Jimmy Bernard

There is another benefit of my position of pre sales engineer; there are some places of which you know nothing and that you would never have personally seen if it was not for your job to bring you there. To me, Salzburg was clearly one of them.

While traveling one day in Salzburg to visit a particular customer, I found myself having one couple of hours to spend, decided to visit a bit the town. After a quick look on Google Map, I found that there is a hill called “Kapuzinerberg” which is right in the middle of the city and which offers wonderful city sight views.

This place really worth the detour, once on the top of the hill, we had an astonishing view of a castle (Hohensalzburg Castle) that we did not see so far for being on the other side of the hill. It was just after winter; still snowing and the view seemed almost unnatural to me. See by yourself below a picture with the Castle in the front and the Alps as a background.

Hohensalzburg Castle – Salzburg – Austria – 2015

Recently buying a flat has for me been the occasion to reach a brand new world! The world of do-it-yourself (DIY)! So far I was barely able to hang a picture on the wall… but the flat we bought clearly needed some renovation and the main idea to spare money was to do everything on our own. The only help we got was the one from our family.

Expect the kitchen; we renovated every single part of the apartment from the floor to the ceiling. I read books teaching electricity, plumbing and did every from 0. It took us almost 2 years spending more than half of our weekends and holidays before arriving to the result we expected.

In the same line as an Exhibition I attended at Cape Town in South Africa for Neotion, I had the chance to spend one day visiting the city. This is really the hell of a place! People are so nice and the city is beautiful.

Unfortunately I did not have the time to climb up to “Table Rock”. However, I took the boat in the morning and went to Robben Island to visit the sadly famous prison where Nelson Mandela was hold captive 18 years. What a lesson this man gave to the entire world! It is beyond understanding how this man did to survive in such conditions and forgive all those who were responsible for the misery of Black Africans.

The Museum of Robben Island really tries to get into what were the prisoner conditions during the Apartheid. We also had the privilege to hear the testimony of an ancient prisoner hold captive in the same period as Nelson Mandela.

This is one of the most incredible places I have seen in my life! Close to Toronto, at the border of USA and Canada stand the famous Niagara Falls.

When we decided to visit the West Coast of North America, we chose to stop by the Niagara falls despite many peoples I know told me it would be a waste of time. It was just not possible for me to go that close to the falls without seeing them. I was anyway ready to be frustrated.

We arrived there on a rainy day; it was difficult to see the main part of the falls because of the mist coming out of them. Nevertheless, after checking all the activities that were possible on site, we went for one called “Maid of the Mist”. This attraction just proposes you to go by boat as close as possible to the falls.

This does not seem really impressing from the top of the falls but anyway, we made our choice – and we had the chance to be on the front of the boat so let’s enjoy the view. Everyone in this attraction has to wear a blue suit. That seemed a bit useless to me first but I thought: “let’s do like everyone and wear it!”.

Oh my god! I rode in the highest and fastest Rollercoaster in the world, I visited the Great Pyramid at Gizeh and the astonishing Temple of Abou-Simbel… but that felt like never before! The wind is so strong over there! You feel like your suit is going to fly away and you do everything you can to grab it and keep your hood on. And all that mist! It’s like hundreds of people were emptying buckets of water other your head in the same time! And the view! All you can see at 180 degrees are the falls. You feel so close to them and feel like you can touch them.

This place is just a unique experience anyone has to live when he has the chance to go in this part of the world. Please if you go to Niagara Falls, don’t miss it!

This is Nine years later and with the woman that is sharing my life that I decided to come back to the United Stated. But this time, it will not be in the same line as an organized trip. The United States must be discovered at your own speed. During my first trip I was a bit frustrated to not visit all the places I expected to see. This time I drew the trip from A to Z! An objective was also to hike in each Park around 4 hours.
My first visit in 2002 still is very present in my memory. This is a real pleasure to come back in such wonderful places besides when it is in couple. This was a 25 days trip, enough to visit a lot of National Park. After a few days in San Francisco, we rented a car and drove to visit both Sequoia and Yosemite National Park (NP). This was not the easiest days of our trip since we slept a few days in Campground. This was also the occasion to meet wonderful peoples in the only Inn available for 70 Miles around.
Then, we took the direction of Lake Tahoe this time to sleep in a Hotel! After that we went through Bodie State Park (SP), Mono Lake and slept at Mammoth Lakes. The day after was the tougher one with the crossing of the Death Valley: 500 Miles, a dozen of places to visit with a fifteen minutes hike each time under 100°F. Nevertheless it was a real pleasure to end this day with our arrival in Las Vegas where a beautiful hotel was waiting for us (The Palms). Our room was offering a wonderful view on the Strip! After a quick visit in Casinos… we took the direction of Bryce Canyon NP (with an unforgettable hike), Capitol Reef SP, Arches NP, Canyon Lands NP, Monument Valley Tribal Park (TP)… Page and the Lake Powell, Horse Shoe Bend and the best place we had the occasion to visit in the whole trip: Antelope Canyon TP. To finish with Parks, we spent 2 days in the Grand Canyon NP where I even had the occasion to meet an old friend I hadn’t seen for several years! As if being in the Grand Canyon the same day was not enough, we both chose the same hike (among 10) and met while hiking down the Canyon. We finished our trip with 4 days in Los Angeles where we visited Universal Studios Park.
That’s it… another trip behind us… even if this is kind of sad, when looking at all the pictures we took, we feel very lucky for the chance we had to visit such wonderful places. If you still think that United States are only what we can see through American TV Shows, please just take 5 minutes to look for some pictures of places I mentioned above. I am sure you will be surprised!

My first real personal travel since I entered Neotion! A dream for so many people but more kind of a curiosity for me, I decided to spend 2 weeks in Egypt to discover the beauties of Ancient Egypt. The only snag: Egypt is one the few countries that you have to visit with an organized travel. This is definitely not advised for European peoples to wander in the streets of the Cairo… This is not the way I prefer to visit a country but anyway… This is Egypt then I made an exception!
During the ten first days, we sailed on the Nil from Luxor with not less than the visit of two beautiful sites per days. Valley of the Kings, Temples of Louxor, Karnak and Philae and my favorite spot during the whole travel: Abu Simbel Temples (for which one of my pictures is below). After that I spent 4 days in the Cairo in a high standing hotel. During that time, we had the chance to visit Giza where we can find the Sphinx and the 3 famous Pyramids (among which Khufu’s Pyramid – the last wonder of the ancient world that still can be seen).
This is clear to me that Egypt is a country that anyone should try to visit once in his life! If you did not go there yet… then go for it!

Today IS the big day! Since the beginning of the summer, twice a month, we are doing a one day hike in the French’s Mercantour National Park. The one after the others, we chose to hike longer and more difficult trails. All this to come to this very particular hike, well known as being one the beautiful in this Park. A few numbers: 4h on the road (for the round trip), 10h of hiking, 1300m of positive change in altitude, highest spot at 2550m : all this in one day! This Valley is well known for his inaccessibility and for holding the largest quantity (40.000) of open-air Bronze Age Rock Engravings in Europe.
This hike was also the occasion to remember us how much mountain can be a dangerous place! While we were hiking under a bright shining sun, some clouds shown themselves up to let place to a storm with an icy cold. To be honest, we were not so much prepared to meet that kind of weather…
Anyway, despite this misadventure, we were dazzled thanks to the rocks engravings and also to the wonderful beautiful mountains sightseeing.