Heller Garden and Sirmione

Yesterday was our only full day in Lake Garda, and I don't see how I could have done any more than I did. I crammed that day full.

Dave and I started by going to the Heller Garden, a botanical and sculpture garden near our hotel. It was originally planted beginning in 1903 by Arthur Hruska, a dentist and surgeon. After Hruska's death in 1971, it went into a decline until it was eventually purchased by Austrian artist André Heller, who filled it with contemporary sculpture. It's a tranquil space and Dave and I enjoyed walking around the hilly grounds and spotting all the plants we have in our own garden -- and some we'd like to have.

That's artist Niki De Saint Phalle's "Adam and Eve" above. Heller invited artists from all over the globe to spend time in his garden, including Lou Reed, who spent his 60th birthday there, according to the website. (I connected to that story, not only because I'm also named Reed but because I turn 60 this year!)

I even bought a t-shirt bearing art that Keith Haring created for the garden in 1990.

Even just walking around town here, the plants are pretty impressive -- especially the bougainvillea, which is exploding with color at this time of the year. After leaving the garden, Dave and I had lunch in a waterfront pizza place not far from this towering display.

After lunch, Dave went back to the room to rest. I bought a ticket to go to Sirmione, another town on the lake, by boat. Apparently Sirmione is the place to see on Lake Garda -- blogger Sharon mentioned in the comments that she's been there -- and I didn't want to pass it up. I wouldn't have much time there, so I had to make every minute count.

As the boat pulled up to the wharf in Sirmione, I got a good view of the castle, built in the late 1300s.

I also got a good view of our hunky boat attendant's optimistic tattoo.

I walked past the castle (but didn't go in) and around the perimeter of the peninsula, up to the Grottoes of Catullus, the ruins of a Roman villa. Along the way I passed this eye-catching sculpture on a beach, by a group called Cracking Art that makes sculpture from recycled plastics.

Remember that blue dog (some of you thought it might be a cat) that I saw on the balcony in Stresa? It's a Cracking Art piece, too.

Here are some of the ruins. There was a lot of up-and-down climbing and stairs to get to them, but it was worthwhile. They're connected to Catullus by legend -- in one of his poems he "describes his return to his beloved house in Sirmione," according to Wikipedia.

As I mentioned yesterday the ruins are featured in the movie "Call Me By Your Name"; scenes were filmed there and on the beach below.

And here's the beach, known as Giamaica (Jamaica) Beach. In the movie, Elio accompanies his father and Oliver on an archaeological visit here, while a Roman statue is being recovered from the lake. When they visit the beach it's practically empty, but as you can see that was not the case yesterday!

And then I had to hot-foot it to the pier to catch the boat back to Gardone. I had a little more than an hour in Sirmione, all told, but it was enough to enjoy the colorful narrow streets and see the main features. By the time I got back to our hotel, cleaned up and collected Dave, it was dinnertime and I was craving an Aperol spritz. We ate at a little restaurant on the water and then came back to our room and watched, of course, "Call Me By Your Name."

Today we're off to Ravenna to board our cruise ship. In fact we're supposed to leave quite early, just after 7 a.m., so I gotta get packing. Coming to you tomorrow from somewhere on the Adriatic Sea!

A Bear, a Lion and a Poet

The first thing I noticed when we approached Lake Garda, in Lombardy, was the sound of cicadas. They buzz and chirr so loudly in the trees at this time of year that I could hear them through the closed windows of our van. I immediately thought of the movie "Call Me By Your Name," which features cicadas in some scenes, and in fact that achingly beautiful film -- one of my favorites -- was made in this region. A few scenes were even shot right on Lake Garda.

The ride here was smooth enough. We left Stresa with six fellow passengers and a driver at 11:15 a.m. and arrived about two and a half hours later. We traveled mostly on modern superhighways and through tunnels, tunnels and more tunnels. There were tunnels that branched, tunnels that merged, tunnels with windows onto spreading valleys, tunnels that ended only to begin again almost immediately. I wouldn't have minded the tunnels except I was trying to read a New Yorker and we didn't have light in the van, so every time we entered a tunnel I had to stop reading until we emerged into daylight again. It made for a choppy reading experience.

We got to our hotel in the community of Gardone Riviera and checked in -- that's the view from our room, above -- and then Dave settled in for a nap while I went out for a walk and to find lunch.

Gardone Riviera doesn't seem to be as centralized as Stresa, but there is a little commercial street right around the corner from our hotel, so that's where I went. (The hotel above isn't ours, but it's nearby and seems to be under renovation.)

I stopped in a cafe on a lakeside square and had a beer and an unexpectedly large sandwich called a mortazza, with mortadella, grilled zucchini and mayonnaise. That's fine, because I was starving.

I sat wondering why there's a gigantic statue of a bear in the square. Are bears a common element of local wildlife?

And then I came across this lion (I think?) near the ferry dock on the lakeshore. Googling just now, I've concluded both animals are the work of sculptor Davide Rivalta. Do they live here permanently, or are they just passing through? Not sure.

I walked a short distance into the hills above the town, and ascended a street appropriately called the Via Disciplina, which definitely required discipline to climb. I tried to go to the botanical garden, but they only accept cash for admission and I didn't have any, so maybe Dave and I will head back there today. The cicadas were out in force!

The bronze figure seated on a bench at the end of that video is located on the lakeshore just below our hotel. It's a sculpture by Alessandro Verdi called "The Lonely Scholar" (Il Solitario Studioso) and depicts poet and writer Gabriele D'Annunzio, who lived in Gardone Riviera.

Last night we had dinner in the poolside restaurant at our hotel, and then came up to the room and watched the Bond movie "Goldfinger." I read a New Yorker article on the way here about the renewed popularity of gold prospecting in the western USA, and it mentioned "Goldfinger," which made me realize I hadn't seen it in ages. It was entertaining and didn't require any emotional or intellectual investment -- perfect vacation viewing!

Swallows and an Island Cruise

I'm writing this post without my glasses, because I'm already sitting in our hotel's breakfast room and I left my glasses upstairs. So if it's full of typos I apologize! I'll come back and clean it up when I can see again!

Yesterday was very busy. I took a long walk around Stresa after breakfast, both up and down the lake, to take in all the sights. That's one scene from my walk, above. Here are some more:

I was astonished to  come across this old, wrecked villa, commanding a scenic position overlooking the lake. It's surrounded by multimillion-Euro properties. How does it happen that a place like this is just left to deteriorate? Is it caught up in a family dispute, a contested will, a legal limbo?

I watched swallows swooping through the sky above the hilly neighborhood, just as they do in town, shrieking loudly among the "cliffs" of buildings. They are omnipresent here, along with sparrows and pigeons.

I walked a long time -- a couple of hours, I think -- and then stopped for a coffee before heading back to the room to find Dave. The well-rested Dave was ready for an adventure by this time, so we set out right away to take a boat ride to the Borromean Islands, a group of three islands in the middle of the lake. They're mostly owned by the aristocratic Borromeo family, related to medieval Milanese cardinal St. Charles Borromeo, whose memorial fountain I came across in Vienna just a few months ago.

There are three main islands, Isola Madre, Isola de Pescatori and Isola Bella. We didn't go to Madre, and spent most of our time wandering the narrow streets and waterfront of Pescatori, which is apparently the only permanently inhabited island of the three (according to Wikipedia, which is never wrong).

Here's a video showing the swallows flying overhead on my morning walk, followed by our boat excursion on the lake:

You even get some rare footage of me and Dave!

We watched people swimming in the lake off this sunny promontory on Pescatori. I was frankly jealous, because it was hot!

The streets are so narrow a person could almost reach out from one window to touch the building across the way, Lots of interesting angles and shadows!

Isola Bella is largely occupied by a palace and formal terraced garden, which we can actually see from our hotel balcony (see yesterday's top photo). We didn't visit them because by the time we figured out how to enter the garden we were hot and tired, so we just caught the boat back. I'm sure they're spectacular but you can't see everything, right? Instead we wandered the steep, narrow streets and saw sights like someone's collection of vintage outboard motors (above).

When we got back to Stresa Dave retreated to the air conditioning and, inspired by the swimmers on Isola de Pescatori, I put on my bathing suit and went for a dip in the lake. There's a public beach right across from our hotel. I waded in and found the bottom unpleasantly rocky -- the pebbles were smooth but still painful to walk on. I  almost gave up, but I saw that everyone else was barefoot so I decided to try a different spot along the beach, and sure enough it was much sandier. I had a good swim, which felt amazing. (And then I took a second brief dip in our hotel pool.)

We had pasta last night in the main square, listening once again to the shrieking swallows. Off today to Lake Garda!

A Stornello in Stresa

Well, here we are in Italy, in a beautiful little hotel that somehow manages to be both posh and modest, overlooking Lake Maggiore. We're in a town called Stresa, and that (above) is the view from our balcony.

So is this:

Not too shabby, right?!

We got ourselves launched from home about 10:30 a.m. yesterday, for a 3:25 p.m. flight. We knew it was early but after we'd watered all the plants we were just sitting around, and figured we might as well sit at the airport. We took the Elizabeth Line out to Heathrow and wound up arriving too early to even check our bags, so we camped out at a Pret and had lunch.

Once we finally boarded, our two-hour flight was painless and we landed at Milano Malpensa airport yesterday evening. Somehow I had it in my head that we were staying in Milan, but no! A driver picked us up along with another couple, Linda and Dick from Manchester, and we seemed to be driving and driving and the landscape wasn't getting any more urban, so I said, "How far out is this airport?" And then I looked at my Google Maps and realized we were driving away from Milan. Linda and Dick, who apparently have a much better grip on the itinerary than either of us, clarified we were going straight to Lake Maggiore. OK, then.

We got checked in and set out to find dinner (leaving Linda and Dick behind). By this time, with a one-hour change of our clocks, it was something like 8:30 p.m.

We found a little restaurant called Lo Stornello, and we puzzled over the name. The sign included musical notes, so we figured it must be a musical term but Dave didn't know it. Google AI now informs me that it "refers to a short, often improvised, witty poetic song (usually a 3-line stanza) native to regions like Tuscany and Lazio." Anyway, it was a good restaurant, and I had a chilled cucumber and apple soup (above) as well as a fish called "scorfano," or red scorpionfish. (It sounds better in Italian.) And three glasses of wine plus a complimentary limoncello. Whew! I was ready to sing a stornello of my own by the time we got out of there, but instead...

...we took a quick stroll through town. (Meaning, like, two blocks. Dave was ready for the room.)

We passed this charming little square in the center of town -- a place to revisit today, I think.

Walking back to our hotel along the waterfront, we passed an adjacent hotel, the beautiful Regina Palace, where someone really was singing and couples were dancing on the front portico.

And then we were back in our hotel and ready to crash. Which we did.

And this was sunrise over the lake this morning!

A 50FTY

Yesterday mostly involved trip preparation, so there's not much to write about. How many ways can a person pack a suitcase?

But before I did any of that I took a long walk up into Willesden Green, and got some photos along the way. I'll leave you with those -- no commentary necessary!

I also found some DVDs on the sidewalk, and brought home two seasons of the TV show "Curb Your Enthusiasm." We may be watching some of that upon our return.

We're off in a few hours for the airport. I haven't described our trip in much detail, I realize, but that's mostly because Dave chose it and I have only the barest sense of the itinerary. We'll be in a different place pretty much every night, with the first few days on land and the rest at sea and in various ports. Basically, we're traveling through northern Italy by land, and then cruising down through the Adriatic along the coast of Croatia and Montenegro, then around the boot of Italy to Sicily, and then up along the Amalfi Coast to Pisa and Rome.

I hate to leave all the plants with the garden at its peak, but such is the necessity when you can only travel in summer. Warren will take care of it well, I'm sure, and it's nice to know he'll be here holding down the fort as our house-sitter. (So attention, any thieves reading this: Not only do we not own anything worth stealing, our house will not be empty!)

Homebody and Pigeon Undertaker

The New York Times ran an article yesterday headlined, "In Britain, July 4 is Mostly Just a Saturday." It said that while some cultural institutions like museums made brief mentions of the Fourth of July and the King issued a statement, British people basically just went about their business.

I thought, do we really need to tell readers that the United Kingdom doesn't celebrate America's independence from...the United Kingdom? I mean, British people don't take it personally or anything, but why would there be a celebration? It seemed a strange and unnecessary article to write.

We totally ignored the Fourth of July here. As I said in a comment on Bob's blog, when America gives me something to celebrate, I'll celebrate.

It was also the day of the LGBTQ+ Pride parade in London, which I've gone to many times in years past, but this year I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm. I think taking that long walk on Friday -- and the fact that we're leaving tomorrow for two weeks in the Mediterranean -- made me want to just stay home. So I did.

I finished "Juice," which I greatly enjoyed. I don't think I'm even going to take a book with me on the cruise. I have such a backlog of magazines that I'm just going to bring them -- nine New Yorkers and my Royal Photographic Society magazine. Maybe I'll stick a small paperback in my suitcase just in case, by some miracle, I get through all of those.

As you can see in the top photo, our lilies are blooming. I've always called these Stargazer lilies but the other day, out of the blue, Dave called them "chandelier" lilies, and they do point downward -- so maybe that's what they are. When I Google "chandelier lilies" I just get pictures of floral lighting fixtures, so I'm not sure.

Anyway, the lily beetles have gnawed holes in some of the blossoms but they still look nice. The one in the top photo looks positively virile. Above is a Cosmos with the afternoon sun illuminating its petals.

I hope all these plants survive our absence. Any little bit of rain would help but there's none in the forecast.

In other garden happenings, I found a dead pigeon on the lawn about two days ago. It had clearly been attacked and killed by something. Coming just a few days after I found the remains of a young starling, it's more evidence that a hunter is in our midst -- whether feline or vulpine I do not know. I buried it in the "wildlife zone" by the back garden wall.

Our rat-deterring peppermint oil pellets arrived yesterday, too. The package takes great pains to explain these are mostly for "freshening" rodent-invaded spaces -- I suppose so we don't complain if they don't successfully drive away the rodents -- but it says they do disrupt scent trails and make the rats uncomfortable. I showered them all over the garden by the handful, particularly near the house, and now it smells like candy canes out there. We don't have a full-on invasion so I'm hopeful they'll be effective.

I picked my first handful of blackberries from our vines yesterday morning. Blackberry season -- just in time for us to leave! Oh well. Hopefully the birds will enjoy them. (Especially now that we've taken down the feeders.)

Brent Cross Loop Walk

The weather was nice yesterday morning -- cooler than in much of the United States right now, though we're due for another hot spell here too. I figured I'd better make the most of it and set out for a long walk.

I didn't start with any agenda or any idea of where I might go. I just put in my AirPods, turned on a podcast and wound up walking north through Hampstead and along Finchley Road, all the way up to Golders Green.

Remember the wall that served as a memorial to the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel? Well, it's still there, but it seems to have been largely transformed into a memorial for people killed by the Islamic Republic in Iran. The flags depict the lion and sun symbol of pre-revolutionary Iran and in addition to the pictures of many, many people killed by the Iranian regime, there's one of the Shah.

And remember this place -- Brent River Park? Nothing much has changed here. The pavilions are still a wreck but it's a shady urban oasis.

From there I walked parallel to the North Circular toward Brent Cross.

I wound up in a tangle of overpasses and highway on-ramps, with the channelized River Brent running beneath (that's the river with the concrete walls covered in graffiti). The river itself runs through Wembley and around Ealing and Hanwell in west London before emptying into the Thames near Kew Gardens. (In fact, it might be an interesting future walk to follow the river in that direction, though I'm not sure it's all pedestrian-accessible. I've walked along several portions of it over the years.)

There were dedicated areas for pedestrians so this wasn't unsafe, but it wasn't exactly pleasant. I think the next time I want to get to Brent Cross from Golders Green I'll cut through the neighborhoods on either side of this massive interchange, rather than sticking so close to the highway.

Here's the shopping center at Brent Cross, a very American-style indoor shopping mall with a couple of department stores and lots of smaller shops. I didn't go in. I just walked past.

I crossed back over the North Circular via a pedestrian bridge and found...

...a whole new neighborhood of fancy apartment buildings. This used to be an industrial area. In fact, Olga and I walked past it many years ago, when it was a construction zone walled off by yellow plywood. Now the plywood is gone and there are towering apartment blocks, a food truck, a garden and a stylish green fountain, among other amenities.

I stopped for coffee at a Costa and sat outside watching traffic come and go.

Then I walked home through the now-elegant Claremont Park (which I think used to be known as Clarefield?) and along residential streets around the Clitterhouse Playing Fields. I had my first blackberries of the summer from these vines on Clitterhouse Road. Yum!

Altogether I think I walked between five and six miles.

I spent the afternoon reading "Juice," which I really want to finish before we leave for our Italy trip in a few days. It's a big book and I don't want to carry it with me! I also had to get a document notarized and mailed related to my stepmother's estate, so I took care of that.

Dave and I have enjoyed watching "Widow's Bay" on Apple TV in the evenings. It's a good show and very binge-able. (Is that a word?)