The title is a bit misleading this year because the only interesting thing I did this summer happened before the summer. The reason is that I was on sabbatical during spring semester. Thea and I thought it would be nice to take a trip to Europe, both to see the sights and so that she could visit her family. But because I had a sabbatical in spring, it made sense to go to Europe when it was cheaper and less crowded. My theory was that in late April and May the weather, especially in southern Europe, should be nice as well. That turned out to be mostly true. On a couple of other occasions it was a wet and cold miscalculation.
We arrived in Amsterdam. These days you can watch your progress on a little screen attached to the seat in front of you and keep an eye on the pilot. You don't want the pilot to be drunk or a suicidal maniac!
Schiphol Airport, just outside of Amsterdam, is a very convenient place to land, You can go downstairs and catch a train to just about any destination in Europe, it seems. In our case, we got on a train and headed south to Thea's parents. When visiting there, we like to get on bicycles and cycle through the forests surrounding the nearby village of Oisterwijk.
It's also fun to go walking. Here we are hiking near the village where Thea's parents live, with a niece and nephews and assorted other relatives.
But if we were going to go to France and Spain, we weren't about to get there by walking. Not if we wanted to be back in the US in another five weeks or so. So we got ourselves on a very fast train--the Thalys--and started speeding towards Paris. You can see the speed in my GPS receiver--it was still set to miles--174 miles per hour! I'd never gone that fast on land before.
The Thalys got us to Paris, where we had to go to a different train station (the Gare d'Austerlitz) via the metro in order to get us to our destination, the city of Amboise in the Loire Valley. We like to stay in towns that are small enough to easily walk around in, but still have some interesting historical and artistic sites. Amboise fit the bill very nicely. Below is a city gate.
Amboise also has a nice chateau that towers over the city and was once a residence of the kings of France. Leonardo da Vinci also visited here as a guest of the French king. The part that you see below is a chapel that looks a lot like a miniature version of a French gothic cathedral.
Amboise is not far from some of the other famous chateaux of the Loire valley. One of the most beautiful and best known in the Chateau de Chenonceau.
The chateau has a lovely garden, viewed here through a window that seems
to still have its original glass.
A larger city in the area is Tours. We spend several pleasant hours walking around Tours. Like most older French cities, it has a beautiful cathedral.
The Tours cathedral is especially famous for its stained glass windows. Although they were made in the middle ages, most of them have survived to the present day.
In order to stay on schedule a bit, we continued on towards the southwest of France and ended up on the coast near the border of Spain. This is Basque country, and the coastal area is therefore known as the Cote Basque. We spent a couple of pleasant days in St. Jean de Luz.
You can see that it is still a fishing village, although it is also fairly touristy. Below you can see why tourists would come here.
Below is the town hall (the Hotel de Ville), with a sign in Basque. The Basque language is spoken in both France and Spain. It is not known to be related to any other language on earth (and is therefore called a "language isolate").
Spain
We crossed over the border in a small regional train line (the Euskotren) that takes you from the Cote Basque into the Spanish Basque region. One of the nicest cities in this area is San Sebastian (or Donostia in Basque)
It is always fun to sit on a cafe terrace and watch people go by when you travel. The Basques are an ancient and proud people. A fair number of them would like to have an independent country. You may have heard of the ETA, a Basque organization that consists of freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on your point of view. San Sebastian is reputed to be a hotbed of ETA supporters. The man below is wearing the typical Basque beret. Looks suspicious, doesn't it??
Not everyone wears traditional berets, however.
Our next stop was Avila. This is a lovely city that is still within its medieval walls.
One of the best ways to see the city is to climb on the walls.
From up on the walls, you can get a nice view of dozens of storks that have built their nests on just about every rooftop. Storks had almost died out in Europe a few decades ago, but they have clearly made a comeback. There are quite a few breeding programs to help them along. Here you see one that was flying overhead.
We then headed off to Madrid. Compared to the quiet medieval town of Avila, it was vastly busier and noisier.
There were so many people on the streets on a Friday night that I thought they were planning a revolution. Apparently, this is normal.
If you want to get away from the crowds, Madrid has some lovely plazas and parks. Of course, quite a few people go to the plazas and parks as well, but it's a lot more relaxing than being on the streets. Below is the Parque del Buen Retiro.
Here is a father with his baby child. Under the dictator Franco, Spain was considered a backward country that was not part of modern Europe. That has clearly changed since it became a democracy (a constitutional monarchy). In any event, the men don't seem to be as macho as they used to be.
We hadn't given it much thought beforehand, but when we passed through Atocha Train Station in Madrid, we remembered that this had been the location of a terrorist attack a few months earlier, in an incident that the Spanish refer to as 11/3 (for 11 March). This is a memorial at the train station.
Granada
Our main destination in Spain was the city of Granada in the south, in a region called Andalucia. I was invited to give a couple of talks at the law school at the university there. Below you see me standing in the courtyard of the laws school, next to a statute of Francisco Suarez, who was born in Granada in 1548. He was a Jesuit scholar who is thought by the Spanish to be the founder of the field of international law. We Dutch folks know that it was really the Dutchman Hugo Grotius who was the father of international law. Not that we're chauvinists, of course.
Below is a photo of our very gracious host, Prof. Francisco (Paco) Bossini. The woman on my right of me is a criminal lawyer who came to one of my talks.
The university treated us very well and put us up in a guest house in a historic part of Granada called Albayzin. It was once the Arabic part of town. This is the view from our window.
The gem of Granada is the Alhambra, a world heritage site. It is the palace of the former Islamic rulers of Andalucia. Much of Spain was under Moorish rule during the middle ages. Spanish Christian forces gradually drove the Moors to the south, a process called the reconquista (the "reconquest"). Some of the Moors managed to hold out in Andalucia, however, and their capital was the Alhambra in Granada. They were eventually driven out of Spain by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492.
The oldest part of the Alhambra is the Alcazaba, which was originally build as a fortification.
Later, the caliphs and princes built themselves a magnificent palace, known as the Nasrid Palace in English (Palacio Nazaries in Spanish). One of the most beautiful and famous parts is the lion fountain.
What is impressive about the Nasrid palace is not so much its size--there are much larger and more imposing palaces in Europe--but the incredible artistry and attention to detail with which it was built. Below is one of the walls of a room.
Like many places, the Alhambra is most beautiful at night. This is a nocturnal view of it from the balcony of the residencia where we stayed during our week in Granada.
The Spanish tend to eat very late at night (at least, by our standards). We never quite got used to it. They also tend to eat snacks (tapas) at around 6 or 7 pm, because you can get pretty hungry if you don't eat until 9 or 10 pm. We usually ended up eating some tapas instead of dinner. Here we are at a tapas bar with our friends from Santa Barbara, Bjorn and Inga, who were living here during his sabbatical.
The next morning we rented a car and started a slow trip back to nothern Europe.
La Mancha
The center of Spain is an areas known as La Mancha. Much of it is quite flat. But there are exceptions. Especially the hillier areas of La Mancha are quite similar to the hills and valleys along California's central coast. Below is a portrayal of Don Quijote (or Quixote). It is on a marker that identifies the castle in the background.
Here you see the castle a bit more clearly. There was a lot of drizzle and fog that day, which actually made the castle appear very mysterious and oddly inviting.
So, we drove up a tiny rocky road to the castle, which is partially in ruins. It is open to the public, but on this cool day in May we were the only people there, besides the caretaker, which made it all the more interesting to roam on the ramparts and enjoy the great views over the countryside (at least, when the clouds weren't in the way!).
High up on a hill like this you need to find water, which isn't easy. Most towns and villages are built in valleys near a stream or river. This castle had to collect rainwater and store it in cisterns. If you look carefully, you can seen it dripping from the spout on the wall into a small catch-basin below, from which the water flows into a cistern.
Probably the most famous feature of La Mancha are windmills, which were widely used to grind grains. They are usually on hills or ridges, to take advantage of the stronger winds. You may remember that Don Quijote had a few run-ins with windmills.
A day or two later we made it to Segovia, a city to the northwest of Madrid. It is another lovely medieval city with much of its walls and ramparts intact.
One of the most famous sights in Segovia is the Alcazar, an Arabic word for castle. It was used as a residence by several of the kings and queens of Spain. It is now a museum and has some nice coats of armor. Note that not just the knight, but his horse was also armored. With all that weight, if they killed the horse, the knight was a sitting duck. So it made sense to armor the horse, I suppose, but it must have been very stuffy for both horse and rider.
Segovia is also famous for its Roman aquaduct, which brought water to the city from a source around 10 miles away. The Roman empire, which in many ways was a brutal and backwards institution, also managed to accomplish some great engineering feats (probably using slave labor, of course). The aquaduct was built without a single bit of mortar.
Portugal
We followed the course of the Duero River into Portugal. The Duero River turns into the Douro River when you enter Portugal. Same river, of course, just a slightly different name. The river is dammed in various places to generate hydroelectricity. The small roads that we were taking to Miranda do Douro went over several of these dams. As we crossed the the one pictured below, we entered Portugal.
We followed the Douro River (more or less) to the sea. Along the way, you pass through some beautiful mountainous scenery and wine-growing regions. Besides grapes, people grow a lot of olives in this area. Below is a medium-sized winery.
The Douro River enters the Atlantic near Porto. Since we were trying to stay on smaller roads and in smaller towns, we bypassed Porto as best we could (nonetheless, got caught in a traffic jam for a while) and then headed up the coast to the north. There are some beautiful beaches and fishing villages along the coast.
I think that the mountain you see in the background of the picture below is actually in Spain, but the beach is still in Portugal.
We crossed over the border, back into Spain, and entered the Spanish region of Galicia. Many people here speak a language known as Gallego, which is very roughly speaking a combination of Portuguese and Spanish. The area also retains some strong Celtic influences.
The main attraction in Galicia is the city of Santiago de Compostela, which has long been a pilgrimage destination. In fact, many people walk hundreds of miles here on a pilgrimage. Being from southern California, we drove, of course. Below is the cathedral where the pilgrims end their journey.
Most pilgrims wear modern clothes these days. Below is one in more traditional pilgrim garb, although the cell phone he's using makes me wonder whether he's really a pilgrim. Maybe he needed to call home to say that he made it.
Inside the cathedral there was a service going on when we arrived. At the end of the mass they had this incredible incense burner that swung back and forth like a pendulum. Very impressive.
We left Santiago de Compostela and caught a night train to Barcelona, which is way on the other side of Spain, on the Mediterranean coast. We had a cute little room on the train. Oddly enough, it did not have a bathroom, but it did have a shower. I had never taken a shower on a train before, so I thought I'd give it a try. It worked!
When we awoke, we were an hour outside of Barcelona, where we changed trains and headed off back to France.
FRANCE (encore)
Our train followed the Mediterranean coast in the direction of Montpellier. Once there, we changed to a local train that went to Nimes. From there, we planned to go to Arles, in Provence, but found out that the next train to Arles would not leave for another 3 or 4 hours. That was fine--we didn't mind hanging out in Nimes for a while--but what do you do with your luggage? A big problem after 9/11 and other terrorist threats is that most train stations no longer allow you to leave luggage in lockers, for fear that someone will place a bomb in a locker. So we decided we might as well spend the night, so we could store our things in a hotel while we walked around.
Nimes is actually a pleasant enough city, with a very well preserved Roman amphitheater. It is still in use, but instead of gladiator fights, they now have bullfights.
Arles
We did make it to Arles the next day. It's a very nice town, famous as being the residence of Vincent van Gogh for a couple of years when he did some of his best work. I don't believe the city contains a single piece of his art, however (besides a lot of postcards). Van Gogh made much use of vibrant colors during his French period (his Dutch paintings are quite a bit more somber). Looking at the landscape in southern France, you can see why he would gravitate towards using more color in his paintings.
South of Arles is an area called the Camargue, where the Rhone River enters the sea. It's a nice flat area to do some bike riding and explore the countryside,
What I was not expecting to see in this area was pink flamingos--a lot of them! I always thought they hung out in Florida and the Carribean, but there are clearly quite a few here.
Avignon
Our next destination was Avignon, which is somewhat north of Arles. Avignon is known for its bridge, which is the subject of a French children's song (Sur le pont d'Avignon, on y danse, on y danse...).
Avignon is also famous for having been the residence of a series of French popes. The popes haven't always lived in Rome! Below is the Palais des Papes, where the popes lived. It looks more like a military fortification than a religious institution. I suppose that in those days, there wasn't much difference.
We left Avignon on the TGV (it stands for "tres grande vitesse"), which is a type of very fast French train that I clocked, using my GPS device, at a top speed of 186 mph. Yes, that's miles, not kilometers! We took this train to Lyons, and then got on a conventional train to the region of Alsace Lorraine, which is very close to the German border.
Those TGV trains are pretty cool, aren't they? Anyway, our destination in Alsace was the town of Colmar, which you see below:
This is a charming small city with buildings that are built in very much of a German style. They also have very German food. You eat sauerkraut and sausage here, rather than Coq au Vin.
This region has gone back and forth between Germany and France over the centuries. Many of the people, especially the older folks, speak German. Napoleon is supposed to have said something like, "I don't care if they speak German, as long as they think French."
Colmar is in the middle of the Alsacian wine region, which consists of some very charming villages, such as Ribeauville, shown below.
We walked through the vineyards from one village to the next.
The next village was Hunewihr. It has a stork recovery center with dozens of storks. Here's one that built a nest on the top of a house.
Another charming village in this region is Riquewihr. Below you see the walls and gate to the village, as we approached it on a small road that meandered through the grapes.
We had a great time in Alsace, but time was running short. So the next day we got on a train and headed up to the north, passed through the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, then through Belgium, and found ourselves back in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands (Part II)
Back in the Netherlands, we stopped in Sittard in the province of Limburg. Thea was born in a village near here and went to the gymnasium (a college preparatory high school) in Sittard. This is the local church. Spain and France are beautiful, but the Netherlands isn't bad either.
We stayed with some of Thea's relatives who live here. Here we are taking a walk through a small forest in this area. Thea's relatives actually own a part of this forest.
We spent the last several days of our trip with Thea's parents. Actually, I hopped on a train and spent some time in Friesland, where I gave a talk at the Frisian Academy and appeared on Frisian radio. It was fun! Then I returned to the south for the final days of our stay in Europe (Thea's parents live in the province of Brabant).
The day before we left there was a ceremony by the St Hubertus guild in front of the village church. It was a nice ending to a great trip.
THE END