A Traveling Fool

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.

I didn’t mean to be out of the US during the 1991 Gulf War.  It just sort of happened that way.  I had my set of plans; the first President Bush had his.  He didn’t let me in on his.

The war began while we were in the air en route to Gatwick Airport just outside of London.  Because of a friend my mom had with the airline, we had been boosted up to First Class.  The plane was half empty due to the threat of war and our section had a grand total of five people in it.

With a glass of champagne before dinner, a glass of wine with dinner, a Bailey’s Irish Cream after dinner, eye shades, a neck pillow and a seat that went nearly completely horizontal, I had actually slept for the first time ever on a plane.  I smiled brightly at the customs officer and answered his questions with zest (instead of my usual bleary-eyed grumble).

The soldiers and tanks around the perimeter of the airport didn’t tip me off as I had heard that such precautions were being taken because of the possibility of war.  The train ride from Gatwick to Victoria Station was uneventful.  It was during the taxi from Victoria Station to the hotel that we found out we were at war.

“American are you?” the cabby asked.

“Yes.”

“One of the brave ones, eh?  Don’t imagine I’ll be seeing too many Americans now that the war’s on.”

“The war’s on?”

“That’s right … you were on the plane.  We’re at war.”

“Are we on the same side?”

The cabby laughed.  “So far,” he said.

We drove past Parliament and several of the government offices along Whitehall.  Not that many days earlier, the IRA had lobbed a rocket in Number 10 Downing Street’s direction from a parked van on Whitehall.  The area was now patrolled by armed soldiers and the entrance to Downing street was sealed.  It wasn’t even possible, at that time, to see down the street.  On our previous visit in 1983, we had been able to stroll down the street and take a photo of the Prime Minister’s home.  The cabby gave us a blow-by-blow of what had happened, pointing out the exact spot where the van had been.

Since it wasn’t our first trip to the UK, we knew that the large numbers of soldiers and the tight security which was evident everywhere were not standard operating procedures for the capital city.  It was a little unnerving at first.

Our hotel was just off of Trafalgar Square near Charing Cross, so we could walk pretty much everywhere.  This proved to be a good plan as the underground stations were closed half of the time because of bombings or threats of bombs.  A couple of bombs went off at Victoria Station and some outlying suburban stations.  There was also a threat one day of one at Charing Cross.  They had the entire area around the station (including our hotel on Villiers Street) cordoned off and patrolled by policemen with dogs.

Except for this aspect, being in the UK during the war was actually a pretty good deal.  There were very few tourists at all (much less other Americans), so we had all of the main tourist attractions pretty much to ourselves.  On our previous visit, both the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey were very crowded.  This time was completely different.

At Westminster Abbey, we managed to find the final resting places of several people we hadn’t been able to locate before.  Someone had been standing on Charles Dickens on our previous visit (he is buried under a stone slab in the floor of Poet’s Corner — the grave is well marked now, but not so in 1983 or 1991).  This time we were the only people in Poet’s Corner and we found him quite easily.  In fact, the only other tourists we encountered in the entire Abbey was a group of French school children.

Since the Abbey personnel weren’t terribly busy with herding tourists, we engaged some of them in conversation and were rewarded by learning things we didn’t already know and being shown things we hadn’t seen before.  It was a whole ‘nother world.  We actually ended up spending more time in the Abbey than before because we were able to see so much more of it in detail.

When we got to the Tower of London and found only a small group of German tourists, we decided to spend a lot of time chatting with the Yeoman Warders (the Tudor-uniformed guards depicted on the Beefeaters Gin label).  These people are wonderful conversationalists and extremely well trained in the history of the Tower.  We always start our visit with the Yeoman Warder led tour and then carry on from there.  With Mom and I as the only takers on our particular tour on that visit, it was much more of a conversation between the three of us than the usual booming voice of the Warder trying to carry across roughly thirty or forty people straining to hear every word.  We could talk about the history of the place, the people who had been imprisoned there (and executed there) and the ghosts that were all over the complex of buildings.

On our previous visit, one of the Warders had explained the reason why the British drive on the left-hand side of the road.  He claimed that, back in medieval times, the knights rode their horses on the left side of the road so they could carry a sword, halberd or an ax in their right hand to combat any enemy they might encounter.  This tradition carried on up through the days of the highwaymen (trading guns for swords) right on up to the first automobile.  Rather than changing the traditional side of the road, they just changed the car instead.  Sounds rather plausible, but you are never really certain whether or not they are pulling your leg.

On this visit, since we had him to ourselves, we chatted with the Warder about some of my ancestors on my father’s side that had been Constables of the Tower between the 1400s and the 1700s.  This made our visit inside the Chapel of St Peter Ad Vincula (located in close proximity to the site of the scaffold) a little more interesting than usual.  Fortunately, none of the Royal Family (whose private chapel it is) was using it at the time.  So Mom and I had a private tour of the interior.  Anne Bolyen, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, Henry Grey, and Sir Walter Raleigh are some of the people buried just in front of the altar.  The Warder said that one of my ancestors was credited with inventing the rack — try living that one down.

One day, after exploring the South Bank of the Thames and having crossed back over one of the bridges to return to our hotel, we encountered one of the most unusual public facilities we have ever come across.  It was cylindrical and extremely futuristic.  As soon as I paid my 30p, the door slid open with a decidedly “Star Trekky” sound.  Once inside, the lavatory flipped down from the wall and the door slid closed with the same “thuomp”.  Then came the music — a bright, bouncy little ditty that only served to bring on the giggles.  When the button to flush was pushed, the bowl flipped back up into the wall and the music stopped.  To wash your hands, you put your hands into a space in the wall that first gave you soap, then water and then air dried your hands.  To get out of this space capsule, another button was pushed — you didn’t want to push the wrong button at the wrong time.  Also, you had to be quick about getting in and out as the door wasn’t open for long.

When I emerged, Mom said, “What’s so funny?”

“You’ll see,” I replied enigmatically.  She did.  We laughed for several blocks.

We took a multi-day tour out of London.  There were maybe eight of us on a coach that could hold 40.  The others were from Australia and New Zealand.  The tour included some time in Warwick, where we toured the castle (which became and remains one of my favorite castles in the UK), a short exploration of Chester and a visit to the Lake District.  It also included my first time ever in Scotland (where I have ancestors on my father’s side) and Wales (where I have ancestor’s on my mother’s side) — both sides have English ancestry.

In Edinburgh, we had a local guide who gave us a grand overview of the city.   Our guide was a fascinating fella who had lived in Edinburgh his entire life.  He knew all of its history and all of its legends.  He had a delightful brogue and wore a kilt (Clan Gordon).

Public executions of people suspected of practicing witchcraft were held on the esplanade in front of Edinburgh Castle.  Sometimes they were burned at the stake and sometimes they were hanged.  There is a memorial to them all near the entrance to the esplanade.  A very short walk away is a pub called The Last Drop, where the spectators to these executions (and those accused of other crimes) would gather before and after.

By the time we were up on the extinct volcano upon which Edinburgh Castle is built, it was storming pretty well.  All that rain doesn’t make cobblestones any less slippery and the road up to the top is very steep.  Mom and I were both wearing gym shoes (which were fashionably black, but still had the great gripping soles), but out guide was not.  He slipped and revealed the secret as to what a Scotsman wears under his kilt.  Fortunately, he wasn’t hurt.

In one of the episodes of the third series of the British comedy “Black Adder”, Rowan Atkinson’s character, Edmund Black Adder, does a monologue on Wales.  He says that the men of Wales go about in gangs terrorizing the countryside with their close-harmony singing and that, should you attempt to pronounce any of the place names, you’ll end up drenched in phlegm.

I can testify to the place names.  One of the towns we spent some time in was called Llangollen, which is pronounced something akin to “klan-clock-klin” with lots of tongue clucking and spittle involved.  My mother’s maternal grandmother was from Caernarfon.  The main Welsh word that I remember from my childhood is the equivalent to “shut up”.  I don’t have a clue as to how to spell it, but it sounds like “kye-kieg.”  Even English names can be embarrassing to try to pronounce.  Southwark is pronounced “sutherk”.  Leicester is “lester”.  Then there is Belvoir — “beaver.”

Every place we went, we found ourselves engaged in conversations about the war.  We also kept tabs on what was happening through newspapers and the BBC.  It was a completely different perspective from what others experienced here in the US as it was a completely British viewpoint.  One aspect that we thought was very interesting was that the British kept thanking us for helping them.  I had been under the impression that it was the British, the Saudis, and the other countries in the Alliance that were helping the US.  A friend on the tour, over a pint of Guiness he was standing me to in a pub one evening in Durham told me that Britain had some pretty large economic interests in Kuwait.

We were in York when the war ended.  All over the city, every church and cathedral rang its bells.  We couldn’t hear anything else because of the bells.  All conversation stopped.  The entire country heaved a massive sigh of relief.  About a week later, we flew home.

Next time:  Back to Victorian London or “Elementary, My Dear Dickens”

The two main things that struck me about Rome on my first visit in 1984 were:  how old it was and how badly in need of repair it was.  The newer buildings seemed to be almost as bad off as the ancient ruins.  Sometimes it was difficult to tell them apart.  It was, however, a fascinating city.

There is so much history in Rome that you can practically overdose on it.  The Vatican, the museums, the Colosseum, the catacombs, the Circus Maximus, the Spanish Steps, the Vittoriano, the Arch of Titus, the Arch of Constantine, the Pantheon, the Palazzo Venezia (from whose balcony Mussolini gave his speeches), various temple ruins, palace ruins, the Roman Forum — to quote the King of Siam, “Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”

Fortunately, I like history.  Actually, I hated it in school.  For some reason the teachers seemed to try to make it as boring as possible.  Most of it was about memorizing dates.  I don’t do well with memorizing dates.  I can remember who did what but not necessarily when.  I figure I’m doing well if I can get the approximate century.  I learned to love history on my own, outside of school.  Anyway, Rome is loaded with it.

To get to all of this history, one must drive.  They had a very rudimentary mass transit system back in 1984 and, because of all of the historic relics under the city, they have had difficulty crating much of an underground system.  Every time they dig for any reason, they strike ruins.  Then the place gets declared a national monument and they have to find somewhere else to put whatever they had planned to put there.

Driving in Rome is an adventure.  If it isn’t designated the accident capital of Europe, then it should be.  European cars are, for the most part, much smaller than American cars in the first place.  The streets are quite narrow.  They can also be steep and/or winding, and there are loads of traffic circuses.  A traffic circus is a circular torture device where you drive in, then drive around and around and around until you die — or until someone gives you space to drive out — whichever comes first.

We entered Rome from the south and crossed the Tiber River into the main part of the city to take a quick gander at St. Peter’s, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Coliseum, and a few other landmarks before heading to the hotel (which was on the northeastern fringe of the city).  We had just exited one of those traffic circuses (after only three rotations) onto the Via Arenula and were feeling somewhat cocky when we felt a thump and found ourselves sitting on the back bumper of a Lambourghini.  They do say, “When in Rome …”  Fortunately we had Ricardo with us.

Ricardo could speak French, German and English, but his native language was Italian.  He leapt out and proceeded to have a very spirited discussion with the driver of the Lambourghini.  He was in his element and a wonder to behold.  His eyes flashed, his nostrils flared, his arms waved — I was very impressed.  Soon he returned and climbed back in with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Everything okay?” we asked.

“Si, si,” he replied as Louis (who was Belgian and spoke no Italian) threw it into reverse.  We backed off of the rear bumper of the Lambourghini and onto the front bumper of an Alpha Romeo.  Fortunately that driver was preoccupied with the driver of the vehicle sitting on his rear bumper, so we gunned it and vacated the scene of the crime.  We must have immediately reached our quota as we didn’t have any more accidents our entire stay … at least not with cars.

We reached the hotel, checked in, argued with the management about surrendering our passports (most hotels in Italy, at that time at least, expected you to surrender your passport to them for the duration of your stay), and went to our rooms to unpack and freshen up.  The hotel was a brand new, modern, round tower, with balconies all the way around.  This was important — the balconies, I mean.  When it came time to leave the hotel (we were supposed to meet downstairs) we couldn’t get out of the room.  The door lock kept turning and turning, but the door stayed locked, so I ran out onto the balcony and hollered down to Ricardo to get help.  The calvary promptly arrived and sprang us.  The lock worked fine from the outside.  It appeared that they just hadn’t quite gotten all of the bugs worked out in their new hotel.  They had only been open a couple of days.  What is “locksmith” in Italian?

I have always liked Michelangelo’s art, so I was looking forward to seeing the Sistine Chapel.  This was before the restoration that took place in the 1990s.  What I saw back in 1984 was pretty muddy.  But it was still magnificent (unfortunately the camera I had at the time didn’t do interior shots terribly well, so I only have an even muddier photo).  I was quite tempted to lie down on the floor to save myself from getting a crick in my neck.  But I didn’t want to embarrass my country any more than I already had by this point in the tour.  I tried to imagine Michelangelo lying on his back on the scaffolding while he painted this breathtaking ceiling, but I kept picturing him as Charleton Heston (I had seen “The Agony and The Ecstacy” too many times).

After watching the Pope ride around on his “Pope-mobile”, we went into St. Peter’s Basilica.  Peter is reportedly buried beneath the altar of the Basilica in an ancient tomb.  St. Peter’s is the largest church in the world (St. Paul’s in London is second in size) and is definitely impressive.  Actually the entire Vatican compound is impressive.  On the way to see the Sistine Chapel, we had gone through the museum with its amazing collection of art.

In the Basilica itself is  “The Pieta”, Michelangelo’s sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the body of her son.  It had been attacked and damaged not too long before we were there, so it had been placed in a glass case and was heavily guarded.  It was difficult to get too close to it and it was much smaller than I thought it might be.  But it was exquisite.

We covered a lot of territory in the couple of days we spent in Rome.  The Coliseum gave me a great deal of exercise climbing up and down over what had once been seats and exploring the area which had been under the stage (and is now exposed to the elements).  One popular myth is that the Christians were thrown to the lions in the Coliseum.  This is untrue.  The Coliseum is much older than that and was already a ruin by that time.  The lion feeding took place in the Circus Maximus — a much newer stadium that was located near Caligula’s Palace (the remains of both can still be seen today).  The Coliseum did have gladiator tournaments, pageants, plays, and even water sports.  They used to flood it and bring in boats.

On our last night in Rome, we drove out to Tivoli, which had been a resort town in ancient times.  Up on the side of a mountain is a former monastery that originally was a castle and is now a restaurant and hotel.  We sat down and found seven plates stacked before each of us.  With each course a plate was filled and a different wine was poured.  The courses included:  1) melon and proscuito; 2) a salad (antipasto); 3) a pasta dish; 4) another pasta dish; 5) soup; 6) the entree with vegetables, and 7) dessert.

As I said, a different wine was served with each course.  The trip down the mountain was rather interesting, what with fairly intoxicated (mostly American) tourists singing songs, the Belgian trying to stay on the road, and the Italian laughing uproariously.  I don’t drink usually more than one or two glasses at a time as a rule, so seven glasses …

Next time:  The UK During the Gulf War or “Give My Regards to Brompton; Remember Me to Leicester Square”.

After entering Italy through the Brenner Pass — in the rain — we didn’t see much in the way of civilization for several miles.  Of course, when one is winding around narrow roads in the mountains, a few miles can seem like several.  Perhaps you’ve been driving for an hour, but you’ve only gone ten miles (that might be a bit of an exaggeration).  Every once in a while, we would see a farmhouse through the cloudy, rainy haze, or a medieval castle, or an old fortress.  In ancient times, this had been a rather strategic area and so had been well-fortified.  What we mainly saw though were vineyards — lots and lots of vineyards — grapes as far as the eye could see.

The first town we encountered was Balzano.  However, our tour director must not have thought it was a terribly exciting place, because we skirted around it and headed for Trento.  There we stretched our legs and exchanged some money.  This trip was taken before the European Union had been formed.  So the princely sum of 480,000 lire made me feel awfully rich until I remembered it was only $300 in U. S. currency.

My mother and I were hungry, so we wandered into a deli to get something to eat.  The only problem was that everything was in Italian and neither one of us could speak it.  Nobody there spoke English.  I do know a little French (sort of), so I reasoned that, if “pain” was “bread” in French, then “panino” might have something to do with bread in Italian.  Also, “fromage” was “cheese” in French, therefore, “formaggio” would likely be “cheese” in Italian.  I semi-confidently ordered a “panino con formaggio”.

From what sounded like a question accompanied by a sweeping motion of the hand across a case containing about 50 varieties of cheese, I deduced that I had a choice of cheese (Sherlock Holmes has nothing on me).  I prayed they only had one kind of bread.  While studiously contemplating the contents of the case, I heard the question repeated with some impatience.  I held up my hand.

“Una momento”, I said.  I was trying to find something that looked remotely familiar.  Eureka!

“Provolone, per favore,” I now declared triumphantly, and was quite relieved to receive a provolone cheese sandwich on a thick cut homemade bread (the only kind they had).

My mother, who had been watching all of this with great interest, noted my success and followed my lead.  Soon we were enjoying one of the best cheese sandwiches either one of us had ever eaten, along with some Fanta.

From Trento, we continued on to Verona (of Two Gentlemen from Verona and Romeo and Juliet fame).  There you can see what is purported to have been Juliet’s balcony.  “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?  It is the East and Juliet is the sun.”  I did play Juliet once, when I was 15, opposite a 17-year-old Romeo who I had to slap offstage.

From Verona, we went to Vicenza, Padua and Maestra (which is the suburban part of Venice).  After a light lunch in Maestra, we boarded a small launch and headed for Venice itself.

Venice is built on a series of tiny islands in a gulf in the Adriatic.  Although nobody knows for certain how old it is, there seems to be evidence that a city has existed there since at least the 5th century.  The architecture of Venice is fascinating since it is a mix of many styles and has as many Turkish influences as it does Italian.

We disembarked at St Mark’s Square — the main square in Venice.  Basilica San Marco was originally built in 829 and rebuilt in 1043 to 1071 after a fire.  A basilica is designated as such when it contains an important relic (often part of the body) of whoever it is named after.  St Mark’s contains at least most of the body of Mark (who wrote the second Gospel of the New Testament of the Bible).  The whole interior is covered with gold-leaf mosaics.  When the light hits it just right, it sparkles and glitters with a near blinding intensity.

The bronze horses on the roof of the basilica were captured in Constantinople in 1207 and placed on the roof in the mid-14th century.  Napoleon took the horses to Paris in 1797, after conquering Venice, and had them placed on the Carousel Arch at the Louvre as a monument to his defeat of the Italians.  They were returned to Venice in 1815.  Now they sit in a museum high up inside of the basilica.  The horses currently on the roof are copies.

The Bell Tower was built in 888 to 912.  It collapsed in 1902 and had to be rebuilt.  Nearly a thousand years isn’t too bad, I’d say.  I doubt that much of what we build now will stand that long before collapsing.

After a short visit to a glass blower (I couldn’t help wondering what would happen if he suddenly had a laughing fit), we had some free time, so my mom and I decided to take a tour of the Doge’s Palace.  The Doge was the ruler of Venice and his palace was built to impress.  It did.  All of the ceilings were enormously high; most of the rooms were large enough for a good game of football; and the the walls were covered with breathtaking works of art mainly by Veronese and Tintoretto.  There was, however, one room in the palace which did not impress me at all, and that was the rest room.

Throughout both France and Italy, many of the public rest rooms are co-ed.  Although somewhat disconcerting at first, it really isn’t that big of a deal as the stalls are usually quite private.  After waiting in a long line for what seemed like hours (I was getting desperate), I entered one of the two stalls and found myself staring at a hole in the floor.  “Who stole the toilet?” I wondered.  I later discovered that this was what they referred to as a Turkish toilet.  I was completely flummoxed.  But, as I said, desperate.  I later learned how to properly use a Turkish toilet from an female Afghan friend of mine, but I managed as best I could at the time.  By the way, “where is the rest room?” in Italian is, “dove si trova una toilette?”

As part of the Doge’s Palace tour, one can cross over the Bridge of Sighs.  This is an enclosed bridge in which anyone taller than me (I’m 5’3″) has to double over to squeeze through.  The structure got its name because, if a man found himself crossing it, he knew he was going to prison and would sigh over his lost freedom.

If he merely sighed on his way over to the prison (which had cells so small that a person couldn’t lay down decently), I can imagine he did much more than sigh if he crossed back over to the palace.  If that happened, he wasn’t being released.  He was instead being taken to the two columns at the entrance of the palace where he would be drawn and quartered in front of an audience.

Another legend associated with the Bridge of Sighs is:  if two lovers kiss just as their gondola glides beneath it, as the sun sets, they will never part.  I heard this in a film I saw at an impressionable age.

We left the palace and boarded a gondola for a canal-level tour of the the city.  This was when we received the warning not to touch the water.  It contains several hundreds of years worth of sewage.

Our gondola and a couple of others with members of our tour group formed a small parade.  One of them carried a singer and an accordion player, so the ride was accompanied throughout by all of those old romantic Italian songs you’ve likely heard all your life.  Toward the end of the ride, we passed under the Bridge of Sighs.  I was slightly disgruntled that I had to share all of this romance with my mother.  I’m sure she felt the same.

As the sun sank slowly in the West and Venice sank slowly in the East, we boarded another launch to return to Maestra, from which we traveled to Gambarare to spend the night.

Venice really is sinking slowly into the mud and the sewage, plus the water level around Venice is rising.  Every year it floods to the point where platforms have to be set up in St Mark’s Square for people to be able to walk around.  They have come up with a solution that should be in place by 2020 that involves flood gates.  I’m glad.  I’d hate to have Venice end up completely under water.

Next time:  Roman Holiday or “Be It Ever So Crumbled, There’s No Place Like Rome”.  Ciao.

Prior to my adventures in Auland, Austria, I spent some time in Switzerland.  Ah … Switzerland.  Noted for its chocolate, clocks, chocolate, banks, chocolate, Heidi, chocolate, yodeling, and — lest we forget — chocolate.

My father’s paternal grandfather, Kasimer Lichty (originally spelled “Liechte”), came to the U.S. from Zurich,  Switzerland in 1863 at the age of three, along with his parents and brother, Anthony.  When indulging in a little genealogical research, I discovered that anyone of Swiss descent, no matter where they were born, can apply for dual Swiss citizenship.  The catch is that they have to do so before they turn 21, and they have to be able to prove their ancestry.  Unfortunately, I was over 21 when I found this out.  Too bad.  Sometimes I think that a Swiss passport might come in handy.  But then I would probably have to know some German to be convincing.

Our first stop in Switzerland had been Basel, which is at the intersection of France, Switzerland and Germany on the Rhine River.  From there we drove on to Lucerne.  It was en route to Lucerne that we first came upon the Alps.  I had never seen a mountain from the ground up before in my life.  I had flown over the Rockies on my way to Los Angeles and had looked down on a few craggy peaks.  But I had never looked up at one prior to the Swiss Alps.  I was awe-struck.  Right then and there I decided that I loved mountains.

Lucerne is a quaint, picturesque town with some of oldest streetcars in Europe.  Surrounded by mountains, Lucerne is also on a river, which is traversed by an old, medieval, wooden bridge.  On the ceiling of the bridge are paintings as old as the bridge itself.  There is also a 10th century monastery to explore as well as a beautiful painted church.  These are in the older part of the town.  A more modern commercial area exists across the river.

Instead of staying within Lucerne, we stayed in a tiny village not too far away called Stans.  Here was another small chalet-type hotel.  Just outside of my window grazed a cow — a friendly cow.  She simply chewed her cud and occasionally smiled or nodded in my direction.

After dinner the first evening there, my mother and I decided to take a walk.  We hadn’t gone very far when we encountered a group of children wearing brown shirts and shorts, carrying torches, chanting something in German while parading down the main street.  The combination of brown shirts, torches, German and parades doesn’t have the greatest connotation in the world to either of us.  So, we hot-footed it back to the hotel.

Trying to be nonchalant, we asked the proprietor what whose kids were doing.  He explained that they were some sort of scouting organization.  I don’t know about you, but I never marched around carrying torches when I was a Girl Scout.  The last thing the scouting masters would have done was to trust any of us with fire.

The next day, however, we went on the real adventure of this particular leg of the trip.  Now, I have a major fear of heights.  It’s really of falling from the height.  I had previously declined to go up into the torch of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor or the whispering gallery of St Paul’s Cathedral in London.  I still won’t take an open down escalator from several stories up in the Mall of America.  My mom wasn’t much more of a fan of heights than me.  Despite all of this, we had decided to travel to the top of Mount Titlis — 10,000 feet above sea level.  We figured that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  So I was determined to conquer my fear and do it.  A group of about 20 of us met at about 10:00am on a Sunday morning to say our prayers and begin our journey.

The first part involved a specially constructed small train that ran straight up the side of the mountain.  So far, so good.  The next leg of the journey, however, was inside a small, open gondola traveling along a slender cable.  One could either sit along the outside of the car watching the ground falling away below, or stand in the center or the car, holding onto the pole located there.  Mom and I chose the latter.  The car was small enough (each car held about ten people) that I could still see the ground falling away unless I closed my eyes, but at least I felt I had something fairly solid to hold onto.  Silly me.  Then we transferred to a second gondola.

By this time we were far enough up the mountain that the ground below us was covered with snow.  We soon found ourselves gliding past a large glacier.  The air was getting colder and the wind was picking up.  I had pulled on a jacket, muffler, hat and gloves — which wasn’t easy to do while holding onto the pole.   As the car attempted to dock for the transfer to a third gondola, it had some difficulty slipping into the slot that had been designed for it.  Each time it would back up and try again, the gondola would sway a bit.  This did not make me at all happy.  I gritted my teeth, wrapped my fingers even more tightly around the pole and said my prayers.

After four or five attempts, we finally docked.  My fingers were pried from the pole and we climbed the steps to the third gondola.  At least the others climbed — I crawled.  My legs had the same rubbery consistency as Spencer Tracy’s had in the original film version of “Father of the Bride” when he had that nightmare about trying to walk down the aisle at his daughter’s wedding.  Ricardo, our Italian Tour Director, looked at me and commented, “Your face … she’s as white as a sheet.”  He pronounced the word “sheet” differently.  I felt pretty much the way he pronounced it.

We were above the glaciers now and the wind and snow were blowing strongly around and through the dangling car.  When the gondola would begin to sway too much, it would stop moving along the cable.  I was certain my knuckles were tensely white beneath my gloves and my hands felt as if they were frozen to the pole.  I began to think about the fact that, should the gondola actually dislodge from the cable, the pole was not really going to be of much use to me in a plunge of several thousand feet into the frozen tundra.  I began to imagine being found 3,000 years from now, frozen solid, my hands still wrapped around the pole and my mother’s hands still wrapped around my neck.  It had been I who had talked her into this.

I realized that, at the moment I had made the decision to ascend this mountain, I had obviously been suffering from temporary insanity.  It might have been kinder to have locked me up for about 24 hours at that point — straight jacket and all.  [NOTE:  I wore a straight jacket in a play once.  It was actually rather comfortable.]  At least this gondola had no trouble docking and we were all quite relieved to climb out of it.

We were at the top of the mountain.  It seemed like the top of the world.  There was a small restaurant and gift shop there.  The rest of the group staggered into the restaurant and ordered a round of drinks.  Still in the grip of lunacy, I noticed a door that led outside onto a stone terrace.  I opened it and stepped outside.

The snow was blowing fiercely, but the view was spectacular.  I pulled out my camera and took several shots of the Swiss Alps from the top.  Looking down upon the nearby snowcapped peaks was a thrill.  I heard the door behind me opening and someone else stepped out onto the terrace.  I took that as my cue to go back inside.  I was glad now that I had gone through with it.  Back inside in the gift shop, I bought a small cow bell inscribed with the words “Titlis — 3020M — 10,000 ft” for six Swiss francs.

Fortunately, the trip down was uneventful.  I even pulled out my camera again and took pictures of what we saw on the way down.  The next day we left for Liechtenstein (of which I have always been rather fond due to the similarity to my own name), followed by Austria.  Now you know why I needed that rest in Auland.

Feeling a little stressed out?  Need to get away from it all?  Want to know of a quiet, restful vacation alternative to a beach or a cruise with fantastic scenery?  One place I would recommend is Auland, Austria.

You say you’ve never heard of Auland, Austria?  Neither had I.  It was during a 1984 European tour when the tour company we used chose to have us spend the night in the tiny village of Auland instead of in Innsbruck.  There isn’t much to do in Auland, but the scenery is amazing.  If you love mountains, that is.  Auland is completely surrounded by them.  I was there in May, but the mountain tops were still covered with snow.  In fact, much of “The Sound of Music” was filmed near there.

The architecture of most of the homes and the two small hotels was exactly like the chalets in Switzerland.  From one end of town to the other is only the equivalent of a couple of blocks and a less-than-five-minute walk.  In addition to the two tiny hotels, they have one general store, two churches (one Catholic, one Protestant), and a disco.

The disco movement remained strong in Europe long after it died down here in the States.  The hotel lounge television seemed to be permanently turned to an Austrian equivalent of MTV.  A hotel employee, who strongly resembled Rick Springfield, but spoke only German, pointed to the TV screen (which was showing the “Beat It” video at the time, smiled and said, “Michael Jackson.”  I smiled in return.  “Ja,” I replied, thus establishing that we both knew who Michael Jackson was and exhausting a large portion of my German vocabulary.  I turned to my Mom, who had learned German at university, but she shrugged her shoulders.  It seemed she had promptly forgotten all German upon graduation.

After dinner, which was the one disappointment — I had hoped for something very Austrian, like wienerschnitzel, and had been served fish and green beans instead — we went for a walk (the Rick Springfield look-alike very gallantly helped me on with my jacket, at which time I used another large chunk of my German vocabulary by responding with “danke”).  Quickly completing the one-end-of-town-to-the-other circuit, our next option was up or down the side of the mountain.  We chose up.  Being basically a lazy person, I figured I would rather come down when it was time to head for shelter.

Walking along a dirt road, we came across a small stone bridge spanning a rippling stream.  Standing on the bridge, we looked down into the valley below where the stream chased itself over rocks and around boulders, sometimes cascading briefly into a small waterfall.

A rough log railing ran the length of the bridge and gravel had been strewn upon the stone beneath our feet.  The air smelled crisp, clean and fresh; the view was spectacular; the only sound was the rushing water.  I breathed deeply, content that this was a little piece of heaven-on-earth.

When we turned to go, we found ourselves face to face with a very large and not altogether friendly cow.  She had managed to sneak up on us because the sound of the water had drowned out the jingling of the bell around her neck.  She looked at us; we looked at her; she spoke first.  “Moo-o-o-ve,” she said and we did, although I did think she could have been more polite about it, seeing that we were out-of-town guests and all.  I suppose, however, that it was her bridge.

We returned to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening sitting on the balcony outside of our room, staring at the mountains and at a small bottle of peppermint schnapps (one sip had been enough for us each).  This was our only night in Auland and we never did get to Innsbruck.  We had been invited to a yodel-and-polka fest in Innsbruck that night, but had turned it down to get in some relaxation time.

When it was time for bed, we went to sleep with the faint strains of that old chestnut “Disco Inferno” wafting up from the disco about a quarter of a mile down the side of the mountain.

If you were to opt for Auland and find that the peace and quiet is too much for you after a few days, you could always to into Innsbruck for some excitement.  They have everything a city has to offer, including restaurants, movie theatres (American films dubbed in German), nightclubs, shopping, etcetera.  However, Auland is a great place to rest, read, write that important novel, or simply stare at the mountains and contemplate the meaning of life.

Since returning home, whenever I start to feel somewhat overwhelmed by life, I’ll often meditate on that place and find myself transported back to the stone bridge with the rippling stream in Auland, Austria — minus the cow, of course.

The place of William Shakespeare’s birth was nearly the place of my death.

I once heard a comedian talking about the difficulties of translating a joke from American English to British English.  He used an example which contained the phrase, “hit by a truck”.  In the UK, a truck is called a “lorry” and the phrase “hit by a lorry” just doesn’t have the same punch to it.  “Lorry” isn’t as harsh a word as “truck”.  To further complicate the issue, a semi is called an “articulated lorry”.  Nevertheless, whatever you call it, I was nearly flattened by one in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Stratford is a very small town which is famous mainly for being William Shakespeare’s birthplace.  The Royal Shakespeare Company also has its headquarters there and performs the Bard’s works in a large theatre complex on the edge of the River Avon.

The squashing incident (or “nearly squashing incident”) occurred on my very first visit, not only to Stratford, but to England.  The British drive on the left side of the road, so it takes some getting used to as to where the cars are coming from.  It’s second nature now, but a new experience then.

I was at the crossroads of five streets.  I looked up and down every one of them and then proceeded across.  Apparently I should have looked down and up them instead of up and down them.  I was not quite halfway across when an articulated lorry parped his hooter (which is what the Brits do in place of honking their horn) and slammed on his brakes.

Well … I could have broken the Olympic record in the high jump.  I rocketed straight up into the air about 50 feet (give or take an inch), came back down (almost — my feet didn’t quite touch the ground), polished the truck’s grillwork with the sleeve of my jacket in passing, and shot across the remainder of the road in a single bound.

Once the shocked onlookers ascertained that I was indeed all right, I was congratulated on my agility.  A bit shaken by having seen my life flash before my eyes in sixteenth century iambic pentameter, I repaired to a tea shop for tea and scones.

While we’re on the subject (or at least in the neighborhood), let’s discuss a few differences in terminology with reference to road transportation.  Although a truck is a “lorry”, a car is still a car.  However, the fender is the “wing”, the trunk is the “boot”, and the hood is the “bonnet” under which is a “cylinder block” instead of an engine block.  The windshield is a “windscreen”, the muffler an “exhaust silencer”, the drive shaft a “propeller shaft”, the battery an “accumulator”, the transmission case the “gearbox housing”, the turn signal the “flasher”, and the choke the “strangler” (I rather fancy that one).

You fill the vehicle with “petrol” instead of gas.  If involved in a “car smash” (accident), you might fix it with a “spanner” (wrench).  You do drive it, with a driving license, but on a motorway instead of a highway (although, inexplicably, a divided highway is a “dual carriageway”) upon which you may be involved in a “multiple smash” or experience “nose to tail traffic”.

Then there are the traffic signs:  A detour sign is a “diversion notice”; instead of just play “slow”, the road signs in the UK emphasize that you proceed “dead slow”; and the yield sign says “give way”.  I almost expected the stop sign to say “cease and desist”, but it simply says “stop”.

Across the street from the tea shop was Shakespeare’s birthplace.  For a small fee it can be toured.  But you will be stooped over by the time you leave the house.  Even I had to duck through the doors, and I am just 5’3″.  People were much shorter 400 years ago.

In addition to the birthplace, there is also Shakespeare’s daughter, Suzanna, and her husband’s house — Hall’s Croft.  She married a doctor.  Many of his medical instruments and records are on exhibit and the house itself is completely intact, including the furniture.

You can see Will’s school, which is across the street from Harvard House.  This was the home of the founder of Harvard University here in the States.  Just outside of town is Anne Hathaway’s house, which looks like the Seven Dwarves should come marching out of it.  Anne became Shakespeare’s wife.

Will’s grave is in the church at the end of town.  There is an inscription on it that reads in part: “… cursed be he who moves my bones.”  People have taken this very seriously indeed.  At one point some group was hunting for the originals of his play manuscripts.  They poked around the houses that are still standing, found nothing, and then came up with the brainy idea that they might have been buried with him.  Spooked by the curse, they used machines to x-ray the grave instead of digging him up.

I could have told them they wouldn’t find anything anyway.  Playwrights in his day did not own the plays they wrote.  The acting company for which they were written owned them.  If they want to find the original manuscripts (if they still exist) it would be necessary to track down the movements of John Heminges (the last of the company to die) and his descendants.  Heminges was in possession of them at one time as he was the person who had them published at Will’s death.

The town has changed little since Shakespeare’s day, so it is possible to get a real feel for what it was like back then.  Shakespeare lived and wrote in what was the end of the Elizabethan era.  This was also the time of Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Spanish Armada — a fascinating period in history.

I have named this blog “A Traveling Fool” for two reasons.  One is that I love traveling and do quite a lot of it.  The other is that I can sometimes get myself into some interesting situations on some of these trips from being naive or just plain stupid.  This isn’t meant to be a travel tips site, though you may glean some tips on what to do or not do from my personal experiences.  My main intent is for you to simply enjoy the commentary and photos.

My travels so far have mainly been to the UK, Europe (including Eastern Europe), some of the Middle East, the US, and Canada.  But since I have been an Anglophile since I was wearing diapers, my first trip was to London, England.  This took place in 1983 with my mother.  In 1983 (I know this is making me sound ancient), we didn’t have the internet or mobile phones.  So traveling involved going to see a travel agent, who made all of the arrangements for you.

Our trip was through the main airline out of Minneapolis at the time.  It was a package including air, hotel, train tickets between Gatwick Airport and Victoria Station, a day trip from London, and tickets to a West End play.  The entire trip was about a week in length and was timed to coincide with the Queen’s official birthday celebration — Trooping the Colour.

I was so excited to be going to London that I don’t think I slept for days before we left.  I also didn’t sleep on the plane (I still don’t).  I learned the hard way to stay up until what would be a normal bedtime in the location to which I’m flying.  Trying to take a nap once we arrived in London not only didn’t work, but added nausea to looking and feeling like a zombie (which wasn’t considered cool in 1983).

To compound the situation, I wasn’t adjusting well to the food yet.  I tried ordering egg salad and got some sliced eggs on a bed of watercress.  Later I found out that, if I wanted what we called egg salad in the States, I needed to order “egg mayonnaise”.  A peanut butter and liverwurst sandwich also didn’t hold much appeal.  So we temporarily gave up and went to McDonalds.  Although I normally want to experience the food of wherever I am, I was desperate.  That settled my stomach and I was able to to spend the rest of the trip eating British food with no qualms.

The train from Gatwick to Victoria Station had some of those wonderful older cars that were polished wood and had individual doors that opened in each section.  The compartments weren’t walled inside, however.  A gentleman traveling on business from Florida helped us hoist our cases up onto the train and into the overhead racks.  He and my mother then had a lively conversation all the way into London while I stared out the window in awe.  We were in England — home of the Bronte sisters, Charles Dickens and nearly every author I had ever read at that point.

During the cab ride from Victoria Station to the hotel (which was in Piccadilly Circus) we passed by a tall wall with barbed wire along the top.  The taxi driver confirmed for me that it was indeed Buckingham Palace.  My mom was surprised that I had figured that out and I had no explanation for how I knew it.  I just did.  I had also pretty much memorized the London map and watched for all the street signs (which were on the sides of buildings on the corners) on the way.

All of the lack of sleep didn’t help me when it came time to actually sleep that first night either.  I was still too excited.  When I did finally fall sleep, I kept dreaming that I was lying on one of the slabs in Westminster Abbey with people walking around me.  The hotel bed was quite narrow and high.

But the sights were incredible — Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard, the Duke of Wellington’s House, Banqueting House on Whitehall, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, St James’ Palace, the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace.  For the Trooping the Colour, we got some space on the Duke of York Steps that lead down to The Mall from the Duke of York Column.  I developed an immediate crush on the guardsman who sold us the programs.  He was young and cute, in full uniform, and could actually chat with us as he wasn’t guarding anything — just selling programs.

My camera was a cheap view finder that I had gotten at a pawn shop, so my photos of the parade pretty much all look alike.  You have to look really closely to even begin to make out the Queen Mother & Princess Diana riding together in a open carriage, or the Queen, Prince Phillip and Prince Charles on horseback, or the rest of the family.  But I was thrilled to see them all and have all of the photos properly labeled in an album.  The photos that I share in this blog will all be photos I have taken myself on the trips that I describe.

Coming next:  “Stratford-Upon-Avon” or “To Be or Not to Be”