Miscellaneous Things in Paris

1 When traffic lights turn green Parisian drivers treat it as if start of Grand Prix

2 Electric car and scooter charging points on the streets

3 Thousands of motor scooters

4 Thousands of rental bikes

5 Renovating or removal on 4^th floor

6 At the beach in Paris

Thursday 19^th July to Sunday 21^st July -London to Paris and back.

Wednesday 18 July. Uneventful drive back up London from Cholderton.  Pleasant surprise when returned car to depot at Heathrow to discover no further charges after the two issues with the Volvo in Cornwall at the start of our journey.

Checked in at St Pancras YHA in mid-afternoon, to another pleasant surprise of bottle of wine and free wi fi courtesy of YHA manager we had done feedback with. Lynds and I went out walking up through Camden (where I bought new parka in a sale as had left mine at Cholderton) and along the canal and when walking back ( in the rain again !!) to Euston Rd through Regents Park we had text conversation with new landlady, whom we were supposed to meet at the YHA, and discovered we were just around the corner from her so met up in pub, had coffee and chat and  the keys ready to move in to flat in West Hampstead on Sunday when back from Paris.

Thursday 19 July.  Straight across the road to St Pancras International, checked in 4 suitcases between us at left luggage so could travel light to Paris and then left on Eurostar at 9.12 am for very smooth 2 ½ hr  ride to Paris Gare Du Nord.  

Lyndsay was   navigator on our “only 10 minutes walk from Gare Du Nord” which went around in a circle for nearly an hour on a rather hot and sunny Parisian afternoon but she said  “look we saw the music district and the wedding boutiques and the tabacs and every fabric shop in Paris  “ etc.

 For 3 nights we stayed at quirky hostel called Le Village Hostel in Rue d’Orsel in  Montmartre, which has mixed reviews on Trip Advisor, but which we found perfectly fine.

Outside our room ( 2 sets of bunks with Caro and I relegated again to top bunks)  was a big terrace where we could see the top of the Sacre Coeur Church  and on our first night sat outside for a dinner of delicioamo bagette, aubergine hummous, brie and apricots, cider and red wine all from the supermarche nearby.

Then off up the hill after dinner.

Breakfast was included at this hostel-cereal,croissants, rolls,  coffee with hot milk ( yum)

Friday 20^th July  we all headed out on one of those “Hop on Hop off” bus tours ( we bought 2 day ticket which turned out to  be really good). Visited most of the touristy places enroute ( Champs Elysee  and Place de la Concorde particularly interesting as getting all set up for finish of Tour de France on Sunday) and  ended up at Eiffel Tower in mid-afternoon.

Queue to get up in lift was 3 hours long because of mechanical problems (only one lift operating). We decided to give it a miss and left Caro and Emily in the walking up queue and wandered off down the grassy area.

 Then came upon hundreds of Danes and Swedes waiting the arrival of 800 people who had ridden their bikes from Denmark to Paris to fundraise for a Child Cancer Charity. People had set off in separate local teams from different points in Sweden and Denmark and followed different routes then all met up the day before just outside Paris and rode in to the Eiffel tower as a group of 800, all ordinary  cyclists but on sponsored bikes and bike gear. What a cheerful bunch of people, both competitors and friends.

 Saturday  21 July. Emily and Caro headed off on tour to Versailles for the day and Lynds and I checked out the Metro from Gare Du Nord to Gare D’Austerlitz where we bought open tickets for the train to Blois after we arrive back in Paris from London on August 17^th. Bought Metro tickets for then also so don’t have to queue and will be able to go over there straight after we get off Eurostar.

Before we went over to Austerlitz we attempted to find an Orange (French) mobile phone shop to buy a data card for iPad so we would have it ready for when we arrived back there. After much walking (+++) we eventually found an Orange shop but would have had to have activated a SIM card that day which was not what we wanted. Nice sit in park, eating our picnic and watching kids play in non-touristy area and then walked thru back streets to GDN.

Found a shop on the way that sells those wonderful decorative iron railings, in a multitude of patterns, that grace every window above ground level on older French apartment buildings plus all sorts of other iron ware like grates and fire irons.  

Jumped on the HopOn/Hopoff tour bus again and did another tour segment, then walked around TDF finishing areas again then had beer (expensive) in café behind Madelaine and watched end of the TDF time trials. On bus again and home to Montmartre exhausted.

Sunday 21 July. Nice fine sunny morning for our actual 10 min walk to Gare du Nord, heaps of security around and in stations, soldiers or police patrolling with assault rifles. Border checks this side of channel as well as in London.

Left Paris at 11.20 am, pleasant trip again and arrived in London on time as usual.

Caro and Emily off on train to Ross’s in Brixton and we got Picadilly and Jubilee Lines to West Hampstead. On way to new flat we spent a pleasant couple of hours in ‘The Railway” our new local, watching TDF finish in Paris, quite odd to be watching something happening where you had been standing the day before  in another country, that you had left that morning.

      

  

Tuesday 17^th July 2012 Cholderton YHA to Avebury and return

Overcast, quite warm today.

Spent morning sorting out bags and clothes to take with us to Paris on Thursday as we will leave larger suitcases at St Pancras Station  and just take backpacks.

Then headed off about 12ish heading north to Avebury for our “National Trust site of the day” .  Passed Stonehenge which is just a few miles up the road which looked pretty spectacular as we approached from a hill so looking down on it. Car park full.

Continued on with GPS set to “No Motorways” so meandered through Salisbury Plain along narrow lanes next to the Army’s live firing range ( red flags were up), ammunition dumps,  tank crossings and airfields. All very peaceful !!

As we neared Avebury there is a large chalk horse on the hill, apparently quite a few around here but that was the only one that we saw today.

Arrived at Avebury in time to join a 2pm guided tour by volunteer National Trust guide, Claudine, spent about an hour walking all around the stone circles, early Neolithic dating from approx 4000 years ago. The stones here are local sarcen rock which is the same as the outer rings at Stonehenge. There is an outer ring about one mile in circumference with 2 inner rings, north and south, and evidence of another central stone. Entrance to the rings would have been through 2 gates, north and south, with an avenue of two rows of  parallel stones a mile long  leading up to the south gate. All very impressive.

Avebury Standing Stones

A very large standing stone !!

Then went into the two museums on the site, the first is in the old threshing barn an impressive structure in its own right that has bats nesting in it and the other in a more controlled environment displays artefacts found on the site.

The Manor house which has recently featured in a BBC documentary was also open so we had a tour of that. Different rooms are decorated in  styles faithful to a certain period in the time this building has been inhabited, right up to 1930/40s. You were encouraged to sit or lie on the furniture and touch things (except for the very expensive Chinese handpainted wallpaper in one room)

Avebury Manor, docent explaining bed workings

Caro and Emily try out a bed

Another glorious kitchen garden

Also close to the Avebury stones is another large structure  called Sillbury Hill whose purpose is unknown.

Sillbury Hill

Fine all day except for the last 10 minutes drive back to YHA when heavens opened again.

Spent the evening getting ready to return the car to Heathrow tomorrow and then to stay at YHA St Pancras before catching Eurostar to Paris on Thursday.

    

Monday 16^th July 2012 Stratford upon Avon to Cholderton, Wiltshire.

Miserable raining  morning in Stratford but headed into centre of town early before tour buses arrived. Just did a bit of a wonder around but didn’t go into Shakespeare’s birth place etc. as very high admission prices e.g. £17.

Lyndsay, Helen and Emily, rainy morning outside Shakespeare's birthplace

Left there by 12.30 pm and headed south to Chedworth Roman villa, our ( free) National Trust site for the day.  Mrs TomTom gave up on us halfway there and refused to go any further (cos she thought she was already there !!) so bit of UK hard copy maps and Google maps sent us deeper into the Gloucestershire countryside down very small lanes, with speculation from the passengers in the Zafira (our car) that we would be the only people there. Wrong again, at least 50 cars plus one bus at the blind end of this odyssey, the English (and the Germans and Japanese) are such dedicated history buffs.

Had a fantastic afternoon because arrived just in time for guided tour with one of those wonderful Englishmen with a passion for a rather obscure subject, i.e this Roman villa inhabited by Romans until about 400 AD, and prepared to walk around in the rain telling a motley crew of tourists about it. It had a spring in the hillside which fed water down to baths and the latrines. Lyndsay was most impressed by the archaeologists working within the covered area of the site uncovering the mosaic floors of the baths area.

Chedworth Roman Villa site

Artist Impression of site in Roman times

Spring that never runs dry

New Building covering west wing baths

Mosaic Floor being excavated

Floor showing heating system underfloor

More underfloor heating infrastructure

Archaeologist at work

Archaeologists at work, man in foreground measuring and putting on to plan

Great afternoon there in this very isolated valley  and then headed further down into Wiltshire and arrived at YHA Cholderton  by dinner time.
Have another 4 bedded room with slightly squeaky bunks though not as bad as Stratford, where you woke the whole room when you turned over in bed. It is located next to a Rare Breeds place which has rare sheep, cattle, pigs and chooks. Lots of families with kids here.   

YHA Cholderton, our room big windows, 1st floor

YHA Cholderton Breakfast cafe

I have a cold/bronchitis/laryngitis, nothing really specific just a bit of “General Malaise” so have been a bit miserable today.