Switzerland

Over the vacations of February, I was invited by some family friends who live in The Hague to tag along for their ski trip in Switzerland.  I just got back, and for once I'm posting about an adventure within a month of said adventure actually happening.  I'll put up more photos later...For now I'm just putting up some photos taken by Ivy, the family's au paire, and stolen off facebook.  Right now I'm too lazy to get photos off my camera, and I guess some photos are better than nothing!  So, without further ado...A few pictures of the Switzerland portion of the trip!

Picture from the road...This is probably in France, Belgium, or Switzerland, because "Sortie" is Exit in French, but I'm not exactly sure.

Ivy wanted to see where I live.  This was at a Shell station somewhere near Strasbourg.

This guy was hitchhiking and asked us for a ride at a gas station.  We were too packed to take in another set of skis, let alone another person, but we enjoyed his outfit...I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but he's wearing a corduroy suit with bell bottoms! 

Picturesque houses from somewhere along the route.

Me and part of the family on the gondola up the mountain on the first day.

The chairlift I didn't go on...My insurance doesn't allow me on chairlifts, so it was all cross country skiing for me, which was awesome so I didn't mind respecting the perimeters of my insurance.

This is where we are staying...And yes, it really was that adorable.

Cute little historical exhibit thingy on the village main street, one of several.

And a view of my first pair of skis, although on Ivy's feet, and the cross country trail along the mountain where I experienced cross country skiing for the first time!

My Noyon Photos

I've already posted a few pictures of the Noyon trip, but those were lazily taken from Facebook and I haven't yet bothered to post my own Noyon photos.  Until now. 

P.S.  From now on I'm going to focus less on organization and writing the post and stuff, and more on just getting up the photos.  Because I know that's what you all want to see.  The captions should explain enough, and then I can tell the stories behind the photos at length when I see you all at home :)

Nothing special, just a cool building :)  I'll photograph pretty much anything with a tower.

Memorial for the citizens of Noyon who died in WWI.  At the top of the doors it reads, "Noyon, for her children who died for France".  I'm not sure if "children" is meant metaphorically or not.  Maybe both.

The famous cathedral of Noyon, which according to Wikipedia is where Charlamagne was crowned, but not according to most other people I've asked.  So I don't know.

Pretty flower carvings.

The gates of the cathedral.

One remarkable thing about the cathedral of Noyon is that it had lots of really beautiful metal work, something I've never really seen in other cathedrals I've visited.

Podium for the priest to stand in the middle of the congregation, back in the days before microphone systems.

Painting, if my memory serves me well, of John the Baptist and someone. 

This was at the entrance of the cathedral, a little piece of evidence for the "Charlamagne-was-crowned-here" theory...

Mont Saint Michel Trip, Part 2

Approaching Mont Saint Michel...Remind you of anything?  I know I've said this to most people I know many times, but Mont Saint Michel was in fact the inspiration for Minas Tirith in the Lord of the Rings movies.  And you really get that feeling when you're there, it's very much like stepping back in time.  You can also see the back of Noah's head, for anyone interested, and Anita in profile, and the back of Gero's head.  And the bus.

Getting closer, craning neck to see up...This is at the very base of the walls.

And this is from the very base, only from the back.  I was surprised by the green hillside, since from the front Mont Saint Michel looks like a pile of grey stone towers in the middle of an expanse of grey sand.

This is the view looking towards the bay from the back of the Mont.  This other island played a role in the Hundred Year's War which you can look up if interested, but I'm not going into it here :)  Anyway, this is at the very start of our journey crossing the bay on foot.  I remember being thrilled to dunk my feet in salt water and sand again...As an island girl living in mainland Europe, I hadn't realized how much I'd missed the beach.

Pretty far out in the bay, a bunch of exchange students and the shadowing sillhouette of the Mont...

On our way across the bay the other direction, we got to see several horsepeople galloping across the sand, a really beautiful sight.  The sand here seems to go on forever, and being around Mont Saint Michel already feels like being in another time without galloping horsepeople, so it was just stunning when we saw them.

Climbing the Mont is a matter of navigating a zigzagging path of narrow streets and old stone stairways like this one. 

I was hanging out with a couple other students at this point, and our path ended up leading us through a cemetary next to a small chapel.  This flowers were growing near the enterance. 

This was taken pretty close to the top...My favorite part of French churches are, as I have mentioned before, the gargoyles.  Of course I couldn't get any kind of a close up of this ones, but you can still see them, sticking their lovely gothic necks off the roof of the cathedral.

I don't know what the exact meaning of this coat of arms is, but I know Mont Saint Michel was a huge pilgrimage destination for over a thousand years (Still is, in fact, only they started calling it tourism at the turn of the 20th century) and in the middle ages cockel shells like these were worn by pilrims and kept as souvenirs of their pilgrimage.

The inside of the Marveille, the grand cathedral at the very top of the Mount.  It's quite an architectural marvel, but again, I'll let you readers do that fascinating research on your own as it's quite a detailed story.

I think this was in a room in the monestary area, just off the main cathedral, called the Knight's room.  I don't remember why there was a ship, but there was a ship.

Courtyard with amazing carvings, of course, because here pretty much every inch of the place is covered with amazing carvings.

View of the beautiful perspective created by the rows and rows of collumns all around the perimeter of the courtyard, and of some very French hedges.

And finally, the view of the bay colored in pastels by an ancient stained glass window.