GENOA - POLANESI, ITALY

The first weekend in April (not counting our Strasbourg outing on April 1st!), we joined our friends Mark and Enrica at Enrica's family's house in Polanesi, which is about 30 minutes outside of Genoa, Italy.  We had an extra treat on our way there: a crystal clear view of the Alps as we were flying over.  But little did we know just HOW beautiful a spot we would be in for the weekend.  The views below are OF the house (left, below - their house is the white one near the top of the hill, surrounded by olive trees) and FROM the house (below, right - overlooking the Mediterranean Sea).  All this beauty AND we got to see Enrica's mom, Clara, hang out with wonderful friends, eat fantastic food, drink delicious wine and have time to relax and catch up with each other (including with Maddi, Mark's niece from Adelaide, who is living in London for the year).  Getting up to the house is a steep climb, so there is a "flying fox" available to take parcels and bags up. We can only imagine how hard the folks worked who originally built these homes!  Polanesi is more of a hamlet, including narrow lanes, olive trees, gardens, and a beautiful little church.  The church's bells added to the ambiance when we were sitting outside. everything is surrounded by beautiful olive groves and gardens.
 
On Saturday, we (Clara, Enrica, Mark, Maddi, and we) drove to a nearby town called Santa Margarita and walked from there for about 4 miles along the coast to Portofino, a spectacular secluded resort town on the coast. Luckily there was a walking path for most of the way, as the roads are very narrow and windy. However, the views were spectacular - as were some of the homes (below, left)! Portofino itself is picture-postcard perfect (below, right).  We sat in the main square for lunch and then hiked up to the church and castle for this and other spectacular views.  We took the bus back to Santa Margarita before returning to Polanesi for a yummy dinner and a few rounds of Jenga.  Sunday included a long, delicious and fun lunch at a local restaurant where we spent about four hours catching up with Enrica's family, many of whom we hadn't seen for quite a while. When we returned home, Clara tried to convince us that she should make a veal roast for dinner, but we prevailed on her to give our stomachs a chance to digest the huge lunch!  It was a great weekend and we were especially happy to get to see Clara, and other members of the family, and to have relaxed time with Mark and Enrica. We felt happy and rested (but still full!) when we returned to Heidelberg on Monday (we love these long holiday weekends).  
   

LONDON

Gerald had his intensive (6 hours per day) teaching week when we returned to Heidelberg that week, and only got to share in a little bit of the celebratory barbecue on Thursday night as we had to head off to London for his editorial board meeting on Friday.  Can't really complain about having to go to London though. Especially when the weather is perfect and we have friends there.  While Gerald was at his meeting, Elyse met up with Enrica (fun to get to see each other two weekends in a row!) for a delicious long lunch in St. James Park.  The "girls" then met up with Maddi (Mark's niece) and went over to the National Portrait Gallery for a quick tour (love that the museums are free in London so that one can "come and go" more easily) before Maddi left for her English-tutoring position.  Enrica and Elyse stopped in at the British Museum and then wandered back toward the Tube station, as Elyse had to head back to prepare for the big night out at the "Tom Aikens" restaurant.

We were joining our friends Joshua (from Israel), and Carl and Jessie (from St. Louis) for dinner at this Michelin-star restaurant.  Carl & Jessie had been before and had highly recommended it.  And were they right!  We sat for about 5 hours eating an amazing variety of delicious food that was served beautifully. Apparently Mr. Aikens has a special interest in textures, so we had mousses and "froths" and purées of various tastes and colors during the meal.  Jessie had her camera and captured some of the aesthetic pleasures of the meal.  Trust us - it tasted even better than it looked!  The first picture was our pre-Appetizer surprise.  Each of us got one of these and each item on the "plate" has 2-3 textures and flavors. Just to give you a "taste" (couldn't resist) of what we chose off the menu:  Gerald had (quoting from the menu): a "soft boiled hen's egg with truffle scrambled egg, foie gras mousse, cured duck breast and watercress soup" as a starter and then "roast pork cutlet with apple puree, baby squid and pork lasagna" for his main course (below, left).  Elyse had "poached and seared foie gras with haricot beans and sauternes sauce" for her starter and then "baked fillet of sea bass with herbs, cauliflower floret, avocado and lemon purée with lemongrass sauce" for her main course (below, right).  

We don't have the descriptions of the desserts, but suffice it to say Elyse had chocolate and Gerald had lime.  The pictures below capture how many "parts" there were to each dessert.  Each was delicious and rich enough to be sufficient on its own.

In case we weren't full enough by then, each of us received a plum "milkshake" and the table received assorted "petits fours" that were bizarre, but great.

Each "test tube" had a different combination of flavors (plum, fig, lemon, rhubarb, etc.) in the various textures we referred to earlier.  Each of the small glasses had three more flavors and textures.  And the last included the assorted candies and "lollipops", including a blueberry one encoated with Pop Rocks!  Gerald and Joshua had not experienced the explosion of PopRocks in their mouths before, so that was extra fun.  We waddled out of the restaurant just in time to catch one of the last subways back to our hotel.

Saturday, Joshua and we went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery for a special exhibition of Canaletto's work while he was in England in the mid 1700's.  It was fun to see the detailed pictures he created of London, especially since the city's skyline was so different then (no Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, for example).  But the regular collection of the Gallery was just as impressive, including three Rembrandts that Elyse kept returning to to enjoy.  After a quick snack at the museum, we went over to Camden and the "little Venice" part of London, which Joshua had never seen before.  It was a bit of a culture shock going from "high culture" to tattoos and pink hair, but it was a lot of fun to walk around on the glorious day.  We walked along the canal until we got to Regents Park and then crossed it to get back to our hotel.  The Park was overflowing with people enjoying the weather and its flower beds were in full bloom (see below), making the walk long, but fun.
 
We got back to the hotel with just enough time to wash our faces and get ready to go to Mark and Enrica's for dinner.  Joshua joined us, as did another friend of M&E's (whom we'd met before), Eric.  As usual, Enrica created a delicious meal and we very much enjoyed relaxing together over good food and wine.  Once again the schedule of the Underground brought the evening to the end - this time we cut it even closer catching the last train!  A great time.

Elyse left early the next morning to return to Heidelberg as our friends Kathy and Julie were arriving from Connecticut for the week.  Gerald had the morning with Joshua (and then a coffee with Mark and Enrica) before heading to the airport for a late afternoon departure back to Germany.  

Guess who's come to Heidelberg!?

We were lucky enough to have two sets of visitors to Heidelberg this month!  Kathy and Julie (friends and colleagues of Elyse's from Mansfield Middle School) left New England just before a "Nor'easter" hit with severe snow, winds and flooding.  They arrived the next morning in Heidelberg to sunny, blue skies and temperatures that were in the high 20s/70s (and which remained in that range for the rest of the week)!  Spring was at its most glorious while they were here, with flowers, lilac bushes and other plants/trees bursting with color/colour and fragrances.  Elyse found (having arrived back in Heidelberg after J&K had arrived) the happy ladies walking down the main pedestrian street (the Hauptstrasse) enjoying the sites and sounds of the old city.  We sat in one of the plazas sharing a beer, catching up and enjoying the sunshine.  Eventually, we extricated ourselves from this comfortable position and walked up/down the Philosophenweg (for their first "overviews" of the city) and back to the apartment to await Gerald's return.  The four of us shared a dinner at an outdoor cafe (where they tried their first "Flammkuchen" - a pizza-like dish with an extremely thin crust; yummy!) and then we walked them to the "top" of the Hauptstrasse before returning home.  We were very impressed by their stamina (see below; Kathy on the L, Julie on the R) after an overnight flight and jet lag!

Gerald had to work, but Elyse joined Julie and Kathy for some fun excursions.  On Monday, we headed out to Schwetzingen.  Elyse had been their once before with the German class group (go to the March page for comparison photos if you're curious!).  Knowing what keen gardeners J&K are, and given the weather, it seemed to be the perfect choice even though we knew the "Schloss" (the summer residence for the local royalty in the 18th century) would be closed. And what a day we had!  We walked around the gardens for about 5 hours and could easily have relaxed there for a few more.  The sun was bright, the birds were going nuts and we found the perfect reading spot, the perfect bird-watching spot (there was some serious courting going on with the budgies!), and smells, sounds and sights that kept us saying "wow!" over and over again.  And we even had fresh strawberries to nibble on as we walked around.  Every sense was taken care of that day!

 
We had decided take J&K to Ladenburg (where we had biked once before in March) for dinner.  The train arrived in time for us to take a quick look around at the medieval buildings in the evening light (see the church below).  We then found a wonderful pub where J&K continued their exploration of German cuisine (venturing into schnitzel territory this time!) before heading back to Heidelberg.  We had left our bikes at the train station and put J&K on a tram back to the "top" of the Hauptstrasse, from which they had a 10 minute walk back to their hotel.  Or so we thought.  We forgot that this particular tram is the one Elyse used to take to her school.  It stops near our apartment and at the main train station, but NOT at the plaza near the Hauptstrasse!  SO, Julie and Kathy ended up at the end of the line in a nearby suburb waiting for a bus back into town at about 11:30 p.m.  Luckily they were able to laugh about it the next day, but that was probably not what they needed on their second (or any!) night here.  Needless to say, we think of them every time we see Tram #24 go by now.

We had decided to make Tuesday the "Heidelberg" day because we had tickets to a concert that night and didn't want to have to worry about watching the clock quite as much.  So we (the girls) headed up to the Schloss (castle) mid-morning. We had prepared ourselves for the long hike (okay - it only takes about 15 minutes, but still...) with sustenance from one of our favorite pastry shops.  We were lucky again with the weather, and used our audio guides to learn about the Palatinate (local region) and its rulers and history.  The barrel below is huge and can hold 221,726 litres of wine!  The photo hopefully gives you a better sense of the size, as there is a full-sized man in it who was working IN the barrel that day.  It was used to collect the "tithe" (10% contributions) of wine production from the locals (imagine THAT taste!).  The wine was pumped directly into one of the rooms in the castle where it would be mixed with water and/or herbs before serving. The second set of photos are from the Apothecary museum, a fascinating place that explains the development of the drug and pharmacy industry.  The room in the left photo is of the room with some of the herbs that would have been collected and dried for later use.  They also had exhibits of seeds, plants and animals that might have been useful; laboratory equipment used to boil, distill, and otherwise manipulate the materials; and huge "desks" (right photo) used to prepare and sell the products.




As you can see from the picture below left (not a posed shot!), we were pretty relaxed and not in any hurry to leave the sunshine and bird calls that made everything that much nicer.  We savored every bite of the pastries we had brought with us.  Eventually, we walked to the edge of the old garden walls where we were afforded yet another beautiful view of the old city and the Neckar River.

In case that hadn't been enough viewing, when we returned to town, we went up the tower of the Heiliggeistkirche (Holy Ghost Church) and spied on the folks in the old town.  There are some great decks and rooftop gardens to look at, never mind the beautiful old churches and buildings!
We met Gerald for Turkish food at a restaurant in the old town. The proprietor was very friendly and the food was terrific. The waiter convinced us that we should have an after-dinner drink (tasted a bit like Sambucca on ice) - on the house - and we would have like to have hung out there a bit longer, but we were off to be "cultured." We had tickets to a chamber music concert at the Old University Hall.  As you can see below, this is a beautiful hall.  We heard a fantastic concert by the "Fauré quartett", a group of young musicians who played (magnificently) pieces by Mahler, Mozart and Brahms (and then three encore pieces that were beautiful as well). It was a magical evening and a fitting end to our experiences at the Heidelberg Spring Music Festival. We were already on the Hauptstrasse, so J&K didn't have to worry about us putting them on the wrong bus/tram!  They got home earlier than the night before.


Wednesday, we had decided to go to a nearby town named Bad Wimpfen - mostly because we liked the sound of the name, but also because we had read it was an old medieval town (below, left) with nice views of the surrounding area from the large towers (below, right) in the old part of town.  The word we would use to describe our experience is "surreal."  There was practically no one around.  Everything in the old town looked and sounded deserted; even the few folks we did see seemed to be in a trance of some sort.  We thought we had landed in a Twilight Zone - or that we had become invisible - or that something dreadful had happened and we just didn't know about it yet!  We had timed our arrival poorly, so even the tower and museums were closed for lunch break.  (Later Elyse found out that many villages close their tourist sites on Wednesdays) It was a bizarre morning, but we had a lot of laughs and eventually found a more "alive" section of town with hot coffee and chocolates (it was our only cloudy and cool morning) and pastries for lunch.  
 
After doing a bit of souvenir shopping and the like, Julie decided to go for a run while Kathy and Elyse opted to take the funicular (cable car) up to the top of the hill, which is about 550 metres (about 1800 feet) above sea level.  The railway was opened in 1890 and there are two parts - Lower and Upper.  The total trip takes about 30 minutes and the railway cars travel up a 43% gradient (VERY steep).  Kathy is standing next to one of the Upper funicular cars.  You can see how they designed them so that you feel like you're sitting on a straight bench going up.  The city looked tiny from up there and the air was cool and fresh.  We walked briefly on a nature trail that runs from the railway station and came across some very cool wood carvings, including the foot bench and this "Atlas" holding a world of trash on his shoulder.  It is carved directly out of the tree trunk.
 

Wednesday night was K&J's last night in Heidelberg, so the four of us went to one of the popular local pubs, Vetter im Schöneck, where they brew their own beer (including one variety that is advertised to be 33% alcohol!) so that J&K could get their share of German sausages and sauerkraut.  It's a fun place, the food was good and the beer was excellent.  

Thursday, Elyse, Julie and Kathy headed over to Frankfurt.  J&K had an early flight out of Frankfurt airport on Friday morning, so they were staying in Frankfurt Thursday night.  We spent the afternoon in the Frankfurt Botanic Gardens, which were filled with blossoms, color and perfume - and this spectacular bird.  Anyone out there know what kind of bird it is??  Then we wandered into the old town before walking to one of the traditional "apple wine" bars for dinner.  Kathy's ox was tasty, as was Elyse's "beef breast" (like a brisket).  Julie's "pork chop" was almost the size of her plate and more like a slab of ham, but we were all pretty tired by then, so just sitting and relaxing together was all we really needed.  It was a full and wonderful visit, with lots of adventures and laughs and we are very happy that they were able to come over.



We (two) took it easy over the weekend, even passing up on an excursion to a nearby town (that left at 7:30 a.m. Saturday morning!).  We had a relaxed barbecue lunch at Holger and Claudia's on Sunday, but otherwise just "went with the flow" for the weekend....because we knew we had more adventures ahead.

JUST WHEN WE THOUGHT IT COULDN'T GET ANY BETTER....

We were  thrilled that our cousin Rachel (Elyse's cousin Alan's oldest) was able to come over to visit for a week.  Rachel is studying in Seville, Spain, for the semester and we had been trying to figure out a rendezvous for months.  We finally worked it out the day before she came!!  She arrived Monday evening, so we went into the old town for dinner at an outdoor cafe (great people watching spot) and a walk around.  (See the illuminated castle on the hill behind Rachel and Gerald?).  She fell in love with the Hauptstrasse (few wouldn't) and vowed to return for some shopping!  

Tuesday, Elyse and Rachel went up to the Schloss.  This picture of Rach near one of the tumbled towers gives you a better sense of scale for the place.  Some of the walls are 7 metres thick!  We took the guided tour and our guide was very good.  There were only four of us in the group, so we could hear/see well and ask questions (there were many tours with dozens of people in them walking around when we were finished, so we were just lucky with our timing!).  There are all sorts of interesting stories of the excesses of the rulers: renovating a fortress tower into a theater, building an ornate stone gate overnight as a 19th birthday present, creating a family tree in 3-dimensions via a facade with life-size statues for each ancestor, etc.  It is a fascinating place and we had fun looking around. Below, center you can see Rach under "Perkeo" who got his nickname from his reputation for always saying "Perque non?" (why not?) when asked if he wanted a drink...  And then there's the view, of course....
   
Rachel had rented a bike for a couple of days, so she earned her dinner by riding to (relatively) nearby Ladenburg.  The gears weren't quite as changeable as we'd hoped they would be, so she got quite a workout, but she made it there and back intact.  Ladenburg really is a beautiful town - and we found a restaurant with delicious Greek food - and very good Greek wine! After an ice-cream for dessert, we were ready to trek back home to Heidelberg.
 
Rachel and Elyse decided to venture up from Heidelberg the next day, rather than out.  We took the funicular up to the very top and had a relaxed, tasty lunch looking out over the city and the Neckar Valley.  It was a beautifully clear day and quiet and peaceful up there, so we enjoying just hanging out.  Then we took a walk along the Nature Path - with its wonderful wooden carvings/sculptures - before heading down to town so that Elyse could meet Gerald for a German test (more on that later) and Rachel could finally get in a couple of hours of shopping on the Hauptstrasse!  We kept trying to take a picture that would show just how steep the railway track is, but none of them do it justice....
 
Rachel's flight was very early on Friday morning, so we spent Thursday in Heidelberg before heading over to Frankfurt for dinner and her overnight stay at a hostel in Frankfurt.  We took a walk along the Philosophenweg so that she could see old Heidelberg and the castle from the other side of the river, and then had a nice lunch (with a very ditsy waitress!) on a market "platz" in the old town. Our last stop was a climb up the tower of the church in town for the views of the city.  We timed it well, so we were able to hear the church bells ringing while we were up next to them.  A nice way to end Rachel's visit to Heidelberg.  She is such a great person and it was a real treat for us to have so much time "alone" with her here.  We (just Elyse & Rachel; Gerald was giving a lecture in Heidelberg at the time!) had a delicious dinner in Frankfurt, and took a beautiful walk along the river back to the train station to send Elyse back to Heidelberg.  Rachel returns to the U.S. from Sevilla in a couple of weeks - a reminder that college semesters are finishing in the U.S. and time is flying by....

JENA / WEIMAR

Gerald is participating in a 3-weekend (in April, June and July) lecture course in 3 cities (Jena, Leipzig and Halle) in former East Germany.  He and 2 other professors each give about 6 hours of lectures to the students (same students come all three times) each weekend.  The first in the series took place the weekend after Rachel left, in a town called Jena. As luck would have it, one of my friends/colleagues at work has a son, Brad, studying in Jena for a couple of years, so I had a built-in tour guide and companion while Gerald was working!  Jena is a university town but is known, too, for its strong optical industry.  The train ride was very pretty as we passed huge fields of bright yellow rapeseed/canola in full bloom. 

Brad, a friend of his named Connie (pictured below, left) and I decided to start our tour on Saturday in nearby Weimar, where I had been told there was an interesting museum on the Bauhaus movement (1919-1933).  It was a fascinating exhibit; I hadn't realized that the Bauhaus style/ideas went beyond architecture and were applied to art, furniture, housewares, graphic design and lots of other "arts."  We spent a fair bit of time in the museum.  In addition to the Bauhaus school, Weimar is known as the place where the first republican constitution for Germany was drafted after WWI (the Weimar Republic).  Also, Goethe and Schiller (in statue below) did a lot of their writing in Weimar, and Bach and Liszt also worked there for a while as well. The town itself was lovely and we found a great créperie on a cobblestoned side-street for lunch, and proceeded to eat away a fair bit of time (and food!).  We decided not to go into another museum as it was a nice day and we felt like walking around, so we headed toward Goethe's garden house (below, right) and walked around the park and gardens nearby.
 
We returned to Jena with just enough time to go to the observation deck at the top of the Intershop Tower (120m tall) for spectacular views of the town and surrounding area (below, left). We had planned to take a hike up in the woods to a tower/restaurant with a viewing area, but didn't think we'd have enough time. Good thing we didn't bother as that's where we (G&E) went to dinner with Gerald's colleagues.  Elyse walked around the next morning while Gerald was lecturing and took a few more shots of some of the towns' pretty sites.

Heidelberg

Seeing Heidelberg for the "first time" again through others' eyes has reminded us once again how beautiful it is and how lucky we are to be here.  Spring has continued to put on a beautiful show and we are enjoying it all (including the weather) tremendously.  Gerald continues to work and - as you've read - Elyse has been busy touring the city and area with others.  To add to our regular activities, we decided to take an evening course in German this semester.  This is partly because we find we don't practice our German otherwise (other than in restaurants, etc.) and partly because some of our classmates from the intensive course are doing it and we thought it would be a fun way to spend 2 evenings a week.  So - going back to that test we mentioned while Rachel was here.... If we thought we felt stupid when we took the placement test at the beginning of March (when we knew we didn't know any German) we were wrong.  This experience was worse! Not only did we realize how much we had forgotten in one month (never mind how much we still don't know), but our teacher was one of the ones supervising the test.  We made sure we handed our test in to someone else!  When we showed up on Monday for our first class we found that we had been placed into the "Middle" level (skipping over Beginners' levels 1, 2 or 3) for this semester's class!  We thought there must have been a clerical error, but decided to go along to the first couple of lessons and see what it was like.  The teacher is very nice and seems like she will be a good teacher, but everyone else in the class can actually speak German and they know a lot  more grammar and vocabulary than we do.  It is very clear that we do not belong there!  We have asked for a transfer into the Beginners' level 2. There, maybe, we can learn something and contribute to the class a bit!  One of our original teachers had asked Elyse to meet for coffee periodically so that she (Annette) can practice her English, and Elyse can practice her German.  The first meeting took place the day of our "first" German class this week - hopefully the German conversation will go more smoothly in the future, but Annette is very nice and it should be fun and helpful.

May Day

And May has begun.  May 1st is a public holiday here and the tradition in these parts is for local clubs (choir, sports, etc.) to host "feasts" (the picture of Gerald holding Elisabeth is at one of the "feast" stops) at various points along hiking trails in the woods.  The feasts consist of beer (of course), barbecued meats, and cakes and coffee.  We joined Holger and Claudia and their four kids (pictured with Holger are Katharina, Johanna and Valentin; Claudia is holding Elisabeth), two other physicists and their families (with 6 more kids) and two other friends of the family, for a day of walking and eating.  It was a glorious day - just cool enough to make a long walk comfortable.  The paths were beautiful, the kids a lot of fun to watch (including them "toboganning" down the sides of hills on their bums - see the 2nd and 3rd photos - and creating face paint out of grass and leaves), and the food was good.  It felt like a weekend fitted into a single day and we enjoyed it a lot.