WHY EUROPE - AGAIN?
We retired and went to Alaska, a total retirement cliche - except we avoided cruise ships and went hiking and kayaking in the wilderness.
Our next stop was to return to Europe - again. WHY?
Lou had to go "catatonic" (see TRAVEL PHILOSOPHY for the story) before we stopped planning a long trip to France, and decided to skip most of Western Europe and head to the less-traveled areas of Central Europe, Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
In the autumn of 1999, we flew to Paris
to begin nearly four months of travel through
Our first attempts to send e-mails
from Paris
back to family and friends were challenging, due to the difference between
American and French keyboards. Here's part of a family letter from
Chere fqmille ,
Nous so;;es tres trqnauille, tres jolie... you cqn see
zhy ze need French lessons qs soon qs possible! Ze qre sitting in the ;q post
office in Pqris, vqliqntly trying to deql zith the French keyboqrd. They hqve reversed the a and q, the m and semi-colon and the w and z.
(Pleqse beqr zith us!)
We stayed in
a small budget hotel in Montmartre, a quaint section of
The Hotel Bonsejour was run by a friendly, hard-working Moroccan couple with two small children. We had the best room in the hotel - it was on the top floor and had two windows, one opening onto a balcony. It was very basic, with a sloping linoleum floor, but also clean, light and only $30 a night! However, there's no elevator and we had to climb five flights of narrow, winding stairs to reach our room. The toilet was down the hall, shared with six other rooms. The hotel's only shower for rooms without a private bath is on the street floor! It cost 10 francs, or about $1.30 for seven minutes. We made a game out of going into the small shower room together, undressing, and shampooing fast and furiously, to see if we could both shower at the same time - in seven minutes flat!
One day we went to see Samuel Beckett's
"Waiting for Godot" - in French. We know the play well, but bought a
couple of copies of it in French so we could refresh our memories. Even so, we
were hopelessly lost much of the time. Fortunately, the play was very
well-acted and we knew approximately what was being said, but it was a humbling
experience. French was the only language we "knew" at that time. SIGH.
Unfortunately, most of us Americans are foreign language illiterates.
We had dinner with French friends
in their
After a couple of weeks in
SERVAS* VISIT: Our very first
Servas visit was something of a disappointment. Our host was
a divorced mechanical engineer with two young daughters living in Kaysersburg - a Medieval village
(below) in the vineyard countryside
of
The differences in technology between this French home and the typical American home were intriguing. The Kayserburg shower had two controls: the left side regulated the water flow, while the right side precisely set the temperature. Lou found that 38 degrees (centigrade) suited him perfectly, while Joan preferred 36 degrees. Excellent idea! The toilet had a dual push button that looked much like a divided computer mouse. One side showed three drops of water, the other side showed one drop. This control regulated the amount of water used. Another excellent idea! However, we did NOT like the European habit of using duvets on the bed. It was nearly impossible to adjust the temperature at night with only a down-filled comforter and no top sheet. When the duvet was off, we were chilled to the bone; when it was on, we steamed and sweated. The solution: we removed the comforter from its cover and used the latter as a sheet, the former as a blanket. In the months that followed, a rash of disassembled duvets broke out across Europe; the authorities haven't caught up with us yet.
While wandering the streets of Kayserburg,
we noticed huge stork nests on the chimneys and searching in vain
for signs of their inhabitants. Later we caught up with these Alsatian storks at
their winter retreat in
This quaint
city, with five rivers streaming through its center, is a short train ride
from Kayserburg. On our first night
here, we came suddenly upon the huge, honey-colored cathedral - beautifully
illuminated in the midst of the dark city. We sat at a
street cafe and ate dinner facing it. The next
morning we enjoyed croissants and coffee under the trees at a riverside cafe, while the
- we have to say it - LOUD German visitors next to us drank their 9 a.m. "breakfast"
of beer. Later, we climbed the 365 stone steps of the cathedral for a fabulous
view of the city.
During one of our early morning walks along a riverbank, we spied a rat-tailed, whiskered muskrat swimming next to a group of graceful white swans. He fought with the swans for the bread floating on the water; soon his youngster popped out of a hole in the retaining wall, but ducked in again after encountering a huge swan. The next morning, we again saw M. Muskrat swimming purposefully along. He clambered clumsily up the bank and onto the path to snuffle up the bread crumbs left by tourists.
We loved Strasbourg. Too soon, it was time to leave this charming city, climb back on the train and head into GERMANY
DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS
GUIDEBOOKS: France
(Lonely Planet); Cheap Sleeps Paris
FILM: Mon Oncle (by
Jaques Tati)
*SERVAS:
U.S. Servas
(1999 Prices)
PARIS: Hotel Bonsejour in Montmartre. $27/double without bath; toilet down the hall & shared shower on first floor; $30 with shower; toilet down the hall.
Paris Walking Tours: (33) 01 48 09
21 40
STRASBOURG: Hotel Patricia, one-star hotel in 16th century house with pretty inner courtyard. $43/double, including breakfast; bathroom down the hall. Good budget choice in quiet neighborhood. Ph: 33 (0) 3 88 32 14 60
Joan and Lou Rose joanandlou@ramblingroses.net