Blast from the past as the move turns up old travel journals

Heidelburg Castle was the first blockbuster
sight on our northern European tour

While organising to move house, I found my diary for my "Grand Tour" of Europe after graduating from Northwestern.  Couldn't resist publishing some extracts, for a view back to my early travel writing.  The illustrations are modern.  I haven't found the photos that go with the 26-year-old notebook.  This was my third trip outside of the United States.  Money was tight but we certainly weren't slumming it.  Mom was working part time as a travel agent, so had snagged all sorts of deals. Everything was very foreign, and very impressive. The modern me is most impressed that the 21-year-old me had a conversation in French.  How the brain forgets...

Tuesday, 17 June, 1986

Layover in Reykjavic, consequence of very cheap Iceland Air flight.  It's 3:30am by our watches, but it's a cold (45 degree) morning in Iceland.  Desolate place.  Flat, black.  No trees, people or houses except for this airbase, US military.  Short stop, nice shop for sweaters but they're still $60.  No thanks.

Luxembourg.  Arrive about 2:30pm.  Easy luggage claim and customs in tiny airport.  Outside to bus, slapped in face by language barrier.  Driver speaks no English, but passengers all American tourists.

Five hour drive isn't pleasant after long flight, and the countryside looks like Missouri.  A bit disappointing!  It's a German holiday and the border crossing is backed up, then a detour because the driver forgot to drop a woman off.  Finally arrive at the Frankfurt hauptbahnhop, a huge Baroque-style building, and a cab, at last, to our hotel.

Intercontinental is lovely.  Big room with view of river.  Too tired to look for a restaurant, so downstairs to hotel place.  Expensive, but worth the convenience and the quick transition to bed.

18 June
The Hauptwache is a small, red, Baroque buiding once used as a military baracks.  Now at the centre of a very modern and rather featureless town.  Nearby is the Thurn and Taxis gate and the palace of that family, who started the concept of a modern mail service.  Logically, it's now the post office.

Frankfurt's Kaiserdom

The Eschenheimer tower is the last of the old city fortifications, and the Goethe house is a neat example of an upper middle-class German house of the 19th century.  The house was actually rebuilt to look like the original after the war, though all the furniture is original.  There's a magnificent grandfather clock, and the desk where he wrote the first draft of Faust.

Off to the Kaiserdom, a grand old gothic church.  It's just up from the Roemerplatz, a square of typical Bavarian-looking buildings, exactly what you'd expect from Germany.  After a puzzling time figuring out trains, we arrive in Darmstadt to meet our group.

19 June
Our tour guide is Rita Struder.  A striking blonde swiss woman in her early 30s, professional to the point of being a bit cold.  Off to the tour bus, filled with Americans, a mix of families on a big vacation, school teachers on break and retirees.  First stop, Heidelberg.

The red, Baroque, sandstone castle has a striking view of the valley and the university city of many spires below it.  The first notable sight is a giant wine cask, filled as part of tax collection.  Can't imagine the mix of all those wines was any good!  Huge houses on the other side overlook the Nekkar river and this castle.

Baden-Baden for lunch.  Like Bath, it's a town built around mineral waters.  Palatial homes and hotels from the 18th and 19th century in classical style make this a very gracious place.  There's a theater and many official bathing buildings.  Lunch was my first proper wurst.  Yum!

Next comes a long drive, with a rest stop on the Swiss border where we change money.  Fortunately the Swiss franc is very similar to the DM, so I can cope.  Upon arrival in Lucerne we have a so-so dinner at our hotel.  Rita says "1000 steps" after dinner is a Swiss custom, so we go for a walk.  It gets dark late, so there's light to see and people around.

It's a big college town and the streets are crowded.  In the distance we can see the first gentle slopes of montain country, filled with little farm plots for city people.  We walked over the gorgeous medieval kapellbruke, decorated with 100 different gable paintings.  Walking through town at night I can't help noticing the magnificent windows of the florists, filled with Edelwiess.  More affordable than the Bucherer watches we're lusting after in other windows.

20 June - Lucerne
We were up early today, thanks to the awful location of the hotel.  The Schiller's rooms are cursed with the double disadvantage of no air conditioning and a boisterous, noisy location.  Then a jackhammer started at 8am.

My first encounter with the
German baroque was
a surprise

After our breakfast of rolls and hot chocolate, we walked the two short blocks to visit St. Francis Xavier, the jesuit church here.  It's known as the finest Baroque/Roccocco building in Switzerland.  Of plain, eggshell coloured stucco on the exterior, it is charming but not impressive.  Two onion-domed towers flank the central door, and a small, paved court leads to stairs descending to the street below.  Once inside, the beauty changes from simple to ornate.

The first impression must be the brightness.  The walls are a shocking white, adorned with garlands and curlicues of plasterwork.  Most of these are either salmon pink or gold gilt.  Paintings of Xavier's life are set into the ceiling.  Each color is so bright and fresh, the church looks as if it were completed yesterday.

We left there, crossing the Reuss to submerge ourselves in a maze of cobbled streets and small shops.  All the clothese are modern and high fashion.  She shops abound and the prices aren't bad, though we wandered in a department store and a grocery where prices were more in line with home.  Collecting goods as we walked, we crossed town and ended up at Lucern's second well-known church, the Hofkirche (aka the collegiate church of St. Leodegar).  It has some impressive side altars, but on the whole is less memorable than the Jesuit edifice.

Wandering through the town we caught frequent views o fhte nine towers remaining from the city's old defensive network.  Switzerland has been a peaceful republic for 700 years.  But before that time it, like other European countries, was forced to fortify its towns.  Lucern's towers are unusual i that thay are each of a different design; most with curious wooden roofs and polychromed Medieval figures.

The people here seem to be a warm, friendly crowd.  This afternoon we paused on a bench on the kapellbrucke for a rest.  The man next to me tried to strike up a conversation.  We weren't doing so well in English and German, then we both hit upon French and had a pleasant chat.  He even invited us to a coffee, but our conversation had pushed the limit of my meager vocabulary and I figured I'd pass before running out of things to say.

Dinner was the bread, sausage, cheese and wine we purchased in the afternoon, served in our room.  Afterwards we walked behind the hotel to a park.  There, two men were intent on a game of chess played on the pavement with 3-foot-high pieces.  Perhaps the most amazing part of hte sight was the face that the pieces are stored, unlocked, and that no one steals them.

At 8:45 we trudged through a downpour to board the Nite Boat, a tourist attraction plus, put a good value.  Mother and I paid 32 swiss francs each (about $65) for the boat ride, one drink and a folklore show.  The latter featured regional costumes and some lovely music.  The banks of Lake Lucerne are well worth viewing, as they are lined with quaint chateaux and massive estates.  The highlight of the night: with engines cut, the boat sat beneath the mountain face as a man played an alpenhorn in the stern and the hills gave back the echo.