Final Europe trip, Post 11: Vernon and Ardres

Continuing on from Post 10: in France with Delle, Dotti and Lachy at the end of our two-week Europe trip in July...

After our visit to Monet's Garden, we drove back to the nearby town of Vernon, where we ate a massive lunch and then went our separate ways for a while to do some shopping and exploring.

Vernon is a gorgeous little town with interesting shops and lots of Tudor architecture. It also has a massive Gothic-style cathedral reminiscent of Notre Dame. The large temporary panorama at the top of this page shows the cathedral and a row of Tudor-style shops, as seen from the steps of the building in the third photo below. I absolutely love Tudor architecture, the older and wonkier the better, so I loved this sweet little town!



After this, we continued on to Ardres, a little town near Calais where we were to stay for our last night in Europe. We were boarding the EuroTunnel at Calais the next morning (Thursday) to head back to England, and Delle and Lachy were flying home the day after that.

Our B&B in Ardres was an absolutely gorgeous house a few stories tall. Our rooms were at the very top of the house, so it was a good workout wrestling all our luggage up the creaky narrow wooden staircase! Our rooms were very cute - a pink room for the boys and a green room for the girls...



That night we all had a craving for crepes again. We asked our helpful and friendly host and were delighted to learn that Ardres had a very nice creperie. So we thoroughly enjoyed our two courses of crepes (savoury and sweet), agreeing it was a fantastic high note on which to end our European sojourn. Yum yum yum!!!!!



The next day we headed back to England and spent the afternoon in London, showing Lachy some of the sights (well, Delle too, but she had probably already seen more of London than we had all year!). In the evening we saw We Will Rock You in West End. Great fun! That night we stayed with Matt and Kat, who had a very full apartment as they also had two other visitors from Austria.

The next morning, Dotti, Ben and I took Lachy and Delle to the airport and sadly farewelled our wonderful visitors... so glad they had made such a tremendous effort because we had all enjoyed absolutely unforgettable days together. Thanks guys!!!! :D



Well, that's it - our final Europe trip all recorded! Hope you enjoyed coming along! :)

Final Europe trip, Post 10: Monet's Garden

Continuing on from Post 9...

On Wednesday, we checked out of our B&B in Notre-Dame-de-l'Isle and set off to a nearby town called Giverny to see Monet's Garden. This was the home of the famous French impressionist painter Claude Monet (1840 - 1926).

We toured his house and then wandered around the large gardens and lakeside paths. The lake was absolutely beautiful with its waterlillies, weeping willows and cute little bridges. You may recognise some of the sights below, famous as a result of Monet's paintings... particularly the waterlillies and green bridge. So amazing to see them in real life!

You can click on any of these photos if you want to see a larger version of them...



The gardens were extremely beautiful and peaceful. So peaceful that Lachy and Ben lay down on a bench for a snooze (this is later on in the same day as the carpark shenanigans!), until they were told off in French by a disapproving lady guide. Later on we took a few group shots as it was such a gorgeous setting. The fourth photo below shows what we really felt like by then...



Throughout the gardens, we spotted lots of beautiful and exotic-looking flowers. It was a great opportunity for some macro shots. :) I've included some of my favourites below, just for those of you with a bit of a green thumb! Hope you enjoy them... can you name them all??



Anyway, our few hours in Monet's Garden were a complete contrast to the previous day in bustling Paris, but so enjoyable. It was a beautiful spot and we totally recommend a visit if you ever get the chance! That's all for now... hopefully after one more entry I'll finally have finished documenting this trip!! Goodnight!

Final Europe trip, Post 9: How to get out of a carpark in Paris in 48 simple steps...

It’s been a long time since I’ve done a “simple steps” post, but I thought it was appropriate for this particular story: the long awaited (for some) carpark saga!

Step 1: From the Arc de Triomphe, take last metro of the night back to where car is parked at La Défense. Note time is 1am.

Step 2: Arrive at La Défense and set off to find entrance of shopping centre that leads to underground carpark.

Step 3: Notice presence of construction workers and work in progress around outside of shopping centre under which car is parked.

Step 4: Notice lack of construction works around every other shopping centre in the enormous shopping precinct that is La Défense.

Step 5: Arrive at entrance of shopping centre and observe door is firmly locked.

Step 6: Calmly decide to locate another carpark entrance that doesn’t require shopping centre access first.

Step 7: Walk around shopping centre to next carpark ramp. Observe large metal grille preventing entry by human-sized objects.

Step 8: Repeat Step 7.

Step 9: Repeat Step 8.

Step 10: Repeat Step 9.

Step 11: Notice all other shopping centres in area – those without construction works – have 24 hour carparks that appear open and welcoming. Feel slightly alarmed.

Step 12: Retrace steps and spot several taxi drivers chatting together beside their cars. Show carpark ticket to taxi drivers and try to explain dilemma.

Step 13: Receive instruction from one taxi driver, who can speak basic English, to take ticket to a nearby booth.

Step 14: Hesitate because booth is pitch dark.

Step 15: Get taken over to booth by exasperated taxi driver, who raps sharply on booth window. Observe sudden appearance of light and newly-awakened booth attendant. Taxi driver walks off.

Step 16: Show carpark ticket to booth attendant, who doesn’t know any English but says “sécurité” and motions back towards the shopping centre.

Step 17: Approach shopping centre entrance and see two security guards doing their rounds inside. Reach door too late to catch their attention as they have already disappeared through a side door. Knock uselessly on entrance door for a while.

Step 18: Confer with fellow travellers as to best course of action.

Step 19: Search unsuccessfully for security office.

Step 20: Decide to go back to taxi drivers.

Step 21: Tell taxi drivers that booth attendant said to go to security. Ask where security is. Taxi drivers point to booth and say: “he IS security”!!!

Step 22: Hmm.

Step 23: Decide to look for road entrance through which car entered carpark 16 hours earlier.

Step 24: Find entrance. Observe large metal grille preventing weary travellers from reaching poor car.

Step 25: Spot A4 sign at entrance containing French text and a phone number. Call number.

Step 26: Talk on phone to person who can speak English and says to ring intercom button beside grille.

Step 27: Ring intercom button.

Step 28: Repeat Step 27.

Step 29: Repeat Step 28.

Step 30: Eventually hear French words come from speaker. (Later suspect this is Snoozy Snoozerson from aforementioned booth.)

Step 31: Ask: “Parlez-vous anglais?” (Do you speak English?) Receive reply: “Non”.

Step 32: Hmm.

Step 33: Recite name of carpark (CNIT) into intercom. Try to say “entrance 4” with French accent in case their word for “entrance” sounds similar, and using French word for “four” as found in Lonely Planet phrasebook. Try speaking German in hope of establishing a common language. Receive instructions (or perhaps are told where to go…?) in French. Say repeatedly “Je ne comprends pas” (I don’t understand).

Step 34: Wait awhile in hope of having carpark attendant arrive to open grille. Realise this is not going to happen.

Step 36: Open Lonely Planet phrasebook to “Emergencies” section.

Step 37: Discover Lonely Planet editors have omitted vital phrase of “My car is locked in the carpark”.

Step 38: Settle instead for French word for “help”, and memorise phonetic pronounciation of it: “oh skoor”. (Later realise French spelling is “au secours” and may have thus been meant to sound much gentler than our rendition of it did.)

Step 39: Ring intercom again.

Step 40: Recite into intercom: “oh skoor! oh skoor!” Receive reply in French. Respond with “Je ne comprends pas”. Continue this informative conversation in like manner.

Step 41: Realise literal translation of conversation is “Help! Help! I don’t understand… Help! Help! I don’t understand…”

Step 42: All three girls laugh hysterically as a result of above realisation, general bizarreness of situation, and it now being after 2am after a very big day in Paris. Realise hysterical laughter now means intercom person thinks he is dealing with drunk tourists playing a prank and so he will never help us now...

Step 43: Girls decide to go up to shopping centre entrance and ring Hilton intercom, as Hilton carpark is also under same shopping centre. Boys decide to stay put in case someone arrives to open grille.

Step 44: Girls ring Hilton intercom. Clerk answers in a French accent, “do you have a reservation?” Slow-thinking self asks “Parlez-vous anglais?” (Do you speak English?) Hilton clerk responds with “I said… do you have a reservation?”

Step 45: Oh. Durrr.

Step 46: Carry on discussion with very helpful Hilton clerk as to what to say in French into intercom at carpark entrance in order to obtain access to car.

Step 47: During conversation with Hilton clerk, receive phone call from boys, who explain they are currently driving out of carpark in dear sweet wonderful car!!!!!

Step 48: Get collected by boys and hear explanation of how car was found… It involves a search for a tree further up the street resulting in the discovery of an open carpark entrance around the next corner… It also involves walking through the pitch dark carpark entrance by mobile phone light, until entering the main carpark area and having a giant Alsation suddenly bear down upon them with much bwooofing and galumphing… And a thankfully quick-waking security guard who called off his dog, looked at the carpark ticket and waved the boys through… Whereupon they quickly located the car, paid the normal day rate carpark fee, collected us, and finally set off on the hour-long journey back to the B&B.

And so, we arrived home at 3:30am on Wednesday morning… only to discover… we had been locked out………

Final Europe trip, Post 8: Paris by night

Continuing on from the last post, this is the tale of our Parisian adventures one fine Tuesday evening in July...

After spending a little while outside the Louvre, the five of us (Delle, Dotti, Lachy, Ben and I) set off back to Notre Dame Cathedral to catch the 9:30pm "building of Notre Dame" video that we would be allowed inside to see. We walked past a lake that reflected the setting sun beautifully and that was surrounded by cuddling couples on BYO chairs, and then walked through the middle of what seemed to be a semi-permanent fun fair - see photo of rides below!



Back at Notre Dame, we sat in the pews inside the grand old cathedral and watched a video about the building of it projected onto a large screen up the front. The dialogue was in French but luckily there were English subtitles!

At 9:30pm, a family we'd been hoping to catch up with all day finally arrived and slid into the pews next to us - Ron and Keryn F and their teenage kids Luke and Laura! They are from Orange, NSW, but were travelling through Europe for a month or two. We had met up with them at convention in Germany, and discovered we would all be in Paris on Tuesday. We'd been intending to spend most of the day together, but after a number of hold-ups on their end, and text message delays etc, they finally found us about 12 hours later! After the video ended, we enjoyed catching up with them outside Notre Dame and hearing all about the snails they'd eaten for tea...



Later on, we all decided to catch the 11pm twinkling of the Eiffel Tower. What happens is that the Tower is lit up by coloured flood lights all night, but for 10 minutes on every hour, from nightfall until 1am in winter or 2am in summer, the entire tower "twinkles"! We'd only found out about it that morning in a brochure about the Tower, and were all very keen to see it. (Click here for an interesting site I found about the history of illuminating the Eiffel Tower.)

So, the nine of us took the metro to the station we thought was closest to the Eiffel Tower, and set off at a brisk pace in the direction that felt right. (Perhaps you can already tell where this story is going... :P) By a few minutes to 11, we still couldn't see the Tower above any of the tall buildings around us, and finally realised we needed to be running in the complete opposite direction. So, about turn, and off we went again!

As it approached 11:10pm, when the Tower would stop sparkling, the nine of us were running through the streets of Paris, dodging traffic, wildly gazing upwards in the hope of glimpsing a magical sparkling tower, and spread about a block apart, with the speediest ones (Lachy and Luke) well ahead of the rest!

Just in time, we saw in the distance the tip of the Tower above the skyline... yes, the top few metres of the Eiffel Tower, which was floodlit blue that night, lined with sparkling silver dots of light... it was beautiful!! :) Beams of blue light also moved across the night sky, coming from the top of the Tower (it was these that helped me spot the Tower in the first place).

So, exhausted but happy, we tucked into some Häagen-Dazs and then wandered back through the streets to the Eiffel Tower in a more leisurely and restrained manner.



We arrived at the far end of the long skinny park (Champ de Mars) that leads to the Tower, and Dotti, Lachy, Ben and I set up camp on a small gazebo-type platform directly in line with the Tower but a couple hundred metres away from it. Meanwhile, Delle wandered closer to the Tower with Ron, Keryn, Luke and Laura.

It was a beautiful evening and I must say that sitting in that park, gazing at the blue Eiffel Tower and its mesmerising beams of blue light slowly criss-crossing the night sky, was one of the highlights of the whole trip for me. I had by then spent two full days sightseeing in Paris (one in 2006, and then this day), but it was Paris at night that I finally fell in love with. We had fun taking photos and playing with time exposures, as you can see below!

After a while of this blissful relaxation, it came to our attention that poor Delle was having a slightly less relaxing time, trying to call each of us in turn and our phones all ringing out (still on silent from being inside Notre Dame!). She was near the base of the Tower and the others she was with were wanting to head for their hotel, and Delle had no idea where to find us!! Eventually she got through to us and found her way back - we hadn't moved more than 10 metres from where we'd parted ways anyway!



By this time it was almost midnight so we were thrilled to realise we would get to see the Tower twinkling properly - the full height of it rather than just the tip, and from the most ideal viewing situation imaginable! It was incredible! I took a brief video of it (see below) just to show you all! :) Hope you enjoy it - the real thing is absolutely beautiful...



Afterwards, we wandered up to the base of the Tower and searched for some loos, but they were all closed. (This fact actually came in incredibly handy some hours later, but I'll get to that in the NEXT entry!!) Check out the photo below showing the flood lights shining on one of the Tower's legs!



After taking the metro part of the way back to where we'd left our car at Le Defence, we popped up above ground for a look at the famous Arc de Triomphe. This is a "triumphal arch" monument to honour those who fought for France, and it is in the centre of a roundabout that is about 10 lanes wide but with no lane markings. The roundabout is at the western end of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées (the most expensive strip of real estate in Europe) and is apparently insane during the day, but was reasonably quiet when we were there, given that it was 1am in the morning!!



Anyway, I would say "and that was the end of our day in Paris, so bye for now"... if it were true! However, that's far from the case, so I'll just say "there's so much more to our day in Paris that I need to write it in a whole separate blog entry, so bye for now"!!! :)