AMSTERDAM 2009

We've changed planes in Amsterdam many times on our way to Prague but we've never gotten out of the Schipol airport. This time we began our trip in Amsterdam. Our elegant and very expensive hotel was on the edge of lush Vondell park and right around the corner from the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. On every street there is a lane designated for bicycles and the river of cyclists flows day and night at reckless speeds. Little tinkling bike bells warn you to get out of the lane if you happen to step in one and you're far more likely to be hit by a bike than a car if you're not paying attention to where you're going. 

Amsterdam in Spring is green and mild. In May, as the plane descends into the airport, you can see miles of colorful tulip fields below on the outskirts of the city. It's like a color field painting from the air. I think charming, a word I don't often use, best describes Amsterdam. The distinctive architecture, the canals with slowly moving boats and people watching from the pedestrian bridges above, the easy going feel of the city make Amsterdam very livable.

In Andel Square we joined a large Hindu procession. We saw a special exhibition of Van Gogh night scene paintings at the museum dedicated to his work and a fabulous exhibition of Odillon Redon paintings the same evening. 

Yes, we saw the red light district, the coffee houses and watched break dancers in Leidesplein Square. But walking the back streets of Amsterdam in the evening under a full moon is the best way to see the city.

WINTER APPROACHES

Winter is coming early this year. We had rain all summer long, keeping the town green and verdant. As a consequence the locals are saying we will have a bad winter. Looking out my office window this morning Manitou Springs is blanketed in fog and the Garden of the Gods Park is invisible. The fog reminds me of the Bay Area. It makes me a little melancholy, longing to see the fog roll down from Wolf Back Ridge in Marin County and pour across the Golden Gate Bridge. I suffer from the restless desire to be anywhere but where I am. It doesn't matter how beautiful a place is, sooner or later I want to move on and see the other place. Why is it that some people can live their entire lives in a small town and never feel the need or desire to see the world? I meet many people here who declare with absolute certainty that Colorado is heaven on Earth. I can't help but wonder how they would know since many of them haven't even seen a fraction of this country much less the world. Is it mass hysteria or small town over compensation?

I've seen a fraction of this country and of the world and I know for certain that there is no such place as heaven on earth. If it exists at all, it's not geographical but spiritual.  A dingy apartment can be heaven on Earth to a couple madly in love. Someone at peace within themselves can be at peace in the middle of the worst city on the planet. But not me. I'm ready to move on. Summer in Colorado is over and the winter of my discontent is rapidly approaching.    

Passage from LOVE'S LOST & FOUND by Cheryl Ernst Wells

   As a child Fred had been frightened by the notion of an all-seeing God watching him every moment. But as a man he saw religion as self-medication against the injustices of life, the pain of loss and the fear of death. The notion of an almighty God seemed like a children's fairytale to him now and he thought only a simpleton or someone desperate could believe such nonsense. He understood that for many people church was a place of solace in a dangerous world and the congregation was a human wall of protection; safety in numbers. He couldn't understand how some people could justify the hypocrisy of behaving badly all week then piously on Sunday. Mys'tique was right. He was Godless but what she didn't know was that he wasn't faithless.

   He believed in the inherent goodness in people and that instinctively everyone knew the difference between right and wrong without the need of scripture. He believed that there was an intangible force that ordered the Universe, despite the appearance of chaos at times, and that everything good and bad happened for a reason that made sense in the greater scheme of things. Fred had his own personal doctrine born of experience and so far it had sustained him in a troubled world with an occasional lapse of faith.

MORE PHOTOS OF EUROPE 2009 BY PAUL WELLS

Amsterdam to Brussels, London to Bath and ending with Paris

PARIS 2009

When we began to plan our trip, we only had France in mind, beginning with Paris. Gradually we expanded our itinerary to include other countries and France somehow got shuffled to the end. I had been to France a few times but Paul hadn't been yet. Leaving Paris to the end of the three weeks was, in retrospect, a mistake. Paris requires a lot of energy to see and do everything the city has to offer and we were by that time a little worn out. We did, however, manage to see the Louvre, D'Orsay and the Rodin Museums. On foot we explored the back streets and galleries of St. Germaine des Pres, Montparnasse and some of the Rive Gauche.

Some of the most interesting, welcoming Parisians we met were immigrants to the country. Much has been written by others about the character of the native French people. Some of it is true and some is exaggeration. Even in Paris a smile goes a long way to bridging the cultural divide.

As artists, we spend the majority of our trips in the museums and galleries of the countries we visit. We linger for hours over the artwork and consequently can spend an entire day in one museum or another. This trip we tried something new. In every city we visited we took a sightseeing boat cruise or bus ride. I've always thought these were too touristy for my taste but I was wrong. We enjoyed them, met and talked with travelers from other countries and learned a lot about the history of each city from the guides. It's also a great way to get off your weary feet. The city buses turned out to be preferable to the Metro (too much walking from stop to stop). They were cleaner and safer. 

Paris is terribly expensive. Even the Parisians complain of the cost of food etc. This trip I noticed that the city seems a bit run down. The buildings were grimy and to my amazement there were crumbling ceilings in parts of the Louvre. I think it takes a certain type of person to fall in love with Paris. I'm not that type but I admit, Paris is definitely one of the cities you must see before you die.

BATH AND THE COTSWOLDS 2009

For more than twenty years I've been a devoted follower of Masterpiece Theater and Mystery on PBS. I love all the Merchant and Ivory movies and any British costume drama on the big or small screen. So naturally I thought when I finally made it to England I would be prepared for the experience. I was wrong. England is greener, more civilized, more enchanted, more of everything than I expected. I think Bath and the villages of the Cotswolds are the prettiest places I've ever seen. 

We wandered the narrow alleyways of Bath at night and in the morning took a slow, meandering boat trip on the Avon River  (learned that there are many different Avon Rivers in England). A swan floated by with six signets tucked under her wings. Spring green hillsides rolled down to the riverside, rushes swayed gently in our wake. A brief cloudburst cooled us. Later we went into a shop on the Bath bridge selling stamps, coins and old medals. The elderly, wizened proprietress was right out of Dickens. Called me Dear.

We toured Stonehenge, the village of Avebury with the great stone circle and had lunch in a sixteenth century pub in Castle Comb.

For me, the five days we spent in southern England were the highlight of our 2009 trip.  

LONDON 2009

From the time I was a teenager I've wanted to go to London. I've been to Europe many times and never made it there. Paul was born there and had studied a short course in microscopy during the eighties in London. I was very excited to be going to England. We took the Chunnel from Brussels and arrived at St. Pancras station. 

We had booked our hotel in  Bloomsbury near the train station for convenience. The East Indian desk clerk, Hans, was originally from Africa. He kept asking if Paul was related to a previous guest from Wales and seemed to find it hard to take no for an answer.  The Booking.com description of the hotel said that some rooms overlooked a garden so we requested one in our reservation. The garden turned out to be a 10' x 10' walled brick patio with wilted potted plants and a stack of moldy mattresses. To say that the room was "cozy" is an overstatement. We could barely move. While clean, the shower was impossibly small and water went everywhere. Still the proximity to the British Museum and being two blocks from all the bus lines and the train station made up for the inadequacies and the full English breakfast included in the price of the room helped.

The collection at the British Museum is fabulous. Notorious treasures like the Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone, antiquities from every corner of the globe are housed in the British Museum and we spent days revisiting the collections. For free! The British are so civilized!

The British people are some of the most polite, friendly and hospitable I've ever met in my travels. Some of them were the stuff of fiction. Sitting across from us on a city bus on the way to the Tate Modern was a man in his sixties with a tuft of hair on his otherwise bald head, glasses like coke bottle bottoms and missing teeth who whistled a three note tune every so often and I think said something about tickety-boo. You know someone that out of it has had a rough time but his good humor and odd behavior are pure Monty Python.

Listening to a young East Indian man studying economics complain of the cost of college in London over a curry dinner, watching children play in the fountain in Russell Square, a Sri Lankan demonstration in front of the Parliament buildings, doing our laundry in a laundry mat with an elderly Chinese woman; all these experiences make London a wonderful memory and a place I can't wait to get back to.