Day 31, Thursday, September 28, 2023
The Cadre Noir of Saumur , a renowned French riding academy, offers very few shows and Martinales throughout the year. We extended our stay in Tours by a couple days so that we could see this show on the only day that it is takes place in September.
“The Martinales of the Cadre Noir are an opportunity to watch the riding masters of the Cadre Noir at work. There are 40 riding masters, and only three are women. Commentary is provided to give the audience an appreciation of the work involved in training the horses in jumping, long reins, the airs above the ground, and classical riding. Unfortunately it is only in French, but it really doesn’t matter… watching the horses and their riders is enough. More information and some of the history of the Cadre Noir is available at this link. https://www.ifce.fr/en/cadre-noir/the-cadre-noir/ if you are interested,
When we arrive we are surprised to see how many people are here for the Martinales…13 tour buses and the parking lot is full of cars! I think it will be hard to find seats… but I forgot that there was assigned seating and we have fantastic seats. We are front and centre in the arena! The horses pass by just a couple of feet in front of us. 
There are no photos allowed during the show but there are photos outside of the arena so I take photos of the photos. We see all of the following during the hour long Martinale show.
Classical riding…
the Courbette…
the Croupade…
and the Cabriole…
Precision riding
The whole show was wonderful. At the end of each segment of the show the horses would turn to the audience and their riders salute…they happened right in front of us. It felt like we were being personally saluted, they were so close to us.
One more photo at the end of the performance. The staircase is in the centre of the seats and these were our seats!
After our lunch we see this fellow practicing outside in one of the 18 outdoor arenas. I missed the shot of him practicing a handstand on his cantering horse.
We also have a tour of the stables which house 500 horses! 
Behind the stalls it is busier. The horses are fed with an automatic feeding and watering system and the waste is disposed of using a conveyor belt which runs underground at the back of each stall. The tack for each horse is also kept behind its stall. 
There was opportunity to pet the horses. I made friends with this beauty.
A different route home took us past farmers harvesting sunflowers…
and we crossed the river on this very old looking bridge.
There are usually 5 monks and 7 nuns who live at the abbey and there are only 25-30 people who actually live on Mont Saint Michel. We sat and listened to part of the mass, from the side of the church. The singing was really lovely and I found it interesting that the nuns and the priest sat on the floor of the church during the service.
There are so many interesting doors in this abbey.
There are so many smaller rooms and interesting spaces to be explored. This one is off the side of the crypt.
When the Abbey was used solely as a prison in the 1800’s, this huge wheel was was used to haul supplies up to the abbey. Prisoners walking inside the wheel were able to raise and lower a cart along a stone ladder inclined along the rock wall. 
We hear shrieks and peals of laughter and realize that is is coming from the people out walking on the sands now that the tide is out. Some of them are thigh deep in the water! There are a lot of people out there, some of them way off in the distance. Thanks, but I am happy to pass walking in mud and cold water.
Bob took interesting photos of the inside and outside view of these two stained glass windows.
…interesting details…
…crooked roof lines…
We discover a semaphore station built in the early 1900’s on the same site as an old lighthouse built in the early 1800’s. There are also more World War II bunkers here. Not surprising since they were built all along the coast of France. The three pillars were to hold radar equipment, but it was never installed, and there are several Tobruks, or machine gun nests.
One of several large bunkers.
“The Rouen Natural History Museum is the 2nd most important natural history museum of France after the museum of Paris thanks to its collections richness and diversity (ornithology, ethnography, botany).” ~from Rouen Tourist Information
The strange line on the back view is part of a tattoo. I usually don’t draw tattoos, but this one followed the contours of the back so I included it.
Then just two blocks later we see three of its siblings! These are the perfect cars for parking in France’s cities.
There is so much to see in Rouen. I thought this was the Notre Dame cathedral but it is the much smaller 
Rouen’s Notre Dame Cathedral was the tallest building in the world (151 m) in 1876, and still keeps the record of being the tallest cathedral of France. Photo courtesy Wikipedia.
This is just one small section of Rouen’s Notre Dame cathedral. It is enormous!
As is their pipe organ, but there was no organ music today.
The Gros Horloge (the Great clock) is one of the oldest clocks in France, the movement was made in 1389. 
It has a different face on either side and it rings on the hour, the half hour and the quarter hour.
This fellow spends his time on the street busking for money…only he plays the same song over and over and over. No variety at all to his performance.
Here is a little video that gives a better of idea of what we saw. 
My drawing goes better today and we share our work upstairs in the bar afterwards. I met some lovely people from Australia, Korea, Montreal, England and Italy. The times for each pose are written on the pages.
The organ is right above our heads. I think I am sitting 
Where is Waldo? No…where is Bob? Here he is in the first photo.
Can you find him in the photo below? There are always so many tourists sitting on the steps to enjoy the view.
There are still hordes of tourists in Paris. Us included!
We met this young lady on the flight. Alexa Kubicki is a 16 year old boxer who was returning home from a three month competition tour. She won 4 international Tournaments and received 4 Best Female Fighter Awards over the last 4 months. Next year she will compete in the World Boxing Championship and she is aiming to compete in the 2024 Olympics. I told her I would look for her in 2024.
I tried drawing but was so tired that I had problems with proportion. Not the best likenesses. I did manage to get another couple hours sleep on this flight so that helped.
It was a very long day, more than 24 hours since we left our apartment in Vienna until we walked through the door at home. First thing we notice is how big our house seemed after all the little apartments we stayed in! It was a really good holiday but it is good to be home. This blog is my travel journal of our trip, and I know sometimes the posts were long…so thanks for following along and a special thank you to those who wrote comments or liked a post.
Success, we got our tickets! Here is the inside of the Opera House. 
A view of the stage, orchestra pit and some of the seating.
This is where we will be standing, at the very back right up under the ceiling!
The ballet is Peter Gynt. This is 
It was a long time to stand but there was a railing to lean on and the ballet was interesting so the time went by fairly quickly. When I draw I tend to lose track of the time anyway. 
At the first intermission a lot of people standing in the two rows in front of us left. We were able to move to the front of the standing section and had a clear view of the stage, instead of looking between the shoulders of the people in front of us.
Bob’s assessment at the end of the evening was “Well, it only took 2 1/2 hours for them (the two lead characters) to die!” When we went to an opera in Barcelona he commented “It took 3 hours for her (the heroine) to die!
By the time we get down to the main lobby there is just time for a quick photo of the grand entrance staircase…
and one of us, reflected in a mirror. Everyone is chased out of the building fairly quickly after the performance. 
There are lots of lights on the street outside the Opera House where we catch the metro home.
Many of the buildings in this neighbourhood are old and in need of repair but the murals do brighten up the neighbourhood.
Bob tells me to look inside this little blue van…
It is set up as a little dining room! It is kind of cute, except I look in the front seat and it is dirty and cluttered with junk. Not very appetizing, 
There are many shops and workshops tucked into the buildings on narrow streets, sometimes even in the basements, like this bike shop. I think my bike riding daughter will appreciate the sentiment of the sign above this door.
This is probably one of the most colourful doors I have ever seen.
The buildings here have very interesting architectural details.
Seems every city we have ever been in has an Astoria Hotel!
Loved the room at the top of this white building. Imagine living there.
The Holocaust Tree of Life Memorial was funded by the late American actor Tony Curtis in memory of his Hungarian-born father. The names of 30,000 Holocaust victims are engraved on the leaves of the metal tree. The tree resembles an upside down menorah and is located on top of the mass graves of thousands of murdered Jews.
The tree is located behind The Dohány Street Synagogue which is also known as the Great Synagogue. It seats 3,000 people and is the largest synagogue in Europe and the third largest in the world. We didn’t have time to go inside because we want to go to a thermal bath today.
One more interesting building on our way back to our apartment. The top doesn’t seem to belong to the bottom.
The Széchenyi Spa Bath in Budapest
This pools for lane swimming, not for us today.
We like this pool as it is warmer than the first one. 
Inside there are fifteen more pools. This is one of the warmer ones and the only one that has comfy lounge chairs, so we stay here for a while. I sit beside Bob, in the corner and do some drawings of the bathers. Budapest didn’t have any life drawing classes, or at least none that I could find, so this will do instead. 
The building is magnificent but it is starting to show its age here and there. I think it might need a renovation before too long. This is a great place for people watching, and we do come in all shapes and sizes!
By the time we go back outside it is dark, and the steam is rising from the pools. We were thinking of taking a boat ride on the Danube tonight but we decide to stay and enjoy more time here.
There are more people now than when we first arrived, and most of them are much younger than us. We see a few other grey-haired ‘oldies’ but we are few and far between. We spent more than five hours enjoying the baths, and we both feel nice and relaxed.
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