Mosaic Photos

I have added a lot more photos of just mosaics from the trip to a separate blog called Mosaic Photos. I have a Mosaics Website, but since Google owns Blogspot and it is free server space, and big photos take up a lot of room, I am putting these photos there that I know the mosaic artists here in the States would enjoy seeing cause I can do it for free !!
http://mosaicphotos.blogspot.com

www.MagnetGlasses.com

On our trip, everywhere we went people kept approaching me to ask about my cool front closure, magnetic reading glasses. See them on my neck in Lucca here. Sooooooooooooo I came home and made a little web site to facilitate them being able to order them online, as I did. They are actually quite a bargain. Originally, I ordered one pair, liked them so much that I ordered two more in other colors. I took a spare pair in my suitcase, but never needed it. The lens fold at the hinge both inside and out almost 360 degrees, so that combined with the springiness of the acrylic of the frames, means no breakage. The lens don't seem to scratch either and I never use a case.
The new site is http://www.magnetglasses.com/ so it is easy to remember.....some strengths are available as sunglasses too and that is great for poolside reading. They say you can have prescription lens put in these inexpensive cool frames.

Lundy's New Blog

I have made a new blog to post great stuff that I find and share good stuff that I learn about that has nothing to do with this trip. The web address is www.Lundini.blogspot.com I couldn't get just plain 'Lundy' so I used a name some friends used to call me. Pretty easy to remember. Just think of it as my Italian name!

Harry Potter's Train

Sara had complete coniption fits when she saw the London King's Cross Station Platform 9 3/4 which is the location of the train that Harry Potter takes (she tells me). Sara is a librarian, for any who don't know....at a school, so she is all tuned in to what children are reading. And it seems that Harry Potter is a big deal and that this photo is a big deal. So here it is !

Fashion Report

This photo is from a very exclusive shop window in St. Tropez. Obviously a fall outfit. Sara and I loved the shoes.

Well, I know all female readers are on the edge of their seats waiting on a first hand European fashion report, since everyone knows that trends usually start there and migrate over to the States in due time. Well, it appears that modern telecommunications and FedEx's delivery of print media may have speeded-up 'due time'.

In years gone by, like in the Beatle Era, I found the London Look to be at least a year, and in some cases, 2 years in reaching us at the shopping center level. Then about 5 yrs ago, it seemed we had about a 6 month or one season lag, but not so anymore.

Just about every look we saw overseas, we have seen here as well, with one big, no make that skinny, exception. SKINNY is IN----no one is fat in Europe. Maybe one person could stand to drop a few lbs (like maybe only 10 lbs) per city block. If we saw a very overweight person, they were a tourist, usually from the States, occasionally from Germany or some cold place. Some middle age Asian's are a bit thick in the middle, you know middle age spread, but not the French, the Italians, Spanish, etc...at least the ones that are out and about that we saw.

To help keep them skinny, Europe assists in providing as many stairs as possible. Handicapped access is limited, stairs are in. Make that flights of stairs are in. Buildings are built so that you might go up a bunch of stairs to go in the front only to go down stairs to the main or reception floor....that sorts of thing. One would almost think that I had specified 'Third Floor Please' on my reservation forms, and keep in mind that what we call the first floor, they usually call "0".

My observation, in Italy, street dress is becoming more casual. Fewer working women in little black dress and heels, more in tight jeans with wide turned up cuffs. Midriff/tummy exposure is way in. (see skinny notes above) Skirts and worn way low, jeans are worn low and tops stop just above belly button. This is acceptable dress for bank tellers as well as travelers. We were surprised by this. Bras, if you must wear them are to have tiny clear plastic straps. These straps are pretty skimpy and stretchy so you can easily get the jiggly no-bra look with this type of undergarment. Otherwise, bras have colorful straps fully exposed. Camisoles are big. Cleavage is IN, all ages. (Trim and fit bods, remember.)

Heels with jeans are big, and this includes walking on slippery cobblestones and up and down hundreds of stairs. The shoes are mostly strappy heels and mules with embellishments. All ages. No panyhose--what are those anyway--do they still make 'em?

In the shop windows, women's shoes either had verrrrrry pointy toes or very rounded blunt toes if they were not open toe.

In Italy, saw more color and less black slacks/white blouses than I did 5 years ago. The women are wearing the same voile batik made-in-India skirts that W-M is selling here. Wear them slung low (see note above, then see skinny)

Jeans have goofy torn and stitched places and those odd bleached places same as the ones in our mall jeans shops on men and women. Most women's jeans have wide turned up cuffs about mid-calf.

Men are wearing lots of variations on Nike type shoes. Pull ons, no laces, wierd laces, straps, all sorts of odd driving shoe looking sneakers. Men wear sandals too, all types.

Young men with longish hair often wear stretchy headbands , the type that you'd only see on girls in the States, plus I saw some longish haired men wearing the rigid plastic headband things w/ tiny teeth that we called 'bandeaus' as children. iPods and earbuds are in w/ the subway set.

Asymetric hemlines are all the rage. Hems cut every-which-a-way and often unsewn and frayed. In fact, frayed edges are big on everything, pocket edges, etc... new stuff is sold that way.

All variations of Lime Green are much seen, deep avacado-ish lime is popular, as is tourquoise. But then, we were in the resort type areas a lot. Large and long necklaces with chunky beads spaced between sections of skinny cord or tigertail are IN.

Full skirts are everywhere. Very,very sheer skirts are very in. sometimes opaque fabric skirts have sheer layers that hang a few inches underneath. This looks odd when it is a taylored twill skirt with a chiffon frayed tattered layer hanging out the last few inches, errr..., make that centimeters.. Get out those sewing machines girls, this is a way easy look to come by DIY.

Another popular look in skirts is the taffata or poplin fabric skirt with volumous amounts of fabric and tabs and buckles in various places that bunch it up here and there for no particular reason. This is a fun look for the really skinny minnies only.....anyone with any bulk instantly looks like a truck tarpolane train wreck or a bundle of damage goods with a human body trapped inside.

And in England girls are wearing those droopy long hangy-down scarves around the neck. In fact, on the Underground, we saw girls in 85 degree stuffy traincars dripping with perspiration still sporting a droopy hot scarf wrapped 2 or 3 times around her little adolescent neck. Didn't see that silliness much outside England.

Overall the guys in Europe dress pretty much like our guys, mostly t-shirts (tight over fit bods) just way fewer polo shirts, more variety in shoes and in England, where bankers and such still wear suits, they tend to wear more beautiful suits than is typical here and they are taylored to actually fit the wear's particular back, shoulders, arm length etc..they fit better.

European mens' woven shirts show a fair amount of vatiety in things like diagonal stripes instead of the usual vertical. They tend to be cut rather trim fitting, like the trim fit on rodeo shirts.

We did see a lot of tatoos and body piercings amongst the young general population. Not too many of the over-the-top downright scarry types, but lots of 20's and younger people, men and women with one nose thing, eyebrow thing, etc...of course, one is 'too many' to me.

If I think of anything else to add, I will. Lundy

Adding Photos

Lots of photos added now from Gulf Shores--scroll down or go to page 2 if the necessary--click image to see larger version of the pix. I am in Memphis and have transfered my photos from SD cards to disk. I have added a few to the Venice, Rome, St Tropez, PortoFino, Nice, Corsica, Monte Carlo, Montpellier, Florence & Livorno posts so scroll way down to see the Butterfly Museum, Sara's favorite place. The newly added comments are in purple. Click on the photos if you want to see a larger image. Here in Memphis, I have an older Win 98 computer and the version of Photoshop LE on it does not do batch resizing or batch anything and my connection is dial-up (slowish), so since I am driving to Gulf Shores on Monday morning, I will add most photos from there where I can quickly make them small enuf to upload to Blogger and do the uploads fast on the high speed connection.

For those of you who don't know, the photos I put on here from Europe are not mine, they are actually hot-linked from other websites and from their servers, which is verrrrrry rude and bad practice. I want to remove the 'borrowed' photos asap and put my own on before i start getting those nasty C & D letters.

Lundy

Flying Out- Memphis

Arrived late last night Memphis time, middle of night my
mental time, slept till mid morning here. To look at the
flight schedule on paper it looked like we had a nice
comfortable layover in each place to explore and read and
catch breath, Ha!....We made all 3 connections by the skin of
our teeth,just barely, by running thru miles of corridors,
w/ jeans totally saturated w/ sweat (ladylike huh?) and
joints in elbows and shoulders about to pull from sockets
dealing w/ luggage check-ins, check-outs, over ramps,
stairs,check-ins, check-outs, lifts, tubes, check-ins,
check-outs, cobblestones, check-ins, check-outs, and w/ a
heavy Venetian chandelier in pieces in a cardboard box
slung around my neck by a spare luggage strap i brought in
case any zippers failed. What a sight !! And when I finally
flopped down in a seat on one flight and the stewardess
offered drinks, I asked for some coke and she put 1 inch in
a plastic cup from a can and I politely asked please for
the rest of the can and she replied, "oh were there not any
drinks for sale in the airport?" ......fly the friendly
skies......
Another example of 'tourist' class vs. Biz class.

We had Biz class going over and tourist class coming home.
As different as Night and Day.

I will try to get a camera cable or a SD card reader at a shop here so I can post some of my own photos tonight. My own cable is in Gulf Shores, where I will be heading this weekend.

I will also posty a summary of travel tips I found most helpful.
Lundy

Leaving Venice :o(

This moring we are sharing a water taxi to the airport with a lady from Calif. She is a writer who has been here a month working on a book. We are glad to share the cost of the boat taxi as it is pretty high and easily accommodates several people. She is happy about it too.
Sara and I had a wonderful waterside dinner last night of sea bass, salad, and Sara had a special white fish with olives dish of Venice.
One of the interesting things here is that in any cafe or restaurant you can just order a "beer", no brand specified, and the waiter tells the person behind the bar "one beer" (in Italian of course) and you get the great house choice of a light lager type. They do not bug you to name a brand, or waste time asking what brands they serve, etc...

We are sad to be leaving, as we have only scratched the surface of everywhere we have been. The progression from place to place has been a good one with each place getting better than the last. Sara will have to do a post about what surprised her most about the different places we went.

I will post photos here as Google owns blogspot and I will get free server space for them. We fly out at noon today. I was able to print the boarding passes here from the hotel online. I predict that a small laptop and wireless will be the way to go on the next trip to Europe. Then it is just amatter of choosing hotels that have wireless and checking to be sure the cost is reasonable or free. Or locating wireless hotspots in public places before you leave.
Lundy

last day-Sara

Today we went to Murano and watched the glass blowing and shopped. We have made our way around with vaporettas, the metro of the waterway. They hook up with one another on lines just as the metros do and one is herded like cattle on and off. It is interesting and not unpleasant at all, but it does remind one of a herd of animals.
The glass is beautiful.Venice is beautiful. The temperature seems like home.Last night we were in Lido, I think that island is kept for the Venicians. It is not on the tourist map, but on the real map. They had a spinning exercise class at a beach area, really gorgeous men calling out the instructions and leading the class. All the exercisers were women. The area had a place to rent beach houses, just like the early movies. All ages were there, young and old. It was clean. People took showers before they went home and dressed the children in pajamas or street clothes. There was an attendant.The sand is darker than Destin, but it is a great beach. The prices for food were reasonable.
Today at Murano I got charged a couper,or something like that. I asked what it was-it was for the use of a knife and fork ,. The other day on the square we were charged to sit in the chairs while drinking our dollar coffee at St. Marks squre. The range is wide and part of the experience.

Venice ! w/ edits

We had a wonderful lunch in Venice the first day. Sara had a fresh fish which the waiter is removing from the bones here. I ordered Salad Marco Polo since I had often fixed Julia Child's recipe for Sphagetti March Polo that she prepared on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood once upon a time, an easy one for children to fix. And sure enuf, they were quite similar, both good.

Saint Mark's Cathedrial on St Mark's Square is just about the number one tourist 'hot spot' in Venice so I had warned Sara that it would be over-run with human beings, pickpockets & pigeons since it was July. All the bus loads of tourist groups go there for sure. It was just about unbearable for us, so we followed some advice in a 5 yr old book I had that said one particular sidewalk cafe was the only one that would let you sit around and enjoy the good live music and have a drink with out it costing you a week's wages. So, we found this particular spot, ordered coffee and were super glad to get off our feet. The waiter was friendly and imensely interested in the short piece about the cafe in the guidebook, he borrowed it twice to show the manager, etc....then he slapped us with a $20 tab for our two itty bitty coffees. He should have comped them to us for all the bother about borrowing our book, etc...and we had no idea that he'd be adding a 2.50 Euro each 'sitting fee' plus a 'service fee' for the water he put on the tray w/ the coffee, ( and for the spoon to stir it with I suppose) the menu didn't mention these add ons. Live and learn....& avoid St. Marks square cafes altogether is my advice. But, don't avoid Venice :o)

Notice the large cruise ship going thru a canal in Venice very close to St. Marks Square. You can see it behind the crowds. It looked so weird, like a ship on a city street.





















The water in Venice is this incredible shade of opaque tourquoise that I have never seen any place else. It is totally different from the aqua waters of places like the Caribbean or Key West, etc....and because there is usually a soft mist in the air, the reflected light is so unusual. Venice really is a fairy-land looking place.

Sara commented that it was a shame that age and decay wasn't as attractive a characteristic in humans as it is in architecture in Venice.


The view from our hotel windows. We were at the Hotel American on a side canal. It is a nice place, that is reasonable priced in a city known for outrageous priced hotels. I booked it thru my (click here)-own hotel booking site and got the best price available, I ck'd the other popular booking engines and my site uses the same one that Sam's Club uses and it usually has the best prices. I also read a lot of reviews before I booked it. The staff was great and the mini bar beers were just 2 Euros, not a rip-off like most mini bars. This was good because Venice is not a town with a grocery on every block like most. It was a nice quiet 'street' and we only noticed later that our bathroom was partly constructed in a box that hung off the side of the building. You couldn't tell it from the inside. It was very nice, even tho it was on the third floor (no elevator). The hotel is named the Hotel American but is not 'American' in any way, so they are changing the name back to the original name of many years back, Hotel Dinesen, since they said the Hotel American name had hurt them in the Asian tourist market who wanted a real Italian experience and thought theirs might be like a Holiday Inn or something. I spoke with the young man who is in charge of their website and he was a super nice guy and very knowledgable ( a wonderful change after most of my computer experiences on the trip)

The front of our hotel had the traditional wooden striped poles in front that boats could tie up to.

We were soooooooooooooo glad that we got up and on a train that actually left the station this morning. It was over sold and some people had to stand for part of theway, not us tho. We got 3 hrs sleep in Rome last night, but that was OK, the hotel was so sweet they brought us tiny, itty bitty expressos so strong that you could fix flat tires with them at 5 am and knocked softly on the door to wake us up. We arrived in Venice about 11:30 am.
My suitcase wheel has broken from intense over use. Up and down a bazillion stairs, in underground systems, train stations, etc....boom, boom, boom, even tho I have carried them a lot rather than use the wheels. But this one I had consoladated the papers stuff and books, etc so that I didnàt have to open it again----wrong, I will have to reorganize and redistribute the weight between my two little bags. I am just not going to buy a new wheeled one in the worlds most expensive city on the last day.

This hotel has free internet in the lobby, one computer, so if someone starts waiting, i might have to give it up. The keyboard is weird, and the curser disappears, but it works pretty well.

Venice is a fairy land , like a dream land, but it has too many tourists in July. As expected, St. Marks Sq was way too crowded and we got to the cathedrial just after it closed. Sooooooooooo ,We went to the Lido where most US tourists do not know about and sure enuf, it was lovely. We went out into the Med Sea and waded around (didnàt have on swim suits) and took photos and rode the vaporettas around. Lots of fun.

2nd post-Sara

Well,last night I wrote for about 30 minutes and it disappeared, so now I will publish and edit instead. Today we went to St. Peter s today, magnificent! It was the most beautiful place ever. We climbed to the top of the Basilica, well, took the lift and then climbed 320 stairs. The entire top is made of mosaics, some smaller than your fingernail. It makes one giddy to look down it is so far down. This is the third time I have written this it keeps diaappearing.We visited two churches today and the train station. On every corner there are these exquisite churches. We listened to the Rosary, an exposition, and a benediction in either Latin or Italian in this tiny church by an ancient Roman Bridge.

Rome-3

The dome is 138 ft across, I read on the web.



These photos of St. Peters in Rome hopefully will give you some idea of the magnitude of this structure and how high we climbed.

On the front of the building note the row of standing statues on the first horizonal plane, then look at them on the roof-top photos I took on our way to the dome interior and cupola outside catwalk. Also note the tall vertical oblisk thing out front of St Peters and then again in the photo that I took from the cupola.

The whole circular area that is basically empty in my photo is the space that is filled with folding or stacking chairs on Sundays and when the Roman Catholic Pope addresses the crowds. That is a LOT of chairs.



The smaller culopas that you can see on the roof in my photo but they are just the bright white spots on the interior shot of the mini-domes that are covered in mosaics in the inside. They are about the size of a dome on a 'regular' cathedrial.

There are about 6 or 8 of these on the side wings of the cathedral's interior space. The big, ultra gigantic center dome rim is shown in one photos and if you look just above the mosaic writing, you can see the other people who were up there when we were. Look for a person in a blue shirt/white pants on the right on the catwalk.

There is nothing else like it in the world. This is the 'Mother of all Cathedrals' !!

In one photo, Sara is standing by a group of figures carved from what looks like a single piece of marble and this is just one 'statue' on a side wall of a pass-thru between one of the many , many different parts of the interior. There are numerous such statues in St. Peters. The floors in the cathedral are fantastic marble inlay.

The photo that shows the crest shaped inlay in the marble floor shows a part of the foyer area.

We went to the Trevi Fountain at night--glorious,..... we were just sorry we couldn't spend more time that evening

Surely Rome deserves about 5 posts to the blog but that will not be possible...because....as we discovered today when we wisely went first thing to Termini , the train station to buy our train tickets for tmorrow to Venice, ITALY IS HAVING A RAIL STRIKE !
But, we did find out, after standing in long lines and take a number information boots, that if we ere able to get out of town before 9 am we could maybe get a ticket, so we leave the hotel at quarter of 6 in the morning for the train we catch at 6 something to Venice that we were lucky enuf toget confirmed seats on.

After we left the train station we hopped on the underground and rode to the sation nearest St.Peters. There were a lot of people in lines, we joined them, we thought that we were in the line to go into the Bascilia but as time went on, we finally figured out that we might be on our way to something else, and we were. In fact, we ended up among the select few who went to the tip top of the dome of St. Peters, so we can truthfully say that we saw ALL of Rome today.

It was SOME CLIMB I can tell you. Unbelievable and when we got up near but not all the way, we were able to go out on a catwalk around the inside rim of the interior of the main dome of St.Peters. It was mindblowing. We were so tiny up there in the crown of mosiacs that the people on the floor couldnt even really see us r notice us.They would have needed binoculars.

I have been lightening my load at every stop. I brought stuff I am not using. One of my friends told me to leave my hair curles at home.I should have listened. I should have left the hair dryer there too. It is a little travel folding one thank goodnss. I left the coffee maker on the Wind Surf. I finally got it working, but slowly.

Rome is absolutely unbelievable. Sara and I think every child in the States should be brought here as part of a general education. She has said over and over, "You just DON"T UNDERSTAND UNTIL YOU SEE ROME FOR YOURSELF"

She says funny stuff too. I have been telling her that when she talks to someone with limited English to mke her first sentence, or three or four words count because they will be focusing and thinking hard on those words as you ramble on with other words. She was buying a gift for a male friend and she wanted to be sure it was not feminime looking and she asked this Italian woman "Does this look like a man?" as she held up an item that obviously did not n any way resemble a man. I laughed and laughed on and off all day.

When we went up all those steps to the top of the dome at St Peters I mentioned that the number of steps was similar to the number of steps taken in a step aerobics class, and she replied, in all sincerity, "But this is worse becaue we have to come back down too"

Or Rome hotel is ultra fabo. The decor is so Italian it is off the scale. Total marble bathroom with back and gold designs on walls ad diamond designs on the floor. Custom bath hardware, very vary fancy, the room has a curved tray ceiling with gold leaf, the walls are upholstered witha trapundo looking taupe fabric. The furniture is Empire style. The lamps exquisite. The carpeting is custom with a double border. We even have a tiny entrance all with a mosaic marble floor. I took lots of photos and will add them when I get home to a real computer. Meanwhile I will try to add an internet photo I found.--nope, cant, this webtvthing wont let me.

We spend a lot of the day laughing and truely have not had even one dissagreement or gotten crabby with each other. We are good traveing companions.

Sara says she now wants to save every cent in the future for travel.. .

Rome-2, Flea Market

Our hotel is a wonderful place and if Rome itself were not a more wonderful place, it would be tempting to hang out here all day just admiring this decor. We are on the north side of town, north even of the Borghese Villa and park area but there is a bus line near. We have been using the bus to leave and a taxi to return when we are too tired to move a muscle. Worth every penny at tht point.
We were fortunate to arrive in Rome on Sunday which is the day of the flea market in Trastevere which is a fascnating experience. I bought some old post cards from a dealer on old stamps and old correspondence. I will use them to make a scrapbook paper background for a European
travel set for my site. People have been asking for a travel set for a long time.

The "Smart Car", in red here, is very popular all over Europe. Other cars tend to be small size as well. They plan to sell them in the USA--click here to see the Smart USA site. The Smart Car is made by DaimlerChrysler in Europe.
.

Rome-1

The River Chateau Hotel is fabulous----absolutely---and I booked it online thru my website at a great price. I am putting a link to it here for anyone traveling to Rome so they can read all about it and book online. Our room included a fancy, full breakfast in a lovely dining room on the first floor. This is one instance were the online photos were not in the least misleading and the staff was wonderfully helpful. It is a little out of the center of things, being so far north in Rome, but a terrific value we thought.

Now we will have to tell you about today and Rome.and Sara just had written a big post here in this wonderful hotle, but their internet sysem is an Italian variation of bizzzzzarr WebTV.....s , wouldnt you know it, after a few minutes of typing, with out warning, the screen defaulted tothe hotel log-in and she lost the whole thing. When we found out at the fron des that we ad free in room internet access, we thought we were in Internet Heaven, but alas, it is Inernet Purgatory. Fitting for Rome, more later. L.

Freaking out/ Corsica

I have realized, that probably due to the difficulty of getting online on the trip, I didn't mention that we went to Corsica. It is a small island off the coast of Italy. Long interesting history. I think it is owned by France still. We docked in Porto Vecchio. Sara and I rode a bus to the old town of Sartene, an ancient walled city. There was an open air market in the center plaza area selling pastry, cheese, clothes, shoes, herbs, etc......

We got to see a lot of Corsican countryside on the bus ride. It is a rather hilly place, and has very distinct wet/dry seasons. We were told that besides tourism, the country's income comes mostly from goverment subsidies. Sad state of affairs in our minds. Sara and I felt we could certainly change that should the people of Corsica decide to elect US to public office !! Or make us Queens.

I am totally besice myself--the internet is totally messed up and i am getting gipped out of about 60 bucks, sooooooooooo mad. L.
EDIT ADDED next day
Well,i had to spend some time, like almost an hour total explaining how the ships (apostrophies are am impossibility on many foreign keyboards as I cannot locate them for the life of me) internet computers incmpatibilities with AOL, which I do not use but which the guest right before me had used, and which locked up the so called computer on MY account minutes on HIS AOL account was not an AOL problem as the "technician was stating" but was a WINDSTAR problem as I saw it and therefore I expected them to handle it with fairness to me. When the girl in charge of the internet room showed up wthe keys to physically unlock the wooden boxes encasing the machines and reboot after i had yanked out the plugs from the wall in her absense, she informed me that the computer room was closing early as it was the last night and my last chance to use the computers was over, and taped on a sheet of printed plastic, a sign I had not noticed,. I had about 55 minutes left on my "contract".....I was furious.
So I went to the reception desk to insist on getting credit for unused portion, but they wanted to credit me the my package and then charge me the higher per minute rate as if I had bought the one minute at a time rate, so I ad to bring them to a understanding that they needed only charge me at the lower package rate per minute for theminutes of the block I had used, since using a package block was my intention and I tried to, but that it was THEIR idiotic equipment that screwed up. So finally they argeed.after continuous and careful and logical explaination on my part.
Traveling is full of the unexpected.and boy do I dislike AOL anyway......

Livorno the Port / Lucca

Look who is playing in Lucca at the Summer Music Festival ?? (Along with Crosby, Stills & Nash and Van Morrison)




The Lucca visit included a morning of riding bikes on the ancient city wall that is flat and 90 ft across on top. The wall is brick faced on both sides but filled with soil that is held in place mostly by tree roots. The top of the wall is a type of botanic garden with different types of trees planted in groups that change as you travel along. Parts of the tree system have been killed off by blights that only attack certain type trees, so those areas are sunny as the young replacement trees grow, other areas, under the old, tall trees are very cool and shady. At one time, a moat circled the outer walls of the town next to the wall.

Lucca has an oval piazza at it's center and the streets of the old town are laid out circling the piazza. The town has so much charm that several movies have been filmed there. One of the most recent is one I have not seen yet, called "Poitrait of a Lady" that was filmed in the mansion behind where I am standing. If anyone wonders what that lump is in the center of my chest, it is my credit card zippered wallet that I kept on a chain around my neck and tucked in my 'undergarments'.


LIVORNO


The Lighthouse in Livorno at dusk.




From a bridge, Sara and I watched this Livorno fisherman mend his nets for quite a while. He looked up at us and seemed mildly amused that we were watching and taking pictures.

The Wind Surf, with sails down, in the Port of Livorno, Italy.

We have been two days in Livorno and it is a HUGE port. Biggest that i have ever seen. One Italian said it is the biggest container port in Italy and biggest on the Med. Sea. I have never seen such ships and cranes everywhere. They also ship in and out paper products, newsprint, and bundled paper for recycling so you see huge open sided warehouses of that. The rolls of newsprint are just stacked in the open like haystack rolls.
Livorno had humongous ferries also that go off to the vacation islands that all of Italy takes holiday on. The ferries are painted in brilliant colors w/ creative paint job designs and the docks are decorated to match. All very colorful and in contrast to the ancient ruins all still here and there in the port. In general, Italy is a very clean place, so even tho this is an industrial area, it is a beautiful area. There are flowers and statues and sidewalk cafes amongst the industrial docks.

This morning I bicycled in Lucca, the charming ancient town that has been used in many movies. It has an oval open plaza in the town center. Sara went to the gym and had a consult with the personal trainer. She is getting the followup exercise machine training w/ him right now for about 30 min then we plan to go ashore for an hour or so before the boat pulls
out this afternoon.
Yesterday we went to Florence and Pisa, lots of walking.

Fabulous weather every day.
Millie, I have gotten charms for my charm braclet in most places we have visited. Tower Bridge in London, Pisa's Tower, a Fleur de Leis for Florence, a Sun for Cote de Azul, etc...lots of fun and will be a great souvenir.
L.

Sara Here--

Well, huge rush because we just found this. I saw David today-unbelievable. There were four other Michaelangelo statues there also- the Pieta, a different one. Eating the best ice cream ever, Lundy and I are lost continually, serendipity. So long got to catch the bus. Do not mind the extra letters-in Italy the back space key unknown. pwn.yiwt,,sdy

Florence

Outside Florence, the Tuscan hills are full of beautiful villages with towers and castles and ancient ruins. In another direction, on flat land, there are non-stop family plant nurseries with the most meticulously groomed specimen plants that I have ever seen. They create lots of contorted shapes, I even saw small trees trained to have crowns that formed the shape of four bells. The places that sell 'yard art' have MUCH more imaginative and beautiful things that we are used to seeing.
Florence is famous for many things, one is the River Arno that runs right thru the center. This river flooded in the '60's and caused terrible damage and the high water mark can still easily be seen on church walls. Only one bridge in Florence was not destroyed in WWII. That bridge is very much an ancient landmark, on lots of postcards, etc..It has little shops along the sides.
With the very tiny narrow streets, motorscooters are really popular as you can see. These scooters were parked along the sidewalk that ran parallel to the River Arno.
In Florence, the plaza areas between buildings often have statues like this entertaining one of a gunfight just next to the Hotel Balestri on the River Arno.
The lamp posts along the river are very cool and an interesting contrast to this modern bridge. This church has a really ugly statue of Dante outside on the left of the steps.

Poor woman, she was really really upset about something. I have no idea what, but she was raising cain to the Italian police, in Italian who listened patiently. She didn't seem to have a purse or bag, so it may have been snatched or something. The tourist hot spots were almost unbearably crowded since it was July and there were signs about that said to beware of pickpockets. People on scooters will snatch purses too. Tourists often have money and passports, both highly desirable and gypsys are known across Europe as pickpocket experts.
There is one monster big cathedral in Florence refered to as The Duomo. It is made from 3 colors of marble. This photo only shows a small part of it. It was a pretty hot day when we were there and there were just too many summer tourists in my opinion.








Hi from Florence Italy...the land of many tourists in July ! Harry and I were here in Sept before and it was not crowded like it is today. Sara and I canceled our hotel in Florence and decided to go "no brainer" and ride in with the Wind Surf people and go ahead and ride back tonight with them tothe boat to spend the night since this boat trip is not big crowds, but small groups of nice people. And our meals and all are included and the boat accomodations are so wonderful. The captain says that the Windsurf is the most sq footage per passenger than any "cruise" ship he knows of. It is nothing like Carnival or Priness or those kinds of experiences. We will stop in Pisa on the way back.
I am at a internet shop in Florence and we have tried two computers here and neither will read my text file on the diskette. Makes me crazy, after I went to the trouble to type it and all. Maybe it is the language difference. I will save it in some other formats besides .txt on the boat and maybe next trry on dry land. I have just about used up the one hour of boat web time.

I ducked into a paper shop to get some nice printed papers for Carol McCaul and myself and there was a couple in there from Knoxville, turns out they are fruiends of my sisters in Knoxville, Sheryl and Earl Taylor from their church, Cedar Springs. How about that.

On my long disk file that I canàt open I tell avout sitting at dinner next to a couple from Mobile who know everyone I know in Mobile, and they thought they were the only people from Alabama in Nice France at that moment. They bought the Wind Surf cruise at a charity auction.

OK, gonna let Sara use part of the internet time, she is sitting right here.
L. PS excue typos, it is italian keyboard and delete doesnàt work rightm, notr backspace, and to v correct takes lots of time.

Portofino, Italy

In Portofino we took a hike up the hillside to the tip top where the lighthouse is located. We followed very narrow cool, shady cobblestone trails that had paths with beautiful old wrought iron gates off to people's homes and vacation homes. It looked like everything , all supplies and building materials would have to be
delivered by either helicopter or wheelbarrow. There was a small ice cream stand up there that sold cold drinks too. In the photo of the harbor, the large yacht is George Clooney's. It had a British flag we noticed , so maybe it is leased. It also had a couple of children's blow-up type swimming pools on the decks I noticed. They looked inviting to me out there in the hot sun !
Afterwards the WindSurf sponsored a light lunch and wine in the upstairs restaurant in the photo for any who wanted to go. The official PortoFino Italian Website is here.


Arrived in this tiny picturesque port overnight. Same place that was shown on covers of countless fan magazines a few weeks ago, I believe, with Brad Pitt on jet ski zipping about.

We took a nice walking tour up the side of the steep hillside to the lighthouse, church, etc, ended w/ wines and typical foods of the region in a cafe. Could have taken a bus to other interior or coastal towns, but tomorrow is big train travel day for me and Sara to overnight in Florence, so we decided to relax. Back to the boat for swimming, sunning ( front and back :o), ice tea and now, insanely expensive Internet.
Tomorrow is Livorno (sp?) and Florence, so I will find an Internet shop that will let me pop my diskette in and post on the blog hopefully. L.

Monte Carlo

I am uploading a lot of images of Monaco since I took so many that I really like. (I'll tell Blogspot to show them little, but click them to see them big). Monaco is a really special place. One could spend an entire day at the Musee Oceanographique. The specialized detailed stone carvings on the outside of the building were just fascinating to me. I have never seen such attention to theme in the design of a building.

One photo shows the very base of the street-side, the last course of stone that few people bother to look at, behind the shubbery, that had row upon row of carved drips of water. The brackets were on either side of an entranceway. They are similar but one has a crab and one an octopus. The corner photo of the waves shows just one area of the overall design, where there were multiple rows of splash-y waves.


Inside the mosaic floors were exquisite. They were difficult to photograph because of the many windows with sunny glare coming in from all directions, plus the many feet crossing all the time.

The Museum is built into the absolute side of the coastal cliff. I remembered seeing that on television years ago because it is such an unforgettable image. If you click on the photo to see the larger image, you can see our WindSurf ship docked on the right.

Inside the Oceanographic Museum are exhibits on all types of ocean exploration. They have model ships and lots of imformation about them like the copper-clad bottom Maquette du HMS Challenger
which is 1/67th size. That ship was launched in 1858 and did research from 1872-1876 under the direction of Capt. George Strong Nores with the Albert the Prince of Monaco on the team. The Challenger sailed more than 110,000 KM around the world collecting over 4000 new species from 362 research stations.

The Museum has several levels of aquariums. It is just unbelievable. The floor level with the street behind it has an exhibit hall and really special lighting fixtures that look like sea urchins. The upper floors have more exhibit halls with things like skeletons of whales, early submarines and diving suits, shells from around the world, and pickeled sea life--fish and such--from some early sea research voyages. The Musee Oceanographique is also the home of the J. Costeau research material it seems altho I do not know the exact relationship.

On the Museum's roof is a cafe and at various levels are garden terraces with wonderful views. Monte Carlo has all sorts of gardens at different levels and lots of wonderful views.

The roads are twisty turny and you can easily imagine Grace Kelly zooming off the edge. Because of the mountainous terrain, there are also lots of tunnels.

Monte Carlo is famous for their fancy casino that you can see from the photo that I took from the helicopter ride. My acquaintances that went to see it commented that it seemed smaller than it looked from afar, that there was about a 12 Euro charge to get in and that basically it was one big room. Seems the limits to gamble were pretty steep, so the folks I was chatting with on the boat who went up to it at night didn't do much wagering.

I can see that if I am to continue as a jetsetter, it is imperative that I learn Italian, French and Spanish (better) asap.
10 pm
I am at http://www.starsnbars.com/ and have been waiting on an Internet connection where I can use a diskette. It is a cross between Plant Hollywood& that SNL skit with the two disco guys, I hope this works. Music...LOUD...Pulse, pulse, pulse..
no dammit, this computer will not give me access to the A drive, it is disabled, the CD drive is ok but not the A drive, crazy, the only other computer that is not locked up in a wodden box has a guy using it who the desk says stays on it all the time, he talks in many languages, I have over-heard, he is on cell phone at the same time and drinking red wine from a large bottle that sits by the computer also...he has not offered me any, ....he may be there a while. ....after I typed this nice long informative blog post to a diskette in the ship's library, this is sooooooooo frustratiing you can't even imagine.
Forget photos, I am in computer neverland.......i have taken a zillion but no one will let me upload photos.
All I can do is try to use my 22 minutes now.
Monte Carlo is like a different world. Fancy and beautiful. I was one of 3 people (the COOL people :o) who signed up for a helicopter ride this morning over this mountainous and tropical terrain. The pilot made sure it was a thrill ride.
After that Sara and I went to the famous Oceanographic Museum and Aquarium. I had seen it on TV, and it is unforgettable. The outside of the building itself is just incredible. It is built into the sheer cliff of the hillside into the sea. Best aquarium I haVE EVER SEEN, Mosiac floors throughout of underwater creatures. I took a lot of photos and will add them later, when I return I guess.
We are well, laughing and having fun. The Wind Surf is pure luxury, the food....so so, but then we are spoiled. They try to be fancy, but our standards are high in the food dept !! But we are certainly not starving, ha !
Well, better use my remaining 13 min to ck email...
love to all, Lundy
thanks for the funny comments

St Tropez

While in St Tropez, after MUCH searching, we located the Museum of Butterflies that we had read about. Sara says it was just about her favorite spot of the trip. The Musee houses the collection of L'Entomologiste Dany Lartique. You can see their official website HERE. They let me take photos if I did it without a flash, which is the case in many places such as churches, etc....so here are some of the pix that I took. I got Sara to hold her hand up in some of them for scale. The enormous size of some of the beetle bugs and moths was amazing to our little limited USA minds. The size of the pinchers on some of those beetles were downright scarry.

The Maison des Papillons is in a long narrow alley that is only marked by small signs located up high. There is a small charge and it has two stories. Downstairs are wall hung display cases and a small courtyard. Upstairs are storage drawers and reading materials as well as additional display cases. It is definately worth seeking out while in St Tropez as just about everything else in the town seems to be concerned with eating and drinking or spending money on high priced fashionable clothing. But just as many French vacation areas do, St. Tropez has a lovely merry-go-round. Their's is located out by the harbor near the water and docks.

Greetings from Lundy
The boat just left St Tropez. Lovely day ashore, no Internet to be found. Only beautiful buildings, flowers, tourists, other sleek boats, designer clothes and jewelry shops, Hermes, D & G, that sort of thing.
Sooooooooooo I am on the boat's insanely expensive Internet access, which I notice is from Bolivia today, so this will be short. I will edit this post in Monte Carlo tomorrow as I have already gotten Internet access info for there and typed a text file in a diskette to take w/ me.
We are fine, still getting along....believe it or not. Poor Sara, I boss her around a lot. But then, I don't like missing trains, boats and stuff !! She is a great sport.
Thai dinner tonight in the Bistro, we signed up special for it. Ship already on the move to next port.
Love to ALL. L.
Internet might not be working right on board ship...not surprised, blog mightnot publish correctly, service is from BOLIVIA ! I just looked at the blog and it was only partial, as in one sentence, I will try again.

On Board the Wind Surf

For people who didn't want to leave the boat, the WindSurf had all sorts of water sports. Sara and I always wanted to go on shore tho and see everything we could everywhere we went.
As you can see from these photos I took, the WindStar Line does not crowd their boats with people.
Many times , I'd go up to one of the upper decks on my way to the Internet room and there would be no one anywhere in sight on any of the upper decks.

The whole experience was just not the least bit crowded. I did ask what the occupancy rate of our trip was and they said it was about 95%. They just allow a lot of elbow room per person, which is wonderful. The cabin had so many drawers and closets we didn't even begin to use them all.

Also, since it is a small ship by cruise ship standards, there is almost no waiting involved at any time. Everything was very personalized. Of course, they don't have kid's activities, in fact, kids are not even encouraged to come. I think the youngest children were probably early teens. There are no comedians, floorshows (except the night that the Indonesian staff preformed), and best of all no phoney balooney meet-your-neighbor-rah-rah stuff. Over all it is a pretty soft spoken, kindly, sophisticated, group of travelers. Not snooty at all, just not crass. I can highly recommend the WindStar Line and this is from someone who will never do a 'regular' criuse again. I can also add that since the WindSurf was using it's sails about 50% of the time, there were almost no fumes in the air. It is a smooth, sailing experience.





















Adding photos of the WindSurf now...you can read all about the WindStar Line Here...even book YOUR cruise.
I booked ours online thru this same interface. It was the very best prices I could find anywhere--and believe me, I looked long and hard. They give the best prices the further out you book--the closer it gets, they tend to jump up in big increments. It might start at something like 47% off, then jump overnight to 24% off. etc.. Sara and I had a 'suite' it was wonderfully roomy and had two bathrooms. When this boat was purchased from the ClubMed people, WindStar took two cabins and combined them to make the suites, that is why you get two bathrooms. The suites are double the size of a regular cabin. They have a regular TV which plays about 4 or 5 stations, from satellite I think, plus a flat screen big LCD screen that is hooked to a DVD player and the movie DVD's can be borrowed from the ship's library for free. They have lots of popular titles, if you want to watch obscure or foreign films, bring them with you.
One of the nice things about the WindStar Line is that there is no assigned meal seating, you eat like a regular restaurant, when you want, with whom you want. There are two restaurants, and you can just make a reservation if you want the Bistro, the smaller of the two. We usually had dinner in the Bistro, they served the more creative and spicer food there.

Hi to all, we successfull made the ship and we are at sea and 100% under sail !
This will be way short, turns out that internet access is $.75 a minute onboard. Plus they will not let me connect by USP to compose on seperate computer and copy/paste so I can compose off line, and the have the computers programmed to not let me compose on them offline....bummer. I will consult with the internet dude tomorrow and see what I can work out.
So for now,............. moe latta. L.

Nice is WAY nice

While in Nice, we went to the 'Flower Market' which is much more than flowers only. We say incredible displays of pastery, cheeses, herbs, jellies and jams, flowers, and marzipan--some of which is shown in these photos.









It was a weird thing for me to find out that the beach in Nice is not sand, but rocks, BIG roundy grey rocks. I didn't go swimming or lie on it (there just wasn't time) but I can't imagine that it is very comfortable w/out a beach chair. Plus, I can invision a few twisted ankles for folks playing in the surf.

After seeing what people in various places call beaches, Sara and I really did realize how spoiled we are on the Gulf Coast to have our white sugar sand beaches. They are so much cooler to walk on in addition to the comfort for lounging about than what we saw most places.

Greetings from the OTHER riviera. Sara and I left Montpellier yesterday by train. The station had a bazillion steep stairs for us to flounder about on w/ our small but heavy suitcases. The train was nice and passed lovely scenery along the coast. Sometimes it looked like two totally different countries out the right and left windows. Make that north and south windows. We arrived in Nice about 8 p.m. but of course it was still rather afternoon looking. I had emailed ahead to the hotel that we would be a late arrival. I knew hotels space is scarce this time of the year here. We were put in the last room, sharing a double bed on the 3rd floor--but not a problem, neither of us have had a bit of trouble sleeping on this trip. Both of us can sleep w/ lights on, noise, whatever.....but fortunately, we have had quiet rooms. None have been located next to dumpsters or elevators, serenading students or babies, etc...research before booking helped in that dept.

The hotel has no lift, so the folks at the hotel were sweet enough to help us lug our stuff up all those flights of narrow marble stairs. The owners are Italian and super sweet. The hotel is a bit 'funky' but has the best hot water we have run into so far. One night only here anyway. In about an hour , Sara is suppose to return from visiting a museum and we get a taxi for the boat. Speakingof taxis, everything in Nice is very expensive. The taxi ride from the train station to the hotel about 14 blocks away was 13 Euros. It will cost that much again to get us and our stuff to the docks, but it is too far to walk. In Montpellier, we walked to the hotel from train station and back which was great.

Nice is beautiful. Fabulous hotels, casinos etc.. (where we are NOT staying) line the bouluvard across from the sea. There are wonderful little shops w/ cool clothes. Fabulous flowers planted everywhere and sidewalk cafes. Palm trees line the streets.

We had a great supper meal of sea bass, zuchinni, ripe peppers in a custardy sauce and something else I can't remember last night at a recommended restaurant on the promanade (sp?) . We sat next to two very young fellows, one a math teacher who graduated from a college in Cambridge and one a Polish guy who is a paratrooper in the French Foreign Legion. Both were great dinner converstionalists and really cute.

This morning was the day of the flower market---it was incredible. It was way more than just flowers. It was food-a-rama. Mushrooms, cheeses, fruit w/ colors so intense it was amazing. Hats, jellies, jams, candy, breads, and tons of plants and flowers. We bought flowers for our hotel owner, she has been so sweet to us.

Au revoir from Nice, Lundy

Montpellier, France

I am adding photos now that I am back, if you want to see them larger, click on them. Seems like Sara and I were almost always arriving in a town just about the time that they were closing for the middle of the day---that is one reason these streets look so quiet. This flower shop on the right of this street had bouquets out on the sidewalk in front. We saw flowers that we had never seen before on this trip.

























Montpellier is a very scenic place. We were surprised at how nice it was. It is not on the coast, but about 20 miles inland. You can see from the palm trees that line some streets that it has a very mild climate.




It seemed odd to see a Century 21 real estate sign on this quaint narrow street.


The Montpellier France train station, a nice place with bicyciles parked out front. I took a photo of the stairs at the Royal Hotel, where we stayed.
Sara and I did a lot of hauling ourselves and our bags up and down stairs like these. Seems like we were always on the 3rd floor.

Montpellier was the last stop of a segment of the Tour de France and there were a lot of police about....they seemed to enjoy the 'power ride' , a bunch of them zooming around town in groups for no apparent reason.


The large plaza in Montpellier, not far from the train station and our hotel had a carousel and a big fountain with a mossy base. It was a refreshing sight fromt he many sidewalk cafes that were also on the plaza. I took a photo of the weird lunch that Sara and I ordered in one and I described below.



We found a lovely park area and in it were open market style shops. This is where Sara found some French shoes that really fit her well. The park was very long and had fountains, cafes, and the musician you see here.

Well as you all know, we are Happenin' Chicks, and like to be where the action is, so we pulled into Montpellier just as Lance Armstrong was cycling in today. Lance and his buds in the Tour de France. Talk about timing !!

Sara and I got up early and caught the train out of beautiful Barcelona, along the coast and thru the hills to France. No one ever asked for our passport or anything. Even when we bought the train tickets the day before, no immigration, customs, nothing. We just disembarked and exited the station in France.

This town of about 4,000 local residents is lovely, just like a little Paris but full of European student age tourists. First place we have been where we have seen many people w/ dogs. Not the sissy little city lap dogs, but Labs, Goldens, etc...many not on leash, so I guess there is a pretty laid back attitude around here.

We only have one night here, but our train tomorrow doesn.t leave till afternoon, so we should have a good bit of time to see more of this delightful place. We did a lot of walking today. Came back too the hotel and collapsed (litterly) and later went out for a French style sandwich and what else but French Fries..........local stalls sell them in paper cones.

Millie will be glad to knozw that I now have 4 charms on my braclet. I got an Eiffel Tower in Paris, a Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, and a cool sailboat here in Montpellier.




I took this far away photo of the Cathedral Sacred Family from atop the hilltop church that we climbed on the first day. I had my 10X zoom camera with me. This weird church has been under construction for a long time. Most of the postcard photos show it with less scaffolding and were taken when the small park across the street was newly planted and the trees were small and one could stand over there and pretty much get the whole building front in the lens. Now the church is a huge construction project wedged into a tight, bustling city block and really hard to photograph. Also, lots of people think it used to look better when the structure just followed Gaudi's original plan, and it seems now that various other people have added their own visionary enhancements that really do make the lower portions look like something at a carnival midway--huge painted bright color fruit clusters that look like a sno-cone stand.

The Sagrada Familia is the famous cathedrial, originally designed by Gaudi { where our word gaudy comes from } It's a giant temple that has been under construction since 1882 and it's not expected to be completed for between 30 to 80 years.

Must go to old emails now to confirm for late arrival in Nice hotel tomorrow, but Sara is working on a blog entry. L

chiming in

Lundy has carried the blog just as she did all the reservations for the trip, so I suppose it is time for me to chime in and comment. If you ever have a chance to go on a trip planned by Lundy, take it. The hotels have been varied and great, each with its own charm, quirks, and suprises. The English love stairs, everything goes up and down. Looking out our hotel window, one expected to see Mary Poppins because of the height of the rooms. The English know how to utilize space, cupboards under stairs, even the kitchen attached to the dining room was tucked under the stairs going to the front door. The English make a great breakfast and Cornish pastry.
All the people we have meet on this trip have been helpful and kind. From what we read about Barcelona, pickpockets flourish, not our experience at all. My wallet fell out of my purse into the cab. The cab driver stopped the cab and gave it to me. My AAA debit card would not work and I went to Citi bank thinking it was a U.S. affliate and someone would understand my "lengthy" explaining of my problem. The bank was not affiliated, one person spoke English. The bank let me call the U.S. on their line (I did not know 800 numbers do not work in foreign countries and that one was supposed to call collect. I, a perfect stranger off the street, unknowingly, probably cost them a fortune.) Hours later I got my money. The time factor was a U.S. problem, not a Spanish problem. ATM cards are better than those debit cards, but life is learning, that was a cheap lesson, for me, probably not for the bank.
The best hotel was the one in Barcelona. Everything was perfect. The food in the hotel is better and cheaper than the fancy restaurants downtown. The language barrier sometimes gets one. I ordered sea bass with wild mushrooms and noodles and potato soup as an appetizer. The waiter misunderstood and thought I wanted sea bass in potato soup. It was still good. The chef sent the message with the dish that though sea bass was not usually served that way, they would do it for me. Lundy and I had ordered food very late the night before- sole with citron and capers and goat cheese salad. It was beautiful, scrumptious, and reasonable. Everything fresh and perfect. We stopped by the next morning and told management how much we enjoyed the meal. They aim to please! The chef even sent duck on toast with goose liver gravy (I can't remember the exact name they called it),; it was so good words fail. One day that chef is going to own his own four star restaurant; remember I said this!
Either in the morning or the night before, Lundy and I get pastries and fruit. Lundy bought a coffee maker for the room. Most all these people are skinny, how I don't know. I have never tasted pastries like these. The other day I bought a quarter of an orange, a small pear(seeds still in it), and a slice of melon done in sugar. The juice squirted out of the orange when one bit into it.
Too sweet for Lundy, I loved it. This was in Barcelona, right by the Picasso Museum. I suppose it is a mindset, most all the food is beautiful. One troops around to different stores for different things. Everything, including banks close at two o'clock, no business. It is very strange to the U.S. mind. In Paris, a lot of the smaller stores are closed except for a few hours on Monday.
We have had a taste of each city. Usually, we take the tour bus and view the city, then decide what we will do. We saw Soane's house in London and Cambridge (P.D. James the author was scheduled to speak at Cambridge the next Sunday in the same pulpit Latimer spoke from(during Henry VIII's reign). She evidently is an advocate of the 1662 prayerbook which they still use in that church. In her murder mystery, the victim lived in a John Soane house. So I had heard of Soane when Lundy wanted to visit there.
In Paris it was Sacre Couer (spelling?) and the Paris Opera House( a Chagall ceiling). I have never seen anything like either of them. The work and effort are simply unbelievable! I have read and seen pictures, but the real thing is truly different, not the same at all. I would not have thought that degree of difference would have existed.
In Barcelona it was two Gaudi houses, his park, and for me, the Picasso Museum. I had not seen the real thing before. I bought slides for the art teacher at school at Gaudi's and the museum. Picasso's work changed all through his life and that was represented at the museum. I tended to think of him as making one type of picture. I suppose that the learning process is change, even for genius.
Today in Montpelier, The Tour de France came through, but we could not find out where exactly it was, in hindsight a taxi driver would have known, probably. We poked around, but tomorrow is going to be the sight seeing day, as we are quite European now, with our sometimes naps, our late hours, mostly in the internet cafes or eating. We had to get up way too early to catch a train.
All over Europe most places have menus outside the restaurants in at least two languages, today it was only in French. It was three o'clock and we had not eaten since seven; this cafe on the square had mostly drinks, we guessed at the food. Lundy ended up with a breadstick in what seemed to be olive ice cream and cured ham, I ended up with raw salmon and avocado.
Every single place is so unusual. I am having a grand time. Lundy and I both seem to get lost quite a bit, apart and together, serendipity is a part of the trip, with the underpinings of Lundy's planned structure. I really want to come back, and I have not even left yet or seen it all. I think I am going to live differently. The people are grand everywhere.

Gulf Shores Report

Harry has emailed that the Gulf Shores properties received no damage from Hurricane Dennis. I am sooooooooooooooo thankful for this. Turns out that there was a tropical storm named Cindy that I didn´t even know about that tore off some window shutters and flattened our flagpole the week before. Others have mentioned a new storm named Emily in the Gulf, so this is turning out to be a real action packed hurricane season, as some had predicted it would be. Our condo in Orange Beach, building named Silver Beach is just now getting close to completion, the pool is almost ready I am told and our unit is bare bones rent ready. A lot of the Orange Beach condos are a long way from Certificate of Occupancy. This means lots of building materials on the premises, so a storm is a really bad thing and can blow all this stuff that is stacked about into the newly replaced glass everywhere.
Miller´s condo in Gulf Shores was trashed back to studs from Hurricane Ivan but thru a big push was rent ready when I left on this trip. The new decor is really colorful and beach-y.

Casa Batilló

Not my photo, but one from the web. I have gone to two camera and electronics shops to try to buy a HP camera UPS cable to see if I can find a place that will let me up load photos, but have not found the correct cable yet. I forgot to bring mine. It looks like it will interchange w/ other camera brands, and other brands will even fit the opening, but there is a slight difference and they dont´ work.

Barcelona day 2 or 3

Sara is taking a nap, it is not quite 10 pm and still light outside. We are both tired, we got lost from each other and both spent most of the day wandering about lost as can be. But what a great place to be lost in. This morning she went to get euros off a AAA Visa card prepaid thing she bought from the AAA office in Memphis before we left, turned out to be most difficult. Sara doesn´t speak a word of Spanish. No one wanted to accept the card. She had been told to go to an American bank and told where CitiBank was. Well, only one person spoke any English there and also turns out that this stupid AAA Visa card is a royal pain in the arse. According to her, she had in hand all eight pages of small print that came with her prepaid card and insisted that she would not leave till she had some Euros in hand. She said the bank finally put her on the phone and allowed her to make a 1-800 call to one of the numbers on her papers and she was on the phone for hour and half !!! There was some talk of her leaving the bank and getting in a taxi but she insisted that she had no taxi money and that there was Visa fraud involved and I suspect that the bank might have graciously ended up with a big long distance phone bill on their account just to help her out. In the end she left with 300 Euros and the Visa people clipped her for an additional 20 bucks over and above what the AAA people had charged her in card issue fees, and 300 is the daily bank limit so they will get her for the extra 20 every day till it is emptied, but she says SHE WILL WIN IN THE END.........once she returns to the states. Color her NOT HAPPY with AAA and their prepaid Visa ATM card.

When she returned from that ordeal, we hopped the tourist open-top bus and rode to this huge apartment building that Gaudi designed in 1910, La Pedrera. Four families still live in it, the rest is converted to museums and bank space, shops, and a huge auditorium. It is a National Historic Places place for sure......I had never been there before, only seen photos. And speaking of photos, I took a bunch. The rooftop is all futuristic terraces and tiles and mosaics. It is breathtaking. It was there, in the miles of attic that we got seperated. It is pretty dark up in the winding, gothic arch attic spaces and I looked and looked for Sara. Turned out that she had fallen asleep sitting on a bench while watching one of the many short slide shows along the way. But with all the twists and turns, I never found her. I finally just went on my way thru the ins and outs of the areas on can visit in this huge complex, I sat on a bench near the exit for about an hour and did people watching and finally wrote out a note and left it with the entrance/exit guards. I said I was headed to the hotel and if I left there or went to the pool, I'd leave a note in the room. I got back to the hotel on foot about 7:30 at night, walked about 7 miles I´d reckon, and about 10 minutes later Sara walked in. Turned out that she had done a lot of walking as well. She was ready for a nap.

It is a good thing that they eat supper late here, like after 10 pm.

Now get this---I had read in a travel column online in the Seattle Times I think it was, about this new way for people to clip you for an extra 3% when you charge stuff overseas. Well she was sooooooo right , and worse than that, it is worse !!

According to the article, by Carol Ponzi or something close, the paperwork says at the bottom something to the effect , 'I agree that I was offered alternate ways to pay for this charge´...they convert the Euros to dollars on the spot, it APPEARS to be a great thing as you don´t have to think outside your home currency mentality, but in reality, you get charged an extra 3% over and above the additional 3% you are gonna be charged by most card processing co when the bill comes and according to her what you have to do is tell them to charge you in Euros, not Dollars...BUT...here is the problem....the waiter tells you that that is 'impossible'...that the machine is programmed as it is and if your card is from the states, you are gonna get the instant conversion no matter what.
OR the poor clerk , like at a small hotel, either doesn´t know about the extra 3% that the hotel is making or he pretends not to. So there is no CHOICE even tho the paper you are suppose to sign says that you understand that you have been offered a choice. Most people don´t notice it and don´t know what is going on.

It is a new way to cheat people legally according to the article in the Seattle Times . It would be one thing if you just didn´t notice and let it go , but the problem is that I notice and ask the seller to charge in Euros and they refuse, so there is no choice. At hotels, this is a big problem cause to use cash will sorta wipe you out. I plan to contact VISA about upon my return. I will also contact the writer of the article that I read as she seemed to be under the impression that one could simply request that the charge be converted back to Euros, NOT. The computerized cash registers are pre-programmed. I do not see this conversion switcheroo on the little sidewalk shop vendor slips, but DO on hotel and pricey restaurants. The newspaper writer mentioned rental car companies.

Well, seems that the Gulf Shores area was spared from Hurricane Dennis damage but there has been some email mention of EMILY..??? I must now go do a new search......
Lundy in Barcelona

Spellcheck laugh

well, learn something new each day--forget using spell check and getting everything corrected and then publishing thru a foreign browser, as you will see below. I did NOT type in those crazy runtogetherwords myself :o)

Barcelona, Day 2

This is a shot of the house that Gaudi himself lived in. Sara and I paid the small fee to tour the interior. The house is in the Park Guell which is in a residential area of Barcelona and has world famous outdoor mosiacs. Especially the big lizzard that is part of a downhill fountain at the entrance to the park. Lots of my photos show how many visitors are there in July, but the people tended to be in clumps at certain areas (hot spots), there were other parts of the park with few people even at this most touristy time of the year. There is no charge to come to the park which is nice. That way, even the students on a tight budget get to see a lot of Gaudi's work. In Europe, over and over we found that not only museums and such charged a pretty steep admission, but the big churches sometimes did too. Seemed weird, but judging by the number of people around, I don't blame them for wanting to slow the flood of human bodies somewhat--heck, I had to do that at my own Gulf Shores house, so I can relate !

Sara is out looking for a place to change money so I am on computer and ready to do another gorgeous day. edit{Sara taking really long time, as in hours, so I will edit the crazy run together words}

First off, most places won´t let you send YOUR stuff into THEIR computers, so I can´t send photos up to the blog. didn´t bring a laptop, just a litte PDA. edit{plus forgot camera connect cord, might can buy one at camera shop if I see one} This is the first hotel to REALLY have actually in-room WORKING internet access, but I have no computer of my own to send the photos thru. I will ask at hotel desk later if maybe I can use some equipment of theirs.

The hallway guest use hotel computers (that I am on now) are even running a shareware browser I have never seen before and won´t let you use FoxFire or Internet Explorer so I can´t even ck my hotmail or gmail accounts as neither are compatible with this SlimBrowser I have to use. So there are definite limitations. Note this anyone who emails me on hotmail or gmail, can´t read at moment.

We had supper last night down at Port Olympic on the harbor at an outdoor restaurant under folding umbrellas. Sara had Hake, a fish that is white, sweet and mild and I ordered the Seafood Paella since they would do it for one person (many places only do two or more) so she could try to too. We had salads and grilled asparagus, beer and sherry and wonderful desserts. We felt that we should eat heartily since surely we had burned at least this many calories in our trek to the highest point in Barcelona.

And I DO mean highest point. We went up to the cathedral on the mountain top behind the city and then climbed to the tip top of the dome and lookout terrace around the dome on itty bitty winding stone circular staircases that are all outdoor and worked into the design of the fancy churchbasilicallica (sp?). The wind was stiff up there and not many folks went all the way up. Just a nice Belgian banker fellow and the two of us mostly at that time. All of Barcelona and the Med Sea harbor can be seen panoramma as well as the Pereynes behind on a clear day, which it was. Barcelona has much much better air London. In fact, I think London needs to do something about the problem, it is horrible..........those Olympic people are nuts, in my opinion, to send all those crowds there in 2012 to develop lung problems. Even your tongue gets coated with black sooty stuff.
The Olympics have already been in Barcelona, and that is one reason they have such nicely landscaped modern public areas and expressway embankments. The older public areas always were lovely I think.

Anyway---we went to one of Gaudi´s houses yesterday and went all thru it, Casa Batilló that he designed for the Batilló family. I´d only seen it in photos before. It is the very sensuous art nouvous style with curved everything and all custom windows , doors, ceilings, etc..much of it covered in tiles. We rode a open top bus a lot and saw several other Gaudi designed residences and public areas.

Yesterday we had only breakfast on the train about 7 am so we planned to get some lunch on our way up the mountainside to the church on top. But every cafe was closing for lunch as we got there, by about 3 or 4 we were really hungry and thirsty. Barcelona is warm and sunny, way warmer than Paris and of course cold London. We went in the small cafe/bar at the base of the Funicular that runs up the hillside and were begging for something. This cheerful Spanish fellow jumped to our rescue and invited us into (what we thought was ) his place and told the grumpy upset waiter/bartender to get us a couple of beers. Looked like were were out of luck for food, but beer was better than nothing and we were near faint. The cheerful fellow heard we were from Memphis and wanted to talk about the top four guitarists in the world, (his list, Clapton, Larry Corydel). Additionally he was really hoping that we, like him didnt like Rod Stewart, he also said. We realized that he was quite drunk, but in a cute sort of a way....we endured his attention long enuf to get the beers, (he was really quite funny) but as he began to tell us more about himself and how he had eleven children and just loved doing what it took to make them, we stopped talking to him about guitarists and told him we had come to Spain to visit churches, and in a very devout manner. While he was otherwise occupied, we slipped out and on our way.

Barcelona has a busy port with huge drive-on ferries pulled up to docks. They are big like cruise ships. I took some photos. Thshinye shiney colorful paint jobs. The port also has wonderful ancient buildings with incredible stone carvings and details. A monstrously large , color Liechtenstein sculpture is covered in mosaics and soars into the sky over some of the public walkways along the harbor.

This hotel is so nice that they even have this card by the bed with a choice of pillows, with photos and numbers, like 1 is firm and synthetic, 2 is real feathers (my choice), 3 is some weirdorthopedicthapedic oneYoutc...you just let then know which one you want.
They have a pool, a massage parlor and a gymnasium :o) it says....Sara and I were humming the theme from The Jeffersons in the elevator !

Hi from Barcelona Spain

Sara and I rode the got back to our Paris hotel in the nick of time and the taxi was waiting. We grabbed our luggage that the hotel was holding, no wait, before we could get the luggage we had to listen to this couple from Israel go on and on tothe desk clerk about how they had no hot water in their room and how they were going to be there till Fri and wanted to be changed to another room and the clerk was saying it was ´Impossible´. The man kept asking if this was the kind of standards they had in this country and how they certainly didn´t have these standards in his country, bla bla bla. I thought that surely he must have been from another Israel than the one I visited a couple years ago. I told him that we had spend about 3 days at that hotel and that changing rooms would not make a bit of difference in the hot water supply (what was he thinking??? Obviously doesn´t know plumbing basics in the western world that uses tank type water heaters) and to put all this energy that he seemed to have into finding a different hotel and PLEASE get out of the way so we could get our luggage and get in our cab.

The train-hotel was great. Ultra tiny itty bitty suite w/fold down beds and a real mini bathroom w/shower even. The fancy dining car was 4 cars down and our supper w/ multiple courses and champange and wine, etc was included as was breakfast the next morning. Of course while in the sleeping suite we were climbing all over each other´s heads, falling over luggage everywhere and laughing and carrying on. They even had these cute mini zipper kits for us with shoe polishs and shoe horns. I am sure I will get a lot of use from those items across Europe--NOT. But it was a sweet, thought. The other stuff in then is useful, like the world´s most mini tube of toothpaste. Cute, cute, cute.

I am sure it only took us a couple hours to get us and our luggage out of the Barcelona train station. Sara says we are good traveling companions and that if her former husband, whom many of you know, was with us, that he would be ´Stark Raving Mad´by now.

At the train station, we managed to buy the train tickets for the trip leaving Barcelona in a few days to Montpellier, FR and the day after from there to Nice, FR. It was then that I noticed a gap in our accomodations, yep, sure enuf.....try as I might, calenders are just not my strength. Turns out that I had skipped a day and we had no where to stay for one night between Barcelona and Montpellier. I remembered how hard it was to get the reservation in Montpellier....everything anywhere around was booked, so I figured our chances were better to stay another day in Barcelona even if we had to change hotels. But, when we arrived, here at this FABULOUS, incredible, hotel from heaven, they said we could stay on, but not at my super duper www.Gulf-Shores-Alabama.net hotel booking discount price of 80 Euros but at 120 Euros, so we said ´no problemo´, since we now converse in Spanish.

Our hotel is wonderful. A real first class stay for us. Very contemporary with hardwood floors, an unusual room arrangement with a double closet, humongous bathroom with both frosted door glass shower and huge tub, plus a bidet to wash our clothes in and a modern sink in a seperate room made from a huge sheet of glass, frosted with a molded in clear sink on a pedistal or something. The towels and gigantic, and there are all these little goodies in the bathroom. The really great part, besides hot water, is there are two spacious, always on computers on each floor , in their own little frosted glass/walnut area near the elevators. So now you see how I have been able to type all this at 1 a.m.

I am now going to have a look and see if post-hurricane-Dennis Gulf Shores is still on the map and add more to this later. L.

Wonderful weather today, just couldn,t have been nicer. Sara and I rode a hop on hop off bus around to all the famous landmarks, UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE. What are we thinking in the States w/ our throw-away architecture?????????????????

The people of Paris have been wonderful to us. We rode the Paris Metro today so of course I was looking out for abandoned parcels or knapsacks. Way fewer employees on Metro than London Underground, even before the attack. Also, no stations anounced like on London underground stops. One has to pay attention.

I came to this internet shop to look at Weather.com to see about this hurricane. I just can,t wrap my brain around the idea of another hurricane when we are no where near recovering from IVAN, so I won;t even try from this far.
DAC-ART will be even more in demand I predict !

Sara is out prowling around the neighborhood and shopping for our breakfast goodies at the moment. It stays light here so very late, it was still sunny when i came in this internet shop about 9:30, it is now 10 pm and still quite bright. The signs on these places say Internet Cafe, but they are stuffy tiny holes-in-the-wall w: no café at all, unless a frozen icecream and popsicle box makes it a café. They are usually run by Arab looking people. Nicer than the usual motel-owner Arab looking people in the States.

We have noticed that central Paris has way fewer Asian and Turkish, Moslem, etc looking folks than London where the traditional British seem to be in the minority for sure.

I think we will have to take a cab to the train station tomorrow. I have been going thru my bags looking for stuff I can leave behind. Like the shoes I have on this minute---five bucks at AL;s 5 and 10 in G.S., so I can live without them now and get more later. Sara did a great job of packing light. Better than me. But then, she DID enjoy the fresh hot coffee bedside this morning from my B&D little coffee maker ! Some things are worth the bother to me, and getting my eyes open is one of them.

I have taken a ton of digital photos and picked up an extra high-speed 1 gig SD card at a camera shop in Cambridge, they don,t sell them at drug stores here as in the States. I figured that they would only get more expensive as we went west.

It turns out that we are staying in the area where the movie Amelie was filmed. The bar/coffee shop where she worked, the fruit vendor, etc. For those who have not seen that recent, great movie, go rent it tonight.

Off to Barcelona tomorrow on an overnight train and we get our own little apt w/ a shower even !

Lundy in Paris

Additional London note

We have had multiple chance experiences of good fortune. In London, we were inside Sir John Soans home, a place I had long wished to visit , and just after we left and sat for a few minutes on a brick wall, i heard an approaching roar, looked to the skies just in time to see The Red Arrows (UK version of Blue Angels) do a low flyover trailing red, white, and blue smoke across the sky over the treetops of the park across from us in honor of the olympic city selection; It was fabulous---they only did one flyover and we saw it ! The colors in the smoke trails lingered for some time, ( hung up in smog Id guess !, Sara thinks I am obsessed w/ air quality, but honestly my nose and throat burned in London)

Paris is BEAUTIFUL !!!!!!!!!!!!

We spotted this Alabama Jeep on the streets of Paris. It even had Heart of Dixie license plates in front. How cool is that ???

Arrived Paris yesterday after fascinating Chunnel train ride. WE WERE SERVED A DELUXE LUNCHEON W/: opps caps, ignore this keyboard is totally different from usa keyboard and is extremely difficult to use, so expect typos, no matter how slowly i peck and hunt. The dot key is even on the shift mode, how convenient is that !!!NOT

Anyway, lunch had various wines, fancy breads etc---and conversation w: a charming Indian fellow who was raised in the Congo--his parents own the Honda distributership--educated in England and NorthCarolina, lives in London; has Canadian pasport, his son lives in Paris and they are headed to Ibiza for holiday this week;

Sara LOVES Paris, it truely is fabulously beautiful from head to toe. Our hotel named, High Tech Something, and chosen for its advanced technical features plus location and price, has no internet access !!! We roamed the streets until midnight seeking internet last night, eacg shop was 'just closing but the shop down the street is open'.

Our hotel is one block from the Moulon Rouge. On the high hillside of Paris. It stays light until 10 pm so we were able to walk to the Cathedrial of the Sacrad Heart even tho our train did not get us here until late afternoon. The cathedrial has unbelievable mosaics, but they want no photos taken inside, people come to pray as well as gawk, but i managed some sans flash.

The air quality is sooooooooooooooooooo much better in Paris than London. Mostly the air has the fragrqnce of pastery, and goodness knows, these pastery shops on every block have some magnetic force for us. Sara and i are in food heaven...................................and everyone has been very polite and kind so far, starting w: our cab driver from the train station who was a sweetiepie.

I have heard scraps if info about a hurricane but not much interest here. The Europeans are very interested in Londons bombs of course, global warming--people keep asking us if we drive suv's and why everything has to be so big in the usa, and something about african debt, of which i have no clue.

We slept very late but plan to get into high gear and take the hop on hop off bus around town today, we have one more nighthere then till about suppertime the next day till we take the overnight train to Barcelona
Paris is warmer than London , thank goodness--and a London tv weatherman had the audacity to say something about the 'blazing sun continues' before we left...................

We make the news

Thanks Cary---for sending this along in email.

Memphis Commercial Appeal

Memphians witness tragic day in London
By Oliver StaleyContactJuly 8, 2005
With no early morning meetings Thursday, Bridget Coggin-Thomson decided to take her time getting into work.
That decision may have saved her life.
Advertisement
Coggin-Thomson, a Memphian who lives in Crystal Palace in southeast London, commutes downtown by railroad, then transfers to the Underground. She gets out at King's Cross station, near the site of an explosion that rocked the city.
"On a normal day, I would have been there," Coggin-Thomson said. "I didn't have a meeting until 11 o'clock this morning and I missed it, by the grace of God."
Coggin-Thomson grew up near Germantown but has lived in London for 31/2 years and is married to an Englishman. She said she was "still in shock" from her close call but was not surprised by the attack.
"We basically knew it was going to happen and it was a waiting game. Terrorism is worldwide and, especially with (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair's relationship with Bush, we knew al-Qaida would do something."
Coggin-Thomson is one of dozens of Mid-South residents who were in London Thursday. Some live there, others are summer interns and students and some are just on vacation.
Two of them, Lundy Wilder and Sarah O'Dell, arrived in London Monday for the first stage of a monthlong trip through Europe. They planned to spend Thursday in Oxford but were prevented from getting on the Underground at Paddington Station.
"Very calmly, the employees said 'I'm sorry, there's been bombs on the Underground,'" said Wilder, a Web site manager.
With little information about what was happening, Wilder said she wondered if the bombs were related to President Bush's trip to Scotland for the G8 summit. "I thought 'Gee, whiz, do they hate America that much if they're attacking England because of the presence of President Bush?'"
O'Dell, a librarian at Tipton-Rosemark Academy in Millington, said she was impressed by the calm she felt from the English people.
"It wasn't any of this widespread panic," she said. "On television, a World War II veteran said 'We have done this before.' They have that stiff upper lip and they're not going to let someone make them a coward."

Leaving London Tomorrow

Opps, a second ago I hit send by accident, this sidewalk internet shop has the keyboards at almost chin level. It is very difficult to type, I guess being a shortie doesn't help. Sara and I went Cambridge today on the train. Most of the trains are running and the underground is running on the lines that did not have bombings.
I realize now that I actually heard the bomb that was near Paddington Station go off yesterday. I thought it might be thunder, and I commented to Sara about it. But then, London does not typically have thunder and lightening weather, so I was suprised and looked out the window at the sky--did not see dark clouds, so wondered if it was the tailgate of a dump truck or something. Now I know it was the bomb.

A reporter from the Memphis Commercial Appeal called the hotel room last night. I was quite surprised. Someone be sure to tell Ruth Warren, she always asks me who my press agent is. If anyone sees a piece in the paper about Lundy and Sara's London report, pls save it for me.

Tomorrow is high-speed train to Paris, under the channel. Leave about noon. We are holding up well. Bought several interesting cheeses at a local street market in Cambridge today, nice beer on the train ride home. It was great that we were there on market day. Fish and chips to go for supper. We have eaten lots of fun street food, trying everything we run across that Sara or I haven't had before.

It is cold here, for anyone wondering. COLD. As in, NOT SUMMER.

ONLY 3 MINUTES OF INTERNET TIME LEFT--opps--caps lock--thanks friends for nice comments. i READ THEM all. This keyboard is weird. Difficult height--chin level.

London Normal as Possible

Still Thursday

Here you can see an interesting contrast in architecture in London, ancient next to new. The 'Tower of London' is on the right and the rocket shaped thing is an office building on the left. The rocket shaped one has innovative ventilation. Outside air can enter and swirl thru the building upwards, so I guess that means that smog can reach all floors equally.

I took this photo during the few minutes that we had without total cloud cover. The next photo shows the trails of colored smoke that the Red Arrow Jets left across the sky as they made the victory pass across London after the city was chosen for the Olympics in 2012, I think it is. I got my camera out as fast as I could, but missed the jets themselves. We had no idea that they were coming.



Next photos is Sara and me on the Tower Bridge in London. One reason we have so few shots of the both of us is that traveling alone, we were warned over and over not to let anyone else get ahold of your camera to take your picture or it may be 'bye-bye camera'---I wasn't taking ANY chances with my little pocket HP R707 digital camera that I grew to love. Click the camera link to read other's reviews. I have had about 6 digital cameras, read tons of reviews and this is the best one for a trip that I know of. I bought a



It is just past noon here. I can take time now to tell more of the trip. We had a great trip over, first class is the 'only' way to go. Even tho the plane from Detroit to London Gatwick was 3 hrs late leaving, it wasn't bad. We were served champagne, to keep us from getting edgy and that sort of thing. Huge amount of room in the cabin. It was great-great-great.

Sara and I have had wonderful success in catching the correct tube trains to where we have wanted to go. Our hotel is in a nice neighborhood very close to Paddington Station. The Hilton is close by, so you know it is an ok spot when you see that. Our tiny hotel is a converted townhouse w/ 17 rooms on about 4 or 5 floors (no lift) . We are on the third floor, high ceilings, so like maybe 4 flights of narrow steps. They serve a included full breakfast in the basement room downstairs each day. Our room is on th eback of the building so it is very quiet. The bathroom is tiny and the toilet doesn't flush well, so we have resorted to filling the wastebasket with water and dumping the water in all at once for a decent flush. I have also found that the hand-held shower wand will reach to the toilet bowl so that is a second option.

The flushing problem seems to be universal here, there was a funny worded sign in the bathroom of the Chinese restaurant last night. I took a photo of it.

Yesterday Sara and I went first to the home of the architect Sir John Soan. One of those places I had seen covered in books and magazines over the years. That was one of my picks, but Sara really enjoyed it. Mid-day we went to the Tower of London, mostly 'cause Sara really wanted to do that. Late in the day, after a great dinner of sea bass at a tiny Chineese restaurant, we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum as it is open late on Wed. We were there till closing, about 10 p.m. The V & A is fabulous as it is the museum of hand made goods. ....Ironwork, silver, fabric, and just outstanding craftsmanship of all sorts. I had always wanted to go there. Sara loved it.

Of course, we have no idea how this bombing attack is going to affect our train reservations on Sat noon to Paris. And we have no idea what we will do today since what we had planned to do would have required riding the underground and/or trains.

This city is absolutely full of Muslims.....weird to see so many everywhere. The travel books say, and also my observations are that there are way more foriegners in London than British folks. Tons of oriental people here.

The radio says that the powersurges because of the bombs caused the underground trains to get off schedule so that is what caused them to crash and burn,etc..

I saw on a tv with no sound this morning Pres. Bush for a few seconds, so I wonder if he is in England and that must have something to do with the terriorist attacks.

I'll try to post to the blog when I can. Thanks for all prayers. I am sure we will be fine, well, not sure, but we do have 2 more nights reservations at our hotel and I am going to buy some beer right this minute.
L.

More on Thursday..

I feel very fortunate to have found an internet shop and been able to get a spot....so many people are stranded and on the streets with suitcases, ambulances everywhere, helicopters overhead. Of course all trains stopped, all underground stations closed, all city busses off the street. And this is a city where everyone uses all these modes of transportation non-stop. The sidewalks are full of lost looking/ frustrated people.

Alive and Safe in London

Today is Thurs and we have just heard that bombs have gone off bothon the Underground and on city buses here in London this morning. We have been riding both extensively, even until late last night, so it is a miracle we were not on the underground when this happened. Sending this short post first in case internet access is interrupted.

The WindSurf

On the third week, this is the boat that we will be on for 7 days (with one day off while we stay overnight in Florence). It has computerized sails. The company that owns it has 3 similar ships. The other two are about half this size, but this one is suppose to have better computer access.

Sara and I have a 'suite' booked--it is a doube sized room and we each get our own bathroom ! We figure that by then, we might each enjoy just the total solitude of soaking in the tub with a good book.
BTW--I fixed the comment feature--so anyone can post without having to register. Just click 'comments'....you should get a dialog box into which you type and hit 'post' or 'submit' or similar.

I'd NEVER want to be a travel agent !!

These photos that I have added upon return are of the Springfield Hotel Bed and Breakfast in the Sussex Gardens area of London where we stayed. The location was great. We were in a quiet double room on the third floor. It was quite a climb up to our room, but the price was very good for London. My research paid off !
















The Abbey Court Hotel is located on the same street--Sussex Gardens--and you can book online thru this link. Also the Beverly House Hotel and The Queensway Hotel in Sussex Gardens.
All of these smaller hotels are made in townhouses in Sussex Gardens, which is a great location. The open top double decker tour bus stops right by there. An internet shop is close by as are numerous cafes and coffee shops. Sussex Gardens is located north of Hyde Park, so you can walk to Hyde Park or since you are really close to Paddington Station, you can hop the Underground or trains to anywhere.

In the process of trying to put together a one-sheet-of-paper itinerary, I realized that I only had reservations for one nite in Rome, when we needed TWO, plus I happened to run accross a little slip of paper that NWA had sent and glanced at it--Schedule Change Notification, opps !, plane leaves Memphis at 5 p.m. , not 10:00 p.m. as originally planned and what we thought !!

Well, we came close to missing the plane....here it is the day before we leave and I started making these arrangements back in something like March....why people think I am an organized person is beyond me !!

Anyway, here is the list of where we are suppose to be and when, and contact info:

July 4, 5:06 p.m.
NorthWest Airlines/KLM 0294R Memphis-0032I-Detroit-London Gatwick Airport
Memphis

LONDON
7/5/05-----7/9/05
SPRINGFIELD HOTEL
154 Sussex Gardens London W2 1UD
Tel 020 7723 9898 Fax 020 7723 0874
E-mail info@springfieldhotellondon.co.uk

PARIS
7/10, 2005----7/12, 2005
High Tech Calais Montmartre Hotel
65 rue Blanche
Paris, 75009 FR
Phone: (33 1) 40169522

BARCELONA
7/12, 2005---7/14, 2005
Acevi Villarroel
106 Villarroel
Barcelona, 08011 ES
Phone: 93.3239750

MONTPELLIER, FR
15 July 2005---16 July 2005
Royal Hotel
8, rue Maguelone
34000 - Montpellier
Email : royal.hotel@venere.com
Fax: +33-467925980
Phone: +33-467921336

NICE,FR
7/16/05---7/17/05
Hôtel Paris Nice - 2 * - Nice
58 rue de france 06000 Nice
Tel : 04 93 88 38 61 Fax : 04 97 03 36 66
E-mail : hotelparisnice@wanadoo.fr


WindSurf Ship--Windstar Cruises 1-800-258-7245
Sunday 7/17/2005 NICE/FRANCE
Monday 7/18/2005 ST. TROPEZ/FRANCE
Tuesday 7/19/2005 MONTE CARLO/MONACO
Wednesday 7/20/2005 PORTOFINO/ITALY
Thursday 7/21/2005 LIVORNO/ITALY
FLORENCE---Giada Hotel
Canto de Nelli 2
Firenze, 50123 IT
Phone: 39 055 215317
Thursday, July 21, 2005--July 22, 2005
Friday 7/22/2005 LIVORNO/ITALY
Saturday 7/23/2005 PORTO VECCHIO CORSICA/FRANCE
Sunday 7/24/2005 ROME CIVITAVECCHIA/ITALY

ROME
7/24, 2005--7/ 26, 2005
River Chateau Hotel
Via Flaminia 520
Rome, 00191 IT
phone 39 06 3340616



VENICE
7/26/05---7/28/05
AMERICAN HOTEL
SAN VIO,628 DD ACCADEMIA
30123 VENEZIA
TEL. +39 041 5204733
FAX. +39 041 5204048
E-MAIL: reception@hotelamerican.com
WEBSITE.: www.hotelamerican.com

NorthWest Airlines/KLM
july 28 Venice 84868--Amsterdam-Detroit-37218-Memphis (PinnacleJet)10:02 p.m.

Thurs Night--Millie's Gift

My good friend, Millie King, gave me a beautiful silver bracelet for my trip with a charm of St. Christopher already on it. As everyone knows, St. Christopher stands for 'safe-keeping', so I consider it a very special gift from Millie. She is a wonderful gift giver and always comes up w/ creative and special surprises and this is just like her. She had the idea for me to get different charms from places I go. It is an old fashioned and good fun idea. And bless her heart, she wanted me to start out with St.Christopher, to insure a safe return :o)
I love her !

Leaving on Friday for London

Sara and I flyout of Memphis in the evening....this blog might be the best way for me to communicate w/ friends on this trip...don't know if I will be able to add any photos from afar tho. People might not let me download photos from my camera to their hotel computer so I can upload them to the blog.