TRAVEL TALES

Young Chang

Even though Margaret Edson expected it, history hit her hard and left

an impression as deep as the crevices on Europe’s famous monuments and

landmarks.

Ruins were really rubble in Athens. Pillars at temples were gray. The

Coliseum was huge and daunting -- charred by centuries that have passed,

seeped with the sagas of gladiators and slaves.

“Sometimes even the pictures don’t describe what you saw or felt while

you were there,” said Edson, 28.

Edson, her parents Dawn and Tom, and her sister Mary Brock took about

50 snapshots during their 11-day international cruise to Greece, Malta,

Italy and Turkey. They posed on the Acropolis in Athens, at the original

Olympic stadium, in front of the Coliseum and at Roman ruins of meeting

halls and libraries in Ephesus, Turkey.

The photographs will be put in a family photo album at Dawn Edson’s

home. The book will sit next to other albums documenting the family’s

good times at faraway places.

“Because of the history, the things that we saw were so impressive. We

studied about them in school and now we’ve seen them in person,” said

Dawn Edson, a retired teacher who worked as a teacher’s assistant and

substitute for 17 years in the Newport-Mesa School District.

Her husband, Tom, is a retired physical education and athletic

coordinator whose experience includes substituting for nine years in the

local district.

The Costa Mesa family embarked on this European cruise in late October

for no special reason other than that there was a cruise, and they wanted

to go.

The ship, named The Millennium, was new, having only completed one

trip a few months earlier. For 11 nights, the family slept and traveled

on the vessel, docking to sightsee and returning aboard to dine and

sleep, Dawn Edson said.

The fancy dining room, called “The Olympic Room,” was modeled after

one of Titanic’s sister ships, the Olympic. Travelers dressed up when

they had dinner there -- men wore tuxedos, women wore formal gowns, said

Dawn Edson, 69. Foods flambeed on carts beside tables and entrees

appeared only after an entourage of appetizers and soups.

Margaret Edson said the food on land was even more extravagant. She

remembers how meals in Italy seemed to reach no end. Rounds of bread and

champagne would precede a vegetarian lasagna topped with an alfredo

instead of red sauce, which would precede an entree of veal with creamy

mushroom topping.

“It was good but it was just so much food!” Edson said. “You just

wanted to go take a nap.”

But they did not rest.

The schedule included four countries to tour. They hit the highlights

-- the Parthenon, the Coliseum, the Vatican, the site where St. Paul

preached to people according the the Bible, Grace Kelly’s palace and

grave site and, of course, the original Olympic stadium.

“I thought it was amazing,” said Margaret Edson, who works as a

pharmaceutical sales representative for Johnson & Johnson. “I was in awe

most of the time. We’re talking B.C. -- I can’t even imagine it, things

being there even before our country was established.”

And the women somehow found time to shop. Tom Edson dragged his feet

through a bustling bazaar in Turkey called La Plata, Margaret Edson said,

while his daughters and wife bargained and bought items. They picked up

souvenir T-shirts, religious icons, books on Greek mythology and jewelry.

Tom Edson waited and held shopping bags, as fathers in shopping venues

often do.

“He was ready to throw in the towel and go back to the ship,” Margaret

Edison said of her father.

Shopping excursions aside, the family relished their time on foreign

soil. Now that they’re home, everyone agrees there was much left unseen.

“We just kinda scratched the surface,” Margaret Edson said. “I think

because there’s so much history there, I wanted to see more of it. I

didn’t want to come home.”

* Have you, or someone you know, gone on an interesting vacation

recently? Tell us your adventures. Drop us a line to Travel Tales, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627; e-mail young.chang@latimes.com; or fax to

(949) 646-4170.