Just returned from the most amazing 2 and a half month trip. We started out on the Seabourn Quest and did 14 days of transatlantic, nothing but water everywhere! We made one stop in Madeira (Have some Madeira, M'Deara, it's oh so much nicer than beer a) Funchal on Madeira is lovely and the flowers were gorgeous. We then went on to Barcelona, Gaudi, and from there a train to Nimes to get a river cruise of the south of France. Avignon, Arles etc. So much fun and so beautiful. We decided to spend a few days in Paris and ran into Bethan and Pete so were able to spend a lovely evening and dinner with them. We spent a day with Mary Blake, an artist friend I hadn't seen in about 40 years. She is painting and living in Montmartre. Lovely time in Paris. Spent a lot of time in the D'Orsay gorgeous and then to the horrific Frank Geary blight The Louis Vuitton Foundation. As ridiculous pretentious and arrogant as it sounds. Then the train to Zurich and on to Vienna. We were to go from there to Russia for a 2 week river cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg but it didn't work out, last minute bait and switch. We stayed in Vienna and had the best time. Saw La Boheme at the Volksoper in German lots of museums, and found a house we fell in love with in Gloggnitz. Keith was in Brussels filming and had some time off so came and spent 4 days with us and in the rain we recreated the 3rd man and went to all the locations we could find, saw the remaining Klimt's and just had a really terrific time. Then a surprise Kristen Aspervig arrived with her family and we had two lovely meals with them. Plus the joy of being with Henry and Karina, one dinner at the Ille's in multiple languages. museums and coffee with Patricia and 2 spectacular concerts of Karina's. Karina and Henry had us over when Keith was there, fixed dinner and performed some beautiful house music for us. Such a lovely time, we hated to leave. I fell in love with the blackbird "Max" who returned from last year to sing every morning and evening on our stairs. We formed a bond and he would come when I whistled for him.
Three days before we left so did he. He was old and had only one leg at the end. I will miss him terribly.
Last scene of The Third Man
Bye Bye Blackbird
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