Walkerville Collegiate Institute - Blue and White Yearbook (Windsor, Ontario Canada)

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BLUE AND WHITE HWjlfcJ V Ju{ , LITERARY h-tk . ' • — MY TRIP ABROAD By Keith Wilmshurst Four years ago this August I was fortunate in being able to visit England and Western Europe, and in seeing much of the architectural beauty of that part of the world. Much of ths has now been laid waste by war, never again to be rebuilt in its former way. It is because of this I wish to write of what I then saw. My mother and I sailed on the Queen Mary out of New York harbour into the Atlantic ocean. The trip across the ocean took four and a half days. We landed at Southampton and took a train to Lon¬ don. On our tour of London we visited Westminster Abbey, which dates back to 1066 and was finished in 1932. St. Paul’s Cathedral whose dome in three hundred and sixty-five feet high, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. We saw the Tower of London and the old moat surrounding the tower, which used to be filled with water, but is now used for playing soccer. The shimmering crown jewels were in the tower and could be seen for a shilling, but of course they were heavily guarded. One of the most interesting sights was the changing of the guard, which takes place at Buckingham Palace at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day. There are the Grenadier Guards, who have a white plume, the Irish Guards who have a blue plume, and the Coldstream who have a red plume. Their red coats with gold braid and their horses are the most beautiful I have ever seen. They form in squares and the guard who has been on duty rides up in front of all the rest and passes the key over to the guard going on duty. Another interesting place was Mad¬ ame Tussaud’s Wax Works. In this four storey building were wax models of all the people of importance in the world. They were so realistic that at times you would think they were speaking to you. We went to the north of England on the train, which was much different from ours. They looked like toy trains painted in bright colours, and the inter¬ iors were made into separate compart¬ ments. We crossed the English Channel on a boat not any larger than one of the ferries which cross the Detroit river. As we neared France we could see the chalk cliffs at Calais, and very shortly we landed at LeHavre. Paris, to me, was not an impressive city. Its streets are narrow and dirty and most of the build¬ ings of very ancient architecture. One place of importance, the Eiffel Tower, 984 feet high,was built in 1889, and con¬ tains 700 million pieces of steel. The platform holds 800 people at the top of the tower, and it takes forty minutes to go up or down by elevator. The Arc de Triomph is a very wonder¬ ful arch built in the centre of the city, to honour Napoleon. It is wide enough for an aeroplane to fly through; in fact in 1924 an American did fly through, much against the rules of the city, and consequently was prosecuted. From there we went to Switzerland. It is very quaint with the stores built with open fronts. Our hotel was on the edge of Lake Geneva, with the Alps tow¬ ering up in the background. They are so gigantic with their snow topped peaks, it gives one the feeling of awe. We next travelled all day through beautiful country to Venice, a city of Page Nineteen