Monday Memories, Pt 2—The Nemacolin Woodlands Resort

Between the two museum tours, the Carnegie and the Frick we had a wonderful lunch in Pittsburgh at Lydia’s of Insalata Caesar, a trio of pasta—malfatti with fresh spinach and ricotta, ziti with sausage and onion, and wild mushroom ravioli with thyme butter sauce, topped off with assorted cookies. 

In the beautiful sun room at the Chateau in Nemacolin

Then we continued on to The Nemacolin Woodlands Resort near Farmington, Pennsylvania, about 215 mi. from Columbus. At Nemacolin (named for a famous Indian) there are several elegant hotels, cottages, houses and town homes to rent; wonderful restaurants, a zoo, swimming, skiing, tennis, bowling, dog sledding, off road driving instruction, fly fishing, golf, shooting ranges, spa and fitness, special activities for children and babysitting, an RV park and wonderful shops. There are also accommodations and spa for your pets (dogs, I think). Nearby in Ohiopyle is river rafting. And, a casino.  Really there is something for everyone, and all ages.

The owners of the resort, the Hardy family of 84 Lumber, have art valued at $45 million--everything from antique cars to Tiffany lamps to paintings and prints.   After breakfast in one of the wonderful restaurants in the Chateau Hotel, our group gathered in the registration area and with docents viewed a very small piece of the collection, primarily paintings, Tiffany glass and some glass sculptures. The collection is best described as eclectic and idiosyncratic.

Monday Memories—Our Week-end in Pennsylvania Pt. 1

We had a wonderful week-end of art through Art Escapes of the Columbus Museum of Art. We visited the Carnegie and Frick museums in Pittsburgh; had an Italian lunch at Lydia's; then stayed at the Nemocolin Woodlands Resort, which has a number of art collections, and we saw only a part of it; then on to Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob homes, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Carnegie and Frick museums in Pittsburgh

At the Carnegie Museum of Art we caught the last day of the 2013 Carnegie International—35 artists from 19 countries. None of us were too excited by Phyllida Barlow’s sculpture at the entrance which looked like scattered steel wrapped with pink and orange ribbons, but after the tour, it made more sense.

One of my favorites was the neon sign pieces by He An, or at least it was until I learned how he had made it—stole the signage from various fast growing cities in China.

While we were observing Erika Verzutti’s strange forms and objects assembled on the floor, we saw a delightful little girl about 7 or 8 with her notebook, trying to copy the imagines.

There was some interesting art made from confiscated guns by a Mexican artist and an abstract sequence of “film frames” by Sadie Benning. Cubes by Lara Favaretto made of confetti were fascinating, although the docent explanation wasn’t clear. There was a large exhibits of photos of lesbians of South Africa by Zanele Muholi. I didn’t find anyone who liked the soft sculpture by Sarah Lucas—sort of stuffed panty hose in very suggestive positions which was supposed to represent the oppression of women, I think. I spent the most time (up close) examining the photos by Taryn Simon of women of the James Bond movies. There are just too many to mention all of them. I’ve not been a fan of contemporary art, but I thoroughly enjoyed the Pezzuti collection we saw last month, which I enjoyed much more than the 2013 International.

“An American Odyssey” is showing at the Frick Museum from March 1 to May 25, 2014.  There are many other things to see there like the Frick home and a car collection. This is from the Warner Foundation, the private collection of Jack Warner, who believes American history can be told through its art.

“The Warner collection is one of the most important collections of American art formed in recent decades, and the breadth and variety of works represented are both artistically and historically illuminating. Portraiture, still life, landscape, and genre painting are all represented with major groups of works by Hudson River School artists and American Impressionists, as well as significant groups of work by individual artists like Winslow Homer (1836–1910) and Mary Cassatt (1844–1926).“  http://www.thefrickpittsburgh.org/eventlist/events/index.php?eID=7881

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20110227/NEWS/110229628

Frank Lloyd Wright on What's my Line

Our local architectural tour group is planning a trip to Buffalo August 14-16, but we have a conflict and won’t be going this year. It’s a fun group and great prices, if you're interested. Buffalo is a fabulous city for architecture. Contact Patsy Frost at Schooley Caldwell, pfrost@sca-ae.com if you’d like to be included. The bus holds 36. Our main interest as a group is visiting Frank Lloyd Wright sites/designs, but we see other things too. In Buffalo the group will visit the Martin House Estate, the new Greatbatch Pavilion there, the Mausoleum in Forest Lawn Cemetery, the Heath House and the Davidson House, with stops at the newly restored Erie Canal Harbor area and the Butler mansion; they'll stop at Oberlin to tour the Weltzheimer House on the way back to Columbus.

Anyway, FLW was on What’s my Line, and at the end after they’d guessed who he was the host asked him if he’d done anything recently, and he mentioned the Price Tower in Oklahoma. We stayed there when we toured in 2006.

Our Italy Itinerary--Buon Viaggio!

Unlike the librarian in a previous entry, I will not be donating any money to a library (since I know from personal experience how it will be used), but I will be enjoying my fine University of Illinois education in Russian, Spanish, secondary education and library science, and 20 years of saving and investing 15% of my magnificient salary at Ohio State University by visiting Italy with other U of I alumni. Here's a site of photos at the AHI webpage. Here's what we'll be doing.

Day One: Leave Chicago for Naples
Day Two: Arrive in Naples, get on a bus for Sorrento, and if my legs are working and I'm not asleep, stroll around town.
Day Three: Motorcoach along the Amalfi Coast. Visit Positano. Back in Sorrento attend lecture and discussion.
Day Four: Pompeii. Meet the folks of Sorrento to hear about their lives.
Day Five: Isle of Capri.
Day Six: Discussion--I hope this doesn't last all day, but that's all I see on the program.
Day Seven: Motorcoach to Orvieto. Wine tasting event
Day Eight: History of Orvieto and Umbria and Italy. Focus: Etruscans, who were there first. Walking tour. Cathedrals. Cobblestone streets. Tired feet. Discussion of Renaissance Art.
Day Nine: Walking tour of Florence. Architectural highlights.
Day Ten: Perugia and Assisi.
Day Eleven: Free day for sightseeing, shopping, etc.
Day Twelve: Motorcoach to Rome (which we won't see except the airport). Fly home. Based on previous tours, the only place we won't hear understandable English is the O'Hare Airport.

I surely do hope the trip is better than my condensed description; I answered a lot of obscure questions about animal innards (what is the fat content of gorilla milk?) and conditions (are cats color blind) to earn this trip.

At my church blog, I have a list of the top 10 Christian sites to see in Italy. We will see some of them.

Our Ireland trip from A to C

ABC: What our bus driver called many of the ruins--"another bloody castle." They really are everywhere, some accessible for tours, other in farm yards with the animals, some just a pile of rocks.

Here we see a 4th century fortress attached to a 17th century house and there is a cow and bull in the yard.

Alumni tour: Our AHI tour group was primarily from the University of Georgia and the University of Illinois, with one couple from Indiana University. By the final week, we were almost interchangeable, and had become good friends, sharing stories, travel tips and health tips (Irish coffee for our shared colds).

This is the Illinois group on one of our final excursions, at Woodstock House and Gardens, a national park near Inistioge being restored to its mid-19th century look. Lots of unusual plants and flowers--including a large redwood--and thick limbed bushes that looked like what we see in Florida. Four miles of foot paths.

Anniversaries: The U of I Alumni Association sent a bottle of wine to our room for our 47th anniversary. We also celebrated the anniversary of my birth--so there was a candle in my dessert the night of our "graduation" party.


Billboards: The Irish countryside is beautiful--just as green as you could imagine, fields outlined with rock fences around pastures filled with beautiful cows, black faced sheep and muscled horses. One thing contributing to the beauty is the lack of billboards. Nothing to block your view. We didn't see any until getting close to Dublin. According to the stats, Irish agriculture is about 9% of the economic output, but I think they should throw in a little tourism into that figure--truly the most beautiful rural scenes I've ever seen.




Cill, Church: Cill in Irish (Gaelic) means church, and we saw a lot of them. If you see Kil- in front of a place name, there’s probably a church in its history, like Kilkenny where we spent 5 days. Ireland was Christian before it was Roman Catholic. Many churches and monasteries were partially demolished by the various invaders--the Vikings, the Normans or the English--and there's been so much divisiveness and wars in Ireland between the Catholics, Church of Ireland, and Protestants, I couldn't begin to keep score. But from what I learned in the lectures, and overheard from the people and guides, the Irish are a bit schizophrenic when it comes to the Catholic church. Although they would not think of converting to something else, they also don’t want the church to control their lives as it did in the past. Few young people go to seminaries now, depleting the priesthood and religious orders. Maybe the scandals started it, but the booming economy, called the "Celtic Tiger" is the death blow--perhaps their most serious invader to date. I hope it doesn't become just a part of the history lectures and tours.

This is Ennis Abbey, originally scheduled for our first day, but we were delayed getting in due to fog in Shannon.

Replicated windows in the Black Abbey in Kilkenny.

Coole Park and Thoor Ballylee: Coole Park was the estate and home of Lady Gregory, a playwright and friend of W. B. Yeats, which we toured on September 11. Then it was down the road to Yeat's summer home, Thoor Ballylee, a 16th century castle. We saw a film at both places for additional information. The morning segment before the excursion was a literature lecture that I had a little trouble following--too many parenthetical phrases and too many beliefs in mysteries and fairies.

4108

Our upcoming trip to Ireland

Some of you have been asking (OK, only three people have asked) what our tour of Ireland will include. It's a standard college alumni tour with lectures, entertainment, walking and van tours of historical sites, and social time with the group. We did an alumni tour river cruise of Germany and Austria in 2005 and it was fabulous. Because of the age of the group (usually 40+ to mid-80s with some very seasoned, experienced travelers) there are considerations for the amount of walking and accommodations. Here's a very brief summary:

Day 1: Leave Chicago for Shannon, Ireland

Day 2: Arrive in Shannon, transfer to our hotel in Ennis; eat an Irish breakfast (will there be beets like a Russian breakfast?), Tour Ennis, including remains of a Franciscan Frairy and Creagh tomb.

Day 3: Education focus: History of Ireland and County Clare. Excursion: Ancient Burren and Cliffs of Moher. Reception and dinner.

Day 4: Educational focus: Literature--Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, W.B. Yeats and James Joyce--the environment and historical conditions that created the literature of Ireland. Excursion: Coole Park and Thoor Ballylee. Afternoon free. Dinner at local hotel. Evening entertainment by Irish storytellers.

Day 5: Excursion: Aran Island of Inishmore. Ferry to Inishmore, the largest of the Aran Islands off the coast of County Galway; see Dun Aengus (old fortress) Lecture by local archaeologist. Lunch at Mainistir House. Minibus tour of town and medieval monuments. Free time. Dinner back at hotel.

Day 6: Educational focus: Irish Roots, covers the famine, representative from Clare Heritage Center will discuss genealogical sources. My Scots-Irish ancestors came to the British colonies in the early 18th c. so I'm not sure how much of this will apply. Leisure time. Lunch and dinner at hotel.

Day 7: Transfer to Kilkenny, stop at Rock of Cashel, former fortress of Brian Boru, high king of Ireland. Visit heritage center. Check in hotel, dinner at hotel.

Day 8: Excursion: tour of Kilkenny Castle; walking tour of Kilkenny to see Old Jail House, Black Abbey and St. Francis Abbey, founded in 1234. Visit Brod Tullaroan heritage center (9000 years of history) of Irish life. Evening program of Irish storytelling

Day 9: Excursion: Irish National Heritage Park, 35 acres of living exhibits from Stone age to early Christian era. Tour Dunbrody Famine Ship which sailed 1845-1851 to Canada. Welcome reception. Dinner at hotel

Day 10: After breakfast at hotel, we tour Waterford , home of the famous crystal. Excursion: Jerpoint Abbey, just outside Thomastown, see ruins, including 14th-15th c. cloisters. Meet residents of Kilkenny. Dinner at hotel.

Day 11: Educational focus: contemporary Ireland--government and European Union. Day free. Lunch at hotel. Evening farewell reception, entertainment with Irish dancers.

Day 12: After breakfast, depart Kilkenny for Dublin airport and return to Chicago/Columbus.

Today I’m practicing wearing my support hose which travelers of any age should wear for long flights. My 39 year old daughter developed a deep vein thrombosis (dvt) 6 months ago on a 2 hour flight to Florida and her vascular surgeon says everyone-- men and women, young and old-- need to wear them, and be careful of dehydration. We all hate to use those postage stamp size restrooms, but for long flights should drink a lot of fluids. She gave me a medical pair, but that was so uncomfortable (I have fat knees), I switched to the standard, over the counter type which are just nicely snug. I've had some light weight blazers dry cleaned and am planning my wardrobe for both cool and warm weather, and of course, some rain wear. Comfortable shoes, some slacks, a scarf or two for color, my camera and toothbrush.