Nice is Kind of Nice

It has been suggested to me that I was too critical on my work, for such a public forum, in my last post and I just want to take the chance to clarify what I meant. When I said my work was boring I meant for those of you reading this, I find it interesting it's just that I don't think you guys would appreciate it if I started talking about my simulations and the plans for our next set of experiments. That's why more posts are generally only about what I get up to on my weekends, though I suppose my job finishes in 3 weeks so perhaps then the knives will come out :). (Are you allowed to use emoticons in blog posts?)

Just as a side note, I discovered last week that using the term "those guys" or "you guys" to describe a group of people is incredibly rude in French. So I guess my idea of just speaking in English in my head and then trying to directly translate into French can sometimes backfire. I was trying to think if we have the same sort of rudeness thing in English, and whilst I think we definitely have formal and informal language the only way to be really rude to someone is to swear at them, that or to bluntly demand something, that wouldn't go over too well either.

After my long weekend in Barcelona the following weekend was also a long weekend, celebrating Victory Day (end of the Second World War) and so I decided to do a bit of exploration in the South of France. Actually it turns out that the Monday was also a holiday (Victory Day was the Thursday) so I could have had an extra long weekend if I'd known about it.

How did I not know about a public holiday you may ask. Well the Monday was Pentecost Monday, some weird Christian holiday related to Easter and it used to be a public holiday in France. The government abolished it in 2005, so on my calendar it wasn't marked as a public holiday. Turns out though that the French people didn't really like the idea of losing one of their holidays, so of course they went on strike and the government, of course, backed down. So whilst it is no longer marked on the calendars everyone takes the day as a holiday anyway. The people at work were not too clear about whether they would come in or not, so I rock up straight from the airport only to discover that Pentecost Monday is pretty much universally taken in France. So that was a short day for me. I should have used it to update my blog and download my photos rather than doing it now, weeks later.

So anyway I spent a day and a half in Nice (can be seen in the photo to the left) on my long weekend and I have to say it was kind of nice. It helped that the weather was good. Nice is the capital of the Cote d'Azure (or the azure coast) and is in the French Riviera. It was founded around 350 BC by Greek seafarers before the Romans turned up in 154 BC and turfed everyone out. It was then ruled by one of the thousands of Italian principalities (on and off) until good old Napoleon sorted them all out and in 1860 it became part of France for good.

It definitely had a different feel to the rest of France I have visited, it seems the sort of place you go to just to be seen, not to actually do anything. They also obviously aren't too concerned about skin cancer there either (whether that is a valid unconcern or not I'm not too sure) because there was some definite premature aging going on there and quite a lot of that incredibly attractive leather skin on display.

Of course it isn't really fair to compare European beaches to Australian ones, I mean that is really the only natural beauty thing that Australia has going for it, the sea and coastlines. It's not like we have massive mountains or fjords, though I suppose we also have deserts which can also be beautiful. But what I'm trying to say is that Australia has some pretty amazing coast line and it's not until I went to Nice that I truly appreciated how good our beaches are in Australia. It's not even that the beach in Nice was really bad as such, just had a completely different feel to the beaches in Australia, such as in Australia our beaches generally don't have massive piles of gravel on them, or bulldozers the next day smoothing out said massive pile of gravel.

It feels like in Australia when you go to the beach it's not just to lie on the sand and tan yourselves, for one thing I think most of us Aussies view the sun as our enemy what with the years of scary cancer messages from the cancer council. You generally go to the beach to play some cricket or fly a kite or play in the surf followed up by a BBQ or fish and chips in the park that always borders a popular beach. In Nice though there was none of that, for a start there was no sand only gravel, so cricket and touch footy were out, not unless you like the feel and look of gravel rash. Then instead of a grassy expanse bordering the beach there was a massive 6 lane pedestrian highway and no real restaurants either.

If we had something as pretty as the Bay of Angels in Nice I'm fairly confident that at least a good portion of the bay would be lined by upper class restaurants and bars. But in Nice there is a different attitude, you sun yourself during the day, no exertion though, and then when you want to eat you go home dress yourself up and wander into the centre of town, which didn't overlook either the beach or the marina but was tucked away in the old part of town. That said I reckon I could get used to that sort of life, especially if I lived in England and just escaped to Nice in the middle of winter or something like that.

This is the famous Promenade des Anglais (the English promenade) running the length of the Bay of Angels. It was built by the little English colony here in 1822. In my guidebook it is listed under walks to do in Nice and is described as a palm-lined seaside stroll. It is true there are trees there, but I'm not sure I would describe a 6 lane pedestrian highway as a seaside stroll.







Apparently the beaches at Nice are special as they are generally free, but you can rent a beach chair for the day at these little private beach sections. I wonder if you can set up your towel right in front of the chairs or whether the operators have right of way claims or something and could move you on.














The marina in Nice, there were some amazing boats in here, at least 50m long with about 4 storeys, lovely wood paneling everywhere and leather seats as well and all were spotlessly white. A far cry from the 12 foot catamaran my family had a part share of back in Darwin. It is only when you see these boats that the unbelievable level of wealth that does exist around here is really clear to you. I guess Nice is mainly full of normal every day tourists and so doesn't cater so much for the ultra-ultra rich that perhaps you find in Cannes and St Tropez and Monaco.










Some of the houses along the marina in Nice. I love these colours they painted them, I can see why this place has been so popular with artists over the years.
















I'm going a bit crazy with the photos again I know, this is another of the houses along the marina in Nice.

















I went on a little boat cruise (unfortunately not in the 50 m leather seated cruisers, but rather a stock-standard tourist mover) around Nice and along the coast a little and we passed the town of Villefranche-sur-Mer. This was a fantastic looking town and had one of the very few natural sand beaches of the area.














The natural harbour of Villefranche-sur-Mer


















Here's another one of those few natural sand beaches, you can tell how rare they are by the sheer density of people on this tiny little strip.



































One thing I was slightly disappointed with in Nice was the lack of nice walking trails. Before going I had read that there is a big national park behind Nice and so I was keen to try and find some maps and head up there. After my wonderful, unexpected, walking in Barcelona I was keen for more. But once I had paid a visit to the tourist information office in Nice I discovered that they had no idea what I was talking about and no it wasn't a miscommunication kind of thing either. People just don't seem to go to Nice to get close to nature, not unless it is one of those natural sandy beaches type of nature.

You can see in this photo the awesome hills behind the city but I just didn't know how to get out there, or what I would do if I ever did make it.





I next tried to head for this monument, I have no idea what it is as it wasn't marked on any of my maps, nor was it discussed in my guide books. But I thought I might be able to walk through the gardens to it and then perhaps work my way up the hill behind it to what looked like some more bushland. Again that wasn't to be, the little path I found was littered with garbage and looked like it was used only by drunks and drug addicts, so I wasn't too keen to go up there by myself. Then once I worked out an alternative route and made it up there it turned out to be not so impressive and surrounded by suburbia without an easy way up the hill behind. Obviously when going to Nice you just have to accept that your days will consist of sunning yourself on the beach, a massive lunch with chilled rose followed by more sunning before a shower and then dress up for dinner. Doesn't sound too bad but I think I would get a little bored after a while.




I'll leave you with two more shots of Nice as while there didn't seem to be a whole stack of stuff on the nature side of things, it really was a pretty city.

Barcelona Part II or the World of Gaudi

Right guys time for another massive post, I really should try and write smaller entries as I'm sure it is hard to read a massive thesis every time you visit, but then my life between my weekends is pretty boring consisting of a long train and bus ride to get to work, a whole day of work and then another long train ride to get back home.

My work is not particularly exciting either, this week I worked on a paper, did some experiments and discovered that a fairly important piece of equipment is completely stuffed, meaning we could only experiment for a third as long as we usually do. During the experiments we also discovered that we have no idea how our crystal is orientated meaning we have to send it off to another group so they can analyse it, exciting stuff really :). Now all I've done is make this post longer than what it would otherwise have been.

I love that house to the left, so Spanish with the orange tree and the blue, blue sky. You may not be able to tell but we have had another solidly grey week in Paris, so I'm starting to suffer withdrawal from the lack of blue sky.

I thought I would finish off what else I got up to in Barcelona, especially as there is now a list of 5/6 places I have to still blog about, man I'm so slack. So anyway after Montserrat it was time for Gaudi, for those who don't know, and I certainly didn't before I visited Barcelona, Gaudi was a modernist architect who died in 1926. Man, was he popular in Barcelona, Barcelona really is the city of Gaudi . I've never really been an architect groupie and there is no way I could pick a particular architect's style by looking at their building, in fact I'd be hard-pressed to name another architect, but I reckon I could always pick Gaudi's style after visiting Barcelona. He certainly was very distinctive.

The first building I visited was the Casa Batlo (in the photo to the left, you may be surprised to know but it was actually pretty easy to spot which was Gaudi's house as you walked along the street) which used to be a normal mansion until the rich owner got Gaudi to completely redesigned it in 1905. The interior really is kind of cool and it would be a fun place to live, he seemed to be a very organic architect, I mean he didn't like straight lines but kept everything curving and flowing.

Now I could give you a whole treatise on architecture and whatnot (well, actually no I couldn't as all I could write is the stuff I remember from the audio tour) but the real reason is I'm just too lazy, why do you think I've only posted 9 times this month. So instead I'll just give you a whole stack of photos from the interior.

This is the light fitting in the ceiling in the main living room, so cool.
















Looking down the sky light in the centre of the building. Gaudi was pretty clever here (well of course he was, that's why he's still famous almost 100 years after he died) with the way he worked with the light. He used much lighter blue tiles at the bottom of the well and towards the top, where the light is much brighter the tiles were a much darker blue, giving the impression that the light was the same intensity all the way down. The windows looking out onto the well also got smaller the nearer the top they were, again because there was more light up there and so no need for big windows.









The crazy roof terrace, I think he just went a bit mad when he got up here, perhaps he didn't know what to do with all the light so it was just crazy mosaics and weird dragonesque features, again not many straight lines though.














A door to one of the apartments in the building. It must be cool to live in the building but the sheer numbers of tourists must get to you after awhile. I wonder how many people a day would try your door handle thinking your flat was part of the museum? Gaudi designed the strange number/symbol on each door (very Prince of him, I mean the artist formerly-known-as-Prince, now known as Prince again.)



















After Casa Batlo I went off to the Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi building. It's a massive catholic church still under construction it's meant to be finished in 2026, though there is some dispute as to whether that is achievable. Construction began on this church in 1882, Gaudi himself spent 40 years on this church, devoting the last 15 years of his life entirely to the project. Unfortunately he had a habit of destroying his blueprints, add to that the reign of Franco and the anarchists in Spain and most of what Gaudi intended for this church has been lost.

People have mixed reactions to this church, some people love it, some hate it. I really liked it though, I have to say that I've seen a lot of gothic style churches over here recently, and whilst they are quite pretty once you've seen one, you've seen them all. Those old-style gothic architects sure weren't breaking any rules once the first one had been built. This building though is certainly not going to be copied and there was just so much going on that it would keep you occupied for weeks just starting at the facades.

Detail from the Sagrada Familia, that's definitely not gothic!























It was then off to the Park Guell, yet another Gaudi work, built between 1900 and 1914. Originally this place was designed as a housing site but at the time it was only a rocky hill with not much vegetation and in the end only two houses were built there. Gaudi eventually moved into one of them. Now it is just a lovely peaceful park with great views over the city. It also seems to be a place where buskers congregate, so that was fun, just wandering around listening to the different music.










The two buildings at the entrance to the park, designed by Gaudi if you couldn't tell.
















The massive crowd and the main terrace of the park. Once you get a little a way from the masses it really is quite peaceful and it has been designed so there are always little private nooks and crannies that you can find.





















The top of the main terrace.

















The columns supporting this terrace, it really looks like the photo has been split and that the top brown bit of the column is not properly attached to the white bottom bit, I suppose that's what Gaudi was going for.





















Another terrace, very Spanish


















This is actually a road through the park, as it was originally intended as a housing project Gaudi built a few roads running through the place, but he always did them in such a way that they were unobtrusive and didn't hinder pedestrians.















Now it wasn't all Gaudi, I also visited the gothic quarter, which is the old part of Barcelona. I've heard some people say they don't like this part of the town, but I really liked it. There were no cars, they wouldn't fit down the alley ways, and it was a break from the heat in the cool, dark streets. Plus there were some nice restaurants around the place.

Montserrat

There are a lot of photos in this post, I've tried to cull them somewhat, but it is hard. This trip out to Montserrat has got to be one of the best holidays I've had so far this year. The weather was perfect, the walks were fantastic and the scenery was amazing. If anyone visits Barcelona you have to spend a day in Montserrat and do some walking, I was blown away.

While I was visiting Barcelona I did a day trip out to Montserrat, which is about an hour's train ride on the suburban train lines.Monterrat is this weird rock formation, actually it apparently means "jagged mountain" in Catalan (the language of Barcelona) and it really is a freaky looking mountain.

I guess the other reason it is quite famous is because it is home to the black virgin and has been a religious attraction for centuries. The story goes that the statue of the Black Virgin was carved by St Luke in 50 AD and it was then taken to Spain and hidden in a cave at Montserrat. It was meant to have been rediscovered in 880 AD, but this story wasn't written down until the 13th century. Anyway shepherds (it's always shepherds isn't it, God really loves the sheep-keepers) saw a shining light and heard music coming from a cave where they discovered the statue. A bishop of a nearby town wanted to take the statue (and related glory) for himself, and tried to move the statue there, but old Mary was having none of that, and the statue was meant to have gotten so heavy that it couldn't be moved. Thus the bishop had to accept that the Black Virgin wanted to stay inMonterrat, the surroundings are probably nicer than the nearby Mansrea after all (the town where the bishop was from). So they built a monastery way up in this mountain so the Black Virgin could be venerated properly.

This religious background is good for me though, because if it didn't exist they would have been no way I could have gotten out to Montserrat, or even have known that it and all these great walking trails were even there. Because of all the pilgrims who want to visit both the Black Virgin and the cave where she was found, a lot of whom are incredibly old, there is an easy train ride and then either a cable car or a rack railway up to the actual monastery. The train was incredibly packed heading out there in the morning and so I was a bit worried about getting a spot in the cable car, because who wouldn't want to go up in a cable car.

It's a 15 minute ride up the side of the mountain with fantastic views of the valley and the various mountain ranges around the place. But then it turns out that the vast majority of people were scaredy-cats as they all went on the rack railway, or perhaps they were just lazy as you have to stand up in the cable car. I myself was a little nervous about the cable car as you are pretty exposed as you cross a valley before you get into the shelter of Montserrat. But this cable car was much bigger than the one in Barcelona, with 30 people in it, as opposed to 4, so it was weighed down a lot more. This one also had the operator with you in the car, so you feel a bit safer as I don't think someone would do the job if they thought they were going to plummet to their death everytime they went to work.

This photo to the above left is taken inside the able car, not quite halfway up, and you can see the train station we have come from. It is the building just poking above the cable pylon.


Here is the cable car heading up to the monastery which you can see amongst the rocks above.














Once I got to the top of the mountain safely I had to first of all check out this monastery, there are still about 80 monks living here and they get heaps of pilgrims. They get almost 3 million visitors a year it seems, though obviously not all of these are pilgrims. So I get into what I think is actually a short line to head into the church to have a look around. After I get through the door I realise that I'm actually in the line to see the Black Virgin. I'm still thinking the line is pretty short, it is hard to see ahead as you are quite confined, and so I decide to stay and see where I end up. It turns out that the line is actually not all that short, in fact it heads all the way down the entire church and then up two flights of stairs and then along a bit further. Still it took only about 30 minutes and I was able to touch the Black Virgin and get a photo taken, so I could see what all the fuss is about.

The carving is actually inside a glass case but they have left an opening so you can touch her right hand which seemed to be holding some sort of egg. Apparently if you touch her you will have healthy children so there you go, though she must do other stuff as well as there were a lot of people in that line who were well-past child bearing years.

The monastery and church is not all that impressive, at least I didn't think so, I suppose the most impressive thing is that it is built on the top of a high and inaccessible mountain so I suppose they didn't feel the need to go all grandiose inside as well. There is meant to be a really good boys choir who sing every day at 1pm but I was out in the mountains then and so didn't get to hear them sing, maybe next time.

Once I had touched her and had a quick look through the church it was time to head off on what I was really here for, a nice long walk through the massive rocks. I first headed off to Santa Cova, which was a grotto/cave where the Black Virgin was originally found and there now is a church built on the site. Along the walkway, which is actually a concreted foot-highway (it was much more than just a footpath) there are all these statues and monuments along what they have called the Mystery of the Rosary. It is here that you see your highest concentration of pilgrims. There were even people who were walking bare-foot, I don't know whether that was to better recreate the original pilgrim's experience or just because they didn't like their shoes.

This is the Santa Cova church, built in the 18th century. The day I was there it was packed with people listening to mass (I think).










Santa Cova from the train station























This is just one of the massive monuments along the path of the Rosary, but still dwarfed by nature.






















The walk I wanted to keep doing was meant to link up with the path I was on by going through the church. But it was completely packed with pilgrims listening to something or other and so there was no way that us non-religious pilgrims could get through (I was on a pilgrimage to nature). So instead I had to turn around and take a small off-shoot path I had seen earlier to try and get around the church and link up with the walk again.

In the end this was the best thing I could have done, as it turned out that all the main trails (the ones I was going to do) were all these massive pedestrian highways, suitable for people in wheelchairs that could be pushed by 80 year olds with hip replacements, they were that good. So by taking this little branching trail I got off these main paths and so there was suddenly nobody else around, just me and some spectacular views, plus a few flowers and some bees. The path was also a bit more of a proper path, on dirt rather than concrete and just wide enough for one person, that's how I like it! In the end I walked a lot further than what I was intending to on this path as it didn't join back up with the main trail network for much longer than what I was expecting.

The photo to the left here shows the path I was now on, looking back towards Santa Cova





Here you can see the pedestrian high-ways of the main paths, I tried to stay off these as much as possible. If only because the white concrete was particularly blinding. One of my first presents to myself when/if I start a nice new job is to get myself a pair of prescription sunglasses. My options at the moment are to just wear my glasses (ending up with sore eyes from the glare), or just my sunglasses (and miss out on all the wonderful views, no thanks) or just wear my sunglasses over my normal glasses and look like a fool (which is generally the option I take)



























Santa Cova and the massive rocks

















Montserrat and the mountains on the other side of the valley.

















A little shack all by itself looking over the plain towards Barcelona and the sea.
















Eventually I joined up with the hordes of people again and was back on the trail that I should have taken in the first place. I was now heading towards the old hermitages built into the side of the cliffs. When Montserrat was in it's hey-day there were so many hermits and people wanting to be hermits that there was actually a waiting list and it was only when one hermit died that you could move up the list. It looked like a bit of a tough life though so perhaps the list moved fairly fast.

Here you can see a hermitage carved out of the rock almost and it's associated church. There was a story that went along with this hermitage, if I can remember it correctly I think it went something like a king sent his daughter off to stay here with this famous hermit, to protect her or something. But the hermit was overcome by lust so raped and then killed her, disposing of her body to hide the evidence. He was then overcome by guilt and so somehow he turned into a bear or something and the story was he would stay that way until God forgave him. He ended up at the king's court after a few years and it was there that God turned him back into a man where he confessed his crime to the king who then also forgave him. Pretty crappy story if you ask me, but then that's religion, trampling women's rights for centuries.

You can see to the left a bit of their hermitage still left over, it really looked pretty uncomfortable and must get freezing cold in the winter. They had to grow their own vegetables and everything as well as building their little houses and praying all the time.


















The rocks with the hermitage and church at their base
















The obligatory church built near the hermitage.

















More of the freaky Montserrat rocks and where I was headed to next, Saint Jeroni, the highest mountain in the Catalan region at 1,236 m.















View down to the monastery on the way to Saint Jeroni























Another church/hermitage at the base of Saint Jeroni. I don't know where these hermits got their water, I didn't see any flowing streams when I was there, I did cross a few dry river beds though. And it sure didn't look like it was going to rain anytime soon.














The view from Saint Jeroni, they say you can see from the Pyrenees to the sea from the top of Montserrat, and those are the Pyrenees with snow on top in the distance.

I have a new appreciation for the cyclists who do the Vuelta, I went in quite early Spring and it was already hot. These guys cycle at the end of summer where it must be absolutely sweltering. Coming from Australia you think it can't get that hot in Europe and that they are a bunch of wusses over here, but after this holiday I think in Spain it can get hoooot.

When I got to the top I thought it had been a pretty tough walk, I mean long and in parts it was kind of steep. You really could never think too much of yourself for conquering this mountain though as on the back down I was passing tiny little kids heading up, one of them even had a broken arm.


Montserrat must be a serious mecca for rock climbers, it's all this pink granite stuff, so I don't know if that is easy for rock climbers or if they just like the views but there were so many of them on the way to Saint Jeroni. I only saw one other rock climber in the first area of the mountain, just near Santa Cova. I don't know, maybe he smells or something. See if you can spot the climbers in the next 4 photos, granted the 1st one is an easy one for you.


























































































More rock shots, no people this time








































































Rock people

















On the way back down to the monastry the vegetation changed quite dramatically so I was now wandering through a slightly rainforest feeling area, no water anywhere though





















One more sacriligeous comment, this photo to the left shows how I felt at the end of my 5-6 hour walk in Montserrat.

It was a little funny heading back to Barcelona at the end of the day. I was sitting next to an Irish couple (I think). The woman proceeded to do her hair and then kiss her husband for a while. Then they started talking about how they had missed 4 masses and they had to go to church tomorrow before they both pulled out their rosaries and started muttering to themselves. So somehow I don't think they had visited Montserrat for the wonderful scenery and amazing walks.