June 2023 (Stuttgart, Strasbourg, Colmar, Rome, Florence and Paris)

June started off with a funeral and by weddings.

The funeral was for the father of one of my long time friends. The man who died was 87 and in poor health but I was fascinated to hear the story of him packing his suitcase at 17 and coming to Melbourne from Italy to live with his older brother. I relayed this to my Mum and she reminded me that she, too, had done this at 17. 

Mum and her older sister came from Malta to Melbourne to pave the way for the rest of her family – her parents and four other siblings. She and her sister flew (never having been on a plane before) and the rest of the family followed a few months later by ship. The plane trip took about 45 hours and there were various stops - Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Karachi, Singapore, Sydney and, finally, Melbourne. The trip on the ship took 4 weeks and my grandmother was apparently seasick the entire voyage. 

My Dad is also a migrant but from Ireland. He moved to Dublin as a teenager and then London where he saw an ad for the Tramways in Melbourne. His passage on the plane was paid for and the Tramways arranged for him to live with a family. In return, Dad worked as a tram conductor (before the electronic MYKI system, tram tickets were bought onboard the tram from conductors). A cute story is that my parents met as my Dad was the conductor on the tram route that my Mum took to work! 

“The weddings” was firstly our 31st wedding anniversary and then a wedding we attended. I have been friends of the Bride since we met at university when we were both 17. (There’s a 17 theme this month!!). My friend married young (at 22) but, tragically, her Husband died of a sudden and massive heart attack. He was only 51 and she was not yet 50.

After she was widowed, my friend took up ballroom dancing and met the man she just married. He was also a widower whose first Wife had also died too young.

It was lovely to attend a wedding and share in their happiness at finding love a second time.

Mid June, we took off for seven and a half weeks in Europe. This trip is part gala celebration of selling our business, part Bucket List (attending the second Ashes cricket Test in London) and part belated 30th wedding anniversary celebration river cruise from Budapest to Amsterdam. We are lucky enough to be sharing part of the holiday with our daughters and (daughter) G’s boyfriend. I will divide the holiday into Chapters. 

Before I start waxing lyrical about how amazing it is to be back in Europe post Pandemic, I had my first work of fiction published in June - https://www.cafelitmagazine.uk/ My story “Memory Lane” was published on 8 June. A little exciting writing milestone for me.

Euro Adventure Chapter 1:

Andrew and I flew into Munich and arrived early. We picked up a rental car and drove a couple of hours to Stuttgart to tour the Porsche Museum. We ended up having enough time to also visit the Mercedes Benz Museum. 

Not only did we see beautiful cars but we also learnt some interesting history. Who knew that the first Porsche (named after Ferdinand Porsche) was fully electric or that Porsche made the first fully operational hybrid car way back in 1900? Another fun fact - Mercedes was a car client’s daughter’s name. Ironically, Mercedes herself never learnt to drive.

Next stop – Strasbourg - was approximately two hours’ drive from Stuttgart. It is mind boggling for an Australian that you can drive for two hours and be in a different country but there you are! One minute we were in Germany, then we were in France!

I studied French for 6 years at high school and another 3 at university so I love any chance to hear and attempt to speak this beautiful language. (Ditto for Italian but more on Italy in Chapter 2!)

Visiting the old town of Strasbourg, we felt like we were in Disneyland! Everything was so, so pretty. The half timbered houses are painted in pretty colours, there are window boxes and planter pots everywhere bursting with flowers and the cobblestone streets are largely pedestrian zones so we felt like we were walking through our own fairy tale! We had a lazy, long lunch outside beside the canal and were pinching ourselves as to how amazing the setting was. And I should add, the weather was divine!!

The next day, we drove to Colmar which some people say is the inspiration for Belle’s hometown in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Again, So. Much. Beauty! The colourful, half timbered houses combined with the overflowing flower boxes everywhere and the cobblestones are straight out of Brothers Grimm fairy tales! 

To compound the fairy tale beauty, we divided the afternoon (after another long, lazy lunch) between Eguisheim and Riquewihr. We had never heard of either town and only went there after a quick Google search of where else was worth seeing in the Alsace area. We were blown away by how beautiful both towns were.  

Lucky we don’t use film in cameras any more because I would have used up rolls of film over these two days! We were blessed with beautiful, sunny days and the combination of half-timbered buildings painted in pretty colours with the abundance of flowers was beauty overload!

Last stop was Munich and we ticked off our “must do” which was a beer and schnitzel at the Hofbrauhaus. We have been lucky enough to go there twice before – once in Winter as 22 year old backpackers and once as a family. On the family trip, I had our 4 kids (aged about 4 to 12) for a few hours whilst Andrew had a business meeting. We met up at the Hofbrauhaus but the kids and I got there first and I ordered 2 x 1 litre steins. The waiter looked at me and the kids and firmly told me that I could only have 1 beer and my Husband could order his own when he arrived! 😂

Europe Chapter 2:

We flew from Munich to Rome where our youngest child, 19 year old G, and her boyfriend (we’ll call him E) joined us.

The trip didn’t have an auspicious start. I bought first class tickets on the airport train so that we would have more room for our luggage and then we found that there was no first class!!

We expected it to be very hot in Rome (and it was!) so we didn’t want to queue for hours in the sun to enter the Vatican Museums. We booked into a guided “skip the line” tour and were assigned a very entertaining Italian man “on the look out for his third Wife!” He told us that 40,000 people a day flock into the Vatican Museums. Shuffling through as if we were leaving the MCG after a capacity crowd, I don’t think he was exaggerating! 

Seeing the Sistine Chapel was absolutely worth the sweaty shuffle. Michelangelo’s ceiling took 4 years. 23 years later and in his mid 60s, he painted “The Last Judgment.” All are breathtaking but the colours in “The Last Judgment” are much more vivid. Apparently, this was because the paint for the ceiling was at Michelangelo’s expense but the paint for “The Last Judgment” was charged to the Vatican so Michelangelo went to town and purchased the most expensive and vivid paint colours!

Rome is full of ancient sites and buildings - all bathed in a golden light. The Pantheon, for example, is the oldest building still in use in the World. The thousands of years of history on show is hard to comprehend.

The traffic in Rome is something to behold. Pedestrian crossings are a game of “chicken” or brinkmanship ie see who blinks first! Parking is crazy – if your car fits, park it there seems to be the rule.

The heat intensified with each day, peaking at 35 degrees. Thank goodness for the water fountains everywhere. Somehow, the water is cold. We even drank from a fountain- I Googled it first and Google said it was drinkable. So far, so good!.

We took a train from the middle of Rome to the middle of Florence and were greeted by 37 degrees! It felt like an oven. Despite the heat, we walked around in wonder, marvelling in particular at the Duomo. The Dome of the Duomo is still the biggest brick dome in the World. The architect used an egg as a model to work out how to make a dome so high and also self-supporting. Terracotta bricks were commissioned specifically as they were lighter. Nearly 600 years after it was built, it still dominates the skyline. 

Every street and cobblestone lane in Florence is a picture postcard. We want to return and stay put in this beautiful city for a while – me improving my Italian and Andrew finding the best gelateria!!

Paris sparkles with majestic buildings and wide boulevards. We had never visited the Garnier Opera before and we were blown away by its magnificence. We couldn’t visit Paris without visiting the Musee d’Orsay and the Orangerie – the “Sistine Chapel of Impressionism.” The artworks in both touch your soul as did the hundreds of people enjoying themselves over the weekend in the beautiful, manicured gardens. We strolled through the Tuileries Gardens, the Luxembourg Palace gardens and the Place des Vosges – all incredibly beautiful.

Andrew and I walked 15 kilometres a day marvelling at the Haussmann buildings and the diverse neighbourhoods. Restaurants, cafes and boulangeries are everywhere. As are people smoking – something unusual for an Australian to see. We were having lunch outdoors in Paris and our waiter gave us our lunch and, in one motion, moved to the side, lit up a cigarette, had a few puffs and then resumed working!!

I dragged Andrew to a few “Emily in Paris” sites and also a café – “Du Pain et des Idees” which is the inspiration behind “Lune” in Melbourne. 

G and E did some more “traditional” tourist sites – Le Louvre (way too crowded on a Sunday afternoon they said), L’Arc de Triomphe and Le Tour d’Eiffel.

10 years ago we hosted a 16 year old French exchange student, Jeans. On our last night in Paris, we met Jeans and his Wife for dinner and we had a lovely evening speaking “Franglais” and exchanging stories.

Writing this on the Eurostar – first time for us – on the way to London. The second Ashes (cricket) Test at Lord’s beckons!! More on that in the July instalment.