Venturing out in Paris

Today we made sure we took the map with us!! Michael had worked out that just about everything is within walking distance from our flat, we decided to just walk in the direction of Rue du Louvre and see where it took us, hopefully it would lead us to the Louvre. We wandered in the wrong direction for a little while, because I got a bit carried away with all the shops in our immediate area that were fabric (tissues) or clothing orientated. Soon, however we decided to go back and we found our way to Rue Des Petits Carreaux, where there are signs on the wall pointing out the direction and walking time to the Opera, 15 minutes in one direction, the Louvre 15 minutes in the opposite direction and a couple of other places as well.

Michael outside the entrance to our building

Fabric shops at the end of our street

Just around the corner from our flat

One of the many fascinating doors of Paris

 We followed this around the corner, into and along  Rue de Clery until we crossed Rue Reaumur, where we passed the Metro station Sentier, further along Rue de Clery we crossed Rue Montmatre and turned into Rue du Louvre, then full steam ahead, well when I say full steam I really mean full steam with photo stops every 15 or so steps. So in reality what should have been a 15 minute walk took us about an hour!!! Of course this is par for the course for us so we just carry on regardless. Rue du Louvre crosses Rue de Rivoli and this is where you come face to face with one end of The Louvre, oh my goodness it is a large building the significance of which is not fully comprehended at this point. Once you enter the first set of gates along from Rue du Louvre, it hits you like a brick, the place is absolutely massive, the square that you find yourself in, Cour Carree, has a low plain water feature in the centre, I imagine in better weather it spouts water from its centre, but not today. I was lost for words and all either of us could do was gawp in amazement, this was much bigger than I had expected. Of course there are statues everywhere on the building it is very grand.

Our first view of the Louvre

Walking through one of the entries, into Cour Carree

It absolutely huge!!

..and highly decorated!

 But it doesn’t stop there, we went through one of the building’s passage ways that took us under the upper levels into the Cour Napoleon where the glass Pyramids are. Now to say we were amazed and lost for words before, the sight that now met us actually brought tears to my eyes. I stood for a moment trying to take in the sight that spread before me. This place goes on forever, the adjectives huge and massive are not enough to describe this place. Michael and I agreed that nothing we had read, seen in movies or documentaries or been told prepared us for the reality of this place, its size beggars description! As we moved past the glass Pyramids to try to find the entrance, we could see that the building at the ends went across a road, traffic actually passed through archways on the lower level!!  And the Pyramids, there are 4 of them, the central one is the largest and most recognisable, three smaller ones sit one each on three sides, there is none on the side that faces away from the building where the view looks over the Jardin du Carousel and then to the Jardin Des Tuileries.

Heading through to the Cour Napolean and the famous glass pyramids.

Can't believe I'm actually here!

This sheer size of the Louvre is daunting.

We skirted the main pyramid, sure that the entry was through this, there were a lot of people milling around even though it was very cold and there was light rain. Hmm, a sign, it read The Louvre is not opened on Tuesdays. Hey we’re on holiday, what day is this anyway? Now let me see we arrived on Monday, yesterday, which makes this, oh bugger it’s Tuesday. Oh well now we know where it is and how long it takes to walk the distance, which shouldn’t so long the next time we come here. We made for the nearest exit and found we were able to look into parts of the gallery that was full of classical sculptures, oh another photo opportunity!! I sure hope my little Canon will last the distance. Michael reckons when we get home it will have to go in for its 50,000 photo service, he could have a point there!!

Looking down into one of the galleries..

my poor little camera worked overtime

another view looking down into a gallery

and yet another view looking into the closed gallery

We left the Louvre and crossed the road where we found the Art Deco entrance to the Metro underground, it is very quaint. Along the Rue de Rivoli we entered into the very warm confines of the Louvre des Antiquaries, a three level collection of antique shops selling some truly serious antiques. There are also a couple of modern, very exclusive design shops there too.

Part of the Art Deco entry to the Metro

Lamp post next to Metro entrance

Window display in one of the antique places opposite the Louvre

We headed back to have a good look at Les Halles and St Eustache church. As we approached I spotted a corner shop called Materiel des Cuisine, E. Dehillerin ( I think this is the proprieter). There were people sort of milling at the entry, it seemed to be a bit of a bottle neck and Michael joked “It looks like they’re queing to get in!”  This wasn’t far from the truth and was explained once we were inside the door. This place must have been here forever! It is stacked to the rafters with all manner of cooking equipment, all packed on ancient wooden shelving. Most of it was very French, very traditional. There was barely room to move, the narrow isles were crowded with people. I could not resist buying just a couple of things to take home.

Oh My this shop was so cool!

Michael perusing some of the old shelves full of cooking equipment

Shelves stacked to the rafters

View of St Eustache

Just through the front door to our building you then go through this security gate.......

through a glass door into this little courtyard

looking up from the courtyard ours is the second floor flat, directly above the lighted windows

Mmmmmm, macaroons

Yum!

We continued on to St Eustache and then down into Les Halles, this is a modern shopping mall that runs over 3 levels, all basically underground. We had lunch here in a bagel sandwich shop, with a drink and cake. Michael had a Pomes Tarte and I had a very nice Citron Merangue Tarte. A quick stop at the internet café, then we headed for home stopping for some provisions for dinner. The treat for tonight was a small box of macaroons, oh yes they are so nice!!!!!  So ends another day in this fascinating most liveable city where we are enjoying being pretend citizens and actually learning a little bit of the language and the ways of the locals.

Paris

Up at 6.30am to make sure we were ready when the taxi arrives at 8 to transfer us to St Pancras International train station for our trip to Paris via the Eurostar. We were both a tad nervous, I can’t understand why! I sometimes think we are like ‘babes in the wood.’ We both seem so naive and totally unsophisticated at times! I guess the anxiety stems from the fact that neither of us speaks any French apart from the obvious: bonjour, merci, bonsoir, oui, non and sil vous plait and that’s about it! Michael understands more than me as he at least remembers some school boy French but I never learned it at school. We were also unsure about booking in at the station, where to go, what to do and were the trains back to normal after the disruptions caused by the weather? 

As it turned out we needn’t have worried. We were there with plenty of time to spare and the whole process was very easy. I was a little sad to leave our London flat for the last time, but looking forward to seeing our new place in the second arrondissements’, very close to the centre of Paris. The trip was interesting, we went underground almost straight away for a short time then back into the open, not that you could see much for a lot of the way. The scenery was often quite industrial, or screened by track side barriers. When we did have a view it was of fields or small towns still covered with snow to different degrees. Sometimes the snow totally covered the ground while in other places either soil or vegetation showed through. The major roads all seemed to be fairly free of snow and ice but some of the minor roads looked positively scary starting as a black bitumen ribbon then trailing off to nothing as the coverage of snow seemed to gobble it up, the road became just part of the surrounding fields, before emerging further along where the ice receded.

The two of us on the Eurostar, speeding towards Paris.

The view from the train

some places were covered in snow

 The actual tunnel crossing only took about 20 or so minutes and was very smooth. The train was comfortable too, with good leg room and plenty of overhead storage for hand luggage and coats. As the small settlements, most united around a central church steeple, merged with the larger townships and then with suburbs where endless blocks of ugly, shabby, high rise apartment blocks began to dominate the skyline, I found myself thinking of our own Housing Commission flats in inner city Melbourne. I found myself feeling just a little disappointed, I had this romantic idea that everything in France had an air of beauty about it, despite being a little shabby; reality of course is quite different.   

Pulling into Gare du Nord station was quite impressive it looks to have been there for a very long time and is reminiscent of Paddington Station in London only with a French flavour. A huge barn of a place and freezing cold, with some mighty fine ironwork up in the window treatments at the ends, it was like Paddington but with a distinctly French bent. Once off the train our first challenge was to find a phone to call the agent so he could send someone to meet us at the flat with the keys. We had a few problems getting the phone to work and couldn’t spot anyone who looked like they worked there to help. Eventually I went and asked a girl in one of the kiosks. She put me on the right track and I made the call. Then we were off to the taxi rank at the front entrance to the station. The driver seemed unsure of the address I gave him and asked me to write it down, he didn’t say much which gave him the appearance of being a bit grumpy. He got us there in about 15 or 20 minutes. Benjamin met us outside the flat, carried my bag in and showed us how to open the front street entrance door with a code that let us into a dark covered area sort of like a garage not that I think it was a garage. There was a light switch on the wall once you got inside. We’ll have to remember to take our little torch with us if we’re coming home in the late afternoon as it gets dark early. In this area are post boxes and a grill gate where you have to swipe an electronic token to open the gate, this lets you into a small courtyard and the stairs to our flat are across this courtyard. Semi-spiral wooden staircases take us to our flat on the second floor, which means the second level, the French count the ground floor as the first floor, I was very thankful for this!

The stairs leading down from our flat

view of the flat from the front door

Our little Kitchen

After a brief tour to show where everything is and an explanation of how to use the heaters, we paid Benjamin the balance of our rent, plus deposit. He said “You can’t ask me any questions because I don’t know the answers, I am just doing this as a favour to Thomas, he is my friend and his assistant is on holiday so I am helping him!” then he added, “but if you have an emergency, and only a real emergency, you can call my cell number, I am closer than Thomas and I will help if I can.” He really was very sweet.

We settled down quickly after Benjamin left us. Put the kettle on for a cuppa, we’d brought some tea and coffee with us from London but didn’t have milk! We had black tea and the rolls we’d bought at the station, then rugged up again and set off for a walk; Benjamin had given us directions to the shopping strip just a short walk away and told us there was everything we would need there. He was right!!

First thing, a nice cuppa!!!!

Our first walk in the 'hood. The beautiful old St Eustache church in the Les Halles district, a 5 minute walk from our flat

Some of the local fashion

One of the Fruit shops

Our first dinner, take away Chinese

Tasty snack food

We are surrounded by fabric shops and really nice clothing stores and the food stores are very French: supermarkets, butchers, fruiterers, chocolatiers, bakeries and patisseries, plus a multitude of cafes, bistros and restaurants. I also found an internet café, the proprietor was very helpful and he spoke English, the computers however did not!!! Some of the keys are in a different place and there are a lot more symbols to be catered for to allow for the accents that are used in French, which means there are three choices on some keys, so you have to push the windows key for the third option and on one key this is the @ symbol which is on the top line in the centre of the key board. The . symbol is on the lower row but in the middle of the key board and at the top of the key so you have to use the shift key with it, the q and a keys are in different places too. I had a bit of trouble logging into Hotmail as I couldn’t access the @ key, the bloke realised I was having trouble and came to my rescue. The computer was set up for French so the red line came up under nearly every word I typed. It took a little getting used to but I managed. He said next time you come in I will have one set up for English for you. By the time we left him it was dark. We had walked down past the beautiful old St Eustache church and I had taken a photo of it, now it guided us back on course and we made our way along the shopping area stopping to buy some essentials, like milk, cereal, bread, jam and of course some snack foods. We decided to buy ready-made/take away so we wouldn’t have to cook on our first night, we bought Chinese and brought it home to heat in the micro wave, we’re getting quite good at figuring out how to work gadgets like micro waves and washing machines and ovens with the heat settings scrubbed off! It’s a bit like a puzzle and I’m very proud of the way we’re coping. We had one little anxious moment coming back from our first trip out into the neighbourhood. We hadn’t brought the street map with us and it looked a little different in the dark! We found our way safely back but used a slightly different route. It’s really interesting, before we left Melbourne I had looked at  rue du Mulhouse on Google Earth and ‘strolled’ down the street, so I knew that there were fabric shops at the end of our street, how amazing to now come face to face with those very same shops!!!!

Looking at the maps after dinner, it looks like we will be able to walk to most of the places we want to see. This is a bustling vibrant place and I think we will enjoy it very much.

A nice Long Walk - Our last day in London before setting off for Paris.

It’s Boxing Day and the sun is shining, most tourist sites are closed, however, the shops are open for the boxing say Sales, that didn’t appeal, where to go? Well the other day we went for a walk in Kensington Gardens and today we decided to take the Broadwalk through the gardens to the end and see what was there. The maps tell us that the Royal Albert Hall is opposite the Gardens and there are a number of museums within walking distance from there.

The Gardens on a sunny, albeit chilly, Sunday morning attract quite a number of people strolling, running, feeding the swans at the Round Pond and of course walking the dog. It didn’t take us very long to walk the length of the Broadwalk, past Kensington Palace and the Round Pond. Along the way we stopped to take photos of commemorative plaques in the path dedicated to Princess Dianna and marking the Dianna, Princess of Wales Memorial Walk, the first of these reads Dial Walk, St Govers Well and I wondered whether it might mark the spot of an ancient water spring. I remember reading that there were several ancient natural springs throughout London, long since covered with buildings but marked in the naming of the area, for instance Saddlers Wells. Could St Grovers Well be one of these?

The Round Pond, Kensington Gardens Boxing Day 2010

Princess Diana Memorial Walk

Through the gates that marked the boundary of the Gardens, we walked out onto Kensington Road, turning left and walking towards Hyde Park, we passed a little cabin structure on the roadside it was a cabman’s shelter and reminded me of a gypsy caravan. There was some ivy growing along the fence it had ice crystals on it and looked so pretty. We spotted the Albert Hall up ahead of us, an impressive round building in red brick, adjacent to this was the ugliest modern building you could imagine accentuated because the buildings around it were of another era and most were graceful or at least charming. I was surprised to discover that the ugly building was in fact the Royal College of Art, in my opinion there was nothing artistic about it. It was completely uninspiring. On the other hand The Royal Albert Hall is something to behold. Ringed around the top just below where the domed roof meets the walls of the building, a frieze of classical figures decorate the circumference, in the Greek style, paying homage to the arts. There are arched windows on the next level down, with tall rectangular windows between these and street level, where the windows are fewer, smaller and nondescript and sculpted decorations decorate the spaces between these smaller windows. There is also a balustraded balcony running around the building between the frieze and the domed windows, with access doors every 4 metres or so. A large portico marked the front entrance and reached up to meet the balcony.

The Cabman's shelter

Frost on ivy

The Royal Albert Hall

Detail, Royal Albert Hall

One of the ornate entrance gates to the Gardens

Deer on gate post

There are several entrances to the Gardens, sporting some very impressive gates with decorative embellishments some really ornate, complete with sculptures depicting wildlife, especially deer. We passed the huge gilded monument to Prince Albert, the paths were iced up around it on this side too just as they were on the opposite side when we saw it a few days ago. This is where we left the Gardens precinct, crossing the road to get a closer look at the royal Albert Hall, we skirted its walls noting that the buildings around were of similar coloured brick and looked to be apartments very expensive and exclusive looking. On the far side of the Albert Hall and down a very impressive, balustraded set of stairs we faced the red brick Royal college of Music.

Expensive flats near Albert Hall

The Royal college of Music

We ventured further on; by now I’d got it in my mind that I wanted to find the Victoria and Albert Museum and I was quietly confident we were heading in the right direction. The small pocket map we had with us cut out just before the area we were now exploring, so we were flying blind, so to speak. We found our way to Exhibition Road, now that sounded familiar! There were road works closing one side of the road and, as it turned out they ran along in front of the Victoria and Albert museum which was across the road just up ahead of us! We kept walking and on our side of the road we came upon the side boundary of the Natural History Museum. There was an ice skating rink set up in the front grounds, with a small carnival alongside. As we walked around the corner the full impact of the old building hit us. It is the most amazing building, very beautiful, there are carvings of animals along the upper storeys some are recognisable others are either imaginary or extinct; I was absolutely fascinated with this building and of course tried to photograph every sculpted animal decorating the building’s façade and on the pillars along the fence as well!

The Skating Rink at the Natural History Museum 

The front facade of the Museum of Natural History

One of the pre-historic creatures that adorns the building at the Museum of Natural History, London

During our walk, from beginning to end, there seemed to be an endless procession of planes flying by, leaving long trails of white streaming in the cold air behind them. We assumed from this that flights are back to normal after the last weeks cancellations and delays caused by the heavy snow we had while we were still in Oxford.

We had walked several blocks down and turned back now towards of Kensington Gardens, deciding to walk along to see where the Gardens met Hyde Park. There is actually a road that divides the two, this is not obvious on most of the maps we have. We followed the road down to the bridge that crosses the Serpentine and I took photos from there of Kensington gardens on one side and Hyde Park on the other. While on the bridge we noticed a young woman on a horse coming out of Hyde Park she stuck her hand out at the traffic, as if hailing a bus, but in fact she was stopping the traffic in order to cross! Apparently horses have right of way.

Looking over Hyde Park from the road over the Serpentine

Horses have right of way in the Park

icy waters of the Serpentine

Heading back into Kensington Gardens we made our way along beside the Serpentine to find Peter Pan’s statue, the path was iced over completely in parts and we had to walk very carefully never taking our eyes off the path on these icy stretches, lest we lose our footing and end up slipping over. We stuck close to the fence here just in case. Along the way I spotted a pretty little bird in the bushes, it looked like a robin, but Michael said he thought they were deeper red on the breast than this one was. It was sort of more orange than red, anyway it was very sweet. As I stopped to get a photo, I was once again accosted by a squirrel, he ran out of the bushes right up to me, I thought he was going to run right up my legs as if I was a tree!!

The Peter Pan statue across the path from the Serpentine

We think this is a Robin

Ithought this fellow had mistaken me for a tree!

Almost at the end of the walk in the gardens we approached an area that marked the end of the Serpentine, there was balustrading and urns on plinths and what looked like a pavilion at the far end, all very classical looking. As we drew closer I could see that it was actually a series of fountains, not flowing now as the water around them was frozen. There standing with his owner was a Samoyed quite lovely with his pal, a black dog with a Frisbee type toy in his mouth just begging for someone to throw it for him, I think he was a Labrador I just had to get a photo of the Samoyed for Holly.

the Samoyed and....

his buddy, who wanted to play!

The fountain that wasn't working.

 By the time we left the park it was almost 2.30, we had been walking since 11am and were now ready for lunch, so made for the closest pub. It was closed so we walked a bit further along to our local, The Black Lion for a feed of fish and chips and mushy peas. So ended our Boxing Day  foray into the great green space that is Kensington Gardens/Hyde Park and its surrounding streets.