My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 8: La Serenissima

 

                                                                              Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
                                                                When a new planet swims into his ken;
                                                                Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
                                                                He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
                                                                Looked at each other with a wild surmise—
                                                                Silent, upon a peak in Darien.   

                                                                                       -- John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"

The evening of the orchestra concert, we didn't venture beyond the Piazza San Marco.  But the next day we spent exploring the city.

There were plenty of people around -- it was high tourist season (late July) -- but, thankfully, back then there were no floating hotels disgorging 5,000 passengers into the Piazza every day.  

Through the Campers' Association, we had arranged a tour of the Basilica San Marco at the east end of the Piazza . . .

 . . . and got a great view of the entire Piazza from the balcony above the main entrance.

Construction of the current basilica began in 1063, a hundred years before construction of Notre-Dame de Paris began (1163) and 323 years before construction of the Duomo in Milan (1386).  Like most cathedrals in Europe, the basilica went through multiple phases of construction over hundreds of years.

Venice began as a small settlement of refugees from the mainland in the 5th century CE to escape barbarian invasions, especially by Atilla the Hun in 452 CE.  For almost a thousand years (810 - 1797!), Venice was the capital of The Most Serene Republic of Venice ("La Serenissma" for short), a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto (when the navy of the European "Holy League" defeated the navy of the Ottoman Empire in 1571).

Thanks to its geographic location, Venice became an important center of commerce -- especially silk, grain, and spice from Asia and Africa -- and of art from the 13th century to the end of the 17th century.  Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center, emerging in the 9th century and reaching its greatest prominence in the 14th century.  This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history.

None of that, however, was on my mind as we made our way through the city's labyrinthine streets, passageways, and bridges.  The pedestrian experience of Venice was (and still is), in effect, a series of physical and psychological epiphanies.  Hence the lines from Keats at the top of this post.

Away from the vast open space of the Piazza San Marco, you walk in narrow corridors that are open to the sky, but deeply shadowed except at mid-day due to the high walls of the buildings on either side.  Then you turn a corner to emerge into a small, bright courtyard or square, from which there are usually multiple exits, or an occasional dead end.

Street (or alley) names are painted on the walls of buildings, but streets/alleys change names frequently, so it's easy to get lost, which can be very discomfiting if you are trying to reach a specific destination.  Fortunately, there are no minotaurs in Venice.  (But I have to say that the geography of Venice is used to very creepy effect in the 1973 film, Don't Look Now, in which a serial killer is on the loose leading to a very unpleasant epiphany.)

So we wandered through the city, headed (somewhat randomly) for the Rialto bridge, the oldest of four bridges across the Grand Canal.  It was built between 1588 and 1591, and mentioned in Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice, soon afterwards (1598).

The bridge is huge -- 75 feet wide, spanning 104 feet across the canal -- and features built-in retail arcades where tourists can buy high-end souvenirs at high-end tourist prices.

This shopping area is not on the Rialto bridge itself, but is at one end of it.

At some point, we stopped for lunch at a little open-air restaurant away from the Piazza.  Being a thoughtless, 16-year-old American, I asked the waiter, "Do you speak English?".  He answered, in perfect English, "No, but I speak very good Italian."  Zing!

After lunch we continued our random walk and eventually found our way back to the Piazza.  My friend, Bill, and I sat down at one of the outdoor restaurants in the Piazza and ordered some American refreshment:  Coca-Cola.  (If you look closely at the table, you'll see the familiar bottles.)

We knew things in Europe were more expensive than in the U.S., but  we were still surprised to learn the Cokes were 50 cents each.  At home they were a dime!  Now a Coke in Venice probably costs $5 -- or maybe more!

There was one more mission to accomplish in Venice:  a gondola ride.  Docked at the waterside entrance to the Piazza, there are dozens of gondolas (and hundreds of pigeons) . . .

We weren't quite ready to take a ride, but we were curious how much it would cost.  So we approached a gondolier and asked.  "12,000 lira" he said.  (In 1966 this was about $20 US; there were four of us interested in a ride.)

We said, OK, thanks very much, turned around and walked away.  We hadn't gone 50 feet when the gondolier hustled up saying, "Hello Americans!  I take you for 10,000 lira."  We said thanks but not right now, and walked away again.  And again the gondolier pursued us, offering a lower price.  We waved him off and kept walking.  Still he persisted, this time giving us the story of his wife and children and mother and how he had to make a living to support them.

Only then did we realize that this was a negotiation.  His final offer:  4,000 lira (about $6.50) for four of us.  Feeling abashed at our naivete, we said OK and took the ride.

The Bridge of Sighs,
built in 1602, connects the Doge's Palace to a prison

I learned a very important lesson from that experience.  To be successful in a negotiation, you have to be able to walk away.

Next post:  On to Innsbruck, Austria, with a side trip to Oberammergau and Linderhof Palace in West Germany (yes, it was  West Germany in 1966).

My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 7: Milan to Venice

 

                                                     There are good days, and there are bad days.  This is one of them.

                                                                                                -- Lawrence Welk

We left Milan and picked up the Autostrada A4 (now also known as E70), anticipating a 3- or 4-hour drive to Venice in our Morris minivan.  The plan was to arrive in Venice around noon; park the van and take a vaporetto to the youth hostel we had booked on the island of Giudecca to drop our stuff.  Then we would take another vaporetto across to the Piazza San Marco for the afternoon and evening.  But the Universe had other plans for us.

Just east of Padua, about 30 miles from Venice, we were rolling along at about 50 mph  -- about as fast as the minivan would go with nine people in it -- while car after car went whizzing by in the fast lane with apparently no speed limits.  And then . . . the oil pressure gauge on the dashboard started dropping into the danger zone, so we pulled off the highway.

What do we do now?  No cell phones.  No AAA.  So we waited.

I don't remember how it happened, but eventually a tow truck appeared and in broken Italian and English Tom explained the apparent problem.  The tow operator hooked us up, and Tom and maybe a couple of others (not me) rode in the truck with the driver while the rest of us hung on for dear life in the minivan.  

Next Stop:  Dolo

The tow truck took us to a little town called Dolo, barely 15 miles from Venice.  So close, and yet so far!

After unhooking us from the truck, the truck driver and a couple of strapping young Italian men pushed the minivan through a narrow passage into a courtyard, where they began to look in the engine compartment and under the van, talking in typical Italian style -- lots of gestures, but earnestly, not conspiratorially.

Eventually, they concluded that the oil pan drain plug had come off and drained all the oil.  If we hadn't pulled off the road when we did, it would have caused serious damage to the engine.  This was a simple problem to diagnose, but a much harder problem to fix:  Where do you get a plug of the right diameter, thread size and pitch for a non-Italian vehicle?

While all this was going on, seemingly out of nowhere (but undoubtedly from one of the buildings surrounding the courtyard) a fiery young woman (think "Carmen") came running toward the men standing near the minivan, screaming and brandishing a large cast-iron skillet.  Instantly, one of the men bolted and, after a brief chase around the courtyard, two others disarmed (dis-skilleted?) her and pulled her, literally kicking and screaming, back into a building.

The whole episode probably only lasted a minute, but we were stunned . . . speechless.  Once again, we realized we were definitely not in Oklahoma anymore, Toto.

After a while -- I have no recollection of how long it was -- the oil pan plug was replaced and the oil refilled.  They fired up the engine and the oil pressure came up and seemed stable.  Tom paid them somehow -- I think with American Express checks -- and we got back on the road to Venice.

Next Stop:  Venice

By this time it was very late in the afternoon, so our plan of a casual afternoon in Venice had drained away with the engine oil.  We parked the minivan outside of town (I think at the railroad station), took a vaporetto ferry to the hostel on Giudecca, and ate dinner there.  But we were determined to make the most of our time, so after dinner we caught a vaporetto across to the Piazza San Marco.

The light was fading fast . . .

. . . and by the time we reached the main island, it was almost dark.

The vaporetto dock was over here . . .

. . . and to get to the Piazza San Marco, we had to walk about a hundred yards from the dock to the waterside entry to the Piazza:

As we approached, I heard music . . . orchestral music, live three-dimensional music, not two-dimensional music blasting from loudspeakers.  We rounded the corner into the vast open space of the Piazza, and there was a small orchestra, with 15, maybe 20, players with violins, cellos, horns, and woodwinds!  And overhead and surrounding the orchestra were strings of lights suspended on poles, with bulbs one or two feet apart.  With the music, the lights, the magnificent Piazza . . . I was transported.  I watched and listened, and time seemed to vanish.  It was truly magical!

As I recall, the orchestra was located about here, with players facing the southern side of the Piazza (on the left in this photo).

So here's the thing:

If we had been able to follow our original plan, and had not had vehicle trouble, we would probably never have seen the orchestra.  We would have arrived in time to spend the afternoon, then we would have headed back to the hostel on Giudecca for dinner and called it a day.  The Universe works in mysterious, and sometimes wonderful, ways.

One more post about my experience in Venice will follow this one.

My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 6: Paris to Milan

P.S. to my previous post about Paris -- I have found the photo I took while crossing the traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe on foot.  Here it is:

Now . . . Paris to Milan!

 

From Paris we took 4 or 5 days (I don't remember exactly how many) to travel to Milan by way of  Strasbourg; Basel; Zurich . . .

Limmatquai, Zurich

. . . Lucerne, where we bought watches and other Swiss jewelry creations . . .

Harry Ruttimann's jewelry store, Lucerne

. . . Lauterbrunnen (a Swiss village in the Bernese Alps with the magnificent 974-ft Staubbach waterfall, the highest free-falling waterfall in Switzerland) . . .

Lausanne; Geneva, where we drove by the Palace of Nations, home of the United Nations in Geneva and originally intended to house the League of Nations . . .

. . . Chamonix; then through the Mont Blanc tunnel into Italy.

Mont Blanc tunnel, Italian side

Here's a map of our general route:

Somewhere along the way -- I think it was at the Grindelwald youth hostel (a very popular winter skiing and summer hiking destination) -- our itinerary intersected with the other group's.  They had added the letters "US" to one of their van's rear windows with medical adhesive tape, so when we were departing the next morning (before they did), we added "SR" to the other rear window:

We didn't wait around to see their reaction, and of course the "SR" didn't last very long, but it was a fun prank . . . and we heard about it from them later in the trip.

I don't remember what time we finally arrived in Milan, but we didn't do much exploration because we had planned to stay only one night -- we were more interested in Venice. Milan is Italy's second-largest city, a major international center for industry, finance (the Italian stock market is located there), art, fashion, science, and music (La Scala opera house is there).  Looking back on it now, it's clear that there was a lot more to see in Milan than we allowed time for.

Most of our time was spent in the Piazza del Duomo, where the magnificent Gothic Milan cathedral is located.

Construction of the cathedral began in 1386, and with an ever-changing parade of architects, engineers, and politicians, the building was about half finished by 1402.  But construction stalled until 1480 due to lack of money and ideas, and changing political regimes.  The work proceeded intermittently throughout the 16th through 19th centuries -- longer than Gaudi's now almost finished Sagrada Familia in Barcelona! -- and the last portal was inaugurated in 1965, a year before we arrived.

(For comparison, construction of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris began in 1163 and was substantially completed by 1260.)

Because of its contrasting styles (principally Roman and Gothic), the cathedral has been praised and panned.  John Ruskin, the influential Victorian art historian and critic, said the cathedral "steals from every style in the world: and every style spoiled."  In 1875 Oscar Wilde called it "an awful failure . . . it is, however, imposing and gigantic as a failure."  But Mark Twain visited it in 1867 and in Chapter 18 of Innocents Abroad wrote "What a wonder it is! So grand, so solemn, so vast! And yet so delicate, so airy, so graceful! A very world of solid weight, and yet it seems . . . a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath!"

Another Milan landmark that opens onto the same plaza as the cathedral is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.  It's a high-end shopping arcade built from 1865 to 1877 with an iron and glass dome covering broad pedestrian hallways.

That's it for now.  Next post:  Milan to Venice, and the Very Bad/Very Good Day.

My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 5: On to Paris

 

From Birmingham, we headed south and east toward the white cliffs of Dover, where we embarked via ferry for the Continent and the remainder of our six-week trip.

We crossed the Channel . . . 

L to R: Chris, Judy, Hank, Susan, Bill

. . . landed at Ostend, and immediately set out for Brussels, and a day later drove from Brussels to Paris, arriving the day after Bastille Day.  Reviewing stand bleachers were still in place along the Champs-Élysées.

Instead of lodging in a youth hostel with large communal sleeping areas, in Paris we had the luxury of small individual rooms (but no private baths) in a pensión near the Place de la Bastille, complete with a birdcage elevator that would barely accommodate two people . . . or just one with luggage!

In Paris, you're never far away from a wonderful small bakery, so Tom would make a breakfast run every day, and we indulged in fresh bread, croissants, butter, and jam.  I don't remember many meals on the trip, but those breakfasts were great.  And I must say that at dinner in a very nice restaurant on the Champs-Élysées I had the best French fries I had ever tasted.

We made all the mandatory tourist stops.  Here are a couple of photos of me for the record:

(Yes, that's the tie I bought at Hawkes & Co. in London.  But now I'm wearing a jacket instead of the sports coat that was stolen in Birmingham.)

At the Louvre, we had fairly close-up access to the Mona Lisa:  no timed tickets or hordes of viewers when we were there.  And for an art form at the opposite end of the cultural spectrum, after a group discussion about appropriateness for minors and everyone's comfort level about seeing female nudity, our group voted to go to the Folies Bergère.  We were definitely not in Oklahoma (or Kansas) anymore, Toto.

As enjoyable as Paris was, it was easy to get overloaded with art, architecture, history, food, and the sheer energy of the city.  But there's one place . . . and one moment . . . that stands out in my memory of Paris.  

The Eiffel Tower is the graceful, soaring, iconic landmark on all the travel posters.  But the Arc de Triomphe, commanding the western end of the Champs-Élysées, has the gravitas of war, remembrance, and national pride.  

August 25, 1944
Photo courtesy of Imperial War Museum

August 29, 1944
Photo by Jack Downey,
U.S. Office of War Information

A rare absence of traffic on the Champs-Élysées
Mid-July, 1966

We approached the Place de l'Étoile (renamed Place Charles de Gaulle after his death in 1970) from the southeast on Avenue Marceau.

Notice the big Chevrolet Impala on the right!

A few of us were crazy enough to cross through the traffic in the circle.  Here's what it looked like (what was I thinking??): 

We went up to the roof and got great views of the city.

Looking east at the Champs-Élysées

Completed in 1836, the Arc de Triomphe is also the location of France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I, marked by an Eternal Flame.  France had about 1.4 million military deaths and 4.2 million wounded in World War I, compared to approximately 117,000 deaths and 204,000 wounded from the United States, so honoring the War dead was (and still is) a major national commitment for the entire country.

The flame was first lit on November 11, 1923, five years after the end of the War.  Since then it has been rekindled every evening at dusk, even during the Nazi occupation in World War II, with a ceremony organized by the Flame Committee under the Arc de Triomphe, Flame of the Nation.  Over 500 organizations from all over France are members of the Committee.

We were fortunate to be there at the ceremony one evening.  At 6:30, everything around the Arc stopped (including traffic), and the area beneath the vault of the Arc was cleared (except for that pigeon), with gemdarmes stationed in front of the crowd every few feet.  No barriers, no ropes . . . just respect.

Then the organization responsible for that day's ceremony assembled in the traffic circle and marched forward with a wreath.

I am still puzzled by the flag the group carried.  It's not a national flag of any country that I know.  Perhaps it's an organization or regional flag.

Nevertheless, it was a very solemn and meaningful ceremony, and we were privileged to be there to witness it.

My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Musical Interlude #1: Out of Time

 

I brought a small transistor radio on the trip -- the social media device of the 1960s -- and would tune in to whatever station I could find.  One night during our first week in England I heard a song that I really liked, sung by a male vocalist whose voice I didn't recognize, but he kinda sounded like Tom Jones.

I learned his name was Chris Farlowe, an English journeyman blues and rock singer unknown in the United States.  He had started singing professionally in 1957 with a couple of different groups, and became a solo act in 1962, with little success.  In 1965, however, he signed with a record company headed by the Rolling Stones' manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, and began covering Jagger/Richard songs including "Satisfaction" and "Paint It Black."

In early 1966, Oldham got Jagger to offer Farlowe a song called "Out of Time."  The Stones had recorded the song for their Aftermath album, released in the U.K. on April 15, but it was dropped from the U.S. edition (along with three other now lesser-known songs) because the U.S. distributor wanted a shorter album.

With Jagger as producer, Farlowe recorded "Out of Time" in late April and early May, and it was released June 17.  It entered the UK Singles Chart at #36, and reached #1 on July 28, where it stayed for one week.  "Out of Time" exited the UK chart in September.  It was Farlowe's biggest hit.

You can hear the song on YouTube here.  Listen carefully and you'll hear Mick and the boys singing back-up.

Enjoy!

My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 4: Oxford, Stratford, and . . . Birmingham!

 

After Stonehenge, we traveled up to Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon – two towns with obvious attractions for visitors from the Colonies.  My family had a friend who had been a Rhodes Scholar at Lincoln College in Oxford, which also has a connection to early Methodism, so naturally, being Methodist kids on a Methodist-sponsored trip, we had to stop in there.

Lincoln College, Turl Street, Oxford

The college was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, Bishop of Lincoln, to nurture “true students of theology who would defend the mysteries of Scripture against those ignorant laymen who profaned with swinish snouts its most holy pearls.”  Those “ignorant laymen” were the Lollards, non-academic followers of John Wycliffe (1328-1384), an Oxford professor who was dismissed from his post in 1381 for heresy and is now considered a precursor to the English Reformation a hundred years later.

Like all the Oxford colleges, Lincoln has some distinguished alumni (besides our Rhodes Scholar friend) including Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), and David Cornwell (aka John le Carré).  Three hundred years after its founding, Lincoln became the cradle of Methodism when John Wesley, a fellow there from 1726, held religious meetings of his “Holy Club” with his brother Charles.  The rest of the university fellows called them “Bible moths.”  A portrait of Wesley hangs in the Hall, and a bust overlooks the front quad.

L to R: Kay, Hank, Susan, Bill in Lincoln College Front Quad

Lincoln College Front Quad today

Up the road from Oxford, we made our pilgrimage to Stratford-upon-Avon to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace.  It's part of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, an independent charity that cares for Shakespeare heritage sites in and around Stratford.

1966

The house was built in 1530; Shakespeare was born there in 1564.  Over the centuries, however, the house fell into disrepair, and in 1846 was put up for sale.  Not surprisingly, in classic American huckster tradition, P.T. Barnum proposed to buy the structure and ship it “brick by brick” to the United States.  In response, the locals (including celebrities like Charles Dickens) formed a committee and raised the money to purchase the building and restore it to its 16th century state.

Shakespeare's birthplace today

We also peeked into the nearby Royal Shakespeare Theatre (it was "dark"), and walked around the Shakespeare Monument, a bronze and stone installation featuring a seated statue of Shakespeare in the center, flanked on four corners with smaller statues of iconic characters from Shakespeare's plays (Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, Prince Hal, and Falstaff).

Falstaff cast a bemused eye on Tom, the husband of our chaperone couple.

The Monument was designed and constructed by Lord Ronald Gower, who, as a gay nobleman in Victorian England, led a checkered life.  Of course, in 1966 we were not aware of his existence or history.  At the monument’s unveiling in 1888, Oscar Wilde read a poem dedicated to the monument written by the wife of the headmaster of the local grammar school.  What a hoot that must have been!  You can read more about Lord Gower here.

From Stratford we motored on to Birmingham.  Birmingham??  Why Birmingham?

Most nights on our trip we stayed in youth hostels, but in Birmingham we stayed overnight as guests in the home of Ivor and Bobs Whitehead.  This visit was on the "must see" list of our chaperones, Tom and Kay, because Ivor and Tom were both dentists and had become friends when they met in oral surgery residency in Birmingham, Alabama (who knew?!).

Now at the Birmingham (U.K.) Dental Hospital -- a teaching hospital of the University of Birmingham’s School of Dentistry -- there’s an Ivor Whitehead Prize awarded annually to an outstanding oral and maxillofacial surgery student.

Not to be outdone, Ivor’s wife, Bobs, was a top-ranked squash player, competing at the British Open (considered the premier world championship of squash) for nearly two decades, including being the sixth seed in the 1963 Open.

Ivor and Bobs Whitehead with their son, Mark.

Three significant things happened to our group in Birmingham. 

    1.  At dinner at the Whiteheads’ that evening, Bobs served Baked Alaska for dessert – a culinary first for me; it was delicious!

    2.  Overnight our minivan, parked in the Whiteheads' driveway, was broken into, and various items were stolen, including my sport coat.  Fortunately, our valuables were safe in the house.  (We had another mishap with the minivan later in the trip, which I will recount in a future post.)

    3.  Since we were in England during the Swinging Sixties, one of  the girls in our group, Judy, worked up the courage to buy a miniskirt, hemmed about an inch above the knee.  She was quite self-conscious about it, but she wore it well.