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Show Experiences Of Recent Trip To Europe Are Recounted By Two Basin Ladies By Mrs. Mattie Edwards When Minnie Lue Stevenson and I boarded the United Air Line plane at Salt Lake City on our way to New York to catch the S.S United States, we never dreamed dream-ed of the wonderful experiences we would have before we returned home. Before we got to New York we encountered a part of the hurricane, hur-ricane, Diane, which made our trip an exciting one. Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wright and my granddaughter, MaReen Nelson, meet us at the airport, took us to dinner and to the play at Radio City, where we were thrilled at the ballet dancers, the Rockettes and other features In the morning we took the ship for Europe. As we left the harbour and watched the Goddess of Liberty disappear, we felt a tightening of our heartstrings and a little regret at leaving our own country.. A delightful trip on this lovely ship of four days and five nights gave us a great deal of entertainment entertain-ment such as picture shows, dancing, dan-cing, library facilities, a swimming pool, delicious food, and every convenience con-venience for our comfort. Arriving at LaHavre, France, we took a train boat to Paris where Richard Wright met us with lovely love-ly flowers and a taxi to take us to our hotel. In Paris we stayed five days, seeing among a multitude of interesting in-teresting sights, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Ca-thedral, the Louvre Museum in which we thrilled to see the "Mona Lisa," which, by the way was well guarded so we could not get more than six feet near it; the Apollo Belvadere; the Venus De Milo; the Avenue de l'Opera; the flower markets, the Eiffel Tower; the Arc of Triumph, and Unknown Soldier's Sol-dier's grave; Chapel and Tomb of Napoleon; the Latin quarter; Art Colony; Montmarte and the Church of the Sacred Heart. Eating at a sidewalk cafe on the famous Champs-Elysees, tasting the French omelet and a Crape Suzette was a delightful experience, as well as shopping in the beautiful shops and seeing the lovely display of exquisite wares that are so well known. Reluctantly we left Paris and Versailles and took the train to Nice, France. A short visit to Monte Carlo, where I lost my two bits and the French Riviera left a lasting impression of its loveliness. loveli-ness. Following along the Italian Riviera Riv-iera overlooking the blue Medi-terrean, Medi-terrean, we stopped at Viareggio, visiting interesting buildings and ; country side, then on the Pisa, stopping to climb up the Leaning Tower and see the old Cathedral. Next Naples interested us with its narrow streets filled with shops and cafes. We ate in a sidewalk cafe overlooking the harbour. Sorrento Sor-rento was perhaps the loveliest city with its statues, exquisjte gardens, gar-dens, and romantic setting overlooking over-looking the Bay of Naples. From Sorrento a private launch took us to the Isle of Capri one of the beauty spots of the Medi-teranean. Medi-teranean. It is truly my impression of fairyland. From the launch we stepped into a small boat stretched out on the bottom and went through a small opening into the Blue Grotto, a truly blue paradise. Leaving Sorrento we visited the EDITOR'S NOTE The following fol-lowing story of a recent trip to Europe, taken by Mrs. Mattie Edwards of Roosevelt and Mrs. Minnie Luc Stevenson of Alton-ah, Alton-ah, has been prepared especially for the Roosevelt Standard by Mrs. Edwards. It is a very interesting in-teresting article which brings us closer to the many countries vis-isited vis-isited by our neighbors. excavated ruins of Pompei where we were astonished to find that in the uncovering from ashes of Mt. Vesuvius the houses had central cen-tral heating, bathrooms, and many conveniences that, we consider very modern. Our next stop was Rome with its wealth of historic monuments. In our visit there we saw among so many interesting places, the Vatican, Vat-ican, St. Peter's Church, which by the law is the largest cathedral in the world. The thousands of pigeons pig-eons that are in the courtyard of the Vatican are fed by many who visit there. We stopped at the fountain foun-tain where the movie "Three Coins in a Fountain," was filmed and of course had to add our coins there and wish. Other interesting places were the Colesseum in which the Christians were fed to the Lions, and the gradiators fought; the Catacombs, Cata-combs, the old Senate house of the Romans where Julius Caesar was killed; the night clubs we visited vis-ited had very good floor shows. We had an audience with the Pope at his summer home. From Rome we went to Assise where we were taken to the Sanctuary Sanc-tuary of St. Francis which is noted for its exquisite glass, lace and leather. In the Pitti Galleries are the famous painting of Rubens, Murillo and Raphael. The only regret we had was that time did not allow uo to enjoy the beauty of these and so many more sights on our trip. In Padua one of the interesting sights was the Basilica of Saint Anthony, An-thony, the saint to whom the young girls pray to send them a husband. Traveling along the interesting country we saw large white oxen hitched to carts and pl'ows; mile after mile of grape vines with ripe grapes hanging from the vines; donkeys on small carts carrying vegetables and fruits;, lovely hillsides hill-sides covered to the top with trees, grape vines and vegetable gardens. We never had adull moment From Padua we journeyed to Venice, the famed city of canals. Of course we rode in a gondola, saw some of the many bridges connecting the houses, went to the Lido Casino where the movie festival fes-tival was held this year; rode around some of the many islands that make up Venice; stood on the Rialto which Shakespeare speaks of in his "Merchant of Venice;" and shopped in the many little streets with charming shops. In Verona, the Piazza delle Erbe, Piazza Dante, Romeo's House, Juliet's house with the famous balcony, bal-cony, Ponte Pietra, Piazza Delia Gran Guardia are some of the intriguing in-triguing sights. Coming to Milan, which is the industrial city of Italy busy and modern in its buildings and industries. indus-tries. Contrasting with the modern are some very old and interesting buildings, shrines and statues. From Milan we took the Italian L.A.I, plane to Barcelona, a charming charm-ing Spanish town. From there to Madrid, on the Spanish air line Iberxia to Madrid, Spain, took only an hour. The attractive shops such as the Preciados, Quesada, Abelar-do Abelar-do Linaries in which there were' paintings, sculpture, porcelain, antique an-tique jewelry, handicraft objects, mantillas, shawls, fans, etc. were difficult to leave. You just could stay hours looking admiringly at the lovely things. Some of the other oth-er places we were charmed with were the museums, the Prado Art Gallery, the La Romeria Andaluza (which is the most typical restaurant restau-rant in Spain); Parque Jardin Villa Rosa; the Bull Ring, the Torea-dores, Torea-dores, the San Francisco Church, the Royal Palace, which we were fortunate to be able to go through. One of the delightful experiences we had was having refreshments on the roof garden at the new skyscraper sky-scraper just finished in Madrid. Toledo, the old city in Spain, is about 44 miles south of Madrid on the Tagus River. It has witnessed thousands of years of Roman, Visi-gothic,, Visi-gothic,, Moorish and Spanish history his-tory with the imprint of each ruler's rul-er's domination still visible in its unspoiled ancient glories. The old Alcantara Bridge still stands, but the huge Alcazar, a citadel on the site of a Roman fortress, is now a shell as a result of the destruction destruc-tion during the Civil War. The Cathedral, begun in 1227, is in the center of town; paintings of El Greco, Goya, Titian and Vel-aquez Vel-aquez were viewed in the Sacristy and Vestuary. We also visited El Greco's house and museum; the lunch as a typical restaurant under un-der a canopy of vines with Span-, ish food intrigued us. El Escorial is a colossal monastery, mon-astery, one of the architectural wonders of Europe and richly deserves de-serves this distinction. Also the Pantheon of the kings, queens, and princes of Spain defy description. des-cription. It was quite warm in Madrid and as we flew to Barcelona, took the Swiss air line to Geneva, Switzerland, Switzer-land, arriving there in four hours. We encountered a rain storm and nearly froze. The Alps and Lake Geneva are impressive sights; the League of Nations building and the lovely grounds are worth a day's visit. Of course we had to visit the shops and go on sight-seeing trips, for we did not want to miss anything. The drive along the shore of the lake is delightful. My nephew, Creed Evans, met us in Switzerland Switzer-land and took "Us all around on our tour there. We went to the delightful little town of Montreux where every twenty-five years the "Fete De Vinon" is held. It was held this year and we saw pictures of this marvelous festival'. Going to Lu-sanne Lu-sanne over the Mont Blanc bridge we saw the world famous fountain which shoots 110 gallons of water per second, 426 feet above the lake. Gazing in awe at the French Alps from the shore of Lake Geneva Gen-eva gave us quite a thrill A visit to the Castle of Chillon which is surrounded by a moat on three sides and the Lake Geneva on the other, was made famous by Lord Byron's poem, "The Prisoner Prison-er of Chillon," allowed us to see the pillars in the dungeon where the brothers were chained and the iron rings for the chains. From Lausanne, the country side covered with grape vines in perfect rows extending to the top of the mountains, we went to Bern, Switzerland Swit-zerland to go through the L.D.S. Temple. The Temple is situated on a hill overlooking the city and is a very impressive sight. We secured se-cured pictures and postal cards to send to Mrs. Phillips' and my Sunday Sun-day School class and others whom I thought would be interested. We left for Innsbruck, going through the lovely Austrial Alps, arriving there in time to see the Tirolean yodelers and dancing in their native na-tive costumes. At our hotel, the Maria Theresia, there was a beer cellar with a Tyrolean band. It is hard to say what pleased us most, ' the picturesque old town with its Golden Roof, City Tower and medieval med-ieval houses, the historical buildings, build-ings, museums and parks like the Hofgarten or the mountains which are called "The Pearl of the Alps." Now to Germany we traveled and were met at Ulm by Lieutenant i Howard Jessen, a relative of Lue's who took us to his lovely apartment apart-ment and with Georganne, his charming wive, made our visit there one of the highlights of our trip. One of the many sights we saw in Germany was the October Fest, a marvelous festival having almost al-most every kind of concession and five large beer parlors holding about five thousand people in each. In the center was a raised platform for the band which played play-ed nearly all day and until all hours of the night. It was a most unusual sight to see these people all sitting around long tables swinging back and forth singing and drinking beer; sometimes one would get up on the table and lead the others in singing. s The colorful buildings for the concessions and the large balloons advertising different kinds of beer was a marvelous sight. A recent issue of Life carried pictures of this festival The Autobaum, the wide hard-surfaced roads all over Germany make traveling in a car delightful. While in Munich we went to the Munchner Hofbrau, the beer cellar where Hitler started start-ed his party; and passed ovens where the Jews were burned. The country of Germany Is beautiful with its forrests and almost every inch of ground cultivated. I did not believe the story that there were women hitched up with cows on a plow, but as I actually saw this, I had to retract my statement. state-ment. It was a common sight to see milk cows, a horse and a cow, a cow and an ox hitched to a wagon or plow. I was very much impressed by the large and modern mod-ern buildings in Munich and other German towns since I expected to see evidences of a great deal of destruction in the cities. Going to Stuttgart, along the Rhine to Heidelberg we saw so many interesting castles and cathedrals. We arrived back at Verdun where MaReen and Ric were married first by the mayor of Thierville in a short ceremony and then at night by Harold W. Lee, president of the French mission mis-sion who came from Paris to perform per-form the ceremony. After the. wedding march played by George Brock, a friend of Ric's President Lee married them. Col. O'Donnell, the commandant of the Maginot Caserne and Mrs. O'Donnell O'Don-nell were there. Mrs. O'Donnell sang "My Hero". After the ceremony cer-emony a reception was held at the home "of Mr. and Mrs. J. B. Alley. Ric has a car and we went with MaReen and Ric to Luxembourg where we visited the parks, shops, and monuments of interest. From there we went to Belgium stopping stop-ping at Brussels, a most thriving and interesting city, full of delightful' delight-ful' sights and modern buildings. There are many lovely fountains and charming shops to visit. One of the highlights was the visit to the lace factory and the view from our hotel window showing the clock in the beautiful, cathedral and the large fountain in the square. After a delightful two days there, we traveled on to Holland visiting visit-ing the Hague, Harlem, a charming charm-ing Holland town, seeing many windmills, the famous dyes, stopping stop-ping at Rotterdam, a most beautiful, beauti-ful, clean and modern city. There were many lovely statues, parks and delightful shops. Riding around the city sightseeing the many interesting in-teresting sights made the time just fly so that when the time to leave came, we sighed that we could not spend more time and really enjoy the city. Next stop was at Amsterdam, the noted Dutch city where so many historical spots are found. The modern buildings, some under construction, contrasted with the charming old dwellings. Vol'endam was the most typical Dutch town we visited. There the people, even little children, wear their native costumes with wooden shoes. The fishing boats and bulid- 1 ings where they sort the fish is typical of this section. After a delghtful visit in Holland we caught the Dutch airplane to London where my niece and her husband, Don Johnson, met us and took us to their home in Clifton-ville, Clifton-ville, a charming village near the North Sea. Some of the interesting interest-ing places we went were the White Cliffts of Dover; the Dover Castle; the Canterbury Cathedral, where the Black Prince is buried;, the Buckingham Palace where the change of the Guard took place, (which we were fortunate to see); the tower of London; the Crown Jewels; Westminister Abbey; Pica-dilly Pica-dilly Circus; Trafalger Square; No. 10 Downing Street and many others. On the ship going to France, we met some very interesting people, among whom was an exchange student, Carnal Hossian, from Pakistan who is going to Oxford to study International Law. During our conversation, I mentioned that I was particularly interested in Stratford - On Avon and Shake ' speare's home;, he told us that he was going to get tickets for "Macbeth" played by Lawrence Oliver and Vivian Leah and he would be glad to get us some. Of course, I was delighted, so when we got back to London, we found the message that he would meet us at Stratford with the tickets. The memorial theatre at Stratford Strat-ford is a beautiful theatre and with our seats just three rows from the front, we were able to see the expression on the actor's faces and most thoroughly enjoyed a marvelous performance. Also on the ship a French student was most courteous sending wine to our table in the dining room. The gala dinner on the ship was exceptionally ex-ceptionally elaborate with excellent excel-lent food, caps, flags and a beautifully beauti-fully printed menu. On our trip we flew on six different air lines, covered 30,000 miles, as we boarded the ship S.S. United States at Southhampton Southhamp-ton England, on our way back home, we wondered just how it could be possible to see so much in such a short time. The trip home was rather rough and the pilot who led ou out of the harbor at LeHarve was compelled to stay on the ship and go to New York since he coulc not get off the ship because of the condition cf the ocean. He flew back to France. On the ship coming home were some ' distinguished guests. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Miss Margaret Truman, Miss Elsie Maxwell and Ambassador Kennedy. One of the bafflying experiences we had was the change of money. In France we had francs; just as we would get used to figuring what francs were in English we would go to another country. In Italy it was lira; in Spain, pesatoes; in Switzerland, Swiss francs; in Austria, shillings; in Germany, England and Ireland, shillings, pounds and pennies. When we got on the ship we were fortunate enough to get most of the extra money we had accumulated changed chang-ed back to our own coin. As we entered the harbor and caught a first glimpse of our un-equaled un-equaled Statue of Liberty, I realized real-ized what a thrill every American who had been out of this country had when he first saw it again. Words cannot express the deep emotion that it stirred in us and the appreciation we felt for just being Americans. We anticipated a long wait at the dock getting through Customs, but were delightfully surprised that it did not take as long as we had expected. In New York the Wrights met us again and we enjoyed en-joyed the Radio City play, the Empire State building, the League of Nations, many stores, among which were Macy's, the largest store in the world, Bon Wit Tellers, Tell-ers, Saks Fifth Avenue, the Chrysler Chrys-ler building, the sky line of New York, the Little Church Around the Corner, Wall Street, the Sta- ue of Washington ann York. The visit to ri m was especially intereS"" , Also m New York Z ng' 1 tunate to get som k ,ere see the play 0 the way, President and e'" man and Miss MarEaiMrs' Tr that night as well movle stars whom we Umber of di's, a very popular at Sorter Sor-ter the theatre restaurant, af. Going to LaGuardb the next morning, 2 fair, field Plane home. As we flew nk mountains from DenveV Ver the informed us that he ,ar,pilt altitude to allow us tolt '0s of the gorgeous colorifB Vle trees and foliage. Thi, ? ?f us breathless S left |
