The Heavy Hitters

Wednesday and Thursday were for the Louvre and Versailles - huge places which are impossible to see all of in one try.

I arrived early at the Louvre and spent about 7 hours actually looking at art, plus time waiting in line.  For those of you who will ask, no I did not enter though the pyramid, because it wasn't worth the crowded line.  I saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and about 5,000 other masterpieces. I actually loved da Vinci's other works (there were a total of 5 of them in the museum) better than the Mona Lisa.  Napoleon crowning himself ("The Coronation of Napoleon") was enormous and entertaining.  All in all, it was a huge art museum, with French signs and labels, and wasn't as exciting to me as the Orsay or the Orangerie, which I visited for an hour after the Louvre.  It has Monet's giant water lilies in two oval shaped rooms - amazing - and a other normal-sized works by a variety of Impressionists.

The Hall of Mirrors

Versailles in 4 words: Crowded, ornate, amazing gardens.  Using more words, I give Rick Steves two thumbs up again for his podcast that walked me through the chateau and grounds.  I was blown away by the grandeur and detail in every room, the color choices of fabrics on chairs, beds and walls, and the beautiful painted ceilings to which too few people (now and probably back then) paid attention.  However the gardens and the Hamlet really caught my interest.  Marie Antoinette had this small village built so she could "play peasant."   Well, it was the most beautiful 12 building village ever designed by architects for a queen.

Me in front of a very cute house commissioned by Marie Antoinette

Today (wow I'm posting about a current day!) I wandered to the Marais neighborhood and visited the Pompidou Center (modern art). All you engineers would have loved the building itself, with its pipes and ducts on the outside as art.  Some of the art was beyond my understanding or interest, but the works by Picasso, Matisse and of course Calder (two mobiles!) were worth seeing.

And that, my friends, is all from France, until I add photos.

Paris, or How I Learned to Love Nutella

Paris has been a city of baguettes, art museums, and pathetic attempts to say "hello," "please," and "thank you" in French.  Breakfast here is a baguette, I take an extra for snacking during the day, eat a late lunch consisting of a baguette with ham and cheese on it (or if I'm lucky a crepe with ham and cheese) and most likely a baguette for "dinner."  Plain bread gets old, butter doesn't travel well, so Nutella it is.  After 5 days of baguettes and Nutella, I'm ready for Spain.

You all know that da Vinci was a genius, the Eiffel Tower is way cooler all lit up at night, and that Louis XIV loved himself and Versailles absolutely shows that. So here are a few stories and facts I learned to show you Paris in a different way.

Monday: My (not actually) free walking tour rookie around the city to all the major sites, but the coolest was unexpected: Pont Neuf. Henry III wanted a stone bridge that wouldn't burn down; many people said it couldn't be done; Henry IV finished it, threw a party and invited those same disbelievers, had caricatures done of all attendees and added their exaggerated (and ugly) faces to the bridge for all of eternity!  After the tour I headed to Monmartre and Sacre Couer - beautiful church and amazing views from the hilltop!

Tuesday: The Orsay might be my favorite museum ever. With the Louvre closed on Tuesdays, I did the art timeline backwards and started with Impressionists. I listened to a podcast from Rick Steves as I wandered, providing some free insight into the artists and works I saw. I really love anything Monet did, Renoir's landscapes, and Degas' dancers and portraits (and everything else too!)  5 hours wasn't enough, but as my feet were tired of standing, so I walked to and around Notre Dame and St. Chapelle.

Tuesday's story goes like this. I decided to do a night bike tour, which was a good time until it started raining. That didn't stop me from trying to take pictures (while riding). There was one particularly close call while taking a photo of the Louvre's pyramid all lit up and essentially abandoned because of the rain -- from a moving bike on wet pavement. I stayed on the bike but the photos were less than stellar. However wine on the boat and a lit up sparkling Eiffel Tower at 11pm on the ride back were worth the wet clothes.

Days 3-5 in Paris up soon, photos probably when I get to Madrid.

A Trip to England Wouldn't Be Complete Without Jane Austen or Harry Potter

The abbreviated version of Bath.  We (Michelle, Kristin and I - friends from way back in Galway) arrived in Bath at about noon which gave us the afternoon to explore the city, take a free walking tour (genius ideas!) and see the Fashion Museum.  I wish I could hook up my camera, because I have an amazing photo of me in the museum trying on a stay (corset), hoop skirt and hat.  I am very glad I don't live in the 1800s!  It was fun for the 5 minutes I had them on but the idea of wearing that every day, and then layers of petticoats and dresses, sounds horrible.

Our one and only fully day in Bath featured the Roman Baths, which are there because of hot springs naturally bringing something like 42 degree (Celsius) water to the surface. Very cool to see all the artifacts from the Romans when they were there!  The Pump Room which was built adjacent, was where people in the 19th century would go to be seen while they were in Bath for the season or "taking the waters" for their healing purposes.  Lunch was a pasty - classic English miner food - something akin to a pot pie but able to be held in your hands.  Quite tasty!

The afternoon was filled with plenty of Jane Austen, who spent 5 years there and set at least part of 2 books there.  A walking tour and a visit to the Jane Austen center gave me my fill of Jane history.  Shopping and wandering around the city brought an end to my visit to Bath.

Traveling back to London to get to Paris brought me to the train station that just happened to be in the station right next to King's Cross, which is where Platform 9 3/4 is!  The Harry Potter fan in me had to go take a picture.  Got myself to Paris and situated in my hostel.  First thoughts of France?  I wish I spoke even a teeny bit of French.

Days are Blurring

The rest of my London story goes like this:

Let's travel into the past, because I completely forgot that I had gone to Westminster Abbey after the Changing of the Guard! That's the biggest downside of not being allowed to take pictures inside certain places - you forget ever being there! However my thoughts on that subject are that it was ornate and cluttered. Too many busts of semi-important dead people took away from the grandeur and importance of those deserving of the abbey as their resting place. I'm glad I saw it, but loved St. Paul's that much more for its type of detail and glitz.

I spent my last day in London first walking through Hyde Park (not as cool as Central Park in NYC) and then exploring the Victoria and Albert Museum. My thoughts? You HAVE to go. Awesome exhibits on all kinds of things including fashion, glass, jewelry, casts of famous things in other places (think the David) that I didn't spend much time in since I'll see the real versions later, architecture and much more. After a few hours I wandered over to Harrods for chaotic shopping (I bought a cupcake and that's it!).  It would take too long to describe how it all fit together, but essentially it's a high-end department store with a grocery store attached.

My evening was spontaneous.  I decided to go see a show and ended up at Jersey Boys.  I was entertained by the fact that I had to cross the Atlantic to see a show about NJ!  However I'm glad I did as it was fantastic.

The next day I jumped on a train for 1.5 days in Bath, but that's a different story and post.

Country #2

One last day in Dublin included an unexpectedly ornate church and great music at Mass as well as some beautiful street art, where I bought two small watercolors of Ireland.  Travel days are not too exciting, so I'll jump ahead to my first full day in London!

I took the tube (Please mind the gap!) to the Westminster stop and upon walking out of the Underground stairwell, I immediately had the "I'm in London!" feeling.  My first views were of Big Ben and Parliament, the London Eye, Westminster Bridge, and quite a few red telephone booths!

After the initial photo burst past, I wandered around and made my way over to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard.  It was fun to see, but spent more time waiting around for something to happen than anything else.  What was more impressive than anything was the crowd that gathered.  It felt like every tourist in London had come to the same place all at the same time!  I think I took as many pictures of the crowd as I did the guards and musicians.  My afternoon was spent in Trafalgar Square and in the National Gallery; to be perfectly honest, I can't really remember what I saw in there, until I look back at my notebook.  However I did spend close to 4 hours there, so I must have seen something!  It was a wonderful first full day in England.

My second day in London started at the Tower of London where I met up with two now old friends, Michelle and Kristin, who I had met in my hostel in Galway.  We had a blast on the included tour and hearing about all the famous people who got sent to the Tower and then subsequently beheaded!  We walked across Tower Bridge on our way to Shakespeare's Globe for about an hour's worth of Henry IV Part 1, about which I know nothing!  (Sorry Grandma, that gene and love didn't get passed down.) 

I still enjoyed my time there, and the inside of the Globe is very cool! We got groundling tickets - you stand in the pit in front of the stage - which are fantastic, up until it starts raining and you're in a space that doesn't have a roof and umbrella's aren't allowed! We huddled in the back catching some protection from the overhang of the outside walls, but after an hour of not really understanding the story and getting wet, I moved onto the Tate Modern.  Very cool modern art.  Bob (or if someone at work reads this and can tell Bob...), I saw a Mondrian and thought of our plan for the exhibit and was glad we didn't try and execute that - it would have been very busy!

My favorites in the museum were the two Calder mobiles.  If you don't know what they are, please Google them, and then buy me one. :)  I rushed through the second half of that museum so that I could get to the photo on the right - St. Paul's Cathedral for evensong - evening choir/organ singing of a Psalm and some readings.  It was very pretty music, but the best part was that it got me into the cathedral for free!  I loved the detail and wish that photos could do these places justice.  You'll just have to see it for yourselves.

More to come about London and Bath another day.  Time to move on from this cafe.

Unplanned is the Way to Go

My next day in Dublin featured a hike through some of Ireland's prettiest landscape, following a trail around a lake.  The hike itself wasn't too difficult, but was infinitely more breathtaking!  The difference is that in VA, the mountains are tree-covered, thus allowing limited views on the trail and then breathtaking views at the top of a mountain.  However Ireland is a different green - grass, moss, and ferns - which allows for 360 degree views at all times.  I love it!

However I'm getting ahead of myself.  I figured that when I emailed this tour company about a day hike that I would be joined by 5 or so others who love the outdoors and wanted an adventure while on their vacation.  After a few emails back and forth with the owner, it turned out that I was alone, and that my guide would be none other than the current World Record holder for submitting the seven tallest mountains in the fewest days, Ian McKeever!  Holy cow!  We decided after a few more emails (yeah, we're up to 10 or 15 at this point total to plan a hike) that it would be more fun to go with a group that he is training to take up Kilimanjaro in September!  We hiked for three hours or so around this lake, up the mountain along side of it, along the ridge line, and then back down.  The unexpected part was a 3-5km run at the end, with about half of it being uphill.  I wanted to die, but made it (with some walking lest you think I'm in that good of shape!).  I was glad I did it and can look back on it with fond memories, but it was painful at the time.

I had a great time talking with everyone in that group, especially meeting a father/son team Noel and Pascal.  Pascal, 12 years old, and I hit it off, talking about sports and him having a grand old time explaining all the rules of rugby, Gaelic football and hurling, and me taking it all in.  After a while I found out that they were going to a rugby match that night, and of course I say how that's on my list of things to do while abroad.  Without fail, it works out that they are going to a match that afternoon after our hike and have two extra tickets!  So long story short, I end up jumping in their car after the hike, heading (all sweaty and partially soaked from the rain) directly to the match.  It was in their words, "the worst rugby match they'd ever seen" but I enjoyed myself immensely!  So the moral of the story is go with the flow, don't always make plans, and things will turn out way better than you can imagine.  I know I haven't been gone that long, but this was definitely my favorite day yet!
Stay tuned for the next installment...

Passage Graves and Guinness

The rain held off amazingly well for my first week in Ireland. But it was inevitable that the weather and my luck would break. I took a tour out to Newgrange, a Neolithic passage grave that is about 5,000 years old - older than Stonehenge and the pyramids in Egypt.

Their knowledge of the sun and the earth was very interesting to hear about; they built the structure to perfectly align with the sun on the winter equinox and used the ground's constant cool temperature to serve as a refrigerator. Similarly their understanding of architecture and engineering was evident in the surprisingly large space inside the grave and the fact that it has stood the test of time. We were able to walk inside, and while inside the lights were turned off, sending us into complete darkness until the winter sun was simulated to show what it would look like on the shortest day of the year. So cool! After walking around we caught another shuttle to Knowth, a group of about 27 passage graves that had taken probably close to a century to build. It was a great day of ancient history.

After returning to Dublin I met up with some (new) friends to go out for a Guinness. Because I promised so many of you that I would drink a Guinness while in Dublin I ordered a half pint. Don't be too mad, but I knew there was no way I would have been able to get a full pint down. The half was painful enough for someone who doesn't like beer! I will say that it did taste marginally better than the few sips of the bottled Guinness I tasted in NJ before I left!


I also figured that my one beer needed to be consumed in Dublin's most famous pub, Temple Bar. I'm not sure why it's so famous, but it was painted red, loud with live music, overpriced, and very busy! So I drank my beer and managed a smile after it was done! I hope you all are satisfied now that you have proof of my beer drinking story!

Coming soon in my next installment - hiking, a world record holder, and rugby.