Miscelaneous Mailboxes

In Copenhagen we saw the large mailbox pictured above. We understand they are becoming more widespread in Denmark these days. If we have got it right the idea is that you can pick up your parcels around the clock all days of the year - rather than being restricted to the opening hours of the post office.

Since we don't live in Denmark we haven't tried the system. But we would like to add here that in Sweden there are very few actual post offices. In stead the post service cooperates with some nationwide chains. Thus, one most often has to pick up (and send) mail at either Pressbyrån (kiosk) or ICA Nära (small grocery store).

And speaking of Sweden that is precisely where we found the little mailbox with the squirrel pictured on the right. To be more exact we found it on Lidingö along our new bike-way to and from work.

Lastly we want to mention a special kind of mailbox which we didn't actually see - we only saw the sign pictured below. We can inform those not proficient in French that we are talking about a special mailbox for motorists.

Cadillac

Since we were in the area we couldn't resist going to Cadillac either - a tiny French town which is by mysterious ways the namesake of one of our time's most famous pieces of Americana. Cadillac is in fact so small that you can't even take the train there - but you can take the train to Cérons and in good weather it's certainly doable to walk the approximately 2 km to Cadillac. Arriving that way the last thing you do before arriving in Cadillac is crossing the Garonne river.


The central town is surrounded by the old city walls and in the largest gate there is a list over the worst floods of the river through the latest couple of centuries (given in meters over the normal water level) - for those who weren't there we can report that very few people will be able to keep the head over the surface of the water standing in the gate already when the level reaches 10 meters (which apparently happened last on December 16th 1981).


Apart from the name itself the town is perhaps most widely known for the castle, Château de Cadillac, which over the course of it's 400 years has been the home of French noblemen, a women's prison, psychiatric hospital, and now open to the public for an entrance fee. It was nice to see, but we are a bit sceptical regarding the description of the castle as 'impressive' in our Danish guidebook to Mid-France.^[1] Likewise, we are puzzled about the claim of 'innumerable small, cosy restaurants ' from the same book - we had a splendid lunch by the town square, but we didn't exactly spend hours deciding which restaurant to choose...


^[1] (C) Politikens Forlag A/S, 2007

Cows on parade

It turned out that Bordeaux was hosting a cow parade this summer. For the uninitiated we can report that cow parades are a currently increasing phenomenon. Since the first cow parade in Zürich in 1998 more than 70 cities world-wide have hosted cow parades. In a cow parade a number of artists are invited to design cows in realistic size. Some of the projects are chosen for realisation and the cows are placed at various sites in the public space of the hosting city.

For most of the cows the design consists 'merely' of the painting of a standing cow, but quite a few cows also have more interesting shapes.


Of the the 60 cows on parade in Bordeaux we managed to snap shots of about 50 - most of those can be seen in the 'co(w)llage' below. If your internet connection isn't too slow we recommend opening the image in the original size (about 4.5 Mb - done in most browsers by first clicking the image to view the image only, then clicking it again to zoom to the full size)... a few non-authentic cows have found their way into the 'co(w)llage', so try to spot them.

A whole lotta sand...

Even though the plan was for us to just relax in Bordeaux we couldn't keep ourselves from making a couple of excursions. Especially not when closer reading about the area revealed the presence of the largest migrating dune, Dune du Pilat, in all of Europe on the coast just outside Bordeaux - this was an opportunity we found ourselves unable to say 'no' to.

When one Monday morning it was overcast we knew this was our moment: this had to be the best day for climbing a migrating dune.

First we took the train to beach town Arcachon - picturesquely located by the shallow waters of Arcachon bay.


Here we rented bicycles and rode south along the coast through Pyla sur Mer - some 5-10 km - before suddenly finding ourselves at the northern end of migrating dune. The dune is quite impressive in size, but the otherwise difficult climb up its steep sides is eased significantly by the temporary stairway which is in place during the summer season.


We intended to walk along the top of the dune to its southern end. But we gave up when we'd been walking for about half an hour with no end in sight and the sun beginning to come out.


On the way back we stopped in Moulleau for a couple of local oysters and a nice pot of mussels with fries (so-called moules et frites).

Vacation in France

IECB (European Institute of Chemistry and Biology), Bordeaux

We had a feeling that this year we needed a relaxing vacation without too many planned activities. Thus, when it was confirmed that Tue was going to a conference in Bordeaux in the beginning of July, we decided it might as well be there we had our vacation - that would also give us an opportunity to practice our French a bit. When the conference was over Lisbeth showed up in southern France and we moved into a cosy little flat we rented for the purpose.

Bridge over the Garonne river

Not surprisingly it is warmer in Bordeaux than in Stockholm - especially when there's a heatwave in Bordeaux. Therefore it was not shocking that it was extremely popular to cool down by the water mirror at Place de la Bourse.

The water mirror at Place de la Bourse

As expected we spent most of our time there reading books, relaxing on the sofa, watching movies, walking around in the old parts of town by the river, relaxing in parks, shopping at the market, cooking, eating a lot (perhaps even too much) cheese and drinking locally produced red wine.

Our 'loot' from the big Sunday market

Stuffed ball-round zucchini - a variation over these two recipes

Of course we added to that a couple of visits to museums - of which we would particularly like to mention the very interesting video exhibition 6 milliards d'autres, shown in impressive fashion in an old submarine base. We also found the time for a couple of day trips, but more about those later..

La base sous-marine - the old submarine base

Snow hike on Salève

Vivienne and Richard spent a few days in Geneva this week and wanted to go up Salève. We haven't been there since the trip with Kirsten and Steen last summer, so we were eager to experience our local mountain at winter time. Luckily we choose to go Saturday when it was sunny in contrast to Friday when Richard and Vivienne had to try to enjoy a rainy Geneva.

The snow on Salève has appeared to be diminishing in the last few weeks so we were VERY surprised to see high piles of snow already where we got of the cable car.

It was a wonderfully clear day so the view over Lake Geneva (see photo above where the dark blue area to the left is the lake) and the alpine back country (last photo) was excellent. It was a strange contrast to be standing in knee-deep snow and looking across the complety barren city area.

We hiked along the usual paths which luckily were quite easy to traverse without snow shoes and we enjoyed the great weather and all the happy dogs that jumped excitedly about in the snow.

Obviously, the trip ended by the snack shed where a crouque monsieur and a cup of hot chocolate completed the experience.

We guess we could also have made a bonfire and roasted sausages without the danger of starting a wild fire at this time of year!

Better Mornings

.. it just is a better morning when one can enjoy the morning coffee (or tea) drinking from one's recently purchased cow-mug (or mountain goat cup). They lift our spirits.

'Petite' is French..

While reports indicate that mailboxes as phenomenon may be on the decline (we thank one of our readers for bringing this story to our attention), we continue our task in documenting their existence before it's too late.


On our trip last weekend we found this French mailbox where one probably shouldn't expect to mail too many (or too large) letters. It is emptied daily at half past nine in the morning, so it's not a good idea to be running late either.. we suspect that a mailman lives nearby and empties it on his way to work.

Annecy

Being determined not to fly anywhere in February (one could argue that the climate discourse is strengthening its grip on us but admittedly, we were just a little too much all over the place (i.e. Europe) in the months just prior to this one...) we decided to catch the bus to Annecy last Sunday.

So many people have spoken well of this French town just below the Mont-Blanc massive and it is indeed a beautiful place. Like most other important towns in this area, it is situated at one end of a lake, here Lac d'Annecy, and has a well-preserved medieval city centre, a castle (on a hill), numerous churches, and a lovely, busy - on Sunday morning, anyway - market. The Palais de l'Ile below is the best known image of Annecy but we guess that most people see it sans the snow flakes.

We spent a good deal of time walking in the snow along the lake, then made it up to the castle only to find the gate closed. We concluded it was time for lunch and had a spectacular meal at l'Atelier Gourmand de Jumeaux - which we stumbled on by chance, but we could hardly have made a better choice if we tried.

After being closed for lunch the gates of the castle were opened again, and we sneaked a peek in the courtyard (see below). Supposedly there is a great view from the tower of the castle, but considering the low visibility at that particular time, we declined on entering the castle.

It snowed quite a bit, and there was a fog for most of the day. Luckily we happened to be down by the lake, when some sort of hole in the clouds/fog passed by giving us a glimpse and an idea of the spectacular mountain views around the lake enjoyed from the city on clearer days.

Winter weather

Now it's Christmas vacation time in Geneva - and somehow it just is more Christmassy here than in ever was in Santa Barbara. During the Christmas-shopping-frenzy time has been allocated for taking a few pictures.


By now there is at least a little snow on all the mountains we can see from here. Unfortunately we can't always see all that much, but on clear days it's quite pretty.


The low water level in the Arve is also to be noted when going to Jonction.

Marmite de l'Escalade

This time of year it is traditional for the Genevans to commemorate the only fight they actually came out of victoriously.

On the night of December 12th 1602 a French army, sent by the duke of Savoy (encouraged by the Pope), marched towards Geneva along the river Arve. The locals largely ascribe the victory to Mrs. Royaume who, for unknown reasons, was busy preparing a large cauldron of soup in the wee hours of December 12th. The Royaume family lived near one of the city gates and when the French soldiers attacked they had Mrs. Royaume's hot soup coming down on their heads. This killed one of the attackers (presumably by being hit by the cauldron itself - otherwise it might not be so flattering for the local culinary reputation), and the rest of the city was woken up so they could defend the city.


Therefore, in the days leading up to December 12th, one finds lots of chocolate cauldrons in different sizes in the shops. On the day itself people gather around such a pot and find the youngest and the oldest person in the group. Together these two will smash the cauldron while yelling in French "Thus perish the enemies of the republic". Afterwards one eats the chocolate and the marzipan vegetables it contained. As it also quite widespread to dress up for this candy feast, there seems to be a few parallels with Halloween...

Snow on the Juras

During the last 2-3 weeks, the part of the Jura mountains that we can see has been snow-capped. The extent of the snow varies from day to day because so far we have been blessed with mild weather and some lovely sunny days - quite often on Sundays which we obviously don't mind.
We are also grateful that we currently have approximate two more hours of day light than what we were used to from Denmark this time of year.
All this contributes to our not missing the Californian winter weather TOO much...

Zürich has one; Locarno and Lugano has one each; Bergamo has one; Lyon has even two...

In this mountainous part of Europe the public transport systems of many cities include one or two short cable lines connecting the higher lying parts of the city with the lower lying parts. These are usually fairly old installations and are known in French as funiculaire (German: Standseilbahn, Italian: funicolare).

Despite numerous visits to Paris, Lisbeth was surprised to find that also there is one - going to the top of Montmartre of course - and then we tried that instead of going up the stairs next to it:

How it is possible for her to vividly remember walking down these same stairs earlier without having noticed the funicular remains mysterious... the Parisian funicular was built in the year 1900!

125 mL T-Shirt

As mentioned our trip to Paris included shopping in Muji - another store which Tue hadn't been to before and which Lisbeth already knew quite well. The Muji we went to (in Le Marais) is actually no less than 2 stores: one with clothing, and one with their other goods. In the clothes stores Tue couldn't resist the temptation to buy a t-shirt which came in an unusual packaging: pressed into a small cube. As is hopefully visible in the picture, it was pressed so hard it kept the shape just fine after being unwrapped. In fact it took a little time to figure out how to best unfold it. Last but not least, we can tell you it was still rather crinkled after being washed the for the first time... and after being worn for half a week... and probably also being washed again...

Viva las.... Paris

Although we experienced the Las Vegas version of Parisian atmosphere (incl. Eiffel Tower) a couple of years ago, the time had now come to let Tue explore 'the real deal' for the first time! Even though the trip was short we managed to squeeze in a lot: biking along Champs-Élysées, seeing the Eiffel Tower both at dusk and broad daylight (unfortunately the queue to go up was way too long both times), wandering the Marais Quarter and Rue Mouffetard, shopping in MUJI, eating croissant aux amandes, viewing the first and the second and the third triumphal arch, viewing the skyline of Paris from Arc de Triomphe (the second of the arches listed before), being in awe of the size of the Palais de Louvre, going up to Montmartre and being annoyed by all the hustlers up there, eating French onion soup, andouillette and crème brûlée for dinner, wondering about the queue to Centre Pompidou, being delighted with the same building and not least the Tinguely fountain in front of it, walking along the Seine and generally just admiring all the famous buildings (such as Notre Dame, Palais Royal, Grand Palais, Hôtel de Ville, Panthéon, and Musée D'Orsay) and plazas (a.o. Place de la Concorde, Place de la Bastille, Louvre's court yard, Place de la Bastille and Place du Trocadéro) while we were making our way around the city.

The timing of the trip was primarily dictated by Lisbeth's friend, Xiaolei, making a week long stop-over in Paris on her job transfer from the US to Singapore. Regretably we didn't take her photo for the blog here so you'll just have to believe that we had a lovely dinner with her Saturday night.

Mail painting II

As mentioned Lyon impressed us also with its murals. The picture above was taken in Croix Rousse (the old silk worker neighbourhood) and apart from the portal in the lower left corner it is one, flat wall. We have read that the car in the painting is replaced from time to time to be in accordance with the most recent sponsor agreement. Many of the murals in Lyon have some connection to the surroundings - see, f.ex., this mailman next to a real French mailbox:

Grand Lyon Vélo

Already prior to leaving for Lyon we read about their city bike system. So we were looking forward to trying it for ourselves and finding out if it worked as well as it sounded like it would. We hadn't been on the city for long before seeing the first city bike station.


The system is clearly used quite a lot. We saw a lot of people biking around the city on the easily recognizable city bikes, and some stations were even prone to being "sold out".


The terminals were able to direct you to the nearest stations with available bikes, and the stations were fairly close (at least in the parts of the city we visited).


We managed to get two one-week subscriber cards and to rent two bikes (despite the terminal switching from English to French halfway through the transaction - boooooohh!) which allowed to cover some more ground on our Sunday in Lyon. The bikes themselves were pretty good - they were a little heavy (sturdily built), 3 speed, front basket, lock, and lights front and back (apparently induction powered). We ended up paying 8 Euro per bike, which could have been less if we had been better at returning the bikes to the system when we stopped for longer times around town. Forgetting for a moment the inability of the system to communicate properly in English, we have to declare ourselves very satisfied customers.

Lyon

It couldn't wait any longer now - we had to go and experience a real slice of France, rather than this silliness of just biking a few miles across the border and back. We decided on Lyon, conveniently reached in a couple of hours from Geneva by TGV (and this without the train going at top speed as far as we could tell).


After a weekend of fantastic weather we couldn't have been happier about our choice: Lyon is beautifully located where the rivers Saône and Rhône join forces (this seems to be a recurring theme) and offers surprisingly many sights, brilliantly landscaped recreational areas - particularly along the river, a system of city bikes far superior to that found in Copenhagen, several lovely neighbourhoods (not least of which the old town), and impressive murals. Overmore, Lyon is considered the gastronomical capital of France.

It seems the old romans rather liked this place too...

Salève

While Steen and Kirsten were visiting we made an excursion to the top of Salève which is the mountain that is most clearly viewed from our balcony as well as Geneva in general.

The trip involved a busride to the French border, a short walk to the village on the other side of the border and finally an aerial tramway - called a téléphérique - up the side of the mountain.

Saléve is approximately 1375 m højt and the view was amazing (see above). We walked further on - up and away from the téléphérique area - and enjoyed biscets and grapes while we admired the thunderstorm that were passing across Geneva below us (see photo below).

We were less excited when - contrary to our expectations based on the direction of the wind - said thunder storm hit Saléve just as we were making our way back to the téléphérique! Lets just say that we became RATHER wet...