Monday, 15 May 2006

Well, that's it. We are home at last having arrived here after several decent flights. As we said, the flight from London to Singapore was good and we got some sleep. The night in the Transit Hotel in Singapore gave us a chance to get a bit of rest before coming on to Sydney where we spent another night.

From Sydney to Hobart was smooth and seemed like no time at all. Despite our oft-vowed position not to buy any duty free we did pick up a couple of bottles in Sydney. Got to tell you this, though. Remember how our bags were picked up by someone in Sydney? Well that must have made me extra cautious and believe it or not as we waited for our bags in Hobart I spotted one of them being walked out by someone. A quick dash across the road and I caught her so we didn't have a repeat of the wait at Sydney. We are going to have to put something on or cases which make them more unique so they don't get picked up by others when we travel. It wasn't too bad in Sydney and Hobart, but imagine if it had been at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris!

Home and we were immediately back into the swing of things. We arrived Wednesday afternoon, sorted the mail, did the laundry and had a meal out. The next day Virginia was back at work and I had a luncheon meeting. It's amazing how quickly it all falls away. Here we are only five days back and it almost seems as if we were never away.

On Wednesday, Virginia was saying "never again..." and had decided that she was not going to subject herself to another overseas trip. By Thursday morning she had the travel books out and was busy planning our trip for 2007.

And that's it. We are home, it was a wonderful trip, we are organising the photographs and planning for next year. Until then, when we will have a new blog, we hope you have enjoyed this and we send our love to you all.

Bruce and Virginia

Tuesday, 9 May (I think)

Got into Singapore and went straight to bed. The changes in time and the long sleep on the plane coming out made for a restless night. We are now in the Qantas lounge waiting for the call for our flight from Sydney. Home tomorrow night!

Well here we are in Sydney - or at least at the airport where we are waiting for Virginia's bag which was picked up by someone else with a very similar bag. We debated keeping their bag, but decided that if we did all it would probably contain would be a months supply of dirty knickers.

So, here we wait until they return from wherever they are. Fortunately the baggage service here was very efficient and rang them on both of their mobiles, finally getting someone in Gosford. We hope the bags will be sorted out within the hour!

The bags were sorted out, we went to our hotel and crashed!

Monday, 8 May 2006

Somewhere over India. We really seem to have lucked up on our flights coming back. We are currently on the plane between London and Singapore and the plane is almost empty. As soon as we reached altitude, Virginia and I each grabbed a four seat section and settled in. After dinner, which was surprisingly good for airplane food, we went to sleep and slept for five or six hours. Virginia spoke to the crew and they told her that this particular flight is fairly new and rarely crowded. Sadly, by next year, we feel sure it will either be cancelled or be much more crowded.

While we are not sure, the staff in London told us that the flight from Singapore to Sydney is not crowded either!

We currently have about three hours and three-quarters before we arrive in Singapore where we will be staying in the Transit Hotel overnight. For those of you unfamiliar with the Transit Hotel, it is one of the great travel ideas. We have about a fourteen hour delay before continuing on to Sydney, so, instead of clearing customs and finding a hotel in the city with all the difficulties that entails or, alternatively, sitting around the airport, we never actually "land" in Singapore. We remain in transit and our bags (except for what we are carrying) go on to Sydney while we check into a hotel in this "no-man's-land". Singapore has had the good sense to provide these hotels in the transit area. Because people are not usually there for long, the hotel rents rooms in six hour blocks which can be extended by one hour blocks. We will have two blocks of six hours, but were we to need it for only nine hours, we could have one block of six hours plus three blacks of one hour each. Cost is about the same as a hotel anywhere these days--about one hundred Singapore dollars per six hour block.

Sunday, 7 May 2006

Saturday--Oh what a rush and bother getting ready to leave and then getting to the train station. Because we were worried about getting transport (which turned out to be totally unfounded) we arrived at Gare du Nord at least two hour before the train left. Breakfast of croissants in one of the bistros at the station took an hour and then we went to the "official" waiting area and read.

The trip was fast (with speeds of up to 300 kph) and smooth. If you are planning a trip to Paris we heartily recommend travelling via Eurostar which takes you from central London to central Paris in just over two hours and a half. We are told that if you book well in advance, via the internet, you can get significant savings. We travel second class which is fine. It doesn't offer the champagne breakfast, but bring your own baguette and a drink and save lots of money. The seats are roomy and frankly we can't imagine why anyone would want to spend the extra amount (although there is a special "seniors" rate in first class). Also, if you are planning the trip, try to get the direct, non-stop, trains. Not a lot of difference, but they avoid the stopping, starting, people getting on and off and luggage banging you get on the milk run (which, in fact, only takes about half-an-hour longer).

We were fortunate in that the rain held off. Thunderstorms were predicted in both Paris and London yesterday, but the weather stayed reasonable until about 2.30 (at least in London) by which time we were safely ensconced in our hotel.

Sunday--Today we are catching up on our laundry (ah the excitement, the joy of travel) and getting psychologically prepared for the long flight to Singapore. This afternoon we will probably go to Harrods just to see how "the other half" shops. Bruce loves the food hall and it is almost impossible to drag him away. He seems to always have his camera at the ready and seems hell-bent on building the world's largest photo collection of Harrod's foodstuffs even though he has it all in a cookbook at home that Virginia bought him some years ago.

As we are staying just around the corner from Paddington station, I have included above a picture of that station's most famous mascot; Paddington Bear!

A strange coincidence this morning. We always say that when we are away from Australia, we never hear anything about it on the news and certainly never about Tasmania. But the headlines around the world (BBC, CNN, etc) are all about the two miners trapped in the Beaconsfield gold mine and the rescue attempts. In London it even got higher coverage than the potential fall of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the shooting down of a British helicopter in Iraq with 4 deaths and the resulting problems in Basra.

Friday, 5 May 2006

Our last day in Paris. A housekeeping day, cleaning the flat, doing laundry, changing bed linen. We did treat ourselves to a nice lunch at Chez Ginette on Rue Caulincourt. This is a wonderful street, just around the corner from us in Rue Cyrano de Bergerac. It is definitely not a tourist area but services the many hundreds of apartments nearby. It is more of a boulevard than a street; wide and tree-lined. Lots of patisseries, charcuteries, boucheries, alimentation generale and best of all, chocolatieries! There is also a primary school where, today, we noticed on the outside wall they proudly displayed their class photographs. Go half-way around the world and some things never change.

An interesting note about primary schools here is that they are very private and you cannot see into them behind the high walls. Very security conscious. Also we find it interesting that primary school children attend school on Monday and Tuesday, sometimes Wednesday morning sometimes not at all, Thursday and Friday and Saturday morning. So the week is split into two parts. This seems educationally sound, however, the days are very long with the children not leaving school until early evening although we understand they have a long mid-day break.
Still gorgeous weather although thunderstorms are predicted tonight and tomorrow. Isn't that just our luck - leaving here in the midst of a downpour and trying to find a taxi?

Qantas would not, on our frequent flyer points, route us direct to and from Paris (there aint no such thing as a free flight) so we have an overnight stopover in London, then on to Singapore, Sydney (overnight) and Hobart.

Thursday, 4 April 2006

Warm weather continues which is good because we are gradually discarding our winter clothes so as to make travelling easier. Since tomorrow will probably be spent packing, cleaning and organising for our return we took a last wander through Montmartre. Virginia picked up a free magazine called "Where" at a local hotel and it had a very good walking tour of Montmartre in it. While we didn't want to do the whole walk, we picked out some things we had not seen before. And, by the way, a useful thing to do when you are travelling independently is to go into any of the large chain hotels (which usually host tour groups) and pick up all of the free literature usually available in multiple languages.

On this walk we wandered down the little Rue St-Rustique which with no sidewalks or shops is very picturesqe and usually empty of tourists. At the end of the street is the restaurant La Bonne Franquette which used to be Aux Billiards in Bois and has been there for more than 150 years. It was the meeting place of Pissarro, Degas, Sisley, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Monet and Zola (not that we are into name-dropping). We returned to that unusual sculpture of a man walking through a wall having discovered that it is of the "Passe-Muraille", the hero of Marcel Ayme's 1943 story about a man who could walk through walls. We then wandered down to look at the old windmills. The former Moulin Radet is now a very posh restaurant called Le Moulin de la Galette; but the real Moulin de la Galette (made famous by Renoir's "Bal du Moulin de la Galette) is a bit further down the street and now on private property.

We then walked back down to Rue Caulaincourt and on home. After lunch we mooched around doing odds and sods before going out for a glass of wine sitting outside at a local "bistro" watching the world go by (Tres Parisien).

Now Virginia wishes to comment on the new season's fashions. Polka dots of every size and every colour are the in thing as are tiered skirts of every length in Spanish style. Shoes are flat, "little girlish" ballet style with T-bars. No high heels in sight except for those who will always do their own thing. For Princess Mary of Denmark watchers, according to advertisements for various magazines here, at the time of her second wedding anniversary, she has a new secret!

Wednesday, 3 May 2006

Warmer weather has set in - up to the mid-twenties and very pleasant although we don't really want it any hotter. After the morning shopping and chores we had lunch at home and then Virginia went on a trip to Fountainbleu and Barbizon and Bruce went to the Petit Palais.

Although impressed with Fountainbleu itself, Virgina was more taken with the delightful village of Barbizon which was home to many of the pre-impressionist painters. Robert Louis Stevenson also lived there for a while. On the edge of the forest of Fountainbleu it is a lovely village and she picked up the real estate guide for the locality. AU$1,000,000 will just about get you into the downmarket area of Barbizon. Oh well, it looks like we will continue to rent in Montmartre when we come to Paris.

The Petit Palais was a real surprise. First, Bruce arrived on the day when it was free although he had been practicing his "fractured French" to ask if they had a seniors' price. It really is the museum and gallery of the city of Paris with some wonderful realistic paintings and sculpture as well as a nice collection of Monets and Pissaros. The building itself is beautiful and airy and real joy in which to wander around.

On a completely different topic, we've been wondering about the number of dogs in Paris. Why do so many people, particularly living in apartments, have dogs? If anyone knows, please tell us.

Tuesday, 2 May 2006

We would advise anybody wishing to tour a major cemetery - anywhere in the world - to first call at the cemetery office and get a plan of who lies where. It is surprising how modest and how difficult to find some of the well-known tombs are. There are no signs which say, "this way to ... " and in a large cemetery like Pere Lachaise you can spend a lot of time wondering just where the hell you are. If you enjoy just wandering, that's great, but if you are looking for particular sites, then get a map.

One of the things that most surprised us at Pere Lachaise was the number of monuments to those who died in the Nazi concentration camps. Beautiful and moving monuments located where they couldn't possibly be missed. They seemed in most cases to refer to a particular death camp whether Auschwitz or Treblinka or one of the others.

Having mastered the Metro on past trips, this years challenge was the buses. There is an excellent system and we find we can often get where we want above ground. This has the advantage of taking us through areas we might not otherwise get to see and the disadvantage of being somewhat slower than the metro. Still, it is an interesting and different experience. Today, for example, we took the 60 to Pere Lachaise and went through much of the north-eastern area of Paris. The districts ranged from nice bourgeois settlements to some slums that would make most people blanch. Our local contacts tell us that there are particular areas that definitely are no-go! We went through these on the bus and could see why you would not want to get off.

Manners on the bus are amazingly good. There are signs reminding people they need to offer seats to the elderly, mothers with children and people with a disability. This seems to be heeded in a very good natured way. People are helpful and courteous in the main. More so, we think, than on the metro. There are so many different types of tickets and passes, that the bus drivers seem to pay no attention at all to whether or not you have paid or are entitled to a free ride. However, one runs the risk of coming across an inspector at some point and there is a fine for riding without a legitimate ticket.

Monday, 1 May 2006

The first of May in France is a very big day, no matter where you might be. It's not the first time we have been here on this occassion and we were aware that tempers can get frayed and emotions run hot so, in view of recent troubles we steered clear of what we thought might be trouble spots. It did remind us, however, of last year when we were on a tour bus with mostly Americans going into the town of Limoges. Americans have great difficulty with the European Left and particularly its relationship with Russia or the old Soviet Union. We remembered the comments and cries of horror when our American travellers saw that the marchers in that lovely town were carrying banners with the hammer and sickle insignia. "My God, they're Communists," we heard one of the Americans commenting.

It is a tradition on May Day when visiting family and friends to take a small bunch of Lily of the Valley (Les Mugets). At our local station a small bunch was available for one Euro (medium bunch for two Euros). Toward the centre of the city the prices for the same bunches had doubled and trebled. Selling the flowers seemed to be something that everybody and his brother was doing. Lots of children were selling home-grown bouquets trying to make a bit of pocket money.

Another cold and windy day and because it was May Day most things were shut. We made a short day of it when it started to rain.

Sunday, 30 April 2006

Today was a day of total and abject failure. If anything could be stuffed up, we did it. It started with our shopping this morning. We thought that the "supermarket," Monoprix, would be open. It wasn't! Admittedly the street was full of life with the local market in full swing, but unfortunately that didn't do us much good. OK, so we couldn't get what we wanted, but we knew that we could go to the nearby greengrocer and get a cucumber for tonights salad. Wrong again. Lovely place, lovely man who runs it, but no Concombre!

Well, there is always sightseeing. And if there is one thing Paris is great for, it is that. Well, most of the time. Just as we began our walk along the Canal St. Martin, down came the rain. It could have been worse, however, since our impression of the area we had selected to do our walk in was not too good. A bit seedy; a but rough. We staggered back between raindrops to the Metro and headed for Place Clichy.

By the time we got there, the rain was in full flow. We sheltered in a hotel for more than two hours before it let up enough for us to walk home. When we finally got back to the flat we rewarded ourselves with hot tea and potato crisps. Ah the life of Parisian luxury!