Did not spend the whole weekend configuring my computer. In fact, we did a number of other activities, starting with attending Centre in the Square’s season opener event, featuring dance troupe Bandaloop. They specialize in what they call “vertical dance”, meaning they perform dangling from wires, off the sides of buildings.
So this free Centre in the Square event was outdoors. The weather was definitely nippy that day, which none of us were used to, particularly after the record-breaking heat earlier in the week (hottest day of the summer). But we coped, thanks to scarves and such. And it was pretty neat seeing the performance off the edge of the building. They did four numbers:
A couple performing a swing dance (of sorts)
A trio of women in red doing somewhat balletic moves
A solo piece to very modern music
A finale of six dancers, three on each wall (a piece normally done on one wall, but adapted for this space)
We then decamped for dinner at Sole Restaurant, where they were featuring (yet another) local food menu, this time a four-course, with matching wines—all from Vineland Estates.
It started with a smoked trout salad with green beans and almonds, served with Pinot Grigio. The fish had very nice texture but not a strong smokey flavor (not sure if that’s good or bad); the beans were just delicious in slightly sweet glaze.
The next appetizer was a roasted tomato tart with goat cheese, tapenade, and basil, served with semi-dry Riesling. The crust here was a little tougher than ideal. Jean found the filling a bit salty, but I don’t know; tapenade is meant to be salty—I don’t think they overdid it. I wouldn’t have picked out a semi-dry white with this, but it actually went very well. Nice balance.
Little tart! (This is Jean’s caption. Not entirely sure which subject he’s referring to.)
The main course was duck confit, with banana bread, cherry compote, and sugar snap peas, served with Elevation Cabernet. The duck confit was fantastic—great texture and flavor. The sweetness of the banana bread was intriguing, though the texture was a little too dry in parts. The Cabernet was impressively delicious, with chocolate notes.
Dessert was a peach trio of crème brulée, mini pie, and cheesecake lollipop, served with Cabernet ice wine. Best was definitely the crème brulée, all nice and creamy. The tart was fine. The lollipop was just kind of strange in texture.
Then Sunday morning, we participated in the Terry Fox Run for the first time, though “Run” should be in quotes, because we walked. But we walked briskly and made pretty good time, I think; not that it’s a race. I’ve just always wanted to participate in the Terry Fox Run, as he’s a hero of mine, so it was nice to finely do it. Especially as we didn’t get rained on.
Sunday afternoon, 2-4, we had yet another food event! For the first time in a few years, we went to Foodlink’s Taste Local event, whereby restaurants partner with a local food producer and create an appetizer. For $60, you get 19 items. Don’t worry; we didn’t take pictures of them all, nor will I describe them all.
A look at the Taste Local event. Despite the threatening sky, we didn’t get rained on here, either.
I will note a few of the highlights, though:
Pulled duck (from Top Market Meats) with red onion preserve and chèvre on potato rosti, by Little Mushroom Catering. Mmm, duck.
Cured trout from Caudle’s Catch with radish and cucumber salad, on tortilla, by Marisol Restaurant (a favorite of ours). Doesn’t sound that good, but tasted amazing. Perfect texture, great flavoring.
Nick and Nat’s chicken liver pate on toasted with fruit relish preserve. So rich and creamy, to me it tasted almost like foie gras.
Tomato milk shake with basil foam and balsamic reduction by Solé (them again!). As long as you like tomato, pretty nice.
Taco Farm taking Herrle’s corn and adding a Mexican touch of lime, cilantro, and cream. Really good. (And served to us by Lydia Herrle, which was nice to see.)
Waterloo Inn using OK eggs to make an egg tower: Frittata with pickled egg and bacon aioli. Great idea, well executed, quite delicious.
But really, everything was good.
The main problem with the event was the odd timing, meal-wise. We had breakfast but no lunch in anticipation, resulting in Jean initially rushing through the booths at breakneck speed, because he was really hungry! We did get him to slow down after the first five or so.
And after two hours of this, we were all really full. (A lot of meat involved in these.) We attended with Kristi, who commented that we seem to be making a habit of marathon eating together (like Verses 20 courses), which maybe isn’t such a good thing. Anyway.
So clearly we didn’t have dinner after that, and facing a fairly long evening ahead, we went out to a movie. But I’ll save that for another post.
I’m just mentioning this because many people seem surprised by it, and Ontario corn on the cob is really good right now.
You don’t have to barbecue or boil corn on the cob. You can microwave it. Doesn’t require a dish or anything; you can just stick the whole thing, husk and all, into the microwave. For one cob, 3-5 minutes; for two, 4-9.
And—this is something I just learned—you can then get the husk off really easily. Just cut the end off, either before or after you microwave it, then you can just shake the corn out. Or for more fun, wack it on the counter, and the corn will slide out. No hair, no problem, ready to eat.
Here’s video proof, albeit without the fun “wacking” method:
This wouldn’t work if you have a whole lot of corn to cook, but for smaller amounts, it’s fewer dishes, faster, and doesn’t heat up the kitchen. And very tasty results!
This region has a Twitter hashtag, #kwawesome, that seems a little needy to me. Places that are truly awesome don’t need to proclaim that fact.
Still, they truly do some things well. The initial, widespread criticism over uptown Waterloo’s public square has long since died down. While certainly not as pretty as downtown Kitchener’s City Hall site, it has proven itself as a great location to hold a wide variety of public events that do bring uptown. This weekend, it’s the Waterloo Buskers Festival.
It’s the 25th year of the event, so the city sponsored a special opening event: a free concert by Steven Page, formerly of the Barenaked Ladies. I got on the iExpress right from my office door to uptown (you see I was determined to fully partake of regional services) to take it in, on what turned into a beautiful summer day.
Mr Page played with one other musician, a cellist who also sang backup. He naturally did some of his solo material, which I admit I didn’t know, but that did demonstrate he hasn’t lost his ability to write catchy songs with clever lyrics. But he also offered a generous dose of Barenaked Ladies material as well, including “The Old Apartment”, “Enid”, “What a Good Boy”, “Jane”, “It’s All Been Done”, and of course, “Brian Wilson”, the closer (before an encore). In between, he offered amusing commentary. He played for about an hour, which is quite reasonable for a free show!
Why Steven Page, a Toronto guy, for this? Because—and while I think I’ve heard this before, I’d forgotten—the Barenaked Ladies played at the Waterloo Buskers Festival way back in 1990, when no one knew who they were. Not only that, but while they arrived a trio, they left a quartet, because they met drummer Tyler Stewart at the Festival. Unlike Page, he remains in the band to this day.
Jean joined me for only the last part of the show (work!), then we walked over to Solé Restaurant to try this year’s Summer Dishes menu: three courses for $33, using local ingredients.
There was no going wrong with the first course: Tomatoes and feta with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and fresh basil. Lovely. For the main, I talked Jean into taking the pork with apple and sausage stuffing, sweet potato mash, and sugar snap peas, while I stuck with the trout with potatoes and corn that we’d both been eying at first. Lucky for him, as that turned out to be the better offering—really delicious all around. As for the trout, it was nicely cooked, corn is amazing this time of year, and potatoes are pretty decent, too. The problem, to me, was the remoulade on the fish, which just seemed too heavy, disguising the fish too much.
They weren’t offering wine pairings this year, so we figured it out ourselves. I started with a glass of Cave Spring rosé (local, local!), while Jean had a French sparkling of Blanquette (not Champagne). For the main, we shared a half bottle of Tawse 2010 Pinot Noir. It wasn’t as rich as we thought it might be, given that 2010 was a pretty warm summer, but it was still a nice wine.
For dessert, we both opted for blueberry yogurt from Whole Lot-A Gelata, another local restaurant, and it was just delicious. (Maybe even awesome.)
Mainly, we wanted a little getaway. Lots of advantages to travelling in the off-season, which is why we do, but it also kind of bites when everyone else is taking vacation and you’re not. So we thought we’d at least go somewhere on the long weekend in August.
Only we left that decision kind of late, which definitely limited our options on where to go. We looked into the Finger Lakes region of New York State—not the cheapest area—but even though it wasn’t a long weekend there, we couldn’t get the accommodations we wanted. Port Stanley had availability on Sunday night, but not Saturday. Other Ontario inns were a similar story.
So, we ended up at the Pelee Motor Inn in Leamington. The name of it sort of played on our mind, and we got worried we’d be staying at some semi-dive. But it turned out to be a perfectly nice hotel. We had a big room with a king size bed, sitting area, fridge, microwave (which we didn’t use, but there it was!). It also had this huge swimming pool and games area, with water slides, and badminton courts, and whatnot (which we didn’t use either, because it always seemed rather full of kids, but there it was!)
We didn’t have big ambitions for the trip. We planned to visit some wineries, do some hiking in the parks, try to find some decent places to eat, despite nothing much being listed for the area in Where to Eat in Canada. And Jean hoped to get some photos.
Lake Erie
On the way down we stopped in Port Stanley, going to the always good Me and Suzies for lunch. We ate on their patio. We shared Lake Erie smelts to start, which were great. Jean followed up with perch, while I had chicken tagine. His was better. From their all-Ontario wine list, we tried a glass of sparkling wine from 20 Bees, which was very drinkable, along with an interesting (in a good way) white blend from Organized Crime, called Mischief. (I think both must be restaurant wines, as neither seems available for sale from those wineries.)
Another stop on the way, just on a whim, was at Smith and Wilson winery. This proved a good thing, as we really enjoyed their wines. They had a nice, drinkable sparkling called Pearl that we bought a couple bottles of. I also tasted a black cherry wine which was very nice—and not so sweet as to be un-pairable with food. But the best, though, was their 2007 Gallantry Syrah/Cabernet Sauvignon blend, a truly lovely red wine for only $18 a bottle. We bought a couple of those also.
On arrival in Leamington, we went for a little walk around the harbour, and for some reason stopped to read about each and every one of the many shipwrecks that had occurred in these waters.
We had dinner reservations at Oxley Estate Winery. It’s an interesting location, in a converted barn. A lot of people were sitting outdoors to dine, but we were warned that the bugs were coming out, so we sat inside. But it was freezing in there! Way over-air conditioned; I had to fetch a jacket from the car.
(c) Oxley Estate Winery
Except for that, it was a pretty pleasant meal. The highlights were definitely the appetizers: Really delicious little lamb chops that I started with, and shrimp over Thai vegetables that Jean had. For mains I had perch, which was maybe slightly over-breaded, and Jean had pork chops with delicious beans. As wines we tried their Riesling and Pinot Noir. Both were fine, but not impressive enough that we felt a need to purchase a bottle of either.
The next morning we headed to Point Pelee, having concluded it would be too complicated to navigate ferries to get to Pelee Island. It was a very nice day again, so we did some hiking. Though always pleasant to walk in the woods, and though always kind of neat to look at the Great Lakes (so much water! so little salty sea scent!), we did not find it particularly spectacular. It’s quite flat, does not have especially interesting vegetation, and we did not see much wildlife.
We were impressed by this spider web in the park. There were “Spider Control” ads all over Leamington. We weren’t sure if that was about controlling spider infestations, or about using spiders to control insects…
They did have an exhibit of various Ontario snakes there, that you could touch and everything, but Jean did well just to go near them; he wasn’t up to taking photos. (I offered to, but he didn’t seem to want that, either.)
We also took the shuttle to the Tip, so now we’ve been at the southern-most point of Canada.
Our lunch this day isn’t worth going on about; that was our one bad meal.
But on happier note, we then visited more wineries! Viewpointe Estates we visited partly for the view, but we did also try some wines. We weren’t bowled over by them, but we did leave with their refreshing 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, along with their rather smooth 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon—pretty well aged for an Ontario wine.
The grounds at Viewpointe Estates. We did walk around, but did not have a drink on their patio.
We next visited a newer one called Cooper’s Hawk. They did particularly well with off-dry whites, and Jean seemed particularly in the mood for those, so we left with Pinot Grigio, a Chardonnay Musque, and a really interesting, effervescent Riesling / Gewurtz blend called Touché.
Though we’d originally planned to stop at two, we ended up also visited Black Bear Farms Winery, which had been recommended to us by the Smith and Wilson folks. They do only fruit wines (and here Jean would point out that grapes are a fruit, so OK, they make wines only with fruits other than grapes). And everything tasted pretty darn delicious—sweet, but not too sweet, not ice wine sweet. So the key was not trying too many types, or you’d whole cases of the stuff. As it was, we left with a blueberry, a red raspberry, a red / purple raspberry, and an elderberry (blended with some strawberry and raspberry).
I did some serious research afterward, in an effort to find a decent place for dinner. We ended up at Mettawas Station in Kingsville. It’s in an old train station, which was neat.
Side view of Mettawas Station Restaurant in Kingsville
Service was unsophisticated, but good, and most importantly, food was quite delicious. I had the escargot in portobello mushrooms, which was nice; very moderate in cheese. Jean had tomato, basil, and bocconcini—hard to go wrong. We both had pasta mains: Jean the gnocchi, me the “Athena” with olives, roasted red peppers, feta, white wine sauce. They do very well with pasta. After much debate, we had a Pellee Island red blend (2010 Vinedressers) that we quite enjoyed.
Very good pasta
There was a bit of confusion over our taking home the leftover wine, but it was sorted, and we left with the corked bottle.
Monday was mostly travel, but after breakfast and checkout, we did visit Mastronardi wines, in Kingsville (and bought some peaches from a stand along the way). We weren’t too bowled over by their wines, but did get the 2008 Cabernet Merlot. We stopped in Port Stanley for lunch again on the way back, this time dining at the Windjammer Inn. Quite a pleasant outdoor lunch there, of baked goods followed by more Lake Erie fish.
Seated in the third row of the Avon Theatre at Stratford, engrossed in our conversation, Jean and I were nearly jolted from our seats by the extremely loud opening chords of “The Overture”.
Judging by the nervous giggling all around us, we weren’t the only startled patrons. Welcome to The Who’s Tommy, live on stage at Stratford, Ontario.
Spot The Who amongst the literature at a Stratford bookstore
I enjoyed it very much, of course. Having seen it back in the 1990s in Toronto, I suspected I would. This version has more complex staging, more special effects. I couldn’t tell you what the differences are; I don’t remember well enough. But I can tell you this is one of the most elaborately staged musicals I’ve ever seen. There were always things to look at, all around the stage. (And from the third row, that sometimes made for a sore neck.)
So the one critique this production has received is that the effects and all are too much; that they overwhelm the excellent cast. Jean and I would disagree with that. Tommy is big rock musical with big themes. It and its cast are only enhanced by staging that matches those ambitions. And I, for one, did not find that it diminished the play’s emotional impact. I remain touched by Tommy’s situation.
As I know both the album and the movie inside and out, I found it interesting to see how the story was adapted for the stage. I had recalled, from the Toronto production, that the story is somewhat softened from the movie version, both necessary (to not restrict the play to those 18 and over) and a relief, given that the Uncle Ernie, Cousin Kevin, and Acid Queen happen to the 10-year-old Tommy in the play, unlike the Daltrey-aged Tommy in the movie. (And no, little Tommy is not left alone with a hooker; his father merely toys with the idea before coming to his senses.)
But I had forgotten tons of things, like the interplay of Tommy at ages 4, 10, and 20something, which both dramatizes the character’s extreme self-imposed isolation, and allows us to enjoy the performance of lead actor Robert Marcus in the first half, before Tommy grows up; the very different handling of the Sally Simpson story (at least compared with the movie); and the much bigger role of Cousin Kevin—which is great, as he’s played by the wonderful Paul Nolan (Jesus in last year’s Jesus Christ Superstar).
Most especially, I’d forgotten that lyrical changes that turned “We’re Not Gonna Take It” into Tommy’s refusal to lead his followers into his world of isolation, whereas both album and movie had Tommy trying to do just that, and them rebelling. (Of course, the followers reject him here as well—only for a completely opposite reason.)
There are many other lyrical changes (for example, “21” refers to the mother’s age rather than the year), but only one new song appears in this production: “I Believe My Own Eyes”, which provides the segue into “Smash the Mirror” (without any need of the movie’s baked beans and melted chocolate). It’s very much a Broadway song, more so than a Who tune, but having bought the soundtrack, I do find myself humming it at times, which is interesting.
As I’ve already suggested, I thought the cast was very good, and on a shallow note, I found young Mr. Marcus very attractive, looking rather better on that stage than he did in his publicity photos. Jean was similarly struck by the lovely Kira Guloien as Mrs. Walker.
Gotta say that one thing really lost in the stage version is the power and potency of the “Listening to You” final chorus that you get from hearing The Who play that live. But a play is a different animal than a rock concert. And this one is also worth experiencing, in my opinion.
Select quotes
“At least now I know why Tommy was deaf, dumb, and blind. I never understood that before.” — Jean
“I was hoping that I would know at least one song. Just one. But I didn’t recognize any of them.” — My Mom
“Oh my God. The music is by Pete Townshend? Of The Who? Oh my God. This is terrible!” — Lady sitting behind me
Après theatre dining
If you do go to Stratford, for Tommy or other, I might suggest dinner or lunch at La Taverna, which is a new section of Pazzo restaurant, as we very much enjoyed our meal there. It’s pretty small, but a pleasant room, with a comfortable feel. Sound level would have been fine, except we had a big Italian family dining next to us! 🙂 And the service was very good.
Appetizer
We started by sharing oysters, and a bocconcini bruschetta with figs and prosciutto (not pictured, but very nice).
Main course
Jean had a very nice gnocchi dish as his main, while I went with the fish special of the day.
Dessert
And we concluded with an arborio rice pudding for Jean and a “baked vesuvius” for me, that being a limoncello-soaked cake with lemon gelato and cardomom meringue. Delish.
We’d contemplated doing an overnighter this long weekend, but ultimately decided that a day trip would do. We decided to visit the little town of Fergus. Turns out to be a pretty quaint little place, with a lot of historic buildings. Many of the homes sport signs indicating the previous inhabitants’ name and occupation: landlord, farmer, shoemaker. The Grand River runs through it, and that lends it some interest as well:
Grand River in Fergus
It also had some nice trails.
Walk in the woods in Fergus
I also enjoyed its I Love Chocolate! store. And, we’d been hearing about how it had this fabulous Indian restaurant, so we tried that for lunch. It’s called Tandoori Grill. We decided to make it easy on ourselves and have the set Dinner for Two. This started with three small pieces of chicken tikka, and three small vegetable pakora. Both were tasty and came with three really nice dipping sauces.
That was followed by a chicken curry, a beef curry, (can’t recall exactly which ones of either of those) and veggie curry with cauliflower, chick peas, and potatoes. Served with rice and naan. This was clearly a place where they ground their own spices, which makes such a huge difference to the taste. The beef—something we normally wouldn’t have ordered—had fantastic texture and slightly sweet taste. The chicken was more “lively”, though the spice wasn’t excessive—it had more of cumulative effect.
Meal at Tandoori Grill in Fergus
So if you like Indian, and you find yourself in Fergus, I’d recommend this place.
We stopped in on Elora on the way home, acquiring yet more Rieker shoes! I also picked up some amazing champagne citrus vinegar at the Olive Grove.
Since we go to the Electric “Thursdays” series of concerts with friends, we typically go out for dinner first. This year, for whatever reason, each meal has been at a downtown Kitchener restaurant we’ve never been to before. Here’s how they were.
Niko Niko Roll &Sushi, at 20 King Street East, blessedly was not an “all you can eat” type, and did have pretty good sushi. One in our party had the Korean bim bap dish instead (vegetarian version), and also enjoyed that. The lack of wine was a bit disappointing; we tried the saki, but it wasn’t one of the better ones. The service was fine, if unspectacular. And they certainly got us out of there in plenty of time for the show. In fact, we even had time to get some wine from Centre in the Square…
271 West Restaurant, which is in fact at 271 King Street West in Kitchener, has kind of an Italian-focused menu, and brags of everything being made in-house. They also have a wine list, although not a good understanding of Ontario liquor laws: The waiter insisted (pretty adamantly) that we were not allowed to take a leftover bottle of wine with us. He’s wrong about that—here’s the proof—and as a result lost out on the sale of a bottle of a wine (in favor of two glasses).
The food was all right here, but nothing outstanding. But again, they at least did get us out in time.
Caesaria, at 320 King Street West, was selected based on its online menu, and at least some of us were surprised by its bar-like appearance. Our waitress was young, perky, and pretty, but not that well-informed about the menu. We heard “I’ll have to check on that!” quite a bit. But, to be fair, she did.
The meal timing was rather odd, in that our mains arrived very shortly after our starters, so we ended up with this overflow of food on our rather small table. The upside of it was that, at least, ensured that we once again were done in time for the show. The food here, too, was all right, but not outstanding. (Jean and I shared the edamame and hummus appetizers, and I had the chicken skewer main, while Jean had the squash ravioli.)
The final downtown Kitchener restaurant we tried, Marisol, at 30 Ontario Street South, was just me and Jean, before the KW Symphony’s wonderful Tap! pops concert (featuring dance music, complete with dancers). And it was… A really nice experience.
From their website: Marisol sign
The room is nice-looking and mellow, and as a change from the all the other places described, the waiter was very professional and skilled. He gave great wine suggestions and was clearly knowledgeable about all items on the menu.
The chef here once worked at Langdon Hall, and the menu is Mediterranean, with a lot of seafood items on offer. I started with the grilled calamari, which had a good texture and was in a really good sauce, while Jean enjoyed the grilled sardines in tomato caponata. If sardines can never live up to those we ate in Portugal, they were still well-prepared, and the tomato sauce very flavorful.
As a main, I had the lemon ricotta gnochi with tomato and pine nuts, and that was very nicely done. Jean had the fish special of the day, which was sea bream. We didn’t take the time for dessert on this outing, but if we had, I believe they still would have gotten us out in time for the show. Now, Marisol is more expensive than any of the other places we tried. But you do get what you pay for sometimes, eh?
So the do-overs would be Niko Niko Sushi & Roll and (especially) Marisol. The other two were experiences that were not unpleasant, but don’t particularly need repeating.
Our latest vacation had us spending about one week in Budapest, Hungary, and another week in Prague, Czech Republic. This gave us time to visit both cities in a fairly relaxed fashion, spreading out the sights we wanted to see over multiple days, leaving plenty of time for just ambling and enjoying.
Budapest was a return visit. It’s a very attractive city, its two halves bisected by the Danube. Jean’s default suggestion whenever we weren’t sure what to do next was to “go to the water”. We stayed in a hotel in central Pest, a convenient location that allowed us to walk almost everywhere. We were further encouraged in that approach by the weather, which was sunny and warm every single day.
Budapest
It was our first time in Prague, which is just gorgeous: stunning architecture and sculptures everywhere. It too has a river, but the focal point was really the Main Square, from which you could fan out (often on pedestrian-only streets) to most any of the city sights that were interested in. Our hotel was about 3.5 K from that area, though, so we made good use of the city’s excellent metro and tram system to get there, when we would resume walking. Weather was cooler and cloudier than Budapest, though fortunately not as rainy as predicted.
Prague
Synopsis of activities
Budapest: Monday—Got oriented to the city while jet-lagged. ■ Tuesday—Took guided tours of Parliament House, and of the State Opera. Attended a concert in a church featuring organ with other soloists. ■ Wednesday—Hiked up Castle Hill. Stopped in at the Liszt Museum. Went through the House of Terrors. ■ Thursday—Saw the sights at Heroes Square and in City Park. Spent time at the Széchenyi Baths. Stopped in at New York Cafe. ■ Friday—Day trip to the small town of Eger, for wine tasting and marzipan art museum. ■ Saturday—Went to the market, saw the Holocaust memorial, and took the night train to Prague.
Prague: Sunday—Got oriented to the city. ■ Monday—Encountered aftermath of a big gas explosion in Old town. Visited Prague Castle sights and the nearby Lobkowicz Museum and (briefly) Strahov Monastery. ■ Tuesday—Took walking tour of the Old Town. Visited the Mucha Museum. Walked on the Charles Bridge. ■ Wednesday—Visited the Jewish Museum sites, other than the Old New synagogue. Visited the Castle again, at night. ■ Thursday—Went to the Museum of Communism. Stopped in at the Cubist Cafe. ■ Friday—Took a bus tour to Terezin Concentration Camp Memorial. Attended a performance of La Traviata opera at the National Theatre.
Back when we visited Vienna, we had really enjoyed a tour of the Opera House there, so we decided to tour Budapest’s opera house as well. That was also very enjoyable—much better than the brief, uninspiring Parliament House tour we’d had earlier, for which we had to wait an hour in line for tickets. At the Opera, no waiting, longer visit, better information.
We were brought around to see various parts of the beautiful Budapest State Opera House: The boxes, the old smoking room (very advanced in its day to separate out smokers, but all that smoke meant major restoration work needed later), the bar, rehearsal rooms, and of course, the concert hall. We even got a little mini-concert at the end, with a tenor doing excerpts of three songs.
Budapest State Opera House
But as for attending an actual opera, we decided to do that in Prague, largely because it offers English super-titles, whereas (as far as I know) Budapest does not.
Getting the tickets in Prague proved more difficult than expected, though, not because shows were sold out, but just because I hadn’t properly researched how to do so. I was confused about which opera was taking place at which hall, where you bought tickets for what… At one point I even ended up buying tickets for a “puppet” opera by mistake. Fortunately, those were returnable.
Eventually, with some help from Google, I got it straightened out, and bought the tickets. They $55 each, for eighth-row center, for Verdi’s La Traviata at the National Theatre. Pretty amazing price, eh? Similar seats in Toronto would run you $365 each.
So then all we had to worry about was: How bored were we going to be during this opera? I’d read the synopsis, and it wasn’t much of a plot. Kind of Moulin Rouge, simplified: Doomed love affair between courtesan with consumption (and old baron boyfriend) and gentleman with disapproving family.
But Prague’s National Theatre is just gorgeous. And the people who attend the opera there dress to the nines. Between the place and the people, it was a feast for the eyes before a note had been sung.
Gorgeous people and place: Prague’s National Theatre on opera night
And the performance? Was just amazing. It begins with a big party scene and lots of lively singing by the chorus in fantastic outfits, so it’s all very entertaining. The leads were physically gorgeous as well as having beautiful voices. And sure the story is simple, but you can’t help getting emotionally invested in it anyway. We both got a bit verklempt during Violetta’s death scene.
So, no, I was never bored. Jean wasn’t bored. If you get a chance to see opera in Prague, I say go for it. (I’ll explain to you how to buy tickets.)
Not bored at the opera!
[Final aside: On the flight home I happened to watch Quartet, a film about old musicians. One character teaches young people about opera, and explains that the extended singing of all these emotions reaches the heart in a way nothing else can, and that Verdi writes for the human voice better than anyone else. That sounded exactly right to me.]
Nazis and communists
Both Hungary and the Czech Republic had the misfortune of being invaded by the Nazis, liberated by the Russians, then taken over by a Communist dictatorship. So a lot of the sights we saw focused on memorials of those times.
In Budapest, we went into the House of Terrors, a building that was once a headquarters of the Gestapo, then became the headquarters of communist Hungary’s secret police (equivalent of the KGB). The top floors gave a high-tech presentation of this dark history. The Nazi era was presented fairly quickly, to the soundtrack of Jews being shot into the Danube. Then there was a model of a Hungarian “changing clothes”, from Nazi to communist oppressor. The rest focused on that part of the history.
They don’t allow photos inside, so this is the outside of the House of Terrors.
In the Gulag room, around the displayed artifacts, we got video testimony of people who were sent to these work camps and survived. Another room showed faux democracy at the front, election fixing behind the curtain. We saw propaganda posters and bricks of pork fat representing shortages.
At one point, we had a wait for an elevator, then as we slowly descended in it (with a bunch of other people), we got a gory description of how executions were done. On exit, we were in the actual basement rooms, left much as they were at the time, where people were imprisoned, tortured, and executed. The last part was a wall of photos of the “victimizers”: those who committed these crimes. Some of whom have never been convicted.
A worthwhile visit, but not exactly cheery.
The Lobkowicz Museum in Prague gave a different perspective. The Lobkowicz’s are a formerly wealthy and prominent (Christian) family who lost their fortune twice: once to the Nazis, then again to the communists. They were able to regain it via a program run by the Prague government, and have put much of this treasure on display in the museum on the Prague Castle grounds.
The beautiful Prague Castle
The audioguide that accompanies the museum visit is by a member of the family, which makes it really interesting. The family did some amazing things in the past, such as subsidize Beethoven regardless of what he composed, for which the whole world should be grateful. And they have some beautiful items, like gorgeous rifles (really), original scores by Beethoven and others, and some amazing sketches of Rome in past times—though many of those sites remain in place today. It was maybe the best museum we visited on the trip. (Photos not allowed, though.)
The most visited museum in Prague, however, is the Jewish Museum, and we went to that as well. The most striking parts, to me, were the old cemetery and the Pinkas Synagogue. The cemetery was, for a long time, the only place the Jews of Prague were allowed to bury their dead. And it’s just so strikingly crowded, as they had to pile the bodies and fit in the gravestones as they could. Very sobering.
The extraordinarily crowded Old Jewish cemetery
The Pinkas Synagogue itself had, painstakingly painted on its walls in red and black, the names of every Jewish person from Prague and surroundings killed by the Nazis. So many names. When you think of it, it’s overwhelming. It also had an exhibition of drawings done by children from the concentration camp of Terezin, the only one where art materials were readily available (as the Nazis gathered Jewish artists there, to create propaganda posters for them).
Prague’s Museum ofCommunism didn’t have the drama of either of those, but I still found the tour of that fairly recent history pretty interested (Jean, less so). They had a lot of footage from the time of the Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime was defeated.
Display from the Museum of Communism
And yes, we visited a former concentration camp, Terezin. The camp was originally in two halves: a smaller part for non-Jewish prisoners—gays, gypsies, prisoners of war, and so on—and a larger part for Jews. The smaller one has been preserved much as it was at the time. We did have a tour guide to take us through it, which was good. The information on the extent of the crowding, the limited food rations, the work requirements, the minimal clothes, the unsanitary conditions, was just staggering. Though it had no gas chambers, most people did not survive this camp, and all that explains why.
“Work will set you free”: Terezin concentration camp memorial
The unusual thing about this camp is that, at one point, the Nazis let the Red Cross tour it as “proof” that Jews were not being mistreated. The Nazis were given 14 months to prepare, during which they did things like build an entirely new shower and bathing room—though it was never used. You can still tour that room. They temporarily gave prisoners more food and clothes so they wouldn’t look as bad, and filmed them playing soccer and singing. You can see part of that film here.
A “nice” shaving room, built to deceive the Red Cross; it was never used
As Jean described it, though, it was horrible, but in an abstract kind of way. I guess because it was seemed more historical (unlike the House of Terrors, where we heard still-living people describe their terrible experiences).
Experiencing the culture (kind of)
Budapest is fairly famous for its thermal baths, so we wanted to try them out. Traditionally, men and women bathe separately, in the nude. You can still do that today, at many sites, such as the famous Geller baths. But we instead went to Széchenyi Baths, where we could bathe together, wearing a bathing suit. Those baths also happened to be near Heroes Square and City Park that we also wanted to visit, so that all worked out.
City Park: Very pretty
But at the baths themselves, first we had to figure out the entry, towel rental, and change “cabin” (“more like a change closet”, Jean said) systems. Then find the pools. And then we got ourselves into the warm water, and we looked at each other, and we were kind of like, “Is that it?”
Fortunately, we then got more into the swing of things. We visited the “fun” outdoor pool, which had vortexes you got pushed along in and jets to play in. We also went in and toured the indoor pools, and some other parts of the building. Then we just switched between fun, cooler pool, and the warmer, calmer outdoor pools. We ultimately found it fun and intensely relaxing.
Szechenyi Baths
In Prague, we felt we should have Czech food and beer at least once. We did that the first day. Jean had this pork knee thing that was just huge; it looked like something from the Flintstones. It wasn’t bad, but it’s just not our preferred food or beverage. So after this, we did a lot of ethnic eating in Prague.
Hungarian food, on the other hand, we quite enjoyed. The goulash, the Jewish eggs, the paprikas… Most every meal we had quite good, often involving duck or foie gras. Which brings us to…
“Oh, that’s lovely”: Dining experiences
When we travel in Europe, we don’t go to the best restaurants. Who can afford that when eating out every single meal? Instead, we look for good value restaurants: Good food that doesn’t cost a fortune. But, in Budapest, we did visit a couple of their finest offerings in a budget-conscious way.
Cafe New York is called the most beautiful cafe in the world, and that could be true. To be able to peruse its architecture, we stopped in for non-alcoholic beverages only. The beverages cost more here than elsewhere, but they’re still just beverages, and they are very good. And it is a lovely room to sit in.
Photos not allowed at Cafe New York, so I snuck this one in using my cell phone.
And near the Széchenyi Baths, dining options are a little limited. But Grundles, one of Budapest’s best restaurants, kindly offers a 3800 Hungarin forint (about $19) three-course lunch, including glass of wine. So we went for that. The service is amazing: Your food is brought on silver tray. And yes, it tastes good, too: sour cherry soup (sounds weird, but these Hungarian fruit soups are wonderful), grilled chicken in mustard paprika sauce with salad, and chocolate lemon cake with vanilla custard for dessert.
We did spend one day in Eger, a not that exciting little town near Budapest. But it is in wine country, so I did a wine tasting. It wasn’t that informative, as the wine guy didn’t speak much English (a very rare thing throughout this trip, actually). But all the wines I tasted were very good, and what they call a serving is way more than what you get at Canadian wineries. Eger also has a museum full of things made of marzipan. Kind of amazing, really.
This is all marzipan! (i.e. sugary almond paste)
Prague also has a number of interesting cafes. We went to the Cubist Cafe for coffee one day; everything there is constructed on cubist principles (which we concluded really means angular designs, rather than a strict definition of cubes). And we had lunch at the Kafka cafe, whose motto is: Kafka snob food.
Definitely the most interesting and maybe the best place we ate at in Prague, though, was at Maly Buddha, near the Castle. It’s quite dark and candle-lit inside, with bamboo-based decor and corners set up like Buddhist shrines. Though meat dishes are on offer, much of the menu is vegetarian, and that’s we went for. (We were at the point in the trip where nothing seemed better than a big plate of vegetables!) Both the veggie soup starter and our two plates of vegetarian selections were just excellent.
The unusual atmosphere of Maly Buddha restaurant
Lehka Hlava (Clear Head) Vegetarian Restaurant, in Old Town, is a super-popular purely vegetarian that we also liked, though not quite as much as Maly Buddha. It has an enchanted forest setting and good food. We were lucky to get in without reservations.
Lehka Hlava vegetarian restaurant also had creative decor
Also worth mentioning is a little Chinese / Japanese restaurant we found, only because it took such effort. One night all the restaurants we had targeted (from guidebooks) turned out to be closed, or we just couldn’t find them. And ones we did find just seemed too expensive. And it was raining. So about an hour’s search, we finally went into this not-very-promising looking Chinese / Japanese restaurant.
Which actually, to our surprise, had very good sushi. Phew! (We even ate there again.)
[“Oh, that’s lovely”, by the way, was Jean’s favorite descriptor of food he enjoyed on this trip. Fortunately, I heard it quite often!]
Running into news
When we first turned on BBC News in our Budapest hotel, we were surprised that Canada was the top story. That was the day those terror suspects were arrested (before they did any damage). Otherwise, though, we didn’t really encounter anything newsworthy in Budapest. We did see the filming of a gum commercial, but that was about it.
In Prague, though, they did have a “top story of the day” major gas explosion downtown, right by the place where we planned to go first that day (in a doomed attempt at opera tickets). Hence we were there about an hour after that happened, in time to see the police barricades, helicopters, ambulances… From a Czech guy on the street we were able to decipher that it had been a gas explosion; at lunch I used my cell phone (on wireless) to read the story. Then we later emailed / Facebook’ed people to let them know we were OK.
Strangely, a police barricade also stopped us on another effort to buy opera tickets. I have no idea what that one was about. (And was rather amazed that two attempts at ticket buying had been stopped by police barricades!)
We also came across a big political protest another day. No idea what that was about, either. We made out the Czech words for Democracy and Capitalism on the signs, but couldn’t tell if the (mostly young) protestors were for or against them.
(I will add that we felt very safe in both cities, always, whether walking during the day or at night, or taking the metro or tram, day or night.)
Going mobile
At a dance we attended the day before leaving on vacation, for some reason someone was giving a demonstration of how to pack light for the trip. And the friends we were sitting with were laughing about them bringing an iPod, and a tablet, and a Kindle.
Well, for the record, I did pretty much the same thing: cell phone, iPod, tablet, and Kobo, all separate. I had my reasons; and besides, the total of all four still weighed far less than the stack of books I would otherwise have travelled with!
Most used, by far, was the Kobo. I put the travel books on it (along with a bunch of novels for leisure reading), and referred to it constantly. It was lightweight, had a built-in light, had a long battery life, and easy links to whatever part of the guidebook was needed… It worked much better than carrying around actual books (or a tablet). Only problem was maps being really too small to read, so we went low-tech for those: we supplemented with paper maps.
Second most-used was the tablet, whenever I could get wifi. In Budapest we didn’t want to pay for it at our hotel, so we would periodically wander the city with our tablets, looking for restaurants with free wifi. Fortunately, the cafe next door was one, so we went there a lot. Helped that it also had good food at reasonable prices.
In Prague we also didn’t want to pay for wifi, but it was free in the hotel lobby, and we were on the first floor—and that was close enough for us to connect. (It’s sad we were so pleased about that.)
And the iPod was great on the Eger bus trip, and the phone was occasionally useful for quick photos and checking of news items.
The travel part of travel
Since I’d knocked KLM Airlines a bit regarding our Danube trip, I’d now like to say that I was very impressed with them on this trip. They were pleasant, on time, served good food (for an airline), a good amount of food, alcohol included, had a nice entertainment system (I recommend the documentaries Searching for Sugarman and Queen of Versailles), offered advance check-in, didn’t lose our luggage… It was as good as flying economy can get, I think. We were even in seats with no one behind us on the flight up, so we could put our seats back as far as we wanted without being rude.
The night train from Budapest to Prague was also a good experience, generally. You don’t sleep that well on a train—it’s a bit noisy, bumpy, and it stops periodically. But you sleep some, and you save time and money that way. I think the trip actually includes a deliberate longer stop (during which you sleep better), both so you get a reasonable amount of sleep, and so you don’t arrive a 4:00 in the morning. And they include an alarm to wake up, and they give you breakfast! There’s even a shower available.
(For both plane and train, I must say, it helps to be short. All this stuff has to be more uncomfortable for the tall.)
On a train, on a train (with beloved tablet)…
The main downside was that you still arrive pretty early. We couldn’t check into our hotel when we arrived, and even after having a second breakfast there, we were still pretty early to be touring around Prague. Did mean we saw it without crowds, though, which is very rare in the Main Square. So I don’t think that was a bad way to go.
And finally: Customs at Pearsons has finally improved! They actually separate out Canadians and others (which I’ve been saying they should do for years) and they have an automated scanning option that lets you go through faster. So much better than before!
Since ’tis the season, I’ll share this recipe. It’s very easy (most tedious part is stirring until it thickens), and it’s delicious. Not overly sweet, it comes across as very light but with distinct maple flavour.
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 egg
2 cups skim milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp maple sugar
In a saucepan, beat all ingredients together except vanilla and maple sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture boils and begins to thicken. Cook one minute more. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Spoon into 4 dessert dishes. While still warm, sprinkle with maple sugar. Serve warm or chill before serving.
(If you don’t have maple sugar, brown sugar works.)
Verses Restaurant had previously done an “around the world in 20 plates” dinner; this time they offered a mere 13 dishes—one per Canadian province and territory. The event was conveniently timed around Jean’s birthday.
We arrived around 6:00 and were greeted with a cocktail built around maple-infused rye liqueur, nicely balanced by less-sweet ingredients. After about a half hour, we were seated. We were only three people at the last multi-course extravaganza; this time, we were a group of eight:
This is the menu we were working our way through. It’s definitely the cod tongue that caused the most chatter; Jean and I were the only who’d ever had it before. But more on that later…
The wine was handled the same way as at the 20-course dinner; no wine matching per se, just as much of the selected red or white as we wanted. The wines selected were Canadian (natch), from a winery called Sprucewood Shores. The unoaked Chardonnay was very crisp and citrusy; I wouldn’t have guessed it was Chardonnay at all. The red was a blend of Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon, and was pretty easy drinking. Both were suitably food-friendly.
First course was a crispy oyster from PEI, in a chow-chow sauce. We all had the same thought: “That was delicious. Sure could use some more.”
We weren’t moving through the country geographically, though, so our next stop was Saskatchewan. It consisted of squab on saskatoon berry sauce, with greens and wild rice. Despite being informed (by me) that squab was just a foodie word for pigeon, everybody dug in and enjoyed it.
The Nova Scotia item was listed ambiguously on the menu as “street food”. We tried to figure out what that might be, with some opinion that it must be some sort of sausage. I can’t remember who guessed “lobster” (wasn’t me), but that person was spot on. We got a lobster roll on coleslaw, served in a paper container! Quite tasty.
Jumping west again, the Manitoba offering of duck prosciutto, bison jerky, blueberries, and hemp chips proved to the favorite of many, albeit with some debate over whether the duck or the bison was the best part. (I’d go duck, myself, but would probably be outvoted on the whole.)
From the North now, Nunavut (misspelled on the menu, the many writers at the table noted), was a hearty caribou stew with bannock.
The home-grown offering (Ontario) was trout with corn and Jerusalem artichokes (solving the mystery of what j chokes meant on the menu). As typical with Verses, the fish was properly cooked, meaning not too much, so it wasn’t dried out. But at the end of this course, I started to realize I had a problem: We weren’t even halfway through the meal yet, and I was starting to get full.
The next item might as well have been designed exactly for Jean: A poutine of foie gras and Sauvagine, a Québec cheese that may be his favorite. The foie gras was really the jus for the dish, which I also found quite nice (unlike typical poutine), and blessedly pretty small (despite the picture making it look pretty big).
Moving to New Brunswick, we were offered rabbit dumplings with wildflower honey. It’s getting boring to say, but this was really good, too! Though I had to start leaving some on my plate by this point, knowing more was on the way.
The Yukon offering included two of my favorite things, crab and wild mushrooms.
And now, the infamous cod tongues! These ones were larger and a little chewier than the ones I’d recalled having in Newfoundland, though one might guess they were a bit fresher there. I still didn’t mind them; I think they basically taste like cod. This remained the most controversial dish of the evening, though.
And we don’t seem to have a photo of the Northwest Territories item! Elk and beans, that was.
Then, from Alberta, lamb chops with a side of barley. At this point, quite a few people, including us, requested a doggie bag. They were delicious the next day, too.
Dessert was from BC, featuring a gourmet Nainaimo bar and “hay” ice cream. Somehow, that dish managed to “slide down between the crevices”.
Deb from Verses then spoke to everyone, explaining the challenge of finding ingredients from across Canada at this time of year! The kitchen all joined us as well, for a well-deserved round of applause.
The final item was familiar to those of from the “more North” of Canada: Tire on snow, complete with log. That was great fun.
All that was left after was decaf coffees and teas, along with settling the bill, which was $150 a person all in, including tip.
Of course, with that much wine, nobody was taking a chance on driving home. (Well, except one, who took her “no alcohol with cold medication” advice very seriously indeed, and just drank water all evening!) Another group took a cab, but we decided to try the Over the Limit service, where two people come out to where you are, and one drives your car home while the other follows, counting kilometres. That worked out quite well, despite some glitches with their website booking. It costs slightly more than taking a cab, but nice not to have to go back for your car the next day.
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