travelswithalice

Milan proved to be a very efficient city for getting in and out of. We filled up at the petrol station near the hotel then dropped the car off at the Avis terminal in the train station. We wheeled our suitcases along, easily found the lift to the departure level, and walked off it staight onto the platform for our train to Zurich.

On the train, we sat back and readied our cameras- Stuart was the stills photographer and I had the videocam. 


The couple behind Stuart- seats were paired, facing each other across a table- outdid each other expounding on their knowledge of what the trip had to offer. From behind me came the strident voices of another couple arguing over the best way to deal with their luggage. The woman’s voice trilled with the accusing notes of the quintessential nag. It was a scene straight out of Agatha Christie; and in my mind there was no doubt who the first murder victim would be.

Lunch in the dining car was stylish; although I was a bit disappointed that we hadn’t all turned up in our evening clothes. M. Poirot would be the man of indeterminate nationality, seated two tables away, pontificating to his companions about goodness knows what throughout his meal.

Back in our assigned seats, we watched the beautiful tableau unfold outside our window. We sliced smoothly through picture-perfect Swiss villages, lovely lakes, and white capped mountains. 

It was not the Orient Express, but it was still a great way to travel. With someone else at the helm, Stuart got out of driving and navigating mode and straight into photography mode.

But poor Miss Marple, played in this instance by the lady who sat behind Stuart. She was so excited as we started off from Milan, very active with her camera and doing a running commentary on the scenery. She was now out cold, slumped on the table, suffering from what Poirot would have called a bad case of “mal de train.” Too bad.

At the Zurich airport, Stuart and I called home to our mothers, regaled them with abbreviated tales of our trip so far, and waited for our SIA flight to Singapore. 

 Wonderful SIA! We had missed it so!

SINGAPORE

In Singapore we had dinner at Beth and Robert’s with Victoria and Bryan, Tisha and David, and their kids. We had seen the girls recently in Hong Kong when they suddenly turned up on a brief shopping trip, and this party was sort of planned then. 

The star of the evening was the long-established specialty of the house, the famous vegetable lasagna, as prepared by Beth’s ever-faithful Divina. The venerable recipe, on which this incredibly delicious and unforgivingly fattening dish is based, lies dormant in the recesses of Beth's former life as a gourmet chef. 

And as it was David's birthday, we had champagne and cake.

I realized then that I had been traveling a very long time. On this trip, I had attended a wedding, a wedding anniversary, a graduation, and two birthdays. 

It was time to go home.

At the train station, there was a queue at the local Avis shop. People were desperate for cars and there were none available! We briefly considered selling our car to the highest bidder or maybe offering to return it a day earlier in exchange for a huge rebate. Very tacky! As it turned out, we were fortunate to still have the car to use later that evening.

Totally relaxed, unhurried, very civilized. But when we went to the box-office to pick up the tickets we had booked on the internet, we were directed to another place, another box-office somewhere in the square, not anywhere near La Scala. 

To our dismay, we were then told that “Otello” was not playing at the Teatro alla Scala, but at the new Teatro degli Arcimboldi, a half-hour’s drive outside the city!

We had less than an hour to get back to the hotel, grab something to eat, pick up our car- the car we nearly auctioned off earlier that day- and race through rush hour traffic to get lost in the suburbs in search of this Arcimboldi place! As it turned out, there was no traffic and it was not far; we didn't get lost and we got there in plenty of time. 

But it was not a leisurely pre-opera anything and it was not La Scala.

The new off-city, in-campus theater was unbelievably stuffy, not to mention totally lacking in architectural character. And the opera was too long. There were three intermissions at which we had first champagne and dainty little canapes at the lobby bar, then ice cream at the cafe across the road, and finally just fresh air which we were all desperate for.  So we hung out on the pavement outside the theater. 

And what of the performance? The notoriously cantankerous La Scala audience was visibly unimpressed. We watched a number of them walk away during the intermissions. 

But we loved being there anyway, the only two people wearing jeans in a sea of evening dresses and dinner jackets.

Back in the town center, we parked in front of the Museo Civico. What was once a grand house with a commanding position in the heart of town, the former Palazzo Chiericati now sports a public carpark just off its front steps. 




To round off the Palladio experience, we strolled through the beautiful barchessa of the town hall which is incongruously called the Basilica, and had a quick after-hours peek through the gates of the Teatro Romano. We had already sat in the venerable bleacher seats of the magnificent theater on earlier visits so we didn’t much mind being shut out this time for arriving too late in the day.

Considered the crowning glory of Palladio’s oeuvre, this villa is the most visited as well as the most copied. I am not an architect so I am not entitled to an opinion on this matter; but as I had travelled a long way to look at these villas, I will have an opinion.

I found La Rotonda to be a bit over the top, even for the Renaissance. I much preferred the quiet, austere elegance of the earlier villas. It’s probably a heresy to say this, but Poiana and Pisani to me had decidedly minimalist lines, (Palladio, the minimalist?) making these ancient houses feel very contemporary and so cutting edge.

Of course the circumstances of this particular visit didn’t help in the personal favorite stakes. Unlike our very private visits of the other villas, that day’s tour of La Rotonda was much too touristy. Meaning, there were too many people there. As already mentioned, it’s the most visited of Palladio’s villas.

The experience therefore lacked the almost mystical aura of our earlier, very personal encounters with the master.

Looking at Villa Poiana from the entry gates, I pictured it taking its place among today’s contemporary modern houses. The building, massive as it was, sat close to the ground, hugging it. To my untrained but very interested eye, the solid lines of the façade suggested a sureness of purpose and a mastery of execution.

Horizontal lines abounded, emphasizing the house’s bulk. Moldings wrapped around it at various levels. To me, this gave it the same effect that underlining gives to a word or a sentence. A water table designed to throw rainwater away from the ground floor traced yet another line around the house, giving the impression of pulling in or pulling together the building. The effect was of a neatly tied package; and a beautiful package it was.

Villa Pisani

One of the surprising things about this house was, despite charging admission fees and having a souvenir shop at the gate, there was nothing businesslike about the whole business of being open to the public. The young man who opened the gate to us recited the rules of engagement offhandedly, like he didn’t care if we obeyed them or not. He then hurried off to parts unknown, leaving the gate once again unattended. The part of the house off-limits to visitors was indicated by a pot of flowers standing rather innocently on the first step of the narrow staircase leading up to the upper level where the owners lived.

As the front door of the house, which was originally designed to face the river, now faced a stone wall, the grand three-arched loggia with the rusticated pillars now served as the back porch. Well, sort of a back porch.  If you discounted the fact that the pillars rose to a height equivalent to about three storeys by today’s building standards. The back of the building, which in this case really did look like the back of the building, therefore now served as the front entrance, accessed by a wide stone staircase.

Despite its size- the ceiling soared to a height of about thirty feet in the sala- Villa Pisani did not have the overwhelming hugeness of a palace or even a stately home. It must all have to do with Palladio’s vaunted classical proportions. Indeed the house was grand but it did feel like somebody’s home.

Villa Barbaro, Villa Emo, and Villa Saraceno

Villa Barbaro was not difficult to find but we got there too late in the day so we couldn’t get in. We photographed every inch of the yellow and white building from outside the walls and inspected the family chapel across the road. Legend has it that it was there that Palladio died, at the building site of the chapel which he had been commissioned to build as an adjunct to the main villa.

Nearby was Villa Emo, which again was already closed for the day. So, as with the Villa Barbaro, after a quick tour of the surrounding area, we had to leave the exploration of the interior for the next day. This did not happen though, for the two villas were not open the next day.

I didn’t mind this very much as I was eager to get to the two I was really interested in, Villa Poiana and Villa Pisani.

On the way to these two villas, we made a quick detour to one of the lesser ones, Villa Saraceno. 

We parked across the road and got out of the car for a closer look at the house. There were people on the loggia; they looked like they were packing up and they stared at us. Neither the house nor the people looked friendly or interesting enough so we took pictures and drove on.

We were getting shut out of our villas; but we got less timid as we went along.

I was introduced to the master about ten years ago, when Stuart took me on a magical mystery tour (those were his actual words) one summer in Padua. We took a cruise on the Brenta Canal aboard a long boat nostalgically called "Il Burchiello," after the boats that Venetians of the 16th century used to ferry themselves to and from their town homes in Venice and their country estates on the mainland. 

Our destination on this cruise was an eminent example of the country homes that proliferated on the banks of the Brenta: Villa Foscari, also known as La Malcontenta. I fell in love with this beautiful house then; and this visit also marked the start of a lasting interest in its architect and builder, Andrea Palladio.

We decided to keep La Malcontenta for the finale on our present tour. But as it turned out, we didn't have time to go back.

“Would your partner like to change places with me so you can sit together?” The suggestion is so graciously made I turn to the man in the window seat and look at him with a mixture of gratitude and surprise. What a nice man. And so Stuart and I get to hold hands on the plane. Nice start.

In Milan, our Avis car is a nice surprise too: a sweet little silver Mercedes, nearly brand-new. I guess when you make up your mind to enjoy yourself the universe works with you.

Stuart and I met up in London but it was a business trip for him so his holiday was not to start until the weekend. I did some exploring on my own.


There were two blustery afternoons spent with Matisse and his fabrics at the Royal Academy; the first consisting mainly of a droning lecture by a visiting art professor in an incongruously opulent lecture room.

The Q&A session was more interesting than the lecture which was so boring it turned me off seeing the exhibition that day.

I decided to walk back to the hotel. Big mistake. I hadn’t gotten halfway when it started to rain. Born and bred in the tropics, I never get caught out in the rain with an umbrella. I had also left my very appropriate cold-weather clothes at home, this being mid-May and Stuart having assured me that everywhere will be warm. (Indeed, the locals thought summer had arrived; they were picnicking in the park!)

I was back next day for the masterful exhibition itself. It showcased the original fabrics Matisse had collected and used not merely as props, but as the subjects of a lot of his paintings. African wall hangings the color of parched earth and pierced cloths that looked like black-and-white stained-glass windows. Swatches of antique French toiles, Turkish robes, Persian tunics, gypsy clothes, and vintage couture dresses. The collection matched the fabrics with paintings where they were featured as backdrops or worn by sitters. I could almost see him at work!

For years, Matisse’s Chapel of the Holy Rosary in Vence had puzzled me. Its beauty moved and seduced me; but I couldn’t reconcile the great artistic genius that created it with the seeming mind-numbing ordinariness of paper cut-outs and primary colors. 

Here, finally, was something I could understand. The installation mapped for me the evolution of Matisse’s art. Starting with his so-called love affair with fabrics and ending with his eventual preoccupation with pure color that found expression in the paper cut-outs of his later years.

Next day, I went to a matinee performance of “The Dresser” at The Duke of York. The average age of the audience seemed in the high 70’s; most of the people queued up at the box-office were waiting for concession tickets. I knew this because the lady at the counter kept calling out for those waiting for such tickets and people kept falling out of the line. 

That afternoon couldn’t have been very profitable; which makes for a gloomy future for the business of theater. It’s sad really, for what’s to become of the London experience without it? 

There is nothing more civilized than a London theater audience queuing for the cloakrooms. I love the understatement of the clothes and jewelry. Waiting in line that afternoon, I watched and listened, as only the vaguest of complaints were elicited by deplorably inadequate facilities. I heard someone surmise, with a patient smile, that Victorian ladies probably didn’t come to the theater much.

An afternoon was reserved for lunch of goat-cheese tart and mesclun at Liberty’s, followed by serious window shopping. Then it was cheap jeans and tops at BHS and H&M.

Evenings found me and my glass of red at the executive lounge waiting for dinners with Stuart. Our first two dinners were with Maria Cristina, our usual first date when in London. 

First night was Lebanese, which he wasn’t keen on, him having no sense of hummus (did I really get that from the BBC?) Next was a noisy tapas bar, El Pirata, where service was disinterested at best. It was a shame, because the food was good.

Quaglino’s, a trendy suggestion from our hotel concierge, was a Conran restaurant so I had very high expectations. It was more sedate than the tapas bar and marginally less disinterested.

On our last evening in London, we went to Prezzo, an Italian restaurant, London style, with Stuart’s Uncle John and Auntie Pat who refused to be called that, and their daughter Lindsay and her husband William. 



It was Pat’s birthday, so we had champagne.

Back again to Hong Kong to pack for the U.S. and Europe and then I was off to San Francisco for a 3-day slumber party with Margie and Celia. 

 I bought us matching silk nighties on Pedder Street for the occasion.

Then on to Las Vegas for two weeks with Tim and Baby.

Tim took us to dinners and shows on the strip. We danced ourselves dizzy to live Motown music and screamed gamely as Tom Jones, nearing 70, gyrated and growled and caught ladies’ underwear onstage. There was a provençal dinner where our waiter, a baritone, sang a tenor aria; he told us about opening for Placido Domingo and auditioning for The Phantom of the Opera.

But most of the time, Tim left Baby and me alone “so you sisters can bond,” he said. So we bonded. 

We solved every possible family problem we could think of. We moved around the furniture in the house so much that, to this day, they must still be reeling in confusion. We went on daily explorations of local restaurants and coffee shops, with Baby driving her underused car, and got lost every single time. We horsed around with Pam and Janet, two crazy, lovable cousins who played mahjongg with us and cooked us fabulous meals.

One weekend, Tim drove us to LA so we could spend time with Eileen and Butchie and their families. Through a never-ending parade of food and wine, and a marathon of parlor games, Baby and I reestablished family lines and introduced our generation to the new. 

The weekend was made unforgettable by an incredible set of nephews and nieces. Joseph is a sweet, 13-year-old gentleman-in-the-making and Erin, a tough-talking 9-year-old sweetheart of a cardsharp. 

Between the two of them, they tried and failed to teach Baby and me the finer points of pusoy. We all played Guesstures (a corruption of charades), Scrabble, and inevitably, mahjongg, just the latest addition to these two kids' roster of hustling skills.

Baby and I watched in fascination as Denise, another niece, now suddenly grown up and glamorous, got all gussied up for the prom with her coterie of high school seniors. 

And finally, we marveled at how these two families' unconditional love and laser-focused devotion had made all the difference in the raising of one remarkable child, Ejo.

Actually, my holiday began way before Stuart joined me in London. By the time we set off for Italy, I had already been holidaying elsewhere for more than a month.

PUNTA FUEGO AND TALI BEACH

It began with a fabulous all-weekend beach wedding party in Punta Fuego and Tali Beach with the Sydney group. It was rather a throwback to our carefree days when most of us were newly married and just starting families. We were the centers of our universe then, not the generation now getting married.  

This time we all came together for the wedding of one of the girls we watched grow up; some of us helped bring up those kids. It seemed a world away now. We have since lost some members to various tragedies: four have died, three in the past year, and some have just dropped out in varying degrees of animosity and heartache.

We all tried our best to be reckless and irresponsible. Some swam naked in the sea; most just lazed in the sun. We drank a lot of wine, sang bawdy songs, and posed endlessly for pictures. It was a weekend that was, like the Sydney days, unrepeatable.

CEBU

I was back in Hong Kong for only a few days, and then flew to Cebu to spend a week idling with Marilou and Eddie. We watched DVDs at home, checked out the newest restaurants, listened to jazz standards at a local dive, had massages, and shopped.

Cebu prices are remarkable. I bought beach paraphernalia in Makati-style malls at Baclaran prices. At a newly-opened day spa I had an authentic Thai massage at an unbelievably low P200! A 3-course set menu dinner in an unmarked neighborhood restaurant (somebody’s garage really; just tell the taxi to take you to 10 Dove Street) cost a princely P190.

BANTAYAN ISLAND

Bantayan Island, reached by ferry from the northernmost tip of Cebu, is the best kept secret in this PR-challenged country. Powder-fine white sand on a beach that goes on for miles before you touch water- warm, clear as glass and blue as the most raved about swimming holes in the Pacific or the Mediterranean.

I discovered a lot of things about the island and its people one evening at dinner with a group of very interesting locals, all related to one another by blood or marriage. 

One of the island’s biggest mango producers told me his grandmother invented the original recipe for dried mangoes. He is also currently developing a new process for canning a local variety of sardine. 

Our hostess, one of the town mayors, (the island has three towns) comes from a family that has produced a long line of mayors as well as the best canned crabmeat in the world. She said that a group of travel journalists visited the island a few months ago, requiring a variety of special food and services, and I’m curious to see what kind of exposure the place got as a result of that visit.

Some lifestyle adjustments still have to be made to transform this idyllic wonder from Gilligan’s island to a rock star’s paradise. There is not a single ATM in sight and few places accept credit cards. Also, for some reason or another, the local airstrip is not in operation. Otherwise, the island is fabulous.

We had three days of glorious sea and sand and a surfeit of fresh fish. We swam at high tide and walked on the beach when the water retreated into the horizon. We lazed on deckchairs on the front porch of Eddie’s White House (that’s what the locals called it), sipped cappuccino brought in from the hotel next door, and watched the ferries navigate around the shallows. We had massages that cost even less than at the day spa. I felt that the price was exploitatively cheap but Marilou said I mustn’t ruin the market so what to do but to lie back and enjoy it?

I bought an entire catch one morning on the beachfront, all for P200. That evening, courtesy of friends who owned a resort, that bargain-basement fish was magically turned into a superb Peruvian-style feast. Wine was on the house; and so were the bazookas (multicolored layers of Bailey’s cream, Kahlua, and blue Curacao.) The evening quickly degenerated into bad karaoke and, for Marilou and me, our weekly fix of American Idol on TV.

On the car ferry going back to the mainland, we dozed in the air-conditioned cabin. The sea was smooth as oil.

THE FARM IN BOGO

Before heading back to the city, we detoured into a rolling landscape of coconut trees and sugarcane. Clumps of little blue flowers made bright splotches on the roadside. We were expected for lunch at a farm.

Nestled at the foot of Winnie’s mountain, the farm was straight out of “Out of Africa.” Winnie, a recently rediscovered childhood friend of Marilou’s, owned the farm so she called the mountain her mountain. It was planted with sugarcane, coconuts, coffee, fruits, and mahogany. So she had a personal supply of hardwood for renovations to the farmhouse and for beautifully carved furniture crafted in a barn right in her backyard. Near the entrance to the property was a chapel with a lovely churchyard. Beside it was a daycare center with a little schoolroom for the children of workers who lived on the farm.

The garden was beautiful and completely organic. Winnie claimed that nature was her pest controller. The garden was watered from a rain-water cistern where a gang of frogs discouraged the breeding of mosquitoes. In the house, a hole in an attic wall served as an open invitation to an itinerant bayawak to come and feed on the rats. At the end of every other harvest, sugarcane fields are burned to make way for next season’s planting. (Is that ecologically sound?) Hence, the rats in the attic and the bayawak on full board. In the main living areas, snuggled behind various paintings and wall hangings, were three blue-spotted geckos employed full-time to deal with spiders and small bugs. (Winnie crooned, “Aren’t they lovely?”)

I must admit I saw nothing peskier than a few gnats. We had lunch on the terrace and talked about books, in the cool embrace of Winnie’s mountain, her garden spread out before us. The meal and the view were delicious.