LaTour and Centre Pompidou

With some trepidation, we decided to venture out into the tourist melee that is the Eiffel tower. We had heard all sorts of horror stories about people in lines for 3,4 or 5 hrs just to get to the top of this enigmatic structure. It took us all of 2 min to get to know the Metro, another example of public transportation infrastructure that just works. period. It makes travelling around Paris so easy and pleasant that every other city we visit will be judged by this Parisian standard.

We woke early and got to the Eiffel around 0830 (it opens at 0900). It soon became apparent that the longest lines were for the elevator-only trips. There was a tiny line for the stairs (all of 10 Eu) to the second floor (about half way up). Well, we were up for it. All 480-odd steps. Off we went....

What a fantastic experience. You get a real sense of climbing up through the intricate steel-work, seeing all the various plumbing, electrical and hydraulic system at work. Before we knew it we were up at the end of the stairway at the very substantial second-floor. Many of our fellow travellers stopped here without going any further. We decided to pay another 12 Eu or so to take the elevator to the observation deck. Here we go....

At the top, we marvelled at how the Eiffel was a living, breathing, organic structure. You could feel the almost imperceptible swaying and yawing of the deck as the 4 elevator cars berthed at the observation deck. There was an inspiring silence around everyone there, we were all in awe, not only of the tower but of the wonderful city that it revealed, spread out like an enormous tablecloth, beneath us.

One of the must-see destinations in my book was the infamous Centre Pompidou. It was compleeted in 1977 and was the center of much debate among Parisians. Many loved it... many more hated it at the time. It stands between the Seine and La Marais, you get tantalising glimpses of its awkward, skeletal knuckles and exterior ducting and pipework, down many of the narrow streets as you walk down Rue Beauborg. We wanted to see it (and its fantastic collection of modern art) in the flesh, so we left La Tour, hopped on the Metro #9 and headed for it. It was certainly worth the trip...

The highlight was the Roy Lichtenstein exhibition...

Le Louvre....

We had our first taste of Paris tourist lines...... the Louvre was always going to be a must see for us, not only for La Joconde (Mona Lisa), but the major revisions to the layout of this amazing museum right in the centre of Paris by the Seine. We expected lines of touristes, but nothing quite on this scale. Its hard to comprehend how many people can get shoved, shuffled, corralled and lined up, so efficiently, so crazily than in Le Louvre.

I think we actually saw about 5% of the available gallery spaces in that day. The mistake we made was to head for the gallery space that housed THAT PAINTING...... well, 5001 other people wanted to do that as well (at the same time!)...

Overall, with what we saw, in the time available, we were let down by the experience. Our lasting memories will be defined by the architecture (like most of paris) of the Louvre and how it has been modernised in a way that enhances the older, established galleries. There is amazing art there.... but definitely for a french audience.

On our way!

Traffic on the Seine

The south entrance of the Louvre

OMG!

Beneath the entrance pyramide...

What an amazing space.... a huge, hollowed-out wrangling space that leads into the 4 separate musses

Are we going to wait another 2 hrs to get closer???

Stella got the closest shot...
We all thought it was overrated...

ceiling detail

grand entrances...

one of our favourites... the sculpture garden

detail.... detail.....

"I think we've had enough now Dad!"

Mum and Dad were a bit grumpy by now!!

Paris1

OK..... day 2 in Paris........ I'll let Lisa take up the commentary on how we got here....

"I am really surprised at myself about how excited I am about this.  You always hear about "Paris the romantic, beautiful city" etc etc… but I guess we are such New York-ophiles that I just thought, oh yeah Paris will be good, it will be good to check out all those museums and art galleries, but its just another big city…..  Its beaufiful and its exciting because there is so much traffic, and so many people and it is not set out on a grid, so navigation is not straightforward… and then the GPS dies….. well all I can say is that we have had an exciting afternoon!

We started the day in Limoges, a lovely city about 370 kms south of Paris, home of the beautiful Limoge porcelain….  Anyway, we had to meet the guy who was renting us our appartment in Paris at 4.00pm.  So we headed north, and decided to stop along the way for a break and a look around.  We stopped at Chateau de Chambord (see photos below)….. one of the biggest chateaus of them all apparently, built by Francois 11, absolutely amazing.  But we could only stop for an hour, we had our 4.00pm appointment!  So we got onto the toll roads and headed for the city.  We were amazed at how close we could get to such a city as Paris and stilll be surrounded by forests and farmland.  It wasn't until we were about 15kms out before it was obvious that we were near a major city. We had two GPS systems on board: the BMW system in our car and our portable TomTom…….  Its been quite interesting to compare the two, and until we got to the city, we had to hand it to TomTom - it found many more faster shorter, more intersting routes compared to the BMW…. but when it came to the city center and all those big buildings and narrow streets (we could only see a little bit of the sky above us)both GPS's fell down……. couldn't even identify our street…. oh no in Paris, already 10 mins late for meeting with our appartment greeter…..  BUT then Lucia looked up and said "there, there is rue de Santonge"!  We couldn't believe it, she was right, some how we had stumbled on our street... 

Then we had to return the car……..  All I can say is that we are sooooo glad that we managed to return the rental car and that we now no longer have a car in Paris!!!  We walked back to our appartment from the car rental place, stopping along the way for a few "vin de rouge s'il vous plais" and some great food and now we are collapsing in a heap!  Great, but exhausting day.  I can't wait to start exploring tomorrow!!"

Say no more....

La Belle France!

Now we are in France.  After landing in Paris, we drove south, stopping for two nights along the way in a country hotel outside of the tiny town of Coulandon, and then the next night in an even smaller town, a medieval village called St Amand de Coly.  The church there is almost 900 years old!!!  Very beautiful. 

L'Abbeye at St Amand de Coly

We drove the back roads through many of these tiny villages, to our villa, in the village of Condom, where we are finally, after a month on the road, stopping for a week.

La Bourdette, our home for the next week

View from mum and dad's bedroom.... all of a sudden they are all smoochy!

The Condom area is where the Mousquettiers came from!

Main street, Condom

Our very own pool!

Iceland2

The flight over was beautiful, the red sun across the clouds looked like lava flowing across the sky (Stella missed this because she was the only one sleeping).  Because we were flying Northeast, the sun set, in fact the whole time we were in Iceland it got as dark as a late afternoon dusk. Very weird and it played havoc with our body clocks. We arrived in Iceland very early in the am after only a 5.5 hr flight. We were sooooo tired.  We spent the first day having a look around Reykjavic and sleeping!  We quickly worked out a couple of very important Icelandic words: kaffihaus and bakkeri!!!  Once we knew where they were, we were set!  We were initially worried about the language – too many consonants next too each other…. It was hard to work out what was inside many of the buildings and shops, but we didn’t need to worry about communication.  Almost everyone in Reykjavic spoke very clear british-sounding english and were so friendly and happy to help!  On the second day we drove north-west to the fjordlands.  The drive up there was spectacular, so raw and dramatic.  One minute lush green fields, which would end abruptly in a pile of dramatic black rocks from a real lava flow!  Driving through the fjordlands was amazing.  We would drive along a fjord, which would have a tiny village on the edge of the water, maybe 10-20 (sometimes fewer) houses in the shadow of the mountain.  Then we would drive up over the mountain to the next fjord.  Going up the mountains, the green very quickly gives away to rock.  Just rock.  We felt like we were driving on the moon.  A lot of the roads were gravel, with sheer drops off the side of the road, and very few guard-rails bordering the roads.  Driving was an adrenalin rush!  …. At least for us, the kids just played games in the back oblivious to the sheer cliffs either side of us!  Although they did get excited by sheep-that-look-a lot-like-goats on the side of the cliffs!  On the third and last day, we had planned to go on a whale and puffin-watching trip before driving back to Reykjavic.  But sadly the weather closed in, so the whale watching was cancelled.  And because of that, we got to drive back across one of the mountains in the clouds – just to add to the adrenlin rush!  We then caught a car ferry back towards Reykjavic, which gave us a bit of a rest from the adrenalin-pumping drive.  The ferry stopped at Flatey island, a tiny island with only a handful of houses on it.  The only people that live on the island full time, are two farmers, who apparently are always fighting over women or money so don’t talk to each other!  We ended our trip in Iceland with a long soak in the blue lagoon, Rob and I sipping champagne and all of us caking ourselves in the silica mud.  The lagoon is a thermal bath that has been created in the very dramatic background of a lava flow.  

wildflower explosion..

Ajouter une légende

One of the main streets in Reykyavik
This photo was taken around 1045 PM! We really are in the land of the midnight sun!

The flat coastal strip north of the capital

Plenty of glacial meltwater

The new concerthall in Reykyavik, the "Harpa"

Blue lagoon hot baths- note the cut lava bricks

water 28C, outside air 6C!

I want to live there!

Blue lagoon.... on our way to France!

The blue water against the black rocks looks amazing and felt even better!   We finally dragged ourselves out of the hot water to head for the airport and our 1.00am flight to Paris.  We landed 3 hours later into peak-hour Paris traffic! 

Our only regret about the Iceland trip is that it was too short!  We would have loved to go on that whale watching trip, or a trail ride on their little Icelandic ponies through the mountains!  There was so much to see and do!  It is expensive though.  Fuel for the car was about 40% more than Australian prices, which means about 4 times as much as US prices!  Food and accommodation were also more like Australian prices, if not more.  Tourism is becoming a big industry there, and even out in the country, they were well set up for tourists.