April 2021 – A Traveling Fool

In 1984, Mom found out about a group tour leaving from the Twin Cities for a fourteen day trip to Europe. It was designed to give a summary, so you would know what places interested you enough to return.

We left on a chartered plane that had been booked through the group in Minneapolis, with the tour itself through Cosmos Tours (the budget arm of Globus). This was our first experience with either Cosmos or Globus. We like them so much that we booked all of our larger tours with them over the years. I still use them now. They have an independent travel group called Monograms and river cruises through Avalon Waterways.

We arrived in Amsterdam and were met at the airport by our Italian tour director, Ricardo, and our Belgian driver, Louis. Because the entire group arrived together from one location, we could leave immediately for sightseeing without having to wait for people to trickle in from multiple countries. This was the only time I have ever been with a tour group that was totally from the US and all from Minneapolis/St. Paul and suburbs. Since Globus is a Swiss company, the people on the tours can be from anywhere in the world, just so they can understand and speak English. I really like that. I get to meet people and develop friendships with folks from all over the world.

Our tour of Amsterdam began at a diamond factory. They were not giving out free samples. Then we took a canal ride. That was quite enjoyable. As I have mentioned many times, I love being on a boat on the water — no matter what kind of boat or water.

After the canal ride, we had some time to ourselves. So we exchanged money, had a quick, light lunch and then checked out Dam Square, the Palace, the New Church, and the Old Church. The Old Church was in the middle of the Red Light District. It was a little disconcerting to pass by all of those shop windows with prostitutes on display.

We met up with our tour coach by the Railway Station and were taken to the Rijksmuseum. This museum’s main claim to fame is that it holds the largest collection of paintings by Rembrandt, Franz Halls and Vermeer. They also had some wonderful, very old, dollhouses. I love dollhouses, so that was as interesting to me as the paintings. Rembrandt is one of my very favorite artists and a favorite of one of my brothers. In Minneapolis, our museum has an amazing painting by Rembrandt of “Lucretia”. I have set off the alarm by getting too close. Not just once, but twice.

The star of the show in the Rijksmuseum is “The Night Watch”. While “Lucretia” is relatively small and intimate, “The Night Watch” is gargantuan. It takes up an entire wall.

Back at the hotel that evening, we were on our own for dinner. Mom and I ate in the hotel restaurant and had bouillabaisse, which is a French fish stew, for dinner.

The next day, we left Amsterdam, driving past Utrecht and Breda to Belgium. We had a coffee break and time to exchange money just across the border. Then we drove past Antwerp to Brussels.

We had free time to get lunch just off of the Grand Place. Again, we had a quick, light lunch so we could spend most of our time exploring the Grand Place. There we saw some lovely buildings with very interesting names — The She-Wolf, The Sack, The Wheelbarrow, The King of Spain. Then there was the House of the Dukes of Brabant, the Town Hall, and The Kings House.

Once we rejoined the tour coach, we were taken to see the Royal Palace, the Royal Park, the War Memorial and arch, the Palais de Centenaire, and The Atomium. I didn’t know at that time that I have some Belgian ancestry. You have to go back a few centuries to hit it, but it is there nonetheless.

Our hotel was out in Wepion, Belgium in a hotel on the River Meuse, right across from a beautiful, pink castle, called Chateau de Dave. No, I’m not kidding. That really is its name. After our included dinner with the entire tour group, Mom and I walked along the river to see the village itself and its locks.

We spent Thursday in Amsterdam, Friday in Belgium, and were leaving the next day to spend Saturday in Luxembourg and Switzerland, and Sunday in Liechtenstein and Austria.

This was our last day in England during what had been my very first real tour anywhere, back in 1983.

One of my very first posts in this blog was about how my life was nearly cut short at a five road intersection in Stratford by an articulated lorry (a semi in the US). In addition to adjusting to where the traffic was coming from, I also talked about adjusting to differences in American English and British English as well as to the food.

Both of my grandmothers had been British and, as long as I stuck to more familiar fare such as Shepherd’s Pie, Cornish Pasties, Bubble ‘n’ Squeak, etcetera, I was fine. It was those subtle differences between something like egg salad, which in the UK turned out to be sliced eggs on a bed of watercress, and egg mayonnaise, which would get me the US chopped eggs in mayonnaise. Don’t get me started about hamburgers or bacon. I learned a lot on that first trip.

We began our day getting picked up at our hotel and taken to Oxford. “Inspector Morse” had a couple more years to go before it appeared on our screens in the US through PBS. I knew that Oxford was a University Town, but didn’t yet understand the differences between a university in the UK and one in the US.

My general understanding is that, at Oxford, the students live in rooms and take meals at a college (like Hertford, Jesus or Brasenose), attend lectures mainly in small groups in the offices of their professors or grad students, and study in the libraries of the Radcliffe Camera, the Bodleian Library and others. A student will “read” for what the US calls a “major”.

The oldest colleges at Oxford were founded in the 13th century. Jesus College, the first one we visited, was founded by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571. The other two colleges we visited — Hertford and Brasenose — were founded in 1282 and 1509 respectively.

This visit was also long before the Harry Potter films. It was the dining hall of Christ Church College at Oxford that was used in the first film as the dining hall of Hogwarts.

The Radcliffe Camera was opened in 1749 and is a beautiful, round building originally built for study of the sciences, near Brasenose, All Soul’s, and Exeter colleges. It isn’t too far from the Bodleian Library either. Although the current building dates only as far back as 1602, the Bodleian Library (in some form or another) dates as far back as the 14th century.

We also paid a visit to the Old Schools Quad, which houses part of the Bodleian Library and has separate entrances for parts of the collections of the original schools — such as philosophy, religion, science, law and medicine.

Upon leaving Oxford, we went by the Martyr’s Memorial, which commemorates the burning at the stake of Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester and Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London as well as the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer a few months later. They had been convicted for heresy because of their Protestant beliefs after a quick trial in 1555.

Once we reached the environs of Stratford-upon-Avon, we headed out to Shottery to visit Anne Hathaway’s cottage. This was where William Shakespeare’s wife lived as a child. It was a 12 room thatched cottage built between the 15th and 17th centuries and looked like Snow White and her seven companions would emerge from it at any moment. I really loved touring it and seeing a regular house that old.

Back in town, we toured Shakespeare’s birthplace. I remember it being rather cramped and dark, but that was probably because of all of the people that were squearshed into the place. It seemed totally different on my latest trip (in 2016) when I could walk through at my own pace and talk with costumed interpreters who explained what I was seeing and answered any questions I had. I also remember that everyone else had to duck down when passing through doorways. Not this girl. I was just the right height.

After the birthplace was when we had some free time before jumping back on the tour coach and returning to London. This was when I had my encounter with the articulated lorry. When the driver parped his hooter at me, I shot into the air and seem to remember levitating across the road. In my original telling of this story, I mentioned polishing his windscreen as I flew across it. At any rate, I don’t think my short little legs ever moved so fast before or since.

Fortunately for Mom, she was already across the road. I had fallen behind for some reason and was trying to catch up when I nearly met my maker.

Next time – the beginnings of a 1984 “if this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium” kind of European tour.