Day two in London

We headed off first thing this morning to the British Library since we had tickets to view the Magna Carta exhibit.  What an amazing exhibit it was with a detailed account of how the Magna Carta came to be.  The whole thing transpired because the Barons, in 1215, rebelled against King John and his tyranny to control all aspects of life.  King John died the next year and his son, who was only nine, took over the throne.  The Magna Carta really took affect in 1225 and set the principles of fair representation in trial along with other rules of law that governed how much royalty could control their kingdoms.  This set the standards for our own Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.  We also saw original Bibles, Shakespearan works, Leonardo Da vinci's letters, original scores from the great composers, The Beatles lyrics for Help, Yesterday, and Michelle written on things like John's son Julian's birthday card.  Amazing!  It really was unreal.  We needed to meet up with Annie who was volunteering at the British Museum at 1:30 so we pulled ourselves can away from these treasures.  Annie took us to the Kenwood - the home of Lord Mansfield, who was a judge and who had a massive art collection.  We toured the rooms and portraits in his home before going to a very English pub for a great dinner.  Annie then took us to the Abbey Road Studios where we crossed the street just like the Beatles did on the cover of Abbey Road.  From there we went to the gardens at Regent Park.  They were just beautiful!  Back home after a fun-filled packed day!

Hello London

So today we packed up once again and headed to the train station to jump on the Eurostar for a train ride under the English Channel into the UK.  All went well even with the immigrant protests.  Apparently that is affecting the freight trains more than the passenger trains.  We arrived in London around 11:45 and quickly made our way via the Tube to our flat which is quite a bit more spacious then the tight quarters we experienced in Paris.  We explored the surrounding area - we are basically in the Theatre district here in London.  Sampled some fish and chips and walked pass the famous Trafalgar Square while looking for the grocery store to stock our cupboards for the the five days we will be here. We are very happy to be able to ask questions in English again.  Annie, our contact in London, came to the flat around 5:30 and we visited over a nice dinner planning out our agenda for the next couple of days. Weather is a bit cooler here then it was in Paris and we had some rain tonight.  Only the second time we have experienced that in the 19 days we have been gone.  More is predicted during our stay here but that is a bit more typical for London.

Traditional London phone booth and overlooking Traflager Square

Heading out to the French countryside

Now that we have the metro subway system down, we thought we would venture out and try the trains.  So, to Giverny, the home of Monet and setting for his famous water lilies pictures, we set off.  First we had to transfer on the Metro and then try to determine how we get our train tickets.  Luckily we gave ourselves enough time, so experienced no problems.  Once there, we rented some bikes and off we went to see the beautiful French countryside.  It was four miles to Giverny and we enjoyed every minute of our alternate form of transportation.  Giverny was delightful with quaint French cottages, gorgeous gardens, and the massive pond on the Monet property still plentiful with water lilies.  One could really see how Monet was inspired by such a setting.  We spent three hours there and then toured the tiny village of Vernon after returning our bikes.  Paris seemed crazy once we returned.  We do not think this city, much like New York and Las Vegas, ever sleeps!  Tomorrow we are off to London!

Day 4

This morning we took a much more relaxed approach in seeing a different part of Paris. We met up Sandy and Philippe who are friends of a mutual acquaintance of ours.  They invited us to join them at a cafe in Paris for some music and conversation.  So...we took a couple of subway rides this morning and found ourselves in a very cute corner of Paris.  At 11:00, there was quite a gathering of people to hear an accordion player, singer and dancer who, for the past 40 years,  on every Sunday morning, have been entertaining folks.  We had fun getting to know Sandy and Philippe while sampling some fine pastries from the boulangerie and sipping coffee.  After two hours, we took our subway passes and used them to take the bus to the Montmartre area, the area where can-can dancers, Moulin Rouge, struggling artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and others in the early 1900's, all hung out.  There is also a beautiful church there that was built during WWI, titled Sacre Coure.  This area is very steep and gives one a beautiful view of all of Paris.  And, was it crowded, especially because it was a Sunday and other parts of Paris were not fully operational. We took in the museum, had lunch and purchased a few pieces of art.  Eventually we tired of the inclines and headed back to our hotel knowing that we still had to climb the 100 steps back up to our room!  We are definitely getting a good workout here in Paris!

More sites to see

Today is Saturday and we are on our third day of exploring this huge city.  We stated that we were going to slow down a bit so we have some energy at the end of the day.  Great idea until the hotel staff announced that the elevator broke and we are on the fourth floor.  I counted 100 steps that we need to climb  to get to our room each time we return from an outing!  Anyway so off we went today to a different part of the city.  Our first stop was the Rodin Museum.  What a beautiful and interesting place.  The museum highlighted Rodin's work with models that he made for many commissions he received.  Then we went out to the gardens and there were all of his works-The Thinker, the Gates of Hell based off of Dantes trilogy, along with about twenty other sculptures.  All that amongst blooming rose bushes and tree roses.  It was so delightful and fragrant.  From there we headed to see where Napoleon's tomb is.  We think our monuments to our great leaders are grand - they do not even compare!  After that we toured the WWII exhibit in the Army Museum which has info and items from all the wars the French have fought in.  We had a lovely lunch there and then decided to go visit the Jacquemart-Andre Museum,  housed in a lovely mansion once the home of a couple whose sole purpose in life was collecting art from all over the world.  They were rich Parisians and their home and possessions were exquisite.  We walked the streets of Paris to get back to our hotel rather than take the subway and really enjoyed the trees and boulevards of the city.

Tonight after a very good dinner of scallops and ravioli and a salad with apples, oranges, grapefruit (one word that I could not make out in French - the rest I could!) and grilled shrimp, we headed up to the top of the Arc de Troimphe (284 steps up) to see the view from the top.  Awesome, especially as the sun set and the Eiffel Tower lit up.

That's it for today!  Only 18,000+ steps today!