Porto perfecto

In my first year at University, I discovered the delights of a glass of port and a cigar at the end of a day. The cigars are long gone, but I still love a little port from time to time.
Imagine my delight in looking out from our apartment window across the langorous Duoro river, right over to old warehouses dating back several centuries. The beautiful skyline of Vila Nova de Gaia, opposite Porto, is punctuated with grand signs redolent of gentlemen’s clubs and English country gardens- Sandemans, Croft, Offley Forester, Calem, Barros, AA Ferreira. We promise to go to tasting some of the varieties.
Looking down a little from the apartment window, I could see the barges or barcos, used to carry the barrels downstream from the cellars. Below most buildings are curved entrance ways for the rolling barrels to be stored.

This apartment has to be one of the most magical places to stay. I found it on the marvelous website http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/. Our most helpful host, Ferdinand Almeida, met us by the Igreja dos Carmelitas, ornately decorated in blue Portuguese tiles. He guided us through increasingly narrow World Heritage lanes , to park the car then he even trundled our suitcases to his artistic and stylish apartment in the Ribeira area, just by the bridge called Ponte de Dom Luis 1.
We fall in love with the deep maroon of the sitting room, the dark tangerine of the hall way, the ochre of one bedroom and the saucy pink of the other. We are impressed that a previous guest was the NZ ambassador to Vietnam.
Ferdinand has a bottle of port waiting for us with some snacks.
Strains of the poignant Portuguese fado music drift in on the breeze, as we riffle through the selection of ‘what’s on’ booklets Ferdinand has collected, and sip the rich port. We sink into the armchairs and resolve to stay forever.

Sadly we had only two days to enjoy Porto, so it was out of the apartment to the riverside to book a tour up the Duoro River to see the hillsides where the famous grapes are grown. The boat travelled through productive vineyards, pretty villages and impressive rock formations, rightly designated a Unesco World Heritage Site. We were served the most delicious lunch washed down with plentiful wines to soothe the anxiety of two terribly deep locks. The late autumn sun cast a gold sheen on the quaint medieval buildings along the riverbanks, every bit as beautiful as the more familiar Florence.

The city of Porto rambles down to the river in narrow streets, elegant corner churches and generous squares. We would love to come back again for a much longer visit, to explore the history, the architecture, the music, the people and of course the many kinds of port.

Ferdinand’s apartment can be seen on http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/ ref P4551

Leipzig and the coldest winter for 100 years

Our train trip to Leipzig was through a landscape of white fields with foraging foxes, and villages surrounded by snowy pine trees - it was the Christmas card scenery we had hoped for.
It was exhilarating to walk in the zoological park, in shin deep snow. We saw a fox, a white owl, deer, hairy pigs, elks, buffalo, and lots of human skiers striding along on their cross country skis.

One church in the city held double fascination for us. St Nicholas church, built in 1165, and a Protestant church since the Reformation arrived in Leipzig in 1539, was where Johann Sebastian Bach was organist and choirmaster from 1723 to 1750. Architecturally it is one of Germany's most important monuments.

Its place in social and political history is even stronger.

All through the 1980's, people gathered at St Nicholas church to pray for peace. In the autumn of 1989 there was a hideous show of force by soldiers, industrial militia, police and plain clothes officers. They were welcomed into the church. The end result of the non-violent presence of thousands of fellow east Germans was the collapse of the party and the ideological dictatorship. - the Wall came down.

After paying homage to Bach, long time resident of Leipzig, and to Mendelssohn and Schumann, who promoted the performance of Bach's music in public, we retreated with our other friend Karola, from the cold and the challenges of sight seeing into one of the oldest cafes, Cafe Baum, for yet another hot chocolate and out last bit of German cake.

On our last morning, when the temperature dropped to minus 16, and newsreaders intoned about the coldest winter for 100 years, we felt our wish for a white winter had been more then fulfilled.

Dresden and the first snowfall

The train from Munich took us north to Dresden where our friend Uta met us, holding out two red roses in greeting. She had borrowed her mother’s car, and her brother’s apartment for our stay.
With the car she drove us into nearby Saxony Switzerland, called thus for the huge mountain peaks, deep river valleys, and most impressively the high rocky pinnacles. Uta pointed out a book chained to the top of one of the vertiginous and vertical rocks, which bears her name, and that of other brave climbers- not ours! The wind bringing the snow drove us into the café, for thick hot chocolate and German cakes- perfect on a cold day.
Snow began to fall late afternoon , and fell and fell. In such a cold climate it is surprising that everyone parks their cars outside, on the street where ever there is a place, and we became quite nonchalant about stomping through deep snow to try to identify a car covered in snow.

The old city has been rebuilt, so it is really a new city. Over the river is the official NeueStadt, or new city, much older than the 'new city'. Here is a delightful colourful quarter, with many artists and crafts people selling thier wares, and living in creatively painted buildings. I loved this drain pipe arrangement.

Dresden is the city where, on 13 February 1945, the combined USA and British air forces bombed the city centre and surrounding districts, Some 35,000 people died in that air raid alone. We walked around the beautiful cobble stoned city centre which has been so faithfully rebuilt. Our friend’s parents were among the hundreds who helped clean bricks as part of the reconstruction.
“Whoever has forgotten how to cry, learns it again with the destruction of Dresden.“ (Gerhart Hauptmann)
We walked round the city in a sombre mood, mindful of the conflicted history of the countries we have visited over these three months.

To us coming from 'the new world', we are acutely aware of the layers of history beneath our feet.It is impossible to look at everything around us, old and new, without 'reading between the lines', imagining what was there 50 years ago, or 250, or 1000, or back before the common era. Museums and historical displays add to this knowledge, while still allowing us to enjoy and appreciate what is before our eyes. Having guides like our friends Uta and Karola made our time in East Germany added another dimension to our rich experience.

New Year celebration in Dresden

‘You must come to Dresden! We will show you how we celebrate Silvester!
Our friend Uta drove carefully on the city streets to park the car near the Elbe River in Dresden. Clutching the bottle of champagne and three glasses, we made our way across the frozen ground, and past groups of people prematurely letting off crackers and rockets, hoping like mad they would not point them at us.
Uta set us up with a great view of the steeples, domes and towers of Dresden city, as the river flowed coldly in front of us, reflecting the floodlit buildings. It was -6 degrees at most. As midnight neared the brilliantly lit barrage increased. By midnight we could not hear the dozens of church bells ringing in the New Year because of the cacophony of sound. All around us were hundreds and thousands of rockets, explosions, shooting colours and sparkles across the sky.
We clung together for warmth and slowly circled, sipping the extremely well cooled champers, and watching the fireworks. There was no let up for at least 30 minutes of total exhilaration of exuberant firepower.
New Year arrived in Eastern German style for us this year.

Snowy Berchtesgaden

A tiny mountain village nestles into a valley just over the German border. It is just below the luxury mountain retreat built for Hitler,called the Eagles Nest. All around the villages were occupied by staff officers. Today Berchtesgaden is colourful, lively and full of delicious food. A local speciality is white sausage, washed down with white beer.

Salzburg and real snow

Just ouside Salzburg is a gorgeous mountain area, with picturesque houses, fir trees laden with snow, and neat piles of firewood ready for the open fire.

Christmas day castles and cathedrals in Vienna

On Christmas day there was snow and ice on the ground as we crunched over the stones at Schonbrunn, the imperial summer palace of the Hapsburg dynasty. We only managed to visit nine of the 1441 rooms,but that was enough to learn of the grandeur and wealth of a family which ruled the Austro-Hungarian empire for 500 years.

We heard the strains of a choral mass from the private chapel, as we drifted down a wide staricase, but that was the nearest we got to church this Christmas. We focussed on Maria Theresa, rather than the Virgin Mary, and on her son Franz Joseph, rather than Jesus.

Maria Theresa was known as 'the mother in law' of Europe, because she carefully married most of her 16 children off into European ruling families. Franz Joseph gave his name to a glacier in NZ, so there is a little connection there.

In Schonbrunn Palace, we saw portraits of all the family on the walls,including a series of delicate oil portraits by one of the daughters. The family were all very talented in art and music, and seeing so many pictures of them all, and where they enjoyed thier summers, it was quite appropriate to compete the life cycle by later visiting their last resting places, the crypts and vaults , under a Capuchin monastery.

There lie Maria Theresa and her beloved husband, holding hands in death, plus all the children, grandchildren and great grand children, up to the present day. The last Hapsburg is Otto, now 90 and living in exile, who is often seen at the crypt, where his place stands waiting.

It was lovely to walk around a fairly quiet Vienna on Christmas afternoon, to admire the Winter Palace, the Cathedral,the Opera house, and all the grand buildings of this most appealing city, then to go back to the Hilton for a perfectly designed light Christmas supper. Having spoken with most of our dear far flung family, we were content.