More from Split

To arrive in Croatia, we took the popular ferry route from Ancona to Split. There are a couple of lines that serve this route. The one we used, Blue Line, has the slogan "Low Cost." This slogan appears everywhere - from the side of the boat to the crew's uniforms. The trip itself was actually pleasant, although the vehicle loading and disembarking seemed a bit disorganized.

In honour of Split's Roman heritage, a performer dressed as the emperor Diocletian makes an appearance at noon every day in the town square to greet the crowd. The whole thing is a little bit tongue in cheek, which makes it less cheesy than I had expected.

Gregory of Nin (Grgur Ninski) was a 10th century bishop who was first to conduct mass in the local Croatian language. It is reputedly good luck to touch the toe of the statue.

On the route north from Split, we passed a memorial to Nikola Tesla (known for the Tesla coil, and many other practical and theoretical innovations in the field of electricity). I had no idea that he was born in Croatia.

Diocletian's Palace

The town of Split in Croatia makes me think of what Italian seaside resorts must have been like fifty years ago, when they were a bit less crowded and a bit less expensive. We arrived by ferry from Ancona, and found a room in a fantastic location inside the historical perimeter of Diocletian's Palace with very little effort. Diocletian was notable for being the only Roman emperor to retire, rather than ruling until assassination or death of natural causes, and in 305 AD he settled in a palace that is now in the heart of Split.

The Trip So Far

Now that the kids are home and getting ready to go to camp, it seems like a good point to summarize our trip so far. Over a couple of weeks, the destinations add up.

Picking the highlights from any trip is a very personal thing. Here's my list from the family portion of the trip.

Favorite city:  Locarno
Favorite activity:  The telepherique up Mont Brevent in Chamonix
Best meal:  Choucroute de la mer at Bofinger in Paris
Best appetizer:  Marinated anchovies at Trattoria San Gennaro in Praiano
Best value:  Our meal at La Piccola Cuccagna in Rome
Best drink:  Grappa at Fattoria Castelvecchi in Tuscany

And, with a different selection of categories, my wife Martha's list.

Best meal:  Scallops with bacon and potato at Bofinger
Best primo piatto:  Scialatielli with shrimp and lemon cream sauce at Pupetto in Positano
Best drink:  Meloncello
Best day:  The beach at our hotel in Praiano
Best ritual:  Morning outing to the boulangerie in Paris

L'Aquila

On the way from Rome to Ancona yesterday we made an impromptu stop in L'Aquila. I vaguely remembered that it had suffered an earthquake a few years ago, but I wasn't at all prepared for the scale of damage that is still present. The historic center of the city is essentially a ghost town, with virtually all buildings still showing obvious earthquake damage and some whole streets cordoned off. Most of the buildings had various sorts of temporary bracing in place to hold them together. The black grid in the photo is a set of steel I-beams that are bolted through many of the buildings. The whole experience was very sobering.

On a different note, I had forgetten what a goat rodeo the Fiumicino airport in Rome is. After some tense moments, we did get the kids on a plane for Toronto yesterday, concluding the family portion of our trip. The kids arrived home safely with the obligatory one lost bag that seems to be part of any flight to or from Italy.

The Amalfi Coast and Rome (now with photos)

We've had some internet connectivity issues over the last couple of days, which I suppose is part of the charm of being in Italy. In that time we have spent two nights on the Amalfi Coast (south of Naples) and two nights in Rome. On the travel day between Praiano and Rome we stopped at Pompeii. My main recollection from my previous visit there, in August, is of intense heat. My previous impression was correct. Even without the volcano, I think that the Roman residents would have been incinerated in the summer. The photos below are from Praiano. In the first one, our (ludicrously expensive) hotel is in the foreground and the town of Positano is on the other side of the bay in the background.

This is the interior of the "House of the Tragic Poet" in Pompeii (famous particularly for the Cave Canem mosaic at the entrance).



Slow Down. Take it Easy.

A couple of days ago, while we were traveling through Switzerland, there were posters everywhere along the road with a photo of a guy dressed like a later era Beatle wearing a set of angelic wings, accompanied by the slogan "Slow Down, Take It Easy."

This turns out to be a public service campaign encouraging motorists to drive less aggressively. (In my limited experience, the campaign seems to be having a negligible effect.) The Beatlesque character is in fact named Franky Slow Down. The posters are part of a multiplatform campaign that includes a TV commercial, a music video, and bunch of other stuff.

There's even more - in German, French or Italian - at http://www.slow-n-easy.ch

Tuscany

There is a stereotype about Tuscany, but that stereotype does have a lot of truth about it. It really is a landscape of hillside vineyards, ancient towns, and picturesque rustic villas. I'm not exactly clear on the history, but the fattoria where we are staying has apparently been a center of commerce for at least a thousand years. Of course, the modern plumbing and electrical services and the swimming pool probably weren't part of the medieval compound.

La (Auto)Strada

On an extended vacation, one loses track of time. Until we started driving today, I had forgotten that this was Saturday. It was also apparently the day that everyone in Northern Europe started vacation and collectively set off for Southern Europe. Our rental car isn't actually this small. With three kids in the back seat, it just feels that way.

Across Switzerland to Locarno

Today made for a spectacular drive across Switzerland, and a bit of Italy. After leaving Geneva, we followed the north shore of Lac Leman to Montreux, then up the Rhone Valley into the higher mountains, and finally some white knuckle driving along local roads for the last 30km or so to Locarno. It's hard to believe, but this is actually a two lane road. (This section is in Switzerland - the Italian section has more dilapidated guardrails and might even be a bit narrower.)

Locarno is on Lago Maggiore, which straddles Italy and Switzerland. It seems like a big European holiday spot, but I don't notice any sign of other Canadians or Americans here. I like that aspect; it makes me feel like more of an adventurer. For any Hemingway fans, this is the lake that the protaganist in A Farewell to Arms rows across to escape from Italy after deserting the Italian army. The view below is from our hotel room looking out over the lake.

Mountains

Today we made a side trip to Chamomix. Our original intent was to take the telepherique to the summit of the Aiguille du Midi, but it was closed due to high winds, so we took the telepherique from the other side of the valley. This is a two stage journey, initially to Planpraz at just under 2000m elevation and then to Le Brevent at 2525m. The second stage of the trip was also closed due to wind when we arrived at Planpraz, so we took a pile of photos there.

While we were at Planpraz, the tram to Le Brevent reopened and so we were able to continue to the summit. Although I am still modestly disappointed that we didn't get to the summit of the Aiguille du Midi (3842m), I have to admit that the view from Le Brevent is pretty amazing. This may be the only place I have been where it is possible to use nordic walking poles and not look ridiculous.

The cable car we rode to the summit is the small speck near the center of this photo.

CERN is surprisingly (to me) not a major tourist attraction, but it turns out that the loop of the Large Hadron Collider passes within about 100m of our quaint hotel in Ferney-Voltaire.

Travel Day

Spent most of the day today packing up in Paris, picking up a rental car, and driving to Ferney-Voltaire (just on the French side of the border from Geneva). All in all, it was a pretty uneventful day. We did the first three quarters of the trip on the autoroute, which is a lot like driving on a freeway anywhere except that the convenience stores at the rest stops sell Brie and Camembert. The last part of the trip was a steep drive up into the foothills of the Alps, followed by a spectacular view of Lac Leman and the mountains as we started down toward Geneva.

Il Fait Beau

Today was the first day of truly nice weather since our arrival in Europe, so I felt compelled to take as many photos as possible. After a mercifully short wait in line, our main touristic activity was a visit to the cathedral of Notre Dame. The line to climb the towers was impossibly long, so we just visited the interior. I later learned that tower entry is free to EU residents 25 years of age and under, although I don't know if that contributed to the size of the queue. I always struggle to properly capture something of the scale of a place like this in a photograph. Here's the one that - to me - conveys it best.

This evening we ate at Bofinger (pronounced roughly as Bow-Fan-Jay), which is something of a Paris institution. According to the menu, Francois Mitterrand celebrated his first presidential victory here. In the background, at right, is another patron that I can only describe as looking like a French version of Senator Edward Kennedy in his latter days. You simply don't see things like that at McDonalds.

It's Good to be King

Today, we spent the bulk of our day visiting Fontainebleau. Like Versailles, the chateau of Fontainebleau was a country retreat for French royalty. Unlike Versailles, it doesn't seem to be teeming with visitors in July. This was the first major attraction of the trip that was new to Martha and me, although for the kids everything is novel. Note the relative lack of other visitors in our photos of the grounds. It is actually difficult to believe that a site like this doesn't draw bigger crowds.

And, just to prove that we aren't this clever all the time, I should note that we spent two hours in line for the Eiffel Tour yesterday.

P.S. I forgot to mention in my initial post that the emblem of King Francis I, who directed much of the construction of Fontainebleau, is a salamander. I'm not sure if all of the imposing animals were already taken by other monarchs, but salamander doesn't strike me as a choice that would fill one's subjects and enemies with awe.

Our Apartment in Paris

We have been very pleased with the accomodations that we found in Paris. As a family of five, it isn't easy to find decent lodgings at a reasonable price. We ended up renting a one bedroom apartment (with a kitchen, and living room with pull-out sofa and a folding cot) in the 4th arrondissement, very close to the Place de la Bastille. We found the apartment through Abritel (http://www.abritel.fr/), a French vacation rental site. I have the impression that Abritel is owned by one of the larger international rental sites, but the prices - at least in Paris - seemed considerably better than on the English language sites. The building itself is very traditional, as you can see from this shot of a couple of our kids at the window.

More About My New Camera

Quite a few years ago, just prior to a previous trip to Europe, I bought a Canon S50 digital point and shoot. It was pretty much the best available small digital camera at the time, with a 5.0 Megapixel sensor. Before leaving on this trip I purchased a Canon S100, which is the latest entry in their premium compact camera line. The S50 still takes excellent pictures in many situations, but I notice three big improvements with the S100 - it's considerably smaller, it has a control ring around the lens that makes adjusting settings much simpler, and it takes dramatically better photos in low light conditions. Here's a shot of the back side of the Hotel de Ville (City Hall) that I took tonight without a tripod as we were strolling by.

On the cultural front, I learned today that the French term for computer - which is ordinateur - was created in 1955 by a professor at the Sorbonne in response to a request from the French arm of IBM for a suitable translation of the English term, the more literal translation calculateur having been deemed unsuitable.

Paris 101

This being the first trip to Paris for our kids, we're starting out with all the tourist highlights. Our day started at the Louvre, and after lunch we wandered through the Tuileries and along the Champs Elysees, and climbed the Arc de Triomphe. For anyone planning a visit to Paris, I highly recommend the Paris Museum Pass (http://en.parismuseumpass.com). We bought these mainly for the potential cost savings of paying a single price to visit multiple museums and attractions during our stay, but it also allows the holder to almost completely bypass the lines at major attractions. Here we are on the Arc de Triomphe, with the eastward view in the background.

Canada adopted the metric system many years ago, but there are still some things that use Imperial units. Just like in the United States, a big sub is a footlong and a small one is a six inch. In France, the metric system seems to be more pervasive.

First Day in Paris

We landed at Charles de Gaulle airport this morning after an overnight flight from Toronto, and arrived at the apartment we have rented for the week at around noon. This is our first experience renting a vacation place using a "rental by owner" site and we were a bit apprehensive, but the apartment is very nice. Here are a couple of photos looking out our window up and down the street.

We're in the 4th arrondisement and the view is about as stereotypically Parisian as it is possible to be. This afternoon, there was even a guy dressed like a mime leaning in a doorway across the street having a smoke.

The Excitement is Killing Me

My main accomplishments today were pruning our shrubs and installing interlock around our new basketball net. The worst plant to deal with is a small tree beside our driveway that grows like a weed. Here's a photo of it after the haircut, with a pile of trimmings on the ground.

We're leaving for Paris tomrrow evening, so the content of my posts will hopefully get more interesting at that point.

Back From the Cottage

Well, I am now officially on sabbatical.

We spent a couple of nights at the cottage (with more or less zero internet access), so I wasn't able to make any posts. I always find the cottage to be relaxing, although I usually end up doing a significant amount of work.

I don't mind physical cottage work, because - unlike my office job - it is so easy to see the tangible results of my labour. I've been cutting up an enormous tree that fell down in a storm last fall, using the chainsaw that we inherited when we bought the cottage. As best I can determine, the saw dates from the late 1960s. I'm in the semiconductor business, where new products are inevitably better and more powerful than older products, but I'm convinced that my vintage chainsaw is actually superior to a brand new saw (although it is unencumbered by any sort of safety features).

It isn't all work, though. Here's a shot of the view across the bay this morning from our dock.

Getting close ...

I have two days left at the office until my sabbatical starts. Things have been pretty hectic, so we've done a limited amount of planning so far. We have flights booked, some accomodation arranged, and a rental car reserved.

Apart from that, I bought a new camera and a GPS application for Martha's iPhone. I wanted to get the best possible camera that was small enough that I would be likely to take it everywhere, and settled on a Canon PowerShot S100. I'm certainly not a photography expert, but I'm impressed with the S100 so far. Once we snap something interesting, I'll post a few shots.