Loving and Leaving London

Well, we are at Heathrow awaiting our departure for Hongkong. We have thoroughly enjoyed London. We saw a matinee performance of Jersey Boys on Sunday afternoon (yes Cherie, we took your advice and got the last minute cheap tickets - thks!) which was fantastic. In fact Chris thought it was right up there with the best things we have done since we have been away and the boys loved it too. Yesterday we ticked off Harrods, Harvey Nicholls and Selfridges as well as all the other exorbitant shops in Knightsbridge and Oxford street. The boys got the electronic boy things they had on their shopping lists and we wore our feet out. Today we had to check out of our apartment at 11.00, but Laura kindly let us leave our baggage at her place and we went right into the City for the day. We went to a 'Britain at War' experience which was kind of strange, walked the London Tower Bridge, strolled alongside the Thames and walked around the Tower of London. There was the 'London Dungeon' experience but the queues were a mile long and the boys are still suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the House of Horrors at Universal Studios and apparently the Dungeon is the 'scariest experience in the U.K'  - so we gave it a miss!
London has a certain 'familiarity' about it which has made it an easy city to enjoy, we have felt quite at home. Everyone says it is expensive, but we haven't found it eye-wateringly so - our accomodation was fantastic and well priced and it was great to be able to cook in the apartment. Liam said today that at home a meal out is a treat - on holiday a home-cooked meal is a treat! Laura provided us with 'Oyster Cards' which are pre-paid travel cards which you can use on the tube and the bus and have a daily cap. The kids were free on the bus and a day pass on the tube was only 2 pounds each for them so it has been fairly inexpensive to get around. Although we are all a bit over public transport - Chris and I are looking forward to our cars. There are also lots of lovely parks and green spaces to enjoy which was surprising - I thought the city would be a lot more 'closed in' than it is. Paris and Barcelona don't really have the green open spaces that London has - those cities have what they call 'hard recreation areas' which are all concrete which isn't as attractive. All in all it has been a nice stay which we will have the memories of during our 12 hour 50 minute flight tonight! Love to all..

Relaxing and Enjoying London

This morning was just like a normal Saturday morning at home - (except it's Sunday!). We left the boys to relax in the apartment and wandered down to the local Farmers Market, which is just like ours, even the same size and in the grounds of a school, except the food definitely had a more English bent. We had a wander, a sample, bought some food to cook this evening, - English sausages, fresh dug spuds and purple broccoli - and also one each of a lot of lovely looking cakes and Cornish pasties so we can have a sample -  had a coffee at the local bakery and wandered back to the apartment. We have decided to have a bit more of a relaxing day today as yesterday was pretty busy - we went into London City and Madame Tussauds. When we got to M.T's the queue once again was very long - 3 and a half hours wait. We blanched at that of course so a tip from the staff was to go into the City, buy your tickets there (the queue was much shorter if you had pre-purchased your tickets) and come back after 3.30pm when things had quietened down a bit. We took this advice and caught the underground into Trafalgar Square, sussed out our tickets and took a trip to one of the more obscure sites - The Old Operating Theatre and Herb Garrett. What a funny place, obviously the site of an old hospital theatre in the attic of an old building, there were graphic displays of the old ways of treating illness and injury and a talk on how amputations were performed. A bit of an eye watering demo. And the thing with these more weird places is they have no queues so we are making a point of searching them out. Madame Tussauds, of course very touristy, was very well done and the boys really enjoyed it.
There was a big football match on yesterday afternoon, a semi-final between Chelsea and Aston Villa, so the hooligans were out in force in the city and the police had closed a couple of pubs and were on the streets in numbers when we were coming home. In the absence of any rugby the boys have taken to watching the football on T.V. Talk about desperate!
We have sussed out the buses and the underground and more or less got a grip on where things are so we are back into the City this afternoon to catch a matinee show.
The sun is shining and although the days are cool around the edges are warm enough in the middle. We have certainly be lucky with the weather on our trip - it's been fantastic. More soon...

Shopping, A Palace and 5 Star Living in London

Wow, it sounds great! We we arrived in London yesterday to a gorgeous apartment that is attached to a lovely home in Kensal Green - a very nice area, close to Notting Hill, Kensington and Portobello Road Markets. The weather is lovely and very spring-y. The apartment is to-die-for gorgeous, I have been a little remiss and didn't bring a UK adapter (will try and get one tomorrow) so can't charge my lappy,so none of our pics today sorry, but have a look at the apartment here -  and it is even better than the pictures! The Indian Restaurant we went to for dinner last night was fantastic and today we have had a very interesting a varied day. Laura who owns the apartment has an exhaustive library of everything to see and do in London and I scrambled my brain last night trying to work out an itinerary for the 5 days we have here - there is so much to do! Given we are close to Kensington and a palace of some description is a must - we visited Kensington Palace where Lady Di (and others of course) lived. The palace is under refurbishment until 2012, but in the meantime as they restore and refurbish, a fantastic art installation called the Enchanted Palace is being displayed in some of the Great Rooms which still bear the beautiful artworks, ceiling paintings and some furnishings as well as the exhibition of modern art, fashion and performances. It is difficult to describe but it was a fantastic experience that kept us wandering and interested for a couple of hours and this link may give you a bit more of an idea. And no queues!
Shopping in Kensington High Street and Portobello Road afterward made for a long and interesting afternoon. Portobello Road with it's bohemain atmosphere and antique stalls was particularly interesting and quite a contrast to Kensington High Street. In Kensington all the women were beautifully put together and gorgeous, a few blocks over in Portobello Road they all looked like they were in their pajamas. We struggled back to the apartment laden with shopping - a trip which was made even longer when we caught the right bus - but it was going in the wrong direction.
The apartment is very close to a pub - of course, so Chris and I snuck down for a pint before dinner which we cooked at home tonight. Home cooking is something we have missed when we haven't been in an apartment and I think I have been in danger of scurvy from not eating enough veges. (Well, maybe not quite!).
We are enjoying everyone being able to speak English, London obviously is a very multi-cultural city, but the onus at last is on others to speak English rather than us trying to decipher the local language which is a welcome relief. 

Another Day in the City of Love

It was a warmer day to day, and in the interests of staying away from the queues that are hours long we searched out another of Paris’ more obscure sights – the Incorruptible Nun. In a beautiful little convent and church is the body of Saint Catherine Laboure who died in 1876 and in 1933 her body was discovered still intact like the day she died and today it is still the same. We have a postcard with her picture on it, but Mass was underway when we went in so we couldn’t get close, although they also have the body of the nun who founded the convent on display as well. She is displayed in the gold case on the left of the photo. Saint Catherine is displayed beneath the statue of Mary on the right. It was an extraordinarily beautiful little church and a serene setting in the middle of a busy and very upmarket area. We went across the road afterward to Bon Marche which is Paris’ oldest department store and very beautiful with all the expensive designer brands.


A trip to Les Halles Forum which is an underground shopping centre followed – amazing! Apparently this is also hated by Parisens – they don’t do the ‘mall thing’ – I imagine it’s probably too tacky – but the shopping was great!

We have used the underground to get around Paris and thought it prudent to get a Metro sorted before we get to our next destination which is a much bigger city.

I am sad to leave Paris, it’s very, very lovely and so are the French – all those who told us we would love it were right! Anyway, it’s off out for our last evening in Paris, the evenings have been lovely – light and with a spring feeling in the air – and then packing up for London tomorrow. On the upside it will be for the first time in a month that we will be in an English-speaking country. The language thing has been okay really but all our communication has been at a very basic level and Chris is busting to get a newspaper to read in English!

Goodbye Paris!

The Paris Sights

Today we visited the Montparnasse area on the left bank of the Seine. The bicycle tour people recommended we visit the Montparnasse tower for an amazing view over Paris. Most people will go to the Eiffel Tower for their view over Paris, but the queues are soul-destroying. The Montparnasse Tower is a big black skyscraper (in fact the Parisiens apparently hate it – as many hate the Eiffel Tower - and say it looks like the box the Eiffel Tower came in.) and you can make your way to the helipad on top for the most amazing views of the city including a wonderful view to the Eiffel Tower, the Sacre Coeur, The Louvre , Arc de Triomphe and all the famous monuments. We then had lunch in a very authentic French Bistro - T G for the French phrase book and the helpful waiter to decipher the menu!  We then visited Les Catacombs which is an old mine – 20m underground that has passages that run for 2km. In it are the skeletons of hundreds of thousands of Parisen commoners that couldn’t afford proper burials that were previously buried in mass graves. Due to the unsanitary conditions of these mass graves they were exhumed and from the 17th century were placed in the old quarry in decorative fashion so what you are literally seeing are masses of skulls placed between mountains of tibia bones – quite bizarre! A bit of shopping followed and we are now resting tired feet!

The food shops – chocolate, pastries, fruit, charcuteries etc are gorgeous – once again it would be wonderful to shop their every day. I have nosed in a few antique shops but really need a week here by myself to do that justice.  To give you an idea a meal out is costing us about E60 on average ($115 NZD) and buying water and soft drinks at a restaurant is more expensive than buying wine. A bottle of coke or water at a restaurant is about E4 and a carafe of wine is about E8 (about 6 small glasses.) so maybe it is time we introduced the boys to red wine!

Last night we went to Little Tokyo, which is just down the road, for dinner to a restaurant called Higuma and had lovely Japanese noodle soups and dumplings – the meals were about E10 a head which is pretty good, although once again add E18 for a drink each.

Cost aside, we are charmed by Paris, it is a beautiful city.

The boys are bursting from the lack of open spaces and grass to run around on. Amazing we have seen so little of it and what grass is in Paris is not allowed to be walked on. So Liam and Jordan have been improvising and found an old soccer ball and have been playing soccer at any opportunity in the square opposite the hotel. Thankfully people smile indulgently rather than tell them off if they cop a near miss!

Postscript: Dinner tonight E26 - a bargain at last! Kebabs and a drink chosen by the boys!

Paris by Bike

We arrived in Paris yesterday after a 1.5 hour flight from Barcelona. We checked into Hotel Favart - which is a small hotel in the Opera district which I think is in the 2nd Arondissment of Paris. Paris is divided into 20 districts or arondissements that circle outward from the 1st in a snail pattern, so being in the 2nd district means we are pretty much in the cente of Paris. The first thing we have noticed is the cold - much colder than anywhere else we have been - a high of about 8 deg C today - Brr! Although we got a bit of rain yesterday, today at least has been sunny which was wonderful for our bike tour of the city. This pic is of us on the Seine river bank with the Notre Dame cathedral in the background on the left. The bike tour today was fantastic - we wandered around yesterday a bit lost, but today our tour, which lasted about 6 hours, has given us a good orientation of the city and it is fantastic to get an overview of all the famous sites and now we can get a plan together for the next couple of days of what we want to go back to. Not only did we see some of the famous sites today including the Louvre, the house where Jim Morrison died and many palaces, cathedrals, museums and churches (as you do!), but we also discovered some other gems such as the restaurant and rat shop that featured in the kids' movie  Ratatouille (we won't be going to the restaurant - dinner is about 2000 E a couple because they arrange for the lights on the Notre Dame to be turned on for their guests.), a gorgeous patisserie for lunch, lots of antique shops and shopping areas and the work of a guerilla street artist who has placed all these mosaic 'space invaders' at various points all over the city. He then takes photos of himself with the art and blanks out his face. He has a website and books and no-one knows who he is. He has done the same thing in other cities all over the world including New York, London and Barcelona. Jordan and Liam both won 5 E each off Chris by spotting them around the place - they are all different though. You can tell I was quite taken by this!  Check out his website here. Here is an example of the art:

Our guide, Pamela was a charming Chilean girl who is in Paris studying French.She had lots of wonderful stories and was very knowledgable about the city. Today being a public holiday there were plenty of tourists out strolling but not much traffic which was great. At the end of the tour they gave us a list of recommended restaurants and things to see that are hopefully not the typical tourist traps. It was great day and we are now resting up with the next difficult decision being where to go for dinner. The hotel is fine, but obviously the difference is that we are either in our rooms or out, rather than the living space we had in the apartment. At least we have 2 rooms here, wich have an adjoining bathroom, and for 148 E a night including breakfast is a pretty good deal in what is a very expensive city. Paris is a lovely city and we can't wait to explore for tne next couple of days.

Feels Like a Holiday!

Our last 2 days in Barcelona have been pretty relaxing. More time on the bus, bit of shopping, eating and drinking as well as the Royal 500 Championship. We have been back to our expensive tapas restaurant for dinner because it is so exceptionally good and have seen some of the famous sights. The Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's famous cathedral which has been under construction for over 100 years is quite fantastic. It is walking distance from our apartment, but unfortunately the queue to go in was hours long and stretched around 2 sides of the block so going in wasn't an option. We visited the Parc De Guell which was a public park designed by Gaudi originally as a housing development, which failed. One of the 2 showhomes built was lived in by Gaudi and now houses a museum dedicated to his work. It was really interesting and it made me wish I had the time/inclination to queue for hours for the 2 other Gaudi designed residences that are on display in one of Barcelona's main streets. Unfortunately, these also are queues 2 blocks long and are that long all day and all night - I haven't the stomach for it!
The crowds have been quite incredible, probably because it is Easter and it has been a bit of a struggle to walk along the main streets - which is amazing because 2 blocks over the place is like a ghost town! Once again we have been very thankful that we are staying away from La Rambla - the main tourist street. We walked La Rambla yesterday which was a great experience for the boys - street performers everywhere. And today we went back to La Boqueria the famous market which was lovely, but once again, so packed with people you couldn't move. That didn't stop the boys from spending 20 E at some amazing sweet stalls, but after finding our way home after that we have spent the late afternoon relaxing and enjoying some peace. We leave tomorrow early to catch the plane for Paris. The video below shows the boys with a street performer, it's not too long so shouldn't take long to download.. Hope you are all enjoying a lovely Easter.