London digs

Late Thursday night after the typically surreal Eurostar train-chunnel trip from Brussels to King's Cross-St Pancras, and a semi muggy bus ride over to Notting Hill Gate, I checked in to my digs for the next 10 days, a quirky residence hotelish outfit called Vincent House, located in quite a nice neighborhood near the corner of Kensington Gardens.

I say quirky because it's neither hotel nor apartment house: I gather from the exhibit in the Art Deco / Arte Moderneish lobby it is an institution that dates from the 1930s when it started as a residence hotel for women, and then went through various crises but never closed down completely. It was saved from speculators in the 1970s and still maintains a lot of connections with foreign scholars and student workers, many of the ones I have met being from Brazil. The rooms are "simply furnished," that is to say semi spartan by hotel standards, with an edge of down-at-the-heel gentility that is still on this side of charming.

I have remodeled slightly, moving the desk to the other side of the room (so that it is next to and not across from the only outlet in the room), and I guess because this was lived in, once upon a time, there/s a lot of closet and storage space, all made "simply" out of wood. Kind of endearing.

Though the wifi connection is too spotty to use in the room, I could have just gone down to the lobby, but I elected to bill Uncle Charles for the 10 pounds a week to have an Ethernet connection. There's no TV, which is a blessing in disguise for procrastinators like me, and I face a courtyard rather than the street--though being a block from Notting Hill Gate this corner is surprisingly quiet anyway. There's a terrace to sit in, off the lobby, though occasionally the tables get colonized by smokers.

When I got here the place was ghastly-stuffy, as all of un-air-conditioned London is during a heat wave (temps over the 80s with high humidity), especially since there is next to no cross ventilation thanks to spring-loaded fire doors everywhere.
Luckily I am near the end of a corridor, with a utility stairwell nearby, so I have discreetly propped open one of the double doors (using a folded-cardboard shim) and held my own door open with my trusty red luggage strap. As long as I remember to remove such contrivances each morning I'll be OK, I suppose.

So--the night after a spectacular meal, I had a semi squalid one at the Doner Kebab take-away where Bayswater Road turns into Notting Hill Gate. Rather than bring it back into my room, I ate it rather furtively while sitting on a wall across from a private park in Pembridge Square, feeling a little strange.

I spent a decent night, then took care of some Tour related stuff after a too-sumptuous English Breakfast (I have already toned it down) in the comfortable dining room, where the quiet babble of at least ten different languages mixes with the clink of cutlery and cups on saucers. The coffee is drinkable, and so is the orange juice, so there's nothing to complain about. My room catches a little too much sun, so I have to be careful to close the curtains and not let it warm up.

A memorable dinner in Brussels

The last day in Belgium had been pleasant--we'd gone to an excellent new restaurant called Rouge Tomate, where initially the service threatened to be on the "we're too hip to recognize your existence" side, but ended up probably bumping out a memorable meal to be on my list of top 25 meals of my life. (Clara took most of these photos, by the way.) This place had been started by a former colleague of Christine's at the Commission: years ago she recalls him asking people, "What about 'Rouge Tomate'? I think that's a great name."

Everything about the place was beautifully executed, from the furnishings to the plates. This lavender risotto was amazing, as was my chicken, and Christine's fish, she said with a mixture of admiration and frustration, "was the way you could never make it at home." They're also trying to do the local / sustainable thing, which is a bit ahead of the curve, ironically enough, and most of the time they seem to be on the right side of "precious" food. We were at the end of the sitting, which may have explained the slow start, but it also meant that when the chef came over at around 10:45, we could talk for awhile. He's a young (like, 25) powerhouse who was tickled to learn Julius and I were originally from California--he was from Graton, near Sebastopol, and was on a fast track to success, having worked at Cyrus when he was in high school and at a bigname New York restaurant before joining Rouge Tomate in New York and then coming to Brussels. His description of the precision with which the fish has to be put over the potatoes ("Everything has to be at exactly the right temperature and moisture, and you only have one shot to place it.") made me glad once again that I am not and never will be in the restaurant business.


However, the desserts didn't disappoint either. We split a couple of them, including one of the best chocolate creations I can remember (Clara didn't share much) and Alex the chef sent over a dish of the best ices I can remember tasting--apricot to die for, and mint, just exquisite.

A truly grand evening, which after a rough start even elicited non-teen behavior from the girls--a pleasant surprise. Of course, the next day, the trip to England awaited me, but not before a dozen more Tour-related e-mails and a phone call with more news of car-repair follies.

Mini-vacation in the Walloon Riviera

Just like the roller-coaster that inches up the incline before the dizzying drop, I enjoyed about 30 hours off the electronic leash to go cycling with my brother, a couple of hours' drive south of Brussels in the Ardennes, where a lot of Belgians used to vacation before it became possible to shoot down to the south of France or more exotic locales.

Apologies for the weird formatting with the photos. What you see with Preview sure isn't what appears on my screen once I post. I may or may not try to learn how to do this better, or I may simply get less cute with the photos


We piled two road bikes (the one I would be riding came from a baritone in the Bach group that Julius directs) and a minimal amount of gear into the trusty Toyota minivan, not before a last delay (just as we were leaving, a 'cello student showed up for his lesson, the kind of brain-fart I know well from my own teaching).

Julius was determined to complete a little loop centered around a rails-to-trails segment, though he warned me that the descriptions in the guidebook were truly idiosyncratic and hard to follow. This was definitely accurate, although we had a great time for ourselves, only having to double back a couple of times, and enjoying a long and surreal gentle downhill through dense forest where I popped a tire (luckily we had a spare) and fast finishing cruise back to the car in the midsummer dusk after 50 miles or so. We were both pretty tired, salty and smiling at the end.

Julius then called a B & B he'd read about, there was a room, we drove another 45 minutes, and there we were. Quick shower, late dinner in a nearby town (plenty of water and a couple of excellent wheat beers), and it was bedtime amidst some hilariously kitschy decor. You can't see it, but the wallpaper border is cherub-themed, as is this little holder for the ghastly candy,

But hey: check out the array of house-made jams that awaited us in the morning:

This next day's ride was a simple out-and-back along the Semois river, from the river-side town of Bohan (where the picture of the van was taken) to Bouillon, a historic seat of a medieval king (hence the citadel) and a tourist destination for centuries. Maybe 45 miles total, lots of changes in scenery, and straightforward navigation.

The riding was excellent: mostly good roads, no super-tough climbs, but enough to get you thinking you were rounding into form.

Booming and zooming on these rollers worked up a serious thirst, and we found a nice little cafe on a side street and had a scrambed egg and salad combination that was quite satisfying. Not sure what to make of the label of the local brew, but the result was quite enjoyable.

All in all, a wonderful mini-vacation, setting the stage for a post-Tour bit of cycling in southern France, and clarifying what sorts of tweaks have to be made to the bike (super hard and snicked-up saddle gave me an abrasion, gotta replace old rubber (tires and brake pads), and maybe adjust the derailleur. The guys at the bike store may call it an antique (it's even older than my road bike) but it's got a 531 frame and I installed cushy bar tape so I feel pretty darned good on it.

Our family dinner last night--at a hip new restaurant on the Avenue Louise--will await another post.