Vienna - The Hofburg's Silver Collection

The Silver Collection at the Hofburg is probably one of the most dazzling collections of tableware in the world, attesting to the enormous wealth and tastes of the Hapsburg monarchs.

The Silberkammer is actually a misnomer: there are also porcelain, glassware, crystal, and table linen. Spread out in glass cases across a series of rooms, the collection once formed an important part of the Imperial household’s possession.  Vast quantities of silver even went with the emperor on campaigns, holidays, and hunting expeditions.  And yes, there were trunks and containers especially designed for the staff to carry the dining gear around.

The Chinese collection

Inside the museum, there are dishes, kitchen utensils, even handwritten recipes, menu cards and shopping lists from the Imperial kitchens. There is Maria Theresa’s personal cutlery (of solid gold); a set of `duck squeezers’ used to extract meat juices, which were boiled for Sisi’s consumption (she was obsessed with dieting, and maintained a waif-like figure even after bearing three children); and an Oriental-pattern dinner service made for Emperor Maximilian of Mexico (Franz Josef’s brother; he never used the service, since he was executed in Mexico before it could be shipped overseas).

Here are a few of my personal favourites -

<>    

The former Silver & Table Room

The 4,500 piece, 1,100 kg Grand Vermeil dinner service, of gilded silver. At one time, all courses (except soup and dessert) were served on silver; porcelain was considered too lowly. It wasn’t till the Napoleonic Wars when Austria was so impoverished that even the Imperial silver was melted down into coin, that porcelain became fashionable.

Fabulous gold centrepieces

The table centrepieces that were used, with flowers, fruit and sweets, at banquet tables. One in particular- a gilded French ensemble, is 30 metres long and is a miniature tabletop Versailles, with its bowls, candelabras, and mirrors.

Exquisite craftsmanship from Stoke

The Minton set, lace-like and perfect in bright blue and white, which was gifted by Queen Victoria. Decorated in floral patterns and made by the Minton Porcelain Manufactories in Stoke, the porcelain was never used because it was so fragile.   

A piece from the Sevres dinner service

The Sèvres dinner service, complete with soup tureens, which were the first pieces to be decorated with the broad green ribbons that later became a hallmark of Sèvres.   

The white 'flower plates'

A Sevres tureen

The `flower plates’ made especially for Franz Josef I, who was very fond of flora and fauna. Ono each of these plates is painted, in painstaking (almost botanically perfect) detail, a single flower.

Stratford upon Avon

To Stratford upon Avon, to the newly refurbished Royal Shakespeare Theatre, home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, to see Macbeth.  It was a challenge to understand the words and more so, the beauty of the words.  In the second half, I fell asleep....


Inside the auditorium, RST



The stage setting was stark and foreboding, as befit a tragedy depicting the murders by Macbeth, of Duncan King of Scotland, Banguo, Lady Macduff and her children.  There was a lot of blood, vividly splashed on the white night clothes of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Inside the theatre, the stage was at a level with the audience, and it was somehow surreal to see actors emerging from the audience to get onto the stage, or indeed being lowered onto the stage from hoists (with safey harness of course, the Health and Safety brigade would so insists). 



Beautiful carved wood



The town of Stratford is essentially sustained by the past efforts of one man: Shakespeare.  The town centre has an abundance of restaurants, tacky tourist gift shops, and the usual high street chain stores.  Thankfully, some of the original half-timbered, black and white buildings still stand.  Hidden away from the thoroughfares, in small courtyards, are art galleries, touting paintings bearing price tags upwards of £2,000.  No one seemed to be buying in these austere times.



A serene River Avon



Folk dancers huddled together



On a windy and chilly day, the River Avon was without commercial traffic.  A lonely boat appeared from nowhere, with a woman rowing energetically, while her male companion looked on with approval.  Along the river banks, adjacent to the Theatre, were barges selling all sorts of food and drink, quite an imaginative use of these long boats which reminded one of the industrial past.



Shakespeare's birth place



The draw of the town is undoubtedly Skakespeare's birth place.  On the outside, the house looks well preserved. We chose to see it when all the tourists had gone, when the place was closed, and when the stage was half empty of actors.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."
As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139–143   

The grandeur of Vienna

 

The Hapsburg's summer retreat at Schonbrunn Palace:

even the rain could not dimimish its magnificence

Stephansdom : the grand exterior in contrast to

a much more restrained interior

Part of the vast Hofburg Complex: the seat of the

Austrian power for over 6 centuries

The Cafe at Kunsthistorisches Museum

The spectacular ceiling of the Kunsthistorisches Museum:

underneath which a flood of Japanese and Eastern Europe tourists

posed for photographs and then promptly returned to their coaches

High Altar at Karlskirche

The monumental, historicist-style facade of the Musikverein

The formal garden seen from Upper Belvedere  

The baroque State Hall of the Austrian National Library:

a jewel among the historical libraries in the world

Harrow on the Hill

A quintessential college village, home to one of UK's well known private school, this quiet corner of northwest London looked sleepy after the school boys in their straw boaters had dispersed after their Saturday classes. 

Here, we met up with friends to sample Italian fare under shards of spring sunlight that filtered through the skylights above the retained oak beams in a restaurant that was once the village post office, and we watched two love birds teasing each other about the engagement ring, their 12-hour day in investment banking, and indulged in the pleasures of thrice cooked chips flavoured with truffle oil.