Tag Archives: Paris

May 29, 2014 · 7:29 pm

I’m baaaaack – AGAIN!

Isn’t it funny how you tell yourself you’re only doing something for your own benefit but then stress yourself silly trying to make sure it’s wonderful? Well, I really was writing about my travels for my own benefit, but seeing as I made it public, so family and friends could have a look if they wanted to, well, of course, then I have to try and make it interesting and give everyone a chuckle or two, and that’s often easier said than done for me. Soooo, because one of my daughters keeps telling me I seem to be having trouble with my memory (could I be just not taking enough notice of things?), and because it’s getting close to a year ago – I’ve decided to try to add a new post more often, even if it’s mostly photos. Doesn’t sound like much of a commitment, but I really do want to try to commit as much as I can to ~~paper~~ computer before I do forget it all. So here goes, travel back in time with me to France last July.

18th July 2013

When I was thinking of doing this trip, one of the things I was most keen to do was living in Paris for a month – I lasted just short of 3 weeks. I’m not sure why, I really tried hard to love it, but I just didn’t. I’m sure my home stay situation and associated tummy troubles had quite a bit to do with it; and maybe the fact I’d been away from home for 3 months didn’t help either. I’d like to come back again though and give it another go because I know there’s heaps more to see and do. I was a tad sad to say goodbye to my little apartment and the tower but Arras and the WW1 battlefields were calling me.

Which way to go?

I often say to myself, “today I am not going to get lost, I will find my way with no problems” – and guess what???? I found my way from the train station to my hotel with only one tiny weeny itsy bitsy unintentional detour – woot, woot!! I also stood at an intersection looking from my phone to every conceivable spot a street name could be hiding for a while, before a helpful guy at a café took pity on me and called out the street names. So funny, how sometimes you don’t even need to ask, if you look lost enough, someone will help – AND this was France, where they’re supposedly the most arrogant people on earth.

Arras Town Hall from the Hotel Diamant

The Hotel Diamant was tucked away in the corner of a wonderful big square, the place des Héros, almost next door to the Town Hall. Even though it was only just after lunch, I collapsed on the bed and slept for an hour or so – I almost felt like I relaxed for the first time since arriving in France. Although I love to see the big cities and all they have to offer, it is nice to be out of the rush and crush of Paris, in a small place again where the pace of living is more like home and also where personal security is not such an issue. Feeling quite refreshed after my nanna nap I had a wonderful wander around and found the Grand’Place, another huge square bounded by buildings with the same unusual facades, followed by a mellow couple of hours at a cafe near the hotel having a few wines, some great fresh food and some sketching time.

Goodbye to the hallway full of French wine crate book shelves

Bye-bye Paris and the tower

One of the square of Arras

Quiet streets of Arras

Arras, France

place des Heros, Arras

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Filed under France, Mid-life travel, Solo female travel, Travel

Tagged as Arras, Grand’Place, Paris, place des Héros

December 18, 2013 · 10:25 pm

Cute apartment with a view

13th July 2013

Eiffel Tower from apartment

I just love my little apartment; it has two sets of french doors leading out to a tiny balcony with a weeny cute table and chairs – and a view of the Eiffel Tower!!! I guess it’s quite a distance away, but still, it’s right there, and I feel like I just want to sit there all week looking at it. And…. I didn’t get lost on the way either – pretty good I’d say. Booked through airbnb for the first time, and haven’t had any problems, everything is as advertised and the owner seems nice. Booking.com will wonder what has happened to me the last couple of weeks, it’s the longest I haven’t used them since I left home!

First thing was to buy a few supplies, easier said than done, I’ve found, sometimes. I’m pretty sure the person I asked about a supermarket told me there was one just up a side street. I didn’t find it, but there’s a little fruit and veg shop, a boulangerie and a couple of bars really close by, so in the end the essentials were fairly easy to come by. My building has a café on the ground floor too so it was all looking good enough to go exploring for the rest of my first afternoon in the 19th.

Paris from Parc des Butte Chaumant

As the Parc des Buttes Chaumant was only a block away it seemed a good place to spend the afternoon. It’s very much a natural parkland, so different to the highly manicured gardens in the city that it felt almost like I was in a different city altogether – except for the stunning vista of the Sacre Coeur from one of the highest points. Drawing the Temple de la Sibylle kept me occupied and happily observing the comings and goings for quite a while. Then just walking through the lovely gardens helped me feel more settled than I’ve been for the last two weeks and although I haven’t completely recovered from my tummy troubles I’m hoping this week to find the Paris I came here looking for.

To cap off a pretty smooth day I enjoyed practicing my French with the owner at the bar where I stopped for a wine on the way home. Then – nibblies on the balcony for dinner while soaking up the fact that, wow, here I am, in Paris, watching the Eiffel Tower put on it’s nightly light show!!

Cute little living room of apartment

Wine crate book cases

Just a bit of reading material for the little room!!

Parc des Butte Chaumant Paris

“my” boulangerie

Temple de la Sibylle

Temple de la Sibylle Paris

Sacre Coeur from apartment

Eiffel Tower through the railing

Eiffel Tower light show

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Filed under France, Mid-life travel, Solo female travel, Travel

Tagged as Eiffel Tower, Paris, Sacré-Cœur Paris

December 16, 2013 · 5:47 pm

Paris – week two

8th July 2013 – my 2nd week in Paris

most of my morning class – we missed you brian

Language school was even better the second week, probably because I wasn’t sick most days and looking for toilets every half hour!! I was a bit sad that my mate Deb wasn’t at school this week – she was off swanning around Monet’s garden at Giverny before heading home on Tuesday. However, one of our new classmates, a really interesting, friendly woman from India, Urvashi, joined me for lunch most days. I feel such an ignoramus sometimes; Urvashi speaks, I think, 5 or 6 languages, and here I am just barely learning the basics of my second one.We all seem to be improving – at least in my humble opinion!! I’m not sure how serious some of the young ones are about learning French but they’re certainly good fun and the whole experience has been a truly memorable time.

I’m still struggling to love Paris like I wanted to, but most afternoons I just set out in a different direction an walked and walked, taking in a much as I could. The great thing about Europe is that in summer it stays light for so long and people seem to stay out and about much later, so it still feels quite safe to be out at 8 or 9 o’clock – lots of after school sight-seeing. Half the time I had absolutely no idea where I was or what I was looking at, but that didn’t worry me in the slightest. I’ve learnt you’re never too far from a metro station and I have no trouble using the metro – I even have a weekly Navigo pass now, makes me feel less like a tourist too.

petit palais paris

I found the Petit Palais one afternoon and had to chuckle at an incident I saw in the café there. A very well dressed Parisian looking lady left her newspaper on the table next to me and wandered off, another woman came along and sat at the table, the first one came back, probably five minutes later, and erupted quite loudly and with lots of gesturing, obviously telling the poor woman that this was her table and she should have known because she left her newspaper there – it’s amazing what you can pick up with just a little of the language and by reading the body language! The other woman didn’t say much, but the funniest thing to hear was she and a few other onlookers all muttering about damn Parisians!!! Does it mean I’ve seen too many art galleries and museums when the highlight of a visit is the antics in the café and not the artwork? Maybe it’s just that I’m a pleb at heart…..

The School of Fine Arts looked easy to find but again my finely developed sense of direction had a slight hiccup; and it might have been more good luck than good management when I eventually found it hidden away among lovely arched walkways and a courtyard with statues all around, looking like something straight out of Italy. The exhibition I was going to see, the drawings of Phillipe Hatchet, was a little less than I expected but the buildings more than made up for any disappointment.

courtyard of ecole des beaux arts building paris

I had the most divinely rich chocolate mousse one afternoon, it was soooooo rich and I felt terrible after I licked the jar clean ate just some of it very daintily – but it really was wickedly yummy. I kept up my habit of visiting the patisserie on the way back to Jo’s, if I wasn’t too late, and worked my way through their choice of perfectly presented little cakes. It seems such a shame to eat them, they look so pretty, but I do my best, heeheehee; thank goodness for all the walking I do. I’ve also become a bit of a regular at the supermarket and the bar around the corner, where I have a little chat in French with the cashiers and waiters most days.

Josette took me with her one evening for a meal with some of her family and friends. They had tables set up in the apartment building’s courtyard, among beautiful plants and flowers, a few other residents coming or going, calling out to each other, lots of great food and wine, guitar playing and singing, everyone talking and laughing – just an incredibly lovely evening, one of the ones that make travelling and meeting new people so special.

with josettes family n friends in Paris

My last day of school was a little sad, the kids made sure we took heaps of photos, although we all missed Brian, our Texan classmate who is trying just as hard as I am to love and adjust to life in Paris. Mind you, I’m only passing through, Brian has made the move to live here sort of permanently, so I hope he settles in soon.

Also, I’m rather excited to be moving to my own little apartment (well, mine for a week), in the 19th arrondissement, near the Parc des Buttes Chaumont – another chapter of my Paris stay.

window shopping paris style

window dressing in paris

the ritz paris – in progress

paris style

place vendome paris

paris

lovely wooden stairs

jardin des tuilieres

book stalls along the seine

drinking fountain in paris

fleuriste along the seine

gorgeous buildings everywhere in paris

lovers locks on the bridge

ile de la cite paris

hotel de ville

hotel de ville paris

hard at work at LSI Paris

more lovely gates in paris

paris through the bridge

paris

shame about nicoles bottle

so paris

along rue de rivoli

yeah we really are working hard at LSI Paris

view along the lovers locks

the seine paris

strolling in Paris

another grille for the collection

around place des vosges paris

classic french architecture

doors in paris

facade of school building paris

jardin des tuileries

a quieter side of paris

great door at place des vosges paris

fruit n veg in Paris

family friends,food wine and music

photographic museum paris

place des vosges paris

stairs and railings in Paris

champselysees dresses for bastille day

big ones and little ones – bikes in Paris

courtyard at the petit palais paris

petit palais from the courtyard

trying to sketch an actual person!!

unfinished sketch of notre dame paris

buildings in the 12th. paris

courtyard petit palais paris

fountain outside the grand palais paris

from the petit palais paris

grand palais paris

petiti palais paris

paris apartments

light at the petit palais paris

grand palais paris

pont alexandre III paris

staircase in the petit palais paris

statues petit palais paris

time out at the petit palais paris

balustrade in paris

ecole des beaux arts building and courtyard paris

courtyard ecole des beaux arts paris

chocolate mousse in paris

break time

ecole des beaux arts paris

hotel de ville paris

institut de france paris

its like a secret passage in paris

les deux magots – paris

statue detail exole des beaux arts paris

paris window displays are the best

paris

love this building

the 3 amigos

the louvre paris

view from a park in paris

hard at work at LSI Paris

war memorial roll at ecole des beaux arts buildings paris

wildflowers and the louvre paris

wish i could draw like this

Starting to look around Paris

2nd July 2013

I’ve had so many ‘pinch me’ moments since I started this trip and my daily commute to school was right up there some days. Catching the yellow line of the Paris metro from my station of Reuilly-Diderot, going past places with names like Gare de Lyon, Bastille, Musee de Louvre, then emerging at Tuileries to the sight of a bank of typically French buildings on one side and the Jardin de Tuileries on the other was part of my dream come true. I know the metro is not exactly tourist fodder but the fact that it was my daily routine helped me feel I was actually living in Paris and not just visiting for a few days.

Hotel de Ville, Paris

The school organises outings most afternoons and on Tuesday we caught the metro en masse to the Hotel de Ville – or actually we tried to but ended up getting split into three groups with most of us not even knowing where we were heading. One group caught the metro and went straight there, another group, of course I had to be in this one, got spooked along the way because our guide, Robin, had gone missing so we got off a couple of stations along, and the last group, with our guide, were on the train, then got off again because someone was missing. Thank goodness we spent a few minutes trying to work out what to do and when the next train came along we spotted Robin inside so on we rushed and didn’t let him out of our sight again all afternoon!! I’m sure he was wondering why we were hanging so close, but at least we didn’t get lost.

Sitting among the wildflowers near Hotel de Ville

The area in front of the Hotel de Ville was full of little gardens of wild flowers and sun loungers, part of some special exhibition and so unexpected in the centre of Paris, just gorgeous. Only a few minutes walk later and we were in front of the Notre Dame, I couldn’t believe it! Those of us new to Paris did the obligatory oohs and aahs and took miles of photos. I was quite surprised that the sixteen year olds were as interested and awe-struck as I was, but there you go, some things transcend age don’t they. We made our way back to the River Seine and the Ponte Neuf via a few other amazing but not quite so famous buildings.

Then, bloody hell, he left us to make our own way home!! I got home with no worries but poor Deb got side-tracked shopping and ended up miles and miles from where she thought she was. Luckily though, the woman she asked for directions was really helpful, even going with her to the metro to make sure she got on the right train.