Ron

Another busy day. I had time to grab a quick breakfast in my usual place in Rathausplatz before getting back to my hotel to wait for Ron to arrive for yet another drive in his hire-car, this time to Baden-Baden, for my final concert.

Ron dropped me off at the Festspielhaus and we did our separate things until 5:00 pm back at the concert hall. I went off exploring, half hoping to find somewhere which might be taking the broadcast of the Monaco Grand Prix. There was no sign of anywhere which might answer that bill, so it's just as well I'd phoned Carl back home and asked him to record the race so I can watch it later in the week.

I spent a leisurely few hours exploring anyway, stopping off at different spots for coffee and lunch. We met up as arranged and finalised our preparations for the concert which began at 6:00 pm. This was a performance of Bach's B Minor Mass, by the Bach Collegium Japan under Masaaki Sukuki. This combination is just the best in the world right now when it comes to Bach. This was our first time hearing them live (I can't really see them making their way to Dublin any time soon), and it was a most wonderful experience. The other two concerts on this musical pilgrimage were good, but this was terrific all the way through. A great way to end the music content for this trip (for me anyway: Ron still has two more of the Ring operas ahead of him).

The blip is Ron (the German member of our music group who lives up to the old adage about being more Irish than the Irish themselves). This was during the interval, downstairs in the Aida Bar in the Festspielhaus.

We stopped on the way back to Freiburg for a bite to eat and Ron dropped me off at my hotel around 10:00pm, pretty much exhausted, but still with packing to do ready for my early-morning checkout and my train ride to Zürich.