France, 2010

[RayintheUK]

Just returned from a week in France. Jean and I drove via the Dover-Calais ferry and our daughter, Julia, flew into Paris from Liverpool Airport. The purpose of the trip was to take Julia to see Michael Buble at the Bercy Stadium on her 40th. birthday (May 18th.). We duly attended, watched the opening act (Naturally Seven) then MB appeared under full house lights with an interpreter to announce that he was cancelling the show because his drummer was ill. A memorable 40th. for Julia, but not quite what we anticipated.

Anyway, we had several days touring around and I'll do a travelogue page when I get the time. A favorite location was Claude Monet's Garden in Giverny. This is the pool with the famous water lillies (click for a larger version):



Another great venue is the Notre Dame at Rouen (click for a larger version):



Ray

[Larryl]

All I can say is Wow!, would love to visit Europe someday. We keep planning a trip to Ireland and England but life seems to always get in the way.

[sweensdv]

Beautiful sights Ray, thanks for sharing. Back in my Army days, I lived in Germany for 14 months. To this day, I regret that my limited free available time and paltry Army pay kept me from seeing more of Europe than I did.

[cabinetman]

Too bad Julia got disappointed. But with scenery like that it must have been a memorable birthday. Your pictures are so good, I don't have to go there now.
.

[JR]

Spectacular shot of Giverny, Ray! LOML came with me on a business trip to Paris once. She ventured out to Giverny on her own and really loved it.

JR

[germdoc]

Beautiful!

I bet you had some memorable meals there as well!

[natausch]

Sorry to hear about the concert being cancelled, very unprofessional.

However, the photos look great and I'm sure the trip was memorable nonetheless.

In my opinion everyone needs to visit Europe, at least once, if only to discover what food should taste like. There is something about a food culture that hasn't been polluted by corn products that makes you wonder where we went wrong here in the States.

[germdoc]

It's not just the food, it's the approach to eating and living.

One of my favorite memories from living in Germany a few years ago was driving through the countryside, stopping at bistros for a spontaneous meal. I rarely had a bad meal at a restaurant in France or Germany or Italy!

We found a nice little French country restaurant just over the border near Metz we would visit occasionally--decorated with all kinds of wild game on the walls--once we showed up at 7, there was a group of French fellows who had just finished dinner and were relaxing and enjoying cigars and brandy. We ate and stayed for about 3 hours, and went we left the guys were still there with their brandy and cigars and animated conversation.