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DEATH OF A NEW AMERICAN ~ JANE PRESCOTT #2 ~ by Mariah Fredericks

One of the things I most loved about DEATH OF A NEW AMERICAN, was the plot twist. We have an open window, with curtains swirling in the breeze. We have a baby on the floor, crying hysterically. And we have a dead body in the shape of the baby’s recently-murdered nurse Sofia.

On the face of it, it looks as if Sofia, a member of the Italian community of New York in 1912, has opened the window, thus allowing the murderer to enter. Because she is Italian, it seems probable that she knows the murderer, who has been accused of various kidnapping attempts of childen from wealthy families in the recent past. Therefore, she must be in on the organized crime gang, who wanted to kidnap Baby Freddie. And because the man at the window must have been her childhood sweetheart Sandro, she opened the window to let him in, before he murdered her with a gang-like flourish.

It all seems completely plausible. It is coherent, logical and makes perfect sense in the context that author Mariah Fredericks lays out for us.

But maid-turned-sleuth Jane Prescott is not so sure. And eventually, she finds out the truth, which turns out to be way more disturbing than a gang murder.

What makes this novel sing is the empathy with which Ms Fredericks writes about mental illness, and a woman’s lot in 1912 New York, at a time when they didn’t have the vote. We learn about what marriage was really like for all-too-many women. Far from being a wonderful adventure, one character finds her marriage to a larger-than-life man so exhausting, it drives her to despair. 

If you have not met Miss Jane Prescott before, you are in for a treat. Her position as a maid allows her to know everything that happens in the household of her employers, and a good deal of what goes on in private amongst the households of their personal freinds. Although this is the second in the Jane Prescott series, you won’t have had to read the first volume A DEATH OF NO IMPORTANCE to enjoy this one. 

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A Tour of the Luxembourgish Countryside by Minivan

This tour was due to start at 9:30, so I left at 8:45, and walked along Avenue de la Liberté to the Spuerkees Bank Building, which is just before the bridge over the gorge on the right-hand side. When I arrived some people were already there, and so I asked a woman who turned out to be British if I was in the right place for the tour. 

I was!

Again, I was so lucky with the weather. It was a perfect day, a quiet and peaceful Saturday morning. A German coach showed up, and it became clear that this wasn’t our tour. Shortly afterwards, I was surprised to see a minivan, but as I examined my ticket I realized that the decorations on the van matched the decorations on my ticket.

The man (whose name I don’t know) was very friendly, and jovial. But he told us his English was bad and preferred to speak French. Fortunately, there were several women on this tour who spoke French very well, and so they acted as translators.

He gave us our tickets, and headphones, so that we could listen to the commentary in several languages. A woman in the seat opposite (who turned out to be Isabel from Brazil) helped me find the right channel for English. (She was so kind.)

Then we set off. 

First stop was the Kirchberg neighborhood of Luxembourg City, which is on a high cliff. The point of the exercise was to show off all the EU buildings that are located there, including the European Court of Justice.

Next we drove to the Eastern part of the country to Mullerthal. This area is famed for its beautiful rolliing countryside, sandstone formations, and hikes. And so, to my great surprise, we went off on a 45-minute hike. Thank goodness I’d decided to wear my heavy hiking boots for the path was a typical hiking path with lots of ups and downs, and eventually after a geology lesson from our guide Marc, we arrived at the cascades. These were so typical of Luxembourg. They were not high, or large but they were charming. After viewing them, we walked along the road back to the bus.

Third stop was Beaufort Castle, located only a few kilometers from the small waterfalls. This was a ruined medieval castle, but it was pretty to look at and located in lovely countryside. We stayed for 45 minutes, during which time I clambered up a high set of stairs to find the WC (basic) and then wandered around.

Fourth stop was Vianden Castle, and here the driver made a separate stop so that we could take photos, before driving down into the town of Vianden. We arrived at 12:50 and he wanted us back by 2:40, so we had a 1 hour and 50 minute stop. 

Despite the fact that I had actually packed a picnic, I left my backpack on the bus, judging that it would be too hard on my back, and went to the Information center looking for lunch. They did offer a few choices. There was pork sausage in a bun, chicken sausage in a bun, vegetable soup, wine and beer. The rest of the selection consisted of desserts. So I chose a small red wine bottle (12.5 cl), a pork sausage bun and vegetable soup. The wine was fine. The soup tasted home-made. And the bread was good. But the sausage was a disaster. It was exactly like a hot dog. However, I needed my protein and so I ate every last bit of it. Thank heavens for the red wine and very good bread!

After that, I toured the castle, following signs that said “circuit” or “rundgang.” We started at the bottom of the castle, and I seemed to be going round and around, meeting other people on the minivan, including a very stylish young woman in her cream-colored figure-hugging dress topped with a bolero-style leather jacket. (More on her later.) But eventually, I found a staircase going up, and then we were in the Gothic part of the castle. Another staircase led us into the 16th-century part with its dining room, lady’s dressing room, and ~ concert hall!

Finally we got into the Gothic gallery at the very top of the castle, and then (of course) we had to climb all the way down. I found myself back in the Information Center, so I asked a woman where the ladies’ were and then I wandered around, finding a media room with a movie about the history of Vianden. So I sat down and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

At 2:25, something made me look at my watch, and so I immediately got up and headed out of the castle as the minivan was due to leave at 2:40. At first, I couldn’t see it, but then I ran into Isabel from Brazil, who introduced me to her mother, and we had a very pleasant chat. They told me they were going to London for Easter, and so I told them to look up London Walks.

The minivan arrived on time, and we set off for our last stop at Echternach, a very pretty village in the East of the country and very close to that Mullerthal walk we took this morning. It is so close to the German border that you can see Germany from across the little stream that runs through it. 

By the time we arrived, it was 3:31 and the sun was blazing down upon us. The temperature must have been at least 70 degrees. We started our tour in the old marketplace square, with its Market Hall dating from 1390. Then the guide took us to the remains of the Old Abbey, built in a handsome baroque style and looking exactly like a mansion. As with other parts of Luxembourg, this region suffered tremendously at the hands of Napoleon’s troops who destroyed every religious house they could get their hands on, forcing the monks to move. 

Our tour guide wanted to take us inside the lofty Romanesque Basilica (has to have the bones of a holy person and be nominated by the pope) but there was a wedding on. She told us that the holy person was St. Willibrord from the British Isles, who founded the abbey in 698. (He died in Echternach in 739 at the age of 81 years.) We waited for a while in the hot sun, while she talked about the school next to the Basicila, which provides free education to its citizens. But the wedding apparently included a religious service and so the doors remained firmly closed. 

And so we meandered back to a nearby square and dispersed. Because I was traveling by myself and did not want to get lost (an occupational hazard), I went with her into a nearby bar where I ordered the German equivalent of cider for 3 euros, while she had a beer. We sat down and talked, and she wanted me to come back to Echternach, saying she could make a special day for me. It sounded lovely, but also expensive, and so I didn’t say ‘yes’.

At around 4:20, we left the establishment, to meet the minivan which was going to appear at 4:30. As we were leaving a handsome young man who appeared to be of African descent walked up to the stylish young woman (woolen figure-hugging dress and leather bolero of a jacket) and gave her his phone number. The female guide (an older woman of about my age) was most amused, and said in perfect English to the young woman that she really shouldn’t be here as she was having “too much of an effect on all the boys!”

The minivan arrived and we got in. 

What a tremendous day!

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THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN FLORENCE by Alyssa Palombo

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN FLORENCE is really a story about a marriage of convenience that deteriorates, and the too-early death of the protagonist.

Simonetta Cattaneo (1453-1476) has luxurious red-gold hair that comes down to her knees. You can see her likeness in Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. Born in Genoa to a family of minor nobility, Simonetta is brought up by rather strict parents. Her beauty must have been obvious to everyone, as she grew into womanhood, and yet Simonetta’s parents choose not to make too much of it, creating a person who is grounded in reality.

At sixteen, Simonetta receives a marriage proposal from Marco Vespucci (yes, he is related to the much better-known Amerigo Vespucci, who gave his name to the vast unknown continent that is now call America). To Simonetta’s surprise, Marco is not much older than she, only about twenty years old. And he is handsome, well-educated and ambitious. As he starts ot paint a picture of what there life would be like in his native Florence, where they will go once married, Simonetta is captivated. After all, she leads the dull life of a teenaged girl in a repressive culture where women are not educated, or even allowed to express an opinon about anything. The chance to read the newest translations of Plato, plus the opportuntiy to express her views freely beckon enticingly to Simonetta. 

And so, when her father approves the match, Simonetta is delighted, even though she will leave Genoa forever and barely see her family of origin for the rest of her life. Such, however, is the lot of high-class women who make political and dynastic marriages.

When Simonetta arrives in Florence, everything that she has been longing for comes true with surprising ease. Marco belongs to the inner circle of the Medici family, the unoffical rulers of Florence. Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492) ~ later known as The Magnificent ~ takes a shine to her. Does she want to read? No problem. Lorenzo possesses a magnificent library, which he invites her to share. Over the course of their friendship, they discuss Petrach’s Sonnets and Plato’s Republic. Younger brother Giuliano de’ Medici (1453-1478) is instantly smitten by Simonetta’s beauty, and expresses jealousy that she is to wed his best friend Marco Vespucci.

But Marco is proud of his young bride, proud of her charm, intelligence and beauty that has so effortlessly elevated his mere acquaintance with the Medicis into their inner circle.

And so we learn that the principle reason Marco married Simonetta is to further his career. After all, he works at the Medici bank, and Lorenzo and his co-ruler Giuliano are his bosses. Marco will literally stop at nothing to win brownie points from the two Medici brothers.

And Simonetta’s reason? Well, she leaves a dull and stifling life in Genoa for one of intellectual exploration in Florence amongst the finest minds of the day.

Even though they did not marry for love, Simonetta and Marco appear to have a happy marriage. Until, Marco arrives home too late at night, waking the entire household, dead drunk, with Giuliano in tow. And Giuliano lets slip that Marco has another woman in his life. When Simonetta confronts her husband, his only reply is to explain that it happened when she was ill, and after all, “men have their needs.”

Of course, in the 1470s, no-one is going to criticize a husband for acquiring another woman. Women were meant to put up and shut up. But Simonetta is devastated by this betrayal as, naïvely, she believed her husband to be faithful to her. After all, she is the most beautiful woman in Florence. What is the point of that, if even her husband cannot even be faithful to her?

That revelation really marks the beginning of the end of their marriage. In the pages that follow, we witness several deteriorating conversations, followed by the even more dangerous silence that erupts between the pair. But I will not say more, so as not spoil the ending for those of you who have not yet read this volume.

Suffice it to say that artist Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) plays only a minor role in most of this volume. It is not until the end, not until Simonetta and Marco’s marriage deteriorates, that he becomes much more important. But you will have to read THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMAN IN FLORENCE, to find out exactly what happens. 

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Walking Tour of Luxembourg City

Today, I booked a 2pm walking tour of Luxembourg with a woman from the Tourist Information Center in Place Guillaume II. There were five of us on this tour, a couple, two women and myself. We were so lucky with the weather for it was a perfect spring day, topping out at around 70 degrees. The only unfortunate part about this tour was that the guide’s accent made it difficult to understand what she was saying. 

We started off in Place Guillaume II where the Tourist Information is, then set off down a side street for the Ducal Palace. After walking along that street, the rue Marché aux Herbes, and turning left down a narrow street, we found ourselves outside the oldest church in Luxembourg, the Church of St Michel on rue de Sigefroi. We continued walking and found ourselves on a busy street with views up onto the Kirchberg, where all the EU buildings are, including the European Court of Justice. If you looked down, you saw a precipitate drop-off to the Alzette river about 250 feet below. That neighborhood is known as Grund, and it used to be a poor area that housed both the women’s and men’s prisons. Nowadays, it is a very expensive place to live. From a historical perspective where we stood was important, because on this sandstone rock Siegfried of the Ardennes acquired the land that now makes up Luxembourg City and he built a castle there. After that, we visited the cathedral, which was not very interesting. By now, we’d been on this tour for 2 hours, it came to an end and we went our separate ways.

The people on the tour were interesting apart from the married couple, who didn’t engage. One of the women was German from Munich who spoke perfect English with an American accent. She had lived in the United States as a child, and returned as an adult with husband and children in tow. She said they’d lived near Cleveland Ohio, near Chagrin Falls. She described the area as lovely, “close to Connecticut and not the Mid-Western Ohio” that, she implied, was so boring. Early on in the tour, I took her for being American because she asked such an American question. “I want to know,” she insisted, “what it is like for a little child, six years old, in first grade. What language do they have to speak?”

The guide told us that in Luxembourgish families (and there are 170 nationalities living in Luxembourg) they speak Luxembourghish at home. Indeed, this language is experiencing a Renaissance due to the internet. When they go to school, they have to speak German, but this is not as drastic as it sounds as most books, including children’s books are in German. Then they learn French, and later they learn English, Spanish and other languages. The largest ex-pat communnity in Luxembourg is Portuguese!

The guide explained it this way. Luxembourgish people speak Luxembourgish at home to their nearest and dearest. When there is an announcement via the media, it is said in German. When a report is published, it is written in French.

The other woman, who seemed to be a friend of the German woman from Munich, spoke English with an odd accent. It could have been South-African or Australian. I wanted to ask her where she’d come from, but thought she might find that offensive, so didn’t try. She told me she’d lived in Luxembourg for 30 years and that her husband was about to retire. But they planned to keep on living in Luxembourg. She told me that you had to speak at least two languages very well. And although people were friendly, you bumped up against a closed system if you didn’t speak Luxembourgish.

It sounded exactly like Norway to me.

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TRAITOR’S ODYSSEY by Brendan McNally

Martha Dodd was good at embarrassing people. So much so, that even this wealthy socialite-turned-Communist could not persuade the Powers-That-Be in Moscow that they should actually hire her to do a little spy craft.

Martha Eccles Dodd (1908-1990) is best known for being the only daughter of US Ambassador William E. Dodd (1869-1940), who was sent to the “quiet enclave” of Germany in 1933, where he would have plenty of time to finish his tome on the History of the South.

It is not clear why Presdent Roosevelt hired William Dodd for this position. Dodd was a well-regarded academic who specialized in the American South. Somewhat improbably, he received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig in 1900, based on a thesis (in German) concerning Thomas Jefferson’s 1796 return to politics following a three-year hiatus. So he could speak German, although by 1933, one imagines that it might have been a bit rusty. But like many academics, Dodd lived in a bubble that allowed him to carry out his research and teaching duties at various universities around he country, including Randlolph-Macon college in Virginia, The University of Chicago, and American University in Washington DC. Protected by his position as University professor, he never had to learn to handle people, and he had a tendency to be naïve.

Anyone reading this who knows what was happening in Germany in 1933, can only shake their heads in wonder at this spectacularly poor choice for US Ambassador to Germany. For, in January 1933, Adolf Hitler ascended to power, and became the driving force in German politics for the next twelve years. Author Brendan McNally, who wrote this biography of Martha Dodd titled TRAITOR’S ODYSSEY, speculates that one of Roosevelt’s flunkies picked the wrong Dodd. The Dodd they should have had for US Ambassador to Berlin was Walter F. Dodd, a professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University. I have no way of knowing whether this story is true, but it does tell us that at least some people thought that William E. Dodd was clueless when it came to managing the American Embassy in Berlin.

When William E. Dodd arrived in Berlin in August 1933, he brought his family with him. This included his quiet and retiring wife Mattie, his son Bill Jr. and daughter Martha. Of the four, Martha seems to have had the most colorful personality. Reading between the lines, we can see that she was the apple of her father’s eye. More startling is the fact that Ambassador Dodd apparently had no problem at all in letting his daughter read out classified information that regularly arrived in his inbox. And that is how Martha started spying, by spreading American secrets amongst her enormous coterie of friends in Berlin. 

But what really troubled so many in the American Embassy was Martha’s numerous affairs. True, she was only twenty-five years old when she arrived in Berlin in 1933. But the zest with which she pursued every available bachelor surprised me. Somehow, she managed not to get pregnant, which was just as well because birth control in the 1930s certainly wasn’t fail-safe. Of course, Martha showed appalling judgement by hanging out with Nazis of every stripe, including officers in the SS. But something seems to have happened to her during her first year in Berlin, which turned her from a full-throated fan of Adolf Hitler into a Communist spy.

Of course she was recruited by one of her numerous lovers, Boris Vinagradov. Martha, naturally curious, decided that it would be a marvelous idea for her to visit the Soviet Union and see things for herself. Exactly one week after the Night of Long Knives, Martha flew alone to Moscow, having booked a vacation package with Intourist. Martha’s stated reason for going was “to see if there was any truth in the ridiculous stories circulating in Berlin about famines in the Soviet Union which caused Russians to eat babies.” Her real reason for going was to introduce herself to the top brass in Moscow.

And this is how she managed to embarrass her potential Russian handlers, for they were not at all pleased that this splashy woman had gone off-piste, and ~ against their instructions ~ had booked her own trip, suddenly appearing in Moscow without any warning. The view they took was that this woman was difficult to control, and therefore not good spy material. Martha’s jaunt to Moscow didn’t please the Nazis either, who were now wondereing exactly where her loyalties lay. None of this, of course, helped the cause of America in Berlin. 

Eventually, William Dodd’s tour of duty came to and end, and in December 1937, the Dodd family returned to the United States. Somehow, Martha very quickly found a wealthy husband in the shape of Alfred K Stern, and they married in the summer of 1938. War erupted in Europe in September 1939, but the United States did not join until after Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

So, what did Martha do during the Second World War? The answer is not much. Slhe seems to have spent the entire war waiting for Moscow to contact her and give her various spying jobs. But that never happened. Even the wealth of her husband, who so generously contributed to the Communist cause, didn’t sway her handlers in Moscow. It seems that the higher-ups just decided that Martha was more trouble than she was worth. And even worse, her actions might jeopardise the spy networks that the Russians had so painstakingly set up in the Untied States over many years.

And so Martha led the privileged life of wealthy socialite during the Second World War. After the war, in typical Martha fashion, she scuppered the presidential aspirations of Henry Wallace, Roosevelt’s last vice-president, who was running as a third party candidate. Wallace’s team decided that he should go on an extensive tour of the Middle East and Europe in the spring of 1948. Somehow, Martha got herself involved in organizing the French leg of the tour. Even though instructed on how important it was to have a hosting delegation that represented many different viewpoints and voices, Martha saw to it that the French hosts who met Wallace, were actually Communist sympathizers. Wallace never regained his reputation or control of his candidacy, and his political aspirations fizzled. Reading this, one has to applaud the shrewdness of the Russians who believed Martha to be too hot to handle way back in 1938.

The book then takes us through Martha’s escape from the United States in 1957, with wealthy husband in tow. First, they went to Mexico, then when that became too hot (with the FBI bearing down on the Mexican Federales), they escaped to Prague. Both Alfred and Martha were never allowed to come back to the United States. Both died in Prague, he in 1986 just before the wall came down, she in 1990, just afterwards. 

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A Day Visiting El Escorial ~ The Monastery-Palace built by Philip II of Spain

This turned out to be a long and exhausting day. I decided to go for inexpensive in the various options available for me to get to El Escorial, the Monastery-Palace built by Philip II of Spain. First, I took a taxi to the Moncloa bus station in Madrid (cost €9.05 or $9.95). 

After alighting, I found a passerby who seemed friendly. Unforuntately, he spoke almost no English, but I understood I was to go down the escalator. At the bottom,  a massive crowd came together. On closer inspection I realized they were at Door 10, waiting for either the 661 or the 664 to El Escorial, so I joined the line. A 661 appeared almost immediately, and the Spaniards walked in an orderly fashion towards it, but when it became evident it was going to be packed, some people ahead of me formed a line for the next bus. So I joined them because I didn’t want to sit in the back.

We had to wait ten minutes for the next 661 bus, and about two minutes before it was due to leave, it opened its doors and we got on. I gave the bus driver €5 in cash, and he gave me back 80 cents as the cost was €4,20 (cuatro venti). This is about $4.65. Because of my place in line, I was able to sit in the second seat from the front (right hand side) in the window seat. We left at 8:00 and goodness, the traffic was bad. The trip to El Escorial was supposed to take 55 minutes, but I think we actually arrived at 9:05. 

Because I had plenty of time, I looked around the El Escorial bus station, trying to make sense of it. I figured out that the place where the bus dropped us off was only a dropoff point, and not where you would stand to catch the bus. I went into the waiting room, and the electronic board told me which bus was the next to leave, and how many minutes (or hours) the next ones left. But it didn’t tell me where to stand to wait for the bus. So I found a pedestrian walkway that wound down, and figured out where the buses were parked. A 661 left Bus Stop Number One on its way back to Madrid, and so I decided I would head there after my tour of the Escorial.

I walked out of the bus station to the palace, and because the 661 bus had already passed it on its way to the bus station at El Escorial, it was easy to find. But at 9:30 in the morning everything was quiet and shut up. Which I found disturbing as it was supposed to open at ten. Where were the lines of tourists? No-one was in evidence. 

I actually walked past the palace entrance, going through a courtyard that had no exits. I passed one sign that seemed to suggest that it wasn’t the entrance, and so I walked around the whole complex, coming eventually to a car park that led to the gardens. All this time I’d been following various people who’d been walking rapidly, like they knew where they were going, and I thought they were tourists. But at the car park I hesitated. There were (as usual) no signs, and so I pulled up the Moovit app, and discovered I had walked past the entrance.

I retraced my steps to the forbidding and empty courtyard. The Moovit app directed me to a door that was now open. But the sign told me that it was a school and the entrance was private. So I walked back around the courtyard, back to the door with the unhelpful sign (which was now half open) and realized that this was the correct place.

The man there said they were not open yet (it was 9:45 by this time) and advised me to cross the courtyard to sit on a low wall. I did this, and then realized that I was heading towards a Tourist Information office. I followed the arrows, but the office was closed and would not open until 10:00. And so I walked back to the half-open door, where quite a few people were rushing in, (nearly late!).

Finally, the bell tolled ten and I was the first person to be let in. But the female guard at check-in told me I would have to put my backpack in a locker. So I had to find the locker. Then I realized that in order to get the locker to lock, I would need a €1 euro coin, which (of course) I didn’t have. So I was directed to a shop, and for two 50 cent coins, the woman there gave me €1 euro. Back to the locker, I put my backpack inside, and used the coin to lock it. The key came smoothly out, but there was nothing on the key to tell me which locker it belonged to. (The Spanish really hate signs!) And so I used my iPhone to photograph it, so that I would remember it was Locker 38.

The next task was to get an audio guide. I met a man standing in the courtyard with one, and fortunately he spoke English, and told me where to get it. For an extra €5 euros, I had some guidance. It seemed to be helpful, had various languages to choose from, and various routes to take. I chose the 2-hour tour and at first everything went well. I loved the library, even though it was a very steep climb up to it, and consequently a very steep climb down. (My knees didn’t thank me.) But somehow, I failed to get into the church. Instead I found myself in the Chapter House. Following the arrows which told me where to go, I descended several steep steps which took me into the crypt of the Escorial, where all the tombs were. There were several tombs of Philip II’s wives and his close family members. Then there was a structure that looked like a giant white marble cake. It contained all the tombs of the children who had died before puberty. I turned left and followed the white marble tunnel, passing many rooms on the left, each one full of tombs, such as the tombs of Isabel II’s relatives, before having to clamber down more steep stairs to a round room with all of the tombs of the Kings of Spain.

It was really creepy and claustrophobic, and the Spanish obsession with death made me want to flee. I asked the guard where the gardens were, but she didn’t speak English.  I had to clamber up more stairs to nearly the top of the palace, where I met a young man who did speak some English. He told me that I was about half way along, but it would take me 45 minutes to complete the rest of the tour. 

By this time, I was exhausted. The constant climbing I had just done was causing my tachycardia to kick in. My knees weren’t happy. And I had to pause to catch my breath. Once I’d done so, I had to climb up even more steps to continue with the tour. At the top, I encountered a room full of tapestries about battles. From there, I was able to walk relatively swiftly through the royal apartments, (I really hate dark gloomy rooms with musty furniture) until I saw a sign that said Salida, meaning exit. I was so relieved! I followed the signs and found myself coming downstairs near to the lockers. I retrieved my backpack, gave the audio guide back to the young man by the bag check, and asked  the way to the gardens. 

When I exited the palace, I found myself opposite the Tourist Information Center, so I went there and asked them about getting to the gardens. The woman there was most helpful, handing me a map and telling me exactly how to get there. The entrance was nearly all the way to the car park where I’d hesitated that morning. Because I was now feeling so tired, I just walked to the gardens, and took a few shots. But the gardens were the highlight of the tour, with the mountains providing a stunning backdrop. After that, I saved my energy for walking all the way back to the Bus Station.

I went to Bus Stop One, only to find the 669 there. As there were (again!) no signs, I walked alongside the buses looking for the 661 or 664. But I was so lucky. Just as I got to the end, a bus pulled in and it was the 661 to Madrid. Again, I gave the bus drive €5 and this time I must have gotten €3,70 in change because the ticket only cost €1,30. As before I sat in the second seat from the front on the right hand side and the bus drove us back to Madrid in less than an hour. (It left at 12 Noon and got in at 12:55.)

As we entered the bus station, I looked to my right and saw a line of taxi cabs. So after we arrived, I took the escalator up to street level, turned left and handed the first taxi the Hotel Wellington business card. However, by this time Madrid was busy, swarming with hordes of tourists. So it took the taxi driver about 30 minutes to get me back to the hotel, and even then she had to leave me off two blocks away. But she repeatedly gave me instructions on how to get to the hotel. (The cost of the ride was €13,00 or $14.29.)

Returning to my room, I collapsed. Then I got up, packed my suitcase for my trip to Luxembourg tomorrow, before going down to join the others for the Farewell Dinner held at the hotel. What a wonderful time I had during my Odysseys tour of Spain and Portugal!

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P IS FOR PERIL by Sue Grafton

The novel opens when Fiona Purcell, ex-wife of Dowan Purcell, hires Kinsey Millhone to investigate her ex-husband’s disappearance. It’s been nine weeks since Dr. Purcell left the nursing home that he runs, disappearing at around 9pm after chatting to one of the inmates, an elderly lady who plays an important role in this novel. 

Where is he? No-one has found the car he was driving, or his body.

As many fans of Kinsey Millhone know, she is an expert in insurance fraud. And sure enough, there is plenty of that going on by a couple of nefarious characters, who are eager to shift the blame onto Dr. Purcell. Then there are his two wives. Fiona, Wife Number One is suitably bitter at her lot in life. She doesn’t spend money wisely and stands to gain quite a bundle on the good doctor’s death. And then there is Crystal, Wife Number Two, who was originally married to an abusive man, divorced, and  then married to Dr. Purcell. Purcell is 69, she is 29 and they have a 2-year-old son together. Crystal is the person who shows the most emotion over her husband’s strange disappearance. She seems to be very upset. But then she has so much to cope with in the shape of her fourteen-year-old daughter Leila, who is just as obnoxious as any teenager can be. Yes, Crystal herself was a teenaged mother, being only fifteen when her daughter was born. Leila leads her family a merry dance. She is confrontational with her mother, and makes no secret of her deep-seated dislikes for her stepfather, Dr. Purcell. 

But the P for Peril is really about none of this, but instead a promising dalliance that Kinsey finds herself ensnared in, when the charming Tommy Hevener appears on the scene, and starts to woo her. Of course Tommy and his twin brother Richard are not what they seem, and what follows is a spiral downward from seeming politesse and rationality, to much darker places.

Although I see why many readers complained that this novel didn’t end, for me, it wasn’t a problem. The novel fades out with Kinsey having wine with Crystal and her best friend Annika. The three women sit on the porch chatting, seemingly having a good time. But only the reader knows that they are waiting for Rob Jordan, a cop that Kinsey knows, to arrive. And when he arrives, the reader knows that Reality is going to come crashing down. For Crystal is going to have the shock of her life when she realizes that her only daughter Leila, together with the connivance of best friend Paulie (a hardened criminal), has stolen thirty thousand dollars that belonged to her late husband Dowan Purcell. But that is not all. For the reader also knows that the person responsible for Dowan Purcell’s death lives at Crystal’s house.

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A Day in Madrid

Today was supposed to be a half day of touring with the afternoon off. But due to the difficulties of getting tickets at the Prado Museum, it turned into another full-day tour. 

We left at 9:00 am in the morning, and our local guide gave us a coach tour of the highlights of Madrid. After that, she took us to El Pardo, a hunting-lodge-turned-palace on the outskirts of Madrid. I must say I was glad to be out of the city. After arriving yesterday and seeing the hordes of tourists, I really didn’t feel like doing any shopping, or spending any time in Madrid. So it was wonderful to be outside in the countryside on yet another perfect morning, bright and cool.

I don’t much care for palaces, as I think that those who inhabit them usually exhibit very poor taste. So I was happy to spend some time in the gardens. Except that the gardens, such as they were, were not particularly well-tended having only three blooming trees and no flowers.

After that, we went on a walking tour of Old Town Madrid. Again, I was not very impressed with the place. This was borne out by the tapas lunch we had in a local restaurant near the Plaza Mayor. It just wasn’t very good. I really don’t like croquettes (especially as it is usually hard to tell what is in the middle of the fried outer shell.) And I really didn’t want to eat raw eggs over squid. And so I passed on a couple of the offerings. 

After that, we drove to The Prado Museum. I left my backpack on the bus, and we went in for our timed tickets at 3pm. Our tour guide told us that he was giving those of us who wanted to drive back to the hotel in the bus two hours to enjoy it.

Oh dear, it was so hard to find things. Finally, I realized that the room numbers in most (but not all) the rooms were up high on the wall. Then I had to use the map to puzzle out how to get from Room 9 to Room 51. There seemed to be no logical order to the numbers, and so every time I’d finished with a painting I had to peer at the map to decide where to go next. Needless to say, the 2-hour tour was taking much longer than it should have. It would have been so much better if there had been instructions on how to get from one painting to another. Of course, there wasn’t. I lasted one and a half hours before being completely wiped out. However, I have to say that The Prado has a stunning collections of masterpieces, and I would like to come back to see more. I ended up in the Velasquez room, and got distracted by all the pictures of those women in their farthingales.

By 4:35, I was asking a couple of guards for directions to the way out. I dumped my audiophone in the plastic tray they had, and descended the outside stairs. I was so happy and relieved to see Norberto with the coach, and enjoyed the 5-minute drive back to the hotel before collapsing into my room.

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A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY by John Le Carré

Although this novel has its flaws (it could do with some editing), it paints such a vivid picture of the greyness of cold-war Europe. In particular, Le Carré delineates how the provincial town of Bonn, which was the capital of West Germany between 1945 and 1989 was the most boring place in the world. Especially for diplomats and their wives.

John Le Carré’s talent as a writer is very evident in this novel. He begins with a long description of the almost daily fog, the mists that coil up from the river Rhine and blur everything into an impentrable greyness. This description of the mist serves as the perfect metaphor for the goings-on at the British Embassy.

One thing I really didn’t know was that there was strong anti-British sentiment in Europe during the 1960s. In those days, Britain was trying desperately to get into the Common Market, but the rise of the Right in Germany, with its anti-British rhetoric seemed destined to scupper Britain’s chances. And so, during this novel, the British Embassy is in a state of continual panic. Add to that the mysterious disappearance of a German-British man called Leo Hartiing, and the situation is rife with tension. 

Harting, a charming man who makes most everyone feel too comfortable around him, has not only seemingly vanished off the face of this earth, but he has also made off with a file of Top Secret documents, that if they got into the wrong hands would cause considerable embarrassment for the British. So why isn’t the British Embassy doing more to find him? The British Ambassador, Rawley Bradfield is strangely reluctant to find Harting, and in fact has made no effort at all to retrieve him or his file of embarrassing secrets. In fact the first that anyone actually notices that Harting is not around, is when they go to Church on Sunday, only to find that their organist – in the shape of Harting – is missing.

Bradfield is content to leave it at that. And would have done so had not the Foreign Office sent a stubborn Yorkshireman with a talent of putting people’s backs up to Bonn to fiind out what on earth is going on. I supppose you have to be British to appreciate what happens next. For top diplomats in Britain, like British Ambassador Rawley Bradfield, are typically those born with silver spoons in their mouths. This means an priviledged education at Eton (or Rugby, or Marlborough), followed by a stint at Oxford (or Cambridge), and maybe a tour of duty at the Sorbonne or Leipzig. In other words, these people hail from the south of England, whose culture is oriented towards Paris. And too many of these same people are pretentious snobs. Then we have The Excitable Welshman, a pal of Harting’s, who is very fond of going on in his sing-song accent about how marvelous Harting is. Lastly we have that stubborn Yorkshireman, whose name is Alan Turner. As a Yorkshireman, he hails from the North of England, which has a completely different culture from the South of England. Far from being oriented towards Paris, the denizens of The North are Proudly British , and have no time for snobs, or pretensions, or anything like that. It is no surprise that Turner annoys British Ambassador Rawley Bradfield from the get-go, as they parry insults in that typical duel, of typical English Class Warfare.

I told you that Turner was stubborn, and he is. Against the express wishes of the British Ambassador, he breaks into Harting’s house and overstays his welcome. But he does succeed in finding out exactly where Harting is, and why he disappeared. It is extremely amusing to watch him spar with his social superior (Bradfield) and in his very down-to-earth way get to the bottom of all the skeletons in the British Embassy closet.

If you have never read John Le Carré before, you might want to try this one. 

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A Day in Toledo, Spain

Monday was the second of two very long days. This time, we had to travel from Úbeda, where we’d staying in the Parador of a 16th-century palace. How can I possibly complain about the Wi-Fi when we are staying in such a stunning building? It didn’t help it was under repair (EU funding) making it hard to appreciate its beauty. 

We arrived in Toledo at 12:45, so the first order of business was lunch. I walked along a street crammed with tourist shops, but wasn’t coming up with anything promising. As I was looking, a couple from our tour group appeared, and so we found a place and had lunch togehter. The man had a burger and fries. I picked a dish from Toledo, because the Google translation of the Spanish said it was pork in a mild tomato sauce. And so his wife picked it too. It was delicious.

After that, we had our tour of Toledo. But I was so exhausted from yesterday’s visit to the Alhambra that it took all of my willpower to go along on the tour and not bow out. We visited the huge Gothic Cathedral that was consecrated in 1493, just after the Reconquista. Thankfully, our guide said she was only going to show us the highlights. Then we visited the 14th-century church of Santo Tomé, to see the El Greco portrait on the wall. The place was heaving with Japanese tourists, and we had to wait our turn before we could get a decent picture. Then we visited the Synagogue. Finally, she led us down out of town (Toledo is on a high hill) to the Tajo river, which was replete with brown, rushing water due to the recent rains. On the other bank of the river, away from the tourist tat, crowds of schoolchildren, and poor lunch offerings, I could finally appreciate what a beautiful town Toledo is. 

At 5:00 pm, we left Toledo, and drove to Madrid, which took us an hour and a half. Finally we arrived at our very fancy hotel, The Wellington Hotel & Spa in the upscale Salamanca neighborhood of Madrid, and got our room keys. Naturally the elevators, in this Art Deco palace of a hotel, didn’t wish to work. There were two lifts. But if you pushed the up button of Lift A, while Lift B still had its doors open, then you delayed Lift B. Finally, I figured out what was going on, and after some coaxing, I was finally in my room. I would have been totally knackered had I not had a piece of very yummy chocolate cake, that woke me up!

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