A Traveling Fool

July 25, 2021

Merveilleux, Beau Paris!

We spent the last couple days of our whirlwind 1984 European tour in Paris. I had never been there before. Fortunately it would not be my last time in that wonderful, beautiful city. Paris became my second favorite city, behind London, at that point.

Our hotel was in Montmartre. It was a block away from the Moulin Rouge and a short walk to Sacre-Coeur. It also overlooked a cemetery with all of its graves above ground,

Officially named Cimetiere du Nord (and originally named Cimetiere des Grandes Carrieres) Cemetery Montmartre was created in 1825 in an abandoned gypsum quarry that had been used as a mass grave during the French Revolution. Artist Edgar Degas is buried in this cemetery in a mausoleum marked Famille de Gas. Emile Zola was originally buried here as well until he was moved to the Pantheon. We thought that having our room overlook a cemetery was a bit creepy, although fascinating. We were not that high up in the building (about one level up), so we looked straight out at it.

Once we received our cases, we set out to visit Sacre-Coeur, which is the gorgeous white travertine church high up at the top of Montmartre. Montmartre was the site of the first Commune insurrection in 1870, which took place forty years after the events depicted in the book and musical play “Les Miserables” (1830). The basilica was begun in 1884 and finally completed in 1914.

We made our way up the very steep hill through the winding, narrow streets of the artist’s quarter. It was a less steep walk than taking the main road to the base of Montmartre and climbing the stairs to the top. Photos weren’t allowed inside. After our visit, we went down the stairs to the main road, which took us back to the hotel past Moulin Rouge.

After having dinner at a little cafeteria near the hotel, we joined the rest of our tour group for a night tour of Paris, which included the Eiffel Tower, the Opera, Hotel de Ville, and so many other places that I couldn’t remember them all.

The next morning, we took a city tour, returning to the same places we had seen the previous night, but stopping at some of them for a visit. I would love to be able to say that my first visit to Notre Dame had been memorable. But the reality was that I was completely overwhelmed by it and needed to return a couple more times before I could say that I felt like I knew the place. It was mainly a blur at that visit.

Another of our “big visits” was to the Eiffel Tower. We took the elevator up in one of the legs to a viewing platform. I have included here a photo I took from the Eiffel Tower of the city. After our stop there, we continued our tour with Rodin’s House, the Arc de Triomphe, and Napoleon’s tomb. Then we had lunch at the Moulin Rouge before taking a boat ride on the Seine.

The rest of the afternoon was spent at the Louvre. This was prior to the building of Pei’s pyramid, which is now the main entrance to the museum. The photo I have included here of the courtyard of the Louvre when we were there in 1984, shows that it was being used as a parking lot and had a statue of Lafayette in it.

The Louvre itself was originally built in the late 12th and early 13th century as a palace for King Philip II. It was enlarged and remodeled several times until King Louis XIV moved to Versailles in 1682, leaving the Louvre as mainly a place to house his enormous collection of art. It was during the French Revolution that the building was turned into a public museum.

Once again, I was overwhelmed. But I did manage to see and photograph the “Winged Victory” and “Venus de Milo”. Although we did see the “Mona Lisa”, it was impossible to photograph her with the crowd of people and the reflection from the glass protecting it (I did manage to get a photo of her on a later visit). As part of a tour, we were herded through. On the later visit when I managed to get a photo of Mona, Mom and I visited on our own for a full day (after I studied and carried with me a floor plan of the entire museum, and created our plan of attack).

After we returned to the hotel, we decided that my high school and college freshman French could be relied upon well enough to visit a restaurant for dinner instead of a cafeteria. After a delicious dinner, we took a walk in the cemetery next to the hotel. It was full of cats. I am highly allergic to the little fluff-balls and Mom had always been afraid of them, so our adventure was a trifle shorter in duration than we had planned.

The next day, we drove to Brussels for lunch and Leiderdorp for an overnight stay before flying out of Amsterdam the following day for home. There was a windmill right outside of the hotel room window in Leiderdorp. It had been raining shortly before we arrived, so there were also several enormous slugs out and about.

June 28, 2021

Le Cote d’Azur & Along the Rhone

Our whirlwind introductory tour of Europe in 1984 included some time along the Cote d’Azur (including Eze, Monaco, Nice, Cape Ferrat, Beaulieu-Sur-Mer, and Cannes). Then we followed the Rhone River north to Avignon and Lyon.

We passed Monaco to get to Eze, which is a small, medieval village known mainly for being a small, medieval village and for its perfume industry. The same factories that made very famous, expensive perfumes also made what was basically the same formula, but with a different name at a cheaper price.

From Eze we drove to Nice and checked into our hotel. It was a fairly small, older hotel on a quite, narrow street, not too far from the beach (just a few blocks). After dinner, we took a trip to Monaco to visit the casino at Monte Carlo.

They had separate areas for the tourists and the high rollers. I decided in advance how many francs I was willing to lose and proceeded to lose them. In 1984, there was no European Union or Euros as of yet.

For many years after when I was asked if I liked to gamble, and I said, “Not much.” and was then asked if I had ever tried it (with the idea being ‘don’t knock it if you never tried it’) and if they got around to asking me, “Where?” people tended to look at me a little askance when I said, “Monte Carlo.” I knew they didn’t believe me. But I didn’t give gambling another try until 2005 when I tried a one-armed bandit in Deadwood. I made enough to pay for lunch and quit while I was ahead.

After losing the francs I had set aside, Mom and I watched a few other people for a little bit (there were a few roulette tables) before heading for a little cafe where we could get some ice cream before returning to Nice.

Both of my brothers rode special racing bicycles back then and were big fans of the Tour de France and other international races. I had drawn a little map from a Motobacan shop that we had passed to the hotel so that we would be able to find our way over there after breakfast. I wanted to get a jersey for the one brother and some gloves for the other.

Back in 1984, there were not yet many French who spoke English (or who would admit it if they did). That would require another generation. So, I needed to use my limited French to tell the proprietor what I wanted. We seemed to understand each other well enough and I left with what I wanted to buy.

Next we stopped at a place that had tennis dresses. It was Mom’s birthday and she saw a tennis dress she wanted. At another shop, I bought a touristy T-shirt and cap for myself. Then we retraced our steps back to the hotel, dropped off our packages and walked to the beach.

After lunch we departed for Cannes, Avignon, and Lyon. At each place we just had a short bus drive around before heading to the next location.

Avignon was a walled city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of Southeastern France along the Rhone River. It was the location of the Pope from 1309 to 1377. A palace is still there, although it is empty.

The bridge Pont Saint-Benezet, also known as the Pont d’Avignon, was originally a wooden bridge spanning the Rhone between Villeneuve-les-Avignon and Avignon. It was built between 1177 and 1185. This bridge was destroyed in 1226 and was rebuilt, beginning in 1234, with 22 stone arches. The bridge was abandoned in the mid-17th century as the arches tended to collapse each time the Rhone flooded making it very expensive to maintain. Four arches and a gatehouse at the Avignon end of the bridge have survived. The bridge was the inspiration for the song “Sur le pont d’Avignon”.

Lyon was the capital of the Gauls at the time of the Roman Empire. During World War II, the Nazis used Lyon as a center for their forces. Lyon was also a major center for the resistance. Klaus Barbie, known as the “Butcher of Lyon” made his headquarters at the Hotel Terminus.

This was the hotel where we stayed the night. Our room had a chandelier, a lovely fireplace, and brass beds. At dinner, we all sang “Happy Birthday” to Mom.

Next time – Paris.

June 14, 2021

Florence & Pisa

Continuing with my first European trip back in 1984 — after we made it out of Rome alive — we headed for Florence and Pisa. Florence had always fascinated me because of both Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni and Leonardo da Vinci, who were both born in the 15th century not too far from Florence.

The older of the two, da Vinci, considered to be one of the greatest painters who ever lived, had been born out of wedlock and educated in Florence by the renowned Italian painter and sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio. After beginning his career in Florence, da Vinci went to Milan for a while and then went back and forth between the two cities before spending some time in Rome and finally in France. He died in France and was buried there in the Collegiate Church of Saint Florentin at Château d’Amboise.

Michelangelo was also sent to Florence for his education, but not in art. All he wanted to do was paint and he was soon taken under the wing of the Medici family who were willing to employ him to do just that. He also took up sculpting and began to bounce around between Bologna, Florence and Rome after the death of Lorenzo de Medici. Eventually he returned to the patronage of the Medici family before being commissioned to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. That project took him four years to complete. He died in Rome and was buried in Florence at the Basilica Santa Croce.

We began this visit at a leather factory and then went on a walking tour of the palace and chapels of the Medici, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Ponte Vecchio, Saint Mary’s Cathedral (also known as the Cathedral of Florence), the Baptistry, and Santa Croce. Even though the statue of Michelangelo’s David that stands in front of the Palazzo Vecchio is a copy (the original is safely housed in the Galleria dell’Accademia), it is still exquisite. I bought a small copy of it for 9,000 lire (roughly $5,00). Since there wasn’t any barricade or guard to prevent me from doing so, I touched my finger tips to my lips and then placed them on Michelangelo’s tomb at Santa Croce.

The next day, we left Florence for Pisa. We stopped at the main square where we could visit the Cathedral, the Baptistry and the Leaning Tower. This time the tower was open. On a later visit, it was closed as it was in even greater danger of toppling and was being shored up by hanging counterweights on the one side to try to straighten it out a bit. On this first trip, we only had a short morning break in Pisa.

Next time — Eze, Monaco (Monte Carlo), and Nice

May 31, 2021

Be It Ever So Crumbled, There’s No Place Like Rome

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 which 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 creating 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. An Italian 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 cavalry 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. We were quickly moved to another room.

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 American tourists singing songs, the Belgian driver trying to stay on the mountainside 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 — Florence and Pisa.

Piazzo Navona The Rivers Fountain by Bernini

May 17, 2021

First Time Ever In Italy

From Austria we crossed the Alps into Italy via the Brenner Pass. I was really looking forward to this part of the trip. The first evidence of civilization we encountered was a cool castle that was wrapped in the clouds. As much as I liked it, I thought it was just a bit too isolated. Maybe it had been someone’s summer home. I thought it would be completely snowed in when winter came.

After traveling from Innsbruck to Balzano, we took a break in Trento. Trento began as a Celtic village, but was conquered by the Romans back in the first century BC. Then it changed hands several times, being conquered by the Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Lombards, and Franks. It became part of the Holy Roman Empire at one point. By the 14th century, it was part of Austria. Continued from there on through Verona, Vicenza and Padua.

On the outskirts of Venice, we had lunch in Maestra, followed by taking a taxi boat into Venice itself. People seem to either love Venice or hate it. I love it! It is beautiful, unique, and full of history.

Starting with St Mark’s Square, we toured the Basilica and a glass factory. Up until that point, the Basilica was the oldest building I had ever been in. The original building had been built in 828 AD, but was burned down (with the Doge inside) in 976. The Doge was the ruler of Venice. Obviously this particular guy was not a favorite.

The present building was built as an enlargement of the version built after the fire. The body of St Mark (which had been stolen from Alexandria, Egypt) was discovered hidden in a pillar and reburied in the altar. We were not on our own for this tour, so it wasn’t until a later trip that we could really explore what is one of my favorite churches/cathedrals/basilicas in the world. As it was, the interior was gorgeous with loads of gold mosaics.

Since Venetian glass is world famous, visiting a glass maker was fun. The way that the colors were included and the glass was blown was fascinating. Afterwards, we had some free time. Mom and I went to the Doge’s Palace.

This version of the Palace was built in 1340. In addition to the Doge’s residence, it also includes Council Chambers, court rooms, the Senate Chamber, and other government facilities. Across the Bridge of Sighs is a prison. The Bridge of Sighs is named as it is because the prisoners would sigh over their loss of freedom on their way across it to the prison.

It was in the Doge’s Palace where I encountered my first ever Turkish toilet. This is a hole in the floor that must be straddled. I quickly found out that the McDonald’s in Venice had western-style toilets (and fortunately also the hotel). Whenever in that part of Italy from then on, I kept my eyes open for a McDonald’s should I need a restroom. Eventually I also learned how to correctly use a Turkish toilet for the times I traveled to other parts of the world where that was my only option.

That evening, before dinner, we went on a gondola serenade as a group. I loved gliding along the canals in the gondolas listening to traditional Italian songs. Even alone, with a friend, or with one’s mother, it is still a magical experience, not to be missed.

That night we stayed in the town of Gambarare and had a dinner of lasagna and fish. The next day, we set off for Assisi where we visited the Basilica and the tomb of St. Francis before heading to Rome.

St Francis is the patron saint of animals and lived in Assisi in the 13th century. The Basilica was built in the 13th century, shortly after St Francis was canonized. There is a lower Basilica and an upper Basilica. The lower part was built first and was where Francis was buried. When we had a little free time, I found a place that had replicas of old weapons. I found a small crossbow, a mace, and a couple other things that I was not certain what they were called. They are in my family room.

Next time — Rome (be it ever so crumbled, there is no place like Rome).

For some reason, this site was reluctant to upload all of my scanned photos from 1984. So I have included what I could get uploaded and added a later photo of St Mark’s Basilica from a different trip.

May 2, 2021

Flying Low Through Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein & Austria

Luxembourg is a very small country, but has signs of occupation all the way back to the Paleolithic Age, roughly 350,000 years ago. It is down below the lower southeastern corner of Belgium with Germany and France as its other neighbors.

We visited Luxembourg City between breakfast and lunch on the day after we visited Belgium, having breakfast in Belgium, lunch in France, and dinner in Switzerland. In Luxembourg City, we were given a coach tour of the city and visited the Notre Dame Cathedral there.

Lunch was in the town of Luneville, France. Not much there in the area where we stopped. Just a cafe and a Cora store (similar to Kmart in the US). We explored the Cora after lunch. We liked getting fresh fruit to take along with us. We would sometimes also pick up some bread or pastries.

The afternoon break was in Basel, Switzerland, on the border of France, Germany, and Switzerland. It also spanned the Rhine. Since it was my first time seeing the Rhine, I was fascinated as we crossed over the river on a bridge and then drove alongside it for a while before making our pit stop.

The main things that I can remember about Basel all these years later (we were there in 1984) are the river and the manner of toilet flushing in the rest room. Because there is such a variety in the way that a toilet can be flushed throughout Europe (at least back then), we had established a ritual that, the first person into the rest room let the next person in line in on any tricks involved with getting that little job done.

Basel stands out because it took me a while to figure it out and it was so unique. I studied the toilet itself and the wall behind it; looked for something suspended from the ceiling or some sort of pedal on the floor. Nothing presented itself. Eventually, I noticed that one of the small, black, tiles in the floor (which was composed of several white tiles punctuated periodically by these small, black tiles) was raised a bit higher than the others. I stepped on it and voila!

As we approached Lucerne, Switzerland, we began to see mountains. I had never seen a mountain before, so I was absolutely awed by the Swiss Alps. We stayed on the outskirts of a village outside of Lucerne called Stans. When on a budget tour back in the 80s and early 90s, the hotels were all on the outskirts of any large city or in some village out in the country. Although it meant that we couldn’t see any major tourist sites anywhere near our hotel, it also meant that we often had some fun and/or interesting experiences when we went for a walk.

In Stans, after dinner, we encountered some preteen boys marching around together, carrying torches and wearing brown shorts and shirts. We found this to be very unsettling (they were also speaking German), so we went back to the hotel fairly quickly. At the hotel, we were told that it was some sort of scouting organization. Ah huh.

The next morning we drove to Mount Titlis where we took a train straight up part of the mountain, then switched to a series of three cable cars to get to the top, 10,000 feet up. A much earlier post, “A Swiss Miss”, from 2017, went into a lot of detail about how neither my mom or I were fans of heights and the difficulty one of the cable cars had docking.

As it swayed in the wind and snow with Mom and I standing in the middle of it, holding onto the pole there, I was imagining being found in the glacier below in another 3,000 years with my fingers still around the pole and Mom’s fingers still around my neck (I had been the one who had talked her into it — how often in one’s life does one have the opportunity to go up to the top of a mountain in the Swiss Alps?). We survived, docked, and took some photos of the view from the top. I also purchased a small cow bell as a souvenir.

Back down on terra firma, we had lunch in Lucerne and did some sightseeing. We visited the baroque Jesuit Church and then the Kapellbrucke, which was a covered, wooden footbridge that was built in 1406 across the Reuss River diagonally. It had loads of paintings on the inside dating back to the 1600s. We also visited a monastery, which was founded in about 750 and was dedicated to St Leodegar.

We set off for Austria, stopping off in Vaduz, Liechtenstein, for a quick pic of the castle there. Our destination was technically Innsbruck, Austria, but we spent the night in the village of Auland. Apparently some of the exteriors for the movie, The Sound of Music, had been filmed in the area. After dinner at the hotel in Auland, several people in the group went into Innsbruck for an optional evening at a nightclub there. Mom and I stayed behind in Auland and went on one of our walks where we encountered a rather stubborn cow on a narrow bridge who let us know beyond any doubt that we were the interlopers.

Next time – the Italian Alps (through the Brenner Pass), Venice, and Assisi.

April 18, 2021

If This is Friday, It Must Be Belgium

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

April 4, 2021

Day Tour to Oxford & Stratford-upon-Avon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

March 14, 2021

A Day Tour to Stonehenge & Bath

Back in 1983 when Mom and I made our first real trip together to London, we had booked a couple of day trips as part of the package. The first one was to Stonehenge & Bath.

We were picked up at our hotel by the tour company taking us on the coach trip. This was when we discovered the phenomena of married couples from the US not wanting to deal with a pair of women. That sort of thing has gotten better over the years, but I can still come across it when dealing with US couples of the same rough age as me. Back then, it was Mom’s age group that snubbed us.

Most couples from other English-speaking countries (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) don’t seem to care if you are another couple, two women, or a single woman. More women travel these days without being one half of a couple. So I usually have several choices for people to sit with at lunch or dinner. On this day trip, there was a very nice fellow from Vancouver, British Columbia who joined us for lunch.

In preparation for the upcoming summer solstice, at Stonehenge, there were several caravans (called campers in the US) parked on a nearby field. There were also tall chain-link fences around the site to keep folks out of it. So all of my photos from that trip were from a distance. I have included just one of them here. It was a quite beautiful day with lots of fluffy clouds.

Back in those days, there wasn’t a visitor center as of yet or much in the way of fencing normally. People could get pretty up close and personal with the stones. The stones could also be seen from the motorway. But things have changed over the years, including re-routing the motorway.

Now the henge and its stones cannot be seen until tickets have been purchase and collected and you are taken by tram to the site from the visitor center. It is possible to get closer than I did back in 1983 on just a regular visit (as I did in 2016). However, if you are willing to pay a bit more and take a tour there in the middle of the night (the one I had planned to do in 2020 meant leaving London at around 5:30am to get there by the time the sun would be rising), it is possible to actually walk among the stones. Still and all, I was absolutely thrilled to be able to see Stonehenge.

From there, we headed off to Bath. Originally called Aquae Sulis (“the waters of Sulis”), Bath was built c. 60 AD when the Romans decided to build baths and temples there. The hot springs were known to the ancient Britons long before. Bath Abbey was built in the 7th century and enlarged many times since.

We were dropped off in the center of town and led to first Bath Abbey and then the baths themselves. As my first real trip anywhere, I have never seen Roman baths or Roman ruins of any kind before and was absolutely fascinated. Mom and I ventured underground to see the remains of the Sacred Spring, the Roman Temple, the Roman Bath House, and a museum containing artifacts from when Bath had been Aquae Sulis.

I remember there was a head from a statue of the the goddess Minerva in the museum. Unfortunately my photos from underground were not at all good. But then very few interior photos that I took on this trip came out at all decent. So nice now to have digital cameras that can take great photos in low-light situations without flash.

We had lunch at the Pump Room and then walked around a bit in that part of town and near the River Avon. Some of Jane Austin’s novels were either set in Bath or had some scenes there.

I had taken architectural design and drafting as an elective in school. We had studied Bath’s architecture, especially the Royal Crescent. That was our last stop before heading back to London. I was just as thrilled to see that as I had been to see Stonehenge and the Roman Baths.

Next time — a day trip to Oxford and Stratford-Upon-Avon.

February 28, 2021

1983 – Last Day in London Before Day Trips

When I first began writing this blog in 2017, I started with my first two trips which were to London in 1983 and overall Europe in 1984. Although I started a trip journal with that first 1983 trip, it didn’t have a tremendous amount of detail for the first few trips.

Photography-wise I had a rather limited film camera that I had picked up in a pawn shop when I was in college and had no money to buy something good. The camera couldn’t zoom and was a view-finder, not through the lens (which meant I had no real clue of how the photo would turn out until it was developed). But it worked well enough at the time for basic quick travel pics (and I still didn’t have much money).

In 1992, I started a new job for a company which had a monthly newsletter published for the department I was in. I joined the newsletter, writing articles to explain upcoming projects and initiatives. Then, when they also wanted some lighter fare, I wrote some humorous articles — especially about my travels. I was quite relieved that they were popular.

Since I was new to traveling those first few trips, I had a lot of silly things that I did or that happened to me. One of my first stories was about nearly getting creamed by an articulated lorry in Stratford-Upon-Avon during that 1983 trip to London. Since I still have those publications containing my articles, that was the same story with which I began my A Traveling Fool blog.

I had a few photos scanned into my computer and my old articles and my journal. As time went on and I started to have better cameras, disks of photos as well as the prints, then moved to digital photography, I could include better and better photos. My journals included more and more detail, so I could provide a better narrative of my adventures, comical, not so pleasant, and just normal.

In 2020 when none of us could travel (plus I hadn’t been anywhere in 2018 or 2019 either), it became clear to me that I would need to go back to those earlier trips and fill in with what I hadn’t written about in the beginning. Then, look at some of the more interesting adventures that popped up here and there through my travels and could use more of a spotlight. So, I scanned several more of those earlier photos in and also used some later photos, if needed, for when I visited the same place more than once and the early photos were too dark or fuzzy or just not really usable.

So, for these posts on my early travels, I have been relying on sketchy journal entries, scanned photos (unless I have later photos of the same place), and my memory. This particular post includes three places that I have so far only visited during this one trip (Madame Tussauds, Kensington Palace, and a nightclub called “The Beefeater”) and one that I have been to a couple of times (Victoria & Albert Museum).

The day was a Sunday and we started out at Madame Tussauds. The London location is the original. Madame Tussaud had been taught wax modeling as a child and had created models of the heads of several of the victims of the French Revolution. After taking her wax heads and other figures around Europe for several years, she traveled to London for a show of her wax figures. She was then unable to return to France because of the Napoleonic Wars. So she set up shop in London in 1835 on Baker Street, a short distance from the current location.

This was the first wax museum that I had ever been to at that point and it was huge. It is even larger now with several special exhibits and experiences (such as an interactive Sherlock Holmes Experience with live actors, wax figures, and film where the audience joins in to help solve a mystery). I had planned to revisit the musuem during the trip I had booked for late in 2020.

In 1983, I was especially interested in the historic figures such as Henry VIII and his six wives and the current royal family (included here is a somewhat fuzzy photo that includes Prince Charles and Princess Diana). I also took a photo of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens together. Neither one of them looks all that happy. Dickens actually looks as if he is somewhat frightened about something he is seeing. Shakespeare is looking away from Dickens as if he sees something more interesting elsewhere.

We took the tube over to Kensington Palace and had lunch in the vicinity. I did not know at the time that a great, great grandfather of mine had been butler in a house (that still stands, but has been converted to luxury apartments) not far from Kensington Palace. I had planned to revisit Kensington and take some photos of the house in which my ancestor had served during that cancelled trip.

At the palace, Mom and I toured the State Rooms as well as Queen Anne’s private rooms (she was queen from 1702 to 1714 and died at Kensington) and the suite of rooms where Queen Victoria had grown up and where she had been told that she was then the Queen in 1837 when she was only eighteen. We then checked out the gardens and the orangery. Charles and Diana were living in another part of the palace that was far from the public eye.

We took a stroll through part of Hyde Park to get to the Victoria & Albert Museum where we took special interest in the costumes, period furniture and tapestries. After our visit there, we took the underground back to our hotel to get ready for our dinner out.

As part of our package, we had tickets to a nightclub called “The Beefeater”, which was (and still is) located at St Katherine’s Docks near the Tower of London. I have a photo here of the exterior that I took many years later. Transportation was included so we didn’t have to try to find the place on our own.

The club was built in one of the old warehouses (Ivory House) down in the vaults. The theme was the time of King Henry VIII. He and his courtiers came around and encouraged much revelry. For entertainment, we had knights, jesters, acrobats, singers and dancers. The food was served on large platters (and the soup from a caldron) with wine and ale in large pitchers. Again, they were going for a banquet feel from Henry VIII’s time, so only utensils in existence back then were used. The platters and pitchers were passed around for everyone to help themselves.

We were seated between a French football (soccer) team and a group of German tourists. The tourists were not at all friendly. They didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak German, but they didn’t even smile. They also didn’t pass anything our way.

The football team was quite friendly. I could speak some French, which helped. But they were also quite drunk. They did make certain that we were fed, but I did have to ask for the wine. They sort of wanted to keep that to themselves.

Next time — a day trip to Stonehenge and Bath.