Home safely....

Ok, this is it! Just to let you all know that I arrived home safely in the wee small hours of this morning (Wednesday).

My body has no idea of where or when it is, but luckily I can just go gently and ease back into things.

My house is all good, in fact I had arranged to have my carpets cleaned while I was away, and it looks lovely for now - until the unpacking started. Pity it's raining here, because that will delay my 75 loads of washing!! Mind you, I came in and kissed my washing machine first thing. It's funny how the worm turns... usually I despise washing - it's only when you see the alternative that you really appreciate what you have at your disposal.

So my good friends and family, thanks for coming along for the ride. I've really enjoyed having an audience to write for. It certainly gave me the purpose and the discipline to keep going each day. I have loved your emails back and the witty comments that people have made. How lucky am I to have had, first of all, this magnificent journey, and how much luckier am I to have had such good friends to share it with....

So, au revoir, until we meet up shortly for all those coffees that lie in wait for me as I bore people senseless, describing the ongoing sagas of the toilets and the language and all the other dramas and adventures that unfolded over the last 7 weeks or so. But I can just whip out my blog, and there is the record for all to see.

It will be lovely to see you all in the flesh again soon. :)

Paris Illuminations, Charles de Gaulle airport

Well, here we all are sitting in CDG airport outside Paris, waiting, waiting, waiting..... My flight leaves at 9.10pm tonight, and the last transfer from the hotel was at 10.30am. So naive little me thought "Ah well, I'll check my bags in and then find a nice coffee shop and wander round and look at the duty free etc...."

But........ They don't open the frigging booking for each flight until 3 hours beforehand, so here I am wandering around with all my luggage, and I can't even go through to the duty free area, so I'm stuck in the very unwelcoming front part of the airport, just waiting, waiting, waiting.... Had a coffee, tidied up my photos, read the paper, looked at my watch and still 3 hours to go.... Ah well, there had to be yet another adventure in store for me didn't there....????

But I've discovered some Internet access, so I thought I would amuse myself by continuing these little dalliances with my blog.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday about Le Louvre....

At the end of the tour, the meeting point before returning to the bus was at the base of the Inverted Pyramid. While most of us were standing there, there was this big grinding noise, and everyone starts looking around, and these massive steel doors start closing, virtually closing us off from the other areas....I instantly thought bomb attack or something dastardly, but our guide (when we were eventually re-united) said it was the fire alarm, and they were sectioning off different parts of the building. It was all a little bit scary and creepy, and I was very glad to get of there eventually.

This is where we were waiting

But I found one last toilet to share with you..... this one was in the same place... in the shopping centre which is under the louvre.... I had to pay 1 Euro to use this one, but the interior was lovely... very colourful!

Last night we had our farewell dinner at a lovely little restaurant on the Champs Elysees called Chez Clement.... The food was Ok, but once again the soup was French Onion..... what have I done to deserve this...??? The main course was Poached Salmon and mashed potato and that was lovely.... and the sweet was Creme Broulette (which they said was lovely). Jonathan organised to get me something instead of teh soup, so he was offered salad.... Fine, says I.

Hmmmm... salad was literally a plate of lettuce leaves with bits of onion thrown in (I can't escape those bloody onions!) That was it... no sauce, no nothing.... French Food is really wasted on me. Give me those huge plates of meat and vegies from Ireland any day!

But after that we went on our last excursion - a ride down the river Seine on a boat to look at the illuminations.... That was just lovely.... It went for just over an hour, and the night was really quite mild, so I sat up the top and had a lovely view.... I took a heap of pics, and even did a little movie of the Eiffel Tower twinkling.... I'll see if I can upload that too at some stage, so watch this space... Here's one to start

Moulin Rouge, Musee D'Orsay, Le Louvre

I'm writing this with a bit of heavy heart tonight - not because I'm finished my travel, but because I've just heard that the sister of one of my very good friends (Carmel) in Melbourne, died last night. It certainly puts things into perspective and once again reminds me lucky I have been to experience all this.

But the last day in Paris has been extraordinary. It started last night at the Moulin Rouge... what a show! It was all boobs and feathers, but it was alive and colourful and musical and very entertaining with lots of dancing. And the meal was fantastic! Really nice tender steak, and potatoes. And of course, we had ze wine..... Always, everywhere is ze wine....
We weren't allowed to take pics inside, in fact we had to hand the camera into the cloakroom as we entered, so this was the best I could do...!!!

Then today, I chose not to go to Versaille, because I had been there already, so I had an extreme luxury - a sleep-in! Someone said on the first on the first bus tour that this is a tour, not a holiday, and how true that was. I'm often up at either 6 or 6.30am and when we have these dinners out, by the time I've finished important things like this blog, it's often around midnight! I'm coming home to have a holiday!

Along the banks of the Seine

Then I joined up with the other Aussie girl Jan, and we hopped on the Metro and went to Musee D'Orsay - one of the many truly excellent museums in Paris.

Outside Musee D'Orsay

And what a treat it was. Now that I've got a bit of "kultcha" I can even rescognize some of the painters and their art pieces. I was walking past "The Angleus" by Millet, and I got all excited, because that was the subject of our Art webquest last term with year 4s. Here's a pic to show them, Catherine and Brad - I've seen the original now!!!!



Here's a few more masterpieces that I'm now very "au fait" with!

Cezanne - Nature morte a la bouilloire

Portrait de l'artiste - Van Gogh

And of course, I've now been to Cezanne's studio, and Arles, where Van Gogh spent much time, so it all made incredible sense. I'll be teaching art history soon (not!!)

Then we wandered back across the river to Le Louvre, where we took part in a guided tour that was arranged by Trafalgar. It was excellent and the guide showed us the parts of Le Louvre that held the most important (or well recognized) pieces. Of course, we saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus d'Milo




And many other outstanding masterpieces which are too numerous to mention now. It was a fantastic experience and one that really topped off our stay in Paris.

But now I must get ready for our end of tour dinner, at a nice little number along the Champs Elysees - Chez Clement. I'm going to upload this now, because I'm not sure how long I'll have when I return and I need to do a very serious packing job tonight!!! I'm not sure the plane will be able to take off.....

I will have time at the airport tomorrow, so I might add a few final thoughts then....

Thanks to you all for providing an audience for me - it's given me a reason to be disciplined and do this reflection each night. I've really enjoyed just jotting down the experiences of the day, and now I have a wonderful record of all my memories.

So until next time - au revoir.....!

Lyon_Beaune_Paris

Writing on the bus again, as I find it saves time in the evening. Often we don't have much time, especially if we're going out again, and because we're on the motorway, the bus is travelling quite smoothly, so I can pen my thoughts now. I type it up in Notepad, and upload it later.

We arrived in Lyon about 4.30-ish yesterday, just as the night was drawing in. We were taken on a short tour of the city, which is the third biggest in France. Quiz question for those who've been following - which is the second biggest...???? Lyon is a very pretty city - full of Plain Trees. Every time I see those leaves I still think of Shepherd St where Mum and Dad lived, and what a pain there were for them. When they first moved in, they had a neighbour called Bob, and I think Bob ran out and cleaned up every time a leaf fell. Mum and Dad used to say they thought he sat by his window and just waited for a leaf to fall so he could run out and clean it up...

Lyon

Anyway, I digress... Back to Lyon.

I liked Lyon a whole lot more than Marseille (the 2nd biggest town in France!). Not sure why... just had a nicer feel. Marseille was very big and brash and bustling, but Lyon had a more "French" feel. The River Rhone and the River Saone (pronounced Soan!) meet there, and provide the city with many beautiful spots. I had signed up for the optional dinner which was held in a top class restaurant Chez Lea (1 Michelin Star (which is apparently very good!) To be honest again, French Food doesn't do a lot for me, but the best part of the excursion was that we went up to the Cathedral on the top of the hill (yet again) and we had the most spectacular view of Lyon at night. My camera does not do justice to it....

Very blurry - I tried a new setting on my camera - obviously didn't work!

The Cathedral is called Notre Dame de Fourviere (Our Lady of the Hill) and was built in the mid 1800s to say thank you to Our Lady that Lyon survived in the French Prussian War. Many of those Cathedrals I've visited have been monuments to Notre Dame to say thank you for surviving something... The inside of the Catheral again was very lavish, as are most Eurpean Cathedrals. It seems to be a way of expressing gratitude to God or Mary for favours received.


We stayed in an "interesting" hotel last night. The big plus was that it had free Internet access! There were a few minuses though, and many a loud moan was heard in the morning. Each room had airconditioning (in theory!) but none of them worked and the rooms were incredibly hot! I just slep with a sheet on all night. The roomw at the back backed on to the railway line and had multiple trains zooming past all night. They were also near a floodlit carpark, so had a few light issues! One couple changed rooms 3 times.... The Americans tend get a bit easily upset, and make known their displeasure. As for me, I had Internet access and I slept all night, so what more could I want....!!!

Stopped at a lovely little town for morning tea called Beaune. It was a typical French country village, with the winding streets and the houses with shutters. There was a bit of a wine auction on today, because this town is in the heart of Burgundy, and Pinot Noir territory. The town was alive and had a fantastic market set up. Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to explore, but we did manage a cup of coffee.





We're off to the Eiffel Tower this afternoon and the sights of Paree.... then we off to the Moulin Rouge tonight. This excursion is verrrry expensive, but hey, who knows if or when I'll ever get back to France. So I'm going for it!

Pont du Gard and Sur la Pont D'Avignon

Nice and easy does it today. We had a relatively late start of "Bags Out" at 8am and depart at 9am for those of those going on the excursion to the Pont du Gard. I chose to go on this, as I'm really enjoying all the history I am learning as I journey around.


The Pont du Gard is a Roman Aqueduct that was built in the year 19 BC to service the then Roman town of Nimes with water. The engineering and architecture of the Romans is just outstanding. This aqueduct flows for 50 kms with an exact decline of 34 cm for every km. The actual structure too is truly amazing because it was constructed with no mortar. The bricks were cut with precision and placed exactly where they fit. It transverses the River Gard, which can be very powerful when in flood, yet it has survived over 2000 years. The Romans never cease to amaze me.





It was a lovely overcast morning, a crisp Autumn day. NO rain yet still moderately mild. We have been so lucky with our weather. The grey skies just seemed to add to the mystique of the place. We walked all around it and across it and took lots of pics. Because we could walk over it, there was a coffee shop and toilets on the other side, so a decision was made that the bus would meet some of us around the other side.. however not everyone got the message and one lady was "misplaced"!!! There was a little drama for a while, but fortunately it all turned out ok in the end.

View from Pont du Gard

We came back then to Avignon and had about 2 hours there. It's a lovely town enclosed by th walls that were built originally to protect the Pope - mainly from being brought back to Italy! The Pope's palace was more like a fortress than a Palace, and you can see the places from which the occupants would've defended their property with arrows and burning oil.... Not really a sign of peace and unity as one would expect form Il Papa!!! I had a lovely wander around though, and felt the cosiness on an enclosed town.


Another thing I had the opportunity to do in Avignon was to see the Pont D'Avignon - those who have learnt French at any stage will surely remember the song "Sur La Pont D'Avignon".

The lyrics are -

Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse, l'on y danse
Sur le pont d'Avignon
L'on y danse tous en rond
Les beaux messieurs font comm' çà
Et puis encore comm' çà

Which means :
On the bridge of Avignon
We all dance there, we all dance there
On the bridge of Avignon
We all dance there in a ring
So I had a little dance in front of the bridge - it cost 5 Euros to go on the bridge, so I didn't bother!





As we were about to leave Avignon, we discovered once again that we had lost a couple of members! Apparently they got lost, so it's been an interesting day for poor Jonathan.

We're just driving along now to Lyon which is out stopover tonight. I'm typing this on the bus, because it's a long straight motorway, and it gives me the opportunity to do it before we go out for dinner again tonight. This tour should be called the Food Tour de France! I think tonight I'm having Poached Sausage and potatoes in a wine sauce for Entree and Coq ou Vin for main course. Just as well I don't eat sweets, or I may not fit on the plane to come home....!!!

It's been an interesting experience to watch the community on the bus evolve! It takes all types to make this world, and I think we have a fair smattering of them on this tour. Back in the days when I used to make silent retreats, you could always work out people's personalities, even without them saying a word. The same is true on a bus trip... although words are spoken and sometimes that's part of the problem! There are some that often get a bit confused - thus trying the patience of the louder members of the group. I guess if you throw 34 people together in quite an enclosed environment for 10 days, people's personalities will begin to show quite quickly...!!! Travel has been an interesting experience for me in more ways than one!

Only one more long road trip... tomorrow we drive from Lyon to Paris, then we spend 2 days in Paris. Can't believe that it's nearly all coming to an end. Part of me is reluctant to leave this holiday behind, and part of me is dying to get out of that bloody suitcase and do some proper washing! I guess I should just be grateful for what I have been able to experience!

Arles-Avignon

Had a gentle start to the day, with yet another sunny bright day...

First port of call was literally the port of Marseille, where the fishermen had just brought in their catch, and laid out their wares for all to see and purchase. The harbour is beautiful and edges right on to the city of Marseille.




Then we travelled on through the flat plain that forms the region of La Camargue. This is formed by the delta that happens when the Rhone river splits into two before it hits the coast and flows into the Mediterranean Sea.


Our morning tea stop was a lovely city called Arles... It has an ancient Roman history, as do many cities in this corner of France, and this was displayed in the form of a still-standing Colosseum, and Roman Theatre, as well as the remains of the
Roman Forum in the Arles Roman Square.


Arles is also famous for the amount of time the painter Vincent Van Gough spent here. The painting "Le Cafe Nuit" was painted in the Roman Square at Arles, so I took this photo from approximately the same spot from which Van Gogh would have painted it... There's hope for me yet - I might still become an arty-farty... I bought a book on Van Gogh for the kids in Year 4, and all the people on the bus were really interested, and quite a few ended up buying one too!

Le Cafe Nuit - Van Gogh

I loved Arles - it had a lovely feel to it. Again there was the mixture of the old city and the new. The Church in Arles was built around 1000AD, and was really old (obviously!), When you went inside, it just had an ancient feel to it. In those days, France was barely Christian... The facade at the front told the story of the Last Judgement, and our Guide, Jonathan, is really good at explaining what all the historic facades are trying to explain. In those days of course, people were not able to read and write, so the Churches needed to make visual representations of what they were on about, so that people could grasp the stories through the pictures and sculptures.


After Arles we moved on to Chateau Neuf de Pape - one of the famous wineries based in this area. I have a very fond memory of this wine... When I was young and foolish, I went through Canberra with some of my nun friends, and my brother Terry was based there at that time. I remember well that he took me out for tea, with one of his friends Peter, and we went through a bottle of this Chateau Neuf de Pape wine. I think I must've had a good night, because my nun friends reminded me of how they had to pour me into bed...!!! So I was very pleased to go to this winery and see how this beloved liquid is made... We had a short introduction to wine tasting, and everyone was being very polite, but we were all secretly waiting for the time when you actually got to put it into your mouth!!!! it was lovely, I have to admit...


BTW, Chateau Neuf de Pape measn the new castle of the Pope. One thing I've learnt about again ( I had forgotten a lot of this) was the history of the Pope's move to Avignon, and the scandal of the Papacy at the time. There were actually 3 Popes at one stage, and some of them were very naughty boys...!! I must read up more about this period of Church history when I return... always love to hear the goss...


Then tonight was one of the highlights of this tour so far.... In theory we were supposed to provide our own dinner tonight, but Jonathan had a plan... he gets some very good plans sometimes, and this one was exceptional! He knew this area quite well from his own life and had holidayed here quite frequently, and he knew this fantastic restaurant that was about 30 mins outside Avignon in a place called Fountaine de Vaucluse...


My Melbourne friends might immediately recognize that name, because the school I attended for my Secondary years was called Vaucluse Convent. So I was immediately interested to visit this region... We left Avignon about 5pm, but the traffic was the usual peak hour horreur, so it took us nearly an hour to get there. But it was worth it all. This most beautiful restaurant was situated on the River Sorgue, a very fast flowing river that has its spring not far from here. The reason the region is called Vaucluse is taken from the Latin words - Vallis Clausa - surounded by the hills. This town is literally surrounded by the mountains all around, and is in a cul-de sac where you can go no further.


But the restaurant is itself was spectacular...! It sat right beside this magnificent river, and had a wonderful ambience as soon as you walked in. The food was magnifique, and I even had some vegies.... Yee Haa! Their house wine which was unlimited was taken from the vineyards of Chateau Neuf de Pape, so we were in heaven! A good night was had by all...


So, I've had a lovely day in France. It seems to be going so quickly now, but I can't complain. I've had just such a wonderful time. How blessed I am...

Eze_St_Tropez_Marseille

Another beautiful day in Paradise....

But I'll retrace my steps to last night to Eze. We had the most beautiful drive along the road called Le Grand Corniche. There are 3 of these Corniches, all at different levels. (One of them was where Grace Kelly was killed.) As we drove along, Jonathan pointed out all the houses of the rich and famous, including Elton John and Bono amongst others... The drive was simply spectacular, as the weather was very kind to us.

Views along the Corniche Road

We arrived at a little village called Eze which is set on yet another mountain top for protection. It was quite a climb to get up there, but I'm reasonably fit at the moment after the walking I've done in the last few weeks.... (Are all my detractors listening here...!!!) I was a bit worried about a few of the oldies because we have multiple hip and knee replacements on the bus, and I was expecting one of them to keel over at any moment... In fact I noticed a defibrillator half way up the hill - an ominous sign indeed!




But what was more disappointing was that nothing was open. Today (Nov 11) is a big national holiday for Remembrance Day, where the French especially celebrate the end of WW1.

And because it's the end of the season, and the eve of a holiday, not much was open in the village. So we were hauled up to the top of this little mountain, and given two hours to fill in with little open. I tried the tourist thing for a while, but then I did what any self-respecting Aussie would do... look for the nearest pub!. A couple of my colleagues had beaten me to it, and had a good start. They kept up that pace all night, and some felt a little worse for wear today! You'll be pleased to know that I was very moderate - as we had a "drinks included" dinner that night in Eze, and it was lovely. The bus was quite racous on the way home around those Cornices... Luckily our driver didn't have any! It was very windey.... (curves)

So today we set off again, and again we were blessed with outstanding weather. We had a short ferry trip included today, so I was very pleased that it was all nice and calm.

View from my hotel balcony in Nice

We started with a drive to Cannes, the home of the film festival, and saw where it all happens. The building itself was quite disappointing. We only had a drive through, no stops, so my photos are not flash. It was my turn to be at the front of the bus today, and it was a good day to be there. The coast at Cannes is lovely, but we found out today that they import the sand for the beach. Every week they have to get new sand and compact it down, then the sea just washes it away - as the sea does!

Cannes foreshore

Our next port of call was St Maxime which is also along this coast, and we had a quick break for a toilet stop and coffee.From there we took the ferry across to St Tropez, where the beautiful people hang out! Didn't see any today .... must've been
because it was a Public Holiday.

On the boat in St Maxime harbour

We had 2 hours to explore the village of St Tropez and it was quite pretty. Again, as I've seen on other days, it was a mixture of the old town and the newer areas. We didn't really go to any rich and famous places, but it was a pretty town with a lovely harbour. And of course, there were all the yachts of the rich and famous.... Couldn't even begin to calculate what they'd all be worth....

Jonathan, our tour guide

Pics from St Tropez

After lunch and our wander there, we got back on the coach and moved on to Marseille. This town was quite a surprise to me.... First of all I had forgotten, or didn't realise it was a port town. And secondly because it is so splendid! It is the
second biggest town in France after Paris (3rd is Lyon and 4th is Nice). It's massive and we were able to see the breadth of it from the vantage point of the Cathedral - Notre Dame de la Gard (Our Lady of the Guard - who watches over the city)

Notre Dame de la Gard

It is a spectacular site, both inside and outside the Cathedral. It is perched way above the city on the highest hill - as Churches tend to do! The inside is most beautiful.... there are walls where people buy space or send in paintings of artefacts eg boats or planes, because they believe Our Lady has helped them in some way, and that is their way of saying thanks.

Roof of Cathedral - everything is mosaic

But once you go outside, the view is simply incredible. Once again teh pictures cannot do justice to the view that is literally breath-taking... That is, if the 250 steps required to get up there, don't take it away first! Unfortunately we only had a short time there. I Wish we could've swapped the time slot with last night, when there was too much time!)




We had a guided tour around Marseille and it was full of history, as is all of France.... It was lovely to see, but again time was short. So much to see - so little time...

Before I conclude and go and get my dinner (Roast Pork tonight - hope it's s true roast dinner!) - I have to tell you another toilet story! This time I took a picture...! I again ventured into one of those self-destructing toilets, but what a
surprise.. No such thing as even a toilet bowl, just a semi-circular stainless steel ring around a hole in the stainless steel floor beneath. As soon as you go in, the water starts running underneath you and in the tap area.... maybe it's a plot designed to touch your psyche and make you hurry up.... I couldn't believe it...

Quite a few of the others in the tour group went in too, and we all couldn't believe it...! And it was in St Tropez - the home to the rich and famous! You'd think they
could at least offer a decent toilet. But maybe they don't go the toilet, or maybe they just go on their very rich yachts..... Quite ironic that such an edifice was found in such a place.

On that note i'm off for dinner.... wish me luck with my roast pork!