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travelogues

Monein changes everything

[sign in pau]It’s a miracle we’re here at all. I can only conclude that “fun” in the Languedoc involves moving signs around so that non-locals can’t find anything. Time and time again, signs point exactly in the opposite of the true direction, and eventually we end up navigating by feel and landmark, keeping the massif of the Montagne d’Alaric firmly on our right. This works until we lose sight of it, after which there’s a lot of stopping to check the Michelin map, driving to the next town, stopping to check the Michelin map…

There’s a rustic charm to the area, despite its navigational vandalism. Historic sites are strewn like litter, and with a few exceptions, villages seem not to have changed for centuries. And vines? They’re everywhere.

…continued here, and featuring a visit to Jurançon’s Domaine Cauhapé.

Ten years after shadow

[doge’s palace]After lunch, I head to the Doge’s Palace for a temporary exhibit on the deep historical links between Venice and Islam. It’s a fascinating collection, tracing the early years of mutually beneficial trade, the architectural and artistic borrowings, and the temporary alliances that long defined the relationship. It also details the long decline into open warfare, with brief but temporary reconciliations, to the point where even persistent and essential trade links had to be abandoned.

The true brilliance of the exhibit, however, is that it’s set in one of the palace’s great halls (the Sala dello Scrutinio), one filled wall-and-ceiling with massive murals. It is certainly no accident that the hall the exhibitors have selected is dominated by a massive, incredibly violent rendering of the Battle of Lepanto, with the Venetian navy in the midst of a bloody slaughtering of the Ottomans.

…continued here.

Youth gone wild

I don’t know if it’s just another facet of this geographically and historically youthful country, but while grizzled veterans certainly exist, New Zealand’s winemaking scene sometimes seems to be one huge youth movement. Not everyone hosts weekly raves, perhaps, but this youthfulness does contribute to the pervasive energy and optimism of the country’s wine industry.

Continued here…

Don’t rain on my café

[stirring coffee]On my very first day in Paris, I ascended the Arc de Triomphe to take in the view, then strolled down the length of this most famous of avenues. I remember the people, the chintzy foreign borrowings, and the over-the-top commerciality, but I also remember being somewhat swept away by the experience.

Well, I have no idea what I was thinking. Some memories are best left as memories, and I quickly come to resent each remembered step. What, exactly, is the appeal of the upper half of this boulevard? Except to business owners, I mean. Only as the street descends to the FDR Métro stop and commerce gives way to gardens does it become worthwhile. In fact, the stretch from there to the Place de la Concorde (my favorite “great space” in Europe) is quite striking. But my advice? If you’ve good memories of the Champs-Élysées, never, ever return. For these days, it’s little more than an avenue of regrets.

…continued here.

In fact, there is a mountain high enough

[mountain flower]Bikers sweat, struggle, and bleed their way up…then down…this shockingly precipitous, beautifully desolate mountain climb. They can have it. In a car, driving inches from an unguarded plunge into cartwheeling death, it’s…less fun. Considering how long it takes to get here, it’s all more than a bit frustrating, but after a half-hour’s climb, the swift onrush of imminent mortality becomes just too much to bear for the acrophobic.

…continued here.

In memory reborn

[torcello from burano]If the heart of Venice is busily reliving itself, the more remote islands of the lagoon seem to linger in their decay. Abandoned fortresses and villas, some quite elaborate, fall into a ruin of tangled weeds and grasping vines. A twisted, weather-beaten dock to which is tethered a small boat juts outward from a tiny stone shack on an island little larger than the structure; still occupied, but part of a lifestyle that, almost, can no longer be. Even where habitation persists, it’s often amongst wind-ravaged, salt-faded shreds of paint and eroded wood along a morose quay, perhaps with a stooped and sullen figure in the black shroud of her final decade peering from an half-opened shutter. There are no slums in Venice itself, but these half-desolate settlements bear the desperate, almost pleading air of one; a feeling that while people may remain, life is slowly fading away.

…continued here.

Faith, less charity, no Hope

Though it’s bright and sunny outside, we’re in a dimly-lit room. Shadows are everywhere. There’s a sepulchral quiet in the air. And I’m beginning to wonder if we’re ever going to taste any wine.

Jenny Wheeler, the sales and marketing director for Greenhough (Patons Rd., RD 1, Hope), is talking to us. Everything she says sounds understated, but the low volume is deceptive; there are some strong opinions being expressed here. We ease into our conversation by commiserating over the problematic 2005 season, which is not going any better at Greenhough than it is elsewhere. Maybe this is the wrong way to start.

Continued here…

Terry & lair-y

[square at night]Leaving Alsace for Paris, via Metz, Burgundy, Montana…and the past. An excerpt:

Normally, this hotel would be in a prime location. I say “normally,” because it’s right behind the National Assembly, which is currently a thicket of police and barriers as the city prepares for a strike. Thankfully, this really only becomes a hassle on our last two days in Paris, while the demonstrators (mostly students) chant and throw things for a well-planned hour or two, then disperse to discuss the matter over coffee. The logistics of a French strike are something to behold.

…continued here.

Circus life

[cirque]Cirque de Gavarnie – After lunch, and with a wary eye on the weather forecast, we decide to do the second of our major walks in this region. It will eventually turn out that, given goals of rain-avoidance and excellent visibility, this is a good idea. However, at a certain point our feet – especially Theresa’s – decide that maybe one hike per day is enough. Nonetheless, the Cirque lives up to its lofty reputation, and though the path is laden with afternoon strollers (who gradually fall away as we approach the great arc of the cirque itself), the feeling that one is approaching the wall at the end of the world is inescapable.

…continued here.

Rimu shot

[grape/net close-up]A grape by any other name

Those of us who write about wine for a living know the problem all too well. The eager face of a press agent, or an owner, or (in the worst case) a winemaker, shines down upon us as they ask The Question. “So, what do you think of the wines?”

It’s a sad but true fact that the best producers never, ever ask. They don’t need to. They know…and even if they don’t, they’re confident enough in their work to let it stand or fall on its own merits. And so, the verbalized desire for an on-the-spot assessment is left to those whose wines are, invariably, lacking in some fashion. At which point, the writer must make a choice.

The most indifferent and the most brutally honest will say whatever they think, without mitigation. This is, I suppose, the most ethically defensible position, but it’s not much fun for anyone. Even aside from the issue of saying hurtful things about a person’s passions, the conversation that follows almost always turns into an increasingly useless argument wherein the winery representative claims, “oh, but Bob Smith gave it a gold star,” while the writer is forced to defend some grand notion of subjectivity. Of course, running off to one’s publication of choice with a previously-unspoken truth is, viewed uncharitably, a little bit cowardly. But it does help avoid those really unpleasant personal moments, and that’s why most choose to do it.

In the interim, however, something has to be said. An answer must be delivered, whether or not it satisfies. And so the clever writer will learn how to speak emptiness with eloquence. If it works well enough, everyone’s happy, and the conversation proceeds apace.

But sometimes, it doesn’t work. The writer knows it. The winemaker knows it. Each hapless attempt to avoid the truth is like a little drop of poison, slowly numbing and then, finally, killing the conversation and any connection that might have developed. It’s a slow, mealy-mouthed decline into morbidity. I’ve invented a word for it, and while subsequent research shows that I’m not the first to use the word, I might be the first to define it in this fashion.

Euphemasia. Noun. Elective conversational death by euphemism.

…continued here.