Mal and Lauren

July 14, 2022

We spent the morning hanging around our beautiful AirBnB. The house was built in the 1970s but looks much older, having been constructed with hand carved stone.

In the afternoon, we drove to nearby Saint Cyprien for our first swim in Corsican waters. The beach was beautiful and not too crowded and the water was clear and warm. There was also a restaurant and bar right on the beach that sold excellent fresh food and refreshing drinks. It was a far cry from the fast food and supersize sodas you commonly find at American beaches.

July 13, 2022

We had a look around Santa Teresa di Gallura while we were waiting for our ferry to Corsica. The town’s small crescent shaped beach was very crowded so we walked up the headlands overlooking the beach for some spectacular views.

Then it was on to the ferry for the short ride across to Corsica.

Time to show off our new tattoos (temporary).

After a short ferry ride we pulled into Bonafacio, the home of several massive oligarch yachts and a centuries old fort.

July 12-13, 2022

We drove north, arriving in Olbia in the late afternoon. Olbia is a pretty seaside town. It is much smaller than Cagliari with about 60,000 inhabitants and also has much less graffiti.

At the market the locals were engaging in a lively discussion. Unfortunately, our lack of Italian meant that we weren’t able to participate or even determine what was being debated.

From Olbia we drove to nearby Sant’Antonio di Gallura where we spent the night at the Hotel Stazzo Lu Ciaccaru, which was set in idyllic countryside.

July 11-12, 2022

With close to half a million inhabitants, Cagliari is Sardinia’s largest city and also its capital. Arriving in the late afternoon, we checked into our hotel and walked to the nearby city center to get a late dinner. Well, we say late, but by Italian standards it was still early with most of the restaurants not filling up until after ten. One thing we like about European cities and towns is that they almost inevitably have a part of the town that is closed to cars and are lined with restaurants with outdoor seating. Cagliari was no exception.

On the next morning we went for a walk through the town and up to the old walled city with beautiful views over the city. Apart from Melbourne, Australia, we have never come across a city with such an affinity for graffiti.

June 7, 2022

Joe and Dale led us on a tour of the Yale University campus in New Haven. We started out at the Yale Center for British Art. The museum houses the largest collection of British Art outside the UK. It is in a building designed by Louis Kahn, the famous American architect, who taught at Yale in the forties and fifties.

There were a number of paintings by Marc Quinn on display. Apart from the paint splattered across it, it was almost impossible to tell that the following is, in fact, a realist painting and not a photograph. The original photograph, taken by Jonathan Bachman of Reuters, is called Taking a Stand in Baton Rouge. It is of Ieshia Evans being arrested during protests in 2016, following the shooting by police of Alton Sterling.

There was also a large exhibit of paintings by Bridget Riley. Many of the paintings were hard to look at without feeling somewhat dizzy. We got the sense that if we sat and looked at them long enough we were in danger of becoming hypnotized.

From the museum we set out on a stroll through the campus, guided by Joe, who had worked on a number of buildings at Yale. The original buildings on the campus were Georgian style. The brick building below called Connecticut Hall was built in 1750 and is the oldest building on campus. Standing outside the hall is a statue of Nathan Hale. Hale was a soldier and spy for the Americans during the Revolutionary War. He famously said “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”. Hale studied at Yale and, in fact, had a room is Connecticut Hall.

Now, most of the buildings on campus are Gothic Revival, and it is easy to imagine that you are in Cambridge or Oxford in England. Just as in those universities, Yale is divided into different colleges with their own residences built around private courtyards.

There were also a number of less traditional buildings, including this Brutalist gem. Designed by Paul Rudolph and completed in 1963, it houses the School of Architecture.

Our favorite was the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Designed by Gordon Bunschaft, its facade is constructed of translucent veined marble and granite. The marble is milled to a thickness of 1.25 inches, so that on a sunny day the marble transmits filtered daylight into the interior. The building surrounds an interior glass structure that protects the rare books and manuscripts.

The most famous book in the collection is one of the 49 surviving copies of the Gutenberg Bible, the earliest major book printed using mass-produced metal type. Although one has not been sold since 1978, the bibles are thought to be among the world’s most valuable books.

School had let out for the Summer, so there weren’t many students around. However, there were some out enjoying the sunny day.

Later that day we flew back into Washington DC, and were treated to some great views of the city.

June 5-6, 2022

We spent a wonderful couple of nights staying with our dear friends Dale and Joe in the idyllic village of Stony Creek. Here they are outside their beautiful new home, designed by Joe.

The village sits on Long Island Sound and just off shore are a number of small islands. Appropriately called the Thimble Islands, they are in fact an archipelago of small islands, many of which are just large enough to support one or two homes.

On the day we arrived, Joe and Dale took as on a stroll. Here are some of the beautiful scenes that we saw along the way.

On the next morning, we continued exploring the village on our own.

In the afternoon we drove over with Dale to the nearby town of Guilford with its beautiful town green.

Then to cap off a wonderful day, we went for a sunset cruise on the Mystic river in a classic wooden speedboat. Some of you may know Mystic from the classic eighties romcom, Mystic Pizza, starring Julia Roberts in her first major movie role.

June 4, 2022

After spending a couple of days checking out one of Boston’s newest districts, we made our way over to Back Bay, a much more traditional neighborhood.

First stop was the Saturday market that surrounds Copley Square.

Sitting at the edge of the square is Trinity Church. Designed by Henry Hobson Richardson and built in the 1870s, it is the building that established Richardson’s reputation and is the birthplace and archetype of the Richardson Romanesque style.

Overlooking the church is another iconic Boston building. At 62 stories, The John Hancock Tower is the tallest building in New England. It was designed by Henry B. Cobb of the firm I.M. Pei & Partners and was completed in 1976.

The square is named for John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) who is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential painters in colonial America.

From Copley Square it was just a short walk to Newbury Street, which in our view is one of the world’s great shopping streets. It is named for the victory of the Puritans in the 1643 Battle of Newbury in the English Civil War. Not sure that the Puritans would approve of the high end retail stores, restaurants and bars that now line the street. It is lined with beautiful brownstone buildings that were originally homes before being converted into retail spaces.

Here is the crew midway through their day’s shopping spree.

June 2-3, 2022

The Seaport District is a redeveloped stretch of the South Boston waterfront, lined with modern buildings, restaurants, bars and hotels.

The area appears to cater mainly to the young professional crowd, with trendy pop-up stores, garden bars, outdoor yoga (complete with DJ) and a large supply of Rose wines in the neighborhood market.

Anchoring the district is the striking Institute of Contemporary Art.

While we were there, they were preparing for the Red Bull cliff diving competition, where absolutely crazy people jump from gang planks extending from the roof of the gallery and drop 90 feet to the harbor below, while twisting and turning. Google cliff diving and Boston, to get an idea of just how insane it is. You can see the diving platforms in the photos below.

The gallery had an installation, Love is Calling, by the world’s most instagrammable artist, Yayoi Kusama. The immersive, vividly colored infinity mirror room consisted of tentacle-like inflatable sculptures covered with the artist’s signature polka dots.

Adding to the eeriness was a recording of Kusama reciting a love poem in Japanese. Here is an English translation of the poem.

May 6, 2022

We spent a rainy day exploring Fauquier and Rappahannock counties, about an hour’s drive outside of Washington, DC. Fauquier is named for Francis Fauquier who was Lieutenant Governor of Virginia at the time the county was established in 1759. Legend has it that he won the land in a poker game. Rappahannock is named for the river that separates it from neighboring Fauquier. It comes from the Algonquian word meaning “river of quick, rising water” or “where the tide ebbs and flows.”

We started the day by picking up our close friend Charlet at her farm near the small town of Marshall.

From there, we drove toward nearby Washington, Virginia, the county seat of Rappahannock. On the way we stopped for a country breakfast at the Orlean market. It is a classic American country store.

Complete with all the classic American food staples.

The countryside was particularly beautiful in the soft mist.

The horses were snacking on the fields of yellow buttercups.

We bought some fresh produce at Chancellor’s Rock Farm.

Finally, we arrived at Washington which centers around its famous inn. The Inn at Little Washington was established in 1978 and was the first inn to receive a Mobil Travel Guide 5-star award. In 2018, it received a coveted three-star rating from the Michelin Guide. Here are some photos of the inn and its surrounding gardens.

There are a number of beautiful old homes in the town, ranging from large mansions to tiny cottages.

From Washington we headed over to nearby Sperryville. With the rain coming down we headed into the massive antique market.

We also stopped by the charming little apothecary

But, unfortunately, didn’t have time to sample the wares at the Copper Fox distillery.

April 3, 2022

On a coolish Sunday, our friends Sally and Liz suggested an outing to the National Gallery of Art and we happily agreed. The newer East Wing was closed for renovations but there was plenty to see in the massive neo-classical West Wing. Designed by architect John Russell Pope, at the time of its opening in 1941, it was the largest marble structure in the world. An interesting piece of trivia, the museum stands on the former site of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station where American President, James Garfield, was shot on July 2, 1881. He died 79 days later on September 19, 1881.

After the last couple of years, it was nice to see the building filled with throngs of people and nary a mask in sight. It almost seemed like old times.

Always popular are the impressionists and post-impressionists.

Perhaps, the rarest paintings in the Gallery’s collection are the three (possibly four) small paintings by Johannes Vermeer, the 17th century Dutch painter.

Speaking of beautiful portraits by artists with Dutch names of people in places with Dutch names, we also enjoyed the temporary exhibit of James Van Der Zee’s Harlem portraits. Van Der Zee was an American black photographer who lived from 1886 to 1983. Born in Lenox, Massachusetts he moved to Harlem when he was twenty. In 1916 he opened a studio in Harlem and for over fifty years, he took thousands of photos of the community’s largely middle-class black clientele, including many of the most prominent Black intellectuals and activists of the era. Here are some of his beautiful portraits.