Tuesday, April 21--Temple Church in London

Woke up early and decided to organize our things a bit better, then Ray got the idea to change our room to one on a higher floor here at the Travelodge Tower Bridge so there would be less train noise. So we asked and are now in our room on the top floor and IT has internet access, so I am happy. Didn’t realize how much I would miss being online until it wasn’t available.

Enjoyed a traditional English breakfast at Wetherspoon at Table 43—our new home base for eating out, I think. It has everything including a pub and the food is really good.

Back to the hotel so I could get my internet fix and catch up with everybody. Ray has gone in search of a Laundromat—I guess that’s what they are called here. Self-service laundry? Anyway, when he returns, we will probably head out to do our chores—laundry, mail, seat reservations for next Monday on BritRail to Edinburgh, shopping. That should just about be a day’s worth, but if not, we always have the British Museum and Westminster Abbey we can pop in to see. So nice to be in a country where we speak the same language—aaah, aaah, aaah Colin, I know what you are thinking!!

Well, Ray did return but without finding the mythical laundry that everyone speaks of but no one knows how to find. So maybe we won’t have as many chores as we thought. Need to find boxes before I can mail off packages, so that’s off the list. Checked on BritRail seat reservations, but the agent said that we should wait to make them until ready to travel as when seat reservation is made, it validates the ticket and our 60 days to use it begins then. We still need the pass to get us back from Southampton on June 25th, so if she is correct, we need to wait until Monday when we are traveling. I don’t think she was correct, but we may have to wing it.

While I’m thinking about it, I need to mention that we have been walking SO much everyday ever since our first port in Lisbon. Legs exhausted at the end of every day, but then we get up and go at it again. So much to see!

We walked from our hotel to Temple Church, one of the locations in the DaVinci Code. This church was built by the Knights Templar, the round church being consecrated in 1185. The Knights Templar were an order of crusading monks founded to protect pilgrims on their way to and from Jerusalem in the 12th century. Their history is fascinating and filled with secret legends. It was very rare for a monk to also be a soldier. They took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The symbol for the Knights Templar is of 2 knights on one horse, recalling their lack of horses and their poor beginnings. They wore a white mantel over their armour with a red cross on their breast—a distinctive red cross with equal “legs.”

On the stone floor of the round church are several effigies of knights lying out with their swords and shields ready. These commemorate patrons of the Knights Templar who are buried here. In 5 of the effigies, the legs are crossed—believed to be this way to show movement, as if the knight is walking towards the viewer. Many of these effigies were broken in 1941 in a fire caused when a German incendiary bomb landed on the roof causing it to catch fire and collapse. There had been an earlier fire in the winter of 1678. There was no water because of the freezing temperatures, so they fought the fire with beer. It was 6 years before they settled the bill with the brewer.

Between the arches of the church are gargoyles, which seem strange to be INSIDE a church. The stained glass windows are beautiful and show the Cross of the Templars, the vows of the Templars, and the 2 knights on 1 horse, among other symbols.

While walking back to the hotel, we looked down this alleyway and saw the beautiful bell tower of a church and decided to explore. Just as we got to the door, a man unlocked the church and let us in. This was St. Bride’s Church on Fleet Street, dedicated to the press, printing and journalists. There is an altar near the front where journalists and writers from across the world are remembered, especially those who died in the line of duty. After the Great Fire of 1666, Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt the church with a spire that’s been described as a “madrigal in stone.”

After the church was bombed in 1940, the crypts were excavated and a Roman house was discovered, along with fragments of a Roman pavement dating from the 2nd century. There have been 6 churches on this site. Some of the archaeological finds established that in the 6th century, St. Brigit (St. Bride) of Ireland had founded the first Christian church here.

We bought some apples and chocolate at the Tesco store—they had Krispy Kreme doughnuts! which I resisted--then went back to the hotel to do some research for tomorrow before we walked over to Wetherspoon again—this time Ray had the Large Mixed grill with every kind of meat you can imagine, and I had the salmon with a jacket potato (baked potato) and a Pepsi, into which they put a lime slice—go figure. And no puddings--as the Brits call dessert. The Paul O’Grady show was just coming on as we left for dinner, so maybe I can catch it tomorrow. And Katie called on Skype!—so good to “hear” from her.

Very nice day. Hoping to do Westminster Abbey and British Museum tomorrow and maybe Harrods. Oh, funy thing I heard on TV. A comedian was saying a common American expression, only on our TV he would say the real word and it would be bleeped out. Here, he actually said, "What the four-x's?!" It took me a minute to figure it out. : )

***pictures from top: Knights Templar in effigy at Temple Church, stained glass at Temple Church

Monday, April 20--April in Paris

So, to continue our lovely Trenitalia train trip—which I am not even sure WAS the correct train for us to be on, although it is the only one that showed up and it had the correct numbers on it, and no one, unfortunately, showed up to say that we were in their cabin:

So we were up and SO ready to get off when it finally arrived at Paris Bercy station. We dragged our luggage—oh, I forgot to mention that NOWHERE on this train trip did ANYONE help any passengers with their luggage. If there was an old lady struggling to get up the steps with her heavy luggage, and Ray hadn’t helped her, no one would have—certainly not the conductor who stood there watching her struggle.

So, we were gratefully at the final station and stood in a cue to get a taxi and arrived at the Paris Gare du Nord station where we promptly got lost trying to find the Eurostar office—which, in all the hustle, we had passed right by as we had entered the station. Then we had to wait until 1pm to check in but finally got in and had a nice lounge to wait in for our 4:13 train. Had a slice of delicious coconut flan and an apple juice while Ray ate 2 sandwiches. Just realized we are here in this month--April in Paris--like the song!

Boarded Chunnel train on time—THEY are always on time—and had a very pleasant trip under the English Channel and up to London. We kept seeing these fields upon fields of yellow stalky plants/flowers that were so brilliantly sunny yellow—I have to find out what they were. Ray’s guess is alfalfa to feed the cattle. The farmers seemed to plant one huge field of them then the next left green so that it looked like a huge patchwork quilt as we sped past going 160mph or more. (***Kate, Margaret & Colin have emailed to say that it is rape--what we call canola. Thanks, Guys!)

The bravest, most dare-devilish taxi driver took us to our hotel near Tower Bridge. He sped around corners and thru intersections, just barely missing pedestrians and bicyclists. Kind of fun actually. Our hotel is not the most luxurious to say the least, but it is basic and clean and in a very nice area. Sheets on bed not silky soft, but it does have the comforter-inside-two-sheets setup that I like. No air-conditioning, which surprised me, but it hasn’t really been needed with the cool air wafting in thru the window. The window that looks out on a Metro train station—which is a great wakeup service as they start running at 6am. And we wouldn’t want to forget our so far so lovely train experiences, would we? So here is a constant reminder—the clack, clack over the rails. Actually, I do kind of like it. Lincoln would LOVE it.

No hairdryer or washcloths, but that doesn’t surprise me from former visits in the UK. We cleared our bags of anything no longer needed and ended up with 2 trash bags full, so that’s good.

Found a GREAT restaurant just around the corner, which may be our new hangout for this short trip—Wetherspoons. Good food, good prices, and free WiFi internet connections. Hopefully that will go well and I will get to post these blog entries without any trouble.

So here is where I went to bed—dead tired.

Sunday, April 19--We Arrive in Rome to Board the Sleeper Train

Well, the disembarkation from the ship and getting thru Customs in Civitavecchia was a breeze. There WAS no Customs routine at all. We just got off the ship, found our luggage, and walked out to the shuttle—no one even checked our passports! We knew that there was a 10-15 minute walk to the train station, but, out of nowhere just outside the port gate as we began walking, there appeared this guy with a cart who offered to haul our luggage up the street for us for 1 euro per bag—well, we took him up on it, and, since he went at super speed, we were able to catch the earlier train. We bought our tickets for a total of 9 euros (beats the 150 euros to take us into Rome in a taxi!) and caught the 7:59 train. Didn’t even get to use my practiced Italian for getting the tickets: “Due biglietti per Roma Termini, per favore,” as Ray got the tickets and just spoke English. Pretty basic train and the restroom—wow! You have never had the full restroom experience until you are trying to hover over a toilet seat in a train that is bobbing and weaving on the tracks.

Got to Rome and had quite a time finding the place to deposit our luggage, but once we did, we were off for our Rome Illuminations Walk that I created based on the “Angels and Demons” sites.

I didn’t do the sites in the order of the book but in a progression based on location, due to the limited amount of time we had available. Oh, and I guess I should mention that it rained the entire time, so we sloshed thru the drenching showers to get to every location.

First stop, the # 2 site (air)---St. Peter’s Square where I looked for and found the elliptical block at the base of the white marble pyramid. It is Bernini’s West Ponente blowing the wind due east towards the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.

We were also going to do the Basilica while we were here, but the line was SO very long, we would’ve never gotten in and still been able to do our tour. So off to our next site, (#5---church of the Illuminati)---the Castel Sant’Angelo on the banks of the Tiber River. It is a huge, very imposing stone structure—a circular castle within a square fortress, all within a park shaped like a pentagram. I took several pictures of the Bronze angel with his sword pointing downwards, the balcony underneath, and the Bridge of Angels.

Next we crossed the Tiber to get to the Piazza Navona, our #4 site—water, outside the Church of St. Agnes in Agony where we found the Fountain of the Four Rivers with the Bernini obelisk. This fountain is absolutely amazing in its detail, and the dove beak on top did indeed point to the Castel.

We walked back to the Tiber and followed the river up to where we turned right to get to the Piazza del Popolo. We found the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo (#1 site—earth) and went inside. Very silly of me, but I did the whole facing the altar and pointing with my thumb backwards over my left shoulder stuff that Robert did in the book. And there it was—in a recessed alcove were the statues of Habakkuk and the Angel, intertwined and pointing SW to St. Peter’s Square. Sadly, the two figures were partially obscured as someone had covered them for repairs or something, so I could see most of his arm but not his hand. And the whole floor was covered, so I couldn’t see the mosaic described as the “demon’s hole entrance” in the book. But what we did see, including the altar, was fascinating.

We stopped in at little pizza place near the Piazza del Popolo and had the most delicious ham and cheese pizza slices.

Then we took the Metro to Barberini station and walked up to the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria (#3 site—fire) where we found others waiting on the steps as the church is closed from 12-4:30 everyday. So I didn’t get to see the St. Teresa Ecstasy statue with the angel on her back and his spear pointing west to Piazza Novena, but I did take pictures of the church. And now I am “Illuminated!”

Then it was back to the Roma Termini station, passing by amazing feats of architecture at every step along our way. We were drenched by the time we arrived and decided to do our souvenir shopping inside the station. We mailed off postcards and then Ray remembered that we had Premier Class tickets so we could use the Club Eurostar lounge—made a huge difference as it was damp outside even under the canopies.

I was sitting there in the lounge on the comfy sofa and saw a young girl and her grandmother reading together over in the corner. The girl’s whole family was there, but she and her grandmother were laughing and having such a good time, it made me smile. The grandmother looked up and saw me and smiled so sweetly. When they got up to go to the restroom, they came over to me and the grandmother rattled off a long sentence in Italian and I had to try to tell her “Parlo non l’Italiano,” in my best Italian, which is not very good at all. She seemed surprised, but she reached down and hugged my arm then they went on their way. When they came back, the young girl came over and stood right in front of me with the sweetest smile. So I said, “Mi chiasmo Susan,” and pointed to her, and she said “Mi chiasmo Julia,” but it sounded more like "Shulia". Anyway, this began a non-stop conversation between Julia and me where we would ask each other questions and laugh when we couldn’t understand each other. I have to admit that she was much better at the bit of English she knew than I was at Italian. We were only going to be in Rome for one day, so I actually spent more time on Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

For the next 2 hours, Julia sat right up under me with my Rick Steves’ Italian book, explaining the pronunciations to me and asking me questions. She thought it was absolutely amazing that I had been a teacher. She takes English lessons from her teacher on Mondays, and she said HER teacher was very severe—“sev-air-ay” meanig strict. But that I was a very “Brava (good) and gentile (kind) insegnante (teacher).” It was the highest compliment! Her family got in on our conversation, and we ended up learning all about each other, though they didn’t speak English hardly at all. I think her mother was happy that she was getting the practice with me. It was frustrating not to be able to ask more interesting questions, but it was also a lot of fun “talking” with Julia and finding out that she was 8 years old, lives in Calabria, was in Rome on a short vacation, and loves to swim. She asked all about me, too—wanted to know if I had any children, so I—using Italian and a lot of demonstrative hand motions—told her about Laura and Katie and about Lincoln. Well, that got her 4-year-old brother into the conversation, too, so we had the best time. He seemed to think it was hilarious that I didn’t understand him.

When it was time for Julia’s train, she came up to me and hugged me and kissed me on the cheek. We all said goodbye and told each other to have a good journey—all in Italian, and they seemed very impressed that I knew the correct words. I asked Julia if I could take her picture and she seemed delighted and smiled so big. I will always remember how much fun it was to pass the waiting time with her.

Well, then it was time for our overnight sleeper train—you know, the luxury cabin with the double bed and our own bathroom and shower and meals included? Well, guess what? All a lie. This train wasn’t much better than the train we took earlier in the day—as a matter of fact, considering that we paid so much for it, it was actually worse. First of all, if you described our cabin as a shoebox, you would be being extremely generous. With all our luggage in, we barely had room to stand up. We had to take turns getting up to do anything. Seriously, if Ray sat on the sofa and stretched out his leg, it hit the wall on the opposite side. So about 5’ x 6’ at the most. The meals included part? No deal. It was to be 28 euros per person for dinner not including tip, so we ate from the snack bar instead—I had fruit and a piece of cake and ate my Goobers chocolate covered peanuts I had saved for a special occasion—oh wow, was this special.

And the private bathroom? No bathroom at all except for at the end of the train car. And no shower. We did have a miniature sink that you pumped water into with a pedal on the floor. If it hadn’t been for the window, I would have been so claustrophobic. After a while, it got to be hilarious, and we laughed our way through the evening.

And, dont get me wrong, there were some advantages to having a cabin so small:

1) You didn’t EVER need to get up off the sofa for anything. You want an apple: reach to your side to get apple out of backpack and without moving feet at all, lean forward 2 inches to wash apple at sink by pumping the hot water pedal. Viola!

2) Legs feel tired? Prop them on one of the suitcases scattered on the floor—no, not scattered as that would imply room on the floor—so, I guess stacked would be better. And for real luxury, just prop your legs up on the opposite wall, without even stretching.

3) Get lost from your traveling partner? Not in this cabin. Turn your head and he is there—nowhere else he could be, unlike on that terribly inconvenient huge ship we just got off of where we got lost from each other at least once a day.

4) And the beds—yes, beds—bunk beds—turned into such by our cabin steward, who was never seen again. Because there was so little room on top between bed and ceiling, I slept on bottom and got to stare at myself all night since the mirror for the cabin was on the bottom of Ray’s bunk! And you know what? There was actually a THIRD bunk bed that we could’ve let down, had there been—thank heavens there wasn’t—a third person in the room. And the pillows were so conveniently wrapped in the crinkliest plastic possible with no pillowcases provided. So crinkle, crinkle all night long. But at least I didn’t miss a single stop on this trip.



What would I have done if I couldn’t have known that we stopped in—and I kid you not—Canzas! Wobbling my way down the hall to the bathroom at 2:30am and run into some window contraption for my umpteenth bruise and look out to see the station and its sign. Yes, it was like a cruel joke—reminding me that we may truly be in Oz where nothing makes any sense anymore. The resultant laughing kept me awake another 20 minutes while we sat dead still in the station—loading horses of a different color, I suppose. At least the hallways were clear at that time of the morning, unlike the rest of our 14 hours, 23 minute stay (which turned into 16 hours with all the stops thrown in) when, and I can’t blame them, people stood in the halls which were only wide enough for one SMALL person, so someone had to step back into their cabin to allow you to pass.

Has the term “cattle car” come to mind yet?

Ray says he will be taking this up with Rail Europe soon. It’s not so much that it was terrible; if we had known what we were getting, we would’ve been fine with it, but to see the pictures on the website compared to what we actually received is nothing less than false advertising.

AND we learned soon after leaving the station that this wasn’t the express train they had advertised either—we made at least 20 stops throughout the night—so guess who got no sleep at all?

AND because I knew I didn’t have a bathroom easily accessible, guess who had to go to the bathroom 5 times during the night? Down a narrow, rocking and bumpy hallway. Not one of our better ideas to say the least.

And because I got no sleep last night, I am going to close now and do today’s blog tomorrow. And get some much needed rest. : )

**pictures from top: Castel Sant'Angelo, how to parallel park in a tight squeeze!, Habakkuk & the angel at Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, Julia, our "private luxury" bath on the train from Rome to Paris