Canoe Dordogne

29 March

When we left the Arcachon hotel, I had to pay for the room at the end of the stay. Being used to the NZ and US system, I usually just leave the keys in the room or reception and leave, knowing that they will charge it to my card anyway. Suspecting the french system might be different, I reviewed our Visa statement online, and there was no payment for our Bordeaux hotel. So we did a runner on the french l'hotel system. It was on to the Ibis website to send an email to apologise for doing a runner and if they could bill it to my booking credit card.

Marcus forgot to mention the caterpillar walking bus we saw when the left the Neanderthal cave drawings. So voila.

After breakfast, we decided we would go canoeing on the very clear and slow flowing Dordogne river. The river flows past some historic townships, castles and chateaus.

The weather was a beautiful sunny and windless 26C. After the usual wrong turns and hairy narrow lanes, and misprogramming of the GPS, I asked Marcus if he was stressed being the navigator. He said it was stressful because the road and traffic system here is confusing. I can understand what he meant. Traffic lights are really obscure, they are well hidden just like speed cameras in NZ. There is only one set of lights and when you pull up to stop, you can't actually see what the lights are doing unless you open the sun roof. So they have a set of baby traffic lights at the pedestrian level as well. Marcus will take a shot of this in tomorrow's blog.

Some country lanes are so narrow that our wing mirrors were brushing against the hedges or just clearing the rock walls, and these are two ways lanes to boot! So you can find yourself driving along a two lane street which turns out to be a one way street, and a country lane that is two ways where you ears have to be folded back, even if you are the only car on that lane.

I digress, back to the canoeing.

We started at Vitrac township with Canoes Loisirs, and were greeted by Tom who spoke perfect English. I mentioned it and he said he lived in UK for a number of years. Tom recommended the 16km route, which was 16km long surprisingly enough. He said that he will pick us up at the other end, just after Beynac town. We will pass under 5 bridges. He asked how long, 4 or 5 hours, I said no, 3 hours. As it was 12, he agreed to pick us up at 3pm.

Some chateaus we canoed past.

I brought some food and water for us, and some bread for any ducks and geese we may meet on the way. Marcus took the front and I took the rear as captain. For some reason, Marcus complained that he was doing all the work, and when I got involved with the paddling, we veered from one bank of the river to the other without going forward - much like my walks home with Adrian after an afternoon at Concrete.

We put in the most effort at the end of the trip, to drive the canoe up the bank as much as possible so we didn't get our feet wet. All the splashing in the canoe came to nought, everything was dried by the hot sun by the time we finished the trip. Tom was waiting and took us back to the car in his van.

I really like Sarlat, so I asked our hosts if we could stay till Sunday before we head out to Toulouse. Apparently the Saturday fresh market is quite an event, so we will see about that and keep you guys up to date. Marcus needs some fast food after eating healthy or eating less for so many days. So we are going to have super high calorie kebab and frites meal for dinner ce soir.

Bon nuit.

Medieval Sarlat

27 March

After a good night's sleep in Arcachon, we woke up and shipped out of the motel. Not only did we actually make it back to Bordeaux to drop Josh off, the car, and everyone in it, arrived intact.

We then set a course on the GPS to take us to Bergarac. Despite being waylaid by a duo of windscreen cleaners who hustled us out of 2 Euros and a highway tollbooth which hustled us out of 6, we arrived in Bergarac around lunch time. Berganac is a small riverside town on the banks of the Dordogne River.

Our first act after the long-ish drive was to find the bathroom. A sign on the wall of it read that the toilet seat is disinfected every hour. I can only assume this to be true because the toilet didn't actually have a seat. They probably keep it somewhere a lot less filthy to lovingly scrub it every 60 minutes, but then again, this toilet didn't seem to have a flush button either, even though it is generally quite a crucial aspect of the whole thing.

We had lunch in one of the town square and then had a look around the streets. But we had arrived at precisely the time that everyone decides to take their lunch break for two hours because every shop was closed. With nothing to do there, we drove on to Sarlat.

The drive through the French country is extremely pleasant, especially once you figure out how to play music through the stereo and not have to listen solely to the incessant instruction of the GPS. We passed through several small villages and crossed the Dordogne several times and made it to Sarlat with a minimal amount of wrong turns.

After parking the car, we had a wander around Sarlat's centre-ville. It is quite a typical medieval-ish town (I have no idea what I'm talking about) though certain areas of it have become modernised. we walked through the old part of the town, looking at the churches and cobblestone alleys. On our way back to the car we picked up an eclair for mum's birthday before heading off to Carrefour for a grocery run.

We eventually found our bed and breakfast, the Girouette, after a confusing drive through some rural streets and a gigantic struggle to make it up the driveway. It is run by a lovely retired Dutch couple. The house is huge with many rooms. We were the only tenants in the whole place and got to choose our room. I opted for the one with the two single beds. It doesn't do anything to help the snoring but at least we didn't have to share a duvet.

For dinner, we took the ten minute walk into Sarlat town to find some place nice to sit and eat. It turns out Sarlat is exceedingly quiet in the evenings with almost no night life that we could see. The only other people out were tourists like ourselves who had also wrongly assumed that there would be something to do. Regardless, we found a nice restaurant at which to dine and had a very filling meal that would probably sustain us for the next few days.

The next day we rose for the breakfast part of our bed and breakfast (croissants, baguette, etc...) and then headed out to learn about some prehistory. The first place we stopped at was the Grotte de Font-de-Gaume, where we had a guided tour of the cave paintings done by prehistoric man. The tour began by the guide closing the door of this narrow, dark cave on us before inquiring if anyone suffered from claustrophobia. The drawings themselves were very interesting, painted with natural pigments like iron oxide and mostly depicting bison and horses. No photography was allowed but we could only just make out the pictures with our eyes so photographs would probably have just shown a bit of rock.

After a bit of deliberation, we decided to go to another cave painting place. On the way, a big castle on the rock face of cliff caught our eye so we stopped for a look.

This turned out to be Castle Reignac, a recently refurbished castle-museum type deal. I was thinking that living in a castle would be pretty cool until we reached the instruments of torture room.

All the grotesque images and mean looking devices were a bit offputting. Fascinating though. After this, we broke for a dubious lunch (it consisted entirely of an apple each and some mandarins) before heading to Lascaux II, our next prehistoric site.

Lascaux II (according to my dad) is so named because the cave drawings there are only replications and restorations, not the original works of our neanderthalic ancestors. This resulted in a somewhat cheesy display of prehistoric art and a 45 minute guided tour that could've been done in 10.

Following this, we sped on over to the Chateau de Castelnaud, the museum of war in the middle ages. Even bigger and more imposing than Reignac, we walked through the castle looking at old weapons and armour and walked across the battlements to see the trebuchets and all that good stuff. I also inadvertently used the women's bathroom but no one was around so it was ok.

 

Dune du Pilat in Arcachon

24 March

We had dinner in one of the delightful squares that pepper Bordeaux city. There are so many cafes here, so the cost of eating out is very reasonable. The one we chose had 3 set menus, in euros, 13.50, 25 and 35. You get a three course meal with each one. Marcus and I chose the 13.50 one. We had onion soup with a weird dollop of cheese in it messing up our ability to slurp it up quickly. I had la canard (fried duck) with salad and round cut frites and citron tart for dessert. Marcus had a salmon and chocolate cake. Josh joined us while we were having dessert and helped me drink some wine. It was just so lovely sitting there watching all the people activities around us in the warm evening. Home by 11pm which is really 10pm, because day light saving in France started this morning. We are only 11 hours behind NZ and soon to be 10.

Next morning 25 March, we had a Calzone lunch in a pizzeria by the Garonne River. I had booked a wine tour for us after lunch. The tour was to Saint Emilion, a medieval town an hour north east of Bordeaux.

The winery part of the tour was strictly for newbies, for the more experienced wine drinkers, it would be better to get a private guide and go with a group of friends. Saint Emilion however was very nice. We visited an underground church, which took the monks about a 100 years to excavate. And walked around the little town looking at all the quaint buildings and shops. All very Harry Potterish.

Next morning 26 March, it was time to start the driving part of our tour. It was a 10 min ride in the tram to the Peugeot office. Paperwork and instructions on the car and GPS took about 30 mins. We are going to Dune de Pilat on the Atlantic coast, an hours drive from Bordeaux. Josh was joining us for this trip. He'd over estimated the travel time to the Peugeot office and was waiting for us outside while we were getting the run through from the Peugeot agent.

The Peugeot 308 station wagon merits a write-up of its own. I will do that later once I figure out the features and so on.

I was rather nervous pulling out of the showroom, the car had 3km on the clock. The voice of the GPS was rather faint, and everytime time we tried to turn up the volume the French radio go louder instead, so I had to rely on Marcus to amplify and repeat the directives. You only get 100kms of gas intially, so the first stop is to fill up. After about 10 kms, I only missed 2 turns and had the reverse out of 1 one way street, not bad huh!

We drove past Simply Supermarche and spotted a gas station there. There were 3 pumps and 2 didn't work. Josh hopped out to help but he could not decide if the diesel car needed E95, E98 or gasole. As I'd done my homework, it was gasole - diesel in France. The remaining pump worked brilliantly and even accepted my NZ Visa. Instructions on the LCD came through in a mixture of English and French. Upon restarting the car the electronics inform me that I have 940 km of distance from the tank of diesel at 1.43 per litre.

It was difficult to concentrate on the GPS instructions, because I was silently chanting to myself "tight right loose left anti clockwise round about" So I had to constantly ask Marcus "what did she say".

We did get to Dune de Pilat safely. The dunes are pretty cool and it was fun climbing up and down the sand. These dunes are mini mountain sand dunes on the beach about 3 kms across and 100m metres high. We dicussed bringing a sled next time.

None of us had had breakfast and it was 1pm, so we programmed the GPS to take us to the largest supermarket figuring they would have a cafe there or we would find one on the way. While Marcus was out paying the parking ticket, I managed to turn up the volume on the GPS. There was a price to pay for this higher volume.

After driving around for 10 mins, the GPS annouced that we had arrived. We were in a middle of a residential street. Duh!

Anyway we found Carrefour, lunched, groceries, found hotel and checked in. Voila!

Arcachon is a pretty seaside town with wide and long sandy beaches. As good as any in the Carribean, Hawaii or tropics. The Atlantic water was super cold and no one was swimming. The air temperature would be about 28C, no wonder everyone loves the weather in the South of France. We walked around a bit, bought some dinner from another supermarket.

 

 

 

Parti Paris Bonjour Bordeaux

23 March

Friday morning marked the beginning of the end of our time in Paris as we were heading to Bordeaux that day. After eating, packing, cleaning and sorting out the details of our departure of the apartment, we still had 3 hours to kill. We absolutely slaughtered one of those hours with a final stroll around the 14th arrondissement before returning to pick up our bags and heading off to the Gare Montparnasse. Dad was lacking something to do during the 3 hour train ride to Bordeaux so we stopped by the supermarket to buy wine.

We arrived at the train station a bit too early so we sat around and waited for the arrival of our train to be announced. I had a few coins burning holes in my pocket (except for the one cent ones, those are the most pointless things ever. I'd rather have no cents than just one of them) so I hit the convenience store and vending machines for snacks.

The train eventually pulled into the station and we were faced with the challenge of finding out where we were sitting. Our ticket said we were to be in car 17 but we couldn't see any numbers printed on the carriages. I assume we were just going to walk along until we found a car that looked like it would be the type to be numbered 17 because I certainly was counting how many we had already passed. At carriage number 10, we noticed that the cars were in fact numbered. We went past 7 more cars only to find we'd reached car number 14. I'm no mathematician, but I always thought that if you have 10 things and put 7 more things next to them, then you'd have 17 things. Turns out after we passed 10, the cars started counting back down from 20. I guess someone at the train yard that morning had been half asleep and attached the second half of the train on backwards. Eventually we found our allocated places and settled in for the ride.

I was surprised by how little people ate during the ride considering the train left close to 11 and wouldn't arrive until 2. The lady in front of us had an apple, the guy a cross the aisle took like one sip of water the entire time and the girl behind him ate nothing at all. Me and my dad, on the other hand, ploughed through 2 apples, 2 bottles of water, a bottle of ice tea, a bottle of wine, 2 bags of chips, 2 sandwiches and half a tube of mentos all before we were even close to Bordeaux. The view by our seats consisted solely of a grey window frame so we had to look out the opposite side to watch the French countryside roll by.

Disembarking the train, we realised that spending all out coins at the train was not the smartest idea, as we needed change to purchase our bus tickets. After buying an overpriced bottle of water to acquire some bus fare, we made our way to the Ibis Hotel. We checked in, dumped our stuff and went for a stroll.

Bordeaux has about two bridges that cross Garonne River, which is weird considering that in Paris there is a bridge that crosses the Seine every 50 metres and the Garrone is probably twice as wide and certainly just as long (but don't quote me on that). It is also the colour of poo but thankfully doesn't smell like it (you can quote me on this one). We walked over the Pont de Pierre towards the centre-ville in the extremely cramped pedestrian lane. The streets in Bordeaux have to accommodate for trams, cars and cyclists, resulting in the pedestrians having to walk single file along the footpaths with their arms scraping against the buildings. It is a very nice bridge though, and we made it to the end without getting pushed over the bannister into the water.

Bordeaux is a very pretty, fairy tale-esque town. All the buildings are made of stone with wooden shutters and curly iron railings. The roads are mostly cobblestone and there are plenty of squares and courtyards and the gigantic cathedral of St Michel. It's like a real life version of the happily ever after town in Shrek but with less ogres and more French people. Eventually we stumbled upon the main shopping street, Rue Sainte Catherine. It's a nice avenue but with the masses of people and McDonalds's signs and Apple stores sticking out the side of the buildings, it didn't seem quite as magical.

What was magical though was the carnival that was setup near the waterfront next to a gigantic fountain monument type thing. With stalls selling pure sugar in its various shapes and colours and all the usual fair games, it was not what I expected to see in the middle of such a city. The only thing missing were the hordes of sticky children but I'm sure they'd arrive in force come the weekend.

We walked back along the waterfront, past all the cyclists, joggers and rollerbladers (apparently people still do that here). We relaxed at the hotel until about 8.30 when we met up with Josh, who has been living with his girlfriend Nicole in Bordeaux for the last few months. Josh is the son of Jonathan, a good friend of the family while Nicole is originally from Lebanon and is currently working on her phD. My dad hadn't seen him in almost a decade so there was a lot of catching up to be done.

We hopped on a tram to head towards dinner in town. We learnt from Josh along the way about the most efficient way of paying for transport, which is to not pay at all. He'd been doing this for several months now and I bet there are plenty of people who have been doing it for years.

We ate at a fancy restaurant where we got prime seating underneath a dripping air conditioning unit. With Nicole translating the menu, we ordered plates of steak and duck and settled in for the evening. The entrées were interesting, particularly the liquified chowder as I have never drunk seafood before. The main dishes were served on flat black boards. I think this was supposed to be some sort of artistic statement but I'm pretty sure it's because they would be extremely easy to clean and dropping a whole lot of them on the kitchen floor would not be a loud, messy disaster. But the food was good and the evening was very enjoyable.

We headed home at about 11.30 but the streets were still packed with people out for the night who would undoubtedly be out for much, much longer.

It seems that Bordeaux follows a similar sleeping pattern to my regular one of staying up late and getting up even later as there was no one about when went for a walk the next morning. A nutella crepe each for breakfast sustained us for the entire day which ended up being a lot of walking around.

A protest had disrupted some of the tram lines and we came across it on our trek back to the hotel, finding an entire squad of kitted-out riot police ready to dish out some French crowd control if the demonstrations got out of hand. I wanted to stick around to see if a riot would indeed break out but the police started advancing menacingly in our direction so we decided to get out of there and head back to the safety of the hotel.

 

 

Chateau Versailles

21 March

Today was the day that we made the trip out to Versailles. The morning was its usual uneventful self: I sat on the bed next to dad eating large quantities of fruit for breakfast while not understanding what was being said on French TV, followed by our obligatory Skype back home.

Mid morning we headed to the RER station at the Invalides station. RER probably stands for something, but all I know is that it's a double decker train (kinda like the ones in Sydney except less dirty and without the cool flipping seats) and it travels at the speed of a brisk walk, giving us time to take in the landscape of Paris' outskirts (spoiler alert: it's mainly apartment buildings).

We arrived at the Gare de Versailles Rive-Gauche (the train station) after half an hour and had a walk around. The plan was to rent some bikes and cycle our way through the Versaille Palace Gardens so we headed off on a 10 minute walk to find the rental place. We found it at a different train station to the one we got down at, only to discover that it had been closed for an hour and wouldn't be open again for another four, so we headed back towards the Palace.

My grasp of important historical moments is tenuous at best, possibly because I only took it once as a subject in year 9 during which my teacher was on paternity leave for half the year, meaning our class got landed with a doddery old (read: the best) reliever who spent those two terms letting us watch Band of Brothers except for this one time when we watched a professional snooker tournament. This being the case, I asked my dad for a quick rundown of the Treaty of Versailles. Turns out I did already kind of know about it and also realized that if it hadn't been made and subsequently broken, Band of Brothers would never have been created for me to watch in 3rd form history.

The Palace is an impressive bit of work, all golden gates and intricate stonework. It was really cool just to stand in the courtyard and look at it for a while. My dad opted out of going inside because he had seen it during his last visit to Paris (also because he would've had to pay and I, in all my glorious less-than-18 years of age, didn't. Seriously, if you're still under 18 and you wouldn't mind starving and living on the street, being a tourist in Paris won't cost you a cent) but I hopped in line. The queue was making good progress until I got to the very front, at which point the doors were closed on us for the good part of an hour. I wasn't too sure how long it took for them to reopen because I was busy watching this baby in front me munch on her mum's apple and then make a funny face after each bite. Sooooooooooooo cute.

Anyway, that funny baby proved to be a lot more entertaining than the interior of the palace, which was decidedly average. I didn't read anything inside and blasted through it in about 15 minutes but I now know (after googling it just then) that it was inhabited by a succession of King Louis's. There was on display some cool furniture and chandeliers but really, it's kind of like the equivalent of visiting Bill Gates' house in 1000 years to have a look at his couch and TV cabinet.

The Palace Gardens, on the other hand, were fantastic. It stretches on for ages and is really neat and symmetrical, interspersed with fountains and statues and screaming groups of children. I went for a nice stroll in search of my dad and met him by the lake, on which you can rent a boat and go for a row. I had my lunch on the lakeside while admiring the swans that live on the estate. One even came within reach of us, but I've been quite wary of aquatic bird life ever since this one time I tried to pat a duck on the head and it bit my finger.

We wandered around the gardens for a bit longer before deciding to make tracks, though I could've happily spent the whole day there. Exiting the Palace grounds, we had another walk around the area but there isn't much else tourist-worthy in Versailles so we jumped on the train back home.

Dad made a pasta dish for dinner, I scalded my hand several times while doing the dishes and so ended our 6th day in Paris.

Marcus XVII

Dome, Crypt and Catacombs

20 March

We were going to do the catacombs in the morning, but the day turned out really nice. So we decided to spend the morning above ground and took the metro to Monmartre. We overshot the Sacre Cour stop and ended up walking to Sacre Cour from the back end. This area of the city appears older than the rest with narrow cobblestone streets and the only part of Paris that is undulating.

Sacre Cour itself is a very pretty cathedral, not the largest I have seen in Europe. As Paris is a low rise city (apart from the Montparnasse tower), this cathedral has the high ground over everything in Paris.

We decided to take the Dome and Crypt tour for 8 euros each. Skip the crypt one and save 2 euros. The dome part is definitely worth doing for the views over the city.

Then we walked downhill to the Anvers metro stop against the tourist crowds coming the other way. All the usual tricklet shops are here, and plenty of street artists to choose from. Marcus mentioned that he had his caricature done here in last years school history tour.

Back in Montparnasse, we joined the queue for the catacombs tour. It took 30 mins to get to the front, but the weather was nice so we didn't mind. It was 8 euros for me and 4 for Marcus. We went down a long narrow spiral staircase to the bottom. As I can gather these catacombs used to be an underground limestone quarry (I forgot to hire the audio guide), long forgotten. One day in the early 1800s, part of it collapsed, so the city folks were very nervous about the stability of the ground below. A public works project was set up to shore up the quarry and save that part of the city.

There was a lot of empty space in the catacombs after this project was completed. Someone came up with the idea to shift all the bones from the various cemetaries to these catacombs to free up living space above. I would have preferrred to store wine.

The tour was 30 mins of wall to wall bones, ending quite near our apartment. Well, it would have been quite near if we'd gone the right way. So it was a long walk home. Marcus had a headache so we picked up a couple of deliciously large savoury crepes for a late lunch and went home. I bought a bottle of Savignon Blanc amongst our other supplies from the Monoprix for 3 euros, and just noticed on the receipt it was on promo and 1.45 euro was credited against the bill. It is really tough to justify drinking anything else.

 

 

Marcus' Modern Art

19 March

I woke up this morning at the obscene hour of 5.30, an impressive feat considering that I haven't beaten the sun out of bed since winter. Unfortunately, Paris did not share my eagerness to seize the day so I rolled over enthusiastically and went back to sleep.

Descending from our apartment at 7 o'clock, we learnt that Parisians don't do early mornings because no shops were open. Eventually we came across a bakery that was in business from which we acquired our petit déjeuner: a healthy balance of chocolate, pastry and raisins. It's a good thing we do a lot of walking.

Supplies were still required for our regular déjeuner so we headed to the supermarché only to find out that they wouldn't be opened for another two hours. And as much as I love camping outside supermarkets until they open, we instead returned to the apartment and Skyped back home.

Today's plan was to head over to the Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum that we missed out on the day before. Upon returning from our grocery shopping at the supermarket, we realised that the museum wouldn't be open for a further two hours which must be some sort of conspiracy but was mainly just a little bit inconvenient.

We arrived at the musée just before opening time and were greeted by a gigantic queue going for a hundred metres out the door. Because waiting in line is for suckers, we went for a stroll around the Beaubourg area to wait for the crowd to dissapate. However, this stroll around the pleasant district only served to let more people get crammed inside the building before we got there and didn't do a lot to shorten the queue, so we dejectedly lined up when we got back.

The Centre Pompidou is a big, quirky building that looks kind of funny surrounded by all the old Parisian architecture (you're gonna have to Google this cos I think we forgot to take pictures of the outside). The inside is pretty cool, big and modern.

As it turns out, the Pompidou experience is mainly a series of standing in queues: you stand in line to get in the door so that you can line up to get a ticket which enables you to line up for the exhibitions.

The top floor of the building has a panoramic view which I must say I enjoyed a lot more than some of the works in the gallery.

The first gallery we visited was called 'Danser sa vie'. I don't know what that is supposed to mean and the literal translation doesn't make sense to me either. The exhibition itself was just as confusing, featuring works of art that were somehow related to dance with some Picassos thrown in for good measure. People milled around through walls and walls of video displays and there were a lot of naked people (in the video displays, not wandering around the exhibition), but having spent the previous two days at art galleries I guess I should have seen that coming.

Following that, we headed downstairs to the modern art gallery. I quite enjoyed that, there were plenty of interesting displays and bright colours to hold my interest. Dad got some really cool wallpapers for his phone out of it as well

One piece I did take issue with, however, was called something stupid like 'navy blue canvas' and it was literally just a canvas painted entirely in navy paint. Now I'm no art buff, but I'm pretty sure I could do that and no one's commissioned any of my work to be hung up in a fancy gallery.

Après ça, we sat by the Stravinsky Fountain and ate baguettes. They were yum.

Following this, we went to take a look at l'Hôtel de Ville below.

Nôtre Dame below.

And then a wander through the Latin District before heading back home for a microwave dinner and salad.

Later in the evening, we caught the metro up to the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the Avenue de Champs Élysées, stopping by the Mercedes dealership and the Virgin Megastore (as in the CD shop, just to clarify) and eventually ending up at the lit up pyramid at the Louvre.

Then we returned back and I ate some Snickers bars.

Marcus out.

 

A short Sunday in Paris

18 March

The Sunday farmers market is in the courtyard outside our apartment. They sell fresh vege, fruits, meats and breads. We bought a brioche and brochee (large vol au vent) for dinner later, and a baguette to make lunch with.

We decided to visit Musee D'orsay in the morning, but the queues for tickets and entry were long. So we wandered down la Siene to check out the Grand Palais, a very impressive looking exhibition venue.

 

Crossed the beautiful Pont Alexander III on the way there.

It was back to D'orsay past the barges on la Seine. The entry queue is gone, but the ticketing queue is still the same length - long. As I already have a pass, and Marcus under 18, it took longer to check-in our backpack (compulsory), than to get in.

Musee D'orsay is awesome. There is nowhere you get to see Renoir, Van Gough, Monet, Manet .... all in one place. It is like walking into one of those large hardcover coffee table books for impressionist paintings. We mused over Monets paintings and his changing colour perceptions over several of his paintings. He had cataract issues you see, and finally got it fixed later in his life.

The D'orsay building itself is a beautifully restored and renovated railway station. They retained most of the clocks in the building facade.

We went down to the river again and had our lunch. Barges, tourist boats, joggers and strollers went past. A couple of arab looking girls went past and tossed a couple magazines in front of us. I was throwing away our lunch wrapping, so I picked the magazines up as well. Inside was a sheet that said donations to the mute and deaf society, and a whole bunch of names from different countries signed and monies paid. Between 5 to 20 euros each in a couple lists 30 long. Not a bad score for a mornings hustle.

We then walked towards Notre Dame and turned left at Hotel De Ville towards Georges Pompidou Centre ie Modern Art musee. Along the street, we saw lots of book dealers. Their stalls are permanantly secured to the sidewalk wall, and looked like green cabinets.

The queues at Pompidou were long, so we left it for a weekday excursion.

 

 

Museum Day

17 March

Our landlord Thierry was going to be away on our departure date. As the apartment needs to be inspected for the bond refund, Thierry brought Fanny round for introductions. It was arranged for 8.30 am, he came with some croissants. Fanny is 18, and Thierry said that she had recently broken up with her boyfriend, she studied English in school and would very much like to practice her spoken.

Thierry's first wife is from French Polynesia, so his 13 year old rugby playing son is half Polynesian. Photos were shown and admired. For them, NZ is a dream destination. Marcus offered his room to Thierry's son when he vacates it next year.

The croissant was delicious and we ate them all, 2 each. It is going to be hard to go back to the Countdown variety.

Without any planning at all, we strolled down to the metro and disembarked at the Invalides station. We walked along the Seine and arrived at the Eiffel. There were tourists, buses and queues everwhere. We didn't hang around, and walked to Hotel Invalides where Napoleon's Tomb and the Musee De L'Armee (correct - army) were. I bought a 2 day museum pass for 39E. Entry to all France museums is gratuit-18 ans (free for under 18s). So Marcus gets free entry to all the musees in Paris. The artifacts spanned the medieval period till the end of WW2. Napoleon's tomb is housed in a stunning domed building. Above picture is not from Han Solo's Millenium Falcon. It is the belly gun turret from a Superfortress B29 WW2 American bomber. Napoleon's tomb below.

We took the metro to the Louvre. It is truly an amazing museum with exhibits that caters for everyone, and are super awesome. Again the crowds of tourists were a real downer. As I had a pass, and Marcus only needed to mention his age, we went straight in. There are 3 wings to the Lourve: Richelieu, Sully and Denon. The Italian masters are housed in the Denon wing. This is where Mona Lisa is. The staff must be sick of being asked where it is, so they have put up a bunch of unofficial looking guide arrows to the old girl.

We then strolled through the Tuileries Gardens. This is a large park which features fountains, Eiffel Tower keychain vendors and dog walkers. When I was here in 1992, there were many telephone calling card traders and sellers. We had to dismiss a few gypsy hustlers as we walked towards the Egyptian obelisk.

Before the obelisk on the left is a delighful little art gallery which has translucent roofs so you can see the paintings in natural light. Musee De L'Orangerie. It has Monet's water lilies and stuff from Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso and the very twisty Soutine. By this time, it was 3.30pm and we'd been walking around for 6 hours. So we took the metro home.

I was so impressed with the croissants, I decided we will make our own lunch tomorrow with bread from the boulangerie. Stopped at the Simply supermarche for supplies for dinner and lunch. And Marcus suggested we call it a day.