What a way to take a Bath

Saturday, September 22, 2007

We got up early on Saturday morning to head out to Bath. The fare on the train was much much cheaper if you left around 7:00am, and that way we would have a full day out also. The train left from Paddington station, so we figured out the best way to get over there that early in the morning, which involved taking a route we had never taken before. We picked up the bus very easily (although it was 12 minutes late) and took it over to Euston Station. We noticed that they didn't have the right tube line, so asked and found out that we were at the wrong station, we should have been at Euston Square Station. We started panicking at this point, worried that we would miss the train. So, we asked someone where we could grab a cab and found out that Euston Square was very close, so a quick, mad dash down the road later, we finally were on the way to Paddington. We ended up making it with 15 minutes to spare... whew, what a way to start the day.

The ride to Bath wasn't too long, just one and a half hours, and we got there before anything really opened up. We ended up starting at the Roman Baths since we expected that to fill up quickly. We still didn't beat all of the tour busses, but it wasn't too crowded. The Roman Baths were built by the Romans when they originally settled the area since they had naturally warm springs.

The Royal Bath:



We then headed up to the Jane Austen Center. This weekend they were celebrating the Jane Austen festival, so we went by the center where they gave a little talk about her life and about the time that she lived in Bath. They also had costumes from the BBC miniseries that had been done recently on one of her novels call Persuasion. We then headed back down to the main promenade where they were having a processional of people dressed in costume.

Part of the parade:



We then walked around the shops, up to the Pulteney Bridge that has tons of shops. This is only 1 of 3 actual bridges with shops on it. We made sure to go into the chocolate shop to get a few samples. We then walked up Walcot Street and over to the Fashion Museum. The Museum was a little disappointing, but it wasn't too bad. We had lunch at the Slug and Lettuce (which is much much better than it sounds). As a bonus, they serve Fruili, so Tami was happy.

The Pulteney Bridge:



We then walked over and admired the Circus, an impressive circle of houses designed by John Wood and Royal Crescent, a much larger set of houses (in a semi-cirlce) designed by his son. Then we headed back into town and hit a few more shops before going to the Bath Abbey and looking around inside. It was very nice, and as a bonus, we were allowed to take pictures of the inside.... woohoo!

Inside the Abbey:



The Abbey at night:



After the Abbey, we had tea and "Bath Buns" at The Pump Room. We also tried the water from the springs, but it was warm and smelly.... I wouldn't recommend it. Some people like it though since one group downed three glasses while we were there. After tea, we went to the Thermae Bath Spa where you can go into the warm spring water through one of the pools. The best pool was on the roof and overlooked the town... it was very impressive. We spent two hours at the pool before drying off and having supper and a pint at the Huntsman Pub. We then strolled around the town which had mostly closed down until it was time for our train to leave again around 9:00pm.

Castles and Whiskey, what more do you need?

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Today started out the same as yesterday. We enjoyed a full breakfast at the B & B before checking out and getting on the road. Our first stop was a brief stop at Inverness Castle, which is in the town center. You cannot go into it, as it is used for government offices now, so we just walked around outside taking pictures. It was around 10 am so not many people out and about yet, very quiet.

Here is a picture of Inverness Castle:



We then drove to Cawdor Castle, deemed as one of Scotland's most romantic castles. It was very nice, it had a draw bridge leading into the entrance, the owners still occupy part of the castle today. We even walked through the gardens, the maze, and one of the forest walks. We did the short walk, as it was raining but it was gorgeous.

Cawdor Castle:



Next we drove to Brodie castle, it was kind of plain but still nice, located on over 30 acres of land. We opted not to go inside, as it was 8 pounds per person. We walked around the grounds a little bit and went to the gift shop before heading on down the road again.

Brodie Castle:



We continued on down the road and went to the Glen Grant Distillery, not many distilleries were open on Sundays but this one was. We did the tour, which was very interesting, and the tastings. They were pretty good but I (Tami) prefer mine mixed with something else. Greg really enjoyed the tasting. We would have loved to have walked the gardens, because the Admiral had spent so much time making it beautiful, but it was raining too hard so we decided to just head back to town. With the rain it took us nearly 2 hours.

Greg at the Glen Grant Distillery:



We ended up just eating dinner at Pizza Express, before getting on the bus at 6:15 pm to head back to London. We arrived back at 6:50 am on Monday, enough time for a nap before work.

The Search for Nessie

Saturday 9/15/07

We got up fairly early on Saturday. The place that we were staying included breakfast that was cooked by the owner, so we had fruit, toast, eggs, bacon (english bacon, which is pretty much ham), grilled tomatoes and grilled mushrooms (Greg only) washed down with tea and coffee. The food was really good, but the tea and coffee was sort of blah, so we grabbed some coffee and hot chocolate on the way out from Starbucks. We also stopped in at Marks & Spencer to pick up food for a picnic later in the afternoon.

We started out by driving down the south side of Loch Ness which has some beautiful views. We had heard that this side was a lot less travelled than the north side, and we quickly found out why as the majority of the roads were one lane for both directions of traffic. There were just some "passing places" where a little bit of the road jutted out so that two cars could barely fit on the road at the same time. We definitely never saw roads like that in Atlanta :)

Before we left for Scotland, we had invested in some nice raincoats, given Scotland's reputation and actually London's reputation as well. It turned out to be a great investment as all of the rumors about Scotland's climate turned out to be true for us.... it poured down the majority of the time we were there. We got to try out our raincoats for the first time when we stopped off at Foyers Falls, which was a short hike down some stairs. They were pretty, but seemed rather small compared to what we had seen before. We had read that they were more impressive if there has been a lot of rain before, so apparently there hadn't been all that much.



We then hopped back in the car and headed down to Fort Augustus, a small town on the Loch. We stayed for a little bit, but the next leg of our journey required a little more driving, so we wanted to go ahead and get moving.

Our next trip was to Glenfinnan, which has the Glenfinnan Viaduct. We wanted to see it because it was featured in the Harry Potter movies (there is a scene where the train goes over it.) It was cool to see, but it was still pouring down rain, so it didn't make the pictures look as good.



We then drove back to Urquhart Castle. Urquhart castle is more of a ruins then a castle. The castle was destroyed quite, but you can still walk around the ruins. It is right off of Loch Ness so there were some spectacular views. Fortunately, the rain held out for a little while to give us a chance to explore.


When we first walked outside we saw the most beautiful rainbow that extended all the way across the Loch.



The next stop was the Loch Ness Visitors Center, this is where we took pictures of Nessie, mainly Tami with Nessie.



After that, we headed back into Inverness. We were pretty tired, so by the time we got there, we started looking for a place to eat so that we could get back to the Inn. We ended up going back to Girvan's since it was close by and we were too tired to look for much. After that, we went back and hung out at the Inn before going to bed.

We even got to listen to the UGA football game before going to sleep.

The long ride

Thursday, September 13, 2007

We logged off for work at 9 pm and started our journey to Scotland. We got to the National Express and realized we were to take a bus to Inverness and not a train, we were not sure when we booked it. No biggie, the price was definitely worth it. Our bus left London at 11:00 pm and we arrived in Inverness at 11:35 am, we grabbed a rental car and headed toward our B&B that we were staying in.


Friday, September 14, 2007

We arrived at Ivybank Guess House B&B, which was spectacular. We had paid extra to have an ensuite bathroom, it was worth it. Our room was very cute and was located above the lobby area. The B & B only has a total of 6 bedrooms but is very quaint. Our bathroom was the neatest thing about the room. You actually had to walk up some stairs to get to it, and it was located in the Tower of the building. Also, notice that our door is rounded.



It was after 1 pm now and we were getting hungry, we hadn't eaten a real meal since 8 pm the night before. We walked into town and finally decided upon this place called Girvan's. At first it looked more like a cafeteria but it was not, they had a wide variety of food and I ended up eating nachos while Greg got a BLT, we split the two meals.

We walked to the tourist information and picked up some brochures to decide what we were going to be doing over the next few days. We had originally planned on going on a 6 pm dolphin watching cruise, but when I went to book it we found out that the season ended in August and they now only run 10 am and 1:30 pm cruises, so we were too late for those. Oh well.

We headed back to the B&B so Greg could work for a few hours. Once he was logged off we then got in the car and decided to drive up the coast to the Moray Firth area to try to view some dolphins. At this point it was around 4 pm. The roads in Scotland are few and far between, and not very well marked. This meant we ended up over an hour and a half of this free time we were lost. Again, oh well. We finally found the right road and headed north. We stopped off at the first place that was marked in our book to view dolphins, there is a lighthouse here as well.


While they were a little bit off the coast we could see 2 or 3 dolphins playing, a couple of seals, and I even spotted a penguin. I was just as happy doing this as th dolphin cruise. I didn't really plan on Scotland being a place to view dolphins, we were there for the castles and the distilleries and Nessie, mainly.

Here is one of the dolphins that we saw:




Look closely, you will see the lone penguin:


It was starting to get dark and getting close to 7 pm, we headed back to Inverness and ate dinner at Rocpool. This was a great restaurant. I had orrechiette pasta with broccoli and pine nuts. Greg had pan fried chicken with lemon sauce, fried sweet potatoes, and mushrooms. The chicken was excellent. We then headed back to the B&B to get ready for Saturday, and to get a good nights sleep in a real bed. We watched some of Notting Hill before heading to sleep.

Here is just a beautiful shot of the area where we were dolphin watching, it is actually an old fort:

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Thursday, September 13, 2007, 7:35 pm

There was a major incident across the street, the roof of the building collapsed.

We interviewed a neighbor, Greg Ware, and this is what he said:

"I was just sitting in my reception room, working, when there was this loud noise from outside. i ran to the window to see what was the ruckus to discover that the roof across the street had collapsed."

Further reports show that there were many emergency vehicles on the scene. Not 100% sure what happened but you can see into the attic and there are no lights in the upstairs portion of the building.

We will keep you updated if there are any more developments in this story. Back to you Chuck.

You belong in a Zoo

Sunday Sept. 2 2007

Since we lived so close, we figured it was time for us to make our way over to the London Zoo. The Zoo is at the top of Regents Park, which is the park that is about 1 1/2 miles from our flat. We got up early figuring we could get there right when they open and beat some of the crowds. Also, that way we could plan out to go to any of the feedings or shows that they do.

When we got there, we started at the Aquarium. It was nice and they had some cool fish, but it doesn't compare to the Georgia Aquarium. We then headed out to see the African animals.... giraffes and Wild Pigs. The most impressive over there were the African Hunting Dogs which seem to be huge hyenas.



After that, we went into an open rainforest area, filled with tons of little monkeys. We saw a group of them try to make an escape. They were close enough that you could touch them. We walked around a little more and decided to have an early lunch. We had decided to make a picnic out of all of the stuff we had bought from the Borough Market the day before. That was a good choice because everything was delicious.



After that, we went around to everything else. Meerkats, Otters, an open butterfly aviary. We especially enjoyed the penguins and waited to see them be fed by the trainers.



After that, we saw a little show that had trained parrots, skunks, lemurs and a huge owl. We then walked around and saw the tigers, spider monkeys, a couple of reindeer (you get the idea.... a lot of animals).



We did make it over to the reptile house and it was fun trying to figure out where they filmed the scene for Harry Potter. All in all, we ended up staying there over six hours. We were quite surprised since we didn't really expect for us to stay that long.



After that, we figure we would take in a movie and saw Run Fatboy Run. It was a comedy that won't be released in the states until October. The movie was funny, and it was set in London so it was fun see places around town that we'd been before. Also, we could relate to the movie very much, since he is training for a marathon. Made us think about doing it again, we haven't talked about it since.

Wine, whiskey, and liquor....what a day

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Today was a great day around London, although no pictures. We started out with a trip to the Borough Market. We bought some vegetables, sausage, bread, tea, coffee, olives, and cheese of course. We spent nearly 3 hours there, shopping. We had to go by all of the different vendors before buying certain things. We even went and had sushi for lunch at the market.

Then we headed over to Vinopolis, a wine tasting place. This place is very large and sells hundreds of different wines. We bought this package that included a "how to taste" seminar, self guided tour, 6 wine tastings of your choice (you get to choose from over 50 different wines, broken down by country), 2 beer tastings (their own brew), a Bonbay Sapphire Gin cocktail, 2 whiskey tastings, and 2 absinthe tastings.

We started out with the seminar, which included 1 wine tasting, then headed over to the first wine table, where we tried 2 different wines. We then headed to the beer table and had our two tastings there, I was not impressed. Next we headed in to get our Bombay Sapphire cocktails. Greg had a Cosmo and I had an appletini that had cinnamon syrup in it. That was the best. We each drank half of each drinks so we could try both. I then decided that I wanted to go ahead and do the absinthe and whiskey and finish up with the wine.

In case you didn't know Absinthe is illegal in the US. We had both of our tastings and I would be happy if I did not have them again, although I would do it again if it was free. Mom, you would have loved it. It tastes like pure licorice, uck! Greg was not impressed either. Next was the whiskey stalls. I opted to get a whiskey cocktail (ginger ale and Johnnie Walker Black Label whiskey) instead of the tastings. Greg paid the extra money and tried all 3 that they had to offer, he said the Johnnie Walker was the smoothest of the 3.

We then finished our wine tastings with some wine before heading out. We went to Oxford Circus and bought a few items from H & M. We went to some other stores but not nearly as impressed. Top Shop looks like you have stepped right back into American 1980's fashion, not good. After a few more stores we were getting tired and headed back home.

Once home we decided to order a pizza. The delivery person told us that he was on his way but that we had to meet him down stairs. Greg waited and waited and thought he saw the guy pass the entrance but the guy never stopped. A little while later the driver called and said that he could not stop unless Greg was on the street. He came back with our order and Greg met him on the street. Very odd that they do this, I can't believe that the drivers won't come to the entrance of your building. Oh well, we ate, watched a movie and went to bed.

Again, sorry there were no pictures this day.

Paris Pictures

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August 2007 Pictures

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Paris reading guide

Hey everyone,

We tried to be clever and post all of the Paris posts at once in reverse order so that you could just read through all of them (we had way too many pictures to try to fit it into 2 posts). However, something got messed up and they are out of order. Here is the correct order to read them:

Versailles....the land of Marie-Antoinette - (Saturday Sept 1 - Part 1)
Paris, the City of ... Bikes? - (Saturday Sept 1 - Part 2)
Louvre it or leave it - (Sunday Sept 2 - Part 1)
Moulin Rouge, Princess Diana, and more - (Sunday Sept 2 - Part 2)

Basically, skip the next post, read the rest of the Paris ones, and then come back and finish up with the one you skipped.

Sorry about the confusion.

Greg

Moulin Rouge, Princess Diana, and more

Sunday, September 2, 2007 continued

We walked to the Musee Rodin, which was much further than I had at first thought. We were both sore but pushed through the pain. When we got there we were quite pleased to find that admission was FREE. Yeah, our favorite word of the day. We immediately headed to the garden area and there it was, Le Penseur ("The Thinker"). I had never known how big it was but it stood nearly 20 feet high. The funny part was that we had seen a picture of this statue the night before in the office of the Bike Tour. One of the guys that worked at the Bike Tour place had his picture made sitting at the base of the statue, recreating the pose. For real authenticity, he had decided to do it totally naked. Apparently, he went in with a trenchcoat and waited until the coast was clear, then took it off, had the picture taken, and put it back on. We looked around it and took several pictures before walking around the garden area some more. We didn't really know much more of Rodin so we didn't really get a lot of the statues. The garden did house more than 120 different types of roses, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After snapping a few pictures we headed back up to see the Princess Diana memorial at the tunnel in which she died, 10 years and 2 days ago. It is called the Flame of Liberty and is actually a replica of the flame on the Statue of Liberty. Since the 10 year anniversary had just occurred there were still numerous flowers, candles, letters, pictures, and more surrounding the flame. It was so amazing and saddening at the same time. Pont de l'Alma is the bridge where the memorial is at.
Le Penseur




























The Flame of Liberty
























We remembered and took pictures and then it was off to our next stop. We headed to Montmartre to visit la basilique du Sacré-Coeur. This church is set up on top of a hill and is so breath-taking when you first see it. It is all white and just massive at the top of this hill. We walked up the steps, now remember we are still really sore from everything else but we managed to make it up to the top. I didn't really know what to expect but the inside was so amazing. The stained glass windows, the ceiling, the candles, everything was just wonderful. While we were there, they were holding Mass. It was kind of odd walking around this massive church, while nuns were singing, a priest was preaching, and there were people in the pews praying. Also, you could pay a few euro to light a candle for someone.



Once we finished Sacre Coeur we were going to head down the hill to see Moulin Rouge. We decided to walk up this street nearby that had lots of local artists, painting and drawing, and grabbed a beer at an Irish pub, to rest our feet. We stayed there for about 30 minutes or so and then headed off again. We walked through some of the artists market and through the very cute area of Montmartre, with all of it's alleyways and such it reminded me of old Paris in movies. We eventually made our way all the way down past Moulin de la Galatte and found Moulin Rouge. It was just want you expect it to be, with the windmill, and lights and such. I took some pictures, and Greg took some pictures of me in front of it and then we went to O'Sullivans to have some food and a beer.



















The Moulin Rouge


















Tami at the Moulin Rouge




















We got there and sat down, little did we know that Paris vs. Marseilles soccer game was about to begin. It was such a fun experience watching all of the parisians cheering for the game, especially since it was a big rivalry and not necessarily everyone was for Paris.

We had hoped to see Moulin Rouge at night but it was now 7:15 and the sun was shining bright, so we headed back to Gare du Nord to catch our train back to London. We got settled on the train and slept pretty much all of the way back home. We got back to our flat at nearly midnight, so it was time to sleep.

Versailles....the land of Marie-Antoinette

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Wow, did this day start early for us. We got up at 3:30 am, had a taxi pick us up at 4:15 am so we could be at the Waterloo train station by 4:45 am for the 5:34 train to Paris. We slept pretty much all the way to Paris, we definitely needed as much sleep as we could get. We arrived in Paris around 9:30 am and immediately had a taxi take us from Gare du Nord to Gare St. Lazarre so we could catch a train to Versailles. We got to Versailles around 10:45 am and began walking around the Palace. I knew Versailles was big but had no idea that it was this big. I had been to other Palace's but none of them compared.

One of the most amazing things, I found, was that you could take pictures inside the Palace, I was floored. I had never been to a Palace, or Museum, or anywhere else touristy like this where you could take pictures. Now, I was doubly excited. (Oh, by the way, we were able to take pictures inside the Louvre as well). We walked through the Palace, visiting the Royal Chapel, the King's and Queen's Estates, and the Dauphin's Apartment. It all was fabulous, the most amazing room inside the Palace to me was the King's Hall of Mirrors. It was a very long hallway that was lined with mirrors and glass chandeliers, everything just glittered. Not only that but the windows and doors overlooked one of the gardens.


The Hall of Mirrors


After we spent over an hour inside it was time to head outside. I had been looking forward to seeing the gardens for so long. One of my favorite movies lately is Marie Antoinette, with Kirstin Dunst. I have watched that movie several times and made sure to watch it again before we left. That way I could tell where certain parts of the movie were filmed at. I love being able to visualize the movie as I am in that spot. I also had recently done a puzzle of Versailles and wanted to be able to take a picture from the same spot.


The Palace


View from the Palace


So it was not after noon and we began walking through the gardens. It was the most amazing thing that I have ever seen, or at least one of the most. There were so many flowers and fountains, just views you wouldn't believe. The ponds, gardens, canal, fountains, all looked just like they did in the movie and in my head. I was in absolute heaven. I got a lot of pictures of the Palace and the ponds up to the palace, and the fountains with the palace, and the ponds, going to the green, going out to the canal, the pictures that I had always wanted to take, I finally could. We even took time to look down on the Orangery.

We were getting a little hungry so we stopped at one of the cafes and grabbed some sandwiches and drinks and headed to the gardens to eat. We wanted to enjoy the gardens, rather than just eating in the cafe. Once done with our lunch we continued through the gardens. You can't really explain it but there are all of these little paths between the trees that just lead to fountains other hidden gardens, it's just amazing. We went to one area that was called Bosquet de la Colonnade. It was this circular structure that was nothing but huge marble pillars around a very large and ornate fountain. Just amazing.

We then decided to head down to see Marie Antoinette's estate area rather than walking through other parts of the garden. It had gotten a little chilly so we grabbed a Chocolate Chaud for the walk. Greg knew that I was looking forward to that so we wanted to make sure we squeezed it in and didn't run out of time. Our first stop was the Petit Trianon. Basically this was a mini Palace for Marie Antoinette to go to when she wanted to get away from the actual Palace. It looked like a mini version. We didn't get to see that many rooms but it was still impressive, I could live in a house that size. This too had it's own garden area that was amazing. It even had a structure called the Temple of Love which was a marble gazebo with a statue inside. There was a little river that ran around the gardens with cute bridges and such around. Also around the Petit Trianon were a Chapel, French Garden, French Pavilion, Queen's Theatre that she herself performed in, Rock, Belvedere (music parlor), Grotto, Orangery, and English Garden. Who couldn't live here. Rock was a stone formation that was hollow in the middle and had a waterfall that fell through it. It was peaceful.

We then left the Petit Trianon area to head to Petit hameau de la Reine (little hamlet of the queen), which is a mini village that Marie Antoinette had built. This is what I had been looking to most. It was such a cute village. The first building we arrived at was the Mill. I would say I loved this building but I loved all of them so you will get tired of hearing that. There was an actual mill wheel on the front of the building and had a curved staircase that went to one of the entrance ways with flowers all the way to the top. All of the buildings had thatched roofs. Then we passed by the Boudoir and the Queen's House. The Queen's House had a wooden spiral staircase on the outside that went up to the top floor. It too was exquisite. Here, we also walked through the gardens at the Queen's House and by the Billiard Room and Warming Room. The gardens contained flowers but also tomatoes, squash, eggplant (aubergine), cabbage, and so much more. Definitely a self-contained area.


The Lighthouse from the Petit hameau de la Reine

Next we walked by the Dovecote, Guard's House, and the cutest building, the Marlborough Tower. It was a small little building with what looked like a miniature lighthouse on the side, that was bright. All of these buildings surrounded a lake, complete with lily pads, swan, and carp.

We continued our journey on to the Farm where we saw the vineyard area and lots of farm animals, and 3 dogs. There was even a very large pot bellied pig that could barely lift his head, lots of donkey, sheep, goat, chickens, roosters, rabbits, and more. I liked the farm but liked the others parts of the hameau better.

Once we finished with the Petit Trianon it was on to the Grand Trianon. This is where Louis went when he wanted to get away from Versailles. It was very nice, much like the Palace, but still not as impressive as the hameau. The Grand Trianon too had its very own garden, complete with fountains.

It was now nearly 3 pm and we started to head back to the Palace so we could enjoy more of the gardens. Earlier in the day when we had come through, all of the fountains were off. When we arrived back all of the fountains were on. We walked by the canal, where rowers were out in the water, you could rent boats to go out by the half hour. We then went by the Bassin d'Apollon, this is the famous fountain with Apollo and his horses. Still stunning. We walked through the other side of the gardens on the way back to the palace so we could see more of the gardens. We saw the Bosquet de l'Encelade, an enormous circular area with a fountain of a giant that Jupiter punished by crushing him under these rocks in the fountain as well. His one finger was larger than me, I just don't see how these things were sculpted back then, it is just amazing.

Next we went to Bosquet des Domes, a circular fountain with marble statues around as well. We walked through other garden areas and fountain areas including the Bosquet du Dauphin, Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon, Bosquet des Trois Fontaines, Bassin de Neptune and Bassin du Dragon. Out of these the Bosquet des Baines d'Apollon was the most impressive. It was set back in a hill and was more of a waterfall than a typical fountain. It was all carved marble and was so peaceful. It was set on this big open grass area so you could just sit there for hours, looking at the detail on the statues, and listening to the water. It was very peaceful.


Bosquet des Baines d'Apollon

It was nearing 5 pm and we decided it was time to head back to Paris so we left Versailles and headed to the train station.

Paris, the City of ... Bikes?

Since we left Versailles a little earlier than we planned, we decided that we had time to try and go to our hotel before we hooked up with the bicycle tour that we had planned for that night. We decided to take the RER C train over to Notre Dame and walk down to our hotel. Well, this took a bit longer than we expected, so when we got off the train, we were pretty close on time. Plus, we weren't 100% sure where the hotel actually was, so we wandered to the closest area that we knew, then asked around. It turns out that we were pretty close. We got to our hotel, the Hotel Du Globe. We had the front desk call us a cab while we ditched our luggage in the room and ran next door to see about something to drink and maybe some supper (it's a 4 hour trip and no stops for supper, so you were supposed to eat before.) The meeting point was at the South Pillar of the Eiffel Tower. We got there with 10 minutes to spare and met up with the guide. He said that they normally wait around a little extra, so we ran over to one of the stands and split a jambon au fromage baguette (it was just a ham and cheese sandwich, it just sounds a whole lot fancier in French, don't you think?)


Tami and me getting ready to ride out


While we were waiting, one of the other tourists asked if we had been to Georgia. Since it was Game Day, I had worn one of my UGA shirts to show solidarity. I also thought it would be fun to see if anyone commented on it, but imagine my shock that the only person who did was from Australia. While we waited, we talked with her a little more. It turns out that she had a friend who played basketball for UGA and had visited Athens awhile back. She was taking 6 months to tour the world with four other friends and had been to many different places, including going back to Athens. It was interesting to hear about everywhere that she had been and get some tips of good places to go in Europe. Also, we could tell our tour guide was from the States and it turns out that he was from Madison, Wisconsin.

Anyway, we walked over to the HQ of Fat Tire Bike Tours and got our bikes. We then took a 20 minute ride over to Notre Dame, passing through the Latin Quarter. We stopped at Notre Dame for pictures and to hear a little bit about it. After that, we went across the bridge and had ice cream from a little place that makes their own daily and is only available on the one island. While we finished our ice cream, we got a little more history of Paris as well as interesting stories about the current mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë. The most interesting was that during a big party at the Hotel de Ville which was open to everyone, he was stabbed while mingling with the crowd. Before he was taken to the hospital, he insisted that the party should continue since it was in honor of the people of France. That takes class.


Tami and me at Notre Dame


Riding at night.... and those are reflective vests, we weren't really lit up like Christmas trees.

We hit the road again and went by Conciergerie, which is where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned for 72 days before she was executed. We heard a lot of fascinating stuff about that before we headed over to the Pont des Arts, which is the bridge that connects the Academie Française and the Louvre across the Seine River. It is a really nice wooden planked, wrought iron, pedestrian bridge where a scene from the last episode of Sex and the City was filmed. It's a popular spot with students for picnics and there were many out there when we passed by, we had to walk the bikes across to make sure we didn't run into people. Then we got to the coolest part of the tour where we got to ride around the courtyard of the Louvre, we even did laps around the big fountain. It was really nice seeing everything lit up and fun to ride around in the area seeing everything.


Tami and me at the Louvre

Then we headed up to the Place de la Concorde, which is where many people, including Marie Antoinette, were executed. Now it is a really beautiful area with a large obelisk in the center. We then went up closer to the Eiffel Tower and parked the bikes to get onto the boat for our evening cruise up the Seine river. The boating company that we were on was called the Bateaux Mouches, and our bike group all sat together. The tour included wine, so we all had a toast. The area we were sitting in wasn't too great, so our guide suggested that we move towards the front of the boat and a few of us did. We were smart and stayed close to our Tour Guide, Adam since he had the bottles of wine. We were glad we did though because we got to talk with him and with a couple of people on the tour who were very interesting. One was the Aussie who knew about UGA, whose name was Jacqui. Another girl, Holly, was originally from Australia also, but was now living in London. Holly's father, Jim, was there also and he lived in Australia, but was originally from Rhode Island. We hung out with them, drank a lot of wine and saw the sights. This tour went further down the river than the one we had taken back in February, so we were able to see the Mini Me Statue of Liberty. We even got a "Full Monty" routine and mooned a couple of times by some guys hanging out on the side of the river (don't worry, we didn't take any pictures, so this blog will stay PG... or at least PG 13.)


The Place de la Concorde - which shows the obelisk and has the Eiffel Tower in the background.

When we got back, we collected the bikes and rode back to the Fat Tires Bike Tours Office to return the bikes. We hung out at the office for a little while and talked to one of the guys in the office who was from Texas and was an Aggies fan, so Tami bonded with him. It turns out, the whole operation is run out of Austin Texas and is setup specifically for English speaking tourists. Most of the tour guides are from the US, mostly from Texas.

We ended up going out with Jacqui and Adam for drinks afterwards and ended up meeting up with a few other of Adam's fellow tour guides at an Irish pub that was fairly close to our hotel. We ended up leaving around 2:20 am to head over to our hotel, which was about 10 minutes away. By this point, we had been going since 3:30am, so we were exhausted. It was not hard to get to sleep that night.

Louvre it or leave it

Sunday September 2, 2007


We had good intentions to get up at 6am and head over to Sacre Couer before the Louvre opened at 9am. However, our original plans didn't include hanging out at a pub until 2:30am. As you can imagine, we set the alarm for later... 7am. At 7, we decided that wasn't enough, so we went back to sleep with an 8am alarm. At 8, we push it back to 8:30. At 8:30, we felt like we couldn't push it back anymore since we had a full day, so went ahead and got up to get ready.

Part of the reason that we had chosen our hotel was that it was in walking distance of the Louvre. So we checked out of the hotel and made our way over. We ending up stopping at a little cafe for breakfast which ended up being a German cafe. They still served French food so we ended up with a chocolate banana crepe and a fromage baguette.

Part of the reason that we had planned to go to the Louvre on Sunday was that it was free on the first Sunday of every month. That was also the reason that we had planned to get there early since we expected it to be packed. We were a little apprehensive as we walked up to the entrance, but we shouldn't have worried. There was a small line, but it was moving quickly since people didn't have to buy tickets, they just had to get through security. Once inside, we got started and there sure was a lot to see.

The Louvre is a huge museum that houses tons of art. And it is huge, you could easily spend several days here looking at everything. We knew that there was a limit to the amount of art we could take in a day, so we did a little research before we started out and staked out the highlights that we wanted to see. We of course did a lot of the more famous pieces such as the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa (which was much smaller than I expected.) We really enjoyed a lot of the marble statues, particularly the Italian and French ones. The Sphinx was a really impressive site to see and we also liked seeing the Medieval Moat that is on the Lower Ground Floor which is all that remains of the original palace that was located there.


Venus de Milo



Mona Lisa


The Sphinx


Cupid and Psyche

We did take a break in the middle of our tour to have tea at a little cafe on the first floor that overlooked the entrance of the Louvre. It was nice to relax and watch the people go by and to enjoy the architecture of the actual building since it is really impressive by itself. We were glad that we got there when we did because they appeared to quit letting people in for awhile.


View of the crowds from the cafe

After we had hit a lot of the highlights and things that really interested us, we figured we would grab a quick bite and head over to the Musee Rodin. We went to the shopping center next door and grabbed a quick pizza before heading out.