A Breeze from the Wind-Swept Iles de la Madeleine

Last spring, my friend Kristin Goff said she was interested in doing a one-week Cruise and Cycle package up the St. Lawrence River from Montreal.
She signed up, sharing a cabin with our friend Lynn Campbell. I signed up, sharing a cabin with cycle tour veteran Lorne.
Following is a quick report on written on our trip from CTMA (www.ctma.ca):
Les Iles de la Madeleine (a.k.a the Magdalen Islands) are about 100 km north of Prince Edward Island in the middle of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The archipelago is made up of a dozen islands, and six of them are linked by long, skinny sand dunes. (As described in the guidebook, the Islands take the shape of a half moon fishhook stretching across a distance of 65 km in a south-west/north-easterly direction.)
The postcards don’t do justice to the red cliffs, sand dunes, brightly painted houses and saphire water.
Jacques Cartier praised the landscape in 1534, and there was fishing and hunting for seal and walrus long before he arrived.
The large ferry boards in Montreal on the Friday, day 2 in the Gaspe and then days 3, 4 and 5 docked in Les Iles de la Madeleine, day 6 back in Gaspesie Peninsula, day 7 in Quebec City and then day 8 back to Montreal. A GPS map posted near reception shows where the boat is at all times.
The package includes cabin accommodation for seven nights, 14 meals on board, light lunches for the road, and transportation for one bike per passenger.
To sum up, the scenery was spectacular, the cycling fantastic, the ship exciting (we’d never been on a cruise before), and Les Madelinots (the people) helpful and gracious.
For example, we’re cycling down Rue Coulombe towards Micro Brewery a l’abri de la Tempete, when my bike goes clunk. As Kristin and I examine the chain, a white-haired woman in navy pants and t-shirt immediately comes running out of her house to help. She turns the bike upside down, determines the problem is a missing screw holding the pannier holder to the bicycle, which has caused the metal rod to jam into the chain. She opens her car trunk for her tool box of hundreds of screws, fixes the rod, and apologizes that the screw is not the right colour.
It was the same whenever we stopped to look at a map; people came over without being asked. 
2 .m. Meeting 1 in the Red Lounge. Fruit punch in plastic glasses, and a demonstration how to use the life jackets.
Shortly after boarding Friday afternoon in Montreal, we are tapping our feet and sipping margaritas as we sit in the lounge and watch through rain dappled windows as the ship sails past La Ronde and other Montreal landmarks towards Trois Rivieres. (There are traditional musicians on the ship all week; we’re never up late enough to watch them.)
Forgotten are the wrong turns and humidity as we sweated our way from Ottawa to the port of Montreal to weigh anchor.
Lynn and Kristin are housed in a Lilliputian interior bunk bed cabin with no storage, but a private toilet and shower. (One foot’s in the shower when you’re in the toilet.) We (I) anticipating space deficit have chosen an exterior cabin with a porthole, also bunk beds, but slightly larger. We have to share bathrooms and showers with the other passengers on our cabin row. It was dicey for a couple of days when the toilets on our row weren’t flushing and the shower wasn’t draining, but once things were back to normal it wasn’t so bad.
The boat has massive public areas, prompting Kristin to muse why they couldn’t have given a little more space to the cabins and less to the lounge areas.
 
5 p.m. Meeting 2. For English participants only.
A rum cocktail in a plastic glass.
We are on Madeleine Islands time for the trip; we set our watches (with difficulty) to the Atlantic time zone, an hour ahead.
The aimof the English get-together is to wish us a good time and to show the ship cares about les Anglophones.
C.T.M.A.has been offering these trips for nine years; this week is a record number of English-speakers(60) because of a group of 30 from Collingwood, Ont.
There are over 300 passengers on the boat altogether. Around 97 per cent of the crew of 100 are from Les Iles de la Madeleine, and the rest are from Gaspe. This spring, they have been taking English lessons, and we are invited to see the two best English speakers if we have any communication problems with the crew. They have a mission this year, we are told, to improve the English product.
When we booked our trip, we chose the 5:30 p.m. seating for dinner rather than 8 p.m. The dining room has white table cloths.
People are dressed neatly, but not the “formal” suggested in some of the literature. Because tables are for four, it is noted that passengers will be “coupled” at dinner.
Since we had our own table for four, we weren’t “coupled” with anyone else. We did meet other people over breakfast and lunch.
The dinners on the ship are consistently excellent, with two choices each time.
The first night choices were seafood pot-en pot or bison medallions in cognac sauce, with of course an appetizer and a soup, and a chocolate caramel mousse cake for dessert.
One night the meal was large fresh local lobster, with turnip maple soup and blueberry cake. It’s like sitting in a revolving restaurant to be sitting backwards as the scenery and occasional whale goes by.
7:45 p.m. Meeting 3. Cycling people.
10 a.m. Meeting 4. More specific, cycling people, separate meetings for English and French.
We are told that each day we will see a different part of the Islands, on a self-guided tour. At 10 a.m. on Sunday, and 8 a.m. other mornings, we will meet with Fanny, Sebastien or Celine of Bureau Vert et Mer Ecotourism who will explain the day’s itinerary and give us a lunch bag and if necessary a time we’ll be picked up to return to the ship.
Daily direction depends on the prevailing wind; they will drive us out, to return on our bikes with the wind at our back. If we want to buy cheese at Au Pied-de-Vent Cheese Factory at Havre-aux-Maisons, they will store it for us until we leave the ship.
We cycle the South Island Sunday, the East Islands Monday and the Central Islands Tuesday. Distances are modest. The South Island is a 35k itinerary, with an optional 20km additional tour of Bassin. The East Islands is 65 km, but with four possible pick-up points before the final destination, Grand Entree, and return to the ship by bus.
The Central Islands is about 20 km, through the villages of Fatima, Etang-du-Nord and Cap-aux-Meules.


 
The ship’s dining room is closed while we’re docked on Les Iles, and we eat dinner on the Islands. Ship breakfast is cafeteria style.
After the heavy dinner and meetings, we collapse on deck on plastic Adirondack chairs to chat, inhale the sea breeze and swivel our heads around the expansive horizon. That’s one big river. The clouds are still gray and sky overcast, but the rain stops.
I spend the first night sweating in my humid top bunk, listening to something rattling, and people talking non-stop on the deck outside the window. Throughout the night the ships foghorn blasts intermittently, and each time I push the illumination button on my watch to see what time it is, so I won’t miss the 6 a.m. whale watching on the foggy, rainy deck. A light outside our window ensures 24 hour illumination of our room.
I show up at 5:55 a.m. in my green rain jacket to find we’re behind schedule, and won’t reach whale territory for at least an hour.
There are some people sleeping under blankets on the soft two-seater cocoa brown comfy couches by the windows. Others perch with their styrofoam coffee cups on the white window sills and gaze hypnotically at the overcast sky, shoreline and water, all complementary shades of silver. It’s beautiful in an arctic kind of way, all cold tones of white and gray.
Yoga after breakfast was so popular a second class was added for 2 p.m. to accommodate overflow. Yoga again a few days later on deck in the sunshine was a real sun salutation.
11 a.m. Navigation Meeting, because Wheelhouse Tour cancelled because of fog.
3 p.m. Meeting 6. Highlights of the Islands briefing.
Red Lounge. Bagosse fruit wine, 35 % alcohol.
On Saturday afternoon the sun comes out and we all flock to the deck chairs on the top deck to watch the water. The breadth of the St. Lawrence is awesome.
Sunday night, the foghorn blasts into our window again, and we awake to a sea of tin gray, with no visibility beyond some choppy dark waves beside the boat. Before we left, Lorne asked if he should put the batteries in the bike lights. I said we wouldn’t be cycling after dark. I didn’t even think about cycling in day time fog, however my yellow and blue jersey is bright enough to function as a fog light.
Sunday morning we board a bus to the South Island so we can have the wind at our back. Pelting rain cuts short the sightseeing, and visibility, but the route crossing Havreaux-Basque Lagoon through sand dunes and roadside wild flowers and beaches was magnificent despite the rain.  
(When we loaded at the ship in Montreal, Lorne’s tire had a flat, and then it blew up, in a series of complications.
Because it was Sunday when we arrived, the Island bike shop was closed. Sebastien, the bike coordinator for the tour, loaned Lorne his personal bike for the day.)
Monday is a magnificent day, point to point along the East Islands, with the wind at our backs. Stop for a self-created lunch at Au Pied-de-Vent Cheese Factory, a melange of cheese curds, French bread, and huge “crazy cookies” from nearby Helene des Isles Bakery, plus the assortment of juice boxes, raisin and nut mix, granola bars, oranges and apples provided for cycling each day.
Dinner at Vieux Couvent Restaurant, in an old convent overlooking the water, where the food and the service are unexpectedly as stylish as downtown Toronto.
Tuesday no shuttle is necessary, because the Central Island is where the ship is docked. Stunning blue sky and sparkling water as we circle via the shoreline, eating our pannier lunch outside at La Cote, a public park overlooking L’Etang-du-Nord fishing harbour and its little shops selling kites, crafts and locally made souvenirs.
Wednesday, breakfast on the boat at 6:30 a.m. and then we board a bus at the Chandler dock forPerce, the town and the famous rock, 45 minutes away. Town is an artist colony, rock and Bonaventure Island are noted for thousands of Northern Gannets who nest there. Our tour guide is folk singer and musician LucieBlue Tremblay who serenades us as we return. Rain and fog, but that big rock is hard to miss.
After our visit to Perce Rock, there’s an announcement telling everyone to gather in the lounge for a compulsory meeting. We all mutter and joke with apprehension.
We’re told that a labour lock-out at the Port of Montreal will be preventing us from docking there Friday.
We’ll be docking instead at Trois Rivieres, and then bused back to Montreal.
We all line up to hand in our car keys so our cars can be moved out of the Montreal port building where we left them, to an outside site. Bikes will be transported to Montreal by trailer. There are separate lines for people with and without cars, and those going farthest after Montreal got first bus preference.  
Free wine at dinner for our inconvenience.

We arrive at Quebec City Old Port at noon Thursday, and spend a beautiful sunny afternoon. Kristin and I cycle on the Quebec City bike trail, well mapped, along the shoreline, not hilly, while Lorne and Lynn stroll around the Old City. Another fine dinner back on the ship, plus more complimentary wine.
At 11 p.m. our boat time, 10 p.m. Quebec City time, we watch a huge 400-years-of-Quebec-City light show projected on port buildings, and then at 1 a.m. our boat departs for Trois Rivieres.
Around 8 a.m. we leave the ship in Trois Rivieres and we and our luggage board buses for the two-hour drive back to Montreal.
The Islands are not surprisingly a bit like Newfoundland, a bit like P.E.I., a very relaxing escape.
The Iles de la Madeleine logo is a clothesline, and a fitting common image is an engraving of a barrel with a sail that carried Island mail to Nova Scotia in February 1910 when the Islands lost contact with the mainland because of a breach in the underwater telegraph cable. Just like now, when we had no Rogers service for our cellphones or BlackBerries.

A for Amsterdam

Goedemorgen from Amsterdam, time delayed after an internet-free two weeks.

Lorne and I were on a Netherlands cycle trip, but before and after we spent time in Amsterdam, and here are some of our memories of that time...

Amsterdam is named after the Amstel River in the 13th century. 200 years ago Amsterdam became the capital of the Netherlands.

We flew KLM Montreal-Amsterdam direct, with a KLM bus to take us each way from the Ottawa train station to Montreal. The KLM flights, food, service, were excellent (except for Kung Foo Panda as the in-flight movie).

We were waiting at the Ottawa train station with a tall older Dutch woman from Arnprior. When she saw us again at the airport, she beckoned for us to join her for the cart ride through the terminal to the departure gate. Wheeee.
Waiting for the flight, I hesitated at the snack bar over what kind of tea to order. The well-pierced teenage server with a ring in his lip told me, “Green tea. It’s the healthiest. Lots of antioxidants.”
At the Montreal airport there were footstools on some of the seats in the waiting area, making it easier to actually rest.
Aug. 26
With a headwind, we arrive a half hour early and are at the Ibis hotel by 7 a.m. Amsterdam time. It’s a very, very tiny room, but a short walk from the train station and handy to everything. The hotel is across from a two-storey bike parking lot with thousands of bikes, and because we’re near the train station, there are thousands more bikes for blocks around.
Weather is typical Amsterdam, cool, cloudy, drizzly.
Grazing walk around for snack bar meals including falafel and sushi (Louise) and herring sandwich, cheese sandwich and two Heinekins (Lorne).
Argentinian steak restaurants and shawarma places exceed all others.
Aug. 27

Take a city tour. Wait for the lift bridge to go down near the site of new central library built two years ago, and the Tower of Tears from centuries ago where women and children cried as men went to sea.
More cyclists than cars wait at the bridge, riders on spray painted bikes, wearing high heels, suits, dressed for work. Bike lanes, bike parking everywhere. New architecture as interesting as old, plus new uses for old shipping warehouses. There are more than 1300 bridges, many dating from the 1600s. It’s like Venice, only Amsterdam has moved on into the 21st century.

17th century botanic garden... “Skinny Bridge” built by two sisters living across canal from each other in 1670 and didn’t want to boat in... Floating flower market...

The bus tour includes a visit to a “Diamond Museum” which is like Amway. You get in there, and they lock the door of the room for 20 minutes while they try to sell you diamonds.


Touring the Diamond Museum we were the only English speakers (rest were Spanish) and on the canal boat,all but us were Russian.

In the afternoon we went to the Rijks Museum to see masterpieces by Vermeer, Rembrandt etc from the Dutch Golden Age, the 1600s, and the took a canal boat cruise. There are ferries that go back and forth every 12 minutes, for pedestrians and cyclists only, and they are free. Saw houseboats, tall ships, all kinds of boats.

There are 2,500 houseboats in the city, many illegal. They live year-round on the boats, paying the city a fee. Many have flower boxes and plants along the deck. One had a sign “See what a houseboat looks like inside” and they made some money.

The railings along the canals are there to prevent cars from going into the water, but there is still a special dredge unit only to get cars out of the canal.The railings are owned by the insurance companies, not by the municipal government.

The boat guide said there are 725,000 people in Amsterdam, 42 per cent of non-Dutch ancestry, and 50 per cent one-person families.

Walking back from the boat, we stopped for pannenkoeken (pancakes). Lorne had Appel (apple) and I had Kaas (cheese). My second choice would have been Citroen (lemon.)

Still no sun. It feels like Whitehorse in November to wake up in the almost dark and to continue that dullness all day. People dress in black and gray.The only splashes of color are the spray-painted pink and fluorescent orange bikes which stand out among the racks of black bikes, some dotted with leis or fake leaves for identification.

Aug. 28
Take the bus to Brussels an Antwerp. Just tell me why the “Manneken Pis”, the peeing boy fountain, is so popular there are crowds around it all the time. Hundreds of ‘boy’ souvenirs from chocolate suckers to bells and statues for your garden.
Had lunch of moules et frites (mussels) at a cafe overlooking Brussels’ beautiful main square.
Bus got caught in a traffic jam on the way to Antwerp because of a tunnel accident, and we sat still in traffic for hours, coloring our impression of Antwerp. Some old buildings, a long waterfront, and a McDonald’s handy as always when you need a bathroom.

Aug. 29
Spent the morning visiting the rosebush lined village of Watergang outside Amsterdam, home for 50 years to our friend Puck’s mother.
It’s a tiny, Thomas Hardy-like hamlet with sheep, ducks, roosters and a canal. She took us for a walk along the cobblestones by the water and we had lunch at the De Wetgmijzer restaurant beside the street. She says the small red clay roofed houses in Watergang now go for over $1 million because it’s so serene and yet 10 minutes by frequent bus from Amsterdam. She didn’t like the village back when her husband chose it, but she’s happy at 90 to be there now.

We leave Amsterdam for our bike trip and continue our exploration a week later...

Sept. 5
We visit the Jewish Historical Museum, part of a complex of four restored synagogues including the Portuguese Synagogue from the 1600s. (In 1492 Spain expelled its Jewish population. Many fled to Portugal but were forcibly baptized. More than 100 years later, descendants of those victims of the Inquisition who wanted to live as Jews began to arrive in Amsterdam. Since the Dutch Republic was at war with Spain, they called themselves “Portuguese Jews” to avoid being identified with the Spanish enemy.

Letting everyone in to the country in the 1600s was for economic reasons, but it set the precident for Dutch liberalness in future.

The synagogue was undamaged even in the 2nd World War and is an amazing building with giant brass chandeliers that hold 1,000 candles, the only lighting in the unheated building.

The historical exhibit includes moving paintings and drawings of the early days by artists of the time. There is an excellent oil painting of a poor, sad old Jewish man sitting on the stoop of his shop. It was so popular that prints were made, but the commentary said the Jewish community was upset and asked why a young, attractive, well-off Jewish person couldn’t have been portrayed instead.
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We have also of course gawked curiously at the “dark” Amsterdam nightly information tours offered by a former prostitute. The sailors are gone; the area is safe, the pamphlet says. We walked past the street level windows illuminated by dark fluorescent light where women wearing little beckon men on the street. We saw several go in the adjoining door to be led to the back.

There are also lots of “coffee houses” which are marijuana cafes, where people sit on cushions in the windows and smoke from hookahs, and weed and seed shops selling cannabis lollipops, starter kits for plant growing etc.

Sept. 6
We walked the city all day, spending time in The Rembrandt House where he lived 1639-1656, until he went bankrupt.There was a list of his possessions and all has been re-created with furniture from the time, including the short box cabinet bed - because people sat up to sleep so the blood wouldn’t leave their heads.

The most impressive thing again about Saturday night in Amsterdam is that once again the sidewalks are full, the cafes are packed, the bike lanes are busy and there are almost no cars on the streets, just a few taxis.

Sept. 7

Sunday morning and rain and wind again, ignored by the many walkers and cyclists. We walk for the last time down the Bloedstraat Red Light District, with only a few lights on and windows occupied - an( unreciprocated) hopeful wave and smile to Lorne; down the Chinatown streets with notices in Dutch not to lean your bike on the windows, past the flea market stalls, with mostly African textiles, carvings and jewelry, and all the while the church bells chime across the city.

We walk from our hotel to the train station for our train ride to the airport, the end of two weeks without entering a car.

Tot Ziens (Goodbye) and Proost! (Cheers!)

Go-go-go!: How a herd of cats became a peloton

Thursday night in Amsterdam, a few blocks from the Red Light District, a dozen cycle tourists are joking round in an Italian restaurant and presenting each other with mock awards...

There’s the Gold Tulip Grease Monkey Award to Paula, wife of group leader Manny Agulnik, who managed to adorn her calves with black tracks daily; there’s the the True Grit Award to Rick Day for wiping out and still smiling, the Fashion Victim Award to Barry Wishart for his orange cycling jacket purchased in Delft, and assorted Bad Hair Day, Most Improved Cyclist and other awards to the rest of the gang, age range early 40s to late 60s who had just completed a six-day cycle excursion before which most of us were strangers to each other.

Participants Barb and Barry Wishart of Scotchtown, New Brunswick, are the sister-in-law and brother of Heather and Byron Landry of Ottawa, where the rest of us originated.

This is the fourth year for Manny Agulnik’s guided leisure cycling tours of the Netherlands. The Ottawa cycling proponent was so enamored by this cycle-friendly country that he wanted to share it with others. He puts together packages including rental bikes and hotels and his leadership; we get to Amsterdam by our own means.
Next year he’s adding a cycle tour in Denmark to his offerings.

Here’s a round-up summary of our adventure at the end of August 2008:

Day 1
The 12 of us tram to Mac Bike, the bike rental location, with our luggage and then spread out on the ground to fill our panniers. We leave the rest of our stuff in the Mac Bike back room, and practice going around the building on our bikes with loaded panniers. Some adjustments, some tipovers, and our line is heading through the city on our way out to Utrecht.

When the bike signal is green, we push forward to cries of “Go, Go, Go!”, but the light is short, and the back end is usually caught on the red and we have to wait.

A few minutes into the ride, we all stop again because Rick’s handlebars are too loose, and he can’t control his bike. We wait in the park while he and Byron use the Allan key and then we’re on our way, on a beautiful hot day, the first anyone in Amsterdam can remember for the whole summer. We gain confidence as we exit the city onto country paths.

We arrive in Utrecht, leave our bikes at the hotel and walk to the outdoor market - the usual flea market knickknacks, plus giant cheeses and roasting cashews. The old cobblestone pedestrian streets are incongruously dotted with U.S. chains like Footlocker and The Body Shop.

We have dinner beside the canal where the two levels of restaurants and outdoor cafes are packed with sun worshippers. It’s Saturday night, and there are bikes parked and being ridden everywhere, with not a car on the street.

Sunday morning we leave Utrecht for Gouda, stopping on the way for tea in Oudwater, where they used to judge witches. Some of the women obtain their witch certificates from the Witches Museum, attesting to their witchiness. For the rest of the day, we attribute misfortunes like Lorne’s mislaying his bike lock key and Barb’s flat tire to witchcraft.

For the first time we see cyclists in bike gear and good bikes out for a fast ride, a complete contrast to the clunker bikes and street clothes through the week.

Occasionally we have to stop as a pannier goes flying onto the street, or someone wants to photograph a bridge or windmill.

It’s so wonderful that every urban street, every country road, has a bike lane and bike traffic lights. Instead of legislating helmets so cars don’t kill people, the Dutch are proactive and make the country so cycling friendly that no one but Canadian tourists like us need to wear helmets.

We have become proficient at cheese sandwich-making from the hotel breakfast buffets, so that we have food en route and don’t need to delay at restaurants.

The route to Gouda is along a dike, busy with Sunday tourers enjoying the good weather. It consists of beautifully landscaped houses, with corn, goats, sheep, horses and apple and pear trees in the fields. There are bus stops all along the road.

When we were attending to Barb’s flat, at least three tall men stopped to help. One tried his small pump, and when that didn’t work, went home for a large pump. Turned out the problem was a leaky valve which he fixed, and then was off again on his large bike.

At the Inn in Gouda around 3 p.m., we once again locked all our bikes together like a giant molecule and climbed the floors to our rooms for a brief rest before meeting up to walk to the esteemed Gouda cathedral. We become very proficient at locking and unlocking our tangle of bikes and heading out unphased by rain or wind.

The town square in Gouda has very fashionable jewelry and lingerie shops, not the tacky souvenir shops you see elsewhere.

In the evenings, the 12 of us go to restaurants, and some work out better than others for our large number. In Gouda the Italian restaurant required a too long wait for our food for tired people. We translated our orders with my Holland Phrase Book, but unfortunately, Lorne ordered Italian Onion Soup when he wanted Italian Wedding Soup. Uien sounded like ‘wedding’ (union) not onion.

As usual, at the end of the meal, one bill comes for 12, and we spend a lot of time initialing each couple’s meals, putting the amount on a post-it and attaching the post-it to a charge card. Then the pile of six post-ited charge cards is given to the server who comes back with each bill to sign.

Gouda is a pretty town with the largest “markt” square in Holland, dating from its success in the medieval cloth trade. In the middle of the square is a 1450 Gothic building fringed with statues.

Monday, with heavy winds, was the hardest day as we cycled from Gouda to Rotterdam, much of it along the dikes into the wind. We were happy to have a break as we crossed on the ferry, and stopped to visit inside a World Heritage windmill site. We ate our lunch assembled earlier from a grocery store en route. (Because our Gouda accommodation was a small family owned inn, we didn’t scarf extra food at breakfast.)

Rotterdam is filled with beautiful post World War II architecture along the harbour.

Today we wore our jackets. I think we’re all amazed that we’re actually loving for almost a week out of two bike panniers.

Excellent dinner at Bazar, an Arabic restaurant we’d faxed our order to a few days earlier. Our order arrived perfectly, shortly after our 7 p.m.reservation. Decorated in ornate blue patterned tiles and heavy stained glass red and gold chandeliers, the large restaurant was almost full on a Monday night.

We leave Rotterdam earlier than usual in the morning, to have more museum time in The Hague, our next destination. On the way to The Hague we stop in the square at Delft where all that blue and white china comes from, and then on to The Hague in the drizzle. Manny had said this wouldn’t be as interesting a ride, but it still went past canals with water birds, horse farms and the usual cows.

Our group of Paula/Manny, Barb/Barry, Heather/Byron, Cathy/Marv, Pat/Rick and Lorne and me have meshed into a fine and thoughtful bunch. Lorne was the most wary at the beginning of the trip, and has been praised for his ability to stay near the front of the pack and manage well on the trip. Yesterday he gave Manny the highest praise possible: “I have no complaints,” Lorne told him.

Once in Den Haag we asked about taking a city tour but were told that’s only Thursdays. Population 500,000 The Hague is the second largest city in the Netherlands.

We walk in the rain through the historic downtown to the Escher Museum in a former palace. Escher is that Dutch graphic artist who did those creepy detailed meticulous perspective drawings, which consumed his whole life. The short film in the museum had nothing on his personal life except his daily schedule - work, eat, rest. In a perspective distorted room, we had our photo taken showing Lorne tiny and Louise large.

Walking along the cobblestones near the palaces, we saw a black limo exiting where the security barrier had been withdrawn. A large group of school children ran after the car waving and shrieking as if for a rock star. We asked their leader, and she said it was the Dutch premier they were excited to see.

Wednesday the gang sang happy birthday to Lorne at breakfast, and then we followed a wooded bike path and then a bike trail up to a beach on the North Sea. There were German pillbox emplacements built into the cliffs from the occupation.
Stopping for tea, we once again encountered Dutch groups in cycling jerseys doing holiday biking.

Spent the afternoon and evening in the university city of Leiden, birthplace of Rembrandt and where botanist Clusius grew the first Dutch tulips 400 years ago. Once again a square, canals and markets. Couldn’t resist the smell of Dutch waffle cookies (stroopwafel biscuits) with syrup spread between them, made fresh to order at a market booth.

Mothers and fathers outdoing the shopping, with a child in front on the bike, another behind, an older child on a small bike beside, and the purchases overflowing in the panniers.

Dinner was a massive Indonesian Rijstafels in the tiny, busy, Surakarta Restaurant, a 15 minute walk from our hotel. It is such a pleasure to be in all these Dutch cities and towns where a walk means broad cobblestone sidewalks beside the canals, sidewalk cafes, small shops and pedestrian streets closed to cars, and bikes and bike parking everywhere.

Thursday

Back to Amsterdam, the forecast is heavy rain, but we manage to avoid it. Our humid ride through tree-lined roads, past flower fields, horse paddocks and waterways is enhanced by a tail wind all the way. The last few kilometres are through Vendelpark, and then we’re back at Mac Bike once again.
We meet up one last time for dinner in Amsterdam, and this time we just split the bill six ways.

Paris in a week: Magnifique

Paris is soooo Paris. The grapefruit-pink blossoms have just come out on the trees, the gold trim glitters on the palaces and churches, and little dogs strut the streets and peek from the bags and armpits of their stylish owners.

Baguettes, cheese and wine are the three daily food groups.

On a Paris morning, a chill mist covers the newly washed streets; every morning water pumps out the drains to clean the gutters.

The smell of coffee wafts from the cafes. You also notice perfume so strong in some stores that your allergies send you packing, and the sweet scent of the multi-colored flowers from the parks and squares. (Plantings on the Champs Elysee are changed six times a year and never the same design twice. Paris spends the most per capita on parks and gardens per year than any city in the world, and the money comes mostly from the hotel tax. Tourism is their number one industry.)

Naomi and I entered that magic world for just one magnifique week on a flight/hotel package from Travac Tours. I could go on and on, but I’ve made some quick notes about some of it which I share with you...

Leaving Toronto for Paris, we took the airport limo which was the same price as the bus from the Royal York. Got there from Front Street in half an hour, and had no lineups at check-in or security so had hours to spend eating our dried tart cherries (which have melatonin and are supposed to prevent jet lag.)
“We should write a letter, to the woman who wrote about the tart cherries,” said Naomi. “They didn’t work.”

The Zoom airlines flight actually arrived in Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport a half hour early, about 45 minutes from Hotel Malte Opera on Rue de Richelieu. The small hotel is just as you would picture - thick drapery, historic-looking oil paintings, tall, narrow shuttered windows opening on the courtyard.

Neither of us slept a moment on the plane, so when we hit the beds in the afternoon we totally conked out. An hour later, heads spinning, we forced ourselves to rise and see the city. By the time we returned to the room our heads had cleared and we were Parisiennes, sitting on the same bed after our dinner and evening stroll, but this time drinking from our bottle of Bordeaux 2006 bought from the convenience store down the street where there was a huge and inexpensive selection of wines amidst the vegetables and the pastry. We complemented the wine with fabulous meringues and baguettes from “the oldest bakery in Paris - 1810”, a few doors down. We were instantly addicted and returned every day.

We’d had a light supper at Exki, a Belgian-based organic, mostly vegetarian cafe with wonderful lentil soups, quinoa salad and pastry. We went there several times; you can’t eat heavy French food all the time.

Sometimes for dinner we pooled our purchased food and spread it out on the table in the hotel lobby with others from our group and shared wine, cheese, bread and fruit, and stories from our day.

As is Paris, stores and even postcard stands shuttered early so workers could leave. The sidewalks and cafes were full of smartly dressed, black-clad men and women, all wearing perfectly knotted scarves, relaxing at the end of their work day. Many travelled in business clothes on bicycles and scooters.

(Two million people live in Paris, and about 10 million with the suburbs. There are 60 million in all of France.)

The every present beige rental bikes are used mainly by locals; foreign credit cards don’t work in them. The bikes are free for the first half hour and the price goes up each consecutive half hour to encourage turn-over.

The traffic lights and walk signals are so unobtrusive you can hardly find them, and traffic zips around in a frightening spaghetti pattern.

There was a Japanese restaurant and a hair salon on every block, not connected, but both busy. Also eyewear stores on every corner, which I started to notice after I needed my glasses fixed, and it was done cheerfully and for free.

I have the impression of so many people doing their jobs - more in the shops than we’re accustomed to, and so many special tasks at the museums, department stores, city workers with green brooms, police everywhere. The city core is the most dense in Europe and yet in the early 1900s there were 50 per cent more people living in downtown Paris than there are now.

Our Versailles tour guide told us she spent years looking for a suitable apartment. About 60 per cent of Parisians own apartments, 40 per cent rent. Prices are high but not as high as London. Most live in very small apartments - about 260 sq. ft., the size of a bedroom in North America. The least desirable neighborhoods sell for about $200,000 Canadian up, to over $1 million for the same tiny apartment in a better neighborhood. St. Germain is the most desirable, and there’s nothing less than $1 million.

The earning curve in Paris is very flat - someone with a basic job and no degree doesn’t earn much less than someone with several degrees, but people take a lot of holidays and have free health care.

Leaves had popped out on most of the 100,000 (according to the city tour) trees in Paris, and park gardens were filled with blooming tulips and spring floral, but it was freezing cold all the time we were there. Spring apparently had come in January when it was 14 degrees.

Friday morning as we did each morning, we had croissants, baguettes, cheese, jam, warm hard-boiled eggs in the hotel. There was also yogurt, and granola cereal with pieces of chocolate in it.

Afterward, we walked to the National Opera House with another mother/daughter couple from our group, Helene from Ottawa and her daughter Kathe from Vancouver. The Paris Opera was founded by Louis XIV in 1669 and the latest location (1860), a vision in red and gold, was filled with crystal chandeliers, marble mosaics and paintings and sculpture.

In the evening we took a Seine boat cruise, under all the bridges. There were recorded commentaries for those who didn’t speak French. The young host spoke excellent French and Spanish and incomprehensible English. Nobody bought the 6 euro booklet he was selling about what we’d seen. It would have gone with Naomi’s 6 euro can of iced tea she bought from a stand at the Eiffel Tower when she was thirsty. Wine really is cheaper than soft drinks in Paris.

Gray clouds, gray choppy water and gray buildings, but somehow still filled with color. Instead of taking the subway back from the cruise we walked with some of our friendly, well-travelled group. In one of the many parks we encountered the original giant spider Maman whose duplicate is in front of the National Gallery of Canada.
Saturday morning was the Course du petit dejeuner 2008 UNESCO friendship run a day before the Paris Marathon. It was so much fun to run with people from dozens of countries, one from each who carried a big flag of their country. I went with Sandy, who was on our tour, and works at the Orleans Running Room. We met the first day when our Travac Tours rep made introductions and she exclaimed that she had read my book. I told her about the upcoming run, and she was game to do it - to Naomi’s delight to be let off the hook.

In the afternoon Naomi and I walked to St. Germain and the Latin Quarter, and had cappuccino and salade nicoise shivering outdoors at Cafe de Flore, sandwiched between smokers at the little outdoor tables. It’s more expensive at the cafes to sit on a chair outside the restaurant than to eat inside. And it’s more to eat inside than to take away. Coffee in a cafe outside Paris is much cheaper. In Paris you pay for the space and the view.

Washrooms are unisex.

In the evening we attended a French play at Palais-Royal called Toc Toc, about “les troubles obsessionnels compulsifs”. It was very funny, and I could follow the body language even though I had trouble catching some of the specific French words.
At the theatre, you tip the usher who brings you to your seat, and there’s no free program; the usher will sell you one for 6 euros.

Most Paris shops are closed Sundays ( and whenever they feel like it) and so that was the day we chose to spend in the Jewish quarter, around Rue des Rosiers, with kosher bakeries and butchers, synagogues and falafel restaurants, packed with customers. We visited the Musee d’Art et d’Histoire du Judaisme which had very moving coverage of the deportation of 75,000 French Jews during the Holocaust.

Monday was our day at the Louvre. (It became the largest museum in the world in 1793, after being a palace. Louis XIV thought it was too small, so he built Versailles. It would take four months to look at each piece of art.) We were at the Louvre the minute it opened and straight to the Mona Lisa to get it over with. Then we moved slowly around looking at as much as we could until our lower backs could take no more. On a chill Monday morning the immense building was packed with tourists, art students painting in each salon, junior students in red baseball caps, and large Japanese tour groups. Everyone was taking photos of their companions in front of each work of art. There were flashes flashing constantly. I had left the camera in the hotel; I couldn’t imagine photography being permitted, and so we had a different perspective without thinking about posing all the time.

(And then in the evening at Moulin Rouge (the oldest night club in Paris, built the same year as the Eiffel Tower which was built for the World’s Fair) I brought the camera and then was compelled to check it.) The show is a story in itself - topless can can dancer numbers interspersed with such Ed Sullivan-type variety acts as a woman who swims in a tank of snakes, a ventriloquist and a balance act like Cirque de Soleil.

We were inside the Louvre oblivious when the Olympic Torch Relay protests were going on less than a block away. When the verdict came in on Princess Diana’s inquest we were outside the Paris Ritz Hotel she had left from, and we went under the tunnel where she was killed.

The subway in Paris, dating from 1900, is very complicated with 14 lines in all directions, but it’s very safe. Even on a Monday night at midnight coming back from Moulin Rouge the subway cars were bright and full. The latest line opened seven years ago and is automatic with no drivers. The union made them hire a driver anyway and he sits in the station and reads a book.

Wednesday we climbed the 400 plus steps up to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral (1365) for a beautiful view of the city. We also went to the Holocaust Memorial (Memorial des Martyrs de la Deportation) just behind the church, on Ile de la Cite. It’s a long corridor lined with 200,000 quartz pebbles and a small light flickering for each person who failed to return.

Then we marched confidently in the wrong direction looking for the fancy shopping district and ended up in the red light district instead. The prostitutes seem to keep longer hours than the shop keepers; they were hard at work selling their wares at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Even the fanciest department stores like Galeries Lafayette don’t have night shopping. They do have a champagne bar in among the designer fashions.

The day before we left, we were among the six million people who visit Versailles every year. Versailles itself is a rich suburb of 100,000 people. Versailles palace has 2,000 rooms, and took 36,000 workers and 8,000 horses and 49 years to build it. Louis XIV burned the bills near the end of his life so no one would know what it cost.
It was absolutely fascinating to learn about life at the times and I could fill this e-mail with just that. Just one item...Italian mirror makers were brought in from Murano Italy to work on Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors. The French ‘apprentices’ working with them were actually experts, and once they learned the secrets, they sent the glass makers home where they died in mysterious circumstances. That’s because the Italians were mad that their secrets had been revealed. We saw the same problem in Murano when we visited Venice. The Chinese are copying the glass and undercutting sales.

Nothing changes.

We also visited the village of Giverny to have lunch and walk around Claude Monet’s beautiful house and gardens. The cold temperatures kept the crowds away, and so we could see the flowers and water lilies more peacefully. I painted a quick postcard in the water lily garden; me and my buddy Monet, we have something in common.

The last morning just before boarding the bus for the airport, we walked to Monoprix and bought some jams, which I thoughtlessly put in a carry-on bag. Naomi did the same with her pricey Phyto French hair products. We were both stopped at customs and threatened with confiscation, but given the option of returning to the airport check-in desk and checking them in separately. The “police de frontier” were getting tired of seeing us go back and forth, but were very pleasant.

The trip was an enchanting melange of history, architecture and a different life.
Naomi says she appreciated my perspective of history and appreciation of beauty. I was grateful for her sense of direction and fluency so good that locals took her for one of them. We were both sorry to leave so soon.

Weeeee love New Yawkkkkkk!

"I’ll have to turn off the engine," said the bus driver. "New York City has very stiff anti-idling laws."

We had already heard about the "no-talking-on-cellphones" law for when you’re crossing the street. Nevertheless, everyone crosses on red lights, including blind people with canes and parents with children!

It was exactly 4 p.m. Thursday; and we were waiting for our escort to return to the Travac Tours bus with our Sheraton Manhattan room keys.

The trip from Ottawa to New York City on our mother-daughter trip had taken exactly nine hours from our 7 a.m. departure, including an hour for lunch at Denny’s at noon.

The bus was full, with a surprising age range of men, women and children.

En route Travac escort Elaine Hickey doled out home-made muffins, bottles of water, and offered candies – and a steady banter about what to see and New York trivia. She handed out pamphlets, booklets and discount coupons, and showed a New York tourism movie, as well as a regular Hollywood movie.

Once in the city, we were on our own, and Naomi and I headed right to the discount same-day theatre ticket kiosk on Broadway and bought the last two tickets to Tony Award-winning "Avenue Q", described as "Sesame Street on crack".

The second day we lined up again for tickets to the "Drowsy Chaperone". It’s an experience to be in those long, snaking ticket lines.

Avenue Q is an adult puppet show, where the actors hold the puppets but are visible themselves.

We didn’t get seats together, so we switched seats at intermission to see the view from opposite sides. The show contains such memorable songs as:

"You’re a little bit racist"
"The Internet is for porn"
"There’s a fine fine line between love and a waste of time"
and "It sucks to be me."


In the evening street hawker/comedians promote late night comedy clubs for after theatre; but we didn’t try any.


So many food options. We had dinner the first night at Zen Palace, a vegan, vegetarian chain, but we both couldn’t stomach the zenmaki, a combination of string bean, carrot and soy ham wrapped sushi style in sesame nori.

Blossom, an upscale vegan restaurant in Chelsea was much better.

We had breakfast at Ellen’s Stardust Diner down the street from our hotel, where the singing waitstaff perform on an ear-shattering sound system and the wall has photos of the "Miss Subways" beauty queens from the 1940s.

Walking down the street, we saw a truck parked with a giant blow-up rat in the back of it. We found out later that the rat is placed where "undocumented" workers are doing construction work.

Then in the pouring rain we took a city tour Friday of all of Manhattan, included with our package, and learned a lot about the city.

When we stopped at Trump Tower for a bathroom break, we actually encountered The Donald himself with his bodyguards in the lobby. We took his photo and added it to our celebrity collection, with Angela Lansbury from the sidewalk on Broadway.

Saturday morning the rain finally stopped and we spent a breathtaking morning in beautiful Central Park, a few blocks walk from the hotel. So European-like, with rowboats on the pond, violinists playing underneath historic carved archways, and runners, dog walkers and strollers enjoying this natural paradise. We liked it so much, we returned Sunday morning as well and hated to leave.


Saturday afternoon and evening visits with Naomi’s friends working four jobs and living in tiny accommodations gave us a look at what it’s really like to live and work in New York City and pursue a career in theatre.

There is competition for everything in New York, not just for theatre roles. If you don’t like the prices at a restaurant or store, you can usually find what you’re looking for at the price you want to pay.

Early in the trip we had walked out of an overpriced diner, and then found Pick a Bagel down the street on 7th Avenue that offered twice as much food for half the price. We returned to Pick a Bagel a second time on our way to Central Park.

The bus left New York City at 1 p.m., Sunday, with a rest stop three hours later, and a buffet dinner stop at Plainsville Farms turkey restaurant in Cicero, N.Y., followed by a stop at the Duty Free. We arrived back in Ottawa at exactly 10 p.m. as promised.

As laden-down tour members assembled their purchase receipts and shopping bags for Customs, I realized that what we were bringing back was intangible. We had spent all our money on theatre tickets, and food, and the memories and digital photos were our carry-on.

a congratulations and a non-race report

Last week, my friend Kristin Goff completed the Olympic Distance triathlon at Carleton Place.

It was the culmination of many months of dedicated training and perseverance, and I want to congratulate her on this spectacular accomplishment. If anyone knows how hard it has been, it’s me, because I have been following in her dust. I hope she’ll write her own race report.

As many of you know, because we have big mouths, more than two years ago, Kristin and I made a pact to do an Olympic Distance triathlon together when we both turned 60.

It seemed like such a noble goal, turning a negative into a positive, and it was so very far away, that of course it was easy to laughingly commit.

We continued to do Sprint Distance Triathlons - the Early Bird, Smiths Falls, Brockville, the Canadian, etc. plus myriad running races - and this past year I joined her to diligently train evenings with the Ottawa Triathlon Club.

In the early days of our triathlon career - a few years ago - she was already beating me on the swim and the bike, but I was able to demoralize her by passing at the last minute on the run. Then, her times improved so much that I couldn’t catch up and reel her in.

It didn’t make a lot of difference at awards time, because we were usually either first in the age category or second in the age category, since we were frequently the only two.

And then in the past few months, Kristin really took off, swimming powerfully, biking confidently with her aerobars and clip-in bike shoes, and running faster and with confidence.

By the Riverkeeper, she had time to socialize before I arrived at the finish line.

When we did long swims in Meech Lake on a choppy day, she plowed confidently through the waves, while even in a wetsuit I felt like a bobbing cork and considered climbing up the rocks to the road and walking back.

I was doing the training with her, but I was feeling so bad about becoming the Eddie the Eagle of Triathlon that I broke out in hives and lay sleepless at night as I contemplated what lay ahead.

And then, like a sign from above, I read a book review in the Saturday paper of “The Dip - A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit.” The book said quitting can be a good strategy.

A dip is the long slog between starting and mastery, the difference between the beginner technique and the more useful “expert” approach, the book says. Winners quit fast and quit often and only stick when they find the right dip to conquer.

I am regularly practically last in the Sprint Distance; if there were cut-off times for the Olympic, I wouldn’t even have been able to consider it. So I chose my own cut-off time, and decided this isn’t my dip.

Despite having done the long slog through the swim and bike and run distances over the past few months, two weeks before the Big Day, I decided that in spite of the happy fairy tale ending it would have created, the Olympic Distance wasn’t for me, for now. I switched my registration to the Sprint.

I suppose it’s actually amazing that I consider a Sprint Tri a letdown, when in my Try a Tri days I figured I’d never be able to do one at all. And I found out when I did the Sprint, that while I wasn't faster than I used to be, it was certainly way more comfortable - so there is value in training for an Olympic and actually doing a Sprint.

Thanks, Kristin, and congratulations! It has been - and will continue to be - great fun.

Europe 06

From: Louise Rachlis
Sent: Wednesday, July 5, 2006
Subject: Europe e-mail 1 – Fair warning

"Though there are some disagreeable things in Venice, there is nothing so disagreeable as the visitors."
Henry James
1843-1916

Last year Lorne and Louise followed in the Scandinavian footsteps of Hans Christian Andersen and Henning Mankell’s Inspector Wallander. This year, as we traverse parts of Spain, Italy and France, we (me) are inspired by Charles Dickens, who in the 1840s wrote Pictures from Italy:

"There is, probably, not a famous Picture or Statue in all Italy, but could be easily buried under a mountain of printed paper devoted to dissertations on it," he wrote. "I do not, therefore, though an earnest admirer of Painting and Sculpture, expatiate at any length on famous Pictures and Statues. This Book is a series of faint reflections - mere shadows in the water - of places to which the imaginations of most people were attracted in a greater or less degree, on which mine had dwelt for years, and which have some interest for all. The greater part of the descriptions were written on the spot, and sent home, from time to time, in private letters. I do not mention the circumstance as an excuse for any defects they may present, for it would be none; but as a guarantee to the Reader that they were at least penned in the fullness of the subject, and with the liveliest impressions of novelty and freshness."

Pretty smart, eh, that Dickens. I think he’ll go far as a writer. So that’s what you’ll get over the next few weeks, "faint reflections of our impressions," as we proceed July 5th to 24th, through Tina and Tom’s wedding in Ibiza (or Evissa in Catalon), Spain; a few days in Barcelona; a week in Venice; and a week in Aix en Provence.

I will be penning like Dickens rather than blogging, so I’ll try to get to an internet cafe about once a week. Forgive me for likely being unable to respond to you in transit, and for the typos incurred while Lorne paces outside the cafe while I finish up.

A happy summer to you all.
Louise and Lorne


From: Louise Rachlis
Sent: Friday, July 7, 2006 11:57 AM
Subject: Europe 2 - The uneventful journey of the Rachlis luggage

It was 11:30 a.m. Wednesday by the time our pre-flight preparations were done, and I could go for a last minute run along the Rideau Canal. I was admiring how beautiful it was - already looking at scenery through the eyes of a tourist - when a cyclist pulled up beside me and asked how to get to the University of Ottawa. My first thought was, "Oh, she can speak English." I had been mentally prepared for Spanish, Italian or French.

When we checked in at the airport, our luggage tags for Ottawa-Toronto-Frankfurt-Barcelona-Ibiza were so long the clerk had to split them in two on the handles, but at least the luggage was checked through to our final destination, and we wouldn’t have to reclaim it at any or each leg. Ever skeptical, Lorne kept asking different staff at the Frankfurt airport, our entry to the European Union, "Are you sure we don’t have to reclaim our luggage?" He of course also expressed doubt that, at the end of our 17-hour journey, we´d ever see the luggage again. His glass is half empty.

Toronto to Frankfurt was with Lufthansa, a "Star Alliance Partner" of Air Canada, on a Boeing 747. The plane was packed, and if they give a Consumers’ Choice Award for smallest seats, tightest lack of leg room and loudest wailing children among 500 plus passengers, they´d get gold. They even provide real metal cutlery, including knives, with the plastic meal because no one could pry themselves out of their cramped seats fast enough to do any harm. Getting out was hard enough when you have to go to the air-borne out house.

Real dishes and plates at the coffee kiosks in the Frankfurt airport where we spent a couple of hours! So civilized! It’s much easier to avoid creating paper garbage here than in North America. Inside the glass display case, the ordinary bread sandwiches were called "American". The whole grain, healthy, multigrain ones were called "German". They also sold frankfurters.

The worst part in transit for me was the several hours in the Barcelona airport, second from last leg. Jet lag thumped me and I just had to lie down. At least the benches didn’t have those are rest metal dividers and I could stretch out with my now indispensable, red, traveling neck pillow that I relied on the whole way. Lorne stood, rather, sat guard, he having been able to snatch several naps during the transatlantic leg.

Once we were actually on the delayed Air Iberia flight (flight time from Barcelona to Ibiza is less than an hour) we prepared by mentally rehearsing getting our rental car, getting used to a new car in a new country, finding our accommodation (at least it would still be daylight) and then finding Puck’s rented villa for a wedding guest get together that same evening. But first, pick up the luggage.

Walk past the palm trees, enjoy a minute’s sunshine and on to the luggage carousel. And watch. And wait. And watch as our two bright red suitcases with special ribbons so you can’t miss them on the conveyor belt don’t arrive. Lorne is so sweaty we have our own personal space. (I’m immune to it now. On second thought, no, I’m not.)

One bag is in Canada, and we have no record of the other, reports the clerk, proud of their excellent tracking system. We’ll call you. Don’t worry, this has happened before. (Including to five other people on our flight.) How can we reach you?

Instead of late afternoon sun to guide us, we are now driving at dusk. Lorne is re-learning the standard shift. Luckily the couple we stopped to ask how to put the car into reverse spoke enough English that they showed us how. You can imagine what they told their friends about the crazy tourists they met while walking home. We lurch along twisting roads, discovering the unique personality of our Renault diesel rental car as we attempt with difficulty to find Club Calla Lenya. (We were not delighted to learn that it is not in the town of the same name.) The Spanish phrase book is in the luggage. I was sure I thought of everything for this trip - except the right place to put it.

Skip forward an hour. We are now in our little stucco room, part of a six-plex unit as far from the main building as possible. (Sometimes we walked, sometimes we drove.) But minus everything that wasn’t in our carry-ons.

So this is a moral and a caution for you, dear friends and family. A carry-on filled with paperback novels is little comfort when what you really need is earplugs (guess why), a toothbrush, a party dress and a bathing suit. (Remember, this was before the scare in England regarding mixing innocuous-seeming liquids to make a bomb.)

But the fragrant hibiscus, oleander, and bougainvillea are bountiful and the sky is blue. Ibiza is truly beautiful, 572 square kilometres (one-fifth the size of Ottawa according to Lorne) of red sand, green pine-covered hills, deep blue water and white plaster walls on all the buildings. It was a trading seaport as early as 7 B.C. Now all the billboards advertise the popular-for-the-moment singers at the tons of nightclubs, including Privilege, The Largest in the World (in Guiness Book of Records according to the ad).

"Along the harbor streets, it’s possible to see the oddest characters whose sex condition is not easy to guess," says the free Ibiza pamphlet from the airport. It doesn’t refer to Lorne and Louise in their same three-day old Ottawa clothes. "It’s part of the island’s spirit of freedom brought by hippies ... Ibiza farmers knew how to accept these long-haired calmed youngs, who settled in the island during the Sixties," says the flyer. "Nowadays still happens the same, they have a kindly look at these craziness that sometimes seizes the island in summer." So there.

Note: Of 120 wedding guests from all over the world, we are now aware of at least six with lost ("delayed" in airline lingo) luggage.

Ibiza is popular with little children, too. The Director of Education inadvertently booked us into a ‘family resort’ 45 minutes from the main disco strip, the highlight being an evening puppet show in English and German. The good news – the kids go to bed early, and the food was all-inclusive, including three buffet meals a day and free snacks and drinks, including local alcoholic beverages, by the pool all day.

I’m off now to buy a bikini and flip flops, so I will fit in where "go-go dancers advance daily parties swinging the hips."


From: Louise Rachlis
Sent: Sunday, July 9, 2006 11:54 AM
Subject: Europe e-mail 3: How to get married in Ibiza

The invitation cautioned: "You cannot park at the hotel. The roads in Ibiza are very busy on Saturdays so expect delays. If you miss the shuttles, you’ll miss the wedding!"

Tina and Tom’s wedding was set for 6 p.m. at the Hotel Can Talais in San Carlos, Ibiza, Baleares. As directed, we parked near the old white church in the centre of San Carlos (population 100) and then headed to one of the minivans which proceeded through the pine trees up a long dusty one-lane dirt road to the top of a hill where the hotel overlooked the Mediterranean. The driver said to wait a minute for the dust to settle before opening the van door, and I understood why I’d seen a number of extremely dirty black car windshields in town with "wash me" and other comments finger written in Spanish.

The hotel was actually a large villa, formerly owned by the late British comedian Terry Thomas and now by his son. The main room has a life size painting of Thomas in traditional English riding gear. The house has just five large guest rooms and gets its clients only by word of mouth. "It’s a real find," said our British shuttle driver, who said she left the Midlands for Ibiza 16 years ago. She also advised that you never get used to the afternoon heat.

It was the kind of wedding setting you see only in movies, outdoor patio overlooking the sea, white clothed tables and chairs, sprinkles of flower petals everywhere, a soft breeze, large white umbrellas over each table to provide shade.

There was a brief non-religious (and non-binding—civil service performed in London last week) outdoor ceremony conducted by the groom’s friend, with passages written and recited by the couple. Following a Buddhist tradition they had picked up in Nepal, the best man (why doesn’t the bride marry the ‘best’ man?) handed a thin yellow rope out from the bride and groom and attendants, up and down each row to each of the guests - to symbolize that we were all tied together in friendship, the theme of their wedding after their nearly 10 years together. After 10 years, friendship is a pretty good deal.

There were small wooden fans placed on each seat for the guests at the outdoor ceremony, and wide orange ribbons tied the napkins at the meal, both of which went home with the guests, along with their own wrist-length pieces of the yellow cord. The tall blond bride looked like Grace Kelly in a slim low cut lace cream gown; the groomsmen each wore a single orange orchid blossom on their dark jackets.

The meal of local Spanish dishes served by attractive young British servers ended with chocolate tasting – platters consisting of six different tiny chocolate creations, like chili chocolate pots and heart shaped truffles.

By the way, our suitcases both finally arrived in Ibiza a day apart, Lorne’s the day after our arrival, mine the next day and fortunately just before the wedding, sparing my attendance in flip flops and the red/orange hippie wrap around skirt and top I bought here to go over my new orange bikini that says Espagne on the bum. (It’s not rude; it means "Spain" in Spanish.) We never did get to see much more of the island than the road to and from the airport. (The luggage ‘delay’ was caused by Air Canada in Toronto, which never got them on our transatlantic flight.)

We have just arrived back in Barcelona via Air Iberia, the last day before the Iberia pilots go on their annual strike. We’re planning our Barcelona activities, and I’ll tell you how it all works out in a few days. Buenas noches.

From: Louise Rachlis
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 11:59 AM
Subject: Europe 4: B-art-celona

When we got into Barcelona, the first thing (well, almost the first thing) I did was ask the hotel desk clerk to suggest a bar that we could walk to so we could soak up the local atmosphere, eat and, most importantly, watch the World Cup Final. He wrote down directions to the "Phil Harmonia" which turned out to be a traditional English pub named the Philharmonic, filled to over-capacity with loud, under-25 English, and a ton of cigarette smoke.

My only regular bar experience is the crowded and noisy annual TriRudy triathlon group silent auction at a pub in Vanier. This was just the same, except for the smoke. And the English accents. And the roof shattering cheering. (Lorne apparently has other and more extensive experience with bars which he hasn’t shared with me.)

The corners of buildings at most street intersections in old Barcelona are cut off, thus forming an attractive octagonal plaza effect. On a side street near La Rambla (famous wide boulevard with cafes down the middle) in downtown Barcelona, I’m drinking red wine and eating a baked potato in an English pub, with an BBC World Cup TV broadcast on a large screen, English only menus, Brit servers, and Lorne’s eating steak and kidney pie and quaffing Guinness. When in Rome …

This is a contrast to our usual Spanish experience so far where most Spaniards don’t speak fluent English. Gunnar, (bride’s uncle, Claes’ brother), one of many quadrilingual Swedes we know, says it’s because in Spain they dub the American movies into Spanish, but in Sweden (smaller population, smaller movie market) it’s Swedish subtitles, so they get to listen to - and learn - the English.

So our first evening in Barcelona was like a bonus trip to Britain, then manana (can’t figure out how to make the curly thing) after the Cup, back to Spain.

I’m particularly conscious of being judged as a tourist and needing to set a good example as a foreign visitor. At a local bar in San Carlos on Ibiza a bartender had been particularly unpleasant to Lorne after crankily serving him a cerveza and growling, in Spanish, "You blinkety blank New Yorkers … " then turned and wouldn’t pay him any more attention. We see good and bad behaving tourists and we (me, anyway) are especially trying to be polite, use the language whenever we know the words, even make sure our wet laundry is hanging neatly in the hotel room. It’s hard to break stereotypical images and harder when you can’t speak to each other.

I am sooo glad we are able to spend some time in Barcelona, which was just going to be a transit point. I knew about the art and architecture, but to actually see it is wonderful. Every building, sculpture, fountain is so grand. The thickly treed boulevards, iron and flower bedecked apartment balconies, motor scooters as vehicle of choice parked in rows on every sidewalk like bicycles were in China ...

We bought two-day on-off tour bus passes, broiling like Swiss Chalet chickens on the top of the double deckers because, if you’re cool inside, you can’t see the tops of the buildings. (Mad dogs and Englishmen .... )

On the shopping streets there is chain retail and chain food. Yes, McDonald’s. It is the art and architecture in public places that makes a city unique. (And it was such a big deal for Ottawa to ‘save the Cattle Castle’ and they wouldn’t even fix the Strathcona Park fountain for years!) On the city streets, the magnificent buildings tower above, and from the top of the double deckers, the miniature pedestrians fill the wide sidwalks below.

Antoni Gaudi’s early 1900s buildings and sculptures make me feel I could sculpt a building freestyle out of clay instead of measured iron and steel. His work is so creative and inspiring. The apartment building, with an inner court, curves everywhere, a window for every apartment room (including the storage room but not the maid’s room), marble tiled floors with more intricate patterns in public areas, was still, after over 100 years, in move-in condition. The exhibits showed how Gaudi designed his buildings with models composed of weights, counterweights, strings, sticks and so on rather than the traditional slide rule and T-square. A true genius.

We also saw the football stadium that seats more than 100,000 where Maradona and Ronaldinho played, and the stadium that was the site of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

For lunch we bought components at El Supermercat two doors down from our hotel. Always interesting to see the regional differences at the stores where locals shop in what food is emphasized and how they do things. For instance, after lining up at the cashier, I had to go back to the fruit and vegetable department and weigh the produce myself. The smell of the freshly baked bread was hypnotic.

Eating my piece of baguette and Spanish mejillons en escabeche (pickled mussels) in the hotel room, I had a flash of eating at my desk at work. I dripped highly colored food onto my clothes just like at home. I guess I haven’t been on holiday long enough. Tomorrow we will bus to and picnic at Bogatell beach on the Mediterranean, beside the city’s oldest cemetery with its centuries old crypts.

I have a few minutes left on my internet card, so I decided to write now while Lorne’s having his siesta. Please forgive as always typos, illiteracies and the nonsense from writing while the clock is ticking. (I know, it’s how I write at work all the time :-)
Buenas tardes. I’ll be back in touch from Venice!

---------------------------
From: Louise Rachlis
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 4:55 PM
Subject: Europe 5: Alas, poor Venezia

Bonjourno (sic)
I’m writing a quick note standing up at the hotel clerk’s counter, because the other computer, the one in the TV room for guests to use, isn’t working and he’s letting me. Please ignore the lack of apostrophes - I can t find them on the Italian keyboard. (I added them after I got home.)

Three things I learned from a combination of Italian guidebooks while eating tapas and drinking wine at an outside cafe on La Rambla in Barcelona the night before leaving for Venice:

1. Venice is 100 islands, 400 bridges and 2,000 alleys. (All numbers grossly exaggerated we later found.) The city is shaped like a fish. (If you’re a mile up in the air looking down.) Addresses are hopelessly confusing. "Revel in getting lost." True. And that does panic Mr. Organization. Me, it’s my natural state.

2. "Avoid the area around the railroad station where it is less than pleasant ... Don’t stay in Mestre, a polluted industrial sprawl across the causeway."

3. The word "ghetto" comes from getti, the jets of the brass foundry located there before the word was inherited by Venice’s Jewish community when required to live on the site from 1516 to the late 1700s when the gates were opened by Napoleon and then reinstated by the Austrians.

Guess where last March the Rachlises reserved a hotel room for six days. You’re right. The answer is number 2. And the moral is - read the guidebooks BEFORE you make a reservation. (As with our luggage, we’re living these challenges just so everyone else will know what not to do :-)

So it was with some apprehension we approached our pre-paid Hotel Piave in Mestre near the railroad station. But nothing was going to ruin our visit to Venice. I’d read so many splendid novels set here in the Middle Ages. Who cared if the CAA Travel Book calls Venice, "Crowded and expensive, crumbling and shabby." As it turns out, they are right on.

We’re now entrenched in our dear devoid-of-charm Hotel Piave hotel room in Mestre, which bills itself as a "modern Venice hotel". That’s like saying that Bathurst and Wilson is the "modern Toronto". And it actually looks a bit the same. But we’re only sleeping there. (And Lorne doing his laundry.)

We had dinner outside three nights in a row at Ristorante Dante just down the street from the hotel. We just couldn’t manage the local custom of an afternoon nap at the height of the afternoon heat with a long and leisurely evening, beginning with dinner after 8. Especially since it meant a half hour bus ride back to the hotel and then another ride back to the islands. So we dined al Mestre. On the outside patio, under the stars, the first night listening to a table from Toronto expound on their adverntures. On each of the three nights, at 8:30 precisely, a bus load of tourists would arrive, be fed, and be back out the door by 9:30. We were in no hurry, which was lucky because for that hour it was hard to find our waiter. The food was great, the ambiance interesting since we were seated1 metre from a pedestrian / bicycle mall. By the third night the waiter thought we looked familiar. And then we were gone.

Eera squisito! (We’re language lagged. After struggling with the Spanish phrases and mastering "la cuenta per favor" to ask for the bill, it’s now "mi porta il conto per favoree". I’m getting hives from red wine so I m ALMOST ready to give it up. (Never did. And the hives went away.)

After wonderful breakfasts included with our rooms in Ibiza and Barcelona, the plastic packaged pseudo-croissants in "modern Venice" seem especially lame. Our tablemate one morning was a Dublin-area woman who had been here with her family for nearly a week and happily recited in her Irish lilt her entire itinerary and advice on everything such as that the churches for a fee will loan you a shawl or wrap so you will be modest enough to enter. (Actually shawls were provided gratis to women for the synagogue part of the Jewish ghetto tour.)

On our way into Venice the first morning we stopped at the train station as planned to buy tickets from here to Aix. To our surprise, you can’t get there by train from here - without at least four stops or an overnight in Geneva. We spent several hours investigating alternatives, all expensive and inconvenient. No direct flights – would have to stay overnight in Prague ! I’ll let you know how it ends up. (Found out it’s cheaper to hire a driver and car than to rent and drive yourself and about the same cost as flying or training without changes and stopovers. So that’s what we did. Moral: book all travel ahead when you have the time to discover what the options are and the cost is cheaper than the day-ahead price.)

Mestra is one railway station away from Venice (cost 1 euro each way) or, from our hotel’s bus stop, five bus stops away. (Bus pass is also good on the water buses.) So for the five days we went, by the time we were off the city bus and onto the water bus in old Venice, it was the heat of the day and the crowds were a sweating, heaving amoeba-like mass of gelato-eating, T-shirt buying, cell-phone talking humanity surrounding a nuclei of gift shops.

The ghetto and Jewish museum were quiet and uncrowded. You could be pretty sure that anyone going off the beaten tourist track into this area was Jewish. Weird feeling. It was interesting to tour two preserved synagogues from the 1500s. Both were essentially hidden inside innocuous looking buildings, on the second floor, with seating for about 100 people each. One way of telling there were synagogues inside was the presence of five (for the books of Moses) windows. Of the five original synagogues, three were Ashkenazi (eastern European Jews) and two Sephardic (middle Eastern and north African). Two of the Sephardic (the ones we saw) are actually still in use, one in the summer because it’s cooler and the other in the winter. The congregation consists mainly of elderly folks. There are a few jewelry and gift stores specializing in Jewishabilia, and one kosher restaurant on the edge of the canal looking as if it had been transplanted from suburban Jerusalem.

Most of the buildings in Venice are three, maybe four storeys high. No elevators. Except in the ghetto. When the island was completely built up, the only way to house a growing population was up. So here there are eight and nine storey buildings. Still no elevators.

Locking Jews up on their own island at night was a gesture by the Venetian government to the Pope and had the unintended consequence of protecting the Jews at night because that was when many believed we did our evil deeds. The only exception to the lock up was for doctors if needed for a medical emergency during the night. In return, the Venetian Jews were spared the Inquisition. (There are just 400 "affiliated" Jews (mostly elderly) in Venice today. The ubiquitous Lubovitchers from Brooklyn have an office here near the museum for the summer, but they don’t count, said our guide.)

Venice and the canals are substantial and impressive in their history, but the first day I was heartbroken. At first I thought the graffiti in suburban industrial Mestre was just a result of poverty in a run down area, but to see graffiti spray painted in so many locations on the buildings and bridges and alleyways of Venice itself, and overflowing garbage bins, brought me to tears. My dream city was under attack.

The water in the canals looked clean, counter to my fears of garbage and smells; it was the human-created detritus on the land that upset me. What a shame. I’m a dreamer, and, as always, a little late to the party, but I’m still glad I was there. A pui tardi (see you later) and Ciao.

________________________________________________________________________
From: Louise Rachlis
Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 2:20 PM
Subject: Europe 6: Venezia - learning to love it

A quick note in keeping with today’s theme of glass-making, because I want to correct the impression yesterday’s ‘meltdown touristique’ might have given. As we get to know the city and the buses (land and water), and we know where to go and where not to go back to, Venice has a happier face than my initial pessimistic view. (Attribute it to dehydration.) There are beautiful shaded spots to sit and listen to the cicadas chirping, or to swing your legs over the fondamenta (a street that runs along the canal) and eat a box of strawberries beside the water, balconies to feel the breeze and watch the boats go by.

Murano Island (where glassmaking was moved in the 1400s to avoid fires in Venice) was quiet and pleasant. When they started blowing glass in Murano it was to imitate the first Chinese porcelains that had just reached Venice. Ironically today, many Murano shops have hand printed signs exhorting customers to avoid cheap Chinese imitations which, they claim, will destroy Murano’s glass industry.

At the Museo del Vetro there are examples of hugely ornate glass centrepieces for the Doges’ tables called deseri with one extreme example being a complete Italian garden with fountains, arches and flowerpots, and mythological theatre scenes. I guess they can still have such fragile glass bowls and goblets from the 15th century because there was no Air Canada then. (Couldn’t resist :-) I was looking at some glass bead necklaces and rings in the glass museum showcase, and thought hmph, pretty plain. Then I read the label that said they were from the first and 2nd centuries. And I had thought them to be current jewelry.

Surreal and fascinating, Venice has grown on me as we walk and take the vaporetti (water buses) around in the heat and the crowds. (Other places try to be Venice - I’ve water toured a town in China called the Venice of China, and Gothenbourg, the Venice of Scandinavia, but Venice with all its positive and negative components, they’re not.) Regards from the Venice of Venice.
________________________________________________________________________
From: Louise Rachlis
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 10:27 AM
Subject: Europe 7: Happy End of the Plague

Buongiorno! (Now I know how to spell it correctly) Before leaving Ottawa, when we checked (of course too late) Tripadvisor.com for comments about our beloved Hotel Piave, "modern Venice hotel", one of several derogatory posts mentioned "the surly bald guy at the desk." So it was with some excitement we realized, "that’s him! The surly bald guy!" When I politely inquired about using the advertised feature of "internet access, see desk", he replied, "still not working. Go down the street."

"Down the street" there’s a corner small business run by a nice Pakistani man, basically a shabby room the size of a convenience store with booths and telephones used by immigrants for long distance calls. The computer he offered was in the back room beside the mop and pail, for 1.5 euros (no time limit!). Lorne sat on a folding chair in the waiting area in front and read the pocketbook he’d brought for the occasion since he knew he’d be waiting. "Why," he asks, "have the last three mystery books you’ve given me to read begun with the murder of a woman jogging?"

Anyway, I’m patronizing the corner man again so I can tell you about yesterday’s Festa del Redentore, an annual festival of thanksgiving for deliverance from a plague five hundred years ago. They build a temporary pontoon bridge across the canal to the Great Redentore Church. There was a long, decorated parade of boats, lanterns and other decorations are hung, and fireworks at midnight.

"Unbelievably ornate display of wealth, money lenders needed to raise money for the growing war effort against the Muslims, a massive display of weapons of mass destruction, prisons for those denounced by anonymous accusations ..." Plus ca change...
But no, we haven’t been reading the newspaper; we spent the morning listening to a seemingly endless audio commentary in the Doge’s Palace at St. Mark’s (excuse me, San Marco) Square learning history.

Quick tour of a Leonardo da Vinci exhibit housed in a church. Replicas of his papers accompanied by functioning models of what he had designed. For once Lorne took longer to get through an exhibit than I did. There might be something to the male / female brain theory.

Then, after a bikini swim in the waves of the Adriatic (Louise, not Lorne) on the small public beach of Florida-like Lido Island (which we liked so much we went back again the next day), we came back to St. Mark’s Square and had a drink al fresco while listening to a jazz combo and watching the pigeons eat from the hands of tourists from all over the world.

Venitians, like the rest of the world, now come in all variations, all speaking Italian. We had caffe decaffeinato and zupa di pesce alla marinara at a Chinese-operated paninoteca near the Rialto Bridge (they spoke Italian but not English, just like the sushi bar in Stockholm where the Japanese cooks spoke Swedish but not English), and we share the bus back each evening with young men of African origin and their giant bags of knock-off purses that they sell off blankets each evening at busy Venice pedestrian intersections. (The first time I saw the big bags, I thought they were nice boys going to the laundromat).

Oh, and you know those Peruvian Indians with the long black braids who play Andean music on a variety of pipes and recorders and sell their tapes and CDs in every major North American city? They’re here too, but for some reason are wearing Disney-concept North American Indian headdresses and fringed pants and jackets instead of their familiar white shirts and black pants. Whatever works …

In abundance: little pet dogs, pigeons, cloth bag folding shopping carts pulled by mature women in print dresses, gelato stands (1 scoop 1 euro, 2 scoops 2 euros, up to 3), and masked or maked-up (made-up (?) and costumed buskers, some on pedestals, some on stilts (!) posing as statues for coins. Rare to extinct: public benches, chairs and washrooms. You are expected to buy a drink and do your sitting (both kinds) at a cafe. The small public beach area on Lido had almost no facilities while next to it on both sides on extensive hotel beachfront, guarded by a security man, were cabanas, beach chairs, rental boats, change facilities and food outlets. And on Sunday, the little facility there was closed – no rental chairs, not even a working tap to wash off the salt water and change rooms closed so people held up beach towels while their friends changed clothes.

People push through lines here, none of that sheepish waiting your turn, so you have to fend for yourself. We start together getting onto boats or buses and have to look for each other inside as people crowd past and between us. Service is variable. An older North American Italian woman pushing a man in a wheelchair was yelling at a vaporetta attendant who told her to go over to the chart and look it up herself to find out if this boat went to St. Mark’s.

I thought two men chatting across the walkway from our evening restaurant were using sign language, but it turned out they were just talking and using their hands for emphasis. (Q: How do you make an Italian mute? A: Make him sit on his hands.)

When I get back I’m going to put a posting on Tripadvisor.com to counteract the ones that would have discouraged us had we seen them earlier. Looking back on six days and nights in Venice, each day I have become more attached. Ordinary adjectives don’t do justice to the uniqueness of this place. Pictures and descriptions in guidebooks are nothing like the real thing. I will think of Venice as we enjoy the chauffeured all day Tuesday drive along the Mediterranean coast to Aix en Provence.

____---------------------____________________________________________________________________

From: Louise Rachlis
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 12:39 PM
Subject: Europe 8: Aix and Pains

"Après moi, le deluge," said King Louis XIV, and in an afternoon thunderstorm, we arrived at the door of Hotel Kyriad in Aix en Provence, 25 km north of Marseille and a 7 hour drive from Venice along winding four-lane highway through dozens of tunnels, past terraced hills and gorgeous views of the Mediterranean. We had had conversations in English in Venice – at the kosher restaurant Gam Gam outdoors beside a canal with a couple from London, and on a bus boat with an American marine from San Antonio serving in Bosnia who was meeting his American fiancée in Venice for a 3-day romantic interlude and asked us for directions ! (Every sentence of his included the word ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ depending on whether he was addressing me or Lorne – so darn polite). It was so nice to meet up in Aix for an evening with Claes and Puck, the parents of the Ibiza bride, for meaningful dialogue, a nice change from the predictable conversation between us. (Typically, Lorne: Here’s all the things that can go wrong today. Louise: Shut up.)

Aix is like a small scale Paris. We had a wonderful meal outdoors, under cleared up sky: Except for breakfast, we haven’t eaten inside for weeks. (The title of this email refers to the excellent bread and everything else to eat here.) Puck and Claes had arrived in Aix a day ahead of us and were and heading to Amsterdam the next day. Puck had good advice to smooth our way:
- Don’t take the Aix tourist mini-train in the morning for sightseeing when street deliveries are being made - traffic jams. Go in the afternoon when it’s not as busy:
- On the way into the Cezanne exhibit, pick up an English brochure; it has the same information as the plaques, but inside they aren’t in English.
- Don’t get a Eurail pass in the summer because of the long lines for reservations. TGV Train Grand Vitesse is the way to go in France with beautiful shining cars and sleepers.
We actually followed advice number 1. Didn’t need the other two but good advice just the same.

It is 100 years since artist Paul Cezanne’s death and the region is in great celebration of the centenary with a variety of exhibitions, and tours of his childhood home, studio and everything in between including the coffee shop he frequented.

There’s a lot else to our stay in Aix (pronounced Aches (you know, aches and pains, including the ‘s’ – somehow a contraction of Aqua and Sextius, the latter being a Roman general who built an aqueduct 2000 years ago to bring the aqua from the hills to the city) including a crocodile farm (why, we asked the tour guide? – to attract tourists and to make leather for shoes and purses) plus day outings to Avignon and the Popes’ palace there, and to Arles.

In the old part of Aix (remember to pronounce the ‘x’) itself, only a 20-minute walk from our hotel we were told (40 if you are human like us), we discover le Cours Mirabeau, a road built in 1649 for horse drawn carriages and sedan chairs. It is lined with thick trees, 100 statues, cafes, fancy historic mansions from the 17th century with wonderfully intricate doors and embellishments, and huge ornate fountains. One fountain dating from 1734 spews warm water from a hot spring. Running off of the broad main streets is a maze of narrow, winding pedestrian streets (which cars sometimes used), crowded with shoppers, and towered over by 3- and 4-storey buildings with no front yards lining the streets, housing fancy shops selling caviar, wine, designer clothing plus boulangeries and cafes. There are of course the highly elaborate churches and convents, city hall, palaces, bell towers, and the requisite now disappeared (where they used to live) Jewish quarter. There are still remnants of the Romans from 1 A.D.

Aix is the county seat for Provence and full of very rich people. The narrow winding streets are lined with courtyard walls and building walls, looking pretty much the way they did four hundred years ago. But inside the walls – sometimes what appears to be several dwellings has become one. There are courtyards and even swimming pools inside. We saw people leaving one villa because the garage door had been left open and inside we saw a large open courtyard, circular driveway and a Maseratti car (worth a half million euros, Olivier told us). We’re not just out of their league. We aren’t even playing the same game.

Lorne has been dutifully washing his clothes in the sink each night, while I, who never perspire, had been saving mine. In Aix it was time to find a laverie. We traversed the narrow streets and finally found what we were looking for. As we were figuring out the instructions, another man doing laundry comes over to help in French. He switches to English when he realizes we are. Turns out the white bearded man with the large cross is Father Ronald Young, originally from California but now an Oblate missionary and teaching at St: Paul’s University around the corner from us in Ottawa. He’s living at the monastery in Aix to learn French and perhaps save a few souls: He’s going to write an article on his summer for me for our community paper The Mainstreeter. So here’s Lorne talking politics and sharing his N.Y. Herald Tribune with a clergyman from Ottawa. Lubovitchers in Venice, Oblates in Aix; every denomination is out to proselytize in the sunshine.

Sorry for the typos and cutting short of my stories. I’ll have to tell you in person. I don’t think I’ll be emailing again from here; the French keyboard is driving me crazy. It’s very different and slows me down too much to find the letters; and internet in Aix is 5 euros for 15 minutes. Instead, on our last week of vacation, I will stop and smell the lavender. Au revoir and all good wishes.....
_____
From: Louise Rachlis
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2006 2:11 PM
Subject: La fin d’une semaine en Provence

Hi
I still can’t work on this strange keyboard, but I wanted to quickly record some more of our trip so we will remember it. We’re sitting over an absolutely fresh, just caught fish lunch in Avignon, and Olivier, our tour guide, is pontificating about the evils of the microwave and take-out coffee. "Why would you take it out? ... It takes just a few minutes to drink it ...When I was young, it was the height of rudeness to eat a sandwich on the street ..." He insisted on taking us to a real non-tourist restaurant that prepares food properly, and expostulated on everything from the carrots "right from the garden" to the fresh-pressed olive oil.

For our last few days here, we have been taking small guided trips outside Aix and thanks to Theriot and Olivier, and their charming French accents and idioms, we have learned a lot about Marseille where we spent Thursday, and the Avignon area Friday. Marseille is a huge, very old, "bouillabaisse" city, Theriot ‘s word for melting pot. Its downtown area has been revived and is worth a visit. The view from Notre Dame de la Garde church of Marseille and the mountains surrounding it is amazing. This according to our guide of Marseille who also lives there. According to Olivier, who lives in Aix and guides tours from there, Marseille is an unsafe dump.

For the trip to Avignon on Friday, there was just us, tiny Agnes Lan from Taiwan, who we spent the next two days with, and burly Rick James, from British Columbia, who is working here for four months as a maintenance mechanic on the local fire-fighting aircraft. Forest fires are a constant threat, and, the country-side being all built up, must be eliminated tout de suite. So, looking for smoke and dive bombing with water or chemicals are constant work.

The four of us, plus Olivier; a thin, medieval priestly-looking man in a Panama hat, spent the day in the vicinity of the Pont d’Avignon, formerly heavily fortified (big castle now a museum on one end) and the only crossing point between the ancient Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. (No, they don’t dance there.)

It was around 40 degrees at the 2000 year old Roman aqueduct, looking as good as new, but I hear it has been very hot in Ottawa too. Actually it has been 35 to 40C everyday, but it is a dry heat. Unless you stand near Lorne. Hail Caesar and pass the gelato. The lavender fields are pretty well faded, the sunflowers are wilted and only irrigated crops are surviving in the heat. But we’ve seen huge olive groves and apricot orchards, drunk too much Cote du Rhone regional wine and eaten tomatoes, olive oil and herbs at almost every meal.

Avignon was packed with people for the local theatre festival which brings in plays from all around the world. Advertising for plays included hanging posters everywhere, walking around in costumes and leading a donkey in the courtyard of the Popes’ Palace and elsewhere.

Saturday it was just us and Agnes with Olivier – a private tour! We spent the day in the Alpilles mountains, Saint Remy de Provence where Nostradamus was born and Van Gogh was hospitalized, and we saw both sites, and also in Arles, which is called the Rome of France because it has Roman amphitheaters and baths built by Julius Caesar. (They were on the winning side against Pompeii. Marseille, then called Marcellus, sided with the loser and Caesar razed it.) We walked around all morning and took photos at many of the spots which Van Gogh had painted. Reproductions of the paintings were conveniently placed on signs beside the real thing. The old buildings in Arles are half the height of those in Aix, and the town is also much smaller. We couldn’t afford to live there either.

They have bull fights in Arles, but they kill the bulls only once a year. This, we were told, was the civilized thing to do. (Not like you know who in the country next door.) We did see lots of bulls in pasture in the countryside. Except for the annual homicidal event, the task of the bull fighters is to capture a flag or ribbon attached to knives embedded in the bulls’ backs.

We had lunch in the medieval village of Les Baux de Provence, overlooking the rocky hills that Van Gogh painted, and eating fish soup. Out the window down below was a Michelin four star restaurant with a helicopter pad where the rich from Monaco fly in just for dinner and order from a menu with no prices. (If you have to ask you can’t afford it.) The town itself has been converted into a tourist village – no one lives there. Every house is now a café or shop.

After the two day tours and our own walking of Aix, we’ve now covered all the territory of Provence and have a better understanding of the area, its produce, scenery, crafts and history. Now to read the book. Must remember to reserve it at the library.

Sunday we walk the streets of Aix for the last time and have a splendid meal at the Deux Garcons where Emile Zola and Paul Cezanne spent their afternoons. Dessert is a frozen hollowed out lemon or orange stuffed with sherbet. Delicieux.

We fly to Barcelona, have just enough time for one last walk on La Rambla, and then a relatively uneventful three leg air journey home, where, believe it or not, our luggage is waiting for us, customs waves us through, and our taxi driver home assumes we are Italian because of our tans. A perfect ending for a glorious trip..