Tag Archives: Brigitte Keizer

Rosie’s July 2018 Adventures in Alsace, France

July 14 through July 17 –

Arriving in the afternoon at the quaint village of Merkviller-Peschelbraun, Alsace, France, we unloaded our suitcases into an old ‘haunted’ homestead owned by Eric’s Aunt Annie’s cousin Brigitte Hubert. Remarkably, this home held the six of us comfortably, (the boys swore they heard unusual creaking noises) becoming a haven of rest when needed as we were very busy for the next 8 days. Brigitte has four sons. Three of them enjoyed extended stays at Hotel Eric n Leslie over the years.

Quickly we drove to nearby Surbourg to visit other friends of Eric and Leslie, the Keizer family (even Julie their daughter was in town from Australia with her fiancé Blake). Eric and Leslie were so looking forward to meeting the parents, Brigitte and Harold, for the first time. When Bryce and Trent were little, Eric and Leslie hosted Julie at their home twice, initially introduced through Auntie Annie’s Alsatian/California train. They helped Julie obtain an internship at Sony and later aided in getting her a job with one of Eric’s friends who filmed commercials. Never having met the parents, Eric and Leslie then invited Joris, Julie’s 16-year-old brother to come for a summer to improve his English. The exchanges proved to be life changing for all and they have since remained in close contact. So, we now have an extended Alsatian family and they have an extended American family.

Chez Keizer with Joris on the far right

The Keizers welcomed us with refreshments in their gorgeous modern home before we walked to their favorite restaurant to consume many orders of a special Alsatian dish called: tarte flambée…served with wine and beer. Tarte flambée is somewhat like a pizza, but rectangular with a thin, crunchy crust and a cream base instead of a tomato paste base. Yum yum. Because it was their July 14th celebration of Bastille Day, the youngers went off to watch fireworks in the nearby town center with the locals. Ron and I returned back home with Brigette and crashed.

Tarte flambée Alsacienne

Back to the Keizers the next morning for breakfast: Danish lovelies and World Cup cakes in the shape of Soccer jerseys colored bleu, blanc, rouge!!

Celebratory cakes for the 2018 World Cup!

All of us then drove to the beautifully green and lush city of Baden Baden in Germany, a wealthy small city a bustle with shopping tourists. An old fashion car show attracted some of our guys, while the rest of us enjoyed a casual walk along the pristine city center. Our lunch was at a traditional German beer garden, Löwenbräu Biergarten, serving what else? Beer and sausages, accompanied by accordian music.

Then off we went to the ruins of a nearby medieval castle for a refreshing hike in the cooling rain on that hot n humid day. At the top, we could see Baden Baden and the valley up to the Rhine river marking the border between Germany and Alsace.

Baden Baden High Castle
Baden Baden from the old castle

Again, that evening, the Keizers lavished us with hors d’oeuvres, wine and a BBQ of scrumptious local sausages while hotly engaged watching the World Cup. After the fantastic win, the guys went off to Haguenau to watch the crazy French impromptu crowds gathered to celebrate the World Cup French Victory. Whoopee! What a coup to be in France July 15thon such an historic occasion winning the 2018 FIFA Soccer World Cup against Croatia?

On Monday Brigette provided delicious coffee, rolls, and fruit from her own trees. There is a small garden on her property where fruit trees offer small apples, etc. The house is where her parents lived and died. It remains in the family as a summer home. Stairs are creaky, rooms full of Alsatian antiques…boys think the house has ghosts. Perhaps…

Hubert Family home in Merkviller-Peschelbraun

We joined the Keizers to go to nearby L’Arbri War Museum in Hatten, Alsace chuck full of Alsatian historical living and remnants of the WWI and WWII periods. Most fascinating was walking into a large bunker, part of the Maginot Line. About 30 were built along the Rhine, across 100 miles. Inside were many war machines left by all countries involved in both wars.

Maginot Line exterior bunker

A huge lunch of baeckeoffe casserole (3 kinds of meats and vegetables baked all day) like a stew, was held at the Keizers’ again. Then off we went to another small village called Betschdorf known for a traditional Alsatian homestead open for tourists and colorful Alsatian pottery, where we got a chance to view the workers painting the charming scenes and flourishes. On the way home, we stopped off at a park created especially for their endemic bird: The Stork. We had no idea how large the birds were.

Rosie exiting one of the many Alsatian pottery stores

There were two parent storks feeding two adolescents. The big nest was crowded when everyone was home. At one point an adult, angered at something, starting screeching and flapping its wings making a loud ruckus. What a performance!

Alsace Mascot: Stork

With Brigitte on Tuesday, we had planned a tour of Colmar, the second largest city in the area. On the way there, Leslie and Eric’s friend Miriam from Strasbourg met us in Kaysersberg to give us a tour of the darling village where old homes were actually built right over the rather fast flowing tributary. So utterly charming. Geraniums flourished in front of shuttered windows…bright red flowers everywhere. Half-timbered homes on the bottom, half plastered on top. Leslie and I bought the cutest white paper luminaries in the shape of Alsatian girls for keepsakes and Eric just had to purchase a beckoning Mirabelle berry tart. Forced to share a bite with each of us, it tasted so good we went back and bought out half the store!

Then off we went for a winehouse tour in Mittelwihr, a renowned wine producing area. Purchased 4 bottles for later. We also quickly stopped off to view the picturesque town of Riquewihr: a picturesque walled-in village that you had to enter via drawbridge. Some of the houses and structures were built in medieval times but most were built in the 18thcentury and are now meticulously maintained and colorfully painted in yellows, oranges, reds, and even pinks. The towns we visited are in the southern section of the famed Alsace Wine Route located as far north as Strasbourg. The northernmost section of the wine route is just west of Strasbourg, with the largest northern wine town being Marlenheim. Colmar in the south is the capital of Alsace’s wine production.

RigneysKandu with amazing Colmar guide Suzanne Dietrich-Spindler & Myriam Rott

Once in Colmar, we met up with Brigitte’s Mother-in-law, Suzanne Dietrich-Spindler, a professional tour guide of Colmar still. She was a very stately lady, 89 year-old strong, who outwalked us all which was especially amazing since it was her second walking tour of the day!! We met her in the  lovely Restaurant Pfeffel serving traditional Alsatian dishes like the popular tarte flambée which the boys and I ordered. Eric ordered the pig’s ankle with mustard seed sauce. Yum? Our guide explained that the region of Alsace was one of the richest regions of France and was constantly fought over between France and Germany. Upon visiting the region, the French King Louis XIV declared it: the Garden of France. It has an extensive canal system that taps into the Rhine. The town was divided in quarters based on services provided. Tanning, one of the most lucrative but most smelly, was as usual located on the river but further from the center of town. Colmar’s Tanner’s district was restored between 1968-74 and is now considered upper class living. Dating from the 17thand 18thcentury, they are narrow, deep and tall buildings with half-timbering on the upper floors. They stand on a stone base with no foundations or cellars (too much water underneath).

As merchants became more and more successful, their wealth was shone in their construction. A new floor was added with every generation. Thick wooden beams can be seen bending under the pressure of supporting the new construction. The type of wood used denoted the value of the house. The harder the wood, the more valuable the house. Interestingly enough, at some point, the tax man decided to assess the value of the property based on the number of windows. Thus instantly, windows began to be bricked off and disappear, and or painted over in a trompe l’eouil fashion.

Constructed between 1292 through the early 14thcentury by Franciscans, St. Matthew’s Catholic church came under Lutheran protestant domain in 1543 when the Franciscan monastery closed. The protestants remodeled half of the structure into a protestant church, thus it’s the world’s only ½ Protestant ½ Catholic church under one roof with two separate entrances.

Colmar is considered the most picturesque example of the combination of Colombage or Fachwerk (timber framing, “post-and-beam”) house construction butting up to the canals. There is a dam higher in the river that controls the level of the water ensuring that the water remains the same height at all times. It is with great pride in maintenance that Colmar is a star tourist attraction in Alsace: A Must See!  Over each of the stores could be seen an artful depiction of their service: pharmacy, butcher. Colmar is also home of important museums. Unfortunately the Hansi Museum, home of Jean-Jacques Waltz’s famous ‘Hansi’ watercolors that depict delightful Alsatian scenes mostly of children in traditional Alsatian dress, was closed.

Hansi familial art

We did get to visit the birthplace Museum of the sculptor Bartholdi who sculpted the Statue of Liberty, France’s gift to the USA. It was Eiffel who provided the engineering aspect of the statue. The Dominican Church unfortunately was also closed which houses Martin Schongauer’s masterpiece: Virgin in a rose garden. Darnit!

Creation by Bartholdi

by Rosie Dennis with additions from Leslie Dennis Rigney

Rigney Family 2018 in Review

In 2018 aboard Kandu, we achieved our most extensive traveling since departing Ventura, February 2015. Starting in Malaysia, after the overhaul of our engine and other repairs/upgrades, we sailed Kandu west to India. With Cochin as our base, we enjoyed three weeks of splendid adventures and discoveries, traveling north and south by tuk-tuk, taxi, houseboat, train, and airplane.

Being late in season for a westward Arabian Sea passage, we were eager to be on our way. Heavily provisioned, water tanks filled, and diesel topped-up including additional 10 deck-tied Gerry jugs, we left feeling fully prepared for our 20-day High-Risk Area (Pirate Zone) passage.

Kandu ready to go loaded with 10X20 gallon jerry jugs

The western Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea gave way to the Gulf of Aden with Yemen in civil war to the north, infamous Somalia to the south. All went well, bringing us unscathed to the port of Massawa, Eritrea. Of the 28 boats that transited the Red Sea, only 8 stopped in Eritrea. Few, if any, explored its awkward interior. We took a public bus up into the highlands to the capital Asmara. Shown the sites by a wonderful local friend, nephew of LA friends, it was quite the learning curve, a city with little operational infrastructure.

Continuing up the Red Sea, two days later we stopped in Suakin, Sudan, poked around the Suakin ruins and nearby village, picked-up Uncle Nick, and sailed North to Egypt, stopping briefly at Sanganeb Reef (UNESCO site), its crystal-clear waters perfect for snorkeling.

Onward north, we motor-sailed several days to Port Ghalib, Egypt. We spent 3 weeks total in Egypt, initially diving the nearby Red Sea reefs and then driving inland to visit the ancient sites of Luxor. From Port Suez, we ventured inland to Cairo and the Pyramids of Giza. Yes, we did the most touristic things, like riding camels below the pyramids dressed in traditional Egyptian garb.

RigneysKandu say “Farewell Egypt!”

With slower moving recreational vessels like ours, Suez Canal is transited in two days. Each day, we hosted a different requisite pilot, stopping overnight in a “lake” at a yacht club in Ismailia. Around the world, yacht clubs are mostly just private ocean-view restaurants with little to no support for transiting yachts. We dropped one pilot off in the evening, picked up the other at sunrise. Transiting the Suez Canal was a thrill, passing large ships within a stone’s throw. The second pilot was dropped off onto a moving pilot vessel so we could continue without delay into the Mediterranean Sea.

Kandu pulling into Lake Ismailia while motoring the Suez Canal

Next stop, 2 days away: Cyprus. After a year in various Islamic countries, it was a welcome relief to land in a Western-style country, especially one so steeped in history and philosophy. There, we said goodbye to Uncle Nick, welcomed friends from Washington. Together, from their rented hilltop villa, we spent 6 days exploring the historical sites of Cyprus – including the Turkish occupied north. Then flew to Israel, drove to Jerusalem (the day after our US Embassy opened), the Dead Sea and Palestine to Bethlehem, and flew back to Cyprus.

RigneysKandu floating in Dead Sea of Israel

From a small fishing port in western Cyprus, it was a quick sail to Rhodes, Greece. The Schengen Visa clock was now ticking.  90-days to see Europe, including their Atlantic Islands, not nearly enough time, but we made the best of it. From medieval Rhodes, we sailed to romantic Santorini.

Santorini Island, Greece

Then to Athens, ground zero of Western philosophy. So rich in history, legends, and lore, like Jerusalem, seemingly every corner beheld another historic treasure. There, Uncle Bill joined us, and Bryce jumped ship to spend more time in Athens with a newfound friend, Alex. Kandu sailed west through the Corinthian Canal to Delphi sans Bryce for the first time in three and half years.

Kandu passing through the Corinthian Canal with Uncle Bill

From Greece, we sailed five days across the Ionian Sea to Italy, arriving near Napoli and Pompeii where Bryce re-joined Kandu, having spent a week and half with his buddy. Seeing Pompeii (prominent site on my bucket list) was just the beginning of a GREAT tour of Italy which would come to include beautiful places like: Cinqueterra, Rome, Vatican City, Pisa, Florence, and Venice. Just WOW! Even with all Eric’s and my previous travels and university studies, we never fully appreciated the extent to which over the centuries Italy had accumulated (pilfered?) the world’s artistic and symbolic wealth.

Saint Peter’s Cathedral, Vatican, Rome

From Northern Italy, it was a few short days to Nice, France and La Cote d’Azur. Here, we bid farewell to Uncle Bill (87 yrs young), crew and traveling companion over 5 jammed-packed weeks, visiting three countries together. Marina Nice is centrally located, making all the fun stuff available by foot. The boys, hanging at the beach and playing beach volleyball pick-up games with locals, serendipitously connected with a school mate from the Marquesas! Small world.

Kandu Crew playing Volleyball in the Cote d’Azur!

We caught up with many dear French friends while in Nice before sailing across to the other side of Southern France to Port Corbière, Marseilles. Safely tucked away, we securely berthed Kanduand drove 9 hours up to Paris to pick up my parents at the airport. We would spend the next 5 weeks together, driving to various countries, spending valuable time with more dear friends. So, directly from Charles de Gaulle Airport, with parents’ bags firmly packed in the trunk of our rented van, we were off to dine and stay with friends in Southern Belgium.

While in Belgium, we were hosted by two families, each with two teenage daughters, together enjoying meals of moules-frites, steak frites, and frite- frites; and outings of the must-see sights, including the Grand Place, Atomium, site of the 1950 Brussels World’s Fair, Brugge, Waterloo (Napoleon Museum) and Bastogne (Battle of the Bulge Museum).

Atomium, Brussels with Lara and Elena Demande
Grand Place, Brussels, Belgium
Ron and Rosie Dennis, Odette et Pierrot Robert chez Thierry Robert

Bidding sad farewells, we set off to Eastern France, via Luxembourg. A bowl of traditional green bean soup and a long stroll around this beautiful city was all the time we could spare before continuing our second, long toll-highway trek, this time to Alsace.

Through the generosity of several family friends, all of whom are connected with Eric’s Alsatian Aunt Annie, we spent 8 fabulous days filled to the brim with Alsatian splendor: food, wine, beer, history, crafts, architecture, etc. As an added bonus, we witnessed France’s 2018 World Cup championship victory with friends in Surbourg and marched through the streets with celebrating fans, demonstrating their “bleu-blanc-rouge” pride! From Alsace, we made an afternoon sojourn into Germany, sipping the gorgeous resort town of Baden-Baden, exploring its castle ruin and a popular beer garden – Wundabar!

Brigitte, Harold and Joris Keizer at Biergarten, Baden Baden, Germany

Strasbourg, Colmar, the wine tour, ceramics, country festivals, a WWII concentration camp, and meals galore with great friends had us on our way with greater awareness and appreciation, warm hearts, and kilos added to our waistlines via tartes flambées, baeckeoffe casserole, and sauerkraut & sausages.

Colmar, Alsace, France with Brigitte Hubert, Myriam Rott and Ron & Rosie Dennis

From Alsace, we headed west to Paris again, but this time to show Bryce and Trent. Again, through the generosity of another good friend opening her home, we stayed at her place just outside Paris.  From there, we drove daily to the nearest metro station to pick up the train into town. We toured many (too many for Bryce and Trent’s taste, but this is their classroom) of the celebrated museums and sites of one of our favorite cities. It’s where Eric proposed to me 25-yrs prior! Eric even drove the boys to the exact spot, at sunrise, just as he had done for me.

Place de Paix at Trocodero, Paris

For their last Parisian evening, Eric and the boys walked from the Arc de Triomphe to a cinema on the Champs-Elysées where they watched the opening night of the latest Tom Cruise MissionImpossible installment. Watching the chase scenes through Paris was surreal as they’d been walking on those very streets less than an hour before. As exhausting as this is to read, it was even more so to live.

Eric, Trent and Bryce Rigney on the Champs-Elysees, Paris, France.

Paris behind us, we headed south through gorgeous countryside to Voiron where we met up with friends with teenage boys. After days of seemingly endless museums, Bryce and Trent jumped on the opportunity to just hang with guys their age, all so handsome, smart, and adventurous. Giving in to pleas to extend their stay, and a promise from the Dad to drop the boys off at Kandu in three days, the four of us left the boys with their new-found friends and headed south sans enfants.

Kandu Crew taking out Serge, Max and Valentin for a ride at Port Corbiere, Marseille.

Not yet done with being spoiled by French friends, we left Voiron for the Southern French coastal town of Meze where we stayed with a couple we’d met in French Polynesia years ago. From their home, we attended a fishing celebration in Meze.

We spent a day at the nearby Medieval town of Arles, an important city in the life of Van Gogh. As with our friends before them, the two nights we spent together felt like a royal affair. After yet another heavy-hearted farewell, we drove east, back to Port de Corbières to meet up with the boys, to explore Marseilles before returning the van, and to prepare Kandu for the sail back to Nice, where Trent had a rendez-vous with an airplane.

In Nice once again, we boarded a commuter train to Monaco…a bucket list destination for my father! Wearing our best “boat clothes” and scrounged up bow ties, we entered the Monte Carlo Casino in style, not “Bond, . . . James Bond” style, but style nevertheless, and basked in the luxury. Castles, cathedrals, and a Formula 1 race track made this a fun, albeit Trent’s last, country visit. By the time he left us, he’d visited 27 since our California February 2015 departure.

Monte Carlo in Monaco with Rosie and Ron Dennis

A bit melancholy, the 7 of us said goodbye to an extremely cheerful (perhaps too cheerful) Trent as he boarded a Norwegian airline plane in Nice, laying-over in Oslo, arriving in Los Angeles to start high school as a freshman. His new home is with his Uncle Nick and Aunt Gita in Calabasas, California. With an abundance of electricity, hot showers, WiFi, Netflix, Mexican hot sauce, and kids his age, Trent is happy.

Nani and Papa still with us, Kanducasted off Nice and motor-sailed 2 days to Barcelona, Spain. Soon after departure, we experienced our first and only crazy Mediterranean wind, quickly rising from 15 to 50 knots of wind with short steep seas and horizontal rain – Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride for one intense hour! My parents didn’t quite know what to think because the captain, Bryce, and I acted as if nothing was unusual.

Our days in Barcelona were exquisite, filled with flamenco music and dancing, delicious Catalan foods, and Gaudi architecture, most notably the Sagrada Familia! Here, after 6 weeks of intense traveling through 6 countries, we bid a tearful farewell to my parents, who flew back to California with an abundance of electricity, hot showers, WiFi, inexpensive wine, and friends their age!

Interior Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain

 In Barcelona, we stocked Kandu for a 5-day passage, checked out of Schengen, and motor-sailed across the Eastern Mediterranean to Gibraltar. The next day, Bryce flew solo to London, England for 6 days to meet with Alex, his friend from Greece. Eric and I enacted repairs on Kandu held off during our Schengen rush through Europe. We squeezed in a bit of fun too, touring the sites. Eric discovered a broken bolt supporting the alternator and engine’s freshwater pump. This kept us in Gibraltar longer than anticipated. Once appropriate bolts were acquired, we carefully timed our Mediterranean Sea exit with winds and currents and cast off the dock lines for the Strait of Gibraltar. All went well. For our first Atlantic Ocean stop, we chose Port Mohammedia, Morocco – a fishing port near Casablanca, to which we took a train, and from where we toured, inside and out, the world’s largest mosque outside of Saudi Arabia, Hassan II.

Magnificent Interior Hassan II Mosque

Sailing further south along the West African Coast, we made our way to Marina Agadir. With the engine’s freshwater pump leaking internally, Kandu ended-up docked in Agadir for almost 5 weeks (a month longer than planned), waiting for the new pump to arrive and clear customs. However, we met lovely people and traveled to various nearby cities, fully immersing in the culture and exploring the environs: Essaouira and Paradise Valley by renting a car, and later to Marrakesh by bus, plus Bryce got a chance to surf to his heart’s content at several renowned surf sites, including Taghazout. Souks, tajine, couscous, and avocado-date shakes we enjoyed a-plenty.

Departing Agadir, ‘We Kandu’ sailed deeper into the Atlantic to the exquisitely beautiful resort island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Volcanic craters and surf are among this island’s treasures. We flew to Las Palmas for boat parts and a tour of the Columbus museum.

Volcanic wine vineyards of Lanzarote, Canary Islands

From Puerto Calero, Lanzarote, we sailed southwest to Marina Mindelo, Sao Vicente, Cape Verde. Porto Grande is Cape Verde’s largest and most protected natural bay.

Sailing Kandu 10 days to Mindelo, Sao Vicente Island, Cape Verde

We arrived just prior to the send-off of 3 world class cruising rallies, organized to help amateur sailors cross the Atlantic, all of which terminate in the Caribbean. It was great fun to be amongst the bevy of so many serious sailors preparing to make an ocean crossing! Thanksgiving, we received spare parts Uncle Bill mailed us, and got stuck an extra week, waiting for replacement bank cards to arrive from Cape Verde’s capital city. Ate lots of cachupa (local breakfast dish) in the meantime. On Dec. 5, we departed Mindelo for what would be our third and final ocean crossing.

Sixteen rock’n’rolling days later, we’ve made it to French Guiana.

Saint Laurent du Maroni Marina, French Guiana.

Whew! We’ll spend Xmas in the country’s second largest city, Saint Laurent du Maroni, then head to Suriname (Dutch) to tour the sites, maybe spy some freshwater pink dolphins, and spend New Year’s. We’ll pass through Guyana (English) before sailing north into the Caribbean, stopping at Tobago/Trinidad (more parts). From there: Grenada, Bonaire, and Curacao. Then entering South America one more time in Columbia, fromwhere we’ll arrange a canal agent to deal with the formalities of transiting the Panama Canal in late February or early March 2019. The only other Central American stop will be Costa Rica. We’ll skip the rest of Central America, sailing directly to Southern Mexico. There are just too many security concerns with coastal pirates and within Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Obviously, from Southern Mexico, we’ll continue our northly trek. Puerto Vallarta is where we’ll cross our circumnavigation track. Then it’s a few short weeks, early May, before we clear-in at San Diego, California.

2018 marks our trip’s most prolific year in terms of countries visited (23), oceans and seas crossed (2/6+), and continents touched (4). With about nine more countries, a canal, and a few more seas to cross, we return eager for life’s next adventures. We want to thank you, our friends and family, for following along on our journey, and to so many of you whom we met along the way. Until we meet up again, we send you our biggest virtual hugs and wish those who are sailing, fair winds and weather!

Love Leslie, Eric, Bryce and Trent

REMINDERS

To see where we are on a map in real-time, scroll down on our home page and click on the Delorme link.

We continue to post updates and photos of our travels on our Facebook sites: RigneysKandu, Eric Rigney, Leslie Dennis-Rigney and Bryce Rigney. Bryce and Trent post their favorite photos on Instagram under: Bry.Rig and Tnert_Rigney. If you mostly prefer short video clips, visit us on Youtube.com. Our channels are RigneysKandu and Kandu Crew.

Travels after Sudan….Where are RigneysKandu?

After Sudan, we were on a whirlwind tour of Egypt, Israel, and Europe. Not much has been posted on the blog site since then. The three of us – myself, Eric and Bryce – plan to rectify that, posting articles recounting more detail than revealed in our postings on Facebook about the many  extraordinary adventures of the last 5 months. BTW – if you don’t know, Kandu is down to 3 as Trent returned to California to attend high school. He is living with Uncle Nick Rigney in Calabasas.

Trent Rigney in Alsace, France

August 29, 2018

Dear Sara and family,

I have been thinking of you since we were in Spain wishing I had become more fluent in Spanish like you. Unfortunately, we didn’t spend any time in Spain outside Barcelona, darn it! Just had 90 days to visit the Schengen countries (The Schengen agreement among most of the European Union countries grants visitors a 90 day tourist visa…if not European, then you only qualify for a 90 day visitor’s visa out of 180…3 months within a 6-month period. Turkey, Croatia, Cyprus, England, Gibraltar are not part of Schengen.) It’s just as well, because our bank book is quite depleted. It’s been very expensive traveling and docking the boat in Europe west of Greece. We sailed past the lower boot of Italy bee-lining it to Pompeii – one of my bucket list sights.

Cyprus Roman amphitheater dating 100 AD

Eric and I had never been to Rome or Venice. Having the boys with us, it was a must to make efforts to hit the bigger sites. Maybe another day, we’ll get a chance to explore more of Italy as I really fell in love with that country, full of ancient wealth and history.

Interior St Peter’s Basilica

Actually Paris this time for us was not as mesmerizing as it has usually been in previous visits and stays. Perhaps it’s because we were generously put up by a friend in the suburbs of Paris and it took almost 90 minutes to get into the city, making early morning and late night strolls a little more challenging. Oh well. Not to mention the hoards and hoards of summer tourists swarming the big sites, and the heat. I don’t remember previously visiting Paris in the summer.

I haven’t had a chance to write on our blog much since making Egypt. Now that we have a bit of time to breath having exited out of the Schengen territories, we can enact repairs on the boat and record more details of our explorations.

In Bruge, Belgium with Ron and Rosie Dennis and Sian, Lara and Elena Demande.
Thierry and Clara Robert, Ron and Rosie and RigneysKandu touring around Huy, Belgium.

Most recently, we had a wonderful 6 weeks with my parents. Via extended invitations from our dear Belgium and French friends, we were able to introduce the boys and my folks to European living in many forms and to visit extraordinary sights and places like the picturesque & unforgettably charming wine villages along the Rhine in the Alsatian province. Eric and I had been to Alsace a couple times before, visiting with friends, but we had never explored the region: Colmar, Strasbourg, nor the wine trail villages. It’s no wonder why this region bordering Germany has been under contention for 100’s of years between France and Germany…it’s rich in valuable resources: hard working “Protestant type work-ethic” people and rich land for agriculture. The Strasbourg Cathedral housed the most incredible astronomical working clock we’d ever seen.

Together, we also had time to visit some bordering areas/towns of Alsace including Baden Baden on the frontier of Germany – extremely wealthy boasting a lovely old fort that we hiked during the rain, and Luxembourg – which is clean clean clean, with a picturesque old town, fort, huge city walls and gorgeous Catholic churches. Of course, all through Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Belgium, France, Monaco and Barcelona, we visited churches, Basilicas, and Cathedrals ad nauseum. I loved it all….the boys were definitely done with the typical city offerings except the most spectacular ones such as St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, The Duomo in Florence, Versaille in France, and The Sagrada Familia by Gaudi in Barcelona. In Chartres Cathedral, France, the inside has recently been painted white to enhance the otherwise dire interior, but most specially the organist played for about 20 minutes, which for me, was magical.

We’ve enjoyed so many other incredible country spectaculars: art museums, Napoleon history, war memorials and museums about WWI and WWII, plus many ancient sites, valuable and palatable history lessons for us all.

Truly truly spectacular traveling which I hope to write about more fully on our blog now that we are moving at a more leisurely pace.

We and Kandu are now in Gibraltar harbored in Queensway Quay Marina. Trent, our youngest at 14 returned to California from Barcelona to live with Uncle Nick and started school August 23rd  in Calabasas. Happily, he made the volleyball team. He is thrilled to be back home and excited to get academically serious. He’s extremely motivated. Bryce (16) flew solo to London last Friday night, visiting a good friend that he met in Athens.

Bryce is staying the 6 days with a dear friend of ours who is working on the next Spiderman movie currently filming in London. Bryce is exploring the city historical sites, skateboarding along the way.

Once Bryce returns, we’ll finish the remaining maintenance and repairs and sail off to Morocco, a two day sail, leaving Sept 3 to Mohammedia to visit Casablanca, Morocco. Then we’ll sail further south to Agadir to work on the boat a bit more and hopefully find some good surf for Bryce after almost a year of circumstantial abstinence. We plan to depart Agadir on Oct 1st for a two day sail to the Canary Islands (7-day stop, Columbus’s last before setting off to our New World), the Cape Verde Islands to restock (8-day sail), find a bit more surfing for Bryce – and then when the weather is good sometime around October 31st we plan to take off to sail the 18 days across the Atlantic .

After that – things are still undecided. If all goes well we’ll head straight to French Guiana, then Surinam, Guyana and north to visit a couple of the French Caribbean Islands, then west to the A, B, C’s of Dutch Antilles and Columbia to get ready to transit the Panama Canal around my birthday in February 2019.  In the Eastern Pacific, we make our way north through Costa Rica and Mexico, skipping the less secure countries in between.  It’s reported that there are pirates along the Central American coastline from Nicaragua through to Guatemala. Our plan is to return to Ventura end of May, early June 2019. Our McCool house has re-rented under a two-year lease. We are not beholden to any specific place to live in Southern California until we both land employment.

We’re getting close to the bottom of our cruising funds. From here on out, we’ve gotta be careful. Hopefully we won’t have big expenditures with the boat. We’ve already replaced so much!!!

Sending you big virtual hugs my dear girlfriend!
Leslie

Gibraltar – THE ROCK!