Posted by admin on March 31, 2007 under Rome hotels and events | 
Teatro dell’Opera di Roma 31 March 2007
Posted by info in : Events in Rome , trackback
The Teatro dell’ Opera was originally known as the Teatro Costanzi. The Teatro originally opened in November 1880. It was built within eighteen months on the site where the house of Heliogabalus stood. It was established on 27 November 1880 with a performance of Semiramide by Gioachino Rossini.At present the capacity is 1,600.The post-war period saw celebrated productions including Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in 1964 and Verdi’s Don Carlos in 1965, both conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini and directed by Luchino Visconti. On January 2 1958 the Theater was the venue for a controversial performance of Norma starring Maria Callas that was given in the presence of President of Italy.
The theatre is located at Piazza Gigli, and is five minutes walk from Repubblica Metro Station (Linea A), and close to Stazione Termini, which is only few minutes walk from Hotel Des Artistes
Students, and those under the age 25, and over-65 qualify for half-price tickets, but not for first nights or low costing seats. Holders of some train tickets are also eligible for discounts.
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The Teatro dell’ Opera was originally known as the Teatro Costanzi. The Teatro originally opened in November 1880. It was built within eighteen months on the site where the house of Heliogabalus stood. It was established on 27 November 1880 with a performance of Semiramide by Gioachino Rossini.At present the capacity is 1,600.The post-war period saw celebrated productions including Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in 1964 and Verdi’s Don Carlos in 1965, both conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini and directed by Luchino Visconti. On January 2 1958 the Theater was the venue for a controversial performance of Norma starring Maria Callas that was given in the presence of President of Italy.
The theatre is located at Piazza Gigli, and is five minutes walk from Repubblica Metro Station (Linea A), and close to Stazione Termini, which is only few minutes walk from Hotel Des Artistes
Students, and those under the age 25, and over-65 qualify for half-price tickets, but not for first nights or low costing seats. Holders of some train tickets are also eligible for discounts.
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Posted by admin on under One stop travel guide to Paris |
La Seine River is pronounced ‘SEN’ as in SEND without the D. As opposed to SANE as in INSANE.
The Seine was named after a River Goddess Sequana and in the time of the Gauls, the river was thus called Sequan.
(I find this word to be similar to sequin - and at times the Seine looks almost as if shimmering black sequins dance on caplets when the wind picks up.)
If you have problems with masculine and feminine ‘le’ and ‘la’ -
it’s La Seine, but Le Fleuve (The Seine, the River) and just to confuse things a bit more - la riviere - except that in French riviere isn’t a river, it’s a stream.
The Seine is 500 miles long. It’s source is in St. Germain-la-Feuille in Burgundy and it eventually makes its way through Normandy (through Rouen, and finally Le Havre) where it tumbles into the Channel.
Why is the Left Bank called the Left Bank and the Right Bank called the Right?
Because the Seine River twists and turns so much throughout the city, you must decide your left from your right by following the Seine downstream. That would be from East to West. Therefore when you take your Bateux Mouche ride, if the Eiffel Tower is on your left, you’re traveling downstream. If Notre Dame is on your left, you’re traveling upstream. (But just to add to the confusion. Notre Dame isn’t on the Left Bank and it isn’t on the Right Bank - it’s on Ile de la Cite - which is an island.
The most important thing to remember about Paris Trivia - rarely is anything simple.
Posted by admin on under Europe Accommodation |
I’m starting a new feature for the blog, guest interviews with people working in the travel industry serving, at least partially, the European market. I hope this will make for some variety in the blog, instead of me chuntering on incessantly. I hope it will provide some insight into all the facets of working in the European travel trade.
If you can think of anybody that you’d like me to ask to do an guest interview or if you work in travel in Europe and would like to take part please let me know.
Posted by admin on under Europe Accommodation |
Of the 22% of adults planning a trip during the Easter holidays, 61% will stay away for at least one night in the UK, while 29% will go abroad. Is the tide beginning to turn? I can only speak personally, I certainly am appreciating the UK more and more, particularly as I spend more time visiting areas when writing my guides. I have lived within a one hour drive of Edinburgh for the majority of my life and yet seen so little of it.
I was in the Edinburgh area yesterday doing some research for an off the beaten track guide to Edinburgh. Although the weather wasn’t great, cloudy with a cool wind I thought what a beautiful city. I was in Holyrood Park, I could hardly believe I was in a city. I was on the shores of Loch Duddingston looking up to Arthur’s Seat in Holyrood Park.
Posted by admin on under Europe Accommodation |
This year’s Science Festival is subtitled, “Science you can handle”. Several events are aimed at kids. such as Dig up a Dinosaur, Unwrap a Mummy and Lego Robosports. The event take part at various venues including the Botanic Gardens.
Our kids used to love going to the Science Festival and I think it’s a great day out for the Easter holidays which isn’t too weather dependent.
Posted by admin on under One stop travel guide to Paris |
You might think of David Lynch first and foremost as a film director. His films tend to stick with you - like Blue Velvet and Elephant Man, indelible images, indelible music, indelible, but the Air is on Fire - currently on exhibition at the Fondation Cartier in the 14th Arrond. is his ‘at ease’ standing-still medium.
It’s thanks to Holly Brubach’s A Moving Canvas interview with David Lynch in NYTimes Style Magazine (Feb 25 ‘07) that I didn’t want to miss this show. I’m not sure which I love more -Brubach’s prose - or the opportunity to tag along right behind Director Lynch - as he shows us his ‘tableaux’. (Be sure to click on the What’s On icon at the Fondation Cartier website to view David Lynch’s personal tour of the show! I tried to do a direct link for you but it didn’t link through).
Every film director should be so lucky as to have an interviewer like Brubach “Lynch paints with darkness the way other filmmakers slather on the sunbeams and fluorescent glare. The images unfold- breathtaking, perplexing - and we watch, in the grip of beauty and fear.” She writes.
To accompany Brubach’s story, photographer Nadav Kandar chooses a stark white background against which the director’s gray hair sweeps into a Van Gogh brushstroke. His electric blue eyes scan a horizon - that has absolutely nothing to do with the here and now. (I think this portrait is an homage to Van Gogh - which was a brilliant decision on Kandar’s part. A lesser photographer might have settled for a blue velvet backdrop.)
If you plan on making this pilgrimage to view Air is on Fire, you’ll also have the opportunity to admire Jean Nouvel’s architecture. Built in 1994. over a decade before the recently opened Musee du Quai Branly, you’ll have the opportunity to judge how his work has evolved over the past decades. The effect of glass dividers between gardens, interior and the street traffic is very democratic - rather than hide away gardens from pedestrians, we can enjoy the view - even if we don’t get around to stopping inside.
It also is a good tribute to the idea of “thinking outside the box”. For those of us who remember the squat walls marking off the old American Center - the emergence of Le Nouvel’s also marked the end of an era - the funky, hippy, dippy days of jazz-dance classes, etc. the scruffy but somewhat endearing garden speckled with sculpture . . . Nowadays, Chateaubriand’s Lebanon cedar tree is carefully swallowed in a glass sarcophagus, like a modern day Snow White - things change.
As long as art continues to find its place in space - all is well with the world.
Enjoy the show.
Musee du Fondation Carter
261 Blvd. Raspail
Metro: Raspail or Denfert Rocereau
Closed Mondays
11 am to 10 pm Tuesdays.
11 am to 8 pm Wed - Sunday
Posted by admin on March 30, 2007 under One stop travel guide to Paris |
“The exotic Joyzelle!” - said to be “the most sensational bacchanalian revel scene ever filmed” Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Sign of the Cross” (1932).
April 4th you can meet with journalist and fellow blogger Heather Stimmler Hall to learn about what Paris has to offer for naughty girls - (it’s sure to be more than just sticks and stones - although when it comes to old stones and bones - Paris has plenty of them).
This event is sponsored by Context Paris’s ‘Out of Context’ series of lectures and events that have been designed for true Paris-ophiles or for the traveler looking for something unique and off the tourist track.
The 1 1/2 hour ’salon event’ will be held in a private home in Montmartre. The cost is 35 Euros with refreshments included.
Stimmler Hall’s book project discussion will include an intro to some of the bawdier parts of Paris - exploring sex boutiques - and more…
Even if you don’t make it to the salon gathering on April 4th, you definitely should take a look at both Heather Stimmler-Hall’s website:
Secrets of Paris as well as Context Paris.
Both websites offer hotel listings, a calendar of events that would be of interest to visitors eager to capture the essence of Paris. I really like Ms. Stimmler-Hall’s usurpation of La Joconde’s picture frame for her autoportrait (but I still think that James Spader makes the better Mona -see my post on Boston Legal).
You’ll appreciate the fact that Stimmler-Hall’s site is about as commercial free as you’re apt to find on any Paris site and that she maintains a journalist’s unbiased vision. A good role model for us fellow bloggers!
Context Paris is worth a visit especially if you have a short time in Paris and want someone to ‘take you in hand’ for a personal tour. At first glance the guided tours may seem pricey - you know that you’ll return home with a better understanding of the city. Although I have not yet taken one of their tours, I have taken a Paris Walks tour which I found very useful in getting to know parts of my own neighborhood - Montparnasse.
In planning your trip - if you do enjoy walking - find a good walking guide and your visit to Paris is sure to be enriched.
Posted by admin on under One stop travel guide to Paris |
In a past post, I asked whether Charles Dickens’ description of Paris during the French revolution truly reflected the same city that Ben Franklin had visited shortly before the revolution. (A good example of just how much the aristocracy could continue to remain out of touch how quickly the situation was degenerating would be the Letters of a 50-year-old Woman, her account of returning to Paris as an emigre).
Although Dickens centralizes his story around the St. Antoine district, a stone’s throw from the Bastille, you can read a compelling document of the times, Louis-Sebastien Mercier’s “Tableau de Paris” which describes the St. Marcel neighborhood (13th arrondissement). “There, a man holes up in a garret, evades the police and the hundred eyes of their stool pigeons, almost like a tiny insect escapes the most concentrated effort to find him.”
(Does this sound vaguely familiar?). It’s exactly at this moment in A Tale of Two Cities when Dickens actually begins to get his plot rolling. I would love to know if he had read these lines of Mercier’s book and said ‘aha’.
It’s particularly interesting that Mercier should suggest that someone could easily hide himself in a garret for months on end, far from the eyes and ears of the police. The miserable conditions are obvious enough - so much so that even the sometimes romantic exagerations of the 19th-century really don’t seem to fall short of the actual conditions of the day for working class Paris.
Now if you were to believe Fodor’s description of Paris neighborhoods, the ‘grimy’ 13th arrondissement doesn’t offer much for visitors - but that’s far from the truth. The 13th may well be one of Paris’s most fascinating and overlooked neighborhoods (and you must look for its little pockets of treasures). I have already mentioned Paris a Velo, C’est Sympa offers a bicycle tour to some of the 13th’s most charming locales. Drop breadcrumbs along the way because it’s hard to find your way back to some of these streets otherwise - unless you have your Plan de Paris and a good memory for street names.
One of my favorite spots in the 13th is the Hopital Pitie-Salpetriere - which started off as a gunpowder depot (salt peter), then a prison, then an asylum for indigent women, prostitutes and the insane.
It’s worth noting that during the French Revolution, the prostitutes were liberated -but the insane were murdered (according to Wikipedia).
Also, you’ll learn at the Wikipedia site that architect Liberal Bruant designed the Salpetriere Chapel in 1675. (He also built Les Invalides).
(Wikipedia.org photo) (Visit their site for more info about the Hopital Salpetriere.)
The hospital grounds can be a very pleasant place for an afternoon stroll. If you sense the phantoms of past residents are hovering over you - that wouldn’t surprise me one bit.
Posted by admin on March 29, 2007 under One stop travel guide to Paris |
About an hour from the time of this posting, Air Pocket Symphony will be performing at La Cigale, 120 Blvd. de Rochechouart, 18th. Metro: Pigalle.
The show is sold out, but a there’s always a chance of some extra last minute tickets. GogoParis.com does a good job of listing many of the upcoming music events in the City of Light.
Meanwhile, I’m a sucker for catchy websites and I couldn’t help but wander over to Air’s site for their new album ‘Pocket Sympathy’ and a chance to listen to a sample from ‘Left Bank’. The lyrics are nice.
I’m always on the look-out for any songs that refer to specific neighborhoods or parts of Paris (as you may recall in Jazz Haze).
Sitting looking out the window, listening to the traffic, etc. we do a lot of that on the Left Bank…
The music critics are mixed in their response to Pocket Sympathy- some say boring but it’s probably a question of your own mood at the time. I find it helps when you get to the site to remember to click one of the desktop speakers for more music options. I guess I’m easily pleased.
Posted by admin on under One stop travel guide to Paris |
All this because someone decided not to pay his fare on the Metro. Several news reports agree now that the original incident involved a 32-year-old man from the Congo. His response to being stopped for not having a Metro ticket varies from newspaper to newspaper - apparently some bystanders state that he did respond physically “en portant un coup de tete” -Of all the news reports, I thought Raphael Domenach and Benoit Hasse’s Le Parisien news report did a good job of presenting the hour by hour unfurling of events.
Some reports placed the number of youths in conflict with the police at close to 200 rather than 100. It’s interesting to note that in the first stages of the conflict, commuters continued to travel throughout the train station until the Metro and RER entrances and exits were blocked by CRS police.
The CRS or the Republican Security Corps answer to the Ministry of Defense. Blake Erhlich describes them in Paris on the Seine:
“They are the government’s formal response to that irregular question, the mob. The CRS dress, though it is thoroughly contemporary, gives the impression of black armor. They are held away from the capital, aloof, mysterious, almost invisible, to be called down like thunderbolts.”
It should be noted that the day following the incident at Gare du Nord, Metro and commuter traffic was back to normal. Because many of the onlookers at Gare du Nord brought along the video cams - you can see plenty of video footage at Daily Motion.com.
Needless to say, the politicians have been quick to use this sorry situation to further their own agendas - forcing opposing parties to take sides:
i.e. are you for enforcing the payment of Metro fares by passengers - or are you more inclined to let the occasional turnstile jumper slip through?
The comments that I’ve read range from: “The Metro tickets are too expensive. The transportation should be free.” to “I’m going to vote for ‘Le Pen’.” These were two comments that I read today in the Liberation newspaper’s comment section.
In the past I’ve spoken with passengers on the train that runs from Gare St. Lazare to Normandy via Mantes. One passenger told me: “When the controllers try to hand out fines for people taking a free ride, they just blatantly rip up the fine. The controllers don’t do anything. They’re afraid.”
That wasn’t the case yesterday.
