Viking Cruise – Jack Henderson, Take 5

Not-So-Innocents Abroad

In 1869, Mark Twain published a book called Innocents Abroad that is still regarded as one of the best travel accounts ever written. Two years earlier, he and a group of similarly adventure-minded people had taken a steamship across the ocean to the Mediterranean, explored that area, took a locomotive up to Paris and back down to Italy, before visiting the Holy Land and Black Sea area and returning home. The book remains an entertaining read today because of Twain’s clever wit, acerbic commentary, and keen eye for the colorful anecdote.

This month, Kathleen and I, along with children Ben and Kristin and Ben’s wife Amber, retraced some of Twain’s steps on a Viking ocean cruise that included several stops along the Western Mediterranean. Along the way, we spent time in Barcelona (with a side trip to Montserrat), Spain, Avignon, Monaco, Tuscany and Firenze (Florence), Italy, before flying home from Rome. After three Viking river cruises, this was our first cruise on one of their larger ocean-sailing ships. The service, quality, and attention to detail that marked the river cruises was also present on the big ship, and we decided there were plusses and minuses to each of the different ships. While the ocean ship was much larger than the river boat (900 passengers, compared to about 200), the ratio of passengers to crew members, servers, etc. remained the same (2-1), which meant there was impeccable service at all times. At one point, I finished my coffee while strolling around the ship, and I looked around for a place to dispose of the paper cup. Surprisingly, I could not find a trash receptacle. However, when I accidently dropped the cup, it never hit the ground. I sensed a flash in the corner of my eye, but never saw an actual person. I later determined that a shadowy crew member must have swept in and caught the cup in midair, spiriting it away before it could clutter the immaculate deck. Moreover, if we left our cabin for five minutes in the morning, when we returned, the room had been completely cleaned, the bed made, towels changed out, and the mini-bar restocked, as if by fast-working fairies. Speaking of the mini-bar, we had somehow been upgraded for this cruise, so we were given a spacious cabin and a few on-board perks, including free access to the mini-bar.

Kathleen and I have now taken about a dozen cruises, including six since I have retired (Rhine, Alaska, Danube, Caribbean, Main/Moselle in Germany, and this one). Therefore, I feel qualified to offer a few Dos and Don’ts on foreign travel.

Do, whenever possible, travel to Europe in the off-season. This is easier to do after retirement, so we tend to travel in winter, spring or fall, rather than the crowded and hot summer months. On this trip, we found few lines or hordes of tourists. On top of that, the weather was consistently comfortable and sunny, with temperatures ranging from the mid-forties to about 60 degrees.

Don’t act in such a way that reinforces the stereotype of the demanding and entitled American tourist. On our stop at Séte, a port town a short distance from Montpellier, France, we had a young tour guide who spoke poor English, and seemed to know little about history or culture of his home town. He was charming, however, and kept us entertained with anecdotes about local places and people. At every bar or cafe we passed, someone would see him and call out his name, giving an indication of how he spent most of his time. In the middle of our tour, at about 1:30, a sixtyish woman from our ship grabbed his arm and interrupted his description of a summer festival. “I was supposed to be on the 10:40 tour,” she announced, “but I overslept, so I’ll just join yours.” Kristin whispered, “Oh no! It’s the Ugly American!” Our guide shrugged and picked up where he left off. She broke in again after a minute or so, saying, “I’m bored; where can I buy a tee-shirt?” He pointed to one of the numerous souvenir shops along street, and she disappeared in her quest for a shirt to commemorate her spiritual connection to the charming port town. Later that day, we were in a large lounge area of the ship enjoying tea, snacks, and classical music played by a female piano player. The UA appeared again, interrupting the musician in mid-song and making a request. When the pianist began playing the song she wanted, the UA crowded into our small sitting area in order to film and record the song on her phone. Kathleen gently said, “We’re actually saving that seat for someone.” She just rolled her eyes and said, “They’ll have to find another seat, then, won’t they?” A day or two later, while visiting the national church of Monaco, she appeared again as part of our small tour group. I thought, “With 900 people on this ship, how the hell do we always end up with her?” As we were looking at the graves of Prince Ranier and Grace Kelly in the quiet church, she loudly asked the guide if we could end the tour early and go shopping for tee-shirts. By that point, I was looking around and wondering if there was a third hole available for dead bodies in that church.

Do, when visiting Barcelona, make sure to include a visit to the spectacular Sacrada Familia. We spent two days in Barcelona before beginning the actual cruise, and while I loved the city, the Gaudi church was the highlight. I had previously read about the idiosyncratic architect, Antoni Gaudi, in the past, and I knew a little about his masterpiece church, the unfinished Sacrada Familia, but never really appreciated his work before this trip. After numerous excursions to Europe, moreover, I had pretty much reached “Gothic Cathedral Overload,” an affliction that makes the many medieval structures across Europe begin to run together in the mind, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to spend several hours touring this one. Most of those other incredible edifices were built in the 1100-1300 time-period, using similar technology, and having essentially analogous designs. While impressive for their day, they tend to be dark and ponderous places today. Gaudi’s church emulates those ancient cathedrals to a degree, but incorporates modern ideas and engineering techniques. Construction began in 1882, with his involvement running from about 1883 until his death in 1926. Thus, he had access to new technology, such as steel and concrete, to take the idea of the Gothic Cathedral to new levels. The result is a much brighter and cleaner version of the “Cathedral,” infused with light, nature, and color in an incredible combination designed to awe the visitor with the presence of God. Gaudi loved nature, and, as a devout Catholic, he saw the hand of the divine in the living world around him. Thus, instead of heavy, static columns and flying buttresses to support the roof and walls, a series of columns designed to look like growing trees give the impression of an organic structure that is a product of the Earth, rather than something standing apart from the natural world. Indeed, the church is literally organic and still growing, as it remains unfinished a century after Gaudi’s death. Barcelona has a lot to offer tourists, but this building should top any visitor’s list.

Don’t be afraid to develop your own, distinctive travelling style. We had travelled with Ben and Amber before, and with Kristin several times in recent years, but this was only the third time we had all travelled together. Kathleen and I have developed our preferred manner of travel over many years. In essence, it involves getting off of the ship or leaving the hotel, walking a short distance, and stopping in a street café for coffee or a glass of wine. Then we might visit one of the local museums or other attractions for a while, and stop at another café. Rinse and repeat. It’s clearly not a style designed for everyone, but it works for us, and Kristin has fallen into our leisurely rhythm when visiting a new place. Ben and Amber, however, are busy doctors and parents who like to make the most of every moment they have on vacation. That means they are constantly in motion, rushing from one place to another with little down time. They crossed paths with us occasionally as we sat in a restaurant enjoying a pastry with some local wine, but they rejected invitations to join us because they had read about some landmark, such as a toilet designed by Gaudi, and rushed off to see it. The thing that makes these opposing manners of travelling work, is that there is no judgement expressed about how to properly visit a new place: they do their thing and we do ours.

The only time our contrasting styles collided was in the middle of our trip. That day, our ship was docked at Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, a strip of densely populated land stretching from Cannes in the west to Italy in the east. Kathleen and I decided to take a bus to the walking tour of Monaco, Ben and Amber wanted to visit Nice (pronounced Neese), several miles to the west of our docking position, and Kristin opted for a relaxing day in the spa on the ship, sitting in the warm, massaging waters of the pool while sipping a gin and tonic, and dipping into a snow-filled room on occasion to enjoy the Scandinavian tradition of alternating hot-and-cold temperatures. At dinner, we asked Kristin how her relaxing day had gone. She told us that the energetic and athletic Ben and Amber invited her to join them on their exploration of Nice just as she was getting ready to go to the spa. She went along, not knowing that Ben had decided they would eschew public transportation and simply walk over the small mountain that separated Villefranche from Nice. It looked like a good idea on the map, but it turned out that it involved a steep climb, no direct path to the other side, and a lot of switchbacks, making it a longer, more strenuous, and more taxing hike than Kristin had anticipated. She ended the day, sore, tired, and cursing her brother.

Do start planning your next journey as soon as you get home. We didn’t plan to do that as quickly as we did, but a few hours after we got home, still jet-lagged and bleary eyed from a twenty-hour trip home, we found 13-year-old granddaughter Abigail knocking on our door. She rode her bike to our house, but we weren’t sure what she wanted to talk about. She unpacked several boxes of snacks and a water bottle, a clear indication that the ensuing discussion would not be a brief one. We had promised her and her brother Lucas a trip to Disney World in June, but told her we would talk about it when we returned from Europe–I just didn’t think it would be the very minute we returned. She had apparently spent the entire time we were gone researching the hotels, parks and restaurants in the massive Disney complex in Orlando. She had purchased a fancy new notebook for this research project, and it was organized by subject and color-coded in her perfect hand-writing. She had lists of prices and which hotels offered enough beds so that she would not have to share sleeping space with her little brother, along with a description of how the Disney app worked. Finally, she had a comprehensive list of rides and attractions in each of the four parks, prioritized into categories of “Must,” “Maybe,” and “If we have time.” This girl clearly has inherited her parent’s zeal for travel and does not intend to waste a second of our time in Orlando.

Now, if only her grandparents have the energy to keep up with her.

European Vacation

After a 14-day journey which took us to Paris, Riems, Luxembourg, several German cities, and Prague, we returned home only to discover that we had contracted Covid. Even a week of illness, though, could not diminish the memories Kathleen and I accumulated while traveling with daughter Kristin and her husband Kevin. We saw incredible works of art and architecture, but also learned quite a bit about the cultures of the various places we stopped.

I won’t bore you with a slide show of “What I did on my summer vacation.” In fact, I left my phone home and didn’t take a single picture. Here are a few highlights though: First, we spent four days in Paris and saw an amazing cemetery in the Montparnasse neighborhood (with the graves of Alfred Dreyfus, Guy de Maupassant, Jean Paul Sartre, and his lover, Simone de Beauvoir, the first modern feminist); ate dinner at several wonderful outdoor cafes; visited St. Denis, the first Gothic cathedral and burial place of most of the kings of France; the Rodin Museum; the Musee d’Orsay with a special exhibition of the work of Edgar Degas and Eduoard Manet, along with many other impressionist works (I even discovered a new favorite impressionist, Gustave Caillebotte, about whom I had known little before); a night cruise on the Siene; and a full day at Claude Monet’s Giverny gardens where he conducted his spectacular artistic experiments with light and color. The Notre Dame Cathedral was under massive repairs following the tragic fire of a few years ago, so we were not able to get inside. The French were working feverishly to finish those repairs and many others in time for next year’s Olympic Games to be held in Paris. In fact, we ran into construction and preparations everywhere we went, and our hotel was host to Olympic committees from countries around the world.

We experienced a minor disappointment because, instead of the rude Parisians we expected to find, we encountered only helpful and pleasant waiters and clerks everywhere we went in the city. Viking picked us up at the hotel and took us by bus to the Rhine on our fifth day. We stopped at Reims to see the incredible cathedral where the kings of France were crowned and, at lunch, we finally met the waiter of those legendary anecdotes. He spoke only French, but took our orders in an aggressive way that left us wondering what it was we had actually ordered. When Kristin tried to clarify her order, he grew angry and began shouting. I’m not sure what he said, but I caught the words “Non, non, non! Imbecile! Vous ne pouvez pas modifier votre commande!” After that, we quietly sipped champaign and cheerfully ate whatever the hell he wanted to bring us, knowing that we had now enjoyed the full French experience. And yes, I still tipped the man far more than he deserved.

More highlights: the American cemetery in Luxembourg, where many of the US soldiers killed in the Battle of the Bulge rest; the city of Trier, Germany, with Roman, Medieval, and Renaissance architecture sitting next door to modern office buildings; so many castles and palaces along the Rhine, Moselle, and Main Rivers that they began to run together in our minds; lunch in Heidelberg with a charming, English-speaking college student; a stop in Nuremburg with the Nazi parade ground (If you have seen Leni Riefenstahl’s propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, you know the one in question) only a short distance from the court building where the war criminal trials were held after the war; a tour of the city of Prague, complete with a naked woman posing for pictures in the Old Town section of the city.

The Viking cruise itself was wonderful, as it has been on all three trips we have taken with them. Kristin and I, the cynical ones, developed nicknames for those on the cruise who annoyed us the most. “Anchorwoman” was the newswoman from Kansas City who brought four suitcases full of clothes so that she never had to wear the same outfit twice (I’m not sure where she kept them in our tiny staterooms). “Sticks,” a loud and obnoxious man, had bad knees and walked with two canes at all times. Yet, as a former marine, he could not admit weakness, so he insisted that he could keep up with the faster walking-tour groups. Thus, we were constantly waiting for him while he leaned on his crutches and lit another cigarette. “The Magpies” were three insufferable women who talked and cackled at great volume at the bar through every speaker’s presentation. Finally, “Single Malt” was the Scotch connoisseur who loudly ordered a “single-malt Scotch” at the bar. We were sitting nearby, and heard the exchange which followed. Jason, the bartender (yes, I was on a first-name basis with him), nodded and said, “Scotch whiskey; yes sir.” The guy said, “No. I don’t want whiskey; I want a single-malt Scotch.” Jason tried to explain that Scotch was whiskey, but the man would have none of it. Jason surrendered the field and prepared to pour the Scotch when the man said, “Mix it with Sprite.” Again, Jason winced and explained that the expensive whiskey is best enjoyed when sipped straight up or with a few drops of water, and to dilute it in such a way would destroy its taste, but the man insisted. Kristin looked at me and whispered, “He will forever be known as ‘Single Malt.’”

I was especially fascinated by the cultural differences we encountered. Visiting Europe, it always boggles my mind to be in one country for a while, with one type of currency, cuisine, music, language, and customs, then, after a short drive, be in a completely different country with a new language, money, food, and culture. The best guides we had wove together historical elements of a particular place or building with explanations of the culture of their country. In Nuremberg, our guide Andreas spoke passionately about the post-WWII years, in which the old guard—some of them former Nazis—still controlled Germany and preferred to brush the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes under the rug and pretend they had never happened. After the global student unrest of 1968, however, a new generation of leaders emerged who believed that all history, good and bad, needed to be taught and understood if those horrors were to be avoided in the future. Today, he said, all German students are required to learn about the Holocaust and visit one of the Death Camps. I was able to have a private conversation with him in which I explained the way in which conservatives in the US are similarly trying to expunge the teaching of the Holocaust or slavery from textbooks, libraries, and schools, under the misguided belief that students should never encounter uncomfortable facts about their history.

I also found the presentation of news in Europe to be interesting. In many places we stayed, and on the Viking ship, the only live, English-language TV shows available were newscasts of the BBC from England. First, it was a relief to escape the daily accounts of Trump’s latest indictments for his never-ending crimes against the people of the US. In fact, they rarely mentioned the disgraced former president. Second, as you might expect, the focus was different—they concentrated on Europe more than the US, the economy, and the Ukraine War. For the economy, I learned that inflation is much worse there than it is in the US. They blamed inflation, correctly, on supply-line issues resulting from Covid and Vladimir Putin’s war which reduced the amount of oil available world-wide and drove up costs of transporting goods. Surprisingly, they also praised Joe Biden’s aggressive approach to reducing inflation and pointed out that the US inflation rate is currently at 4.1%, while in England and much of Europe, it was still twice as high, above 8%.

They talked much more about the Ukraine War than we do, and acknowledged the fact that, should Putin be allowed to annex the Ukraine, there is no telling where he might stop. They regarded Russia’s threat as similar to that posed by Hitler in the 1930s and recognized the need to stop him in Ukraine. They also gave credit to Biden for repairing Trump’s damage to NATO and other alliances and applauded him for making the US and Europe more secure than they have been in decades. Thus, it is interesting that Biden gets more credit around the world for his successes than he does in the media of his own country.

All in all, it was a fun and enriching two-week trip. I might complain about the long, uncomfortable flights and the inconvenience of travel every time we cross the ocean, but I always return feeling grateful that we took the trip. I also begin looking forward to the next journey. Next up: our first ocean cruise with Viking in February, going from Barcelona to Rome.

Code Name: Columbo

After being retired for several years, I was surprised to receive the call from “the Company.” They wanted to send me on one more mission. With Putin’s war on Ukraine dragging on, and a new Cold War emerging from this conflict, the US government had decided to call upon some of its most dependable former operatives to take up the torch of freedom once again. (Most people are unaware of the crucial role that Kathleen and I had played behind the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991). Under the guise of a vacation to Eastern Europe, we were ordered to find and make contact with certain Russian operatives who would then work with our government to overthrow Putin, or otherwise put an end to his violent and authoritarian regime. While we were reluctant to bring our daughter into the family “business,” they also persuaded us to recruit Kristin into the operation as our technological expert in this top-secret mission. It was only yesterday, after the mission was completed, that we received permission to reveal the nature of this and earlier operations to the public. At long last, the truth can be told.

To avoid suspicion, Kristin flew separately from us. She even persuaded her husband, Kevin, to undergo bypass heart surgery several months ago to provide a plausible explanation for his absence on this family vacation. Kathleen and I flew from Minneapolis to Chicago, then overnight to Frankfurt, Germany, and finally to the twin cities of Buda and Pest, in Hungary.

After checking into the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Pest, we linked up with Kristin in an out of the way bistro. At a dark, corner table, over appetizers and wine, we opened our dossiers and discovered our code names and the details of our operation. Kristin was given the name “Trebek” because of her Jeopardy experience, while they dusted off Kathleen’s old name of “Pavlova,” given due to her background as a prima ballerina. Over the years, she had carefully disguised her talent as a dancer by pretending to be a person with limited rhythm, balance, and agility. She cultivated this persona so successfully that even long-time friends were unaware of her terpsichorean skills. I received the new name of “Columbo,” and my orders were to operate much like the old TV detective of the same name. Thus, we were to emulate the character played by Hungarian actor Peter Falk, bumbling about, pretending to be clueless American tourists, while doggedly pursuing our duel objectives. We were to establish contact with a Russian operative who would work with us from within the Kremlin, or, failing that, we were to allow ourselves to be contacted by a spy with similar goals. Sliding easily into our “spook” roles, we even ordered a second bottle of wine that night and feigned having a great time talking and catching up.

Budapest, in a formerly communist country that is once again under the thumb of an autocratic, Trump-like leader, is nonetheless a beautiful city that brought back many memories of battling the KGB during the Cold War. For three days, we stumbled around and took many wrong turns as if we were typical tourists without a clue of where we were going. Trebek, however, had done her homework ahead of time and guided us expertly over serpentine routes through neighborhoods that were established in the 1800s. She also taught us the conversion rates of the Hungarian Forint (they don’t use the Euro) and the way to use the public transportation system. We left no stone unturned as we searched for spies or other Russians we might be able to turn. We looked in the Hieronymous Bosch exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. We found no spies, but I woke up screaming in the night, with images from Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights dancing in my nightmares. We went so far as to take in the famous public baths, willingly displaying our septuagenarian and forty-something bodies in bathing suits next to fit twenty-year-olds in our relentless pursuit of that elusive contact. In one particular pool of warm, ninety-degree, mineral water, I slid over next to a man who I thought was Russian. He got the wrong idea, however, and, with a heavy Hungarian accent, politely, but forcefully asked me to get away from him.

At one point, we were afraid we had blown our cover while exploring Liberty Square with its monuments to those who had fought for Hungary’s freedom over the years. At a unique fountain at the end of the park, Trebek walked directly into a ring of water shooting up from the ground. Just as she stepped into the fountain, however, the water where she stepped miraculously stopped flowing and she walked into the center of the shooting water still completely dry. She had learned of this fascinating fountain from her research on the city. At that moment, however, a guard at the nearby US Embassy eyed her activity with a suspicious eye. I froze with indecision, but Pavlova shrewdly seized the initiative by adopting the role of a bumbling tourist. She copied Trebek’s actions and walked directly into the spraying water, but in an area that did not contain the sensors that stopped the water from shooting up. She stood there, dripping water from head to toe, while Trebek and I pretended to laugh uproariously. The guard turned away without a word, and our cover was preserved.

While in Budapest, Trebek also struck a blow for American foreign relations. In the lobby of our hotel, she spotted a young Hungarian boy wearing a NASA sweatshirt. Her cover job happens to be working as a NASA engineer, so she pulled a logo pin from her purse and gave it to the boy. The smile on his face could have illuminated Red Square during an evening May Day parade.

After two unsuccessful days of searching, we continued our quest by booking a week-long cruise with Viking on the Danube River. The ship was amazing, the food incredible, and the service immaculate, but we, of course, paid no attention to such trivial details while on the case. The Viking crew prides itself in trying to meet every request from a passenger. In one conversation I overheard, a passenger ignored the gourmet menu offerings and requested a unicorn and peanut-butter sandwich. The Serbian waiter did not flinch, replying “Will that be on ciabatta or pumpernickel bread.” To remain undercover, we also signed up for the Silver Beverage package which gave us unlimited top-shelf wine and liquors while on the cruise. We had taken along our CIA-issued anti-inebriation pills, however, so any signs of intoxication displayed by Columbo or Trebek were actually a carefully choreographed act designed to give false impressions to the unsuspecting passengers and crew. We even pretended to be drunk when we won a bottle of champagne at a ship-board trivia contest.

The next stop was at Vienna, Austria, the scene of a tense Cold War meeting between JFK and Khrushchev in 1961. We learned more than we needed to know about Franz Joseph, the longtime Hapsburg ruler, and Gustav Klimt, the great artist, but it was an amazing, clean, and historic city. We did a walking tour of Vienna, visited the Schoenbrunn palace, and saw sites from the classic film noir movie, The Third Man. As I viewed the iconic Ferris Wheel in a public park, I thought of that film and heard the words of Harry Lime, cynically looking at the city from the heights of that gigantic wheel and observing, “You know in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and blood-shed; but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock !” On our second night in Vienna we attended a concert that featured the works of Mozart and Strauss, with a little opera and ballet thrown in for good measure. For that night, I purchased a rumpled, London Fog overcoat in keeping with the disheveled appearance demanded by my code name. We made no contacts, but Pavlova was apparently reminded of her dancing past, as she shed her shoes on the way out and left the theater walking on the tips of her toes in a perfect exhibition of the pointe technique.

In Vienna, Gottweig, Passau, and Regensberg, we saw cathedrals that had elements of both Gothic and Baroque architecture, and three of them claimed to have the largest pipe organ in the world according to esoteric criteria of one sort or another. I thought I saw a potential contact in one such church, and I surreptitiously followed her beneath the high, vaulted ceilings, dramatic stained glass, and garish, gold decorations. When she slipped behind a large, ornate door, I thought I had her, but as I threw open the door I heard her say, “Segne mich, Vater, denn ich habe gesündigt,” (Bless me Father, for I have sinned), and I knew I had failed again.

In Passau, on the German/Austrian border, our tour guide moved so slowly, used so many rhetorical questions for which he expected answers, and spoke so long about mundane objects, I felt certain that he was speaking to us in code. At one point, we walked at a lazy pace down a narrow medieval alley, and he paused next to some plastic garbage cans. He said, “Zese are ze trash cans. Do you know what zay are used for?” After a long, awkward pause, someone in our group muttered, “Garbage?” He nodded and, in his slow monotone voice, said, “Ja, ja. Zay are used for ze trash, . . . und ze refuse, . . . und. . . . ja, even for ze garbage.” After many such thrilling and informative explanations, we realized he was not a spy, just a terrible tour guide. I tipped him five Euros anyway. In fact I handed out five Euro notes to everyone who came within arm’s distance of me, hoping it would lead to a contact with our Russian friends.

Near the middle of our cruise, we were losing hope of ever making a viable contact. As we sat in the ship’s lounge that afternoon, Trebek pulled out her needlepoint of an abstract Klimt pattern and began working on it. It was an effective tool for attracting curious people, and several stopped by to ask about it while I sipped my Maker’s Mark Manhattan. When I was drinking a Sapphire Gin and Tonic, Trebek even sewed her needlepoint to her skirt on purpose in an effort to project an image of ineptitude. I nursed an Ardberg Scotch and water while smiling at the memory of Trebek’s mother using that same gambit while on assignment in Poland in the late ‘80s. It was her needlepoint work that first attracted the attention of labor leader Lech Walesa, and, well . . . the Berlin Wall came down. Finally, a man named Cero approached Trebek with needlepoint questions and we made plans to eat dinner with him that night.

At dinner, our East European waiter suggested a full-bodied red wine called “Trilogie,” and I wondered if that was perhaps a veiled reference to my undercover trio. I casually glanced at his nametag and read, “Milorad.” A Russian name! Eureka, we had found our contact! Alas, an attempted conversation with him proved fruitless, as he spoke only limited English, and we were back to square one. Cero and his husband, Tom, joined us, and we had a dinner of good wine, excellent food, and even better conversation. They turned out to be former physicians, Cero from Brazil, Tom, from the US, and they are now retired in Portugal. After a similar dinner the next night, Tom slipped me a coded letter. It turned out that they were also CIA agents, sent to pull us out of Europe before we damaged international relations any further. I cannot reveal all of the contents of that letter, but they were particularly upset about our bar bill and the cost of my London Fog overcoat.

The next day we found ourselves on a flight from Munich to Chicago, defrocked spies, but harboring a shipload of fond memories. My only regret is that I never got the chance to turn around slowly, scratch my head while holding a dormant cigar, and say, “There’s just one thing I don’t understand . . .”

Smooth Sailing

I have not posted anything new for a while, because we were off on a wonderful cruise along the Rhine River, from Amsterdam to Basle, Switzerland. When I returned, I got hit hard by a cold/sinus infection combo that had me on my back for several days and sleeping 15 to 20 hours a day. It took me a week to get up and going again. This trip was my much-belated “graduation” present from Kathleen. While planning my retirement, she said that I could choose a trip anywhere I wanted to go. I chose this cruise, planning on a sun-kissed trip during the summer months. Since we first booked the trip, though, we bought a house, moved to Wisconsin, and Ben said that he and Amber would like to join us. The chance at a week’s worth of adult conversation with the two doctors without the kids was too tempting to pass up, so we delayed again until a time when they could join us. Thus, we sailed in mid-December, rather than July. As Robert Burns said, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men often go awry.”

We arrived in Amsterdam at dawn—which was later than you might think. For the entire trip, the sun rose at about 8:45 am and set about 4:25. With temperatures in the 30s or low 40s for most of the trip, and skies overcast with intermittent drizzling rain, the weather was . . . just fine. At least it was better than the single digits and foot of snow we left behind us. We dressed appropriately for each excursion, and no complaints were heard from any of the hearty Wisconsinites.

During the week we toured quaint windmills in Holland, astounding cathedrals in Germany and France, castles with spectacular views from their mountaintop perches, medieval sections of cities that are still functional 500 years after their inception, and charming Christmas markets everywhere we went. Most of the cruising was done at night so that we could spend the days in various cities. The one exception to this pattern was the day we cruised through the “Middle Rhine” which is dotted by 600-year-old castles, charming little villages, and orderly vineyards built on steep hillsides. On that day, as if planned ahead of time by the Viking Company, the temperatures rose into the 50s and the sun shone brightly all day. I won’t bore you with a minute-by-minute travelogue, instead opting for a few random observations.

Viking Cruise Lines—A lot of different companies operate along the Rhine River. In recent years, Viking has been the most visible in the US, primarily because of their sponsorship of sophisticated PBS shows such as Downton Abbey. It is not a cheap option, but we have decided that it was well-worth the expense. First, the rates they negotiate with the airlines are far better than we could find by ourselves. When we first explored flights to Europe, the cheapest rates we could find were anywhere from $1100 to $1500 per person. By going through Viking, we paid about $500 each. We flew United going east, and Lufthansa (much better) on our return. Also, the services on the boat were first-rate from top-to-bottom. There were 50 crew members for the 186 passengers—a ratio of about 3-1—so you never had to look hard to find assistance. It was an international crew, primarily from Central and Eastern Europe, but they all spoke English and went out of their way to learn our names and be helpful. In particular, our cruise director, a huge Dutch man named Rene, had a quick wit and clever sense of humor. He was 6’6” and 280 pounds, with most of his weight in the upper body. With his wedge-shaped appearance and the scarf he sometimes wore, he reminded us of a character named “Gru” from the Despicable Me cartoons. When I pointed out the resemblance, he deadpanned, “Ya. Some crew members showed me a picture of him. . . They no longer work for the company.” Another way we found the price to be reasonable was that Viking does not nickel-and-dime you at every turn. Ocean cruises constantly try to push you to purchase excursions, drinks, photos, and special meals that drive the original price much higher than anticipated. They did none of that. Unlimited wine or beer was provided with every meal, and there were several other occasions in which mimosas, Champaign, or Kir Royales were available for free. Also, at least one free excursion was included at each stop. Other excursions were available for an extra charge, but these were never pushed on us.

Beer—One of the cities we stopped at was Cologne, Germany. Many visitors/writers would focus on Cologne’s cathedral, the tallest in the world, and a magnificent edifice that was started in the 1200s, completed in the 1800s, and which survived the leveling of the rest of the city during WWII. Not me. I want to talk about beer. When traveling, Kathleen and I are not great shoppers, but we enjoy getting to know the local culture by stopping in at pubs and bars. Sometimes language differences and a lack of knowledge about local tipping practices can hinder those attempts. In this case, however, we did some research ahead of time and found that Cologne has a distinctive way of ordering beers. First, many think of Germany in terms of a Bavarian Oktoberfest, with buxom barmaids carrying fistfuls of massive beer mugs. Things are different in Cologne. They serve beer in small, 7-ounce glasses and little verbal communication is required. You say “bier,” and they bring you one of the small glasses. You don’t have to specify which beer, because the entire city serves only one, a light-tasting beer called Kolsch. You don’t have to re-order, either. When they see your glass getting low, they bring another, in a fresh glass, and pick up the empty. Every time they bring a new one, they put a little tally mark on your beer coaster. If you don’t want another, you indicate that you are finished by placing your coaster on top of your glass. At the end, they total up your little hash-marks and bill you for the amount. It’s kind of cool. Kathleen and I stopped in a brauhaus in the shadow of the cathedral. Kathleen was uncomfortable because they directed us to a tall table where we had to stand the entire time. I guess the tables were reserved for those who were ordering food. I planned on making my coaster look as if it had been overrun with ants, with lots of little black marks on it, but Kathleen did not want to stand and planned on just one beer. She placed her coaster on top of the glass as soon as it arrived, lest they swoop in on her unexpectedly and deliver another round. She then contorted her neck to sneak an occasional sip from under it in a manner that provided me great amusement. I had two quick brews—just to try out the system, mind you—before placing my coaster on the top. Each bier was €1.90, or about $2.10, so our bill was €5.70. No regular tipping is expected, but they appreciate it if you round up your bill, which I did. It was a brief but fascinating glimpse into German culture.

Relics—Another thing that makes the Cologne Cathedral famous is that has a golden reliquary that is traditionally believed to contain the bones of the Three Magi. That’s right, the three actual Wise Men who followed a star to Bethlehem bearing gifts for the newborn Jesus. Their bones are reputed to be in that glorious box, and people have been coming to Cologne to pray over them for centuries, despite the fact that several other places also claim to own those same bones. That brings up the subject of religious relics. On the trip, one of the books I read was Dan Jones’s new book, Crusaders, a history of the attempts by Christian Europe to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslim control. He talked a lot about relics. During the time of the Crusades, roughly 1100 to 1300, Europeans were obsessed with relics. Bones of saints, but also locks of hair from the Virgin Mary, pieces of the cross upon which Jesus was crucified, the crown of thorns that was placed on his head, even vials of the blood of Jesus were available to the highest bidder. Fortunes were made selling such items and wars were fought to obtain them from a rival. Reading about this stuff and looking at the golden shrine in Cologne, I couldn’t help but think that certain members of my family would have been extremely wealthy during such gullible times.

Half-timbered Houses—Most of the cities we visited had an old-town section that had been built in the late middle ages and that was dominated by half-timbered houses. Sometimes called Tudor Style, these homes show their wooden bones in diagonal patterns and were usually built close together by relatively wealthy craftsmen or merchants. I was fascinated by these homes. Many of them are over 500 years old, and yet they have been in continuous use since their first construction. This stands in stark contrast to the US where we tear everything down and start over every generation or so. Europeans maintain a strong bond to their past through these buildings that stretch back to the Middle Ages or even Roman times. You can’t throw a rock without hitting a building that’s 1000 years old. In the US, tour guides might proudly tell you that a particular building “Has stood in this same location since the 1930s!” Tourists gasp and exclaim, “My God! You can’t be serious. Nothing is that old!”

Languages—Another thing I like about Europe is the fact that almost everyone speaks multiple languages. This was especially evident in the city of Strasbourg, in the region of Alsace-Lorraine. That little wedge of land has been a political football over the centuries, being kicked back and forth between France and Germany and changing hands with every major war. As a result, most people who live there now speak both of those languages, along with an Alsatian dialect that combines elements of the two. Of course, most people also speak English. It is not at all unusual to find Europeans who can fake their way through half-a-dozen languages fairly easily. In the US, most Americans take a second language in high school, but never use it and promptly forget it. Kathleen and I both took Latin in HS, and can read some French. We always feel a bit embarrassed when we travel and feel as if we should have made a better effort to learn the local language when we travel. The other thing that left us somewhat embarrassed on this trip was a group of Ugly Americans. A group of people from Texas (where else) reinforced every negative stereotype Europeans have about wealthy Americans. They pushed to the front of each tour group just to ask where the “good” stores were. They would shop at the mom-and-pop stores and Christmas markets if they had to, but they preferred Louis Vuittan, Gucci, or Prada stores. On the bus returning to the boat, they would loudly talk about various ways they had learned to avoid paying customs duties on their expensive souvenirs. We also heard a story that one of the Texans was noisily inquiring about a 1200-Euro cuckoo clock in a store. Were they interested in the meticulous craftsmanship? Not really. The artistry, perhaps? Nah. All they really wanted was a clock big enough to adorn their 2,000 square-foot library at home without being dwarfed by their other lavish decorations.

Well, I’ve gone on for far too long. There were many other aspects of the trip, such as the Christmas Markets and the spiced Gluhwein (hot wine), that I’d like to talk about, but I want to wrap this up. All in all, it was a memorable trip and Ben and Amber were delightful travelling companions. I hope that you all had a great Christmas and will have an even better New Year.