Wow it's been a busy week...from Paris to Mont St-Michel, we have been touring the French must haves of Northern France.
We spent a weekend in Paris, where I was very excited to set my eyes upon the Eiffel Tower. I think I had imagined it to be in a slightly more remote location/have more space around the base of it (I don't know why), but it was still pretty big, and I spent a while trying to perfect a shot...this is what I ended up with...
Saw all the other Paris highlights, such as the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and Notre-Dame (which, by the way, I found out is not the previous home of Quasimodo...yes, I was a little disappointed to find out this fact).
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| Arc de Triomphe |
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| Musee du Louvre |
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| Notre Dame |
One of my favourite things we found in Paris was the 'Pont des Arts' - a bridge which crosses the River Seine. It was covered in padlocks, with peoples names marker penned on to them, some people had gone the extra mile and had their padlocks engraved. Apparently this has become a recent tradition by romantic tourists, who attach a padlock and throw the key in to the river as a romantic gesture.
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| The bridge of many locks...Paris |
One of Alex's friends from Uni, Christian, is French and lives in Paris so we arranged to meet up with him and his wife Marie in the evening. We went to their real life French flat in Paris and hung out with them and their 2 year old Manech. A good time was had by all...luckily for us they both speak excellent English, so we didn't have to test our sketchy French out on them.
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| Marie, Christian and Alex |
Other highlights of Paris include rollerblading policemen and a French reggae music festival. Oh, and of course the cuisine. We ate copious amounts of crepes and tried out some French macarons...I'd never had one before and so we went to 'Pierre Herme', one of the most prestigious macaron makers in France for my first trial. I don't regret it all. They were amazing.
Now back in Normandy, we have spent this week doing some more decorating...the two bedrooms we have been working on are almost complete and have all had a few coats of paint, we have a white room and a pink room.
Our gardening skills have also been tested as we continue to dig out a herb patch. It's pretty back breaking, so we have been doing it little by little, and this is our progress so far...it's looking good...
Yesterday we visited Mont St-Michel - one of the top sights to see in France, apparently (according to my new France guide book). It's not far from here. I thought it was just a church on an island that you looked at from afar, so imagine my surprise when I discovered you could go on to the island and there were shops and all sorts on there, mental. We even made a trip in to a post office to buy some stamps (timbre) to overhear a French conversation with someone whose bank card had been swallowed by the ATM...whatever next. 21st Century.
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| Mont St-Michel (from a distance) |
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| On Mont St-Michel, little windy, cobbledy streets |
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| Mont St-Michel (up close and personal) |
We have made some new friends with the cows, which got moved to a nearby field this week (which is pretty much our garden) and have been practising our European photo poses (we have witnessed some crazy ones). We have a couple more weeks in Normandy before we move south.
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| That's a cow, and that's our little house in the background (the small one). |
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| Just a casual lean shot |
l'aventure commencée - très intéressant! ..... attente de la réponse le prochain chapitre