Photos - Lagos, Portugal

Note: I didn't just get back from vacation... I'm just getting around to publishing some photos of my trip last summer.

After spending 3 weeks traveling in France, I went to Portugal for a week of relaxation. Here are some photos from Lagos, Portugal...

This is just a cool green building.


The RedEye bar and Three Monkeys were two of the bars we went to.



Apparently you aren't allowed to play your trumpet on this street. ;-)


A view of one of the beaches. This one was smaller and quieter than the main beach.


A view up the street in the town.


Another street view.


Since I hadn't planned on going to Portugal at the start of my vacation, I didn't pack a beach towel. So we went to a few stores to pick one up. And since you're on vacation and you're silly.... who can resist a "stupid bear" towel?


This is the bigger beach. Lots of people there!


A view of the walkway along the water.


We never made it here but apparently they *might* have the best food in town. There was a coconut curry soup on the menu which sounded good. Next time....

Photos - Cycling in France

Note: I didn't just get back from vacation... I am just getting around to publishing photos from my trip last summer.

During my summer vacation to France I spent a week on a cycling tour organized by my friend Sue at The Physical Life. It was a fantastic trip in all respects. Super-organized, really nice hotels (mansions!), great food, and a good group of people to be around. Here are some photos from the week of cycling through the sunflower fields in the Loire Valley....

Off to a good start. After being picked up by Sue in the van, we headed to our first hotel. It was raining the first day but that didn't stop Sue and Julien (the other guide) from putting on a fantastic "traditionally French" themed lunch for us.


A typical setup outside the hotel in the morning. A snack table where we can load up with trail mix and our favorite snacks for the day while Sue and Julien get the bikes ready.


Did I mention that in France at the fancy restaurants there is a whole course devoted to cheese? This is someone's plate (not mine I don't think?) for the cheese course for dinner the first night. Yes this is what was chosen from the gigantic cheese platter. Wow.


We were cycling in areas with lots of sunflower fields so of course I had to grab a photo of them.



And then some people will stop at nothing to get a good photo of them in a sunflower field...



Decorative bike on the side of the road in a small town along the way during our travels. This was quite a common scene. Biking is embraced and encouraged on the roads in France and cyclists are well respected by drivers. Can you imagine a car in Ottawa following you on a road for 10min until they thought it was safe to pass?!?


We had some really nice bikes for the trip.



This was the last hotel we stayed at. It was gorgeous. At dinner our second night there they put us in the back corner instead of in the middle of the room like on the first night. Hey, its not our fault we laughed and had a good time. :-)



All of us outside the hotel on the last morning before we went our separate ways.

Photos - Paris

Note: I didn't just get back from vacation... I am just getting around to publishing photos from my trip last summer.

A few random photos from my time in Paris including...

... the view from my hotel room. Yes, that's the Arc de Triomphe in the background. Pretty sweet hotel room actually. A 2 minute walk from the Arc, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, and a subway stop.



...the Effiel Tower. Gotta have photos of the tower. It would be like going to Sydney and not taking 100 photos of the Opera House. Just not gonna happen.



... the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Pretty famous and near (in?) the Latin Quarter of Paris. A great spot for food and nightlife. Also a photo of the Seine River.




... and the Catacombs of Paris. Really creepy. And on the way out they search your bags. People seriously steal bones from graves???

Photos - Chateaus in France

Note: I didn't just get back from vacation... I am just getting around to publishing photos from my trip last summer.

While in France I visited a ton of castles. None were bigger than Chambord. And while there I even got to listen to an orchestra rehearsing for a concert later on that night.




Here is the Chateau Cheverny. It is used as the basis for the Tin Tin comics.



This is the Chateau Beauregard. Also known as the place where I realized I should have brought an extra camera battery and that taking a million photos of each castle was probably not a good idea.



This is the Chateau de Chaumont. It was pretty cool because I thought it looked a bit more medieval than some of the other castles.


I also went to the Chateau Azay-le-Rideau. Twice actually. Once by myself during the day and then again at night with the girls from the cycling trip to catch the sound and light show.



The Chateau Rigny-Usse is famed to be the basis of the Sleeping Beauty story.


The Chateau Villandry has some amazing gardens. I couldn't even imagine how much more spectacular they would be earlier in the season when everything was blooming.




The Chateau de Chenonceau is really neat because it has a cool looking bridge going across a river. It was a little overcast the day that I was there, but I think that turned out ok because the photos have a grey (almost black and white) feel to them.

Photos - Britanny

Note: yes I realize these photos from my vacation are about 6 months late in being published... :-)

For my first night in Britanny I stayed in a small medival town called Vitre. Really neat little place. Didn't get much more than a couple of sentences in the Rough Guide but a great place to stop over. I walked around the town and got some nice pics of the architecture. Also got a relatively cheap hotel room and there was a nice pub next door which was owned by the same guy as the hotel. It was there that I was introduced to the "raw egg on your pizza" thing. Yeah, you read that right.



I went along the short to an area commonly known as the "Pink Granite Coast" because of the, well, yeah large pinkish granite stones along the coast. The weather wasn't the best (overcast and light rain) but I got a couple of photos.



Since it was raining I got in the car and decided to drive for a while. I ended up in Carnac. The Rough Guide boasted something similar to Stonehenge but in actuality there are literally thousands of smaller, upright rocks. Weird... I wonder how they got there?




And finally here is a photo of a cool building. It would be even more impressive if I remembered what town I took it in. Perhaps it is from Tours?