Trip to Las Vegas , Sunday, August 4 – Friday, August 9, 2013.

When we arrived in LV at 10 AM, we decided to see what it would cost to rent a car although we had been thinking to just use the LV bus and monorail system. But since Hertz offered a compact car rental for $300 for five days including the collision insurance, we decided to go with that. And since we were then able to eat and play blackjack away from the strip, these savings probably cut the cost in half. Notably the airport is still relatively new and all the car rentals are one large complex about one mile or so south of the airport. One humorous observation was that in the “old days” when one is trying to connect with arriving visitors, you held up a sign with their name on it. Now people just hold up their i-pad with the name displayed.

We stayed at the Paris Hotel, which is very nice although not as plush as the Bellagio or Venetian. By avoiding Friday and Saturday, the average rate was $100/night for Sunday through Thursday night. (Note that there are about 150,000 hotel rooms in LV and about 3,500 conferences per year.) Avoiding Friday and Saturday probably gave us a cheaper car rental as well. LV looked more busy and prosperous than our last visit of seven or eight years ago which was in July or August. Walking up the Strip was like swimming upstream against a relentless current of people. There did seem to be more beggars and more people, mostly Hispanic, selling cold bottles of water on the strip. There were also a couple of new casino/hotels that were very opulent with beautiful architecture. And there are so many upscale shops, but regrettably the old bargain buffets are almost extinct unless you go off the strip, but then the quality goes down. Breakfast buffets were typically about $20/person, and lunch/dinner $30-$50 on the strip although we did finally find a breakfast buffet in Bally’s for about $12 but the quality was mediocre with dried out leathery pancakes.

There were a lot of Chinese and Spanish speaking tourists which probably reflects the growing wealth of these regions. The TV channels in our hotel room echoed this with about 25% of the channels in Chinese, 25% Spanish and 50% English. Of course most of the low wage staff jobs are Hispanic. Penn & Teller was the highlight of the trip, but we did see a couple of other magician/comedians including Mac King at Harrah's and Murray at the Tropicana. Tickets for P&T were about $105 apiece but Mac King and Murray were about $20/ticket. You have most likely seen King and Murray on cable. P&T describe themselves as ardent libertarians and don't even like having to be searched by airport security. In fact they sell a copy of the Bill of Rights printed on a steel card the size of a credit card. Thus when you walk through the metal detector and Homeland Security takes your steel card away, you can tell them that they are taking away your Bill of Rights, especially amendment IV.

Another highlight for me was stopping by Baumann Books which is an antiquarian book store in the Venetian/Palazzo. They allowed me to hold a first edition of " Alice in Wonderland" which has an asking price of $16,000 - we didn't buy it. We did play some blackjack in Vegas and did find a casino off the strip, the Longhorn Casino that only had a $2 minimum. Altogether, we lost less than $100 gambling but had fun doing it over a total of about 7 hrs each. Blackjack is fun because of the social aspect of talking with other players and dealers from around the world. One dealer was from Cuba , who left Cuba 50 years ago and has no desire to visit, and another was a 4th grade teacher that works as a dealer during the summer. It is always fun to talk with the other players and observe people betting $25 or more per hand when they don’t know the basic playing strategy. Interestingly, there were many more women Blackjack dealers than our last visit and some casinos seem to put very good looking women dealers at the tables near the entrances. It is difficult though to find Blackjack tables on the strip that have table minimums of $5, and those that do, paid 6:5 on Blackjacks rather than the standard 3:2 plus they had other rules favoring the house such as the dealer hits on a soft 17. Thus we felt fortunate to still find a $2 table. One casino advisor discourages casinos from changing the rules fearing that long term it will turn off customers. But one understands the big casinos’ desire to keep a minimum cash flow per hour at the tables which means increasing the house odds for cheaper tables. It also did seem that there were fewer table games and more slots. And also regrettably, the casinos seemed to all look the same more so than the last visit with most of them being darkly lit with dark colored carpets. The Tropicana was an exception that had a bright interior and tan carpets.

The food was great but we didn't splurge on every meal. We did eat at Wolfgang Puck's Spago and had a really good pizza and a pasta dish. Also ate at a tapas bar just off the strip. And we had to stop at the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop of "Pawn Stars" fame. Of course none of the stars were there. I did buy a few coins. If you don't get there early though, there is a very long line to just get into the store since it's not all that big. Janis's Vegas souvenir was buying a pair of small dragonfly earrings with ocean (blue) opals and amethyst at a shop specializing in Native American jewelry and pottery. It was a third generation owner whose grandfather lived on an Apache tribe reservation and started out in leather work, such as belts and saddles.

Overall, we enjoyed our Vegas trip especially just walking around which we did a lot of, 7-11 mi/day.

Trip to Moab, UT, Arches N.P., Canyonlands N.P., Monument Valley, Page, AZ, Glen Canyon Dam, Horseshoe Bend of the Colorado R., Rattlesnake slot canyon, Upper Antelope slot canyon, north rim of the Grand Canyon, and Bryce Canyon

We flew into Salt Lake City on Thurs July 26, 2012, arriving about 1:00 PM, rented a car, and drove down to Moab, Utah.  It was a pretty drive over the mountains on highway 161 (?) and took about four hours.  We stayed at a very nice B&B with a nice view over the valley and red sandstone bluffs on the far side.  It had a very large commons area for the guests to relax and watch TV, play pool, and drink complimentary wine or soft drinks.  The owner, Keith, and his wife build the B&B about 15 years ago and then she unfortunately died a couple years later.  They designed and built it themselves except for pouring the cement foundation.  Keith is also a pretty good artist and designed a lot of the art works in the house.  A lot of his work is metal work.  Sean the cook came every morning to make us a great breakfast.  Our first morning he made “desert flowers” which is a flour tortilla put into a muffin tin and baked and then filled with essentially a quiche with sausages.  We stayed at the B&B four nights and hiked several times in Arches National Park, and the Islands in the Sky division and the Needles division of Canyonlands National Park.  It is so beautiful in that area.  We also met interesting guests at the B&B.  There was a young Italian couple from Venice.  Her English was pretty good and his was maybe just a little weaker.  He owns two fish/seafood shops in Padua.  They were in the U.S. for about three weeks and seeing many sites in CA, NV, AZ, UT and CO.  There was another couple from Henderson, KY – Bill and Paula although she is originally from Boston.  He was a retired chemical engineer.  And then there was one other couple from the San Francisco area – Carl and Katherine.  They were both retired chemical engineers too that worked for Chevron.  She was actually a Romanian Jew that had defected during the communist regime.  She didn’t defect for religious or economic reasons since as a chemical engineer she enjoyed a good salary, car, and apartment.  She just wanted freedom and so she defected when she was able to take a trip with her son to a conference in Italy.  She had been out of the country on a previous trip and when she returned, her friends asked her why she had returned.  But she couldn’t leave her son behind.  She was granted political asylum in the U.S. but had a hard time getting a job here since her chemical engineering degree wasn’t really recognized in the U.S. and she didn’t know the English technical language.  So she started at the bottom at Chevron as a technician and went to school after work to get a U.S. degree.  She eventually rose to a high position. 

We did several hikes in Arches and Canyonlands.  Since Arches was closer and had more scenic hikes, we went there several times.  It was only about 10 minutes from our B&B.  We did try the Delicate Arch trail our first day but we didn’t get there until about 10 AM and it was already pretty hot.  The trail has a significant elevation change with no shade.  We got probably 80% of the way and most of the elevation change out of the way but Janis thought it would be best to turn back due to the heat.  The rest of the days weren’t as hot but we still tried to go early or late.  Since breakfast wasn’t until 8 AM, we could get up early and do a hike first.  We did a hike in the Window area, hiked to Landscape Arch which was neat since you hike through some narrow passages between big “fins” of sandstone, and also did the Park Avenue trail.  Then on one morning we went out to the Islands in the Sky section at Canyonlands where we did the Mesa Arch trail which is very popular and frequently photographed and also did the Upheaval Dome trail.  The next day we went down to the Needles section of Canyonlands with a brief stop at Newspaper Rock which is covered with a lot of petrographs.  In the needles section we did the Slickrock loop trail.  It was interesting and pretty.  The trail is pretty much all solid rock rather than sand and you have to be on the lookout for the next Cairn which were the only signs of where the path was.  The trail is not particularly hard but it is a lot of up-and-down and very exposed.  There isn’t a good trail map or signposts so you aren’t really sure where you are or how much farther things are.  There were a lot of pretty views.

From Moab we drove down to Monument Valley, AZ.  The buttes were beautiful and we started down into the “valley” to drive the loop road.  The person at the information desk at the visitor center said that it shouldn’t be a problem for cars to drive the loop but after going about ¼ mile, the road was so rutted, potholed, and bumpy that we turned around.  We were afraid of damaging the car.  All in all Monument Valley was a bit of a disappointment.  It looks great in the old John Wayne movies but Arches and Canyonlands were more enjoyable.  We also stayed two nights in Page, AZ.  We toured the Glen Canyon dam, went to the scenic overlook of the Horseshoe Bend of the Colorado River and another often-photographed view of the dam and bridge.  We also drove over to the north rim of the Grand Canyon which was spectacular, of course.  It was 55 degrees there at 2 PM.  Monday July 31 was a real highlight though with guided tours through the Rattlesnake and Upper Antelope slot canyons - incredibly beautiful and everyone has seen photos of Antelope Canyon.  The canyons are about 20 feet or so deep and very narrow with near vertical walls.  The walls are sandstone that has been scoured by the flash floods so that the walls are very smooth and have a flowing feel.  We had Rattlesnake Canyon all to ourselves but there were probably about a hundred people being herded through Upper Antelope.  (Lower Antelope Canyon is where 11 tourists were killed by a flash flood in August 1997.  Most were foreigners and the guide survived by knowing a little about kayaking rapids.)  Our guide was Josh who is a Navajo.  He gives guided tours in the summer and goes to a community college the rest of the year in Mesa, AZ.  He ultimately wants to open a camera equipment shop and photo studio.  He was very good a setting our cameras for the best color and brightness and giving us the best angles.  We stayed at a B&B the first night in Page and at a Best Western the second since the B&B was booked.  That was just as well since the B&B was not what we hoped.  It was just an old split foyer house that used the bedrooms in the bottom level as guest rooms.  There were two shared bathrooms which we didn’t care for and not really a common area.  But the hosts were very nice. 

We left Page Tuesday July 31 to drive back to Salt Lake City with just a brief stop at Bryce Canyon which we had visited before.  We stayed at another nice B&B in SLC just north of downtown, Ellerbeck Mansion.  We walked to a great bakery called Gourmandise and also saw the new downtown redevelopment called Creekside.  It’s an urban mall built around a creek.  Before leaving for the airport the following morning, we had to revisit the bakery and go to a rare and used book store where Janis bought an old mystery book and I bought a first edition book of Charles Addams cartoons from the New Yorker.  

Ironically, it rained four out of the six full days that we were in the southwest but it was generally sunny.  The first day in Moab was very hot but it wasn’t too bad after that especially if we did our hiking early or late in the day.  It was also interesting that there were so many European tourists.  We heard a lot of German and French.  They must be fascinated with the U.S. west.  In our group of seven at the Antelope Canyon tour, there was a French family from Versailles, France (another engineer although an electrical engineer this time).  They were on a month long visit of the west and this wasn’t their first trip.  There was also a couple from Spain and one person from Slovenia although she now lives in the U.S.  We asked about whether most Parisians can really speak English and just refused to do so which is what so many people have told us.  Our tour companion said that most of the older French really do not know English but the younger generation mostly does.  This is consistent with our experience.

Paris, France with a daytrip to Brugges, Belgium Thursday, May 10 – Friday, May 18, 2012

Our flight left Knoxville about 11:15 AM on May 10, 2012 but we had about a three hour layover in Charlotte.  The Charlotte airport is fairly nice and we had a sandwich at Quiznos and a truffle apiece at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and a yogurt at another place.  Our Paris flight left around 5:30 PM.  Regrettably, we had an older model Boeing 767 without individual monitors so we couldn’t amuse ourselves watching movies.  Moreover, the screens for the cabin movie were very small and the movie wasn’t something that interested us.  We arrived in Paris around 8 AM.  Customs was very perfunctory and they just stamped our passport without asking any questions.  The Charles de Gaulle airport itself was very modern when it was built but it is dated now.  The design is odd with several circular terminals and off of each terminal there are about six satellite terminals that are reached by moving underground walkways.  These walkways in turn are accessed in the main terminal by several transparent tubes containing moving walkways in the inner atrium.  We took a taxi from the hotel for about $95 since we weren’t familiar with the train/bus system.  But now that we know a little more about Paris we could take the train/bus and save some money.  Besides, the traffic was just horrible going into Paris and was at a crawl much of the way.  A non-rush hour trip is about $20 less.

Our hotel room at the Hotel Tour Eiffel was very small with no end tables nor chairs and the bathroom was so small that the toilet was set at an angle so that you could actually sit down.  The TV only received about 12 channels and the only English channel was CNN.  The room did have a safe to keep valuables but when I tried to operate it, I promptly broke the aluminum key off in the lock.  Hotel rooms are small in the inner European cities but this one was much smaller than other rooms we had stayed in.  However, the room was clean and functional.  And there were five bakeries within a block of our hotel so that partially made up for the small room.  We always had at least one pastry per day and sometimes had a large meringue as well.  Fortunately we walked 6-12 miles per day to burn off the calories.  The hotel was about 1 mile from the Eiffel Tower and we tried a couple of times to go up in it.  However, the lines were always incredibly long since only one of four elevators was working to go to the top and we would have had to wait a couple hours in line.  There are stairs to the 1^st and 2^nd level but you can not take the stairs to the 3^rd level, i.e., the top.  Our hotel was also next to the Romanian embassy and we had a nice view out of our 4^th floor window into their garden behind the hotel. 

The highlight of our trip was ironically a daytrip to Brugges, Belgium.  This is an old city a little ways inland from the coast and did not see industrial development of 19^th and 20^th century nor much war damage so its many old buildings are very well preserved.  The are also many canals and it is called the Venice of the north.  Interestingly, the southern part of Belgium speaks Walloon which is really French and the northern part speaks Flemish which is dialect of Dutch.  The two groups don’t get along and our French guide said she is better off speaking English in Brugges which is in the Flemish part of Belgium even though people can speak French and usually English too.  As another side note, the border into Belgium is pretty much invisible although there is a border control point and the Belgiums do occasionally check identity of people entering.  Hence the reason for our tour company, CityRama, saying that everyone should carry their passport.  One fellow didn’t and so had to get off the bus in Paris before we started and run back to his hotel.  He delayed our start by about 10 minutes.  In Brugges our guide took us through the city and talked about the history of the city and many of the beautiful old buildings.  Her English was very good.  Then we had a couple of hours on our own to shop, take the canal boat tour which was included in the tour price, and eat.  We did take a canal boat tour which was fun.  We also had some truffles at the Godiva Chocolate shop.  Godiva was originally a Belgium company but then was bought by Campbell Soup and then sold to a Turkish company a few years ago.  We ate our main lunch at Casa de Patatas (Spanish for House of Potatoes) and had a big hamburger and French fries.  Of course we had to stop at the one bakery and have an Apfelflap.  There weren’t many bakeries but lots of chocolate and lace shops.  We also met a nice retired couple who live in Charlotte, NC.  He used to be president of University of Montana and we had a nice talk about life in academia.  To get to Brugges, we took a double decker bus and we sat in the top level to have a nice view of scenery.  We made one stop half way to Brugges and then again coming back to Paris.  France is like Britain in that along the freeways there aren’t shops, gas stations, etc. at the exits but rather there are little built up areas periodically along the freeway itself with a little shopping center containing restaurants, groceries, gift shops, a hotel, and gas station.  Our group was mostly Americans but with about 30% Spanish too.  When we got off the bus in Brugges we were told to be back at bus by 3:45 and that the bus would leave at 4:15.  One couple didn’t get back in time and even though the bus waited for 10 minutes, they didn’t show up and were left behind. 

We enjoyed walking around Paris.  The area we stayed in was a richer area since that’s where many embassies are located and government workers live.  There were also lots of small shops and cafes.  Interestingly, it seemed like all the small bakeries and sandwich places sold only a few soft drinks but always had Coca Cola.  It seemed like Coke was very popular.  We also soon found out that the scale of the city was much bigger than we had realized.  What looked on the map to be not too far away were usually a couple of miles.  Paris is very big and 12,000,000 people live in the urban area. It has many wide boulevards, many trees, large beautiful stone buildings and was very clean.  To get around, the metro (subway) was essential and relatively easy to use.  What would have taken 1 ½ hours to walk took only about 15 minutes by metro and tickets were about $2.20 for one trip. 

Here are some day-by-day highlights:

·         Friday:  We got to the hotel about 10 AM but the room not ready until noon.  So we tried to walk to meeting place for a walking tour Janis had found on the web and that started at 1 PM.  It was raining and chilly and we realized we couldn’t easily make sure that we had our room and also make the tour so we had to abandon the tour. 

·         Saturday:  We went to Louvre and saw some of the famous works including the Mona Lisa, which was surrounded by a throng of people, the statue called Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo plus Hammurabi’s Code.  As much as we love art (though not at all experts) it does get to be too much after a while.  We also saw the famous glass pyramid which was designed by I.M. Pei and serves as the museum entrance.  It is in the central plaza of the museum and surrounded by wings of the Louvre.  It received a lot of criticism when it was built but it seemed to work as a design to us.  Ironically, the Eiffel Tower was heavily criticized too when it was built.

·         Sunday:  This was our Brugges trip and we had to be ready to be picked up at 6:30 AM and did not get back about 9 PM.  Regrettably we woke up the hotel clerk when we left since he sleeps on the couch in the lounge area.  Since we got back to Paris so late, we had the tour driver drop us off at the Eiffel Tower to enjoy it at night.  At night it has a beautiful orange glow from lights on it.  At the top of the hours it has hundreds of bright white lights that go off randomly and look like hundreds of camera flashes and make the Tower sparkle.

·         Monday:  We did the Notre Dame cathedral on this day which was sunny and the temperature was in the high 60’s.  It was a lot of walking even though we took the metro to Louvre in order to buy a tour ticket for Versailles and then walked over from there and then back to the hotel.  We did find a used book store that stocked only English titles but we didn’t buy anything.  We also ate lunch at one of the street cafes although we ate inside and had omelets.  All the parks were full of people taking their lunch and soaking up the sunshine.  Interestingly we did see several soldiers with automatic weapons walking around and also saw some at the airport and around the government buildings.

·         Tuesday:  We took the subway to one of the big shopping streets and went to the Galleries Lafayette.  This is a huge upscale department store similar to Harrods and has a beautiful atrium in the center.  The food court had incredible selections of meats, cheeses, desserts, etc.  From there we went to the Centre Georges Pompidou which is devoted to modern art.  It is a museum often shown on TV which is distinguished by having most of the mechanical equipment and escalators on the outside.  There were some interesting works on display but had a lot of works that we just didn’t get.  We did have a nice savory chicken pastry on the way there though.  We took the metro back towards our hotel but stopped on the other side of the river in order to see the Grand Palace which has a big glass atrium.  But it didn’t seem like it was open to the public without paying.  But we did find ourselves in the midst of dozens of police vans full of police and many others milling about.  We didn’t realize that this was the inauguration day for France’s new president, Francois Hollande, and that the Elysee Palace was just north of us.  For dinner we went to a nearby grocery store and bought some lettuce, sliced cheese, and slice turkey to make some wraps.

·         Wednesday:  We took a guided tour of Versailles in the morning.  Travel again was by a double decker bus and was about a 40 minute trip to the south.  The Versailles Palace and gardens are magnificent although all the furniture was sold off during the revolution and so the furniture there are pieces from that period but not the original.  The Hall of Mirrors is of course the most impressive part.  The palace is huge and we saw only a part of it during our two hour tour.  Both at the Eiffel Tower and at Versailles there are dozens of what seemed to be immigrants from former French African colonies selling trinkets – mostly little colored Eiffel Tower key chains that were stored on a big steel ring.

·         Thursday:  We tried to go to the Maritime Museum since we’ve had good luck with enjoying such museums.  But it was closed since it was a holiday (Ascension).  We did walk around the nearby Passy Cemetery which is an above ground cemetery with many famous people buried there.  The above ground vaults were quite striking and “hauntingly” beautiful.  We also went to the Hotel Invalides which was built by King Louis the XIV so that his wounded and old soldiers could be taken care of.  It’s now a war museum and we toured the WW I and WW II museums as well as the museum of old armor and weapons and also saw Napoleon’s tomb.  For dinner we had probably our only authentic French meal at a brasserie nearby.  We shared a pumpkin and chestnut soup, a salmon club sandwich for me and a potato omelet for Janis.  They were all exceptionally delicious.  Our other meals included Italian restaurants, Panini’s, and sandwiches.

·         Friday:  We left the hotel at 8 AM for our trip back to the U.S.  Although our flight #787 was uneventful, the same flight four days later was the one on which a woman told a stewardess that she had a device implanted in her body which caused the plane to divert to Maine escorted by two F-15 fighters.

Some further comments:

·         Most people in the small shops did not seem to know much English.  Many people have said that they really can speak English but just don’t want too.   We’re not convinced that is true.  From our experience, it is very hard to learn another language if one isn’t immersed in it.  But most of the restaurants and tourist areas had fluent English speakers.  So we were disappointed in not being able to talk with Parisians and French people about their views of what was happening in France and Europe.  Our hotel clerks were very nice and polite but just weren’t very chatty unlike other countries.  And even if the bakery shop clerks could speak English, there were always lines of customers.

·         We also read that the French are very well dressed but that was misleading.  There certainly were many well dressed Parisians but there were also many dressed very casually but not as casual as Americans.  There also not very many obese French.

·         We had visions of dining casually at an outdoor café but the streets in the area we were in had a lot of car traffic and narrower sidewalks than imagined.  It didn’t really seem that much fun.  Admittedly, there are a lot of restaurants in the areas we visited.

Rome, Italy - December 8-15, 2011

Trip to Rome, Italy - December 8-15, 2011

The flight from Philadelphia took 7.5 hr with a dinner of cheesy penne pasta and then a sweet roll before landing. The plane was an A330 which must have been a recent version since we seemed to have just a little more knee room and the TV screens were larger than older versions. We did watch the movies Cowboys and Aliens, Rise of the Planet of Apes and the last Harry Potter plus Janis watched Solaris too. We landed about 8:30 AM and went through customs which took just a couple of minutes and was very perfunctory. The customs agent barely opened our passport and the waved us through. She didn't even stamp it nor enter anything into a computer. (We did though have to show our passports at the hotel and they registered us with the police – it’s the law in Italy.) The airport is about 17 miles west of central Rome on the Mediterranean coast and so we didn’t get to see much from the air on the way in. One negative is that the shuttle to the hotel cost about $53 plus a $6.50 tip. There wasn’t an obvious tourist info booth nor bus service. Also, the train or metro was probably cheaper but the closest stop to our hotel was about one mile. It did take a long time to get to the hotel by limo since the freeway ends before Rome and it was all busy local roads from there and in central Rome the streets are very winding, narrow, busy, and it was often necessary to dodge people. The trip back to the airport was even more expensive since we used the hotels service to arrange transportation – it cost about $81. And going through U.S. customs at Philadelphia was a nightmare. We had a 1.5 hour layover between our flight from Rome and our flight to Charlotte but the plane was 1/2 hr late (10 ½ hr flight) and then it took 40 minutes to get through customs and another 30 minutes to get through security. We were told that it often takes hours to get through customs in Philly. Fortunately US Air got us on a 9:05 direct flight to Knoxville

We stayed at the Hotel Abruzzi which was very nice and clean albeit small. The shower was extremely small and difficult to even turn around in. The staff persons at the front desk were very nice and friendly and we enjoyed chatting with them. The hotel is just across from the 2000 year old Pantheon. Our hotel window looked right at it and also overlooked a nice little piazza with a fountain. Restaurants pretty much surrounded the piazza which seemed pretty typical for Roman piazzas. We took a nap for a couple of hours and then explored the Pantheon and the area around our hotel. The Pantheon was built by the Romans as a temple to all their gods but was converted to a Catholic church; indeed there is a small worship area and altar on the side opposite the entrance. The tombs of a King of Italy and of Rafael are also in the Pantheon. A distinctive feature is the oculus, i.e., circular hole in the domed roof that lets in light. We later went over to the Trevi fountain, walked through a few stores and admired the Christmas lights along the Via del Corso. They were strings of red, green and white lights hung over the street and running lengthwise.

For dinner meals, we ate at restaurants close to the hotel on three nights. We generally had pizza Margarita, spaghetti bolanese, or ravioli. One restaurant was particularly memorable since we sat at tables in the narrow street outside the restaurant and enjoyed watching all the people go by. Plus our waiter was very friendly. It was funny to us that pizza Margarita is supposed to have basil so that the three colors of the Italian flag – red, white, and green - are represented. But there was never any basil. We specifically asked for basil one night and so they put three small leaves on top. It was also funny that we happened to talk with one Italian while waiting in line for customs at Philadelphia. Since there were so many pizzerias we asked whether that was typical of Italy or just of the tourist areas. He said pizzerias are very common throughout Italy but that he preferred Pizza Hut. Two other nights for dinner we just bought sandwiches and ate them in our room and the other night we bought bread, lunch meat, lettuce, sliced cheese, and yogurt at a small grocery store nearby. It was an interesting experience to feel like a Roman shopping for food. Breakfast was always a buffet of scrambled eggs, cheese and ham slices, chocolate croissants, and orange juice, coffee or hot chocolate at a restaurant across from the hotel that the hotel had contracted with. We usually didn’t eat a lunch per se, but rather had a gelato after walking in the morning. We really liked the gelato and the variety of flavors was tremendous although I usually went for either the tiramisu or stracciatora (vanilla with chocolate chips). It was about $3.25 for a small cup. There was even a gelateria that offered 100 flavors. We also usually had a pastry at one of the many numerous bakeries. And twice we had roasted chestnuts. We had never had roasted chestnuts; they were so good although a bit pricey at $6.50 for 10 large chestnuts served in a brown paper cone. There were lots of vendors standing over their large, shallow, circular pans with charcoal bricks. Interestingly, none of the vendors looked Italian but rather looked like either Indian or North African with darker skin. In some places we had to run a gauntlet of such vendors selling various toys or, when it rained, umbrellas. There were also numerous beggars sitting up against building walls asking for money.

English was not much of a problem where we were. There was almost always someone who spoke some English in the stores and shops we went to. We also felt pretty safe everywhere we went. There were always lots of people almost everywhere and lots of activity well after midnight. The piazza outside our hotel had street musicians that would play or sing until about midnight. One night there was a very good opera singer. (Fortunately our room windows were very sound proof.) The streets are typically very narrow and full of people and there are many tourists and lots of little shops and history. We enjoyed just walking around and window shopping.

The upper and lower houses of the Italian parliament were just a couple minutes walking from our hotel – the senate to the west and the lower house to the east. The buildings are right in the midst of all the other buildings with no buffer zones. You can walk right by them and not know what they are and cars can drive pretty close to them. There are some pop up posts in places to prevent traffic getting too close and there are some police, but in general, the security looked minimal. Since we were in Rome during the euro crisis and the Italian government was proposing further budget austerity, we did see small demonstrations against austerity measures the last three nights. They demonstrated in the piazza outside our hotel in front of the Pantheon or in front of the lower house. The ones in front of our hotel started with classical music or American pop music. We talked to two of our hotel desk clerks, a young worker in one of the bakeries, one of our tour guides, and an older professional that we met in line in Philadelphia. No one was happy about the economic situation. The young man didn’t believe he would get a pension (equivalent of our social security) when he got older. Another felt like it was a manufactured crisis and if the Italian government would sell some of its gold reserves or other assets, then there wouldn’t be a problem but he also said that the retirement age needed to be raised to something similar to the U.S. – “no more of this retiring at age 50. Italians are getting a dose of reality.” Two people felt that joining the euro zone was a mistake. And two people felt that people just needed to stop complaining and get a job. Of course two people pointed out that the financial crisis started with mortgage problems in the U.S. but didn’t actually blame the U.S. for Europe’s problems. Since they didn’t actually blame the U.S. for their problems, we didn’t pursue it. They were probably just trying to say that the U.S. is having its problems too.

On Saturday we walked up to the Spanish Steps to see what they were. (See photos.) They are very wide steps that go up about a 100 foot hill. There was lots of activity there since they are famous and there is a piazza and fountain. They we walked up to Piazza del Popolo to see where our tour started on Sunday. Then we crossed the Tiber River and walked down Cola di Rienzo which is a wide boulevard with lots of shopping. We ended up at St. Peters Square at the Vatican. We wanted to go into St. Peters Basilica but the line stretched 2/3 of the way around the Square so we went to the Vatican Museum. The museum contains many art objects, tapestries, and of course the Sistine Chapel. It was very crowded and goes through so many rooms that we really didn’t get as much out of it as we should have. It was awesome to stand in the Sistine Chapel and look at Michelangelo’s work on the ceiling. It was humorous though that the famous painting of the finger of God stretching out to meet the finger of Adam is much smaller than we thought it would be since it’s just a small part of the overall ceiling but pictures in magazines and on TV focus on it and give an impression that it’s very large. We headed back to the hotel. That night we went over to the Christmas fair in the Piazza Navona which was a circus in Roman times. All the lights and all the people were neat. There were two long rows of boots selling Christmas ornaments, toys, food and other trinkets. Not much high end stuff and again most of the vendors didn’t look native Italian.

Sunday was our big day since that’s when we went on the Angels and Demons tour. That is described at the end of this narrative. There were six Americans, five Germans, and four Italians on the tour. Monday we went back to the Vatican to go through St. Peters Basilica. We went on a tour and our guide was very good. We did see the sculpture La Pieta by Michelangelo which is a stature of Jesus’ body in the arms of Mary. There is a Plexiglas wall in front of it since several years ago a crazy guy took a hammer to it and did some damage before he could be stopped. You can’t see the repairs from far away. They never could find part of Mary’s nose. Regrettably, we could not go down in the crypt under the main level to see the tombs of the popes and St. Peter.

On Tuesday we went over to the Colosseum. The column of Trajan, Trajan’s market, and some ruins are on the way. Regrettably, it looked like Trajan’s market was closed to tourists for some renovations. It was neat to go into the Colosseum and try to imagine the 40,000 or so people in the stands watching the games. We rented an audio guide which was helpful but a guided tour would have been better. We also walked over to the Roman Forum. There isn’t much left of the Forum since much of the stonework was reused in other buildings. But it was still interesting to be at the heart of the Roman Empire of hundreds of years ago.

Wednesday we just walked around and shopped. We were hopping to find a purse or something for Janis but they were so expensive. We did go to a yarn shop and Janis bought a skein of yarn. There aren’t any large department stores in central Rome just many, many small shops. Throughout the trip we saw many beautiful Christmas lights, ornaments, and large trees. One tree was decorated with Mercedes Benz symbols and the nearby street had lights and decorated with Mercedes Benz symbols as ornaments. There are also so many churches and it seemed that the majority were called Santa Maria something.


Interesting facts from the Angels and Demons tour in Rome with Roberto Sunday, Dec. 11, 2012

Note: Our guide’s name was Roberto. He had an American father and Italian mother, but he grew up in Italy and his first language is Italian. He spoke English like a native with a very American accent. He had also just found out that his wife was pregnant with their second child and that there was some concern whether their parents would be happy about it because of the financial implications (or was it a story to bring a bigger tip?). Roberto got a B.S. degree in geology and a master’s degree in archeology. He had been doing the tour for eight years and keeps adding new tidbits of information. Interestingly, since the Euro crisis was ongoing, Roberto also said that the Italians were initially enthusiastic about joining the euro but that the prices of things went up a lot when the euro was introduced but that wages did not go up and hence many think it was a mistake to join. Below is what he told us on the tour.

o “Angels and Demons” is just a book and Dan Brown took considerable license to pick and choose and invent things to make a “page turner” of an adventure. One purpose of the tour was to reveal the “truth.”
o A basilica (coming from root word for bishop) is the seat of a bishop whereas a cathedral (coming from root word for cardinal) is the seat of a cardinal
o Capella or chapel in English means a small church but in Latin it means a tomb. The chapels in churches in Italy are generally family tombs and of course were built by wealthy families. Each one has a crypt below and is covered with a slab that is part of the floor and looks like a circular or elliptical manhole. The bodies are put in the crypt and just decompose. Hence, there can be quite an odor of decaying flesh which gave rise to the term “Demons hole” which was part of Dan Brown’s book. In particular, the church Santa Maria del Popolo was the first church in Brown’s book where an executed cardinal was found and was the church where we started our tour. It was built by the Chigi family whose wealth came from banking. Their family crest is six vertical shields in a pyramidal stack with an eight pointed star on top. In their chapel in the church are two pyramids on each side which symbolize the family crest. Dan Brown took poetic license to say that the pyramids stood for something else. The Chigi family was also responsible for funding much of St. Peter’s Square and you can see the family crest in several places. Also interesting is that the church was supposedly built on this site because there was an old forest of poplar trees with a legend that Nero’s ghost roamed the forest. The word for poplar is also “popolo” so the church means either Saint Mary’s of the People or Saint Mary’s of the poplars depending on your taste since no one knows for sure. The construction of the church there over 1000 years after the death of Nero, who is loathed by Christians, was a way to purify the site.
o Nero was loathed by Christians because he executed St. Peter on the site of a hill and possibly an ancient Etruscan village called “Vaticum” whence the name Vatican. Nero cleared the Etruscan ruins and built the Circus Nero there. Nero hated the Christians whose religion had been outlawed. After the fire that destroyed most of Rome, he blamed the Christians although it is often believed Nero started the fire himself. He also later executed Peter on this site and Peter is buried there. Legend is that, out of respect, Peter asked to be executed in a manner different than that of Jesus. So Nero had Peter, then around 70 years old, crucified upside down. Nero was very eccentric and used to bath in public with his three (??) wives and two (??) husbands, yes husbands, in a large shallow red stone bath filled with warm goat’s milk.
o The plan of St. Peter’s Square is in the shape of a keyhole which is a symbol of the lock and keys to enter the kingdom of heaven. Two crossed keys (our Basilica tour guide said one is silver to symbolize power on earth and the other gold to symbolize the power in heaven) are of course symbols of the papacy and has an origin in the symbolic Jesus giving Peter the metaphoric keys to the kingdom of heaven. There were of course no physical keys but rather just the metaphor. The Catholic Church’s “conclave” to choose the next pope comes from “con clave”, i.e., “with keys.” Peter is, of course, waiting with these keys at the gates of heaven.
o Peter was the first pope chosen centuries after his death by the Council of Nicea. The phrase “on this rock I will build my church” is also interesting. In Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew, one of Peter’s name meant rock which was translated into Greek and then into Latin as the word meaning rock from which we get Peter, e.g., Spanish ‘piedra’ (rock), or petroleum, petrology, or petrograph, etc. (There is of course some dispute about this derivation of “Peter.”)
o It is also interesting that Rome is full of obelisks from Egypt from the Roman Empire days. Saint Peter’s Square has a large obelisk that is 4,000 years old. Regrettably, it used to have hieroglyphs but at one time the Church became concerned that the hieroglyphs might be witchcraft symbols and so had them “sanded” off. (Note also that this obelisk is also called the Pope’s p****.) But we must resist making judgments with today’s standards. The Catholic Church would certainly not do this today but would simply not display the obelisk there. “Angels and Demons” also refers to a plaque in the Square with a cherub blowing wind to the next church site. However there are actually 16 such plaques blowing wind from all directions symbolizing the central importance of Rome. Dan Brown chose the one blowing from the west because it suited his purposes.
o St. Peter’s basilica is actually the fifth basilica on the site. Bernini had a large role in the design including the 140 statues of saints and martyrs adorning the top of the colonnade. There are over 3,000 (??) statues designed by Bernini in Rome alone. Bernini of course didn’t sculpt them all but rather designed them and then supervised their construction by his workers and pupils.
o The tour also visited the church Santa Maria della Vittorio which was also a site in “Angels and Demons.” This church of course contains the beautiful statue by Bernini the “Ecstasy of St. Teresa.” This was apparently a scandalous work at the time since it put into stone the vision that St. Teresa wrote about in which she seemed to be saying that she had sexual intercourse with God although the statue is much more modest. St. Teresa was a nun from Spain whose family was Jewish at the time of Isabel and Ferdinand who gave Jews and Moors two simple choices – convert or leave. Her parents converted and wanted to marry her to a well off Christian family to help solidify their position. She did not want to marry the man plus she also wanted to be educated and so chose to become a nun. The statue is baroque as evidence by the emotion and movement. The statue is famous for the flowing robes and emotion in the face.
o The tour also included the Piazza Navona or Plaza of the Navy which was a Roman circus in which mock naval battles were sometimes staged. In “Angels and Demons” the protagonist, Robert Langdon, finds this obelisk with a dove with an olive branch in its beak, i.e., the angel of peace, which supposedly points to the next site. The olive branch doesn’t really point in the correct direction and the story invents the reason that the direction was changed which isn’t true. Also, the obelisk stands in the middle of a fountain and one of the kidnapped cardinals was chained and dumped into the fountain to drown. In actuality, the fountain is fairly shallow.
o The last stop was Castel Sant’Angelo. This was originally the mausoleum of Emperor Hadrian but was plundered in one of the barbarian invasions. “Barbaros” meant any foreigner to the Romans but came to be associated with the red beards, ‘barba ros,’ of the Teutonic invaders. The mausoleum was originally lined with marble as were many of the old Roman temples, etc. but the marble was stolen in the invasions. The marble was hung on the walls with iron pins and was simply pulled off by invaders and that’s why so many walls of Roman ruins have walls full of little holes. The crypt of Hadrian within the monument contained a golden urn of Hadrian’s ashes but the urn was taken and the ashes dumped. The Catholic Church built on top of this building as can be seen by two distinct architectural styles. The papal library is at the top and was where the kidnapped cardinals were kept and branded in “Angels and Demons.” Interestingly, Pope Paul IV was the pope who had all the ‘private parts’ of the Vatican statuary chiseled off and replaced with fig leaves. But the papal library which Pope Paul IV used frequently was decorated with a mural all around the top of naked figures. Hypocrisy?? It also interesting that the ‘private parts’ that were chiseled off were saved and that the Vatican does plan to restore them eventually. This paints a curious image of boxes of these body parts lying around somewhere in the Vatican. Notably, it is a very strong tradition for centuries that once a work of art is unveiled you don’t change it. But Pope Paul IV violated that rule. Michelangelo’s work in the Sistine Chapel also had many nude figures and the Pope waited until after Michelangelo died and then had some of the figures painted over with clothes. The Castel Sant’Angelo gets its name from Saint Michael, the patron and protecting saint of Rome. One part in “Angels and Demons” was a secret underground passage from Castel Sant’Angelo to the Vatican. There never was such an underground passage but there is certainly an aboveground passage that is atop a wall stretching between them.
o Our guide also reminded us of the pagan origins of the Easter Holiday although Easter is now associated with the Resurrection. I don’t remember everything our guide said but a quick web search (http://landscaping.about.com/cs/pests/a/easter_rabbit.htm) indicates that the name Easter comes from the pagan Saxon goddess Eastre who was the Teutonic god of the dawn, spring and fertility. (The sun indeed rises in the east at dawn.) The first full moon after the vernal equinox was associated with rebirth and pregnancy and of course the egg and the hare were symbols of rebirth and fertility.
o Our guide also touched on the existence of an ancient society called the Illuminati. There apparently no evidence for such a society but there was a Bavarian Illuminati secret society of freethinkers founded in the 1700’s. There is no evidence that Galileo, etc. belonged to such a society as portrayed in the book.
o Our guide also claimed that there were many similarities between the Christian belief in resurrection of Jesus and other older religions such as the Egyptian god Horus but that discussion seemed speculative and a little out of context and best left for those wishing to pursue it which can easily be done through Wikipedia and other sources.

London, England. December 9-16, 2010

Trip to London, England, December 9-16, 2010
We left Knoxville about 3:30 PM Thursday, Dec. 9 and landed at London Gatwick airport around 7:30 AM, Friday, Dec. 10 via Atlanta. The flight was without problems but as we descended through the clouds the landscape was white with snow around London in the dim morning dawn since it had snowed a few days before. The weather was generally cloudy during our stay in London – typical English grey days. The temperature ranged from 32 to 45oF and it only sprinkled a few minutes a couple of times. We didn’t really feel very cold since we brought warm coats and knit caps that could cover our ears and there was not much wind. However, this was an unusually cold winter and if it continues for the rest of December then this would be the coldest December on record.

Clearing customs and getting our luggage went fairly quickly and we decided to take the train into Victoria Station in London which is about a 10 minute walk from our hotel. Deciding which train to take and figuring out how to get a ticket was confusing but a fellow behind us in the ticket line helped us by explaining the best train and how the auto-ticket machines worked. We didn’t have any trouble based on his instructions although it did cost about $50 for the tickets. We later learned that we had taken the express train which only stopped once. A train that stopped more often would have been much cheaper. While boarding the train Janis observed the warning printed in large letters on the edge of the platform “Mind the Gap,” i.e., the gap between the edge of the platform and the train car. That has become sort of a catch phrase in some British literature. The ride took a little over 30 minutes and was occasionally a time travel through a Dickensian landscape with decaying, sooty-looking carcasses of dead factories and with bridges and rail infrastructure a century or more old. The train itself was modern but very crowded. Our car had cloth bench seats and about half of them shared a table with the opposite seat where many commuters were working on their laptops. Victoria Station was huge with lots of shops around the periphery of the central grand room that had huge exposed steel trusses high above. It was just about the peak of the rush hour and so many people were flooding through the station to work. We did stop at a tourist office to get directions to our hotel and to buy a London Pass which would get us into several attractions.

Hotel Luna Simone was about a 10 minute walk down Belgrave Avenue which is mostly a residential area of three story town houses most of which were white and very nicely maintained. Our room at the hotel would not be ready until 11 AM so we dropped our luggage there and walked over to the Parliament Building. One note about London: it is a general rule that streets do not run in straight lines and it is only by accident if a street goes straight for more than a couple hundred feet. The street grid is more like a random mosaic that any regular grid. One nice help for tourists is that “Look Right” or “Look Left” is stenciled on the pavement at every corner since most tourists are in the habit of looking the wrong way for traffic. At the little park next to Parliament, we took some pictures of the Thames River, Parliament buildings, a sculpture called the Burghers of Calais and Westminster Abbey and walked back to the hotel. Our hotel room was small but inexpensive for London. The cost was about $150/night including breakfast but that is very cheap especially since we were within a mile of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and several museums. Twin brothers owned the hotel and they were very nice and everything was very clean. They started the hotel 41 years ago. As far as we could tell, one of the owners had a Portuguese wife who was much younger. They had three kids about 7, 10 and 13 years or so old. We would see them on school mornings in their navy blue school uniforms as they went off to school. The hotel is kind of a boutique hotel or large B&B since there are only about 20 rooms or so. Breakfast was a fried or soft boiled egg, bacon, baked beans or yogurt, toast, juice and coffee (instant) or tea. We rested a couple of hours in our room since we had been up for about 26 hours. Then we walked northwest of our hotel up to Harrods department store after stopping at the Victoria Station shopping mall. The area was mostly nice residential areas again with some shops, several parks and also an area of embassies.

Harrods Department store certainly meets all the hype one hears about it. It was a fantastic shopper's paradise but frustratingly crowded. It was huge, occupying a city block and having 7 floors. The 5 food courts were phenomenal with each one having a specialty: confections/tea/coffee, meats, fruits & vegetables, cheese, and bakery.. It is pricey though. The cheapest pair of women’s shoes was about $75 and the art department had many $10,000 plus items. Harrods also has an interior escalator shaft called the Egyptian escalator and there are open windows overlooking it. An opera singer was singing from one of the windows. From Harrods we walked up the street a little to look at all the shopping and then returned to the hotel. We did stop at a Tescos around the corner from the hotel in early evening to get some yogurt and snacks and found they had dark chocolate Kit Kat bars so we went there about three times.

On Saturday, we walked over to get tickets for the 9 AM tour of Parliament. The tour was of course very interesting and we had a great guide, Isabel. She was a volunteer but very knowledgeable. We had a small group of 10 and she kept emphasizing not to use cell phones or take pictures or wander off since that gets security very excited. The highlight was of seeing the House of Lords and House of Commons and learning some of the traditions that go back hundreds of years. Some make no sense now but had great symbolism when they originated. We were also impressed by some huge paintings of the Napoleonic wars. Unfortunately they have faded so much that they look drab but earlier restoration attempts have made it impossible to try again. From Parliament we walked up the street a little ways to take pictures of Big Ben and then went across the street to Westminster Abbey which again is so full of history. We did the self-guided tour with the hand held audio guides. We didn’t realize how many notable people were buried in the Abbey including Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, and many more including many writers and kings. Very awe inspiring. Interestingly, there is a memorial to one Robinson' in the Abbey and another Robinson is buried there (no Gayers) - probably no relation:

* Memorial: Sir Thomas Robinson (d1777 at age 76) - architect and Member of Parliament
* Buried in the Abbey: Sir Lumley Robinson (d1684 at age 36) - Baronet of Kentwell Hall (Son of Thomas Robinson but no relationship to the one above)

From Westminster Abbey we walked up Whitehall street and past the entrance to Downing Street. You can’t walk down the street and past No. 10 Downing Street any longer. There is a big iron gate and guard house at the street entrance and a couple of guards in black carrying very visible machine guns. We took some pictures and walked up to Trafalgar Square that has a monument to Lord Nelson, the hero of the battle of Trafalgar. On the north side is the National Gallery. Entrance is free and our London Pass got us the hand-held audio guides for no additional charge. Fortunately, all the museums and art galleries are free and many of them have free guided tours. However, there are entrance fees to Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and the London Tower with the latter also covered by our London Pass. We were overwhelmed by the size of the collections at all the museums we visited which included the National Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the British Museum. One could easily spend a day at each whereas we only spent about three hours at each. The National Gallery had so many paintings that we only tried to see a suggested 100. Regrettably our understanding of art limits our appreciation. We did grab a sandwich and slice of apple pie in the cafeteria which again was very crowded. As we left the museum there was a street juggler entertaining a crowd below the entrance porch and stairs of the museum. Looking out over Trafalgar Square from the museum we could also see hundreds of people in Santa Claus costumes that had congregated around the Lord Nelson’s monument just to have fun and celebrate the season. The organizers called it a “flash mob.” We headed back from the National Gallery and found a nice bakery called Stiles that we visited about three times. They had great pastry and it was inexpensive. We had an apple turnover and roll for $3.00. One day we got there about 5:30 PM and they were trying to sell their inventory for the day so we got everything for $1.56 (£1). To finish out Saturday we ate at a British Pub just up the street. A pint of Guinness always tastes good at a pub. We both had the smoked salmon which was also good.

Sunday we walked up to Harrods again since they opened at 10:30 AM. We thought Harrods would be less crowded Suncay morning but it was still crowded so we walked over to the Victoria and Albert museum. Of course we had to stop to get a pastry at Valerie’s patisserie on Brompton Road. The Victoria and Albert museum had an interesting and beautiful collection of medieval and renaissance architectural facades and lots of statues. They also had two huge rooms of castings of Roman, Greek and other ancient architecture. Many were quite large like Trajans Column which is 125 ft high and 11 ft in diameter although they had it in two pieces. Some of the original architecture in Italy, Greece, etc. has deteriorated since when the castings were taken such that the castings now provide better information than the originals. The museum also had some very interesting collections. One room had a terrific jewelry collection; another room was full of nothing but lace in pull out vertical trays. They also had a huge room of incredible old tapestries. From the Victoria and Albert we walked to the Science Museum which is a fun museum. On the way we did walk past the side of the Natural History Museum. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to go in but we did admire the ice rink in front of the museum on one side. They also had several large trees nicely decorated with lights. The highlights of the Science Museum were the model ships, a collection of old machines, tools, trains, engines, computers, the remains of Crick and Watson’s model of the DNA molecule, and much more. One really neat exhibit was a globe about 10 ft in diameter upon which was projected demonstrations of weather, ocean currents, and civilization’s lights seen from space at night. There was also a huge vertical metal ring about 50 ft in diameter with a light show on the inside rim of the ring that would just have text that would bounce around and break up and act like they were influenced by gravity. From the Science Museum we walked back to Harrods to buy some gifts and take some photos at night of the beautifully lit exterior of Harrods, and then walked back to the hotel.

For Monday we went up to the underground station at Victoria Station and bought passes for about $9 that let us take the subway/underground all day as long we didn’t go too far away from central London. We took the underground over to the Tower of London. The Tower is next to the iconic Tower Bridge and so we got some photos of it. The Tower of London is really a collection of building inside old fortress walls. Of course the highlight was seeing the crown jewels. These jewels are just those used in the current and past coronation ceremonies and include several crowns and maces. There weren’t as many as we thought there would be and there isn’t much jewelry so it was a bit of a disappointment. But we did see where the two boy princes were held prisoner and presumably murdered on orders of Richard III. From the Tower we walked to St. Paul’s Cathedral which definitely was worth the visit. It was beautiful with incredible mosaics over the nave and black and white paintings on the dome. We walked up the couple hundred stairs to the walkway around the interior periphery of the dome and also went down to the crypt to see the coffins of Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington. We also learned that the word nave comes from the term for ship, like naval, because the nave is a barrel arch and looks like a ship hull upside down. We walked back to the hotel from St. Paul’s and stumbled across the best book store we’ve ever been in. It is called Foleys and is huge with about four floors of books. They had a fantastic collection of science, engineering and math books. That evening we ate at an Italian restaurant just up the block from the hotel. We both had the spaghetti and meatballs which was very good along with appetizers of a goat cheese crostini and pasta fagioli soup.

On Tuesday we decided to walk to the British Museum but walked past Buckingham Palace on the way to the museum. Unfortunately, there aren’t any tours during most of the winter. We also stopped at Fortnum and Mason which is another very upscale store selling mostly household items. All the clerks had on cut-away tuxedos. We wanted to go to the British Museum in order to see the reading room where Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin spent time, the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles and the Rhind Papyrus which dates from around 1650 B.C. and shows some Egyptian mathematics. Regrettably the Rhind Papyrus was not available and the reading room was undergoing renovation. The British Museum is also where part of the Mummy II was filmed. They have done a nice job of patching the holes where the mummies burst through the exterior walls of the museum;-) Seeing the Rosetta stone and learning some of its history was the highlight. Apparently it was part of an Egyptian temple but the temple was demolished when Egypt became Christian and the Rosetta Stone itself was incorporated in a fortress in the 15th century. The stone is not complete and so there are still parts out there somewhere in Egypt. Napoleon’s soldiers discovered the stone in 1799 and it then passed to the British upon the defeat of the French in Egypt.. On the way back to the hotel we walked past the Horse Guards parade ground and saw a herd of Santa Clauses on bicycles. There was about 40 of them plus two people in reindeer costumes that tried to stay in front. They were just bicycling around in a big oval and having fun. We didn’t do anything exciting Wednesday evening except to pack and get ready to leave at 8 AM the next morning.

Overall we did a lot of walking – over 8 miles every day. We did manage to avoid the student demonstrations about the tripling of tuition although we saw plenty of police. We were also in London when Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla were accosted by a crowd in their car. That was a big deal and the head of security offered to resign. Charles and Camilla were not in an armored car but they were in an area far away from Parliament and the sites of previous demonstrations and the street had been checked out a ½ hour before. We did walk past Scotland Yard and the building was surrounded by barriers and police with about one policeman every 20 feet plus there were dozens of vans of police parked on the side streets in case of trouble. We learned a new term: “kettling” which refers to police using barricades and police lines to try to funnel and control the demonstrators. We did see one unrelated demonstration on Saturday, Dec. 11. A small group of people were walking up the street outside of parliament with a heavy police escort in a demonstration against having any sharia law in Britain and against immigration. We saw a lot of people of African, Middle East, Indian/Pakistani, and Asian extraction. And everywhere we went seemed crowded and we heard a lot of French, German and Italian. We thought there wouldn’t be too many tourists in December but there were actually a lot. We would like to return to London in the summer sometime. There is so much we haven’t seen or done including the Natural History Museum, the Imperial War Museum, the two Tate Galleries, the Sherlock Holmes Museum, Buckingham Palace, shopping on Oxford Street, a boat ride down the Thames, day trips to Paris and Stonehedge and much more.

We worried about whether we could get back to the U.S. due to weather problems in the U.S. and Britain. But we did in fact make it back safely Wednesday night, Dec. 16 about three hours later than we were supposed to. We were originally scheduled to go through Atlanta but Delta cancelled that flight "due to ice" and we went through Minneapolis instead. Who would have thought? The flight over to London was half full but the flight to Minneapolis from London was packed so Delta probably made money on cancelling the Atlanta flight. We did have to wait about 3 hours in lines between getting our revised tickets and then checking in. But we did talk with the gentleman in front of us who was French but was working for International Rectifier Corporation in Austin, Texas. Janis teased him that he knew how to speak French, German, English, and Texan. He also said that the semi-conductor business was still not very good, and observed that the U.S. was much more harsh and cold in dealing with laying off people. Europe has many laws that require much more more notice than the U.S. gives. It has both good and bad aspects. Glad we got out of London when we did. They are having more weather problems in Britain with many cancelled flights due to cold weather and snow. Northern Ireland is having the worst winter in 25 years. The trickiest part was getting home from McGhee-Tyson airport at 11:30 PM since there was light snow if Knoxville that had left a layer of slush and ice on the roads.

Madrid & Toledo Spain. May 16-24, 2007

General observations: We could not really define a typical looking Madrileno. There was great variety in hair and skin color. If you didn’t know where you were, you’d have a hard time knowing whether you were in downtown Chicago or Madrid based on the people. Spain does have one of the highest immigration rates in Europe with about 10% of the population being immigrants. The two major immigrant origins are Latin America and Eastern Europe.

The people dressed much as in the U.S. although perhaps not as sloppy and perhaps more stylish. We did see a few “goths” in one plaza - i.e., spike hair, all black clothes, spiked leather clothes, and body piercing.

One of things that impressed us the most was just the number of people walking. The streets were generally full of people going about their business.

So many people smoke in Spain and Madrid - maybe 50%. There is a public education campaign against smoking but it’s not very high profile. Of course, tobacco products can only be sold through government owned stores called “estancos” that also sell stamps. Fortunately we could eat in non-smoking sections in restaurants.

We saw a lot of police. They were usually on motorcycles and sharply dressed with black pants and a fluorescent yellow top with a wide gray horizontal stripe. We also saw a lot of street cleaners - men in yellow attire with “Limpiaza” or “cleaner” on their back. They swept up trash in the plazas, metro stations, and public places, and we really didn’t see very much trash in the areas we went. But when we came back on the bus from Toledo or took the shuttle to the airport, there was a fair amount of litter on the side of the road.

The cars were generally smaller than in the U.S. but the traffic was as bad as U.S. cities. We did see many more motorcycles than in the U.S. and a lot of motor scooters.

We also some “working girls” occasionally. They were young women in hot pants or short skirt typically standing outside “sex shops” of which we saw a few.

We saw a lot of McDonalds restaurants as well as Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, and even a Subway and TGI Fridays. We wanted to eat at a McDonalds in order to be able to say that we ate at one in Madrid but the cheapest hamburger was about $7. So we didn’t.

Several people said that we didn’t need to bring much cash and that everyone accepts credit cards in Europe. That was true at hotels and major stores, but it was certainly not true at smaller shops, bakeries, and museums.

There were a few street people. One very heavy black women was always sitting on the sidewalk at the corner of our hotel building with her back up against the building. She was there in morning when we went out, she was there when we came back in early afternoon, and she was there when we returned in the early evening. She was even sitting there unprotected in the rain one morning. It seemed like she never moved. She was pretty obese so she was obviously getting plenty to eat. On one of the side streets of the Gran Via, there were several street people with their dogs and sleeping bags. Sometimes they’d just be sitting on the sidewalk playing cards. In early morning, there were several people sleeping next to buildings. On Wednesday morning when we walked to the Egyptian temple, we started to take a street underpass beneath a wide busy street. We walked down some stairs from a park and turned the corner to go under the street and there was a regular little village of street people sleeping. They had hung up blankets to provide some privacy. We quickly retraced our steps and took another route. Altogether, we may have seen a total of 25 or so street people so not that many all things considered.

By the way, we didn’t send any postcards back because it would have cost $1.20 plus the cost of the postcard.

Wednesday, May 16: We left Knoxville the morning of May 16 and changed planes in Cincinnati and New York JFK. We got to the Delta check-in and had the entire UT baseball team in front of us with all of their equipment bags. So it took us a long time to check in. Unfortunately, there were storms in New York City area so our plane was delayed by three hours leaving Cincinnati. We were very worried about missing our flight out of New York’s JFK airport. Fortunately, our flight out of NY was delayed as well. The pilots were able to make up some time going to NY but our arrival gate was about as far away as possible from our departure gate in the next concourse. We walked as fast as we could and just made it to our gate as they started boarding. We were sure our luggage wouldn’t make it with us but the flight was delayed after we boarded and so the luggage did get on board.

We finally left NY about 10 PM. Leaving NY there were about six large ships anchored offshore outside of NY harbor in parallel spaced about 1/4 mile apart with all their lights on. It was an interesting scene and they were presumably waiting to come into port the next day. It wasn’t until after midnight before we had eaten dinner, all the plates were picked up and the cabin lights turned out so that we could try to sleep. We only had about 3 ½ or 4 hours to try before we would land in Madrid which is 6 hours ahead of Knoxville time. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. (Based on the planes navigation display, we were cruising speed at about 35,000 ft going about 530 mph.) About two hours out of Madrid the sun came up but the ocean was cloud covered so there was nothing to see. The clouds broke up as we approached the NW tip of Spain. This was a hilly region with many little white villages. Nearly all the ridge tops were lined with wind generators. The land looked well developed with roads, freeways, and rail lines as well as many dams and reservoirs. As we neared Madrid, there was more flat cultivated land and lots of construction around Madrid. We landed about 10 A.M.

Thursday, May 17, Madrid: The Madrid airport appeared antiquated but was undergoing some renovations. We headed down to customs. We just kept following the crowd but there were occasionally some signs in English that helped. There were separate sets of lines for citizens of the European community and everyone else. The custom inspector looked at our passports and the form that we had filled out and stamped our passports. Unfortunately, we didn’t stop to exchange our currency after picking up our luggage since we were afraid we might miss the shuttle. That had consequences later. The shuttle ride into Madrid was like any U.S. city but even more graffiti along the way and traffic was terrible. There were also some political posters since an election was upcoming. We could actually read some of signs in Spanish. There were just apartment buildings on the way in - no single family residential areas. We got to the hotel and checked in. The clerks spoke perfect English but I tried a little Spanish - “¿Tiene un mapa de Madrid?” (Do you have a map of Madrid?) - and he gave us a couple of maps! Cool! The hotel room was a little smaller than a standard U.S. motel room but the bathroom was good size and very nice - large dark green stone tiles and a shower with swinging glass doors. We did have one problem. We couldn’t get the lights to work so Janis called the front desk. We found out that we had to put the magnetic door lock card in a slot on the wall to activate the lights. The room did have a small balcony about two feet wide with a nice view to the right of Madrid but with a building directly across.

We crashed and slept for about two hours. After we woke up, we showered and walked down the Gran Via towards the Museo del Prado. It was after 4 PM so the Bank of Spain and other banks were closed so we couldn’t exchange our currency. We went back to our hotel and decided to eat at a restaurant called Nebraskas. It was actually a good restaurant. We had a nice conversation with the waiter who spoke English with a British accent. He had visited the U.S. and we were to find that many Spaniards had visited the U.S. We did have some confusion over the tip. In the U.S., the credit card bill has a line to designate a tip but there is no way to leave a tip via the credit card bill in Spain. Tips are strictly cash transactions so we had to leave him a tip in U.S. dollars since we had no Euro currency.

Friday, May 18, Madrid: We slept until about 8 AM and then got up and had the hotel’s breakfast buffet. The breakfast buffet was very good and we ate there every day. Typically a slice of ham, a small banana, two peach halves, a small carton of strawberry yogurt, orange juice, scramble eggs, a powdered sugar sweet role, and a little two-inch square pastry with a dollop of chocolate inside and chocolate sprinkles on top. We ate so well at breakfast that most days we ate only a light lunch and supper.

Friday was a day when all the public art museums and other museums were free so we walked down to the Museo del Prado which is one of the oldest museums in Europe having been established in1819. On the way to the Prado we kept looking for a bank where we could exchange our currency but we didn’t see any obvious banks.

We got to the museum about 9:30 since that’s when it was supposed to open. There was already a long line of people from around the world. And as usually happens when we go to museums and aquariums on vacation, big groups of grade school students descended. We did have some confusion whether we needed to get tickets before we stood in line. The people ahead of us in line looked Indian and so Janis guessed that they could speak English. They could and so Janis verified that we were in the right line. Several special groups got to go in ahead of us and then the museum started letting in bunches of people at a time so as not to overwhelm the first few museum galleries. We finally went in after about a ½ hour wait. We did have to show ID’s and send purses and bags through an x-ray screener.

The Museo del Prado was very large with many paintings (retrados) by famous Spanish masters such as Valazquez, Goya, El Greco (he was actually originally from Crete), and others. We were surprised and pleased that with some effort we could read about half of Spanish on the little placards next to the paintings describing them. Many of the paintings were of religious themes such as Christ’s crucifixion, the apostles, etc. It wasn’t until a later period that non-religious themes became common. The exhibits also included two famous paintings by Goya of a reclining woman which were done for a rich man at a time when you had to be careful of nude figures. So he had one painting done with the woman clothed and one nude. When someone was coming to visit who would object, he just switched paintings. There were so many paintings in the museum that after a couple of hours they all began to look the same and we were getting tired. We hurried through the last few galleries.

After the Prado we walked up a street hoping to find a bank again and finally saw a Deutsche Bank. When we entered we realized that it wasn’t a commercial bank but rather was an investment bank. Janis was able to communicate enough to the person behind the counter who didn’t speak English but who realized we wanted to exchange currency - “cambia.” So we exchanged about $60.

From Deutsche bank we walked over to El Parque de Buen Retiro which is just east of the Prado. This famous park is very large - perhaps on the order of Central Park. We walked up one of the promenades that had a large lawn edged in red flowers separating two parallel paths which in turn were lined with trees and bronze busts of famous persons. We walked a few hundred feet up to a small lake edged with concrete steps and which had a monument to a king on the other side. There were a few rowboats on the lake that you could rent but I wasn’t willing to row Janis around the lake in one. We stopped at one of several refreshment stands in the park and wanted to buy a coke from a vending machine. But it only took coins and all we had were paper euros, €s. Janis had the courage to ask a clerk inside to give her change. The clerk said “digame” (speak to me) which is a common phrase that we heard frequently. We each bought a bottle of coke and sat at one of the umbrella shaded tables to enjoy. From there we walked over to the much photographed crystal palace which is a large, tall pavilion made out of panes of glass set into a white painted steel framework . It sits next to a small pond and was very pretty. It looked like it usually had flowers and plants inside but it was being renovated although we were allowed to enter to see it from the inside. The park overall was very nice and we wish we could have returned before we left Madrid to explore it some more. It had a lot of nice walking lanes, trees, and open lawns and lots of people were enjoying it.

We walked from the park over to the Puerta Acala which is a traffic circle with a large three arched monument in the middle. Kind of like a small version of the Arch de Triumph. We took some pictures and Janis commented that the warriors atop the monument looked like Marvin the Martian from Bugs Bunny cartoons.

We next walked over to the Plaza Mayor which is centuries old and very famous. We didn’t spend much time there since we planned to come back to it another day.

We went back to the hotel and decided to try to find a restaurant called Barracas that Samantha Brown ate at on her Travel Channel show. She recommended the paella which is a Spanish rice dish with saffron, vegetables, and meat that is made in a large flat bottomed pan. The hotel front desk helped us locate it on a map and it was close to the hotel. The hotel also had tickets waiting for us for a package tour to Toledo for Monday. It took us two trips down to the travel agency and a call from the hotel staff to get them but we finally got them. We walked over to the Barracas and found that it didn’t open until 8:30. It is not unusual to open much later than U.S. restaurants. There were two other American couples inspecting the menu and we chatted with them for a couple of minutes. Since it was only about 5:30 we walked around for awhile and went back to a bakery we had seen the night before. We couldn’t buy anything that previous night since we didn’t have any euros and she didn’t accept credit cards. But this time we had euros and we each bought a chocolate filled pastry with chocolate sprinkles on top. The pastry was only about two €s and I paid with a five € note. In the U.S., we are used to getting dollar bills back when we have more than one dollar of change coming. I expected to get some euro notes back in this case but she handed me a handful of change. I looked at her and said excuse me with a “you short changed me” look and tone. It took a few seconds to realize that she had given me one and two € coins which are much more commonly used instead of notes. It was embarrassing. But we walked up the street to a small plaza to enjoy our pastry. There was lots of activity there including people just sitting and talking and couples with kids playing. There was also a group of “goths” on one side of the plaza - black clothes, spike hair, leather with studs, etc. A group of security people came over and checked their ID’s and then chatted good naturedly with them for awhile.

We went back to Baraccas at 8:30 and were lucky to get in without reservations since it is a very popular place probably especially so on Friday. We ordered paella even though supposedly only tourists have it as an evening meal. Our paella had chicken, large shrimp, pork, haddock, and squid. The squid was surprisingly good. It was tender and not rubbery at all. But it was a lot of food. After the tip it was about $70 so that was our special meal for the trip and for Janis’s birthday. Our waiter could speak English and gave us a tour of a back room with pictures of famous American movie stars who had eaten there. We said we liked Madrid but he said we wouldn’t like it as well if we had to live there. Too crowded and hectic.

Saturday, May 19, Madrid: Saturday was Janis’s birthday. We got up and had the breakfast buffet at the hotel again and left about 10 AM to go to the Plaza Mayor, Atocha Station, and the Museo Reina Sofia. There was already a lot of people out when walked to the Plaza Mayor SE of the hotel. The streets on the way were quite narrow, about 20-30 feet wide and lined with 4-5 story buildings. The ground floor was shops and the upper floors residences. On the outside, the Plaza Mayor just looks like another row of buildings but then you get a glimpse through an archway at the end of a short narrow alley and see a sunny open court. There are about eight such entrances. The plaza itself is a large square paved with cobblestones and is about a football field long and wide. Shops again line the ground floor but are set back perhaps 10 feet under the upper stories with a series of stone columns supporting the upper floors. You can walk in the shade and out of the elements as you do your shopping. The Plaza Mayor is very famous and historically significant. Many important events in Spanish history occurred here as well as public executions. It must have always been a rich persons place to live and the residences must be very expensive even now. There were a lot of restaurants, souvenir shops and upscale shops such as coin collectors, clothing, etc.

We walked from Plaza Mayor down to Atocha Railway station which was built in the early 1900's and was one of largest in Europe. It was on one of the lines going into Atocha station where Al Quaeda attacked a couple of years ago. They didn’t attack the station itself but commuter trains coming into the station. Our purpose was mainly to scout out where we needed to go in order to catch our train to Toledo on Monday. The inside of the station was a huge open vaulted space with skylights. It was mostly planted in palm trees, banana plants, and other tropical vegetation. It looked like a jungle with winding concrete sidewalks through it. To keep the plants happy there were galvanized iron pipes about 10 feet tall spaced about every 20 feet which sent out a mist and made it very humid. It was delightfully not humid outside but somewhat uncomfortably humid inside. The station also has a large subway stop and many shops. We found where our train would leave two levels up.

From the station we went to the Museo Reina Sofia. This art museum specializes more in modern art whereas the Prado was old masters. We thought it would be free admission based on one person’s advice but free admission wasn’t until 2:30 so we begrudgingly paid about 12 €s ($17). The building is a big square with a large courtyard in the middle. The galleries were on the 2nd and 4th floors which were accessed by two sets of modern glass enclosed elevators attached to the building’s outside. The second floor had paintings by Picasso, Dali, Miro and others. All famous modern artists. Included was Picasso’s very famous painting titled Guernica which portrayed the bombing of Guernica village by Franco’s forces during the Spanish civil war in the late 1930's. (By the way, we didn’t see or hear any references to Franco while in Madrid except for photos in the Reina Sofia of sandbagged buildings and artillery damage in Madrid.) The 4th floor was later modern and abstract art that didn’t really appeal to us. It didn’t seem much like art.

That Saturday evening we explored the salon and terrace on the top (9th) floor of our hotel. The salon consisted of several nice rooms with sofas, chairs and coffee tables where you could sit and read the newspapers. There wasn’t anyone in the salon and just an Indian couple on the terrace which was a small outdoor patio with about six tables and an awning for shade. We stopped at the small bar where Carmen, a young single Spanish girl, tended the bar and served the salon and terrace by herself. She spoke a little English so between her English and our very poor Spanish we could converse a little. She asked “¿Cómo estan? ¿Bien?” (How are you? OK?) And we said “bien. ¿Y tú?” (Ok, and you?) She said “bien” and then something in Spanish about how she’d rather be out walking rather than working. Janis said “caminamos toda dia” (we have walked all day). I was able to ask “¿tiene vino?” (do you have wine?) And she said “Sí, vino tinto, blanco, and rosado” (yes, red wine, white and rose). We asked for the vino blanco and went to sit on the terrace while she brought the wine. The temperature was perfect and not humid. We stood at the white cement balustrade at the edge of the terrace and looked out at the view of the city to the right. We could see the low buildings, many with balconies and terra cotta roof tiles, of the that part of the city stretching into the distance and the mountains beyond. The hostess brought out two glasses and filled them from a bottle and had also brought a bowl of potato chips, some olives, and pickles. We sat for about a ½ hour just relaxing and enjoying ourselves. When we were done we took our glasses and bowls in from the terrace and set them on the bar. Carmen came out from the back room and was surprised but appreciative that we had brought things in. I said “ayudamos” (we are helping) and she understood and laughed. I didn’t understand what she said next but it was evident that she was asking for our room number to charge the wine to. I said “siete once” (seven eleven) and she wrote it down and repeated seven eleven in English to confirm. I said “nos gusta el vino. Cual es el nombre de vino” (we like the wine. What is its name?). It was neat to be able to actually say some things in Spanish that were intelligible. She brought out the bottle and I wrote down the name Herederos del Marques de Riscal Rauda. (Unfortunately we couldn’t find it in Knoxville.) We asked if the wine was from Spain and looked at the bottle and saw it was. I laid two €s on the counter as a tip and said “para ti” (for you). She must not get many tips since she seemed very appreciative. In fact she brought out a small bottle of the wine we liked and gave it to us. Janis said it was her birthday (cumpleaños) and we understood her to say “ah, un regalo para tu cumpleaños” (ah, a gift for your birthday). There was a picture of Goya’s clothed nude model so we talked briefly about the Museo del Prado. (By the way, the two glasses of wine cost us about $8 but the next time we came she didn’t charge us anything which was very nice.)

We left the hotel and looked for a pastry shop. We went down the side street on the northwest side of the hotel and walked through another small plaza which was completely concrete and where a lot of small kids were kicking a soccer ball and families were just sitting. We walked past a Chinese restaurant in an area that looked like a very small Chinatown. We crossed the Gran Via which is the main street in front of our hotel and walked down another small street. We saw a little restaurant called Valor specializing in chocolate and saw that they offered hot chocolate con churros. We had been wanting to try this Spanish treat and so sat down at an outside table and each ordered a hot chocolate and also a plate of churros for both of us. It came in about five minutes and was a coffee cup size of hot chocolate and about eight churros each about nine inches long. The hot chocolate was hot and very thick - almost a loose pudding. It’s easier to use a spoon rather than drinking it. The churros were a long role of fried sweet dough about one inch in diameter. They tasted similar to funnel cakes. We dipped the churros in the chocolate to eat them. They were so good.

We walked around a little more. There were so many people on the street. It’s obvious that not very many people sit inside and watch TV. There are of course a lot of people living in the area which explains why there are so many people. Although most of the people were younger than 40, there were a good number of older people too. The streets were so full of people that it was hard to walk. We went into one department store called El Corte de Inglese (the English court). This was a very large, nice upscale store, e.g., they had 200-300 € ($270-$400) watches for sale. The store traffic was terrific - the envy of any Knoxville store and was like the busiest Christmas shopping day.

Sunday, May 20, Madrid: After breakfast at the hotel, we walked over to the Palacio Real (royal palace) about 10 AM. We got a little lost along the way since the many small streets are often poorly marked - just a little one foot by eight inch or so ceramic tile on the side of the closest building and which can be anywhere from the ground floor to a couple of stories up and can be right at the corner of the building or back a few dozen feet or nowhere at all. The streets also go every which way and there can be five or more streets at an intersection. We took the wrong turn at one of these and then it’s easy to loose what direction you are going. But at least we got to see some nice back streets and small plazas. The palace itself was built in the early 1700's on a bluff overlooking western Madrid. We bought two English guided tour tickets for 9 €s ($12.50) apiece. It was starting to sprinkle as we walked across the huge stone tile and cobblestone courtyard from the ticket office to the tour meeting place. There was a tall iron fence on the end opposite the palace which is also across from a large cathedral, the royal armory is on another side, the ticket office, gift shop, and royal pharmacy on another side and then the palace itself on the last side. The tour took a little over one hour and we had a nice guide who spoke English very well but with a pretty good Spanish accent. The guests in the old days would enter where we entered but would enter in coaches driven right into the palace itself which had a carriage passageway through it. Then the guests would ascend a huge staircase made to impress visitors. The current king (Juan Carlos) and queen (Sofia) only use the palace for official state functions. When Franco took over in about 1938, the royal family left the country but when Franco died in 1978 and Spain became a democracy again, the king and queen were brought back and are somewhat like the English royal family. However, they were never formally crowned and out of respect never sit on the two identical thrones and never wear the crowns. The palace had separate rooms for breakfast, lunch and dinner functions. The dinner banquet room was huge and the long table is shortened or lengthened depending on the number of guests - up to 150. All the chairs were identical except that the fifth chair down on each side was just a few inches taller. These chairs are where the king and queen sit on opposite sides. We also saw the throne room which had lots of mirrors, saw a room with all the walls and ceiling made of porcelain, the royal silverware and dish collection, a collection of instruments including a Stradivarius, and much more.

From the Palace we walked down to the Puerta de Toledo which is another traffic circle with another three arch monument. There was a shopping mall nearby that we visited. It was nice but not a lot in it of interest so walked back up to the Plaza Mayor.

We went back to the hotel and then went out later to explore the Metro which is the Madrid subway. We got a little instruction from the hotel desk. The Metro is a very extensive system and easy to use once one knows how. We went down the steps into the Metro station and saw a bank of ticket machines. It was confusing how to use them but we saw one machine that said to use exact change. So we each put in a one € coin and got a Metro ticket. We had a Metro map which helped and took the line down to Atocha station. It was very much like any other subway system although you did need to lift a little latch to get your door to open at a station. It was a smooth ride and we went a little farther than Atocha station and then came back. After returning from the Metro, we went to a pastry shop near the hotel to indulge ourselves again. Pasty was obviously one of our favorite parts of the trip since it’s hard to find good pastry in Knoxville.

Monday, May 21, Madrid & Toledo: Monday was the day for our package tour to Toledo. We were supposed to meet someone at the Atocha railroad station between 8:30 and 9 AM. We took the Metro to Atocha station which only took about ten minutes and got there about 8:20. We went through security which wasn’t too stringent. You just showed your ticket and put purses, cameras, luggage, bags, etc. on an X-ray machine conveyor. There wasn’t any metal detector to walk though. The terminal was nice and was similar to an airplane terminal although not as many people nor as many shops. The train side of the terminal was a wall of glass windows through which you could see the escalators from each gate down to the train platforms. At 9:10 an announcement said we could board our train so we did. We walked through sliding glass doors where an agent tore off our ticket stub and went down an escalator to the train platform. Our ticket said coach 4 and each coach had a little electronic sign giving its coach number. We climbed the steps into the coach and found our seats which were similar to airplane seats but with more leg room. The coach was very nice and looked brand new and the upholstery was immaculately clean. The train left exactly on time (and got to Toledo exactly on time) and the ride was very smooth. The AVE train is a high speed train that can get up to 200 km/hr but the trip to Toledo is so short that it doesn’t have time to get up to a high speed. The land is fairly flat between Madrid and Toledo and we saw some olive groves and even some cornfields as well as other fields of dense green short plants that we didn’t recognize but could have been wheat or some other cereal. The soil was dark brown like the U.S. mid-west in some places and lighter brown elsewhere with noticeable amounts of stones. The soil also looked shallow in a few places. We saw a couple of old stone buildings but that was it. Most of the buildings were similar to what you would see in the rural U.S.

We met someone from the travel agency at the Toledo station and followed him through the railroad station which was a beautiful new building with a Moorish design influence. He gave us instructions for meeting our tour bus. Apparently most people take the tour bus from Madrid to Toledo but the travel agency offers the train option and we were the only ones to take it. We talked for just a couple of minutes and we expressed our admiration for the train. He was surprised when we said the U.S. doesn’t have anything like the Spanish and European train system. He said “you mean you can go to the moon but don’t have a good train system?” which we found amusing but true. He then left us and took the train back to Madrid.

We met our bus and drove up to old Toledo. It was a narrow, winding road along the shallow gorge of the Tagus River (Rio Tajo in Spanish). Toledo was a Roman fort and then a medieval fortress town and also the capital of Moorish Spain for awhile. It was built on a hill surrounded on three sides by the river which made a natural defense since the any invader would have go down a steep slope to the river about 200 feet below, cross the maybe 50 foot wide river, and then scale the slope on the other side. We had a great view of Toledo from the bluff across from it. We could see the old fort on top called the Alcazar, the old stone walls surrounding the old city, the large gothic cathedral, a smaller older cathedral, and a couple of old stone arch bridges.

The bus crossed the river on a modern bridge into old Toledo and dropped us off. We followed our tour guide for what seemed like forever through the narrow, winding streets of Toledo - all of which seemed to be going uphill. Several streets had a long canvas slung above down the middle of the street. These are the streets that once a year a huge a gold and silver icon about 10 feet tall is paraded through. It’s a big event.

Our tour group stopped first at the tomb of the Count of Orgaz who was famous for being a good nobleman. Then we went to one of the oldest synagogues in Europe and the oldest in Spain. It was built during the Moorish period in a Moorish style with lots of rows of columns inside. The Jews had been in Spain for 15 centuries until Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Columbus fame told the Jews in 1492 that they had two choices - convert to Christianity or leave Spain. About half converted and half left. The synagogue was converted into a church but today is not used for religious purposes but is a world heritage site. We also visited the home of El Greco which had a very nice garden and courtyard. He was a famous Spanish painter of the late 1500's and early 1600's. He was called El Greco because he originally came from Crete but lived his last few decades in Toledo. There was a small gallery of his paintings that we toured.

We met the tour bus which took us to an artisan factory where they made inlaid gold and silver jewelry - demasque. The technique was brought to Spain by the Moors. The artisans cut intricate designs into steel and then hammer in gold and silver filagree to make lovely jewelry. But it all seemed like a tourist trap since they soon hustled us from watching the artisans into their shop and made a strong sales pitch. From the factory we went to a restaurant for lunch and sat at a table with three other couples - one couple from Argentina, one from Spain, and one from Ecuador who now live in Orlando, Florida and were the only ones that spoke English. But talk about a small world, this couple from Ecuador had a child that lived in Knoxville, TN. It didn’t take long for the dinner conversation to get to George Bush once they knew that we were from the U.S. As far as we could tell, the couple from Argentina said they had traveled around the world but would not visit the U.S. while Bush was still president. Fortunately they didn’t hold it against us personally.

After lunch we toured one of the largest gothic cathedrals in Spain. It was so beautiful. Lots of carved marble and hardwood, displays of lavish clergy robes, a room full of gold and silver objects, and jewels, and a beautiful bible illuminated with gold and silver paint. And then it was back to the bus to return to Madrid.

We got back to Madrid about 5:30 and then went out again about 7 PM to El Corte de Inglese where Janis bought some Kleenex at the supermercado (supermarket). The box was printed in about 15 languages and was made by Kimberly-Clark and the box said it was made in either Britain or Spain. The supermercado was a nice grocery store - smaller than most U.S. supermarkets but carrying a wide variety of brands and items including a nice wine selection some of which were only about $4.00 and supposedly good wine. Most people in the supermercado bought just a few items rather than stocking up like in the U.S. We also went to the cheese and pastry shop behind our hotel and both of us bought a “pestilu” which is an eau clair and cost about $1.25 each. We ate them in the small plaza nearby. They were so good although all the pigeons made us a bit nervous. They would walk very close eying us hoping to get some crumbs. At the other plaza the other day someone threw a few crumbs out and pigeons started swooping down from all the buildings surrounding the plaza. It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Tuesday, May 22, Madrid: We got up around 7:30 and “carbed up” at the breakfast buffet again and left the hotel about 9:30. It was cool (62oF) and cloudy so a long sleeve knit shirt felt good. We walked down the Gran Via a little ways and then cut north to see some other neighborhoods which again were quite picturesque. We walked over to the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) thinking we could find and use some internet computers there. But the receptionist who spoke at least French, English and Spanish said that people usually use the branch libraries for this. She gave us a list of branches but they were just addresses and we didn’t have a good enough map to find them.

We walked down the Paseo del Prado and stopped at the Spanish Naval Museum which was free admission. We did have to show an ID and go through a metal detector to get in. It was a very nice and interesting museum with many ship models from the 1400's era to modern. There were also lots of artifacts such as canons, sextants, amphora, swords, muskets, rifles, dueling pistols sets (still in their original boxes showing all the accessories like rammers, cleaners, musket ball dies, etc.), the oldest surviving known document from Columbus after discovering America, a facsimile of the document signed by the pope dividing the world between Spain and Portugal, wall sized paintings of naval battles, old globes and maps including the oldest known map in Europe showing North America (you can make out Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico), models of harbors and naval ports/armories, and more. One of the globes from 1600 was about four feet in diameter and was amazingly accurate although not perfect of course. Many of the models of sailing ships were huge and just beautiful. They were about six feet long and high with all the rigging and sails and had such detail. The 1900's era warships were just as detailed though made of metal and what looked like a plastic resin. Interestingly, all the descriptions were only in Spanish which we could mostly make out. But there was one exhibit that was in both Spanish and English. That exhibit was the model of the U.S. Maine which included several large diagrams explaining how the explosion was most likely due to coal dust and not a Spanish plot.

We left the Naval Museum and continued walking down the Paseo del Prado to take pictures of the Museo del Prado and Museo Reina Sofia. From there we walked up the Calle Atocha (Atocha Street) to Plaza Mayor again since there were supposed to be some jewelry stores with silvers jewelry near one entrance. There indeed were about six such shops but they were very high end. For one shop you had to push a buzzer to be let in. So we passed them up but we did find a place nearby that had “trufas” - truffles - about the size of golf balls which were a thick chocolate mousse covered with chocolate sprinkles. They were soooo! good. Fortunately we walked about 8-10 miles per day so we burned off the calories. When we got back to the hotel the maid was cleaning our room so we went up to the top floor salons and sat and leafed through a newspaper called “El Mundo’ - The World. It was all in Spanish and our vocabulary was insufficient to read much of it.

Later, we went out to buy Janis two handbags for seven €s each. The bags said “Madrid” all over them and one was for her and one for her mom.

About 6 PM we went out to find something to eat. We thought it would be neat to say we ate a hamburger at McDonalds in Madrid which was just up the Gran Via a little ways but the cheapest hamburger was 5 €s or about $7. That was a little too expensive a novelty for us. So we bought a spinach filled pastry for about 1.60 €s at the bakery we first went to in Madrid. It was very good. Then about 7:30 we went over to El Corte del Inglese and bought three small truffles which very good too. Half way to El Corte we got caught in a real good thunderstorm with a real good downpour, lightning, and wind.

Back in our room we watched an interesting 45 minute Spanish game show on the Tele Madrid channel. It had four players and was based partly on their knowledge of the Madrid Metro system. Each player started at one end of a Metro line and advanced up the Metro based on correctly answering questions about the Metro stops and also answering trivia about a variety of things. The next day we watched a different game show where two contestants vied to make the longest word out of a series of random letters given to them or to try to make simple equations using a set of random numbers that would then equal another given random number. A little more brainy than U.S. game shows.

Wednesday, May 23, Madrid: It was raining and cool (63oF) in the morning but the rain let up a little so we left about 9:15 and walked up the Gran Via towards the Plaza de España northwest of the hotel. (It was on the way there that we encountered the street person city discussed earlier.) There was a park there and a large monument to Cervantes with bronze statues at the base of Sancho Panza and Don Quixote. We next walked over to the Parque de la Montaña where there were sections of an Egyptian temple called Templo de Debod. It was a gift to Spain from Egypt because of Spain’s help in saving ancient Egyptian sites that would have been inundated by the Aswan High Dam. The park was about a ½ mile in size and was on top of a low hill. The park had lots of mature shade trees and broad paths. On the west side of the park was a great view of western Madrid and the Palacio Real sitting on the bluff farther south.

We walked back over to the Gran Via whose name changed to Calle de La Princesa somewhere and then up to Calle Alberto Alguilera which is a wide avenue with many nice apartment buildings and shops. It started to rain harder and we were glad we brought our umbrellas and jackets. We walked down a side street to Plaza del Dos de Mayo which wasn’t much but it did have several cleaners pressure washing signs and cleaning the plaza. We walked down the Calle de Fuencarral to the Gran Via and back to the hotel. When we walked into he hotel I saw one of the desk clerks and said “mojado” (wet) and he chuckled and said “sí, muy mojado” (yes, very wet).

The rain let up again so we decided to try to go to the Real Jardin Botanico (Royal Botanical Garden) about noon. The entry fee was only 2 € apiece which was cheap compared to other places. We walked around the perimeter of the gardens and then zig-zagged down and back through each set of gardens in order to see everything. The gardens were laid out in about four parallel rows of gardens with about eight square smaller gardens in each row. Each square garden was planted with different plants, e.g., irises, roses, herbs, etc. with trees planted between the gardens. Unfortunately, only the roses and some irises and alyssum were in bloom but it was still very nice. From the gardens we walked up Calle de Las Huertas to the Plaza Mayor hoping to have some more churros with chocolate. But the shop wanted 4 € each ($5.60) and so we decided to go back up towards the hotel to Valor’s where we had some before. But they were closed for siesta. So we settled for pastry again at the shop near the hotel.

About 5:30 we went over to the supermercado at the El Corte de Inglese and bought some turkey lunch meat, a loaf of whole wheat bread, sliced cheese, leaf spinach, and a candy bar for about $8.60. The supermercado had fabulous looking vegetables - mushrooms already sliced and all neatly lined up in rows in the package, small artichokes also all lined up in rows in the package. All the vegetables looked so clean and fresh. They also had a large selection of fish and meat. Janis paid by credit card and was given a choice of prices in euros or dollars. Interestingly, the places that take credit cards require a photo ID but will take either a passport or a U.S. drivers license. We went back to the hotel and made ourselves a sandwich.

Thursday, May 24: We got up early in order to have breakfast when the buffet opened at 7:30 so that we could catch the 8:00 AM shuttle to the airport. We also took a few photos of the hotel and the Gran Via before breakfast. We went through airport security and then did some shopping in the duty free zone in the gate area. We bought some Spanish chocolates for some friends, a Madrid picture book, and an inlaid necklace from Toledo for the girl that picked up our mail and watered our flowers. It was raining in Madrid but the plane took off with no problems. Unfortunately, there was cloud cover most of the way until we got south of Newfoundland. Our flights had no problems we made it back home about 11 PM.