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).