for years. This was also the first time we took the bikes on the train in this country — one of those not so accessible trains with steep and narrow stairs and toilets that flush on the tracks. And we were not the only ones with the idea of bringing […]
We made a day trip to Carcassonne to visit the old walled city. We were happy to be there early before the crowds took over in the afternoon. The downside was that after exploring the town, we had more than an hour to spend before any of the restaurants opened […]
Toulouse is called “The Pink City” because of the distinct orangeish pink bricks used in many buildings, … … and bridges. We spent six days in Toulouse where Tomi was invited to give a talk in a conference. Tei spent those days exploring the city and its parks. The city […]
A day before the weather forecast promised sun and warm temperatures for Saturday (May 26), but we did not get any, or much of either. Instead we had strong gusty wind and cold rain on this first Spring hike in Southern Vercors, where we have not been before. It was […]
We returned to Serre Chevalier valley for the weekend (April 20-22) to enjoy a bit more winter weather and strengthen our newly (re)acquired skiing skills — it feels like every time we are on our skis we need to learn skiing anew, but luckily after each time it takes less […]
This weekend was probably one of the last chances, if not the last, to go skiing around here. Even if there is still quite a bit of snow, like in Chamrousse today, the skiing stations will be closing in early April. We had to climb quite high to reach the […]
Again this winter we spent a one-week vacation in Serre Chevalier valley in Hautes-Alpes (Mar 17-24). This time we stayed in Le Monêtier-les-Bains at the altitude of 1500 meters. According to the schedule, the bus ride from Grenoble to Serre Chevalier takes about two hours. It took us ten hours. […]
We still have not bought the skis, so we thought that snowshoeing would be a nice alternative. We’ve only done it once before in Hokkaido, but not on maintained tracks but in steep unbroken snow and heavy snowfall. So, we planned a trip to Vercors this past Sunday, since the […]
This past weekend we visited Lyon to fulfill our civic duty to vote on the first round of our presidential elections. We certainly would like it better if our elections were at some other time of the year than January; the weather was miserable, cold, and it rained all the […]