Nick and Jane tour Europe
For our respective 60thand 50thbirthdays we decided to spend two weeks in Europe.
We read several guidebooks, the principal being Backdoor Europe, by Rick Steves. This gave us our basic mode of operation. We planned to travel light, taking only 2 bags, one a wheeled carry on, the other a light shoulder bag for incidentals. This would allow us to be totally flexible, go by train and foot or Metro, meet local people, and stay in inexpensive hotels with no elevators but lots of charm.
After weeks of studying Frommers and Fodors and “Paris on $100 a Day” we settled on landing in Zurich, to spend 2 days with Herb and Suzanne, thus easing into the European experience with a trustworthy guide.
We would then go by train to Florence for 2 days; followed by 2 days in Cinque Terra, a rustic Italian Riviera recommended by friend Peggy and Rick Steves; then 2 days unplanned but ending in Marseille for the night train to Paris, where we stay 3 eays, then overnight in London; then home for Nick while Jane stays another week with sister Jean.
Saturday 9 May 1998, 0930
Switzerland
We fly from Portland to Cincinnati, where we wander around the airport peeking out at Ohio, then off to Zurich. The flight is long and painful with minimal sleep. As the plane flies into the dawn we see below us the coast of France, our first view of Europe.
We see below us farms, fields surrounded by trees, then cities, Paris in the distance to the north. Lower we pass over fields of bright yellow rapeseed, then a river, a large nuclear plant, the Swiss countryside, undulating hills with the Alps high and snow covered to the South, and finally we land in Zurich airport.
There is Suzanne, big smile on her face, holding a sign “Merker.” Merker himself has gone to Portland for his son’s graduation from Reed College. We must have passed in the night.
After the hugs she shows around: we register our Europass, purchase couchet for Florence, and partake of our first coffee in Europe.
The Zurich airport has a huge shopping center and rooms to lean up and below that the train station to the city, where Suzanne takes on a walking tour.
We marvel at the narrow streets, how lovely is the Lindenhof, a park overlooking the old city. We pass by unearthed Roman baths and rest with lunch in an outdoor restaurant next to the river, next to the lake, and next to the women’s bath house, no men allowed. After lunch we view the church where Zwingli preached “describing hell so vividly that Martin Luther was frighten to hear him.” Another church had windows by Chagall. In one student section we passed an apartment where Lenis lived before he returned alter Russian history.
Herb and Suzanne’s apartment has a view of the lake below with mountains rising to the Alps in the distance.
Dinner was at Widenbad, a farm restaurant outdoors under the trees. We had rosti, a potato dish, and local wine.
Sleep was a relief.
5-11-98 Monday
Breakfast on the patio. Soft boiled eggs in colorful egg cups, strawberries, Gruyer cheese, bread, jam. Icronocan coffee. Jane is dazzled y eggs in egg cups. We suggest taking the bread with us for our upcoming hike in the Alps, but Suzanne is puzzled. “It would not be fresh,” she explains.
We train to Lucerne, arriving in time for a br ief walk before our boat leaves for our hiking destination. A covered bridge and towers from the original walled city remain from the medieval pass.
On our boat rip we are entertained by the Swiss Air Force Precision Flying Team, six jets in gleaming red and white performing maneuvers overhead.
Hotels and villages spot the lakeside. The Alps rise to the south. We arrive at the village of Kehrsiten, which is at 1400 feet, and ride the funicular, a cog railway, up to the resort of Burgenstock at 2867 feet. The lake seems directly below us, we could jump in from here. Cowbells ring in the fields below the hotel on the side away from the lake. We are on a ridge and will hike to the highest point then down the other side. After a half hour hike we come to an elevator, rising separate from the hillside. The trail is on a hillside as steep as the hike to Multnomah Falls, almost a cliff, but much higher. At the top of the elevator is a restaurant with a view! Hammetschwand, 3655 feet.
We sit at an outside table and drink beer, eat sandwiches, 10 inches of French baguette sliced down the middle, stuffed with ham or sausage and cheese. Brown Swiss cows munch grass across a fence, their bells clanging away. This satisfies a boyhood dream. Beyond them is a meadow which falls steeply away to our destination, a village on an arm of the lake around our ridge from Luzerne.
We hike to the top of the ridge, view the Alps, the lake and towns below us. A barge filled with ore is like a toy in the water below us.
Our descent is through farmers’ fields. Bareheaded workers wave as they mow and rake the hay. Sometimes our path is through the farm yards. “Gruste” hello, we all smile on a sunny day. The hike is downhill and very steep so we are exharusted when we reach Ennetburgen, where we snack in a park by the lake where school children swim and boat and gather around talking while a boy plays a guitar.
Jane begins seeking egg cups in the small shops.
The return boat trip stops at several ornate hotels, some with casinos. Our boat has a new crew member, who vainly tries to throw his looped mooring line over a bollard at each stop we make while his crewmates laugh.
Dinner in Zurich is at Zaughaus Keller, an old armory built in the mid 1400’s and since remodeled. Old armor and weapons such as William Tell used hang from the wall.
We board the night train for Florence, a six person, 3 to a side couchette, which recalls memories of junior officers quarters on my ship in the Navy.
Nick and Jane in Italy
Tuesday, 5-12-98
Florence
The couchette, a sleeping car, was hot and noisy with people entering at different stops to crawl into their respective bunk.
We emerged from our couchette sweatsoaked and tired to see Tuscany, Northern Italy: rolling hills, grape field, and uninhabited woodlands. Part of our train ticket was a gift of a breakfast snack as we disembarked the train.
The Florence train station is much ore exotic than the tidy Swiss edifice. To Jane’s dismay, the lady’s toilette was a hole in the floor.
Outside, Florence was not yet quite awake, so we munched our breakfast of roll and juice and yogurt in a plaza near our hotel, which was not yet open.
Finally the night porter, unshaven, sleepy eyed, but friendly, led us up two flights of stairs let us wash up in the bathroom down the hall. We were able to store our bags in a corner of the common room, which contained several couches, a cooler filled with beer and water, and a small bar. It was time to explore Florence.
First we had coffee, standing at the counter listening to the unintelligible conversation. Then we walked up the street to see the Duomo, the cathedral with the famous dome by Brunelleschi, a wonder to think about such a vast dome built without the aid of a crane.
By this time a long line has formed at Acadame so of we to Uffizzi, the Palace of the Medici’s, now a vast museum of Renaissance paintings and sculpture. In front is the plaza where Savanorola preached to the people and burned material goods: “vanities.” A copy of David and an original Hercules as well as fountains and other statues surround the plaza.
We return to the hotel, check in, nap and shower, then walk to the Pitti Palace. Florence is quite compact, and the traffic is a revelation, vespas and tiny cars vying for space at high speeds, pedestrians dashing when they can, children sit behind the Vespa driver reading a book, studying on the way to school.
We cross the Arno via the Ponte Vecchio, an ancient covered bridge with shops on every side.
Pitti Palace is so jammed with paintings our brains overload, it is hard to pick individual paintings from what begins to seem like wallpaper. We stroll back to the hotel for a nap. Our room is large with an overhead fan, bath and bidet, TV in Italian, I watch the Simpsons then fall asleep.
We go out for dinner in the evening, pizza and chianti on Plaza del Republic. We briefly shop for egg cups on the way home but none please Jane.
Wednesday, 5-13-98
Early breakfast in the common room of the hotel, coffee, cereal (What’s up with warm milk, I grumble to Jane, she says I used the milk meant for the coffee, oops)
Hard roll with jam and juice.
We get lost going to the Academe Belle Arti and end up at Piazza San Croce, a young girl informs us, where we look at a large church and the Bibliotecca Nazionale. Finally we reach the Accademia Gallery. The line is short and we pass by Michaelangelo’s Slaves (or Prisoners) and a Pieta to stand awestruck before David.
In all his glory.
We explore other rooms full of later marble sculptures and older pre-Renaissance paintings. We buy some souvenirs. Outside I buy a nice leather wallet from a street vendor and then we visit a department store, where Jane buys a summer dress.
On the way to our hotel we stop at a shop for coffee and some of the sandwiches we have grown to love.
After a nap we bus to Sienna, through Tuscany countryside of walled cities on hill tops, fields of grapes, valleys and hills covered with brush and trees. Not a lot of water.
Sienna is a hilltop city, surrounded by a wall, surmounted by a tall bell tower. The plaza before the church was laid out in 1340. Narrow stairs lead steeply to the top of the tower, but the view is worth the sweat and pain. After a couple of hours in the narrow streets, up hills and down stairways, we bus back to Florence. Beer is followed by another nap. Dinner is spaghetti with clam sauce for me, Jane has Penne with crab, salad, and wine. We stop in a local bar for brandy and conversation, a conversation limited by our lack of Italian, but we find enough people who speak English to enjoy ourselves.
5-14-98
Thursday
Cinque Terra
Early breakfast. The warm milk is indeed meant for the coffee. We stop for a leisurely coffee standing up for a last view of Florence traffic; a dad with two kids on a vespa, young women in black, stylish guys in jeans and running shoes and t-shirts, all smoking.
We stroll to Track # 2 for the train to La Spezia, but are alarmed to discover fine print which says “holiday only” in English, so we scurry around to find a train to Pisa. There is one with a twenty minute wait for IC Special to La Spezia, but, the train is delayed a half hour. Finally we hop into a first class cabin and speed through dry dusty towns whose major industry is still marble and granite quarried from the mountains that glisten white as snow above Carrera. We crane our necks but the leaning tower is not visible from the train.
La Spezia is small and hot but sailors in the station indicate the sea is near. The train ride to Manorela, one of the five towns that make up Cinque Terra, is ten minutes. We emerge from a tunnel to see the Mediterranean sparkling all the way to Africa beyond the horizon.
Manorola clings to a cliff a short walk through a tunnel from the Stazione. Good luck. We ring the bell at Marina Piccola, a man appears who speaks no English but takes us to a waitress at the restaurant who says that a room is available. Up two flights of narrow stairs and we have a view of the sea from our terrace and a private bath. Lunch of spaghetti with clams for me, Penne with shrimp and salad for Jane, three beers looking at the sea below, the houses seem barely attached to the cliff, rowboats on the calm sea.
After a nap we hike to Riomaggiora, a trail through tunnels, along cliffs with terraced gardens rising above us filled with flowers, then, as we near the village the little hillside gardens turn to lemons and grapes. The main foot path through Riomaggiore is fairly lelvel but the side streets go briskly up and down; up to the terraced garden to the top of the hill or falling away to the sea where a tiny harbor holds a few fishing boats and welcomes a small cruise boat from La Spezia. We wander to the central business section, no egg cups here to suit Jane, but we buy cheese and tomatoes. The old women sit in small groups talking as evening approaches. As we leave town we find a bunch a men, quietly looking out to sea; occasionally a word passes.
Back in Manorola we buy wine, locally made, and recline on our terrace to watch the residents take their evening stroll and talk about the day. After a nap we take a short walk to a cliff beyond the village to watch young boys swimming in the harbor while an old man fishes. The sun sets, a group of young tourists drink in the dusk.
In the evening an off shore breeze from the storm to the south causes the waves to lap on the harbor walls. Frogs croak in the stream beneath the road.
Men talk in the taverns till 0130 when women’s voices call softly the names of their husbands from the balconies or windows and in five minutes the town is silent.
The houses in Cinque Terra are brightly painted, yellow or red, in no particular pattern. The sea is choppy when we arise at 0700. No shops are open till after 0800 so we hike forty five minutes Corniglia, following a primitive mountain path till we reach the area of the beach, which offers no sand, but rocks and pebbles sloping gently into the sea. There is a long row of hostels, or one room sleeping quarters, which overlook the beach. There is a park, a boat launching winch, and several kitchens.
The town of Corniglia is a steep ten minute climb up from the Stazione. Many terraced gardens. On the winding road a car approaches very fast, honks once and disappears around a blind corner.
Manorola seems more charming, so we return for breakfast of coffee, juice, yogurt, bread and jam. Filling and tasty, but Jane briefly pines for a 3 egg omelet and hash browns. Then a nap.
In rise and quickly train to La Spezia to verify our train schedule while Jane checks out the beer and pizza choices. She waves from our terrace as I stroll down Manorola’s single street, now crowded with day visitors.
After lunch we go for a quick dip in the Mediterranean. It is much saltier than the pacific, but not nearly as cold as the water off of Oregon.
Back on our terrace we have more beer and watch the parade below us of people, students, local fishermen working on their boats, a group of Germans who settle in a tavern and sing folk songs from different countries, each followed by a loud cheer.
A short walk is followed by a dinner of spinach lasagna and “rompo” which is similar to flounder, wine and bread, all on the recommendation of our host, who speaks no English, but communicates by loudly shouting Italian, becoming impatient until we agree.
We sip wine as the sun sets, chatting with a Swiss couple who own an apartment in Manorola and come down three or four times a year. “In the autumn it is wonderful, you can swim in the sea for an hour.” The village is remarkably quiet in the evening. The people respect their neighbor’s space. No radio, no tv, little shouting.
France
Up at 0500, train to La Spezia, then through coastal villages to Genoa, no time to view the statue of Columbus as we change to the French line, hopping on the train to Nice. We share our compartment with an Australian couple. We chatter all the way to Nice while a fierce looking French lady glares in disapproval. We are not the only objects of her haughty gaze. As we cross into France two policemen come by to check passports but give four elderly tourists speaking English a mere glance. The Aussies get off in Nice, where the man confides that a surprise yacht trip awaits his wife.
We pass Monte Carlo, to elegant for our taste. We have to stop in Cannes, our first French lunch: water, no gas, and foot long ham and cheese sandwiches. It is a mental jolt to switch to French language and money. For the only time on our trip the waiter tries to short change me. I catch him my accident, I stammer in confusion
And he thinks I have caught him out and places more money in my hand with a grimace.
Cannes is in mourning for Frank, who died that day, so we pay our respects by humming “My Way” and, unable to find a hotel willing to rent for one night we hop back on the next train to Marseille.
Provence countryside is flat, broad farmland rather than tiny rock walled plots as in Tuscany. The French farmhouses are covered with dark stucco or mud in contrast to the Italian bare rock.
A sweet elderly lady at “SOS for travelers” in the train station-Garde gave a map, found us a hotel, called for a room “Doble!” and got us a weekend special rate, all with no English. The steps exiting the Garde are notably long and wide.
Marseille is vibrant and exciting, a mixture of Africans and North Africans and French. Walking down Rue Canitierre we meet a parade of citizens waving flags: “French-Palestine Support.” They beat drums and shout and wave to friends.
A storm has chases us across the South of France so we scurry to out hotel.
Our room is small but clean, private bath, nice view of the street four floor below. There is a large and tidy room for breakfast off the lobby.
We stroll down Quai du Port, looking for egg cups and comparing restaurants for the famous Marseille bouliabaise. Surrounding the port are buildings six stories high, gleaming white. A statue atop a church atop a hill overlooks everything.
The waiters on the west side of the port wear jeans and loafers or shorts and track shoes. Fewer women wear black than in Italy. In all the countries so far everyone, even the waiters, smoke, and dogs run freely among the tables.
The bouliabaise is excellent. First a soup, a sauce from the boiled fish, dried bread with mustard spread to drop in the soup and soak it up. Then a fish dish, mussels, several ten inch fish filets and steaks from larger fish, with potatoes, covered with a curry flavored sauce’ House wine.
In Marseille the public WC consists of a porcelain hole in the ground with foot rests to stand on, or squat if necessary.
5-17-98
Good sleep in Marseille, continental breakfast in the hotel, coffee, hard roll or croissant, yogurt, apple sauce, chat with a young lady from Vienna her for a conference on drugs in prison.
We c ross the street for espresso in a sidewalk café among early rising locals, next to
“Erotic Peep Show.” A lady stops by after a hard night’s work, her voice rasping as she orders.
Train to Arles for the day, past broad fields, stone barns with red tile roofs.
Arles is very medieval, quiet, narrow streets curving among four story buildings, eleventh century church, Roman ruins, seventeenth century city hall, eighteenth century buildings using chunks of previous buildings.
Jane finds the perfect egg cup, shining in Van Gogh yellow in a shop window, but the shop is closed on Sunday!
We lunch in Place du Forum, shaded by plane trees a statue of Mistral who revived Provencal customs in Arles. Two tattooed street guys with a German Shepherd come by and perform fire tricks and pass a gat. Our waitress takes water to the dog, kneeling to encourage him.
The Sunday crown: stylish guys with sport coats over tee shirts, women wear no make up nor bras. Jeans and polo shirt with tennis shoes is the most common garb. The tourist items for sale: ceramics and skirts or table cloth all use yellow and rust colors in Van Gogh motif—or did they come first?
In Les Alyscamps I take a picture of Jane in the same scene as Gauguin’s painting.
We have a beer in Place de Voltaire, full of families on a Sunday outing. The outdoor restaurants crowd the square, each identified by the color of the chair and umbrella.
On the train back to Marseille we talk to Madeleine, who is 78; her husband died long ago, her daughter is a professor in Marseille, her grandson is 18. She recommends a restaurant, gives directions discusses the weather and she speaks No English. Fortunately I have a phrase book.
We follow her directions to the fancier east side of the Port, have ravioli for Jane and Calzone for me. Red wine.
