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Science Park: A Last Look Around Pau

Pau is a small provincial city, it has long been a haven for the British wanting to escape Blighty for the good of their health. There are many spas in the area and the climate is reputed to be good for your health. The older architecture is a mix of “alpine’ grand villa and a good dose of British garden. There is a cathedral and a university and the small provincial airport is now opening up to fulfill Pau’s emerging status as the gateway to the Pyrenees.

The airport’s development and the expansion of the scientific departments at the University have led to the development of a science park on the outskirts of the city.  I have, on past visits, caught tantalizing glimpses of some of the buildings and was determined to explore further before we left Pau for good.

After one particularly frustrating afternoon, I declared a time out and went exploring and headed straight for the science park.

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Venice Grand Finale: The Grand Canal

We clambered on board our ferry keeping in mind that this was the one before last we could catch to reach the airport in time. A huge disappointment as this was a closed ferry with only a small window at the front from which to take pictures from and the rest of the windows were covered in watermarks from the spray caused by other boats.

One advantage though — at this stage we were the only people on the ferry at this time.

Due to this restriction, it really was a flash tour of the Grand Canal — impressions only — having said that it is not possible to walk alongside the Grand Canal and, to my knowledge, there are only two places where you can sit at a restaurant and dine overlooking the water.

Some of the grander hotels have a room with a view and small balconies — heaven knows what their room supplements are! So we were stuck with what we got.

I did manage to capture some of the atmosphere — once again there are some beautifully painted buildings and buildings of amazing proportions and stunning architecture. One cannot help but imagine what Venice was like in its heyday and who created and lived in buildings like this.

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Venice on Foot: San Marco

If Venice on the canals was chaotic — on land was far worse! We were woefully short on research and needed to find directions to our departure point for the ferry that went up the Grand Canal to the airport. The Italians are hopeless at directions.

The ticket officer for the ferry line we were using sent us in totally the wrong direction. She sent us back into St Marks square — over the narrow canal bridge and into the hordes of tourists which flock here in the summer.

All of my senses were telling me we were going in the wrong direction and Mr P had to agree with me that something was wrong when I fished out our basic map and said we should be going that way not this way.

I took refuge from the heat of the sun under the arches of the Doges Palace while Mr P went off in search of someone who knew their way around and to get us some sensible directions.

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Approaching Venice

We were on a mission — to get the real flavor of Venice in an afternoon. If we liked what we saw, we would come back and spend more time exploring.

Venice has an undeniable reputation for being one of the “must see” cities in Europe — the famous floating city — or the famous sinking city — or should that be stinking? It is a city of water and of gondolas, rich in history and culture and once the trading center of Europe.

Our ferry took us along the north coast of Venice and around to San Marcos, past all the canal outlets and gave us a good view of what Venice was like behind the scenes. Once again we got reasonable seats on the ferry and I was able to take photographs out of the side windows as we motored past. I was surprised to see that there was room for greenery on the main island — this canal looked particularly shady and inviting.

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Vienna: Day One, Part One

We slept like kings!  We slept so well that the hassles of the previous night were temporarily forgotten, and we showered and took ourselves down to breakfast.

We went to reception to inquire about breakfast and the internet — not really having been in a fit state to do so the night before. Breakfast starts at a whopping 19 Euros for a continental breakfast and goes up to 28 Euros for the full Monty.  Internet usage is 35 Euros a day.  They could, however, offer us a daily package of 35 Euros per room to cover both. PHEW!  We thought we had better check on car parking while we were talking EXPENSE — 25 Euros a day !

We could take our breakfast outside, which we chose to do.  PANIC — where is my camera?  I want to photograph this. Mr P goes to the car and I check the room — then we do it in reverse to make sure the other has not missed it .  Still no camera!  Mr P suggests it might have been left at reception after the debacle the previous night.

We asked, they checked, and bingo — there was my camera!   I was able to give make and model, identify and name other objects in the camera case and, phew, I had it back.

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Great New York City Architecture on the Upper East Side

I work on the Upper East Side in New York City, and as part of my job take a walk — sometimes twice a day, when necessary — to the main building of Weill Cornell Medical College, to pick up and drop off mail at the mail room and to pick up and drop off any deliveries that may be needed among the various departments of the College. It is quite a pleasant walk, chiefly because of all of the sights that I am fortunate to see, and the beautiful architecture I can enjoy daily.

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Overcoming a Cruel Aesthetic

Sometimes, there is no place lower to go than the depths of a tasteless, public, aesthetic parading itself on the paving stones of public discourse as an ingenious iteration of inspiration — when the idea is really nothing more than visual vomit.  Today, I introduce you do the “Cloud Towers” — where Art-Meets-9/11-Terrorism-In-The-Sky in Seoul, South Korea:

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