Goodbye Paris

Our last couple of days in Paris involved no concrete plans which wasn't a bad thing. We were feeling a bit flat from all the adventures we'd done so spent the last couple of days getting through some washing, having small walks and finding as many different places for Teneille to eat onion soup as we could.

Our last two dinners were spent in a little street a block away front the apartment that was full of little restaurants. We already ate at the Italian place earlier in the week and picked two separate French restaurants to close out our trip.

The first dinner was quite nice. We chose from a set menu that was very reasonably priced and the onion soup entree was ranked in Teneille's top two. 

Teneille decided that was the night to tell me she wouldn't be returning with me to Australia. I'll let her explain in her own words: "I can’t go back. The food over here is so much better than the bullshit crap they have over there. The only good thing they have is Cadbury and Arnotts. They also have squirrels over here. And cows that let you touch them."

Who needs those crappy regular macarons when you can get a grand macaron!

Not quite sure how to respond to any of this. Apparently I'm meant to organise to send the kids over once I get home. And the children aren't being much help. Aiden, who has easily been the most affected by our absence and keeps asking when we are coming home, said he is happy to join his mother in Paris so, and I quote, I can feel his pain.

The following night we had dinner at another little French place in the same street. As we were inspecting the menu on the street every staff member in the establishment converged on us to explain it was only their third night since opening, everything was homemade, and they only served traditional French food. Teneille can't say no to strangers at the best of time so the emotion of this rag-tag bunch of chefs and waiters setting out on their culinary business venture was just too much for her heart to bear.

A bee at Versailles. They breed em fuzzy in France.

Jokes aside, the food was amazing. We shared an onion soup entree which Teneille declared the best one of the trip after much deliberation. I had the roasted chicken and Teneille the steak for our mains, and we shared a dark chocolate lava cake thing with vanilla bean ice-cream for dessert. Teneille tried some of my chicken. I've never heard her say "oh my God" at food before. Other stuff, sure. But not food. The staff were so energetic in trying to get new customers into the restaurant they used our empty plates as sufficient evidence of how good the food was.

Two strange things happened during this final dinner.

A traditional Paris dinner.

Firstly, we had a glass of wine with dinner which Teneille said went straight to her chest and head followed by the words: "My eyes and my heart are beating in time with the music".

This followed a couple of wines she had last week at dinner which resulted in us catching a metro back to the apartment and the metro going so fast Teneille could "see the matrix". Maybe I should keep my wife away from wine...

The second strange thing was this guy with a hat who entered the restaurant and greeted the staff with a hug and a kiss on either cheek. We'd seen this guy before, at the other two restaurants we'd eaten at in the same street earlier in the week. He greeted the owners at each restaurant in the same manner. Now, I've seen enough crime shows and mafia movies to know what paying for protection looks like. I'm not saying this was the case here but what the hell?

The Gallery of Battles in Versailles Palace.

Nothing much of interest to report the rest of the trip. We had a late check-out the following day before heading to the airport to get home. That's a wrap on five weeks in Paris for me and two for Teneille. It will be good to see the children who I know have struggled a bit in our absence.

I feel we've really covered Paris quite well over our two trips and if I ever return it will be to explore France more so than the capital.

Until next time, Goodbye Paris.

Talkin' bout a revolution

The day after we walked a lot at Disneyland we spent the day at Versailles... also walking a lot. Perhaps not the best itinerary planning but it's what we did.

We visited Versailles Palace when we were in France seven years ago but we were on a coach tour which spent the morning at Monet's Garden and the afternoon at the palace. The weather was awful so, apart from rushing through the palace itself, we never got a chance to explore the gardens. Versailles, we have always said, was top of the list to spend a full day exploring if ever we returned.

So, how did Versailles rate on our return visit? More specifically, how did Teneille rate Versailles on our return visit? Well, she rated it five out five red squirrels. That is, while in the gardens at Versailles and further afield in the gardens of the Petit Trianon we saw five squirrels so, of course, that is the favourite part of Teneille's trip. Just like seven years ago when I secretly planned for two years a two-week trip to her dream destination of Paris for her 30th birthday and the best thing that happened was seeing a cow that let her touch it. Coincidentally, that was also the same day we visited Versailles on the last trip.

But we aren't up to the squirrels yet. First we jumped on a train to Versailles and walked past some random building next to the station which Teneille asked if that was the palace. Ah, no dear. That building is a basic bitch. Let's just walk around this corner and be blinded by all the gold adorning the actual palace.

A return to Versailles and the sun was shining.

We arrived in Versailles on schedule and the line to get in wasn't too bad. We spent a good few hours exploring the palace apartments, meeting rooms and galleries which seven years ago we had practically run through to make it back to a bus on time. The apartments, the Hall of Mirrors and the council rooms remain much as I remembered them. Not quite as plush as the Napoleonic apartments at the Louvre but still, the ornate carvings and artworks that run up the walls and across the ceilings are amazing. To think the palace was added to over and over again as new monarchs to control - it doesn't look like a building that was pieced together bit by bit. Even the most famous room in the palace - the Hall of Mirrors - started life as an open-air balcony of sorts that was eventually closed in a reworked due to that side of the palace capturing all the bad weather.

Places like Versailles are one of the reasons I love Paris so much. The amount of history you walk through on a daily basis is mindboggling. We just don't have that kind of history in Australia with our architecture. The fact that the start of the French revolution in 1789 and the World War I armistice signing in 1918 came to pass within the same walls at Versailles, a place that existed since 1631, is a level of history outside that of Indigenous Australians I struggle to imagine.

The Hall of Mirrors.

Don't know how I'd go to sleep each night staring up at ceilings like that.

Like everywhere else we've been this trip, Versailles was bloody crowded so we were happy to escape into the gardens where we could find our own space.

The size of the gardens to the west of the palace is crazy. Some 800 hectares of manicured paths, hedges, gardens, lawns and fountains. It would be easy to get lost without a map or a phone if you also lost site of the palace as a point of reference.

The gardens were quite peaceful once you removed all the people.

We walked through the Queen's Grove - a portion of the gardens created in 1776 so Marie-Antionette had somewhere to walk without the intrusion of visitors. The Queen's Grove will also be recorded in history as the place Teneille saw her first red squirrel.

We saw Latona fountain, a water feature surrounded by gold statures of humans as they are being slowly transformed into frogs because they said some not nice things about the child of a woman who had an affair with a god. She called down the wrath of the father to transform the peasants. Seems like a reasonable response.

Latona Fountain and it's weird frog people.

We stopped at the Mirror Pool to see a water show and Teneille's second red squirrel.

We admired the Colonnade Grove that included a central statue of Pluto trying to abduct some poor woman. Hasn't anyone told him he's not a planet anymore and to get back in his box?

We saw Apollo's Fountain, with the golden statues of the god and his chariot horses about to raise the sun. Apollo is a recurring theme in Versailles because Louis XIV took the god as his emblem and used as many sculptures and artworks as he could to liken himself to the deity.

The water show at the Mirror Pool.

Apollo's Fountain was pretty special when the sunlight hit the gold figures.

Apollo's Fountain is the bottom most end of the gardens and it was here we hired a couple of bikes to get over to the Petit Trianon. You'll know the Petit Trianon because it is smaller than the Grande Trianon. The bigger of the Trianons was basically a smaller palace for the royals to stay at when the supreme palace of Versailles was too much. The smaller of the Trianons was for the queen because of course she needed her own mini-palace when she didn't want to be in the supreme palace or the grand palace.

Anyone wondering why the French people rose up against the monarchy, talkin' bout a revolution need only visit Versailles. One walk through the extravagance and vastness of the castle and the gardens and the smaller castle down the road if you didn't like the big castle and then the even smaller castle next to that one for the queen and you think, 'yeah, I get it'.

How lucky that grape vine was growing in just the right spot?!

Teneille has quite an interest in Madame de Pompadour so was keen to visit the Petit Trianon. She was Louis XV's mistress and such was her standing with the monarch he had the Petit Trianon built for her. Madame de Pompadour died before the property was finished and so it fell to Marie-Antionette instead. It is in interesting property and although never intended to be hers, Marie-Antoinette's stamp is all over it. The staircase railings literally include her initials in the design. At the far edge of the Petit Trianon gardens (which are also frigging massive, can I just say) is a small cottage the queen wanted built so she could escape her courtly lifestyle. She even organised for it to be built as a working farm so she could enjoy the authenticity of not being a queen in a palace.

We saw three more squirrels on the grounds of the Petit Trianon, including two which chased each other playfully down a tree much to Teneille's delight.

Oh look, a working farm to make queens feel a little less queenly when the queendom becomes too queensome.

Having returned our bikes and re-entered the Versailles gardens, we began winding our was back towards the palace. We saw more groves - including an artificially created cliff face with caves housing more statues of Apollo - and ticked off the more fountains from our list - including the last of the four fountains in the garden representing the seasons.

By the time we got a train back into Paris and returned to the apartment we had walked about 19,000 steps. That was 40,000-45,000 steps in two days after factoring in Disneyland the day before. Our feet hurt.

Time to soak our feet in water and our mouths in wine. Au revoir.

I'm gonna be

Tuesday dawned sunny with the excitement of children in the air. Sorry, the excitement of Teneille in the air. We were off to Disneyland Paris which meant setting an alarm to ensure we were out of the apartment and onto a train at the appropriate time. No issues with trains today. Nailed it.

The train to Disneyland cost 12 euro for both of us which means we were definitely scammed that time seven years ago a man 'helped' us figure out how to use the ticket machines. The journey takes about an hour including time on trains, walking to and between stations. We arrived at 10am for what would be the start of an 11-hour Disney odyssey.

Teneille's face is always a joy to watch when arriving at places like this - she can't wipe the smile.

Welcome to Disneyland.

We downloaded the Paris Disney app so we could remind ourselves where everything was and see wait times for various rides we were interested in. I had been nervous about going to Disneyland after learning the extent of the French summer holiday period. Last time we were here school had resumed but today was still in the final weeks of their break. As with everywhere else we have been this trip the crowds were massive which wasn't cool.

We knocked over the Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean rides before lines got too crazy before seeking out food. I hadn't eaten and was starting to feel it with all the walking we were doing. We eventually found an Italian food hall thing, and I use the term Italian very, very loosely. I had a pizza shaped like Mickey Mouse's head while Teneille opted for a lasagna. The quality of both wouldn't have felt out of place in an American school cafeteria, I imagine. Both meals came with a chocolate mousse dessert (also shaped like Mickey's head, of course) that was great because chocolate mousse is never not great.

Pizza... I guess?

Lines for other rides had started blowing out to anywhere between 60 and 85 minutes which is ridiculous so we resolved at lunch to buy one of those access passes that let you walk straight on. The passes, advertised for 90 euro each, are bloody expensive but better than spending three quarters of your time at Disneyland standing in line. Did I say 90 euro each? Oh, sorry. My mistake. Prices start from 90 euro. Once we had clicked through to payment it tried to charge us 175 each. We backed out of that transaction pretty quickly. You can also buy access onto individual rides for prices ranging from 4 euro to 16 euro depending on ride popularity. Given we had been willing to cough up 180 euro for passes we decided to pick the rides with the worst lines we wanted access to and buy one of passes for those rides as long as our total didn't exceed 180 euro across the rest of the day.

Utilising this system, we walked straight onto a number of rides, including Thunder Mountain, Crush's Coaster, Ratatouille and some Spider-Man thing.

Teneille in her happy place.

Paris Disney is actually two parks - Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios. Disneyland is more you classic Disney while Walt Disney Studios is where all the Marvel and Pixar stuff is located. After knocking over the rides we wanted in Disneyland we headed to the second park.

Walt Disney Studios has more thrill rides than Disneyland but there is a lot of temporary walls up at the moment as they build some new stuff that won't open until 2026.

The Avengers ride was awesome. Spider-Man was interactive. Crush's Coaster was great too. The Ratatouille ride was interesting because there are no tracks for your car - you are basically on a giant robot vacuum thing that just goes where it needs.

The best Pixar movie.

We got through all the rides we wanted to in the second park before heading back into Disneyland to do Teneille's shopping and hit any rides we wanted to go on a second time. Fortunately and unfortunately this is when it began to rain. Thankfully the weather helped to thin the crowds but unthankfully the rain really set in and was constant for the rest of the night.

We would normally have stayed until closing at 10pm when the park finishes with a light and fireworks show over the Disney castle but by 9pm we were both soaked and were done. Our shoes and socks were completely saturated and we just wanted to get back to the apartment so we could get changed and get dry.

We got a tad soaked...

We got on Indian Jones and Thunder Mountain again during the rain which was an interesting experience as rain whipped you in the face while you travelled along a track at a million miles an hour.

We had a great time but you really do need two days to do Disney properly, especially given there are technically two parks. One day for rides and one day for shows and characters.

We stopped at the supermarket on the way back to the apartment to get some baguette, ham and cheese for dinner and were very grateful to take our wet shoes and socks off. We walked 24,000 steps according to my phone despite my feet feeling like I walked 500 miles. Luckily, tomorrow we get a break. Just kidding. More walking with a day in Versailles.

Until then, au revoir.

Vincent

We had nothing planned on Monday so we enjoyed a lazy morning in the apartment before jumping on a metro and heading across the river to a light installation show thing on Vincent van Gogh. This was something Teneille had found before leaving Australia and we left it as 'thing to do' item on our list when we didn't have much else on.

The show was at a place called Atelier des Lumières which I think is French for big, dark warehouse with lots of lights. The show itself only went for a about half-an-hour and involved orchestral music being played inside the huge space as hundreds of projectors covered the walls and floor with van Gogh's works.

The letters to his brother and friends.

The music and the works told the story of the artist's turbulent life, with the art projected onto the walls slightly animated. You simply found somewhere to stand, sit or walk through the space as the show played out and stared daggers at people with no spatial awareness who stood right in front of the wall you were viewing.

The show was good, but I think I had expected more after the immersive van Gogh exhibition we had visited in Sydney a year or so ago. Regardless, you can't go past Don McLean for the title of today's blog.

We made our way back to the apartment after the show and headed to a small Italian restaurant nearby where we met Eddie for a goodbye dinner. He was flying home on Tuesday so we drank wine and ate pizza (yes, no onion soup for Teneille to everyone's shock) and said our goodbyes.

We have early starts the next two days and A LOT of walking. Teneille is super excited for Tuesday. Not sure why. Until then, au revoir.

She's so high

We had no concrete plans Saturday or Sunday with the exception of one booking Sunday afternoon so the weekend was very much choose your own adventure.

We spent Saturday morning sorting our lives out a bit - tidying the apartment, doing a load of washing - before heading to the Paris mint, known locally as Monnaie de Paris.

Monnaie de Paris is not far from us along the banks of the Seine and, although the main production of currency was moved offsite to a new facility in the 1970s, it continues to produce a number of significant items. Just as it did for the Paris Olympic Games in 1924, the mint was responsible for the creation of every medal issued to athletes at the 2024 Games and the upcoming Paralympic Games. All of France's citizen award medals are also produced within this facility.

We were keen to explore the mint following our last visit to France where we collected a gold coin from each of the major tourist attractions we visited that depicted each place. We collected about 15 coins seven years ago - each one minted at Monnaie de Paris.

The site includes a large museum space which delves into the history of the institution as well as coin-making. Parts of the museum actually pass through the workshops where you can watch staff as they create the coins and medals for which the mint is renowned. We couldn't watch them though... The pitfalls of visiting the museum on a weekend.

Every Olympic medal for the Paris Games was made in the city.

We spent a couple of hours at the mint before heading home in the rain. We had also walked to the mint in the rain. Teneille wanted to buy an umbrella from a souvenir shop before stubbornly marching through the rain sans umbrella after I suggested the cheap nondescript version as opposed to the 13 euro version decorated with Paris landmarks. I'm not paying 13 euro for a bloody umbrella!

We hung our washing before heading out to dinner with a friend.

This is Eddie. Eddie enjoys long walks on Australian beaches and buying churches in his spare time. Eddie resides in the UK at the moment and popped across the channel to catch up with us over the weekend before heading back.

Eddie and a view.

We had dinner with Eddie at a small place around the corner from our apartment where Teneille, yet again, ordered onion soup. That's about the fourth time. She's trying every onion soup she can before we go home. There was one place we investigated as a dinner option which Teneille vetoed because they didn't have onion soup on the menu. I think she has a problem.

Sunday dawned with clearer weather and we resolved to declare this day the day of the two towers. It sounds like a JRR Tolkien book but it isn't. We had a booking to climb the Eiffel Tower in the afternoon and decided to spend the morning climbing Montparnasse Tower.

What is Montparnasse Tower? Well, my friends, it is really easy to find. Simply stand in the middle of Paris and look around you. Yes, that's the Louvre over there next to Jardin de Tuileries. Well done, you spotted the Eiffel Tower as well. That ugly skyscraper spearing hundreds of metres above the beautiful Parisian terraces and streets around it without any thought to historical aesthetic? Why that's Montparnasse Tower. It was built in the 1970s. Can't you tell from the lovely brown colour of the entire building?

The ugliest building in Paris?

I don't like Montparnasse Tower. It was a ridiculous place to dump a tower into a beautiful landscape. The only redeeming feature of the building is that when you stand on the roof you can't see it. But you can see the rest of Paris. It offers an even better view than the Eiffel Tower because you can see the whole city, including the Eiffel Tower.

Eddie joined us at Montparnasse for the view before we descended and sought out lunch before grabbing a metro to the Eiffel Tower. The entry barriers in the metro station didn't like our tickets and refused to let us through. We eventually found different barriers that did like us, but not before a five-minute walk to try and find someone to help us. The police, who all carry a metro card to open barriers, could have let us through like they did for the woman whose bag got jammed in the doors when she didn't move through fast enough. But instead sent us to find the information desk despite seeing we carried valid tickets.

The view from Montparnasse is pretty good, though.

After successfully navigating the French railway system again we arrived at Teneille's favourite place on Earth. No, not Outback Steakhouse. The Eiffel Tower. We breezed through security quickly and had a wander beneath the tower before joining the lines for our lift up top. The lines seemed substantial but moved pretty quickly.

The lifts took us to the second floor of the tower before we grabbed the next lift to the summit. The view was amazing apart from that brown skid mark of the Paris skyline, Montparnasse, and it was interesting to see the deconstruction work underway on some of the Olympic venues. We could see directly into the beach volleyball stadium I had been sitting at just one week earlier and already the sand had been cleared out as workers begin tearing down the greatest temporary stadium in the world.

The height up top made Teneille quite nervous, even as we sipped champagne. We tried to get a couple of selfies but the smile never quite reached the terror in her eyes. She's so high above me... but she didn't like it. We spent a bit of time up top before taking a lift back to the second floor and then descending the rest of the way by stairs.

You might be wondering if Teneille is still the same sicko from seven years ago who licked the Eiffel Tower. The answer is yes.

Champagne and a view and the terror in Teneille's eyes.

No caption required.

After braving the metro back home, we stopped at the local supermarket to get some baguettes and baguette fillings for dinner.

Monday is a free day for us also before a couple of packed days with Disneyland and Versailles. Until then, au revoir.

How far have we really come?

We had an early start on Friday for our day trip out to the WWI battlefields of the Somme which necessitated us braving the French railway system outside the standard Metro set-up. To say I was stressed when we reached Gare du Nord would have been an understatement.

Paris has three separate train systems:

1. The Metro, fast light rail that zips around the city, with trains leaving every three minutes
2. RER lines, your standard, two-level suburban trains to travel outside the city centre
3. Main Line, built for longer journeys into the rest of the country with a little more speed and a little more luxury

Sadly, there are a few stations in Paris where all three types of trains and many of their various lines converge - like Gare du Nord. Having anticipated a certain level of stress and a certain level of not knowing where the hell we needed to get to I had built in wiggle room with our departure time. After much wandering and seeking help from officials, we had our tickets and boarded our Main Line train for Amiens.

The train ride was uneventful and upon arriving in Amiens - about 120km out of Paris - we met Olivier, our guide for the day. Olivier used to work in HR before he decided 16 years ago he was sick of people complaining to him. So, as he puts it, he switched careers and started his one-man guide company where no-one can complain except himself and if he's complaining then it's ok because he's right.

A wild poppy growing on the Western Front.

Olivier had a wealth of knowledge about WWI across the entire Somme region and how the allied forces pushed back against the invading German army. He could point at ridges or forests or valleys or roads and tell you what happened there on what date with how many soldiers. He ferried us from place to place in his car which had an iPad loaded with the British trench maps for the region and our GPS position moving over it.

Olivier's main source of business is Australians looking into the part our country played in this region, but he gets many other nationalities as well and can tailor the day to take in places and battles of importance to your country. When the empire of Great Britain went to war that meant her dominions were at war as well so the presence of Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and India are strongly felt also.

We began the day by driving straight to the Australian memorial outside Villers-Bretonneux where we walked through the cemetery and inspected the walls of the lost. Many of the graves are unmarked because there was no way to identify some of the soldiers who fell. The thousands of names on the memorial wall are those of the missing. They either rest in one of the unmarked graves or their bodies are still out there, beneath the fields, where they fell in battle.

The Australian memorial.

The memorial flies the Australian and French flags but many headstones carry the insignia of the Canadians or other countries. Great Britain believed a soldier should be buried where, or as close to where, he fell. That is why most of the villages throughout the region, or scenes of significant battles, have similar cemeteries.

Sadly, the work of the memorial is never complete. Only a few weeks ago, Olivier told us, another name was carved into the wall. An Australian soldier who fought in the Somme and was never found. His information, in the chaos of war, was lost to time until some sort of research or uncovering of old documents highlighted the error. Last month, more than 100 years after WWI, Lance Corporal J.S. Moore of the 1st Infantry Battalion was added to the memorial wall alongside his fallen brothers.

This soldier's name was only added weeks ago.

The memorial tower provides a sweeping view of the cemetery and surrounding area. The sandstone tower is scarred with hundreds of bullet holes, the result of French forces using the memorial tower as a viewing post during WWII when German forces swept through the region once more. While the memorial was repaired following the end of WWII but the bullet holes were left as a historical reminder.

Behind the memorial itself is the Sir John Monash Centre, a museum dedicated to Australia's involvement in WWI. We spent a couple of hours exploring the museum's interactive video exhibits which detail how Australia came to be in the region, the part we played, and the catastrophic number of casualties we suffered.

You can see the bullet holes in the tower's facade.

We had lunch at the museum before heading into nearby Villers-Bretonneux. Australia is deeply ingrained in this village because of the part our soldiers played in the Great War. The village sits high on a hill and was viewed as a place of strategic importance for the Germans. It changed hands a number of times throughout the war but the village considers itself indebted to Australia.

In March-April 1918, the Germans launched their Spring Offensive, an onslaught that was meant to break through British lines along the Western Front and push the empire out of the war. Part of this offensive was Operation Michael, a plan to push through the Somme region and capture the strategic transport and communications hub of Amiens. The Germans knew if they could take Villers-Bretonneux then Amien would be within reach.

On April 4, 1918, they made their first attempt. German soldiers began their push towards Villers-Bretonneux and were met by weary British forces and a number of Australian battalions that had been rushed to the region to back up the Brits. German forces came within 400m of the sleepy French village but were eventually repelled. Twenty days later, they tried again.

The view of the cemetery from the top of the memorial tower.

On the morning of April 24, 1918, German forces returned to Villers-Bretonneux but, this time aided by tanks, they punched holes through the allied defenses and the village was overrun. Fighting continued throughout the day but the Germans had captured the village. It wasn't until that evening, as night fell, Australia would move to reclaim the village. As light faded, Australian forces surrounded Villers-Bretonneux and cut off German support lines into the village. By dawn on April 25th, Anzac Day, three years since to the day since the blood-soaked beaches of Gallipoli, Australia had retaken Villers-Bretonneux.

Australia is everywhere in the village. From Melbourne Street, or Victoria School where the playground proudly displays a sign that reads 'never forget Australia', or in Adelaide Cemetery where many of the soldiers who died in the battle for Villers-Bretonneux are buried.

Australia's Unknown Soldier, whose final resting place now lies in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, was likely a man who died fighting to save Viller-Bretonneux. He was buried in Adelaide Cemetery on the outskirts of the village before being exhumed in 1993, 75 years after the guns fell silent in 1918, and repatriated to Australia as a symbol of the loss and sacrifice and bravery of war. A headstone in honour of the Unknown Soldier remains standing in Adelaide Cemetery.

The original resting place in France of Australia's Unknown Soldier.

We visited a number of other significant sites throughout the afternoon, including the scene of the first tank battle in history at Pozieres.

We also saw the Lochnagar Crater, a huge depression in the ground caused by allied forces attempting to dig beneath German lines and filling it with thousands of kilograms of explosives. Unfortunately, the British soldiers ran out of time and didn't dig far enough. The missed the Germans on July 1, 1916, in a battle that became one of their worst casualty losses ever. 

Pictures don't do the crater justice. It is 20m deep and 100m wide.

One of our last stops was a Newfoundland memorial where allied trenches have been kept intact. They are covered in grass now but you get a sense of what it was like to walk through one, how little distance there was between opposing trenches but, conversely, how large that distance must have seemed to a soldier running through open space without cover as bullets flew through the air.

As we drove towards St Quentin, the end of our trip, we saw a couple of German military cemeteries where every cross was dark grey. Olivier explained white crosses and headstones were only for the victors.

We also saw a memorial for the Second Australian Division. A large statue of an Aussie digger stood atop the memorial. Olivier told us that statue had only been erected in the 1990s after German forces in WWII toppled the original. The original statue was a little more... shall we say, graphic? It depicted an Australian soldier bayoneting an eagle he had pinned to the ground. The eagle was a symbol of pride for Germany and the soldier pinning it to the ground with his boot was meant to represent the humiliation German forces suffered in the region. German soldiers in WWII, somewhat understandably, didn't appreciate the image. They destroyed the statue but left the memorial and its brass plaques intact.

Original trenches from WWI.

We eventually arrived at the station in St Quentin and boarded our train back to Paris. This was a day trip I had wanted to do seven years ago but time was against us.

The scale of destruction and loss across the Western Front is sobering. The distances don't seem vast by today's technological standards but for soldiers on foot in mud it was another world. It's all the more depressing to see the memorials and graves and know we haven't really learned anything. Conflicts across the globe continue despite the hard lessons these places try to teach us. How far have we really come?

Not really sure what we are doing tomorrow. Might try to keep it light. 

Lost in France

Knocking over two days in one with this blog post as they both centred around museums.

We had nothing planned for Wednesday but Teneille was keen to replace a fridge magnet we bought in Paris seven years ago and had since been destroyed. The magnet was Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night in a frame but all 3D and crap. We'd walked a couple of the souvenir stalls along the Seine the day before without luck and thought perhaps we had bought the original at Musee D'Orsay where most of the Van Gogh's in Paris are displayed.

With that goal in mind, we decided to wander towards the museum. The only problem we encountered was my hectic work schedule of the past few weeks seemingly caught up with me and I was unable to get out of bed before lunch. Lucky nothing was booked.

After I'd managed to rouse myself we left the apartment and headed towards Musee D'Orsay. Teneille was extremely thrilled to observe a man relieving himself openly and publicly in a local garden and even more thrilled to have "locked eyes with him" before she realised what he was doing.

We briefly crossed the river to the Jardine de Tuileries where the Olympic cauldron remained grounded so Teneille could have a look. The thing is massive. I didn't realise how big it was several nights previously when I had visited because it had been airborne. But seeing it on land was an entirely different experience.

The Olympics is over but the garden is still closed off to the public because of the cauldron.

By the time we resumed our journey to the museum we had learned two things about Teneille:

1. She can't walk past a busking musician without giving them some sort of payment.
2. She is step blind. That is, blind to small steps. The number of small steps or ledges along the Seine she just didn't see, even if warned about them, was concerning. She tripped at least three times.

We eventually reached Musee D'Orsay having already achieved our goal (a souvenir stall we passed on our walk stocked the magnet Teneille desired) but Teneille had by this stage decided she wanted to enter the museum. We did D'Orsay last time we were here and hadn't planned to visit again but it was hot outside and there was no line so in we went.

Musee D'Orsay... Not bad for an old train station, eh?

We spent a couple of hours walking around. Saw the Vincent van Gogh paintings, the Monets and Manets and Renoirs. There were some cool models and paintings of Paris and its various landmarks that we didn't remember seeing last time. The details in some of the sculptures throughout the museum always amaze me given the lack of technology at the time of their creation.

While the artistry on display is of quite a high level, you do wonder if some of the artists over-focused on some areas of their work to the detriment of others. Take the below Manet for example. Observe the perfect shape and structure of the breasts. See how the light and shadows play across her alabaster skin. Admire the tone and change of colour as you drift down her body. Now look at the cat.

The cat stares into your soul. Thanks, Manet.

It was quite crowded inside the museum so we left after we felt we'd seen enough. I couldn't tell you how busy the museum was on our last trip but I do know it wasn't at this level. There are definitely a lot of people in town due to the Olympics and summer holiday period - something we didn't have to contend with on our last visit.

We headed back to the apartment after exiting the museum where I semi-collapsed while Teneille headed to the supermarket to grab something for dinner so we could eat in. We did venture out again, though, at dusk for an after-dinner walk to explore the neighbourhood.

We just started walking in a direction we hadn't headed in yet and eventually hit the gates of the Luxembourg Palace. On the way back home we stumbled across what can only be described as a gathering of people on the side of the road who really loved salsa dancing. There were numerous couples dancing the evening away on the footpath. Like, get a community hall or something you weirdos.

A 3D model cross-section at Musee D'Orsay of Palais Garnier AKA the opera house.

We learned our third thing about Teneille that night as well: Her sense of direction is shocking. This has never been an issue for Teneille so we aren't sure what's happened to degrade this ability so much. But several times now she has pointed in the opposite direction to the place we are trying to get to. I am concerned she could get Lost in France like Bonnie Tyler in 1977.

Thursday dawned to the sound of phone alarms as we were booked to enter the Louvre at 9am. We got up, dressed and headed out the door. The line for pre-booked tickets for a 9am entry was massive but it moved quite quickly once they opened the doors.

We visited the Louvre last time but a return was an absolute must for us. Apart from the fact the place is so big there's no way you saw half the stuff in one visit, we had to go back to see the Napoleonic apartments which were closed for renovations on our last trip.

Thankfully, this was not the case this time around and we successfully navigated ourselves to the wing where the apartments were open for viewing. If you love red and you have a weakness for gold and you are impartial to chandeliers, then the Napoleonic apartments are the place for you. The intricate detail in every square centimetre of every room is breathtaking. We had made our way directly to the apartments upon entering the Louvre so when a mother with her young teenage daughter entered shortly after us you could hear the gasp the daughter let out when she entered the main ballroom, mouth agape. We imagined that would be how Emily would react.

I'd throw a party here. Thongs permitted.

Oh look, Teneille touching stuff she shouldn't. My, how she has changed in seven years.

Maintenance and restoration in the apartments would be painstaking given the detail. There was one information panel which stated there were 24 sets of curtains in the apartments that had to be hand woven to be replaced as the time and light degraded the existing ones. It took two years. For curtains.

Like the previous day at Musee D'Orsay, the crowds at the Louvre were pretty intense. We felt like we navigated the museum a lot better than last time we were in Paris but there were still times we were aiming for somewhere only to end up in a completely different spot. The place is huge and not easy to find your way around. Rooms have signage to let you know what particular era or topic is on display but not every room shows its number. There are some areas where you need to go downstairs and then back up to access. Teneille didn't like that. But that's what you get when you change a big-ass palace into a big-ass museum. Palaces are built for opulence and displays of vast wealth that eventually lead to a public uprising and the overthrowing of the monarchy, not weary travelers who just want to find the Egyptian exhibits.

Napoleonic apartments aside, we definitely saw a heap of stuff we don't remember seeing last time. We ticked off the usuals, like the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, as well. A quick lunch and a quick stop along the souvenir strip at Rue de Rivoli to get something specific for the children and we headed home.

Tomorrow will be our first day trip outside the city when we brave the rail network to visit Amiens for a tour of the Somme battlefields from WWI of which Australian soldiers played a big part.

Until then, au revoir.

You're so vain

And that is officially it for the work leg of the trip. I have bid bon voyage to our Olympics team and checked out of the hotel near the Arc Triomphe to take up residence in a small apartment with Teneille in the Latin Quarter on the other side of the city.

The farewell party the night before was on a permanently moored restaurant-bar-boat thing on the Seine about 4km from the hotel. Did I mention in the previous post how bloody hot it was? It bears mentioning again because it was a suffocating 38C. The sun doesn't go down in Paris before 9:30pm so that was 3.5 hours on this boat in the heat. You'd think being closer to the water would help but no. The company was good, the drinks were good, the food options were limited.

Great sunset view from our party on the Seine... pity about the insufferable heat.

How did we get to this auspicious waterside venue, I hear you ask. Well, Paris is a city of many modes of transport. There are buses, and the metro, and taxis, and Ubers, and walking, and Lime bikes. A few of us felt like we hadn't really taken our lives into our own hands so far on this trip, so we took a Lime.

Before I go any further, anyone who is reading this next paragraph must promise not to tell my mother about the Lime bikes. Good? Ok. So, Lime bikes in Paris are nuts. Grab a bike, scan it with your phone and go. They are electric, so a little push on the pedals and it zips off. No helmets. Just hit the insanity of Parisian drivers on an unusually fast bicycle without head protection. I rode around the Arc de Triomphe on my Lime, guys. Three times. The Arc de frigging Triomphe. The busiest roundabout in the world that has no lanes and it is every man, car, bus and Lime for himself. Obviously, I survived. No-one tell mum.

Lime squad activate!

The boat people kicked us out at 1am because they wanted to close so we retired to Frank's for one last drink at the old local before we all jetted our separate ways in the morning. Frank kicked us out at 2am because he wanted to close. Frank is a cranky bugger too, can I just say? He was easily frustrated with people who took too long to order, and God forbid you move a chair or table. The shake of the head and scowl. Mon dieu!

Teneille had crashed at my hotel to enjoy the aircon so we arose the next morning, had breakfast and checked out before hailing a cab to our new abode.

The apartment is a small studio-like space with a kitchen/bedroom/dining area all in one. It has a small balcony overlooking the street and some Paris rooftops where we plan to sip wine and eat cheese in the coming days. The heat is not great and the portable aircon unit isn't doing much but it does feel nice and cool when you stand over it. The forecast is mid-high 20s for the rest of our time here so we are hopefully that won't be an issue.

An old building near Pont des Arts that looked cool and probably is full of history and shit.

After a quick nap (by me), we decided to go for a wander to Notre Dame. We started heading in that general direction before coming across Pont Neuf where we placed our padlock seven years go. The padlocks, as expected, are long gone and the Pont Neuf fencing has been replaced with Perspex sheets much like Pont des Arts (the original padlock bridge) many years ago. I've no idea where the current 'padlock spot' is but I'm sure one must exist. Love finds a way after all.

We continued past the Palace of Justice towards Notre Dame before arriving at the cathedral. It was five years in April since the fire which destroyed large parts of the wooden structures at the back of building and it has still yet to fully reopen. Restoration works are expected to be finished by December but, for now, the site remains fenced off and a temporary grandstand has been built nearby to sit and observe the cathedral for a while. You can't even access Point Zero, the spot in front of the cathedral from which the distances to all other locations in France are measured. I was devastated when the fire happened five years ago. So much history lost in the flames, but the cathedral has survived worse. I suppose in 200 years the great fire of 2019 will be just another chapter in its storied history.

The Palace of Justice... I love The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

We sat in the cathedral grandstand for a while to people watch. Tourist groups came and went and individuals grabbed their selfies. Including one particularly vapid creature who spent a solid five minutes striking selfie poses with her hair this way, then that way. With a smile, then a pout. With her arms out, then looking back over her shoulder. We finally thought she was done but, clearly unhappy with her own work, she approached some poor tourist and asked him to take a photo. The poor bastard didn't know what he was agreeing to. He took her picture, which she checked, then asked him to try again. Obviously, today's post is named for her and the Carly Simon classic.

Almost ready to reopen five-and-a-half years later.

Speaking of pretentious people full of their own self-importance, what about this for the name of the hotel across the road from Notre Dame? Hotel Dieu AKA Hotel God. Honestly.

A hotel with a God complex.

After selfie girl let released her prey, we began our stroll back towards home. We stopped at a brasserie thing on to eat food along the way. Teneille ate an olive (not a fan, her face was hilarious and yes, I have video) and our waitress tried to be polite but made a face when I asked her how my French was. Dinner entertainment was provided by the men from the hotel across the road who dug up one of three massive potted trees on the footpath and then, nonchalantly, carried it inside and up the stairs. Err... ok then.

The restaurant we ate at... not sure why Teneille chose it.

A quick supermarket stop to get some essential, like wine, and we are back home relaxing. Teneille is dealing with jetlag and I am dealing the aftermath of my insane work schedule. Hopefully a good night sleep will have us both back to normal.

Au revoir.