London - Day 7

Today was a rather quiet day. I went into town at about 10am and went to visit the Royal Mews. I thought there would be horses! But alas, no, there were carriages. It was interesting to see all the carriages that the royalty had been using throughout the years though.

Gold State Coach

The Gold State Coach was built in 1762 and is used for grand state occasions such as coronations.

I then went to the Queen's Gallery where there was an exhibition of fashions through the ages as told through portraiture. It was fascinating. The paintings were a sort of fashion magazine of their time, it was how the fashions were circulated throughout the realm. There was even a Rembrandt. Fancy a Rembrandt painting being used as a way to demonstrate the latest in fashion!

Millennium Bridge

The day became very nice by the afternoon and I went for a walk along the Southbank. People were strolling and meeting, and sitting and drinking, and even sitting on the banks of the Thames (ewww I don't think I would sit in that sand, considering the colour of the Thames and the aromas that arise every so often!) But it was a lovely way to end the day. 

Aldershot - Day 6

Today I went out to visit my brother's grave in Aldershot, the town where I lived until I was 3 years old.

The story goes like this. About 4 or 5 years ago, mum and I were talking about Colin, her first child who died of cot death, 16 days old. She was telling me about where he was buried and why she chose that location. We got out Google Maps and mum showed me on the map exactly where the cemetery was. It is located next to a railway line she said so that he could enjoy the sound of the trains.

Google map image of where Colin's grave is located

She told me how the children's graves were separated from the adult graves and were in a lovely quiet spot lined with trees.

From the entrance looking towards the grave (circled)

Looking from the grave towards the entrance

It truly is a beautiful spot.

So the opportunity came three years ago for me to visit the grave site. I jumped on a train from London to Aldershot and followed mum's directions as she had given them to me on Google. And just like that I had gone from her lounge room in Perth, Western Australia looking at the grave on the Internet, to standing in front of it.

I never thought I would get the opportunity to visit again, however, never say never. Last time I tried quite badly to clean the grave, this time I went prepared. I bought some cleaner and even managed to buy some flowers this time (Sorry mum, couldn't find any daffodils so I bought daffodil coloured roses).

I squirted cleaning liquid over and over, I scrubbed and scrubbed, and I wished for a tap and bucket to be able to wash off the grime that I was cleaning. And on cue, the heavens opened and a summer rain shower washed down the grave for me (and me in the process!).

Colin's grave as I found it

After a good scrub and God's rinsing

As I was working I had a little chat with my bro. It was strange I was thinking that for mum, he will always be that little baby that she held in her arms for too brief a time. However for me, as I chatted to him, he was a 46 year old man. A man who would have been, if life was different. I talked to him about how if he had lived, I would not be here and it made me think that I am living a life of privilege, I am living it for him too. Because he didn't get to live, I did.

London - Day 5

We had a very slow start today. I couldn't get to sleep until about 1:30am and then someone rang at 3am. I don't know who because I was very tired and turned off the phone. Soooooo ... we left home about 10:30am heading for the iconic shops - Liberty, Harrods, Carnaby Lane. Following that we walked to the Royal Albert Hall where Jane went to have a look around and I had a lovely snooze under a tree in Hyde Park. The sun eventually came out which was wonderful and we went for a walk through hyde park to find Princess Diana's water slidey memorial water thingy (that's the official term).

So cute!

 We walked from Hyde Park to find Westminister Abbey but instead found that it was past 4pm and everything was closed! So we found a pub instead and tried a Pimms.

Big Ben near Westminster Abbey

 At the pub it occurred to me to try and find some Babycham, which is, apparently, a beverage that my name was derived from. And I found some! In Tescos!

The Babycham Bambi

London - Day 4

London Panorama with the Thames to the right and the gherkin to the left

London is grey and the Thames is brown. I suppose this is colourful summer weather? This is a panorama taken on the ipad and stitched in photoshop from the very top of St Paul's cathedral, about 365 feet high.

We then continued our day with a tour of the Globe Theatre and a tour of the Tower of London with the very entertaining @billybeefeater.

London - Day 3

Today was a day of experiences. Our first outing of the day was for tea at the Ritz.

Tea at the Ritz

 As I said to Jane, this was the most expensive cheese sandwich I have ever had. It was quite an experience - sandwiches (including cucumber of course), scones, and little cakes. Huge pots of tea in very heavy silver pots and attentive waiters smiling and asking you constantly if you are okay. A pianist was playing away and at times I heard air supply! By the time we left I was bouncing on my seat from the sugar rush, I should not eat that much cake!

The Globe Theatre

We then walked around to the Globe Theatre and managed to get tickets to the sold out show - A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was fabulous. I felt like I was transported to another world. Here we were sitting on hard wooden benches while the space between us and the stage was full of people who stood for a 3 hour performance. The story was farcical, the actors were superb and the sky was grey and wintery (because of course it is summer). It was an incredible experience that so far has to be the highlight of my time in London.

We finished the day with dinner at the local - The Ship, where once again we had an Australian barkeep (our second).

London - Day 2

Today I took a little break from my holiday (ha). All of this walking and site seeing was getting tiring so I spent the day at home recovering until the early afternoon. Then I caught the tube and went for a little wander down Oxford Street to do some window shopping while Jane was at a course. 

Now realise the street decorations are for her mam's birthday

As I was walking along Oxford Street there was some sort of protest walk going on for the G8 summit. It was interesting, there were protestors walking quietly down one side of the street and the other side of the street was completely filled with the same number of Police. Then tagging along behind the police was the media. Looked like a disaster waiting to happen. 

How many busses can you fit in one street?

Jane and I caught up at 5pm at Trafalgar Square and went for a walk to visit the queen. She was home. All the Queen's guards were practicing in St James's Park for her upcoming birthday celebrations which are supposedly on Saturday! Who knew. London will be a zoo. 

The queen was home

We went to Wicked at the Apollo Victoria theatre in the evening. It was a very slick production. I quite enjoyed the new take on the story, it was well done. 

Wicked stage dressing

London - Day 1

Time to leave Paris for London. We lugged our (slightly heavier) suitcases down into the Metro and caught the few stops to Gare de Nord. We're feeling very comfortable in this cavernous underground maze of tunnels now - who would have thought! We got there in plenty of time for our train but still ended up scrambling at the last minute as we were waiting on the wrong platform! The train was very comfortable and in what seemed like no time at all (and only 20 min of that time in the chunnel) we popped up on the other side in the UK.

Gare de Nord

We caught a London black cab to our new accommodation in Lambeth. A very nice four story attached house where we are being looked after by our hosts Jeff and Simon. It is beautifully located too, we decided to take a walk to the South bank which is only about 15 minutes away. So after we went completely the wrong way in a circle we oriented ourselves and found the Thames. 

The Millennium Bridge

Golden Jubilee Bridge

We wandered through Covent Gardens, along to the Globe Theatre and visited the Lions in Trafalgar Square.

Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery

Then ended our wandering with a snack in a pub called "The Sherlock Holmes". It might sound strange, but it was actually quite tasty (and obviously terribly unhealthy) - chips covered in melted cheese. We then headed for home and an early night.

Last day in Paris

The day has come, our last day in Paris. We have gone from being wide eyed tourists to feeling quite comfortable with the way that things happen here, albeit a little tired from constantly translating everything with our little, but increasing, knowledge of French. Today I ordered our breakfast completely in French with my new vocabulary, I would love to stay here a little longer (living not as a tourist) to see how much I could pick up. It really is much easier being immersed in a language.

Etienne Marcel Metro station

So, what did we do today ... Firstly we took a trip out to Gare de Nord which is only a few metro stops away, to see how difficult it would be to traverse with our luggage. We came to the conclusion that we will brave the metro and hope there is not a rush hour at 7:30am to get to the train station to head to London tomorrow. We had an interesting encounter with a French man who thought he was charming, his words of "You are so beautiful, you are an angel" had us running to hide in a cafe. I don't think that was his intended outcome.

Centre Georges Pompidou

Our next stop was Centre Georges Pompidou which is the Paris modern art gallery. This is such an impressive building. It had much less crowds than the more well known galleries with the older art, which was quite a nice change. So we wandered for about 3 hours looking at artwork by Kandinsky, Picasso, Matisse, Pollock, and Warhol, to name a few. Some of Picasso's paintings were quite disturbing.  I think, apart from seeing the work of Van Gogh, this was my favourite gallery. It has been interesting to see the progression of artwork here in Paris from the very early religious art through to the new collections at the modern art gallery.

Andy Warhol

Pablo Picasso

We wandered home and Jane found a fabulous frivolous French frock. We are starting to get to know our way around but seem to keep coming across places that we thought were far away but are only a few streets away in reality. We keep saying that the place has been cursed by Harry Potter, streets move and time disappears.

Lastly, we went to a wine tasting session at O Chateau. It was fabulous. The French wine expert was named Pierre (I wonder if he made that up?)  And we tasted three different French wines. Pierre had nice things to say about everyone else's country in the room but sneered when he came to NZ. We think he felt threatened by our superior wines.

O Chateau wine tasting

So that is our last day. It has been grey and rainy today, but that is okay, it is our last day, and we know that Paris is sad to see us go (ha). Time for a last dinner before we try to squeeze the suitcases shut with all our fabulous French fare.

Day 7 - Paris

Chateau de Versailles ...

Today's outing was to visit the Palace of Versailles. It was a 40 min train trip out of the city. We had a lovely wander along the streets of Versailles (found a fabulous shoe shop) and then sat down to a coffee and petit dejeuner before making out way to the Palace.

I can't even capture the size of the Palace, it was huge! So here are the gates ...

We could not believe the opulence, each part of the palace you entered was breathtaking.

Each room you walked into was more regal and decorated than the next ...

And the garden surrounding the palace was just as outrageous ...

I wonder what it would be like for the people who grow up around all this opulence and excess. What is their understanding and value of beauty? Does this over abundance of art and buildings and sculpture blind you to the smaller things that may be left unnoticed in their shadow? 

Day 6 - Paris

There are not that many things left to cross off on our site seeing days. We started today with the Pantheon. it is a huge mausoleum with many of the famous important French people of history interred there. We caught the Metro out and wandered around the streets until we came across the Pantheon. The same thing happened that always happens for us in Paris - serendipity. We took a wrong turn and ended up right near the hotel I stayed last time I was here, was fun to see it again, we also came across the square where I had breakfast and in my memory it was quaint and quiet, in reality in tourist season, it is still quaint, but not so quiet. Once we found the Pantheon we went inside and it was not at all what I expected.  

Inside it was massive with full sized canvases on the walls and ceilings. The building had been both a church and a mausoleum. We found the stairs down into the crypt and it got quiet and cold. 

For Brett here is the place where Voltaire rests, the second Frenchman to be interred. He is across the aisle from Rousseau so I suppose that makes for interesting late night conversations. 

We left the Pantheon and made our way to the Champs Alysee. We walked the strip up to the Arc de Triomphe where we climbed the spiral stairs to the very top.

There was a magnificent 360 degree view of Paris, with something impressive every where you looked. The Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, some strange square modern looking thing near the high rise towers and the many gold adorned towers - in every direction.

We finished our day with a trip to the Musee L'Orangerie to see Monet's waterlilly series. That made us catch our breath. To imagine that he spent so long painting those and that he made them for the space made us sit down in admiration and contemplation. I watched the faces of quite a few people as they walked into the white room with a huge painting covering the entirety of each wall. I recognised the same look many times - "Oh my goodness, are we really here?"

Also in the same gallery we came across a room with Picasso paintings along one side and Matisse along the other. Random Renoir, Cezanne, and so many others stretching out before you. Talk about excess! Enough already it is just showing off! 

A leisurely wander home and now it is 6:30pm and we are pooped. We mentioned today that people are always talking about going tramping and how far they have walked - the Milford Track and so on. I don't think that has a patch on surviving site seeing in Paris!

Day 5 - Paris

Well today we went to Monet's garden. It was c'est magnifique.

We began by navigating the Metro to Gare Saint Lazare where we met our guide, Kit, and hopped on the bus for Vernon. We travelled out to Normandy and it was nice to leave the city and all those people who smoke constantly behind. Fresh air had never felt so good!

When we got to Vernon we got on our bikes and went into the village to buy supplies - bread, cheese, and fruit (oh, and some cider). It was such fun, I managed to buy my fruit without using any English. I wonder what they think of French in an Aussie/kiwi accent?

We ate our lunch by the banks of the Seine River. It was just so beautiful, the sky is pastel blue with fluffy white clouds. It is lovely and warm and a family of geese wandered past to see what we were doing. Jane and I toasted with wonder and our constant statement of "We're in France!"

We rode our bikes from Vernon to Giverny to visit Monet's garden. We had two hours wandering about admiring the place that inspired so much of Monet's work, and the place that he called home. 

We learned all about the difference between impressionists and what came before them and after. We were told that Monet was born around the time that photography was invented. This made sense to me, if photography could capture realism then artists were free to interpret what they saw rather than capture it for posterity. Apparently Monet was about capturing the subject, rather than painting a narrative (well, that is what I learnt after an hour on the tour, I'm sure there is more to it than that). 

We rode back to the train station and continued back to our apartment near Sentier Metro Station. We are getting quite good at being Kiwis/Aussies/ whatever I am in Paris. We plant our feet firmly, bend slightly at the knees, and when people push past us, we hold our ground - take that. It is a dog eat dog world here and we started out being polite but found that we needed to just get our hands dirty and get in the game or we would be at the back of the queue. 

We ended the evening with a cocktail at a cafe around the corner. Could life be any better than this?

Day 4 - Paris

We planned to take it easy today, somehow that didn't happen. We braved our first ever Metro ride and caught the train out to Sacre Coeur in the 18th arrondissement. It was a real treat to look around a different part of Paris. The Basilica was quite impressive sitting up on the highest point of Paris. You could see the whole of the city spread out before you.

Behind the Basilica there were some markets and cobble stone streets of gift shops and cafes. The day turned out to be rather warm as we wandered along and took in the sites and sounds.

We then caught the train back to the musee D'Orsay and spent a couple of hours soaking up the impressionists, and my favourite, Van Gogh. I can never tire of his paintings! But my feet were tiring by this time.

We walked through the gardens toward the Louvre on the way home and were captivated by the beauty of the spring flowers, luscious grass and people relaxing.

We wandered home looking in different shops as we went. We were so exhausted we didn't even bother with tea. We just bought some bread and cheese and went home. Where I can now tell you, the both of us will be snoring very soon indeed.

Day 3 - Paris

We had a wonderful day today. We had planned to do so much and ended up taking a lot of time to do a little in the day time and covered a lot at night.

We started out heading to Notre Dame. We had a lovely wander along the direction we thought we should go in, stopped for breakfast, checked the map - we had been walking in completely the wrong direction. So after a lovely croissant we turned around and continued the other way. Notre Dame was amazing however so crowded, but still peaceful.

We had all sorts of plans for other things to do, but that was about all we managed to fit in. Then on to the night's activities. We had a tour booked which started out at the Eiffel Tower for dinner, an hour boat cruise along the Seine and ending up at Moulin Rouge.

If you ever get the chance, you just have to go to the Moulin Rouge show! Talk about a spectacle. We didn't know what was going to happen next - dancing, snakes, Dr Suess esk costumes, acrobatics, ponies, juggling - we thought we had entered a strange new world where we didn't actually understand what was going on. It was truly amazing.