Author archive
24 September 2009
We explored the San Luis Obispo area briefly this morning before heading up the Pacific Coast Highway to do a sight we had previously missed out due to lack of time. This was the Hearst Castle which is located about halfway between LA and San Fran. We had previously done most of the attractions in Monterey and […]
23 September 2009
After a slow start, we caught up with a crew friend who was overnighting in LA. In the early afternoon we headed up the Pacific Coast Highway bound for San Luis Obispo for our nightstop. Much of the route wasn’t new so we didn’t do all the scenic stops … only a comfort stop at Santa Barbara […]
22 September 2009
I flew out of Charles de Gaulle for Heathrow today, to meet up with Kim before boarding our flight together to Los Angeles. While I’m not usually a movie person on flights, I watched 5 TV programmes this time. Four of these were episodes of “Around the world in 80 trades”. This follows the journey […]
21 September 2009
Above: View from Belle Ville Park shows the Paris skyline including the Eiffel Tower. I thought revisit Sacre Coeur today but Marie took me for another “real Paris” outing. We took the bus to Belle Ville park in the northeast and walked back down. The walk back down was a mix of African, Asian and […]
19 September 2009
This morning Marie took me to the northern part of Paris around Gare du Nord (the northern railway station). The area is a hotchpotch of people from Africa, Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent living in more rundown conditions than the Paris we know and love. The markets were incredible and far cheaper than in […]
18 September 2009
Above: Lacy undies? No, the Eiffel Tower. As Paris isn’t entirely new to me, there was any pressure to do the touristy things. Instead it is quite nice to do the day-to-day activities … very soon the familiar become strange! In this case it is swimming … Paris seems to be well-equipped with council swimming […]
17 September 2009
One thing I haven’t done in my previous visits to Paris is the Pere Lachaise cemetery which is home to the remains of many famous people. From a quick googling, I found that it was best to approach from the rear entrance if one is interested in finding Oscar Wilde’s grave … not totally unexpected […]
16 September 2009
We travelled back to Paris today. It was an early morning wakeup, It was dark at 7am as Loix is in the west of the country. 1.5 hours on the bus followed by 3.5 hours on the train followed by another bus ride within Paris meant that the day disappeared 🙁 It would have been […]
15 September 2009
After a miserable wet morning, the sun finally shone and we cycled to Ars … yes, in full it is Ars-en-Re. It is only about 7km each way this time. Ars has a church with a black-and-white spire, so I call it the church of St Michael Jackson. It was probably a white spire which […]
14 September 2009
Ile de Re has many cycle tracks … they seem to have been converted from the old narrow roads once the new roads came in, but I could be wrong. They link the different villages, taking cyclists through bays, salt pans, vineyards etc. Today we cycled to St Martin, which was about 9km from our […]