We drove from Paris to Verdun, Manheim, Frankfurt and finally  Erlangen.   Beautiful countryside with half timbered villages and acres and acres of forests.  When we got to Erlangen we straightened our our luggage stored with Jeannine, got the car checked and bought some tires at the Army base.  We went to a small shop in Erlangen just to look and ended up buying leather coats.  We got them for $45.00.  We are also stocking up on nylons here.  We can buy them for 1DM 25 cents a pair. 

We are now sitting in the hostel in Erlangen and have just finished packing for Berlin.  We leave tomorrow with only one suitcase for all four of us, to make it easier at the border.   

We spent Friday at the American Express where it took an hour and a half to cash a check.  They wouldn’t cash it at all at first.  Then we tried to line up a ship – finally got space on the Greek line Arkadia from Amserdam  to Montreal   at $178 each.  It is the cheapest we’ve heard of.  To ship the car at the last minute they had an auto cancellation and gave us the room for our car right on the Arkadia for $120 ($30 less even than freight rates)  All we have to do is to keep our mouths shut to other passengers.  We have tickets all paid for.  

Today we first went to the café de la Paix and then to the Louvre, where we saw among other things the Venus De Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace (Nike) and the Mona Lisa.  We walked home along the Seine. 

We visited the Isle de la Cite, the old city hall and Notre Dame Cathedral.  Then to the Tower of St. Jacques, over to  Les Halles (many blocks of markets area – rish, fruit stands, meat cutters .  We walked up Montmarte and saw the Sacre Cour, a beautiful church on the top the hill. 

Tonight we went to the Opera Comique and saw the ballet from a  box seat $1.40  This is the first time we’ve sat down to see anything.  

In Orleans we looked up the Army boys at the U.S. Army Hospital that we met in Barcelona.  They got us each a carton of cigarettes for $1.50.  We drove on to Versailles on the outskirts of Paris where we saw the huge Palace of Louis IIV the Gold covered gates, the Hall of Mirrors and Hall of Peace where peace treaties from the wars were signed and the table they were signed on.    We found a little hotel on the Left Bank for about $1.40 a night.  We later discovered  that we were in the heart of the Latin Quarter in the Beatnik section.  Is is an Ideal location, a block from the Seine. 

We met some really nice people in Paris and some not so nice.  People seemed to be one extreme or another.  The desk clerk at the first hotel we tried ticked us off by screaming “ you must remember you are in France now.  We’re poor here, not rich like all you Americans.” 

We left Nice day before yesterday,  picked up the luggage at American Express and headed north to Orleans.  We had met some boys in Barcelona who were stationed at Orleans and they promised us a steak dinner if we’d come visit them.  We planned to stop at Cannes and Lyon on the way.  And we had to spend one afternoon sitting in a garage in Avignon, France getting the clutch adjusted.    

Our trip has gone fast.  There is so much to see, so much left unseen that we hope to come back to.  But traveling as a student in hostels, on bread and cheese is wearing.  We’re dirty (10 days between hot water) and tired.  We are getting ready to wind this trip up.  We feel like we’ve learned a lot about the world and its people but most of all, we see that even in new modern Europe, we, in America, are really lucky with life and what we’ve got.  Comparing American prices to incomes and European prices to incomes, we are well off.  Europe is simply not cheap for the Europeans.  There is a relatively small upper class and a very large lower class.  Being a middle class American is being born under and lucky star. 

 Today is  Easter Sunday and we began the day by sneaking out of the hostel without doing duty (mopping floors, cleaning latrines, etc.) which means double duty tomorrow.  We went to church at St. Charles in Monte Carlo then looked around the Casino, Monte Carlo and Monaco City.  We drove back to Nice and saw part of Le Bataille Des Fleurs – a flower float parade, watched some of the sailboat and hydroplane races in the Bay of Angels and then indulged in three hours of “people watching” till sunset before going out to eat and meeting some French acquaintances from the afternoon.   The main area in Nice is the Promenada Des Anglais – a wide, palm lined  boulevard with hotels on one side and ocean on the other.  On Sundays, half of the world rents chairs for 20 fr and sits all along the Promenade and watches the other half of the world promenade.  We were with some French boys – Alain, Jean-Paul, Gilbert and Marcel.  We sat and watched and you can’t  imagine how fascinating it is.  Literally thousands of people strolling.  There is a huge PA system all along the boulevard and they play good music which adds to the interest.  It was just like one big candid camera.  What a funny farm.

We drove from Florence to the Riviera.  It proved to be a much longer drive than we expected because of the condition of the road and we had brake trouble while coming down the road at about 11:00 pm.  We couldn’t go on so we just slept in the car by the roadside until morning.   We were awakened by two policemen peering in about 6 am.  They were just  who we hoped to see.  We found out from them how to get to a mechanic.  We got the brakes fixed and came on to Nice to pick up our luggage in storage.  It was at the American Express which was closed for Easter so we will have Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Nice.  Nice!

Today we saw the huge white, red and green marble Duomo, Michelangelo’s “David” and the unfinished “Pieta”, the Uffizi Gallery, Gallerie D’Accademie, the Pallizoo Veccchio and Ponte Vecchio.  We shopped in the Straw Market and then departed.  We bought beautiful mohair handknit Italian sweaters for $3.80 apiece. 

Yesterday we had the nicest weather of the trip.  It was so warm that we walked around in cotton dresses with just light sweaters most of the day   We went to the Piazza Navona, the Pantheon , shopping on via Condotti, up the open 4 flights of flower covered steps from the Piazza Sragna, up the Spanish steps to the Church of the Holy Trinity of the Mountain and the Villa Medici.  We went to the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian through the National Museum with its well known bronze and marbles such as the Discus Thrower.   Then out to dinner to a small restaurant and shopping.  That wound up Rome for us.  In Rome you can buy sets of 12 Kodak slides for 400 to 600 lira (65 cents to 1 dollar) cheaper than you can take them so we bought lots, especially of the insides of churches. 

At night we walked around the shopping area.  Went to see the Trevi Fountain (the 3 coins in a fountain fountain) and threw our coins in.  It’s a beautiful fountain with sculptured horses and all.  Now all of us are assured of a repeat visit to Rome.  – all except Jeannine who threw her coin into the fountain and it landed behind her in the street.  Judy had a near mishap when she got her foot caught in a trolley track and lost her shoe while crossing the street. 

We’ve spent 5 days total in Rome.  Each was a 12 to 14 hour day and we made the most of every minute,  visiting  the most important sites.  Rome is expensive and almost full up.  The hostel was way out of town and we were very lucky to stumble into a clean nice pension for about $1.30 a day right in the center, a block from the Coliseum.

Today we left Rome after 5 days and drove to Florence.  It is a 400 bed hostel and in an old Medici Palace.  They gave our reservations to someone else and we had to sleep in corridors.  It was rainy and cold and we cut our visit short.  A hostel full of 400 Europeans – mostly Greeks and French – get pretty grubby.  Hostelers are not very clean people.  I can’t imagine what hostels smell like in the summer.

 Today we visited all the ruins – Forums of Augustus Temple to Mars, Temple to Minerva, Market of Trajan, Trajan’s Column, Basilica of Ulpla, Templa of Venus, the  Arch of Titus, and the original complete senate as it was because another building was built around it for centuries.  Under Palantine Hill was the Temple of Romulus where legend says a kindly wolf suckled Romulus and Remus and founded Rome.  We drove out the Appian Way – the original Roman Highway – 16 foot wide – to the Tomb of Ceciua Metalla and then to the Catacombs of St. Calixtus.  We had a 45 minute tour down in, through the many chambers, tombs and alters where mass is still said.  There were  old oil lamps and writing and symbols etched in the walls.  The swastikia is much in evidence as a one time Roman cross.  The catacombs cover 20 acres, contain approximately 350,000 graves, including some 20,000 martyrs (each signified by an oil lamp on the tomb)   We drove east 20 miles to the town of Tivoli and went through the Villa d’Este known for its many beautiful fountains.  Over 40 fountains of all kinds in the gardens.  Then to Hadrian’s Villa - the winter estate of Emperor Hadrian and was, at one time, three fourth the size of Rome itself. Exhausting day!