Paris - a summary of our 7 days here

We have all been a tad slack blogging while in Paris, I think the main reason is that we did a lot in Paris - perhaps too much as it took a lot of energy being there.

It is still the most beautiful city I have been to, but it was so busy and frenetic, that my love of the city has waned.  However, there were still lots of highlights, mine were:

taking a break on our walk from our apartment to the Koetsiers place

• Catching up with the Koetsiers, who have been living in Paris for 6 months now
• The apartment we had at 276 Rue St Honore
• The food - didn't have a bad meal, loved the charcuterie plates in the afternoon after a day sightseeing  and we especially loved l'absinthe restaurant in a place off St Honore where we had a great french meal including snails, frog legs and steak and the lunch at the Koetsiers (including confit of duck, foie gras and great cheeses)     
• The wine - we didn't have a bad glass of wine, even in the dodgier cafes.  I especially loved watching the world go by at the end of the day from our local cafe, with a glass of wine in hand

ending our Montmatre walk with a crepe and a beer

• The art, especially Musee D'Orsay
• Discovering more about Montmartre - taking a self guided walking tour taking us to out of the way museums including the Dali museum, past houses where Renoir, Picasso and Van Gogh once lived, eating crepes and finishing the tour with a beer
•  Going back to the apartment I lived in 24 years ago, and walking along Mozart Avenue to Trocodero and watching the boys' reaction to seeing the Eiffel Tower up close for the first time
• The river cruise of the Seine

Sup, guys? New Blog, in video form.

Cause we are all new age and shit.Yeah, click here for vloggity goodness

Talk to you guys again soon!
-Josh

Paris day 1

We spent our first day in Paris doing a walking tour of the left bank. Our guide was Marie, an Estonian lady who took us around for the better part of 4 and a half hours. I really like walking tours I've decided. The photo on the left is taken on the right bank looking up towards Il de Citie.

We had lunch in on of the little alley ways left over from medieval times. Most of them have been replaced with the larger streets we tend to know as Paris in the ninteenth century by Hausman. This one houses a coffee shop frequented by Napoloen and the place where the guilotine was developed. They did guilotine executions right up to 1981.

Day 2 we spent with the Koetsiers in their fantastic unit. It was Easter Sunday and Fiona and Peter laid on a feast for us. We well and truly overstayed our welcome and drank the cupboards bare. It was great to see them. We had a loud lovely time and headed home in a cab well after midnight.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Set Tours

                Finally Luke got his post done so I can get this posted.
                We’ve been a bit slack in the last few days when it came to actually writing for this blog, but we’ve had a few pub nights filled with cards and music and exploration. I believe that blogging under the influence is an offence here in London, so we thought better of it.

                We’ve missed so much, from the incredibly old and quirky Camden Markets, through to our trip down to the West End. The exploration of the East End, as well, was just as fantastic as it looked in luke’s previous piece, as was the ultra-touristy, but no less fantastic, Harry Potter set tour.

               
            But let’s start with the Camden Markets. Coming out of the Tube in Camden Town on last Saturday morning was particularly confronting. Having just finally gotten the hang of the tube, which I should say is fantastic, we were bombarded with incredibly kitsch storefronts filled with such absolute shit it rivalled our trip to Oxford Street. This was rather disappointing from the get go, as we were promised a fantastic place filled with designer stores and vintage clothes shops. We made our way through the bustling menagerie of hastily erected street stores and poorly constructed shirt emporiums, desperately looking for a path out. Luckily, we quickly found it.

                Making our way towards the north, we found the haven we had been hoping for. The Camden Stables were a wondrous and rather mystifying joy. The huge stables, abandoned decades ago, had had extension after extension built onto them, making for a labyrinthine jumbly mess of corridors and loops. Here there were stores selling exotic foods, right next to incredibly old vintage storefronts, who were directly adjacent to designer Japanese labels. The esoteric mix was amazing, and kept my interest piqued for the better part of the day. The family parted ways to explore the consumer jungle.

                After spending a fairly exorbitant amount of cash on bags and clothes, we all met back up at the stable bar, which was located above the rest of the market. The bar was made up of one main hall where live acts played all day, as well as a series of rooms which were converted old horse mess-outs. It was fantastic, and the music that wafted throughout the entirety of the place was of a consistently high quality.

                Two acts really wowed me that day, one being the acoustic act David 9, who had a really odd mix of old school rhythm and blues with some more poppy hits that really stuck in my hea for the entire week. His set was a good half hour, but interestingly he only played 4 songs or so. Even more interestingly is that, even when a song was 10 minutes long on one riff, they were still incredibly engaging, with his tongue-in-cheek preaching about different experiences he has had.

                The second act was probably one of the most incredible three piece rock outfits I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing. The Din are a group of incredibly talented musicians, making incredible songs. Epic doesn’t begin to describe their sound, which fuses tones familiar from many indie acts with flamenco and jazz influences while somehow  overshooting the understated riffs and musings of those genres to instead go full bore for new age epic rock. Fantastic live performances from all three, and the harmonies they shared were mesmerising. Check them out.

                We called it a day after that. We saw Jersey Boys on mothers birthday, as she wrote about below. In fact, most of everything has been written about except for the one topic many of my friends were most jealous of.

                Harry Potter and the Chamber of Set Tours.

                The Harry Potter set tour was utterly fantastic, despite the lengthy uncomfortable bus ride it took to get to the sets themselves. They take you into a little cinema to start off with, where, disappointingly, there is a wankish presentation where a group of producers circle jerk each other and congratulate themselves on being so ingenious as to make a set of movies on one of the greatest childrens series of all time. But this is short-lived.

                After that the cast welcomes you in a charming, if not a bit kitsch, presentation about how it all went down, and about how these sets were their lives for a great many years. It’s interesting to hear their perspective, but it’s nothing you have not heard in an interview previous. The interesting part was at the end of the presentation, the screen drops and the doors into the main hall are directly in front of you. Ok, that was cool.

                From here on in, I could tell you about all of it in great detail, but that’s what we have photos for. Enjoy!

I’ll talk to you guys soon about Paris!

-Josh

So here I am sitting in the Eurostar lounge waiting for the train to Paris.  This is the end of our 8 ½ days in London,  which has been a great start to our holiday.  Josh has recovered from jet lag, both he and Luke are looking more European and all of our bags are slightly heavier.

The main highlights of the trip – everything was memorable, so to make sure I remember them all, here was our itinerary.

Day 1 – exploring Greenwich and settling in.  Walked through the Greenwich market, and university in the morning beform heading up Greenwich park to the observatory on what was an unseasonably warm afternoon, lots of people were out catching some Vitamin D after a cold winter.  The observatory is where they set Greenwich Mean Time from and where the zero is set for longitude.  

Day 2 – I have blogged about this already. A highlight for me was finding Chiltern St and Long Tall Sally, exploring the back streets of Northern London. 

Day 3 – also blogged about this Camden market

Day 4 - my birthday – a great day

Day 5 – took a ferry up the Thames to Westminster.  I really enjoyed exploring London from this river that just oozes history and signs of its former life as a major transport artery and lifeline for London.  It still is a working river, however, the many warehouses and abandoned power stations/cargo buildings stand idle, are revamped into apartments or if lucky, into amazing new spaces such as the Tate Modern. 

We sailed right past Big Ben as it struck 12 noon, a surprisingly haunting experience that gave me goose bumps.  We alighted right under Big Ben and walked to the south side of the river and found a warm and delightful Italian restaurant for lunch.  From here we meandered along the southbank walkway to the Tate Modern where we spent a good 3 hours before walking  across the  Thames again along the Millenium bridge which is also known by locals as the wobbly bridge because two days after it was opened by the Queen it was closed and the city spent millions more on ‘stopping it from wobbling’.  Now on the East side of the river we walked straight into St Pauls and went inside.  This was the only church we went into in London and it was magnificent. 

  Our day finished finding a cosy little pub just around the corner called the old Watling, and it was the pub that Christopher Wren worked from designing St Pauls, what a find, it was so cosy we stayed for dinner.

Day 6 – Harry Potter!  Yes we got tickets before we left to visit the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Leavesden about  1 ½ hours from London via coach.  This tour has only been opened 3 days.  It is fantastic, better than I thought it might be, you walk in the great hall and along Diagon Alley, see so many of the amazing set,  props and costumes that were actually used in the filming.  Well worth visiting.  Frank spotted Russell Crowe on our way out, apparently he brushed right past me with his son in tow alas my very mild star spotting superpower escaped me so he was spared a conversation with Kerrie-Anne from Blackburn.  Watch out for Josh's blog.

Day 7 - street art tour - a great alternative walking tour of London's East End - see Luke's blog.

Day 8 - Richmond and Petersham Nurseries Cafe . (Written by Frank from here on) ... The day started with a panic when we realised our lunch booking was for the day before. It's not easy to get a booking in the first place and with new chef Greg Malouf having taken it over we we're seriously worried that we might not get in again. Kerrie's atempts at getting another booking paid off though and so we got ourselves ready, left the boys behind for a day to themselves and headed off. The trip out was over ground on the national line so we got to see Putney and other suburbs. Once in Richmond we walked along the Thames to the turn off to Petersham (about 30 minutes) and searched for any signs of a Nursery. Evenyually down a thin winding laneway we came upon the entrance and found the tea rooms down the back. It was just as we'd hoped. Dirt floors, staff in gum boots or blundstones, gourgeous old tables scattered throughout the green house. We had a fantastic lunch and got to meet Greg Malouf who was ten days into his stint after Sky Gingal resigned. His family hadn't yet moved and he was still coming to terms with the new surrounds. You could tell he felt he had some work to do but as far as we were concerned that was one of the best lunches we'd ever had. It was stillSky's menu but Greg was certainly having an influence. The Parsnip mash with Rabbit and Chorizohas left me craving it for days. Check out the photo's.

And - once agina we finished the day at the Kings Arms for a few pints, some cards and an early dinner somewhere in Greenwich.

Here's some street art by Tigger. A kings crown of modern day commodoties.

English Street Art

A couple of days ago we were all lucky enough to go on a really insightful tour of the street art that’s been decorating the walls of east London, otherwise known as the east end. Our guide was a confident little Londoner called Gary, a man whose life obviously revolved around this stuff, his excitement sparked our own. He took us all on a quick walk through the city of London before it transitions into the east end. The difference between these two areas is amazing, almost shocking. The city is crowded with shiny glass towers and constantly late businessman. Whereas the streets of the east end are riddled with heritage listed mosques, curry shops and abandoned buildings. The contrast is brilliant.  

Anyway, Gary first showed us the work of a man who calls himself Pablo; he works on such a refreshingly small scale with figures only about as big as your hand.  

 From here Gary talked to us about the philosophy behind the street art movement, and it really is a movement, it feels new and creative. He told us how artists are able to gain permission from wall owners to paint pieces to a higher standard. This is why we’re seeing artworks getting better and better. When he discussed the issue of taggers spraying over great works, he exuded a sense of acceptance. Apparently artists just take it in their stride, even painting over the tags and using them as best they can. From here we saw works from a man named Conner, who painted these tall striking images of pre WW1 soldiers.

 I noticed how Gary would always mention the professional careers of the artists; it was nice to know that even these pioneers of non-traditional art still sold their work. We were then taken near a warehouse that was transformed into a modern art gallery. The nearby car park housed the most amazing collection of pieces. We saw the mosaics by French artists Space Invader and my first Banksy, a bright pink car and grim reaper stencil in the driver’s window.  

 What I loved about the English street art scene was the sheer size of it, there were so many people contributing to this public gallery. I noticed how artists would band together, share ideas and work of each other’s images. It really does feel like a thick community of visionaries. What have helped the creation of these original works are the injustices the east end is facing. The city is slowly swallowing the shabby rundown areas of the east end. It’s good that better buildings are built, but the original art is quickly being washed away. Artists are being locked away for vandalism, and London’s huge expansive cctv system makes putting up pieces without permission extremely dangerous. It’s this conflict that’s providing artists with inspiration. I can’t help wonder that without opposition to the street art movement, it may lose its flavour.

April 1st in London

It's rare to be spending your birthday in a place like London, but having just done it, I want to do the same thing again next year.  This is how it went..

A late wake up and slow Sunday morning, the boys made a proper cooked breakfast for me while I read the Age on my iPad - too cool.  We headed out via the Greenwich Market, just 100 metres from us.  A small but interesting market, that changes every day.

We then headed to Convent Gardens via the DLR and tube (public transport is excellent), a really cool area, in search of a boot shop called Duo that I found online.  They actually make the boots in your shoe size and calf size, finally I will have long boots that don't flap around my leg.  The downside? they take 5-7 days to deliver so I have sent them home (Mum, you will getting a package next week), so the only thing to do was buy a second pair of boots that they had in store to wear around Europe.  Thanks to those of you who contributed to my boot fund for my birthday.

It was getting close to showtime, so we headed to Old Compton Road in Soho to pick up the tickets for Jersey Boys.  I saw it in New York and loved it so much I wanted to see it again in the West End in London and it didn't disappoint, the music and performance was faultless.  although it is hard to compete with a cast that actually have the New Jersey accent.

After the show we headed to Carnaby Street and down to Picaddilly Circus to find another cosy little pub for a pint on the way home.  another great day in London - my favourite so far.

 In Carnaby Streeet, Soho

a cosy little pub near Piccadilly Circus - for an after show pint

The Jersey Boys Theatre - actually it is called the Prince Edward Theatre

Shopping in London and Camden Town

Thought I would jump in here and give a female perspective of our time in London so far.....Girls you can buy anything here!  As Frank alluded to in an earlier blog, there is a street (Chiltern St) full of stores dedicated to clothes and shoes for tall women, how fantastic.  It was kind of strange though walking into shops and being surrounded by other women my height (sadly, not many taller).  My favourite is the shop Long Tall Sally where I finally bought a coat with a waistline that isnt under my armpits, life changing (see said coat in pics below).

We also spent Saturday at the Camden Town Market, this is a massive market, really 5 markets in one, we spent most of our time in the Stables, looking through quirky shops and vintage clothing stalls.  Everyone made a purchase EXCEPT me (I know the boys found it hard to believe too).  We found a cosy little pub for lunch (not hard, this place is full of cosy little pubs), and after a couple of wines which are really small buckets, we returned to the market and found the live music venue at the Stables, set up in what were stables (see photos).  The music was fabulous and sounded even better after a couple more buckets of wine thanks to an attentive hubby.  Headed home on the tube just like Londoners with a bit of a wobbly boot.  Pizza for dinner, sleep. great.

 in the streets of Camden Town heading to the markets

 A cosy pub in Camden (above and below)

 Frank and I waiting for the boys outside a vintage clothing stall

 At the Camden Music Venue - in the Stables