5/18/09, Final Entry, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport

Marlow writes: 5/18/09, Final Entry, Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. Another great trip is concluding. Wes is a virtuoso planner. Smooth and seamless travel. Thank you, Wes.

This weekend in Paris was intermittently rainy. Not stormy. Just occasional light showers. At times, we bicycled. In the rain. At rush hour. In heavy traffic. And I loved it. During this stay, I became more oriented with the lay out of Paris in a few bike rides than I had during twenty years of travel here in cars, trains and taxis.

We were, more or less, low key. We ate out a few times in local cafés, nothing elaborate. We brought in food. Rose Champagne. Fresh chevre. Baguettes. And two times, Roland prepared meals: artichoke heart, thin sliced with parmeggiano shavings, lemon juice and olive oil; and chicken soup with fresh herbs, tiny pasta, lemon juice, finished with lemon zest and fresh parsley and served with fresh, oven-hot parmesan bread. Thank you, Roland.

Another meal and the reason for us coming to Paris (rather than traveling home from Bruges) was our dinner on Thursday evening with Mr. Bernard Millant and his partner, Sepali. Several months ago, I contacted Mr. Millant and asked if he would join us for dinner in Paris. He was gracious and instead asked us to be his guests.

The venue was in the Bois de Boulogne, a large park--forest really--in Paris. The restaurant was a beautiful and enchanting chalet on an island. We took a boat across the water.

Conversation was lively. The food was delicious. Sepali was beautiful and interesting. And the evening sped by. Afterward, Bernard and Sepali drove us home. Along the way, places of interest were pointed out. Paris after dark, with hosts as excellent as Bernard and Sepali, is a special and memorable experience.

Last night, we were joined for dinner by Joel Soultanian. A Paris violist who Roland and I have known for more than 30 years. When Wes and I last saw Joel it was in the Dordogne in southern France where his wife was born. Her village, Ste. Genies, is gorgeous: rolling green hills, ancient stone buildings, rivers.

We are now aboard our plane: Paris to Chicago. Waiting for the doors to close.

It has been a fantastic voyage. My writing has been far too wordy and too heavy laden with superlatives. But. But how can one not exclaim loudly the beauty, majesty of the Norwegian fjords. Somethings in life are superlative. And their unique and special qualities cannot be overstated. Such was the nature of our journey. Thank you, Wes, for your fine planning. And Sam and Roland for your companionship.

Thank you for reading.

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Panorama from our apartment in Paris

Filmed from the window in Roland's room on the top floor of the apartment building. You can see why we spent so much time in the apartment - the views were just wonderful.

Toasting our last evening in Paris!



Roland preparing lunch

Sunday May 17 - Our Final Day in Paris

Exploring Paris by bike!


Roland enjoying Paris!



Marlow's traveling companions


We've been exploring Paris by bike. Taking advantage of the many "free" bike rental stations called "Velib" located around the City. After registering for a cost of one Euro, you can use any bike for up to 30 minutes at no charge. You can return the bike to any bike station. The service is all automated and you use a kiosk to handle the rental transaction. It is very convenient and makes it easy to move from one area to another. There are hundreds of bike rental stations around the City and each station has between 15 and 30 bikes available for use at any time.

We arrived in Paris on Thursday night and it was familiar enough that it felt a bit like we had arrived at home. We've spent a lot of time just enjoying the apartment. Roland has been treating us to wonderful home-cooked meals. We've been shopping in street markets and pretending that we live here. If only for the weekend.

Tonight we will be having dinner with an old friend of Marlow and Roland's who now lives in Paris. And the taxi arrives at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning to take us to the airport for our flight back home.

Thursday - May 14 - PARIS!

We arrived in Paris this afternoon after a short train trip from Brugges, with a change of train in Brussels to the high-speed Thylys train.  The train travels at a standard speed until it reaches the France border where the train tracks have been upgraded to accommodate higher speeds.  Once in France, the speed of the train almost triples and we reached Paris in just over an hour.  

We are staying in a two bedroom apartment in the Marais.  It is quite large, about 1,100 square feet.  Very nice kitchen and living spaces. The only draw back is the forth floor walk-up.  But the views are incredible.  We look out over the rooftops of the Marais and can see the Eifel Tower and Centre Pompidou from our windows.  

Tonight we had dinner in a restaurant in the Bois de Boulogne located on an island in the large lake.  We took a short two minute boat to reach the restaurant that is located in a swiss chalet reputedly moved here by Napoleon in the early 1800’s.  

Bruges - May 13

Wednesday, May 13, 2008, Brugge. Today, in the largest of the town squares, (in front of the 250-foot tall bell tower built in the mid-1200's), is the open market where vendors have come in large trucks (that convert into stalls) to sell  vegetables, butchered meats, rotisserie cooked meats, waffles, fresh flowers, etc. The produce is international, from around the world, not locally grown, but the shoppers are local. They are the "bruggelings," some of the 25,000 year-round residents of historic Brugge who, on market day,  stand out in relief against the tourists.  Lots of older couples. Holding hands.  Walking slowly.  Toting their bags of fresh produce and flowers wrapped in paper. And many shoppers on bicycles with baskets brimming with goods. Next, at 11 a.m. we took a boat ride through the canals. Though we were in a motorboat with two dozen people and the driver continuously broadcast comments, in spite of that, It was a calm, lilting and beautiful ride gliding amidst cool tree-lined shady glades, going under low slung 14th-Century stone bridges, seeing on the grassy banks the swans tending their fresh hatched fuzzy off-spring and other swans sitting on twig beds off melon size swan eggs. And the buildings, made of stones and bricks to last centuries. Some with boat docks. All, perfectly in balance with each other, two, three four stories at most.   Lunch was eaten at, Den Gouden Karpel, a family-operated fish store and cafe. One of it's entrances, to a sit-down waiter-serviced room faces our hotel. The other entrance, to a take-away bar with 12 tall stools, faces the rectangular, colonaded Fish Market, built in 1800 and housing about 36 permanent stone stalls.  It is represented as an active fish market, but during our visit only one stall was occupied.    Our meal in the take-away area was fresh, very fresh and tasty. We had:   House-smoked halibut; Eel in a sauce of pureed spinach, basil, chervil thinned with a delicious broth; Lobster bisque; and Mussels. (Roland bought a take-away sandwich of silky, thin-sliced, smoked halibut for the upcoming train ride to Paris). Next up is a visit to the Groeninge Museum. It houses items related to the era of Charles the Bold, his daughter, Mary of Burgundy and her son, Phillip the Handsome. (I wrote about their tombs earlier). The era was from about 1450 to about 1550. The exhibits are laid out in categories beginning with personal effects (clothing, armor, jewelry), then fraternal orders (official seals, ceremonial crystal vases, large books illustrating colorfully the tales, rights, obligations,  duties and punishments of a particular order of Knights which, today, still exist), then tapestries (Cesar, Alexander the Great, etc. were studied as examples of how to amass and wield power, their actions were illustrated in enormous, spectacular, action-packed tapestries)(also on display are miniature tapestries, 14"x18", executed by Rogier van der Weyden), finally there are paintings, colorful, realistic, show stopper, larger-than-life, ordinary size and very small paintings by Jan van Eyck, Memmling and again Rogier van der Weyden. For lovers of 15th-Century Flemish masterpieces this is heaven.   As extraordinary as all the artwork was, one image was very special: an elderly grandfather, with his grand-daughters, about 6 and 8 years old, he kneeled beside them, and kindly, and gently, told them, as if they were sitting before bedtime on his knee hearing a story, he told them the stories that the large colorful tapestry was telling. It was a precious, priceless, sweet and affection filled moment. Afterward, Wes, Roland and I met in a pretty and small plaza to by chocolates at Madame Dumon: dark chocolate covered cherries--with pits; thin sweet orange slices, half-dipped in dark chocolate; and thin apple slices covered in milk chocolate. For dinner, we looked on the internet and came up with, Saint-Amour. We lucked out. It is a small restaurant. Underground. The ceilings are old brick and vaulted. The young chef who won the Best Flemish Chef of the year award, greeted us at the door and for the first hour we were the only customers which meant he was cooking for us only. The menu was fairly traditional with just enough of a modern touch to make it extra eye-catching. The starter: "2xTuna and 3xWhite Asparagus" was tuna prepared two ways(tuna tartar topped with thimble-size scoops of white asparagus ice cream and an edible purple pansy flower) and white asparagus tips prepared three ways. There was also a Mackerel starter and a starter of Three Langoustines on Risotto. (This is the European season for white asparagus. It has been on every menu. And we have eaten it daily. With great pleasure.) The main courses were Gigot d'agneau and Ray-Fish Wing Stuffed With Shrimp. Then came cheese plates with creamy and pungent Epoisses running over the edge of a tiny spoon. Also a cheese tasting of having been bathed in walnuts. There were four other cheeses, all good, but their individual descriptions now blur into one memory of pleasure. Tomorrow we depart. Sam begins his journey home, to Santa Fe, NM, apart from us. We, Wes, Roland and myself are taking trains to Paris.

Bruges - May 12

Tuesday, May 12, 2009, still (happily) in Brugge. Leisurely morning. Slept until 8:15 a.m. We all convened downstairs in the hotel dining room at 9:00 a.m. for breakfast. The food was serviceable, but the setting was posh and formal. Brocade upholstered ceilings, brocade draperies, old world elegance for our frosted flakes, dannon yogurt and oj from concentrate.

The day was spent visiting museums and wandering within the historic area. Total pleasure as every where you look your eyes fall on something aesthetically pleasing whether it's the swans sitting on the canal banks on their nests which are full of large eggs, or a long row of tall shady green leafy trees, or a row of graceful well proportioned buildings with large bent iron numbers on the facades indicating year built: 1521, 1644, 1716 and some as old as 1200. The old district is criss-crossed with canals and twisty streets that here and there surround cobblestoned, leafy plazas.
We ate lunch at an organic restaurant, Salade Folle: duck salad, quiche fresh-made-to-order, salad with bacon, white asparagus salad, a broth of pureed leeks and chicken stock. I loved it and became irrationally exuberant.

One museum exhibition was funny and weird. Okay, it goes like this, we are standing in a 13th-Century church in Brugge, before us there are two tombs, marble caskets, on whose lids are life-size reclining bronze statues of the casket occupants. In one is the father, Charles the Bold. He died in battle in 1477 in Nancy, France. His corpse, frozen in river ice, face eaten by wolves, head cleaved in half, lances through his body, was kept in Nancy, France as a trophy. Eventually returned to Belgium, it now resides in the solemn marble coffin in that stood before us with a handsome bronze statue of his metal-armored body, helmet at his side, his armor-clad feet resting on a lion. Beside his tomb is the marble coffin of his daughter, Mary of Burgundy. Mary died five years later in a hunting accident. She, too, has a pretty casket and a nice statue, her feet are resting on cute doggies. Her son, Phillip the Handsome, died in Spain twenty years later and was embalmed so his wife, Ann the Mad, could tour Spain with his "handsome" corpse. Before Ann the Mad could parade him around Spain his heart was removed, put in a small and simple lead box with a pretty prayer inscribed on it and placed in his mother's marble casket the one with the nice statue atop. Today his "heart" box is out of his mother's coffin and is in it's own glass display case on his own pedestal next to his mother. This is a very thin slice of the dense history that is typical of every European city.

Late-afternoon, we sought out "belgian waffles" and Belgian "pommes frites". Now we can cross them off our list. They were good, but in the end they were just waffles and just fries.

For dinner we ate in the hotel and, a day after the fact, Roland feted us, in honor of our 25th anniversary, with champagne and a few quotes about relationships. We loved it. Thank you, Roland. Here are the quotes:

"Definition of a spouse: someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you would not have had if you'd stayed single."

"The Japanese have a word for it. It's Judo--the art of conquering by yielding. The Western equivalent of Judo is, "yes, dear."(J.P. McEvoy)

For dinner our table had: lobster salads, white asparagus ravioli, gigot d'agneau, a veal dish and Roland's generous, thoughtful and tasty Mumms Champagne.

We've decided to extend the anniversary day into a month of celebrations. Thanks again, Roland for starting it off in Brugge with the great toasts.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Brugge.
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Arrival In Bruges

Monday, May 11, 2009. Before any details of our day are laid out, I want to mention that on another May 11th, twenty-five years ago, in 1984, in New York City, in a suite, in the Algonquin Hotel, there was a cocktail party where two young strangers, Wes and Marlow,  met for the first time. Today is our 25th anniversary.  And Brugge, we are pleased to discover, is a memorable place to spend it. Our train departed last night from Copenhagen. It was an overnighter. The fold down cots were comfortable, but no amount of comfort could smooth the lurching of the train. It made a lot of stops, all through the night, and each one was like an alarm clock going off. At 7 a.m. we sleepily changed trains in Cologne. Wes and Roland ran fast to see a grand old large historic church adjacent to the train station and made it back in time to hop on board.   At 9:00 a.m. we changed trains in Brussels. It rained through most of the journey, but when, at 10:30 a.m., we arrived in Brugge it was "sunshine and blue skies" with a crisp and refreshing chill in the air. Historic Brugge, which has been designated by UNESCO a World Heritage Site, is somewhat egg-shaped, defined by an oval  canal that circles the old town, which is, in size, maybe one-mile wide by one-and-a-half-miles long. When the taxi from the train station entered the old town it was like magic wand had been waved and "poof" the dreary urban-scape transformed abruptly into an enchanted fairy tale village. We are in the 2nd-floor corner suite of the (3-story, 8-room), Duc de Bourgogne Hotel, a picturesque old structure poking out of the water where two canals come together. Our room, a comfortable size, has a large bed, a sofa, coffee table, two chairs and six large windows through which we can see beautiful elements of Brugge.  Roland's room is directly above us. And Sam's is two doors down the hall. We had a late lunch at a family owned restaurant, Den Dyver, in a centuries old room with a lightly updated modern touch. Impressive gleaming-crystal-long-stemmed glasses on the table made the most beautiful ringing tones when touched together. The glasses were used for beers which were artisanal and from the region and poured by the owner  with pride and over-the-top oral descriptions (ha! I should talk, why use 1 word when 10 will do). The food was interesting (shrimp crusted salmon, a local cheese assortment, rhubarb dessert) and tasty. Dinner on anniversary night was in an okay establishment, a place that had once served good food to Audrey Hepburn (1957), but has since then slipped into tourist mode...no thumbs up, no thumbs down. So we saved the start of anniversary celebration until tomorrow night. Till then.......

Photos from Last day in Copenhagen and train to Bruges

Copenhagen and Train to Brugges

A Great 24 hrs!

Saturday, May 9, 2009. Dinner was eaten at 8 p.m. in a peaceful, untrafficked neighborhood in a nicely lit small room with windows overlooking the water of quiet canal. The Franco-Danish restaurant is called Kanallen. On the walls are realistic paintings of lower NYC food sites: Yonah Shimmel's Knish, Katz's Deli. The service and the cooking were very good. At our table, between the four of us, we consumed:
Champagne; Pinot Noir;
Smoky scotch; Chardonnay;
Lobster Salad; White Asparagus and Baby Shrimp with Hollandaise sauce; Spring Lamb; Poussin (baby chicken) with mushrooms, fresh sweet peas and a rich, thick, smooth gravy that had the luxurious feel and taste of a fine french sauce; and for dessert, Rhubarb Three Ways..in a buttery tart the size of six stacked half-dollar coins...sweet poached rhubarb stalks supporting an egg-shaped scoop of white-chocolate gelato...and a cold and sweet shot of rhubarb consomme.

Afterward, at 10:00 p.m., Wes and Roland went to Tivoli Gardens, the famous amusement park across the plaza from our hotel. Wes particularly liked the tulip gardens.

Sunday, May 10, 2009, 10:30 a.m. We boarded a city bus for a twenty minute ride to an unusual complex of beige-brown-buff-golden brick buildings: low profile housing surrounding a church. We arrived in time to enter the church with hundreds of others who were there to witness the christening of a dozen and a half teenagers. In Sam's opinion this church is one of the most spectacular modern churches in the world. It is an early 20th-Century interpretation of gothic cathedral architecture. The materials are bricks of a light color that glow in a golden way when the light hits them through the tall clear glass windows. It makes an ooh/aah impression on a person like seeing the "great and powerful OZ" did to Dorothy. And there was music. An organ. A choir who sang once from the rear, (above the front entrance), and once from the altar (about 250 feet in front of us). Lots of Danish hymns. (Sam enjoyed them. He conducted. Tapped his foot. As if they were all his favorites). It was a great experience. Thank you, Sam. Beside the church is a large meadow with lush grass, little white and yellow flowers a bench and three trees. I laid in the grass. Sam sat on the bench. Wes and Roland milled about snapping pictures. Around 1 p.m. we borded the bus.

For lunch we returned to yesterday's lunch area. Instead of a restaurant we ate from one of many outdoor food vendors. We bought long grilled sausages. They were tasty.

Wes arranged for a 4 p.m. check-out from the hotel. We packed up and spent an hour in the hotel's cafe goofing off and listening to bits of Obama's speech from yesterday's Correspondent's Dinner in D.C.

Now we are on a train from 6:53 p.m. until 6:14 p.m. tomorrow (Monday) morning. We have sleeper cars. They are pretty funny in their compactness. You have to slide this over to use that and lift this up to pull that down, etc. Roland will be top bunk. Wes in the middle and me on the bottom. Sam has a room to himself. I have asked him to bring a sardine-can key in the morning to our room and open our tin so we can slide out. The train stops in, I think, Cologne at 6:13 a.m. where we have 60 seconds to get off before it takes off at 6:14 a.m. That is a challenge for an "escargot" like me.

Our eventual destination is Bruges in Belgium where, Monday, May 11 Wes and I will celebrate 25 years since the day we met.

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Copenhagen

May 9, 2009. Okay, Copenhagen, here is the impression: wild contrasts. From one street to another it can go from Cartier-Gucci-affluence-charm to nachos-urbanblight-seedy-pick-pockety-burgerking-shawarma-dangerous.

Our hotel, The Palace, has a very cool facade in a wavy, curvy, carved-stone and red-brick, Gaudi, art-noveau style. The interior has had a recent gut-renovation. It is no longer art-noveau. It is very W-Hotel-like. Groovy music plays in the lobby. Rooms have unusual fixtures that look ok, but fall off or come unmounted when touched or used, things like bathroom-sink-cup-holders, shower nozzles, etc. Our tub does not drain. It all, the decor, kind of looks ok on the surface, but it's not that great. And it fronts a kind of seedy plaza where crowds gather to watch little Peruvian guys play pretty two-chord tunes while American-Indian guys in full-feather garb dance, not indian dances, but like how Obama danced on the Ellen show.

We ate lunch at Cap Horn on a cafe-lined, cobble-stone street on a canal filled with all manner of parked boats (historic boats, sail, motor, row boats). The sun shined, gentle breezes wafted and many people were out strolling and sitting on the canal walls.

The buildings lining the canal are 3, 4 or 5 story 18th and 19th century town houses painted attractive shades of ochre, daffodil, terra cotta, jade and sky blue. That particular street and canal connect to broad circular plazas with grand opera, elegant hotel and government buildings, large decorative fountains, etc.

I spent the morning at the National Museum viewing Danish objects dated from 3000 b.c. to 1900 a.d. Wes and Roland bicycled for two hours along canals and characteristic neighborhoods. And Sam walked and photographed a morning bar room brawl: men clawing at each other, over turning tables, etc. A bouncer approached him and got rude. The police showed up, Sam thought, to rescue him, but instead they harassed him (Sam.) He did not get arrested, but maybe came close.

Our hotel is across the street from City Hall. There is a tower. It has a clock. The clock rings every 15 minutes. Loudly. From 7 a.m. through midnight it pratically shakes our room when it rings.

Today, Wes and Roland visited the shop where Roland's viola used to live. The shop is family run for the past five or so generations. It is closed this week because the owner/luthier is in Scottsdale, Arizona curating an exhibit of great Danish string instruments (that Roland's viola ought to have been included in) at an international violin maker's conference.  

In two hours we will have dinner at a canal-side restaurant.

Friday - Train to Copenhagen

Friday, May 8, 2009. Okay, it is our last morning, our last breakfast in the Grand Hotel. We have enjoyed the high-life breakfasting and cocktail-houring in The Grand with it's great view of the exceptionally beautiful city of Stockholm.

Now we are on a smooth fast train for a five-hour first-class cabin ride to Copenhagen.  For lunch, we spread a provençal-french table cover and spread it with breads, cheese, fruits, nuts, cucumber slices and chocolates....nice picnic....eaten while the train whizzed by large fields of daffodils.

Zip-zip-zip.....we are now in Copenhagen at the Palace Hotel. We had high hopes based on the great old (1908) facade of the building, but the interior has been stripped of every detail and made sleek like a W Hotel. We are directly across the street from the Tivoli Gardens where we see thrill seekers spinning in chairs on cables about 150 feet in the air. Too scary for me.

Roland's fine viola was made in the mid-1800's in Copenhagen. A shop around the corner did work on the viola. We are going to visit it.  

But first, we are going out now to eat and explore.  More later......

Stockholm

Thursday in Stockholm

Thursday, May 8, 2009, Stockholm. Glama Stan is a small island across from the hotel where the royal palace is located and is also the older part of the city. Sam and Wes spent the morning in a Gamla Stan shop specializing in maritime objects salvaged from old dismantled ships. The shop is like a museum and every inch is crammed with curious and interesting objects.

I spent the morning in the Nobel Museum one street uphill from them. When the Nobel Prize laureates come to Oslo to receive their awards they are brought to this museum to meet each other and to receive orientation on the many events they will participate in. Each laureate is able to invite 16 guests, all expenses paid, to come to Stockholm with them, attend the events and stay at the Grand Hotel, our hotel. The Nobel Museum a grand building situated in a hilltop plaza established around 1600 as the seat of government.  The museum is solemn in it's attempt to honor the hundreds of past laureates and their achievements which have improved the human condition in more ways than can be counted.

Roland spent the morning visiting the Vasa Museum and the Music Museum where he was given a special viewing of the worlds longest harpsichord. In mid-afternoon Roland visited with a former college colleague of ours, Georgia Mohammer Lind, who we last saw in 1975, the year she left Los Angeles for a flute position with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic.

Dinner tonight was taken in the ground level, windowed dining room of Ulla Windbladh located in a lovely leafy green park. The food, while tasty, was not my favorite and the ambiance, while it had potential, was a bit boisterous and disorganized. I give it no thumbs down and no thumbs up.

We leave tomorrow by train for Copenhagen.

Time for bed, good night.  

Stockholm - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

Wednesday, May 6, 2009, 10:00 a.m., Stockholm. We are currently on the upper enclosed deck of a small steam boat that departed from Stockholm's City Hall and is taking us to Drottningholm, one of the estates of the Swedish royal family and the site of a theater, built in 1766, made famous by Ingmar Bergman's film, "The Magic Flute". The boat is moving at a leisurely pace among forested islands and will arrive in one hour.

When I last wrote, two days ago, we were on a train from Oslo to Stockholm. I will now write a bit about arriving in Stockholm. Norway and Sweden until 1905 were united. Together they occupy somewhat of a peninsula. Norway occupies the entire west and north coasts. Sweden occupies the entire western coast. Norway is cold, snowy, icy, fjords, fishermen, oilmen, craggy, frontier. Sweden is green pastures, forests, sunshine, blond hair, blue eyes. So when the train driver announced that we had reached the border, it was already apparent as the landscape was very un-Norwegian-icy-fjord-like.

From the train station we took a cab to The Grand Hotel. At the front entrance we were met by several polite, helpful, impeccably groomed, attractive porters in formal uniforms. Their outstanding service made clear that we had arrived at a special place.

After checking in and settling into our rooms we went for a short walk around the exterior of the Royal Palace which is the summer home of the Royal Family and a short walk across the bridge from the hotel. The Palace guards wear bright blue uniforms, shiny silver helmets and carry 19th-Century bayonets with gleaming pointed blades. They are constantly marching from one place to another, in and out of various entrances and they all appear to in their early-twenties.

Later we met in the hotel bar. It occupies much of the second floor in the front of the hotel. It's wall of windows overlook the waterfront, the Royal Palace and the Opera House. It's a great place to hang out. Overall, the hotel and the neighborhood have a palpable sense of affluence.

For dinner we walked across the street to the Royal Opera House and ate in the lesser of their three restaurants which was still opulent and elegant.

TUESDAY, May 5, 2009. We visited the Vasa Museum, dropped our laundry off at a fluff and fold, greeted Roland Kato on his arrival to Stockholm and and finished the day with dinner at Den Gyldene Freden. Here are a few details about the above.

The Vasa Museum houses a gigantic, four-masted, elaborately carved wooden war ship that was first launched from the Royal Palace in 1628 in a grand ceremony attended by the king. When the first wind hit the sails the ship tilted perilously. When the second wind hit the sails the ship tilted more and tipped over. It sank only twenty minutes after setting sail. It sat unseen, underwater, in the harbor mud from 1628 until 1961 when it was raised, restored and the museum was built around it. It is in spectacular condition and is decorated with 700 beautifully carved wooden statues. There is a somber and respectful exhibit of some of the unidentified skeletons of twenty or so crew members who died in the sinking.

Our restaurant for dinner was built in 1720 and is currently owned by the Nobel Institute who, it is said, meets downstairs in the cavern (where we sat) to discuss candidates for the Nobel prizes.

WEDNESDAY, May 6, 2009. Okay, now that I have brought us up to date I will return to our boat ride to Drottningholm.

We have arrived at the Drottningholm Palace situated directly on the river bank. We are here not to see the palace or the Chinese pavilion or the gardens, but to see the Court Theater. It was built in 1766. In 1850 or so after the King died--he loved theater and had a relentless schedule of performances staged for his pleasure--it was closed for about 120 years of mourning. Around 1930 it was visited by a theater scholar who is responsible for putting it back in service. Because of it's long closure, it is in a remarkable state of preservation. Almost everything--the paint, the wall paper, the chandeliers, the mechanical scenery (which you can witness on youtube.com), the floorboards--is original back to 1766. It was a special experience sitting in the dimly lit theater appreciating the antique patina of the theater and imagining the sounds and site of performances past.

We returned to Stockholm and took the City Hall tour conveniently located at the boat dock. The interiors are beyond opulent. One banquet room, the ceiling maybe 40 feet high, is entirely covered in 23.5 karat gold mosaic tiles laid by craftsmen from Ravenna. In that room, the Nobel Laureates dance after being celebrated and fed with 1200 others in an adjacent room that while not gold is in it's way just as beautiful. It is difficult to describe these sites without using lots of superlatives, but there are so many exceptionally beautiful sites.

Dinner on this night was comparable to last night in it's ambiance, but the food (apricot-glazed duck, herring in lingonberries, etc.) was even better.

And then......to bed.

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Boat to Drottingholm

We're off to Drottingholm - a one hour boat trip outside of Stockholm.
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Tuesday in Stockholm

The Vasa Museum! and Roland arrives.