October dawned as another early day on Saturday, October 1st as we were up early to make the 15 or so minute walk to the RER (Réseau Express Régional’ or Regional Express Railway) station at Cité Universitaire to make another visit to Gare de Nord. Today’s destination is to be Amsterdam. (I still got to go there after all.) I loved having reliable and rapid transit to use in Paris. It was only a 1 ticket ride to Gare de Nord so it cost less than 2 Euros 1 way; a lot less than the 27 Euro cab ride last time. (And much less than our gypsy cab ride back.) and no more time than taking a taxi.
Unlike our last train trip; this time we weren’t leaving the EU so we just had to go through security and not passport control.
We were about an hour before the train was scheduled to leave and we checked out the train station a little and got some food to take on the train.
Soon our train pulled up and I took my camera out to get a photo or two.
I was concerned to have a rather serious looking security guard come over to me and tell me there are no photographs allowed in the building. Now normally I’m a sarcastic smart ass and would of pointed out that everybody and their dog has a cell phone to take photos with; but not being nearly as dumb as I look; I just said I was disappointed in hearing that as it’s such a beautiful old building and I would adhere to that.
It was just over a three hour trip from Gare de Nord to the Amsterdam Centraal station with quick stops in Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam and the Amsterdam airport. We never got off the train at those stops but I’m counting it as visiting Belgium, lol.
It was about a 15 minute walk and even though it was only just noon, we stopped at our hotel; Hotel Pagi to see if we could check in early to keep us from dragging our luggage around. Luckily, they let us check in. Curtis and Lucille’s room wasn’t ready so we put all the stuff in our room and headed out to look for food.
This being the Moffat’s 4 trip to Amsterdam, Curtis has mapped out a plan for food.
We meandered for just over a kilometer as we made our way south toward our lunch stop; De Carrousel Pannenkoeken.
I had heard nothing but great things about the mini Dutch pancakes so it only seemed appropriate to have them as our first meal in Amsterdam.
I had the cherries with mine. I love cherries and they are never an option on the breakfast menu so it only seemed natural.
And I must say, they were fabulous.
We started walking across the canal over towards the Heineken Experience to see what we could find from there.
I loved the architecture I saw along the way and took photos of what seemed like everything.
Soon though we found ourselves at Albert Cuypmarkt; Iconic street market since 1905 with lots of stands selling clothing, local foods, flowers & more.
It looked a lot cooler than our local market so we decided to check it out.
Lynda and Lucille found a few things to purchase (big surprise) and then we came to a stall/store that caught both their eyes.
Lynda deciding on a colour.
I’m not much of a sandal wearer but the pricing was very good so I bought Lynda a pair she liked.
Since we now had things to carry; that was enough shopping for now and we started walking over to the Hard Rock Cafe just over a kilometer away to see about getting Curtis a shot glass. (And a drink or two for us.)
It took us over half an hour to make our way to the Hard Rock as I had to point my camera at a thing or 10 along the way.
There were no shot glasses for sale in Amsterdam but we decided to have a drink while we were here.
Lucille and Lynda wanted a lemon drop shot and the 3 of us shared a large strawberry margarita.
It was getting close to supper time so we started back to our hotel to drop off the shopping bags.
We dropped off the shopping and Curtis moved their stuff up to their room before we headed out for supper.
We’d walked just over 1/2 back towards the train station when we got to our destination; Gandhi Restaurant.
Curtis has travelled quite extensively and had told me that the best Indian food he’s had outside of India was in Amsterdam. I love Indian food so this was my whole reason to make the trip to the city.
I must say, he wasn’t wrong as far as I can tell. (I haven’t been to India but it was the best Indian food I’ve ever had.)
We had to walk that fabulous meal off so we headed out to check out Amsterdam at night.
I couldn’t decide what was cooler; a parking garage for bicycles or the fact there were 1156 spaces available for bikes.Another parking garage for bicycles.
Apparently we did get over to the red light district. I wasn’t paying much attention as I just took photos of everything.
We made our way back to the hotel and I took a last couple of photos from Curtis and Lucille’s room. They faced the main street where we faced a side alley.
Considering we’d spent about 4 hours travelling today it was quite surprising to get just over 20 thousand steps in.
Friday, September 30th dawned as a nice sunny day for my 57th birthday.
I was up early enough to get birthday wishes from everyone before they started their school/work day and Lynda and I headed out to find some breakfast.
One of my favorite things about Paris was the abundance of cafes and bakeries and we decided to try one we hadn’t been to yet.
We walked about 3 blocks to Boulangerie on the corner of Rue de la Glacière and Rue Daviel. We’d been by there quite a few times and decided it was time to try it.
A pastry, cheese bun and a tea at an outdoor table made for a great breakfast. Not even the flying rats were going to spoil my meal.
I had yet to buy a baguette on our trip so I went back in for one before we left.
The lady ahead of me got to the counter and said; “Une baguette s’il vous plait.” The lady behind the counter got her one and she left with her bread.
It was my turn and I said; “Une baguette s’il vous plait.” I must not of been as eloquent as the lady ahead of me as the clerk laughed a little when she went to get me my bread. (I’m well aware that I butcher the language in the few words I attempt but I try.)
Baguette in hand, we headed back to the apartment to wait for Lucille to be off school.
We had some of the pastries that Lynda had bought earlier and some baguette for lunch before we headed out shopping for wine.
I had wanted to buy a bottle for my neighbours Bruno and Shar (I don’t actually know how she spells her name so I’m guessing.) and find something for us to bring home to try later. You can buy wine in the grocery store but my sister had told me not to do that but to go to an actual wine store.
We headed out to visit the wine store Lucille liked. We got there and it was closed. A few other stores in the area were closed and it looked like they were taking a late lunch so we wandered around the neighbourhood waiting for it to re-open.
An indoor gas station still freaks me out a little.
When we got back to the wine store; it was still closed but everything else had re-opened so we continued down the road to Nicolas Tolbiac. Nicolas is a chain so my hopes of finding a wine from Nice weren’t going to happen but I picked a couple of bottles. Lynda picked a bottle of wine for one of her clients and a bottle of champagne for us. (Reports back were we chose wisely and our bottles were pretty good as well.)
Successful shopping trip accomplished, we headed back to the apartment to wait for Curtis to be off work.
Finally it was time to walk to the subway to head down to the Bir-Hakeim stop so we could go do our supper and river cruise.
I had wanted to go to Amsterdam for Indian food for my birthday supper but with Lucille in school and Curtis working, it would of made for a very late supper so I accepted a meal on a boat at the base of the Eiffel Tower and a river cruise on the Seine as a substitute. (I know, I know; poor me.)
It was still daylight when we got out of the subway and we made our way to where the boats leave to start the tour. The next boat looked pretty full so we decided to have supper first. (I think this made Curtis very happy.) I would of liked to cruise the river in the daylight to be able to get better photos but I really liked the idea of a night cruise.
I found a way I liked wine; with grapefruit juice as I had a pamplemousse rose while my bride had champangne.
I didn’t take a photo of my veal and polenta. The veal was like a stew in tomato sauce and it was a lot different that the usual cutlet that I have had in the past. I liked it better than a cutlet and with the tomato sauce; the polenta was good as I’m not usually a fan of it. I did get a photo of my bride and her meal though.
I did get a photo of my dessert though.
Another very good meal finished; time to head out to the boat for the cruise part of the evening.
The boat was pretty crowded on the top level but even though it was a cool night; I wasn’t about to sit inside.
There was commentary of what we were seeing along. I know we saw some bridges and we saw some buildings but other that Notre Dame and the Louvre; I don’t really remember much else.
While it hadn’t seemed all that long; our 75 minute cruise was over.
I took 1 more photo of the Eiffel Tower (because I didn’t have any so far) and we started making out way back to the subway to go home for the evening.
I had gotten just over 15 thousand step on what I’m calling my best birthday ever. I’m not usually one to celebrate much on the day and I often go away on a solo trip at that time of year to avoid any such thing. I had thought my birthday in China was pretty cool (and it was) but this one; with my bride and sister and brother in law; surpasses it; and by a wide margin at that.
Thursday, September 29th started out as a fairly late day as we recovered from yesterday’s long ass day trip to London.
I’m pretty sure Lynda and I went out for something for lunch but I never took my camera out of the bag that day so I honestly don’t remember where we would of gone.
I do know that after Curtis was done work we took the subway to Fresh Burritos Bercy Village for supper.
The menu is a lot like what I see at Mucho Burrito here at home and it was a pretty good meal.
The tiles in the bathroom are pretty nice.
It was a short walk to our destination.
There’s even nerds in France
I had left my camera at the apartment as we were going to Accor Arena to see Sum 41, Simple Plan and Guest in concert.
Anyone who tells you a cell phone is as good as a bigger camera in any situation is so full of shit their eyes are brown. But, use what you got and I didn’t want to have to look after a camera in a crowd. (I’m not even sure it would of been allowed in.) All the photos in today post are from my Samsung S21.
Curtis and I went out for snacks and drinks before the concert started and you know you’re at an event venue when you are paying $10 Euros for a draft beer in a plastic cup, but that’s what my sister’s beer cost Curtis.
The guest for the concert was Cassyette – Cassy Brooking; a singer-songwriter from England. She was pretty energetic and she could scream pretty loudly. I didn’t know any of her songs but she wasn’t bad at all.
Zoom doesn’t do so well in the dark
The crowd seemed to like her half hour set.
I’ve never been to a concert where there was an actual intermission between bands but it was about a 20 minute break before Simple Plan hit the stage. It was pretty interesting listening to the crowd singing along to French folk music being played over the speakers while waiting to see bands that played slightly heavier music.
I knew quite a few of the Simple Plan songs and the crowd seemed to really like when the lead singer spoke French to them between songs.
Simple Plan played for about an hour and there was yet again another 20ish minute intermission before Sum 41 hit the stage.
For a city that pretends it doesn’t understand English, it was interesting watching Sum 41s lead singer whip the crowd up. Watching the mosh pit was pretty interesting. I’m not sure why so many guys (and more than 1 girl) had to take their shirts off to run into each other though.
I think I knew all of 1 Sum 41 song but it was still fun being at the arena. I was glad to be up at a comfortable level to watch and not be down on the floor.
We bolted for the subway the second their set was done to try and beat the crowds and we were successful.
It wouldn’t of been my choice of concert to see but it was pretty cool to see a couple of Canadian bands in Paris.
We didn’t walk all that far going to and from the concert but I still managed to hit just over 10k steps for the day. Obviously Lynda and I had gone somewhere earlier in the day, but I still can’t remember where.
5:00 am seemed to come awfully early on Wednesday, September 28th. (The alarm was set for 5:30 but we woke up early.) I had a taxi booked to pick Lynda and I up at 6:20 am to take us to Gare du Nord so we could take the Eurostar train to London for a fish and chip lunch and maybe do some shopping.
Two of the things I wanted to do on our holiday was; take the train somewhere and to have fish and chips in London just because I could. This trip would check both of those off my list. I do have to say it was the most expensive meal I’ve ever had but I probably won’t get back there again so I really don’t care about that.
Our train left Paris at 7:43 am and with the time change heading west; arrived in London’s St. Pancras Station just after 9:00 am. I had booked the basic seats for the trip over to London, not realizing there were no USB chargers in the cheap seats. We never thought to bring a DC/USB adapter with us.
SPOILER ALERT: This blog post contains a lot of touristy looking photos. And I do mean a lot of them. Turns out I wouldn’t have time to shoot the kind of photos I usually do. You have been warned.
Just outside of Paris
There isn’t a whole lot of scenery to view along the way, and at about 300km/hr, if you see something to take a picture of, it’s gone by the time you try to take a photo. (It’s only going 160 km/hr through the Chunnel but there is even less to see there.)
Platform at St Pancras Station
We got off the train and made our way through the station to the attached Kings Cross Subway Station to take the subway to Waterloo Station for a short walk to the lastminute.com London Eye. Lynda had booked our entertainment for while we were in London and the London Eye was to be our first stop.
Just a few bicycles
It was a short walk and soon we were at our destination. Our tour was booked for 11:30 am but we were there before they opened at 11 am. I looked for photo opportunities while Lynda went to ask where we would go to get on the ride.
Turns out that she was right where the line would start so we were the first ones in line. Since that never, ever happens to us it was a weird feeling being at the front of the line. (Not weird enough for us to give up our spot though.)
A long line formed behind us and just after 11:00 o’clock, the line started moving and we were soon standing at the first pod waiting to board for our “flight.”
About 20 of us loaded up and were soon moving up. Upon boarding an electronic voice says; “Welcome to the London Eye.” And that is the last thing that is said. It is a little disappointing that there is no references to any of the buildings you can see so you know what you are looking at.
View from the top
I wasn’t kidding about plenty of tourist photos and you haven’t seen anything yet.
Soon our half hour ride was over and we got off the ride to walk over to Victoria Cross Subway Station for the bus tour Lynda booked for us.
We walked north to the pedestrian bridge over the River Thames and headed towards Trafalgar Square. We saw a few photogenic things along the way.
Panorama1 Shot
We made it to Trafalgar Square.
We made our way to Admiralty Arch on our way to The Mall.
Panorama from up close1 shot from farther down The Mall
Normally The Mall has traffic flowing along it but it was being set up for the London Marathon to use it on October 2nd.
We were about half way down the street when the police were suddenly moving people off the road to the sidewalks as the road opened up.
Victoria Memorial with Buckingham Palace in the distance
As we got near the end of The Mall, we cut through St. James Park.
A very cool snack stand in St. James Park
We were getting close to our destination when we saw something that made us wonder if Lynda’s mom, Gail, has been keep a secret. (Apparently there are 20 or so Gail’s locations in and around London.)
It took us about an hour to make the walk over with our photo stops but we made it to Victoria Cross Station with time to spare to make our tour. (We did miss lunchtime by walking though.)
We got on the open air bus and made our way to the upper deck. Cool weather be damned; we’re tourists looking to see stuff.
Lynda’s all smiles (for now)The upper deck was a pretty popular placeOur tour guide Pepe telling us what we were seeing.
Our very WASP looking, British sounding tour guide, Pepe, told us the story of how he got his name. He said when he was born, the parents were responsible to register the name of a new baby at the registry office. Unfortunately, there were 10 pubs between their house and the registry office; and his father stopped at all of them. By the time he arrived to register a name, he couldn’t recall the chosen name and he blurted out the name of the neighbours dog. He did point out that his mother was Spanish so it wasn’t all bad. He went on to say he often tells his younger brother he’s lucky both sets of grandparents escorted their father to register his birth or he might of been named after the neighbours new dog; Fifi.
Pepe was a good and knowledgeable guide. Unfortunately, most of what he said after his name story didn’t stick with me.
Approaching Westminster AbbeySomeone killed their cell phone and had to switch to plan B
I know we drove past Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square and 10 Downing Street but I don’t remember which order we went by them all. There was a protest happening across the street from 10 Downing Street to protest Prime Minister Liz Truss’s economic policies. (And since she’s already been replaced, that might have worked.)
Westminster Abbey again
We drove past Westminster Cathedral on our way to cross the River Thames.
After we crossed the river, we stopped for a photo opportunity of the Parliament Building across the water. I got out to participate while my bride stayed on the bus.
Our bus driver, Floyd stayed on the bus as well.
Soon we were back on the road and re-crossing the river.
The King’s Guard
I wasn’t kidding when I said I didn’t recall the order of places we passed as we are now approaching Trafalgar Square again.
We drove all around the square.
Ducka you head
We made our way down Fleet Street.
It was time to re-cross the river.
We weren’t across the river very long as we were soon crossing Tower Bridge on our way to The Tower of London.
We got out of the bus for a short walk past the London Wall – a piece of the original Roman Wall from when way, way back.
We had a 20 minute stop at The Tower of London while we waited to board our boat for the river cruise part of the tour. (That part came as a surprise to Lynda and I.)
Pepe gathering his flock
Soon our break was over and we were lining up to board the boat. Lynda and I went to the open, top deck so we could again see the most stuff on the tour.
Just as we were leaving the dock, Tower Bridge started to open up. Pepe told us it’s rare to be on the tour and see it.
As the bridge was fully open, we could see a couple of tugs maneuvering a warship towards the opening.
By now we were parallel to the HMS Belfast as we headed up river.
The boat was pretty full with a good amount of people out on the top deck.
After about 20 minutes, we were across from The London Eye and it was time to dock.
It was time to get off the boat and get back on the bus. Some of the people in the tour were going to walk across Westminster Bridge to go to the London Eye. (Lynda didn’t know that was an option when she booked the tour or she would of just booked this tour.)
There’s a lot less people on the bus nowLynda’s not looking as happy as she did at the start of the tour
The tour was going to continue to Harrods Department Store but we needed to get some food and get back to St Pancras before 6:30 pm for our 8:00 pm departure back to Paris. Our 3 hour tour lasted almost 4 hours and it was around 5:00 pm getting into Kings Cross Station.
We had decided to look for food near the station as we were limited for time and after we walked around to check out the area we decide to try Drake & Morgan at King’s Cross. It looked like a nice place and we felt a bit under dressed walking in. We couldn’t really hear what the hostess said so we wandered over towards the bar to have a look. A manager came over to help us and squeezed us in right at the end of the prep area. After not having a meal since breakfast; we would of been happy to sit in the kitchen to eat.
It was pretty cool watching them prep meals.
We had a waiter come by and mumble he’d be right with us but he never came back so the manager who had seated us took our order.
Fish and chips had been my plan so I ordered that to share with a loaf of sourdough and a couple of fresh fruit drinks for Lynda and I. The British pound was running about $1.50 CAD per so we paid about $52 for our meal. It was a really good piece of fish and the fries were also very good. Our drinks worked out to about $12 each and there was no alcohol in them. (The were yummy though.)
We enjoyed our meal and made our way back to the train station by 6:30 pm like our ticket suggested. We thought we’d charge Lynda’s nearly dead cell phone but finding a USB plug proved more than challenging. (We found 1 spot with 2 jacks in the entire building and 1 of the jacks didn’t work.) Turns out having a DC/USB plug adapter would of again been the solution.
Our train left on time at 8:01 pm and I had upgraded our seats from Standard to Standard Premier so we’d get a meal on the return trip. With the time change it would be almost 11:30 pm getting into Paris so a late supper was appreciated.
As an added bonus, there were USB chargers with the upgraded seats.
Being dark as pitch out, I never tried to take any photos on the return trip.
Our meal was a salmon quiche that was pretty good. (Seems like a popular meal choice.)
Once we got back to Paris, I had a gypsy cab driver offer to take us home and he seemed like a nice old guy so I agreed. (It wasn’t twice as much as the morning trip but it was more than it should of been.)
We got back to the apartment just before midnight. It had been a long day and it felt like a whirlwind trip.
Our day didn’t go as we had planned with lunch coming at supper time and not having any time to do any shopping but even feeling like a rushed day, it was fun and I know what not to do if I ever get back there.
I managed to get over 17k steps in today. No wonder it felt like such a long day.
It had rained pretty hard at times overnight but there was a pause in the rain when we got up on Sunday, September 25th.
The weather wasn’t expected to be any better than yesterday and a lot of places were still closed so we went back to Sweet Franks for breakfast. It was just as good as it had been yesterday.
As we sat and eyeballed the cloud cover, we decided we’d drive up to see it conditions were any better at Parque Nacional del Teide to see the volcano. We didn’t really believe they would be but we set off to find out anyway.
Hard to get good images out the car window
Soon we were climbing the hills in a dizzying array of switchbacks. I don’t want to say the Spanish are crazy but according to the GPS, the speed limit was 90 km/h on that stretch of road.
It wasn’t long before we were at the top of the mountain. At least it looked that way as you couldn’t see up hill very well.
You couldn’t see down all that well either.
So, back in the car to climb higher.
The big patches of white are banana plantations.
Sometimes we’d get out of the rain into patches of almost blue sky, but then it was back to rain and mist in no time.
Apparently the storm was causing problems with flooding and damages in places around the Canary Islands but the most we saw was debris on the road.
We did see a lot of places with rocks and such on the road but no real damage otherwise.
What you could see of the landscape looked kind of cool.
The rain was down to a mist as we passed Paradores Cañadas del Teide on our way to the cable car at Teleférico del Teide.
Visibility was good enough for us to see the road closed gate and not much else.
We were a bit bummed but not surprised by this and we headed back to see what was at Paradores Cañadas del Teide.
It’s a visitor centre with a restaurant, washroom and giftshop.
Lynda and Lucille did some shopping in the giftshop and found a few nice things to bring home.
With our planed outing being a bust, we headed back down a different road in search of lunch.
We ended up in a familiar place; Centro Comercial Safari shopping mall. We knew things were open there so we thought we’d play it safe to find food.
We ended up at Roma Restaurant – Pizzeria; right beside where we had lunch yesterday.
It was very good Italian food and drink.
It wasn’t raining when we had finished eating so we walked about a block to Playa del Camisón beach to could check it out.
It was another really nice beach and we walked in the surf for a while.
The breakwater made the water quite calm but my bride showed a lot restraint and only waded knee deep as she walked along.
We walked along the beach for a while and decided to head back to the apartment.
With our late lunch, no one was really needing supper so Lucille and Curtis went in search of potato chips. We had other snacks and drinks to finish off before our flight out in the morning.
The weather still wasn’t all that great as we waited for them to get back and the pool was still closed so I grabbed a couple of “weather” shots.
About my only disappointment (And I wasn’t all that disappointed) with Tenerife was the boring sunsets we saw. I know the storm may have something to do with it but it literally went from light out to dark out with next to no sunset colour. It is just a minor niggle to me because, even with the storm I was really enjoying the island.
It was getting dark when I shot my last photos of the day. (And as it turned out, trip.)
We finished off our snacks and got to bed fairly early because our 5:30 am leaving time would get here soon enough.
It was a bit of a slack walking day and I managed just shy of 7600 steps.
Tuesday, September 20th was a cool, cloudy, rainy kind of day.
Lucille had a physio appointment over near Arc de Triomphe after school.
Lynda and I walked over to the metro to meet her along the way and she’d show us where it was while we waited for her to be done.
We rode to the chosen stop and got off the train to wait. She was late getting out of school so we sat and watched a few trains come and go.
Finally she came rushing in and we hopped on the next train to the right station. It was few stops away but our end station – Charles de Gaulle – Étoile is huge and waiting there was probably not a good idea.
Lucille pointed out where our exit was and hurried off to her appointment. We continued on our way and made our way up the stairs.
I’d seen many pictures of the Arc de Triomphe and the thing that I marveled at the most is the size of the traffic circle without any lane markers in it. It is a crazy sight to behold.
We took a few photos and decided maybe we would go up to the top after lunch. So we picked a street at random and wandered down it looking for food.
We walked down Av. de Friedland a few blocks and decided on Brasserie Le Balzac.
Even in the cool weather, we were determined to eat outside.
We shared fettuccine and a meat sauce for lunch and were getting ready to leave when Lucille messaged that she was done her appointment.
We arranged to meet at the base of the Arc.
Once there, we decided that between the cold weather and the line to go up, we’d skip going up to see the view.
So we decided to window shop on Av. des Champs-Élysées.
Lynda was going to look for a purse for her mom but the line to just get into Louis Vuitton was a bit ridiculous so we we kept walking.
Hard for the social status differences not to catch my eye
We stopped at Starbucks and Lucille bought us all drinks so she’s shopped on the Champs-Élysées.
Finding the entrance to the subway is challenging along the avenue as they aren’t marked with the big Metro signs like the peasant areas of the city.
A very cool ice cream truck near the end of the park
We wandered through some of Jardin des Champs-Élysées before heading towards the river on our way back to the metro.
As we strolled along Avenue Winston Churchill near the sign for and looking at Petit Palais, we ran into an American woman looking for Avenue Winston Churchill. We told her she was there and she looked at the Palais and asked if that was the Arc de Triomphe? I see why so many places aren’t fans of Americans.
We were soon on the Pont Alexandre III. The official description calls it an ornate bridge but it looks a bit gaudy to me.
We continued towards Hôtel des Invalides.
We kept walking through more park area. Like Beijing, I would bet I could visit a park a day for an entire year and not get to all the parks in Paris.
And of course the streets and building continued to catch my eye.
Finally we were back at the subway to go to the apartment before we headed out for supper.
I honestly don’t remember where we ended up but I know it was good as I’ve yet to have a bad meal on the trip.
After we were back in for the evening, I liked the quality of the light outside so I shot a couple shots from the balcony. There wasn’t much colour in sunset but I still liked what I saw.
With over 14k in steps I had almost twice as many as yesterday so I should be keeping my average over the 10k/day goal.
It was already 25 degrees C at 8:30 am, Thursday, September 15th as we waited for our van pickup to go on our tour to Monaco and Monte Carlo. The bus was late getting to us as we where the last stop and apparently there was a lot of traffic. We climbed in to make it a full van with 8 passengers. There was a mother and daughter from New York and Connecticut, a couple from Toronto, a couple from India (relative of the Toronto couple as far as I could tell) and us.
We were soon climbing the hills to the northeast leaving Nice. After a short drive we stopped for a photo opportunity at a familiar looking place – Villefranche-sur-Mer, only from the top looking down at the harbour and not the other way around like yesterday.
After a quick stop we started down the mountain road and traveled to Èze. Our guide had stated that Èze was a magical village. (Looked nice but to me it was mostly shops in old houses.) Still, it had it’s charms and I did like the other lemmings and took photos.
No park at City Hall
We only had about 20 minutes to explore the village so paying the 6 euros to get into Le Jardin Exotique – botanical garden, just wasn’t worth it.
We jumped in the van to get to the Parfumerie Fragonard – L’usine Laboratoire Èze – Fragonard perfume factory and lab for a tour.
The tour itself was interesting but I wasn’t there to shop so I think the tour guide was put off a bit by my indifference to her explanations. Lynda liked some of the scents and did get a couple little hand soaps.
Oh look, it’s Èze up the hill
The factory direct pricing was pretty good but for us travelling with carry-on luggage for the first time, we just didn’t have the space to buy any more.
Tour and shopping done, we all piled back into the van for our trip to Monaco.
Soon we were driving through Monaco on our way to Monte Carlo where we get dropped off near the casino.
We had less than half an hour to explore Monte Carlo before we had to be back at the van to go see the changing of the guards at Le Palais des Princes de Monaco, Monaco.
The other couples were late getting back to the van and our irate driver tried to get us there on time but this is the extent of what I saw.
Nothing to see here, move along.
We had another half and hour or so to explore Monaco. Seemed a bit anti-climatic now but we gave it a shot. We didn’t even venture very far from where we were dropped off to take a photo or 12.
The van pulled up and everyone was on time. (Now that we were heading back to Nice it didn’t matter as much.)
After driving through 2 or 3 of the 7 road tunnels in Monaco, we headed towards the expressway back to Nice.
This place was about 10 blocks from our apartment but I feel the name may be a bit misleading.
It was around 30 degrees C when we got back to the apartment so Lynda changed into her swimsuit and I put on shorts. (Yeah, and for those who know me, that is a rarity indeed.)
We headed out for lunch and for Lynda at least, a swim.
We were between meal times by the time we went for lunch and not all restaurants were still serving lunch. Luckily, we found El Merkado. The food was good and the staff seemed friendlier by the time we were done than when we arrived. Both waitresses did take a break while we were there so I think they were just tired. And, since it was right across the road from Hotel de Ville, Nice…
We got a bubble tea on our way to the beach and it was now about 33 degrees C out so I had it done by the time we walked the 3 blocks there.
The beach has never, ever been a thing for me and I found a spot to sit and wait for Lynda. I had my wide angle lens on and with the wind blowing like it was, I wasn’t about to change lenses to get a better shot of her enjoying herself.
Unlike the day we arrived, the waves were really high and she was a bit nervous about going in. It’s an all rock beach and there is about a 6 foot hill of loose stones before you get to the normal level of the water but the spray was coming well up the incline. Lynda sat on the top of the pile and let the water splash into her.
She’s the far left girl, so far away.
She was enjoying herself until a particularly big wave came in and hit her so hard it rolled her over on the rocks. She realized she still had her hearing aids in so she grabbed them before she even tried to get up. When she got up, she brought them over to me and was more concerned I’d gotten a photo of it than if she had been hurt. (She did get a couple of nasty bruises out of it.)
After laughing it off, she went back to try again. She did say she wasn’t going to try to swim in those waves.
Lynda left her shoes where I could see them but not her
After an hour or so on the rocks, I was starting to have trouble getting comfortable and Lynda said she was cooled off. (But we still got gelato on our way to our apartment.)
Our Airbnb listing stated it faced the sea. This is a true statement but the view of the sea isn’t all that easy to see.
The view from our table
We had noticed that sunset colours don’t last very long and I thought I’d try to at least get a shot or two before it was gone.
Leaning out our window with my “big” lens.
I decided to go out on the steps to see if I could get a better angle to shoot.
The Club Med 2 leaving on a cruise
Lynda even got her camera out to get a few shots.
My bride in the window
Only got 13k steps in today but we saw quite a bit of stuff and had a blast.
Woke up at 5 am and didn’t get back to sleep. Laid around in bed waiting for Curtis and Lucille to go to work/school so not to be in their way.
After breakfast we threw a load of laundry into the washer/dryer combo. I didn’t set it properly so it wasn’t drying.
We were going to venture out on our own but it kept raining on and off so it was already after noon when we got out the door all by ourselves.
We walked through the tail end of a sidewalk market. (Might have to look for them next week.)
We checked out a few Pâtisseries and Boulangeries as Lynda was looking for pastries and I was looking for real food. We settled on Entre Potes Cafe. We had the Plat du Jour which today was a salmon quiche with a side salad and a bit of baguette. It was really good.
I’m trying stuff outside my comfort zone while on holidays. I’ve had weird meat, cranberry juice and seafood (I do actually like salmon though).
We walked up the street some more and wandered through a small park. I liked the look of the building in behind it.
We walked back the way we came so Lynda could stop for pastries. (They were really good.)
We headed back to the apartment to wait till it was time to go out and get supper.
Lucille and Curtis were getting their hot water heater replaced so we were all waiting around for the new one to arrive. Even though someone had come and measured what they had, the crew showed up (3 hours later than scheduled) with one a foot too tall to fit the space. So, down to the truck for a smaller one. Of course, it’s smaller than what was there so new piping needs to be installed. By now it’s well past time to go out and get supper so we ordered tacos in on delivery. They were huge. We finished eating before the hot water tank was installed. Still didn’t have 10k in steps so we went to the store for some Ginger Ale. That was only about 400 steps there and back so still not there.
Not many photos today obviously. Hopefully I’ll get my steps yet tonight and maybe I’ll get more photos tomorrow.
But first, a stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
When I booked our trip way back in November of last year, I booked a direct Calgary, Alberta to Paris, France flight with WestJet on their 787 Dreamliner.
In May of this year, WestJet cancelled our outbound flight and offered us a short 2 hour stopover in Halifax if we flew on the 737 Max-8. We would be leaving Calgary earlier in the day and arriving in Paris before lunch time instead of mid afternoon like originally planned. As much as I wanted to avoid flying on a 737 these days, I really didn’t want to fly another day and I figured Halifax would be a lot easier to navigate than if we had to land in Toronto so I agreed to the change.
It was a full flight out of Calgary under blueish skies on Saturday, September 10th at 1:20 pm. There was a lot of forest fire smoke in the air so even at altitude, the sky wasn’t it’s usual shades of blue.
Somewhere east of CalgarySteerage Class
It was dark when we got to Halifax at 9:00 pm local time and were glad to survive the really hard landing we had. With only a 2 hour layover I didn’t try to get any photos of anything.
11:00 pm had us back in the air winging east towards the Atlantic Ocean on our way to Europe.
We tried, and failed to get any real sleep on the flight. Between the air traffic and fog, we were almost an hour later than our scheduled 10 am local time arrival on Sunday, September 11th.
Getting through Customs and getting our luggage took over an hour ( I think the 3 mile walk to get there took the longest) and the cab ride to my sister’s place was over half and hour so we “arrived” around 1:00 pm.
My sister, Lucille and her husband, Curtis were waiting with bated breath, not so much to see us, but to be able to go have lunch.
We jumped right into it by walking over to the #21 bus and heading towards Notre Dame.
We had lunch at Galway Pub; an Irish Pub near the right bank of the Seine. The waiter we had, Matt, had an Irish accent, but is actually French American. It’s a weird combo but he was a nice guy.
After lunch we trekked along the river and crossed over to see Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. Well, what we could see of it as it’s still closed since the fire in 2019.
Notre Dame rebuild progress.View opposite Notre Dame.Notre Dame rebuild progress side view from across the river.
We meandered along the river taking in the sites.
Wow, a bike lane in the city. Who would of thought it was possible?
A small musical group was finishing up their set as we walked by.
We made our way over to Hôtel de Ville. It’s a whole lot bigger and nicer City Hall than what I’m used to seeing in little ole Red Deer.
It was too big to fit in 1 photograph.The Bubble Man was quite a popular guy.
We started heading towards the subway to got back to the Moffat’s apartment.
Apparently the Saint Jacques Gothic tower is the last remnants of a big church that got demolished during the French Revolution.
I took a few photos of the building along the way. (Surprising, I know. Or, as the locals would say; “Quelle surprise.”)
I liked the orangeCool little Pharmacy in an old looking buildingA lot of the graffiti is on the rolling shutters so not to get erased
We were back at the apartment for a few hours before heading out for supper at an Italian restaurant; Le San Giovanni. I didn’t take a photo of my spaghetti bolognaise but I can tell you it was a whole lot better than the spaghetti I ordered on my first night in Beijing back in 2015.
I did get a photo of my drink though.
Ange Bleu
It was only a short walk to and from the restaurant but Lynda and I managed to get our 10k steps in. (Unlike our flying day)
We crashed hard for the night around 10:00 pm and sleep came quickly.
It’s been just over 3 weeks since I took my bride to Jasper National Park for her birthday and I still miss being there. I don’t really know why I miss it so much. The sound of a tripped out crack head meandering along the bike path is just like a bugling elk outside your window after all.
It was a cool and cloudy day when we headed out towards Edmonton to do a bit of shopping before heading off for our holiday. It’s a good thing I had planned it that way as I totally forgot my tripod at home and was able to stop by our head office to borrow one. (I also borrowed a lens to try and now it appears that I need a new lens in my life.)
We checked into the Pine Bungalows Resort not long before supper time so we unloaded the car and headed off in search of food.
I had told Lynda that she could eat wherever she wanted to for her birthday supper and she picked (well, had me pick as she is a bit limited on the kind of food she can have) O’Shea’s Restaurant in the Athabasca Hotel. It was a good meal and our waitress was excellent. We got dessert to take back to our room. (Really good carrot cake.)
Once we discovered there was no regular TV (internet TV seemed like a lot of work to find stuff) in our room, we made some tea and enjoyed our dessert with our respective books. It was still cloudy outside so there was no point in trying to go take some night sky photos so it wasn’t too late getting to bed.
Tuesday morning’s plan for Lynda included breakfast at Wicked Cup and it was a good as it had been when we discovered it back in August.
After breakfast, Lynda wanted to check out some of the local shops to see about doing some shopping for herself. It was nice and sunny but the breeze that was blowing was cool as we wandered around town. After a few stops I liked the look of the VIA Rail train with the mountains in the background so I headed over to the train yard.
He moved the truck after I was done taking photos
Apparently it was my turn to pick an activity as Lynda had already picked 2 things to do. I really had no plan of what to do with our time as I was just happy to get away with her so in a bit of a panic I picked heading up to Pyramid Lake. I took a little heat on picking such an “easy” destination but we went anyway.
Once we got to the lake there really was no evidence of the wind we had in town as the lake was very glassy. The only disturbances on the water were the grebes and loons swimming on it.
Some Parks staff were getting work done before the snow flew.
The lake was still very calm looking across at Pyramid Mountain so I took a few photos. I thought I’d try a few different lenses from the same spot to show the difference in focal length perspectives.
135 mm (the borrowed lens) 85mm (my biggest lens) 40 mm 25 mm
I took a couple more photos from the island and we sat down and soaked up the sun for a while.
Still quite a bit of haze showing considering it was the middle of October but the sun felt nice.
We headed back to town to look for some lunch as our big breakfast was starting to wear off.
Saw our first grizzly bear ever in Jasper on our way back to town. He was happily munching away along side the road so we stopped for a few photos. Lynda learned she can stand on her seat and shoot through the sun roof. I just stuck with taking photos out my window.
I’ve cropped the image a bit as 135 mm was the biggest lens I had along. Bigger would of been better but I don’t go out looking for wildlife all that often so having a bigger lens I would hardly ever use just doesn’t make sense for me to have for the most part. (I did miss it here though. Lol)
Seems seeing a bear on the way to lunch didn’t count as me selecting 2 things as I had to pick where our lunch spot.
I picked O’Shea’s again as I figured we could have some pub food for a late lunch and still be able to catch supper somewhere later. (The nachos we ordered were very tasty but huge so I was wrong.) We even got the same waitress and booth as the night before. We were starting to wonder if she was the only one working. But she was a good waitress so we didn’t care.
We decided to head back to the hotel to check out the grounds to scout out possible night photography places. It was a short walk to the Athabasca River from our room.
Looking towards the Jasper Park Lodge The look I often get from my bride Still a lot of haze towards the SkyTram
Looked like it could be a promising location for night sky shot but we checked out the rest of the grounds while we had some time and daylight.
Fire remnants in the firepit behind the lobby A bigger lens would of meant less cropping One of the cow elk behind the lobby He was looking for a fight and or females right outside the lobby but he didn’t seem to get either Frustrated elk 1; poor defenseless tree 0
Not being hungry yet, we hung out at the hotel until it was time to go see the new James Bond movie at the Chaba Theatre. It is a nice little 2 screen movie theatre with tickets only costing $10 each. Theatre popcorn proved to be a late supper for us as we enjoyed the show. (Not your usual James Bond movie, but I enjoyed it none the less)
It was a beautiful clear night when we came out of the theatre but unfortunately, the big bright full moon was up and making it next to impossible to see any night sky. (The moon was up all night and checking the sky at 6 am looked no different except for the position of the moon itself.)
Wednesday morning’s breakfast was back at Wicked Cup but my bride must of thought her birthday was over as she bought breakfast. It was excellent as always but I told her I wanted to try some other places before we left Jasper.
After breakfast we decided to head up the Maligne Lake road as we had heard there were lots of moose to be seen along the way. (Spoiler alert: we saw 0 moose and all the people we asked that day had seen 0 moose.) We did see a few nice big horn sheep rams on the road by Medicine Lake. Lynda used here sunroof trick again to get some photos and I made sure we didn’t hit any of them.
It was a similar day to when we travelled up to the lake back in August with a mix of sun and cloud but a whole lot cooler. There was snow in the higher elevations this time and a whole lot less traffic. I had hoped the boat tours were still running at Maligne Lake but it was all shut down for the season. We decided to take a walk along the shore as we weren’t getting rained on this time.
I wasn’t kidding about that look
It’s about 7/10s of a kilometer to the lookout on an easy walking path.
From here we could either go back the way we came or do a moderate hike of just over a kilometer back to the car. I was happy Lynda chose the longer, new way back.
Snow and ice. Apparently we are at a higher elevation.
Short hike in the books and no moose to be seen means it must be time to go find us some lunch. So back to town we went. I did stop at the place we had a picnic at in August to see the difference 2 months makes.
August 2021 October 2021
I know the angle is different as I really hadn’t thought it out when I stopped but what am I going to do?
We were getting frustrated looking for a lunch spot that was open and it led us to The Other Paw Bakery Cafe. It was the most disappointing meal we had on our trip but it wasn’t all their fault. There was nothing wrong with the food other than it wasn’t what we really wanted. Lynda had the soup which she said was good but it was so thick it was hard for her to eat. I wanted a clubhouse sandwich but they were out of bread so I got it as a wrap. I like wraps but a clubhouse really does need to go on bread. Also, I don’t particularly like whole wheat wraps and that’s what they had. Again, nothing wrong with the actual food but just not an experience we enjoyed as a whole.
We checked out a few more places while we were killing time before supper.
We decided on Something Else Restaurant for supper. It is Greek, among other things. The food was awesome and the service was very good.
We got dessert to go and decided we’d it with tea at the hotel. Well, we had the dessert and went for tea at the Kumama Bistro and Canteen but somehow my tea became a really, really good margarita. I guess I’ll have to come back for tea.
Thursday, October 21st was a nice clear sky day and after trying the breakfast at O’Shea’s, (different waitress and table than our previous visits) we headed off towards Mt. Robson as I was hoping the clear blue sky was there too.
Our luck held and the mountain was in display in all it’s glory.
I even took a couple of photos of the 1967 Volkswagen Beetle model that John H Read had given me to photograph for our Instagram account – spookie_bugz. I haven’t been posting to it much lately so I thought I should shoot something. (Still haven’t posted as of this writing.)
I took a couple more shots before we headed down the highway.
I thought it might be nice to check out Valemount as we were pretty close by. We’d seen a few signs along the highway advertising the Swedish Bakery so we thought we’d try to get lunch or something there. And if we were there from Friday till Monday we would have but they aren’t open Tuesdays-Thursdays.
While I’m sure there are other things to check out in Valemount, we decided to start heading back to Jasper.
We saw the sign and decided to stopped and check out Rearguard Falls Provincial Park.
Seemed like a good place to play with different shutter speeds.
1/320 of a second 1/15th of a second
I thought I could try something a bit artsy for my friend John.
I was enjoying the sound of the water and lack of people so I shot a few more angles.
1/1600 sec 1/30th sec
It’s a nice easy path to walk down to the falls but it’s bigger than it looks coming back up.
It was a short drive to the Mt. Terry Fox Reststop for another stop.
Our road trip put us well past lunch time when we got back to Jasper. A few places we tried were closed for the season so we ended up visiting 2 different candy stores and Tim Hortons. (I know, I know, but I didn’t care.)
Back at the hotel, we saw a massive bull elk trying to hustle the ladies. They still didn’t want any part of him but he was rather impressive to photograph.
We sat and photographed him until it was getting too dark to take photos so off to search for supper we went.
We ended up at Evil Dave’s Grill for supper. They have a small but fabulous menu in a nice modern atmosphere inside. We beat the rush and enjoyed a nice dinner and very reasonably priced desserts.
Actually got some tea at Kumama before bed time. Took our time getting to bed as it was our last night in Japer and we didn’t want it to end.
Was a cold and cloudy day when we got up on Friday, October 22nd.
Kumama for a really nice breakfast before we checked out of the Pine Bungalows.
It was a nice relaxing stay and I am so glad we decided to stay there. I know where I’ll be looking to book the next time I am back in Jasper.
Lynda wanted some tea for the road so a stop at Wicked Cup on the way out of town was in order.
We headed back on the Icefield Parkway because I wanted to stop at Sunwapta Falls. In all the times I’ve been to Jasper National Park, I have never, ever stopped to see Sunwapta Falls.
It was still cold and trying to rain when we stopped but it is a nice little area and not nearly as far off the highway as I had it in my head it would be.
Sunwapta Falls was our last stop until we got back to Red Deer and went to Sobeys for a few groceries. I had plenty of candy to snack on (which may have been a bit of a mistake as I was a bit light headed wandering around the grocery store) so no need to stop for lunch.
And that was our Jasper getaway. It didn’t seem all that exciting but just getting away together was excitement enough for me at least. I think I saw Lynda actually relax so it seemed to be a good thing for her too.
Our 25th wedding anniversary is coming up in May of 2022 and as much as I’d like to be able to take her somewhere a bit more exotic, I can see a return trip to Jasper in our future for some R & R then. Of course, if I happen to win the lottery by then it might be somewhere more exotic, if that’s what she wants.
Hank's Blog - Musings of a Wandering Mind 