A Letter from Europe

As Remembrance Day approaches World War One is on the minds of Britons and in memory of all the British and Empire servicemen who died in that conflict a hundred years ago nearly a million ceramic poppies are being ‘planted’ around The Tower of London…

More poppies are added daily and there is a moving ceremony at dusk each day when the names of another 180 deceased are added to the roll call of the fallen. The poppies have all been sold to aid the servicemen’s charity and will be distributed after November 11th.

The sun was still shining in London when we left for the South of France and the Brits were basking in the hottest Halloween ever. The crowds were out and everyone was shocked to find that the ancient market hall at Covent Garden had somehow split in half …lengthwise…

It may be November, but the daytime temperatures both in the U.K. and here on the Cote d’Azur would still rival a July day on our Canadian isle, and the Mediterranean sea still has memories of its glory days in August when it hit a tepid thirty. But, while the sun is still shining, the celebrities and mega-rich who own most of this paradise have long gone. The ritzy villas and posh restaurants are abandoned for the winter and the golden sands have been swept off the beaches with bulldozers and mounded out of the grasp of the expected storms. All is peace and quiet at present: the crewless mega-yachts bob gently in the harbours; the convertible Bentleys and Lamborghinis are carefully garaged; and the Lear jets and helicopters have all flown away. They will all return next summer but, in the meantime, we are getting in an early Polar Bear swim so we won’t need to bother when we get home. How could we resist when the sea looks like this…

Of course, it’s not just the sun and sand that draws us. In truth we are visiting family members lucky enough to live here. But while we are here we are taking in historic sights like the beautifully preserved mountaintop town of Mougins – onetime home of Picasso …

... the ancient harbours...

...and the fabulous markets like the one in Antibes…

We’ve taken you to the Provencal markets before but can’t resist showing you some of the fabulous goodies on offer today…

Now, after a couple of weeks in the sun, we are headed to the mountains and have flown over the Alps to the Swiss capital, Bern. We were expecting Switzerland to be expensive but we’ve never previously been refused money from an ATM because the amount we requested was too small. Imagine our surprise when the ATM at Geneva airport dispensed a minimum of 1000 Swiss francs ($1200 Cdn) and we only wanted a couple of hundred.