Category Archives: Travel

(The déjà vu of) Driving To Lyon Through A Stunning Landscape

But first, an aside, France is modern. Even the electric outlets look modern, and the cars even more so. End aside.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. Mark Twain

Almost a week ago, we drove from Die to Lyon. We drove the long way, up a valley into the mountains, over a pass – well, through a tunnel about 500 feet below the actual pass – down the valley to the north, and across some rolling foothills, and then across the mostly flatlands into the industrial part of Lyon.

As we headed up, the road was steep with lots of switchbacks, but after the tunnel, the descent was more gradual, somewhat like going over the Sierras from east to west, but not as extreme. We passed through several small, picturesque villages, and I started thinking about a conversation I had at our re-u with one of the hosts.

I had said that the village we had visited was beautiful, and she responded that every place in France was beautiful. I retorted that every place is beautiful, meaning that every natural place I have been that hasn’t been desecrated by the overlay of civilization is beautiful. I remember being in a drizzling rain that smelled of cow shit in Amarillo, Texas – coincidencly on the way to another family re-u – and thinking the Texas plains are the uglyest place I’ve ever been. The next day, we went for a walk in a private park – yes, Texas has private parks – that celebrated the Texas plains, and remarked to Michele on the stunning beauty.

But our host was right, in France, at least in this part of the country, the overlay of civilization is softer and more integrated into the landscape.

As we got to the base of the mountains, I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. It felt like driving out of the Sierra Nevada mountains on Highway 120. We would drop down the Old Priest grade and the air would warm, then into the valley made by the Tuolumne River before it was filled by a lake made by a worthless dam, then the land would flatten, and then, just west of Escalon, in the heat, we would drive on a narrow section of road through the almond groves. It didn’t look the same, but it did feel the same (except for the hayfields).

Around Die At The Re-U

There are both Europeans and Americans at the re-u, and all the Americans have been to Europe more times than I’ve been to – hell, I don’t know – LA, and all of them speak at least two languages. I feel like a country bumpkin who wandered into a gathering of overachieving travelers.

I am not a Europhile – although I am a European car fan – I love California, especially the part of California where we live, but it is hard to shake the feeling, especially with this group, that Europe is more civilized and just plain more Civil than we Americans. The comparison between Greece during its Golden Age and Rome, which ruled the Mediterranean with sheer power, keeps coming to mind.

It is hot here – https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/world/europe/europe-heat-wave-record-temperatures.html – with temperatures reaching close to 100F by mid-day, and it sucks the energy – energy I already have in short supply – out of me. Last Friday, we drove up a long, rough, gravel road to a view spot overlooking Die (photo in previous post). I didn’t take many photos, except for the spring flowers.

Saturday, we went to a small art show in a charming nearby village.

To be continued…

We Are At The Cousins’ ReU In Die, France, European Union

The thing that staggers you when you first come to France is the fact that all the French speak French—even the children. ~ Olivia de Havilland

After several false starts, we are now very much alive in Die. We flew to Barcelona, had an excellent dinner, slept, took the TGV high-speed train to Valence, France, rented a car, and drove to dinner at what I can only describe as an adult Party House. This is a shockingly beautiful part of the world that, two days ago, I only knew as a place on a map. Still, it is hot and humid and I am still recovering from both my bladder operation two weeks ago and my trans-Atlantic flight two days ago so I am whooped.

Japan Is Dense…

I think that the Japanese culture is one of the very few cultures left that is its own entity. They’re just so traditional and so specific in their ways. It’s kind of untouched, it’s not Americanized. Toni Collette

In Japanese culture, there is a belief that God is everywhere – in mountains, trees, rocks, even in our sympathy for robots or Hello Kitty toys. Ryuichi Sakamoto

For me, Japan is appealing because, unlike most non-European countries, Japan was never a European colony. The result is a first-world country that is completely unEuropean-based (or unAmerican-based, if you prefer). It is Asian all the way down and, at the same time, first world all the way down. More importantly, Japan works in a non-European way; sort of. Steve Jobs said that Japan is very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don’t think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that’s already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor. Out of that understanding, they will reinvent it in a more refined second-generation version. By the time we left Japan, I was thinking about that Steve Jobs quote probably three or four times a day.

In Japanese cities, there are lots of overlaps with American and European cities – mostly European cities- but everything seems slightly different. It is the most user-friendly place I have ever been to. Japan is also the densest place I have ever been to. It is about 145,950 square miles, but about 73% is considered mountainous, so Japan really has only about 40,000 square miles where people live and farm. That is about the same as California, which is about 39,000 square miles, when you take away about 50% for mountains and 25% for desert. However, Japan has a population of about 124 million people compared to California, which has a population of only 39 million people (for reference, greater Tokyo alone has a population of around 39M).

Japan isn’t just dense because there are a lot of people jammed in, which there are, but because they have been swimming in the same culture for about twenty centuries. It is as if people were still living in all nine layers of Troy. Japan seems dense because that small area is jammed with the artifacts of its collective history.

One night, Michele and I took a taxi to Shibuya Scramble Square, a shopping center and station complex in an already dense area of Tokyo. We got out at what seemed like a normal street corner in Tokyo and went around the corner to the actual scramble. In Japan, a street crossing where pedestrians can walk across the intersection in any direction is called a scramble. As far as I can tell, this scramble is famous because there are a lot of people here, and the people are here because it is famous.

The scramble, however, was not what most intrigued me. The area around the scramble, the actual Square, the stations, and the structures around the Square are what intrigued me. This is an area where the maps are both horizontal and vertical. The area around the Square is packed because it has six subways and a railroad that come into and through a series of interconnected stations. It is one of the busiest places on earth. More than 1,000,000 people pass through these stations every day.

There are large buildings on both sides of a major street with two pedestrian bridges connecting them, and down below, way below, at ground level, is a creek in a concrete channel.

What fascinated me the most, however, is the short freeway, National Route 246, that arches over the whole thing in an almost impossible leap.

Tokyo

Japan’s very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don’t think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that’s already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor. Steve Jobs