Sherrill and I visited more than 60 countries and most of the United States during our 52 years of marriage.  This is number 19 of a series about our lives and travels. If you scroll down, you'll come to earlier posts in this series.  To start at the beginning of our marriage look at the Archives list in the sidebar and start with May, 2017. Older posts are a previous series about much later travels.

​     "Okay, why not New Orleans, this year?" Sherrill and I agreed. 
       With work and school schedules, it had become a challenge for the three of us to travel together for any length of time.  Sometimes, though, we managed a short trip during the Thanksgiving holiday.  This time, we liked the idea of the city on the Gulf, known for its music and food.  However, once we were there we discovered that some of the famous restaurants had switched to a traditional Thanksgiving menu on the holiday.  We didn't go all that way for turkey, no matter how brilliantly prepared, but we were there for several days and figured that we'd eat well, anyway.   
            Waves of ragtime and jazz spilled around us from lounges and clubs funky and fancy as we hiked under wrought iron balconies and past French doors and open windows along the narrow streets of the French Quarter.  Sometimes, we stopped to listen or even went into a place.  Because of her experience playing clarinet and saxophone in bands, Sherrill was savvy about music, which was something I could never claim.  One evening, we braved the crowds in the Preservation Hall for some traditional New Orleans jazz.  The place wasn't fancy, but it didn't need to be.
            We loved exploring the city whether by foot or clanking old streetcar, discovering both its beauty and its quirks and oddities, from the historic cemeteries to the homes of the Garden District to less visited neighborhoods of equally old, much smaller, shotgun houses.  It all seemed surprisingly fragile to us, but in fact we hadn't begun to realize how vulnerable New Orleans was.  A few years later, Simone and her future husband, Paul, were there when the city was hit by the edge of Hurricane Andrew. 
            "The only people out on Jackson Square," she told us later, "were the hookers and us."
            Fortunately, that time the damage was relatively light.  Years later, Hurricane Katrina swept in and the destruction was worse than anyone had expected—a reminder that even if a place feels as if it has existed forever and always will, there are no assurances.  San Francisco gives that feeling, too, which is scary because all of us in the Bay Area know what lurks underground for us.  

            The time came when Simone wanted travel without her parents.  Sherrill and I had to acknowledge that she was growing up.  One of her first independent trips took her to Northern England, when she was invited by a high school friend to visit her grandmother in Blaydon-on-Tyne.  While she was there, she saw Durham's imposing cliff-side cathedral, walked along Hadrian's wall, visited a stately home, encountered hardcore punks at a mall in Newcastle, and picked heather and chased sheep with her friend on the moors, but the best memories may have been the family times, the teas and picnics, a cricket match where a family friend was playing, and a visit with more of the family in the wool town of Leeds.
                                                              *           *          *
            "Our plane had to turn back because of an engine fire," Simone told Sherrill and me when she arrived home again a year later, after a teacher-guided student tour of Europe, "so that night we stayed  in a hotel back in San Francisco."
            "I'm glad we didn't know about that engine fire," Sherrill confessed to me when we were alone. 
            Each time our daughter got on a plane without us, we worried, but of course tried not to show it.  What could we have done if there was a problem, anyway?  She grew up traveling, we reminded each other, was a good sport, and resourceful when confronted with the unexpected.   
            A new plane the next morning carried the students safely to England, although they missed a day in London.  After all that, the ferry across the channel, Simone said, was batted around by the waves like a ping pong ball.  
            "I was one of the few people who didn't get sick!" 
            The teacher—a friend of Sherrill's—was great, she said, but the other teenagers on the trip turned out to be affluent suburban snobs. 
            "The girls were horrible, but I did become pretty good friends with two of the boys."  

​                In Amsterdam, when they visited a shop where diamonds were cut she couldn't resist spending most of her money on a "very small" diamond, but then had to skip lunch for the rest of the trip.  After a few days in Paris, it was on to Lucerne, where they took a fourth of July nighttime cruise on the lake.  And how did she like Florence, this time? we asked.  The others wanted to go to a disco, she said, so of course they all went.  She didn't mention if she was pursued again by thirsty mosquitoes. 
         She celebrated her sixteenth birthday with her best friend on a trip to Switzerland.  "There was a big carnival in Geneva that day with rides and sausages and people throwing confetti.  For dinner, we ate three ice cream sundaes at three different outdoor cafes!"  Her friend's father was working in Basil that year, so using the city as a base, they explored the country with Swiss Rail passes that included rides on postal buses.  Sherrill and I were a bit nervous about these two teenage girls traveling around the country on their own, but we trusted her, they were experienced, and Switzerland was considered a safe place. 
                 "We went way up to a tiny village and suddenly the mountain opened and military planes came out.  It wasn't as out of the way as we thought.  Nothing in Switzerland really is.  On the way down, we passed nuns picking grapes.  Another day, we went into Italy and had a great day on Lake Como, including a boat trip to the amazing gardens at the Villa Carlotta."
               Like her mother, Simone became a serious gardener, creating her own beautiful garden and publishing articles and a book about gardening. 
           Sometimes, as the years went on, we all traveled together and sometimes we traveled independently.  When I couldn't leave work, even for a week or two, Sherrill and Simone went without me to visit Sherrill's mother in Honolulu.  When Simone wanted to fly to Nairobi, where her friend's mother was working for a while, we reluctantly decided that it wasn't such a good idea.  

            Remembering this period of our travels, I often think of New Orleans, the French Quarter, the music and food, the architecture, and sitting in the Cafe du Monde with chicory-flavored cafe au lait or hot chocolate and puffy beignet donuts dripping powdered sugar that stuck to our fingers and faces and scattered across the plain wood table and plank floor.  Simple pleasures, but memorable.
To be continued....   
 
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​               Sherrill, my wife, and I visited together more than 60 countries and most of the United States.  This is number 18 of a series about our lives and travels. If you scroll down, you'll come to earlier posts in this series.  To start at the beginning of our marriage look at the Archives list in the sidebar and start with May, 2017. Older posts are about much later travels.
 
            Rome is a city for walking, despite its hills, and we walked!  Coping stoically with tired feet, Sherrill, Simone, and I discovered the endless variety that is Rome.  To fight the summer heat, we consumed gelato—much gelato.  Especially from a wonderful little place near the Piazza Navona.  Then, flourishing more clippings, Sherrill  explained how easy it would be to get to the Renaissance gardens of the Villa d'Este, so from Rome's Tiburtina station, we rode a local train to Tivoli so we could walk even more among its fountains, statues, and grottos.  This local train was pretty much like the others we'd experienced, but we were starting feel that they were quaint and even charming. 
            As spectacular as the acres of decorated walls, cleverly shaped hedges and trees, antique statues, and reflecting pools were and as imaginative as the spouting fountains were, Tivoli wasn't quite what we'd expected.  We didn't doubt that the place deserved its reputation and designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It certainly was unique, but was it a "garden?"  Most of it wasn't what Sherrill thought of as a garden, but more of a triumph of architecture and "hardscaping."  
            "I'm glad I saw it," she sighed, "but give me an English garden, any time." 

​            We'd found a third-floor room with bath in a narrow building probably two or three hundred years old, not fancy but with a little terrace with wrought iron table and chairs.  The place was ruled by a bony little concierge with a nonstop stream of Italian and a finger that never stopped waggling.  Nobody could set foot in or out of the elevator or any room without her sticking her head out demanding to know what was happening.  When we did a little laundry in the bathroom and draped it on the railing and chairs, as if she knew by telepathy what we'd done, she rushed out and brought it in orating about rust and people slipping on wet marble and cracking their elbows. 
            Rome's massive train station, designed under Mussolini, but built after the war, promised speed and efficiency.  Despite the early hour, we were looking forward to riding the new super express Aurora, which was to get us to Naples in just two hours.  However, it never appeared.  Then we learned that a strike had derailed it.  As time went by, we began to wonder if we'd just stay longer in Rome and miss Naples and Pompeii. 
            "Everything has been too easy," I moaned.  "This is our punishment."
            However, we discovered that a later, slow, train heading to Sicily would pass through Naples.  Apparently, it wasn't affected by the strike.  Too unimportant, maybe.  Two hours later, we were on an old, battered train heading south.  Five hours and many stops later, we arrived in Naples.  Each time the train stopped, some kind of altercation exploded on the platform beside it, giving us visions of being stranded in a village between Rome and Naples, but eventually it staggered on its way again.  

​            We'd been warned about Naples.  It was poor, we were told, corrupt, and dangerous.  Certainly, we discovered, much of it looked rundown: grubby boys in short pants playing beneath laundry stretched over narrow hillside streets, pot-bellied vendors hollering about their wares in front of peeling paint and collapsing awnings, young men in dark shirts huddled in suspicious-looking clusters.  The odd thing was that we weren't afraid or nervous.  It seemed more lively and exciting than scary. (Of course, I carried money and valuables under my clothes, but I did that everywhere.)
            A local train on Naples' suburban train system took us to Pompeii—well, toward Pompeii.  From time to time, it stopped.  Not a strike, somebody told us, just a work slowdown.  Wonderful, we thought.  How many days would we be stuck among these hills and farms?  At least, we had a snack with us.  Eventually, we did walk among the remains of Pompeii—until we had to catch the train back to Naples.  We didn't want to stay there all night, among the ghosts of Vesuvius's victims.
            Capri is paradise on earth.  At least, that seems to be what most people think.  At last, we were going to find out for ourselves.  Running to the dock in Naples, we jumped onto a crowded ferry just before it pulled away—avoiding a two hour wait for the next one.  After bouncing around for a while in the blue water, it deposited us and more than a hundred others us near a rocky beach crowded with exposed skin.  Vendors were selling gelato and cold drinks and funny little toys. 

​            We looked at each other, wondering if this was all there was, but when we got away from that dock and so-called beach the natural beauty of the island was undeniable.  The rock formations and luxuriant blossoms, the vistas of blue-green sea, and the trembling watery light of the Blue Grotto alone would have made Capri worth visiting.  Had human beings ruined the island's beauty?  Yes and no, we decided.  Just as Sherrill said before, we were glad to be there and experience it, even if it wasn't as we'd imagined it. 
            The streets of Venice may be water, but we ended up with tired feet, anyway.  We'd reserved a room at the Pensione Accademia, the little  hotel on a small canal just off the Grand Canal used by the secretary heroine in the movie Summertime.  Jane Hudson learned in Venice that reality may not live up to dreams, but that doesn't mean it's better never to dream.  We got lost among the canals, narrow streets, and winding alleys, but enjoyed that even more than the museums and galleries.  
            "Mit goulash," I read on signs in front of some restaurants.  And "Mit Schlog."
            We were surprised to see so many signs catering to German tourists—some entirely in German.  Clearly, Europe had moved on since the War.
            The pigeons at Piazza San Marco rivaled the numbers at Trafalgar Square, but folks didn't feed them as generously as in London.  Variegated feathers brushing past our hot faces, we settled at a table in front of a cafe and I started to read aloud  from the guidebook. 
            "Not now," Sherrill protested.  "Just sit here and enjoy it."
            After resting on the piazza, sipping overpriced bottled water, we boated out to the Lido so we could rest more on the beach.  Another day, we rode a crowded vaporetto to the island of Murano, where, as wide-eyed as any other tourist, we gazed at the ancient and magical process of creating sparkling, fragile glass from fire.  Sweaty faces flushed from the heat of the furnaces, the craftsmen demonstrated their astonishing skills, using thin tubes, lung power, and deftly maneuvered implements.  

            Finally, reluctantly, we had to return to London for the flight back to San Francisco.
            To save money, we brought a picnic with us on the long-distance train to Paris on the first part of our trip back to London.  Across the aisle, an elegant French woman glanced disapprovingly  at us as we devoured it.  The only other movement I saw her make was to slip the heel of her foot out of one of her two-tone pumps.  Twice.  Several hours later, though, hungry again, we hiked through the train to the dining car.  We ate well, but when the time came to pay, I found myself counting paper bills in three different currencies into the waiter's hand.  He smiled, but converted the pounds and lira into francs until he had enough. 
            On our way to Heathrow, before leaving London we stopped to see the crown jewels at the Tower.  Since there was no place to check our suitcases, we carried them with us.  One of the guards opened and searched them—to Sherrill's embarrassment.  
            "Don't worry, love," the grinning middle-aged guard told her as he pawed through her  underwear.  "We're all married men here!"
            There was no mistaking that we were Americans—sometimes loud and messy, sometimes trying too hard to be friendly, but curious and interested in everything.  Looking back, I like to think that we didn't do so badly. 
To be continued....
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Sherrill, my wife, and I were married 52 years, during which we visited more than 60 countries and most of the United States.  This is number 17 of a projected series about our lives and travels, many of them with our daughter Simone. If you scroll down, you'll come to earlier posts in this series.  To start at the beginning of our marriage look at the Archives list in the sidebar and start with May, 2017. I hope you enjoy these glimpses into our lives.  Older posts are about much later travels.         
 
          "The perfect house to grow old in."  That's what one of our friends said when she visited Sherrill and me in our new home in Berkeley.  After a dozen years in our first Berkeley house, we sold it and bought one with far fewer steps, without the bay view we'd enjoyed, but comfortable and livable.  As it turned out, she was right.  We did grow old in this house. 
           It was from this comfortable house that we traveled for forty years, exploring countries on every continent except Antarctica and Australia.  The first of these trips was an easy one: to England, France, and Italy in 1978.  No driving, this time.  We discovered how simple it was in Europe to get around entirely by train, bus, and boat.  Although we'd been to England ten years before, this was our first time on the continent.  Okay, we weren't overly daring this time, but our adventures would evolve as time went by.  Before long, people would be asking, "You're going there—why?"  Over the years, curiosity and opportunity would propel our travels to unexpected places, but we never regretted a trip.  

           Our London visit included a return to Trafalgar Square and its ever-hungry pigeons.  Even as an almost teen, Simone enjoyed the pigeons, but she was going to turn thirteen only once, so we had to do something special on her birthday.  What could feel more special than a grand tea at Claridge's hotel in Mayfair?  They wheeled out the whole works for us: finger sandwiches of salmon, cucumber, and other treats; scones and jam, fancy pastries, rich cake, and mountains of Cornish clotted cream—even fragrant pots of tea. 
        "It's easy," Sherrill assured me, when she announced that she wanted to visit the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.  "We'll take a boat from the pier down there."  She pointed from Trafalgar Square toward the Thames. 
            As always, she'd done her homework.  Not only did she save articles and clippings about places she wanted to visit and how to do it, she catalogued and filed them and brought the relevant ones with her.  We got the boat where she said, enjoyed a ride along the river, explored Greenwich, including the Royal Observatory, and then stood on the Prime Meridian, zero degrees longitude.  We even walked under the Thames and back, through the only pedestrian tunnel beneath the river.  

​          To save time, we took the night train from London to Paris. We were settled into our compartment, all tucked into our bunks, being gently rocked toward the English Channel, when we began bouncing, crashing, and banging up and down and from side to side, all of this accompanied by groaning, clattering, and scraping noises. 
        "What's happening?" we shouted at each other.
         I pulled on clothes and found a railroad employee who explained that the car had been lifted from its wheels and set onto the ferry. 
       "I'm glad we're taking the train," Sherrill replied when I relayed this, "so we can have a good night's sleep before we get to Paris."  
       For a while, we enjoyed relative quiet, then it happened again as we were lifted from the ferry in France and set on new wheels. 
          Paris: city of romance and mystery.  And of tourists pretending they're Bogart and Bergman—not easy to do with lingering jet lag, but we managed the best we could, while staggering  back and forth across the city—we even had dinner at the restaurant on the Eiffel Tower, the city of light dazzlingly sprawled around us, and spent a day at Versailles, imagining Marie Antoinette and all those courtiers frolicking among the gardens and gilded rooms.  Then, eventually, it was back on a train for the journey south to the Cote d'Azur and the beaches at Nice and Antibes, where—properly brainwashed Americans—we were startled by the lack of fabric in the beachwear.  Sometimes, by the lack of beachwear.
         "Don't worry, I'm lucky," Sherrill assured me, after another train ride along the Mediterranean past boulder-studded cliffs and rocky beaches to Monaco.  "I spent part of my childhood in Reno.  I learned the games and how to bluff other players."
            She was brilliant and fearless at games, alright, even when playing for money, and probably would've won, if she'd played.  However, we weren't dressed appropriately for the casinos, Simone was too young to go in, and we couldn't afford it, anyway.  Instead, we toured the royal palace and visited Jacques Cousteau's Ocean Museum.  Sherrill eyed the casinos, but was resigned to not trying her luck—this time. 

            The train to Pisa must have been left over from the Great Depression, but although it screeched and clanked as it crawled along between frequent stops at local stations where students and stout women carrying net shopping bags hurried on and off, at last we reached Pisa.  Of course, there was more to the city than the leaning tower and we discovered plenty of it—on foot, of course.  The vistas along the Arno must have looked identical four hundred years before, except for a few wires and antennas decorating the medieval and renaissance buildings.  Eventually,  we found the great square with the cathedral and tower.  We didn't need advance reservations then to climb it or to get into any other site, for that matter.  Even in Rome, we could stroll into the Coliseum and wander through the Forum without tickets or standing in line.  Cheap airfares and giant planes weren't bringing herds of bargain-hunting tourists, yet.  We had no problem getting into the Vatican, although as it turned out we couldn't see Michelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel because the cardinals were electing a new pope in there. 
            "A new Pope?" I groaned.  "Today?  Now?"
            "We'll be back," Sherrill told me, confidently.  "There'll be another time."
            "Yeah, and another  election for a new Pope, probably." 
            Which was exactly what happened the next time we were there. 
         The actual traveling was easy enough, but arranging it in those pre-computer days, without the assistance of a travel agent, had been a job.  It was done by mail, studying travel guides, deciding where and what and when, writing letters, buying and enclosing international reply coupons, hoping for quick responses, and doing it again if someplace turned us down.  Even when we were there, I worried about missing connections, losing reservations, misplacing  travelers checks.  In many ways, that was a simpler time, but everything took more steps than today and it was harder to fix problems.   
            "Don't fuss, sweetie," Sherrill always told me when she or Simone proposed a change to our plans.  "It's easy."
            I tried not to fuss.  I really did.  
            "Didn't anyone tell us about the mosquitoes?"
        The renaissance building where we stayed in Florence mirrored the gracefully arched building decorated with Della Robbia medallions across the square, creating a harmonious picture, but whoever turned it into a hotel must have thought that window screens would spoil the historic charm.  We suffered from the heat if we kept the windows closed, however, the smelly mosquito coils the hotel staff gave us did nothing to keep away insects eager for blood.  Soon, we were pocked with itchy red mosquito bites.  At least, scratching away, we had no trouble strolling into the Uffizi museum, the Galleria de Academia (to see Michelangelo's David), or anyplace else.  No crowds.  No timed tickets.  Later, in Milan, we were able to walk right up to Leonardo's Last Supper and study it for as long as we wanted.  

Coming up:  Venice, Naples, and more.

If you enjoy these posts, please share them with anyone else you think also will find them interesting. You also might enjoy reading the new bargain-priced e-edition of my 1966 North Beach novel, The Night Action.  Available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  
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