15 photos from Annecy, the Haute Savoie, and Chamonix

I got home from France a month ago.  These are my favorite photos from the trip.  There is no donkey in these photos!

It has been too long...

Where did the summer go?  Has it really been 2.5 months since my last post?  Ouch.  I wonder if anyone who used to follow me will notice I posted a new photo today.

It has been a busy summer!  I got home from Norway in July and the summer flew until my trip to Annecy/Lyon/Paris in early September.  Heck, I left a MONTH ago on that trip!  How did your summer go?

I took this photo in the Opera Garnier (gift shop).  Love Repetto.  I hope my niece decides to dance, I will take her to Paris for her shoes.  I myself bought three pairs at their store on Rue de la Paix.

Norway... or Switzerland?

I'm so glad I finally visited Norway after putting off the trip for years.  Something else always came up.  "Next year", I'd say.  This was the year and Backroads was the host.  Hat tip to Matt and Lucia our fantastic fearless leaders (which I guess made the rest of us fearless followers). 

And now I know what I'll find there:  towering mountains cleaved by fjords; glaciers still crashing, slow motion, into the terrain; thundering waterfalls and shoe-soaking springs; ferries which dot the fjords and which are in turn dwarfed by the mountains - and don't forget all the sheep. Puffy clouds and blue skies, except when they are thick and heavy with rain or fog.   Tiny red (or yellow, or green) clapboard summer homes mirrored in the clear green fjords.  Ancient stave churches that were contemporaries of pre-Norman invasion England (!!) and, more recently, Victorian homes and English churches.  Words that look suspiciously close to German.  Friendly people with an enviable quality of life.  Summer sun that just won't quit (except when it's, um, raining, or foggy).  I am curious about the opposite effect of the midnight sun - now I'm thinking about a winter trip on the Hurtigruten to see the Northern Lights.  Ooh, wouldn't that be fun. 

Stunningly beautiful scenery and stunningly spendy costs.  900 NOK for cab fare between Oslo's airport and my hotel - each way!  That's an anecdote that is going to have legs.  Norway looks like Switzerland, kind of, but it's even more expensive.  No mean feat. 

I think I want to work for a Norwegian oil company - I met a guy on one of the flights who said employees get something like four weeks off for every two weeks you work. 

Trolls?

And now, Norway.  Souvenirs, Vikings and Trolls.  Don't forget the rain...

Magpie Moments #3

Well, my weekly "feature" is somehow turning monthly...  and I see I lost a follower!  Bummer!

I have had two weeks of torture at work (EOQ panic) but now it's over and for my next trip I'm heading to the Land of the Midnight Sun.  (AKA the Land of Ice and Snow...)

Have a seat in these chairs below, and enjoy a few of the links I like this week.

Thank you, World!

I will see three new UNESCO sites!

Check out these beautiful and colorful photos!

Practical writing tips from famous authors

Jonathan Spira of Executive Road Warrior has asked me if I'd like to write an article for his online magazine.

Some great ideas for charity.

Magpie Moments, #2

I said this would be a new weekly feature.  Sigh.  I did make it ONE week...  and now I'm late with the second one.  First came the visit with family over a long Memorial Day weekend.  My niece and nephew are 5 and 7, respectively and I want to have memories with them when they are little.  Now that I am back home again, I'm in a big fat hurry to 1.  cobble together a 160 page photo book, complete with text, in only THREE months and 2.  get back in the saddle of training for my first century ride...  neither of which are leaving me a lot of free time.

So without further ado, here are some links I've liked in the past few weeks.  This week they are all about Paris. 

But first, a photo from the Memorial Day weekend.  Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania.  Not a photo from Paris, I have plenty of time and material for that later!

A poignant post.. a reality that is coming to an end...

I found a cool website on Paris writers.

I like her creativity with photography, and her series of Parisian colors.

An eerie tale; could it be true?

I wish I had half of her talent!

I plan to see this movie as soon as it comes to town.

A pretty hike in Switzerland

Last summer in July I took my parents to Italy and Switzerland.  During our stay in Switzerland we stayed in Wengen which is in the Bernese Oberland. 

We visited the Jungfraujoch early one morning and on the way back down to Wengen I departed from the train to hike the rest of the way.  The trails are well marked and it was a beautiful day for hiking - sunny and pleasantly warm.  The walk was maybe an hour, tops.

Magpie Moments

I follow many blogs and when I returned home from my week abroad I had well over 1000 new blog posts waiting for me...  so hard to keep up!  As quickly as I read through them, many more multiply in their place.

While I have your attention, do you like the new name above?  I am going to try (try hard, I promise) to make this a weekly feature and I tried to think of something catchy.  It went from Blogging Bijoux Found (which isn't too bad I suppose) to Sparkly Bits (also not bad?) and the sparkly made me think of Magpie which made me think of the name.  Feel free to comment.  My previous post similar to this I called "This week I love" which sounds too gooey.  My hope is that you might start to follow some of these blogs which I enjoy - or just get a kick out of the randomness of it all. 

Here are a few (only a few, alas) which have caught my eye in the past week. I would love to put up many more but I meant to post this on the past Friday (my planned day for this) and here it is Monday. I know, I said I would try really hard and here I'm already late for my debut.


Here they are.  Oh wait, a photo first, gotta have a photo!  I took the below in Pisaq, Peru in November 2010. 

Follow these for a healthy happy life.
I love lists, don't you?

I find this blog to be very inspiring on a few levels.  Her first book is Number 2 on the WSJ list of books!  Her name is Holly Becker and the book is called Decorate (decor8)
Check out her bad self!

What iPad apps do you favor?
Having just bought an iPad last month, I am collecting cool apps

If you need a Tuscany fix:
Will location-scout for food...

Living the dream!  Check these guys out, I am so very very jealous.  Very.
Now why didn't I think of this first?

I will close with exhibits currently showing in Paris.  I saw the Caillebotte exhibit...  and the pre-Raphaelites when they were in Washington DC.  I dragged myself past the Hotel de Ville exhibit, too tired to wait in line for an hour (plus it was almost closing time by the time I got there...). I dearly wish I had seen the Chagall exhibit, because while in Amsterdam I bought an original lithograph of a study from a stained glass window Chagall made...  from a collector's studio. 
Is there another guerilla vacation in my near future?

Visiting the Jordaan (Amsterdam)

I am spending the morning sorting photos and bouncing back and forth between my photo albums.  I love the finished product but reviewing the hundreds if not thousands of photos is very time consuming!

I spent a morning last month walking in the Jordaan area of Amsterdam.  Looks like they like red as much as the Parisians.  This home was owned, once upon a time, by Pieter Adriaenszoon Raep (also known as P.A. Turnip). 

Where in Paris?

Paris-philes, where is this?  Hints to come.. 

Shake your groove thang

More from my recent visit to Paris.  We are no longer in the 2ieme arrondissement, we have skipped up to Montmartre.  I spent the entire day with a guide, Michael Osman, who is now a friend!  We had a fantastic day.  I saw the below outfit on a mannequin at the very start of our walk through Montmartre.  Where fabric stores and naughty clubs collide. 

I took a second photo of this where I stepped back for more details.  The better to see the hot pink boa.

The Bourse

More of my May 1 walk in the 2d Arrondissement.

Not exactly a red balloon...

But the next best thing.  Near Rue Reaumur, 2d Arrondissement, Paris.

On May 1 (the French labor day) I walked from Rue Montorgueil to the Opera Garnier.  I spied this along my path. 

Another "where am I"

Only hint (right now):  Paris.

The Red Hat Society (a teaser...)

I visited Keukenhof on Monday of last week (end of April)... and in the queue to get tickets were ladies from Belgium who were members of the Red Hat Society!  I happen to like the combination of Red and Purple (and Orange and Pink while we are at it...) so here are two photos.  The first, some tulips I stumbled across, and second, the ladies of the Red Hats!  My Mom is a Red Hat so I had to take their photo...

Where is this?

I will give one hint (for now):  I just got back from Paris.

Where am I?

Holland: glorious spring!

It's midnight and I wanted to get to sleep by 10 PM because I have another full day tomorrow.

Here are some photos and I'll fill in the details later.

No Ordinary Monster

This weekend we have had some crummy weather and so I spent a good amount of time finalizing the book I am making for my Mom.  I am so far behind on my photo review and sorting, and fuhgeddabout all the books I have to draft.  I make a photo book about different adventures using Blurb which is a fantastic resource.  You make the book on your computer using your photos and text, and then submit it online to Blurb and a few weeks later you get a stunning bound book that looks quite professional. 

I am currently working on a 2009 trip with my Mom to Provence and Paris.  It is titled "Magic of Provence:  Lavender, Sunflowers, and the Tour de France."  This will be my fourth book.  Not found on Amazon, alas, which would be part of my bucket-list - get published and sell a book on Amazon.

At any rate, in writing these books I don't just paste photos and talk about what we ate!  I do research online while reviewing the photos and I tend to include historical tidbits.  Sometimes I am amazed, like I am this morning.  Included here is a photo of my Mom next to an interesting statue.  We spent all of two minutes next to it and of course did not know the story.  Here is the story!

This statue commemorates the Tarasque.  The town is named after him and in fact he is found on their coat of arms.  He was a fearsome and deadly monster in Provence who was tamed by Saint Martha (apparently a contemporary of Jesus).  She brought her newly tamed monster to this town and the townspeople killed him.  He offered no resistance, as he was tame.  Saint Martha used this as a teaching moment and converted the town to Christianity. They were sorry for having killed the tame monster and thus the people named the town Tarascon. There is a play based on the Tarasque by a famous French playwright, Alphonse Daudet; there is a French anti-aircraft gun named the Tarasque; there is even a dinosaur named after him!


Think about it: a town, the coat of arms, a play, a military weapon, a dinosaur and finally UNESCO recognized him. This is no ordinary monster!

This week, I love...

I am taking a cue from the various blogs I read and post some articles which interested me this week.  I will have to come back later to edit my own views, but below are the posts.  Enjoy!

Soon I am heading to Paris and you can be sure that the Musee Jacquemart-Andre is on my list to visit

What do I want to do when I re-invent my life?  Here is a thought...  The vagabond lifestyle - lawyer-style

Apropos of the trip to Paris coming up...  Will visiting a writer's haunt draw you closer to that writer?

Another favorite city of mine... Donna Leon - an inspiration

and more on Paris!  Peter talks up the Jacquemart-Andre

Peter talks about Montmartre

I have the first edition of David Downie's book and it is fantastic

I just don't know what to do with myself - check it out! 
Can you believe my luck? A big Manet exhibit, just months after I saw the Monet exhibit in Paris.


What is a post without a photo.  Rialto Fish Market, July 2010:
 

Coming around again: Meadowlark

Good morning everyone!  I joined my photo club at the too-early hour of 7 AM at Meadowlark Gardens.  Each year our club arranges to have the park photographer (Bill Folsum - and check out his website!  http://www.wfolsom.com/) meet us before it opens to let us in and wander.  Typically the timing is good for the cherry blossoms.  Each year I miss out (in part because htis would mean I have to get up before 6 AM on a Sunday, and I'm spoiled and lazy) in order to do this.  This morning the alarm went off and I briefly thought of stabbing the alarm clock but I heaved myself out of bed anyway.  Sigh.

Here is the result.  Interestingly enough I have photos taken from one year ago (April 2, 2010) at a more godly hour - see the link far below.  Last year at this time the blossoms were a little bit better but not hugely so.  Of this set I think my favorite is the one that is second up from the bottom.  The Blues...

Enjoy!

THE OLD SET FROM 2010 - ONE YEAR AGO ALMOST EXACTLY.

http://skywalkerbeth.blogspot.com/2010/04/two-more-weeks-have-gone-by.html