@Longer Version: 1988 Trip

(July 30 to December 6)

This year we bought Pan Am World Airways tickets that were good for one year. We had a choice between a Thursday flight that made a stop somewhere and would take an extra two hours to get to Frankfurt, or a Friday non-stop. So we took the non-stop, and it was, except it left Los Angeles eight hours late on an eleven hour flight!

Cousins Klaus and Helga were at the airport to meet us, so we went to their home in nearby Heusenstamm where we did our normal collapse, with a more than normal jet-lag problem.

This year we found no RV for sale on a PX parking lot, but Cousin Josef’s friend at his office had a 1985 Renault vehicle with a Pilote RV body for sale, and we bought it for $12,000.

Spent more than the normal time with Cousin Toni, a day with neighbors from La Quinta who were visiting in Germany, then spent a month in France, including Paris, Angers, Limoges, Périgueux, Rocamadour, and Bordeaux. We zig-zaged all over southwest France, spent one night at Lourdes and another at “Le Cite” or Carcassonne, and couldn’t resist the old Roman ruins in Arles, Orange, Avignon, and the “Pont du Gard,” the Roman aqueduct just north of Nimes.

We visited with Cousins Josef and Ida who were visiting friends in Menton, just east of Monaco, and we stopped in Grasse to see the lady who had acted as our interpreter in Oradour sur Glane, that little town that suffered so badly near the end of WW II. Of exceptional interest are the many little hill-towns, like Tourrette, Peille, Eze, and St. Paul, the “Perched Villages” in the mountains just above the French Riviera. These picturesque villages have steeply sloped, winding cobbled streets, alleyways, and stairways. Foot traffic only!

From here we followed the “Route of Napoleon” over the French Alps, and over Col de Lautaret and Col du Galibier, the most treacherous mountain passes we have crossed. Couldn’t resist another visit to our favorite, Pérouges (ruled years ago by a poor speller, Prince Humbert), then to Domrémy, the birthplace of Joan ‘d Arc, and across Luxembourg and home to Mettlach and Cousin Toni.

Spent the next ten days in Germany, a few days in France, a week in Switzerland, then over the St. Bernard Pass to Italy. We stopped to see the St. Bernard dogs in this ancient, storied monastery, and watched them eat their food from Coca Cola trays. Use that in your next game of trivia!

We managed to live through the terrible smog of Torino, visited the Italian version of Mont St. Michel, called Sacra di San Michele, then along Italy’s west coast to be maybe the first people in history to sleep in an RV in the exclusive, expensive resort town of Portofino. The next morning the policeman, with a smile on his face and a wag of his finger, let us know that was a no-no.

From here to Pisa are a dozen spectacular little towns, including the five that make up the Cinque Terra, the hilltop towns of Nicola and Ortonova, and Carrera, the mountain town of marble quarry fame where Michelangelo selected marble for his “Statue of David.” We bought a marble rolling pin that I promptly christened “David’s Armpit.”

The tower at Pisa still leans (so much that it has since been closed for repairs), and we spent the night next to Puccini’s home, not far from Pisa. A “Pensione” next door was named “Butterfly,” after his opera, “Madam Butterfly.” The walled City of Lucca was well worth a visit, and we spent several very cold days in Florence, and several more in Venice. Since the wind was from the north (instead of the more normal wind from the south), the weather was colder than usual and the Adriatic Sea did not flood St. Mark’s Square and other parts of this beautiful city, as expected at fall high tide.

Just north of Trieste we spent three nights in an Italian campsite, while we spent each day across the border in Yugoslavia visiting Ljubljana, Pula (on the Istria Peninsula, south of Trieste), and other places of interest. The Roman Amphitheater, situated on the Adriatic coast, and other ancient buildings in Pula, are impressive.

For several weeks the red alternator light in the Renault had been giving us problems, and we had it checked in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, but as we crossed the border into Austria the first mechanic we asked, found and solved the problem, at no cost. We then followed a snowplow across the Alps to Salzburg. Each time we have been in Salzburg it has rained and rained. Of course if it weren’t for all the rain, the country wouldn’t look nearly as nice as it will if we ever get here when it isn’t raining!

After a night in Berchtesgaden, Germany we drove past Munich and Stuttgart, stopped for a few minutes in Speyer, and completed the 401 Autobahn miles across Germany to home sweet home, in Mettlach, at Toni’s house!

Normally we would have returned home by now, but on December 4, 1939, early in WW II, unbeknownst to each other, Cousin Hugo married Maria, and Cousin Fina married Köbus, and now we were invited to the double 49th anniversary celebration. They had decided to celebrate a little more than usual this year, just in case someone did not live until the 50th. As it turns out, Köbus had to be released from the hospital for a few hours on December 4, 1988 for the 49th anniversary, and Cousin Fina died just a few weeks before December 4, 1989, their 50th anniversary.

In the meantime we traveled by train to Frankfurt to see their Christmas-mart, visited Trier and other nearby locations, and just took it easy. There had been a snow and ice storm, so we made sure we did not drive the RV on the dangerous streets, with the even more dangerous drivers.

We parked the RV in a farmer’s barn in Borg, bought round-trip Lufthansa German Airline tickets, boarded a small plane in Saarbrücken and flew to Frankfurt. As we were ready to board the 747 to the US, they noticed I was carrying a cane (for my collection) and assumed I was handicapped. I was told to board early and let Emmy take care of the luggage. (Boy, was that tempting!) Overall not as efficient as some of our trips, but still a beautiful way to spend 130 days.