'Son,' he said, 'grab your things I've come to take you home'

luggage for 7 months in France

Paris (week 36)

We did not do too badly, only requiring one more suitcase than we came with, and managing to keep them all under the 23kg mass limit.  The trip out to CDG airport (by metro and RER) was uneventful, our only delay before boarding the plane arising from a malfunction at the Air Canada baggage check-in (the conveyor belt to the luggage collection broke down).  We landed essentially on time in Toronto and our flight to Thunder Bay arrived on time as well, where Muumu met us.

The highlight for the boys was being able to eat at A&W in the Toronto airport.  It's not like we don't have one in Thunder Bay, but it's their favourite fast-food burger so they'd been looking forward to having it for a while.

Last day!

Paris (week 36)

We were up early to make sure we'd be able to get up the Tour Eiffel - we tried to buy tickets online a month ago, but they were already sold out.  Luckily, most of the spaces are still available for walk-ins, and we were "lucky" to have a hazy day, so we only had to wait 15 minutes to get to the second stage (they suggested the 3rd (top) stage had worse visibility, so we didn't pay the extra €20).

We then moved along the river to the Musée d'Orsay, the museum holding the Louvre's modern art collection.  It is a manageable size, and the boys (and parents) enjoyed it more than the Louvre because there is a greater concentration of famous artists.  At least, famous in that the boys have heard of them because many of the Impressionists spent time along the Riviera and in the Pays d'Aix.  Cézanne lived in Aix, van Gogh in Arles with Gauguin, etc.  There were many examples from these three artists, as well as numerous Monets, Manets, Renoirs, and Degases.  Interestingly, there is a museum-wide prohibition on photography in the d'Orsay, while the Louvre proper allows photos (even with flash) everywhere including in the Mona Lisa room.

Le fabuleux destin des MacKinnons

the red arrow is Yolanda on our balcony

Paris (week 36)

We dropped the car off and took the train into Paris for our final 2 days in France.  We decided to get a hotel in the heart of it all, and found a reasonable Aparthotel literally a stone's throw from the Moulin Rouge.  Obviously the area was bustling late into the night, and not all of the surrounding shops and watering holes are kid-friendly, but it's a neat area full of boulangeries and little restaurants.  It's also lived-in with lots of schoolchildren in the morning and laundromats and grocery stores dotted around.

David with a David, "Pierre Sériziat"

The night we arrived we entered the first reasonable restaurant we saw.  We discovered we were in the Deux Moulins, the location of Amélie's workplace in the film of the same name.  The next day we went to the Louvre (standing in line for 45 minutes, directly behind a school group from Thunder Bay's Hammarskjold High School - Yolanda recognised one of the chaperones).  David and Andrew could only last an hour, although they did manage to see the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, among others.  Yolanda continued for another couple of hours in the Louvre while the (three) boys moved on to Cinéaqua, the Paris aquarium.  It was similar to the other large aquariums we saw (including reef sharks!) in Barcelona and Toronto, but it was still interesting and contained some new things we hadn't seen before.

So, our (final) updated aquarium list is as follows:

1, 2. Canada (Ripley's Toronto & Lunenburg Fisheries Museum)
3, 4. USA (Clearwater & Duluth)
5, 6, 7. France (Cité de la Mer Cherbourg, Limoges, & Cinéaqua Paris)
8. Spain (Barcelona)
9. Monaco
10. Italy (Genoa)
11. Belgium (Brussels Public)

Operation Jubilee

Andrew celebrating that he managed to scramble up the rocks

Dieppe (week 36)

On 19 August 1942, Canadian (and some British) soldiers attempted an amphibious attack on the Channel Port of Dieppe.  The raid went very badly and most of the soldiers ending up killed or captured.  It took us about 5 seconds on the beach to see why: deep rows of small rocks stretch the length of the beach, making it difficult to walk on and impossible to drive a truck or tank on.  In addition, high chalk cliffs command the port, with the old town's fortifications and chateau atop, perfect locations for laying down enfilading fire.

The day was cool and windy as we looked over the memorials in Canada Park and strolled the beach.  We didn't get the chance to see the relatively new 19 August Museum, as it is closed in the winter.

Pvt Cecil Alvernon MacKinon (sic)

Essex Farm ADS

Ypres and Vimy (week 35)

Our day started in Flanders Fields.  Ypres is a central town, around which battles raged throughout the Great War, some of which featured Canadians.  Here was the site of the first large-scale gas attack on the Western Front (2nd Ypres), the Battle of Passchendaele, Hill 60, etc.  Like at Verdun, there is too much to take in during one day, so we limited ourselves to two sites.  The Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 bills itself as an "experience", which is pretty accurate since it has two large-scale recreations - one of the underground dugouts and the other a trench system.  You can also pick up a real rifle and wear a German coalscuttle helmet and trench armour.  We then traveled down to Essex Farm, site of a cemetery and the remains of an advanced dressing station (ADS).  It was at this station during the 2nd Battle of Ypres that Dr. John McCrae, surgeon in the Canadian Artillery, wrote "In Flanders Fields".  Since Yolanda had lived just a few blocks away from McCrae's family home in Guelph, it was almost like a homecoming.

Great Uncle Cecil

Driving back into France, we detoured to Vimy to look for Great Uncle Cecil again.  The first time we were there, we only had the Canadian Book of Remembrance to go by, which was ambiguous as to his location.  The search is further complicated by our family's history - Cecil's birth certificate has him as "McKinnon", but his enlistment record is "MacKinnon", and his father (or grandfather, I forget which) went by "McKenna", so we needed to check them all.  Finally, after some searching on the Commonwealth War Graves British website, Craig discovered yet another spelling: "Cecil Alvernon MacKinon, born Charleston N.S."  Presumably this is a typo, but as you can see, this is how his name is inscribed on the Vimy memorial.

50th-Anniversary Park

they learned how to load and fire a cannon from the Waterloo movies

 Brussels (week 36)

In 1880, Belgium celebrated their 50th anniversary of independence.  They held a National Exhibition and built a huge complex of buildings around the old parade square, renaming it the Parc du Cinquantenaire.  Inside the complex there are many museums, some free, so we spent an afternoon touring a selection.  The Musée du Cinquantenaire features objets d'art such as tapestries and china, as well as exhibits on ancient Rome and Egypt, Native America and Oceania (including two actual statues from Easter Island), etc.  Having missed Lascaux on our way down (because it was too busy), we managed to catch the "Lascaux III" traveling exhibit, featuring 3-D movies and models as well as recreations of the ancient cave paintings.  Finally, the three boys took a spin around the Musée Royal de l’Armée et d’Histoire Militaire.  The permanent exhibit's crowning glory is an overwhelming array of 19th-century weaponry and uniforms, packed into dozens of display cases each containing a dozen or more rifles, swords, or hats.

We also took in the small but interesting Aquarium Public de Bruxelles (it's theme is sustainability and biodiversity; there is also another newer and larger aquarium in town).  It is kid friendly, and Andrew enjoyed writing down the names of his favourite fish species on his clipboard.  On the way home, we stopped to wash the car, which, judging by the gales of laughter from the back seat, was the highlight of our trip to Brussels.

Bicentenary construction site

climbing the Lion Mound

Waterloo (week 36)

In 1815, the fields south of Waterloo, Belgium were farmland.  Napoleon and Wellington there contested the Battle of Waterloo  The fields are still there and are still being farmed.  The main change to the landscape is the enormous man-made hill topped with a lion statue - a memorial erected by the Kingdom of the Netherlands (of which modern Belgium was a part) to mark the spot where the Crown Prince Willem was injured during the battle.  We climbed the hill for the views out over the battlefield after watching the movies in the interpretive centre.  Unfortunately, many of the other historical sites, including Napoleon's headquarters, are undergoing renovation in preparation for the 200th anniversary of the Battle.  According to the tourist bureau employee, a new visitors' centre is being built, which will include a trail to one of the farmhouses (she didn't say which) involved in the battle.

la Haye Sainte farm in background

The town was bustling even on this mid-March day.  While the boys were eating dessert, Craig also took in the Wellington Museum (located in town at the inn where Wellington and his staff slept) and the Église Saint-Joseph de Waterloo.  The museum contains a number of interesting artifacts, including uniforms, weaponry, an artificial leg, and even a couple of graves (in the courtyard in the back) of officers killed in the Battle.  The church was expanded just after the battle with the addition of a rotunda, which now contains a dedication to the officers and men who fought; inside there are many stone memorials propped up against the wall dedicated to various officers who died.

The Grand Duchy

the Casemates du Bock and Eglise Saint-Jean

Luxembourg (week 35)

We spent the night in Luxembourg eating at a Greek restaurant that happened to be close to our hotel.  Andrew fell asleep and "forgot" his shoes, so we had to return the next day to get them.  In the meantime, he was forced to wear his pool slippers for our morning touring.

Luxembourg City is built where the Alzette River winds back and forth through a steep valley, so fortifications dot the bends, many of them partly restored and open for touring.  We didn't pay for the tour but did stroll along the top of the Bock Casements, which have numerous interpretive signs.  We also took in the warm cathedral - "warm" in both temperature and decor.  It is the first cathedral that we've seen that really looks like a church that is being used, rather than a museum piece that services happen to be held in.

arrow points to Patton's grave

After lunch in the City and buying some supplies at the market, we headed just out of town to the American Luxembourg Cemetery, with graves of those killed in the Battle of the Bulge, and also of General Patton, who passed away soon after the end of the war and wanted to be buried with "his men".  His marker is identical to every other cross in the cemetery, with the exception that his letters are painted black.  As you'd expect from an American war graves site, it is immaculately groomed with plenty of parking and good accessibility.  We then proceeded up-country to the Château de Bourscheid, listed by several websites as the most picturesque and well-preserved of Luxembourg's many ruins.  Unfortunately, when we got there, in spite of carefully checking the hours (on the Luxumbourg Tourism and the castle's own websites), the interior was closed, in spite of the posted hours.  So we continued on through the Duchy and out to Belgium.

The mud of the Meuse

Douaumont and Verdun (week 35)

Fleury - on the church site, looking toward the school and café

The Battle of Verdun was the German offensive of 1916.  It lasted 303 days (the longest land battle in history) and cost a combined one million casualties (300,000 deaths).  Needless to say, the region is still scarred and monuments and museums are everywhere, including little pieces of strongpoints in farmers' fields where the farmers have left them be.  We mostly drove through and stopped here and there when something appeared at the side of the road.

- Douaumont Ossuary - As the name implies, it is the collected bones found on the battlefield with an enormous memorial and chapel built over it.  There is also a large war cemetery in front, and the tomb of Lt. André Thome (mayor of a local town killed at Verdun).


- Fleury-avant-Douaumont - a village mort pour la France, one of nine villages completely destroyed during the fighting and not rebuilt as a memorial.  On the cratered site there are white posts marking the routes of the streets and signposts showing where the buildings used to be, e.g., school, farm, blacksmith, church....  It is legally still a village with a mayor and an official census report (0 inhabitants).

- Jewish and Muslim Monuments - markers commemorating people of these faiths serving in the French army (both next to the Ossuary).

- Monument to the sons of Verdun - the town's memorial to its war dead, built into the side of an old fortification.

the Meuse, rowing past the Sons of Verdun

- Monument to victory at Verdun - an ENORMOUS statue in town, overlooking the Meuse.  It is topped by a statue of Charlemagne and has the text of Petain's General Order #9 encouraging his army to hold out through the German attacks.

- Tranchée des Baïonettes - A spot where 30-40 rifles (with bayonets attached) were found sticking out of the ground.  By legend, it was a trench where soldiers were buried by a shell burst just before going over the top; more likely it is a mass grave with rifles to mark the bodies.  Craig's father took several pictures when he was there in the '50s when the rifles were still visible.  They are now all gone and replaced by wooden crosses.

- not the Verdun Memorial - a museum next to Fleury-avant-Douaumont, it is undergoing extensive work and was closed.

- the Wounded Lion - marks the spot of furthest German penetration towards Verdun, in the region defended by the 130th Division.

It was a damp day, so we could imagine the mud of the trenches by extrapolating from the amount of mud that got on our pants simply walking these sites.

Verdun the town has a really ancient cathedral, dating from the 10th century.  A nice cloister is also open to visitors.  Attached (literally) to the cathedral is the old episcopal palace, now home to the World Peace Centre.

The most German of French castles

Sélestat and Strasbourg (week 35)

Beacause Alsace has passed between the Holy Roman, French, and German empires, there are lots of battlefields and castles throughout the region.  The castle Hohkönigsburg (or the Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg in French) was originally built in 1147 but has been rebuilt, modified, and demolished several times over the centuries.  The current edifice was commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1900 to promote German cultural identity in Alsace, having only recently annexed the area.  The noted medieval reconstructionist Bodo Ebhardt rebuilt the castle to match as nearly as possible the historical castle of 1618 (the start of the 30 Years' War).  The castle has a tour circuit, showing the Kaiser's rooms in the donjon and the artillery platform.  The views out over the surrounding area are very impressive as well.

The afternoon brought us into the old city of Strasbourg and its half-timbered houses.  The first ever "city centre" to be designated as a UNESCO heritage site, it is located on islands in the River Ill.  The ancient Cathédrale Notre Dame de Strasbourg is justly renowned - like Milan's, it is a vast open space inside.  The differences end there, though.  Whereas Milan's is a shining white block, Strasbourg's is brown; if Milan's is about sculpture, Strasbourg's is about stained glass, of which there is a startling amount.  The latter also contains a famous astronomical clock (currently in its third iteration after clocks #1 and #2 stopped working).  Originally, Strasbourg's islands were fortified, including the bridges; the remains of one set now only includes the bridges and their towers, while the full Vauban-designed bridge is intact and open to visitors.  The terrace (roof) of the Barrage Vauban offers a nice view of the city.

Alsatian battlegrounds

Hatten and Baden-Baden (week 35)

cupola atop Casement Esch

The Maginot line runs through much of Alsace, our next stop after emerging from Switzerland (and trying a section of the Autobahn where we kept our speed to a mere 150 km/h).  Unfortunately, there are so many pieces and so few volunteers that they are open on a rotating basis, so of the top 10 listed by the Alsace Tourism website, only two were open this day.  The Four à Chaux fortress only had guided tours (in French or German), so we went to the Musée de l'Abri de Hatten - an abri is a fortified bunker-barracks.  At this site you can tour the bunker (featuring period equipment and mannequins in costume) and stroll the equipment park featuring a large and eclectic array of military equipment, including several East German Cold-War vehicles.  Some of the equipment is showing its age and is in need of restoration - the website says the museum is actively seeking volunteers.  Finally, the museum has a memorial to the Malgré-Nous (against their will): because the Nazis considered Alsace-Lorraine to be part of Germany, all able-bodied men in the region were conscripted into the Wehrmacht and sent to the Eastern Front.  

David looking in the cockpit of a MiG21

Just before Hatten is the Casement Esch, closed to interior tours but we could stroll around the outside.  For some reason, an Sherman tank with American markings is parked on top of it.

don't worry - David's cup has apple juice in it

Since everything in Alsace appears to shut down for Sunday, we headed across the border to Baden-Baden to find some lunch: most of the menu was pork of some sort (schnitzel, sausages, roast) and cabbage (the children's menu had fries instead).  It was very tasty and went well with the beer (the Provençals do not understand beer!).  We then strolled through the spa part of town.  Known to the Romans and throughout the centuries since then, there are a number of hot springs in town, with temperatures ranging from 50 to 65C.  Unfortunately, the archeological site is closed for the season, so we had to be content with seeing the modern spas and some of the medieval buildings in the old town.

Some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground

It was warmer than it looks, but the wind off the lake was cold

Montreux (week 35)

Like the casinos in Vegas, the Montreux Casino has a long history of hosting concerts by top musical acts.  It also has traditionally set aside space for a recording studio.  In December of 1971, during a Frank Zappa concert, a fan shot off a flare gun that eventually engulfed the entire casino in a fire.  Deep Purple were planning to use the recording studio the next day, and as they watched their plans go up in smoke with the casino, they penned the lyrics for "Smoke on the Water".

The casino and the studio were rebuilt, and when Queen arrived in 1978 to record their album "Jazz", they decided they liked the studio so much that they bought it.  The old studio space is now a small interactive museum dedicated to the band, including costumes, Roger Taylor's drums from Live Aid, and a mixing studio where you can take the individual element tracks and remix songs from their "Made in Heaven" album.

We toured the museum and also walked along the waterfront, which has beautiful vistas of the Alps over Lake Geneva.  Swans and mallards swim in the lake, hummingbirds feed at the numerous (and currently blooming) flower beds, and Freddie Mercury's statue presides over the waterfront square just down from the casino (if you're looking for the statue, it's right next to the McDonald's, which isn't the classiest description, but your GPS will be able to find it!).

Into the Alps

Geneva (week 35)

As soon as we turned north to drive out of Milan, the Alps opened up like a grand vista before us, the haze of the previous days dissipating and revealing the glory of the mountains.  We took the most Swiss route our GPS offered, crossing into Switzerland through a 1-restaurant town (taking our last chance to have Italian pasta).  We stopped at the customs office where we were greeted in German (not what we expected on the Italian border) and picked up our highway sticker - all cars traveling the highways in Switzerland are required to pay the highway tax and display a windshield sticker showing that they have done so.

Picasso: Baigneurs à Garoupe (Bathers at Garoupe)

We stayed in Évian-les-Bains (yes, that's where Evian water comes from) on Lake Geneva because it was far cheaper than staying in Switzerland.  We then drove into Geneva for a day.  Tip to drivers: the Saint-Antoine parking lot is large and central to the old-city museums and churches.  Tip 2 to drivers: take the elevator out, because there is a signpost just as you exit showing location of various sites.  We did not exit thus, and spent 30 minutes wandering in circles trying to get our bearings (because other than the labels at the elevator, there are virtually no tourist directions).  However, once you get yourself sorted out, old-town Geneva is a marvelous place, with numerous free museums of high quality.  We chose the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, featuring floors dedicated to, among other things, prehistorical artifacts; Egypt, Rome, and Greece; and fine art.  For a free museum, the art is impressive, featuring multiple works by each of Cézanne, Renoir, Monet, van Gogh, and Picasso, plus a whole room of Rodins.  We took in the fine art plus the Egyptian and Greek antiquities exhibits.

On the left are some of the 6 000 000 index cards detailing WWI PoWs

While the others had lunch, Craig ducked into the curiously heterogenous-looking Cathédrale Saint-Pierre Genève, now no longer technically a cathedral since it is a Protestant church.  We then made our way to the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent to see their museum, recently redone in 2013.  It is an immersive and interactive place, where you can hear about the work of the Red Cross in disaster and war zones from witnesses, look at PoW records of WWI vintage (reproductions - the originals are there in humidity-controlled vaults), and even play games.  The boys' favourite was "Hurricane", where you have 5 minutes to prepare your island for an upcoming weather event by making buildings and training the residents with drills (done by tapping "cards" on a display around a big circular table .... so there's running involved unless you have a large group).

The Upper Room

Stained glass in the Duomo

Milan (week 34)

After climbing out of the coastal mountains of Liguria, the plains of Lombardy open out like the farmlands of southwestern Ontario.  We stopped for a day in Milan, the second largest city in Italy and, like Genoa, a former capital city full of treasures too numerous to see in a day.  We started our day at 7:45 am, catching the train from our suburban hotel to the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie.  The refectory contains Leonardo Da Vinci's Il Cenacolo (the Upper Room), better known in English as "The Last Supper".  Visits are in small groups (25?) for 15 minutes, and most times are booked months in advance, thus the 9am time for us, having only booked 2 weeks ahead.  Almost none of Leonardo's actual work remains (i.e. paint that he applied himself) because he used an experimental dry paint technique that was very fragile and started falling off as soon as he was finished.  Even with the extensive restoration, the remaining painting is missing much of the detail that you can see in canvas reproductions made in Leonardo's day.  Of course, no pictures of any kind are allowed, so you'll have to check online images to see what it looks like now.

on the roof

After popping into the convent's Basilica, we then proceeded to Milan's second-most famous religious site: the Duomo di Milano, or more formally, the Basilica cattedrale metropolitana di Santa Maria Nascente.  Mark Twain described it thus: "They say that the Cathedral of Milan is second only to St. Peter's at Rome. I cannot understand how it can be second to anything made by human hands."  On the other hand, Oscar Wilde was not impressed (then again, did he like anything?): "The Cathedral is an awful failure. Outside the design is monstrous and inartistic....everything is vile in it."  The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between.  Depending on how you measure it, the Duomo is the 5th-largest church in the world.  It is a vast, open space on the inside, because the chapels simply line the walls instead of being recessed into cubbyholes.  The variety of stained glass is fascinating, covering a variety of styles and colours.  We ascended to the roof as well, to get a closer look at the hundreds (thousands?) of carvings, statues, and gargoyles covering the spires.  Unfortunately the day was quite hazy, so we could not really enjoy the view over the city.

Piazza del Castello with the Castello Sforzesco in the background

Back to the ground, we proceeded through the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (you know you're in Milan when an intersection has two Prada stores on opposite corners), up the Via Dante to the Castello Sforzesco.  The town's main fortification was originally built starting from 1358, eventually expanding to a star-shaped citadel.  It is now home to numerous museums (ranging from Renaissance art to Egyptian artifacts) and a colony of cats in the moat.  Backtracking towards the Duomo, our last stop was the Teatro alla Scala, unassuming on the outside but ornate in the interior as befitting Milan's opera house.  It has a small museum inside, and normally you can tour the theatre.  On this day tours were not allowed but we got to see something better: rehearsals for the upcoming Cello Suites (In den Winden im Nichts), featuring Bach's music with interpretive dance.

Dolphin rugby!

Genoa (week 34)

It is perhaps fitting that, having most recently visited the former Genoese colony of Corsica, we'd start our exit tour in the city of Genoa.  Formerly the centre of a vast commercial empire, we obviously could not even scratch the surface of the historical sites in a 1-day stop.  So we decided to go to the aquarium instead, since we are becoming aquarium connoisseurs.  This is the 8th aquarium in 6 countries that the boys have visited.  Genoa's is the largest in Italy, and also one of the newest in Europe.  It is very nice, and has dolphins, penguins, and manatees, among the usual coral reef denizens (but not including reef sharks).  One dolphin, in particular, put on an unscripted show (without any trainers present) playing with a rugby ball.

Piazza de Ferrari

Almost everything in Genoa, including the aquarium, is bilingual.  English is widely spoken and printed on tourist material, and whenever we've offered the option to speak in English or French, the natives prefer to speak English.  We consider it a minor victory that the Italians, at least, aren't sure if we look (North) American or French, perhaps because they are the two types of people who cover their clothes with English slogans (if we've learned nothing else about France, we've learned that the most French of T-shirts has a picture of the Empire State Building and the words "I Love New York" on it).

Chiesa del Gesu

After the aquarium we took a walk up to the Piazza de Ferrari and took in the large fountain, the Palazzo Ducale (former home of the dukes of Genoa, now home of offices and an art gallery; you can freely walk through the pillared open-air atrium), and the Chiesa del Gesu.  The Church of Jesus can only be described as "ornate" with (I assume real) gilded gold trim and paintings covering every available space.  Oddly the cathedral was closed.

Bouches du Rhône's greatest hit

La Barben and Puyloubier (week 34)

We had 2.5 days to pack after returning from Corsica, so we naturally decided to do one more day trip to a nearby site.  We asked the kids if there was a favourite spot they wanted to see again, and they chose  the zoo at La Barben.  It was considerably busier this time, considering it was warmer and during the school break, but still we were able to see what we wanted.

So we then bid a fond farewell to Puyloubier, our home for the last 7 months.  We managed to get on the road at 11am on check-out day; the Mistral gave us a good send-off (fortunately, we are going east so the wind was at our backs!).  The car is a little over-packed, because we brought some food with us to eat along the road - more than we could easily fit in, as it turned out.  But once we eat our way through that (and can start wearing our warm jackets, also piled up in the back), we'll be able to see out the rear-view mirror with ease.

Napoleon's hometown

Ajaccio (week 35)

If the number of statues and historic markers is any indication, the greatest export from Ajaccio is Napoleon.  The Bonapartes were one of the original families to come over and live in Genoese Ajaccio soon after its founding in 1492.  By the time Napoleon was born, the family was living in town at the Maison Bonaparte, owned by the family up to 1923 and now a museum.  Many of the artifacts in the museum are from various siblings, but the main attraction for us was the painstaking recreation of the room decor - from the wallpaper to the ceiling art to the card tables.  Of course, you can see the room where legend has it that Napoleon was born (on a couch in a sitting room because Mom went into labour at church and didn't make it to the bedroom in time), and also a bedroom he stayed in during one of his adult visits.

Other Napoleonic sites we saw were the Grotte Napoleon (where he supposedly played and "sat looking out at the harbour and dreaming of glory" as a child), his enormous monument at the Place d'Austerlitz (known locally as the Casone - one wonders what Napoleon would have thought of the local teens playing pétanque on his parade ground), Place Foch (where a statue presides over the local market), and the Place de Gaulle, apparently one of the largest city squares in Europe (featuring the statue Napoléon et ses frères).  We also tried to see the Salon Napoléonien in the Hôtel de ville, but ended up walking into a conference presentation being held in the room.  Finally, we drove out to the Arboretum des Milelli, the country estate of the Bonapartes, located in an extensive olive grove; Napoleon stayed here with Murat and some other generals on his way back to Paris after abandoning his army in Egypt.  The house itself is closed, but the grove is open and is a pleasant walk with some nice views over the city.  There is also a formal botanical garden with little green labels giving the plants' scientific names.

The last Bonaparte site we visited was the Musée Fesch, named after Cardinal the Prince Joseph Fesch, Napoleon's uncle.  He built a palace and an Imperial Chapel, where many of Napoleon's immediate family are buried; naturally it is closed for the winter, like every other religious building on Corsica.  Cardinal Fesch was an avid and knowledgeable art collector - much of his collection is still on display here, including a Boticelli and two Titians.  Unfortunately, many of the most famous works that were once part of his collection (from Michaelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, and others) are now dispersed throughout Europe's larger museums.