Road Trip: Pensacola Morning

We had time to explore the town a little. The main shopping drag in Pensacola is Palafox Street, named after a Spanish nobleman. Unfortunately it was early and most things were still closed, including the impressive-looking Basilica of St Michael the Archangel, dating from the 1880s. The priest at that time, Father John Baasen was born in Prussia. He travelled by train and on horseback down to his assignment in Pensacola and survived the simultaneous horrors of yellow fever and a church fire - he was carried out of the burning building on a cot. They made them tough in those days. And he survived to build the present church.

The roots of the parish are much older than that. I thought this gentleman might be Senor Palafox...

But no, it was Tristan de Luna y Arellano, who arrived in 1559, with eleven ships containing over over 1500 soldiers and settlers and 240 horses. Due to hurricanes, hardship and sickness his settlement didn't last but it earned him a statue.

And even a few pigeons, just like Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square. Odd to see London pigeons at a Florida harbour but life is full of surprises.  Speaking of which

Appropriately the British owned Pensacola from 1763 until 1781, when Palafox Street was called George lll Street. The name didn't last.

  There were a lot of charming wrought-iron balconies.

And houses and shops that wouldn't look out of place in Chelsea.

With others more Florida-like.

The British actually laid out the city's street plan.

Then the Spanish got control back, followed by the United States.

Oh and the French had been there for a while too.

The sort of place where we'd like to have spent much longer. There are just too many of those.

To be continued.

Road Trip: Hungry in Pensacola

It was Sunday evening when we reached our first Florida destination, Pensacola, an interesting city with an interesting history and to go with that, an interesting Historic District where we were pretty sure we would find an interesting restaurant. So, rather by luck than judgement, we found an interesting little hotel called the Sole Inn very much in the interesting heart of things. "Just walk a couple of blocks", advised the friendly receptionist - "plenty of places there." So we walked and walked and found most places closed except for a succession of loud "Irish" pubs and bars which weren't particularly interesting to us, though they might have been to all the soldiers and sailors, Pensacola being in the heart of military base country. In short, we were getting desperate.  We fully expected that we'd have to find the nearest garage and buy day-old sandwiches and beer to take back to the hotel which normally happens when we hit a patch of restaurant-hunting bad luck. There was only the harbour left to try. Now usually the last place on earth for good, as opposed to touristy, restaurants is a Florida yachting marina.  But any port in a storm, as they say and we found ourselves at an eatery called Jaco's that really wasn't half bad. In fact it was everything you could possibly want - good food, tables outside overlooking boats and the sunset. Except that Pensacola being in the north of Florida, it was just a mite chilly.

So we chomped on cold cucumber soup and grouper and grits and slurped mojitos and Irish coffee and chatted to a charming young waiter who said he was going to vote for Bernie Sanders because he "seemed the most genuine" candidate but admitted he hadn't really looked at any of the others. Sister-in-law, who comes from Vermont, suggested he might like to do so. Afterwards we took in what appeared to be a huge cargo ship on the other side of the harbour.

 And walking back to the hotel, wondered if we'd been a bit heavy on the mojitos and Irish coffee.

To be continued....

Road Trip: Magnificent Montgomery

Just time for a quick spin around Alabama's capital, Montgomery. Again it was a pity we couldn't stay longer. This was the old railway station.

 There were some pretty French-style buildings.

And another charming Catholic church, St Peter's, dating from 1834.

Leafy parks and the sun beating down on neo-classical white, columns and monuments.

 With a lot of the futuristic going up as well. Montgomery certainly looks as though it's prospering.

 
The historic state capitol shimmered and dazzled in the heat.

 All the official buildings around it made it look a little like Washington. Or indeed like a little Washington.
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Now here was an odd bit of history - the first White House of the Confederacy (the last was in Richmond, Virginia) temporary home to hapless Confederate President Jeff Davis and his family.

It was all very stately but someone had a sense of humour...

There was hardly a soul about but for some people visiting the Civil Rights memorial.

And a place where they evidently don't want you to park. We got smartly shooed away.

Remembrance Sunday

  As always, I'm sorry this isn't commemorated in America. The nearest equivalent here is Memorial Day, the last Monday in May, which lacks the suitable November gloom. November 11th is Veterans' Day, which celebrates all the military, living and dead.
  So I was pleasantly surprised, that, among all the (in my view at least) spineless, meandering modern tunes, Eternal Father Strong To Save had found its way onto the hymn list at Venice Cathedral - the Florida one. Most people scarpered before the end, though.
  I never thought I'd have a good word for Arsenal but I have to say that the prelude to today's match against Spurs at the Emirates did Britain proud ("They shall not grow old", the Last Post, a wreath-laying and not an audible squeak from either set of fans all through.) More and more Americans apparently now join me in watching Premier League "soccer" on NBC at weekends and I think they would have been impressed. Made me chuffed to be British.

Road Trip: Sobering Selma

To most people, Selma, Alabama, says one thing - the big 1965 Civil Rights marches, led by Martin Luther King, especially the brutal suppression of the first one, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, America's Bloody Sunday. I had always wanted to see this poignantly historic place.  It proved to have some lovely old buildings. This is Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church.

A choir was practising for the Spanish Mass.

It had a rather nice font.

And a splendid parish hall.

But it wasn't always called Our Lady Queen of Peace. A leaflet on the church's history made sobering reading.  The "white" parish, Assumption and the "black" parish, St Elizabeth's (below as it looks now) were only integrated in 1971, though apparently the rules had been bent before that. As the leaflet said,  "Sgt James O. Burk, a white member of Assumption parish was beaten up in 1964 for publicly defending the parish's policy of allowing blacks to attend services".  And so many of St Elizabeth's parishioners were arrested for demonstrating in favour of voting rights that a Catholic paper called it "A parish of jailbirds".

Subsequently the Archbishop requested that the St Elizabeth's priest, Father Ouellet, be removed from Alabama. "In 1965, the white people of Selma were scandalised by Ouellet's presence and the black people of Selma were scandalised by his removal".  Many Catholic and other churches and their members played a heroic part in the Civil Rights struggle - but this was an insight into just how complicated things were.  A foreigner passing through couldn't hope to understand. And in some ways, I felt like an intruder in someone else's painful memories.
  Below is Tabernacle Baptist Church - according to the historical marker outside, some of whose members invited Martin Luther King to Selma in 1964, in contravention of an injunction "against people meeting in public to discuss breaking the law".  

Selma on a Sunday was very quiet - practically deserted. It seemed almost a time-warp.

 Especially the area around the infamous bridge

 For some reason, among the attractive but bleak old buildings

I expected to see some signs of a tourist industry. This was America, after all.  But it was more like a ghost town - or perhaps just a sleepy Sunday one.

Perhaps the memories are still too fresh. Though the Edmund Pettus Bridge signified triumph as well as tragedy. We felt humbled to be able to drive over it, taking the same route - Route 80 - that the marchers took to Montgomery when they were finally allowed on their way.

 A little way along the road

 was an "Interpretative Center", marking the site of a former tent city of evicted black people but it was closed on Sundays. The grounds were peaceful and pleasant though.

And tiny flowers bloomed in the grass.

We heard an anecdote from the receptionist at the hotel we'd stayed in the previous night, on the outskirts of Birmingham. (BirmingHAM, Alabama, that is.) Her father has been at Selma High School when it was first integrated.  Smelling trouble, the media circus descended on the school but the principal wouldn't let them near it. "I'll call you if there's any trouble", he said firmly. A few months later, the call came and got the predictable excited reactions, "Trouble, you've got trouble?"
"Sure there's been some trouble", said the Principal.
"What happened?" squawked the ecstatic hacks, scrambling to get their equipment together.
 "There was a fight," and he paused and chuckled, "between two white boys."
"My daddy loves to tell that story!" said the receptionist.

Coming up: Dazzling Montgomery

Road Trip: Everyone's Going South

At least on the back roads you avoid the waves of of RVs (Recreaional Vehicles, aka motorhomes) thundering down the motorways, sorry, Interstates, like a huge, motorised army trying to capture the sun. It's the migration of the snowbirds, as they call it. British caravans look so puny in comparison. Many of them tow cars behind, so they can be more mobile at their destination. You also see RV dealerships where thousands of the beasts are for sale. Soon everyone will have one and America will be one vast moving mobile home.
   But some have more class than others, like this vintage Airstream we saw further along the road into Florida.

Coming Up: A Bridge of Sighs

Road Trip: A Shrine and a Castle

Aiming for Birmingham, Alabama, we looked in on the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, founded by Mother Angelica, a feisty Catholic nun, who also started the Eternal World Television Network.

 There were a few swanky-looking houses before you got to the shrine proper. Perhaps the beginnings of a "themed community." Clearly they weren't going to put up with any nonsense.

The first thing you see is some fancy white fencing - it reminded me of horse farms, as Americans call studs, in Lexington, Kentucky and such. And sure enough.. not exactly thoroughbreds but a couple of nice looking draft horses came over to say hello.

From the outside, the shrine church was beautiful - simple and Italianate in style

Fronted by an enormous courtyard and cloisters. We were there at a quiet time - it must cater for large groups of pilgrims.

No photographs were allowed inside the church - which was a dazzling feast of gold-and-white, the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar in a giant monstrance. Very fittingly, awe and silence reigned. It all looked almost too new - which of course it was. The European in me likes slightly faded old churches and shrines steeped in history but, let's face it - even those were new once and perhaps looked like this one.

At the door was an impressive dress code, rather more draconian than I'm used to in Europe. The nuns at my school would have been transported with delight if we showed up in skirts like that. Two inches above was the general rule, as I remember and even that was the triumph of hope over experience. (I've noticed American Catholic Mass-goers tend to fall into two sartorial camps - the shorts-and-tank-tops brigade and the prim, long skirts types. There's little of a happy medium. Americans, with their typical enthusiasm, don't do things by halves.) Having said that, a lot of churches could certainly use a slightly modified version.

The whole was a splendid sight and one in the eye for people who design modern churches to look like gasworks, almost embarrassed that they might appear a bit too religious. This place isn't embarrassed. Not a bit.
 But I have to say there was a little of the "only in America" about it.  Piped music played in this  chapel with a lifesize crib scene, Baby Jesus looking a little old for the part and laughing merrily.

Perhaps He knew we were about to cross the courtyard to....

....a  real American castle!

There was a Great Hall

Tapestries and knights in armour

Some positioned in unexpected places..

It was certainly the most sumptuous restroom, as they call it here, that I'd visited for a long long time.

And came with appropriate sentiments

 Once rested, it was time to hit the castle's apparent main purpose, the shop, with its huge array of books, statues, medals, rosaries and holy cards. Rather nobly - but again rather oddly, compared to most other such places I've been to, the shop doesn't open on Sundays - when, presumably, most of the potential customers are there. But I'm sure they know what they're doing.