April 30

We had a rather lazy day today, washing our clothes, and getting ready for the next leg of our trip to Germany on Friday, to continue our holidays. It was raining fairly hard for a while this morning, so we didn't go out until after noon. We visited a street famous for it's street market called the Rue Clerc, to see what it was like, and had a bite to eat, at a slightly more reasonable cost, than previous days.





We then walked to the Eiffel Tower again and it was much less crowded today but there were a lot of army personnel in full garb around so not sure what was going on. On Saturday the first day we went to the Eiffel Tower we didn't see any army just a few police. If anyone knows what was going on let us know; we can't tell because we don't understand the news broadcasts.



From the Tower we crossed the bridge over the Seine to get to the famous Trocadero. This building was finished for the 1937 World's Fair that was held in Paris. The Eiffel Tower was for the 1866 Fair I believe. We walked down the river on the West side on the Aveneue de New York.




These townhouses date back to 1850-60. The very wealthy lived in this area which is also very close to the Champs de Elysses which is where the rich of that day went to be seen, not much different from today.:-)

It was very windy and the rain was coming off and on, so we found our way back to the trusty subway service and headed back to the apartment. We stopped on the way to pick up some groceries and I made us Toasted Ham, Cheese and Tomato Sandwiches with a Canadian type salad. Tomorrow night for our last night in Paris I am going to make Bob a special dinner. We have been able to see the main things we wanted to in Paris and keep smiling even though we had misfortune the first day here.

April 29

Well this morning we awoke to more rain. This can't keep good Canadian Stock down. We had planned to go to Versailles and that is what we did. Once we got to the correct metro to get to the "C" Train it was a snap. We arrived at Versailles right at noon so we went into a McDonald's and got a couple of burgers and fries for 11.90 Euros. The clock in the flower garden is just across the street from McD's.


Now we had to find where the Palace of Versailles was. No easy trick. The signage leaves a lot to be desired. Finally we got to the gates and the line ups were horrendous. Thank goodness we only had to stand in one line-up because we already had our tickets. The line-up was to go through X-Ray machines for security. I am sure we could put one of the treasures in our bags. :-)



Next we had to deal with the hordes of people inside. It was incredible to see but not totally what I expected. Most of the castles we saw in England were lived in but so far the Palaces in France are just museums. It's a totally different feeling when you go through them.



The paintings on the ceilings were fabulous and the opulence of the Kings of that time is very obvious (the Hall of mirrors). However the beauty is undeniable. The gardens were beautiful from what we could see but we didn't go through them because it was pouring by this time. We had to buy an umbrella to get home it was raining so bad.








Back in Paris we went down to the Latin Quarter which we both really like and had supper. One of the streets we passed was so narrow I could touch both sides of the walls. We had a glass of wine at this restaurant the first day, the service was good so today we went back for a meal and the meal was very good. I am really enjoying the Quiche Lorrainre. I have had it 3X Bob had roast chicken and fries. It costs 3.50 Euros for a wine but for a coke or 7-up you pay almost 6 Euro's.




For those of you reading our blog, we'd appreciate comments on what you think of it. You can add comments right to the blog and we (along with anyone else) will be able to read it. Just a thought. We've heard some very positive comments via email, but also some complete strangers have responded (one from Brazil, I believe). So we bid you adieu (good French huh?) for another night from Paris.

April 28

Well here we are again. The day started a bit differently than most others so far. Bob went out early to shop for some milk and crackers. He arrived at the store a little early and had to wait about 15 min before he was able to get in. He was the second customer at the till, and only had a 50 Euro bill. He cleaned out all the change the teller had :-(

After breakfast we started at the Arc de Triumph and walked down the Champs-Elysees, where all the expensive shops are located (sort of like Rodeo drive in LA). We saw prices like 24 Euro for a hamburger, and 4800 Euro for a watch! (The current exchange is about 1 Euro=1.60 Cdn$) We had lunch at the Cafe de Roma a fancy name for a Pizza Joint (lol), sitting outside on the sidewalk, watching the traffic speed by, really, motor scooters weaving between the cars and busses at an unheard of speed, well for city traffic in North America!


We then walked onward to the Place de la Concorde and the Grande Palais and the Petit Palais (they are right across from each other).



We got some beautiful pictures of the Egyptian Obelisk and the Tuileries Gardens designed and built in the 17-18 centuries. They are quite something to behold what with the different trees and the statues etc. They run for 1 km. between the Place de Concorde and the Place de Carrousel. The Place de Carrousel is the original gate into the Tuileries Palais that was destroyed by the peasant rabble during the French Revolution when King Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette lost their heads.



From there it is about another kilometre to the entrance to the Louvre. We were a bit disappointed with the layout of the Louvre. Not only is it extremely overcrowded, everything is in French only (go figure, we're in Paris after all). There are too many stairs up and down all over the place and it is quite difficult to navigate to the different displays. We got a few good pictures, and the entrance fee was free with our museum pass, but all in all, we weren't (at least I wasn't) impressed.

It had rained some while we were inside, but had stopped when we left, so we decided to go back to the Latin Quarter, for supper. Instead, we stopped at Lafayette street, but found the prices at the restaurants there quite expensive, and then the rain started again, so we changed our minds. and headed back towards home, and eventually found a little pub around the corner from the apartment, where we had a nice supper.

Tomorrow we're off to Versailles.

April 26

Well Hello from Paris: Had a great day in Paris today after the junk that happened yesterday. We were able to get all Bob's card cancelled and no extra charges have so far turned up on them. Also we still have to deal with his driving license, care cards, and blue cross when we get home. All in all it is taken care of.

We started the morning later which is nice because we could get up and relax and not have to rush on to the next stop. We are getting the hang of the subways and went to the Islands of the Seine this morning to see the Sites there. First of all we sat down and had lunch as it was getting onto 2:00 PM. After lunch we went into the Palais du Justice and found a beautiful little chapel called the Sainte-Chappel. It is incredible but you have to put everything through an x-ray and go through a body search yourself to get in. I guess the saying "it only takes a few bad people , to ruin it for the many" is absolutely displayed here. It was very small compared to others we've seen but really magnifique.





Then down the road to the Nortre-Dame of St, Michael. Here the other thing that blew our minds was that in the afternoon there was a service going inside the sanctuary while tour groups and visitors were wandering about, taking pictures and talking. There was even a 'gift' shop in operation, right in the sanctuary doing business. I can't believe they didn't shut the visiting down for the 1 hour service. I guess the money would be worth too great a loss. I thought back to Jesus being upset with money changers etc in the temple. I asked myself "What would He think of this"?





From here we crossed the Seine on a foot bridge and magically arrived in the Latin Quarter Shopping area. I will go back before I leave as the souvenirs are still expensive but cheaper than other areas. We then caught the subway 3 stops to get to the Louvre and spent about 1 hour taking pictures as we were to late in the day to go in and explore. There is One Bigger Pyramid surrounded by 3 smaller ones. Looks like the waterfalls have been turned off but it was still gorgeous.



The museum takes in all the buildings around the huge square which was at one time the Palais du Louvre. We will go back on Wednesday as they stay open longer in the evening. Tomorrow we are off to see the "Palais of Versailles" it is about a 35 minute drive on a train and you apparently can spend the whole day there looking at things. Going to take some garden pictures tomorrow as a lot of people say that the French Gardens are very different from the English ones. We'll see.

At lunch today we had French Onion soups and then a bagette with ham, tomatoes, egg, cheese etc. I am having a hard time chewing the crusty bread even though it is very good. Bob said that he can't wait to get home to ordering and knowing what you will get. He ordered a Chicken Caesar and it had the ingredients in a way but didn't quite come out the same.

All in all it was a grand day and the weather was excellent. I will let Bob put in the pictures so that we can get this posted tonight because tomorrow is a very big day also.

April 25

We had an early morning wake-up today, 5:30 to be exact, as we had to catch the Eurostar train to Paris, at 7:25. Our taxi arrived at 6:30 and we were off to the station. No traffic this morning, unlike last night when I returned from dropping the rental car off, so it took us no time at all to arrive. We walked in, and following the signs went to the correct floor for the "chunnel" train. Once our tickets were processed, we had to go through customs, where a very nice customs officer promptly broke the handle on one of our suitcases. I should have recognized the signs and protected myself better!

We had only a 10 minute warning for the arrival of the train from London, before we were allowed onto the platform, and only 1 lift. By the time we walked all the way to the very end of the platform where the door for car #1 would end up, the train was pulling up to the "gate". I was told there would be a luggage rack for larger items just inside the door, however, this was completely full. I had to leave my bacgs stacked in front of the door. Wonderful! When Jan got to our reserved seats, she found another couple sitting there, who had to then move. By this time the train was already moving out. And wow, does this train ever "move out"!!!

In 10 minutes, we were entering the tunnel, and approximately 17 minutes after that were pulling out onto French soil. A nice smooth ride, and you can actually feel the power of the engine. No idea how fast we were movin, but later on we were alongside a freeway and were passing traffic like it was standing still! We arrived at Paris in 2 hours, and after getting our luggage off the train, we were facing the daunting task of trying to make ourselves understood. I was supposed to phone the caretaker of the suite we have rented, but my phone again would not work. Funny how that happens over here.

The directions I had to get here were very explicit, so we were able to find the apartment, without too much trouble, but I was told that the house number would be 11, whereas we found the address as 11-15, and across the street the numbers were in the 20's already. A strange way of numbering, to say the least. I finally was able to contact the caretaker, and advise her we had arrived at the apartment and were waiting out front, not at the train station. So after another 1/2 hour of standing around, waiting, she finally showed up and let us in. She advised us that the cleaning lady would be coming my at 2:30 to clean the apartment after the last tenants, and would prefer us not to be here. So at 1:30, we left and explored our area. We walked about a mile I'm guessing, and found a nice restaurant, where the waitress spoke a bit of English to tell us exactly what the items were on the menu. We ordered 2 glasses of "white wine" and a seven up. We received 2 "red wine" and a Schweppes water. If you can believe this, the water was more expensive than the wine! After eating, we walked back to the apartment, shopping for groceries along the way, and arrived back at about 2:30, thinking, surely an hour would be enough to do what needs to be done.

Not so, as a few minutes later, a lady showed up , and speaking no English, while I spoke no French, she made it clear she was here to do the cleaning! Eventually, she went and got the caretaker, who advised us that she had said 3:30, not 2:30 for the cleaning, and could we go away for a while. So what could we do? We left and decided we'd go see the Eiffel tower. It was relatively easy to do, once we found the entrance to the Metro station around the corner (it was different than the escalator we had taken a few hours earlier when we arrived), and off we went, with one change of trains. If you know the station you want it's really easy as all the cars have multiple route maps, so you just need to know which direction to go and what station to get off at. I couldn't believe the wheels on one of our trains, so I just had to take a picture. Imagine rubber tired subway trains!!!



Here we are having dinner near the tower and next to the metro line. The waiter kindly took our photo. And I forgot about this other picture. Jan had me take it on our arrival at the train station earlier this morning. It was only the first of many such sights we've seen so far!



This is about when I found out my wallet was gone! I don't know how, I don't know when. It was with me at the restaurant at lunchtime, 'cause I used my card to pay, but when I went to pay for dionner....gone! fortunately, all my money was in my other pocket, so all that was in the wallet, were my credit cards and driver's licence. I sure hope when we go to rent our car in Germany later this week, they'll accept my International licence and a copy of my BCDL, which we had taken the trouble to make before we left Kelowna.

So the first duty was to cancel all my cards, which is easier said than done. The phone wouldn't work AGAIN! I had to go online to figure out the codes to use to call North America. I just managed to get through to MC when the phone beeped and I was advised I needed to 'top-up' my phone as I only had a minute left.

This is really starting to sound like a Soap Opera! It's a free call back to England for the sim card carrier, but in order to get a customer service clerk to "register" the phone before actually adding time to it, cost 60 pence. No problem, I have just enough, take that charge add the time, and I'm set....noooo, they need to know the phone number, which was on a card in, you guessed it, my wallet. No problem, take out the sim card, get the serial number off it, and they can use that, only, to do that I lose my connection, and have to call back. Another 60 pence charge, but now the phone has no time left, and because all the info I needed was on the lost card, I was told to call another number where they could help me, with only the sim card serial number available. At this point either it was past the time they were open (after 8:00 pm) or my phone was out of time, take your pick, but I couldn't make any more calls. Well not true exactly, I was able to call the caretaker lady and explain to her my problem, sort of, before the phone cut out. I neglected to mention, that there is no phone in the apartment, and hence no phone book. So I couldn't even search for a number or address for the "Orange" dealer nearest here.

A few minutes later I get a knock on the door, and it's a lady who doesn't speak English, but hands me a cell phone, to talk to the caretaker, who tries to figure out how to help me. I explained what my problem was, and that I needed to top-up my minutes. She said no problem, go with this lady and she will take you to the nearest dealer (at 8:30 pm???). Now understand, she speaks no English, I speak minimal French. I can say "Do you speak English" quite well, in French, and please and thank you. Anyway we go out, and she tries a few places that are either already closed or don't handle what I need. Finally at the 4th place we hit paydirt, sort of. I gathered from the conversation that it was not going well, so I asked the clerk if he spoke English, and he did, along with another customer, who showed me where I'd have to go on Sunday to get the phone looked after. While we were talking they mentioned a phone card (something which was also in my lost wallet) that I could use to make calls. It had a 100 minutes of free calling anywhere in the world for 7.50 Euros. I thought this is better that nothing, and I don't want to wait until Sunday to cancel my cards. I even got a deal as the clerk sold it to me for 6.00 Euros

I can use this at any phone booth, so I returned to the apartment, jotted down all the numbers for the cards, and phone numbers (from Jan's cards, and my other records, and made my calls to the card companies. At least I can rest easier now knowing that my cards, are protected. I 'm still a little concerned about the Driver's licence, but everything else is replaceable and of no real value. All in all, we had an exciting first day in Paris!

Hopefully the next 5 weeks will be a little less hectic. I don't think my heart can take any more! bye for now.

If nothing else, today was interesting. Last night, we packed up a box of booklets and souvenirs into a box, and this morning we tried to find a post office. We felt there was no point in carrying all that paperwork as extra weight on the plane, in addition to lugging it around for another 5 weeks! Well, we soon changed our plans. The post office wanted to charge us over $130.00 to send the box back "surface" mail, and I'd already paid to purchase the books!!! Not much chance of that. So tonight, we've repacked our suitcases, and hopefully when we get to the airport in 5 weeks, the weight won't be too great.

I knew I should have packed lighter and brought another bag! When will I learn?

We arrived at our hotel in Ashford, just after 3:00 pm, then I drove the car to the rental place in Canterbury, took a train back to Ashford, and caught a taxi to the hotel. Tomorrow morning, we'll get a taxi to pick us up at 6:30 am to get to the train station for our 7:25 am ride to Paris! Here's hoping all goes well and we arrive safe and sound.

April 24

Well, we're getting closer to the end of the England portion of our holiday. 2 more nights then we board the Eurostar train in Ashford for the 3 hour trip to Paris under the English channel.

We left Nottingham in a pouring rainstorm this morning, but, eventually, ran out of it, except for off and on rain/hail throughout the day. We saw a 12th C Almshouse which was quite interesting although it was much different than anything else we've seen in the past three weeks.



We also saw a triangular house! It had three sides, three floors, three windows per side, etc. Now that was different!



These are actually pictures of a couple of postcards I saw at the shop, as they're better than the ones I took on a dreary day! We went to Rockingham (where the race course is) but the house we were going to see was one without a roof, and it was pouring rain at the time, so we just took some long distance photos and moved on.

We've seen some wonderful places in the past three weeks. Hope you have all enjoyed the blogs. If I do say so myself, I've enjoyed writing them probably as much. If I can take 34 more pictures tomorrow, that will make it 2000 in the first three weeks.

April 23

We're fast running out of things to see, and our time in England is coming to an end. This morning we got up to cloudy skies, and rain forecast. Since we didn't get to see Yorkminster cathedral yesterday, we decided to do that this morning, before we headed south. It was pretty impressive, as was the 275 steps up to the top of the tower! One can only go up on the 1/2 hour as there is not enough room on the spiral staircase to pass another person. After about 50 steps, I had to walk across the bottom of one of the roofs, on a narrow walkway, then start up the second set of stairs. Well the doorway was so narrow, I could barely fit through, and then had another 200+ stairs to climb. If the weather had been clear, I was told, I could have seen about 35 miles. Sadly it was not to be today.





When we finally finished going throughout the cathedral, and got outside, we found that the rain had found us. We headed off to Nottingham, via a few smaller towns. We passed some fields which we could catch glimpses of through the hedges and saw what I thought were pinkish 'cows'. It turned out they were hogs not cows. I just had to stop and take a picture or two of the 'hog farm'.



We passed through Sherwood forest country and finally arrived in Nottingham. Can you imagine a hotel in Canada where you can't drive up to the front door, (which I can't), you'd have our hotel in Nottingham. There is a bus stop in front, and no stopping, there is no parking lot attached, so guests have to park two blocks away at a Marriott hotel parkade, and pay public parking fees. It's not very convenient at all. I mean how does one arrive at a hotel, and not be able to unload luggage?

April 21

Not much to talk about today. We went into the walled city of York, and wandered around the narrow streets. There are lots of shops and a multitude of people. The streets are super narrow, especially with the way drivers park and/or leave their vehicles all over. Where we were in the city center, the streets are all cobbled stones, and hard to walk/drive on. Drivers park virtually wherever they want, and being a visitor, I'm finding it tough to figure out safe spots, unless they are marked as "disabled" so we can use Jan's disabled badge.





The road signs are almost non-existent when compared to our signs back home. It's hard to tell what lane to be in as you're driving along, since there are only arrows painted on the lanes and once there is a line of cars, it's a toss-up whether the lane you're in is supposed to go straight through or turn. Motorcycles and bicycles drive between any lane of traffic, and even weave between cars in order to get ahead. Pedestrians do not have the right of way, and take their lives in their hands crossing anywhere they want.

Other than these complaints, I'm really enjoying the driving over here, as I've mentioned a few times before. LOL There are roads everywhere, crisscrossing the land, and you can get on a narrow little one lane road in the middle of nowhere, and end up connecting with a 6-lane freeway a short while later!

Tomorrow, we're off southward to Nottingham. Maybe we'll run into Robin Hood, or the sheriff.