Exploring London: National Gallery, St Paul's cathedral and The City

I like to share my impressions of our last excursion as tourists in London, which I think we will never ceased to be. I love the sense of exploring this enormous city; every corner of it seems to tell a story. We started our day in one of my favourite’s spots in the city so far: Trafalgar square. It is a large square with a big monument in the centre, surrounded by a large building that holds the National Gallery and some other buildings including the Canadian Embassy. From the square you can see down one of the streets the houses of parliament and the Big Ben. Every time I’ve been here there are lots of people, tourists, activists, scouts, musicians, bands, and cyclists. To me this place represents what London is, a vibrant spot where lots of people from all over the world converge, where there is always something happening and you could never be bored. To my delight, one of the bands was playing one of Shakira’s songs, only instrumental and I saw people grooving on the streets. We had our picnic lunch on the grass in front of the gallery where there were people sunbathing, drinking wine and vodka and enjoying the nice weather, for a change.

Trafalgar Square

The National Gallery has a large collection of some of the most acclaimed paintings in the world presented in the walls of a beautifully decorated building. I will just mention my personal favourites: A Wheatfield with Cypresses by Van Gogh, The virgin in Prayer de Sassoferrato and The Fighting Temeraire de Joseph Turner, named the greatest picture from England.

The virgin in Prayer, by Sassoferrato.

We also visited St Paul’s Cathedral, one of the buildings that you can always recognize in the London skyline. Normally they charge you to visit the cathedral except on Sundays which is the day of worship. We lit a candle and made a prayer for our families.

St Paul's Cathedral, London

We walked to the financial centre of London, known as “The City”, about a square mile with the London stock exchange and the offices of the most important financial institutions in the world. There is a great selection of buildings of interest, among them the 30th Street St. Mary, completed in 2004 and designed by Foster, one of the greatest architects of our time. The building is one of the first fully ecological buildings and in my opinion, somehow this modern building fits well among so many historic old buildings in the city, although the general opinion seems to be that it is not harmonious with its neighbours.

30th Street St. Mary

Another building which I thought is neat is the 122 Leadenhall Street, which is being demolished (see picture) in its place there will be a building which will be ready by 2011. It is very impressive to see so clearly how the core of the building supports the rest. The building is being demolished trying to minimize the impact on the surroundings.

Demolition in progress at 122 Leadenhall Street

Our week in France

Sorry its been a while since the last post. Things have been busy around here. We hadn't even finshed unpacking the boxes in our new place and it was time to head off on vacation. Being over here, we decided to take advantage of the fact that 1) we have a car and 2) France is just across that little channel south of here...so we caught a boat across and spent the week driving around France (and well...a bit of Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium as well.....) All said and done, 3000 kms in 8 days....a bit crazy, but we did get to see a lot.

We started out early Sunday morning and drove down to Dover where we caught a ferry across to Dunkerque. Not wanting to be late, I got us to Dover about 2 hours early, which while disappointing to Alex who would have preferred a couple extra hours of sleep, let us walk along some trails on top of the famous white cliffs....

Two hours after boarding the ferry, we were in France. Now I got to get used to driving back on the 'correct' side of the road, but now on the wrong side of the car. We quickly got lost and ended up in Calais, almost out of gas....a very good start. Eventually that afternoon we made it down to Paris, where we set up shop in a campground in a neighbourhood called Maisons Lafitte, which is in the north-west part of the city. The campground was very, very, very cramped, but on the bright side, was only a 15 minute walk to the train station, from where it was 25 minutes into central Paris. We spent two days there and did as many of the tourist things we could do. I think that Alex may provide some more detail in her post.

On Wednesday we left Paris and drove down to Lyon where we found a campsite just outside of town. What a beautiful city Lyon seems to be (at least what we saw of the historic centre). I intended for it to be an unavoidable stop-over spot on the way down to the mediterranean, and was really blown away by the city. Who knows what it is really like, but in our evening there it really impressed.

The next morning was on our way through Provence to a place just between Nice and Monacco, on the Cote Azur. Of course, I got lost, and we spend far too much time driving the coastal highway (much to Alex's disappointment...lots and lots of curves and ups and downs......) Eventually, perched high, high, high above the water was our campground. What an amazing spectacle. I think that the views over St. Jean Cap Ferrat couldn't be bested by any other campsite in the world. We spent the afternoon on the beach.....no sand on the riviera apparently...just smoothed stones....very odd....and the water was cold, cold, cold....reminded me of Lake Winnipeg in June. Then we spent an hour or so in Monacco (did our groceries there!) and then the early evening in Nice. We settled down for the night with a good curry, some wine, and the views over the sea.

The next day was on to Geneva. I got us off to a bad start by almost running out of gas. We were driving around helplessly with about a litre in the tank and me asking in my long forgotten French, " Ou est-ce que on peut acheter du gasoline"...After about 5 failed attempts at that (and more of that precious litre of gas we did have used up driving in circles...) someone was kind enough to point out that gas or petrol (depending on your English) is actually called Essence in French. That does ring a bell somewhere deep in the cobwebs...After that correction, we were pointed in the right direction and on our way with a full tank. We crossed over to Italy, and rode about on the coastal highway for a bit before turning up towards the mountains. We skirted past Turin and had lunch in a nice little town at the foot of the mountains called Aosta. Fittingly, ALex has Ravioli and I had Gnocchi.

Then further into the Alps...(wow...amazing scenary) and then under Mont Blanc via an 11 km tunnel.

Into France past Chomonix and then over the border in Switzerland. I got us lost again looking for the campground (not sure why Alex lets me take care of directions....) but finally, mercifully before the sun set, we found our place on the shore of lake Geneva, just east of the town. We spent the night in Geneva, which is really a very charming spot. We had fondue for dinner, which seemed appropriate.

The next morning, and early start had us drive up through Bern, where we stopped for a quick look around....this is another place that I would like to spend some more time in, as the historic centre is really very beautiful.

We made it up and out of Switzerland, through a bit of France and into Luxembourg, where we looked around for a couple of hours, and had a bite to eat. Then on to Brussels, which, I suppose like Lyon, I had no expectations of. And again, we found it to be a really beautiful looking place. We strolled around a bit near the Royal Palace, etc... Alex had a Belgian Waffle...and then we had to get to our campsite. We got to a place near Dunkerque called Brays Dunes (very French sounding, non?) just before sunset and set things up in the sand. An odd little resport / campground we stayed at, but an amazing long sandy beach, and one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.

The next morning, we had time to do some grocery (read..wine) shopping before catching the boat back to Dover. By pure coincidence, the timing of this worked out so that we could see the Tour de France as Stage 1 passed through the south of England. While we spent most of the afternoon out there getting burned (a rare sunny day in England) the race itself was over in an instant. The riders were basically all together, and while we were on a hill, it meant nothing to them, and the whole lot of 'em whizzed by in about 20 seconds. I'd no idea that it would be all over so quickly.

Anyway, that's the quick lowdown on the trip. Sorry for the lack of interesting details. It had been too long since I posted, so I thought I'd better get something down soon.
I hope everyone is well.
Scott.

Camping, food and churches in France

Camping in Paris, Lyon, Nice, Geneva and Brais-Dunes

During our trip we stayed at 5 different campgrounds, we did not get to enjoy the camp sites as much or socialize, as we just had time to set up the tent, cook something quick and sleep. We became experts in setting up the tent and beds in less than 15 minutes and fortunately enough it only rained in Paris. Camping has proven to be a great way to enjoy all the sites without spending a lot of money in accommodation, at the end, we spend very few hours at the campsites, since there is so much to see and limited time.

Camping International in Paris

In Paris we stayed at the Camping International campground, on the shore of the Seine River on the north west of the city and only a 15 minute walk to the metro station and from there 30 minutes to the main attractions. Then in Lyon, we stayed at Camping International in the outskirts of the city, just off the main highway it about a 15 minute drive into the city.

View from campsite in Eze

My favourite one was the Indigo camping in Eze, in the outskirts of Nice on the Cost D’Azur: This campsite has the most amazing view. Right on the cost but about 800 meters above see level. In Geneva, we camped on the south shore of the Geneva lake at a campsite with a very convenient bus service to the town centre, about 20 minute ride.

The last night camp site was an unexpected surprise, on the North of France near Dunkerkerque in a small town called Brais-Dunes. We camped on sand and about a 5 minute walk to the beach. The sea did not have the blue colour, it reminded me of the Pacific Ocean but the sand was soft and the water felt warmer than the one in the Mediterranean.

Acampando

Acampamos en 5 campamentos diferentes aunque no tuvimos mucho tiempo de disfrutar sus servicios o socializar, llegando tarde y saliendo temprano. Acampar en Europa me parecio bien facil y una manera bien practica de quedarse en diferentes ciudades sin gastar mucho y con el carro.
En Paris nos quedamos en Camping International, muy bien ubicado en un barrio del noroeste de Paris, al lado del rio Sena desde ahi era 15 minutos caminando a la estacion del metro y en el metro 30 minutos a el centro de la ciudad.
En Lyon nos quedamos en un campamento como a 10 km de la ciudad. El mas lindo de todos fue el del mediterraneo, en Eze, en una cornisa de la montana y al frente de la costa con una vista espectacular, yo diria que mejor que la de cualquier hotel!!!

En Ginebra en un sitio muy lindo sobre el lago, desde donde podiamos tomar un bus directo a el centro y estabamos alli en 20 minutos y la ultima noche en el norte de Francia nos quedamos en un sitio con una playa lindisima y un atardecer inolvidabe.

Atardecer en Bray-Dunes, Norte de Francia

Food

While in France we mainly ate baguettes, wine and cheese. The French seem to really like their baguettes; every morning, either in the towns or campgrounds you see people walking back from the store with their fresh baguettes for breakfast. There was a great variety of cheeses in every little store, and the wine was very cheap.
I certainly enjoyed the crepe au chocolate from street vendors in Paris, we agreed that Nutella was underestimated in Canada and it should really be included in more recipes.

In Italy, we stopped in a very nice town called Aosta with great views of the Alps and Mont Blanc for lunch, and had good Italian food (although there it was just called lunch), pumpkin filled orange ravioli!

In Switzerland, we found the perfect place for cheese fondue in Geneva, in the heart of the city. It was a real threat for me (Better than La Cuisine Suisse in Bogota ).

We did not really spend that much time in this Brussels, but it was long enough to found a stand of Belgium waffles and try them out, they serve them very hot and coated with some type of syrup. Very tasty!

Comida

La base de nuestra alimentacion en Francia fue pan Frances (Baguettes), quesos y vinos. A los Franceses les encanta sus panes y lo compran fresco cada manana. Incluso en pequenas tiendas se encuentra una gran variedad de quesos y vinos, y se encuentran vinos muy baratos. Tambien probalmos la crepe de chocolate Nutella en las calles de Paris y los croissants.
En italia estuvimos en una ciudad pequena llamada Aosta, con unas vistas espectaculares de los Alpes y el Mont Blanc, alli comimos unos raviolis anaranjados rellenos de ahuyama, una delicia.
En suiza comimos Fondue de queso, estaba espectacular y muy autentico (aun mejor que el de La Cuisine Suisse en Bogota). En bruselas probamos los wafles belgas, servidos calientes.

Churches

We found a lot of spectacular churches along our way. We have this tradition in Colombia (maybe is everywhere) that when you visit a church for the first time you get to make 3 wishes. So I can say that our families were very lucky last week for all the wishes and prayers we made for them over the course of the trip.

Inside Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris: Notre Dame is as I had I had imagined it or seen in so many movies I guess. The gargoyles seemed smaller, but they are very high up. There were to many tourist making it look more like a museum than a church. I was very impressed by the gothic arquitecture and the sculptures on the outside walls. We did not wait in line to get into the towers, it was enough with what we saw inside!

Sacre Coeur, Paris

Sacre Cour is a beautiful church on top of a hill in the Montmartre area of Paris which can be seen from the distance and from there you get a great view of the city, it is a bit of a climb but the neighbourhood is very cute, with lots of narrow and steep roads.

Basilique Notre-Dame, Lyon

Basilique Notre-Dame, Lyon: Even though we climbed the mountain we did not make it inside this beautiful basilique as it was closed. A great building with gorgeous gardens around and a fantastic view of the city, totally worth the effort.

Iglesias

Tuvimos la oportunidad de visitar varias iglesias. Seguimos la tradicion de los 3 deseos por cada iglesia que visitas por primera vez, asi que nuestras familias recibieron muchas oraciones durante esta semana.

Notre Dame, Paris

La cathedral de Notre Dame es como la habia imaginado. Las gorgolas se ven mas pequenas de lo que las pensaba, pero la verdad es que estan muy muy altas. Habian muchos turistas en la iglesia, que hacian que pareciera mas como un museo. Me impresionaron la arquitectura gotica del interior de la iglesia, las esculturas en la fachada principal, la estatua de Juana de Arco, las columnas del exterior de la iglesia y los vitrales.

Sagrado Corazon en Montmartre (Paris)
Una preciosa iglesia blanca en al cima de una montana. Esta ubicada en el barrio Montmartre nombre y desde la iglesia se pueden apreciar vistas maravillosas de la ciudad. Esta en el mismo barrio que el Moulin Rouge y otras varias tiendas de dudosa reputacion.

Basilica de Notre Dame, Lyon

Aunque despues de subir la montana encontramos la iglesia cerrada, esta iglesia me parecio divina. El esfuerzo de la subida estuvo bien recompenzado con la vista.