On Vacation

Posting will be sporadic this next week, as Alice and I are taking a much needed, non-working vacation in the south of France. Our hotel is an important broken champagne bottle's toss across the street from the Monaco line of demarcation in Cap d'Ail, which lets us see the yachts of the rich and famous float by, without actually paying the upcharge for the view.

We're having our usual European travel misadventures. Ten packs of Alice's cigarettes stolen and anything that looked like a prescription bottle torn open by TSA agents in Cincinnati. You know, "for your safety." I guess if we didn't have Stalinist goons stealing anything of value from our luggage, the terrorists win. And while changing planes with a four hour layover in Paris yesterday, we were given the unusual treat of being evacuated from Terminal 2F at the Charles de Gaulle airport, as the police blew up an unaccompanied bag in front of the building. Apart from that, along with my usual high stress driving in badly marked cities as I tear past the hotel four times on one way streets without finding the entrance, it should be a quiet week in favorite places we've been to before.

I probably won't be visiting lodges while I am here, but I did come across this piece of news from the United Grand Lodge of England's MW Pro Grand Master Peter Lowndback's address in June of this year:

Brethren, since 1924 Port of Hercules Lodge No. 4626 has been meeting in Monte Carlo. In recent years three Lodges under the United Grand Lodges of Germany have been meeting in Monaco and a number of Monegasque citizens have become Freemasons in Lodges under the National Grand Lodge of France. In April of this year we were approached by the brethren in Monaco and the United Grand Lodges of Germany to assist in the formation and consecration of a Sovereign Grand Lodge of Monaco. As the members of Port of Hercules Lodge have agreed to be one of the founding Lodges of the new Grand Lodge we have agreed to assist in the project.

Port of Hercules Lodge meets quarterly in the Library of the English-speaking St. Paul's Anglican Church, at 22 Avenue de Grande Bretagne in Monaco.