Photos: Paris weekend

Larna with our baguettes

Larna, Deena and Keira in Jardin Luxembourg

Deena, Larren, Keira and Larna

Keira asleep (and on the beach)

Walking with Uncle Larry and Auntie Larna



Montmatre cafes

Cafe in Marais district

Million dollar views and lots of cheese

Hello from beautiful Lausanne in Switzerland. We arrived here on Monday afternoon after four baking hot and hectic (but wonderful) days in Paris. We're staying with friends of Larna's in a beautiful old farmhouse with panoramic views across Lake Geneva. We have not done much at all since we arrived except eat delicious home cooked meals and lots and lots of cheese. I think I ate more cheese in our first meal on Monday night then I would normally eat in a week!

Yesterday we visited a local winery which makes biodynamic wine. This is wine made without any pesticides and using only completely sustainable farming methods. The hills around us are covered in vineyards but this is the only winery to make wine using this method. We met the owner, a charming, laid back Swiss guy, who told us he has to fight against the other vineyard owners who spray pesticides near his vineyards and don't take kindly to what he is doing (wine politics in Switzerland!). The wine he makes is crisp, clean and delicious and has a totally different taste to any other wine I have tasted. Yesterday we sat back on his porch overlooking the vines and Lake Geneva and sipped one of his white wines. He told us about his passion for wine making using this method. He believes it is the only way to produce wine in the future.

I was hoping to put up photos from Paris but for some reason this Apple mac won't accept my USB connector. Will hopefully put up photos soon.

Paris in the summertime

We are in wonderful, wonderful Paris. Crazy, beautiful, hectic, grand and intimate.

Such a contrast from yesterday, which we spent visiting Giverny en route to Paris. Giverny is most famous for Claude Monet, the impressionist artist. We visited his home and garden and of course, the lily ponds which were immortilised in those enormous paintings.

Today was our first full day in Paris, and it was a scorcher. We walked our asses off starting with a long stroll to the Seine, stopping for coffee at one of the millions of corner cafes around the city. Mind you, its damn expensive just for cafe creme! (coffee and milk) but you sit facing the street and watch life passing you by, so its worth it!

And I have so far been proved wrong by the preconception that Parisians are unfriendly to those who dont speak the lingo. Not only was the guy who checked us into our hotel very helpful and full of laughs, but I found myself engaged in a broken English conversation with a guy called Jimmy who was sitting next to me in the cafe. Mind you he would probably have started talking to a poodle if it was seated next to him. He looked like an ultra stylish forty-something ex-rocker who had smoked too much weed and had forgotten most of the 1980s and 1990s. In between cigarettes he insisted that I visit Cathedral Notre Dame, eat a Greek sandwich (huh?) and go to Starbucks of all places! Anyway it was fun to chat to a local.

Today we had lunch under the eiffiel tower and dinner across from the Cathedral Notre Dame, we walked through the Latin Quarter, along the Champs Elysees, ate crepes and marvelled at the beautiful apartment buildings with the wrought iron railings and shutters. Oh yes, and a bird shat on me for the third time in Europe! That's one in Hungary, one in Amsterdam and one in Paris! Au revoir until the next time!

"Dieppe" in Normandy

Writing from an internet cafe in the seaport town of Dieppe on the Normandy coast. This crazy French keyboard is driving me crazy so will keep it short.

We left Amsterdam on Saturday morning. Did a wonderful walking tour of the city on Friday. I did not know that cannibis is 100 per cent ILLEGAL in the city, but it is decriminalised. The authorities turn a blind eye based on this principal of "plausible deniability" which basically means if some activity does no harm and is good for business; they act as if nothing is going on. Pretty cool.

From Amsterdam we spent a night in Brussels. Loved the place, gorgeous, dirty old buildings, friendly people and very relaxed feel. We arrived in Rouen on Sunday and we are staying in a little hotel in the Arabic part of town. Tiny studio but has the feel of a struggling artists pad. The owner looks like Kevin Kline from his Fish called Wanda days. Rouen is both beautiful and ugly. We are eating lots of French pastries. Visited the graves of Gustav Flaubert and Marcel Duchamp yesterday. Paris awaits tomorrow...

Larna enjoying a waffle in Brussels

Mayonnaise instead of ketchup

As you may be able to tell from the title of this post, we are currently in wonderful Amsterdam where they do indeed prefer mayonnaise to ketchup on their pommes frites (chips).

We are staying in a camping site on the outskirts of town, near the airport called "De Amsterdamse Bos" an enormous park the size of a suburb. When we first arrived on Monday from Berlin it was a huge mission to get to the camp grounds from the train station and took us about 90 minutes one tram and two buses. We were exhausted by the time we got there (and 13 euros poorer).

But we're really glad we chose it - we are staying in wendy hut-style cabins and surrounded by trees, a little canal and millions of rabbits! On Tuesday we hired bicycles and cycled through the park into the centre of town. It a beautiful, seemingly endless park with these green and brown canopies made by enormous overhanging trees and there are streams and rivers and canals everywhere. There are cyclists everywhere and the locals seem to obey no rules except avoiding getting into collisions. People talk on their mobile phones while cycling, ride next to each other having animated conversations and casually weave in an out of cars, motorbikes, trees, people without so much as even looking worried.

This relaxed attitude is not surprising. Larna and I have not encountered such friendly, laidback and helpful people as the Dutch. Just about everyone offers directions or assistance, even before you have asked. Its pretty amazing. We though the Germans were friendly, but they are not even in the same league.

Also on Tuesday, we walked around the main part of Amsterdam along the canals browsing the quirky shops and sitting in little squares to people watch until the sun disappeared behind clouds. Later in the afternoon, we visited a "coffee shop" for a coffee. Seriously, we actually had only coffees. Most people will know that coffee shops in Amsterdam are for buying and smoking a bit of whacky tabacky. Well we spent about an hour and a bit in this little psychedelic coffee shop sipping our cappucinos (I watched the Ivory Coast v Portugal game) while everyone else got high and by the end we were both feeling like we had partaken as well. It seems all you have to do to get a little bit high in Amsterdam is finding a really small coffee shop and spend an hour or two inhaling second degree marijuana smoke...

Yesterday we spent most of the afternoon just exploring the 'bos' on our bikes. We have pretty sore butts as a result, but it felt so free cycling along the winding paths, through the forests. We found a beautiful old windmall down one of the paths and some very quiet spots near streams to stop and unwind with our books.

Potsdam palaces and world cup fever!

Hello from a rather damp Berlin. It is our first bad weather day in over a week so we should not really be complaining, but we were kind of getting used to sunshine and blue skies.

Yesterday we took the train to Potsdam, about 30 minutes outside of Berlin. It is most famous in modern times for the Potsdam treaty after the war, when the Allies divided up Germany. Going further back, it is most famous for the San Soucci Park, designed and built by Frederick the Great and decorated with beautiful Baroque palaces, Roman temples, enormous manicured gardens and big wild open spaces of long grass and tall trees.

We walked around most of the park taking in the architecture and nature. In the evening we walked into the town of Potsdam with its quaint streets lined with cafes and bars. I managed to catch the last 20 minutes of the SA v Mexico game - just in time to see Mexico equalise (damn it!). It looked like an incredible spectacle with all the Bafana Bafana fans dressed up in their green and gold, big plastic sunglasses and blowing vuvuzelas. Germany has gone completely football mad. Every billboard either advertises the world cup or a product using football imagery and programs on tv are all about South Africa. They were even giving out free tournament schedules at the train station. I really hope it is a great success in South Africa and will try and keep up wih the tournament on our travels. The Germany vs Australian game tomorrow night should be a good one!

From the parks of Prague...to bustling Berlin

After just over a week in Prague, we have just arrived in Berlin. We had a great last few days in Prague, which we spent mostly in the parks and greenbelts around the city. We really walked our asses off! The last four days were gloriously sunny and it seemed like the perfect way to spend our days.

On Sunday we had a picnic atop this old fortress called Vyserhad with views looking across the city. Prague really does look very mediterreanean and a lot like Italy from above. The city is simply stunning viewed from above (and from ground level for that matter) with all the green domes, church spires and red tiled roofs. We spent a lot of time just sitting back and taking it all in (And I enjoyed a few delicious beers too).

On Monday and Tuesday, after coffees in the city we headed to the park again, this time a different one (I forget the name), an enormous green belt leading up to Prague's "Eiffel Tower"- its actually only the top half of the tower, but from below, it looks like the famous Parisian landmark rising up from the hillside.

We are in Berlin up until Monday and our next stop from there is Amsterdam. We enjoyed Eastern Europe, particurlarly the medieval architecture and history and beer (for my part), but one of the things we won't miss is constantly being surrounded by cigarette smoke (many cafes don't even have a non-smoking area!) - I think the Eastern Europeans have gotten the message a bit wrong about smoking, clearly they believe its actually a healthy habit! And of course there's the surly, miserable people who serve you in Prague! Luckily the city is so beautiful, otherwise I doubt anyone would come!

The ghoulish and gorgeous delights of Kutna Hora

Yesterday the sun came out finally. It was a gloriously hot and sunny day, which we spent in the town of Kutna Hora, about 80kms from Prague. The main reason we wanted to go was to see the Sedlec Ossuray, or "church of bones".

The church itself did not disappoint. It's quite a small church, but inside it has over 40,000 human bones used for among other things, a giant chandelier, as well as all the wall decorations and these six huge pyramids. It's quite startling with hundreds of old skulls smiling back at you, some still with teeth! According to the pamphlet I read, the bones currently on display were arranged by an "inspired" carpenter in the area who cleaned and sterilised them. They were taken from a nearby crypt. It's not surprisingly a very ghoulish place, but totally unique and worth going to Kutna Hora (is it just me or does that name sound Jewish?) just to see it.

However, we did not expect to find such a quaint, and frankly gorgeous old town once we had hiked the two kilometres up the hill. Dominating the town was this enormous Gothic church, with flying buttresses and gargoyles, reached via winding cobblestoned lanes. Around the church was a little valley with a stream running through it. We took a walk along its banks and stopped in an Italian square with a "Romeo and Juliet" like tower. Besides all the gorgeous old architecture, the town was so quiet and peaceful, full of old men wearing braces and families walking their dogs. It was a nice break from the tourist hordes in Prague.

It's finally stopped raining in Prage

Just a really quick post so please excuse/correct any spelling errors...we are in glorious Prague where it finally stopped raining today. Yesterday was cold, windy and raining so we did what all hardy backpackers do and went to the movies! Snug in our plush seats with popcorn close at hand, we watched Iron Man 2. Have to say I enjoyed it, though completely over the top. The annoying thing was that while it was in the original English with Czech subtitles, any bits in Russian (Mickey Rourke's character is Russian) where translated into Czech, so we missed out on understanding those bits.

Today we did a walk through the old town, across the Charles IV bridge, had the obligatory meat and bread dumplings for lunch and wandered through the old Jewish quarter to the old town square (which has the famous astronomical clock, judged the most overrated tourist attraction in Europe).

So having visited two jewish quarters (Krakow and Prague), I asked Larna, does that mean we have seen a half? Ok, maybe a lame joke...

We are here to at least Sunday - we are staying in a little pensione the second to last stop on the red line so its quite far out of town, but nice and quiet and we have a TV - and plan to go visit the church made out of bones tomorrow in Kutna Hora (some guy apparently got creative with 40,000 human bones from a nearby crypt. Hey its probably cheaper than wood!)