The Rodin and the Orsay

After descending the Eiffel Tower, I made my way towards the Rodin Museum, stopping to photograph a lovely fruit stand, and a few more pictures from ground level of the Hotel des Invalides.

Once at the Rodin Museum, I enjoyed the grounds, which of course have plenty of sculpture...



They even have an interesting flower garden.

I also took pictures inside, where there's also some very nice sculpture.



This one (The Tempest, I believe it is called) is just incredible.

From the Rodin, it was a relatively short walk to the Orsay.

The Orsay is an old train station that was saved from the wrecking ball in the 1970s and turned into the home of much of Paris' Impressionist collection. It also has some sculpture, in keeping with a theme in this blog. But the building is a star in its own right.



At the end of the day, I made my farewells from Eric and Claire, and hopped the Paris Metro to the Gare d'Austerlitz to catch an overnight train to Barcelona.

Next post may not be for a week or so -- the archaeology dig adventure begins today. Still in the queue: Barcelona, and three days of hiking in the Sierra Nevada. Stay tuned!

The Eiffel Tower

On the 22d, I described my itinerary in a note to Eric and Claire like this:

• Eiffel Tower


• Musée Rodin


• Musée d'Orsay (where the Impressionists are)


• The St. Chapelle church (known for stained glass)

Afterwards, Claire pointed out that this seemed might aggressive. The Orsay, in particular is easily a whole day by itself. But then I knew I wouldn't be seeing the whole thing...

I had a most enjoyable visit to the Eiffel Tower, since I got there fairly early (about 10). There was only a short line for tickets, and less than 30 minutes later, I was on top.

It was a hazy day, but I got some decent pictures anyway.

Arc de Triomphe

Hotel des Invalides

Place de la Concorde

Some guy

From further down the tower, I took a few more pictures.

Paris, ah Paris

So Eric and I drove down to Paris on the 21st, arriving in the late afternoon. We stayed at an apartment on the Left Bank right near the Musée Cluny belonging to the parents of Claire, Eric's, umm, err, mistress? Girlfriend? Perhaps she or Eric can help clear the terminology here. Discretion being the better part of valor, combined with the fact that I had 28 hours in Paris, I didn't stay long there, and headed out to see the city.

I started out by walking a short way to theGardens of the Luxembourg Palace, a somewhat quintessential non-touristy part of Paris. Beautiful gardens.



I wandered over towards the Seine, and caught a glimpse of the
Hôtel de Ville:



Since I wasn't far from Notre Dame, I took a few pictures there too.



I strolled more along the Right Bank, not taking pictures of the Pompidou Centre, which is a marked contrast to the more historic views of Paris.

I did encounter a carousel, which I did not ride, but it did have a rabbit on it.



On the way towards the Louvre, I passed the French Culture Ministry building, which has some funky exterior art:



And, of course, the Louvre:



This being quite enough for a few hours (and it nearing the agreed-upon meeting time for dinner with Eric and Claire), I made my way back, and we went out for a very nice Indian dinner.

These are for Russell

I wonder which he'd prefer eating at. This one:


or this one:

Going for a bike ride auf der Weinstrasse

The next day (this would be the 18th, I think), was a relax-a-day for me. Eric had students to teach, and I wasn´t leaving for Renate´s house until the next morning.

So I went for a bike ride. I took Eric´s bike, and took it on the train out to Neustadt, a small city that is central to the Weinstrasse (wine road) of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. If you think that´s a mouthful for a state name, the German name is somewhat better: Rheinland-Pfalz, or Pfalz for short. (Pronounced "Pfaults" more-or-less.)

There are numerous marked driving, cycling, and walking trails marked in the wine country in this area. I picked one and rode, taking a few pics along the way:



Along the way, there are some displays of old wine presses and such:



Also some odd art work:


At the end of my ride, I stopped for a treat:


I returned to Eric´s abode, wrote up some more blog entries, and eventually rode into Mannheim for dinner at Heller´s, a vegetarian restaurant.

Bright and early the next morning I was on my way by train to visit my aunt Renate. This was relatively uneventful -- we went to visit my other aunt Angela, talked about the usual family stuff, as well as her porcelain collection (she collects Frankenthaler porcelain, very early European manufacture. Here´s an example. I was with her just two days:



Oh, Bear was there too.

Renate took a picture of me in full gear. When I get a copy, I´ll stick a scan of it here.

On the morning of the 21st, I trained back to Ludwigshafen, and Eric and I set off for Paris.

Ein kleines Familientreffen

Also, es gibt jetzt ein Eintrag auf Deutsch. Oder Englisch. Beide zusammengemixt? This is the family get-together, so everbody gets to read about in their favorite Sprache. For those not aware of the size of my brother's (step-)family, allow to mention six children (one deceased, alas) and 3.667 grandchildren. Of this brood 3 children showed (all now largely out on their own): Marie+0.667+boyfriend, Milan, Maura. Maja+3 and Moses couldn´t make it. And well, we all miss Moritz. Der Moritz is immer mit uns dabei. Na immerhin, es war beim Lampsheimersee (jemand bitte korrigieren ob ich das falsch geschrieben habe) getroffen. Kurze paar Fotos am ende des Besuches:
Maura:
Marie und Maura:
Left to right (von links) Maura, Eric, Marie, Stefan, Milan:

We met at a local lake.

We said our farewells (demanding pictures of the baby when it arrives, of course), and Eric and I headed over to his pad in Ludwigshafen. Wier haben uns voneinander verabschiedet, end Eric und Ich fuhren zusammen zu seiner Wohnung in Ludwigshafen.

Eric and I went into Mannheim that evening and saw Alles auf Zucker, a German comedy about brohers with somewhat different lifestyles and reactions to the reunification of Germany.

Really, we do get back to Germany

All right, I know it´s been a while since I last posted. But I did suggest that that would happen. So here I am in sunny, hot, and humid Barcelona, writing about Finland (and if any letter ´t´s are missing, blame the keyboard...).

So Eric and I had a little over 1/2 day in Tampere to kill before our flight. I used that morning to good effect (i.e. writing blog entries and uploading pictures). When it came time to leave the hotel, we trundled down to the train station, and waited where we thought an early bus would show. It didn´t. Apparently the bus I was looking for was a Ryanair special -- the early bus was not one of these, it was a regular intercity that stopped at the airport. Sigh. We sit in the train station alternating walking around. I take pictures of people bungee-jumping off a crane, and the Tampere Orthodox Cathedral:


We do eventually catch the Ryanair shuttlebus, get to the airport, where Eric is relieved of some silverware (forks and butter knives are SOOO dangerous) by security, and have an otherwise uneventful flight. We´re met by Moses, and return to Grünstadt for the night.

Canoe trip, day 4, and return to Tampere

Our last day of canoeing started off with a bit of a twist. The guy hired to transport us was at the agreed place about 20 minutes early (we were 30 minutes early), but his English was extremely limited. And we had a slight problem. Since we had not camped at Rasua, and were't meeting him there, but at the foot of the lake, we had left a bag at Rasua (containing things we didn't want to put in the canoe). He was supposed to have this bag, and didn't. So Eric whipped out the oh-so-handy Finnish-German dictionary, discovered the word for 'suitcase' (Koffer in German, and matkalaukku in Finnish), and convinced him to drive the 4km back to Rasua so we could pick the bag up (which was to be left in his van until he picked us up, and dropped us at the Jämsä train station).

Once this was out of the way, we got off to a reasonably good start, making it to Jämsä in time for a leisurely second breakfast. However, once we passed Jämsä, the winds picked up, and we realized we'd have to work to make it to the pickup point on time. But we did. No interesting pictures along this stretch -- it was all river, and generally either residential properties or farmland on the banks.

We had an uneventful train ride back to Tampere, punctuated only by surrendering in frustration to the automatic ticket seller that only offered Finnish and Swedish menus, and going to the counter where the nice lady spoke English.

Upon arrival in Tampere, we went immediately to the Hotelli Victoria where I had stayed the previous Friday, hoping to get a room there. They said "sorry all full, the festival is in town". Festival? Yikes. FESTIVAL. This is one of those travel-incognito nightmares. You arrive in town without accomodations, and are probably SOL without going for miles.

We rightly decide to hunker one of us down at the train station with the bags while the other goes to the tourist office in the probably vain hope of finding a room.

We get lucky. 75 euro for a room at the Ramada Hotel, of all places. They have meeting rooms that can be converted to sleeping chambers during heavy demand. Not luxury, but we weren't being picky. And they had a usable internet connection in an out-of-the-way place where I could post stuff.

Last post for a few days, I think. I may not get to post until either Paris or Barcelona (somewhere around the 23d).

Canoe trip, day 3

I forgot to mention in the previous post that Eric and I decided that conditions at the school were good for an exercise: canoe-tipping. Since neither of us has experienced this directly, we thought it might be a good idea.

All I'll say is I hope it doesn't happen, it'd be an incredible inconvenience, especially with 80 pounds of watertight bags clipped to the rails of the canoe (which we did not have in the exercise).

After saying our goodbyes to the fine folks with the bible camp at the Old Luomen School, we again took to the water. We passed onto a small but apparently deep lake, on which we caught sight for the second time of some loon:


This one was much more skittish than a whole family of them that we happily followed around for 30 minutes or more when we canoed in Minnesota. We never got within 50 feet of this one before he dove, and then eventually took off.

Late afternoon on this day found us back at Rasua Camping, with decisions to make. Do we camp at Rasua, or in free land further down the lake (which is increasingly built-up as you near Jämsänkoski)? Do we canoe further the next day, or make tracks for Tampere? In the end, we spent the rest of the afternoon canoeing around the lake, found a lovely free camp site on the far side.




We also decided to continue on the next day, doing the river portion of a route leg that ends with a large open lake traverse. This required negotiating transport with the Rasua folks, since one cannot canoe through Jämsänkoski due to the mill works.