As part of a drive with 408 Garage, we went to Tahoe. It was actually my first time doing a road trip with the 650S, and interesting to see how you can pack ;)
there is also decent space behind the seats (and actually if you put the top up, there is more storage space where the top folds in)
got the car cleaned up a bit :)
And time for the drive, normally fine route but it was partially ruined by some cement trucks that blocked the entire road:
they could barely pass one another on skyline
After going across the bridge, nice lunch spot in Napa:
From there the drive to Tahoe was not great, partially because of lack of backroads and poor time planning for the driver, causing us to drive fun and then icy bits, after sunset:
Road was kind of dicy, but made it to tahoe eventually:
Next day had a drive scheduled around the lake:
all ready
nice view
lake on each side of the road
Since this was my first time around the lake, I got to see parts of Tahoe I had never seen before, including the ski resort homewood, so I stopped for a look:
The beaches and houses on the west side, were also nice:
There is also Eagle Rock with a short trail to get to the top and the view:
AFter that comes Tahoe City and Kings Beach:
The loop then takes you back to Nevada:
After that, went back to South Lake Tahoe to enjoy the lights and stores:
Gondola, I will be back
sadly for now, everything is closed :)
A nice halloween display on the west side of the road:
The next morning, we went back out for a proper tour of the lake, starting a short hike up to a viewpoint:
Then, drive counterclockwise this time around:
all the boats are taken out the water and stored during the winter
By the time we arrived to Eagle Falls parking lot, it was overrun with cars, mostly impossible to park unless you got very lucky (we did). Went for a quick easy hike to Eagle Falls and Eagle Lake:
made it to the falls
up the trail :)
chipmunks are cuter squirrels with ADHD :)
finally arrived to the lake
beautiful and curious bluejay
kudos for those who went for a swim
Back around:
Once in South Lake again, the former Tallac Resort was a cool place to stop
the resort was able to save the trees from loggers
It was also interesting to visit the water section where each house has its own water access and boat parking:
There was a bit of time to visit the viewpoints on the east side before completing the loop:
The last stop is I wanted to see Diamond Peak briefly, where I had gone many many years ago, but hasn't seen in 20+ years:
Glad to be back, and even more delighted to have seen my friend Kepik rise the ranks to the level that he is now opening for Seven Lions. Great job Kepik!
Plenty of people showed up:
they even had costumed performers
Glad to see plenty of friends:
kandi masters :)
Of course, I didn't arrive naked either :)
One special treat indoors is you could get tatoos:
The party also had DJs playing in the main room, so you could hop back and forth:
Gem & Tauri
And before long, Seven Lions took mainstage outside and closed the day party:
After the day party was over, the afterparty continued inside Midway until 02:00, good times for all.
Video Summary:
I knew I didn't pick the best day to see Fleet Week this year, but I was going to be in SF anyway, so it was easier. Sadly the weather wasn't the best and after the clouds cleared as per forecast, fog rolled in in the middle of the day and screwed things up.
Thanks to Ralf for joining me, it was a lot more fun together
I was specifically excited to the the F22 again, my first time seeing it at fleet week:
As usual, some people came better equipped than me :)
The last bit we got lucky to see F35 demo:
Unfortunately after that, fog rolled in and weather went to shit:
too more planes flew
and fat albert was the last one to fly but by then the weather was too low for blue angels to perform
that's all, folks...
On the plus side, I have seen the blue angels many times, I was most excited by the F22 and F35 which did get to perform, so it was all good.
It's glad to be back, my first show in the bay area in months after being gone travelling for festivals.
I'll be honest that the anjuna lineup felt a bit random, lack of cohesion in the type of music, so some I really liked, some I had a hard time enjoying.
Lovely running into a lot of friends I hadn't seen in a while:
After a busy summer festival, and a previous and first time in Malta for Rong Open Air Festival Malta 2024, I had one more summer festival: Captured Festival, back in Malta. I definitely enjoyed Malta the first time around and was happy to be back.
This event was co-sponsored by TrancefamilyLA, so a few of us were there:
It was just 1.5 days after burning man, flying home from burning man, unpacking everything, getting all the dust off (and that's a lot of work), and packing for the next trip to Europe. Unfortunately, for my LED outfit, it means taking out all the LEDs, washing it with vinegar first, then we washing detergent, and carefully re-installing the LEDs, which is especially tricky on the shirt. Long story short, I didn't have time to rebuild the pants and shirt, so brought the spare parts and tools to put everything back together in Malta:
My LED shoes have also been a hassle of unreliability, so I brought my last spare modules and used my portable battery soldering iron to make one last working set before I come up with better LED shoes (you have some, really? please tell me which ones)
I brought some of last spare LED modules and soldered battery connectors to triple their meager battery life
After fixing my shirt for half the boat party (at least I got to enjoy the music), it was working again for the night club party (excuse the terrible dirty club mirror):
Malta, the new Europe Trance Destination? Rong Malta vs Euphoria Malta vs Capture Malta
I'm not going to talk about Lumi here again, you can go read my past reports from this year for more details, but the only reason I mention it in this Malta heading, is that more people have been looking for alternatives to lumi, for a combination of reasons ranging from pricing (honestly I don't feel lumi is terribly overpriced for that it offers, but lodging nearby has gotten more expensive for sure), the security team (will leave it at that), too many party people who aren't true trance lovers, especially on saturdays, and probably the most visible change has been the loss of small festival feel as lumi has been becoming bigger, more commercial (sorry, but the 6E water thing is insulting) and more expensive every year.
I have to say that this happens to many festivals as they become more popular, unless they take steps to prevent growth by limiting venue size and capping ticket sales, most festivals tend to grow until they feel big and commercial.
So why am I saying all this? Well, because this in my opinion created these new festivals in Malta this year (2 out of 3 were new), from Rong Festival Malta, Euphoria Festival Malta just a few weeks later (unfortunate calendar timing and just a few days after EDC Vegas, making it unreasonable to attend for me), and then of course this Captured Festival also in Malta
So I hope I won't spoil anything by answering the question now of which Malta Trance Festival do I recommend, and honestly I would say all 3, but since that's not really feasible for most, including me, I'll describe all 3 so that you can choose, with the understanding that I have never been to Euphoria so it's just my understanding, not personal experience. I will go from cheaper and least commercial to more expensive and more commercial:
Euphoria Festival Malta is indeed the cheapest and most grass roots of the 3, if it weren't just a few days after EDC and I could have attended, I'm pretty sure it's similar to Anomaly Summer of Trance in feel, just without the 4 stages from ASOL: smaller festival feel, more chance to chat with and meet the DJs, and so so forth. The DJs will be less mainstage big festival DJs, but that's also a good thing in many ways, and I really mean this: I've attended lots of big festivals with the big name DJs, I do absolutely enjoy them, but it's really a nice and a breath of fresh air to enjoy smaller festivals that simply have more of a family and friends feel and where you're going to get real trance (more techno and hardstyle in the bigger trance festivals this year). I hope I didn't screw this description since indeed I wanted to attended, but just couldn't. Please send me corrections on IG or FB messenger if needed.
Captured Festival Malta would go in the middle, it had more of a mix of DJs between lesser known, cheaper to book and easier to meet before/after their set, to bigger name DJs that cost more, come with riders (a list of expensive alcohol bottles to provide before/after the show), that are less likely to mingle in the crowd. Since this page is about captured, depending on the day, it was 1 to 4 stages of music. This was the only one of the 3 to have psytrance (on day 3 only). You could pay with regular money, except on the first boat and the club on the 4th day, so that was a plus compared to all those festivals that require buying fake money credits (except day4 that definitely required them :( ).
Rong Malta was also a first timer in Malta this year, and they had a bigger lineup of more expensive DJs, as well as well as more means in lighting, lasers, and a few fireworks. It was also the only of the 3 that had more expensive VIP tickets. They sadly also required fake money you had to buy beforehand. Outside of the fake money/token nonesense, I also had a great time there, but it's of course a slightly bigger festival vibe without being a mega festival, or even feeling as big as lumi.
For comparison, Lumi would fit here as bigger even (4 stages for all 4 days and 11h/day), and most DJs (too many for me) in that amount of time.
Verdict: you will have fun and great trance at all 3 of those 3 Malta Festivals:
So even if I had been able to all 3, I wouldn't tell you that one is clearly is better choice. I think I'll be pragmatic and maybe point to your time off calendar as well as your budget. All 3 are fun in their own way, and none of them are a bad choice, and by that I mean no showstoppers or things that really would turn you off like some of the stuff at the trance festival that shall not be named anymore :) If some of you think I might be hard to please, actually I'm happy by default, and you have to give me clear reasons to be unhappy with unnecessary BS (and yeah, fake money/tokens goes in that bucket), over the top security, and/or petiness (figure out how much money you need, charge me the correct amount in the ticket price, and then no nickel and diming). And FFS, no ridiculous crap like Parookaville which after my having bought two expensive VIP tickets totalling just over 1000 euros, they refused to give me both wristbands because both were in my name and the other one had to be in my festival buddy's name. They then sent me to a long and slow line in full sun to pay them extra money on my already paid ticket for a name change which in turn finally allowed them to give me the 2nd wristband. OMG, never again!
So back to Malta, you'll have a good time at all 3 festivals, and now you know where to lean if you prefer small and intimate vs slightly bigger.
The People
As always, people are what makes those events that much more fun of course, and glad to see the same friends around the world:
Ferry Tayle had the winning shirt
I used his idea :)
Airwave suggested we modify it, slightly :)
Had a bit of fun as usual.
Steve was having a good time, as always:
he actually requested that we take this picture :)
And now I'm also lucky enough to have pictures with both Vini Vicis :)
my first one from 2021
I also had an updated graphic for Andy Moor
As well as Sean Tyas
Plus plenty of friends and people with fun outfits:
Day 1
A bit like Rong, it was different things on different days. The first day was kind of chill with an optional extra cost boat party, which turned out to be the exact same boat I had been on months prior for Rong Malta :) The one nice thing Captured did was to rented 2 similar boats to allow more people to experience the party, and as extra bonus, the DJs were able to swap between boats during the night, allowing both boats to get mostly the same music.
The only small minus was that the boats left 1.5h late (took a long time to get everyone checked in), so the cruise was mostly sunset/night, which wasn't a bad thing after all
Solarstone
and Ferry Tayle
After the boat party was over, there was an after party at a club that got changed last minute (you had to know to follow the FB group to stay updated with multiple changes), so I went there for a short while, but having barely slept the previous nights and having just gotten out of burning man 2 days prior, I was totally exhausted and went to get some sleep
on the plus side, while my outfit came in pieces in the luggage, after the boat party I had it assembled and fixed again
Day #1 Video Summary:
A few sets I was able to record
Ferry Tayle:
Solarstone:
Day 2
The organizers were ambitious and had planned day parties starting around noon for the remaining days, but had to communicate that they got cancelled due to last minute issues with the venues. Honestly that was not an issue for me, the weather was honestly hot and sweaty as balls and it was not fun to party in those conditions. It was so much nicer when I went to Malta in May, this time around, it felt like Thailand, which was not a good thing. Until sunset, the weather was pretty unbearable all those days. I'll also add that Malta has a lot of cool things to visit, so it was not a bad thing to have some morning and early afternoon time to visit attractions.
Everything for days 2 and 3 was at Gianpula Village, a clubbing destination in the middle of Malta with multiple independent clubs inside:
and finally the sun went to hide and weather became a bit more bearable:
room 2 was upstairs with a nice top view and swimming pool
Back to mainstage, now that things were finally dark:
great to see FactorB again
and Thrillseekers
If you got hungry, basic food was available at reasonable prices. Tap water is drinkable in Malta, was available, and no one cared that I brought water in my camelback (contrast with lumi obviously):
we did get some lasers
Day #2 Video Summary:
And a few sets I was able to record:
Thrillseekers:
JOC:
Factor B:
Giuseppe Ottaviani:
`
Day 3
Day 3 was also at Gianpula Village, but used different clubs inside it than the previous days.
Day 3 was the longest day/night with 4 different stages, so plenty of music. The rooftop location was all vynil mixing, old school:
Orkidea
Sam Mitcham was one of the organizers and also mixed vinyl for us
great way to enjoy sunset
Back at mainstage, Paavo was there playing his new music as P.O.S: (initials of his name, if you didn't know :) )
The cool thing was underground, which played psytrance all night. It was a very cool looking cave venue:
Back at mainstage with a lovely set from Solarstone (partial recording below):
the main room had legit lighting
The big surprise for me was Emma Hewitt who came to sing live on stage. Not all the songs were hers, but I'm a sucker for live singing trance, so I had a great time (full set below):
Vini Vici was next on mainstage for some great psytrance (full set below):
The main room was banging for the rest of the night:
Bryan was nice enough to take pictures with fans
Bryan Kearney:
Lostly:
And more trance vinyl classics at the same time, stage hopping:
Day #3 Video Summary:
Day 4
Sunday was the last day, home stretch! The last venue was another club, slightly that last venue had a stupid token policy, with a minimum spend, no less. WTF is that? You have to spend 30E if all you want is a drink? Well, as usual when they have ridiculous policies like that, I made sure to not spend a dime, and I wish more would do the same to tell them how not ok this is.
plenty of ways to spend your tokens, a $30 tequila bottle for 219E :)
I found out the night before that my LED panels grew a fault after some post burning man damage, so I brought enough to do panel surgery and replace the broken panel while enjoying some trance :)
Burning man unfortunately damaged the chips on my board, creating green lines
so I spent time at the pool listening to music dealing with the ugly parts of my outfit, I try not to show anymore ;)
old panel out, new panel in (I have 6 panels total)
The venue had 2 rooms, both playing lovely trance:
nice swimming pool
not everyone got thirsty :)
and Paul Oakenfold was up to no good ;)
So happy to see Andy Moor again, got the full set here:
Paul did a banging classics set, 30y of perfecto (also full set):
And then, very glad to have Sean Tyas again, it had been a while for me, full set below:
The party went on for a little while longer, but I had an early appointment the next day, so I ended things there to get a bit of rest
Day #4 Video Summary:
Conclusion
This festival was similar to Rong Malta in many ways, multiple venues, 4 days, lots of fun. Glad that I was able to attend.
Mpre photos:
Here are sets from one stage I recorded. The video quality is not great, but I figured it was still good to have a nice souvenir and be able to re-enjoy the music:
Day1:
As mentioned at the top, there is a fair amount of competition on Malta Trance Festivals. While I only went to 2 out of the 3 possible, honestly all 3 are fun, and it may be more whether this one fits your work/vacation schedule
Everything wasn't perfect, there were some location changes, the day parties I probably would not have gone to anyway, got cancelled, and they did a reasonable job communicating with us abtou what was going on.
I will say for this festival too, thanks to its more limited size, that you could meet the organizers, and they cared.
security was more than reasonable at all venues, which again, I was thankful for. I just brought my camelback with water every day and it was not an issue.
For this festival too, it being smaller in size (not in length) allowed for meeting the DJs more easily, which was nice. Some bigger name DJs came and went without you being able to ever see them, but so be it. Having Emma play live was unexpected and a big plus for me ;)
For my pet peeve of stupid fake money and tokens, it was mostly ok except the first boat that had tokens, and the 4th day venue that had ridiculous tokens with a 30E minimum spend. Organizers, please tell venues not to do this, or select other ones that don't do this BS.
Good crowd of trance lovers, thanks to all of you.
So thank you to everyone who made this happen, for a first year event in this new country, things went quite well considering.
As an end of my EU festival tour, I was able to attend ASOL, Anomaly Summer of Trance in Birmingham, which was a lovely local trance festival. While it is a fan organized festival from trance lovers to trance lovers in a local park, I didn't expect all that much, but I was pleasantly surprised and it was much more than what I expected: it had 4 stages, including proper psytrance.
The park was cut in 2, half was for campsite, and the other half was for the festival. It ran from 12:00 to 23:00, and while the footprint wasn't huge, we were only a few hundred people and it worked out just fine. On top of that there was virtually no sound bleed between the stages, and two of them were covered, allowing for nice lights and lasers before the sun set (although there was also 3 hours of actual night.
ASOL Compared to Others
So since people say I compare lumi to everything, when I'm not even trying (like Lumi vs EDC Vegas which would be a ridiculous comparison), in this case I think it's actually fun to compare ASOL and Lumi, so there we go (yes, this comparison is only half serious :) ):
Lumi: 4 stages, 4 days, 11h/day, sunset stage usually packed too much to be useful and with terrible sound and soundbleed
Asol: 4 stages, 2 days, 11h/day, all stages had room, little soundbleed
Psytrance?
Lumi: no psytrance, why don't you like trance, are you a terrorist?
Asol: nice little psytrance stage, even if it was for only 20 to 30 people there (thank you for them)
Sunset?
Lumi: yes, and nice ones most nights (as late as 22:15 or so)
Asol: not really, but you don't have to clean sand from your socks and shoes :)
Crowds:
Lumi: overpacked, especially on saturday, too many party people who barely know the music
Asol: just trance lovers, plenty of space
Crowd Size:
Lumi: at least 10x bigger than aosl (maybe 50x bigger on saturday?)
Asol: smaller, more cozy.
Note that for actual ground footprint, ASOL is not that much smaller than Lumi, if at all. It was also flat, no sand, and much more comfortable as a result.
How much night/darkness:
Lumi: 45mn of night (longest day of the year, curfew 23:00), barely any lights, no lasers, no covered/indoor-ish stage (Lumi at its old location, Bernie's had indoor stages, but the new location does not).
Asol: 3.5h of night (curfew also 23:00), 2 stages covered with lights and lasers that were usable half the day
Lockers/In and Outs:
Lumi: lockers that got sold many times last year, causing thefts, and in my case I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure actual staff emptied my locker overnight thinking it was a one day locker (they were wrong) and then kept all my stuff. As of 2024, partial in and outs were allowed.
Asol: no lockers, but for most, campsite was just across the fence. However I believe in and outs were not allowed, so basically you had to bring all your things in. I brought my festival backpack and left it by the stage from time to time, I didn't feel too worried about theft. Actually the bar did have a coat check and could keep your stuff if needed.
Bathrooms:
Lumi: basic porta potties that were in the way of a stage and made it smell bad
Asol: actually the best, cleanest and best maintained porta potties I've seen at any festival. Not in the way of any stage, no smell issues.
So, since I'm now doing more festivals than I have time to do reports after the fact near realtime, posting stories on instagram is important to me since I least I can contribute something on the fly, as opposed to weeks later. As a result, internet connectivity is useful:
Lumi: cell connectivity was good enough, no wifi
Asol: cell connectivity was good enough, no wifi
Lodging distance and price:
Lumi: nearby lodging was 15mn away or so (by bike), and around $200/nght unless you found shared properties, no onsite camping.
Asol: nearby lodging was 15mn away or so (by foot), the mercure was also $200/night or you could camp onsite for very cheap
Drinkable water and food:
Lumi: no drinkable tap water (well there is, they won't let you access it), overpriced bottled water and drinks, a fair amount of food vendors but not great food
Asol: no drinkable tap water, reasonably enough priced bottled water and drinks, they let me in with a camelback full of water so it didn't matter. They were two food trucks, which is not a lot but was sufficient for the crowd and food was ok enough.
Security rules and staff:
Lumi: tie for worst security guys with creamfields, looking for a fight, and not giving a rat's derriere if attendees have a good time
Asol: best vibes, totally cool folks, and really the fence was mostly honor system, we all wanted to pay so that the organizers could pay the bills and hopefully make a small profit (unfortunately I read the profit was meager)
Let's talk about security a bit more. First, I need to start with saying that Holland is otherwise a chill an sensible country. They are not constantly worried about being attacked. UK however is very worried all the time, you get metal detector, body scan and X-ray machine searched almost everywhere, including even just an aquarium in London. Similarly when I was travelling, most venues would not allow me to stash my luggage somewhere when I didn't have a car, and my previous hotel was 2 towns away while my next one was 2h train away, because "bomb risk". So yeah, definitely not something I like about the UK. And yet, this is still what happened:
Lumi: over the top security search, up to last year prevented TSA approved small liquids, still prevents sprays like small hair sprays, and plenty of other things that could maybe be used for an attack that that never happened in Holland that I know of. That's another way to say that Lumi is applying ridiculous and unnecessary levels of security.
Asol: mostly honor system security, they were very nice and friendly and maybe they were just making sure no one would bring an axe or actual weapon. It couldn't have been more welcoming and friendly than that.
Now, this is where I need to state that in both festivals, it was trivial to throw things inside under or over the fence, but Asol didn't bother making your life miserable for no reason when things could be smuggled in anyway, while the fake security lumi team tried to save the world at the gate while it was trivial to bring anything in past the fence, including of course the water they tried so hard to prevent.
I've lost faith on Lumi ever getting a properly festival trained security team that is actually there to maximize attendee enjoyment while keeping things safe where there is really a need, not calling bomb alerts on an LED outfit, potentially stealing from lockers at night (unconfirmed, but it's the most likely explanation for what happened to my stuff there) or letting them be stolen from by reselling lockes many times, and now by literally grabbing attendees' genitals during entrance searches. So Bo, if someone sends you this, please show me wrong, fix this, and I will happily eat my words and credit you for this change. Hell, if I can finally get assurance that it's safe for me to go back to Lumi with a new a more reasonable security team and rules, I will seriously consider it. In the meantime, Asol has shown us all what security can look like when the crowds are the best crowds (and aren't trance people, the best?). Trance lovers don't do barfights and don't need bar bouncers looking for a fight to get a boner, we need the "boner check supervisor" :)
Free massage/sizing of your genital package at the entrance:
Lumi: included in some security lines as of 2024 (there is apparently an equivalent option for women, they are not sexist)
Asol: not included by default, but I'm told you can call the erection supervisor, and he will likely help you out :)
And to summarize my paragraph above:
Lumi: Security seems to get a boner when they got to rough up attendees and drag them out by show of force, including a friend of mine I'm pretty sure, never attacked them for caused physical trouble (and even then a good security team uses their mediation skills to de-escalate)
Asol: Security was there to check everyone's boners :)
The Grounds:
The venue was a short walk from the mercure hotel, which had nice beds if you didn't want to camp in the grass:
nice walk with blackberries
campers onsite were right there
medical staff on hand
food was 2 food trucks with decent enough options
bar prices were reasonable
one stage was a fun stage in a truck and worked well
there was a nice psytrance stage
cool decors
The People
What was fun is both days had a theme, water/ocean the first day, and disco the 2nd day. Lots of people came with costumes and it made the event even more fun:
Day 2 was disco:
got to meet Ben Elliott, and many other TFUK folks
Meeting DJs
Day #1
Day #1 Video Summary:
And a few sets I was able to record:
Ciaran McCauley
Alex Morph:
Alan Watts:
Jordan Suckley:
Day #2
Day #2 was disco outfit day!
Day #2 Video Summary:
And a few sets I was able to record:
Alessandra Ronconne:
Lostly:
David Forbes:
Ben Gold:
John 00 flemming:
Should you go? Would I go Back?
Decors, lasers, and lights were actually more than I expected, well done for a small festival!
This year again, security was more than reasonable, thank you.
22 hours of trance on 3 to 4 stages, that's a lot
Is it worth flying across the world for? Ok, maybe not, but if you are within Europe and short flight/train away, please do.
I loved the vibes and the crowds and would love to go back. This is also where I would tell you, just like Rong Malta, that is really sucks and you shouldn't come with all your badly drunk friends to f it up :) Unfortunately the organizers have for now said that they won't be doing the event again due to the amount of work and slightly negative profits, which is a shame but understandable. I feel lucky and thankful to have been able to attend this special event, and my heartfelt thanks to them for making the event happen these last years, and so happy I was able to attend this year.
Here are sets from one stage I recorded. The video quality is not great, but I figured it was still good to have a nice souvenir and be able to re-enjoy the music:
Day1:
Visting the Eiffel Tower has gotten harder nowadays, sign up online, security lines outside, lines inside for the elevator, no fun... But, if you couple that with a top michelin rated restaurant, then it's much easier ;)
Jules Vernes has its own small elevator to get to the 2nd floor and bypass the lines:
It has 3 rooms showing different views of Paris, luckily I got a table at the nicest one of the 3:
You get great views while dining:
I took the 7 course tasting menu, presentation and food were top notch:
It had been a long time since I had been up the Eiffel tower, not quite 20 years, but close. And with the new airport security gate BS where you can't even walk under the Eiffel Tower without going through security gates, courtesy of terrorist fears (I won't write a long rant on that, but I personally think it's a BS overreaction and instead they should have skilled law enforcement patrolling and looking for suspect people at all such sites):
Anyway, thanks to a reservation at Jules Vernes, it was easy to get in and get a private elevator ride to the 2nd floor, enjoy yummy food, get lots of pictures, and then walk down to the 1st floor and back down without having to take any regular elevator or any lines, so that worked great :)
Going to the 3rd floor was not possible without very advance tickets, but honestly it's a small floor and the view is great from the 2nd floor as is.
Views from the top:
Russian orthodox church
This time around was a bit different due to the olympics as they had many blue seats/viewing platforms for the multiple locations the games happened at:
some hot air balloon in the middle of jardin des tuileries
pont de l'alma was totally closed, even to pedestrians
And on the 1st floor, there are multiple stores, as well as a VR game:
I arrived in Paris just after the Olympics, when most of the mess was over, but many installations were still there, and some were there for upcoming para olympics a few weeks later. It was interesting to see Paris in this different way:
Lafayettes Gourmet is fun to visit, so much yummy food:
A little bit of chocolate:
Checked out some more unusual museums:
musee du parfum is in a pretty old private residence
Nextdoor-ish, flyview Paris had multiple interesting VR movies:
Place vendome:
Jardin des tuileries was a bit weird and still half closed due to olympics. It had this interesting hot air balloon in the middle:
Had dinner with David at La Plume, nice restaurant with view:
Then it was time to see Luminiscence at Eglise St Eustache: