September 2014

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Sunday September 28

I don't have any topical pictures this week so here is another one from our recent trip to Europe (of which I have lots).

Ann's book club is celebrating their tenth anniversary so, to mark it, they decided to go away for the weekend. The original plan was to go to the Annapolis Valley but they couldn't find anywhere that could handle them all so they ended up at the Bluenose Lodge in Lunenburg instead. Ann got a ride down with Cindy on Saturday morning. They crossed the LaHave River on the ferry, had lunch at the LaHave Bakery, then met the rest of the club on Crescent Beach. On the way back to the lodge they stopped in at the Petit Rivière Vineyards. The evening was spent having dinner in the lodge, then hanging out and chatting. Ann arrived home again mid-afternoon today.

Meanwhile, back on the home front, James worked for the Discovery Centre both Saturday and Sunday, manning a booth they had in a trade fair. On Saturday, he rushed from work to a birthday party for one of his friends. Since it was warm and sunny all weekend, I spent most of it painting the trim on the house, a job I've been trying to get at all summer.

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Sunday September 21

I was back in Europe again last week, to meetings in St. Nazaire, France, near Nantes at the mouth of the Loire River. The meetings were held at STX France, a shipyard with a long history but which is currently in some difficulty due to the downturn in ship-building since the financial crisis. The cafeteria where we had lunch was in a building alongside a large ship built for the Russian navy which they are now not allowed to deliver due to the sanctions imposed because of Russian meddling in Ukraine. St Nazaire itself is a bit of a dump (not nearly as nice as the picture might lead you to believe), as were all the cities that I've visited on the west coast of France in recent years, and all for the same reason: they harboured submarines during the war so the Allies flattened them with bombs; after the war they were rebuilt but in a very utilitarian style.

On Saturday I took the train back to the Paris airport, then spent two hours trying to find my hotel. It seems that there are two hotels with the same name close to the airport but they are served by different shuttle buses. I looked up the address, found that was in Roissy-en-France, then took the bus going there rather than to Paris Nord. But of course, that was the wrong one; Paris Nord is also in Roissy-en-France. So I had to catch another shuttle back to the airport, then a third one to the correct hotel. By the time I had checked in there was no point in trying to go downtown to look around, especially as we had been there only a few weeks before. I flew home again on Sunday.

Last night Ann went with some of her book club buddies to see Under Milk Wood, the play by Dylan Thomas, produced by Off The Leash and staged a Neptune's Studio Theatre. The consensus seems to have been that it was OK but a bit confusing as each of the two actors played many characters which were sometimes difficult to distinguish. Ann admits that it might of been easier to follow if she had been concentrating more on the play and thinking less about curling up in bed.

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Sunday September 7

In the 15 years that I have been writing this journal, I have missed a week fairly often, a couple of weeks relatively rarely, but I have never missed a whole month before. The reason, of course, was that I took the whole of the month of August off and we (Ann, Emily, James and myself) went travelling. Since Emily is now in university (more on that below), it looked to be the last good opportunity for us to be able to do so. When we discussed where in Europe we might like to go, it was fairly easy to agree on Paris and Venice. Emily also chose Bruges, Belgium which she had heard about at school from a project by one of her classmates. If we were to travel between Paris and Venice, I decided that it would be nice to take the scenic route through Switzerland. So it was decided that we would drive to Ontario, drop off Emily's belongings at Katy and Ben's, fly out of Toronto to Paris for a few days, rent a car and drive up to Bruges via the town where we used to live in France, return to Paris and take the train to Venice via Geneva, Brig and Milan, spend several days in Venice, fly back to Toronto, then visit Ann's parents in Sarnia before dropping Emily off at Carleton and driving home. Along the way in Ontario we would visit the various members of Ann's and my families. The whole trip would take a month including two weeks in Europe.

Ann did not have quite as much vacation available as I did, so Emily, James and I left in the car on Monday August 4 to drive to Ontario with the back of the car loaded up with the stuff that Emily will need to live in residence at Carleton. We stopped in Grand Falls, NB that evening and arrived at Katy and Ben's in Ottawa at around dinner-time the following day. Wednesday was spent in Ottawa walking along the canal, having lunch in the Byward Market, and relaxing at Katy and Ben's after two days spent in the car. On Thursday we headed for Martha and Thom's in Brampton leaving most of Emily's stuff in Ottawa and stopping in at my brother Nick's along the way. On Friday, we popped up to King City to visit my Mum, taking her out to lunch at a local pub. Ann flew up to Toronto after work where Thom, Emily and I picked her up at the island airport around 11 PM.

The international portion of the trip began mid-afternoon on Saturday with an overnight flight to Paris. We arrived at our hotel in the 10^th arrondissement, between the Gare de l'Est and the Place de la République, mid-morning, dropped off our backpacks and headed out for some sight-seeing while our rooms were being prepared. We started with some breakfast at a local café then took the Métro to the centre of town to have a look at the Notre Dame Cathedral (outside only) and the Conciergerie. For lunch we made our first of many stops at a patisserie for some sandwiches and pastries eating them in a small park just off rue St. Michel on the left bank. By this time we were all pretty tired, an airplane not being very conducive to a good night's sleep, so we returned for the hotel for well-deserved naps.

A few years ago, after Ann and I came back from another trip to Paris, I waxed poetic on this page about the pleasures of eating in France; not just the food, but the whole experience. And eating in Italy is just as nice. There's really nothing quite like it in North America though, of course, you can have excellent meals here too. To begin the indoctrination of Emily and James we chose a brasserie in St. Germain where we had an excellent meal on their patio. A couple of hours later we walked through the back streets toward the Champs de Mars and the Eiffel Tower which looks very spectacular when seen at night. After wandering through the hordes of tourists at its base we returned to the hotel deferring any attempts for going up it for another day.

My approach to handling breakfast in France is to buy fruit, some juice and a pot of jam at a grocery store, then to visit a boulangerie each morning to buy a fresh baguette. If not available in the hotel room, coffee is easily obtained in a café. The breakfasts offered by hotels are seldom worth the ridiculous prices charged. The only flaw in implementing this scheme the next day was that it was August and most of the boulangeries were closed for their annual vacations, but after half an hour of looking I found a nice one that was not too far away.

Suitably fortified, we sallied forth mid-morning to check off the rest of the items on our must see lists. It was Monday, so the big museums were closed, but we were able to visit Sainte Chapelle before returning to the Eiffel Tower. This time we did climb up as far as the second level for a panoramic view over the city. Our culinary journey continued at a brasserie down the street from the Gare St. Lazaire; another very nice meal.

For some time now Emily has been making macarons, the meringuey little French cookies, experimenting with different techniques in a quest for perfection. This trip was an opportunity to check out the competition, so a recurring theme of our travels was a stop at a patisserie to get and sample the macarons. In Paris we tried them from a patisserie on the Champs-Elysées and at the chain patisserie Paul, but we also checked them out in Bruges, Brig and Venice. And where are the best ones to be found? Venice.

On Tuesday morning we performed the breakfast ritual with me dispatched for baguettes and Emily making coffee in Ann's and my room. We then headed to the Louvre but only to see the outside and the famous pyramid by I.M. Pei; Emily and James weren't interested in spending time looking at paintings and sculptures and Ann and I had decided that we would limit the number of cultural experiences that we would require them to participate in. From the Louvre we walked through the Jardin de Tuileries stopping at the amusement park so that Emily and James could go on a scary twirly ride that advertised g-forces over 5 (a quick physics lesson afterwards established that they were only about 4, but that is still significant). Although both of them were wildly enthusiastic to go on it, only Emily remained so after it was all over; James in contrast turned green and took several minutes to regain his composure. We continued our walk across the Place de la Concorde where we were caught in a downpour which we escaped by ducking into a chocolaterie, followed by a patisserie for lunch, then some window shopping along the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. We returned to the hotel for a rest mid-afternoon; all that walking takes it out of you and we were still suffering from jet lag. For dinner we decided to go to Montmartre, eating in a small restaurant not far from Sacré Coeur where we had the most disappointing meal of our vacation; however, it was followed by watching the sunset from the steps in front of the basilica which made up for it.

On Wednesday, Emily and James decided to have a relaxing day; after breakfast they stayed at the hotel while Ann and I went on a cultural excursion to see the interior of Notre Dame then to the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie. We had both been to the former before, so we contented ourselves with the section of the impressionists, but neither of us had been to the latter. We returned to the hotel for lunch in a café near the hotel then spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry. Dinner, in the Quartier Latin, was back up to the standards we expected. After dinner Emily wanted to walk to the Seine to see the Pont des Arts, the bridge which has been covered with locks expressing eternal devotion. On the way we ran into some buskers in St. Germain playing swing music on a couple of clarinets (sometimes a saxophone), a tenor banjo and a double bass (here is a video of them from last year that someone posted on YouTube). They were really good so we hung around for several numbers and bought the CD they were hawking (also very good now that I've had the chance to listen to it) before continuing on our way.

On Thursday we took our leave of Paris, renting a car and driving northwest toward Louviers, where Emily was born, and our old stopping grounds in Le Vaudreuil. Ann wanted visit Monet's garden in Giverny on the way, but when we arrived we found it overrun with tourists so it would have taken more time than we had to go in. Instead we continued Les Andelys, a small town on a bend in the Seine overseen by Chateau Gaillard, the ruin of a castle built by Richard the Lionheart in 1196 when the British, who were really Normans after all, controlled what is now northern France; we often used to visit when we lived close by. We bought a picnic lunch at a patisserie in the town and took it up to the castle where Emily and James fulfilled one of their pre-trip ambitions: a sword fight using baguettes.

From there we drove to Louviers to show Emily where she was born (she was completely uninterested) and then to Le Vaudreuil to satisfy Ann and my feelings of nostalgia. It looked much the same but we still got lost (the streets are twisty and it has been 18 years since we lived there) and we had to use Google maps to extricate ourselves. Then we headed north through Rouen (traffic jam!) and Dieppe, where we stopped for tea and coffee, then up the coast to Le Portel, a small fishing village on the outskirts of Boulogne-sur-Mer. We arrived at our hotel at about 9:30, somewhat later than we had intended, to find that their kitchen had closed; however, the proprietor was very obliging and rustled us up a very nice fish dinner anyway.

On Friday morning we continued driving north into Belgium to Bruges, the final destination of our northern expedition. It is a very picturesque town with canals and architecture dating from the 16^th century. I spent a day there back in the early 80s during a stay in Brussels, but Ann had never been. We stayed at a very nice hotel about five kilometres from downtown, arriving in the late morning, leaving our bags there, then taking their shuttle bus to the centre of town. The rest of the day was spent wandering through the town, admiring the Flemish architecture and judging chocolates and macarons. For lunch, just to prove that we were real tourists (in case there was any doubt) we ate Belgian waffles at a restaurant in the main square.

The chocolate shops provided an interesting lesson in the difference between North American and European sensibilities. Almost every one included chocolate penises in their front windows, often using white chocolate to illustrate their anatomical function. Various portions of the female body were also on display as were, in one shop, several positions from the Kama Sutra carefully rendered in chocolate. These offerings were often intermingled with others aimed at a younger audience like trains and cartoon characters.

By mid-afternoon we were getting tired of the continual crush of tourists, so we walked away from the centre to a less populated area of town, found a patisserie and had a snack under a windmill near the canal which rings the town. Eventually we braved the madding crowds once more to do a bit of shopping before a fairly ordinary dinner at a restaurant on the bank of one of the canals.

Bruges is certainly a pretty place but quite expensive and incredibly touristy. We all enjoyed exploring it for a day, but that was really enough and we were quite ready to leave for Paris again the next morning via the Canadian monument at Vimy, site of the great Canadian victory in World War I often cited as the day that Canada came of age. There we ran into Becky, one of David's classmates from elementary and high school, who was working there as a guide for the summer.

On the day we left Paris, Emily found a brochure advertising an exhibition of comic book art that she wanted to see. We planned to return in time for her to go to it but I underestimated the time it would take to return the car and get to the location of the exhibition near the Gare d'Austerlitz, so we arrived just as it was closing. Instead we settled ourselves into a restaurant across from the station and had a relaxing meal instead.

The following day, Saturday, we left Paris for good taking a TGV to Geneva, arriving in the late afternoon and checking in to a hotel a short walk from the station. After taking a bus to the centre of town, we explored for about three quarters of an hour, then ate in an Italian restaurant before returning to the hotel. It was only the briefest of glimpses of the city as we left early the next morning, buying breakfast in the station, then travelling along the north shore of Lac Leman to Montreux. There we stopped for lunch, dropped our packs in storage lockers at the station, and jumped on a cog railway to Rochers de Naye. This side trip had been recommended to us by a couple of fellow travellers on the TGV. The train takes about an hour to ascend 2000 meters up the mountains giving spectacular views over the lake and the surrounding mountains. Unfortunately, although it was a gorgeous day, the very top was covered in cloud, so we only got panoramic views from the train. However, James thought that being inside a cloud while still on the ground was very cool. We hiked a short way to a lovely garden, nestled in the rocks of the mountains, that contains over a thousand different types of alpine plants before catching the next cog train back to Montreux and, from there, the next main line train to Brig.

When we were planning the trip and decided to stop for the night in Brig, we really didn't have great expectations for the town thinking that it might simply be a rather industrial railway hub (the tracks from several different railways converge there). We were pleasantly surprised to find that it is quite a pretty place, surrounded by mountains and a centre for hiking and winter sports. We had time to explore the town a bit after we arrived giving Emily the opportunity to test the differences between Swiss and Belgian chocolates. One of Ann's requirements for the trip was to eat fondue in Switzerland; we fulfilled it in Brig by sharing four different types for dinner (garlic, onion, tomato and another that I can't remember).

The following day we continued or train journey to Milan, through the Simplon tunnel and stopping for an hour and a half in Domodossola, just inside the Italian border. We spent the time by having lunch in the station cafeteria. Ann and I then went for a walk through the town but Emily and James decided to relax in armchairs set up on the station platform. We arrived in Milan in the early afternoon, checked into a hotel near the station, then spent the rest of the afternoon doing laundry. We had a very nice dinner at a small restaurant close to the hotel, sitting outside in a small cobbled courtyard. Its a good thing we weren't driving anywhere as, along with the wine we ordered, we were treated to complimentary prosecco before the meal and limoncello after.

We were up early the next day (Wednesday) to continue on to Venice. We arrived at around 11 AM, took a vaporetto (water bus) down the Grand Canal, then walked up a couple of alleys to our B&B not too far from Piazza San Marco. Like many hotels in Venice, ours was not well-marked, but they met us at a nearby square and led us to the door. It was located next to a canal where a small bridge crosses it with a gondola stop by the bridge and a restaurant with tables running along the far bank of the canal. In the afternoons we could lie in our room and listen to the gondoliers serenading their customers with Italian arias as they made their way along the canal.

We immediately headed out to a small restaurant in Giudecca for lunch. Ann had read about it in one of the guide books and was eager to give it a try. The atmosphere was very friendly: there were no menus; the proprietor told us what he could make that day, we chose, and that was that. We all enjoyed the food but James thought that the ravioli was exceptional. Giudecca also has the advantage of being off the beaten track, so it was not teeming with other people.

After lunch we took the vaporetto to the market by the Rialto bridge, then walked through a maze of alleys to a gelateria that was also recommended by Ann's book. From there we went to Cannareggio arriving around dinner-time to try out the cicheti, small snacks similar to the tapas that one can get in the bars in Spain. The guide books claim that they are the best way to get a cheap meal in Venice, but at 2 to 3 euros each, they can add up too.

On Thursday, Emily and I were up early to get a look at Piazza San Marco before the crowds arrived. Around 8:30 AM it was still pretty empty, but then the hordes began to arrive in a steady stream like a rising tide that didn't recede until after dinner. Ann and James met us there just after 9 AM so we could see the basilica when it first opened.

We then headed out to Murano, one of the islands north of the main group, noted for its glass making. On the way to the vaporetto we stopped in a museum of old instruments where we bought tickets for a classical concert that evening. After a pleasant lunch close to the vaporetto station on Murano, we wandered along one of its main canals, admiring all the glass knick-knacks on offer. Ann, James and I also went to the glass museum which explains the history of the Murano glass makers and describes some of the techniques that they use. Unfortunately it was undergoing renovations, so the displays were not as extensive as they might have been.

By the time we had taken the vaporetto back to the B&B, James was not feeling very well, so he decided to rest at the hotel while the rest of us went for dinner at a restaurant in Campo Santo Stefano nearby. We were afraid that he would not be well enough to come to the concert, but it seems that a couple of hours of sleep did him a lot of good, so he joined us again after we had eaten. The concert was in a church close to our B&B and featured Vivaldi's Four Seasons as well as two overtures from his operas and a cello concerto. We all enjoyed it very much and James, who is now well-positioned to appreciate the skill required to play a stringed instrument well, was particularly impressed.

Friday was our last full day in Europe. We had only been able to get a room for all four of us for the first two nights, so for the last night Emily and James moved to a different B&B just around the corner while Ann and I moved to a smaller room. We started the day by visiting the Doge's Palace before the crowds arrived, but then had a relaxing day exploring the endless maze of alleys in Drosoduro and doing a little last-minute shopping. Ann wanted to see the Frari Basilica, so when we got completely lost we would pull out Google maps on our phones and head off in that general direction. We arrived there eventually and Ann went inside while Emily, James and I relaxed in the square outside. We returned to the B&B's for naps before having an extended dinner at a very nice restaurant in Campo Santo Stefano, the square with the church where we saw the concert. It was an excellent way to finish off our European adventure, especially since food was such a dominant theme throughout our travels.

The following morning we got up, had breakfast in our respective B&Bs, then took the vaporetto to the bus station and a bus to the airport. The airline wanted us there three hours early, so we had a long time to wait before the flight. That was just as well because the Venice airport is the least organized that I've ever seen; there were long line-ups for everything (checking in at the airline desk, getting something to eat, security) with no clear delineation of where they should go. The result was people everywhere, all in lines, but no indication where each line would end up. At last we were on the plane and had an uneventful flight back to Toronto where our niece, Hannah, came to pick us up.

The next day, Sunday, we drove back to King City where my Mum hosted a reunion for my side of the family. Everyone was there save for David, my nephew Chris, and Ben, who at the last minute found out that he would not be able to take Monday off. Mum had hired some caterers to feed us all in the kitchen on the main floor of her condominium. It was good to have everyone together in one place, something that doesn't happen very often any more.

We stayed at Martha and Thom's that night, but Katy and Emily stayed in the guest room in Mum's condominium, had breakfast with her the next day, then drove to Brampton in time to join us for the drive to Sarnia where most of us spent the next couple of days (Emily and Katy returned to Ottawa on Tuesday). Our time in Sarnia was very restful after all the travelling; we managed to generate enough energy to go out for ice-cream on Tuesday and to have a fish-and-chips lunch at Purdy's on Wednesday.

On Thursday we drove back to Brampton for the night, then to Bracebridge on Friday to visit my brother Simon, then finally to Ottawa on Saturday on the highway that runs through Algonquin Park which I had never been on before.

On Sunday, Emily moved in to her residence at Carleton. We were up early to get her there as soon as possible to beat the rush. The whole process was well-organized and there were lots of students available for carrying all her stuff up to her room. She has a single room on the 11^th floor in a group of three rooms: two singles and one double, so four girls share a bathroom and a small living area. We had time for brunch at an Italian place closer to downtown before beginning the long drive back home, once again split by a stop in Grand Falls. The drive from about Montmagny to Grand Falls was particularly nasty due to heavy rain and construction along the highway between Rivière-du-Loup and Edmundston but we managed to negotiate it safely.

Since arriving home we have been trying to adjust to life back at work and school. Ann and I were back at it the next morning but James had a day of grace before classes started in Wednesday. Louie has had a bit of adjusting to do as well. Our neighbour Barb was good enough to look after him while we were away but he still spent most of a month on his own. Now we are back but neither Ginger nor Emily are here any more. We are finding him much more willing, indeed insistent, on interacting with us when before he would remain aloof.

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