Trip to France, 2004

The meeting wasn't held in Paris. Instead, it was at the Villa Clythia near Fréjus (which, in turn, is just along the coast from Nice). So far as I can determine, this is a holiday resort for French scientists, provided by the French government. Unfortunately, we weren't visiting at an ideal time of year, so the tennis courts and swimming pool weren't fit for use.

Here we have a picture of the front of the place.

There was a minor problem with sleeping arrangements. A typo in the room list meant that I was down to share a room with Andi Burkert, which was surprising since there seemed to be other rooms free. Fortunately, the mistake was revealed over tea, and without further ado, I established myself in my own room.

Here's a view taken from my balcony (which must have been at least thirty centimetres wide) on one of the few occasions when the Sun slinked out from behind a raincloud.

The meeting was replete with coffee breaks, complete with generous supplies of French pastries. Here we are outside during one of them. The dining room in the villa is on the level above.

One morning, while awaiting the appearance of the representative from Brussels, we were taken on a walk along the coast. Here we have a photo taken near the start of the walk, looking very dramatic. It wasn't quite as dramatic as this, but that's the way it came out on film. I suspect it has something to do with shooting in the Sun confusing the light meter.

Our guide had warned us that the path was quite difficult. I had been sceptical at first (`difficult' is sometimes used to mean `mildly challenging for OAP with zimmer frame'), but this time, he really meant it. This is where things started getting tricky, although the path was still fairly clear at this point.

There were a few beaches along the way, the majority of them stony. Here we have the first, with Paul Cresswell showing an intense interest in the hydrodynamics of stone-water interactions.

Continuing on, the path got more difficult. Here we see a bunch of astrophysicists struggling through a small bay the at the sea had thoughtlessly cut into the rock.

Our guide had been trying to explain some things about this path, but a few things were remained unclear. Most important of these was this: I never quite worked out whether this was the old smuggler's path, or the old customs path.

Can you spot the way up? The presence of not a few sections like this make me lean to the view that this is the old smuggler's path. Then again, since this is now maintained by the state, perhaps not...

Richard Nelson has a plan: When he receives a personal 5* rating in the next RAE, he's going to demand that QMUL purchase him some small properties on the French Riviera. These two castles, to be precise.

He plans to settle himself (and family) in the large castle on the top of the hill. Recalcitrant graduate students will be kept in the smaller castle next to the sea. Richard says that he will also install a catapult and supply of rocks in his castle, since he believes that these can provide a powerful source of motivation for those down below.

Another dramatic shot. The title is rather less snappy: Astrophysicists walking along a stone pier

One day, our hosts even managed to arrange a rainbow for us. It was really quite spectacular, with a second one visible outside the first (but unfortunately not in this photo).

During the summer, we'd had a French student called Nathalie working at the Observatory in Stockholm. Several of us had stayed in contact with her, and when I mentioned that I was going to be in France, she very generously invited me to stay. Since she goes to university in Paris, this involved a trip on the TGV - an opportunity at which I naturally leapt. I wanted to know what going on a fast train was like.

Coming from the UK, I am not used to train travel being rapid and efficient, so to ease the transition, SNCF generously arranged a half hour delay at Fréjus. This gave me the opportunity to snap this TGV heading in the direction of Nice. There were some others heading back to Paris from the school, but they'd been put in the other half of the train, and hence were spared my company.

Strangely enough, the train didn't feel like it was going very fast as it sped north to Paris. The trip was incredibly smooth and quiet. We did make up ten minutes, though.

I'd been hoping to meet Nathalie on the platform of the Gare de Lyon. This was a good plan, but lacked a backup - I'd kept my Swedish SIM card in my phone, and upon leaving Sweden, it had converted the phone to a paperweight. I therefore got off the train with a certain amount of trepidation, hoping to be met by a small French girl, but wondering what I would do if I weren't. Soon after getting off, I sensed a presence at my left elbow, and turned to find a small French girl trying to attract my attention. However, it wasn't Nathalie. Fortunately, it was her sister, Stephanie. Nathalie herself arrived after a few minutes (she'd been delayed in lectures), and we plunged off into the Metro.

I was very relieved to have two guides, distinctively clad in red jackets, for my journey through the Metro. So far as I can determine, the system was designed by finding an ADHD rabbit, giving it a none-too-healthy dose of caffeine, and then telling the aforementioned hyped bunny to start digging. I have never seen underground stations so large, and I spent a lot of time not having a clue where I was. Nevertheless, in due course, we arrived here: Chateau des Ysards

The next morning, we took the train into Paris - the twins were determined to show me the sights. Since the French loading gauge is rather more sensible than the British one, they can run double decker trains. Nathalie and Stephanie were rather surprised that I found this remarkable.

The following photos are the highlights of our little jaunt around Paris. I don't quite have enough energy to write up all of them, and that would probably be tedious to read anyway. So, we start just after lunch at Notre Dame. Immediately afterwards, we went into Sainte Chapelle, which contains a lot of stained glass, but not enough light to take decent photos without a tripod.

A bit later (having walked through the Louvre, but not going around any of the galleries), we emerged to find two steel structures dominating the Paris skyline.

Following this, there was a brief diversion to purchase some floppy disks (required by Stephanie), before we went on up to L'Arc de Triomphe. Apparently, this was built to celebrate Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz. I don't have any photos, since it was rather dark by this point, I had only got slow film with me, and I was running low on it anyway.

Recognising that light pollution is a serious issue, the Parisians are keen to make their contribution.

The next day, I was carted off to the Louvre (although, the times being more modern, this was not in a tumbril). Being the first Sunday of the month, it was free to get in, and there was a very long queue. I spied this little busker while standing around in line.

We emerged a number of hours later, once I had been exposed to a variety of statues, paintings, and bits of furniture (not that we managed to get around any significant fraction of the place). At one point, I even managed to set off an alarm - I'd been wanting to take a closer look at a rather nice table. There were a few nice tables and chairs, and even more which would have been nice, were it not for the obsession with painting and guilding perfectly fine pieces of wood.

This photo of the courtyard was taken using the mini-tripod I had with me. The person in the foreground provides evidence of the shutter speed.

After this, we had a rather good meal (in a Nathalie-recommended restaurant), before going up to Sacré Coeur. No photos from there, since I was acutely short on film, and lacked a proper tripod. We took the funicular back down to the city, and then returned to Igny.

The next day, I was sent out unchaperoned. Both Stephanie and Nathalie had lectures to attend, so I was given instructions and released into the wilds of Paris. I had chosen to visit Versailles, which is a short train journey from Igny. I arrived without incident, but soon discovered that it was always shut on Mondays.

So, I had a tramp around the gardens instead. Here we have a view taken from in front of the main palace.

Walking around the Canal took over an hour and a half - and I'm not the world's slowest walker. It's a popular jogging and cycling spot with the natives, too. This is a view of one of the Trianon palaces (I forget which) taken as I progressed. The mist made things quite atmospheric.

Having exhausted the possibilities of Versailles in winter, I returned to the centre of Paris. One of my first stops was Gare du Nord, where I snapped this Thalys unit. There were a few other TGV units lying around (the Eurostar, among others), but I failed to hold my camera sufficiently still.

Finally, I took myself off to Gare de Lyon, where I caught this TGV Duplex sitting around in one of the platforms. If I'd taken a different train from Fréjus, I might've been on one of these.