Chenal Beauvais

Je pouvais partir directement à l'aéroport et m'envoler... mais au lieu de cela j'ai décidé de tester l'accueil des Français! Après un départ en TGV à 12h54 de Vannes, une escale à Paris le temps de changer de gare, mon terminus est à Beauvais en Picardie à 18h33, chez une demoiselle prénommée Anne-Laure. Arrivé à l'heure, mon hôte est là pour m'accueillir à la gare et m'amène chez elle. Elle a un gros chat siamois qui ...

... from Laon by train, you had to go down to Paris and then back up to Beauvais. Beauvais is about the same distance from Paris but west of Laon, so we had to travel in a V to get there. There must be a simpler way, maybe by bus, but we never figured it out. So we arrived in Beauvais around 2:40. We had about 3 hours to kill before we could take the bus to the airport. We checked out the movies theater, which was right next to the train station, but every movie ...

... of Auvers-sur-Oise. It was the final home of Vincent van Gogh. Here he painted: The Church at Auvers; Wheat Field with Crows; Daubigny's Garden and Thatched Cottages by a Hill... to mention a few. He stayed in an upper room at the Ravoux Inn... where he died in July of 1890 at age 37. Sad to say... this ended our Adventures in Europe...

... So, we decided to go to the Louvre and found ourselves in themidst of a lot of other ppl who knew about the free admission. Needless to say, it was still a good afternoon and we had packed a picnic lunch to bring into the museum. On my way out I even bought a new umbrella (and it hasn't broke yet!!) I then went to Steph's, grabbed my pack, and went tot he station to grab the next Eurostar train home.....all in all....a GREAT weekend!!!!

How about spending your entire Saturday going through chateaus and hearing all of the interesting facts about them? Ha...I would have had a better time if I weren't sick...Yes it's that time of the trip, shortly after arriving and settling in, that I get sick, how lovely! Don't you just love it when you change locations and your body is still trying to get used to the new environment, therefore, your body is technically susceptible to incoming colds? It's normal...new places, new ...

Oh Dear. The information Mary gave me about the buses to Beauvais (Cheap flights, tiny airport---Ryanair InterEurope) was incorrect. Buses were supposed to be available to Beauvais (75 minute trip) every half hour according to the schedule, but that information was obsolete. I had missed the single, early bus (7am) and the next was not until 10:30 am; my flight was scheduled to leave at 9:30 am. So I flagged a taxi and explained that I needed to get to ...

I have always been interested in France. Also in the most beautiful villages of France. One of them is Gerberoy. Close (300 km./180 miles) to my home we went to visit it. It was desolated and abandonned until Henri-Eugene le Sidaner decided to reside there. He was a painter and other artists came and restored the village to its beauty it is now.

... We walked around the choir where 7 small polygonal chapels were decorated with frescoes and tapestries from the 15th and 17th centuries. The fashionable Gothic Flamboyant style was employed here, consisting of flame-like shapes of the arches and tracery.  Although the walls are many meters thick, the colorful vitreaux make ...

... the bus the wrong way the first time....) Church was such a blessing!!! It was so comforting to sit and feel the spirit. To be in a place where everyone was smiling. That's hard to come by in Paris. We all sat for a while after the meeting, not wanting to leave the familiarity of "home". Now I don't know if this is the rainy season for Paris, or if we just got lucky....it has rained every day that we've been here. A little tough ...

... made from a military blanket. After the museum we made our way to Giverny. The towns and countryside were different than those in the Loire. The towns were farther apart and they didn't have a distinct town center like those we had driven through earlier. And the cows were mostly brown instead of spotted. We took one wrong turn in Everuex and had to turn around - what we saw of that town didn't look too appealing - glad I changed our original reservation to ...