Wednesday Nov 15. Ischia.

One of the highlights of a trip to Italy is the food. Again on this trip, it is obvious how firmly the food is based on a regional cuisine. On the isle of Ischia, cooking is different than in Naples, although they are only about 33 kilometres apart. But from one part of the island to another there are also differences. When we said to the lady who looks after our hotel that we might have rabbit for supper, she very very forcefully said “Oh no. Rabbit is a hill dish. Here you eat fish.” And then she proceeded to tell us how rabbit is cooked up in the hills (with lots of herbs). From listening to her, I imagined the hills far far away, but in reality the hill area on Ischia is only about 30 minutes away by city bus from any of the coastal areas…

The hill in the centre of Ischia

We had wonderful turkey last night at a tiny restaurant near our hotel (down near the sea) where you essentially ate what the owner had prepared for the day. We had tiny homemade gnocchi to start in (oh horrors) a rabbit sauce. It was incredibly good, and the turkey (legs baked with white wine, olive oil and rosemary) was the best I’ve ever eaten.

We took the city bus around the island today. One of our stops was up on the hillside. We walked down a very steep small road, then down a path with 300 steps to arrive at the seaside where a few people were hanging out in the warm sun. In a small cave three pools of very hot water bubble up. After warming up, you can get into the sea… carefully because it is very rocky and the Mediterranean always seems to have strong waves.

Walking down.

The hot springs in the cave

And bathing in the sea

Fishermen heading out. They are trapping lobsters - smaller lobsters than in Canada, they told us!

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Sat Oct 4. London.

19 days walking on pilgrimage paths for a total of 395 km or 245 miles on foot (not that arduous - an average of 20.7 km per day, and lots of ‘rest days’ staying put in one place). All of that undone in 1.5 hours on a Eurostar train. I’m not entirely sure what conclusion I’m drawing from that comparison, but I’m back where I started, in London. On my way to my lodgings (I’m staying in a Buddhist retreat centre) I decided to visit the first visitable place to cross my path, which turned out to be the Foundling Museum. Horrified by the sight of infants being abandoned on 18th c London streets, a prosperous seaman, Thomas Coram, spent 17 years raising awareness and funds, as well as obtaining royal permission to build London’s first children’s charity. Opened in 1739, the Foundling Hospital continued its work until the 1950s, and actually is still active as a non-institutional resource, under a different name. Here is a photo of it in 1935. So many similarities to ...

Fri Oct 3. Lille.

I had a lovely day in Lille. In fact, all my days on this trip have been lovely! In the morning I went to the very large Palais des Beaux-Arts. This museum holds the largest collection of works of art of any French institution outside Paris. The collection started at the time of the French Revolution as the works of art of the nobility and of the church were confiscated, and continued on apace due to various enthusiastic municipal governments. By 1892 the collection was so large and important that the Palais, its current house, was constructed in the centre of town. The first fun aspect was the recent work of the Swiss artist Felice Varini who used the museum’s interior as his canvas. The oldest works of art are in the ‘basement’, beautifully displayed. Look at the marvellous three dimensionality of this (flat) marble plaque sculpted by Donatello (c 1435) showing Salomé dancing for the head of John the Baptist. And modern technology brings statues alive by giving them back t...

September 5

I landed at Heathrow this morning at 6 am, a very inconvenient time to get a room and rest! But my student residence accommodation includes a common room with handy couches for a short snooze. The neighbourhood abuts on Regent’s Park, complete with gorgeous flowerbeds. The Queen Mary’s rose garden in Regent’s Park. My neighbourhood wandering took me to the Wallace House which used to be one of the homes of the marquesses of Hertford. The Hertfords were fabulously rich, mainly from extensive land holdings, and in the 18th and 19th centuries avid art collectors. They obviously had Trumpian home decorating tastes. Here are two of their many clocks, all of which need frequent ‘fine tuning’, it appears. I particularly liked two 18th c British paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds in their collection: Mrs Carnac and the hauntingly strange Strawberry Girl.

Celia Walks

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