Marc's Public Blog - Trips to other locations

This is a collection of my blog entries related to short or long trips I, or Jennifer and I went on.
I have some master pages for some specific locations/trips:

Table of Content for trips:

More pages: January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 October 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 September 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 October 2012 September 2012 June 2012 April 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 June 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 September 2010 August 2010 May 2010 January 2010 September 2009 August 2009 June 2009 January 2009 December 2008 August 2008 February 2008 January 2008 October 2007 July 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 October 2006 August 2006 July 2006 April 2006 March 2006 January 2006 December 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 April 2005 December 2004 October 2004 July 2004 June 2004 January 2004 January 2003 January 2001 August 1997

2018/01/26 Australia Day by Sydney Opera House

π 2018-01-26 00:00 in Australia, Trips

I've done a couple of Australia Days before, but doing it in Sydney was definitely the best one so far. Jake got us an awesome dinner table with sweeping view of the Sydney Harbour and Opera House in the background, not counting a fairly good multi course Japanese dinner:

And great views:

The fireworks were good, even if we were downwind and sometimes saw too much smoke:

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2018/01/20 A couple of days to visit Sydney

π 2018-01-20 00:00 in Australia, Trips

I flew to Sydney for linux.conf.au and given that it was my 5th time there, I didn't quite go see the basic tourist attractions, given that I had already seen them once or twice, or more.

So this time, I opted for a few different museums:

Australia Museum/Natural History Museum in Sydney

Comtemporary Art Museum

Powerhouse Museum

Then, I did of course walk around Sydney a bit, and here are a few pictures:

Sydney grammar school, that's a fancy building to learn grammar :)

the rocks

Circular Quay:

circular quay can host huge cruise ships

Luna Park across the river

win for australia!

Darling Harbour:

After the museusm were closed, I went to the royal botanic gardens to enjoy the views and the birds:

found a customer

made a 'friend'

it was quite interested with my ear and nibbled it gently :)

and some new customers I hadn't seen before

linux.conf.au was at UTS, clearly an interesting building:

More night pictures:

Finishing the week (albeit not quite the trip) with Australia Day celebrations by Sydney Opera House, didn't suck too much :) [Australia_Day/221*]

On my last day, I went back to try learning Surfing south of Sydney and while I didn't do great, I at least learned some during the day.

On the last night, I went to Black Bar and Grill in a fancy hotel/casino to try some Wagyu. Sadly, the smaller and more expensive one of the two was actually the lesser one as far as melt in your mouth, went. Thankfully the 2nd one was not Japan good, but still pretty good:

It was then time to take the airport train back to Sydney Airport and fly home after trying 3 different lounges in the airport :)

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2018/01/17 2.2H in Lausanne

π 2018-01-17 00:00 in Trips

So, Lausanne is worth a bit more than 2.2H, I had planned on giving it a full 3.2H but heavy snow in Verbier got us to miss 2 trains and having to bridge a train that never came, with a taxi instead:

pretty but this got our bus very late

in turn, our bus had a hard time driving down with stuck trucks on the way blocking the road

finally made it to Lausanne, not the best lake view ever :)

I got lucky during my quick walk

made it to the cathedral

nice view from the clock tower

2.2H was really short of what I was hoping of, but I had enough time to walk to the cathedral and climb to the top, then take an uber to the Olympic Museum], which was definitely worth closer to 2H, but I did the best with 1h or so I had.

did I say great lake views?

it was then time to get back to the train station and catch my direct TGV back to Paris, for my plane to SFO and foloowing plane to Sydney :)

France did break and still holds the world speed record for wheeled trains

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2018/01/10 A Week in Verbier for Skiing at 4 Vallées

π 2018-01-10 00:00 in Snow, Trips

After Bourg St Maurice, we took a bus to cross the train track sections that were unusable, to a train, to another train, to Geneva, where we got yet another train (Swiss this time), and another train, and a bus to get to our hotel in Verbier. Needless to say it took all day...

Switzerland was pretty expensive, restaurants were kind of reaching the outlandish pricing range, so we took a deal to have the dinner of the day at a mere $25/day. It wasn't great every night, but it was simple enough and onsite, so that worked :)

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2018/01/08 Day Visit to Annecy

π 2018-01-08 00:00 in Trips

Due to horrible ski conditions in Bourg Saint Maurice, Arturo and I rented a stupidly expensive compact car for just over 100 euros and drove to Annecy for the day.

We first stop was at Paccard museum, next to one of the 2 factories in the world that makes giant bells. Cool place:

keyboard to play static bells

You can listen to the video from the bells:

We then drove around the lake to the north part where Annecy lies:

Annecy old town is very nice, almost a small venice:

lots of water due to recent rains :)

We then went to the local castle which wasn't much, but had reasonably interesting displays in some rooms:

old town

Eventually it was time to walk back to the car and go home after stopping by a nice local cathedral:

While Annecey is not a must do in France, it was a nice day tour for a day we otherwise couldn't ski. Thanks to Arturo for the driving there and back.

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2018/01/03 6 days in Bourg St Maurice for Trying to Snowboard at ParadiSki Tignes and Val d'Isère

π 2018-01-03 00:00 in Snow, Trips

On Jan 3rd, I took a train to a train to a bus to a train to get to Bourg St Maurice. This ended up not being an easy rip since I was done right during a big snowstorm that disabled the rail to our destination. I did get there eventually, but it was much more work than planned.

The rest of Bourg St Maurice is not much to see, just a good base to go to ParadiSki (les arcs), and have Tignes/Val d'Isère be about 1h away by bus. Sadly, the weather was crap as in warm crap. It rained on the bottom slopes (up to 2000 meters) while the top slopes were shut down for wind most of the time. I ended up only skiing 2.5 days out of 6, pathetic :(

At least we got to enjoy some dinners and a side trip to Annecy on another day where all ski resorts were shut down due to the winds...

The TGV trip was nice, too bad that train couldn't take me all the way to the destination