Sapa

Buffalos are pretty sweet.

After 10 hours on the night train, and 2 hours on a minibus (one of which was spent waiting for the minibus to fill up and leave) we arrived in the mountain town on Sapa in the Lào Cai province. The town of Sapa is not a pretty colonial town with nice buildings, it's more of an ugly and dirty small Vietnamese town. However, it's surrounded by beautiful mountains, and lush green rice fields. The only reason to go to this remote region is to trek around the small villages and see the rivers, the waterfalls and the rice fields. In this part of Vietnam many local minorities live and cultivate the land.

Hanoi

Saint Joseph Cathedral

Our trip to Vietnam started in the capital Hanoi. Walking though the streets of the Old Quarter one is surrounded by unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells. Having been the French Indochina capital, the streets of Hanoi are dotted with colonial style architecture

Busy streets in the Old Quarter

It is possible to drink local beer all night long with just a few dollars, while people watching at a street-side cafe.

Pigments

Colors, smells and sounds are unbelievable (markets will be the topic of a later post).

Literature Temple

The night train to Sapa

After having spent two days exploring the city, we headed north. The night train is an excellent means of transportation, albeit quite slow (350 km in 10 hours).

Mont Blanc

Sunflower field in the Swiss country side.

Cascade du Dard, Mont Blanc on the French side.

Then Mont Blanc on the Italian side.

As I had mentioned in my previous post, driving from Paris to Turin and back takes you through the Mont Blanc and a part of the Alps. If it's a nice and sunny day (and it was) you have stunning views of the white glaciers. So here are a few pictures of the Mont Blanc both from the French and the Italian side.

Geneva

Seeing as the 14th of July is a holiday in France, we took a few extra days and headed down to Italy (another post). On the way we decided to stop by Geneva to say hello to my friend Martina. It was a sunny and hot day (I think the thermometer reached 36 C) and after walking around the old part of the city in the morning and playing a game of chess in the park, we headed to the Bain des Paquis to swim in the crystal clear water of lake Geneva.

There are many ways to cross the lake, but the most interesting one is by small yellow boats that take you from different point on opposite shores. Not only is this a good and refreshing way to travel, but it's also a great way to take pictures of the Jet d'eau, Geneva's alternative to the Eifel Tower. The Jet d'eau is a 140 m tall water fountain in the middle of the lake. The water is propelled at 200 km/h and on windy days the mist reaches many parts of the city.

After a lovely day spent in the sun it was sadly time to leave this quaint alpine city and head south towards the Alps and ultimately off to Italy.

At the country side

This weekend was the first sunny and HOT weekend in a long time. So no reason to stay in Paris, instead we headed out on Friday night and went to a small town called Balay. On the way we ran into a really nice sunset / moonrise long the Seine in the town of Montereau-Fault-Yonne where the rivers Seine and Yonne.

Saturday and Sunday was spent swimming in a lake and climbing in the Fontainebleau forest.

Around Paris

It's always easy to find new and interesting buildings, paintings, and stuff in general when walking around Paris. On saturday I took a few pictures of a little street in the 10th arrondissement called rue Saint Marthe. This quiet street is lined with small colorful houses, restaurants and cafes.

Not far from there is l'Hopital Saint Louis and along its outer wall there were colorful murals made of paper. I particularly liked the gold fish.

Torino

Last weekend I left the city of lights for a relaxing few days in Torino Italy.

Torino is a city in the north west of Italy best known as the birth city of Fiat and it was the first Italian capital. The region around the city produces wine, cheese, and hazelnuts, which are then transformed into yummy gianduiotti chocolates (topic for another post). One of my favorite places in the city is Porta Palazzo probably the largest outdoor-markets in Europe. Here a whole week worth of fresh fruit, vegetables and fish can be bough for under 10 euros. It's a lovely chaotic place where the vendors scream to sell their products.

A bit further down the road is an ice cream parlour called Gelateria Popolare. This small shop sells gelato made with real fruit. The flavours are always varied and range from classic cream and lemon, to orange with cardamon and faire trade coffee. While I was there I had camera problems, so I did no take as many pictures as I would have liked.