Zürich, Day 4

I was due to go to two operas today, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, but I'd more or less decided last night to pass on the evening performance of Rossini's Italian Girl in Algiers and give my ticket to Martin as a thank you for all he was doing for us during our stay. Carl wasn't going to any of the musical events, so I gave the ticket to him to pass on when he met up for the day trip which Martin had laid on for people not going to the matinée. I spent a few hours wandering around the old town on 'the other side' of the river and enjoyed every wonderful moment, lapping up the beautiful weather, the peace and quiet, and the wonderful maze of narrow hilly streets and fascinating architecture.

The afternoon performance was of Verdi's Rigoletto, and it was wonderful. The production was much more to my liking than last night, the principal singers were good (Rigoletto was sung by Leo Nucci, who (along with the conductor, Nello Santi) seems to be a bit of a local hero. For me, the hero of the show was the orchestra. The final act was especially good, and I was happy to join in the rapturous applause which went on for quite some time after the curtain came down. Three of us had gone to the performance, and we went on afterwards to a nearby bar/restaurant where we'd been the previous evening. We had a pleasant snack and spent a while comparing notes about the opera.

Back at the hotel I felt like a bit of a refreshing nap, but the nap turned more into a sleep than originally intended. This all meant that those of us who weren't going to the evening opera met up later than would have been ideal. A lot of the restaurants were closing early, but this turned out to be just as well for us, since other wise we wouldn't have found the wonderful place we ended up in. This was the absolutely wonderful Vorderer Sternen, which has a roof-top terrace which overlooks Bellevue square down near the lake. The food was great, though Carl and I fell into a bit of an unexpected and epensive trap by opting for Chateaubriand between us.

Martin and Dermot joined us after their opera (they were full of praise for it), and we went on from the restaurant for the now regulation late-evening drinks. Once again it was 2.30 am or so by th time we got back to the hotel.