Gamla Stan

We awoke to beautiful weather on Saturday and spent the day exploring central Stockholm. Here's the view of our hotel from across the water -- it's the one in the middle with the orange awning.

We began the day by walking along the water towards Gamla Stan (the old town), which offered nice views of the waterfront.

While in Gamla Stan we visited the Stockholm Cathedral and the Royal Palace, which are both visible in the picture below (center and right, respectively).

The palace was particularly impressive, with over 1,400 rooms and some extremely ornate decor. Here are some examples.

Outside the palace we stumbled upon a parade involving the Royal Guard. I trust that no one makes fun of their pointy helmets given the machine guns that they're carrying.

We spent the balance of our time in Gamla Stan just wandering the cobblestone streets, which in some cases trace their origin to the 13th century. I liked the architecture of the centuries-old buildings.

The following alley's claim to fame is being the narrowest in the city (1 meter wide). It also apparently cameod in a Moby video, though I didn't have the motivation to confirm whether either of these items are indeed true.

Next we headed to the Vasa museum, which turned out to be the highlight of the day for me. The Vasa is a Swedish warship that was built in the 1620s and sank less than a mile into its maiden voyage. It was salvaged largely intact in 1961 and is now on display in the museum.

The ship is massive -- over 200 feet long -- and was designed for a crew of nearly 500 (including soldiers). Ignoring the obvious shortcoming of sinking on its maiden voyage, the design and engineering was pretty incredible to see in person. It's hard to believe that it was built nearly four centuries ago.

We finished the day by taking the "Under the Bridges of Stockholm" tour, which is a two-hour boat ride that takes you around Stockholm on both the Baltic Sea and Lake Mälaren. During the journey you travel beneath 15 of Stockholm's bridges (hence the tour name) and through two locks that connect the lake to the sea.

The tour afforded nice views of the city and also included an audio guide that provided interesting commentary on Stockholm's history. Typically I'm not a big fan of organized tours, but I would highly recommend this one as it's a great way to see (and learn about) the city.

For dinner we went to another great fish restaurant (clearly there's is no shortage in Stockholm). We learned an important lesson, though -- be sure to make reservations. For the second night in a row, we had to wait nearly an hour.

Stockholm

This evening Emilie and I arrived in Stockholm, marking my first visit to Sweden. We're staying through Monday afternoon, so hopefully we'll be able to see a fair amount of the city.

The walk from the train station to our hotel in the Ostermalm neighborhood was very nice. Along the way we crossed a number of the city's 50+ bridges set foot on a couple of its 14 islands.

We also passed a guy who went to great lengths to find the optimal fishing spot on one of the city's many waterways.

For dinner we went to Sture Hof, a seafood restaurant  near our hotel that was recommended by a Swedish friend from work. We had to wait a bit since we didn't have a reservation, but it was definitely worth it as the food was fantastic.

We were too busy eating to take photos of the food, but I did take one of the menu cover which had a map of Europe with various culinary, cultural and pop culture references (I liked the "Bunga Bunga" Berlusconi reference for Italy).

I also took one of a JFK presidential election poster on the wall that was pretty neat.

And here's a photo that I took outside Sture Hof at sunset. While I'm sure the sunset was prettier somewhere along the waterfront, it was still nice with the old buildings in the foreground.

Avignon

On Sunday we headed back to Avignon so I could see the city a bit and Emilie could meet up with one of her friends from high school.

As you approach Avignon, the city itself is very impressive with an old town that is completely enclosed by medieval ramplarts. I wasn't able to take a picture that offers a good perspective, but found the following on online.

Emilie's friend lives in a nice area within the city walls. I took these pictures of some of the apartments nearby when we headed out to walk around.

After picking up Emilie's friend we headed up to le Rocher de Doms, the elevated rocky portion on the north side of the old town above the Rhône. The view was very nice and included le Pont Saint-Benezet, a bridge built during the Middle ages that connected the city to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon. Now the bridge only spans part of the river.

Next we walked to the Place du Palais, the square facing the papal palace (Palais des Papes) and adjacent cathedral (Notre-Dame des Doms d'Avignon). The palace is absolutely massive, and dates back to the 14th century when Pope Clement V fled Rome and selected Avignon as the site of the papal residence.

We unfortunately didn't have time to take the tour, but I've heard that its very interesting. Nonetheless, tt was nice to see where the Avignon papacy was based given our visit to Constance last month (sight of the Council of Constance, which ended the Papal Schism).

After grabbing lunch we walked around a bit more before heading back to Switzerland. Here are some pictures that I took during the balance of our visit.

 

Châteauneuf-du-Pape / Avignon

After lunch on Saturday we finished up with our visit in Aix and headed to our next stop: Châteauneuf-du-Pape. It's a small village outside Avignon that is known for its wines. In fact, its wine-making history is closely linked to the Avignon Popes of the 14th century, who were apparently big fans of viticulture.

The "hotel" where we stayed definitely lived up to the village's name. If this isn't a castle, then I don't know what is.

It was surrounded by vinyards and had an adjacent winery, which was conveniently open for a quick tasting. As with the previous tastings that I've been to, I wasn't able to pick up on any of the "subtleties" or "complexities" of the various samples, but I was able to tell whether I liked something or not. And I guess that is all that counts.

After the tasting, we walked around the vineyards for a bit and it was beautiful out.

The reason for our visit to Châteauneuf-du-Pape -- aside from Emilie's ongoing efforts to convince me that France is "le plus beau pays du monde" -- was to see some of her cousins in nearby Avignon. And, as with all my family-related visits with Emilie, it was an exhausting French course.

The exhaustion wasn't from the dinner itself, though, which was broadly manageable from a comprehension perspective, but instead from the play that we attended after. It turns out that we visited during the 65th annual Festival d'Avignon, which celebrates a broad range of art including theatrical performances, and the cousins had arranged tickets for everyone.

The play was a comedy about a psychologist, his various patients and their interactions. And even for me, it was pretty funny. That said, at times it was hard to follow due to the heavy use of slang and references to French pop culture that an American stood little to no chance of comprehending.

About mid-way through the performance I literally froze in fear as the psychologist's character broke the "fourth wall" and scanned the audience for a "volunteer". The prospect of trying to carry on a complex conversation on stage as part of a show that people had paid money to attend was absolutely terrifying.

And thus I channeled every moment from my past in which I had avoided being selected as a "volunteer" (namely the times in school when I hadn't done my homework or otherwise hadn't prepared for class) and subliminally willed the actor not to choose me. And fortunately, he didn't.

It wasn't until later that we learned that the volunteer was part of the play. Good times.

Aix

We spent Saturday morning exploring Aix, which, thanks to the statue in the photo below, I soon learned was the hometown of Cézanne.

Our first stop was the Musée Granet, which not surprisingly has a number of paintings by Cézanne. The museum also contains a collection from the Planque Foundation, which includes works by Picasso, Renoir, Degas, Gaugin, Monet and Van Gogh.

Here's Cézanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire, which wasn't at the museum (it's at the Met) but I like nonetheless and found online.

After the museum we just walked around to explore the city with no specific itinerary. These are some pictures that I took along the way.

I took the picture below inside a small olive oil shop, shortly before being scolded by the owner for taking it. It turns out there was a sign on the door that prohibited photo-taking, but I didn't see it. Out of spite I hoped that Emilie and Cécille would boycott the store as a result, but their desire for fine olive oils from Provence outweighted my needs apparently.

La Traviata

This afternoon Emilie, Cécile and I drove down to Aix-en-Provence in southern France to see Verdi's La Traviata, which is being performed as part of the city's annual opera festival.

For the most part the 5-hour drive was uneventful, aside from a couple of items. First, there was a brief traffic jam that was caused by a guy crossing the road with his herd of sheep. If you look very closely in the photo below, you can see the flock in the background to the left of road.

Second, in order to knock a couple of minutes (!) off of our 5-hour travel time, Emilie and Cécile enjoyed insilling fear in me by passing cars on the two-lane highway. And it wasn't just some one-off passing of cars that were going slow. At times we passed lengthy groups of cars that were going over the speed limit. And this entailed driving in the wrong lane for far longer than any sane person would otherwise consider. But at least we saved a couple of minutes, I guess...

After arriving in Aix, we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and grabbed a quick dinner before heading to the performance. From the outside the venue looked like it was simply part of an old building, but in reality there was an open-air theater in a central courtyard-like area.

The performance was very nice and we had great seats near the front. Fortunately there were French subtitles and a plot summary in the program. Otherwise, I would have been completely lost.

Evian / Montreux

 

On Sunday we headed over to Evian to visit Emilie's sister Cécille. She recently purchased a house there with her fiancé Yvain, and invited us over for lunch in order to see the new place. 

We took the boat from Lausanne to Evian, which takes about 30 minutes. It was raining as we crossed the lake, but the weather cleared by the time we got to the other side.

I really like the house, which at some point was converted into three apartments (one per floor). Cécille and Yvain are on the second floor and have a great view. The lakefront is just on the other side of the houses and trees in the background.

My favorite part of their place is the massive yard, which encircles the house and is enclosed by an old stone gate with an iron fence. Plus, the couple in one of the other two apartments is retired and the husband maintains the yard as a hobby. The picture below captures about half of the front yard.

The lunch was fantastic as well, though I was so focused on eating it that I failed to take any pictures.

***

In the evening we went to Montreux to see Arcade Fire, who was performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival. I've been to the festival each year since I moved to Lausanne, and it is always a lot of fun.

We went a little early to meet up with Emilie's friend and get some food and drinks before the show. We then found a nice spot along the lake to sit down and enjoyed the sunset.

The concert was great and the venue was small enough that we were able to get relatively close.

Dent de Jaman

Today Emilie and I hiked in the mountains above Montreux, towards the eastern end of Lake Geneva. The hike itself was a bit shorter than last-week's, so we were able to take our time and enjoy the afternoon at a much more leisurely pace.

The first part of the hike took us up the western side of the Dent de Jaman, a prominent peak in the area. This allowed a very nice view of Lac Geneva and the Alps in the background.

Here's the Dent de Jaman up close. About half-way up, the trail wrapped around the back for the final portion of the climb.

Here's the view on the other side.

Once we got to the top we had a beautiful panoramic view, albeit with some haze. The couple on the left side of the first picture found a great spot to picnic.

Here's the cross at the peak.

During the hike down we saw a group parasailing. It looks like it would be fun, but I don't think I have the guts to give it a try.

The last part of the hike took us down the back side of the Dent de Jaman. It was fairly rocky, with a couple sheep farms and some nice meadows at lower elevations.

Just before getting back to the car we passed a small farm that raised pigs and this is where I confirmed that the phrase "happier than a pig in shit" is not an exaggeration. There were about 20 pigs in the pen and, well, nothing else but a lot of, well, shit. Everywhere. And they were loving it. I couldn't even take a picture because I was getting nauteous just walking by. And the pigs were prancing and rolling around as if they were in heaven itself.