Madrid-Granada-Seville-Santiago de Compostela

The train ride from Madrid to Granada took about 3 hours.  I have never seen so many olive trees in my whole life.  All the way to Granada we saw hundreds of thousands of olive trees. Next time you open a bottle of olives or olive oil, check to see where it comes from.

We stayed in a beautiful hotel called the Alhambra Palace which is 2 blocks from the real Alhambra. The Alhambra is streached along the top of the hill called th La Sabica. It is not only a Palace built for Emir Yosuf I, it also a fortress and city with at one time 5,000 inbabitants. The Moors ( Muslims) ruled from the 8th - 12 century.
An interesting story was told about one of the Sultan's number one wife who had taken a lover.  The Sultan's only way to make sure who he was, was to invite all 36 males from the community to a party and have them all beheaded........nice guy Huh!
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabela conquerd Granada in 1492 and united all the kingdoms of Spain.

We were in Granada for two days and then traveled to Seville. The Cathedral in Seville is the 4th largest in the world in size.  It is so beautiful and so overwelming to see. It has the largest  continuous altar piece in the world. It took them 80 years to carve it.

 Dick looked all over Seville for a Barber but could not find one ( boy does he need a haircut......thank God for Karen when we get back!  We went to another Flamenco Show which was wonderful......our third on this trip!

We had decided to go to the north of Spain instead of going on a day trip to Tangier, Morroco. We talked to several people about some alternatives and they all directed us to Santiago de Compostela.  It is in the northern part of Spain. It is suppose to be the most spiritual place third to Jeruselem and Rome in Christianity. St James is the patron saint of Spain. The legend is that a hermit found the burial place of St James by followng a star.  The name Santiago ( St James) of Compostela ( the stars).  San Diego also means St James. This was a major pilgrimage since the 9th century.  I bought something very special today for David, Kelly, Stephan, Jack, Haley, Kiara and Megan and Julia from Santiago de Compostela to remind then that we are all prigrims on the road to life.

We went to the Pilgrim's Mass at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela...one the most beautiful churches in the world.  It dates back to the 9th Century. Ernest Hemingway described Santiago's Cathedral as "the building that meant the most to him in all the world".

Tomorrow, we leave for  Vigo Spain by train.   Why Vigo you ask..........well it is the only way we can get the train to Porto Portugal.  We will spend one night in Vigo and one night in Porto and one night in Lisbon and then we will be returning home on the 18th of November out of Lisbon. 

Milan-Lourdes-Barcelona-Madrid

We took an early train from Lake Como to Milan's central station. We stored our luggage and went out and walked around Milan for a couple of hours.  The Central Train Station in Milan is huge, the biggest I have ever seen, much bigger that the one in Paris. Milan is quite a fashion show. It is the center stage for the fashion industry. You see the skinny jeans, high boots and the latest style coats.  It is just fun to just sit and people watch. On the main square there is the Duomo or Catherdral.  It is just 2nd to St Peters in Rome to its beauty and style. It is just magnificant! We had lunch, shopped and people watched for a couple of hours before catching our train to Bergamo where we spent the night. We got up early the next morning to catch our plane to Paris. We flew out on RyanAir.  I did my reservation online as I do my hotel reservations as we go along (thank God I brought my laptop).  The price for the ticket per person was only 48 Euros which was pretty good.  Where they get you is if you forget to print your boarding pass, which is hard if you don't have a printer with you, they charge you 40 Euros each.  They also get you for 35 Euros if you need to check a bag which we did. So we got stuck for 150 extra euros which is $208.00.  Well live and learn.

When we finally got to the train station in Paris, we got the bad news that they were all sold out to Lourdes that day!  My heart just sank......that was the last thing I expected to hear!  After  talking to the clerk for a long time he finally said that there is a chance that if we talked to the Conductor on the train to Lourdes he might get you on.  So we took a chance and waited for the train to talk to the Conductor. The  way the board trains at the stations is interesting.  Everyone knows when their train leaves but they do not know what track it leaves from until 10 minutes before the train leaves. So everyone stands around looking at the board to see what track it leaves from and then makes a mad dash for the train as soon as it os posted on the board.  So we hardly had 10 minutes to find the conductor and tell him our sad story and get on the train if he said yes. We could not find the Conductor anywhere, but we did find a very pretty young Conductor Assistant who said" no problem I will get you on First Class"......her name was Marie!  That was a small miracle!
We stayed in a hotel that was built in 1850 which was a converted Convent called Logis de Nevers. It was old but lovely. It had the smallest elevator I have ever seen it was about 36" x 12".  I am sure the nuns did not have an elevator when they were there.

It is definetly off season in Lourdes now.  We walked right up and got in the "baths" right away.  When I was there in 2005 with Kate and Kara and Erin we waited for 4 hours to get in. There are two separate areas for the men and women. They always ask you what language you speak so they have someone to assist you in your language. They wrap you in a wet sheet before you go in, to make it easier to get in the cold water....believe me it is cold. You feel immediately dry when you get out.  It is a wonderful feeling. In the room where I was, there was an Indian woman from Mombai with her 1 month old son. They put him in the water and he did not make a peep.  It was amaizing.
I always remember my Mom telling me the story about her Mother Adeline Chamberland Martin who was dying of breast cancer when she was only 43 years old.  Her Mom thought that if she only could get to Lourdes she would be cured. I always feel my grandmother in spirit when I am there.

It was a wonderful day, the grounds and the church are just beautiful and very peaceful.

We left very early the next morning by train to Barcelona.  It actually took three trains to get there, but it was one of the most beautiful train rides!  Going through Southern France and going through the Pyrenees Mountain was wonderful. It took us all day to get there but is was a wonderful trip.  If you really want to see the country, the train is the way to see it.

All I can say about Barcelona is WOW! It is the most dynamic city I have ever been in. It reminds me of Buenas Aires but much better. You can feel the excitement just walking down the street.  I think this is my favorite city now! I am in love with Tapas, Sangria, and Flamenco Dancing. Hey, Kara, Lea and Amy, I know we talked about us all taking Belly Dancing lessons when I get home but could we also learn Flamenco Dancing ?  I really think I could do it!  By the way when I told Dick we were going to a Tapas Bar, he got all excited.......he thought I said Topless Bar! Oh, did you know the Pope was there when we were there. Dick said he thought he saw him get off one of those hop on hop off buses...or maybe that was Cardinal Mahoney.

We are in Madrid now. It is an interesting city but nothing like Barcelona. Dick is taking a nap so he can stay up late enough to see another Flamenco Dance tonight......it starts at 10:30 P.M. and then we have a 8:00 A.M. train in the morning to Granada.  Oh, I wonder what the poor people are doing today?

Medjorgorje-Dubrovnic-Zagreb-Venice-Milan-Lake Como

We spent 2 nights in Medjugorje in the rain! The weather was terrible.  It was so nice when we left Split but as we went south the weather deteriorated .  Medjorgorje is not much of a town. If you blinked going through it you might miss it. The bus dropped us off in the rain and we proceeded to find our hotel only to find out it was over 6 miles away in the city of Citluk.  It was pretty late in the afternoon when we arrived so we had a taxi take us to our hotel. As it turns out it was a very nice hotel, better than we could have gotten in Medjegorije. We went into Medjogoria the next morning for Mass at the English Mass at 10:00 a,m....it was packed.  It seems they have a Mass every hour in a different language.  They had about 13 priest on the altar for Mass.  It seems they are escorting English speaking parishes on Pilgrimages to Medjegorije.. I read that there has been 30 million  pilgrims that have visited so far.. It poured all day and we attempted to walk up to Apparition Hill where the Mary appeared in 1981.  We did not go more that 3 blocks and we were so drenched  we had to go back to our hotel. I did pray for all my special intentions and I definitely did feel a peace about them.

We left Medjegorije in the rain on a  6:00 a.m. bus to Dubrovnik.. We did travel through Mostar on the way to Dubrovnik.  It was terribly bombed in the War from 1991-95. It was quite interesting to see.
Dubrovnik has the most extraordinary walled city which juts out into the clearest, cleanest blue-green waters of the Adriatic. We had the best time here.  We had a beautiful ocean front room on the Adriatic. We walked the whole wall which was over a mile. We ran into our 2 backpacking friends Megan and Christy who had a good looking young man on their arm  from the Ukraine on their way to find a place for lunch.
We ran into the "fabulous five" girls from the US backpacking together.  Dick just had to have his picture taken with them.. Croatia was just a wonderful place to visit!
We flew from Dubrovnik back to Zagreb to get our over night train to Venice and then to travel on to Milan and then on to Lake Como.  What an adventure that was.....wow!  The over night train was something else. The sleeping compartment was as old as Agathe Christy on the Orient Express. It was a rough night.  We did not know it at the time but there must have been security alert ( it was about the time they had that terror alert in London and Dubai)  They kept stopping the train and checking under the train.  We had so many security guards coming on board and checking our passports. At one point at 5:30 a.m. we had Italian Police come on board with dogs checking each compartment.. At one point one of the Security Guards told Dick, "please step into your compartment" and Dick says " it seems I heard that in a German war movie once" The guard gave him this little sly smile. There was not a lot of sleep that night.  It took us 6 trains to get from Zagreb to Lake Como.

Northern Italy is really beautiful! Lake Como is gorgeous! It is surrounded by the Alps and the Dolomites moutains.  It is shaped like an inverted Y with lots of villages around the lake some very famous. There are all sorts of Villas, one you may have seen in Casino Royale and in part of Star Wars, it is called Villa Del Balbianello in the town of Lenno ( see picture attached). We spent one day taking the boat to see all the sights on the lake including town of Bellagio which is called the Pearl of the Lake because of where it is situated.. It takes about 2 hours to get from the town of Como to the end of the lake. They have regular scheduled pickup times at each stop.
We are staying in a very old hotel, the Suisse Metropole built in 1892 and have a lake front room. It is a perfect location!  We went to Mass this morning in the Duomo Catherdral about a block from our hotel which was built from 1397-1756.  It is interesting going to church and not understanding the language.  At breakfast after church, Dick was commenting that he noticed that he was hearing the Priest say" Torre" several times during the sermon.  And then he said, 'you know Mary I think he was talking about Joe Torre the manager of the Dodgers! The priest was explaining that it was not Joe Torre's fault that the Dodgers had such a bad year. He pointed out that it was their lack of pitching and hitting that caused their downfall!  At that point everyone said "Amen". See what I have to put up with!
Hey, I hear the Giant are in the world series.  I can think of a few people that are happy about that! Go Giants!
Tomorrow should be a very interesting day. We are taking the train to Milan for the day to take a tour and then taking the train to Bergamo where our flight leaves for Paris the next day verrrrrry early!  We then get a cab to the main train station in Paris to go to Lourdes!  Two days there and we are off to Spain.  Can you believe we are half way through our trip already!
Happy Halloween to everyone!  By the way they don't celebrate that holiday here!  I have  noticed one thing about Europe..........THEY LOVE AMERICAN MUSIC!

Zagreb-Plitvice Lakes-Split

Our trip to Plitvice Lakes was by bus, as that is the main mode of travel in this part of the world.  It was suppose to take 3 hours but it took 5 hours. Plitvice Lake National Park was a real gem.  I have never seen anything like before.   It is a series of 12 lakes at different elevations with waterfalls spilling over from one to the other It is really spectacular. There are great hiking trails throughout the Park, most going over the water. The afternoon we arrived we got caught in a rainstorm while hiking and got quite wet.  We waited  for the tram for 45 minutes with an interesting Russian family.  We got up the next day to a beautiful sunny day and finished our hike before catching our bus to Split which took another 5 hours.
We met two young backpacking girls (20ish) on the bus to Split.  They had been traveling for 2 months. One was from B.C.Canada ( Megan) and one from Miami ( Christy) a photographer. Christy had to go back to the States to attend her brothers Wedding in a couple of weeks, I got the impression that if she thought she could skip it she would have kept on traveling.  Megan said she was going back to the U.K. where she had a job with Direct Ski.com, a British Company where she could ski in Chamoinix France for the winter months and watch a few kids that come in for the weekend.  Kate this is something like you did at LBSU a couple of years ago.
Split is just beautiful!  It was  a warm 75 degrees.  It is the second largest city in Croatia.  So far this is our favorite spot......this could change tomorrow!
In the beginning Split was the retirement home of a Roman Emperor Diocletian.....a really bad guy!  He built a Palace to match his ego!
What is known is that he passed his retirement years in Split having Christians captured, tortured and put to death.  So many were martyred in fact, that Diocetian holds the record for Saint creation............ including St Lucy.  Fighting Chritianianity was a losing battle, however only two years after his death in AD 316, the Milan Edict legitimised the Religion.  Ironically the site of his former tomb is now the City's Christian Cathedral.  The majority of the people of Croatia are Catholic.  It is also the same for the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary.

We spent the day touring on our own, looking at churches, palaces and shopping....although I can't buy anything as I just don't have the room in my suitcase.  We really did have a wonderful Anniversary there..... and we are still together in Split!  The second day we went for a day trip to the island of Hvar..  It is a 2 hour Ferry ride from Split.  We had a delightful day looking at all of the Ruins and having the best lunch over looking the Adriatic!  The water is so clear, just like Lake Tahoe!  We originally wanted to go to the Island of Korcula that day which was sold out, so we could not go.

Now , I am going to tell you about Marco Polo!  He was born on the Island of Korcula, Croatia on the Dalmatian Coast near Split.. It was rumored that he was born in Venice, Italy. A congratulations to Kiara, Haley and Megan for getting back to me on Marco Polo.  You are right he did travel the Silk Road. which runs from China to Istanbul.  Did you know that the Silk Road is on my "bucket list"! Dick is not interested so I will have to find some other adventurist person to go with me.
We were reminiscing the other day as to how many countries we both have traveled to so far. When we are finished with this trip I will have over 40 and Dick will have over 45. Remember that he traveled half way around the world before he was 4 years old, since he was born in Burma  O.K. here is a new question for the Grand kids.........What do they call Burma now??????.
We are in Medugorje now (more on that later) and off to Dubrovicnik tomorrow by bus again.  We will be there 2 nights and then flying back up to Zagreb to catch the night train to Venice on the 28th.

Budapest-Zagreb

Our train ride from Salsburg to Budapest was very nice.  The Tyrolean scenery in Austria was exquisite!  As we got closer to Budapest Hungary it had markedly changed. It was much flatter and not nearly as clean and prosperous looking as Austria. Budapest has a Buda side and a Pest side separated by the Danube River.  We stayed on the Pest side in the Ibis Budapest Hotel. I am making our reservations as we go along a few days ahead.  I am always mindful to keep them in the City Center and try to keep the price within $100.00 per night. So far we have had some great accommodations!
Our first night in Budapest we went to a  random restaurant within walking distance to our hotel that was advertising music with dinner. There were two fabulous Violinist that serenaded us for more than an hour with wonderful Hungarian Music. Dick said he didn't think that a short guy with such short fingers could play that well.  As it turns out they were very famous in the city and also played on the Holland American Lines in the Caribbean.
On Sunday we went to a very old beautiful church near our hotel called Meserend az Egyeteme. The choir was sooooooo gorgeous!
We took a 5 hour tour of Budapest which was pretty interesting.  We saw both sides of the Danube...Buda and Pest.  The Parliament Building was very interesting, one of 4 of the largest in the world.  It was like going into Fort Knox, the security was so rigid. The Castle was something out of Disneyland, it was so unique.
They were under communist rule from 1956 to 1989.  It was pretty sad.
We took the train from Budapest to Zagreb on a 6 hour train.  We assumed that there would be food to buy on the train......wrong!  It was a good thing we had a few granola bars and apples with us.  Next time we will have to ask that question.
We had an interesting day today in Zagreb.  We did not do a tour but got around  by ourselves on the tram that runs all over the city.  We found our way to the bus station to buy our ticket for tomorrow's journey to Plitvice Lakes a National Park in Croatia.  We will be there for one night and then journey by bus to the City of Split.  We will celebrate our 49th Anniversary in a City called   SPLIT......hummmmm!
Hey, I have a prize questions for the Grand kids only............Who is Marco Polo and where was he born?   It is a place we are going in a couple of days.  You guys know the rules....the first one who e-mails or comments on the blog! I am not seeing many comments on the blog.  Kiara Grandpa loved your comment.

Prague-Vienna-Salzburg

Our trip to the Opera was wonderful.  We saw "The Bartered Wife" in seats 5 rows from the front in the most beautiful theater.  It was in the National Theater in Prague. We went to Mass in "Our Lady of Victories" Church in Prague. This is where the "Infant of  Prague" statue is. There are many miracles that are attributed to this statue.  I have heard about this statue all my life although Dick claims he has never heard of it. Dick's back was bothering him a little so we both had one hour Thai Massages while we were in the old town. At the hotel here in Salzburg I asked the hotel clerk if she knew of any chiropractors in town, she said yes and she sent me down the street to a Psychologist...hummmmm!
After our 4th full day in Prague we used our 1st leg of our train pass and went to Vienna for two days. Vienna is a very big city where everyone talks like "Arnold"....even the women!  We went on tour and saw the Schunenbrum Palace, part of the Hapsburg dynasty!  You remember Marie Antoinette!  In the evening we saw a wonderful Mozart/Strauss Concert in this old theater ( I can't remember the name but it is where Strauss did perform).
We took a 3 hour train ride to Salzburg yesterday. Traveling on a first class train is so nice, I just wish I had that much room on the plane ride over here. Boy, did the "Sound of Music" make Salzburg popular with the tourists.  They have run that tour everyday since 1964! That was a pretty good year I have heard.....Joanne!
We decided to skip that tour, and instead take a city tour yesterday.  Today we took a tour to the "Eagle's Nest!  Dick is such a "history buff" that he wanted to see Berchtesgaden!  This was a secret hideout of Hitlers during WWII.  It was a gift from his "Party" for his 50th birthday. It has an incredible view from the top!  It was a great place to see the "hills that are alive with the sound of music"!
Tonight we are going to a "Mozart Dinner Concert" in a Baroque Hall that is Shiftskeller St Peter at St Peter's Monastery.  It is the oldest resturant in Central Europe.  It was first mentioned in 803 on the occasion of Charlemagne's visit.

Tomorrow we have a 5 hour train ride to Budapest!

We have arrived in Prague!

Our trip to Prague was not too eventful, but it was interesting in a weird way.  As Sean pulls us up to our airline at LAX  as we are arriving he says, hey isn't that Cardinal Mahoney in front of us?  Sure enough it was ,but he didn't have his pink hat on that day.  I prided myself on packing really light so we could carry our bags on all the way to Prague,but was way layed by the agent at Lufthansa because it was a full flight and they only allowed carry ons that were 17 lbs. They weighed both of our carry ons and mine was 26 lbs and
Dicks was 29 lbs......so we had to check our luggage!  I could not even pay for the extra poundage!  I was so bummed!  Well so much for all that expensive compact luggage I bought!
Another strange thing that happened is that Dick got on the plane without me!  In 49 years of marriage he has never done that before!  I was on the phone with Dave as we were starting to board, when I finished I looked around and there was no husband in sight. I panicked for a minute, I thought he has been kidnapped, no he is in the bathroom......oh hell I will check to see if he boarded, sure enough he did!  When I finally caught up with him he said... Oh hi!
We are staying in a lovely B&B in Prague recommended by our daughter Karen.  The woman who owns it has daughter that lives in Sonoma  We have the whole 3rd floor of her home which is clean and very roomy, kind of like having our own little apartment.  She is a great cook and makes all of her own pastries  She even gave us food to pack our own picnic lunch today. She gave us bus tickets and told us how to find our way into the city on our own, which we did today.

I have to say Prague is one amazing city!  It is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen! It is really well preserved, even though it was one of the few cities that was not bombed during World War II. The architecture and the churches are exquisite! There were thousands of people walking in the Old Town tonight including tons of Scottish Soccer players in their Kilts.  It seems Scotland played the Czechs today and lost!
We went to the National Theater today and bought Opera tickets for tomorrow night...it should be fun!