So, another day, another bus ride. We are at port in Malaga, Spain, which lies in Southern Iberia on the Costa del Sol (“Coast of the Sun”) of the Mediterranean.

Our bus ride was about an hour and half northeast to Alhambra, a palace and fortress of the Moorish monarchs of Granada. The name Alhambra, signifying in Arabic “the red,” was derived from the reddish color of the tapia, a building material made of clay of which the outer walls were built. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Islamic world. We listened to a several hour lecture about Alhambra, Spain, the Muslims, the Catholics and so forth from our tour guide, Maria, but I will spare you the details. The history is super confusing, but the place was quite beautiful.

So Alhambra is huge–about 35 acres total. Part of the tour was the gardens and the other part was the castle. All the way up to Alhambra, Maria went over and over how we had to stick together, we must show our passports to get into the castle, blah, blah, blah. We were honestly getting pretty sick of hearing it by the time we got there. Everything went pretty well until we entered the castle grounds, and Maria discovered we were missing just one person. There were supposed to be 30, but there were only 29. When Maria counted, she freaked out and said, “Someone is missing!” A guy in an ugly long-sleeved acid green shirt (a crew neck, not even a quarter zip) said loudly, “Yes, it’s my wife!” Maria screeched, “Where is she?” He answered, “I don’t know! I thought she was right by me!” Okay, what a weird scene. The guy just lost his wife? He didn’t know what happened to her? Maria and the guy went out of the gate (remember, it was a big deal to get in there with passports) and were gone about 15 minutes. When they came back, they hadn’t found his wife and we continued the tour as if nothing had ever happened. It was kind of like, nope, didn’t find her. Oh, well. Those are the breaks. We were in the castle over an hour and she did finally turn up later on the bus. No idea where she was that entire time. Possibly kidnapped. I would have been hopping mad if Doug had left me outside the castle walls and blithely continued the tour, but maybe that’s just me.

Tonight we are headed through the Strait of Gibraltar, and we arrive in Casablanca, Morocco tomorrow morning about 10 AM. I didn’t remember my geography that well, so I had to look up Strait of Gibraltar for a refresher course. For those of you in the same boat (not literally), it is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The captain of the ship said we should get there by 10 PM, depending on the traffic. Yes, that is what he said, so I guess the traffic to the Strait of Gibraltar can be pretty brutal.

Some notes: For a mental picture of Maria, she was a large-boned tall woman with short, dark hair and a commanding voice. She said “muy bien” (very well) about 60 times today. She also went on and on gushing about Antonio Banderas, who was born in Malaga. On another vein, last night at dinner on the ship we saw a an older guy (65-ish?) and a much younger woman (29-ish?) eating dinner. On the way out they stopped by a table near us and he introduced her as his girlfriend to another couple. Okay. Then he told them that they had met at the launderette. Nope, that never happened.

So, there we were this morning on yet another bus, driving through Barcelona to reach the Montserrat Monastery just thirty miles northwest of the city. As my mother always said, some people are just gluttons for punishment. The Benedictine Monastery, which was founded in the 11th century, houses the Virgin of Montserrat, one of the most famous Madonna statues in the world. In 1844 Pope Leo XIII declared the Virgin of Montserrat the patroness of Catalonia, so that’s pretty cool. The most notable thing about the monastery is the setting on the top of a range of jagged mountains–Montserrat literally translates to serrated mountains. Our tour guide, Olga, said the word “serrated” at least 20 times before I stopped counting. Olga also said the mountains were “steepy.”

The Madonna statue sits behind a sheet of glass. However, one of her hands is holding a sphere (which symbolises the universe) and is not behind the glass. It is tradition for you to touch the Virgin’s hand when you pass by the statue so that is, of course, what we did.

Spain is made up of 17 autonomous regions known as ‘Comunidades Autónomas’. Catalonia, where Barcelona is, is one of the regions. Catalan’s have their own language and culture, and if the rest of them are anything like Olga, they can’t stand the Spanish government. In 2017, Catalonia leaders made a bid to secede from Spain. Nine of the 12 accused received prison sentences for the crimes of sedition; of them, four were also found guilty of misuse of public funds. Their sentences ranged from 9 to 13 years. So, just what we needed. More talk about contentious politics while on vacation.

When we were driving through Barcelona, Doug took this picture of the iconic Christopher Columbus statue built in 1888. Columbus is supposed to be pointing towards the New World, America, but he is actually pointing towards Algeria. The most accepted reason for this is that at the time, it was thought that it wouldn’t be appropriate, or aesthetically pleasing, to have Columbus pointing at the ground and not towards the sea.

One of the things I have noticed when cruising is that people who are trying to be friendly (or boastful) ask the same questions: Where are you from? (basic question); Have you traveled on this cruise line before? (yes). Where did you go? (trick question). This final question is the one that turns everything into a one-upmanship contest. Someone can always top you on how many times they have been to Barcelona, how many cruises they have taken, blah, blah, blah. I haven’t yet come up with a pithy-shut-it-down comeback, but I am open to all suggestions.

Yesterday we rode a high speed train from Paris to Barcelona. The train goes about 186 miles per hour, which is absolutely dizzying when you look out the windows. The distance was 643 miles, but we made several stops, so the entire trip took just a bit over six hours. The most difficult part of the trip was navigating the Paris-Gare-de-Lyon and actually finding our train. Good Lord in Heaven. People who got on the train who could actually speak French were even having problems. The good thing about the French is they are quite laissez-faire. There just doesn’t seem to be many rules. The bad thing is that they we are used to rules and keep thinking we may be doing something wrong. Like yesterday. We had three suitcases and it was not clear at all where we should stow them. The actual luggage racks were small and inadequate and already filled up, so we ended up leaving two of them in a really awkward and in the way place. No one noticed, commented or cared. In the US you would get chastised for such behavior.

Below is a picture of the train station. Full disclosure: it was too early and dark when we got there, so I did not take this.

Last night in Barcelona we stayed on Las Ramblas, the main promenade of the city that runs between the Plaza de Catalunya and the old port. The promenade is full of people all day until late at night. It is dotted with newsstands, flowers, an open air market, street actors, cafes and shops. We went to Bar Lobo’s Tapas restaurant and had their delicious delicious fried aubergine with drizzled honey. Of course, I had to embarrass myself by asking what aubergine was (it’s eggplant to us). By the way, we got up super early and it was as hot as Hades for the six hours we were on the train, so as you note, l was looking (and feeling) pretty ragged last night.

Today we boarded our ship, the Viking Jupiter, at the port. This ship has the capacity for 930 people as compared to 190 people on the river cruise, so there is more anonymity here, which is fine by me. Actually, I asked and 800 people are on this ship.

On the last night on the river cruise, our ever-cheerful cruise director, Jerome, (who should be an actor) listed the top ten dumb things he has been asked by passengers. I can’t remember all of them, but a few of the funniest were: 1. “Do you have to get off the boat to go on a shore excursion?” 2. Do these stairs go up or down?” 3. “Is the water in the toilets from the river?” And 4. “Does the crew live on board?” I love the stairs question. Who doesn’t know that the nature of stairs is to go both up and down?

Catchy headline, but we were coming back to Paris anyway. Jerome, the cruise director, met Franz, the guy who found the phone, somewhere close to where our boat moored in Paris tonight and wonder of all wonders, Doug is now in possession of his phone. What are the odds of dropping a phone in the street in a small town in France and actually coming in to possession of it again in Paris? Doug is ecstatic, but I am pretty thrilled as well. He has been annoyingly using my phone to take pictures for the past four days. I gave him the security code, but he doesn’t always want to bother so he sticks the phone right in my face for face recognition, which drives me nuts. I would have grabbed it from him and thrown it into the Seine, but that would have only made our situation worse.

Today we visited Napoleon’s Chateau Malmaison, the translation being “evil house.” The French version sounds much more poetic, doesn’t it? Malmaison was the home of Josephine and Napoleon until he divorced her in 1809 because she did not produce any heirs. Josephine continued to live in the house until she died in 1814, and she still maintained the title of Empress Josephine.

Our tour guide was a tiny, birdlike little woman named something like Coco with a funny way of using various expressions. For instance, she said that Napoleon didn’t care for Paris because it was too “crappy.” So, in 1804 when he crowned himself Emperor, he began a series of improvements to the city’s sewer and water supply. Coco obviously meant that Paris was literally crappy, because before Napoleon there was raw sewage in the street. Coco also said that Napoleon liked his women “smelly” and didn’t like Josephine to bathe. Make of that what you will.

About half of the furniture is original to the house and the other half is original to the time period, but not necessarily to the house. The red tented bed is actually Josephine’s bed, and the harp and piano are original. I kind of lost the thread after that because many of the rooms were small and stuffy and we were crammed into them, so it made it hard to focus on what Coco was on about. I was fascinated by the red velvet chairs with the white swan arms. Notice that swans are also woven into the carpet. The swan motif shows up again on Josephine’s bed and several other places, so I guess she had a thing about swans.

When Doug lost his phone and Jerome tried to help him find it in Auvres, it delayed our bus and I got a lot of dirty looks and sighs from our fellow travelers. Today, Doug failed to get on the bus at exactly the right minute it was due to leave, and I turned around and said to our fellow travelers, “So sorry, all.” Silence and more dirty looks. I have vowed to myself that I will never, ever act like a crotchety old person. I give my daughters full authority to warn me if I show any signs.

This our last night on the river cruise. Tomorrow morning, we get up bright and early to catch a cab to the train station, where we will hop on a high speed train to Barcelona. So we must say au revoir to our shipboard friends, Laurel and Kevin (Florida) and Sherrie and Fred (Texas). Oh, and new friends tonight from DC, Yasmin and Hussein. We all exchanged phone numbers, so we will see how that works out. There are also some people on board who I am glad I don’t have to see again, so I say “Bon debarras” to them.

Coming into Paris tonight:

After the long, grinding day yesterday, today has been quiet and relaxing. Les Andelys is a small town in Normandy with a population of about 7,000 people. It’s most notable sight is the Château Gaillard, a medieval castle sitting on a hill high above the city. The Château, which is in ruins, was built in 1196 by Richard I, King of England and feudal Duke of Normandy. Or so they say. I didn’t walk up the hill because it was so steep. Doug took some pictures.

The other excitement of the day was that this morning, we had a cooking class by the chef on how to make Tarte au Citron, or lemon tart. The chef declared them quite easy to make, but of course he was trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. The difficultly level was out of my wheelhouse, but I did save the recipe if anyone is interested (Mary?). I did learn a new cooking term, “blind baking,” which is simply pre-baking the crust before you fill it. He also told a funny story about a lady who complained that the microwave didn’t work in her stateroom when she tried to heat up some soup. There are no microwaves in the staterooms, so they decided she was trying to heat her soup in the in-room safe. Does not surprise me at all.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday was Bob’s story, one of our fellow travelers. His father was on Normandy Beach on D-Day, his grandfather was in WWI and his great grandfather was in the Spanish American War. Bob was in the Navy but did not see combat. He was probably in his late seventies, and visiting Normandy Beach was on his bucket list. I thought it was pretty cool that he was able to travel all of this way to see it.

So, we now have four shipboard friends that we will probably never see again after Tuesday: Laurel and Kevin (Florida), and Sherrie and Fred (Texas). Laurel and I went browsing today in some of the little shops in town and she told me that she and Kevin would like to visit us sometime in Georgia. She rambles, so it was something like “We would love to visit you all sometime in Georgia because Kevin and I both really like you all. That is, if you want us to. Kevin is really a lot of fun.” It kind of took me off guard, so I just smiled and nodded. She is quite endearing, but she talks nonstop. And I do mean nonstop.

Extra stuff: All of the tour guides in these small towns say that most of the people who live in them commute to Paris for work. I believe it because the towns are mostly deserted during the day. There are commuter trains in most of the towns. Tomorrow is the day that Doug supposedly gets his phone back from Franz, the honest phone guy. Will keep you posted. And finally, after some serious eavesdropping on my part, we met two couples from Kansas City tonight who have a second home in Sunrise Beach. They were kind of loud, so were probably from the Kansas City, Kansas side.

What a long and sobering day. For some reason, it didn’t occur to us until a couple of days ago that we would be visiting Normandy Beach on Veteran’s Day, or Armistice Day as they refer to it here. It was about two hours by bus to get to the English Channel from Rouen. First, we visited the Overlord Museum in Colleville-sur-Mer. They had one of the original Enigma machines, which the Nazis used extensively to code their messages. It made me want to rewatch the movie “The Imitation Game,” about Alan Turing, the Englishman who played a crucial role in cracking intercepted coded messages from the Germans. There are only about 300 of these machines left, mostly in museums.

After that, we visited the American Cemetery and Memorial which contains the graves of 9,388 Americans, and nearly 1,600 names on the Walls of the Missing, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and ensuing operations. I cannot even begin to describe what visiting it was like. The cemetery sits on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach and is run by the American Battle Monuments Commission. Because it is Armistice Day, they had a ceremony for those of us visiting from America, which included a salute to the flag and singing the Star Spangled Banner accompanied by bells. Then they played taps and we had a minute of silence. I felt like sobbing. It makes me tear up just to write about it now.

After that we went to Omaha Beach and walked out on the beach. What I didn’t realize was how huge the beach is and how far the soldiers had to walk with all of their heavy equipment to reach cover. We walked down on the beach, but never even got close to the water. People who were walking out by the water looked tiny. It was low tide, but it was still just epic in scale.

Well, the jury is in and river cruises are really, really up close and personal for me. A lot of people are extremely nice, but it seems you keep seeing some of the same annoying people everywhere. For instance, L.J., who I alternately felt irritated with and sorry for all day. He and his wife, maybe Michelle? sat in front of us on the bus and he slammed his seat back in a reclining position so hard that he almost broke my left knee cap. Also, he made it completely known that his lunch at the museum was awful. But then he had a medical emergency at the cemetery and they had to call an ambulance. So I was nice to him after that and (oh, crap!) he and his wife, maybe Michelle, sat with us at dinner. Again, complaining loudly about the food and the service. Good Lord. Then, he mentioned his medical emergency and told his wife he hoped the cancer wasn’t back. Awkward moment for sure. Doug and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows, but I think we both decided not to touch that with a ten foot pole. They are from Louisiana and he speaks with a Cajun accent. I think he may be slightly crazy. His eyes seem a bit unfocused.

Full disclosure: I brought only layers, so that is why my stupid white vest keeps showing up in pictures. It is one of my layers. L.J.’s medical emergency was that he got off the bus and was reeling around like he was about to fall down, as if his legs were not working at all. Pretty scary. I have not mentioned this to anyone here, but you all don’t even know L.J. So I think it is okay to tell you. Finally, I forgot to add a picture of Rouen yesterday of a restaurant where Julia Child was supposed to have had her first meal in France. Lovely place.

First, an update on the amazing saga of Doug’s lost phone. A guy who works in Auvers where we were yesterday (64 miles from where we are now) found Doug’s phone on the street this morning. He lives in Paris, so he took the phone back to his apartment, hoping he could find the owner and someone would contact him. Doug figured out that you can mark your phone as lost, then activate a message to have the person who finds it contact you, so he sent a message that included my phone number. Wonder of wonders, the guy just called! Of course he spoke only French, so Doug raced down to the desk. Jerome, the cruise director talked to the guy and arranged a time to get the phone when we get back into port in Paris on Monday. So, we will see if miracles can happen and we actually retrieve the missing phone.

This morning we arrived in Rouen, where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in 1431. Before we arrived, our cruise director, Jerome, performed, I mean narrated, a lecture about her tragic story. In a nutshell, Joan had some farfetched dream visions and single-handedly saved France from the English. If it had not have been for her, the entire world, including the United States, could have been under the heavy hand of British Imperialism. For her troubles she was burned at the stake for heresy and her ashes were thrown into the Seine. She was only 19 years old. She was canonized in 1920, almost 500 years after she died. There was no Q&A after the lecture, but I wanted to point out that although Joan of Arc was probably an admirable person, the United States actually fought the Revolutionary War to free our country from British rule.

After lunch we went on a walking tour of Rouen which included Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Rouen, where our tour guide, Marie Helene, pointed out where Joan of Arc was buried. Wait, I thought her remains were thrown into the Seine River? I didn’t ask at risk of sounding like a smarty pants. Richard the Lionheart had a tomb there as well, but they only buried his heart there to commemorate his love of Normandy. They buried the remainder of his body in Anjou.

In case you are wondering why there is a church called Notre Dame in Rouen, there are actually 37 churches with the name Notre Dame, or “Our Lady,” in France. Of course, we only think of the Notre Dame in Paris. So far, we have seen two churches named Notre Dame, but not the one in in Paris.

We also walked by the Gros Horloge, a Renaissance building which spans the road below by means of a lowered arch. There is a 14th century astronomical clock face on each side of the arch, where a single hand indicates the hour. Marie Helene said that under the number VI, a divinity associated with the day of the week appears on a triumphal chariot. Yeah, I didn’t understand what she was saying either, but it is pretty. See below:

Surprisingly, Laurel and Kevin are kind of growing on me. I have never met anyone quite like Laurel. She is a complete open book. Everything she is thinking just spills out of her mouth like so many colorful gum balls, and it can actually be quite entertaining. Kevin is a lovable nerd who doesn’t seem to have too many inhibitions. At lunch yesterday he showed one of the waiters how to do the Funky Chicken. Comedy gold for sure.

Catchy title, right? So, without further adieu, Doug lost his phone today on our bus trip to Auvers-sur-Oise to see the last place Vincent van Gogh lived the few months before he shot himself on July 29, 1890. On our two hour walk, Doug pulled his jacket out of the backpack he was carrying and the phone must have dropped out on the ground. We pinged it to no avail. So, Doug’s phone and Vincent van Gogh are both dead and buried in the same little town in France, just 20 miles north of Paris. (Apologies for the lame puns).

We actually visited two small towns in France today, La-Roche Guyon and Auvers-sur-Oise. We were confused because we walked around in La-Roche Guyon and saw the Chateau La-Roche in the morning, then started on our bus tour to Auvers at 1:45 PM, the same time our boat was supposed to leave port. No one explained the situation to us, but apparently we made the same trip by land and ended up where the boat had moored for the night just 10 miles up the Seine, if that makes any sense at all. Probably not.

Our tour guide today didn’t have a lot of material, because van Gogh (pronounced van Gog in French) only lived in Auvres for a couple of months before he committed suicide. So, the tour was basically the Auberge Ravoux (the inn where Van Gogh stayed), his table in the corner at the inn, his tiny room at the inn, the local church he painted and the town cemetery where he was buried. Van Gogh was quite a prolific painter–his average was one painting every four days. So he did paint several amazing pictures there. These are two of my favorites:

Our tour guide (I think his name was Emmanuel, but that doesn’t seem very French, so maybe not) told us all the lore surrounding Van Gogh’s death. The official story is that he went out in a field by a stand of trees where he was painting and shot himself in the stomach. He then walked a mile back to the Auberge Ravoux and went up to his room on the third floor. The innkeeper called a doctor, but it was too late. He died two days later. Some scholars have questioned that his death was more likely to have been an accidental shooting by locals, because he didn’t have gunpowder on his hand, it was an odd angle, etc. I kept wondering how he could have walked a mile with such a grave injury. All pretty confusing. He was 37 years old when he died. His brother, Theo, is buried next to him. Theo died just a year later from the effects of syphilis, according to Emmanuel (?). Pictures from today:

This was our final day in Paris, so of course we felt compelled to see yet one more iconic Parisian landmark, the Palace of Versailles. Versailles is about 12 miles west of Paris, so we took a bus tour. I was not ready to sign on for another insane cab ride, so the bus was a pretty tame option. Whenever you go in one of these tours, you get a lot of history in a couple of hours. It’s hard to absorb everything, so I’m usually left with general impressions, as in today: Louis XIII (had trouble with the nobles), Louis XIV (wore wigs and red high heels), Louis XV (was the Sun King) and Louis XVI (French Revolution, and was beheaded). Mary Antoinette, also beheaded.

I think you may learn more on tours guided by locals, like expressions, views of history and such, so there’s a definite value there. On the other hand, I find myself wanting to spend more time on some things and less time on other things, and a tour moves at a certain pace. I can look up the history later. Today our guide, Sylvie, used many expressions, but one she used multiple times was, “voila.” I looked it up and in French voila=there, as in “so there you have it.” I am pretty much going to use voila going forward at every opportunity.

So, tonight at dinner we were seated by two other couples, Patrick and Collette and Donald and Rachel. Made me really miss Laurel and her husband, who was either named Kyle or Kevin. Patrick and Colette were super gripey. Donald seemed okayish, but Rachel was an over-talkative racist. I will not go into detail about why I thought this about her, but they moved to Florida from New York and were bashing everything about Florida 24-7. I tried to say that all states have either good or bad things, so we just have to be happy with the mix of those things. Can you even believe I said something like that? So, it obviously went over like a lead balloon. In time, I whispered to Doug that I was pretending to go to the bathroom, but would not return. He followed soon after.

One more thing from today. The small Statue of Liberty in Paris.

We boarded our river cruise today at noon after yet another harrowing cab ride through the streets of Paris. Cab drivers in Paris are hit or miss, and the guy we had this morning was a total miss. What we have learned for sure is that the taxi drivers here do not have any use for a GPS. You have to show them your iPhone GPS and they study it for a few seconds and then act like they know exactly where they are going. They never enter it into their own phone. So you are lulled into a false sense of security until you figure out they don’t know where the heck they are headed. It’s a completely nutty system. The driver this morning kept mumbling a bunch of French under his breath. I thought he might be praying. I know I was.

We have only been on one other river cruise, and Doug and I had varying opinions. Doug loved it and although I liked it, I thought it was just a little bit too up close and personal. Today after we unpacked we went for lunch in the dining room. All of the tables seat six or more people, and it wasn’t long before Laurel and Kevin from Tampa joined us. Laurel puts powdered gatorade in her iced tea because she has leg cramps and that’s the only thing that really helps. They were completely nice people, but this one experience kind of proves my point. Right now I am keeping an open mind.

Just as a side note, there are apparently a slew of pickpockets around the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower and other famous sites in Paris. We were warned about them numerous times by various cab drivers and people at the hotel. The setup is that a defenseless looking young woman carrying a baby approaches you and asks for money to feed her hungry child (apparently they either rent or borrow babies for this purpose). After they get your attention with the cute/hungry baby scam, they have a partner who picks your pocket. What’s next?