Days 9-10 Ooh La La

Days 9-10

Ooh-La-La

I don’t think I’ve mentioned the old church that we look out at from our hotel room window.  The church is St. Severin, and it has a big pipe organ we’ve heard.

Also, for you new readers, if you click on the photo one time, it expands and fills your screen - but do so only if you want to see a full screen version.  After viewing, just click on the 'x' to close the full screen version.

We are getting good weather in Paris! It hasn’t rained once since we’ve been here, and the past few days have been warm and sunny!  I haven’t used ‘ooh la la’ since taking French in my sophomore year in high school, but it kind of fits now.  Things that were closed due to flooding will be opening soon but not today.  Hundreds of thousands of pieces of art work are headed back to museums adjacent to the Seine.

With the museums closed, we took the subway and a suburban train to Versailles, the palace of the Kings Louis XIV - XVI (14th - 16th), a period of about 100 years, most of it before our American Revolutionary War and about a dozen years after it.

The Palace is so enormous - almost a million square feet of floor space.  The line to get into the Palace was too long for our taste, so we headed to the ‘garden’ which has a separate entrance and is one of the largest and finest gardens we have ever seen.  The only disappointment was the lack of edible vegetables.

The garden has a whole host of things to entertain and relax a visitor including lakes, ponds, fountains, statues, a variety of sculpted plants, trails, etc.

Everything in the picture, and much more, is part of the estate.  This was the party palace for all the nobility of France.

Back when it was being built, the estimated cost was half of the yearly generated wealth of France.  Fed up with being poor, and most of its citizens starving, those on the downside of the income gap rose up and revolted.  Louis the 16th and his wife Marie Antoinette both literally lost their heads at the guillotine.  The wonderful palace was then abandoned for decades.

We did try later in the afternoon, around 4:00, to get into the Palace, but the line was still at least an hour wait, so we returned to Paris without seeing it. 

Our hotel concierge offered ideas for dinner places, and we tried another place.  I’ll show only one of the items: steak, roasted potatoes, and mushrooms which was very tasty and was presented like something out of Cook’s Illustrated.

On Day 10, we finally had a chance to visit the artwork inside the Louvre and Orsay.  I think you all know that the Mona Lisa is kept in Paris at the Louvre.  It sure drew the attention of a lot of people, some of whom pushed to get to the front of the viewing area.  

They say when you move around in a room, the eyes of the painted subject look like they are moving.  While I’m sure it is a fine painting, it made me think of Maxwell Smart, Agent 86, on the Get Smart TV show in the 1960’s.  In classic Mel Brooks fashion, the eye movement was obvious and complete.  I wish I had a gif file showing the eyes move.

Forty feet away from the Mona Lisa, and facing the opposite direction, is a painting 50 times bigger, and Shari could costar in the photo/painting with no pushy crowd.

The Louvre is the largest Art Museum in the World and probably the most visited.  But our taste in paintings leans towards impressionist art. All of this art was moved years ago from the Louvre to the Orsay Museum.  For those of you who know this art, we saw Monet, van Gogh, Manet, Cezanne, Gauguin, and Renoir to name a few.  The Orsay was salvaged from an old train station that was to be torn down, and the French fused a museum with a train station quite nicely.

In case you are unfamiliar with Impressionist art, I’ve turned one of the photos (Days 7-8) I’ve taken into something close to what we like.

We visited two art museums in one day but still decided we needed to catch one more feature of Paris.   One of the special places Rick Steves advises to see is the St. Chapelle Chapel.  It’s been around for almost 1000 years, so we expected something very gothic.  Lots of cathedrals and churches have stained glass windows, but we’ve never seen anything like this.

We’d been noticing the garbage was not getting picked up.  It turns out that in our end of the city, the sanitation workers are on strike.  The street cleaners are working but not the garbage technicians.  We are in day 5 of this strike. 

We cannot conclude these days at the small and relatively insignificant garbage strike.  Back at the Orsay, there is more than art to enjoy.  Here is the woman who has impressed me the most in the last 46 years.

Days 7-8 GRAY Par-EE

Days 7-8

GRAY Par-EE

You get the sense that this place, Paris, must be special as there are so many people here to see it.  Everywhere you go after 10 am seems crowded, and by noon it is definitely crowded.  That said, some places are immediately exciting.  Notre Dame, even with gray skies and high water, is amazing.  The Eiffel Tower, even in the fog, is so much bigger than any picture (but that is all I have to show you).

it was amazing hearing the story of Gustav Eiffel and his tower.  There was to be a World Fair in Paris on the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution (1889).  The French government had a competition to determine who would get the right to build a commemorative monument, and he won.  His plans had the French building being the tallest building in the world at that time (300 feet), and being a reliable bridge builder, they figured he could build a tower of steel.  The only problem was the cost.  The monument commission informed him they could provide 18% of the cost, but he would have to bear the rest.  Being a shrewd business person, as well as a great engineer, he required 20 years of charging the public for entry.  As you might guess, he made all his expenses back plus millions more. Our only regret is that we didn’t visit on a better day.  At the top, we only saw the inner view of the clouds.  It was still amazing getting to know some of the history of the tower from over the years.

The amazing thing about our gray days in Paris is that we have not deployed our umbrellas so far.  We were headed to parts of Paris not closed by the flooding when we noticed the grounds to the Louvre were open.  This is the largest art museum in the world, and we were glad to know the grounds were open.

While checking things out, we noticed a long line of photographers waiting their turn for a picture.  I decided to be clever and go to a spot 6 feet to the left of the front of the line and take the same picture.  You need to know that the front of the ‘glass’ pyramid at the Louvre, looks like the front face matches part of the building immediately behind it.

My picture from 6 feet away is almost as good as any of theirs, don’t you think?

We did find our way to the Champs Elysee for our first visit.  We know little of Paris so most everything is a discovery.   First, a good part of it is not paved and it’s not motorized.  It’s a very wide walkway with lots of statues, benches and portable chairs, small gardens, occasional ponds, and lots of people strolling.

Then we came to the 8 lane paved part, and being the first Sunday in the month, it was closed to all traffic except walkers and bikers.  This too we did not know about.  This picture makes it look like there might be the makings of at least a small riot of people, but in reality, there’s lots of space to move about.

While we probably walk at least 5 miles a day, we do use the subways extensively.  We are becoming experts at knowing how to get around.  That is no small task considering the flooding has closed some of the most convenient subway lines.  Oh . . . did I say subways?!  They are Metros as not all parts of the lines are underground.  We might create a special class called the ‘Art of Subway Travel’.

While here, we have not been starving.  Our challenge here is picking the right restaurant.  On the recommendation of our hotel staff person, we went nearby and selected a beef fondue.  We think of fondue as a melted cheese-dipping meal.  With meat, you dip the meat in hot boiling oil.   What a surprise!

We did have something that was not a surprise - a good French onion soup.

These two days were fun and an adventure even with the gray skies.  Finally, toward the end of these days, 4 hours after our Eiffel Tower trek, the sun came out.  The Notre Dame was much more pleasing to look at.

And the Seine River, even though still above flood stage, has a special charm.

Days 5-6, Berlin and Paris

Days 5-6

Berlin and Paris

Our last day in Berlin started by traveling from Hamburg to Berlin by train in the morning.  It was an easy ride to the train station with no international incidents.  

Once back in Berlin, Janna picked us up and took us to the Reichstag, the capital building where the German government meets.  Her brother-in-law works there as a representative from the northwest of Germany.  We got a special private tour of this historical and modern home of their government.

The Reichstag now has a special glass dome that sits atop the Reichstag which provides views of much of the city.  It was great having this special tour, a first for all three of us.

We were taken out for a farewell dinner in one of the old East German neighborhoods.  It is one of Philipp’s favorite restaurants, and we now understand why.  The place is called Frau Mittenmang, and the chef creates a new menu each day.  Most of the words on the daily menu were in German, and the few that weren’t were either Italian or French.  It was a little like a crossword puzzle sorting it out.  

We started with three great appetizers:  roasted jalapeño peppers called pimentos in Germany, raw salmon on asparagus, and seared venison.  All three were excellent tasting, and two showed the chef’s artistic side.

Notice the asparagus the Germans love so much in the salmon appetizer.

Our main courses were fabulous, but the lighting diminished to the point the photos are blurred.  What a sad finding!  I’ll add one to show my favorite main dish, one centered around a ‘flap steak’ (beef), a miso-hollandaise sauce, a 60 minute egg, yes, asparagus, and truffle dark potatoes. 

I did capture the dessert that we hope to make in our own kitchen.  It’s called a Pavlova which is made up of egg whites, sugar, and fruit.  Neither of us had ever seen it or heard of it.  I asked the restaurant owner for a recipe, but no luck for any of the dishes.  This was one of the best restaurant meals we have ever had, and just one recipe would have been nice.  So we invited the chef to St. George.  

There was one unusual specialty of the house:  A piano in the men's room.  Next in line had to play while waiting for their turn.  I was lucky enough to enjoy some live music.

Earlier in the day, this is what Lara would claim is a great desert.  I can’t argue with her.  Nothing like a good butter and sugar crepe.  I grew up on them.

What a nice send off by our friends!  

Day 6 was all about getting to Paris.  We weren’t watching the news for 5 days nor checking the weather at our next destination.  Were we surprised when we got here.

Some friends knew there were issues with too much water, something that has haunted us in past visits to Europe.  We did get some emails foretelling problems, but it became impossible to ignore when we learned some special sites were closed indefinitely.  Check out the river in the next picture, and notice that there is no dock at the bottom of the stairs.  Oh well, we have our umbrellas and we will deal with it.

We’ll have more Paris Photos tomorrow.

Days 3 and 4

Berlin and Hamburg

The tallest building in Europe is located in Berlin, and it used to be a symbol of East Berlin and the communist GDR, or German Democratic Republic.  It is referred to as the TV Tower, and the view from the observation deck (over 2000’ above ground level) is remarkable.  This is one tower we did not climb as it is accessible only by elevator (not 2-3,000 stairs).

One of the things you see from 2000 feet up are the rivers and canals that criss cross Berlin.  From ground level you see them one at a time.  One of the ways to tour Berlin is by water, and they call Berlin the Venice of Germany.  BTW, there are more bridges over water in Berlin than in Venice.  We didn’t see any gondolas, however.  

As we mentioned before, there used to be an East Berlin and East Germany.  During those years, the East Germans decided the state needed to make automobiles for its people and designed the Trabi.  All you had to do is order one . . . and wait 9 or 10 years to be built!   The only thing special about the Trabi was the amount of time you waited to get it.  Shortly after the collapse of the East German state in 1989, production of Trabi ceased.  There are a few left, including these with a fresh coat of paint.  Wow, Shari likes the orange one, of course.

On our third day in Germany, we traveled to the train station to take a short trip to Hamburg to visit Janna’s parents, Ingrid and Detlef.  They, too, came to the U.S. over 20 years ago, and we had become good friends.  They also took in our son, Lee, when he did a college semester in Hamburg.  

Hamburg is a port city even though miles and miles from the ocean.  It’s on the river Elba, probably not a name that you use in conversations very often.  But it looks more like a port city than Seattle, which we think of as one of the bigger ones on the west coast.  In the Hamburg harbor the evening we were there were both the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary 2.  

BTW, the structure in the left background is not a ship.  It’s the City’s Philharmonic Hall that looks like a large futuristic ship.  Part of the Queen Mary 2 shows in the right side of the picture.

We’ve been to Hamburg years ago to see our friends.  They were such great host parents they even donated for a church roof in the name of Lee, and we decided to find the plaque with his name.  There are LOTS of plaque as this was no small roof.

We all worked end to end of these many metal plates with scores of names on each plate.  It’s good eye exercise!  No Luck until Shari suggested a registry! 

Being a port city, Hamburg has plenty of fresh seafood, so when in Hamburg we eat as the Hamburgers do - great fish!  This dish that Shari and Ingrid had was crab and fish, the crab being the smaller of the two.  The presentation confirms you are getting seafood, a fish eating a lemon. 

Reluctantly, we have to mention the special adventure we had to get to Hamburg.  Janna drove us to the train station to catch the Berlin to Hamburg high speed train for which we had tickets at a scheduled time.  Unfortunately, as we got to within a mile of the train station, there were blockades on the streets to get us to the station.  It caught her by surprise and ultimately we saw in the distance a large protest in the streets leading to the station.  Janna had to let us make our way on our own as there was nowhere to park and lead us and time was running out.  So the two of us set off on a jog to make the scheduled time through the protestors.  We think the 10’s of thousands of protestors were marching against eliminating the tax breaks for renewable energy, something they have a lot more of than we Americans have.  Anyway, we are not runners anymore, barely joggers.  The protestors were great when I said we needed to get to the station . . . just smiles and giving us room to jog on!  It was our longest jog in a long time.  We even had packs on our backs.  What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!!

First Days in Europe 2016

First Days Europe 2016

Days 1 and 2

Our journey to Europe was routed through Denver, which is not unusual, but there was much fanfare about the long security lines.  Due to overnighting in Denver, we had to navigate a big city airport.  Those passengers having Pre TSA, which we joined a few years ago, are supposed to have a quick time navigating security.  I timed us, and it took all of 5 minutes to get through security.  Notice the smile on this happy customer.  

With extra time to check out the airport, we noticed the modern design and caught it on ‘film’ during a thunderstorm.  It was a little unsettling seeing signs for tornado shelters, but we only saw rain clouds.

Our first destination on this month-long vacation is Berlin, where dear friends Janna and Philipp live.  We met Janna as a high school exchange student over twenty years ago in Bonners Ferry, Idaho.  We met Philipp when they traveled to the U.S. in 2009 and visited us in St. George.  They have a darling daughter named Lara, who, like her parents, is very friendly.  

The picture also shows our first German meal.  The most prominent item is the white asparagus.  Germans love asparagus, and we do too!

While our main reason to visit Germany is to see friends, we also came to see Berlin.  Most of you know there once was an ‘iron curtain’ during the cold war that ended in 1989 (during our lifetimes).  Janna and family live in a part of Berlin that is within 100 yards of the ‘curtain’ or Berlin Wall as it was called.  Berlin, like Germany, was divided into 4 parts after WWII, and the Russians, or Soviets as they were previously known, built a wall in 1961.  They called it the ‘Anti-Imperialist Protection Wall’ to protect East Berliners from Western Europeans and the U.S. and our imperialist ways.  They supposedly built the wall to keep others out.  In parts of Berlin there are metal posts showing the wall location coupled with the history of what happened to some of the people who decided they preferred an ‘imperialist’ lifestyle.

One of the ways people escaped East Germany was to tunnel under it.  The location of many of the tunnels is delineated by stone markers like the ones for Tunnel 57.  The number of people using each tunnel was fairly limited because the police closed any tunnel that they discovered.

Thousands of East Germans found ways to get to the West in spite of the wall.  Lots of time and money was spent on creating and patrolling the wall.   It makes you wonder whether walls solve as many problems as they create.  In 1989 during the Reagan presidency, the wall was torn down, and East and West Berlin, as well as East and West Germany, were united.  

There are actual remnants of the wall that are left.  Here is one small section.  The wall is now protected from those wanting a souvenir of it.

Near this small piece of the wall is Checkpoint Charlie, a rare controlled exit/entrance in the wall.   It was the site of a famous clash between U.S. troops and Soviet troops in the cold war. Sergeant Shari in her ‘civies’ was on guard during the picture.