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My wife is a software project manager at Fujitsu and was awarded (and could bring her husband) a fully paid for trip to the Four Seasons resort in Nevis (pronounced Nee Vus) in recognition of her outstanding work in keeping her customers happy. Yesterday we traveled here and on Wednesday we travel back.

This morning there is an employee only meeting so I will be free to sit at the beach. In the afternoon is a team building event where we'll be building a boat. Fujitsu has worked it out with a number of restaurants outside of the resort so that tonight we'll be walking from the resort to one of those restaurants to eat.

In advance of the trip we could sign up for different things, I signed up for a catamaran - snorkel combo that runs from 10:00AM until 1:00PM tomorrow, so for the other parts of the day I am free to sit at the beach. Tomorrow night is the awards banquet in the ballroom.

This is a much shorter trip as compared to our Jamaica trip, and it is different in that we don't have our kids with us. That it is fully paid for is awesome.

It is possible that 2014, the year I turned 41, will be the most traveled year I ever have, considering we went to Paris in January, Watch Island in May, Jamaica in May and Nevis in June.

Salvador Saturday

Salvador Saturday

What Dali is most known for.

Salvador Saturday

While in Paris, in the Montmartre area, there is a Salvador Dali museum where I took photos of a number of the works. Each Saturday for the next few Saturdays will be Salvador Saturdays.

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On our last full day in Paris two of us left Paris reducing our number from 10 to 8, the 8 remaining being the ones who all left home together last Thursday. The eight of us went to the Cluny Medieval Museum in the morning, then there was some separation, then we regrouped for a boat ride on the Sein. Following the boat ride we split up again, some going to the Rodin museum, others going to Montmartre and two of us going to the Monument Museum. I went to the Monument Museum and the two of us following that went to the Lutetian Arena. At the end of the day we all regrouped in our apartment and had a great time recapping the day, and reviewing the week. There was nothing notable about the next morning when we packed and got our lift to the airport and flew home.

The Cluny museum from the front; looks medieval, doesn't it?

This museum is famous for its tapestries, here is one.

Here is another.

The museum also had many other items from the medievil times, including this chest that comes from the 15th century.

Inside the building where the Cluny museum currently is, there is this chapel that was there for the users of this building.

Another from the same chapel.

The museum also had relics from the medievil ages like this crown.

What may be the most popular or most significant of the tapestries in the museum are the unicorn ones where there are six of them. Five of them display the five senses, but the sixth is a little mysterious; one of our group who is knowledgable in such things has indicated that these are important as they were at a time that most if not all art was religious yet these were mystic.

Here is a closeup of one section of the above tapestry

Here is a closeup of the closeup above.

The Cluny museum rests on what used to be a Roman Bath site, and this large room was a Roman bath room at some time in the distant past.

Outside of the Cluny is a well that on first glance it isn't clear if it is a real one that was once in use.

Looking into it gave us a clearer picture that indeed it is more than likely that in the past this was operational.

We took the RER (train, not metro) from the Cluny to where we would meet up to catch our boat ride, and in the St. Michel train station the platform curves (look in the distance). Quite a number of the metro stations we went to also curved. This is different from the city I live in where all of the stations have platforms that are straight.

On the boat ride we saw that some of the bridges had guys like this.

On these steps that came down to the lowest level near the water people were sitting and waved to us, we waved back.

After building after building that looked from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, here is one that is sorely out of place.

Apparently during the great flood of XXXX, the water went up to this guy's beard.

This and the next three photos are from the Museum of historical monuments. Artists would create a plaster mould of the various stone structures and then come back and with those moulds, pour cement to recreate them. In places where a part of the original was damaged, they would attempt to recreate it in a way that had it as close to the original as possible. This museum was full of such recreations.

Just a small section of this museum to show you how much there was.

From within this museum we could look out the window and see, ummm... this

After that museum we made our way to the Lutetian Arena which dates back to the Roman era when the Paris area was called Lutetia. Standing in the center of this circular arena was impressive, especially with an echo that bounced back to you from all directions. As the linked article indicates, none of what is seen here is original to the Roman era arena, however, the actual space and the principle of how it was restored in the 19th century reflects truly to how it must have been.

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When we were planning our trip to Paris we decided that we wanted to take one day to get out of the city. We decided to go to Reims which is in the heart of the Champagne region of France and we took the TGV to get there. Once we arrived we made our way to an ancient arch that dates back 1200 years or so. Then we went to lunch at a restaurant whose review one of us had read. The food there was really good though the menu wasn't sufficiently clear to most of us to understand what we were ordering. A few of us later on reported that it wasn't as positive an experience for them as it was for me.

Following that we took public transport (a bus) to go to a wine tasting. The lady at the wine place kindly advised us that at her establishment it was more of a wine-art place rather then a winery or cellar tour. We were astounded as she then proceeded to call other wine shops in the neighbouhood to give them this business. She then gave us a tasting of two separate champagnes. We thanked her by, as a group, purchasing three or four bottles of champagne from her shop. We then made our way to Taittinger where we took the tour and had a glass of champagne at the end. The tour was quite impressive as it took advantage of tunnels and passages underground that existed as part of an Abby that was on the premises prior to the winery.

After that we went to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Reims where Kings in the past have been crowned. It is a monumental building that rises very high up into the air and is very large. It was the most impressive church we went to in terms of size.

Following that we made our way through some shopping areas back to the train station, took the TGV back home, ate at a restaurant and that was the end of the night.

This is the Paris Est train station where we got on to go to Reims.

This archway dates from the year 200AD. How come nothing I build lasts that long?

Close up of some detail of the arch.

Where we had lunch on this day, need to do a tripadvisor review.

The food was delicious, this is what I had, but it wasn't clear before we ordered it what it would be as the description is not clear.

Not all of us got to get a glimpse into this one (I missed it) because we were in a rush to get to our wine tasting.

At the Tottinger wine cellar we came across this one with a small hole in the lower center - the bottle that had been there had had a defect and had exploded.

In this cavernous cellar that has two km's of tunnels and stores three million bottles, the owners of the winery store some expensive bottles. This is their selection to which we could not get closer because there was a locked gate.

In caverns like this inside the cellar, there are 70-90 thousand bottles waiting for their time to come up for further processing.

This cave had a card showing it was storing 99644 bottles.

This cellar was beneath what was once an abbey and here are ancient steps, dating from around 1200 that led to the abbey.

This is Notre Dame cathedral in Reims.

The same cathedral where I lucked out with a contrail.

Some dudes on the front of this cathedral.

This glass replaced the original as the original had been war damaged through the history of this 800 year old church.

The TGV managed to get to 320kph for just a few moments and I didn't have my camera handy, this was the second top speed that I managed to record.

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On this day we went to Montmartre, then went over to Les Galaries Lafayette where we had some hot chocolate at Angelina's, then did some shopping, then came back to the apartment to dress up for the birthday dinner we would then have at Le Grand Colbert. This birthday celebration (of my wife's) was the impetus for this trip.

Sacre Coeur Basilica in Montmartre

View of Paris from Sacre Coeur front stoop

View of the ceiling above the alter inside Sacre Coeur

Moulin Rouge in Montmartre

Same Moulin rage, adjacent entryway

On our street there are a large number of very small shops on both sides of the street. One of them is an art gallery that has only three pieces of art. We are passing it each day on our way to the metro and we think it rather ridiculous that such a small street would have such a small shop with only three pieces of art.