Europe Travels – 16- 23 August 2007
Another week flew by packed full of interesting and beautiful places and a few restful days. On one particularly clear day we decided on the spur of the moment to take a trip up to the Jura mountain range, west of lake Geneva. There were many switch backs, beautiful green valleys with golden haystacks, and high chalky cliffs with gushing springs and waterfalls. (Cascades du Herisson and Cirque de Baume) The highlight of the day was an art exhibit at a restored abbey (Abbey of Baume) and the village that surrounded it.
Another day we headed up the “Rue des grand Alps” to a medieval festival at a ruined abbey up in the foothills mountains (Abbey Saint Jean D’Aulps). Although the festival itself was more intended for kids, the views, scenery and beautiful medieval music sounding through the open spaces was delightful. The weather was wonderful and the sky above the skeleton of the abbey was gorgeous. People with medieval costumes strolling around, and little “knights in training” with armor and cardboard swords were cute to watch. Hearing the music with the costumes in these surroundings made it feel so right and even more beautiful. After lunch we took a hike into a really impressive gorge, carved by the river to a depth of 120 m and was believed to be the work of the devil in the old days (Gorge Du Pont du Diable). We ended the day at Le Gets, a really cute Alpine village that is high up in the mountains above Morzine, where we visited a very interesting museum with an incredible collection of mechanical music instrument, from their earliest history.
Monday we finally had a chance to visit our charming village of Anthy Sur Leman. Walked around the center of the village, the church and down to the lake where we found a cute little fisherman’s dock and a couple of restaurants overlooking the water. We later had a lovely fish dinner with Perch with Raymonde at La Gal Anthy.
Tuesday was a rainy day that seemed like a perfect opportunity to visit a wonderful exhibit of Chagall’s paintings at Martigny, celebrating his 120th birthday. The town was lovely and the “Pierre Giannada Foundation” museum was a really wonderful cultural center with a terrific lineup of art exhibit and concert by first class artists and built over Roman ruins. It was somewhat like Pasadena but with an old European flair, and alpine scenery surrounding it. On the way back we tried to visit an old Chateau at Aigle but it was raining and late, however, we managed to get tangled in the narrow streets of the town, and had to squeeze through a gate only a hair wider then the car. We had to pull in both mirrors, and hold our breath till it was over.
On our final day here, we went to visit the CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) nuclear physics facility, which boasts a bunch of world records in several categories of technology and particle physics. The 27 km diameter accelerator and collider is built 100 m (300 ft) underground and seems like a mind boggling enterprise, and the array of question it proposes to tackles are equally mind boggling, including structure of matter and anti-matter, and others that I won’t even try to mention as they really go way over my head. It was really fascinating however to visit the actual detector which dwarfed the group of visitors deep underground, and getting an explanation how they intend to unravel the structure and sub particles of a proton.
Today, it was hard to say good bye to this lovely area and the cats that we’ve grown to enjoy. Raymonde (our host) insisted on driving us to the Geneva airport which made it so much easier.
Another day we headed up the “Rue des grand Alps” to a medieval festival at a ruined abbey up in the foothills mountains (Abbey Saint Jean D’Aulps). Although the festival itself was more intended for kids, the views, scenery and beautiful medieval music sounding through the open spaces was delightful. The weather was wonderful and the sky above the skeleton of the abbey was gorgeous. People with medieval costumes strolling around, and little “knights in training” with armor and cardboard swords were cute to watch. Hearing the music with the costumes in these surroundings made it feel so right and even more beautiful. After lunch we took a hike into a really impressive gorge, carved by the river to a depth of 120 m and was believed to be the work of the devil in the old days (Gorge Du Pont du Diable). We ended the day at Le Gets, a really cute Alpine village that is high up in the mountains above Morzine, where we visited a very interesting museum with an incredible collection of mechanical music instrument, from their earliest history.
Monday we finally had a chance to visit our charming village of Anthy Sur Leman. Walked around the center of the village, the church and down to the lake where we found a cute little fisherman’s dock and a couple of restaurants overlooking the water. We later had a lovely fish dinner with Perch with Raymonde at La Gal Anthy.
Tuesday was a rainy day that seemed like a perfect opportunity to visit a wonderful exhibit of Chagall’s paintings at Martigny, celebrating his 120th birthday. The town was lovely and the “Pierre Giannada Foundation” museum was a really wonderful cultural center with a terrific lineup of art exhibit and concert by first class artists and built over Roman ruins. It was somewhat like Pasadena but with an old European flair, and alpine scenery surrounding it. On the way back we tried to visit an old Chateau at Aigle but it was raining and late, however, we managed to get tangled in the narrow streets of the town, and had to squeeze through a gate only a hair wider then the car. We had to pull in both mirrors, and hold our breath till it was over.
On our final day here, we went to visit the CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research) nuclear physics facility, which boasts a bunch of world records in several categories of technology and particle physics. The 27 km diameter accelerator and collider is built 100 m (300 ft) underground and seems like a mind boggling enterprise, and the array of question it proposes to tackles are equally mind boggling, including structure of matter and anti-matter, and others that I won’t even try to mention as they really go way over my head. It was really fascinating however to visit the actual detector which dwarfed the group of visitors deep underground, and getting an explanation how they intend to unravel the structure and sub particles of a proton.
Today, it was hard to say good bye to this lovely area and the cats that we’ve grown to enjoy. Raymonde (our host) insisted on driving us to the Geneva airport which made it so much easier.
posted by Dahlia and Lance Riley @ 12:10 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home