London & the Cotwolds

Hello from the Cotswold’s

July 10, 2010

To catch up, on Thursday the three of us, Madi, Lynda and Tim visited Covent Garden where we did some shopping and watched a street entertainer impersonating Harry Houdini. Busking (street entertainers and musicians) are considerably better in London than in Italy. We heard a string quartet playing Mozart in Covent Garden. Beats the heck out of the crumby clarinetist playing the theme to “Titanic” with electronic accompaniment that we heard in Rome. Believe it or not, we found a reasonably good Mexican restaurant in London for lunch. After lunch we journey to Abbey Road. We stood in line with all the other tourists to take the de rigueur pictures of us crossing Abbey Road ala the Beatles from the Abbey Road album cover. Next we ventured to Harrods where Madison went nuts over the chocolate room in the Food Halls. She was with Tim (while Lynda shopped for duvetcovers (!)) and at one point told Tim that he needed to buy her chocolate before she drooled all over the window of the display case. Tim explained that drooling was allowed, even expected, knowing full well a Harrods employee was next to them. As a perfect example of Harrods customer service, the Harrods representative said that there were towels available for such occurrences. Hurray for Harrods! We had a lovely evening with Tim and Lynda’s friends from East Lansing.

Friday morning we got Madison to Heathrow and her plane left on time. She had another unaccompanied minor sitting next to her on her flight so she was not bored to death as she feared. She is now safely home, merrily fighting with her sister and telling all of her friends how weird and embarrassing her grandparents were.

We rented a car at Heathrow and drove to the Cotswold’s. We had spent two months here in 2003, living in a cottage in Stow-on-the-Wold. We are staying in a B & B just outside Stow. We spent yesterday and today exploring old haunts and enjoying them thoroughly. All of the pubs have been wonderful. We visited Hidcote Gardens yesterday. If you are a gardener you understand that British gardens are the gold standard for gardening. Hidcote is one of the best. There was a profusion of beautiful flowers. Today we visited a lavender farm near Snowshill. This farm commercially produces lavender oil. Field after field of lavender in different colors was very striking.

Tomorrow we have our Sunday joint ( a joint in England is the roasted meat that is served for Sunday dinner. It can be either beef, pork, or lamb. Shame on those of you who thought of something different!) at a pub that we visited repeatedly seven years ago. From there we drive to Eastbourne to visit our friends, Clive and Angie. Monday morning we return our rental car and travel to Dover to board our ship for our cruise. Our next blog posting will be from the high seas. If you suffer from motion sickness, take a Dramamine before reading the blog!

Hopefully we will have pictures posted with this posting. There should be one of some of us on the Millennium Bridge in London. Also pictures from Hidcote Garden and the Snowshill lavender fields.

Cheers!

Tim and Lynda

London

Thursday, July 8, 2010 London, England

Good Morning from London-

We had a very uneventful flight from Rome to London if you call 20 some hyper Italian upper elementary students on an airplane uneventful. We heard some poor older English women complaining to one of the flight attendants as we left the plane. They were actually acting quite normally but you can imagine on a plane everything was magnified. Tim enjoyed it because you could not hear the annoying safety instructions over the noise of the kids. Madison thought they were all evil.

At any rate it is great to be in London. As beautiful as Italy is and as incredible as the food and wine tastes in Italy, England somehow feels more like home. We are staying in a very non descript hotel about a 10 minute walk from Victoria Station. Madison laughed when we first went in our room because she said everything in the room was “squished”. There is barely enough room to turn around and we are sure the ship we will be cruising on will have a larger bathroom. But it is cheap and clean and very well located.

Yesterday we took a bus from Victoria Station to the British Museum. We were all fascinated by the Rosetta Stone and the Egyptian mummies and sarcophagi. Some of the things we remember from a previous visit, such as illuminated bibles and Mendelssohn original scores, have been moved to one of the buildings of the British Library system. After lunch we went by bus, again, because Lynda says you can see more from the bus than the tube, to St. Paul’s. A bit of a disappointment, St. Paul’s. They are now charging 12 pounds per visitor to enter the cathedral. We looked around as best we could from in front of the ticket kiosk and left. We did do something new and different when we left St. Paul’s. In 2000 London built a pedestrian bridge across the Thames that they very cleverly called the Millennium Bridge. On the north bank of the Thames the bridge is just below St. Paul’s and on the south bank it comes out at the Tate Modern art gallery. Right next to the Tate Modern is the brand new Globe Theatre built to look like the old Globe theatre. And amazingly enough right next to the Globe Theatre is a pub. We will let you guess which we visited first! We actually don’t particularly like the Tate Modern. Prince Charles, unfortunately is correct when he says that the Tate Modern is “a carbuncle on the face of London.” But we thought Madi might enjoy and possibly explain what we were missing in the art work. We think she enjoyed the gallery but was not able to give us much more insight into the art work. During the day Madison was able to do some more souvenir shopping and we enjoyed an excellent dinner of fish and chips with mushy peas at a pub that is about a 5 minute walk from our hotel. Believe it or not, Tim was the only person to actually eat his mushy peas. Bad Lynda and Madison!

Today, in no particular order, we are going to visit Harrods, Covent Garden, The Victoria and Albert Museum, and Abbey Road of Beatle fame. A Beatles Moment: Yesterday was Ringo Starr’s 70th birthday. Heather - he was the drummer in the Beatles. The London Times yesterday had an editorial that called for the Queen to finally give Ringo his much deserved knighthood. If the Times is editorializing about this, you can imagine the clamor around the rest of the country. Tonight we are planning on meeting friends from East Lansing for dinner. Louise is a professor in MSU’s college of nursing and has been teaching in MSU’s summer program in London for over twenty years. Louise’s husband, Bill is a college friend from Hope.

Tomorrow Madison flies home. We know she has enjoyed this trip thoroughly, but also sense she is ready to get back home to her family and friends. As much as she professes to miss her sister, we have a pool to guess how long after she gets home before she and Jocey are at each others throats. After seeing Madi off we will rent a car and spend the weekend in the Cotswold’s and then drive to Eastbourne to see our friends Clive and Angie. Monday we board our ship for our two week cruise. It will certainly be different for us to be cruising with people our age instead of spending all of our time with a teenager. Our guess is that it won’t be very long on the cruise before we wish we were with that lovely teenager again.

Cheers for now.

More Roma

Rome, Monday, July 5, 2010

OK. I was wrong in a previous blog. The best gelato in Rome is found at Tre Scalina in the Piazza Navonna. The intensity of the flavor and the creaminess of the chocolate gelato that Madi and I had is beyond description.

After our previously described siestas we walked to the Pantheon. We think Madison was suitably impressed but one never knows for sure with teenagers. We found another geocache to satisfy Lynda’s geocaching jones very near the Pantheon. She insists on geocaching in very public places in the middle of huge crowds of people. I’m still waiting for the moment that we have to try to describe geocaching to an Italian police officer who understands little English. Our next blog may come from a Roma jail.

After a lovely meal near the Pantheon we walked on to Piazza Navonna. What an incredible place to be on Saturday night. It was a beautiful evening and the crowds of people were in a festive mood. Several of the bar/restaurants in the Piazza were televising the World Cup soccer match. We could hear cheering all around us whenever something exciting happened during the game. As always, the Piazza was full of street artists selling their wares or doing on the spot portraits or caricatures as well as street musicians and performers. We reminisced with Madison about having Jil and Jeff’s portraits done many years ago on our first visit to Rome.

Sunday morning we visited the Coliseum. It does not hold as many people as Spartan Stadium but is considerably more impressive. We probably spent 45 minutes walking about the different levels of the stadium taking in the history of the place that one could literally feel. On our way to the forum we found another geocache. Only a sleeping homeless man observed us this time. Lynda is fascinated by the forum. Madi and Tim were less in awe. To them it is was just a bunch of old rocks.

An interesting aside. We have stopped at several churches during the weekend because we love to look at the beauty of the old Roman churches, and happened on several weddings. It appears to be a big deal to have wedding pictures of the bride and groom in front of Rome’s many historic sites.

We mentioned earlier discovering a wonderful local ristorante. We visited it again after leaving the forum and went back to the hotel for naps. Even Tim took a nap this time. The heat is really quite bad; temps in the upper 80’s to near 90.

Sunday evening we took a bus to the Trastavere section of Rome. This is or was the working class area of Rome. Unfortunately, it has been discovered by the tourists and the working class is being slowly forced out. It is an area of mostly pedestrian streets with many little shops and wonderful bars and restaurants. It was again a beautiful evening to be out strolling and soaking up the atmosphere all around us.

This morning we took a combination of subway trains and buses out to the Catacombs that are south of Rome. Tim’s brother and sister-in-law put us onto this site. After a long, hot walk along a section of the original Appian Way, which was a treat in itself that we don’t think Madi appreciated, we finally found the Catacomb we were looking for. We visited the San Callisto Catacomb where St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music was buried. This was all under ground so it was refreshingly cool. Unfortunately, we were never able to find the restaurant that Steve and Debra had recommend that we try. Guess we will have to come back to Rome again. Darn!!

Tomorrow morning Lynda wants to visit the crypt of some Capuchin priest who is evidently the patron saint of cappuccino! Then we fly to London. We are almost hoping to find it cool and raining in London. Not sure if we are ready for fish and chips and mushy peas accompanied by a pint of warm beer.

Madison continues to be a wonderful traveling companion. She is eating pizza at every meal but we really can’t say anything because Tim is having pasta at every meal. There have been few if any complaints from her and for the most part she is finding humor in her grandparents traveling idiosyncrasies. This is certainly a memorable trip for us with her. Hope she feels the same.

Ciao.

Roma

Roma July 3, 2010

Twenty six years ago we were in Rome at this same time - went to a papal audience on July 4th - and it was extremely hot. Why didn’t we remember that when making our plans for this trip? Oh well, we’re walking on the shady side of the street when that is possible and enjoying afternoon siestas to avoid the worst of the heat. Actually working well for us. (Tim was at the Laundromat while Lynda and Madi had siestas!)

Yesterday we settled into our hotel - it is a 5 minute walk from the Trevi Fountain. We went there several times but the crowds were so big that Madison wanted to go back when it wasn’t so busy. She and Tim got there about 7:30 this morning and the fountain was “closed” for cleaning! Not a happy Madi! When we returned after breakfast about 9:00 we were able to get pictures with the water back on and the crowds at a reasonable level. All three of us threw coins in to assure our return to Rome.

Last night we found our first geocache in Italy - we tried to find one in Sorrento and couldn’t locate it. The one we found in Rome was right by the Trevi Fountain and we took the cache into a nearby church to open it and log our findings so others wouldn’t see what we were doing. We have 4 more to find in Rome and then several in London when we get there.

Friday was also a good day because we went to the ristorante in Naples that invented pizza. They still serve only 2 varieties - a tomato, cheese and basil (margherita) and a tomato, oregano, garlic(marinara) pizza. The place is constantly busy and the pizza was great! Once in Rome we went to the Gelateria with the best gelato in Rome - per our hotel and Tim! Last night we found a lovely old trattoria with both outside dining and rooms in a cellar with air conditioning - we took the cellar! We’ll go back as the pastas are great.

This morning we took the Metro to the Vatican and waited in a long but fast moving line to see St. Peter’s Basilica - impressive as always. We then went into the crypt to see the tombs of the Popes. Pope John Paul II’s tomb was the most popular with many people still praying to/for him. Ciao for now!

Capri Blue Grotto

Pompeii & Capri Pictures

Blue Grotto - Isle of Capri

Buona Serra-

It is another fantastically beautiful evening in Italy. We are sitting on the balcony of our hotel ristorante, outside, with a breathtaking view of the Gulf (Golf) of Naples. We spent the day on the Isle of Capri. The major attraction on Capri is the Blue Grotto (Grotto Azzuro). A cynic would say that this is one of the world’s great tourist traps. But we’re not cynics. We spent several hours in travel time getting to the Grotto for about 5 minutes of time actually spent in it. The Blue Grotto is a cave in the rock right on the ocean. There is a three foot hole that the boat (a row boat) goes through and then there is this big room inside. There were a number of boats inside the grotto at the same time. One of the boatsman was singing Italian Love Songs (?) while in the Grotto. Would have been very romantic other than the 10 other boats and Madison. The water is 60 feet deep with the bottom being white sand. The sand reflects the light from the sun creating this unbelievable blue color, hence the name Blue Grotto. Duh!! See pictures.

Madison had her first true Italian pizza today. She agreed it was pretty special. She has been good about eating. (Jilayne- she is doing just fine food wise!) We got back to our hotel about 5:00. We spent the rest of the afternoon in our room. We napped while Madi was on the computer.

That pretty much covers the day. Onto Rome tomorrow.

Lynda and Tim (and Madison)