Happy Bellys

Great start to a wet and rainy day at Fondation Cafe 75003 - had good coffees, avocado on toast, and finished it all off with a delectably silky piece of chocolate tart, tinged with tequila and chilli. GOOD MORNING!

Fondation

A stroll under our brollies around Saint Germain - its still all so picturesque even in a downpour :)

Rain in Saint Germain

Holybelly holy yum

A really tasty lunch at Holybelly 75010 (Kimmy have you tried? It'll be in your hood, you'll love it) and then we have dinner tonight with some of Miros family who happen to over here too, at Fish La Boissonnerie on rue de Sienne 75006.

Gelato anyone?

Did I mention Neats found a great pizza place just around the corner too......

Needless to say, we aint starving. X

Ten days here is great, giving us the time to both enjoy the sights and just spend many moments soaking up the atmosphere at a good pace. And theres so much on offer to soak up.

So Elly, Neats and I had another nice day just strolling. And how awesome it was to have Elly here - and her fancy French ways (as in the lingo)!

Started with coffees and croissants at Marche des Enfants Rouge, one of the oldest covered markets and close by - full of fruit and vege, fish, snails and flowers, meats and breads and popular also for its north African food.














The metro is brilliant - such an easy and efficient way to get around. Made our way to the Musee de L'Orangerie to see Monets 'Water Lilies' - absolutely stunning, kind of emotional seeing the works in real life.... ah the light, the movement. If only you could find yourself alone in the room with them to contemplate in solitude....

Renoir

Also had works there by Renoir - Cezanne - Modigliani - Matisse - Picasso. Thanks high school art history!

A favourite way to spend time.

Do you think that you can learn to do the can can la de da de da de da de da

In the district of Pigalle we wandered along to see the Moulin Rogue, best known as the spiritual birthplace of the modern form of the can-can. I can ('scuse the pun) remember trying to do that in primary school weirdly enough. Destroyed by fire in 1925, it was finally reopened in 1921.
Apparently sells out every night with an audience capacity of 800!

 Had a delicious lunch at a cute place we all fell in love with thats nestled up against the Montmarte steps - Soul Kitchen 33 rue Lamarck serving homemade recipes made form local, organic produce. Up again (maybe 3 very steep stairways) to Montemarte and the Sacre-Coeur. Teeming with others who had the same idea, but pretty stunning none the less, with an amazing panoramic view back over the city.

 

More of the same tomorrow, with a day trip to Versailles thrown in at some point and if I can face the crowds, I'll get along to the Louvre. Last week here.
Love from us
X

We've been a wandering

Don't ya know

Its 7pm here but with the light and the warmth it's easy to mistake it for still being some time in the afternoon and the storm that threatened never came. The days we have are long and the past few have been spent meandering around - a metro ride here, a walk to there - its such a beautiful, vibrant city making it so easy to while away the day exploring and just looking.

Every time we emerge up the stairs from a metro station, or turn a different corner its like, 'oh look, another amazing old building, another beautiful huge door, another balcony filled with flowers.....'
Kinda predictable but not in a bad way, it's still beautiful to take in. Not sick of it at all so don't stop delivering the goods Paris ya hear.

 Please excuse the wacky lay-out of pics, still getting my head around how to be a bit more professional (don't hold ya breath)

Did I mention the doors?? There are so many stunning, huge doors on the streets around here, leading to who knows what, some painted deep blues and reds and greens and adorned with old, interesting hardware, weaved with wrought iron and carved timber heads a la Medusa - well, at least one was.

Neats was on the perfumery mission, and Paris, being seeped in the history of perfume puts her in the right place. ( Givaudan is the legendary Perfumery Institute that trains the perfumers responsible for one third of the fragrances on the market today.) Here you can get scents tailored to your own tastes, so we ended up at Nose where the choice was mind-blowing and many scents were sampled. The favourites then get logged onto your own data base, and the ten scents Anita chose were broken down (as in sniffed a lot)  and judged on her personal preference of, "discusting to what you would want to shower in". Voila! She refined it down to three which stayed on her arm... decision impending.

Nose

Guess I should mention we also got to sample haughty, rude service at our local patisserie when all we wanted was an almond croissant and mille feuille. That went down well with us.

For the Cobb family

Le chat heureux

Excited to now be waiting for the awesome Elly to show up - she is on route from London to spend the night with us, (as you do, coz you can) so a dinner planned at a restaurant thats a stones throw from our balcony. Gotta say, we are lovin' Le Marais. X

A Tower An Arc and A Queen

Centre Georges Pompidou

Crepe stop

Little did we know upon waking this morning that this would be the day we would see THE QUEEN. 

But I digress. We started this sunny day with a visit across the road to the Centre Georges Pompidou which had an extensive exhibition of Henri Cartier-Bressons work so that was awesome to see. And what a beautiful city to spend all day every day just wandering around.

Ended up exploring the vicinity of the Tour Eiffel so figured we'd really better go and check it out, along with a few other people who had the same idea. You sort of have to pinch yourself when you end up seeing such famous iconic landmarks in the flesh. Impressive indeed.

Jumped into a Parisian tuk tuk and headed to the Arc de Triomphe. Whats with all the crowds standing behind barriers, broadcasting vans and cameras? For a second we thought it was for us. I asked a bystander,

who's coming?

She said,THE QUEEN 

I said, are you joking?

she said, no.

Well, for one thing nobody had mentioned this to us and the Queens impending visit was messing with our photo opportunity to get a clean shot of the Arc so to be honest, we weren't all that impressed.

Changed my tune for a second when we actually saw her (yet another iconic landmark of sorts) drive past. For a second it was, hey i just saw Liz. In the flesh.

Fans of THE QUEEN

Cleared road once THE QUEEN had waved and passed. Arc De Triomphe exposed

Puddles & Prettiness in Paris

Awoke to rain.

But who cares, we are finally here!
First purchase: Umbrellas
Most commonly used phrase: Desole, je ne parle pas francais

Staying in the Le Marais district - considered the historical heart of Paris, home of Jewish and gay communities and one of its main localities for art galleries and buildings of historical and architectural importance. From the peep we managed to explore today, it is loaded with restaurants, boutique shops and a couple of museums chucked in for good measure.

Galeries Lafayette

Due to the rain - which was pouring at times, we decided to explore the dry insides a couple of local cafes and some of the fancy pants shopping spots. Impressed by the beautiful Art Nouveau glass domed roof of Galeries Lafayette. But of course zee pics no do it justice...

The sun popped out for a sec, so did Anita

Great to have our home  to come back to - it has a red door, a narrow, steep and windy staircase up to the 4th floor (preferable to the worlds smallest lift Anita and I only just manged to squeeze into together last night - aka claustrophobic) and is cosy and warm.


Have been recommended some good spots to eat so will check out tonight.

More exploring tomorrow as the weather clears - we have scratched but the teeniest surface. Its like unwrapping a gift. Seems the smallest things have us enamoured.


We hope all is well and happy back home .
How lucky are we to have back yards. Or front yards. Just some typa grassy bits near our homes.
Love x

Finally sat down to the first - but not the last.

Sayonara, Auf Wiedersehen, BONJOUR!

horse meat sashimi anyone?

 Our whirlwind visit to Japan - complete with headaches and tissues and dinner in a smoky izakaya that had horse meat on the menu, and making it to the coffee place because it was open this morning! (or was that yesterday morning....dunno, its been a long day on planes)

Its the small things...

me me me cafe in the back streets makes us happy

12,5000 hours later - we finally arrive in Paris.
Its late when we get dropped off to our apartment.
Theres a vagabond peeing in the corner next to our door.
BONJOUR PARREEEEE.

Can't wait to explore tomorrow x

Feeling Blah in Shibuya

With post-flight pounding headaches and snot filled sinuses, the sense of achievement upon finally making it to our accommodation in Shibuya was comparable to winning The Amazing Race.

Amazing Race winners

And because we are in Japan, our room has a heated toilet seat. Not that we need one - its hot and humid here, which is making our NZ colds feel all the more ridiculous.

Neats had done her research so armed with trusty map we set off in search of a decent coffee, which believe you me sounds easier said than done in Shi-BOO-ya - home to one of Tokyos busiest railway stations, tides of people and the famous 'scramble crossing', where at least 6 large zebra crossings cut across the same intersection allowing the organised chaos of vehicles to stop in all directions and let the pedestrians have their way.
So sure, lets just say we had to ask for directions more than twice, and yep, realised at one point we had literally walked around in a fairly large circle, only to (some time later) find ourselves wandering further away from the hussle and bussle of the center.

This coffee had better be awesome, and we joked, imagine if we get there and its closed!And guess what?! It was

Shibuyas scramble crossing

But as luck would have it we got our fix elsewhere and it was well worth the exploring.

I had forgotten the Japanese penchant for wrapping almost everything individually in plastic - a la these ready to eat bananas, regardless of the fact they already are WRAPPED IN THEIR OWN SKIN.




As the day wears on, so too do our headaches and generally feeling a bit shite to be honest with you.

I am really hoping this spread is not our dinner, as it has pretty much been our afternoon tea.



Maybe a meal out at the local izakaya will work wonders - I mean we haven't even had a beer for crying out loud!

'I am not coming to Japan and not having a beer' - Anita Dempsey.

We are wanting to wake up feeling great and ready for the next leg of our journey tomorrow.
x