Travel 2013

France: La Chapelle d'Abondance, Marseilles, Montpellier, Paris, Reims
Bulgaria: Hisarya, Starosel; England: Selsdon Park and Cambridge; Trier, Germany;
Barcelona, Spain for the ebbf/IEF conference; Belgrade, Serbia; Copenhagen, Denmark;
Monterey Peninsula and Yosemite in California; Quebec and its Baha'i summer school;
Swiss Baha'i Winter School in Einsiedeln

The year got off to a slower start, thankfully, with no travel almost to the end of February, when I spent a week in the French Alps at the Baha'i Winter Camp, followed the next week by meetings Marseilles and Montpellier in the south of France. In late March, I went to Bulgaria to visit my brother and his family, and see some ancient Roman and Thracian sites. May was reasonably busy, with three trips between the middle and the end of the month, first to London for the ebbf Spring event, then to Cambridge for the UNEP Foresight Panel on Small Island Developing States, and finally to Luxembourg to give Baha'i talks, with one afternoon to visit Trier in nearby Germany. In June I only had one trip to Reims in the north-east of France to give a paper at a meeting on sustainability studies. For the last two weeks of July and the first two weeks of August, I was in North America, first in California with my brother Greg and his family (see separate page for family pictures), then in Quebec with my son Alex and his family (see separate page), including the Quebec Baha'i summer school. In mid-September I spent a week in Sweden giving 10 Baha'i-sponsored environmental talks in 5 cities, including one university lecture and two for secondary schools, but there was no time to take pictures. October was a busy month, starting with the ebbf/IEF conference in Barcelona (see separate page), followed by the ECPD conference in Belgrade and the ASEM seminar in Copenhagen. I then had no travel until the Swiss Baha'i Winter School at the end of December.

LA CHAPELLE D'ABONDANCE

The French Baha'i Winter Camp was held at the Chalet Olinga in La Chapelle d'Abondance, a ski resort in the Alps. The mornings were devoted to lectures and arts workshops, and the afternoons to winter sports and more arts, with the evenings either more lectures or arts performances. I gave two lectures on principles of governance in the Baha'i writings, taught a children's class on governance, and learned to sing for the first time in a choir (it is possible to learn something new, even at seventy). See the separate page for pictures at the Winter Camp.

Chalet Olinga at 1030 meters participants in the Baha'i Winter Camp

With almost a meter of snow, but reasonably sunny days, the conditions were ideal for snow-shoeing, which has replaced skiing as my winter sport, given my age. I could leave directly from the chalet for treks along the Abondance river behind the chalet, up the mountainside and across alpine meadows deep in snow. My favorite hike was up past a frozen waterfall, climbing two steep alpine meadows that used to be ski runs, and continuing up a side valley to Les Ravières at 1285 meters, a vertical climb of 255 meters over an hour. On parts of the trail, the snow was packed for snowshoeing, but the meadows still had deep soft snow in which even my snowshoes would start to ski. The air was clear, the sun took off enough of the chill that I was most comfortable without sleeves, and the views across the valley were fantastic.

Vallee de l'Abondance

The valley floor, and the view across the valley from up the slope; the Chalet Olinga where the Winter Camp was held (right)

Arthur Dahl

Snowshoing along a trail half way up the valley slope; (right) La Cascade, a frozen waterfall on the way to "Sur Bayard"

At the top of the high pasture "Sur Bayard", far above the chalet which separates upper and lower pastures on the steep slope

The high trail to Les Ravières

forest and snow

Near Les Ravières

Arthur Dahl

At the top of the trail at Les Ravières, after a 55 minute climb rising 255 meters in elevation

field and view

Trail up the valley of L'Abondance

field of snow

.
Snow-covered pastures

snow and stream

The snow glistened with crystals and beautiful curves

valley

Valley views from the snow-covered pastures

MARSEILLES, FRANCE

The Partnership for Education and Research about Responsible Living (PERL), in which the International Environment Forum participates, held its workgroup meetings in Marseilles, France, in early March. I lead a workgroup of educators to prepare a toolkit of values-based indicators of education for sustainable living for use in schools, and am also member of another workgroup on international partnerships and processes. After traveling to Marseilles by TGV train, I had a little time to visit the old port, and again saw a little of the town on my walk back to the train station after the meeting.

The Old Port with a fishmonger
buildings around old port

Buildings around the Old Port

A fisherman prepares his nets

buildings around old port

Buildings and streets around the Old Port

dinner

PERL participants at dinner in a floating restaurant in the old port

view from railway station

Views from the railway station

Gare St. Charles (railway station)

MONTPELLIER, FRANCE

While I was in the south of France, I went on to Montpellier to visit my old friend Christian Depraetere, a hydrographer and nissologist (specialist on islands) with the Institute for Research on Development (IRD) center for remote sensing. He organized a seminar on global challenges for islands, where I spoke on islands as pioneers of sustainable development. I also took part in two scientific planning meetings, one for a colloquium on islands later this year, and the other for a research project on grass-roots implementation of co-management of human communities and natural resources. There was also a little time to visit the historic center of Montpellier and its botanical garden, the oldest in France.

large central square

The central square with a statue and theatre (La Comédie)

A government building, fountain and old movie theatre

Narrow streets, a wall painted in tromp d'oeil, and the court house (Palais de Justice)

park

A long promenade between the Arc de Triomphe and the Chateau d'Eau (over the reservoir for the city water supply)

park

The promenade from the Chateau d'Eau, with a statue of Louis XIV in the middle

The aquaduct leading to the Chateau d'Eau; a view over the city

The botanical garden (Jardin des Plantes)

Botanical Garden
old towers

Old tower remaining from the city walls

BULGARIA

(see separate page)

At the end of March 2013, I went to Bulgaria for 10 days to visit my brother Greg, his wife Emi, and my nephew and nieces Greggie, Joyce and Mina. We went to Husarya, near Plovdiv, which used to be the ancient Roman town of Diocletianopolis from the 4th century AD. Its mineral hot springs have attracted visitors for many centuries. It was one of the few Roman towns build for tourism rather than military purposes. On the way back to Sofia, we stopped to visit Thracian sites near Starosel which were much older (5th-4th century BC). After another night in Sofia, we went to the village of Krupnik in the south near Blagoevgrad, where Emi's parents live and Greg has a house, to visit with family and friends. See the separate photo album.

LONDON ebbf EVENT

The ebbf, our Baha'i-inspired organization bringing values into business, held its Spring event at Selsdon Park, an Elizabethan-style estate and golfing resort south-west of London, on 10-12 May 2013. See the separate page for pictures of the ebbf event. Prior to the event, we had an ebbf Governing Board meeting. It was a chance to catch up with old friends and new, and occasionally to walk in the gardens. Unfortunately, because of the impossibility of coordinating airline tickets, I had to fly back to Geneva on Sunday evening and return to England the next day (see below).

The Selsdon Park Hotel is set in beautiful grounds, including a golf course.

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND

UNEP organized a Foresight Panel on Small Island Developing States, that met for three days on 14-16 May at beautiful Madingley Hall, an Elizabethan manor outside of Cambridge that is used by the University of Cambridge as a conference centre. See separate page for pictures of the meeting and the beautiful surroundings. We also spent the last night in Cambridge and were invited to dinner by a local academic at a pub on Jesus Green along the bank of the River Cam.

Madingley Hall with beautiful gardens and a thatched gatehouse

Library

Madingley Hall library, dining room, and gate to the courtyard

. .

The Three Horseshoes Pub in Madingley, where we had dinner; rapeseed fields on the way to Cambridge

Cambridge

The River Cam, with its locks and houseboats

Jesus Green in the middle of Cambridge, and one of a row of odd knitted coverings for lamp posts

TRIER, GERMANY

At the end of May, I visited Luxembourg for three days to speak to an interfaith group on Baha'i views on ecology, and at the National Baha'i Centre on Baha'i approaches to governance. One afternoon, my hosts took me to visit the nearby German city of Trier, which was the capital of the northern Roman empire from the time of the Emperor Constantine, and continued to be an important religious and temporal centre for many centuries.

View of Trier

Views of Trier from the Porta Nigra, the Roman gate, with the imposing cathedral

cathedral and chuch of Our Lady

Cathedral, most important pre-Carolingian church in Germany, and adjacent 13th century Gothic church of Our Lady, oldest Gothic church in Germany

Front of the Romesque cathedral, the central part of which was a Roman basilica, and adjoining Gothic cloisters

Roman basilica, now a protestant church. The firestorm of 1944 stripped it of later additions and decorations

4th century Roman baths, over 200 meters long, with extensive undergroung tunnels

details of the Roman baths

REIMS, FRANCE

In mid-June I took the train to Reims, in the north-east of France, where the International Research Centre on Sustainability (http://sustainability-studies.org) at the University of Reims organized the Third Rencontres Internationales de Reims on Sustainability Studies, with the theme of "Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals: Towards a New Social Contract", under the patronage of the President of France. There were 15 speakers at the two-day meeting, including Nobel Laureate Carlo Rubbia, Carlos Lopes (Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa), Leena Srivastava (Vice-Chancellor of TERI University and Executive Director of The Energy and Resources Institute -TERI in Delhi), well-known researchers on sustainability governance like Peter Haas (U. Massachusetts) and Frank Biermann (VU Amsterdam), and two IEF members: Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen of Wagenigen University and myself. IEF member Jon Marco Church, an Assistant Professor at IRCS, was on the organizing committee and chaired one session. My presentation was on "Putting the individual at the centre of Development: Indicators for a New Social Contract". The written paper is available on the IEF web site at https://iefworld.org/ddahl13a. Sylvia's paper was on "Legitimacy of Global Energy Governance". The programme and most of the presentations can be downloaded from the IRCS web site at http://www.sustainability-studies.org/ircs/third_rencontres-program_interventions/.

keynote panel

Jon Church, Peter Haas, Liliana Andronova, Frank Biermann

Inaugural speakers Carlos Lopes, Leena Srivastava and Carlo Rubbia; afternoon panel chaired by Jon Marco Church, with Peter Haas, Liliana Andronova and Frank Biermann

Nobel Prize laureate Carlo Rubbia; Leena Srivastava, Vice-Chancellor of TERI University

Francois Mancebo and Peter Haas

Carlo Rubbia receiving the medal of the City of Reims

François Mancebo, Director of IRCS, Peter Hass, University of Massachusetts; Frank Biermann, head of the Earth System Governance project; Carlo Rubbia receiving the medal of the City of Reims

While in Reims, there was a little time to walk around the city centre, where, despite 80% destruction during the First World War, some of the vestiges of its ancient past as Roman capital of the northern empire and site of the crowning of French kings have survived or been restored.

Reims Cathedral

Notre Dame Cathedral in Reims, where French kings were crowned, was hit by 300 shells and burned in the First World War, but has been restored over many years

Reims Cathedral

Details of the facade; the return of nature: a tree growing out of the roof

Reims Cathedral interior

The facade still has beautiful stained-glass windows, others are more modern

Reims Cathedral

The rear of the cathedral is also dramatic

Palais du Tau

The Palais de Tau next to the cathedral, where kings celebrated after their coronation

Joan of Arc accomplished her mission to see the French king crowned here: ancient building; Palais de Justice; monument to four rivers

Reims

Scenes from the centre of Reims
Reims

PARIS, FRANCE

After Reims I stopped over in Paris to attend a reception at a former Ambassador's residence where my old friend and scientific colleague Virginie Tillot de Grissac was awarded the medal of Chevalier dans l'Ordre National de Merit. The residence was near the Palais de Chaillot, with its magnificant view across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. Just on the other side of the Palais is the Avenue de Camoëns, where 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, stayed for 9 weeks when he visited Paris in 2011.

View of the Eiffel Tower from the Palais de Chaillot; gardens where 'Abdu'l-Bahá must have walked

view from Palais de Chaillot

View over Paris from the Palais de Chaillot

Part of the Palais de Chaillot; statue of Maréchal Foch across the streef from the Palais; view from the Avenue de Camoëns where 'Abdu'l-Bahá stayed

CALIFORNIA

I spent two weeks in California in late July and early August to join my brother Greg and his family on part of their vacation. For a more complete report with family photos, see the separate page. We were first on the Monterey Peninsula at Pebble Beach, with a hike up Carmel Valley and an excursion to the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Then we drove across the Central Valley to Yosemite National Park, with three nights in Yosemite Valley, two at Tuolumne Meadows in the High Sierras, and two at May Lake High Sierra Camp.

Going to and from Yosemite, we crossed the San Joaquin Valley and the Salinas Valley that are centers of American agriculture pioneered by my grandfather a century ago. The extended irrigated fields are always impressive, as is the summer heat in comparison with the more temperate mountains and coast.

fields in the Salinas Valley

agriculture: sunflowers

sunflowers in the Salinas Valley

artichoke fields near Castroville

harvesting strawberries

MONTEREY PENINSULA
The Monterey Peninsula where I grew up is world famous for its natural beauty, and in mid-summer the coastal fog keeps it cool.

mining the sand dunes around Monterey Bay

mining the sand dunes behind Monterey Bay

sand dunes behind Monterey Bay

Monterey Bay and Monterey Peninsula

Monterey Bay with the Monterey Peninsula across the bay

Monterey Bay and Monterey Peninsula

Monterey Peninsula across Monterey Bay

In Pebble Beach, we went for a walk along the beautiful coast, with its rocks, beaches and coastal wildflowers.

Pebble Beach coastline and wildflowers

CARMEL VALLEY
Our hike in Garland Park up Carmel Valley passed through typical California vegetation of the Coast Range, including groves of coast redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens), oak woodland and scrub.

Redwoods, trees and scrub
oak and poison oak

Oak woodlands and scrub

SANTA CRUZ BOARDWALK
The boardwalk at Santa Cruz at the north end of Monterey Bay is over a hundred years old.

Boardwalk with amusements; the beach in front of the boardwalk

YOSEMITE VALLEY
While glacier-carved Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park is now crowded with tourists from all over the world, it still retains its natural beauty, with forests, rivers and meadows below steep granite cliffs.

Cliffs, forest and rushing water; me ready for a hike

Yosemite Valley

The trail up to Vernal Falls is particularly beautiful; Vernal Falls

TUOLUMNE MEADOWS
The main access to the High Sierra Wilderness in Yosemite National Park is through Tuolumne Meadows (8,600ft/2,620m), the largest meadows in the Sierras, on the Tioga Pass Road.

Tuolumne Meadows; soda springs with naturally carbonated mineral water

We hiked around Lembert Dome, and saw climbers scaling the cliff face; the Greg Dahl family

MAY LAKE
The May Lake High Sierra Camp is only accessible on foot or mule. Beyond the lake is Mount Hoffmann.

May Lake

From the ridge behind the camp, there are wonderful views of the High Sierras at sunset, with Mt. Lyell (13,114ft/3,997m) in the distance

Half Dome from near May Lake

Alpen glow in High Sierras from near May Lake

Half Dome (8,842ft/2,695m) at the edge of Yosemite Valley; alpen glow over the Sierras after sunset

May Lake; on the trail down to Raisin Lake and Glen Aulin

Raisin Lake

on the trail near May Lake

Granite slopes alternated with meadows ringed by lodgepole pines
on the trail near May Lake

QUEBEC

From California I went to Quebec to spend two weeks with my son Alex and his family (see separate page), going to the zoo and celebrating my birthday. We all went to the Quebec Baha'i summer school in a lovely camp on a lake. There are many more pictures on the separate page.

Lake Pierre

The setting was typically Canadian, a peninsula in a lake

Pierre Lake

There were cottages scattered in the forest around the lake, and a path along the lakeside

classes

There were classes, a dialogue with junior youth (11-14 years) and musical performances

The music around the campfire was amazing; we went canoeing; the football teams included players of all ages

BARCELONA, SPAIN

On 3-6 October, the International Environment Forum and ebbf, the Baha'i-inspired forum for values in business, held a joint annual conference in Barcelona, Spain, on "Co-creating Sustainable Wealth: How can we combine Ecology and Economy". See the separate page for the photos and the IEF web site for a complete conference report: https://iefworld.org/conf17

view

There was a lovely view from my hotel room, but no time to enjoy the pool

Arthur Dahl

I gave the opening keynote speach on "What is sustainable Wealth?", and fellow IEF board member Victoria Thoresen also gave a keynote

my workshop

I also led a workshop on principles underlying sustainable wealth, and there was ample time for discussions

BELGRADE, SERBIA

The next weekend I was in Belgrade, Serbia, for the annual conference of the European Center for Peace and Development (ECPD) on Reconciliation, Tolerance and Human Security in the Balkans, with the theme "New Balkans in Europe: Peace, Development and Integration". My paper this year was on "New Balkans Sustainability and the Post-2015 Development Agenda". I also took part in a roundtable on the Global South.

ECPD conference in session; Belgrade City Hall where the conference was held; across the park from the Serbian Parliament

press

Reporters at the conference opening; Prof.Dr. Erhard Busek, former Vice-Chancellor of Austria; Prof.Dr. Darko Tanaskovic, Ambassador and Prof. Univ. Belgrade

Piano concert for the assembled participants

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

On 21-24 October I went to Copenhagen to participate in the 13th Informal ASEM Seminar on Human Rights. The theme was "Human Rights and the Environment". Before leaving we were treated to a canal tour of the center of Copenhagen. For a more complete album on the seminar and Copenhagen see the separate page.

Amalienborg Royal Palace

Borsen and Christiansborg Palace (Parliament)

Nyhavn

Nyhavn

EINSIEDELN, SWITZERLAND

Swiss Baha'i Winter School

In the last week of December, I crossed Switzerland to Einsiedeln in the canton of Schwyz for the Swiss Baha'i Winter School, for which I was on the organizing committee. We arrived through green pastures, but snow the next day turned everything white and winter sports started.

First snowfall

Fresh snow seen from my room; the hotel; view down towards the lake Sihlsee

view

Views from around the study centre

For a report on the school, see the separate page.