I Love Paris in the Springtime...

When leaving Trento, which we adored, I thought, "Oh, Paris. We've been there and loved it, but it's not new to us. After all these months of new places and incredible adventures, what can Paris show us?" Well, like just about everything I've seen this year, I was truly enchanted. The weather was lovely and I spent a great deal of time walking through my old haunts, re-discovering old places and finding new ones. Miles was busy the first 2 days with a conference and we toured around together the last 2 days.

A highlight was finding Discover Walks: Free Walking Tours of Paris where I learned a lot of new stuff about Notre Dame, the Left Bank and the Right Bank.

Here are some pictures of some very familiar sites of beautiful Paris:

Opera House

Sacre Coeur

Montmartre

Pompidou Center

The front view of Notre Dame...

...and the back view

The Louvre old and new

The Eiffel Tower

Book stall by the Seine

I just love these stalls and found out on my walking tour that to own/rent a stall requires you to wait up to 8 years. You are only allowed to sell used books (and sell them at a cheaper price than in used book stores), art posters, comic books, postcards and tourist items. There are specific hours when you can be open and the stalls have to be painted dark green. Strict rules for a real Paris institution!

A few years ago, they started a new "attraction": Paris Plage (beach). They bring in sand, beach chairs, umbrellas, play ground equipment, etc. and set it up along a 2-3 kilometer stretch of the Seine River. The Parisians can "go to the beach" in Paris. Fantastique!

A small section of Paris Plage

We asked someone about going to a lesser-known area--we wanted to see something new. They suggested the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the north-east area of Paris. What a lovely place! This was a hilly park with grassy slopes. It was filled with children who spent a lot of time running around the small lake and getting drenched by the sprinklers. A particularly pretty area was the belvedere atop a small hill. We bought quiches at a nearby patisserie and ate our lunch gazing at the view. Another perfect day!

Parc des Buttes Chaumont

We had a special dinner one night at a friend's house. I met sisters Sylvie and Francoise in 1977 while we were all volunteering at a restoration site in southern France near Avignon. We've been in touch with each other annually and it was a real thrill to see them again (we last saw them in 2001 when we visited Paris with Adam and Daniel.)

Francoise, Sylvie, Istvan and us in Sylvie's home

I hate to write this, but write I must. This brings us to the end of the blog. Although the sabbatical isn't yet over and Miles and I are traveling to San Mateo at the end of July for 5 weeks (to see the family and Miles will be working at Lawrence Livermore again after a 3-year gap), I don't think my every-day activities there are very blog-worthy. I wanted the blog to be about our "exotic" sabbatical destinations, not about my routine trips to California.

Thanks to all of you who told me you enjoyed it--your feedback was just great. (It's hard to think that now I won't be formulating blog entries in my mind after every activity I do.)

We return to Haifa on Sept. 7 and will "suffer" from PSS (Post Sabbatical Syndrome). It's been one heck of a year! I'm going to end on a sweet note: Paris pastries!

"Good bye" from all the major cities we lived in this year since we left Haifa in August 2009:

Sayonara, (Tokyo, Japan), Bye (Auckland, New Zealand), Auf Wiedersehen (Zurich, Switzerland), Arrivederci (Trento, Italy), Au revoir (Paris, France)

Another Great Weekend

Our time in Italy is nearly over. We leave on Friday July 16 for a 5-day conference in Paris. Like I said before, it's a tough life.

For our last weekend in Italy, we decided to rent a car and travel north-west of Trento to explore some of the lakes (there are lots and lots) and another range of the Dolomites. And once again, Italy did not disappoint!

On Sat. our first stop was at Lago di Molveno which is surrounded by gentle sloping meadows (and of course the amazing Dolomites are in the background). Numerous families were enjoying the lake and we took a walk around part of it.

Lago di Molveno

Water cascades near Lago di Molveno

On the way west, we passed a beautiful castle:

Castello Belfort

Our next stop was at Lago di Tovel which is a national park and we were able to walk around this pristine, turquoise lake in about 1 1/2 hours.

Lago di Tovel

We reached our destination for the evening, Madonna di Campiglio by dinner time. This is really a pretty resort town set between a low range of mountains and a higher range of spectacular Dolomites. We've visited a few places like this before: up-scale shops, charming restaurants, local tourists and many ski areas near by. We were lucky enough to see a few classic cars that were part of a car show.

Madonna di Campiglio

Vintage car

On Sunday we walked to the local cable car and went up the mountain to do some hiking. Once again, just beautiful sights and we could have stayed all day.

Us at the top of Funivia (Cable car) Spinali


More of those great mountains

Lots of cows grazing up here, all wearing bells

Our next stop was to Val (Valley) Nambrone. This very windy narrow road, a 20-kilometer drive, took us first to a beautiful rushing river and then up the mountain where there were a couple of small lakes.

Beautiful turquoise river at Val Nambrone

Val Nambrone river

At the end of the 20 kilometers, this is the top of the mountain where you can see Lago di Cornisello and Lago di Nero

The sky was starting to cloud up and by the time we got to our next stop, it was raining pretty hard.

We drove into Val Genova along a rushing river and stopped at Cascata (Waterfall) Nardis. Wow! It was really spectacular and maybe the rain we were experiencing made the falls even bigger.

Cascata Nardis along Val Genova

Ciao, bella Italia!!! Next stop: PARIS!

Verona and the Dolomites...again!

Our close friends from Haifa, Debbie and David Block Temin, came to visit us in Trento. Despite the intense heat (the temperature was toasty--in the high 30s C./90s F.), we had a fantastic time with them.

Our first excursion was to Riva di Garda on Lake Garda. I'll spare you pictures, because Miles and I were already there a month ago and you've already seen the pix. It was beautiful again, but this time it was more hazy and very few windsurfers since there wasn't much of a breeze.

Onward south along the lake, we stopped at a small village called Malcesine. What a sweet place, with very narrow alleys, cobblestone streets and fun shops.

Climbing up to the castle at Malcesine

Us with David and Debbie in Malcesine with Lago di Garda in the background

Next stop: Verona, about 1 hour south of Trento. What a charming and bustling city.

Welcome to Verona!

This is the setting of a few of Shakespeare's plays, so of course we had to explore where Romeo and Juliet lived. Sure enough, Juliet's balcony is a big tourist site.

"Oh Romeo, Romeo...where art thou?"

What are Miles and David doing, you ask? This is Juliet's statue and men (and women!) line up to touch Juliet's right breast for good luck. I must say, we were very lucky the rest of the day.

The real highlight of going to Verona was attending the opera in L'Arena di Verona. It is the 88th year of the Verona Summer Opera and we got tickets for Puccini's "Madama Butterfly". The arena is amazing. This is a 1st century a.d. arena much like the one in Rome, but this one is very intact. Really beautiful!

L'Arena by day...

...and by night

The arena holds about 25,000 people and there were probably about 10,000 at the opera.

Our seats were rather far from the stage, but we had binoculars.

Act I, scene i: A superb set, designed by Zefferelli with a cast of at least 75

Act I, scene ii: Pinkerton marrying Butterfly

Brava! Brava! The opera was superb! What a thrill to see one so grand!

After getting back to Trento at 2:30 am (zzzzz), we were off the next day by 10am to our old friends, the Dolomites. On the way, we couldn't help but stop and take a picture of something "only in Italy": a Lamborghini police car which is used to catch those Italian wannabee race car drivers on the autostrada (like Miles as a teenager).

Those Italian police have REAL style.

Back to the mountains. We drove about an hour to the Dolomites and took a cable car up to a hiking area called Alpe Siusi. We were in the another area of this mountain-top alpine meadow with our other visitors about a month ago. I mistakenly thought Alpe Siusi meant Swiss Alpine area, but it is a Tyrolean name that has nothing to do with Switzerland. Just a coincidence.

Another shot of those beautiful mountains in Alpe Siusi