      Click image to view slideshow We drove from Belgrade via Thessaloniki to Delphi, trying to decipher the signs. It is a whole new alphabet. Delphi is really beautiful, on the side of a hill in the mountains . It is green and peaceful with wild flowers blooming among the ruins of fallen pillars and broken statues. It is hard to believe that a civilization that could build these amazing temples once existed here.
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   We went out to dinner the students and then to a movie. After the movie we compared notes and got a little nervous about staying another night. We gave them some lame excuse about Pat being sick, jumped in the car and headed out in the middle of the night for the border of Greece
  The weather made it impossible to drive along the coast. So yesterday, we drove to Belgrade. The plan was to spend a night or two in Belgrade and then drive south to Greece. We had no idea where to stay when we got to Belgrade so we stopped some students on the street to ask. They told us that we could stay with them in their dorm and that sounded like a great idea - definitely cheaper than any other place we could find. Jeannine and Pat stayed in one room, Judy and Dede in other squished together in twin beds, sleeping head to toe. Our car is the only car in the parking lot and there has been a lot of conversation about the "automovil" and the "passaportes"
The pizza is a common any time snack in Italy. Every town has lots of coffee standup bars where people drop in for cappuchino and a small pizza. This pizza is made with thick bread-like dough and baked in an oven. The crust is thrown by hand into a round disc shape typically topped with tomato sauce and cheese. Expresso coffee is the only kind available in Europe and we are really becoming fans.
   Milan is the home of the world’s most famous opera house, La Scala. At dinner time we fought the crowds to get tickets because “La Boheme” is on the program. Naturally they were sold out except for the 3000 lira($5), standing only room tickets. We got there two hours early and just managed to get in. It meant standing about six hours but it was worth it!
 We drove through Genoa, a big, sea trading city, and went on to Milano. It is still cold here, but not as cold as 2 months ago. We were site seeing today. The Duomo (Milan’s Cathedral), is Italy’s largest Gothic building and filled with many beautiful stained glass windows. We also went to the huge Sforzo Castello. It is not an outstanding antiquity museum, but it is especially wonderful because it is free. Then we went to the Church of Ste Marie Delle Grazle which houses Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. In WWII, the church, except for the wall on which DaVinci painted The Last Supper, was destroyed by bombs, all but the wall which contains the painting. Now the church is built around it again. [this part wasn’t in the diaries, but I distinctly remember being pinched in the butt by the guard at the door. We’d heard about that sort of thing happening in Italy, but hadn’t really experienced it until we entered the site of the iconic Last Supper painting]
  We spent the morning in Monte Carlo and then drove on to Italy. At the border we noticed a carload of four American college kids. They followed us for miles, finally passed us and yelled “Race?” We decided we’d run a psychological experiment so we passed them while holding up a sign saying, Race No, Bier Ya”. They nodded and pulled off in the next town. We followed and they came over to the car, viewed our Holland plates and asked if we spoke English. We shook our heads, asked “Sprechen sie Deutsche?” and Jeanine rattled at them in German. Then she used halting English, only a few words and one of them spoke a bit of German. Now that they thought we couldn’t understand, they really started planning. "Get two of them in this car and two of us in theirs. Help – I can’t think of how to say it in German. Get them out of the car so we can see them. Keep talking to them Joe and try to really get something going." We sat there and just smiled while Jeanine talked. They asked us to come to Rome with them for four days. Oh brother! We left after having Jeannine haltingly explain we had to be in Milan. Boy! American boys must really think girls from Holland are pushovers.
 Click photo to enlarge We came down from the mountain top Youth Hostel to get an ice cream cone and strolled around the Riviera at night. We lost our teeny pocket knife in the afternoon while repacking our luggage on the palm studded boulevard that is the Riviera’s main drag. Later, while whipping along in all the traffic, Jeannine yelled suddenly that she saw our knife in the gutter. We screeched to a stop to humor her and Pat hopped out. Sure enough, there it was.
Judy is writing in her diary while watching her chance to get at the shower. It is a beautiful new 400 bed hostel, but they just have hot water every third day till 10pm. There is only one shower so you really have to hustle to get your turn. Judy has a bad cold and has been hiding a bottle of Anisette under her bed. Instead of sleeping at night, she coughs and drinks Anisette. At least we didn’t get stuck with any duties when we left today. In Nimes we had to mop the floors before we could get out of the hostel.  We managed to get the boxes mailed from Nice, France after an historic struggle. Mailing then was really a pain. First it took us three cities to scrounge up cardboard boxes and find twine and tape to buy. We had driven around carrying 6 big cartons trying to mail them at the American Express, the American Visitors Bureau, the Railway Station, the Maritime Dock and finally carried them back to the hotel...after being told in above order.
1. It would cost $12 for the boxes, 2. It would cost $11 for three boxes, 3 . We couldn’t mail them with knots in the twine, and 4. Before mailing, we must purchase “certificados duplicadoes” Oh yes, first we took them to Post Office where we found they were too heavy (can’t weigh over a kilo.) But we persevered and they are on their way. Well, we’re off on another leg of our trip to Greece and Italy and back to Youth Hostels. They are not as comfortable but sure lots cheaper. There weren’t any open in Spain or Portugal which was too bad for us. Mailing three boxes home, sure hope they get there.
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A daily diary of a journey in 1962. Please post comments about where you were then on the Background page.
1962 was pivotal. This is the background:
It was a year colored by the Cuban Missile Crisis, an escalating involvement in Vietnam, the Berlin Wall and the Cold War with Russia, Civil Rights issues, a nascent space program, Nelson Mandela in prison, Betty Friedan's, The Feminist Mystique, the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the death of Marilyn Monroe. Archives
May 2011
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