England revisited

Flat no. 1 (Hammersmith) from our time in London in 2000-2002

Hammersmith Bridge

Flat no. 2 (Chiswick)

 

Our favourite, pub-lined strip of the Thames - Strand-on-the-Green, near Kew

An old favourite

 

Another get-together for Jen's old workmates from Santé Communications, as well as some other old friends. None of these little ones were around when we worked together!

A return to the Tower of London for the girls to see the Crown Jewels, which we skipped first time around because of the queues. Many more ceramic poppies in the moat in November (lead-up to remembrance day) than there were in August

Made it!!!

After our time in Europe we returned to England for a week of catching up with family and friends before flying home to Australia.

Bourges

The 'marais' on the outskirts of Bourges are made up of 1500 plots of former marshland. Little canals give access to the private garden plots (BYO boat) as well as water for the flowers, fruit and veg grown there

A walk through the Marais is a lovely way to enter the town of Bourges

Bourges

The beautiful cathedral. Della NOT looking too pious in this shot! 

The Loire Valley

Sancerre
Della: "On the way there and back we saw lovely countryside. It had lots of vineyards. Everything was autumny." 

Overlooking the Loire Valley, from Sancerre

The Loire Valley

 

Sancerre



Catherine stops the car to pick some mushrooms

Not these, though!

A sweet village en route from Fussy to Sancerre



Breakfast at Catherine's
Della: "I had a plain croissant, a chocolate croissant and  hot chocolate. Yummy yum yum!"

At Catherine's

This was one of the places we really regretted not allocating more time to. We had only 1 1/2 days with our friend Catherine, and when you see the pics in this post and the next you'll see why it wasn't enough.

This was also the only leg where I stuffed up our bookings. I booked the girls and I train tickets from Paris to Bourges, but not Matthew and I! Luckily all turned out OK. We took a mix of buses and trains to reach our destination, the hotel L'Echalier in Fussy.

I had met Catherine Brys in Hobart, where she helped found the Taste of Tasmania food festival, but it wasn't until we were all living in London in the early 2000s that we became friends. Catherine was working for an Argentinian baron in Chelsea and then went on to work for the royal family in Luxembourg, before buying her hotel/restaurant in her home country. But while she's French by birth and has elected to live in France for now, I'm sure Catherine is Australian at heart (especially judging by the amount of vegemite she goes through!) and will be back with us before too long.

Catherine was a wonderful hostess during our short stay and we were very lucky that she took a rare break from work to show us the local sights.

Neither Sancerre nor Bourges are in our French Lonely Planet but both are stunning. We thought they were particularly beautiful in autumn. Sancerre is a well-known wine district and the wine museum in the town is worth a visit. The surrounding countryside is lovely to drive through.

Bourges was a delightful surprise. We'd heard about the UNECSO-listed Bourges cathedral - and had seen countless pics on Catherine's Facebook page of visitors assuming pious poses under the arches near the entrance (we have now joined them). But I'd had no idea the whole town was so pretty - the architecture, the winding cobbled streets, the gardens. We had a lovely day exploring the town and enjoying a delicious lunch at Le Chapeau Melon, before returning to the hotel for MORE eating. We were so spoilt by Catherine's wonderful cooking while we were there.

We also enjoyed the company of Catherine's 'workaway' Pierre - a Frenchman who now lives in Columbia, but was spending some time back in France with Catherine providing accommodation and board in lieu of help in the restaurant/bar and design of a new website for L'Echalier (http://hotel-echalier.fr/?lang=en).

We'd highly recommend Catherine's very comfortable hotel for anyone planning to visit this beautiful part of the world.

Disneyland Paris

We visited Disneyland just before Halloween, and 'Main Street' was appropriately decorated ... there were even ghostly sound effects ...



It was actually quite magical

Fantasyland

 

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Frontierland

Discoveryland - Edie and Matthew went on this one while Della and I watched the parade

The closing light, film and sound show was spectacular

 

I'll let the girls tell this story ...

Edie:
Mum woke us up really, really early and we caught about 10 trains to DISNEYLAND! We crowded through the big gates, got tickets, stuff like that. Then we got a fast-pass ticket for one of the rides, Peter Pan's Flight. That means you don't have to do the queues. Yay!
Then we queued up for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride (in Adventureland). It was soooo cool! It was chaos!
Other rides we did:
Fantasyland:
* Peter Pan's Flight - fly over Neverland in a carriage. I thought we were REALY plunging, from the special effects!
* Alice's curious labyrinths - a maze with Alice (in Wonderland) characters
* teacup rides
Frontierland:
*Haunted House - we went in a black armchair each, spinning around spooky rooms full of skeletons
*Indiana Jones (rollercoaster) - I didn't end up going on it for it does an upside-down loop over ruins. I was too afraid! I don't like going upside down, unless I can turn back again when I want to.
Disneyland was decorated with a huge castle and at night, after a yummy dinner in Frontierland, there were fireworks over it! Also sprays of water and movie characters were projected on it!

Della:
Today we went to Disneyland! Yay! It was awesome! My favourite ride was a Peter Pan ride. There was also a haunted house, and Adventureland where you go on an adventure and a pirate spooky ride. Me and mummy's favourite thing was a big light show. We also liked a big parade with all the different Disney characters. At 9 o'clock there were big fireworks. They went shooting up and up through the sky and then burst into lots of beautiful patterns. I loved it! We got a packet of popcorn each. I bought a Princess dressing up thing. PS There were queues everywhere!

Paris 2

The Stravinsky fountain, outside the Pompidou Centre

The Sacred Coeur, on the hill in the distance - taken from the Pompidou



We climbed to the roof of the Sacred Coeur in Montmartre for a great view over the city, including the Eiffel Tower ...
Edie: "We walked to the Sacred Coeur, a famous old building that is a church. It has a view nearly as good as the Eiffel Tower! There were steps everywhere (300!) and we had to go up every one of them. I sped up most of them!"

 

Montmatre

Statue near our apartment which honoured Marcel Ayme, a Montmartre resident. His best-known work was 'The man who could walk through walls.'

Statue of singer Dalida, next to our apartment

 

Our apartment block, on Rue Girardon

Rue Tholoze, overlooked by the Moulin de la Galette - a club Renoir and Van Gogh had frequented

Della tries an escargot at Le Petit Parisien on Rue Tholoze. She got it down, but didn't go back for more ...

La Tour Eiffel a nuit