We have a flat in Paris!

When planning this trip, I was wonderfully pleased to find a B&B website that listed a little flat in the south of Paris where we could stay four nights for a very reasonable rate, and make our own meals when we didn’t want to eat out. It was every bit as perfect for our needs as I had hoped!
We arrived in Paris by train from London, so that we could have the Chunnel experience. Man, that train is fast! Apparently, the top speed for our journey was reached in the French countryside when we hit 198km/hour! We were moving! We had ordered Paris Passes to museums, attractions, and transportation, so we had to pick them up first at a most unexpected location—the Hard Rock Café! I hadn’t planned to start our French experience with an American one, but we were hungry and tired; the music and food were good; so, why not?

While in Paris, we focused on a combination of cultural and culinary experiences. On our first day, we planned to visit the Musée de Moyen Ages (Middle Ages Museum) and try some authentic French cuisine, so we set out for Cluny. Sadly, the heavens opened, so we got to buy our second umbrella for the trip! We had an excellent lunch at Polidor, a little restaurant that has been faithfully serving its customers for about 150 years! Fortified and warmed, we set out to find the museum, only to discover that it was closed on Tuesdays! NNOOooooo!!!!!! That was a clear indicator to head back to the flat for quiche and pizza from the local bakery!

The second day, in better weather, we took a boat tour down the Seine to find our bearings, then travelled west to east from the base of the Eiffel Tower (where we sat in a park warding off the September chill with hot crepes filled with Nutella, bananas, strawberries, and Chantilly cream!),
to the Orsay art museum, and back to Cluny where we got to visit the Middle Ages museum after all.



We still had a wee bit of energy left, so we walked up to the Notre Dame Cathedral and searched for Berthillon, the ice cream shop extraordinaire that my friend had made me promise to visit before we left Norfolk. Well, I’ll tell you—it was worth the search! It’s not by mistake that they claim to have the best ice creams and sherbets in the world.

Our final day of touring around Paris, we devoted to a trip out to the Palace at Versailles. What an experience!

London Attractions and Friends in Norfolk

After our stay in Manchester, we went down to London for what would have been the Labour Day long weekend, had we still been in Canada. We decided to see the town! Over three days, we went to Madame Toussaud’s Wax Museum, the British Museum (my son had wanted to check out their Egyptology section for years, and he wasn’t disappointed!), the Tower of London, the Sea Life aquarium, and took rides on the London Eye and a river boat on the Thames! We also had a great evening out at a West End musical show: We Will Rock You showcasing the greatest hits of the rock supergroup, Queen.

We had an unexpected adventure in Greenwich. We had decided to try to fit in a side trip out to the Fan Museum there at the end of the day. Unfortunately, the map in our guidebook was nowhere near a useful scale, and we ended up hiking up hill and down dale all over the town of Greenwich! We took so long, that by the time we finally stumbled on the museum by chance on what seemed a little side road, it had closed five minutes prior! There was nothing to be done but find a spot for dinner. We did end up at the Café Rouge, where we both had a super meal before we got back on the train and returned to our hotel on the other side of London.

We left London on the Tuesday morning and headed north again, this time to Norfolk, to visit my wonderful friend from high school and meet her family for the first time.  They made us warmly welcome in their house in the countryside, introducing us to their lifestyle and friends, as well as taking us on side trips to the seaside, proper English pubs, a fabulous garden, and the Out There festival of circus and street performing arts.

 The coastline shown in this picture is rapidly eroding--sometimes as much as ten metres can slide into the sea in a single night.

As you can imagine, this is a grave concern, not only to local authorities, but to the poor homeowners who have had to abandon their property.

These clever stilt performers were among the fascinating acts we saw at the festival. In the afternoon, there were also workshops for any who wanted to take part, so my friend's husband took the   kids to learn how to clown around with minimal props--they had a great time!