2011 September | BIBLIOGRIND

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Archive for September, 2011

Honeymoon in Venice: Giorno Uno

September 28, 2011 at 1:30 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog

We decided quickly that Venice’s true enchantment comes from it being unlike any other city in the world. A place of canals and narrow streets and small & large squares, and so many various architectural bits and pieces. Around every corner you find something different.

With 4 and one half days to play about, we started by going to the local store to stock up on breakfast foods and night time snacks. Then we sat down for a mini feast before taking the bus to Venice to start our wandering. We were told by the flat owner, Fabio, and by other online travel bloggers, that the best way to see Venice is to get lost inside its labyrinthian streets.

When you have time, this IS the best way to see Venice: it doesn’t matter how many times you come across another little square, or down some alley that ends at a private door, or opens onto a canal with another bobbing gondola. You’ll eventually get to St Mark’s Square, and the Rialto Bridge, and The Grand Canal. But those are just three of the tourist-mobbed sites among thousands of other, more beautiful, more Italian, more Venitian places to see.

So with that all growing in out minds, we set out somewhere away from the prevailing path of tourists. Of course, very few places, or streets, in Venice are without tourists, but as long as we stayed off the cattle trails toward S.Marc’s & Rialto, we began to come across some beautiful buildings, unusual shop windows, and sedate canal-side coffee shops.

Asia's first look at Venice became a love affair with its beauty, grace, and enchantment

Venice has many colors and architectural themes, and when mixed together give a palate any painter could live with

Food shops abounded in the narrow streets, and often you only had to follow your nose to find them

Asia awaits her turn at the gelato vendor, with Venice's splendor looming as a backdrop

In a piazza we named "Bambini Square" we found lots of kids w/moms playing after work, and we found the cheapest gelato and beer in Venice

We came each night to Piazza Polo

We finally got to St Mark's around sunset, and got some gorgeous photos of the evening sky. Every day was hot, each night was cool and magnificent.

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Books Read Lately

September 18, 2011 at 10:05 am · Filed under The Prague Blog

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

Before the Oscar-winning film, there was the book. Three women in three different decades of the 20th century deal with personal and family problems, all connected to the storyline/character problems of Clarissa Dalloway, Virginia Woolf’s tragic heroine of the eponymous title. The book is short, the movie long. The movie did a better job, or maybe I recalled the movie so well that I had unrealistic expectations.

The Professor of Desire by Philip Roth

David Kepesh gives his life story in a mere 90,000 words, from precocious child holding early desires to college man-about-campus but who fails to ever get a date, to English professor whose desire for women brings him to a psychiatrist and then we get a wonderful story of the connection between his life and that of famous authors, characters, etc. I found this book extremely well told, inventive, and holding a lot for so short a book.

The Bell by Iris Murdoch

Dora Greenfield is a bit flaky, runs away from her husband, comes back, settles with him into a lay-religious camp where he is doing research. Then the people of the camp get into the act, and here we get a cast of real misfits, thrown together for the purpose of leading a ersatz-religious life. Enter the story of the nearby Abbey’s bell, cast away a century before on some indiscretion. A new bell is about to be christened, and then the old bell is found at the bottom of a lake. High-jinks afoot. This is another well-told story by Murdoch, whose focus on people and their goodness, as well as their flaws, make reading a pleasure.

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Prague’s Wine Festival at Havlickovy Park

September 17, 2011 at 5:33 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog

Czech vintners have once again pulled out the burcak (BUR-chock) for the yearly “new wine” festival. Many of the city’s neighborhoods hold these festivals, and one of the largest is just a downhill walk from our palace apartment.

Havlickovy Sady is Prague’s second largest park, and it’s also home to a thriving vineyard. This year the harvest is going to be flush, as the rain with sun and cool mornings have fattened the two varieties of grapes into massive bunches on the several-thousand vines. Burcak is young wine that is effervescent, tastes a bit fruity, and packs a decent punch.

Today at Havlickovy Sady was the main festival day, which exhibited wines, arts & crafts, and a stunning tournament show whose theme this year was Mythology and Life in Ancient Rome.

Baccus quaffing wine at the yearly borcak festival

Asia and I got front row positions, standing just behind Zeus (!) standing on his pedestal. There was a procession of Greek/Roman beauties, an elephant (Asia came a bit late and was looking for me, with a phone call in which was heard the line “I’m standing near the elephant!”), Christian slaves slated for destruction, gladiators, and charioteers making slashing-dashing rounds through the tournament field.

An anemic looking Poseidon

We’d not seen so many people in this park before. It’s usually quite empty and terribly peaceful. But today there saw thousands tramping about, with jugs of burcak in hand. This is a day for picnic blankets, park benches, and strolling.

The tournament was both serious and a bit funny: the Roman legioneers couldn’t through their spears worth shit; the crowd continually called for “krew” — blood! — at the end of each gladiator bought, including when a female who held her own against a big oaf was left lame on the grass.

And then there was the Czech woman who wandered in from the crowd, quite tipsy, who came up to Neptune and grabbed his ass. A few faux-Legioneers were called in to corral her off to the side.

Death to the Loser!

Overall, the show was quite dramatic, and AsiaMark were just a bit hesitant each time the chariots raced by, as what lay between us and 3,000 lbs of racing horse was a flimsy iron fence.