Category: flora & fauna
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Fruits, Vegetables and Nuts
Just came back from vacation. We are feeling lazy and don’t want to write much. So here are some fruits, vegetables and nuts! They were taken in a supermarket in LA. The display (what display?) is just the opposite of Whole Foods where everything is neatly stacked into perfectly balanced pyramids. In this market, there…
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Home of the St. Bernard and Museum, Martigny
Martigny, in the canton of Valais, is about an hour’s drive from where we live. It is a junction of roads linking Switzerland with France and Italy – roads over the Great St. Bernard Pass to Aosta (Italy), and the other over the col de la Forclaz to Chamonix (France). Great St. Bernard Pass is…
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Évian-les-Bains, part 2
Evian-les-bains is a very scenic, historic spa town that catered to the elite of the early 1900’s. Like many of the spa towns in the area, it has “les bains” in its name to indicate the presence of spas, e.g., Aix-les-bains, Thonon-les-bains, and on the swiss side Yverdon-les bains. After our visit to the source…
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A Country Cat
One Autumn day last year, we and J and J went for a short hike on the Sentier du patrimoine de Romainmôtier. On our way back to our car, near Croy, we walked along a beautiful idyllic garden path. It runs behind a row of houses along a stream, separating the back of each house…
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De Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam
The De Hortus Botanical Garden is apparently the oldest botanical garden in the world, being founded in 1638. It received many of its more exotic plants from the Dutch East India Company in the 17th and 18th century (this might explain the image of a ship on the shield, see left side of the gate).…
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Amsterdam’s floating flower market (Bloemenmarkt)
Amsterdam is historically famous for its tulips and it is one of the major centers of horticulture (which explain in part why the conference I attended was held here). To extend the plant theme of my visit, but with very little time, we briefly visited the flower market (Bloemenmarkt) and De hortus, the botanical garden…