Philly

And on to the next adventure! Here we are in Philly. We could claim we're here to see all the friends and family, but really we're here for this monster.

Jackson!

His humans are heading off to celebrate a birthday in Portugal, so Brian and I are here to pet sit. Jackson the Pembroke Corgi is a delightful companion and we're already walking around town with him. Jackson also has two others in his menagerie. Two cats who are 20 years old each, only one of whom is friendly. Can't win 'em all.

Mabel!

~Lucy

Seattle

We're spending time in Seattle while I get through my RECOVER Long Covid study tests. This is not a hardship. We've managed to spend time with family, friends, and see the springtime blooms. We also attended a chilly early season baseball game (before Seattleites get their hopes dashed, yet again), and went to the Nordic Museum. It's in a new building since I was there last. Quite nice and good displays. I enjoy revisiting my roots!

Mariners vs Red Sox - we won! (with Cousin Donna)

In the National Nordic Museum

One of the Trolls

~Lucy

Barcelona

Because of our airline tickets, we opted to spend a week in Barcelona before flying back to the US. We lost a day to the track vandalism, but still had time to enjoy the city. We know people who love Barcelona. We know people who hate it: primarily those who have been pickpocketed here.

For me, it’s hard to see Barcelona clearly. They are in month forty of severe drought. So it’s dusty, and unclean in general. Where guys take a piss in a corner is always gross, but where it would otherwise be washed away by rain it has now become utterly foul. Dog shit just desiccates into the atmosphere. The gardens are beautiful, but the trees are so stressed and dying and of course the fountains are empty. It feels like a grim, sad place. The contrast to Paris and their regular power washing of the sidewalks and general sprucing up for the Olympics is stark.

But on the flip side, every meal has been delicious. Cava sangria is wonderful. It's so confusing. We're definitely not seeing the city at its best.

We did the usual touristic things: an architecture tour featuring Gaudi, the Sagrada Familia tour including a trip up a tower, and a hike through Montjuic and over to the cemetery on the other side. The fonts in the cemetery were wonderfully creative. 

My burning question: with the Catholic church working to beatify Gaudi, will he be known as St Gaudi, or St Antoni? Anyone out there a canon law scholar?  

Fancy Gaudi

Up in the (very) dry hills above the City.

Sagradia Familia from a lower tower.

The "warm side" stained glass. 

Church, construction site.

Truly fancy fonts in the Cemetiri Montjuic

Even more so.

~Lucy

Flamingos!

Sorry that the photos are poor quality. The train windows weren't that clean, and we were whizzing along. But as were looked out on the Narbonnaise en Mediterranee Parc Naturel we spotted....flamingos. A LOT of them. Interesting to discover they make their home in France.

Flamingos from the Train

No, really....

Toulouse

We continued on our journey, taking the train to Toulouse. It was fascinating to parallel the Canal de Garonne which, with the Canal du Midi, makes up the Canal des Deux Mers. These connect the Mediterranean to the Atlantic with a traditional series of canals and locks. It appears to only be recreationally used now, and a peaceful way to traverse the country. In the town you can walk the old canal paths, which make a nice albeit sometimes muddy outing.

Toulouse is a university town, so the demographics skewed younger. The Occitan language is used with French on the street signs. The French accent here also tends more toward Spanish or Catalan pronunciation. We mostly wallowed along in English and apologized as needed.

We hadn't done much research on Toulouse, so we spent our time walking and eating the delicacies of the region. We consumed a lot of duck, prepared several ways, including gizzards. It was delicious.

Our stay in Toulouse was lengthened when RATP sent us a series of texts - an incidence of vandalism and arson closed the tracks between us and the coast. We were truly impressed by the regular updates about the situation, which trains were cancelled, and even photos of the workers out making repairs. Luckily it was the offseason, so we asked the nice people at our hotel to extend our stay and it was not a problem. We even went back to the same restaurant for more duck. Not ashamed.

Brian's no dummy. When in the Occitane, book a hotel with the local products.

 

The Convent des Jacobins

The resting place of St. Thomas Aquinas.

One of the more interesting buildings in Toulouse - the former tobacco factory. Now part of the university.

The Garonne River

~Lucy

Bordeaux

We finally (sadly) departed Paris, making our way south. Because we weren't sure at the beginning of our journey where we would end up, we purchased one-way tickets. We're limited to the 90-day visa free travel period within the Schengen Area. So we decided to fly out from Barcelona, in part because the One World Alliance allows us to use Alaska Airlines miles to book on American (Barcelona to JFK) and then switch to Alaska (JFK-SEA-ANC). Not a bad way to get home.

Rather than take the TGV straight to Barcelona (a 7.5 hour journey), we opted to break up our trip with stops in Bordeaux and Toulouse. We had initially thought we'd be making day trips or short journeys out of Paris, but there was just so much to see and do there. This was our chance to see more of France.

Bordeaux showed us its spring weather, violently. Wind, rain, hail, sunshine. Utter bonkers. The hail was so strong we had drifts of it hours later. We had to hunker down in the City of Wine to escape it. Darn.

Since we were in the region, we signed up for a Saint-Emilion wine tour. We visited two wineries and the village. Chilly, but lovely.

Stormy skies in Bordeaux.

La Cite du Vin

Taking wine bottle lighting to the hipster extreme.

Drifts of hail.

Brain and oak barrels. He's a natural.

The church and hermitage of St. Emilion.

Village scenery.

~Lucy

Wrapping Up Paris

 We did so much. We ate so much. We saw so many delightful things. I perhaps wrote too little. Here's a smattering of things I failed to tell you about.

At the Maison Europeenne de la Photographie 

Weird collection, but fun - MEP.

The holiday lights on Rue Cler.

Place Vendome Christmas Lights

Louis Vuitton went big on holiday lights.

Crevettes L'Amour. Aka weird art.

Rachel and I missed out on the Sacre Coeur dome due to snow. Brian and I went for it.

Good views, but the balustrade is very low. I'm surprised there aren't more "accidents" here. Someone set a murder mystery here.

A tiny slip, a small push.....

A rainbow over the Tuileries.

Just before our departure, the scaffolding came off the Notre Dame steeple.

~Lucy

Vanessa in Paris

....and who is Vanessa, I hear you cry? My cousin. In the completely Lucy "big tent" version of family. Vanessa is my (late) stepfather's biological first cousin Gunter's daughter. This is made a little more confusing because my stepfather Hank was adopted, and did not meet his bio family until later in life. This is even more understandable as they are in Germany, and he was born shortly after his bio mom immigrated to the U.S. 

I've previously met Vanessa, and visited her in Munich eleven years ago (!!), so I was thrilled when she was able to take the train over and spend a weekend with us. She had also never been to Paris before, so much running around to see the sights was done. 

Of our four guests, three spoke a lot more French than us, and three were vegetarian (with some flexibility). We now know a lot more about good vegetarian restaurants in Paris, and we suckered Vanessa into eating escargot, which she liked.

What a lovely time. 

Eiffel, of course.

A view from the Seine.

Bistro dining, avec escargots.

Relaxing coffee shops.

Outside the Pompidou

True words.

Reveling in the Paris-ness of it all.

~Lucy

 

Rachel in Paris

You may have noticed a third party in our snow day post. We were utterly delighted to have our friend Rachel join us for 10 days in January. She had never been to France before so we "saved up" some of the big touristy things to do together. 

We were somewhat thwarted by the Eiffel Tower closing its upper viewing deck for annual maintenance and repairs. We were limited to the lower deck, but made the most of it by booking entry for the sunset hour. We ruthlessly taught Rachel the transit system and sent her to Versailles solo as neither of us were interested in going. And we caught colds. Oh well.

First up: a boat tour on the Seine, with Notre Dame in the background

Then, the Arc de Triomph. 

Brian didn't know you could go on TOP of the Arc. But the fog thwarted our views.

  

We cleverly? Selfishly? trained Rachel to be our morning pastry caddie. 

In the Musee d'Orsay

The D'Orsay required wine. Because the Van Gogh special exhibition was overwhelming.

Rachel and La Louvre

After dark, the Eiffel Tower sparkles.

Rachel and a Paris Sunset

Mediocre champagne, fabulous views, wonderful friends.

~Lucy