0blivion » travels0blivion

Culture Trip to Paris

JC — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:24:46 +0000

Paris, the city of lights, one of the most cultural place on this planet and a proud contender to be one of the most romantic city as well. As we live not too far from it, we have taken a chance to visit the French capital and enjoy it, just the two of us. Well, we had to pass by Gallery Lafayette of course as this was the last week-end of sales; but then we went to the very nice Opera Garnier to see Giulio Cesare. We went there more for the place than for the play and only stayed for the first act. For your information it’s 3 acts play lasting around 4 hours and for us, the contemporary setting did not fit with the context of the story.

After looking for almost an hour for a place to park the car, that is also part the Paris city life, we spent a good restful night at the hotel that I had found online. We had typical french break-fast the next day in a cafe not too far from where we stayed, with bread and croissants that you can only find in France.

The rest of the day we spent in Louvre where we where surrounded by ancient Egyptian, Roman and Greek artifacts. A little trip to the other side of the building gave us a chance to peek at the Mona Lisa, always very popular, and finish by exploring what remains of Napoleon III apartments. Overall, a very nice week end.

Little trip down memory lane

JC — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:14:20 +0000

Some things just happen when you have time to spare on a Sunday, I paid a little visit to the place where I grew up until I was around twelve. The little village and certainly my old house have changed a lot, but some buildings are still the same, like my old school.

It was a strange feeling to see all that, and it brought back a great amount of memories… most of them pretty nice :-)

>> Visit the gallery

The New Boa Metro

JC — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 15:30:52 +0000

This is the new model of the train that is used in Brussels subway. I must say that it is very modern looking and has some great idea that where most probably picked up from France. The one think that it still missing is an automated driver.

I must admit that regardless of it modern line and the choice of color, the noise is still quite loud but comfort inside and the space available is more than fine.

To give you an idea they went for an American or Japanese arrangement, where you have a single corridor with seats on either side and bars with some sort of little belts hanging from the roof in the center of the corridor.

It’s a very efficient way of using the space and with a single open connection through the whole train it you do not even lose space between the cars. Of course they kept some bus seating arrangement as well in the some cars to create some private space for passenger on long journey.

The other big improvement that has started in the previous model is the introduction of an information screen with the upcoming station, accompanied with a voice announcement of the next station as well as some brief useful information (mainly: train, metro or tram connections). Something that people having traveled in other capitals (London or Paris) may have already experienced but in a city where you have to take at least two languages into account, it is noticeable.

To summarize I am very happy with this new metro and with the new display in each station the underground traveling will soon reach a more modern level on a technical side. If only the same could be said about all the stations…