Île de France

20 arrondissements, 6 museums, 2 art galleries, 2 churches, 2 national monuments, 1 palace and 1 Parc de la Villette..........

Thursday 15^th October 2009

We headed off on our Paris mini-break this afternoon. Our bus left London Victoria at 1:30 and we were due into Paris about 9:30 (Paris time). We had an uneventful trip including an extremely smooth ferry trip across the channel. Not long after arriving in Paris we were in beautiful Montmartre meeting one of our hosts Martial (thats the best thing about catching a bus or train instead of flying- you're in town in a few minutes). Martial led us back to the cutest little Parisian flat you could ever imagine. It was tiny but cosy and well decorated. Before long Cecile was home as well and we were treated to fabulous French hospitality, eating delicious food and drinking some seriously good red wine.

Friday 16^th

Today we hit the museums hard. We headed out early and made our way the the most famous of them all Musee du Louvre.

Le Louvre!

Yes it is as cold as it looks....

We made our way to see the obligatory Mona Lisa, then onto the Venus de Milo. Eventually we managed to find Egyptian antiquities and marvel over the Large Sphinx (c. 2000 BCE). Frankly the Egyptian antiquities section is a little embarrassing, having been to the Cairo Museum its a little sad just how much has been spirited away from the original owners. They have so many ornately decorated sarcophagi that they have them standing on end clustered together side by side just to fit them all in! After that we headed for the Rubens room (more like a wing) and marvelled over more French and northern European masters.

After a brisk walk along the left bank of the Seine we reached the beautiful Musee D'Orsay, which is housed in an ornate old train station Gare D'Orsay (which just happened to be the first electrified urban rail terminus). Musee D'Orsay has the worlds largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces so of course I was in heaven, strolling past works by Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh like I get to see them everyday! Nick met and fell in love with a polar bear sculpture (life size) and it was a struggle getting him past the gift shop and the smaller but no less impressive copies for sale there. We were in desperate need of lunch by now so we headed into the Latin quarter and found a little French bistro to huddle into. It was cramped, crowded but full of character and the food was delicious (especially the French Onion soup).

The beautiful Musee D'Orsay

L'institute du monde Arabe

After lunch we made our way down the river to l'institute du monde Arabe designed by the super cool Jean Nouvel. This building is seriously photogenic and we spent more time exploring the building taking photos than actually looking at the exhibits in the 5^th floor museum.

The main wall looks like an Islamic pierced screen, but its actually made up of metallic diaphrams that operate like a camera lenses opening and closing (supposedly) to regulate the amount of light that enters the building. From the outside the iris changes are delicate, subtle differences to the pattern, but from the inside the building the change is dramatic as the light streams in. Reflections, refractions and patterns are everywhere... Jean is a genius. Mind you, more than a couple seemed broken...
Next we wondered over to Notre Dame de Paris (our lady of Paris) and took in those famous flying buttresses.

model of the 'Dame
Out the front we saw a local hospital patient who'd escaped for a ciggie, complete with hospital gown and drip still attached.
We also checked out a little museum under the ground in front of Notre Dame. There were some old 'roman times' cellars under there and some cool stuff about Paris from long ago...

We'd made plans with our lovely hosts to meet up at the Chocolate fair, so we made our way there and checked out the delicious delicacies on offer. Several hundred samples later we made our way back to Montmartre to have some dinner. Martial and Cecile took us to a lovely little crêperie with only room for about 10 patrons (it was all very Global Village). After dinner we all wondered up to la butte de Montmartre took in the view over all of Paris before walking back to their apartment. I think I was asleep within a few seconds of getting into bed.

Us with Cecile.

Saturday 17^th

Today was dedicated Versailles day and we were on the C line train heading to Chateau Versailles by 9 am. There just happened to be a modern art exhibition on as well so we saw some interesting installations and sculptures as well as the decadent excesses of the Chateau.

purple balls.. I thought this would've been cooler with clear sticks and string so you only see the balls... but I'm sure theres a reason why they weren't.

Wondering around the castle was interesting but the actual layout of the building was boring, just one room after another all joined into the next.

The gardens were the really spectacular thing, the scale was huge and the massive man made rectangular pools and symmetrical lines were beautiful.

We made our way over to Marie Antoinette's 'cottage' and the adjoining gardens and follies (her purpose built fake french village).

In the gardens...

A panorama of Marie Antoinettes village.

Dark clouds were forming so we decided to trek back through the gardens to the Chateau and onto the train station. By now we were rather exhausted, it was 4pm and we'd arrived at 10am.

We drifted off to sleep on the train and missed our stop but eventually we made our way to Centre Pompidou. For the last two days we'd been cramming in as much as possible on our Paris Card, as it was only valid for two days and we wanted to get our money's worth... we certainly had if not just for avoiding the lines! At every attraction I think we saved at least 30 mins by going through the express pre-paid lines. No more so than at the Centre Pompidou. The lines went back across the square and that was just to buy the ticket, there were more internal lines to have your ticket checked and to get into the gift shop! There was even a line up to buy a yearly pass! How many of those would you think they sold in a day? Apparently more than a few! Pompidou had a great exhibit on of women in modern art 'Elles' which had everything from installation works to architects (Zaha) to good old oil on canvas. After that exhibit the permanent works looked a bit tired really!

The Centre Pompidou...

By this time we were at a new level of exhaustion! We headed back towards Montmatre and stopped for dinner at a little Turkish place, where our entertainment was one seriously stoned junkie who almost fell down into the open cellar, spilled half his dinner down the front of him and then didn't have enough money to pay for his food.

Sunday 18^th

Today we headed to Paris' theatre district and checked out c3 Paris (our church- French style)! Some of the c3 songs actually sound better in French... the Pastor was an American and his wife , French, translated for those who didn't speak English. It was amazing, I thought it would be really distracting having the translator there but it wasn't at all and the message was really good.

Afterwards we wondered down the Seine towards the Eiffel Tower, enjoying the morning air and the lack of tourists. It wasn't until we actually reached the tower that we realised where all the tourists were! The lines to go anywhere up the tower were frighteningly long so we wondered around amusing ourselves by taking photos and people watching.

yes, we were really here...

Our feet seemed permanently damaged from all our walking around so we caught the metro over to the other big 'monument' Arc de Triomph. We got there just a tad too late, they had closed the access to the top early due to some kind of veterans celebration but we had plenty of time to look around the actual arc before they cordoned that off too.

The Arc & Nick

Next we did the cheap tourists option and hung out on Avenue des Champs-Élysées - at Macca's!

A must to any tourist trip to Paris is watching the sun set over all of Paris from la butte de Montmartre, preferably on the steps of the Sacre Coeur, if you can get a seat!! So we got the metro to Abbesses and walked up the hill from there. I enjoy the villagey feel of he Montmartre area, even if around the Sacre Coeur it is a little contrived.

The Eiffel tower by sunset...
The view over Paris
We bought postcards, souvenirs and desserts from the patisserie to enjoy with our hosts, before heading up to stake out our spot to enjoy the sunset.
Once the sun set we made our way down to Martial and Cecile's getting lost on the way, then finding our way again thanks to a friendly florist where I bought some flowers for Cecile. We had a lovely dinner cooked by Cecile finished off nicely by our contribution of desert.

Monday 19^th

We had a quiet morning and packed everything up and said goodbye to Cecile. We shouldered our lighter than usual packs and headed out to Parc de la villette. Bernard Tschumi's 1980's creation situated in the far flung edge of the 19^th arrondissement, bordering Boulevard Peripherique, the ring road which surrounds the actual 'city' of Paris and separates it from the greater suburban sprawl.

The big shiny ball and Nick...

Shiny ball and one of Tschumi's follies- Nick went to the toilet in this one... its ok there was a toilet there to use.

We wandered around enjoying the cool morning and the weird buildings that pepper the landscape, taking photos and walking on the paths to nowhere.

We had some lunch just across the road from the park and then headed out to the bus station for our 2 o'clock bus. The trip home wasn't quite so smooth. We were bound for the tunnel train, instead of the Ferry, supposed to be quicker but it wasn't and it was quite a pain really.

We had a great trip to Paris, if not frenetic, made especially lovely by our fabulous Parisienne hosts Martial and Cecile.

London Calling

Saturday 12th Septmber 2009
We pull into London's Stansted airport!
The first few days in London was a crazy rush to try to find a house. We couldn't bring ourselves to stay in a youth hostel here (they are all cramped, dirty and horrible- we did one night and that was it) so using booking .com we switched between the cheap hotels in Paddington for a few days whilst crisscrossing London looking at share houses. Most of them were too far from the action or too far from the tube to be any good. Finally we found a tiny place just near where we'd been staying... we liked this area to why not? Close to Hyde park, the shops and fun of Queensway and 3 Zone 1 tube stations in easy reach. The place was a little dingy but over a cider Ricci and Trent convinced us we wouldn't find anything so central at such a good price, so we took it!

This was our little room, I was sitting on our couch when I took this photo and our loft bed was above my head, but we had plenty of storage space and our own TV! Plus we lived on Westbourne Grove which stretched from Bayswater down to funky Portobello Rd Market, with plenty of great shops in between and only a 5 minute walk to Paddington and the Park. Next task was to find jobs. I picked up a casual job across the road in a sandwhich shop straight away but Nick got the 'we want a female' rejection from every cafe/ restaurant in our local area... sexists! But the hunt continued for both of us to find 'real work' and the rent was covered by my job anyway.

Our lovely London pals, Trent, Ricci and Ricci's flatmate Emery.

Listening to the Great Western Paddington Band playing the William Tell overture...in Paddington Station.
They were so good!


We hadn't done much sight seeing in London yet so once we were settled into our flat we did a night tour of the main sights, all within walking distance of our flat....
Buckingham Palace, by night....a ghostly Westminster Abbey with a red bus speeding past...

Big Ben and the London Eye (this one is a little grainy)
Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, the Thames and me...
The houses of Parliament.


Of course theres never a shortage of things happening in London and one day we were just wondering through Soho and when we got to Trafalger square there just happened to be a massive Indian festival on- with dancing and the rest.

Looking from Leicester Sq towards Piccadilly...
Piccadilly Circus!
Before long we had our first visitor, Liam stayed for a week and it was nice to have a familiar face around.
Here's Nick walking back towards St Pauls from the Tate Modern where we'd seen the coolest big black box of nothingness and wandered around in it...


Before too long fabulous Ricci was heading home! Via Africa for three months!! So we joined in with loads of Saffa's for a big farewell & happy birthday to Ricci. It was also her sister's farewell.
We've made ourselves at home at c3 London, its a great church where just about everyone is the same age as us, although its kinda weird being somewhere with no kids... luckily the Pastors Neik and Vera are making a start and are due in March! We go to two connect groups with two great groups of people. As soon as we joined Ann Marie's connect we were invited to Sarah and Kate's joint birthday party... which was Karaoke!!! We went to this cool Karaoke bar with individual booths and had a ball.......... Nick and I sung up a storm and everyone got right into it, it was so much fun.
The birthday girls! Kate and Sarah
You leave your camera alone for 1 minute.... the fabulous Ben & Katrina
Disco!
I'm here but don't expect me to sing! Oh we do and you did! yay!
funky lamps

Not long after Ricci left Mel, Jimmy and Dean returned from their roadtrip through Italy and France. Their bags were several kilos heavier and their wallets substantially lighter, but still more frivolity was to be had! We had lots of fun taking them to our favorite restaurant Ping Pong and hearing about there Italiano adventures...
Posing on Regent St under the glow of Christmas lights...
London really goes all out decorating the city for Christmas... this is the less decorated street.
Jimmy Choo! Nick Mel and Dean admiring the gorgeous, but affordable, Jimmy Choos' at H&M.

Suddenly everything was falling into place, Nick and I both got our 'real jobs' within a week or so of each other and before long Nick was off for a week of training up in sunny (not so much) Lancaster. While there he stayed outside the city in a little sea side village. While he was away I found us a nice new place to live with friendlier housemates, just around the corner from the old place.
Nick's first experience of non-London England...
Pretty, but bitterly cold...The weather has been getting steadily colder since the 1st of December, there's no question about the change of season here... winter has arrived. And to celebrate we're embracing the winter season head on, first off... Iceskating!!
Iceskating with some pals at the stunningly beautiful Natural history museum.
I think I can put up with the cold if I get to Ice skate out in the open like this!
Nick, all rugged up.
Conga line!
Secondly, we had a big Christmassy dinner with some friends (Sarah, Kate, Ben, Katrina and us)... in our new bedroom!
The Chef admiring his feast.
Nick cooked up a storm, made a delicious pork roast, roasted veges (potatoes, pumkin, artichokes, beetroot, oinons, swedes, parsnips and carrott), smoked salmon and horseradish cream, plus all the trimmings... and a delicious dessert!
Sarah and Kate, posing with the prizes from the christmas crackers...
We also played nasty santa (like secret santa but you can choose to steal someone elses present or pick another) Nick and Ben took it to new levels and I don't think anyone ended up with their original present they chose!

Cheers!

Stay tuned for Paris, Barcelona and Christmas mini breaks!