Our thanks to Gertrude Meyer, fellow travel enthusiast, for these pictures.
Gertrude and hubby, Ernst visited here on May 5, 2005
when ms Rotterdam made a port call on a Mediterranean Cruise.

Monument to Napolean

One of the most brilliant individuals in history, Napoleon was a masterful soldier, an unequalled grand tactician and a superb administrator. He was also utterly ruthless, a dictator and, later in his career, thought he could do no wrong.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born the 15th of August, 1769 on Corsica (formerly a territory of Genoa), just three months after the island had been defeated by the French. He would spend his childhood hating France, the nation he would one day rule.

I was born when [Corsica] was perishing. Thirty thousand Frenchmen spewed on to our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves of blood... The cries of the dying, the groans of the oppressed and tears of despair surrounded my cradle from the hour of my birth.

The revolutionary fever that was spreading when Bonaparte was a teenager allowed a talented individual the opportunity to rise far beyond what could have been achieved only a few years previously. Bonaparte was not only a warrior; he was also a shrewd propagandist. During his first campaign in Italy, he carefully crafted reports from the battlefield, designed to increase his glory while masking the ruthlessness with which he plundered the country. He led his armies to victory after victory, and by 1807 he ruled territory that stretched from Portugal to Italy and north to the river Elbe. He crowned himself Emperor. But his attempts to conquer the rest of Europe failed; a defeat in Moscow in 1812 nearly destroyed his empire, and his 1815 loss to the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo finished the job. He was sent into exile on the island of St. Helena, where he died in 1821.

Photo by Gertrude Meyer

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