The Netherlands, continued

Hi all! I realize I am quite behind on my blog posts, and my excuse is that I have been too busy having adventures and discovering the world and haven’t had the time (or consistent wifi access) to keep you updated. Please forgive me! I am currently preparing to fly to Spain, but first I will tell you abut the rest of my time in the Netherlands, September 12-18. 

In the last post I wrote about Amsterdam. We were there for 2 days and I really enjoyed it. Before leaving the Netherlands we also saw the towns of Gouda (pronounced HOW-da) and Maastricht, and that is what I will show you today. 

Gouda is a really cute town, known for its cheese (go figure) and the magnificent stained glass in the church of St. John. The windows depict both Biblical scenes and scenes from the history of the Netherlands.  Also it is the longest church (123 meters) in the Netherlands.

 
We sampled lots of cheese at a little specialty shop in town and finally bought some basil-flavored cheese (it was green!).  

Cheese is everywhere in Gouda (see the canal above). It’s really a way of life in this town. 
We also went to the cheese museum, above the tourist office, and learned about the history of cheese-making from an enthusiastic guide and a short video.  Here you see the front of the museum, a diagram of a cow explaining how they digest their food and produce milk, and an example of some cheese ready for market. (It’s not actual cheese, but we did get more free samples at the museum!)

    
  
After our day in Gouda, we moved on to Maastricht for two days.  

 There is a lot to see in this town, and we would both go back if we get the chance. We had lunch at a café which houses a flour mill built in the 1400s (and still operating!). The mill produces flour for the bread and other baked goods at the café. Here we are in front of the wheel that turns the mill:

 

We also saw the old city wall, or what remains of it, and learned from another enthusiastic guide about the oldest standing defense tower in Maastricht.   

On our second day in Maastricht, we went to see Fort St Pieter at the south edge of town. It was built as a supplement to the city wall to head off attacks from Belgium, which is only a hop-skip-and-jump away from Maastricht.    

After checking out the fort, we took a guided tour of the Maastricht underground caves. The network of tunnels and rooms underneath the city has existed since the 1100s when people started digging them. They’ve been used as shelter for peasants during war, as hideouts and hangouts for locals, and as artistic outlets. There are coal drawings all over the tunnels, dating from the last few decades all the way back to the last century. Here’s one of my favorites:

 

One more tidbit from Maastricht: we found a local bookstore in a building that used to be a cathedral. Talk about reduce, reuse, recycle! It retains much of its cathedral splendor and even has a cross-shaped table for the small café at the back, but now the main focus is on the three levels of bookshelves running along the center of the sanctuary.  
That’s all from the Netherlands! Thanks for reading, and tune in next time to hear about the south of France.  

Amsterdam!

I’m in the Netherlands now! I took a train from Paris on Saturday and met up with Becca, who flew there to join me. We’re staying at a cute little hostel/hotel in the town of Utrecht, a 30-minute train ride south of Amsterdam. Yesterday, we visited the Amsterdam Palace, the Amsterdam Museum, took a canal cruise, and visited the Anne Frank House. Let’s look at those one at a time. 

The Palace 

 The Royal Palace of Amsterdam was built in 1648 to be a town hall, and remained in that function until 1808 when Louis Napoleon (brother of emperor Napoleon Bonaparte) moved to town and made it his royal residence. Many of the civic offices were turned into bedrooms and salons (like a sitting room or parlor). However, the French Empire soon came to an end and in 1813 the palace came into the hands of the William I of the House of Orange, who promised to return the building to its original public use. Today, the palace usually functions as a museum but also is used to host public functions and some government events. The audio tour was very informative as well as a bit quirky. Overall a wonderful tour. Here are some picture highlights:

   
 Mars and Venus looking at each other adoringly from adjacent walls. 
   The architect put a lot of thought into the sculptures and images around the hall. This image of Icarus appears above the bankruptcy chamber, warning citizens not to be rash with their investments. Icarus, as you may know, was able to fly with the wings his father made for him out of feathers and beeswax, but he got a little too confident in his abilities and flew too close to the sun. The heat from the sun caused his wings to melt and he, consequently, fell to his death. 

 Chairs bearing the crest of the city of Amsterdam

   That’s what I call a chandelier!
 
The piano in this room is from Louis Napoleon’s reign
  Atlas holds up the globe in the central hallway. Amsterdam considered itself to be the center of the world in the 1600s (it is true that they were the center for a lot of world trade as well as a safe haven for all sorts of people who faced persecution elsewhere). 

The Amsterdam Museum   

 I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures in the museum, but in the ones above you can see the Catholics entering Amsterdam churches and then being run out by Protestants after the Reformation. 

This museum offered a pretty detailed account of the history of Amaterdam, beginning when it was founded in the 13th century up to present-day (I think the last year on the timeline was 2011). We learned that the city was built on swampland, so the buildings are held up and stabilized by long poles driven into the ground. Initially a fishing village, Amsterdam grew rapidly through the 1500s to become a vital center for world trade in the 1600s. It gained a reputation for being accepting of all people; many people came to Amsterdam to escape persecution or just to find better work, and the city was happy to take any and all of them as long as it meant continued prosperity and economic development. 

Canal boat tour 

 
We have a 48-hour tourist pass called the “I amsterdam” card (free entrance to several museums as well as public transportation!) and with it we were able to take a canal boat cruise. It was nice to sit for a while and let all the facts about Amsterdam’s history settle in our brains, and we got a different view of the city. We saw plenty of houseboats, which are more popular because regular housing in Amsterdam is not sufficient for the number of people who live there. We also got a great view of the St Nicholas Catholic church near Centraal Station:  

The canal tour dropped us off in front of our last stop for day 1 in Amsterdam: the Anne Frank House. I don’t have photos to share because they’re not allowed in the main part of the museum, but I’ll tell you that it’s a very moving experience to walk through the house and read about Anne’s time there. Her father, Otto Frank, is the only member of the family who survived the war, and in creating the museum he wanted to keep the restored building  virtually empty. All the rooms were stripped of furniture and other belongings after the family was taken away, and the emptiness is a reminder of the void left by those who did not come home. Anne’s diary was saved by a friend, who had been bringing them food and supplies while they were in hiding, and saw it before everything else was removed. She saved it, hoping to return it to Anne, but gave it to Otto when they learned that Anne was not coming home. He waited a while before reading it, then eventually decided to get it published, and soon it became an international bestseller. 
That’s Amsterdam in a day. More from the Netherlands in the week ahead. 

Compiègne

Yesterday I went to the cute little town of Compiègne, a bit north of Paris. The lovely Christine met me at the train station and led me on a tour of the town, ending at the château (because every self-respecting town near Paris has a palace). This, I learned, is not a castle but the city hall being all impressive: 

 
The real château is much more impressive, and I got to take a tour while Christine was in class. Here are some pictoral highlights:   The château, as seen from the far side of the gardens. 

 A painting of the château from some of its glory days. 

   This is the ballroom!

 Bedroom for the empress
   Tea and music room. This is where guests would retire for afternoon tea or a séance after dinner. 

 Napoleon’s library
   The king’s bedroom

 In the game room; an early form of Plinko?
  You may have seen s-shaped chairs for two people to have an intimate conversation, and this is the same idea but for 3 conspirators! Or just 3 friends who want to be able to hear one another in the midst of a party. 
I also had a great time exploring the adjoining gardens:   

   

After the château experience we walked around town some more. Joan of Arc paid the town a visit in 1430 and was held by authorities in a tower, part of which still stands: 

 
The rest of my time in Compiègne consisted of meeting some of the fine people at the university, cooking a tasty meal in the dorm kitchen, and walking along the river before catching a train back to Paris. 

Today is my last day in the city of lights. I’ll see you next week from the Netherlands!

Fountainebleau

Today I went to the town of Fountainebleau to see the château (castle) and gardens. It takes about 40 minutes to get there from Paris by train and is considered to be in zone 5, for those of you with Navigo passes. Like any good tourist, I took a selfie when I got there in front of the main entrance:  

 
And then proceeded to the visitors entrance and audio-guided tour (which was quite informative, helpful, and well-done). I found myself occupying several centuries at once, as the original château was built in the 12th century but it has been renovated and added to by François I,  Henri IV, and Napoleon I (to name a few). Each one added their own tastes and preferences to the rooms, and some redid parts of the château entirely; there is a staircase labeled “Bedroom of the Duchess of Etempes” because it was originally her bedroom chamber (intentionally placed next to the chamber of François I, around 1541), but Louis XV converted it to be a royal staircase in 1748.

 Here are some other highlights in photos:

   Napoleon’s chambers while at war. It’s been reconstructed the way he would have set up his quarters, with one half of the tent for planning and meetings, the other half with a cot for sleeping. 
 Napoleon’s military uniform. The hat stands out because he preferred a simple hat that was never very new or pristine. 

   Chamber for Napoleon I’s son, named the king of Rome before he was even conceived (that’s what I call planning ahead!)
 Mantelpiece chariot, with a bit of subtle advertising (Rolex refurbished it)  

 Painting in he Hall of Celebration 

    Above, you see a view from the balcony of the chapel of the Trinity. Below, the view from the floor. 
  Above and below are photos from the grand ballroom. 
   

 Clock in the Louis XIII chamber, modeled after the Apollo fountain at Versailles  
 Napoleon’s throne room

 In the courtyard  
In the “Grand Parterre” gardens    Statue of Diana in the Diana Garden. 
 Fountain in the Grand Parterre

   Looking at the Grand Parterre from the English garden
 River in the English garden 

   Walking trail in the English garden

Thanks for strolling through the grounds of Fountainbleau with me! I learned a lot in the château and had a splendid time walking through the gardens; the English garden made me feel like I was in a forest, oblivious to the cars passing just outside the garden walls thanks to the towering trees and dense foliage surrounding the walking paths. I’m delighted that the Renaissance Kings were so fond of such landscaping. 

I’ll be back exploring the streets of Paris for the next two days. As always, thanks for reading!

I made it!

Those of you who have heard about my last trip to Paris will recall that I got stranded because of snow delays, first in Chicago, then Shannon, Ireland, and finally in London before arriving in Paris about 24 hours behind schedule. I had a much smoother ride this time, landing only 30 minutes behind schedule and taking the RER into downtown like a pro. I managed to take a long nap this afternoon and have been visiting with my host mom from before (when I studied abroad here) and their new exchange student, also from Valpo. Now it’s about time for bed on this side of the world! Let the adventures continue tomorrow. And thank you to everyone who sent prayers and positive thoughts my way on the journey!

Here we go again…

The rumors are true: American Charlotte is going back to Paris, and beyond! The adventure begins tomorrow with a flight to Paris and will include appearances in Amsterdam, Marseille, Nice, Taize, Madrid, and many more! I got a snazzy new backpack:

It’s packed now and ready to go. In preparation for the trip, I also got a smart phone for keeping in touch on-the-go.

That’s right, I just rocketed into the 21st century! Look out world, Charlotte is coming to Europe and she’s ready for adventure! Keep an eye out, friends, and I will post updates and pictures over the next two months so you can see some of the world with me. Here I go!

Loire Valley, Day 2

Welcome back! Last week I wrote about the first half of my visit to the Loire Valley Chateaux, but then school and exams intervened so I wasn’t able to finish until now. I left off on Saturday night, after a great day of visiting Amboise and Chenonceau, and having dinner in the town of Tours. Saturday was quite wet; we tended to have clear skies whenever we arrived somewhere, but as soon as we let our guard down it started raining. Sunday, however, was nice and sunny, and we even dared to leave our umbrellas on the bus.

We left Tours at about 9:45 after breakfasting in the hotel and headed for the Chateau de Cheverny. Unlike the others we visited, Cheverny is sitll privately owned and the family lives in half of the castle. We had a guided tour of the other half, showing some of the history of the family through antique furniture, art, and tapestries. One of my favorite rooms was the music room (below). Cheverny served as the inspiration for Captain Haddock’s chateau in the adventures of Tintin, a popular European comic in the mid-20th century. After our tour indoors, we walked around the lovely gardens in the back and found another hedge maze! The hedges were higher on this one and it was a little more challenging than the one at Chenonceau. We also saw several people sitting on the lawns and enjoying the sun.

After Cheverny, we had lunch at a local crêperie and met at the bus to move on to our final stop, Chambord. Chambord is the largest of the Loire VAlley Chateaux;  426 rooms, 77 staircases, 282 chimneys. Here’s a view of the back, as we walked up to it, and the front as we prepared to enter. It’s laid out in a style similar to castles of the Middle Ages; the entrance gate leads to a courtyard and the actual castle is surrounded by a wall.

We each toured the inside at our own pace. I spent some time in the chapel, which served as a shelter for many pieces of art from the Louvre (including the Mona Lisa) and other museums during the second World War. I really enjoyed seeing the game room, which featured several games that Louis XIV actually would have played. There was a board game similar to chutes and ladders, and several card and dice games, all of which involved chance or gambling in some way.

We all met up again shortly after Chambord closed at 5pm and boarded the bus one last time to go back to Paris. On the way home, we had a trivia time during which our guide asked us several questions about information we should have learned on the trip. They kept track of who answered the most correctly, and the winner received a voucher for a boat ride down the Seine with four friends and a bottle of champagne! I got a few answers correct, but wasn’t quick enough with the others. It was a great way to review and cap off the weekend.

Loire Valley, Day 1

Château Amboise

This weekend, I went on a group excursion to see some of the Loire Valley Châteaux (castles). There were about 55 of us in the group,  representing 17 different nationalities, mostly undergrad/graduate students. We met at 8am on Saturday and headed out of town on a bus, reaching the first Château, Amboise, at 11. We had an hour and a half to see the Château and surrounding area, so my seat-mate and I circled its outer wall and then found some cute houses on the backroads.

 

 

 

Chenonceau, as viewed from the gardens

After that, we headed for the second château, Chenonceau. We got caught in the rain on our way into and out of Chenonceau, which became a theme for the rest of the day. We had more time to spend there, exploring the grounds and the interior, which was a bit more extensive than that of Amboise. I picked up a visitor’s guide in French as well as one in English, but I lost the English version; perhaps it’s a sign that I should trust my French and not always leave myself a safety-net! Anyway, Chenonceau is one of the historic châteaux, which means it’s mainly a tourist attraction and not a functioning residence. It was built in 1513 by Katherine Briçonnet, but Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici each added on to it later in the same century. The main addition, the gallery, stretches across the River Cher and was originally used as a ballroom. During the second world war, the River Cher was the dividing line between free and occupied France, so Chenonceau became a place for French Jews to come and escape to freedom through the castle.

In the gallery

Garden of Catherine de Medici

There was also a labyrinth on the grounds, which we found to be quite easy to traverse because of its symmetry and the fact that the hedges were shorter than us! It’s meant to be more decorative than challenging, though, and our tour guide Jeff told us that hedge mazes also had the connotation of being a place to meet up with one’s lover in secret.

 

After the two châteaux, we headed to the town of Tours. We started at the Cathedral Saint-Gatien, which was built between 1170 and 1547 and represents several different architectural styles because its construction spans such a long timeframe. It’s beautiful inside and outside, and very ornate. One thing I really appreciated was the very detailed descriptions of each stained-glass window at the front (you can’t see them all in the picture, but they wrap around to frame the walls above the chancel area).

We were then free to explore the city. My seatmate and I decided to head for the historic part of town and check out the buildings and architecture there. It started drizzling, then raining, then pouring, so we finally gave up on that idea and settled for a cup of tea in a cozy little Salon de thé.

The whole tour group met up once more at around 6:30 to go to our hotel and get our room assignments. We stayed in an Ibis Budget hotel, which was very simple but rather nice. I roomed with Naomi, who grew up in Sri Lanka, and a gal named Daniela from Chile. Naomi and I both spoke English, but Daniela did not; we all spoke at about the same level of French, which was great. We could communicate with each other without too much problem, and I didn’t worry about not speaking fast enough or pausing to think about what words I needed.

I went to dinner with five other girls who I happened to meet while waiting for the tour bus in Paris that morning. We went to an Iraqi restaurant, and when we sat down the waiter asked where we were from. At this point we realized that the six of us represented five different countries of origin: India, Cameroon, Sri Lanka, United States, and two from Germany. Four of us ordered couscous, which was fantastic because they brought out two platters of couscous and two bowls of steamed vegetables, then brought more after we devoured that. We followed the couscous with sweet mint tea and ended up staying at the restaurant for over two hours, the conversation flowing from English to French and back again. The restaurant was in the historic part of town, so we got to see some of that after all!

Thus ends the first half of my weekend in the Loire Valley. Stay tuned for Day 2…

Concert Confusion

I went to a concert tonight at the Musée d’Orsay, by a British choral group called “The Sixteen” (though, ironically, there were 18 singers…). When I got to the museum, I went up to the ticket counter with my request for a student-discount ticket all planned out in my head. This is what actually happened (translated to English for your benefit):

Lady behind the counter (let’s call her Anne) – Hello!

Me – Hello! I, uh, I would like a ticket fo-

Anne – Yeah. How old are you?

Me – 21.

Anne – What country are you from?

Me – USA

Anne – Ok, that’ll be 8.50€

(I pay her, receive change and a ticket, and move on. Beyond the counter there’s a staircase to get to the auditorium and a door to get to the museum exhibits, which are open late on Thursdays. The docents there wave me on to the door instead of the stairs. This is not good; I look at my ticket more closely and realize it’s for the galleries, not the concert! So I go back to the counter.)

Me – Hi again. I’m sorry, but I wanted a ticket for the concert.

Anne (bemused, but not amused) – Oh, really? So you don’t want that ticket? I’ll have to cancel it. (She turns to her computer screen) It’s 25€ for the concert, you know… Wait, you’re under 35 so it’s 19€.

Me – That’s fine. (She gives me the 8.50€ I paid for the original ticket)

Anne – I need to see your ID for the reduced concert ticket. 

(I give her my international student ID card) 

Anne – Wait, you’re a student?! You can get into the museum free, you know?

Me – Ok, but I’d like to go to the concert.

Anne – But that’ll cost you 19€!

Me – Yes, that’s fine! (I give her 19€ and she returns my ID card. She seems incredulous that I would want to go to a concert when I could go to the galleries for free, but she gives me my ticket and bids me goodnight)

 

The concert was well worth the hassle. “The Sixteen” performed Renaissance works by John Sheppard, William Mundy, and Richard Davy, and every piece was incredible. And hey, there’s a good story to go with it, too.

Auvers-sur-Oise

So, American Charlotte finally made it out of Paris. I realized earlier this week that I arrived in Paris a month ago (really, a month already?) and hadn’t left the city since I got here.

Well, last weekend I went to Auvers-sur-Oise on a class assignment. I and a fellow classmate had to research and explore Auvers, take pictures, and make a presentation for the rest of the class showing them why they should go there on a free weekend. Because it’s February, and not tourist season, not many things were open , but what we did see we enjoyed. Vincent van Gogh lived, worked, and eventually died in Auvers. We saw his house but it was closed for renovations. We did, however, find his grave in the cemetery behind Notre Dame d’Auvers (which van Gogh painted in 1890).

Notre Dame d’Auvers

We also went to the Château d’Auvers-sur-Oise, which houses a museum of Impressionism. There’s a lovely garden out front, which was quite green considering it’s February, but I’m sure it’s even more beautiful in spring. The museum led us through the main two castle buildings and I learned quite a lot about Impressionism and about that time period in general.

After that, we found our way to the Museum of Contemporary Art. There were several stations around the museum, one next to every exhibit, with pads of post-it notes and a pen for visitors to write their thoughts and reactions to the exhibits and stick them on the wall. One exhibit depicted a photographer’s journeys in Vietnam and provided a firsthand look at daily life there. Another was a video of a dancer dressed all in white, against a white background and with white props, moving very mechanically but fluidly. Another was a room full of small trash cans, each representing the amount of stuff one family could take with them when fleeing from natural disaster.

Lunch! Crêpe, salad, cider. mmmm…

In the midst of all that we of course found time for lunch. We ate at a cute little crêperie where I had (arguably) the best crepe I have eaten since I’ve been here. Crêpe fermier:  chicken, cheese, mushrooms, and crême fraiche, with a salad on the side and a bowl pear cider to drink.

When it was time to go back to Paris, we headed to the train station and saw a man painting in a little nook built into the side of the station. He showed us works that he had done in the style of every impressionist painter I know, as well as his own depictions of life around Auvers. We marveled at his work for a while and thanked him for taking the time to talk to us before heading for the train platform. We had to walk through a tunnel under the  tracks to get to the other side, and we discovered that the same man had painted the entire tunnel! I’ll leave you with these fine images, courtesy of François Laval. If you’re ever in Auvers, look him up!