Showing posts with label France. Show all posts
Showing posts with label France. Show all posts

Over the Pond in Europe

Lovely Europe Vacation the past 2 weeks
Eating Belgian Waffles and Belgian Chocolate in Brussels



La Grand Place in the heart of Brussels with diff architecture styles.


The Atomium representing an iron crystal built for the 1958 World's Fair.
Handmade mechanical Cuckoo clocks in Black Forest area of Germany. Home of the cuckoo clock. Quite the sight. Never seen so many types before. Hundreds of them on the walls.

Enjoying the Spray at Rhine Falls

An ice cave at 10,00ft in the swiss alps

Helping to prop up the Broken Chair monument opposite the UN in Geneva.😜
Reminder to politicians visiting the UN about the dangers of landmines.
The Flower Clock in Geneva
The Palace of Versailles with its 2300 rooms. And the lovely 200 hectare Garden of Versailles around it with its fountains and sculptures. His old home, the Louvre, got too small for Louis xiv, the sun king. So he filled in a swamp near his old hunting lodge and built himself a massive new home.

Arc-de-Triomphe at the end of Champs-Élysées. The streets radiating out from the arch give it a star-like appearance.
Napoleon wanted to march his victorious army through this arch but was defeated in Waterloo long before its completion.
The immediate area around the arch is one of the most accident prone in the world so no insurance company will cover any accidents within a blue line drawn there.

Eiffel Tower looks the best at night all lit up and reflected in the Sienne river. It blinks for 5 mins on the hour between 11pm-1am too.
Had an awesome view of Paris from the top of Eiffel during the day.
Paris has some impressive architecture.
I guess you can touch the top of the I M Pei's Pyramid in front of the Louvre.
omg, we've all been lied to as preschoolers -
London Bridge is not falling down and has not for many centuries!!! ðŸ¤£
I guess once upon a time it was made of wood, but now it's a vanilla stone bridge.
Tower Bridge behind looked elegant. I guess most tourists confuse Tower Bridge with London Bridge.

The Tower of London houses the Crown Jewels
The queen certainly gets the biggest house.
Turns out she does not even live in London but in the city of Westminister. She has to get permission to enter London.
So, i been to London but did not get to look at the queen, unlike my grandpa who got to actually meet with her.
All I can say is that the queen was in the building when we toured Windsor Castle. The Royal Standard flies above to indicate she is in residence.
Nifty castle, very ornate and grand.
Part of me was kinda hoping to see a couple of cats (descendants of the ones who chased a mouse under her chair!!)
"Taking the waters at Bath"
- The Roman Baths at Bath of Jane Austen fame, where the aristocracy, gentry et al. gathered to socialize or be "healed" by the geothermal waters.
Later the doctors started promoting seawater over the Bath waters so folks started going to Brighton.
Sophisticated structures built around the subterranean geothermal spring waters at Bath during Roman Britain era were excavated much later on.
Unlike the rest of England with its brick houses, the entire city of Bath is built using the honey-colored limestone native to Bath - Bathstone - even the roofs. So the city has a rather interesting look.

Stonehenge in the Salisbury Plains
No explanation needed.