Hiking Snowdonia

Hi all, I am currently wishing I were in London with my family. I had a great long weekend with them in Cardiff (and the surrounding area), but I am in Swansea now for a couple of days because I had quite a few hours of class I thought I’d still attend. I'm meeting up with them in London tonight where we’ll continue the fun, which you’ll all hear about.. soon. Kathy—I already failed at slowing mom down on the souvenir shopping. :P

I have been keeping busy with tests and planning stuff for the families visit so I’m just now posting about the weekend of March 4th-6th when I went on a trip to one of Wales’ National parks – Snowdonia. Shannon and I went with the hiking club on what they later told us was one of their hardest hikes. We didn’t know this before we decided to go, but we’re both in good enough shape from Swansea basketball that we survived!

We took off Friday night on a 5 hour drive. The fourteen of us got to our bunkhouse, which was an old school house, late that night and got some rest before our long day of hiking. We started off on Saturday at an area called the Rhinogs. We basically just walked around the mountains, hills, and lakes all day. The group stopped a lot for short breaks and they pulled out chocolate and candy every time, which I thought was pretty funny. I was glad for the breaks though, it was hard work climbing some of the steeper hills. They would look for parts of the mountain that were rocky and steep so they could “scramble” up them. I was scared for loose rocks and not having anything sturdy to grab at, but I got pretty good at it. What I found out later was that going down was way harder because you get to look down the mountain and see the path you could stumble down right in front of your face.

First waterfall I saw on the hike

We walked through a foresty area that made me feel like I was on Twilight with such green mossy looking environment – the picture doesn’t do it justice

Rhinogs

Beautiful landscape

Shannon and me in front of the mountain

When we came up to a lake at the top of the mountain, we saw some guys in a tent camping out - kind of made me wish we would have been camping right on top of the mountains!

The bunkhouse

The second day we went to a mountain called Cadair Idris. It was an easier path, with less “scrambling,” but was still pretty exhausting! The closer we got to the top the colder it got. There was frost towards the top which you can see in the next picture, but the sun shining down was really warm.

Made it to the top!

This is the best picture I could find to depict the most nerve racking leg of my journey.

Shannon and I were so uncomfortable with the loose rock. Since we haven’t had practice hiking we were really slow and felt like we were going to just slide down the mountain. I was laughing so hard once because I couldn’t believe how hard it was, but I was wanting to cry because I was so nervous. Below is the same picture, the left red circle is the hiker who took off just leisurely strolling down the mountain, making us look ridiculous. The circle on the right is me! Hopefully the size of us can give you an idea of how steep the mountain was!

Once we got down the mountain though, we got to sit and relax by this lake for a little while. It was much warmer down there and so pretty.

Making the trek back to the cars, it was still a lot of up and down, but much easier on grass!

Alright, off to London soon!

Paris : Deuxième partie

First off, I’m sorry I do a terrible job at “responding” to your comments. I really enjoy them I just forget to bring them up by the next time I post!

The next day in Paris we started off by going to La Sainte-Chapelle, "the Holy Chapel." It depicts the period of gothic architecture and was sponsored by King Louis IX of France. Then we headed to Notre Dame and musée du Louvre. (anyone who is a Da Vinci Code fan.. we saw a lot scenes from the movie, the Louvre is one of them) The Louvre is so huge we picked out a few of the famous pieces we wanted to see and just took our time in between those. I don’t think we even saw half of the museum! On our list of things to see: Mona Lisa, Virgin of the Rocks, (both big in The Da Vinci Code), The Winged Victory, Aphrodite sculpture known as “Venus de Milo,” Colossal Statue of Ramesses II. We got to see a lot of other great sculptures and paintings too.

That’s me inside with the awesome stained glass windows

Saint Chapelle from outside

Notre Dame

The detail on the cathedral is ridiculous

inside Notre Dame

Aphrodite in the Louvre

Mona Lisa

Outside the Louvre, it started to sprinkle and then pour!

That night we went to see Basilique du Sacré-Cœur (The Sacred Heart Basilica), which is in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris and just another pretty church. It was up a huge hill so there was a great view of the city, and then we headed back down and walked through the Red Light District of Paris which has Moulin Rouge and is off the Pigalle stop on the Metro so then became known as “Pig Alley.” I found this to be less sketchy than Amsterdam’s Red Light District.

Sacred Heart Basilica

Moulin Rouge, a show with dinner there was close to 100 Euros (140 USD) so we definitely weren’t going to try to get in there!

Sunday morning we went to Notre Dame again on our way to the Pantheon. We realized we forgot to see Point Zero, which is the center of Paris. Distances from Paris to other cities in France are measured from this point. It’s right in front of Notre Dame and we didn’t remember to look for it the first time we went. We also saw the crypts under Notre Dame which were pretty neat. Next we went to the Pantheon which was also kind of cool. The big thing in there was Foucault’s pendulum showing the rotation of the earth, which was first installed in the monument in 1851. Then we headed to the National Museum of Modern Art called Centre Pompidou, which is just this crazy looking building with floors and floors of modern art – some that use technology and lights and some that are very abstract. There’s also a library, bookstore, and movie theatre in the Centre Pompidou – it was huge.

Alex and me standing on Point Zero

Pantheon

Centre Pompidou

After this we went to see Palais Garnier or Opéra Garnier, which was the inspiration for The Phantom of the Opera. By this time during our trip we didn’t feel like spending money to see the inside, but it would have been pretty cool.

Opéra Garnier

So we headed to the Eiffel Tower once again, hoping to not be turned away this time. We timed our tickets so we were at the summit during the sunset and saw the city lights come on so, you’re going to see a lot of these pictures because it was so pretty!

Take Two

The Arc de Triomphe lit up

Paris from the Eiffel Tower

When we got back down - little light bulbs that flash every hour making it “shimmer”

A really sweet shot

We had one more half day before we headed back to Swansea so we saw a few more things. Saint Sulpice which is another pretty church we saw. Also, another Da Vinci Code location.

Saint Sulpice

The so-called Paris Meridian referenced in The Da Vinci Code

We saw Luxemburg Park and Palace before heading to the airport

Paris was awesome and it was nice to have a four day weekend there! We got to experience the city too not just rush to all the sights as fast as we could. Sorry that took so long to post though because now I have to make up a weekend or two. All I’ve done since then was a trip to Snowdonia (Welsh National Park) and hiked mountains with the hiking club at Swansea University. I will also be posting about basketball soon with lots of pictures. Kathy, we actually don’t have a mascot, isn’t that weird?! We have two games this week so I’m likely to be exhausted right before the family gets here next weekend! I’m so excited to see them that I planned out every little detail of what I wanted to show them! :)

Paris : Première partie

Alex and I headed to Paris last Thursday afternoon. We got in late Thursday night so the sightseeing didn’t start until Friday. We started off by going to Versailles which is about an hour outside the city. It took us a while to figure out the RER rail system, we thought it would be just as easy as the metro, but it was a little different. We got there by about noon and saw the Chateau de Versailles, Garden de Versailles and the Marie Antoinette Estate.

In front of the Palace of Versailles

I wanted a picture by the sculptures, they were all covered because it was the off season, but the gardens were still so beautiful. It was amazing how big it was.

The Apollo Fountain (the fountains weren’t running either) and the Grand Canal

View of the gardens from inside the palace

Alex listening to the audio guide in the Hall of Mirrors which looks out to the gardens

We learned how the palace had different rooms that were each dedicated to a different god or goddess. At Marie Antoinette’s Estate we saw how the palace was laid out. One room I found interesting was the “warming room.” The cooks would prepare food outside of the palace in another house (so they didn’t disturb anyone in the palace by it) and then bring the food to the warming room before serving it to the Queen and her company.
Next we went to the Musee de Rodin. A museum full of Rodin’s sculptures and other art work.

One of Rodin’s pieces – Gates of Hell

That night we went to Arc de Triomphe which was built to honor those who fought in the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. It has the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under it.

View from on top of Arc de Triomphe

Next we headed to the Eiffel Tower. We had tickets to the summit that night and when we got through security and to the elevator, they told us all we had to leave and that the Eiffel Tower was being shut down for security reasons for the night. We ended up buying tickets again because we really wanted to get to the top so we went back a couple nights later.

First time walking up to the Eiffel Tower

the Seine River running through Paris

My camera died that night so the rest of the pictures are still with Alex. I will be getting those from him shortly and post Paris: Part two!