More Carcassonne

Before we had the wonderful interval of some snow, I had intended to post a few more pictures form Carcassonne so here they are :) Enjoy!

Carcassonne

Here is another entry from my 2005 Europe travels:

Carcassonne! I was here with the family all those years ago and it is even cooler than I remember! A very impressive, completely walled city that sits on a little hill. However, here is where the question of the day comes in How do you hide an entire walled city?!?! OK, it didn’t help that it was raining, rush-hour in the fairly large town/city that surrounds it, and I didn’t have a good map. Now to the other more interesting aspects of finding it—I had to come in a weird way due to lots of construction. That shouldn’t be too bad. However, you can’t drive in the medieval city—and they (the people who live there) all know where it is—so they don’t bother putting up obvious signs!!! And the City Center signs don’t lead you there, they take you to the surround city’s center—no where near and clogged with traffic. But lots of parking areas such that it looks like you are in the right neighborhood. Oh, and the buildings are all tall enough that once in the area, you can no longer even see the medieval city!!! Needless to say, there was much frustration and circling ;) I did finally get there (1 hour later—wanted to stop and ask for directions, but was stuck in traffic and no where to stop!). Turns out the signs say La Cité and evidentially you are supposed to know that that means the medieval part of town.
Argh. But, as I say, I did make it and it was great. The youth hostel is in the city and I have included a picture from outside the bedroom window! I wandered around town—walking the outside walls, for a couple hours taking many a picture and then finally ended up in the town square for dinner while writing post cards and petting a really cute kitty-cat. Then I went out again later with my tri-pod to try some night shots. Though getting ther was difficult, it was well worth it as a stop over on my travels south to Spain.

Linning up for the spectacle

On to Nimes! And some interesting traffic! I had directions to the hostel again, but one small problem—they were having a big Pentecost Monday Festival on the streets of Nimes and some of the streets I needed were blocked off. I found a temporary traffic control person who had no idea where the youth hostel was, but did know where the Garden of Fountains was which was the penultimate landmark—I finally got over to the garden and found the signs—success!. I then headed back into town for the carnival and it was a lot of fun—big street fair with several bands, lots of food (almost all kebabs though—with one Chinese food stand—weird). There are two main sites here—one is a Roman temple (Maison Carrée) dedicated to the Cult of the Emperor and is one of the best preserved Roman ruins that we have. No reconstruction here—the thing still stands and is impressive. A simple rectangular building, but with very tall columns—very Roman looking (one of the most impressively preserved Roman ruins I have seen--and in France no less!) And interesting how we know the date and dedication—there are the holes left over where the brass letters were attached—by looking at the spacing of the holes and script know used at the same time there were figure out what it said—Arippa did this one! Nimes also has a large, and still in use coliseum and I wandered around the outside, but as I didn’t have tickets to tonight’s bullfight I couldn’t get in!
This picture is of the coliseum and the crowd that had gathered for the bullfight. An interesting angle I think.

Nice is Nice!

Time for another journal blog about my summer travels :)

After finally arriving in Nice I was very glad that I has spent the time in Lyon finding directions to the next hostel—I never would have found it on my own—no question about that! I did make it though and it is on a hill that overlooks the city. A bit hazy, but I think that the weather has broken so the visit should be Nice (sorry, couldn’t resist.)

The next day was time for exploring and it was a good day in Nice! The name of which, by the way, comes from the Greek original name of the settlement, Nike :-) OK, not original settlement—there were people here some 40,000 years ago, but we aren’t sure how to spell the town name in grunts! (OK, before people get mad—I am sure that they had better language at that time, but I don’t know what it was :-)) But anyway, back to the day—I headed out in the morning deciding not to take my car—easier on the environment and the budget and to go museuming—it seems that the 1^st and 3^rd Sundays of each month all of the museums are free—Cool! So, I headed first to the farthest—the Matisse Museum which is also near some Greco-Roman ruins. Seemed like a good place to start—only it was on a hill! I didn’t realize this place was so lousy with them. So, several hundred steps later I made it up to the top to a wonderful treat!!! Next to the Franciscan church (not too remarkable, but an interesting nativity scene) is a public garden—absolutely filled with roses!!

After sitting in the park enjoying a fair and a baguette sandwich lunch I headed down hill to the Musee d’Art Modern et Contemporain. Also free today. The best thing about the museum, I think, is the building. It is attached to the library and this huge (say 70 some foot) sculpture of a cube on a person’s head. As far as I can tell it houses the administrative offices of the library. The art museum itself is a good display space with a lot of room and very open, well light spaces—a good space for many of the works. Most of which I was not too impressed with. One nice thing though was that many of the galleries represented life’s works of some artists so it was interesting to see representations from much of a life’s work. It is interesting to look for themes and the like.

Then it was off to museum #3 (OK, should have been 4, but even with my map I didn’t find the natural history museum) which was the Theatre de la Photographie et de l’image. A surprising exhibit of photographs of American Indians from 1900-1915. Some truly beautiful images and wonderful faces—not what I expected to run across here in France, but beautiful none the less—my parents would have loved it!

Well, since I am on the French Rivera, I thought that a visit to the beach and harbor was in order—so I found a crepe filled with chocolate and went to the waterfront. It was almost 4 o’clock and the sun had been hazy for a while so it wasn’t overly crowded. I sat on the retaining wall and enjoyed my crepe and I have to tell you, the water here is a truly amazing blue color. Wow! I tried to take some pictures, but it just didn’t come out. And I was surprised that the beach is not at all sandy—it is all pebbles.

And off to one more hill! In the center of town in the hill that has over history been the castle and the center of various fortified towns—not much left as one of the King Louie’s had it all wiped out just after 1700, but it still has great views and a park with many happy, yelling kids.

This picture is from the harbor the first night I was in town. There were many a pretty boat tied up, but I was attracted to the simpler image of the blue water and orange cones. Actually, here is one more from the same harbor:

It Wasn't Built in a Day...

Other than flowers, one of the types of images I look for in my photography are nifty patterns--especially smaller parts of larger of objects. This picture comes from the Pont Du Gard in southern France and was taken in 2005 when I was traveling around after teaching in Italy for the year. The Pont was built in 19 BC by Augustus' son-in-law and aide, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. So, there has been plenty of time for weather to work its magic on the stones of the bridge. This was actually my second visit to the Pont du Gard as I was there when I was in 7th grade as well (and once again in the summer of 2006--I just can't seem to stay away :-) ). When we visited as kids you could still walk across the third level (which was where the water was carried--it is an aqueduct after all) 160 feet in the air. Not sure my mom was too happy about us running around on the top but alas, it has been closed since then so I wasn't able to try it again so many years later :-) These stones were down on the first level and I just really liked the way they had been weathered. Not only is the pattern nifty, but it is a visual represenation of the age of the structure--cool!