That is a poppy. Today is Veterans Day, Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day. It doesn’t make any difference what you call today, what is beyond doubt or argument is the fact that today is the day that we honor all the courageous men and women who have served in our Armed Forces. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Veterans who are following this blog for your service. My Father, who has been and always will be my hero and role model, served in the Army in Korea during the Korean War. Bruce Nelson served in Vietnam. Steve Napper, Bob Belt, Neil Scott, Rich Castagna, and John Rourke all served in the Armed Forces. Jason Liddell served 20 years in the Air Force, 10 years active duty and 10 years in the reserves, and retired this Spring. And I would like to thank Stephanie Quinn’s father for his service. He is one of my favorite Veterans. What an amazing career he had in the Army.

I apologize if you served and I failed to mention you in this blog post. Thank you all, the mentioned and the unmentioned, for your Service.

In London the big commemorative event for Armistice Day is the parade past the Cenotaph, a World War I Memorial in London near Whitehall, where the queen, and everybody who is anybody, lays a wreath of poppies. This year was special because it is the 100th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended World War I, the war to end all wars. The parade was scheduled to start at 11:00 AM. I started walking in that direction at about 8:30 and when I was a mile away from the Cenotaph I hit the end of the line to get through the bag check station. You had to get through the bag check station before you could get in the line to find a place along the parade route to watch the parade and the wreath laying ceremony. The line to the bag check station was a mile long and five people wide. Half of this crowd was active duty military in their dress uniforms and the other half appeared to be very well dressed retired military with their ribbons and medals pinned on the left breast pocket of their navy blue blazers.

I decided that by the time I got through that mile long line and get to the Cenotaph the parade and wreath laying ceremony would be over. So I decided to go to church instead. And not just any church, I decided to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral.

What a church! When I got there I noticed a line of Rolls Royces at the front door discharging men in coats with tails wearing top hats 🎩 and women in long black dresses and hats to match. I left my tux and top hat back in the States but I noticed this sign and figured I would be welcomed to enter the Cathedral for the service.

Notice that this sign says: “We welcome all who come through our doors as worshippers and pilgrims, visitors and sightseers.” I figured they would roll out the Anglican red carpet for the rootin, tootin Pilgrim Colorado Cowboy On The Camino. That wasn’t quite how it worked.

I got to the door and a nice older lady who was a church warder, what they call an usher, took me by the arm and told me the soup kitchen and winter clothing station is in the basement of the Cathedral. I told her I would love a hot bowl of soup after the service and would appreciate it if I could borrow a warm coat for the duration of my visit, but right now I wanted to go in the Cathedral for the 10:15 AM service. She pursed her lips like she had just sucked on a lemon 🍋 and said that they had a special seating section for people like me who are living in less than ideal circumstances. I am not quite sure I understood what she meant by that comment but decided to let it slide. She escorted me to a section of the Cathedral on one side of the altar, away from the ladies and gents in their Sunday best. Needless to say, I was not in my Sunday best. I do look a little like a homeless ragpicker.

I was hoping that after the service, I could pick up some nice clothes from the winter clothing station in the basement of the Cathedral.

The service was flat out amazing. It was a Service of Remembrance and a Commemoration of the Fallen. The huge pipe organ in the Cathedral played for all the hymns and there was a 50 person choir for good measure.

During the sermon the minister said that at one of the World War I British cemeteries there is an inscription over the entrance that reads as follows: “When you go home, tell them of us and say: ‘For your tomorrow, we gave our today.’ ” I had to wipe away a few tears after hearing that. At the end of the service we all sang one last hymn. Can you guess what that hymn was? Of course, it was “God Save The Queen!” Everyone joined in and sang this hymn with amazing gusto. I am not ashamed to admit that I got a little choked up as I thought about where I was and what I was doing and what amazing opportunities I have had on this trip.

Pictures during the service were strictly forbidden. I got these shots of the altar of St. Paul’s Cathedral after the service was over.

While we were on our way out of the Cathedral, Abe and St. Christopher insisted on lighting a candle and saying a prayer for Anna.

This is what we saw when we walked out the front door of the Cathedral. It’s a parade, and Abe loves parades. I wanted to get a bowl of soup and some warm clothes, but Abe insisted that we follow the parade, so we followed the parade.

We followed the parade down to the World War I Memorial at the London Stock Exchange. This memorial honors the men from London who fought in World War I.

This is the Memorial.

After the wreath laying ceremony there was a another parade. These are all the big mucky mucks from the City of London who were in the parade.

This is the reviewing stand for the mucky mucks to watch the parade.

This is a group shot of one of the military units that marched in the parade.

This is General Wellington, the Iron Duke. He defeated the Frenchies at Waterloo. To rub salt in the French wounds, the Brits melted down a bunch of cannons they captured from the French to make this statue.

This is the Monument to the Great Fire 🔥 of London.

It is 311 steps to the top of the Monument, and of course I had to climb to the top of the Monument. This is the view of St. Paul’s Cathedral from the top of the Monument.

This is the view of Tower Bridge from the top of the Monument.

This is your humble correspondent at the top of the Monument.

I then walked down to the Tower of London. This is the beginning of the memorial at the Tower of London called “Beyond The Deepening Shadows, The Tower Remembers.”

In the dry moat of the Tower they put thousands of torches and when it got dark they had a bugler play Last Post and they started to light the torches. It was very well done and there was a very big crowd at the last night of this Memorial.

This is a picture of the London Eye and the sickle moon🌙.

That’s it for today.

I hope everyone had a restful Sunday.

Good evening from London.

The forecast for today was for rain🌧 , rain ☔️, and more rain 🌧. So the three amigos decided to spend the day at the British Museum.

This is one of the stone figures from Easter Island 🗿.

The British Museum’s cock and bull story is that a couple hundred years ago, a British sailing ship ⛵️ visited Easter Island. The inhabitants of Easter Island were so thrilled by this surprise visit by the Brits that they gave the sailors one of their sacred totems to take back to London to give to Queen Victoria. When Queen Victoria was presented with this big hunk of basalt she immediately gave it to the British Museum, claiming it would clash with the furniture at Windsor Castle 🏰.

This big fella’s name is Hoa Hakanai’a, which means lost or stolen friend. I’ll bet the “stolen” part is pretty accurate. My guess is that the Brits took Hoa Hakanai’a off Easter Island over the vehement protests of the inhabitants of Easter Island. Back then the Brits did just about whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and wherever they wanted, and didn’t care whether you liked it or not. Except of course the whole American Revolution thing, which I think still sticks in their craw. The British Museum is stuffed to the gills with treasures from around the world that the Brits claim were “given” to them by the rightful owners.

One of the highlights of the Museum’s collection is the Rosetta Stone. I don’t have a picture of the Rosetta Stone because the crowd around it was 10 people deep and there was no way I was going to fight through that crowd to get a picture of a hunk of rock. As you probably know, the Rosetta Stone was liberated from Egypt by the French. Yes, the same Frenchies that have been giving me such a hard time on this trip. In the past, the Brits would periodically go over to France to knock the Frenchies around a bit, show them who is the boss and take some booty back to jolly old England. A couple hundred years ago the Brits were in France 🇫🇷 kicking ass and taking names, and decided to haul the Rosetta Stone back to England. If it were me I would have left the Rosetta Stone and loaded up on croissants 🥐 and red wine 🍷. Anyway, a British scholar figured out that carved on the Rosetta Stone was the same message in Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphics. Up to that point in time nobody knew how to read Egyptian hieroglyphics. So this British scholar used the Rosetta Stone and his encyclopedic knowledge of ancient Greek to develop a sort of hieroglyphic dictionary. As you can imagine, the Egyptian government has been demanding that the British Museum return the Rosetta Stone and all the mummies and all the other Egyptian artifacts that the Brits claim were given to them by the Egyptians. I have a little advice for you Egyptians. Forget it! The Brits are never going to return any of this stuff to you. If you want to see your stuff you will have to come to London and see your stuff at the British Museum. I know that’s not fair, but as St. Rita used to say, “Fair is where you go to see the butter cow.”

This is a whole big rectangular room filled with stuff the Brits took from the Parthenon 🏛 in Athens.

Less than half of what remained of the Parthenon, after the Brits hauled off the best parts, is in a museum on the Acropolis in Athens. There is a little bit of the Parthenon in a museum in Copenhagen. I have no idea how some of the artifacts from the Parthenon got to Copenhagen, so don’t ask.

The Brits claim that the Turks, who were running Greece at the time, gave them half of the ruins of the Parthenon. The Greeks claim that the Turks did not own the Parthenon so they had no business giving it away. The Greeks have been raising holy hell trying to get the Brits to return all the cultural treasures that the Brits have plundered from Greece over the years. I have news for all you Greeks. You are never getting this stuff back. If you want to see your stuff you will need to fly to London and see your stuff at the British Museum.

This is Zeus, the kingpin and most powerful of all the Greek gods.

Even Zeus, the all powerful, got highjacked by the Brits and is now trapped in the British Museum.

This is a statute of Pericles. He is one of the most famous orators of all time. His Funeral Oration to the Athenians has been favorably compared to Abe’s Gettysburg Address. Abe is wondering why there is no Lincoln exhibit at the British Museum.

This is a copper baseball ⚾️ cap 🧢 that is thousands of years old. And they didn’t even play baseball back then.

This is a reliquary that is reputed to contain a thorn from the crown of thorns that was placed on Jesus’ head before he was crucified.

This looks like Fiestaware, right?

You can pick up a whole set of this stuff for a couple hundred bucks, right? WRONG!!

This is called Ru stoneware.

A year ago one of these little bowls went up for auction and the winning bid was $37 million dollars. That just goes to show that some people have more money than brains.

That’s it for today.

I hope everyone is having a restful and relaxing Saturday.

Good evening from London, England.

As most of you know my two favorite historical figures are Abe Lincoln and Winston Churchill. Today I decided to tour the Imperial War Museum’s Churchill War Rooms Museum.

I got to the museum when it opened at 10:00 AM and I am glad I did. There was no line to get in and the museum was not too crowded. When I left at 2:30 PM there was a line of people at the entrance to the museum waiting to get inside. The huge underground bunker complex where Churchill and his General Staff directed Great Britain’s global war effort in World War II was locked up shortly after the end of the war and was not reopened until the 1980s. They decided to turn it into a museum with a large room set aside for a Churchill museum chronicling Churchill’s life from birth to death. They have an amazing collection of original documents and objects from Churchill and his wife of 56 years, Clementine.

The war rooms’ part of the exhibit and the Churchill museum were fantastic, every bit as good as any museum I have ever been to, including the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC. As most of you are aware, I am a history geek. And for a history geek like me, getting an opportunity to tour this museum was like dying and going to heaven.

This is the door to Number 10 Downing Street that Churchill passed through when he became Prime Minister in 1940.

This is one of the bunk beds in one of the bedrooms in the war rooms complex. It looks like one of the alburgue sleeping rooms where I slept along the Way. I always thought the alburgue bunk beds were Army surplus, but I had no idea these alburgue bunk beds were World War II Army surplus.

When I got out of the museum it was a beautiful Fall day and I decided to go for a walk in St. James Park.

On the way to the park I passed by this memorial to the men who fought and died in the Crimean War.

I also walked by the official provider of fishing tackle and waterproof clothing to the Prince of Wales. I have no idea why the Prince of Wales can’t go down to Bass Pro Shop like everyone else and get his fishing tackle. It seems a bit snooty to me to have an official provider for your fishing tackle and rain gear. But it is jolly old England and they can be a little snooty about these types of things.

In St. James Park I saw a great photo exhibit on World War I called Fields of Battle, Lands of Peace. The 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I will be celebrated here in London on Sunday. World War I wiped out a whole generation of young men in Great Britain so this Armistice Day will be a solemn occasion.

There were about 20 story boards like this in a field in the park. Each story board had a wartime photo from World War I and then a current photo showing how the battlefield landscape had healed from the destruction caused by the war. Each story board also had a well written narrative on one aspect of World War I. I spent an hour at this outdoor exhibit and learned a great deal about World War I.

St. James Park is a real gem. This is the view of Windsor Castle from St. James Park.

Princess Dianne has her own memorial walk around the park. What a nice way to honor her.

This is one of the two mounted guards that sit on their horses on either side of the gate to Horse Guards Parade Ground. I watched the changing of these guards and the ceremony was pretty impressive

On the way back to the hotel this afternoon I walked by a barber shop. One of the barbers came out of the shop and said that I had the worst haircut he had ever seen. He offered to try to fix my godawful haircut for free. I thanked him but told him I am kinda getting used to this bad haircut and would wait till I get home before I try to correct it.

I decided to have an early dinner. I walked by a Japanese restaurant that advertised Japanese food cooked the Brazilian Way. What in the world is Japanese food cooked the Brazilian Way? For goodness sake, if you are going to serve Japanese food cook it the Japanese way, not the Brazilian way, whatever that is.

I walked by this place and quickly decided that I was not going to have Spanish food for dinner tonight.

Enough is enough. I am so tired of Jamon that I could scream. I decided to go wild and have a Thai rice bowl.

My Thai chicken rice bowl was delicious and about as far from Spanish Jamon as I could get, which is what I was shooting for.

That’s it for today.

I hope everyone had a great Friday.

Good evening from London, England.

Well, I finally made it to jolly old England 🇬🇧, the last last stop on my two and a half month European adventure. I am staying at the Academy Hotel, a small hotel near the museums in Central London.

The rooms are nice but small and the bathroom is minuscule. And it does not have an elevator. But the hotel staff are so nice and the location is great.

I got up this morning and went downstairs for the complimentary continental breakfast. What a spread they put out for breakfast, lunch meat, cheese, fruit, yogurt, pastries. I was stuffed when I finally pushed away from the table.

It was a beautiful Fall day, clear and dry and not too chilly, which for London is rare. I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and walk down to the Thames and spend the day touring London.

As I was walking down to the Thames I walked by a theatre that was putting on a Harry Potter play.

I also found London’s Chinatown.

About four blocks from the hotel I ran into Trafalgar Square.

That is Lord Nelson on the top of the pedestal. What a thrill to be in Trafalgar Square in London.

I walked to the Thames and took a stroll down the Victoria Embankment, which is the flood wall on the north and south banks of the Thames. There is a wide walkway on top of the flood wall with historical monuments every hundred yards or so. I walked down to Big Ben and the Parliament building.

Big Ben is the tower on the right hand side of the picture. They are doing major renovations on it so all you can see is the clock face and scaffolding.

They have their own Camino like walk through London that they call the Silver Jubilee Walkway. They have markers imbedded in the sidewalk to guide you along this scenic walk that takes you to most of the important points of interest in central London.

As I walked the Silver Jubilee Walkway I noticed this very upscale shop.

This is a design store by Suck UK. If they really do suck, how can they also claim that they are awesome. You either suck or you are awesome. But you can’t be both. They are mutually exclusive. I tried to explain this to the Brits inside the shop but they acted like I was an imbecile and they did not appear to understand the meaning of the word “suck.” I finally gave up and continued my stroll down the Victoria Embankment to the London Eye.

This is a big deal in London. I am not quite sure why as it nothing more than a Ferris wheel like they have every August at the Illinois State Fair.

It was such a nice day I decided to do a boat tour on the Thames. This is the Tower Bridge.

This is the Tower of London.

This is the Shard. It was designed to look like a shard of glass. I have no idea why an architect would do that or why the owner would say, “Looks great, let’s build it.” The new buildings in London all look like they were designed by a bored teenager talking a break from playing video games. I assume that once a building like the Shard is completed the architect says to himself, “What was I thinking.”

I took the tour boat down the Thames to Greenwich and got off to tour the Cutty Sark.

This guy is the first owner of the Cutty Sark, John “Jock” Willis.

This guy did a 90 minute tour of the ship in the character of the first owner of the ship, Jock Willis, and did a darn good job explaining every last detail of the life and times of the Cutty Sark.

After I finished the Cutty Sark tour I took the tour boat back to central London. As I was walking back to my hotel I passed by St. Martin in the Fields. They are having a sacred music chorale concert this evening and I was able to sit in the back of the church and listen to the rehearsal.

The acoustics in this church are phenomenal and this choir’s collective voice was at times strong and muscular and at other times sweet and delicate. I sat in that church for an hour transfixed by their divine singing. What a memorable end to my first day in London.

I hope everyone had a great Thursday.

Good evening from London, England.

For breakfast on my last day in Bordeaux I had a berry smoothie, I don’t drink coffee, and a real, buttery, light and flaky, French croissant 🥐. If you have been following this blog, and if you haven’t, you should be ashamed of yourself, you know that I developed an addiction to chocolate croissants for breakfast while I was walking the Way. I thought that these Spanish chocolate croissants were heavenly. But in the morning, when I gobbled down my Camino chocolate croissant, I was usually sleep deprived from trying and failing to get a good night’s sleep in an alburgue with a bunch of smelly, farting, snoring Pilgrims, and I was hungry enough to eat roadkill. No surprise that I thought the Spanish chocolate croissants were to die for. The real French croissants that I have been feasting on during my stay in Bordeaux have made me realize how pedestrian, no pun intended, the Spanish attempt at croissants truly is. If the wiley Spaniards had served real French croissants on the Camino I would still be walking the Way, eating croissants and gaining instead of losing weight.

Speaking of gourmet food, get a load of this sign I saw at a bus stop down the street from my hotel.

Does that sign really say what I think it says? “Steak N Shake – A Pioneer of Gourmet Burgers!🍔”

Are you kidding me?? Even for the disingenuous French, who are masters at the old bait and switch, this is over the top! Raise your hand if you have ever eaten at a Steak N Shake. They do serve a good hamburger, but the buns are of the Wonder Bread variety and the only cheese they have to put on your hamburger is American cheese. And American cheese is not really cheese! They make this so called cheese out of corn oil and soybean oil and a whole bunch of petroleum based chemical preservatives. A block of American cheese will stay edible for centuries. American cheese is NOT gourmet food. It is barely food and should have a health warning on the packaging, modeled after the health warning on cigarette packages, “DANGER, eat enough of this stuff and it will kill you!”

The fries at Steak N Shake are pretty good and the shakes are great, but definitely not gourmet. And most of the Frenchies who are eating at Steak N Shake in Bordeaux are sipping on a glass of fine red wine 🍷 or quaffing a cold brewski 🍺 with their burgers and fries. They are not even sampling the best part of the Steak N Shake experience, the milkshakes. If I had a few more days in Bordeaux I would protest the disingenuous advertising of Steak N Shake as a pioneer in the field of gourmet hamburgers. What a crock of French crap. And the French know better! What self respecting Frenchie is going to eat a hamburger at Steak N Shake and declare it a gourmet hamburger.

It gets worse. As I was walking around this morning I spotted this sign advertising a gourmet food festival in Bordeaux on November 16, 17 and 18. I assume that Steak N Shake, the Pioneer of Gourmet Burgers in Bordeaux, will be one of the lead exhibitors at this gourmet food festival.

I decided to take a break from blogging and stroll around the neighborhood in search of a place to have lunch. While I was strolling around the neighborhood I noticed this street art.

After this culture break I decided to get serious about lunch. I could go around the corner to have a gourmet hamburger.

Or I could have a tasty toasted Subway sandwich.

I decided to try to be healthy today and have a salad 🥗 for lunch at Eat Salad.

Eat Salad is the descriptive name for a salad bar about a block from my hotel. I am sure you all know how a salad bar works. First you give your salad chef a hearty bon jour in French. I am getting so good at this that my salad chef was convinced I was French and would only speak to me in French. I finally convinced her that bon jour was the extent of my French and she haughtily agreed to help me make my salad, in English. I picked out a nice kale and spinach base layer and then added a number of vegetables, shrimp and cheese. At the end of the line I had to pick out a salad dressing so my salad chef could toss and serve my salad. I assumed that my choices would be limited to olive oil or vinegar or olive oil and vinegar. With an insouciant wave of her hand my salad chef pointed to the board that listed my salad dressing choices. I took one look at this board and let out a primal scream of joy and exhalation! RANCH DRESSING!!!

Thank God! No more vinegar and olive oil. And this was real Ranch Dressing. Behind the counter I saw a 10 gallon tub of Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing. I love these guys at Eat Salad! I apologize and take back every disparaging thing I have ever said about the Frenchies. You have made amends for all the snootiness and high handed behavior you have subjected me to while I have been a reluctant guest in your country. You put ranch dressing on my salad and for that I will be forever in your debt.

I hope everyone is having a great Wednesday.

Good afternoon Bordeaux, France 🇫🇷.

The three musketeers planned to take a train to an old wine town outside Bordeaux and stroll around this charming old town soaking up the medieval ambience. It was raining so hard this morning that the only thing that was going to get soaked was us. Ever flexible, we went to Plan B and spent a pleasant hour or so shooting the breeze in John and Jan’s cozy, warm and dry apartment. The rain let up a bit and we decided to tour the city by tram🚊. Bordeaux has a nice modern tram system. You can get an all day pass for 5 bucks. That is a pretty good deal. Don’t even think about riding the tram without a ticket. At a stop mid way through our tour five burly well armed French policemen 👮‍♂️ boarded the tram and started checking tickets. The people that did not have tickets got a lecture and a citation. One of these ticket scofflaws decided that instead of admitting guilt, apologizing, and graciously accepting his citation, he would get in the cop’s face and go on a Gallic tirade. I am talking about a five year old who needs a nap tirade. The entire time that the cop was writing the citation, the offender was in the cop’s face jabbering at him. Verbally abusing a cop is not a good idea in America and it did not appear that the cop on the tram in Bordeaux appreciated the backchat. Just a little advice for all you tram riders in Bordeaux. Buy a ticket! If you get caught without a ticket, keep your mouth shut 🤐, thank the cop for your citation and promise never again to attempt to ride the tram without a ticket. And finally, wish the cop a bon jour, which I think means good day.

This is the Maritime Bourse in Bordeaux. The River Garon runs through Bordeaux and then on to the sea. Bordeaux has always been a major French port.

This is one of the remaining gates of the medieval wall that at one time surrounded Bordeaux.

We took the tram down to a food court and had a delicious lunch. This is a French food court so it has beer and great wine and delicious made to order food. I could not find a McDonalds, Burger King or Orange Julius, the fast food joint, not our President, in this food court. I had rotisserie chicken and couscous and a beer🍺. After lunch we continued our tram tour of Bordeaux. After an hour or so Jan decided to go back to the apartment and John and I found a cozy Irish pub, Molly Malone’s, with a fake fireplace, where we whiled away the rest of the afternoon shooting the breeze over a few Irish brewskis. 🍻

After our stop at Molly Malone’s it was dinner time and we repaired to a local brassiere, The Evidence. Evidence of what I don’t know.

When you go to a brassiere in France they don’t give you a menu. They have a chalkboard with their offerings for the day and they bring this chalkboard to your table and let you order from the chalkboard. In my case I pointed to something that I hoped wasn’t pickled pigs feet and said please and thank you in French. Tonight I hit the jackpot and inadvertently ordered a mushroom risotto.

I have said it before and I will say it again, the French have their faults as hosts to ugly Americans such as your humble correspondent, but if you get beyond that the food and the wine are outstanding. Every meal is a delight and every glass of wine is like fairy dust on your palate.

I hope everyone had a great Tuesday. And for you people in the US of A, I hope you voted. I don’t care care how you voted. The most important thing is that you did vote and that you respect everyone’s right to vote for the candidate they believe will do the best job. Let’s stop hating each other because we support different political parties or different candidates. I saw enough of that on the Camino to last me a lifetime and I am sick of it. As Rodney King said a long time ago, ” Why can’t we all just get along?”

Goodnight from Bordeaux, France 🇫🇷 and thank you John and Jan for being such generous and gracious hosts. You two are the best! Thank you for making my stay in Bordeaux so memorable.

This morning I got up and took a walk along the riverside promenade and had a fresh croissant and an orange juice while I waited for the Bordeaux Wine Museum to open at 10:00. This is the Bordeaux Wine Museum.

When I got there at 10:00 I saw this sign at the entrance.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this sign says that Today there will be a guided tour of the museum in English at 11:30. I assumed that Today meant today and that 11:30 meant 11:30, so I took another stroll and came back a little before 11:30 anxious to start the museum tour in English that was clearly scheduled to begin at 11:30 TODAY!! I spent a considerable amount of time with the young man selling tickets at the entrance to the Wine Museum trying to convince him that he should sell me a ticket to the 11:30 museum tour in English. He spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince me that there was no 11:30 museum tour in English TODAY! He wanted to sell me a ticket for an 11:30 museum tour in French, but I declined his generous offer for obvious reasons. After much Gallic hemming and hawing he finally admitted that the Today on the sign actually meant yesterday and that they hadn’t gotten around to changing yesterday’s sign. So, he said I was actually 24 hours late for the 11:30 museum tour in English. I asked him if the Parisians put him up to this and he acted like he didn’t understand my question, although I know he did. You always need to be on your toes when you are dealing with these wiley Frenchies. I finally gave up and bought a ticket to the Wine Museum that included an audio guide in English. It turned out to be a great museum. I spent 4 hours there learning just about everything there is to know about wine and the Bordeaux wine region.

This was one of my favorite parts of the museum.

This was the “nose” and color of wine section of the museum. They had at least 50 stations where you could smell different smells such as leather, black licorice, coriander, and try to remember wines that had these smells in their “nose.” They also had a color palette to demonstrate the almost unlimited color variations of red and white wines.

My favorite part of the tour was the end where they had a tasting room. I continue to have problems with the Frenchies, but even I have to admit that they do a heck of a job when it comes to making wine.

This is a bicycle rack in Denmark.

This is a bicycle rack in Bordeaux. You would starve if you tried to run a bicycle shop in Bordeaux.

And this is a motorcycle parking corral in Bordeaux.

Motorcycles seem to be very popular in Bordeaux. And it appears that the motorcyclists in Bordeaux clearly favor great big hulking high horsepower motorcycles over small Vespa like motor scooters.

This is the elevator at the Radisson where I am staying in Bordeaux. Notice the elevator buttons. In America the ground floor is the first floor. In Europe the ground floor is the zero floor. I am not quite sure how you have a zero floor, but the European hotels all have a zero floor. So the ground floor is the zero floor and the second floor becomes the first floor. It sounds confusing because it is confusing, purposely so I believe. Try figuring this out when you check into a hotel late at night after a long travel day and you don’t understand a word of whatever language the guy at the front desk is speaking. Nobody ever said that traveling in Europe was going to be easy.

Look what I found as I was strolling around Bordeaux.

That is a scallop shell pavement marker for a Camino! Apparently one of the seven Caminos runs through Bordeaux. You can follow these scallop shell trail markers from Bordeaux to St. Jean Pied de Port and then on to Santiago. While I lost weight walking the Way in Spain, I imagine that you would gain weight walking the Way in France.

This is part of the medieval wall that at one time surrounded and protected the town of Bordeaux.

This is a concrete building that the Germans built during World War Two. They called these buildings submarine pens because they used them to service and repair their submarines. These submarine pens are made of reinforced concrete many feet thick so they could withstand the Allied attempts to put them out out of commission by dropping bombs on them. After the War the French worked feverishly to destroy and/or remove any and all German installations from the sacred soil of France. These submarine pens were so thick and so indestructible that the French did not even attempt to tear them down after the War.

This is an interesting restaurant I found during my perambulations around Bordeaux.

This doesn’t exactly look like gourmet food to me. But what do I know? I think Steak N Shake is gourmet food.

I met John and Jan at their apartment at 5:00 PM for a glass of wine 🍷 before dinner. At 6:30 we strolled down the street to have dinner at a local brassiere. John had the salmon and Jan and I had the Italian salad. We also had a very nice bottle of the local red wine. The food, wine and company were superb and we spent a very pleasant three hours enjoying our dinner. John and Jan have been such gracious and generous hosts during my short stay in Bordeaux. I can’t even begin to tell you how nice it has been to see them and not only talk about old times but also discuss current events. They are such great people.

That’s it for today.

I hope everyone had a great Monday.

Good evening from Bordeaux, France.

I am now in Bordeaux, France 🇫🇷. What a beautiful city. I flew in last night, Saturday night, and I am staying at the Raddison. I am going full bore ugly American tourist. When I checked in last night and got up to my room I discovered that the room had a king size bed with real sheets and pillowcase. I couldn’t believe it. Then I saw that I have a real bathroom all to myself, with a terry cloth robe and those terry cloth bathroom slippers. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It couldn’t get any better, could it? And then I saw that I have a mini refrigerator with Champagne 🍾. The mini fridges at the Holiday Inn in Rock Springs, Wyoming did not have Champagne. But this is France so I guess I should get used to having a mini fridge with Champagne in my room. I truly feel like visiting royalty. The people of Bordeaux seem to be trying to make up for all the crap I got from the Parisians a couple of months ago.

I got up at about 7:00 AM on Sunday morning, showered and dressed in the cleanest clothes I have, not exactly clean but the cleanest I have, and went for a walk along the canal in the back of the hotel where I am staying. Boy was I surprised when I found a flying saucer🛸 in the canal.

Apparently this passes for art and culture in France. I thought they had better taste in France. I would expect this kind of thing in Cleveland, Ohio, not Bordeaux, France.

Then I got another surprise.

Steak N Shake in Bordeaux, France? Has the world gone mad??

BTW – Steak N Shake is a chain of hamburger 🍔 joints that started in my hometown of Springfield, Illinois.

Abe wanted to go in and get a Steakburger, fries and a chocolate milkshake. Unfortunately this Steak N Shake was closed so we had to settle for a chocolate croissant 🥐 and an orange juice.

Did you know that Saturday was National Sandwich Day.

I was shocked to find a Subway next to the Steak N Shake. Bordeaux must be the capital of American fast food joints in France.

At 10:00 AM I met my good friends John Rourke and Jan Stevenson. John was the General Superintendent of the Denver Service Unit for the Union Pacific Railroad and I was his Service Unit Attorney. We became good friends while John and Jan were in Denver. They are on an extended trip to Europe and they graciously invited me to visit them in Bordeaux.

I spent the day touring around Bordeaux with John and Jan as my guides.

As you can see, it was a beautiful day for a walking tour of Bordeaux. The Garonne River runs through Bordeaux and there is a wide promenade that runs for miles along the river. We walked along this promenade with what seemed like every resident of Bordeaux who was capable of ambulation. We visited a farmers’ market along the way that had every imaginable kind of fruit, vegetable, meat, fish, and cheese. I could go on but you get the picture.

We then had lunch. I had a salad with duck gizzards. I didn’t know that I was ordering a salad with duck gizzards as my French is a little rusty. OK, my French is nonexistent. But the duck gizzards were very good and I figure I am in France so why not have a gastronomic adventure. I ate pigeon in Spain. Why not duck gizzards in France?

We spent the early afternoon at John and Jan’s apartment chatting about old times at the Railroad and then strolled down to a local food court where we toasted the end of the day with a glass of tasty Bordeaux. 🍷

I hope everyone had a restful Sunday.

Good evening from Bordeaux, France 🇫🇷.

Today is a travel day. I got up early and fixed breakfast at the alburgue. I then showered and finished packing and walked down to the bus stop to catch the bus to the airport. Marco went with me to the airport as he had to talk to RyanAir about his flight back to Italy 🇮🇹. We sat around the airport coffee shop for a while laughing about our misadventures on the Camino. Walking with Marco and getting to know him was one of the highlights of my Camino.

I am taking a very roundabout route to get to Bordeaux. I am flying RyanAir from Santiago to Majorca and then flying to Bordeaux.

I departed Santiago at about 11:00 AM and landed in Majorca at about 12:30. Unfortunately I have a 7 hour layover in Majorca before I depart for Bordeaux. I am trying to find a comfortable spot in the airport to relax and work on this blog post.

Many of you have asked how my feet have been holding up as I walked the Camino. I added up the steps that my Fitbit recorded for the 41 days I was on the Camino and it added up to over two million steps. That is a lot of steps and missteps in 41 days. They say that when you finally walk into Cathedral Square in Santiago you experience the thrill of victory and the agony of da feet. This statue greets you in Cathedral Square to remind you that your feet got you to the finish line in Santiago.

I was very lucky on my Camino. I did not have one blister. Heck, I did not even have a hot spot. I do have a stone bruise on the ball of my left foot from stepping on the innumerable rocks and stones on the Way.

I wore light weight shoes and I am generally glad I did. They say that a pound on your feet equals 5 pounds in your backpack 🎒. Heavy shoes or boots also tend to trap heat and make your feet sweat and swell. And that makes your feet prone to blisters. REI has a one year no questions asked return policy. I tried almost a dozen pairs of shoes, and returned the shoes that didn’t fit perfectly, until I found two pairs of shoes that I thought would work on the Camino, a pair of Altra trail runners and a pair of Asolo Goretex walking shoes.

I also spent a great deal of time picking out the socks 🧦 I would wear on my Camino. I finally decided to take two pairs of Injinji padded toe socks and two pairs of SmartWool Ph.D padded hiking socks. When we hit Leon I realized that I had worn a hole 🕳 in the ball of the left foot on both pairs of the Injinji toe socks. I love these socks but I think I should have gotten more miles from them before they crapped out. They were not cheap socks and when I get back I plan to call Injinji and lodge a complaint.

Talking about my feet reminds me of the bedtime routine I used to go through with my daughter Dana when she was a toddler.

This is Dana all grown up and as beautiful as any sunrise on the Camino.

When Dana was a toddler she liked to wear tennis shoes with socks. She was always very active and, especially in the summer, her favorite tennis shoes would get a little ripe.

At the end of the day it would be bath time. Dana always wanted me to help her get ready for her bath by taking off her shoes and socks. One evening, as I was taking off her shoes and socks, she asked me if I loved her. I replied as I always did to this inquiry: “Yes Dana I love you much and much.” Then she asked me: “How much do you love me Daddy?” I replied: “Dana, I love you more than than there are stars in the sky and fish in the sea.” Not satisfied with this profession of unbounded love, Dana said that she doubted my love for her and only by smelling her feet would I prove to her that I loved her more than there are stars in the sky and fish 🐠 in the sea. Now I am in a real jam. I had helped Dana remove her shoes and socks and the pungent cloying odor of overripe kid’s tennis shoes, socks and sweaty feet hung in her bedroom like the miasma from a garbage scow. You have seen the cartoon where two buzzards are standing next to a carcass? One turns to the other and says: “OMG, this one smells really bad. Better get more ketchup.” That’s the kind of overripe garbage truck smell I’m talking about. I tried to convince Dana that I loved her so much that smelling her feet was unnecessary. She wasn’t buying that and I knew that the only way to get her into the tub and get her into bed at a reasonable hour was to smell her feet and declare them the best smelling feet ever. So I grabbed her right foot, raised it up to my nose, and took a long deep and loud inhale. I declared her right foot to be the best smelling foot ever. Not satisfied she asked me: “What does it smell like Daddy?” I couldn’t very well tell her that her right foot smelled like an animal carcass that has been on the side of the road for two weeks in the middle of the summer, so I lied. I told her that her right foot smelled like roses🌹. She giggled, apparently pleased by my prevarication, and asked me to smell her left foot. As you can imagine, Dana’s left foot smelled just as bad as her right foot. Trying not to upchuck 🤮 my dinner, I told Dana that her left foot was the best smelling foot ever. Dana was on to my little game now and asked me: “But what does my left foot smell like, Daddy.” I couldn’t very well tell her that her left foot smelled like a Porta Potty at the Illinois State Fair that hasn’t been pumped out for days, so I lied, again. I told Dana that her left foot smelled like perfume. She giggled and seemed pleased with this little white lie. The remainder of her bedtime routine went off without a hitch. I, on the other hand, had her foot odor indelibly imprinted on my brain 🧠. This made it impossible for me to fall asleep. This foot smelling part of Dana’s bedtime routine lasted for the rest of the summer.

In honor of Dana I have named my right foot Roses and my left Perfume. Both Roses and Perfume carried me along the Camino without too much complaining and for that I will be forever grateful.

Speaking of Dana, this is a Wishing Tree 🌳 that I encountered along the Way.

This is what I wrote as my wish.

I then rolled up this piece of paper and attached it to the wishing tree. I sincerely hope that one day the wish that I wrote out and attached to the Camino Wishing Tree comes true.

This is a restaurant at the airport in Majorca.

I found Abe’s picture in this restaurant.

Abe really is a world wide phenomenon.

That’s it for today.

I hope everyone is having a relaxing Saturday.

Good evening from the airport in Majorca, Spain.

Today I am going to take an all day bus tour to Muxía and Finisterre. A number of the St. Jean Pilgrims who arrived in Santiago last Sunday went to the Pilgrim Mass and posed for the obligatory pictures in Cathedral Square, did laundry, had a rest day and then started walking west to Muxía and then on to Finisterre. Both of these villages are on the ocean. It is a hike of about 120 kilometers and according to the weather forecast when I got to Santiago last Sunday it was going to be wet and cold for most of the walk. Instead of hiking in the cold and the rain☔️, I decided to take a bus tour and see Muxía and Finisterre from the comfort of a motor coach. You could say that I have successfully made the transition from Pilgrim to tourist.

The tour bus left Santiago at 9:30 AM and we drove west through low clouds and rain squalls. We got to our first stop, Muxía, at about 10:30 AM.

This is me standing on the Rock of Arlan.

These pants really don’t fit. I am either going to have to gain some weight or get new pants. I am starting to look like a circus clown 🤡.

In days of yore the locals in Muxia used the Rock of Arlan as a judgement stone. The accused would be forced to stand on the stone. If the stone moved, the accused would be declared innocent. If the stone did not move, the accused would be declared guilty and thrown into the raging sea. And this is a massive slab of rock that I’ll bet hasn’t moved since it was laid down when dinosaurs 🦕 roamed the earth. Muxia is and was one tough town and not much of a chance to be judged innocent if you step out of line. As you can imagine, I was on my best behavior in Muxia. If I was caught doing anything illegal or immoral in Muxia, I would skip the whole Stone of Arlan rigamarole, and do a swan dive into the raging sea, trusting that Neptune or St. James The Moorslayer would come to my rescue.

This is me standing on the Rock of Arlan, minding my Ps and Qs, with the Muxia lighthouse in the background. As you have probably guessed, the Rock didn’t move.

This is the Muxia lighthouse.

This is mile marker 0 on the Camino to Muxia.

This is the arch of Muxia.

Legend has it that if you pass through this arch seven times with your backpack 🎒 on your back all the emotional baggage that you have been carrying around in your “backpack” will disappear. This sounds like a bunch of Galician hocus pocus.

This is a cross at Muxia. We stopped here and said a prayer for Anna.

This is the church at Muxia.

Now it is on to Finisterre. This is mile marker 0 on the Camino to Finisterre.

This is the famous lighthouse at Finisterre. It has a bar/restaurant and a few hotel rooms. I have heard that it is a great place to spend an evening

This is the view from the lighthouse.

Now that you have seen the view from the lighthouse you understand why is is a great place to spend the evening. Less well heeled Pilgrims stay down in the town of Finisterre and hike 7 kilometers uphill to sit on the rocks near the lighthouse and drink cheap red wine 🍷 and marvel at the spectacular sunsets. Once the sun sets the rag tag Pilgrims realize that they are more than a little tipsy and now they have to hike 7 kilometers downhill in the dark to get to their crappy alburgue while the fat cat Pilgrims are staying at the fancy dancy lighthouse hotel eating oysters Rockefeller and gargantuan lobsters 🦞 and quaffing the finest French champagne 🍾 . This doesn’t seem fair, but as St. Rita always said: “Fair is where you go to see the Butter Cow.”

It is a tradition for these intoxicated and financially challenged Pilgrims to burn their clothes before they start their drunken hike down to their humble lodgings in Finisterre. This is a recent burn pile.

Burning your clothes at the lighthouse at Finisterre makes no sense for a number of reasons. First, you are going to need those clothes for your walk down the hill to your alburgue in Finisterre. Second, most of your clothes are quick drying synthetic fabrics that might smolder and melt but they are not going to create much of a fire🔥.

Apparently Stephen Hawking visited the lighthouse at Finisterre and thought it was pretty neat. I doubt he burned his clothes. He was too smart for that.

After visiting the lighthouse we went down to the town of Finisterre for lunch. This is the harbor at Finisterre.

After lunch I was walking back to the bus when I spotted these guys weighing buckets of recently harvested sea urchins.

You all seem to be interested in how much weight I have lost so I thought I would mosey on down to where they were working and ask these guys if I could weight myself on their scale. I don’t think they understood me when I asked them if I could hop on their scale and weigh myself. Imagine that. Apparently they thought I wanted to try a raw, just out of the water, sea urchin. I most certainly did not want to try one of these slimy smelly crustaceans. But they insisted and I finally gave up and told them I would love to eat a few sea urchins with them. So they cracked open a bunch of these prickly crustaceans and we had a little raw sea urchin picnic right there on the dock. The raw sea urchins were actually quite tasty.

I am sure you are wondering how these guys harvest sea urchins. Well, I’ll tell you. They don wet suits, as the water is quite cold, and then put on a face mask with an air supply tube. Then they swim down to where the sea urchins live, attached to the rocks. The divers pry the sea urchins off the rocks and put them in baskets that are hauled to the surface. These ugly crustaceans are sold to sushi restaurants all over the world. As Paul Harvey used to say: “Now you know the rest of the story.”

This is our next stop, the Ezaro waterfall.

Our next stop was the second largest horreo, or traditional grain storage structure, in Spain. This horreo is owned by the local Catholic church in Carnota. The parishioners of the church in Carnota had the largest horreo in Spain for a couple of years. The parishioners at a neighboring church built a horreo that was one meter longer and now they have the bragging rights to the biggest horreo in Spain.

This is the pigeon horreo. Our tour guide told us that the small openings at the top are for pigeons to enter the horreo and eat the grain. The pigeons gorge themselves on the grain in the horreo and then get too fat to fit through the openings. When that happens the farmers open the door to the horreo and grab the obese pigeons and pass them off as chicken on the local pilgrim menu. I am more than a little upset that all along my Camino the wiley Spaniards have been serving me pigeon and calling it chicken, but I am glad they are finally coming clean on this issue.

This is the Galician coast. It is some of the most spectacular scenery on the Camino.

When I got back to Santiago at 6:30 PM I met Marco and Giorgio for a farewell dinner. What better place to have a farewell dinner than the sushi 🍣 place in Santiago.

We had a feast fit for a shogun and then went to Cathedral Square for a Three Amigos farewell picture.

I hope everyone had a great Friday.

Good evening from Santiago de Compostela, Spain.