Bruge

Yesterday and today we have been in Brugge.  What a treat!!!  

This town has suffered very little damage in either war and is one of the best preserved medieval towns in Europe.  They have done a great job of preserving it and making it available to both residents and visitors. Because of its canals, it is often called "The Venice of Europe."

The center of town sits inside the moat which used to surround the city's walls.  The walls are gone but the shape and size of the town has not changed.  This is a Flemish town.  BTW, Belgium is a split country.  Half the country is basically French derived and speaks French with French customs.  The other half is more Germanic and speaks Flemish.  The citizens learn both languages.  

Belgium is officially bilingual.  A large number of their tourists are British so a large number of Belgians speak English.  Placards are printed in 4 languages, the list above plus German.  

The tourist area is quite compact, so it is easily seen by walking.  The Town Hall and anything around the main square are delightful.  There are also a variety of museums and activities centered on the crafts scattered in the area.

At one point during the early Renaissance, these cities were incredibly wealthy due to their skill at making fabric, tapestries, and lace.  So, over time they were ruled by the Spanish, the Austrians, the Hapsburgs -- anyone who had an empire in Europe going all the way back to Charlemagne and the Romans.  They still honor their skills making tapestries and lace.  Women (mostly) still do them and they are treasured.  The people are quite well educated and prosperous.

World War I Remembered

This afternoon, we were in Ieper/Ypres looking at more WWI battlefields.  WWI is the war that really matters in Europe -- 4 empires were either destroyed or so weakened they never recovered; a whole generation of men were killed and massive amounts of others were maimed; the economies everywhere were turned on their heads; and the whole ensuing confusion and chaos led just 21 years later to WWII.  

In one day alone, the British lost 21,000 men on an 18-mile line of battle.  It's an amazing figure.  Try to imagine how you would stack 21,000 bodies in an 18-mile line.  In World War I, Britain lost over 2,000,000 total; France lost 1.2 million total.  And that doesn't count the living casualties nor does it count the damage done to farms, buildings, transportation, communication, etc.  

The strategies and techniques that the commanders used and had learned in the military training were so overwhelmed by the newly developed weapons that much of the war was just guess and test as to what would work.  Things were so bad that the French soldiers were mutinying refusing to move forward in 1917 because they had lost faith that their leaders were really planning to accomplish much without just sacricing all the men.  

By the time the US came into WWI in late 1917, Britain and France had been fighting for 4 years and was just about out of resources of all kinds -- men, food, fuel, weapons, etc.

We have now been through northern France and are in Belgium visiting memorials and cemeteries. There are about 12,000 cemeteries in France with nothing but soldiers from the two world wars. World War II marked the 3rd time that Germany had invaded France in less than 100 years, so there are not so many resting places for Germans, but there are many for the British and the other allies who fell in battle.

Each allied country set up a commission whose job it is to maintain a record of each grave and to keep the grounds in good order.  They have done an impressive job.  In every cemetery we saw the grounds were carefully tended, the tombstones clean and in good shape.  Some of the cemeteries are large with thousands of graves.  Some are quite small with only several hundred.  

The British buried their dead without regard to rank, just side by side sharing the same date of death.  

The Germans have the simplest markers, and that is probably because they were allowed the least money when their decisions were made.  In the WWI German cemeteries the Jewish soldiers are buried mixed in with the Teutonic soldiers.  The German Jews volunteered in larged numbers for WWI because they wanted to demonstrate what loyal Germans they were.  Based on events 25 years later, it did them little good.  The marker in the photo is shared by four German soldiers, two on each side.  Not all markers are shared but it is not uncommon and another measure of the little amount of money the Germans had to spend.

On one battlefield, there is a memorial for the missing, the soldiers whose bodies were never found when the battle was over.  There are 72,000 names on this memorial!  

Some of the trenches near Ypres are now inside the city limits.  One company discovered that some of the trenches were on its property and reproduced them as a memorial.  They are complete with the sandbags, the boardwalks, and the underground rooms.  They have not built the actual rooms underground, because of liability concerns, but on the surface they have drawn the outlines of what was underneath so it is easy to understand the layout and size of this section of trenches.

In Ypres, there is a memorial gate for the WWI dead that holds a ceremony similar to Taps every evening at 8:00.  The maps from the war show that several lines of trenches were located at aras that are now inside the city.  One of the companies has created replicas of the trenches on its property complete with sandbags and underground rooms.

In Ypres also there is a terrific museum that tries to personalize the experience of serving in the WWI battles near the town.  Each visitor is given a card with a soldier's name on it.  At various stations throughout the museum, the card is entered in a computer and the visitor gets to find out what his/her "soldier" has been doing "so far" in the war.  Mine was a miner from England.  His job was to dig tunnels under the German lines which were then loaded with explosives and set off.  He was killed in 1917, digging.

Ypres was the home of the fellow who wrote the poem, "In Flanders Field."  I learned that the choice of poppies is much more significant than I knew.  Poppies typically grow only on land that has suffered destruction and is not good for farming or building.  Wow!  Go read that poem again and see if you don't pick up a new layer of comprehension.

There was one section of battlefield in Belgium, near Ypres, where there was an interesting thaw.  On Christmas Eve 1917, everyone was sitting in the dark in their trenches, when the British and French started hearing singing.  They listened more closely and realized that the German soldiers were singing Christmas carols.  Pretty soon the British and French were signing along too.  After awhile, they starting raising their torches and came out of their trenches to great each other.  For the next three days, both armies refused to fight, instead celebrating friends by playing soccer and visiting with each other.  If you look on the ground of this photo you will see some small, wooden crosses.  We saw these in every cemetery and memorial.  They are inscribed with "We remember" or "Lest We Forget".  There are also large numbers of the poppy wreaths that have been laid in remembrance.

For more comments and photos, visit my collection on Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37751802@N08/collections/

Amiens - Battlefields and a Cathedral

Today we drove to Amiens and got into World War I.  We visited the trenches and battlefields along the Somme River.  The land is so peaceful and pleasant that it is really hard to believe the battles that have been fought here.  

On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British lost 21,000 dead on the 18 miles they attacked on.  The trenches once everyone settled into them stretched 500 miles from the coast all the way to the Alps and were three lines deep in both armies and sometimes only a few yards apart.  The British have some 200 cemetaries along here.  The Canadians, Nez Zealanders, US, have many more.

All over Europe the most popular reenactment groups are WWI groups, like the one we ran into at the church with the paratrooper.  I am told that two things have contributed to the focus on WWI.  One is the interest in genealogy so families are searching for ancestors who participated in the war and they have both resources through the Internet and money to come to the battle sites on their quest.  Also, the news that the last of the WWI veterans are dying makes people think about it - Britain has only 2 left; the last one in France died in March.  I think we have 1-2 left in the US.

The cathedral in Amiens had the spotlight this morning and deserves every bit of it.  It has the tallest ceiling of any cathedral that managed to stand on its own -- 42 meters, which is, what, about 140 feet or half a football field tall.  Construction began in 1206 and has continued since. Most impressive to me is that it has a museum's worth of art done in every way you can think of -- painted, sculpted in a variety of media, bas relief in a variety of media, on furnishings in a variety of media. 

It is pretty much dedicated to St John the Baptist because they claim to have his head.  We saw the reliquary, which of course is solid gold with decorative gemstones.  Some non-believers in the crowd were telling me that there are at least 5 John the Baptist heads around, but that doesn't seem to be known to this church.  This one was brought back by knights in the Fourth Crusade in the 1200's.  They found it in Constantinople and brought it here.  

This cathedral also has lots of angels, and they are very individual angels and very human ones.  There is one who is sort of holding his head in his hand and seems to be crying.  Soldiers in WWI took pictures of this one and sent it all over the world as their Weeping Angel.  

All the angels and other figures in this chapel are portrayed as loving and compassionate, which is good to see since the style in some churches is very authoritative and judgmental. 

There several series of panels separated by gothic arches which have either scenes painted or bas relief scenes sculpted within each arch.  Some of the scenes show daily life.  Some show various saints or the holy stories.  Some show some of the cathedral's bishops doing the good works they were noted for.  

There are at least 8 of the bishops buried within the cathedral.  Their statues are done in brass, in ivory and gold, some have real cloth garments.  One has his foot resting on a lion.  One has his feet resting on twin birds of some sort.  

Most of the stained glass windows were bombed out in one war or another, especially WWI, so the really colorful windows are fairly new.  The colors are brilliant featuring jeweltone blues and reds -- gorgeous.  There are two rose windows - yummy!!  One of the older stain glass windows was commissioned by Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie, so they are represented in small figures to the side.  

World War I units who fought in the battle of Ameins from all over the world have organized and created memorials inside the cathedral dedicated to their members who died in the battles there.  

For additional photos and comments about Amiens, visit my collection on Flicker:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37751802@N08/collections/72157617235525917/

Normandy Beaches and Mere-Sainte-Eglise

We went to them all, the beaches that is.  We heard all the tactics and plans.  There are five of them.  Only two were handled by the Americans.  The others went to the British, the Canadians, and the New Zealanders.  In this picture are the remains of a temporary harbor the Allies offloaded in an attempt to create a safe place to land large equipment once they had control of the coast.

We saw the hedgerows and now understand why they would be so difficult to get through -- they were first planted in the middle ages as wind breaks and are extremely sturdy.  Also the roads were first laid out in the middle ages and have gradually gotten lower and lower from being used,  so that each narrow road has tall banks on both sides.  Ambushes would be easy.  Tank or even vehicle travel would be very difficult.  

We saw the church of Sainte-Mère-Église where the parachutists landed and one got caught hanging from the church spire.  They have reproduced his experience with a dummy dressed like him and caught just as he was.

  The villagers had to replace three of their stained glass windows due to bombing.  

One of them shows the parachutes coming down;  

another pays tribute to the veterans who returned after 25 years.  

We got really lucky and witnessed a reenactment group doing a photo shoot of villagers exiting the church after services and being greeted by US soldiers.  The reenacters were a French-Belgian group who also let us take a lot of shots with them.

 

We're finding the French people to be very friendly.  We like 'em

Hotel D'Argouges - Bayeux, France

http://www.ohotellerie.com/dargouges/index.php?p=accue...

The main building of this hotel was built in the 16th century by an aristocratic family for visiting the countryside.  Today's rooms are in the main building, the Garden House, and the Stable.  The hotel is operated by the family which owns it, and they have created a charming place to visit.

The hotel is located in downtown Bayeux.  This small town near both Caen and the Normandy beaches is quite charming in its own right.  The downtown neighborhood is the location of quite a few homes built 2-4 centuries ago by affluent families for vacation time.  They've been maintained well so that walking their streets is delightful with a wide variety of sights.  

The cathedral is huge, gothic and under constant construction.  Shopping is for pedestrians and quite fun.  The plaza across the street from the hotel is home to a Saturday market with fresh flowers, live animals and birds, clothing, jewelry, books and whatever else someone wants to put in a booth to sell.  

The main attraction to me in Bayeux is its tapestry.  This 230 feet long embroidered linen tells the story of the Battle of Hastings, when William the Conqueror defeated his cousin Harold to become king of England, and which marks the last successful invasion of Britain.  The tapestry is a marvel.  In pictures it shows the politics, the preparation, the actual battle, and the results of the major landmark event of English history.  No one knows for sure who designed or made the tapestry.  It is told from William's viewpoint, although it is respectful of Harold, so the general conclusion is that William's wife, Queen Matilde, either commissioned or helped create the tapestry.  It is so valuable as a historical document that it is protected as a United Nations World Heritage Piece.

And back to the hotel.  As with most of these houses, the street view of the hotel is a tall, stone wall, with a double gate.  You walk or drive through the gate and proceed up a long driveway lined with potted trees.  The building greets you with two curved staircases taking you up to the front door on the first (or to Americans, second) floor.   The doors open into a small foyer where you register and get your keys.  Beyond the foyer is a larger lobby with marble fireplaces and wingback chairs where you can wait for people or read.  On either side of this lobby are dining rooms.  The larger one is bright with yellows, a marble fireplace topped by a huge gilt-framed mirror.  It has the tall French windows looking out into the garden and wall completely covered by a tapestry of a hunting picnic in the eighteenth century.

The wife of the family acts as the hostess, registering and greeting guests.  She is a very attractive woman who dressed to the 9's every day -- heels; accessories, makeup, smile, every inch the hostess.  The first day she had on a beige silk suit.  Yesterday she had on a black brocade with red roses jacket over a white blouse with roses for the collar.  Today she had another suit.  No slacks.  Always dress shoes with stiletto heels.  Yup.  Whole different set of values and behavior for professional women in France than in the US.

The Chunnel -- England and France

We're going through the Chunnel.  We have to get there early and sign up for the train through the tunnel.  

You don't drive across yourself.  You arrive and book a time on one of the three trains.  There is one for freight; a double decker for cars; and one for buses and tall things.  You are allowed to drive on at your assigned time, then thirty minutes later you are in France.  There is another train somewhere for passengers, but nowhere do you just decide to drive to France and go through the tunnel.  You can tell when you have entered and left the Chunnel because the windows in your train car go dark, then light.  Pretty cool.  And definitely fast.

Oh, a side note:  the chunnel has so speeded up travel across the English Channel that people now regularly travel between London and Paris in 2 hours 15 minutes.  It has greatly increased interest in day trips or a special dinner date between the two countries as well.  Just those two results makes the tunnel appear to be a really sound investment, eh?

Battle of Britain Memorial

The monument to the pilots of the Battle of Britain was dedicated in 1993.  It's a grassy knoll overlooking the English Channel on the next set of cliffs down coast from Dover.  They put a circle with 3 propellors laid out around it; think of looking headon at the nose of a fighter plane and that's what is represented.  

In the middle of the circle up a few steps is a larger than life statue of a pilot sitting on the ground watching the sky and waiting for the planes to come home.  

Behind the pilot about 20 feet was a lifesize statue of a golden retriever.  And he's watching the sky too with an anxious but hopeful face.  The artist so well captured the spirit of a dog like that; it makes you really want to see the pilots return because the dog is so faithfully waiting.  

Off to one side of these statues they have a long memorial wall on which the names of 3,000 members of the crews from the Battle of Britain are inscribed.  Several of us looked for the names of someone they knew who had participated in the Battle.  On the other side of the memorial were replicas of the two planes used by the RAF in the Battle.

 

Our day was sunny, mild, gentle breezes, absolutely gorgeous.  It's one of those days that is so absolutely gorgeous that the thought of all the mayhem and anguish that we were hearing about just seems not to belong in the world at all.

Dover -- White Cliffs, a Castle and Tunnels

Today we went to Dover.  And yes the cliffs are truly white.  They're several hundred feet tall and run for 12 miles.  They are made of chalk.  And the reason they are white is that chunks of the rock are falling off all the time.

But the best thing about the cliffs is Dover Castle.  It pretty well covers the whole hilltop behind the cliffs.  The castle and yard - that's "bailey" to the English - are surrounded by a wall.  Then, the outbuildings, ruins and rest of the hilltop are surrounded by an additional wall.  

This castle would be *very* difficult to capture.  It was built by Henry II both as a palace for him to stay in and as a lookout for invading parties coming by sea.  Dover is right at the narrowest part of the English Channel and the span of the water is only 22 miles between the island and the continent.  Henry would come and stay until things got "smelly", usually about 2 months, before moving on to smell up some other castle.  He'd bring his whole court and they'd hunt, party, conduct business -- in other words, live and govern -- for so long as their activities did not overwhelm the castle.

 

Also inside the larger walls of the castle is the oldest standing ruin from the Romans.  It's a lighthouse, or "pharos".  They had two, one at the castle and one on the other side of the town of Dover.  Ships could locate themselves by the two lights and knew to sail between them to get to the port.

 

But what we spent the most time on was underground.  There are secret tunnels under the castle.  The first ones were built in 1804 for barracks for soldiers in case Napoleon tried to invade.  He was thinking about it for awhile, then decided not to.  The tunnels were left behind.

 

They were used again in WWII, most notably for Operation Dynamo.  Never heard of it?  Sure you have.  It was the rescue of the Allied soliders from Dunkirk.  A fellow named Ramsay was installed with his team in the tunnels and they managed the logistics and all the details of getting 338,000 soldiers out of Dunquerque in 10 days in late May-early June 1940.  It is still considered a miracle that they saved so many.  Ramsey and his team did all the planning, ordering and communicating about how the small boats, the military boats and the covering planes were to operate and on what schedules.  Did you know they lashed the small boats together and dragged them into Dunkirk with a tug boat?  I didn't either.  My guess is that a mass of 25-30 small boats lashed was easier to load and maneuver until they were filled up and ready to dash back to Dover.  They had to evacuate as many as 1000 soldiers per hour to get out the huge numbers that they rescued;  that's what, 170 or so per minute?  Most of the soldiers were British, but they also came from Australia, New Zealand, and a total of 8 Allied countries.  One of the unexpected good luck things that happened during those 10 days was that the seas were unusually quiet and stable for the entire period. 

 

As the soldiers first got out of France, the injured ones came in to England through the tunnels in Dover for medical treatment.  They had (I think) 8 wards and at least one surgery.  The effort was to stabilize each wounded soldier and hopefully save his leg, or arm, or life, then he was sent on to a full hospital for rehab.  They also got pilots who were injured during the airfights that made up the Battle of Britain.  

The Battle of Britain is considered a major point in World War II as well.  The Allied fighters did not stop any bombs from being dropped but they did prevent the RAF from being destroyed, and they slowed things down so much that any invasion of England had to be put on hold while the Germans fought in the Mediterranean and Russia.

 

Later in the war, the tunnels were used as a fake front to keep the Germans convinced that the Allies intended to invade at Calais.  They kept Ramsay and all his team working hard in the tunnels, so the Germans would believe all the fakery the Allied command was putting out.

 

Their tour was done in a really interesting way.  Of course, a film about it all was first.  Then, they took us to the entry point for a wounded man, and we followed him all the way through surgery - we heard the conversations where the medics are waiting for "a friend to drop in" and they discuss where they might take him and his wound; he's being brought in, in pain and mumbling; the medics start down the hallway with him, and if there was bombing the lights flashed and we could hear explosions; the wounded man winds up in surgery with the surgeon fretting that the lights are down low and they must stop the arterial bleeding; then there are explosions and the lights go out; after that the overhead lights come on dimly but the surgical lights don't come on at all; so then the surgeon has to decide what minimal thing he could do so the soldier could be sent somewhere else.  It really brought home a lot of being-there type reactions. 

 

We got to see the kitchen, which smelled like stew was cooking; the communications room with banks of phone switchboards, enough to handle up to 610 calls, and with 2-3 telex machines as well; the map room for planes; the map rooms for ships; the barracks where people slept.  I

n order to work in the tunnels, each person had to sign a War Office Secrecy document promising not to socialize with others outside their unit whether the persons worked in the tunnels or elsewhere.  As a result, the tunnels were a big secret for most of the war. 

 

The tunnels were also used during the cold war period.  The British had twelve centers underground around the country.  Each one was for a regional government in case of a nuclear attack.  The national government would pretty much go dormant and the regional ones would take over.  The government operating from Dover's tunnels would govern Kent, Sussex, southeastern England.  The tunnels where those operations were set up are still not open to the public - secrecy and safety issues the guide said.  The operations in the tunnels were not completely closed down and turned over as a historical site until 1984.  The guide said the papers relating to activities in the tunnels are to be kept secret until 2048 or 2084, I guess depending on what activities are being revealed.

 

Hastings and its Battle

The Battle of Hastings happened in October, 1066 (!!!).  Yup, almost 1000 years ago.  It's the last time England was successfully invaded by anyone.  What happened was the man who was king at the start of the year died in January, 1066 without any sons to follow after him.  Two cousins wanted the job.  One of them, Harold, was actually in England and decided to take the throne;  he got the council of barons to vote him in - that's how they did succession in those days, by a vote of the lords' council - and he was crowned almost before the funeral happened.  The other cousin was William, Duke of one of the richest and strongest French provinces, Normandy, who said that the previous king had willed the kingdom to him and that Harold had sworn alleigance to this arrangement.  He started gathering an army of about 8,000 soldiers and a fleet of about 700 ships to travel across the English Channel.  Meanwhile, one of Harold's brothers allied with some Vikings to take England for himself.  So, Harold had to march his army 300 miles to fight and defeat this brother's army.  Then he got word that William was coming, so they marched back south to Hastings to get ready for another battle.  That's a bunch of marching and fighting for an all-infantry army in a matter of about 2 weeks. 

 

Harold's guys got to Hastings first and took command of a hill.  That put William's army at a disadvantage but they attacked anyway.  They attacked up the hill,  fought hard and got pushed back.  When they started to retreat, some of Harold's guys got all excited and followed them down thinking they could win quickly.  Aha!  William sent his cavalry and they killed all who came off the hill, about 2,000 of Harold's men.  BTW, Harold didn't have any cavalry, which is an interesting fact since his army was in England the whole time while William had lots of cavalry but had to bring them all across the water.

 

So, anyway, that part of the battle took about 1-2 hours to happen, and when it was over Harold's guys were still on top of their hill and William's guys were still making no headway.  This had all started about 9:00 am so now it's about 11:00 am.  They keep putzing at each other until early afternoon when William hit on an idea.  Since the retreat in the morning had had such nice results for his side, why not try it again but as a pretend move to get more of Harold's men to follow off the hill and then hopefully be surrounded and done in.  So, they tried it.  Sure enough, it worked;  more followed and all were killed.  Also, Harold was killed in that attack possibly by an arrow through the eye.

 

The battle kept going on until late afternoon when William's guys finally surrounded Harold's guys on top of the hill, killed all the leaders and got everyone who was still alive to stop fighting.  The thinking is that if Harold could have controlled his guys better and kept them all on top of the hill, he probably would not have lost.  So, in essence the battle was decided in that first rout in the morning.

 

Once William had won and all the opposing lords were dead, he became king of England and set about establishing a strong government which lasted pretty well through the centuries until the War of the Roses just before Henry VIII and Elizabeth I in the 16th century.   So, William ruled Britain for about 500 years.

 

Another key result of this invasion was that William and his court spoke French.  So, for the next 200 years or so, French was the language of the educated folks of England.  And that, my friends, is why about 40% of our modern English has roots in Latin and French.

 

To prove himself, William obeyed an order from the Pope and built an Abbey on the site of the battle.  What we saw today was the ruins of that abbey and the large field they have protected for almost 1000 years.  Just FYI, as part of our Bicentennial celebration in 1976, the US used money donated by Americans to buy the battlefield as a gift to the government of England.  So, now it is a protected historical site.

 

Also, if you are interested, the French province of Normandy is called that because of the Vikings.  They began invading the coasts of France and Great Britain in the 800s and 900s.  The king of France, who didn't really have much power outside of Paris at that time, made a deal with the Vikings; they could have the coast for their own land if they would promise not to invade or attack inland.  The Vikings kept to the deal and settled along the coast; i.e. Normandy for "Northmen."  Brittany is a bit different.  And no it is not named because Britains went and settled there.  The early inhabitants of both France and Britain were the Celts.  When the Romans came, they pushed the Celts farther north out of their way both on the island and the mainland.  The people of Brittany are what's left of the Celtic inhabitants on the mainland.

 

After the battlefield we went to Rye for lunch and wandering around.  Rye is one of the Cinque Ports.  "Cinque" is a french word meaning 5, although they don't use the actual french pronunciation, so the Cinque Ports are a group of 5 ports - although there are actually 7 of them - that were set up by William and his successor kings to promote trade and protect the coast line.  They have several special privileges.  One of them is that they get to carry the canopy over the king for his inaugural.  It was pointed out that they don't get to do this very often, but still.....  They also are exempt from some duties and taxes, and they have the right to salvage any wrecks in their territory.  Well, having that last right was an incentive to create wrecks, so they sorta got lawless and out of hand for a while.  During the late medieval times and Elizabethan times, they were pretty rowdy and got into smuggling among other nefarious activities.

 

We ate lunch in Rye in a dining room with a view of the English Channel that is just a few bumps away from the hill we were on.  They we wandered through the town looking at the medieval and more recent buildings.  Also, we saw a home where Henry James lived for 18 years and wrote a fair number of his novels.  He had good taste.  He picked a place on the top of the hill overlooking the ocean.  Quite nice.

 

Since we were in a bus for a long while today I got a chance to pay attention to what is on the roads.  For one thing, all the cars still seem amazingly new and highly polished.  Police cars and ambulances both are a sort of yellow with their sides checkerboarded with green squares.  I forgot to mention the taxis in London, and out here too for that matter.  Until recently they were all black; some now have colors usually advertising something and some quite creatively.  They are all sedans on the order of cars that were used in the late 40s - large, squarish, big fenders.  I don't know who makes them or why they've stuck with that look, but it's uniform; you see a car that looks like that, you know it's a taxi.

 

For another thing, these guys are amazing drivers.  The highway is only two narrow - note, narrow - lanes wide with no shoulders.  Sometimes we know we could reach out and take the steering wheel of the car passing us; there can't be 3 inches between our bus and the car/bus/truck going the other direction.  But they've got it cool, keep going, and never hit anyone.  Only once did we even slow down and that was so we could slip by an 18-wheel rig that was even tighter than the others.  And no one crowds anyone or uses their horn.  They just all seem to know what to do, and do it fast.

 

We saw tons of sheep today.  Great big fat fluffy sheep.  some had painted squares on their backs - blue, red, green -  which indicates what shots they've just had.  One group of about 20 with blue squares on their shoulders were hightailing at a run from the barn toward the far corner of the pasture.  I'm betting they had just been treated and wanted nothing more to do with humans; get away from me!  Baaa!  I've had two discussions about why they're so fat - well, they are always eating, but ... - does it mean they're pregnant?  We haven't seen but one lamb so far.  Or, does it mean it's almost time to shear them so they are wearing a year's worth of wool.  It's probably both, but as I said before, some are so fat you're not sure they got feet!

Hotel Saint Cecilia

Mariah: So Laura and I have been gallivanting around local media events. Apparently there are PR people out there who treat bloggers like serious journalists. Little do they know, we're just weekend hobbyist. But who am I to turn down a free open bar and all the appetizers I can manage to stuff down my throat? This latest free shindig was sponsored by the Texas Hill Country Food and Wine Festival. Apparently there is a whole festival in Austin every year dedicated to food and wine. If it weren't for the HEFTY entrance fee ($45 for the Sunday Fair alone), I'd have let y'all know about it long ago. But seriously? Who can afford to blow $45 in this economy? Not many people.

Laura: Yeah, we pretty much feel like we've hit the jackpot here. Free food and cool people just for doing what we love? What a great deal. I have to disagree with Mariah there on the Texas Hill Country Food and Wine Festival entrance fee. Sure it's not cheap, but this particular orgy of food and drink in question happens once a year, features great chefs and wine and Sunday is a 5 hour event. $45 every weekend adds up, but on an occasion like this for a true foodie, one might be inclined to dig a bit between the couch cushions.

Mariah: Anyway, they hosted a special "Media" reception at the Hotel Saint Cecilia, that trendy new boutique hotel off South Congress. Its a lovely little space with hip rooms and divine grounds. But at $450 a night (yes, you read that right), who but P Diddy could afford to stay there? But, it was nice to poke around and gawk at the finery I'll never be able to afford in a million years. Its owned by the same people who are responsible for the San Jose. My cousin stayed there and it was really nice and hip, and at $250 a night, I thought *IT* was steep. But no, it wasn't expensive enough. They had to spawn an even more expensive and awsome hotel. Apparently there is a market in Austin for ultra rich hipsters. Who knew?

Laura: This place was gorgeous in a super hipster kind of way. Man oh man I want the designer to come revamp my home. I can't afford to spend the $450/weeknight ($550/night on a weekend) to stay there but if any of you out there do, please give me a call and I'll come hang out with you next to the awesome pool.

Mariah: We sat on the $27,000(!!!!) mattress. Actually, we jumped up and down on the $27,000 mattress with the hand embroidered duvet. Laura: Was it really $27,000? Are you sure you didn't add an extra zero in there? Either way it was seriously comfortable. If I was staying there I probably wouldn't get out of bed all day. Mariah: We shamelessly took pictures of the antique Chinese chests (reproductions available at 4 Hands)

Laura: Notice the record player on the chest. Every room comes with one and you can check out records from the office to play. You also can't see it in this photo but there's a super kick ass portrait of Neil Young on the wall.

Mariah: And since we ARE a food blog, I thought I'd let you guys see those $9 vintage looking candy bars you'll never get to eat. Laura: Nom, nom, nom.

Mariah: And who knows where the hell they found this butt-cheek chair (thought the bathroom cabinets were all IKEA)

Laura: Yeah that struck me by surprise. Uber expensive bed and furnishings and IKEA bathroom cabinet and IKEA rug. I suppose if you can afford to stay here you'd never know some of the furnishing were IKEA because you probably don't shop there. Mariah: We grabbed a glass (or 10) of the free Messina Hoff wine (their Chardonnay this year is better than its been) and strolled around the gardens. They had artfully crafted beautiful outside spaces. Including this fire pit that you too could sit around, enjoying a glass of wine, after ACL. Too bad there's a 3 year waiting list and a $600 entry fee. (P.S. That's Laura getting saucy).

Laura: It's my best "the world will never understand me" distraught melodramatic heiress pose.

Mariah: Or walk down this zen-like stone path

Mariah: To the even more zen-like lap pool (they're too good for a full pool - no one in a $600 bathing suit actually swims anyway).

Laura: Do you think they'll let me swim there in my Old Navy bathing suit?

Mariah: No, Laura, they won't. The whole event was catered by Whole Foods. They had hand passed appetizers that were tasty, but surprisingly hard to eat. The sausage slices with slaw were hard to nibble in a ladylike fashion. You have to stuff the whole thing in your mouth and chew quickly. The watermelon with pickled onions was excellent, but again hard to eat. Blah blah, you'll never eat these, so why am I bothering to review them?

Laura: The appetizers I tried were really good. If you got there early enough you could actually have quite a few without much effort. Kudos must be given to the staff. They were incredibly hospitable. I know you are never going to eat them, but I'll make you jealous of them anyway.

Laura: The watermelon with pickled onions that Mariah was describing was also complemented by a dash of goat cheese and served in a cocktail glass. Very refreshing and the watermelon worked fantastically with the cheese and pickled onions. Yum. I had quite a few of the mini mushroom tacos in corn tortillas with micro field greens and a dollop of yogurt. There was also a smokey-like shrimp topped on a black eyed pea patty. A crispy quail with what looked like a honey mustard sauce and smelled like my childhood. And some sort of beef with blackberries and rich dark BBQ sauce. Oh and a few other items I can't even remember. As the crowd started piling in, the appetizers became more and more elusive. So we left.

Mariah: If you have the money, check it out though