lyme, CT

     

     Time to move on again, as A+A returned to New York and we drove along the coast with a couple of stops, to meet up with Lincoln in Connecticut. Since we last visited, James and Lincoln have moved from their little house by the pond in Chester to a larger property in Lyme. Their new place is more rural and a nice blend of traditional and modern. 

     Snow from the storm was still lingering here, and we could see the footprints of deer that had passed through their property. The house incorporates an old stone building, now a magnificent double height living room, and a much larger more modern extension. Lincoln's interior design skills are well in evidence: we had a very comfortable stay. We had only spent a couple of days in New England before, and this time we were able to travel around and see much more, thanks to Lincoln, our guide. The towns here go way back, mostly established in the 1600s in colonial times.

     We toured many of the pretty local towns, all New England clapboard houses with a few in brick and stone, and mostly prosperous looking, all carefully maintained, with white picket fences and tidy gardens. Each town has its handsome town hall, its public library and fire station, and several brilliant white churches, each with a steeple and columned portico and a cemetery. Also a surprising number of expensive knick-knack shops stocking perfumed candles, ceramic cats and homespun plaques with corny sayings. Some of the highlights we recommend:

• a tiny coffee shop, Higher Grounds, in East Haddam, for brunch, where we were almost the only customers and the only member of staff did everything – serving and cooking – very proficiently and charmingly
• the Griswold* Inn in Essex, established 1776, with a very English pub feel to the tap room and a fine range of ales
• the Florence Griswold* museum, an old mansion run as a boarding house for artists, by a much loved if impoverished landlady, kept exactly as it was over 100 years ago, with many painted panels by the artists of the time as they developed an American Impressionist body of work. We were taken round by a well informed and engaging guide (British born but in the area since 1960) who knew the artists and their work so well that we almost thought we were in the presence of Miss Griswold herself.

• Litchfield, a very fine colonial town with wide greens in the centre and a wide range of 18^th and 19^th C houses (and a very expensive antiques shop).  
• Mystic, an old whaling town with a huge raising bridge, a reconstruction of the port from whaling days, and gift shops that live up to the town's name.

Lincoln also showed us another property in Lyme they have acquired, which they are busily doing up as two houses (one from the former barn). Impressive progress already – we saw the construction workers on site working to Lincoln's imaginative plans.

James joined us for the last evening and prepared an excellent dinner, and so concluded a very comfortable New England week. We came away thinking this would be a good area for a longer stay, and I believe one day we will do just that.

*presumably related but not found the evidence for this.

provincetown and cape cod

Next day we picked up a hire car and took a leisurely drive, via Plymouth (with its rather unimpressive Rock) down the Cape to Provincetown, to stay with Andrew and Angelo. 

     We took some of the more picturesque back roads, through picturesque villages with English names like Yarmouth and Brewster. A+A's place there has probably the best views in the town, right in the centre next to the public library, and up on the third floor, with sweeping views across the piers to Long Point with its lighthouse, the last gasp of the Cape as it spirals back on itself. They have had some traumas over the last two years as the building had to have major structural repairs, but all is now fixed and the apartment newly fitted out in the most elegant modern style. They are dear friends (we have known Andrew since university days) and meet up whenever we can. 

     They are always the perfect hosts, and took us all around the town, pointing out the quirky buildings and the historic sights, everything from tumbledown shacks to high modernism is represented here. Originally settled by Portuguese fishermen, it became a bohemian artists' colony in the days when it still seemed very remote.    We saw some of the results at the Art Gallery, which has a collection of newly found drawings by Edmund Hopper and his wife, whose troubled relationship played out in a house just down the coast in Truro.

      The harbour still has a few fishing boats,  one of which cut adrift in one of the recent storms and ended up against the breakwater.  But now of course “P'town” is mostly a tourist destination, at least from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and a very gay one at that; but at this time of the year, with just the long term population here and most of the tattier places closed down for the season, it has a serene charm.

      We went out next day to the Atlantic side of the Cape, to the old coastguard station at Race Point, and to Herring Cove, but were nearly blown away by the tail end of the nor'easter. The sea was wild, white capped and grey-green, under an intense blue sky with a couple of scudding clouds. Snow still covered much of the beach and it was not a day for a long visit. Just inland, and another day on, the beech woods were a better prospect, with many well trodden paths among the forest trees and ponds. 

     As always with A+A we ate very well, in a couple of the better restaurants still open and favoured by the locals; and one evening back at the apartment, where we had a very relaxing evening watching the sky darken behind the Pilgrims' monument as we tucked in to a great dinner.

boston

      It seemed like a good idea at the time: the north eastern United States in spring, a lovely time to visit all our friends there and see the area at its best. It had been a fairly rough winter at home by London standards and we were looking forward to some typical spring sunshine. Little did we know!

We flew in to Boston late in the evening and found there were dire warnings of blizzards for the next day. We had a quick stroll around the Back Bay area where we were staying, a very good introduction to what we soon found to be a prosperous and attractive city. Next morning, looking out, snow was already falling, or rather blowing horizontally in gale force winds as the third nor'easter in as many weeks swept up the coast. 

     We made a few forays out during the day, but the snow was relentless and by late evening was over a foot deep on the sidewalks. The city was quite a sight. No cars and very few people were out, and Boston's retro streetlights were haloed by the face-stinging blizzard as the trees became steadily more laden with snow. The only signs of activity were the snowploughs that circled the blocks in threes to clear the full width of the carriageway, and the snow shovellers clearing their own stretches of sidewalks. Otherwise the whole city was closed down: we managed to find just one coffee shop open until 2pm; and an Irish bar in another hotel. We ventured as far as Copley Square, where the public library and Trinity church loomed faintly though the swirling snow.

      Our own hotel, the Elliot, is old school but charming with it. Lovely, friendly staff in all departments, and an excellent restaurant, Uni, with mainly Asian inspired dishes. The breakfasts here were also among the best we have had in the US. That evening we retired to our suite, comfortably cosy as the storm continued to blow outside.

      Next morning was a complete contrast as the sun broke through and the wind died, and everything looked bright, white and clear. By now the snow had reached almost two feet in places, but the streets and sidewalks were miraculously clear – just huge piles along the kerbs, and in the open green spaces (and almost burying any cars left parked in the streets). Boston is well used to these storms and knows how to deal with them. We walked for miles through this winter scene, along the wide linear park that is Commonwealth Avenue, lined with huge Victorian mansions, meticulously restored; to Boston Common and then to Bunker Hill. We followed a heritage trail through the downtown area where many historic buildings are preserved. Boston has a colourful history, well worth exploring. In the evening we went to a fringe play at Boston's Center for the Arts, in the South Side – a recently gentrified area, with the shops to prove it. (If you too have a chichi children's clothing boutique and a shop that only sells hand pressed olive oil, you can be assured that your area has made it too.)

      So all in all, not the spring we had hoped for, but a good experience nevertheless.

celebration in normandy

    

     Seventeen of us gathered in Normandy this August, this being the sixtieth birthday year for several of our closest friends including Ian: indeed our trip organisers, Sarah and Laura, had theirs whilst we were there (or just before in the latter case). We rented some large, typical traditional Normandy buildings in the grounds of a farmhouse; solidly built of brick, long and narrow with one room leading into another, in extensive grounds.

      Our home from home, Les Ecuries (“the stables”) is located in the tiny hamlet of Mesnil Bénard, between Rouen and Dieppe, deep into farming countryside in the département of Seine-Maritime. We drove down by various routes and looked forward to a week of fun and frolics, with a bewildering programme of activities organised meticulously planned by our esteemed organisers. If the vigorous schedule of sports and games was honoured more in theory than in practice, this didn’t at all detract from a wonderfully mad and hilarious time, with plenty to do in the surrounding area, and at home the sort of culinary finesse and libationary excess to be expected of our friends on such occasions. All despite one of the worst Augusts, weather wise, on record.

     The accommodation: The buildings were nicely restored, with a huge, well stocked kitchen in the main house ideal for us, given that we cooked every night except the last. The owner, a very friendly English lady, lives in the farmhouse adjoining nearby and was very accommodating when we had the odd problem. There was a range of comfortable spacious rooms, with a huge dining table to accommodate all of us.

     Just a short drive away is Saint-Saens, a sleepy and picturesque town in a steep valley, with enough decent shops to keep us supplied (and the odd bar to entertain us while visiting).

      There were plenty of local walks and cycle rides on dry days in the local Forêt d’Eawy, which includes the remains of one of the many V1 rocket launch sites that terrorised Britain towards the end of WWII. The forest is huge and provided with long trails, a quirky local cider museum and a neighbouring farm where they made and sold cheeses. We also visited the eccentric Jardins de Bellevue nearby.

      Some of us took trips to the coast, dodging the rain showers and arctic blasts. There are some pleasant little resort towns with traditional houses from Edwardian times when this coast was popular with the British and Parisian elite. An hour south is the city of Rouen. The cathedral dominates the city and the 14th century astronomical clock is a survivor from a prosperous age. The remains of the abbey of Jumièges beside the deeply incised gorge of the Seine were also worth a visit.

      Of course a trip with our friends wouldn’t cut the mustard without some wonderful meals and this week was no exception. Everyone took turns producing ever more elaborate meals, including a birthday feast for Sarah and Laura, making the most of local produce gathered on daytime trips. A fair few bottles of local wine completed the convivial atmosphere. We were able to eat outdoors on a few occasions, but the huge dining table fit us all comfortably.

      There were some very splendid breakfasts, thanks to Tana's early rising to cook mushrooms and tomatoes, and French black pudding,. Tony and Rob’s ten course tasting menu was gobsmacking too.

      For the active among us, there were reflexology, yoga, water aerobics in the pool, rounders, board games, a sixties quiz and an art competition were among many activities that kept us all occupied.

     But most of all it was a joyful week with a great group of friends.

spain + portugal 6: to salamanca, léon and home

We crossed out of Portugal into Castillo y León and the vast high plateau of the interior. Good farming country no doubt but not very exciting, although less arid here than further south. The plain in Spain is mainly rather … plain! But then we arrived in Salamanca, probably one of the most interesting and beautiful cities of Spain or indeed Europe. Built almost entirely out of a very fine local sandstone that carves well (and preserves in the dry climate) this was one of the four or five great medieval centres of learning in Europe. It still hums with students today, thronging the gothic and baroque buildings of the ancient university.

      It is a city filled with vast institutions, religious and secular, and all in this honey coloured stone, intricately carved, that gives a unity to the whole city, which well deserves its world heritage status. The defensive walls are still largely in place, and a Roman era bridge spans the wide river and flood plain to the south. There are two cathedrals: the jewel like Romanesque building, retained when they built a new much grander edifice beside it, turning the Catedral Vieja effectively into a vast side chapel. What a beautiful survival from this era, almost a thousand years old, a spare, well proportioned, with simple vaulting and strange animal carvings. We were lucky enough to attend a concert by an American university choir here.

      The main university building, with soaring spires and a huge baroque portico, almost outguns the cathedral in scale, but the pièce de résistance is the Plaza Mayor, the grandest of grand squares, full of people eating, drinking, cycling, meeting up, having chance encounters and just generally being very Spanish. Lots of groups all just talking at the same time, gesticulating and generally enjoying life.

      We stayed in a former palace opposite the Convento de San Esteban, yet another magnificent complex. It has a fine transitional church with a huge choir that accommodated over a hundred monks; and a two storey cloister, full of wheeling screaming swallows and nesting storks. It's obvious the Dominicans who built it didn't stint themselves like other orders. This was perhaps the most impressive of many splendours.

      Our final stop was in León, a smaller city, like a more modest version of Salamanca, with a slightly ramshackle Plaza Mayor, and busy narrow streets in the old town, including some excellent tapas places around the Plaza de San Martin. We sat there on Friday evening as it rapidly filled up with locals, starting their weekend in good spirits. There is a surprising amount of the Roman wall surviving, and a very fine Romanesque basilica, San Isidro. The cathedral has some of the best stained glass in the world, dating back to the 13th century, and there is the magnificent Convento de San Marcos, now a parador, which is where we stayed. Its vast public rooms, a cloister, and riverside terrace make this a great place to stay, although the restaurant was disappointing.

      But it was beginning to feel like the end, and a good time to return home. We travelled on quiet roads in the foothills of the Picos, past abandoned coal mines, but mostly through lovely countryside, then the narrow gorge that cuts right through the mountains. We stopped off at Potes, a charming mountain village clinging to both sides of a steep valley, then the quick run back into Santander, the ferry, and home.

spain + portugal 5: o porto and the douro valley

From here we headed towards Portugal, stopping off for a very good lunch at the parador in Pontevedra. We broke our journey in a quiet beach town called Baiona, where we stayed in a little family run hotel with a very chatty lady owner, who had lived in England when younger and was keen to practice her English. Her tiny daughter was very entertaining. Another rather fine sweep of sand here, a popular weekend destination from nearby Vigo, and with an imposing castle on a headland — now a parador — and a view to the Islas Cies. We decided to picnic on the beach and watch the sun go down.

      Next day, at the very last town before Portugal, A Guarda, we drove up a vertiginous hill with many hairpin bends to the top of a mini-mountain, Monte Santa Trega, with fantastic sweeping views of the Miño valley, which forms the border. Here there is an elaborate early Celtic hill fort/town, with the remains of tightly packed stone walled circular houses, part of the Castro culture, which existed across north-western Iberia from the 9th to the 1st centuries BC. A few houses have been reconstructed to show what their their timber and thatch roofs would be like – in shape much like similar timber constructions in the UK from that period. Clouds drifted through the valley far below. Quite magical, but the road up was a bit much for Ian's acrophobia and I had to drive down, very slowly, while he kept his eyes shut.

      So, to O Porto: a vertiginous city, clinging to the steep canyon sides of the River Douro valley, where every street is a major hill. It is a spectacular setting, and the famous two level bridge is impressive, but all in all we were slightly disappointed. Even though it is a world heritage site, the old heart of the city has a lot of dereliction, probably because it is unsuitable for a modern way of life. There seems to be a determined effort to improve things, with a lot of building work going on, but still many empty buildings, some even collapsed or roofless. And below, the river wharves are over touristy, with a lot of touting for mediocre tourist menus and attractions. Our hotel was up near the station at the top of the town, in what used to be the main post office, and did a lot of walking – I'm sure my calf muscles doubled in size with all those slopes. There are some fine buildings and sights, including the cathedral, Sé, but like other buildings here, its interior tends to the over elaborated, showing off the wealth plundered from South American colonies. São Francisco is an even more extreme example: a spare and well proportioned Romanesque building utterly buried in gold statuary and architectural confection.

      We spent a lot of time in the university quarter, which is a bit calmer, with some nice bars, where we watched a waiter covering about 20 tables with incredible efficiency, sometimes carrying four or five full dinner plates. Across the bridge are the old port wine warehouses and barges that used to bring the wine barrels down the valley to be fortified here. On top of the hill in the Vila Nova district is the rather fine old monastery of Serra de Pilar, with an unusual circular cloister, and great views back to the old town.

Next day we took off and had a quick look at the nearby beaches, which are very extensive and a more popular place to live nowadays. Then it was off up the Douro, where we had booked into a B+B above the little town of Mesão Frio. This was a very comfortable, modern villa with a very friendly owner and just five rooms. A terrace had a huge panoramic view over the valley and the town.

We ate in a local restaurant recommended by the hotel: we would never have tried it, having to run the gauntlet of a bar full of old farmers in the midst of a violent political argument, but upstairs was a little haven of home cooking, in a room probably unchanged since the 1950s.

      After an evening of heavy rain, the next day was sunny and we did a short tour of the region, on hairpinned, switchback roads, visiting the hill town of Lamego and the pretty river port town of Pinhão at the start of the wine country. This is where the barges set off for O Porto and is now the destination for big river cruise boats. Later we saw one of these passing through a huge lock in the river downstream. So rather a lightning tour of northern Portugal: the countryside more interesting in general terms than the city and would be worth visiting again with more time.

spain + portugal 4: to santiago de compostela

     

In the ninth century, a body was found in a cave that was held by the local bishop to be that of Saint James, and this became a rallying point for the Galicians in their battles with the Moors. He is even said to have risen up and joined the battle himself. Pretty soon an elaborate legend built up around Santiago, and the place where his body was found, Compostela, became Europe's greatest centre of pilgrimage, which did very nicely for the Galician economy.      

     Ever since, it has been a city of religious tourism, with a vast cathedral, major monasteries of all the sects, and great marshalling areas to control the crowds of pilgrims.

      We had encountered little straggles of pilgrims all along the way from Santander, and more were here. Mostly retirement age, with the latest all weather gear and hi-tech walking poles, but some were with the more traditional wooden staves. All fix a scallop shell ('coquille St-Jacques’ in French) to their rucksacks to symbolise the pilgrimage.

There are several routes for the Camino Santiago, and we mostly encountered parts of the 'French way', although later we came across other routes from the south. It's said that 100,000 complete this every year, not all for religious reasons – for many it's just a physical challenge. You have to do at least 100km on foot to get the official certificate.

      And when we got to Santiago, there they were: little groups of euphoric/exhausted people, boots off, staring in wonder at the buildings, or queuing up to get their certificates, or just lying flat out on the ancient flagstones of the Praza do Obradoiro.

This is a vast square in front of the west entrance of the cathedral and surrounded by other imposing institutional buildings of various periods. There is the wide facade of the pilgrims' hospital in elaborate transitional style, provided by Ferdinand and Isabella, and an equally impressive classical town hall. We stayed in a small, friendly hotel in a narrow colonnaded street, right by the cathedral, with massive stone walls and a pavement cafe for breakfast.

      Very much a tourist town since medieval times, the streets are full of religious gift shops and restaurants with special pilgrims' menus (you can get these all along the Camino if you can show you are a bona fide pilgrim). Portions tend to the enormous and we seriously over ordered at one place, mistaking mains for tapas plates.

The cathedral itself, extended over and over, is like a huge dark cave complex. At its heart the original romanesque aisles remain, austerely simple and beautiful, compared with the later over elaborate external additions. There is also a shady park on a hill facing the old town, a popular place to stroll and admire the view.