My last pictures from Dover/Canterbury and London.

In Dover

Dover Port from high above atop The White Cliffs

Inside the Castle - English Heritage has done a wonderful job!

Loved this sign

Shame they put the Remembrance Day flowers in front of the graffiti - you can just see it behind them on the left!

In Canterbury




In London

A subtle little Mayfair tie


Too much is never enough - especially at Christmas time.

Dover and London.

Our Channel crossing was extremely smooth and we landed in Dover aboard The Pride of Calais. The White Cliffs of Dover are visible just about from the time you leave France and they provide a spectacular backdrop to Dover.

It was a pleasant walk to our guesthouse “Hubert House” at the foot of the hill leading up to Dover Castle. This house was built in the days of the Napoleonic Wars and has provided sponsorship and accommodation for many cross channel swimmers (including Des Renford) over a long period of time. Our guest house was beautifully decorated and our host (a swimmer in a couple of channel relays) was kind enough to move all our bags up the very narrow stairs while we were out exploring the castle.
We were lucky to discover that the castle is closed on Tuesday and we still had enough of Monday to see it! It is a very steep walk up the hill but well worth the effort. I did think I may have expired on the steps but I kept going and was pleased to discover I was still alive at the top.

We enjoyed the World War 2 tunnels and lookouts and batteries, the Roman remains, the Medieval tunnels and the grounds. Most especially we enjoyed the recently renovated “Great Tower”. English Heritage has done a superb job recreating life in this wonderful old building. We had dinner in the pub just around the corner.

We had actually planned to visit the castle on Tuesday and this left us with a free day on Wednesday so we caught the train to Canterbury. We have been to Canterbury before so this time we found Canterbury Castle, walked the old city walls and thoroughly explored the many interesting streets of the city. There are some beautiful shops and some wonderful products on display. The English do Christmas well!!!!! I saw many wonderful things that I wanted to buy – we actually bought some chocolates to take home –will they survive?

Then we returned to Dover and our pub for dinner again.

Wednesday morning and it was time to catch the train to London. London suburbs, especially when you arrive from the east are not attractive! It is a bit of a surprise the first time you see it. I would simply hate to live in blocks of flats such as those in the East End. We are using reward points for our London accommodation (and don’t have to pay!) and are shacked up in Mayfair. There could be no greater contrast than to the somewhat daggy parts of outer London. We have wandered through Green Park, Piccadilly Circus, walked down Regent Street, checked out Buckingham Palace and the vast contingents of media, we have prowled Bond Street and Berkeley Square (where Tony sang beautifully!), trawled through Fortnum and Mason’s, window shopped at Tiffany’s, De Beer’s and many other places of absolute decadence…….and we have found a couple of places with excellent food at a price we can afford to pay! There are still a few leaves on the trees and squirrels in the park.

As I write we are in a bar called Henry’s on Piccadilly – it has good coffee and free WiFi. Our bags are packed and waiting for us and tonight we fly to Singapore. Fingers crossed that we can find some reasonable internet when we arrive.

Looking for houses and history.

This morning in Calais

Looking for houses and history.
It was a quick trip to Calais and, as we have stayed at this hotel before, it took us only a little time to be settled in. We decided to search for the Walkers house first as we thought that the rain may get worse. With the aid of a map from the 1846 census and the free map from the hotel we set out and were rewarded with some success though not total. We found Rue de Vendee which is quite close to one of the main canals but couldn’t locate the original house at it was a large space (area 53 which was not number 53) and it appears to have been built over. The Rue is quite narrow and it was difficult to get long shots and we were more successful from the other side of the block – as well the rain continued to fall from above. It is always quite an emotional experience to be so close to where family lived such a long time ago. We eventually returned to our hotel in a very wet and soggy state.

The Walkers lived in the middle of this block, not right on the edge of the block but probably back behind where the darker coloured roof is.

This is the canal that can be seen in the 1846 map. The little kink is visible in the middle of the photograph on the left as well as on the map. It helps locate 53.

Saturday saw us heading for the Lace Museum. It is quite an excellent place to visit and reflects the history and future of lace and design very well. The lighting was good to look at the exhibits but not super good for photography and we only used flash for the machinery rather than the actual lace and fashion items. Still I took lots of shots and hopefully they will serve some use for the people waiting on them. There were virtually no brochures available and the books were all fairly heavy and not exciting in presentation at all. So that was bad luck for Carolyn, though I do have quite a few pics which may be some inspiration. There was nothing about our Australian Lacemakers at all and the few history books they had were in French. So all that has been left behind. I found a sample of manufactured lace from 1836 and managed to get a reasonable shot of it and we saw a Leavers machine in operation. I loved watching the lace machine working. Sadly little remains from the early 1840s and much of the equipment was destroyed/removed/lost during World War 2.

A little lace makes any safety vest more apealing!

This chair seat was inspired by lace.

The 1839 sample - not very good really but the best I could do. Can't go back and try again sadly.
Having already purchased our foot passenger tickets to get back to England we decided that we would check out the location of the terminal as we have to walk there tomorrow morning. It was a pleasant walk through the rain and the industrial area surrounding the actual port!!!! We won’t get lost tomorrow.

Today is Sunday and our last full day in France. This morning we went for a walk and went out onto the wharf from which William, Therese and the children sailed for England, where they married prior to sailing for Australia in 1848. It was foggy, wet and cold. This afternoon is slump time. We have watched the Remembrance Day Parade from London. It was a very sombre and short affair compared to the noise, music, flags, banners etc of our Anzac Day marches.

The major thought for the afternoon is should I have one more moules and frites meal before we head for Dover tomorrow? We shall be home in a little over a week.

I love Paris (and anything French)!

Gare de Nord and rain! After a brief misplacement of ourselves we found our hotel. This time, because we are leaving from Gare de Nord for Lille, we have chosen a hotel in this area and it turned out to be quite a good idea. We were quite near the foot of the Montmatre hill so after we had dropped our luggage we set off for a walk. It was pretty cold and miserable but we enjoyed looking at the buildings and shops and gradually climbing up hill. Businesses are somewhat grouped in parts of Paris. Around our hotel there were lots and lots of bridal shops and as we walked we passed a great number of fabric shops. The weather began to get to us however and we became increasingly cold so we found a delicatessen where we bought a few basics and a fruit shop where we purchased the ingredients for a salad and returned to our tiny studio apartment. It had a really basic kitchen but just enough utensils for me to produce a one pot dinner with a green salad. Our purchase of a cheap bottle of French red wine made this a great meal…..but before dinner we hopped on the Metro and headed for Trocadero and a good view of the Eiffel Tower. It was cold and wet but it made the tower very impressive. As we rode above ground on our way home it started to sparke with flashing lights……so I knew we would have to return.

The next morning saw us heading for the flea markets, somewhere I have long wanted to visit. Now I know where to shop when I want to furnish the chateau – seats, mirrors, chandeliers, vases, clocks and ornaments. Also lots of books, posters, postcards and old records. Shame about the force 9 gale, the pouring rain and the intense cold!!!!!!!! We waded through water in streets blocked by what seemed to be a million autumn leaves blown from the trees and Tony’s umbrella disintegrated.




So what to do next? Obviously dry out….but where and how? Experience guided us and we headed for the Louvre where we knew the air would be very dry. They have extended the restaurant section and there is lots of food available in all sorts of global styles.

We had interesting sea food and salad. Then we spent the rest of the day following endless corridors and climbing endless steps. If you haven’t been there you may find this hard to understand but the place is huge!

We saw lots of our old favourites including Venus and Mona and wandered through the antiquities section for hours. Coffee and then time to return to the tower and see it with all of its lights......simply stupendous!



That left us just one day…big decisions to be made. I have been trying to get to Sacre Coeur for 49 years and 2 previous trips to Paris. Last time we made it to the outside and there was a festival on and a queue about a mile long. Rain was not going to stop me this time so off we went and I loved it. It was a very misty and eerie view of Paris from the church.



We were wet and cold again and needed another art gallery. This time we chose the Musee D’Orsay – lots to see there! The art works that we saw in Canberra are not back on display yet so I was very pleased to have already seen them This time we saw the blue portrait of Van Gogh – I far prefer it to the one they had in Australia.

And of course you can never go to Paris without a trip to Notre Dame. It was quite late in the afternoon when we arrived but that meant fewer people inside. I think that the round windows are some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.



I still have a few things to see and do in Paris – perhaps next time?

Tuesday saw us heading for Lille on the TGV. 2 years ago we drove through Lille looking for a room for the night. Eventually we found one and the receptionist gave us instructions to park the car. We never found the parking area and we never found our way back to the hotel – we wanted to see if the streets were really that difficult to negotiate. Wisdom taught us that a place near the railway station would mean less bag dragging on cobbled streets so we checked into the hotel and set out. What a wonderfully confused city!




In the day and a half we have spent here we have been lost (of course – we always get lost because I keep getting distracted from the plan and we wander). We have been rained upon, almost blown away, hit in the face by fast moving sleet, frozen and delighted by some simply wonderful buildings, shops and restaurants. Cakes, chocolates and Christmas treats have had me drooling and today I found the first craft shop of the entire trip! It was a beauty.



It has become a bit of a silly thing to look for chairs in windows. In Paris and Bordeaux we could find none – must be because they are all in Lille. Very strange.



We bought chairs exactly the same as this (except for the colour) in the early 1970s.

We had dinner in a down market bar in a side street and had local Flemish specialities. Tony had Carbonnade Flamande(he likes mine better) while I had potjevlesch – a terrine of tradition meat – porc, lapin and poulet. Quite an interesting meal.

Today was Remembrance Day and a public holiday. If you hadn’t known that was the reason for the majority of the businesses being closed you certainly wouldn’t have been enlightened by any visible alteration to advertising, clothing, shop decoration etc. Experiencing the absolutely vile weather really makes you appreciate the hardships of the people who fought here. It isn’t too bad when you have thermals, woolly caps, fur lined gloves and your coat and you are returning to a nice warm hotel– sleeping in a muddy ditch when you have wet feet and no comforts must have been hideous especially considering that people were trying to kill you.

Just a couple more days in France and we will spend them in Calais, looking at the Lace Museum and trying to find the house where my French ancestors lived. Hopefully it will be a little warmer nearer the sea.

Bordeaux and beyond .

This time we saw the flamingos as we neared Narbonne and I had the camera ready - not a very good shot as it is out of the train window but it is better than no photo at all!



The trains ran and our only problem was they we couldn’t complete the middle section as planned so we had a 4 hour break in Narbonne. Fortunately there was a bar/restaurant at the station so we had a very slow drink and lunch and sat at their tables until it was time to board. Bordeaux was a very interesting city. It has an extensive tram network with trams running every few minutes and we purchased a day ticket at a very reasonable price. After we finished sight seeing for the day and our feet were tired we decided to spend time riding the trams to fill in the gaps. Our mid afternoon had been disrupted by a protest march which caused these trams to stop and it was a bit irritating as the marchers were going around the centre of the city and we were somewhat encircled. Quite safe really as there were lots of police with guns!!!!!.

The Garonne River (crossed by The Pont de Pierre) runs through the centre of the city and provides a good and safe harbour. It is a city of solid stone construction with some parts of the buildings dating back 1000 years. Shops by the dozen and many multicultural businesses line the streets – I saw some lovely boots….but……they are still there. Exploring the architecture took us a long time as usual.

Gross Cloche Eglise St Eloi




Pont de Pierre



The Cathedral


The food in the restaurants was excellent and we dined in the Frog and Rostbif. Here we learned that we were only the second couple of Australians our waitress had encountered in Bordeaux – it seems that we are off the Aussie tourist trail. We were very entertained by the fact that they thought we were English and that we were served a bottle of Hardy’s white wine. As we were leaving, purely by chance, I Come From a Land Down Under started to play on the sound system. We had a good laugh with our Scottish waitress.


That red shoe is made from chocolate - what a shop!





This was our first experience of the Campanile chain of hotels – a good price and very pleasant service. This chain has added a jug to its rooms – very revolutionary but a nice touch.

Autumn colours have come to the countryside. As I write we are heading though very beautiful and neat rural areas on our way to Paris.

Hola from Barcelona

Ah……the French train system. According to the web site the trains were not running – we went to the station anyway and our train arrived on time. It was an interesting trip and the track hugged the coast for quite a distance. We were lucky enough to see some of the famous flamingos in the coastal lakes but sadly have no photos. The French guard was very serious and told Tony that he thought that the dates had been changed on our Eurail Pass. They hadn’t, of course, as this means the pass can be automatically and immediately taken from you and you are fined as well as losing all your ticket money. Fortunately he didn’t take it and we were much relieved when the Spanish guard just glanced at it and handed it back.

Our Barcelona Hotel is only 1 year old and it has all sorts of remote controlled lights and air conditioning. We even have a touch screen – I am impressed by little luxury touches. It has hot pink and bright yellow walls and crisp white linen, a big screen TV and a microwave for making drinks. That is a real treat in Europe. We can even see the Mediterranean Sea from our opening window (I like that about European hotels). The city is amazing. I think that one of the first things you notice is the cleanliness both on the streets and in the Metro. All the water in the fountains and troughs is also clean and I have seen many city employees sweeping, raking and cleaning. The new buildings are very innovative and not rectangular shapes at all. There are lots of triangular shapes and buildings with sections of floors missing. Given the architectural history of this city that probably shouldn’t surprise me. Decoration, innovation and style would probably be key words in a text book description.



We have walked miles after deciding that 70 euros for a hop on/off bus ticket was too much for 2 days and we have used the metro and Shank’s pony instead……and we have seen and enjoyed lots of wonderful sights. The Sagrada Familia was fantastic, as were all of the other creations designed by Gaudi. Sadly photos don’t really do them justice as they are so big and it is difficult to get a clear uninterrupted shot. We have done our best! One of the other problems with the photography is the contrast between light and shadow. There are also some big hills in Barcelona and we were a little puffed when we arrived at The Parc Guell – just as well there were escalators to take you up part of the way. It makes you smile – Gaudi’s House, pavilions, a wonderful long mosaiced seat, wonderful gardens (lots of prickly pears and other xerophytic plants), a giant mosaiced iguana, and little fancy bits everywhere. We sat and had a very late lunch and I had a very large sangria!











The port area is also a great place to visit and we have learned a fair bit of Spanish history. We had to look up Columbus and see where he actually sailed from and I was never really sure where Aragon was. Shame shame shame! La Rambla is the Barcelona equivalent of the Champs Elysee (but with lots more pet stalls) and we have explored it reasonably well. Today we wandered the street of the Barri Gotic, visited the park, the Barcelona Cathedral, various palace buildings and the archive centre and strolled through the markets and seen all sorts of yummy food.

Lots of wondrous food to buy in the market

Siesta time and everything (well not quite everything) closes

The streets in the Gothic Zone are really narrow and it is very difficult to get good photos here.







I now have a poster and a print of an old map to carry!

We have eaten some good things here including some very expensive tapas. It was surprising as the variety wasn’t as good as I have seen in Sydney and, while it was quite tasty, I expected more. I think we ate at the wrong place. In contrast today for lunch I had the best paella I have ever eaten! We have also dined at the local shopping centre which is just nearby as we get hungry early and many of the restaurants don’t open till 8. That makes for a late night if you don’t order until after 8, wait for your food, eat it and then get back.

Tomorrow we return to France. We have a booked ticket from here to Narbonne. Then we have trouble – you cannot book your seat on line if you have a Eurail Pass, you cannot book a French seat from Spain and you are not allowed on the TGVs unless you have a booked seat. We have 18 minutes at Narbonne between trains so we possibly won’t make it. Some of the train reservation queues in France are very long and slow. We are of course crossing our fingers and hoping the trains actually run. Bordeaux is our intended destination.