Who would not jump at the opportunity to walk around palaces in different parts of the world and admire the opulence within? It could be the grandeur of Versailles or the one-of-a-kind “People’s Palace” Parliament building in Bucharest: Our reaction to those lushly carpeted halls and the crystal and glass chandeliers that sparkle even if they are unlit is an admiring, “Magnificent!”
We listen to the guides as they explain where the marble came from and what this design means and who that painting represents, but much of it is quickly forgotten, even if we have clicked endlessly to preserve the moment — and the magnificence — digitally.
And then, we stumble upon small and quaint places that do not spend lavishly on décor but are still unique and memorable — and recalled often.
Thus, it was fascinating to be in a little restaurant along the Adriatic coast that had a wooden frame lining the walls and from it protruded hundreds of thin wooden forks with comments and phone numbers of appreciative customers written on them. On the tables, there were coloured pens and a plentiful supply of these wooden forks, which we could decorate and then stick into the lamp shades that hung low over the tables. How wonderful to be a participant in the creation of that decor!
In another small eatery, there was a map of the world and a box of round-headed coloured pins that customers could stick into the place from where they came. Of course, there was a dense concentration of pins and a lot of colour in the countries of Europe, but I was happy to see that there were quite a few pins in India too — and I proudly stuck in the first one for my southern city.
Then, in what was just a little more than a two-table restaurant, a painted creeper “grew” out of a painted pot on the wall and went all the way up and around an archway, its leaves and flowers spreading here and there and ending before they came down to floor level again. Maybe in another couple of years that creeper will have a thicker growth of leaves, maybe there will be a cascade of flowers and maybe the entire archway will be a riot of colour.
In another small town, after a snack in the cellar, we dined in a long tunnel-like restaurant — and everywhere we looked, there were empty bottles that seemed to teeter on the edges of ledges and parapets. One could not help but think: “This is not the place to pick a fight or spin around too much while dancing,” but we were treated to an energetic display of folk dancing, and amazingly, not a single arm or leg touched those bottles and everything stayed intact even when we joined in and bounced around the aisles!
Probably the most unusual decor we have ever seen was in a restaurant outside Vienna where the two or three hours we spent enjoying the music and the food did not seem enough for us to take in the many musical instruments, photographs and other items that decorated the walls and hung from the ceiling and seemed to cover every bit of space available.
Not ready to miss out on any of the surprises, one or the other of our group would “disappear” into the corridors, up into the stairwells or into the washrooms each time we heard our tour director say, “Time to go” — just so we could prolong the time we spent admiring the decor.
And now, long after our trip to California, I hear of The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles, where the walls, the corridors — everything — has books stacked, packed, even bursting out.
Oh, for a day to browse there!
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
