Florence, Pisa...

Florence, the historical archenemy of Milan, is much prettier and also, quite a bit more crowded than the latter. A really great attribute of the city is its condensed historical center where palaces, statues, and marble cathedrals abound, in a mostly pedestrian area. The train station is just a 10-minute walk from the Duomo, the most prominent cathedral of the city and its most famous landmark.

And from the Duomo, it is a 10 to 15 minute walk to almost every landmark in the city – and yet, somehow, we walked for hours each day!


The Duomo is an imposing cathedral made of polychromatic marble – pink, white, and green –, which give it a distinctively cheerful look. It is squeezed into a relatively small square compared to its size, and getting a nice photo of it was a real challenge… not to mention the construction that was also happening on a portion of the dome.
Compared to the rich marble decorations on the outside, we were surprised to see that the interior of the Duomo was rather plain… not even a bit of marble on the walls or some oversized Michelangelo frescoes! ☺



The second most prominent building in Florence is the Medici fortress. It somewhat resembles the Sforza fortress in Milan, although a bit smaller and with higher fortified walls. Unlike the Duomo, the Medici fortress is fronted by a large square, which has its share of art with many statues, including a copy of the famous David of Michelangelo – it was the closest we would get to the real thing, which is hidden away in a gallery assaulted every day by too many tourists.


That was actually the only real disappointment I had in Florence: the line of tourists outside good museums was horrendous. Many works by the famous Florentine artists - Michelangelo, Botticelli, da Vinci, Raphael to name just a few – are at the Uffizi Gallery, where it appeared people wasted half a day just waiting to get to the museum entrance… so we just walked by.



While we stayed in Florence, we also went to visit a couple of neighboring towns. We went first, by train, to Pisa, just an hour away from Florence. The town is much smaller and more laid back than Florence, until you reach the enormous square where seats the Leaning Tower…

The Leaning Tower doesn’t seat by itself but is in fact only just the bell tower of yet another really beautiful Italian cathedral. The cathedral, its baptistry, and bell tower are all made of white marble sculpted in hundreds of arches and statues; and they seat surrounded with large green lawns, for a very stunning view.

Tourists apparently mostly flock to the Leaning Tower (although only a select few can go up on it) by tour bus and don’t even bother with the rest of the town, which indeed seems a bit small for such grand architecture! We enjoyed the small streets of the town though, and the stop for a most excellent gelato!

Italy - Part 1

Upon our return from Anglet, we only stayed long enough in the countryside to get ready to go to Switzerland and Italy... The purpose of the trip, beside visiting, was to get Paul's passport stamped in a non-EU country since his tourist visa is only good for three months at a time.

In Como, Italy

On the very last day before Paul's visa ran out, we got on the TGV from Paris to Geneva. The Swiss, apparently, aren't too worried about foreigners in their country because they quickly checked our passports and that was all.... no stamps!...
This time around I had decided not to take any reservations for any hotels in any cities to give us freedom to change our plans as we went. In Geneva, that turned out to be a bit of a mistake... After checking the two hostels in the city, which were fully booked, we resorted to the tourism office for their help in finding us a hotel in an apparently, fully booked city (there were several conventions that week....).
In the end, they did manage to find us a hotel for one night, just a few minutes before their closing time! And luckily, it wasn't a 5-star hotel!
So it looked like we were only going to stay one night in Geneva. The little that we saw of it was really pleasant; the city was very pretty with a lot of pedestrian lanes and the people generally nice and relaxed. The lake too was really nice: the water, crystal clear!
Anyway, it was clearly a city breathing wealth and lack of worry (probably from not being involved in any international conflicts?...).
The next day we moved on again, in search of a place to sleep at night.... We took the train again, this time in direction of Como, just north of Milan. The train went through the Alpine Mountains and was a really pretty ride through many miles of vineyards in Switzerland, and then pretty italian towns along Lake Maggiore in Italy.

Lake Como

Como is a little town on the border of Lake Como, and has become quite famous lately... of course, I had no clue, as is always the case when it comes to Hollywood gossip, but it is where George Clooney has set up his new home, in a villa on the lake... We did not see him or any other Hollywood stars, but the town is definitely popular and again, we had a bit of a hard time finding a hotel! We ended up spending the three nights we had in Como in three different hotels!

Little village in the Mountains around Como

Como from above

The town itself was very quaint with little paved streets and colorful buildings and flowers at the windows, and the setting was impressive with the lake and the mountains. The people were very stylish at all hours of the day... girls particularly, seemed keen on wearing their stilettos and abundant jewelry all day!... We were definitely not fitting in! :)


We were quite underdressed in Milan as well, which we went to visit for a day. Milan is taking its role as Fashion Capital City of the world (or at least rivaling with Paris for the title) very seriously. Expensive clothing is its specialty, and fake Pradas are also very abundant on the street! The white marble cathedral was impressive, with hundreds of statues on its walls and roof - some of them, depicting tortured saints, interestingly gruesome...

Milan Cathedral

The Sforzesco fortress (of the Sforza familly - who were protectors of Leonardo da Vinci for a long time) was less adorned but really impressive as well.

Castello Sforzesco

The rest of the city though, seemed sort of gloomy and a good layer of black dust covered all buildings except the cathedral... so it was definitely a good idea to stay in Como instead of Milan.


After Como we travelled down to Florence, where we stayed during the rest of our trip....
to be continued...

Modern Italian Art in Milan

Anglet Storm!

Amaro Matos

First day in Anglet (next to Biarritz), despite the unpromising weather forecast, was beautiful! Clear blue sky, light winds, nice waves: a perfect day for the longboard championship and for us to take photos... so that's just what we did and got plenty of great shots. We also sold the surfboard Paul had bought in Costa Rica, which he ended up not liking, and got me back a new board (since we sold my board in Costa Rica to get Paul's new board... hehehe...)...

Jared Neal

The next day was more cloudy so we went to test the new surfboard, our wetsuits, and the french waves... painful experience! In the time it took us to get ready, a strong onshore wind picked up and the ocean became horribly choppy and disorganized.... with a strong current, and numbing water temperatures... Paul managed to catch a few waves but i caught only one, and my feet were too numb to be properly controled, and i couldn't get them to get up on the board!!!
So... i'm not sold on the surf in France yet!

Ned Snow

That same night, a big storm hit southwestern France and caused several rivers to flood nearby villages. The floods also caused plenty of silt and rubbish and lumber to go out into the ocean, which turned a coffee-with-milk brown...
The stormy weather since hasn't really left: the winds are strong, the weather unstable, the water unappealing.... It must not be fun for the championship contestants to have to go surf in those conditions!!

Back in Biarritz and Online!

After a month of a combination of slooowww dial-up internet connection at my house in the countryside and very nice summer weather, which made it hard for me to want to get on the computer; we are now back in Biarritz for the world championship of longboarding under rainy weather and with great internet! so i'm back online! :)

so here's what happened in the last month...
On our first trip to Biarritz, we had great weather during the entire weekend but unfortunately, the ocean was virtually flat during the entire time we were there. A few people still went out in the water, but we didn’t; with water at 12°C (53°F) and a nippy north wind, it just wasn’t worth it!

Bayonne

We enjoyed other things though: walk along the 4-mile beach in Anglet, the salted ham fair and the old town of Bayonne (umm, Bayonne is famous for its deli meats and particularly the salted ham...), a rather amusing surf contest in Biarritz (it can be fun to watch a surf contest when there is hardly a wave, a lot of tactic comes into play… and the drama was complete with a sore looser kid who was throwing his board around and then throwing himself too and rolling on the ground in despair… anyway, I guess loosing can be just as painful even on a flat day! ☺).

Biarritz

It was also very amusing (after the fact) how the host at our b&b told us that we would get lost driving places in town and, unfailingly, we did, almost each time! The streets in the Biarritz-Anglet-Bayonne city conglomerate are never straight so you loose your direction quickly, and the signs half in Basque and half in French are little help!
In the end we had a good time during our little excursion and left our boards at the bed & breakfast for our return in May.

Sea anemones at Biarritz Aquarium

Since our weekend in Biarritz, the weather has been getting warmer each day, and the spring has come in full bloom, along with what seemed like summer for the last two weeks of April! We were in shorts and slippers every day, the trees grew leaves in days, the grass grew, flowers bloomed... very nice!

Buttercups

cherry blossoms

With the mild winter and the early warm spring temperatures, the pests also bloomed: we spotted snakes 5 times already (a first... I must have spotted snakes a total of 10 times in the 10 years that I lived in the countryside year-round before!); caterpillars have wrecked havoc in one kind of tree, making web-like nests and eating all the leaves; and wasps and bees are also in big numbers... so with the good comes some bad too, but still, temperatures hovering around 25°C (77°F) in April is amazing and we can't complain!


So we've been hard at work in the yard planting flowers, doing cuttings, pulling weeds, and growing watermelon... hehehe, we'll see about bearing any fruits though...

We've also been going fishing in the river nearby... no trout yet, but a perch!... it is no Mahi-Mahi but it is something to catch your own fish... well, really, the harder part of fishing is getting the fish off the hook and killing it... and I had no part in that!


Other than that, we're hiking and biking and visiting places and events of interest when they come about...

Horse show... *sob*

Wolf at an animal park in the area

winning the pompous look contest...

Countryside

Rocamadour - religious sanctuary.

Stone roof in Rocamadour

I think the one most important factor in directing your life when you do not have a steady full-time job is the weather. Last week, the weather here was sunny and warm as if it was May already. It was perfect for gardening – I am a much better gardener when I don’t have a job! I manage to keep a variety of flowers alive and growing! – and for photography. We went to visit Beynac, a medieval castle overlooking the Dordogne; St Cirq Lapopie, a really pretty medieval village; and went to watch a motocross competition in the rocky hills near here.

Beynac Castle


Beynac from across the river

And we also got some gear to go fishing for trouts at the nearby river; I know nothing of fishing though, so I’m thinking I will bring a nice book and watch Paul try to fetch us dinner!

Montfort Castle

Anyway, we’re definitely not fishing or photographing this week because after May last week, we went right back into December this week… temperatures dropped and the weather switched to stormy and angry, culminating in an ice thunderstorm a few days ago.

The house before the ice storm...

The storm begins

Better not be caught outside!

It looks like it snowed!

Since then, it has remained cold, wet and windy; so we have remained indoors!
We are keeping fairly busy though; art projects are abounding…

Amongst the latest interesting experiences of the French countryside… the most shocking and painful: helping to kill chickens… as many of you know, I have small chickens at my house, and it was time to get rid of a couple of males that were just causing more trouble… so I held the chickens legs and wings while she was bleeding them (ummm, I must here explain the method: it consists of making a cut in the head of the chicken just at the corner of the eye and sticking the knife blade into the skull to reach the carotid artery…)… ugh, that was very unpleasant… well, I was lucky, she was very nice and took care of the feathers and getting rid of the gutts for me…
Seriously though, if I had to do that each time I wanted to eat meat; there is no question that I’d be vegetarian…

Birding in the backyard

Paul in bird-photo action

On the less painful end of things, I am refamiliarizing myself with manual driving since most cars in France are still manual… it’s not making me enjoy driving here though… smaller roads, more turns, smaller streets in town and the added clutch trouble just isn’t all that fun!!
Paul’s experiences are more pleasant I think… he’s been getting used to French cheeses and French wine… it’s not like anything we normally see in Hawaii… on the one hand, the cheese takes some getting used to: it’s smelly, it is also unsanitary by American standards (many are not pasteurized for better taste and more creamy texture)… ah, but so good!! Paul must have tried at least 15 or 20 different kinds of cheese by now and while he looked very suspicious at first, it looks like he’s getting a taste for it! ☺ As for the wine, well, it didn’t take very long for him to get a taste for it… the good thing here is that an average wine bottle is about 5 euros so you do not feel like you’re splurging as much!


For his birthday, we are going to the ocean at Biarritz, for the first time since we arrived in France. It should be still rather chilly since the water is supposed to be about 14°C (57°F) and I may watch from the beach, but we never know, if the weather is really nice, the two wetsuits might do the trick!

Belette, my sister's dog.