First
Trip To Europe In 1959
When I was twelve years old I went to Europe with some of
my family. We flew on a BOAC jet prop. The captain gave me a little metal badge
that had wings on it. It was a very long flight and I threw up on the bus that
took us from Heathrow Airport into London. I think we stayed at the Mount Royal
Hotel in London (now called Thistle Marble Arch).
The trip was close to 50 years ago and here are some of
the things I remember.
In London Wimpy’s was about the only place one could get
a hamburger. The Brit’s version of a soft drink tasted kind of bitter. It took
a while to figure out the British money. Back then they still had the half
penny. Some buildings were still propped
up with supports as a result of the bombing in WW2. Coal was used to heat a lot
of houses and buildings had a kind of grey look to them.
We took in a number of the more recognizable sites in
London. We went to Westminster Abbey and saw the crypts where a number of
famous men are buried. We saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.
We went on a boat ride on the Thames River and passed the parliament buildings
with Big Ben close by. We wandered through The Tower of London. We spent a few
hours at Madame Tussauds wax museum and saw an exhibition of various tortures
that were utilized in England’s past.
We spent about a week in the small seaside town of
Worthing south of London. I had my first fish and chips wrapped in newspapers
and got to use something called a padalo boat. After a few more days in London
we took a train to Scotland. We saw the estate my father grew up in in Glasgow.
We took a bus tour that included visiting the highlands and the Scottish lochs
(lakes). A few days were spent in Edinburgh where we visited the castle, walked
along Princess Street, and saw The Walter Scott Memorial.
We went to Northern Ireland. It was before sectarian
violence broke out several years later. In the Republic of Ireland to the south
we visited Blarney Castle home of the Blarney Stone.
We went to Paris and I remember climbing the stairway at
the top of the Eiffel Tower. In Holland we visited the gravesite of my mother’s
younger brother at Arnhem. He died of his wounds in Holland and was a
lieutenant in the Canadian Army. It was a very difficult day for my mother. We
also went to Copenhagen, Denmark. Part of my mother’s heritage was Danish. We
saw the mermaid on the rock in the harbour and went to Hans Christian Anderson
Park. We ate European wieners with hot mustard and ketchup in a market square
and pigeons perched on our outstretched arms.
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| Amsterdam 1959. Me on the far right. |
The closest I ever got to going back to Europe was in the
early 70s. I had a plan but it fell through, mostly due to the lack of cash.
Later on in life, I could afford to go but couldn’t get away from my business
for anything more than a week. However, it was always on my bucket list.
I met Linda about 7 years ago on the internet. (Yes it
happens.) I was attracted by a picture of her by the ocean in Ireland. I later
learned that she had been to Europe twice a few years before I met her and that
she had travelled through England, Wales, Scotland, both Irelands, Germany,
Switzerland, and Italy.
As I am writing this Linda is in the midst of a month long trip to Africa.
I’ve always been a pretty early riser. There was a period
for a number of years where I would watch the Tour de France bike race live as
it happened. Part of the fascination with the bike race was the passing countryside.
The racers would travel through quaint looking country towns and crowds would
cheer them on from the roadside. The aerial shots made the whole thing even
more impressive. I remember seeing birds nesting on a church steeple. All in
all it left an impression on me and I thought to myself that if there was one
country I would really like to see it would be France.………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Trip
To France 4 Years Ago
About 4 years ago, Linda and I started making some plans
to go to France. As the more experienced traveller in Europe, Linda started to
plot out a route and the things we could see. It seemed to be getting a little
complicated with having to coordinate places to stay and transportation. I
suggested that it might be easier if we joined an organized tour that would
eliminate some uncertainties. In the end we both agreed on this plan. In hindsight
it might have been better if we hadn’t taken the organized tour. Live and learn
they say.
When all was said and done we planned to be in Europe for
most of a month. Our plan included about 4 days in London before taking the
Chunnel to Paris and meeting up with the tour group after spending about 4 days
in Paris.
We left Canada via the Vancouver airport and arrived in
London, England in mid-June. It goes without saying that it was a long flight.
Our sleeping arrangements in London were at a youth hostel called The Orient
Express. Meals and baggage storage were available down the street where a bar
called Belushi’s was located. Belushi’s is named after the deceased Saturday
Night Live comedian John Belushi. We were one of the few older farts staying at
the hostel. We could feel the excitement and enthusiasm of the younger
travellers, many who had never been this far away from home before.
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| Orient Express hostel |
We crammed in a lot in our few days in London. We saw a
number of things I had seen on my first trip 50 years earlier. We saw the
changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, we walked along the waterfront of
the Thames River past the odd shaped London City Hall, went over the London
Bridge and saw the Tower of London. We saw St. Paul’s Cathedral and walked over
the Millenium Bridge and saw a replica of Sir Francis Drake’s ship the Golden
Hind. We also toured around the area where Westminster Abbey and Big Ben are
located. We had a few beers in local watering holes. For some reason some
Londoners enjoy having a few pints in laneways next to garbage dumpsters
complete with the smell of stale urine.
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| London skyline with Tower Bridge |
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| Buckingham Palace |
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| Trafalgar Square |
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| Westminster Abbey |
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| Big Ben and us |
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| A few pints in the alley |
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| St. Paul's Cathedral and Millenium Bridge |
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| London City Hall |
Linda bought tickets for us both to see The Phantom of
the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre. It was pretty impressive. We seemed to have
a kind of spring in our steps and bouncing around London was a lot of fun.
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| Her Majesty's Theatre |
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| Linda and some showgirls |
We caught the train from London to Paris and spent a lot
of the time on that trip talking to a couple of French speaking guys in their
late twenties who were seated across from us. In no time we were in Paris.
Linda had made reservations at a small boutique hotel in the downtown area
close the Champs Elysees.
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| Our hotel in Paris |
Paris is kind of overwhelming with history always moments
away. We arrived at our hotel late in the afternoon and after checking in we
went for a walk. I gave Linda a nudge. The top of the Eiffel Tower could be
seen several blocks away over the buildings. There were lots of outdoor cafes
and patisseries in the neighbourhood we were staying in and we ate dinner at
one of the cafes.
For the next few days we ventured about Paris. We took
the Metro a few times. We spent the best part of a day at the fabulous D’Orsay
Museum that is in a converted old train station. We walked along the Seine and
saw the barges and houseboats. We saw where Napoleon is buried. We went up to
Montmartre and saw artists with their paintings on display. We saw the Arc de
Triomphe and walked down the Champs Elysees. For some reason I had images in my
mind of Hitler and when France was occupied in WW2. We found the Moulin Rouge
and I pictured in my mind the poster artist Toulouse Lautrec being there over
100 years ago.
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| D'Orsay Museum |
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| Arc de Triomphe |
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| The Seine River |
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| Montmartre artist colony |
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| ABC (another bloody church) |
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| Moulin Rouge |
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| Eiffel Tower |
We never did go up the Eiffel Tower. The line-ups were
just far too long. Ditto the Louvre. I kind of had a running gag with Linda
that I wanted to see Jim Morrison’s gravesite but we never made it there as it
was kind of out of the way.
We made our way to a hotel on the outskirts of Paris
where we were to meet up with our guide and the bus passengers that we were to
spend the next 17 days with on a tour of France. The front desk folks told us
that the group was assembled upstairs on the mezzanine in an event room. We
wandered in and were a bit taken aback that most of the folks were kind of
getting on in age. There were some introductions and we soon learned that most
of the group were from Australia. 4 people were from the US including a mother
and her hefty daughter and an older Russian couple who had immigrated to New
York City. There was also and older
English woman and her mentally challenged son. The only other Canadian besides
us was a school teacher from Winnipeg.
Our tour guide was a slender French guy named Simeon who
was about 25 years old. The bus driver was a balding muscled middle aged guy
named Daniel who had been in the French army. The bus was very comfortable.
Each day there would be a rotation as to where people sat. The toilet was out
of bounds even for an emergency. Cleaning washrooms is not something bus tour
guys are partial to it seems.
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| Tour bus |
Everyone piled into the bus which was owned by Cosmo
Tours and we headed north from Paris to the Normandy coast. The 17 day tour
started off in the north of France and then we wended our way south to the
Mediterranean Sea. Along the way we spent the night in or close to towns and
cities like Rouen. Honfleurs, Caen, Deauville, Bayieux, Angers, La Rochelle,
Tours, Poitier, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Sarlat la Caneda, Arles, Avignon, Cannes,
and Grasse.
On the bus ride north we were told about some of the dos
and don’ts that were expected from tourists. Never seat ourselves at an empty
table in a café but wait for a waiter to take us to the table was one of the
instructions. Simeon also mentioned that one of the few problems in France is
that the electric company is nationalized. He kind of left out that the Paris
Metro often smells like pee, there are often no toilet seats in public
washrooms, broken glass from used wine bottles is a common sight, the streets
are one big huge ashtray, an you are likely to be accosted by beggars with
scribbled notes near the Eiffel Tower.
Don’t get me wrong Paris is an exceptional city.
Our first stop was Rouen where both Joan of Arc and
Richard the Lionhearted are buried. Not together. It was in Rouen where we had
our first run in with one of the Aussies we were traveling with. Linda asked an
Aussie woman if she could move out of the way a bit so Linda could take a photo
of King Richard’s crypt. She asked nicely but the woman got into a snit.
Our next stop was Honfleur which is a pretty port city
with old wooden buildings. It was here that Samuel de Champlain set sail for
Canada in 1608. For many years Honfleur thrived on trade with Canada, the West
Indies, the African Coasts, and the Azores Islands.
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| Honfleur |
From Honfleur we went to Deauville which is a wealthy
seaside city with Louis Vuitton and other expensive stores. The city also has a
large casino and Simeon told us that this particular casino was where the heir
to the French Citreon car company lost almost all his money.
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| Deauville |
Our 17 day tour included 5 dinners. A light breakfast was
included each day. The rest of the time we had to do some scrambling which
could be difficult not knowing much about the city or town we ended up in at
night. Sometimes, if the bus arrived at the hotel in the evening, there would
be a mad dash to a corner grocery store before it closed. We got tired very
fast of eating pate and baguettes.
We went on to Caen where we spent the night. As this
night was one of the 5 dinners, we went out with the group to a local
restaurant. I had sliced turkey with mashed potatoes and Normandy gravy.
The next day we stopped in Caen which was liberated by
the Canadian army in WW2. We went on to Bayeux where Linda saw a 1300 year old
tapestry. I took a pass on the 20 dollar entrance fee and went for a walk
around town. We spent most of the afternoon at Omaha Beach where 10,000
American soldiers are buried. The site of so many graves is overwhelming. I
talked to a couple of American Korean War vets. Seeing Juneau Beach where the
Canadians landed was not an option available to us.
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| Korean War vets at American cemetery near Omaha Beach |
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| Omaha Beach and pillbox remains |
We stopped at a biscuit factory and loaded up on cookies
before spending the night in a small town close to Mont St. Michel. Mont St.
Michel is one of those places that the make post cards for. We could see it
rising out of the mist in the distance from our hotel. We were anxious to get a
closer look the following morning.
Mont St Michel is an abbey built on a small island. Today
it has a little road that connects it to the mainland a few hundred yards away.
It was a fortress that was self-contained with vegetable gardens and even a
graveyard. The abbey is at the higher level and the church spire is often covered
by the frequent mist. Apparently the island is surrounded by quicksand which
would have made the place very difficult to attack. Apparently Mont St. Michel
only has 42 permanent residents.
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| Mont St. Michel |
Throughout our trip our guide Simeon would tell us
historical facts mixed in with some thoughts about French politics. He
mentioned that the victors in wars are always the ones who write history. He
told us about the French collaborators who were responsible for many Jews going
to their deaths and how the French people as a whole have only opened up about
this in the past few years. He said that in France it is worse to be called an
anti-semitic than a racist today. Simeon also told us about the Gauls and the
Vikings and their participation in French History.
The Aussies were starting to become a bit of a pain in
the ass. One who was a woman schoolteacher had a cough that sounded close to
pneumonia and kept up hacking for what seemed like hours on the bus. An Aussie
guy took the liberty of pointing out to me that he didn’t think Vancouver was
that great a city because of the druggies on the east side of the city. We also
noticed that they pretty well shunned some fellow Australians who were
Vietnamese immigrants. We made a number of attempts to engage the Aussies but
gave up on it. They were simply too stodgy and conservative. Linda and I got to
a point where we agreed that they could just go screw themselves. These folks
were not Crocodile Dundee types with shrimp on the barbie. It is kind of
strange really because I have met a number of pleasant younger Australians up
at Whistler, BC over the
years.
Simeon bought a couple of straw fedoras and gave one of
them to the mentally challenged British guy. It was a very nice gesture but it
would have been nicer if he hadn’t mentioned to the group that he had given the
gift.
years.
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| Tour group |
We stopped in Angers and saw the castle with the elephant
feet. We also spent the night in Angers. By this time we were getting tired of
being in a group. While the rest of them were off somewhere Linda and I took a
train to Amboise and Linda took a tour of the chateau while I wandered around
town. There were some interesting homes that were kind of like caves built into
the hillsides. As luck would have it we ran into the rest of the group in
Amboise.
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| Castle with the elephant feet |
When we got back to Angers we were told that we would
have a new bus driver for 2 days and that he would be expecting a tip. We had
another of our “free” dinners in Angers.
One day started growing into another. I learned that ABC
stood for “Another Bloody Church”. We spent a night in a city called Tours and
went on to Poitier and then on to the seaside city of La Rochelle that had a
magnificent harbour.
We took a boat across a narrow river and went to the
Hennessy cognac distillery. We spent the night in the city of Bordeaux and had
duck for dinner.
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| La Rochelle |
The next day we winded our way through a road that had
tunnels and found ourselves at Rocamadour, one of the highlights of our trip.
Rocamadour is known for its cliffside buildings and narrow passageways. There
were some passageways between buildings where only one person could enter at a
time.
All the while Simeon was giving us a daily brief of the
local history. He talked about the Celts, the Gauls, the Troglodytes (cave
dwellers), the Plantagenets, the Huguenots, revolutions, this king and that
king. He told us about some kids whose dog fell in a well and that when they
rescued him they found cavemen drawings at the bottom of the well.
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| Rocamadour |
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| Rocamadour |
We spent a night in Toulouse and in the morning I took a
walk along the canal. I learned that the canal was privately built over a
century ago but is little used now for commercial purposes other than vacation
barges.
My memory and my diary get a little clouded at this
point. I know we went to a winery one morning and I got a bit of a buzz on. I
wasn’t close to being drunk but thought it was kind of funny when I said to
Linda loud enough for some close by Aussies to hear “So who wants to fight?”
We spent a day in Arles which is in southern France and
saw some Roman ruins including an ancient arena where they sometimes have
bullfights. It was in Arles that Simeon said something that I thought was quite
profound. A lot of people think that only the wealthy or leaders of the
military attended fights to the death between gladiators or men fighting wild
animals. The truth is that the poor also attended. It gave them something to
talk about the following week instead of being angry about their pitiful lives.
Politics today is often a matter of distraction.
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| Arena at Arles |
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| Tractor race? |
We saw a lot of cathedrals, castles, and chateaus and the
same thought always crossed my mind. That thought was of the wretched lives the
peasants must have lived toiling in miserable conditions to create an edifice
for the ungrateful wealthy.
In our hotel rooms we mostly watched the international
version of CNN. Michael Jackson’s death was the big news. After a while it
started to get a bit tedious. He was a major talent but at the same time pretty
whacked.
The weather was getting hotter and hotter as we made our
way to the French Riviera. We checked into our hotel in Cannes and after
getting ourselves settled took a long walk down to the beaches. Lots of big
money in this area, (Monaco is just a few miles away) and the biggest yachts I
think I have ever seen. We found a patch of sand and swimming in the
Mediterranean was very nice. Linda has a French last name and her father was
French Canadian and we were in France so of course…she took her top off.
Our trip back to Paris was a long one and mostly
uneventful. We stopped at a perfume factory for an hour or two. We also stopped
at Lyon and stayed at one of the nicer hotels on our trip. When we arrived
there was a bike race going on that went right by the hotel. No it wasn’t the
Tours de France.  |
| Cannes |
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| Beach at Cannes |
We spent one final night at a hotel in Paris with the
tour. Throughout the hotel there were large photographs on the wall of French
actors like Jean Paul Belmondo and Bridget Bardot. One photo was of Robert
Mitchum walking on the beach in Cannes with some French actors.
After breakfast the next day group pictures were taken.
The bus driver, Daniel, was given a keg of Heineken beer along with a new tie.
He wore a tie every day of the trip. Simeon was given a card and a Bob Marley
tee shirt. There were strong hints particularly towards the end of the trip
that a rather substantial tip was expected by both the bus driver and the tour
leader. My guess is that they raked in about $2000.00 each. Whatever it was, they made off like bandits.
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| Simeon in hat and bus driver Daniel |
We spent a few more days in Paris and tried to see some
things we had missed. We went to Notre Dame Cathedral. Believe it or not the
cathedral has a souvenir stand inside. Kind of tacky. We tried to get into the
Louvre but the lines were too long. We spent a good part of one day mostly
walking around. We saw the smaller French Statue of Liberty.
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| Notre Dame |
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| Mini Statue of Liberty |
We made our way out to the De Gaulle Airport and waited
for our plane home. We were surprised that there weren’t any souvenir stands or
places to get some food at the airport. We sat on a curb and had a smoke. It
was time to go home.
So, what did I think of France? There is no doubt it has
an incomparable history. It is the #1 tourist destination in the world. In some
senses it is also the cradle of democracy. Some of the people can be a bit
snobby. At least they aren’t chanting USA, USA! They seem to use their
resources well and the concept of eating fresh food daily from the market has
its merits. They have a diversified economy and use nuclear power efficiently.
You always hear about the great food in France but we didn’t experience much of
it. A salad at an outdoor café usually consists of lettuce and little else. I
certainly would eat any fish from their polluted rivers. There aren’t very many
lakes. Street food like a baguette with processed ham and cheese gets boring
pretty fast. The quiches are pretty good. All in all the biggest impact on me
was the sense of being in the midst of history. I also had a sense of a class
struggle in France continuing. There seems to be some falseness in their lives
too. On one hand they are very good at relaxing with a glass of wine at a local
café and on the other hand withered old ladies with cleavage and fine clothes
just aren’t very attractive. Crosswalks are virtually ignored by motorists.
But…if you want to see some amazing bits of history, France is the place to go.
I’m no Rick Steves and far from being an expert about
travelling in France. Never the less I will still offer some advice about
travelling in France. Of course this advice probably doesn’t apply if you are
filthy rich and money is not important to you.
#1 Stay away from long bus tours. Get a Eurorail pass.
Trains will take you almost anywhere you want to go. If you feel you need to
take a bus tour make it only a day or two. Being on your own should give you a
better feel for the country and it makes you engage more with the locals who
can also tell you about places you might not see on a bus tour.
#2 If you are a wine drinker slow down the pace and spend
a number of days in wine country like around the city of Bordeaux. You don’t
have to be knee deep in history every day. A barge trip is another way to soak
up the countryside.
#3 Do some research into what you want to see. Paris is
obviously a given. The places I highly recommend are as follows: In the north
of France….Honfleurs, Mont St. Michel, and the beaches of Normandy and the war
memorials at Juneau and Omaha Beach. In the middle of France and further south
of Paris…. The Bordeaux region, Rocamadour, Arles, and Cannes and the French
Riviera.
#4 Hostels are worth taking a look at. It beats the heck
out of hanging out with just old folks. You might be surprised at how accepting
some younger people are of older farts roughing it a bit.
#5 Stay away from old conservative Aussies. Most of them
are just too anal.
Bonne journee!
Random Photos of France.....
Random Photos of France.....
