Sneak peak … What did I eat?

Agedashi Tofu – deep fried tofu, braised shitake mushrooms with okra  (yum, yum, yum! Always a staple favourite with me, this restaurant did a smashing job)

Teriyaki beef kalbi – Glazed grilled beef ribs with green chilli relish (this was a great twist on a “usual suspect” at any old Japanese restaurant … Meat was falling off the bone, and marinade was to die for)

Pork belly with miso – Steamed pork belly with hoba miso and baked eggplant (lovely to have a slightly different pork belly dish – the smokiness of the eggplant cut against the sweetness of the meat beautifully)

Happy eating!

http://www.izakayafujiyama.com/home

Can’t say that I’m a fan. But Shady Pines is certainly the place to become one. I managed two whiskeys here. Not only that, I enjoyed them.

Take a stroll down Crown St, and search (and I do mean search) for an unassuming shop front with a piece of paper tacked onto the front, stating “Shady Pines”. Open the door, walk down some stairs and you’ll find yourself in a full-blown whiskey bar. With peanuts to shell and all. Once indoors you’ll be greeted by friendly and knowledgeable staff who know much more about whiskey than I ever will.

It wasn’t just the novelty factor that appealed to me; it was the buzzing crowd, the warm and relaxed atmosphere. There’s nothing pretentious going on here. I happily lost a few hours here on an unsuspecting Thursday night and will definitely be back.

http://www.shadypinessaloon.com/

It has been some time indeed since my last post. At that time, I thought that I would definitely have been on another extended holiday by now. Alas, life had other plans.

But after getting nostalgic and reading back through some posts about Europe I realised there’s no reason why I can’t continue this blog for the smaller holidays that I do. There’s been a few since Europe in 2009 … A week in Hamilton Island (deeeeevine) and a little trip to Fiji. Some delightful weekend getaways to the likes of Berry and the Blue Mountains (NSW). Not quite enough to keep the travel itch at bay but enough to get myself through work, study and life.

This led me on to other thoughts …. Why stop with travel? Why not share all the interesting stuff? Whether that be a great new restaurant, a fun event, travel, or something completely unexpected. Hopefully some of my adventures will sound good enough that you might try them out yourself!

So with that in mind, this blog is going to be taking a slightly broader focus in that I hope to share the most memorable of my out-of-office adventures with you all. Let’s get started!

My next trip is off to Fiji with the extended family. Dad, stepmum, stepsis and kids, Pop, Aunties and their families. Going to be a fun filled 7 days of sunshine (Note to the weather gods: don’t let me down on this one), snorkelling, diving (a new found hobbie of mine), white water rafting, and of course, good food and many cocktails by the pool.

Location: Fiji
Resort: Warwick (http://warwickfijihotel.com/)

Stay tuned!

We absolutely have not even scraped the surface of London. Despite having visited London twice already, it remains high on the list of “MUST SEE AGAIN” places. There were countless shows on besides the one we did go to see (Oliver at Drury Lane Royal Theatre – FANTASTIC!) that were really appealing. There were countless galleries/museums besides the one I did get to (the Victoria & Albert – very quirky; to quote another “The world’s best collections of odds and ends”) that I could lose myself in for days. In London it seemed there was “countless anything and everything” that I have yet to do!

…..

So it has been nearly TWO months since I wrote the above and I am (finally) getting around to finishing my blog. Forgive me if I repeat any of the above, but it’s the last original text from my blog whilst I was writing overseas so I don’t really want to delete it and start again! For anyone who is still checking this in an increasingly vain hope that I will get around to finishing things off – SURPRISE! Funny how quickly reality got in the way of something that was so important to me whilst I was away!

Anyway I will get back to London now – hopefully my memory isn’t too dusty after all this time. London involved a lot of catching up with people for Rob and I. Rob’s friend was by chance in Old London Town during our stay, which was great, as he was a bit more familiar with London than we were so we went out one night to a few pubs in Soho area.

On another night we all went out on an organised pub crawl, from the same company that organised the pub crawl we went on in Prague, at the beginning of the trip. We really had come full circle! This was a very different pub crawl, there were probably only 10-15 of us and it was midweek, but the smaller crowd was great and we all had lots of fun going to various pubs/clubs together. It really goes to prove that it is a small world after all, as one of the girls I met during the night is about to do her teaching prac at my old school in Newcastle, and knows a few of my old teachers. (And as a side note, speaking of Novacastrians, one of the staff members at our hostel also haled from Newie and is/was good friends with some of my friends, and lives around the corner from my old house. It seems us Novacastrians are simply inescapable!).

On another night, Rob and I went to Fabric, a well-known club to see a DJ we knew and liked. I don’t think we had our party shoes on though because we were home before the DJ we wanted to see even started playing (he began at 5am!) and ended up chilling out in the downstairs common room of the hostel with the staff – which was actually really nice! Overall the nightlife we experienced whilst in London had a great vibe and I wish we had more time to further explore, however had we done so we wouldn’t have had the energy or motivation to keep our days in London packed with activity so in the end it was probably a ‘healthy’ balance

Days were just as busy as nights were when it came to catching up with people. I managed to see Amanda, my mum’s lifelong friend who lives in South Kensington, for an afternoon in the Victoria and Albert museum. I’ve already mentioned how enjoyable I found that, and it was topped off with a delightful afternoon tea in the adjoining cafe (which was incredibly stunning). What I didn’t mention about the V&A is the absolute beauty of the building as a stand alone structure, admirable in its finish and decadence even aside from the amazing collection of art/tidbits it contains. I wanted to spend an hour or so just roaming the building to admire the architecture and design but unfortunately was running low on time. It was really nice to have visited though, as I later found out that was one of my Mum’s favourite’s when she visited London, just a few months before me.

Yet another day was taken up roaming the markets at Covent Gardens with my cousin Jessica, and her friend Amy. We had an absolutely delightful girly day together (Rob was off exploring the British Museum, which to my sincere regret, I missed out on this time round) involving shopping for Christmas pressies, a long lunch listening to the live musicians outside the window in a pub nestled into the corner of the markets, and a trip into a dessert shop to get some ‘out-of-this-world’ homemade muffins and a ‘took ten years off my life’ kitkat chocolate thickshake.

Visiting the markets was a recommendation from my other cousin Claire, who told me how great they were, and I definitely approved! Just my cup of tea. For myself I picked up a cute pair of PJ’s, which I only mention because they have little ‘Big Ben’s', double decker buses, and rainclouds with a sun bravely peeping out imprinted all over them. I wear them as much as I can whilst being scared to wear them too much in case I wear off the pattern! I simply love them because they remind me of London and my awesome adventures every time I have them on.

On another chilled evening we visited the Winter Wonderland, in Hyde Park. This was one of my favourite moments in London. I felt just like a little kid again, excited by all the pretty lights, rides, delicious wafting smells of food, games, and last but not least, an outdoor ice rink!

It was such fun, although we sadly missed out on ice skating as the first session was sold out and we would have had to wait a few hours for the next. But it was definitely an experience I was glad to have, and really brought the festive spirit into focus for me. It was even nice being kitted out in beanies, scarves, mittens, coats; all rugged up in the frosty evening air, rosy cheeked and walking arm in arm through the park with puffs of smoke escaping our lips and dissipating into night air. I could get used to the cold for moments like that!

We of course spent a day doing traditional sight seeing, going on another walking tour, with a very charismatic English ‘lout’ who gave us an interesting and funny, if not particularly fact-driven tour through some of the more popular sights, such as Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, etc.

One thing I found very amusing, though I’m not sure how true this is, is the apparently lax security of Buckingham Palace. Apparently a drunkard got into the palace once, merely by jumping the walls, and set off so many alarms at once that the security guards thought it was a malfunction and reset the system. In the meantime, the man had found his way to the Queen’s bedroom and sat on the end of the bed and for some time engaged her in conversation. It took half an hour until she was able to convince him, in his drunken state, to let her call her butler to get him something or other, and in doing so, pressed her panic button. Another story involved a lost pack of German tourists, who late at night jumped the wall, thinking it was the wall to Hyde Park, and camped in the Queen’s backyard, campside fire and all. They were not discovered until the next morning, when all packed up and roaming about, one of them asked a guard where the nearest ice cream stall was.

Oh, and in the picture below, you’ll notice in the middle lane beneath the arc, a lane closed and gated. This is the Queen’s own special road leading from Buckingham Palace to … somewhere … I don’t actually know how far it goes haha. But yes, it is only opened when she is coming/going to Buckingham Palace – not too shabby to have your own special traffic lane!

Another historical visit involved a stop at The Tower of London. I’ve visited once before with my Dad but it was years ago, so I found it all very interesting, particularly the Crown Jewels (mmmmm sparkles!).

There was a great exhibition on Henry VIII there which we both enjoyed and it was very interesting (and spooky) walking the outer walls and surrounds – it definitely hasn’t lost any of its charm and achieves the ‘ghostly medieval fortress’ feel very well! Being able to see carvings etched into the stone walls from prisoners held there hundreds of years ago and then hearing the fates of those same prisoners was particularly eery.

Just outside you have a rather perfect view of London Bridge, which was great because we ran out of time to walk closer and stroll across it or anything like that. We took another picture with a better view of the bridge, but I like this one better as the other shows all the repairs taking place on the bridge itself and isn’t nearly so nice:

Visiting St Paul’s Cathedral was another highlight of London (and an expensive one at that, even with student prices!). It was almost worth the money though, as it was completely breathtaking:

Unfortunately you weren’t allowed to take pictures inside, though this is probably a good thing as I’m sure we couldn’t have taken any pictures that would have done the architectural beauty of the cathedral any justice. It was yet another steep climb to the top, and I didn’t make it the whole way unfortunately, as it was closing time and we only had a few minutes to get there. My little legs just couldn’t keep pace with Rob so I rushed him on and contented myself with the fantastic views I still had on the level I was on. Beautiful! We found that with views like that below, we didn’t need to pay the exorbitant fee to jump on the London Eye; all the views for a lesser price!:

If you look closely, you can even see the London Eye in the distance. That just about brings me to our final day in London. It was a bit hard to fill in, because we had to be at the airport in the afternoon, but had to check out of the hotel early in the morning. So those kind of days are always harder to fill in, and we were very melancholy at the outset at the thought of leaving our wonderful holiday and the impending plane journey (which, by the way, was absolutely, soul-destroyingly horrid!). But with the morning we did manage to pop to Madame Tussards, which is always fun. I particularly like this photo with Audrey Hepburn:

The best thing we did with our last day was drop out to an old suburb that Rob’s parents got married in when they lived in the UK. It was a great adventure and interesting to see a suburb a bit further out of London. Alas, the church where they were married has been replaced by a block of flats! Very sad! But it was really nice to go and visit and I think Rob really enjoyed it himself

Now, this really and truly brings me to the very end of this blog, for now! I have managed to avoid finishing it for long enough, and though I’m really sad to be leaving off for now, I’m reassured only be the fact that Rob and I are already planning our next trip, likely to be a shorter, cheaper holiday to South East Asia for a month or so at the end of 2010. So one day in the future I’ll be writing about entirely new adventures in an entirely new place, and I can’t wait!

So, until then, see you on the flip side!

We had a great time at the rugby, and the Australian flag that Gary lent us came in very handy:

I was glad to finally be inside the Millenium Stadium as last time I visited Wales with my family the boys all went to a World Cup qualifier match there. I was desperate to go, having been in the city with them before the game and seen how electric the atmosphere was (but of course having already passed up my opportunity to get a ticket!). So it was great to be there after missing out last time, and thankfully Australia didn’t let us down with a 33-12 victory!

My favourite part of visiting Cwmbran (the town my family lives in just near Cardiff) was the family time I got soak up. Chilling at home with good company, good food, good wine (and two pubs within a convenient stroll) was great! So here are a few happy snaps of just that:

We really are getting very slack with our photo taking so I can’t post many more pictures of what else we got up to in Wales. Visiting Caerleon was pretty interesting, and the museums there were also free which made for some cheap sightseeing. All the national museums etc are free in the UK, which is something Rob and I can’t get used to! Rob is off exploring the British Museum today in London, and he’ll probably spend the whole day in there without spending money on anything other than lunch. Very cool in my opinion.

Anyway, unfortunately it was too bloody freezing to spend much time outside in the ruins of the amphitheater and barracks of Caerleon; I literally couldn’t feel my hands or feet by the time we were done. So we quickly hurried back indoors for some lunch and then Rob went off for a walk up the mountain which sits at the back of the family house with Keith (both came back looking very grubby – I think there were a few falls in the mud, though did that come before, or after, the stop at the pub!?).

Visiting the Big Pitt was pretty interesting as well, though Philippa didn’t like the heavy helmets and battery packs you had to wear so much. Nor did she like the fact that the guide made her open and close or the air shaft doors to let everyone pass through (just like the children who used to work to the mines would have done, only if they could not afford a candle they would have been tied to the door so they didn’t run away in the dark and hurt themselves by running into a wall or down a hole!). That’s okay though, I wouldn’t have liked it so much either! Yet again it was superiorly freezing, but Keith got us in for one happy snap, which is the last photo I have to post:

Rob and I both agree that next time we get to Wales it will definitely have to be at a warmer time of year. This is the third time I’ve been to Wales in late autumn/winter! And Keith and Eve told us quite a bit about the different things to do in warmer weather so we’ll definitely be back to explore a bit further out one day. Also, maybe it is just the colder weather, but we’ve noticed that our motivation is generally starting to wane – we’ve been getting up later, getting tired more easily (or I am anyway). So even though I don’t want to stop the fun just yet, I think my body is telling me it’s time to chill out a bit.

Speaking of which, this is my LAST (that is right, LAST) day in London! Tomorrow we pack up our backpacks for the last time and check out of the hostel, ready to head off to the airport and embark upon a 24 hour flight to Seoul, and then a 10 hour flight to Sydney, HOME!! So I am sure during all that spare time I will have plenty of time to write up my last post for this trip, all about London. I’ll see you all soon!

It was very sad to leave Paris behind, but the pain was somewhat lessened by what I had to look forward to. That is, using Tours as a base to explore some of the many superb chateaux of France. It was exactly my cup of tea. It is definitely a good thing that I didn’t discover them sooner because I probably would have wanted to plan our whole stay in France around visiting any nearby chateaux (or ‘extreme luxury’ holiday houses). My favourite was Cheverny, a chateau built over 300 years ago that is still owned by the same family:

It was not one of the largest or most extravagant, but the fact that the same family had owned it all these long years helped the history of the place come alive and made it much more personal than some of the other places we visited. It also helped that the house was just stunning inside –  so very luxurious! My favourite room was the library, with over 2,000 books, some of which were complete original collections. Other special aspects of the house included original leather bearing the family coat of arms inlaid on the walls, an armoury room, portraits of various family members, and even a room reserved completely for the King when he visited the chateau (yes they were a very important family!). The surrounding grounds were also spectacular, acres of forest on which traditional hunts still take place. Of course, what is a hunt, without your very own horde of thoroughbreed hounds, kept in their own kennels on the property, to lead the way:

But if you think that is extravagant, you should have seen the next chateau that we visited, Chambord. This was built for one of the French kings, though it was not completed before his death. With over 440 rooms, and partially designed by Leonardo De Vinci, it was really a sight for sore eyes:

Inside, you are able to see Leonardo de Vinci’s inspirational ‘double staircase’ design – a spiral staircase with two completely separate sets of stairs entwining each other, climbing the five or six levels to the top of the chateau:

If Rob took one staircase, and I the other, you were walking around the same spiral but could only see each other through the small light shaft in the middle, and never met on the actual stairs. The surrounding grounds were a bit more basic, as this chateau was never actually completed in it’s entirety due to the death of the king, but I found my breathe taken away nonetheless:

Our third chateau was Chenonceau. This was another stunning chateau, perched not next to the river, but indeed on top of it:

This was given by one of the French kings to his mistress, where she lived quite comfortably until his death. After his death she was shunted off to another chateau so that the Queen could move herself into this one. Even so, it was a pretty sweet deal for a mistress if you ask me!

Our final stop on the chateau tour was Amboise, a castle in the city of Amboise, where Leonardo de Vinci is buried. And at the risk of sounding stupidly repetitive, it was again very beautiful!

From Tours, we moved on to Caen, primarily to take a tour of the D-Day beaches of Normandy. I’ve already spoken quite a bit about what it is like seeing all this war-related history, so I won’t go into much detail again. We visited the Caen Memorial museum, which was very worthwhile and took up the better part of the day. And the following day we took a guided tour of the beaches, which was just incredible. There is still so much intact, such as the artificial harbour created by the Allies to allow transport of men, ammunition and supplies into Normandy, and return casualties, etc. You can see the remains strewn in the water in the photo below – enormous blocks of concrete were towed from England by ships and then sunk in order to create the harbour:

There were numerous German defenses such as the below pillbox and observation post still in tact as well and it was very eery walking around them:

Anyway, moving along from there, we headed to Saint Malo in Brittany to spend our last remaining days by the French coast before catching an overnight ferry to Portsmouth, UK. It was good for my soul to be near the sea again, breathing salty air and waking up to the sound of gulls. The craziest thing about Saint Malo was the insane tides they have, as you can see from the before and after pics below:

There were a few fortified islands that you could walk out to and visit at low tide, though you got trapped on them if you were not careful as the high tide comes in very quickly! Rob and I didn’t know this when we first set out to explore one of the forts, so it was really very lucky that we happened to go in the morning and get back to the main shoreline before we were caught out! You also got a great view of these fortified islands when you walked around the fortified city walls:

The city walls probably made Saint Malo for me. The whole city was walled off, which gave the old town a very medieval charm, and walking around them allowed spectacular views of the harbour, coastline and island forts:

During out stay we also took a day trip to a nearby city, Rennes, to visit one of Rob’s friends from school. We spent the day wandering around and were introduced to more typically French food, galettes. These were delicious savoury buckwheat pancakes, another type of French cuisine we had not discovered for ourselves. They were so good that we ended up having galettes for the next three or four meals, and we were disappointed not to have discovered them earlier in our stay.

Last but not least, on our final day in France we visited the old monastery known as Mont Saint Michel. Now that was a real wonder. As the photos below show you, the monastery is perched on a rocky outcrop in the middle of nowhere. Despite being low tide when we visited, at high tide the island is completely surround by water, thus isolating its original inhabitants until the next low tide:

Thesedays a causeway has been built up so that the island is now always accessible via one road, but it was still a very incredible place to visit. A sign in the car parks states that you must move your cars by a certain time of day or they will be under water by the time you get back to them! What an isolating life it must have been back in the day! The locals apparently say that the tide comes in at ‘the speed of a galloping horse’, and with the added danger of surrounding pockets of quicksand, it’s a very risky place to be unless you know the tides well. Despite the danger it really did make for some stunning scenery and I’m very glad we took the time to go.

That brings me to the end of another long post, and very sadly, to the end of describing our time in France. I am so glad we spent three weeks in France, and know that one day I will be back there for there is still so much I want to see and do!

Alas, our wonderful week in Paris has come to an end! I was so sad to be leaving the luxury of our own apartment and the glamour and excitement of Paris. Having our own place definitely added to the fantastic time we had there – it felt like a holiday from a holiday. Paris just isn’t the kind of city to be accommodated in a dorm room, waiting in lines for showers, getting woken up at strange hours with people coming and going etc, in my opinion! As an added bonus, this was the view from our windows that greeted us every evening upon return from a day of exploration:

Yes, it was definitely a hard life there in Paris!

Actually, Paris would have to be one of the biggest highlights  so far, up there with Vienna and the Austrian Alps as one of my favourites. There was still plenty to see and do, even by the end of the week. But this is not a bad thing because it gives me more motivation to go home and save for my next trip.

I found Paris to be just as glamourous and luxurious as I’d always imagined, and equally as beautiful. The beautiful parts of Paris however, are spread throughout the entire city. There is no particular ‘Old Town’ that has a concentration of historical charm, it seemed to be just everywhere! It certainly wasn’t a place you could take a walking tour in, because everything you need to see is so spread out and you really do need to utilise the Metro to get to some of the places. That’s why it was definitely a wonderful idea to take a Segway tour, which is what Rob and I did with Gary when he came to visit us for a few days. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! As we all know I probably will never get my driving license, so now I think I’ll aim to get a Segway. Especially if I always look this ‘cool’ riding around on one:

We were on the Segways for a few hours, and it was getting pretty icy cold towards the end of the tour, but it was so much fun hooning around on them, zipping about the parks, avenues and bike paths of Paris that the cold weather didn’t even matter.It was a good thing they had a speed regulator built into them because you definitely wanted to go faster than you were allowed. We all had a great time, and it was definitely a great way to see sights of Paris effectively.

With Gary, we also had dinner on the Champs Elysee and went to a late night show at the Lido (similar to the Moulin Rouge). Aside from Cat’s birthday in Copenhagen, it was the first time we had really eaten out at a nice restaurant since we left Australia and the whole night was a thorough spoiling and lots of fun. The Lido was definitely an experience … it’s hard to describe it sufficiently so I suggest you YouTube it! Lots of girls and guys dancing in minimal clothing, with little side acts from various other performers with particular talents. The most terrifying act consisted of a pair of ice skaters, skating about on a tiny little square rink that rose up out of the stage floor. For most of the time the man was holding onto the girl’s legs and whirling her up and down and round and round so that her head was mere inches from the unforgiving ice floor. It was a very spectacular performance. That night Gary also introduced us to macaroons, which thus far we hadn’t discovered:

I think that is because we discovered eclair au chocolats first and were so hooked on them that we hadn’t been able to bring ourselves to move on to anything else. Mmm … Anyway, on Gary’s advice, Rob and I visited the famous Parisian macaroon store, Laguere, in which you line up in (there’s always a line its so popular) with every flavour you could hope for. I splurged and bought myself a little gift pack from there. When in Paris!

Without a doubt the loveliest night we had was our last night in Paris, where we all went to a nearby restaurant with exceptional typically French cuisine. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten (and the boys enjoyed theirs too).  The whole restaurant oozed Parisian charm, nestled into a side street with low lighting, crowded tables and a cosy atmosphere. The waiters were so friendly and explained everything to us in English. This was very needed, as usually we can get the gist of a menu, having been in France a while now. But the very authentically French cuisine listed, such as veals liver, hare, partridge, blood sausage, were not part of our vocabulary! I ended up going with scallops sautéed in butter and served in their shells with croutons and some other kind of delicious dressing for entrée, and for my main I had a partridge in a rich dark sauce with parsnips. For dessert I of course had the soufflé with cinnamon pear. I never want to forget that meal! It’s worth going to Paris again just to eat there.

But there was also plenty that Rob and I got up to before Gary arrived, as he was with us for our last three days in Paris. Aside from the restaurants I mentioned above, Rob and I also thoroughly enjoyed cooking at home with a glass of wine whilst we watched the sunset behind the Tour Eiffel each evening. Really, it can’t get much better than that! We also of course visited the Eiffel tower. We thought it would take about half an hour or so, but it ended up taking us over two by the time we dealt with all the stairs, crowds, elevators and line ups. It ended up being a fairly expensive exercise as you also need to pay for a new ticket for each level you climb (sneaky tourist trap!). But, what can you do, it is the Eiffel tower and you must get to the top to see the amazing views:

On the same day as the Eiffel we also shopped on the Champs Elysee, and I bought a gorgeous (and miraculously cheap) white coat – very exciting. We also visited the Arc de Triumphe, which is at the end of the Champs, but we didn’t climb it since we were already going to the top of the Eiffel. It was very a busy day.

We were also lucky enough be in Paris for the first Sunday of the month of November. The Louvre, and other big museums are free for all visitors on the first Sunday of each month, so Rob and I, along with what seemed half the world, showed up to explore. I’m not sure if it was due to the free entry, or whether the Louvre is generally always packed, but it was very hard to enjoy the experience whilst being jostled by over-eager, trigger happy photo takers who rarely looked to see what the painting was before snapping a photo of it and moving along. Ludicrous!

Anyway, at least I can now say that I have seen (after much effort) the Mona Lisa, and some other famous and beautiful paintings. I think next time I visit the Louvre will either be very early or very late in the day in deep winter to try and avoid the crowds. And it really is just enormous so I might also devote a bit of extra time to it!

We also briefly visited Monmartre, though didn’t stay too long due to the insane crowds! We firstly visited Sacre Cour, which is one of my favourite churches, up there with the Berliner Dom. It is a basilica perched neatly on a hilltop and looks out onto the streets of Paris, with some amazing views on a clear day:

Once you get to the bottom of all those stairs though, it doesn’t look as large as you initially thought:

Upon leaving Monmartre we took the scenic route home so that I could get the mandatory tourist snap out the front of the Moulin Rouge:

One our final day we visited Versailles, which was also really packed out but luckily we had pre-paid tickets to avoid the line up to get in. It was b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l inside! Everything inside was so decadent; gold, marble, paintings, sculpture etc – even more so than some of the other palaces we’ve seen. Well worth visiting, though unfortunately we didn’t explore much of the palace gardens since it was rainy and cold and I hear they are gorgeous too. Here’s a snap of the famous Hall of Mirrors, though it doesn’t really do it justice:

So, as you can probably tell from my incessant raving, Paris was the best! So many elements contributed to making it a great experience, aside from the city itself. The apartment, I’ve already mentioned how great that was. And getting to see some family over here was just fantastic. I feel so lucky! I was definitely starting to need some family time and it was just what I needed to get me through to when I get home. Also, I’ve been to Paris once before, many years ago with my Dad. Many of the things I’ve mentioned I did with Dad previously, but my memory was really hazy. However, what I did remember gave me the slightest sense of familiarity about Paris which was nice when you are used to being in a completely new and unknown place every few days. For example, I remembered the crazy Parisian drivers and insane traffic, so I already knew to look twice, or three times, before stepping onto any street, regardless of whether I was on a pedestrian crossing or not – as many cars and especially scooters won’t stop!

Well, despite having a lot more to say I will have to leave it at that. Yet again I find myself having left Paris almost a week ago, and now playing catch up with two more posts to write up!

In fact, Lille was such a small stay that we only took a grand total of 3 photos. It was a lovely little place, but there wasn’t too much in the way of sightseeing. Lille was my baby, mainly because trusty Lonely Planet recommended it for the shopping and good food (quite correctly as it turned out). So most of Lille was sitting in squares having coffee and exploring some boutiques. Probably not entirely Rob’s cup of tea but we also did a walking tour and that was interesting too. I’m not sure if he is just humouring me but sometimes he even suggests stopping for a coffee now!

In an earlier post I commented on the chocolatier’s in Brussels and how gorgeous some of the chocolate desserts were, like a work of art. Well I didn’t get a photo of those, but there turned out to be a similar store in Lille:

It isn’t the best photo but hopefully gives an idea of what I meant earlier. This entire thing is made of chocolate, sadly I think it is much to beautiful to ever actually eat.

Amiens was exciting as well. We primarily used Amiens as a base to take a full day tour of the Somme battlefields and Villers-Bretonneux, learning about WWI. I was surprised to find that I very much enjoyed the day. If anyone is ever in the area (on the off chance) and interested, you simply must use the same tour guide that we had, Oliver, as he was fantastic and so enthusiastic about his subject area that you couldn’t help but be drawn in. He just started up his business so I am shamelessly promoting him where I can. It was really an interesting day, and the tragedy was so much more conceivable because it wasn’t ‘an officer who lived hundreds of years ago’, like Waterloo, which made it feel less real somehow. This time, it was grandfathers, great uncles, fathers even, of people living today that fought and died.

There has been so much historical sightseeing and museum hopping on this trip surrounding the subject area of war. Whilst I value this and do not wish to belittle its importance, it is upsetting to realise how much time can be devoted to grappling with death and destruction … and it really does make me think how incredibly lucky I am on a level that I’m not sure I’ve felt previously. The physical presence of the war in the Somme area really brought this home for me. Dotted throughout the countryside, visible from the road are numerous cemeteries, rows and rows of white stones marking the deaths of so many. On one road I could see three different cemeteries in three separate directions. Many of the stones are unmarked, the soldier lying beneath it unknown. There are still thousands of soldiers unaccounted for who may or may not be buried in those cemeteries, or still remain buried on the battlefields themselves.

After seeing these cemeteries, and visiting the Australian war memorial there, visiting the trenches that still exist was deeply moving.

The depressions noticeable in the earth are where shells fell. I found it incredible that the scars still remained on the earth after the passage of so many years. According to our guide, experts say they will be uncovering unexploded shells and mines for another 500 years, which should give you an impression of the sheer volume used at the time. Parts of the battlefield were closed off, still unsafe due to unexploded materials. Farmers regularly turn shells up from the soil on their own lands, with the frequency that they do not bother to call the authorities but remove it themselves and only call someone to collect them where they have a few stored up. The last farmer to be injured uncovered a gas shell and suffered injuries as it leaked out.

The trenches and the shell holes would of course have been much bigger, but essentially the trench system that we saw exists as it did then. This YouTube shows the very trenches that I walked through, and also the Hawthorn Ridge mine that the English planted underneath a German company using 40 000 tonnes of explosive:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tv5gBa9DQs . This is the crater as it exists today:

You can probably imagine, from seeing this footage, the sadness of walking through the very same places, the tragedy of which is still evident over the entire region. One uplifting moment was visiting the village Villers-Brettoneux.Australians played a large role in retaking the city from the German army and as such there is a strong bond between the village and our country. So strong that the Australian flag flies from their town hall and kangaroos are pictured on the town hall building. ANZAC day is held each year in the Australian war memorial there and is attended by thousands of people each year. Their primary school was a gift from the schools of Victoria and more than anything else in the village highlights the strong and unforgotten bond the villagers have with Australia. They have aboriginal artworks made by the children dotted throughout the playground and their assembly hall has wooden carved sculptures of our more unique animals, accompanied with blown up pictures of our capital cities on each wall. They also, quite literally, do not want anyone to forget:

And as to the rest of Amiens, we did our usual thing for smaller towns of quiet exploration, and as usual it was lovely Worth noting was the enormous church, the Notre-Dame Amiens. This church’s facade is supposedly twice the size of the Notre-Dame Paris. I find that hard to imagine, especially after having seen Notre-Dame in Paris, but it certainly was bigger! As the next photo shows you, even the entrances are overwhelming:

I definitely felt dwarfed underneath those doors! And here is the church, front and back:

It certainly did leave quite the impression! That about wraps things up and I am finally up to date, as I am currently in Paris, and that will be my next post. And what a post it shall be. Rob and I have been kept very busy so far here, and Gary arrives tomorrow so I will have some family to catch up with for the next few days!

Bruges was a sleepy little place, or would have been if it were not packed to the rafters with tourists. It would have been much better without the crowds of tourists, but I can’t really say that since I was one of them! But overall, if you have seen the movie In Bruges I can say that it was just as stunning as in the movie. It might be a little too sleepy for some, but I loved the idea of wandering the boutiques, markets and galleries for a few days, eating lunches by the canals and finding an inviting pub to bunker down in for the evening with a hearty meal, glass of beer and good company. The architecture was also very much up my alley – the whole town was a labyrinth of cobbled laneways and tilting half wood houses that stretched out and seemed to be built into one another, so that from your own window, it is impossible to tell which addition belongs to which house:

These twisted houses with hidden nooks and crannies, wooden beams in the ceilings and dipping floors are so appealing to me, I think they’re just soaked in character and very homely. The network of alleyways also continues into the public areas. Rob and I found this alley, Des Garre, in the town centre and we found a pub to have a beer in that looked and felt hundreds of years old.

The beer was called Du Garre, so we had Du Garre beer in a pub called Garre in Des Garre laneway! You can only get this one particular type of beer in this one pub, apparently. It was the strangest tasting beer I have ever had, so thick and heavy, it was a meal in itself! And very potent too, you definitely only needed the one.

During our stay in Bruges we also went on a day trip out to the coast on push bikes. It took us about an hour and a half each way, and the way home was very tiring, but the amazing thing was that we didn’t go up a single hill the entire bike ride. Belgium is so so flat! So overall it was a very easy ride and there are designated bike roads scattered all throughout the surrounds of Bruges with various scenic routes.

Our particular route involved riding through private farmlands, sleepy tiny villages and then finally to the coast. It was such a beautiful ride into the countryside; being so flat, you could see the farmlands laid out like a patchwork quilt of earthly colours rolling out endlessly into the horizon. It was great to finally reach the coastline but I truly think I’m so spoiled by the amazing Australian beaches that nothing will ever really compare:

On the way home we stopped for a break by the side of a paddock and no sooner had we got off our bikes than these three fellows came to say hello to us.

I always thought donkeys were sort of ugly or not so bright creatures. I’m not sure why as I’ve never been up close to one but I suppose that’s how they are stereotyped. I feel terrible about that now because these guys were nuzzling us and so tame and friendly, and just like a horse their eyes seemed so intelligent. When we got up and started to leave the biggest even started braying as if to say “Come back and pat me some more!”

I’ll leave off with this photo of the main square tower:

Some of you may recognise it as the tower that is featured in the climax of the movie In Bruges. It was cool seeing, and recognising it myself. Shame there was no Colin Farrell accompanying it though!