My first thought for my last weekend was to go to the south of France and visit Avignon, Nîmes, and the Pont du Gard (a famous old Roman aqueduct). But after finding out that 1) the entire park around the aqueduct was closed for January 2) train tickets to the south of France and back were going to cost me close to $400 and 3) I was going to end up spending 14 hours on the train over the course of the weekend I figured that perhaps it just wasn't meant to be.
Instead, I spent time wandering around Rennes, in a different direction than I had gone before. I knew there was a park north of me, and I thought I remembered seeing a store/mall I could wander around from when Craig was here. So, with a direction and warm destination in mind I headed off.
After an hour of walking (and hitting the ring road around Rennes) I figured that perhaps I had miscalculated the location of the warm mall. So I decided to wander around the park and take pictures instead.
This is a graveyard I found near the entrance to the park. I was hoping to find some old graves, but I think the oldest birth date was 1857. Although that pillar at the end of the walk way had some writing on it that was too weathered to read. So that might have been an old grave marker.
This is the entrance to the park. It's actually quite big, maybe a third the size of Stanley Park in Vancouver. It has nice little walk ways and a bunch of lakes inside.
Here are some ducks, sitting on the ice. I have no idea why it's more desireable to sit on the ice than the ground. But I guess ducks do what ducks do. Maybe it's safer out there.
Apparently the ice is thick enough to support kids too (I didn't try it due to the fact that a lab mate tried on the pond in front of our building and cracked the ice pretty badly). The kids apparently don't read signs here either (it says do not walk on the ice). Although it was funny to overhear them lamenting the fact that the ducks (from the previous picture) were stuck in the lake because it had frozen.
Just another path to another lake in the middle of the park.
More strange birds that I didn't recognize. Maybe Alium can tell me what these birds are.
And we'll call this guy Mr. Mallard. He seems to have no trouble walking on the ice. Although the ice didn't sound too friendly when I was walking on the deck that overlooked this spot.
Crazy as it seems, even performers come out in -5 C weather. If you look closely there are two guys beating on drums on the left hand side of the picture. And on the right side is a family sitting to listen. What dedicated music patrons.
