Paris, Chartres, Brussels, Amsterdam

Nikki walking the Labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral

Atop the Arc de Triomphe

An example of disabled friendly Paris

The Eiffel Tower at night

The Tour de France rides by - this is the front of the riders, with Team Astana in the lead. Lance Armstrong is fourth from the left and Alberto Contador is in the yellow jersey, far left.

Enjoying Monet's Water Lilies

Chocolate heaven!

The girls at the opening ceremony of Flamboree.

Paris

Some highlights of our time in Paris

- visiting the Louvre three times (we could have gone back ten more times after that). It was especially good at night, when there were a LOT less visitors. We got to see the “Mona Lisa”, the “Wedding at Cana” (set in Venice), the “Venus de Milo”, statues by Michaelangelo, some famous French paintings (such as the “Coronation of Napoleon” and “Liberty Leading the People”), as well as many more others that we enjoyed. We didn’t plan on making Paris an “art” stop, but it definitely turned out that way.

- We took a day trip out to Chartres Cathedral – Nikki was very excited to be able to walk the Labyrinth (it is only available on Fridays). There were lots of other people walking the labyrinth, but it didn’t feel crowded. Nikki found the experience a very spiritual one, and it was worth the pain she was in afterwards to be able to walk the whole thing without her wheelchair. While Nikki was walking the labyrinth, Steve, Jacqui and Hannah enjoyed exploring the church, looking at the stained glass windows and the statues depicting scenes from Mary’s life (the Cathedral is actually called Notre Dame, meaning Holy Mother). We were very lucky to find a wonderful restaurant for lunch and enjoyed a meal to help us forget (to some extent) the terrible dinner we’d had a few days before.

- On Saturday Nikki and Hannah rested whilst Jacqui and Steve went up the 284 steps to the top of the Arch de Triomphe – what a stunning view. After they came home that day we had a lazy lunch at the Creperie at the Pompodou Centre (the building that is inside out).That evening we took a sunset cruise on the Seine (which was beautiful), followed by a trip up the terrifying Eifel Tower (we all got a touch of vertigo – except Hannah). A beautiful site of the night lights over Paris. We were especially happy to get back to the ground, as the tower had been swaying slightly in the breeze.

- On Sunday we were excited to be right on the barriers to watch the Tour de France fly by (in 15 seconds). We got a great view of team Astana leading the peleton, complete with Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador (who won). We were on the banks of the Seine, right near Notre Dame Cathedral and the atmosphere was very festive. We had our Aussie flag on the barrier and some Aussies on the other side of the road were cheering “Aussie Aussie Aussie” to which of course we replied “Oi, Oi, Oi”.

- On our last morning as we were leaving Paris we visited the Orangerie museum, which has the most amazing series of Water Lily paintings by Monet – he painted them whilst almost blind with cataracts so they are huge, bright and full of feeling. We loved them, and enjoyed seeing a group of student artists sitting and sketching (surprisingly this is something we haven’t seen up to now in Paris).

- Our other highlight was discovering that while Paris itself is particularly disabled un-friendly (especially the public transport), once you get to where you are going, most wheelchair users get in for free, as does their carer. Since children under the age of 16 get in for free as well, this made many things free for the four of us in Paris, which was a nice surprise)! This made it possible for us to go back to the Louvre so many times.

Brussels

The highlight of Brussels for us was our Chocolate crawl along the main square. We stopped at all the major chocolate makers showrooms, buying a few chocolates to sample, and then decided which one we loved the most, and went back there to get our souvenirs. Nikki was very excited that the Leonidas shop had sugar free chocolate (she’s had to avoid sugar on this trip because of side affects of her meds). Their website is here http://www.leonidas.com/ if you want to feel jealous.

Flamboree

The next day we met Hannah & Jacqui’s Belgian Girl Guide buddy at the airport in Brussels, as well as the rest of the Aussies and a Kiwi leader as well. The poor father of the house has 4 daughters, and had another 6 girl guides from around the world staying with him that night!! We enjoyed seeing their house, part of which is older than European settlement of Australia, and is set in the middle of beautiful fields, not far from Antwerp.

Hannah and Jacqui headed off to Flamboree with the other Guides on the 29^th of July. We had a quick email from them, but don’t expect to hear anything else until we see them again on the 8^th of August. Having said that, the Flamboree website has a daily blog, website, newspaper and photos for us to keep up to date with what they were doing. We found a photo that the girls were in, and were very excited to see that the inflatable kangaroo had been getting a good workout.

Amsterdam

Nikki and Steve have headed to Amsterdam – we were drawn to The Netherlands to see where our very close friend Mim comes from. We have LOVED Amsterdam, and have agreed that it is the first city so far that we would be happy to live in (Paris is beautiful to visit, but the really formal dress code and the suicidal drivers aren’t something we’d be able to live with for long). Most of our time here has been spent resting and relaxing in our canalside B & B (which is the same size as our apartment in Paris!), but today we went to the Van Gogh museum (it is actually pronounced Van HHHHock here). It was interesting to see his painting up close and those paintings that inspired him, but it made us realize just how much we loved Monet’s paintings in Paris. Our favorite painting in the museum was actually by Renoir.

Nikki and Steve head off to Norway tomorrow, while Hannah and Jacqui continue to enjoy Flamboree. We don’t expect to have internet access for a while (maybe not until we get to England in a couple of weeks time) so there may be a bit of a break in the blog. So, until we write again, Au Revoir, and Tot Ziens.

p.s. we have just been looking at the Flamboree website and seen both Jacqui and Hannah on Belgian TV and on the Flamboree Video's (it seems that carrying an inflatable Kangaroo is a good way to get yourself noticed). You can view the video's here http://vimeo.com/5840188 (no 3 is the news, and no 5 is the opening ceremony - the girls are both at the beginning).

Farewell Adelboden, Versailles & Paris

Singing Songs with funny actions with the UK Leaders and Trefoil Guild ladies (that's our car in the background)

In the garden at Versailles

The most amazing meal of our lives, and it came with entertainement too.


About to enter the "round about" at the Arc de Triomphe

The apartment next to us is growing Papaya on their window sill (on the 2nd floor!).

The most amazing lift at the Louvre (looks like something out of the senate in Star Wars)

With the Mona Lisa (she looked sad to us, but everyone sees her differently)

Ater the worst meal of our lives we went back to the apartment for some Nutella

They take their security outside the Louvre Museum VERY seriously

Farewell Adelboden

We had a fantastic last night in Adelboden – we took part in a campfire with a number of more mature ladies (in their 70’s and 80’s) who were visiting Our Chalet as a part of a Girl Guide Trefoil Guild Tour, as well as some amazing Guide leaders from the UK that were staying at Our Chalet. We sang songs from the UK and Australia and had a fantastic time. It really proved to us that it doesn’t matter where you are from, or how old you are you can always have fun as a Guide. Steve (and one of the ladies’ husband) joined in with us – it sounds really daggy, but it was a huge amount of fun.

Versailles and Paris

When we left Adelboden, our plan was to drive as far as we felt comfortable (it was a 727km trip) and then stop for the night, and then continue on to Paris the next day. We were surprised at how far we got and how good we felt and so we continued on to Versailles, where we stayed the night in a hotel 2 blocks from the Chateau (Palace). The hotel was once the stables for the Chateau, and was built in 1676. That night we had the most unbelievable meal of our lives – everything we ate was phenomenal, and we will remember it forever (for the amazing food and for the gypsy that came and busked at our table with a piano accordian).

We visited the Chataeu and were amazed at how beautiful and opulent it was. It really brought history alive. We understand now what drove the people to revolt – at the time it cost 50% of the national gross domestic product.

We headed in to Paris and found our apartment – it is in the 3rd Arondoisment, and is across the laneway from the Nicolas Flammel building (the oldest house in Paris).

Some highlights so far – we went to the Louvre and LOVED it – it was full of so much beautiful art, it was very moving (sounds corny, but it’s true). We’ve been back a few times since. The Pompidou Centre is inside out – all of the pipes, lifts etc are on the outside – it isn’t pretty, but it is pretty stunning. Walking along the Seine to see the “beach” that they have made there for the summer.

We are driving in a lot of Paris – this is usually not a good idea, but the Metro is very disabled unfriendly, so we are driving and parking a lot (without too much hassle). The Parisian drivers are kamikaze pilots in training, but we are getting used to the fact that anything can happen. The driving highlight has been driving around the Arc de Triomphe – 8 “lanes” in a round about, with no lane markings. All the cars already in the round about have to give way to cars entering the round about, so it makes for some interesting driving.

On a low light, we have now had the worst meal of our lives. We thought that we would try a local restaurant, and went in about 7pm – we thought there weren’t many people there as it was early, but it turns out it is just really bad. We aren’t fussy eaters at all, and will try most things but of the 4 main courses we were served, only one was edible, and that was not very tasty at all. One of the dishes actually smelt of faeces. It was so bad it was funny, and it was a good thing we were the only people in the restaurant and that the waiter was avoiding us. We will also remember the meal for the rest of our lives, but not for the same reasons as the meal in Versailles.

Adelboden & Jungfrau

Photo's -

1) the girls on the train coming down from the Jungfrau - it was a pretty exhausting day for all of us.

2) Jacqui, Nikki, Margaret Tanner & Hannah at Baby Chalet

3) Hannah & Jacqui flying the flag at Baby Chalet- we thought we'd get in to trouble, but a 1/4 of the staff are Aussies, and they thoroughly approved of us flying the flag

4) Our Aussie Jungfrau snowman

5) us on the Jungfrau glacier

Milan and Adelboden

First up - this entry won't have any photo's as the internet cafe at Our Chalet doesn't like Flash drives or other computers - we'll put them up when we get to Paris.

Milan and Adelboden

It is amazing how much can change in Europe in just a hundred or so kilometres. We spent our last 2 days in Milan exploring the wonderful Cathedral, seeing The Last Supper (it was a lot bigger than we thought it would be), and catching up on some emails. Milan was a lot busier and more business like than Vicenza, and reminded us a lot of Melbourne - lots of people in beautiful clothes, driving Vespas and smart cars and everthing was super busy during the "business lunch hour" and then very quiet.

Italy has been a land of stereotypes and contrasts for us. The road rules seem to be guidelines only and in fact we thought that the max speed limit was the min speed limit until we asked someone, as no one was going below it - and they are truly crazy drivers - and yet you aren't allowed to wear board shorts in the pool if you ar a woman. Italians really do talk with their hands and LOVE their food. Venice really is romantic (and insanely difficult for wheelchairs - but worth it). The Italian's really are very family and community oriented, and welcomed us into their community very warmly - even for our short time there. After seeing the beautiful glass in Murano (Venice) and frescoes in Milan, we understand the architecture and interior design of many Italian Australian's that we know - it seems a little over the top back home, but makes perfect sense when you see how sucess is measured in Italy.

We left Milan and drove through the Alps to Our Chalet in Adelboden, Switzerland. We literally boarded a train in our car in Italy and came through the mountains into another world. The houses look like those on the Alpine chocolate boxes, the people all speak German (just as we were starting to get by with our limited Italian), and everything is not quite, but almost, double the price (and in Swiss Francs as Switzerland doesn't use Euro's).

Our Chalet has been wonderful - the Baby Chalet that we have been staying in is our own tiny little chalet, complete with a small kitchen, dining area, VERY steep stairs up to the girls sleeping area and beautiful little shutters that we can close to keep out the light in the morning. The weather has been changing rapidly as well - 2 days ago it was 30c and yet today it is raining here and snowing a few hundred metres on the cliff face above the chalet, and this morning there was a layer of fresh snow on the mountain tops around us.

On Thursday we went to the Jungfrau - we drove to Lauterbrunnen, and caught 2 cog trains up the mountains, which were a lot of fun, to the Jungfraujoch 3571m. It was a crystal clear day, which meant we had great views all the way to Italy, and got to share it with 4996 other people. We walked out on to the glacier and made a snowman (complete with an Aussie hat) ane enjoyed playing in the snow. We found that being up that high gave us all a headache, so whilst we really enjoyed our time up on top of europe (as it is promoted), we were glad to come back down the mountain as well.

There are a few Australians working at Our Chalet, and they enjoy talking to some people from back home. Amazingly working here went to school with Nikki's brother Steve, and her Mum was Nikki's District Guide Commissioner when she was a guide, as well as being Nikki's sister Belinda's Guide leader. We were amazed at how much she could remember about the family. She came and had afternoon tea in Baby Chalet, and we talked about all our shared history. After she left, she actually rang Nikki's Mum to tell her she had spoken to us, even though it was quite late back home (sorry Mum, we didn't know she was going to do that).

We were lucky enough to be able to take part in a campfire with the girls who are here on the summer program. It was so much fun and we got to learn some new songs As one of the campfire leaders was Australian, we got to join in some old faviourites as well.

After a day of so much busyiness, we decided yesterday would be a laze around and take it easy day, which was just as well as it was belting down with rain. We aren't sure what we will do for our next few days in Switzerland. We won't have internet access until we get to Paris on the 21st, so we will fill you in on our continuing adventures then.

Auf Wiedersehen

Venice Trip 2

Photo's -

1) the water rising up through the paving stones in San Marco square

2) us enjoying the sunset in Venice at the water front

3) Jacqui riding a unicycle in San Marco square

4) Hannah riding a unicyclin in San Marco square

Venice Trip 2

We enjoyed Venice so much we decided to go back. We knew that Nikki couldn’t take another full day in Venice, so we decided to do an afternoon, stay the night and then enjoy Venice the next morning before heading home. We stayed in a great room (that was really cheap because we booked it the day before) in a little hotel run by a foundation that sponsors research into Venetian music. The room had a loft where Hannah & Jacqui slept, and we had a lovely view of the rooftops of Venice, a little courtyard, and if we stuck our head out the window of the room and looked left, we could see a glimpse of the grand canal.

We wandered the streets, enjoying looking in all the shop windows, and watching the sun go down over the islands. We climbed up to the top of the Bell Tower in San Marco Square (thanks to an elevator) and enjoyed a beautiful view of the city as the lights came on. In the San Marco Square there are VERY expensive café’s, who “fight” for customers with small orchestra’s. We enjoyed sitting in the twilight listening to the orchestra’s fight it out, and eating some gelato.

It was great to be able to wake up and watch the sun rise over Venice. After breakfast we went in to the San Marco Bascillica to see all the amazing mosaics that cover every possible surface. We then went in to the Doges Palace (a palace for the elected Doge who ruled Venice) – it was stunning, but amazing in that it was built in the 9th century, but is the first fully accessible public building we have come across in Venice – it meant that Nikki could join in the fun, and not sit outside waiting.

We were really excited to come across some unicyclists from Poland in San Marco Square – Hannah, Jacqui & Steve all had a go, and really enjoyed being back on a unicycle. These unicyclists had bought some cheap unicycles to take on their round the world trip & were riding them everywhere – we thought that sounded like great fun (maybe for our next round the world trip?).

When we came out of the Doges Palace we noticed that the San Marco square was starting to flood – the water was flowing up from under the paving stones. As we were heading back to the car on the Vaporetto they were sounding the flood warning system, and there was water lapping at the front doors of the houses on the Grand Canal.

We enjoyed our time in Venice – tomorrow we are doing some sight seeing in Vicenza before we head off on Sunday to see the Last Supper in Milan.

Vicenza Cooking Class

Photo's - Left - Hannah, Nikki & Jacqui checking their email in Vicenza (with all the mozzies). Right - Jacqui at the cooking class.

Vicenza Cooking Class

One of the things we had been looking forward to doing in Vicenza was taking part in a cooking class. Unfortunately the lady who usually runs the class is away on her summer vacation, but our landlord gave us a lesson, & he really knew his stuff – he gave us a whole heap of tips, tricks and ideas of what he loves to cook and eat. We cooked a local Veneto version of Risotto & a very yummy salad.

For those people who asked us to put up the recipe on the blog, here it is (although it is just my notes, as the landlord was giving instructions like “just put a bit of this in”).

Risotto
Put on some water to boil for the stock (about 1L)
Dice up 2 onions
Fry onions in a lot of good olive oil (extra virgin, cold pressed) for about 20 mins on a low heat (you don’t want to brown the onions, just “sweat” them)
Chop up vegetables (we used 4 small zucchini and a capsicum, but you can use any firm vegetable – they don’t use chicken, beef or seafood, here it is a strictly vegetarian dish)
Cook vegetables in with onion for about 5 mins (turn the heat up to medium)
Measure out 2 cups of Risotti rice (I think Aborio rice is the closest in Australia). Put rice in to onion/vegetable mix, and cook for 2 mins on med heat.
Add vegetable stock powder to the boiling water – keep on a low boil. Add a ladle full of stock to the rice. Cook on low heat – when it has absorbed the stock, and another ladle and stir occasionally so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
Continue until the rice is cooked to the consistency you like (if you run out of stock, add boiling water).
Chop up about 100g of creamy (firm) cheese – we used Piave Cheese. Put in with the rice, turn up the heat to high and stir like crazy for 2 mins (or until the cheese is melted). At the last minute add a good dash of milk (to make it creamier) – probably about 4 tablespoons of milk.

Serve on to plates – grate parmesan cheese over the risotto and serve with a side salad.

Enjoy! (we cooked it again a few nights later and were fighting each other for the left overs)

Photo's - 1)Steve keeping us on the right street, 2)Hannah & Jacqui at the Roman Baths 3)on the gondola, 4) yummy things from the patisserie 4) us all on the Grand Canal

Vicenza

We have a lovely little apartment in Vicenza, right on a bike path so we can watch all the locals ride by & say buon giorno to them. Just a few hundred metres from the apartment there is a really nice patiserrie, spagetteria, pizzeria and amazing little grocer (who will make up delicious bread rolls if you buy all the ingredients) – so you can imagine what the theme of our time is in Vicenza – FOOD.

On Monday we went to a local pool, that happens to also be ancient roman baths – so we swam in a 2000 year old pool (it was nice and clean). We were singing the praises of the GPS, as we would never have found this place with only a map. All the signs at the pool with the rules were in Italian, so we had this feeling that we were inevitably breaking the rules, and it turned out we were right. The lifeguard yelled at us when we were getting in the water because Nikki, Hannah & Jacqui were wearing boardshorts, and that wasn’t allowed (perhaps it was a crime against fashion). Steve was ok to wear them, but the rest of us had to remove our boardies. We enjoyed swimming for about another half an hour before she started yelling at us again, and it turned out we weren’t wearing swimming caps – we figured this was a good time for us to head back to the apartment anyway. We know the lifeguard was only doing her job, but she was the first person we have come across in Italy who wasn’t warm and welcoming, even if we weren’t doing the right thing. Steve had to make a phone call on Monday morning (Nikki had left a stack of medication in the fridge in the hotel in Milan) and enquired about a pay phone, only to have one of the locals take him back to his office & let him use the phone there (it turns out the town isn’t very big and he was a friend of our landlord).

On Sunday when we were checking out of our hotel in Milan, we noticed that there were riots on the TV at Vicenza. There were violent clashes between police and people protesting against the expansion of a local US base and also people protesting against the G8 summit, which will be in Italy this week. We were thankful when we got to Vicenza to see that the protests were actually no where near where we were staying, and had moved on elsewhere.


Venice



We are staying about 40 mins from Venice, and decided to do a day trip there. It was a lot of fun, although a bit of an adventure because the GPS didn’t recognize a road that was a few months old and we ended up doing a 40km detour to get there. We caught a few vaporetto’s (water buses) around Venice and neighbouring Islands, ate gelato, wandered the square of St Marco, and got lost in the little laneways and canals (actually we tried very hard to get lost, but Steve knew where we were on the map the whole time). Hannah & Jacqui bought masks to match their formal dresses (which we decided to ship home rather than risk them getting damaged on our long trip), and even got to meet one of the little old ladies who made Hannah’s mask. We succumbed to the romance of Venice and took a gondola ride with a gondolier called Mario – he was very kind, but didn’t sing – apparently there are two types of gondoliers, lovers and singers, and he wasn’t a singer! We finished up on the island of Murano, where we all bought a few little pieces of famous Murano glass to bring home – they will be accompanying us on our trip as it is too expensive to ship them home (paper mache masks are much lighter).



We stumbled across a type of health food shop in Venice, and thought it was worth asking about the medication Nikki had lost in Milan (it is industrial strength acidopholis to counteract some of the nasty side effects of the chemo level of antibiotics that she is taking for the Lyme Disease). We were so excited when we were able to buy some & the lady working in the shop seemed excited for us .We are sure she went home saying “tourists get excited about the strangest souveniers”.



It seems the G8 is a hot topic here in Italy, as we came across about 50 police in riot gear, just milling around near the Piazza San Marco. We had seen a group of Chinese people walking around the piazza surrounded by police and the media, but hadn’t understood what was going on, until one of the Policemen told us that it was the Chinese G8 delegation. When we were in Germany last year Barack Obama gave his famous speech in Berlin (we were in Mainz, but watched it live on the TV). It now turns out that Barack Obama will be in Italy (at the G8 conference) whilst we are in Italy this year – he seems to be following us!

We loved Venice so much we are thinking of going back again, as Nikki wants to do some sketching and Steve & the girls have lots more things they want to see, but couldn’t because Nikki was too tired on Tuesday.

We hope that you are all well, and enjoy reading your emails and blog comments. Our internet access this week is sitting in the garden of our landlord, so it is a bit hit and miss depending on whether he is home, how the signal strength is from his 3rd floor apartment and how long we feel we can stay before we overstay our welcome – also we have 1 laptop, and 4 people used to checking their emails, blogs and facebook.

Ciao

Narita and Milan

1) Photo's - some of our lovely friends who came to see us off at the airport. 2) Us all at Narita Temple

Saying goodbye to our lovely friends at Canberra airport and Sydney was a lot harder than we thought it was going to be - there were a few tears shed, but it was so lovely to have people come to see us off. Up to now we have been so focused on getting the house ready, that we haven't had a chance to get really excited about the trip.

We were amazed when we checked in to JAL in Sydney, that the lady remembered us from last year - now that is amazing service. We had a good flight to Narita (and were REALLY surprised that the plane had a disabled toilet - YAY JAL), and enjoyed going back to the Ryokan (Japanese Inn) that we stayed at last time. We had lots of yummy Japanese food, a nice soak in a Japanese Ofuro (bath) and a good night's sleep on the futon.

The flight from Narita to Milan was not as pleasant, as the plane was smaller and older, and the in flight entertainment was a bit limited (and the food was pretty underwhelming as well). We were lucky that we had one extra seat and so took turns to sit in that spot and get some sleep. As always, the stewardesses were amazingly good, and all around we enjoyed the flight (but enjoyed it being over even more).

We've only had 1 night here in Italy (Milan) - and haven't had a chance to do anything yet as we are so jetlagged, but we are looking forward to picking up our car and exploring.

Talk to you soon

Nikki, Stephen, Hannah and Jacqui