Day 9:
Chateau/Villa La Coste
Quote of the Day: You've been there? So have we!
or
Quote of the Day: Lots of words, so little to say
Weather: Pleasant, then warm in the afternoon when we were on the wine
and art tours
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| A drone flying about 200 meters away from the balcony of our room. Is THB paranoid? |
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| Self-portrait....or image shot by a drone camera? |
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| JR is watching |
Remember yesterday when THB and DB decided to stay on the
property today rather than drive 2+ hours each way to see art on a French
Riviera island? This is what we did to take advantage of those extra hours not
chasing art all over the south of France.
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| First breakfast |
Change of pace for breakfast: two breakfasts! To handle this
new schedule, THB goes to the fitness center and does the 7 minute workout plus
a bit of stretching. Let’s round up and call it a full 10 minutes.
The first breakfast is shortly after THB’s massive workout,
he’s feeling a bit dehydrated and possibly over-exhausted. Decaf au laits and a
small amount of bread and pastry delivered to our room and taken as needed on
our deck at 7am.
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| Second breakfast |
Much later (maybe 1.5 hours, maybe not all that much later),
we make it all the way to the reception area (15 meters away?) where we have
more decaf au laits, pastries, breads, and house-made plain yogurt with
granola. Back to the room, another at least 10 meters away, time to rest up.
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| Ando is everywhere, in buildings, in installations, in photos on display. Everywhere |
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| Marquette of Turrell being built somewhere on property |
Fully fueled and rested, it’s time to sit by the pool. DB and
THB rest up from the walk to the pool (shunning the elevator so we can see the
art on the stairway), then swim, wade, and walk three long laps of the pool
(another 7.5 meters per lap). THB is feeling puckish from the swimming (or is
it peckish?), so we again head back to the room to rest.
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| Eventually it will be covered in foliage |
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| Inside will be three huge staircases by Bourgeois, also well represented |
The wine tour is 110% industry standard: for one thing, it’s
in English just like they do it in the US, complete with the same wine-speak,
the same fermentation techniques, the pumps, the same de-stemmers. All
same-same except that two of the wines are not made to the standards/rules of
the Appellation and thus Chateau La Coste puts a different acronym on these two
wines.
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| Manually picking grapes, caught while we were on art tour |
When we were outdoors on the tour it was very hot;
fortunately, the tasting room is nicely cooled. THB is not fond of most of the
wines and, in general, they are relatively cheap.
OOOOOPS, here comes a couple running to catch up. They have
been talking to some director about possibly getting married on the property.
They are from Frankfurt, know a lot about art (she’s a curator, he’s in real
estate) and one or both of them have been places we’ve been that no one we know
has gone to: Lightning Fields, Bariloche, Venice Biennale, SF (okay, we know
plenty of people who have gone to SF). They travel 2+ months a year…sounds
familiar!
Oh, and they sat behind us at Mallman last night (easy to
tell, there weren’t many customers there at 8pm).
And, yesterday while we were settling into our fantastic room
and falling in love with the Villa La Coste, this couple was stopping on their
way to the Villa to visit this small island off the coast of the French Riviera,
Fondation Carmignac, it was terrific. You remember what we decided yesterday
and you’ve read how well we used our time today. DAMN!! More art to come back
and chase down.
Our art guide now has four…and here comes another one to join
in! She’s from Buenos Aires and works for the La Coste wine properties in
Mendoza (of course the other couple has been to Mendoza and loves to ski in the
Andes, and has been toEl Calafate for the glaciers and icebergs). Our fifth member
doesn’t really have much to say; if THB had known she was Argentinean he might
have tried his Spanglish (though in Argentina it is more like Italish).
Back to art:
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| Three bridges, Larry Neufeld |
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| Sean Scully |
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| Three structures by Tunga: youth, middle-age, elders |
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| Hmmmm, do stents count? |
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| Youth |
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| Magnetic middle |
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| Older elders? |
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| ? |
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| Andy Goldsworthy: a tomb inside a cairn |
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| Kenga Kumo, partially destroyed in a mistral, these are the pieces awaiting re-installation |
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| Ti-a, Silver Room |
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| Franz West, Faux Pas |
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| Ai Wei Wei path...very conceptual |
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| Sophie Calle, Dead End |
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| THB is orgasmic, this box has paper and pencils inside....DAMN! No stamps |
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| DB and THB "mail" our secrets in a slot in the stone coffin |
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| Maybe Ando "organic benches"....maybe |
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| More Ando: concrete walls, glass enclosure, chapel |
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| Othoniel cross |
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| Chapel set inside glass....you can walk around between glass and structure |
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| Small hut under repair |
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| Foxes by Michael Stipe, It's the end of the world as we know it.... |
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| Serra, 3 "walls" |
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| Another Ando, hide and reveal mode, enclosing another art work, 4 Cubes to Contemplate our Environment" |
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| Is the Future dark? |
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| Richard Long, so new it isn't on the art tour map |
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| Frank Gehry, originally built as temporary structure for Serpentine Gallery in London |
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| Moved here with amphitheater at one end |
Check in with the assistant concierge: there was a mix-up on
coordinating our stop tomorrow at the Luma Foundation, which gets fixed while
THB and DB down brewskies and cookies in the room.
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| Dessert before dinner |
Showers all around (the pool is soooooooooo far away), and a
bit of discussion about our art purchases in Paris (those of you paying
attention have realized THB never posted pics of the purchases…that’s because
they haven’t been paid for while MS navigates the finalizing of the invoices).
Thus it is room service: DB goes for a club sandwich with
chicken and bacon, and THB orders the cheese plate and extra bread to go with
the jar of fois gras brought with us from Paris. No problema, a few minutes
later here comes the food. OHHHHH NOOOOOOOO. Room service forgot the bread and
THB cannot figure out how to open the jar of fois gras. Still, there’s plenty
of cheese, 7 or 8 different kinds, and the bread is rustled up very quickly.
With leftover complementary wine and fruit, total is around $55. And the
leftover cheese goes in the mini-bar fridge for tomorrow night’s snack.
Book Review: The Flight Portfolio, Julie Orringer
(novel): Two gay Harvard students re-unite in the south of France in the late
1930s after 12 years with no contact. One is looking for the son of his current
partner, lost in the migration of Jews and artists being hounded by the Germans
and Vichy. The other is in charge of finding well-known artists and
intellectuals and helping them gain entry to the US. About 1/3 of the way
through the book THB got tired of their renewed love affair, the ever growing
cast of characters (each of them with some specialized stereotype), and the
lack of action in actually saving real people. Not recommended even though most of the time it is set within 150 kilometers of us here at Villa La Coste
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