On the last flight to home

Anne and I are on the last flight from Dallas to Sacramento and I am looking forward to seeing the house and my checking out the garden and yard to see what the 107 degree heat has done to it.  I have been gone almost 5 weeks.  Hard to believe it has been that long, but when I think about places like Istanbul, it seems like much longer than 5 weeks since I was there.  It has been quite a trip.   I visited 9 countries, put nearly 2,000 miles on the rental car and am going to need to get used to people speaking English again.  It's been a while since I understood what the majority of people were saying.

Many, many thanks to my wonderful wife Anne.  She understood this is a trip I have wanted to take for a very long time.  She was not only supportive of me going, she was a push to get me to do this.  I would have preferred if she could have been there for the whole thing, but certainly enjoyed the last few weeks and all the wonderful hotels she set me up at.

Now, back to reality.  I am excited to start my new consulting venture - the future is so very bright.

Planes, trains and....Uber?

Well, we sadly started the long trek back home today.  Being in the south of France, living in a city without a major hub and using frequent flyer tickets all lined up to give us 4 flights to make it home.  Marseille to Paris, Paris to JFK (overnight in hotel), JFK to Dallas and Dallas to Sacramento.  The tickets were basically free, so it's hard to complain.  It would have been 3 flights no matter what.  The surprise came when we headed to the airport this morning.

We all have different stress points and Anne has learned leaving a foreign country is one of mine.  I travel so much internationally and have had so many issues I always get to the airport 2 hours ahead minimum.  She offered up to leave the hotel early before I could bring up the subject, so I figured we were good.  Drive was fine and we pulled into the Marseille airport area just over 2 hours ahead and found about a 2 mile backup out the front entrance to the airport.  We had heard that taxi drivers were protesting Uber drivers in Paris, but apparently they moved to Marseille and were blocking the entrance to the airport.  See the CNN article about Paris below.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/25/europe/france-paris-uberpop-protests/

Here was Anne's cell phone shot as we passed through the protest line.

If we missed the first flight, it was going to be a REALLY bad and long weekend.  You are basically standby on whatever is available and that can be a rough trip home.  I was fortunately able to squeeze in at the end of the line, by driving on the shoulder and forcing my way in the end.  I felt a little bad, but we would have missed the flight otherwise and a month of driving in Europe has honed my aggressive driving skills.  After slowly crawling through the crowd of taxi drivers blocking the way, we were there in about 45 minutes (just to get into the airport drive).  We dropped the car and were at the area to check in 1.5 hours before our flight, so we figured we were good.  Not so fast, we forgot we were in France.  There were 5 people checking in the long line of flyers, and all of a sudden, 4 of them left for about half an hour.  We waited in that line nearly an hour before we got checked in.  Fortunately we made the flight (barely) and are in Paris airport waiting for our flight to the US.    To quote Yogi Berra, "it isn't over, until it's over", but we are hopeful that things will be smoother from here.

Le Musee Departemental Aries Antique

We walked over to the local natural history museum and it was a very interesting presentation.  The focus of the museum is on the evolution of Arles.  One of the key objects was a barge from Roman times (BC).  They had discovered it about a decade ago in sediment in the river and went to great effort to recover it and all the materials like it.

View from the end of the barge, it was very large and is over

2,000 years old.  Pots along the side were from the same discovery.

Some of the recovered Roman fascia.  This was one of the most emotional ones.

Sketch of the Amphitheater from the 1400's.  After the fall of Rome, the

amphitheater had about 150 homes move inside for protection.

Le Cloitre Saint Trophime

When we bought our tickets to the Amphitheater yesterday, they had a deal where for 4 more euros, you could get a pass to see 4 historic sites and one museum, so we bought it.  All of the historic sites are World Heritage sites.  After the Gyro trip yesterday, we were too late to hit all the sites, so we did today.  It was a nice walk around town and some sites we might not otherwise see.  The first stop was a historic Cloister called Le Cloitre Saint Trophime.  It was in very good shape.

Some beautiful arches

Courtyard in the middle of the complex

View from the second deck of the courtyard and tower complex behind

 

 

After the Cloister, we visited a museum next door.

A better week on Fitbit

I received last weeks Fitbit report and it was better than the week before.  I was happy to see I did average over 20,000 steps for the week.

Gyrodream (aka Segway) tour

We went on a great tour on Segway scooters.  Technically, we were told they are called Gyrodream machines, and that company bought Segway last year.  It took about 10 minutes of orientation and we were off with the guide.  It was just Anne, the guide and me.  It was supposed to be a one hour tour and he took us for nearly two hours.   He was a very nice retired military man and was clearly doing this to keep busy.  He knew the area and history very well and it was a very pleasant tour.

The electric scooter.  Seemed hard for a few minutes, but once you got

used to it, it's very easy to use.  Will go 20 mph, but they had ours set

to a maximum of 10 mph.

Roman Amphitheater

The town has wonderfully kept Roman ruins including an amphitheater.  We toured the ruins and many of them were well kept.

View from the tower in the ruins to a church next door

Original Roman Arches

 

 

One thing we saw that we were very interested in was a bull race.  It is similar to a bull fight, but the bull is not harmed.  They tie ribbons on his horns and the participants try to get the ribbons off.  Anne and I have never had an interest in a traditional bull fight, but wanted to see this.  Unfortunately, it does not start until next week.  These are held in the amphitheater.

 



Our favorite lunch

Anne and I have been quite fortunate to travel a fair amount and eat at many fine places, but honestly our favorite lunch is a picnic at market day in Europe.  Anne likes to pick fresh veggies, olives, salami, cheese, fruits, etc. and we eat off of them for a couple days.  Today was a great market day with many fine choices.  We even found a 1 euro plastic tray at the market to prepare and take our lunch down to a bench on and eat.  Bon Appetit!

Baguette, tomato, basil, olives, cherrys, cheese, salami and fruit, on a park bench.  Not to

mention a glass of red wine for Mark and Pellegrino for Anne.  Now that's lunch.

Market day in Arles

We got up early and traveled to Arles to make sure we were here in time for Market day.  In Europe, most cities big and small have one day a week where vendors set up booths for a market.  In some cities we have stayed in, this has been going on in the same square for over 800 years, on the same day of the week.  Anne and I always enjoy this.  Looking at all the fresh food items and buying food for a lunch.  To this day, many locals buy many of their staples and vegetables at the market day each week.  It was clear that we have hit peak of tomato, cherry and strawberry season.  Some views from this morning.

Wonderful fields of sun flowers on the drive in

The main attraction at market day is food, but other vendors set up also.

Who needs Nordstroms, when you have 1 euro piles of ladies underwear....

Lots of tomatoes and other veggies

Paella is a Spanish rice and seafood dish, often made and sold during

market day.  We have had it before and it's good, but with all the other

stuff, we held firm for our picnic lunch.

Lots of local strawberrys

Look at the huge pile of garlic.  This couple is buying a large

handful from the vendor

Plenty of seafood, including fresh sardines

Tomatoes, one of the major Italian food groups

Olives, another of the major Italian food groups

A closeup shot of the olive, one shot of the

olives is never enough

The roasted chicken vendor.  Notice the potatoes at the bottom.

The drippings from the chicken drip on them all day.

Salami, the final Italian food group.

A quiet evening in Avignon

We are only in Avignon for one night and head to Arles this morning.  We had a nice evening, pretty much just walking around and grabbed a bite of dinner.  It was a great evening.

View of the castle and walls of the city from a historic bridge

Avignon is in the heart of Provence, known for fresh foods

 

 

Papal Palace

Papal Palace, you are thinking to yourself, I thought they were in France not Rome?  Turns out, there is a Papal Palace in Avignon.  I was not aware, but in the 1300's, there was about a 60 year period where the Papacy moved to France.  The tour said it was for "political reasons".   The Papal Palace is a world heritage site that we toured today.  Very nice and interesting. There is also a Roman bridge we will visit this evening.  Avignon is a very nice town, but we are only here one night.

Goodbye to Nice

It has been very nice to be in the same place for four nights.  For me having been on the road with 1 or 2 night stays, it has been like a mini-vacation (a vacation during my holiday).  Wonderful time with Anne at the beach and walking around town.  We are now off to Avignon, which is about three hours away.  We are only there one night, but really want to see the area.

The one last item that remained un-done this morning was to hike to the top of the castle behind the hotel.  We were up early and did it to watch the sunrise, great way to start the day.

 

 

A day in Monaco (aka Monte Carlo)

Very close to Nice is the small country of Monte Carlo.  Only a few miles long and one of the smallest countries in the world.  That said, also one of the wealthiest.  Ruled by the same family since the 1500's, it is famous for many things, especially Grace Kelly marrying the prince in the 1950's.  It was about a half an hour bus ride from Nice and is right along the French and Italian Borders.

Definitely lots of money in Monaco, look at the size of this yacht. 

Check out the car on the right side for perspective.

Changing of the guard at the palace

View of the city.  The hills behind are in Italy, it is a very small country.

Look down from the Palace to the Harbor, as you see, it is packed.

National Music Day

The music festival I referenced earlier was a prelude to national music day.  By law, there is one day a year that people can set up in the streets and play whatever music they want, as loud as they want, and it's all fine.  That was yesterday.  It becomes a huge event that goes even beyond music.  Lots of arts and craft, acrobats and other events.  Here's some shots from the day:

 

 

Band walking along the street

 

Acrobats in the town

 

Local band outside a bar, played wide range of music

 

 

 

A day at the beach

I left three and a half weeks ago and have been on the go the entire time.  One or two nights in each place, hiking most days and full of things to see.  Much of it is because when you are by yourself, you want to do stuff not just hang out alone. With Anne here, we took a much needed day at the beach and had plenty of chatting and people watching.  We headed down mid-morning, thinking we may stay a few hours and instead, time flew by and we stayed all day.  It was warm, but had a nice breeze with wonderful sounds of rolling surf.  What a great break.  This is just some of what we saw:

Lots of paddle boarders on the water

Sail boats and power boats jetting around

That is one person comfortable a wave is not going to get her iPhone

Parasailors landing on the beach 

Not the entire day is about fun, this is the garbage pick up boat going by

This guy just stuck out.  Everyone else in bathing suits, he's

on the beach with a huge pack, camera and on the phone

View when we got back to the beach.  As you can see it's

very full of people, even at the end of the day.

Le Fete de la Musique and a long walk

After the bike tour, we decided to walk to the end of the promenade and back, about a 6 mile round trip of top notch people watching.  I am sure there is normally a lot going on, but this day was unusually busy.  Turns out this is the annual music festival day and they expected 200,000 people at a free concert.  When we walked around, we were able to get close up to some of the groups practicing.  We saw a French star Shy'm and her dancers practice and later in the evening we saw them on TV performing live.  Zara Larsson performed and there were rumors that Jay Z was reported to show up, but we never saw him, even on TV.

Shy'm and her dancers practicing.  We saw them on TV later.  You could

see the back of the stage from our hotel and the massive crowd.

Stage during practices

View along the promenade.  Our hotel is the red roofed structure

along the shore on the upper left.

Lots of water sports going on

Not something we had seen before.  Similar to a Segway, but without

a handle.  These guys were moving along fairly fast.

The E-bike tour

There was a highly rated E-bike tour of the city and we were not exactly sure what an E-bike was, but we gave it a try.  What a wonderful experience.  The E-bikes are a battery assisted bike that allows you to cover much more area than you normally would, especially up hill.  We felt a little guilty that the tour was not as much exercise as you would get from a traditional bike tour, but given all the hills, it would not have been possible to cover all the ground we did.

We were amazed by how much power they had.  On flat ground, they will go over 20 miles per hour.  Up hill, you need to peddle some (like you were on flat ground), but the rest is done by the bike.  This did allow us to get to some awesome views.  We made up for the exercise by walking 6 miles on the Promenade when we got back.

E-bikes, very small battery back, but lots of power

View of the port area with row of huge yachts.  We were told Paul

Allen's yacht was there.  Most were valued at near $50 million

View of Nice from the hill

Beach area in Ville Fanche (town next to Nice)

 

Lots of yachts in the harbor at the town next to us