Brighton and Eastbourne

Wednesday, 5 June 2019. Having left Anne of Cleves (see previous entry) we headed towards Brighton where after swooning at the cost of parking, we went in search of some lunch.

We found a tiny sandwich shop that had a few tables for diners up a small arcade and had lunch there. Then we set about exploring the area known as The Lanes.

It was cold and breezy and somewhat overcast after the fine morning that we had had.

We had a stroll up the pier and had a coffee, sitting on an open air table with benches, huddled against the wind. After the parking rip-off I'm not going to remember this visit with a great deal of affection I'm afraid...

It was the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. When we got back to Eastbourne we saw massive crowds on the seafront. Expecting the event to happen tomorrow on the actual anniversary we all but missed out on the sight of several DC3 Dakotas with fighter escort flying in formation over the town (but not over the seafront). We heard the drone of engines and caught a glimpse of formations from the hotel window. My camera was in the car boot two streets away and by the time we got out with Fran's small camera I managed a very brief, i.e. one second, video of a single straggler...

That night directly opposite the hotel there was a Proms concert in the bandstand. Whilst we couldn't see, we heard bits of the music from the hotel's conservatory. As the time came for the advertised fireworks display we put on jackets and crossed the road for a closer look.

I'm sure Eastbourne had much more to show us than we allowed it to. We had spent all our time simply using it as a base to go elsewhere. But who knows, some time we may come back and do it a bit more justice!

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André Rieu in Leeds, 2016

On Friday we set off over the M62 to Leeds to see the famous violinist from Maastricht, André Rieu perform with his orchestra, The Johann Strauss Orchestra.

We arrived half an hour before the show started and found our seats way up in the gods. A couple were sitting in the seats next to ours and he turned to me with a grin saying "We thought you weren't coming!"
"Yes," I said "we were worried we might miss you!" Hooray! I thought, someone with a sense of humour.

But then his wife, who was sitting next to me said, "Are you big fans of André Rieu?" She looked a bit surprised when we said yes and said "Oh... I'm not so keen myself - he wanted to come..." She sighed and added "I hope it's not all Oom-Pah music, I don't like Oom-Pah music. If it's all Oom-Pah music I'll probably fall asleep."
"I think you'll be alright," I ventured, "it's fairly infectious..."
"Have you been before?" she asked after a pause. "Oh yes!" we replied and her face took on a shocked expression.
"Oh, really? Well..." she said leaving a lingering impression she thought we must be somehow mentally deficient. I exchanged a sympathetic smile with her husband and proceeded to ignore her. He was already there before me...

You could guess it couldn't you? She sang along to every tune whether vocal or not with a frail, grinding, very high pitched "aaaahh" warble... "Are they always the same guest artists?" she asked as the first soloist left the stage (Frederic Jennignes playing the zither for Tales of Vienna Woods followed by the theme from The Third Man).
"No, we've seen the St Petersburg Trio and The Berlin Comedic Harmonists at different shows..."
"Germans???" Her lips pursed in surprise.
"Yes," I said, "Their finale was to machine gun the back circle..."

We were well away from the snow machine as it dropped a generous amount on the audience below. It's funnier that way...

Another wonderful night with a few surprises and the usual elongated ending, long after André has announced things are coming to an end. This is always a cue for the first punters to stand and shuffle along the rows to get out first to the car park. They miss a good half hour - probably the best half hour of the night... Godzilla was staying put though... "Ahhh, aaaaahhh aah, ahh a-aaaahhhh!"

Andre Rieu Concert, December 2014

On Saturday we drove over to Leeds as we were booked (since last February!) to see Andre Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra perform at the Leeds Arena.

I was wondering who would be performing as soloist this year - Carla Maffioletti had left to work in opera. I was hoping, but no, Carmen Monarcha was sadly absent.

The Platin Tenors, Gary, Bela and Thomas were there though - unthinkable not to have them really!

Before the show started we saw a rather familiar face in a red dress take her place in the audience and sure enough the dramatic music of Espana Cani signals the arrival of a pantomime bull which subsequently chases her out of the arena! There's a fabulous postscript to this bit of comedy that I have never seen featured in Andre's videos. I shan't give the game away but it was very very funny!

With neither Carla nor Carmen on the bill, one of the soloist parts was filled by Anna Reker, usually to be found in the small line of the choir at the rear of the stage. Anna, originally from Ukraine, was joined on stage by the Trio St Petersburg and sang a rousing version of the Russian folk song that we are more familiar with in this country as Mary Hopkin's Those Were The Days. This had everyone singing or at least "La-laa-ing" to and she received a huge round of applause for it. The Trio St Petersburg were back a little later with their breakneck speed playing of Zorba The Greek.

Familiar again from some of the videos we've seen, the Berlin Comedian Harmonists came on. This close harmony group have some fabulous voices and I like the touches of humour again and the rollicking final song with the ladies of the choir miming the rowing of boats at the rear!

Mirusia Louwerse was the most familiar of the female soloists and got a great reception from the audience.

Laura Engel, the Dutch-Chilean soprano, made up the third of the female soloists for the concert. She gave us a good performance of Besame Mucho early on in the evening.

We found ourselves sitting under the snow machine. So by the time the Christmas tunes had finished playing we were covered in the stuff! Everybody around us seemed to be throwing handfuls over each other, so we joined in! It doesn't half stick to you... Even having done our best before coats went on at the end, we got back to our hotel room after the show and soon the floor looked a mess! We tidied up as best we could... A brilliant night, I'll be waiting for next year's tickets to go on sale!

Andre Rieu in Newcastle

I can't believe this is a whole week since! But it is... Last Saturday we went over to Newcastle to see violinist Andre Rieu with his fabulous Johann Strauss Orchestra.

We really only came across him a year ago when there was a Christmas concert on TV and we enjoyed the mix of classical and easy listening music and the humour that is displayed throughout.

Then Sky Arts has shown a whole series of concerts during the year and we have supplemented them with a few DVDs and almost every week now seems to include an Andre night!

I think it was somewhere around September by the time I realised he was doing a UK tour and by then most tickets had long gone. It was a toss up between heading over to Newcastle or down to Birmingham, but I managed to get two tickets facing the stage but up in the gods, on the third tier right at the back of Newcastle's Metro Radio Arena, but they were on the front row of the tier.

The above photo gives some idea of how far back we were, but I've included it also for a lovely bit of humour that it shows. Whilst the orchestra were playing White Christmas, way above the second block on the main floor a snow machine is at work, dumping an inch or two of snow on top of the audience in that block. TV cameras picked out some of the more hilarious reactions onto the big screens at each side of the stage and at the end of the song the machine let fall an absolute avalanche!

It was the orchestra's twenty fifth anniversary Andre explained and he had brought with him some guests that we have seen on the DVD and Sky concerts. Frédéric Jenniges was there with his zither to play the Tales from Vienna Woods and of course the theme from The Third Man and to entertain us by puffing and blowing with boredom whilst waiting for the orchestra to get round to his bit! Hilarious!

There was also the St Petersburg Trio, a threesome of Russian musicians with a mandolin, accordion and the biggest bass balalaika you've ever seen!

But on the photo above I've chosen one of the regular soloists, the gorgeously scrumptious Carmen Monarcha. Andre jokes that wherever the orchestra go she leaves a trail of devastation amongst the hearts of men! I can well understand it!

And so I'll include another photo of her with the other regular soloists, Kimmi Skota and Carla Maffioletti with the Platin Tenors. The Platins are always a high spot when watching an Andre Rieu concert though it may seem an unlikely combination of Hungarian, Australian and German singers. For me Thomas Greuel, the German singer, has the best tenor voice but together they project such power and jollity into their music that my face must light up whenever they walk on stage!

We had a fabulous night and, I've no doubt, will have many Andre Rieu nights to come in 2013!

Limone, Lake Garda

Monday 20 August. Once again we are up to catch the 9:00am ferry from Riva, sailing down Lake Garda to Limone.

It's the first stop on the ferry's way to Malcesine. We arrive at Limone after 40 minutes of pleasant cruising down the lake and arrive to an almost deserted landing stage. Once the ferry is tied up to the jetty though, people start to appear from where they have been hiding from the sun!

Limone is spectacular in that the sheer cliffs fall almost vertically into the lake. Here tunnels have been blasted through one section of cliff to make a throughway from one side of Limone to the other. Shops occupy caverns within the tunnel.

We make our way through the shops with only a few near monetary losses and have our morning intake of latte machiatto at this cafe bar.

It had some wonderful small octagonal lamps that I had to work into a photograph.

From where we are we have a good view of the lake and watch the ferries come and go whilst we have our drink. The small piazza where we are has a fountain and a small viewpoint with benches.

Then it's back into another row of shops. Fran's purse is jumping in her pocket, desperate to get out and fling money around... She stops to touch a leather jacket - as an ex-leather worker she can't walk past a leather shop without both breathing in deeply and casting a critical eye over every piece. Luckily this time it is just touch and go...

We pass a museum of tourism that looks as though it might be diverting for a few minutes but as I've rushed Miss Franny past the shops, she is not going to be tempted by a museum...

We come to a wide promenade and stroll along enjoying the sunshine that is cranking up the heat and encouraging tiny beads of perspiration to form and roll down my back. I hate it when my hair gets all flat and plastered to my head... well... I seem to remember that I do...

It really is hot. We sit down for a moment with a limonate - a lemonade. Very refreshing. It is decided that I can go in the museum on my own, leaving Fran free to go looking at the shops.

"Take your time..." says Miss Franny, "no need to rush in this heat..." Oh dear... this sounds expensive...

The locally produced drink is limoncello, sometimes called limoncina, a lemon based liqueur packaged in a range of bottles some of which are shaped like the lake as seen from above or on a map.

I go into the museum. It has a few 3D exhibits and a whole host of old photographs, tourism adverts and posters and snippets of history about the lake's past including industries and the ferries. The exhibits include old cash tills, marked in Lira and quite nostalgic for anyone who, like me, has spent part of their working life in a shop. There is a jug and ewer set on a stand, a reminder of hotel rooms (or any bedroom) in the days before running water.

There's a huge book of clippings from when the James Bond film crew descended to film the car chase from Quantum of Solace that opens the film. A few show a crane fishing a rather banged up Aston Martin out of the lake near Torbole… Whoops!

We head back to the landing stage to check on times. The Brescia is approaching. As the engines rev a thick plume of smoke comes from her and we can see that it is passing through the space occupied by passengers. We decide to have lunch and then go back...

The ferry turns to go. You can see the haze of black smoke on her left hand side. Standing in the sun, reading the timetables, we realise why everyone chooses to find some shade rather than queue for the ferries!

And on the way back to Riva, there's a good view of the road tunnels, right at the bottom of the photo. It is through these that Daniel Craig as 007 James Bond, throws his Aston Martin about in a desperate chase and gun battle with the baddies! The tunnels and roads were made by Mussolini's army during the 1930s.

When we get back to Riva, we see that a stage is being set up for a concert. We hear the orchestra whilst we are eating our evening meal in the hotel and as we eagerly arrive at the piazza to catch the end of the concert - they reach it...

We hang about in hope that the orchestra might come back - as no one was starting moving equipment or instruments away. However when they did come back they played the quieter bits of Scheherezade that you just couldn't hear at the back of the square with everyone talking and Italian mothers screaming at children. Ho hum!

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