PARIS 5th-12th NOVEMBER - Part 2

Just to explain the delay in posting these recent blogs. First – most blogs are delayed for 3 reasons. First, most of our hotels have ‘free’ wi-fi but are as slow as buggery. Second, the photos are high def and take an age to upload. The third reason is the most honest – we’re having way too much fun and I’m not spending a whole lot of time on this blog.

Of course, sometimes we are just too busy to write a blog!!

Our son and daughter-in-law joined us in Paris for a few days. They live in Southampton but flew over to join us and we had a great time.

The main purpose and timing of the visit was for them to join us in a trip to the Moulin Rouge Theater for a show.

Unfortunately we were not allowed photos inside and had to make do with a couple of sneaky shots instead.

Our main activity outside of eating and drinking and just letting Australia down by our behaviour was to visit yet more of the many sights of Paris, not least Notre Dame Cathedral. This is one of the world’s finest examples of Gothic architecture and absolutely beautiful to see.

We also paid a visit to the more modern area of Paris and saw the ‘Cube’; this is the more recent Grand Arch addition to the Paris skyline.

The structure is in alignment with the Arch de Triumph and the Arch can just be defined in the distance down the Champes Elise

From there we went with Shane and Anna to dinner and then saw them off on their coach to the airport before we returned to our hotel to pack for the next leg of our trip to England; first stop Eastbourne and our eldest daughter Jacqueline and grand-daughter Xanthi.

PARIS 5th-12th NOVEMBER - Part 1

Where to begin? Paris is everything we dreamed and more. From our arrival at our hotel to our hotel to our first view of the Eifel Tower we were both hooked on the place and its surrounds.

The view from the hotel was (to my mind at least) typically ‘Parisienne’ and we had what a real estate agent would call “Glimpses of the Eifel Tower”. To be honest we did have to stand on our Juliette Balcony to see the top section of the tower but it did it for me!

It was only a relatively short run to Paris from Brugge so we had plenty of time to explore in the afternoon. Our first trip was a 10 minute walk to the Champs Elysees and our first view of the Arc de Triumph. The Champs was everything I had read about it and more, full of high end shops and stores. Traffic is phenomenal and there are very few road markings; drivers seem to take whatever rout they desire. If you ask me it appears that red lights are optional, not compulsory!!!

On our first full day we took a side trip to Versailles, the former home of Louis XIII and Marie Antoinette the catalyst for the French Revolution. No wonder the peasants revolted! The palace and grounds is massive and pure decadence. It is also an awesome place to visit.

Paris has certainly knocked off a number of my ‘Bucket list’ visits. We visited the Louvre, spending a day there but only seeing a fraction of the art works available for viewing. Such is the popularity of the place that one has to queue in order to join the queue for tickets.

Naturally most of the visitors were heading to the Mona Lisa and it was a dream to actually see it up-close!

Even then I couldn’t get too close to it due to the sheer numbers waiting in line to see her.

Wednesday was a ‘less cultural’ day with us spending most of the day in a massive shopping center, Again, many high end, luxury stores. It was in here where we saw one of the largest Christmas trees I’ve ever seen, smack in the center of the shopping center. Julie had a gorgeous Paris hair-do. We have no idea what it is but the Parisian’s sure do have style.

They even have ‘style’ when it comes to ice-cream, serving the cone as a flower instead of just a ball of ice in a cone!

Next stop was for a walk round the Eifel Tower. The grounds around it are just as fantastic as the tower itself and we spent plenty of time just wandering around. Our son and daughter-in-lae, Shane and Anna are joining us on Friday for the weekend so we tried to book the Eifel Tower restaurant for dinner on Friday night. Ha! What a joke that was. There is no hope of a booking for 3 months! That ruled that out for a plan and its back to plan ‘B’! However, it worked in our favour – we decided to book a restaurant with a view of the tower instead.

I’ll call it quits here, I’ll publish more in a couple of days.

IN BRUGGE – Part Three

Just a short one here folks. I had my little spiel on my last blog and now back to holiday mode.

Our last day in Brugge and we are so going to miss this place. In spite of this I have to admit it’s a cold wet day and certainly not good for walking around in.

Still, we have the car and so it’s off to Dunkirk for the day.

It was a great drive and, if we include the 2 trips to Ypres we made 45 trips into France. Hmmm! And Julie had never been out of Australia til last year!

Aussie girl in German Car driving from Belgium into France. Multinational or what?

Dunkirk; OK, first let me say that my views were somewhat distorted considering it was raining cats and dogs, bloody cold (8 degrees tops) and a Sunday so nowhere was open. The seafront was blowing a gale so we went for a walk inland. 

Some places showed promise but as I said circumstances were against us making a fair judgement. When we bought lunch in a cafe it was as if it was too much trouble to serve us.

We really gave up on the day and came home a bit earlier than expected.

I must admit the Irish Coffee I had before leaving (Julie was the designated driver, honestly officer) was to die for!

Back in Brugge we had a nice ‘last night’ dinner and I just had to publish the picture of my desert.

Called ‘The Brugge Swan’...... It was as tasty as it looked.

Because the weather was so crappy we had an early night after packing our gear ready for our trip to Paris in the morning.

Dropped Julie at the station and left her with the luggage. I then took the car back to the depot before getting a taxi to the station. 3 hours and two train changes later we were in the city of Paris. What a place and more about that in the next blog.

IN BRUGGE – PART TWO

On day 3 we again used the car to visit Frommelles, in the Somme region of France. Here we visited a couple of the many war cemeteries and memorials which abound this area of the world.

These include VC corner and the..........................

Pheasant Wood cemetery. Pheasant Wood is where the 200 or so bodies of fallen Australian soldiers  were found in a mass grave in 2010 and the War Graves Commission has established a brand new cemetery and memorial.

We also got the chance to see the classic memorial 'Cobbers' and this a magnificent bronze statue; a real sight to behold.The whole area of the Somme region contains numerous cemeteries and memorials to the fallen of all nationalities. I now truly understand the phrase “We will remember them”

On day 5 it was again an organised tour with Nathan from Battlefield Day Tours. The day was cold and started out wet but improved as the day went on. Our destination was again Ypres but this time the battle fields them-selves. 

During the day we visited crater sites and a few of the more intense battle zones of the region. 

As we passed through villages we could see old live ordinance that had been churned up by the farmers. There is still, even today some 95 years on between 250 and 300 TONNES of ordinance recovered EVERY YEAR in the Somme region of France. The figures are mind-blowing. There was somewhere in the region of four and a half BILLION shells fired in the area between 1914 and 1918.

We saw the craters of Hill 60 and Hill 62, old German encampments tunnelled under by the Aussies and blown up with 37 tonnes of high explosive. Evidently the shock wave could be felt and the sound heard as far away as London and Paris!

Got to walk down a preserved trench and visit a few of the many bunkers that still litter the countryside. We then went into the town of Ypres for lunch before visiting the new Flanders Fields Museum just opened in the town square. (Opened at the end of June 2012).This day has been one amazing experience and I really hope you are not bored reading about it. For us it was thoroughly enjoyable and thought provoking. I don’t intend to preach and I’ll shut up in a moment but for now I’ll just say “Thanks boys. If not for your sacrifice the likes of us would not be free to roam as we do.  

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM. LEST WE FORGET!

Ok, I'm off my hobby-horse now. Off to Dunkirk for the day tomorrow. Then it's off to Paris for a week!

IN BRUGGE – 30th Oct to 5th Nov

Part One

How many ‘WOW,s’ can one say in a blog? I know I have run out of superlatives for this section of our trip. In addition to the fantastic architecture and beautiful cobbled streets; in spite of the cold and wet weather it has been a tremendous experience. It will probably take a while to explain why this leg has been so good for us but I’ll try although for many it may not hold the same level of interest.

Our purpose for visiting this part of the world was to use it as a ‘jump-point’ for visiting some of the World War One sites and the history of the country of Belgium. For many years the two world wars have held a special interest for me; no reason, just interest. I can’t claim great ancestral heroics or heritage. My history does not contain any heroics but, I am interested never-the-less. So; first I will give a general overview of our stay and then post a couple of other blogs containing many photos’ which should be self explanatory.

So – Our hotel! One of the nicest we have stayed in; old and heritage listed and perched right on the canal in Brugge central, a mere 5 minutes walk from the town center. 

Even the dining room is superb, and the included breakfast more than adequate. 

I guess we have gained a couple of kilos here just from the breakfast (damn pastries)!

We hired a car here to enable us to drive around and visit various WW1 sites. Guess what? Unlike Marseille the car was actually available and the rental company had not ‘closed its’ business operations’ here in Brugge!

On arrival we had most of the day as it was only a short hop from Amsterdam. We checked in and when advised that we were on the first floor Julie asked “Is there a lift?” The response was simply “Madam, this is a listed building!” Point taken. We dumped our gear in our room and then spent the afternoon and evening roaming around and of course managed to ‘get lost’ in all the winding, cobble stoned streets. There are the usual tourist attractions here, not least the horse drawn carriages. I now know how the term for horses hooves became known as ‘clip-clop’! 

                             The sound of the hooves really does go ‘Clip-Clop’.

On day 2 we collected our car and off we went; next stop Villers-Brettoneux in the Picardy area of France.

There we visited the war memorial and the school donated to the people of Villers-Brettoneux by the Victorians after the war.

This school today still remembers the efforts by the Anzacs in the war.

On our return we ate a quick snack before joining a booked tour to the Menin Gate memorial at Ypres (or Ieper or Wipers – you decide).

Each and every night at 20.00 hrs the Last Post is played to commemorate the fallen. This has occurred since 1928 and is intended to continue in perpetuity.

The guy who runs these tours is a guy called Nathan, owner/operator of Battlefield Day Tours. What this guy doesn’t know about the First World War just isn’t worth knowing. He is a self taught encyclopaedia of the wars and its’ history.

Day two, the weather was shocking. Cold and wet so we took some down time and relaxed in our hotel. The environment is so pleasant and relaxing it just didn’t seem worth going out in the European stormy weather.

PART TWO VERY SOON