Category: Travel

Once upon a time there lived a girl named Juliet who fell in love with a boy named Romeo.  There isn’t any evidence that either one of them actually existed.  But there is a house in Verona that does date back to the 14^th century and was purchased by the city of Verona from the Cappello family in 1905.  Cappello was close enough to Capulet.  So a balcony was cobbled together from pieces of a 17^th century sarcophagus and Casa di Giulietta (Juliet’s House) was born.

Over the years tourists have had a habit of sticking love notes to the walls of the courtyard where you can see the balcony and a statue of the non-existent Juliet.  The city of Verona has had enough of all of these notes and the gum, glue, tape, etc. used to stick them on the walls and now will fine anyone they catch leaving such a note €500.  The house has been furnished in the style of the 14^th century and contains some costumes from the most recent film version, so it could be fun to visit anyway — just keep those love notes to yourself.  When I visited in 1998, I don’t remember going inside as an option.  It was simply a matter of standing in a very crowded, very small courtyard while trying to get a decent photo of the balcony.  To my mind, it was a house of the right era in Verona, and that was good enough for me.

Having most of a day in Verona was great.  In addition to the balcony, there were several Roman ruins and fairly intact Roman buildings.  The Roman Arena, which once held 30,000 spectators in its heyday, can still hold 22,000 and continues to be used for concerts.  There is also a Roman Theatre by the river that is still used for things like opera performances.  The theatre had been built over at one point, but a wealth Veronese bought all of the houses and had them torn down in the 18^th century.

Back in the day, each of the main cities of what is now Italy were ruled as “city states” by powerful families, such as the Medici family of Florence, the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan and the Scala family of Verona.  I found it very intriguing that one of the important rulers of Verona was named Cangrande I della Scala.  “Cangrande” essentially means “Top Dog” (literally “Big Dog”).  He was born in 1291 and was a patron of Dante.  When he died in 1329, he was placed in a tomb in the courtyard of a church in Verona.  Over the years, he was joined in that same courtyard by several members of his family.  Some of the tombs are quite elaborate.

We also had a good, long visit in Venice on this trip — multiple days.  One of the highlights was an evening visit to St Mark’s Square to see the Doge’s Palace and the Basilica San Marco all lit up.  Behind San Marco, on the other side of a canal, was a music club called Ai Musicanti.  It was an opera club.  We heard three talented opera singers plus a violinist and a pianist performing all of the Italian opera greatest hits while munching on appetizers and sipping champagne.

We had a completely free afternoon one of the days.  So Mom and I decided to explore San Marco from top to bottom.  Up to that point, San Marco was pretty much the oldest building I had ever been in where we had the freedom and time to explore most of it.  The original building was completed in 832, in the form of a Greek cross.  But, in 976, the Doge at that time was locked inside of San Marco by a rebellious mob and the basilica burned down with him in it.  They must have really hated that guy.  San Marco was rebuilt in 978, but the present Byzantine-style building (complete with five domes) dates from roughly 1063.  Some parts of the building, especially down in the undercroft, were part of the older versions.

Mom and I decided to start at the top and work our way down.  After entering the center door, but before leaving the Narthex to enter the main part of the Basilica, is a very old, steep staircase leading up to the museum at the top of the building.  This is where the originals of the horses on the exterior of the building are kept.  There is also a gallery from which we could see the entire Basilica from on high.  We were a little closer to the glistening, golden mosaics up there.  Then we stepped out onto the part of the roof next to the replicas of the horses and looked out over Saint Mark’s Square.  We would go up the Campanile (Bell Tower) later and get some spectacular views of the entire Venice area.  That tower at least had a lift (elevator).

There seemed to be loads of places throughout San Marco where we could pass through a door, climb some stairs, venture down a corridor, and see a uniquely different part of the building.  We ended up in some rafters at one point, where we could see the structure of the building [see photo below].  We also wandered around in the undercroft for a while.  We were both just fascinated by the place.

Back in 1094, the Doge at that time found the remains of Saint Mark encased in a pillar in the aisle on the right side of the Basilica (when facing the high altar).  You would have thought he would have been in a special tomb instead, being that he is the Mark of “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John”.  His remains were taken from the pillar and reinterred in the high altar.  In the Cathedral in Kirkwall, Orkney (in Scotland) the relics of Saint Magnus were found in a column in 1919.  Maybe that’s what they did with the remains of a saint that they wanted to protect back about a thousand years ago.  Nobody would know where to find Saint Whoziss and therefore couldn’t steal the remains.  In Mark’s case, I believe the Venetians stole him in the first place.

There is a rumor that the body that was stolen from Alexandria, Egypt, by the Venetians wasn’t Mark at all, but Alexander the Great.  This is partially because Alexander’s body seems to have gone missing and partially because there are claims that Mark’s body was cremated after death.  First of all, the cremation story is not even remotely the accepted story.  Also, from what I have read about Alexander, I would think that he would not take it lying down to be called by another name.  He had a humongous ego.

After Venice, we headed for Ravenna on our way to Assisi.  We had thought that San Marco was old, having originated in the 800s.  The Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna was begun in 526.  In 554, Ravenna became the seat of the Byzantine government in Italy, so the basilica there became quite important.  It is also highly decorated with mosaics.  Some panels of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora are especially treasured.  They date to 547.  But the oldest mosaics in all of Italy are in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, who was the daughter of the Roman Emperor Theodosius.  She died in 450.  So the mausoleum took the prize for the oldest building I had been in up to that point.  I would end up in much older structures on later adventures.

The next stop was Assisi.  This was the end of March in 1998.  In November and December of 1997, there had been some major earthquakes in Assisi.  Four people had been killed in the upper part of the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi (13^th century), which was still closed for repairs.  We could visit the lower part which contains St Francis’ tomb.  There was quite a bit of damage there too, but not so much that it had to be closed.

We also visited the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary of the Angels.  This is a very large cathedral that contains the site of St Francis’ hut, the cell in which he died, and the rose garden.  Sort of like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, which was built over the sites of the Christ’s death and tomb, this one was built over and around several of the places featured in St Francis’ life.

At the very top of the cathedral was a statue of Saint Mary, which had fallen off during the earthquake.  Miraculously, it wasn’t damaged and had been set up near the front entrance of the cathedral [photo below].  It was nice, really, to see her close up instead of several stories away.

In our hotel in Assisi, we had a compact little bathroom where you could sit on the toilet, brush your teeth and take a shower all at the same time.  Handy.  But it could be disconcerting if you were really tired and pulled the wrong chain after using the loo while fully dressed.

From Assisi we went to Pompeii and Capri, plus experienced a snowstorm on the way back to Rome!  More about all that in the next post.

The European trip we took in 1984 convinced us that we needed to return to Italy.  It took us until 1998 to do it, but we had a full 16 days in a country where we had only spent a total of three days before.  We flew into Rome and were surprised at how casually the passport control agent greeted us.  He just glanced at our passports, didn’t ask any questions, said “you’re okay”, and waved us through.  I’ve had more scrutiny in the US, where I was born.

I wasn’t feeling too great at the time.  I had tried to allow myself to get some sleep on the flight over by drinking several glasses of red wine.  All I had managed to accomplish was a hangover and still didn’t sleep a wink.  Decided after that experience that I wouldn’t concern myself about whether or not I slept and would just relax and rest my eyes.

On our previous visit to Rome, we had just been driven among the ruins of the Roman Forum, although we did get to spend a little time in the Coliseum.  This time, we had quite a bit of time to wander around among the ruins and drink it all in.  I really enjoyed it, despite getting a sunburn on top of my hangover.

I remembered the Shakespearian play “Julius Caesar” pretty well from high school.  Our teacher thought it would be a good idea to read it out loud with class members playing the various roles.  Since I had already been in a few plays (Juliet in “Romeo & Juliet”, Abigail in “The Crucible”, Maggie in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”) he had me play Brutus.  This meant that, instead of Brutus being a tall, strapping, swarthy Italian man, he was a small, blue-eyed blonde high school girl.

I was tempted to give the “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” speech when standing at the podium from which Marc Antony eulogized Julius Caesar, but was afraid of that being too much of a cliché.  Good thing.  There were several others who gave that first line in succession.  I actually could have gone for a few more lines (“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.  The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones; so let it be with Caesar.”), but that might have been showing off.

The first time I had seen the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, it had been very dark from centuries of dirt and smoke.  The ceiling had been cleaned between 1984 and 1998 and was absolutely glorious.  The colors were so vibrant and the whole ceiling now had a 3-D quality to it.  Figures were climbing out of the painting and coming towards me.

My mom had a balance disorder, so looking up was difficult.  There wasn’t any place to sit down either.  So I steered her to the center of the room, had her hold on tightly to me (and me to her), and told her to look up.  We were directly under The Creation of Adam.  She was so overcome that she cried.

This time in Rome, we didn’t have any road accidents.  In fact, traffic seemed to be moving more smoothly than it had in 1984.  We had a female tour director this time, who had been born in Bosnia and had immigrated to Italy when the conflicts began.  She was a huge fan of Andrea Bocelli, and played his music when we were on the road between cities and towns when she wasn’t telling us about something.  This was my mother’s and my first exposure to his singing.  We ended up buying CDs before we left Italy.

Our hotel in Rome had about the thinnest walls in any hotel anywhere.  We could actually hear the guy in the next room snoring.  Since we could hear conversations next door as well, we knew they could hear us too, so we were careful not to say anything we would have possibly found to be embarrassing — “did you see the toupee on that guy?”  It was after that trip that I bought a sound machine that I still take with me on every trip.  At least we didn’t get locked in the hotel room this time.  Of course we might have been able to get out by tearing through the wall to the next room.

After spending a few days in Rome, we left for Pisa and Florence.  London Bridge might not be falling down, but in 1998, the Leaning Tower of Pisa was.  They had closed the tower and were desperately trying to straighten it back up enough to keep it from toppling over.  They had the area around it completely blocked off so that, if it did fall, it wouldn’t land on anybody.  Cables were holding it up and counterweights were on it to help it to slowly shift back to a safer angle.

Begun in 1173, the tower had starting sinking in 1178 after the completion of the second floor.  Instead of starting over with a stronger foundation, the builders at the time opted for a change in the design to accommodate the tilt.  It took a long time to build.  The seventh floor wasn’t completed until 1319.

We had a fair amount of time in Pisa, so we explored the Cathedral, the Baptistery and the Cemetery.  Both the Cathedral and the Baptistery were older than the tower and fascinating to explore.  We also had lunch in Pisa.  Then we continued on to Florence.

This trip we had quite a bit of free time in Florence to explore on our own — a whole day.  Before setting us loose on the marble streets and sidewalks, our tour director took us to the Piazza de Michelangelo from which we could see the entire city laid out before us.  The piazza also contained a copy of Michelangelo’s most famous statue, the David, in green marble.  The museum containing the original was closed that day, so we were going to have to make do with this green David and the copy that stands where the original used to stand in front of the Palazzo Vecchio.  This made two trips to Florence without being able to see the actual David.

Once we were dropped off with the return time established, Mom and I were off and running.  Our first stop was Casa Buonarroti, which had been owned, but never lived in, by Michelangelo.  It was now a museum containing drawings, models and his early works.

Nearby was the Museo Nationale del Bargello, which was a medieval palazzo (1255), housing a museum devoted to sculpture.  They had a very early version of David by Michelangelo plus both Verrocchio’s and Donatelli’s Davids.

Before having lunch, Mom and I needed to exchange some more money, so we went to a bank near the Piazza della Signori.  It had the greatest security I had yet seen in a bank — and it wasn’t a terribly large bank either.  We had to enter one at a time.  After going through one door, that door had to be closed behind you before you could open the next one.  Once you got through the second door, it too had to be closed behind you.  Then you entered a metal detector.  When I came out of the other side of the metal detector, I couldn’t wait for Mom to make it through before approaching a teller.  We still needed to be separated and go to different tellers.  Good thing we had already decided how much money we each wanted to exchange before entering the bank.  We weren’t able to connect again or communicate until we were spit out through the doors on the opposite side of the building.

The whole time we were in there, I was concerned that I might do something stupid out of ignorance and/or lack of being able to fully understand the signs in Italian.  But we managed to complete our transactions without getting arrested.

When we came out of the other side of the bank, we were right where we wanted to be — the Piazza della Signori itself.  This is where the Palazzo Vecchio, the Uffizi Gallery, and the outdoor sculpture gallery (Loggia dei Lanzi) are located.  There is also a Neptune fountain and several cafes with outdoor tables.  We had lunch at one of those cafes.  Fortunately it was a beautiful day.  We lounged and people-watched for a while after lunch before dashing off to see the other places we wanted to see before meeting up with our tour director, driver and the rest of the group.

The Duomo, which began building in 1296, was a short walk from the piazza.  It is most famous for its dome by Brunelleschi that wasn’t completed until 1436.  It is massive and gorgeous on the outside, but quite simple in its decoration inside.  In 1478, Giuliano di Piero de Medici, ruler of Florence at the time, was murdered inside the Duomo.  His brother, Lorenzo, who was with him, managed to escape.  Lorenzo went on to rule Florence and become the patron of several artists, including both Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buornarroti.

Right across from the Duomo is the Baptistry, which is considerably older, having been constructed between 1059 and 1128.  The doors of the building are quite famous with the doors on the east side referred to as The Gates of Paradise.  The mosaic ceiling inside was done in the Byzantine style and reminded me a lot of the interior of San Marco in Venice.

Santa Croce (holy cross) must have originally had a piece of the cross as it is a basilica — a designation reserved for cathedrals with special relics.  It is the final resting place for several important people, such as Michelangelo, Gallileo, Amerigo Vespuci, Rossini, and Machiavelli.  There are also memorials to both Dante and Leonardo da Vinci, who were buried elsewhere.

The next day, we headed for Milan.  The Santa Maria delle Grazie, where da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” resides, was closed.  So we didn’t get to see that either.  It was in the process of being conserved (from 1978 to 1999).  It isn’t open to the public much anyway as it is difficult enough to keep in good shape without having all of that human breath hitting it.

We did get to see the Teatro de Scalla and the Cathedral (begun in 1386, but not completed until 1805).  The roof of the cathedral is open to the public for the wonderful views of the city it provides.  The main family of Milan was the Visconti family as Florence was a Medici stronghold.

When we got to Lake Como, we drove around to see all of the beautiful villas.  George Clooney did not yet live there or we might have tried to see where he lived.  I understand that, once he did move there, his villa was often pointed out to tour groups.

We stayed in Porlezza, which is on Lake Lugano and explored the medieval part of town, in easy walking distance to our hotel.  We bought some fruit in the market to carry with us on the trip.  Fresh fruit was not something we encountered often in the restaurants on the trip so we were pleased to get some oranges and bananas.

We took a day trip to Lugano in Switzerland.  At the border (Italy was not yet in the European Union), the border guard came on the coach to check the passports.  He didn’t seem to like me or mine for some reason.  In 1993, when I had gotten my passport renewed, they had given out green passports instead of the usual blue.  But there was another woman on the tour who also had a green passport and she didn’t seem to bug him like I did.  He kept looking at the passport and then at me; back at the passport and again at me.  We were becoming concerned that he wasn’t going to let me into Switzerland or turn the entire group away because of whatever reason was that he didn’t like me.  Eventually he gave my passport back to me and left, but not before giving me one last, lingering, nasty look.

Not having learned our lesson back on that earlier trip up Mount Titlis in Switzerland back in 1984, Mom and I went up Monte Tamaro in a four-person cable car.  At least it was just one cable car and it didn’t have any problems docking.  After tromping around in the snow for a while, we went back down and had some lunch in Lugano.  The border guard on the way back didn’t seem to be concerned about me at all so returning to Italy was not an issue.

Strains of “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General” from “Pirates of Penzance” wafting through my brain, Mom and I started out on a multi-day, small group trip out of London to Devon and Cornwall.  Our first stop was the village of Avebury in Wiltshire.  While Stonehenge is separated from the public (you can walk around it but not in it), the Avebury henge consists of three Neolithic stone circles in and around the village.  You can go up to the stones and touch, pat, caress and fondle them, if you so desire.  Watch where you are walking, however, as there are loads of sheep in most of the areas where the largest stones that are still upright are found.

There is also a pub in the midst of these circles, so you can have a spot of lunch, a pint, or a dram all while surrounded by what has been referred to as the largest megalithic stone circle in the world.  The Red Lion Pub was converted from a 16^th century farmhouse.  It is built around an 86 foot deep well (now covered with glass and used as a dining table).  Quaint indeed.

Next was Wells Cathedral, which was built from 1175 to 1490, replacing a church that had been built in 705.  A unique feature of this cathedral is the St Andrews Cross Arches.  They look really modern, but were created in 1338.  A story about this cathedral took place during the English Civil War.  Sir Walter Raleigh’s nephew, also called Walter Raleigh, was the Dean of the Cathedral at the time.  He was under house arrest in the deanery when he refused to surrender to his jailer a letter he was writing to his wife.  Really ticked off, the jailer ran him through with a sword.  He died six weeks later and was buried in an unmarked grave in front of the Dean’s stall.  So all subsequent Deans have trod over his grave when going to their seat in the quire.

As we continued on to Plymouth, we went by Glastonbury Abbey and Glastonbury Tor (which were part of the King Arthur legends and which I later visited), plus made a short stop at Buckfast Abbey.  The abbey was built over 30 years by six monks who began in 1907.  The abbey that had been there before had been destroyed by Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 16^th century.  The new abbey was quite an accomplishment for just six monks in any age.

When we got to Plymouth, we found that our hotel was on the edge of the Hoe.  This suspiciously named location is simply a public park that overlooks the sea.  Back in 1588, when Sir Francis Drake was mayor of Plymouth (he had been so since 1581, though I have to admit that I find it difficult to believe that he would settle in one place for that long), the legend is that he and his men were playing a game of bowls on the Hoe when he was informed of the arrival of the Spanish Armada.  He reportedly said something to the effect of, “there is plenty of time to finish our game and still defeat the Spaniards”.  This delay allowed the wind and tide to change in his favor.  Sounds like he was being smart instead of being a braggart.

Plymouth also saw the arrival of Pocahontas in 1616 and the departure of the Pilgrims on the Mayflower in 1620.  The steps they now show to tourists as the Mayflower Steps weren’t in existence at the time.  The edge of the port was further into the town.  One of the most likely candidates for the actual steps lies between a couple of buildings and ascends from a street.  Not the most glamorous of locations.  The official steps still descend to the water and have a little monument above with Doric columns and such.  I took a photo of the steps that were thought to be the real ones.

We stayed in Plymouth for a few nights and used it as our base to explore the area.  We visited Mevagissey and Fowey in Cornwall.  Fowey was where Daphne du Maurier lived.  She was the novelist who wrote Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn (among many others) and the short story “The Birds”.

We also went to Marazion, from which we could see St Michael’s Mount (a miniature version of Mont St Michel in France).  I was very disappointed that we couldn’t visit St Michael’s Mount.  At that point I had not yet been to Mont St Michel either.  Both places fascinated me — remote fortresses out on the pinnacle of an island which could be reached on foot only during low tide.  Both were originally abbeys that were dedicated to the archangel Michael.  St Michael’s Mount became property of the king of England during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1500s.  It was granted to the Earl of Salisbury and then sold to the St Aubyn family in the 1600s.  So the building now is a private home.  The island (pre-abbey/castle) is the legendary home of the giant in “Jack the Giant Killer”.

Penzence was another trip out from Plymouth.  When Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzence” was written, placing pirates in Penzence was considered to be a joke as Penzence was a very peaceful resort town that had never had any pirates.  It was a lovely setting, as much as I could see of it.  Cornwall had very heavy fog that day, which made it impossible to see much beyond the shore.  Land’s End, our lunch stop that day, was completely engulfed in fog.  Land’s End is the southern-most tip of Great Britain and normally has great views of the surrounding sea.

The following day we set off for Dartmoor, where we were still plagued by heavy fog.  It did bring the right atmosphere for imagining The Hound of the Baskervilles.  Arthur Conan Doyle’s inspiration for the novel was a story about a man in the 17^th century who was supposed to have been a “monstrously evil man” and sold his soul to the devil.  When he died, a pack of phantom dogs came and howled at his tomb.  Subsequent nights he often was seen leading the baying pack across the moors.

We didn’t see Baskerville Hall (or any of the supposed candidates for the setting), but in that fog, we couldn’t see much of anything.  I’d like to return to Dartmoor sometime on a clearer day.  I would have to say it was quite atmospheric, however.  This time I am using “atmospheric” to mean “spooky”.  Dartmoor is full of tors (hills topped with outcrops of bedrock, which in this case was granite), rivers, and bogs.  So, in places where the fog was a somewhat wispy, the place still appeared very foreboding.  Then there was the prison.  Dartmoor Prison was built in 1809 to hold French and American prisoners of war.  It became a criminal prison in 1850 and still is.  As we went by the prison, all we could see was the main gate.  I had to leave it to my imagination as to what the actual prison looked like.

Enroute to London, we made a lunch stop at Exeter Cathedral.  It had been founded in 1050 and the present building was completed around 1400.  Since it doesn’t have a tower in the middle like a lot of cathedrals, it has the longest uninterrupted medieval vaulted ceiling in the world.  This is the point in a tour when you sometimes hit what the British tour directors call the ABCs — “not Another Bloody Cathedral (or castle)” when the tour group has become complacent regarding all of the cathedrals and/or castles they have visited and don’t even care about viewing another.  I will admit to having that happen to me with cathedrals, especially if they have all been pretty similar.  But I’ve never met a castle I didn’t like, plus they have pretty much all been different.  I even took one tour (which I will write about in the future) that was almost entirely of castles — multiple castles in a day.

Our last stop before London was Shaftesbury.  This was the site of the former Shaftesbury Abbey, which was founded in 888 by King Alfred the Great and destroyed in 1539 by King Henry VIII.  The old center of town is situated on a high promontory overlooking the Blackmore Vale.

This was Hardy country.  The novelist Thomas Hardy set several of his novels in the area.  There was a jumble sale (similar to a garage sale or flea market) going on in the City Hall.  I ended up getting a couple of old figurines that were small enough to pack in my carryon.

The main thing that I did was to have a chat with a woman who had a couple of Miniature Schnauzers there with her and I had been away from mine for about three weeks at that point.  One of her dogs had a lot to say (not barking, but other sounds that Schnauzers sometimes make as their form of talking).  Mine was also a pretty talkative dog, so I was entertained by watching dog and human converse.  Before leaving town, we had a cream tea at King Alfred’s Kitchen, which was in a 13^th century building with very low ceilings (a tall man in our group came close to beaning himself) just a short walk down the street from City Hall.  When we got back to London, we headed for home the next day.

Next time we begin an 18-day trip to Italy.

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” — William Shakespeare

I became a teenager at the age of nine.  This was because I had a next door neighbor named Susie, who was thirteen.  Despite our age difference, she took me under her wing and taught me about what was and wasn’t good in music.  One group in the great category was The Beatles.  I had to agree with her and continue to agree with her on that one.  This was a girl with taste.

So, at the age of … well … uh … let’s just say adulthood, I joined the leader of a Beatles walking tour at the Marylebone Train Station in London at 11:20am on a Saturday in 1997 for what I thought was supposed to be a two hour tour.  It ended up being a three hour journey through central London and St John’s Wood.

Some of the opening scenes of “A Hard Day’s Night” had been filmed at the Marylebone Train Station, including the phone boxes.  We then moved to various other locations, such as the flat where the “Two Virgins” photo was taken, the registry office where Paul & Linda and George & Patti were married, the EMI offices building (empty, but still recognizable), the former Apple clothing shop, the restaurant from “Help”, and Jane Asher’s father’s home (where Jane & Paul had lived for three years).  Then we hopped on the Tube at Baker Street and went out to St John’s Wood.  This was the location of both Abbey Road Studios and the famous crosswalk where the album cover was photographed.

Since this was a real street with real traffic on it, trying to recreate the photo was at one’s own peril.  I just took a quick photo of the crosswalk when no traffic was coming and felt good about that.  Others were really struggling trying to get a photo of themselves in the crosswalk without getting killed doing it.

Thoroughly satisfied by this guided walk, I hopped back on the Tube and took it to the Embankment.  Problem was, I was too dumb to realize that, once I had left central London, additional charges were added to the fare.  So it was a different price to go back to Embankment from St John’s Wood than to go from Baker’s Street to St John’s Wood.  When I got to Embankment, I couldn’t get out of the station.  My ticket was wrong.  So I went to the window for help.  They didn’t count my being foreign and not understanding how it worked as an excuse, and charged me £10 for not having the right fare.  That was the most expensive Underground or Subway ride I’ve ever had.

Back in 1970, an American actor named Sam Wanamaker began a quest to have a replica of the Globe Theatre built as the original had been built and as close to where the original had been as possible.  The original had been built in 1599, destroyed by fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and demolished in 1644 by Cromwell’s people who believed theatre to be the work of the devil.  But then, there are always narrow-minded people around in just about any age.  It took until 1997 before the new theatre was completed and opened to the public with a production of “Henry V”.  The roof is the only thatched roof permitted in London since the Great Fire of 1666.  As with the original, the center of the theatre is open to the sky, so they only perform plays in the summer.

The first Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, as they call it, was Mark Rylance.  He’s the fella who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in the movie “Bridge of Spies”.  My mom and I had the privilege of meeting him when he brought the troupe from Shakespeare’s Globe to the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis with a production of “Twelfth Night”.  We were able to have a very nice conversation with him.  I’ve seen him in two more plays — “Peer Gynt” and “Nice Fish” — and have watched the rest of his career with great interest after that.  He is one very talented actor.

The theatre was not quite yet completed when we visited it and took a tour.  They were using the same building methods as back in the 1500s.  The part that wasn’t finished was where the stage was located.  I took several photos of the construction.  There was a small group of about a dozen people touring the theatre in addition to us, but there were just five in our group.  I really enjoy smaller groups when touring something because the tour becomes more of a conversation and less of a lecture.  In larger groups it can be difficult to get a question in edgewise, especially if you have one or two people determined to monopolize the guide (usually to ask questions about the same information they have already given us — sorry, my curmudgeonly side is showing).  After our tour, we had lunch at the Anchor Pub.  There has been a pub on the site for 800 years, although the version that Shakespeare himself would have frequented was gutted during the Great Fire of 1666.

The Imperial War Museum was founded in 1917 and was moved to its present location in St George’s Fields in Southwark in 1936.  The building had been the Bethlem Royal Hospital, aka Bedlam.  I thought that was pretty fitting.  Some of the greatest insanity that exists on earth is often the cause of wars.

Bethlem Royal Hospital had been founded in 1247 and shifted its location several times through the centuries.  At first, it was a regular hospital.  But once it began receiving the insane in 1377, it continued to receive more and more until it was exclusively a psychiatric hospital by 1460.  This was when it became known as Bedlam (a corruption of Bethlem, which is in turn a corruption of Bethlehem).  The building now housing the Imperial War Museum was its location in the 19^th century.

The exhibits are quite interesting, including tanks, artillery, and a great collection of planes.  They have the remains of the Messerschmitt that Rudolph Hess flew from German to Scotland during World War II.  He was the Deputy Fuhrer and supposedly wanted to negotiate a peace contract.  He was arrested instead.  He was tried at Nuremburg after the war and given a life sentence.

The museum also houses a few artifacts from the Lusitania, which was a ship that was sunk by a German U-boat during World War I, killing over a thousand civilian passengers.  There is a trench experience from World War I where you can get an idea of what it might have been like in the trenches.  They also have a Blitz experience from World War II where everyone is seated in a bomb shelter while sirens sound and you can hear the bombs going off overheard.  Then you leave the bomb shelter and see the destruction all around.  That one was quite effective.

When we left the museum and headed to Westminster Bridge, we unexpectantly passed the home of William Bligh, the commander of the Bounty at the time of its mutiny in 1789.  The next day we left for a tour of Devon and Cornwall.

Near the town of Maidstone in Kent, sits a beautiful castle on an island in a lake.  This is Leeds Castle.  There has been a castle on this site since about 1119.  But the current castle, although it looks old (it was built in the Tudor style) mainly dates to the 19^th century.

A lot can happen to a castle over the years.  Some are destroyed by fire.  Some are bombarded by cannons.  Some simply disintegrate from neglect.  None of these things happened to Leeds Castle.  But it was constantly being rebuilt and remodeled by various owners.  Fortunately they all were quite wealthy and could afford to lavish their attention on the castle.  So the results are spectacular.

King Edward I (that major castle builder in Wales) acquired the castle in the 13^th century.  It became a favorite of his and his wife, Eleanor of Castile.  Windsor, the Tower of London, and Leeds were their three main castles in the south of England.  Back in the day, kings kept moving from one castle to another around the country to keep themselves constantly in front of their subjects.  They had to do it to keep control over their kingdom.  If, like the early kings after William the Conqueror, they also had territories in France, they were back and forth between France and England like yo-yos.  As much as I love to travel, I don’t think that sounds like a lot of fun.  Always moving.  Always looking over their shoulder.  Never able to just stay put, relax, have fun.

They had retinues of hundreds of people they had to house and feed (and pay) who traveled with them, including hoards of knights, musicians, ladies in waiting, servants, and any Dukes, Earls or other people they wanted to keep their eye on.  I suppose that’s one reason why Shakespeare had Henry IV say “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”.  Of course, Henry had taken the crown from Richard II and had him murdered, so he was well aware of how dangerous the throne could be.  That still didn’t stop him from taking it from his cousin, though.

When Henry VIII came along, he used Leeds Castle for his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.  That’s the era that the castle mainly evokes now, but with modern plumping and electricity.  There is also a swimming pool.

In the gatehouse at the time we visited in 1997, was a museum dedicated to dog collars.  The castle’s shop also had pottery figures of dogs what were very well done.  We ended up getting two of them.  The one I have is still the nicest dog figure I own.

From Leeds Castle, we went to Canterbury to have lunch and visit the Cathedral.  My watch had decided to die.  Not just the battery, but the whole thing fell apart.  So we needed to purchase a new one for me between lunch and the Cathedral visit.  As it happened, there was a shop across the street from the café where we had lunch.  I still have the watch.  It has lasted much longer than the one it replaced.

Canterbury Cathedral was originally founded in 597.  After a fire in 1067, it was rebuilt from 1070 to 1077.  The Cathedral was very important and the Archbishop of Canterbury was the most important ecclesiastical position in England.  King Henry II appointed Thomas Beckett to the position, believing that his old friend would just rubber stamp whatever the king wanted.  No such luck.  Beckett had his own mind and conscience and did what he thought was right whether the king agreed or not.  This made the king very frustrated.  At one point he said something to the effect of “who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”  Well, about four of his knights took him quite literally and murdered Beckett there in the cathedral.

Now you would think that Henry II would have learned to curb his tongue after that.  But no.  He was constantly stirring up the pot with all of this sons — Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, and John — plus his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine (who he kept imprisoned for much of their married life).  Every last one of them ended up at war with him at one time or another and constantly plotting against him (and one another).

After Beckett’s death, Canterbury became a place of pilgrimage for people who wanted to honor the slain archbishop.  He was interred in the cathedral and a shrine was built directly over the tomb.  When Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and destroyed shrines after splitting with the Catholic Church when he wanted to divorce Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn, Beckett’s shrine was removed.  This was in 1538.  Henry VIII also summoned the long dead (murdered in 1170) archbishop to court to face charges of treason.  When he didn’t show up, Henry declared him guilty by default.  I don’t know.  I think it would have been cool if the nearly four hundred years dead ghost of Beckett had shown up.  But I don’t think that was quite Beckett’s style and I’m sure he had better things to do.

Also at Canterbury Cathedral is the tomb of the Black Prince, which was what Edward III’s eldest son (also named Edward) was called.  He was next in line for the throne, but he died about a year before his father of some sort of illness.  His son, Richard, took the throne at the age of nine and became King Richard II.

The Black Prince’s tomb is pretty cool.  There is an effigy of him in full armor (in black) and his other accoutrements are hanging above the tomb.  Actually the ones above the tomb are reproductions as the originals are much too delicate and are displayed in a glass case on the wall.  He died in 1376.  As I’ve mentioned before, several of my ancestors have been knights, in service to various kings and other royalty.  One of those knights served the Black Prince and was killed at the Battle of Crecy in 1346.  Although a strong victory for the English forces, it didn’t do my ancestor much good.  Nevertheless, I gave the Black Prince’s effigy a little pat.

Our last stop of the day was Dover Castle, which was founded in the 11^th century.  During the Napoleonic Wars, a complex of barracks tunnels was created beneath the castle.  Then, during World War II, these tunnels were converted into an air-raid shelter and then a military command center plus a hospital.  There are roughly three miles of tunnels in the chalky cliffs.

Despite the song saying, “I’m looking over the White Cliffs of Dover,” I was not interested in walking over to the edge and taking a look.  Not a fan of heights.  Later, when we went into the town below, I was just fine with looking up at them.  Very impressive and quite beautiful.

We headed back to London to spend a few more days there exploring until we set off on another multi-day adventure to Devon and Cornwall.  Next up — The Beatles, the Bard & Bedlam.

On the day of the “Legal Inns of Court” walking tour, we were to meet up with our female guide at the Holborn Tube (Underground) Station.  Instead we found a large man with a booming voice.  Replacing our guide (who was ill) was a retired City of London police officer named Donald Rumbelow.  He was considered at that time to be one of the best Ripperologists (an expert on Jack the Ripper) around.  He had written a very thoroughly researched and knowledgeable book on the subject, which I had read.  I was planning on taking his Saturday night “Jack the Ripper” walking tour later that week.

We had a relatively small group for the “Legal Inns of Court” tour, so we were able to ask plenty of questions.  He was very conversant about everything he was showing us and quite personable as well.  Mom and I were glad we had him for the tour.  He also charmingly told my Mom that he would look out for me on the Jack the Ripper tour as she didn’t plan to go.

Our first stop was Gray’s Inn.  Anyone who wants to be a barrister in England or Wales must belong to an inn of court.  There are four — Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn, the Inner Temple, and the Middle Temple.  Gray’s Inn dates back at least as far as 1370 and includes Sir Francis Bacon, William Cecil, and Thomas Cromwell among some of its prominent members.  At one point, it was the largest by membership (when Queen Elizabeth I was its patron).  But, after the English Civil War, during which the entire process of being educated as a lawyer and being “called to the bar” was suspended, became the smallest.  Shakespeare’s play The Comedy of Errors was first performed there at the Inn’s hall.

To study law, one could attend Oxford or Cambridge or one of the Inns of Chancery.  The only surviving example of the latter is Staple Inn which dates from 1585.  Each Inn of Chancery was tied to a specific Inn of Court.  The students here would go on to Gray’s Inn to actually practice law.  The side of the main building that faces the street is half-timbered, while the side that faces the courtyard is brick.  Some solicitors have offices here.

The difference between a solicitor and a barrister is that the solicitor is the lawyer who handles legal matters outside of a courtroom, while the barrister is the lawyer who argues the case before the court.  Normally a person would hire a solicitor.  Then, if a barrister is needed, the solicitor will refer the case to the barrister.  There is a really good, on-the-edge-of-your-seat kind of thriller with both barristers and solicitors called “The Escape Artist”.  It has been broadcast on PBS in the States.

Next we paid a visit to Lincoln’s Inn.  This is the largest by physical size.  It is thought to date back to 1310.  John Donne, William Gladstone, Sir Thomas More, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony Blair were all members of Lincoln’s Inn.

For many, many years there was a tradition that unwanted babies could be left in the undercroft of the chapel at Lincoln’s Inn — no questions asked.  These children were all given the last name of Lincoln and placed in orphanages until they could be adopted or came of age.  Many families in the USA who think they might be descended from Abraham Lincoln might actually be descended from a baby abandoned at Lincoln’s Inn.  I have the name “Lincoln” in my family too and have found no connection to Abraham Lincoln.

The Inner and Middle Temples were next.  Until their abolishment in 1312, the Temple area belonged to the Knights Templar.  Both the Inner Temple and the Middle Temple became Inns of Court in roughly 1388.

The Inner Temple contains the Temple Church, which was built by the Knights Templar in 1185 and contains the effigies of some of the knights and the bodies of several more.  I have several knights in my family ancestry and some joined the Templars later in their lives (after having been married and fathered children).  I am aware of three that were buried at Temple Church.  The Inner Temple Gateway that leads from Fleet Street to the church has been there since the Templars built it, but was rebuilt in the 1600s and again in the 1700s.

The garden in the Inner Temple was where William Shakespeare set the start of the War of the Roses when the House of Lancaster selected a red rose and the House of York selected a white rose.  I wonder if that really happened or if he was just using poetic license.  I think it was the latter, but it is more romantic to think it might have really happened that way.  Whatever way it actually happened, they did have those roses as their symbols.

The first production of Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night was performed in Middle Temple Hall in 1602.  Sir Francis Drake was also feted there after defeating the Spanish Armada.  The hall survived the Great Fire of 1666 as well as the London Blitz so remains unchanged from when it was built

The last stop on the tour was the Royal Courts of Justice building.  The criminal cases are tried in the Old Bailey.  The Royal Courts of Justice contains the High Court and the Courts of Appeal for England and Wales.  The public can view cases there.  So Mom and I did just that for the fun of seeing everybody in their robes and wigs.

After touring all of this legal real estate, we decided to join “The Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes” walking tour the next day.  While it covered Covent Garden, the Lyceum Theatre, Maiden Lane, the Opera House, and the Sherlock Holmes pub (on Northumberland), it disappointingly did not include the Criterion (where Holmes and Watson met), 221B Baker Street (the Sherlock Holmes Museum), the Charing Cross Hotel or Old Scotland Yard.  The guide still managed to tell many of the tales of what happened where, so it was an entertaining, though not thorough, tour.

Since Mom wasn’t up to running around Whitechapel in the dark, I went off to Tower Hill Tube Station to join the Jack the Ripper walking tour alone.  Our guide, despite having a very large number of people on the tour, remembered me from a couple days earlier, kept his promise to my mom, and took me under his wing.  I stuck to him like glue.  I wanted to make certain that I didn’t miss a thing.

A couple of the murder locations, such as Hanbury Street (Annie Chapman) and Mitre Square (Catherine Eddowes) hadn’t changed at all since 1888.  Two others, Berner Street (Elizabeth Stride) and Buck’s Row (Mary Ann Nichols), had changed their street names, but still looked quite spooky in the dark of the night.  The one location where I really had to use my imagination was the last murder (Mary Jane Kelly).  The street (Dorset Street) and the cluster of buildings (Miller’s Court) no longer existed.

In Goulston Street, which was where a piece of a bloody apron was found with some graffiti written on the wall above, some of the neighbors apparently weren’t too happy about the tour as they opened their windows and blasted loud music out of them.  Rumbelow’s booming voice could still be heard, however, and he finished with what he wanted to show us there before moving on.

In addition to the murder sites and Goulston Street (which also hadn’t changed much), we were taken to a building that had been a doss house at the time.  A doss house was a pay-as-you-go rooming house.  This doss house was near both Miller’s Court and the Ten Bells pub.  The pub has been associated with two of the victims (Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly).  It has also been thought that perhaps the Ripper himself had a few drinks there.  Across the street is Christ Church Spitalfields, which is a very large, very nice church.

At the end of the tour (after visiting the Ten Bells), we all trooped down Commercial Street to where it intersected with Whitechapel Road to take the Tube back to wherever we came from initially, which in my case was the Embankment Tube Station.

Back in 1888, when those murders took place, there wasn’t much opportunity for a woman with no education or skills to be able to support herself.  Women were expected to be married or be supported by a relative.  But some women were abandoned by their husbands and/or abused by their husbands.  Or maybe their husband died.  There were also women who became addicted to alcohol or drugs.  For some of them, the only way to survive was prostitution.  For that way of life, many of them lost their lives — not just the victims of Jack the Ripper.

High on a hill, on a very large plot of land in Leicestershire sits a beautiful castle name Belvoir (pronounced “Beaver”).  It has been the home of the Manners family and the Dukes of Rutland since the early 1500s.  Prior to that, from the middle 1200s until the direct line of the family died out in 1508, it belonged to the de Ros family.  This was a group of my numerous knightly ancestors.  At that time, it was a Norman Keep.  The current castle is the fourth to be built on the site.

As part of a 1997 visit to England, we did a small group multi-day tour out of London that included a private visit to Belvoir.  It is still a private home, but they do have tours and occasionally allow filming at the castle.  It is both magnificent and homey at the same time with spacious, luxuriously decorated rooms for entertaining and cozy rooms for the family.  It is another of my favorite castles.

We were shown around the place by the butler.  The Duchess came by while we were gazing at the famous Holbein painting of Henry VIII.  She chatted for a few minutes and then went on her merry way.

One of my favorite rooms was the very large Entrance Hall filled with arms and armor.  I know some people find it odd for a woman to like antique weapons, but I do.  It’s like holding a piece of history in your hand.  So I have a few daggers, pistols and swords that I have picked up here and there on my travels.  Some are real.  Some are reproduction.  All are American Civil War or earlier and remind me of where I was when I got them (and, for the real ones, who might have owned them before).

The tradition of afternoon tea began at Belvoir in the 1840s because the time between lunch (at around noon) and dinner (after 7pm) seemed too long for a visiting Duchess.  So they came up with a meal of tea, scones, sandwiches and desserts to tide them over.  Usually when I have a high tea at about four or five in the afternoon, I’m much too full to have any dinner.  Back in those days it seems they used to really pack the food away.

We spent the night in Nottingham.  After a quick visit to the castle in the morning, we headed for Haworth in Yorkshire — home of the Bronte sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne).  Their father was the curate of the church and the family lived at the parsonage, which was across the graveyard from the church.  The graveyard surrounds the house on two sides and the moors on a third.  It’s a pretty atmospheric (read “gloomy”) place.  I could definitely picture Heathcliff and Cathy meeting out there on the moor — despite Wuthering Heights not being my favorite Bronte book (that would be Jane Eyre).

There were six children in all.  The two eldest girls died pretty young from tuberculosis, which they caught at boarding school.  Both Charlotte and Emily had been sent to the same school but were brought home when their sisters died.  The school was the model for the boarding school in Jane Eyre.

The only boy in the family was Branwell.  He became addicted to a combination of alcohol and laudanum (a type of opium) and spent a lot of time in the Black Bull Pub, which was not too far from the house.  It is next door to the church.  I wonder if Daddy Bronte came over from the church from time to time to check on his wastrel son.

It seems the girls had enough imagination to transport themselves elsewhere and enough talent to write it all down.  Poor Branwell, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be able to escape his drab existence other than through alcohol and drugs.  A real shame.  We were able to spend some time exploring the church, house, cemetery, and a fair amount of the village.  So I felt I soaked it in pretty well.

From Yorkshire we went over to the Lake District to Grasmere, where we spend a couple of nights at the Prince of Wales Hotel.  It had once been a manor house and was built around 1855.  The hotel was right on the lake and a short walk into the village.  It looked like a hotel I had once seen in a Sherlock Holmes movie.

Our room was up on the top floor of the newer wing, added after it became a hotel.  There were three floors in the oldest part of the hotel and four in the newest, so we looked out over part of the roof.  We were told that it rained every night in the Lake District and then cleared up every morning, which was one reason why everything was lush and green.  I have to say that the two nights we spent there, it did just exactly that.

The full day we had in the Lake District began with a very short walk over to Dove Cottage, which was in a cluster of old cottages very close to the hotel.  William Wordsworth had lived there from 1799 to 1808.  Then we went up one of the taller hills (more like a short mountain) to see the view.  From there, we drove by Beatrix Potter’s home and on to Ambleside on Lake Windermere for lunch and a boat ride on the lake.  Apparently some of the pilots in the RAF like to buzz the Lake District, especially Windermere.  So we had a loud jet pass overhead while on the lake.  Rather startling and kind of ruined the mainly Victorian vibe.

Before returning to Grasmere for the afternoon, we visited Ullswater, considered by many to be the most beautiful of the lakes.  You won’t get an argument from me.  Put me next to or on a lake with mountains all around and I’m a happy camper.  My blood pressure automatically goes down and I feel calm and restful.  I also get a smile not easily erased.

After being dropped off at the hotel for free time for the remainder of the afternoon, several of us decided to hike into the village to explore.  On the way we encountered sheep, sheep and more sheep.  Among them were several baby lambs.  That did it.  We were all waylaid by the side of the road, trying to coax the babies to come close enough to be petted.  This didn’t interest them at all.  Some of them looked over at us and then turned their backs to trot off after their moms.  Most didn’t even look.  Didn’t even care why these strange-looking beings were calling to them.  After a while we gave up and wandered on down Stock Lane into the village.

Although a small village, there are enough tourists to account for the number of shops, cafes and tea houses.  After poking into a few shops and having a cream tea (the lighter version of tea with scones — no sandwiches or desserts), Mom and I headed back to the hotel.  By this time, the lambs were near the fence and gave us a greeting as we strolled up to them.  We were alone, so they probably figured it was safe to be friendly.  A couple of them even stuck their little faces out through the fence.  As we would with a dog, we held our hands in front of their noses for them to sniff.  When they didn’t run away in terror, we gave them scratches on the tops of their heads.  That seemed okay with them.  They trotted off happily and we trotted off happily.

In late January/early February of 1996, it got really, really cold in Minneapolis.  Now some people might say, “Isn’t it always cold in Minneapolis?”  But no.  It is only cold in the dead of winter.  Some parts of winter can be relatively balmy — such as in the 40s F.  The summers can easily be in the 90s with humidity in the 70s.  So I am speaking about abnormal cold.  It was several degrees below zero Fahrenheit for several weeks.  Mom and I looked at one another and said, “Road Trip.”  Of course, for us, that meant getting on a plane and flying somewhere.  The “where” we chose was San Francisco.  We could get a package deal with airfare, hotel, a couple of day trips, and transportation to and from the hotel and airport for a 5-day trip.  Sold.

When we got on the plane, it was minus 25 F in Minneapolis.  I believe it was in the 50s in San Fran when we arrived.  But that was 50 ABOVE zero.  It felt like heaven to us.  We even opened a window in the hotel room despite the fact that it was foggy and rainy for the first couple days we were there.  Then the weather perked up to the high 60s with sun.  The sea lions basked in the sun; we basked in the sun and all was right with the world.

The hotel we stayed in was cozy, old, not terribly large, and close to Union Square.  All the day tours left from Union Square, so it was a very handy location.  There was also a restaurant with a Sherlock Holmes theme and British food nearby.  That was where we had dinner our first night (we had had lunch at a cool place on a cliff overlooking the ocean called The Cliff House).  After that first night’s dinner, we mainly ate seafood for the rest of the trip.  I love seafood and want to get as much of it as possible when traveling someplace where I can get it fresh.

We took a couple days of hop-on-hop-off tours that took us all over town — to Japanese gardens, Mission Delores, the Presidio, China Town, Nob Hill, and loads of other fun and interesting places.  We spent time out on Fisherman’s Wharf more than once and ate at a couple different places there.  We also watched the sea lions with great fascination.  After one of our lunches, we walked over to where one of the cable car lines began and took the cable car back to our hotel.

Our two biggest highlights were (and I’m just giving these to you in the order of when we did them) a day tour of the vineyards in Sonoma and Napa Valley and an audio tour of Alcatraz.  The wine tasting tour included the Sebastiani Vineyards, Villa Encinal, Sutter Home, and Charles Krug.  Of this group, Sebastiani looked the most like an old, Italian winery.  It had been founded in 1904 and was family run at the time.  Villa Encinal was a relatively new, boutique winery that had been used as one of the locations for the 1995 film “A Walk in the Clouds”, starring Keanu Reeves.  Villa Encinal was as slick and modern as Sebastiani was old world.  It was also on a much smaller scale than any of the others.  Kind of a “Mom & Pop” style of winery.  I kept looking for Keanu Reeves to come striding up towards me through the vineyards, but no such luck.

Sutter Home had been founded in 1874.  It appeared to me that the large, Victorian house seemed like it would be a great place to live.  The winery had created White Zinfandel back in the 1970s and had hit on a goldmine when they did so.  I find that White Zinfandel goes really well with the Thanksgiving turkey, among other things.

Founded in 1861, making it the oldest of the wineries we visited, Charles Krug was also the last winery we visited.  It was actually my favorite of the group, both in regards to what the winery looked like and the wines it produced.  I purchased a new, state of the art corkscrew and a thingy for slicing off the metal wrapping around the cork in the gift shop.  They are still in use in my home today.

Mom and I were both feeling pretty good by this point as we had been sampling pretty much every kind of grape these vineyards crushed.  This is why it’s better to take a wine tour on a bus with someone else driving.  We probably would have gotten arrested if one of us had been behind the wheel.  When we got back to the city, the driver dropped us off at our respective hotels instead of just dumping us out in Union Square.  He probably didn’t want a bunch of tipsy tourists wandering around town, getting hit by cable cars or falling off of piers.

To get to Alcatraz, we boarded a ferry at Pier 33.  The water was fairly choppy on the way out to the island prison and storm clouds were gathering.  So, when we got there, we quickly took a look at all of the exterior bits first before heading into the main part of the complex.

The name Alcatraz is a rough translation from archaic Spanish meaning “pelican”.  In 1846 a lighthouse was built on the island, followed by a military fort in 1850.  Alcatraz was used as a military prison from 1861 to 1868.  In 1934, it became a federal prison up until it was closed in 1963.  As a federal prison, it held such notables as Al Capone, Robert Stroud (“The Birdman of Alcatraz”), George “Machine Gun” Kelly, Mickey Cohen, James “Whitey” Bulgar, and Alvin “Creepy” Karpis.  Although I don’t think that “creepy” would be the best nickname to have, I suppose it was good for a gangster who wanted a scary reputation.  I certainly would have given him a wide berth.  Of course, I don’t think I would have tried to become pals with any of those guys.

Between 1934 and 1963, there were 14 escape attempts.  The most famous one being in June of 1962, involving papier mache heads that were left in the beds of the escapees while they climbed the ventilation shaft to the roof.  A couple of the men were never found.  So they either drowned or were successful at their escape.  You would think that papier mache heads wouldn’t fool anybody, but when they are mostly covered up and the guards had no reason to be suspicious (and therefore most likely to see what they wanted to see) it makes sense.

The tour began with a person telling us about the history of the island and of the prison, including the 1969 Native American occupation of the island.  Then we received headphones and an audio player.  That’s when the tour really became interesting.  The narrative was accompanied by the appropriate sounds.  For instance, at one point, the recording said to enter a particular cell in solitary confinement.  Then you heard the sound of the door slamming and locking behind you.  It wasn’t really, but it made you jump.  The recording also took us through the entire 1962 escape attempt (including the actual cells and ventilator shaft), plus the 1946 Battle of Alcatraz.

The Battle of Alcatraz took you through each of the actual settings, giving you the shouting, gunfire, etc. as you went.  In the corridor where several of the prisoners were finally trapped and killed, you can still see the pockmarks of the bullets.  The audio experience allowed us to feel like we were right in the middle of it all.  It was unnerving, but educational.

All the while we were in the prison, there was a storm raging outside.  Quite appropriate.  The flashes of lighting and occasional clap of thunder went well with the Battle of Alcatraz especially.  One particular boom sounded just after the corridor became quiet again once the gunfire stopped.  Fortunately the storm was over when we needed to head back to the mainland.  Mom and I were relieved to have made our escape, but also thought that the entire tour was wonderful.

The “deep freeze” in Minneapolis was over by the time we returned.  We were back to a regular Minnesota winter.  Our break in San Francisco had been memorable and a lot of fun.

 

First off, I have to say, “I love the Black Hills.”  I really do.  They are beautiful, restful, and always fun to visit.  With the exception of just one little trip back in 1995.

Mom had grown up in the Black Hills of South Dakota, so she had real ties to the area as well as a real love for it that she had instilled in me during our relatively frequent trips out there.  One of her childhood friends had a vacation home near Custer.  Usually, when we visited the Hills, we stayed with this friend.  This time, Julia would not be there, so we were renting the property from her for a week.

We normally flew into Rapid City and then rented a car.  But this time we had a puppy with us.  His name was Rembrandt and he was a not-quite-one-year-old miniature Schnauzer.  Fortunately, he loved road trips.  We had a harness for him that connected to the seatbelt, so he was securely fastened into the back seat.  He could sit up or lie down, but he couldn’t move around much on the seat or stand.  Most importantly he would not be thrown should the car make a quick stop.  We pulled over every two hours to stretch our legs, take a restroom break, give Rembrandt some water, get some food for ourselves, etc.  People in the vicinity seemed to be quite amused when I brought a dog out of the back seat instead of a baby or small child.

Another friend of Mom’s lived in a small town in South Dakota.  She was interested in having us come and visit her (puppy and all), so we stopped off for the night en route from Minneapolis to Rapid City.  She was a very gregarious woman and welcomed us all with open arms.  Rembrandt was very friendly towards people and other dogs, though he did not suffer fools gladly when it came to another dog who was not totally in control of his or herself.  Because of this I was terribly surprised when he took a dump in the middle of Hazel’s living room.  He knew better.  Hazel laughed it off.  Rembrandt pretended nothing was amiss.  Mom and I were mortified.

We were coming from a different direction than usual when we reached the Black Hills.  It was also raining quite hard.  So we chose to stay on main roads as much as possible.  We didn’t realize at the time that it had been raining heavily for days already.  When we reached the bridge in Hill City that we needed to cross to get to Custer, we found that it was already having issues.  It ended up washing out just about an hour or so after we crossed it.

We got to Custer and decided to get just a few groceries to tide us over for a couple of days.  We would get more when we ventured out to go visit Hot Springs (the town in which Mom had lived as a child).  So I hopped out of the car, bought a few things and hurled the wet bag and my soggy self into the car.  The road to Julia’s vacation home was a dirt road at that time and so not the greatest on even a lovely, sunny day.  During the thunderstorm, we found ourselves crawling at a snail’s pace through the mud.  The bolts of lightning were actually helpful to let us occasionally see approximately where we were.

One bolt of lightning illuminated the gate to the property just as we were about to pass it by.  I opened the gate and then waded through the muddy water along the fence to find the key to the house.  Naturally, I slipped at one point.  By the time I returned to the car, I strongly resembled the Swamp Thing.  We both decided that I shouldn’t get back into the car.  So I walked a little ahead of it, with my flashlight in hand, to try to prevent any accidents with anything that might be in the drive or under the deck of the house (which was where we planned to park and where the door that the key fit into was located).  There was already a truck parked under the deck, so we could only get the nose of the car’s hood under.  We also had to squeeze past the truck to get into the door.  I unlocked and opened the door, then we had a mad dash to get everything and everyone inside.  By this time, we were all looking like we had seen better days.

The next day, after all bunking together in the main bedroom for warmth (nobody had thought that heat would be needed in mid-June), I decided it was time to take Rembrandt out for his morning constitutional.  At home he had a fenced in, nicely mowed yard.  Here he was dealing with wet grass that was taller than he was.  Although the yard was fenced, there was plenty of room for a small dog to get through the fencing, which was mainly designed to keep bison, elk and bear out.  So the little guy was on a leash.  He was obviously not in the mood and was letting me know it.

Because he was determined not to do anything in the tall grass, and the only places on the property where the grass was shorter had rocks (and the possibility of snakes), we went out of the gate and across the road to an area that had been mowed not too long ago.  While he was looking for just the right spot, we both heard a very loud growl.  Whatever it was, it was large and not happy.  I was envisioning a bear.  I looked at Rembrandt and he looked at me.  “You’re the appetizer,” I said, “But I’m the main course.”  With that, we high-tailed it back across the road and into the relative safety of the fenced property.  He ended up going in the high grass between the house and the very swollen French Creek.

We had decided to take it easy on our first day anyway (it was supposed to be a vacation after all).  So a little later on in the day, Mom was crocheting, I was needlepointing and Rembrandt was playing with a toy in the large living area on the first level up from ground level when a big storm came up suddenly.  This vacation house was a geodesic dome, so loads of glass.  It was hailing.  We took refuge in the dining room, which was still one floor up from ground, but had the least amount of windows (there was a bedroom above it).

Once the storm had begun to die down a little, I went downstairs to see what shape that level was in.  The previously sluggish toilet had become clogged and water was now coming up the drain in the laundry room.  The sewer began to back up and we could no longer get any water in the bathroom on the ground floor or the kitchen above it.  So I started calling motels in Custer to see if there was one with a vacancy that would take a dog.  In the meantime, Mom packed us up.  Once I got us booked into a motel, Mom called Julia to let her know what was happening and where we would be.  There might have been mobile phones in 1995, but we didn’t own one.

Despite not being under any kind of shelter during the hail storm, the car thankfully wasn’t damaged.  We loaded it up and went into Custer.  Rembrandt took it all in stride.  He was the kind of dog who was fine as long as he had us with him.  The motel was good and had a restaurant next door, so we could take turns having a meal while the other one looked after Rembrandt.  The grass was mowed, so no trying to get the puppy to do his business in the tall grass.  They also had a TV that worked.  We had been thinking about staying one more day so we could visit Hot Springs and then head home.  But the news said that more storms were coming in the afternoon of the next day and would last for the rest of the week.  That did it.  We would get up in the morning, have breakfast, and try to outrun the storm.

By the time we arrived in Mitchell (about midway home), we checked into a place that not only allowed dogs, but had room service.  After a good supper, we went to bed, listening to the strains of children playing in the pool a couple floors below in the courtyard.  The storm soon caught up with us.  Around 4:00am, we were jolted awake by a loud bang and a flash of light that seemed to be simultaneous.  The fire alarms went off.  We quickly pulled on our jeans (already sleeping in T-shirts), grabbed Rembrandt, his leash and our purses and went out into the hall.  Once we got downstairs, I figured we would be going out of the door into the night.  I was certain it was a fire.  The other guests were certain it was a tornado.  So we all clustered just inside of the exit door until we could either smell smoke or hear the tornado.  Everyone marveled at how well behaved and calm Rembrandt was.  He just sat in my arms and watched everyone.

It turned out we were all wrong about what was happening.  A bolt of lightning had hit the satellite dish on the roof.  The dish was totally fried, but no fire.  It seemed to us that the storm had been ticked off that we had tried to get away from it and decided to zap us in Mitchell.  Kind of a “hey, you think you can escape me, do ya?” sort of thing.  A little past 4:30am we were back in our beds, visions of home dancing in our heads.

We were wishing we had some ruby slippers to click the heels together and be immediately home.  Instead, we got up at 7:00am, had a good breakfast from room service, packed up the car again and drove home — thankful for our escape and the lovely weather back in Minneapolis.

It occurred to me that staying at this particular hotel might be an adventure when I saw that the desk clerk had purple hair and an earring through the nose.  Although it was a late Victorian building, it definitely no longer had a Victorian atmosphere.

The room was so small that we had to crawl over our beds to get out of the door.  I kept my suitcase in the space between my bed and the wall, hauled it out to get take things out or put things in, and then put it back again.  There was no room to leave it out or to unpack it.  Instead of a closet, the room contained a small wardrobe (which was just one more thing upon which I could bark my shins in the night).  The ceiling was higher than the measurement of the floor space — 14 feet.

The reasons we had chosen this particular hotel were its location (just off Trafalgar Square, so we could walk nearly everywhere), the fact that the Georgian hotel at which we had stayed before had gone up in price, and the fact that it was Victorian.  I love all things Victorian, as anyone who has ever been inside my house could tell you.  Although fairly modern on the outside, I have ignored that and decorated the inside with a mixture of Victorian and Georgian furniture, with the occasional medieval piece tossed in for good measure.

On this particular trip, I was focusing on a Victorian/theatrical/Charles Dickens/Sherlock Holmes theme.  We started by heading over to St Katherine’s Docks and having lunch at the Dickens Inn.  The building had been a spice warehouse back in Dickens day and converted to a pub and restaurant when this area had been refurbished as flats, shops and an area for docking private boats.

The hotel was located on Villiers Street (named after George Villiers, the first Duke of Buckingham, whose house once stood on the site), a cobblestone street that connected the Embankment (a riverside park that had been laid out in Victorian times) to The Strand (a main thoroughfare which had been lined with theatres and restaurants back in the Victorian era and still was) — a crossroads of sorts, where the government agencies end and the theatre district begins.  If I went south, I ended up on Whitehall; north and west was theatreland.

Just up The Strand from Villiers Street is the Adelphi Theatre, where we went to see “Me & My Girl”, which was starring Karl Howman in the leading role (he had replaced Robert Lindsey when Lindsey and the show went to Broadway).  Nearly one hundred years earlier, in 1897, one of the Adelphi’s leading actors, William Terriss, was murdered by a deranged fellow actor just outside the stage door.  It is said that his ghost still haunts both the theatre and the nearby Covent Garden tube station.  I wonder why he’d be interested in haunting a tube station.  Doesn’t seem like that great of a place to hang out to me.  The wonderful Victorian restaurant, Rules, is just across the street from the Adelphi’s stage door.  Seems like a much nicer place to haunt.  But I suppose he has his reasons.

Many of the theatres in the area have interesting histories, but none so fascinating or as long as the Theatre Royal Drury Lane (where we saw “Miss Saigon”).  The oldest theatre in London, Drury Lane was founded in 1662 when Thomas Killigrew received King Charles II’s royal charter.  The King first met his most famous mistress, Nell Gwyn, at that same theatre.  Most of the present building dates from 1811-12 as it burned down a couple of times.

During one of the fires (in 1809), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (the playwright) was theatre manager.  As the fire raged on, he settled into a nearby tavern, quietly drinking a bottle of wine as he watched the conflagration.  When asked how he could be so calm while his theatre was burning down, he answered, “Can’t a man enjoy a glass of wine by his own fireside?”

One section of the theatre that survived the blaze is the grand staircase.  It is really two separate staircases, one on each side of a rotunda.  In the late 18th century, King George III and the Prince Regent had separate stairs built because they encountered one another one evening on the original single staircase, got into a fight, and the King boxed the Prince’s ears.  If the real Prince Regent was anything like the way Hugh Laurie portrayed him in the third series of “Black Adder”, I wouldn’t blame the King for boxing his ears.  The words “King’s Side” and “Prince’s Side” can still be seen over opposite doors.

The theatre is also reportedly haunted.  It is supposedly the most haunted theatre in England.  Several of the theatres in London’s West End are haunted.  Both Her Majesty’s Theatre (home since 1986 to “The Phantom of the Opera”) and the Theatre Royal Haymarket are both haunted by former managers.  I guess some theatre managers have difficulty letting go.

The Theatre Royal Haymarket is mentioned in one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries.  Although he was a fictional character, many of the locations used in the stories were real, and some of them are still standing.  These include the Criterion (where Watson first met Holmes), the Charing Cross Hotel, Claridge’s, Covent Garden, the Albert Hall and, of course, the Victoria, Paddington, Waterloo, Euston and Charing Cross rail stations.  The Grand Hotel on Northumberland Avenue (called the “Northumberland Hotel” in the Holmes mysteries) is no longer standing.  But, across the street from where it once stood, is the Sherlock Holmes pub.  This was about two blocks south of my hotel.  The sitting room of 221B Baker Street has been duplicated behind a glass wall in the pub.  It sort of makes one feel like a voyeur.

Across the street from our hotel used to be a boot blacking factory where Charles Dickens worked as a child.  Around the corner on Buckingham Street was a house where Dickens lived briefly as a young journalist in 1834, and which he used as one of the settings for David Copperfield.  Just a few blocks away was a subway (an underground walking tunnel) where boys like those Dickens wrote about in Oliver Twist used to congregate to divide the loot after an afternoon of picking pockets.

Closer to the British Museum, on Doughty Street, is a house which used to belong to Dickens during two very productive years in which he completed The Pickwick Papers, wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, and began Barnaby Rudge.  This house is open to the public.  The day that Mom and I arrived to see it, we were greeted at the door by a young man dressed in Victorian garb and looking like he had just stepped out of one of Dickens’ books.  He gave us what ended up to be a private tour of the house.  The house was furnished as it had been back in Dickens’ day and contained some of his original handwritten manuscripts.

Smack in the middle of a very bustling are is the Old Curiosity Shop.  It was built in 1567 and hadn’t changed since 1700.  The proprietor of the shop had begun working there as a teenager and eventually took it over.  He owned an amazing collection of Dickens memorabilia.  He allowed Mom and I to go upstairs and see what he had.  We were the only customers in the shop at the time.  The main floor was still an antique shop, so Mom and I looked around to see what we might want to take home with us.  We both ended up with tapestries of Tower Bridge.  Mine still hangs in my bedroom.  I bought a small Toby mug (also known as a character mug) that sits on a shelf of an antique pier cabinet, that had belonged to my grandmother, in my living room.  Sadly, on a later trip, we found the Old Curiosity Shop to have been converted into an upscale shoe shop.  I guess that the charming fellow who had owned it reached a point where he couldn’t run it any more, had nobody else to take it on, and sold it.

To finish up our visit, we had high tea at the Charing Cross Hotel.  The room in which the tea was held was quite lavish and Victorian.  I could easily picture Holmes and Watson meeting with Sir Henry Baskerville there before setting off for Baskerville Hall.  The sandwiches were dainty, the scones delicious and the desserts amazing.  Oh yes, and the tea — Darjeeling.  This was our first high tea in the UK.  It would not be our last.