Taxis

I had a nice ride home tonight, a newer Mercedes, and thought I'd write about my taxi rides.

Every work night I check the BBC's weather page for East Anglia. They have great graphics that will show temperature and conditions in hourly increments. A mate told me they literally use a supercomputer for it. (You should see the weather animations they do for BBC News.) I use these to determine whether I'll ride my bike or take a cab the next day. Some days I may ride my bike even if it will rain, if it looks like the rain will pass safely in between my two commute times.

In the mornings I call the same family-owned cab company at 5 am, asking for a ride at 5:35 for my 5:53 train. If I want to get breakfast at the station (a flapjack and Americano coffee, often with the daily Guardian) I'll ask for it at 5:30.

What I ride in is the luck of the draw. But all cars are four-door sedans and comfortable. I often get Mercedes and Skodas, and sometimes Volvos, Vauxhalls, Citroens, Peugots, Ford Mondeos. On my return trip, the cabs could be from any of the Ipswich cab companies, and sometimes I get a Hackney cab.

Some cabbies are chatty, but most are quiet. But I've learned a lot about Ipswich from the more talkative ones. Many know me since I'm so regular, and they usually remember my destination. One told me that only about 80 cabbies are registered to pick up at the train station - it's an extra fee and registration - and I probably know a good percentage of them.

I always stop first at Sarah's after school club. Sometimes I ask the cabbie to wait for the 3-4 minutes that it takes me to go inside, sign out, and return with Sarah. I call ahead when I do this so that Sarah has time to get ready to go. Other times Sarah and I walk home together, about a fifteen minute walk.

Sarah's favourite cabs are the Hackneys because they have rear-facing seats and she likes to sit in those. I like it when I get a cab with leather seats.

The fare is usually around seven pounds each way, and I always tip between one and two pounds. This means that a bike ride saves me about twenty quid a day, and I'm sure I've paid for my bike a few times over with the savings.

I'm glad the skies are lightening with spring. I'm seeing daylight now for both my commutes, though in the mornings it doesn't get light until I'm nearly in London. It wasn't long ago that both were in the dark, but now it's hard to remember what it's like. Here's hoping I don't have to commute in the dark ever again!

Bavaria Days 7-8: Vienna to London

I'm writing our last two days as one post because it was all part of the same return journey.

As we arose in Vienna it was lightly snowing, the first we'd seen in Europe. After breakfast, as we stepped outside, it was even heavier. We made our way past the opera house to the ring road. As we waited for the number 2 tram to ride around the ring encircling the city centre, I got this shot of Sarah with the opera house in the background.



The trip was about half an hour and a nice tour, but train photos are generally rubbish and mine were no exception so I won't share any here. As we returned, the weather was considerably lighter - no more snow, and some sun. We passed the opera house once again to the Sacher Hotel.



Our mission here was to try the famous Sachertorte chocolate cake. Margo used to make this when she worked in a Bavarian bakery. I thought the cake was okay, but the frosting was amazing. Margo and I also ordered coffees with a special Sacher liqueur. Sarah of course had a hot chocolate.



Next we visited a confectioner's shop across the shopping street. Sarah got this shot of Margo leaving with our edible souvenirs.



We walked some of the route I'd taken the previous evening. Turning back to return via the shopping streets by which we'd arrived, I saw this carriage go past and it seemed very Viennese.



Here is the cathedral again, in the daylight and showing its context amidst the shopping streets.



We returned to our room, knowing it would be the last space to call our own for a while. Then a taxi to the train station.

Our train journey to Munich was actually three legs. But fortunately Margo booked us first class this time, as apparently the cost difference was trivial. So our first leg, the longest, was possibly the best train ride we've had yet: leather seats, seatback video, carpeting, wood paneling. I ordered a Weissbier and it was served in the same glass you'd find in a pub. Sarah was given an activity book and crayons.

For a while our trip was quite hilly. We'd pass above valleys of houses and towns. Later the landscape flattened and again I noticed A-frame houses.

At our first transfer, we had a few minutes to change trains. Munchen (Munich) was not listed as a final destination for any of the platforms, so I sprinted ahead to ask an attendant. We found our train once again with minutes to spare. This train was not so nice - older and noisier. At one station, we stopped next to a train carrying stacks of fresh BMWs. I wondered if anyone would notice one missing.

We had our last transfer in Friesing, just ten minutes from Munich. Back at the station, we had about two and a half hours before our overnight train to Paris. Margo booked in plenty of extra time in case a train was late (tickets are usually non-refundable and non-exchangeable), and though we definitely needed it with our casually-scheduled Italian train a few trips ago, our German trains were bang on time, as far as I noticed.

Hunting around for an easy dinner choice, we found a tapas bar right in the station. Perfect.



We ordered a collection of nine small dishes: corn; rice; shnitzel; latke (potato pancakes); ravioli; croquettes; tomato and cucumber slices in viniagrette; sausages; and saurkraut with dumplings. I also got a few things to help me sleep.



(Sarah took this picture also. Her timing is pretty good now.)

Our Deutsche Bahn train carriage was an impressive display of what can be put into a small space.



Three beds on the left, and a full shower and toilet in the bathroom to the right. Though, I saw the sink should swing away to use the shower, and I never did figure out how to do it, so I barely fit behind the shower curtain the next morning. But I was also impressed by the design: the bunk lighting that was nonintrusive to other bunks; the hidden wall bits that folded out with cupholders for the coffee and tea we were served in the morning.

We slept fairly well and arrived in Paris before 7 am. Here we had almost four hours to spend before our Eurostar departure. You might think we'd be mad to wonder how to spend a few hours in Paris, but as it was just dawn, most shops were closed, and we were still quite tired, we settled on something of a café crawl for the short walk from Garde de l'Est to Gare du Nord.



We'd probably had three or more coffees or hot chocolates each before we joined the boarding queue at the Eurostar terminal.



By now we're such seasoned travelers that the Eurostar is like a local train, so our return to London was quite uneventful. Our return to Ipswich took more of the afternoon, and as we found our house keys and went inside, it was nearly dark.

As I write several days later, we still have mounds of laundry to work through. Sarah's taken a bit of a cold and stayed home from school today; I suspect the main cause is hot chocolate withdrawal. But it's great to be back and resume our boring lives for a few more months.

Bavaria Day 6: Prague to Vienna

After breakfast, Margo and Sarah went shopping. I went for a walk along the Na Prikope and Narodni shopping streets which separate the old town from the new town.

Prague is very interesting architecturally. Some buildings are medieval; some rococo and baroque; there's very modern architecture (including Frank Gehry's Dancing House), and severely functional Soviet architecture, like this department store.



But there's also a lot of brand-new shopping that are the peer of other great European cities.



I visited the Museum of Communism on this street, ironically above a McDonald's and adjacent to a casino. It's small but has some interesting artifacts and displays, such as a factory bench, a school room (with Cyrillic-character textbooks) and a very sparse and boring food shop. I learned about the Prague Spring military occupation of 1968, Vaclav Havel and the Plastic People of the Universe rock band, and the Velvet Revolution of 1989.

Back following the street, I soon arrived at Wenceslas Square, where the Velvet Revolution took place.



I rejoined Margo and Sarah at our hotel. We checked out, and were glad to meet the same taxi driver who'd first delivered us. The train station we departed from (different than the one we arrived in) was quite the opposite of most European stations: low-ceilinged and dingy, with no natural light to colour the drab grey walls. We sat and waited on scratched benches.

We only had two seat reservations on our train to Wien (Vienna). With six seats to a carriage, and the other four also reserved, I moved to the next carriage to take one of its unreserved seats. It worked out well: my carriage was very quiet, while Margo and Sarah were joined by young Japanese men who got on very well with Sarah. After a few hours I started hearing occasional happy yelps from next door. They were all making animal noises. Sarah did her best to exhaust her new playmates with such games. It was a happy accident.

Looking out the window, it seemed every Czech town had its own smokestack. I saw lots of graffiti and large apartment blocks. We crossed into Austria as darkness fell. Soon we passed urban office buildings and crossed the Danube. We approached the station under a green-lit saucerlike radio tower for Telekom Austria.

We had a room in the Pension Suzanne, nicely located just down the street from the Opera House and again, walking distance to all the sights of the city centre.



Then it was a short walk to dinner at one of the recommendations we received from the hotel, the Rheinthaler. I had a wienerschnitzel; Margo had a pork roast with dumplings and salad; and Sarah had chicken schnitzel. We adults washed down our food with mugs of "vollbier dunkel" named Gösser Stiftsbrau. My salad included tomato, potato, shredded cabbage, sliced cucumber, and white asparagus in a cream and dill sauce.

We only had one night in Vienna, with a train departing just after noon the next day, and I wanted to make the most of it, so I went out for a walk. I wish I had had extra time and a dark fedora to go skulking around the cobblestones and arches like Orson Welles' Harry Lime in The Third Man, but instead I had to stick with a quick circuit of sights in the city centre.

I started down the Kärtner Strasse shopping street.



This brought me to the cathedral at the heart of the city.



From here I walked along another shopping street to the Hofburg palace. I walked to one side of it and was awed to see the huge space of the Heldenplatz to one side. This isn't a great picture but gives an idea of the view to the other side, across the Volksgarten park, of the Parliament and Rathaus (city hall).



The coloured lights of the castle-like Rathaus so entranced me that I had to see more. I walked along the ring road (very wide, with tram tracks and, on each side, two pedestrian lanes and one bicycling lane). As I approached I saw an ice skating attraction, but instead of a rink, ice was formed on the paths that wind through the Rathauspark.



The lights and the classical architecture and the massive buildings were conspiring to make me giddy with awe. It was a great first impression; I could only think to compare it to Paris, but more spaced apart.

I followed the ring road around to the opera house and our pension, where I raved about the city. I also shared the chocolate cookie I'd bought at Starbucks - a lame Valentine's treat, as the confectioners had all closed.

Bavaria Day 5: Prague

To start our day we enjoyed a fantastic breakfast buffet in our hotel's underground restaurant: rice, fresh veg, sausages, eggs, cheese and meat slices, breads and pastries. I brought the camera because I wanted to capture the old walls and arched ceiling.



After breakfast we went to see the first of our destinations: the historic Jewish ghetto area. There are lots of artifacts to look at. Apparently Hitler allowed Prague Jews to archive their things as he was planning to make it sort of a museum to an extinct race.

We walked through the town square and along the Parizska shopping street past new high-end stores. I noticed that the sidewalks were made of small paving stones just inches across.

A sculpture inspired by Franz Kafka stood just outside the first of several synagogues we visited. Pictures were not allowed to be taken inside, though I did get this in one of the later synagogues before I saw signage prohibiting photos.



Inside the last synagogue we visited, the walls were filled with the names of Jewish war dead. We found names similar to Margo's maiden name: Margolius and Marguliesova. Then we toured the adjacent Jewish cemetery.



This was the only plot where Jews were alowed to bury, so the ground is raised a few feet because bodies were stacked atop each other.

Next we walked to the waterfront towards our next destination, the Prague Castle.



We crossed the famous pedestrian-only Charles bridge and got some crépes for lunch at a café. Then we found a tram on the next block that would take us up the hill to the castle.

From the tram, we walked a short distance to the castle entrance, walking over a bridge above a deep valley, serving as a waterless moat. Soon we were standing before the massive St. Vitus Cathedral.



Margo and Sarah are just specks at its base. I think it's the biggest cathedral we've visited.

From the promontory is a great view of the city.



We also toured the Golden Lane, a collection of shops that also contained a gallery of medieval armour and weaponry. Sarah was very disappointed that she was too small to shoot a crossbow, but she did get to try out a rotating wooden block for shooting arrows.



We returned to our room. Margo and Sarah had a rest, while I went out to visit some pubs. The beers of Prague were praised in our guidebook as being among the cheapest and best of Europe. I agree with the cheap part, but best is a bit strong. The beers are certainly stronger and tastier than a typical lager, but not so tasty that I'd consider them among the best. However, over the hours of our visit, I did get to sample brews from some of the city's popular breweries: Krusovice (light and dark), Staropramen (which I find on tap in some London pubs), and Pilsener Urquell. Budweiser is also brewed nearby; the name is used by Anheuser Busch everywhere else, and so, because of a famous trademark dispute, the brewery can only legally use the name locally and not for export. I also had a chance to try some absinthe. Strong!

I also got some shots of the square on the way back. This is the astronomical clock on the side of the city hall. I happened to be near it as the hour struck.



This is one view of the square, towards the Tyn church; our hotel was just behind it.



Walking toward the church and looking back, one would see the city hall in this view.



Often on our travels, we reach a point where we get more than enough of each other's company and tensions rise. Today was our day. From morning through the day we were crabby with each other, climaxing with a bit of a row at dinnertime. We resolved to find ways to spend a bit more time on our own. It was unfortunate to end the day on such a sour note.

Bavaria Day 4: Munich to Prague

Our Tuesday was mostly a day of travel: we had a train trip from about 1 in the afternoon to 7 in the evening. Our trips between cities were about four to six hours each.

I wished I'd had perhaps a day or two more to see two things: the BMW Museum, designed by architect Zaha Ahdid; and the Deutsches Museum of science and technology.

After breakfast, we walked to the Viktualmarkt to get some picnic supplies for a late lunch on the train: pretzels (sliced and buttered); grapes; dried sausages; and sliced cheese.

After checking out, we walked to the train station. We arrived with plenty of time, but noticed that the train leaving at our scheduled time had a different destination than Praha (Prague). We went to the train, asked about its destination, and were told that the train indeed did not go to Prague. Rushing back to an information desk, we got further assistance: we needed to change trains in Schwandorf. We made it back to the train platform with minutes to spare and barely managed to find seats together. After that frustration, we resolved to double-check our itinerary at the start of each remaining trip. This was one of the few times that the language barrier was problematic.

As we rolled through the countryside, I noticed more churches with onion-shaped tops. Most houses had red-orange terracotta roofing tiles, and white exteriors. I also noticed lots of A-frame houses, with overhanging roofs and upstairs balconies, though many were modernised with solar roof panels and multipane glass windows.

After our train change, we were visited by Polizei who gave our passports the most thorough inspections they'd received. The countryside grew more forested. As we passed into the Czech Republic, I tried to guess where the border was. My best guess would be a cleared line I spied in the forest, similar to the forest clearings for power lines.

The human landscape was noticeably shabbier. BMWs were replaced by Skodas. We passed through the city of Plzen (where Pilsner beer originated) and atop one building in giant letters I saw BOHEMIA. Yes! We are Bohemians for a few days! A massive smokestack went past, dominating the city as I looked back at it.

It was dark by the time we arrived in Prague. We were glad to meet our taxi driver, waiting for us on the platform with a sign bearing Margo's name and our hotel. We'd been warned of scams: taxi drivers who overcharge, cashiers giving back less change. Prague is a popular destination for stag nights as costs, especially for beer, are quite cheap for foreign travelers, but scams like these have arisen as a result.

We saw some of the city that night - office towers with some familiar corporate logos at the tops. Our hotel - Metamorphis, no doubt inspired by the well-known book by Prague resident Franz Kafka - was in a courtyard just behind the main square of the city centre. Our room was the biggest, nicest yet - a suite, really, with an entryway, large bathroom, living room, and bedroom.

We were too tired to explore dinner options, so we ate in the hotel's downstairs restaurant. I had hovezi gulas, a beef goulash with potato gnocchi, and a dark Staropramen beer named Granat. Margo had schnitzel, and Sarah ate spaghetti bolognese.

Bavaria Day 3: Munich

Monday. While other people went to work, we had breakfast in the pub downstairs: a selection of sliced meats and cheeses, muesli and yogurt, and assorted breads, with coffee, tea, and juices available.

Our hotel was inside the old town city centre, convenient to the sights inside. After eating, we walked the block and a half to the main shopping street, the Kaufingerstrasse.



In the centre top, you can see the onion-shaped spires of the Frauenkirche, the tall church that dominates the old town.

We stopped in a department store to get warm (though still sunny and cloudless, it was quite cold) and look around. Sarah was well pleased as we rode the escalators to the top and then down to the basement level, where Sarah and Margo picked out some chocolates.

Back on the street, I ordered a coffee in what I thought might have been perfectly inconspicuous German, but in reality the cashier probably snickered as I left. But it's not hard to feel overly self-confident. All you need to learn is "please", "thank you", count to three, "no", "yes", and perhaps "excuse me" and you are good to go. It's fun to be a culture chameleon and try to fit in with just a few words: "Einz dunkel, bitte" (one dark beer, please).

We also looked at a display of souvenirs - mostly beer mugs and cuckoo clocks.



We headed toward the town square, the Marienplatz.



This is the town hall ("Rathaus") which towers over the Marienplatz. At about mid-height on the main tower is a famous glockenspiel. Each day at 11 and 12 o'clock, and 5 pm in summers, the glockenspiel is set in motion and figures such as royalty and courtesans and jousters move along their circular tracks.

We continued on to the Viktualmarkt, a large open-air market selling fresh produce, wines, and of course beers. In fact, the market is largely ringed by beer halls.



Just to the right of centre is a large maypole. I noticed that several breweries have their logos on part of it.

We returned to our room, and shortly thereafter set off for lunch in a restaurant recommended in our guide book, the Hackerhaus pub. They serve their own beer, and the restaurant and guest house have been in the family for centuries.



After lunch, we returned to Marienplatz to orient ourselves to the subway system and ride the U-bahn a few stops north in order to see the English Garden. It is the largest city park in continental Europe, spanning three miles in its longest direction. It contains a pond, a Chinese pagoda (which we visited), and of course, more beer halls.



We returned to our room. Margo and Sarah took some down time, and I took the S-bahn a few stops to the train station, to take in some of the city outside the old town, and walked back. Along the way I found a Saturn store that sells home electronics and music and movies. I was keen to look for some German electro music to take home, but was unable to find bands I was looking for.

After night fell and we were properly rested, we went for dinner in the Hofbrauhaus, the most famous beer hall in Munich.



This brings me to two things I wanted to mention. The Hofbrauhaus is also the very beer hall where Adolf Hitler first began agitating the German peoples. Germany's role in the second world war is something Germans are keen to forget. I'm not sure we saw a single German flag on display in the entire city. Nationalism is greatly discouraged. People are eager to avoid repeating this mistake.

And as an ex-Portlander, I must write about the beer. You see, Portland has more breweries than any city in the world, except for Munich. This is sort of a beery Mecca. The annual Oktoberfest is like a pilgrimage for many. The city map's legend has an icon for beer halls. So, you ask, how does Munich's beer compare?

I have to say that I was disappointed. In every pub we visited, we typically had two choices: the lighter Weissbier wheat beer, and the darker Dunkel. I was quite looking forward to having some Doppelbock, a dark, strong, and moderately sweet variety that is one of my favourites. I've had many bottles of it from the Spaten and Paulaner breweries of Munich, even occasionally on tap in Portland. I was unable to find any. Of course, we only visited a few pubs, and only in touristy areas, so I'm sure that a greater variety of beers were available elsewhere. I was just disappointed at the lack of choice.

But. Back to our dinner. The Hofbrauhaus may be historic, but it is also extremely touristy. Our waitress was of Asian descent.

We ordered some pretzels (which make you quite thirsty).



I ordered meatloaf, expecting something made of ground beef, but what I got was much closer to Spam. But who can complain amidst the live oompah music and all the beer you could hope for?

Bavaria Day 2: Paris to Munich

Sunday. To me, our hotel room was somewhat familiar though of course we'd never stayed before: like many of our Continental rooms, it had certain features like a heated towel rack and a glass shower half-door in the bath. From our window we could see the Luxembourg palace and the Montparnasse office tower; leaning out, we just also see the Sacre Coeur cathedral.

Our agenda for the day was relaxed. Our train didn't depart until mid-afternoon. It was nice to have free time without the pressure of having sights to see. Once roused and ready, we strolled down to the Boulevarde St-Germain to a café for coffees and croissants.

The streets were much quieter than the previous evening. Most shops were closed. I popped out to a nearby newsstand for the international edition of the Sunday Times. These editions tend to have almost no colour pages - often just the outer one - and no subsections; also some articles are excluded or excerpted. But even a reduced Sunday Times has hours of interesting reading, and we were fairly hungry for English language text.



We stopped at an ATM on the way back. I'd already been on one side of Margo, facing the street as Margo got some cash. Eventually I noticed a younger man using the machine on Margo's other side, and he was staring at me. It wasn't dissimilar to the look Sarah gives me when she's about to do something naughty, assessing whether she can get away with it. He finished and left quickly, leaving me wondering if we'd just averted something, or if there was nothing of it.

Back at the room, we gave Sarah a bath, then packed and checked out, leaving our bags at the hotel. The logical choice to spend a few hours was the nearby garden, so we visited once again.

We were once again gifted with unusually sunny weather; not a cloud in the sky. A lovely day. In the gravel of the park, amongst the orderly rows of trees, groups of people were practising tai chi, while others sat in chairs enjoying the sun. We indulged Sarah in a pony ride.



Back in the childrens' play area, Sarah again scaled the rope Eiffel, beating her chest at the top in her King Kong impression for us. Margo and I sat nearby, getting drunk on the sunshine and beauty. Ah, to be in a park in Paris and hear a shouted "Dad!" and know it is only for you.

I went away for the occasional stroll. Luxembourg is a large park and there is much to see. For example, these rows of trees before the great lawn leading to the palace.



Margo was content with reading.



We returned to St-Germain to find a café for lunch and ended up picking a Belgian-themed restaurant, Leon's of Bruxelles. With its laminated menus and bright colours it must surely be part of a chain of restaurants. I was glad to have a pint of Duvel with my salad, and Margo had steak and fries while Sarah had chicken with fries. Back on St-Germain, we stopped at a shop to get some baguette sandwiches for dinner on the train. Then we returned to our hotel for a cab ride to the Gare de l'Est train station.

Our SNCF train was fast, but probably not bullet-train fast like the TGV. The Eurostar uses trains from the same provider, so we rode in SNCF iron from London to Munich.

Sarah and I played cards (mostly we play Crazy Eights) and chess (I handicap myself by using just a few pieces). We tried to determine just when we'd crossed from France into Germany. I was convinced we'd already crossed because the town names started sounding very German like Molsheim and Lingolsheim. But Margo noted that there was plenty of French in the signage on stores we passed, and we were still seeing plenty of Citroens and Renaults on the roads. We finally made a wager: whoever was wrong would have to write a limerick in praise of the other.

My hopes of victory were deflated as we passed through Strasbourg, which I had assumed to be a German city, and we saw undeniable evidence of its Gallic status in the signage. We entered Germany only as we crossed the river from Strasbourg into Kehl.

There once was a woman named Margo
On train, she's the most precious cargo
She's brilliant and smart, and
Her cooking is art, and
In school, I predict that she far go.

We broke out our baguettes and cookies for dinner. I went to the diner car and got mini bottles of wine - Bordeaux for Margo, a German Pinot Noir for me (much lighter than the rich, complex ones we were used to in Oregon) and an Orangina for Sarah.

By now, night had fallen and there was little to see outside until we made our way into Munich and its buildings. The train station was a big, airy glass box. Our room was nice and a bit larger with an even bigger rock-star bath. We slept without hesitation.

Bavaria Day 1: Paris Stopover

Today we've returned from a week travelling by train through Bavaria visiting Munich, Prague, and Vienna. I'll write a post for each day of our trip in the coming days. Sometimes when travelling, we bring Margo's laptop and write as we go, but I was well glad to not have to haul the laptop bag about on this trip. And now with our new camera we have plenty of storage, so we no longer need to transfer photos to the laptop before taking more pictures. (At the highest resolution, I could take one photo a minute for over ten hours, so it's effectively bottomless for a week's travel.)

We left Ipswich early Saturday morning, getting to the new Eurostar terminal at St. Pancras station by mid-morning. The station reopened in November after hundreds of millions in refurbishment and a new tunnel under much of the London approach, shaving twenty minutes off the crossing and bringing the total time of the London-Paris trip down to just over two hours.

Margo scheduled a night in Paris for us as a gentle start to our trip as we had much further eastward to travel. It was good to see the city again; the long, straight boulevards, and the railed balconies on the buildings. We were booked into the Hotel Michelet Odeon, just across from the Odeon Theatre in the Left Bank. In the taxi ride from the Gare du Nord train station, we passed the Pompidou Centre and crossed the Seine near Notre Dame cathedral.

On our taxi ride, and throughout the evening, I noticed lots of people riding the new brown-grey city bicycles. It is a new programme that started recently (last summer, I believe) and is modeled in part on Amsterdam's bicycle fleet. It seems to be well-used, and there was a parkign area for the bikes across the street from our hotel.

Also nearby was the Luxembourg Garden, so once we were settled, we took Sarah there to spend the rest of the (late) afternoon in the children's play area until it closed at 5. She spent much of her time waiting in line to ride the rope slide ...



... and the rest of her time climbing the rope Eiffel Tower:



Margo and I both noted how Sarah's Parisian playmates looked like models: stylish clothes, great haircuts.

Walking back through the Garden, past Luxembourg Palace ...



... we observed lots of Parisians sitting on benches and in chairs, just enjoying the afternoon sunlight, and the beauty of the surroundings.



We returned to our hotel, where I got this photo of the Odeon.



Afterwards, I went on a solo stroll to the nearby Boulevard St-Germain shopping street, and beyond it to the Seine.



For dinner, we visited the nearby Aux 2 Oliviers restaurant, a referral of the hotel. Margo and I had two-course meals with a half bottle of Bordeaux. For entrees, I had a rocket salad, and Margo had crème brûlée foie gras. Our plat courses were salmon crumble for me, duck for Margo. Sarah had a tagliatele pasta with salmon and creme fraiche. For dessert I had a crème brûlée, and Sarah and Margo each had a chocolate profiterole.

And that was our Saturday, one week ago. I hope to capture more days tomorrow.

Greenwich

Yesterday I took a day trip to London to visit the borough of Greenwich. I got off my East Anglia train in Stratford and went south on the Docklands Light Rail (DLR) to the Greenwich Maritime station.

Walking from the station I entered the first campus of several large public areas clustered together. My first stop was the Greenwich Hospital, formerly a palace and once a hospital for Royal Navy sailors. Here are the domes of the two main halls; the Canary Wharf buildings are between them in the background.



The hall on the left is known as the Painted Hall and used to host dinners for sailors.



Next I walked through this campus and across a road to Greenwich Park and its hills, upon one which sits the Greenwich Observatory.



The observatory houses the historic telescope that serves as the position of the Prime Meridian, the zero point of longitude. The telescope lens is behind the doorway below.



It's also the place where tourists can stand with one foot on either side of the meridian.



All GPS coordinates are based on this line. In addition, Universal Time is based here, making it literally the centre of space and time.

The observatory also stored the standard reference of several Imperial units of measurement, including the yard, foot and inch:



Another draw of Greenwich Park is the hills, which offer one of the best views of London. You can see the landmarks of the City (including St. Paul's, Tower 42, and The Gherkin) ...



... as well as the towers of Canary Wharf and the Docklands ...



... and in places you can see them both in a panorama that also includes the O2 Dome on the far right.



The rest of my trip was fairly uneventful. I alighted the DLR at the Canary Wharf station. I forgot to touch out with my Oyster card, charging me the maximum daily fare once I got on the Jubilee Line tube. Doh. (The Tube stations have barricades so you have to touch in and out; on the DLR, there are only occasional pedestals along walls that aren't hard to miss or forget.) I got off at Whitehall and walked to Trafalgar Square. I was hoping to take in an exhibit of photography from Vanity Fair magazine at the National Gallery, but it doesn't start for a few weeks. So I tubed back to Liverpool Street. I'd phoned a mate to share a meal and we'd agreed to meet at his flat in Hackney but bus service was altered due to construction, and as it was getting dark and I was unfamiliar with how to get there without the buses, I abandoned the plan and instead got a train home in time to join Margo and Sarah for dinner.