Spring bike rides

We've been waiting all winter to install a bike carrier on the car. The weather was perfect this week so we tested the carrier for transporting the bikes to one of the forest trails outside the city.
The carrier worked great and we had a good ride. However, I think it will be awhile before we're ready for the Tour de France!

La Défense

Monday was a perfect day for a photo expedition - warm weather and a crystal blue sky. We decided to check out a more modern side of Paris - the area known as La Défense.
The building above is called the Grande Arche. It lies in a continuous line from the Louvre, west through the Tuileries, the Champs Elysées, and the Arc de Triomphe.

Looking west:Looking east - you can see the (tiny) Arc de Triomphe in the very center in the distance.The area has some interesting modern architecture. I call this the flying saucer building:
And some interesting sculpture. . .

Pochoirs

"Il faut inclure la signature dans la photo." (Be sure to include the signature in your picture.)

The voice startled me as I was crouched low, taking photographs of the street art in the rue Denoyez. I looked up to see a tall, thin man with graying hair tucked into a pony tail. He was standing in the doorway of a shop whose exterior was covered with art such as this:
"C'est un de mes pochoirs" he said. I'm Pedro, and this is my shop."

"Pochoir?" I didn't recognize the word in French. "Stencil" is the English word, he continued. And so we began a 15 minute conversation in English regarding the use of stencils as street art, poetry, and political statement. Pedro invited me into his shop/studio where the walls were covered with hundreds of images of musicians, poets, and historical figures ranging from Obama to Marilyn Monroe and Rosa Parks. I think that Pedro was delighted to practice his English and flattered that someone would be interested in his art. He wouldn't allow me to take any photos of him or the inside of his shop, but did allow me this photo of the process:
I left the shop with a new insights regarding street artists, their cans of spray paint, and their "pochoirs." So what can you do with stencils? Well, you can decorate your trash cans. . .

Happy Birthday Eric

Today is my son Eric's 34th birthday. Here is a picture of him from last summer.
I found this picture of myself and my sons taken in late 1978. That's Eric in the front pack on my chest and Philippe with his blond curls.
And here are the three of us at Philippe's wedding in 2008. They grow up so quickly!
If you'd like to see more photos of Eric, click here.

Noordwijk aan Zee

After a three museums in one day, (the Kröller-Müller, the Van Gogh in Amsterdam, and the Rijksmuseum) we'd had enough. We spent Friday along the coast of the North Sea. It was sunny and calm, but the water is much too cold for swimming. Here is the view from our hotel room in Noordwijk aan Zee.
Of course, we couldn't leave Holland without at least one photo of a windmill.

Kröller-Müller Museum

One of the highlights of our visit to Benelux was the Kröller-Müller Museum which is located inside the De Hoge Veluwe National Park near Otterlo, Netherlands. The museum owes its existence to Helene Kröller-Müller (1869-1939), the daughter of a German industrialist. Helene was fully aware that she lived in a period of great artistic innovation that witnessed movements such as Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism and De Stijl. In her lifetime she collected almost 11,500 art works - including significant works by Picasso, Seurat, Mondriaan, etc. Helene's favorite artist was Vincent van Gogh. She acquired 91 paintings and approximately 180 works on paper by Van Gogh, amassing the world's largest collection of his works (with the exception of the Van Gogh family collection which we visited in Amsterdam later in the day).

We began our visit by picking up a free bicycle at the park entrance and then pedaling the 2.5 km to the museum.

Once inside the museum, we were entranced by the collection of paintings and sculptures. Here are a few of the highlights.Giacometti's Walking Man

Van Gogh's The Potato Eaters (1885)

Van Gogh's Place du Forum (1888)

The museum also features a sculpture garden of 25 hectares (>60 acres).
There were plenty of school groups taking advantage of the gorgeous weather and national treasures.

Rainy Sunday in the Champs de Mars

Spring is just around the corner