In Macau

I have been in Macau for a few days. And the more I know about this Special Administrative Region the more I appreciate its dynamism and charm.

Macau´s total area is certainly small but its business districts are pretty diverse and worth the walk. I also found a number of new “avant-garde” boutiques, including some with very creative pieces of art on display. They tell us that Macau is more than just a good number of extravagantly huge casinos.

Moreover, the University institutions are now very well established. They do attract quite a number of students from Mainland and beyond. 

After hours in Zaragosa

I took a long walk this evening. It was a pleasure to wander in the main avenues of Zaragoza, in Eastern Spain, and see so many locals just strolling around in a relaxed manner, enjoying the weather, the end of the day and the serenity of the place. Zaragoza is a large city but it keeps a strong human dimension and it is pretty affordable. That makes it, like many other cities in Spain, very attractive and relaxing. 

A bit of fresh air

This evening in Stavanger people are just sitting outside by the fjord and enjoying a few drinks and some food. It is not a big crowd, but it is interesting to see them enjoying the cold but relatively dry weather. Like in any café terrace in warmer places.  Pleasure in life is sometimes made of just some fresh air and a relaxed approach to the one´s destiny. 

Disconnected

If you want to momentarily forget the world and all its catastrophic or less tragic challenges, just spend the day in a small beach village like De Haan, on the Belgian coast. I did it and I realised, once again, how easy is to ignore the outside world when everything around you is orderly and predicable, the houses are Belle Époque and the people on the streets are just enjoying the quiet and the beauty of the place.

Then, if you put a sunny day on top of it, you are indeed disconnected.

One should be able to disconnect once in a while. In addition to everything else, it gives us a chance to realise how lucky one is because peace, liberty and security have no price. They remain, here, and elsewhere, in Iraq, Ukraine, in the conflict zones and in countries in economic crisis, the ultimate goal for everyone.

And that we should not fail to recall even in a pretty village. 

Seville

Week end in Seville, Spain. Lots of young people from different corners of Northern Europe and from Japan and China. The city might have fewer tourists this year but is still a major international attraction. And it’s worth the visit. Ever. 

French countryside and the taxes on historical houses

The countryside between Tours and Poitiers has some of most interesting castles and manors we find in France. Many of them have been preserved through generations and kept some kind of historical interest, in addition to the beauty of the architecture and gracefully tailored landscape.

As we travel now through the region we can see that quite a number of them have now been put on the market. The rural history is on sale.

I have wondered why. And I came to realise the families are afraid of the new taxes to come. They are also very heavily punished by the existing property taxes, including the tax on wealth. So, they play safe and try to sell the most expensive properties as soon as possible.

But there are very few buyers. I am told that some of the very few are from China…

Soon or later all this will have an impact of historical properties. 

Paris and the young Japanese

I spent many hours walking the avenues and also the little streets of Paris. It was a sunny day, a beautiful day after so many awful days of grey. Paris is always a delight particularly when the weather is fine. It is a city that was conceived by people with great sense of ambition and personal glory and that transmitted that to the many palaces, monuments, squares and gardens that make the place an architectural wonder.

Just a first impression after a very long day: one sees plenty of young tourists from Japan in Paris. As I walked the avenues I was asking myself if visiting Paris is a rite of passage for the young men and ladies of today’s Japan. And then I thought, maybe this will make the youth of that far away land a bit more romantic and more interested in love…I am told they desperately need to boost the romanticism in the Japanese society…