When we left Taipei by air the day after Christmas (1956), we were off on a round-the-world journey that was to bring us back to Taipei and Free China nine months later.
After two busy days in Hongkong, we flew to Karachi to board the same ship-the s/s "Victoria" of the Lloyd Triestino line—which our second son and family of Bangalore had taken a day earlier at Bombay. Because a man named Nasser had put his foot down in the Suez Canal with a very big splash, our steamer had to go all the way around Africa to get to Italy. Fortunately, this gave us nearly a month with that part of our family too seldom seen. It also meant ports of call on the east coast of Africa.
The first stop was at Mogadiscio, a mandate of Italy, where our ship anchored offshore and passengers came out in flat boats to be hoisted aboard in great swinging baskets of canvas, which collapsed when they touched deck so the occupants could step out. It was an interesting and colorful procedure.
Mombassa, where we stopped next, is British territory. We had several hours ashore, and with some 60 others motored into Kenya country, past the ridiculous baobab trees with root-like branches (as if upsidedown), through miles and miles of wild cashews and mangoes, and cultivated cocoanut groves. Here, too, we saw the date-palms introduced many years ago into this one part of Africa only.
We looked forward with keen anticipation to rounding the Cape of Good Hope and stopping at Capetown, for our one British in law was living there. It was a great disappointment when we did not dock until nine in the evening, and were required to be back on board soon after midnight. Our brother-in-law was waiting on the pier and enabled us to make the most of our few hours, We saw the city under its night lights, visited the University area and the Rhodes Memorial by moonlight, enjoyed "high tea" in his home about 11:00, and at midnight, as the shutters were going up on the last stalls of a city market near our ship, we bought mangoes and delicious peaches (reminding us of mainland China) to take aboard.
In the Canary Islands, where many ships from Europe and the British Isles dock daily en route to Africa or South America, we motored through the usual brilliant sunshine to be surprised by most unusual sleet and hail. The lovely mountains of Tenerife Island in the distance were snow-enshrouded. We read the tourist appeal to visit Monta de Fuego (Fire Mountain) "where you only have to make a hole in the earth for a newspaper to catch fire, or a leg of mutton to roast"! (We cannot say we saw this happen.)
Our ship's home-port was Genoa. There was a brief stop in the port of Naples, and we drove down the picturesque coast to Sorrento-no time to visit Capri. Our driver, Gabrielle, told us his ancient car once belonged to the Vatican, and he was proud that it was one of twenty chosen for King Saud's recent visit.
Disembarking at Genoa, we toured the old city with its vine-covered Christopher Columbus house, and marked its contrast with the new areas which boast Europe's tallest sky-scraper of thirty-one floors.
Milan was fascinating, and its famous La Scala was our mecca. Our hotel was right back of the opera house and its musical museum, where we saw original scores by Rossini, Chopin, Mozart and Beethoven, portraits and personal accessories of famous musicians, and a Stradivarius played by young Menuhin in his La Scala performance. We were fortunate in seeing the second performance of Poulenc's new opera "Les Dialogues des Carmelites," a 1774 story of a nunnery, its destruction in the French Revolution, and the martyrdom of the nuns. From first-gallery seats we looked down on the Royal Box where Mohammed Ben Youssef and party had sat for the premiere, and where the night we were there, some most beautifully-gowned Italian ladies in the box looked down on others swishing in and out between acts on the main floor. It was an unintentional fashion parade for the rest of the audience.
Milan's marble cathedral, the Duomo, with its forest of spires and multi-varied arabesques and gargoyles, has some of the loveliest stained-glass windows one could wish to see. They were all removed during World War II, and carefully stored, to be replaced pane by pane over a period of several years when the war was over. We went back for a second visit, took the elevator to the roof, and climbed winding narrow stone-steps to innumerable turrets.
In Milan, too, is the chapel which has Leonardo de Vinci's world-famous "Last Supper" painted on its front wall. At the opposite end is an even larger painting whose flatness makes the "Last Supper" appear three-dimensional in contrast. When this chapel (of St. Maria delle Grazio) was destroyed by bombing in the war, the two end-walls were miraculously left intact, and the paintings covered by faithful Catholics from rain and weather, until the chapel could be re-built.
Florence is the beloved city for artists and art-lovers. It has the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries; the City Hall was once a palace and retains the old Flemish tapestries and other art treasures; the Baptistry of St. John has marvelous bronze doors by Ghiberti depicting Biblical scenes in gilded bas-relief. In fact, wherever one turns art is blended with history in happy harmony.
In France it is possible to journey by bus from the swimming of Nice to the skiing of Val berg in the Maritime Alps in a matter of three hours. One motors along spectacular highways, viewing the Gorges du Cians and de Daluis reminding one of the Taroko Gorge of eastern Taiwan. Another bus tour took us up through villages perched like mighty eagles on steep cliffs, to Grasse and a perfume factory where we sampled and whiffed, to Pont du Loup and its confiscerie where whole fieldfuls of violets, jasmine and rose-petals go into perfumed decorations for cakes and candies. The old Saracen village of Tourette-du Loup has walls 20 feet thick, and narrow streets winding uphill and down, with fascin ating craft shops of weaving, wood-carving, pottery or lace-making at every turn.
Monte Carlo was disappointingly dull, as far as the Casino was concerned. We saw no beautiful worn ell or wealthy men, winning—or losing—fortunes. Only bored-looking people, playing cautiously.
We had a month for enigmatic Spain. From Barcelona we made a day's trip by tourist-bus to the Benedictine monastery of Montserrat, where 180 monks live and work, and where 30 boys of the choir-school sang for us. It is high in the mountains, where in the 9th century the early monks built with inconceivable industry. By suspension car we swung over the wooded valley and up the sheer face of cliffs (which resemble giants or elephants or other imaginary creatures) to a high point for a superb view of the Holy Mountain which inspired Wagner's "Parsifal".
We had five days on the isle of Mallorca where two million almond trees were in radiant bloom, and where Don Quixote windmills keep the fields verdant. On Mallorca is the famous Carthusian Monastery of Valldemosa where in the cold, rainy winter of 1838 George Sand with her two children, French maid, and the composer Frederic Chopin, occupied monks' cells devoid of comfort. The inclement weather made Chopin's tuberculosis worse, yet he composed many of his most famous preludes, nocturnes, and polonaises there, while George Sand wrote "Winter in Mallorca".
Valencia, Alicante, Granada, Malaga, Torremolines, Seville and Cordoba followed. In Granada the heart's desire is to see the Alhambra, built by the Moors in lace like artistry in ceilings, colonnades and arches. Here Washington Irving lived and wrote. There are great churches in all these Spanish cities. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are buried in Granada's Cathedral; Christopher Columbus in the Cathedral of Seville. And most churches have their own collections of art, as the Gothic one in Toledo with the famous portraits by El Greco of the twelve apostles. In Toledo, too, we visited the Alcazar or citadel where the royalists were under seige during the Spanish War. The story of the defending general's refusal to surrender. even to save the life of his son (held hostage by the enemy) is told in almost every language (including Chinese) on the wall of the Citadel.
In Portugal we visited the abbeys of St. Jeronimo and Batalhas; also the Shrine of Fatima, where three shepherd children according to Catholic belief had a vision of Christ, making the spot sacred and the site of miraculous cures for the half-century since. In Lisbon we visited the Museum of Royal Coaches, as did Queen Elizabeth shortly before. However, for England's lovely Queen they brought forth a coach of gold-leaf and red velvet, used previously only for coronations, and six white horses pranced through the city with Her Royal Highness.
Like a story-book page with bright illustrations was the fishing village of Nazaré. Gay plaid shirts and tassled caps for the men, multi-colored circular petticoats for the women and girls, are traditional. Older women who have lost husband or son in storms at sea wear black. Otherwise the custom is to wear 7 to 14 of these colorful petticoats under full skirts. To brighten their hard life, risking the weather to fish as far away as the Newfoundland banks, the fishermen rig their boats with sails of red, blue or yellow.
Nazaré is a lovely memory. But so are they all—Mallorca, Montserrat, Valldemosa, the gypsy caves and Spanish dancers of Granada—all lovely memories. And the beauty of memories is that the older one grows, the more poignant the memory. With every recollection the mental grooves grow deeper, the mental vision clearer, until the present moment becomes the unreality and the precious past fills one's mind and thought. At least this is my idea of what peaceful old age may be.
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Wealth makes it easy to acquire friends; high rank makes it easy to find a wife. —Chinese Proverb