asking for directions, we started our short walk to the palace passing the Dolmabahce Mosque en route.

Llew kept hoping that after all the time, trouble and expense we had undertaken to get to the Palace it was not closed as well. So, it was with some relief that we discovered visitors hurrying to and from it—a clear indication that it was, in fact, open. On arriving at the Palace Gates, we paid our entry fee of 16 lira (I chose not to pay extra to take my camera inside as I was running short of memory card space anyway) and joined a guided tour in English that was scheduled to begin in just a few minutes.

Exploring the Dolmabahce Palace:
The walk to the main doors of the palace took us past the most beautifully landscaped gardens that were a rainbow of early spring colors in the multitude of primroses and tulips that were everywhere. A beautiful swan fountain was the centerpiece of these formal gardens and it created a lovely setting that reminded both Llew and me of the Saheliyon Ki Bari Gardens in Jaipur, India, that we had seen last year.

Then, we were joining a vast throng of people who awaited the introduction to the Palace by a very pretty Turkish guide who took us through the paces and informed us that the palace was built in 1856 by Sultan Abdul Mecit when the Ottoman Empire was in its declining years—a fact belied by the grandeur and opulence of the palace and its décor. Three successive sultans lived in the palace which also served as a place in which Mustapha Kemal Pasha known as Attaturk, founder of the moder nRepublic of Turkey, breathed his last. In fact, all the clocks in the place are stopped at 9.05 am, the exact moment of his death.

Nothing I could say to describe the palace would ever possibly do it justice for the interior truly beggars description. It is one of the most ostentatious royal spaces I have ever seen and some might, cynically, even describe it as OTT (Over The Top). All I can say is that Buckingham Palace which Llew and I had visited many years ago when it was first opened to visitors quite pales into insignificance besides the lavish accoutrements of this place which actually contains a winding dual crystal staircase made of sparkling Baccarat crystal. The palace has a stupendous collection of English and Czechoslovakian crystal chandeliers that throw wonderful pools of light over the entire collections of art works and antiques with which each room is filled. These state room not only housed the private apartments of the rulers (who certainly knew a thing or two about living in luxury) but served as banqueting halls and reception rooms for visiting heads of state.

Among the highlights of the Palace were the Red Room where the sultan met his guests, the private reception rooms that form a part of the harem (in which, the guide informed me when I asked, that there were about 150 girls), the Rose colored Salon , the spectacular alabaster bathroom fully carved and superbly fitted. It was very difficult for my eye to find a single focal point in any of these rooms that were decorated in purely Western Victorian style with its emphasis on excess. In fact, far from believing that Less is More, these decorators believed that More was never ever Enough! Ever so frequently, from the many little windows that were sprinkled around the rooms to let in light and air, we caught marvelous glimpses of the glittering Bosphorus and the many boats that plied its waters carrying people and cargo from the European to the Asian worlds! This was all very evocative indeed and I realized that a vast part of the appeal of this royal palace is its unique location for which other palace in the world can boast the fact that it bridges two continents?

We finally arrived at the piece de resistance of the palace, the Ceremonial Hall which contains the palace’s largest crystal chandelier, a monumental piece that hangs almost to the floor and spreads its radius wide along the ceiling. While we were admiring the interior and taking in the sight of the magnificent domed ceiling, the guide gave us what I am sure she knew would be the most surprisingly piece of information—the ceiling was not domed at all! In fact, it is flat as a pancake and it is only by the brilliant use of trompe l’oeil painting that it appears to be concave! Truly a masterpiece of decorative painting, we simply could not fathom how that effect was created so convincingly to fool the eye. In fact, even the DK Eye Witness Guide to Turkey describes the Ceremonial Hall as having a domed ceiling!

It was about 2pm when we left the palace precincts and walked to the tram stop at Kalabas to return to Sultanahmet Square. We discovered, by this point, that the trams had started running normally and we hoped very much that we would still be able to return to the Archaeological Museum. Our journey took about half an hour and since our big breakfast still kept us going, we decided to forego lunch, nibbling instead on the biscuits I had carried for snacking.

Upon getting off at Sultanahmet, we saw, to our enormous surprise, a line outside the Ayasofya Museum and we were delighted to discover that the museum had been reopened—which probably mean that Obama’s visit had ended. Indeed, by the time we bought ourselves roasted corn cobs that we sat on a bench and ate with enjoyment, Obama was probably already on his surprise flight to meet the American troops in Iraq.

Inside the Ayasofya—finally!
This allowed us to join the line to purchase tickets to the museum (10 liras each) and within no time at all, we were entering the ancient building that has stood on this site for over a millennium! Indeed, the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sofia in Greek and Sancta Sofiya in Latin) was inaugurated by Emperor Justinian in 537 AD. The Christian iconography seen inside in the form of glittering golden mosaics portraying Christ, the Madonna and a bevy of saints, all date from these Roman-Byzantine times. They were plastered when the church was taken over by the Islamic Caliphs and turned into a mosque under the Ottomans in the 15th century. Fortunately, they did not destroy these ancient mosaics…they only plastered over them. Recent attempts to scrape off this plaster has resulted in the unearthing of remnants of the mosaics some of which are so beautifully executed that they quite took my breath away.

What is most striking about Ayasofya, however, are the vast dimensions of the space. This strikes the visitor right away upon first entry. The walls and domed ceiling stretch out majestically overhead towering above for what seems eternity. The 15th century additions of giant calligraphic rondels that portray the names of Prophet Mohamed, his two nephews and the various caliphs of the time were fascinating especially as I have never seen anything quite like these anywhere else.

On encircling the interior of the church, we took in the main artistic and architectural features of the place that is now a museum—not used for worship of any kind. In fact, it is a completely secular place of archaeological interest alone. We saw the Loge of the Sultan (a grilled space created by marble jalis or screens that allowed him to pray without being seen), the Mihrab that faces Mecca, the minber from which the priest leads the faithful in prayer, the miraculous healing pillar of St. Gregory that stands behind the giant marble urns used to store water that assisted in the ablutions that were necessary before Muslims entered the mosque, etc. The place was rather dimly lit throughout and was teeming with visitors all of whom paused frequently in deep contemplation of the features of the space—whether Christian or Islamic.

Then we were climbing up the winding pathway (not a staircase) that led to the upper floor. This seemed to go on forever, which is understandable, I suppose, when you consider the great height of the first storey. It was here that we saw the bulk of the Christian mosaics and were also able to marvel at the main floor of the mosque from another higher perspective. The effects were all very stirring indeed and we realized how fortunate we were to have been able to visit this museum today. There was just too much to see and there was no way that we could have seen and done it all on a hurried hour-long visit as we had intended to do just before boarding the mini bus that would take us to the airport tomorrow morning. Indeed the Ayasofya which I had seen in so many architectural drawings and paintings of the 20th century and which still overwhelmed me is one of the greatest buildings in the world and we could easily understand why.

Time for last-minute shopping:
With about an hour or two left before the shops closed for the day, we walked along Sultanahmet Square to buy baklava (one of my favorite Eastern desserts) and boxes of Turkish delight for Llew to take home to his colleagues in the States. They come in a variety of colors and flavors from pomegranate and other tropical fruit to varieties studded with pistachios and almonds and flavored with honey. We also had the chance to taste a few of the sample goodies in the various shops and as we walked along the busy streets, we munched on our sweet snacks.

Last Dinner at Ayasofya Restaurant:
Indeed, we remained faithful to the food offerings at Ayasofya Restaurant returning there once more to enjoy the best of Turkish cooking. This evening, we found it rather packed with tourists as its family-friendly atmosphere attracted many patrons. Over more delicious mezzes and grilled kebabs and Efes pilsner beer, we truly enjoyed our meal as much as we enjoyed gabbing with Hassan who sat with us at our table and talked about his carpet trade. It was fun to chat with a local and to get his perspective on Obama’s visit to Turkey. Overall, the Turks are delighted to host the American president whom Hassan described as a “man with a smiling face from which we can get a lot of positive energy”. He was of the opinion that “Obama will be good not just for America but for the whole world”.

It was time for us to take our leave of our new friend and return to our Deniz Konark Hotel where we spent our last night knowing that the next morning we would board a flight to return to London. Istanbul had been a fabulous experience in every sense of the word and we were so full of exotic multiple images as we fell asleep.

Bygdoy–Oslo’s Lovely Peninsular

Mar1

Friday, February 27, 2009
Oslo, Norway

Exploring Bygdo–The Viking Ships Museum:

I decided to devote Day Two to Bygdoy (Like Big Boy, except this is Big Doy!), a peninsular that juts into the fjord. Once an island, it was reclaimed by Karl Johans and now had a motorway that connects the island to the mainland. Claimed as prime real estate, it has a number of embassies and consulates located here as well as beautiful residential mansions and homes that were magically transformed into million-dollar beauties under the cover of winter. I loved the drive on Bus Number 30 that got me to Bygdoy and having purchased an Oslo Pass for 24 hours (220 kroner), I was able to visit all the museums on the peninsular free of charge as well as use all forms of transportation for free.

My first port of call was the Viking Ships Museum which is set in a fabulously designed building (by Arnestein Arneberg in 1914) in the shape of a cross—each arm containing one of the ships themselves. These ships were found in burial mounds (similar to the concept behind the Sutton Hoo Buried Viking ship and its contents in the British Museum) in southern Norway. The three 1000 year old Viking ships, the Oseberg, the Gokstad and the Tune ship (this one in the least well-preserved state) were excavated in the early years of the 20th century, then restored beautifully and exhibited in this museum where they stand as silent sentinels of Norway’s history, telling, nevertheless, many intriguing stories of belief in the afterlife. We saw a burial chamber as would have been on every ship together with a vast number of metal artifacts that were buried with the dead. The gold, silver and previous jewelry that would have also been buried with the dead Viking chieftains were plundered many years ago, but the articles left behind speak eloquently of a long lost civilization that once lorded it over the waters of Europe. The ships and the hoard left behind had me spellbound.

The Nordic Folk Museum:
A short stroll away along ice encrusted streets is the Nordic Folk Museum, a vast open air museum that documents the lives of Norwegians through the centuries. While it must seem like Disneyland in the summer when mobbed by tourists, it was empty but for a few school kids who had come with their teachers on field trips. Despite the cold, they enjoyed themselves fully in the open air running around in their winter gear and playing tag.

My tour book had informed me that there were three highlights I should not miss in this vast space and I headed first for Gamlebyen or Old Town, a cluster of homes, shops, post office, etc. dating from the last century and transported to this space in a bid to preserve them. These Tudor-like structures with their stucco walls and exposed beams had a quiet beauty about them. Inside, I could peak into the rooms and see the fitments that proclaimed the kind of rural lives led by Norway’s ordinary people back in the day. Following the path through the museum, I arrived at a grand building that was open. I pushed the heavy door and found myself in an apartment building. Each floor was recreated to produce an idea of what life would have been like in Oslo over the past century. There was, for instance, an apartment decorated to look like the interior of Torvald and Nora Helmer’s home in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. This was superbly done and I felt as I was on the film set with Jane Harris and Jason Robards in the film version that I have seen. And wasn’t Torvald played by Christopher Plummer?

On another floor, there was a replica of the apartment once owned in the 1960s by Norway’s then Prime Minister. The Beatles played on the radiogram, Beatles and Rolling Stones posters filled the walls of the teenage son’s room and the gadgetry in the kitchen spoke of cozy family dinners in the winter. Loving interior decoration and design as much as I do, it was a treat to wander through the silent home and try to place myself in those epochs.

Then, I was out on the street again making my way towards Setesdaltunet, a whole street containing old wooden homes built on stilts that were transported from Setesdal in Northern Norway and brought there. The snow was melting in the bright sunshine and fell in great big drops on the grounds or formed mini-stalactites around the eaves of these charming wooden structures—many of which I entered and found to be dark and sparse.

The last highlight of this museum, according to my book, is the 11th century Gol Stave Church and to get there, I had to climb a steep winding hill to gaze upon a small wooden church that was very reminiscent of the many pagodas I saw in Thailand in the ancient wats that dot the Northern highlands. The layers of the church’s exterior were densely covered with snow (at least six inches had fallen) but it was the inside that was amazing. The rear wall was covered with a faint painting of the Last Supper and in front of it was a very rustic altar—just a table basically with two candle stands. It was in this church that I saw the carved portal at the door which took me back to the magnificent specimen I had seen in the History Museum and I realized where in such a church, this sort of structure would fit. It was mind blowing and the impressions these discoveries made on me were heightened by the utter silence of the landscape that allowed me to contemplate my surroundings and seemed to spiritualize my discoveries.

The Kon-Tiki, Fram and Maritime Museums:
It was time then to board the bus (the Oslo Pass includes free rides on all modes of transport) and make my way to the tip of the peninsula to get to the Kon-Tiki Museum. I had done bit of reading and knew that the Kon-Tiki is associated with Thor Heyerdahl, one of Norway’s best known oceanographers. Indeed, Nordic sea-faring history which began with the Vikings who were aggressive sailors, explorers and adventurers, carried forward well into contemporary times in the many explorations and experiments undertaken by Heyerdahl throughout his life.

The Kon-Tiki Museum documents the two main voyages he undertook—one from Peru to the Easter Islands with a crew of six in a balsam raft he called the Kon-Tiki and another called the Ra II, a papyrus boat (as existed in ancient Egypt) that he sailed from Morocco to Barbados with a multi-racial and multi-cultural crew of eight. The museum has done such a wondrous job of educating the visitor on the planning, preparation, dangers and accomplishments of these voyages that, unbelievably, were undertaken successfully on such primitive craft as to leave on speechless. The Kon-Tiki expedition was completed in 1947 and a few years later, in 1954, the documentary film that was made on it won the Oscar Award for Best Documentary Film. Not only were we able to see the actually award-winning documentary in a marvelous setting—the inside of a cave as found on Easter Island—but, get this, we were actually able to see the Oscar that the film won! For me, a devoted cinema-buff, to finally see Oscar face-to-face and so unexpectedly, was a thrill that words cannot describe. Naturally, I had to take a picture right by the golden statue and it was for me more exciting that the news than the crew braved a 60 foot long killer whale shark that encircled the raft for hours on end before one of the crew members could stand the stress no longer and harpooned it off into the Deep! So, I went to see the Kon-Tiki and I ended up seeing a real Oscar!

My next destination was the Fram Museum, another quite wondrous structure built around the height and width of the great ship, the Fram, that had participated in so many expeditions to the South Pole including the last one by Roald Amundsen in 1910-1912. Not only could you see the great dimensions of this ship but you could actually walk upon its deck. It was similar to the experience I had walking upon the deck not inches away from where Lord Nelson had fallen on the H.M.S. Victory at Portsmouth only a few days earlier. A visit into the interior of the ship proves that shipping had improved enormously since Nelson’s time.

The small crews on these voyages had almost luxurious cabins (tiny but very well fitted out indeed) and none of the squalor that characterized life at sea for sailors who were “hard-pressed” (forced) into sea service in the 18th century. There actually was a billiards table and a piano on board that spoke of evenings of leisure and happy entertainment. It blew my mind to think that I was actually standing on a ship that had been to the farthest points in the north and south of our planet—parts of the globe on which, I know, I will never set foot. Outside, in the expanses that faced Oslo harbor, is the Gjoa, a small boat that Amundsen used when negotiating the Northwest Passage for the first time in 1912. This area also afforded some terrific views of the fjord and the port.

And then I could not resist popping into the Maritime Museum next door which is the receptacle of all of Norway’s sea-faring history. Here, another unexpected treat awaited me for visitors are led into a vast auditorium to watch a film on a multi-plex screen (five parts) similar to the experience of watching an IMAX movie. This marvelous film took us on a guided coastal visual tour of Norway with stupendous camera work from a low-flying helicopter and a boat. In and out, we wound through fjords that rose with steep cliffs facing ahead of us which reminded me so much of the real helicopter ride that Llew and I had taken on the island of Kauai in Hawaii when we had skimmed only feet above the famed Na Pali Cliffs. Though I was seated in an auditorium, I had a few nail biting moments as we swerved with the camera over these heights then dropped rapidly to the depths of the sea shore where fishing villages that scar the landscape offered a glimpse into the plain rural life of Nordic country folk. From villages to cities, we passed through Bergen and made our way to Oslo as we learned about the role she has played in global maritime life. Truly, this was one of the highlights of my trip—and it ranked almost as close as did the seeing of the Oscar Award for the first time.

Also very interesting about this museum is the painting Leif Erickson Sees America for the First Time by Christian Krogh which fills one wall. It is based on the theory that the Nordic seamen had arrived in North American long before Columbus did and is proudly displayed in this space. I was also deeply touched by a special exhibition on the Boat People of Vietnam who were rescued by Nordic sailors and brought as immigrants to Norway right after the end of the Vietnam War. A recent reunion brought these half starved and dying immigrant people together after thirty years and it was in their honor that this exhibition was held together with one of the actual boats on which they were rescued from those troubled Asian waters.

Night had fallen by the time I arrived at Haraldsheim as the tram I chose to take had to come to a standstill for almost an hour as another one ahead of it had broken down. By this time, I felt confident about finding my way back to the Youth Hostel and the darkness no longer served to unnerve me. A hot shower later, I was in bed and reading and marveling at everything I had seen.

An Uneventful Day…Except for Travel Planning

Feb16

Monday, February 16, 2009
London

Today was a fairly uneventful day. But for the fact that I taught two Writing classes, met with one student during my lunch break during which time I also squeezed in a meeting to sort out the details of our proposed trip to Suffolk, nothing much happened.

I did visit the large Jessops Camera store on Oxford Street to find out if they could help me fix my camera. Not only would they take 4-6 weeks to do this, but they said the charge would be 120 pounds! Given that our camera is about 9 years old, the salesman told me it was not worth it at all. At any rate, I have managed to find a way to keep it working even though it will not be most convenient. This has taken the worry out of the problem for me and I have now laid it to rest.

My meeting with Alice at NYU led to the finalizing of our plans for our student trip into Constable Country. We’ve now decided to include the medieval town of Lavenham in our itinerary. We will be headed to Dedham, East Bergholt, Flatford Mill on the River Stour and then on to Lavenham in Suffolk. It promises to be a fun-filled day.

I also had a chance to talk with Robert about our forthcoming trip to Cornwall and have a better idea now about our itinerary there. We will be making our base at Newquay, visiting the Eden Project and Tintagel, legendary castle-home of King Arthur, and Boscastle. I have decided that since a whole day will be spent by my students on the bus getting to Cornwall, I will go two days earlier and see some more of the region on my own. I am keen to visit St. Ives, for instance, where the Tate St. Ives and the Barbara Hepworth Museum are worth a visit as well as the town of Penzance (made famous by Gilbert and Sullivan in their opera The Pirates of Penzance). I will then head to Newquay and meet the bus when it arrives with the students late on Friday evening.

In an attempt to find transport to Cornwall, I went online and through Ryanair found a free (yes, Free) ticket to Newquay. Inclusive of taxes, my ticket cost one penny but because I made the booking online with my credit card, I had to pay 5 pounds! I will now get on the phone tomorrow and make accommodation arrangements for myself for two nights at the same hotel where NYU will be putting me up for the two nights that I will be spending there with my students.

I also managed to find myself accommodation in Paris through a French student of mine and since I am keen to experience the Chunnel, I went online to the Eurostar website and found some incredible fares. I am looking at spending a week in Paris somewhere during the first or second week in June when the weather will be much nicer and the responsibilities of teaching will be behind me. Now all I have to do is find another week somewhere on my calendar to be spent in Belgium–and with that I would have achieved almost all my international travel goals for the year.

I spent a good part of the evening photocopying material from my travel books for the trip I am taking this coming Friday with my students to Winchester and Portsmouth and to all the other spots that Stephanie and I intend to visit at the weekends. That and a bunch of other things that needed to be photocopied kept me busy for another hour, long past my office hours.

It was a very mild day and everyone looked cheerful even though the sun was in hiding all day today. I am amazed to see daffodil stalks sticking their heads out of the ground already–a sight that would be unthinkable in the States in the middle of February. I know that spring comes early to England (“Oh to be in England/ Now that Spring is here!”) but now that I am already spying the little signs that herald its arrival, I am fairly bristling with excitement.

I got back home to sort out all that material that I had copied and to organize it and watch a bit of TV and eat my dinner before I settled down for the night.

I am excited about waking tomorrow to the inauguration of a new channel on TV called ‘Blighty’ which promises to present programs about the quirkiest aspects of British life and culture. It should be, as they would say here, not just brilliant, but loads of fun.

Tomorrow I am also planning to go and do something I have never done before in London–Viewing the Changing of the Guards. I am particularly keen to view this spectacle while the guards are in their winter togs of knee-length grey coats and if I want to get some pictures featuring this garb, I will have to hurry as there doesn’t seem to be much of winter left, is there?

London’s Seedier Side: Two Walking Tours of the East End

Feb13

Friday, February 13, 2009
London

The Prisoner of Azkaban is marching along nicely. One hour long reading sessions at dawn and at bedtime will, I think, get me through the tomes (which grow in size with each volume) before I am gone from here.

Alternate Soaks, phone calls to Bombay, email correspondence, proofreading blog entries–all of that kept me busy through the morning. But the thing that ate most of my time and got me most frustrated was trying to find reasonably priced airfares for our proposed flight from Rome to Istanbul just before Easter. After trying every possibility, I came to the crazy conclusion that it might be best to use the budget airlines to return to London from Rome, then take another flight from London to Istanbul! Llew green lighted the scheme as most financially feasible and tomorrow, I shall try to make our bookings.

In the midst of all the internet research I did to try to find some fun things that Llew and I can do on Easter Sunday (as we will be spending it together here–yyesss!!!), I finally did something I had been meaning to do for weeks–book a ticket to the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Flower Show, In fact, this was on my list of things to do before I leave London! I have been reading about this legendary flower show–perhaps the world’s best–for so many years in the Home and Garden magazines to which I subscribe in the States. So, I was determined to buy myself a ticket.

When I finally got down to it this morning, I discovered that it is scheduled the very week (May 19-23) I will be in Lyon, France, with my French pen pal of 37 years, Genevieve Tougne-Ducote. Genevieve and I have not seen each other since 1989 and I was so looking forward to meeting her and her family–husband and two sons. Fortunately, the day I return from France is also the last day of the show and since my flight arrives at Stanstead at 10.30 am, I will certainly be able to catch the last three to four hours of the show–which will be ample, I think.

Then, for technical reasons (they need my credit card registered to a UK address)my online purchase would not go through and in desperation, I called my friend Rosemary and asked her to make the purchase for me with her credit card. She readily obliged and I will reimburse her in cash. Delighted, just delighted, that I did get tickets to the show and will actually be able to make it, despite my travel plans, I decided to go outdoors and enjoy what had shaped into a lovely day with robin’s egg blue skies and a cheerful winter sun. I showered, decided to do the Jack the Ripper Walk from my book–24 Great Walks in London–and left my flat.

The reason I chose this macabre walk was because I had scheduled a walking tour of Spitalfields with a Blue Badge Guide for my students of Global Cultures at 5pm. I knew that Brick Lane is located in this general area and since my students are studying Monica Ali’s Brick Lane for my South Asian Studies class, I thought it would make sense to take them there to explore the area and see it for themselves. We were scheduled to meet at Liverpool Street Station at 5 pm, so it made sense to do another walking tour of the same area in the afternoon with a good long break in-between in a coffee shop to rest my legs.

The Jack the Ripper Tour began at Aldgate Underground Station and took me past such interesting sights as the following:

1. The Church of “St. Botolph Without Aldgate” (so-called because it lay beyond, outside, or without, the gates of Aldgate). Also known as the Prostitutes’ Church as most of the street walkers of the area worshipped here.

2. Various locations in which the six women that Jack the Ripper killed were found or were last seen. These included a few pubs in the area around Whitechapel.

3. Petticoat Lane (so-called because 18th century under-jackets called petticoats, worn by men, were sold on this street). Today, it is a thriving street market, mostly frequented on Sundays by tourists. I found it very disappointing and totally lacking in atmosphere.

4. Old Spitalfields Market: A Victorian indoor market (similar to Old Covent Garden Market or Smithfield Market). Both this place and Petticoat Lane were on my list of places to see before I left London–so I guess I can say, Been There, Done That.

5. The Jame Masjid at Fournier Street, just off Brick Lane. Interesting because it was once a Huguenot Chapel, then a synagogue and is now a mosque.

6. Rows and rows of row houses (attached houses), many of which were destroyed during World War II (remember all the TV footage we have seen so often of the late Queen Mother touring the ravaged East End after the London Blitz?). These once housed the Huguenot silk weavers and giant wooden bobbins are now hung outside these homes. This is especially true of Wilkes Street and Puma Court. This was the most atmospheric part of the walk and appealed to me the most.

7. Christ Church, Spitalfields, built by Nicholas Hawksmoor (pupil of Sir Christopher Wren) in the early 1700s. An imposing Baroque structure, its spire rises tall into the sky and its four columns in the front flank a semi-circular pediment that gives it a very distinctive look. Inside, after restoration, it exudes peace and serenity and has fine stained glass windows.

This walk took me to some of the seediest parts of London I have seen so far. There was garbage in the gutters, houses and neighborhoods that looked badly in need of refurbishment or at least a lick of paint, rather ratty looking shops and Mom and Pop businesses. Now I understand why they say the East End is one of the most neglected parts of the city and why they hope the coming Olympics in 2012 will rejuvenate the area.

However, it is also one of the most diverse parts of the city and I saw a variety of races living in harmony together and a number of global cultures coalescesing quite effortlessly. Amazingly, just a few blocks past the rather run down streets were the towering glass and concrete structures around Liverpool Street Station where the large corporations have set up shop–RBS, for instance. Just a few yards ahead is Bank, so-called because the Bank of England (aka the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street) is located here and one day, when the weather gets better, I shall explore these old solid 18th station buildings and the warren of streets that unite them, on foot.

I arrived at Liverpool Street Station at the end of this walk and found myself a quiet spot in a Burger King where I rested for over an hour and read the free local eveninger–“the london paper”! At 5 pm, I made my way to the Upper Concourse to the meeting point outside McDonald’s where my students and I were supposed to meet Rachel Kolsky, our guide. We were all very punctual indeed and our walk began with Rachel pointing out many interesting features of the area, such as:

1. Kindertransport Sculpture: This sculpture by Frederick Meissler depicts the Kindertransport children. She told us the moving story of the 10,000 European children who were brought to England in 1939 just before the outbreak of World War I and were placed in English homes. I had never heard of this aspect of War history before and was fascinated and moved to tears by Rachel’s retelling of the scheme and the impact it had on the children who are scattered, today, all over the world.

2. Dennis Severs House: Built by an American expatriate in the East End who took an old Huguenot house and converted it into a ‘museum’ of sorts to recreate the era of the old silk weavers. It is a must-see, I think, and I will definitely carve out some time to see it though visiting hours are rather erratic.

3. Homes on Hansbury Street, deliberately kept in a decrepit state, because they are used today as movie sets for period films and TV series. The insides were also true to those bygone eras and were fascinating to peer into.

4. The synagogue on Hansbury Street and the many stories associated with it. This taught me about the arrival of the Jews into the East End (they lived on the outskirts of the City as they were not permitted within the City reaches), their persecution and expulsion under Edward I, their return to England under the more hospitable Oliver Cromwell, their persecution again in the Victorian Age and their move out of the East End to the Western suburbs such as Golders Green, Hendon and Edgeware in the 1970s to be replaced by Bangaldeshi immigrants.

5. Brick Lane: This stop told us about the arrival of the Bangla or Bengali immigrants into the UK from the time of the lascars (Muslim ship hands) who, in the late 1800s, jumped ship in England and made their home in the East End to those who arrived at the end of World War II to provide labor during the era of acute labor shortage in England and then the most recent ones who came during the Civil War in 1971. We touched on Monica Ali’s novel as we surveyed the endless chain of Bangladeshi restaurants, sweetmeat shops, sari emporiums, video stores, etc.

The appetizing aromas of spices assailed our nostrils and made me long for a curry stop except that it was freezing by the time we finished our walk about two hours later and all that my students and I could think of was getting back home to our warm dwellings and hunkering down for the evening.

The walk taught me why you can find really excellent bagels in Brick Lane (the Jewish run bakeries still stay open 24 hours of the day and make really authentic, delicious, boiled bagels on the premises). I can’t wait to try one with lox (smoked salmon) and cream cheese, capers, lenon juice and chopped onion. It is one of my favorite things to eat and I frequently fix myself this treat for breakfast at home in the States.

It is true that having done two walks in one day, I was very tired when I got home. I made myself comfortable on the couch while eating my dinner (I picked up canneloni stuffed with spinach and ricotta cheese from M&S, what my neighbor Tim refers to as his “larder”) while doing my Alternate Soaks (if ever I needed them, it was this evening!) then checked my email and got ready for bed.

A Day Devoted to Berlin’s Jews

Jan31

Friday, January 30, 2009
Berlin

A Jewish History of Berlin:
I devoted this final day in Berlin to retracing the history of the European Jew and leaving the apartment at 9 am (after a breakfast of coffee and purchased chocolate croissants), I took a bus down Ku-Damm to Checkpoint Charlie as I wanted to get some pictures there. Since it was still rather early, there were few tourists about and I was able to get the kind of angles I wanted without too much traffic tearing down the streets.

In fact, one of the things that occurred to me about Berlin was how little traffic there was—I was never caught in a jam anywhere—and how smoothly it moved. Of course, everyone seemed to be driving a spiffy German car—there were Mercedes Benz-es and Audis coming out of my ears! And the roads were smooth as silk so that even the double decker buses glided over them effortlessly. I later found out that not many Berliners own cars as their public transport is so fabulous—as indeed I discovered for myself. It is easy to feel as if you are transported to the mid-50s in the lack of cars on the roads.

At Checkpoint Charlie:
I paid one euro to the German guy who is licensed to masquerade as an American GI so I could pose with him at Checkpoint Charlie! There is also another kiosk where for another euro you can get your passport stamped with any of the visas of the pre-1989 era that were required if passengers were crossing the border from one part of divided Germany into the other. Much as I felt tempted to have my passport stamped with one of those visa stamps, I found it hard to accept that the man is ‘licensed’ to perform this operation in a real passport! I did not have the time to visit the Checkpoint Charlie Museum nearby which details the stories of the many escapees who crossed the border using the most ingenious of means.

The Jewish Historic Museum:
Then began my long walk to the Jewish Historic Museum. This quite recent addition to the Berlin skyline is the design of American Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind who has designed a structure that is supposed to look like the Star of David turned inside-out. To call it sheer genius would be an understatement. It is so superbly conceived and so amazingly implemented—here again my engagement and connection with the Modernist architecture took me by surprise, but I marveled with each step I took further and further into the building which is something of a maze. It’s a good thing that a lot of young volunteer guides are around to help you find your way to a particular exhibit. In the basement, for instance, I visited the Holocaust Tower—a structure which represents various things to various people. It is a tall column that you enter underground. You will find yourself in an unlit and unheated space (and believe me, the contrast in temperatures is striking at any time of year). The only light is natural—coming from a small slit in the walls. It represented for me the entrapment of the prisoners in the various concentration camps around Europe and their inability to escape.

I then stepped into the Garden of Exile, a series of granite columns with olive trees growing at the top—olives, of course, symbolizing the Promised Land. Of course, since this was the wrong time of year to be visiting a garden, I merely took a peek at it, but again the concepts behind these creations were just staggering.

Taking the elevator to the top floor, I got off in the Medieval section which details the persecutions that Jews encountered throughout history. In this section, I was able, through a computer, to see my name written in Hebrew and to get a print out of it which really tickled me—what an unusual souvenir! If time had permitted, I would have gone minutely through every one of the mementoes on display from various epochs in history, but I had a great deal to cover and my next port of call was the underground Holocaust Memorial. By this time, I had become so familiar with the layout of the city through my maps and taking the buses, that I felt very much at ease and did not need to ask anyone for directions to get anywhere.

The Underground Holocaust Memorial:
The Holocaust Memorial is also rather ingeniously planned. You take a stair well that leads into a darkened space underground which details the losses suffered by about six European Jewish families during the insanity of the Holocaust. Of course, having been to Dachau (about 22 years ago) and more recently to Auschwitz-Birkenau on a trip to Eastern Europe, I had decided not to visit the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp which lies a few miles outside of Berlin. And I was familiar with the ruthlessness of the Nazi machinery that rounded up Jews from all over Europe and herded them off to the camps where they were forced to labor under atrocious conditions and eventually gassed to death. But to see this part of history presented so vividly through photographs and diary jottings and postcards is always so heart breaking that I was often in tears.

In Chocolate Heaven:
Taking the bus again, I went out in search of a cheering cup of hot chocolate at Fassbender and Rausch near the Gendarmenmarkt and I settled myself by a window that overlooked the imposing dome of the Cathedral and ordered myself a Black Forest Chocolate pastry (I love the name in German—Schwartzwalden Torte!) and a cup of Ecuadorian dark hot chocolate which was laced with Chilli! It was quite the most unusual and delicious hot chocolate I’ve had (the best one still remains the hot chocolate Chriselle and I had at Cukracavalimonada, a restaurant in Prague!). The pastry was amazing—the cherries, soaked in kirsche—cherry liqueur—were frozen into the pastry and they burst into my mouth in what seemed like small shots!

Coffee at KaDeWe:
Then, I was hurrying off to KaDeWe where I had made 3 pm coffee plans with my English friend and colleague Catherine Robson who is on a year long Fellowship at a university in Berlin finishing up her next book. Catherine was awaiting me when I got there and we made our way to the Food Halls again settling down with peppermint tea by the picture windows to gaze upon the rooftops of Berlin—not a very pretty sight!

Catherine and I caught up for an hour before she hurried off to do some shopping while I went back down to the entrance to await the arrival of Anja who returned from Munich that morning and had made plans to spend the evening with me. She arrived there within five minutes and we were off after she had secured her bicycle to a tree stump (that’s another thing—bicycles are ubiquitous in Berlin even in the winter!).

Exploring Berlin’s Lesser-Known Parts with Anja:
Anja got on to the bus with me and took me to the furthest point of the city, way in the East, which she told me was a bit like Greenwich Village in New York. This area was left untouched by the war and the buildings that line the street are pre-War—the entire area retains its early-20th century ambience and it was marvelous to stroll through a part of Germany that is being preserved almost like a memorial to those years before colossal personal ambition changed the world for the worse. The area is lined with cafes, restaurants, boutique shops and cultural centers, art galleries and the like. We found ourselves a cute café (Café de Paris) to have another cup of coffee and then we were on the S-Bahn making our way back to Charlottenburg as I wanted to take Anja out for dinner and she recommended a place called Engelbecken that served Bavarian food as Anja is from Munich!

A Bavarian Dinner in Charlottenberg:
Needless to say, I was exhausted by this point as finding the restaurant involved a long walk from the S-Bahnhof (railway station) and I had spent the entire day on my feet! I was grateful when the waiter found us a table and we settled down with the equivalent of a Shandy and ordered wild boar casserole with knoddel (potato casserole) and a salad of mixed greens. Anja opted for a veal roast with spaztel (a German thick pasta, somewhat similar to gnocchi). The food was absolutely delicious and since I do not go to restaurants when I am traveling alone, I always welcome the company and the opportunity to eat good local food with someone who can guide me on what to order and how to eat it. We had a fabulous evening together and were able to catch up and make plans to meet again, next in Padua in Italy where I have been invited to give a lecture in March—Anja will be in Venice at the same time!

Anja decided to spend the night with me in Anneke’s apartment—which was a huge relief to me as I had to leave the apartment really early the next morning to take the S-Bahn to Schonefeld airport and I was grateful for her company. She, poor thing, was exhausted after her own return from Munich and the hectic week she had spent there (she is an art historian doing a rather late Ph.D. on an Italian Renaissance Venetian artist) and would have rather been in her own bed, no doubt. We continued chatting late into the night and finally nodded off to sleep.

Berlin on Foot

Jan31

Wednesday, January 29, 2009
Berlin

Finding my Bearings in Berlin:
At Schonefeld airport, I had requested a map at the Tourist Information Counter and on perusing it during breakfast (Andrea had thoughtfully provided me with a quarter loaf of raisin bread, milk and coffee powder), I discovered that there was such a thing as a Free Walking Tour of Berlin that met at the Dunkin Donuts shop near the Zoo.

I purchased a three-day Berlin Welcome Card (about which I had heard from a magazine before leaving London) that allowed unlimited travel on all forms of public transport—the S-Bahn, the U-Bahn (Underground), Trams and Buses. Now I know from experiences in London that the bus is the best way to really see a city and Berlin has double decker buses (just like London’s but yellow, not red) with big picture windows. The lady who sold me the ticket at Hallensee S-Bahn station told me to take Bus Number X10 to the Zoo. It trundled along in about ten minutes—ten freezing minutes during which time my toes turned to ice at the bus stop despite two pairs of socks—and when I climbed upstairs and followed its route on my map, I discovered that it ran along Kurfunstendamm (known as Ku-damm), one of West Berlin’s major arteries before it arrived at the Zoo.

Joining a Walking Tour of Berlin:
I found the Dunkin Donuts easily enough and saw that a crowd had already gathered there for the tour that left at 10. 30 am. There, I met Maria, our guide, who informed me that the Walking Tour would last three and a half hours and would take us through most of the historical sights in the East. I wondered whether my recovering feet would be able to deal with such a long tour; but I realized that the best way to find out was to join it. If I felt unable to go right through to the end, I could always drop out and do the rest on my own. With that caveat, I joined the group. Maria took us by S-Bahn to the Eastern side where we emerged on Unter der Linden, one of the main arteries in the East.

And just as we emerged from the Underground to street level, I gasped, because there right in front of me, in all its magnificent glory was the famous Brandenburg Gate. This is the most distinctive landmark of Berlin that I had seen in countless pictures and movies and to find it suddenly loom up in front of me was so startling that I had a reaction similar to the kind I had when I had first seen the Taj Mahal in Agra and the Grand Canyon in Colorado. It really did take my breath away!

After a good half hour and much organization by the leaders of this Free Walking City Tour (they had gathered a couple of hundred tourists from all over the city to converge on this spot), our tour with Maria began. In Paritzer Platz, she gave us a very detailed history of the Brandenburg Gate in the open air in rather freezing temperature and I realized that this tour is certainly not for the faint of heart—indeed, there was no one older than 40 on these tours! Thank goodness I had dressed warmly and in very comfortable shoes! She also pointed out the Hotel Adlon Kempinski, one of the world’s most luxurious buildings, but one that gained notoriety when Michael Jackson dangled his baby out of the third floor balcony of that very same hotel!

Our next stop was the Reischstag—the country’s Parliament Building, a 19th century structure with a very recent crowning glass dome, the work of British architect Sir Norman Foster. We saw this building from the outside only (the walking tour does not take you inside any of the buildings) and I resolved to visit it again on my own, if only to see the handiwork of Sir Norman up close and personal.

Our route then took us over Hitler’s Bunker. I was very excited about this as I imagined that we would actually be able to visit the underground headquarters in which the Fuhrer remained holed up with his girl friend Eva Braun as the war came to an end and he committed suicide. I believe that there is a movie about this last phase in his life, but I could not remember the name of it. As it turned out, the bunker was completely destroyed by the Soviets after they seized control of the city at the war’s end. This was done deliberately as they did not want Hitler’s grave to become a place of pilgrimage for the world’s Neo-Nazis. Today, nothing but soil stands over the tunnel of rooms once occupied by the most powerful SS officers, but they are surrounded by the kind of solid, squat, institutional residential buildings that characterize all Communist countries. Residents of these building use the land under which the bunker once lay to walk their dogs who defecate all over the premises—a fitting fate, perhaps, for the former home of a man whose ideas brought so much terror to the world.

A few feet ahead is the Holocaust Memorial and I was so struck by the stark simplicity of the area that is made up of hundreds of granite blocks of varying height that form a uniform grid comprising narrow lanes that run throughout the space. In the midst of these, there are steps that lead underground to a free Holocaust Museum–which I also resolved to visit at my leisure when I had more time to ponder the unspeakable fate of the Jews and so many other minorities under the Nazi regime.

The Tour then took us past a huge grey granite building on the intersection of two of East Berlin’s busiest roads—Wilhelmstrasse and Fredreichstrasse. This building had the appearance of the kind you see in old Nazi movies—dour, forbidding, depressing. This is the only one of the old Nazi buildings that the Soviets did not destroy. It used to be the Ministry of Ministries under the SS but today is the Ministry of Finance and Taxation—just as frightful! Those who have seen the current Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie will find it familiar as the entire movie was shot in the premises of this building.

At the intersection of the street where this building ends are the remains of the Old Berlin Wall that once encircled the city and separated the GDR (German Democratic Republic, the West) from the DDR (the Communist East). Tourists pause here today to take pictures and Maria used the opportunity to describe the creation of the Wall and its impact on the people of Berlin. I found all of this rather heart breaking. The Wall today is a grey granite structure devoid of graffiti and enclosed by a fence as tourists still attempt to break pieces of it to sell on E-Bay!

Our walk then took us towards Checkpoint Charlie which was the name for the Border Crossing between East and West Germany. The name comes from the Code used in the NATO phonetic alphabet at the time—A for Alpha, the check-point at Helmstedt, B for Bravo at Dreilinden and C for Charlie, here in Berlin—and refers to a small white shed which was manned by Allied guards during the Cold War. To leave the American sector behind was to enter into the Communist Bloc in East Berlin, a place as different before the Fall of the Wall as Heaven from Hell! There is a Checkpoint Charlie Museum set up a mere block away as well as a Soviet Museum that carries the last Soviet flag that was flown on the Russian side before the wall fell in November 1989.

The tour moved on but, once again, I decided that I would return to take in the atmosphere in a more thoughtful manner. At this point, we stopped for lunch—a real hot chocolate and apfel streudel for me in Café Aroma—and then we were on our way again. On this leg of the walking tour, we left 20th century Berlin behind us and made our way into Berlin of 2 centuries previous—when it was under the Kaisers, all of whom rather confusingly were named either Wilhelm or Freidrich or when they were being more creative, Wilhelm Freidrich!

We arrived at Gendarmenmarkt (literally, in French, the Policeman’s Square) which is dominated by three stunningly beautiful buildings—the Concert Hall in the center with a marble sculpture of German playwright Schiller surrounded by the Muses; the Hugenot Memorial Museum and a Cathedral (Protestant). The grandeur of the architecture in this square makes it one of the prettiest in Europe and just before we arrived there, we passed by one of the country’s most famous chocolatiers, Fassbender and Rausch, where, in the picture windows, we saw chocolate replicas of the Brandenburg Gate, the Kaiser Wilheim Gedatschkirsch and somewhat inexplicably the Titanic! Here, too, I decided I would come and poke around as my great love for chocolate makes me a slave to these treats!

Our walk then wound on towards the Unter der Linden (an avenue named for the hundreds of linden or lime tress that are planted all along it) and on to Bebelplatz which is also dominated by the colossal dome of a church—this time the Catholic Cathedral of St. Helwig decorated with striking sculpture in bas relief on its main pediment. This space overlooks the campus of Humboldt University whose alumni list reads like a Who’s Who of German intellectuals from Albert Einstein and Franz Kafka to Sigmund Freud and Bismarck, Karl Marx and Fredreich Engels! In fact, in the early-19th century, a book burning ritual was carried out by a dictatorial regime which led alumnus Heinrich Heinne to write in the 1820s that when they start to burn books, it will not be long before they burn people. Of course, his words proved to be strangely prophetic considering what the Nazis did a century later. Because the university is supposedly ashamed of its role in the book burning scandal, today books are sold by the main gate and the proceeds go to charity. When we walked through Bebelplatz, the city was gearing up for Berlin’s Fashion Week which was supposed to draw some hot names from its contemporary couture scene.

By this point in the tour, I began to feel seriously fatigued and was contemplating dropping out when Maria informed us that it would be ending soon. We headed towards Museum Island and stopped short at the sight of the superb Berliner Dom or main Cathedral which reminds one of London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral and for good reason—the Kaiser wanted a cathedral similar to St. Paul’s, only more ornate–and so the architect gave him his heart’s desire. The cathedral shares space at the Lustgarten with the Altes Museum, a splendid Neo-Classical structure that houses Greek and Roman Antiquities and is considered one of the finest such buildings in Europe.

I was dead tired by this time and decided that I needed to sit somewhere for a long time. I was grateful that Maria sat us down on the steps of the Museum and went into a very dramatic rendition of the Fall of the Wall and the manner in which the country and the city that was torn apart for decades came together under Gorbachov’s news vision of glasnost and perestroika. I had goose bumps pretty frequently as her narrative continued for who among us has not the most vivid memories of those heady days when the winds of freedom swept across Europe and took it out of the darkness and into the light? It was a fine finale to a highly enlightening day but one that took much longer than three and a half hours and had me walk countless miles!

Inside the Glass Dome of the Reischstag:
I then hopped into the Bus Number 100 which is a big tourist attraction as it loops around most of Berlin’s monumental buildings. Well, before I knew it, I was back in front of the Reichstag and I could not resist jumping right off and joining the queue to get to the top in the elevator. Luckily, I asked if there was a handicap entrance and they led me to one—talk about German precision and engineering, they think of everything! Well, then I got priority in the line to get to Sir Norman Foster’s newest creation, a rather superb mirrored dome that reflects multiple images of the people who troop inside on a ramp that gets you to the very top for some stunning views of the city. And being one who doesn’t usually engage with modernist architecture, I was half prepared not to like the concept too much; but I have to say that having walked through the dome, I was converted. It is rather ingenious, in an I.M. Pei kind of way, and I was so glad I did seek this architectural gem out to wander through on my own.

Riding the Buses at Dusk:
I spent the next hour seeing dusk fall over Berlin as the lights came on and bathed the city with fluorescence. From one modern square after the other, in the comfort of my bus, I was struck by the architectural innovations that have flourished in the past few years as the rebuilding that began after the Wall fell has continued unabated over the years.

But because I felt hesitant about getting to Charlottenburg too late, I took a bus back home and by 7 pm, I was in my flat, safe and exhausted and reading up my guide book to supplement all the information that Maria had crammed into my head that day.

When I spoke to Llew in the evening, I told him how awed I felt by Berlin, its history, its sweep, its scale—for truly to walk the streets of Berlin is to walk in the shadow of the history of the 20th century. I wish he were sharing the city with me but I decided to be his eyes and ears and convey to him all that I was seeing and hearing and feeling through my blog. As the hours passed and sleep washed over me, I felt that I could not have spent my day more productively.

Thrice in Three Months! More Glimpses of the Queen!

Dec3

Wednesday, December 3, 2008
London & Harrow

There are a few lines of an English nursery rhyme that I learned as a kid and have never forgotten. They go:

Pussycat, Pussy Cat, where have you been?
I’ve been to London to see the Queen…”

And that’s what I did. I became that feline this morning–I went to London to see the Queen. You see, BBC’s Breakfast Show informed me at 8 am that today was a critical day in the Royal Calendar—The State Opening of Parliament. In an interesting feature that explained the coalescence of historical events, tradition, pomp and circumstance, the reporter took us from Buckingham Palace at the point where the Queen leaves her residence and along the track known as the Royal Route to Parliament Square and the entrance to the House of Lords. The country pulls out all the stops in order to make this occasion special. Parliament is officially declared Open for the year and the Queen makes an annual speech, addressing the Members of Parliament and commenting on the affairs of state—a British version, if you like, of the American State of the Union Address.

I watched fascinated, the Anglophile in me surfacing immediately and I figured, since I am free today and Parliament Square is not twenty minutes away and I will probably never have an opportunity like this to rub shoulders with royalty, why not go and take a peek at the pageantry for which British tradition is so reputed? Every American loves a parade and I am no exception—so off I went to witness one of Great Britain’s most important annual parades!

So I showered, stepped briefly into my Holborn Public Library to pick up some Travel books on Ireland for my forthcoming weekend trip to Belfast, got on the Tube and sped off. I arrived at Westminster Embankment to find the entire area cordoned off with metal barriers, dozens of policemen and women in their spiffy uniforms (love those bobby helmets and those smart black and white checked pillbox hats!) and security personnel in those fluorescent green vests that have become a permanent feature of all public celebrations. I inquired of a policewoman as to the best vantage point for viewing the parade. She told me (duh!) to stand where the crowd was thickest!!! I decided to do no such thing. For one thing, I do not have height working to my advantage. For another, I had my trusty camera and intended to take pictures of items more interesting that a bunch of heads in front of me! Thirdly, while I did want to be a part of it, I didn’t intend to be right in the thick of it!

So, I found myself a spot right on the fringes of the crowd and there I stood awaiting the arrival of the Monarch and her entourage. It was 11. 10 am and the royal procession was expected to arrive at 11. 20 as the Queen’s speech to the House of Lords was scheduled for 11. 25. It wasn’t long before the pageantry began. Two tall riders wearing shiny gold helmets and breastplates and carrying sabers rode on black horses from Whitehall towards Parliament Square. A large cohort of about fifty riders, similarly uniformed, on black horses, followed them. Two more cohorts of fifty horses each followed. I had never seen so many black horses in my life and it was a rather strange sight–so many horses on tarred city streets. The carriages then followed—the first one, a closed carriage—black all over and lavishly decorated with gold. It was pulled by six white horses and in it, as clear as crystal, I saw the Queen wearing an off-white hat and an off-white coat, her well-coiffeured curls matching her outfit. Then, within five seconds, the carriage and the Queen disappeared from my view. I had, of course, readied my camera and my telephoto lens to get what I thought was the best shot with the towers of Westminster Abbey in the background. (Oh, I almost forgot to mention that the bells of Westminster seemed to have gone crazy. All morning, they rang out merrily and provided magnificent sound effects to accompany the glorious visuals.) Several other carriages followed, each one more striking than the next—some open, some closed. They carried people whom it was too difficult to recognize. Some were attired in what looked like military uniforms, others wore elaborate hats. More cohorts of horses followed, more orders were shouted, more pomp and ceremony followed though the crowd remained quiet and courteous. The Save Iraq, Save Iraqis Brigade of protestors were in their usual spot right opposite the Tower of Big Ben, but even they remained quiet as the Queen’s carriages passed by. And then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, they disappeared out of sight. From the chinks in the railing that separate the street from the courtyard of the Houses of Parliament below, I could see the frenzied, if very organized movements of men and animals.

Most of the crowd had started to leave, by that point, but a thought suddenly struck me. If the procession had passed along the route at the beginning of the pageantry that marks the State Opening of Parliament, then surely it would have to go along the same route to return to Buckingham Palace, wouldn’t it? So there would yet another opportunity to see royalty pass before me.

I asked a policeman standing nearby what time the procession would return to the Palace. “By mid-day”, he said, glancing up at Big Ben. I wondered, for a few minutes, whether I wanted to stand for a half hour (could my feet take it?) braving the cold on what was another frigid day. Then, I decided, what the heck? I’m right here now and with the crowd diminishing, I found a spot far ahead of where I was, not fifty feet from the intersection where Whitehall meets Parliament Square. I decided to stand there and edit the pictures in my camera as I had only a few shots left.

During the waiting period, I began a conversation with a couple that had missed the first parade and hoped to catch a glimpse of the Queen on her way out. They turned out to be from Belfast on vacation in London for a few days. Of course, I then told them that I would be in Belfast this coming weekend and obtained wonderful insider tips from them on where to go and what to do (the Christmas fair in the City Hall is a must, they said, as is the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum). The Giant’s Causeway and the Coastal Route, they said, was also something I should not miss—but I had intended to make a trip there anyway.

And then it was close to noon and the first couple of horses passed us by, indicating that it would not be long before the procession of carriages would begin on its return journey. This time, I was so close to the front that I had a clear view and, of course, my excitement mounted. Who would have thought that in three months, I would see the Queen three times? Llew and I had been not more than three feet away from the entire Royal Family when we were at Balmoral in Scotland in the month of August. At that time, we had both thought it was a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! And now here I was, three months later, looking upon the royal visage of the Queen twice on the same day! It was truly unbelievable!

And while all these thoughts went through my mind, her carriage passed by again—a closed carriage, thankfully, for the cold would have frozen the most stoic of monarchs. Since the policeman had informed the crowd that she is always in the first carriage, they knew what to expect. There was their Queen, the longest reigning monarch in British history, sailing majestically by, seated besides her husband Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, to the accompaniment of carillon bells from Westminster, and a battalion of horses and riders, footmen and attendants. Before me appeared a scene, like an illustration in a fairy story, whose characters had names like Snow White and Cinderella. As each carriage passed by, the shutter clicked on my camera. Then followed the large troupes of bear-skin hatted guards, looking very different from the pictures one sees of them in tourist brochures—for they were all clad in gray overcoats to combat the cold and seemed to have arrived in London via the Kremlin! It was the stuff that television drama is made of and I was as excited as a kid in a candy shop as I took it all in. I could not resist calling Llew, despite the fact that it was only 8 am in New York, to tell him that I had been to Parliament to see the Queen. Of course, he exclaimed and I giggled and gushed, and then it was all over and I had another adventure to write home about.

The nursery rhyme continues:
“Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair”.

I did not, of course, frighten any mice under her chair, but I could visualize it clearly—the chair, I mean, which is, in fact, an opulent gilded throne, for Llew and I had visited the House of Lords only a couple of weeks ago and in the sanctum sanctorum of the British government, we had sat in the “Stranger’s Gallery” on the third floor and watched at local MPs debated the hottest issues of the day. Having been there, having done that, and now having seen the Queen three times in my life, I felt like a veteran Londoner to the core.

Then, I was on the Tube hastening off to Harrow to spend the afternoon with my classmate and dear friend Bina Samel Ullal. I had not visited her since I arrived in London in September and I was keen to see her kids Alisha and Dhiren and her husband Navin. I had told her that I would arrive there around 1. 30 pm and from the Circle line at Westminster, I changed to the Bakerloo line at Paddington, then took the 186 bus to her place from Harrow and Wealdstone Tube station (she had told me that her stop is called the Belmont Health Center and I am now so familiar with the use of buses that I can hop on and off them without batting an eyelid).

Within an hour, I was seated on the sofa in her living room watching events unfold in Bombay in the aftermath of the terrible terrorist attacks as Bina gets NDTV coverage directly from India. Naturally, we spent a long time discussing the awful destruction of our beloved city and its people before we broke for lunch. Bina had cooked an Indian meal that morning—Chicken Curry with Peppers and Potatoes with Aubergine. With a delicious salad and naans, we had ourselves a delicious lunch with a mince pie to follow for dessert.

So there it was, another first for me–my first mince pie of the festive season. This is a British holiday delicacy of which Americans are unaware—tiny pies, each baked individually in a muffin pan. The pastry is almost like a cookie—it is sweet and crumbly and delicious and the inside is filled with a mixture of dried fruit soaked in rum and flavored with orange rind. Served with single cream, it was simply scrumptious and I enjoyed every crumb.

By 3. 30pm., we got into Bina’s car so that she could pick up her son, Dhiren, from school. I had the chance then to meet Sheila, one of Bina’s friends, who had visited me together with Bina, in Southport, Connecticut, a few years ago. We chatted for a while before Dhiren joined us and then drove back to her place at Beverley Gardens. Navin had left work early to keep a dentist’s appointment and I had a chance to greet him briefly before he left. A few minutes later, Alisha, her daughter, returned from junior college and we spent the next half hour in amiable conversation. It was a lovely evening and I was delighted to have seen the kids—all grown up now and fun to be with. Of course, I told them all about my encounter with royalty that morning and I know I will get a great deal of mileage out of this adventure as the week goes by.

Then, I was on the Tube, headed home to Holborn. I spent the evening catching up on email as my server is playing up and I was unable to access the Web this morning. I spent a while on my blog before I called it a night, ready to awake tomorrow to teach my last two classes of the semester. Where, oh where, has the time gone?

Ealing Interviews and Thoughts on the National Portrait Gallery

Nov24

Monday, November 24, 2008
Ealing, London

I’m becoming quite adept at messing around on buses! Today I spent about four hours on them! Two getting to Ealing and about an hour and half getting back to Central London. It is the easiest thing in the world to find out how to get from Point A to Point B on the buses using London Transport’s excellent website with the handy Journal Planner facility. You merely put in your starting and ending points and the instruction that you only wish to use buses (not the Tube or the River or the Docklands Light Railways–all of which fall within the network) and within seconds, you receive return instructions on how to map your route.

I also managed to review a series of first draft essays that my students had handed in to me…so my time on the bus was also rather productive on a day which was cold and wet and overcast and would have made walking on the streets rather unpleasant.

I am rapidly learning the bus routes and the easiest ways to make connections and, in the process, I am seeing London in a unique and very inexpensive way indeed. For example, today for the first time. I actually passed by Kensington Palace. I had no idea where this was located though I had heard of it following the death of Princess Diana as it was allotted to her as part of her divorce settlement from Prince Charles. Then, suddenly, there it was…a beautiful brown mansion set in a sea of expansive green lawn. I do intend to tour it before I leave England; but my To-See List is expanding in proportion to the diminishing days that I have at my disposal to accomplish it all!

I had scheduled two interviews today with Anglo-Indian sisters Doreen Samaroo and Cheryl Whittle. Since they live in Ealing and Southall respectively, Doreen preferred me to meet with her at Ealing. I did get to Doreen’s place at 11.30 am and spent almost two hours interviewing the sisters. They spoke to me so candidly and with so much emotion. It truly was a pleasure talking to them and I am grateful to all these individuals who are opening themselves to me, a total stranger, with so much warmth and ease. As is the case with the entire community, Doreen was warm and hospitable and offered me a selection of Indian snacks (samosas and pakoras) and her “homemade Anglo-Indian ribbon cake” and a comforting cup of coffee that sustained me through the long bus journey back.

Arriving in Central London, I hopped off at Trafalgar Square and headed straight to the National Portrait Gallery to continue my perusal of the portraits on display there. This time round, I started on the first floor with the 19th century and spent an hour and a half in the company of the Victorians, the men all mustachioed, the ladies in their high necks, stiff crinolines and ringlets. Victoria and Albert were, of course, well represented in portraits, sculpture and etchings, their love story providing the backdrop for some of the conventional and revolutionary relationships of the day–Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barret Browning for instance, George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) and the married George Henry Lewes, etc. I found the entire backdrop of history against which the literature, music, science and technology of the era was created deeply fascinating and I read the curator’s notes with the greatest interest. So many names from my own Indian heritage were there to be contemplated: Thomas Babington Macaulay (architect of English education on the Indian sub-continent), Clement Atlee and Ramsay McDonald (20th century Prince Ministers who thwarted Congress vision for Home Rule), Rudyard Kipling whose literary creativity took inspiration from the folk lore of Northern India.

As the 19th century gave way to the 20th, I was profoundly absorbed by the Bloomsbury Group in whose former stomping ground, I now teach and live and work. What a wonderfully rare synergy existed among all those deeply creative people in that one era and in that one spot!There was Virginia Woolf”s portrait by her sister Vanessa Ball, Lytton Strachey’s by Dora Carrington, Clive Bell by Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell by Duncan Grant. Having just returned from Cambridge where I learned about the Group’s beginnings at Trinity College, I scrutinized each portrait carefully trying to recapture in my mind the marvelously close affinity they enjoyed that began when they were undergrads and continued for the rest of their adult lives. From the Apostles’ Club at Cambridge to The Memoir Club at Bloomsbury (the Group met at the Bells’ home at 46 Gordon Square which I must now try to find on my map and then locate), they contributed such a wealth of artistic, intellectual and literary creativity to the last century! Yet so many of them were deeply troubled. Virginia Woolf and Carrington committed suicide, E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey struggled with their homosexuality, Vanessa Bell had a long term relationship with Duncan Grant though she married Clive Bell. What, I wonder, precluded them from finding personal happiness? Was not their professional success adequate? Clearly their wealth and privilege, class and education did not enable them to find fulfillment. These were my thoughts as I perused those works–some oils on canvas, some pastels, some pen and inks, some photographs. They were all deeply moving and kept me enthralled.

I now have the 20th century to cover and I will be done with the National Portrait Gallery–perhaps later this week I will fit it in. Then, I can turn my attention to the Victoria and Albert Museum (whose Highlights I have seen before) and the Dulwich Picture Gallery which I have never seen.

By 5.15pm, having taken care to rest my feet in-between viewings and before leaving the Gallery, I caught the bus to Bloomsbury to attend a faculty meeting at NYU. We were felicitating Prof. Hagai Segal who won the award for Best teacher of the Year for the last year. Over beer and wine and a selection of sandwiches and pastries, we congratulated him, then turned our attention to a number of issues in a lively meeting that included many varying points of view.

My dinner having been eaten at the meeting, I took the bus and was home in ten minutes. Just a quick look at my email and then the writing of this blog was all that was left before I could chat with Llew for a few minute’s before retiring for the night.

Dallying on Sacred Delos

Nov12

Friday, November 7, 2006
Delos, Greece

To read this text with accompanying pictures, please click on the following link in my website: http://rochellesroost.googlepages.com/greece_delos

The day we spent in Delos was easily for me one of the highlights of our trip to Greece. In the morning, we ran into my student Vince Libasci again–a feat not improbable considering how few tourists were on the island. We had invited Vince to join us on the day trip to Delos and to share our breakfast–a rather good one based on delicious packaged chocolate croissants from the local ‘supermarket’, really not much more than a corner shop.

To our great good fortune, the local boat had decided to ply that day, but only at 11 am. This left us a good hour to explore Mykonnos some more–an island whose magic spell quite enchanted me. Llew, Vince and I rambled in the Chora (pronounced ‘hora’), the main village with its maze of narrow streets and vividly painted balconies–red, blue, green–that were filled with late season geraniums and giant cactii in pots. Bougainvillea climbed walls in lush profusion and the entire effect was just lovely. It was hard to stop taking pictures as I wanted to capture it all on celluloid.

At 11 am, we were back on the jetty looking for the “Delos Express” , a boat with a rather grandiose name, which we boarded with a handful of other visitors. The sea rocked somewhat disturbingly for me, but I closed my eyes and was grateful for the fact that Delos was only a half hour away. Soon, we were rounding its contours and taking in the stones and columns that were strewn all over its shores.

It is entirely thanks to my Oxford classmate and close friend Dr. Firdaus Gandavia, that we landed on Delos. When he had visited me in London from Bombay, about a month ago, he had recommended a trip to Delos which, he told me, “is archaeologically deeply significant”. And now I cannot thank him enough for making me aware of this island’s magic. Delos is the most sacred of the islands in the Cyclades and is surrounded by the other larger islands–Mykonnos, Tinos, Argos, Siros, Naxos, Paros. It is believed to be the birthpace of the Gods Apollo and Artemis and every attempt was made to preserve this island as a tribute to their powers. Hence, by decree, no one was allowed to be born or to die on Delos. The bones of those once buried on the island were dug up and transported to another site and from then on, no one was ever allowed to spend a night on the island. To date, the Greek government honors the ancient conventions and the island remains uninhabited. Every single passenger that disembarks from the ferry boats are carefully counted and the exact same number is returned at night fall to Mykonnos. It is somewhat eerie to imagine what the island of Delos must be like at night–what ghosts walk around its ruined homes and fallen columns, I wondered?

Once ashore, we purchased tickets (five euros each) to take a self-guided archeological tour of the island. By following the clearly-marked arrows, one could see the most important monuments–a perfectly semi-circular seat here, Naxian marble columns, there. A Temple to Apollo, another to Dionysus. All signs were in Greek and, for some inexplicable reason, in French. It was only later in the museum that I discovered that the excavations on Delos, at the turn of the 20th century (1901-1911 to be exact), were led by a French archoeologist belonging to the University of Athens. His findings led to the unearthing of an entire city that, like Pompeii, lay buried beneath the rubble. Hence, what the visitor really does on Delos, is walk in a former settlement that thrived and was once the most important port in Greece. In fact, it was only more recently that Pireaus in Athens upstaged Delos’ importance. Bankers, seamen, financiers, made their homes on one side of Delos and their ruined mansions can still be visited, complete with their mosaic flooring and frescoed walls.

Many of the treasures found in these homes have been moved to the National Archeological Museum in Athens, but a small museum can be visited on Delos itself. In it, one can see a vast number of archeological artifacts such as jewelery, statues, tables, urns, etc. It is a mind-blowing experience, especially since I had visited Pompeii only in March and been completely fascinated by this buried city that dates from 69 BC. Well, here I was on Delos, walking on the remains of a history that dates back over the last 3,000 years!

This is cearly evident at the Terrace of the Lions where about six life sized lions made of Naxian marble and presented to Delos by the islanders of Naxos give the area its name. These are large, fierce, commanding, their presence giving the island its own peculiar character. These lions were placed outside for a century after being excavated and the elements took their toll on their features so that their faces and manes are stripped of all detail. Today, they are placed inside the museum with plaster replicas adorning the terrace. I was so stunned by all these sights that I was often speechless, unable quite fully to take in the mysteries of the classical world that were being revealed to us as I trod those ruined pathways. Further down the hill, the amphitheater was in rather bad shape and will require a lot of reconstruction before it is restored to its former glory…but we were impressed by the underground cistern that ran below the amphitheater and supplied the island with water. Even as I tried to take it all in, I watched as workers strove to put together, stone upon stone, those crumbled walls. It was especially wonderful for me to be able to see the connection between Delos and Pompeii and it was especially moving for Llew to make the connection between Delos and Mohenjo-Daro and Harrappa in modern-day Pakistan, remnants of the cities of the Indus Valley Civilization that he had the good fortune of visiting many years ago.

At 2 pm, when I was quite tired from all our exploration and seeing our boat puff quietly in the port, I was reminded of Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” in which the restless hero of the Odyssey decides to set sail once again after a short visit to his wife and son Telemachus, as he cannot rest from travel and must drink life to the lees. This has always been one of my favorite of poems from English Literatrue and to see the boat lying in the harbor against the background of the bright blue Aegean Sea was deeply evocative for me. Llew had resovled that we should return to the British Museum to see the Parthenon Marbles, having visited the monument while in Athens. I decided to review the poem once again having spent so much time on the inky waters of the Aegean.

By 3 pm, we were back in our hotel room for a long siesta. I spent time reading while Llew snoozed. At 7 pm, we stirred having made plans to join Vince for dinner. We chose a wayside restaurant called Madoupas on the waterfront which was filled with locals–always a good sign when one is traveling. In this place, we ate one of the most memorable of our Greek meals–The Mykonnian Salad was huge and consisted of rocket (mesclun greens), red louza sausage that is a speciality of Mykonnos, black eyed beans, tomatoes, olives and a Mykonnian cheese that was far more flavorful than feta cheese. The light dressing of olive oil and vinegar made for a totally filling meal with the Greek bread served alongside and it was with difficulty that Llew and I shared our second course–Mykonnian Sausage with Fries. The sausage was spicey and went well with the blandness of the fries. Portions were enormous and we had enough for our next day’s meal in the doggy bag we carried back with us.

By the time we returned to the beach, the few folk in the town had disappeared altogether and a ghostliness descended down upon the island. We wondered why the shops closed down, only to discover that Friday evenings are when business comes to a standstill for the weekend. Since the thick of the tourist season was over, Mykonnos was in farewell mode and the stores and hotels were preparing themselves for the long and quiet winter months ahead when no cruise loads of tourists would hurry along its shores.

The Acropolis and the Agora in Ancient Athens

Nov12

Wednesday, November 5, 2008:
Athens, Greece

http://rochellesroost.googlepages.com/greece_athens

On one of America’s most historic days–the election of our first African-American President–Llew and I awoke in the very cradle of Democracy–Athens, Greece–and rejoiced. “He did it, Babe”, Llew shouted to me through the bathroom door in our hotel in Athens. We high-fived each other, then joined a jubilant band of local Athenians at breakfast, all of whom were celebrating the great win of Barack Obama and, hopefully, the beginning of Change in America.

We were at the base of the Acropolis is ten minutes, strolling in leisurely fashion through Plaka, the area that looks completely different by daylight. Through the quaintest little Greek village we passed and joined the bus loads of late-season tourists trooping towards the towering monuments at the top of the world’s most famous urban mountain. Twelve euros covered entry into a number of attractions and Lonely Planet made it very easy for us to tour the complex without the need of a pricey personal guide. We passed by the awesome Theater of Herodes Atticus where we have seen so many famous performers (Yanni, Charlotte Church, etc.) wow audiences in recent years. It must be a stunning venue at night when the lights are turned on and the rest of Athens sleeps quietly just beyond the stage walls.

Next we advanced towards the Prophylea and the Temple of Athena Nike with its high steps and its endless scaffolding, for conservation is an on-going process at these ancient sites. Through the arches and into the main courtyard, the Parthenon finally came into sight. Of course, we spent ages examining it in loving detail, noting the acquisitiveness that led to the hacking of sculpture from the central frieze by Lord Elgin in what has become an endless controversy. It became clear to me then that he did not ‘rescue’ these sculptures in any way. They were not buried hundreds of feet beneath the earth as the treasures of Tutankhamen were, for instance, or the city of Pompeii. These marbles were just cut clean off the pediment and transported to England to the best of my knowledge on a bare whim. I realized that I ought to read more to educate myself on why and how the Elgin Marbles are now in the British Museum. At any rate, the two remaining sculptures–one on each end, of a seated youth, and a horse’s head–that are still on the structure are deeply stirring and I simply couldn’t take enough pictures of these works “in situ”.

We then made our way towards the Erechtheion, another beautiful temple of Poseidon that features the Karyatids, a series of six sculpted women that are charmingly graceful. Here again, five of the originals can be seen in the Acropolis Museum while the fifth original is in the British Museum in London. Plaster of Paris replicas of the five that are in Athens are placed on the building and they make a striking backdrop for pictures. Greece must be so enormously proud of these visions of Pericles that have allowed so many such buildings to survive, albeit in ruined form.

Just at the foot of the Acropolis is the Theater of Dionysus, an enormous complex that is now in the process of refurbishment. Here it is possible to see the original venue on which the plays of the Greek tragedians, Aeschyles, Sophocles and Euripedes were performed with the works of Aristophanes providing comic relief. Here were created the classical principles of dramatic composition upon which playwrights the world over have depended. The lion-footed throne on which the high priest sat to watch the shows is still in place and I was deeply stirred by my rambles through the Pentellic marble spectator stands of this strangely atmospheric place.

The original Acropolis Museum which was a part of the Parthenon has been shut down and a superb new and very modern building has taken its place a few blocks away. Llew and I walked quickly there to see the original Karyatids only to discover that they were not yet in place as only part of the museum has been opened to the public. Instead, we were treated to a special exhibit containing the items that were acquired fraudulently by such great international museums as the Metropolitan in New York and the J. Paul Getty in Malibu, California, that have now been returned to Italy. These pieces, which include the famous Euphronious Krater about which I had learned while training at the Met, were on loan to the Athens Museum and were on display for a limited period before they find a permanent home in Italy. I was so thrilled to see the Euphronius Krater again–it was like running into an old friend! Indeed, I had wanted to visit the Met and bid goodbye to it at the time that the newspapers in New York were full of the news of its departure to Italy but had not been able to find the time–and little did I expect that I would see it again on foreign shores! That is the beauty of travel too, isn’t it? You never know what or who you will run into when you set sail for distant lands. I cannot wait to tell my fellow docents at the Met about my serendipitous discovery.

After a delicious Greek Salad lunch on one of the wayside restaurants that line Adrianou just outside the gates of the Ancient Agora, Llew and I launched on to the next phase of our sight seeing–an examination of the Temple of Hephthasos, a classical Greek temple that stands almost intact on the great grounds that once constituted the most important part of official Athens. It was in the Agora (marketplace) that St. Paul disputed with his critics endlessly while trying to find converts to Catholicism; it was here that Socrates was imprisoned and accepted the cup of hemlock that led to his heroic death; it was here that merchants, bankers and financiers created the economic glory that was Greece. Only three buildings are in a good state–the Stoa of Attalos, the Church of the Holy Apostles built in honor of St. Paul and full of lovely Byzantine mosaics and the Temple of Hephthasos. The rest of the Agora is in dismal condition, most of it lying in ruins in the shape of columns and blocks and red terracotta tiles–somewhat like the Roman Forum in Rome, only in worse condition.

By this point in our day, my feet were fatigued and I needed to return to our hotel for a long rest. Upon awaking from a siesta, we went out in search of dinner and chanced upon Thannasis, a wayside restaurant at Monastiraki, which Lonely Planet had extolled as having the best kebabs in the city. And they were quite correct indeed. Our meal was simple–lamb kebabs with roasted tomato and onions wrapped in pita bread, but so delicious and so laughably cheap we actually spent less that three euros for the lot. For dessert, we picked up Sokolatina, a chocolate mousse pastry that had been recommended to us by Llew’s former Greek colleague Ted Francis. And it was simply fabulous!

After a day that had been both historic and deeply fascinating, we packed up our few belongings and get ready for our early morning departure, the next day, for the ferry cruise to Mykonnos. Athens are just amazing and we were glad that our itinerary included one more day in the city on our way back when we hoped to explore those bits of it that we had yet to traverse.