Venice

There are not enough words or pictures to describe how wonderful and beautiful Venice is for first time visitors.

It was raining the day we arrived and we were still awestricken.

We took a private water taxi to our hotel from the airport. Thank goodness we did as we would have never found it on our own. Our hotel lobby opens on a side canal and entering from land is like being in a maze with Italian directions.

Our first night in Venice we found a tiny Cicchetti bar and had wine and delightful little bites made by the bartender and his mother. We saw the Rialto Bridge, Piazza San Marcos, and the Grand Canal. Every turn on every little alley had a picturesque view. There are restaurants everywhere and we randomly walked by and chose one for dinner.  Each time the food was fabulous and inexpensive.

This is the view from our hotel room.  As I write this blog I am listening to Gondoliers talk to each other and musicians in their boats singing. The musician finishes his music and everyone on the street applauds. We are drinking a bottle of Prosecco. Life doesn't get better than this!

What a magical place. It is extraordinary. Rick and I are so lucky to have been able to travel here and see this great historical place.  We walked every inch of it and now can boast 10,000+ steps a day. We are living on Ibuprofen and Band-Aids on our feet.

Arcachon, France

We found a sandy beach in France to cure our homesick feelings for the ocean. We took the train from Bordeaux to Arcachon.  It took only a one hour train ride to get our feet in the sand.  We spent the day at the beach.

Arcachon is a delightful beach town.  It has a population of  11, 000 full-time residents.  However,  tourists fill the resorts,  restaurants, beach, and tour boats.  We walked the beach, had lunch walked through the village and returned to Bordeaux all in a day. Pictures tell the best story...

The streets are lined with fancy cottages.  Each has a name built into the façade of the house.  We don't know if the names are family names or just the name of the house.

This whale tale is anchored in the water and turns directions as the wind blows.

A protected harbor allows hundreds of pleasure boats  (mostly motor boats) to tie-up.

This is our last day in France.  We head to Venice via Barcelona and will have to say goodbye to Bordeaux and the French wine country.  We loved it here.

 

Bordeaux the wine version

We came to Bordeaux for the wine. We have spent our time touring the vineyards on both sides of the Garonne River tasting and learning about the wines of France.

Growing grapes is highly regulated.  Only 65 vineyards have been certified buy the AOC (Appellation d'Origine Controlee)  that occurred in 1865.  And nothing has changed since then.  The AOC  allows only certain grape varieties to be grown in certain the Appellation (region). They designate what wines/labels carry the AOC or are labeled "Vin du France"  (wines not produced under the AOC rules).  As a result, there are only a limited number of vineyards and chateaus that make approved wine and only a limited area that is allowed to grow vines.

Bordeaux only allows the growing of six varieties of grapes: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and Carmeniere.  Each appellation only grow grapes that are approved for their region. It is very strict system that hasn't changed for nearly two hundred years.  

Saint Emilion is on the right bank of the Garonne River.  It's an ancient village built on a hillside surrounded by the most beautiful land full of vineyards and chateaus. Now the village is full of wine stores.  This picture was taken from the church at the top of the village.

The Chateaus are so beautiful. It's hard to believe that people actually live in them and farm the land.

Most of the grapes are hand picked from the fields, taken to the processing barn, cleaned and de-stemmed and prepared for fermentation in steel barrels.  Then the wine is aged in these French oak barrels that cost about $1000 each. They only use the barrels for two seasons and then sell them for $40.  We have wondered when they are going to run out of French oak since they have been using barrels for hundreds of years and oak is very slow growing.  These are the things we ponder over a glass of wine. 

One of the chateaux's had a nuclear bomb shelter that protected their stash of wine.  They had wines dating back to 1912!  They had most years except for the bad years of drought and war.

We love wine and Bordeaux.  Perhaps we need a chateau so we can live in France.

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a gorgeous city full of ancient (compared to the US) buildings and beautiful courtyards. As a seaport, it has a huge tidal river, the Garrone, that separates new and old Bordeaux as well as the wine appellations for Bordeaux wines.

We have figured out the tram system which runs right in front of our VRBO flat (notice I am using the European name for apartment). We have spent a lot of time in cafés drinking coffee and wine and watching the world go by.  We are not sure anyone works in Bordeaux because they are all at the cafes drinking and smoking.

Fountains and monuments are everywhere.  Not just little tiny fountains but huge, magnificent fountains with horses blowing water out their nostrils, naked Greek figures rising from clam shells, military men in the struggles of war and lots of Greek women adorning the corners of buildings and fountains. It is fascinating to see old structures some dating back to the 1100's. 

One of the art pieces is a giant reflecting pond that is in front of the old palace.  It fills with about 2 inches of water and drains to just a skim over a huge area of tiles.  Everyone plays in the reflecting pond, kids roll and splash in the water and we even saw some young people dancing. It is a very popular area since the temperatures have been in the 90's.

The contrasts between ancient buildings and new creative structures are spectacular to see. Bordeaux is a UNESCO site so the old part of the city is protected and no high rises are allowed so as to keep the skyline just as it has been for hundreds of years. Originally, Bordeaux was developed beginning 2700 years ago.

We went to a museum that was a converted WWII German Nazi submarine base. It was a four bay structure with 6 feet thick concrete walls and ceiling.  Water still fills the bays.  They show wonderful Renaissance and modern art by projecting it on the walls and floors with reflections in the water.  It was so interesting to see how they turned an ugly wartime symbol of hate into a beautiful museum. It was awesome.

Every city and village has a church.  Bordeaux has a spectacular cathedral and bell tower.  The bell tower is separate from the church. When it was first built it was such a heavy structure and the bells were so large and loud that they shook the cathedral.  So a separate bell tower was constructed.

The parks in Bordeaux are beautiful and filled with trees and flowers and ponds. The public park (Jardin du Public) was filled with people enjoying the outdoors.  We even found a café over looking the park where we had a glass of wine and once again, did people watching.

Champagne

The French Champagne region is a beautiful landscape of vineyards, small villages, rolling hills and forests.  We took an all day tour and tasted champagne from several houses plus toured their production facilities.  We had lunch under a canopy in the country and drank more champagne. This picture looks like it's from a tourist brochure but I actually took it and, you know, it does look exactly like the brochure.

Moet Chandon is the biggest producer of champagne.  This is just one hallway of the 28 kilometers of underground caverns that store the champagne in various stages.  We saw numerous areas off this hall where they stored 10-20 thousand bottles.  The tour guides say the management won't say how many bottles they store in the cellars, but it has to be in the millions!  They noted that the oldest bottle was from 1869.  It is staggering to see the amount of hand work that must be done to produce the champagne.  The temperature in these caverns is 10-12 Celsius year round....perfect for the making of champagne.

I am standing by a storage cavern that is holding 29,528 bottles of champagne.  Apparently I have to wait 10 more years before I can drink any of it.  Who knew that it was an aged wine.

No flash was allowed in the caverns to protect the wine as it matures.

To be labeled as champagne, all the grapes must have been grown in this region.  They grow three types of grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. We were there on the last day of harvest.  Most of the vineyards had been hand picked prior to our arrival.  We found these grapes hanging around at a park in a little village on the hill.

A statue of Don Perignon stands outside of Moet Chandon. According to our tour guide this monk has been identified as the founder of champagne when in fact he spent his life trying to get the bubbles out of champagne.

Moet Chandon is just one of the champagne houses that line the Avenue de Champagne.  You can wander in each place, have a taste, buy wine, and stumble to the next place.

Sante`! 

Paris

Our Paris hotel, Les Plumes, was decorated with books, picture of authors and poets. the hall to our room was wall papered top to bottom with book paper.  It was an odd feeling at first to find your room. Our hotel was on a quaint street  and a perfect location for us.

Since we had been to Paris before we had a few things we wanted to do that we missed on our first trip. We went to the D'Orsay Museum.  I love impressionists so this was a perfect visit for me.  Our tour guide was spectacular in showing and telling us about the transition from the Renaissance to the Impressionist movement.  Loved it.

Dinking wine and eating was really what we did for thee days. We even learned to sit at sidewalk cafes and while away an hour or two doing people watching.

 

Normandy

Normandy was an amazing place for us. It was beautiful, serine, and haunting. We learned a piece of American history that we never knew before, and it was taught to us from a French man that intertwined the history of France though World Wars I and II with American history. 

It was an emotional day. The cemetery flies the American Flag but it is on French land. The French care for the cemetery like it was their own because they honor those that lost their lives for both countries.

Omaha Beach, where the Americans landed on D-Day, is a beautiful beach that spans well more than a mile long.  It is totally unprotected. It is amazing that our troops made it up the hill. there was a tremendous amount of strategy to make D-Day and the days that followed successful.  Being on the beach brings the reality of the events into a clear focus. 

 

The memorial features maps of the invasion at Normandy featuring the routes of  the American, British and Canadian attack forces. 

We are not big museum people but the Museum at Normandy is phenomenal.  It's collection of war memorabilia, equipment, photographs and letters is so touching and sad.  Yet, it made us proud of the young men that fought the war.

So glad we made this trip.  The history lesson was important. 

Bonaire Bob's Go to Europe - Amsterdam

Rick and I have watched the KLM plane take-off from Bonaire almost everyday since we have lived on the island.  We often told ourselves that some day we would be on the flight,  Today was that day.  We packed up our two tiny suitcases and backpacks and set off on our European adventure. 

We had a rough start.  Rick thought he forgot his wallet and had to return home from the airport to get it.  All the while the wallet was in his backpack.  Good thing we live close to the airport.  I misplaced my sedula.  After a frantic search, it was located on the floor under my chair. We did manage to get on the plane and landed 9 hours later in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam is a very old seaport built on canals throughout the old part of the City.  Row houses line the canals.  Houseboats are in each side of the canals and have hook-ups to sewer, water and power.  It's a young people's city.  All the old people must have moved to the burbs because we saw very few old/older people. The sun was shining for two days during our visit.  Not a rain cloud in sight.

Everyone rides bikes.  They have big bike lanes that are full of riders like rush hour on an interstate. There must be a million bikes in this city.  They are parked everywhere. You see very few cars on the streets.  Everyone looks fit riding their bikes. Probably why they are so thin.

Amsterdam is clean and friendly.  Everyone speaks English which is a real plus to us.  Diversity  in nationalities is the name of the game in Holland. 

Our hotel has four floors.  The street level floor is "0".  The next floor is numbered "1".  The below street level is "-1". The room numbers on the 4th floor are numbered with 3's. It has been a mind twister to figure out what button to push.

Its been interesting to us that the Dutch we have encountered don't know where Bonaire is or what it is even though it is a special municipality of the Netherlands.