The great European trip post #5 Nice

We boarded the train in Avigon headed for Nice on Sunday noonish for a 2-3 hour trip.

We got to Nice and met up with the lady to get are apartment and set out on the town. We stayed in the old town which is the triangular shaped area in the picture below taken from the big hill that sticks up along the coastline. This once again was home to old time castles and defense stuff

In fact our apartment was on the first bottom to top road in from the left and you can also see the tents for the daily market just to the left of all the buildings. Like every place else we went in France this was restaurants first, shops second, and in this case a daily market with an added bonus of the Monday market the day we were there being an antique market. We call them flea markets here in the US. This picture zooms right in on our apartment location.

Like a lot of places in Europe there is a naked person fountain in a main square or circle.

The first day that we got there was the only day that the sun was out and we were able to see the famous blue Mediterranean.The hill in the background is where the above pictures were taken.

Our time here was pretty much dominated into deciding where to eat 3 times a day with a couple snacks thrown in, walking every street and going into just about every store, walking the markets and climbing the hill above the city.
Here we are visiting the market.

Here we are visiting the famous ice cream place with over 100 flavors and it has bee there for like 100 years or something.

Here is a table in a restaurant that we ate in for lunch one day that the menu consisted of slow cooked meat, beef, lamb or pork and mashed potatoes. We were sitting at the main table with 6 other people. It was one of the better meals we had.

From that point forward we realized that when in Nice you must always go out to eat a big meal.
Nice has a big airport that we flew out of when we left for Germany. It is on the point at the top left of this picture.

A better view

For the beach lovers the beach is a rocky beach like most in Europe but in the summertime it is completely covered in people, with something like 75% of them topless, or so I’ve been told.

And finally a couple pictures that don’t tie into anything but are pictures. A bird and a guy that lost his hat.

When the time came we left the key and took the bus to the airport to fly to Duesseldorf Germany thus ending the French part of the trip.Duesseldorf was almost all work related because the big every 3 year plastics manufacturing trade show was going on and Mary wanted to see every one of the items there. Our hotel was in an office area with nothing but the hotel around. The train stop was about 1/2 mile away so the time in Germany was all walking. It was a productive show but only 1 picture (Duesseldorf did not appear to be that interesting of a place anyway). That picture is how we ate a big meal in the Hotel bar 2 of the 3 nights there. (it should be noted that every hotel in town was full and the rates for everything were jacked up about 300%)

I flew home on Saturday morning and Mary went on to Poland and Italy on Sunday before returning to China. As I post this she is back in Germany.
Be sure to see all the photos in the gallery to the right and I’ll leave you with this. While waiting for the train in Duesseldorf I asked a lady to sing the Roy Rogers song “Happy Trails” Lucky for you my phone was in record mode.

The big European trip post #4 Provence

Provence is a province in southeast France.

Provence was a Roman area and did not come under the rule of France until about 500 years ago, thus it has a different vibe than Paris. We arrived in Avigon and rented a car to go to St. Remy where we were staying. We used this to drive to the surrounding area over the next 3 days.

The first night we went into the center town for dinner. I’ve discovered that we didn’t take pictures of St Remy itself other than this picture of a guy that is 1/4 French.

1/4 because to be true French you have to were a beret, a scarf, a stripped shirt, and be carrying a big French bread.

The next morning we took of for Les Baux Which is an old village and castle ruins set on one of the large hills in this area. Pronunciation.

This was on the other side of the hill range south of town and on the way over we stopped at the top for some pictures. While taking this we also found that snails tend to grow on bushes. Thea reminds me of the old joke where the punch line is “look at that S car go”

As we crested the hill we had a view of the village from the back side across the valley.

The next day we passed by from the other side below its view over the valley.

This site has evidence going back 6000 years. During the second century BC the Celts used it and on through the middle ages where it was a feudal lordship over 80 or so towns in the area. Those guys were kicked out in the 1300 and by the 1500 just a village with a castle. During the early 1600 it was the center of a Protestant revolt against some Cardinal guy that run the area and they lost and the castle walls torn down. This view through one of the few remaining wall opening looking south kind of shows why it was such a strategic location for more than a few years.

The village is mostly restaurants and small shops as the whole village is devoted to tourism.

Finally for Les Baux a view from the very top of the castle ruins.

After spending the day here it was back to St Remy and another dinner in the village.
The next day was market day in Fontvielle so we were off in the morning to get to that. We only have one picture of the market.

They had the usual market stuff, just more French like. This town had a street and a church.

As it got to be noon we partook in the, as required by French law, noon to 2 lunch in a restaurant on the square.

On our return trip to St Remy we stopped at the Roman ruins of Glanum. This was a fortified city founded in the 6 century BC by Celts and became a Roman city in 27BC. It was destroyed a few times and finally the Roman version was abandoned after the fall of Rome in about 250. These 2 things are a couple thousand years old and are outside of the actual city that has been rediscovered and excavated over the last 100 years.

While there are a fair amount of ruins

the remaining columns of the temple are about all that is recognizable as something.

The next day it was off to Arles and what was billed as the best market in the area. If nothing else it was large, a few blocks long. The other reason to go to Arles is the 21st largest Roman coliseum in the world which is still used for bull fights.

After a brief rest at the fountain we returned to St Remy and pack for the next days journey to Nice and the French Riviera. Pronunciation.

See the full picture gallery at the right.

The big European trip post #3 the Louvre

For those of you that don’t know the Louvre is a huge building just stock full of old stuff. We went on 2 different days and could have spent a few more I suppose. There are many rooms like this with statue things from different times and cultures.

There were many rooms with paintings but we didn’t spend as much time in them as so many of them covered the 1000 years of religious painting which was all that was allowed at the time due to the wide spread freedom of expression allowed by the church during those times.

 

The room in that picture is as crowded as it got on our visits. The reason for so many people is because it is this room.

Note way up there hanging on the wall is a little picture. It’s the Mona Lisa by that guy Art Deco I think. My thoughts on seeing famous art in person are that it should be done.You see these pictures in books and somehow you create this mental image of it. With this picture my image was that it was much bigger. Heck, old Art probably had it hanging in his bathroom it’s so small. The opposite was the case with Washington Crossing the Delaware that you see over and over in grade school history books. That thing is in New York and is huge, bigger than a house. I had always pictured it about the size of this picture.

One of the other more famous items there is the statue below.

Venus de Milo (actually Aphrodite of Milos but no one calls her that) done by some Greek guy 130 to 100 BC stands bout 6′ 8″ tall. While it is nice I’m not sure I understand what makes it more famous that many of the other sculptures other than that during the 1800 France promoted it as such. By my taste the statue of David we saw in Florence is many times a better work of art.And I know art.
There were rooms with big art.

You will see in the gathering of photos right that big art is easy to pose with.

And you can pose with a lady doing something to a duck.

Of course there was always the requirement to pose outside.

Wednesday morning it was up and to the train station to catch a train to Avignon in the “south of France” to start our 4 day stay in the historical province Provence.

The big European trip post #2 Paris as seen from tall places.

We arrived in Paris late Friday afternoon and after dealing with major work issues in the taxi from the airport to the hotel we settled in and then went looking for food. We found this.

Some genuine French french fries, some genuine French french bread, some genuine French french wine, and what ever Mary had that don’t look French at all.

Saturday was a trip to the Louvre and dinner with Mary’s college classmate and her family, Sunday was Notre Dame and walking all over central Paris, Monday was back to the Louvre  the gardens and other museums, and Tuesday was the Eiffel Tower, the Arc des Triomphe and the Avenue Des Champs Elysees.  Since those are foreign words here are the official pronunciations.

Eiffel Tower

Arc de Triomphe

Avenue Des Champs Elysees

Everything but the Louvre involved looking at Paris from tall places and since the Louvre is post #3 here are the tall places.
We went to Notre Dame on Sunday and climbed into the bell towers to get a view of Paris from high places.
Here is a view of the Eiffel Tower by looking more or less West from Notre Dame.

Here is looking Northeast to the Louvre from Notre Dame.

Here is the thing on the hill looking East from Notre Dame

Now from the Eiffel Tower here is The Louvre and Notre Dame.

From the Eiffel Tower northeast to the Arc de Triomphe.

From the top of the Arc de Triomphe looking at the Eiffel Tower.

From the Arc de Triomphe Northwest to new building area, we didn’t go there.

And finally From the top of the Arc de Triomphe looking the opposite direction down the Avenue Des Champs Elysees towards the Louvre.

Just so the reader understands that we did spend some time on the ground here are some ground level posing in front of stuff pictures. (A hollowed vacation tradition)

 

Note the clever framing to make the tower appear to be a large ugly hat.

Mary and her college friend and the family.

The basement where this restaurant is was not known to exist a few years ago. It had apparently been walled up. They moved into it and have since learned that it was probably built sometime during the 12th century, about the same time as Notre Dame that it is only a few blocks away from.
To finish out this post some French things we saw.

French Dip
French American Dip

 

French Chinese Dip
French Fry
French Friar

All of the general pictures are at the right in Paris 2013. Maybe I’ll even add some captions click the i in the upper rh corner when in full screen mode.
au revoir jusqu’à la prochaine fois.

Pronunciation:

The big European trip 2013 post #1 Romania.

It has been over a month now since our big 3 week European adventure so I guess it is about time to get the pictures and comments up on the big Yusmith.
Here is a Map showing the route followed on this epic journey.

I left the US on Monday afternoon Sept 30 on a redeye flight that got me to Frankfort Germany at 6 in the morning on Tuesday, to catch a flight to Bucharest, to meet Mary, that thanks to her scheduling had arrived there 1 day too early. In Bucharest we boarded a little turboprop which was the only flight daily to Satu Mare, Romania (official pronunciation here)

Believe it or not that is exactly how all Romanians talk, more on that later.
Satu Mare is a town of about 100000 near the northwest border of Romania with Hungry. We arrived and walked into the terminal building and waited for our bags at the about 8 foot on a side baggage belt go-around thing. (didn’t know they could be made that small) We got to our hotel, which actually was quite nice and went out to find a place for dinner. Satu Mare seems to close up about 5 in the afternoon but we did find a little 5 table place in the basement of a building and was able to finally eat some food after a day and a half of travel. (in fact it must be some ex-soviet state law that all restaurants must be in the basement because that is where all of the ones we ate in were located). We took care of business and then had about 24 hours to kill until being able to get the only flight out the next day. So we walked the town and hung out at the central city park.

Mary posing in Central Park

The town itself was old Europe and with a blend of Soviet ugly.

While there we did notice a couple oddities. At all their streets where they had traffic control they of course had the walk, don’t walk signs but during our time there we did not ever see one person disobey those signs. Not old people, not people in a hurry, not teenagers, not young kids and not people wanting to cross a little 10 foot wide 1 way street. This was the most unusual thing I have ever seen. Unfortunately we were never able to find out why there was such a strict adherence to obeying the walk signs.
The other thing must be a result of history. See below for the old map of the area. You will see that Satu Mare was in a little area just outside Transylvania.

With that being the home of all vampires that must be the reason for the lack of famous Romanian singers and the preponderance of gymnasts from Romania. In fact as noted above all Romanians talk in the exact same voice. While we were out walking around I asked a random Romanian woman to sing the chorus of Jingle Bells and luckily my phone happen to be in record mode. Here is that rendition.

They just can’t carry a tune but as leaving she did do 5 flips 6 back flips and a Jacques Cousteau dismount.
So it was off to the Satu Mare International Airport (actual real name) to go to Bucharest for the night.Here is the waiting room and the security checkpoint.

After spending a short night in a hotel near the airport in Bucharest we got up and started on our way to Paris. We had a connection in Istanbul and here are a couple pictures of the airport.

What is of interest and somewhat surprising with these pictures from the Istanbul airport is that nowhere is there an ottoman to be seen, and there could be plenty of places for them to be used.
The full picture set in the list at the right.
On to Paris.

When I’m 64

This was by no means a favorite Beatles or McCartney song but it is the only song that I know of that has an age in it that I would still live through. This song was on the Sgt. Peppers album which came out the same week I graduated high school in May 1967. Because of the impact of the album and the impact of graduating high school all the songs have always stuck with me and I do recall thinking at the time, ’64 man that’s old’. And now I am.

Climate change is screwing up leaf season.

A pile of leaves

That pile of leaves should not be there. They should be in the neighbors yard. But the day that the tree began what is usually takes 2 or 3 days to drop its leaves it also started raining. What it is suppose to do is start to drop it’s leaves and the weather becomes a couple of those blustery fall days that moves the leaves out of my yard into other yards. So this year I have every single leaf from the tree laying in my yard and to add injury to this insult they are wet. I calculate there must be at least 1000 gallons of water in that pile making it weigh 6600 more pounds than it should. I felt every pound as I drug them on the tarp to the back of the back yard.