The storm is near. – Sparafucile, Rigoletto, Act III
In fact the rain is slowing for the first time in about 24 hours. Writing from an outdoor café at the Bregenzer Festspiele, on the Bodensee (Lake Constance), in Austria but with Switzerland and Germany in 10 minutes ride left or right. I have a few hours to kill before the outdoor performance starts at 8:15pm, and I am told that weather cancellations are exceedingly rare.
This is the first “real” day of my 9-day, 8-opera, 3-country, 2-wheel vacation. Yesterday I landed in Zurich, was expeditiously processed and sent off to the suburbs to pick up my motorcycle rental – I will not mention the dealership since they will get plenty of advertising from their name being garishly plastered across the tank:
Dealership is a sprawling complex, roomy and clean, my handler Cédric a model of Swiss efficiency, and within a few minutes (and an unspoken amount of CHFs) I was handed the keys to a 2019 BMW R NineT “Pure,” a beastly naked roadster which has absolutely no business being my daily driver but fulfills my every fantasy of minimalist European touring. I strapped my tailbag to the postage-stamp of a pillion seat, clipped on my backpack, and set on a meandering route to Lake Constance.
Motorcycling, as it turns out, is an effective way to shake off a red-eye. Despite a string of construction (with nonetheless pristine driving lanes) and highway tunnels that the Swiss seem to enjoy building through everything taller than a molehill, I picked my way to Rheinfall, because it’s Europe’s largest waterfall, because it was sorta on the way, and because it seemed like a good enough place to stretch my legs.
€5 to walk down the viewing platform, in a leadfooted queue of tourists, but I had enough strains of Wagner’s Rheinmaidens between my ears to not mind so much. As above, a frothy cascade of water power, tumbled rocks and an overwhelming feeling of both ceaseless force and constant change.
Off to Stein-Am-Rhein, also in Switzerland, for a coffee break in the old city with a view to city hall.
I omit the picture of my iced coffee, which due to a translation error on my part, was a coffee ice cream float. I shall not pretend that I regret my error.
Passing in thru Bregenz to Lindau, skirting Lake Constance, the predicted rain came sheeting down and has not yet quite let up.
I refreshed at the Youth Hostel, and knocked back a couple of exceptional local Weiss beers at their in-house bar. It’s a tidy sprawl of accommodations that seems to be popular with families on bicycle tour holidays.
Today, Sunday I met with an internet friend I made who is stage manager for Rigoletto here, we had a lunch (made good work of a bucket of käsespätzle) and quickly fell into some great opera geekery and shop talk. Then off to a backstage tour – not much “back” to it since the set is built on the Lake without proscenium, the Vienna Symphony playing in an outbuilding, their sound remixed and simulcast using what I am told is a state-of-the-art PA system.
