Mahler's 8th Symphony in London

October 22 to 23, 2022

A cheap flight brought me to Stansted, one of London's 5 airports, which was followed by a train and bike ride across the city. Les Misérables closed in NYC years ago, but was still playing in London. Even after 38 years, the musical still sounded fresh.

The plan on Sunday morning was to kayak with the tide up the Thames from Greenwich to Battersea. Heavy rain and thunderstorm warnings cancelled the paddle, so the Sherlock Holmes Museum beckoned (1). The guide told stories in the study, where Holmes met his clients, with his back to the window so the client's face was illuminated by the incoming light. A picture of Irene Adler from A Scandal in Bohemia, who outwitted Holmes, was on the fireplace mantle.

The Sunday afternoon performance of Mahler's 8th Symphony took place at Royal Albert Hall. The 8th is known as the "Symphony of a Thousand" for the number of performers required. While I did not count, this is probably an exaggeration, although the piece requires a large orchestra, an off-stage brass section, 8 soloists, two full adult choirs, and a boys choir. While I have heard the piece on recordings many times (2), I did not appreciate how the two choruses responded and interacted to each other until I saw and heard them in different ears.

(1) At 221B Baker St., of course. 

(2) I even have the full musical score.

At Les Miz in the West End

The Sherlock Holmes Museum

Wax figure of Professor Moriarty

In Hyde Park

Albert Memorial

Royal Albert Hall

The musical forces marshalled for Mahler's 8th

Killiney Hill, County Dublin

October 21, 2022

Arrived at Dublin this morning to a wind-driven rain storm. Plan A was a kayak trip at Dalkey to see the seals in Dublin Bay.  Easterly winds at 25 knots had kicked up the surf on the Irish Sea, so the kayak trip was cancelled. 

A walk along the sea wall with a crashing sea might be fun, so I set off southbound from Dun Laoghaire after the short train ride from Dublin on the DART (1). The sky brightened and the rain stopped on the walk through the posh (2) sea-side suburbs south of Dublin.

After a few miles (and a few glimpses of blue sky), Killiney Hill beckoned. Rising steeply 500 feet above the Sea, the hill is surrounded by a public park with trails leading to the summit (3). The park seems popular with people out walking their dogs. The sun appeared through the scudding clouds as I neared the summit, offering fine views over the Irish Sea glistening below in the sporadic sunshine.

Dalkey Hill was visible to the North and was accessible via rougher paths. After summtting Dalkey Hill, I descended to the town along puddled paths through an old quarry, passing a dog walker who commented on the favorable turn of weather. About a 7 mile walk/hike, fortuitously during the driest part of the day. 

The rain began again as I reached Dalkey town, where a short DART ride returned me to Dun Laoghaire. My hotel for the night previously hosted Queen Victoria and Charlie Chaplin. A powerful lighthouse was visible out to sea, presumably the Dublin landfall light with a pattern of two flashes every twelves seconds. 

(1) Dublin Area Rapid Transit, somewhere between a subway/metro system and a commuter rail.

(2) Originally meaning "port out, starboard home" for the better side of the ship on a trip from England to India.

(3) Unlike hiking in the mountains, the park is laid out more like Park Mount Royal in Montréal (a), with well-groomed trails designed to encourage urban dwellers to enjoy the outdoors. 

(a) The park in Montréal was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, creator of the field of landscape architecture, who also laid out Central Park in NYC.

No paddling today

Muglins Lighthouse

Dalkey Island

Approaching Killiney Hill Summit

View to Dalkey Island

View south from Killiney Hill

View back to Killiney from Dalkeu Hill

Descending through Quarry

DART train

Stopover in Copenhagen

August 30, 2022

Our flight home had a 23 hour layover in Copenhagen. The highest point in all of Denmark is only 561 feet above sea level, so hiking was not really an option.

Having a late lunch outdoors, we heard trumpet heralds and looked down the street to see horses on parade. According to our waiter, the queen was returning from sailing today (1). My wife disappeared down the street to see the show, while I stayed at the table, not wanting to dine and dash.

The sunset kayak tour was more organized (and less dangerous) than our paddle through the busy and narrow canals of Venice. Copenhagen harbor and the adjoining canals are larger and quieter that Venice. Our guide, Ida, pointed out various buildings, many in the modern Danish style with lots of glass and wood (2). On the paddle with us was a doctor from the Netherlands studying juvenile epililepsy in pursuit of a PhD (in addition to her MD).

(1) He actually said "sailing and smoking." He mimed a long drag in a cigarette. During her  New Years address on "the telly," she used to smoke as she addressed the nation.

(2) "Do you see that?" She asked, pointing to a modern bridge.

"Not really, I lost my glasses the other day." I said.

"We already ask whether guests are 18 years old and can swim. Maybe we should add a question about whether they can see!" the guide replied.

Royal procession and parade

In Copenhagen

Copenhagen Harbor.

Kayaking in Venice

August 29, 2022

Venice was founded (so the story goes) when the Roman Empire fell to Germanic invaders in the 400s. The population on the mainland at the head of the Adriatic retreated to the islands in the Venitian lagoon. Apparently, the Germanic tribes were rubbish with boats, so the remnants of the Roman population were safe on the islands that became the city of Venice.

A short train ride from Verona, the canals (and our return plane flight) beckoned. A kayak "tour" (1) wended through the busy canals at dusk. The window at the hostel overlooked the lagoon, and we fell asleep to the sound of the vaporetti's diesel engines while watching Jupiter rise over the water and islands.

(1) While we did have a guide, he said nothing about the history or culture of Venice. Instead, he just led us around the canals without commentary.

View of the lagoon from our window at the hostel

Canal where the kayak tour started

Dusk

Aida at Roman Arena di Verona

August 28, 2022

The local Swiss train took us to the border at Chiasso. I tried to buy a coffee at a machine, which would neither dispense coffee nor return my money. An Italian woman stopped by and hit and kicked the machine on our behalf, all to no avail. A late arrival from Chiasso necessitated a dash through Milano Centrale station (that might quailfy us for the Olympics) to catch the next train to Verona.

Verona is home to a Roman Arena (circa 100 C.E.) that hosts an opera festival each summer. While dining by the Arena, we spied a group of women in stylized Egyptian dress walking through the square, presumably after a rehearsal. They wore backpacks and were noodling with their phones. We strolled over the two Roman bridges in town spanning the Adige river, which was flowing fast and muddy around town, suggesting recent rains upriver (1). 

Romeo and Juliet was set in Verona. A house in the center of town is touted as the location of the balcony scene in Shakespeare's play. The courtyard also contains a bronze statue of Juliet. A 30ish German couple approached us: "Did anything actually happen here?" "I doubt it, the story is fictional" I replied (2). The guy seemed to think it was a clever move of the homeowner to claim his home was the site mentioned in the play and to charge admission to go inside (3).

Back in the main plaza, we wandered around to the east side of the arena to discover we were basically backstage amid disassembled sets for other operas. While holding 30,000 spectators in Roman times, half the arena is now the opera stage, so current capacity is about 15,000. 

When the performance of Aida began at 8:45, our attention alternated between the action on stage and the light show to the north as frequent vivid lightning flashed among the clouds (4) (5). Thankfully, the storm stayed to the north. The opera was quite a spectacle, with enormous sets, and vibrant costumes. The singers projected their voices (with no microphones) all the way up to our ears at the top of the arena, a tribute both to their voices and to the Roman's knowledge of acoustics in designing the arena. The performance ended at midnight.

(1) Coincidentally, the headwaters of the Adige are at the interesecting point of Switzerland, Austria, and Italy, where we had planned to hike yesterday, but.went elsewhere due to the expected rain storms.

(2) Although an acquaintance of mine renewed her marriage vows on the balcony in June.

(3) There is even a supposed tomb of Juliet in town.

(4) We scored seats in the back row at the top of the arena, so we had a fine view of the lightning.

(5) There is a protocol to postpone the performance up to 2 1/2 hours in case of rain.

Verona City gate

Roman-era bridge

Roman road below current grade

In the town

"Juliet's balcony"

Statue of Juliet. 

Apparently, It's a thing to take a selfie touching her breast, hence the shine on that part of the statue

"Backstage" at the opera

The arena

The spectacle of Aida

On the walk back to the hotel

Lake Lugano

August 27, 2022

Lugano is a short train ride south of Bellinzona. I had found a place online to rent kayaks and planned to paddle across Lake Lugano to Campione, an Italian enclave. Upon arrival at Lake Lugano, we found a place that rented stand-up paddleboards (SUPs), who told us the kayak place was gone. They tried to find us somewhere else on the lake to rent kayaks with no luck, so we rented SUPs instead. 

While fun to poke about in, SUPs are not actually useful for going anywhere. I tried kneeling with limited success, so I sat, then lied down on my stomach. Emboldened by my wife's success at doing so, I attempted to stand up; the water in the lake was very refreshing and I'm sure some fish with impaired vision deep in the lake finds my glasses useful. After returning the SUPs, I put a comb through my snarled, wet hair. "Ready for the disco!" the rental guy said.

A few thunderstorms had cleared up by late in the day. Toward sunset, we took the funicular up Mont San Salvador to watch the sunset over the foothills of the Alps.

At Lugano

What to do with old Fiat 500?

Make a Gelato stand.

Campione, Italy surrounded by Switzerland

Up the funicular

Sunset over the foothills of the Alps

Tibetan bridge in Ticino Switzerland.

August 26, 2023

Plan A for today was to take a series of trains and buses across Switzerland to the border town of Nauders, Austria. The next day, we planned a day hike in the Alps through three countries: Austria, Switzerland and Italy, and to visit the tri-country boundary marker. However, the weather forecast for Nauders  was for rain today with colder temperatures and severe thunderstorms tomorrow. 

The weather forecast south of the Alps was for sunny and warm weather, so we headed to the Italian-speaking Canton of Ticino (tee-chee-no) in Southern Switzerland. We opted for the narrow guage, part cog, route through central Switzerland via Andermatt (1). A connection to the mainline route to the south through Gotthard tunnel involved a short cog-rail connecting train that descended from 4,715 feet in Andermatt to 3,629 feet at Göschenen in just 2 1/3 miles. The nearby auto road included a long series of short switchbacks.

A hotel in Bellinzona, the Catonal Capital, had a room available. While the city has three medieval fortresses (2) you can hike to, a brochure in the hotel lobby beckoned us west to Monte Carasso where a long suspension bridge on a hiking trail was built in 2015. 

A helpful bus driver pointed us in the right direction, and we began climbing. We soon encountered two mothers out walking with a boy and girl. They stopped at a small water drinking fountain just before we got there. A metallic clatter drew my attention to the girl lifting the heavy cover off the underground water valve enclosure. She soon turned the water all the way up, sending the water arcing into the air and spraying 25 feet away, which the kids thought was fun to play in (3), (4).

The boy, noticing that I was waiting to fill my bottle, proceeded to take the bottle from me and try to fill it, while the girl kept turning the water up and down to make the filling process more difficult. The mothers noticed we were taking this all in stride, so they allowed the show to continue. The girl turned the water up again to spray us as we walked by to resume our hike.

The steady climb up went by old churches and a gondola station. The trail was well marked and maintained, with many sections lined with stones to limit erosion; some of the stones were formed into rough steps in the steeper sections. 

After about 1,800 feet of vertical rise, we turned left/south and hiked down to the "Tibetan" suspension bridge. Built in 2015, the bridge spans 885 feet and is 426 feet above the deep gorge below. Guy wires attached to a parabolic cable anchored to the gorge's sides limit the sway of the bridge in the wind (5). The slats on the bridge floor were the perfect size for a mobile phone to fall through, so I kept a tight grip while taking pictures.

South of the bridge was some more climbing, but we soon began our descent to St. Defense. From here, the trail descends back to the main road, frequently crossing a small sinuous mountain road. Back at the main road, a bus soon came to take us back to town. Total vertical rise about 2,000 feet and about 6.5 miles.

(1) We had an all-access day pass to the Swiss rail system, so we could go wherever we wanted. We chose a town near a border (Italy) to avoid having to buy an expensive Swiss rail ticket tomorrow.

(2) The city is located at a strategic point where the Ticino River valley (the main route north) narrows. Fortifications were all over the town.

(3) The kids had obviously done this before.

(4) While many of the water sources on the trail are fed by mountain springs, this one was apparently connected to the municipal water system. 

(5) Or when someone stands in the middle of the bridge and tries to get it swaying, as a teenage boy was doing when we arrived. He was disappointed. 

The Andermatt-Göschinen Shuttle

Beginning our climb, Monte Carasso

Terraced vineyard

Finger post on the trail

St Bernard Church

The Bridge

Looking east across the valley

Looking west up the gorge

Trail south of the Tibetan bridge