@Longer Version: 1970 Trip

(August 18 to September 14)

We purchased tickets ($283, round trip) for a charter airline flight to Frankfurt, Germany, then spent our first night in a hotel near the Los Angeles Airport and the aircraft plant where the plane was built, waiting for a spare part to be flown in from New York. Probably the most inconvenient episode in our nine European trips over 25 years! (On this trip we were accompanied by daughter Linda, and her friend Linda S, helpfully known as Pupa.)

Although we arrived one day late at the Frankfurt, Germany airport, the papers for our previously purchased VW Camper were pressed into our hands with no delay, and without even the need to identify ourselves. Along with the vehicle papers we found a set of keys and a parking receipt, so after a few minutes search we were ready to travel. We drove through Darmstadt, saw a little of Mannheim, but a couple of hours later we collapsed in a muddle of jet-lag on the shore of the Neckar River below the Heidelberg Castle.

We visited Ulm, home of the Gothic Cathedral spire with 768 steps, and spent a night in Stuttgart. A day later we looked at construction for the 1972 Olympics, and ate dinner in the Munich Ratskeller, a restaurant in the cellar (keller) of city-hall (in German, the Rathaus, therefore Ratskeller). After several refill requests for ice-water, the waitress arrived at our table with a smile and a big pitcher with water and a large chunk of ice.

We spent a couple of hours at Munich’s infamous suburb, Dachau, where the sign at the concentration camp’s entrance says “Gedenkenstatte,” — a memorial, a place to think about, a place to remember — and it certainly is.

After an hour-plus at Berchtesgaden, the vacation home for Hitler and his henchmen, we crossed into Austria to see Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart. “The Sound of Music” was filmed near this beautiful city, and in the Cathedral (built in 1620’s) that was the scene of the wedding in that movie.

The nine hour drive from Salzburg to Venice included our first auto-train ride in a tunnel through the Alps. Venice, an exciting city with St. Mark’s Cathedral, with gondolas and flamboyant beauty, was built on 117 islands separated by 150 canals and connected by 400 bridges. The beautifully unusual buildings of Venice were a sight to remember as we “sailed” the Grand Canal and the Lagoon between Lido Isle and St. Mark’s square. We were spellbound by the unique “street” scenes and the lights reflected in the Venetian waters, perhaps the sight we have remembered best. Next day we continued to Bologna, whose streets are lined with arcades and towers. We rested overnight in the campsite in the Piazzale Michelangiolo, high above the Ponte Vecchio (the bridge across the Arno River), and overlooking the towers and cathedral domes in the city of Florence.

During the next couple of days we visited the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, St. Callistus Catacombs, and the Trevi Fountain, an inadequate few of the wonders of Rome. One day was spent with a tour group (never a good idea for us) to Naples, Sorrento, and the excavated city of Pompeii. We climbed to the very tip-top of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, enjoyed the beautiful sculpture, “Pieta” created by Michelangelo, but we managed to arrive at the Sistine Chapel just as it closed for the day. (We’ve seen it three other trips.)

As we drove from Rome toward Milan, I made a surprise stop in Florence to buy the (18K gold, with emeralds) ring Emmy was just “nuts” about -- anything to win a few brownie points! (Unbeknownst to Emmy, I later made arrangements with a friend who visited Florence the following year, to buy the matching 18K gold bracelet with 64 emeralds. Fifteen years later they were appraised for more than the cost of that whole 1970 one month trip for four; plane tickets, RV, food, spending money, everything.)

We visited da Vinci’s “Last Supper” and the outstanding Cathedral in Milan, then crossed the border and rode another auto-train under the Alps to tour Switzerland for a couple of days.

We found that Bern (and 30 years later still agree) appears to be one of the nicest places to live in all of Europe. This is where I bought a wonderful suede jacket that will last a century, being needed only once or twice a year in the California Desert. About the most exciting thing in Switzerland was our four cable-car ride to the revolving restaurant at Piz Gloria, on top of 10,000 foot Schlithorn Mountain. The view from the patio is reported to be one of the most impressive anywhere, but with the fog that day, from the patio we could almost see the building.

Late one evening we arrived at the campsite along the Marne River just south of Paris (not the best time to arrive anywhere), then rode the Metro (subway) to the center of Paris the next morning. As we climbed the stairs from the Étoile Metro station, our first above-ground view of this favorite city was the Arc de Triomphe.

For a couple of days we drove and parked and walked and taxied and subwayed to a paltry few of Paris’ points of interest, but managed to get to the Sacrë-Cœur (the white church with all the slender domes), the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the top of the Eiffel Tower, and we spent a couple of hours in the Palace at Versailles with a private English speaking guide named Albert. What a beautiful city! When ready to leave, the helpful policeman saluted, then used his thick-lead pencil to blacken all the street names on the route he drew on our little Paris map, but we made it!

A Hovercraft took us across the English Channel where we saw Westminster Abby, Westminster Hall with Big Ben, the Tower of London, shopped on Oxford Street, and watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We saw about as much of London as we had seen of Paris and Rome, then we spent a night with Peggy, Emmy’s WW II pen pal, just west of the City. We visited 5,000 year old Stonehenge, spent a night next to a castle near the white cliffs of Dover. The next day we ferried to Belgium for an hour or two in Brussels, including the famous statue, Manikin Pis. We then toured the Breendonk Fort, used by the Germans as a prison during WW II.

In Amsterdam we continued our excellent timing and arrived at the Anna Frank House just after it closed for the day. Emmy and the Lindas found a restaurant that served Rijsttafel, the Indonesian Rice Table with up to 40 rice dishes. But after three intense weeks as driver, tour guide, waker-upper, and motivator deluxe, Amsterdam is where, to the relief of the others, I finally collapsed and slept for 10 solid hours.

Our compressed schedule required an almost non-stop drive to Berlin, the East German portion on an Autobahn badly in need of repair. The border guard said we did an excellent job (using Linda’s High-School German) filling out the customs forms just as if we were German, but we had to fill a different form, just as if we were American! We endured the passport formalities at Checkpoints Able and Baker, and the informalities of the East German guards with guns in one hand, throwing kisses to the Lindas with the other.

We spent about a day in West Berlin, then crossed at Checkpoint Charlie for a three hour tour of East Berlin. We drove past Hitler’s bunker, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, and Opernplatz (in front of the State Opera building), the location of the infamous book-burning incident. We were permitted to use the restrooms at the Hotel Stadt Berlin.

We then returned to Cologne (Köln) to see the beautiful Cathedral that took over 600 years to build. We spent two nights with Emmy’s cousins in Euskirchen and accompanied them through Luxembourg to spend two days meeting the dozens of cousins in and near Saarburg and Mettlach, Germany. Cousin Reinhold went with us to the airport in Frankfurt, then he drove our VW Camper to Hamburg, where it was put on a ship to Los Angeles. We sold it within days of its arrival. What a fabulous 28 day trip!