Wednesday Dec 20. Paris.

Today was a travel day, flying Ryanair to Beauvais and then bus into Paris and métro to my new apartment. (Totally cheap air fare of $63, to which you have to add $45 to get to and from the airports).

Lake Como (I think)

The Swiss alps

What a change! From smallish cities to a huge city. From shared space in a very spartan Bologna hostel to a beautifully furnished and equipped Parisian apartment. From giving up listening to Georgia Meloni on tv because I didn’t understand enough to giving up listening to Emmanuel Macron on tv because he went on too long. Wow. If Trudeau were given that much air time on CBC there would surely be an uproar!

My last night in Italy I went to see a movie - a Japanese movie with Italian subtitles, ‘Evil doesn’t exist’. It was a meditative film about a forest in Japan that a group of likeable entrepreneurs want to improve with a new ´glamping’ site. Basically, a subtle commentary on capitalism and the environment. The Japanese forest reminded me strongly of our Canadian forests. If you are not feeling sleepy (I was!) it is a good film to see.

And here are the three Italian books I have read from cover to cover during my trip. The first is folk stories from Ischia, the second is a detective story, and the third a romance told from the viewpoint of a rather annoying lead male character. So if any of you want to practice your Italian, you can borrow a book!

Comments

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

Search This Blog