tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23724288865493684142024-02-19T07:43:50.232-08:00shertology - exploring the world of SherTolSherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-75322180208849167802016-07-08T03:22:00.000-07:002016-07-08T03:22:07.264-07:00The beautiful lavender fields of ProvenceToday we set off to the Luberon valley with the assistance of British Bob to view an iconic 10th century abbey surrounded by blooming lavender fields. For anyone who has viewed pictures of Provence lavender fields before in a calendar or on a poster has surely seen this abbey before; it's quintessential "Provence" at its best. We're about 2 hours from this part of Provence, certainly an easy day trip. Our timing has never been great to see the lavender in bloom as we've typically toured this area later in the summer or in a different season altogether, so it's finally something on my "bucket list" that I get to check off.<br />
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I'm convinced that British Bob is determined to make every road trip a "white knuckle" driving experience. We sailed pass Aix-en-Provence on the A8 toll road and then exited the super highway once we got into the Luberon valley. British Bob apparently has a fondness for farm roads; we were literally driving on barely-paved narrow roads between fields. How can this actually be a road meant for cars? Thank goodness we rarely encountered any other car traffic or farm equipment, but it was an unnerving driving experience to say the least. <br />
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I know what you're thinking -- it must be a setting in the GPS to avoid larger roads. We have checked and verified several times that the navigation options include ALL roads, so I'm unsure why British Bob is trying to turn our hair white and take us on the "touristic routes". He must know we are "stupid Americains". The actual road to the abbey was recently made a "one-way" road, which is a good thing given how narrow (and high) this "balcony" road was. But, we finally made it, and lucky for us, we arrived before the bulk of other tourists. Due to jet lag, we were up at 5:00 AM and after a leisurely morning, we still were on the road by 7:30 AM. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6aDOUVfmSR8LQ3uEnJ3VybCXcQzt5DCIxNpjXSqMLj19K0-OUiT9jlL__yg1L-y-b4hrItf2jaBOmTf1YPUtKOosoLgCEe37G_pX__-M66RyqBhTScJaloXNHuIniK1wXGH-YYHywykY/s1600/abbey2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6aDOUVfmSR8LQ3uEnJ3VybCXcQzt5DCIxNpjXSqMLj19K0-OUiT9jlL__yg1L-y-b4hrItf2jaBOmTf1YPUtKOosoLgCEe37G_pX__-M66RyqBhTScJaloXNHuIniK1wXGH-YYHywykY/s320/abbey2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUsSqV6lgtWS0ityYRUp6Z8IxOuFQP5miDuBjeTu5W72fYqXzHABYdVlg-8ZYF7mjunYI63WY93xXgyHG8DUrc74_YwRIKDdEzyaIG88ugciX1N3n368zCYHuNkO7qRyp8TfrCodQDPN4/s1600/sherry_lavender.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUsSqV6lgtWS0ityYRUp6Z8IxOuFQP5miDuBjeTu5W72fYqXzHABYdVlg-8ZYF7mjunYI63WY93xXgyHG8DUrc74_YwRIKDdEzyaIG88ugciX1N3n368zCYHuNkO7qRyp8TfrCodQDPN4/s320/sherry_lavender.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The first foundation for Sénanque Abbey was built in 1148 by Cistercian monks. Support from the local community enabled the monks to build the abbey church, which was completed in 1178. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw-zSUFRkYr7Ue-WrY58iiMYi5acQSZFiXmPO0NIxUKRaLQBiZsGMhxXEnlxq-3hgDk26_LNTzTZuo-WVz6YTzT-vtYtwNwsiybqa2PBmiYmf4w2h8_AZCu_9wMlsQdRLfXH434wAM8eg/s1600/abbey4.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw-zSUFRkYr7Ue-WrY58iiMYi5acQSZFiXmPO0NIxUKRaLQBiZsGMhxXEnlxq-3hgDk26_LNTzTZuo-WVz6YTzT-vtYtwNwsiybqa2PBmiYmf4w2h8_AZCu_9wMlsQdRLfXH434wAM8eg/s320/abbey4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKEyI0pZGNHsVFhXpcMmgrv6evrowOzujssBqFG6evLfbtJHv_Wk9bED70qam9NosGBu_dgTX_0UWrZbUbNlwzUra_8opjJnrHjNv2sjjXqh5k-Z4anj2ly6bOq6JtMjrt_VUcSzZmoWs/s1600/sean_lavender.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKEyI0pZGNHsVFhXpcMmgrv6evrowOzujssBqFG6evLfbtJHv_Wk9bED70qam9NosGBu_dgTX_0UWrZbUbNlwzUra_8opjJnrHjNv2sjjXqh5k-Z4anj2ly6bOq6JtMjrt_VUcSzZmoWs/s320/sean_lavender.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Other structures at Sénanque followed. Among its existing structures, famed examples of Romanesque architecture, are the abbey church, cloister, dormitory, chapter house and the small calefactory, the one heated space in the austere surroundings so that the monks could write, for this was their scriptorium. A refectory was added in the 17th century, when some minimal rebuilding of existing walls was undertaken, but the abbey is a remarkably untouched.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDv6Jgky6pr-g7nenzttNa9ffuUnEEiS7G-xtUTGK7UtFRVKZdYqcE6BbrGD5NM4RyOQy0-i-hxgWYSMQSaoYExcn98NYxrKPH2eCHQPQtiusNxS_ZQByQou6MebCwSg9g5InMN9DcELg/s1600/back_abbey.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDv6Jgky6pr-g7nenzttNa9ffuUnEEiS7G-xtUTGK7UtFRVKZdYqcE6BbrGD5NM4RyOQy0-i-hxgWYSMQSaoYExcn98NYxrKPH2eCHQPQtiusNxS_ZQByQou6MebCwSg9g5InMN9DcELg/s320/back_abbey.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPGvzdlF6NXo7gJ70s31zrPdxuavYuAMmrIhlOLGn1nSnVxstcCb8Dhf9T4IYh0bki6EmL52EKS52ft-ccwXKETEoobsQP-yDk9ifEoki3NozcsrqNrtbffG0WTrRr78jBhklkdX4vd-Y/s1600/sean_sherry_lavender.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPGvzdlF6NXo7gJ70s31zrPdxuavYuAMmrIhlOLGn1nSnVxstcCb8Dhf9T4IYh0bki6EmL52EKS52ft-ccwXKETEoobsQP-yDk9ifEoki3NozcsrqNrtbffG0WTrRr78jBhklkdX4vd-Y/s320/sean_sherry_lavender.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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We could have toured the inside of the abbey, but the crowds were starting to get thick and to be honest, it didn't quite seem worth the 17 Euros per person. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipjygYHAgLNvyRZdT4D2QZGbPM8CpOYmzSL_OqEsEyXndD61ibPgu8Mvzof9ewnBp2wit8_k67X21QGvzRDqXmytpE0b9LK3VAu4MH5GiTUXHqB9ZdsgeZ79JBzjGqmGTwTPxPauAFAmQ/s1600/abbey_enhanced.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipjygYHAgLNvyRZdT4D2QZGbPM8CpOYmzSL_OqEsEyXndD61ibPgu8Mvzof9ewnBp2wit8_k67X21QGvzRDqXmytpE0b9LK3VAu4MH5GiTUXHqB9ZdsgeZ79JBzjGqmGTwTPxPauAFAmQ/s320/abbey_enhanced.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0DxxC61XiBEg7BfaAC9V1tNHxNmLx649ZZY5O7xAUF6AgpCsGffh2p-3yT9BY4_XDyh2FesGKPlKhoRgVGm9Rwz2hSlwBBWME02YnrfXGcKXjPBvPiN34U7423sj07wqJWAFTlJHVHo/s1600/abbey3.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI0DxxC61XiBEg7BfaAC9V1tNHxNmLx649ZZY5O7xAUF6AgpCsGffh2p-3yT9BY4_XDyh2FesGKPlKhoRgVGm9Rwz2hSlwBBWME02YnrfXGcKXjPBvPiN34U7423sj07wqJWAFTlJHVHo/s320/abbey3.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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So we just enjoyed the surrounding area and walked along the back side of the abbey.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8hDqP41VOcb41jx4Jsi-6sDZmiwUYrQGAhKsUMC25pA2cU7vQu6JgBL2TfjOG_knRZDUyIQU4Vk2Ubo7TneyfWFkE3gKHlb52wopGUoSfaaGDG_FArxJl3IiaZNlr_FuMK-3gOL9bN44/s1600/side_abbey.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8hDqP41VOcb41jx4Jsi-6sDZmiwUYrQGAhKsUMC25pA2cU7vQu6JgBL2TfjOG_knRZDUyIQU4Vk2Ubo7TneyfWFkE3gKHlb52wopGUoSfaaGDG_FArxJl3IiaZNlr_FuMK-3gOL9bN44/s320/side_abbey.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnmovGqp8wTcqsgqYMDeltp1oufVuQ5Ej44DqBUkbE3MtBt6zfaW78JvMdGakaPykVFYy06MZXP5wGQ1bvXmynj-wZnW2r51Zf1wAf0Unw6zIr6o31HIS5D4WDaIvfm0UlaUKCrPnSTg/s1600/statue.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnmovGqp8wTcqsgqYMDeltp1oufVuQ5Ej44DqBUkbE3MtBt6zfaW78JvMdGakaPykVFYy06MZXP5wGQ1bvXmynj-wZnW2r51Zf1wAf0Unw6zIr6o31HIS5D4WDaIvfm0UlaUKCrPnSTg/s320/statue.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKdIaLRzd4OgP6CyJ1BewiLNQ0irFrMzvVGgr4bdlycnz6MQ4QMeliGFAocQK4P5DwRyfwMa5gyI6CDl7yGvQGw4rQQFtMQfH1TrIKhTVowWMvo71jLLVE6GzQcL47Fth9OOi8DFeOGKw/s1600/fields.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKdIaLRzd4OgP6CyJ1BewiLNQ0irFrMzvVGgr4bdlycnz6MQ4QMeliGFAocQK4P5DwRyfwMa5gyI6CDl7yGvQGw4rQQFtMQfH1TrIKhTVowWMvo71jLLVE6GzQcL47Fth9OOi8DFeOGKw/s320/fields.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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To be honest, I expected to see many more "fields" but we did see some additional fields in the area as we left the abbey on the way to our next stop, Gordes. That didn't stop us from taking over a 100 pictures of just the abbey alone - lol. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7aXTkZ3WHwhEKEyasHOOuHkA22AAS0PQYQ-KVwRywQqJMo8FjsFZ37m7UQO3_0vLoN600UFmmFCJpQDBtCOhc21ZgpbHfJXnIU5ZZGjogCVEIG8pkfhPEGEoQ2oIuGfGs30KosyanSoQ/s1600/fields_enhanced.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7aXTkZ3WHwhEKEyasHOOuHkA22AAS0PQYQ-KVwRywQqJMo8FjsFZ37m7UQO3_0vLoN600UFmmFCJpQDBtCOhc21ZgpbHfJXnIU5ZZGjogCVEIG8pkfhPEGEoQ2oIuGfGs30KosyanSoQ/s320/fields_enhanced.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho3RBO0xxWnM3P_9ngcJZwlB5f0Orsqr4OljhR-gcdIG-QvemxdOsAfWPRD8dRw4UyU3XhTkAwmBEBVWkKUajvjVBMUo0UvwWmYusA6iihWjEMbag8eB94Oa5yal2nskfGOWr73BuXWuQ/s1600/fields1_enhanced.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho3RBO0xxWnM3P_9ngcJZwlB5f0Orsqr4OljhR-gcdIG-QvemxdOsAfWPRD8dRw4UyU3XhTkAwmBEBVWkKUajvjVBMUo0UvwWmYusA6iihWjEMbag8eB94Oa5yal2nskfGOWr73BuXWuQ/s320/fields1_enhanced.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Just a couple of kilometers away is the hilltop village of Gordes. The view of the village from the roadway were stunning.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPF5rRhqgd2P7vtVIdTrsR4erUAMnNtsY0xI4nIH-pEtoKX02DtoLl0ZfmrJMQ5JUVM5lhmLRPSDGdu__2ZCZIk4PbhVq6vQ7JtV1JXhcVbzjLcdLu3P5M5nM4sIkpfIBUqSzV-q24mY/s1600/gordes-11.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRPF5rRhqgd2P7vtVIdTrsR4erUAMnNtsY0xI4nIH-pEtoKX02DtoLl0ZfmrJMQ5JUVM5lhmLRPSDGdu__2ZCZIk4PbhVq6vQ7JtV1JXhcVbzjLcdLu3P5M5nM4sIkpfIBUqSzV-q24mY/s320/gordes-11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5NLf0LfL4kXunipBXJbPU2D0neIQu7Gt0bciE6JNidzsP05RbdmrDaoQDLJVqBt9IrB9_QaZTr_rfGmF2tr1gT_ca7pNTC-nBGlmQMWFZYg-Bvrp7v1LOPx6qJXyhfkcBH17xJVeOHMk/s1600/gordes_village.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5NLf0LfL4kXunipBXJbPU2D0neIQu7Gt0bciE6JNidzsP05RbdmrDaoQDLJVqBt9IrB9_QaZTr_rfGmF2tr1gT_ca7pNTC-nBGlmQMWFZYg-Bvrp7v1LOPx6qJXyhfkcBH17xJVeOHMk/s320/gordes_village.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Apparently this village was occupied by the Roman Empire until an abbey was built by the monks in the 8th century. The castle was built in 1031 and later fortified in 1123. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY6HopYkScqPxZnmKuV_uI7Gom7Op7wQOQBhwF0AKseSm14NB3xKf-q9HMm4zk5mzYofm_PAoFOHQh2sLCBwEQ2qVREP_QP98guCd0In741vWTGORSaW9OPT26tQEMBy0HIse8haQT_mQ/s1600/chateau.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY6HopYkScqPxZnmKuV_uI7Gom7Op7wQOQBhwF0AKseSm14NB3xKf-q9HMm4zk5mzYofm_PAoFOHQh2sLCBwEQ2qVREP_QP98guCd0In741vWTGORSaW9OPT26tQEMBy0HIse8haQT_mQ/s320/chateau.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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During World War II, Gordes was an active resistance village. On 21 August 1944, almost a week after the beginning of the Operation Dragoon on the Provençal coast, a German patrol was attacked by the resistance, which the German retailiated the next day, forcing the locals to enter their homes, shooting those who were late or that were not cooperating, and started to shoot from the rock on the other side with a canon and destroyed a dozen houses. On the other side of the village, the rest of the troops set fire to houses and roads, blocking potential followers. More than twenty homes were destroyed. After the Liberation the resistance destroyed another part of the village, including the notarial house with all the archives. All of this destruction caused Gordon to be added to list of "stricken cities" of the Vaucluse region. By war's end, thirteen persons were killed or executed in Gordes, twenty citizens fell under the enemy bullets and five citizens were deported out of the country.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGtnZ4slpBel4ugoh4MKoR6RFuXstQYkIBzMuVJU9psguM8hnFlAbJDAIssb5U8MGbw9gO5Gt9X0yZhNcN3Rnlw4zhA9xuDzbJqQlvPPAidz9yuzPdjq8hzFgTmolPl_Wpd6k9wVt8m1E/s1600/gordes.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGtnZ4slpBel4ugoh4MKoR6RFuXstQYkIBzMuVJU9psguM8hnFlAbJDAIssb5U8MGbw9gO5Gt9X0yZhNcN3Rnlw4zhA9xuDzbJqQlvPPAidz9yuzPdjq8hzFgTmolPl_Wpd6k9wVt8m1E/s320/gordes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Until the 1960s, Gordes was a virtual ghost town of derelict buildings where locals led simple lives and had few ambitions. Then came the theater festival in Avignon, bringing directors who wanted to re-create perfect Provençal villages on film. Parisians, Swiss, Brits, and a few Americans followed, willing to pay any price for their place in the Provençal sun. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhma3Ty7N8jxjSrqZ9__XvFxc81D7vejH9MAnXkjywJpmpHdxNuMMZG83skHl7ZumfPIVbBg1AWQgTgyDxjxi9fUaik_wBRunc5N9sUtK6mAkYSNbThIy6GcGcliIKKRbKfAgZwgGxtiN4/s1600/boulangerie-gordes.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhma3Ty7N8jxjSrqZ9__XvFxc81D7vejH9MAnXkjywJpmpHdxNuMMZG83skHl7ZumfPIVbBg1AWQgTgyDxjxi9fUaik_wBRunc5N9sUtK6mAkYSNbThIy6GcGcliIKKRbKfAgZwgGxtiN4/s320/boulangerie-gordes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7jTFZvUNQ2dMu9yQVTapFJ1bsCTz9KkuBigEmeCj6rDmifjNZ0CILKW0Yr3B-E4HpB0mBcV4dbvk7P__42fcOzU9p9S5fKQ_qpAwE7s7xVwHUu7sWETzziklVcfNq05cmq-lPpHQjAVo/s1600/gordes_+boulangerie_enhanced.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7jTFZvUNQ2dMu9yQVTapFJ1bsCTz9KkuBigEmeCj6rDmifjNZ0CILKW0Yr3B-E4HpB0mBcV4dbvk7P__42fcOzU9p9S5fKQ_qpAwE7s7xVwHUu7sWETzziklVcfNq05cmq-lPpHQjAVo/s320/gordes_+boulangerie_enhanced.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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Today Gordes is renovated top to bottom and mostly inhabited by wealthy Parisian's and foreigners as property prices have been driven out of reach for the locals. All the new buildings in Gordes are made of stone and use terracotta roof tiles. No fences are allowed, only stone walls. These walls line the entire village and a lot of the surrounding roads leading away from it. We were amazed at the craftsmanship.</div>
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One of my favorite stores and SO cute!</div>
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After a lovely lunch, it was time to escape the hordes of other tourists and the heat, so we started the very LONG drive back to Plan-de-la-Tour. See, British Bob thought we really should see MORE of the Luberon and not only did we visit some more farm roads, we traveled along windy back roads across rivers, other hilltop villages, more farms, a couple of lakes, some forest and finally, the A8, but not until we had reached Aix-en-Provence, with is literally 2/3 of the way back to Plan-de-la-Tour. </div>
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I have a lovely, detailed Michelin map of Provence and it was my mistake that I left it on the table in our rental. Oops, my bad. So we were forced to wander and take the touristic route; probably close to 2 hours out of our way (or the 2-hour longer route). Ugh. Good thing Sean decided to cat nap in the car because I'm certain he would have become car sick with the winding, curvy roads we were on for at least half of the journey. But in British Bob's defense, we did drive through some beautiful scenery and some of the villages are definitely worthy of a return visit.</div>
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Á bientôt!</div>
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Sherry</div>
Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-29444698505477447932016-07-05T23:43:00.005-07:002016-07-06T03:22:11.508-07:00Summertime in the Côte d'Azure - yeah, we're here again!It should come as no surprise to those who know me well that I just can't seem to STOP traveling to France. So here are we are again, after months of planning, enjoying the summertime weather in the French Riviera.<br />
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We had a mostly uneventful trip over the pond on a nonstop flight from Seattle to CDG on Thursday, July 1, 2016. Unfortunately, I was unable to use miles to upgrade to business class seats again this year, so we "suffered" in coach. We were able to purchase seat updates to Delta's economy comfort seats and lucky to get bulkhead seats again. Honestly, this really wasn't so bad; it certainly wasn't like the luxurious experience of business class, but we liked the extra room in front of our seats. It was nice to be able to get up and stretch or use the restroom without having to disturb anyone as there was plenty of room to walk in front of anyone seated in this 4-chair row. <br />
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We arrived in Paris with 2-1/2 hours to spare before our short flight on Air France to Nice. Never before have I encountered long immigration lines at this airport and there were hundreds of people in front of us in line. Given the recent terrorism activities in Europe, it's not surprising and a little comforting that extra precautions are being taken. However, after an hour had passed and we were still in line, we started to panic that we would miss our connecting flight.<br />
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It took almost an hour and a half to clear immigration. Thankfully our Air France flight was still in Terminal 2, however, it's a big terminal and we had to first sprint to collect our luggage from the Delta flight and then fly like the wind to the Air France gate so we could check in. We made the flight with 10 minutes to spare and were the last two people to board the flight. Whew! <br />
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I didn't sleep much at all on the flight from Seattle, and I barely had my seatbelt buckled before I fell into an exhausted sleep. It was a short flight though, and barely an hour later, we were landing in Nice. Given our late boarding in Paris, it wasn't a complete shock when one of our bags did not arrive in Nice. After waiting until every bag and passenger collected their luggage from the flight, we wearily found the baggage office to report Sean's missing bag. There were a couple of other passengers with us as well. We have been SO lucky with luggage in the past, so I suppose it was "due" that we would have delayed baggage.<br />
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Air France wasn't overly helpful with information and other than providing us with a claim number for the baggage, there wasn't much else to do but wait. In fact, according to the customer service rep on the other end of the telephone, she claimed she couldn't even find Sean's bag in the system using the barcode I provided from his luggage tag they affixed to his bag in CDG. Ugh. <br />
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Sean was distressed about his bag and the possibility that it might actually be lost forever (along with some recent new clothing and she purchases for the trip), but I was optimistic that this was simply a delayed bag and with frequent flights from Paris to Nice, its arrival was imminent. <br />
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We headed over to the rental car center where being a Hertz Gold club member had its perks; there were literally hundreds of people waiting in lines behind all the rental car counters and we simply just had to go upstairs and walk to the car; no paperwork, no waiting! Voila! and off we went.<br />
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Our destination was Plan-de-la-Tour, right outside St. Maxime. We stayed in this village two years ago and we were looking forward to returning; we loved this location and it's close proximity to St. Tropez. We brought along our Garmin GPS with a recent France map installed, but lucky for us, our rental had a navigation system that we did not have to pay extra for.<br />
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We plugged in our destination and hit the freeway. We weren't but a few kilometers from Nice when British Bob announced that we were taking the next exit onto a regional road. Not wanting to question British Bob, I complied, although my experience and gut told me this wasn't feeling right. I should have listened to my gut! Although British Bob got us to Plan-de-la-Tour, I suspect he took us almost an hour out of our way and took us on the "touristic" route instead of the fast-freeway route.<br />
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Driving hairpin turns while dodging oncoming traffic (especially the motorcyclists) when sleep deprived isn't a fun thing to do. I'm pretty sure we drove to Barcelona and back before we actually arrived in Plan-de-la-Tour. I really hate British Bob and want to smash him into a million pieces.<br />
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Finally we arrive and quickly connect with our vacation rental landlord at the designated "waiting spot" so he could lead us to the house. We are literally less than a mile from our previous rental, so we are both thrilled with the location as we are very familiar with the area, so c'est bonne!<br />
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Our <em>maisonette </em>is lovely, with a beautiful pool and outdoor space, just as described in the VRBO listing. You can view the listing <a href="http://www.vrbo.com/687981a" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
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We paid 2500 Euros for 2 weeks. The location is fantastic and the owners are very nice. It's also very private and quiet here.<br />
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It was almost 90 degrees when we arrived and although the pool looked inviting, a shower and nap was in order and we did exactly that. We slept for about <span style="font-family: inherit;">2 hours and</span> as soon as we were up, we started making calls as to the status of Sean's bag. The good news is that Sean's bag was found and was actually on the next flight from Paris and already received in Nice. Unfortunately, there was no option to actually GET the bag. The bag was already picked up by their courier service for dispatch to us in Plan-de-la-Tour with estimated arrival 24-48 hours. What???? You are kidding me right now, right? <em>"Oui, Madame Toly, zest iz zee estimate for bag delivery. C'est impossible to contact courier; you must wait." </em><br />
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So the plan was we were being held hostage at our villa until some unnamed courier called us to tell us they would bring the bag during the 2-hour window they would provide. There was no way we could have them just leave it at the airport for us to pick up, nor any way we could pick it up ourselves in Nice at the courier's office. NO WAY. As you can imagine, this really stressed Sean out. <br />
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So I left Sean at the villa while I went to the local Carrefour <span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">supermarché to shop for stuff like rosé and coffee - you know, the necessities! So for the next several hours, we were tied to our phones waiting for "the call." We forced ourselves to stay awake until the reasonable hour of 10:00 PM and off to bed we went.</span></span><br />
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Through some miracle I actually slept until 5:00 AM, which is a huge milestone for me; I'm usually up at 1:00 or 2:00 AM on the first night after a long-haul trip. I get online and through some sleuthing actually discover the name of the courier services that Air France has entrusted our bag to. Unfortunately, they only have a "contact us" form on their website so there's no way to actually call them the old-fashioned way. So we wait.<br />
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It was another hot day and this beautiful pool is staring at us, so I decide to go purchase some swim trunks and a t-shirt for Sean so we can at least lounge in the pool while we wait for that stupid phone call. Finally at 1:30 PM, my phone rings and through some combination of my bad French and his poor English, we confirm the address of our villa and he says he'll be there within an hour. Hoorah!<br />
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9 phone calls later from Mr. French, he admits that he can't find Plan-de-la-Tour (never mind the villa) and he asks if we can just meet him at "Mack Donalds" in St. Maxime. Um, OK. (so much for the promise of "we'll deliver the bag to you at your rental villa". Well, I don't know where McDonald's is, so I ask him if we can meet at the Carrefour. He agrees and I tell him I will be there in 5 minutes. He says "I vill be in zee vite van". OK!<br />
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Sean and I arrive at the Carrefour and see 6 white vans (none of them had any signage on them). We drive past all of them and some of them have nobody inside. Sean gets out of our car with his baggage claim slip in hand and starts knocking on van windows "do you have my bag" kind of like the nursery rhyme "are you my mother?". One guy actually told Sean "yes" and when Sean asked "is it in the back" he says "yes", but then when Sean started asking more questions, he kept nodding his head and saying "yes." Me thinks he no unnerstand what ze Americain says.<br />
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Then my phone starts ringing and Mr. French asks me "where are you? I am here. Right in front." I explain we are also "here, right in front." We get out of our car and start flapping our arms like crazy people and when Mr. French tells me he still can't see me, I ask "are you are the Carrefour by Aqualand, the location I told you to meet me at?" Siliencio. Then, "oh, I'm at a different one." I am literally pulling my hair out.<br />
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OK, please go back to the Mack Donald's and I will come to you. I google McDonald's and voilia!, it's literally down the road. Boy, I really love technology! It sure makes things so much easier!<br />
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Off to Mack Donald's and we connect with Mr. French and Sean is back to being happy and not in despair over his missing bag. Now we can finally get on with our vacation!<br />
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Au revoir!<br />
SherrySherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-40236062983099078262015-09-01T13:04:00.001-07:002015-09-02T10:08:56.753-07:00A magical evening at La Chèvre D'Or - or where we finally had foam!When I started researching our trip this year, I wanted to add in some "fine dining" to our itinerary. After a little research, it was clear that the destination was La Chèvre D'Or.<br />
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Sean and I both sold a kidney so we could afford to order the "tasting menu" at La Chèvre D'Or, a 2-star Michelin restaurant in the hilltop village of Eze, situated between Monaco and Nice. I'm just kidding about the kidneys, but it might be a future plan so I can experience this place again. Like tomorrow. In a word - OMG. <br />
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Our dinner reservation wasn't until 8:30, but we arrived around 7:00 PM so we could enjoy the magnificent views from the garden and an appertif from the terrace as the sun started to set. The views were amazing and the gardens did not disappoint. Apparently Walt Disney spent quite a bit of time in Eze and particularly loved the <em>jardin boutanique</em>. <br />
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Sean was particularly fond of this oversized chess set and I kind of had to drag him away from wanting to play a game.</div>
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The garden was terraced down the hillside with many picturesque stone steps, rod iron railings, fountains, sculpture and lots of bronze statues of animals. I suspect you could spend a couple of hours just wandering the grounds around the hotel. <br />
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The sun was starting to set, so we headed back up to the top of the hillside to enjoy the view from the terrace while drinking an appertif. Not wanting to blow our budget on our appertif (bottles of champagne started at around $350), Sean had a beer and I enjoyed an Apperol Spritz, seemingly a popular choice given the number of others I saw being served.<br />
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Soon it was time to be seated at our table. The dining room is small and intimate with approximately 10 tables, but each with a spectacular view of the sea.<br />
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This was the view from our table (we could see the "golden goat").<br />
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I'll add another one from later in the evening after the sun has set. The view truly was spectacular. <br />
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Now is the time you should stop reading if you don't want to overdose on my own version of food porn. I know it was tacky, but I took pictures of every course so I could remember forever this magical evening. And perhaps try and recreate the fantastic dishes at home. Did I mention we finally had foam? Sean has been teasing me for years that I have never made a culinary foam for a dish after watching many seasons of "Top Chef" and seeing various types of "foam" being served atop delectable dishes by the contestant Chefs. Loved the drawing on the menu.<br />
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Once we were seated, the sommelier approached us with the wine menu that was the size of an Encyclopedia Britannica. I was a little nervous about asking for his recommendation because I was afraid of the bill! What if he chose a wine that was $400? $1200? They had wines in that book that were thousands upon thousands of dollars. After a brief discussion about what we were planning to eat and our tastes in wine, he recommended a French pinot that was a "reasonable" 120 Euros per bottle. I might have swallowed just a little bit, but no coughing. Sean and I were joking around later saying we'll probably see that same bottle of wine at "Total Wine" for $12 per bottle. Hah! If so, I'm buying a couple of cases. It was really lovely; nice and light, dry and a bit fruity.<br />
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We had already decided before our arrival that we were going to order the chef's tasting menu. After all, we were dining in a 2-star Michelin restaurant and we wanted to experience dishes we would not normally order. I won't share the price with you per person because my Dad will be reading this and I want him to continue to live for a long time and not choke on his coffee or have a heart attack, so we'll just leave that detail out. I will disclose that I have never spent this much money in my life for a meal, but I will say absolutely it was worth it and when can I go back?<br />
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Our first course was the "amuse bouche" (a starter to "amuse" our palettes). Starting from the red bite in the left corner, it was something creamy and cheesy? with some kind of tomato coating; almost like freeze-dried; but it completely melted in your mouth. The "cone" was made out of phyllo dough and filled with some kind of spinach and topped with a creamed "something delicious" and the last one was something creamy on a parmesan shortbread. Horrible descriptions I know, but it's kind of a blur now.<br />
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They had the most creative way to serve some of the dishes. It's hard to see in the photo, but there was an outer ring, then a small plate that was placed inside the ring and then lifted out using a specially designed fork (there are two tiny holes on the plate) to whisk it away. Ingenious!<br />
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The service was amazing. We wanted for nothing. I loved the little glass domes that covered each course and like a well-rehearsed symphony were lifted away at the same time. (This wasn't our dish, but I found a photo on the internet so you could see how cute they were). I'm pretty sure I need some of these cute little glass domes.<br />
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Oh, I almost forgot about the bread. They offered us a selection of warm breads, which included a mini baguette, a roll that looked like a cinnamon roll made out of croissant pastry, but instead of cinnamon and sugar filling, was filled with olive tapenade (that was my favorite) and some other kind of roll that neither of us tried. <br />
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Our next course was a vegetable medley of both raw and cooked vegetables (served cold) atop a delicious puree of eggplant, then topped (from a cute little white pitcher) with an aged Barolo vinegar. Divine.<br />
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Our next course was the only one that I didn't really love. It was a Scottish bay prawn that might have been raw served atop a <span class="hps">gelée </span>of some kind; then a dollop of some famous caviar. I tried caviar for the first time in high school at the insistence of my English teacher Mr. Bumstead during a Shakespeare course and I disliked it then, so this was definitely something I would not have ordered. But I did try it and I ate most of the prawn and <span class="hps">gelée</span>, but only a smidge of the caviar. <br />
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This next course was divine and I completely forgave the chef for feeding me fish eggs. It was a sautéed zucchini flower stuffed with goat cheese, oregano, lemon confit and served atop a tomato coulis. <br />
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Our view continues to take my breath away. We noticed one of the yachts below had a disco ball of sorts on - must be party night on his boat!<br />
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Our next course was a wild Mediterranean sea bream (similar to a sea bass) that was poached in lemon oil, served with pureed celeriac (which tasted kind of like a pureed parsnip, but sweeter), and a cream made from a Japanese citrus fruit (unsure the name) that was heavenly; on the side is an Oyster ravioli. This dish was worthy of licking the plate. I seriously did not want to leave anything behind.<br />
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This might be the point in our meal when we said "what the hell" and ordered another bottle of that delicious French pinot. <br />
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Now here's where our food went from fabulous to "I think I just felt the earth move." Marinated and pan fried foie gras served atop a fig compote and artichoke ravioli with parmesan foam. Foam! It was incredible. Simply divine. So yummy, so yummy, there's a party in my tummy!<br />
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This next course made Sean practically sing opera at the table. As a side note, our wait staff were really getting a kick out of us Americans. Our enjoyment of our meal was written all over our faces and they were cracking jokes and laughing right along with us. We even got a "that's what she said" joke from one of our attendants. This is in stark contrast to the diners behind us who barely ate any of their food and wanted to make changes to each dish they ordered. They clearly were not having "the best meal of their lives." <br />
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This next dish was milk-fed smoked and grilled lamb chop served with lemon confit, roasted fig and a delectable little spicy pork sausage. There was some kind of creamy sauce atop the fig, but unsure what it was. On the side was a bowl of a cold chickpea soup with some deliciousness with it that I forgot to take a picture of. I wanted to pick up the little bowl and drink it -- it was that good. And whatever sauce that was on the plate I wanted to lick clean as well. Seriously YUM! Probably the best lamb I've ever had. Where do I buy milk-fed lamb? Sean is wondering why I never roast figs. So. darned. good.<br />
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Next up, a delightful little bite of goat cheese that was slightly sweet, served atop a compote of olives with fresh olive oil poured on top. They must use a lot of tweezers in the kitchen to so perfectly garnish these cute little plates. I thought there was also something with the olives on the bottom - something fruity, but I can't remember.</div>
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Now we're "transitioning" to dessert. This was a vanilla sorbet on top of a fruit compote; not sure what kind of fruit - fig? The sorbet was creamy like a gelato and really, really, good.<br />
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This dessert just blew us away. Roasted cherries, with a layer of white chocolate, pistachios and mini little meringues. And something saucy - maybe a cherry reduction. Sublime. So good I wanted a huge bowl of it to take home. I loved the different textures of the soft cherries with the nuts and meringues. So clever. And it was beautiful. I love beautiful food.<br />
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Sadly, we're just about done. We were both very full, but not in a bad way. Definitely satisfied and stuffed. Just when we thought we were actually done, they rolled over a dessert cart with delectable little chocolates. I forgot to take a picture of these little heavenly bites, but I had a dark chocolate mint bite and Sean had a lemon one at their insistence. Apparently we could have tried as many as we wanted (I think there were about a dozen varieties) but we were both too full to really indulge ourselves in more than one. It was the perfect ending to a spectacular meal. <br />
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We both had an espresso and marveled at what just took place. So lovely. Truly the most spectacular evening and one I shall never forget. Sean said he felt "ravished". It was worth every single penny and an experience I hope to share with others in the future. To quote Arnold, "I'll be back."<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">À bientôt!</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sherry</span></span></span>Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-35315233392840122222015-08-31T13:31:00.002-07:002015-08-31T13:31:26.333-07:00A Visit to Saint-Paul de VenceWe've now been in France for a couple of days and unfortunately, we brought the London weather with us. So far we have spent a couple of rainy days visiting Nice and Antibes, but the weather really didn't inspire us to take a lot of pictures or spend much time doing anything noteworthy, so I'll skip ahead to our visit to Saint-Paul de Vence, which we toured on Day 3, after the sun returned.<br />
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It has taken me a couple of days to find my inner Mario Andretti as I face off against the hordes of tourists (both French and other nationalities) that are still enjoying their summer holidays in the now sunny C<span style="font-family: inherit;">ô</span>te D'Azur. Back in the world of confusing signage and too many roundabouts, I have successfully gotten us lost on more than one occasion and I might have pulled a "Clark Griswold" from <em>European Vacation</em> fame wherein Clark drives around the same roundabout more than once. Let's just say that I might have gone the wrong way through a roundabout exactly 2 times before I found the right "spoke" to exit. <br />
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The route to our apartment from <em>Centre Ville</em> has also taken a few days to actually "stick" so that I'm in the correct lane to navigate the sometimes abrupt turns in and out of roundabouts in order to "land" on the right road that leads to our abode. It's not been easy and I've made Sean more than green a few times as well as fearful for his life. But we're still alive and so far, we haven't yet got into an accident.<br />
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When we arrived, our landlord did warn us about the "summer tourists" and not only their horrible driving skills, but their inability to follow directions, signage and abide by common courtesies (and laws). This extends to their inability to really give a hoot about someone else and if they want to double park in the middle of the street to enjoy a 2-1/2 hour dinner (while you wait to extract your blocked car), so be it. Apparently it's the French way. We witness this behavior every day and I'm still asking myself "who does that?". I am really surprised that the local police don't start ticketing and towing these vehicles -- think of the extra revenue! But nobody really seems to care except for the poor people whose vehicles are getting blocked in by the more "entitled." It's seriously baffling.<br />
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I love visiting medieval villages and Saint-Paul de Vence did not disappoint. This small village perched above the sea was only about a 15-minute drive from Cagnes-sur-Mer where we are staying. It is one of the most intact fortified medieval villages in the area and inhabited by 380 people or so. It's also the third most visited tourist destination in France with over 2.5 million visitors a year. <br />
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It is very touristy and there were times that I wished everyone would leave so I could take my pictures without "tourists" in them. I realize I am one as well, but my photos would look so much nicer without all of the alleyways full of people!<br />
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The village does have an interesting history. In 1388, when Nice fell to Savoy, Saint-Paul de Vence was founded and fortified as a border town. In 1537, François I (at war with Charles V for 20 years) decided to fortify the cities at the edge of his kingdom. He included Saint-Paul de Vence, which was strongly coveted for its strategic placement within these fortifications. <br />
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This was a prosperous period for the city, during which it became known as “Ville Royale”. It was not until 1747, with the wars of succession, that Saint-Paul suffered its first assault of invaders, who destroyed the city. <br />
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The fortifications were abandoned at the end of the Empire. However, in 1832, a committee of military engineers decided to restore them. When Saint-Paul de Vence was demilitarized in 1870, the ramparts were sold off at auction. The mayor of the commune, deeming the fortifications of public importance, negotiated with the French government to save them from demolition. In 1872, the commune bought the ramparts for 400 Francs.<br />
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With its maze of charming streets, little shady squares, its ancient fountains, gateways and porches, its easy to see why Saint-Paul de Vence is a favorite destination for photographers and tourists alike. I think between Sean and I we took over 200 photos of this picturesque village during our 2-hour visit.<br />
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There are lots of shops and artist galleries to browse as we wandered around, but nothing too inspiring to entice us to buy (or we could not afford it). I was just happy to enjoy the beautiful warm weather and the scenery. And the pain au chocolat I purchased from the boulangerie was delicious!<br />
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From the back of the village you can see all the way to the sea. Another interesting factoid is that the artist Marc Chagall is buried in the cemetery.<br />
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You can view the rest of our photos <a href="https://shertology.shutterfly.com/pictures/1524" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">À bientôt!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sherry</span></span> Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-15344236679056194582015-08-29T05:59:00.001-07:002015-08-29T08:17:47.374-07:0085 degrees and hot tea - not a winning combination!It's finally Saturday, our last day in London. Not surprisingly, Friday evening at the racetrack was one of the worst nights. Sean and I tried to get some sleep but it was difficult. We just had to power through a few more hours and we would be on our way to France. Hopefully our villa would be nice and quiet and we could sleep through an entire night; come on, we're not asking for too much here!<br />
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For our last few hours in London, we thought it nice to enjoy "high tea" somewhere nice so we could sip tea properly with our pinkies stuck out and snack on itty bitty sandwiches and scones. Of course I had made the reservation when it was raining and 62 degrees and naturally at the time of our 1:00 PM sitting it was 85 degrees out. Not exactly the perfect weather for sipping hot tea. <br />
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We arrived at promptly 1:00 PM at the Milestone Hotel, a very swanky boutique hotel across the street from Kensington Palace all sweaty and hot. Before our tea had even arrived, we both had downed a gallon of water, 2 beers and 2 glasses of champagne. We were very hot. And sticky. And wondering what we were thinking . . . but who can ever believe the weather forecast in London? So far we had been fooled by the weather forecast 3 out of 4 days, so I really didn't want to believe the forecast this time when it said the weather would be THIS HOT.<br />
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Thankfully the delightful little tea room was air conditioned and after much hydration, sipping hot tea was actually quite lovely. And delicious. Both Sean and I "oohed and awed" over our beautiful tiered serving dish of sandwiches and pastries and still to come, hot scones from the oven. <br />
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Served with the hot scones was traditional clotted cream (yum!) and homemade jam. The scones were amazing and I was a bit remorseful that by the time the scones had arrived I was almost too full to enjoy them. Part of this could be attributed to the fact that I had ingested very quickly a few gallons of liquid before I started eating. This would be one of those times that I wish I had a magic stomach expander button because I truly hated to waste the remaining hot scones. And that delicious clotted cream. And that dreamy jam. It was really a shame. <br />
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They offered to box up the remaining pastries and scones, but the thought of trying to carry those along with my suitcase and backpack in 85 degree weather through the Tube was more than I wanted to challenge myself with. So we left them behind. Sadly. I'm still dreaming about them . . . <br />
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By the time we had finished our afternoon tea, it was time to head back to the apartment and collect our luggage we had left with the concierge. Our flight was leaving Stansted airport at 6:10 PM and we still had to travel via the train to get there.<br />
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Luggage collected, we started the long journey to the airport. First there was the Tube from South Kensington to Liverpool Station, about a 40 minute journey that started off first with about a 6-block walk - normally, a picnic. In 85 degree weather with a heavy backpack and pulling/pushing a suitcase, so much. Then there were the flights of stairs to content with at the Tube station. Mon dieu! I know we could have taken a taxi, but sometimes I'm too thrifty for that. Laugh all you want, but I try and save money where I can. We're not feeble - we can manage and power through we did. According to my FitBit, we walked over 7 miles in 85 degree weather on Saturday; some of that with luggage! <br />
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Thankfully when our train to Liverpool arrived, it was one of the new, air-conditioned models. And we both found seats, so it wasn't a bad journey and gave us both a chance to cool off and relax a bit. I had purchased tickets on the Stansted Express before leaving home to save us a little money. The train from Liverpool Station to Stansted Airport was about 45 minutes and only made just a few stops. This train too was air conditioned and the gentle swaying of the train as it traveled nearly put us both to sleep.<br />
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Stansted is a fairly small airport and it was certainly busy when we arrived. It took us about 45 minutes to get through security, giving us only about 20 minutes before we had to board for our flight. That was just enough time to pound a couple of pints before we were on our way to France.<br />
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I'm not a big fan of flying on EasyJet, but there were not a lot of options for direct flights from London to Nice. I did splurge and spend the extra $15 per ticket to actually reserve a seat and was able to reserve the exit row seats so we had a little more leg room for the 2-hour flight.<br />
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Customs was fairly quick upon arrival and we had our bag and rental car within 40 minutes of arrival - not too bad! Driving around unfamiliar windy little roads after dark isn't exactly my cup of tea, but after only getting lost once or twice, we found our apartment in Cagnes-sur-Mer in pretty good time; maybe only losing about 10 minutes with my inability to follow the directions coming from Google Maps. I really missed last year's British lady telling me things like "in 400 feet, at the roundabout, take the 3rd exit". Instead, I had to try and pay attention to Google Maps telling where to go and totally mispronouncing most of the street names, so I had to rely heavily on Sean being able to navigate us; he's now my new British lady!<br />
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Our landlord lives down the street, so he met us at the apartment and showed us around. He told me the next day that he was also expecting other guests from the UK that evening as well and although they come every year, it took them over 2 hours to find the house . . . so I must pat myself on the back for finding our way. <br />
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We found our apartment on VRBO. Originally I had wanted to stay in his other, <a href="http://www.villapeirelong.com/" target="_blank">larger villa</a> that offered more outdoor space and an outdoor kitchen, but it was already booked. Instead, Bruno offered us the 2-room apartment at <a href="https://villapagnol.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Villa Pagnol</a> nearby. We paid 820 Euros per week. The apartment was recently renovated and everything is essentially brand new. It's perfect for the two of us.<br />
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We were ecstatic to discover that we had both a king sized bead, no racetrack outside and air conditioning! I think we were asleep 15 minutes after we arrived.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">À bientôt <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Sherry</span>Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-20263730374646556462015-08-28T00:58:00.001-07:002015-08-28T00:58:49.206-07:00A Visit to the British MuseumIt's our third day in London and I'm pretty cranky. Still not much sleep and we're both exhausted and can't wait to leave for France. Our interest level in doing much of anything in the drizzly weather while sleepwalking is pretty low.<br />
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But we must power on . . . so off to the British Museum we went. I've visited the museum in the past, but of course this would be Sean's first visit. Since the museum contains over 8 million works of "human interest" I thought it wise to partake in the "highlights tour" with a museum docent. I always enjoy these tours as I typically learn more about the objects in which I am staring at instead of just reading the little placard. Add sleep deprivation into the mix and I'm sure I would have just wandered aimlessly through the rooms and not read a single thing.<br />
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I won't lie and say I "loved" the museum. I will just blame my disinterest in the current state of affairs (lack of sleep). We've been to a lot of museums and it's hard to be interested in the 100th Egyptian artifact I've seen. To be honest, I could visit the Louvre over and over and still be fascinated with its collections, but the British Museum was very "meh" for me. I am sure I didn't give it a fair shake, but let's just say I don't need to visit it again. Don't hate. <br />
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I will share with you some of the more interesting exhibits we saw. A pharmaceutical company has an exhibit in the "life and death" room called from "<em>Cradle to Grave" </em>and explores the approach to health in Britain today.
The piece incorporates a lifetime supply of prescribed drugs knitted into two
lengths of fabric, illustrating the medical stories of one woman and one
man.<br />
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Each length contains over 14,000 drugs, the estimated average prescribed to
every person in Britain in their lifetime. This does not include pills we might
buy over the counter, which would require about 40,000 pills each. The "pill" fabric was about 12 feet long by about 4 feet wide.<br />
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Some of the treatments are common to both: each starts at birth with an
injection of vitamin K and immunizations, and both take antibiotics and
painkillers at various times. Other treatments are more specific. The woman
takes contraceptive pills, and hormone replacement therapy in middle age. The
man has asthma and hay fever when young, but enjoys good health until his
fifties. He finally stops smoking after a bad chest infection when he is
seventy. He is treated for high blood pressure for the last ten years of his
life and has a heart attack and dies of a stroke in his seventies. He takes as
many pills in the last ten years of his life as in the first sixty-six. Just wow. 14,000 drugs? That's a lot of pills.<br />
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Another interesting exhibit was a collection of artifacts found in a burial mound dating to the early AD 600s located on a residential property in Sutton Hoo, Suffolk in 1939. The landowner was curious to learn more about the many mounds location on her property so she hired an archeologist to excavate the mounds. Most of the mounds revealed little or nothing at all. But they struck treasure when they discovered beneath a large mound the remains of a 27-metre-long ship. At its center was a burial chamber packed with treasures: Byzantine silverware, sumptuous gold jewelry, a lavish feasting set, and an ornate iron helmet. <br />
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Tiny fragments showed that rich textiles once adorned the walls and floor, along with piles of clothes ranging from fine linen shirts to shaggy wool cloaks and caps trimmed with fur. The workmanship on this gold belt buckle is pretty amazing.<br />
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The dead man’s body had dissolved in the acidic soil, but he was clearly a person of great standing in the kingdom of East Anglia, the local Anglo-Saxon kingdom. He may even have been a king. I thought it interesting that he was buried inside his ship. That must have been a really large mound. No wonder the landowner was curious!<br />
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We also viewed one of the iconic statues from Easter Island in Polynesia dating to around AD
1000.<br />
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Easter Island is famous for its stone statues of human
figures, known as moai. The moai were probably carved to commemorate important ancestors and
were made from around AD 1000 until the second half of the seventeenth century,
when the birdman cult became more central to the Easter Islanders.<br />
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When Captain Cook's crew visited Easter Island in 1774, William Hodges,
Cook's artist, produced an oil painting of the island showing a number of statues, some of them with hat-shaped stone 'topknots'. Hodges depicted
most of the statues standing upright on stone platforms. With the adoption of Christianity in the 1860s, the remaining
standing statues were toppled.<br />
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The statue in the museum was collected
by the crew of the English ship HMS Topaze on their visit to Easter Island in 1868 to carry out
surveying work. Islanders helped the crew to move the statue, which has been estimated to
weigh around four tons. It was moved to the beach and then taken to the
Topaze by raft. You have to wonder how they transferred something this heavy onto the ship.<br />
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As an interesting side note, I recently watched an episode of House Hunters International where a couple were looking to buy a home on Easter Island (the wife was a native). Only native islanders are allowed to own property. Some of the statues are still standing on the island.<br />
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That pretty much wraps up my view of the highlights of the museum. After about 3 hours in the museum, we were pretty saturated with information so we called it a day. <br />
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Originally we had planned to partake in a "Jack the Ripper" walking tour that evening but the rain kind of put a wrench into our plans. Instead, we had a really delicious meal of Indian food. I had wanted to return to "Balti House" on Brick Lane, which I had visited in 1999 on my first visit to London. As a reality check, I looked up reviews and after discovering many bad reviews, I surmised that what seemingly was "absolutely the best Indian food ever" in 1999 was just my inexperience, or maybe the place had really gone downhill in the last 15 years. Both definite possibilities. I thought we deserved better than 2-1/2 stars, so we found a place in our neighborhood that had excellent reviews. And it was really good! This was our best meal the entire time in London and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to others. The restaurant is called Haandi and it's right around the corner from Harrods.<br />
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So that wraps up our last full day in London.<br />
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Cheerio mates!<br />
SherrySherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-73786481508235703002015-08-27T09:36:00.002-07:002015-08-27T09:36:41.691-07:00London - A Royal and Arabian AffairIt's our second day in London and sleep continues to be evasive. Apparently the main road (Sloane Avenue) right outside our apartment windows is a major drag racing boulevard for the wealthy Arabs who take pleasure in ignoring all speed and noise ordinances during the night. Just when you start to fall asleep you hear the high pitched shrill of a Ferrari's grinding gears. I'm sure that's music to some ears, but not mine at 2:30 AM. We seriously are getting very little sleep and this fact is really cutting into my "fun on vacation Sherry" demeanor.<br />
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At first we were a little surprised to see the sheer volume of luxury cars drive up and down our street. We knew Chelsea was an upscale neighborhood, but keeping up with the Joneses in this neighborhood would require that you drive a Bentley or Rolls Royce for grabbing groceries or perhaps a Lamborghini supercar to pick up Davey from school. A Range Rover Sport in this neighborhood was what the poor people drive around. Why drive a "factory" model when you can gold plate it?<br />
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Or perhaps purple ultra-suede is more to your liking?<br />
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Electric blue anyone?<br />
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Apparently many of the ultra-luxury and supercars we saw around our neighborhood and other areas of London are owned by the young rich Arab playboys who like to vacation in London during the summer to escape the intense heat of the gulf. Car owners from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait will happily pay a small fortune - in excess of £20,000 for their metal marvels to be flown around 3,000 miles. I found an interesting article online that details this extravagance.<br />
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I can only imagine what their private jets look like. <br />
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So while we were among "royalty" we had a date with the Queen to visit the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace only allows visitors during a few weeks per year and we were lucky to be in London during this period. April and I toured the State Rooms about 10 years ago and I was pleased to see that they had added some additional exhibits.<br />
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My favorite part of the entire tour were several exhibits and videos providing an overview of how palace staffers prepare for a State dinner in the ballroom for 170 guests. Last year the Queen and other members of the Royal family welcomed more than 62,000 people to the palace. <br />
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While in their current incarnation state banquets are largely a 20th-century innovation, Queen Victoria wrote in her diary about entertaining Napoleon III of France in 1855, ‘in the usual dining room’. The following year, after vast renovations, she added a new Ballroom, having appealed to Prime Minister Robert Peel for ‘a room capable of containing a larger number of persons whom the Queen has to invite in the course of a season’. State banquets have been held here since 1914. <br />
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A state visit is planned 12 months in advance. The guest country is chosen by the government; the guest list of about 170 is then drawn up between the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Royal Household. Invitations issued by the Queen are sent out two months in advance. <br />
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I would kill to actually see the kitchens at the palace, but I was completely fascinated with the preamble leading up to a typical State dinner. The displays of the various pantries (from glassware and crystal to an entire drawer system for dessert forks) were everything I wish I had room for. Imagine an entire room full of drawers filled with china of various patterns? Ah, my happy place.<br />
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I also loved that the menus they provide at each place setting are written in French. Apparently the Queen knows what great cuisine is all about!<br />
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For a banquet, the table is covered with linen tablecloths centered using specially made measuring sticks, napkins are folded into a Dutch bonnet shape, and each guest is allocated 46cm for their setting. Carson from Downton Abbey would have approved! I thought it fascinating that they serve each guest from servers (a footman holds the dish while the guest serves themselves), not a plate with the entire meal already present on the plate. I must step up my "formal" dinner parties now - anyone know of a good footman?<br />
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On banquet nights 19 stations are set up around the ballroom each manned by four staff - a page, footman, under butler and a wine butler - who use a traffic light system to co-ordinate the serving of courses.<br />
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While the first and second courses – usually fish followed by meat – are served on silver-gilt plates, the pudding, prepared by the Royal Pastry Chef, and fruit course are served on a porcelain service (either Tournai or a Minton service made in 1877). Each guest is served five different wines, starting with champagne, chosen by the Clerk of the Royal Cellars and Yeoman of the Royal Cellars, along with the Head of Government Hospitality. These are bought in for the event and paid for by the government. <br />
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Dinner normally takes one hour and 20 minutes. At the end of the meal 12 pipers process around the room – a tradition started by Queen Victoria – and the guests depart for coffee and handmade petits fours in the State Rooms. The room is stripped down in two hours. Washing up is done by hand. Guess you don't want to risk putting the antique service pieces in the dishwasher!<br />
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In addition to the State dinners, the Queen also hosts 3 "garden parties" each summer with up to 8,000 people attending. Now that's a party! I do love the sense of tradition that Queen Elizabeth seemingly carries on. Who knows what the next generation will do. Apparently Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip will be the last royals to actually inhabit Buckingham Palace. Rumor has it that Prince Charles will turn it into a museum.<br />
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So that wraps up our second day in London and hopefully a long nap (or at least a good night's sleep) will be in my future.<br />
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Cheerio mates!<br />
SherrySherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-50625425353795536622015-08-26T09:10:00.001-07:002015-08-26T09:10:35.111-07:00Our Summer 2015 European Adventure - First stop, LondonEarlier this year we started discussing our vacation plans and both Sean and I agreed "no big trips." We had some projects we wanted to do around the house and thought that investing our time and money into those endeavors should take precedence over a "big trip". <br />
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In February we attended the Home and Garden show and while enjoying a delicious lunch at Loulay, one of our favorite French restaurants, we both agreed that we couldn't fathom the thought of NOT going to France this year. So there you have it - a confession of just how weak and easily swayed we are. Forget about the long list of projects - who needs new bathroom flooring? It can wait!<br />
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Sadly, I was unable to make miles work for business class tickets this trip, so we plunked down the cost of a new arm and leg on coach tickets. Since our eventual destination was Nice, France and there's really no direct route there, I was finding flight schedules that required us to change planes several times and that did not sound like a good time to me. So I decided a direct flight from Seattle to a European city would suffice and we could then get ourselves to Nice from there, so that's how we looped in a few days in London. Sean has never been to London so I thought that would be a nice departure for him since he can actually understand the language and read the menus.<br />
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We did upgrade on Delta to "Economy Comfort" which landed us in a bulkhead with plenty of leg room. It was well worth the $250 and we passed the time during the 9-1/2 hour flight easily between watching movies, reading, doing puzzles and sleeping. We landed at Heathrow at 1:10 PM local time and didn't feel too bad. After clearing customs and collecting our luggage we were off on the underground towards our apartment in Chelsea. Although I hadn't planned this convenience, the tube stop nearest our apartment was on the Picadilly line, a direct line from Heathrow, so it was lovely to not have to change trains anywhere. <br />
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I found our apartment rental on VRBO. It was fairly small (330 s.f.), but just fine for the two of us and had all the modern conveniences we could want. I paid<span style="font-family: inherit;"> £640 for 4 nights, which</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">is about $1,004, which is a big chunk of change for lodging and much more than I would normally pay for a nightly rate, but London is very expensive against the US dollar. You can view our flat <a href="http://www.vrbo.com/328868ha" target="_blank">here</a>. </span><br />
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By the time we got situated in the apartment, it was almost 3:30 PM and food was calling. We found a nice pub down the street and had a pint and some much needed nourishment. <br />
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The weather was partly cloudy with a threat of rain. Unfortunately, the weather forecast had changed from being warm and sunny during our stay in London to wet and rainy. After our meal, we headed to the grocery store that was conveniently a block from our flat and bought some supplies for our stay.<br />
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We were really dragging our feet by the time we arrived back at the apartment and a nap was high on our list of activities. As much as you try and avoid the whole jet lag thing, it's inevitable it seems. We easily fell asleep and forced ourselves to get back up two hours later. After a shower and some coffee, we both felt much better, but still a little foggy.<br />
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As typical for me, sleep was evasive that first night in Europe. I was awake again at 1:30 AM after only sleeping for less than 4 hours. I passed the time between 1:30 AM and 6:00 AM getting some work done and found myself back in bed for another 4 hours at 6:00 AM. I was a little alarmed when I awoke and it was already 10:00 AM; seemed kind of wasteful given our long list of things we wanted to see and do during our brief stay.<br />
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The weather forecast looked like rain would hold off during much of the day so we thought this was our best shot at an open bus tour. I always enjoy these "hop on, hop off" bus tours. It provides a nice overview of the city (without walking miles) and I always learn things about certain landmarks and neighborhoods that I might not have otherwise. <br />
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This particular tour included a "live" guide as opposed to the headset kind and he was quite hilarious in his commentary. He filled up our time stuck in traffic with some interesting facts about London that you probably wouldn't find in many guide books.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cock Lane, near Holborn Viaduct, didn’t get its name due to any association with poultry, but because it was the only street to be licensed for prostitution in medieval times. Other unusual street names in London include Ha Ha Road in Greenwich, Hooker’s Road in Walthamstow, Quaggy Walk in Blackheath, and Cyclops Mews. Street names that sadly no longer exist include Shiteburn Lane, Pissing Alley, and more than one Gropecunt Lane, which as the name might suggest, was associated with prostitution. We snickered every time we were on the Tube and the voiceover indicated we were on a train bound for "Cockfosters." Yes, we are 12.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The nursery rhyme Pop Goes the Weasel refers to the act of pawning one's suit after spending all one's cash in the pubs of Clerkenwell. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Beatles played their last gig on the roof of Apple Corps at 3 Saville Row. It’s now an Abercrombie & Fitch store.</span><br />
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London has some really interesting architecture. One of their newest skyscrapers has been dubbed the "walkie talkie." You can see it in the picture below on the far right. Then there's the famous bullet-shaped building the locals call "the gherkin" because it was originally lit up with green lights like a pickle. <br />
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We also saw some interesting "public art" in some of the parks and squares. Apparently local artists can exhibit their art pieces in these public spaces as a way of advertising they are for sale.<br />
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We finished our bus tour and had returned to our apartment just about the perfect time before the rain started. You can view some of our London photos <a href="https://shertology.shutterfly.com/pictures/1474" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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Cheerio mates!<br />
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SherrySherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-55712271177019205742014-07-29T08:08:00.002-07:002014-07-29T08:08:42.707-07:00A visit to Aix-en-ProvenceI spent a few days more than 10 years ago in Aix-en-Provence with my sisters and fell in love with this bustling town. I thought it the perfect introduction to Provence for Sean. Originally, I had wanted to take a day trip from the Riviera to seek out the blooming lavender fields, but after doing some research, I deemed anything further than a 90-minute drive was more than I was willing to do. Alas, that's another trip!<br />
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Since nobody else was interested in this journey, it was just the two of us, which was fine by me as it's always good to get in some "alone" time when traveling with a group. Since I wouldn't get to visit any lavender fields this trip, I decided that my ultimate goal in Aix was shopping! I've always loved the bright Provencal fabrics that are made in this region and I was hoping to find a new kitchen tablecloth. So off we went!<br />
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It was a blistering hot day, reaching almost 90 degrees, but that didn't stop the hordes of other tourists from enjoying their day. I just adore the overall palette of Provence; the colors are amazing and I can see why so many artists have fallen in love with the area; such inspiration!<br />
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After finding a place to park our car, we set off towards the city center and the famous "Cours Mirabeau" for a spot for lunch. Our lunch was very mediocre and it was one of the first times this trip where I felt we were given the "American Tourist" treatment. Oh well, I can't make everyone like me.<br />
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It didn't take long before I got my bearings and started remembering some of the cute, windy, little streets where I had walked years ago admiring all the shops. I have become a much more discerning "tourist" with regard to shopping. There was a time that I bought lots of little souvenir tchotchkes, but over the years, I've learned to stop wasting money on such useless treasures and buy things that I will actually use, or have a useful place in my home. <br />
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Sean was so patient with me as I drug him around the city looking for exactly what I had come for; the perfect tablecloth. They have such beautiful fabrics that I could see where I could get myself in trouble buying too many lovely things. Focus! Then there's the clothing stores for kids and babies . . . I swear I need an extra carry-on bag just for the stuff I've purchased already for my grandkids. <br />
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Within a couple of hours, I'd found almost exactly what I wanted and purchased a beautiful yellow tablecloth, some napkins and some really nice linen kitchen towels; the kind that lasts for years and seem to be such a great workhorse in the kitchen. <br />
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We enjoyed just strolling around and admiring the architecture and beautiful trees and flowers. There were many street performers out in the squares and we enjoyed some jazz, some reggae, some hip-hop rappers and even a group of African dancers. <br />
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It was the perfect little getaway and as the sun started to get low, we called it a day and drove back to the villa. By this time in our trip, I've learned to drive even better than the locals and there have been quite a few drivers who have flipped me off, honked their horn or lifted their hands in exasperation as I've asserted my place in line, or my turn in the roundabout. Don't be fooled, I'm no regular "stupid Americain"!<br />
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When we got back to the villa, it was still scorching hot out, so back into our suits we went and into the pool for a little cool down period. It was another perfect day!<br />
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SherrySherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-23771591709507182542014-07-29T07:13:00.000-07:002014-07-29T07:14:14.240-07:00Living it up in the French RivieraAfter our very long road trip, none of us had any intention of doing anything other than lounging around the house, enjoying the fantastic sunshine and floating in the pool for at least a day or two. There was a LOT of this going on:<br />
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Followed by days of doing nothing but this:</div>
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Now this was a vacation! I won't lie, it was HOT. Living in the PNW now for over 13 years, I've become very acclimated to our mild climate. For the week we were in Plan-de-la-Tour, we had temperatures between the low 80's and high 90's. Thank goodness we had a pool; we spent a lot of time in it! </div>
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Over the next few days, we all did various things besides just lounging around the villa. Terrey and Laura spent some time together exploring the village of Biot, Monaco and Cannes. Terrey, April and Laura did some wandering in hopes of finding some local wineries. Sean and I drove to Aix en Provence, and we all spent a day at a St. Tropez beach club and exploring the village of Ramatuelle (I will write about this adventure in another post).</div>
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Coincidentally, good friends of ours from Seattle were also vacationing nearby in St. Tropez, so Emilie, Louis and their adorable son, Oliver, came over and hung out at our place. </div>
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I had a great time (despite the heat), preparing our feast for the evening, which was a delicious ratatouille made with beautiful heirloom tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant from our local produce market, roasted chicken Provencal style, and a homemade berry tart for dessert. For some reason, I hadn't thought to snap a picture of the other dishes, but here's the chicken before I put it in the oven. I swear, everything tastes better in France!<br />
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It was nice to just stay put for a week and enjoy our beautiful surroundings. I can say I truly "relaxed"; I tried to not work too much (I was supposed to be on vacation), and I can now admit to being a puzzle addict. I used to give April a hard time about how she was always doing puzzles on her iPad and guess who's addicted now? There's something therapeutic about putting puzzles together and although I brought a knitting project, I was quite content to waste my days doing nothing but puzzles and lounging in the pool. Don't judge.<br />
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SherrySherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-25156848884898556512014-07-24T10:51:00.000-07:002014-07-24T10:51:35.703-07:00The the long, long, long, drive to the RivieraOur second day in the Loire Valley was spent right at the Gite. Sean and I had thought we'd go explore the other chateau we had missed the day before, but a relaxing day around the house sounded lovely, as did Dad and Lea. We did wander into the village of Descartes for lunch where we witnessed interesting local behavior. <br />
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The village streets are very narrow and only allow for one side of the street to have parked cars so as not to block the road from traffic. In front of the BNP Paribas bank, a very large armored truck was parked half on the sidewalk, and half into the road. Now if you were a small Renault or Peugeot, you could probably get around the armored truck without an issue. But, if you were a rather large motorhome, it would be impossible to get around the truck.<br />
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Naturally, the first vehicle behind the armored truck was a rather large motorhome. We sat and enjoyed our lunch at the outdoor café and watched the traffic back up behind the motorhome. Now we are talking a 20 or 25 car backup and there was not a single honk of a horn! Nobody stormed out of their cars and demanded that something be done, or had a loud conversation with a fellow trapped driver. Instead, one guy ordered an espresso from a local café who was kind enough to deliver said espresso to the guy's car. Those silly French.<br />
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We were just so amazed at how calm, and unbothered everyone was about this delay that was over 30 minutes. I'm pretty sure I would have lost my mind. But I am wound rather tight, or so I've been told. It was just kind of comical to watch. Now if we had encountered that same incident in Italy, boy there would have been horns and fists and LOTS of yelling. <br />
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Given that the sun still refused to show itself, here's how we dried our laundry. When Dad and Lea woke up first on our departure day, they thought we might be opening up a retail shop to pay our travel expenses.<br />
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We all did a great job of getting our stuff together, tidying up the Gite and into our cars by our agreed departure time of 9:30 AM. Since the drive to the Riviera would be too far of a drive to do in one day, we had an overnight stay planned near the town of Lyon, which was roughly one-half of the way to the South. According to Google, this stopover would take us 4 hours and 39 minutes. Add in an hour for potty and lunch stop and we figured we'd be to our hotel by 4:30 or so. We couldn't have been more mistaken.<br />
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This is what our drive was like . . .<br />
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About an hour past the time we should have arrived, we stopped for gas. We were about 60 KM from our hotel at this point (and it was already 6:00 PM) and April was so mad at me she could spit. According to her, I was going the WRONG way and instead of heading directly into Lyon (our hotel was right outside the city), we should have traveled "above" Lyon and into Villefranche-sur-Saône, instead of going around Lyon. Now this sounds logical, but my British GPS lady didn't indicate that I was to take this "shortcut." <br />
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In my defense, I did remind April that they had their own British GPS lady and they also had a roadmap. Nobody was forcing their car to follow mine and although April did call me when she thought I was in error, it wasn't like I could just turn around. Do you see the traffic? <br />
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So we screamed at each other, filled up our gas tanks and got back into the car. And encountered more of this.<br />
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What should have been about 40 minutes more until our destination was another 2 hours. It took us almost 10 hours to arrive at our hotel. We were all REALLY, REALLY hangry. <br />
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I found <a href="http://www.lafermedupoulet.com/" target="_blank">L'Hostellerie La Ferme du Poulet</a> on TripAdvisor. It was really nice. Nothing fancy, but this former chicken farm is now a lovely little hotel with an excellent restaurant. The owners are a husband and wife team and they both manage the hotel and he's the chef at the restaurant. We paid 110 Euros for a double room. Our room was spacious and had a sitting area and a desk. However, apparently my room was the only one with Internet access that worked well, so April had to spend some time after dinner there to get some work caught up.<br />
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Dad and Lea were tired from the drive and not overly hungry, so they retired to their room and just snacked out of our "ice chest" on some cheese and salami. Dad was happy with his very own large bucket of ice.<br />
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The rest of us let the stress of the day go while we enjoyed a very, very, good dinner and some excellent wine in the restaurant. We were all very pleasantly surprised how delicious the food was. It was surprisingly delightful. The good news was that now my sisters were talking to me as we all solved what ailed us through wine. It really is the "cure-all" elixir.<br />
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After a good night's sleep, we departed the next morning at 9:00 AM. Our GPS said "4 hours 23 minutes" to our villa in the South. The hotel proprietor warned that "it will be very crowded driving today." UGH.<br />
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We each decided to navigate ourselves to the villa in the South so as not to repeat the screaming that ensued the day before. It was pretty much a straight shot down the A7 almost to the ocean, but instead of taking the toll road, you could drive the smaller roads, which was a strategy that the "other car" started off using until they discovered that road to be just as crowded as the A7.<br />
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This pretty much sums up our drive, which wasn't even close to what Google said it would be. Try 10 hours! Another very, very, long day.<br />
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The one thing I can say that I thought was really, really, nice, are the frequent rest stops on the highways. In most cases, there was a rest stop about every 20 KM. Some of the stops just have bathroom and picnic facilities, but most of them have gas, restaurants, picnic areas and even activities for kids, like playgrounds, trampolines and basketball courts. The bathrooms were always really nice and clean as well and we loved the ones that featured "Villery and Boch" commodes. It's kind of nice taking care of your business on "fancy" porcelain.<br />
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After about 3-1/2 hours on the road, we decided to stop at one of these nice rest stops to grab some sandwiches and stretch our legs. This was a huge mistake. We should all have just worn depends for the day and NEVER stopped for any reason. What we were thinking?<br />
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To give you an example of just how ridiculously overrun this rest stop was with tourists like us traveling to the Riviera, it took us 30 minutes just to PARK. The place was an absolute zoo with people just running amok. There was really not much order happening in the parking lots, which were very large, but I think this particular rest stop had 5,000 people trying to park, picnic, buy food and pee. I have never seen anything like this before. Complete pandemonium. <br />
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We chose the shortest food line inside, which was a "Paul" boulangerie. It was interesting to see that the line for "Subway" was about 4 times the line at the French chain. I realize that I am not a fluent French speaker, but I do a pretty good job of pronouncing my numbers in French and it completely irritated me that the young girl who was helping me was acting like she didn't understand my "deux" or "trois" when requesting my food items. I would say "deux jambon et beurre baguette sandwiches s'il vous plais" and she would say "you mean two?" Then she would giggle to her co-hort. She did it for everything I ordered and I enunciated my "deux", "trois" and "quatre" very clearly. So can imagine how delighted I was with her service. Then she tried to act like I didn't clearly state that I wanted to buy bottles of water. She asked me "you mean a table?" WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS CHICK????<br />
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Calgon, take me away. Far, far, away. Sunshine and a pool awaits. It was what I kept going back to in my mind during these dark two days. <br />
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So back into our travel prison we went. Dad and Lea were good sports, as was Sean. It's not like we could have really KNOWN it would be this bad. I had heard about August being just awful, but we were in mid-July. When we were about 60 KM from our final destination (finally) we drove through quite a storm; we had very dark clouds, thunder, lightening and I swear hail, but it was much too warm for that. So let's just call it very thick rain. And then, the clouds were behind us and we could see some sunshine on the horizon. And finally, we arrived. I might just add that we beat the "other car" by almost an hour.<br />
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We all piled out of the car and just were SO glad to be there. We had finally arrived and nobody was going to kick us out for another 7 days. <br />
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We found the rental on <a href="http://www.vrbo.com/92900ha" target="_blank">VRBO</a> in the village of Le Plan de-la-Tour, which was 8 KM from St. Maxime and it was really nice. We paid 59 Euros per person, per night for this 4 bedroom, 3-1/2 bath villa. The outdoor space was really nice, with an outdoor kitchen, spacious seating and a bocce boule court. We really loved having the pool and spent a LOT of time in it (which was really a must for the hot, hot weather we would encounter over the next week). <br />
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SherrySherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-26029460259000337622014-07-21T12:53:00.002-07:002014-07-21T12:53:37.037-07:00A visit to Chambord (How the Royals did "Glamping")Our first night in our Loire Valley Gite was heaven. There were no screeching seagulls, snails, pigeons or other noisy creatures to be seen or heard (or felt). We did have a resident bat (we named him George), but he was pretty quiet and did not try and scare the beejesus out of us.<br />
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Did I mention "quiet"? It was lovely. Being in the middle of nowhere kind of has its advantages. We had silence, but hardly any internet connection. I guess you can't have everything. <br />
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Our plan for the day was to visit both Chambord and <span style="color: black;">Chenonceau</span> chateaux. The first visit at Chambord would be to just enjoy the grounds and outside view of the chateau and save the price of the ticket for Chenonceau where the interiors are more worthy of the price of admission (at least this is what we presumed after our research). They also had picnic areas at the chateau so we decided to pack a picnic lunch to enjoy. The weather was still cloudy with a threat of rain, so we didn't forget our umbrellas this time.<br />
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We were only about an hours drive to Chambord, so I made quick work of the 427 roundabouts I needed to enter/exit on our way there. I may never get our GPS (with a British accent) voice out of my head . . . in 500 meters, enter the roundabout and take the third exit. In 400 meters, enter the roundabout and take the third exit. In 300 meters, enter the roundabout and take the third exit. In 200 meters, enter the roundabout and take the third exit. In 100 meters, enter the roundabout and take the third exit. One time, she said to take the "fourth exit" but there were only 3. Luckily, I can read the posted signs . . . those silly British gals.<br />
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We all arrived and parked in the lot. The first order of business was a visit to "les toilettes" which charged a .50 Euro entrance fee. This kind of irks me. They have really nice highway rest stops like every 10 KM (they are free), but if you want to pee at this "tourist attraction" it will cost you .50 Euro.<br />
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After expressing our morning coffee, it was time to lunch. It was quite busy and crowded in the picnic area and it was interesting to observe what other parties had brought to nosh on. One very large family had a ginormous Tupperware container filled with some kind of white rice dish. Some of those eating this unknown rice dish were liberally squirting ketchup on it. Seems like a strange picnic item.<br />
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The royal Château de Chambord is one of the most recognizable châteaux in the world because of its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture which blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Renaissance structures. The building, which was never completed, was constructed by King François I.<br />
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Chambord is the largest château in the Loire Valley; it was built to serve as a hunting lodge for François I, who maintained his royal residences at the châteaux of Blois and Amboise. </div>
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Chambord was altered considerably during the twenty-eight years of its construction (1519–1547), during which it was overseen on-site by Pierre Nepveu. With the château nearing completion, François showed off his enormous symbol of wealth and power by hosting his old archrival, Emperor Charles V, at Chambord.<br />
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In 1792, in the wake of the French Revolution, some of the furnishings were sold and timber removed. For a time the building was left abandoned, though in the 19th century some attempts were made at restoration. During the Second World War, art works from the collections of the Louvre (including the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo) and the Château de Compiègne were moved to the Château de Chambord.<br />
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The château features 440 rooms, 282 fireplaces, and 84 staircases. Four rectangular vaulted hallways on each floor form a cross-shape. The château was never intended to provide any form of defense from enemies; consequently the walls, towers and partial moat are purely decorative.<br />
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Work began on the chateau in 1526, at which point 1,800 workers were employed building the château. At the time of the death of King François I in 1547, the work had cost 444,070 lives.<br />
The château was built to act as a hunting lodge for King François I;<sup> </sup>however, the king spent barely seven weeks there in total, that time consisting of short hunting visits. As the château had been constructed with the purpose of short stays, it was not practical to live in on a longer-term basis. The massive rooms, open windows and high ceilings meant heating was impractical. Similarly, as the château was not surrounded by a village or estate, there was no immediate source of food other than game. This meant that all food had to be brought with the group, typically numbering up to 2,000 people at a time.<br />
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As a result of all the above, the château was completely unfurnished during this period. All furniture, wall coverings, eating implements and so forth were brought specifically for each hunting trip, a major logistical exercise. It is for this reason that much furniture from the era was built to be disassembled to facilitate transportation. After François died of a heart attack in 1547, the château was not used for almost a century. It's astounding to see this massive structure and think that this was just a hunting lodge. Mon dieu!<br />
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A couple of other interesting tidbits about Chambord; On June 22, 1944, during World War II, an American heavy bomber, a B-24 “Liberator” from the U.S. Army 8th Air Force based in England, crashed here after bombing an airport southwest of Paris and being crippled by antiaircraft fire and German fighter planes. The aircraft’s pilot, Lt. William Kalan, had directed his crew to parachute earlier although he and co-pilot Lt. Kenneth Klemstine remained abord until shortly before the crash. At the time, priceless masterpieces from the Louvre Museum were hidden in the Château Chambord.<br />
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The two pilots were hidden separately by residents of the nearby villages of Huisseau-sur-Cosson and Montlivault for several months – during which time Lt. Kalan took part in Allied arms drops and other Resistance engagements – before both pilots crossed the Loire to join approaching U.S. troops.<br />
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Additionally, Chambord was the inspiration for the castle in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast."<br />
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After our rather pleasant picnic, we headed towards the chateau with the idea that we would rent the 4-wheel bicycles to cruise around the gardens in. Recognizing that Dad and Lea wouldn't be able to pedal very far on their own, we acquired a bicycle "trailer" to pull them behind us using our "pedal power" (that would be Sean and I). Let me just say that this looked a LOT easier in theory than in practice. We also didn't realize until we had paid for the bicycles just how far the path was "around" the gardens to the front of the chateau. <br />
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After 20 minutes pedaling and turning our legs into mush, I was the first one to cry uncle. This was NOT fun. I was starting to sweat like a pig in the muggy, humid weather and let me tell you, it was HARD to tote around our folks in the trailer (no offense to my trailer peeps). <br />
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So we decided to turn around and give them those stupid bicycles back. Terrey was kind enough to work together with Sean to pedal the trailer folks back while Laura, April and I took turns pedaling their ride; we may have even just walked and pushed that dumb, stupid, heavy, bicycle back to the rental spot. WHOSE idea was this? <br />
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But we did get some gorgeous views of the backside of the chateau (which I think was much more picturesque than the front).<br />
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By the time we had messed around with the bikes and walked around for some views of the front, it was 3:00 PM. I could tell that my trailer peeps weren't really that excited about visiting another chateau that day, so I offered to forego the other visit and just head back to the gite. We still needed to shop for some groceries for dinner, so we headed back to the car while the rest of the party (April, Laura and Terrey) visited Chenonceau. I was slightly disappointed that I would not be joining them, but perhaps we could visit tomorrow.<br />
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We really only had two days in the Loire Valley and it's not really that much time to see very much considering that you have to drive at least 30 minutes (mostly averaging 60 minutes) to get to most landmarks. I just have to add the Loire Valley to my list of places that I will have to go back and spend a greater amount of time to really explore that region. As always, "that's another trip."<br />
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Segoe UI Light","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sherry</span></span></div>
Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-82820065716120733102014-07-16T01:35:00.000-07:002014-07-16T01:35:57.302-07:00Still no sunshine in the Loire ValleyWe left Trouville promptly at 9:00 AM on our way to Le Mans, where my sister Laura and husband Terrey would be joining us. They were arriving into CDG that morning and driving to a pre-determined lunch spot in Le Mans.<br />
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Obviously someone outside Trouville has a sense of humor . . .<br />
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Our plan for the afternoon was to meeting Terrey and Laura for lunch, then perhaps have a quick visit at the Le Mans car museum, then motor our way to our Gite in the Loire Valley, approximately 2-1/2 hours from Le Mans.<br />
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Someone obviously forgot this was supposed to be a SUNNY trip given that we are now well into July. Much to my dismay, the clouds hung around, threatening rain. We found a parking garage to park within a couple of blocks of the restaurant we were meeting the Terrey and Laura at. Terrey and Laura were having some issues with their GPS and couldn't seem to actually FIND the street where we were. So we waited, and waited, and waited. <br />
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The heavens opened up and rained, and we waited some more. Eventually, Laura called and we made plans to just go ahead and eat without them and meet them later that afternoon at the Gite (they had the directions). Just when I wandered back up the street to let the others know to go ahead and order lunch, around the corner appeared the weary travelers. I'm quite sure that arriving into CDG after an overnight flight and then hopping into a car and driving for 3 hours isn't a fun thing to do. They both looked exhausted, but happy to have finally found us.<br />
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This was a cute street where we ate lunch. After some delicious crepes for lunch, it was time to hit the road again. We agreed to meet up again in Descartes, which was a few km from our Gite in Abilly, where we would do some grocery shopping. It was a nice drive; not too long, with lots of nice scenery along the way.<br />
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We passed several fields of sunflowers along the route. Apparently the bulk of these fields are used in the perfume industry.<br />
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We arrived into Descartes and apparently Laura and Terrey's GPS had been set to only travel the "D" roads (no toll roads), so we beat them to Descartes by almost 30 minutes. The rest of the crew finally arrived and down the road we went to the Gite. There's always a little apprehension (especially after our horrible experience in Trouville) that your lodging accommodations aren't going to be up to snuff. The gite we reserved was next door to this place, so it was a "nice" neighborhood.<br />
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We pulled up to "<a href="http://www.lebouchet.com/" target="_blank">Le Bouchet</a>" and our hopes were restored that we could put the Trouville disaster behind us.<br />
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We rented "Les Ecuries" which was a 3-bedroom, 2 bath Gite that sleeps 7. April was pretty excited that she was actually going to get to sleep in an actual bed! Our rental was for 3 nights, and it was really, really, affordable. We were paying $27 per night, per person for this palace. The rooms were beyond spacious, the kitchen was large and well-equipped and the outdoor spaces were really nice. </div>
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There was even a pool. Too bad we never had a chance to use the pool; it remained cloudy and sometimes a little wet during our 3-night stay here. </div>
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But that didn't stop us from enjoying the outdoor space for meals and relaxing. My only complaint about Le Bouchet was that the internet was the worst I've encountered in all of Europe. It made working very difficult and at times, absolutely impossible. </div>
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<br />We enjoyed a delicious dinner of pasta and all of us were looking forward to getting a great nights sleep.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">À bientot.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sherry</span></span></div>
Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-73965083842525332952014-07-11T13:17:00.000-07:002014-07-11T13:17:09.753-07:00Operation Overlord - Normandy Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Just as promised, the weather on Monday was sunny, which is exactly what we had hoped for our day-long tour of the WWII sights in Normandy. "Operation Overload" was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings. A 1,200-plane airborne assault preceded an amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June, and more than three million allied troops were in France by the end of August.</div>
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Having read a lot of information about the area and how best to visit the sights of the D-Day invasion, we decided to hire a private guide who was knowledgeable about the history of this monumental event. Whenever I start my travel planning, I always seek out the knowledge of my fellow travelers on Fodor's. Based on Fodor's high recommendations, we hired Colin Mcgarry as our guide. Colin was a wonderful guide, filled with so much knowledge and trivia about the area and the events that took place on June 6, 1944. There's just no way we would have enjoyed the experience as much left on our own to discover all there was to see along this 55-mile stretch of coast.<br />
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We met Colin in Caen at 9:00 AM, about an hour drive from Trouville. Our plan of the day was to visit the Germany cemetery, Utah beach, Omaha beach and the American cemetery. Reflecting back on our day as I write this blog post, I am reminded again what I love so much about travel. I love history and there's nothing more exciting than actually SEEING what you've either read about or perhaps learned in a history class long, long ago. Being able to actually have context around facts and events is just spectacular. It rejuvenates my interest in certain things and now I can't wait to go home and watch certain movies, like "The Longest Day", and "Band of Brothers" to actually put into context the events of D-Day.<br />
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I am also reminded just how lucky I have been that in my lifetime, my city hasn't been invaded by enemies and I haven't had to say goodbye to loved ones who have given their life so that I can enjoy all of the freedoms we take for granted. Thousands of young men (average age was 24) lost their lives just during this WWII operation alone. The Russian Army even had soldiers as young as age 14. <br />
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We drove through the village of Bayeux on our way to the Germany cemetery. The cathedral is magnificent; I wish I could have stopped and viewed the inside.<br />
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Next, we arrived at the Germany cemetery. It was a somber place, with a small indoor exhibit depicting large photos taken during the war. It also featured a kind of strategy map of D-Day depicting all of the German footholds along the 55-stretch of beach and the various attack plans for the Allies. <br />
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After viewing the exhibit, we spent a few minutes in the cemetery. Originally, this is where American soldiers were laid to rest, but they were later removed to today's location. <br />
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There's interesting symbolism with the single door leading into the cemetery. There are approximately 12,000 German soldiers buried here between the ages of 16 and 72. Apparently the batching of the 5 crosses is because German soldiers were found in temporary graves containing 5 bodies. <br />
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Our next stop was the village of Sainte-Mère-Église, where it played a significant part in the war and was one of the earliest villages liberated during the invasion. The early paratrooper landings, at about 0140 directly on the town, resulted in heavy casualties for the paratroopers. Some buildings in town were on fire that night, and they illuminated the sky, making easy targets of the descending men. Some were sucked into the fire. Many hanging from trees and utility poles were shot before they could cut loose. whereby paratroopers landed in advance of the beach landings behind enemy lines.<br />
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The town church is participating in the D-Day tourism with a dummy on the roof demonstrating where one paratrooper landed. A well known incident involved paratrooper John Steele of the 505th PIR, whose parachute caught on the spire of the town church, and could only observe the fighting going on below. He hung there limply for two hours, pretending to be dead, before the Germans took him prisoner. Steele later escaped from the Germans and rejoined his division when US troops of the 3rd Battalion, 505 Parachute Infantry Regiment attacked the village, capturing thirty Germans and killing another eleven. The incident was portrayed in the movie The Longest Day by actor Red Buttons.<br />
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Inside the church, there are two stained glass windows paying tribute to the paratroopers.<br />
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From here, we visited Utah beach. There's still bunkers along the beach, along with several memorials. We had lunch at "Le Roosevelt" which was decked out in WWII memorabilia and even used newspaper and magazines from that era as wallpaper. <br />
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While we were there, "trotters" were practicing on the beach.<br />
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After our respite, we were provided a quick tour of the adjacent bunker behind the restaurant. Once occupied by the Germans as a central communications bunker, it was later overtaken by the Americans who also continued to use it in the same manner. The bunker still contains the equipment.<br />
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Our next stop was Omaha beach. Along the way, Colin drove through several small villages that also played various roles during the invasion. This small church was used as an aid station during D-Day and still has blood-stained pews as a testament to its service. <br />
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While we were visiting, these two guys were re-roofing the church. We all wondered how they were going to "hold on" once they finished laying down the last of the roofing tiles.<br />
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I won't lie, by the time we had reached Omaha beach, I was pretty much on information overload and not much interested in seeing another beach with more bunkers and guns. To Dad's surprise, there was a Healey in the parking lot. I suppose we now have set a high bar that Dad now expects to see vintage cars along the way as he tours various European countries! Apparently these guys were on their way back to the UK after participating in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which had just ended a couple days prior.<br />
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Finally, our visit took us to the American cemetery, which is a very somber place. It's beautifully maintained and the gardens are lovely. <br />
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There are more than 9,000 American soldiers buried here (representing only 40% of the Normandy invasion total casualties), with another 1,300+ missing soldiers memorialized on a wall. There are 45 pairs of brothers here, and 4 women.<br />
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The cost of the Normandy campaign was high for both sides. From D-Day to 21 August, the Allies landed 2,052,299 men in northern France.<sup> </sup>The Allies suffered 209,672 casualties from 6 June to the end of August, including 36,976 killed, 153,475 wounded, and 19,221 missing. The British, Canadians, and Poles suffered 16,138 killed, 58,594 wounded, and 9,093 missing, for a total of 83,825 casualties. The Americans suffered 20,838 killed, 94,881 wounded, and 10,128 missing, for a total of 125,847 casualties.<sup> </sup>The Allies lost 4,101 aircraft and 16,714 airmen killed or missing.<sup> </sup>Allied tank losses have been estimated at around 4,000, of which approximately half were fighting in American units. Just wow.<br />
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What a huge sacrifice and one that I am more greatly aware of and thankful for. It was a very long day and an experience I will never forget. I know that our one day was just a tip of the iceberg and perhaps I will visit again one day in the future to learn more about the rich history in this area.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">À bientot!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sherry</span></span>Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-72986722076193992662014-07-10T08:01:00.003-07:002014-07-10T08:02:08.083-07:00Channeling my inner Mario Andretti - Normandy Part 1Not only has my family entrusted me with their vacation planning, they also are brave enough to allow me to drive them around in foreign countries. I won't lie that the prospect of driving a rental car in the city of Paris wasn't daunting and perhaps even a little frightening, I reasoned that if I could successfully navigate the craziness of driving in Italy, particularly along the Amalfi Coast, "I've got this."<br />
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In order to avoid having Dad and Lea try and maneuver luggage through the Metro to Hertz located near the Montparnasse train station, I thought it more sensible if I went to Hertz without them to first get the car and then return to the apartment to pack up the luggage/passengers. Sean was kind enough to accompany me on this adventure.<br />
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We stepped outside of the Montparnasse Metro station and with my Hertz confirmation in hand, set off to find the rental office. The language in the confirmation email was a bit confusing and to be honest, we were unsure if the office was located in or near the Montparnasse train station itself. <br />
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After seeking the help of some armed forces patrolling the Montparnasse Tower, we figured out that the office we were looking for was adjacent to the station. Off we went and imagine our surprise when we arrived at the Hertz office to a sign on the door that read "this office is now closed. Proceed directly to the parking garage." WHAT PARKING GARAGE? Is it the garage at the station? Seriously, the sign could not have been MORE cryptic. There was literally a parking garage on every corner surrounding the train station. <br />
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Stop, take a deep breath. This was not starting this whole driving adventure off on the right foot. Luckily, even though our first garage was a big zero for Hertz offices, there was a kind gentleman in the garage who pointed in the direction of a nearby hotel. Although that in itself was cryptic, it was a clue enough to figure out he meant the parking garage next to the hotel. And voila! There was the beautiful yellow Hertz sign we were looking for.<br />
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Now here's where the funny part starts. The kind woman behind the counter led me through all of the paperwork and there was an exchange of credit card and driver's information, then a "tour" of the wonderful world of Hertz cars. "Are you sure that you don't want to update to something LARGER?" Me, being the thrifty traveler assured her that the 5-passenger, Citroen wagon promising space for our luggage would be sufficient at the agreed upon price of one arm and one leg.<br />
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Sean and I followed her out to the vehicle and after a quick inspection of the existing damage, etc., we were handed the keys and off we went. We plugged the apartment address into the GPS and off into the Paris traffic we went. I won't lie, I was a bit nervous at first, but then my inner Mario Andretti kicked in and I was in my element among all of the crazy drivers. I was not going to let those 8-exit roundabouts scare me! I would NOT be pulling a Clark Griswold and circle multiple times before actually being brave enough to cut over and exit! <br />
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Now what did scare me is that the street in front of our apartment was a very narrow, one-way street with almost no parking, so either I was going to get lucky enough to find an open spot to use as a "staging area" for loading passengers and luggage, or I was going to drive around the block several times.<br />
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I think we were on our second loop before I found a spot to slide into. April had gathered the troops and they busily started loading. What appeared to be a roomy vehicle with plenty of storage turned out to be much too small. Poor Lea could barely get her foot into the car in order to shut the door and everyone but me had some sort of bag on their lap. This clearly was not going to work well for a long car ride.<br />
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So off to Hertz we went, and I will never forget the look on the face of the Hertz employee who had helped me earlier. She could almost not contain herself with her finger wagging and although she was speaking in French, I knew what she was saying. "I told you so."<br />
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Lea, bless her heart, tried to talk Hertz into renting us the biggest rig in the parking garage, which was some Mercedes passenger van. Alas, it was already reserved, so we settled into a Chevy Captiva SUV. It was still tight in the back seat, but at least there were 3 actual full seats and not just the middle hump for someone and all of the luggage was stowed in the back and not half of it on anyone's lap.<br />
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I think most of us breathed a sign of relief when were finally were safely out of Paris and onto the much roomier two-lane highway headed towards Normandy. Somewhere between Paris and Trouville, we stopped for lunch in the small town of Le Cadran. We ate in a small pub and had the most delicious lunch and probably the best Croque Madame I've ever had. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq9R1nSus1Z8OCmtXWLIICJrNHAKCusyt0OzO2IOZwapjdfKNhcOJyKZm7SxM2ZJycGasfwsl93A5qrXIPcrRKqYN824KdBGfl9CpYkHG01kUc_tFAIetcF2Ep_zsoAfQMef4Y2EZKtZ8/s1600/dad_lea_le_cadran.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq9R1nSus1Z8OCmtXWLIICJrNHAKCusyt0OzO2IOZwapjdfKNhcOJyKZm7SxM2ZJycGasfwsl93A5qrXIPcrRKqYN824KdBGfl9CpYkHG01kUc_tFAIetcF2Ep_zsoAfQMef4Y2EZKtZ8/s1600/dad_lea_le_cadran.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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Across the street from the pub was a small patisserie, so of course we had to stop and load up on some delicious pastries (because we're evidently starving over here in France). It all looked so good and we weren't even back on the freeway before we'd inhaled more than 1/2 of the goodies we bought (followed shortly thereafter with groans from most of us about how full we now were -- those pastries were rich!). <br />
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Our final destination was Trouville-sur-Mer, in the Normandy region of France. This would be our base for the next 3 days while we toured the area. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLM9-ghpNeZqOQieUDZaZdqaR31iMmm51oz3y2K8sURE8Rj3cSi3s_NaYbZkTd8crlIxemCRbAsPDvqrSUdq70Wj-_yhXRH_JfnmZS-E8wYc0G-ip6qNOb1RmhizFcTxZwGVbbjnUVWhs/s1600/DSCN5474.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLM9-ghpNeZqOQieUDZaZdqaR31iMmm51oz3y2K8sURE8Rj3cSi3s_NaYbZkTd8crlIxemCRbAsPDvqrSUdq70Wj-_yhXRH_JfnmZS-E8wYc0G-ip6qNOb1RmhizFcTxZwGVbbjnUVWhs/s1600/DSCN5474.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1825, a young landscape painter Charles Mozin discovered Trouville, a little fishing port in Normandy. In Paris, he kept Trouville in mind by exhibiting his Trouville paintings to other artists who later followed him to the paradise of Trouville. The artists and writers included Monet, Corot, Boudin, and Flaubert.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">During the Second Empire, from 1852 to 1870, Trouville became "Queen of the Beaches" and a very famous seaside resort. It was during this glorious period that villas, splendid hotels and casinos were built along the beach.</span></div>
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I can tell you that our "Trouville-style" vacation rental was NOT one of these splendid villas. Of all the years we have rented vacation homes, this one was probably the worst rental EVER! It's not exactly that the owners lied to us regarding the functionality of their rental for 5 adults, but let's just agree that they LIED TO US. I confirmed with the owners twice that there were adequate beds and bedrooms for the five adults and they confirmed all of my assumptions. It just tells you how good photos can be misleading.</div>
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What was supposed to be a two-bedroom, 1 bath house with a separate 1 bedroom, 1 bath guesthouse was a LIE. This old house looked to be divided into several rentals. Our rental was up two flights of stairs from the street where you arrived at the "main" house. The tool shed in the yard was the "guest house". After you enter the house and climb up 27 stairs (it was a narrow, spiral staircase), there was a door where you entered. The door handle and lock assembly was actually pulling out from the door and was only being held onto by 2 screws that were too small to fit the holes, so when you really think about it, there was really NO security here. In addition, we were provided only 1 key, which unlocked the gate from the street (which we were told to NOT lock because the transients living below us did not have a gate key). Sean and I had the tool shed and we felt that since the shed was practically on the street that the town murderers would get us first, so we thought we should be locked into the shed at night. We didn't want to lock in the main house in case of a fire, so yeah, they were wide open for anyone to just walk in a kill them in their sleep. Comforting, isn't it?</div>
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Once you entered the top of the spiral staircase, (and basically pushing the door open), there was a decent-sized bedroom with an attached bath that contained just a tub (no shower) with fairly high sides making it difficult for anyone over the age of 10 to get in and out safely. Opposite the bedroom was a small alcove where two storage cabinets sat and through an opening in the wall, you entered the "living area." There was a table that barely accommodated us 5 adults and a very small sofa, plus a tiny little kitchen. It did have a nice outdoor patio, but since it rained pretty much the entire time we were actually "at" the apartment, we never used it. This is what the front of the house looked like.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPKqQpcVk2NcvD2LeG8C_Gxf5t8y7YWTzHDNZZvSRkbXOyDFMQ2gX_m2xFt6E8QzU4UWGGfWxGMbOXt2VmDzz3Ip1cXjTQJ81ao62xBv3GzpQt6V41yZLWkUI1nMclgN23Scv_T8bfmoo/s1600/DSC_0158.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPKqQpcVk2NcvD2LeG8C_Gxf5t8y7YWTzHDNZZvSRkbXOyDFMQ2gX_m2xFt6E8QzU4UWGGfWxGMbOXt2VmDzz3Ip1cXjTQJ81ao62xBv3GzpQt6V41yZLWkUI1nMclgN23Scv_T8bfmoo/s1600/DSC_0158.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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Sean and I gave April the choice of the shed (which actually wasn't too bad if you didn't mind the slugs on the floor) or the sofa since we felt bad that she was on the sofa for 3 nights in Paris (after Dad and Lea arrived). April said she would take the sofa. She said that her blanket wasn't long enough to cover her feet.</div>
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Dad and Lea might have actually slept well enough in their bedroom, however, the constant screeching of the seagulls, pigeons and the discothèque down the street kept all of us from really getting a good night's sleep. There was a time that I thought living by the sea would be really lovely, but I can tell you that those seagulls pretty much have squashed that dream. We did have a nice view from the balcony:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9auvGue3amuJKaiBGJmN8LxB-YR_y1GBZZ-nRjq1BBmVjlhD5zjH1AUHtLWUr6KHsynKuySGLElfIRmG9jo-5o3yfpJhCdPtaQdjsuvjg7OH-4-deMr3EWCH5Q7zlH0RSZ79desc9mA/s1600/DSC_0154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif9auvGue3amuJKaiBGJmN8LxB-YR_y1GBZZ-nRjq1BBmVjlhD5zjH1AUHtLWUr6KHsynKuySGLElfIRmG9jo-5o3yfpJhCdPtaQdjsuvjg7OH-4-deMr3EWCH5Q7zlH0RSZ79desc9mA/s1600/DSC_0154.JPG" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Our rental was a one-way narrow street and the fact that we found a parking spot large enough for our Chevy SUV within a short distance of the front gate was a win-win. It was late afternoon when we arrived and knowing that we needed to procure some supplies (coffee and Ros<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;">é) <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">we thought it best if we just left the car (and Dad and Lea) while Sean, April and I hoofed it down the hill to get some supplies. As we were leaving the apartment, we felt a couple of raindrops and April says "should we go back and get our umbrellas?" "Nah, it's not going to rain" I replied. I'm quite sure April will never let me live this one down because as you know it would, it started to not just "rain" but the heavens opened up and it started to just pour. What's 3 drenched rats to do? We decided to try and find a café and have a beer while we waited for the rain to move on. We waited, and waited. We had another beverage. We waited some more and really had no choice but to just continue to get wet. We really were pathetic looking. We're wearing summer attire (this is July, right?) and we're all soaked.</span> </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9D-Fc5yAhYaDHFORRnTQnnUTqws8D4HhgfmEUh4lfptIana9mAMgm6ttU4YU7a7r8CJLezvoqMspzAIMCw5ERMzpoQoZmsJnAwp5SW57QQbhIoNwgpofnsIHXdN3SDznbxWNBAF3Icg0/s1600/DSCN5477.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9D-Fc5yAhYaDHFORRnTQnnUTqws8D4HhgfmEUh4lfptIana9mAMgm6ttU4YU7a7r8CJLezvoqMspzAIMCw5ERMzpoQoZmsJnAwp5SW57QQbhIoNwgpofnsIHXdN3SDznbxWNBAF3Icg0/s1600/DSCN5477.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We find the Monoprix and start filling our baskets, trying to be careful about how much stuff we were accumulating knowing that we would have to huff all of this stuff back up a pretty steep hill. This "seaside resort" experience wasn't starting off so well.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">As the next day was Sunday, we decided to just hang around the area and perhaps wander around the town of Trouville and Deauville, which was just across the river from Trouville. The clouds were mostly cloudy with a threat of rain, so we thought it best to just have a low-key day. We drove around and took some photos of the unique architecture and found a nice bistro for lunch. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpCiLAppBt2lfl-xOxr2gdYCcKqKlmr-KBDi5EMoXs3HkjfVu0UEqrFZGRhrRY8ILytbsJGhwfmKuYsg9I6g-hMu7hsTVw_ely8yTOYtV5_QE9DkTB7WLkJB6HuwHZaQ2W_DCw_wmrGU/s1600/DSCN5461.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijpCiLAppBt2lfl-xOxr2gdYCcKqKlmr-KBDi5EMoXs3HkjfVu0UEqrFZGRhrRY8ILytbsJGhwfmKuYsg9I6g-hMu7hsTVw_ely8yTOYtV5_QE9DkTB7WLkJB6HuwHZaQ2W_DCw_wmrGU/s1600/DSCN5461.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">After our late lunch, on our way back to our car, we spotted an antiques shop that was open. We spent a few minutes wandering around the shop. They had some really neat stuff in there; I wondered just how expensive it was to ship heavy armoires back to Seattle. They had some beautiful furniture, but I suppose after paying to ship them home, they weren't such a bargain after all. We didn't spot any cheap Monet nor forgotten Degas paintings, so we piled back into the car to head back into Trouville. Since lunch was late, we found an open Epicerie market and picked up some fruit, more cheese and a baguette for a snack later that night. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">We enjoyed an exciting evening back at our hovel each of us on our "I" devices doing various things, like puzzles. At least the internet service was good. We were all hoping that the discothèque wouldn't be open on a Sunday evening and looked forward to perhaps a peaceful sleep, but once again, those damn birds wouldn't shut the hell up. Although we all looked forward to getting to sleep early, Trouville in on the 49th parallel and sunset isn't until just before 11:00 PM. Nevertheless, we were all looking forward to hopefully some sunshine the next day for our private tour of the D-Day beaches and sights.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">À bientot!</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sherry</span></span></span>Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-78814068413521296682014-07-07T13:48:00.000-07:002014-07-07T13:48:49.249-07:00We bid adieu to ParisOur last day in Paris with Dad and Lea was upon us and with it finally came the rain. They say that summer truly starts in Seattle on July 5th, but it seems that they didn't get the memo in Paris. What happened to my glorious sunshine? <br />
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The weather did limit us somewhat on our options as using the "Day 2" of our "hop on, hop off" bus didn't sound like a lot of fun in the rain. Us girls in the group decided that a quick trip to Galeries Lafayette was just what the doctor ordered and to make things easy on all of us, we decided to splurge on a taxi from the apartment to avoid the dampness and long walk/stairs of the Metro.<br />
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I found a nifty little "app" for my iPhone for G7 taxi service and using the app only, I ordered a taxi large enough to accommodate us 5 adults. At promptly the designated pick-up time, it arrived downstairs. Voila! Now how easy was that? I was happy that I did not have to provide address information in my poor French, so it was a win-win for everyone.<br />
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Dad wasn't too excited about the prospect of shopping, but we promised he would enjoy the food halls, the beautiful stained glass dome and perhaps even appreciate the view of the city from the observation deck. I think he actually took in the "view" from the stairwell. What's that saying, "you can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make them drink?" Well, we tried.<br />
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As you would expect on an inclement weather day in Paris, Galeries Lafayette was jam-packed full of us tourists perusing all the delicious things in the food halls. Although I tried to tempt Dad with this and that, he mostly just looked bored and ready to flee. But we pressed on, despite his lack of enthusiasm, managing to fill a bag with some assorted goodies. I'm pretty sure we set some Guinness Book of World Records with our speedy turn through that store. It's practically unheard of that three grown women could get in and out of Galeries Lafayette in under an hour and spend less than 35 Euros. <br />
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With our mission accomplished (we promised not to dawdle), we hailed a cab outside the store and set off in the Paris traffic towards the apartment. We were about a mile away from the apartment when I remember hearing a loud, screeching noise and realizing that I was being flung across the middle of the van towards April and Sean who were seated facing me. It took me a minute to realize that we had just been in a car accident! <br />
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Sean and April were facing towards the rear and smartly were belted into their seats; Dad, Lea and I were not so smart. All I can say is that it's a good thing that this was a fairly "minor" accident. I am just so thankful that Sean and April were there in front of us to catch our fall and I'm pretty sure that Lea got pretty intimate with April's lady parts, but hey, thank goodness for those cushions!<br />
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Our cab driver was the innocent party in this collision. He was driving along as he should be in his own lane and some idiot decided it was a good idea to cut in front of this much larger vehicle (a Mercedes SUV), apparently not correctly calculating how little time he had in which to make such a move; the odd thing is that we were not in an intersection, so I have no idea why the idiot driver thought it a great idea to basically cross over into our lane of traffic.<br />
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We were all a little shook up over the whole thing and then we kind of got mad as we were all standing on the sidewalk (thankfully the rain had stopped) and just stood there while the two drivers almost got into a fist fight while yelling at each other over who was at fault. Not once did our cab driver ask any of us if we were OK. Stupidly, I paid the cab driver some money and we just started walking. I guess I was kind of feeling bad for the guy and didn't want to stiff him his money.<br />
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So off we went. Luckily, we sort of knew where we were, so it wasn't long before we started to recognize the outskirts of our neighborhood. We all decided that we had earned some adult beverages, so we found a nice bistro and sat for awhile and just let the tension of the afternoon fade away.<br />
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We spent the rest of the evening just puttering around the apartment and getting our stuff organized for our departure in the morning to Normandy. <br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">À bientot,</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sherry</span></span>Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-35239427778309880872014-07-06T11:14:00.000-07:002014-07-06T11:14:49.897-07:00The Oregonians Have Arrived in Paris!Although we hadn't yet encountered any rain in Paris, it was partly cloudy for the first two days we were there and apparently it took the impending arrival of the Oregonians for the sun to finally show up! Hello, Sun! Welcome to Paris!<br />
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My continued descent into the abyss of insomnia was enabling me to get almost a full-day of work in before we started our daily tourist activities, so with a day of work behind me and the sun out and shining, I waited in anticipation for the arrival of my Dad and Lea. They also were arriving from San Francisco on that big Airbus A380 jet. <br />
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Knowing they would take almost the same route as we did just two days before, for a first-time visitor to Paris, the trek into the city from CDG isn't really that glamorous. There's no views of the Eiffel Tower, nor much in the way of the beautiful architecture, but instead views provided by the graffiti artists that have so generously littered the city with their musings and other inner-city sights. As I had foreshadowed, my Dad's almost first words were "Paris sure isn't what I expected." Clearly, I had some work cut out for me, but to be honest, I've never been under any illusion that my Dad was a "Paris kind of guy." He's just not a city person, and I get that completely, which is why our stop in Paris would be brief.<br />
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We spent a few minutes chatting about their trip "over the pond" and after they both washed their faces and settled their belongings into their bedroom, we headed out to a nearby neighborhood bistro for a bite to eat. <br />
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After a meal, paired with a cold, frothy beer, it's amazing how much better you feel! I am not normally that much of a beer person, but I had a really delicious beer; it was a "Grimbergen", a light beer with just a hint of citrus and spice. I'm going to have to see if I can find this beer when I get home at Total Wine or Whole Foods. <br />
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We walked around the neighborhood for a bit before going back to the apartment. Dad and Lea took a short nap while April and I got some work done. It was a low-key night, which was perfect for everyone, particularly the weary travelers.<br />
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One of the things we love about the Bastille neighborhood is their twice-weekly market. It's one of the largest in Paris and we were really excited that we would still be in town for the market. The day was promising to be a warm and sunny one, so our plan was to hit the market first and do some shopping, then board a "hop on and hop off" bus for a quick tour of Paris' sights.<br />
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I could spend hours at this market, but I had to be mindful of perhaps our "less enthusiastic" market shoppers, so I tried to hurry my way through the crowds to procure some fruit, vegetables, herbs, cured meat, cheese, fresh pasta, and some olives. A feast we shall have!<br />
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Sean apparently was busy snapping photos while we shopped and he said to me later, "Bun, you always look so happy when you're buying food."<br />
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It's amazing how cheap things are at this market. I bought a very large bunch of fresh basil for 1 Euro. It was enough basil to fill probably 5 of the little boxes we buy for $2.99 each in our produce section. I love the selection of fruits and vegetables - it's always interesting to see the unfamiliar ones and wonder what they taste like or are used for (such as in types of cuisine). I was truly in my happy place!<br />
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We finished at the market and Sean and I ran the goods back to the apartment while April escorted Dad and Lea to the bus pickup location. Sitting on the open-air bus in 85 degree weather might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but as the afternoon dragged on and the traffic got more congested, the bus didn't travel very fast and the breezes the speed of its travel afforded were getting scarce. <br />
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Thankfully, we had the forethought to bring lots of water with us, so we all tried to stay hydrated. Despite the hot, humid weather, it was still nicer than viewing Paris in the rain. But, as Cole Porter wrote in his famous "I Love Paris" song, "I love Paris in the spring time, I love Paris in the fall, I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles, I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles."<br />
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After completing just two of the four total "loops" around Paris, it was time to depart the bus. It was just too hot. It was after 2:00 PM by this time and all of us were getting hungry and in need of a cold beverage. You could call us the "hangry" gang and I was afraid that Dad was going to drop dead from heatstroke. So off the bus we went and after wandering around the area for about 20 minutes (we were near St. Germain des Pres), we couldn't find a place for lunch that wasn't going to cost us an arm and a leg. That's what we get for getting off the bus in one of the more "glamorous" neighborhoods of Paris.<br />
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We decided the best solution was to head back to our neck of the woods where we knew of several great lunch places at reasonable prices. Unsure if it was a good idea for Dad and Lea to exert themselves walking through long Metro tunnels, we decided the best option was to hail a cab. So we found a cab, however, it could only seat 4 of us, so April was gracious enough to hop onto the Metro and planned to meet us in Bastille at our designated lunch spot. An air conditioned cab ride was just the ticket we needed. Unfortunately, our lunch spot didn't have such luxuries as A/C, but the cold beers helped!<br />
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Lunch accomplished, we wandered back to the apartment, where a couple of naps ensued and April and I did a little work. As we had a rather late lunch, dinner was a few snacks from the market enjoyed outside in our lovely garden.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;">À</span> bientot!</span><br />
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Sherry<br />
Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-81565469745400610542014-07-06T09:53:00.000-07:002014-07-06T09:53:37.529-07:00Paris - we meet again! After months of planning, it was finally time to embark on our month-long family adventure in France. For some reason, members of my family still entrust me with their vacation planning, this time subjecting a new member to our crazy adventures, so welcome Lea!. Hopefully after spending three weeks with me in a foreign country, we can still be friends!<br />
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This will be my Dad's first time to France and after all of the bragging I do about this great land, I'm hoping that my suggested itinerary from Paris to Normandy, through the Loire Valley, onto Provence and the French Riviera do not disappoint. <br />
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Sean, April and I were the first "parties" to arrive, leaving Seattle on June 29th. We all took advantage of our Alaska mileage plan and although we had to purchase miles to bolster our mileage balances, we were able to book roundtrip tickets to Paris in business class for slightly less than what we would have paid for a coach ticket. Money well spent! We were on a direct flight to Paris from San Francisco on the Airbus A380 and boy, that is one ginormous plane! They load this thing using three separate jetways, making short work of onboarding 500+ people.<br />
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Unfortunately for me, I caught a cold and was actually pretty sick the day before our flight and now, 7 days later, I'm still not completely myself and still suffering a bit with a cough and congestion. Mon dieu! Flying business class did help quite a bit (as did some adult beverages) and I was able to at least get 4-5 of hours sleep during our flight.<br />
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We arrived at our apartment in the Bastille (11th arrondissement) without any problems using a pre-paid car service, which was a first for us. We typically just take the metro and after booking the service for my Dad's arrival, discovered that it really wasn't that much more than buying a ticket on the RER/Metro from CDG and the thought of not schlepping our luggage through the metro after such a long flight was incentive enough and money well spent.<br />
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We rented our 2 bed/2 bath apartment with a terrace in Paris through <a href="http://www.vrbo.com/285079" target="_blank">VRBO</a> and it was lovely. It was probably one of the nicest apartments we've found to date in Paris with a large eat-in kitchen (which was well equipped) and a large living room, perfect for us 5 adults. The price for five nights was 1450 Euros. We stayed in this district last year and we really love the location. Our rental last year was only 3 blocks away from this one, so it felt a bit like "home" for us. <br />
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Since I was not feeling too great, we had a low-key night, spending some time wandering around the neighborhood and doing some shopping for some pantry essentials. We all called it an early night about 9:30 PM. Unfortunately, my congestion kept me awake and I finally gave up and got out of bed at 3:45 AM and just worked for a few hours until Sean and April woke up. Jet lag -- too bad there wasn't a pill for that! <br />
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On Tuesday, our one "free" day before Dad arrived was the last day of a special exhibit at the Marmottan Monet Museum featuring a collection of impressionist works from private collectors, never seen before by the public. The museum features a collection of over three hundred works by Claude Monet (with the largest collection of his works in the world), Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. It also has a collection of Napoleonic era art and furniture. It was the perfect sized museum, just enough to see before "art-saturation" sets in.<br />
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This work, "Soleil Levant" by Monet was really something. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but the luminosity in the canvas was just stunning. <br />
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Another favorite of mine was Monet's "Promenade pres d'Argenteuil. I can't imagine having artwork like this lining my own walls. It was amazing how many of these works were held by the same collector - boy that's a LOT of money!<br />
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What I especially enjoyed about the various exhibits were some of Monet's either unfinished or practice canvases. You could see his experimentation with different color palettes and techniques, particularly as he moved between impressionism and post-impressionism styles. There were several unfinished works demonstrating his various experimentations with the water lily themes. He truly was a master with his ability to create such movement and light. I wish I had felt better so I could have spent more time absorbing what I was seeing, but I'm afraid that I did more "drive by's" than I normally would for such important works, but in my defense, I was on a duo-drug cocktail at this point (thank you Madame pharmacist), so I just may need to revisit this place on a future trip.</div>
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After our visit to the museum, we found a nice little bistro called "Dino's" and enjoyed some truly marvelous pizza.</div>
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We made the mistake of allowing April to "show us the way" back to the Metro. You would think we have learned our lesson about April's navigating skills, particularly after she's<span style="font-family: inherit;"> had some Ros</span><span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">é, but I guess we are gluttons for punishment!</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">We did run across this interesting statue while we were "lost" finding the Metro. I wonder what they call it? Perhaps "Rusty Penis Guy?"</span></span><br />
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We made our way back to our neighborhood and since we had such a late lunch, decided to just pick up a few "snacks" for dinner. Although my drug-duo combination was helping to make me feel a little better, I was still unable to get a full night's sleep, this time sleeping "in" until 4:30 AM. I suppose the bright side to my insomnia is that I'm getting a lot of work caught up!<br />
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<span class="hps"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-no-proof: yes;">À</span> bientôt,</span><br />
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<span class="hps">Sherry</span>Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-52259485648916614052013-09-08T13:25:00.005-07:002013-09-08T13:25:58.090-07:00A Walking Tour of MontmartreOne of my goals for this trip to Paris is to spend time exploring new areas of Paris. One of the arrondissements that I haven't spent too much time in is Montmartre. It tends to be a little more touristy than I like, so that's probably one of the reasons why I haven't ventured too much in this district. <br />
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One of my travel apps had a nice walking tour of Montmartre, so we decided to explore it via this tour. The day was beautiful with nary a cloud in the sky and a balmy 92 degrees. I definitely earned my morning pain au chocolat that day as one of the things I did know about Montmartre was that it is very hilly. Walking up steep heels in 92 degrees isn't exactly my idea of fun, but I'm not going to complain. I was in Paris on a glorious, sunny day. What's not to love about that?</div>
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In the picture above, this is one of only two remaining iron and glass Art Nouveau canopies designed by famed architect Hector Guimard in 1900. Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district. <br />
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Since Montmartre was outside the city limits, free of Paris taxes and no doubt also due to the fact that the local nuns made wine, the hill quickly became a popular drinking area. The area developed into a center of free-wheeling and decadent entertainment at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. In the popular cabaret the Moulin Rouge, and at Le Chat Noir, artists, singers and performers regularly appeared. By the end of the 19th century, Montmartre become the principal artistic center of Paris. A restaurant opened near the old windmill near the top, the <i>Moulin de la Galette.</i><br />
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Many artists, including Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, worked in Montmartre and drew some of their inspiration from the area.<br />
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The view from the top of this hill was pretty spectacular.<br />
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Next up was the most charming street, with peek-a-boo views of Sacré Cœur and charming ivy-covered homes.<br />
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At the top of this hill, was a lovely reprieve from the heat. And yes, we did indulge ourselves with some delicious rosé!<br />
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Paris' only working vineyard, Clos de Montmartre is right around the corner from La Maison Rose. Long before <em>Lutèce</em> became Paris, the Montmartre area was planted with grapevines. The Romans had built a temple there dedicated to Bacchus, the god of wine. A Benedictine abbey was founded on the hill in the 12th Century which included a wine-press operated by the nuns. Although the abbey was destroyed during the French revolution, the vineyards stayed in operation. The Montmartre district became home to church-owned vineyards that produced wines for the local cabarets and drinking establishments. </div>
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During the 18th and 19th Centuries, wines from other areas began to increase in popularity: outbreaks of disease and the increasing urbanization of Paris meant that gradually the vineyards in and around Paris all but disappeared. Fortunately in the early ‘30s a group of local artists asked the government to grant them a patch of land between rue des Saules and rue St-Vincent to recreate the Montmartre vineyards. The government approved the plan, and <em>Clos Montmartre</em> was renewed in 1933, with the first harvest as early as 1934. Because the artists’ knowledge of wine growing was quite limited, they organized the first grape harvest the year immediately after planting, unaware that grapes need four years before they can be pressed for wine.</div>
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The grape-picking ceremony has been repeated every October since, except during World War II. Owned by the Mairie de Paris, the Clos Montmartre - the last active vineyard inside the Paris city limits covers 1,556 square meters and contains 1,900 vines of 28 different grape varieties including Gamay and Pinot Noir. <br />
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Fortified after our wine and beer stop, we had one last LONG hill to climb taking us up to the top of the hill to Sacré Cœur. <br />
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I swear they sell every tourist t<span class="st">chotchke along the streets of Montmarte. Boxers with Eiffel Tower? Check. T-shirt with "Paris" bedazzled all over it? Check. Poorly executed "painted" canvas of every single Paris monument? Check check. My disdain for this obvious attempt to capture every tourist dollar is why I visited this area on my very first visit to Paris and haven't been back since. </span><br />
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<span class="st">The Church of St. Pierre, is one of the oldest in Paris and even contains some original Roman columns.</span><br />
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I do love the architecture of Sacré Cœur. The Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris, commonly known as Sacré-Cœur Basilica is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Construction began in 1875 and was finished in 1914.</div>
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The views of Paris from the front of the church are amazing.<br />
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Our stomachs were now begging for lunch as it was almost 2:00 PM, so we decided to wandered a bit outside the district to find a nice bistro for lunch, well away from the throngs of tourists looking to purchase thongs with "Paris" bedazzled on the front. <br />
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You can view my pictures taken during our walking tour of Montmartre <a href="https://shertology.shutterfly.com/pictures/1439" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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A bientôt!Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-46522236966568034482013-09-05T01:17:00.000-07:002013-09-05T01:17:33.066-07:00A Visit to Claude Monet's GivernyTaking advantage of the fantastic weather and beautiful sunshine, we ventured out to the village of Giverny, to tour the lovely gardens and home of Claude Monet. There are two parts in Monet's garden: a flower garden called Clos Normand in front of the house and a Japanese inspired water garden on the other side of the road.<br />
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The gardens are breathtaking, and it's easy to see how this tranquil setting inspired Monet to paint some his great works. I went a little nuts with the camera, taking over 200 pictures and already plotting which ones I want to have printed on canvas and hung in my home. </div>
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And, I might even attempt to do some painting as well! I can only imagine how this garden looks in Spring! It was stunning.</div>
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Claude Monet bought the house famous for its pink brick façade in 1890 and lived there until he died in 1926. He and many members of his family are interred in the village cemetery. After Claude Monet's death in 1926, his son Michel inherited the house and garden of Giverny. He did not live there and it was Monet's step-daughter Blanche who took care of the property. <br />
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Unfortunately after the Second World War the house and garden were neglected. In 1966 Michel Monet made the Academie des Beaux-Arts his heir. It took more than 10 years to restore the home and gardens to its former glory. Not much was left. The greenhouse panes and the windows in the house were reduced to shards after the bombings of World War II. Floors and ceiling beams had rotted away, a staircase had collapsed. Three trees were even growing in the big studio. The pond had to be dug again, and the garden replanted with the same species of plants that Monet had carefully cultivated. <br />
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I thought it interesting that most of the monetary donations for the restoration project came from the US.<br />
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It was a glorious way to spend an afternoon and I highly recommend this day trip from Paris, just a short 40 minute journey from St. Lazare train station. Now I want to visit in the Spring - imagine how stunning all the tulips would be!<br />
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You can view the rest of my photos from Giverny <a href="https://shertology.shutterfly.com/pictures/1386" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">À</span> bientôt!Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-40276122812165477552013-09-01T13:44:00.000-07:002013-09-01T13:44:00.163-07:00Bidding adieu to Amsterdam and summerOur last day of August brought a gentle reminder that the warm days of summer were coming to a close as we awoke to dark gray skies and scattered showers. We had a 9:00 AM reservation at the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, so we rallied across town on this brisk morning to engross ourselves in the art of one of the Dutch masters, Vincent Van Gogh.<br />
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Vincent was an interesting guy. Through his letters to friends and family (his brother Theo), we learn more about his journey as an artist. Mostly self-taught, he received only about 8 months of actual "art" training. The museum was full of interesting work of arts from sketches he created as the foundation of some of his great masterpieces, to his self-imposed drawing regimen sketching and drawing the works of other artists and anatomy drawings from medical books.<br />
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I loved his excitement of coming back from the South of France and discovering "cobalt" as a new paint color to add to his palette of dark, somber colors that were typical of his earlier works. It was after coming back from France that his "style" lightened up and he found his niche as a post-impressionist painter.<br />
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The museum was fairly small, so it was just the perfect amount of art immersion for me as I tend to get overly saturated after more than 2-3 hours. It's sad to think that during his lifetime (he supposedly killed himself at age 37, but the BBC recently filmed a documentary that suggests he was murdered) he was just another struggling artist and it wasn't until many years after his death that his greatness was revered.<br />
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When we left the museum, it looked like the weather might clear up, so we decided to visit a tourist office to find out what we could do outside of the city for the afternoon. It was our last day in Holland and we wanted to experience something other than the "café culture". <br />
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Armed with a plan, we hopped on a regional bus and 45 minutes later, we were here.<br />
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Now this was more like it! This is more what I had envisioned Holland to be like. Actually, we all were wondering why it seemed that the term "Holland" was interchangeable with "Netherlands" and after doing some research, I learned that Holland is actually the name of a western province of the Netherlands and the Dutch actually get a little perturbed with people who refer to the entire country as "Holland." So that explains my confusion.<br />
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Zaanse Schans is a small village on the banks of the Zaan river, complete with cute Dutch houses and real working windmills. In the 17th and 18th century there were thousands of windmills along the dykes; sawmills, dye mills, oil mills and spice mills that powered the Dutch economy until the industrial revolution changed this industry forever.<br />
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The mills are open and you can climb up the stairs and see the amazing wooden gears at work grinding paint pigments and spices. The smell coming from the spice mill was heavenly.</div>
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The weather was pretty gray and we felt a few sprinkles when we first arrived, but while we were inside a restaurant for lunch, the weather cleared up and we actually had a pretty nice afternoon, although it was VERY windy (hence my lovely hairdo!).<br />
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The view from the top of the windmill was spectacular and it's amazing just how fast the spokes of the windmill whip around with that brisk wind.<br />
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Across the river were idyllic waterfront cottages that were just adorable.<br />
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We had fun just wandering through the little village, checking out shops and making a few souvenir purchases for our friends and family. We even did some shoe shopping!<br />
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It was a delightful way to spend the afternoon and we all really enjoyed escaping the city of Amsterdam. I think our best meal the entire time we were in the Netherlands was our lunch spent at the windmill village. We had a conversation with our waitress about our dilemma of finding a decent place to eat in Amsterdam and she suggested that go into the suburbs to find something good. It was good advice as we found a really lovely Italian place in the Jordaan suburb of Amsterdam that was pretty delicious (and quite affordable). <br />
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And with that, we bid adieu to Amsterdam as our train to Paris was departing early the next morning. <br />
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So my reflections of Amsterdam are that it's one of those places that I'm glad I visited, but I can put a checkmark next to that destination and say I've been there, but don't ever need to visit again. I'm glad that we didn't arrange our itinerary to schedule more time here as I think 2-1/2 days was the perfect amount of time to visit their main attractions and that's exactly what we did. </div>
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You can view more pictures of our second day in Amsterdam <a href="https://shertology.shutterfly.com/pictures/1299" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-91714147001681004572013-08-31T10:09:00.000-07:002013-08-31T10:09:00.218-07:00Amsterdam: "It's just like Berkeley in the 60's"Another year has gone by and we're on our way to Europe again. This year we're visiting Amsterdam and Paris. We used some Alaska Air miles for our tickets and got really lucky to score business class seats on the trip over, however they only had coach seats available for the trip home. Given how delightful our nonstop flight in Delta's business elite section was on our way to Amsterdam, I'm already dreading the horrible flight home in coach that has us changing planes in Detroit, MI. Oh how I envy people who get to travel in business class all the time on these long haul flights to Europe and beyond. Where do I sign up for that same treatment?<br />
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Thanks to those awesome lie-flat seats on the flight (and the seemingly never-empty wine glass), we all managed to get some sleep on the way across the Atlantic, which helped to smooth out the rough edges of our first day in Amsterdam.<br />
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Our flight arrived at 1:00 PM and by the time we took the train from the airport to Centraal Station, checked into our hotel and took showers, it was almost 4:00 PM. We purposely didn't plan any activities for our first night since we knew we'd all be tired. So we decided the best strategy was to just wander around, have a beer and enjoy the atmosphere. <br />
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Although I certainly was aware of the "weed" culture here, I wasn't prepared for just HOW prevalent the weed smoking was. It's everywhere! All the cafes advertise "drink and smoke rooms" and every other shop on the street is selling some kind of weed-related edible, or accessory in which to smoke/roll your weed. I have personally never smoked weed and I'm wondering if just spending a couple of hours walking around central Amsterdam gives you a contact high? So although I didn't partake in the local café culture in that manner, I did enjoy a couple of nice local "Holland" beers. One of which was fruity and served over ice. Pretty darned refreshing!<br />
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The weather was lovely; about 74 degrees and sunny, so it was just nice to walk around and soak in the sights (and there was plenty to look at). We had a bit of trouble finding what looked like a decent place to have dinner. There seems to be plenty of fast food and take-away joints, or what April likes to refer to as "Shwarma on a Stick"; but it seemed like people were only drinking (and smoking weed) and NOT eating an actual "meal." <br />
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So we sat at a café and had another beer while we pondered where our dinner meal was going to come from. I'm pretty proud of myself that while sitting at said café I was able to hack myself into a nearby WiFi signal; I took a chance at the password for "Greenhouse" and typed in "greenhouse" and voila! I was connected. So now perhaps I shall add "computer hacking" to my list of skills. After some Internet research, we found a nearby restaurant and wandered over for dinner. It was just OK; nothing to rave about, although I would have to rave about the delicious hericot verts wrapped in bacon that accompanied my steak. T<span class="hps">rès</span> délicieux! <br />
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It wasn't long after we returned to the hotel that our jet lag seemed to kick in with an earnest; April was the first one knocked out, followed by Sean. I managed to catch up on work email and get a couple of hours of work done before I too had to surrender to the sandman. April was able to sleep the entire night, whereas Sean and I both were wide awake around 3:00 - 4:30 AM, but finally fell back to sleep until 7:30, so not entirely a successful night of sleep.<br />
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After a light breakfast in the hotel, we headed over to the museum district for our 11:00 AM "highlights tour" of the Rijksmuseum, the national museum of Amsterdam. While on the city tram, we were chatting with an older couple from San Jose. I had to chuckle when discussing the "café culture" prevalent in Amsterdam his wife said "Amsterdam is just like Berkeley in the 60's!" <br />
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We managed to get to the museum with plenty of spare time for a much-needed cappuccino.<br />
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The museum was recently re-opened after a 10-year renovation that cost more than 375,000 Euros. The museum has on display more than 8,000 objects of art and history, from their total collection of 1 million objects from the years 1200–2000, among which are some masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer.<br />
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This entry hall had previously been whitewashed over and painstakingly restored during the recent renovation. The murals on the walls are actually painted on canvas and had been removed before the walls were covered over with paint.<br />
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The hall is beautiful and its difficult to understand why anybody thought it would look better just painted over with white paint. Who does that? The museum, constructed in 1885 was the work of architect Pierre Cuypers, who also designed more than 80 churches and it's easy to see the similarity to some churches in its gothic and renaissance elements. <br />
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In the "Gallery of Honor" are some of the Dutch masters' most famous works of art, including Rembrandt's "The Night Watch".<br />
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After a LOT of religious art seen last year in Italy, it was a bit refreshing to see art depicting the simple Dutch life as seen in these paintings. <br />
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This works, entitled "The Feast of St. Nicholas" by Jan Steen was pretty funny as it depicts the whole theory of the "naughty and nice" list at Christmastime. The girl received a basket of toys, while the little boy received only a switch!<br />
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This one was one of my favorites entitled "Drunken Couple." We decided we might want to commission a work called "Drunken Aunt" for April.<br />
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The "modern art" section featured this biplane designed by Dutch aeronautical engineer Frits Koolhoven in 1917. An FK 23 Bantam, the biplane is the oldest airplane in the Netherlands to have been preserved in its original state.<br />
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After thoroughly suturing ourselves with art and history, it was time for a cold beverage and some lunch. We wandered around near the museum district and settled at a nice Irish pub for some grub (and beer).<br />
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Later that afternoon, we had tickets to tour to the Anne Frank house. It was a somber visit. Having read her diary during my young school days (perhaps Junior High?), it was a familiar story (and such a sad, sad story). In an interview her father did before he died (at age 93), he said something along the lines that as parents, we think we really "know" our children, but we're wrong. We don't really know what they're thinking and just how deeply they "feel." Reading Anne's diary was a shocking revelation for him to realize that he didn't really know his daughter as well as he thought. <br />
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Next on our agenda for the day was a lovely canal cruise, which my feet really appreciated as I think we had probably walked more than 6 or 7 miles already (over lots of uneven pavement and cobblestones). And the weather couldn't have been nicer.<br />
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And that's pretty much a wrap for our first full day in Amsterdam. You can view all of my pictures from Amsterdam Day 1 <a href="https://shertology.shutterfly.com/pictures/1257" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-87067349868474102762012-10-13T02:04:00.001-07:002012-10-13T02:05:57.768-07:00Our Idyllic Escape from Tourists in Toffia, ItalyWhile planning our activities while in Rome, April and I discussed taking some cooking lessons so we could perfect our Italian cooking skills. April researched the many options available and instead of staying right in Rome, we found an option about 45 minutes outside of Rome in Toffia with <a href="http://www.conviviorome.com/Convivio_Rome/Home.html" target="_blank">Convivio Rome</a>. Our daylong adventure in Toffia is probably one of my favorite things we did/experience on our entire trip. To quote Liz Lemon, "I want to go there."<br />
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Toffia is a small hilltop village with a current population of about 350 people, although their population swells closer to 900 people during the warmer months as many Romans like to keep summer homes there. Located in the ancient Sabina region, the area is an agricultural-rich area with primarily olive oil and wine production.<br />
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April and I were joined by two more cooking "guests" who were a mother and daughter from Canada, so it was a nice small group. Convivio Rome is ran by a sweet couple, Guido (8th generation Roman) and Sally (Australian who fell in love with Guido while visiting Rome) who live in Toffia.<br />
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We were all picked up at the Fara Sabina train station, about 45 minutes outside of Rome, and driven by a cute Italian boy to Toffia, about 20 minutes away. <br />
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Sally met us at the entrance to the city and as we walked towards their home, gave us a bit of a tour along the way.<br />
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During our walk into the center of the village, one of the local "wine growers" passed us several times with his bounty of just-picked grapes.<br />
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All of the wine produced by the villagers is for "local-use" only, meaning that all of the residents basically bring their bottles and containers to be filled up after the harvest. They do a similar thing with the olive oil production with residents basically acquiring their year-long needs shortly after the harvest and production. I think that they actually pay for the wine and olive oil, but the amount is quite minimal.<br />
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Toffia features a community garden and we stopped there to pick some fresh herbs to use during our cooking lesson.<br />
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We arrive at Sally and Guido's home and after a brief introduction to Guido, our lesson begins. I think one of the reasons why I enjoyed our day so much here is that Sally and Guido were instantly like old friends. And the food we prepared was amazing!<br />
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I loved that we were kind of thrown back into an era where you actually knew all of the people that produced your food; they personally know (and are friends with) the butcher, the guy who grows the vegetables, the cheesemaker, the olive maker and the wine maker. I suspect they also acquired the flour from someone they know who mills it. <br />
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First up, we learn to make tagliatelle pasta (your basic egg noodle). April and I have made pasta many times, but this recipe varies slightly in that the ratio of eggs was a bit higher, and instead of using just all-purpose flour, it was a mixture of 50% all-purpose flour (European 00 flour) and 50% semolina flour.<br />
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This was the first time we had learned to make pasta entirely by hand, meaning that we didn't use a sheet roller to create the thin pasta sheets. I'm pretty sure my french rolling pin isn't quite long enough for this method, so I'm going to need some supplies when I get home!</div>
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After the pasta was completed, it was time to start the Ragu (a basic meat sauce). This is a basic staple sauce in most Italian kitchens and Guido told us that on Sundays, you can smell various wafts of Ragu from most kitchens in the village.<br />
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The sauce begins with a basic mire poix of celery, onions, carrots, then flavored with pieces of pork cheek (kind of like pancetta, but the cut of pork comes from the pig cheek) and fresh bay leaf. There was also a generous amount of olive oil. After this mixture was cooked down for a few minutes, we added some ground beef and wine.<br />
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Finally, the Italian version of tomato sauce, as well as a can of "San Marzano" tomatoes were added to the mixture and set aside to simmer while we prepared the rest of today's dishes.<br />
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Next up was the dessert, Ricotta cake. I loved how everything we did was made entirely by hand; no blenders, food processors, or mixers. Even the pastry dough for the cake was done on the board by hand.<br />
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I though it was an ingenious idea to keep the parchment on the bottom of the pastry to line the dish with. <br />
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Spread on the bottom was a locally-made (naturally!) cherry preserve that was more similar to a currant (the cherries are tart) then our sweet bing cherries. The ricotta filling was simply sheep's milk ricotta (apparently sheep's milk is sweeter than cow's), sugar, eggs, chopped chocolate (which was also made locally) and some fresh lemon zest.<br />
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And voila! In a matter of a few minutes, it's ready to bake and you have a very simple, but delicious dessert.</div>
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Finally, it's time to create the meat course: Veal Saltimbocca. It's amazing how something so simple to make can be so delicious. I definitely think it's the olive oil!<br />
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Paper-thin slices of veal are layered with a slice of prosciutto and skewered together with a fresh sage leaf. That's it! No salt, no pepper. It's then quickly sauteed (fairly high heat) with some olive oil (but of course!). <br />
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Paired with a simple arugula salad and an orange reduction sauce (which we also made), it was very delicious. Isn't your stomach rumbling just reading about these dishes? Guido told us a funny story about how he tried out his idea of the "orange sauce" to pair with the Saltimbocca on his Roman friends. Their basic response when tasting his version was "it's not like Nona makes." Apparently you can't teach a dog new tricks and they only want to eat something that's exactly what they're used to, and in this case, whatever their beloved grandmother's made. Hopefully my grandchildren will feel that way about my cooking!</div>
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It was now time to eat, so we all retired to their "taverna" which is kind of "cave-like" and very cool. What a great place to entertain! Sally told us that they're often asked by fellow villagers if they can host a party in their taverna! It's the perfect spot for a party.</div>
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From the flat area where the dining table is located, looking across the room is the entrance to their cellar, also a nice place to sit and enjoy a glass of wine.<br />
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Our meal, complete with a generous amount of local wine was one of the highlights of my trip to Italy. The day was perfect! It was warm and sunny, the class was fun and engaging and I am completely in love with Toffia. Remember the movie "Under the Tuscan sun" where Diane Lane's character is on vacation in Tuscany and she falls in love with the village and buys a villa there? I can see that happening! Seriously, this place is fantastic! But obviously, not very realistic for me, but one can dream!</div>
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It's now getting to be late afternoon and sadly it's time for us to go. Sally and our cute Italian driver accompany us to another nearby village of Farfa for a quick tour before we drive back to the train station. Along the way, we had some amazing views of Toffia.</div>
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The Farfa Abbey is one of the most famous abbeys in Europe. Farfa Abbey played an important role in the history of the Sabina area, having controlled, during it's "golden age", nearly all the nearby towns and villages. The monks of Farfa owned 683 churches or convents; two towns, Civitavecchia and Alatri; 132 castles; 16 strongholds; 7 seaports; 8 salt mines; 14 villages; 82 mills; and 315 hamlets. They even had their own army and navy. It's hard to imagine this fairly small abbey run by monks to have risen to that level of power.</div>
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As one of the most powerful Benedictine monasteries in Europe, it played a major role in the power struggles between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire, opposing the power of the Papacy for centuries. With the crisis in the Benedictine order and the struggle for the Papacy in the twelfth century, the Abbey began to decline and eventually fell under the control of the Papal States. From here on it's history follows that of the Vatican and the struggles between powerful Roman families for it's control. In 1477 AD the Orsini family asserted it's growing power in the Sabina by expelling all the monks of Farfa and replacing them with Teutonic monks. In the following centuries the Abbey passed under the control of various Roman nobles such as the Barberini and the Farnese but it never really reacquired the importance and independence it once had. Finally, in 1841 AD its powers were definitively transferred to the diocese of the Sabina.</div>
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Farfa also became a focal point for trade with an important weekly market. After the reconstruction of the monastery by the Orsinis during the Renaissance, new shops were built around the monastery to accommodate the merchants, giving birth to a twice yearly fair lasting 15 days. These shops and the urban structure of which they are part can still be seen today and the street names reflect the original uses of each street, for example "via di droghe e cere" (street of medicines and waxes), "via di panni e sete" (street of cloths and silks) and so on. You can still see the characteristic stone slabs at the entrance to each shop which were used as counters by the merchants. The signage in the village is really lovely too; of course I loved the sign outside the bakery.</div>
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While we were visiting the church, a wedding was start about ready to start. We've actually seen quite a few brides during our travels in Italy.</div>
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It was an idyllic day. In addition to their one-day classes, Convivio offers 3 and 5-day courses, combined with accommodations in Toffia, either in a shared environment (room of local villager) or sometimes they rent out entire dwellings for the class participants. I'm pretty sure one of these options (3 or 5 days) will be worked into the planning process for a future trip to Italy. <br />
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Thank you Sally and Guido for such a fantastic day!<br />
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Ciao!Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-71471577025414379392012-10-11T03:48:00.002-07:002012-10-11T03:48:26.192-07:00Walking in the Footsteps of the Ancient Romans, But With Better Footwear!I should have brought a pedometer with me. April and I are logging some serious miles in our exploration of Rome. I've been SO happy with my Ecco sandals I bought for the trip. They're not too "granola" looking and have been so comfortable, even walking miles a day over cobblestones. I haven't suffered even a single blister or sore foot on our trip! <br />
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Even though it's now almost mid-October, the city is still crammed full of tourists, which has been somewhat of a frustration for us. But it's unrealistic for me to expect that we're going to have Rome (and it's beautiful monuments, churches and statues) all to ourselves. But it would be nice to have a few pictures WITHOUT a bunch of people standing around them.<br />
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So I thought I'd share with you some of the highlights. I'll be writing separate posts about some of the things we've done which I feel deserve their own post, such as our visit to The Borghese Gallery, St. Paul's, our cooking experience in Toffia and the Colosseum. <br />
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The Trevi Fountain is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world. The fountain at the junction of three roads that marks the terminal point<sup> </sup>of the "modern" Acqua Vergine, and the revived Aqua Virgo, one of the ancient aqueducts that supplied water to ancient Rome. <br />
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In 19 BC, supposedly with the help of a virgin, Roman technicians located a source of pure water some 13 km from the city. (This scene is presented on the present fountain's façade.) However, the eventual indirect route of the aqueduct made its length some 22 km. This <i>Aqua Virgo</i> led the water into the Baths of Agrippa. It served Rome for more than four hundred years. The <i>coup de grâce</i> for the urban life of late classical Rome came when the Goth besiegers in 537/38 broke the aqueducts. Medieval Romans were reduced to drawing water from polluted wells and the Tiber River, which was also used as a sewer. <br />
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The Roman custom of building a handsome fountain at the endpoint of an aqueduct that brought water to Rome was revived in the 15th century, with the Renaissance. In 1453, Pope Nicholas V finished mending the Acqua Vergine aqueduct and built a simple basin to herald the water's arrival. <br />
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In 1629 Pope Urban VIII, finding the earlier fountain insufficiently dramatic, asked Gian Lorenzo Bernini to sketch possible renovations, but when the Pope died, the project was abandoned. Though Bernini's project was never constructed, there are many Bernini touches in the fountain as it exists today, which was completed in 1762. <br />
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I found this panorama picture on Wikipedia; we went to the fountain twice (day and night) and the amount of tourists around the fountain (and general area) were 3 times as many depicted in the photo below. When I was attempting to get a photo of the fountain without a bunch of heads in front (you have to "shoot high"), I was actually pushed aside from my perch on a ledge by a very rude tourist who thought that SHE deserved my spot in order to take HER photo. The nerve of some people!<br />
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Nearby the Trevi Fountain, in the Piazza di Spagna are the famous "Spanish Steps". To be honest, I was rather underwhelmed. I just don't really understand the fascination with a fairly plain staircase going from a fairly plain square up to a church, but that's perhaps just me? Naturally, there were 400,000 tourists present, so we didn't even bother walking up the steps. According to Wikipedia, the staircase contains 138 steps and is the widest staircase in Europe.<br />
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Trajan's Column is a Roman triumphal column that commemorates Roman emperor Trajan's victory in the Dacian Wars. <br />
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Completed in AD 113, the freestanding column is most famous for its spiral bas relief, which artistically describes the epic wars between the Romans and Dacians (101–102 and 105–106). The structure is about 30 metres (98 ft) in height, 35 metres (125 ft) including its large pedestal. The shaft is made from a series of 20 colossal Carrara marble drums, each weighing about 32 tons, with a diameter of 3.7 metres (11 ft). The 190-metre (625 ft) frieze winds around the shaft 23 times.<br />
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Inside the shaft, a spiral staircase of 185 stairs provides access to a viewing platform at the top. I don't think the platform is currently accessible to the public, although I'm not sure I would want to climb that many stairs in that narrow of an area.<br />
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Ancient coins indicate preliminary plans to top the column with a statue of a bird, probably an eagle,<sup> </sup>but after construction, a statue of Trajan was put in place; this statue disappeared in the Middle Ages. In 1587, the top was crowned by Pope Sixtus V with a bronze figure of St. Peter, which remains to this day.<br />
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The National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II is not very affectionately referred to as the "wedding cake" building by locals. A tribute to Victor Emmanuel II, the first King of a united Italy, the monument was completed in 1935.<br />
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The monument was controversial since its construction destroyed a large area of the Capitoline Hill with a Medieval neighbourhood for its sake. The monument itself is often regarded as pompous and too large. Even our Rome landlords referred to the building as "the wedding cake".<br />
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The monument is built of white marble and features stairways, Corinthian columns, fountains, an equestrian sculpture of Victor Emmanuel and two statues of the goddess Victoria riding on a chariot. <br />
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Personally, I thought the building was beautiful and offered many spectacular views of Rome, particularly from the viewing platform on the top.<br />
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The monument also holds the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with an eternal flame, built under the statue of Italy after World War I. The body of the unknown soldier was chosen in 1921 from among 11 unknown remains by Maria Bergamas, a woman from Gradisca d'Isonzo whose only child was killed during World War I. Her son's body was never recovered. The selected unknown was transferred from Aquileia, where the ceremony with Bergamas had taken place to Rome and buried in a state funeral on 4 November 1921.<br />
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We just happened to be there during the changing of the guard.<br />
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As you can see by the ominous clouds in my pictures, a sudden rainstorm tried to soak us while we were admiring the views. Thankfully, we were able to duck into a nearby church to escape the deluge of rain.<br />
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<span class="plus1">Built on the foundations of the ancient Temple of Juno, the church known as Santa Maria in Aracoeli (St. Mary of the altar in heaven) is the designated church of the Italian Senate and the Roman people. Santa Maria in Aracoeli has a long history. The foundation of this church may have been laid as early as the 6th century. However, the church was taken over by the papacy in the 9th century and was given to the Benedictines. It was then passed on to the Franciscans in the 13th century, who added Romanesque and Gothic touches to the church. By the Middle Ages, Santa Maria in Aracoeli was at the center of both religious and civic life in Rome.</span><br />
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<span class="plus1">It was the first church I've seen with crystal chandelliers.</span><br />
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<span class="plus1">After spending a few minutes inside the church, thankfully the rain stopped. I might have said something inside the church to the effect of "please, God, make the rain go away". Well, my prayers were answered and we were once again amidst blue skies. We then rode an elevator to the viewing platform to some more spectacular views of Rome.</span><br />
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The views were pretty amazing. I love the diversity of Rome. Ruins, mixed with Renaissance-era buildings, as well as modern structures (which kind of seem out of place?). All of this history! The sad part is that the difficult economy is making it difficult for Italy as a State, to continue preserve some of these ancient wonders. Our new friend Guido (our Roman chef in Toffia -- this will be a separate blog post) told us that it is anticipated that the ruins of Pompeii will no longer exist in 100 years as it is literally crumbling away and Italy just doesn't have the resources to continue with the upkeep. <br />
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You would think that the millions of tourists who visit Italy each year are generating the necessary income, but apparently it's still just not enough. In the United States, we don't have 2,000 year-old monuments to maintain, but if we did, I certainly feel it's important to preserve for future generations, yet I don't want to be taxed any more heavily than I already am, so what's the answer? I'm sure that many countries in the world are facing this same issue. But I digress.<br />
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Not far from Piazza Navonna is the church of <span dir="auto">San Luigi dei Francesi, the national church in Rome for France.</span></div>
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<span dir="auto">The church has some fairly famous artwork (as per usual in Rome, right?). The church's most famous item are the cycle of paintings in the Contarelli Chapel, painted by the Caravaggio in 1599-1600 about the life of St. Matthew. </span></div>
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The Piazza della Minerva features another beautiful church, as well as an interesting statue as the base for an obelisk. <span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Santa Maria sopra Minerva</span> is one of the major churches of the Roman Catholic Order of Preachers, better known as the Dominicans. The church's name derives from the fact that the first Christian church structure on the site was built directly over the ruins or foundations of a temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis, which had been erroneously ascribed to the Greco-Roman goddess Minerva. <br />
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Saint Catherine of Siena (one of the two Patron Saints of Italy, along with St. Francis of Assisi) is buried here (except her head, which is in the Basilica of San Domenico in Siena).<br />
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That's an interesting story. The people of Siena wished to have St. Catherine's body. A story is told of a miracle whereby they were partially successful: Knowing that they could not smuggle her whole body out of Rome, they decided to take only her head which they placed in a bag. When stopped by the Roman guards, they prayed to St Catherine to help them, confident that she would rather have her body (or at least part thereof) in Siena. When they opened the bag to show the guards, it appeared no longer to hold her head but to be full of rose petals. Once they got back to Siena they reopened the bag and her head was visible once more. Due to this story, St Catherine is often seen holding a rose. The head and a thumb were entombed in the Basilica of San Domenico, where they remain today.<br />
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I loved the brightness of the colors in the ceiling; such a nice shock of color. Among the artwork in th church is the statue, "Chris the Redeemer" by Michelangelo, completed in 1521.<br />
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In front of the church is a statue designed by Bernini of an elephant as the supporting base for the Egyptian obelisk found in the Dominicans' garden. It is the shortest of the eleven Egyptian obelisks in Rome and is said to have been one of two obelisks moved from Sais, where they were built during the 589 BC-570 BC reign of the pharaoh Apries, from the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt. The two obelisks were brought to Rome by Diocletian, during his reign as emperor from 284 to 305, for placement at the Temple of Isis which stood nearby.<br />
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Since this blog post is now very long, I'll end it now and start a new blog post to continue talking about some of the other sights we've visited. I'll cover Piazza Navona, Trastevere and the Pantheon in my next post.</div>
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You can view my pictures (they will include pictures from upcoming blog) of <a href="http://shertology.shutterfly.com/pictures/1147" target="_blank">Rome Sights on Shutterfly</a>.</div>
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Ciao!</div>
Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2372428886549368414.post-32846425563884618262012-10-07T03:35:00.001-07:002012-10-07T03:35:18.410-07:00Our Visit to the Vatican Museum - Can You Say "Moooo?"Having read about the crowds at the Vatican Museum, we had purchased our tickets in advance and reserved a 1:00 PM entrance time. Apparently, 4 million other people did the same thing! Although the line to enter (without a reservation) was almost non-existent, every single room of the museum was filled almost to capacity. It was so crowded, you could only be herded through like cows, barely taking a moment to snap a picture. Forget about reading the placards about the art or statues you see. A good percentage of the crowds inside were comprised of tour groups. Large groups with very pushy leaders, often carrying a flag or some other annoying distinguishing beacon for their worshipers to follow. Did I mention that these people were pushy? We were actually pushed aside when admiring some piece of art or statue, or what have you, so that they could place themselves front and center and then address their followers. This really pissed me off.<br />
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I try to be a considerate tourist. This isn't my home, often these are not my customs, but I try my best to blend in, not stand out, and mostly, I try very hard to be nice to people. I wish the other 3.9 million people visiting the Vatican that day felt the same. Seriously people - have some respect and consideration!<br />
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The Vatican Museums display works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and most important masterpieces of Renaissance art in the world. Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century. The Vatican Museums broke attendance records in 2011 with just over 5 million people. I'm pretty sure 2012 will also break records, if this Monday afternoon in October was any indication.<br />
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While I'm bitching, I have to mention that it's become a regular practice for almost all of the museums we visit to not offer any type of map. You must purchase a book on the museum in order to understand WHAT you're looking at, or which room you're in. It's very frustrating for me and my greatest regret about this particular scheduled visit is that I should have spent the money on a private tour. There are several companies/individuals whereby you can pay for a tour in which your tour has access to the museum an hour before it is open to the general public. Imagine viewing the Sistine Chapel with only a dozen people inside instead of 1,000? But we didn't want to spend the money and felt it wasn't a good use of our budget. Boy were we wrong. So, I guess that's another trip!<br />
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At the beginning of the tour, there was a lovely octagonal courtyard filled with many beautiful statues. It was too crowded for me to get a shot of it, so I had to rely on Google for this image:<br />
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Some of the rooms we passed (or were herded through) only offered a glimpse of the works inside as they were roped off from the public. This room housed a large collection of animal statuary.<br />
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The Round Room is based on the Pantheon in Rome and contains very large statues from ancient Rome. </div>
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In the center of the room is Emperor Nero's bathtub.</div>
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The floor of the Round Room is adorned with intricate mosaics from Otricoli Baths (Umbria) which date back to the 3rd century. Each mosaic depicts scenes of battle between Greeks and centaurs, mythological sea beasts, tritons and nereids, which together evoke a ‘water theme’. Each tile was lifted and transferred to the Vatican individually.</div>
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This 2nd century gilded bronze statue of Hercules was discovered in 1864 in the area of the Theatre of Pompei.<br />
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Next, we visit the Room of the Greek Cross, which contains the tombs of Helena the Empress as well as her daughter Constantina. It also features another stunning mosaic floor.</div>
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I'm not sure what this part of the museum is called, but the artwork and detail on the ceiling was quite beautiful.<br />
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The Gallery of Tapestries features Flemish tapestries, created from 1523 - 1534 in Brussels by Pieter van Aelst’s School from drawings by Raphael’s pupils. They feature gospel scenes from the life of Jesus and scenes from the life of Pope Urban VIII Barberini.</div>
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I'm not sure what the official name of this room was.</div>
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The Gallery of Maps was one of my favorite rooms on our visit. It features 40 panels that map the entirety of the Italian peninsula in large-scale frescoes, each depicting a region as well as a perspective view of its most prominent city and the most magnificent ceiling.<br />
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Next, we visit the Raphael Rooms. The Raphael Rooms are a series of previous Papal apartments which are now located in the Vatican Museums. They are named after the Renaissance painter Raphael Sanzio who painted three of the four rooms now visible to the public.<br /><br /> In 1508 Pope Julius II commissioned Italy's best painters to decorate a series of rooms upstairs in the Apostolic Palace. Julius refused to sleep in the Borgia Apartments where his predecessor Pope Alexander VI Borgia had slept. Initially Raphael was a minor name. Upon seeing his work, the Pope entrusted the entire project to Raphael and he brought in his own assistants to help him carry out the work.<br /><br /> The project took 16 years to complete (1508 to 1524) and spanned two Popes (Julius II and Leo X). Unfortunately, Raphael died in 1520 on his 37th birthday meaning the last room, the Hall of Constantine, had to be painted by his assistants Giulio Romano and Giovanni Francesco Penni.<br /><br /> Another commission started in 1508 was the Sistine Chapel ceiling which would hugely influence Raphael's style. Raphael and Michelangelo were rivals for work and disliked each other personally although Raphael came to respect Michelangelo's painting talent once the chapel was unveiled in 1512. There are four rooms in the Raphael Stanze and each room has four wall paintings and a ceiling.<br />
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This mural features the Coronation of Charlemagne, to whom, according to ancestry.com, we are related. See, I've always "felt French" and April found the proof, although in the early 1100's, we emigrated to England. Among our English ancestors are King Henry VIII (through both a reportedly "illegitimate" child and a legitimate child) as well as the Diana Spencer family. Our very wealthy English heirs were then granted land in America by King James in the now famous Jamestown settlement. Somehow, we went from being wealthy English Aristocrats and notable American landowners (had plantations and horribly, also slaves) to poor farmers in Louisiana. Not sure what happened there, but all of my hopes for finding an attic full of treasures in some ancestral home that I could have appraised at the "Antiques Road Show" have been blown to smithereens. </div>
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After the Raphael Rooms, it was finally our turn to see the Sistine Chapel. <br />
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The Sistine Chapel is the private chapel of the Pope and is where any Pope in the last five hundred years has been elected. Completed in 1481, it is located to the right of St. Peter's and is named after the man who paid for it; Pope Sixtus IV. There has always been a private papal chapel at the Vatican, and by the 1400s the previous Cappella Maggiore or Major Chapel was in disrepair.<br /><br /> Pope Sixtus commissioned Giovannino de Dolci and Baccio Pontelli, two Italian architects, to build him a new chapel based on the proportions of the Temple of Solomon as given in the Torah or Old Testament.<br /><br /> When it was finished six years later, some of the best Italian painters decorated the inside with scenes from the old and new testaments and these paintings, particularly by Michelangelo, are regarded as revolutionary for their time. The key painters were Petro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli and Domenico Ghirlandaio.<br /><br /> They divided the side walls in to three sections. On the bottom of the walls would be blank squares resembling drapes or curtains. Tapestries were later designed by Raphael to hang over these blank areas in the chapel during conclave (the election of the Pope). At the top of the walls, on either side of the windows would be paintings of the first 32 Popes going around in chronological order. <br />
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<img src="http://www.daramccarthy.com/images/tourguide/sistinechapel/windows-detail.jpg" /><br /> The paintings of the first 32 Popes from St. Peter onwards, stand on either side of the windows. Anything above the windows was done twenty years later on by Michelangelo. </div>
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The middle of the side walls were the most important. There would be 16 paintings, 8 scenes from the life of Moses and 8 scenes from the life of Jesus. 6 remain of each. The most famous of these is Christ Handing of the Keys to St. Peter by Perugino. At this point the ceiling was painted blue with yellow stars in circular formation, looking like the sky. After this, no further painting was envisioned.<br />
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<img src="http://www.daramccarthy.com/images/tourguide/sistinechapel/christ-giving-keys-to-peter.jpg" /><br /> In the Gospel of Matthew 16: 17-19, Jesus told Peter that Peter's faith was the rock upon which the church was built and he (Peter) would be given the keys to the kingdom of heaven and authority to make laws for humans. The Catholic Church regards the Popes as the successor to St. Peter.</div>
<br />In 1508 a crack appeared in the ceiling, which at that stage was entirely blue with small yellow stars.<br /> Pope Julius II asked Bramante to fix the crack, which he did, and Bramante recommended that Michelangelo should repaint the ceiling. The Pope agreed but Michelangelo, a sculptor, did not and arguments ensued.<br /><br /> The original contract stipulated he has to paint the 12 apostles, but Michelangelo rejected this and went with his own plan, which the Pope approved. In the middle he painted scenes from genesis, with God touching Adam in the very center.<br />
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<img src="http://www.daramccarthy.com/images/tourguide/sistinechapel/god-touching-adam.jpg" /><br /> Adam is the first man created by God in Genesis Chapter 3. This painting is the most famous in the Sisitne Chapel and sits in the center of the ceiling.</div>
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In the four corners he painted the miraculous saving of the Israeli people. In the triangles he painted the ancestors of Jesus and the old testament and pagan prophets around them.<br /><br /> The ceiling took him four years to do and is regarded as his best work. Hundreds of years of lighting candles covered the ceiling with a layer of smoke which was cleaned before the millennium, revealing Michelangelo to be a superb colorist. <br />
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In 1535, a new Pope asked Michelangelo to paint the Last Judgement. It occupies the whole altar wall and shows Jesus sorting out the dead; the elect go to heaven at the top and the damned go to hell at the bottom. In the center, souls move up and down in purgatory. Now a man in his 60's, it took Michelangelo six years to finish this work. <br />
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"Seeing" the chapel isn't exactly the correct word. There were hundreds of people in the chapel. It was impossible to stand in one place as the crowd was continually pushing us towards the back of the chapel (and exit). It was astonishing how many people had a complete disregard for the rules of the chapel, which included NO TALKING and NO PHOTOGRAPHY. Even the "tour guides" were talking into their little mini microphones to describe Michelangelo's work. We really didn't see the chapel at all, which was a huge disappointment. So I've had to rely on Google to see what I missed. <br />
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There was so much to see and learn about in the Vatican, it was almost overwhelming. It's one of those places, similar to the Louvre in Paris where you really need multiple visits in which to absorb everything. After doing some research on the Vatican Museums, it seems that many of the rooms were not currently open, such as some rooms featuring Etruscan and Egyptian artifacts, jewelry, statuary and art. I would have been interested in seeing those items. So as the saying goes, "that's another trip."<br />
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You can view my <a href="http://shertology.shutterfly.com/pictures/1095" target="_blank">Vatican pictures on Shutterfly</a>.<br />
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Ciao!<br />
Sherry Tolyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03133383336738961801noreply@blogger.com0