Montmartre.

Today's adventure was people watching at Montmartre. The adventure began with a walking tour starting from Abbesses metro station (the deepest metro station in Paris--a long hard climb out of it) and ending at the Funicular in front of Sacre Couer.

Some memorable moments included:

1. Seeing the oldest Moulin on the mountain.
It wasn't Moulin Rouge, but it was still entertaining.
2. Sacre Coeur.
Catie reminded me that her school was founded from this very site.
3. Climbing the windy and steep streets on Montmartre.
Taking a group selfie at the top of the mountain
4. Hebe's request to take a photo of her shadow. "Look at me!"
5. Hebe getting ready for the Funicular to descend from Sacre Coeur to the metro below.

Catherine

"Look at me!"

"I'm next on the funicular."

Celebrating Arta's Third Quarter Quell

Church and Freud

The Church

On our last day in Vienna we went to church, then toured the Freud museum.

Thus the title church and Freud.

The church building in Vienna is one of a kind.

An original design with beautiful windows inside the chapel.

The windows open, a rare thing in our chapels, which was very useful today with the high of 37 degrees. Even with all the windows open they still had to bring in fans. When will this heat wave end? Another interesting thing about this building is that it is one of the few I have ever visited that had no typical gymnasium, and no basketball hoops. Almost Sacreligious 😀.

We enjoyed attending this ward. We watched them change the bishop in that ward. It was a really moving meeting and brought back a lot of tender feelings of the times when eric was both called and released as stake president.

After lunch and after the heat of the day had peaked, we went outside again to visit the Freud museum.

Difficult not to make a pilgrimage to this site while in Vienna.

I personally found it fascinating. Saw the birth place of psychoanalysis and talked to the kids about Freuds contributions to psychiatry and psychology.

Catie was fascinated to learn about Freuds cocaine addiction while I liked hearing about family life.


I hadn't realized that he had six children.

One died as a young adult from influenza.

She left behind 2 young children one of whom later died of tuberculosis.

It was sad to read Freuds comments about those experiences. Grief really is a universal experience.

... the doorway into Freud's office ...

Eric and I read carefully about Freuds escape from Vienna after the Anschluss in 1938.

With the help of princess Bonaparte of France he was allowed to leave with his wife, daughter anna, housekeeper and his personal physician.

All he had to do was a pay ⅓ of all he owned as an exit tax for "fleeing" Vienna.

All his sister, who were unable to leave died in aushwitz.

... Catie arriving for a consultation with Freud ...

Although Eric and I found the tour fascinating, it wasn't necessarily a tour for teenagers.

You can decide for yourselves how the children made out.

Last few photos are of the doorway into Freuds office.

Catie ringing the doorbell and eric arriving for a consultation.

Day 70, Quarter Quell in honor of Arta's 75 Birthday ... Cat

The Adventures of Hebe

A Photo Essay about Hebe

The music board inside the maze gardens at Schönbrunn.
This really made Hebe dance.
We thought it was cute. 

Hebe's dip in the pond at Schönbrunn
Front

Hebe's dip in the pond at Schönbrunn
Back

Eating Calippo.
We discovered this treat in Portugal when
we vacationed there during a heat wave.
We are always excited to find these on a hot day. 

A fun piece of playground equipment.
If you can climb up inside the bird,
people below can pull the ropes and make the bird fly.

Honouring Arta's 75th: Third Quarter Quell, Day 69

Family Photos

Here are 5 family photos I took yesterday while we were at Schönbrun Palace.

...how we really feel ...

1. Here we are in the privy garden.

 Once again the heat was oppressive, so we sought relief under the ivy awning that ran around the edge of the garden.

The kids are letting it all hang out.

 Probably a more real reflection of how we were feeling after touring Schönbrun palace, which is by the way Vienna's answer to Versailles.

 In fact the Empress Maria Theresa of Schönbrun was the mothe

... we took a similar picture last year ...r of Marie Antoinette, last queen of France.

2. Walking in the gardens.

We took a similar photo walking in the gardens at Versailles just over 2 years ago.

 Decided at Catie's suggestion to repeat at Schönbrun.

3. Inside the maze garden.

That was a lot of fun. The 6 foot high hedges make it near impossible to cheat this maze.

It took us a long time to find our way to the centre.


Once you reach the centre, you could climb a landing, which resembles a tree house from which you can see the entire maze.

A fun time was had by all.

4. Family photo in a "house of mirrors" maze in the children's garden.


 It was fun to see how a shorter Jarvis Family might have looked.


5. And Finally, Into the Woods.

Thomas wanted to walk the garden path out of Schönbrun through the Woods.

I had a very interesting conversation with Hebe while walking in the woods.
Hebe: Mommy, do you know what's the most important things for camping?
Me: What do you think?
Hebe: The most important things are fire, marshmallows, and cookies.
Me: What are the cookies for?

Hebe: Breakfast.
Hebe: You also need a tent, and maybe a flashlight.
Me: Oh that's interesting. So tell me again what are the most important things for camping.
Hebe: Fire, marshmallow, cookies, a tent and a flashlight.

So you heard it here. The camping list.

Hebe was ready to have a camping trip in Schönbrun forest. Unfortunately, the rest of us were exhausted and we didn't have fire, marshmallows, cookies, a tent or a flashlight. Perhaps next time.

Love,

Catherine

Honouring Arta's 75th: Third Quarter Quell, Day 67

Treasure through the eyes of a child

We went to visit the treasury of the Hapsburg empire today. Basically the Crown Jewels of the now defunct monarchy. Absolutely amazing.

Here are a few photos of what interested hebe. She wanted to take pictures of everything. When asked why, she got a bit panicked and said to me "if I don't take pictures how am I going to remember it in my mind". I hear Yan hebe. I feel the same way.

1. The sceptre of the austrohungarian empire in 3 parts because she couldn't figure out have to get all of it in one frame. I love the central part which is made of narwhal tusk. She obviously loved that too.

2. Royal vestments

3. Royal crown of the Holy Roman Empire Stunning. Have never seen anything Lille it.

Catherine

Honouring Arta's 75th: Third Quarter Quell, Day 65

More on Venice

I love that vacations often do not turn out as planned. As long as you are willing to go with the flow and enjoy the adventure, you will create a good and lasting memory. Such was the case for our trip to Venice.

Original plan was as follows:

1 Leave Bologna at 9 am, arriving in Venice at 10:30

2. Store our luggage at the train station and head off to the islands to explore

3. Take the boat bus to Doge's Palace and Basilica St Marc. See San Marco Piazza

4. Feed the pigeons

5. Explore a little bit before going to the Rialto Bridge to see the main canal and to explore the fish market

6. Consider a gondola ride with the kids

7. Take the boat bus to Murano Island to see them blow glass.

What happened:

1. Our train left Bologna right on time.  We are becoming expert packers so it was an easy morning escape.

2. Got about 20 km from Venice when our train stopped. Announcement that the train was being held at the stop and there could be 20 min - 2 hours delay before we were allowed to proceed.

3. One hour later, train conductor comes to tell us there was a death on the tracks at the next station, so the line is closed. She hope we will be moving in another 40 minutes.

4. Moment of sadness. Hard to feel anything but sorrow for those affected.


5. Train finally moves on to Venice but arrives 2 hours late. No worries. We will just see what we can see.

6. Arrive at the mainland station at 12:30.Disembark and take our luggage to baggage storage.

Glad we packed in 3 suitcases instead of 5 since it costs 6 euros per piece for the first 5 hours then and additional 80 cents per hour per piece. Welcome to Venice!

7. Lunch at the train station as everyone is getting squirrelly. Options--McDonalds, or sandwiches at a small cafe. Turns out the cafe is cheaper and offers healthier food than McDonalds. Thank heavens. McDonald's trio a mere 12 euros a person ($18). Ouch. Sandwiches at the cafe 5 euros/person.

8. Board another train to cross the causeway from the mainland to the island.

Arrive at Venice proper around 2 p.m and promptly purchase bus boat passes for the day. (20 euros each for a 24 hour pass or 7.50 euros/person each time you board) Gulp. And that is the budget transportation. Boat taxis and gondolas cost more.

Other option - you walk. Not a good option when you only have a few hours to explore.

10. Take bus boat to St Marcos Square. Board the right boat but going the wrong direction. End up circling the outside of the island complex instead of heading done the main canal. See a lot of cruise ships. Takes 40 minutes instead of the 20 it takes to go through the canal.

More lost time, but at this point, not much to do.

11. Arrive at San Marco Piazza.

Disembark in a mass of people.

Wall to wall tourists in the blaring heat.

Not working for us.

Slip down a side street for some shade and wind our way to St Marks Cathedral through the side streets.

12. Line up to enter the cathedral.

After waiting for 30 minutes, get to the cathedral door to be turned away because we are all carrying knapsacks.

No knapsacks in the cathedral. Don't cross a tired, hot mom! I collect all the knapsacks and send Eric in with the children.

There is no way we are all standing in line again.

Walk with 5 knapsacks to the baggage storage centre to learn a small mercy.

It's FREE!

Hooray.

Decide that I will store the bags and try to catch up to the rest of the gang.

13. Second small mercy. With the baggage coupon, I can skip the line and head right into the basilica. I do just that. Rush through the cathedral to find the family and can't see them anywhere. Get worried.

14. Figure they must have gone to the treasury so head up the stairs to see. I am blocked from entering because you have to pay 5 euros. I don't have any money because unfortunately, Eric is carrying all the cash. Try to ask the guard if there are any small children inside. He firmly shakes his head NO. I wonder where they are. I leave and circle the basilica again trying to find the family.

15. Run through the entire cathedral, not stopping to really enjoy it. Text Eric. Call Eric. No response. Start to get worried.

16. Decide to wait outside in case they raced through and are now outside waiting for me.

17. Give up. Wait outside the exit for them.

18. Family finally arrives. They were in the TREASURY. Who would have guessed. I think the guard there obviously didn't understand my english. Sigh.

19 Collect our bags and head for the Piazza 20 Feed pigeons. See previous email. Lots of fun for everyone except Rebecca who loves birds as much as Grandpa Jarvis.

21. Rebecca wants to climb the tower. Get in line again. After about 15 minutes check on the price. 8 euros/person for a elevator ride up a "reconstructed" ancient tower. The ancient tower fell over in 1980 so this is a replica with an elevator. You can't climb the steps. Decide 48 euros isn't in the budget for an elevator ride.

22. Look at gondolas. Thomas really wants to do it. Cost 80 euros ($120) for 40 minutes. Hmmm. Walking around is looking pretty good at this time and is in our budget.

. Take the boat bus in the right direction this time to the Rialto Bridge. Throngs of people now so we are stuck in the centre of the boat. Not the best views of the canal, but pleasant nonetheless. Realize it is better to stand at the prow, at least you can see a bit better.

24. Get off at the Rialto Bridge. It's under reconstruction. You can cross it but you can't actually look off of it and view both sides of the canal. Follow the throngs of people who want to cross the bridge. Do so and get the north view of the canal. Hard to take a photo, but you me know, I'll do just about anything to get a photo. See attached photos of Hebe and Thomas and Rebecca.

. Head into the side streets to find the fish market. The fish market is closed of course. It's only open until 1 p.m. Find some other interesting things to see like long liquorice whips (eric buys a few), calzone which we eat for a snack, and a store selling fish pedicures. See attached photos. Only problem with the 4 cheese calzone that the kids ordered was that the 4th cheese was blue cheese. Not a big hit. I was tempted to try the fish pedicure. You simply put your feet in a tank full of tiny scavenger fish, who promptly go to work "eating" dead skin off your feet.

26. It is now nearly 6:30 p.m and we realize that we need to start heading back to the train station.

We take the boat bus back to the island terminal and decide to do one final walking tour to the Venetian Jewish Ghetto. 

Really interesting history. 

All were deported during the war. Only 8 known Venetian Jews survived the Holocaust. Beautiful walk and away from the main canal. The streets were nearly empty. It was delightful and refreshing.

27. Bought ice cream for the kids in the Ghetto. Cost 2.50 euros each. A steal of a deal since on the main strip the same size of cone cost 4.50 euros. Why didn't we stick to the smaller streets earlier?

28. Head back to the mainland to retrieve our luggage before the baggage claim centre closes at 8 p.m. Dinner at the train station while we wait for our 9 p.m sleeper train to Vienna.

And so goes an unexpected adventure. Not what we planned but pleasant none-the less.

Notes to self next time I go to Venice.

1. Avoid the tourist hubs during high season.

Get off on the small streets earlier, and if you can, walk Venice.

2. Do the walking tours of the smaller neighbourhoods

3. Take the canal boat the right direction

4. Register for the mask painting class. Learned about that online but didn't have time to register.

5. Arrange a gondola lesson for my teenagers. Learned about that online too. Cost 100 euros for 4 persons for 2 hour. Sounds like a deal after learning the gondola rate of 80 euros for a 40 minute ride.

6. Pack a lunch and bring plenty of water. Few public fountains, like in Rome.

7. Buy all food off the main streets. You will save yourself a lot of money.

7. Don't forget to bring some corn to feed the birds and to share with others.

Catherine



Honouring Arta's 75th: Third Quarter Quell, Day 64

Dissection, anyone

So many of you know that Eric and I "met over a corpse".

If you do not know that story, suffice it to say that the semester we started dating we were assigned to the same corpse in our anatomy lab.

Nothing more likely to build romance between two young medical students than sharing an anatomy lab together.

Ha ha ha

Go ahead and insert your joke here.

We've heard them all)

In celebration of this we thought it only fitting to take our children to the oldest university in the western world and the place where academics did the first human dissections.

Basically the worlds first anatomy lab.

Here it is--teatro anatomico at the university of Bologna.

Our kids with the fratta family getting our first lesson in anatomy.

I'm also sending a photo of two of the sculptures in the room

1. Two human figures holding up the roof over the place where the professor stood to direct the lesson.

Check out the figures.

You'll see they are human figures minus the skin so you can see all the muscles.

Totally Fitting in an anatomy lab, but I'm not sure would go over well in a regular museum.

2 First plastic surgery.

Can you figure out what the person is holding in his left hand?

Well a nose of course.

Finally a photo of a few girls who are interesting in perhaps being the next subjects.

Just kidding.

Honouring Arta's 75th: Third Quarter Quell, Day 61

Birds, birds

One of Eric's fondest memories of Venice as a child was of feeding the birds.

Nothing like actually trying to recreate these memories in the present.

Although the sellers of cones filled with corn are long gone, you can still find a few smart tourists who have brought along there own supply of corn and are willing to share it with you.

If you are lucky you might even get some birds to land on you, perhaps on you head, or even on your shoulder particularly when you are the photographer and don't have any corn.

Funniest moment was when a bird landed on my shoulder without provocation and so I did what any smart photographer would do.

I took a selfie.

The bird complied by looking right at the camera.
Thoughtful of him, really.

Notably absent from the photos is rebecca who has inherited her grandfather jarvis' love of birds.

Catherine

Catherine takes a "selfie"

Honouring Arta's 75th: Third Quarter Quell, Day 60

Mosaics in Ravenna

We spent a day with our friends who live in Bologna Italy and decided to go to Ravenna together to see its world famous mosaics.

They have 8 world heritage sites in this small town, almost all are churches with well preserved 5th century mosaics inside.

Here is a small sampling of photos but I have to admit these photos do not do it justice.

If you are interested, go check out Ravenna images online.

1. The vault at basilica s apollinaris in classe

Try to large this image and see if you can find the finger of God.

Loved that the kids eye sight is so keen. Heloise who is about seven told me her favourite part was the image of Christ at the centre of the cross.

My eyes can barely make it out.

2. Underwater mosaics on the floor of the crypt at San Francesco.
It is below sea level so subject to flooding.
Love that you have to insert 1 euro for the lights to illuminate the crypt. Your euro gets you about 2 minutes. The space for viewing the crypt floor is wide enough for 2 people although we made a go of having 8 people look at once.

You can't see it in the photo but they keep a few goldfish down there much to the delight of the children

3. The roof of neonian baptistery. One of my favourites with all its blue glass.


Love that this mosaic suggests the controversy around baptism. In the centre is John the Baptist. Christ is half submerged in the river Jordan and john is sprinkling water on this head. :). That just about covers everyone. 4. When you are 7 and you are getting bored of mosaics there are a lot of other things

to examine like the list of rules for entering these heritage sites. A lot of interesting symbols to be found there too.

5 finally an up close view of one of the mosaics just to suggest the craftsmanship. Really inspiring art

Catherine


Honouring Arta's 75th: Third Quarter Quell, Day 59

Fun with Friends

Catherine writes:

 
Check out the four statues we saw outside of the Theodoric mausoleum.

Next is one r/of my worst photo attempts but a cute picture of the kids outside one of the Apollinaire nuovo. I was trying to get the tower in the background but the blazing sun didn't allow for that. If you want to see the tower you'll have to google it.

Pasta lunch. The kids enjoyed entertaining them selves over lunch. No parents allowed at their tables. I loved that heloise ordered lunch for herself and hebe in Italian before there was any parental interference. The waitress nodded to me that she had done a good job.


The children outside the bell tower at Dante's tomb.

Hebe promptly threw her hat in the air and to the ground below. This prompted all the children including my teenagers to follow suit.

Group photo outside of basilica Di s vitale.

Some fun tips for how to keep cool on a scorching day (that will also allow me to tell you about some of my favourite moments of the day)

1. Use umbrellas for shade.

2. Cross back and forth on the streets walking in whatever shadow is to be found

3. Stop frequently for cold water frissante.

It's cheaper than pop or juice and ana carina has 2 of my 4 children hooked on it now.

4. Buy callipo popsicles. If you are really hot you might just eat 4 at once.

5. Carry spray bottles and give yourself a spritz often.

It's also a useful job for kids who are getting bored.

They can keep people cool and have permission to engage in a water fight of sorts.

It's also a good way to meet random strangers who are grateful for a little refresh.

Possibly a way to make money too.

Loved when my friend ana carina offered to cool off a few random travellers then said , "that will be 5 euros each".

We all laughed

6. Stop at air conditioned grocery stores for a moment and eat in air conditioned restaurants.

7. End the day with a dip in the Adriatic.

Sent from my iPhone Honouring Arta's 75th: Third Quarter Quell, Day 58