Quick update

Just to let you all know I have finally done the rest of the Paris galleries... enjoy!

Tuesday 2nd May - Friday 12 May.

Ooopsy we have been very slack. Oh well i guess that is the price you pay from two weekends in a row on the Continent.

Our weeks have been very quiet we have been in recovery phase, trying to prepare for Rome in 10 days. Apart from working (our first full week at work this week in ages..... phew), not a lot is new in our everyday life. We have started another season of netball, and after 2 games we are yet to suffer a loss.

Both our contracts may be extended which is good news on the job front, as we don'thave to search for more work, although i think Duncan's is a little more certain. Mine is still a bit up in the air and I am working week to week at the moment.

Last weekend we had a karaoke night for a farewell. It was grand! Belinda and Luke came also and rumour has it that i may or may not have been involved with duets of 'I will Survive', 'You're the one that I want" and "Ooops I did it again" but i cannot confimr or deny such tales :)

The weather has been fabulous. Well during the week anyway.... Fairly consistently above 20degrees which is lovely - except for on the weekends when it is rainy and cold. But at least i can walk to work from the train station without a jumper or jacket on.

Tonight in view of the fine weather we decided to have a bbq, and after having fine sunny weather all week it started thundering and raining at about 6pm - Ha, bloody London weather! Nevertheless Andy was determined to go through with it... sitting out in the rain with his dorritos and beer

Tomorrow, about 22 of us are jumping on the train and heading to Nottingham. We are going to see Little Brittain, live. I am looking forward to it but also nervous, as we are in the front row..... and everybody knows how people in the front row are always picked on - i will keep you informed.

Below you will find a description of Paris, sorry it is a bit long winded. Also one of the Paris Galleries is up, again sorry it has taken so long.
Going to bed now. Love to everyone

G&D

Friday 28th April - Monday 1st May: Paris

Par-eee

“Road Trip”!!!

It was by accident that we left on the 28th of April, but what a lovely way to mark being away from home for 6 months. 6 Months!!!!! I cannot believe that the time has gone so fast, we have seen and done so much but still have so much to do.

It started after a long day at work. Duncan and I met at the London Bridge train station, and traveled to Dartford on the south east corner of London’s national rail service. We met Belinda here and went to a nearby pub to wait for Luke. After negotiating horrendous traffic and being stuck on a bridge for 45 minutes, he arrived; we piled into the car and headed to Dover.

The drive was beautiful on the way there, and it is still really strange to be driving in the daylight at 7:30-8:00pm a day.

We made it to the Eurostar in good time, in an effort to get dinner we ran into the shops to grab some BKs. Somewhere between getting out of the car and getting into the queue we missed our final call for boarding, we panicked and ran back to the car, but by the time that we drove around we had missed our train, and dinner L

We drove onto the train, parked and 30 minutes later arrived in France, woohoo! My passport has a little picture of a train in it. 2-3hours later, with the help of Luke’s brand new sat nav we made it to our hotel on the outskirts of Paris. It was clean, warm and cheap, what more can a girl ask for. All I can say is thank goodness for Sat Nav.

We had agreed for an early start in the morning. We walked to the RER train station and with my very very very limited French (learnt during the week from the girls at work) and the very very very limited English of the girl at the ticket counter we managed to get our passes and we were off. We were lucky it was a beautiful sunny day, and Paris in all it’s spring glory is a beautiful city. It is clean and well manicured.

Our first stop was the tourism bureau, we had a couple of questions – mainly that we had heard rumours (after planning this trip) that May Day is also a bank holiday in France, a major bank holiday the only other day apart from Christmas that all the touristy stuff in Paris is closed – and the rumours were true – ooopsy.

With this in mind we decided our next course of action was Musee du Louvre. On the way there we discovered Jardins des Tuileries, the most immaculate and beautiful gardens. All of the spring bulbs were blooming and the deciduous trees have their bright green new foliage and blossoms. We stopped here to eat our breakfast – fresh baguettes from a local patisserie. The Louvre itself at one end of the gardens was amazing. The art itself is almost overshadowed by the amazing buildings. The floors, walls and ceilings are unique in each hall of the gallery and you never know where to look. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take photos in many areas so you will have to go there and see it for yourself. We saw some of it’s renowned pieces including the Mona Lisa, the Wedding Feast of Canna, Aphrodite. There was so much though that we did not see, you would need days and days to take it all in. I did take the opportunity to read the critics opinions as to why Mona Lisa is so remarkable.

Following the Musee we walked down to the banks of the Seine and strolled down towards Ile de la Cite. This little Island in the middle of the river is the home of the first settlement of Paris around 3rd century BC. To get there we walked through street markets selling all kinds of plants and flowers, and lots of beautiful oil paintings of the Paris district – it was very French.

Cathedrale de Notre Dame de Paris is found in Ile de la Cite. It is amazing, I know that I have said that about almost every church, and I know that soon you and I both will be suffering from ABC syndrome (Another Bloody Cathedral) but allow me to enjoy it until then. Unfortunately this trip we did not make it into the church. The queues were phenomenally long and we did not have time to wait for them.

Instead we bought more baguettes, jambon (ham) and fromage (cheese) and a couple of bottles of French wine for dinner and headed back to the hotel. We ate while getting ‘formal’ for our evening out. We were going on an illumination tour through Paris to see the major sites, then to a show at the Moulin Rouge.

The tour was a lovely way to see the sites and made us appreciate just how little of Paris that we were actually going to be able to see in 3 days.

Moulin Rouge was impressive, quite different to what I was expecting, there were a lot of very very scantily clad women, so that Duncan and Luke also enjoyed it J. Trying to get home was just like being in Perth and trying to get from Northbridge to Gooseberry Hill, no taxis would take us (Our hotel was a little out of Paris where we could get free parking).

Courtesy of our late night we started a little bit Later on Sunday morning, would you believe overcast, and none of us had brought warm clothes and we only had one umbrella. We were standing in the queue for the Eiffel tower when it started to rain J. Unfortunately for us the views from the top were a little marred by the weather, still it was well worth it. Although I have to say I much preferred seeing it at night (on the illumination tour) when it is all lit up – spectacular.

Sunday afternoon we hit the legendary Champs Elysées a major road in Paris with a massive shopping district including Cartier J. This road leads up to Arc de Triomphe, even in the gloominess it looked magnificent with a giant French flag hanging from the arch. The arc sits in the middle of a roundabout, with 13 entrances/exits – and no lanes – the only place in Europe you can’t get car insurance for.

Sunday evening we headed to the Latin Quarter for dinner. It is a vibrant colourful place home of the bohemians and thespians of olde. Dinner was enormous rotisserie lamb and pork. We headed to a small local pub for “happy hour” then to the oldest jazz club in Paris, established in the 1800s it is housed in an old dungeon and torture chamber…. Very moody, also lots of people coming for miles and miles to do swing dancing very cool atmosphere.

Monday we packed our bags and headed out. I had a disappointing breakfast from a vending machine – spaghetti bolognese – from a vending machine – I know!?!? There is a whole other story about that. We headed out to the Champagne district of Epinay and 1.5 hours later arrived at the famous Moet & Chandon. We did a cave tour – there are 28km of caves and passages under the estate where millions of bottles of champagne in their different stage of processing are kept. It also touched on the history of the area and France and the influence Napoleon had on the “champagnery??” It was a very interesting tour and finished with a glass of real Moet & Chandon champers.

We drove from their to another town Reims also in the Champagne district and I must say that the French countryside is beautiful, I felt like I could have been on the set of Chocolat. After lunch in Reims we started the journey home.

Sorry summary has been so long coming and so long J I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed doing it all. Photos should be up.

Ciao

G&D

Gallery Update

Just a quick update to let you know that the gallery for Bruges days 3 and 4 is available now. We are still working our way through the Paris pictures so be patient :)

Monday 1st May: Stay Tuned

Hi everyone, this is a quickie to remind you to stay tuned. We have just got back from Paris and had a wonderful weekend.

The problem with two jetsetting weekends in a row means we are a little behind with blog entries and photos ;) We will get it all up asap

love to you all
G&D

Monday 24 April, Day 4: Bruges

We felt vindicated when we woke up in the morning and the sun was shining and the sky was blue…. we were not going to get wet on our bike tour :)

We met under the Belfry before walking through some more cobbled backstreets to a car garage with bikes in it. All the bikes were the same colour, so to differentiate them from one another they that been given names on stickers on the front of the handle bars. I was Maggie, and Duncan was homer. We headed outside of the perimeter of Bruges into the country side. To do that we had to cross one of the many canals. The crossing was up, as a huge barge (probably carrying oil) was heading back to the Netherlands. The problem was the water level on the Bruges side was lower than the water level on the Amsterdam side of the junction. Because of this the boat was locked in a section and water was pumped in to make the water level equal to the Netherlands side this raised the barge in the canal allowing it enough space to move through. It was slow, but interesting.

After we crossed the intersection we cycled down the banks of a canal that was built by Napoleon to join with the sea, but never actually joined because of all of the problems salt water would have caused. It is lined with Poplars and was really lovely.

From there we went through the “country side” stopping at a real working windmill of Damme that still grinds grains for the village. From there it was only a short cycle to the centre of Damme. Bruges became a huge port down when the sea came right in over Europe, bringing the traders right to their doorstep. However a couple of hundred years later as the sea receded the port town moved from a huge bustling metropolitan Bruges to a smaller village Damme, until eventually the sea left there too.

Damme was surrounded by a star shape moat which was easier to defend and more difficult to attack. Parts of the moat still stand, and in other areas trees have been planted in the star shape to remember it. Even today the town remembers and honours the dog, particularly a black dog. Legend says that once many years ago, the dam kept conintually springing a leak and the townsfolk were worried that they would all be drowned. However one of the important towns people noticed that the shape of the latest hole was similar in shape to a stray black dog that had been following them around on their quest to find a solution. So they put the dog in the hole and sure enough the dog fit. They bricked up the hole from behind the dog (they didn’t trap him in there) and from then on he was a hero in the town. He is on the town flag, and the spire of the town hall and on all the town emblems!!

After some Belgian beer in a lovely beer garden, (mmmm cherry beer is yummy) we cycled back to Bruges through some different country side. It might not have any impressive mountains or gorges, but being the flattest country in the world makes it great for cycling :)

Once back in Bruges we had a couple of hours to kill before we needed to leave for our train. This we did in a pub! I can see what you are thinking, but it was recommended to us. They serve their own beer called Garre, which is a whopping 13%, and believe it or not it actually tasted delicious. Rumour has it that the proprietors won’t actually serve anyone more than two pints… although there were some people on a table across from us who had definitely had more than two ;). We shared a couple of drinks with a really nice Australian couple from Queensland who are also moving to the UK, he is a Duntroon boy and has been stationed in the UK for 10 months.

We made it back to the train station with little difficulty and had an uneventful ride home.

All in all Bruges is amazingly cliché but I reckon a must see!!! We had such a wonderful wonderful weekend.