San Francisco (part III)

I will stop the chronological posting, and put here various photos taken in the city. Even though Laura could sometimes escape from the conference, I was alone most of the time during the day, which explains why there are very few photos of people, compared with photos of things. :-)

San Francisco aquarium
The visit of the acquarium is easy and fast, as the aquarium is located at Pier 39. We actually visited it on the first day, after coming back from Sausalito.

Jellyfish

Another kind of jellyfish

Laura and sardinillas !

No comment ...

Japan-town
The concept is like Chinatown, but with Japanese people and culture and architecture ! We went there with Masayuki and we had very good sushi !

Port of San Francisco
In the port of San Francisco, you can find various things, from sea lions to submarines ...

Sea lions taking a rest in the sun

USS Pampanito

Peace and love ...

Inside the submarine, they show that they have a good sense of humor ... (the right pictures are zooms of the left one)

Mission Dolores
This mission is the oldest of the city.

Mission Dolores, seen from the graveyard

Mission Dolores, seen from the street

Then I waited a little bit in a park nearby. In 5 minutes, I was proposed "mushrooms" twice :-)
Pour les Français : ce park est à quelques mètres de la "Maison Bleue accrochée à la colline", mais bon, à ce moment-là, je ne le savais pas ... En même temps, l'ambiance années 70 et "mangez-moi, mangez-moi, mangez-moi" est bien là ...

In the next post, the streets and parks of San Francisco. Expect classic pictures of cable cars and steep streets !

San Francisco (part II)

On the second day in San Francisco, we went to the very classic (but somehow unavoidable) visit of Alcatraz. We had booked tickets in advance, so we just met Masayuki at the port and started the visit.

The visit obviously starts by a small boat trip to the island.

Heading to Alcatraz

The good thing with the boat trip, is that you have a nice view on the bridge ... or not ...

Still in the cloud ...

Never mind ... we'll try again later !
Arriving in the island on a cloudy/rainy day, makes you feel even better how hard the conditions had to be in the prison. And yet, this prison was not considered as the one with the worst conditions - especially the food was said to be quite good. But still.

A corridor in the oldest part - a fort dating back to the Secession War

A cell

I don't remember the "street name", but there were 3 like this, with cells on 3 levels, and a clever system to open the gates.

A funny fact is that we took the audio-guides in 3 languages : Masayuki in Japanese, Laura in Spanish, and I took English, and the one in Spanish was much, much slower, as Laura's visit took like 20 minutes more ! This is because the Spanish was actually South American Spanish, and they do speak slower than the Spanish Spanish !
So, we went on the visit, and I found two dangerous inmates ...

Laura "Spanish Butcher" Santos, a crazy-looking murderer

Masayuki Hara, aka "Hara-sensei" ("The professor"), a cold-blooded murderer, high-risk inmate as it reads on his hoodie.

Inmate Masayuki going in his high-security cell.

Oustide the prison, there is actually a nice view on San Francisco, and apparently it was the most difficult for the prisoners ... They could hear, see, almost smell the "free life" in San Francisco, and it was like a psychological torture ...

View of SF from Alcatraz

Entrance of the administration building. The "Free" sign is a rest of the Indian occupation, after the prison was closed.

The control room. Kinda like the ATLAS control room, isn't it ?

Finally we went back to SF, using the same boat ... Wait, I can see that dangerous Japanese prisoner there !!

In the next post, various photos from the city of San Francisco ... Will it still be cloudy ? Will it rain ? Suspense ...

San Francisco (part I)

Let's be clear : I have "attended" more Robotics conferences than Physics conferences. In particular, I have been to IROS2010 in Taipei, to World Haptics in Istanbul, and to IROS2011 in San Francisco in September. Always as a "+1" :-)

So, this post and a few others will be about this nice trip in San Francisco. This time, we went just the time of the conference (plus weekend).

Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge
Obviously, the first thing you do when you arrive in San Francisco, is to try to see the Golden Gate ! We arrived on a "grey day", very cloudy and foggy. We rented bikes and went towards the bridge, with the idea of crossing it.

The port of San Francisco in the clouds ...

First, I want to say that even if San Francisco is known for its steep streets, the way to the bridge from our hostel in North Beach is not too hard. Except just before the bridge, obviously, when you have to climb quite a lot !

So, it was almost raining, and we could not see the bridge until we were on it, and even on it, we could not see it well !

View from the Golden Gate bridge

Cold and wet, but happy :-)

The bridge in the cloud ...

View of the Golden Gate bridge from the other side.

Sausalito
After crossing the bridge, we continued on the bike to Sausalito. It's a nice town, where we could eat in an excellent fish restaurant (called Fish). We wanted to visit Sausalito because it's the name of a cookies brand that we like - and also because guides say that it's a nice place.
And it is !

The San Francisco Bay from Sausalito

Floating houses in the port of Sausalito

Yes, I like taking photos of animals, so what ?

Back to San Francisco
As advised by the guy who rented us the bikes, and because we are lazy, we came back to SF with a ferry. We were not the only ones, there were a good 50 other bikers ;-) Apparently, it's a classic loop : you take a bike in SF, cross the bridge, go to Sausalito, and come back to SF with the ferry.

On the ferry, we were hoping to have a nice view on the bridge, Alcatraz and the city, but it was still cloudy so not easy to see. But, no worries, we'll try later !

On the boat, with SF in the background

Alcatraz and San Francisco

In the next post, the visit of Alcatraz, or how we turned Hara-sensei into an inmate ! Stay tuned ...

Interlude ...

More than 1 month since my last post, and many things to say ! I just didn't find time to update the blog lately ...
Next to come :
- more photos from Susana's visit
- San Francisco
- Flo and Charlotte's visit to Lausanne

Lausanne - Lavaux - Montreux - les Diablerets - Gruyère - Bern

It has been a long time since the last post on this blog ... Days have been pretty busy at CERN and in Lausanne ! And last weekend we had a visit from Susana (Laura's cousin) and Jorge, so we visited the surroundings of Lausanne (which for that matter, extended from Bern to Annecy ...)

The Lavaux wineyards
Between Lausanne and Montreux are the Lavaux wineyards, which are really nice, especially in a beautiful summer day ! We left EPFL around 4pm and started a small trip between Lausanne and Montreux.
We stopped first in the "balcony" in Pully ...

then we continued towards Rivaz for a beer-and-cheese stop ...

... with our beautiful new car !!!

  

Isn't it nice ? :-)

Montreux
Keeping the lake on the right side, we arrive in Montreux, and Château Chillon. Night was already falling.

Les Diablerets
The next day (Saturday) we felt like going a bit more in altitude, so we went to Les Diablerets, a ski resort in the Vaud canton, not very far from Lausanne. In summer time, it is a nice place for a walk, and they also have the (expensive) cable-car going up to Glacier 3000. So we did this, and the view was very nice from up there !

We actually walked on the glacier until the "Quille du Diable" ... but as we were totally unprepared, the feet were wet and cold very quickly !

  

Gruyère
We left les Diablerets towards Château d'Oex and Gruyère. Gruyère is a nice village with a castle, and is of course famous for its cheese. When we arrived, there were two weddings, so the place was quite crowded !

Bern
Finally, we decided to head to Bern, the federal capital, because it's a nice city and we had in mind to have a rösti for dinner !

Finally, back to Lausanne, where we all crashed into bed after the long day !
The next day (Sunday), we went to Annecy for the market and visit the old town, and then we did a quick stop in Talloires, before going back to Lausanne. All photos of that day are on Laura's camera, so I will upload a few of them later !