Les Houches

To set the scene, here's where we were based for our recent snowshoeing adventure in Les Houches, close to Chamonix, one of the oldest ski resorts in the French Alps, and host of the first ever Winter Olympics in 1924.

The rustic but very comfy Chalet Savoy

Sauna and hot tub with a spectacular view!

Dylan - the resident fox terrier who came out on all the walks

View from our chalet window

Another view from our chalet window

Sunset on The Fizz, as seen from that lovely hot tub!

Snow shadows

Snowshoe aka Nat's Big Foot

The perils of snowshoeing... huge blisters! Nothing like a bit of duct tape to keep blister pads in place...

More to follow soon!

I'm Back... And It's A Blogiversary!

Hello everyone!

Yes I'm back from my adventures in Chamonix with aching limbs, massive blisters and a spot of sun-on-snow burn, but otherwise, I'm more-or-less in one piece!

Loads of photos to share, but first, I need to get myself organised. So, here's a quick taster (an amuse-bouche maybe?) of where I've been...

Photo taken with my phone camera

Oh yes, and today 'Just Nat' turns 4! That means it's been four fantastic years of fascinating, fun, flabbergastingly futile posts from me.... and loads more to come in 2013.

Thanks to all my fabulous, faithful readers for sticking around... catch up with you all soon!

Nat

Here's To 2013...

Happy New Year dear and faithful readers of Just Nat! Here's hoping 2013 brings you all the good things in life... love, friendship, health and happiness!

I'll be seeing the new year in with some snow fun in the French Alps, so catch up with you all soon....

All the best

Nat

So This Is Christmas...

And what have I done?  Not been the greatest blogger of the year, that's for sure!  Hopefully, all that will change in the New Year...

In the meantime, wishing you all the happiest Christmas if you celebrate it, and good times even if you don't!

 

 See you all on the other side...

It Wasn't The End Of The World As We Know It...

Sombre

I was going to write a quick post to explain why I have been so absent lately. I was going to use the opportunity to have a bit of a moan about a certain client who does her best to 'make my life a living hell'.... but in the light of events that have unfolded around the world these past couple of days, how can I possibly think I'm having a hard time when others' lives have been destroyed.

At times like these, it's possible to despair over mankind. To quake at our seemingly endless capacity for inflicting such abhorrent cruelty on each other. Why do so many innocent people have to suffer so much at the hands of so few? Do we never learn from the tragedies that have gone before despite there being constant reminders everywhere we look? Perhaps none so poignant as the Holocaust Memorial near the Brandenburg Gate....

Photographs taken by me in Berlin

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it - always.”  Mahatma Gandhi

The A B C of Berlin...

A is for Ampelmännchen....

...who, according to The Fount of All Knowledge (Wikipedia), is...

...the symbolic person shown on traffic lights at pedestrian crossings in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR - East Germany). Prior to the German reunification in 1990, the two German states had different forms for the Ampelmännchen, with a generic human figure in West Germany, and a generally male figure wearing a hat in the east.

The Ampelmännchen is a beloved symbol in Eastern Germany, enjoying the privileged status of being one of the few features of communist East Germany to have survived the end of the Iron Curtain with his popularity unscathed. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Ampelmännchen acquired cult status and became a popular souvenir item in the tourism business.

You may have already spotted him in two of my photos of my last post, Autumn in Berlin.

....

B is for the Brandenburg Gate....

The Brandenburg Gate is one of the most well-known landmarks of Berlin and Germany, located west of the city centre at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace and built by Carl Gotthard Langhansfrom 1788 to 1791. Having suffered considerable damage in World War II, the Brandenburg Gate was fully restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin (Berlin Monument Conservation Foundation). During the post-war Partition of Germany the gate was isolated and inaccessible immediately next to the Berlin Wall, and the area around the gate featured most prominently in the media coverage of the opening of the wall in 1989.

......

C is for Checkpoint Charlie....

Checkpoint Charlie (or "Checkpoint C") was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War.

GDR leader Walter Ulbricht agitated and manoeuvred to get the Soviet Union's permission for the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop Eastern Bloc emigration westward through the Soviet border system, preventing escape across the city sector border from East Berlin to West Berlin. Checkpoint Charlie became a symbol of the Cold War, representing the separation of east and west. Soviet and American tanks briefly faced each other at the location during the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

After the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the reunification of Germany, the building at Checkpoint Charlie became a tourist attraction.

Photos my own. Text adapted from Wikipedia.