UK & Europe Trip 2009

Eh bien, aujourd’hui nous avons finalement dormi dans! Donc, un démarrage à loisir vers le jour. Nous avons finalement sommes partis à destination des marchés locaux s’attendent à rentrer chez eux peu après, mais ne rentre pas till 5pm!

Opps remembered you’re not in france…so in english…

View of Ile De Le Cite island

Well, today we finally slept in! So a leisurely start to the day. We eventually headed off to the local markets expecting to return home shortly afterwards but didn’t get home till 5pm! After investigating the markets and a wonderful shop full of ‘Tin Tin’ merchandise (French comic character), we wandered down to Notre Dame and took a look. Quite impressive as you can see by the photos in the photo gallery.

We then headed further north into the classy Marais District. The weather was a mild 22 degrees, so great for walking.

We wandered past the Pompidou Centre (an exhibition building with architecture very different to the rest of Paris) and down the Rue de les Halles looking for a Bureau de Post, where we used a machine to buy a postage stamp. Everything is automated here. You can even buy McDonalds using a touch screen kiosk to save queuing (see photo gallery).

We settled in front of the Louvre and the controversial Pyramid for lunch, enjoying our tasty baguettes. By this stage we had done a lot of walking and were feeling a little weary so (after much further walking) we found the bus stop for Les Car Rouges which is an open style double decker red bus that takes you around Paris and you can get on and off at various sightseeing locations.

Pont des Arts (bridge)

While we were waiting for the bus we wandered across the Pont des Arts, which is a pretty pedestrian bridge across the Seine. We were held up for a little while because they were filming what looked like a Japanese movie on the bridge. Merci beaucoup, merci beaucoup, was the cry as they asked us to wait until they had finished filming that particular scene.

It was good to finally sit down and relax on the bus and enjoy the Parisian scenery, though the traffic up and down the Avenue des Champs was incredible. This is where the rich hangout, at all the expensive clothing, jewelery and handbag shops. We stayed on the bus, exiting at the Tour Eiffel. The queues were long, so we admired the structure from beneath. Then back on our open top bus for the trip back to our apartment.

Resturant Vergenede

Dinner tonight was at Restaurant Vagenende… located on the legendary boulevard St Germain, this restaurant celebrates Parisian life, and has barely changed since its opening at the beginning of the 20^th century, its Art Nouveau décor and copper fittings conjure up images of the past. The French meal was fantastic, Liz had grilled prawns, & John pepper steak .. followed by sorbet-lemon,pear, strawberry (Liz) & ‘Profiterolles au chocolat chaud’ (John)

Si bonne nuit…

We left London, on the Eurostar train.. a very comfortable train (even in second class).

Our Paris Apartment

Our Parisian apartment in the Latin quarter is very comfortable & well decked out… very homely.

It is at the end of a very busy, touristy, restaurant strip.. the night life around the apartment is amazing, albeit the partying went on quite late…. so it took a while to get to sleep… maybe we should be out partying ourselves!!

View from Apartment

The owners of our apartment recommended we didn’t eat in the local tourist restaurants, and suggested others in out of the way spots…..

We shopped in a local supermarket & dined in a Japanese restaurant, cheap and reasonably nice.. Liz’s french got us by … then it was back to the apartment to blog.. and research latest trends in mountain bikers.

Oh I (Liz) love London. Breakfast at the Albion House Hotel was basic but adequate.

A short walk to Euston station and then a train to Kilburn North and a short walk to St Mary’s church where we were meeting our friend Christine.
The church service was quite interesting – a mixture of liberalism, mainstream theology, traditionalism and high Anglicanism (without the incense).

St Marys with All Souts - Kilburn

The church would seat about 1000 people, was quite beautiful, and with modern technology – a glass projector screen, and tv screens with the words of the hymns etc. There were probably about 100 adults and 60 kids there. Of course it came with the usual cup of tea, & chat to very welcoming locals, after the service in the hall.

We checked out where Christine lives – very nice, lots of stairs – which is everywhere you go in England, (how elderly people get on with all these stairs, I don’t know). Lunch was in the beer garden of a local pub. The sun was shinning, a perfect London day. We had an enjoyable time catching up with Christine over a relaxing lunch. Christine gets ordained in Church of England next July, so her title will be Mother Christine.

Busy Oxford St, on Sunday Afternoon

We farewelled Christine as she had to go back to work, and jumped on a bus that took us all the way to Waterloo (south side of the Thames). We were upstairs on the bus, right at the front, so it was really like a great sightseeing tour thru the centre of London. And there were people everywhere, it was Sunday afternoon, and being a beautiful day, everyone was out and about.

We walked over the Thames and into Trafalgar Suare, and had a brief look in the London Art Gallery before Closing Time.

So we left the pretty village of Louth, and drove to Lincoln, where we boarded our train for London.

After changing trains from the local link train, to the national express train, we traveled first class to London, a very comfortable journey.

Our hotel in London was only a block from Kings Cross Station, and can be best described as clean, newly renovated and compact… very compact. London was quite warm, so we took the tube to Leicester Square, and bought tickets to the musical ‘Wicked’.

We searched for and found that the infamous ‘Manzi Hotel’ (see 2006 blog) was no more, and is undergoing renovations.

Then we courageously decided to walk across London to Wicked theatre near Victoria Station … very slowly as Liz’s legs were still recovering from the Louth Steeple climb from the day before.

London was full of people on a Saturday afternoon, with a multi-cultural festival in Trafalgar Square, and thousands of people in St James Park. John dropped his jacket in the park, and found it about half an hour later, when he retraced his steps.

Our seats at ‘Wicked’ the musical were great, and the show was very enjoyable, even if it was hard to stay awake (still have not got this time zone & body clock in sync.

Our return journey via the tube late at night was memorable, with closed tracks, diversions, trains failing, and lots of people….

Another early start to the day – 2am!! The premises has an excellent laundry so washing clothes was the first priority.

On Wednesdays and Fridays the town of Louth has a market day so we ventured out, looking for John’s morning coffee of course (still doesn’t taste the same as Sydney coffee, different milk maybe) and taking a stroll through the markets and shops – a bit of a Notting Hill movie scene experience.

St James Tower we climbed to the top!!

It cost 1 pound to climb the steps of the tower in the St James church of Louth so up and up we went. The spire was built in 1515, so it felt a bit treacherous going way to the top. There were many many steps, but with a spectacular view from the top. We thought coming down would be easy. However the leg muscles had turned to jelly by the time Liz got to the bottom and she could hardly walk. This however is little suffering compared to the churches’ vicar, who in 1536 was hung, drawn and quartered because of his part in the Lincolnshire Uprising – conflict between the catholics and the protestants at the time.

View from Eileens unit at Cleethorpe

Norman and Eileen then drove us to Cleethorpe, where they have a unit, overlooking the beach, very different to Sydney beaches but interesting just the same. It was low tide which exposes salt marshes for a considerable distance. The View was very relaxing, watching the ships come & go up the river to a major shipping port. Lunch was at a very nice Italian restaurant.

On the way home we stopped at Donna Nook to check out a wild seal colony but alas there were no seals today. In a few more weeks there will be about 1000 of them.

As it was our last day in Louth we sadly farewelled Norman and Eileen and the Manor Farm….. it is such a pity Louth is so far away from Australia, as there is so much family history to learn.