Dear Readers,
Up aloft with Air France (but actually a British European aircraft) and flying from somewhere my boarding card called “London Heat”.. which really was actually HOT.  I am off again on the road… a cool four week odyssey with a variety of places and reasons for going.
First stop, La France…never a problem for me to go there and I have some hopefully high living ahead at various gastronomic temples, allied with samplings of matured grape juice, that always heals anything that might ail you.
I flew in to Lyon, where I was met by the son of our agent, whom I had known from when we ran a luxury train in the USA.  My flight arrived right behind Air Algerie, full of robed and veiled women.  Dark and well made up eyes, flashing over mouthfulls of wet fabric – amazing how much eyes alone can tell.  I tried winking at one of the younger ones, who appeared to be gazing in my direction and rather than looking away, she just lowered her eyelids slowly… I felt I could have moved to Algiers in a flash.

Then off we went to my first stop, the immensely grand Chateau de Bagnoles.  A cool genuine 12th century castle, which has had various proprietors over the years, both friend and foe, and now would believe, owned by Brits and  it has become an exceedingly posh place to put up for a night or two.  It’s like staying in a Norman castle that was updated by Laura Ashley.  The main part, a traditionally shaped four square castle, with the round turrets running top to bottom on the corners, now has just 12 swish bedrooms, most which are absolutely HUGE and stuffed full of genuine antique furniture, wall hangings, sideboards etc etc and the great thing is that each room has its own history, with detailed information about each piece.   So I knew I was sleeping in a 16th c bed and the tapestry on the wall was from Aubusson and done in 1740.   The bathroom, in the turret featured a vast bathtub, with gargoyle taps and the arrow slits were still in the walls, which provided a very unusual view from a seated position.   Just what would the builders ever have thought ?   Dinner that night was in a very formal dining room, which I brought a jacket for specially and v glad I was too.  I am not sure they would have admitted me without.  Perfect upmarket French food, stuff I can eat every day and lovely bread and even the butter tasted better there.  And of course I had to sample some wine that would be offered to our guests.  I know, I know, it’s tough but someone has to do it.

You are surround by the lush Burgundian countryside, so after the formal gardens with banks of lavender and a vast cherry orchard, just looking at all that was great, before you raised your eyes to the vineyards which stretched to the horizon.  In the clear, early morning light, I just gazed out of the window and wanted for nothing more.  And at night a total blackout and a silence so deep that your breathing was the only intrusion.

I was there a day before our gang arrived, so I was taken to see a real local chevre cheese making farm, which supplies cheeses to the hotel.  It was thought some of our gang could face some muddy feet for a chance to get behind the scene.  It was eventually found at the end of rutted track and Madame, the wife, was located.  She was right out of French bucolic peasant casting, amply rounded, dressed in what had to be hand-me-downs and a stout pair of boots. She was much nonplussed about some Americans coming to visit, as she was clearly not at the dizzy heights of local or international foodie tourism.   She had had a school visit once, but the idea of designer shoes and much in the way of uplifted faces and other dangly bits, peeked her interest.   It really was close to Cold Comfort Farm, as the goats were at one end of a very dilapidated building and the cheese at the other.  I realized that we would need to be very careful in offering this outing to the punters, as it would be perfect for some and the end of the world for the others.  (Hindsight report: 8 went and they thought it fantastic, as it had given them an insight into such a hidden world.  Madame rose to the occasion too and even cleaned herself up and removed much stuff from the kitchen table, so that they could do a sampling, along with her husband’s wine).

PARIS… still my favorite city in the world.  I went to visit my old friend Micheline, a local and international tour guide and expedition leader.   She was actually arriving with a boat load of visitors all joined together by being Harvard Alums.  They had been cruising along the Seine from Rouen.  I almost expected to meet someone I knew, as these folks are my company’s bread and butter, but in the end it was just she.  I was invited to stay for a fancy farewell dinner and cruise through the center of Paris, which would have been wonderful, BUT,  the water was too high and we were too lightly loaded and thus high in the water, with the result that we could only go under one bridge and would turn there, as we would be stuck under the rest of the bridges.  This one of those touristy things that I have never done, but it was not going to happen that night.  Bummer, as the food and the wine would have been amazing.

Paris does look wonderful from the water and the ET is still being lit in the way they invented for the millenium celebration, so once an hour a blaze of light runs all over it and c’est un vrai spectacle.   Later I discovered that this is about to cease, as it was never designed to run for so long and is now coming to bits.

PARIS – MALTA
Oh dear oh dear, not a good start to the day. Try coupling together the official start of the French holidays with Air France having a sort of strike and the general inability of the French to form anything like a line and some new check in staff, on their first day behind a counter and a couple of baggage belts not working, THEN you will have a slight idea of what it was like.  And Air Malta has a an extra flight operating, which is causing further grief and confusion as both leaving at the same time, so they are struggling v hard to achieve an on time departure.  In the end, they are both two hours late and Air Malta will get the blame, rather than Aeroports de Paris, which let them down badly.

So, now a bit later on.  My visit to Malta was good and I had a very busy time too.  I was met by Janet, the British wife of our Maltese agent, and somehow we got my monster red suitcase in to the back of her tiny Fiat 500.  The car was practically sitting back on the rear wheels. Barely time to freshen up before rushing off to meet her husband, Joe at a restaurant and discuss our business.   Came back at 2300, as dinner was a l’italienne so a long drawn out deal.  It was a Friday so much in the way of fish was offered and consumed.  Old religious habits die hard in very Catholic Malta.  You have never seen so many churches.   And they just love their saints days too, so each is celebrated by a fireworks display.  The local paper tells you exactly which town or village will be celebrating and there will flags flying and bunting and much eating and drinking in honor St Somebody and tables are outside and the whole place very much en fete and it will end with fireworks.  Every night in Malta sounds like there is a battle happening somewhere.

Next day was spent entirely on the move, as I had to go see all the places that would be visited by our group, so I started at 8am and was not back to 7pm, with very hot feet.  Just another day at the works.   Malta, small as it is, has an amazing variety of different and interesting things to see, so no shortage of material for us.  The trip which is coming here, has as its theme, The Origins of Man, so Malta a manages to produce tombs which are 5000 years old, hand carved from the rock.  There is a kind of Stonehenge look-alike, but only 3000 years old and like Stonehenge, nobody today knows just why they did it.  Perhaps they went on their holidays to Stonehenge and fancied they could have one too… 

So Malta went well and I was off to my next stop.  I had something happen at the airport which was a first for me and a kind of milestone too.  We are being taken out by bus to board our flight.  The bus has a few seats but sensibly designed for standing.  It is early morning and I am rested and feeling perfectly fine, so stand on the bus watching the behind the scene airline world.  And then, for the first time ever, a polite young man gets up from his seat and offers it to me.  Ahhhhhhhhh…. do I look that far gone ?  I am quite overwhelmed and thank him most profusely but at the same time I am both shocked and also laughing and glad that none of my friends is around, as they would have laughed a lot.

Anyway, I manage to change planes in Rome, without getting lost.  All sorts of funny looking planes there.  I see Libyan Arab has surfaced again and there was also a very dodgy looking old Russian plane, being operated by Albanian Airlines, which was a new one for me.   We had our ears pounded to death by a way too loud p.a. system, with American Airlines continually paging, it seemed, every passenger going to Chicago.  Couple that with a pair of hyperactive small children, rushing around screaming and bashing in to everyone.  Our gate was also going to be used later for a flight to Bucharest and was already being invaded by old crones, swathed in voluminous black, all of whom did not speak any language known to me and were being yelled at by the Alitalia staff, as they were attempting to board my flight too.  Must be great fun to watch their boarding, as all heavily festooned with much hand baggage, a lot of which was coming apart at the seams and falling all over the floor.

I was on my way to Istanbul and the AZ staff had told me the flight was not full, so of course it was 100% occupied and as ALITALIA stand for Always Late in Taking off And Late in Arriving, it was.   But a spiffy crew ran up and down and gave us an edible meal and even ice cream afterwards.  The brand new terminal on arrival was fast and I remembered to buy the guides some cartons of foreign cigarettes (a standing order) as they all smoke like chimneys and it is tres posh to have a pack of real Marlboro.

And would you believe, we arrived in perfect sunshine and today it is thundering.  I am notoriously unlucky with the weather here.  I wonder why?

Okay.. must stop here or your eyes will all glaze over
Tim