Day 52: The Louvre and Home

Our last day in Paris.  Truly it was all over too soon.  There seemed so much more to see and do; so much on my list that we barely touched.
So we’d best be up early, there was a lot to fit into today before we had to be at the airport this evening to start our long journey back home.
We’d packed last night so we were able to get out of the apartment by 8:30 or so.  It was all too hard to arrange a taxi in Paris.  Everything I’d read said booking a taxi could leave you open to having to pay for the taxi from their departure point, something that could turn out expensive if they taxi was coming in from the suburbs.  The best way to grab a taxi is from one of the taxi ranks, however much searching of the internet the night before was reasonably inconclusive in respect to locating one nearby with any confidence.  There was one somewhere on Blvd de Clichy, so we’d see if we could see it, but basically if we’d walked that far with our luggage, we were already nearly halfway to Gare du Nord anyway.
In fact the hardest trial was not worrying about a taxi or walking to the station, but rather getting the luggage down the apartment stairs without killing myself.  The steps showed every bit of their 400 years of wear and they were steep.
It had rained overnight so the streets were wet as we walked through Montmartre to Gare du Nord station, past the shops just opening up for the day, and the early risers heading about their business.
We walked along Blvd de Clichy with no taxi to be seen, past the metro station, and then continued along Rue de Dunkerque towards Gare du Nord.
At the station we were able to drop off our bags with no problems at all, thank God, and we grabbed a simple breakfast at station café.
A lot of people come and ask for money in Paris.  A lot of them do not look like beggars either, such as the lady that was asking all the clients while we ate our croissant and drank coffee.
We caught the metro to the Louvre, passing a beautiful violinist as we made our way out from the station and up to the Passage Richelieu.

Day 51: Musèe de l'Orangerie, Notre Dame and sad farewells

Shanny, Shazzy and Ken were already waiting for us at Café des Deux Moulins, otherwise known as Amèlie’s Café.

Day 50: Versailles and Offenbach

And today we go to Versailles.
Versailles: Loius XIV, XV and XVI’s monument to excess and decadence.  No wonder the people revolted. Luckily the palace survived the revolution, as I’m sure it is a great money spinner now for the French. Just like Ludwig’s tributes to the Sun King back in Bavaria are huge tourist attractions.
We met Shaz, Shan and Ken at Abbesses and metro’d our way, with a little bit of getting lost between line changes for just that little bit of added excitement, to our RER station at Musèe d’Orsay.

Day 49: Montmartre

I was up early, and decided to go for an exploratory walk around Montmartre while Michelle slept in.
There were still quite a few people in the Place du Tertre, even at this early hour.  I needed to get a map, however the tourist office wouldn’t open till 10:00am so I wandered around the mostly deserted streets, heading in the general direction of Sacré Cœur.

Day 48: Au revoir Rome, ciao Paris. Saving the best till last

Our last day in Rome.
It is always a little sad as I leave one place I have quickly grown to love, and yet of course exciting to think that I’ll soon be somewhere new.
Today we basically had a spare day free of any planned activities since the juggling from the closed Colosseum meant that we had missed going to Naples and Pompeii.  Naples couldn’t have been an option today as there was no chance we would be back in time to make our evening flight to Paris.  So today was an opportunity to sleep in and just take it easy. And today we did just that.
After our 10:00AM checkout, we headed off to Termini station to drop off our luggage. Seven weeks we’d travelled through Europe without any address tags on our luggage, but now I was feeling that my luck had run out, and I had best find some before we left our luggage in the left luggage.
There are a lot of shops at Termini.  Two levels of shops.  The lower level included a McDonalds alongside part of the old Servian wall.  I just love finding these old city walls, and this one is from the 4^th Century BC.  History plus.
But continuing on the search for luggage tags; most shops if they even understood what I was asking for did not have the damn things.  Not even the sure bet bag shop.  There was even a full on supermarket down here where at least I found a combination luggage lock so we could lock up the hand luggage, but alas no tags.
In the end I gave up and checked our bags in tagless and headed back upstairs.  I bought our tickets for the airport train ride this evening, despite those pesky “ticket helpers”, and then headed off down the streets of Rome looking for somewhere to plonk and relax.  The simple prerequisites being drinks and shade.
We sat down at a nearby restaurant but after 10 minutes without service, gave up and moved on. We decided to walk to Trevi Fountain again, especially as I hadn’t yet tossed my obligatory coins in. Half way there, wouldn’t you know it, we came across another fountain.  Rome is the city of fountains.

Day 26: Beautiful Annecy, terrifying Gorges, friends in Lausanne

Yay, a lazy day today before leaving Annecy, boo and driving to catch up with Henric and Cory, yay!
We had arranged with Pascal to checkout at midday, so after sleeping in we walked around town one last time to soak up the last of the beauty that is Annecy.

Day 25: Beautiful Annecy

Today we were treated to, wait, yes you guessed it, another town market!!!! The prices of the goods here seemed a little more expensive than the one in Uzès; perhaps this place is a bit more touristy and gets a lot more touristy French visitors, given that it is only 3 hours away by fast train from Paris.

Day 24: Uzes to Annecy

Today I awoke with a bit of a sore eye, so I jumped onto Google translate and looked up the French for sore eye and headed off to the pharmacy. Sure enough the girl there spoke no English, but when I pointed to my eye and said le conjonctivite maybe, she knew what I needed and handed over a bottle of antibacterial eye drops; the passing on of instructions for application was a little more difficult, but we managed.
Michelle and I finished off our ham and most of the roast chicken and were on the road by 10:30; there were a  few hours of driving ahead of us today.

Day 23: Uzing. Chateau des Baux, Carrieres de Lumieres, Avignon

Another lovely country drive today brought us to limestone country and the Château des Baux, a citadel allegedly passed down through the descendants of one of the three wise men.  This place is medieval heaven.  A lively little old town, similar to Carcassonne Le Citè with shops and cafès, but at the top of the hill are the remains of the old fortified château as well as working trèbuchets, and some of the best views across the countryside we’d seen to date.

Day 22: Uzes Market Day

Today was market day!  But the town seemed strangely quiet. I’d have thought the place would be buzzing with a market that was reported to be the best in France being held!
As we made our way through the cobbled streets, the noises of the market indeed became clearer and louder and sure enough, the entire Place aux Herbes had been transformed over night from a quiet place for meals and relaxing, into a huge bustling market place.  In fact the market had completely filled the square, spilled out into the surrounding streets, and then flowed both ways down the boulevard as well.  Huge!

Day 21: Around Uzes. Brantes and Vaison la Romaine.

Today we drove through many more of those beautiful clichéd Southern France narrow winding country lanes; small villages of stone and fields of vines and olives, interspersed with sprays of blood red poppies.
The countryside  became more mountainous as we continued.  We stopped in Bognals at a Courrefour, and stocked up on some supplies for lunch and the rest of our Uzès stay.  The supermarket was amazing with so much fresh food: a fromagerie in store, piles of fresh fish on ice in the aisles, bread of all imaginable shapes and types.  Puts Woollies and Coles truly to shame.

Day 20: Around Uzes. The Pont du Gard and Nimes. More Roman than Rome

This morning we visited Pont du Gard, a huge Roman aqueduct of three levels spanning the Aude River.  Bloody amazing is all I can say.
I grabbed the last shaded car park and sorted out the tickets in the visitor centre, where I was advised by the helpful lady behind the counter to bypass the audio guide and grab one after visiting the museum and cinema if I felt it was still warranted.  Sage advice, as after watching a film about the aqueduct, then wandering around the museum for the best part of an hour (it was an amazing museum and highly recommended) we knew everything we needed to know and still hadn’t even seen the aqueduct.  All we wanted to do now was walk down and see it as quickly as possible!!

Those Roman babes knew how to rock a bikini!

Day 19: From Carcassone to Uzes

We had a few hours of driving ahead of us today so it was decided to break it up a bit by visiting a couple of small towns along the way, and keeping off the motorways where ever possible.  This meant driving through country lanes narrower than those in the Cotswolds, with the beautiful scenery typical of southern France: streets lined with plane trees, fields of cherry trees, olive trees, vineyards and flame red poppies everywhere we looked.

Day 18: Le Cite, Carcassone

This morning we wandered around the new city, where there was a market on in Place Carnot.  There seems to always be a market on where ever we visit!