The Eiffel Tower

Well what can I say about the Eiffel Tower that hasn't already been written. People far more eloquent than I have waxed rhapsodic over it and so I am not going to do that. Other than to tell you that I stood in the gardens looking at it for what seemed like forever. It is so quintessentially Parisienne and I love it. I was a complete nerdy tourist the whole time I was there and I wouldn't have had it any other way. For the night they have placed thousands of globes all over it and it glitters for 5 minutes every hour on the hour! That is just magnificent to see.

This is the funicular that takes you up to the first and second floors. You change at the second floor for an elevator up to the top of the tower. I wasn't courageous enough to do that.


I actually had dinner at the restaurant on Level 1 of the Eiffel Tower. That was very nice. I met a fabulous young couple from Melbourne called Ben and Jean and we got to chatting before dinner as we were all having dinner there and then doing the same cruise together. We got separated at dinner (being the lonely singleton they just tend to tack me onto tables with other english speaking people and hope for the best) but I sat with some English teachers from Liverpool and Manchester. They were good value.

This is Ben and Jean. I met up with them after dinner and we did the cruise along the Seine together. Do you want to know why she looks so happy? Ben proposed to her during dinner and of course she said yes! That was just the perfect end to my fantastic stay in Paris.

Paris 5

Talk about being armed to the teeth. The police in Paris don't carry nice little 44's or little guns, instead they carry AK 47's!!!
I went and saw the show at the Moulin Rouge. It is the new show and is called "Feerie" which roughly translates as "wonderland" or so they tell me.

This is me standing on the Pont Neuf bridge on the River Seine.

This is of course Notre Dame catherdral and inside it was just glorious. I wasn't allowed to climb the stairs because they were closed for maintenance. I personally think they just wanted to keep all the French School kids out of there because I travelled during their school holidays. What on earth was I thinking?

My hotel is across the road from the church you see in the middle of the below photo. To my right is the Seine River and that building jutting into the photo on the left is the Louvre. Pretty spectacularly located huh? I was in the 1st Arrondissment. For those of you who don't know, Paris is divided into 12 Arrondissments and they radiate out from this one. It was just great!
This is the dome of the Eglise Du Dome. this building is located at the south end of the Palace de Invalides and can be seen from practically everywhere in Paris at night because they light up the dome which is guilded in gold.

Paris 4

Below is the Palace of the Invalides. It's a trully phenomenal piece of architecture and bloody huge. This was a rather cute statue of Winston Churchill. It's amazing the number of streets that are named after foreign dignatories especially Americans!

This was a rather cute building called "Petit Palace" and is across the road from the "Grande Palace". Both are undergoing heavy restoration and the grande palace was completely covered in scaffolding and you could just see the glass dome poking out through the top.

This is the entrance to the Louvre.
This is one of the facades from inside the quadrangle of the Louvre.

And of course it wouldn't be complete without me looking like a complete dork standing in front of the glass pyramids within the quadrangle inside the Louvre.

Paris 3

I can't remember if I told you or not so I apologise if I am repeating myself. You couldn't take flash photos in a lot of the rooms of the Louvre so I just put my camera away and browsed around this amazing place for 6 hours. I took a couple of photo's at the beginning but gave up. This one is the statue of Diana the Huntress.

This is, of course, the amazing Venus De Milo.

This is a photo I wasn't allowed to take because it was in one of the rooms you couldn't flash but I didn't care and took it anyway. It's of the crown jewels of Louis the 14th. I had to take it because in there is the worlds largest pure diamond and it's called the Regent. I can't really remember now but I think it is about 14 carats. Whilst there are bigger diamonds in the world none are as pure as this one. The diamonds that should be in the crown were nicked during the Revolution and have been replaced with glass because they were never recovered. After I took the photo a rather stern looking french woman yelled at me and wagged her finger saying "no No No Madame". I just looked sheepish and apologised but I had the photo at that stage! YAY! haha

This is a photo of me on the steps of the Sacred Heart Church in Mont Matre.

This is a photo of the last windmill in Paris. They used to be all over the place and the french word for windmill is "Moulin" hence the name Moulin Rouge (red windmill) and the big glary windmill on the front of the theatre.

Paris 2

The weather in Paris was sketchy. It was either brilliantly sunny or overcast and drizzly. It changed in a matter of minutes and that is evident from the photos.
So, I headed off to Mont Matre and was wandering the streets just soaking it in and trying to avoid eye contact with the million or so sketch artists there who want to draw your picture. Below is the last actual vineyard located in Paris city. It is very old and I am told that the wine is crap but people pay phenomenal sums of money for a bottle each year because it is actually grown and made in Paris. They don't drink it though....
This is the Sacre Couer Church of church of the Sacred Heart. It is located on the top of Mont Matre. It was a beautiful afternoon to just sit on the steps and take in the views of Paris.
These are the views of Paris from the steps of the church.

I took this photo for my niece Laura. This shop is her Mecca. Actually the Champs Elysee would be her mecca because the shopping was fabulous. You name the designer and chances are there was a store here. Actually the shoppping was better on the Boulevarde Haussman which has two department stores. One is Printemps and the other is Galleries LaFayette. Imagine and even more upmarket David Jones. Instead of having counters for Wedgewood etc they have counters for Tiffanies and Ferragamo!!

Oh before I forget, I have a story about the Louis Vuitton store below. As I came out of the store a Japanese woman came up to me and asked me if I would go back inside and purchase her 2 wallets as they had a policy of only selling 1000 EU (or one bag) per customer. I was very curious, of course I knew it was suss before you call me gullible, I just wanted to know what was going on. So she hands me 700EU (which is about $AU1100) and off I go. I go inside the store and immediately go up to one of the blokes who looks like a manager and tell him what happened to me outside with the Japanese woman. I asked him to tell me what it was all about. Firstly, they don't have a policy of only selling one item per person just to particular persons. He tells me that to purchase high end small quality goods is a way to get money out of France and that it is probably drug money. They buy the goods and then take them back to Japan and sell them for cash. They may lose a bit but they still make a lot especially when you consider that one wallet costs about 600 bucks australian. That was all very interesting and I contemplated asking if there was a back door to make off with the money but I didn't really want the Japanese Mafia to be hounding me during my stay in Paris so I returned the money to the woman with the story that the bouncer saw me talking to her and they wouldn't sell me the wallets. Which was a bit of a bugger really because it was the closest I would ever get to buying a real Louis Vuitton piece of anything. Ahhh C'est La Vie!

Below are pictures from the Arch De Triomphe. I climbed all 320 steps to the top!! WOOHOO!! Going up wasn't a problem... well it was but coming back down was so much harder. It is a very small spiral staircase and I kind of got vertigo coming back down but I wasn't the only one because the people in front of me were going even slower than I was so I had to wait for them.

The views from the top were the same from all 4 corners sort of. The buildings on the corners all used to, at one stage, be private residences. The architecture really is amazing and breathtaking. I often wondered whether people who live in Paris think it is as fabulous as the tourists do.

Below is the pond in the Jardin de Tuilleries. It's the garden at the other end of the Champs Elysee from the Arch De Triomphe. I have to apologise for the order of things. I am having all sorts of problems uploading pictures to the blog today.

Paris 1

Again, I have so many photos I am going to have to do this in stages.

You know, I used to pride myself in being an intelligent and articulate woman but I so have to rethink that. The whole time I was in Paris I was at a loss for words. It was everything I had expected and so much more! I also couldn't get the song La Vie en Rose out of my head. If you don't know it, don't download it or listen to it because it sticks like glue! HAHA

I had a trully magnificent time in Paris and I am completely knackered and exhausted. I think I managed about 4 hours sleep each night. There was just so much to do and so little time to do it in and I still didn't manage to see everything that I wanted too. Also, there are going to be a big number of photos in these next blogs and I didn't use my camera everywhere I wanted too. For instance, there are huge numbers of rooms in the Louvre where you can't use your flash and therefore the photo's are crap. So I just put the camera away and spent 6 hours just looking in amazement at all the art and figured it's most important if I remember it anyways rather than having a photo to put on the blog so I am sorry about that selfish attitude. But, if you haven't already been to Paris it really is a must on your list of goals.

So I leave Geneva at some ungodly hour of the morning again on a train to Paris. I arrive at Gare (french for station) De Lyon. I get in about 11.30am. I get on the Metro and find my way to my hotel! And what a location. I am between the Louvre and The Pont Neuf in a quiet little street which meant that when I went to bed I could sleep because it wasn't noisy. Given that I only managed about 4 hours a night it was a godsend. Breakfast could either be served in your room or in the Cave de Mousquetaires. Given that the second option sounded like I would be dining with vermin, I chose to have it in my room everyday. That was pretty fabby and so bang on time it was amazing. The hotel was called the Hotel La Place de Louvre and is part of a chain and if you want you can check them out at www.esprit-de-france.com

The first thing I did was dump the luggage and start walking. The whole of Paris is just like one giant film set. In hindsight I probably should have felt a bit of a git because for the entire afternoon I just walked around with this stupid grin on my face and sighing and humming La Vie en Rose under my breath. I trully couldn't believe I was there.

Above is the place de concorde. That's the first place I arrived at and it pretty much stands in the middle of a huge traffice roundabout. Below you can see that in one direction the Champs Elysee starts and in another direction is a pretty spectacular fountain. In the other direction is the Seine.

The Mylers

Can I begin to tell you what a great time I am having here in Switzerland? and it is in thanks completely to the fabulous family with whom I am staying. I have already waxed poetic about how much I love the girls but hopefully these photo's will do them justice along with showing you Paul, who I don't think I have managed to get a photo of until recently except for the goofy fondue one.

Oh I have to tell you about the pink T-shirt Angela is wearing. It says "C'est pour Decembre" and that means "it's for December" as her baby is due on the 3rd December. It is so cute. She also has a brown shrug that she sometimes wears with the T-shirt when it is cold enough which hasn't been that often. The shrug totally frames the t-shirt and emphasises the slogan. It is a really cute and perfect shirt and Angela has started not to wear it in public because she says that everyone gets this really goofy look on their faces and comes up to her! It's making her a tad self conscious but I love it and encourage her to wear it whenever it's possible.

Don't you all just love it?

The above photo was taken last night before we all went out to dinner to Fondue.

Angela will probably hate me for putting this picture up but it's very cute. Paul has just gotten home from work and Julia is pretending she is an ewok with my scarf. Ang wasn't feeling all that well that day so is in her jammies. Just for the record she had been dressed and we had gone shopping before she got back into them... lol

Aren't they adorable? I don't think I need to say anything about them.

Woohoo I did Fondue

Yes! It's not just a kitschy thing.. people in Switzerland really do do fondue and they do it really well!! It is not just an outdated 70's bored housewife thing to do.

Paul's family have come to visit. His mum and dad (Zandra and Dennis) along with his sister and her partner (Sasha and Steve). In honour of their arrival it was decided that we would go to the "local" restaurant called Cafe Du Soleil. Their specialty is their fondue and it was FABULOUS! Very cheesy, very artery clogging and very hot and tasty! Here are some pickies of the fondue.

I know I shouldn't have included the photo of Paul because he is looking so goofy but I just had to because everytime I look at it I laugh and thought you may all too. The bottom picture is of Sasha and Dennis. Next to me is Zandra but I didn't manage to get a photo of Steve or Ang for that matter.... sorry.

A time for all seasons

I have never lived anywhere where the change in seasons is so dramatic. I have (unsuccessfully) tried to capture the change in colours that is happening to the trees at the moment. It is really magnificent. The leaves that I have taken a picture of are from a peach tree and have turned really pink. It is so pretty.

I can almost just watch the trees and see the colours change in minutes. It's really lovely to see.
It is getting colder now but not so cold that I have to wear my moon boots or totally cover up in the brand new pink (of course) dacron filled winter coat that makes me look like the michelin man but I don't care because it's PINK! HAHA



Well that's al for now. I hope you are all well and enjoying the coming summer weather.
Cheers.
xx

I really don't like the Swiss German

This is just a bit of a bitch about the weekend. I have to say firstly that I think it is obvious from the previous postings that when I got to do the things I wanted to do I had a great time. The difficulty was in actually getting to do them.

Geneva is part of Swiss France and everyone speaks French. Travelling to Interlarken and then to Jungfraujoch is dead in the centre of Swiss German territory and therefore they all speak German. I think they speak German although that might be debatable because I couldn't understand a word they said. A friend indicated that it might either be High German or a dialect.

The Swiss Germans are the rudest, most arrogant, self serving, obnoxious, supercillious, condescending and boorish people I have ever come into contact with. Firstly they presumed me to be american all the time. I can understand that and can forgive them for that because honestly, all the time I have been here all the "large" people or fat people have all been american so I can understand that mistake. German's hate Americans.

Secondly, if you are thinking of taking a solo trip to any German speaking area, DONT! Trying to find a restaurant on Saturday night that didn't have dinner menus for 2 only took me 45 minutes. When I did find a restaurant they kind of shoved me in a corner and ignored me until I actually made verbal AND eye contact at the same time. Dinner was also rather tasteless. At lunch in Jungfraujoch they grudgingly gave me a table and then spent the next 40 minutes toe tapping around me and blatantly looking at their watches trying to get rid of me. Trying to get into the restaurant the woman maitre 'd (who had previously been speaking english to a family in front of me) refused to speak english to me. A similar thing happened at Grindelwald buying the lonely singleton ticket on the gondola. They had to confirm twice that I was only buying one ticket and then looked rather sympathetically at me when handing it over.

Oh and yes, the hotel. I get a lecture at the front desk how I am in a SINGLES ONLY ROOM! and that I shouldn't even contemplate bringing anyone back to the room because it's a SINGLES ONLY ROOM and I don't know how many times he said that to me. Said? I should have typed "barked".

By the time I got to Interlarken I just wanted to be away from all these bloody Nazis when I went to get the cup of coffee. The woman there was the Swiss Germans only reason I don't want to bomb the lot of them. She was lovely, very accommodating and didn't make me feel like I was an alien. The coffee wasn't bad either.

Weekend To The Top Of Europe 3

Ok, so I get up at the crack of a sparrows fart to make my way back to Interlarken Ost railway station. Breakfast was interesting.... brie at 6 O'clock in the morning.... hmmmm but they did have yummy pastries and the best bircher meusli... so at the trainstation at 7am and I put my overnight bag in one of the lockers for the princely sum of 5 francs. We get a bus to Lauterbrunnen which is pretty uneventful. The bus is packed and I have an aisle seat so I can't see anything but it only takes about 30 minutes.

From Lauterbrunnen we start on the rick rack railway system. It's all very steep and you have to change trains twice more to get to the top. The first stop is Kleine Schidegg which is another picturesque little town. I met the cutest french couple on the train and we kind of hung out together for the entire day. They were both about 80 in the shade and her name was Marie and his (I am guessing from the pronounciation) was Jean. Their english was as good as my french so we had a good time playing charades all day! It was very funny.

From Kleine Schidegg we then go to Jungfraujoch. It is called The Top Of Europe. It is the highest railway station in Europe and is on the largest flowing glacier in Europe. It was frigging freezing and fantastic. You can see the views are just magnificent.




One of the areas that you can go is into the actual glacier and they have called that bit the Ice Palace. Surprisingly, it wasn't that cold even when you put your hand on the wall which was solid ice. They had these cute little sculptures all over the place and these carved ice chairs you could have a sit on.
Oh ok, below is me! HI!!!! I am standing just beneath the tallest part of Jungfraujoch. This photo was taken about 30 seconds before I fell over. I nice little japanese tourist man attempted to assist me up before falling over himself. I was laughing so hard I thought I would cause an avalanche. I guess you had to be there.

I got to Jungfraujoch about 11am and stayed there til about 2pm. I then caught the train back to Interlarken but this time it was via Grindelwald. The whole time I was there I kept thinking about European vacation.... was their name Griswald? I dont know but it made me giggle. I spent a couple of hours in Grindelwald and bought a ticket on the one of those gondola thingies that goes up mountains... you know they are suspended way way way above the ground. Oh did you all know that I have a paranoid fear of heights. I have no idea why I bought the ticket and further still how I even managed to get into the carriage. Well I do. I thought that maybe I would share the carriage with someone else and that wouldn't be so bad but when I got in the carriage fully expecting the people behind me to get in as well it just took off and it was just me on my own. So while I took the gondola ride I spent the entire time with my face buried in my hands pressed to my knees. Sorry I don't have any fabby pictures of Grindelwald but I at least took a picture of my ticket so you can see that I did do it!! HAHA

I left Grindelwald by bus back to Interlarken about 4pm I guess. Time ceased to have meaning at that point. I was knackered both physically and mentally especially after that gondola ride where I almost thought I was going to throw up. Back in Interlarken I decide to have a cup of coffee and something to eat before the 3 1/2 train trip back to Geneva. God love Paul though. I get a phone call on the train and he says that he has to go out anyways and did I want him to pick me up!! So he did and it was great. Got home about 9.45pm. Was a fabulous weekend.