Around London & Edinburgh

We were finally on our way to see Tom in London but not by plane that had been mucked up by Air N.Z. so we were now going over by the TGV ( very fast train ) leaving from Gare du Nord & arriving at Waterloo in London.

It was a wet & early start on our day of departure getting up at 5.00am for a 7.00am exit from Paris, right on time I might add & as we discovered this is the best way to travel between Paris & London because the time you take to get to Charles de Gaulle just outside Paris, catch a flight to Heathrow & then take the connecting tube train into central London would take approximately the same time as the TGV.

It travels at close to 300kms/hour from Paris to the under channel tunnel, this then takes 20 minutes to traverse before it slows down once we were on the English side from there it is also non-stop into Waterloo, the whole trip completed in around 3 hrs.

One major thing was quite evident to us as we approached the outskirts of London just how dirty & drab London was compared to Paris qite a marked difference between the 2 cities.

We managed to get to Tom's office just near Farringdon underground station where we left our luggage & then headed to Madame Toussards to see all the famous wax figures of statesmen & movie ( check out the pics of Sara & Brad Pitt & me with Marilyn ) stars throughout the years. We had to queue for about an hour before finally getting inside, it turned out to be a most fascinating collection people from all around the world.

We then took the time to pay a visit to " Liz " at Buckingham Palace before walking back along Bond St to Oxford St. By this time it was starting to get dark & it was only 4.15pm quite unusual seeing it get dark this early.

Saturday 8th December saw us invited by Tom to have lunch at the " Reindeer Restaurant "which had been set up in a vacant warehouse & was only open for the festive season so it was hard to get a reservation, it turned out to be just fantastic, great atmosphere & great cuisine, something like that would do well in Melbourne around chrissy time.

From there it was a race against time as we had to get to the " London Eye " as Tom had booked a specific time over the phone, as it turned out so had everyone else so we still had to stand in a snake-like line for more than an hour. The " Eye " is the biggest ferris wheel in the world reaching a height of 135metres above the Thames ( see the pic ) & the view afforded from the top is absolutely brilliant & one revolution takes about 45 minutes, each capsule can hold more than 12 people at a time & are probably similar to the ones used on the ski slopes, a most awe inspiring ride.

Over the next couple of days we did the touristy thing & visited Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Harrods department store ( which is owned by Mahommed Al Fayed ) with a lot of the interior done in beautiful marble & granite depicting Pharoahs & their gods, it was as if you were visiting one of their palaces in Egypt, it must have cost millions.

We also managed to get to see 2 of the best Museums that we have visited on our trip namely the Victoria & Albert Museum in Sth Kensington & the British Museum up in Russell Square, it would take 2 or 3 full days at each to do them justice.

Our departure for Edinburgh was also an early one leaving at 7.00 am, & once again spot on time. The trip took us through a variety of countryside from the very industrial midlands to the soft rolling hills of northern England, as we approached Edinburgh the train skirted the cliffs just above the sea so it was quite open & spectacular with a number of links golf courses dotted along the coastline one could imagine just how hard it would be to play out there on a windy & rainy day, not pleasant.

After dropping off our luggage we walked down the main street Princes' street & up to Edinburgh Castle, it was bitterly cold walking around the exterior as it is perched high up on a volcanic outcrop & therefore quite exposed to the elements, never the less we enjoyed discovering the rich history of these tough Celts who have always stood very proud against the ever oppressive English.

The next day saw us visiting the Royal yacht " Britannia " which was de-commisioned back in 1997 & is now permanently moored at Leith harbour, it was a reminder of just how the royals lived away from their palaces, nothing was spared to make their time on board as comfortable as possible & one could just imagine how many famous people have graced the yacht with their presence. It was certainly worth the couple of hours looking over her.

With the temperature hovering around 3 or 4 degrees we went down to check out the German Xmas market which is set up each year in the gardens near Princes' street & has some 40 or 50 stalls set up selling all sorts of " goodies " including cakes, crockery, bratwurst & sauekraut rolls, beer & of course " gluewein " which we grabbed quickly to warm our insides.

On Sunday 17th December we went to see the Queens' official residence in Edinburgh at Holyroodhouse Palace. It turned out to be well done & gave one a good inside into the royals history over the past 500 years, each summer the Queen hosts a garden party for some 8000 invited guests. From there we just meandered through the streets back to the centre & took in some Scottish culture by visiting both the National Arts & the National Gallery both full of some exceptional pieces of work. That night the 3 of us enjoyed a very nice meal in beautiful surroundings at the George Hotel in their " Tempus Restaurant ".

We were sad to leave Edinburgh as it is a lovely city & still quite compact by world standards, the trip back was un-eventful & we arrived in London at 9.00 pm. The last couple of days in London saw us at Portobello Road, Notting Hill ( as in the film ) where we saw some absolute mansions, we looked in one of the local real estate windows only to see that to buy one of these gems you would need £ 2,500000.00 or $AUD 6,250000.00 just a little out of our league, we also got to Tower Bridge ( see pic ) but it was too late in the afternoon to go through the Tower of London so that will have to wait for our next visit to this bustling & vibrant city.

We said our goodbyes to Tom & thanked him for his generosity during our stay in London, we arrived back into Paris on time at 4.00 pm after a most enjoyable couple of weeks.
The following day I had some good news on my leg, the doppler scan revealed that the clot had now reduced in size significantly enough for me to travel in January but I still had to keep taking the anti-coagulant & wear the full length stocking each day until we return to OZ.

We enjoyed a very different Xmas this year being much colder than we normally experience
( but no snow up until now ) it is nice walking around nicely rugged up with your gloves, hat & scarf & we now look forward to visiting Budapest, Vienna, Prague & Zurich on our way home.

Sara & I wish all of you a very Happy & safe 2007, hopefully during our time on the way back we can squeeze in posting to keep you up to date. Until next time.

Our time in gay Paree

Well people I thought that I should bring you up to date with our travels since my last posting back in November.

Our drive up from Mareuil was without incident except that we got a little lost driving through Fontainbleu but still managed to get to Orly Airport to drop off the car to Peugoet.

As usual our dear friends Roger & Christiane were there to meet us, we had travelled 9200kms in the 3 months & had seen some amazing countryside & the car had performed superbly over the entire period returning amazing economy of 19.4kms/litre.

We just relaxed over the next couple of days taking in the ultra mild French autumn with beautiful blue skies, it was a real treat to just walk around taking in all the magnificent sights of this spectacular city. We did receive some disturbing news from Alana that our dear friend Dottie had had a stroke during the week & was currently in the Alfred Hospital, we just hope that she makes a full recovery very soon.

We also caught up with Tim Lyons ( Hazel & Tony's nephew ) & had a nice meal at a local Italian restaurant just near our apartment.We also had the opportunity to go to Champagne with R & C to visit a small producer called Lete-Vautrain, great quality but only produces 75000 bottles per year so only for local consumption.

We decided to buy a weekly ticket for the train & bus as it works out to be very cheap & would recommend that anyone coming to visit Paris for an extended stay purchase one. This new freedom allowed us to discover places like the Jardin du Plante which houses the Musee Nationale d'Histoire Naturelle Grande Galerie de l'Evolution, what a mouthful but a wonderful display of animals & skeletons from all around the world.

From there it was to the Catacombes ( see pic ) a very interesting but macarbe assembly of skulls & bones from various cemeteries around Paris placed there after mining ceased in an underground mine back in the early 1800's to make way for land that was needed for an expanding Paris, quite incredible. The view from the Arc de Triomph is superb as it takes in the whole 360 degrees spectrum with each avenue splaying out like 12 spokes of a bicycle wheel, a magic sight to behold. The Champs Elysee ( thats us with Arc de Triomph in the background ) itself is a beautiful boulevard it's easy to see why millions of tourists pass down this street each year.

Another way of seeing another side of Paris is to take a ride on the Bateaux Mouche or river boat that passes by a lot of the great buildings & landmarks that line the Seine, from there we took the bus to Isle de Cite which is where the original city of Paris first started back in the 7th or 8th century but was then known as Lutece.If you want to go back much further in their history you can trace their beginnings to the Gallo-Roman times when the tribe called Parisii were here in 52BC, so you can see they have a long tradition to call on

In this same area is the Place de Vosges where the royals held court for many years, one of the most famous people to live in this very upper class sector was the famous writer Victor Hugo who lived here from 1826 to 1851 before he was exiled to Guernsey for his views against the then Emperor Napoleon 3. He returned to France when Napoleon was ousted in 1870.

One of the most interesting things we have done in Paris was to visit " les Egouts " or the underground sewers that service this vast metropolis.Until the middle ages, the drinking water in Paris was taken from the Seine, wastewater was poured on to fields or unpaved streets,& finally filtered back into the Seine.

Around 1200, Philippe Auguste had the Parisian streets paved, incorporating a drain for waste water in their middle. In 1370, Hugues Aubriot, a Parisian provost, had a vaulted, stone-walled sewer built in the " rue Montmarte ". This sewer collected the waste water & took it to the
" Menilmontant " brook, however the wastewater was still drained in the open air.

Under the reign of Louis 14th, a large ring sewer was built on the right bank & the Bievre river was used as a sewer for the left bank of the Seine. Under Napoleon 1st, the first Parisian vaulted sewer network was built ( 30km long ).

It was only in 1850 that baron Haussmann, the prefect for the Seine & the engineer Eugene Belgrand designed the present Parisian sewer & water supply networks. Thus was built more than a century ago a double water supply network ( one for drinking water & one for non drinking water ) & a sewer network the length of which was 600km in 1878.

Belgrand's successors went on extending the Parisian network from 1914 to 1977 with more than 1000km of new sewers being built. No other city in the world has a sewer network like the one found in Paris, it now has 2100km of tunnels. Every day 1.2 million cubic metres of waste water have to be collected. Every year 15000 cubic metres of solid waste are taken out & disposed of.

A general sewerage treatment programme designed to meet the needs for 50 years was drawn up & became state-approved in 1935, this was the beginning of industrial sewerage treatment.
Since then the Acheres plant has gone on growing, at the end of 1970 it was one of the biggest sewerage treatment plants in Europe with a capacity of more than 2 million cubic metres/day.

I know that was a longed winded explanation of a subject that is normally not referred to but I thought that it was such an interesting visit that you all should know about it.

We also took a day trip down to Chateau Fontainbleu & this turned out to be the most opulent of all the Chateaux ( see the 2 pics ) that we have visited during our time here, it would be too difficult to describe just how ornate the furniture, jewellery, paintings, tapestries are plus the magnificent gardens only surpassed by the gardens at Versailles. This was the Chateau that Napoleon signed his abdication & bid a final farewell to his generals before he entered exile on the island of Elba.
My next posting will be from our time in the U.K.