Scoutmaster trip to Eurpoe 2008

Europe 2007 2008

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Yesterday, I visited the Villa Adriana, the ancient summer palace complex of the Roman Emperor Hadrian built in the early second century during the great Pax Romana. The villa is located about twenty miles from Rome, in the hills above the town of Tivoli. Hadrian personally designed buildings and structures, often copying those he had seen in Greece or Egypt. The Villa has many swimming complexes and public heated and unheated bathing pools, and the homes have underground steam heat, and plumbing. There are several theaters, including the Maritime Theater built on an artificial island. The structures form a very well preserved complex on the scale of Pompeii, but without the impact of Vesuvius. I spent the whole day wandering around Villa Adriana, and got back to Rome in just time for the pasta dinner at the hostel.

Today, I went back to the Villa Borghese park in Rome, just to wander through the lovely landscaped grounds and enjoy people watching. The weather has been sunny in Rome, and everyone is out and about during the holiday season. The park has trails, outdoor sculptures, fountains and lakes. Restaurants and galleries also dot the park, but I did not visit any today. The park offers a great view of the skyline with Basilica San Pietro in the background. I strolled for several hours, and then walked down the Via Veneto to the Piazza Barbarini. Via Veneto is an upscale broad avenue with great five-star hotels and glitzy shops, and Piazza Barbarini has another of Rome’s famous fountains.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

With hugs and kisses from the staff, I left the Legends Hostel in Rome, and went to the seaside town of Fiumicino, near the Leonardo DaVinci airport. I will stay here through New Year and return to the airport to fly to London, on the second day of 2008. My plan is to do my laundry, wander by the ocean, relax during New Year, and get myself ready for the last leg of the journey to London and then on to home.

Fiumicino is a small town, and it has surprisingly good seafood restaurants that are considerably less expensive than restaurants in Rome. Even the little pizza shops serve better quality pizza than their counterparts in Rome. I had a few excellent meals, including an antipasto mixed seafood salad (no lettuce), and a rice dish with a red cream sauce with large prawns (like tasty shrimp, but with less ‘meat’). I also had a pasta dish in a light pesto sauce that included a variety of small seafood tidbits like baby octopuses, shrimp, clams, etc. The seaside around Fiumicino doesn’t have much to offer, but I strolled for a few hours.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

It’s officially 2008, and I am in London. Thinking about this trip reminds me of all the forms of transportation I have experienced. Of course, I flew in jet planes and turbo jet planes. The airports ranged from the tiny four-gate terminal on the Greek island of Santorini to the most modern and spacious international airport in Turkey’s capital, Ankara. The worst airports included London’s Stansted and Heathrow. Neither of these two London airports is easy to navigate, and mob-like crowds form in both places. I rode all kinds of trains, the most luxurious being the nonstop Eurostar from Florence to Rome, but also rode regional trains all over Italy and in England, Scotland, Norway and Sweden. The worst trains, by far, were the ones in the southern parts of Italy. I even rode the Harry Potter steam engine train called the Jacobite, to the coast of Scotland. Turkey has the best long distance busses; every bus had a spotless interior with stewards who, like on airlines, served drinks and food, and even brought around lemon scented washing towels during the trip. The worst busses had to be the ones in southern Italy and in England.

This trip also included a lot of travel on ships and ferries. The grand ships that cruise the North Sea and fjords of Norway were the most luxurious, but I also boarded little car ferries that moved people between the Orkney Islands. The Greek ferries between Turkey and Samos are just a little bigger than the small car ferries, but the jet-powered catamaran that I rode between Mykonos and Santorini seemed more like an airplane. Even the seats were assigned, and of course, you could not wander about the deck on this speedster.

Even my automobile experiences are worth mentioning. I rented cars in several places, and it is always a challenge to drive in the British Isles on the wrong side of the road with the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. Shifting gears with my left hand and looking to the right just feels so unnatural, but that’s the way it was in Scotland and on the Orkney Islands. I also rented a tiny car with the controls on the correct side on the Greek island of Samos.

Last, but not least, I did a lot of walking and a little cycling with Niclas and his family.

Friday, January 4, 2008

BBC reported the surprise in Iowa’s presidential caucuses; Hillary Clinton, the Democrat’s frontrunner came in third, and Mike Huckabee beat Mitt Romney on the Republican side. One analysis I read said that young women were attracted to Barack Obama’s youthfulness and saw Hillary as an older “grandmother” type. I spoke to several American young ladies here in London to see if this might be a valid interpretation, and they rejected the idea that Hillary was viewed as too old. The contests for the primaries are just getting started, but they are fascinating.

The last couple of days in London have reminded me of a thought I had some time ago. Almost every time I come to London, I think I might like to spend a year or so living in London or in England. Well, I am not going to do it any time soon, but it is an idea worth considering. Like New York, London is just a great place.

The Baden Powell House, where I am staying, has roots in Scouting; Queen Elizabeth dedicated the building about fifty years ago. Now it is part of a German hotel chain, and operates as a hostel. There are great posters about scouting, and on the stairs leading up to the restaurant on the first floor hang framed, hand drawn greeting cards from B-P and his wife. There’s a modern statue of B-P as an old man in front of the glass entrance way. The neighborhood around the Baden Powell House is lined with upscale white columned Edwardian homes, and just a few blocks away are the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Natural History Museum.

I walked over to a small restaurant called “Le Pain Quotidien” for lunch and got seated at a long table with a lovely young Russian lady and an English-French woman and her eight and ten-year-old sons. We had a great conversation that covered Harry Potter, Disney World, Star Wars movies and the South of France. The two boys were delightfully animated about everything. They have a grandfather who lives in Florida, and the older boy kept saying that he thought Americans were really nice, including me. The Russian lady, in her twenties, I’d say, complimented me on speaking English clearly. She complained that she often could not understand people speaking to her British dialects.

Last Spring in New York, my friend John Grey and his family told me they enjoyed the Broadway version of Spamalot. In fact, John said he laughed so hard that he was actually in pain leaving the theater. Based on John’s recommendation, I went to the Palace Theater this evening to see the British version of Spamalot; it’s the theatrical take off on the Monty Python movie, The Holy Grail. I enjoyed the show; it’s funny, and there are many scenes right out of the movie. Many of my scouts have the movie memorized and can say the lines at will. In the theater version, they have added at least two additional story lines not in the movie version; the first is a love story between King Arthur and the Lady of the Lake, and the second story line has to do with trying to make a hit show. It seems, according to Spamalot, you have to have a “Jew” to have a hit show, and Arthur bemoans not knowing any Jews! Arthur’s servant explains that he is half Jewish, and that saves the show. The whole “shtick” is very funny, they play and dance to music from Fiddler on the Roof, and Israeli dance tunes like “Hav Anna Gila,” and the audience roared with laughter.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

The New Inn in Gloucester, England, has been around since 1455, and I have a room here for a few days. Lady Jane Grey may have been hanged here. The young receptionist told me the ghosts of children who died in a fire haunted the Inn. She said guests have heard the children playing in the courtyard in the middle of the night.

I came to Gloucester from London just to see some more of England. The historic, thousand-year-old Cathedral of Gloucester has spectacular stained glass windows, and contains the tomb of Robert, Duke of Normandy, and son of William the Conqueror. I got to hear the Cathedral Choir practice this afternoon, and the acoustics can only be described as amazing.

Tomorrow, I plan to visit the National Waterways Museum before I return to London to catch my flight back to America. So this is the last of my electronic journal messages from my trip to Europe over the past six months. I am anxious to return home and look forward to seeing my friends and family again.

Philip Sternberg
Scoutmaster, Troop 1131