Continuation of UK trip - Cardiff

 

After touring the Caerphilly Castle we drove on to Cardiff. Cardiff is the capital of Wales and was a very active port for the coal trade in the 1800s. At one time it was the largest coal-exporting port in the world. The shift away from coal in the mid-20^th century caused a steep decline in the activity of the port and the last coal shipment left the docks in 1964. Subsequently the area of the docks underwent a massive urban renewal creating an area for leisure, and cultural activities, as well as residences. Also located there is the Senedd Building where the Welsh parliament meets.

Upon arrival in Cardiff we checked in to The Coal Exchange Hotel. At one time it was the central marketplace where shipowners, coal owners, and merchants negotiated sales and shipping contracts. The hotel was a bit dark and dreary. The staff were not impressive. I noticed some stepping just outside the door at the main entrance for their smoke break. The path to our room seemed a bit of a warren but at least there was an elevator. The room itself was well appointed with a large bathroom including a spa tub. We took an Uber (for the first time!, it worked well) to a great dinner at restaurant called Bacchus. It was tapas-style. We had: Padron peppers with Canadian maple drizzle; Focaccia with olive oil and sea salt; cheddar potato rosti with jalapeño marscapone; tempura broccoli with harissa yoghurt and almonds; duck tostada with plum sauce and sesame (Dennis); and chocolate crèmeux for dessert. Dennis then asked about single malt scotches (it was his birthday dinner after all) and the waitress sent her boss (the owner, I think) to describe what was available. Dennis made his choice (Dalmore 12 yr) and enjoyed it. The boss then returned to ask how he liked it and made small talk; I mentioned it was Dennis’ birthday and he immediately insisted on taking the cost of the scotch off the check (14 pounds, $18.60). We thanked him profusely and took another successful Uber back to the hotel.

Saturday, June 6, was cold and windy; intermittently rainy. We visited the Pierhead Building where historically the ships coming in an out of the docks were managed. We learned a bit about the coal trade that went on there. We also visited the nearby Senedd Building. It is very modern and beautiful. Dennis had to temporarily surrender his tiny Swiss army knife and the lock on his shoulder bag to enter.

We strolled through the Cardiff Market (seemed a little cheesy; lots of fried foods on sale). The downtown area had LOTS of bars; apparently Cardiff has a heavy drinking/partying reputation.

We paid a brief visit to the National Museum of Cardiff. They had a few notable works including Renoir’s La Parisienne, Van Gogh’s Rain at Auvers, and one of Monet’s Waterlilies (apparently he painted more than 200 versions).

Dinner was at Bill’s Cardiff Bay Restaurant. Of note, most restaurants in the UK automatically add a service charge (instead of tipping) to the bill. It is anywhere from 10 to 15%. It is said to be “voluntary” and you can ask for it to be taken off.

The buffet breakfast at the hotel was a bit boring so for our second morning we decided to go out for breakfast and found a small nearby café called Lisboa. They had decent coffee and croissants. Later we stopped at a place called Brod/The Danish Bakery to pick up something for breakfast the next day (Jam Spandauer, good choice!) since we’d be checking out and moving on.

We made our way back into town to visit the Cardiff Castle. As we left the hotel we went around the back side of it and noticed that the northeast corner of the building is basically a shambles. There are broken windows, absent roof, and trees growing inside.

The Cardiff Castle and grounds were a worthwhile visit. The castle keep (fortified tower, built in the 1100s) is on a hill within the grounds and allows nice views. There are also the castle apartments (dating from 1400s but extensively remodeled in the19th century as a lavish Victorian residence for the Bute family known for their role in creating the Cardiff docks.

We had lunch near the castle and I noticed a restaurant across the street called Owain Glyndwr (Owain being the Welsh version of Owen). We were to hear a lot about Owain Glyndwr in the coming days including that he and his army burned most of Cardiff to the ground in 1404 in a revolt against British rule.

On Monday, June 8^th, we had our Brod breakfast and coffee in our room and packed up for the next leg of our journey; destination Tenby with stops along the way.  Very nice day; blue sky with puffy white clouds; a bit warmer than it had been.

To be continued...

United Kingdom - Travelling to the UK, the Cotswolds and the beginning of Wales

Since this blog is titled European “Experiences” I thought I would tell you about the trip we took to the UK in June this year. There will be multiple parts.

We left Alicante on June 2^nd taking a taxi to the Alicante airport (Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport). It was our first experience with the Alicante airport and it seems quite nice and modern. We were plenty early and ate the muffins we had brought the day before from Levaduramadre and bought some coffee at the ever present Tim Horton’s.

Our flight (Ryan Air) went smoothly and we arrived at Stansted Airport (outside of London) only about 10 minutes behind schedule. The arrivals area of the airport seemed very disorganized, chaotic, and crowded. We had a quick lunch  from M&S foods (Marks & Spenser) then took a shuttle bus to the “Car Rental Village”.  We had reserved a Mini for the first couple of weeks. The counter person tried hard to up-sell us to a BMW 1-series. He seemed to think it would save us a lot of money in gas due to better gas mileage; however, it would increase the cost of the rental by 200 pounds ($267; that’s a lot of gas!). No … we want the Mini. Finally, a squeaky clean red Mini was driven up and we loaded in our luggage. Unfortunately, it didn’t all fit in the boot (Brit speak), and one bag had to ride on the back seat.

Our first destination was Bourton-on-the-Water in the area known as the Cotswolds. The Cotswolds is an area in England known for picturesque villages with buildings made of yellow limestone which was sourced locally. Dennis took the (“wrong sided”) steering wheel for this first day of driving. It was raining off and on and there was a lot of traffic (especially trucks) on the ring road outside London but this lessened as we moved away from the city. We arrived at the Landsdowne Hotel just after 6 pm. Our room was in the “Boutique Quarters” across the street from the main inn, up one flight of stairs (carrying luggage). The ceiling sloped in the room but no heads were hit. It was cozy.  There was a tiny refrigerator holding a small container of milk for coffee (or tea).

Breakfast the next morning was at the main inn. First thing first – “do you want something to drink” (i.e. coffee or tea), and “do you want toast” (which is brought out cut on the diagonal and arranged in a special toast rack); then you can order your main breakfast (Avocado on Toast for me and Full English Vegetarian breakfast – seems like a contradiction in terms - for Dennis).

The day was cool and intermittently rainy. Our first stop was the Broadway Tower and surrounding grounds. It turns out the tower was never a fortification of any kind, but rather a “folly” built for the wife of the 6^th Earl of Coventry in 1798. We got quite wet during this stop.

We went on to stroll through the villages of Broadway, Chipping Camden, Moreton-in-Marsh, and Stow-on-the-Wold. We had a very good lunch (Greek Salad for Miki and a Pitta Pocket for Denny) at Michael’s Mediterranean restaurant (small, cozy) in Chipping Camden and later returned to Moreton-in-Marsh for dinner at Wolds Bar Bistro; it was very good.

We checked out of the Landsdowne after breakfast and moved on to Hay-on-Wye which is just over the border into Wales. It was my first turn behind the wheel. It takes a while to get used to your position on the road; the tendency is to shy away from the center line and go too close to the left edge. Hay-on-Wye is known for its book stores (mainly used) and we browsed through a couple (I could have spent all day!). I found a couple of books from the Martin Beck series (Sjöwall/Wahlöö) that I haven’t read yet . Of course, there was a castle in the town to visit as well. There’s a world-renowned annual literary festival held there (concluded just before we arrived).

We checked in to The Old Black Lion (old, but neat, and highly rated) for one night. We hauled our luggage up one flight of stairs and ducked under the low support beams and doorways.

The next day, Friday, June 5, was Denny’s Birthday!  We had breakfast at the Old Black Lion before heading out; started with coffee and triangle toast again (the toast rack spelled out T-O-A-S-T).

This day’s destination was Cardiff with a few stops along the way.

First was Llanthony Priory which is a ruin that dates back to the 1100s. It’s in a pretty isolated area and much of the way was narrow one-lane (but two way) roads. Weather was nice, cool and sunny. We passed through a lovely open mountainous area (Gospel Path) with lots of sheep alongside (an in) the road.

Next we visited the Aberfan Disaster Memorial. It was very somber and heartbreaking. In 1966 a spoil pile (from coal mining operations) became saturated with water from recent heavy rains and collapsed, sliding down the hill and engulfing a school and some houses. There were 116 children killed (mostly aged 7 to 11) as well as 28 adults.

Lastly, we stopped in Caerphilly and toured the Caerphilly Castle (built around 1260’s by Gilbert de Clare).

On to Cardiff … to be continued.

Voting and Spanish classes/La Votación y Clases de español

 Written by Maureen

In case you have been living under a rock (or desperately trying to), you are aware that mid-term elections are coming up. As US citizens, not currently living in the US, we have a right to vote by mail (despite some deranged person trying to limit that right). The process to request a ballot from the Gilford NH town clerk was remarkably easy. The forms necessary are accessed on-line and printed. Since we don’t have a printer we took them on a thumb drive to a local copy shop to be printed. We signed them and then had the copy shop scan the signed versions back onto the thumb drive. The forms were then able to be e-mailed to the Gilford town clerk. We did this on a Sunday (September 6^th) and got a response the next day! The town clerk sent us a primary ballot though acknowledging it would be impossible for us to mail it back in time for the primary on September 7^th, but stated she was obligated to send it to us anyway. On Saturday September 19^th we received an email with our ballots for the mid-terms. We’ll be doing those ASAP since they have to be mailed back and the transit time is unpredictable [we recently mailed a check for deposit to our bank in the US and it took about 15 days from when we mailed it for it to be deposited].

We had our first Spanish classes today. Language proficiency levels are standardized as:

A1 beginner, A2 elementary

B1 intermediate, B2 upper-intermediate

C1 advanced, C2 proficiency

Dennis is in a beginner class but I think he’ll move quickly to elementary. I took a pre-test and was put in a B2, upper intermediate, class. There are 8 students in my class this week. They appear to be all young (in their 20s) singles. Many of the students who attend this school don’t live here but come for several weeks on a student visa.  The school arranges accommodations for them. Dennis has a couple of older (though not older than us) couples in his class.

The teacher speaks only in Spanish. I was able to follow her for the most part but it took a lot of concentration. We only signed up for one week but I think we’ll probably continue beyond that.

 ¡Salud!

En caso de que han estado viviendo bajo una piedra (o lo intentan desesperadamente), saben que se acercan elecciones de la mitad del mandato. Como ciudadanos estadounidenses que no vivimos actualmente en los estados unidos, tenemos derecho a votar por correo (a pesar de que algún loco intenta limitar ese derecho). El proceso para solicitar una papeleta al secretario municipal de Gilford NH fue sorprendentemente sencillo. Los formularios necesarios se pueden consultar en línea e imprimirse. Como no tenemos impresora, los llevamos en un pendrive USB a una copisaría local para imprimirlos. Los firmamos y luego la copiería escaneó las versiones firmadas de nuevo en la memoria USB. Los formularios se enviaron por correo electrónico al secretario municipal de Gilford.  Hicimos esto un domingo (6 de septiembre) y ¡recibimos una respuesta al día siguiente! El secretario del pueblo nos envió una boleta de votación primaria aunque reconociendo que sería imposible para nosotros enviarla a tiempo para la primaria el 7 de septiembre, per dijo que estaba obligada a enviárnosla de todos modos.

El sábado 19 de septiembre recibimos un correo electrónico con nuestras papeletas para las elecciones de mitad de mandato. Las haremos cuanto antes, ya que hay que envarlas por correo y el tiempo de tránsito es impredecible [Recientemente enviamos un cheque para ingreso a nuestro banco en EE. UU. y tardaron unos 15 días desde que lo enviamos hasta que se depositó].

Hoy, tuvimos nuestro primeras clases de español. Los niveles de competencia lingüística se estandarizan como:

A1 principiante, A2 elemental

B1 intermedio, B2 intermedio alto

C1 advanzado, C2 competencia

Dennis está en un clase para principiantes pero creo que pasará rápido a elemental. Hice un preexamen y me pusieron en una clase B2, intermedia alta. Hay 8 estudiantes en mi clase esta semana. Parecen ser todos jóvenes (en sus veintes) solteros. Muchos de los estudiantes que asisten a esta escuela no viven aquí, pero vienen por varias semanas con una visa de estudiante. La escuela organiza alojamiento para ellos. Dennis tiene un par de parejas mayores (aunque no mayores que nosotros) en su clase.

The teacher speaks only in Spanish. I was able to follow her for the most part but it took a lot of concentration. We only signed up for one week but I think we’ll probably continue beyond that.

La profesora solo habla en español. Pude seguirla en su mayor parte, pero requirió mucha concentración. Solo nos apuntamos una semana, pero creo que probablemente sequiremos más allá de eso.

We're back/Ya volvimos

Written by Maureen/Escrito por Maureen – Spanish translation follows (don’t think for a minute that I wrote the Spanish translation without a lot of help). A continuación la traducción al español (no pienses ni por un momento que escribí la traducción al español sin mucha ayuda).

I going to try reviving the blog. Our last few posts told the tales of Dennis’ medical issues and our Spain bureaucratic woes. With all that behind us now we are ready to move on.

We have finally taken steps to further our progress toward Spanish fluency. We have signed up for classes at a school in the city center. They start tomorrow. We are not sure what to expect. Dennis is going to be in the beginner class. I took an on line exam to determine my level. I don’t know yet what level they will put me in. We just signed up for one week (3 hours a day for 5 days) to try it out. We can continue the class longer after that if we like it. The class starts at 9 am and it will take us about 30 minutes to get there. This will require me to move my usual morning walk (which I currently start at 7 am and finish at 8:45 am – timing varies throughout the year due to changing sunrise time) to the end of the day. FYI: today’s sunrise and sunset times here are 7:47 am and 8:02 pm compared to Portsmouth NH at 6:28 am and 6:44 pm.  I will miss seeing the sunrise.

In a post from last October we briefly described the process for getting a Spanish driver’s license. We are still working on this. We have learned that if we want to rent and drive a car anywhere in the EU we need a driver’s license from an EU country (since we have lived there longer than 6 months).  The first step is a written “driving theory” test which we both took in January this year. There are 30 multiple choice questions (you can take the test in English, fortunately) and you can only get 3 wrong. Superstar Dennis passed. Loser Miki failed.

Unfortunately, for the practical driving test (where you drive with an examiner, supposedly for 25 to 30 minutes !!!) the examiner only speaks in Spanish. Dennis signed up for practice driving with a driving instructor from a school. It did not go well. When you apply for a license you have to select a license which allows you to drive both manual and automatic, or just automatic. He planned to do the manual and automatic license. The instructor did not speak much English and he required Dennis to do things which didn’t make sense to him. When slowing down to stop at a lighted intersection he told Dennis he had to keep the car in gear until reaching the light, then depress the clutch and keep the car in first gear until the light changes (rather than putting the car in neutral and coasting to the light and not putting the car in gear until the light changes); on an uphill he was to slowly release the clutch while in first gear until the engine engaged and not touch the gas until the car started moving. He also told him not to turn his head to look over his shoulder – only use the mirrors. Dennis would leave these sessions very frustrated and finally decided to quit. We have found another school which has an instructor who speaks English and he is changing to the automatic only license. We’re waiting to hear from the instructor with a practice schedule. He is scheduled for his driving test on December 23. Miki is retaking the written test on October 23.

Next time, we’ll talk about voting!

Voy a intentar revivir el blog. Nuestros últimas publicaciones contaban las historias de los problemos médicos de Dennis y nuestras dificultades burocráticas en España. Con todo eso ya atrás, estamos listos para seguir adelante.

Por fin, hemos dado pasos para avanzar hacia la fluidez español. Nos hemos apuntado a clases en un colegio del centro de la ciudad. Empiezan mañana. No sabemos qué esperar. Dennis va a estar en la clase de principiantes. Hice un examen en linea para determinar mi nivel.  Aún no sé en qué nivel me pondrán. Solo nos apuntamos por una semana (3 horas al día durante 5 días) para probarlo. Podemos continuar la clase más tiempo después si nos gusta.  

La clase comienza a las 9 am y nos llevará unos 30 minutos llegar allí. Esto requerirá que mueva mi caminata matutina habitual (que actualmente empiezo a las 7 am y termino a las 8:45 am – el tiempo varía a lo largo del año debido a los cambios en la hora del amanecer) al final del día. FYI: Las horas de salida y puesta del sol de hoy aquí son 7:47 am y 8:02 pm en comparación con Portsmouth NH a las 6:28 am y 6:44 pm. Echaré de menos ver el amanecer.

En una publicación de pasado Octubre describimos brevemente el proceso para obtener el carnet de conducir español. Todavía estamos trabajando en esto. Hemos aprendido que queremos alquilar y conducer un coche en cualquier parte de la UE necesitamos un carnet de conducir de un país de UE (porque llevamos más de 6 meses viviendo aquí). El primer paso es un examen escrito de “teoría de conducción” que ambos hicimos en enero de este año. Hay 30 preguntas de opción multiple (por suerte puedes hacer el examen en inglés) y solo puede fallar 3). Dennis, la superestrella, lo aprobó. Miki, la perdedora, no lo aprobó.

Desafortunadamente, para el examen práctico de conducir (donde conduces con un examinador, supuestamente durante 25 a 30 minutos !!) el examinador solo habla en español. Dennis se apuntó a la práctica de conducción con un instructor de conducción de un colegio. No fue bien.  Cuando solicitas un carnet de conducir tienes que elegir uno que te permita conducir ambos en manual y en automático, o solo en automático. Planeaba hacer la licencia para permitir ambos el manual y el automático. El instructor no hablaba mucho inglés y le exigía a Dennis que hiciera cosas que no le tenían sentido. Al reducir la velocidad para detenerse en una intersección iluminada, le dijo a Dennis que tenía que mantener el coche en marcha hasta llegar a la luz, luego apriete el embrague y mantenga el coche en la primera marcha hasta que la luz cambie (en lugar de poner el coche en neutral y navegar hacia la luz y no poner el coche en marcha hasta que la luz cambie);  en una subida debía soltar el embrague lentamente en primera marcha hasta que el motor se acoplara y no pisar el acelerador hasta que el coche empezara a moverse. También le dijo que no girara la cabeza para mirar por encima del hombro, solo usara los espejos. Dennis salía de esas sesiones muy frustrado y finalmente decidió dejarlo. Hemos encontrado otra escuela que tiene un instructor que habla inglés y que está cambiando a la licencia automática. Estamos esperando escuchar del instructor con un horario de práctica. Está programado para su examen de conducción el 23 de diciembre. Miki está retomando la prueba escrita el 23 de octubre.

La próxima vez, hablaremos de votar.

M&D

The Rest of Paris in a Nutshell

The main activity of our fifth day was a visit to the Musée D’Orsay.  The building was formerly a train station. They were having a special exhibit of works by John Singer Sargent. One of his most famous works is Portrait of Madame X, seen here.

What I like most about seeing actual paintings rather than photographs of them is the ability to appreciate the brush work and paint application up close. The Femme au fichu vert by Camille Pissarro was one of my favorites from this perspective. You could see the how the paint was applied in gobs.

We spent the rest of the day roaming around. Dennis wanted to see the Pont Alexandre III, an ornate bridge crossing the Seine, so we headed that way. It is recognizable by its gilt statues as seen in the photos. We then wandered down the Champs-Elysées, which was closed to car traffic for a Christmas tree lighting, as far as the Arc de Triomphe.  We saved our visit to the inside of the Arc for another day as the weather was not great.

The next day we visited the Louvre. The Goya painting below was one of my favorites. The Mona Lisa is a bit underwhelming, especially since you can’t get close to it. The barrier keeps the crowd back about 15 to 20 feet. I’m not sure why people feel the need to take a picture of it. I have noticed in recent years that many people at museums simply walk around the entire time with their phones out taking pictures of nearly every work of art. Walk up to a painting, take a picture, walk to the next one, take a picture … Are they making a book? Will they ever look at all those photos?

Of course, Dennis had to have Escargot at dinner that night.

The next day we visited the Palais Garnier, an opera house built in the late 1800s at the behest of Napolean III. The interior is described as being “characteristic of Baroque sumptuousness”; see the photo of Dennis walking through the grand foyer. The ceiling area around the chandelier in the auditorium was repainted in 1964 by Marc Chagall.

We headed back down the Champs-Elysées, this time with the intention to visit the Arc de Triomphe. The traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe has 12 streets feeding into it!  Fortunately, there is an underground tunnel to access the center of the circle where the Arc is. We climbed the many stairs to the top and were rewarded with great views on a much better day than when we were there previously.  In one of the photos you can see the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre on the hill which we had visited a few days earlier.

On our last full day, we headed to Notre Dame Cathedral and nearby Sainte Chapelle (known for its beautiful stained glass windows). No sightings of the hunchback while at Notre Dame.

View of the outside of Notre Dame

Inside the Cathedral

Inside Sainte Chapelle

One item of interest is the statue of St. Denis outside Notre Dame. It depicts the saint holding his head as he wanders to find an appropriate spot to be final resting place.

The next day we started our trip home, heading to Barcelona to spend the night. The train trip was beset by delays and we ended up getting into the station more than four hours late. We ate dinner and then flopped into the bed. The second leg to Alicante went off without a hitch and we were soon back in our apartment.

We think we may visit Paris again in the future, as there is so much to see and do, but that will have to wait until after several other trips that are being considered.

Salud.

Visa Renewal (Bureaucracy Redux)

We may have mentioned previously in this blog that our initial visas were issued for one year. At the end of that year you need to renew your visa or leave the country. The renewal is for two years and the process can be initiated up to 60 days before or 90 days after your visa expires. Our initial visa began on January 16, 2025, so we could begin the renewal in mid-November.  If we were not approved we would need to be out of the Spain (and any other Schengen country) by April 16^th.

We were visiting Valencia in mid-November, but upon returning we started collecting documents and contacted an immigration lawyer to help us with the application.

One of the documents that we needed was an updated marriage certificate from the State of New Hampshire.  We decided to have Maureen’s sister send the application, a copy of Maureen’s ID, and a check to the vital records department to expedite the process.  The document needed to be mailed to Gilford, NH (our US address on our driver’s licenses) and then Dennis’ brother Steve would send it to us via overseas mail. He was also going to be mailing us a dividend check we had received and the original title for our car (we are considering selling it).

The marriage certificate was received in a timely manner and everything seemed to be on track.  We felt we had plenty of time.

We checked the mail daily for the envelope to no avail. In the past it had taken from 2 to 4 weeks to receive a letter from the US, but before we knew it we were into February. We began to fear the envelope had been lost.  We checked at the post office to see if it was being held there for some reason, but they could not find it. We finally gave up and re-ordered the marriage certificate, but this time we planned to have Steve send it to us priority mail expedited with tracking.

The re-ordered marriage certificate was received in Gilford on March 12^th. Our window was closing rapidly. We had Steve scan a copy of the document and email it to us so we could forward it to our lawyer.

Then came another curve ball. The immigration office was tightening their requirements for proving that you have the financial means to support yourself while in Spain. For the original visa it was enough to show that we had investments in the US and Social Security income. Now they wanted “certification” from the bank of the money.

Getting that certification and translating it to Spanish proved unworkable (our US bank told us we would need to personally appear in the branch office to prove identity for them to issue such a document) so our only option was to transfer the required amount of money to our Spanish bank.

Cue the frantic call to our financial advisor to have her transfer the necessary funds to our US bank account (have we mentioned that she is a superstar?). Once the money was in the US bank we began transferring money to Spain.

To transfer money to Spain we use a service called WISE which is very reasonable and usually fast. They do have limits on how much money you can send at one time so we had to do two transactions and, of course, there was a few days between for the funds to clear (in today’s day and age of technology, that does not really make sense to us, but it is what it is).

We met with the lawyer on March 17 and went over our application with her. She related that we were down to the wire and needed to get the money confirmation by the end of that week.  Fortunately, the money was in our Spanish bank on the 19^th and we were able to send her the confirmation from the bank.

Now all we could do was wait and hope. We began mapping out scenarios of where we would go if we did not get the renewal.  One option was the “Schengen shuffle” where you go in and out of the Schengen (most of Europe) area so that you never violate the “90 days in any 180 days rule”. Great Brittain and Ireland were top contenders since they are not in the Schengen area. Certainly workable, but not preferable.

We were doing chores in downtown Alicante when we got a message from our lawyer saying that our visa renewals had been approved! A huge weight had been lifted and a visit to our favorite tapas bar was warranted for celebration.

The next step was to apply for the renewal of our national ID cards. This had been difficult the first time (because we initially relied on an immigration lawyer to make our appointments). We learned from our experience and after several days of Maureen obsessively checking for appointments to be made available, we were finally able to get them. Another victory!

So, by the end of May we should have our new cards in hand and not have to worry about dealing with the Spanish bureaucracy for another couple of years.

And now the kicker. Remember that first envelope that Steve sent to us? It finally arrived (3 months after being mailed)! Apparently, it had been “missent to Bermuda”. A fitting end to this tale we think.

Salud.

 

 

Paris – Day 4 - Montmarte and Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise

On the morning of day 4 we headed via metro to the Montmarte area of Paris. As we exited the metro station we and the other riders were assailed by aggressive sellers of contraband cigarettes. We were still inside a gated area and the sellers were reaching between the bars calling out and hawking their wares. Not sure why this is a thing?!   Montmarte is a large hill in the northern part of Paris and affords beautiful views of the city. One thing this area is known for is the Basilica of Sacre Coeur.  From the lower street in front of the Basiica you can walk up 222 steps or take a funicular. Dennis, being a fan of funiculars, took that route. Maureen took the stairs where she encountered another common Parisian scam.

This from Fodor’s Travel:

Authorities have acknowledged a huge increase in a scam carried out by Romanian gypsies in Paris, this one based on requests for money for so-called deaf/mute girls.

The scam is straightforward. A young girl approaches the mark (usually a tourist) with a piece of paper and a pen, pretending to be deaf. The paper names a couple of charities, both real and fake, and bears the signatures of a few previous marks. The current mark is asked for money, and if he's naïve enough, he gives it. In some cases, the paper and request for money serve as a distraction for stealing a wallet or purse.

None of the girls is actually deaf. They are all Romanian gypsies. They are under 18, making it difficult to prosecute them. Their leader is nowhere to be found, so he cannot be arrested and prosecuted, even though the penalties for compelling children to beg are very severe (one sentence a few years ago was a 30-year prison term).

She did not fall for it. The Basilica itself is quite dramatic and a climb up to the dome yielded the best views over the city.  We had worked up quite an appetite after all that climbing.  We found a lovely little restaurant, Le Poulbot, in the area around the Basilica where Dennis reports that he had the best duck confit that he has ever tasted.

Inside the basilica. A mass was being held.

View from the dome looking toward the Eiffel Tower.

The next item on our agenda for that day was a trip through the Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, final resting place of several notable people. The weather was starting to turn on us but we were not deterred; we had rain jackets and umbrellas. What better conditions for visiting a cemetery. 

We had downloaded a Rick Steves guide which faithfully directed us through the visit. The persons whose graves we saw included: Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Edith Piaf, Jim Morrison, Colette, and Frederic Chopin. There are also a few dedicated moments including for: foreign soldiers who died for France during WWII; victims of concentration and extermination camps; victims of Air France Flight 447; Rwanda genocide.  Rain came down pretty heavily during part of our cemetery tour; seemed appropriate to the setting.

Oscar Wilde's tomb. Guess they had a problem with vandals.

A memorial to the holocaust.

Gertrud Stein's gravesite.

Edith Plaf's burial site.

Frederick Chopin's grave. He was not buried here initially, but somehow the owners of the cemetery got permission to move the remains so that the cemetery would become more well known. Guess it worked.

The Haussmann tomb. Georges Eugene Haussmann led the effort to modernize the city's street layout in the 1850's under Napoleon III. 

And last, but not least, here lies Jim Morrison.