Traveling Johns

It was a bit windy last night, but it was really blowing this morning. For us Southern California travelers, it had the familiar feel of a Santa Ana, though not quite a hot and dry as those winds can sometimes be. At breakfast, Marin explained that the winds would probably change our plans for the day.

We were supposed to ride from Rogoznica to Primosten and be met by the boat at our next destination. Instead, because it was too windy to sail, we would ride there and then ride back, doubling our planned 15 kilometers. As I have an e-bike on this trip, I have to admit that doing 30 kilometers seemed like a great way to try out this new toy. The German tourists, all of whom have regular mountain bikes, groaned. 

It was a lovely ride. I wish I had brought along a Go Pro and attached it to my helmet. Or maybe stopped a couple times along the way to take a picture. But I somehow I was so taken with the fun of riding that I neglected the duty of photography. Such are the failings of a tourist. 

The town of Primosten is almost unbearably cute. I am sure that at some point in its history it was once a real fishing village, but casting nets for tourists long ago replaced catching tuna. It also was once an island separated from the mainland by a few shallow feet of water. This was helpful, I suppose, in the middle ages when the residents were busy fighting off the Saracens and the Turks. The town still has the remnants of its old fortifications. However, once the threat from invaders receded, Primosten’s residents built a causeway to connect it to the mainland. 

Primosten is dominated by its church on the top of the hill. It is not, I think, particularly old, probably dating from the 18th century. There was some extensive explanation in the front of the church explaining that while the church is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, the parish is named for Saint George. This did not seem like a particularly big problem to me, but it obviously concerned somebody. 

As it was Sunday, Mass was being celebrated. The residents of Primosten seem to have a greater tolerance for long sermons than most American Catholics do. The homily went on and on and on. John boldly stepped in and snapped a picture

while I stood wandered through the churchyard outside. This has to be one of the most stunning locations for a cemetery anywhere. Too bad that the residents cannot enjoy their view!

Primosten, as I said, is has been largely transformed from a fishing village into a nearly perfect tourist destination filled with cafes and gift shops. Still, there are a few rough edges. As I walked past this collapsed house, I heard a guide explain that abandoned properties are a difficult issue in Croatia. The state has been slowly demolishing these structures and selling the land, but the rightful owners and the heirs sometimes appear wanting compensation. 

As we sailed out of Primosten, many of our group went up to the sundeck on the top to admire the scenery. John, always young at heart, has taken to snapping selfies

but also a shot or two of me as well. 

We sailed for a couple of hours and docked in the city of Sibinek. We had a couple free hours, and then at five o’clock we had a guided tour of the city. We had a lovely tour guide who was fluent in both German and English. 

Sibnenik is an old, old city. Although it was established by the Croats, one of the groups of Slavic peoples who flooded into Roman Empire. The exact origins of the Croats, and their relationship to the other Slavic-speaking peoples of Eastern Europe is controversial. What we can be pretty sure of, however, is that there was a recognizable Kingdom of Croatia by the middle of the tenth century, and that this kingdom reached its height in the eleventh century during the reign of King Peter Krešimir IV. This king is considered the founder of Sibenik, and responsible for building the strategically important fortress here at the mouth of the Krka River. 

In the centuries that followed, the Croatian kingdom could not resist its more powerful neighbors and Sibenik, like other Dalmatian coast cities, was at various times a possession of the Hungarians, the Byzantines, the Venetians, and finally the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Bits of all these different influences can be seen in the city’s architecture. There are at least a dozen major churches and monasteries in the old part of the city as well as many remarkably well-preserved homes of wealthy merchants.  

As we walked through the narrow, winding streets, our guide pointed out all the historically-important sights. She also showed us, in a shop window,  a mannequin wearing the traditional dress of the region. I am not sure, however, how many peasants in the Austro-Hungarian Empire sported cool sunglasses.

Later on, in another store another manequin different look, though I was not sure if this was couture or a costume from Game of Thrones. In either case, it was interesting. 

However, actual fashion on actual people in the streets is often less successful. 

The jewel of Sibenik is its cathedral.

The cathedral is dedicated to Saint James the Great, but the patron and protector of the city is Saint Michael the Archangel. 

The cathedral is a transitional work between the late gothic period and the Renaissance. This is most visible in the famous baptistry.

 The ceiling is utterly exquisite.

Another one of the most remarkable features of the cathedral are the faces of dozens of ordinary residents which were chiseled in white limestone on the side of the building. For the time, the work is remarkably realistic. 

The cathedral was badly damage by Yugoslavian forces in 1991 as they tried to crush the Croatian independence movement. The ceiling has been repaired, but there is still some visible damage such as these bullet holes in the bronze doors.

Our tour ended here, and we had a free evening to explore the city. As we were wandering about, we saw Marin and Lucy having some coffee in a local coffee shop. 

There is some kind of show taking place later this evening, and we wondered if we could get a good seat for free. Alas, no. This perch gives a marvelous view of the city but not the stage below. 

It was a little weird being in the hotel by myself. I woke up early, trying not to disturb John, and went into the kitchen to get the electric kettle to make myself some herbal tea. Even though we had been told to make ourselves at home, I still vaguely felt like I was breaking some serious rules.

Ivana, our hostess, arrived around 8:00 and set out a huge spread for just the two of us. She could not have been more helpful in making suggestions for what we should see with our limited time and helping us plan our way to the boat. I rather assumed when I made my plans that our bike and boat trip would leave from about the same place that the ferry had dropped us off. As it turned out, I was completely wrong. We needed to get to Trogir, the next city over, by 2:00 pm and the traffic between the two cities can be bad. Ivana told us to give ourselves at least an hour. 

But we had at least three hours to explore Split before we took off. The old city of of Split is basically the precincts of the Emperor Diocletian’s palace. Given his notoriety, nobody felt the slightest desire to preserve his heritage. On the contrary, even in his own time he was so unpopular that when he died there were days and days of celebrations. Yet given all this, it is remarkable how much is left to his palace because it was either ignored or recycled. The peristyle, the grand entrance to the palace is now a lovely public square.

One of the thirteen sphinxes that Diocletian imported from Egypt still crouches to guard the entrance.

There are concerts here at different times and it is the home to a couple of the city’s coffee shops. Young men dress up here as Roman soldiers and get tips from tourists who pose with them

Not far from here is the Temple of Jupiter. Diocletian ardently tried to restore the glory of Rome’s golden age. To adapt a modern phrase, he wanted to “Make Rome great again!” And restoring the worship of Rome’s former god’s was an important part of this. And no god was more important than great king of the gods, Jupiter. 

And for that reason, the Christians were determined to stamp out Jupiter’s memory. So that temple to Jupiter became in the fifth century a baptistry dedicated to Saint John the Baptist. A modern sculpture of the saint stands where a model of the god once stood.

Of course, I had to read the details about everything I saw there.

Such as the front of this font. It is not the one that was originally here. Instead, it is composed to bits of old rood screens and altars. The front of the font does not depict a biblical scene but shows an ancient Croatian king, probably Peter Krešimir IV.

We heard some singing as we came back to the Peristyle. We went into the rotunda that served as a reception room for Diocletian. A quartet of four men was performing traditional Croatian a cappella music. 

On an impulse, we bought their CD. I am not sure we will ever listen to it. I have a bunch of local music CDs like that in my collection.

The cathedral in Split is probably the smallest in the world. It was originally designed to be the mausoleum of Diocletian. Now as mentioned before, Diocletian persecuted the church ferociously, and at that time Domnius, the bishop of Salona, the capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia, was put to death. So, once Christianity became the new religion of the Empire, Diocletian’s body was pulled out of his tomb and the remains of Domnius took its place. It has been a cathedral ever since, though it can barely hold 50 people. 

Not much has changed on the outside of the building, but inside has been extensively remodeled, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is now kind of a hodgepodge of ancient, baroque, and neoclassical art inside, none of which is particularly memorable. 

We docked in the evening in Rogoznica. This is an insanely cute little town that reminds me a lot of the more affluent Greek islands. 

The sidewalks are filled with cafes, though in the late afternoon they were all empty. 

Marin suggested that I we might want to walk to the church and back. There was a wedding going on, so I did not have a chance to go inside. But it was sweet so see a local celebration.

We had a great dinner. Tomorrow we will be taking our first bike ride. I’m quite excited to try out an e-bike for the first time.

We spent a quiet morning at the hotel. We woke up late, and although we had not done the near-obligatory walk on the top of the Dubrovnik city walls, John was not feeling in the mood to deal with heat and crowds, and by the time we were ready to leave for town, it was pretty certain we would be dealing with both of those things. So we lounged around our room with its lovely view of the Lokrum island forest preserve, and after packing up we we lounged around the pool with its lovely view of Dubrovnik. I know that I may have missed a certain amount of history on this leg of the trip, but we also have to be aware that we cannot do things quite as non-stop as we once did. 

Around three o’clock we left the Gran Villa Argentina to go to the port to catch the ferry to Split, our next stop. It is not entirely easy to get between these two places. As part of the settlement of the Homeland War, Bosnia was given a stretch of coastline just north of Dubrovnik. The exact nature of the rights of the Croatians to travel across it has never been clarified. Most days there are no border controls, but occasionally there are long delays to check passports and car insurance. For this reason, most of the guidebooks recommend taking the sea route even though it is not all that quick. There is strangely no air service between the two cities. 

We had a very chatty Uber driver who normally guided tours for cruise ship passengers, but happened to not be working that day. We enjoyed talking with him, and learned that sometimes there are as many as 7 cruises ships in town at one time! There were three or four today, and that made up fairly happy with our decision to not deal with the crowds on the city walls. 

We found our boat without difficulty. We had to wait for about 15 minutes before they started to board us. I talked with an Englishman who had been living in Australia for most of his life and his Swedish wife. He wanted to talk about Donald Trump, but I could not think of anything I wanted to say on that subject other than wishing that the Democrats had nominated a person other than Hillary Clinton. 

The ferry was remarkably not that crowded. Apparently the one that leaves a half hour later is usually packed. Unfortunately, there was a woman with two young children on board, and these two, Luca and Laura, were in the full force of the “terrible twos.” (I rather doubted that they were named after the Luke and Laura of General Hospital fame, but you never know….) After a few minutes of listening to the children screaming, passengers slowly moved from the most desirable seats in the front of the boat to the less scenic, but quieter, accommodations in the rear. 

They ferry operators did not allow any passengers on deck while the ship was moving, and I did not bother trying to take photographs through thick sheets of plexiglass. The scenery was quite stunning, however. I wish I did have some pictures. However, I was able to put together a map of our journey thanks to Google Earth and Skitch. 

It took about four and a half hours to get to Split. John and I read and napped — the latter when Luca and Laura were taking a break from tantrums — for the entire way. 

In Split we discovered that there was no good taxi access to our hotel, and everybody advised us to walk the half mile or so from the port to the old walled city. We have in retrospect overpacked for this trip, and neither of us enjoyed schlepping the bags through crowded city streets. Split is the second largest city in Croatia, and it is very much a real city with real city congestion on its streets and sidewalks. When John found out that our accommodations, a small hotel in the old walled city was on the second floor with no elevator, well, I thought “unforgiven” might be more than just a Clint Eastwood movie. But we managed to get him and all our bags to the room.

We are staying at a place called the Hotel Palace Augubio. Despite the grand name, it only has four rooms and we learned that we are the only guests tonight. I have never had a hotel, even a small one, completely to myself. The rooms are small, but absolutely spotless. The air-conditioner works, but I wish it were a trifle stronger.

We then went out to explore and get some dinner. We are just steps from the former palace of the Emperor Diocletian. Split had its first heyday in the late Roman period, the time when there were two Caesars, one east and one west, and two Augustuses, again split between the two halves of the empire. Diocletian was in many ways an usual emperor. He was Dalmatian, not Italian, and he came from a very modest “working-class” background, not the aristocracy. He was infamous for his persecution of Christians, the most severe in the first three centuries of the faith. He was famous for being the first emperor to abdicate, and he retired to Split and built a palace here to spend his last years. The remains of that palace are still quite visible in the center of town. 

Not surprisingly, given Diocletian’s persecution of the church, the cathedral was build almost on top of his palace, as if to make a point of who had really won the battle between empire and faith. 

We walked around enjoying the warm evening. 

We had a cheap but quite filling dinner at an outdoor cafe on one of the squares. We continued to wander about for a bit, and then headed back to our own “palace.”

Yesterday, it seemed like a temporary inconvenience to be living without our luggage. Today, I just balked at the thought of getting into the same sweat-soaked tee shirt and jeans, not to mention the inevitable food stains on my shirt. I find eating on a plane somewhat challenging….

The gift shop at the hotel was open, and although their swim trunks were clearly overpriced, they were almost free compared to what John had paid the evening before. The “toiletries kit” that Lufthansa had given us contained a huge white tee shirt, so at least I had something clean to wear. It was only later as I saw some pictures I realized how much I looked like a slightly deflated dirigible in this costume.

Dubrovnik is the kind of place that Michelin gives three stars, and yet manages to give at best one star to any particular attraction within it. It is not Florence. There are really no grand buildings, no great museums or art galleries, no famous or important churches. Yet it is an example of how one plus one plus one can indeed equal three. All of the pieces come together to form something almost extraordinary. Of course, it would be more extraordinary if there were fewer tourists around. Sometimes I feel that we tourists, like Little Father Time in Jude the Obscure, should hang ourselves “… because we are too menny.”

All the guidebooks did agree that the cable car to the top of Mount Srd was one of the major attractions. (By the way, Srd is not a misspelling: apparently vowels are optional in Croatian syllables.) We saw many places selling tickets to this, but we figured that we would buy one there as it would probably be the cheapest price. Unfortunately, we arrived just as the ticket printer stopped working, and with the bureaucratic mindset nurtured by decades of socialist rule, they decided that the best thing would be to simply stop the admitting any passengers until they could somehow get it to work again. We waited in line for what seemed like an hour, though it was probably less. By some miracles one of the no doubt underpaid employees did manage to fix it, and we were treated to a panoramic view of the ancient walled city as we ascended the rocky hill.

It had been gray all morning, but the rain waited until the precise moment when we exited the cable car. It was fortunately not a long shower nor a heavy one. We took some pictures as it sprinkled, and John was in the mood for something light to eat. There was a cafe at the top with a rather attractive outdoor patio. We asked for a table, but the young woman who was seating people told us that they had closed it because of the rain. Now, by this time it had stopped raining and she was as aware of this fact as we were. But she neither had the authority to change the directive that had been given her earlier, nor the the initiative to ask for this rule to be reexamined in the light of changed circumstances. I reflected that she could have a great career in the Los Angeles City School District.

We saw a sign for a restaurant in Bosanka, a nearby village. A older gentleman sitting by the sign saw us reading it and informed us, that it was a “good place.” The road, really a path covered in some macadam, looked interesting, so, despite the slight discomfort of hiking in my flip-flops, we started walking to Bosanka. John was in better shape for the hike having worn his regular leather shoes, though these combined with his swim trunks would have made anybody who saw him assume that he probably hailed from Stuttgart. The landscape was at once familiar yet foreign. Even though as dry and rocky as California hills, the vegetation is different. This is still relatively early in their summer, so it was still somewhat green. Along the way we saw reminders of war. There were the remnants of what I assumed were either German or Soviet bunkers on the hillsides, and several monuments to locals killed in the Homeland War of the Nineties.

There was not much to the village of Bosanka, and we found the restaurant on the far side of it. It looked like the kind of place that specialized in grilling huge slabs of meat over a wood fire. There were a number of patrons, but apparently only one overworked waiter. He motioned for us to sit anywhere. John found a spot on on the outdoor patio, away from all the smokers, the bikers, and the smoking bikers, and sat there. I had my doubt whether they were actually serving people there, but John insisted that this was the spot he wanted. As it turned out, I was right. The waiter never actually told us we had to sit in the main part of the restaurant, but simply acted as if we somehow were not there. After over twenty minutes of being ignored John was so irritated that he suggested we take an Uber back to the hotel.

We napped at the hotel after our exertions, and then spent the late afternoon at the pool by the sea. The day had cleared a bit, and we had a stunning view of the old city and its walls from there. 

Late afternoon is a popular time for kayaking, and we watched people, with varying degrees of success, trying to paddle around the island.

We also found the jacuzzi and the indoor pool. The designers of the hotel had rather cleverly placed a kind of mirror above the pool and this gave the room a remarkable sense of openness and light.

When we returned to our room, we discovered that Lufthansa had finally delivered our luggage. I nearly cried with joy. 

In the evening, we went back to Dubrovnik. Along the way we saw yet another bridal party. Dubrovnik seems to a quite the place for British destination weddings.This group even wore sashes declaring “Hens Party,” as if anybody could have doubts about it. I should not be so snobbish, but I wondered what their combined GCSEs might be, and decided that the number did not in anyway approach higher mathematics. 

Before getting dinner, we walked around the walls of the town in the magical light of early evening.

There was quite a crowd at the cathedral, and we walked inside to see what was happening. I quickly figured out that the Catholic Church in Croatia still celebrates Corpus Christi on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday instead of on the following Sunday, as does most of the rest of the Latin Rite. Had the liturgy been in some language I could understand I might have wanted to stay, but instead we pressed on to find a restaurant in the old town.

Following one of Rick Steves’ recommendations, we found a small cafe that specialized in Dalmatian food. The cuisine was not extraordinary, but sitting at a table in a small alley on a warm summer night was enchanting. Out waitress was absolutely charming. As the portions were small, we decided we could splurge on gelato, and ate our ice cream as we walked back to the Gran Villa Argentina. 

We woke up this morning on the plane. Our beds were not quite a comfortable as those we have had on other airlines, but I still slept for a few hours and John had something close to a full night’s sleep. Breakfast was uninspiring, but I happily ate it anyhow. I kept an eye on the clock and the plane’s progress as the plane entered European air space. Even if he had left on time from Los Angeles, we only would have had a 70 minute connection time in Munich, and we left close to 60 minutes left. The pilot had assured us that he would make up some of the time, but I was not so sure. We had splurged on a really nice hotel in Dubrovnik, and if we did not show up we would get charged anyhow. Plus, who wants to spend his first day of vacation at a day at a German airport?

We landed at 2:20 in the afternoon. The flight to Croatia — and it was the last one of the day — left in 10 minutes. A man pointed us to where the gate was and I sprinted there, determined that even if John were trailing behind I would not let the plane leave without us! I probably should not have worried so much. The plane was solidly booked, and there was a long line of people still waiting to get their seats. We were crammed into tiny economy seats in the back of an aging A320, but it was thankfully only an 80 minute flight and I fell asleep for a good bit of it.

As I looked down on Croatia I was struck by how much it looked like Southern California. There were the same granite mountains and cliffs, scrubby forests struggling to survive on the bare slopes. Even the red tile roofs reminded me of home. I thought of how exotic all of this probably looked to the German and Dutch tourists on our plane and how exotic their green temperate landscapes were to me.

Stress returned when we discovered that our time in Munich was not long enough for our luggage to have made the transfer. There were several people on a flight who had this problem. A nice Lufthansa agent scanned our tags and saw that the two bags were indeed still back at the Franz Josef Strauss airport in Munich. She took down our information, including Dubrovnik hotel and home address, and promised us that we would have it tomorrow.

We are staying at the Villa Argentina Hotel. It is an old place just outside of the city walls. It has a nice view of the fortified old city and the island of Lokrum. It rather looks like lots of places in Italy or on the Riviera. It’s made of limestone with travertine balconies shaded by stripped awnings.

The grounds are lovely

and the view from our room is quite exquisite. 

As we wandered about the hotel, I really felt like I was back home in Los Angeles when I saw blue NBCUniversal swag bags! Apparently the European division of E! Entertainment is holding a meeting here. We wandered about the grounds. Somehow all it needed were a few noisy peacocks to turn this place into a Maggie Smith movie set.

John is unhappier than I am about not having our luggage, so he wanted to make sure we at least had swimming trunks. He asked at the desk and they told him that their gift shop closed just after lunch, so we would have to go into town to buy any clothes. We walked the short distance to the nearest gate to the old city. Along the way I stopped endlessly to take pictures.

John stopped and posed as we entered the city gates.

The parapets and walls are well-supplied with a variety of embrasures, but I found this arrow slit particularly amusing.

Dubrovnik is quite enchanting, but whatever normal life it might once have had has been overwhelmed by the tourist industry. Every building is pretty much a hotel or a pension, a restaurant or a gift shop.

There are quite a number of churches, mostly Catholic though we did find one rather spartan Orthodox chapel.

None of these are particularly interesting inside. John stopped at a store and bought some extraordinarily overpriced swimming trunks.

We walked around until well past sunset. We admired all the old stuff

and saw traces of real people living in a real city.

Just outside the city walls, we found a few old mansions dating from the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A couple had been refurbished, while others, curiously enough, were still awaiting the arrival of some London banker or Paris designer. We were intrigued by one with two rather hungry-looking stone canines on the gates. 

I was really tired, so I suggested that we take a taxi back to our hotel. Tomorrow we will explore Dubrovnik in more depth. And, with luck, we’ll see our luggage again. Nadam se! Google says that “I hope so” in Croatian.

There was so much to do today, so many things that had been left to the last moment. Picking up laundry, cleaning out the refrigerator, emptying the trash, suspending the paper, paying bills, and above all packing, packing, and packing. Edie knew something was up, and she was not happy about it. She followed me from room to room and looked mournfully at me from her one good eye. We struggled to get ready by mid-morning. John had a doctor’s appointment, but not long after we arrived at his office we were told that the physician was an hour and a half behind on his scheduled and we could not possibly be seen until after one o’clock — when we needed to be in the car on our way to the airport. We had to rebook the appointment for next month. John was disappointed. I was furious. This physician is not not doing surgery on gunshot wounds. Really, how hard is it to stay on schedule?

We took Lyft to the airport. Our driver was pleasant and John asked him where he was from. He was Moroccan, but living in Irvine. He spoke almost flawless English with barely a trace of an accent. We talked about Morocco. I mentioned my friend who worked for the state department and said that she liked it much better there than Algeria and Libya, her previous postings. “Well, of course,” he replied. He asked her name. “I used to work with many state department people in that area,” he remarked without adding any further details. None of it completely fit together at the time, but now I suspect he may have been former CIA.

We took business class this trip. It is a splurge, but if you otherwise spend the first days of the trip trying to recover from the misery of the flight, it is probably worth the money. We are no longer the young guys who slept of the floors of railway stations or airports and cheerfully endured long rides on the tattered seats of second-class busses bouncing down rutted roads between remote Mexican beach towns. One of the things I notice when I take business class is how nicely you are treated. We had almost no wait in line at LAX, while the line for economy class stretched on and on. They sent us through expedited security, and then we went up to the lounge to wait while enjoying free food and drink. We sat on a balcony looking down two stories at people rushing off to their gates or wasting time by pretending to shop in overpriced stores. 

We learned that the flight was delayed. This immediately made me apprehensive as I knew that we had only a short turnaround in Munich before catching the next plane to Dubrovnik. When the call finally came to go to the gate, we once again walked past long lines of economy passengers who were kept waiting. I remembered how annoyed I used to feel as I watched those high-paying passengers breeze past me. I felt briefly guilty about it … but only briefly. We are on a relatively new Airbus, but not the very top-of-the-line model we flew when we went to Dubai. The accommodations are nice, but somehow, as John pointed out, they just do not measure up to what Emirates offered. The flight crew was friendly in a German way, that is, if you asked a question, they would answer it. The plane, already delayed for about a half an hour, continued to sit on the runway. The pilot said something about an unattended bag. We could not exactly follow it, but the longer we waited the more anxious I became about making our connection. I tried not to think about it.

Los Angeles looked almost pretty as we took off. It was late afternoon, and the the beach towns we glowed with the golden light of late afternoon. The Santa Monica Mountains still seemed somewhat green from the winter rain, and the sea and the mountains provided a polite border to the unruly sprawl of the city. We flew close to Santa Catalina Island, and just beyond it in the distance I could see San Nicolas. I thought about yet another year of teaching Island of the Blue Dolphins. I have a few weeks: I am going to try to keep my mind off school. As we flew inland, the German national seated in front of me used his iPhone to snap pictures of the Mojave and Chihuahua deserts. I find this landscape monotonous and bleak, but I know Europeans are fascinated by the endless, dry, open spaces. Still, even I snapped a grainy photo or two as we crossed the Sangre de Cristo range, some snow still visible on the high peaks.

Dinner was disappointing. John chose better than I did. He had some charcuterie for an appetizer, and then had the “San Francisco Cioppino” for his entree. It certainly looked like nothing of that name I have ever eaten in California, but the seafood and rice was still pretty good.

I had some bland scallops for my appetizer, and for some reason I ordered the pasta dish. It consisted of six very chewy ravioli on a bed of overcooked spinach and a large piece of mushroom. There were overcooked, over seasoned peas sprinkled over the whole thing, and they reminded me of something I expected to eat in a pub in Bradford, not in the business class of a major European airline.

I am ready to call it a day now. I will not get to post this until we get to Dubrovnik.

We could easily have spent another day or two in New Orleans. But Spring Break is not that long and we had to push on to Mississippi. We had a pleasant chat with our hosts and our friends from Toronto. We pack our things and took a Lyft to the Avis/Budget office on Canal Street. 

Renting a car is never a particularly enjoyable experience, but usually it is relatively quick. This was about as miserable as a trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles, no, maybe worse. There were only a handful of people working in this office and more people waiting in line. The ladies behind the desk not only had to punch all those credit card numbers into the computer but then had to rush back and wash the cars as well. 

Our drive to Natchez was fairly uneventful. Getting out of New Orleans was a lot easier than I feared it might be, and before we knew it we were just driving over swamp land on a raised highway by the end of Lake Pontchartrain. We stopped briefly to look for place of, er, refreshment, but for the most part we pushed on. 

The interplay of the human and natural environments is at times oddly beautiful. 

It took us a little longer than expected to get to Natchez, our first Mississippi destination. We had read that this town, preserved from damage in the Civil War when they had the good sense to immediately surrender, had possibly the best collection of antebellum domestic architecture in the South. And we were not disappointed … at all!

Little did we know that this is a big week in Natchez. This is the “Pilgrimage” when people from across the United States come here to visit old homes and to engage in a bit of politically-incorrect nostalgia for the Gone with the Wind South. We learned this when we pulled up to register at our bed and breakfast and John was greeted with a woman in a silk-brocade hoop skirt! Now that is what you want when you come to the South!

Our bed and breakfast was on the tour today. It is called “The Burn.” This is supposedly because “burn” is a Scots word for “creek” and there was a creek running behind the house. There were lots of tourists lined up to see it. We joined them.

This is our host, Ginger, the owner of the house. She was quite friendly and engaging, as just about all Southerners tend to be, and was delighted to fill us in with all kinds of interesting bits about the history of the house. 

The place had been pretty empty when she and her husband bought it, and we purchased the antiques and oversaw the decoration. The woman’s taste is impeccable! John fell in love with the gold and the cream and wants to completely redo our living room. This nice docent told us all about the mens’ and the ladies’ parlors.

Along with the great mansions there are many smaller homes, such also quite historic. Not all are in perfect condition as you can see. 

Our next stop was Choctaw Hall, and this is where things started to change from nostalgic to weird. Choctaw Hall is a large, handsome Greek Revival mansion. With Doric columns, painted bricks, and dozens of divided light windows framed with thin shutters, it could be in any historic community in the eastern United States. But the more time we spent at the house the more I felt like we had wandered into Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The big bus tour had already come through and the owner, a tiny little man, came out to greet us. I believe his name was David. In a genteel accent and a hoarse voice, he told gave us the extended history of the house. I could not follow all of it but apparently he had some connection with the original owners of the mansion, a family, I think, named the Cupits. 

The inside of the house was where things became truly strange. We were met a rather obviously gay man who called himself “Jimmy the Cricket.” He showed us around the dining room, where a table was covered with every kind of Victorian configuration of fork, knife, and spoon imaginable as well as a dozen large pieces of what appeared to be eighteenth century French porcelain. Funeral size floral arrangements only made it even more excessive. 

As we walked around, we were told that the owners had collected over 800 pieces of Sèvres and Meissen porcelain, mostly Jacob Petit. Not all of it was on display, but a huge amount of it was. Along with this was a large amount of mid-nineteenth century furniture, much of it massive Eastlake and Gothic Revival pieces. These seemed quite incongruous when covered with the French pottery. 

A spiral staircase let to the second floor. We were met here by a man named Lee. I took him to be David’s partner, though in good Southern style, nothing was actually said about any relationship. Lee was considerably younger than David and had obviously once been quite handsome. 

Lee showed us the most bizarre room of all, the master bathroom. In fairness, I do think he said that a previous owner had constructed this monstrosity. Apart from the absurdity of building a baldacchino above a spa bath, the faux marble Doric columns hardly fit with the rest of the Victorian decor. 

Jimmy the Cricket had told us that there was one more house, not on the regular tour, that we absolutely had to see. He made some calls to “James” and left messages asking for two more people to be included on the evening tour of The Towers of Natchez.

Now the first thing almost anybody would say when they first approach this Italian Renaissance Revival house is, well, where exactly are the towers? We learned later that while there had originally been two third floor rooms on the far right and left of the house, these had been removed some years ago. It seems odd to call a house without towers “the towers” just because it once had them. Still, I recall a comment that the mayor of Seal Beach California had made when reminded that there were no seals on the beach there:  “Well, do you think it would be an improvement to call it Sealless Beach?” The Towerless of Natchez makes even less sense. 

The owner is a woman named Ginger Hyland. Her father, “Buzz” Hyland is credit with discovering radar, and he became a close associate of Howard Hughes during World War II. Ginger was born in Los Angeles and raised in the comfort of Holmby Hills. She attended the Westlake School for Girls along with Candice Bergen. She became interested in horses at a young age, and became the first woman president of the American Quarter Horse Association. 

Now all of that is the official stuff you can find about Ginger from the discreet sources. But this is the South and there is always something dark and sinister lurking about. We figured out later why Ginger decided to withdraw the house from the Pilgrimage Tour even though she had once been the president of the local garden club. Ginger is 70, though thanks to the wonders of Beverly Hills physicians she had not even the slightest suggestion of a wrinkle, but she has a boyfriend over 25 years her junior named James Wesley Forde. There was a portrait in the hallway of James as a young man, and he was rather devastatingly handsome. Alas, James had a little issue with a teenage boy, and this made the crime blotter of the Natchez Democrat. (Are there really Democrats in Natchez?) This is a family blog, but you can read the sordid details here if you must. 

Ginger did not want allow any photographs to be taken on the tour. This was a bit of a pity because so much of it was so weird. Ginger, who must still be living on the income from the radar royalties, has the world’s largest collection of beaded Victorian handbags and the walls are covered with several dozen of them. They were obviously the nineteenth century version of “bling” but at least show a great deal of handiwork. Less explicable is Ginger’s collection of nineteenth century eye cups. We saw a few examples of Ginger’s obsession with faux-jeweled Christmas decorations. Apparently there are hundreds of these and they are all out in December. 

We took a few snapshots in the garden as we left. Most of them did not come out that well, but I liked this one of the real cat amid the fake ones. 

In the evening we went down to the Natchez riverfront for a bite to eat. This area was huge slave market before the Civil War, but if there is a monument to this sordid bit of history I did not see it. Instead, there was a casino, every dying city’s hope for renewal, and a bunch of restaurants. We had a mediocre dinner and headed home.

We leave for northern Mississippi tomorrow. Both of us want to come back to Natchez again … but only during “The Pilgrimage.” This place is just too weird not to see again. 

We had our bikes for a second day, and we decided to head toward the Garden District. John wanted to explore some of the antique stores on Magazine Street, but as we went past them none seemed all that compelling. So we went on to Audubon Park. 

We had spent a little time here over 30 years ago when John and I did our first cross-country trip together. We wanted to go to our first World’s Fair. Not all that many people joined us and the 1984 New Orleans World Fair is regarded as a serious financial failure for the city. But the two of us had a good time. We stayed out in the dorms at Tulane University — everything was on a serious budget back them — and I can still remember hearing the animals in the nearby Audubon Park Zoo howling during the night. These ducks seemed calmer. 

John wanted to have lunch at the Commander’s Palace, one of New Orlean’s oldest restaurant. We had always dismissed it as a tourist trap before, the Southern equivalent of Fisherman’s Grotto in San Francisco. But John had read that it had received several James Beard awards for distinguished regional cuisine, so we decided to give it a try. 

The food was indeed good, and it proved to be a fun place for lunch. They have 25 cent martinis, though customers are limited to only three! It seemed like half of the restaurant was wearing either bow ties or hats. Sondheim’s “ladies who lunch” are still alive and kicking in the Crescent City. But if the food is good, the decor even better. Happy plantation scenes! Really! The only thing missing was a statue of a Negro stable boy with a lantern. 

New Orlean’s most famous cemetery is across the street. We never seem to be here when this place is open. 

 Everything about it, even the decaying walls, is perfect Southern Gothic. Oh, where are the vampires?

We had to rush back to the Marigny to return our bikes before the shop closed at five. We took a nap, and in the evening we went out looking for more down home cooking. We ended up at a soul food restaurant on Frenchman Street. The food was disappointing, but the atmosphere was fun. 

Despite going to bed early, I managed to wake up at something close to the usual time. Still, I felt generally rested. I think having a real bed instead of the top bunk on a train did make for a better night’s sleep. It was definitely softer for my aging back!

I had sent a text yesterday to our friend Sherry. She lives in Shreveport, and while this is definitely the Paris of the northern parishes, she misses New Orleans a lot, a place where she spent many happy years. So I thought I would just let her know that I was thinking about her as we approached. She called right away. She happened to be coming to New Orleans to meet up with some friends and they were all heading over to Fair Hope, Alabama for what the British call a “hens party.” But she did want to stop by a see us on her way out of town. So we made arrangement to meet mid-morning. 

Meanwhile, John has been having something approaching withdrawals from his healthy morning smoothies. So when we discovered that there was a local branch of what used to be just a local Southern California juice shop, John had to go to imbibe some antioxidants. 

I had the peanut butter and chocolate shake, so no doubt I will oxidate while he does not. 

We had just returned to our room when Sherry called to say that she and “the girls” were there. I happily went down to the lobby of the Ace Hotel to meet them. The Ace Hotel is in a genuinely historic building, but not much there is genuinely old. I looked around the cluttered room for  a bit but did not see anybody. 

At once I heard “John” stretched out over three syllables and I knew Sherry was there. We all hugged and she introduced me to her dear friends Alix and Diane. We ordered coffee and sat down and talked for something close to an hour. What a fascinating group of ladies! We could have talked for many hours more. 

But before they had to push on, we had an agreeable young woman take some pictures of all of us.

After they left, it was about time for us to go, too. We change hotels today. We wanted to stay in a bed and breakfast in the Faubourg Marigny, but they did not have any space for us on Sunday night. So we reserved for just Monday and Tuesday. After turning in our room keys, we caught an Uber over to our new New Orleans home, the Marigny Manor House.

We were met there by our innkeepers, Brian and Alvin. They showed us around this beautiful antebellum house with great Victorian details.

There are some more modern features as well like this lovely deck.

After setting into our room, John and I took pictures of each other taking pictures.

We also looked out at the nearby houses, some of which are also bed and breakfasts. 

We were ready for adventures now, so we spoke with our hosts, Alvin and Brian, about where to rent bikes and where to get a good lunch. They recommended a couple places in the Marigny for bikes and Fiorello’s in the Quarter for a fried chicken lunch. And off we went down Frenchmen Street.

We figured we would pick up lunch first, but somehow we stumbled across Michael’s Bicycles on our way. They offered us a good deal on two bikes for two days, so we were mobile for the rest of the day. John wanted to pose with his bike in front of one of his favorite jazz clubs, The Spotted Cat.

We rode down Esplanade and over Decatur to Fiorello’s, only to discover it was closed. We had an unexceptional lunch, enlivened only with a friendly waitress, at a restaurant near the French Market. From there were decided to explore some parts of the city we only driven through. On the map, it looked like it would be fun to go through Crescent Park. This was easier on the map than in person. Crescent Park is not much of a real park. It is obviously a former industrial or port area along the Mississippi separated by train tracks and a ten foot wall from the inland residential areas. You have to take an elevator and walk across a bridge of the tracks and then take another elevator down to reach it. I think it is aiming to be something like the High Line or the Hudson River bikeway. It is not quite that wonderful. On the other hand, it is so inaccessible that we had no trouble riding a full speed along the river. None of those High Line crowds….

We went through Bywater, an area people are touting as the next Marigny or Treme. It is not quite there yet although I can see the potential. We went back to Esplanade, which has some wonderful bike lanes, and headed north to City Park. 

On the way, we stopped at one of the city’s famed cemeteries. Because of the high water table, nobody is buried underground in New Orleans. Instead, there cemeteries like like Gothic Revival versions of a Roman necropolis. They are cool. 

It is probably disrespectful to both the living and the dead to ride a bike through a cemetery, but that did not stop us. 

Those of more modest means have less elaborate final resting places,

and like everywhere else in New Orleans, one is reminded here as well that this is fundamentally a Catholic town.

City Park is quite a jewel. It is well-maintained and has a number of attractions in addition to trails for walking and jogging. Had we more time, we no doubt would have explored the city’s art museum there. But it was close to closing time and the weather was so lovely we had to be outside. Besides, where in Los Angeles can you enjoy vistas of Live Oak dripping with Spanish Moss?

John sat down on a table  

 while I laid down on the ground.

There is a small amusement park here, though it was not open for the day. We loved how the bright colors and lines of the ride blended with the surrounding trees. 

We were set to leave when we stumbled on the Botanical Garden. There was less than 45 minutes until it closed and we debated whether it was worth paying six dollars each for such a short visit. We decided to splurge, and it was a good decision. This is not a large garden, but it is beautifully laid out and utterly charming. 

There was a decent rose garden, though I am not sure that this is the best climate for roses. The Japanese garden was small but quite beautiful.

As John observed, the secret of a great Japanese garden is the ability to pay for a lot of maintenance!

Much of the work on the garden had been done during the depression, and there were bits of WPA-era art everywhere. John really loves this stuff.

And there were other things that seemed to mix a number of different eras. 

But it was soon time to leave and we were ready to rest after several hours on our bikes. Along the way we went through Bayou Saint John, an utterly charming neighborhood. 

In the evening, John made reservations at Bayona, one of the city’s most celebrated new restaurants. He ordered all the most famous stuff on the menu like the veal sweetbreads and the cream of garlic soup. I was not quite as adventurous, but I had a nice meal as well. 

We have another day on the bikes tomorrow, and we plan to explore the Garden District and the antique shops.

When we woke up today the train was not moving. The GPS on our phone told us that we were just outside of San Antonio, where we were scheduled for a fairly long stop, but we knew that this was not where we were supposed to halted. We dressed and took some coffee to the observation car. It was still not moving, and listening to the conversation of the other passengers it was clear that we had not moved for hours. Nobody had any idea what was wrong, and apparently the Amtrak crew was not particularly forthcoming about the problem. 

We learned later that a train ahead of us had hit somebody walking on the tracks, and that the trains had to stop while the police concluded their investigations. While we waited I had breakfast. Amtrak food is not particularly good, but there is a lot of it and it is included in the sleeper fare. One of the best parts of eating on the train is that you are seated with other passengers, and you get to know a little bit about some other people. My breakfast companion was named Don. I never did get his last name. He was a member of the US Merchant Marine, and he was traveling around the country by train while he waited to start his next assignment. He was an interesting guy, and we both had a chance to talk to him more later.

I amused myself while I waited by playing with the camera. Most of the pictures were a mess, but I did rather like this one of a bird taking flight. 

After a bit, the train started moving again. We came about twenty minutes later into the San Antonio station. This one is no doubt as historic as some of the others, but it has been painted in this weird pinkish shade and I have to admit that I did not much like it. 

Apparently some evangelical group called “CityChurch” — the efforts that go into “branding” these congregations always rather appalls me — and they were apparently going to do something to celebrate Palm Sunday.

After this, we went through a lot of Texas. Much of it looked pretty sad. 

We both had lunch with Don and learned a little more about his background. After lunch, we talked some more in the observation car.

In the late afternoon, we pulled into Houston. This is the worst excuse for a train station so far. It’s just a platform underneath a freeway interchange. So depressing!

Apparently, this train is the only thing that stops here so the signage is pretty limited.

We did not spend all that time there. Nobody wandered far from the train, and everybody was happy to get back on when we heard the “All aboard!”

The saddest part of losing all the time early in the morning was that by the time we came to Louisiana and would be traveling through the Bayou it was pitch black. So we did not to view all the swamp we had been looking forward to. And it was well past midnight by the time we pulled into New Orleans. We  are staying the first night at the Ace Hotel. Tomorrow we will switch to a bed and breakfast in the Marigny and start our NOLA adventures.