Category: Travel

A meat market has existed in Smithfield since the 10^th century. In and of itself, that would not make the place interesting enough for a visit. But Smithfield is also where William Wallace and Wat Tyler were executed, the location of St Bartholomew the Great (the oldest intact church in London and where a pivotal scene took place in “Four Weddings & a Funeral”), the neighborhood of Cloth Fair (a group of houses that escaped the Great Fire of 1666), an area where legal brothels once thrived, and the location of the Old Bailey and the former Newgate Prison.

Newgate Prison was established in 1188 just south of Smithfield Market. It was a very notorious prison where people were held in a cramped, unsanitary and inhumane fashion. Prisoners were also charged for their food and bedding. The gallows were moved from near Marble Arch to just outside of the prison in 1783. Hangings were quite a spectacle for the public and continued until 1901, just three years before the prison was demolished.

Some of the more famous prisoners held at Newgate included Giacomo Casanova, author Daniel Defoe, playwright Ben Jonson, pirate William Kidd, and Pennsylvania founder William Penn.

In 1585, the Old Bailey (officially the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales) was established right next door to Newgate Prison. The current building was built in 1904 when the prison was torn down. Although people can watch trials, no cameras are allowed. You can’t even have one with you (so no mobile phones either). Since we had cameras with us, we weren’t allowed in. If I want to watch a trial in the future, I’ll just go over there on a day when that’s the only thing I plan to do and leave the camera (and phone) locked up back at the hotel. There are several shows that have  had scenes shot at the Old Bailey. One of my favorites is “The Escape Artist”, which was shown in the US on PBS as a Masterpiece Mystery.

A very short distance north of Old Bailey is St Bartholomew’s Hospital, which was founded in 1123 by a monk named Thomas Rahere. He was a favorite of King Henry I and also founded the church of St Bartholomew the Great, which is right by the hospital.

St Barts is still very much a working hospital and has been rebuilt and remodeled several times over the centuries. It does still have the Henry VIII Gate, which dates to Tudor times and has the only statue of King Henry VIII in London. There is also a plaque on the outside of the hospital facing Smithfield Market (and the little round park) that mentions that William Wallace was executed in 1305 nearby. According to what I understand, he was hanged, drawn and quartered (a very gruesome and painful way to die) at the little round park. He had been found guilty of treason because he had led an army against the King of England (Edward I). The film, “Braveheart”, was a highly fictionalized representation of his life (he wasn’t even the person called Braveheart — Robert the Bruce was). But he truly was a great Scottish hero.

Wat Tyler, the leader of the Peasant Revolt in 1381, was also executed in the same area. Not certain if it was closer to the meat market or to the hospital. It was also more of a rushed deal. Tyler and King Richard II (who was about 14 at the time) met at Smithfield to discuss an end to the Peasant Revolt. The King’s men weren’t happy with the way Tyler was behaving and attacked him. He was fatally wounded. Then they decapitated him and placed his head on a pole. Despite this, Richard was credited with the successful suppression of the crisis.

Next to the hospital is another Tudor gate. This one is of the half-timbered variety. Passing through this gate takes you into the grounds of the church of St Bartholomew the Great. The reason why this is the oldest intact church in London is because most of the rest of them have had to be restored or rebuilt due to fires or World War II bombs or both. Even the Temple Church, which managed to survive the Great Fire of 1666 ended up with bomb damage from WWII. Benjamin Franklin worked inside the church for a year as a journeyman printer when he was living in London.

Rahere, the fella who founded both the hospital and the church, is buried in the church. He also reportedly haunts the church. It seems that, in the 17^th century, while some repairs were being made to his tomb, someone removed a sandal from one of his feet. Eventually the sandal was returned to the church, but not replaced in his tomb on his foot. Apparently he is still peeved.

During the reign of Mary Tudor (Elizabeth I’s older sister), several executions of “heretics” took place in the environs of the church. They say that there are times when one can definitely smell the odor of burning flesh. I have been there on a couple of visits and have yet to encounter Rahere’s ghost or smell anything bad. Now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably get hit with them both on the next visit. The important “fourth wedding” in “Four Weddings & a Funeral” was filmed in St Barts as have scenes from several other films and TV shows.

Next door to the church, to the west, is Cloth Fair. In medieval times, merchants bought and sold cloth in the street during the Bartholomew Fair. The street contains the oldest house in London. Just as the church escaped the Great Fire, so did this little block of houses. A little bit of time traveling can be had here.

Nearby is Cock Lane. This was where, in medieval times, brothels were allowed to operate legally. The road is short and narrow as it was back then, but the buildings are not all original. So the only thing remaining from the medieval era is the street name.

After we were done exploring the area, we stopped off for some food at the Viaduct Tavern, across from the Old Bailey on Newgate Street. It is built over a portion of the Newgate Prison (roughly five cells in the cellar) and is supposedly quite haunted. If you ask nicely, you can go downstairs to see the cells from the prison. I did and found it pretty eerie down there. The person who worked there said they never go down there alone at night.

There are plans to move the Museum of London from its current location on the London Wall in the Barbican to Smithfield Market. The idea is to provide a much larger area for exhibits than what the current space contains without venturing too far from the current site.

On previous trips to London, we had never spent much time on the other side of the Thames. We might have popped across London Bridge to visit the Globe Theatre; or walked across the Tower Bridge and back again; or zipped across Westminster Bridge to visit the Florence Nightingale Museum; or visit the Imperial War Museum at the former Bedlam Hospital. So, during the trip in 2002, we decided to spend an entire day in Southwark, which is the area across London Bridge to the South, where the theatres, bear-baiting pits, brothels and coaching inns existed in Shakespeare’s day and the debtor’s prisons and operating theatre of St Thomas Hospital in Dickens’ day.

We took the underground to Borough Station. Marshalsea Road (named after Marshalsea Prison) was right there. Dickens’ parents were sent to Marshalsea when he was a boy. It was a debtor’s prison. Dickens used Marshalsea as the basis for the debtor’s prison in Little Dorrit. The debtor’s prisons did let people out of the prison during the day in order to go to work to repay their debt. But they also charged them for their room and board in the prison. So it could take a very long time for a family to earn their way out.

While his parents were in Marshalsea, Dickens was employed in a boot-blacking factory where the Charing Cross Rail Station is today on the other side of the Thames. That would have been a long walk for a twelve-year-old boy to make. So he mainly lived at the factory and would visit his parents once a week. Nothing is left of the prison other than a stretch of the wall that used to surround it and a plaque stating that’s where it used to be.

Heading up the Borough High Street towards London Bridge, are the remnants of several coaching inns — mainly their names and former locations. The Tabard was the inn from which Chaucer’s characters in The Canterbury Tales departed. That inn existed from the 1300s to the 1600s. When it burnt down, it was replaced by the Talbot, which was torn down in the 1800s.

Next door to where those inns were located is The George Inn, the only surviving galleried coaching inn in London. The original inn, the George and Dragon, burned down in the same fire as the Tabard and was rebuilt in 1677. That is the inn that exists today. Dickens spent some time there (in the coffee room in the middle of the ground floor) and also referred to it in Little Dorrit. In Shakespeare’s day, his plays and those of Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe were sometimes staged in the courtyards of coaching inns as the galleries made for great spaces from which more moneyed members of the audience could view a play.

The day we were there was lovely, warm, and not raining, so we purchased our food inside (in the former coffee room) and sat outside to eat it. Except for some cars parked in the courtyard, when looking at the inn itself, it did seem that we were transported back in time. Inside, the ceilings were low and the floor sloping and uneven.

We continued up the Borough High Street to St Thomas Street. St Thomas Hospital was first mentioned in 1215 and was named after St Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was martyred in 1173 during the time of King Henry II. Remember the story about Dick Whittington and his cat? He was a real person who, after he became Mayor of London, established a lying-in ward at St Thomas Hospital for unwed mothers in the 15^th century. The hospital was also the site of the printing of the first English Bible in 1537.

The hospital was moved to its current location across the river from Parliament in 1862. But the name of the street remained and a small piece of the hospital was left behind as well. Up in the attic of a medieval church that had been rebuilt at the end of the 17^th century, it was discovered in the 1950s that an old operating theatre from St Thomas Hospital still existed. It was created in 1822, before anesthetics or antiseptics existed and was used for operating on poor women, who would have had no other recourse to surgery other than as part of a teaching hospital.

The way into the place (which also includes an herb garret where dried opium was found among the herbs left behind when the operating theatre was rediscovered) is up some very steep, narrow turnpike stairs in a corner of the church. It is the oldest surviving operating theatre in the UK and includes a rather gruesome display of some of the surgical instruments that would have been used there.

From the Old Operating Theatre we went on to Southwark Cathedral. There are legends that the cathedral began as a nunnery in the 7^th century and/or a monastery in the 9^th century. But the first official reference to the property dates to the Doomesday Book in 1086. The oldest part of the existing building dates to 1106 with the main part of the church dating from 1220 to 1420.

William Shakespeare’s brother, Edmund, was buried in the church somewhere, but his grave is unmarked. There is a memorial to Shakespeare himself, showing him in a reclining position and holding a quill. Southwark was the parish church for Bankside and so would have been the main church for all of the actors and playwrights in the area. The church, originally named St Saviour and St Mary Overie (Overie meaning “over the river”),became a cathedral in 1905.

Not far from the cathedral, at St Mary Overie Dock on Cathedral Street, is a replica of Sir Francis Drake’s ship The Golden Hinde. This replica was built by traditional methods and sailed on a reenactment of Drake’s 1577 circumnavigation of the world. She has been used in a few films too. On this visit, there was a private children’s party onboard, so we didn’t get to go on it. Another time, perhaps.

A short walk from the ship is The Clink. This was a prison (actually two prisons — one for men and one for women) which was part of the Palace of the Bishop of Winchester from 1144 to 1780. The current museum is on the site of the original men’s prison and advertises itself as the prison after which all other prisons were named — as in the expression “thrown in the clink.” The Bishop could have a person locked up for pretty much any reason he wanted, and he did. When touring the place, I couldn’t help noticing that the majority of torture devices were designed specifically to torture women. The Bishop had a whole brothel business going on the side and sometimes used the women’s part of the prison to keep his women in line. Lovely guy.

Along Park Street, the locations of both The Rose Theatre and the original Globe Theatre can be found. The Rose has been largely excavated in the basement of a modern building. That’s because they discovered it when digging the foundations for the new building. The choice was made to preserve the theatre while still building the new structure above it. The Globe, on the other hand, is largely underneath a listed building (which means the building it is under is historic and cannot be altered). So there is a marking in the car park behind the building, showing the outline of one of the walls beneath. This is just steps from The Rose. It is also a fairly short distance from the reproduction of The Globe. So the replica is as close to the original in distance as it can be under the circumstances.

Before heading back to the hotel we stopped in at the Anchor Inn. It is right on the river and has a great terrace from which you can watch the river traffic while having a nice meal and/or a pint. People have been doing so from that location for over 800 years, although the present building has only been there since 1676 (replacing one destroyed by fire). With its proximity to the theatres, it would seem most likely that Shakespeare and his pals would have gone there for a drink and/or a meal after a long day of rehearsals or performing.

Part of our Boston trip in 2000 included a day trip to Marblehead and Salem. These two locations have ancestral ties. A sixth great-grandfather and Reynolds ancestor, named Nathaniel, was born in Marblehead in 1730 and ended up being swept off of his ship during a storm just off the coast of Marblehead in 1782. In between he led a very interesting life.

When he showed up for what was supposed to be his wedding to one woman, he didn’t take kindly to her sense of humor when she pretended that marrying him was not a big deal to her. So he left. He encountered another woman he knew on the way home and declared he would marry her instead. She agreed. They ended up having six children together — mostly in Nova Scotia, to where he had relocated when he went into being a ship’s captain for a career.

When the American Revolution came along, he was involved in an attack on Fort Cumberland which also concerned extracting families (including his own) from Nova Scotia and taking them to Maine. After that he became involved with privateering against loyalist ships. At one point he engaged with three of them at the same time. He was branded a pirate by the British and had a price of £100 on his head. But he carried on attacking and disrupting British shipping with his ship the Blackbird (and later the Hornet) throughout the Revolution — mainly around Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. I have always said that having him as an ancestor is why I never get seasick, even in very rocky seas.

A 5^th great-grandmother, was Nathaniel’s daughter, Lydia, who was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia, and married one of my Freeman ancestors, Elisha. The Freeman name came all the way down to my paternal grandmother.

Marblehead was first settled in 1629 as a fishing village. Several of the old homes from the 1700s (and even the late 1600s) still exist on narrow, crooked streets. We started out at the Abbot Hall, which houses the famous painting, The Spirit of ’76. Then we visited the harbor and Castle Rock (from which the citizens of Marblehead watched the action out at sea during the War of 1812). I can imagine my ancestor (whose body was never recovered from the sea) would have wanted to join the fray had he still been alive.

Marblehead had been an offshoot from Salem, which had been founded in 1626. Many of my ancestors, including my first colonial Freeman ancestor (Samuel, who arrived in 1630) came into the colonies through Salem. By the time the Witch Trials began in 1692, however, my ancestors seem to have moved off elsewhere. Probably a good thing. If they had been there at that time, they likely would have been involved in one way or another. But I don’t find any evidence of any ancestral name listed in any of the records regarding the Witch Trials. I’m very relieved they weren’t involved in any persecutions.

Most of the accused in the Witch Trials lived in Salem Village, which is now known as Danvers. There are several Witch Trials sites in and around Salem and Danvers. There are Witch Trial tours that will take you around and tell you the real stories about the real people involved. The Witch Museum also focuses on the history of the trials. They have a very good short film that explains what happened and exhibits including actual artifacts. The Old Burying Point cemetery has a memorial to the victims.

Right next door to the cemetery is a house that used to belong to the Peabody family. The eldest of the three sisters, Elizabeth, owned a very important and influential bookstore in Boston (the West Street Book Store) and was involved with the literary circles and educators of the day, including Bronson Alcott (Louisa May Alcott’s father) and Horace Mann. Elizabeth was one of the champions of having such a thing as kindergartens.

Elizabeth took an early interest in Nathaniel Hawthorne, which not only helped his career (especially by bringing him into the Emerson circle), but also introduced him to her sister, Sophia, who married him. Their sister, Mary, wed Horace Mann. I think it’s interesting how Elizabeth would make friends with these men who would then marry one of her sisters.

Nathaniel Hawthorne did have ties to the Salem Witch Trials and added a “w” to his name to try to distance himself from his ancestor, John Hathorne, who was one of the judges during the trials. His birthplace (he was born in 1804, the son of a ship’s captain) is in Salem, right next door to the House of Seven Gables. Both can be toured with a single ticket. His birthplace was not originally next door to the House of Seven Gables, but was moved there later, after he became a famous author.

The House of the Seven Gables was built in 1667 for a yet another ship’s captain. Hawthorne was related to the family and spent time in the house when he lived in Salem. At that time, the house had been remodeled several times and was down to three gables only. But Hawthorne was told the history of the house and shown the locations of the missing gables in the attic. He decided to write about the house as it once had been instead of as it was in his day. In the early 20^th century, the house was purchased and restored to more closely match what Hawthorne had described in his novel.

Another connection to Hawthorne is located at the Salem Maritime National Historic Site on Derby Street. He worked there at the Custom House before his writing career really took off. There are a couple lovely old houses next to the Custom House plus other houses and buildings, a wharf and a tall ship that can also be toured. Throughout the town, there are houses of various centuries that can be visited as well as a Pirates Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum. There is a trolley system that links everything.

In 1692, being accused of witchcraft meant imprisonment, most likely a trial and very likely death. In 2000, several people were living in Salem who openly referred to themselves as witches, warlocks, Druids or Wiccans. Some had shops where amulets, potions and spells could be purchased. I was much more interested in the historic and human aspects of the Witch Trials of 1692 than in the modern shops, exhibits, and such. But plenty of both can be found. Also evening “haunted” tours.

I really liked Salem a lot. It is quite a nice town with historic connections to the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries. There is a lot to see and do there. Half a day was definitely not enough. Next time I go to Boston, I plan to take the ferry to Salem and stay for two or three days.

For the trip to Boston in the fall of 2000, Mom and I stayed at the Parker House Hotel (built in 1855). We chose it for its location and the fact that we could get a very good deal on the room. Boston Cream Pie, Boston Scrod, and Parker House Rolls were all created at this hotel. Such luminaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Charles Dickens all stayed at the Parker House at one time or another. John F. Kennedy announced his bid for the presidency there. When John Wilkes Booth visited his brother, Edwin, just before he assassinated Abraham Lincoln, he also stayed at the Parker House and did some target practicing nearby. It was a very nice hotel with a Victorian feel. The best thing about it was that it is right on the Freedom Trail and we could walk pretty much everywhere we wanted to go.

We covered the trail over a couple days as we wanted to make certain we saw everything we wanted to see and weren’t rushed. We started at the memorial to Robert Gould Shaw and the 54^th Massachusetts Regiment. These were the soldiers portrayed in the film “Glory”. Next, we wound our way along Boston Common and visited the Park Street Church before entering the Old Granary Cemetery. This cemetery was very close to the hotel — just across the street on the one side. Paul Revere plus his father and in-laws, Samuel Adams, the Boston Massacre victims, Ben Franklin’s parents and John Hancock were all buried there. We spent some time walking around and checking out the graves before heading over to King’s Chapel, which is across the street from the hotel on another side.

King’s Chapel is the oldest burial ground in Boston, dating back to the mid-1600s. The church was founded in 1686, although the present building was built in 1754. Many of the original Boston settlers (including some of my Reynolds ancestors) are buried there as is William Dawes (from the midnight ride). Elizabeth Pain, who is believed to have been Nathaniel Hawthorne’s model for Hester Pryne in The Scarlett Letter, is also buried there. Over the centuries, with overcrowding and not a huge concern for having people directly under the headstone bearing their name, headstones were frequently shifted around. Some are illegible. So, although I know that I have ancestors in there, I have not found their headstones and don’t have a clue as to where their remains might be. I don’t suppose it really matters. It is a very atmospheric, old cemetery and I’m just tickled to know I have family there.

Our next stop was the Old South Meeting House, which is across the street from where the Reynolds family land was originally located. The Boston Tea Party was planned here and the men who participated went directly from the meeting house to the harbor. A vial of tea and a piece of a label from one of the chests are on display, along with John Hancock’s portable writing desk and a musket from the Lexington battle. It was the largest building in Boston at the time it was built, with two levels of balconies and the pulpit at the side of the building.

That first day, we ended with the Old State House and Fanueil Hall.  The next say, we began with the Holocaust Memorial and then explored the neighborhood of the Union Oyster House, and the Green Dragon Tavern. Shortly before reaching Paul Revere’s House, we stopped in at an old shop where I purchased a sword. I was told that it was British and of the type that the Regulars would have had at Bunker Hill. The person who sold me the sword said that the colonial militia would not have had swords, other than possibly the officers.

I found Paul Revere’s house to be fascinating. It was built in 1680. The Revere’s lived there from 1770 to 1800. It was the first wooden 17^th century house in the U.S. that I had ever seen in person and was not large or grand — just an ordinary house of the time. Across a small courtyard from the house is a brick Georgian house build in 1711. This is the Pierce/Hichborn House and can also be toured. It is very different from the Revere house. We took our time at both houses, then sat for a while on a bench in the courtyard, staring at the Revere house before continuing on our way.

Between Paul Revere’s House and the Old North Church, I was stopped by a woman who asked me if her son could see the “toy” sword I was carrying (the tang, grip, pommel and button were sticking out of the plastic bag). I told her that it wasn’t a toy, but that I would show it to her and her son, although he couldn’t touch it. That seemed to satisfy them, so I pulled it from the bag and pulled the sword from the scabbard. It was and still is dull, so not too much danger of cutting anything. But I still didn’t want to take any chances. It now hangs at the bottom of the stairs down into my family room, above a Grand Union flag (which was the flag in use in the colonies at the beginning of the Revolution). I bought the flag at the Old North Church.

The Old North Church was not terribly large and was also hemmed in by several other buildings. So getting a good photo of it wasn’t easy. As with the Old South Meeting House, photographs were allowed inside. I loved the box pews. They also had a couple lanterns on display like the ones that had been waved up in the tower. But we also weren’t allowed up in the tower. We did go into one of the box pews and sat down to contemplate for a while.

Before heading across the river, we had lunch and then went up to Copp’s Hill Burying Ground. Both Militia Men and Regulars were buried there, including several from the Battle of Bunker Hill. The climb up the hill is worth it just for the view. The site originally had a windmill on it and was turned into a cemetery in the mid-1600s. It is the second oldest burying ground in Boston. Both Cotton Mather and Increase Mather, two Puritan preachers who were involved in the Salem Witch Trials, were buried there. Several free African-Americans, including Prince Hall, who began the first group of black freemasons, were buried there as well.

After Copp’s Hill, we crossed the river to tour the U.S.S. Constitution, aka “Old Ironsides”. The ship was launched in 1797 and saw service in several battles during the War of 1812. This ship is the real thing. It isn’t a reproduction. It continued to be in service until it was converted to a school ship in 1860. The last time that I am aware that it sailed was for the bicentennial of the War of 1812 in 2012. Periodically some refurbishment is needed to keep the ship seaworthy. It is now 220 years old.

I found it interesting that, other than the woman with the curious kid, nobody seemed to be bothered by me walking around with a sword sticking out of a plastic bag. Maybe they all thought that it was a toy. Not too sure that it wouldn’t cause comment now — post September 11^th. But back in September of 2000, nobody cared.

The next stop on our journey was Bunker Hill. The Regulars had retreated to Bunker Hill after the battles in Concord & Lexington back in April. But, instead of engaging with the colonial militia immediately upon arrival in Charlestown, the Regulars chose to begin a siege on Boston and wait for reinforcements there while placing their cannons on Copp’s Hill, from where they could shoot at much of the city. In June, a couple days after the reinforcements arrived, Colonel William Prescott, of the colonial militia, began fortifying Breed’s Hill, which was closer to Boston and considered by him to be more readily defensible than Bunker Hill. Prescott also positioned several men on Bunker Hill.

Since my sword was likely from that battle, I momentarily thought about brandishing it on my way up the hill. But cooler heads prevailed and I quickly decided that would not be a good idea. Just carrying it up the hill in the plastic bag was good enough.

Most of the battle took place on Breed’s Hill. That’s also where the memorial was built. There is a debate about whether or not anybody actually said, “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” Even if it was said, nobody is certain who said it — Colonel William Prescott, General Israel Putnam, Colonel John Stark or Captain Richard Gridley. The Regulars ended up taking the ground, but at a loss of 1,054 casualties. The colonists suffered about 450 casualties. George Washington, on his way to Boston to take command of the Continental Army, heard about the battle while in New York City.

After leaving Bunker Hill, we took a boat from Charlestown Harbor to a pier not terribly far from the hotel, where I put my sword away before we headed for dinner at the Union Oyster House.

Mont Saint Michel has always intrigued me.  It is an Abbey that looks like a fortress, built, beginning in 966, on several levels on an island off the coast of Normandy.  The Bishop of Avranches, named Aubert had a dream, back in 708, in which he was visited by the archangel Michael who gave him instructions on where to build a church dedicated to him.  He left his fingerprint on Aubert’s forehead as a sign that it wasn’t just a dream.  Aubert’s skull is in a museum and actually has an indentation that looks like a fingerprint.

Aubert built a church on the summit of the island, which was torn down when work on the Abbey began.  It is amazing how they were able to get all of the materials needed to build the Abbey up to the top of that rock.  Even today it is a very steep climb.  Our tour director took us up a road winding around the outer portion of the island, which was not quite as steep as the road through the village.  It is the road taken by anyone servicing the Abbey — the back door, so to speak.  Mom and I took the long, steep, cobbled circuit up to the top at a pace that was leisurely enough that we could still breathe, but fast enough to not take us all day.  We were still able to join the local guide’s tour of the Abbey just seconds after he began and saw everything we wanted to see.

There was talk that when Mont St Michel was a prison, it was where the “Man in the Iron Mask” spent his days.  But Mont St Michel wasn’t a prison until the late 18^th century and the “Man in the Iron Mask” lived in the 17^th century.  There is, however, a treadwheel that was used when the Abbey was a prison.  Prisoners would walk on the wheel in order to raise supplies up to the prison.

After visiting the Abbey, we had free time to explore the village on our way back down.  Didn’t find a shop to get a real sword or dagger, but I did find a replica of a Roman dagger in a shop on the road down to the bottom of the mount.  It hangs out in my family room with other real and replica swords, daggers and pistols.  I do have in interesting 18^th century French dagger pistol.  It looks like a dagger, but has a single-shot pistol hidden behind the blade.  It was definitely made for a right-handed person as a lefty (like me) couldn’t keep the pistol part concealed while holding it in their left hand.  It appears to have been created for pirates and other devious persons.

Near the gate to the village was a communal restroom.  It was open air and accommodated all genders.  The only semblance of privacy was if you actually went into a stall and closed the partial door.  Otherwise, you were out in public.  While waiting in line, I remember the complete look of panic on one man’s face as he stood at the trough that was a urinal.

Normandy is also where the D-Day landings took place.  One of the things about seeing Omaha Beach in person is that you wonder how anyone survived.  The Germans were up on the cliffs above the beach, shooting down on the Americans as they landed in their amphibious craft and scrambled to make it onto the beach and then up those same cliffs.  It had to have been hell on earth for the landing troops.  Omaha was the beach with the largest number of casualties, but five beaches were involved.  Omaha and Utah were the American beaches; Juno was Canadian; Gold and Sword were British.

Our tour began at the D-Day Museum in Caen.  At the time of the invasion, Caen was totally flattened by bombs.  After touring the museum, we had lunch before moving on to where the invasion took place.  During lunch, we sat with a student from Fordham University whose sister lived in the same block I used to live in when I lived in NYC.

From Caen, we drove through Bayeaux (of tapestry fame) to Pointe du Hoc.  This was a location high on the cliffs that had been occupied by the Germans.  Roughly 200 American troops had the mission of scaling the cliffs and capturing what was up there.  By the time it was over, 125 of the Americans were dead.  So it was very hard fought.  The bunkers and the bomb craters were left just as they were at the time of the invasion.  According to the guide, a large number of the dead were also left there.  Most of the bunkers were sealed up since they were tombs.  There was one that was left open for us to tour.  Utah Beach can be seen from the cliffs.

It was raining heavily while we were at Pointe du Hoc and kept up a pretty steady rain the entire day.  It was a good thing that we had long raincoats with zip-out linings and hoods.  Mom had an umbrella, which she would try to hold over me from time to time.  I don’t carry an umbrella on those kinds of trips since I haven’t mastered how to hold onto one and still take photos and/or videos.

From Pointe du Hoc, we visited Omaha Beach.  Some of the obstacles on the beach and a couple of landing craft are still there.  This helps to give an idea of the way things were at the time.  The American Cemetery is up on the cliffs overlooking the beach.

We went by some of the other beaches on our way to Arromanches, where we checked out the false harbor that the British built there.  Much of it is still there.  One of the villages has a dummy on a parachute hanging from a church steeple as a memorial to the paratroopers who participated in D-Day.

Once the Allies fought their way off the beaches, up the cliffs, and inland, they didn’t have it any easier.  The farms in the area were divided by hedgerows and ditches, which made it very difficult for the Allies to advance with their tanks and other vehicles.  One thing about viewing the location of a more modern battle is that not that much is different, so it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to envision what it was like.  When I stood on Omaha Beach and looked over the edge of the cliff at Pointe du Hoc, I couldn’t help but admiring the Allied troops that faced those overwhelming obstacles and persevered anyway.  They had to have been terrified.  But, isn’t that the definition of heroism?

Always a fan of castles, I have been blessed to be able to tour many castles, palaces and great houses throughout Europe and the Middle East.  For the most part, they are all different.  Two of the largest and most lavish have been Fontainebleau and Versailles in France.  Both palaces were originally built as hunting lodges for the kings of France.  So they were never owned by a member of the nobility or clergy and then confiscated by the king.

Of the two, I liked Fontainebleau the best.  It was on more of a human scale than Versailles despite the fact that the building is actually more sprawling.  Walking through it, I didn’t feel as likely to get lost as I did in Versailles.  The layout of the rooms seemed to make more sense and the rooms themselves seemed smaller — cozier.  Fontainebleau is also the older of the two, having been built in the 12^th century and then enlarged and turned into a palace by Francis I in the early 16^th century.

The palace has several items that had belonged to Napoleon as this was his last residence before he was deposed and exiled to Elba.  He gave his farewell to the Old Guard from the horseshoe staircase outside of the palace.  He had also imprisoned Pope Pius VII at Fontainebleau.  When you look at the photo of the exterior of the palace, below, you can see the horseshoe staircase.  The photo of Napoleon’s bedchamber I have included has a set of steps next to the bed.  He was even shorter than I am at 5’2”.  Maybe that’s why he was so feisty.

Versailles was initially built by King Louis XIII in 1624, then expanded between 1661 – 1715.  The photos that are usually seen of the palace show fountains and/or gardens with elegant facades in the background.  The original portion of the palace is central and on three sides of a courtyard.  This is also the main entrance.  The photo I have included here is of that portion of the palace.  The fountains weren’t working on the day we were there, so I didn’t get any of those classic photos with the fountains gushing.

We had a whole day at Versailles, so had plenty of time to tour the main palace plus the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon.  The Hamlet (a little peasant village created at the request of Marie Antoinette) was closed as it had been heavily damaged during a severe storm the prior December.  Thousands of trees in the area had been uprooted.  Winds at the Eiffel Tower had been recorded as high as 134 mph.

The Grand Trianon had been built by Louis XIV as a retreat for himself and his mistress.  Subsequent kings often used it for the same purpose.  But it was also used as a guest house for long-staying royal guests.

The Petit Trianon was originally built by Louis XV for his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.  But she died before it was completed.  Her successor, Madame du Barry lived there instead, followed by Louis XVI’s queen, Marie Antoinette.  It became Marie Antoinette’s favorite retreat.  During the Revolution, it was while she was at the Petit Trianon that she was taken captive before being imprisoned at l’Conciergerie in Paris.

During the Revolution, all of Versailles — the Palace, the Grand Trianon, the Petit Trianon, the Hamlet — were ransacked and the furniture sold.  Only the theatre survived.  That was likely because it was a small, separate building, hidden by trees, that was most likely overlooked.  It is the only building on the property that has survived intact from the 18^th century, with no updates or restorations.

Napoleon mainly used Fontainebleau, although he did fix and up and use parts of Versailles, such as the Grand Trianon.  But the main palace was sorely neglected.  It wasn’t until the 1950s (when its potential as a tourist attraction was realized) that the palace began to be restored.  I’m very glad it was.  Versailles is very different from most other palaces I have visited.  The closest to it that I have seen so far is the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia (now the Hermitage Museum).