Molto Bene

Breakfast in Geneva, lunch in Zurich, dinner in Milan, and supper in Venice.

It’s the one week of the year that a direct route from Geneva to Milan wasn’t on, so we went the long way around. All the train trips were really pleasant and comfortable.

We went around the lakes in Switzerland, the colour of them was so turquoise! And then through long tunnels that cut right through the mountains.

I still have posts to do about London, Paris and Cern! To come. We’re two weeks into our trip and this weekend we’re in Venice to see the art biennale.

We just arrived at our accom - a very cute little apartment in Castello, very close to the Giardini. We got the train into Venice from Milan and a vaporetto (water bus) around to our island, it was very nice in the evening air.

We’re on a train to Zurich, it’s a pretty ride. Here are some pics from this week that I’ve been meaning to share.

Monet’s Waterlilies room at the Museè L’Orangerie. It was so beautiful! We pulled in to Paris on Monday afternoon at about 3pm. I booked tickets for the gallery for a 4pm entry, thinking we would squeeze in a gallery on our first afternoon.

We had a brief pit stop at our lovely Airbnb, and then I realised it was 4 o’clock and we only had a half hour window with our gallery tickets to get in. So, we fanged it - ran, hopped on and off trains and made it to the gates at 4:29pm lol. They let us in. I had been preparing my apology speech to Lewis.

And so, we caught some lovely artworks to get into the Parisienne groove. There is signage at the entrance to the Waterlilies room saying you need to view them in silence, as the artist wanted it to be a meditative experience. Some loud duffer came in and received a, ‘Madame! Sil vous plait! Shhh!’ from the gallery invigilator, brilliant.

I just got distracted by a place on the train map coming up called Bern Wankdorf.

At the L’Orangerie we also caught an exhibition of paintings by Henri Rousseau, and it was wonderful. His early work was so crap. His whole thing was that he was self taught, never went to art school, came from a working class background, had to work while he painted (relatable). His paintings have a sincere quality that I loved, he just really enjoyed painting his own way, and in time his artworks were appreciated.

He was seen as an outsider, and everyone made fun of his work and called it naïve art. This was like, some time in the first half of the 20th century (I didn’t pay attention to dates sorry).

Check out this cat.

He had this lovely attention to detail, but a poor grasp of light and shade and depicting the time of day. Not great at faces, but admittedly faces are hard to paint.

In his later works, he’d become more confident and started painting animals he definitely hadn’t seen. Look at the middle part on this tiger.

What I love about all these landscape paintings is that every leaf in the mid and background is painted in detail and is totally in focus. It creates a weird sense of depth. Everything is so smooth and neat, it’s endearing.

When you’re on holiday with Lewis, you’re not really on holiday, you’re travelling.

There’s a difference. It’s been a busy few days, although perhaps less manic than previous trips we’ve done.

Before I forget, here are some things I’ve seen this week:

French police on rollerblades (I didn’t dare take a photo sadly). A woman who may have been homeless pissing on the street at 10am in Notting Hill, who then approached us at our cafè table and asked in the poshest London accent, if we could buy her a coffee. A man wearing three baseball caps stacked on top of one another while smoking a pipe.

Lots of lip filler in London. People of all ages, but especially older people in Paris, in 33 degree heat wearing full long sleeved outfits with coats, sometimes. Like, they just don’t care about the heat. Cool, thin Parisienne girls unbothered by the warmth, sitting outside at bars, smoking Vogue slims, with their long hair out, no sweat at all.

This isn’t the travel blog I thought I’d keep. I always think of myself when travelling as glamorous; picture a woman in a long, floaty dress and a fancy summer hat, generally being bougie on holiday somewhere. Effortless, unbothered, definitely not sweating.

Alas, that is not my fate. We often travel in summer because it just works out that way, and those who know me well know I’m basically allergic to summer. And so I have no nice photos of me in floaty dresses being cool and elegant; it’s just a sweaty girl perpetually tired from the constant activity, “dragging her snout”, as we call it. I don’t know the meaning of travelling light because I have to bring with me a god damn CPAP machine (we call it my Snout Machine) and an ergonomic pillow because I am ✨hypermobile✨ and have sleep apnoea lol. I cram it all in a suitcase with more pairs of shoes and socks than I ever need.

Add to this a hacking cough and snot: to my absolute annoyance, I caught a cold the week before the trip and was snotty when we got here. Lew caught either my cold or his dad’s cough and was poorly for a bit in Manchester. Then in London I got sick again! The audacity! It’s ok, not really bad. It’s just you wake up, de-snot in the shower, and spend the first hour coughing up your lungs before coffee and pastry and the day’s activities. As I said, not glamorous. I couldn’t even be fucked putting on earrings this morning.

If it sounds like I’m whinging here, I am - I’m not allowed to whine to Lewis because he’s taken me on this lovely trip and had been having nightmares about me whinging in beautiful European cities 😂

Lewis has been great today. He was patient while I was wombling about getting ready this morning, and went out and got pastries and coffee and brought them back to the accom. When we had to walk up and down Paris Metro stairs with luggage, I was trying to be Big Girl Pants about it but he grabbed a corner of my suitcase and helped me carry it without asking. He meticulously plans every outing with all the navigation worked out and makes it feel seamless. And so I bought him lunches today, really the least I could do.

I write to you at about 5pm. We’re on the train to Geneva from Paris. The train is warm and not well air conditioned, but otherwise comfy. Lewis has gone to the train bar to fetch cold beers to take our edge off.

We almost didn’t make the train! By a miracle we got on it with a couple of minutes to spare. Earlier today, we made our way to Gare de Lyon, and found a tucked away luggage storage area, to stash our suitcases for the day. We had to pass through a security check just to get to the storage area, in case we wanted to stash naughty things I guess.

We checked out suitcases and then made our way through the station and onto a metro train to the Pantheon area.

Here’s the Pantheon:

Cool French people are buried there. We didn’t go in but had a look at the building from the outside.

Then, a bistrot for a spot of lunch.

Goats cheese quiche and sardines for the boy.

Then the main event of the day, the Curie museum.

It’s in the old Institut du Radium building and there are still active laboratories and science buildings nearby. It was cool, small but full of great stuff and well designed.

The Institut du Radium is where Marie Curie, her colleagues and family worked in research on radioactive elements after her discovery of radium and polonium with her husband Pierre, for which they won a Nobel prize. Most of the items in the museum were replicas - the original things are still irradiated to fuck.

After this, there was general meandering, a coffee, some trains back to the area around La Gare de Lyon. Second lunch at another Parisienne bistrot. I chose to swelter through an onion soup with a glass of ok Chardonnay, while Lew enjoyed confit duck.

The soup was great. I sweated and swatted myself with my little tourist Van Gogh fan I bought yesterday.

Back to the station to collect our luggage and catch our train, only we couldn’t remember where the luggage check was.

And so Lewis walked fast in front with me dragging myself behind, tired, sticky and slow, and we madly ran around the big train station trying to find our luggage. It was incredibly poorly signposted and the handful of people who gave us directions, all said different things. We went in circles a few times, hot, and in the end running around until magically we found it. Hidden, with one sign near it, obscured by other signs.

Lew went in and got our stuff. I ran with a belly full of soup, dragging my suitcase, holding my French magazines I just bought before the luggage drama. I was shocked to see we had a few minutes left - we were both mentally preparing for having to book tickets on the next train.

But we made it. So here we are, still warm. Lewis has nudged me a couple of times that there are sunflowers out the window but I keep missing them. The train is going about 270 km per hour.

Paris, very warm.

A squishy young orange cat, and the perfect hot, buttery croissants.

We spent some time at the Museè des Arts es Metiers, which is an invention and industry museum.

We saw a Foucault pendulum - it swings freely from a ballbearing on the ceiling and appears to rotate, but it’s actually the rotation of the earth.

Then a walk through some fashion and textiles district, which is similar to where we’re staying in the second arrondisment. Lots of textile, bead and ribbon wholesalers around here.

On Saturday we went to Greenwich. We visited the very cute market, for lunch. Then walked up the hill to the Greenwich Observatory, home of the Greenwich meridian line. There was also a fabulous museum featuring lots of astronomy history at the observatory and navigation and time pieces.

We dipped home and had a veg out, and then visited my cousin in Earl’s Court.

My little baby cousin Olivia (is 31) is so smart, funny and capable - after working in Canberra for Aus gov defence stuff, she got a cool job in London, still working for the Australian government. They’ve put her up in a fabulous apartment, and she’s having an excellent time.

It was so nice seeing her! What a legend. She made us dinner and we drank rosè and made fun of Americans in Europe.

We definitely also saw an Eggslut in Japan.

After the National Gallery, we paid a visit to Camden for lunch at a rock n roll pub, full of Amy Winehouse memorabilia.

We like Camden, it’s our vibe but the market, fun as it is, is mostly full of crap. So we strolled but didn’t buy anything.

We got a hot bus back to Notting Hill. There has been lots of good people watching this week and overhearing conversations. In bus seats behind us were a kid and an exasperated dad. The kid had been repeating the voiceover on the Tube over and over, and his dad hushed him. After a while the kid asked if he could speak again lol, and then expressed he’d like to go for a picnic tomorrow. I hope he gets his picnic.

After a pit stop we wandered nearby and had some more curry and wine at a local joint. It’s a very posh and fancy area, I feel a bit out of place but it is pretty for a visit.

We have eaten excellent curries in the UK this week.

Eggslut with wine:

Notting Hill colour:

And finally, up on Portobello Road, bars and restaurants spilling onto the road were all watching Australia vs Egypt just now in the World Cup, it was a vibe.

Today we had a very cultured day out in London. The weather was its best ever, warm and sunny but not terribly humid, with a breeze, lovely.

We enjoyed a second breakfast on Portobello road:

Then hopped on the train and visited the Royal Society (an old science establishment). The society is usually not open to the public but for one week this summer they are, and have been running a series of lectures and sciency exhibitions.

It was great, we caught a few lectures and looked around.

A funny thing happened on our way through the entrance. Some teenage boys with fluffy moustaches pulled us up and I thought they wanted to scam us or something.

But they asked very nicely and explained that they’d travelled an hour and a half by train to come to the Royal Society today for the science lectures, but because it’s not your average museum, under 18s needed to be accompanied by an adult, even though tickets are free.

They were told at the door to go and find some adults, and so they asked if we would mind terribly being their guardians so they could go in! So, we adopted some children and escorted them into the Royal Society. They were really sweet and very grateful, we loved that some nerdy science teenagers were also on a pilgrimage like us to the society, so we helped them out. I think their names were were Yash and Em, and I hope they had a very nice day.

Once we got our kids inside, they thanked us and we went on our own ways.

We saw a great little talk by Dr Sarah Alam Malik, I want her book.

Some ceilings in the Royal Society building:

Then a short walk to the National Gallery to see some paintings. There are hundreds of paintings from the last 600 years, too many to see, so you just pick a few to focus on.

The paintings of focus today were:

Boy Bitten by a Lizard, by Caravaggio

I highly recommend Waldemar’s video about this painting, he’s hilarious. Caught a few other Caravaggios, including a beheading painting.

We also saw Van Eyck’s The Arnolfini Portrait, which is small but amazing. I didn’t get a snap because there was a crowd around it, but have a look at it here.

This was the painting of the day though:

Here are some Monet waterlilies for good measure.

Wednesday was a quiet day of laundry and bothering the cat. Lew was poorly with a cold (that I brought along the trip) so we took it easy.

He felt better yesterday for our train trip to London.

Not a lot to report; the train was on time, we had brunch at Sticky Fingers in Stockport. We’re staying in a little apartment in Notting Hill, it’s all very pretty and fancy.

I went for a walk after we got in (I’ve been training for the trip so I could walk and drag my luggage without whinging) and got some provisions at M&S Food. Notting Hill was heaving, a tourist vibe.

We went out for dinner in the most beautiful London summer weather. Had a look at the Portobello Road markets as they were packing up.

Got a table outside at Permit Room, an excellent pub serving Indian food. A really nice way to unwind from a travel day.

The crispiest onion bhajis.

Snaps of Notting Hill.

Many pastel houses, it’s like we’re cosplaying Paddington Bear.

A boring train photo, but I thought it looked like a Gerhard Richter painting.

Cute stuff from Fred Aldous; I love the bag, it’s my new inspo motto. A British Vogue, and a Yorkie from Aldeh.

Cute jewellery from Sour Cherry at Affleck’s. In my excitement to buy the gold safety pin earrings, I didn’t notice until later that they’re incredibly thick. I am hesitant to try them on.

Sometimes, you just like a shop so much, you want to buy something simply to support them. That’s what I’m telling myself about this Greggs x Jesus t-shirt. (Greggs by the way is a chain bakery that does sausage rolls, pasties and donuts.)

At least the shirt is soft.

Lewis came back with a far more distinguished haul:

Curve’s Doppleganger on vinyl from Piccadilly Records; a copy of New Scientist he plans to read on the train to Geneva to look intellectual, and a cool, ironic hat.

We paid a visit to the Science and Industry Museum. We’ve been here before to see old textile stuff and Stephen Hawking’s office items beautiful curated on display.

The last time we came here their large Power Hall was undergoing renovations. It’s now complete and open, so we came to see the revamped Power Hall, which was a train depot, that now houses many, many engines.

It smelled like engine grease. It was great.

After this, we walked through some old industrial architecture and towards the university precinct. Paid a visit to the John Dalton statue:

John Dalton was one of Manchester’s finest scientists; he did a lot of work in the 1800s in the development of chemistry.

To the pub! Big Hands is a place Lewis used to regularly go for beers when he lived in Manchester. It was giving good, punk dive bar vibes, and we’ve noticed a bunch of recent Melbourne bands have played there when touring the UK. The stage though is literally just a raised booth seat area with some speakers, not great.

Sat up top in a very cute beer garden with some drinks to catch our breath after walking all day.

After our beer stop, we got a bus and walked some more past the Gay Village (literally the name of the area on google maps) and in a nearby park is a beautiful bronze sculpture of Alan Turing. It’s so sad what happened to him. I love the plaque above, detailing the posthumous autism diagnosis and the multiple apologies and pardons in recent years.

We walked some more in the rain, and visited Bundobust, which was a lovely brew pub serving Indian food, two things we love.

Beers and some onion bhajis.

Another little walk back towards the Northern Quarter where we started our day. Our last stop was a favourite bar of Lew’s called Night and Day Cafe. He used to frequent and play gigs there. We stopped in for a drink before waddling back to the train station and heading home.

Yesterday we had a big day out around Manchester city centre. And I’m pleased to say I slept all the way through to 7am this morning!

Lew had an ambitious itinerary for us yesterday and I didn’t think we could do it all, but we did.

We caught a train from Marple to Manchester Piccadilly and walked to the Northern Quarter, which is a like the Fitzroy/Collingwood of Manchester. Lots of good stuff to see and enjoy.

Our first stop was Idle Hands for coffee and pie. I was told the banana pie was highly recommended (by Nish Kumar on the Off Menu podcast no less) but I didn’t believe Lewis and so I got pecan pie. Which was very good but god damn, that banana pie was amazing.

Then, onwards to our fave shops. This is my favourite shop in Manchester, it’s call Fred Aldous, and it’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven. Top floor is very cute stationery and STUFF, and downstairs is every art and craft supply you could want.

😍

I bought a few bits and pieces, Lewis chose a cute hat with the word Photos on it, which is pretty rich for a guy who loathes having his photo taken. Pics of our shopping haul to come.

Other shops we visited are a magazine and art book shop called Unitom, and Piccadilly Records.

Then, we went to what can only be described as an alternative department store - Affleck’s.

I would have loved this as a teen! Over beers later Lew and I agreed we kind of liked how alt style is the same as it was 25 years ago, kids are still wearing spiky necklaces and bank t shirts. It gives us hope.

We wandered through the labyrinthine levels and looked at our fave shops here. I bought some cute jewellery from Sour Cherry 🍒

What happens at Affleck’s, this is my third time, is one impulse buys stuff. But I think that’s just part of the fun of being on holiday. And so I found myself at Obscene-A-Tee, a shop that prints hilarious t shirts. Last time I impulse bought a Keanu Reeves themed shirt. Today, I was seduced by the Gregg’s shirt.

Lord only knows what possessed me to buy it (perhaps I’m still possessed by the bad pasty I ate there on Sunday). Now I’ll have to find a way to make this absurd shirt work in a chic outfit.

After our Affleck’s impulse purchases, we stopped at a cafe for a sandwich and good, strong little pot of tea. And then it was onto a tram and off to the Science and Industry Museum.

The museum currently has a show on called Sound and Vision, featuring loads of BCC gems and British music bits and pieces. It was very good.

Some highlights:

Dalek, the Alien actor, and the woman who created the Dr Who theme song on synths, Delia Derbyshire.

Imagine the wha-wha-wha melody in Kate Bush’s Running up that Hill. That was made on the Fairlight synth pictured above.

Next to that is some lovely textile history, a baby jacquard loom and some punch cards.

Think about why towels and bed sheets in Australian shops are called Manchester. This part of the world is where the textile industry started.

After Bradford, we headed to a charming town called Hebden Bridge, which had Daylesford vibes in both it being an arty country retreat town, and that it’s a lesbian and alternative hub.

It was gorgeous and still had a vibe even after 6pm on a Monday. Still full from our Bradford curry, we had a few drinks and a look in shop windows, and a walk along the canal. How good is the canal boat with all the plants.

Eyes hanging out of our heads from jet lag (STILL; it’s day four and I’m writing this at fkn 7am 🙄 when will it end) we headed back to HQ via Prestwich to pay a visit to the Aldeh sign.

When Oasis reunited and toured last year, an Aldi manager did the best thing of his career and had a sign changed to reflect the pronunciation of Aldi in a Mancunian accent. The suburb loved it and it’s now heritage listed lol.

Read all about Aldeh here:

Yesterday we hit the road and headed to Yorkshire. Lewis took us to Bolton Abbey and its beautiful surrounding estate. It was magic, I love old stone buildings. It had so many beautiful nooks and interesting motifs.

Look at the many little arches here, the swirly iron on the door, the beautiful little fountain alcove on the wall.

This is the entrance to the priory.

Details, the little three and four grouping of that motif:

On the side of the abbey is an active church, the priory, it was very nice. Look at the back wall; 11 symbols with different plants growing out of them, every second one is a type of lily.

Zoom in and have a look; the third one across is the Chi Ro symbol, the one that looks like an X over a P. It’s the ancient Roman symbol for Christ and Christianity and was used a lot in British Roman mosaics to indicate places of Christian worship, when it was all a bit secret. The plant climbing above it is an olive tree, a plant symbolising Rome.

I’d love to sniff out all the other symbols, but the plants hint at where they’re about; blackberry brambles above the cross keys, a passionfruit above the Star of David, and at the very end, a date palm above the Alpha and Omega symbol.

I watched the Da Vinci Code on the plane and now I think I’m Dan Brown. But thanks to all the gardeners in my family, the girl does know her plant.

Back in the car and listened to the Off Menu podcast, and we headed to the multicultural town of Bradford.

We went to MyLahore and ate our own weight in curry, it was excellent.

This is the best chicken tikka masala I’ve ever eaten. Honestly, if you’re in Lancashire or Yorkshire, go to MyLahore and have a tikka masala and then go see the Science and Media museum for a nice day out.

Once we were full, we walked over to the museum and it’s probably the best thing in Bradford. I was told The Wombles were on display, but when I enquired they said they were in storage being conserved BUT, we could email and request a special viewing! Haha.

We picked up a hire car on our way into Stockport yesterday, and in the glove box of the late 2000s Ford Fiesta was one CD - your standard issue Oasis Morning Glory album.

Except when we opened it to put it on, it turned out to be Jamiroquai.

We did a pilgrimage to the nearby Strawberry Studios. It was the studio of the guys from 10cc, and it’s where Unknown Pleasures was recorded.

Opposite was this great building with more of those lions. I told Lew I reckon when we’re retired we should open a rock bar here, the grassy area would make a fine durry pit.

I didn’t take many pics of shops but am pleased to report, in the spaghetti hilly streets of Stockport were heaps of gorgeous indie shops, in charming old shop fronts. We picked up a Frank Sidebottom illustration print at one, and there were some cute bars and cafes that we would have stopped at had we not filled up on crap Greggs pastries.

After our outing in Stockport, we were taken to the Peak District for dinner at a beautiful heritage building restaurant, Losehill House or such. Stunning vibes and views, exceptional fine dining.

It’s been a busy couple of days.

Yesterday, we picked up a hire car and explored Stockport, which is a mini city within Manchester, where Lewis were born.

He hasn’t explored the town in decades, so we went wandering to see what was still there and what had changed.

This red brick viaduct bridge with the glorious arches was built in the 1840s.

The derelict Chinese restaurant was a Pizza Hut in the 90s. Lew said this was the place to come for your 11th birthday - Pizza Hut and a movie at the nearby cinema or bowling at the alley, both now gone too.

I love looking at the favourite childhood places of people I love, it’s like getting to know them and fall in love with them through time.

He took me to Stockport Gregg’s which was wonderfully awful. I said it was a bit like Melton. We ate bad food and coffee.

Wandering through the main mall full of chain stores, these awesome reliefs caught my eye off in a lane, on the side of some atrocious 70s or 80s office building.

There were a number of these panels presenting a timeline of what I imagine is Stockport through history, starting at 1260. You’ll notice lots of lions in these, and I saw more lion motifs throughout the city. Upon a quick google, it’s to do with heraldry and coats of arms of important Stockport families etc.

Then a wander through older bits of the city, which jarred against my Melburnian grid sensibilities, it was pure street spaghetti.

Here’s the Stockport hat museum, which sadly is closed while we’re here. It’s worth noting, this is where Lewis Carroll took inspiration for the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. Stockport hat factory workers used fucking MERCURY to cure their hats and they all got terribly sick and lost their minds. Also, there’s Robinson’s brewery.