The music of Silence

the most beautiful sound on earth... absolute silence and yet, you hear music
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Monday, December 25, 2017

France Trip 2017 - Aix de Provence

Aix de Provence 

Arriving at Aix Train station
As we got to Marseilles on Xmas Eve, there's not much to do on Xmas day with most shops and restaurants being closed. We also learned museums are closed on Monday. We decide to make our way to Aix de Provence instead. 

It's a 15 mins express train ride but can be stretched out to 45 mins =)
Train Tickets
It's an interesting town which sole existence appears to be tourism and vacation for the rich French people in the early times!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aix-en-Provence
Our conclusion is this town will be very pretty in Spring when all the tress are not naked and it's full of people!
Streets of Aix.. yes, it's empty =)
Famous street of Cours MiraBeau and plane trees
As most restaurants are mostly closed, we picked the most decent place that we can find, which turns out to be a good lunch. Bill had an anchovy pizza while i had a fried chicken burger. What is new to me is the way mustard and mayo are available in tubes in France!


Lunch at Le Retound
After being fortified with lunch, we started wandering around town. Saw the statue of Paul Cezanne and he's famous for painting a lot of his works in this town. There's also a museum for his works but alas, it's closed.
Paul cezanne statue
City Hall Building
The cathedral is quite nice and it's interesting how they show layers of work being excavated in the building itself.

Cathedral exterior
Colorful pipe organ in the cathedral

Excavated Roman ruins
The Baptized area in the cathedral
The streets have fountains but they somehow don't seem very majestic =)
The 4 dolphins seems like platypus???
The 4 dolphins fountain
Albert's fountain

France Trip 2017 - Nice

Nice
Promenade D'Anglais and city view
Starting our France trip in Nice with a short flight from Barcelona.
The dancing water fountain in Espace Massena, with the Xmas Ferris wheel in the background
It is on French Riviera which fluctuates between Italy and France for centuries. Hence French food and Italian food are both good here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Riviera

It is renowned for the beautiful coast line and the 5th most populated city in France and very touristy.
The Promenade D'Anglais showing one part of the coastline



After checking in about 2pm, we decide to start exploring. But first, a french quiche to fuel our walk!
Not the best but it was convenient and quick
Quickly realized how pretty Nice is, with all the bright buildings.
But also quickly realizing how expensive it is, especially coming from Spain. Everything is easily doubled in pricing here in France. Ouch.

Massena Square
Basilica Notre Dame

Nice Train Station
What we also quickly realized is Nice is quite large and our feet are quite tired after the long walks! We decide to start heading back and save the rest for tomorrow!
Streets at night, with some Xmas lighting
Caught a view of the sunset with birds flocking around
Waking up bright and early-ish, we head on out for the flower market. We had breakfast at a cute cafe near the market where we learned Mirabelle= plums, as we are trying to figure out what the 3 types of jam are!
Traditional cafe in France?

First Breakfast in France
The flower market is stunning and generally sells everything from produce to specialized goods. We end up getting foie spread, cheese and sausage that became our dinner that night.

Market vibrancy
Beautiful flowers at the market
Cute soap at the market
Dinner with our purchases at the market
We also got a great socca which is a traditional chick pea dish of Nice.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socca
The lady is super nice and friendly. And the socca is soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside! yum!

Our Socca experience

After the socca, we climbed up the mountain for the view points of the Port and the city view with the Promenade
At each of the area, there's a painting which I put together with the view for comparison.
View of the Promenade. Not nearly as crowded. =)

View of the port of Nice
Super yacht parked in the harbour
After seeing the view, we climbed down the mountain and went towards the port, to see the ridiculously large yacht with the old sailboats in the harbour
Beautiful day and beautiful boats
After that we wandered around the old town and saw Nice Cathedral
Nice Cathedral

Stunning interior of the Nice Cathedral

After that we head towards Deli Bo where we had a really good lunch, filled with truffles and pork belly! And the scrumptious dessert! yum!

Deli Bo and our great lunch

Walking around old town, it's pretty touristy but quite fun to look at all the shops and their offerings.

Streets of old town
Stuffed pig in old town.. looks delicious! 


Interesting fun captures of Nice: Oysters in supermarket, tricycle, salt of all kinds etc

Naked men of Nice =)

Our not-so-good dinner at Havana Grill
Bus tickets to the airport

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Valencia Spain

Valencia, the land of oranges
With Bill here on business trip, we decide to head off to Valencia for the weekend.

The old fortress tower of Valencia

I was always curious if Valencia has orange trees everywhere and it does! Apparently they put acid in the roots so that the oranges stay on the tree for a long time. However, that means they are no longer edible!
Orange tress in front of Valencia University
One thing about the city is there are lots of dogs in the city, and very cute ones!

Chanced upon all 3 of these guys tied and tangled up in a cafe
In fact i got a bunch of cute animals pics from Valencia!
We got in on the friday night train and the train station is really pretty.

The Valencia train station
We booked a free walking tour of Valencia that turns out not to be free as we pay what feels it's worth. But it is still an interesting experience.
The group at the museum, with Cameron as our guide
Alabaster carving in the entrance for the museum
What i learned from the tour
Valencia is Spain's 3rd largest city and used to be a retirement town for Roman soldiers. Hence the entire city has layers of Roman ruins below it.
Roman Ruins under the city
It is later occupied by Arabs and Mors which brought rice and saffron hence giving the foundation for paella, that Valencia is famous for.
Napolean subsequently walked his army through Spain to attack Portugal and left his brother in charge of Valencia after he left Spain.

A wall showing how different layers of building materials keep layering over time
After a good night's sleep, we headed out to Central Market trying horchata and empanadas.
Horchata drink

Stunning colors in central market


We end up having lunch at Central market which has a great meal of the day that includes paella for 10 euros. Checked the box for paella!

Good meal for a good price!
Church Santo Juanes

Beautiful altar and marble walls
Silk exchange Building is built by slaves and dishonest trading is punished by imprisonment at the top of the building. The slaves however played with the gargoyles and had some weird gargoyles designs =)

One of the big rooms in silk exchange building
The main meeting area in the city is Plaza de Virgin where there's a fountain to signify the 8 irrigation ditches of the Turia river. Every Thursday, the officials still come out to announce the quality of the water as a tourist attraction

Virgin square
Fountain
Around the square there are a lot of little cafes etc and this one caught my eye
Stunning colors of jamon sandwiches arrangement

St Nicolas church after restoration

St Nicolas Cathedral (The Sistine chapel of Valencia)
Bull ring
Exterior of the cathedral

Valencia is also famous for Agua de Valencia which has orange juice spiked with cava, vodka and gin, with tons of sugar. Yum!

Agua de Valencia


Breakfast at Panaria
Santa Caterina Horchata near Virgin Plaza