The Inaccurate Tourist

32. Paris Père Pompidou? (Guest Writer: Dad)

Tried to show that The Grand Arche, Arc de Triomphe, and the obelisk lined up. The traffic and smog made it impossible, so for the last time, there they are. Enjoy or delete!

The Arc de Triomphe was built to celebrate Napoleon's victories. It was started in 1806 and completed in 1864. In Nov. 1920 the body of the Unkown Soldier was laid to rest and the Arc is used for Remembrance Day ceremonies. We climbed to the top, 284 steps. We didn't have the digital with us so no pictures from the top. The view, however, was tremendous! We could almost see England. There are 12 roads around the circle with about 7 lanes or as many as the drivers make. The traffic weaves in and out and everyone makes their way in and out .

The Pompidou Center houses Europe's best collection of modern art. It has everything from a urinal laying on it's back, to furniture hanging from the ceiling, pottery, to Picasso. The guts of the building are on the outside. The escalators are red, the air conditioning ducts are blue, green for plumbing, white for framework and yellow for electrical. This work of art is called LOVE.

The vase is nice though.

Near the center there is a fountain called Homage to Stravinsky. It was designed by Jean Tingley and each fountain represents one of his scores. Which one does this represent?

Not too far away there is a mall, Les Halles, built mostly underground. It has gardens outside.

and in the square there is this head and hand.

In 1632, Richelieu commisioned Jacques Lemercier to build a building known as the Cardinal's Palace. It was inhabited by Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Philippe Of Orleans, then finally to Louis-Philippe of Orleans. Louis-Philippe was always broke, so around the 3 sides of the garden he built apartments over the shops on ground level. This became the favourite spot of Parisians to rest. After the revolution Palais-Royale became a gambling house. In 1801 Napoleon used it for offices and in 1807 it became the Exchange and commercial court.

In the 11 Century the Vincennes Forest was acquired and in the 12 C Philippe Auguste built a manor and Louis IX added a Chapel. From the 16C to 1784 it was used as a prison, 1738 to 1756 housed a porcelain factory, and a military establishment under Louis-Philippe. In 1944 the retreating German army damaged the King's and the Queens pavilions.It now is being restored and houses military offices.

In 1214 a chapel dedicated to St. Agnes was built here, and re-dedicated to St-Eustache a few years later. The Halles parish, becoming the largest in Paris, wanted a church that was richer and more majestic. It was started in 1532 and consecrated in 1637.

Eglise St-Germain-des Pres was once part of a chain across Europe of Benedictine abbys. It was founded in the 8C, sacked and rebuilt 4 times in 40 years. It is the oldest church in Paris and all that remains of the abby.

St-Philippe was erected between 1774 ahd 1784.

Eglise St-Roche was started in 1653 by Louis XIV. Bullet holes still can be seen from a bloody battle in 1795. Those buried in the church include playwright Corneille, philosopher Diderot and garden designer Le Notre.

Lets take a quick revisit to Versailles. In the parks the pedestrian areas are gravel. There are invitations to go on the grass in a couple of parks. You can notice that in these photos

At 1530 the fountains came alive, along with classical music

Once again, Dad has filled in for me in writing the travel log. Be sure to thank him. Guess which tune the Stravinsky fountain represents!

31. Italy: Rome, Naples and the Vatican

Our flight to Rome left on a Monday afternoon -- this isn't optimal, but since we booked our flight at the last minute, we had little choice. On the positive side, I got to do the Sunday afternoon rollerblade through the city of Paris. Once again, I have to recommend rollerblading as THE way to see the most beautiful city in the world in a surprising and entertaining way.

We caught the Orly bus from Paris to the Orly airport. We tried to lose dad on the monorail between the two terminals, but he was too sharp for us. The flight was about 235€ per person and took about 100 minutes. We experienced the metro in Rome right away -- pretty much the same thing as in Paris, except that the trains were entirely obscured in graffiti. You couldn't see out the windows at all.

Our hotel was right by Termini station, which is a lively, supposedly inexpensive and central location. Rome is a notoriously expensive city -- I'm used to high prices in Paris, but I haven't really had to book hotels yet. Our hotel took up two floors in a seven story building, and the elevator was obviously an afterthought grafted into the stairwell. It could only hold two people, so I typically took the stairs anyway. The hotel proprietor recommended a restaurant for the evening, where we ate our first pasta in Italy that evening (so-so) and went to bed.

We took our breakfast at the hotel and left to see the closest attraction -- the Santa Maria Maggiore church. Its difficult to put the beauty, age (more than 1500 years) and size of the church when the only photo I took was my big fat head obscuring the exterior. I remember that there were certain sections of the church that were only lit when you put coins in the meter, but you see that in France as well. Somebody has to pay for the electricity, I suppose, since the Church doesn't charge admission. And just like in Bayeux (France), there were clean-cut english-speaking natives (unaffiliated with the church) collecting signatures for a petition to help drug addicts, people with AIDS and cancer. At the risk of sounding cynical, I'm going to let you in on the secret -- putting your name on a petition is not actually very useful (because who isn't against drug addiction or AIDS?) but gives you a false feeling of commitment that naturally leads to a donation.

I'm not all about ignoring social problems -- I just have my doubts about the effectiveness about donating to an unknown society using dubious methods on tourists for vaguely worded purposes. Our journey to the next historical site took us straight through another social problem: the homeless. It was still pretty early and we cut through a park that looked like a campground of cardboard and tarps. It can't be easy being poor in a primarily expensive tourist city.

The colosseum (or colosseo) was crowded outside, and fully costumed gladiator/centurions were having their picture taken with the tourists. It costs 8€ to enter and 4€ for the audio tour -- and here's another special travel tip that those fat-cat travel books DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!! On receiving your audio player, give it a good sniff and if it smells like rancid moldy body odour, immediately ask to trade it for one with less bacteria. You'll enjoy your tour more and they'll thank you for not wearing away valuable historical artifacts with your vomit.

I'd already seen the arena at Nîmes, so I already had knew much of the drill -- the arenas were used for man vs. man, man vs. animal and animal vs. animal fights, and were seldom fatal. The whole purpose was for the wealthy and powerful to entertain the masses, and it would have been much more expensive and less entertaining to have unknown, new gladiators at every tournament. Imagine if the Canucks changed half their team members every other hockey game! (Farewell, Harold, we hardly knew ye...) On the other hand, a gladiator that failed to engage enthusiastically in battle, or was defeated AND boring could be executed. (Farewell, Daniel, we hardly knew ye...)

I was surprised to see that the Colosseum was mostly made of reddish brick -- for some reason, I had expected it to be golden limestone. The floor would have been wood, but it was gone, showing the cellars and supporting corridors. Everybody would have been seated according to class and rank, with the senators and imperial officers closest to the action, and the emperor along the flattest part of the ellipse. All of the seats were eroded, broken or stolen (the colosseum was used as a quarry for the following centuries), except for one of the senator's sections, which was restored with the marble slabs carved with the name of the person permitted to sit there -- kind of a Flintstones season's pass.

Outside the colosseum, we saw the Arch of Constantine, built in the fourth century, and we continued to the Palatine hill, which is where the aristocrats lived and through the different forums. A lot of the buildings were pretty run down (after a couple of thousand years), but it was still pretty impressive. There were columns still standing with the inscription 'Senatus Populus Que Romanus' -- the People's Senate of Rome. The letters SPQR can be seen engraved all over the city, both in ancient monuments and modern fixtures. We passed the huge monument built for the first king of the unified Italy - Victor Emmanuel II. It's huge and neo-classic, and apparently much unloved by the current Romans.

We were feeling pretty lonely at this time, so we went to join the jillions of tourists hanging around Trevi Fountain. We each threw three tourists in the fountain in order to bring good luck and a speedy return to Rome. But the fountain wasn't sufficiently crowded, so we went to the Spanish steps, which were enthronged. Absolutely enthronged, which was kind of amusing because there really wasn't that much to see -- compared to the rest of Rome which is choc-a-bloc full of great things to see.

But we were on a schedule, so the next day we left at 9am to take a train to Naples (about 10€ for a three hour trip -- we could have taken a faster train but we wanted to see the countryside). We took a hotel near the train station -- and here's another travel tip: don't. Stay farther south near the tourist area by the water. But the hotel staff was very friendly, and directed us to the top Pizzeria in Naples. As the birthplace of pizza, Naples has a strong responsibility to set the tourists straight on the issue -- real pizza doesn't have clams, anchovies, vegetables, chicken or eggs. The Pizzeria da Michele (numero uno) makes two pizzas - Margherita or Marinara. The Margherita pizza has three ingredients on the crust: tomatoes (real tomatoes, not out of a can), mozzarella (real mozzarella that leaks real buffalo milk, not a chemical block of whitish cheddar) and basil (fresh). It's cooked in an wood fired oven until the thin crust is dark and crispy. It was delicious, and very inexpensive (4€ for a very large pizza), and very crowded. They sat the three of us with an italian man, and we smiled at each and failed to communicate, except for my delight at the pizza.

We went to the Duomo Cathedral, which is a very large and beautiful church that houses a vial of the blood of Saint Gennaro. The blood liquefies miraculously three times a year and brings good fortune to the city, and it was going to liquefy on September 19th, the next day. Unfortunately, this meant that the church was closed on the day we went to see it. We went to see a couple of other churches in the old area of Naples, and then went to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Naples is really awakening as a tourist town, and as a happy result, they have a city-wide card that permits you to visit three museums free and the rest for half price. At the archaeological museum, we saw a sculptural group from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome that depicts Dirce being tied to the horns of a bull for mistreating Antiope. The other attraction was the Farnese Hercules, an exaggeratedly muscular statue of the hero. The statues were very well presented, and I had a revelation in this museum -- these ancient Roman statues are still living. Throughout the millennia, they've been copied imperfectly by other artists and sketched with slight differences, and even the originals have been restored with minor and/or major changes. A sculpture may have originally held a sword or a snake, but the tastes of the next generation require it to hold a wreath. Apparently, the Hercules stood for years on one modern artists vision of his calves until the originals were found and restored -- the modern version are on display next to the work.

Next we went to the Museo Capodimonte in the heights of Naples, showing all the religious artwork that I wanted to see. There were also restored apartments and ballrooms. I got in trouble for filming mom and dad dancing in the ballroom -- apparently video and pictures aren't permitted in the museum. I told the guide that I had been filming all day and that I would erase the footage if she wanted me to, but she said it wasn't necessary because she trusted me. I don't really know what that was supposed to mean.

It was already 30 degrees at 10am the next day, but nobody wears shorts. We took the bus (included with our museum passes) to see the Piazza del Plebiscito, which had a huge domed church and a palace to go through. The Italians have an inconsiderate habit of making their churches so large that the ceiling doesn't seem to move with you as you walk on the ground.

We never made it to Vesuvius and Pompeii, but we could see it prominently in the background as we walked around the Bay of Naples. We stopped for another pizza in the tourist area. We didn't understand many of the ingredients so we took an adventurous guess -- mom ended up with hotdogs and french fries on her pizza, which was pretty funny for me and dad. Obviously the idea of tourist pizza means they can be much more expensive and much less delicious.

We took the funiculaire to the top of Naples to visit the Castel San Elmo and a charterhouse -- incredibly beautiful views of the colourful, domed city. We also saw quite a few of the Christmas cribs (nativity scenes) that Naples is famous for. They don't stop at the manger and shepherds -- they're full of incredibly detailed, everyday scenes of life from the time.

We left Naples the next morning and took the fast train to Rome (about 16.5€). It was pretty nasty weather so we checked into our hotel, this time right outside the forum ruins. We went to see the Pantheon, which was built in 118AD, and has a huge dome with a giant hole in it to let the sun and rain in. We visited some other churches and saw some Michelangelo sculptures here and there. My mother lit a candle for one of her friends (a family friend from my childhood) that had recently passed away, because we thought she would have been particularly touched by the beautiful works in the churches of Rome.

We spent the rest of the day seeing a lot of other churches and some museums -- unfortunately talking about them isn't quite the same as seeing them and I am afraid to wear out my welcome with you, dear reader. Honestly, it doesn't really matter what you go to see in Rome; even the one star attractions are phenomenal -- and there aren't any one star attractions in Rome

We had our breakfast on the roof out the Hotel Forum again, and set out to the Vatican. We took the metro to the closest stop to the the entrance to the Vatican museum, which was a mistake -- the line stretched all the way down several blocks nearly to the entrance to square in front of St. Peter's Basilica. We spent over an hour in line to get in, and it was extremely crowded on the inside. The Vatican collections were pretty amazing with frescoes by Raphael and the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. The tourists in the Sistine Chapel were shushed thoroughly and constantly by security guards.

We went to visit the cupola of the St. Peter's Basilica before visiting the church -- this church, of course, is THE church. Any further description would just be going to the thesaurus to find synonyms for huge and amazing. It was built on the site where St. Peter was martyred, and there are statues, mosaics and paintings of the saint everywhere (you can recognize him by the keys to heaven that he carries. The cupola was designed by Michelangelo, and it's dizzyingly high -- I took the stairs, but mom and dad took the lift. But the surprise was on them, the lift only avoids about a hundred of the five hundred stairs... I bought mom a little model of the Basilica to remember the effort by.

Afterwards, we went into the Basilica -- indescribable. It's entirely marble, art and beauty. We saw the box that houses the relics (i.e. ex-body-parts) of Saint Peter and rubbed the foot of his bronze statue. Of all the things I saw in Rome - this was the only good thing - everything else reeked of cat poo.

Rome and Italy by John, Elaine, and Ryan Skraba. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Peace out.

30. Dad's View (Guest Writer: Dad)

I've just been working and touring with Mom and Dad during their vacation here, and I've gotten really far behind in the travel logs. To help me catch up, Dad covered a few weeks with some of their favorite sites and photos.

What does everyone come to Paris for?

Naturally! To see where Princess Di got killed.

Or, maybe

We climbed to the 11 floor (walked from the 6th to the 11th) of the La Samaritaine department store. Gold dome to the left is Les Invalides.

When we visited the Pantheon, we climbed 206 steps (ask Elaine) to a view point just below the dome.

The French Senate meets in the Palais du Luxembourg. The Palais is closed to the public, but the gardens are open. It is quite busy, but got a few photos.

In the late 50's Paris decided to build a modern business district. It got its name from a monument for the defence of Paris that stood there. President Francois Mitterand had commisioned a 'La Grand Arche' to affirm the French state as a patron of arts and sciences.

The arche is in alignment with the Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, and obelisk.

The esplanade has many 20 century sculptures including:

Spent the whole day -- 8 hours -- at the Lourve. Still had to move quickly to see it all. There were antiquities from 3000BC, sculptures, French and Italian paintings, Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and more. It was too much to appreciate in a day, and will go back again.

Musee Carnavalet opened in 1880.

Musee Carnavalet records the history of Paris, from the diggings at Bercy uncovering relics 4000 years old:

through Kings Francois I, Louis XII, Louis XVI (the last French king), the revolution, Napoleon to WW1.

In 1671-76 Louis XIV built army quarters for 4000 men. In 1800 it became an army mausoleum.

1840 Napoleon interred and moved to the present tomb in 1861.

Invalides contains a military hospital, Musee de l'Armée and

Église du Dome (church).

In 1744 Louis XV vowed to to replace the semi-ruined church of the Abby of Ste-Genevieve. It was completed in 1789. In 1791 its function as a church was suspended to 'receive the bodies of great men who died during the period of French liberty'. It became the Pantheon.

The walls are covered with huge paintings, most about the life of Ste-Genevieve.

The crypt runs the full length of the building, included in it are Louis Braille, Victor Hugo, and Pierre and Marie Curie.

All the churches in Paris are very high, big, quite dark, and have lots of stained glass. Most do not have pews, but separate chairs. They all have alcoves with statues (some smaller ones are not filled) or paintings. There are many paintings on the walls as well.

Notre Dame Cathedral was the largest we saw in Paris(130m long, 48m wide and 35m high). By comparison St. Peter's Bascilica in Rome is 214m long and 136m high. Notre Dame is ringed with 37 chapels between the buttresses and seats between 6500 and 10000 (depending on which book you read) people. There are statues around the doors:

and a gallery of 28 kings of Judea above the door. During the french revolution the citizens, who thought the gallery were the kings of France, stormed the church and lopped off their heads. They were buried by a school teacher in his yard and accidentaly recovered in 1977. The heads on the statues are restorations and the plopped ones are in Cluny Musée.

Eglise de St-Sulpice was built as a church for the peasants by the abby of St-Germain-des-Pres.

Place St-Sulpice has a central fountain erected by Visconti in 1844 known as Fontaine des Quatre points Cardineaux after the sculpted portraits of Bosseut, Fenton, Massilion, Flechier as the cardinals who never were.

La Madeleine is a church dedicated to St. Mary Magdelene.

Sainte Chapelle was stated in 1239 and completed 33 months later. The lower story was intended for the palace commoners. the second story for the royalty. The second floor has 16 large stained glass windows telling the stories of the Bible including Genesis, Exodus -- the law of Moses, Christ's Passion.

St. Trinity is one of the smaller churches:

L'Opera Garnier's interior uses multi colored marble from different ares of France. The Grand staircase was the place to be. Parisians went to the opera to be seen as there were as many people in the lobby as watching the show. There were separate entrances for the Emperor, subscribers, and the common folk. During its heyday the 8 ton chandelier was lit by gas and had a chimney. During restoration the chimney was removed and the ceiling was replaced by a Chagall painting. There is a picture of the old ceiling in the archives.

In 1755 Paris aldermen wanting to find favour with Louis XV started a square. In 1792 the royal statues were toppled and in Jan. 1793 a guillotine was installed and used to lop 1343 heads including Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the Girondins. In 1795 the heads quit rolling, and the square was renamed Place de la Concorde and completed using an imported neutral symbol - the Obelisk.

Took a picture of the obelisk from the steps of the Opera

Pont Alexander III was built for the World Fair along with Grand Palais and Petit Palais (both closed for restoration) and some famous tower. The bridge is steel structure and has ornate decorations.

Hotel de Ville (city hall) is in the center of Paris. The first stone was laid in 1533, but building continued till the 17th century. It's closed to the public except an exibition room. A portugese tile exibition was on.

au revoir et bonjour!

Everybody, thank my Dad. Excellent job, Mom is really going to have to work hard to beat that!

29. Normandy

My parents arrived in France on August 28th, missing Glenn's departure by mere hours. The first few days were straight out of the Guest Arrival three-ring binder -- I showed them the métro, we went past the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, went grocery shopping and I kept them awake until a decent bedtime. The first few days were just adapting to the new time zone, and the general Frenchness.

Antonio had lent me his car for a couple of weeks (in exchange for a simple airport drop-off and pick-up while he was on vacation). Paris driving is intimidating, especially for a driver from traffic-circle-less countries like Canada (the few rarities in Edmonton excepted, of course). I had been driving the 30 kilometres back and forth from work, and it was pretty simple: get out of Paris on the Peripherique and take the highway to Marcoussis. In the city is a bit more frightening, since the Parisians are horrible, inconsiderate drivers. Hey, it's undeniable that I adore France and the French -- but I'm still going to be suspicious of any car with a license plate that ends with the Parisian '75'.

We decided to profit from Antonio's generosity to get out of Paris for their first weekend and visit Normandy, land of apples, Calvados, D-Day and tapestry. We took one of the non-toll national highways out of Paris, and I demonstrated my mastery of the French speed limits.

The countryside of France is beautiful, and the highways are beautifully maintained and signed. The non-toll roads typically have a lot of traffic circles, but they're pretty calm outside of the major cities. We were fortunate to have perfect weather with bright blue skies, bright green fields and (occasionally) oddly red roads.

We passed through many smaller towns on the highway, and marvelled at the beautiful town churches with their spires and cemeteries. We took a small detour to visit one of the local chateaux about halfway to Caen. This was my first authentic chateau in France (outside of Versailles, of course). It was pretty small and under restoration, but it was a pleasant walk through the gardens.

It's very important to remember -- Cannes is in the southeast of France, and we weren't going there this trip. Caen is in the northwest and you don't pronounce the 'n' explicitly (you do it through your nose). We stopped at the office de tourisme to get our hotel reservation for the night, and looked around the city for lunch. There are lots of things to see in Caen, including a beautiful cathedral (St. Pierre), the Abbaye-aux-Hommes and the Abbaye-aux-Dames (his and her abbeys from William the Conqueror) and many of the characteristic half-timber houses. We visited most of the exteriors, but our goal was to get to some of the WWII landing beaches.

Our hotel was in the north of Caen, which is an extremely convenient base to visit the beaches. It was a short drive to Arromanches, which was where the British build the artificial harbour that made D-Day possible. We visited the Musée du Debarquement, which was small but intense and explained the construction of the critical artificial port -- sixty ships were scuttled to create a breakwater, and then reinforced with huge concrete blocks assembled and towed from England. The finished harbour was three and a half kilometres long, extending a kilometre and a half out to sea, and provided the Allies with the ability to move tons of equipment and troops, and it was assembled in two weeks.

The museum had a six metre model of the artificial harbour, demonstrating the elaborate and efficient wharf that was built on top of it. It also had other items from the time, organized by country, and an interesting film explaining the D-Day landing (English narration at specific hours). It felt very odd to go down to walk on the beach afterwards -- there were kids playing in the sand and swimming in the water, and families picnicking. You could still see pieces of the artificial harbour in the background.

We went to Gold Beach and Juno Beach next, the landing sites for the British and Canadian forces, respectively. Again, the beaches were well populated by families, kites, children and tourists -- and I appreciated the sun and enjoyed the walk, all the more so given what the beaches must have looked like a half-century ago. There was a Canadian tank and a giant mirrored cross in an amphitheatre at the Canadian landing beach.

We ate in Caen that night -- mom and dad's first French restaurant experience. Unfortunately, mom had to send her rice back because it was rock hard (I couldn't cut through it with my steak knife). Fortunately, the waiter was absolutely horrified once he understood what we were complaining about (the first time he thought we wanted extra butter) and replaced the entire meal.

The next day, we went to the American landing sites at Omaha beach and Pointe du Hoc. Looking at the terrain, it is absolutely incredible what they had to do -- the beach is incredibly long and the climb is unrealistically high.

Along the way, we visited the American Cemetery. Eleven thousand graves, and many more names on a memorial wall. It was brilliantly maintained with beautiful green grass, many reflecting pools, a large marble monument explaining the American contribution to the war and a chapel with a mosaic ceiling. The graves were stark white and engraved only with names and dates. Each grave is associated with a volunteer French family, who place flowers on the site once a year to show their appreciation.

It was solemn and thought-provoking, of course, but interesting on another level as well -- the American Cemetery was obviously American. From the statuary to the welcoming building, it had a very solid American feel to it. (When Canadians say that, its usually because they're segueing into the topic of how Canadians differ from Americans. I'm going to refrain.)

We stopped for lunch in one of the small medieval towns (once again a solid European feel) to visit a famous, non-World War Two related site. The town of Bayeux has a famous tapestry showing the events that led up to the Battle of Hastings, the betrayal and the victory of William the Conqueror. The museum is phenomenal -- the history of the tapestry and the era is well explained in several rooms before the real tapestry, using a fake tapestry, models and mannequins, and a short film.

You know the story and the characters by the time you get to the actual tapestry. All 70 metres are behind glass in a darkened corridor. We chose to use the audio guide to view it. I was too busy appreciating the museum to take any good pictures, but the entire tapestry can be found online and well explained (at The Battle of 1066 site for example).

The city of Bayeux would be sufficiently interesting to see even if it didn't have a 900 piece of fabric telling an fascinating (and true) story. Once again, there was a cathedral (I have developed a fascination with churches) and quite a few attractive pedestrian streets. I also saw outdoor urinals in the parking lot -- quite a logical concept, really.

On the way back to Paris, we stopped at the Canadian cemetery. There were 2100 graves here, and each had the maple leaf and an epitaph.

Later in the trip, I figured out a satisfactory explanation for the criminal negligence the Parisians show in their cars. There's two ways for thirty people to board a bus -- either they wait in a straight line exactly one person wide, or they mill about the pole while waiting, crowd the bus door when it arrives and board the bus as soon as they can. In neither case are the passengers pushing or bumping into each other, so the end result is equivalent. When Parisian drivers invent new lanes to pass you or cut you off, it's because they believe in the fierce and proud independence of the driver, unbeholden to lines and rules.

Nine hundred years of war from Hastings, 1066 to Normandy, 1944. Something to think about.