France 1 - Introduction

Hello and welcome back to our photoblog. Since our last two trips were in the Eastern Hemisphere, we decided to go to Europe with this next few blogs. In 1999 we visited France, one of John's life goals. John has dreamed of going to Paris since he first read about Paris growing up. He had hoped to get there in the 1980s, even taking conversational French courses when he was living in Longview, TX.

So just to set the mood, here's a picture of a Paris icon. We decided to go up the Eiffel Tower at night to see the City of Lights.


Below is a map of France showing where we went. We landed in Paris and stayed there for a few days. We then took a train trip to Chamonix in the French Alps, where we stayed for 4 days. We then traveled down to the Arles where we picked up a rental car and drove to the French Riviera. Then back to Arles for a few days of ancient Roman culture. Finally we went back to Paris for a few more days before flying home.






Of course, in Paris you have to see the tourist standards. Hey they are touristy, but they are also breathtaking. Below is Notre Dame.

Here is I. M. Pei's Pyramid in the Courtyard of the Louvre. We thought is was pretty cool, not a "scar on the face of Paris!" as Jean Reno said in "The Da Vince Code". Unfortunately, our trip was way before "The Da Vinci Code", so we didn't get to look for the Holy Grail!

One of the great things to do in any European city is to take a boat trip on a river. We enjoyed a great trip on the Seine.

In Provence we stayed in Gordes, a great town on a hilltop. When we get to that part of the photoblog, we will tell you about a great dinner in Gordes.

In Arles we saw ancient Roman ruins and visited a great museum showing what Arles looked like in Roman times. For any fans of Lindsay Davis' series on Marcus Didius Falco, here is a picture showing what Silver Pigs look like! These are probably more lead than silver, but this is what they looked like.

So we will have different photoblogs on Paris, Chamonix, the Riviera, Provence, and Arles. We hope you enjoy them. As always all comments or suggestions are welcome.

John & Annie