Verle & Peggy

Welcome to our Europe 2008 Trip Journal

2008-08-26T17:29:00.001-07:00

Welcome to our journal.

Verle & Peggy

April 24 - Waco to Frankfurt, Germany

2008-08-26T17:27:00.001-07:00

Thursday
We left home at 8:10 a.m. with David, who took us to the airport. We took one last look at our lovely blooming tulips and gave Cole and Ian an extra hug. (They came over before school to tell us “goodbye” and to eat cinnamon toast with us.)
We had the first surprise of our vacation while waiting in Omaha for our flight to Chicago -- Jerry Fox from Kearney, Verle’s cousin’s son, came over and sat with us for a visit. He is heading to Tokyo to meet parents of students at Kearney State. About 200 Japanese students currently attend Kearney State College.
Although we had a 5 ½ hour wait to board the plane for Frankfurt, the time was comfortable and relaxing and went by quickly. We had a good visit with a young Jewish lady, Miriam from Stockholm, who is returning to Stockholm with her violin after auditioning to do Master’s work at a college in Bloomfield, Indiana. She was accepted and will be returning to live here for her schooling. We had a good discussion about Jews in WW2, and the open air and Vassa museums in Stockholm.

We boarded our Air India flight for Frankfurt without problems. The plane was less than half full. The stewardess suggested that Verle and I take two separate banks of 3 seats (which were great for sleeping.) I had curry and Verle had lamb for supper - clearly India dishes - very ample and tasty meals. I left my things in my row and went back to Verle’s row to eat with him. A lady from India put her son to sleep and laid him in my row of seats. A stewardess came to tell her that she had a whole bank of seats (bulkhead row) for her use. I felt selfish about reclaiming my row of seats, especially when the baby cried from time to time during the night. The plane left Chicago about 8 p.m.

April 25 - Frankfurt to Brussels

2008-08-26T17:25:00.001-07:00

Friday
Both Verle and I had trouble getting to sleep last night, but we slept soundly later and were amazed when we woke up about 9:15 a.m. (Frankfurt time) to find the plane cabin full of chatting people and bright sun coming in the windows. We had a good breakfast on the plane and watched a bit of Holland and Germany through the clouds as we came in to land.
We walked within the airport to the train station and validated our Benelux/Germany Eurail pass at the train station. The ICE train left about two hours later for Brussels. As in 2001, Europeans were very helpful when we weren't sure where to go. We could only see about half of the ride to Brussels, because the train was often underground or the sides of the roadway were built up. The countryside that we did see was so green, and the European building style was enjoyable. We rode part of the way with Paul and Chris from Brazil. They are studying in Germany. Their insight into the politics of their country and ours was interesting. They are traveling to many parts of Europe. They shared a chocolate bar with us.

Catching the tram to Dan and Carrie Ritzmans was our first challenge and we had to do it twice. Dan had given us great and detailed instructions, but although we found the right ramp, we forgot to check the number on the front of the tram, and we ended up downtown. We had to ask at a computer shop to find out how to get back to North Station. We successfully reached Dan and Carrie’s home, and only had to walk three or four blocks carrying our backpacks.
Carrie had a wonderful three course meal for us -- deep fried cheese balls, salad, and wonderful whole wheat bread, a casserole, and a strawberry/pudding pie for dessert -- plus wonderful Belgian chocolates!. Everything tasted wonderful and her table was so pretty with colorful dishes.

It was very interesting learning about their work with the Iranians in Brussels. They had 25 at Bible study this week. Dan sees God doing a wonderful work in the Iranians. Many have dreams about Jesus and even dream Bible verses that they’ve never heard. They know Islam is not meeting their needs. The Inmans make unreasonable rules and change them on a whim. The Iranians are very open to the teachings of Jesus, and worship meaningfully and wholeheartedly. Their wholehearted, however, tends to promote arguments and problems between the Iranians. They, by their own admission, do not tend to forgive a sin committed against them. This leads to their field of friends becoming narrower and narrower. Faith in Christ is changing this for them. They have a house guest, Ron Frost, a single man, from the Portland area, who also joined us for supper. In his connection with Multnomah, he is a traveling supporter and encourager for missionaries in various parts of the world.
Dan gave us ideas for visiting Brussels tomorrow and took us to a lodging place for traveling missionaries run by Barry & Coreen De Vaal from South Africa. We are staying here for 30 Euros, including breakfast.

April 26 - Brussels to Brugge

2008-08-26T17:19:00.000-07:00

Saturday
This day was frustrating in many ways, but it ended really well! Verle felt really bad and his back was sore when we woke up. He had trouble waking up and even in thinking as clearly as usual. After breakfast, he began to feel much better. Barry and Coreen had left breakfast out for us -- it was very good, with cereal, juice, tea and coffee, great bread, jelly, peanut butter, and a special chocolate spread. They also had cheese and cold cuts, which I used to make sandwiches for dinner.

Verle used their Internet hookup and was able to get my journal and some of our photos on the web page. We were relieved that it worked so well. By then, Verle was feeling O.K.
We walked with our bags to Central Station, but there was no ticket window, and we didn't know where to stowe our bags, so we took the tram to North Station and put our bags in a locker there. Then we took the tram to Boerche/Bears (wrong spelling) to see some of the sights Dan had suggested to us. However, we just had such a hard time finding where to go. We finally found a map and walked toward a neat old structure. However, we were quite confused about where to go, so we came across a city tour and took that atop an open bus. It was a gorgeous day. The driver gave us ear plugs to keep. We could set the channel to hear the English narration. It was very interesting to see the many old buildings, the World's Fair area, and the buildings that house the European Union, which are new and mirrored and modern. Some highlights were a very old church with statues and ornate decorations everywhere you looked.

Another similar building had been partially restore to it's white surface, while the rest showed that it is 700 or so years old. The Atomia, which was Belgium's exhibit in the Worlds Fair looked like a huge model of an atom made out of metal. Japanese and Chinese buildings in the same area were built by Napoleon or other early rulers. Lovely parks and spring blooming trees were very beautiful.
We bought train tickets to Brugge (4 Euros total!) and took a lovely ride with a chance to see many farms and the lovely countryside.
Here comes the mighty frustrating part. We got to Brugge about 3 and immediately went to the information center to try to find a Friends of Bicyclers home to spend the night (from our catalog). Many were listed, but we didn't know how to make phone connections to see if any of them had a room available. One information center didn't have a phone connection, another sent us to Park Hotel, which we couldn't find. All this while we were carrying our heavy bags. We finally went back to the train station to try to find someone to help us there. Nothing worked, the phone card we bought didn't work for us, and the directions weren't in English. By 6, we still hadn't been able to get through, and when we finally got the phone to work, one after another home was already full. (You are supposed to call 24 hours in advance.)
Thankfully, we finally found a home that had a room, and what a wonderful experience that turned out to be. Our hosts are Ann and Paul Neutens.

They told us which bus to take and where we should ask the driver to let us off. Ann came out to meet us there. They took us into their kitchen, served us cokes, and helped us plan our day for tomorrow. We decided to try to ride bikes with a tour in Brugge tomorrow morning and to stay in Middleburg, Holland tomorrow evening so we can start riding on Monday. Ann and Paul got everything lined up for us. They called a family for us to stay with tomorrow night in Middleburg and found out from that family that the best way to get to their home was by bus and ferry. The got all the directions and made our reservations for the bike tour tomorrow morning. They also are taking care of mailing our fee for being part of the Friends of Biking program.

They took us out to their lovely garden area, which stretches over 100 meters back behind there house. We took photos there. It was such a pleasant evening after a day that had several stressful moments in it.

April 27 - Brugge to Middleburg, Netherlands

2008-08-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday

Some cultural observations from the last couple of days:

1. We were interested in watching the people from India on India air when we flew from Chicago to Frankfurt. Most of the passengers were from India. We don't know if the families we were watching near us were representative of their country or not, but this is what we observed: The mothers were extremely loving and relaxed with their children. They were cuddling them, telling them how much they liked them, playing little number and alphabet games with them, and in general really enjoying their children. The fathers (whichever men they were) paid no attention to the women or to the children.

2. Brussels is full of Arab women in their burkas and boring long "dresses" -- more like black nondescript sacks. Most of them looked sad -- or maybe vacant. Their men also seemed uninvolved with them. The best word to describe their appearance from our point of view was "boring."

3. The eyes of most of the local people in the trams seemed sad, and these folks often seemed to personify to us "sheep without a shepherd."

4. The traveling young people seem always to be having the time of their lives. They are using a lot of electronic equipment and are enjoying each other (and they are loud!)

After a wonderful breakfast with Ann and Paul (fresh egg from their own chicken, rolls, sweet rolls, coffee and tea, cheese) Ann walked us to the spot where we were to meet the bus. Paul came running with new water bottles for us! We all stood and waited for quite a long time for a bus that just didn't come -- probably because it is Sunday, so Ann took us back to the Brugge train station in their family car. We put our things in the locker, rode the bus to the Brugge market area, and found our bike tour. Our guide, Dan (I think) got our bikes out for us - newly purchased bikes this year. There were only 6 in our group, and almost no tourist traffic throughout the morning, so we really got a great tour. We zigzagged through the old buildings,

rode out to parks, a working Jesuit training castle, parts of the old wall, -- it was the best way we could have possibly spent our time in Brugge! We rode for almost 3 hours on the cobblestones.
We got our bus ticket to the ferry on the way to Middleburg, got our bags from the locker, and bussed across northern Belgium and southern Netherlands, Verle sat by a man who has traveled all over the world, including China, north and south Africa, etc., but he has not been to America. The countryside changes from Belgium to the Netherlands. The area has farming and dairy cows. We rode the ferry and then the bus again to get to Middleburg and Franz's home. Franz is retired and only moved into this place a couple of years ago. It's a lovely home.

Franz was extremely helpful in helping us plan our route and calling the next place at Brielle. It is about 42 miles -- very rideable if we don't have a headwind. Unfortunately, there is rain predicted for tomorrow. We met Truus and their daughter, Flemi. Flemi is a midwife and was just leaving for work. About half of her patients deliver their babies at home. Most of the city people go to the hospital where she also works. Her information about her work was fascinating. She said that Dutch women are embarrassed about nursing their babies, and few do it.
We showered and Franz walked us to some of the restaurants in the market area. We split a meal of a local flat fish, salad, and French Fries with mayonnaise. It was very good. We came back to the house and laid out our things for riding the first leg of our journey (to Brielle) tomorrow.

April 28 - Biking Middleburg to Brielle, Netherlands

2008-08-26T11:56:00.001-07:00

Monday

We slept very well with the window open for half the night (no screens needed) When I got up to shut the window, I heard something light hit the floor, but I couldn't reach it. When we got up, Verle was missing his glasses. I remembered the sound, and we found the glasses on the floor between the two twin beds. Franz served us a wonderful and elegant breakfast of boiled egg, bread broiled with soft cheese on top, WONDERFUL breads of all sorts (I especially enjoyed the raisin bread), cheeses, and two kinds of meat, coffee and tea. His house is new inside, very nice, and comfortable.
We had worried about finding the train station since we had arrived at Franz's house following a circuitous route. Franz volunteered to walk us to the station. We left our bags at his house and he helped us rent the bikes. We got each bike for a week for 42.50 Euros. If we have them longer, we will pay the extra charge when we return them to Middleburg. When we arrived back at Franz's house, Truus had ridden in about 20 minutes by bike to tell us good-bye. They sent along candy, and I took sandwiches I'd made from the breakfast bread, cheese, and meat. We got our bags strapped onto our bikes and were on our way at about 10 a.m. Franz rode with us to show us the LF1 trail. What wonderful service these "Friends of Bikers" give us. I wish there were some way to repay them.
We had been worried about rain, but it didn't rain all day. We were also worried about the winds that usually blow off the North Sea. They were blowing, but were behinds us, so we sailed right along, especially as we went across the 6-, 3-, and 1-mile dikes. What fun! It appears that the knowledge that the prevailing winds are from the southwest worked for us this time. Verle had wanted to ride south from Amsterdam.
It was a real joy to ride through the villages and many farming areas

and to see the Delta project, which consisted of big concrete structures with movable gates that can be adjusted to keep the sea out when necessary.

We had and interesting ride through the Westensenschouwen Forest, but we were almost too tired to navigate the hills. We stopped twice to take some of our energy food, and it helped a lot. We bought a map for the LF-1 route. It is in a book at cost over $12, and covers only as far as Delft. It wasn't as helpful as we had hoped, and we still had problems staying on the trail when we couldn't find the LF-1 markers along the way. Although we were often worried about whether we were along the trail, we really didn't lose much time getting off. One of the most interesting route questions worked out very well when we were about 9 miles from Brielle. We weren't sure where LF-1 went, and Verle saw a sign for 9 miles to Brielle by bike. It wasn't the LF-1 trail, but because we didn't know which way to go on LF-1, we decided to take it. We got to Brielle very quickly, and the LF-1 rejoined us about four miles from Brielle. We followed it into town and came to our hosts' street (Reede) at the second crossroad in town. Another "Friend of Bicyclers" saw us and we chatted for awhile. She is booked up for most of the summer.
We think we rode about 50 miles, so we were very tired by the time we reached our host's home at about 8 p.m.. My seat was especially sore. We really like the railroad bikes and their 8 speeds. (We're glad we paid $5 more for the extra 5 speeds.) We ride more straight up, so our arms and hands didn't get nearly as tired as on our Treks, but it puts more weight on our seats.
We met Laney and Cor came home right after we put the bikes in their garage. Laney made coffee and we had fun visiting. They phoned and found a place for us in the Leiden Centrum area (easy to find). Their daughter, Linda, and her American husband and Florida-born Keenan and Cory came to meet us. What fun to visit! They lived in the USA until just before 9-11. Linda got very homesick, and they moved to Brielle and lived with Laney and Cor for a year and a half. __ is teaching English at a high school here. He says that the kids are as hard to discipline as in the US. He says that the bad western influences are beginning to affect the Dutch kids.
Cor showed Verle their Internet, I typed this journal so Verle could put in yesterday and today's web info, and we showered and went to bed.

April 29 - Biking Brielle to Leiden, Netherlands

2008-08-26T11:51:00.000-07:00

Tuesday
During the night, I could tell that I was getting Verle’s cold. This was very sad news. I could tell that it was hard to climb the stairs and I felt rather weak and lightheaded. Lenie and Cor’s daughter, Yvonne, came her sons, Tom and Max. They were a bit shy and played in the upstairs toy room. Lenie served us a very ample breakfast and we again made sandwiches to picnic.

Lenie gave us a computer map of Leiden to help us find our next stop. We packed up and left shortly after 10. Lenie and Yvonne were doing something together for the day. This was a lovely, warm home, and we like the Friends of Bicyclers program more each day!
We pedaled toward the Brielle Centrum, briefly lost our way, and after asking for help, we pedaled through the countryside on a bike trail toward Delft and Leiden. It was a beautiful morning and we really enjoyed the ride. One of the most beautiful sights is the Japanese cherry blossoms. Unlike ours, they are lavendar/pink and large. They are beginning to fall, and the ground is covered with beautiful blossoms. It’s no wonder that the Japanese people like the cherry blossoms so much. I wonder if these cherry trees would grow in Nebraska???

I felt better as we rode along. We crossed the bridge connecting the third island containing Brielle, and took the ferry across the bay below Rotterdam. We saw big ships and a lot of maritime activity.

We may have missed one of the white arrow signs with red letters (that show the bike paths which are the shortest connection between towns.) Thinking we should go to the Centrum, we followed the signs there. Once there, we didn’t know how to get out to resume our journey to Leiden. A man with a map hooked to the handlebars of his bike helped us figure out the general direction toward Pinijaak, and we picked up the red on white arrows for the town in just a few blocks. Unfortunately, it started to rain fairly hard. I put a garbage bag over my backpack (I had set one out for Verle, but he didn’t get his along), and we put on our raincoats. It was chilly and unpleasant. We stopped under a highway bridge to eat the sandwiches and banana that we had brought from Lenie and Cor’s. We rode on in the rain, but I was getting quite cold, shaky, and weak. It became very hard for me to navigate in the traffic. In going around a round-about, I caught the curb with my tire and the weight of my backpack caused me to fall over onto my knee and hands. I got a bloody knee and my knee felt like it might be hurt inside. A lady stopped to help us and told us about a train that takes bikes that goes to The Hague and then to Leiden. She said it was about 24 miles yet to Leiden. We rode on, but since it was already 3:30, we decided that the train was our best option. We had to take our bikes down an elevator to the platform below. There was not a ticket office. A young couple helped Verle purchase tickets from a machine for us and our bikes to The Hague. Verle couldn’t have gotten the tickets without them.
I was cold and shaky by the time we arrived at the Hague. I stayed with the bikes while Verle purchased our tickets to Leiden and a phone card to call our host in Leiden. The tickets for the bikes cost more than the tickets for us to ride the train! We had time before our train, but the only place we could eat and sit down was at a Burger King. How we hated to eat American food when we could have been enjoying Dutch treats. We couldn’t find the outside phone booths where we were supposed to use the phone cards and it was still cold and rainy, so we just got on the train shortly before six. (We’d had to wait until then, because they won’t allow bikes on the trains between 4 and 6.)
We arrived at the Leiden train station, and after asking for help a few times, we found the police station and our host’s home around the corner from it. Her name is Gerda. She helped us park our bikes in a downstairs storage area and served us coffee and snacks. Gerda likes pop music and asked about a Nebraska singer, Bruce Springsteen and a song she thinks he wrote and sang about Nebraska. Gerda made MANY phone calls to find us a place to stay tomorrow.

Since it is a holiday, much of the country had vacation from Wednesday through the weekends, and homes just didn’t seem to available. She fortunately found us a place at last. I took a warm bath to warm up and went right to bed without writing my journal. My cold and my throat are pretty bad. We slept very well in our small bedroom.

April 30 - Biking Kuekenoff Gardens

2008-08-26T11:47:00.001-07:00

Wednesday
This is Queen’s Day in the Netherlands. I wanted to wear my orange blouse, but it was too cold. I’ve worn the same three layers for the last several days! Greta had a nice breakfast for us, and we were on our way about 9. Greta helped us get out, gave us some instructions for finding our route, and left in her car for a meeting. Greta has a very strong accent and really wanted us to say the words with the same heavy accent!
We had a lovely ride to Lisse and on to the Keukenhoff Gardens.

We began to see lovely fields of tulips -- they are unbelievable -- big fields, but not of corn or soy beans! In one field, a tractor with a machine was cutting the tops off the vibrantly blooming tulips.

Evidently these will be sold for bulbs, and they make better bulbs if the tops are cut off. It was sad to see all the beautiful blooms laying between the rows. I’m glad we got here as soon as we did, while most of the fields still had their blooms.
We found the Keukenhoff Gardens north of Lisse. We were able to park our bikes and leave our bags in a shed with security. It was starting to rain again, so we were really glad to keep our bags dry. It rained off and on throughout the time we were at the Gardens, but, except for being quite chilly, it was a wonderful visit.

After viewing many acres of displays and an orchid pavilion, we went out the exit, only to discover that it was the back exit rather than the one we had come in. They let us back in (after we paid 40 cents to use the bathroom -- well worth it.) We discovered that we had missed a huge section of some of the most beautiful displays. We got a map from the bike security people and rode a loop around the gardens and out into the tulip fields.
We found our way to Noordwijkerhout to our hosts there. A man helped us by showing us where to go on the posted city map. We wrote it down so that we wouldn’t forget his instructions. We found the place relatively easily, and met our hosts, Joke (pronounced Yoka) and Ed. By then, we were quite cold, and I didn’t feel like going out to a restaurant, so we skipped supper.

Our hosts helped us get our next night’s reservation and printed off maps for us for our route up the west coast of the Netherlands, and brought us coffee to our room. Ed loves using the computer and was so helpful with the maps and calling to Castricum for our lodging tomorrow.
I typed up two days’ notes, Verle put it on the Internet via Ed’s computer, We went to bed rather early.

May 1 - Biking Duins to Castricum

2008-08-26T11:43:00.000-07:00

Thursday
We had breakfast at 8:30, and were joined by two other bicycling couples, both from Holland. They were planning to tour the Keukenhof Gardens later in the day. All entered into a very stimulating conversation about the changes in culture, human nature, etc. Very warm and friendly.

We didn't leave Joke and Ed's home until about 11 a.m. Verle was putting the journal and pictures on our web page and I took a nap, hoping to feel better by the time we left. It did help, and we began a lovely ride through the town and countryside. It was easy riding and I felt much better all day long. We rode through the sand dunes along the coast.

It is a national park. It seemed all the time like we were riding in circles. We were glad for our compass. We were going up and down sand hills, but it wasn't too difficult because the momentum from the downhill put us mostly up the uphills. This is Ascension Day in the Netherlands, and so it is another holiday that lasts through the weekend. Many Dutch people were walking, riding bikes, and driving. It started to rain while we were in the Dunes, and was rather cold. Then the sun would shine!

But see, we weren't the only ones checking our maps!!

The hardest part of the day was getting across the waterway. We had been told that there was a ferry in Ijmuiden, but we couldn't find it. Then a man told us to keep crossing bridges and we would get across. This worked, but it never did feel right, because we were in a big shipping area.
We continued on our way through a nice forest, and from there we reached our host's home in Castricum. It was supposed to be a 35 mile trip, but it may have been more when you count the extra miles we rode because of losing our way. However, we got to Castricum before 5, so we went to the Grand Cafe and split an Indonesian pork dish and a scrumptious ice cream/cookie dessert.

By then our wet clothes had dried out.

Our hosts for the night are William and Hanukah van der Veer.

They showed us to an adjoining guest house. This is a farming community, They served us tea and were very interested in the USA, since we are their first guests from there. They wanted to know what we thought about President Bush. We answered carefully but honestly, knowing how most Europeans feel about him. We think that is due to the news they receive from our liberal press.
There is a washing machine in the guest house. I will wash clothes and hope that they get dry. Verle helped them learn how to get photos on their computer and how to send the photos by E-mail. We are glad that we can contribute something for them.

May 2 - Biking North Netherlands

2008-08-26T11:41:00.001-07:00

Friday
Hanneke and Wm. like having their guests in a separate building, and it was nice for us, too. We had a bath, a middle room, and a bedroom/computer room. It was good not having to worry about bothering them if we got up in the night, coughed, etc.
Hanneke served us a lovely breakfast on the patio in the sun.

What a fun experience! I had to think of Virginia and how that was one of the things she would like to be able to do in her home some day. Hanneke brought a lovely breakfast of wonderful yogurt, boiled egg, the raisin buns we have enjoyed at almost every home, meat, cheese, orange juice and coffee.
We got all our clothes washed (everything is dark, so it took only one load) and hung them up to dry around the room. Most things were nicely dry when we got up. We put the ones that were still damp on the furnace registers, and they were O.K for packing by the time we left.
Hanneke and Wm.'s home is the first free-standing home such as is so common in the USA.

The rest of the homes we have stayed in consisted of a few rooms on each floor (about 4 floors) with a winding staircase. These homes are hooked to a row of similar homes with a front that is often historic.
Hanneke and Wm. live in this home with a steep roof. Besides the guest home, they also have a shed, another building or two, a large bird aviary with about 22 birds, a pond and lovely flowers and greenery, a small lawn, and a patio or two. Wm. has a rain forest on the third floor with exotic frogs -- blue and bright yellow/black, etc. The forest rains automatically each morning and is warm at a constant temperature.
Wm. printed out maps in color for us for our route today and Hanneke drew our route on them. After that, Hanneke rode her bike with us to the edge of town (like Franz had done) so we wouldn't get lost. She was our tour guide during that ride. She pointed out the unique system of hay barns common there. The roof comes down on the hay as the hay is used up through the winter. A later couple told us that these places are common places where young kids go to smooch!
Castricum is a lovely Dutch town where Wm. and Hanneke intentionally chose to live. Hanneke pointed out thatched roofs on houses. We saw many more of them, especially on really nice houses, as we rode along. Hanneke says that they need to be replaced every ten years and are very expensive. They put the thatching right over the tile roofs for protection. The thatched roofs require expensive fire insurance, because a spark can easily ignite the whole roof and house. The roofs in this area are very steep and most homes have a small attic on the top floor. Wm. has his computer up a ladder in this attic area.
We stopped at Hortus Bulborum in Limmon just north of Castricum, that Hanneke had suggested. There were LOVELY tulips there. I inquired about sending some bulbs home to the girls, but the 2009 bulbs are still in the ground and won't be available until August. I inquired about prices. These are historic bulbs and very expensive. It appeared that a sampler of these historic bulbs, I think 50, cost about $1600 Euros. The tulips in the park were gorgeous and large.
It was a beautiful sunny but chilly day -- no rain, and the countryside is a farming area that was so very interesting and lovely. We rode through Limmon and stopped to talk to two men working in their tulip fields. They were spraying stray bulbs (tulips of other colors that the given patch). They think it will kill the bulbs, so that the bulbs will all be the same color. They explained that the tulips head are cut off to prevent disease or to keep the bulbs from rotting. This needs to be done when the tulips are in full bloom. Daffodils and hyacinths do not need this treatment. We rode through many more glorious fields of tulips today than we saw in the Keukenoff area. The whole day was a beautiful ride. Although some tulip blooms have been cut off already, more remain untouched in the fields than we found further south.

We rode past some estates that were truly beautiful. Flowers abound in home gardens everywhere and the tulips are especially gorgeous. Some of the daffodil fields are still in full bloom. Most of those farther south were finished except for a few varieties.
With Hanneke's maps and directions, we got lost much less often today. We stopped to ask advice from a man on the street at one point. He said that Den Helder was so far that we shouldn't ride through the Duins as Hanneke had suggested. Since we had done that yesterday. Since we had ridden the dunes yesterday and they are a lot of around and around and up and down, we gladly abandoned that part of our route, and instead followed our maps and the list of towns I had made from the maps in our room last night. This worked well for us except for one big problem. (We seem to have to have at least one each day!) We followed the signs and pulled onto a highway with no bike paths. As we rode along, all the cars were honking at us. We realized that we would have to cross the road and push our bike along in the ditch of tall grass back to where we had made our mistake. I wasn't feeling very strong, and it was more than I could do to push my bike in the grass with the heavy pack on the back. For the rest of the 8 -10 k of our ride, I was shaky and afraid that I would fall over on my bike again.

We were able to successfully complete our ride for the day, and after some difficulty, we found the home of our most gracious hosts, Lynn and Bill, in Julianadorp.

They have such a lovely home and guest area. We enjoyed tea and chocolate and a chat with them, and then I went up to bed and slept for a few hours before writing this journal. I had a fever and felt so shaky and cold. Lynn phoned for our hosts tomorrow night at Den Burg on Texel. She told us about a flower show in an adjoining town. We will ride our bikes there and to Den Helder and Texel tomorrow. Lynn and Bill have done a lot of bike riding all over Holland. They spent time at a winter home of a brother in Orlando with the snowbirds this winter. The brother lives in Toronto the rest of the time, and they have visited there, also.

May 3 - Biking to Texel

2008-08-26T11:32:00.001-07:00

Saturday
My fever broke and I sweat a lot early this morning. I took medicine and Lynn led us out of town to the ferry across a canal that took us to the flower "show" at Anna Paulowna. The town is so pretty with tulips and other flowers blooming in every yard. Everyone seemed to be out on a holiday. In some places there were pictures that looked like photographs all made from flowers. In other places there were ropes of flowers decorating bridges across the canal and in yards. It was a lovely lazy ride.
We rode toward Den Helder and the ferry to the island of Texel. We had to wait a half hour for the ferry, and the ferry ride took almost a half hour. We reached the island of Texel and biked toward our hosts' home. We stopped many times and rested. We rode into Den Burg and found our host's home at about 3 p.m. Our hosts here are Trudy and Cor. They served us tea and we visited awhile. Their home and garden/yard -- like most of the homes we've stayed in -- are so lovely. I slept and rested and am feeling better.
Verle paid about 5 Euros for a 24 hour Internet connection and we talked to Dave and Bruce and Regina on the Internet connection by phone. It was wonderful to talk to them, We are enjoying our vacation so much, but we also miss our family and friends!

May 4 - Texel to Middleburg to Amsterdam

2008-08-26T11:30:00.001-07:00

Sunday
Trudy served us a very special fruit bowl for breakfast because of my being sick. I couldn't eat too much else.
We left Den Burg and biked back to the ferry going back to Den Helder. We got there just as the ferry was loading. We biked to the railroad station in Den Helder. It was just as we remembered it from 2001. We got information about the train to Middleburg, where we have to return our bikes today. We had to wait for Amsterdam to get information about the train to Munich. We don't need reservations for this ICE train.
It was hard to get to Middleburg. It is out on the corner of Holland, and across several dikes that don't have trains on them. We were worried that the bike station might not be open, but it was. We had a bit of a communication problem, with the bike guy thinking we wanted the bikes for another week and not wanting to give us back our deposit, but we got it straightened out.
We trained back to Amsterdam planning to go to Enkuesin and the open air museum there, and our hosts in that town. However, I was getting very sick -- disoriented and couldn't walk straight. We decided that we had to find a place to stay in Amsterdam. The only lodging we could find was at the Sheridan Hotel at the airport train station. It was very expensive, but I could lay down and sleep. Verle was pretty concerned about me. We feel bad that we couldn't let our hosts know our change of plans.

May 5 - Amsterdam to Munich

2008-08-26T11:25:00.001-07:00

Monday
By 4 a.m. Peggy had a very high fever. Verle tried to get a thermometer from the Sheraton help desk. They had nothing, but suggested going to the first aid station (open 24 hours) in the train station. No help there either, so we gave up on that idea. Peggy was able to sleep, but breathing was rough and uneven. We thought that with more rest she might feel better. We must meet our flight from Munich to Tel Aviv by Tuesday at 5:00 p.m.
Peggy slept very hard till about 9:00 a.m., but was very slow upon awakening. She managed to shower and dress, and we went back to Amsterdam Central to catch our train to Munich. Unfortunately, we missed the first train (our printout gave the wrong platform) and had to wait two hours for the next train. Peggy began to feel quite a lot better, but kept falling asleep.
We had to change trains in Dusseldorf, and then trained all the way to Munich. This surely is a comfortable way to travel. We arrived in Munich about 8:30 p.m., Peggy very tired,, and found the information office closed (where we usually find lodging directions when traveling without reservations). Fortunately, as we were standing in front of that office a lady came up and offered us a small room in her home. We had read that many times the local folks will be watching for travelers like us and will just be waiting for an opportunity to offer their room. We accepted and she led us via the metro to her place. I went right to sleep, but for some reason Peggy laid awake for several hours before finally getting to sleep. She then slept quite well till about 10:00 a.m.

May 6 - Munich to Tel Aviv

2008-08-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

Tuesday
Our task for the day was pretty simple, just get to the Munich Airport in plenty of time to get through the more rigid Israeli security. So we showered, packed up and took the metro back to the main railway station (here called HauptBahnHof). We managed to take a train going the wrong direction, had to get off and retrace our path (not unusual for us)! We arrived at the airline terminal way ahead of time, and sat around for about four hours till our flight left, right on time at 8:00 p.m.

Peggy is still feeling very tired, chilling frequently, and cannot eat and keep anything down.
The flight was smooth, they provided a wonderful meal, but Peggy couldn't eat without becoming very nauseous. I pigged out, eating both meals (quite considerate, don't you think, with her feeling so bad)?
We arrived in Tel Aviv about midnight, and easily found a hotel with the help of the information desk. Took a taxi to the hotel, checked in and got to bed about 2:00 a.m. Peggy still very weak, coughing a lot. Probably going to a doctor in the morning. We don't meet the tour group till 7:00 Wednesday.

May 7 - Hospital to Natanya, Israel

2008-08-26T09:38:00.001-07:00

Wednesday
We slept reasonably well, and awoke at 8:00. Peggy says it's definitely time to go to a doctor. The hotel suggested the hospital, which means emergency room. We took a taxi to the hospital, got Peggy admitted and they did the usual checks, a really quick EKG, blood work, listened to her chest and wanted to do a chest X-ray. Then we waited about 2 hours, Peggy was able to sleep in a hospital bed in the emergency area. I was able to be with her all the time. Finally a doctor came, was understandably concerned about her high white blood count. He says she definitely has pneumonia, her immune system is probably weak because of the CLL, and will give her a strong antibiotic. She is not to do any extended walking for the next three days. She should not be contagious to the other folks on our tour, so we will plan to join them and be sure Peggy doesn't do any great amount of activity.
The admissions desk called a taxi for us and we are now at the Blue Bay hotel, waiting to meet the tour group and a welcome dinner tonight.

It's a beautiful spot, west of Tel Aviv, right on the beach. Peg as been sleeping soundly since we got here about 3:00 p.m.
The hotel provided us with a wonderful buffet dinner, and thankfully Peggy was able to enjoy a little of it. She seems to be feeling much better, with some of her spark and joy of life returning. It's too bad we didn't get to the doctor earlier. Perhaps we have a little too much faith in our ability to tough things through.
During dinner we met a couple from New Jersey who has family in Greece. When they heard of our plans to visit there after we leave Israel, they gave us lots of ideas about how we should spend our time there. I'm sure we will spend some more time with them on the tour to help our future plans. We will have a wake up call at 6:00 with buses on the way by 8:00.

May 8 - Israel Tour - Day 1

2008-08-26T09:35:00.000-07:00

Thursday

This was the first actual day of viewing the Holy Land, and if had been the only day, it still would have been worth it! Many, many things surprised us!
Israel, at least the part we were in all day, truly is a land flowing with milk and honey. We had expected dryness. Someone heard that this area could supply the whole world with fruit and vegetables.

Food: So tasty, but also different. Many exciting flavorings are used. The are a LOT of fresh vegetables at every meal (Yum, Tom!) Also many meats and good desserts. Some thought we were served pork, among other things.
Our guide, Schmulik, speaks EXCELLENT English and is very entertaining. He fills in with many, many illustrations, explanations, and information we’ve never heard before.

The Pilgrim Tour company has arranged a wholly Biblical, faith building, meaningful itinerary and information. We definitely chose a great tour. Our guide is a Messianic Jew, as is the spiritual leader, an older man, who used to work with Promise Keepers.
We knew we’d see a lot of Biblical towns, but almost everything we saw today were mountains, waters, etc. that are familiar to us from our Bible reading.
At least in his later years, Herod truly was the mean lunatic we know him to have been. What we don’t realize is what a genius and builder he was. Our guide says that he died the same year Jesus was born. By that time he was killing anyone who stood in his way -- not just the babies, but wives, sons, mother - in law -- anyone. Our guide calls the magi the unwise men. There was nothing more stupid for them to have done than to go to Herod to search for a newborn king!

Caesurae, built by the Herod of Jesus’ time, is well excavated. We saw the aqueducts,

and the oldest excavated hippodrome and theater. (If a hippodrome is closed in, it’s called an amphitheater. Herod loved his privacy, so he built his home way out into the sea. It was opulent. He even figured out a system of containers filled with lava rocks just below the sea surface. But more important is to realize that it is in the Greek/Herod city, the Biblical account explains how God moved highly Jewish Peter to evangelize the Gentiles. The account, repeated in its entirety so often in Scripture, has Peter on the roof of Simon, the Tanner (guide: probably on the roof because a tanner’s home was smelly). Peter is shown all unclean things and told to eat them - symbolizing God’s plan to use Peter to bring Christ to the Gentiles!

The bus stopped briefly at a rock with a tomb carved into it and the rock that rolls across the front.

To place the geography of Mt. Caramel, with the beautiful and productive Jezreel Valley, brings alive the encounter there between Elijah and King Ahab/Jezebel (guide pretended to misspeak and say “Hillary!”) when God brought down fire to burn Elijah’s sacrifice. Ahab’s Baal priests could not do it. Again, the important thing is not just an amazing story, but the fact that God works his plan in history, using willing, though defective, tools to accomplish his purposes. The really amazing thing about the story is the way a minor prophet humbly stood up to the mighty King Ahab, and the refrain, “Choose today which god you will serve, Baal or God!

I slept on the bus during the stop at Meggido, because the doctor told me not to walk far, and our guide said that this stop had many steps uphill and downhill.

Beit-Shean/Scythopolis (excavated) was the pristine example of excesses. It was the only city of the Decapolis on the west side of the Jordan River. The Decapolis cities were populated primarily by non-Jews. This one was a thoroughly Greek city with gods and a comfort and life style meant to impress. Our guide kept comparing their comforts compared to our "simple" lives (Palladius Street with covered sidewalks, sidewalks made of intricate, beautiful mosaics, elaborate latrines, the theater, ornate everything.) Saul and his son's bodies were displayed in this city after the Philistines defeated the Israelites here. King David later conquered the city. In 749 A.D., a severe earthquake devastated the city. This stop was difficult for many and getting very hot.

There were some changes in our itinerary today because of Israel’s national Independence Day -- 60 years dating back to 1948 when Ben Gurion declared Israel’s independence from Britain, which Britain was glad to grant.
We’ve learned a lot about Israel’s history today, told by our guide in a very understanding way. He really appreciates the wisdom of seasoned statesmen like Ben Gurion. Ariel Sharon (who remains a vegetable, with his sons by his bedside), and King Hussein of Jordan, and his son. He doesn’t appreciate the “pretty boys” put in power by the media, such as Israel’s present leader. Our guide’s information really leads us to a greater appreciation of the Jewish nation, and adds so much color to Biblical knowledge we already have!

I continued to feel better throughout the day, although I remain weak and easily tired. How fortunate I am to have gone to the hospital yesterday!.

May 9 - Northern Israel

2008-08-26T09:33:00.001-07:00

Friday Guide: Schmulik Bus Driver: Roni (long o)
What a day! I don’t think anything in the rest of the tour could possibly top this! Schmulik called this the “second day of Bible Boot Camp.” It would be wonderful if every Christian could take a trip of this type to the Holy Land sometime in their lifetime. The Bible stories come alive, and the point of each sinks into our hearts as we walk where Jesus walked! Thank, thanks, thanks, to all of our family and friends who had a part in sending us here!!!
Schmulik gave us a new understanding of Jesus’ beatitudes as we visited the mount where Jesus preached.

Schmulik had us imagine that each of the thousands of banana trees on the hill were people and that Jesus was at the bottom talking to them. The acoustics are great here. The words about peacemakers and blessings for being oppressed and meek were given near Capernaum where a large group of people were insurrectionists whose one aim in life was to overthrow the Romans. They were looking for a military messiah to deliver them from the Romans. When Jesus healed and did other miracles in this area and then told them to tell no one, it was basically to keep them from misunderstanding his message and purpose. These insurrectionists in 60-70 A.D. were the reason for the great destruction of the Jewish nation and finally of Jerusalem as the Roman army under Titus and others moved to put down their rebellion.

An old Catholic domed building stands on the mount. Schmulik explained that Arab mosques are patterned after this building, which was built before the Islam faith even began. Schmulik also pointed out that at all our holy places, the Arabs think of someone to bury there or something, so they can call the area their own holy place.
An 110 acre area north of the Sea of Galilee, the Tel Nature Preserve, has been designated as a lowlands protected area because of the many kinds of wildlife living there, particularly the pelicans who migrate through here from Africa, and the flamingos, who also migrate through here. The government and the farmers are working together to give protection.
Adjacent to this area is the excavation area of the ancient city of Laish 1800 B.C./later called Dan and the dense foliage among the three rivers that form the headwaters of the Jordan river. This beautiful area was abandoned for the 19 years Syria controlled the Golan Heights. No one could work there, because the Syrians were shooting down on anyone and on the homes in the area for all that time. It's a good thing theArabs didn't have full control of this area, or their goats would have denuded it!
After Israel recaptured the Golan Heights, the beautiful area was developed again.

We walked through some rather tough, wet rocks through streams -- a beautiful peaceful area filled with the chirping of many birds. The totally pagan Dan is the setting for Christ’s question to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” Among many other paganisms, Dan had set up a golden calf and inducted the Levites to serve as priests to this worship “in the name of the living God.” How often do I do something “in God’s name” which may be my thing rather than His? This paganism directly led to the North Kingdom’s being led into captivity. Only an aluminum frame is on this spot where King Jereboam erected a Golden calf and erected a building to house the sacrificial high places. Historical groups will not allow full restoration of a pagan image. The most interesting ruins in this area were the very early gates of the city of Laish 1800 B.C. built of mud bricks to avoid damage by earthquakes. Archaeologists were amazed to find arches in these gates. It had earlier been thought that the Romans invented the arch! These gates were built in the 18th century B.C. A bench used by the elders of the city is clearly preserved.
Dan’s gates and their meeting places were interesting, because so many Bible accounts refer to happenings at the city gates (such as Boaz dealing for the hand of Ruth.)
At Tel Dan, archeologists have found a fossilized tabvlet from the second half of the ninth century B.C. It contains an inscriptionm of Hazael, King of Damascus, boasting of his victory over the kind of Israel and the House of David. Finding the words "House of David" outside of Scripture is very important.
Jewish weddings are still held on Tuesday, because in the creation account for the third day, God twice says, “It is good.” This puts a double blessing on the Tuesday marriage, which is the probable date of the wedding at Cana.
The excavations at Capernaum were the most exciting of the day, because they are quite sure they have found Peter’s (mother-in-law’s) home, where Jesus lived while in the Capernaum area. Standing there imagining Jesus and the disciples interacting at that spot was breathtaking. The Capernaum synagogue is almost next door, and although the ruins are not on the one Jesus preached from, they are on the spot of “his” synagogue. Everything in Jesus’ day in Capernaum was made of the plentiful basalt rock of the area -- this is volcanic and active earthquake area along the fault line that runs through here down to the Dead Sea and on through Africa.
Excavated farm tools, including a mill stone and hand grinding tools, were displayed here.
An ancient Fisherman Boat from the first century A.D. was on display at an operating Kibbutz beside the Sea of Galilee. This is like one that Jesus could have used, and is titled “The Jesus Boat.” After viewing it, we took an absolutely marvelous ride on the Sea of Galilee.

All of us had tears in our eyes as the boat captain hoisted the USA flag, and we all stood and sang our national anthem with a tape he played. Halfway through, we hooked up with another similar boat and had a time of devotions and singing, led by Dr. Shore. Wow!
Schmulik told us not to use the Sabbath elevator (we’re on the 6th floor), because it is set to stop at every floor so that Orthodox Jews don’t have to work by pushing the button they need to make the elevator stop at their floor!!! He says they are not supposed to use electrical powered things, etc. But if they are walking by the elevator and the doors just happened to be open, and they walked in, and it just happened to stop on the right floor, that’s OK!
Peggy continued to show improvement througout the day, and was able to eat a good meal this evening.

May 10 - Jordan River to Dead Sea

2008-08-26T09:27:00.001-07:00

Saturday
This day was less intense because Israel's Sabbath affects some scheduling options. Our first stop was at the Jordan River where some of the group were baptized or reconfirmed their baptism. Betty, from Houston, said this was a lifelong dream for her.

We drove past the city of Cana but didn't stop, because the real site was across the valley. Nazareth is now a city, but at the time of Christ there were only 200 or so living in the small community, When Pilate wrote, "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews," it was real sarcasm. Nazareth was a nothing town with a 6 year education system. Pilate was basically saying, "You want me to believe that such a person could be a rabbi and a Messiah!"
A typical Nazareth village has been re-created in the middle of the city near the original site, with characters, goats, olive trees, an olive press, a carpenter shop, and a typical home. This was interesting to visit. Most alluring for me was the little boy about 7 running around in his native clothes. He just represented the boy Jesus to me!

We spent a lot of time in the bus driving from Tiberius to Nazareth and from Nazareth to the Dead Sea, so today's notes will contain many pieces of information that Schmulik shared with us.
Sales tax in Israel is 15 ½ % for everything. If shoppers buy over $100 worth, they can fill out a form for a refund of their taxes on those purchases.
Schmulik has led many groups of Nigerians. He is impressed by the depth of their Christianity. The Nigerian government pays for 6000 Nigerians each year to come to visit Israel. Each Nigerian citizen is eligible to come to Israel once in their lifetime. In addition to all expenses, each is given $500 spending money.
When Sharon decided to withdraw from the Gaza strip, King Hussein didn't want the Arabs back. Schmulik says they are a stupid bunch of people who fight each other and can't pull together to better their lives. They currently have 6 different armies. You can't make an agreement with one, because even if they would uphold it, the others won't. They constantly fight with each other. He says that if you just put a big fence around the Arabs, they will kill each other off!. The Palestinians who live inside Israel under the Palestinian Authority, live peacefully and are bettering their lives.
The Druse are a group of peaceful people who originated in the Caucasian Mountain Region are strong warriors and good citizens. Their pattern is to declare loyalty to the region in which they live. However, those in the Golan Heights have declared loyalty to the Syrians, even though they love Israel. They are just afraid that Israel will give the Golan Heights back to Syria, and if the Druse had declared loyalty to Israel, Syria would kill every one of them.
The bus drove a long time toward the Dead Sea. It is so amazing how much of the land is fruit and olive and date trees and vegetable farms of many kinds. Irrigation methods are highly refined to not waste a drop of water. However, without much rainfall, crops all look lush. We followed the Israel/Jordan border for many miles along the double high fence to keep the Jordanians in. If one escapes, they track him down mercilessly.
The Dead Sea has been receding since 1917. 3 feet per year are drying up. At one point, the Sea had been well above the road and we stopped to see a sign that marks the spot. The Sea is now split into two halves. Sink holes have become a huge problem. Ways are being explored to bring some Red Sea water into the Dead Sea, but they don't want to disturb the chemical balance of the Dead Sea, which is a very important economic resource to Israel. The hills east of the Dead Sea in Moab (Jordan) are made of a material called "liss." The first drop of rain seals the ground, and minerals, salt, and sulfur enter the sea with each flashy flood.
Schmulik showed us an area in Moab across the Dead Sea waters, where Herod Antipas had a castle. This is where he beheaded John the Baptist.
Hot, dry Qumran was fascinating.

We could go down close to the mouth of Cave 4 where many scrolls were found. Excavations and information about the Essenes was at the site.
The most beautiful stop of the day was at En Gedi, where we could look across to a lovely, big cave area, which is very likely where David forced his men, who were hiding in the cave to spare Saul's life.

Schmulik is convinced that when Saul came in the relieve himself, he essentially came in to take a siesta. Otherwise, David and his men could not have discussed what action to take and cut off the hem of Saul's robe without knowing they were there. The site is beautiful with a waterfall coming down and a huge green area. I could have stayed there longer.
We reached the Moria Classic Hotel by the Dead Sea at about 7:30. I put my swimsuit on and played for a half hour in the Jacuzzi and water playground. It was so relaxing to let the water massage my body and feet.

May 11 - Dead Sea and Masada

2008-08-26T09:25:00.001-07:00

Sunday
Another fascinating, yet relatively easy day! We worshiped with Rabbi Shor at the hotel. He emphasized the importance of the Jewish base to the New Testament events. He especially spoke about Abraham's meeting with Melchizidek (Jesus) and connected to Jesus' statement, "Before Abraham was, I am." The service closed with a sharing of bread and wine in an Old Testament setting.
We ate breakfast and I went down to float in the Dead Sea -- alone again. Verle is missing such wonderful experiences. I walked down to the sea and later took the shuttle back up. The Dead Sea water was beautiful and the aqua color of Lake Louise with a white crystal beach. The Dead Sea water is wonderful -- smooth and soft. It's nothing like the Great Salt Lake.
I continue to thank God for continued restoration of strength and less coughing and congestion.
We didn't leave until just before noon (as planned) so the morning was relaxing. Masada was the exciting site for the day. We rode a cable car up to the top.

Herod the Great built one of his mountain top fortresses here. Typical of Herod the Great, no detail was left unattended, and his personal privacy, safety, and opulent lifestyle were apparent everywhere.
Herod had left his family at the simple fortress at a time when he was in personal danger. By the time he went back for them, they were almost out of provisions. Herod decided that he needed a more efficient fortress, which he built before Christ's birth on an earlier fortress site. Herod built three levels of private pavilions looking out on the Dead Sea and surrounding area.

Herod obviously wasn't afraid of heights-it's about 1500 feet down to the valley floor!

He had long rows of food storehouses and crop land on the other end of the butte. He channeled the occasional flash floods into the many cisterns all around the mountain. Herod had every possible comfort built for his luxury -- a pool, cold, temperate, and a hot room were built with an elaborate system of clay tiles, a raised floor, parallel clay pipes lining the outer room, an inner room with an arched ceiling and frescoes and beautiful tiled floors. There is no evidence of any frequent use of this site by Herod and his family.
The final use of the Masada fortress was by the Jewish insurgents whose militancy made the Romans decide to finally end the Jewish question in Israel. The Romans wiped out Jewish cities one after another, with Titus leveling Jerusalem in 70 A.D., the destruction of Qumran in 71, En Gedi in 72-73 AD, and the final confrontation at Masada a couple of years later. The Romans used 11 months to build a wall and watch towers in the plains all the way around the fortress, so that no one could escape the final battle alive. The Romans built their encampment and then built a huge, long ramp for their battering ram to reach the walls of the fortress above.

When the final moment came, they breached the wall and retired for a good night's sleep. Knowing that the insurgents would be tortured, killed, made slaves, their wives and children raped and destroyed before them, with the best they could hope for was for a few of them to be paraded through the Roman Empire as an example of what happened to those who dared to stand up against Romans. I would like to see to see the movie, Masada. Josephus records Eleazar Ben-Yair's speech,
"Since we, long ago, my generous friends, resolved never to be servants to the Romans, nor to any other than to God himself, who alone is the true and just Lord of mankind, the time is now come that obliges us to make that resolution true in practice. And let us not at this time bring a reproach upon ourselves for self-contradiction, while we formerly would not undergo slavery, though it were then without danger, but must now, together with slavery, choose such punishments also as are intolerable; I mean this, upon the supposition that the Romans once reduce us under their power while we are alive. We were the very first that revolted from them, and we are the last that fight against them; and I cannot but esteem it as a favor that God had granted us, that it is still in our power to die bravely, and in a state of freedom, which hath not been the case of others, who were conquered unexpectedly. It is very plain that we shall be taken within a day's time, but it is still and eligible thing to die after a glorious manner, together with our dearest friends....
Let our wives die before they are abused, and our children before they have tasted slavery; and after we have slain them, let us bestow that glorious benefit upon one another mutually and preserve ourselves in freedom as an excellent funeral monument for us. But first let us destroy our money and the fortress by fire; for I am well assured that this will be a bitter blow to the Romans, that they shall not be able to seize upon our bodies, and shall fail to our wealth also; and let us spare nothing but our provisions, for they will be a testimonial when we are dead that we are not subdued for want of necessaries; but that, according to our original resolution, we have preferred death before slavery."
We spent an hour on the bus traveling from Masada to an area occupied by Bedouin tents a few miles east of Jerusalem. There, "Abraham" entertained us to a sumptuous meal in his tent. Following that, we each got a free camel ride. Wow! Fun!
Riding into Jerusalem was an emotional thing for me. I was replaying the song, "Jerusalem" in my head when our guide put the song on the bus audio system. I about fell apart! How exciting to be in this holy city where Christ was circumcised, came at age 12 and came many more time throughout his lifetime, was welcomed as a king -- and gave up his life and resurrected again.

May 12 - Jerusalem Tour

2008-08-26T09:21:00.000-07:00

Monday

We started the day with a devotion and Old Testament bread/wine ceremony at the Mt. Of Olives overlooking the city of Jerusalem. Rev. Shor pointed out that the Bible uses the word "Jerusalem" 811 times. The Koran uses "Jerusalem" 0 times. Yet Islam attempts to create a "holy" place at every Christian/Jewish holy site.

Models of Solomon's Temple and the city around it as they appeared in Jesus' day were a great help for us in visualizing the meaning of the ruins that we saw each day in Jerusalem. A model city (1/5 size) of Jerusalem of Jesus' day was SO interesting.

Bits of Information:
When palm branches waved at Jesus' entry into city: palm branches were "code" for kicking out Romans.
Thorn bush near Caiphus place may have been the type used for crown of thorns.

Jesus called Pharisees "whitewashed tombs." Nice on outside only.
Many such tombs in area.

Koran: Abraham married Haggai. Ishmael is legitimate son. Sarah was slave. Isaac was illegitimate son. Insist that our version was "doctored."
UN headquarters in Israel and Caiphus' place built on "Hill of Evil Counsel"
Israel's 25' high wall dividing Arabs and Israelies in Jerusalem has stopped 90% of the suicide bombings. The world is angry because the wall stops Arabs needing Israel's services from receiving them.
Manasseh (Hezekiah's son) was Israel's worst king -- live child sacrifice to Molech.
Schmulik taught us about the "salesmen" who would surround us at each stop. He asked us not to deal with them until after his presentation, to just say one clear "no," and avoid eye contact, and to bargain for lower prices (by giving us a example of a Nigerian woman who just kept saying kept saying ($80).
I didn't go into the church of Peter's denial and missed the pit that has been unearthed underneath that is very likely where Jesus was held until morning when He could be taken to Caiphas.
The Garden of Gethsemane was so peaceful. I had wanted to touch one of the old olive trees that was here in Jesus' time, but there was a fence around the whole area. Schmulik says the current olive trees there are not 2000 years old anyway, but they sure look that old.

One lady reached underneath to try to retrieve a small stone from the garden. I'm sure this is why it is fenced.
Knesset - Jewish Parliament - where President Bush will visit this week. He also will go to the museum of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Josephus says that each of the 162 columns in Herod's temple needed 3 men to reach around it.
The outer wall of Jerusalem wasn't there in Jesus' day. It was built by the rebels to attempt to defend Jerusalem before it fell to Titus in 67 A.D.
The poor of Jerusalem so heavily taxed that they rebelled rather than becoming slaves. They burned the archives to destroy the records of their debts.
Queen Hediate of Iraq built 4 palaces near the Temple.
Dead Sea Scrolls Museum - our visit was too hurried.
Holocaust Museum - so very well done. We'd like to spend more time there.
Children's Memorial - chilling

Schmulik gave us an overview of part of the history of Jerusalem:

1800 BC Abraham called to sacrifice Isaac on Mt. Moriah (Dome of the Rock)
1500 BC Moses brings the people back / Judges / Kings
1000 BC King at Hebron, then Jerusalem
(Mountains all around/not defensible /"Lord is my defense."
Solomon's temple on Mt. Moriah (First Temple Period)
586 BC Babylonian Captivity/Persian/Ezra 70 years
Solomon's Temple destroyed by Assyrians
516 BC Return from Captivity - Beginning of Second Temple Period
333 BC Alexander the Great, Beginning of Greek influence and worship
167 BC Antipas forbids circumcision, sacrifices pig on altar
2nd Century
B.C. Maccabees/Greeks out/Jews independent - Hasmoneans restore Israel to King David's boundaries. Local populations must convert to
Judaism or leave. Idumea family (Herod) "convert."
King and High Priest argue. Call in Roman general Pompey to mediate. 63 B.C. Pompey rules that neither may rule and that Rome should take over Herod hides family at Masada. Buddies up to Rome
37 B.C. Herod the Great proclaimed King of the Jews.
Collects taxes for own use.
Herod rebuilds and expands Jewish temple in Jerusalem and builds fortified palaces all over Israel including Caesarea, Massada, etc.
18 B.C Temple considered 8th wonder of ancient world.
4-6 B.C. Christ born (Herod dies 4 B.C.)
30 A.D. Christ crucified
37 A.D. Historian Josephus born (found to be very accurate)
67-70 A.D. Jewish rebellion / Titus destroys Jerusalem. 2nd temple period ends.
135 A.D. Bar Kochba revolt. Hadrian Caesar finishes off Jewish rebellion and defiles Jewish holy sites. Builds pagan temples on holy sites.
Calls land Palestine after the Philistines to humiliate Jews.
133 A.D Hadrian supresses a Jewish rebellion. He flattens /rebuilds Jerusalem as a Roman wn.
345 A.D. Constantine proclaims his empire Christian and his mother, Helena, travels to Israel to identify Christian sites and to build monuments at each.
7th CA.D. Mohammed starts Islam. Koran
Mohammed's followers conquer Palestine-influx of Arabs
638 A.D. Arabs annex Jerusalem
749 A.D. Earthquake destroys much of Jerusalem
1099-1290 Crusades - Rule by Salad Hudene
1453 Turks rule. Ottoman Empire
1917 British Mandate (50% Jews/50% Arabs)
1947 UN declares Israel independence. Arabs attack and Israel wins much Arab territory. Arabs harass and shoot at Israel from Golan Heights for 19 years.
1967 7 day Israel war - Israel takes Golan Heights. UN wants 1947 boundaries, but King Hussein doesn't want Arabs back, and Israel doesn't want Arabs shooting at them again.

May 13 - Jerusalem Tour

2008-08-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

We started the day with worship at the Davidson Archeological Center, sitting on the actual steps that led up to the temple in Jesus' time. Verle and I unknowingly chose our seats on those steps that Jesus used with his disciples -- "The Stairs of Teaching."

The steps alternate between wide and narrow to encourage worshipers to slow down and meditate. Worshipers used these steps to enter the temple after performing the purification requirements in the ritual baths below and paying the ½ shekel tax. The half shekel was used because it had no face on it. This is also the area where St. Peter addressed crowds at Pentecost. We saw the excavated Jewish ritual baths built by King Herod the Great for the purification rites. In God's timing, Herod the Great had unwittingly provided ahead of time the pools that would be necessary to baptize the thousands that would come to Christ on Pentecost! Schmulick says that Neal Armstrong said he was more moved by walking on these stairs where Jesus walked than he had been when he walked on the moon!
Western Wall (Wailing Wall): Work on uncovering the wall began 100 years ago. The wall was 1500 feet long. Herod the Great cut off part of the bedrock on Mt. Moriah at the north end and built up the south end to make the wall and courtyard level by using a system of arches under the whole area. This section is broken down. The north section is buried under Arab structures, but tunnels have been excavated along the wall under the Arab area, and they show the finely beveled rocks used by Herod. Herod also built an aqueduct and cisterns through this area. Huge rocks weighing as much as 600 tons are part of the foundation area, and Herod had the bedrock surface chiseled to mimic the beveled rocks of the rest of the wall. The relatively small part of the wall exposed today comprises the most holy site for Judaism, since they no longer have a temple and this part of the wall is nearest to where the Holy of Holies was. Men and women pray on separate sides. Both write prayers on pieces of paper and stick them in cracks in the wall. Women back away as they complete their prayers in order not to turn their backs on the glory.

The "shoulder police" in this area decided that my scarf did not sufficiently cover my shoulders, and insisted that I wear one of their scarves (as I entered the bathroom in a construction area!) There was no place to return the scarf after we finished going through the excavation tunnels, so one of the yellow bus ladies took it home for a souvenir.
The Rebuilding of the Second Temple by Herod the Great:
Herod the Great undertook massive building projects in many areas of Israel after 37 B.C., when he was proclaimed a "friend of Rome" which allowed him to collect personal taxes from the people. He died the same year Jesus was born (after he had killed the babies in Bethlehem.) He was a genius in his building programs who spared no expense to accomplish his goals, even as he became more and more of a lunatic in his private life. His son's after him were not "friends of Caesar," and so they were not able or interested in continuing his building programs and maintaining the ones he had accomplished. Herod hired artisans and paid them, and these projects brought financial booms to the areas of Herod's building programs. Most of Herod's projects (Caesarea, Caesarea Phillipi, Masada, +++) were for his personal enjoyment, privacy, and oppulance and to prove his allegiance to Caesar. However, the rebuilding of the temple was also to show the Jews that he cared about them. Herod was a smart politician.
In order to rebuild the temple, Herod wanted to create an immense flat courtyard. To accomplish this, he cut down Mt. Moriah on the north end and used this rock to build up the south end, to provide the 1500 feet length. Throughout his building projects, Herod's "signature" was the massive rocks with beveled edges.

In some areas, it was only the "stucco" front that was beveled. In the temple, the beveled edges were chiseled around every rock.
A series of arches supported the "Great Bridge," which allowed the wealthy to go directly from the ritual baths of their homes to the Temple and avoid the common folks who lived below and entered the temple after using the ritual baths many, many steps below.
All enteriors were supported by massive pillars and floors were loveley mosaics. Herod had priests trained to decorate the walls of the Holy Place. To decorate the interior of the Holy of Holies, he lowered workers in wooden cages. Since no one but the priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and this could be done only once a year, Herod and the priests agreed that the workers were not really in the Holy of Holies. They were in the cages!
Talk by Dr. Shor and Victor Smadja, who has worked here with the Messianic Jews for 56 years: Victor is Dr. Shor's spiritual father. Victor's son is Dr. Shor's good friend. Victor somehow sponsors Sar-El Tours, the Israel business arm of Pilgrim Tours. Sar-El Tours is the largest tour operator handling believer's tours.

Dr. Shor told how he grew up in a traditional Jewish family and found the Messiah through a friend/real estate agent in Fresno. The friend bought Dr. Shor a full Bible and convinced him to read the New Testament. Dr. Shor did after he found the verse in Micah 5:2 predicting that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Jesus' name was taboo in his Jewish family, and Jews are not supposed to read the New Testament. The Micah verse opened Dr. Shor's eyes and he me the Messiah, gave his life to the Lord, and there's no turning back. His family are still traditional Jews. He says he has to leave it up to God as to how the Jews are God's chosen people, and yet Jesus' clear words to the Jews, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Me."
Victor, a tentmaking Messianic Jew, prints religious materials and provides Hebrew speaking Jews around the world free Hebrew Bibles. In 1959, the Messianic Jews began sponsoring Youth Conferences, through which hundreds and thousands of young people came to the Lord. (The State forbids evangelism to Jewish children.) There are 130 Messianic Jewish congregations now. Messianic Jewish immigrants have added to the congregations. Rather that making plans, the groups look to the Lord for plans. Each congregation is developing their own evangelism plans as the Lord touches their hearts. The childhood evangelism happens through the church member's own children.
Victor also produces materials for the many Arab believers. Victor is worried about the moral difficulty for the mandatory military service for youth of Israel. Boys must serve 3 years; girls serve 2. This is a severe testing of faith and morality for Jewish and Arab Christian teenagers.
3 Criteria for Judging Authenticity of Sites:
Historical memory of people at the site through the ages.
Historical and church documents -- Josephus has been found to be very accurate.
Archaeology
Chronology of 6-Day War June 5-10, 1967:
Days 1-2: Main offense against Egypt in Sinai Desert. Israel takes Gaza Strip (Schmulik says "unfortunately"). News blackout. Arabs broadcast "overwhelming victory, defeat of Tel Aviv, etc."
Days 3-4: Israeli army surrounds old city Jerusalem. Encamps outside Lion's Gate. Entertainers for troops sing "Jerusalem, the Gold," soldiers are led in prayer "I'm a violin" from song, and take the area. The author of "Jerusalem, the Gold," writes a final verse to the song during the takeover.
Days 5-6: The Golan Heights are retaken in a bloody war. Israel can no longer be fired upon from there. The Arab world screams for a cease fire, which is signed at 2:30 p.m. June 10.
Dr. Shor was 14 and one of those of "all the nation headed for Jerusalem."
(The next day was the Sabbath!)

Notes:
The white sepulchers in the cemetery along the Kidron valley made a very clear picture to the Pharisees of what Jesus meant when he called them that.
Schmuck dislikes Orthodox Jews because of the way they "wear their faith on their sleeves.
3 gates were sealed by the Moslems when they learned of the prophecy that Jesus would return through them.
Dividing the city of Jerusalem "for the sake of a peace constructed by man" is only a time-out to allow Israel's enemies to prepare for their next offensive.
Money changers were allowed and necessary to the temple sacrificial system and to collect the ½ shekel tax. Jesus was angered because they had moved their money changing into the temple.
The Temple Mount is the third holiest place for Islam because they believe Mohammed ascended to heaven (and returned) from here. The Catholics consider the Church of the Holy Sepulcher more holy than the Vatican.
The Moslem dome on the Temple Mont is in the octagonal Byzantine shape wihich means "Jesus." The words on the outside say, "Mohammed has no son. God has no son."
Schmulick quickly killed a big cockroach that we saw. He said he learned to do that in tourist guide training school. He was probably joking!
King David's city covered only 10 acres. Herod's temple (Jesus' time) covered 35 acres.
We often drove past Oskar Schindler's grave several times. Schmulik says that his grave is always distinguishable because of the great number of stones Jews always put on his grave in remembrance.
We are just loving being in Jerusalem. We walk a lot and learn a lot. The Arab areas are very distinguishable by the run-down, shabby, trashy areas they usually are. It will be interesting staying at the hostel in the Arab section across from the Damascus gate Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings.
One lady in the elevator said her group was being moved to another hotel to make room for the Bush entourage.
The inside story on the Pool at Bethesda, where Jews believed that an angel of God disturbed the waters and the first to get in would be healed. The inside story is that Jesus knew this was a pagan rite to Esclepyas. Jesus was saying, "If it's not God, don't call it God."
Though churches are not particularly interesting when built over an important site, St. Anne's Basilique is interesting. The pastor from Canada met us and explained the acoustics of the building. Singing "How Great Thou Art," "Amazing Grace," and "Halleluia" together brought tears to our eyes. Even my singing sounded beautiful! The Catholics believe that Mary's mother, Anne, was born here.
One of the worsts visits (in my estimation) was the "commercialized" burial area of the Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian. Gilded, extravagant, and supposedly beautiful, the "Christian" groups argue over everything at these sites. It's such an example of outward over inner "faith." Schmulik does so well by clearly articulating the difference.
A song that won in a song festival in Europe, "Jerusalem of Gold," became a real theme song and motivation for the soldiers in the 6-Day War of June, 1967, when the Jews stormed the gates of Jerusalem and retook the city.

May 14 - Jerusalem Tour - Last Day

2008-08-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, May 14 - Last day of Jerusalem Tour
The really sad thing for all of us is that Schmulik was called to lead a new tour group. He prepared as carefully as he could and covered the most important things yesterday. But we all had to use patience and mercy with our guide for this last day, Nicola. She had few of Schmulik's skills, had trouble leading, and made us appreciate Schmulik even more than we had before. However, Nicola was trying, and we all tried to be kind to her.
We first went to the Temple Mount, up on the level where the temple formerly stood. The blue Islam mosque is ugly (in my opinion) and stands only half as high as Solomon's temple did.

We had to be even more reserved in dress than at other holy sites, so I had to wear my long-sleeved sweater. We could take no Bible or had to just "pray in our hearts." No Christian observation is allowed there. No one except Muslims can go inside the domed building since Sharon and his men entered there after the 6-Day war restored control of Jerusalem to the Jews. The Jews have allowed the Arabs to remain here, but the place is under Jewish military control.
David bought this site on Mt. Moriah as a threshing floor. The Israel Kennesset Building is modeled after Solomon's temple. Greenery and trees surround the mosque area, but didn't in Solomon's temple. On Muslim holidays, ¼ to ½ million Muslims gather here, which gives one some idea of the size of the area.
This is the holy place for the Muslims because Mohammed supposedly ascended to heaven from here and came back down with a corrected form of the Koran.
Temple Institute with guide Miriam: This group is rebuilding the utensils for when the Jewish temple is reestablished on Temple Mount. Nicola says her brothers are training to be priests. (Joke??) Miriam showed us many interesting things on display at the Institute, but her information came so fast and bland that it was hard to digest. There were a lot of details about the outward stuff -- utensils, clothes, breastplate with 12 jewels -- one for each tribe -- gold covered acacia wood ---- The most interesting was the Jewish menorah covered with gold.

Seven arms denote the seven days of the week, with the center arm portraying the Sabbath, and all other arms subservant to it. The appearance of the menorah is known from a painting made when Titus removed the menorah in 70 A.D.
Herodian Quarters: The wealthy of Jerusalem lived in luxury. Excavations show such things as the purification water pits-where the entire body had to be submerged, mosaics and frescoes on walls, and restored marble tables with wooden legs.

Bethlehem:
Much of this city seems to be Arab Christians. Many professional and highly educated Christian Arabs have left Palestine and come to the US as refugees. The Jews have heavily built apartments and fine homes on the Jewish side, right up to a 25 ft. high wall built to keep the Arabs from launching suicide attacks on the Jews here. It has been quite successful, as the suicide bombing attacks have declined by 90%.

The Arabs have decorated their side of the wall with unkind comments toward the Jews and the US. The gates of this security wall are only opened for a Jewish procession to pass through on three Jewish holidays. We saw some of the Arab and Jewish animation at the border crossing, where we had to change buses, drivers, and guides for Arab ones. The Arab bus driver (big nose) was especially upset, probably because our tour was over, but our bus wasn't there yet when we got back 20 minutes earlier than the prearranged time. Bethlehem is also the site of Rachel's tomb, where Jacob buried Rachel. She died giving birth to Benjamin.
As we already knew, Bethlehem was gilded and glittered, candled and iconed, and apart from being at the spot where Jesus was born and the spot where the angels sang to the shepherds, it wasn't especially interesting.

The Greek Orthodox, Catholic, and Armenians also argue here, and they have silly rules about who can pray and at what altar, how often, and how long. However, before getting too critical, I must remember that the site has deep meaning for some. I was touched when Becky said, as she climbed down the difficult steps on her sore legs into the tight spot (with her claustrophobia) to the spot where Jesus was probably born, "Lord, help us. We've come so far. We're not going to go back."

Tour Closing Communion Service at the Garden Tomb:

This area was purchased by the Anglican Church of England because it seems likely that this is the authentic place of Jesus' crucifixion and burial. A very kind and impressive young man explained the reasons for the choice of this spot, as he continued to emphasize the fact that the important thing is what happened here, and not whether this is the exact spot. He so emphasized the true purpose of Jesus' death and resurrection and the profound difference He made in a place such as this. It is very possible that this is Joseph of Arimethia's burial and garden spot. We stood in front of a hill that looks very much like a skull with a flat area at the top that could have held the crosses.

It is just outside the city gates, where crossroads passed. (The Romans liked to place these sides in a busy site, to act as a deterrent to others.)
When they excavated the area, an ancient wine press was found (full of rubble), a lovely garden area, and a big cistern hole and ancient water system to water the garden of a rich man. The area was a more ancient quarry, which we know can be made into a garden. There is evidence that early Christians gathered here (foot washing arrangements, and anchor cross carved into the walls). The tomb is 100% carved by man and hewn from solid rock. The stone has never been found, but there is a trench in front. A low doorway has been raised so others can view the place. The inside was never completed -- as if it had been used earlier than expected. This tomb in unlike most of the area burial chambers of the area, which are to the right side of a weeping area. But the Bible says that "an angel was seated on the stone to the right side of the entrance.
But as the fine young man pointed out, we're not here to worship a piece of rock. He is not here. He is risen! Alive! There is hope, because He lives!!!
Our worship service started with singing together, "Up From the Grave He Arose," and "In the Garden." How fitting and meaningful this was! Rev. Shor pointed out that Jesus is not just "King of the Jews." He is King of All!
Twice before we have had bread and wine in worship with Rev. Shor, but these were Jewish celebrations rather than communion. The following is the sequence in the Jewish Passover celebration:
Cup 1: Sanctification
Cup 2: Affliction
Cup 3: Redemption
Cup 4: Praise
The Christian Communion instituted by Christ on his last night with his dear friends introduced the unleavened bread between cup 2 and 3, and omitted cup 4. Leaven signifies sin in the Bible. Rev. Shor says, "Don't bless the food. Bless the God who gives the food."

Notes:
Stone utensils are preferred to pottery, because stone doesn't absorb foods etc. like clay does.
The main north/south street in Roman cities was called the Cardo. When Jerusalem was taken over by the Romans, the buildings were already built, and a straight Cardo street was impossible. We saw remnants of this street, well below the present ground level.
We saw an excavated section of Hezekiah's Wall, where God's angel of death destroyed 185,000 of Sennecharib's men in 720 B.C. after the northern kingdom had fallen.
Nicola told us a story showing an example of the hypocrisy of the observance of some of the Jewish laws. A couple wanted to commit adultery, but the woman had just had her period and needed spiritual cleansing so they went from place to place to try to find a ritual cleansing site.
President Bush is staying at the King David Hotel today. A set of cars with a stretch limousine went by us, but it probably was some of his entourage rather
than him. John McCain was here last week, and Nicola got to shake his hand. We've had worse traffic delays here today than before.
Jerome came to Bethlehem from Rome to translate the Vulgate Bible from Arabic in the 4th Century A.D.
Clint and Kara tried to go shopping, but the shops were closed because of President Bush's visit.

May 15 - Jerusalem Hotel to Hostel

2008-08-26T09:11:00.001-07:00

Thursday, May 15

We woke up in good time and went down to eat. It seemed sad to eat breakfast without our friends from the yellow bus! After breakfast, we did a trial walk to our hostel opposite the Damascus Gate. It is several blocks away and we got rather hot and tired walking there, We found the hostel after asking a couple of times. It is definitely in the Arab section!
New Palm Hostel
6 Hannevim St.
East Jerusalem
Entrance at back of produce vendor stall at top of stairs directly opposite Damascus Gate.

We walked back to the hotel and rested, packed up and checked out of the hotel, and then stayed in the cool and comfort of the hotel lobby to work on the computer and read, etc.
Johan and Rinske Roosma stopped by. They, too, have time before their flight in the middle of the night. They were going back to the Old City. I walked them to the place where the road continues straight to the Damascus Gate. It was quite a reminder of how much we enjoyed the people on the tour. To see them once more was such a joy!
We bought 2 hours of computer time at $6 per hour and put our journals on the blog, bought our plane tickets from Tel Aviv to Athens, and checked the bus schedule for getting from Jerusalem to Eilat. It's cheap and several buses run.

We spent the rest of the day in the hotel lobby enjoying the comfort, working with the computer, reading, and doing Sudoku. It was pleasant and restful after the busy schedule we've been keeping. It's great to be feeling up to par.
At about 5 p.m. We decided it was time to leave the comforts of the hotel and walk with our packs to the hostel. We will be staying there 3 nights. Thankfully, it was cool and windy and the walk was actually reasonably easy.
We checked in with an English speaking Jordanian Christian, who spent 23 years in the Los Angeles area. The people here are really friendly. We have free wireless 24 hour Internet that works well! Monier gave us hot tea with fresh mint (wonderful)

and we visited with the people around. Verle hooked up the Internet on his laptop in our room and we went down to a little shop just below us and had two Mediterranean sandwiches -- good and fun. Everyone seems to be very friendly. It's wonderful to be with the real people of the area!

May 16 - Jerusalem Hostel

2008-08-25T20:30:00.001-07:00

Friday
We spent the morning using the Internet in our hostel room. It is cool and pleasant here in Jerusalem. We then walked around the shops below our room looking for food we cared to eat. There are a lot of fruit stands and foods of all types, but many of them are candy and snacks. You had to buy the whole box of fruit, and we didn't know if we would like it, so we settled for another pita bread type sandwich with fish. It was very good.
We did a trial run to the central bus station which we need to leave on Sunday for Eilat. We walked along the wall of the Old City to the Jaffa Gate and asked for local bus information at the information center there. We walked through some of the shops and then found bus 20 to take us to the bus station. This bus station is much like some of the European train stations. It was fun to walk around. We bought our bus tickets for Eilat and found a sticky bun type thing to eat. Then we took the bus back to the Jaffa Gate and walked around trying to find a better route to the bus stop because we'll have our bags on our backs on Sunday. By the time we got back to the hostel, we were ready for a quiet, relaxing evening -- AFTER eating another wonderful Magnus ice cream bar, walking around more of the shops and buying some apricots.

Street vendors were cooking kabobs and various types of pita sandwiches. We'll have one tomorrow afternoon if they are set up again then.

We listened to all the loud evening noises and watched a multitude of Jews dressed up in their finery walking back from some kind of activity at the wall. We wonder how the Arabs here feel about this "parade."
It was relatively quiet and we both slept very well.

May 17 - Old City, Jerusalem

2008-08-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

Saturday
We woke up at 6:30 very refreshed. We decided to spend the morning in the Old City and around its walls, while it was still cool out.
We had another pita bread sandwich -- this one with a kind of hamburger and vegetables. Again it was very good and inexpensive. While we were eating, there were a lot of police and Arabs and a black lustily dressed women nearby involved in some sort of disturbance. It was interesting to watch and all the Arabs were watching, but we wondered if we should have moved away! We saw some school girls in their uniforms - cute!

We went in the Damascus Gate and through a myriad of shops. It appeared that the local Arabs shop there, much like in all the shops outside our Hostel window. Many of the shops sell snacks and all kinds of nuts. We had a very interesting experience as we walked along the Via Dolorosa. A shop owner invited us into his shop to show us a piece of the wall of the original Antonio Fortress. It appeared authentic. Then he invited us for tea.

We told him we weren't buying, which he said was fine. He has a very nice shop that sells mostly to American tourists. When he found out that I was curious about the carpets, he began to roll out many of them for me. I thought of Virginia's carpets of this type and was truly curious about the cost and how they were made and were they came from. These are from Iran and Turkey and are pure silk and handmade, which takes many hours. They are truly beautiful.

He asked my favorite colors and guessed that I wouldn't be willing to buy anything but a small one. I picked a favorite and he began to supposedly decrease his price, starting at $480. He finally came down to $400. I was considering buying it for the wall if he came down to $300, but he didn't, and we thanked him and left. He was very polite and a real gentleman.

We followed the Via Dolorosa and saw some pilgrims carrying a cross up the long street. We had skipped this stop with Schmulik, because most of us were more interested in other things that the churchified stops along this street. We continued along the street and saw a sign, "Birth place of the Virgin Mary." How stupid -- she was from Nazareth!

We followed a path to the ramparts above the Old City (built by Turks about 1500 A.D.) through a trashy Arab quarter. They just throw trash anywhere and their quarters are scummy.

The ramparts were interesting up close. They afford quite a bit of protection to those shooting out. Boys with junk on a little metal cart were trying to bump it down to the steps below, but the contents fell out and they had to stop to reload them.
I had worn my long sleeves, thinking we might go up on the Dome of the Rock again or back near the Wailing Wall and I wanted to avoid the "shawl police." However, these places were closed today. We went out through the Lion's Gate and walked around the outside of the Old City Walls. We had a closeup view of he Mount of Olives, the Kidron Valley,

and the cemetery up the hills above it that our bus had been driving by many times. Everywhere we walk, taxi drivers and guides offer to take us around the area. The places they suggest are places the Pilgrim tours already took us. We bought some locally produced date candy and munched on it as we walked.
We went into the Old City again through the Zion Gate and walked through the Jewish and Armenian quarters. They are very neat and a great contrast to the Arab quarters. A Chrisian Palestinian women (with a group of other women) walked us through the Armenian quarters and showed us the way to the Jaffa Gate.

We might still be winding our way through there without their help. The women were on their way to shop in the shops near the Jaffa Gate. She told us that the Jewish government used to pick up trash at each of their homes, but now they only pick it up at the dumpsters. She was pretty defensive about my criticism of the Arabs, but we still feel that it's not necessary to litter every square inch of the area where you live. The Arab shops outside our window are constantly trying to clean up, but the Arabs sit on a park bench, eat, and leave all their scraps spread out on the bench or throw them into the street or anywhere they feel like.
We had some fresh-squeezed orange juice near the Jaffa Gate -- it was delicious.

We visited some more with Jacob from South Africa.

We chatted with him for a long time as we drank our tea in the front room of the hostel. He is returning for a visit to his Switzerland homeland. He left because he hated scooping manure on their dairy farm as a child! Listen up, Stahr kids!!!
Visiting with people here at the hostel has been fun. Moanair is especially friendly and helpful.
We spent the afternoon resting and doing computer work. This is an easy and fun and interesting way to travel when we can make it work!!!

Tomorrow morning we leave Jerusalem and bus to Eilat, where we will stay for a week in a time share.

May 18 - Jerusalem to Eilat, Israel

2008-08-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

Sunday
We showered and finished packing and had a last cup of mint tea (I must remember to try the leaves from our mint plant at home in tea) and left the comfortable and interesting hostel beside the Damascus Gate of the Old City where we have enjoyed three days and nights immersed in the Arab culture. We saw two or three women carrying baskets on their heads.

We took a taxi to the Central bus station to avoid carrying our packs to the bus stop by Jaffa Gate.
Boarding the bus was chaotic, with no one seeming to know if it was the right bus, even the many soldiers and others who were boarding. We had asked one lady and she sort of took us under her wing, correctly getting us onto the right bus. After putting our bags in the bus bay, we sat in our reserved seats watching out the window and being a bit worried that some of the people milling around outside might take the bags. There seems to be no bag security of any kind - not a very good system in our opinion.
The ride to Eilat was about 4 ½ hours long, the past the Dead Sea again and through the Negev Desert.

The industry at the south end of the sea, where they take out minerals deposited there, was extensive and interesting, even though we didn't really know what we were seeing. From time to time as we traveled through the desert, we came upon groves of palm trees and a few oasis-es.

The Israelis have developed a highly refined means of watering huge fields of beautiful crops, using hose or metal pipes and carefully controlling the water use. No one ever seems to be around managing it, so it must be automatic, but we really can't see how it works. Schmulik says they are sharing their technology with the Jordanians.
We made one 30 minute stop at an oasis with a gas station, restaurant, and convenience store. We resisted the Ben & Jerry's and each had another Magnus ice cream bar.

They are so expensive that we are considering splitting one each time!
When we reached Eilat, we bought our return bus tickets to Tel Aviv. A very obnoxious, self-centered man took about 30 minutes arguing with the ticket agent and obstructing both lanes of people waiting to buy tickets. He was yelling and screaming and using his phone. A man "with him" just laughed at him most of the time. It was stressful to us because, though we were second in our line, we were worried that we couldn't get our Tel Aviv ticket and catch the once per hour city bus to Coral Beach where our condo is.
We did catch the bus on time finally, and it left us off just past the petrol station. We walked the relatively short distance with our backpacks in the heat to Club In and checked in and were given a room overlooking the swimming pool -- neat.

We shopped for groceries on site (we are not within close walking distance to anything, it appears), rested, watched TV, and watched the DVD on Israel's wars since 1917. If we'd have watched that from home, we probably wouldn't have come to Israel! The Israel we've experienced has been reasonably peaceful, though the Arabs are angry and loud and volatile.

May 19 - Eilat, Israel Time Share

2008-08-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

Monday
Our first full day at this lovely place, Club In, in Eilat, Israel at the bottom tip of Israel. We washed all our dirty clothes and hung them up to dry. The ones we put out on the chairs on the patio dried really fast.
We went to the presentation of tours and chose a tour to Petra for tomorrow, the Underwater Observatory with lunch and the glass bottomed boat and swimming for Thursday with the option to go back again free on Saturday, and a sailboat ride with barbecue for Friday. Risa, do you remember choosing activities at Beaver City, Colorado? This really reminded us of that time with you. When we came back, the hotel management had left us a bottle of water and a bottle of Israeli Barkan wine from Galil, Israel, and a box of candy. Verle tried to drink some of the wine, but he doesn't like it.
We ate cereal for breakfast and made sandwiches and macaroni from the groceries we bought yesterday. We made another stop at the grocery store on "campus" to pick up more chocolate chip cookies (yummy) and some jelly for our bread. Our little kitchen and refrigerator are working out very well for us.

We played cards for the first time since we left home April 24. What a surprise to travel almost a month and not get around to playing cards until today!
In the evening, a van picked us and two other couples up to take us to a "museum display." We weren't surprised that it was the Eilat Stone Company and they showed us all their jewelry and how it is made. A blue/green rock is mined here and makes lovely jewelry in either green or blue or a combination of the two colors. They call the green rock malachite. If I had anything, I would have gotten a piece of that. It was, of course, incredibly expensive. They did give me a pretty pair of charcoal earrings, probably cheap. Two other couples went with us, one from Los Angeles and one from Australia. The wives are sisters and all are originally from India except the husband from Los Angeles. He is a big man and kind of pushy but interesting. It was fun to watch the couples interact and interact with the salespeople at the stone company.

It was an interesting evening and a chance to see more of Eilat at night. Across the bay we can see Aqaba, Jordan. The lights are lovely.
It is really nice here -- flowers, warm but not overly hot in the shade, and peaceful. We relaxed, played cards, walked around the "hotel," took a nap -- just enjoyed ourselves, knowing that tomorrow will be a much more demanding day.

May 20 - Eilat to Petra, Jordan

2008-08-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

Tuesday
We joined a tour to Petra, Jordan today. Petra is a civilization that existed before and during the Greek and Roman Empires. It lay along the caravan route and taxes on the caravans contributed to its wealth. In an area somewhat like Arches in Utah, though not so red, the Nabataeans carved massive temples, homes, religious centers, and the only amphitheater in the world carved out of the solid rock mountain.

There were even some characters dressed as they believe the Nabataeans looked at the time of their habitation here.

This was perhaps the toughest day of our trip except when I was sick. Petra is very hot, especially in the sun. We walked and walked and walked, always downhill. The further we went, the more interesting the carvings and nature became, but in the back of our minds, we knew we'd have to walk back uphill, with much of the walk, especially the long end, in full hot sun. Oh, we could have ridden a horse or camel or bounced along the rocky "road" in a carriage, but none of these seemed like a good solution, especially after some in our group were cheated by the ride "salesmen."
We had to be patient at the Jordan/Israel border crossing as it seemed to take forever. We met a former SPED teacher from Florida and enjoyed visiting with her. A young Chinese couple from Hong Kong and now Toronto were also very interesting. Our guide was very proud of the four lane highway we traveled along. He said Iraq had helped build the road which connects Iraq to the Red Sea at Aqaba, Jordan. Minerals (copper, phospate, sulfur, etc.) make many vertical and horizontal streaks of various colors in the Jordanian Mountains. Our guide pointed out that the Bedouins are not a people group but a way of life. The military provides schools and teachers in these areas. Jordanians can have multiple wives if the first wife agrees.
We came to Wadi Mousa (population 18,000) where are guide lives. We began our long trek down the "canyon."

The religions of the Nabataeans is central to the many tombs and statues in niches like we saw at Dan, Israel. They believed in reincarnation, so much of their worship was related to freeing the spirit to return. A gorgeous and extensive temple and many homes are carved out.

The rocks contain a variety of different colors. The size and grandeur of the main temple are breathtaking.

Only a few inscriptions exist to help identify dates and activities. Only a portion of the area has been excavated.
After a rest, we started the long trek out. Much of the way was shaded and not hard at all, but when we had to walk in the sun and uphill, it was tough. We were glad to finally complete the hot last part and "collapse" in the cool bus. On the way out through Wadi Mousa, the bus stopped at our guide's home and his wife brought his little daughter out to the street. He proudly brought her on the bus to greet us.
We had a great meal at a Jordanian restaurant. We saw a lot of camels and shepherds herding goats on the drive back to Aqaba. We had to get off the bus while the driver got a tire repaired. When we got back, the tour paid for a taxi for us back to Club In. It must be the farthest hotel from the center of town. We took a shower and washed up our shoes, glad to be clean and home again!

May 21 - Eilat Internet Cafe

2008-08-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

Wednesday
This was a restful day at our condo and the Aroma Internet Cafe. We washed yesterday's clothes after soaking them overnight, ate breakfast, and walked in the heat to find the air-conditioned Internet cafe,

where we spent several hours updating our blog, reading and sending E-mail, and reserving a hostel in Athens for 2 nights.

We are excited that the hostel we picked will pick us up at the airport! We had yummy Aroma coffee and snacks and made baked potatoes with toppings when we got back to the condo.
We watched the Holy Land DVD that we bought on the tour bus and played cards. I finally won (1 game out of 4).
We realized that in this month we've been away from home, things have gone very smoothly and enjoyably between us, even in the making of so many important decisions -- things like, "Shall we buy another box of these yummy, expensive chocolate chip cookies?" "Yes!"

May 22 - Eilat Underwater Observatory

2008-08-25T20:08:00.000-07:00

Thursday
We walked about a mile to the Underwater Observatory, the second tour that we purchased Monday. We first rode in the glass bottomed boat

and saw the corals and fish. This was very interesting. Later, we saw the glass bottomed boat again from above and were surprised just how far it had gone before it turned around.

The guide said that the corals are natural, not planted or encouraged in any way. I especially liked two of the corals -- one looked like a large green moss rock -- another looked like a big pink fan that caught fish on which more corals were growing. I asked the guide about the patches of sand. She said corals need a rock or something to grow on. They can't grow on bare sand. She pointed out that the corals are living, breathing, reproducing, and growing all the time.
There were many air conditioned buildings on the grounds. One had an IMAX type presentation of whales. It was very well done, and the seats moved along with the movie -- very effective. The movie showed whale poachers and the foiling of their illegal intentions by dropping two people from a helicopter, who cut the net before it could ensnare the huge whale. Whales must move to take in enough oxygen or they will die.
Other buildings had displays of exotic fish and sharks, playground equipment for children,

huge turtles -- very interesting marine displays. Unfortunately, while watching a very interesting octopus trying to pick up a plastic bottle,

I realized that I was getting very seasick. We had a prepaid lunch, but I couldn't eat it. The long, hot walk back was miserable, and I took a shower and slept from the time we got back (2:30-3:00) and slept all night.

May 23 - Eilat - Sailing

2008-08-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

Friday
I woke up feeling much better and we ate breakfast. I went down to the office to asked some questions and realized that I was still weary. We were supposed to go sailing today, but I didn't really feel like going out on the ocean again, so Verle went alone and I slept some more and relaxed.
Verle took the city bus down to marina and the sailboat excursion that left from there at 11 a.m.

The sailboat went south to the border at Taba. It stayed there two hours so people to swim and snorkel and then came back again. The scantily clad passengers were having a lot of fun celebrating a birthday and making a lot of noise.

It's strange how modestly they are dressed back in Jerusalem and how much skin they show here!
On the way back Verle saw windsurfing and para sailing.

Unfortunately, the last city bus stopped running at 3 p.m., so Verle had to take the taxi home, because it was much too far to walk.
We played cards and went to the Internet cafe.

May 24-25 - Eilat to Tel Aviv

2008-08-25T20:02:00.000-07:00

Sunday
Yesterday we relaxed in our cool time share and walked back to the Aroma Internet Cafe and spent several hours again updating, E-mailing, and gathering information. We stopped first at an ATM to get more shekels, so this time we could order some aroma coffee and felt more comfortable using the cafe’s facilities for so many hours.
Today we took the five hour bus ride to Tel Aviv where we will catch the plane to Athens tomorrow evening. The ride through most of the Negev Desert (hot, hot, but a nice air-conditioned bus)

followed the same route we followed going south to Eilat last Sunday, until we came to the junction where the road turns east to follow the Dead Sea to Jerusalem. Here we turned west and climbed a steep and winding road through the desert mountains toward the Mediterranean Sea. We saw many warning signs along the highway to watch out for camels! Soon after we got through the mountains we came to Beersheeba (the Bible often describes Israel "from Dan to Beersheeba." The city is large and beautiful with skyscrapers and flowers. North of Beersheeba, grain fields and sheep give way to truck farming, fruit trees, and many more cities.inued north. This highly productive area, reaching all the way to Tel Aviv, reminds us of Florida. The fields are huge,

and again, we saw no one tending the irrigation or working out in the fields (except for a shepherd with each group of sheep.)
We listened to hymns on the MP3 player as we drove through this lovely area. It was thrilling to hear hymns like "Mary, Did You Know," "Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God," "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High," "Our God Is An Awesome God," and "Father, I Adore You" while driving through the Israel countryside! A lovely Interstate highway,

polite drivers, and many cars were a contrast to the large number of scratched up, bumped up cars we saw from the hostel area in the Arab district of Jerusalem. The drivers in that Jerusalem area were always honking their horns and driving in a way that was hard on their cars!
We reached Tel Aviv and had little trouble finding the Mo Mo hostel using the city bus system. The bus went right past the hostel and the bus stop was at that corner. The hostel is fine but not as friendly as the one in Jerusalem. We were surprised to see two different young people that we had met at the New Palm Hostel in Jerusalem as we checked in at Mo Mo’s. We walked to a nearby grocery store and bought a few things to eat, worked on the free wireless Internet in our room, and slept well, noticing how much cooler it is here than in Eilat.

May 26 - Tel Aviv to Athens

2008-08-25T20:00:00.001-07:00

Monday, May 26 - Tel Aviv to Athens
We thought about taking the city tour of Tel Aviv today, but decided instead to walk down to the beach, which is only a few blocks from the Mo-Mo Hostel. What a lovely beach! It has fine sand, great wading, the water is not cold, and it is clean. We took off our shoes and stood in the waves, feeling again the waves washing the sand out from under our feet as the undertow pulled the sand back out. We could really see the sand in the incoming waves.

It was such a peaceful time there at the seaside. The tourists weren't out yet, so we had the place to ourselves except for the local people jogging, walking, and riding bikes on the walk above the beach.

We stayed at Mo-Mo's until checkout time, and then headed for the bus/train connections that took us to the airport. We had our usual uncertainties about our connections, but asked questions and completed everything without a problem.

We were far ahead of time, but it was comfortable at the airport. After awhile, we went to the food area and spent the rest of our shekels on a couple of tasty shawarmas and our change on some chocolate bars and caramels for snacks the next few days.
It took a long time to go through all the security checks, etc.,

but we finally reached the gate for take-off about ½ hour ahead of time. The flight was great, the crew very friendly, and we had good sub-type sandwiches and dessert and drinks enroute to Athens. The evening was gorgeous as we landed,

and we again went through all the lines, picked up our 2 bags and conquered the usual uncertainties finding the spot where Chris and Soph said they would pick us up to take us to the hostel. The kiosk gal had to help us make the phone work to call Chris. He asked us to call again when we reached the pick-up spot, but there wasn't a pay phone there. We finally connected and got to their hostel where we will spend the next two nights. It's in a home and very clean, but our room has nothing but a bed and little storage area, so it's a bit hard to function, but we'll manage.

May 27 - Athens

2008-08-25T19:55:00.001-07:00

Tuesday, May 27 - Athens
We each had a warm raisin bun and a bowl of cereal at the hostel.

A gal here gave us directions (which we wrote down) for getting to the city center and back by bus and city train. They worked well for us, and after about an hour we reached the area with the Greek ruins. We bought passes for all the sites. We first walked through the ruins of a library built before Christ. We then went to the Agora -- shops and government building ruins. It was getting quite hot in the sun.
We climbed and climbed to get up to the top of the mountain where the Acropolis and the Parthenon ruins are located.

Verle bought me an umbrella to give shade from the hot sun -- I seem to get overheated and miserable pretty fast. It really helped.

We walked around the whole area -- amazing. Without a guide, we don't know too much about it, but it appears to have been a wholly religious area for the wealthy.

Many of the ruins had scaffolding around them. They are doing restorations on the restorations done in the early 1900's, adding more original rocks to the structures. Down below we could see a complete temple standing in a green area, but we didn't try to walk to it.

We stopped for orange juice and a baklava on the rooftop of a little restaurant on the way back down. It was pricey but cool and a nice rest.
We took a detour in our train route on the way home to ask at the Larissa Central Train Station about validating our Eurail passes for going on the ferry tomorrow. We went the wrong direction first (both endpoint towns started with an A, and we can't read the rest in Greek.) We discovered the error right away and got back on the other direction. Other than that, we were able to make all our connections out and back with a minimum of trouble -- except -- a guy came close to us with a package of kleenex acting as though he needed some sort of help - and a pickpocket took Verle's billfold. Darn! Luckily, he had only the day's cash and no credit cards in it -- but still we lost over $100. Rick Steves had said not to carry a billfold -- now we know why.
We got back to our hostel around 3. I took a shower and took a nap, and Verle worked on getting more information about finding the ferry to Italy tomorrow.

May 28 - Athens, Greece to Ferry to Bari, Italy

2008-08-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

Wednesday
We woke up early, ate a (little) bit and left. We were a bit worried about making all our connections and getting to the ferry in time to sail tonight so we can get to our hostel in Sorrento tomorrow night. All our connections went smoothly and it was an interesting, restful, lovely day training the countryside of southern Greece.
Halfway through we changed to another train as scheduled. We met Cole and Mike from Alabama and chatted during our break between trains. They were going some of the same places we are and were fun to talk to.

The second half of our ride was quite interesting. The train was quite old and not electric. If we had been cream, we'd have turned to butter by the end of the trip. Verle thought he should have made a movie of the ride just to record all the tinny and bumpy sounds.

The countryside was lovely. We had mountains and the sea on either side and the train honked as it approached each town. Most of the area is green and lush, with steep mountainsides covered with trees that look impenetrable from a distance.
We stood in some lines for paperwork for the ferry and got on with no problems. It is more like a cruise ship than a regular ferry.

It is full of cabins where most people will sleep. Big chairs are free with our train passes, so we decided to just sleep in them overnight rather than spend 200 Euros (which is $300) for a cabin for one night.
We stayed out on the deck in the swimming pool area and watched the scenery. Verle worked on the computer for awhile.
Notice his power of concentration.

Later we played cards. At about 9, we thought we were sleepy enough to be able to sleep in the chairs, and we went to sleep easily. About midnight a bunch of teenagers came back from the bar and were really loud. The guys sounded drunk as they yelled back and forth to each other. Verle snored right on through it, but I was afraid I wouldn't get back to sleep. Luckily, I was wrong. We both had a good night's sleep, even though we work up sore several times. After moving around a bit in our seat, we worked out the cramps and went right back to sleep. The money saving venture wasn't too bad, and we woke up rested.

May 29 - Ferry to Sorrento, Italy

2008-08-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Thursday
The ferry docked in Bari, Italy about 9 a.m., and we got off and found the free city bus to the Central Rail Station. We got our reservations and ticket information to Naples, Italy, but the train didn't leave until 1:42, so we had quite a long wait. There was a little restaurant as part of the train station, and Verle had a sandwich and I had a really good warm "sandwich" that was something like a deep fried pita with a pizza/cheese sauce inside. It was really good.
We talked for a long time with a couple from Korea that slept close to us on the ferry last night.

They were Christians and great fun to talk to. They are traveling for 10 months and have already been to Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and Turkey. We talked about North and South Korea. He was in the army on the border when he was younger. They are about 35. She has just completed her studies and internship to be a family doctor, and will get a job at the end of their trip.
At noon I had another sandwich and Verle had a slice of pizza. As we getting ready to board the train we met Mike & Cole again ( the two from Alabama). They are traveling on the same train to Naples. Then we got on the comfortable, air-conditioned train. We are still on the first day of our train pass, which also paid for the ferry crossing. We were able to reach Naples in time to catch the Circumvesuviana train to Sorrento.

Sorrento is a pretty town built on a cliff above the sea. Our train went through long tunnels to get there. Everything is green here -- lots of grape vines and citrus fruit hanging on the trees.
We found the campground and checked in to our neat and clean green cabin. We found the rest rooms and showers and ate pizza and fruit at the hostel restaurant. It was very good and filling, because the pizzas covered a whole plate each. We met a family from Alaska. They said the Amalfi Coast bus ride is really good but crowded. Verle went to bed. I took a shower and washed my hair and clothes -- we left our hostel at 7:30 a.m. yesterday, and have worn the same clothes until now. A shower felt WONDERFUL!

May 30 - Sorrento, Italy - Pompei

2008-08-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

Friday
This was a fun day. We waited until 10 to see if we could stay a second night at this lovely area in Sorrento. We were able to get a cabin (more expensive, but with bathroom and kitchenette.) We were so relieved to be able to stay here, because it worked so much better with our bags and plans.
We were first going to share a cabin with an Alaska couple that we met at supper last night, but camp rules would not allow us to put 5 people in one cabin. We decided to go to Pompei together -- Terri and Steve Agee and college son, Chase.

Chase spent last semester at a University in Florence, Italy, and he has traveled a lot, so he served as our guide in making connections -- fun! We really had a good time with them, and ended up spending the whole day at Pompei because we were all enjoying it so much.
Pompei is so much more extensive than we had realized. The excavated area covers about 250 acres, with about 115 more acres still unexcavated. Settlement of the area began around the 6th century B.C. The town was built on Vesuvian lava, at the mouth of the Sarno River (where it empties into the Mediterranean.) The town soon became a busy port city. The Romans included Pompei in their organization starting about 343 B.C. and Pompei became a Roman colony in 80 B.C. A violent earthquake damaged the city in 62 A.D. Reconstruction began immediately, but the city was buried by the eruption of Mt, Vesuvius 17 years later on August 27, 79 A.D. The area was rediscovered in the 16th century, but exploration was not begun until 1748.
I have been so interested in Pompei ever since Latin classes in high school, but I had no idea how extensive the ruins of the town are.

We were very interested in the many "marble" columns throughout the city and in many homes. The core of each column is entirely made of bricks. A thick layer of cement covered this and was shaped to look like the multisided columns we connect with Roman and Greek architecture.
We walked and walked until our legs were tired. We were glad that we continued walking all the way to the east end of the town, because many well-preserved homes of the wealthy and the amphitheater are in this area. This ampitheater is one of the best preserved of the ancient amphitheaters. All the arches around the top are intact, and the arched entryways and halls and preserved.

The wealthy homes feature many beautiful frescoes and mosaic floors.

One well-preserved fresco showed two lovers. The young man found a scarf with blood on it and thought his lover had been killed by a lion, so he felt on his sword in anguish. The young lady found him dead and killed herself with his sword. (And we always thought that Shakespeare invented the plot for the story of Romeo and Juliet.)

We're glad we visited these ruins last, because they are so much more extensive than any other ruins we have visited on this vacation (Israel and Greece).

May 31 - Sorrento to La Spezia, Italy

2008-08-22T19:58:00.001-07:00

Saturday
We got up before 6 to try to beat the tourists and get a good seat on the bus along the Amalfi Coast (suggested by Rick Steves as an interesting and exciting ride.)

We didn't realize that the bus wouldn't come until 8:30, but the wait was worth it in order to get front row seats on the right side of the bus as recommended by Steves. What a lovely road and ride, and what great drivers those Italian bus drivers are! The road was usually narrow and winding with quite a lot of traffic, but the bus was driven with ease and we were able to enjoy the breathtaking views of the ocean directly below our high road. The bus driver used his horn to warn other drivers whenever he was approaching a blind curve.

The mountains above our route were lovely,

and the towns were clinging to the hillsides with streets and rows of houses like rows of terraces.

Our bus connecting to Salerno was waiting for us at Amalfi and we got reservations for our train to Rome and LaSpezia and were able to board almost right away when we reached Salerno. As usual, the Class 1 train was unusually comfortable and enjoyable. We had 1 ½ hours at the Rome station and ate a sandwich and our first gelata of the trip. Yum. Unfortunately, when we got to our train for La Spezia, my big backpack was unzipped and my day bag had fallen out or been taken. I retraced our steps but didn't see the bag anywhere. I had been taking pride in always being able to find everything and keep track of everything, and this was a big disappointment to me. I didn't have anything of value in the daybag -- my journal book, lipstick, kleenex, Dramamine -- but the journal had all our vital information and notes for our day at Cinque Terra and other notes for the rest of our trip. It won't help anyone else, but we'll miss it. Verle noticed that my backpack came partly unzipped the next time I carried it, so the daybag may just have fallen out.
Our train for the 4 hours to La Spezia from Rome was terribly hot, so I finally went back to the cooler car behind our car. (We had reserved seats, but the train wasn't nearly full.
The drive up the west coast of Italy was beautiful, with lots of farming and beautiful mountains. We passed Pisa, and I think I caught a quick view or two of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Everywhere we go, Italian couples are hugging and kissing -- at great length. I'd think it would get tiresome for them!
We got to La Spezia after 8 p.m. without a place to stay. We walked with our backpacks to a few hotels, but they were all full -- just our luck -- holiday weekend again. We seem prone to hit holidays in every country we go to! We finally had to take a hotel for twice our usual maximum rate, but our only other choice was the street or train station. It really was unfortunate that we couldn't find anywhere to sleep tonight on the Internet last night, even after looking for a long time.
We checked in to our room and went out to eat a bite -- we found wonderful sandwiches like the schawarmas in Israel for 3 ½ Euros each!

June 1 - Cinque Terre, Italy

2008-08-22T19:20:00.001-07:00

Sunday
The hotel breakfast ($10 for the two of us, included with our hotel cost) was WONDERFUL -- cereal, yogurt, cappachino, all kinds of rolls and toppings, juice, and cheese -- we ate until we were full. We decided that it would really simplify things with our bags and trying to find a place at Cinque Terre to just stay here again tonight and negotiated a $10 drop in price with the hotel management because they don't need to clean and change the bedding/towels.
This turned out to be another day that exceeded our expectations! Rick Steves had painted a grand word picture of Cinque Terre, and we wondered if we would like it as much as he did. We LOVED it.

The views of the 5 towns, the unspoiled mountains and seaside, the walk between the first 4 towns -- it was like riding our bikes through the countryside, but we were walking instead.
We had expected some rugged walking. Steves had said that there were 382 steps up to Corniglia,

but he hadn't told us that there were a great many more rocky steps to take us high above that town on our way to Vernanzza.

The path was a lot more rocky and hilly than we had expected, but we totally enjoyed it all.

We were so thankful to be able to enjoy a walk that was this strenuous, knowing that many people our age would not be able to walk this route and enjoy it. We remembered trips with a broken bone in my foot, trying to walk with a pulled groin muscle and Verle being so exhausted that we feared for his health walking on the Multnomah path in Oregon.
The homes in the towns along the path are clustered on the mountainsides,

which are terraced with stone walls and covered with vineyards. The sea and the seacoast are gorgeous, both at sea level and from high above the sea. We did decide, by the time we reached Vernanzza, that to walk the last stretch to Monterosso was unnecessary. Our legs were getting a bit weary and there was no point in risking injury or total exhaustion by going on to Monterosso when the path between the first four towns, Riomaggiore, Manarola,, Corniglia, and Vernanzza had been so very enjoyable.
Another observation: Why is it that the Italians, who can so smoothly maneuver cars, buses and motorcycles on narrow winding streets, can so shamelessly push themselves into the front of a crowded line of people?
We were able to catch the train back into La Spezia (there was a railroad strike from 9 p.m. last night to 9 p.m. tonight, and there was some concern that the train would not run). We stopped at the train station and got our itinerary and necessary reservations for our trip to Disentis, Switzerland leaving at 6:40 a.m. tomorrow.
The Kebab cafe where we got our sandwich last night beckoned us again, and we had a great time with the manager as he made us each another panino for 3.50 Euros.

What a meal that makes! He also gave us free French fries as a gift and we took his picture in front of the store.
Since we're leaving early in the morning, we paid our bill at the Hotel Mary.
They gave us five hours of Internet use for free and offered to have breakfast available at 6 a.m. instead of 7, as posted. We took pictures with the manager and his daughter, whom he says looks like Madonna! Unfortunately, Verle and the manager were later unable to make the wireless connection work, but we appreciated the kind gesture. We did use their computer to try to find housing in Andermatt tomorrow, but couldn't find anything reasonable, so we'll have to find something (hopefully) when we get there. The bike trail we will be riding is called the Rhine River Trail. We hope to get some kind of map at the train station.

June 2 - La Spezia, Italy to Disentis, Switzerland

2008-08-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

Monday

We rode the train from 6:42 a.m. to about 4 this afternoon -- a fun, easy, and delightful day! From La Spezia near the Italian sea to Disentis on top of the Swiss Alps is quite a contrast. It's so gorgeous up here!!!

In the comfortable train, we retraced our route through Cinque Terra and continued along the seaside to Genoa. It seemed like we were riding in tunnels about 1/3 of the time. From Genoa, we turned east to Milan and then north again to Switzerland.
Seeing the remarkable and majestic Swiss Alps from Bellinzona to Goschenen to Andermatt to Disentis was pure joy. Riding along with snow below us

and melting water gushing down the sides of the mountains,

and viewing all this through train cars with curved windows that allowed us to see all the way up to the tops of the mountains on both sides was breathtaking!

After the oppressing heat of Eilat, Israel, it seemed impossible to need a sweater and to see the fields of snow.
When we arrived in Disentis,

we mailed my postcard to EnKhunizen, Netherlands apologizing to the Friends of Bicyclers there for not being able to notify them that we weren't able to keep our reservation with them because I was sick in Amsterdam (we'd lost their contact info).
We got information at the train station for renting bikes for 3 days beginning tomorrow morning. Then we looked for a place to stay. We called 3 Zimmers, but couldn't talk to anyone, so we started walking to look for one of the Zimmers that we thought had a room available. We walked quite a ways with our backpacks, but they didn't answer their door. It started to rain, and each Zimmer that we stopped at was full. We were getting soaked by the time we finally found a (too expensive) room at the Alpsu Hotel. We changed to dry clothes, ate supper at the hotel, and walked back to the phone booth and called Elsa to see if our stopping at her house on Wednesday would work for her. She said it would be fine, and we will be staying with her Wednesday night -- that is, if we don't have too much more rain!
We spent the rest of the evening checking our E-mail and adding pictures to several of our blogs -- big job, but it's great to have a good, free wireless Internet connection.

June 3 - Biking from Disentis to Valendas, Switzerland

2008-08-22T19:13:00.000-07:00

Tuesday
The 24-speed bikes we rented at the train station are quite a bit better bikes than they had available in 2001. We ate a good breakfast at the hotel (free), tried to buy a map for the Rhine bike route (unsuccessfully -- didn't want to pay $28 for a book written in German to get the 7 pages of maps we wanted.) I bought some fruit and candy at a market and made a couple of sandwiches from breakfast. We put yesterday's journal and pictures on our blog. It took us a long time to get left; we were finally on our way at 10 a.m.

riding down a very steep and winding road, which was hard on bikes that we weren't yet accustomed to riding. We got to what was supposed to be the bike trail, and it was rocky and terrible. It looked much more like a mountain bike trail. I was sure we hadn't started our ride from Disentis on anything like this, so we pushed our bikes all the way back up to the highway. (very difficult)

We couldn't find any other way out of town, so we rode the highway. That was actually fun, but not where we were supposed to be. The traffic wasn't too heavy. At the next town, we stopped at a market and asked directions to the trail. A young girl gave us directions, but we didn't do something right and ended up on another steep downhill in someone's back yard. The man there was in his back yard and gave us the correct directions to the trail. We had to walk our bikes up again. I was ready to give up and turn our bikes back in to the train station!
When we did find the bike path, it was very enjoyable riding.

The weather was perfect and the scenery is breathtaking. The path was mostly downhill. The surface was rocky and somewhat muddy in spots, but we enjoyed the ride. We watched out like hawks for bike route markers so we wouldn't get off trail again.

We stopped at different points and ate some of our fruit, sandwiches, and peanuts that we had bought. It was really fun to be in the Alps riding our bikes through such beautiful scenery along the Rhine River. The river is whitish aqua -- probably glacial melt.
We came to a covered bridge across the Rhine. We remembered it from 2001, and we took some more photos there.

About 3:30 we came to an uphill climb on the highway -- we remembered it well from 2001. It isn't steep, but it doesn't stop going up -- we got REALLY weary. We thought the climb lasted until Versam, but we came to an interesting water fountain that we remember from 2001. We think this is the top of the climbing road. The town is Valendas, not Versam. There was a Zimmer beside the water fountain and they had room, so we stayed there. We showered and took a nap, then went out walking. It's a lovely little town with a lot of very solid log type barns and typical Swiss homes. There are flowers everywhere. The mountain villages all have springs that flow into cute tanks.

We came back and played Nurtz in the Zimmer dining area. Mariana gave us a chalk board to keep score, a pad to put the cards on, and a deck of Swiss playing cards. We were going to use them instead of ours, but they didn't contain 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, and there were 2 ace of diamonds, so they wouldn't work for Nurtz. A group of men were also playing cards in the other corner. They deal the cards counter-clockwise instead of clockwise like we do. The lady that runs the Zimmer and restaurant is very nice but can't speak any English. I'd really like to be able to talk with her.
We have two big questions for tomorrow:
1. Will it rain as predicted?
2. Is Valendas the top of the climb, or do we still have three more miles to climb to Versam???
We expect to get to Elsa Rutz's in Jenins tomorrow.

June 4 - Valendas to Jenins, Switzerland (Elsa's)

2008-08-22T19:11:00.001-07:00

Wednesday
We had a fine breakfast at the restaurant at our Zimmer. (There were 2 empty rooms next to us last night on the 2nd (3rd) floor. We rode to Versam (partly up) and then crossed a high bridge

and rode the beautiful steep and winding path down through the Grand Canyon of the Rhine as we remembered from 2001.

There were some tunnels, one long enough that we were barely able see light at the end.
We came to Bandorez and stopped at a bike shop to buy a map of the Rhine Bike path. They didn't have one, but we bought a big regular map of the area -- for $25. We couldn't believe the price and it wasn't what we need. We went on and couldn't find our route. The signs told us to go back toward Disentis beginning with a steep climb. We looked at a large map in an information area, and it appeared that the bike trail only went around in a big loop. We couldn't find any way to get to the northeast like we needed to except on the highways, and there was just too much traffic for that to be safe. I was ready to go back home to Waco! We finally went back to the bike shop for advice (through all this time doing a lot of pushing our bikes uphill.) The bike shop was closed over noon, and we had to wait an hour for them to come back. When he came, we sold back our useless map and he took us outside to show us the bike trail sign we had missed seeing when we had turned into the bike shop. He told us to just follow the signs and we'd be fine. It was a nice trail, but it took us back to the same place, so this time we took the path that I thought went to Disentis and it took us to the right bike trail. In fact, we rode past a farm that I remembered from 2001 when we rode this trail. The trail was quite nice. We'd lost almost 4 hours in Bandorez -- and part of that time we were riding in the rain!
We rode on following the trail without trouble, but we did a lot of walking our bikes uphill. The area was beautiful, and the weather was cool and refreshing.

We came to the general area of Jenins, but it seemed to take forever to get to Elsa's, and a lot of the path was uphill. I finally got so tired that I could hardly walk my bike on the uphill climbs. In fact, at one point, Verle rode his bike up and then came back and got mine!
We reached Elsa's at last -- at 6 or so. Elsa had put an American flag on the upstairs flower box to help us find her house. It was such a joy to see her again.

She served us tea and sweet bread, and I quickly revived. Elsa is the same gracious lady that we remembered from 2001.

She was sick last winter, but is recovered now. Her home is much bigger than I remembered. I think we just sat in the sunroom last time. She had a huge guest bedroom ready for us, with a fragrant dark red rose and a candy bar on the table. We showered, changed clothes, put on the house slippers that she gave us to wear, and went down for supper. Elsa's daughter, Daniela (born October 3, 1962) phoned, and we had a good visit--in English. Elsa's son, Heinz (born January 6, 1966), his wife Sonya, and their son, Oliver (10 years old in 3rd grade) came across the yard to meet us. They are like us, living near one another. They work together in the vineyard. Elsa just finished several long days helping get the grapes tied up to their pole supports. The grape vines grew faster than usual because of the warm weather they had this spring. Elsa's daughter has one son, Colin, close to the same age as Oliver.
Elsa had a letter from Raisa, written for her in Russian by Raisa's aunt. She shared the information from it. Raisa now has Parkinson's, but is otherwise doing well at the nursing home.
We enjoyed the pictures on the walls including one of Elsa's confirmation and a certificate from her daughter's confirmation. Elsa's maiden name was Wills. Heinz looks very much like his father, who died 20 years ago of cancer. Other pictures on the wall are very old needlework that is lovely. Elsa has two lovely rugs on her living room walls -- she made them.
We enjoyed visiting and went to bed about 9:30. I was going to write this journal first, but the bed beckoned me too strongly after all the hard riding today.

June 5 - Elsa's to Buchs to Sargans, Switzerland

2008-08-22T19:08:00.000-07:00

Thursday
We had agreed on breakfast at 8 a.m. with me frying he bacon and eggs. I didn't set the alarm because we've been waking up around 6, but this morning we slept soundly until 7:45! It is so comfortable and homey at Elsa's! The very fragrant red flower bud on our table opened overnight -- lovely!
When we started to eat, Elsa said she was expecting us to stay a week or so. She was really disappointed that we had paid for one more day of bike riding at the train station in Disentis. We decided to try to stop for another day or two on the way back from Spain. Elsa would like to take us up into the Alps on the cog railroad, and we will hope for better weather, so we can go out into the vineyard and learn more about that culture (and maybe help a little).
We enjoyed a hearty breakfast. Betti(Elsa's step-sister) stopped to meet us. That was special. Elsa played the accordion for us (so enjoyable!)

and showed us an old picture of her grandmother and neighbors taken after they had finished a day's work in the vineyard. Elsa said that she and her husband had built their lovely home on land from Elsa's mother in 1961 -- the same time Verle's folks built their home. It was hard to say goodby.

We left on our bikes around 11. The weather was cool and the clouds covered the tops of the mountains all through the day's ride. We had an enjoyable ride without getting lost or rained on or walking our bikes up very many hills. We chatted with a couple from Basel, Switzerland in one of the villages. We asked them what town we were in and they said, "Fleish." We were glad, because that meant that we hadn't made a wrong turn and started up the mountain like we did in 2001!
We rode on through vineyards and some forest. Before long, we came to the Rhine River and rode for the rest of the day along the concrete bike path on the top of a dike along the river. It was easy riding and a fun way to finish our biking on this trail.

At about 3:30, we decided that we should find a town with a train station where we could turn our bikes back in. We rode into Buhl, and tried to set up our train schedule for going to Denia, Spain. Unfortunately, the ticket man wasn't able to get us a complete schedule. He gave us a number to phone, but our phone card ran out of time, and the woman we had reached did not call us back on the pay phone as she had promised. The reservations that we need from Geneva to Marsailles and from Marsailles to Barcellona were already sold out. Also, he couldn't take our bikes back in Buhls, so we had to take our bikes on the train back to Sargans, a town that we had already ridden past, in order to have them sent back to Disentis. The ticket lady there was also unable to get train reservations for us. She suggested that we go as far as Geneva and then go to the French part of that train station to try to get the rest of our schedule and to try again to get reservations. If we can't get them, we may have to travel on slower trains. A night train may be available.
We rode our bikes around Sargans trying to find a Zimmer in a private home, but we weren't able to find any, so we got a room, at the Post Hotel. We left our bags in our room, rode our bikes back to the train station to check in our bikes and helmets, and walked back to our hotel, stopping at the Coop to get some soup, ice cream, and Fanta for supper and a bunch of snacks for the next two days on the train.

June 6 - Train from Sargans, Switzerland to Avignon, France

2008-08-22T19:06:00.001-07:00

Friday
We rode the train to Geneva, but weren't able to get reservations for the rest of the way or for a night train. The ticket lady suggested waiting until the night train left at 6:30 p.m. or so and to see if we could get in. That didn't sound like a good idea to us, so she gave us a schedule for slower non-reservation trains to the south end of France. (Nobody can seem to Spain's schedules, but we can get an idea of possible options from the schedule book we received with our Eurail passes.)
It was an interesting day riding across the rest of Switzerland (Zurich to Geneva) and France (Geneva to Avignon). We saw many, many vineyards -- it looks like enough to supply the whole world with wine!

France has a lot of old buildings that are still in use. Avignon has a walled inner city that looks as though it might have been built by the Moors or in the time of the Crusaders.
We use our camel's backs to carry our drinking water. Those seem to be unknown, even by bicyclers here in Europe. They ask us if they are for oxygen!
We got a train schedule for tomorrow as far as Barcelona and don't need any reservations (cheaper). It's not a good schedule, because we don't reach Barcelona until 6:46 tomorrow evening and still need to train to Valencia and then bus to Denia, so we probably won't be able to check in tomorrow as we are supposed to. We are disappointed. We thought we'd allowed plenty of time. Oh, well. We'll still have a lot of time in Denia

June 7 - Train from Avignon, France to Valencia, Spain

2008-08-22T19:03:00.000-07:00

Saturday
Well, here we are, still not in Denia, and today was our day to check in. One exciting thing -- we wanted to let the Ogisaka Garden people in Denia know that we wouldn’t be checking in today, but we have a terrible time trying to use the phone systems in the various countries. David had said that if we are online, the computer phone can be used to make international calls here, so we tried it and were able to get through to our Denia hotel and they noted on their books that we would check in tomorrow instead of today. Wow, what exciting technology!

It was good that our train didn´t leave until later, because it gave us some time to walk around Avignon and see the old walls (They call them ramparts).

We saw some trees that were different than we´ve seen before. The young ones have smooth bark, but as the trees grow older, their bark gets very interesting.

The train rides today were easy and interesting. We were along the coast with a sandy beach much of the day. Crops, especially vineyards of grapes and orange groves were all along the way. We surmise that Valencia oranges originate in Valencia, Spain. In much of this area, the land is quite flat and productive. Terraced vineyards often have very old rock walls edging the terraces. Ruins of old buildings, castles, walls, and deserted rock/stone homes dot the countryside. We had a bit of a scare leaving Port Bou in France headed for Barcelona. We got on the train for Barcelona at the time listed, but the train went back north through the tunnel we had entered on the way into Port Bou. It went to the town at the north end of the tunnel and stopped. Everyone on the train got off. We asked a man that got off from the front (engineer?), and he said it was the right train to Barcelona. It was hard to stay on the train when no one else was on it, but we stayed, and the train went back to Port Bou and more people got on and we headed on toward Barcelona. We don’t know what the deal was at first with our train, but we’re happy that we remained on the train even though we were the only ones on it for awhile!
Two recent graduates from Purdue, one from Kentucky and the other from Chicago, sat across from us on the train from Barcelona to Valencia. They are staying at a Youth Hostel in Valencia. They lent us their phone to call their hostel, but it was full for tonight. They gave us two other hostel phone numbers from a travel guide book they had, but we couldn’t make the phone connect.

Our train got to Valencia at 11 p.m. We put our bags in a locker at the train station and went out to walk around town for awhile, planning to probably sleep at the train station until morning. However, according to the Internet, our bus doesn’t leave until 2:30 tomorrow afternoon, so we decided to stay at the Hotel Sorolla in Valencia.

Well, Italy is not the only "kissy" country:

June 8 - Bus from Valencia to Denia, Spain

2008-08-22T15:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday
Needing to clarify our bus schedule from Valencia to Denia, we found out at the train station (which is only 2 blocks from our hotel) that we needed to take city bus 8 to the bus station. After quite a long wait, we successfully reached the bus station and learned that buses leave for Denia at 10 and 12. We rode the bus back to the train station and Verle decided to take it around the block back to the bus stop where we’d gotten on. However, Bus 8 went all the way through town and stopped at the far end, where the bus driver told us we needed to get off because it was the end of the line. We told him that we had to get back to the train station, but he was quite adamant that we had to get off. Verle offered to pay him for two more tickets so we could stay on, and he finally backed down and let us stay on!
Valencia is one of the prettiest cities we’ve been in. There are many parks, water fountains, flowers, painted and decorated buildings, and interesting buildings that must be quite old. If I had to live in a city, Valencia would be high on my list of choices.

There is an amphitheater next to the train station that is advertising some event for June 6-8. It sounds like it’s bull fighting.

As we walked by, people were entering. Later on TV we saw a bullfight and wonder if it was televised from Valencia!

We went back to our hotel and checked out, got our bags from the storage boxes at the train station. Verle got into trouble with the train station security people for taking a picture of the trains. They made him show them the picture on his digital camera and watched while he deleted it. They then made him scroll through his photos to prove that the picture was deleted.
We rode City Bus 8 back to the bus station where we bought our tickets for Denia and got front row seats on the bus to Denia. It was again a lovely ride. This whole area of Spain is productive and well cared for.
We reached Denia, got another of the enjoyable Kebab-type sandwiches, and took a cab to the Ogisaka Garden condo. We checked in easily and found our home for the next week. We lost Saturday by coming in late, but Hosea at the desk gave it back to us in exchange for our buying a package deal of 3 breakfasts and 3 other meals each at the restaurant here. The cost was reasonable - less than a night in a hotel, and gives us some good meals here. We have a balcony and a great view of the swimming pool, walks, and condo area.

We met a couple from Norfolk, NE, who are staying here. They came over with a music group from their daughter’s college at Wesleyan and are headed to Denmark for a family reunion. They are away from home for 6 weeks. We walked to a market a couple of blocks away and bought some groceries, had hot tea, unpacked our things into the closets, and put in a batch of clothes to wash in the machine in our kitchen.
It has been rather gloomy and rainy for the last few days. It didn’t make much difference, since we’ve been riding the train, except that sometimes we couldn’t see the mountain tops because of clouds. Tonight it is raining hard. We’re glad we’re in our nice, cozy “home” here in Denia.

June 9 - Our 51st Wedding Anniversery, Denia, Spain

2008-08-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

Monday
We celebrated our anniversary by eating breakfast at the restaurant here, catching up on the Internet, walking one mile to the bus station and one mile back to get the schedules for returning to Valencia on the way to Malaga, washing more clothes, and playing cards all evening. It was a great day.

We went online and learned that we can take the bus from here to Malaga, which would be simpler than taking the bus to Valencia and the train from Valencia to Madrid to Malaga. We’ll walk back to the bus station again tomorrow to make sure this plan is feasible, although the ticket man there is about as rude as some of the bus ticket salesmen in the U.S. We are also concerned about Spain’s trucker’s strike, which threatens to shut down the country’s buses and trains. How will we get out if that happens???

June 10 - Ogisaka Gardens, Denia, Spain

2008-08-22T15:18:00.001-07:00

Tuesday
We walked uptown again to confirm our bus schedule for Sunday and had another sandwich at “Kebob.”
A sign along the way reminded us of home.

(We never realized that the word “Utica” appears in the word “nautical.”)
We walked over to the castle,

but unfortunately, it was 2:30, and the castle closes over “noon” and doesn’t open until 4:00. The whole country seems to close down in the middle of the day. The meal schedule here at the restaurant also reflects this:
Breakfast 8:30 - 10:30, Lunch 1:30 - 4:30, Dinner 8:30 - 10:15 p.m.

We didn’t walk back to the castle later because Verle’s rib hurts when he walks a lot. (Last Wednesday before we reached Elsa’s in Switzerland, I slowed down on my bike more than Verle expected. He was following rather closely and swerved to keep from hitting my bike. His big bag on the back of his bike pulled him over, and he landed on his shoulder. He seemed to be O.K. At the time, but his rib has hurt more as the days have gone by.)
We dressed up and ate the evening dinner meal at the restaurant here.

June 11, Denia, Spain

2008-08-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

Wednesday
We slept late and took a long nap this afternoon, so we should be really rested up! The weather was gorgeous today. It is the first day since we arrived Sunday that we could see “our” mountain -- it has been covered with clouds and rain until now.

This morning we walked south along the beach for a couple of miles.

Then we came back and ate a great meal at the restaurant here. Later in the afternoon we walked into town (a 3 mile round trip) and visited the castle (1600’s - an early 1700 capture, we think) on a high hill that overlooks the seaside. It was very interesting to visit,

but we couldn’t read any of the Spanish and didn’t have a guide, so we don’t know a lot about what we were seeing. The view of the town and sea from the tower was great.

Verle’s rib didn’t bother him during our walks.

June 12 - Denia, Spain

2008-08-22T15:09:00.001-07:00

Thursday
Today was clear and warm -- hot enough that we waited until 5:30 to take another walk along the beach

-- this time to the north and out to the “lighthouse” at the end of a long sea wall.

We ate breakfast at the restaurant here. I made supper in our rooms, but we couldn’t make the stove top work, and the manual was only in Spanish. We had to give up and cook our apples in the microwave. We’ve been enjoying baked potatoes from the sack of potatoes that we bought at the market here. It’s fun to eat our meals out on the patio.

I beat Verle in all three games -- Nurtz, Casino, and Head and Foot. He won Nurtz after supper. It’s clear that we’re on vacation!

June 13-14 - Denia, Spain

2008-08-22T15:07:00.001-07:00

Friday and Saturday
We can hardly believe how much we have been relaxing this week -- sleeping, watching TV, eating at the restaurant and on our patio, going for walks, doing almost nothing, and playing cards. It was the height of leisure yesterday to sit and play cards while a cleaning lady came in and changed the sheets on our bed, mopped the floor, and cleaned the bathroom. We felt like aristocracy!

June 15 - Denia, Spain to Ashcraft's Camp North of Malaga, Spain

2008-08-22T10:36:00.001-07:00

Sunday
Having finished our extra day's stay at Ogisaka Gardens in Denia, we packed up and walked wearing our backpacks for the mile back to the bus station in downtown Denia to catch the 9:45 a.m. bus to Malaga.

After our late morning arising for so many days, we had to uncharacteristically set our alarm clock! Luckily, Verle woke up on time on his own, because I had set the alarm for 7 p.m. instead of a.m. Perhaps the European practice of using military time (17:00, etc.) is better, because it would avoid such errors.
We were very happy with our decision to go to Malaga by bus instead of train, because we didn't have to worry about any connections or train reservations. We could see the countryside very well from our bus windows. The bus followed the coast to Alicanti and then went inland through Elx, Murcia, Lorea, and Granada. As we went farther west and south, the mountains became rougher as we drove higher. One mountain still has snow on top of it. We went through some areas that looked like we had imagined Spain would be -- rocky, hilly, and dry. Some areas that were terraced long ago no longer have crops growing on them. But we were surprised that so much of the area we traveled through was green and very productive.

Trees have been planted everywhere, including to the top of many mountains. Some are nut trees; closer to Granada most are olive trees. We wonder how all of this is harvested and marketed.

We drove into many towns to stop at bus stations all along the way. Sometimes we stopped for 15 - 30 minutes. There seems to be much construction going on in the cities of Spain. Many big cranes dot the landscape.
We see MacDonalds stores all over Spain. I have no desire to eat American food while we are in Europe -- BUT some of David's pancakes and eggs on Saturday morning with Dave's family around would be SUCH a treat! We enjoy the hard rolls and salad for breakfast, but we do miss home so much!
Glenn Ashcraft picked us up at the train station. He had "Stahr" written on a piece of paper, so we connected easily. He had brought two campers into town; we were glad he hadn't had to make a special trip, because it's 40 minutes north of Malaga to the camp. The Malaga team had just won a soccer match, and there was a lot of slow traffic. We got to the camp and met Sue and visited awhile. Then Glenn got us some food and showed us to the cabin where we will be staying. It is very comfortable -- and lovely here. We will enjoy these days!

June 16 - Springs of Life Camp with Ashcrafts

2008-08-22T10:32:00.001-07:00

Monday
We are high enough here that the nights are cool, even though yesterday was rather warm. We ate breakfast at our cabin using the food Glenn gave us last night (milk, corn flakes, bread, margarine, orange juice, eggs, apples, jelly). Verle took the computer to Glenn and Sue's to use their wireless Internet.

I spent the morning doing the first job here -- counting the silverware and dishes and cleaning the carts. Verle fixed a flour sifter and swept out all the miniature golf pads.

In the afternoon, Glenn walked us around the Manantiales De Vida (Springs of Life) Camp and explained their setup here.

Glenn enjoyed showing us the five sets of benches that Bruce and Maureen made for them when they visited here in 1987.

After our walk, Glenn put Fox News on for us. We haven't been able to watch it since Israel, so we it was a treat to see it again. After that, we continued our jobs and rested awhile in our cabin before supper at 9 p.m.

We ate camp food for lunch and supper with Glenn. After supper, Glenn taught us how to use the dishwasher and put things away. They had 80 for supper tonight. It was pretty late by the time everything was cleaned up. Paco does all the cooking alone, but will soon have a helper for the summer. Sometimes the camp has 120-150 guests at a time.

June 17 - Springs of Life Camp with Ashcrafts

2008-08-22T10:29:00.001-07:00

Tuesday
We became the official kitchen clean-up crew today. It was fun washing dishes and tables, and keeping our end of the kitchen clean. It was another lovely day with clear blue sky.
Glenn took us into Antcquera, a town of 50,000, to the new train station to get our tickets/reservations for leaving Thursday. We will leave from there at 3:26 in the afternoon, arrive in Madrid at 5:55, switch stations and trains for the night train to Paris (reclining seats rather than beds because beds would have cost about $335 is U.S. Dollars.) We are scheduled to arrive in Paris at 8:27 a.m. They tried so hard but couldn't schedule us further using Eurail passes, so we are back to the old reservation problem and not being able to schedule our night stay in hostels in advance. The railroad station here is new, and three people worked to try to get us a schedule. I think it was a learning situation for them, and we really appreciated all their effort. It's discouraging for us to have so much trouble all the time with train schedules and reservations. It is much more difficult than in 2001. It seems as though the Eurail passes don't have nearly as much value as they did in 2001 -- and their cost has more than doubled.
After we finished at the train station, Glenn had a lot of purchasing for the camp (food) and a big swim pool to buy on sale for the maintenance man's daughter here at the camp. All of this took a lot longer than we had expected, so it was a bit stressful. We were glad that Sue hadn't tried to come along. She'd have gotten awfully tired.
It was warm enough to appreciate our cabin's air conditioner after the noon clean-up was done. Rowena showed us their apartment and we rested. We worked more on the Internet, but it takes so long to put pictures on our blog that we only did two so far. We looked for the phone numbers and addresses of hostels where we might be able to stay on Friday night, depending on where our Paris schedule gets us to. We continue to enjoy excellent meals here. We were very ready to go to bed after the evening (9 p.m. Supper) clean-up was finished.

June 18 - Springs of Life Camp With Ashcraft's

2008-08-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

Wednesday
After breakfast clean-up,

we accompanied Glenn on some errands in another nearby town, Villanueva del Trabuco, which means "new musketville." We went to several shops, including one where he picked up his repaired weed eater. It was market day, and Glenn bought watermelon and bananas for the camp and some bing cherries for us. I got some apricots for the train and we had Spanish funnel cakes. It was an interesting and fun morning. Glenn invited us to come and work again next summer.

A girl with physical/mental problems was trying to grate carrots to help in the kitchen. She was trying so hard, but she just couldn't get it right. I could feel for her and for Marilyn in similar situations.

June 19-20 Ashcraft's Camp in Spain to Paris, France

2008-08-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Thursday & Friday
There was time to help set up and clean up for the breakfast and snack meals before Glenn and Sue took us to the train station for our 3:26 train to Madrid.

We also had our first “chance” to clean the bathrooms! We had an early lunch (early lunch in Spain is 2 p.m.). The train station is new. After a quick prayer, we were on our way. What a wonderful and peaceful time we had at the camp!
The train was comfortable and out ride to Madrid was through another productive part of Spain -- olive trees everywhere. They should be Spain’s national tree! We are surprised that so much of Europe’s land is producing something. We climbed a lot through mountains. From above looking down, it reminded us of the Swiss mountains and forests and villages. After that we rode through miles of plains -- mostly hay and grain farms. One interesting “farm” was all solar panels!
When we reached Madrid, we had over an hour to change train stations from Atocha to the Madrid Chamartin Station. By asking right away, we had no problem. The night train to Paris was much better than we expected. We were glad that we hadn’t paid $335 for a bed. They gave us water and ear plugs and played soft music. It was a first class car, so it was quieter and we had much more space than on the night train that we took in 2001.
We slept pretty well and woke up to mile after mile of mostly wheat fields. We guess it must take a lot of wheat to make so many hard rolls to feed all of Europe and Israel! When we reached Paris, we went right to the information station to schedule the rest of our trip to Heidelberg/Bad Mergentheim. Unfortunately, after waiting in a long line, we had to deal with a non-English-speaking ticket agent. The one who spoke English had left his station. Our agent wasn’t much help. It was the same old story -- all the trains were full and we couldn’t get a reservation. We would have been glad to take slower trains, but we couldn’t communicate well enough to function. She finally found a train to Luxembourg, but it didn’t leave until after 2 p.m., so we had to sit in the train station for half a day. We are more than a little disgusted with the train system here compared to 2001. We are having a very frustrating time getting suitable connections and are disappointed that it is so hard to get reservations, even several days ahead of time. The Eurail passes aren’t nearly as convenient a way to travel as we had expected.
When we got to Luxembourg, they helped us schedule the rest of the way to Bad Mergentheim. It was after 4, and we decided to have them schedule us for tomorrow instead of taking their first plan that would have gotten us to Heidelberg at 10:30 or to Bad Mergentheim at 11:30. The travel information at the train station gave us a book listing sleeping places and phoned for us. We are staying at the New Chemin De Fer Hotel on Rue Jos Junck (think just junk) street right next to the train station. We think that’s funny.

It’s an inexpensive hotel with the toilet down the hall, and we’re on the third floor (4th floor to us in the U.S.) We went out for another Kabob sandwich and walked around town awhile, almost getting ourselves lost!

June 21 - Luxembourg to Bad Mergentheim, Germany

2008-08-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

Saturday
This was another of those days that greatly exceeded our expectations. All of our connections (surprisingly) went like clockwork. We had to change trains at Trier, Koblenz, Mainz, Frankfurt, and Wurzburg (for Bad Mergentheim). We had three train connections with less that 10 minutes for changing trains and platforms within the stations, and we made them all easily. The countryside was gorgeous and the trains and slow trains were very comfortable. The mountains, the hilltop castles, the riverside and the small towns are lovely to view and study. Vineyards and fields continue to produce wondereful crops in this part of Europe. We had a long visit with two young ladies (28 or so) who were returning to their jobs with a tax firm in Munich. They had been taking some training in Frankfurt. We really enjoyed visiting with them -- Katharina and Bernadett. We were also happy to be able to buy an inexpensive map of the Tabour bike trail in Wurzburg. We had fruit and nuts to munch on through the day.
Many things could have really derailed our day. Our first connection was in Trier, Germany, where we had only 6 minutes to change from Trier Sud to a different platform in Trier Nord. We loaded up to rush out of the train at Trier Sud. Two woman practically held us down to keep us from leaving the train, and trying to tell us in German that it was the wrong place to get off, even though it said, “Trier Sud.” It turned out that the Trier Sud town was ¼ mile or so from the main Trier station, which had Trier Sud and Trier Nord platforms. Had we missed that train, our whole schedule would have been messed up. Phew!!
Secondly, we found the train station closed when we got to Bad Mergentheim. We had been planning to take care of several items at the tourist information center there, like finding a place to stay and renting our bicycles for the next 3-4 days. However, a city tourist place downtown was very helpful in calling for us for a place to stay and in finding connections for us to rent bikes, since we couldn’t do it at the train station. We arrived at the information center just 15 minutes before it closed and at the bike station just 15 minutes before it closed. (Like at home, things close early on Saturdays here.)
Our “home” for the night is lovely.

It is in a private home, less expensive than most of the places we have stayed, and a complete and lovely apartment with three rooms (including a kitchen) and a bath. Everything is neat and clean and tastefully decorated. We have a patio where we ate a (small) box of ice cream we bought uptown.

Later we had supper and tea on the patio. We enjoy the flowers in the flower boxes and the interesting homes all around. I would recommend this home to anyone traveling in this part of Europe. You can check it out at:
http://www.ferien-im-entengässle.de
(You have to have the umlaut on the a. If you don't know how to do it, ask Lukas Stähr!)
The bikes we rented are very nice bikes and as cheap as those in the Netherlands. We rented them for four days of riding on the Tabour River Route in Germany. We hope to get to the walled city of Rothenburg tomorrow.
We took a walk uptown to the city center, the castle, and the lovely park here in Bad Mergentheim.

This is a neat and typical German town that’s not overrun by tourists. We love to visit places where life is the normal life of the people who live there, not a showplace for tourists!

June 22 - Biking from Bad Mergentheim to Rothenburg, Germany

2008-08-22T01:44:00.001-07:00

Sunday
We found the biking trail on our walk last night, so it was easy to find our way out of town through the beautiful park. The riding was lovely along the Tauber river. We still had to go up through villages like on the Rhine Trail, but it was enjoyable until we got closer to Rothenburg. Here we had to ride far up above the villages, down again and up again. I say "ride" when I should say "walk" our bikes.

It was getting hotter and hotter, and the walks got tougher and tougher. To top it off, we were supposed to ride (we walked) our bikes up the last mile along the highway into Rothenburg. This proved to be the "straw that broke the camel's back," and we were ready to take the first lodging place that we found when we arrived in Rothenburg at about 2 p.m. Fortunately it is a typically German clean and lovely place and is reasonably priced. We showered and napped until the weather cooled some.
Our hotel was just outside the city walls, so we walked most of the wall (the west part along the river is the sides of buildings).

Rothenburg is as interesting and lovely as they say.

About 40% of the old city was destroyed by allied bombing in World War 2. The city advertised in all the tourist magazines for donations to rebuild, and those who responded have their names on plates on the walkway around the walls. We enjoyed walking through the city and then took the 8 p.m. walk with the Night Watchman. He was such a good story teller, and we learned a lot about the history of the city -- what fun!

He told how the old city was saved from total destruction by the allied forces when a U.S. General intervened because he knew the value of the old medieval city since he had grown up with a painting of the city in his grandmother's home. She had procured it on a visit to Rothenburg before the war. The major German general was out of Rothenburg at the time of the negotiations, and the under-general was willing to evacuate his troops from the city in order to save it. Five weeks later, the war was over. After the hour walk, we were ready to sleep -- again!

June 23 - Rothenburg, Train to Bad Mergentheim, Bike to Werbach

2008-08-22T01:36:00.000-07:00

Monday
One of the most important tasks each day is typing up the "story of our day." I keep a journal on most of our vacations so we can look back and remember. We're glad to share it with anyone who might be interested.

When we checked into the hotel at Rothenburg at 2 p.m. yesterday, I was ready to take the bikes back to the Mott bike shop in Bad Mergentheim and forfeit the three days left on our bike rental. However, a good night's sleep put a whole different light on things. We ate a wonderful breakfast at the hotel and rode our bikes into the walled city at Rothenberg.

Rick Steve's book recommended a shop for buying Christmas decorations. I wanted to get some tree ornaments for our Christmas exchange. When we stopped there, I mentioned Rick Steves to the store owner. He said he knows him well and gave me a neat free map of Rothenburg drawn by his mother.

Then we took the bikes on the train by a circuitous route back to Bad Mergentheim, had some ice cream in the Centrum, and started riding the Tauber River Route north (in the direction of the flow of the river). What a lovely and easy ride! The weather was cooler and comfortable, and that made it even more enjoyable. We only got off our route once, going for a mile or two on a gentle uphill. Realizing that we were probably off route, we stopped a couple riding by, and they led us back to the trail. Then the man rode us on a shortcut across town and back to the trail. How nice of him!
We had been considering staying in that town, but it was still early and we hadn't ridden too long or gotten tired, so we kept going. We rode through cropland that we didn't recognize. It was covered with pods that looked somewhat like bean pods, but we couldn't recognize it. We asked and they said it was for producing diesel fuel. We rode through the next small town, but there were no places to stay that we could find, so we rode on to Werbach. We came to a restaurant/zimmer and took a room there. Their specialty is roasted pig, which they prepare there, so we went back to split a meal between the two of us for $14.50 Euros. They brought us each a plate that looked like a full serving -- for $14.50 Euros total!
A lady from another table heard us speaking English and came over to meet us -- Betty Davis and her husband, Roy Lilley. They are from Australia and have been gone from their home in Australia for almost as long as we have. They have done a lot more biking and they also hike a lot. Betty has hiked the Himalayas and they've ridden the Danube to Budapest. They told a hair-raising story about being detained in Prague over a supposed passport irregularity. The authorities were trying to get a bribe before releasing them. What an experience! They like to travel a lot like we are, with an open schedule. At other times they bike with 3 other couples and travel quite long distances. They take turns planning the tour, with one couple in charge of making the arrangements each time. We visited with them all evening!

After that, Verle and I walked around town for awhile. Werback has a beautiful red stone church that looks new but was built in 1824, according to the cornerstone.

June 24 - Bicycle from Werbach to Wertheim, Germany

2008-08-20T19:43:00.000-07:00

Wednesday
After a fantastic breakfast at the hotel, we decided to ride out and back and leave our bags at the hotel, so we went east along the Main River (because it flows west and we wanted the downhill for the way back when we were tired.) It was a beautiful morning and an easy ride along the river, and it was so much easier riding without our bags that we especially enjoyed this bike ride. We rode 30 miles in less than 4 hours (with quite a few stops.)

We got back to Wertheim, picked up our bags from the hotel, and walked our bikes with the bags to the train station. A German couple was waiting for the train with their bikes. He goes to Denver often representing his company working with HP. He helped Verle purchase tickets because the station isn't open and tickets could only be purchased in the automatic machines. They also helped us get our bikes on and off the train. It was another example of the many people who have helped us along the way.
We arrived in Bad Mergentheim in the early afternoon. We got schedules for taking the train to Elsa's in Switzerland tomorrow and another train schedule for going from Elsa's to our time share in St. Johann-im-Pongau, Austria Sunday. We checked about tickets for the castles at Fussen and decided to consider visiting them after our Austria stay, because we would arrive at Elsa's so late if we try to go tomorrow. We realized that we have been able to do almost everything that we have planned and rejoiced that things have gone so well overall.
While we were at the train station, it started to blow and rain hard. We rode in the rain to Jergen's to leave off our bags and rode our bikes in light rain for the mile back to the rental company. When we got there, Jergen was waiting in his car to drive us home. What a guy he is!! We have never met a kinder host.
After awhile the skies cleared and Verle realized that he had not turned in the key to the bicycle lock, so we walked back to Mott's to give them the key. On the way home, we picked up some food for the evening and the train ride tomorrow at a grocery store.
The semi-finals of Europe's soccer tournament were held this evening. We watched on TV with all of Germany that wasn't in Basal, as Germany defeated Turkey 3-2, with the final goal very near to the end of the game. Shortly afterwards, cars honking their horns and people marching, playing drums, singing, and celebrating filled the streets. We went to sleep to their "music," and were excited with them!

June 25 - Bicyle from Wertheim, Germany + Train

2008-08-20T19:42:00.000-07:00

June 26 - Train from Bad Mergentheim to Elsa's

2008-08-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

Thursday
We've finally learned how to read the information supplied at the platforms of the train stations.

The train station in Bad Mergentheim printed two schedules for us for going to Lanquart, Switzerland. They both left at 9:25. One schedule went through Zurich and required two reservations. The other had several more train changes but no reservations, and got to Lanquart one hour earlier. We chose the latter schedule, because the reservations cost money, and we enjoy the more local trains. The train changes were each 5-15 minutes. We wondered if we'd make each connection but figured we could take the next train if we missed a connection. Everything went perfectly, and we really enjoyed the scenery, especially as we entered the Alps again. Verle was able to find a Newsweek in English, so caught up on the news whenever there was a spare moment.

We had interesting conversations with two different men as we traveled. The first was a German Christian from Wertheim who is the director of a college that trains elementary teachers in Malawi, Africa. Teachers there are free to share their faith, so it's a great outreach. He and his wife have four children. We had a great discussion about his work and Christianity in Europe. His guess is that Europe is about 5% evangelical Christian. Southern Germany may be closer to 20%. He says that those who leave the state church are usually more devout, because they've made a conscious choice to change.
The second conversation was with a man from Massachusetts, who visits an old friend in Germany every year. His wife didn't come with him this time, because she raises bees and needed to stay home with them. He has worked for several companies including IBM, and can speak some in many languages. He is especially interested in outer space study and has apparently traveled quite widely. I'm sure he knows a lot more about a lot of things than we do, but it was fun to visit with him.
When we got to Lanquart, we bought a Swiss phone card and went to the bus station and got bus tickets to Elsa's. We were worried that it wouldn't work for Elsa for us to come since we hadn't been able to make her phone number work to call her, and we had only E-mailed our plans to her. I was able to reach her and we caught the bus, too. We showed the bus driver her name and address and asked him to tell us when to get off. He recognized her name and showed us her place as we drove by to the next stop. Elsa was waiting for us there and said that he is her daughter-in-law's brother! She also said that she'd only been home for 5 minutes when I called. Things keep going so well for us!
We had tea, surprised Betty (Elsa's half sister) when she stopped by, visited with Heinz and Sonya, and had a great supper. Heinz stopped by and took us to his workplace. He works at Jeninser Wine Company.

They can bottle up to 7000 liters of wine a day.

They process the grapes from all the vineyards in the area -- Mainz, Jenins, Mainsfield, and more. They make wine from both red and white grapes. Elsa's grapes are the red ones. She says they are edible as grapes, but not as good as the eating grapes in the store, which come from Spain.
After doing the dishes, we watched Spain beat Russia 3-0 in their half of the semi-finals in Vienna. Spain will play Germany Sunday evening. We'll be at our time share in Austria and can watch the finals there.

June 27 - Elsa's in Jenins, Switzerland

2008-08-20T16:43:00.001-07:00

Friday
It is quiet and peaceful here, and we slept VERY well! Elsa made birchermuesli for breakfast. This is her usual breakfast when she's working in the vineyard, and it gives her energy to work all morning. It is a nutritional breakfast "invented" by a Dr. Bircher. It is made from a mixture like granola with raisins and other dried fruits. You then add bananas and grated apples (grated on a board called a bircherboard.) Elsa adds a small amount of lukewarm milk. It is delicious.
At mid-morning we walked to Elsa's vineyard and learned more about vine management.

Jurg (Georg) was going through his vineyards with a machine that cuts off the leaves that shade the grapes, because sun ripening makes the grapes sweeter. Elsa prefers to do this job by hand. They remove the leaves from the east sun side, but leave most of the leaves on the other side for now because of the threat of hail.

The grapes are trained between four double rows of fence line holding up the grapes. The growth above the top row is cut off with a machine, because that growth sucks the energy from the grapes. Elsa has a hectare of grape vines. One of the fields needed to have stray growth pushed up between the top fence lines, because the cutting machine is expected tomorrow. Verle and I helped push these up on 21 short rows.

It was a lovely, cool morning and it was enjoyable to do this job. It didn't take very long with the three of us working, although we were much slower than Elsa!
When we got back, Elsa brought two outdoor lounge chaises into the shade, and brought us some of her juice made from syrup and water and some of her cinnamon roll bread. We relaxed, looked at the mountains, and looked at some of her photographs. What luxury!

When Betti came back from Lanquart, she brought an ice cream cake and we all enjoyed it together. She said it was to thank us for working in the vineyard! We decided it could be Elsa and Verle's birthday cake, because she was 75 on May 7 and Verle was 73 on May 6th!

Verle watched news in English on Elsa's TV and I took a nap. Elsa made a wonderful supper of grilled sausages, a fancy pasta, lettuce salad, herbed tomato slices and green beans with basil from her freezer. Yum!
We asked Elsa to play the accordion for us again. Then we took another walk in the late dusk to see her other vineyard. The mountains are gorgeous -- what a wonderful spot to vacation in, and how we continue to enjoy and appreciate Elsa!

June 28 - Elsa's in Jenins, Switzerland

2008-08-20T16:41:00.001-07:00

Saturday
Today was the day for Heinz to try out the new machine they bought for cutting off the top of the grapes.

We missed Elsa and guessed that she had gone out to watch. After that, we enjoyed breakfast on the patio and then Verle rode Elsa's motor scooter out to watch Heinz at work.
We walked through the forests close to the street that is the bike trail to the cable car just south of town. Betti went along with us.

Elsa had reserved tickets. She bought Verle a hat while we waited for our ride. It has a brim that folds in half so it can be carried in a pocket or suitcase. It was so exciting to ride up and watch the valley grow smaller and to see more and more of the big picture of the area, with its mountains all the way around us. Finally, we were above many of the mountains looking down on the whole scene.

A plane came by several times pulling a glider. That must be quite a glider ride down in this gorgeous area!
We had a wonderful meal in all that beauty before we took our walk. The walk led to the north of the cable car landing. I used Elsa's ski poles, and they certainly make walking on the hills easier, even though I don't use them correctly. The mountain flowers are blooming beautifully, and Elsa explained several of them to us. Her favorite is a blue trumpet shaped flower. It is lovely. Red Alpine roses are blooming. They spread rapidly and displace the grass that the cows eat, so the village people come up to get rid of many of the plants.
We walked to the upper home and barn used by the team that watch and milk the cows on the high meadow. They will be driving them up from the middle cabin area next week. The milk is trucked from the middle area, but it is made into cheese from the higher level. The home there is lovely, and the cow barns have pipes for milk running through several rooms in which the cows are tied up and fed. The milkmen move among them, connecting the machines to the pipes above the cows.
Elsa is fearful riding in the cable car, but she is a great sport about it. We walked back home and had some ice cream. Heinz and Sonya came over and invited us to have pizza with them, but Elsa had planned to make spaghetti, so that's what we ate. Elsa brought out some of her crocheted doilies and let me pick one of them to take home. Heinz came back over and asked Verle to drive him in the car to get his motorcycle home. Elsa and I looked at all her garden. When the men came back, Sonya and Oliver came over and Elsa served us all more ice cream. As we finished, fireworks started to the west of us. Heinz said some Portuguese people were having a kind of a motorcycle show. We joked that the fireworks were for us. They were fun to watch. Oliver made a movie of them with their digital camera.

The more we are with Elsa, the more we realize what a remarkable woman she is. She works in the vineyard, taking pleasure in "making everything look tidy." She has a reverence toward the grape vines, and we can understand that feeling. It is wonderful when our work feels in harmony with God. We already knew that Elsa can speak many languages and enjoys people. We didn't know that she could play the accordion, keeps up on sports figures worldwide, enjoys and interacts with her two grown children and their families and her sisters and friends, takes care of her lovely flowers and home, does beautiful crochet and tapestry work, cooks wonderful meals with (seemingly) little effort. We are blessed to have been able to spend this time here with her and Heinz, Sonya, and Oliver.

June 29 - Train to St. Johann im Pongau, Austria

2008-08-20T16:38:00.001-07:00

Sunday
It was hard to leave the kind hospitality and friendship of Elsa's family in and her lovely home in the beautiful mountain area of Jenins, Switzerland.

Betti came over with some of her handmade table runners and let me choose one to take home.

Heinz came to bid us good-bye

and I called Daniella on the phone. Elsa and Oliver accompanied us as Sonya drove us to the train station.
We had only three minutes for our first train change in Buchs. We ran down and up the steps with Verle carrying both bags. The train was there, and left several minutes late, so we needn't have hurried. The rest of our day was very smooth with beautiful mountain scenery and only one more train change in Saltzburg. Our train cars were nearly empty, which isn't good for the train company, but was very comfortable for us.
St. Johann im Pongau is a ski area in another beautiful setting.

Our hotel has no cooking or refrigerator, so inexpensive food is going to be more difficult here. The room faces west on the third floor, and with no air conditioning, it was very hot when we arrived. They brought us a big fan, which helped a lot. We scheduled a walking tour (free), a biking tour, and a trip to the top of the Alps. Then we went out walking hoping to find some snacks to buy for watching the soccer game on TV in our room. However, most things were closed because of Sunday, and we couldn't find kabobs. Spain won the soccer game over Germany, 1-0.

June 30 - Hiking in St. Johann im Pongau, Austria

2008-08-20T16:35:00.001-07:00

Monday
I woke up before Verle and walked across to the market to get food for breakfast. I thought I bought two half-pints of yogurt, but when we opened them, they were runny, and we realized that they were 36% cream. That's what happens when you can't read the language! It worked out OK though, because we had strawberries and bananas. We put them in the cream with some of the honey I had bought -- it was quite delicious!
At 10:30, we met the free hiking trip up the mountain with Lee. We thought it was just a short trip and didn't bring our water. It lasted until 3:30, with almost two hours of uphill climb (with rests). There were 27 in our group. Two turned back, and many mentioned that it was much more challenging than they had expected. Verle and I had to take more rests than some of the rest of the group, but others struggled, too.

It was a beautiful hike through the forest, with many lovely views of the mountains and our village below.

We stayed at the restaurant at the top for quite a long time and had a great meal there. We got to know some of the others in the group as we walked along and as we ate at the top. We ate with a mother and her two daughters from Canada and Columbia.

We really enjoyed a couple from Virginia who have just moved back to Frankfurt for a second time. He is with the American military and is now helping to set up a branch in Africa and she just finished helping make a sculpture from scrap metal in Frankfurt. One couple are from Iraq and now live in Dubai.
The walk down was much easier, but it took care not to slide on some of the wet loose rocks.

Before we went up, Lee insisted that we all have suitable shoes. He singled me out with my Ecco sandals, fearing that they would not be safe. I insisted that these sandals had walked many difficult places including Cinqua Terra and that I only had one pair of shoes along. (After that, I didn't dare slip!!!)
Our room faces west on the fourth floor and is quite hot in the afternoon, even though we close up in the morning -- there is no air conditioning. If we leave our room door open, it is cooler. A good rain came through and made it quite pleasant again. We are glad that it only sprinkled a bit while we were on the mountain.

July 1 - Ice Cave Near Werfen, Austria

2008-08-20T16:31:00.001-07:00

Tuesday
While we were hiking up and down the mountain yesterday, some of us discussed going to an ice cave near here. Today six of us, Don and Mary Schultz, who are from Virginia, but have now moved back to Frankfurt with the military, and Debbie and Tina Parisi from Chicago, took the train, bus, and cable car to the ice cave. Tina is a student at Illinois State and just finished a college course in Italy.
We took the train toward Saltzburg and got off at Werfen, which also has the Hohenwerfen castle that we may visit. From Werfen, we walked to the bus, then walked to the cable car, then walked to the ice cave. These were all uphill

to nearly the top of a high mountain, so the view across to other mountains and to the valley was again breathtaking.

We especially enjoyed the cable car ride.
We took layers of clothing and jackets, because the cave is 0 Celsius.

As we entered the cave, it is like going into the freezers in town where our families stored their meat and frozen vegetables. The wind rushes out of the cave in the summer, and we briefly feared we would be very cold for an hour. However, after a few feet, we were out of the wind and with our warm clothes, we were quite comfortable. To see so much ice in a cave in the middle of a hot summer day is surprising, and the formations are beautiful.

We walked up 700 steps and back down 700 steps, but it didn't seem to be as difficult as we had expected. There are no lights in the cave, so each couple had a lantern with a small flame, and the guide lit a brighter light to show the formations better. For more pictures & information on the cave go to http://www.eisriesenwelt.at/site/content/CB_ContentShow.php?coType=photos
We had some lunch at a cafe near the cable car entrance and Don fed some of his bread to the black birds who landed on the ledge by our table and begged for food by puffing up their feathers and hopping around.
We had forgotten to close the patio doors and drapes and expected our room to be unbearable again when we returned, but clouds and possible rain had cooled the air, and the maids had closed the room up while we were gone, so we were comfortable for the evening.

July 2 - Drive to Glacier on Grossglockner Mountain

2008-08-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

Wednesday
Today again surpassed our expectations with great value for our Euros. We signed up for a trip on the Grossglockner High Alpine Road and to see the longest glacier in the eastern Alps. A 10-passenger van picked us up and drove through the high mountains south of Krimmel.

We crossed "all climatic and vegetation zones between Austria and the Arctic." It was a wonderful day -- so beautiful!

We were riding and enjoying the scenery from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.! The road twisted and turned as we climbed high above the tree line.

Travel companions from England added to the delight of the day. Tony Leaver is a retired history teacher. He and Chris were delightful to visit with.

He is an older dignified gentleman who enjoys the musicals and the entertainers from the past. We discussed many things from politics to religion -- he is a Christian! It was exciting to visit with a Christian in this secular land.
We enjoyed the glacier and the visitor's center nearby. We walked through a series of 3 tunnels that came out farther along the glacier. We don't know why the tunnels were there -- there were still more to follow, but we were due back at the van. There were many interesting things to do and learn at the center, but we didn't have time. We could easily spend a whole day there.

On the way back, we stopped at Heilligenblut, which means "Holy blood of Jesus." The church there supposedly houses a drop of Jesus' blood. It is typical Catholic, with rows of candles, confession booths, and multiple statues and pictures of Mary. One was especially offensive to us, because it consisted of a large depiction of Mary in the center with kings bowing down to her and angels enfolding her. Companion artwork on the other side of the altar showed Christ, but it still seems wrong to us to elevate Mary to such a high level. The church was expensively decorated and beautiful, but again we found it hard to see our Lord Jesus in the midst of all of this glitter and outward embellishment.

July 3 - Train to Salt Mine and Saltzburg, Austria

2008-08-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

Thursday
We have train days on our Eurail Pass for July 6, 7, 8, 9, and two more days for our time here in St. Johann's, so we decided to use one today. We went to the Salt Mine at Hallein/Durrenberg near Salzburg. This was a well-designed and fun and easy tour.
The first thing required was to put on "chic" white drawstring pants and "jackets," and tuck the jackets into the pants, which we did amid many giggles. We looked like convicts or P.O.W.'s.

Then we straddled seats on a kind of tram, which took us into the mine tunnels. We walked awhile inside the mine, and then we slid down two long wooden slides, again amid giggles and gasps.
The salt was first mined here by the Celts in 500 B.C. The salt was the reason for the growth of the area, and funded many building projects between the 1500's and 1800's. The Celts and the Austrians first chopped the salt rocks out and brought them to the surface to be heated, dissolved, and poured into wooden kegs to harden. Each salt pillar weighed 120#. It took a strong man to carry them. Later, a way was discovered to melt the rocks in a lake inside the mine and pump out the brine (27% salt). The mine is a constant 10 degrees Celsius with constant natural ventilation. Actors for prince Archbishop Wolf Dietrich and his clumsy page showed how the selfish prince lived luxuriously because of the salt mines.
A model of a Celtic village has been assembled above the mine. It was interesting to learn more about this early civilization. Their burial mounds can still be seen in the area.
We took the bus back to Hallein and caught the train to Salzburg, where we took a city tour and saw many of the places where parts of The Sound of Music movie were filmed. We stopped at the lake in front of Leopold's palace.

The gazebo and the scene where the children fell in the lake were filmed here. We had missed this in 2001 when we lost the bike path, and I had especially wanted to see it. The gazebo has been moved to a new location and now closed to the public because people were always trying to dance around on the benches, like in the movie. One girl even broke her leg. Peggy was a bit embarrassed to remember that she had tried such a thing at the gazebo in Bad Mergentheim! Parts of the movie were actually filmed at countless locations in and around Salzburg. The gardens behind the Schloss Mirabell (built by Archbishop Dietrich for his mistress, Salome and their children) are beautiful and were also used for parts of the movie.

The city tour was very interesting, but the air-conditioner didn't cool the back of the van very well and it was a very hot day.
Salzburg has 150,000 people and 6 million tourists each year, and is a center for culture and the arts.
We took a hot train ride home and made plans for a train trip and housing in Budapest, Hungary on Sunday when we check out of this time share.

July 4 - Bicycling to Liechtensteinklamm & Bischofshafen, Austria

2008-08-20T16:15:00.000-07:00

Friday
This was a fun Fourth of July, even though we didn't exactly celebrate our country's Independence. Verle and I started out by walking all the way across town to the Kika shopping center to buy Austrian lace for a curtain for Dave's room upstairs. It was quite a long walk, and we began to worry about getting back in time for our biking at 10:30. We found a nice piece of lace and returned to the hotel in time to change clothes and prepare for biking.
It was a cool day, which seemed strange after the very hot day yesterday. In fact, we dressed for a hot day and were pretty chilly. The ride to the falls was fun, and the bikes worked well. There were 10 of us including Don and Mary and the three from Canada/Columbia and our guide, Lee. Another rather disgusting young couple also rode. The guy was a show-off, constantly weaving among us and hot-rodding -- a real danger to the rest of us. She loudly proclaimed her opposition to marriage -- they've been "together" for two years. It was a test of my ability to keep my mouth shut.
The falls were much more impressive than we had expected.

The gorge is quite long and lovely, and the walking path and tunnels made it easy to view and enjoy the waterfall and tumbling water. It reminded us of the place we visited in northern New York last fall x 10. We spent an hour walking along the gorge to the far end and back.

After that we rode to Bischofshafen along the bike path, which follows the Salzach River. It was an easy and lovely ride.

We ate at a restaurant there. Our food was good, but we would never go back again. The restaurant was out of the soup Don ordered and brought him noodle soup without comment. He doesn't like noodle soup and spoke to them about it. They took it away without comment. Much later they brought him the soup he had ordered. Then they short-changed him when he paid. The waitress also overcharged us. We asked to see a menu and pointed out the error to the manager, but he just walked away. We were surprised that Lee made no comment to them. If he is going to bring groups to this restaurant, he should be concerned about the service.

We left the restaurant and walked through town. The girls stopped to shop at a store called the New Yorker. We weren't interested in shopping and it looked like rain, so Don and Mary and Verle and I started back on our own. Unfortunately, Mary started to be really sore and didn't feel like she could ride any more. Don stopped to walk his bike with her. We were still far from St. Johann. Verle and I didn't want to walk our bikes all that way, so we rode on by ourselves. It was fun, but we felt guilty leaving our friends behind. It was still early, so we had a restful time in our room eating, working on the computer, and playing cards.

July 5 - Train to Waterfalls at Krimml, Austria

2008-08-20T16:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday
When we were in Europe in 2001, we started biking from the top of the mountain in Krimml, Austria. It was rainy when we arrived, and we didn't get to see the famous Krimml waterfalls, so we decided to use another day of our train pass to go see them and to ride the train along the path where we rode our bikes in 2001.
We were glad that the ticket man was in before we left St. Johann's, because he printed out our schedule and train changes, and we wouldn't have done it right on our own. In 2005, floods washed out the railroad at the Krimml end, so we had to take a bus for the last leg of our trip. We arrived easily as scheduled. It was a lovely ride and the weather was cool. We walked to the falls -- they are really worth the trip.

A path goes up and up along the side of the upper and lower falls. We walked up over half way and had several wonderful views of the falls. The walk was a bit difficult, but the area is so lovely.

The more we've walked on this trip, the stronger we've gotten. We walked back down to the bus stop so we wouldn't miss it and have to wait an extra hour to leave. We ate the food we'd brought along while we waited.
The bus took us back to Zell am Zee,

and we tried to take the train to Saalfelden to continue our 2001 bike route. However, some of the trains don't run on Saturdays, and the Saalfelden train doesn't go to Salzburg. So we gave up that plan and took the train back toward Salzburg past our hotel. As we came to St. Johann's, we decided that we'd rather just go "home" than to go back to Salzburg.
We bought some munchies and had a quiet evening in our room. Verle found a place for us to stay (on the Internet) Monday and Tuesday nights in Koblenz, Germany. We want to go to a castle and take a ride on the Rhine. So the rest of our trip is "planned."

July 6 - Train from Austria to Budapest, Hungary

2008-08-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

Sunday
It was hard to say goodbye to the Austrian mountains and forests and all the lovely scenery that we've been seeing for the last week and longer. We almost didn't say goodbye soon enough -- I'd set the alarm for 6:25 instead of 5:25. Luckily, Verle woke up and checked the time.
As we were riding toward Salzburg, a group of young men and women dressed in native dress came on the train and got off later. They were evidently a performing group -- one carried a trombone. We had to think of Adam and Mary Beth in their Victorian caroling outfits performing in Europe a couple of years ago. We have had a wonderful time in Europe, but we miss everyone at home. Now that we are on our last week, we are getting very anxious to be home again.
On the way to Vienna, we found a train compartment in the first class section, kicked off our shoes, tipped back our chairs, and got really comfortable. Halfway there, a mother and father and their two children came in to join us. We thought, "Oh, darn," but we couldn't expect to keep a six seat compartment for the two of us! They turned out to be interesting travel companions. They were on their way to Vienna to see their new first grandson. They had two older sons and 24 years later they had a girl and a boy Alannah and Cole's ages. Patricia sang us a song in English-she learned it at school.

We have had great luck with our trains staying on schedule all over Europe -- until just before Vienna, where our train stopped. It sat there for an hour and a half, while they fixed some computer problem ahead of us. Trains were backed up all over, and many people missed their appointments and connections. It wasn't a big problem for us, because we could just take the next train, although it made us get to Budapest two hours later than we had planned.
On the way to Budapest, we heard English being spoken and introduced ourselves to two couples on their way to a convention for veterinarians in Budapest. One couple was from Wisconsin and the other fromn northwest of Grand Island. They used to live in Palmer and know the Watts and Lyle and Darlene Gee and their family. It was enjoyable to swap stories with them! Alan is probably wondering what their names are -- Bill and Jeanniene Burdett.

We treated ourselves to our first meal in the train restaurant. We split a meal of Hungarian paprika chicken and spetzula. Then we split a Hungarian dessert -- a kind of thin pancake with chocolate syrup. Peach juice completed this enjoyable experience.
The architecture of the buildings changed greatly as we left Austria and drove through Hungary. Hungary was depressed under Communism, and it's taking time to try to build up its infrastructure. We saw a lot of small houses built like a schoolhouse with a four-sided roof coming to a peak in the middle.
When we arrivded in Budapest, we decided to take a taxi instead of trying to catch two different buses to the Gallert Guest House, where we had reservations. We got a Budapest map on the train from a girl working for the city. The guest house is far from the train station, and we were afraid we'd get lost and have trouble knowing where to get off the buses. Also, we would have to get Hungarian money for the bus rides both ways, and we had no idea how much we would need. The taxi driver will pick us up again at 6:30 tomorrow morning so we can get to our train to Germany on time.
We checked into our home from the night -- it's in a quiet neighborhood. We checked in, talked outside with a Hungarian lady from Canada, and then walked back downtown to the Danube. It was fun to walk without our bags, and we got a better look at the city than we could get from the train and the taxi.

July 7 - Train from Budapest, Hungary to Koblenz, Germany

2008-08-20T15:53:00.001-07:00

Monday
This is the second day in a row that we got up early in order to reach our destination in good time. For the second day in a row, we could just as well have slept longer and taken a later train!
When the taxi driver left us off at our guest house last night, we asked him to pick us up at 6:30 today. He wanted us to phone, but we told him we didn't have phone access. He agreed to pick us up -- we thought he understood. But this morning we stood out in the rain waiting for him until 6:50. We couldn't try to take the bus because we didn't have any Hungarian money. Everyone was asleep at the guest house, so our only option was to walk to the train station carrying our backpacks.

It took us an hour and a half -- we (of course) missed the 7:10 train, but we got to the station at 8:25 in plenty of time to catch the 9:10 train. We were among the first on the train and could choose a compartment. The walk was actually fun -- and we saved $30 in taxi fare. Not only that, we got to see much of downtown Budapest.

Its massive ornate buildings remind us of Venice. The main street is wide and even the buildings on the side streets are ornate.

The beautiful Danube River (Duna to them) flows through the town. The train station is one of the most decorated of all the buildings, with a number of statues looking down from above.

It can be seen from several blocks away -- so we could tell that we were following the map correctly -- it's easy to get turned around going down under the streets and into the shopping area below -- it reminded us of Toronto.
We got our value out of our train pass today, riding for 12 hours from Budapest to Koblenz, Germany. Two couples joined us in our compartment. One is from Texas, and currently drive trucks in Iraq. The second couple was from Italy -- he is a photographer who sells his photos to magazines like Cosmopolitan, and she is his make-up director. Interesting!
We had our area to ourselves on the longer ride from Vienna to Koblanz. In the restaurant on the train, we sat with a lady who counsels families and often mediates in court. She firmly believes that most problems families are facing are due to a lack of firmness in the home. It was refreshing to visit with a counselor with those views.
It was a long day of riding but very enjoyable, watching the countryside, especially near Koblenz along the Rhine River. We played cards part of the time -- we haven't done much of that while we were traveling, but it helped pass the time.
We arrived in Koblenz on schedule at 9:10 p.m. and checked into the Hotel Ibis, which we had reserved on the Internet. We have a comfortable room for 2 nights, and the cost includes breakfast.

July 8 - Koblenz, Germany, Burg Eltz Castle

2008-08-10T19:49:00.001-07:00

Tuesday
This has been a roller coaster day. Verle checked with the airlines to confirm our flight plan and learned that our Air India flight for tomorrow (Wednesday) has been canceled. Our flight has been rescheduled for Thursday, so we notified the kids and booked an extra day at the hotel here and bought some fruit for these three days. When we returned from our visit to the Burg Eltz castle, Verle had to go into the Spam Patrol to find the flight E-mail -- they had rescheduled us for our original time tomorrow, but with America Airlines! So we're back to our original plan!! Oh, my!
We took the train to Moselkern and then a one hour walk up to the Burg Eltz castle. We didn't know if we'd want to walk an hour up and an hour back down, but decided that it should be easy after walking an hour and a half in Budapest carrying our backpacks. We were right -- it was an especially lovely walk through the forests along the Eltz River.

The walk wasn't steep at all except for about 100 steps up to the castle at the end.

As we walked, we were reminded of our walk with Dave and Gaye Traster to the restaurant above the Katy trail near Rockeport, Missouri. Some of the path had rocks and sometimes they were damp and a bit slick. I decided that Lee was right to object to my Ecco sandals for walking on these surfaces. Hiking boots would have been much better. It's amazing that Verle's shoes have held up. He kept losing pieces of the outer layer of the sole of his shoes the first week of our trip. Fortunately, the shoes haven't gotten any worse and we haven't had to pay 1 ½ times the price at home because of the $/Euro exchange if we had bought new shoes here.
We laugh at many of the German words. "Fahrt" in German means trip or journey. We see every kind of combination of words ending with "fahrt" and joke about how funny they sound to us.
Steve's listed Burg Eltz as one of the best castles -- and we agree. It is very well preserved and elegant.

We had a very informative guide for the 40 minute tour of the castle. The information he shared may bore readers of this journal, but is very interesting to us, so it is included here:
-- Three families lived in separate sections of the castle with each part reached only through the courtyard, though they had a large room where they often met for secret planning and decision making. The court jester was an important part of these meetings, because he could say anything he wanted to -- it was not regarded seriously. The castle overlooked a main travel route. Unless noble families had a lot of property, they couldn't build a large castle on their own.
-- The castle was built and enlarged from 1400-1800. Nobility at that time spoke French. Tapestry covered the walls, partly to help keep warmth in the rooms.
-- About 200 people lived in the castle and 100-200 servants lived in the valley below.
-- The castle was abandoned in the 1800's, because living in the villages was more comfortable.
-- There are 40 fireplaces in the castle, but each family used only two or three at a time because of the fire hazard and the large amount of timber required to heat the large building.
-- The beds were elevated with curtains around them, because it was warmer nearer the ceiling and the curtains held in the heat.
-- One very interesting sleeping room was painted with decorations all over the ceilings and walls. 10-20 family members slept in the room that had the burning fireplace in order to share its warmth.
-- The common people couldn't read the Bible and they couldn't understand the church masses in Latin, so they studied the religious paintings of the time to learn the stories of the Bible.
-- The priest spoke from a bay window area that stuck out from the room because it was believed to be sinful to live directly above the area from which he ministered.

-- The castle had 20 toilets with running water -- when it rained. Summers with little rain must have been interesting!
-- Restoration of the castle was carried out between 1848 and 1888. It is still expensive to maintain. (Equivalent of 10-12 million Euros?)
-- The names Jacob and Karl were repeated down through the Eltz family.
-- The princes were chosen by prince electors. They gave their vote to the candidate who gave them the most money, so the electors were quite wealthy. They inherited the right to elect the princes.
-- A picture in the castle showed the signing a treaty at the end of the thirty year war between the Protestants and the Catholics. This war escalated into a war across Europe, which is regarded as the first world war in Europe.
-- The doorways are low, and the armor is for smaller men than today. One suit of armor fit a six foot man. He was considered a giant.
-- Children were married at 14-15 years of age to insure noble offspring. Many did not live to maturity.
-- Down stairways in castles all across Europe were built in a counterclockwise direction so that right handed knights would have an advantage from above in hand-to-hand combat. (Everyone was right handed, because left handed was considered evil and parents forced children to use their right hands.)
-- Each of the three family groups had their own kitchen. Baskets hung from the ceilings on ropes to protect against rats and mice.
-- The Germans have an expression for doing a stupid thing, "Stepped in the fat bowl." This comes from the bowl that was set beneath hanging meat to catch the valuable fat.
-- The walls are about 1 yard thick. Rocks fill the walls. Refrigerators are built into the walls and stay cold for a long time. Small earthquakes move the rocks and cause the walls to crack.

July 9 - Home to Nebraska!

2008-08-10T19:46:00.000-07:00

Wednesday
This was a long day, but an exciting one. We got up at six a.m. and reached Omaha about 10 p.m. Add the 7 hour difference between Europe and Nebraska, and it makes 23 hour day!
The train to plane connections all went smoothly. We had to have our shoes disinfected in Chicago again because we had been on farms in Europe.
The most exciting part of the day was coming off the plane in Omaha and knowing we could sleep in our own beds and not have to look for a place to sleep each night. But even more exciting was the family waiting for us -- Dave, Heather, Cole, and Ian -- Bruce, Maureen, and Lukas -- and Tom, Karen, Ben, Joshua, and Noah (Nathaniel is at Boy Scout camp in Minnesota.) What a homecoming!!!
We all went over to Tom's for ice cream and some of Karen's great chocolate chip cookies. It was SO WONDERFUL to be together and home again. Europe was mighty fun, but Nebraska and our family look SO GOOD!!!

July 13 -- Family "Reunion"

2008-07-14T09:22:00.000-07:00

Sunday
(Written Monday morning)
What a wonderful family we have!
After church and communion at Crossroads Bible Church with our dear friends there, we shared our memories from the Holy Land Tour closing communion in the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. I had taken two pans of cherry coffee cake made from our loaded cherry tree as a re-entry celebration. Then we hurried home (after picking up milk, root beer, and ice cream) because Bruce and Maureen and Lukas were coming over to see our photos from Ashcraft's in Spain and bringing burgers to grill and the rest of the fixings for dinner. Little did we know that the kids were planning a surprise celebration at our house for the day. What fun!
Everyone was here that lives in the area -- Jeremy had come last night to interview us on tape for a DVD he is planning to make from our trip, memories, and selected pictures and stayed overnight. Bruce's, Tom's, Dave's, Risa and Jeff, Travis and Aaron, and Marilyn showed up and we continued to be surprised. The only ones missing were Virginia's in Wyoming, Carsten in California, Adam and Mary Beth at her folks' in Michigan, Nathaniel at camp in Minnesota, and Katherine in the hospital for tests and IV's. We missed them.
Maureen brought all the fixings, Bruce grilled hamburgers and polish sausages, Heather and Dave made two big containers of homemade ice cream and brought roasting ears and watermelon. I had made 3 cherry pies for Bruce's and we enjoyed them.
It was so much fun to all be together and to continue to share experiences throughout the day. The kids were busy running all over the farm. Twice we lost Ian and Noah. Later, we played Apples to Apples and pinochle. Tom and David soundly defeated Verle and me in the pinochle game. After dark, Verle and Dave showed some of our trip pictures on the garage wall with a projector. It was a beautiful evening and fun. We only got through part of the pictures from Israel and the pictures from our visit to Petra in Jordan. More would have been an overload for all of us. The kids added background entertainment by shooting off fireworks.
When I got up Monday morning, Jeremy had cleaned up everything and put in a load of wet towels to wash before he went to bed here. It is like old times when he spent 3 years on the farm here while he went to Centennial High School. Today he plans to help me pick more cherries.