Chateau de Versailles

Now I’ve seen some fancy houses; Hearst Castle in northern California with its indoor/outdoor swimming pool and North Carolina’s Biltmore House built by the Vanderbilts with its bowling alley in the basement. And I’ve seen some castles in the British Isles. But never have I seen anything to even come close to the opulence of Versailles in France, or more correctly, Chateau de Versailles.


We had bought the Paris Museum Pass online which included admission to Versailles as well as other attractions. An early train out of Paris had us in the village of Versailles within an hour. The palace is about a half mile walk from the train station. There is no problem finding it; you just follow the crowds. Much to my dismay, in the parking lot were dozens of tour busses. After all it was Sunday morning. It was the “wrong day” to visit. It’s just impossible to schedule to see each attraction on the “right day”. However, since we had bought our tickets, we did not have to wait in the long line to buy a ticket and could enter immediately. After entering through the gate you enter the chateau on the right.

The first thing you notice is the vastness of the place. Its humble beginning was a hunting lodge in 1623 and it was expanded by various kings into what it is today. Louis the XIV was most responsible for the creation of the chateau as we know it today. Louis considered himself the “Sun King” and moved the seat of the French government to Versailles. He obviously had no small ego as represented by the hundreds of sculptures and paintings of him. The Chateau de Versailles castle has over 2,000 windows, 700 rooms, over 1,200 fireplaces, and 67 staircases. In 1837 King Louis-Phillipe made the palace a national museum and commissioned 3,000 works of art to adorn its walls.

As you move through the vast halls and rooms of the chateau you get a glimpse of life at the very top of the French social structure in the 18th century. One of the great halls is given to giant paintings of great moments in French history. As with all the art work the paintings are impressive. There is one thing I found quite distasteful: among the beautiful old artworks were modern Japanese sculptures. I thought they would have been more at home in Tate Modern in London or the MOMA in NY. We visited the royal apartments of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, the chapel, and Napoleon’s coronation room, but the most spectacular room was the Hall of Mirrors. The Galerie des Glaces is 250 feet long and has 17 arched mirrors facing the arched windows and the gardens beyond. It was also the room in which the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1919 ending hostilities with Germany in WWI. Some say this treaty was the beginning of WWII.

We exited the chateau for an overview of the gardens. The Versailles gardens include around 1,300 fountains, which use water pumped from the River Seine. You can view a fountain show at a weekend from April until September. A Dutch couple took our picture and we did the same for them. (We do a lot of this while traveling.) We didn’t tour the gardens. That was a separate ticket, and we did not have the time. At such attractions as this you can spend hours, maybe days, looking at everything. The walk back to the train station was not crowded, a reprieve. We grabbed a café while waiting for the train.

I believe I’ve seen the house of houses, the mansion of mansions, the castle of castles, the palace of palaces and the chateau of chateaus. Chateau de Versailles!

StumbleUpon

Have you tried StumbleUpon?  It's a great browsing program.  With StumbleUpon you chose your area of interest such as Arts,Literature,Movies etc. You can chose multiple interests. When you click Stumble the program finds those websites highlighting your interests. Stumble presents the webpages individually. Not interested? Just click "Stumble" and a new page appears! below is my StumbleUpon page.  Just go to

StumbleUpon.com.

I think you'll like it.

Driving in France

Driving in France was an adventure. I was to be the driver on this trip. It was decided after considering the budgetary constraints on our transportation cost that we would be renting an automobile with a manual transmission. I would have the driving duties. Our rental car was waiting for us in Rouen. We had found that a considerable savings could be realized by picking up rental cars at a location other than the train station. A five euro taxi ride saved us about €100. This was a rental from Hertz; most of the American rental companies are available in France as well as some European ones. We chose a compact Peugeot 206 with a diesel engine. Diesel fuel is only slightly cheaper, but the fuel mileage is considerably greater. This makes a diesel powered compact a very economical choice. I was a bit hesitant about choosing a diesel, but the little Peugeot had no difficulty keeping up with freeway traffic and was very quiet. Be aware that gas stations are not as common as they are in this country and that some of the pumps that take credit cards may not accept a credit card that doesn’t have a chip in it. Insurance is a must. We found that our Visa credit card on which we charged our rental also provided good insurance coverage. We once had the opportunity to test this insurance coverage when we had an accident in Great Britain, and there were no problems. When you pick up your rental car in France it is much the same as here. With the agent you check for dents or other possible defects in the car. In France be sure to check on the emergency accessories. Each vehicle in France must have an emergency triangle sign and a florescent safety vest for each occupant. If the proper authorities catch you without these you can be fined.

Driving can be interesting, but it is great to drive in the right hand lane. Some of the rules of the road are slightly different. Traffic signs are different but not so different that you can't understand them. Turning right on red is illegal. There are few “stop” signs but there are traffic circles galore. It is good to know that you can ride around the traffic circle until you decide which exit is the right one for you. This may sound ridiculous, but consider that you can enter a traffic circle on a specifically numbered highway, but there is no exit for that highway number. It is always best to follow destination signs rather than road numbers. For example, drivers following the N13 south from Cherbourg lose it at Caen, as it becomes the D 613 thereafter! From Evreux to Mantes the "N 13" signs reappear, but after that it's the D 113. Get a good regional map. We used a road map of the entire country, and it simply did not show enough detail. Services such as AAA can provide the maps you need. On some occasions we were able to download Yahoo maps to our iPod for reference. If you are going through a large city get a city map. It often seems that street signage is for people who know where they are, and there is no consistency in street sign location. Unfortunately, sometimes you get misplaced or disoriented (somehow these words sound better than “lost”) and you just have to trust your judgment and be thankful that you did buy fuel at the last opportunity. We once spent two hours in the Pyrenees Mountains and found ourselves at our original starting point! We also found out that you should blow your horn when entering a blind curve to let people know you are coming. Some of these curves were so sharp that you would run on to the shoulder of the road as you navigated around the curve. My travelmate said that if her side of the car had had brakes we would still be in the mountains!





The quality of French roads is great, better than those of Britain. They range from the four-lane superhighways to the narrow one-lane mountain roads. Almost all the superhighways are toll roads. They are a great timesaver, unless you like a leisurely drive in the French countryside. We like both. Be aware that the toll booths are usually automated and if you have a problem you may be speaking to an attendant remotely who doesn’t understand your language. This happened to us once. Like many toll roads when entering you get a ticket and upon exit you insert it into the machine at the exit and it tells you what you owe. You can pay by coin or credit card. In our case it would not accept our card. Fortunately a young man in an Audi behind us saw our dilemma and came to our rescue. By communicating in French to the off-site attendant he found that the machine was not reading our ticket correctly. Thank heavens for good Samaritans. The speed limit on the toll roads is 130 kph which is about 80 mph. It’s interesting to see a passenger train pass you at this speed when near a railway. Some of the French trains reach speeds nearing 200 mph. The left lane on the four-lane is for passing only. You don’t see people driving mile after mile in the left lane like you do here. We found most French drivers very courteous. They never blew their horn at me unless I deserved it. On two occasions I deserved it. Also be aware that in some areas the roads are frequently used by agricultural equipment. I remember that in the Provence area of France the roads were almost clogged with small tractors pulling wagons full of grapes. There seems to be a great many bicyclists on the rural roads as well. These are the people that are helmeted and in spandex uniforms on expensive racing machines. I saw few bike lanes as these would-be Tour de France participants crowded the roads in some areas.



Parking seems to be a problem everywhere. There is little free parking in France. Only in the smallest villages and Vaison la Romaine did we see free parking. There were no parking meters. There was a machine from which to buy a ticket to display on your dash showing how much parking time you bought. It was a good reason to keep a few €1 coins handy. One interesting thing to note is that we never saw a machine that would allow you to purchase a full day of parking; the most you could get was six hours. This presented a problem for us in Villefranche-sur-mer when we were leaving the car for a day trip by train. However, a helpful desk clerk took care of this for us. We were going to Nice, and the Sunday afternoon before I had all the Nice traffic I could handle. Had I been a good Catholic I would have been in confession bright and early. After checking into our hotel in the Dordogne valley the desk clerk told me I only had to pay for parking ‘til five o’clock. The signs indicated that it should be paid ‘til six, but she said that the policeman went home at five. It pays to be friendly with the “locals”. In some cities parking is free on Sunday. Don’t take chances; the police will tow cars away for parking violations. As anywhere, exercise care when driving.

Although the French have had a notoriously bad accident record (around twice the number of fatal accidents per head of population in 2001 when compared with the UK or Japan) the government is making efforts to reduce the accident levels. This has meant increased use of radar - particularly common during the beginning and end of holiday periods - and stricter laws on alcohol.

Driving in France was an enjoyable experience and I’d do it again. Next time I’d get a car with a GPS navigation system or carry my own.

Cowboy Songs

I have always like the western films and like wise I'm fond of almost anything "cowboy". Here I've put together some of my favorite cowboy songs. Performer-wise they pretty much run the gamut.   Included are the singing cowboys of the movies,  Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Who can forget the string of western hits Marty Robbins had.  Wasn't that a great quartet of Johnny Cash, Kris Kristopherson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings?  The Sons of the San Joaquin  tell the story better than I can.


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I couldn't resist this Roy and Trigger video.  Boy did I think this was cool way back when.  Yes, I wanted to grow up to be a cowboy.

Where is Jack?

We were in the Green River area of northern Utah and had been driving most of the day in the dry hilly country. We had gone north and into the state of Wyoming through natural gas fields watched over by golden eagles before reentering Utah on primitive roads and the valley of the Green river in this area of the America where Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado meet. This particular area is called Brown's Park.We had driven across a suspension bridge on the Green River. The movement of the bridge was not noticeable in the car but if you walked across the bridge the swinging movement was quite noticeable. The weight limitations of the bridge were posted in number of sheep. A rough gravel road skirted the river and we eventually reached the historic Jarvie property on the Green River which provides a glimpse of life in the turn-of-the–century west. This is Bureau of Land Management land. John Jarvie, a native of Scotland, had settled the property in the 1881 after selling his business interests in Wyoming. He had become a naturalized citizen in 1875 and picked this spot on the Green River which had been a crossing for wild animals and Native Americans for centuries to build his home, trading post and other business enterprises which would include a ferry service, general store, post office, liquor distillery and other services.

There are a number of structures here, a reproduction of a general store, an original stone house, a blacksmith shop and an underground house. We parked in the nearby parking lot and began to look around the site. We first entered the one room stone house, measuring 18 X 20 feet, which was full of relics of pioneer times and told of the history of the property. The stone house was built by outlaw John, “Judge”, Bennett utilizing skills learned in prison at the request of John Jarvie. Interestingly, inside the house is a post left from the scaffold used to hang Judge Bennett. Bennett's claim to fame is that he was the only person hung in Brown's Park. A few feet away we visited the replica general store and found that the original owner, John Jarvie, had been murdered in 1906 during a robbery of the original store. John sold the whiskey he made in the store. In the early 1900's he was charged with selling whiskey without a license.  During the court proceedings the jury was given a sample of the beverage in question.  They reported that the beverage wasn't good enough to be considered whiskey and Jarvie was found not guilty. The general store also was the dwelling for John Jarvie his wife, Nellie, and their four sons.

It is beautiful here by the river with big cottonwood trees providing shade. You can close your eyes and can almost hear the thunder of horses’ hooves and smell the cooking fires of a pioneer settlement A little over one hundred years ago this settlement was on the infamous “Outlaw Trail” which reached from Mexico to Canada. Yes, such notables as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid frequented these parts. Butch and the Kid had an interesting technique for robbery getaways. They would have fresh horses waiting for them at twenty mile intervals along their escape route. In those days regular folk did not consider robbing the railroad barons much of a crime and often offered sanctuary to these robbers.

While visiting we met the resident ranger, Frank Tankersley, who led us around the property and told us all about it. At the blacksmith shop and corral John showed us how the rustlers could change brands on livestock after rustling them. By adding an addition to the existing brand the brand could be changed allowing the rustlers to claim stolen cattle as their own.  The corral and blacksmith shop had been built from railroad ties that had floated down the river from Wyoming.


Frank led us into the two room underground house in which the newlyweds, John and Nellie Jarvie, set up housekeeping. Nellie had been born in the British Isles. She and John were known to have beautiful singing voices. John was a true renaissance man who was also a talented organ and concertina player as well as a well known local poet. He was quite an athlete as well and frequently challenged younger men to foot races. This dugout was built by the big red-headed Englishman, Bill Lawrence. It is built facing south west toward the river. Over the sturdy door is a rack of deer antlers. As I entered, following Claudette and Frank, I ducked my head due to the low ceiling. The one hundred year old cedar rafters still hold up the earth roof. The walls are of heavy wood of hand-hewn or rip sawn timber.  As we looked around, John pointed out the features and furniture of the compact living quarters such as the cord bed and various cabinets for storage. The wood-burning cook stove looked a lot like the one my grandmother used. Based on the size of the custom-built home, I don’t believe that John and Nellie were tall people. I had to walk stooped over and I’m only six feet tall. Frank told us that after the Jarvies had moved into their house passing outlaws frequently used the dugout when hiding out from the local lawmen. Maybe Butch and Sundance had stood hiding exactly where we were and listened for pursuing lawmen to pass them by. During Frank’s description of the living quarters he mentioned another resident.

“I haven’t seen Jack today,” said Frank.

“And who is Jack?” I asked.

“He’s a snake about four feet long,” answered Frank as he gestured the length with outstretched hands.

We decided that our house tour was over.



The Jarvie Property in northern Utah is one of the best pioneer homesteads we visited.

MORE

* A photograph of John Jarvie

          *A photograph of the Sundance Kid and his girlfriend, Etta Place
         
          *A photograph of Butch and Sundance and the Wild Bunch

          *The movie trailer from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".

          *Jarvie Property in Utah

Monkfish and Cockles

We were going to walk along the east bank of the Thames to the Tate Modern museum and back across the river via the Millennium Bridge. Having just finished our lunch of bangers and mash with mushy peas we were looking forward to the walk for exercise. Little did we know that we would be wander into an incredible display of food at the Borough Market. I have a fondness for outdoor markets. There is always an array of fresh and delightful foodstuffs and they seem to offer sort of a cross section of local culture.

The Borough Market is located beneath the railroad tracks between the river Thames and Borough High Street. Some of the covered area has a Victorian look about it with soaring ceilings with ornate iron supports and clear glass. The vendors or traders as they are called have their designated small spaces usually fronted by a table. There are two distinct markets within the Borough Market; the Jubilee Market which is newly covered and the Green Market. The market is open Thursday and Friday afternoons and all day on Saturday. A market has existed here since the 12th century and reflects the diversity food products of the once vast British empire.

As you wander these walkways you’re overcome by the variety of the products where freshness abounds. Many products are sold by their producers and straight from the farms. Seafood is just hours removed from the sea and you can almost feel the pulse of fresh hung meats. As in any unfamiliar place there are new things never before seen. And, by the way, there are also those things to taste.  Free samples abound. There are also methods of food presentation which I had not seen before such as melting cheese before eating it. Here you find those odd and unusual vegetables and fruits not to mention creatures from the sea and land. Some vendor persons also fit into the odd and unusual category as well. All of this adds up to an interesting travel experience and for the artist or photographer it is a visual treat to record and remember.

I recommend the Borough Market in London as a great way to enjoy an hour or so and to introduce yourself to the pulse of the London food market.

From Wikipedia...  Raclette is also a dish indigenous to parts of Switzerland and the Savoie region of France. The Raclette cheese round is heated, either in front of a fire or by a special machine, then scraped onto diners' plates; the term raclette derives from the French word racler, meaning "to scrape". Traditionally, it is accompanied by small firm potatoes (Bintje, Charlotte or Raclette varieties), gherkins, pickled onions, and dried meat, such as jambon cru/cuit and viande des Grisons.

For a great online experience visit the Borough Market at http://www.boroughmarket.org.uk/. This is a great website with lots of photos and maps. It even has recipes. You can almost smell the fresh food.