Category: <span>Travel</span>

Published August 20, 2006

Washington – monuments and the mall

Today and tomorrow Lois has Toastmasters Training, which gives me two days to myself. So, I have been doing a lot of travelling. The tour buses are hop on – hop off, which is really great!

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I am currently sitting in Washington Park, waiting for the next bus. I started the day by visiting the Jefferson Memorial, which is a large rotunda-shaped memorial. It is centred by a statue of Thomas Jefferson, which is about 19′ tall. The memorial is right on the edge of the Tidal Basin by the Potomac River, and is a very cool and reflective place to spend some time.

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Just next to the Jefferson Memorial is the Roosevelt Memorial. Of interest here is that it shows Roosevelt in a wheel chair, after he was crippled by Polio – attended to by his dog! The also have in interesting quote by Eleanor Roosevelt:

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Franklin’s illness gave him strength and courage he had not had before. He had to think out the fundamentals of living and learn the greatest of all lessons-infinite patience and never-ending persistence.

The entire quite is written in very large braille.

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Next was the Arlington Cemetery, which was enormous. It was very sobering to see row upon row of white tombstones, containing memorials to people from many wars – amongst them Vietnam, Korea, and World War 2. I saw the grave of John Kennedy.

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It contains a flame which was lit by his wife Jackie at his funeral in 1963. She is now buried alongside him. They also had a changing of the guard which was not very exciting. The graveyard is a stark reminder of our mortality.

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The Vietnam Memorial is very sad. It is a gently sloped pathway, with a wall containing a list of all US servicemen that died in the Vietnam war. At the beginning of the pathway, you see only a few names. By the time you are in the middle, you are dwarfed by the wall. Every few steps, you can see a bunch of flowers, or a photograph of a veteran.

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The Lincoln Memorial (there are lots of memorials in DC!) is at the West end of the mall, overlooking the Reflecting Pool, and providing a stunning view of the Washington Monument and the Capital at the east end of the Mall. I believe that the design is based on the temple of Delphi in Greece.

Right, here comes my bus…

…my legs are really sore from all the walking. I have just found my favourite beer (Bass from Burton on Trent in UK) in the hotel bar!

This afternoon was a bit quieter – with a visit to the National Cathedral. It was built in the Gothic style, and is very reminiscent of Notre Damme. However, building started in 1907, and was only completed in 1990! The building does really look very old. It is a quiet spot where you can sit and contemplate the world.

More to follow later…

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Published August 19, 2006

A day in Philadelphia

Cds 2006 08 15 00 24 33 Canon Canon EOS DIGITAL REBELWe have spent the last few days with at my brother in law Marcus, and his wife Paddy. We have visited the New Jersey, the most decorated battle ship in the US navy ever, and strangely enough we went to a Duck Decoy museum, all about the wooden decorative ducks.

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We also when to Philadelphia, where we saw the Liberty Bell – which they allowed Lois to touch. There was a huge photo of Mandela there (yay)! We also went into the room where the US declaration of independence and the constitution were signed. We rounded off the day with a horse and carriage ride. It’s great being on leave.

SA can learn a lot about customer service from USA. Everybody is very willing to help, and nothing is a bother. Service is fast, friendly and efficient (addendum: it’s either really good, or really bad – never in between).

A downside of this is that they tend to live in a consumer-based society. Many people only live on fast food and are immensely overweight. They have to park in disabled bays because they are too fat to walk any distance. We say a man order 6 donughts at Dunkin’ Donut (sic), and eat them all in a few minutes.

I have to respond to the feedback about the flags. Americans are immensely proud of their country. It does not mean that they support George Bush, or the current war. Many don’t. However they do believe that they live in the best country in the world. That is what SA can learn from! It was described to me in a quote ‘it is the world’s largest dysfunctional family – they don’t always get along, but they support each other against other families’.

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Published July 5, 2005

Arles and the Camargue

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Today, we drove to the Provincial town of Arles. Arles is very similar to Orange, in that it also has many Roman runes. Our main stop was Les Arenes (The Arena). This Roman amphitheatre is oval in structure, with many rows of tiered seating. Built in the first or second century AD, it holds about 20000 spectators. It was originally built to host chariot races and fights often with wild animals, slaves and gladiators pitted against each other. The fights were very often until one or the other dies.

The amphitheatre is still used today for bull fighting, although the aim now is to capture the ribbon ties to the bull’s horns, and not to kill the bull. If you climb to the top of the theatre, you can see a fantastic view past the town and across the Rhone (be careful – the stairs are very steep).

The artist, van Gogh lived in Arles for a few years, in particular he spent time there in hospital when he was suffering from depression (this is where he cut his ear off). There are exhibitions and museums dedicated to him.

Arles is at the edge of the Camargue, the large delta of the Rhone, a large area of nature reserve. There are huge areas of wetlands, covered on pink flamingo’s. It is very reminiscent of the Langebaan Lagoon wetlands, but on a larger scale.

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The Camargue is also the home of the famous Camargue horses, small horses slightly larger than ponies. If you drive down the reserve, you will find many horse farms, offering horse riding per hour or per day. Although we didn’t manage to go riding, it is definitely on the agenda for our next trip.

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The main road through the Camargue terminates in the sea-side town of Stes-Maries de la Mer. This little town is populated by many restaurants and shops selling bright umbrella’s, children’s buckets and spade and inflatable rafts. It was the first time we had seen the Mediterranean sea, so we had to put our feet in the water. The water was lovely and warm, however the sand was very silty and fine, much finer that the beaches in Cape Town.

We would love to have spent the day on the beach; however we had a long drive back to Avignon. (We did have time to have a drink on one of the many sea-front café’s!)

Next time we are in the Camargue, we will spend a night or two at Stes-Maries, and make sure to spend at least one afternoon horse riding.

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On the way back, we chanced upon the Perfume Museum, where we spend some time learning the history of perfume, and we able to smell about 50 different essential oils.

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Published July 4, 2005

The Pont de Gard


The Pont de Gard

The Pont de Gard is an old Roman aqueduct which was build around 19BC. That is over 2000 years ago. The aqueduct is now in the middle of a nature park, with lovely paths meandering through the greenery. If you walk down to the river, there are loads of places where you can sit on the bank and have a picnic. Unfortunately when we arrived it was raining, so we had our picnic in the car in the parking lot!

Fortunately the rain stopped and we were able to walk down to the bridge. The walk is only about five minutes from the car park. The bridge is very grand-looking in the pictures, but far more so in real life. It is built as three sets of arches. The first is about 20m high (you can walk across at this level), the second level is also 20m, and the final level is 5m high. The water course would have moved through the top level. The total length of the bridge is about 265m. It was quite intimidating to see this hugh bridge towering above me. If you look carefully at the pic on the right, you can see how huge the bridge is compared to the people below. You are standing on the first level, and looking up at the second and third levels.

The total length of the watercourse is about 50km, with a gradient if 1:3000, which means a total drop of only 15m through the entire journey. That is absolutely amazing engineering for the time. You are able to go and visit remains of the actual aqueduct itself, but it was too far a walk for today, so maybe next time.

There is also a visitor’s centre with a small museum and gift shop etc. It takes about one hour to get there from Avignon, but it is well worth it  (The area is now a UNESCO World Heritage Centre).

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Published July 4, 2005

Aeroplane trip over Avignon

Today I did something I have never done before. Lois and I went for a ride in a four-seater aeroplane. We saw the brochure last night at the hotel and thought “why not!”, so off we went. We took off from the Avignon airport (which is basically a small building and a single runway).

The cabin of the plane is about the size of a mini, and the engine is probably not much bigger (I am still partially convinced that the engine is just a really long elastic band). The plane honestly needed about 100m runway to take off, and a bit longer to land.

The trip was fantastic, we flew really low over the whole area, giving me a wonderful opportunity to see the landscape from above and to take some great photos. We opted for the shortest trip –which is about 25 minutes. The longest trip is about 1 ½ hours, and goes all the way to Marseilles.

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Here are some vineyards; they are all over the area. The bright yellow in the middle is actually a sunflower field.
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A hilltop fortified village, of which there are many. You can literally have a several hundred meter drop out of your bedroom window. No sneaking out at night!
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This is the centre of Avignon, clearly dominated by the Papal Palace. Building started in 1305, when the papal court moved from Rome to Avignon. In the second picture, you can see the town square as well.

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The bridge on the right is the remains of the famous bridge "Le Pont St Benezet". This famous bridge was built between 1171 and 1185, with an original span of 900 m. See this post for more details.

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Finally, our landing and a quick pic of us at our aeroplane. It is not often that I get to sit in the front! The trip is expensive, but I really encourage you to do it – it was worth every cent.

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Published July 2, 2005

Chateauneuf du Pape

We could not drive through the village of Chateauneuf du Pape without stopping for a wine tasting of their world-renown wines. While the village itself is very small, there are many wine farms and tasting ‘caves’ (cellar) in and around the village.

We tried to use the local version of the Platter’s wine guide, but without any success. So we parked in the village and walked into two caves at random. In France, you do not taste wine according to a varietals, but rather according to a vintage. Each farm in an area makes basically the same blend of wine, according to a set of very complicated appellation rules’. This means that when tasting, you will not taste a cabernet or a shiraz, but rather a 2001 or 2002.

The first cave turned out to be the local tourist centre, and while the wines very good, I did have a sense of ‘shunting the tourists through’ without much attention.

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Our experience at the second was very different. The proprietor did not speak any English, and we spoke very bad French, but this did not seem to be a problem to any of us. We had a lovely tasting of some superb wines. We learned all about the ageing process, what goes into the blends, and even ended up discussing the use of sulphar in the wine – all in French! This was with much gesturing and scribbling on paper. It was a fantastic tasting, and we even managed to buy some non-appellation wines at a really good price.

While the wines we tasted were really fantastic, the good French wines are very expensive, even in France. The cheaper Chateauneuf du Pape wines started at about 20 euros, which is about R160. For R160 you can get some really fantastic wines.

Of interest is that in France the farms pay tax on the wine depending on how many capsules are used. So when you taste wine there are no capsules on the bottles. These are only added when you buy the wine. Hence the farm does not pay tax on wine used for tastings.

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Published July 2, 2005

Orange

Cds 2005 07 02 09 30 17 OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP X450 D535Z C370ZToday we went to visit the historical town of Orange, home to many Roman relics. Orange gets its name from the German House of Nassau, the House of Orange which ruled since the 12 century. It was ceded to France in 1713.

Of particular interest to us was the Theatre Antique, a Roman theatre which was probably built during the reign of Augustus Caesar (27 BC – AD 14).

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This theatre, which is still in use today, contains the only remaining Roman complete stage wall in the world. It is about 103m wide and 37m high. The theatre is built in a semi-circle, with many tiers of raised seating looking down at the stage. Tickets for the shows cost several hundred euros. Of interest is the statue of Caesar that you can see in the photo. The head is removable, so it could be easily modified to suit the Caesar that was currently ruling without having to build an entire new status.

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Orange also contains its own Arc de Triomphe (The Triumphant Arc), which was built 100’s of years before the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Built around 20 BC, it commemorates Julias Caeser’s victories during the Gallic Wars.

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Published June 30, 2005

Lavender in Provence

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Today, we went to the villiage of Sault, the lavender capital of Provence. What looked like a 50km drive on the map turned out to be a drive along the smallest and most bendy road I have ever been on. I think that our average speed must have been about 5 km/h. However, when we arrived at hilltop town of Sault, the view made it all worthwhile. There was field after field of purple lavender bushes, all alive with the buzzing of thousands of bees, busy pollinating the bushes. You could see all the way down the Luberon valley, and to the snow-capped mountains in the distance. This is some of the most beautiful scenery that I have ever seen.

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Although it can get quite frustrating driving down the narrow roads, constantly being slowed down by blind corners, roundabouts and tractors, it is a really pretty, laid back part of the world. I very quickly learned that since you are going nowhere quickly, there is no point in rushing. Rather slow down, enjoy the view and arrive when you do.

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On the way to Sault, we made two stops. The first was at the lavender museum in Coustellet, where they have a short video showing the growing and harvesting of the lavender. They also have many exhibits detailing the distillation process. There are loads of old copper stills, very reminiscent of the whiskey stills in Scotland. I was staggered to hear how much lavender is required to obtain the oil. You need about 300 kg of lavender to make 1kg of essential oil.

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The second stop was at a wine shop (also in Coustellet), where we wanted to stock up on wine. This shop had a very interesting feature. There were about six petrol pump hoses in the shop, which were used to fill your own containers with the local vin ordinaire. They just measured off the wine and charged by the litre.

We were really thirsty and asked for a bottle of water. We were a bit startled to be presented with a wine bottle filled with water. So it was a rather interesting site seeing Craig and Lois driving down the road, drinking straight from a wine bottle. I am glad we did not have to explain that to a traffic officer.

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Both lavender, and lavandin grow in France. Lavender only grows between 600 and 1500m. It is cultivated for the pure oil, which contains medicinal properties. Lavandin grown almost anywhere, is far more hardy and prolific than lavender. It is mainly used for cosmetics, however it has no medicinal properties.

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Published June 29, 2005

The Pape Palance

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The Pape Palace is the Palace that was built when the Pope moved his court to Avignon from Rome in 1305 (more correctly – he fled a corrupt court in Rome). It is an enormous building, looking down onto a large square, which is surrounded by cafes and street musicians. The palace is still used today, now as both a function venue (there are several very large halls, filled with tapestries from the time), and also as an amphitheatre (one of the squares has had raised seating and a stage added). A wonderful self-guided walk takes you through the palace, where you can view the halls, paintings and tapestries from Medieval France.

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Published June 26, 2005

Jim Morrison’s Grave

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His grave is in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, the largest and oldest cemetery in Paris. He shares the ground with several illustrious people, including Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf. The crypts (many of them shared by families) almost looked like small houses, rather that a resting place for the dead. While many were very old, several were from just a few years ago. The graveyard is full of labyrinthine paths, criss-crossing on their meandering routes. I had a distinct Ann-Rice feeling in the graveyard.

What I also found interesting is that there were a large variety of graves from different Churches, including Christian, Jewish and a few Chinese graves.

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It was quite a walk to find Jim Morrison’s grave, especially because I got so lost that I had to stop and buy a map. So when I eventually found it, I didn’t just pause for to contemplate, I also had to pause for breath. I have never seen a pop star’s grave before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It looked exactly like all the other graves, except that it was covered with bunches of fresh flowers – suggestive of a regular stream of visitors. I was surprised to be the only person there. I also expected graffiti, but there was none.

My reflective moment was shattered when a group of tourists arrived (“there he is!”), and went to gawk and slobber at his grave (Ok so I was also a tourist, but you can at least show some sense of decorum in a graveyard). So I decided that it was time to say goodbye and move on.

Farewell Jim

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