Trip to Europe
2023-12-20
In February, Joanne and I went to Europe! We went to Paris, Nice, Florence, and Milan.
As always, these pictures are available in full resolution and are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 license.
FIGURE 1 The quintessential view of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, my favourite photo of the trip.
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1 Friday, 2023-02-10: arrival in Paris
Upon arriving at Orly airport, we checked into the Victoria Palace Hotel.
FIGURE 2 View from the hotel balcony.
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FIGURE 3 The bustling Rue de Rennes in the evening.
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FIGURE 4 The Brasserie L’Horizon lit up at night was quite nice.
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Then we had dinner at L’Escargot Montorgueil. The food was alright.
2 Saturday, 2023-02-11
We went on a walk and then to the Louvre!
2.1 The morning walk
FIGURE 5 Right outside our hotel is the Felix-Potin building which looks quite cool. The Tour Montparnasse is in the background.
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FIGURE 6 The Hotel Lutetia.
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FIGURE 7 The main entrance and ticket booth of the Musée d’Orsay. We would be going inside the museum several days later, but not now!
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2.2 The Louvre
In general, I don’t take pictures of artworks because:
- it is better to just admire the masterpieces in person without worrying about taking photos,
- they are often blocked by other people, and
- extraordinarily high resolution scans are available on, for example, the Google Art Project.
FIGURE 8 Well here is the obligatory picture of the Mona Lisa.
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FIGURE 9 View of the pyramid under very terrible lighting conditions.
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FIGURE 10 The room of statues is really nice.
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After that, we had dinner at the Michelin-starred Accents Table Bourse!
3 Sunday, 2023-02-12
We originally planned to go to the Musée d’Orsay on this day but it was closed for some reason. Don’t worry, our tickets were refunded. Instead, we ended up walking around Le Marais.
FIGURE 11 The very floral Café Blanchet.
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FIGURE 12 A Fiat 500 on display outside the trendy design boutique Merci.
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FIGURE 13 The diminutive Cordonnerie.
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4 Monday, 2023-02-13
4.1 Montmartre
In the morning we went to Montmartre. We took the funicular rail thing up and then walked down. We didn’t go inside the Basilica Sacre Coeur but it looked quite nice outside.
FIGURE 14 The narrow Rue des Martyrs.
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FIGURE 15 The Vigipirates help keep the tourist attractions safe. This Land Rover was parked next to the Sacre Coeur.
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FIGURE 16 From the hill it was evident that the air quality was not too great.
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FIGURE 17 Another smoggy cityscape.
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4.2 Sightseeing in the city
For lunch we went to the Michelin-starred Restaurant Auguste. I thought it was very delicious but Joanne was a bit sick and couldn’t taste anything.
FIGURE 18 The Orsay again, but viewed from across the Seine. It used to be a train station.
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FIGURE 19 The Eiffel Tower is but a pale silhouette due to the air quality.
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FIGURE 20 The Arc de Triomphe was partially occluded by all the bagnoles rolling around the city.
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In the evening I took a boat ride on the Seine.
FIGURE 21 There were many sights to be seen on the boat ride but this shot of the Métro heading towards Passy station was my favourite.
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For dinner we went to the Michelin-starred Jacques Faussat.
5 Tuesday, 2023-02-14: travelling to Nice
We took a TGV to Nice, and then checked into Le Riviera Collection hotel which is relatively cheap.
5.1 The train ride
FIGURE 22 TGV inOui
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FIGURE 23 Some houses during the train ride. I wonder how much power those solar panels can generate? Pretty interesting to see a rhumerie there too. I wonder if their rum is any good.
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FIGURE 24 View of a highway viaduct and some distant mountains.
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5.2 Walking to the beach
FIGURE 25 The Nice-Ville station looks really cool. It’s really old or something.
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FIGURE 26 The pedestrian streets are very lively and pleasant.
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FIGURE 27 An entertainer across from the Theatre de l’Opera.
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FIGURE 28 The Quai des États-Unis.
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We looked at the sunset (not pictured) which was very nice.
5.3 Old Nice
FIGURE 29 The Place Rosetti at night.
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FIGURE 30 The Cathédrale Sainte-Réparate de Nice.
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For dinner we had some really delicious Peruvian food at Yose.
6 Wednesday, 2023-02-15: a Nice hill
On this day we went to the Cathédrale Saint-Nicolas de Nice and then climbed the hill, the Colline du Château.
FIGURE 31 View from the hotel.
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FIGURE 32 The Port de Nice Lympia viewed from the hill.
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FIGURE 33 And here it is, the beach!
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FIGURE 34 We explored Old Nice further because it is just so nice.
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6.1 Travelling to Florence
We took the train to Florence. Well, we’ve got to maximize usage of the EU Rail Pass, right? But there was no direct high speed rail so we had to take several slow trains before gtting on the Frecciarossa.
- 14:50 TER86057 departs Nice-Ville
- 15:42 TER86057 arrives at Ventimiglia
- 15:57 RV3375 departs Ventimiglia
- 18:17 RV3375 arrives at Genova Piazza Principe
- 18:35 FA8591 departs Genova Piazza Principe
- 21:29 FA8591 arrives at Firenze Campo Marte
FIGURE 35 I didn’t take this train but it looks very cool.
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FIGURE 36 Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore a Castelvecchio seen from the train.
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FIGURE 37 View from the train.
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At night we checked into the Casa Howard Firenze - Residenza d’Epoca.
7 Thursday, 2023-02-16: Florence
In the morning we walked around the city, checked out the Duomo, ate some steak, and did some shopping. Too bad it was overcast so it didn’t make for any good photos.
In the afternoon we went to the Uffizi museum. I had never known there were so many ways to paint baby Jesus and it was really eye opening.
FIGURE 38 Uffizi museum.
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FIGURE 39 Renaissance-era structures are now used to sell cheap trinkets to tourists.
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In the evening we climbed the dome of the cathedral. It was quite a workout but the view was amazing.
FIGURE 40 View from the dome!
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8 Friday, 2023-02-17
FIGURE 41 The Ponte Vecchio on a misty morning.
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FIGURE 42 Some houses along the River Arno.
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We climbed up the bell tower, the Campanile di Giotto! In my opinion, a better view than from the dome.
FIGURE 43 The Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze as seen from the bell tower.
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8.1 The Piazzale Michelangelo
FIGURE 44 The Ponte Vecchio as seen from the Piazzale Michelangelo.
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FIGURE 45 The quintessential view of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore.
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FIGURE 46 The quintessential view of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore.
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Right after taking those pictures I dropped my NISI Natural Night filter on the ground and it smashed into millions of pieces. Oh well.
For dinner we had a delicious Florentine Bistecca at L’Ortone.
9 Saturday, 2023-02-18: travelling to Milan
On this day we travelled from Florence to Milan by train. Unfortunately we were sick so we just slept once we got there.
FIGURE 47 The Milano Centrale train station is very beautiful but due to being sick I couldn’t take a photo with my real camera.
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10 Sunday, 2023-02-19: Milan sightseeing
FIGURE 48 Entrance of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II.
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FIGURE 49 Obligatory Duomo di Milano. Unfortunately we didn’t get to go inside, and it was rather overcast anyway.
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FIGURE 50 Interior of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Apparently, the staff in the Louis Vuitton store were very rude.
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FIGURE 51 Acro della Pace. Somewhat smaller than the Arc de Triomphe but less crowded and fewer cars.
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FIGURE 52 The Bosco Verticale. Look closely and you’ll see some cherry blossoms but it is rather barren otherwise due to the time of year.
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11 Monday, 2023-02-20: Back to Paris
First we bought some Chinese food. Who knew there was so much delicious Chinese food in Milan?
FIGURE 53 Tram
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FIGURE 54 Tram
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FIGURE 55 Here is the TGV Sud-Est that we took back to Paris. A little dilapidated but still very fast.
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Then we checked into the Hotel Parisianer which is very close to the train station.
12 Tuesday, 2023-02-21
FIGURE 56 A random mall.
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FIGURE 57 Intersection of Rue Réaumur and Rue de Cléry.
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We finally went to the Orsay. It was amazing! However, the huge crowds of people in front of the Van Gogh self-portrait was a bit annoying. Overall just a little bit too crowded.
FIGURE 58 Orsay.
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13 Wednesday, 2023-02-22
In the morning I took some line scan pictures of trains while Joanne went shopping, then we had lunch at EnYaa, then we went home!
FIGURE 59 Japanese food to wrap it up.