Carol
writes: The days of November had been clicking right
along. Before we knew it, Thanksgiving
had arrived and we found ourselves in Fatima, perhaps the most well-known of
all the Catholic pilgrimage sites. In
1917, in the pastoral fields of Fatima, three young shepherd children claimed
that the Blessed Virgin Mary had appeared to them. Fast-forward almost a century and the
apparition site now has a visitation chapel
and a grand
basilica dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Francisco
and Jacinta died as children and were declared ‘Blessed’ (one step shy of sainthood)
by Pope John Paul II. Lucia lived as a
nun to the ripe old age of 97. All three
shepherd children have been entombed in niche areas toward the front of the
basilica.
Since we
don’t have the ability to use our RV’s convection oven, our Thanksgiving Day in
Fatima did not feature a turkey dinner—cheese ravioli instead—but, after all,
Thanksgiving isn’t just about the food, and Fatima seemed to be a perfect place
to spend the night and reflect on how fortunate we were to be able to undertake
such an incredible European RV adventure.
As we
flipped the calendar page to December, we found ourselves beginning a long
1500-mile drive to Amsterdam—through Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, and the
Netherlands. On our last night in
Portugal our streak of incredible good luck took a wrong turn. Unfortunately, Al misjudged a left turn in a
housing area and we scraped a low stone wall.
Al writes:
In my defense, it was a narrow one-way lane with stone walls instead of
curbs making a 90-degree turn.
Carol
writes: The crunch we heard was the sound of a 7-foot
section of our running board and attached sewer hose storage tube being ripped
off. The streak of nonstop cussing I
heard was from Al…well, enough said.
Al
writes: I only cussed about a minute and stopped when I was
surrounded by lots of Portuguese men providing all kinds of advice in a couple
of languages I did not understand.
Carol
writes: Three elderly Portuguese men came to our aid
and helped hold the loose end while Al unscrewed the remaining screws that held
the dangling running board. Once again,
we were witness to the incredible kindness of strangers. So, now we are faced with hauling a loose, unwieldy
section of running board (with its attached sewer hose storage tube) around
with us in the RV by day, leaving it outside our doorstep at night, hoping we
don’t forget it and run over it in the morning.
For the record, we have only run over it once.
A couple of
days ago we discovered that the shipping date for our RV had been moved up by
three days. For us, that meant no more
easy days of driving. Fortunately, Spain’s
divided highways were excellent, so we made good time on our planned route
along a section of the Camino de Santiago, the 400-mile pilgrimage path across
northern Spain that was made even more famous in the movie “The Way” starring Martin Sheen.
(…great flick if you haven’t seen it…)
We finished
up our drive through Spain in Basque country, then entered into French Basque
country where we admired the unique beauty of the whitewashed buildings with
their traditional red or green shutters.
Once again,
we found France very camper friendly with lots of free “aires” where travelers
passing through are welcome to camp for the night. We especially like the ones in small towns.
We even camped
for the night in one “aire” that we had used last summer on a blistering hot
day. I have such a clear memory of camping
next to this weeping willow while savoring its blessedly cool shade.
There were
many things to love about France last summer, but one of my favorites was its
excellent French bread. It was heavenly once
again to bite into a fresh slice smeared with a little butter. Throughout our European travels, we have
found no other country that makes bread as delicious as the loaves we savored
in France.
As we left
France, we celebrated buying our last tank of very costly European diesel fuel…
and looked
forward (??) to paying about half the price back in the good ole USA.
It seemed
like the 1500-mile drive to Amsterdam would take forever, but within 5 days we
found ourselves back in the land of the “giants” (the very tall inhabitants of the
Netherlands). We also noticed that even
on blustery, freezing days the Dutch people still have a love affair with
riding bikes.
It was with
some trepidation that we dropped our RV off at the shipping line in Amsterdam.
We will not
see it again until January 11th when we meet up with it at the port
of Jacksonville. Meanwhile, we nervously
checked off all the last-minute details with the shipping line. We also packed our large duffle bags on
wheels with every piece of clothing and all the personal items we thought we
would need for the next 5 weeks. Did we
forget anything? Time will tell, but so
far, so good. We are now tucked away in a
nice, cozy, small European hotel called “The Poet.”
We have
weathered a big nasty storm off the North Sea that blew through the first night. The creature comforts of our hotel have felt awfully
good after almost 9 months of living out of our RV. Last night it felt a little strange to both of
us to sleep without a sleeping bag, hat, gloves, and hoodie. For now, I think we are going to enjoy a lot
of sights in Amsterdam that we missed last April and we were
here as newbies at this European lifestyle.
“When preparing to travel, lay out
all your clothes and all your money.
Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” Susan Heller
You did better than I, I would have run over it at least twice.....
ReplyDelete