The final, really final, no kidding, this is it, final post: Friday, May 27

Friday, May 27: The final, really final, no kidding, this is it, final post

Our last breakfast – and last World Class croissants! Oh no! – at Dukes’ Palace, though staff caught us eating too many hazelnuts and kept the champagne bottles closed until we were well clear of the breakfast room. Just as well, perhaps, since the desk clerk says there is a work stoppage on the train lines, mostly affecting the French portion, but likely to cause ripples into Belgium as so many things can. Our train appears to be OK, we hope, but there’s some sort of delay/work issue in Reykjavik, too, so, who knows? Best case, the thugs at Icelandic Air have to put us up for the night and we can add another country to our boink log. Worst case: another numbing airport delay in a day already likely to seem endless (or sleepless by the time we reach Seattle). Well, it’s the miracle of modern travel, of course: grubby foreigners like us cruising from town to town, country to country – just now past graffiti: FREAK in bright letters – towards an uncertain future in Iceland: will it be an uneventful passage through?, a free night of joyful sex?, or just another slog in another faceless commercial hub, going from Pizza Hut to Dunkin Donuts simply for something to do to pass the time?

Things to do in Bruge if you don’t go to the Torture Museum (a real place; water boarding apparently a fave in the good old days, too): look out your window at the Dukes’ across the way to a naked woman standing in an adjacent window, her back to us, just standing there hour after hour, day after day. Don’t her feet hurt? She has a mirror to her frontside – or an androgynous companion – so we get both views. Just lucky, I guess. (One can, of course, purchase chocolate genitalia of both genders and an ample variety of chocolate breasts, with or without bras, another triumph of the chocolatier’s art.)

The train trip to Brussels is basically across Oregon, lush and green, with gradually more solar units on the roofs of residences. Though it’s "rush hour" on the way to the big city, the train is only 2/3 full of people glancing at our bulky luggage (taking up two extra seats), and things go smoothly. Then it’s back to the Brussels airport with it’s ultra security and, for Iceland Air, a cheapo carrier, a long line in what was recently a parking lot outside of baggage check. People ahead of us have chairs and hunch over their hand held devices as if they’re anywhere – which they are. Scout immediately strikes up a conversation with a young and friendly couple from Antwerp; Dave just waits, barely suppressing rage at the horrible inconvenience of the world not operating on his schedule. Take a pill, dude.

But it gets worse. The in-bound flight is late, so the outbound (to Reykjavik) is, too. (Does anyone sense a theme emerging?) Ah, Iceland Air! Home of the We-Can’t-Do-Anything, We’re-A-Small-Country phone help center. At least the in-flight staff looked authentic, big-boned blondes who looked able – and willing – to geld large farm animals. Iceland Air is also a no food, no water carrier, at least for the hop from Brussels, so we are forced to buy mini bottles of whiskey and Baileys Irish Liqueur to keep up our strength (actually a bargain at 2 for 9€).

As you knew, a late flight out of Brussels meant the time cushion built into our plane change in Reykjavik was a dead duck. We scramble to find our way (did we mention that the official language in Iceland is Old Norse? Yeah, a language not even the Norse still speak) but eventually do, and with 23 minutes to spare since (wait for it) the flight out (to Seattle) is delayed (or, "retarde" as they say in Brussels). We wait and wait, then sprint to a bus only a hundred or so meters away across the wind and rain-whipped, Arctic Tarmac (or, as the locals call it, "bikini season"). We knew who the locals were: the ones in T-shirts.

Safely aboard our plane for a 7 hour flight to Seattle, we are reminded that Iceland Air is a no (free) food carrier. They do offer free Coca Cola and ice cubes on international flights. Again we are saved by cheap liquor and our remaining stash of Clif bars, now horribly misshapen after 18 days of being packed and repacked, squeezed and stuffed into the corners of our luggage. They taste pretty good with whiskey, however, and we grumpily agree to purchase an "in-flight" meal of rotting shark flesh and reindeer testicles (actual Icelander food). Was it only this morning that we savored perfect croissants, salmon, cut-your-own Belgian chocolate and as much Muesli as we wanted? So sad.

But, while dissing Iceland Air, there is also this: when one of our group failed to collect his IPad Mini and Kindle from the Brussels to Reykjavit flight (doubtless due to consumption of bargain-priced whiskey), the flight attendant on the Seattle-bound plane was able to track them down and have them delivered before take-off. Thank you Iceland Air! Or, as another member of our group said upon learning that the items were missing: "What an idiot!" Of course, getting the items to our plane was somewhat easier because we were now retarde even further by the need to re-stow baggage to equalize the weight.

The flight to Seattle eventually happened with us arriving an hour or so late. Alaska Air, scheduled to fly us to San Diego, decided that we’d never make their 8:25 pm flight, so they rebooked us on the 9:25. This was done in pencil on the back of an envelope so that, when we got to the gate, the whole rebooking had to be done again. On the plus side, we were given exit row seats at no charge. Alaska even gave everybody free water!

We arrive in San Diego at midnight. One of our bags came in on the 8:25 flight and was sitting all alone in a corner. Another came on the 9:25 with us. So, tired, but home free! Uh, not so fast, Skippy. Our shuttle back to Rancho Bernardo thought we were still on the 8:25 and, when we didn’t show up at 11:00 as initially expected, the driver cancelled us and boogied. Did we mention that Scout called the service from Seattle to tell them of the change? Somehow, no one notified the driver. So, midnight in the airport. Scout, of course, found a Super Shuttle going our way and we got home at about 1:00 am, in time to say hi to our cats (who’d waited up for us. How sweet is that?), shower, and drop into the sleep of death.

Mileage for the day: 7 (mostly hustling from Point A to Point B in Brussels, Reykjavik, Seattle and even San Diego). Lessons learned: 1) Don’t travel if things are going to go wrong; 2) Don’t sweat too much when they do; they’re gonna; 3) Never eat rotten shark and reindeer testicles at the same meal. They’ll give you gas.

Naked woman as seen from our room

Sadly, our last yummy European croissant

Goodbye to the Dukes' Hotel

Chocolate in all varieties: look closely

Lucky us: no work stoppage

What we encountered in Reykjavik: note the Wow plane

Flying over Greenland

A little of that Old Norse (Icelandic)

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May 26: Last Day in Bruges

May 26: Last Day in Bruges

We were warned of two days of rain during our stay and got some yesterday morning. By the time we’d settled into our room at the only five star hotel in Flanders yesterday afternoon, the sky was clearing and today began clear and a dazzling blue. The combination of old, old buildings and bright blue skies makes every photo look like a postcard.

Our first stop was "Lover’s Lake," a park at the far end (okay, it was still pretty close) of town. Green and lovely, but swan-free. Saw a couple of ducks, but that’s it. Passers by shrugged: "You see the swans on the boat ride." Yeah, the boat ride. Later. On our way to the lake, we pass by an exhibit entitled "Van Breugel’s Witches." Who needs swans, when you got witches? We leg it back, dodging bicyclists of all ages, but many, many high school and college aged kids, all looking healthy and more German than French, if you ask me. A fair number of blondes who might actually be blonde. We also dodge cars: not so many Renaults and Peugeots, more Audis and MBZs. (The Belgians do alright for themselves.) We also dodge tourists, the volume of which will doubtless double in June, July, and August. Tourists are all in the Big Three: France, Germany, and England. People who spent time here during WWI and WWII. (Doesn’t look as if the city was touched.)

Oh, Van Breugel. As you Art History majors will recall, the Italian Renaissance was all about idealized beauty. Not so in the Low Countries. In Van Eyck’s "Madonna and Child," (seen here on every street corner), Mary’s hands look dirty. The kid’s got dirty hands, too, and fat folds on his neck. The guy who paid for the painting, shown as a kneeling cleric, is a saggy, jowly wreck. And that’s Mary and baby Jesus. When you get to Van Breugel’s depictions of a witch, the gloves are really off: She’s a hair-blown hag, dancing by a cauldron while monstrosities look on with interest. Yikes. The painting is one of perhaps a hundred depictions of witchcraft, sorcery, and devil worship on display in a museum that was once a hospital – and probably a house of horrors based on the depictions of learned men digging their bare hands into the intestines of some unlucky fellow, or poking some scalpel-looking thing into a child’s eye while looking at the painter!! Watch what you’re doing!

So, a museum of medical practices and hospital history on one floor and, upstairs, a huge exhibit of witchcraft, etc. An amazing exhibit of paintings, etchings, books of infernal worship, knives, amulets and a time line of how many people were tried and executed for it during various ages. Germany led the way, perhaps because of better record-keeping. Several paintings of devil worshippers kissing a goat’s rectum, the goat (Satan) looking on with approval. Didn’t look like fun. Also, unlike later imagery which made demons attractive (at least at first) these witches were all hags with bad hair, bad teeth and sagging breasts. (So, if you have any of these tell-tale symptoms…call this toll-free number!)

We ambled through this, checking out the crazy stuff, while fifth graders on a school trip did the same. The most powerful images (to Dave at least) were depictions of good Christian souls reading their Bible or preaching from a pulpit while, nearby, all manner of beastly stuff went on. Not sure whether the righteous were holding on to faith in a hopelessly corrupt world or were ignoring a truth that needed action, not bead counting. And if you enjoy Hieronymous Bosch (a neighbor, geographically and artistically) you’ll get your fill of deformed monstrosities at this exhibit. See it after you finish your Belfort climb.

Then it was on to the boat ride, a half hour along Bruge’s canals, which make an inner loop through old, old town and an outer loop outside what were once the city boundaries. Lots of great-looking ginger bread houses packed together one after another and maybe one in a hundred (re)built in the last two hundred years. Old. Way old. But also prosperous, so clean and well maintained. Also saw plenty of swans. They’re a symbol of love because they mate for life, so long as nothing better comes along.

We lunch on Flemish Stew, so, at least one local dish. It came with a "Leffe Blond" beer, a little salad, French fries and (wait for it "Pulp Fiction" fans): mayo to dip the fries in. Yum. The "stew" was actually chunks of beef in a nice beefy sauce (also good for fries). Tasty.

After lunch we went to the Chocolate Museum to learn much more about the history and manufacturing of chocolate than anyone needs to know. In brief, it’s a processed food commodity and gets the full industrial treatment. Historically, it was a Central American drink that caught on as a fad in Europe, first among the wealthy, like tobacco, and eventually made its way to the rest of us. A solid version followed.

Now, as the evening darkens, we can say, yeah, if you’re in the area, it’s a good two days of ambling from witches to swans to Belfort at a civilized pace. Worth going out of your way for? Probably not, but it you like chocolate, not a bad place…but not in the summer. The Square and streets are getting crowded now and "Holy fuck!" as a fifteen year old school girl said today, trying maneuver her bike through the crush of aged tourists.

Mileage today: 7. Tomorrow, it’s up early for flight to Reykjavik, 3 hour lay-over, flight to Seattle, 2 hour lay-over, then flight to San Diego. As the fifteen year old school girl said… Well, you get the picture.

A few pictures including a few more of the town on a prettier day:

Eye surgery while looking away

A Van Breugel example

Beginning of chocolate tour

You should have seen the others on display!

On supermarket shelves, also with vodka

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Bruges: A Few Photos

Bruges: A Few Photos

As mentioned yesterday, here are a few photos of Bruges. The town is really quaint and one can see it all in two days. We had rain yesterday but a Chamber of Commerce day today. Yesterday, we went to the top of the Belfort. The views and sound were amazing even though it wasn't a clear day. Please excuse my inane commentary in the video. And, here's one a bit shorter - not quite as inane. Anyway, it's been a nice relaxing two days here. Besides walking though the town, we took a boat ride similar to traversing the Venice canals (Bruges is supposedly the Venice of the North), and went to the Historium Museum (which took you through one year - 1435 - in the city), the Bruges Museum which had a great display on Bruegel's Witches, and the Chocolate Museum. Gotta say that the witchcraft exhibit was fascinating. We owe a lot of what we think about witchcraft to this guy. The exhibit, his paintings, etc. were fabulous. There were even maps and interactive stuff about how many were tried from the 1400's to 1700's for witchcraft along with the names of those in Belgium. I was amazed at the detail or that they even had this information.

The city of Bruges is really a throwback in time. The Germans pretty much flew through the area in WWII so it didn't suffer the bombing that other areas did. The city has made an effort to keep it as a fairy tale city, and it's just that. If one wanted to, they could take photos all day.

Anyway, here are just a few, along with a collage or two. I may post a few more later.

Around and about

In bell tower (Belfort)

Chocolate and bubbly at hotel breakfast

Enjoying some of the above

A little rain

Farmers market in square

Some farmer's market fare

More Bruges including Belfort steps

Different farmer's market view

Atop and inside Belfort

From Historium top with Belfort in back

View looking out on a rainy day

Interior courtyard

More Bruges

And more

And more

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Tuesday, May 24/ Wednesday, May 25: The blog that refuses to die!

Tuesday, May 24/ Wednesday, May 25: The blog that refuses to die!

We dined "en suite," last night as they say (or was that "tout suite?") savoring morsels we’d picked off maid’s carts during the afternoon. (Who eats only half a tuna fish sandwich? Hey, people are starving somewhere.)

Our last day in Spain was uneventful: a nice buffet breakfast, some relaxation and a cab ride to the aero puerto. There we dined on pizza, Spain’s favorite food, while awaiting our luxury Vueling flight to Brussels. Vueling is a Euro no frills operation. Not only was there no meal, there was also no beverage unless one coughed up 2.60€ for a Coke, more for other options.

Once on the ground in Brussels, we took the train to Bruge, switching once, a comic schlepping (Dave bumbling along with a suitcase the size of a small car). Ah, but what’s 50 or 60 pounds when you’re hurrying and not sure it’s in the right direction? Both trains were modern, smooth and seemed able to reach their destinations without anything approaching speed. The passengers had a bemused (or lobotomized) Northern European look, as if nothing ever happened and no one would know how to respond if it did. This, despite another recent slaughter of innocents by ISIS. The Brussels airport is now stocked with soldiers – impossibly young and already bored – toting what look like rocket launchers. (While we want security to both work well and look mighty, one has to wonder: How tough it would be for terrorists willing to sacrifice themselves to get those super weapons away from the bored kid-soldiers? Once that was done, how many air travelers fall before the shooters are stopped? Put another way, how much easier is it to plan a mass attack if you can rely on your enemy to bring the guns you’ll need?)

On to happier thoughts at the Duke’s Palace in Bruges, a town which, Belgians assure us, we need not spend more than a day or two in. It’s a town of 100,000 or so French, German, Dutch, Flemish and Walloon people who live in peace and comfort, except when Deutchlanders march through. It’s also an egg-shaped town, one of the few shaped like an agricultural product. The movie "In Bruge" took a few liberties, but the town does have a central square, an impressive clock tower (366 steps up) and boats to take tourists around the canal system. There are chocolate shops without end, a big Farmer’s Market in the town square (Wednesday's and Saturdays) and tourists by the bus load.

Chocolate and waffles are the big tourist items here. Our Big Bucks hotel breakfast had foot-square blocks of chocolate that one was invited to saw chunks off of with a logging/torture implement. The result, however, was shavings, not chunks and, while tasty enough, it was hard to get the full plate we were after. As a consolation, there was all the champagne one could drink (quite a bit, actually) plus great pastries, fruit, lox, eggs, etc. Naturally, after this, we had to hit four or five chocolate shops, hoping to find cheap souvenirs for family and friends. To our amazement and chagrin, the stuff is expensive! Damned tourists are willing to pay twice as much for chocolate here as they would back home. The fools! (Note to family and friends: You’re getting keychains again.)

Besides tourist-trap chocolatiers, Bruges is world famous (throughout Bruges, that is) for its Belfort, bell tower, accessible by many, many winding stairs. It’s 270 feet up, all told, with a nice city view at the top. Equally impressive are the 47 bells, which weigh from 2 pounds to 11,000 pounds and total over 20 tons. The tower leans to the east by one meter and was built a long, long time ago, so, odds of it collapsing on a herd of tourists are pretty good. The bells are supported by thick wooden beams, themselves are hundreds of years old, so…you do the math.

This isn’t a Quasimodo operation: one poor guy up there yanking ropes or using a sledge hammer: it’s a carillon system, a little like old time piano rolls or music boxes. At one point, a man actually "played" the bells through a keyboard attached to pulleys, metal wires etc. It’s a computer operation now, but with the computer replacing only the keyboardist; the bells are still for real and striking them produces the music – really loud music if one happens to be up there during "Flight of the Bumblebee." Needless to say, it’s a wonder and well worth worming one’s way up the narrow staircase (while others worm their way down) with only a greasy rope as a handrail most of the way. (Wonder how long it’s been since someone spritzed Purell on that rope?) Some of the bells are impressively large, of course, but, for a lit major, the system of pulleys, levers and a million pieces of connecting equipment designed and put into use hundreds of years ago – for use, by the way, in a relatively small space dominated by (many) huge bells that, of course, could not be easily moved – both foreshadows the Machine Age and makes the awestruck observer wonder if computers are that great of an achievement. As "Dilbert" commented in a recent strip, modern consciousness is just fish plus time.

OK, enough about the Belfort. (Except - if you’re ever in Bruge - forget the chocolate; do the tower instead.) We moseyed on, content that, if we got lost, we could always find our way to the Market Square by looking for the Belfort, the tallest building in town. For lunch, we were cautioned away from the Market Square as too expensive, so found an Italian place on a smaller street. The Penne Arrabiatta was good and, unlike the Italian place you guys think is authentic, this place had a cook from Italy. Hell, Italy’s only a bus ride from here! From lunch, we were ambling aimlessly (I.e., looking for cheap chocolate) when we found a store selling Tibetan and Nepalese goods (all authentic, if the labels were). Those places are not a bus ride from here, so we passed some time looking at clothing we’d never wear again. Still, for 10€, don’t we need all-wool hats with tassels like the ones we got in Peru and never wear? Uh, not really.

A shame. We find a grocery and stock up. There’s something to be said about dining as a way to connect with local cultures, and Belgium doubtless has one. Two days, however, are not going to teach anyone how people here really live. (We do know they ride bicycles a lot, and eat cheese, and work in shops catering to tourists. Oh, and think Trump is nuts and that Americans are a much different – and worse – people than they imagined we were if we embrace this fool.)

Miles walked Tuesday: 7; miles walked Wednesday: 4. Hey, it’s a small, egg-shaped town!

Photos to come later. Scout's not feeling the love on photo-uploading. But yes, she took many and Bruges is lovely!

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May 23, Camino Day 12: Padron to Santiago de Compostela

May 23, Camino Day 12: Padron to Santiago de Compostela

Day's mileage, maps, etc. per garmin (16 miles) here. And Fitbit information in photo below. Lots of walking around Santiago after we arrived. Also, today had more climbing than other days and we ended with almost 170 "floors," beating our prior day record of 140 last Friday,

Arrival Day. Our thoughtful hostess at the Casa del Antiga in Padron offers us a 7:00 am breakfast hoping, perhaps, that we’ll hoof it on out and won’t hit her up for another rocket ride back to The Camino. Keep thinking that Señora. We breakfast on cake left over from last night’s dessert, peach juice, a banana, and coffee prepared the night before and stored in a thermos (thisclose to being warm), then go back to our room to wait for our ride. The ride seemed necessita because of the number of turns she’d taken to get us to her place; the ride back to the Roman bridge (yeah, people still rely on stuff the Romans built) involved only one slight left and made us feel foolish – as if we’ve never felt that way before. One other note about coffee made the night before and put in a thermos: Our very first night on The Camino Francais last year, our host couldn’t (wouldn’t) get up early to make us breakfast. He did the thermos bit, too, with an even more tepid result. A nice bit of symmetry for our two jaunts.

The day begins cool, but will clear and be a beauty. The track is mostly countryside with the occasional village, though these are usually near busy roads so not as rural as some we’ve ambled through. We see Caminars we’ve seen before and chat with a Spanish guy, who’s on holiday from his job…in Australia. Hey, you Trump lovers who want to keep foreigners out: forget it. Foreigners – including tons of Americans – are on the job everywhere in the world, all the time. We pass our Irish pals Pat and Carol and a pair of Brits we’ve seen at least three times before (we’ll see them again, too), plus young Germans, and Japanese stopping for a smoke break that we sort of recognize. They remember us because we always say "Hey, we’re passing you. Ha ha" when we overtake them. Maybe that’s why they throw lighted cigarettes at us.

As with last year’s trek, the final day is one when it takes longer to finish than the guidebook says, especially when we get a bit lost and decide to head for "cidade centro" on the mistaken idea that the Cathedral of Santiago (which we know to be in "old town") is downtown. This miscalculation is followed by directions from many, many kind Compostelans, all smiling and many not too terribly helpful. At last, sort of sure we’re headed in the right direction, we see the Brits again. They say "Down and to the right" and damned if it doesn’t work! We bumble into Cathedral Square with the big church, still undergoing renovations and still covered in scaffolding and tarps, the same as last year. Our hotel this year, however, is actually on the Square, too, and was, one suspects, where the King hung out when he was in town. (The name "Hostal dos Reis Catolicos" was a hint.)

Having dumped our never-quite-clean belongings in our room, we leg it to the Peregrino Office, where unwashed and foot-weary trekkers can get a swell certificate in Latin attesting to our labors. The proof of this is that we have collected "cellos" or stamped ink impressions on a "Peregrino passport" from at least two places per day where we stopped along the way, usually bars, as befits a spiritual journey. The most demanding part of being certified is waiting for nearly two hours while the line of smelly travelers inches forward. After an 18 mile day, those two hours of standing really made the dogs bark. The saving grace was the Aussies we met in line, who had good spirits and a similarly skewed version of the world. You have to like Aussies. For one thing, they have a light-hearted contempt for their elected leaders: an election six years ago was, we were told by a tour guide at the time, between a "Rang-ger" (short for orangutan, because the lady’s hair was red) and a "budgie smuggler," this applying to a male candidate who’d been photographed in Speedos, a budgie being a very, very small bird. We thought at the time that our guide was just being colorful. Today, however, we were talking politics and asked about the rang-ger. Our new acquaintances knew the term: the woman won the election, but was hobbled by sexism. They also knew the term budgie smuggler: he was put into office next and his own party turned on him. Could America get a rang-ger and a budgie smuggler in a single candidate?

That Aussie tour guide was great! He drove us along switchbacks and entertained us by saying he was going to commit suicide by driving the bus over a cliff. He said, "you'll all be witnesses." That's Aussie humor.

This journey to Santiago is over. No phantom foot pains or toe condoms this year. Dave’s somewhat uncooperative hip seems to like a diet of walking and vino. Scout is, as she was last year, a little sad to have it reach an end. She’s started talking up an Italian walking tour called the "Cinque Terre," which is a five day drunk through a wine growing region. Oh, there’s said to be scenery there, too. Like that matters. (NB: Only one small glass of wine each today. No Corn Nuts and no chocolate. It’s tough going cold turkey.)

Mileage for today: 18. Caminars passed: 36. Equivalent floors climbed: 169, a record for this year.

And, some photos:

A few last pictures of Dave ahead of Scout

Graffiti today

Signs as we got closer to destination: Sadly, the last few markers all had the "distance" pried out/removed. On the Camino Francais, markers were older and had graffiti, but were otherwise intact. I think the distances were carved or etched into the marker rather than a separate piece as in the other two below. You can see where it's been pulled out in the lower left one.

On the right: just 10k left

Last two rest (bar) stops of the trek

Just wanted to post another picture of an Horreo (not the cookie) and a link to what it is. You see these frequently in Galicia. They are granaries. See more info about them here.

And, just for fun, here's a picture from our hotel this morning. The owner's son has won a triathlon. She had this photo in the reception area.

And, a few more sights today

Tile on home

Cool plants growing from roof

Yes, there are warning signs now and then

Waiting with the other Unwashed

Finally:

Life as we know it

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