Today, Darcy and I flew back to Paris in preparation for our flight home to Canada tomorrow morning. I think I can say, without qualification, that Venice is the most beautiful city I have ever been to. Bruges and Heidelberg had their storybook charm (as too did Brussels), Gimmelwald was majestic beyond words, and Paris and London are an amazing mashup of old and new, but there really isn't anything to compare to Venice.
I can't really put my finger on what it is that makes Venice so amazing, because in just about every way possible, Venice was uncomfortable. Darcy suggested that it might be because Venice seems completely untouched by the modern world, and that's certainly part of it. My idyllic vision of Heidelberg was much ruined when I saw cars driving through the medieval square I had found so magical the night before, so there is certainly a form of nostalgia for a non-existent time factoring into it. But it's more that Venice is a mystery, which persists even after I saw the warehouses and factories today. Every house, every street, every canal seemed to have it's own story to tell. I don't usually talk in such fru fru language, but there's something about that place that inspires it.
That said, I am not overly upset to have returned to Paris. We are staying at an airport hotel (which is actually near the airport, so that's nice), and it has air conditioning, and a toilet in the room, luxuries which we did not have in Venice. Indeed, so many assumptions that I have made about hotels have been shattered by this trip that I am not sure I'll ever trust one again.
The most significant thing I learned on this trip is that most of my assumptions were wrong. When I went to China, my beliefs were fundamentally changed by the fact that several things I had assumed to be universally human were in fact western values that other cultures did not share (chief among them being the value of the individual). I expected something like that would happen at the time, and although it was quite shocking, it made sense.
I did not expect such things to happen here in Europe. I basically assumed that, especially in England, it would be just like Canada, albeit with more old stuff. This is not really the case. Although it's true that the values we share are mostly the same, the approach to everyday life is much different in many of these places. An example is driving in Paris. Most places don't have lines. There will be a roundabout with roads coming out of five or six different places, and there will be no lights, signs or lines on the roads. Similarly, motorcycles drive wherever they please, on the line (if there is one), between lanes or on the sidewalk. Our tour guide commented that the Parisienne police have more important things to do than ticket them, which makes me wonder what kind of traffic crime these police ARE enforcing. Maybe they are all busy chasing illegal vendors at the Eiffel Tower.
Another big one is water. Some restaurants (especially in France) have given us tap water in a jug to drink, which is a godsend, because in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, water was ridiculously expensive. In France and Italy, they have taps stationed all over the city with potable water just pouring out of them (constantly. There's no on switch or anything, they just have water pouring into a grate at all times). This strange attitude towards something I'd always taken as a right (in the developed world) up until now is another example.
I have learned that things which people tell me are impressive actually are. The parliament buildings in London, the Grand Place in Brussels, and the Eiffel Tower are just three examples of something I thought I'd better see but wasn't particularly expecting to be impressed. I really was. Things built for royalty are just on such a bigger scale than anything I expected, especially having seen what sorts of places other people had to endure. Comparing the Louvre to say, a canoe that Voyageurs used to paddle and live in is simply astounding. Up until now, I had always assumed that things were much smaller back then, and they were, unless you were a king. There really isn't anyone who has the kind of money or power to build something that took two hundred years to construct (Notre Dame de Paris, for example).
It's these things, as well as countless others, some of which I have mentioned in this blog, some of which I have not, which has made me re-evaluate my basic assumptions about values. The simple fact of the matter is that the world is so big, and every place has different ideas and ways of thinking. I saw only hints of them on my whirlwind tour, but each place I went made me curious to learn more than can be gleaned from a wikipedia article, and it makes me sad that I'll never learn it all.
I've also learned that next time I come to Europe, I plan to stay in one place for longer. I'm glad we sprinted all over the place, and that we saw as much as we did, but now that we have, and we sort of understand how each place works, we can pick and choose where to visit next time.
Blogging every day is hard work, and I have appreciated each and every comment that I have received, even if I don't respond. My lack of response isn't because I didn't read or appreciate it, but because I was so exhausted after blogging each night that I just couldn't get round to reciprocating. So thank you. It has made the blog worthwhile to me, and I suspect to Darcy as well. In particular, I have appreciated the people who read the blog and commented from countries other than Canada, as it makes me feel like an accomplished person.
Anyways, thanks for reading, and I hope to see many of you soon. If you are looking for more travel blogging, go ahead and read Christopher Scott's blog as he travels through China (through the exact cities I went through three years ago, although he is spending longer in each. I will no longer be the China expert, it seems).
Last, but not least, here are some parting shots of Venice, which show its actual city side, and not the fairy tale land we spent our time in.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Bella Venezia
In English we call it Venice, in French they call it Venise, but in Italian they call it Venezia, which doesn't really even sound like either of those. I kind of wonder how the French and English managed to agree on that one (I have a theory, but it's boring).
I was remiss earlier, and forgot to tell two exciting stories that happened to us while in Venice.
When we boarded the (incredibly busy) water bus at the train station, there was a family, comprised of a mom and a dad, a toddler, and an infant in a stroller sitting in the priority seating area, which made sense, as the area for things like strollers was being taken up by a gentleman in an electric wheelchair.
At one of the stops, these two older ladies got on, and started having an animated discussion with the mother, at first in Italian, and then after it was apparent she did not speak Italian, in English. The gist of it (which I did not understand at first because it seemed so ridiculous) was that the two old women wanted the mother to stand up, move her stroller and her family into the area currently occupied by the man in the wheelchair (and several other people who had no place to sit).
Now, I am all for surrendering priority seating to the elderly, and had I been sitting, I would have gladly given up my seat when asked. If I was paying attention, I'd even do it without being asked. But asking an entire family to move (into an area already occupied) so that these two ladies (who did not look especially frail, I might add) could sit there was the height of selfishness. In my opinion, a lady with a baby has as much right to priority seating as the elderly, and I believe my opinion was born out by the signage on the seats.
Several other people offered those ladies their seats, but they refused to take them, eventually forcing the poor mother to move, with her stroller into a space where they did not fit. Thing was, if the ladies could have waited like two stops (almost the entire time they were arguing), there would have been a tonne of open seats after the bus stopped at Saint Mark's Square. I have never in my life been so astounded by someone's rudeness, and if it had happened to me, you can bet I would not have moved (although I am unlikely to be the mother of an infant any time soon).
The other thing that happened is we were wandering through some of Venice's back alleys, when we came across a gentleman painting watercolours, and we made the terrible mistake of looking twice at his paintings. He immediately accosted us, and started telling us how great his art was (it was fairly pretty). He did not stop for a moment to let us talk, or get away. In fact, when Darcy did not seem interested, he implied she had no taste, and relied on experts to tell her what was great art.
Little did he know, neither Darcy nor I care at all about "great art," but we know what we like. And I am pretty sure that someone who puts a price on his art, and then offers it to strangers in an alleyway for half the price is a pretty sketchy individual. I saw him paint, so I know the art was his, but I don't really appreciate super hard sales, so we left.
Speaking of "Great Art" today we visited the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice. Peggy Guggenheim was a rich (somewhat strange) lady who lived in Venice towards the end of her life. She opened an art museum in New York (the "Guggenheim", which sounded familiar to me, so it's probably famous), but her estate posthumously opened a museum here in Venice in her former house.
Ms. Guggenheim loved modern art. She just loved that stuff to death. So, as you might expect, her collection is comprised almost entirely of Abstract and Surrealist art, or in other words, art that only sometimes looks like something. We started in the garden, which is full of sculptures, the highlight of which was a stone with two perfectly round bowls carved out of them, and polished. When you stood in front of it, it looked precisely like a holographic mirror, in the sense that your image appeared to be standing in front of the rock. It was cool.
Inside the house were a bunch of paintings, including some by Picaso, and some by Pollack (which until today was the extent of my knowledge of modern artists). I discovered that in some cases, I enjoy abstract art, and it really made me think about art as expression, which I think was the point, so good job guys. Darcy preferred the Surrealist stuff to the abstract, and so was very excited to see a couple Salvador Dalis present. All in all, I feel my horizons have been quite expanded art-wise, and I wouldn't mind coming to another art museum (in Venice, it's not hard. The only thing easier to find than a church is an art museum.)
I'd show you some pictures, but once again, we were not allowed to take pictures inside, so we didn't. Instead, here is a pretty picture of Venice:
After seeing more art in two hours than we do in most months, we set out to visit the Island of Lido, which has a famous beach on it (not Venice Beach, that's in California). Byron and Shelley visited this beach, which made it pretty cool in our books.
We took a water ferry (with no crazy ladies at all) to the island, and stumbled onto a bus to take us to the beach (every bus takes you to the beach. The island is about 300 m across, 100 m of which is beach). The beach here is CRAZY. It's crazy in the sense that it's an amazingly beautiful beach, and crazy in the sense that it is the most commercialized beach I have ever seen. You can rent: a change room, a beach umbrella, a deck chair, or a cabana, all of which are arranged in row after row along the beach.
Darcy and I rented a beach umbrella, chair and changing room (which locked, so we could put things like money in it) for a measly 23 euros, and then took off down the beach (our umbrella was a ways away from the water, so the time it took to walk there could be measured in minutes).
We spent the next few hours playing around in the ocean, and I have to say it is the most pleasant ocean water I have ever been in. Anyone who has met me has probably noticed I don't have an excess of body fat, and cold water makes me very cold very quickly. Add to this the fact that I really don't float well for the same reason, and I typically don't enjoy the ocean a whole lot. But this was a pretty stellar ocean. The water was warm (although I still didn't float). Darcy kept diving down to the bottom to pick up clams and such, although she stopped when she dove down and grabbed something that bit back. She also found a school of some of the smallest fish we'd ever seen.
In the end, we splashed and played for about three hours, until we packed it in and made our way back to the hotel, so we could figure out supper.
Italians have a weird way of doing supper (for us). First of all, no restaurant is open until 7:00. They are usually closed between 5:00 and 7:00 which really confused us, because that is prime North American eating time. Second of all, every menu we have seen in Venice has two parts: a first course and a second course. Last night when I ordered, I got only the first course, and the waiter asked me if that would be enough, so I got suspicious and ordered an appetizer.
It turns out that in Italy, you don't get sides, instead you get two courses. You can eat this much food, because you haven't eaten very much for lunch, based on our experiences here so far. The first course appears to be pasta, and the second course is some sort of meat. Each one is almost enough to be a meal on their own, and taken together are a heck of a lot of food. Luckily, swimming and art gallery viewing are strenuous enough activities that we were hungry enough to polish off a plate of pasta (Spaghetti with Meat Sauce for me and Lasagna with Seafood for Darcy) followed by a big plate of meat (Liver for me and Prawns for Darcy). My liver was alright, although I don't think I'd order it again (the sauce was delicious) but Darcy's prawns came without the heads or claws taken off, so they looked exactly like they had been taken straight from the ocean, dipped in some sort of bread crumbs and then served (to be fair, this is probably more or less what happened).
Another amusing thing that happened yesterday and I forgot to mention. We were eating supper, which was playing soft rock, when suddenly Metallica came on. And it wasn't some radio friendly Metallica song, like Enter Sandman, it was one called "So What" which you should look up the lyrics to, if you feel like being shocked. Anyways, we were sitting in a restaurant basically like Boston Pizza, and suddenly metal started playing and the singer started shouting expletives at the top of his lungs. Maybe in Italy, they don't mind swears, so long as they are in English.
Tonight is the last night we have in Venice. Tomorrow we are flying back to Paris, so we can catch our flight home early the next day. I expect that I will blog tomorrow night, with the remainder of our adventures in Venice (tomorrow morning) and with what we've come away from this trip with (debt).
Until then, enjoy the pictures.
I was remiss earlier, and forgot to tell two exciting stories that happened to us while in Venice.
When we boarded the (incredibly busy) water bus at the train station, there was a family, comprised of a mom and a dad, a toddler, and an infant in a stroller sitting in the priority seating area, which made sense, as the area for things like strollers was being taken up by a gentleman in an electric wheelchair.
At one of the stops, these two older ladies got on, and started having an animated discussion with the mother, at first in Italian, and then after it was apparent she did not speak Italian, in English. The gist of it (which I did not understand at first because it seemed so ridiculous) was that the two old women wanted the mother to stand up, move her stroller and her family into the area currently occupied by the man in the wheelchair (and several other people who had no place to sit).
Now, I am all for surrendering priority seating to the elderly, and had I been sitting, I would have gladly given up my seat when asked. If I was paying attention, I'd even do it without being asked. But asking an entire family to move (into an area already occupied) so that these two ladies (who did not look especially frail, I might add) could sit there was the height of selfishness. In my opinion, a lady with a baby has as much right to priority seating as the elderly, and I believe my opinion was born out by the signage on the seats.
Several other people offered those ladies their seats, but they refused to take them, eventually forcing the poor mother to move, with her stroller into a space where they did not fit. Thing was, if the ladies could have waited like two stops (almost the entire time they were arguing), there would have been a tonne of open seats after the bus stopped at Saint Mark's Square. I have never in my life been so astounded by someone's rudeness, and if it had happened to me, you can bet I would not have moved (although I am unlikely to be the mother of an infant any time soon).
The other thing that happened is we were wandering through some of Venice's back alleys, when we came across a gentleman painting watercolours, and we made the terrible mistake of looking twice at his paintings. He immediately accosted us, and started telling us how great his art was (it was fairly pretty). He did not stop for a moment to let us talk, or get away. In fact, when Darcy did not seem interested, he implied she had no taste, and relied on experts to tell her what was great art.
Little did he know, neither Darcy nor I care at all about "great art," but we know what we like. And I am pretty sure that someone who puts a price on his art, and then offers it to strangers in an alleyway for half the price is a pretty sketchy individual. I saw him paint, so I know the art was his, but I don't really appreciate super hard sales, so we left.
Speaking of "Great Art" today we visited the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice. Peggy Guggenheim was a rich (somewhat strange) lady who lived in Venice towards the end of her life. She opened an art museum in New York (the "Guggenheim", which sounded familiar to me, so it's probably famous), but her estate posthumously opened a museum here in Venice in her former house.
Ms. Guggenheim loved modern art. She just loved that stuff to death. So, as you might expect, her collection is comprised almost entirely of Abstract and Surrealist art, or in other words, art that only sometimes looks like something. We started in the garden, which is full of sculptures, the highlight of which was a stone with two perfectly round bowls carved out of them, and polished. When you stood in front of it, it looked precisely like a holographic mirror, in the sense that your image appeared to be standing in front of the rock. It was cool.
Inside the house were a bunch of paintings, including some by Picaso, and some by Pollack (which until today was the extent of my knowledge of modern artists). I discovered that in some cases, I enjoy abstract art, and it really made me think about art as expression, which I think was the point, so good job guys. Darcy preferred the Surrealist stuff to the abstract, and so was very excited to see a couple Salvador Dalis present. All in all, I feel my horizons have been quite expanded art-wise, and I wouldn't mind coming to another art museum (in Venice, it's not hard. The only thing easier to find than a church is an art museum.)
I'd show you some pictures, but once again, we were not allowed to take pictures inside, so we didn't. Instead, here is a pretty picture of Venice:
 |
| From August 21 Venice |
After seeing more art in two hours than we do in most months, we set out to visit the Island of Lido, which has a famous beach on it (not Venice Beach, that's in California). Byron and Shelley visited this beach, which made it pretty cool in our books.
 |
| From August 21 Venice |
We took a water ferry (with no crazy ladies at all) to the island, and stumbled onto a bus to take us to the beach (every bus takes you to the beach. The island is about 300 m across, 100 m of which is beach). The beach here is CRAZY. It's crazy in the sense that it's an amazingly beautiful beach, and crazy in the sense that it is the most commercialized beach I have ever seen. You can rent: a change room, a beach umbrella, a deck chair, or a cabana, all of which are arranged in row after row along the beach.
 |
| From August 21 Venice |
Darcy and I rented a beach umbrella, chair and changing room (which locked, so we could put things like money in it) for a measly 23 euros, and then took off down the beach (our umbrella was a ways away from the water, so the time it took to walk there could be measured in minutes).
 |
| From August 21 Venice |
We spent the next few hours playing around in the ocean, and I have to say it is the most pleasant ocean water I have ever been in. Anyone who has met me has probably noticed I don't have an excess of body fat, and cold water makes me very cold very quickly. Add to this the fact that I really don't float well for the same reason, and I typically don't enjoy the ocean a whole lot. But this was a pretty stellar ocean. The water was warm (although I still didn't float). Darcy kept diving down to the bottom to pick up clams and such, although she stopped when she dove down and grabbed something that bit back. She also found a school of some of the smallest fish we'd ever seen.
 |
| From August 21 Venice |
In the end, we splashed and played for about three hours, until we packed it in and made our way back to the hotel, so we could figure out supper.
Italians have a weird way of doing supper (for us). First of all, no restaurant is open until 7:00. They are usually closed between 5:00 and 7:00 which really confused us, because that is prime North American eating time. Second of all, every menu we have seen in Venice has two parts: a first course and a second course. Last night when I ordered, I got only the first course, and the waiter asked me if that would be enough, so I got suspicious and ordered an appetizer.
It turns out that in Italy, you don't get sides, instead you get two courses. You can eat this much food, because you haven't eaten very much for lunch, based on our experiences here so far. The first course appears to be pasta, and the second course is some sort of meat. Each one is almost enough to be a meal on their own, and taken together are a heck of a lot of food. Luckily, swimming and art gallery viewing are strenuous enough activities that we were hungry enough to polish off a plate of pasta (Spaghetti with Meat Sauce for me and Lasagna with Seafood for Darcy) followed by a big plate of meat (Liver for me and Prawns for Darcy). My liver was alright, although I don't think I'd order it again (the sauce was delicious) but Darcy's prawns came without the heads or claws taken off, so they looked exactly like they had been taken straight from the ocean, dipped in some sort of bread crumbs and then served (to be fair, this is probably more or less what happened).
Another amusing thing that happened yesterday and I forgot to mention. We were eating supper, which was playing soft rock, when suddenly Metallica came on. And it wasn't some radio friendly Metallica song, like Enter Sandman, it was one called "So What" which you should look up the lyrics to, if you feel like being shocked. Anyways, we were sitting in a restaurant basically like Boston Pizza, and suddenly metal started playing and the singer started shouting expletives at the top of his lungs. Maybe in Italy, they don't mind swears, so long as they are in English.
Tonight is the last night we have in Venice. Tomorrow we are flying back to Paris, so we can catch our flight home early the next day. I expect that I will blog tomorrow night, with the remainder of our adventures in Venice (tomorrow morning) and with what we've come away from this trip with (debt).
Until then, enjoy the pictures.
When the Moon Hits Your Eye
There are no cars in Venice, at least not on the island. Similarly, there is no airport directly in Venice, just nearby. My original plan was to take the train into Venice, where there IS a train station, but that plan got dashed when every single train ticket from anywhere in France or Switzerland to Venice was already purchased. So, I booked a cheap flight, and a room at an airport hotel.
We arrived late, and the shuttle that was supposed to take us to the hotel was not to be found. So, we took a taxi. Things were off to an ominous start when the taxi driver had no idea where the hotel was. The name of the hotel is the "Airport Venice Hotel" so I naturally assumed it was near the airport. In fact, the hotel is neither near the airport nor in Venice. It was, however, a hotel, so at least one word of its name was accurate. Anyways, our taxi driver took us to the "Hotel Venice Airport" (also not near an airport or Venice, nor was it the hotel we had booked a reservation at) where the very nice clerk sorted out where we needed to go, and called a cab to get us there. When we finally arrived, it was 10:00 (almost two hours later than I expected to arrive) and we had not eaten supper. Furthermore, the hotel was not near any sort of food establishment, so we were just hungry.
The next day, we took the train into Venice (which took half an hour) and finally arrived in the city we were attempting to get to.
Now, I am going to start by listing off all of the terrible things about Venice, so that when I get 'round to the good stuff, you can understand how great they must be to overcome it.
First of all, Venice is crowded. I very cleverly bought transit tickets ahead of time, thinking this would save me having to stand in a line to buy them. It did not, so I had to stand in a big line (although I was used to this from the theme park the previous day) and get my tickets just like everyone else, except that I had already paid. Also, there is nowhere to sit in Venice, because there are so many people, and they are already sitting where you want to sit. We went to St. Mark's Square (basically the tourist centre of the city) and there was literally nowhere to sit except on the concrete, which is a serious problem because...
Venice is very hot. Christopher Scott is writing his travel blog from China, where he has recently passed through Hong Kong. I have been to Hong Kong myself at exactly this time of year two years ago, and I feel qualified to say that Venice is every bit as hot and humid as Hong Kong, despite being much further north. It was 35 degrees in the shade yesterday, which is about as hot as I ever hope to be. Furthermore, since Venice is basically in the ocean, it's pretty humid here as well. So humid, in fact that it is impossible not to have a small sheen of liquid on you at all times, a combination of sweat and the ambient humidity.
Another distinction between Hong Kong and Venice is the lack of air conditioning. Air conditioning appears to be about as common as it is in Prince George, which is rather shocking for a place that is SO HOT. (another difference is the lack of Chinese, but that's not too hard to explain). In a hilarious side note, when we were landing in Venice, Darcy looked out the window at the darkening city, and said, "oh, it looks chilly, we better get out our coats." This was, of course, because the cold air vent on the plane was blowing on her, and upon disembarking, we were hit by a wave of heat and humidity.
Venice is also very noisy. I got a hotel room (for the second and third nights in Venice) right in the city, with a canal view, which I thought would be fun. Unfortunately, that's like having your hotel facing a street, a street which people love to do things on until late into the night.
You know how there are those people who turn up the music ridiculously loud in their cars, and then drive around, thinking the whole world wants to listen to their music? Imagine that, but instead of a closed in car, it's an open top boat immediately outside your window (no lawns or trees or anything to block out the noise), and you've got the idea of what things were like around 11:00 pm last night.
Most of the things I mentioned are circumstantial, so they can't really be held against the city. I suspect in the cooler off season, Venice would be perfectly magical.
Now to the stuff I like. As I mentioned before, Venice had no cars. When I first heard about this, I assumed it was something they had done as a sort of gimmick to keep their downtown historic. This is not the case. I have not seen a single road that a car would fit on, and every single one of the bridges we have crossed have stairs on them, making them particularly unfit for cars to drive over. Furthermore, no path goes in a linear pattern for more than a few hundred meters without zigging and zagging all over the place, around and under buildings, so the only way cars could be brought here is if they bulldozed basically everything, and started over.
Walking around, down narrow little twisty alleys, and through big squares, filled with beautiful churches, and lovely unique little buildings, and not having to worry about being run down by a bicycle or a car is absolutely wonderful. Darcy and I often just walk around, exploring, because the city is so fun to just be in.
The canals are gorgeous. Venice is the third city with canals we have been to (the other two being Amsterdam and Bruges) and they are nothing compared to these. The canals here are everywhere, they are filled with seawater, and they are beautiful. Darcy continually wants to jump into one, but so far she has restrained herself. Also, unlike what you might have heard, the canals here do not smell bad.
Venice is a place that is (in some cases literally) oozing with history. So much has happened here that it seems like every building has a fascinating story. I only know some of it, but it's cool to see places that I have heard about before. We would love to go on a walking tour, but a combination of the heat and our general exhaustion (we really ran ourselves ragged in Paris) has made that not terribly possible.
At any rate, we are going to head off to wander around the city more, and possibly visit an art museum, so enjoy the pictures! More Venice in about 10 hours.
We arrived late, and the shuttle that was supposed to take us to the hotel was not to be found. So, we took a taxi. Things were off to an ominous start when the taxi driver had no idea where the hotel was. The name of the hotel is the "Airport Venice Hotel" so I naturally assumed it was near the airport. In fact, the hotel is neither near the airport nor in Venice. It was, however, a hotel, so at least one word of its name was accurate. Anyways, our taxi driver took us to the "Hotel Venice Airport" (also not near an airport or Venice, nor was it the hotel we had booked a reservation at) where the very nice clerk sorted out where we needed to go, and called a cab to get us there. When we finally arrived, it was 10:00 (almost two hours later than I expected to arrive) and we had not eaten supper. Furthermore, the hotel was not near any sort of food establishment, so we were just hungry.
The next day, we took the train into Venice (which took half an hour) and finally arrived in the city we were attempting to get to.
 |
| From August 20 Venice |
Now, I am going to start by listing off all of the terrible things about Venice, so that when I get 'round to the good stuff, you can understand how great they must be to overcome it.
First of all, Venice is crowded. I very cleverly bought transit tickets ahead of time, thinking this would save me having to stand in a line to buy them. It did not, so I had to stand in a big line (although I was used to this from the theme park the previous day) and get my tickets just like everyone else, except that I had already paid. Also, there is nowhere to sit in Venice, because there are so many people, and they are already sitting where you want to sit. We went to St. Mark's Square (basically the tourist centre of the city) and there was literally nowhere to sit except on the concrete, which is a serious problem because...
 |
| From August 20 Venice |
Venice is very hot. Christopher Scott is writing his travel blog from China, where he has recently passed through Hong Kong. I have been to Hong Kong myself at exactly this time of year two years ago, and I feel qualified to say that Venice is every bit as hot and humid as Hong Kong, despite being much further north. It was 35 degrees in the shade yesterday, which is about as hot as I ever hope to be. Furthermore, since Venice is basically in the ocean, it's pretty humid here as well. So humid, in fact that it is impossible not to have a small sheen of liquid on you at all times, a combination of sweat and the ambient humidity.
Another distinction between Hong Kong and Venice is the lack of air conditioning. Air conditioning appears to be about as common as it is in Prince George, which is rather shocking for a place that is SO HOT. (another difference is the lack of Chinese, but that's not too hard to explain). In a hilarious side note, when we were landing in Venice, Darcy looked out the window at the darkening city, and said, "oh, it looks chilly, we better get out our coats." This was, of course, because the cold air vent on the plane was blowing on her, and upon disembarking, we were hit by a wave of heat and humidity.
Venice is also very noisy. I got a hotel room (for the second and third nights in Venice) right in the city, with a canal view, which I thought would be fun. Unfortunately, that's like having your hotel facing a street, a street which people love to do things on until late into the night.
 |
| From August 20 Venice |
You know how there are those people who turn up the music ridiculously loud in their cars, and then drive around, thinking the whole world wants to listen to their music? Imagine that, but instead of a closed in car, it's an open top boat immediately outside your window (no lawns or trees or anything to block out the noise), and you've got the idea of what things were like around 11:00 pm last night.
Most of the things I mentioned are circumstantial, so they can't really be held against the city. I suspect in the cooler off season, Venice would be perfectly magical.
 |
| From August 20 Venice |
Now to the stuff I like. As I mentioned before, Venice had no cars. When I first heard about this, I assumed it was something they had done as a sort of gimmick to keep their downtown historic. This is not the case. I have not seen a single road that a car would fit on, and every single one of the bridges we have crossed have stairs on them, making them particularly unfit for cars to drive over. Furthermore, no path goes in a linear pattern for more than a few hundred meters without zigging and zagging all over the place, around and under buildings, so the only way cars could be brought here is if they bulldozed basically everything, and started over.
 |
| From August 20 Venice |
Walking around, down narrow little twisty alleys, and through big squares, filled with beautiful churches, and lovely unique little buildings, and not having to worry about being run down by a bicycle or a car is absolutely wonderful. Darcy and I often just walk around, exploring, because the city is so fun to just be in.
The canals are gorgeous. Venice is the third city with canals we have been to (the other two being Amsterdam and Bruges) and they are nothing compared to these. The canals here are everywhere, they are filled with seawater, and they are beautiful. Darcy continually wants to jump into one, but so far she has restrained herself. Also, unlike what you might have heard, the canals here do not smell bad.
 |
| From August 20 Venice |
Venice is a place that is (in some cases literally) oozing with history. So much has happened here that it seems like every building has a fascinating story. I only know some of it, but it's cool to see places that I have heard about before. We would love to go on a walking tour, but a combination of the heat and our general exhaustion (we really ran ourselves ragged in Paris) has made that not terribly possible.
At any rate, we are going to head off to wander around the city more, and possibly visit an art museum, so enjoy the pictures! More Venice in about 10 hours.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Our Paris Adventures (with some Saint-Avold thrown in for fun)
So, I finally have working WiFi (although I had to pay for it), so we can at last fill you all in about our exciting adventures in Paris. But before I can get to that, the last time we spoke, we were in Metz (aside from my little note to let everyone know we weren't dead).
We left Metz early in the morning, to make sure we'd have enough time in Saint-Avold. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake. We found the apartment building where dad used to live, and it was cool to see, but we had the unfortunate problem of having nowhere to put our bags. Neither Metz nor Saint-Avold's train station had a luggage locker, despite the fact that every train station everywhere has one (actually this is bit of an untruth; St.-Avold's train station did have luggage lockers but they were full of garbage and accepted francs). So, we were wandering through a fairly sketchy neighborhood of a small French town with our baggage in tow, which did not make us feel super comfortable (except for dad who is immune to these things. He even snuck inside the apartments to get some pictures, which unfortunately are mostly blurry)
After some initial confusion caused by dad not knowing which direction we were facing, we did manage to identify both of the apartments where he and his family lived when my grandpa was stationed at Two-Wing Air Force Base in France. We also found the location where several of the stories I have heard over and over again took place, which for me was a lot like visiting the Plains of Abraham or Louisburg, in the sense that it's weird to be in a place you've heard about so many times. Basically it's just like a national or international historic place, but it's historical only to me and my family.
Anyways, it took us an hour and a half or so to wander around Saint-Avold, and then we wanted to go back to Metz (rather, everyone but dad wanted to go back to Metz). So, we walked back to the train station, and took the train back to Metz. Once there, we did a bit of geocaching, and then took the train to Paris, where we got in late, but not too late to eat at a lovely Parisienne Restaurant across the circle from us. It's very clear that in France, they really care about food. It doesn't matter where you eat, or what you eat, it always looks and tastes great.
The following morning, we decided we wanted to take a walking tour of Paris. It was three and a half hours long, so only Darcy, Mom, Chris and myself went. To get to the walking tour we had to walk past some tall tower.
The Eiffel Tower is way more impressive than I thought it was going to be. The Eiffel Tower is probably the most recognizable landmark in the world. I have seen pictures of it many many many many many times (and so will you, if you view the slideshow). But the pictures never really convey just how tall it is. I have seen taller (CN Tower, and the Macau tower) but I have never seen one as elegant. Both towers I mentioned are basically pillars of concrete with a round bit on the top. The Eiffel Tower is called a Pylon shape, and it's in the middle of a big field, with a beautiful river behind it, so its title of "most visited tourist attraction in the world" is probably well deserved.
Someone knows how popular the tower is, because the grounds underneath, and everywhere around it are crawling with street vendors selling little miniature eiffel towers. This is actually illegal, as there are licensed shops that are selling the same things for about twice as much. All of the vendors are obviously recent immigrants, and all of them are very aggressive. They'll just walk right up to you, chanting "one euro one euro one euro" and stay there until you ignore them for long enough. Anyways, every so often the police will swing by, and suddenly all the street vendors will run away, laughing and joking as they do. It was quite a sight to see.
I also found out that the Eiffel Tower was constructed as a gateway for the 1889 World Fair, and when it was constructed, the Parisienne people hated it. It's been around long enough for them to get over it (they have some new things to hate). Also, it was supposed to be taken down twenty years later, but M. Eiffel wanted it to stay up, so he convinced them to use it as a radio tower. Lastly, Montreal wanted to borrow the Eiffel Tower for the World Expo in the 1960's, but the tower people decided not to. Not because that's RIDICULOUS, but because they were worried France wouldn't let them put it up again.
So, we went on our walking tour, with a very informed and friendly tour guide named Gill. He was originally from the states, but was living in Paris with his fiancée. We really liked him, and we ended up being the only people on the tour, so it was kind of like having a personalized tour. It was very interesting to learn about the history of Paris, and to see things like the palace where Kings lived, or the military school where Napoleon dazzled his teachers.
The tour ended at Notre Dame de Paris, which is a pretty cool building. It's free to go inside, and the line was short, so unlike our usual M.O. we went inside. I have never been in a Cathedral before (except in video games), and Notre Dame is one of the biggest, so it was majestic. There were alcoves along the walls, carvings around the choir, and beautiful stain glass windows. I'd show you lots of pictures, but you're not allowed to take pictures inside, and unlike every other tourist in there, including my mom, we decided to respect their place of worship. Random Side Note: Before the Nazi occupation, all of the stained glass (and there was a lot) was removed from Notre Dame and hidden, as the Nazis were not known for respecting French property.
After our walking tour was over, we went back to the Hotel, collected dad, and went to the Arc de Triumph. The arc is another famous landmark that is way bigger than I anticipated. What's so impressive about it is that it was built in Napoleon's time, and mainly because he said so. That's pretty crazy.
After the Arc, we wandered back to the Tower (down part of the Champs-Élysées, which is really really long after doing a three and a half hour walking tour) and watched the sun go down behind the Eiffel Tower, while the lights slowly came on. Also, at 10:00, they put on a light show for five minutes that is pretty cool.
The next day we returned to the tower bright and early, because we were going up it. Chris and dad were sleep deprived, so stayed behind. I mentioned already that heights are not my thing, whenever they are above about three stories. The Eiffel Tower is a bit more than three stories tall. I knew I couldn't make it to the top, or rather would not enjoy it at all if I did, but Darcy and mom wanted to. The Eiffel Tower has four legs, and at the moment, they have elevators running in two legs, and stairs running in a third. Darcy and mom decided to stand in line for the elevator, while I stood in line for the stairs. Actually, I stood in line with them for quite a while, before wandering over to the stair line. Guess who made it up first? (me).
The Eiffel Tower has three floors. The first and second floors have restaurants, museums and interpretive stuff on them. The third floor is on the top. The stairs only go to the second floor, and that was just fine by me. The second floor is about half of the way up, and also where you transfer from the leg elevators to the summit elevators. So, I waited around, after climbing over 700 steps, for about twenty minutes. Keep in mind, this is just after the tower had opened, and I waited in line with them for about twenty minutes AND I was stuck behind a big tour group. My point is that the line is very long.
Anyways, the view from the second floor is pretty spectacular (Darcy: "but not as good as the top!"). Apparently, from the top, all you can see is Paris, in every direction as far as the eye can see. But Paris is pretty, so that's nice.
I have to say that as the Eiffel Tower was the second tower that we climbed this trip, I preferred the view from Bruges' Belfry, or Heidelberg Castle (remembering I did not get to the very top of the tower) simply because you could see detail on the cute little houses. The view from the Eiffel was pretty breathtaking, but not as pretty.
Moving along, that afternoon we all went on a walking tour called "Paris in WWII," led by Gill. We didn't know it was going to be, but we weren't upset that we had him again, as we quite liked him. Once again, it was just us, so we had a very personalized tour. In fact, my dad liked him so much that they chatted pretty much the whole time about pretty much everything. That was ALSO very interesting. I didn't know much about how the Nazi's took western Europe. In particular, I didn't know how fast they had done it.
That tour ended back in the Place de la Concorde, which we had also visited on our first walking tour. This square was the site of all guillotine executions during the French Revolution, as well as being the site of a major tank battle during the Liberation of Paris, on August 25, 1944. It's really hard to imagine this tourist filled square as being running with human blood, or being shelled from the Arc de Triumph.
After our tour, we went out for dinner, and then went to bed, as mom, dad and Chris were heading back to PG the next day, and Darcy and I were going to Parc Asterix.
The next morning, we hopped on the train to Charles De Gaulle airport, said goodbye to my family, stood in line for a stupidly long time to drop off our luggage, and promptly got lost trying to find the shuttle for Parc Asterix. Finally, after wandering all through Terminal 3, we found it, and took off to the Park.
Parc Asterix, for those not familiar with the comics, is based on the world in Asterix. Asterix and his friend Obelisk are Gauls, in the time of Julius Caesar, and they are attempting to fight off the inevitable Roman invasion of Gaul (France). This is a kid's comic, I should mention. Anyways, it's an amusement park that we thoroughly enjoyed. Darcy and I went on lots of rides, and Darcy went on a couple by herself, if it looked like they might be too scary (or I was too dizzy). We watched a Dolphin show, we saw some Romans being incompetent (the major source of humor in the books) and ate some not entirely overpriced food. All in all, a good time was had.
After we finished at the park, we headed back to Charles De Gaulle, boarded our plane, and flew to Venice, where we are now. I am writing this at the end of our first day in Venice, so I'll have another post up fairly soon, but that's it for now. If you're desperate, here is a slideshow of two days in Paris and one in Saint-Avold:
Stay tuned for our exciting Venice update, coming soon.
We left Metz early in the morning, to make sure we'd have enough time in Saint-Avold. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake. We found the apartment building where dad used to live, and it was cool to see, but we had the unfortunate problem of having nowhere to put our bags. Neither Metz nor Saint-Avold's train station had a luggage locker, despite the fact that every train station everywhere has one (actually this is bit of an untruth; St.-Avold's train station did have luggage lockers but they were full of garbage and accepted francs). So, we were wandering through a fairly sketchy neighborhood of a small French town with our baggage in tow, which did not make us feel super comfortable (except for dad who is immune to these things. He even snuck inside the apartments to get some pictures, which unfortunately are mostly blurry)
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
After some initial confusion caused by dad not knowing which direction we were facing, we did manage to identify both of the apartments where he and his family lived when my grandpa was stationed at Two-Wing Air Force Base in France. We also found the location where several of the stories I have heard over and over again took place, which for me was a lot like visiting the Plains of Abraham or Louisburg, in the sense that it's weird to be in a place you've heard about so many times. Basically it's just like a national or international historic place, but it's historical only to me and my family.
Anyways, it took us an hour and a half or so to wander around Saint-Avold, and then we wanted to go back to Metz (rather, everyone but dad wanted to go back to Metz). So, we walked back to the train station, and took the train back to Metz. Once there, we did a bit of geocaching, and then took the train to Paris, where we got in late, but not too late to eat at a lovely Parisienne Restaurant across the circle from us. It's very clear that in France, they really care about food. It doesn't matter where you eat, or what you eat, it always looks and tastes great.
The following morning, we decided we wanted to take a walking tour of Paris. It was three and a half hours long, so only Darcy, Mom, Chris and myself went. To get to the walking tour we had to walk past some tall tower.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
The Eiffel Tower is way more impressive than I thought it was going to be. The Eiffel Tower is probably the most recognizable landmark in the world. I have seen pictures of it many many many many many times (and so will you, if you view the slideshow). But the pictures never really convey just how tall it is. I have seen taller (CN Tower, and the Macau tower) but I have never seen one as elegant. Both towers I mentioned are basically pillars of concrete with a round bit on the top. The Eiffel Tower is called a Pylon shape, and it's in the middle of a big field, with a beautiful river behind it, so its title of "most visited tourist attraction in the world" is probably well deserved.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
Someone knows how popular the tower is, because the grounds underneath, and everywhere around it are crawling with street vendors selling little miniature eiffel towers. This is actually illegal, as there are licensed shops that are selling the same things for about twice as much. All of the vendors are obviously recent immigrants, and all of them are very aggressive. They'll just walk right up to you, chanting "one euro one euro one euro" and stay there until you ignore them for long enough. Anyways, every so often the police will swing by, and suddenly all the street vendors will run away, laughing and joking as they do. It was quite a sight to see.
I also found out that the Eiffel Tower was constructed as a gateway for the 1889 World Fair, and when it was constructed, the Parisienne people hated it. It's been around long enough for them to get over it (they have some new things to hate). Also, it was supposed to be taken down twenty years later, but M. Eiffel wanted it to stay up, so he convinced them to use it as a radio tower. Lastly, Montreal wanted to borrow the Eiffel Tower for the World Expo in the 1960's, but the tower people decided not to. Not because that's RIDICULOUS, but because they were worried France wouldn't let them put it up again.
So, we went on our walking tour, with a very informed and friendly tour guide named Gill. He was originally from the states, but was living in Paris with his fiancée. We really liked him, and we ended up being the only people on the tour, so it was kind of like having a personalized tour. It was very interesting to learn about the history of Paris, and to see things like the palace where Kings lived, or the military school where Napoleon dazzled his teachers.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
The tour ended at Notre Dame de Paris, which is a pretty cool building. It's free to go inside, and the line was short, so unlike our usual M.O. we went inside. I have never been in a Cathedral before (except in video games), and Notre Dame is one of the biggest, so it was majestic. There were alcoves along the walls, carvings around the choir, and beautiful stain glass windows. I'd show you lots of pictures, but you're not allowed to take pictures inside, and unlike every other tourist in there, including my mom, we decided to respect their place of worship. Random Side Note: Before the Nazi occupation, all of the stained glass (and there was a lot) was removed from Notre Dame and hidden, as the Nazis were not known for respecting French property.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
After our walking tour was over, we went back to the Hotel, collected dad, and went to the Arc de Triumph. The arc is another famous landmark that is way bigger than I anticipated. What's so impressive about it is that it was built in Napoleon's time, and mainly because he said so. That's pretty crazy.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
After the Arc, we wandered back to the Tower (down part of the Champs-Élysées, which is really really long after doing a three and a half hour walking tour) and watched the sun go down behind the Eiffel Tower, while the lights slowly came on. Also, at 10:00, they put on a light show for five minutes that is pretty cool.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
The next day we returned to the tower bright and early, because we were going up it. Chris and dad were sleep deprived, so stayed behind. I mentioned already that heights are not my thing, whenever they are above about three stories. The Eiffel Tower is a bit more than three stories tall. I knew I couldn't make it to the top, or rather would not enjoy it at all if I did, but Darcy and mom wanted to. The Eiffel Tower has four legs, and at the moment, they have elevators running in two legs, and stairs running in a third. Darcy and mom decided to stand in line for the elevator, while I stood in line for the stairs. Actually, I stood in line with them for quite a while, before wandering over to the stair line. Guess who made it up first? (me).
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
The Eiffel Tower has three floors. The first and second floors have restaurants, museums and interpretive stuff on them. The third floor is on the top. The stairs only go to the second floor, and that was just fine by me. The second floor is about half of the way up, and also where you transfer from the leg elevators to the summit elevators. So, I waited around, after climbing over 700 steps, for about twenty minutes. Keep in mind, this is just after the tower had opened, and I waited in line with them for about twenty minutes AND I was stuck behind a big tour group. My point is that the line is very long.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
Anyways, the view from the second floor is pretty spectacular (Darcy: "but not as good as the top!"). Apparently, from the top, all you can see is Paris, in every direction as far as the eye can see. But Paris is pretty, so that's nice.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
I have to say that as the Eiffel Tower was the second tower that we climbed this trip, I preferred the view from Bruges' Belfry, or Heidelberg Castle (remembering I did not get to the very top of the tower) simply because you could see detail on the cute little houses. The view from the Eiffel was pretty breathtaking, but not as pretty.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
Moving along, that afternoon we all went on a walking tour called "Paris in WWII," led by Gill. We didn't know it was going to be, but we weren't upset that we had him again, as we quite liked him. Once again, it was just us, so we had a very personalized tour. In fact, my dad liked him so much that they chatted pretty much the whole time about pretty much everything. That was ALSO very interesting. I didn't know much about how the Nazi's took western Europe. In particular, I didn't know how fast they had done it.
That tour ended back in the Place de la Concorde, which we had also visited on our first walking tour. This square was the site of all guillotine executions during the French Revolution, as well as being the site of a major tank battle during the Liberation of Paris, on August 25, 1944. It's really hard to imagine this tourist filled square as being running with human blood, or being shelled from the Arc de Triumph.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
After our tour, we went out for dinner, and then went to bed, as mom, dad and Chris were heading back to PG the next day, and Darcy and I were going to Parc Asterix.
The next morning, we hopped on the train to Charles De Gaulle airport, said goodbye to my family, stood in line for a stupidly long time to drop off our luggage, and promptly got lost trying to find the shuttle for Parc Asterix. Finally, after wandering all through Terminal 3, we found it, and took off to the Park.
 |
| From August 16-19 Paris |
Parc Asterix, for those not familiar with the comics, is based on the world in Asterix. Asterix and his friend Obelisk are Gauls, in the time of Julius Caesar, and they are attempting to fight off the inevitable Roman invasion of Gaul (France). This is a kid's comic, I should mention. Anyways, it's an amusement park that we thoroughly enjoyed. Darcy and I went on lots of rides, and Darcy went on a couple by herself, if it looked like they might be too scary (or I was too dizzy). We watched a Dolphin show, we saw some Romans being incompetent (the major source of humor in the books) and ate some not entirely overpriced food. All in all, a good time was had.
After we finished at the park, we headed back to Charles De Gaulle, boarded our plane, and flew to Venice, where we are now. I am writing this at the end of our first day in Venice, so I'll have another post up fairly soon, but that's it for now. If you're desperate, here is a slideshow of two days in Paris and one in Saint-Avold:
Stay tuned for our exciting Venice update, coming soon.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
France Has Stupid Keyboards
Just to let everyone know, we haven't died; we have just gone to Paris. The wifi in the hotel is not working at all, so I am forced to use the common computer, which luckily is free. It is unluckily french, which means that about a quarter of the letters are in the wrong place. If you don't believe me, try setting your keyboard to French and see what happens. So right now I am typing like a person I used to teach in my beginning computer classes, which is quite frankly embarassing.
So, we will upload a big blog post on friday evening(morning for those of you in the Colonies) when we arrive in Venice, detailing our many adventures in Paris, which are already quite numerous.
So, we will upload a big blog post on friday evening(morning for those of you in the Colonies) when we arrive in Venice, detailing our many adventures in Paris, which are already quite numerous.
Monday, August 15, 2011
From Metz With Love
Today has not been a day filled with exciting adventures. We packed out of our guesthouse in Gimmelwald (which turned out to be the most expensive place we stayed ever in our lives -- more on that later), and rode the cable car down the mountain (in the rain).
We spent most of our day today in trains. It was by far the most unpleasant of all train rides. Our tickets were not reserved, and the trains were very full, so we weren't all able to sit together like we usually are. Also we had to sit with strangers who did not speak the same language as us, so that wasn't terribly great. Anyways, it wasn't some great hardship, and it's still way better than a plane or a greyhound, but it was worse than we've had so far. But we did go running through the Basel train station, which was very nice looking.
We eventually made it to Metz, where we are staying tonight. But wait, I hear you say (all the way across the Atlantic), didn't you already talk about Metz several days ago? Oui, I did. We ate lunch here a few days ago. Now we are staying here so that tomorrow we can go visit St. Avold, where my dad used to live.
Metz is not somewhere I expect anyone has ever heard of, but it is very nice. They've got more old buildings than you can shake a stick at, and some very nice parks. However, Metz suffers from a terrible problem, and that problem is being Catholic. Today, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is a big Catholic holiday (the feast of the ascension) and so every single restaurant was closed. The only one we could find didn't open until 7:00 pm, and when we found it, it was 6:00. So we sat around in a nice square (every town has at least one) until we had supper.
After supper we went for a Geocache, and that's pretty much it. Very dull day adventure wise.
I am glad to be back in France where I can pretend to speak the language. My spoken French is passable, as people seemed to be able to understand when I spoke to them, but I really just can't understand when people speak back in French, which causes some problems for me. Dad is very excited to use his French, so he will often just interject French into conversations that I am having with various service people. In his defense, I would probably do the same thing, were our situations reversed.
And now: macroeconomics.
Switzerland, which we have just left, is probably the most expensive place in the world to buy things right now, particularly on the top of a mountain. First of all, being on a mountain presents some logistical problems. Second of all, for those of you who follow the news (this did not include me, by the way) the Euro has been having some problems. Certain countries (*cough* Greece *cough*) decided they were going to lie about their debt, and now that it's all out, their debt has dragged the rest of the European Union down.
Switzerland, being the world's banking country, did not adopt the Euro, and has stuck with the Swiss Franc. When mom and I were planning our trip, the franc was roughly the same as a Canadian Dollar. So, staying where we did was expensive, but not ridiculous. But, since the Euro has tanked, everyone has decided that buying the Swiss Franc is a good idea, so the price has skyrocketed. Add to this the fact that SOMETHING happened in Canada shortly after we left to push our dollar down further, and everything in Switzerland is about 150% more expensive than it would have been in February.
Today, Darcy had coffee and a croissant for four Euros (about $5.00 CAD) and we were so excited, because that's about half the price we would have paid in Gimmelwald. So, Switzerland: amazing, but more expensive than anywhere else in the world (I suspect).
Anyhow, here are some lovely pictures from lovely Metz.
 |
| From August 15 Metz |
We spent most of our day today in trains. It was by far the most unpleasant of all train rides. Our tickets were not reserved, and the trains were very full, so we weren't all able to sit together like we usually are. Also we had to sit with strangers who did not speak the same language as us, so that wasn't terribly great. Anyways, it wasn't some great hardship, and it's still way better than a plane or a greyhound, but it was worse than we've had so far. But we did go running through the Basel train station, which was very nice looking.
 |
| From August 15 Metz |
We eventually made it to Metz, where we are staying tonight. But wait, I hear you say (all the way across the Atlantic), didn't you already talk about Metz several days ago? Oui, I did. We ate lunch here a few days ago. Now we are staying here so that tomorrow we can go visit St. Avold, where my dad used to live.
Metz is not somewhere I expect anyone has ever heard of, but it is very nice. They've got more old buildings than you can shake a stick at, and some very nice parks. However, Metz suffers from a terrible problem, and that problem is being Catholic. Today, as I mentioned in an earlier post, is a big Catholic holiday (the feast of the ascension) and so every single restaurant was closed. The only one we could find didn't open until 7:00 pm, and when we found it, it was 6:00. So we sat around in a nice square (every town has at least one) until we had supper.
 |
| From August 15 Metz |
After supper we went for a Geocache, and that's pretty much it. Very dull day adventure wise.
 |
| From August 15 Metz |
I am glad to be back in France where I can pretend to speak the language. My spoken French is passable, as people seemed to be able to understand when I spoke to them, but I really just can't understand when people speak back in French, which causes some problems for me. Dad is very excited to use his French, so he will often just interject French into conversations that I am having with various service people. In his defense, I would probably do the same thing, were our situations reversed.
And now: macroeconomics.
Switzerland, which we have just left, is probably the most expensive place in the world to buy things right now, particularly on the top of a mountain. First of all, being on a mountain presents some logistical problems. Second of all, for those of you who follow the news (this did not include me, by the way) the Euro has been having some problems. Certain countries (*cough* Greece *cough*) decided they were going to lie about their debt, and now that it's all out, their debt has dragged the rest of the European Union down.
Switzerland, being the world's banking country, did not adopt the Euro, and has stuck with the Swiss Franc. When mom and I were planning our trip, the franc was roughly the same as a Canadian Dollar. So, staying where we did was expensive, but not ridiculous. But, since the Euro has tanked, everyone has decided that buying the Swiss Franc is a good idea, so the price has skyrocketed. Add to this the fact that SOMETHING happened in Canada shortly after we left to push our dollar down further, and everything in Switzerland is about 150% more expensive than it would have been in February.
Today, Darcy had coffee and a croissant for four Euros (about $5.00 CAD) and we were so excited, because that's about half the price we would have paid in Gimmelwald. So, Switzerland: amazing, but more expensive than anywhere else in the world (I suspect).
 |
| From August 15 Metz |
Anyhow, here are some lovely pictures from lovely Metz.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Gimmelwald & Friends
Today, we had a pretty active day. If you're in the Swiss Alps, you can't help but go hiking. Part of this is because everything looks so incredible you want to go see more, and part of this is because if you walk anywhere, you are probably hiking.
In the morning, we went for a walk to Murren (which is spelt with an umlaut, but I can't make one on the iPad, and before people tell me how, I'm not really caught up on the issue). Murren is the next town up from Gimmelwald, and is about an hour hike up about a thousand feet in elevation gain.
The hike is quite nice, and paved the whole way. In fact, we saw some cars driving, so it seems that it's very possible to drive between them. Maybe. Murren is a pretty interesting place. It's much larger than Gimmelwald, but some of that is illusion. Murren has a population of 450 people (compared to Gimmelwald's 130), but Murren has 2000 hotel beds, which is about the most ridiculous ratio of tourists to residents I have ever seen. Murren is also where things like a grocery store are found.
We tried to buy food in Murren at the Co-op, but we failed to take into account that today is Sunday. In small places, everything closes on Sunday, and so the grocery store was closed. Luckily, we found a bakery, and grabbed a few things to eat. Thing is, eating at a restaurant in Murren is ludicrously expensive. A bowl of soup would have cost us roughly $12 CAD each. And that's not fancy soup.
At the very top of the mountain we are on (which is called Schilthorn) is a revolving restaurant, which we did not visit, because we did not feel like spending $100 each to get there, plus whatever ridiculous prices the restaurant itself would charge. This restaurant is so awesome, they used it in the James Bond film In Her Majesty's Secret Service, filmed back in the 1960's. Anyways, it would be cool to visit, but not several hundred dollars cool.
Because we were tired and cranky and it looked like it was going to rain, we decided to take the cable car back down to Gimmelwald, instead of walking back. This was not overly terrifying, but gave some pretty nice views. We saw a suspension walking bridge across a gaping chasm that we wanted to walk to, but it turns out you can't get to it without mountaineering equipment, which we do not have.
After lunch, Darcy and I lazed around (because we are exhausted) while Mom, Dad and Chris went on a hike up to a nearby waterfall, called Sprutz. It was about an hour up a very steep path, but the waterfall was pretty awesome. You could walk right behind the waterfall. Mom may have taken a few photos.
After they returned, Darcy and I cooked supper, and then we went off on a walk of our own. We cleverly decided to walk down instead of up. We didn't know exactly where we were going, but en route, we found a waterfall of our own. We couldn't go behind it, but it was pretty cool.
Eventually, we ended up at the bottom of the valley at a bridge over a river. It was pretty nice, and a worthwhile place to walk to, even if on the way back we had to walk up. Tomorrow we leave Gimmelwald, and it will be sad, but we did get to do some nice hiking though the Alps.
Anyways, here are the pictures from today, dominated mostly by pictures from mom, but with some from Chris and I as well. Today is also the day that Picasa informed me I had hit my quota for pictures (because Mom's camera has too many megapixels), so I had to buy more. Now I have infinite space (or 20 GB). So, here are the pictures, which are NOT free.
In the morning, we went for a walk to Murren (which is spelt with an umlaut, but I can't make one on the iPad, and before people tell me how, I'm not really caught up on the issue). Murren is the next town up from Gimmelwald, and is about an hour hike up about a thousand feet in elevation gain.
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| From August 13 Gimmelwald |
The hike is quite nice, and paved the whole way. In fact, we saw some cars driving, so it seems that it's very possible to drive between them. Maybe. Murren is a pretty interesting place. It's much larger than Gimmelwald, but some of that is illusion. Murren has a population of 450 people (compared to Gimmelwald's 130), but Murren has 2000 hotel beds, which is about the most ridiculous ratio of tourists to residents I have ever seen. Murren is also where things like a grocery store are found.
We tried to buy food in Murren at the Co-op, but we failed to take into account that today is Sunday. In small places, everything closes on Sunday, and so the grocery store was closed. Luckily, we found a bakery, and grabbed a few things to eat. Thing is, eating at a restaurant in Murren is ludicrously expensive. A bowl of soup would have cost us roughly $12 CAD each. And that's not fancy soup.
At the very top of the mountain we are on (which is called Schilthorn) is a revolving restaurant, which we did not visit, because we did not feel like spending $100 each to get there, plus whatever ridiculous prices the restaurant itself would charge. This restaurant is so awesome, they used it in the James Bond film In Her Majesty's Secret Service, filmed back in the 1960's. Anyways, it would be cool to visit, but not several hundred dollars cool.
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| From August 14 Gimmelwald |
Because we were tired and cranky and it looked like it was going to rain, we decided to take the cable car back down to Gimmelwald, instead of walking back. This was not overly terrifying, but gave some pretty nice views. We saw a suspension walking bridge across a gaping chasm that we wanted to walk to, but it turns out you can't get to it without mountaineering equipment, which we do not have.
 |
| From August 14 Gimmelwald |
After lunch, Darcy and I lazed around (because we are exhausted) while Mom, Dad and Chris went on a hike up to a nearby waterfall, called Sprutz. It was about an hour up a very steep path, but the waterfall was pretty awesome. You could walk right behind the waterfall. Mom may have taken a few photos.
 |
| From August 14 Gimmelwald |
After they returned, Darcy and I cooked supper, and then we went off on a walk of our own. We cleverly decided to walk down instead of up. We didn't know exactly where we were going, but en route, we found a waterfall of our own. We couldn't go behind it, but it was pretty cool.
 |
| From August 14 Gimmelwald |
Eventually, we ended up at the bottom of the valley at a bridge over a river. It was pretty nice, and a worthwhile place to walk to, even if on the way back we had to walk up. Tomorrow we leave Gimmelwald, and it will be sad, but we did get to do some nice hiking though the Alps.
 |
| From August 14 Gimmelwald |
Anyways, here are the pictures from today, dominated mostly by pictures from mom, but with some from Chris and I as well. Today is also the day that Picasa informed me I had hit my quota for pictures (because Mom's camera has too many megapixels), so I had to buy more. Now I have infinite space (or 20 GB). So, here are the pictures, which are NOT free.
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