PARIS, HERE WE COME!

11 July 2008

On our way to Beaune, Ragen played Ronny's (who is a Belgian) tape. Here are the lyrics:

Potverdekke, it's great to be a Belgian

I'm not English, I'm not French and I'm not Dutch

(I'm not Spanish, Portuguese or German)

I'm a Belgian, so thank you very much!

As I walk along the streets

With my mayonnaise and frites

You can tell I'm as happy as can be

With my Duvel in my hand

Then you must understand

I'm a Belgian, so nothing worries me!

Potverdekke, it's great to be a Belgian

(I'm not Irish, Italian or Danish)

I'm a Belgian, so thank you very much!

Without the Belgians there would be no saxophone

No Tintin, captain Haddock or Poirot

And you'll excuse me if I've missed

Anybody on the list

These are the only Belgians that I know!

Potverdekke, it's great to be a Belgian

I'm not English, I'm not French and I'm not Dutch

(I'm not Spanish, Portuguese or German)

I'm a Belgian, so thank you very much!

Now the English egg and bacon's not so bad

Especially since all their cows went mad

But if they've never tasted mussels

On the Grand Place down in Brussels

It's no wonder they're feeling very sad!

Potverdekke, it's great to be a Belgian

I'm not English, I'm not French and I'm not Dutch

(I'm not Irish, Italian or Danish)

I'm a Belgian, so thank you very much!

I'm a Belgian, I'm not Irish, I'm not Greek

I don't drink Guinness or Retsina, I drink Kriek!

On the Schelde or the Meuse

You find me drinking Gueuze

Or Leffe or Chimay or Lambik!

Potverdekke, it's great to be a Belgian

I'm not English, I'm not French and I'm not Dutch

(I'm not Spanish, Portuguese or German)

I'm a Belgian, so thank you very much!

Potverdekke, it's great to be a Belgian

I'm not English, I'm not French and I'm not Dutch

(And me, I'm not a Luxemburger)

I'm a Belgian, so thank you very much!

I'm not English, I'm not French and I'm not Dutch

(I'm not Spanish, Portuguese or German)

I'm a Belgian, so thank you very much!

Ragen played Ronny's tape a few more times on our way to Paris, as this would be the last drive with Ronny.

As we headed to our hotel, we passed by the Arc de Triomphe but never got to return to it—too bad. We then checked into our hotel, Hotel Beaugency, 21 rue Duvivier. Our group met at the lobby and received a lesson from Ragen on how to use the Metro. We were going to take the Metro to Isle de la Cite'. For someone who lives in a place where no Metro system is set in place, where all we do is jump into our car and drive to wherever we want to be, taking the metro in a foreign land can be daunting. Using this system in going to the Ile de la Cite' was not difficult as Ragen was there to guide us, but coming back to our hotel was a different story.

With Ragen, we toured the core of Paris, visited Sainte Chapelle, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Martyrs Francais de la Deportation, 1945, and the Latin Quarter.

The Notre Dame, a tourist in Paris should not miss paying a visit. The sculptures, the carved depictions on its wall, its glass-stained windows, and its statues of Biblical kings and of St. Denis are awe-inspiring works of art, evocative. After we took pleasure in viewing all the remarkable works of art, we exited and from the outside, viewed the grand Palais de Justice.

Outside of the Notre Dame is the Deportation Memorial, a memorial to the 200,000 French citizens who died during the Nazi regime. We went to it, descended the steps down to where the prisoners used to be kept before they were deported to different concentrations camps. I had an eerie feeling down there as I imagined the mass of human beings waiting for their horrible fate and for the most part, death. An inscription on the floor said, "They went to the end of the earth and did not return." Very heartbreaking.

Sainte-Chapelle is another sight that a tourist should look in. Inside, I felt relief from the poignant feeling I had at the Memorial. Louis IX (the only king who became a saint) built the church between 1242 and 1248. The chapel has two stories, the first or ground floor for the common people and the upper floor, for the Royal Christians. (Talk about discrimination and no demonstrations!) It has fifteen separate panels of stained glass and according to my research, they have more than 1,100 different scenes. Indescribable display! Rumor has it that Sainte-Chapelle houses the Crown of Thorns although records say that it is in the Notre Dame's Treasury and is only shown to the public on Fridays of Lent.

We went to the Latin Quarter (owing its name to the fact that this used to be the place where students from all over Europe who went to school in Paris would meet up and in order to understand each other they had to use Latin as a common language.) How so erudite, so cultured these students were. I was fascinated.

A probable test by Ragen, our guide: he told us that we would be going back to the hotel on our own, applying the lesson learned from his instruction on how to take the Metro. My "oldie" brain did not work so well, and admittedly, my hearing had somewhat waned, and compounded by the way words are pronounced in French, the word "La Defense" sounded "France." The ticket booth assistant had to repeat her information more than twice, sounding annoyed as I kept on saying, "Repetez, s'il vous plait." Finally, Ron and I got it... and so we thought. We ended up on the wrong side of the track…ay naku. No one around us seemed helpful and I assumed, no one could speak English, until young man came by and I made a last shot of asking for assistance. He told us that we should be on the other side of the track. Merci beaucoup. Feeling relief, we made our way back to the hotel.

The succeeding lunch tasted so good after that stressful experience with the Metro system.

Your Reading World

A Gift of Contentment

(Available at Amazon.com)

Allie Mendez, a forty-something Filipino nurse who lives in Chicago is awaken in the middle of the night by a phone call from home. The news she gets will send her on a journey to explore the painful past she escaped decades ago.

Although pampered and sheltered by her parents who are members of the elite of Santa Cruz, it is Tola the servant who pays her most attention and whom Allie loves most. However, she grows up hearing insinuations from the people of Santa Cruz that make her feel anxious, distrustful, and different from other people.

In her late teens, Allie meets Gerry while taking private art classes. Love grows between them. Allie goes to Manila for her studies and while there, she meets Art, whom she initially distrusts. But Art is charming and persistent and after a while, they begin a love affair. She breaks up with Gerry. Gerry is crushed. She later finds out that Art is a married man. She keeps all these love relationships secret from her parents, friends, and relations.

Her work of tending to patients consumes her during the day, but when night comes, feelings of guilt, indignity, sinfulness, and fear haunt her. As she tries to resolve these feelings and the perceived allusions, she entangles herself in more difficulties rather than solutions. Will she ever find respite and answers to her problems? Will the twists and turns in her saga of life lead her to peace and contentment?

On to Wine Country

July 10, 2008

After two nights relaxing under the Alps and breathing pure unadulterated air, we headed for France. On our way, we made a last stop in Switzerland to change our Swiss money into Euro. Our first stop in France was in Beaune or Burgundy synonymous with superior wine, fine cuisine, beautiful vineyards, and sunflower fields. We were now in "Bonjour Country."

We spent the night at Hotel des Remparts located along the old medieval wall. Our room had a connecting room, which no one occupied. It had a fireplace and a dark wooden floor. It had two bathrooms with nicely tiled bath and stainless steel accessories. The hotel, although simple, looked so European.

We had a walking orientation of the town, went to Hotel Dieu that used to be a charity hospital for the poor, built by Nicholas Rolin, Chancellor of Burgundy, in 1445. It is now a museum and some units had been converted into apartments for the old retired people. It now bears the name Hospices de Beaune, Musee de L'hotel Dieu.

We went to Hotel National des Invalides, comparable to our Veteran's Home but with Europeanarchitectural style. This is also a museum now.

Since we were in wine country, it was but fitting that we'd have wine. We had wine tasting at a cave, an underground cellar. We had a mixture of currant liquor called Crème de Cassis and white wine. The taste was excellent.

our tasting cups

The stay was short but noteworthy.

ROMANCING THE ALPS

July 8, 2008

Today we headed for the Alps, nine hours by bus. The drive to Switzerland was breathtaking. From the bus, the view was panoramic. We passed by forests and waterfalls, and mountains spotted with meadows farmed for hay.

In Switzerland, we would not be able to use our Euros. Since we needed to convert them to Swiss francs, we stopped at the Swiss city of Interlaken to use the ATM machine. The exchange rate at that time was $1 to 97 Swiss cents. We then drove for thirty minutes to our hotel in Stechelberg, passing through Lauterbrunnen.

Our hotel was Hotel Stechelberg, in CH-3824, Switzerland. The hotel was at the base of a huge mountain, the Schilthorn. The lift station for Schilthorn was a few meters from the hotel.

The hotel owner welcomed us with a get-together of cheese fondue and wine at the courtyard. The hotel owner in a proud tone said, Don't you feel like being at the end of the world because the hotel is literally at the end of the world. The hotel was in a charming valley of patchwork meadows surrounded by mountains, cliffs, waterfalls, and above it, the sky. You seem enclosed but not feel claustrophobic.

After the fondue/wine welcome, we had dinner together. Dinner was a thin slice of roast beef, approximately two ounces, with a side dish of very delicious nutmeg-flavored mashed potatoes, and steamed mix of carrots, cauliflower, green beans. Wine came with it. Dessert was soft ice cream topped with fruit. The portion size of the dinner was just right for those watching their weight. After dinner we retired to our “creaky old chalet,” while the kids still played ping-pong at the garden next to the courtyard. I went to bed with the music of the movie "The Sound of Music" in my head.

There were two activities for the next day: a cable ride to the Schilthorn with a breakfast for E90 and a hike to the other side of Lauterbrunnen with lunch for E85. Ron and I opted for the Schilthorn, the highest peak in the area, the location of the filming of the James Bond movie "Her Majesty's Secret Service." Schilthorn at ten thousand feet provided a gorgeous view of the Alps, the clouds wrapping them and covering the valley below—postcard picture perfect. As I viewed the valley below (a few pockets were not covered by clouds), I wondered about the locals' means of livelihood. Ragen, our tour director had an answer: hay, cattle, and cheese. He said the government started to subsidize the poor farmers' livelihood so that they could continue the traditional way of life (for tourism purposes, I guess) instead of migrating to more profitable places for jobs. Tourism has now become the main source of their income.

After the Schilthorn visit, Ron and I went to Interlaken, the gateway to the Alps (Berner Oberland), a small but neat city complete with banks, post office, laundry places, and shops filled with Swiss chocolates (the size of a quarter cost E6.15), Swiss Army knives, and Rolex watches. When people got the idea that mountains can provide enjoyment and are not just a cold and unattractive structure of nature, Interlaken became the original mountain resort. How we got there is a story in itself.

The others who hiked the three hills told us that the view there was gorgeous and that the kids went paragliding. Paragliding with a Pro cost E160 a piece but that would have been worth the price for an experience of a lifetime.

CINQUE TERRE, ITALY'S FRENCH RIVIERA

July 6, 2008

Cinque Terre is a group of five fishing villages that turned into five tourist havens: Riomaggiore, Manorola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso. On our way to Cinque Terre, we passed by vineyards, sunflower fields, and olive groves.

                                               

We stopped in Masa Maritima, an enchanting town, an out-of-the-beaten-path hilltop town to have lunch. Since the road to the hilltop was so narrow that our bus could not make it up there, we had to walk up to it. There we had lunch of pasta and wine. After lunch, we did some window-shopping, after which we all rested on the front steps of the church and then got ready to go down the hill to our bus.

We drove on the coastal road instead of the freeway. We needed to make it to the 5:00 P.M. fast train that would take us to Monterosso as there was going to be a 24-hour train and bus strike at 7:00 P.M. Rony, our driver said staging strikes is common—the Italians would stage a strike for about any reason, like asking for three days off or for thirty-five hour week, or for more holidays, or for other trivial things. We felt relief when we were able to catch the 5:00 P.M. train, but then the Italians changed their mind and decided to start the strike at 9:00 P.M.

Monterosso al Mare is unlike the other four villages. It sits on a flat land. A pedestrian tunnel divides the town into two parts: the new town and the old town. The two days in Monterosso was our "vacation from our vacation." In Monterosso, there is no television to watch, no museum to visit even if we wanted to. Life here is simply traditional Italy, with nothing to do but hike the hillside vineyards that connect the five villages, take the breathtaking scenery, hang out on the beaches, swim, and lounge around the town like a local. There were a few sights to see: the German bomb-bunkers, the Il Gigante (a forty-five feet tall statue that looked carved on the cliff), the church of St. John the Baptist, the Oratory of the Dead, the Switchbacks of the Monks, the Church of the Cappuccin Monks, the cemetery and the ruined castle. We skipped some of the sights, as we were so tired from our hectic Roman holiday. The promenade was inviting and the gelato stands beckoned to us.

However, Monterosso is not as primitive as one would think. It has cars, hotels, rentable beach umbrellas, crowds, and nightlife, not quite a fishing village anymore but the locals still expect the tourists to give them peace and quiet, respect and sensitivity to their daily life.

For dinner, we ate at Ristorante Belvedere and had an exotic, fantastic, superb, traditional fruit of the sea stew called Amfora Belvedere. This is a stew of fish, octopus, shrimp, squid, lobster, crab legs, mussels, and clams cooked in a clay pot. I don't know what the other ingredients were but the small amount of soup tasted so good and would have been excellent with rice instead of the Italian bread.

The next day all of us had to meet at the train station early enough to be on the 7:36 A.M. train, the strike now being over. Ragen our tour director emphasized that we should not miss the train. Be on it! If you miss that ride, too bad! That's what he said. I don't really know what plan B was if we missed it.

VISITING THE SMALLEST NATION

Day 13, Saturday, July 5, 2008

Today was another humid and energy-consuming tour. We went to the Vatican, the world’s smallest nation. Because we had group reservation, we did not have to fall in line for tickets. We made sure that we dressed in accordance with the dress code.

There, I satisfied my curiosity at the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican Apartments, and St. Peter’s Basilica. I soaked in the amazing and perplexing history as depicted in the paintings, sculpture, and other assets of the Catholic Church (including sarcophagi), and the wealth of information about the history of the Church, one of which was the inscription of the names of popes from the St. Peter down to the last one. I admired with awe Michelangelo's talent as epitomized in the Sistine Chapel and the Pieta. Being inside the Sistine gave me goose bumps thinking that I was in the very chapel where the election of a new pope traditionally takes place. I considered this chapel as holy and the noise made by tourists who disregarded the rule to keep quiet was very upsetting.

Our group then left the chapel through an exit that directly led to St. Peter’s Basilica, thus saving us time by not going back to the entrance. Here at St. Peter's Basilica, the holiness, sanctity, and reverence of the place vanished due to the pack of humanity. People were taking pictures and talking aloud while Eucharistic service was going on.

Rome’s foot traffic was terrible partly because of the number of tourists (approximately twenty million a year) in addition to the nearly three million of people populating it. We were in Rome in July at the height of summer and at the height of tour season.

Ron and I stopped at a shop to look for rosaries. We bought two. They cost E20 each because they were made of olive wood. I'm sure the rosaries were overly priced. When I went into another room in the shop, I thought that Ron was behind me. I started talking about looking for some more rosaries but when I turned around, he was nowhere. I looked for him in another room. I did not find him there. I went outside and there he was, walking down the road oblivious that I was not behind him.

           Ragen previously told us how to get back to our hotel easily by going to the obelisk from the basilica and turning to the left to find the two arches. That street would be Via Ottaviano. Finding Via Ottaviano became a problem because I lost my map and my direction notes. I also kept thinking of via Cavour instead of via Ottaviano. I had some “senior moments.” The people we asked directions from could not understand why we wanted to walk to via Cavour because via Cavour was way far from where we were. The more we were upset about the whole thing, the more we could not think clearly, until someone said it had to be via Ottaviano. We finally found our way back to via di Santa Prassede where our hotel was.

           We had the rest of the day to either take a rest or do some more exploring. We chose to rest. It was a tiring day. I was told there are more than five hundred churches in Rome alone and I'm sure they are all very beautiful but I could only take in so much beauty.

I was dog-tired that night and looked forward to our “vacation from our vacation.” We were going to Cinque Terre.

July 4, 2008

Caesar's Rome

All roads lead to Rome, it is said, and on this day, we were on one of these roads. It took us four hours to drive to Rome from Florence. Along the way, we passed by Tuscany and Umbria. We passed by sunflower fields (like the ones in the movie that starred Sophia Loren) and hilltop towns, and hill farms involved in agritourism where tourists could spend a day or days in a farm participating in farming like wine growing or picking fruits and vegetables, riding horses, tasting honey, shopping, and other enjoyable activities.

We arrived at our hotel in Rome, IL Granario di Santa Prassede, on via di Santa Prassede, 25. This is an interesting hotel. It used to be a granary, hence the name. There is no elevator here as the owners wanted to preserve the antiquity of the place. We had to walk up the stairs to get to our floor, which is the third floor. In Europe, people call the first floor, the ground floor, which is equivalent to the first floor of houses in the States. In this case, our room was actually on the fourth floor. The stairway is quite strange. It has short risers and wide steps and is circular. During the olden times, people constructed the granary stairs in this manner so that the horses that carried the sacks of grain could climb them.

As soon as we unpacked and rested for a while, we went on a walking tour with a local guide. We went to the Coliseum, then to the Roman Forum area, the Palatine Hill ruins, and then to the Pantheon. He also took us near the entrance to the Senate. I could just imagine how the senators debated and formulated laws then. He pointed out Basilica Aemilia, which used to be a Roman hall of justice. I imagined how the hall of justice worked during Roman times—people suing and having court hearings, civil suits, and transacting other legal matters. Later, Christian Rome decided to put this to better use for their worship services.

We walked on the very ground that Julius Caesar used to walk on his way to the senate and on the road where he paraded after a successful campaign. Because I had read the life stories of this charismatic leader, I felt my spine tingle as we stood on the spot where the Romans had held his funeral and be on the site where Mark Antony had delivered his famous speech. We then went to the place where they buried his ashes.

We went to the site where the Vestal Virgins used to live. I came to know about the lives of the vestal virgins from my readings on the life of Julius Caesar. The idea of nuns and convents must have originated from this concept of having vestal virgins, except that the nuns don't have tenures. The vestal virgins had a term of thirty years after which time they could then marry.

We went up to a hill where we had a good view of the ruins of an empire that was once powerful and mighty. One can only imagine the real grandeur of the temples and edifices from the sight of the ruins—the forum, the senate, the temples, and others.

The last stop of our walking tour was the Pantheon, originally constructed in 128AD as a pagan temple. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church used it for nearly 1,400 years. It also served as the tombs of two of Italy's 19^th century kings. Surrounded by the ruins that showed proof of Rome's glory, I felt being transported to that glorious time in Roman history.

Buildings, churches, and artifacts designed by famous architects of history abound. Paintings of master painters were a feast to my eyes and I would want to be in these places for days just to enjoy the lavish art. We all marveled at the ruins but one really has to know the history of Ancient Rome and particularly know the man Caesar to value whatever was left of the ancient empire.

It was difficult to appreciate all the grandeur that was Rome in one or two days, much less enjoy eating in gourmet restaurants. Ron and I would just grab a meal here and there so as not to waste time for there were so many sights to see.

In early evening, our group had dinner together, after which time we went to the fountain of Trevi to toss our three coins for good luck. The belief (or fantasy) is that the first toss would give you luck in falling in love; the second toss would give you the luck of marriage, and the third toss would give you the luck of marrying a Roman. Ayayay.

We then went back to Il Granario so tired from the humidity and from walking. It did not take long for me to fall asleep. Next day would be another Roman holiday.

A  Rendezvous with David in Florence

2 -3 July 2008

Florence, Italy

We headed for Florence. I was excited to see Michelangelo's David. Ronny, our driver, took the scenic route instead of the freeway. He drove us between columns of trees until we got to a high point where we could view the city of Florence.

The only thing I knew about David is that he was a shepherd youth who, according to the bible, slew the giant Goliath (six and a half feet tall, according to the bible, and nine feet tall according to another source, but nevertheless, he was way too big for David) with a sling shot. In anticipation to see David, I read about him long before the beginning of the tour. In his Best of Europe 2008 book, Rick Steves wrote, "Michelangelo's David was not just a depiction of a shepherd youth slaying the giant but a depiction of a confident human being looking at the crude giant of medieval darkness and thinking, I can take this guy."

Upon arriving, we checked into our hotel. After settling down our luggage in our rooms and refreshing ourselves, we went to the Accademia to see David and the arts. David's statue is 14 feet tall. Unlike the David I had in my mind, the statue looked rough rather than smooth marble. I was disappointed. The signs warned us that taking pictures was not allowed. Not being able to take David's picture was another disappointment.

Later, we met with Ricardo, our local guide, at the Uffizi Museum. He gave us a ton of information about the arts that abound in the museum. We saw the works of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Rafael and others. Ricardo delivered the history well. He also told us of the mighty and powerfully influential Medici Family and about the secret passageway, called the Vasari Corridor, that the Medici Family would use in case of an attack. From a vantage point, he pointed to us Ponte Vecchio.

After our tour with Ricardo, Ron and I went on our way to the public market as Ragen told us not to miss going there. The public market, Mercato Centrale, had an abundance of leather goods, mostly leather bags, purses, and wallets. We browsed through the leather goods and bought three men's wallets and one shoulder purse psyching ourselves that we got a bargain. In the meat section of the market, we saw a skinned animal with its skinned head on and looking like a skinned Dachund. It was marked "cognilio." Then we wanted to buy a banana to eat as a snack and the lady at the stall thought we wanted a kilo of bananas because in Italy no one buys just one banana. She begrudgingly weighed one banana and Ron said, "One more please." She was upset and got agitated and talked to herself and to the people nearby and I heard her say something like, "uno, due, uno, due", and continued to grumble probably saying that we could not make up our minds. That is how I understood her. I thought she was rude but we tried to forget our embarrassment and her rudeness. We continued to wander around while eating our bananas.

By nighttime, I was looking forward to seeing Caesar's Rome. We needed to take a good and early rest, as we needed to be on the bus by 7:45 in the morning.