Brad and Michele's Europe Vacation Pictures 1995

Since our trip to Europe included visiting a number of museums, this page has many pictures on it, including a few of paintings and sculptures with artistic renderings of humans with little or no clothes. If looking at such art bothers you, please look elsewhere.

France

We started our vacation in Paris and stayed at the Hotel De Nice, which is near Notre Dame. We took some of the standard pictures of the back of the cathedral. We didn't take any pictures of the front facade of the cathedral because it was undergoing a face lift. The weather was cloudy and rainy in Paris, so even the ones we took were not that good. We spent four days in Paris, and gave up on going to Versailles because the weather wasn't cooperating.

Our first night in Paris was funny because of the jet lag from San Francisco. After a ten hour flight, we checked into the hotel, cleaned up (if there's a next time I'll carry my toothbrush where it is accessable), walked around some and had dinner until night so we could get used to sleeping at night. Then we went back to the room, showered, and went to bed at 2130 or 2200. When we woke up later, it was still dark out, and Michele looked at her watch: 0600. We said, Okay, it's a little early, but let's get up since we are awake. We normally shower in the morning, so we did that, thinking it was strange that the towels didn't dry over night. After we were dressed, I noticed it was still dark, so I checked the time again: 0100. We had only slept two hours, not eight. Back to bed.

The hotel was a two-star hotel (out of four): Hotel de Nice (42 bis, rue de Rivoli; 75004 Paris 42.78.55.29. It was typical of the hotels we stayed, and was an okay hotel, no problems. Except, of course, that dump in Rome. The room we were in had a full bath, which was nice, especially for our first night out. Later hotels had the shower and toilet down the hall, or a shower and sink in the room and a toilet down the hall. I don't see how Europeans can take a shower without a shower curtain and not make a mess all over the floor, as we did. Oops.

While in Paris we went to the Louvre and the Musees Dorsay and Rodin. I have an interest in sculpture, so I took many pictures of sculpture, mainly human figures, like Rodin's and, later, Michelangelo. This picture is from the Louvre, and is called "The Deluge", depicting a man struggling to save his family from the great flood of the Christian tradition legend. The man has an older man over his back, is holding on to a tree that is cracked (look to the right of his bent knee), and he is also holding on to his partner, as she is pulled down by a young person holding on to her neck and hair. Just visible in the water in the lower left is a dead person floating (this is really the lower left corner of the painting). I'm sorry we did not note the artist at the time, that would have required us to think ahead and write down every picture we took, which didn't happen.

Another painting from the Louvre, is this one. Of course, I don't have the artist's name for this one either. We'll have to go back to Paris to get it: one day. The original was dark too. The moon and the fire are the only light. I like the way the white light of the moon is in the sky, while the people huddle around the small yellow fire in the absence of the yellow, warm light in the sun in the sky. If I put up all the pictures we took at the Louvre, this page would take a very long time to load.

The next museum we visited was Musee Rodin. This is Rodin's "Danaid", which is behind glass, so there is a glare on the picture. Rodin is known for portraying emotion through elaborate poses. From Jarrasse's book, Rodin: A Passion for Movement, "[t]he presence of this magnificent nude with streaming hair seen from the back could be justified in this infernal realm partially drawn from Greek mythology. Having murdered their husbands, the Danaids were condemned to fill a pierced barrel; yet none of this is evoked by the figure. The woman's despair is expressed by her twisting position, which permitted an exaltation of the female body and the study of a back as beautiful ..." Her hair is unfinished and flows into the rock.

A favorite Rodin piece for many people is The Kiss. I won't quote from the book any more. I haven't looked this one up. The man here has a straight back and his arm only rests on the woman's hip, while the woman is pulling him down towards her and has her legs wrapped around his. She is definitely the more sensual of the two figures.

One feature of Rodin's works that I have noticed are the hands. This is Rodin's "Cathedral". Two tentative hands intertwined. There is a tension to the hands as they are about to lightly touch. (This is a plaster model.)

Last Rodin. Out in the sculpture garden, the "Burghers of Calais" are displayed as a group, but also individually. If you hadn't noticed the bad lighting in the previous Rodin pictures, it was raining the day we were there. Rain drips off this bronze hand. Note the veins and tendons running down the back of the hand. The poses in Rodin's work usually bring out the emotions of the subject, but in the surface detail of this hand is found a complex physical anatomy.

One day in Paris we went on a walk that went out of control and became a very long walk. It included passing the Tour Eiffel and Arc de Triomphe. On the last leg back to the hotel we stopped at a fountain in Jardin des Tuilleries. A passing woman took this picture. She was an American studying in Paris.

After Paris we went to the northern coast, to Mont St. Michel. The Mont is an old abbey around which a village grew. The village is now mostly shops. the Mont is almost an island with a narrow connection to the main land, which is the road. The tides here are large and the sandy beach that surrounds the Mont at low tide has a gentle slope and the tide moves in very fast.

On the way back towards Paris, we stopped at Chartres. The Chartres cathedral is known for the mismatched spires (one Gothic and one Romanesque) and the blue of the stained glass windows.

The sun was out that day, so the windows let in the light. Here the filtered light falls across one of the columns. A woman's legs can be seen in the background for scale. She is close to the column. I like this picture. It's a close up of the building materials, so it shows old stonework texture, plus the blue light draped across it.

Germany and Austria

View looking North from the hill in the old part of Salzburg. The clock tower in the foreground is the abby from Sound of Music. At the top of the hill we were on is a castle/museum. We took the long way around to get up there, but we saw more of the area. To the back side of the hill, there was little development, and the new part of Salzburg is across that river, but to the left of this view.

Near Salzurg is the Werfen ice caves, which some friends of ours suggested we visit. It was a big cave, of course, mostly filled with ice. Cold and damp, but impressive. The guide only spoke Deutsch, so we just looked around.

When we arrived at the train station in Werfen, we had our backpacks and no place to put them at the train station. We had already checked out of the hotel and were going directly to Germany. We hiked part way up the mountain with our packs where there was a cafe that had a place to put them. This picture was taken by one of the students that were on a field trip to the cave. Spoke no English.

After Salzburg we went west to see the gaudiest of German castles: Neuschaunstein. I didn't get a good picture of the castle because the sun was behind it. We bought some postcards. This picture is looking down over the old castle and off towards the mountains. ("On a clearrrrr day, you can see foreeeverrrrr...." Barbra Streisand)

Italy

On the way to Italy we stayed the night in Innsbruck. Not impressed. We were out of there as soon as we could. The first stop in Italy was Venice. We spent the afternoon there and the night in Padua and after wandering around Padua for a while in the morning, went back again to Venice. Some of the doors were interesting because they were just above the water line.

We left Venice with plenty of time to get to Lugano, Switzerland. Yeah, right. The train stopped often in the middle of nowhere. It was a warm day and the train, of course had no air flow. Opening the window helped a little. Anyway, by the time we arrived in Milan to catch our connection north, we were about three hours late, so we missed our train by less than a half hour. Michele's family (her grandfather's brother's family) lives near Lugano, and the best part of the trip was the few days we spent as their guests. Michele speaks French so they had that language in common.

Her relatives lived in a house to the left of these up on the hillside. The bare areas up there are actually vineyards. Each family has its own, and makes its own varieties of wines. We sampled some of the family vintages. I don't know what the agricultural field in the foreground is. The family took us around to see the villages up in the mountains and the some other sights around the area.

On to Florence. Aside from the narrow streets (with miniature sidewalks) and numerous scooters, the city was great. We spent a few days there, going by the Duomo everyday. The bells of the Duomo were nice, but the city sounds and buildings muted them quickly away from the piazza. You have to be there. This picture was taken across the river in the gardens below the Piazza Michelangelo and kind of gives the right perspective: the duomo is surrounded.

Speaking of whom, yes, like everyone else, we went to see David. I guess the crowd was a little smaller than at the Uffizi, but this museum was smaller. The funny thing was, most people hardly looked at the other pieces in the museum, like the Michelangelo's Slaves or the paintings. The description below David was odd, because it said something about conquest. Michelangelo, like Rodin, place the emotions of their subjects in their pieces. David is holding the stone he will send toward the gaint and is contemplating not just his immediate action, but the path his life is going to take with this battle against the gaint.

Last stop was Rome, where we visited the ruins of the Roman Forum in the middle of the city, surrounded by the new Rome in the background.

While in Rome stopped at the Vatican museum, and saw, among other things, Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. There was one minor figure in ceiling that I liked, but I haven't seen a picture of it. The guides usually focus on the major figures. In the courtyard inside the Vatican museum is a big gold ball, like a sphere within a sphere, or an eye. It turns slowly and looks like an eye. The pope is watching.

By then we were ready to go HOME. The flight back was longer than the flight there by an hour. Eleven versus ten. By the time we left the Rome airport we were definitely ready to get out of there. Rome was our least favorite city. First the flight went back to Paris, then on to San Francisco.

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Last updated: 14 Feb 2000