@Longer Version: 1980 Trip

(May 9 to October 26)

This year it was Braniff International Airline’s turn to supply a special airfare of some unremembered nature. We flew to Dallas, then on to Frankfurt, with a quick stop-and-go in London. We don’t remember the deal, but we did arrive on time, this time.

Our garaged camper was ready to go with no problem so we crossed into France, headed here and there through the Alsace, the cities of Lyon, Sarlat, and Cahors, and generally south across France. After a visit in Lourdes we drove to the tiny country of Andorra, high in the Pyrénées Mountains. We continued south into Spain a couple of miles, turned left then soon turned left again and returned to France, to visit Carcassonne, the formidable double walled city with 52 towers.

We enjoyed the remains of the Roman Empire, such as the amphitheaters in Arles and Nimes (saw an advertisement for a religious meeting, but nothing was said about the lions!). Just outside St. Remy we saw The Triumphal Arch, and other Roman remains near still-under-excavation Glanum (they found a Greek city well below a Roman city). Our campsite in Avignon was on an island in the middle of the Rhone River, with the four arches of the bridge St.-Bénézet (le pont d’ Avignon), and the floodlit Popes’ Palace out our window.

During our stay in Cannes, Nice, and Menton, on the French Riviera, we celebrated our 29th Wedding Anniversary by spending a night in one hotel (OK) in Monte Carlo, and having dinner (not OK) in another. (Meals and accommodations in the camper are much better!) In our honor (or could that have been a coincidence?) there was a massive fireworks display. It was as if a scheduled one hour exhibition, lasted a minute! A spectacular performance, proving that Monaco really does, or does not, know how to put on a fireworks show!

After another week in France and Italy we boarded a ferry to the French Island of Corsica, where among other things we visited Ajaccio, the Capitol of Corsica and the birthplace of Napoleon. Another ferry from the fascinating Corsican town of Bonifacio brought us to the Italian island of Sardinia. On the Costa Smeralda (The Emerald Coast) we visited the very expensive resort of Cala Di Volte, built by the Aga Kahn as a playground for Kings and Queens. (No, we didn’t spent the night!)

In Cagliari, we met Olga, the aunt of our daughter’s future husband, Dan. After nearly a week on Sardinia we boarded an overnight ferry to Trapani, Sicily. We discovered the beautiful, but grubby, City of Palermo, ancient Greek temples at Agrigento, the hilltop town of Enna, then thoroughly enjoyed the City of Taormina and its venerable Greek Theater, just below smoking Mt. Etna.

Yet another ferry took us back to the Italian mainland where our trip from Italy’s “toe” to beautiful Venice included stops at the Isle of Capri, Pompeii, Naples, and Rome. At The Vatican we saw the onset of the renovation of the ceiling at The Sistine Chapel. Later, Emmy’s $12 hairdresser visit kept her off the streets of Rome and out of the stores for an hour or so, a real bargain. Then on to Siena, Florence, the little Republic of San Marino, and Venice.

Filled with paranoia (for which there was no known need) we spent a couple of days in Ljubljana and Postjana, Yugoslavia, then during our stay in Vienna, Austria we obtained a Hungarian Visa and drove to Budapest for a couple of days. The family from Poland that we met in the Vienna campsite, escaped from Poland the following year, and with our help came to the USA. They have been wonderful productive citizens for all those years since.

Just a few miles west of Vienna we visited the glorious Benedictine Abby at Melk. The Stiftskirche, the Abbey Church, is beautiful beyond our ability to describe, at least partially because it was completed in the mid-1700’s by Josef Munggenast, Emmy’s “cousin” many times and years removed. We proceeded west across Austria to Hallstatt and Salzburg, on to Berchtesgaden, Germany, then across western Austria for a one night stand in the very tiny Principality of Liechtenstein. (We have now been in all of the “little ones” Andorra, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican.)

Our drive from St. Moritz to the Matterhorn included a ferry ride across Italy’s Lake Como, several crossings of the Swiss/Italian border, and another auto-train through a tunnel under the Alps. Automobiles are not permitted in Zermatt, so at Tasch there is a large parking lot, a train station, and a campsite, just a 20 minute train ride from Zermatt, at the base of the Matterhorn. After a few more days in Switzerland, we drove to cousin Toni’s for a short rest.

During our couple of days in Paris we decided to eat dinner in a restaurant, not something we do all that often. Then we found they weren’t going to serve dinner until 7:00 PM, long after we would be in the campsite, well fed, and resting. The next couple of weeks were spent seeing a dozen Chateau in the Loire River Valley, Nantes and Quimper in Brittany, and Dinan, Mont St. Michel, and Rouen in Normandy. In Arras, 155 Gothic buildings, one, two, or three windows wide, supported by 345 columns, surround the town square. We stopped in enchanting Brugge, Belgium, crossed and recrossed by canals that are lined with magnificent buildings, and soon caught a ferry to New Haven, England.

The cathedral ruins in Glastonbury are most unusual, the towns of Bath and Oxford are striking and colorful, and of course we had to see Stonehenge again before spending time near London with Peggy, Emmy’s WW II Pen-Pal. We drove to Wales, ferried to and from Ireland with a week in Waterford, Cork, Blarney, and Dublin, a few days in Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland, more time in the Nottingham Forest, Ripon, Coventry, Shakespeare's Stratford upon Avon, London, Greenwich, and Cambridge, then across the Channel to Hook de Holland, Amsterdam, and Gouda in the Netherlands.

While in a campsite in West Berlin on a Sunday evening, Emmy decided she needed to visit a doctor, and one just happened to be available in a nearby Klinik. (Wish all her problems could be solved with such little effort!) He said no immediate problem and no charge, but after a half day in East Berlin Emmy decided we would return, approximately non-stop, to Cousin Toni’s to see another doctor. Emmy’s sister Hannah happened to be in Mettlach at that time and could translate medical problems and Doctor solutions, better than Emmy could.

After a little medicine, and a few days rest, with Toni and Hannah as passengers we toured the Alsace of France, then delivered the camper to its new owner, a US Army High School teacher in nearby Zweibrücken. We spent a couple of days in Dallas on our way to Los Angeles, after an exceptional 171 days in many beautiful, fascinating places.