Big Bend National Park Texas

We arrived back in France after a 2 and a half week visit to Texas. It was really great to see all our friends, and eat real TexMex. It was kind of scary driving a car again, and being in the US "car culture". I hadn't driven since last March, and was overwhelmed by being plopped into the Christmas shopping rush in Austin.

We also spent a week in Big Bend hiking with my family, which was very nice. This picture is from our last day of hiking, taken from the Emory Peak trail. The Sierra del Carmen are in the distance, they are about 20 miles away in this photo.

I've posted some photos. I've moved to using Picasa web albums, it has more features than what I was doing hand patching my own site.

Here are the pics:
http://picasaweb.google.com/suzypics/BigBendXmas2006 

Fill'er up!

Side note- I've taken the plunge and enabled comments on my blog, so now you can leave comments on entries. Enjoy.

So, sometimes you run across things in Europe that are a little different.

This picture is one of those things. First off, look at the tiny little car, it holds one adult, and a child seat behind it. It's the same size as mopeds, and is electric powered.

Also notice on the left, it's an electric recharging station. You swipe a card at the machine, and it tells you which plug to plug into. We ran into this on a back alley in Florence. The electric mopeds are a dream come true, they are very very quiet, which you really need in Florence. Moped noise pollution here is a problem. 

Italia pictures, finally...

Sarah and I took a great two week trip to Italy at the end of September. We went to Venice, Verona, and Florence.

Venice was beautiful, as long as you stayed away from the "Follow the Umbrella" tourist groups. The back waterways were great to explore and get lost in. There were endless interesting photos waiting to be taken, and it was generally quiet and relaxed. Around San Marco/Rialto was a different story. (insert rant on cruise ship tour groups here). It was interesting watching Venetians do things by boat that we typically see done by truck: Uhaul, mail boat, furniture delivery, laundry pickup. We really enjoyed Murano, where they let you wander into glass blowing workshops and watch the guys work. We will go back in a few years during low low low season, and try to see San Marco's interior, we just couldn't face the long long line this time.

We kicked back in Verona for a few days, it was a great place to just soak in Italy. We didn't do the "Romeo and Juliet" sites, we did tour the colosseum, linger in sidewalk cafes, and seek out a few interesting churches. We also took a break from Italian food, we had Japanese and pigged out at a Brazilian steakhouse.

In Florence we met my parents for a week. It was very nice to spend a week there, and devote larger time slots to visiting things. We were able to spend a lot more time in the Uffizi this time, the Bellini's were really great. And we also spent plenty of time roaming the Boboli gardens. Plus it was fun to hang out with my parents, we don't get to see them very often these days.

I've sorted through pictures, and posted them at

http://suzyinparis.free.fr

This is the second trip to Italy we've made this year, we just can't seem to get enough of the place.

Zermatt Hiking

We just spent a lovely week in Zermatt. We timed it just right, it was at the end of August, the weather was brilliant, but the crowds were gone. The picture here is the Matterhorn (Mont Cervin to the French) from the walk to Tuferen.

Zermatt is a big ski resort, which means that there is a large array of lifts and specialized mountain cog trains to drag you up the hill to some amazing hikes. While the expensive "resort-i-ness" of Zermatt didn't appeal to us, the broad range of hiking you can do under the shadow of the Matterhorn definitely was.

There are also tiny little villages (count the houses with no need to remove your shoes) up in the hills that serve really decent food. In fact, there is one trail we were on called the Gourmet Weg. The food was expensive because they have to drag it all up the hill or get it airlifted in, but quite nice in the middle of a hike.

I could describe each hike, but I think I'd rather get together pictures and post them. The pictures really were nice on this trip.

Pictures are at http://suzyinparis.free.fr/Zermatt2006/index.html

Vineyards for as far as the eye can see

This is a view (on a cloudy day) from Hautvilliers out over the vineyards of Champagne.

Sarah and I spent a delightful weekend in the Champagne region of France. Our neighbors who live next door invited us out for the weekend to their country home. We managed very well despite rainy weather both days. They have a very cozy house in the Marne river valley, with views of vineyards on the hills out the windows. I could feel my stress level go down as soon as we got there, it was just so relaxing and inviting.

Here's some of the things we did:

Went on a champagne cellar tour in Epernay. They have a gargantuan wine casket from 1880's, it holds 200,000 barrels, and was taken dragged by oxen to the Paris fair in 1889. The tour also included a train tour of their underground cellars where they ferment and store the champagne. I now know plenty about riddling bottles and disgorging sediment.

Drove through the vineyards, and walked around Hautvilliers (pronounced "ought vee yay"). In Hautvilliers, we saw the church where Dom Perignon is buried, and the understated headquarters of Moet et Chandon (makers of Dom Perignon label).

Visited Rheims cathedral, and saw it's Chagall stained glass window. Church was in rough shape, the stone used to make it is fairly soft, and has suffered over the centuries.

Visited WWI American memorial and graveyard. This area (Belleau Bois and Chateau Thierry) was where the front between French and German troops was stalled for several years during WWI. The battles in the area became much more real to me as I listened to our neighbors stories about what happened to their relatives during the war.

Ate fantastic food. I'm always amazed by the interest and depth of knowledge that some French people have for their food. "Here, try this honey on your croissant, it was harvested in an area where a lot of chestnuts are grown, and that gives it an interesting flavor", and also a long discussion on why biodiversity in types of apples being grown is important. We have a wonderful homemade egg-chevre-thyme tarte, mixed greens with sauteed chestnuts and smoked bacon, and an intoxicating homemade poire and dark chocolate tarte with almonds.

Had a roaring fire. It was rainy most of the weekend, so our neighbors built a wonderful roaring fire in the huge fireplace. Sipping Blanc de Blanc local Champagne while staring into a roaring fire. Yum. Hard to believe in the middle of August, but it worked for us.

Our neighbors are so delightful, and so kind. It was a very memorable weekend.

Berlin Photos are up

I posted some pics from Berlin. This wasn't an intensive photo trip, just had the small digital camera with us.

Enjoy:
http://suzyinparis.free.fr

Ich bin ein Berliner

Oh, Berlin. We got back Monday morning from our long weekend in Berlin. We had an absolute blast!

This photo is taken from the roof of the Reichstag, which is the German Parliament building. This building is where the European portion of WWII ended. After the war, it was substantially changed, and this dome was added a few years back. The dome serves as a reminder that government should be transparent.

It was a nice break away from Paris in the height of tourist season. We stayed in a nice quiet area of Berlin, Savigny Platz. Our hotel room overlooked the square, we were right over a few sidewalk cafes. I think we hit the timing just right. We waited until Berlin recovered from it's bout of WorldCup fever, and the city was deserted. We waited in 2 lines during our 4 days there, both of them under 10 minutes!

We did some major museum hopping, the 3 day Museum Pass made it really easy to hit a lot of them:

1. Museum of Arts and Materials - fun Art Nouveau glass
   
2. Pergamon Museum- fantastic Pergamon marbles, and Babylonian gate
   
3. Egyptian Museum - bust of Nefretiti is why its famous, but the rest of it was outstanding as well
   
4. Art Deco / Art Nouveau museum - fantastic Zsolnay ceramic collection and extensive metalworks collection
   
5. Picasso museum- too many plastic surgeon nightmares for me. Sarah loved it.
   
6. Musical Instruments museum- walking canes that turned into mini violins, pianos in every way, shape and form.
   
7. Gemaldegalerie - mind blowing Northern European painting collection
   

We also walked down Unter den Linden, formerly East Berlin gone totally Western capitalist (yes, you can see a Starbucks from the Brandenburg Gate). We visited Checkpoint Charlie, and the overpriced museum there, which shows you the different escape methods of escaping East Germany. And we went shopping on Ku'damm, we found German styles, sizes and prices to be much more to our liking than Paris!

We were totally emotionally drained after the new Holocaust memorial. Sometimes you happen on something unexpected, and it really blows your socks off. The top of the memorial is over 2000 cement blocks covering a city block . They are roughly coffin sized, but they are between 2-10 feet tall. You wander down in them and they tower over you. There was an exhibit you could tour which told the stories of victims, and really made you realize that they were individual humans. It also did a bit of shocking you with sheer numbers and scary photos. It made me afraid for the human race to think that people did that. I'm not Jewish, but I left crying. Don't worry, I did manage to recover.

We also managed to make some new friends in Berlin, one of them is a professor at UT, his German girlfriend who lives in Berlin, and also an art teacher from California. The Berliner took us to a biergarten in the neighborhood, which we enjoyed a lot. We also found a great asian fusion restaurant that had fantastic sushi rolls.

And as if this wasn't good enough, everything was *much* cheaper than Paris, which made it even easier to enjoy. Sarah's Birkenstocks were 18 euros, beer was half the price it is in Paris, and our hotel was 51 euros a night. sweeeeet.

We'll definitely come back to Berlin.

Room with a view in Assisi

There is just something about throwing open the shutters in your hotel room, and stepping out onto a balcony with a nice view. This photo was taken from our balcony in Assisi. We had a nice view out over the Umbrian countryside, and also a view (not in this pic) of bits of the Basilica St. Francis.

We had a great time here, the place is quite crowded by day with day trippers running around in clumps with their tour guides, but in the morning and evening it it just magical. Wandering around pedestrian streets, with beautiful views around every corner. We did a nice hike in the countryside up into the hills around Assisi, and I don't think I've ever climbed so many stairs in my life. The city is still rebuilding some from the 1997 earthquake, but it's basically finished, and looks great.

The food here was fantastic, a lot of grilled meats including grilled umbrian sausages and the best lamb chops I've had in my life. I had a fresh pasta with a black truffle sauce that was amazing. Pasta was cooked just perfectly, and the truffles added a nice grainy texture that was really good.

More pictures at:
http://suzyinparis.free.fr/Assisi2006/index.html 

Pompeii

We took one day out of our Sorrento stay to go to Pompeii (about 45 minutes away on the train).

It was really interesting. While most of the really cool artifacts are kept at a museum in downtown Naples, there was plenty to see here. Most of what we know about daily Roman life today is because of the sites uncovered by the Mount Vesuvius eruption.

We walked around, going through the bathhouse, by the bakers, and managed to find a brothel.

It's weird, but the photos just don't convey how interesting it was. There is just something really bizarre about wandering around in a city that was snuffed out in 79 AD by a volcano.

Photos at: http://suzyinparis.free.fr/Pompeii2006/index.html 

Amalfi coast Italy

We had a fantastic time in Italy. We spent 5 days in Sorrento, a town on the Amalfi coast. It's just south of Naples. There are several small towns clinging to the cliffs over the Mediterranean. This picture is of Positano. There is an amazing bus ride from Sorrento to Positano along the coast. The dramatic cliffs make for a scary road with cars squeezing by each other. We had Positano gelato (candied orange bits and nutella flavored) after lunch. With so much coastline, we of course had amazing seafood. Fresh grilled fish, fresh langostinos and shrimp. And we were right next to Naples, where they invented Pizza. We pigged out.

We splurged on a nice meal our last night, and had a truly amazing red italian wine served in monstrous red wine glasses. Sarah will have to tell you about the wine, she enjoyed it a lot.

We did some hiking close to Sorrento, and swimming off the coast to help work off all the good food.

We stayed in a villa converted into a hotel. It was a little run down, but we had a great view over the little port from our balcony.

It was a really relaxing vacation, just what we needed.

Photos at: http://suzyinparis.free.fr/AmalfiCoast2006/index.html 

Off into the wild bleu yonder

I was quite pleased leaving the office today. It's been a tough coupla months, and tomorrow (Thursday) is ....... another French holiday. And the French can't seem to get enough in the holiday category, so Friday is what they call a "bridge day" to bridge to the weekend.

Here's the kicker. I'm taking next week off, and we're headed to Italy. Whoohoo! I'm looking forward to pasta, sunshine, hiking, seasides, seafood, and of course gelato.

Library to die for

This is the library at Fontainebleau, a chateau about 40 minutes SE outside Paris. This is another royal pad that everybody had to add their touch to. It was built by Francois I, who loved Italian style. He imported all the artisans from Italy to work on this place, and it shows. Lots of frescos and sculpture everywhere. Lots of heavy woodwork everywhere as well, and decorated ceilings reminded me a little of Spain.

Napolean I and Napoleon III also took their turn at "decorating drama" here. I still find it hard to believe how Napoleon I lived and looked every bit like the the King that the French had just beheaded. We walked through the room where Napoleon I abdicated before he was shipped off to Elba.

Check out more pics at:
http://suzyinparis.free.fr

We also went hiking for a few hours in the huge royal forest that surrounds the town. The overpowering greenness of all the trees leafing out reminded us both of hiking in Vermont. Unfortunately it was spitting rain at us during the hike, so the camera stayed stowed. Not a beefy Texas thunderstorm, but a nice gentle French pitter-patter.

We'll definitely be back for more hiking, it's great to have good hiking 40 minutes away.

Thanks, you were sooo helpful

So yesterday we took a day trip to see the chateau in Fontainebleau. We took an RER train from Gare de Lyon. The ticket situation was a little bizarre. Every single one of the automated ticket machines was for SNCF trains only (France's Nat'l rail lines), and there were close to 10 ticket windows open for purchasing SNCF tickets. But the train to Fontainebleau was RER (regional train). There was only one ticket line for RER trains, and it was very long. We missed our intended train, so had to wait for the next one. I'll spare you further details, but let's say it was confusing, and Sarah and I needed help. We asked at the information booth, which was indeed very helpful, but I did find it ironic that this huge fire breathing dragon was hanging directly over the information booth. Was it to scare off potential questions? 

London photos are up

I've put together a few pics from our London trip. I didn't take many, since most of our time was spent in museums. Odd, the museums are all free in London (but ask for a donation), and Westminster Abbey costs 10 pounds (roughly 17 USD) to get into. Hmmmm.... does God know that they are charging that much to get into a church?

Pics also include a shot or two of Elgin marbles in the British Museum, and the Chihuly glass piece hanging in the central foyer of the Victoria and Albert museum.

http://suzyinparis.free.fr

Traditional English afternoon tea

I didn't have any photos of our lovely afternoon tea, it was just too quaint to mar the moment by dragging out the camera. So the camera stayed stowed in the jacket. We had a very traditional English afternoon tea at the famous Cadogan Hotel in the intimate drawing room of the hotel. We met up with some friends, and it was really fun. Prim and properly attired waiters with deep serious voices waited on us hand and foot. They keep bringing sandwich bits, then scone bits, then pastry bits until you can eat no more. I even had a cucumber sandwich, and it was quite nice. They served clotted cream with the scones, it sounds icky, but tastes great. I'm still listening to my arteries clog up, and dreaming of another yummy scone.

I did get a nice pic the day before of Big Ben and a red doubledecker bus, so I've included that. 

Pomp and Circumstance in London

London is a crazy mix of old and new, I captured some different sides here. They have lots of impressively dressed guards and ceremonies. The guard in the lower right is trudging back and forth in front of Buckingham Palace. In the lower left is a fairly succinct statement from one of the protest signs in front of Westminster, there were all sorts of anti-war signs. And in the upper left are some ideas for my next haircut. 

London Eye, ...or London Eyesore?

This monstrous beast is the London Eye, which slowly creaks around at a clip of 30 minutes per rotation. It looks like a giant bicycle wheel. There are 32 glass enclosed capsules that hold 10-20 people each. While it is pretty cool, it doesn't look quite right to be standing in front of Westminster Abbey, where they have been crowning kings and queens since 1066, and see this lurking behind Big Ben. It clashes a bit.

The building on the left is London County Hall, it used to be the seat of London's government, now it's a hotel. We stayed here, really odd to be sleeping in some former bureaucrat's office. 

Chenonceau

Another chateau we toured. This one spans a river. In the 1500s it was a gift to Diane of Poitiers from the king of France. She was the mistress of king Henri II. This made Catherine de Medici, the queen, jealous. After the king died in a jousting accident, Catherine threw out the king's mistress, and took over Chenonceau for herself. Harumph!

Since this place was designed by women (everybody who moved in liked to add on), it has a nice comfortable feel to it. Chambord has a "I am King, hear me Roar" feel to it. Chenonceau's rooms are comfortably sized, with well placed windows looking over the river. Perhaps "I am Martha Stewart, hear me Roar"? I bet it is a knockout view in summer because it was really nice even in the dead of winter. 

Chambord

We spent the weekend in the Loire River Valley doing some chateaux hopping.

This is Francois I winter hunting palace, Chambord. As you can see from the size of people walking up to it, this place is *big*!

There is a terrace on the top floor that allows you to circle around the dozens and dozens of fireplace chimneys, it is meant to be a viewing platform for watching the hunt. The forest that surrounds it is roughly the size of central Paris. Inside there is a huge double helix staircase at the center, and oversized 'designed to intimidate you' rooms. Francois I built it, but only spent 29 nights in it. 

Brugge revisited

Another photo from a trip last Fall. This one from the canal-lined city of Brugge in Belgium. You definitely need a tripod when visiting this place, wonderful reflections of lit buildings at night.