Bath, England and Barcelona, Spain

The following blog is a result of the teacher in me coming out. So, if you don't want a geography or history lesson, just look at the pictures, and get to the bottom of the blog in a few minutes instead of ten!!!

The past few weeks, we have spent time in Bath, England (part of our summer vacation) and Barcelona, Spain (part of Lyle's business trip and I tagged along). When flying back from Barcelona on separate planes to Charles DeGaulle , I thought about how the two cities are somewhat similar, but also very different. It's probably a stretch, but how about these similarities? During walking tours of both cities, we learned........

They were both Roman outposts in the first century, for one thing. Hot springs were discovered in Bath and a town sprung up around them, along with a temple. We were able to tour these baths and the ruins of the temple below. During the middle ages they re-discovered these springs and it became a huge spa town. They aren't used today, but a new Thermal Spa opened nearby a few years ago.......

Barcelona was also a Roman settlement, under Caesar Augustus, also during the first centuries. You can still see parts of the wall and columns of the Roman temple there too. During the past 100 years, new construction was built right into the old Roman wall.....

(Can you tell I love Roman history?) Both cities grew in the Middle Ages when the church established their huge cathedrals. Bath Cathedral began as an abbey and was built around 973, but had to be restored in the 1500s. It is part of the Church of England....

.....and Barcelona's Roman Catholic cathedral, although begun in the 4th century, was built mostly in the 1500s and is still being restored today. It has a beautiful courtyard filled with geese.....

Both cities are known for their city planning and architects. In Bath, a man named John Wood designed rows of Georgian townhouses in the 1700s that included Greek and Roman architecture....and attracted the wealthy from London to buy these neat townhomes. Today they are all modernized and very expensive! There are over 180 B & B's in Bath, and we stayed in one of them, a townhouse built in 1765. One row of houses duplicates the coliseum in Rome and is built in a circle.

Barcelona has an area outside of the gothic center called the Eixample which has streets laid out in a grid, begun in the late 19th century. Many of the buildings there are built in the Modernista style (art noveau), and the architect, Anton Gaudi, influenced many of the buildings there. His style is very odd.....with wavy lines and use of curves.

Gaudi also had a dream to build a huge cathedral using his style. He began the "Sagrada Familia" in 1882, and it isn't finished yet! It is now carried on following his plans that includes 18 spires....and is planned for completion in 2026! We were able to go inside and view the construction and I thought that maybe this is what the builders in the middle ages experienced....some of them never saw a cathedral completed in their lifetime!

Well, I think that is where the similarities stop. Differences are many. Bath is a town of about 80,000, 90 minutes west of London near the coast (we heard seagulls), but the river is at it's center. It is still very quaint, English, and you feel like you step back in time about 300 years.

Barcelona is a seacoast city of nearly 3 million, including the outside areas, and is a huge tourist resort city for Europeans. It has wide boulevards, chic stores, and modern buildings. There are seven beaches, and when I walked to one while Lyle was at a meeting, I felt totally overdressed in a black one-piece swimsuit when many of the women were topless!

Barcelona was also host to the 1992 Olympics, and our tour bus took us to the Olympic Park where the huge stadium and swimming pools are still being used. We also went to the top of the hill surrounding the city, Mt. Tibido, needing to take a tram and funicular to the top to get a gorgeous view of the city.

And with that, I will leave you with another wonderful view......the famous market where an array of fruits, vegetables, fish, and meats are sold......How about the head for dinner?

A visit to London

The four of us (Eric, Diana, and us) left Paris at 9 a.m.,took the TGV (fast train) under the English Channel , and landed in the heart of London 2 1/2 hours later. How easy can it get?

London is expensive ($2.00 equals 1 British pound!) so Penny the "frugal" travel agent, perused dozens of hotels and bypassed the ones downtown for an average of $300 to $400 a night, and chose a small boutique hotel in South Kensington. We got on a crowded "Underground" subway, and lugged our luggage up and down dozens of steps, and landed at our destination.

Somehow, Eric and Diana got lucky and were one the top floor in a spacious suite. We had a comfortable, but smallish, room with a lovely view. Lyle kept humming "chim, chiminey, chim, chiminy, chim, chim, cheree...."

A little tired, we hit a pub for lunch, and then walked through nearby Kensington Gardens and got a glimpse of Kensington Palace, where English kings and queens have lived for the past 300 years, including Princess Diana. After seeing luxurious French castles, we opted to not tour this rather plain-looking building, but walked around the gardens for a bit instead, which are surrounded by Hyde Park.

That evening, we went to the Apollo Theater and saw the play, "Wicked". We thought this would be a good opportunity to dress up a little, so Diana and I put on our heels, we all took a cab, and entered the theater. It was FULL of students.....and we were a little overdressed, to say the least! Being used to fashion-conscious Paris, we were shocked at the dress that included flip-flops, halter tops, jeans, and shorts. So much for dressing up...... But the play was a lot of fun and we thoroughly enjoyed it!

The next day, we decided to give our feet a rest and take a hop-on-hop-off bus tour of London, where we were in time to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.....

........Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben.......

(the usual tourist stuff)! The tour included a river ride down the Thames so we could see the London Bridge and Tower of London. Being a little "toured out" we decided to maybe see the inside of the Tower some other time!

Instead, we hopped on the bus and Diana and I took a look at Harrod's, but decided everything was too expensive to buy. We enjoyed a steak dinner that evening instead~

We said our good-byes to Diana and Eric that evening, as they were heading for Norway the next day, and we were taking a side-trip to Bath (more on that in the next blog).

When Lyle and I returned to London, he was a little worried about the next place I had booked. Well, I kind of warned him that we were going to a B&B,, but a different kind of B&B. We knocked on the door of a townhouse south of Victoria Station in Pimlico, and a kind man around our age, answered the door, and showed us to our room.......a guest bedroom on the second story of their flat! It was a cozy room, but Lyle was a little leery about the TV missing a remote, no internet or phone, and a bathtub down the hall where you had to be on your knees to take a shower.....

"What is wrong with the Marriott, or the Hilton?", he says. I tell him, he stays in enough of those places when he travels for business. This is the way we can get to know the PEOPLE! Hmmm.....well, our host couple were a lovely, professional couple who gave us the keys and we could come and go as we pleased. They served us a nice breakfast in their dining room each morning, even though we both struggled with the boiled eggs. We enjoyed talking to them about the English economy, royalty, and all sorts of controversial subjects..... I told them if they were ever in Eagan......

The highlight of our last two days in London was going to the Royal Albert Hall for the opening night of the Proms. Lyle and I have been watching these concerts on PBS for the last few years (Lyle even longer) and were glad that the timing worked out so we could enjoy one. The Hall is a beautiful and impressive place with awesome accoustics. The crazy thing about it is that anyone can come and STAND in the center or at the highest level for only 5 pounds! We had tickets, though, and my feet thanked me after walking from the Tube for countless blocks!

The weather was cool, and we hit a bit of rain once in awhile, but we did get to the British Museum....

....watched a "Jesus concert" at Trafalgar Square....

.....and went to church on Sunday morning at St. Paul's Cathedral (which was like a high mass at a Catholic church in the '50's, Lyle told me!)....

We both had a great time and were good tourists this time. Now, if they would just start driving on the right side, they wouldn't need to tell us where to look for traffic at the intersections!

Bastille Day (Fete Nationale)

July 14th is the French version of the American 4th of July.....remembering the "storming of the Bastille" in 1789, which began the revolt against the French aristocracy and brought about the new Republic. We learned all about the beginnings of it with a Paris Walks guide, who brought us through the alleys and streets where it all began.

This is a big day in France, beginning with a military parade down the Champs-Elysees with tanks, marching units from every military branch, and lots of pomp and circumstance. We watched a lot of it on TV, since I knew I could hardly get a glimpse of it in the crowds. We did see, however, the jets, helicopters, and even the skydivers from our window, as they descended in front of President Sarkozy at the Plaza de Concorde.....

(well, those specks are the paratroopers.....it looked more impressive on television!)

Eric, Lyle, and I took the 2-hour walk with a guide who explained the beginnings of the Revolution, places of secret meetings, and tiny streets where it all began. But the most memorable part of the day was the celebration at the Champ de Mars, in front of the Eiffel Tower, which is walking distance. So, we headed out after dinner, prepared to sit down and watch the concert before the fireworks. Wow....were we in for a surprise. The blocked-off streets should have given us a clue, but we had no idea that there would be thousands of people packed on that lawn.....probably many had their spots reserved all day! We squeezed in to hear the end of a song by James Blunt......

....and then listened with the "standing-room-only" crowd to many other singers, many of them I recognized from the radio, but have no idea who they are! We stood for a few hours, listening to the concert, waiting for it to get dark so that the show could be begin.....

It finally was dark enough at about 10:45, and we were awestruck by the beautiful fireworks blasting off behind the Eiffel Tower. It was absolutely stunning, even if we had to watch it over thousands of heads!

This was a time when you wished you had one of the big expensive cameras and a tripod (and some people did!)....Adam......you should've been there!!!

More of Versailles

Here are a few more pictures of our day at Versailles.....just click on the PLUS sign to make it go faster!

A visit from Eric and Diana

We have had a busy few weeks and it will take a few blog entries to tell it all....so here goes part 1! Our good friends, Eric and Diana (Eric and Lyle grew up on farms across the road from each other) came for a visit.....and then we all went to London and spent more time together there. We had a blast showing them some of the sights, which included the Champ, lunch at the Louvre, looking at Monet's mural at the Orangerie museum, and even did a walking tour on Bastille Day, learning about the French Revolution. Lyle and Eric were able to spend some time together and took one of those open bus tours and a boat ride down the Seine. The weather cooperated (mostly), with temps in the 70s and a few sprinkles here and there. But it was still felt more like spring than summer!

We all wanted to see Versailles, but didn't want to stand in long lines visiting the chateau. A good alternative was to visit the gardens on Sunday. These gardens took nearly 20 years to build for King Louis the XIV, with more than 300 statues, 1400 fountains (only around 600 exist now), gardens, labyrinths of plantings, and a canal a mile long for boating. You can imagine how much it costs to run these fountains! Back in Louis' time, it took over 6 million liters of water to be pumped every hour to run these fountains, so he ordered only those that he passed on his daily strolls to be activated! Now, some of them are only turned on during special "Water Spectacles" that are held on week-ends during the summer. We decided that was a good way to spend a Sunday, so took the short train ride to the town, by-passed all the people standing in line and walked right in with our tickets we had ordered online. (I WILL figure this out for more tours, I hope!)


The gardens were beautiful with flowers and accompanied with classical music playing throughout the day. Fountains were turned on at certain times, and so we tried to follow the schedule and see as many as we could. It was a spectacle to see and hear! These fountains are still awesome, even after 300 years! The weather was not summery, but we escaped the few sprinkles while having lunch under some umbrellas. It was still a lot warmer than when we went last February! I took dozens of pictures of the fountains and grounds, but here are just a few that we enjoyed....

Pictures just hardly show a glimpse at the grandeur of this place. We headed home in time to get to take a walk near the Eiffel to get a glimpse of the big Bastille Day celebration that was already beginning......We had no idea of how big it was going to be until the next day! But more on that on the next post....

C'est la vie in Paris

The past few weeks have been spent right here in Paris. June is a busy time for Lyle with "quarter-end" and that means long hours, long days. That does not leave me bored......how can anyone be bored in this beautiful city?

I see every day as an opportunity to explore, to learn, and to....yes....even try to give back in some small way. After finding a few books at the used-book store (found an English one), I have been enjoying reading about French history through the eyes of a traveler going throught time from the Roman towns in the south of France, through the Middle Age castles, to the Renaissance and royalty in the chateaus. It has been fascinating and I find myself staying up late at night, reading about the sometimes brutal and bizarre history of this country. It is fascinating and I have renewed my love for history.

I have also been taking French lessons with a 33-year old "homme" who comes three times a week to give me private lessons. (Lyle has, so far, opted out of this "opportunity"!) I am learning lots of vocabulary and can read and understand quite a bit now....but speaking it and hearing it is another story. It is very frustrating! He is very patient with me, but ce n'est facile d'apprendre francais! I am still very shy about speaking it but hope that my confidence will come someday. Sebastian, my tutor, just returned from Guatemala where he taught French, so sometimes we revert to Spanish as a common ground.

There are a number of churches here in Paris that take turns providing a free lunch to about 60 people every Friday at the American Cathedral. I have walked across the Seine and joined with about 15 others a few times to help out with making and serving a wonderful 3-course meal to the homeless and elderly. Through doing this, I have met some wonderful, giving, people from a variety of walks of life....some here for many years, others here just for a few months. It is all very-well organized and is something I am going to try and make an effort to do regularly.

We walk a lot here and don't miss having a car.....and certainly not paying at the pump. We hear that gas is over $4.00 a gallon in the U.S. now, but here it is over $11.00 equivalent. There have been many strikes over the price of fuel and European countries want the gasoline taxes lowered. That's partly why those ambulance drivers were so mad! Needless to say, there aren't a whole lot of SUV's here, not even small ones. Which driver of these two is more happy these days?

Lyle tells me we are getting one of these Smart Cars when we move back. Notice how they fit into ANY parking space!

And one Sunday afternoon (while Lyle was busy working), I went to the beach. In Paris? Yep...they carted in a few thousand tons of sand to spread on the Champs de Mars in front of the Eiffel for a volleyball tournament! There were teams from all over the world that played in their bikinis all week. The weather was perfect and I pretended I was in California.......

......and although the closing ceremonies were all in French, I knew that the American teams had won, both the women and men. They played the Star Spangled Banner to kind of a subdued crowd....

This past weekend, looking for something DIFFERENT to do, we decided to try a jazz club. Paris is said to be second only to New York in the number of jazz clubs, and Paris does love their jazz. There are all kinds of places to try, and we experienced two that were very different. We found one down the block which was in the basement (cave) of a small cafe, where a couple sang and played piano and drums. They sang lots of oldies (American songs) and it was a small, intimate (and romantic) evening.......

Saturday night was a different story. Our friends, Stephen and Frances, joined us at a well-known jazz club in the San Michel area. We had dinner and then enjoyed the show, again in a "cave", but this time a 10-piece band played Dixie New Orleans-type music. It was so much fun and they were so good, I bought their CD. I told Lyle if I heard that music every morning, I might wake up before 8 a.m......

We keep busy here....there is so much to do and see! Paris is a magical city....as someone I know stated...."it's like being in giant park with museums, trees, and places to eat!" And now....the eiffel tower is bathed in blue with gold stars because President Sarkozy is head of the European Union. Even though we can enjoy this beautiful scene from our window, we walked over to the other side to take some close-up pictures from ground level.......

.....the twinkling lights against the brilliantly blue tower is quite a sight to see!