Meandering on the Way — March 13 to 24, 2023

Monday March 13

We spent the morning finalizing our itinerary for the next ten days: France, Switzerland, Germany, then back to Madrid. We have friends in Switzerland and Germany. We have no good reason to stop in France, but we’re doing that anyway.

Tuesday March 14

In order to travel a bit lighter, we’ve leaving one of our suitcases behind in Madrid, where L has kindly agreed to keep it for us. So today, we packed it full of this and that and made the trip out to Rivas to drop it off. Turns out we also got a wonderful lunch: a kind of Catalan paella made with pasta called Fideuá.

Then it was back to Calle del Trinquete (Topmast Street) to spend our last night in the rental apartment. Six weeks it’s been. We had a very light supper because after the sumptuous banquet at L’s, we didn’t need a big one. The menu was green salad with tuna dressed with oil from the can. As always, we could look out from the dining nook to see a small slice of city.

Wednesday March 15

Up at 7:00 for a bit of breakfast, then out the door for the last time. We rolled our suitcases down the familiar 12–minute walk to the Manoteras metro stop. Then it was four stops to Mar de Cristal and a transfer to Línea 8 for the ride out to the airport. By 10:30 we were settled into our seats for our flight to Lyon. Compared to the seats on the intercity trains, the ones on the Airbus 320 looked like folded postage stamps…but they sufficed. The worst thing is that we were seated in row 31 of a 31 row aircraft. Thanks, travel agency, great work.

We landed at the Lyon airport at around 12:40. We were in no hurry, so we decided to have lunch there. The weather was a bit cooler than in Madrid, but still mostly sunny. After lunch we took the airport train into the city center. Once there, as soon as we walked out of the main railway station, we could see a rank of waiting taxis just across the street. It’s true that everyone was speaking French instead of Spanish and E kept wondering if we had somehow gotten to Quebec, but other than that, what an easy life.

As we approached the taxi rank, we saw that the driver of the first taxi in line was out of his car and was engaged in conversation with a potential customer, one who did not look pleased about how the conversation was going. We looked at the driver of the second cab in the rank, who looked back at us but then got out of his car and said something to the other driver before looking at us again. E told him where we wanted to go and he shook his head and got back in his car. Just then, the other customer walked away and first driver turned to us to explain that it was not possible to take us anywhere near where we wanted to go due to the manifestation.

We had already heard that French president Macron had proposed raising the French retirement age from 62 to 64 by 2030. France has the lowest retirement age of any developed country and a lot of French people think that that is an excellent state of affairs and shouldn’t be messed with. Hence, strikes and demonstrations have been ongoing. So..how could we get to our hotel? Possibly by Metro, was the answer.

Being modern people, we next asked our phones how to get to the hotel. Siri suggested a combination of tram and bus. And just up the street was a tram hub. Off we went to find our tram line. Once there, we found a small difficulty: an electronic sign at the stop was showing the message Service Interdite. We may not know too much French, but we could guess what that meant. It meant that the tram couldn’t get through either. So, back to the Metro idea. But how to do it? E phoned the hotel. The receptionist kindly gave us instructions in English and off we went, down into a nearby metro station. Our motto? Onward!

Four stops and one transfer later we emerged. We were still a ways from our hotel, but it was walkable. Just as we were getting our bearings, however, we noticed something else—the imminent arrival of a large and rather noisy manifestation at exactly our location!

Well, that was exciting. After taking in the sights for a bit, we edged around the fringe of the crowd and set off toward our destination, the Hotel Citadines (on the) Presqu’ile. This was near the oldest part of Lyon, which dates from the Roman era when a camp and later a city were established at the confluence of the Saône and Rhône rivers. For a short distance, just before they meet, the two rivers run parallel to one another, less than half a mile apart. The land between isn’t really an island, but it kind of seems like one. Hence the name in French, Presqu’ile, which means “almost island, or peninsula.” But whatever its meaning, what we’re wondering—after all the effort it took to get here—is whether this is a good location for a hotel in 2023? Well, as we discover, yes it is. For one thing it’s close to the extensive Roman ruins and their associated museum and for another it’s right at one end of restaurant row: a dozen or more interesting restaurants just a few steps away. Thanks, travel agency, all is forgiven.

Lyon cooking is famous all over France; some consider it to be the country’s culinary center. And indeed we had a fantastic dinner. We don’t have the expertise or the vocabulary to describe it all, but we do remember this much. They have a thing called quenelle, which is sort of like a large croquette. But it is cooked in broth like a dumpling rather than fried. It is then served in a sauce. They make it with various fillings and various sauces. E’s was made with pike and was delicious. Even better was her first course: a poached egg floating in a sauce made with a special cheese. The name of this dish is Oeufs Cocotte au Saint-Marcellin.

Thursday March 16

We spent the next day exhausting ourselves by walking across the Saône and trudging up the thousand foot hill on the other side. Our goal was to see the Roman ruins and the newly rebuilt museum. We also thought we should take a look at this basilica that we could see from down below.

Once we got back to our hotel, we wondered what was going on with the political situation. It was bad, but how bad no one really knew. Lyon seemed calm, but there were riots and burning vehicles in Paris and there were calls for a nationwide rail strike. Yikes. Might we be marooned on this almost island for days or weeks or years? Well, maybe not years. Still, we are scheduled to leave Lyon by train tomorrow. We hope that works out…

Friday March 17

And in fact all went well. A taxi(!) took us to the train station. A French train took us to Geneva; a Swiss train took us to Bern; our friend Urs picked us up and drove us to the suburb of Belp, at which point we had a delicious fondue dinner. Urs and Ursula (The Bears) are old friends of E’s, also from her time in Chicago when Roberto was in graduate school there.

Our dinner was extra special because our hosts’ daughter Eva found time to join us. In fact it was she who brought the fondue. Eva is a heart surgeon these days and the mother of twin ten-year-olds. Way back in 1993, though, she was a high school student spending a year living with E in Corvallis, Oregon. During that year, Eva convinced E that humans were meant to eat butter and that margarine was not a good thing. Another example of the benefits of intercultural exchange.

Saturday March 18

We went train touring today. We had a one day pass to ride free on any form of public transport anywhere in Switzerland and a little bit of Italy. We went all over the place, including a few places in the mountains where whoever built the tracks must have been both very competent and a little crazy.

We got back to Bern around 10:00 that night, having definitely used our train passes to advantage. Since we’d had a lot of pizza in Domodossola, dinner was a light repast of ham, cheese, bread and beer. Okay, maybe not super light, but it was awesome.

Sunday March 19

Today we visited Gruyère. We went by car this time; it was about an hour’s drive. The town of Gruyère is on a hill overlooking a broad valley of green pasture land dotted with farms and villages. It’s such a pretty view that it would be a shame to spoil it by building a highway through it. Yes, but what about the thousands of visitors who want to visit? A high capacity road is needed. What to do? How about putting some of the highway into a tunnel that goes under the farmers’ fields? Would that work? Well, apparently it would.

Today’s excursion was to the town of Gruyère, traditional home of the eponymous cheese. Did we get on yet another train? No. We went by car. It was about an hour’s drive away. As we neared the town, we came into a valley of green pastureland dotted with farm houses and small villages. The whole place is so pretty looking that it would be a shame to build a busy highway through the middle of it. But what about the thousands and thousands of people who want to visit Gruyère every year? Well, why not build a couple of tunnels to take the road underground and leave the pastures undisturbed? Which seems to be what they’ve done. The old fortress town of Gruyère is on a hill overlooking the farmland.

Below the town of Gruyère there is a demonstration cheese factory. Naturally, we had to check it out. Here’s a photo of the maturing room. The cheese is aged for six, nine or twelve months. At this factory there are around 7,000 wheels being aged at any one time.

Monday March 20

Time to say goodbye to our friends and hit the road for another day of traveling. We went from Bern to Zurich by train, Zurich to Hamburg by air, and then got another train to get downtown. Here’s the Hamburg main train station, from which we finally emerged.

Northern Germany was gray and damp, but it was nice to be outside for a while as we took a short walk from the station to our hotel.

Tuesday March 21

We had chosen the Senator Hotel ourselves, sight unseen. It turned out we were pretty good travel agents because it was to a wonderful place. It gives a modest first impression and yet it has all that one could ask, including a delightful breakfast room on an enclosed terrace overlooking the street. We would like to have stayed in Hamburg another night or two, but we had places to go and promises to keep. We only had time for a couple of hours to take an unguided walking tour of nearby sights.

In the afternoon we took another train, this time to Rostock, Germany, about two hours away. We stayed at a cheap, new, and trendy hotel called Motel One. It wasn’t too bad.

Wednesday March 22

Our friend Umut picked us up this morning and after dropping off our luggage at his place, we set off on an expedition to Lübeck, our goal being the marzipan museum. Yes, another food related project. Do we detect a theme here? Of course there is much more to Lübeck than marzipan.

We also visited the St. Petri’s, a place with quite a history. Originally a large Catholic Church dating from the 13th century, it was taken over by Lutherans a few centuries later. At that time, all the ornate carvings and metal work were removed. The gold was melted down and used to fund whatever war was going on at the time. As per Lutheran principles, the interior walls, ceilings and supporting pillars were all painted plain white. The building survived until 1942 when it was mostly destroyed during a British bombing raid. The raid came in response to an earlier German raid on the British city of Coventry. After the war, the ruins of St. Petri’s were partially covered to preserve them. Then, in the 1980’s, a campaign was launched to rebuild the church. To mark the project’s completion in 1987, a choir from Coventry came to the church and joined a Lübeck choir for a performance of Benjamin Britten’s Requiem for War.

We rode the elevator to the top of the St. Petri’s spire. The space up there was memorable for two reasons: great views of the city and a biting cold wind.

Thursday March 23

We’re staying a couple of nights with our friends Umut and Jacqueline in the town of Kröpelin, which is just a few miles from Rostock. This area is in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. To the north is the Baltic Sea; to the east lies Poland. We kept closer to home today, spending much of the day exploring the coast. We passed one place where you can buy yourself a four-story beachside chalet if you like. Prices start at around 10 million dollars. The weather was cool and windy, not totally different from the Oregon coast at this time of year. The great difference, though, is that the Oregon coast is mountainous. But here, on the Baltic coast, the land in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is flat as a board.

In the afternoon we had a look around the town of Kröpelin. The town name has the same Germanic root as the English word ‘cripple.’ And, in fact, the town was named after a differently abled person. The story goes that a man who couldn’t walk made a bet with the king that he could get himself from one end of the county to the other before sundown. The king took the bet and lost. The name Kröpelin commemorates the events.

The town museum is in an old building with three stories. A public library occupies the first floor; a museum of town history is on the second floor; and on the third floor we found something unexpected: a shrine to East German rock bands of the sixties and seventies. It was called the Ostrockmuseum Kröpelin. There were dozens and dozens of photographs, posters, album covers, and articles of clothing, plus quite a collection of period guitars, drums and audio equipment. Had we ever heard of the bands? No. In that era East Germany—whose official name was the German Democratic Republic—was behind the iron curtain. The band members couldn’t travel to Western Europe and we doubt that many bands from the West ever toured the GDR. But rock and roll itself was alive and well, and here was the evidence to prove it. If you’re ever in Kröpelin, you need to drop in. Admission costs 1.50 Euros.

Soon it was time to head home and start thinking about packing up for an early departure the next morning. It was a short but quite wonderful visit.

Friday March 24

Up at 5:00 AM to begin another long travel day: Rostock to Hamburg to Brussels to Madrid. By 5:30 PM we were in Madrid, having completed our great European tour.