Italian words

Italian - English

cinema - cinema

danza - dance

dentista -dentist

galleria - gallery 

 poeta - poet

poesia - poetry (I think of poetry and prose to rmember to add the letter s to distinguish the word fro what is written from the person doing the writing)

Useful websites

duolingo.com

The Old Fire House Restaurant & Gallery Beside Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire

 This place used to be in the Michelin guide, but have no fear. The prices are okay and the food is unpretentious but delightful and plentiful.

The Upstairs Gallery

One toilet is on the ground floor. Upstairs is a second toilet in a bathroom, a lounge where you can divert for tea, and a room with art  on display. The art is rather pricey, but so are the old masters and these are new masters and you can buy them.

We had a huge salad lunch and a fish pie with huge chunks of solid fish which I thought was chicken. We also had lots of bread. They wrapped up our leftovers which made another meal next day.

We were able to have lunch there, leave our car in their car park and go back for tea. You could also park outside if you can find a space. Elsewhere we found a one hour parking space, though a trip around the inside of the cathedral takes longer, especially if you go to see the exhibition which I shall describe in my next post.

The cheery old lady who served us had been there four decades. Because of Covid they no longer have the cakes on display. I don't know why they don't show photos. The Japanese have had menus with a photo of every dish in just about every restaurant for years.

I wondered whether the chocolate cake would be too sugary as well as a diet spoiler. So I opted for the carrot cake. It was delicious. The flavour was great. The texture was great. It was satisfyingly solid. It contained nuts and candied peel for an interesting taste and texture and added walnuts for more flavour and crispy crunch.

What is there to do in the area? The Tourist board has a map and calendar and loads of leaflets and the lady on the desk told us a whole history of Cromwell. You can visit the Cromwell museum, the Ely cathedral. We saw a stained glass exhibition. At certain times you can book a tower tour. They also run events for schoolchildren.

Old Fire House Restaurant, upstairs lounge for tea or coffee. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Parking

You can park outside if you can find a space. The restaurant has a free car park at the back. 

Useful Websites

The Old Fire House Restaurant

Cambridgeshire

http://www.theoldfireenginehouse.co.uk/

What's Is Free And What's Not At Museums And Why?

Problem
The museum is advertised as free. But when you get there they are charging for exhibitions. Why? And what's all this timed entry for?

Answers
Sometimes a rich person or a keen collector leaves their collection of art or objects to the local school or council or the entire country, stupulating that it must be free for all to see.

So far, so good. However, to display works of art or museum objects you need two things, a building with a repair fund, and payments staff. If the museum then attracts other donations, the museum is in a fix. Can they really way, we have two rooms each with space for ten paintings, we already have ten Rembrandts and Ten Van Goghs, what's more people don't want them in the same room, so we don't want your painting.

What can they do? Put out the popular paitnings and keep the othersstacked  downstairs in the basement in storage and hope the buildings won't flood and the paintings won't get stolen without anybody realising the box is empty, or lost or forgotten.

Open another branch museum in another city. Send the piantings off around the world on a tour, charging the recipient museums and countries fees high enough to cover the transport and insurance and travel escorts, and packing and unpacking, and policing on arrival and crowd control.

This has risks but also advantages. Poeple get to hear about your museum. the basement is temporarily cleared of clutter. You can generate income to pay for your staff and increasing updating your home museum or gallery's facilities which never used to be there.

For example, such as self-flushing toilets, security cameras, touch screens to answer visitor questions, guided tours on hand-held devices. What else? Ramps for the disabled, fire exits and fire doors and maybe sprinklers and connections to the police or fire service to comply with new regulations. Modern security may require bag searches and lockers for backpacks. More toilets, self-flushing, hand driers, replacing broken seats and hooks. Building - overhaul of leaking roofs and rising damp. More restaurants and a bigger gift shop to cope with and conveneience the increasing number of visitors. Regular cleaning. Organising events to attract the donors and Friends Of The Museum. training museum guides. Updating captions. Adding direction signs.

At the Horniman museum in London somebody working for the golf area (crazy golf I think) said that the golf there in the summer served a dual purpose. It entertained and attracted visitors.  He didn't say but it just occured to me, the extra outdoor activity kept down the numbers indoors reducing overcrowding. The outdoors attraction, kept some of the excitedly shrieking small children away from disturbing museum visitors. Families and community minded people would be glad children and adults and grandparents could walk or run around in fresh air and get vital vitamin D. The cash could help fund the constant drain on funds by the main museum which needs upkeep and staffing and ever increasing acitivities nowadays, such as marketing and printing.

With public libararies and swimming pools and minor museum in London and all over the UK threatened with closure or already closed, you realise that keeping a free museum free running and serving the entire community requires effort and money.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Imperial Wharf walk and see the City Swimming Pool Exhibition At Gallery and Riverside Walk

Imperial Wharf station is surrounded by ultra-modern buildings. 

Opposite the exit on one side is the Roca London Gallery. I'd managed to walk past it twice or more going to or from the station, then on my way back to the station I stopped, camera phone in hand, and thought, that's unusual. My first thought was that it was a swimming pool, my second that it was an art gallery with an exhibition about swimming pools. I had to rush on because I was meeting family at a nearby station. Later I looked up their website and discovered more about the building itself and the exhibition on city centre and water-based swimming pools. 

The Roca London Gallery Building

I discovered that the building is by an award winning architect. 

The City Swimming Pools

The online photos show swimming pools placed permanently or temporarily with adjacent to river banks or like picture frames in the middle of a river with a water top curving path giving pedestrian access. The frame presumably give clean water, keeps out debris, and passing river craft, or those who have not paid to enter, as well as offering a frame of trees, the illusion of a tropical oasis,   

Urban Plunge - ideas for swimming pools within rivers in London and other cities worldwide.

http://www.rocalondongallery.com/en/building

Opposite the gallery is a Tesco Express well stocked with sandwiches and a salad bar and a good selection or orchids in pots if you are looking for a gift. For the man or woman who has everything - a blue orchid? Anybody want to buy me a present? 

If you have more time and money to spend, next door is the upmarket H & H cafe, which an acquaintance informed me is owned by Tesco. A member of my family took exception to the air conditioning in the cafe so I haven't yet tried it. But the £1 egg sandwich in Tesco seemed very good value.

Venture down the nearby complex and you'll find fountains and waterside dining and see buildings reflected in the river.