Seabourn Quest – Don't Gel Too Soon

Hail and Farewell: Leaving Camp Seabourn

They all marched down the center aisle of the salon to echoes of No Day but Today, the lovely song from Rent . They’re all young, and from more than 30 countries: engineers and stewards, restaurant staff and destination coordinators, Captain and cruise director, performers and crew.

It was the last night of the trip and we’d just left Petersburg, one of the world’s loveliest cities.

The drama of its grim history, combined with its beauty, left all of us with full hearts. The emotion and the fact that in the morning our floating dormitory would deposit us and all our worldly goods in Stockholm and end the magic journey left us vulnerable. Watching these young people, who had been so deeply involved in our lives, slammed us up and over the top, leaving nearly 300 of us moved and weepy.

For a bunch of worldly travelers, who’ among us had been everywhere from Antarctica to Burma to Saigon, we were pretty sappy. The staff would welcome new cruisers hours after we left, but this artful end to a perfect trip, so much like the last day of camp, really, was sentimental and perfect.

Living with History: Ghosts of WWII Still Haunt Europe

Outside the shipyard where Solidarity was born

There’s Europe, and then there’s Europe. Before St. Petersburg, we visited Gdansk, Poland and Klaipeda, Lithuania, each with a great (and strategically valuable) coastline and harbor. Along with those very desirable traits came a dark, terrible, history of invasion and occupation, Nazis and Communists and pre-Nazi Germans in the 20th Century alone. Listen to the guides and it sounds as if the last of them left only last week, the memories are so fresh. Each city was all but obliterated after the War, first by the Nazis as they fled and then by the victorious Russians who declared the residents “Nazis” and burned much of what hadn’t been bombed.

In Gdansk, along with the Jews, many Poles, including 3,000 priests, died in concentration camps. This statue of Jesus mourning the 3,000 priests murdered in Auschwitz is from the gorgeous Gdansk St. Mary’s Church was placed there in their honor. A visit to this city is a rapid education in the continued immediacy of the devastation and misery of the War and the Soviet occupation that followed. It isn’t history, it’s family.

Veterans of Siberian exile sing songs of their country
In Lithuania they work to preserve memories of forced exile to Siberia and Soviet abuse through an ever-shrinking choir of village elders, many of them survivors of the Siberian deportations, on the lawn of a one-room museum that combines these memories with a commemoration of WWII partisans.

While there is little argument about the roles that Poland and Lithuania had in the Holocaust, I’m offering these examples to demonstrate the immediacy of the War that remains among the communities even today. Wherever we’ve gone in these places, or in Helsingborg Sweden entire tours are constructed around these memories.

It was quite a shock to meet the ghosts that still haunt these old cities. Gdansk is charming, and of course visiting the scene where Solidarity was born was wonderful. What really left with us though, was the enduring impact of a war that ended long before many of those affected were even born.

Petersburg and the End of the Road

This is the Petersburg (we World Travelers have learned NOT to say “Saint Petersburg”) monument to the heroes of the World War II siege of Leningrad. For nine hundred days, the city was surrounded by Nazis. Many were evacuated before then, but those who remained lived in cold, fear, and near, sometimes overpowering, starvation. What they suffered was unimaginable.

The 872 days of the siege caused unparalleled famine in the Leningrad region through disruption of utilities, water, energy and food supplies. This resulted in the deaths of up to 1,500,000 soldiers and civilians and the evacuation of 1,400,000 more, mainly women and children, many of whom died during evacuation due to starvation and bombardment. (Wikipedia)

It is this story that the monument is designed to honor. Unlike so much Soviet art, the statues are human and lean – no giant muscles and super-strong Soviet Realism here. The glory went to the suffering instead. The museum itself is underground, below the wall where these statue stand,.

It holds with panel after panel of the names of those who died, somewhat reminiscent of Yad Vashem. There are relics of very human moments and a film that’s almost too hard to watch.

Even so, the day we were there, like every other weekday, groups of school kids, many quite young, came with their teachers to hear the story. Russians are very proud of the courage and strength demonstrated in those days, and determined to pass the story on.

We in the West have always been so preoccupied with the European Front, with the dramas of Normandy and the Resistance, that the other two fronts, in Russia and the Pacific, have gotten far less attention.

Besides, the Iron Curtain that surrounded Russia for so long made outside praise for or even commemoration of the Russian sacrifices less likely. It’s impossible to come here, though, and not be stunned by the reality of what happened.

The drama of the memorial is intense, but there are small memories too.

We visited one of the pillbox defense structures that held the final line around the city. It is being refitted to be an exhibit and hadn’t been open in a very long time. We were fortunate enough to be there when the workmen were cleaning out old trash and dirt, and able to go inside.

It eerie to imagine people, desperate with hunger, waiting in there in shifts to prevent the conquest of the city.

That’s just part of what was a remarkable day that ended in the Hermitage. Gorgeous and thrilling, but a little like too much gooey candy all in one place. It was tough to absorb, especially after the grim realities of the siege.

The beauties of Catherine’s Palace and the Synagogue and museums and churches and cathedrals will appear soon. For now, this sober and very moving set of memories will stand alone.

The Statue and the Synagogue

This is what the women saw. There are few sanctuaries more beautiful and moving than this 1675 Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, and here the women, while separated, were still able to share its beauty. In fact, in many ways, they saw more.

The service, certainly, but also the outside world for which they prayed. It was a hike to get there, of course, but the dignity and faith that infuses the place was more available to them than in many other observant synagogues. It’s difficult to describe the peace and beauty of this place, even with a photo. Or two. The black and white one is a wedding photo taken in the synagogue.

So where you ask is the statue? Well, he’s right here. Baruch Spinoza, whose ideas wreaked havoc in religious communities of Europe. Here’s what Wikipedia says:

Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said of all contemporary philosophers, “You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all.”^[8]

Spinoza’s given name in different languages is Hebrew: ברוך שפינוזה‎ Baruch Spinoza, Portuguese: Benedito or Bento de Espinosa and Latin: Benedictus de Spinoza; in all these languages, the given name means “the Blessed”. Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. The Jewish religious authorities issued a cherem (Hebrew: חרם, a kind of ban, shunning, ostracism, expulsion, or excommunication) against him, effectively excluding him from Jewish society at age 23. His books were also later put on the Catholic Church’s Index of Forbidden Books.

A powerful figure in Jewish history and history in general, he stands just steps from the Synagogue, there – and not there; a compelling figure of faith — and doubt.

We are currently sailing through the Kiel Canal, an engineering feat that cut northern Europe in half and created a pathway that reduced isolation for many. Tonight we stop in Helsingborg, Sweden and Friday night, in Copenhagen.

Farewell to Friends

This is me with my new sister Ramona. We met when we were looking to share a car to Mont-Saint-Michele and she and her amazing husband decided to join us. We have had the best week. Remarkable how quickly relationships form in a travel environment.

Now she is returning to her home in Beirut with her husband to await a new grandchild due within days of ours. We had a wonderful time with them. Thanks my friend! And send pictures.

“There’s not a word yet, for old friends who’ve just met.”
― Jim Henson,

Rainy Rouen

Carousel in the rain outside Notre Dame Cathedral, Rouen

This sweet carousel was deserted; buckets of rain would have discouraged even the most determined child. It sits outside the Rouen version of a Notre Dame cathedral. This one contains, we hear, the heart of Richard the Lionhearted, and is beautiful but not off the charts compared to some others we’ve seen.

Rouen was a surprise; lovely in a modest sort of way – even the H&M and Printemps stores were little. The history is profound however, for it was here that Joan of Arc was burned at the stake.

We have spent a lot of time on this trip with people with strong Catholic faith. Visiting cathedrals and shrines with them has really illuminated the meaning and depth of emotion they communicate. It’s been very moving.

The rest of the day we sailed down the Seine and out into the sea enroute to the Schelde River and Antwerp.

It was stormy and the ship bounced around a bit. Now we’re almost there and the River is calm and wide, giving us time to process all we’ve seen. Half of us leave the cruise in Amsterdam on Monday so we’re also preparing goodbyes to people we’ve come admire and care about. Yet another gift of life on the road (or water, really)

Surprises

Sometimes, like the day we went to Mont-Saint-Michel, you don’t expect anything and are rewarded with beauty, magic and meaning. And sometimes you don’t get what you wanted but it’s really OK.

We meant to visit abbeys and chateaus but our guide was an Abbeys only sort of guy so we ended up at Jumieges Abbey about an hour and a half from Rouen. We found soaring beauty, like this archway. . .

And this Madonna , contemporary yet right where it should have been, in the Abbey Cloister, in the center, at the Abbey de Boscherville down the road, where she oversees a kingdom of her own.

saller — Abbey de Boscherville – Madonna

We learned a great deal about Benedictine Monks, monasteries, the politics of moving from the election of the abbot (chief of the Abbey) to empowering the local Duke to appoint him, (you can imagine where that led.)

And then there was the French Revolution. To us, that means guillotines and The Terrors. In fact, there was a clear political philosophy and plan that informed the cause before it got away from the thinkers.

Some of France’s basic principles of governance were, in fact, established by the revolutionaries, who fanned out into the countryside to create more than 90 “departments” through which to govern. Each was required to be no larger in circumference than the distance a horse could travel in one day. This kept the people close to, and invested in, their government. It also provided the government with ample intelligence on neighborhood issues and plans.

The churches also faced challenges. Each town had to choose: They were permitted only ONE church since there was only ONE city hall. It was unacceptable for the Church to overshadow the state by setting up small parallel governments in or sphere of influence.

And then we went to Honfleur, one of only a few towns in France that suffered no bomb damage during WWII. It’s had damage of a different kind, though — so many tourists — like Provincetown in August. We were ready to be snooty about the entire experience and then we came upon her:

Ste Teresa stone church honfleur — Sainte Thérèsa de Lisieux in the Wood Church of Honfleur

She is Sainte Thérèsa de Lisieux, a 20th Century girl who died of tuberculosis. Her sister wrote a book about her and her good deeds and she was canonized during the papacy of John Paul II. This shrine is in the Wood Church of Ste. Catherine in the middle of Honfleur and the church, and the haunting Thérèsa were worth the trip.

Saint Joan was there too, so I’ve put her photo below. Tomorrow Antwerp.

Saint Joan of Arc in the Wood Church of St. Catherine

No Guernsey but a Beautiful Trip

Ships's eye view, hills and clouds on the Seine — Ships’s eye view, hills and clouds on the Seine

It turns out you can’t get into the Channel Islands, at least not St. Peter’s Port, in Guernsey, without a small boat called a “tender” to take you into the small harbor from the large ship that won’t fit. It turns out that if the seas are rough and it’s raining, traveling in those tenders is way too dangerous, so stopping at Guernsey is not possible.

It turns out that there were no available ports or pilots to provide an alternative so it turns out that we spent the whole day sailing down the Seine to Rouen, where we’re currently docked.

The trip was green and beautiful and rain-swept. We had nice long lunches and dinners with very cool people on board. Share the view; tomorrow we’re going exploring and taking you along.

Who Ever Thought They Would Actually BE on the Bay of Biscay? Really.

We’re sailing from A Coruña to France today so no stops. It should be a lazy day be we keep sitting with people at meals and the four or six of us close the dining room every time – for every meal. Lots of interetsing people with amazing stories. Can’t miss any.

We’re up on deck now though, by the pool; it’s a bit chilly but they give us big orange blankets and the sun is shining. Right now Van Morrison is singing Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? and the pool has this soothing wave machine. There are waiters bringing us coffee to ward off the chill.

me blanket

I am still in the first Game of Thrones plus Mark Leibovich’s story about the battle to succeed Henry Waxman so I’m set (except that I’m very guilty to be at Winterfell instead of somewhere more learned) but I am having such a good time with them!

We were really ready for this day after all that exploring! Tomorrow, Cherbourg and (depending on logistics, Mont St-Michel.

I Hate Spanish and the EU. How About You?

Portuguese is really hard; even they think so. It is also, and you better remember this, NOT just another kind of Spanish. They’d rather have you “mangle the Portuguese than try to use Spanish and think we’ll understand.” There’s a strong national pride here and “Spain is our only neighbor so sometimes we have to hate them.” It’s Spain and the ocean, actually – one on one side, one on the other.

In between language lessons today, as we wandered the Medieval town of Guimarães we learned even more about local feelings toward the Euro and the EU. Here are some of the opinions/facts (?) offered in the past two days:

The Euro doubled all the prices but salaries didn’t go up.
The EU has made it difficult to impossible to rescue old buildings because no one can afford to do it privately and neither can the government.
Portugal’s membership in the EU has been a disaster. They have a huge debt which is not their fault and Europe and the rest of the world calls them spendthrift when the (aforementioned) inflation has made it tough for this small country to operate financially.*
The EU also governs what countries control what industry. Larger nations forced Portugal to destroy the ships that sustained their centuries-old fishing industry because the big guys already controlled fishing.**
The EU tells countries what they are going to grow and produce and many agricultural traditions are being lost.
The EU has banned copper pans for cooking and the traditional Portuguese egg custard has always been made in copper pans and it just doesn’t taste the same in any other vessel.

Look again at this poster. It says “We Are Not the Debt” and complains that all Portuguese are being blamed for their country’s debt to the EU when, they say, it has largely been the EU’s policies that made the borrowing necessary in the first place.

Nobody will ever accuse this lovely, colorful country, with its passionate politics, of being a simple place; part of its charm is the passion with which their views are held. Our visit here as been a happy, enlightening surprise.

* NOTE: a couple of knowledgeable people on this trip have taken exception to this, claiming that it was not the Euro but the huge amount of public spending that has caused their debt.

**NOTE: These same knowledgeable people, one a CEO and the other an active environmentalist, maintain that the ban on fishing was instituted because the waters off Portugal have been massively over-fished and the only way to preserve the fish population was to cut off fishing and allow them to replenish. Yet another person, Chilean, told me he thought it was just that Portugal could not compete and so was encouraged to try other industries. Clearly, if I get that many opinions in one day, this country’s relationship with its economic future, and with the EU, is complicated.