TravelStream™ news feed for member wells2008 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/wells2008 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:18:55 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wells2008/1/1221593280/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wells2008/1/1221593280/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wells2008/1/1221593280/tpod.html Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:18:55 -0500 Honeymoon France 2008

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Aix-en-Provence, Provence, France

Faced with the option of a short drive to Aix-en-Provence or a longer drive to Marseille, we opted for the short drive and a relaxing day. We are at Day 8 of our travels today and have kind of hit a wall in terms of our energy levels. A nice sleep-in was just what we needed to help recharge our batteries and we arrived into Aix mid-morning to find the main street, Cours Mirabeau, full of markets. Not cool food markets, like we were expecting but cheap clothing and soap markets. We sat and watched the world go by in a café with our morning coffee, before heading off to explore the streets. My initial impression of Aix was a little disappointing to be honest, as it didn't seem to have the small town Provencal charm that I was expecting. It did start to grow on me however, as we got away from the main street and started to walk down little narrow laneways and stumbled on cool squares full of restaurants. This town has an incredible number of fountains, and you stumble on a different one almost on every street. We had hoped to catch the food market to pick up some fresh produce for dinner, but we arrived a little late and found them in the process of packing up.  The region of Provence is absolutely gorgeous, particularly as you get away from the bigger towns like Aix and drive further into the countryside. My advice would be to find yourself a little B&B and get out an explore some of the country roads and vineyards as that is the bit of Provence that we hope to get back to some day.
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St Tropez, France

The lovely thing about staying in a good B&B is waking up to find breakfast waiting for you outside your door. In France, this means warm croissants and coffee. After enjoying a leisurely breakfast, we decided to head into St Tropez for the day, at the advice of our host, Jean-Luc. Known for its harbour full of expensive boats, and the celebrity types that holiday there, we dressed in our least daggy travelling clothes just in case the Jolie-Pitts happened to ask us to lunch. St Tropez sits on the tip of a peninsular and is unique among the beaches of the Cote d'Azur as it faces north. There is only one road in and out, and for that reason in the peak of summer is a nightmare to try and visit. Thankfully this wasn't a problem for us, and we spent the day wandering along the harbour admiring all the beautiful boats. There is a citadel on the hill which has spectacular views out over the Mediterranean. We lunched in a great little restaurant with views of the water, but away from the main tourist strip. Sipping glasses of chilled rose and eating enormous serves of Salad Nicoise, we watched with interest as the best and worst of St Tropez passed us by. Collagen lips, and facelifts galore, mixed with tourists trying their hardest not to look like tourists by wrapping a silk scarf around their shoulders, while still armed with camera and moneybelt.  It was all very amusing to us, as we couldn't have looked more like tourists ourselves, swivelling our heads around at everyone that walked by. It was a bit too cold for a swim, but we did get our fair share of sun as we drove home with the sunroof on our Renault open. All in all, a great day. 
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Provence, France

Another drive day today, heading south from Lyon to Provence, via the towns of Avignon and Arles. Avignon was once the home of the Papacy from 1309 until 1377 and hence is the site of the magnificent Palais de Popes. More of a fortress than a palace, it dominates the hilltop above the town of Avignon. We wandered up through the narrow streets of the old town, to approach the Palace from behind, and as we turned the corner into the square we were greeted with the sight of about 30 horses and their riders, many in traditional costumes. Apparently we had arrived in town during the Fete de Cheval (The Festival of Horses). It was quite a spectacular site to see the already magnificent courtyard in front of the palace filled with horses. We wandered around on the top of the large rock that the Palace is built atop and experienced first hand what is known as the Mistral. This part of France is known for being extremely windy, with these crazy winds called the Mistral, which apparently blow on 200 days a year. It made walking down by the river quite a challenge but we persevered in order to get a closer look at the bridge across the Rhone River, known as the Pont St Benezet. Every book you read tells you that this is the site that the famous French song about dancing on the bridge at Avignon is written about, but having never heard the song, the significance was kind of lost on us.  It is still an impressive sight as it is an arched bridge built in the 12th Century which only spans halfway across the river, as it was washed away in a flood in 1668. Our next stop was to be the town of Arles, known for its Roman ruins, just 70km south of Avignon. But Tom had other ideas. I realise that Tom is merely a computer with a voice, however after a few days of having his company on our journeys he had started to take on a bit of a personality. Tom very confidently led us out of Avignon, but as the roads started to get narrower and eventually ended in the middle of an industrial wasteland, we started to have concerns. Either Tom was taking us out to a deserted part of town to rob us of all our belongings, or he was lost. The best part was we realised he was lost before he did, then all of a sudden he went silent and refused to talk to us any further. We had to find our own way back to a major road in Avignon before he came back to life again. Lesson 1 - computers don't know everything. Not 5 minutes later, Tom very confidently informed us to turn left and take the motorway. Which would have been great if the motorway wasn't still actually being constructed at the time. Thanks again Tom.  We eventually made it to Arles, to find every tourist in the South of France had already beaten us there. There was not a carpark in sight in the whole town. We eventually got lucky, and wandered along the banks of the Rhone into Arles. You may remember I mentioned my favourite painting by Van Gogh, Starry Night over the Rhone. Well this is where it was painted, while Van Gogh was living here in 1888. Arles is also famous for its Roman amphitheatre and baths. We wandered the streets of the old town, and eventually rounded a corner to see the impressive arches of the Roman amphitheatre in front of us. Being a Sunday, and after having found Avignon so empty of tourists, we were surprised to find a huge crowd of people sitting on the steps in front of the entrance to the amphitheatre. It soon became obvious that we had stumbled onto another festival, as the amphitheatre was closed to tourists and was full of tiers of metal seats. We couldn't read any of the signs in French, but as we strolled further through the streets we became even more intrigued. Drunk people spilled out of bars onto the streets, jazz bands played in the square, and one of the main streets was fenced off on both sides with 2m high metal barriers. Eventually we realised that we were in the middle of the Arles on the day of a bullfight. We had just missed the running of the bulls through the main street of town, and were standing outside the amphitheatre, without a ticket, while a bullfight was about to begin inside. We were a little disappointed as we would have loved to have seen it, however it did mean that we had seen Arles at its best, on a day when it was positively buzzing with excitement. Sadly we had to leave to find our hotel somewhere in the countryside of Provence.  Matt had booked this place on the recommendation of the Sawday's website, a well known website for B&B's catering to UK travellers. It was the kind of place that we had hoped to stay in Provence, to get out of big cities for a while and have some downtime from travelling. We were also keen to meet some locals. Armed with little more than some vague co-ordinates in the GPS and a phone number, we left the motorway and headed off into the countryside. We drove some amazing winding roads through vineyards galore, and around every corner seemed to be a little village perched on a hill. It was just spectacular. However as our directions seemed to run out, and Tom didn't seem to be able to get a satellite location, we started to get a little concerned. We even resorted to phoning the owners for more directions, only to continue to get an engaged signal each time. Eventually, just as Matt's patience for dead ends was starting to fade, I decided we needed help and wandered into the front yard of a local house to ask for directions. Not knowing the French words for lost, I just shrugged a lot and pointed to the address I had written down. They very quickly gestured that we should follow in our car and they would show us the way. Very kind of them we thought, even more so when we were still following them 20 minutes later, two villages away, up a tiny dirt road to our accommodation. Our hosts were so grateful to Sophie, for finding their lost guests, and a bit embarrassed that the owner Caroline had been on the phone for the last hour, which was why we couldn't get through. We certainly met those locals we were hoping to meet, and hope to repay the good karma to some other travellers one day.  Don't let that story put you off though, this place we are staying is fantastic and we would recommend it to anyone. It is called Domaine de la Blaque, and it is a B&B run by a lovely French couple, Jean-Luc and Caroline. It is in the middle of nowhere, but that is the charm. We are staying in a rustic old cabin, with exposed timber beams for a roof, and stacked stone for walls, but still with all the comforts that are expected. They have a pool, two horses, and two beautiful white Pyrenees dogs that we have fallen in love with. The hosts themselves are also very friendly and spend time each morning helping you plan your itinerary for the day, giving a bit of local insight which we found invaluable. Exhausted after our adventurous day, we had a lovely dinner of baguettes and stinky camembert cheese before falling into bed.
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Lyon, France

Our little misadventure with the hire car yesterday meant that we had to spend the morning sorting out travel insurance and exchanging our hire car for one with less dents. A small detour to the Lyon airport and back and we were back on track. We are now the proud drivers of a new Renault Laguna and are hoping for better luck with this one as it is brand new!! First stop was Vieux Lyon, the old town, where we visited St Jean's church. It is famous for its astronomical clock, which displays the dates of religious feast days up until 2019. The square outside the church was abuzz with a ceramic market, and we felt very sorry for the poor man whose market umbrella upended his entire display of ceramics onto the ground. On top of Fourviere Hill, above the old town, are the remains of the Roman town of Lugdunum, which was built by Julius Caesar in 44BC. The weather continued to be miserable with quite heavy rain, so instead of climbing the hill we opted for the funicular. The Romans continue to amaze me every time I visit a Roman site, from their amazing amphitheatres with perfect acoustics, to their functional drainage systems and aqueducts. This site was equally impressive, with a huge amphitheatre and a slightly smaller one beside it. More interesting to us were the paved roads with the odd groove from a chariot wheel and the remnants of houses nearby. Dominating the top of Fourviere Hill is the Basilica Notre Dame de Fourviere. I have to say, this is the weirdest church I have ever been into. The description by our guidebook as gaudy is correct, but what I found more bizarre is that it is a two storey church. By that I mean there is one church that you enter by ascending stairs, and directly underneath is another complete church, both with high vaulted ceilings and elaborate detailing. We were never able to find out why it had been built this way, but it was very strange. The view from the front of the church out over the city of Lyon was fantastic, and even in the pouring rain we were able to get some great photos of the red rooftops of the old city. Lyon is quite unique in that it has two rivers passing through it, with the Saone and the Rhone coming together in the middle of the town, which I guess is great if you want waterfront real estate. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around near Place Bellacour, and down the pedestrianised street, Rue de Republique. Our last must-do thing for Lyon was to find the traboules, or covered passageways used by silk merchants. We had read about Lyon being a big player in the silk trade in the the 15th Century. The weavers used covered passageways between buildings to transport their finished cloth, and they can still be found today. Our map had the locations marked but we wandered around the La Criox-Rousse district between the two rivers, looking for these traboules with very little clue what we were actually looking for. Every time we came to the address we would find a large door with a doorbell panel with people's names on it. Confused and a little dejected, we walked across the Saone to the old town to a street called Rue de Juiverie. Here we were rewarded with traboules galore. There are at least 15 on this street alone, and some are accessible to tourists as they have been converted into art galleries and restaurants. Basically they are entrances to the buildings, that become little passageways that weave in between the buildings, and have little side entrances into shops that can't be seen from the street. Once you know they are there you seem to spot them everywhere, as they are recognisable by the arched ceilings of the doorway.  Lyon is well-known for being the gastronomic capital of France, and apparently has more square metres of restaurant space than any other city in France. I found this a little hard to believe the night we arrived, as we wandered around the streets near Place Bellacour and couldn't find a restaurant anywhere. Armed with a bit more knowledge of the town after our explorations today, we headed directly to the far end of Vieux Lyon from the Metro station. This part of town is packed with restaurants, all advertising local specialities. We decided on a place called Le Gourmand de St Jean which looked cosy and was filled with locals. This was the dining experience we had hoped to have whilst in Lyon.  Three magnificent courses each, washed down with 2 carafes of Cote de Rhone wine, all for 52 Euro. We managed to stroll home despite our very full stomachs, quite satisfied with our little visit to Lyon.
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Lyon, France

Today marked the end of our Paris adventure and the start of the next phase of our trip, exploring on our own in a hire car. We picked up the car at Gare de Nord in Paris and endured a very nerve wracking ride through the streets of Paris, out to the Peripherique in our new 407 Peugeot. We made the journey about an hour south of Paris, to the little town of Fontainebleau, to see the chateau that had been the hunting lodge of many French kings from Francois I to Napoleon III, and was once the home of the lovely Mona Lisa. Upon reaching Fontainebleau, before even leaving the carpark, we met the loveliest French couple from Fontainebleau who had been married for 50 years. Despite them not speaking a word of English and our very basic French, we managed to exchange first some bumper paint, then addresses and insurance details and 2 kisses on each cheek, before parting ways. They were so lovely and quite excited and started clapping when we told them it was our "lune de miel" or honeymoon, and were very forgiving of our brief lapse in concentration while trying to park the car. It made what could have been a very difficult situation so much easier to deal with, although we were both a little shaken for the next few hours. I'm not sure if there is a record for crashing a hire car so soon after picking it up (ie. less than 2 hours!) but we may go close!!! We did eventually get to the chateau and wandered around the courtyard in the freezing cold. The weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse today and we were shivering in our light jumpers. The chateau itself is enormous, as Napoleon I went nuts and added extra wings everywhere. We were able to go inside on our Paris museum pass, and wandered through the many rooms. Some were quite spectacular, including the ballroom, and they spared no expense with gold leaf on so many of the furnishings. There seemed to be some weird exhibits throughout including a cat on the ceiling attached to a cylinder of Helium, and a massive elephant, which we suspected weren't there in Napoleon's time, but were instead part of some strange art exhibition. By this stage we were slightly behind schedule due to our adventurous morning, and we headed off to the little town of Beaune (pronounced 'bone') about halfway between Paris and Lyon. We had found it mentioned very briefly in the Lonely Planet due to the Hotel Dieu, which is an old hospital built in 1443 with a magnificent coloured tile roof. We decided to stop in and have a look for ourselves and were rewarded with one of the finds of our trip so far. Beaune is a gorgeous little medieval village, surrounded by rampart walls, and full of little cobbled streets. By this stage it was pouring rain, but we still couldn't resist getting lost in the little streets and marvelling at all the old stone buildings that still look in their original condition. There are signs for wine tasting on every second corner. Apparently under the streets of Beaune are many kilometres of wine caves with thousands of bottles of Burgundy wine waiting to be consumed. Sadly we didn't have time to visit them, or consume any of their wine, but we did get to visit the Hotel Dieu. You can catch a glimpse of the famous coloured tile roof from outside, but you do have to go inside to really appreciate it. You stand in the centre of the courtyard, surrounded by rooftops tiled in the most magnificent coloured tiles. You are also able to wander through the buildings of the old hospital, which I couldn't believe had still been operational as a hospital until 1971. There were some lame re-enactments, which seem to pop up every now and then in France, but still definitely worth a visit. We were very soggy by this stage, but very happy that we stopped in the lovely little village of Beaune. It is definitely on our list of places to go back to one day. We arrived in Lyon at the peak of Friday afternoon traffic, but Tom helped us find our hotel with no problems. Tom is the very original name we have christened our GPS, as he is a TomTom brand. We are aware that probably every owner of one of these has done the same, but we don't care.  Our hotel in Lyon was a very good find by Matt on Last Minute. It is called the Park & Suites, and is a very modern hotel with suites rather than rooms. They are enormous with a living area and kitchenette, and separate bedroom and bathroom. Bigger than the flat we rented in London! We would definitely recommend this hotel to anyone visiting Lyon as the staff are very helpful, there is a gym and spa, a laundromat, free internet, and it is only a 5 minute walk from the Metro into town. We headed into town to try and find some dinner in Vieux Lyon, the old city. We ate a terrible meal at a very cute restaurant called Le Petit Glouton. The crepes were good, but the saucisses de Lyon (hot sausages) may have had more random meat in them than my stomach would have liked. Gabriel Gate would have had a fit to see meals coming straight out of the microwave onto the table in the gastronomic capital of France.  However the Metro ride home made up for it. The Metro here is much more modern than most Metros in big cities in Europe, and very clean and efficient. The line we were on has driverless trains, where you can sit in the front seat and watch the tunnel ahead. It kind of feels like a rollercoaster ride as they do get up to quite high speeds. We thought it was great but I'm sure we looked quite the tourist sitting there in the front seats of the train getting all excited about riding the Metro.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wells2008/1/1221190200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wells2008/1/1221190200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wells2008/1/1221190200/tpod.html Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:02:40 -0500 Honeymoon France 2008

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Paris, France

Today was our last day in Paris for this part of the trip. We decided to tackle the Louvre and see how long our attention span for large museums and large crowds would last. Both of us had been to the Louvre before, and seen the "Big Three", so we were keen to get around and see some of the lesser known areas. We started early to avoid the crowds and found the courtyard with the glass pyramids fairly deserted when we arrived at 9.30am. We headed straight for the top floor of the Richelieu wing and had a look at the Flemish and Dutch painters. I wanted to take Matt to see Vermeer's painting "The Lacemaker" but that section was closed. We wandered through Napoleon III apartments which were just as impressive the second time, lots of chintzy furniture, ruby red curtains and magnificent chandeliers. We were both really impressed with the French sculpture garden, as it is housed in a beautiful courtyard with lots of natural light filtering in through the glass roof. We then headed to the Sully wing through all the Egyptian antiquities. The sarcophagi we saw were pretty impressive, and Matt was highly amused to see that they had painted semi-naked women on the insides of the lids. I guess if you going to be stuck in the afterlife then having some pornography to look at may make the time pass a little quicker...A favourite at the Louvre is wandering down amongst the ruins of the medieval fortress that was the old Louvre. It is a dimly lit path following the outside of the remaining ramparts. What I didn't realise until Matt showed me is that you can get inside to see the remains of the original tower. Sometimes it is handy having an ex-tour manager as a husband.  With our museum tolerance starting to fade we decided to do a quick whip around of the "Big Three", the Mona Lisa, The Winged Victory of Samothrace and the Venus de Milo. Like the worst kind of tourists, we pushed past the crowds all headed in the same direction, following the signs to the Holy Grail of the Louvre, the Mona Lisa. We snapped a few shots along the way, and in less than 30 minutes had seen the three things that almost every visitor to the Louvre wants to tick off their list. Enough for one day. Another of the slightly unusual things we decided to do while in Paris, was to do a cruise on Canal St Martin. The cruise starts way out in the suburbs at Park de Villette, and travels along Canal St Martin through a series of 6 locks to Bastille, where it passes through a 2km tunnel under the streets of Paris. It finishes by travelling down the Seine to Musee d'Orsay. After the hectic pace of the past few days it was nice to sit on the front deck of the boat, in the sunshine, and just take in the scenery. I had never been through a lock before, and it was interesting to see how they work. There was a constant crowd of people standing on the banks looking on every time we went through one. We even went through a couple of old swing bridges, where a section of the bridge swings at 90 degrees to allow the boat to pass. The highlight was definitely the tunnel, which had an eerie green glow and passed us directly below the site of the old Bastille prison. The French guide told us that the tunnel was actually built using stone from the Bastille when it was pulled down in 1790. We disembarked at the Musee d'Orsay and by pure chance it happened to be Thursday, the one night that it is open late. Using our museum passes again, we avoided the queue and headed in for a look. This is my favourite museum in Paris, and the place where I discovered that I love Impressionist art. We revisited some of my favourites such as Van Gogh, Degas. I was again quite taken by the Degas statue of the tiny ballerina. She is just gorgeous. Sadly my favourite Van Gogh painting, Starry Night over the Rhone, was on loan so we didn't get to see it. The Musee d'Orsay is in an old railway station and is such a spectacular building. It is worth going in just to see the sculpture gallery with the high arched ceilings.  Hungry and all museumed-out, we headed along the Left Bank to the Latin Quarter for dinner. We ate Greek gyros, served by an Indian gentleman, in the Latin Quarter, in France. Talk about multi-cultural!! We had been stalked by an enormous grey storm cloud all the way from the d'Orsay, so by the time we had eaten our meal it was pouring rain. We ran for the Metro, along with everyone else in Paris, and crammed in like wet sardines for the journey home.  We are kind of sad to be leaving Paris, but looking forward to the next part of our trip. We have seen so much of this city in the past 4 days, but still keep finding so much more to see. Thankfully we have another 2 days at the end before we fly home to look forward to.
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Paris, France

We decided this morning to brave the queues and go up the towers at Notre Dame as it was something I had wanted to do each time I was in Paris but was always put off by the huge line. Today armed with a quick brekky of coffee, pain chocolate and croissant, we got to Notre Dame to find noone in the queue and the sign saying we were an hour early. This meant we had lots of time to stroll through Notre Dame itself before all the tour buses arrived. The first time I visited Notre Dame I had what could almost be described (by a non-religious person) as a religious experience. The church was being used for choir practice and the haunting sound of the choir filled the church. Wandering through the dimly lit aisles on either side of the alter, with the sounds of the choir echoing off the vaulted ceiling was quite moving and an experience I would never forget. Today was an altogether different experience as the construction teams preparing for the Pope's visit were in full swing inside. I lost count of the number of flat screen TVs that were set up, with hundreds of chairs for people to hear (but not see) the Pope say Mass in a few days. It took away from the solemnity of such a magnificent church, but it still holds its place for me as one of the most amazing churches in the world.  The climb to the top of the Towers of Notre Dame was a gruelling 300 stairs in a tight spiral staircase, but the view was certainly worth it. Like any city, the advice to get up high stands true as you do get an amazing outlook over the city. As for Paris, the Eiffel tower is a bit too high to see any of the monuments of Paris very well, and Sacre Coeur is too far away, but Notre Dame towers are right in the centre of it all and are magnificent. You come out into the chimera gallery, which is a walkway at the base of the tower where all the gargoyles are. They are fantastic up close, with so much attention to detail in the stone, and each one is different. You are able to climb up inside the Western bell tower to see the largest of the bells, called Emmanuel, which Matt tells me is in the key of F sharp. They only ring it on certain feast days. The whole inside of the tower is timber to absorb the vibrations of the bell, and was a bit too rickety for my liking. We then climbed some more stairs to the top of the Western bell tower. The views were fantastic and we got some great Panorama shots. We lunched in fine Parisian style with a few road crew mates and our groomsman, Craig at a restaurant near Opera Garnier called Chez Clement. Our waiter was so much the typical French waiter and made jokes with us. The food, albeit not cheap, was fabulous. I was very proud of myself as two of the girls had ordered steak tartar, and I was curious enough to try some. It was actually surprisingly tasty, with mustard and other herbs mixed in with the raw mince. I'm not sure I could get through a whole plate of it, but I do sort of understand now why the French like it. See I am getting more adventurous, but I still can't do snails!!! We spent the afternoon in L'Orangerie near the Tulleries Gardens. It is a small, somewhat lesser known gallery which attracts visitors mainly due to its display of Monet paintings. They have custom made two oval rooms which are lines by 4 curved canvases featuring The Nympheas, or waterlilies by Monet. They rooms are striking when you first walk in, but then quite peaceful almost like sitting in Monet's garden. There is a small collection of other work, including some Renoirs, but it definitely worth a look just for the Monets. We have found ourselves on this trip visiting a lot of the so called "B list" attractions of Paris, and have been rewarded with discovering some truly great things, and also avoiding to some extent the hordes of tourists that are still plaguing Paris even in Sept. One of the slightly unusual things we had planned to do while in Paris was to take a stroll along the Promenade Plantee. It is an unused elevated railway line which has been converted into a walkway surrounded by trees. It is quite unusual for Paris as this city has a distinct lack of green spaces and parks. It is about 2 stories above the street and extends for about 4km from Place de la Bastille out into the suburbs. The weather has really warmed up for us this last few days, and we had quite a leisurely stroll along the promenade soaking up the sunshine.  You may be wondering why this blog is entitled the city of blinding lights, despite the obvious reference to a great U2 song. Tonight we climbed to the top of the Arc de Triumph at sunset and saw the most magnificent sunset over Paris. The sky was an amazing red and pink and seemed to get more spectacular as the sun disappeared below the horizon. What we were really waiting for was the Eiffel Tower to light up. In all of my trips to Paris I have only seen the Eiffel Tower under lights once, as the other times I was on my own and didn't feel safe venturing out by myself at night, or we were busy with other things like drinking!! So it was quite amazing to see it light up, especially from our magic vantage point on top of the Arc de Triumph. At the moment it is lit up with blue light as the French have the EU presidency. However, what I didn't realise until Matt suggested we stay a bit longer was that on the hour at 8, 9, 10pm for about 10 minutes the tower sparkles with a psychotic display of silver lights. It is beautiful and an entirely appropriate way to spend an evening for two honeymooners. 
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Paris, France

Bizarre Travel Experience #2 - Being woken at 4am by a group of French youths having a balcony party directly across the street from our hotel room. We were so tired that the noise didn't keep us awake for long, despite our laughter at the bad "English-is-my-second-language" rendition of Passenger by Powderfinger. Sung with such gusto at 4am despite only knowing one line of the chorus. Bernard Fanning would have been so proud!!  Today didn't start out with the intention of being "Dead People Day". It just seemed to become the common theme as the day went on. It guess it makes sense when you think about how many great people have lived in this city over many hundreds of years. We started the day before the sun, thanks partly to our jet lag and partly due to the musical inabilities of our neighbour across the street. We had been awake on and off since 4am, and at 6am decided to make the most of our early rising and head up to Sacre Coeur to see the sunrise over Paris. It was quite a walk uphill from our hotel in Montmartre and ended with about 150 stairs up to the church. Needless to say we were pretty hot and sweaty when we arrived despite it being quite a crisp morning. Paris is so different to home in that the city wakes so late. At home, the peak hour commute is well underway by 7am, but here the streets are deserted except for garbage men at that hour. We got some great photos of the church and of the Paris skyline as the sun rose. It was also nice to have such a busy tourist attraction practically to ourselves. We wandered down through the cobbled streets of Montmartre and saw the windmill on the hill. We found our way to a very busy café, where we joined the locals on their way to work and partook in a coffee and croissant. One of my favourite things when in Paris is the breakfasts, and it was nice to enjoy it knowing we had more than earned it already with our pre-breakfast stair climb. After making ourselves look a little more Parisian by changing the polar fleece jumper for a black jacket and funky hat, we headed across town to Musee Rodin. I had always thought this would be a cool place to visit, but in a city like Paris there are so many big ticket places to see, that it has taken until my 4th visit to get there.  I was pleased that we did as the sculpture garden and the manicured gardens around the 19th century mansion were quite spectacular. We found a lovely quiet spot and relaxed for a short while in sun lounges wondering what the poor people were doing. The sculptures themselves were interesting, even though I only knew a few of the more famous ones like "The Thinker" and "The Kiss". "The Thinker" was definitely the highlight, as were the "Gates of Hell".  Our next stop was the gold dome of the Dome Church which houses Napoleon's tomb. We could see it from the garden at Musee Rodin, and was only a few minutes walk. Napoleon's body is entombed in a red marble sarcophagus which actually has 5 successive coffins inside made of tin, mahogany, lead, lead again and ebony. It sits under the dome of the church and is a little underwhelming in comparison to some of the less elaborate, but more spectacular tombs in the wings of the church.  We walked around to the back of the Dome Church, into the Soldier's church, which are connected so that the soldiers and the King can hear the same mass simultaneously but not have to be in the same church. It has a series of flags and standards hanging along each side of the roof, which are the actual standards taken by the French army in battles. Some are so old they are almost threadbare, and I had a moment sitting there imagining the actual battles where they were taken when the enemies were captured.  Our museum pass started to show it's worth when we used it to get into 2 of the exhibits in the Musee de L'Armee. Matt was very disappointed to find that a large part of the collection is closed for renovation, but we did still get to see the Relief Map Museum, which had a series of tiny models of many of the fortresses and walled cities around France. We also saw the Armoury collection, which has an amazing collection of suits of armour and swords from medieval times. Lunch was a fantastic baguette of ham, tomato, egg and lettuce eaten in the park in front of Hotel Invalides. There is heaps of construction going up there at the moment as we discovered that Pope Benedict is in Paris on the 12th and 13th and will say Mass in Notre Dame Cathedral. Sadly we are leaving Paris that day so won't be here, but from the construction we have seen it will likely bring Paris to a standstill that day.  Our next stop was the Catacombs, which are a little way out of town but right at the entrance to Denfert-Rochereau Metro station. They are these incredible tunnels that were built in Roman times and are 20m underground, which is below even the Metro and sewer systems. They wind for 1.7km and for the last km or so are lined with bones of the Paris dead that were removed from cemeteries around Paris in the 1700's due to overflowing cemeteries. It is quite eerie but incredible to see the effort that had gone into arranging the bones to line the passageways. There were stacks of tibia and femurs, intermingled with rows of skulls. It was useful having my background in forensic osteology, as I was able to determine that all of the bones were in fact human, and that there seemed an awfully large number of femurs and tibias and skulls, and very few other bones. I did spot a few ileum, one sacrum and one lone vertebra suggesting that the rest of them must have either decomposed prior to being exhumed or were thrown in together behind the arranged bones as fillers. It was amazing that at no point did I feel at all claustrophobic despite being 20m underground, and that at no point was Matt grossed out by being surrounded by so many dead bodies. We were slightly shocked to have our backpack searched at the exit for any "souvenirs" that we may have taken. I looked so shocked that the guy pointed to a small pile of bones from that day that they had already recovered. We did have a laugh to ourselves about how one would get one though customs though on the way back into Australia. Maybe claiming it was your spare femur... The afternoon became a race against the weather as we could see black clouds building up on the horizon. By the time we got the Metro to Luxembourg Gardens it was blowing an absolute gale and blowing up all the white dust from the walkways into our eyes. We headed for the Pantheon which is a church that has the additional role of being the burial place of the great men (and one woman!) of France. The church itself was rebuilt in the 1700s and is quite an impressive building. It houses a pendulum which is suspended from the dome ceiling and hangs down to about a metre off the floor. It swings toward a series of numbers which correspond with the hour of the day, and it is quite amazing when you realise it works by the rotation of the earth. Essentially the pendulum is suspended in space and the church rotates around it with the rotation of the earth. Very cool. We then wandered down into the crypt which houses the tombs of the great men of France. Names such as Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Pierre and Marie Curie adorn the tombs. They have interred people as recently as 1946 and there are still many empty places. We did amuse ourselves by trying to guess who France may have currently that may be worthy. Sadly the best we could come up with was Gerard Depardeau. We finished the day exhausted, with extremely sore feet, sitting in an Irish pub next to our hotel drinking Heineken and contemplating what a great day we'd had. We had dinner in a busy local restaurant on our street, where Matt couldn't resist the urge to order snails. At least this time I was able to watch him eat them without dry retching. I even had a brief moment where I asked what they tasted like, but that window was closed by the time Matt removed it from it's shell. Matt thinks it's hilarious that I am able to eat oysters at home, but can't imagine eating snails. I guess it's what you grow up with. I did remind him that I had tried frog's legs on my last visit so I wasn't a complete wuss.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wells2008/1/1220920200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wells2008/1/1220920200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/wells2008/1/1220920200/tpod.html Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:48:04 -0500 Honeymoon France 2008

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Paris, France

We are finally here on our much anticipated honeymoon. Paris has always been special for us, as it is one of the places we travelled to in Europe in those first few magical months of falling in love. It is my 4th visit and Matt lost count somewhere in the 20's. Matt also promised himself many years ago that he would bring his wife to honeymoon in Paris and we are both so happy that his wish is coming true. The flight here can only be described as long and tedious, mixed with enough turbulence to almost make me use the provided vomit bag for the first time ever. The pilot briefly mentioned that we might hit some turbulence over Eastern Europe. Well, Eastern Europe is a big place, and we had a good 4 hours of pretty impressive turbulence. However all else went very smoothly and we arrived in Paris just as the sun was starting to come up. We could hardly contain our excitement at being back in Paris and despite not having been to bed for 36 hours we still managed to fit in almost a full day of sightseeing. We started at St Eustache church in the Marais district. Apparently it is as big as Notre Dame, but is missed by so many tourists. We were awestruck by just how tall the vaulted ceilings were, and by the impressive rose window inside. Outside were amazing flying buttresses, a great example of Gothic architecture. It is not as impressive overall as Notre Dame, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting. It was also almost deserted at 9am, which never happens in Notre Dame. We continued our walking tour of the Marais, through Forum des Halles to the Pompidou Centre. Certainly it is a unique building but wasn't to our taste as it was quite dirty looking with some of the coloured pipes faded from the sun.We had ourselves a lunch of baguettes in Place des Vosges, which is an impressive square surrounded by 36 houses, 9 on each side to form a complete square. One of which was once home to Victor Hugo. If you are a pigeon in Paris, this is certainly the place to be, as we saw the fattest pigeons we have ever seen. Some were so obese they could barely walk and we questioned whether they could possibly manage to fly at all. The ground level of the houses fronting the Place is a strange mix of homeless people shelters and couture fashion shops. Very odd!!As we were leaving Place des Vosges, we saw a doorway leading into a courtyard and followed some other people though. It opened into a magnificent courtyard garden which was so peaceful, even with the handful of other tourists inside. On exiting we found out that this was the Hotel de Sully. I love stumbling on places like that when travelling, it is sometimes so much more of a highlight than going somewhere because the Lonely Planet tells you to.We continued our walk onto the Ile De St Louis and spent some time enjoying the sunshine and marvelling at the fact that we were back in our favourite city. However, despite this excitement the fact that we had now been awake for more than 36 hours was starting to catch up with us and we headed home via Palais Royale.One of the things we had sworn we would do this trip was to have a picnic on the Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower. Every time I have come to Paris I have seen couples doing just this and have always thought how romantic it would be. Tonight we decided that was about all we could manage, so armed with a baguette, blue cheese and pate, we made ourselves comfortable and settled in to admire the view. Great cheese, great wine from Bordeaux and great company with my lovely husband. Perfect!! Bizarre Travel Experience #1 - Being sprayed with "hygiene spray" prior to disembarking from the aircraft in France. "This spray has been approved by the WHO and is required by the French government for all aircrafts landing in France." I have no idea what it was but it made my eyes sting...
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Hong Kong, China

Our red eye flight from Paris arrived at midday in Hong Kong and we had 11 hours until our connecting flight to Brisbane. We had planned it this way in order to break up the long hours sitting on planes, but also to allow me to do a little bit of tour guiding and take Matt to see Hong Kong for the first time. I had spent 4 nights here on my way to London a few years ago, before I met Matt and had really enjoyed what this vibrant city had to offer. I had a plan to show Matt the best bits of Hong Kong in the short period of time we had.  Thanks to the very efficient Metro system we were in town within an hour of our plane landing. It was one of the least smoggy days I had seen in Hong Kong so we immediately headed up to Victoria Peak on the tram. The tram is certainly an icon in Hong Kong, as it travels at such incredible angles up to the peak. Even Matt was impressed as this was steeper than any of the railways he had ever been on in Europe. The view from the top was just breathtaking, with enormous high rise buildings crammed onto the island like sardines. The tallest of these, IFC2, is by far the tallest building either of us have ever seen. There is a new visitor's centre at the top of the peak, which was new since I last visited, which provides a spectacular 360 degree view of Hong Kong Island.  Our next Hong Kong icon was to have Dim Sum at a local restaurant but unfortunately, as it was close to 4pm, they had all finished serving lunch for the day. We caught the Star Ferry across the harbour to Kowloon instead, where we found no shortage of Chinese restaurants with random meat hanging in the window where we could get a feed. The food was great as usual and we feasted on salt and pepper squid, pork with chilli and vegetables and fried rice. It was a nice change from all the rich European food we have been eating for the past month. Next stop on our whirlwind tour was to take Matt to Temple Street Night Markets to show him a different side to this city. Kowloon side is where most of the locals live and is a very busy district with the typical neon signs hanging in the street and dirty apartment buildings with washing hanging from the windows above. It really is an assault on the senses with the visual assault of all the neon lights, the noise and the smell of dried seafood and garbage wafting by. Even the air feels different to breathe due to the humidity and the smog. It almost feels thick when you breathe it in. Matt was quite excited by all of what he was seeing, especially as he got to do his "New Country" dance for the first time in a long time. The Temple Street Night Markets are streets of stalls with cheap electronics, fake designer handbags and t-shirts and various other crafts. We bargained ourselves a few t-shirts for Matt, and then stumbled upon perhaps the greatest souvenir we will ever find on our travels, matching red and yellow M&M t-shirts. We couldn't believe what we were seeing and barely even bargained with the guy to purchase them. We can't wait to wear them in front of Pete after his very funny speech at our wedding where he told the story of our romance using a red and yellow M&M as the characters. We sat and soaked up the busy atmosphere of the markets for a while, drinking some local beers, before continuing our walk back to the harbour. We finished the night watching the light show that is put on by the high rises on the Hong Kong side of the harbour at 8pm every night. I had seen it last time, but from inside the bar at the Intercontinental Hotel. What I hadn't realised was the lame soundtrack of cheesy Chinese music that they synchronise the lights with. It was still great to see, despite the cheese factor.  We made our way back to the airport for the last leg of our flight home to Brisbane. We arrived home the next morning, exhausted but very happy with everything we had done in the past month. We must have looked a treat as we were both wearing our only clean piece of clothing, our matching M&M t-shirts. We were surprised that only one guy the whole way from Hong Kong commented on our interesting fashion choice, but as a backpacker himself was very understanding when we explained our lack of clean clothes. It was very nice to arrive home to our lovely house and sleep in our own bed again. Travelling is the best thing in the world but so is coming home at the end of it. We both vow not to leave it so long before our next adventure as there is so much more of the world we have yet to see.                                                             The End.
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