UNESCO – Page 2 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

June 9, 2019 Bremen GE

We learned yesterday afternoon that Monday is a holiday in Germany which explains the big crowds both in Bremen and at the stellplatz. When we got back to the stellplatz last night there was a sign in the entrance saying that there was no room in the parking lot. Because we liked Bremen and were worried about finding a similar sign in our next destination we decided to spend another day.

The market square in Bremen on a beautiful sunny day. We had no regrets spending another day.

The World Heritage Site the old town hall that we saw yesterday had a tour today at noon and we decided to make that our highlight for the day. We slept in and then spent the morning cleaning François and watching the morning exodus of motorhomes from the stellplatz before walking down to the city for our tour.

Part of the interior of the town hall with incredibly intricate wood carvings.

The tour of the interior was helped by an extremely enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide who did a good job of explaining how Bremen developed as an independent merchant city under the Holy Roman Empire. When Charlemagne first tried to incorporate Bremen into his empire he did so in the normal way by sending a bishop to the city. The citizens of Bremen resisted this because they wanted the city government to be separate from the church. Charlemagne’s son Roland agreed to this and Bremen claims to be the first government where the separation of church and state was formally proclaimed.

The town hall next to the cathedral, the council of the city sat with their backs to the cathedral in the town hall to prove they were not beholden to the Bishop.

Unlike in other cities in Europe the town hall was as prominent as the Cathedral, and do to luck the building survived all of the wars that occurred over the 600 years it has been in existence. In addition to the normal fantastic wood carvings and paintings the town hall also has a giant wine cellar that holds over 650 different examples of German wine.

The interior of the wine cellar under the town hall, with over 650 different varieties of German wine. We had beer!

Part of the wine cellar is now a restaurant so we decided to treat ourselves to lunch down in the cellar. When we arrived we were offered a private room for about 6 people built into the side of the cellar. It was a cool place even though we were planning on a light lunch.

Roland the person who agreed to allowing Bremen to separate the government from religion.

After lunch we strolled thru town for a while taking in the sites, and people watching. Bremen has a cute town symbol the four musicians of Bremen. It is based on a fairy tale by the brothers Grimm about 4 animals who are abandoned by their owners when they are too old to be useful. The 4 of them decide to move to Bremen to be musicians and even though in the fairy tale they do not make it to Bremen the town has adopted them as the symbol. There is a statue of the four musicians next to the town hall and the legend is that if you make a wish and touch both forelegs your wish will come true. It is important to touch both legs because as they say in Bremen if you only touch one it is just two asses shaking hands with each other.

Ton making a wish with the four musicians of Bremen.

Another depiction of the four musicians on the corner of a building.

June 8, 2019 Bremen GE

There was a pretty violent thunderstorm last night that lasted a couple of hours. I think as a result we both woke up early and decided to get out of Hamburg before the traffic got bad, so we were on the road before 7am.

Ton had Bremen on her list of must see places because she had read that Germans vote the people from Bremen as the friendliest in Germany. That was enough for her to make it a must stop site for us. We decided to take a walking tour put on by the tourist information office. The guide was a local lady who told us she was afraid to speak English 10 years ago, but she decided in her 40’s to study and now gives tours about her home town in English.

The Glockenspiel in Bremen is made of Meissen Porcelain and celebrates great aviators and sailors.

Bremen as a port town and aircraft manufacturing city was heavily bombed during WWII but the town hall, and a section of town called the Schnoor (string in English) survived intact. The town hall is a UNESCO site and has a typical renaissance facade which is incredibly intricate and ornate. The Schnoor was a working class neighborhood for the history of the city and as a result there are a lot of older homes from the 15th thru the 19th centuries that have mostly been turned into tourist shops and restaurants.

The town hall is a UNESCO site and was intact at the end of the WWII so it is one of the best actual examples of buildings from that era in Germany.

Bremen has a well developed tourist infrastructure, and even early in the season was quite busy. We enjoyed the tour and then just walking around town.

The Schnoor an interesting part of Bremen with original examples of working class homes from the 15th thru the 19th centuries

We decided to treat ourselves out to dinner, and were looking at historical German restaurants when Ton said exactly what I was thinking, “lets get something beside German”, so we ended up with an excellent (and large) Greek dinner before heading back to François for the night.

June 7, 2019 Hamburg GE

When we moved from Schwerin to Lubeck we crossed from the former DDR (East Germany) to the BRD (West Germany). We knew because the pedestrian lights changed.

The wait and go lights in West Germany, much like the rest of the world.

The portly man lights used in the old East Germany. I can relate.

The wait and go lights in East Germany are referred to as Ampelmanchen, and are one of the few things that have been retained. Much cuter than in W. Germany, Ton loves the hat and the portlier body.

Hamburg is the second biggest city in Germany with a population of nearly 1.8 million. It is a bigger city than we normally take François into so we were a little nervous. The drive in turned out to be pretty easy with only one detour caused by construction. I had accidentally loaded in the coordinates for a different RV parking than we planned, but by the time we figured it out we were settled in.

We only budgeted one day for Hamburg so we decided to take a “Free Tour” of the city center to try to take in as much as we could in a short time. The tour as always was informative and gave us a quick view of the city and it’s history.

The Speicherstadt is multiple blocks of warehouses with canals built in the late 1800’s when this area was duty free. They lost their duty free status in the 1990’s and have now been converted to hip studios, restaurants, and galleries.

At the end of the tour we were by the new Elbphilharmonie Hall. This concert hall was recently completed in 2017 for over €800 million, and besides the concert hall there are apartments and a hotel in the building.

The exterior of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburgs newest landmark.

The concert hall reportedly has the best acoustics in the world, and is designed so that no one watching a concert is more than 100 feet from the stage. Today they were celebrating their 10 millionth visitor to the Hall so they had free concerts and apple strudels.

The interior has the stage in the middle. They were setting up for a symphony concert.

The interior is beautiful, the exterior attempts to be modern and striking and we think misses on the striking part. The observation deck has a panoramic view of the very busy Hamburg harbor.

The view of the harbor from the Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg is still a very busy port.

Our last stop was a brewery in St. Pauli which is the former (current?) red light district for Hamburg. It turns out the brewery was across the street from the RV parking I had meant to use, so it was a missed opportunity to save on some walking. We stood out from the crowd, not because we were American, but because we were not young, hip, and tattooed. The beer was good, and the people watching fun so we indulged in two rounds instead of our normal one.

The exterior of the very hip brewery in the St. Pauli district.

May 29, 2019 Bayreuth GE

As I said yesterday we planned to move to Bayreuth to go to the largest beer museum in the world. It was an easy 50km drive in light rain, and we have parked up at the first free aire since we arrived in Germany.

After lazing around for a while waiting for the rain to stop, we headed into town to the museum. The museum is only available by tour twice a day and we wanted to make sure we had a spot so after checking in we were told to come back in a couple of hours.

We headed over to the main street of Bayreuth and found a really nice and wide pedestrian zone. We enjoyed checking out the stores and the people. It was a little quiet since the weather was still unsettled and unseasonably cold. We stopped by the opera house which is a world heritage site to check on tour times as it is also only accessible on tours.

Every town in Bavaria has one of these poles which shows the different services available in the town. By tradition they are taken down and updated every 3 years which prompts a beer festival.

After a quick lunch at a Donner Kebab place we headed over to the Maisel World of Beer for our tour. When we first checked in they told us the tour was in German but they would give us an English script so we could follow along. However, it turns out we were the only ones on the tour, so the guide said she would do the tour in English if we did not mind her making a few mistakes as she had never done the tour in English before. It turned out to be a great tour. When Maisel replaced their old factory with a more modern one, they just left all of the equipment in place in the old building. We were able to see really cool beer making equipment purchased between 1890 and 1910 still in working order.

Some of the original equipment from Maisaels factory. It was used from about 1900 to the late 1970’s.

The tour much like yesterday included every part of the beer process from grain to shipping. The bonus was it was done in English, our guide was a college student from the local University and she did quite well only stumbling on a couple of technical terms. They also had an interesting display of beer glasses, steins, and signs from over the last 100 years.

Some of the hundreds of beer steins on display.

They have over 5400 beer glasses on display from around the world. We found a few from Oregon.

They still produce their traditional Maisel Weiss which is the beer that made them famous. But the 4th generation of brewers wanted to expand the horizons a bit so they have a second company called Maisel and Friends which while keeping with the purity laws produces typical micro brews including ales, porters, and IPA’s. The brewery itself looks very much like an upscale west coast brewery. It would fit in very well in San Diego or Portland. It was interesting to see the German take on a microbrewery.

We ended a day with a tour of the Margravial Opera House which was built from 1744 to 1748. This time there were plenty of Germans on the tour, so we were relying on our pamphlet to understand what we were seeing.

The wood carvings on the balcony of the theater is incredibly intricate.

It was built by Frederick the Greats daughter to celebrate the marriage of her daughter Wilhelmine to the Duke of Wurtemberg. Unfortunately the marriage did not work out very well, and the couple were effectively separated before the Opera House was paid for.

The wood carvings on the interior are incredibly intricate and a bit ostentatious. The stage is really deep and allows for the staging of really large sets with lots of extras. For this reason it was a favorite place for the German composer Richard Wagner to stage his operas some of which go on for 3 or 4 hours with giant casts.

Bayreuth was the adopted home town of the composer Richard Wager so these little statues of him are everywhere.

We were completely lost during the extensive talk about the building. But it is indeed an impressive piece of architecture, and I can see why it works as an opera house even if it is a little over the top.

Bayreuth turned out to be a very nice city and the easiest we have walked around in Germany, with a great pedestrian zone, and extensive walking and biking trails. Though we were in a big city we were mostly isolated from the cars which we enjoyed.

May 27, 2019 Bamberg GE

When you are traveling from campground to parking lot to campground you start to appreciate the little things. This campground has absolutely the best showers we have ever seen in a campground and would rival most luxury hotels. Ton and I have been really taking long luxurious showers the last two days.

Ton liked this sculpture in downtown Bamberg.

We had a low key pub crawl today. We stopped in 4 breweries/beer halls and craft brew store for one of the largest suppliers of beer malt in the world. We enjoyed the breweries, and did not enjoy the malt company craft beer store due to poor service.

These wrought iron signs have been common everywhere in Germany, this one is for a brewery.

At the second of our brewery stops we saw another couple sitting at a table with no beer. At a lot of the beer halls they do not serve you at the table, instead you go to a window by the bar and order your beer. We heard them speaking English so we explained the process to them. We ended up chatting with them while we enjoyed our beer.

The beer tender at the beer garden. Frequently in Germany the beer is piped directly from the brewery to the taps.

They had lived in Beaverton Oregon for a while before retiring in Florida so we had a nice chat about traveling. Eventually we parted ways to head out on different beer agendas. A couple hours later we were sitting in our 3rd brewery when we saw them walk in. We ended up spending the next couple of hours with them as they planned to visit the same breweries we had picked. They had lived in Germany in the past and gave us some good tips on other good beer towns though they did admit that Bamberg was their favorite beer town Germany.

It was a fun day with lots of good German beer; our faith in German beer and creativity is restored after today. Ton thought I was a little harsh on Würzburg the other day, she thought the scene on the bridge was fun and that my expectations were too high .

Number 4 (6 if you count the two yesterday)and the best of our brewery crawl of Bamberg.

May 26, 2019 Bamberg GE

Had a rushed start to the day. Part of our daily routine is for me to get up and make a cup of coffee. When that is done I take a short walk so Ton can have some privacy while she gets dressed and makes herself beautiful. This morning as I was leaving the parking lot we spent the night in I realized that a bunch of people in yellow vests were taping off the entrance to the parking lot and the entrance road. I finally understood that the Würzburg Marathon was going to run right thru the parking lot we were in, so I rushed back to François and hurried Ton to get dressed before we were blocked in for the day.

As we were getting ready to set off we had to decide where to head for the day. We have been having an ongoing debate about whether to go to Nuremberg. We have read great things about it, but it is a pretty big city, and the options for parking François were pretty unappealing. We had continued the debate last night without coming to a decision whether to go to Nuremberg and then Bamberg, or straight to Bamberg. As we were getting ready to roll I asked Ton, and she said Bamberg much to my relief.

The old mill in Bamberg on the Regnitz River.

Bamberg is another World Heritage Site, with the bonus of reportedly having the most breweries per person in the world. Bamberg was a must see for us. Because of our early start, and allowing Greta Garmin to use the Autobahn we arrived in Bamberg before 10am.

The Rathaus (Town Hall) in Bamberg, the story is that the town would not provide land for the Rathaus so the Mayor built it in the river.

We have been struggling with Germany a bit. The cities are pretty, clean, and well organized. The people have been universally helpful and nice. But for us it has been less sanuk (for non-Thai’s a word that speaks to a feeling of fun, and spontaneity) than either Spain or France. As an example last night at the bridge had the feeling of sanuk right up to sunset when everyone packed up and left at once. On top of that; the beer (and this will sound heretical to many) has been mediocre since Munich. In Germany’s defense the weather has not been helpful with days and days of cold and rain. Last night we talked of heading to Poland and cutting Germany short.

The party on the bridge in Würzburg, 30 minutes later it was done.

But Bamberg does have all of the things that we have been looking for. The town is really pretty and easy to move around. The tourist information offered a beer map with 65 breweries listed in English.

They even have a coupon book that allows you to visit different breweries and get their house choice beer. We tried two today, and they were really good beers restoring our faith in German beer The sun was out and we enjoyed walking around and people watching. We even found some more Thai to talk to on the street. There have been a lot more Thai in Germany than in France or Spain.

Every place we sat down someone tried to engage us in conversation which was really nice. When we got back to the campground we extended our stay for another day to check out some other breweries that the locals told us about.

Another view of the Rathouse in Bamberg one of my favorite buildings so far in Germany.

May 18, 2019 Neuschwanstein Castle GE

Neuschwanstein Castle is one of the must see landmarks in Germany. Ton had already been twice, but since this is my first time in Germany she suggested we should see it. We signed up for the tour from the Army.

We have seen these giant strawberries all over Germany.

The first stop on the tour was Weiskirche which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It contains a religious relic called the Scourged Jesus. In the 1700’s an old wood carved Jesus statue was found in the hayloft of a barn where it had been stored for a couple of generations. The farmers wife built a small chapel to house it, and the morning after they placed it in the chapel she noticed tears on the face.

The scourged Jesus is in the center of the altar.

The area of the farm is on an old Roman Road which was the main pilgrimage route from Bavaria to Rome, so the pilgrims began visiting the chapel and miracles occurred. Over time enough miracles occurred that the Scourged Jesus was declared a religious relic and received funding for a proper church around 1745.

The exterior of the pilgrimage church of Wieskirche.

The church was built in the Rococo style and is known as a pilgrimage church as it is out in the middle of a field not near a town. We have spent quite a lot of time in Gothic churches and cathedrals so the Rococo style was interesting for us to observe. It is much more light and airy than gothic. The art work is focused more on the ceiling of the church, and they try to achieve a 3D effect by blending statues into the art. The art work was quite beautiful, and either well preserved or recently restored.

The ceiling of the Wieskirche leading to the door to heaven.

After the visit to the church we were encouraged to try some Bavarian Donuts. Every culture seems to have a variation of fried sweet dough, and so far they are all delicious. We sat down with a soldier to eat our donut and he was on his way home after having spent the last 8 months working with the State Department, and US Aid assisting with Syrian Refugees. He said it was the most complicated assignment he had faced in his 34 years in the army. It was fascinating to hear his experience trying to deal with the Turks and the Kurds both of whom are allied with the US, but hate each other pathologically.

The next stop was Neuschwanstein Castle, which is the model for the Disney Castle (they reportedly pay a royalty to the Bavarian Government annually for the likeness). The castle is quite new having built by King Ludwig II in the 1860’s.

This was the castle Leopold grew up in, it was not good enough so he built Neuschwanstein.

Ludwig was quite an eccentric and spent a great deal of the treasury and his families money building this castle and two others. He was spending money at such a fast rate that eventually the Bavarian Government had him declared insane, and appointed his Uncle king. Shortly after he was deposed he was found “accidentally” drowned along with one of his Doctors in three feet of water, even though he was 6’5” tall.

The view from the castle back up the gorge it is perched on.

The castle is quite an impressive structure, and the workmanship of the rooms was superb. The tours are conducted with Germanic precision and no pictures are allowed of the interior. I can now cross Neuschwanstein off my bucket list.

May 15, 2019 Reichenau GE

We have been enjoying Lake Constance so we decided to spend another day on the lake at a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Reichenau Island. Yesterday we visited “Flower Island” and today we are visiting “Vegetable Island”.

The drive over was quick and uneventful except for a diversion to the ferry terminal as Greta Garmin decided that was the quickest way to Reichenau, she was probably right but we decided to skip the ferry fee, and after some resetting of Greta, we were on our way by road.

World Heritage Sites are usually pretty spectacular, so when we pulled on to Reichenau it seemed that the emphasis was on vegetables and not memorable architecture. For our friends from Oregon think of Sauvie Island with three small churches. After settling in to the Stellplatz we decided to walk on over to the Abby which is the largest of the three churches that make up the UNESCO site. The walk was thru a bunch of vegetable fields where we played guess the vegetable, Ton won.

A field of different types of Lettuce on Vegetable Island.

We arrived at the Abby and it was a nice enough church but nothing spectacular. We finally figured out that the smaller church called St. George Church had the paintings that were what caused the UNESCO designation, and we had a couple of hours to wait until the next tour.

Part of the Abby which was the center of the religious order on the island in the middle ages.

The island this time of year is really very quiet and peaceful, and we spent quite a bit of time just wandering aimlessly around the streets enjoying the views of the lake and enjoying the ambiance and the greenery, it really reminded us of Oregon. We visited the museum to try to understand the history of the Abby as the tour was in German so we needed to prep.

A reproduction of some of the art that we would see later in St. George Church.

Finally what we thought would be the highlight of the day was the tour of the interior of the church which has artwork from the 10th century that was rediscovered in the 1880’s when the white wash that had covered them was removed. The paintings are in the process of being preserved, access to the church is limited to help minimize the humidity in the church.

An example of the paintings from the 900’s that are being preserved at the entrance to the church.

Some of the art inside the chapel, this type of painting is very rare and this is the northern most church in Europe that this style is found.

The explanation of the on going work to preserve the paintings and the meaning of the paintings was quite extensive, but we did not understand much as it was of course in German. But the guide was quite obviously proud of the work and very knowledgeable.

The exterior of St. George Church, sometimes modest structures hide real treasures.

We had planned on taking the bus back to François after the tour, but I was unable to figure out the bus system, and the bus guide we had did not match the one at the bus stop. So being unsure whether the bus was going to take us home, or into Konstanz I talked Ton into walking the 2 miles back. On the way she saw a sign for a grocery so we detoured down a side road where we saw a small brewery.

Being a little curious we crossed the street and were peering in the door when a man waved us in and welcomed us in German. We were a little shy as we do not speak any German, but the man switched to English and asked us where we were from, when we told him Oregon he laughed and his wife smiled. He said he got his Masters Degree from Southern Oregon University! They have been operating the only microbrewery in the region for about 3 years. Thomas insisted on giving us a tour of the facilities and a couple of beers to taste. His beers are excellent. We were also invited to a special event the brewery is having on Saturday including beer making, bands and food. It looks like we may be staying in the far south of Germany for a few more days.

Thomas the owner of Insel Brewery on Reichenau Island.

We ended the day by walking down to the beach for a romantic sunset over Lake Constance.

May 9, Strasbourg FR

Today was a day of rest for François but not us. The weather is starting to wear us out a little. We shut in yesterday to let the heavy rain pass thru. Yesterday the weather app was saying it would be better today. They were wrong, today was just as miserable, we had periods of very heavy rain mixed with showers, and the temperatures were in the low 50’s.

Our Stellplatz (German for Aire) is located a few hundred yards from the Rhine, so we decided to head down there to start the day. The river was flowing pretty fast and there was a large river cruise boat parked there. It was a nice park, but after talking about it we decided to go ahead and head in to town for the day despite the bad weather forecast.

A German Post mail bicycle. We followed the mail lady down the road for a while on the way to the Tram.

As we stepped off the tram in the center of Strasbourg we saw a “Free” tour going buy so we decided to join in. It was a good tour though I think everyone’s motivation dropped when the rain and wind really started kicking in. Strasbourg looks like it has a lot to offer. It is an interesting blend of French and German architecture.

The old town of Strasbourg is built on an island in the Ill River.

We ended the tour in a windy downpour, so we dived into the Tourist Information Office with about 100 other Americans. We were debating whether to call it a day, but decided to spring for a boat tour as the weather app said the rain was going to let up a bit later in the day. The boat trip would have been great except for the pounding rain but at least we were inside. We went by the European Parliament which is quite an impressive modern building. We did not get any pictures due to the heavy rain.

Our last stop for the day was the Cathedral. It is another very beautiful building. The highlight of this cathedral for us was the astronomical clock. The gold hands on the clock represent the solar time, and the silver hands the local time. It also figures that rotate around at certain times of the day representing the different phases of life parading past a figure representing death.

The astronomical clock in the Strasbourg Cathedral.

A modern version of the last supper from the interior of the Cathedral.

After the Cathedral we called it a day heading back on the tram to Kehl. We had a short sun break where I leant a young group of Belgians our water can so they could fill their RV with water, one of the guys told me that he had recently hitchhiked from Miami to Houston, (never got the reason why) and could not believe how generous the people were on that trip. Shortly after that another band of rain drove us into François for the night.

October 30, 2018 Barcelona SP

Today we planned a second trip into Barcelona. The primary purpose was to visit the interior of the Sagarda Familia, much like the Alhambra visitors are limited per day, and you have to register in advance to get a time to visit. When we returned to the campground on Sunday we signed up for the next available spot and it turned out to be at 4:45 PM today.

Today was by far the nicest day of our visit to Barcelona with clear blue skies, though it was still on the chilly side. We took the first bus into town as we wanted to spend some time in the markets at Barcelona. They have two markets and we (particularly Ton) really enjoy poking around in the markets to look at the different food products. We also used the time to look around the old town. We pretty much just wandered around looking at churches, stores, and people. Barcelona is now the third or fourth most visited city in Europe, depending on who is counting, so there is quite a lot to see. The shopping is diverse and interesting.

A fruit and vegetable display complete with jack o lanterns, here in Spain they attach tape to the exterior of the pumpkin to make the face.

We have become addicted to Pinxos which is Basque Tapas, and had them again at lunch. In the past we had been eating mostly seafood, so today we went more towards meets and sausages. They were also delicious, Ton also had her new favorite drink at lunch, a good Spanish Vermouth.

Finally we headed over to the Sagarda for our tour. They are really serious about the time on your ticket, we got in line at 4:30, and when we got to the door they turned us around and told us to come back in 15 minutes.

While we were waiting to get in Ton took this shot depicting Judas kissing Jesus before betraying him. The numbers on the left add up to 33 in all directions, Jesus age at his death.

We have seen a lot of cathedrals in our last two trips. Ron thought the exterior of the Sagarda was a little overwrought for his tastes, and preferred the more traditional gothic cathedrals. Ton thinks you cannot compare the Sagarda with a traditional cathedral. However, Ron was wowed with the interior of the Sagarda. While the exterior is extremely busy, the interior is magically elegant, and the use of light is masterful. His vision of the columns of the cathedral as a forest of trees is stunning. The soaring ceilings are really something, and seem much grander than the large gothic cathedrals. Ton was impressed with the stained glass windows, and the way the colors effected the mood of the interior. The Sagarda is an extremely moving place, and we think Gaudi’s genius came thru on the interior, and his madness comes thru on the exterior.

The columns divide at the top to look like canopies of trees and also to support the roof.

One of the few statues inside the cathedral, this one is of Mary.

October 28, 2018 Barcelona SP

While we are staying in Mataro, the purpose of the visit is to see Barcelona. The campground we are staying at is about 40 minutes outside of Barcelona, but offers free shuttles into the city which is nice. It is one of the huge campgrounds in Spain that cater to European snowbirds, there are over 300 spots here, with a bar, restaurant, pool, beach club, and tourist activities. It is quite a place.

The weather was a little better than yesterday but cold. The place we visited two days ago had snow overnight, and it was still raining when we set off. We intended today to be a bit of a reconnaissance of Barcelona so we did not have any firm plans but just wanted to get a feel for the city.

When we got there it was raining pretty hard so we decided to duck into a coffee shop to plan the day. After nursing our coffee and chocolate as long as possible we decided to head towards the medieval cathedral. Barcelona has two cathedrals, one is world famous, and the other is the medieval one. We will talk about the famous one later.

On our way to the cathedral we bumped into a “free” walking tour of Barcelona. We had done these “free” tours in Chile and enjoyed them so we joined it. It was a good decision as it gave us some good background on Catalonia, Barcelona, and the history of Wilfred the Hairy which is Ron’s favorite medieval name, (Richard the Lionhearted, Charles the Brave, and Wilfred the Hairy were all contemporaries more or less, apparently Wilfred was exceptionally hairy).

The door of the Gothic Cathedral in Barcelona.

Wilfred the Hairy depicted slaying a dragon (that looks suspiciously like a giant parrot) on the side of the cathedral

We stopped in a little cafe on the tour that was run entirely by Americans, but they had a good vermouth that Ton and I enjoyed. After the tour was over they were offering a non-free Gaudi and modernisme tour. We decided to join that tour also.

The modernisme movement flourished in Barcelona in the early 1900’s and is led by a guy named Gaudi. We looked at several interesting versions of modernisme buildings ending with a tour of the La Sagarda Familia. It is an extremely interesting building. Gaudi was a Catalan who is considered the leader of the modernisme movement. The university he received his architecture degree from said they were giving a degree to either a genius or a madman.

The facade of a building Gaudi re-modeled in the early 1900’s.

Another Gaudi building from the early 1900’s he hated straight lines and symmetry as he believed they were not natural.

The Sagarda was commissioned by the city during the 1880’s and Gaudi took over the building a year after it was started. In the end he did descend into madness, and it became his obsession. It is still under construction 140 years later, and looks like it has another 20 or 30 years to go, though the official completion date is supposed to be in 8 years. One interesting fact is that for the first 130 years it was under construction it did not have a building permit. They recently resolved that and the commission that owns it paid a €30 million fine. We will tour the interior on Tuesday so more to come on Gaudi and the Sagarda.

The door of the Sagarda, contrast it with the Gothic Cathedral above. All of the figures around the door were plaster casts of real people in Barcelona.

October 24, 2018 Tereul SP

After a string of big cities we decided to head a little more into the back country. Teruel is in the mountains west of Valencia and is famous for it’s Mudejar style towers. Mudejar architecture is a style developed by the Moslem residents of Spain in the 13th and 14th century.

We arrived at Teruel and found a place to park across from the Guardia Civil Barracks in a free parking place. The Guardia Civil are a national police force that are associated with the army. In addition to doing police work in the country, they often serve as the Spanish representation on UN peacekeeping operations. They also have one of the most distinctive hats of any military organization in the world, a patent leather tri-corner thing with an extension that comes off the back, completely impractical but cool. I think we are pretty safe for tonight.

After a quick shop in the Mercadado Grocery across the street to stock up our depleted supplies, we headed into town. The old town is quite nice, but it was a little dead as we arrived right at the beginning of the siesta from 2 to 5 pm. As a result we had the town pretty much to ourselves.

The town did have some very nice Mudejar towers, and a really unique staircase that led into one of the towers. The towers mark where the gates were when the town was fortified during the middle ages.

Our favorite of the Mudejar towers of Teruel.

The stairway to the main entranceway to the town.

Teruel is also famous for a Romeo and Juliet type love story. Isabel and Diego were lovers who intended to marry after Diego returned from 5 years in the army. Isabel waited the 5 years but Diego did not return and was reported dead, so she became engaged with another fellow. On the day of her marriage Diego returned and asked for a kiss, but she refused. Diego died of a broken heart. Isabelle went to his funeral and gave him the kiss she refused when he was alive, and promptly died. They are now buried together in the Cathedral of Teruel.

Diego and Isabel, the star crossed lovers of Teruel.

October 15, 2018 Granada SP

Today was a day we really looked forward to when we headed to Spain. The Alhambra is one of the biggest attractions in Spain, and getting here threw our plans off a bit when we realized there were only tickets available one day this month.

We were both pretty excited so we woke a little earlier than we needed to. Since we were up we decided to head into town. We grabbed the bus to the cathedral, and from there transferred to a mini-bus that goes to the Alhambra. The bus system in Granada is really exceptional.

When we arrived at the Cathedral we took some time to explore the area. In addition to the Cathedral which was another beautiful building that was different in that only one of the walls was exposed, there was also a restored market from the Arab era. During the Arab era it was a silk market, and has been serving as a market since then. There was a large fire that destroyed much of it in the 1840’s, it has been rebuilt but remains the same character.

The old Arab silk market in Granada, now devoted to tourist stuff.

We were not quite sure how things worked when we arrived we knew we had a time for a tour of the Nasrid Palace so we assumed that we could not get access to the grounds until 1pm. But it turns out your ticket gets you on the grounds all day, the only space that is controlled is the Nasrid Palace. So we were glad we arrived a couple hours before hand.

We used the early time to explore the gardens of the palace which are extensive and really beautiful. Ton was thrilled with all of the plants and flowers, as well as the views from the gardens. It was a nice introduction to the place, and we began to sense it was quite special.

There were quite a few feral cats in the gardens.

By the time we poked around in the gardens for a while it was time to head down to the Palace for our tour. The palace lived up to its billing and I see why it is one of the most visited places in Spain. In the last few years they have had to limit the number of visitors to 8300 per day, and almost every day of the year sells out. The palace is a work of art with incredible tile, plaster, and wooden walls. The calligraphy and the art work in the plaster is beautiful, the wood carvings in the ceilings and doors are masterful. The town must have been an interesting place as the number of high quality artisans and artists here must have made for some wild characters. The flow from room to courtyards with beautiful fountains is a joy to behold.

The detail of the ceramic walls is really great.

A reflecting pool leading into the throne room.

Windows with inscriptions from the Koran below them.

Each of these Lions is unique, and three different groups of artist were commissioned to do them when the fountain was built to add to the variety.

It is rare for human figures to be shown in Islamic Art, this is one of only three examples in the palace. Apparently it is a story about a Christian Knight and a Moslem Knight competing for the same woman, the Moslem Knight won the girl.

We were among the last from our group to leave as around every turn was a wow moment for us. Our next stop was the fort which was impressive but had an impossible act to follow. The view of the city from the top of the watch tower though was worth the climb.

This tile was among a set imbedded in a stair case. We are not sure if it is original or a replica.

We finished with a tour of another building which was a smaller version of the palace, it was the pleasure palace of the sultan. It was a great way to wrap up the day.

The final thrill for us was the bus ride back into town. We boarded the same bus 32 we had rode down on. But going back we took back roads and alleys that were incredibly narrow. The mini-bus is a 24 ft Sprinter Van. On multiple occasions we had maybe an inch or two of clearance on both sides of the bus, and some of the turns were incredibly tight. Thru out the drive the bus driver kept up a spirited conversation with one of the passengers. These guys are good.

October 13, 2018 Seville SP

After breakfast we decided to head into town a little early for a coffee, and to use some indoor plumbing. As we were walking into town in the morning it was a little quiet but starting to stir. The sun was shining and there was an air of freshness to things, Ton looked up and said “I like this town”. Seville has been everything we hoped it would be and more. We have really enjoyed ourselves.

Ton’s hometown in Thailand is famous for it’s horse carriages. Ton said the sound of the horses hooves reminded her of home.

The highlight of the day was a guided tour of the Alcazar. It is the royal palace of Seville and dates to the 12th century as a palace. It is claimed to be the oldest royal palace still in use, though the British on our tour thought that Windsor Castle was older. After some discussion between the British and the Spanish guide, they decided it could be both depending on how you counted.

The palace consists of three buildings, two of which were built by Christians after the reconquest and one by the Islamic Caliphate that fortunately was left largely intact . They each have there own unique style, but for us the most impressive building was the one built in the Mudejar style. The palace also has extensive gardens that are also quite beautiful. Ton just about ran the battery out on her camera taking pictures. We ended up spending over three hours on the tour and then retracing our steps to look at places that we really liked.

Blue has a special meaning in Islam associated with being transported to heaven.

The plaster work was incredibly intricate, and covered a huge area in the palace.

In addition to the plaster work, there was intricate tile work on both the walls and floors.

It is hard to capture the scale and detail of the rooms in the palace.

By the time we were done with the Alcazar we were ready for a nice lunch. We went to a place that has been in business for 75 years Bodega Gongora, and we understand why. The street seating and the good seating was all taken, and we were about to leave when we found a small room in back by the bathrooms that we had to ourselves for the meal. We had a grilled seafood plate that consisted of Octopus, Tuna, Anchovies, Sardines, and a white fish we could not identify. The fish was delicious, though we decided that in the future we are going to have our Sardines and Anchovies fried as you can just crunch the bones with the fish.

We spent some time walking around town and people watching. The city is incredibly pedestrian friendly, and the people of Seville seem to really enjoy just going out for a stroll and to eat. It really is a city to love.

October 12, 2018 Seville SP

Seville was always our target for the trip. After a poor nights sleep on the wrong side of the tracks we decided to shift to a parking lot near the city center. Ron was a little worried about driving into the middle of a big city during rush hour. It turned out to be a breeze as it was a holiday. We are now parked next to the Guadalquivir River along with about 40 other RV’s.

François with 40 or 50 friends in Seville.

Seville is a great city with an interesting history. Initially a Roman city, it was conquered and ruled by the Arabs for five hundred years. Many of the major buildings and the city walls were built by the Arabs. The Cathedral is the largest Gothic Cathedral in Europe, and the Alcazar the old Arab palace, are the two main attractions and we intended to go to both of them today. When we went to buy tickets for the Alcazar we were told there were no tickets available until tomorrow. So we are now spending one more night in Seville.

The skyline of Seville, the building in the foreground is the Golden Tower built by the Arabs, the Cathedral is in the background, and the church tower on the left is a converted mosque.

We did get into the Cathedral, and it is very impressive, and large. While the architectural style is similar to the French Cathedrals, the art and the alters are quite different. We spent a couple of hours going thru on our own, and occasionally eavesdropping on the guided tours.

The exterior of the Cathedral, it is hard to capture the size of the building.

During one of our eavesdropping sessions we learned the story of Christopher Columbus’ body. While he is famously Italian, his trip of discovery was funded by the Spanish king and left from Seville. When he died he had asked that his body be buried in what is today the Dominican Republic, but it did not happen and he was originally buried in Seville. After a couple of years his son had half of his body sent to Italy, and the remainder stayed in Seville. A little later the half of his body in Seville was sent to the Dominican Republic. In the late 1700’s the Dominican Republic rebelled against Spain and one of the last things the Spanish did before leaving was to move Christopher’s body to Cuba. When the Cuban’s successfully rebelled against Spain the Spanish again moved Christopher to Seville. A little later everyone got over the rebellions and etc, and Christopher is back in the Dominican Republic. I don’t know if the story is true, but it is a good story.

The cafe scene in Seville was very appealing.

There was also a bull fight today, and we walked by the arena just before the start. There was an incredible energy to the crowd as they entered. While neither one of us would be comfortable watching, it is an important part of the heritage of Spain and Seville. Seville also has a great cafe scene, in fact Ron thinks it is better than Paris. Today is a holiday, and the cafe’s were full, and it was great people watching. We decided to have a meal, and it was ok. But we enjoyed ourselves. So far our best meal on the trip was at the little campground we stayed at in Tordesillas.

The crowd entering the bull fighting arena.

October 10, 2018 Casceres SP

Decisions get made for you sometimes. One of our bucket list items for this trip was to visit the Alhambra in Granada. We finally felt close enough to look at buying a ticket as you must buy in advance. So when Ron logged on to the site there was only one day left in the entire month, so now we have to be at the Alhambra on October 15. So all our thoughts of heading to Galicia, or Portugal were over and we had to head south.

That being decided for us we decided to go ahead and get to Seville straight away. It was a bit of stretch for one day so we picked Casceres based on it being about 60% of the way to Seville. We drove for about 4 hours on really good freeways thru some very open plains. We also passed thru a substantial mountain range with passes at 4000 feet called the Sierra de Gredos.

The old city Casceres is a UNESCO world heritage site, due to its well preserved mixture of Romanesque, Gothic, and Baroque buildings. It also has seven towers in place that were put built by the Moors when they conquered Spain.

After checking into the campground we took the city bus to downtown, and eventually found the old town. You can see why it has been a fort since Roman times as it really sits in a commanding position over the surrounding countryside. The area is well preserved, though a modern vibrant city has sprung up around it.

The Plaza right outside the old town. We were tempted by the low prices, but opted for a good nights sleep, as dinner did not start until 830pm.

An example of Romanesque architecture with some Baroque influences.

We enjoyed walking around and taking in the sites for a couple of hours. Both of us are still feeling under the weather so in the end we called it an early night and headed back for hopefully a good sleep.

Pigs being fattened up to make Jamon (ham)under the walls of Carceres.

September 30, 2018 Blaye FR

We had an early start to the day. The weather continues to be great, highs in the low 70’s and lows in the low 50’s. We headed into Bordeaux which is the home of Cabernet Sauvignon, the area we wanted to visit produces some of the most expensive wines in France.

Our Dutch App that we use to locate places to stay recommended we stay at a winery called the Marquis de Vauban. It was free so we punched it in as we left Rochefort, after a nice relaxing Sunday drive of about 110Km’s we arrived. Our expectation was a spot in a parking lot. We were very pleasantly surprised to find we are parked right in the vineyard of the winery with electricity, and water provided. We went into the tasting room and signed up for the 4pm English tour.

We had a few hours to kill so we walked into the town of Blaye to see the fortifications there which is a UNESCO world heritage site. This is another fort designed by the French designer Vauban, (the same guy our winery is named after). It was designed in 1660 on the site of a medieval fort on the River Gironde. The Gironde is the largest River estuary in Europe and it is about 3 miles wide here. The purpose of the fort was to protect Bordeaux from ships coming up the Gironde. It is an immense fort and was put to the test in 1814 when the British besieged it. The fort withstood the siege and kept the British from getting down the Gironde. It was decommissioned after WWII and turned over to the town.

Looking across the Gironde River towards the town of Paulliac. Goats have taken over one of the outer parts of the fort.

An inland entrance to the fort with a bridge over the dry moat facing the town.

We took our winery tour and tasting with a couple from Wales. After the tour we took a nice horse carriage ride into town to top off the night. While we were relaxing there was a knock on the door of the RV and it was the guide from the horse carriage wanting to know if we wanted an aperitif for the night, of course we did. The aperitif was poured from a used Evian water bottle. After everyone from the campground got their glass he asked what it was, we had no idea, but felt better when none of the other guests knew either. It turned out it was blackberry currant mixed with red wine. It was delicious. After that we returned to the RV to have our dinner, and call home.

This black swan was out looking for dinner outside the RV.

September 26, 2018 Coleville FR

We are still on the Normandy peninsula basically moving from the area of Utah Beach to Omaha Beach. We got a late start as we decided to take care of some housekeeping chores in the morning. After Ton paid some bills and we knocked out a load of laundry we headed out for Omaha Beach.

When we arrived at the center of Omaha Beach it was quite crowded with several bus loads of Americans taking their lunch break al fresco around the memorial. We poked around for a while and mourned with a fellow Oregonian about the football teams loss on Saturday to Stanford.

Standing on Omaha Beach in front of the Sculpture to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the battle.

Done with Omaha we headed over to the American Cemetery in Coleville. This cemetery is maintained by the US Battlefield Memorial Commission and is the final resting place for over 9000 soldiers and sailors from the battles around Normandy. After the war the families of the fallen were given a choice to have the bodies shipped home or buried in place, so this does not represent all of the Americans killed in the battle.

The view towards the memorial and reflecting pool.

The visitor center and the grounds are inspiring and a true honor to the young men who are there. The visitor center has an excellent display about WWII and D-Day. After you walk thru the visitor center you enter the grave sites, and the location overlooks Omaha Beach and the Atlantic. The site is immaculate and clearly lovingly taken care of by the French staff.

When we completed the tour at the cemetery we headed into Bayeux which is about the only major city that was not leveled during the invasion. It is also famous for the Bayeux Tapestry which is a famous medieval artwork. As we entered the city we made a quick stop at a Carrefour Market to re-stuff the refrigerator. We headed into the city but just missed our opportunity to see the tapestry as the museum was closing. We took a quick walk to look at the Norman style Cathedral, and then headed back to François for the night.

A gargoyle on the Cathedral at Bayeux. They are not only an interesting feature but actually serve as the drains for the gutters when it rains.

September 24, 2018 Chartres FR

Our plan when we arrived was to head towards Spain, so of course we drove north today to Chartres. Along the way we decided to visit Normandy and Brittany on our way to Spain, so we had to divert north to get to Normandy.

We decided to visit Chartres primarily to see its Gothic Cathedral. We visited Sens Cathedral the other day which is billed as the first Gothic Cathedral, and Chartres is supposed to be the best example of a Gothic Cathedral. Chartres still has its’ original stained glass as during both wars they removed it and stored it safely. During WWII the cathedral was in danger as the allies moved towards Paris, but an American Colonel successfully negotiated with a German General to declare Chartres open, so there was no battle fought in the city.

The exterior of the Chartres Cathedral. Note the contrast between the recently cleaned upper part, and the uncleaned lower part. The maintenance of these buildings is daunting.

On our way out of Chinon we decided we wanted to visit a winery, we drove thru the countryside only to find it was closed. Disappointed again, we wrote off getting a taste of any Chinon wine, but on our way out of town Ton spotted the new tasting room for the winery we had driven out into the country to see. Pierre and Bertrand Couly had opened a new tasting room on the highway to Chartres, Chinon Red wines are what we call Cabernet Franc in the US. We spoke to the wife of the owner and she did a great job explaining the wines of the area. She was aware of Oregon wines as her husband had spent some time at Sokol Blosser winery in Oregon in the 1980’s.

The very fine winery Pierre & Bertrand Couly. As the owner said you do not have to have an old facility to make traditional wines.

The three hour drive to Chartres was uneventful as the “N” road that we used most of the way was quite good. We parked in a free overnight spot, and walked about a mile into town to see the cathedral. The cathedral was indeed impressive, and the interior stain glass windows were among the best we have seen in France. The cathedral was constructed in the early 1200’s after the previous Romanesque Cathedral had burned. The cathedral is deservedly a UNESCO world heritage site. Besides admiring the beauty of the building we also again discussed the maintenance of these immense buildings. Just keeping the exterior clean is a full time job.

One of the stain glass “Roses” at Chartres, this one dates from around 1210 and is the original glass.

After touring the cathedral we decided not to wait for the light show, so we walked back to François. Frankly we were a little peeved with one of the attendants who would not let us take the last crypt tour, and did it in a way that seemed unnecessarily officious to us while simultaneously refusing to speak English, even though we had just heard him giving an explanation of the tour in perfect English to another person. I hope he was just having a bad day. We had a light dinner and a relatively early night as we have a long drive to Normandy tomorrow.

Some of the art work inside the Cathedral.

September 22, 2018 Chateau de Chambord FR

Well, plans change. We had originally planned to go to Orleans for the day, but last night we discussed spending a few days in the Loire Valley. When we woke up it was spitting rain and a little windy, The Weather Channel said it was going to improve as the day went on so we decided to skip Orleans, and head to Chateau de Chambord.

Ron plugged a GPS coordinate into the Garmin which was supposed to be for the motorhome parking at the Chateau and we took off. The Garmin said it was only a 68km drive, and the roads were good. Right at the end we started to think something was amiss as we suddenly started to get on smaller and smaller roads and this is maybe the largest tourist attraction in the Loire Valley. At the end the GPS proudly announced we had arrived, but we were looking at a field next to a little village. Either Ron inputed the coordinates wrong or the coordinates were wrong in the app we use to find places to stay. Anyway after a little more research we were on our way to the Chateau.

Thirty minutes later we arrived and what a first impression. The chateau is magnificent in scale. As we walked up to the entrance Ton said that this must cost a fortune to maintain. This would become a theme of the day.

The first view of the Chateau, it really is immense.

The Chateau was originally constructed from 1519 to 1547 by King François I. It is built in the Renaissance style and has 11 towers on the roof that are supposed to look like Istanbul.

The rear of the chateau from the immense gardens.

While it is really something to look at it is indeed difficult to maintain. When you watch the movie of the history of the Chateau it goes something like this, François builds it, and then loses interest in it and it deteriorates, another king gives it to someone who spends a fortune on it and then loses interest and it deteriorates, it passes to another owner who spends a fortune etc. In fact it may be the greatest white elephant in France.

The ceiling on the third floor, the salamander was the symbol of François I.

It is now maintained by the French National Park Service and they are clearly spending a fortune to restore and maintain it. Hopefully they will succeed as it is worth keeping.