This was my initial reaction to Livraria Bertrand – the oldest operating bookshop in the world, established in 1732. I looked at it from a distance, through glass, and thought “how remarkable”, the way one would any other work of art. You marvel at it, but you do not touch. You certainly don’t step inside. But Rand was not limited by such strange hangups, and seeing that he was able to walk in without being yelled at by some unseen authority figure, I quickly rushed in after him.

Plus he’s super cute and his eyes are like, CRAZY twinkly.

The Bertrand smells faintly of old wood and vanilla. Sloping archways connect room after room after room. The inner rooms look modern and recently renovated, but every now and then there is a pillar, or an exposed stone, or a strangely uneven piece of floor to remind you that when this shop opened, humans thought our solar system ended at Saturn.

Pedro Faure – one of many French booksellers who began arriving in Portugal in the early 18th century – opened the shop in 1732, but it was destroyed in the earthquake of 1755 (which decimated much of the city). The shop was reopened not long afterward in its current location, and has remained in operation ever since, hosting poets, philosophers, Nobel prize nominees, artists, and, of course, writers.

It was enough to wander through and simply breathe it in. It was as quiet as church, and for a lapsed Catholic like myself it offered even more of a religious experience that any of the cathedrals we visited. If there is a God, she is here, in the pages of a really good book.

I’ve always enjoyed novels that are love letters to books themselves (Like Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore  or The Borrower, which are both delightful reads), and Lisbon feels like the city equivalent of that – an entire town made of tiny shops piled high with dusty tomes. In this respect, Livraria Bertrand is not unique – it is one of many, many bookstores. But it is the oldest, and there is a sort of ancient magic in its walls. You feel like you might round a corner and find yourself someplace wondrous. And then you realize – that was true the second you stepped in the door.

I asked the internet how I should spend my time, and the recommendations were all the same: go to the Walker Art Center and Sculpture Garden.

Endeavoring to write about art, I am met with the same hesitation that I always feel – it is, to paraphrase some brilliant uncredited soul, like dancing about architecture. I won’t dwell too much on the individual pieces at the Walker – by the time you visit, they will have changed, anyway. I will simply tell you to go, because the space is wonderful and the collection will make you feel alternately contemplative and sad and angry and joyous, and all sorts of permutations of those things.

I must have been in a romantic mood on the day I visited, because everything was heartbreakingly beautiful to me. When I showed this photo to Rand, I commented on how sweet and sad the sentiment was.

He nodded.

“You know it’s surrounded by butts, right?”

No. I did not.

Oops.

If it is rainy or cold or snowing, then you might want to simply stay inside the Walker, but if the weather is slightly more amenable, then consider wandering around the sculpture garden.

The collection is a little more permanent, because it is much harder to move a giant blue chicken than it is to, say, move a painting.

Admission to the Walker is only $15, which feels modest compared to many galleries in the U.S., but the sculpture park is free, since it’s remarkably difficult to put giant things outside and then somehow demand that people pay to look at them.

There were a few pieces that didn’t entirely resonate with me, though I’d like to think that I understood their message. For example, this sphere clearly has a vagina.

(Right? I mean, that’s clearly what’s going on here.)

My favorite pieces were these paranoid stone benches. It’s like someone heard my thoughts and then engraved them onto a huge slab of granite.

Minneapolis is underrated; a few short hours there won’t feel like enough. But even if your time there is fleeting, the Walker is worth it, if only so you can return home and say to your beloved, “I found a bench that understood me more than most people do.”

I have simultaneous loved Anderson’s work and resented it; it resonates with me in a way that feels like I’m somehow being manipulated. When The Royal Tenenbaums came out, my brother called me and we had one of those sparse exchanges that can only take place between people who have known each other their entire lives. He asked if I had seen it. Yes, I told him.

“Royal,” he said.

“I know.”

“Dad,” he said.

“I know.”

2009. One of my all-time favorite photos of my father, in which he manages to look pissed off while eating ice cream.

Therein lies Anderson’s brilliance – he creates characters who are often miserable and yet they are fine. Things are simultaneously bad and okay. That is a world I know.

I was angry that Anderson could pinpoint me – and so many others – so well. I’d like to think I was less predictable than that. My response was reactionary – I tried to resist his work. As years of Halloween costumes attest, this endeavor has not been successful.

Sam and Suzy from Moonrise Kingdom.

–

Steve Zissou and Margot Tenenbaum.

Rand tried to keep our visit a surprise, but I eventually learned of it. He asked me if I want to see photos beforehand, but in the same way that I refuse to watch trailers for Anderson’s films before they are released, I shook my head.

“I want to see it for the first time in person,” I told him.

A small part of me didn’t want to go, scared it wouldn’t live up to my expectations. Or that it would, and that the world then would seem dull by comparison.

The bar was on the edge of town, a 15-minute drive even from the Duomo at Milan’s center. We took a cab, and found ourselves in a industrial district, full of long white buildings and factories. Bar Luce resides in one of these, the only indication of its existence is a small neon sign along the front that reads “BAR.”

As we walked in I imagined that I could see us from afar, moving in-slow motion as music played.

My biggest grievance about the worlds Wes Anderson created was that they existed only on the screen, and I could never step into them. Even when I paid a pilgrimage to the house from The Royal Tenenbaums (up in Harlem), I could only stand at the curb and stare, the delta between his work and reality feeling bigger than it ever had.

I thought Bar Luce would change that. Alas.

Every piece of it has been crafted by Anderson. It is perfect execution of his vision, but it is not perfect – his work never is. Pants hemmed too short, rusted out cars, a penciled in mustache – there is always something intentionally amiss.

Above a sea of terrazzo, there are islands of Formica the color of Easter eggs.

The shelves behind the bar and the glass dessert cases look like they’re filled with props.

But the cake was real, and I couldn’t really ask for more than that.

The cafe was empty when we arrived, and the staff looked like they were suffering from a terminal case of ennui. We were unaware of the rush of people that would soon come through the doors, and so the sheer number of waiters and baristas looked excessive.

We sat down and ordered. I scanned the menu for a butterscotch sundae, eager to placing my order in heavy, bored Italian, but there wasn’t one. Instead, I got The Royal, a sandwich made with culatello, and literally nothing else.

This is the cafe’s signature cake – vanilla pan de spagna with a light chocolate cream and covered in pink fondant.

Supposedly Rand ordered it.

(He didn’t get to eat most of it.)

At some point I demanded that we abandon our lives back in Seattle and move to Milan and, specifically, to Bar Luce.

“We can’t; we just bought a house,” Rand said.

“Let’s sell our house.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“YOU ARE THE ONE WHO ASKED ME TO BUY YOU A HOUSE.”

“And now I’m asking you to sell it so we can move to Milan. Please?”

“No.”

“But it takes so little to make me happy.”

“That is patently untrue and you know it.”

He was right. But for a few fleeting moments, I was excessively happy, in a way that Wes Anderson’s characters never are. I endeavored to hide my delight from everyone because it felt thematically off.

Once again, I was not successful.

Along the back wall of the cafe sits a jukebox that mostly had Italian songs from the 1950s and 60s. It had a bunch of Rita Pavone, but no tracks that I was familiar with. So the songs were obscure even if you were familiar with the obscure genre.

Next to the jukebox was a pair of pinball machines.

Rand got up to play one of them, and came back to the table, his eyes wide.

“It only takes lira,” he said.

We laughed.

“I’m not kidding.” (100 lira coins are available from the counter – 4 for a Euro.)

This superfluous detail stuck was exactly what I had hoped I would find here. These little elements serve no other purpose than to you bring you into Anderson’s world. We met every little idiosyncrasy with, “Well, of course.”

This pinball machines features Jason Schwartzman. The other one had Bill Murray on it. Because of course they do.

At times it became hard to shake a feeling that this wasn’t a cafe designed by Wes Anderson, but rather what fans imagine a cafe designed by Wes Anderson would look like. It gave me everything I wanted and more, right down to the meticulously designed bathrooms.

But in doing so, it almost felt as though it bordered on parody. In Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, which is often thought to be the bard poking fun at his own tropes, every single Shakespearean cliche is thrown at the audience: lost princesses disguising themselves as boys, buffoonish villains, an exodus into the forest. It’s an absolutely ridiculous play because it is so over-the-top Shakespearean.

Bar Luce had that same sort of feel. It feels like almost too much from a director who plays in subtlety and nuance (right up until somebody snaps and crashes their car into the house). Maybe that’s the problem. Bare Luce exists. And so it can never truly be a part of Wes Anderson’s world because it is a part of ours. We have cell phones and credit cards and top 40 songs that we all hate but still know the lyrics to. We do not walk in slow-motion. Alec Baldwin does not narrate our story.

I say this not to disparage Bar Luce – I loved it, and our visit. But as a devout Wes Anderson fan, it brought up a bit of an existential crisis: I’d always wanted to step into Anderson’s cinematic universe, not realizing that part of the magic lay in the fact that I couldn’t.

There are many things that I should tell you about Gibraltar. It’s a strange place: it’s a territory of the U.K., but it’s literally attached to Spain. The Spanish want it back, but the Gibraltarians are pretty happy being subjects of Queen. In a recent vote, less than 1% of the population wanted to return to Spanish rule. It all goes back to the 1700s and the Treaty of Utrecht where the Spanish ceded Gibraltar to the British and I will get to all of that in another post BUT FIRST MONKEYS.

Yes, monkeys.

They are all over Gibraltar.

Another thing that’s all over Gibraltar? Signs telling you not to feed the monkeys. There are even drawings which illustrate, rather graphically, what will happen if you feed the monkeys. The food can be harmful to them, and it makes them both far too trusting of and aggressive towards humans. The point is, feeding the monkeys is bad for everyone.

So guess what a bunch of people do the second they see a monkey in Gibraltar?

THEY FEED THE DAMN THINGS.

As you walk around Gibraltar (which is, as the Prudential logo promises, a giant monolith extending out from the sea) you will see a lot of monkeys. There are about 160 Barbary Macaques living on the rock. They are sometimes called “Barbary Apes” because they don’t have tails (they are still monkeys, though). They greet you almost immediately upon your arrival, and the entire experience is a bit startling – you are high up on the rock of Gibraltar, the views are dizzying, and there are monkeys.

They are fat and seem quite content provided you don’t get too close to them. That’s usually pretty easy except sometimes you’ll be walking down a path and there’s just a monkey just sitting there.

You suddenly hear the Clint Eastwood western showdown music in your head. Conceptually monkeys are like the coolest thing ever but when you actually see a live, wild one in close proximity to you, it’s quite unsettling. They have sharp teeth and are profoundly strong, yet there is something uncannily human about their appearance, and all of that is just a little bit terrifying.

Our friend Rob, and the monkey that wasn’t quite on his back.

Given enough time, though, and things cease to seem all that strange. This massive rock, sticking straight out of the ocean doesn’t seem that odd. The views cease to be so dizzying.

And the locals become a little less scary.

(But you still shouldn’t feed them.)

Detail of a mural that was painted with permission, by Vova Zomb.

Have you ever spent gobs of time with someone, to the point where you think you know everything about them, but then something happens and you start to see them differently? Like, after a dozen years together, you learn that they can touch their nose with their tongue (which, you maintain, is information that you really should have had much sooner)? But now that you know about it things will never ever be the same again, and it’s wonderful. (I would caution you not to read too far into that statement, but you know what? Go right ahead. Life is short, and my husband is a fantastic kisser.)

That happened on our trip to London last week. The city unveiled a long-hidden talent, one that was right under my nose, sometimes literally. And now everything is different. I learned that the streets are an art gallery; they are filled with paintings and collages and sculptures, waiting to be appreciated. I just hadn’t learned how to spot them yet.

Thankfully, David was able to teach us.

He was our guide on our tour of the street art of London’s East End. There were dozens of options to chose from, but David’s came well recommended and reasonably priced (£15 per person), and unlike so many tour operators, he actually replied to his email. So on a grey Saturday morning, we met him under the goat statue in Spitalfields. If only all paradigm shifts could begin thusly.

Our tour was slated to last three hours. Rand and I know ourselves well – we realized that hunger and jet lag would likely pull us away long before it ended. David had an utter lack of urgency about him – he was reserved and calm, leisurely strolling through London’s East End, and not inclined to economy of word choice; a dark-eyed Samuel Beckett waxing poetically about the art of the streets. The tour would not end early, yet we stayed until the very end.

It began here, on a street pole enrobed in stickers. I’d passed ones like it countless times before. I’d always regarded the stickers as litter – vandalism for weak-willed or non-committal types. David explained that each label was in fact a calling card for a street artist. They put their stickers up to let people know that this was where they were active; these streets were their canvas.

You’ve probably seen the image on the middle sticker before – it’s the work of Shepard Fairey, arguably one of the most famous artists in his field. He’s been active for nearly 30 years – his work can be seen in major museums (including the MoMA and The Smithsonian), and he created the “Hope” poster than became prevalent in Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. But the image of André the Giant shown above was his starting point – he would use it in a widespread street art campaign early in his career, and a stylized version of it would become a recurring motif in his Obey clothing line.

We listened intently as David gave us a history lesson on the rise of street art. He talked about the conflict between artists and local police, the relationships between the artists themselves, and explained the difference between graffiti and street art. I am a dilettante, so forgive me if I botch this, but what I was able to glean was this: graffiti is a stylized mark, a sort of calligraphy that is meticulously crafted, and rendered in spray paint throughout a city. The location of a tag (which can be found anywhere from highway overpasses to train cars) serves to heighten an artist’s status and legitimacy, particularly when placed in hard to reach or precarious spots. David explained that we were not the audience that the graffiti artists cared about – their work was for each other, and not us.

In this respect, street art differs greatly. Passersby, though often oblivious, are the intended audience. They can interact with a piece, as David did when he delicately touched a painting by Alo, whose work is shown below. I found myself wincing before realizing that this was entirely acceptable. The overwhelming temptation to reach over and touch a work – the one that I feel whenever I’m in a museum – could finally be indulged.

That’s the point of street art. You can interact with it. You can touch it, or photograph it, or even destroy it. It erodes with the elements, it is washed away, it is built upon by other artists. It often becomes collaborative, like this piece:

We would see the one-eyed character in the middle – a hallmark of the artist Noriaki – numerous times throughout the city. Here it is shown emerging from a pasted paper piece by Endless.

David explained some of the unique characteristics of street art, like the running droplets of paint shown in this piece by Conor Harrington.

He told us the message that these running streaks carried with them – that the artist had no time to let the piece dry, that he was working under pressure, or perhaps the fear of getting caught. These streaks are present even in Harrington’s studio work; he often borrows stylistically from the old masters, but the runny paint reminds us that he is and will always be a street artist.

We listened as David discussed the many techniques used – the effect of layering stencils, of using wallpaper paste to put up collages, of sculptures adhered to buildings with glue.

Amazingly, this piece was created with a series of stencils, layered one atop the other.

The James Dean at center was done by Stikki Peaches (it was, I should note, positively delightful to hear David name each of these artists).

A collage by Sell Out, featuring the Kellogg’s cornflakes rooster, referencing vandalism that happened to a local cafe during an anti-gentrification protest.

A sculpture by Gregos – a painted cast of the artist’s face.

Their was fondness in his voice; he spoke of the works like a docent describing favorite pieces in a museum. There was no pretension in his delivery; he was sincerely passionate about these creations, genuinely reverential of the artists who had made them. You could see it in how his eyes twinkled when he talked.

He overlooked nothing.

When street artists work with permission from building owners, rather than illicitly, they are able to take their time. Their tools can be placed on the sidewalk rather than kept in a bag (which makes for an easy getaway) – there’s no need to rush or flee, to hide behind the anonymity of a dark hoodie.

These works tend to be larger and more elaborate.

An incredible piece by Mr Cenz that was done with permission over the course of 6 or 7 hours.

Another piece by Mr Cenz, who describes himself as a graffiti artist.

A mural by Fanakapan, which is reminiscent of the work of Jeff Koons.

This piece by Jimmy C was one of my favorites. It’s a portrait of the owner of the adjacent coffee shop and her grandfather, based on a photo of the two of them which sits in the shop’s window. David explained that it’s rare that a piece relates so personally to the structures or people around it. I found it all incredibly sweet.

Towards the end of the tour, we encountered some mushrooms by Christiaan Nagel. Like their real-life fungal counterparts, they pop up all over the city, in the most unexpected of places.

Spot the mushroom!

Rather fittingly, we ended our outing with two pieces by Banksy, an old master in this relatively new field. Before the tour, he was literally the only street artist I could name. Now I realized he was simply one in a vibrant and prolific cadre of creators.

After a dozen trips to London I thought it held no more secrets for me, but now I found it forever changed. I realized the art of that old, bustling city couldn’t be constrained by the walls of its many museums and galleries. It spilled out onto winding streets and dark underpasses, into alleys and up the sides of buildings, like vines clinging to wall. It had all been illuminated for us and once revealed, we couldn’t unsee it.

This shift in perception followed us home. Walking through downtown Seattle, Rand pointed to the stickers on the pole of a streetlight, reading out the names of artists, admiring one piece that had been drawn by hand. I was in a city I knew better than any other, looking at it for the first time again.

One tour. Three hours. And now everything looked different, and things would never ever be the same.

—————

Here’s more info on Shoreditch Street Art Tours. As always, I received no compensation for my post, and I paid the full price of the ticket, because if I’m not willing to spend money on it, why should I expect anyone else to? I think it was well worth it.

There was no sun in Valencia. Only days and days of rain. Everyone repeatedly told us how rare this was, as though we might find solace in that fact, though I couldn’t figure out the logic behind it.

“Bad weather is very unusual here. You must have terrible luck.”

“Oh … good?”

The advantage of being from the perpetually-damp Pacific Northwest is that it didn’t really bother us all that much. I actually kind of like seeing a city in the rain. It literally casts it in a different light. Everyone who visits Valencia has seen the beach. But very few have seen streetlights reflecting off wet pavement, or cuddled with their beloved under an umbrella, or joked with their friends that they needed to go home to Seattle for some sunshine.

Everything looked haunted.

Undeterred by the clouds, we walked around the city. My favorite part was El Barrio del Carmen. Seemingly run down in parts, overtaken by street art, still bright and brilliant, even under a cloudy sky.

Plus, he is adorable in the rain.

“You need to come back to Valencia when it’s sunny,” friends told us again and again. And we nodded. Maybe we would.

But every place is lovely in the sunshine. Give me a grey sky above, and then I’ll tell you whether or not a city is beautiful. And even in the rain, Valencia was.

“Indeed he is,” Rand agreed.

Rand and Jeff, happily locked in a mining cave in Berchtesgaden.

When they found out we’d all be in Germany at the same time, Jeff and his wife suggested we meet them at the Intercontinental Hotel in Berchtesgaden. It was one of the loveliest hotels I’ve ever stayed in, and when I first saw it, I chose an uncommon means of conveying the sentiment to them.

“This place is gross,” I said, as we stared out onto the snow covered peaks that surrounded us. They were stunned for a second, and looked at me blankly.

“Just … gross,” I repeated. “Mountains are stupid.”

The view from our hotel room at 5 am. I had been awake for two hours.

What I had been trying to say was that the hotel was chic and elegant, the view unparalleled, and praise would simply exhaust the sentiment. It looked like the lair of a Bond villain, and Rand and I took every opportunity to point this out.

“You expect me to eat all of this?” we’d ask one another over an opulent breakfast.

“No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”

We carried on like this for days. I suspect a sugar high was partially to blame. I’d used it as a mechanism for combating jet-lag, fueled by no less than six topping options for waffles.

I jokingly pretended to drink syrup straight from the ramekin. Rand laughed. The hotel staff who caught a glimpse of me doing so did not.

When we eventually parted ways with Jeff and Amanda, I had the distinct impression that they thought I was a nutter, until Amanda emailed us a few days later. She told us how she had wanted to purchase a bedazzled hat and Jeff advised against it.

“Geraldine would let me buy it,” she said.

Jeff could not argue with this – it was undoubtedly true. They did understand me. In response, I sent them a variety of Amazon links to at-home bedazzling kits and told Jeff he hated both America and freedom.

They were the ones who recommend the tiny Austrian town of Hallstatt to us. We’d never heard of it.

“You’ll want to take pictures on your way into town,” Jeff said. “But don’t. Just wait until you get there.”

Unlike the bedazzled hat, he was 100% correct in this sentiment. We were tempted to pull over the car on our drive in, but waited until we arrived. Our restraint proved worth it, as it offered us more time in Hallstatt.

It sat on a glittering alpine lake and looked like a postcard.

“The lake isn’t picturesque enough. RELEASE THE SWANS.”

Jeff told us that the entire town had been replicated in China. It cost $940 million to build, and was backed by a Chinese tycoon and a mining conglomerate. The entire project was a secret, until a Chinese tourist visiting the original Hallstatt let the entire thing slip out (a detail which I love).

There was some controversy among the locals about having their town copied, but it seems to have died down. Hallstatt now gets thousands of tourists from China each year – suggesting that there really is nothing like the original.

We wandered around the little village, hoping the sun would warm the chilled wind that came over the mountains and off the lake. It was as though someone had taken everything Austrian – cakes, beer, little white houses with wooden roofs, that singing nun from The Sound of Music – thrown them in a pot of water of water, and let the thing boil down for hours. What was left was Austria, concentrated and distilled. What was left was Hallstatt.

We walked up stone stairs and found ourselves in the graveyard of a tiny church that overlooked the town and lake.

The grave markers were wood, and looked like tiny cottages.

I have a profound affection for any place that reserves prime real estate for the deceased. It’s completely illogical, and yet it seems as though they have their priorities straight. Indeed, the cemetery had some of the best views in town.

We walked beyond the church, and found a small landing with an equally fantastic panorama.

I forced my beloved to take a few photos with me, and laughed when I saw them. The church spire seemed to emanate directly from his head.

This angle proved a bit better, I suppose.

As we walked out of town in the sunshine, I once again found words insufficient.

“This place sucks,” I said.

“I know, baby,” Rand said, putting his arm around me. “I like it, too.”

I wish to make many jokes. Though they are, essentially, all the same joke.

I am fairly sure that half of all the establishments in the country are named by a bunch of American middle schoolers who can’t stop laughing at how silly those words sound when someone has a posh English accent.

And let us not forget British cuisine itself: Spotted Dick. Bangers and Mash. Bubbles and Squeak!

Incidentally, that last dish was something that our friend Eric ordered at The Cock Inn (also, I just checked their website, and they refer to their establishment as simply “The Cock.” Cannot. Deal.) While I remember that detail, I am sad to say I remember very little else about the food. I think it was good. I know that Rand ordered the Ploughman’s lunch, and I might have had chicken, and everyone seemed to enjoy their meal.

In the middle of Rand’s plate you’ll see a scotch egg, which is a hard-boiled egg, wrapped in ground meat, rolled in breading, and fried. #thebodyisatemple

Also, at some point, our friends’ son ended up on Rand’s lap and my heart may have exploded. I’ve neglected to ask said friend if I can post photos of his second born, so I’m limiting myself to using this one, which is fairly anonymous, but still cute as hell.

“AUGGGGHHH! STOP IT!” – my uterus

Later it rained and rained and rained, lest all that sunshine cause us to forget where we were. And that’s how that day went.

Photo is blurry because there was skipping happening.

I tried to do a street art walking tour when we were last in London. I’ve always wanted to take one, to have someone point out the Banskys that I’ve walked by a dozen times and failed to notice. When we were there in the fall, the weather was unseasonably warm (the last day of October it reached an unheard of 70-degrees in the city. I wore a sundress. Rand had on short sleeves.) – perfect for wandering through the East End and admiring the works of not-quite-unknown artists.

The problem was, I couldn’t find a tour. Despite what their websites claimed, tours were on weekends only, and I was looking for something on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. So Rand and I just went on our own.

This was less jarring for him than it was for me. When we tour museums, I read every single placard and note. I need context and background. I need someone to tell me exactly what I’m looking at, or, failing that, at least who made it and when. But Rand roams around freely, scarcely reading a thing. He just meanders through a gallery and stops only when he sees something that calls his attention.

It’s madness. And it’s what we did in the East End on that sunny day.

I don’t remember where we started. On Brick Lane, maybe?

It’s wasn’t all that different from a gallery, really. Except for the bags of trash lying near the works. And the fact that you can take lots of pictures and not feel gauche.

Bonus: no matter what you have on, you will probably match the background.

Note the bare arms and lack of coats. It was literally colder in South Africa.

And absolutely everything is mixed media:

Love the inclusion of James Cagney in this piece (or is it pieces?)

With street art, everything becomes a collaboration.

Some of the works were massive, encompassing an entire storefront. It was impossible to miss them:

Others you had to search for, or you’d walk right by and miss them.

Here’s the same little guy again, in the lower right-hand corner. I assume it’s the same artist, but it’s hard to say. Street art can be derivative. Literally. Someone makes something, and someone else builds upon it.

We stopped a few times. Once for a snack:

(This was at Beigel Bakery on Brick Lane, which I highly recommend.)

This photo is misleading, because it suggests that Rand actually got to eat the sandwich he bought himself. I ate most of it.

Or was it twice for a snack?

This place was affordable and delicious. More about it in another post.

And we popped into stores as we went along. That’s the upside of not having a guide or an itinerary. You don’t really know what you are looking at, but you go at your own pace. You get lost. You shop. You eat bagels. And you appreciate things for what they are.

Sometimes, you are even able to figure out the story behind some of the works.

This is a mural of Charlie Burns, known as the King of Bacon Street. His family has owned a business in the area for more than 150 years. He’s kind of a legend:

Conversely, I have no idea what’s going on here:

… but isn’t it grand?

That’s a sentiment we kept repeating again and again. I don’t know what this is, but it’s amazing.

Actually, I know what this is.

I’ve learned that when it comes to appreciating art, or places, or even people, that’s the only thing you really need to remember.

—————

If you want to take a guided tour of the street art in London’s East End, there are plenty of options to chose from (though during the summer there are inevitably more tours). I cannot vouch for any of these personally, but I’ve listed a few below (note: I’m doing so of my own volition and not at the behest of any of these groups). I contacted several of these on my last trip, but was unable to book anything, so if you want to take one, plan well ahead:

• Alternative London Tours (they offer walking tours and even a Street Art workshop, which sounds awesome, if a little contrived)
• The London Street Art Tour (one of the cheaper options, at only 9 pounds)
• Shoreditch Street Art Tours (morning and afternoon tours, primarily on weekends)
• Street Art London Tours (they run on Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday)

Positano. But it could be anywhere on the coast.

But, see, they all were.

Positano, though, stands out in my memory from the rest, and I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good thing. Because the part I remember most about Positano were those steps.

So. Many. Fucking. Steps.

Seriously, it’s like the entire town was built to prepare future generations for the Stairmaster. You climb and you climb, and you start to think that you must be nearing the top. That there is no way there can be any more steps, because there’s no place to go and there’s nothing left with which to build. THEY’VE CLEARLY USED UP ALL THE RAW MATERIALS FROM WHICH A STEP COULD CONCEIVABLY BE CONSTRUCTED.

Right?

But then you turn a corner and dear god, there they are. More steps.

Are you seeing this? The stairs on the right don’t even GO anywhere. It’s like someone said, “You know what this wall needs? STAIRS.” And they added them, because fuck it. Stairs.

I should have seen this coming. I know I always say that, but this time I really should have anticipated it, considering that we parked near the top of Positano, and walked down the steps in the first place. At some point, as we were gliding down those little stone platforms, I should have paused and turned to my husband and said, “This is a terrible, terrible idea.”

STOP IT, RAND. THIS WILL BE OUR UNDOING.

Because every single step that we raced down would come back to haunt us, three-fold. I know that it’s entirely impossible. That there’s no way we had to climb up more stairs than we ran down. And yet, I’m near certain that we ran down a flight or two at most, and we climbed at least 15 or 16 THOUSAND more flights on the way back.

It was like The Hunger Games when Katniss was trying to stay alive and doing a pretty good job of it but then Seneca Fucking Crane started adding trees and crazed mutant dogs to the arena WHICH WAS TOTALLY UNFAIR. My point is: I’m fairly certain that some gamesmaker was adding more and more stone steps around every corner. I kept looking to the sky hoping someone would send me a little  parachute package of cupcakes and lemonade BUT NO ONE DID.

At least the views were good. Bow-chicka-wow.

Of course, there is plenty to love about Positano, and I’m probably being horribly unfair. Look how delighted we were when we first got there, before I swore a lifelong vendetta against whatever ancient city planner decided to build everything VERTICALLY:

It is a beautiful little town, and the beach is charming. When we went it was basically empty, presumably because all of the others tourists died of an overdose of steps.

I didn’t see too many locals, either, for that matter. They were probably off somewhere watching hidden camera footage of us as we heaved up flight after flight. I’m fairly sure that after living there for generations, the population has evolved into a lean bunch of stair-climbing machines, with thighs that could crack walnuts.

I can’t say for sure. I know only this: I will remember Positano. Or at least, I’ll remember its steps. All fucking 3 million of them.