Climbing, Riding, Sightseeing Midnight on Mont Blanc July 2, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Motel, Museum, Restaurant, Round The World , 3commentsDepression lurked over me like a Lakeland storm-sky: oppressive, inevitable and apparently unending. “What you need,” said Bernie over the top of his beer, “is to take your mind off it; get out onto the hill. Let’s go and climb Mont Blanc. We can drive down on your bike.”
The suggestion seemed suitably absurd — neither of us had done any serious climbing for a decade and I had never done any work on snow and ice. So we went. Friends took the heavy gear in a car. (I had failed to accommodate two full sets of climbing equipment, a tent, books and spare clothes in the panniers of my new BMW and felt slightly cheated.) On the open roads, the apparently deserted French péages, I relished the lack of baggage and flew south. (more…)
My Perugia Travel Diary continue… June 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Aquarium, Art Gallery, Asia, China, Coliseum, Denmark, Destination, Dolphinarium, Egypt, England, Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Gymnasium, Iceland, Istanbul, Italy, Library, Memorial, Morocco, Museum, Norway, Oceanarium, Paris, Planetarium, Poland, Restaurant, Round The World, The Nile , add a commentMass cremation pits containing ashes and charred bones indicate that he feared a plague, but Carthaginian skeletons with all their teeth have been disinterred as well as the tombs, yielding cataphracts as well as bones, of thirty Carthaginian nobles.
Spello, the most appealing of the Umbrian hill towns, is still enclosed by Roman walls with five gates, the main one bearing the legend “Splendidissima Colonic Julia Hispellum” over the arch. According to Spellan tradition, a phallus carved in the inner wall of the Porta Urbica does not celebrate Orlando’s (Roland’s) amatory prowess but the range and perfect arc of his actus mingendi. Spello is noted for its restaurants and truffled cooking, its steep, winding, and narrow streets—all one-way only—its Roman towers and amphitheater. A Vocabolaro del Dialetto Spellano, compiled by NicolettaUgoccioni and published here last year, contains, at a thumb-through guess, 20,000 words in current usage—by a population of only 6,800. (more…)
Pleasant hollow QUELUZ continue… June 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Aquarium, Art Gallery, Coliseum, Dolphinarium, Gymnasium, Library, Lisbon, London, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Portugal, Restaurant, USA , add a commentThe interior of the palace (which was partially destroyed by fire in 1934 but felicitously restored) is entered from the cour d’honneur. The cheerful lightness of first room, a corridor known as the Sala das Mangas, derives from its wall-to-ceiling revetment in blue and yellow azulejos, the characteristic Portuguese decorative tiles. A key position in the palace is occupied by the ceremonial reception room, the Hall of the Ambassadors. This room is also called the Hall of Mirrors, for most of the wall space not occupied by the window embrasures is filled with mirrors in gilt Rococo frames. The coved ceiling is decorated with a large painting, in which members of the royal family are depicted behind a balustrade as if watching one of the evening concerts for which Queluz was famous. (more…)
Ambitious attempt: CASERTA continue… June 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Flight Schedule, France, Gymnasium, Hotels, Italy, Library, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, Round The World, USA , add a commentImmediately opposite the Great Staircase to the west stands the chapel, which, at the king’s request, repeats the scheme of its counterpart at Versailles. Although Caserta evokes Versailles in concept and ambition, this is the only part of the palace that directly imitates its French predecessor. As at Versailles, the main theme is stated on the gallery level, where coupled Corinthian columns march in stately procession towards the apse. But despite this common feature, the characteristically French ambulatory has been omitted and the proportions of the whole have been to some extent lowered.
The central peristyle also leads to the royal apartments that occupy the south front and the short wing leading to it. (more…)
The palace of Nymphenburg continue… June 7, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Belgium, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Europe, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Lodges, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, Round The World, USA , add a commentIn 1716 Effner began the first of the four Rococo pavilions in the garden. This was the Pagodenburg, a product of the craze for chinoiserie that was beginning to sweep Western Europe. This little building has an interesting plan, which can be described either as an octagon with projections at four of the eight sides or as a Greek cross with the corners bevelled off. The exterior has an entirely French appearance and it is only inside that the Chinese theme is introduced. On the ground storey, the principal feature is provided by the blue Delft tiles in glazed earthenware, which the elector may have learned to appreciate during his stay in the Low Countries, though they are undoubtedly a cheaper substitute for Chinese porcelain. The upper of the two storeys has two pentagonal cabinets with lacquer panelling and furniture made by Parisian craftsmen in the chinoiserie manner. In the lounge, however, the purely European Régence again takes over in the fine wall carvings and silk brocade. (more…)
Charlottenburg: The interior is a superb example of German decorative art May 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Flight Schedule, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Paris, Planetarium, Restaurant, USA , add a commentThe relation of Schloss Charlottenburg to the now vanished Berlin Schloss and to Potsdam, is rather like that of the lost Whitehall Palace to Kensington and, say, Hampton Court. The Berlin Schloss with its Schluter decorations was wantonly removed after the last war to make way for the Marx-Engels Platz in East Berlin ; in Potsdam the Neues Palais and the Cornmuns survive more or less intact, the Stadt Schloss and the Garnison church are ruined, while Sans Souci appears virtually as it ever did. Sans Souci was the idea and creation of a single monarch between 1745 and 1753. Charlottenburg has a longer history over a much greater span of years and indeed it might be said that its story still continues. From the Berlin Schloss down Unter den Linden through the Brandenburg Gate, the road runs straight along the Charlottenburger Chaussee past the Rondel of the Siegessaule to a fork at what is now the Ernst Reuterplatz where the proud cupola of Schloss Charlottenburg rises on the right at a distance of about eight kilometres in all. (more…)
Linderhof: Ludwing IP’s flamboyant fantasy in the neo-baroque manner continue… May 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Flight Schedule, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Paris, Restaurant, USA , add a commentIn one respect Ludwig out-Heroded Herod. No Bourbon edifice has ever had a site as dramatically effective. Use has been made of two sides and the narrow floor of a valley-opening, fringed by forest and rockface, as a multiple-terraced arrangement of flower beds and fountains which, however formal, is yet acceptable in this remote spot. Karl von Effner was the designer of the grounds, but he followed detailed directions of the king. Linderhof faces the slope of the Linderbichl to the south. There is just room at the back, on the steep slope of the Hennenkopf, for a cascade of thirty-two marble steps with a Neptune fountain at their foot and a trellised rotunda at the top, corresponding to the rotunda in the south garden. On either side of the palace is a formalised parterre, divided into four sections and with a border of trimmed hornbeams. The south garden is the really dramatic one, rising in three terraces from the large basin immediately in front of and below the palace. (more…)
Linderhof: Ludwing IP’s flamboyant fantasy in the neo-baroque manner May 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Flight Schedule, France, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Lodges, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, Round The World, USA , add a commentOne should approach Linderhof in a mood of reverence and delight. It is essential to view it not as a madman’s dream but as a piece of fairy-tale architecture in a setting surprising and yet amazingly appropriate. The eye which sees it as so much white icing fallen from a wedding cake at a sylvan picnic is not worthy of it. The cultural snobbery which dismisses it because of its overwhelming sympathy for a period other than its own, blinds its victims to merits which are intrinsic and valid. It is in indisputable little masterpiece, and, in the light of that, its debt to the France of Louis Quator ze becomes an irrelevance. (more…)
Sans Souci: The light-hearted summer-house of King Frederick the Great May 18, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Flight Schedule, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, USA , add a commentIn 1744 FREDERICK the Great gave instructions to build a vineyard of three terraces (only later increased to six) on the southern side of a shady and sandy little height in the woods above Potsdam. On the 13th of January 1745, a cabinet order was given that building materials were to be assembled because the King intended to build a Lusthaus there. By 1747 the King was able to use the east side of the little palace; the term ‘east- wing’ is rather too much for a villa which is only ten rooms across the entire front and with only a service passage behind them. The decoration of the rooms was only properly undertaken after 1753, the year in which Frederick’s architect, George Wenzeslaus Freiherr von Knobelsdorff, died. In the miniature library one can still see a drawing in the King’s own hand with the first sketch for the palace : on the north side a colonnade leading to an entrance, a rectangular entrance hall opening into an oval cupola hall, the right wing ‘pour le roy’ consisting of four rooms, an ante-room, music-room, (more…)
The Quirinal: The most venerable of the palaces in this city of palaces continue… May 16, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Cars, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Flight Schedule, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, USA , add a commentPonzio’s severe and imposing staircase consists of two flights advancing to meet one another between panelled stone walls. The landing where they converge is adorned by an important fresco by that rare fifteenth-century master, Melozzo da Forli. It is a picture of God the Father surrounded by angels. The awe- inspiring majesty of the subject, and the gravity of the full, austere forms, are conveyed with moving simplicity and directness of feeling bred of an age which had passed more than a century before the Quirinal was built. The fresco was originally commissioned by Cardinal Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, for a chapel in SS Apostoli, Rome, and was only brought to the palace in 171 1 when the church was rebuilt. (more…)
The Quirinal: The most venerable of the palaces in this city of palaces May 16, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, Airlines, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Egypt, Flight Schedule, Gymnasium, Hostels, Hotels, Italy, Library, Lodges, Memorial, Motel, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, Round The World, USA , add a commentThe Immense Complex of the Quirinal Palace was the summer residence of the Popes until 1870 when it was seized by Vittorio Emmanuele. He died there in 1878 after receiving a message of pardon from the Pontiff he had outraged. The palace remained the home of the kings of Italy until 1946 and is now occupied by the President of the Italian Republic. Although the Savoyards endeavoured to remove the traces of the former occupants of the Quirinal, replacing the papal arms wherever possible with their own, the palace is essentially a monument to the taste of its builders, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, Paul V and, to a lesser degree, Alexander VII and Clement XII. With its great irregular piazza it is among the noblest examples of that union of the baroque and the antique upon which the character of Rome so largely depends. (more…)
The Royal Palace NAPLES: A majestic situation for the palace of a vanished kingdom continue… May 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Gymnasium, Hotels, Italy, Library, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, USA , add a commentPelagio Palagi also worked for Ferdinand II. Some of the richest gilt stucco work is his and among the few pieces of furniture still to be seen in the palace is a set of gilt bronze chairs which are typical examples of his fantasy. The legs and arms take the form of winged maidens. Palagi’s work links Naples with Turin, where he was intensively employed ; and the two palaces were more closely connected when Vittorio Emmanuele became King of Italy. He entered Naples on November 7, 186o and on the following day he was invested with the sovereignty of Naples and Sicily in the Throne Room of Francis II, the last of the Bourbons. (more…)
The Royal Palace NAPLES: A majestic situation for the palace of a vanished kingdom May 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, USA , add a commentThe Facade of the Quirinal Palace, Rome, and that of the Royal Palace at Naples are both the work of Domenico Fontana. Both are three-storey buildings with a strong horizontal emphasis. But here the resemblance ends, and few people would spontaneously attribute these two elevations to the same author. The facts that the portal of the Quirinal was added later by other hands and that the ground floor at Naples was disfigured by grotesque statues in the nineteenth century have little bearing on this reaction: it is conditioned by the overwhelming effect of the colour of the Naples palace. (more…)
Caserta: The monumental scale of a palace executed for the Bourbons continue… May 15, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Aquarium, Art Gallery, Beach Resorts, Coliseum, Destination, Dolphinarium, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Lodges, Memorial, Museum, Oceanarium, Planetarium, Restaurant, USA , add a commentThe first of these, the Halberdiers’ Hall, echoes the mood of the staircase. Its exquisitely blanched lilac and grey marbles appear to be salt-encrusted ; the soaring vault, the Ionic pilasters, the white stucco reliefs and the titanic sculpture of Victory crowning Alexander Farnese, carved out of a column from theTemple of Peace in Rome, all fulfil the expectations aroused by the noble entrance. But none of the other apartments exhibits the daring architectural imagination of the vestibule and staircase. The size and extent of the interior does indeed intimidate and amaze the visitor. As he wanders through the endless sequence of rooms he almost shares the terror of Ferdinand II’s little son, the Count of Bari, who at the age of seven was lost for over an hour in the labyrinthine halls. (more…)
Aranjuez: Philip II’s leafy palace on the banks of the River Tagus May 14, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Airlines, Art Gallery, Austria, Beach Resorts, Destination, Europe, Granada, Gymnasium, Hotels, Library, Lodges, Memorial, Museum, Portugal, Restaurant, Spain, Sunblock, Travel Gear, Travelling Bag, USA , add a commentAranjuez, at the confluence of the Tagus and Jarama rivers, about thirty miles south of Madrid, is the most celebrated of the rare oases which break the arid monotony of most of Spain. The air resounds with the noise of rushing water, the trees are the finest in southern Europe and the nightingales (which were Philip II’s chief regret during three years’ absence in Portugal) are as renowned as the strawberries and asparagus from its market-gardens.
In the Middle Ages the land belonged to the knights of Santiago, whose Grand Master, Lorenzo Suarez de Figueroa, erected a castle there in 1387. When Ferdinand and Isabella merged the Grand Mastership in the Crown, the property passed with it. Charles V converted the building into a hunting-lodge, which Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera, the architects of the Escorial, replaced by a palace for Philip II. (more…)
