Sunday, May 9, 2010

Paris & Chartres

We spent our last day in France in Chartres, a rural village about an hour from Paris. It was a lovely peaceful little town of around 40,000 people! It was a perfect ending to an absolutely wonderful trip. We must thank Academy Travel for looking after us so well, they were fantastic.

Paris & Chartres

Pere Lachaise Cemetery - Paris

Disneyland Paris

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Extra Days!

But wait, there's more!

We were due to leave Paris on the 16th.....but volcanic ash from Iceland put a dampener on that....oh no, soooo sad, more days in PARIS!!!!! Yeah!!!! In fact we had a whole extra week and it was fantastic! We rode push bikes around the base of the Eiffel Tower, had picnics in various parks, went to Disneyland and a bit more shopping...remember I warned you about La Fayette!

Paris At Night

Paris & Versialle

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Paris!

Paris...well, what can I say!
Fantastic!
I fell in love with the Eiffel Tower.
The history, more narrow streets with wonderful little shops.
La Fayette....a gloriously expensive shopping centre....great place to look & don’t touch!
Notre Dame Cathedral.
House boats.
Seine River
Bridges!

Paris

Belgium

Belgium

At many of the cemeteries the head stones are exactly where the men fell. So some are placed rather erratically and others are evenly spaced.
The Flanders Fields Museum is enormous. It is going to be closed and renovated towards the end of the year to mark the 100th anniversary of the beginning of WW1 in 2014.
The Lochnagar Crater, at La Boiselle, is privately owned by Richard Dunning, having been bought in 1978 to save at least one of the original 1 July 1916 Somme craters from being filled in and built upon by local farmers. The Lochnagar Crater measured 91 metres across and 27 metres deep.

Belgium

WW1 Sites

Remembering that this was an Acient & Modern History tour we saw some true history.
Polygon Wood, Tyne Cot, The Somme Trench Museum, Pozieres, Villiers-Brettoneux, Passendale and trenches. The lovely towns of Albert, Ypres and the Menin Gate.
Did you know that every evening since 1918 the end of WW1 the "Last Post" is played at Menin Gate & wreathes are layed. That is 92 years! All the cemetaries are in perfect condition, no desecration at all. It is an indication of the appreciation of the people to those who fought to gain their freedom.

WW1 Sites

Roma

>

Roma

Off to the Colosseum and the Forum. Lots of walking today. The Colosseum is enormous!
We had a little mishap at the Forum....we lost Frank! It was worrying for a couple of hours but the poor guy hurt his ankle & lost us! So he took himself off to the exit and sat on some very classy steps waiting for us!
All around Rome there are water fountains where one can fill up water bottles. Some look a little sus but we were assured that it was safe to drink.
The locks are a symbol of "true" love! Apparently one writes the name of your loved one on the lock, attach it to a bridge & throw the key into the water. They are everywhere!

Vatican

Day 7 saw us walking to the Vatican. Talk about crowded! It was fascinating, of course we only saw a small part but all very interesting. St Peter's Basilica is beautiful. We called in on the Trevi Fountain as well as Castel Sant' Angelo.

The Vatican & Castel Sant' Angelo

Rome

Day 6 we headed to Roma. We stayed in a very old area where everything was old, most buildings were covered in Graffiti. The streets were narrow with a surprise around every corner. We were quite close to the Tiber River and only a short walk from great shopping.

Day 6

Day 5

Europe

There are so many photos to share from our trip that I will need to do it in small slide shows.
In the first four days we went to Pompeii, the Herculeum, Naples, Sorrento, Positano, the Amalfi Coast and the Sulphur Craters to mention just a few.

Europe Days 1,2,3 & 4