Sep 30 (Wed.) - Prague

We started the day by taking care of business. Took the metro over to Florenc bus station to buy our tickets for Friday morning. In addition to guaranteeing our seats, we have had a dry run at getting to the terminal for timing purposes.

We then took the metro over to Josefov, Prague's historic Jewish quarter. The tour of the 'museum' (actually 6 different venues) did an excellent job of covering not only the history of Jews in Cz but also the fundamentals of rituals from birth to death.

Especially poignant was the Pinkas Synagogue, now a memorial to the victims of the Nazis. Names and hometowns cover the walls while a cantor recites the names, interspersed with prayers. Upstairs are drawings by the children of Terezin, the camp to which they were shipped before being sent east as part of the 'ultimate solution'. Efforts by the elders to shield the children from the awful realities of their situation brought back memories of Robert Begnini's It's A Beautiful Life as well as the concentration camp at Mauthausen we visited a couple of years ago. Very sad.

[=Note: the info at each of the displays is excellent. However many are in small print and poorly lit so don't forget your penlight in your lodgings, like I did]



The Spanish Synagogue, above.



The Old Jewish Cemetary - 12,000 gravestones packed and stacked into a small area.

One of the dreams I've had for Prague since seeing the movie 'Amadeus' was to see Don Giovanni presented here in the Estates Theatre where Mozart himself had directed its premiere (to the residents of Prague's eternal pride).


Statue commemorating the premiere of DG in October 1787.


Though I will get to attend a performance of DG in Prague (tomorrow), it will not be in the ET. Nor will I get to attend a performance a performance of any kind in the ET as it is fully booked.

-- Post From My iPhone

Sep 29 (Tue.) - Prague

The day started well - bacon & eggs Canadian-style (but unfortunately not that tasty Ontario pork).

The sun was out as we headed out but clouded over as the day went on - but no rain as per the forecast yesterday. We've been lucky in Europe so far - every day nice & sunny.

Today was for the Old Town, full of history and Baroque architecture. Everything taken at a slow pace, especially along the pretty warren of streets, laneways and courtyards around the Old Town Square. Little wonder that Prague was chosen as the location for 18th century Vienna in the film 'Amadeus'.


The Tyn Church and National Gallery (to its left). The memorial to Czech hero Jan Hus (green mass) is in front.


The 15th century Astronomical clock (in the middle) indicates Bohemian and modern time in addition to sunrise and sunset. At the top of each hour, the skeleton rings the bell, two windows open and the 12 apostles glide by and the cock crows.

We had a traditional Czech supper - goulash. For Mimi that's comfort food - a couple of years ago in Germany, that's all she dared eat after the unpleasantness with a pork knuckle (a big favorite over here).

After supper it was on to 'a little night music' featuring the Best of Mozart and Dvorák in the beautiful Municipal House.



-- Post From My iPhone

Sep 28 (Mon) - Prague

After checking out we hopped the RER train to the airport. A short while later I became uncomfortable as my RER ticket wasn't in the right pant pocket where I thought I had put it. Repeated searches thru my bags produced nothing. So what to do if confronted with a control gate one has to pass, using the validated ticket, upon exiting at CDG?

Sure enough. There were automated gates and no staff to relate my sob story about a lost ticket. Are we looking at a heavy fine? Are we looking to be delayed while I chase someone down and then missing our flight? Beads of sweat start forming on the brow ...

We start pondering options - I go thru alone and try to work things out by finding an official??? How long will that take??? What are the consequences?

'Mimi la sardine' (Pauline's new sobriquet since our walk thru the Latin Quarter) suggests that both of us slip thru the gate on her ticket. While we are normally scrupulously honest, this move strikes me as being quite brilliant, and really the only practical solution under the circumstances.

So, lining up our bags in formation and bracing to make ourselves as petite and slippery as possible, we charged ahead into our Bastille ... sliced thru the barricade like it was beur-r-r-e ... and on to our flight. Whew!

[Note re Mimi: Allie, our little rosebud of a granddaughter can't quite say 'Grammie' yet, so Mimi it is!]

The flight to Prague itself was uneventful but the lunch was interesting, possibly more so to the Czech palate. The main course consisted of small skewers with chicken and apricot along with a salad of bulgar wheat imbued with fruit and what appeared to be birdseed. The roll was hard but the chocolate mousse cake was heavy, rich and very tasty.



We arrived Prague mid-afternoon and settled in quickly. Picked up groceries and made supper. Had an evening walk around Wenceslas Square (our apartment is on its south end, with a mounted St. W just outside the door) and had an earlier than usual night.

Mmm-m-m, street meat on WenSq!



-- Post From My iPhone

Sep 27 (Sun.) - Paris

Happiness was another 9-hour, uninterrupted sleep - I'm beginning to feel like a teenager again (but with age spots instead of pimples)!

After breakfast, walked over to Notre Dame to hear the organ during a Mass.

After lunch we took the metro up to Montmartre, which we had never managed to squeeze in during previous visits to Paris.

The first sight on the list was the Sacré Coeur basilica, built to atone for France's sinful ways.


Being at the highest point in Paris, one gets a nice panoramic view of the city from its steps (I stitched 2 images together in order to get this one).


From there it was into the bohemian part of Montmartre.

Place du Tertre: Montmartre's town square where painters still display their works to prospective clients ...


12 rue Cortot (now the Montmartre museum) where at some time or other lived and worked Renoir, Utrillo, Suzanne Valadon (who carried on with composer Erik Satie a couple of doors up), and many others. The museum does a good job of documenting the history and characters who made Montmartre famous.


Le Bateau-Lavoir which supplied ramshackle housing for poor artists such as Picasso - it was while he lived here that he produced 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, and in the process, invented modern art!


And finally the 'Moulin de la Galette', featured in so many paintings (including the first art print we ever bought for our home in the early 70s - Utrillo's 'Moulin de la Galette' - Mel you may be old enough to remember it on the wall to the right of the fireplace).


After doubling back to the apartment for a quick rest (and nibblies), we walked back towards Montmartre to experience a legendary Parisian eatery - Le Bouillon Chartier. This place is rec'd by virtually every guidebook so we thought we'd give it a try.

We were seated at a table for four; pretty soon we were joined by a couple from Montpelier - standard practice in this resto. The waiter scribbled our order on the paper tablecloth and away he went and everything was delivered.

We enjoyed the atmosphere and our tablemates very much - the food not so much. The following review (seen only after visiting) pretty well sums up our experience.

http://www.notquitenigella.com/2008/08/02/restaurant-chartier-paris/

When I requested 'la douloureuse' the waiter again used the tablecloth to scribble the amount for the items consumed and performed the math manually, right before our very eyes!


Overall it was a fun experience but it might be less so for 'les fins gourmets'.

-- From My iPhone

Sep 26 (Sat) - Paris

Today was the day we always said we'd have to just wander around Paris without having to rush anywhere.

It started with a stroll across
the Seine and then heading south across the Left Bank towards the Luxemburg Gardens.

One stop along the way was at St. Sulpice church. We seemed to recall that something of consequence had happened here in 'The DaVinci Code' but neither of us could recall what it was. At any rate, there are three Delacroix originals in a side chapel which made the stop worthwhile.


Delacroix - 'Jacob Wrestling the Angel'.

Walking around the LuxG we ran across some tennis courts - seeing the players rally, cracking the ball with full swings and yet keeping the ball in play made me somewhat envious of their skill level ... until I realized that they were playing with old, soft balls - sheech, even I can keep balls like that in play!

Leaving the LuxG, we made our way via metro to Place de la Bastille


and then Place Des Vosges in Le Marais neighbourhood to meet with George and Linda, friends from home.

After a little libation, we checked out Chez Janou, one of Bob Lovejoy's restaurant recs (just off PdV) but supper would not be served until 8 pm - too late for our friends who really liked Bob's recs but wanted to have an early meal.

So we walked through the Marais and made our way quai-side of the Seine to another of Bob's recs, Trumilou. This one would start serving at 7pm so we settled in here thinking that a 1 hour wait might be the best we could do anywhere. So a white Auvergnois and good conversation helped to ease us into supper. Supper itself earned a thumbs-up all around - the food was good and the prices very fair especially given the location. [Thanks Bob!]

After dropping George and Linda off at the Châtelet metro stop, we called it a day.

-- Post From My iPhone

Sep 25 (Fri) - Paris

We flew from Barcelona to Paris arriving at our apartment mid-afternoon.

After settling in, we had lunch on the street and then dropped over to the grocery store to pick up essentials for our stay.

The weather in Barcelona had been hot (high 20s) and we had scurried around extensively over the days spent there so we had run through our supply of clean clothes. Travelling with nothing but a carry-on is great but it does mean that you need to do laundry more often. So, we did laundry and took it easy for the rest of the day to provide body, legs and feet some recovery time.

This evening we took a leisurely stroll onto Île de la Cité past Notre Dame and into the Latin Quarter where I took this series of 4 pix, panning from left to right from the same vantage point.






I did this to test a photo stiching program I recently downloaded. The result is the following composite panorama - a pretty spectacular result IMO !!!




-- Post From My iPhone

Sep 24 (Thur) - Barcelona

This was a Gaudí day!

We started at the Casa Milà apartment complex


moved on to visit the evolving (though you can't tell this postcard) Sagrada Familia church


, then up to Parc Güell (intended 60 acre housing project)


and finally down to the Block of Discord before returning to our hotel.

While waiting to head out for supper, along came the Mercè's parade down the Ramblas and past our balcony. In addition to the cast of characters we had seen last night, we now saw 5-10 times that many all accompanied my their own band or musicians.


These people really know how to parade! A full parade was held yesterday, another one this morning and finally the one we saw this evening.

The parade moved very, very slowly lasting about 90 minutes - giving plenty of time for the characters to interact with the crowds, especially the children. One can't help but think how wonderful a way to develop and ingrain a common culture ... and of course pride in the Catalan culture.


After the parade we walked down the length of the Ramblas and across the boardwalk to have dinner, harbour-side at Maremagnum.

Tomorrow, adéu to Barcelona but not before drinking from the magic fountain just below us which is said to ensure an eventual return to Barcelona - we would enjoy that very much!

-- Post From My iPhone

Sep 23 (Wed) - Barcelona

An 8-hour uninterrupted sleep ... the first in many years!

After breakfast, strolled down thru the Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter) and visited the cathedral before moving on to the Picasso Museum in the Ribera.

We had visited the Picasso museum in Antibes where he had spent his last years; that was several years ago when we knew even less about art than the little we do today. So this was an opportunity to learn about his development spent here in Barcelona as a teenager before moving to France where he went abstract. Next to his more famous pre-Cubism originals located here, most interesting (to me) was his many interpretations (50+?) of various aspects of Velaquez's 'Las Meninas', considered by some critics as being the greatest painting ever. The more fun part was his caricatures of his pal Sabartés drawn in various stages of familiarity with pretty pinups, drawn on the actual magazine pages.

After a late lunch, we visited the Palau de la Música Catalan where music melds with culture to enhance Catalonian identity and pride. A tour is mandatory in order to visit and a Spanish tour was the only open to us so we took the 1-hour tour.

As you can (hopefully) see from the pix I took from postcards (no photography permitted), the modernista architecture and decor are beautiful - not to mention the superb acoustics (which I am in fact mentioning). Note the extensive use of mosaics and the stained glass ceiling fixture!


On the facade are busts of Bach, Beethoven, Palestrina and Wagner - again from a postcard as you need to be on a neighbouring roof to get a useful pic of the facade.


After supper we made our way to the cathedral area for the sardana. You may be able to discern a couple of groups dancing from the pic below. A standard feature of each group of partipants is that all place their belongings in the center of the circle - symbolic of community and sharing.


The sardana started late and we had to leave partway thru as we had to be at Placa Sant Jaume (that's James, of Compostella fame) for the kickoff of La Mercè.

What a happening this turned out to be - mythical dancing characters (some 15-20 feet tall) and monsters, hand-clapping music and fireworks in a packed, cheek-by-jowl festive crowd! A unique experience to remember! Wow!!!









-- Post From My iPhone

Sep. 22 (Tuesday)

We landed in Barcelona after our overnite around 10 this morning. Transitioning thru Frankfurt proved to be a hassle and required serious hustling to catch our connection at the far end of the terminal. Once in Barcelona, the bus got us to our hotel near Placa de Catalunya by 11; our room was ready so we checked in immediately.

I had chosen this hotel for one specific reason - they had rooms with balconies that overlook The Ramblas, Barcelona's main pedestrian avenue. That may turn out to be a mixed blessing ... more on that later.

Going on virtually no sleep, we decided to take things easy and simply explore the Ramblas for the afternoon. The highlites for us were the beautiful afternoon atmosphere, drifting along a river of humanity and the Boqueria, the main market where the intensity of the colours was unbelievable.


Checking at the tourist bureau, I learned that La Mercè (Barcelona's foremost festival) will be starting tomorrow ... which brings me to my comment about mixed blessings - there will be huge concerts every evening starting at 22:00 on Pl de Catalunya, virtually just outside our window. For a good 3 hours now, we have been hearing Dire Straits blasting intermittently as they test the sound system.

The festival does bring one other objective I thought impossible due to the timing of our Tuesday thru Friday visit - the opportunity to enjoy a Sardana, Calalonians' national dance normally performed on Sundays only. As it turns out, there will be sardanas presented over the next couple of days as part of La Mercè so I'm hoping we can get around and fit everything in.

-- Post From My iPhone