Albatz Travel Adventures

China Beach is the beginning (and the end) of the Juan de Fuca Trail on Vancouver Island.

12 x 16 acrylic painting of China Beach’s blue-black rock formations and tidal pools with yel...

Driving through France it sometimes seemed that every day was Memorial Day: ancient castles pockmarked with bullet holes, concrete bunkers littering the land, memorial signage telling of bombings and battles, cemeteries.

There are two sets of dune walks on either side of the village of Plage de Merlimont on the northwest coast of France.

This dune walk is called : ‘Sentier Découverte de la Dune Parabolique’ (Path of Discovery of the Parabolic Dune).A dune...

Morning, Friday, May 22nd, 2025.

For the 1st half of our first full day in Paris, we wandered around its oldest arrondisements 1 and 2. This included two famous turn-of-the-century shopping arcades, a couple of art galleries and the streets which are so wonderful all by themselves.

After a

Thursday, May 21st, 2025.

After booking into our tiny Paris apartment (*which took an endless amount of time to find) Al announced, “It’s time for a beer!” We set off immediately and sat down at the first café we found.

Any small amount of French we may have had in the past deserted us. Al meant to order a ‘blond’, but blurted out  ‘blanche...