Ravi Blogs about IT Topics

We had a really fabulous and unforgettable time in France and got back late Sunday night, a lot poorer than when we left the US (thanks to the weak dollar and the fact that things in Europe are generally expensive in comparison). We spent about 5 days in Paris and the rest of the time in various places, driving… We drove to Reims (Rheims), Giverny, Rouen as well as several of the Normandy beaches. We walked a lot in Paris and enjoyed seeing things like the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, but the highlight was the museums that we went to and the time spent enjoying the food and wine with the family. We also went to the Versailles Palace and Roland Garros where the French Open tennis is played. Whereas we chose to spend a lot of time in the museums and walking around in Paris, we decided to avoid long lines to go up the Eiffel Tower or go inside the Vaersailles Palace. I thoroughly enjoyed the Musée d’Orsay with a ton of impressionist paintings and the sculptures and the Musée Rodin with sculptures installed both in a building as well as in the outdoor garden. We drove to the small town of Giverny to see Monet’s house  and its sprawling gardens which were the inspiration for his paintings prior to the visit to the museum. It made the visit to the museum even better.

I did not like our visit to the Louvre as much.  We were there on the first Sunday of the month, which is a day when all museums in Paris do not charge an entry fee. As a result, it was so crowded that in many places there was so much commotion that you just could not concentrate on what you wanted to see. The audio guide failed twice and the total number of items for which there were audio guides available were so few that it really did not help. And all valuable information on the sculptures and the art were in French. The place is vast, so your attempt to optimize what you want to see fails miserably in these conditions.

Of course, we all got to see the Mona Lisa. It was so crowded and we all felt silly at the end of it all. It reminded all of us a very famous temple in South India called Tirupathi. We all visit the temple for various reasons. One waits several hours before getting a chance to actually see the statue of the God in the temple, but the crowd control staff there keep pushing you after literally a few seconds. The Mona Lisa was the same way – you need to literally push your way to the front to see the famous small framed artwork and the security guards keep moving you saying “one picture and move”…

We walked so much in Paris… I wanted to capture our paths when it is still fresh in our memories. So I found the GMaps Pedometer where you can sketch your path and it shows it on the map as well as tell you how many miles you walked and optionally how many calories you burned! The best thing is, it lets you save it on their system and access it later using the URL it provides. On the first day, we walked approximately 10 miles!!! and enjoyed every foot of it.

Driving was absolutely no problem and we all thoroughly enjoyed the freedom we had despite the fact that the diesel cost more than double that it costs here. We drove through the countryside and through areas that we just would not be able to do in any other ways. Of course, we could not have done all of this without GPS. We rented one and we are extremely thankful we did. There was no way in the world we could have driven through and enjoy all the areas that we did without it. It had its limitations – took a while to come up and recognize satellite signals, didn’t “speak” for a while (prompting my wife to quip that Jane is angry that you are not following even her directions), and kept telling us to take the second exit on a roundabout, which simply menat continue on the same road.

Visit to the Normandy beaches were fantastic and thanks to the history buffs in the family (3 of the four) we got to see a lot and relate the places to the images we have all seen in various World War II documentaries and movies. The highlight was a visit to the Pegasus Bridge, which played a key role in the invasion where we visited the house/cafe nearby and met Madame Arlette Gondree, who was 4 years old and living with her parents in that house during the German occupation and the Allied invasion. She spent 10 minutes talking to us, recalling the day the British arrived and how her parents, who were part of the French resistance helped the British etc.

I really wish there was a way at the end of the trip when I could simply upload the path we drove from start to finish from the GPS to a website.

Internet access was available everywhere we stayed, but pretty poor and the hotel staff had no idea about problem solving. Instead we had to call an 800 number and were told that the wireless router needed a reboot. We gave up. And besides, I decided to enjoy the vacation and leave you all alone