Up there, in the south of England

A magical weekend in Southern England, as close as just few hours by car from Paris and with no need to take a boat to cross the channel. The main goal of this trip was to spend some time with some old friends I have met all over the world and visit London again, the city where I lived some years ago. It was as nice as this kind of trips usually are. A lot of fun, laughs, beer and some sweet melancholy when visiting certain places. Moreover, this visit to London also made me compare this city with current city. It made me think a lot about the development in the so-called first world and the differences between western countries. I finally concluded that England is wealthier and somehow more developed than France; in the same way that France is more than Spain and Spain more than Morocco… As you can see, everything is relative. It is incredible how the wealth of countries is sometimes more related to the weather and geography than to natural resources or historical facts… I think that a country is what natural factors let people make of it. It seems that the trick is to find the right balance between the hundred of factors that make up a place.

It was also time to keep discovering and visit some new places in the southwest. The best thing of this trip was: Bristol. It just exceeded my expectations! I found a city with the best of London, but without its stress and rancid classicism. A city with so many things to say. One of the better places to live in northern Europe nowadays. Moreover, we put the icing on the cake visiting the exhibition of one of my favourite artists: Banksy. A unique experience! I have no words to describe it!

Finally, I finished my trip with a visit to Oxford. It was during a sunday that filled this little city with thousand of turists. That didn’t help me a lot to like it. In any case, I thought that it’s that kind of city whose past glory makes it too lazy to create new things… do you know what I mean?

London

Bristol

Oxford

Jardin du Luxembourg. Le côté classique de la ville

Under my opinion, cities are like coins. They have two faces: the classic and the modern. One face would be all the classic culture that remain in the current city and the other one would be the present culture in large terms.

There are some cities like Rome where the classic elements absorb modernity. In contrast, there are cities such as New York City where we can say that it’s all about modernity. Luckily, Paris has a balanced harmony between the two, something really hard to find in a city nowadays. It’s a city with a strong and life cultural presence in the present (remember Pompidou and Marais in older posts) and a considerable historical influence.

In this post I just wanted to show you a representative sample of one of the coin faces.

By the way, this has been the post number 100 in the blog!! Something to celebrate again!!

Musée d’Histoire Naturelle. “Darwin’s Church”

I don’t want this blog to be neither a personal diary of my life nor a turist guide of the places I visit. However, sometimes I can help it and it seems to be one thing or the other. I think it’s somehow normal since it’s not a mono-thematic blog, rather a “free style” one. I just try to mix personal thoughts and objective information to get something new and nice. An original way to show what my eyes see and what my brain thinks.

This time I don’t feel like mixing anything at all and I feel more like just giving you a turist advice and sharing a personal though:

The advice: Visit Natural History museums while you can, specially in large cities. They are special and its astmosphere is just matchless.

The thought: If I had to believe in a religion it would be Science.

“It’s evolution, baby”

Le Marais

A flood area  in the past, it is now one of the “chic-est” district in the city. I think it is almost the only place where you can always bump into an over-fashioned gay and an old-fashioned rabbi in the same street. Does not matter if it is midday or 4 AM, there will be always life and things going on here.

 

Musée du Louvre

Voilà le luxe et les arts volés aux riches et mis à la disposition du peuple!!

 

I hate luxury!! but I kinda understand that it is necessary to a certain extent in our society. Everybody likes to enjoy Art or good cooking! Right? In fact, their success has depended and depends most of the times on huge amounts of money and rich people’s whims. Nervertheless, I think it could work in a different way. 

Well, it is nice to see that sometimes this luxe exists to be delighted by everybody: the poor and the rich.

Even so, I cannot stand people expending millions in restaurants/hotels, cars, stupid jewels or clothes when there are so many people suffering and dying because of poverty in our world. Ain’t unfair??