Corkscrewed's France Study Abroad Photo TR Thread

[krouvi]

Great pics. I LOVE Amsterdam so much. Amazing city with amazing people and great food from all over the world. By far the happiest city in Europe.

[tinflowers]

According to the opening post: architecture at USC. Anyway,

 

Thanks Corkscrewed! I must have scanned over that portion.

[SLUSHIE]

That blurry ice bar picture is actualy pretty cool.

 

The last pic of the train station is nice also.

[Corkscrewed]

VOLUME 6: BERLIN

 

Saturday, October 7, 2006

 

The trip actually started with an overnight train on Friday. We left Saintes at noontime, got to Paris before the evening, spent about two hours, then boarded an overnight sleeper train around 8 or 9 in the evening, bound for Berlin. Sleeping in the train was kind of tough, mostly because I wasn't used to it, and because each car room has six beds, in cramped quarters. Still, when we arrived in Berlin, we were all excited for what would prove to be a great time.

 

After checking into the CityStay Hostel (HIGHLY recommended if you're ever in Berlin; they have free wireless internet if you have a laptop!), we set out on our first day in the city.

 

Our hostel is located near a lively area called Hackescher Market, which features numerous shops, restaurants, and at night, clubs and bars. It was a nice place.

 

Most of our day was spent on Museum Island, home to a wonderful collection of museums (obviously). First up was passing by the Altes Museum, which defined the museum building type with its central layout of rooms from gallery to gallery. We didn't go in, but it was nice to see another building I once studied.

 

The Berliner Dome is the biggest Protestant church in Germany, apparently. It's extremely ornate as far as these types of churches go, but it was certainly beautiful. It was cloudy when we went in the morning, but I took a quick visit back later in the afternoon when the sun came out.

 

Here's another view.

 

You can go up to the top of the dome, where you get some great panoramic views of the city. Here's me. The TV Tower can be seen in the background.

 

Next was I.M. Pei's German History Museum. He actually came out of retirement to design this building after the city chose him to do the project. An iconic spiraling stair enclosed in glass marks the entrance to the building, which also connects underground to an old armory building next door that now serves as a gallery or exhibition space.

 

Looking up the spiraling stair.

 

Our final official stop was the Pergamon Museum, which features a variety of rebuilt architectural artifacts made from actual ruins transplanted from various places like Rome, Sparta, and Babylon.

 

The interior entrance greets visitors with the Pergamon, a large market and public plaza from the ancient days of Greece. It's pretty cool that the structures are authentic--transplanted from wherever they were plundered and moved, then rebuilt. Which means there really are parts of the museum that are thousands of years old.

 

Here's my friend, Sol, taking a picture of me taking a picture of him while everyone sits on the steps.

 

We had dinner at a tapas restaurant in Hackescher Market. It was pretty nice. Here's a pic of my friends, Sarah and Danli, as well as myself.

 

Short report for this day... the next one is humongous.

 

 

 

Sunday, October 8, 2006

 

Man, what a busy and compacted day! Gorgeous weather greeted us in the morning as we started our day in Potsdamer Platz, the new city center which, less than two decades ago, was split in half by the Berlin Wall. Today, it's home to several districts full of vibrant, flashy architecture and a pretty nice social spaces. Most of the day was a walking tour with Hans, a city urban planner who could tell us a lot about the area from an architect's and urbanist's point of view.

 

Here's a shot of the Daimler Chrystler District, with a couple of towers jutting out toward the intersection of the main streets.

 

On one side, there are three Richard Rogers mixed use office/commercial buildings that front a central garden lawn.

 

Renzo Piano has some residential/office buildings further down the "street."

 

They're pretty neat, featuring a terra cotta colored facing that Piano placed on many of the buildings he designed in this complex. Comically, his good friend Rogers jokingly mimicks this architectural play in some of his buildings in the complex too. I guess that's how famous architects playfully joust in design.

 

And in the middle of the central green space, there are some GIANT see-saws. Our own giant of a professor, Gerald, demonstrats how to gleefully operate one.

 

Here's a view back at the buildings we passed.

 

More apartments in the area.

 

Venturing deeper into the neighborhood block reveals some interesting office and institutional buildings. This area is essentially one big business park. It's pretty lively on weekdays, but much more dead on weekends when the people who work here aren't here to use it.

 

Across the street is the famous Sony Center, a "CityWalk" sort of complex with a centralized plan and a huge glass roof that reminds me of Space Mountain.

 

It is supported entirely by tension. To build it, workers first erected a huge column (no dirty jokes, please) in the center to support the span. Next came the structure on top, where the glass was laid, and then the tension cables below it, hooking into part of the column. When the cables were stressed to pull the forces outward, most of the column was sawn off, leaving an open central space. It's a pretty amazing construction from a structural point of view.

 

Some restaurants and shops inside the complex. A second level leads to more shops, cafes, and clubs, and the rest is actual residential, which makes this one interesting mixed use project.

 

Afterwards, our walking tour with Hans took us to Peter Eisenmann's Memorial for the Murdered Jews, which opened last year. It is a very simple but powerful series of monolithic black blocks protruding to various heights out of an undulating ground plane. As such, in some places, you can sit on the blocks, where in other places, they rise up well over your head.

 

I didn't think too much of it when I first saw it in Architectural Record, but I must say that going through it was pretty cool, and my opinion is a lot higher now than before. It promotes contemplation and exploration, mingling a physical and mental exercise into one. Just goes to show you shouldn't judge architecture completely until you've experienced it. Funny... the same thing applies to roller coasters...

 

Cool artistic shot of the sky from within the memorial.

 

Next was the government district. Here's the Reichstag, complete with Norman Foster's famous dome.

 

This area has a lot of new monumental architecture. The architect of this building (whose name escapes me at the moment) was heavily influenced by Louis Kahn, hence the geometric blocks and shapes that dominate the building.

 

Here's another view. It's a nice building.

 

Calatrava built a pedestrian bridge here. It was the first thing built on this redeveloped government zone, an honor given to him after he lost out on the Reichstag dome competition even though he was the one who came up with the glass dome idea in the first place. The bridge is nothing special compared with Calatrava's other works, but it's nice.

 

Here's the new Berlin Central train station, which opened only a few months ago. It's new, glass, and steel.

 

Modern and high tech interior space. Oooooooooh...

 

We went back to the hostel in the afternoon for a break before coming back out late afternoon to visit the Reichstag.

 

On our way there, we past by Brandenberg Gate, one of Berlin's central icons. It's sort of like the Arc de Triumph of this city in the way it serves as a landmark and gathering space.

 

We got to the Reichstag in time for magic hour, which yielded this very vivid but interesting photo of the building under the soft light. It looks extremely odd on stone in my opinion, but was still strikingly beautiful.

 

Speaking of strikingly beautiful, magic hour produced this amazing swath of light over the lawn across from the Reichstag.

 

After an hour in line, we finally entered the building and went up to the roof. Here's me.

 

It's very nice and sleek inside. Two curving ramps spiral up to the top viewing deck (one goes up, the other goes down). A viewing window allows people to look down into Parliament itself, expressing the openness of Germany's democracy.

 

Kinda reminds me of Star Wars and the Old Republic... yeah, I'm a nerd...

 

Had to include this really neat picture of light as it shines through a rotating sunshade device that prevents direct light from entering the Parliament chambers. It creates an incredible effect on the ramp above.

 

Me and my friend, KT, on the ramp.

 

The dome at night.

 

After dinner, we went to some architect's bar and studio place. Basically, these guys are artists, and they tag the building and decorate it and do a whole bunch of weird things artistically. It's actually pretty cool, to be frank. Just thought I'd include that to close the evening off.

 

 

 

Monday, October 9, 2006

 

After a very compacted day of seeing a lot of things in little time yesterday, today was much more relaxed. Class got out at... 12:30. Wow, that was a surprise.

 

 

Our first stop was the Berlin Philharmonic building, by Hans Scharoun. This Expressionist building could pass for a primitive version of the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which makes sense, since Gehry is essentially an Expressionist. Scharoun, however, outdates him by nearly half a century, and this building features some wonderful moments of light, section, detail, and sound.

 

The interior is pretty convoluted but very cool. I was actually surprised by how "small" it is. I'd somewhat studied this building before and had thought it to be larger in scale, but it's actually rather intimate. And the acoustics are superb as well.

 

Balconies spill over each other, clouds hang everywhere, and the ceiling undulates with a dynamic energy that makes this a wonderful space.

 

Next was the New National Gallery, by Mies Van Der Rohe, master of the minimalist style. And minimalist this is! Basically, it's a huge metal waffle slab supported on 8 columns along the perimeter of the building, with glass enclosing the space. That's it.

 

Scharoun also designed a library across the street that resembled his philharmonic hall from the exterior. Inside, there's a similar sense of dynamic space, with textured beams and columns, bridges, stairs breaking through, and the structure being clearly expressed.

 

In the afternoon, I returned to the government district for some more photographs, this time with the sun out!

 

Same thing.

 

The Reichstag was gorgeous in the afternoon sun.

 

And here's Berlin Central Station again. I forgot to mention, last time, that it is the new central hub of every train system, with connections to the Berlin metro system, inter-city trains, regional trains, and international trains to other countries. Definitely a great hub.

 

And here's a shot inside the top level of the station, showing off that sexy tension-arch structure.

 

 

 

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

 

Our final class day in Berlin began with us getting lost in West Berlin for about five minutes. Once that was done, we made our way to the Jewish History Museum, by Daniel Liebeskin.

 

This building is perhaps most famous for its exterior building skin, which features metal panels being cut by small, slitted windows. Cut is the appropriate word here, since the building as a whole represents the torn history of the Jewish people.

 

It's kind of a hit or miss building in my opinion, but must people seem to love it.

 

You can see the Garden of Exile to the right. This area is interestingly similar to Eisenmann's Holocaust memorial, except it has willow trees literally buried in the huge concrete planters. It would be interesting to see if Eisenmann was thinking of Liebeskin's garden when he was designing his own project.

 

The interior twists and winds its way around, offering several paths through its exhibits. The result is a very penetrated space that's also convoluted. Without navigational arrows on the ground, it might actually be pretty easy to get lost. I would normally find this annoying, but I think it's appropriate in this museum, which focuses on the tension of the Jewish history.

 

Later, we walked the streets of Berlin, where old mixes with new and a major building boom has been ongoing for a good decade or more now.

 

In fact, the amount of new construction here is unparalleled anywhere else in the world--except in China.

 

We passed by the GSW Headquarters building by Sauerbruch Hutton. Another building I studied (two semesters ago, in fact) in studio.

 

We ended the official day at Checkpoint Charlie, famous site of many flights from East Berlin to West Berlin. The Wall has long since been torn down, but there's a museum nearby that we were forced to visit. Its convoluted layout made me quite frustrated. Plus it was extremely stuffy in there.

 

 

 

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

 

Free day! With no field studies or official tour to take in, we were free to do whatever we wanted... until 8 in the evening, when we would be leaving on an overnight train to Paris. So what did we do?

 

Sleep in of course. C'mon. We're college students. Work hard. Play hard. Party hard. Sleep.... when we can.

 

So after a surprisingly fantastic lunch of Vietnamese food (HOORAY VIETNAMESE FOOD!!!) at a restaurant called Monsieur Vuong's, where we had some great spring rolls among other things (see first picture), we went to Berlin's Olympic Stadium for the afternoon.

 

This thing's old. It was built for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. You know, the one where Jessie Owens stunned Hitler by outrunning all of his "superior" German athletes? Yeah. A big F-U to the Nazis there. Anyway, while the Nazis were eventually demolished, this stadium wasn't. Mostly because it was and is a pretty nice stadium, reminiscent to me of the Coliseum in LA. The outside is a very monumental but simple stone and concrete facade that also supports the arena.

 

Here's me.

 

Inside, there's a track and a soccer field. The same one they played the World Cup finals on this past summer. They've also got a new roofing system that provides shade to pretty much every seat and is somehow held up by twenty very thin columns that ring the middle of the upper deck. Very cool.

 

We decided to sit down and watch an invisible game.

 

And once sunset came around, the soft light gave the stadium a beautiful glow.

 

By the evening, it was time to leave Berlin and head to Paris for a second trip.

 

Overall, Berlin was a pretty fun place and a fantasic city. It moved in front of Amsterdam as my second favorite city in Europe, but couldn't quite nip out Paris (which holds a special place in my heart... um... just because). However, shopping is fantastic in Berlin, and I highly recommend it. You can get some good stuff for pretty cheap prices!

[Corkscrewed]

VOLUME 7: PARIS... AGAIN

 

Thursday, October 12, 2006

 

After another overnight train, we were in Paris for a couple of days. We arrived around 9:30 in the morning, went to our hotel, the Hotel Royal Bastille, left our luggage, and set out for a short field study day.

 

Our first stop was the Cartier Center, by Jean Nouvel (yep, yet another Nouvel building). Unfortunately, it was closed. The exhibit that our professor had wanted us to see was being taken down. Needless to say, Selwyn was quite disappointed. The building itself was sort of interesting, though. It's glass, glass, and more glass. Unfortunately, the rain prevented a more glamorous photo of the project.

 

After that... class was done! However, some of us decided to take an excursion to the infamous underground catacombs of Paris. Now this was quite an experience! Imagine a long series of damp, winding, sometimes claustrophobic corridors a good 60 feet underground or more. Now imagine that they're filled with bones... lots and lots of bones. Skulls, femurs, ribs. All piled and arranged in artistic patterns. All dimly lit. Well, you have the Paris Catacombs. Delightfully creepy!

 

You enter by going down a very long spiralling stair. And I mean long. And dizzying. Because you're just going round and round and round.... down, down, down into the bowels of the city. You finally arrive at a little "lobby" that has several poster exhibits detailing the history of the catacombs. Basically, in the late 18th century, city officials decided to exhume thousands of corpses from mass graves that had been haphazardly made because disease was rampant at the time. The problem was that bodies were often carelessly buried, and besides creating a space shortage, it also worsened sanitary conditions. To fix this problem, the remains were moved to underground quarries that had previously been used to get the limestone that makes up much of the city's buildings. In a gruesome, massive undertaking, thousands of bodies and bones were moved and effectively dumped underground.

 

It took another couple of decades before someone decided that the catacombs could be used to illustrate part of the city's history. Eventually, one of the city officials reorganized the system and had the bones "repositioned," to create patterns, walls, and just a whole variety of things. The result was an eeriely beautiful display of human art. Literally.

 

Anyway, after the "lobby, you enter a long corridor.

 

It looks something like this. Except it turns a few times.

 

Eventually, you reach the bones. On either side, bones are piled up to form walls.

 

Indeed, it's not for the faint of heart. You might very easily become scrrr'd. (scared)

 

But if you're... um... me... you find it pretty cool. All around, there are thousands of remains placed artistically. It's really quite incredible. And surprisingly, it's not really smelly or anything. The remains are so old that any odor of rot has long since vanished. Going through the catacombs is like going through a dank cave. It's musky and damp, but it's not fetid. And the interesting thing is that even though we walked through a 5 kilometer section of the catacombs, there are actually hundreds of kilometers worth of corridors. These tunnels literall stretch throughout the city. Paris literally stands on hundreds of thousands of bones. I find that utterly fascinating. And you might find me weird for finding that fascinating, but hey, it fit the Halloween mood of the time.

 

We returned back to the hotel and rested for the afternoon. In the evening, we re-emerged from slumber for a night out on the town.

 

I caught this moment of the Place Bastille at sunset time.

 

We went to Sacre Couer first. A beautiful church on a large hill overlooking the city, Sacre Couer has been a top tourist spot for decades. And it's certainly beautiful at night...

 

We approached the church from the rear.

 

The lighting is quite dramatic and showcases the clean white marble stone of the building.

 

The front is pretty nice too.

 

And looking across the great stepped lawn, you can see the beautiful city of Paris unfold in front of you. You'd see more if it was daytime, but unfortunately, we did not have a chance to visit during sunlit hours.

 

Afterwards, we decided to walk over to the Moulin Rouge. To get there, we had to go through Paris' red light district.

 

I wasn't aware Paris had a red light district, but apparently it does. Sex related attractions everywhere!!

 

The Moulin Rouge was pretty nice. I *think* this is not the original one, but it still holds shows inside.

 

We'll close with a nifty long exposure shot I took without the aid of an LCD screen, since my camera decided to go low on batteries right as we reached our destination. Fortunately, this was our last stop for the night.

 

 

 

Friday, October 13, 2006

 

Today was a fuller day. In the morning, we visited Parc Andre Citroen (named after the car manufacturer and built on the former grounds of a Citroen factory). This is a pretty cool example of an urban park. For one thing, it's huge. And for another, it's got some great spaces carved by landscaping. And thirdly, it was a nice sunny day, which is always a good thing when visiting a park.

 

So here's a sunken garden. It's part of what's called the Black Garden, which features sectional changes with landscape on either side forming some really cool spaces.

 

Here's what I mean by landscape on either side forming cool spaces.

 

There's a couple of big glass greenhouses that double as exhibition spaces in the middle of the park. In the foreground is part of a massive lawn.

 

The parks's got some nifty fountains... and a giant balloon you can ride to get some aerial views of Paris if you're willing to overpay.

 

After lunch, we headed toward Maison La Roche, a Corbusier building.

 

Did I mention I love the streetscape of Paris?

 

Inside Maison La Roche, which features Corb's five points (piloti column support structure, free plan, free facade, ribbon windows, and a roof garden). The interior reflects the elegant, pure style of the Modernist era. And heck, it's nice to finally visit a building designed by the architect that every instructor has been shoving down our throats since first year.

 

The house has a nice central atrium space with bridges that connect the two halves. It's actually more of a double house. Corb's brother also lived there, I think, and today, it's home to the Corbusier Foundation.

 

This is the nice roof garden, which we were not allowed to access (the photo is taken thruogh a glass door).

 

The official school day was over at this point, but a few of us decided to visit Parc de la Villette, another modern urban park--on the other side of the city. No worries, the Paris Metro system is superb (as I've touted multiple times before), and we were there in less than 45 minutes. Try getting across Los Angeles in 45 minutes during rush hour. Not possible.

 

So the park is situated next to the Cité Museum. We didn't go in, but I hear it's got some interesting exhibits on science, industrial design, and the like.

 

The park has a LOT of sculptures and sculptural bridges and structures. It was originally intended to be completely hardscaped--no trees or grass or anything. Just pure urban materials. But that was a tad too extreme.

 

After exploring part of the park, we decided to hold our own Long Jump competition. Here's my friend, Amar, jumping over an imaginary river while we watch in amazement.

 

That concludes Friday the 13th, a day that didn't turn out to be so cursed. Tomorrow would be a free day in Paris. And that meant taking a pilgrimage to the holy shrine of architecture, Villa Savoye. Or at least you'd think it was a holy shrine, given how much every architecture professor at USC raves about it. Would it live up to the hype? Find out soon!

 

 

 

Saturday, October 14, 2006

 

Half of this update is pretty much dedicated to the architecture people on this mailing list. The rest of you will probably just nod politely as you read and remark, "Oh, I suppse that's a nice house."

 

Anyway, Saturday. Free day. We can go anywhere in Paris we want. Well, I'd already gone to Disneyland Paris last time, so this time, I decided to be more scholarly and visit what is only the most famous house in all of architecture. Well, at least most famous European house. Yes, indeed, it was time to finally visit Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier's masterpiece of modern design. This is the building that everyone has touted since first year. It was practically built up as the shangri-la of architecture, the greatest creation of the greatest architect in the world.

 

Or at least that was the hype. Was Villa Savoye that good?

 

In a word, yes. Despite my high expectations, this building was incredible. And it wasn't just the pure exterior and diagrammatic layout and execution of the design that impressed me. It was the fantastic nature of the interior spaces, the quality of light in every room, the roof garden, the terraces, the flow of space that was truly impressive. And the gorgeous weather didn't hurt either!

 

The entrance takes visitors to the back of the building first. The house isn't actually set in a field in the middle of nowhere; Poissy is actually a pretty dense suburban town. But it is set in a field shielded from its surroundings by thick trees and foliage, so it does have the effect of looking like a jeweled ship anchored on a verdant green lawn.

 

You come around the lawn to arrive at the front, where you behold the money shot--one of the most famous photos in all of architecture!

 

"OH MY GOSH! I'M STANDING IN FRONT OF VILLA FREAKIN' SAVOYE!!!!!!"

 

Here is the main vertical circulation: a ramp that connects all three floors of the building. There's also a set of stairs to the side, but the main mode of circulation is obviously meant to be the path. It's also something that Corb-worshipper Richard Meier uses in his buildings. Here, you can see the incredible quality of light already. The interior practically glows with natural light, and it is truly wonderful.

 

On the second level, a living room opens up to an outdoor terrace to the left. It still has the original furniture Corbusier designed for the house (as he did for practically all of his buildings). How is a Corb chair like? Well, it's comfortable, at least.

 

This is the master bathroom. It's actually pretty elegant, and is accessible directly from the master bedroom. There's not really a door on this side of the bathroom.

 

The ribbon windows allow plenty of light to flood each room with plenty of sun. This is perhaps the most amazing thing about the house. Books constantly talk about the theory behind it, with the aforementioned Five Points, but it's also quite an experience as well. The natural lighting is my favorite thing about Villa Savoye, because it makes the quality of the spaces so much more incredible and enjoyable.

 

A shot of the outdoor terrace. The ramp moves outside at this level and continues to the roof garden.

 

We were so overwhelmed that we actually voluntarily sketched, even though this was not an official class trip, nor was there any assignment required here!

 

The roof garden is pretty nice. The crush gravel you see in the foreground is actually very common throughout parks and gardens in France. I think it'd be really cool to use this in the U.S., because it's a simple and neat way of giving an outdoor space a nice ground layer that's not too hard or too soft.

 

The stair is to the left, the ramp is to the right. And again, I emphasize how amazing the light is throughout this building.

 

Nothing like relaxing on a Corbusier reclining chair.

 

Finally, after a couple of hours, it was time to leave. But not before giving a hug to a dear friend. Yup. I hugged a piloti.

 

"Villa Savoye, I've read about you for years, and it's been a great pleasure to finally meet after all this time. I hope I can visit you again. Signed, Albert."

 

On the way back, I decided to take a side stop and visit La Defense, a "second downtown" business sector on the outskirts of the city. I liken this area to Downtown LA... except better. This whole complex started as a result of Parisians being outraged by a skyscraper being erected in the city by Montparnasse Station. They vowed/voted to have no more skyscrapers in the city ever again, so when the time came to build a new business district to handle city growth, La Defense was placed on the northwest side. The development was basically office buildings and some retail at first, and for years, the area stagnated becaused no one really used it outside of business hours (sound familiar? the exact same thing happens in Downtown LA; that's why it's freaky to be there after dark) However, Parisians were quick to learn the lesson, and housing was added to give afterhour usage (also familiar; that's what they're trying to do in Downtown LA now). And now, it's actually a really cool place. Skyscrapers soar over a main esplanade. Buildings are glassy and modern, and the whole area feels like a modern U.S. metropolis than rich, historical Paris. But it's still really nice.

 

The centerpiece of La Defense is La Grande Arche. It is built at the end of a long urban axis extended from the Champes Elysses, through the Arc de Triomphe, all the way out to La Defense. The main esplanade is organized along this axis, which terminates at the Grand Arch. And it IS grand!

 

Some massive stairs take you up to the entry level. This, coupled with the previous photo, gives you an idea of how effing huge this thing is.

 

Here's a view back on the development. Everything is actually raised up on a plinth. The esplanade branches back, but underneath, there is parking and vehicular circulation. There's actually a main arterial road that leads straight to La Defense, but when it reaches the area, it branches out, bypassing it on either side. Thus, the main central linear space is devoted to pedestrian activity, which has also helped to liven up the area. Very smart, in my opinion.

 

If you go through to the other side of the Arch, you see this. So I guess you can say the axis continues, but it just leads out of the city.

 

For 6 euros (student price), I took a trip to the top of the Arch. There was an art exhibit as well, but obviously, I was here for the view. And it was certainly a nice one. See the Arc de Triomphe far in the distance? The Grand Arch was intended to symbolically face it, thus connecting La Defense to the heart of Paris.

 

Back on ground level, there are pools and fountains in addition to the modern buildings.

 

This one features interesting blinking lights.

 

Here's a view of the road that leads to La Defense. Metro line 1 is in the middle (that's what we took coming out and going back to the hotel). It's quite a nice view, I must say. Paris rocks.

 

 

 

Sunday, October 15, 2006

 

Alas, the following day, it was time to leave. Two official trips to Paris totalling a good two weeks and I didn't feel like I'd even begun to explore the surface of the city. Paris is so rich, and there's so much to see. It remains my favorite city of the trip, even if things are a bit expensive!

 

One last look at Place Bastille and our hotel around the corner. You were a cozy hotel, Hotel Royal Bastille.

 

And me on the train back to Saintes. *sigh* What a trip!

[USCoaster]

Great pics. Glad you are having fun.

 

Its interesting seeing all the buildings that were under construction in Berlin when I was there. I know that we saw the new train station under construction. I think they had the structure for the vaults up at the time. And we made a special detour to check out the I.M. Pei museum because the Berlin Architecture guide we had listed it and so we assumed it was complete. When I was there, they had all of the steel for the stair up, but no glass. Berlin wasn't part of our semester, so it was just 3 of us wandering the city for 3 days. (Our trips were Paris , a Garden tour, and Barcelona and Bilbao, Spain.)

 

Enjoy the rest of your trip, and try to spend a day or two in Paris before you leave. Christmas in Paris was absolutely stunning.

[slick]

Very, very nice photos. Good to see such a well documented line-up of photography on Europe's utterly amazing architectural feats.

[Corkscrewed]

Lets try to catch up on the trip reports, shall we? This happened about a month ago, and I've got a Spain report as well.

 

 

VOLUME 8: WHIRLWIND 6 CITIES IN 4 DAYS UK TRIP

 

Day 1 - Thursday, October 26, 2006

Our friend, Ellen, would be turning 23 on Saturday the 28th. That was also the same weekend our first guest instructor was leaving, giving us a chance to make a trip without worrying about having something due on the following Monday. So to celebrate her birthday, we concocted a turbulent whirlwind trip to Dublin and London, spanning six cities over the course of four days. It was a gastronomical spendorama, as my friend Greg put it.

 

Bright and early on Thursday morning, before the sun was even out, we were walking on our way to the train station in Saintes. It was weird to be awake while it was still dark--weirder when I realized that since we were right before the end of Daylight Savings Time, sunrise wasn't until after 8:00. Quite bizarre.

 

Our train left Saintes at 7:02 and arrived in Bordeaux about an hour later. Our flight to Dublin would fly out of Bordeaux, connecting at Birmingham, where we'd have five hours between flights.

 

Bordeaux is sort of like a mix between Paris and Saintes; there's a lot of Haussmannian architecture, but there are also winding, narrow streets that show the medieval development of the city.

 

Once in a while, a plaza opens up, like this one, which features an "Arc de Triumph" (these are littered everywhere in Europe, it seems) and a random column thingy.

 

There were also some weird complexes, like this parking structure with a car that is "crashing out" of it. That's part of the facade design, by the way, so don't think cars randomly fly out of buildings in Bordeaux.

 

The city is situated on the Garonne River. It's brown and dirty looking. And very wide. The dreary sky did nothing to lesson the relative ugliness of the river.

 

At around noon, we arrived at Bordeaux Airport after taking a bus shuttle. Our flight left about an hour later, and it took about an hour. However, because we were going to Britain, we lost an hour, so it was about 3:00 in the afternoon when we arrived. I just realized I used the word "hour" about sixty times in that sentence. Oh well, this is just an email anyway.

 

We expected Birmingham to be rainy. In fact, the weather reports said that all of our stops would be rainy. So imagine our delighted surprise when we got off the plane to find it... SUNNY! Fantastic stuff! And with five hours to kill, we certainly weren't going stay indoors, so we headed to a new shopping area in the city center that I'd heard about called the Bullring.

 

Here it is here. Notice how even the British are USC fans. =D

 

Our main reason for visiting this mall was the Selfridges Department Store Building, a funky, amorphous blob that was pretty interesting and extremely photogenic, although slightly less interesting in real person. The dots cover the entire facade and are actually pretty big. But the building was pretty cool.

 

Here's another view.

 

St Martin's Cathedral is right next door, so from certain angles, pedestrians can see old juxtaposed with new. The Cathedral is the city's oldest, I believe, and was a lot smaller than I thought.

 

We took a break to finally each lunch... at 4:00. We had gotten through the day only on snacks, so we were starving. This restaurant, Wagamama, was awesome. Fantastic food, with an Asian-Euro fusion twist, and a great decor. And the prices weren't bad either!

 

Here's another view at the Selfridges Building. Totally groovy man!

 

Ellen and I walked through the store and went out to the skywalk that spanned over the street. From here, I took this gorgeous shot of the building at dusk.

 

The Bullring Shopping Center is very stylish and modern in retail design. There's lots of glass, trusses, steel, and that sort of thing. Very contemporary looking.

 

The mall at dusk. It's a mix of indoor and outdoor retail, and pretty cool.

 

Overall, Birmingham was a very pleasant city, and I'd love to visit it again. But we had a flight to catch at 7, so we returned to the airport and took a one hour flight across the sea to Dublin, where we checked into our hostel, then went out for a quick drink at a nearby bar before retiring for the night.

 

The River Liffey runs through the middle of Dublin on its way to the ocean. Here it is at night.

 

And we close with a nifty shot I took of myself at the bar we were at. I messed up and moved the camera before the long exposure finished, but the result was pretty cool.

 

Tomorrow, we'd get a full day in Dublin. And wouldn't you know it.. the weather would continue to be excellent!

 

 

 

Friday, October 27, 2006

 

This day was spent basically walking all around the city, visiting various sites. Dublin's a bustling place, but not so big that we couldn't get anywhere we wanted by foot. It helped that our hostel was located rather centrally.

 

This cafe was totally badass. And if you disagree, it'll totally kick your ass.

 

Our first stop was Dublin Castle, a large complex encompassing... basically the castle around which the original medieval city was built!

 

In the back, we see the castle is complete with "authentic" Irish Disneylandish multicolored castle wall painting!

 

There's a big lawn as well, so we had a couple that we met take a picture of us.

 

Oddly enough, we would keep running into the same couple over and over again. They were a student studying abroad in Italy and her boyfriend, who was from upstate new York. Very nice people, but it was hilarious how many times we kept on running into them. After the first three times, we basically parted with "see you later" rather than "good bye," because chances were that we would see them later. Our first meeting was on the bus the previous night. We'd find them again at several other places we'd visit. I just thought that was odd enough to be worth mentioning.

 

Later on, we stumbled upon the filming of a BBC miniseries featuring Sherlock Holmes, famous detective of Scotland Yard. We chatted briefly with the very nice actor playing Sherlock, then took turns posing with him.

 

It's Sherlock Holmes! Brilliant!

 

Another picture of the Dublin Castle complex.

 

The castle also included a chapel that we went into. It's quite nice inside, showing the elegant and decorative British Gothic style.

 

On our way to St Patrick's Cathedral, we stopped at Christ Church Cathedral, the oldest church in the city, founded all the way back in the 1000s!

 

It was certainly quite beautiful, with the weighty gray stone and verdant green lawn making up a great view.

 

Here's me.

 

A five minute walk from there led us to St. Patrick's Cathedral, named after Ireland's patron saint.

 

It's a beautiful building, to be sure.

 

The same goes for the front.

 

We wanted to tour the interior, but they were charging for it, and they'd converted part of it into a gift shop. A bit callous, if you ask me. We decided it wasn't worth it.

 

After lunch, we decided to head over to the Guiness Store House, Dublin's most popular attraction.

 

On the way, we ran into a random church. I thought it was nice, plus the streetscape is pretty.

 

After a 15 minute walk, we were at the entrance of the Guiness Store House.

 

Inside, we learned how Guiness ale was made through a series of exhibits.

 

It seems that this museum also features the incredible... the spectacular... the BACKSIDE OF WATER!!!!

 

That's a Jungle Cruise reference for those who don't understand it, but maybe Guiness as Disneyland beat, because it also features the magnificent, the unbelievable...

 

THE UNDERSIDE OF WATER!!!!

 

Okay, so that was a little overdramatic.

 

The building also has a central atrium that's supposed to represent a big ale mug. Literally, on the brochure, there's a diagram showing a building section with an ale mug in the middle!

 

The conclusion to the tour was a lift up to the Gravity Bar, seven stories above ground, which offered some spectacular views of Dublin.

 

Another view at the bar, where we got complementary Guiness and a free gift.

 

And here's a shot of the view. This one looks toward the sea, which you can barely see on the horizon.

 

Another view, aimed at the Dublin Mountains (which looked more like hills to me).

 

The night was spent out with the gang, clubbing and drinking. But not in excess, at least not for me.

 

 

 

Saturday, October 28, 2006

 

Ellen's birthday celebration continued the following day, most of which was spent in Dublin. After drinking the night and early morning before (birthday shots must be done, you know), some of my friends had hangovers. Not me of course, because I'm responsible (that's more for reassurance to my family...). However, what better to cure a hangover than to... take a tour at a whiskey distillery!!

 

Here we are at the Old Jameson Distillery, which used to make the famous Jameson Irish Whiskey but now stands as a museum.

 

Here's me waiting. (FAR) EAST SIDE!!!

 

The interior had a rustic themed feel to it, with a lot of timber to give it a nice 19th century atmosphere.

 

Here we learned how whiskey was made. It's pretty similar to how most alcohol is made. Prime ingredients are selected, barley is turned to mash, stuff ferments, alcohol forms, stuff gets distilled. Basically, it's a lot of sugar processing.

 

Afterwards, we had lunch at the Distillery Cafe, then went out to stroll around and find some shopping.

 

We stumbled onto a very nice pedestrian shopping promenade on our way back to the area of our hostel.

 

Later on, we found another shopping street, this one on Grafton Street. I found it very charming how much it resembled a Disneyland Main Street (only this one's authentic!). It featured mostly retail clothing and jewelry stores, with a few fast food restaurants and Starbucks scattered in.

 

Another view.

 

Nearby was hte Stephens Green Shopping Center, a Victorian-style mall.

 

At around six or seven, we took a taxi to the airport to catch our 9:00 flight to London.

 

The airport features super amazing space age industrial airport spoons.

 

So after waiting two hours because we got through security in all of about five minutes because no one was at the airport, we finally got onto the plane. Here's me on the plane.

 

We arrived in London about an hour later and made our way to the subway system to find a metro line to take us by our hostel.

 

This is The Tube. London's subway system is pretty efficient too, rivaled, in my opinion, only by Paris' (which is the best in Europe, methinks).

 

We emerged after a few stops and walked the remaining ten minutes to our hostel. On the way, I took a nifty long exposure of a church we passed by.

 

We dropped out stuff at the hostel (which turned out to be very, very nice. Linden Lane Hostel, if you're ever in London. Pretty cheap--except when you realize that 22 pounds is more like $45. Stupid weak American dollar), and went out to celebrate the remainder of Ellen's birthday. And why not? With Daylight Savings Time ending, we'd get an extra hour of going out!

 

This is what London looks like on a Saturday night.

 

Pretty nice looking.

 

After a few hours out, it was time to return to the hostel and get some sleep. Tomorrow, we'd have all of about three hours to tour London. Could we do it? Find out the thrilling conclusion to Ellen's Gastronimical UK Birthday Celebration and Spendorama in the next report!

 

 

 

Sunday, October 29, 2006

 

Sunday morning.

 

Checkout at 10:00 AM.

 

Flight at 3:00 PM

 

Three hours to tour London...

 

 

Cue the clock, and we're off! We started on a gorgeous blue-sky morning, making our way to the nearest Tube stop to purchase a day pass before heading in the direction of the Thames River.

 

Coming out of the Tube, we got a glimpse of the Millennium Eye ferris wheel, set up for the year 2000 celebration.

 

The wheel was behind London County Hall, which also featured a Picasso Museum. We walked through the museum. Count that as two credits!

 

The Millennium Eye was pretty big, and the line to ride it was huge. We were pushed for time, so we merely passed it (another tourist credit), making our way along the Thames waterfront, which was quite beautiful. We crossed the bridge over the river, and lo and behold, what do we see on the other side?

 

Indeed, none other than Big Ben and Buckingham Palace (credits 4 and 5). Both were pretty neat, although Big Ben is certainly not as big as it must have seemed when it was first built. It's okay.

 

Our next stop was Westminister Abbey (#6). Unfortunately, I somehow lost my photos of that building (we couldn't enter it due to ongoing mass inside). However, we stopped for about ten minutes and took photos, then skipped right back to the Tube stop across from Buckingham.

 

Upon entering, we were greeted by the Tower of London castle (#7). Again, my photos somehow got deleted here, but it was pretty interesting. There was no actual tower... at least not in the castle. There's also the Tower Dungeon museum here as well, but we didn't have the time to visited. Those interested in torture and creepy ways of imprisoning people would love it though. And since it was Halloween, the museum gift shop was pretty packed as well!

 

We crossed the Thames again, this time over the Tower Bridge (#8 )... the famous one that raises for boats to pass. It's got two towers (perhaps to make up for the castle?). On the other side, we came the new City Hall building by Norman Foster.

 

It's an egg, really. I'm standing in front of a huge egg. But it's got a lot of ecological features, low energy use, and the like. Quite a unique building, right along the waterfron.

 

A gaze over the waterfront also reveals another Norman Foster building, a huge cigar shaped skyscraper (#10) that looks like... um... a phallus. But it was a great view!

 

So all in all, ten attractions "seen" in three hours. That includes transportation time. And frankly, it was actually two and a half hours. We overdid it. Hooray us!

 

Around 1, we got on the Tube to go to the train station to take an express train that would take us to Stanstead Airport, outside of the city. Arriving an hour before the flight left, we trudged through a much busier security stop and got on the plane. An hour or two later, we were in La Rochelle, whose airport is a field.

 

No literally! It's a field!

 

But the good thing was that we arrived just in time for one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen. I'll have to do a separate email on this later, but Europe has featured some incredible skies, and this was one of the most magnificent. The blazing oranges, violents, and reds painted a passionate scene across the heavens during this hour of twilight, and it was a breathtaking panorama!

 

La Rochelle would be our last stop, with a couple of hours to kill before our train back to Saintes. Fortunately, it's got a gorgeous waterfront.

 

Here's the waterfront at night.

 

Here's some boats on the water.

 

And here's the famous fortress towers along the Old Port. Although we didn't have a lot of time in La Rochelle, the time we did spend was quite enjoyable. Hopefully, I can make it there again (they've got a nice aquarium) before I leave France.

 

 

So there you have it. Six cities in four days, and a lot of money. Not a bad way to spend a weekend!