A Trip to Europe Part 2: Paris

 We stayed primarily in Paris for this week of the trip. To save time, we flew out of Venice to Paris. It turned out to be not much more expensive than to take the train that would cut our trip down by about two days. 

Once we arrived, we did a scouting mission to check out the lay of the land. We stayed at an Air BnB that was about a 15 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. Not far from it was a really nice multifunction athletic venue. It had both tennis courts and basketball courts. My son took advantage of the free basketball vending machine. You download an app. Your phone opens the box and you borrow the basketball. Once you are done, you put it back in and lock it back up with the phone app that registers that you returned the ball.

Eiffel Tower and Hôtel des Invalides

We never did go up the Eiffel Tower, but at least we got to see it. We also visited Napoleon's Tomb and the military museum. 

Luxembourg Garden, Panthéon, Latin Quarter, and Notre-Dame Cathedral

It was on and off rainy both in Paris and London, but it kept the temperatures mild. It was a long walk, but worth it. We even visited the neighborhood where Netflix's Emily in Paris is filmed. Hey, don't judge! Its even listed on Google Maps. 

The street where Emily in Paris is filmed

The restaurant were Emily's love interest
is the chef of. Its actually an Italian restaurant

Walking along the Latin Quarter. The buildings on the left of the picture is the Sorbonne. Ivan air shooting a basketball. Maybe he can try out for the Sorbonne's basketball team! 😉

Notre-Dame cathedral didn't really feel packed with tourists, even though there were a lot of them. Maybe the cathedral transcended the throngs of people. 

The Louvre and Musée de l'Orangerie

We spend about five hours at the Louvre, and probably could have spent more time. The Musée de l'Orangerie is about a 10 minute walk from the Louvre. It holds these large paintings that Monet did of his garden. We ended up walking down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe. As usual, Keona and Alice checked out the various shops while Ivan and just sort of hung out at a nearby McDonalds. There was a basketball store along the walk, but Ivan was not all that impressed. 

I apologize for all the offset angle shots of many of these paintings. It was so crowded around some of them, that photographing them off to the side was the best I could do.

Mini Thinker

Musée de l'Orangerie was far less crowded. You could actually look at the paintings. In addition to the Monets, there was an exhibition of Henri Rousseau's work.

Palace of Versailles

First of two side day trips. It started off with nasty weather, but ended up with sunshine. 

Marie Antoinette’s getaway cottage.

Monet's House and Garden

Our second one day trip was to his home in Giverny, which is about an hour's train ride northwest of Paris. I had asked Keona where she would like to visit while we were in Paris since she had gone two years ago on a school trip. She said Monet's garden and since she had graduated, that was her gift. At Giverny was his home and famous pond which he painted his lily pad paintings. It was the exact opposite of the Versailles gardens...chaotic, wild, and very natural. It was unbelievable the flowers that were in bloom. There were ones I had never seen and ones that were familiar but in very different colors. Again, crowded but more peaceful than Versailles.

On the train heading back to Paris

Last night in Paris

We walked around the Eiffel Tower. The next day, we took the Chunnel to London. That will be the next and last installment of my vacation to Europe.

A Trip to Europe Part 1: Italy

 Once again, my posting of things has slowed down greatly. Most of May was a flurry of non-hobby activities. My own school year ended followed by my daughter's university graduation! 

It was very emotional for me. My oldest is now flying off into the "adult" world. She is the oldest of my two and I felt like we have always had this special connection. 

Almost right after that, we did a long planned family vacation in Europe. Probably our last one as a family of four now that she will be starting work as an electrical engineer in Milwaukee Wisconsin. I will not bombard you with a million pictures. Just a few highlights for each place we went to.

The plan was to work our way north across Europe so the first country on our tour was Italy. We only had about three weeks total, and my wife really wanted to see Florence and Venice as well as Rome. We began our trip by landing and staying four nights in Rome. Of our various cities on our tour, I enjoyed it the least. I'm sure getting pickpocketed on a crowded right headed to the Vatican no less, didn't help! I was very sure I was careful, but the thief must of been even better. Its not to say that I hated Rome, it is more that I enjoyed the other places we visited. It was very hot and seemed dingy for some reason. It was a good thing there were all those public water fountains. Anyway:

Trevi Fountain. Hoards of tourists, plus you had to pay to get any closer to the fountain 😦: 

The Pantheon

The Pantheon

The Colosseum and Forum. I have to say that spending the extra on a guided tour was really worth it. The tour guide really knew his stuff: 

The Vatican and Vatican Museum:

A very tired Ivan contemplating which pizza to dive into first at our Air BnB:

Our next stop was Florence. I was a much happier camper there. There were a lot of tourists, but I didn't feel squished. We only stayed two nights, but we get a good tour of the city. Florence and Venice had a much higher "chill" factor than Rome did according to my kids. 

Enjoying a delicious sandwich brunch:

Pitti Palace:

Uffizi Museum:

Primavera (Spring) by Botticelli is probably one of my favorite paintings. 

It's mainly due to this woman. She is the only one in the painting looking directly at the viewers. There is something mysteriously intriguing about her. I first saw her back in 1984 when I was touring Europe. I didn't notice it back then, but she is pregnant. 

The kid has to have her cappuccino:

Of course, we can't forget the star of Florence...David:

The last stop in Italy was Venice. Again, we only stayed for two nights. It was warm there, but there were some breezes off the Adriatic that helped moderate the temperatures.

Gotta have a Gondola ride:

The Bridge of Sighs:

Next, Basilica San Marco and the Doge's Palace that included the Bridge of Sighs and the prison. Again, it was worth it to have a guided tour with a guide who really knew her history:

Ivan passing across the Bridge. Not build for a 6'4" person:

The Boy was getting rather mopey from too much culture and I was tempted to leave in the prison, but he got all happy when we let him go have a dessert at the Cafe Florian, the oldest coffee shop in Europe, while we toured one more museum: 

So ended our visit to Italy. I was going to make this one long post, but for your sake and mine, I decided to break it up. Next stop Paris. 

Newish Ironsides

 I noticed that I have two posts that I have yet to put up on my blog. One was started over a month ago and the other about a week ago. Unfortunately, I have had very little time to do much of anything and they remain unfinished. For the past month or so, I am lucky if I can stay awake long enough to get in a half hour of hobby time at night. So, if push comes to shove, I choose working on stuff than blogging about it. 

My current work in progress is tiny ironclad based very loosely on the US Civil War USS New Ironsides: 

Source: US Library of Congress

From my brief research, the masts for the sails were removed and replaced by two simple pole masts for signaling purposes. It was not very sea worthy and had a lot of mechanical issues. It did participate in the First Battle of Charleston Harbor but most of its action at sea consisted of bombarding forts. 

Here is my take on the New Ironsides:

Just to be clear, it is not done yet. Mine has a flying bridge, the original does not. In fact, I'm not sure how the original New Ironsides was steered. It took me a while just to find its conning tower, which looked no bigger than a garbage can and aft of the funnel. Mine has fewer gun ports and lacks a ram. I will finish it, but I plan to make a New Ironsides II. For some reason, it came out shorter than I would have liked. Measuring in at just under 4 cm, the gunboats that I have made are longer than this thing. Therefore, I want to lengthen it by at least another centimeter. A longer ship will mean I can add more gun ports. I will keep my flying bridge and add a conning tower just to the front of the bridge. I will also add a ram to it. I might or might not add sail masts.