Haggerty In The Hague

We decided to start off our Oktoberfest holiday with a Jimmy Buffett concert in Paris.  We took the train down to Paris on Saturday morning which got us in by 12.  After grabbing a bite we toured around one of our favorite areas - Montmartre.  Next we went around to gather materials for our tailgate - French wine, bread, sausage, and cheese.  Then we met up with Bill, Maura, and Sara to start the tailgate.  We first started at the Chat Noir with Jeff and Sara.

Next we met up with Bill and Maura.

All of us together at the show.  We were 30 feet away from stage and the venue only had 1000 people in it.

The concert was great.  Of course “Fins” was played.

We were really close up!

We saw this guy throughout the show, so I had to talk with him afterwards.

Walking from the show.

Next up - Oktoberfest.  The next post is coming soon!

Fall, France, Paris, Travel

A little over a month ago, Lindsey and I went on a weekend road trip to two regions in Northwest France - Normandy & Brittany.  Our first stop was the city of Caen, the port city just over an hour from our hotel.  This place had a nice little harbor and a really cool looking church (as we would eventually find out would be commonplace).

Next, we headed to check into our hotel in the litte town of Ducey, which served as the perfect jumping off point for driving around the area.  The hotel was situated over a river:

The next day was our day for Mont Saint-Michel and the DDay beaches.  Mont Saint-Michel is an old monastery first built in the 10th century that is placed on an island one kilometer off the coast.

This place was beautiful when viewed from afar and just as interesting up close.  When visiting, one walks up the steep, narrow, winding streets through the village part until you get to the abbey at the top.  The abbey was very impressive and offered great views of the surrounding tidal area.

Next, we spent the greater part of a day seeing the WWII beaches of Normandy: Omaha Beach, the American War Cemetary at Omaha Beach, and Pointe du Hoc.  We saw the memorial on Omaha Beach before heading off the cemetary.  The American War Cemetary at Omaha Beach was very well kept with a museum and over 9,000 American soldiers buried there.

Pointe du Hoc was one of the few places not “cleaned up” after the war.  This is where American Rangers scaled the 100 foot cliffs on DDay to attack a group of casemates that were set up as part of the German Atlantic Wall.  This place was littered with bombing craters 15 feet deep and the same distance wide.  Most of the casemates that were occupied by the Germans were still intact and we were able to walk around in them.

After the DDay stuff, we decided to stop off for some cider tasting.  While this area is not a wine region, it is littered with apple orchards and many people making and selling their own apple products.  At one of the places we stopped, a little French boy named Louie served us cider:

This stuff was delicious and we ended up tasting the apple cider, pommeau (mix of cider and calvados), and Calvados (apple brandy from the Calvados area within Normandy).  Throughout the weekend, we also had lots of crepes, as this area is famous for its galettes, or buckwheat flour pancakes used to make crepes for dinner.  A typical galette was filled with local apples, locally famous camembert cheese, and andouille sausage.

The next day was our city visiting tour.  We visited a number old towns: St Malo, Dinan, Vitre, and Fougeres.  While every town was unique, most had the same things in common: a beautiful church with scary looking gargoyles, old houses with the timber-framing from the Tudor style, and an old chateau that was more of a medieval castle.

Saint Malo is an old walled island city.  A lot was shut down when we arrived, but looks like a nice port of all if you were sailing around the area.  Rumor has it that the nurses at St Malo used the seawater as a substitute for blood plasma during the war.

Next we headed to Dinan, a beautiful little town that we all thought we could’ve spent a whole day at.  This place consisted of a large walled city that sat about 200 feet above the river below.  After walking through the walled town we headed down towards the lively port area filled with restaurants and shops.

Next we moved on to Vitre, an older and much smaller town with a really cool looking chateau and some of the oldest timber framed houses we saw.  There was even a band of young kids playing some American rock music right outside of the chateau.

Last on our list for the day was Fougeres.  This placed boasted the best chateau that allowed visitors to take a tour inside the various parts of the old structure.  We ended up getting the audio guide with our tour and learned a lot about the history of this castle and the central role it played during the 100 Years War.

On the way home, we stopped by Rouen to check out the famous church that Monet painted over 30 times.  Unforunately the church was closed, but we were cetainly impressed with the exterior!  This was also the city where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and we saw the monument to commemorate her life.

Overall this was a fantastic trip!

France, Summer, Travel

Lindsey and I rented a car to drive from the Netherlands to the Loire Valley for a long weekend.  Along the way, we stopped off in Giverny for the night.  After a nice stay at a quaint little hotel, we headed over to check out the Claude Monet home and gardens.  The water garden was definitely the highlight with beautiful water lilies and the japanese bridge.

Next we drove through Paris and onto the Loire Valley.  Along the way to our hotel, we stopped by Chambord, the largest of all chateaus in the Loire Valley.  This place was originally built by Francois I and was meant to serve as his hunting lodge.

We stayed in the town of Chenonceaux near the chateau Chenonceau.  This was a great location in the heart of the Loire Valley, in the region called “Touraine”.

We walked the gardens of Chenonceau at night while classical music was playing in the background.  This chateau was built directly over the river Cher.  The next day we went to Villandry, which is mostly known for its magnificent gardens.

Driving around the French countryside was beautiful - we saw lots of sunflower fields.

Chateau l’Azay de Rideau was the final chateau of our trip.  This one was a nicely fortified chateau that was beautiful from the outside.

We stopped by a few towns during our adventure, one of which was Chinon.  We went into the caves for a degustation (wine tasting).  The temperature dropped 10 degrees just after walking a few feet into the cave.  After the tasting, we walked back into the cave and observed the huge crates of wine being kept there for storage.  We also saw a few prized old bottles being kept for a special occasion.

France, Summer, Travel

Lindsey flew into town for a long weekend in February over Valentine’s weekend (sorry, I’m obviously behind on my posts).  Since we’d already gotten the gist of Den Haag, we decided to make a weekend trip to Paris.  After staying the first night in the Netherlands, we took the Thalys train from Den Haag Holland Spoor (the other train station) to Paris Noord train station.  It was about a 3 hour trip and was very pleasant as we packed a lunch and ate it on the train.  Upon our arrival, we pretty quickly figured out the metro/RER system to get close to our hotel.  After we got off the RER (B line), we had a 10 minute walk to the hotel, where we passed by a group that was protesting - that’s when we knew we were in Paris…

Lindsey with French bread on the way to the hotel

We stayed at the Hotel Grande Ecoles in the Latin Quarter, which was a very nice and quaint hotel.  The room wasn’t anything special, but the location was great and the gardens around the room were very nice.  This would be an excellent place to stay in the summer.

The first night we went to dinner at a really nice restaurant with a view of Notre Dame.  This dinner was an engagement present to us from Eric & Courtney, and we had a blast.  Really good food and the view was incredible.  Unfortunately, our waiter “accidentally” charged us about 75 euro too much, to which we quickly alerted him of his mistake.  He corrected it, but it left a sour taste in our mouths.

Notre Dame during the day

Thoughout the next two days we saw all of the great tourist attractions: Notre Dame, Musee D’Orsay, Eiffel Tower (at night), Arc Du Triumph, Montmarte, Sacre Couer, Musee Du Louvre, and St Chapelle.  My favorite was the Sacre Couer because it offered a fantastic view of the entire city.  We first had to climb the towers to the top and were rewarded with a 360 degree view.

Artistic Shot from the top of Sacre Couer

Another highlight was visiting St Chapelle with its beautiful stained glass windows.

Musee D’Orsay and Musee Du Louvre were both excellent in their own right - I didn’t particularly favor one over the other, I’m glad we did both!

Matt & Polynesian Statue

When we weren’t going around the touristy sites, we made plenty of time to visit cafes and to relax.  Next time we’ll plan to do less on the tourist side and more on the relaxing side.  While we had great weather overall, it was still only in the 40s since it was February.  This probably helped to keep the crowds down as we didn’t have to wait more than 10 minutes at any tourist attraction.  We’re definitely looking forward to going back during the summer

Matt and Lindsey in front of the Eiffel Tower

France, Paris, Travel, Winter

Because my flight didn’t depart until 7pm, I decided to stick around town and snowboard at the Les Houches resort right down the road.  I knew the conditions would be good, because it had been snowing around town the entire day before.  Everyone else either had earlier flights or had enough snowboarding, so I went by myself.  A short walk down the road had me at the ticket counter.  Instead of the Italian greeting from the days before, here I was greeted with a “bonjour”.

The conditions were great, although the mountain itself wasn’t as tall or large as the Italian one from the day before.  Snowboarding alone, I was able to cover a lot of ground and got a number of runs in before noon.  After taking a particular lift a few times, I spotted my idea of the perfect French lunch spot: Les Vieille Luges.  I noticed this restaurant from the lift, but realized it wasn’t visible from the piste.  However, there was a small sign and turnoff from the nearby piste that held a long, narrow trail to reach the restaurant.

After missing the turnoff once, I found the restaurant on the second attempt and it was packed!  I made my way through the 5’10” entrance and found the owner who fortunately spoke English.  After searching around, he managed to find a small table where he could fit me, because all of his other tables were full with reservations.  A couple minutes after seating me, he approached me with a “parlez vous francais?”.  After I replied no, he asked if I wouldn’t mind having another individual without a reservation join me for lunch.  I said no, and he said, “Great!  But he doesn’t speak English”.  Needless to say, we had a pretty quiet lunch, but the meal was fantastic.

Later that afternoon I made my way back to Geneva, then eventually to Amsterdam and Den Haag.  All in all, it was a fantastic trip!

France, Snowboarding, Travel, Winter

I recently took a three-day weekend to join a group of coworkers in the French Alps. Because most people took a full week vacation I made the trek south from the Netherlands myself.  To start I had to make my way to the Amsterdam Schipol airport via train ride from Den Haag.  I managed to get to the train station on bike, carrying a laptop over one shoulder, snowboard over the other, holding the handle of my rolling suitcase in one hand, and steering with the other hand.

After a relatively quick flight from Amsterdam to Geneva, I took an hour-long shuttle van ride to the Chamonix valley.  The Chamonix valley is the general area, which is composed of at least 6 resorts, including the one we stayed at: Les Houches (pronounced: “lay ooochhh”).  Even though the driver didn’t speak a word on English (and my French was limited to “bonjour”), I safely made it to the Chalet.

The Chalet itself was fantastic: spacious, wooden/log cabin décor, sauna, and hot tub.  We even had our own staff that would serve us breakfast and a three-course dinner with unlimited beer and wine.  The whole trip went well, and I made it back after three full days of snowboarding in great conditions!  Check back for posts about the Italian and French Alps experiences.

France, Snowboarding, Travel, Winter