Life on the Vine

Palace of Versailles It's a quick 3 hour train ride from Stuttgart to Paris.  We left Stuttgart around 0700 and by 1000 we were in Paris.  Paris has four main train stations and we arrived at Gard 'Est.  Before getting onto the subway, we stopped in the tourist information office and bought a Paris Pass, which came in very handy during the visit and definitely saved us some money.  After finding our hotel, and dropping our bags off, we were on our way to Versailles.  Versailles is about 30 minutes outside of the city and you can reach it on the regional/commuter trains.  Fortunately we had a train stop just a couple blocks away from our hotel. We'd decided to go to Versailles on our first day, hoping the crowds wouldn't be as bad on a weekday.  We also wanted to leave Saturday and Sunday open for sightseeing in the city.  Despite our hopes, it was very crowded inside the palace.  Although it wasn't as bad outside.  I imagine it's...

I'm sure some of you might have given up on me and my twice promised posting of photos taken on Columbus Day at the Ludwigsburg Palace.  So sorry for the delay.  I'm going to give some facts about the palace and then share some photos.  I've got lots of other things to share so I may do another post this weekend.  I have been in the office for 3 weeks now so I can tell you a bit about how things are going at work AND I got the total blessing of flying down to Malta for a long weekend last weekend to see Tom. So...Ludwigsburg Palace. The palace is one of Europe's largest preserved Baroque palaces...I heard it referred to as the "Swabian Versailles."  Swabian is a term used for the part of Germany that Stuttgart is in.  The palace was built by Duke Eberhard Ludwig between 1704 and 1733.  It has 452 rooms (we got to walk through almost 100) in 18 buildings.  The grounds are surrounded by the permanent Blooming Baroque Garden.  Other noted oc...

Last week I traveled across town to Victory Base Complex to attend a day of orientation briefings on Multi-National Force - Iraq. While the Gulf Region Division has roots to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, GRD is considered a major subordinate command of MNFI. The training was held in Al Faw Palace, which is the headquarters of MNFI . The palace is extremely beautiful and the pictures I'm attaching do not do it justice. I thought about bringing my own camera that day but I decided to leave it because truthfully I didn't think we'd be allowed to take pictures in the palace. Well, I was wrong, but fortunately one of our branch chiefs, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, brought his and he took a few pictures for me. If I get a chance to go again I'll be sure to take my camera. The lighting inside the building is really tricky for a point-and-shoot camera so please forgive the blurry aspects of the photos. Al Faw Palace was one of eight palaces u...