Been a looong while since I have posted…this is a TEST!
December 15, 2010
June 13, 2009
February 04, 2008
February 01, 2008
August 01, 2007
Paris, France
Paris, France
So we are off to Paris. The city of lights, the city of crowds. Possibly, like Florence, one of the ancestral breeding grounds of Tournamis. The thing about Paris that we have noticed over the many years we been visiting the city, both Kim and I when we lived in Europe, and the few times I have visited on business, is that it is filled with French people. And the French people have a rep around the globe, that sometimes is deserved, but like stereotypes of Americans, probably more often than not it is a bad rap. We had already had a week in France, and outside of one 'tough' dinner, like our experiences fifteen years ago, and like we have experienced globally, if you are nice to people, they will be nice to you. Travelling with three small kids is not easy (had I mentioned that?) and eating in restaurants, some very nice, with three small kids is quite a challenge. But my kids were great, and the French were very tolerant, and together it worked. Getting around, with my 'survival French', i.e. ou est la toilette pour les enfants?" also seemed to work.
So how does one write about France, how does one write about Paris, the core of all that is French, the center of all roads and rail lines, without sounding trite and like a tourist guide? My approach is going to be to try to marry the France of the Michelin guide with the wacky France that is always just around the corner, as well as the French past, which often lies below the surface, consistent with the ongoing Belk Tour theme that the past is always there beneath your feet.
Our GPS system in the car behaved, and to our massively surprise, given that we had to drive around the Arc de Triumph at rush hour, we got to our hotel, a few blocks north of the Champs Elysee, without any major marital meltdowns. We had warned our kids on the way into town about the scene in National Lampoon's European Vacation where Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo get stuck in "L'etoile" going around in circles endlessly around the Arc, never to exit, but somehow we made it first shot! So we arrive, go to what will be a great hotel for the week, and being us, time to go take a walk. And we rapidly learned that our week in the Alps was excellent "Paris" training, as we walked and walked, even our little one. First stop, one of our favorite views in Paris, the Palais du Chaillott at sunset, with its spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower (La Tour Eiffel).
The lighting of the Eiffel Tower is much improved since we lived in Europe, with a great sparkle show just past sunset. Something about the view from the Palais though, at least for me, is completely timeless and unique. Don't know why the tower looks like it is tilting, but it does in a bunch of shots. Blame the photographer. I'm sure Kim took this shot. But in the spirit of what I am going to write about Paris, after a not-bad, but massively overpriced dinner, we started walking back to the "Champs" and saw this sign:
Now, given the French folks distaste for the English language, shouldn't this say "Pizza Lapin Vitesse"? Exhausted, we get to bed about midnight. The next day, we had to go out towards Versailles to return our Trusty Renault back to the rental company, which was located out on the Peripherique. Since we were on the way, and we still had the car for the day, we decided to head out to Versailles, even though the day was rainy, and also even though there were high odds that Versaille would be closed on the Monday we were visiting. It was, but it still ended up to be an exceptional day, The "Chateau de Versailles" was indeed shuttered for the day, but the "Trainon" palaces of Marie Antoinette were open, as were the vast and soggy gardens. However, the wetter the weather, the fewer the Tournamis, which seems counterintuitive given the aquatic derivations of the Tournami. Kim and I had been to Versailles in Summer time, and usually one shuffles through the vast galleries slowly mooing and baaing and getting stuck in immense human traffic jams. This day, albeit wet, and without the umbrellas that we stupidly left at the hotel, was different. For anybody that has ever been to Versailles, don't think this looks like Versailles in Late July…
The Trianons, which we had never visited in prior visits to Paris, were "Chateau" enough for us that day, having already done five days straight of Chateaus. And having the grounds to ourselves was special, and more than a little bit spooky. And soggy.
The next day, we started walking. Our equipment and attire was identical to our Alpine treks, sturdy shoes, well, well, well worn jeans (it was still cold!), and a backpack full of snacks, chocolate, and about three liters of water and Powerade. We saw the sites of Paris that everyone sees, and wherever possible, matched those sights with the less known and trodden.
The Obelisk at the Place de la Concorde, 3300 years old and "borrowed" by Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th Century:
But under the Obelisk, an unadorned sign, hard to find in normal circumstances, MUCH harder to find as the "Champs" was being covered in Bleachers for the finale of the Tour de Doping, a bicycle race formerly known as the Tour de France. I had to do a long zoom shot under the bleachers to get this…
The metal square underneath the bleachers I remember from prior visits. It seems that the Place de la Concorde was where Robespierre and his merry band did the worst of their doings during the terror following the French revolution. In 1793 and 1794, about three thousand people, including Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, were beheaded in the plaza. Like the inconvenient history of all nations, including the Etats Unis, better to bury it a little bit. But at least the plaque is there under the bleachers.
As one rambles further, you go through the Tuileries gardens, on the way to the Louvre. At the end of the gardens, you get to the Petit Arch, which is a smaller mirror image of the Arc de Triomph. On top of the Petit Arch, there is what looked to us like a copy of the Roman Bronze Horses that are on the Venice Blog post, which would make sense given the reverence of antiquity of the times (the Belk's are not the only ones fascinated with Rome).
And underneath the Arch, a woman walking her small horse. The woman is a NORMAL sized woman, and we all believe it was the largest Chien on the planet.
Passing through the Louvre, we stroll down the Rue Rivoli, towards the Hotel de Ville, or City hall, another favorite Paris building for me. When I was younger, on a trip just out of school, we discovered it was a great place to play Frisbee. 24 years later, the building is still the same, but in the spirit of tourbook Paris vs. 'other' Paris, what is now in the square is much stranger than Frisbee.
Yes, it is sand, and yes, it is people playing beach volleyball, or at least a sad facsimile thereof. It seems that the City of Paris, recognizing the tens of thousands of people that cannot escape to the beach in summer, as they are stuck in the services business servicing tourists the likes of my family, decided to bring the beach INTO the city. There was also a sand Rugby field, complete with goals, and area along the Seine River with recreated beachfront! From the Hotel de Ville, it is a bop across the river to Notre Dame, which has been sandblasted (mind the pun) since our last visit, and looks great.
Go to the front of the square of Notre Dame though, and there is the Crypte Archeologique… and surprise, you can go underground, and see the old roman roads, and the structures that both pre-dated Notre Dame, but were also incorporated into the design.
Or go further along, towards Rue St. Germain de Pres, and you will find the Musee du Moyen Age, closed when we walked by, but with the massive structures of the Roman Bath's still visible (the Baths du Cluny) from the Street…a few blocks from where the Arena Lutuce, where the amphitheatre was. It's all there, no guidebooks, no crowds, certainly no Tournamis. Enough touring for the day, Kim and the kids played the Parisian version of the Video Game Frogger…also called crossing the Champs Elysee. Even though this is allegedly a pedestrian crosswalk, we think the white stripes are actually aiming points, like for where jets aim on a runway. Lord knows, the cars go by at near take-off speed. Little did we know that the training we experienced crossing roads in Saigon and Hanoi would come in handy in Paris. Although in Vietnam we had a lot more confidence in people's desire not to nail us.
The next day we dropped into the Metro and "headed East" to visit parts of Paris that I had never really visited in past stops. We popped out at Le Marais, the old part of Paris. We started at an area called Place de Vosage, which was a palace prior to being pulled down by Catherine de Medici (they sure got around) and was turned into a square for Nobles in the early 17th century. Tucked away in the corner is Victor Hugo's house. We visited, and left humming themes from Le Mis in our heads. Still not sure why he was exiled though, but by the time of his death his funeral was able to fill the Champs. Through more winding streets we ended up at museum that was one of our finds of Paris, the Carnavalet. Built in the 1540's, this building now houses the museum of the history of Paris. We thought it was small. It was not. But it was really well done, and covered a lot of ground. My kids liked the obligatory Louis XIV statue in the practice their Kingly pose.
Maybe it was flashbacks back to Thailand, but everywhere we started to look we started seeing elephants. Even back to the Roman stuff, that was in THIS museum as well. This was a piece of gold elephant jewelry, circa second century. Think of the trade, the craft, the circumstances that would allow this piece to show up in Paris. If it were a clump of grapes, I could understand, but an elephant?
More old stuff, and our last Roman finds of Paris. Good collection though, and we are becoming connoisseurs.
But the Museum's strength is in documenting the Parisian's favorite pastime after strolling…REVOLUTIONS! There was the revolution of 1789, the tumult that lead to the Napoleonic era, which was but one of a regular series in the 19th century. 1830, 1848, 1870 (before the city had their first big war with Germany in the 1870's). I had already explained why the "new paris" built in the 1870's had boulevards that were so wide (to make them harder to barricade), but the paintings and memorabilia were better than any textbook.
I think this one was 1830. Here we thought we were going to a small bite size museum, but we ended up in a vast, excellently organized and endless warren of rooms and floors. And guess what, no Tournamis. Like Versailles in the rain, we had the museum to ourselves, until we had to just give up and move on, to our next museum. It's actually kind of funny, as in the first day or two in Paris, my eldest was complaining that she hadn't seen any museums yet. After the Carnavalet, she stopped the complaining. So off the Centre George Pompidou. Where there is fabulous modern art, but by then our brains were fried. As I have stated in prior posts, there is a limit to what you can absorb in terms of museums in a day, and we had hit it. Although the 'reveal' going up the five stories of elevators of the Pompidou is wonderful. You start at Plaza level, and slowly move upwards until you are at the level of the buildings surrounding the museum, only to continue to pop up above the roof line.
And the fountains contain some sculptures of Niki de Saint-Phalle, who has some great (and similar) sculptures in multiple locations in San Diego. In San Diego, on the campus of UCSD, this guy is called the "Sun God" which is apropos of Paris.
Time for a break, and a couple of asides about Paris:
The People: Again, surprisingly friendly, especially as our visit is just prior to their annual August escape, and those who are escaping are getting ready to escape, and those that can't are upset they are stuck in the city for August. A city besieged by tourists by the hundreds of thousands.
The Food: We really really really miss Chicken. Roast chicken. Poulet Grille. We try to avoid McDonalds, but with three kids, two of which eat like adults most of the time, you want a fast lunch, especially if you have Marching to do around town. So our diet at breakfast was a Parisian breakfast, and lunch was varied. Their were ham and cheese sandwiches. Ham sandwiches. Cheese Sandwiches. Sometimes with butter, sometimes without. Occasionally a tuna sandwich to break the doldrums if the tuna did not look too aged. It all cost a fortune. The dollar is in pain all over Europe, but it has been tortured on the rack in Paris, much like Rome. Dinners were mildly above average, but too saturated with butter for our "Pac rim" palettes. Two exceptions were the two Michelin One Starred restaurants we ate at, once with the kids (they did great) and once with some San Diego friends that were also in Paris when we were. A GOOD Parisian restaurant is worth the marginal cost. Food was excellent, we picked both as they were not "butter sauce" food, and truly provided a great dining experience.
The Metro. We love the metro. You go down into the ground, something you can tell we like to do. You walk a lot, as sometimes it seems that one is actually walking to the location underground, and the trains are just ancillary. Then you pop up right where you need to be. And since each trip was about $7 USD for us, it was an economic way of getting around. The trains were old and creaky, often were rather stanky, but the convenience, the cool stations, and the Art Nouveau signs made up for any deficiencies.
Shopping: Although everything in the entire city was on sale, like we have found on the rest of the trip, outside of typical tourist souvenirs, there really is nothing to buy. We miss Amazon and Target!
The weather: Not bad, but COLD. Not really cold, but high 50's, low 60's in the day, just cold enough not to be warm. We all have one pair of jeans, one warm sweatshirt, and one rain jacket, in my case an amazingly light jacket. As we were nearing the end of the trip, buying more stuff just was not a consideration, so we wear the same stuff every day. Guess it is a bit of an olden day reenactment for us, back to the days where folks did not have closets full of clothes (I vaguely remember mine). But proof again that you can survive with one 20 kilo bag for fifteen weeks.
So back on the Museum circuit. Time to try and conquer the Louvre. The Louvre is big. Really big. Scary big. And inhabited by hoardes of Tournamis, often running to see the "big three" (Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory). So what to do first after finally getting to the Louvre? Yep, stay underground and see the "Old" Louvre, as the palace itself was built on a few prior palaces.
But ultimately we pop back into the 'tourist flow', but go off to Egypt as opposed to modern stuff. Scary good.
Yes, we then say the 'big three' but what the tournami's blaze past is staggering. We actually saw one college age American girl walking rapidly down a corridor, just snapping photos of works while walking past pictures at high marching speed. You can't see it all, you can't absorb it all, but what you choose to look at deserves consideration. What amazed us were folks that would line up ten or twenty deep to view the Mona Lisa, but have no clue that there were a bunch of Leonardo di Vinci paintings right outside the wall of the gallery…often with no one in front of them! The Mona Lisa is wonderful, but it an interesting tidbit of Louvre history that when there was an expo of the museums "Best 100 Paintings" in 1750, the Mona Lisa did not make the cut. There was actually an article in the IHT while we were in Paris describing how the painting was 'marketed' until it became 'the' painting. In our view, Venus de Milo would take a back seat to tons of sculptures both in the Louvre, but also in Rome and the Vatican Museum. We REALLY liked the Winged Victory, though. Winged victory is Greek, circa 400 BC, and in our view, totally worth it's billing…
The next day we go modern again, going with our San Diego friends and their kids to the Musee D'Orsay, prior to their taking off for Italy. It's been really fun having series of folks from back home to dine and play with. Just wish a few would have ventured to Asia! I'm trying to spare folks shots of too many museum photo's, but gotta toss out this one out the clock tower of the Musee (a converted train station)
And for some reason, an Elephant outside!
It was time to Eiffel Tower. We had heard the nightmares from folks about the vast lines waiting to get up the Eiffel Tower, and they were there in force, with waves of Tournamis hitting every leg of the tower. But there are some things you gotta do, and if it your kids first time in Paris, you gotta take them up. OK, I admit it, we wanted to go up again as well! The lines were long, very long. So what to do? Walk up. Strenuous objections from one of our party, not me, not the kids, but I'm not going to name names. She without a name was saying that there was no way the little one could make it up, so I offered to carry my four year old up. Left speechless, and without any other good objections, she without a name joined us tromping up to the first level. And it was EASY! We did not know that all of our Alpine and Parisian tromping was Eiffel Tower training! About 200 vertical feet to the first level. Piece of Cake, just over six minutes. Lunch stop, walk to the second level, another couple of hundred feet of vertical, this time about six minutes. Would have been there a bit quicker, but the family got stuck behind another massively overweight American college student that looked like she was going to keel over about step 350. None of us were even breathing heavily, not only the nameless one(OK, if you haven't figured it out by now, I'm writing about my wife here). So this is a Paris tip, no line to walk to the first two levels, it costs less money than using the elevators, it does not take very long, and you can purchase a ticket for the elevator from the Second Stage to the Top…with only about a twenty minute wait for the elevator from the second to the third level (no stairs, elevator only). Save time, save money, get exercise. All good. And at last we are up on top, about 950 feet above Paris.
I took some goofy shots of the wax Exhibits of Mr. Eiffel and company in their recreated offices on the 3rd Level, but I'll spare you them. Suffice it to say, the Eiffel Tour, like many things "tourism" is a well deserved Icon of this world, just as the World Trade Centers were to Manhattan. Seeing the French Army, all business, armed with automatic weapons, made you realize that both the French want to keep the Eiffel tower part of Paris, and that there are bad guys that want to change that fact. So, in respect to them, I'll skip the fun shots. But since we were on our continuing power tour of the world, the day was not done yet. Off to yet another Icon of Paris tourism, the Bateaux Mouches, roughly translated as fly boats. These are the one hour tour boats that ply the Seine every day, packed with tourists, and playing narration in eight different languages. My guess is that even a few years ago, the only Asian language would have been Japanese, but the world is changing, so Chinese and Korean are also part of the mix.
Oops, did a shot from a prior trip to Manhattan slip into this narrative???? Nope.
I sometimes think with all the angst that the French and Americans give one another over the decades that we forget that there are good parts of our mutual past. In school we learn about Lafayette, and how he helped the American Revolution. However, we forget that it was a bit weird for Louis XVI to support rebels overthrowing a monarch, even if it was a British monarch. Even if we helped the French in their fight with the British. We forget that the Statue of Liberty was given by the French. Both countries forget the blood that was shed through two world wars together, and even how the French experience in Indochina was followed and mirrored by ours. Just as the French continually denigrate American 'culture' they still love our movies, clothes, and even surreptitiously, our fast food. In my mind, over the years, I've learned that you can do a "Search and Replace" of "French" with "Texans". A lot of the attitudes are the same, not necessarily good nor bad, but a way to better understand. And I intend to keep the moderate views I'm expressing here up until the point where one of their cultural elite or politicians does something to piss me off as an American. Which might be five whole minutes from now.
Paris is wearing us out. Another day passes, and we trod back to the Louvre, in a vain attempt to conquer another wing. You know the line from the Eagle's Hotel California, the one that goes that 'you can check in anytime, but you can never leave'. Well, that's the Louvre. We started with the intent to go to the Napoleon III State Apartments, got sidetracked in Assyrian and other mid-east cultures that we never learn about. In one out of the way gallery (no tournamis) the Louvre showed the quirky streak that gave the world the Pyramid in the middle of the Palace courtyard. A giant fun house mirror in a gallery of 4000 year old bas reliefs that somehow jumped off their temples and made their way to France. Wild. The first shot goes well with my gondola shot from Venice.
So we made it to the State Apartments, humming the Hotel California songs, and saw my ultimate dining room.
A few bottles of good wine were probably consumed in this room over the years. But then the elephants showed up again…why, we ask, why???
Are we done yet. Nope. Gotta hit the tomb of Napoleon, and the Army museum. I've always admired Napoleon. When you study European history, as I did in school, you learn the 'despotic' aspects of his rule. However, everything I learned was written in English, and it was only in my 30's when I started reading a few 'triangulated' biographies of Nappy did I learn that most of the English language stuff skews history more than a bit. Why? Cause the English were fighting the guy for most of his adult life. If the French did not like the guy, I doubt that they would build a tomb like this one for him. It is one BFT (last word tomb) for a guy that was just a bit over five feet tall, but who left a timeless imprint on Europe.
In his tomb are the fellow tombs of other French military heroes. One was not a warrior, but an engineer, one who changed the face of warfare in Europe for centuries. Vauban. And he will figure in our next and last narrative of this trip.
I've written a bunch on man's effect on man, and nature's effect on man. Well, the Army museum is certainly the former. In the courtyard, now under restoration, was plaque after plaque commemorating "mort pour le gloire de France". There are a lot of Morts. A lot of wars, and this museum details the ever more creative ways that people invented to destroy one another. As the sections that we visited started in about the 14th century, and ended in the early 18th century, the methods seem inefficient and quaint by humanity's methods of killing one another now. Improvements in armour, muskets, cannons. Different ways to make your horse grumpy by putting a ton of armor on it. How to make a musket that weighs less than 40 pounds. The Armory was a bit spooky, and reminded us all, nearing the end of the trip of Xi'an and the terracotta warriors of China. These guys were, steel rather than terracotta, are also standing eternal vigil.
The last stop of the museum, fittingly, described the great victories of King Louis XIV, our aforementioned Sun King. Using a professional army, new armaments, and new methods of warfare perfected by Vauban and others, he trounced a bunch of places in the 1670's. My favorite of the gallery of paintings is one of Louis astride a horse, and the phrase translated says "the nations of Europe thank you" (i.e. thanks for conquering us!). Huevos grandes. As we wandered around the hall, we were looking for one specific victory, in June 1673. A victory in southern Pays-Bas, now the Netherlands. A victory which was the first use of a new type of siege warfare that rewrote the textbook for the next two hundred years. A battle where the real life D'Artignon, one of the 'three musketeers' immortalized in a fictional fashion by Dumas, died by either a musket ball to the throat, or a musket ball that took off the bottom part of his jaw. A victory over a small city that has played a significant strategic role in Europe back to the times of the Romans (yep, them again), and was besieged 27 times in the 'modern era'. A city where the 1992 European Union Treaty was signed, taking down the borders, and unifying the currency of Europe through the creation of unified monetary policy and the Euro. A city where Kim and I moved three days after we were married in 1992, only months after the treaty signing, and where we lived in 1992 and 1993 in an expat assignment for a tech company. A city where my older daughter told us the family should spend the last three days of this journey. Maastricht, or Maestricht as the French call it, as the river cutting through Belgium and the Netherlands is both the Maes and the Maas, depending on your mother tongue. And lo and behold, in the gallery of Louis XIV's victories in the Musee d'Armee in Paris, there it was…
And there would we go, by high speed TGV Train, as opposed to horseback, to close this incredible chapter in my family's life.
July 31, 2007
Chateau Country
Loire Valley, France---Chateau Country
By now we were actually beginning to be able to use the built in GPS of our rental, a Renault Espace, great car. The GPS's have come a long way, and this one was actually functional, which was a new experience for me. So, in addition our local and regional Michelin maps we bought, there I was, out in the driveway in Megeve, trying to figure out just how far it was, and just how long it would take to meet my family in the Loire Valley (see last post, we were meeting my sister, brother in law, and their two kids, who were travelling in Europe, and coming down from Paris to meet us).
So, making use of a rare case of actual internet connectivity in Europe, and avoiding use of my 1.50 Euro per minute phone like the plague, I was actually able to use Yahoo Messenger to try and find a place to stay (I also have an account with another VoIP provider, but it's been pretty useless the whole trip, even though it's the one that gets all the press). This was tough, as the Scandinavians are all on holiday, so are the Brits, and the Dutch were entering the fray, albeit that they are mostly driving luxury cars with 15 foot "caravans" (campers for U.S. folks) in tow. It was TOUGH finding places to stay, both for the night prior to meeting my family, and the two nights following, prior to our reservations in Paris. But thanks to connectivity, we were able to find a home for our nomadic band without having to pay 500 Euros for phone calls, nor having to sleep in the mini-van.
So with that as a preface, we rolled up to a great little chateau in a small town called Montlucon, which was just over half way between the Alps and the Loire Valley. I'll skip the photo's but it was an unexpected treat called Chateau St. Jean. The rooms were not all that dramatic, but it was across from a beautiful park, and had a restaurant in a converted 16th century chapel that was one of the best meals we had on the trip (easily in the top ten). Like many places of this ilk in France, the hotel keepers think nothing of folks (like us) who end up spending much more for dinner than we do on our rooms. Kim and I had a classic story like this from when we lived in Europe in 1992/93, and went camping with a tent in our car (a Mazda Miata no less). We would stay in 'luxury campgrounds' (and they were, spotless and great bathrooms) that cost $15/night, and the folks running the place thought nothing about recommending restaurants that cost 10-15x the cost of the camp site. La plus ca change, la plus le meme chose.
The town of Montlucon was a pleaure as well, with a medieval core with winding cobblestone streets and ancient half timbered houses. The next day we visited our first Chateau, Valency, which was nice as it was further south from most of the tourist route. For sake of brevity, I'll skip discussing Valency, except for this guy, who was strutting around the grounds like a peacock…
Valency also gave us a hint of the 'other side of the french'. On the manicured grounds of the Chateau was a big grass field. Instead of the traditional 'keep off the grass' which we have now seen in a dozen plus languages, there was a sign saying 'balls for play available free of charge at main ticket office'. There was also a great maze with electronic doors that you could only pass through if you keyed in correct answers about Napoleon's life, as Valency was the home for Napy's famed foreign minister, Talleyrand. Tallyrand seems like someone to learn more about, as he seemed like a penultimate diplomat, with backchannels among the Nobles, but also among the Noble's staffs. He kept one of the 'great tables of Europe', and believed that there was no such thing as a great plan for anything in human history that had not been discussed first at a meal. And he is right.
The next day we met my family. It was great seeing them, caught up on the past few months, and then had a dinner from hell. The Chateau was wonderful, called the Domaine de Beauvois, west of Tours, but it had probably the worst staff we have seen on this entire trip. Again, physical plant was beautiful, rooms were beautiful, but taking an hour plus to get kids bread at dinner and 2.5 hours to get kids their dinner was really lame. Not to mention forgetting to make my brother-in-law Todd's dinner after 2.5 hours as well. It was not a timing thing, as we regularly have 3+ hour dinners, but these folks were lame. But the Chateau and the area were wonderful.
So the next morning, we were off to see two of the "purple" (i.e. Michelin guide 3***) chateaus, Villandry, and Azay-le-Rideau. Villandry is about gardens.
Gardens so perfect that they don't seem real…
Azay-le-Rideau is 16th century, a "Franky the First" (i.e. Francios 1er) production, and still spectacular. I really like this next shot, very postcardesque.
The next day, we visited Chenonceau, another 3*** chateau, also postcard perfect. By this time, however, the kids, now five of them, were starting to get a bit "chateau'ed out". So we headed back to our Chateau in Luynes. The "pile de cing mars" was in the book, so we had to go take a look. What is a pile you ask, in the middle of Chateau country?
This is a pile, a 100 foot high tower built by the Romans in about 200 AD. The archeologists think it was some sort of funary monument, but nobody is quite sure. Some of this is somewhat real time, as there were signs by the 'pile' that show that excavations in the past few years are showing more interesting stuff near the site. Kim and I broke off to try and find a place for dinner, as we did not want to eat in the Chateau's restaurant again (we ended up having one of the best Picnic dinners in history on the chateau grounds…long story), but on the way, walking around, Kim and Jeff the "rome spotters" saw a small sign on a wall that said "aqueduct romaine 2km" so of course we had to take a look. And sure enough, not in the book, in the middle of a bunch of active farmland…
Now think about it. Don't think folks do major engineering projects for fun, which means these aqueducts were servicing a pretty major area and town. No clue…so we had our great dinner, and were off to another Chateau in the AM…
Chenonceau has a good story, as it was the property of a favorite of Henry II, who when he died ended up at odds with Catherine de Medici, who was regent for Francios 1er (Franky again). And wherever Francois has hung out, you see salamanders, which probably tied into the dragon thing somehow…
However, in Chateau country, all roads lead to the Sun King, Louis XiV, and this is a great shot of him in the classic Louis pose…gotta love the hairdo…
Not ancient, but we really liked this sign, especially as the nine of us had a very pleasant lunch at the Chenonceau picnic grounds…
Unfortunately, that afternoon we had to bid adieu to our family, as they had to go back to Paris to catch a flight home. We decided that somehow we still had a few more chateaus left in us, and headed up to Amboise, to stay at truly wonderful hotel "Le Choisel". Physically just as nice as the prior hotel chateau, but as I've stated previously, service matters. So, he next day, it was off to Chambord. Chambord is another heavy hitter chateau, much larger in scope than our previous visits. At this point, Kim and I were starting to get the same feeling one gets when you visit too many Open Houses. Chambord gets to that fine line of 'is it a chateau or is it a palace?".
We started trying to identify the oldest graffiti carved into Chambord…
Our last Chateau hotel, Le Choisel, was located in Amboise, about 200 meters from the Chateau of Amboise, which we later learned was tied heavily into the same folks we had been running into since Florence and Tuscany, the Medicis and Francois 1er again. Franky's dad was Louis XII. His dad was Charles XIII (Chucky 8), who clobbered his head on a doorway at Amboise and died. A bunch of French Kings, including Francois, spent a ton of time at Amboise, which is interesting, as it is a huge nor ornate Chateau relative to the others we had seen. We got more of an education on all this one night, as we attended the "A la cour du Roy Francios". This is a song and light show by literally, the town of Amboise, as there are more than 400 people participating. It was in French, so I was able to pick up on some of it, which I would pass down 'telephone' style to my daughter, who would pass my lame translations down to my other daughter and my wife. Since sound and light shows can't really start until it is dark, and since it does not get dark until 10:30pm, this was especially tough on my four year old! There was a bit too much classic dancing, to few fireworks and horses, but we figured out that the wives of Amboise said that 'hey, if you don't let us have our stuff, there is no way you are going out prancing with the guys, nor are the kids going to be in the show". So, the guys of the two gave in, the show was long, a lot of dancing, but very quaint, and surprisingly, very high production values…
There is the young king Francois…along with his knights…
A king's gotta eat. So we have a pig.
Leonardo di Vinci, who was born near where we stayed in Tuscany, and whose model for the Mona Lisa was born near where we were staying, got into the act as well. Small world, he spent the last three years of his life at Amboise, and was buried about 100 feet from where we were watching the show…
His real tomb (not show)…
And the chateau itself, from our Hotel room…one of our best hotel window shots of the trip. As you can tell from all the Loire photos, the weather was helping a bunch, as the clouds add lots of drama to the building shots! So, with our open house tour of the Loire valley, we are off to Paris!
Megeve, France
Megeve, France (about 20 minutes from Chamonix)
Leaving the hidden little Alpine Shangri-la of Saas-Fee was tough, but it was time to get to France. We had nabbed a Chalet in Megeve for a few days, en route to meeting my sister, brother in law and their kids in Chateau country. We had booked Megeve well before Saas Fee, but still did not know what to expect. The trip, about three and a half hours, again on small roads where we could find them, was like going to another world. It was actually sort of fun asking some of the Saas Fee locals how far it was from their pretty little valley to the Chamonix area, sort of like when we would ask folks from Italy how far away places were in Switzerland…another country, another language, out of mind. In this case, one could understand, as the scenery changed dramatically, as the language shifted from Swiss German to French. There was a vestige of a border crossing on the Swiss side, but not even a sign telling us we had entered France!
Going past Chamonix and Mont Blanc was extremely dramatic, with the glaciers, most likely shrinking rapidly, still reached almost down to the road.
Mont Blanc as well, at over 15,000 feet, simply towered over the green valleys below. The only way I can succinctly define the difference between where we were in Switzerland and the Megeve area is that Megeve was 'softer', more like the cushy spots of Colorado than something rugged and 'end of the earth'. But still a great spot to spend a few days. My wife was excited, as the place we were staying in had a full-size washer and dryer…so we clean our ever more ragged and motley collection of clothes.
The second shot was sunset on our second night, and it was clear that the famed Mont Blanc winds were kicking off the summit. Here we were in sight of the mountain, in shorts and a t-shirt, knowing that there were people up on the summit (an exception of the not-so-ends-of-the-earth cushiness of the area) getting blown away in a driving frozen snowstorm.
The hiking was much different as well. As opposed to the full Goretex, and enough mountaineering equipment to conquer everest, the hikers of Megeve were like us, in sneakers and shorts with a backpack. The trails were still a lot of fun, herds of cows all around, great vistas of the Haute Alps. But none of us knew how to yodel in French. Is there even such a thing as yodeling in French? The two days in Megeve ended up being an excellent restful pit stop. We got our laundry done. The kids got to play with a crowd of kids from North Carolina in the next unit over. We got to eat at "home" for two nights, and we got to eat chicken. As I think I said in another post, a lot of folks in Europe are freaked out by bird flu, and "Poulet" has disappeared off the menus like the demise of the dodo bird. Great local cheeses though, and we got to work a bit on the wines that we had brought out of Tuscany. We weren't sure if you could drink Italian wines in France without the gendarmes descending, but it worked out ok. So it was off to the Loire Valley and Chateau country!
July 22, 2007
The Belk’s Go Alpine
The Belk's Go Alpine
I've been skiing since I was about four years old. The mountains in Winter have been part of my life my whole life, with the exception of about seven years where my first two kids were too young to start skiing. However, up until a few years ago, I had never been to the mountains in summer. Like a lot of skiers, my feeling is, why bother, you can't ski, and that's what mountains are for. Well, a couple of years ago, my family and I went to Colorado in the summer, had a blast, and have gone for at least a few days each year. Colorado is wonderful, Colorado has a lot to do, but it ain't the Alps. Especially these Alps. We rapidly learned that Saas-Fee, still cold, was not this unknown place, it was a wonderful town that does not allow cars (electric carts only), and is built around 'real' mountain lovers. Summer glacier skiers (or snowboarders). Summer "off piste" skiers with their guides with them, and their avalanche radio beacons strapped to their chest. Summer Ice Climbers, axes and ropes in hand. Summer hikers, casual and expert. Rock climbers, some good, some unlucky whose remembrance plaques line several mountain areas. Casual mountain bikers, downhill mountain bikers. Plus with all the prerequisite 'Swiss Stuff. Alpine architecture, cows with big bells, goats with smaller bells. German food portions, and better than expected food quality. Friendly and efficient. And all the above without the 'sign the waivers here, and keep between the ropes or you might stub your toe' philosophy of many places in the U.S. Because, for a lot of the sports in Saas-Fee, you are outside the ropes most of the time, and if you don't pay attention, and if you go over your skill level, you are gonna die. But if you are a family, with kids, you can still have a great time as well, as we discovered as we stretched our three day booking to five days.
First day, more hiking in the snow. Thankfully with new sweaters under our existing light sweatshirts and several layers of T-Shirts. The town is at about 1800 meters (roughly 6000 feet), and the ski infrastructure is used to get you up-hill if you are with kids (or just call us wimpy).
Makes me want to go yodellleyhehooo…in fact, we did have a family yodeling contest, but it sounded mostly like various wounded animals.
It was downhill, but it really was not wimpy hiking. We were prepped, plenty of layers, plenty of fluids, but a lot of the local dayhikers were dressed and packed as if they could go on for a week. And maybe they were.
The next day, we did the alpine ropes course. This is another GRANDPARENT SKIP THIS SECTION time, as I went up with my ten and twelve year old, belayed above the mountains and canyons, and did all sorts of wacky stuff. The temperature was finally springtime again, certainly not summer, but we could pull some layers off…
But then, after almost two hours doing various and ever harder routines on the "Tarzan meets the Alps" obstacle course, you get to the end, which you hope is not the end…the 350 meter 'cross the canyon that goes so far down you can barely see the bottom'. I went first, and then waited for my ten year old…
Believe it or not, she IS a dot in the distance, but I had to cut the resolution down.
There she is, nice to see her again!
There she is…ooops…not enough speed, not much I can do, as I talk her into getting her hands on the line and pulling herself backwards on the line until I can grab her at the end of the canyon and pull her in. More dramatic than it looks, but it was a little bit dramatic.
On the way back, once more into the breach, about 75 meters less on the return. This time with daughter one, who at the start of the day SWORE she would not go across the canyon.
If my twelve year old were allowed to say Holy S***, she would be saying Holy S*** here… The clump at the end of the bridge is what it looks like, a big clump of people the same psychographics as folks that go to car races…
But wait, there's more. You can go up to 3500 hundred meters, to the world's highest revolving restaurant. How do you get there? Two cable cars, then the world's highest underground Metro. The whole thing was pretty surreal. As much as my kids wanted to ski, we would have had to buy a tremendous amount of stuff, even if we rented gear, so we were relegated to observer status, albeit with a snowball fight at the summit.
The first photo above is a group of glacier ice climbers, who did not really go anywhere in the hour that our lunch table took to go in a full circle at 3500 meters. The second photo is a long distance shot of folks at the base of an avalanche field…no clue of what they were doing, maybe they were seeing whose yodeling could get the snow going…
After lunch, you get to go into the "World's largest Ice Grotto" where the Swiss, who remember like putting tunnels through EVERYTHING, have cut over 55,000 square feet of the glacier. You start where the "Alpine Metro" lets you off, and then go down 10 meters and more right into the glacier. There are passageways, caves, even playground for kids. Some is just 'white snow', other portions are blue ice of ancient glacial streams, and in true alpine glory, there are always the wacky elements.
Sure doesn't look for feel like mid-July!
But then the next day, it's back to being summer again. A walk through a mountain vista, with views of shrinking glacial lakes. A long-range shot of a chunk of glacial ice, covered in ancient mud, now floating in a fairly small pond of water.
A hike into Sound of Music territory, up the next canyon of Saas-Almegel, which had a different dialect, and off-again on-again political relationships with the next canyon over, Saas-fee. Makes one understand the tiniest little bit of the Swiss spirit of utilitarianism and independence. Also with it's wacky side as well, as it seems that all the villages have a thing for dwarves and Snow White…
This is top and bottom of a huge alpine waterfall, dropping down to a manmade glacial lake. Very Swiss, as they have created a massive hydroelectric facility, one that channels the water over many kilometers, and through a 1000 meter drop.
I know it's been a lot of photos here, and I feel like I'm doing my own personal Warren Miller film (the Guru of Ski Films), but for us, it was truly a unique and special five days, and a true bookend to a lot of the unexpected experiences of Asia. No tournami's, no glitz, no churches or Buddhist temples, just a temple of it's own sort, with it's own sounds, like the sound of this waterfall, it's own shrines in the unlimited vistas, and it's own ethos. And just as special.
En Route to the Alps
Saas-Fee, Switzerland---What Month is it anyways???
So we take off northwards out of Turin towards the alps. The drive northwards is fabulous, and we stop for the morning in a small town on the shores of Lake Maggiorre. This is my third time to the Italian lake district in my life, and each time it is impossible to take for granted the staggering beauty of the lakes and surrounding mountains. Lake Como, Lake Lugano, Lake Maggiorre. All amazing. After a stip in a picture perfect small Italian lake village, a stroll and coffee, we are off to make our way to Switzerland.
No "autostradas" for us, we are armed with our Michelin map, a somewhat functional on-board GPS in the car, so off we go onto the small local roads through to Switzerland and the alps.
It was a journey that will be hard to forget. The first stretch was a tiny road, filled with green valleys, after about 100 switchbacks, green kids and the back, and green wife in the front. The road got narrower and narrower, and periodically there were 'roadworks' where basically the road had fallen into a canyon and they putting a road back where the road should be. We did not get a shot of this, but we've all seen the 'falling rocks' signs when driving in the U.S. Sometimes words, sometimes a symbol of a car, and 'rocks' falling above the car. Well, on this road, they had 'falling car' signs, showing that you better stay on the road, or you can expect the road to crumble from the weight of your car, sending you hurtling into a canyon. That being said, it was beautiful, we popped out of another valley, and soon we are at the Swiss Border. After a five second scrutiny of my four year old daughter's passport, my family and our minivan was admitted into Switzerland.
So where were we headed? When Kim and I were assembling the trip, we deliberately left a two week hole in the schedule, after Tuscany, and before we got to Paris. We did not know whether we wanted to "head west" to the South of France, Provence, Cote d'Azur, and then make our way to Paris, or whether we wanted some cooler weather after lots of warm days in Asia, and some sweltering days in Europe. Needless to say, if you have been following this blog for the duration, we decided to head North towards the Alps. The two days in Turin got plugged in, since we were heading north, and we now had a 'five day hole' as we had nabbed a Chateau in Megeve for a few days, prior to meeting my sister, brother-in-law and their kids in Chateau country for a few days, as they rejigged their London – Paris trip schedule to spend a few days with us. So we had five days to kill.
We bought maps again. Sorry, but on-line does not give any context. Like a lot of things on-line, you go rapidly from big-picture, context filled content, to something more reductionist. Like the backpackers with their "one book for Europe" if one is looking at a small view of an area on line, and can only zoom on 11" areas, you do not get a sense of context of where a journey can take you. If you have a four foot by four foot map, you can, and it's fine to augment with homework on the internet, or GPS devices in the car.
So we were headed north. Como and Lugano were wonderful the last time we went, but too far east, as we had to make our way to the Chamonix/Mont Blanc/Megeve area. Interlochen, a popular tourist spot, too far north. Ritzy areas, like St. Moritz, and Gstaad…not in the right direction. So we started looking at Zermatt. Looked wonderful, Kim had been there with her mom eighteen years ago, looked great with the kids. But then we thought…'everybody knows Zermatt, where else can we go'. Searching on the internet, the next valley over, surrounded by fourteen 4000+ Meter high mountains, was the town of Saas-Fee. Kind of past Brig and hang a left before Sion (see sign above). A town that where the first road was cut in 1951, making the days on Donkey trails unnecessary. A town that had it's own distinct identity and dialect of German, as it was basically cut off from the much of the world for centuries, as it was up a beautiful and stark valley that had no geographic or strategic importance to anyone, so they were left along.
But first we had to get there. And as we headed up the hillside, the weather started changing, and it started getting COOOLLLLDDDERRR…
The landscape starts getting more desolate, and as we approach the Simplon Pass (See road sign above, 6100', closed between November and end April)---It starts snowing on us. I'm going to spare you the shots of 'we left Turin this morning where it was 27C/80F and we are now standing here in our shorts and t-shirts in a snowstorm', but there we were, standing in an Alpine pass, middle of July, glacier behind us, getting snowed on in our Shorts and T-Shirts.
July, what July? We get to Saas-Fee, where our Hotel Du Glacier was one of the most wonderful and unexpected stops of the trip, as was the entire town and valley of Saas-Fee. It truly was another world. But once we got to town, what was the first thing we needed to do? Find Roman ruins? Visit an Egyptian museum? Nope, shop for winter clothing, as given our itinerary, we were sorely equipped to handle weather that was just above the freezing level, no matter how scenic the mountains and the town. So we shop, and we prep for the next chapter…
Turin, Italy
Turin, Italy
We leave Tuscany with heavy hearts and larger stomachs, and head north towards the Alps. First though is a two night detour into Turin, where we are spending time with Kim's dad's cousins, who have lived in Turino for years. A three hour scenic tour into Turin, we arrive early, and had the day to spend prior to meeting Kim's relatives for what will be a very gracious and enjoyable visit to their city and home. So with an afternoon to spend in Turin, on a Sunday when the shops are all closed, what is a family to do?
Maybe check out the Roman gate and ruins about a 100 meters from our hotel…the Rome theme again. Naaaah, Rome's too young, so let's go to the Egyptian Museum! Hold on, you thought we were in Italy. We are, but Turin is home to one of Europe's best collection of Egyptian statutory and artifacts. A gentleman who was with Napoleon in Egypt, who later became general counsel in Egypt became a true Egyptologist, and shipped out thousands of items to Turin. Later additions to the collections made it a truly remarkable exhibit. I've been to the Louvre, the British museum, and others around the world, but his one was truly interesting, as it had a ton of stuff, and was very accessible. One VERY cool part ( no photo's allowed) is that there were COMPLETE tombs on display. Not king's tombs, that were plundered for their gold and jewels, but lesser officials, who were interred with wooden goods, clothing, furniture, toys, cookware, knives, etc. All were intact, and all showed once again that technology changes, time changes, locales change, but humanity really does not.
Another foot shot again (Kim in action once more, I think she misses shoe shopping, a favorite pastime for her):
Winemaking, another common theme across time, space and geographies:
Another cool statue shot. I had a bunch, as we WERE able to take pictures in the statue area, and the area had been redone by the museum and the Set Designer for movies such as The Aviator, so the lighting was VERY cool. There were dozens of statues, most in perfect condition, as they were just removed from the temple they were placed on the day before.
Here is another common them, one we have seen in every stop. Once again, history does not get eliminated, it just gets recycled.
On our second day, Kim's relatives brought is to an area outside of the city, where a palace belonging to the King of the City State lived. It was vast, and it's currently getting a few hundred millions of Euros pumped into the restoration. It was interesting to see a future tourist destination and a tourist area in progress!
Vast, empty, but will be worth a visit in three or four years…Off to the Alps!
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