travel | Apothecary Shed

Best Jazz in Boston: The Mad Monkfish

August 27, 2023

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Excellent cocktails, interesting food, and world class jazz. If you get a chance to catch a Sunday show in Cambridge at the Mad Monkfish, just do it.

Yo Turns 65

June 17, 2023

gem food, party, photography, travel belgium, bookstore, caroline, garden, gem, grappa, leuven, mixology, party, photography, travel, video, violin, yo 2 Comments

Nothing quite like staying with dear friends in Leuven. Yo and Caroline are excellent hosts. This visit was made even more fun by including a 65th birthday party for Yo.

Here are some pictures from my visit.

I even managed to sneak into the circus on Friday evening. An incredible show focused on lighting matches, making pizzas, and spinning plates.

The cast of two and the poor “volunteers” who were pulled from the audience.

Leuven.

There was dancing in the kitchen.

And there were homemade cakes.

We even got to try out some mixology for the party.

Rosemary grappa lemonade…let’s call it the “yo-yo 65.”

The birthday king presides.

The actual power behind the throne is slightly capricious.

The site of the party is the back garden with lots of veggie plants. Delicious food was about as “locally sourced” as you can get. There were fresh snap peas and strawberries. So healthy and so delicious.

This gorgeous cake was my favorite. Banana cheesecake. Yum.

There was some dancing in wooden clogs yo some truly bad fiddle sawing.

We walked several miles together all using the house as a base of operations.

And we visited the English books at FNAC to compare notes.

All in all about as much fun as you can have in Leuven!

A Walking Tour of Bath

December 7, 2022

gem photography, travel architecture, Bath, fred mawer, georgian, guided tour, travel, walking tour 1 Comment

Some pictures taken during a brief two hour walking tour of Bath. Fred Mawer is an exceptional tour guide even by blue badge tour standards. Highly recommended.

Romey and I felt a little like this seagull who scored a huge piece of bread.

We started at the Royal Crescent hotel, about which more here.

Somehow it seems to me that these trees should be oaks instead of sycamores. But they are properly regal and huge, centering the Bath Circus.

Architectural details make all the difference. Speculative real estate development for the win.

All of the stone for these buildings is local, giving the town a unifying, opulent feeling. The tea house.

We walked on the day that the Christmas market started. Fred points out an old sign.

Apparently there is a cocktail scene. We will have to come back and try it out.

Romey and Jane Austin.

Religion? Justice? Do not enter. A conceptual collage.

The river Avon with some voiceover typical of our tour.

The cinema from Fantastic Mr Fox

All in all Bath is a beautiful place well worth a visit. We can’t wait to return.

Lets Almost Go See a Waterfall in Norway: Vettisfossen

November 11, 2022

gem hiking, mountain, nature, photography, travel hiking, mountains, nature, Norway, photography, travel, vettisfossen, video, waterfall 2 Comments

The day could not have been prettier. Light rain, but gorgeous light. And peak Fall leaves. And waterfalls everywhere you look. The funny thing is, though we hiked about 13km, we never made it to the big waterfall! Ran out of light.

I guess we’ll just have to go back

THIS is not the one! But look. Spectacular does not even begin to describe this walk.

We had some very late lunch very near the top at an old farmstead and village.

The turn around point.

The Backyard (well, mountain) in Tyinkrysset

November 11, 2022

gem hiking, travel dogs, gøran, hiking, mountains, nature, Norway, nova, photography, romey, travel, video 2 Comments

Sometimes walking out the door and around back is the best way to hike. We bushwhacked up through juniper and blueberry towards a small lake where fish are rumored to live. Tyinkrysset, Norway is beautiful.

This little stream is just up the road a few hundred meters.

Here are some pictures of our walk in the mountains.

A view of the valley.

Chilly Romey.

Panorama

Our intrepid hosts at the top. Our fearless leader Nova was dressed for the weather.

We love being in Norway.

Coffee and brown cheese? Nova says yes.

Palacio de Cristal Madrid: El Retiro

July 29, 2022

gem art, nature, travel art, el retiro, madris, Palacio de Cristal, park, romey, spain, travel Leave a comment

Crystal Palace they said. Worth a quick visit. But wear your sneakers. We were dressed up for dinner on our last night out.

Wrong shoes and bad art aside, we were glad to walk through the Madrid equivalent of Central Park.

The art inside the palace was awful. We think it was made by the box head guy below.

Spare no expense! Use the GOOD duct tape.

Anyway, there were turtles and ducks.

How many paradises are there, anyway? A visit to Terzo Paradiso in Biella, Italia

July 20, 2022

gem art, dance, film, photography, river, who knows april, April Claggett, art, art museum, art space, biella, gem, italy, rhine, river, sleestaks, sogol shirazi, terzo paradiso, travel, video Leave a comment

You might die, but if anything is noted as the cause of death, it will be loneliness.

There are no people doing art or even visiting Terzo Paradiso unless you count our unruly bunch. Here’s what we saw (and what we did).

First we explored random spaces.

And then we found some art to see (but only after getting lucky).

After a short nap in the hammocks near the circles, we found the projector and those glowy rocks from Land of the Lost.

There were no Sleestaks. So here are two for good measure. They covet the glowy rocks.

There was dirt.

There was also very silly science. But it was arty.

Not surprisingly, the room was better than the dirt.

Watch this video. Really.

Rhine took pics too. It was hard not to.

We got lucky and found another human who told us how to cross the highway, go down the stairs and find even more art. Or rather more art places with not much art. Something like that.