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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1975-08-21, Page 19weekly b atofloyoorfolotowei sumer, WInghonk •Advo ee» AIS Mount Foreit cook. 0114416.rood by APS people Is the "heortfooff"Midwesters. Ontarlo" (D*.r ed On 3,s reader 111 .eae�► 9,500 bosom) Published every week in The Listowel Banner, The Wingham Advance -T. utiles and The ;.Mount Forest Confederate by Wenger Bros. Limited. ^^-'i'4SSroads--Aute 2i w 0 4 A lions of memcrue, in ree wee A Europeof iig.hts, h It is a wonderfully selfish thing to do: to take your children to Europe, to see through their eyes some of the -sights and sites you have experienced before, and to see the hew things freshly with them. We packed our days and nights so full of miles travelled, things seen, and -impressions gained that we can allude to only the very highlights, as some one of us remembers them. When we think of Europe now, we think of lights. Our first night on the Continent was spent at Brussels, where, like all tourists, we wandered to the Grand Place, the exquisite square surrounded START OF CONTINENTAL JOURNEY — Ten former Lis- towel residents recently completed a three-week tour of kik seven European countries, starting, NO ending the Conti- nental-partof the trip on the ferry boat from England to Eu- rope. En route to Oostende from Dover, in the foreground, Chuck and Nancy Tatham, Mary Kay and John Coates. Seated behind, Dr. Aileen Coates, Keith Coates; Bob Coates, Jamie Tatham and Dr. Ruth Tatham. Tenth member of the group, George Tatham, was the photographer. N� by the Town Hall and the ornate heights of the old guild houses of by -gone years, refurbished and glistening in the last rays of the sun. After the weary children were in, bed, we four adults re- turned ,to the square, and were rewarded by the delight of a., quarter moon framed between two towers of the Town Hall! That Town Hall was constructed in two periods, the right wing being added later, and having some major differences in Gothic style. It is said on good report, that the architect of the later wing was criticised for a non -plumb window, and jumped to his death from a side tower (not one of those which framed our lovely moon) and perished on the cobblestones beneath. I said "we four adults re- turned" because throughout the Continental tour, we were with the Coates family, also former Listowelites: Keith Coates, now with a Toronto firm of chartered accountants, his wife Aileen (a female physician, like the writer) and their three children, Bob, Mary -Kay and John, who have all been close friends of ours since the days we stared across Jack- son Crescent at each other .. . when we lived at 33 and they at 32! How well do Aileen and I remember the sunny September morning in 1964 when Mrs. Edna Parrish came to baby-sit the younger children while we tool Bob and Jamie off to start kin- dergarten at Central Public School under the vivacious Mrs. Yvonne Gedke! But back to the lights of Europe! There was another fairy night, when housed in an auxiliary wing MAJESTIC DOGES' PALACE — The Doges' Palace, with St. Mark's Cathedral behind and the Venetian Lagoon in the foreground, continues to attract much attention from the visitors to Venice. While other areas of the canal city appear ready to slip beneath the en- croaching water, efforts to maintain the majesty of the Palace have been fairly success- ful. RESTORATION OF COLISEUM— The centuries have been kind to the ruins of Rome but in the Interests of maintaining the amazing architectural masterpieces, restoration work is being carried out in many areas including the Coliseum (above). No lions, or Chris- tians, were visible in the basement areas (foreground) but the streets and hotels of Rome abound with tourists in this Holy Year. 1. 'f of a quaint hotel right On O banks of the Rhine, we looked; from our bedroom windoWa tt>~ watch the silent lights of the shl' steal up and down • the peaCeftd river. The following night, 'Wink- ling tW nk-ling in the rain, the lights of Heidelberg Castle, high on ' a great hill above an old .rte Roman - bridge, beckoned us to' come and enjoythe merry haunts of The Student Prince. Nights later, along with, many' more of -the 47 people on our bug tour, and our very energetic and informed courier, Leslie, we sat in the balmy evening of St., Mark's Square in Venice, the floodlit glory of the Bysantine ("Venetian Gothic"! ) cathedral'` to our left, watching a quick dance of light as a hawker triedto sell batteried yoyo's! Bill Ring; from Australia 'bought one, and it , quickly fell apart, whereupon he took it back to the vendor, who boxed it, and slipped it in at the: bottom of the pile; to be re -sold to the next unwary tourist! " Then there was the soft evening light in a hotel garden at Sor- rento, as we sat eating intricate Italian ice -creams, walled in by, - banks of flowers, enchanted by a long-haired sveldt signorina who. plucked a guitar as she sang the songs of Naples in a very sweet soprano. Behind her, visible' through the lattice of grapevines growing on an arcade, was the clear white stone of a hotel look- ing out over the fascinating blue water toward Capri. world. This City of Light had seen Sordid Light forsake it and build himself a Another memory of lights is- palace at Versailles whic would blue and red, tiny slits of coloi draw the wonder of the wolld for filtering through the west win- dows of the cathedral in Milan at suppertime. Externally, Milan's Cathedral is the most ornate and largest Gothic church in Italy .. . then you step past the guarding gentleman at the door (your shoulders and knees reverently draped! ) and enter the cool depth of a simple structure, nearly empty, circled by columns, and lit only.by the bits of light passing through those high, narrow windows of stained glass, and by the wavering illuminations of the prayer candles lit by worship- pers. Light . the sordid flashcube light from the camera of a nun who pushed past us to photograph the glass -sheathed glory of Michelangelo's "Pieta" in St. Peter's in Rome, totally, disre- garding the signs everywhere which requested that no photo- graphs be taken! Could she not see that Mary's "Why?" over the and water dead body of her Son was better remembered by the tears in the corners of our eyes than by any imprint on a square of photo- graphic film? What°'is true illu- mination, anyway? Then there was the lovely light of all . the towers and spires of Lucerne, marching across the Swiss horizon as we cruised softly around Lake Lucerne listening to an earnest young chap struggle manfully to make the cliffs resound as he blew his Alpine horn. City of Light But the loveliest lights of all were the pure, pure white domes of the church of Montmartre in Paris, Sacre Coeur, silhouetted against an unbelievably royal blue sky, a sky of a blue we never saw before ... and wonder if we will ever see again? We turned, leaving behind the artists' booths, the lights of the . noisy youths who had come to paint the dream city . . . and before us spread the lights of Paris at night', Paris of the tree -lined streets, Paris of the terra cotta= colored roofs, Paris oi*, the planned boulevards, Paris of the River Seine, its banks beaded with strings of lights, its surface sparkling with the reflections of a hundred boats , and bridges and buildings. This City of Light had seen a 'Sun King, Louis XIV, a king who felt he was the light of the French centuries. This City of Light had seen a revolution when the hungry who had no bread listened to a Queen who prattled in ignorance of eating cake, then rode later to a guillotine to lose her head, hated by the people of the City of Light. This City of Light had seen a little Corsican come and pull down its old, mean places, and build himself a city which would be a tribute to hien long after he lay in a great red stone sarcopha- gus, dead of a cancer which proved that even the mighty Napoleon Bonaparte was prey to mortal ills. And we pondered all this light, as we rushed through the bowels of Paris in the Metro, the sub- way's train -garishly lit, dispell- ing the darkness of an under- ground tunnel, a tunnel not too unlike the Paris sewer tunnels of which Victor Hugo wrote in an- other era. In the heat of the Metro train, we remembered another tunnel, a Catacomb tunnel un- derneath Rome, in which we groped weakly following ' a little guide (from India!) breathing closely down his neck lest he leave us behind in the damp and eerie passages, alone with all that mortally remains of Christ- ians (and some pagans!) of two thousand years ago. Tiny electric bulbs wavered their specks of light, his flashlight picked out the Christian symbols on the walls, here a fish, there a painting of a dove, beyond that a dim picture of St. Peter and St. Paul. And all that made life real, all that em- phasized that we were a few dozen people from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada (and one from Califor- nia !) was the pale reflection of our wary• faces, our eyes con- stantly watching which passage- way the light toolA stumbling on until, suddenly, thbre was light again, and we were creatures of the day ... and Nancy chased a mercurial green lizard under a hedge in the bright sunlight .. . "Lefthere be light ... and there was light!" Europe, then, ks light to our memories. Heights and Water When we think of Europe, we think of lights, heights and water. Lights we have already dwelt upon. Any discussion of heights must be prefaced by my comment that I am one of, those people with more than just a respect for heights; I am afraid of great heights. But our recent jaunt through Western Europe has re- duced much of that fear, simply by necessary exposure to great heights, not just looking at them, but being up there ! The Rhine River. runs from the Alps of Switzerland down be- tween and through many coun- tries on its way to the sea. We picked if up at Cologne in West Germany, and traced it upstream for nearly two days, and later picked it up again in Basle, Switzerland. The great glory of the Rhine is not its mighty flow and its use as a highway for commerce and pleasure. The great glory of the Rhine is the string of castles, many in ruins, which march like elderly sentinels along the tops of the steep hills containing the Rhine. We two adult Tathams had revelled in the sight of those castles on a previous trip . . . They seemed the same this time, MARBLE ARCHITECTURE --Marble of many colors, strengths and textures graces the facades of buildings throughout Italy and other European countries. Above is a front view of the rose, green and white marble cathedral in Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore (St. Mary of the Flower) . MICHELANGELO'S DAVID — Chuck Tathm (left)- and- John ndJohn Coates, both formerly of Listowel, were understand ably impressed with the Michelangelo masterpiece "David" displayed in the Academy of Florence. The awe- - some figure, with his sling at rest in his laborer's hand, was the result of an insight which has few, if any, equals. Fash- ioned from marble rejected by another because of a flaw, David was completed in approxinhately 24 months. as mysterious as ever, towering above the terraces .of vineyards which stretch. unbelievably steep- ly toward the skyline, using every square foot of southern slope ex., posure to grow the sweet grapes which have made the Rhine and Moselle Rivers so famous. In- stead of gliding up the Rhine's surface for a few miles on a little cruise boat, we stayed on the bus and drove quickly to the town of St. Goar to await the boaters. Our reward was immediate: above us loomed the hulk of Rheinfels Castle, shadowing the town, and itself a museum of ruins, close by a country club with a swimming pool and tennis courts built on top of an almost -mountain (these Gernnans are very stubborn and very energetic when they decide to do something !) . And so three Tathams and four Coates strag- gled up the steep and curving cobblestone road to the Castle. Part way, mercifully, to give a legitimate reason to stop for breath, a quaint grey slate house hovered beside the road: slate roof; slate walls, made charming and inv iting by a tiny neat lawn and vivid geraniums. On up we panted, hurrying so that we would hie back down to the bus before our sin of commission had been' discovered ... on up till we stood in the courtyard of the largest castle ever built on the (Continued on page 2)_ FAREWELL, CRUEL WORLD— The "Bridge of S ighs" in Venice, from which prisoners condemned to life inwrisort- ment (in the Doges' Palace on the left) got their last view of the Grand Canal on their way to their cells. Few made the return crossing from right to left.