Monthly Archives: May 2007

The Kingswood Tug Of War

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The ususal tug of war against our next village neighbours never took place.  Sunday the area was prepared.  Nettles were strimmed down, a foot bridge was built over the border-marking brook, and a dam built of corregated iron was placed against the road bridge.  All this was done in the cold, wet rain.  Hopefully the day of the event would be better.

Monday moring, George rang, wondering whether we should cancel the event.  It was still raining, and had been all night.  So we decided it should be cancelled.  Drove down to the border to dismantle the bridge and dam.  On arrival was a little worried our dam building might have been rather too effective, the water was flooding the surrounding fields and was higher than the bridge arch.  Luckily this was not the case; the whole of the river on the other side of bridge was also above the fields.  There was nothing we could do to retrieve the dam on the bridge until the water died down.

 It rained the rest of the day.

Final day in Paris and back home

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Today we visited the Pompidou centre, after a major delay in departure from hotel due to my not being able to find my passport, but finally it appeared in a highly original place.  The Pompidou centre is a building with the services on the outside, it is a truly dreadful, already showing its age with grimy pipes and services.  Each service pipe is colour coded; Green for water, Blue for Air, Yellow for electricity and Red for lifts.

The centre houses a library, which opens at 12.00 a.m and had students queuing an hour beforehand.  As well as the library, there is a restaurant on the sixth floor, with a good view of Paris and tables on the roof each decorated with a rose.  Alas the restaurant priced itself out of our reach, although not quite as expensive as the Jules Verne restaurant on the Eiffel tower.

The building also houses modern art, three floors of it.  Starting on the sixth floor were a couple of exhibitions.   We spent rather too long on Samuel Beckett and the Airs De Paris.  Moving on then to the fourth floor of modern art, the type of art which is represented by the pile of bricks on the Tate Modern.  Again spent far too long in that area.

Back on the fifth floor was the type of modern art which did have some originality and graphical excellence.  Here there were pictures by Picasso, Leger, Jean Dubuffet, Matisse and Salvidor Dali.

Getting late, we went and ate in a nearby café, both of us opting for the Spaghetti Bolognese, far better and far cheaper than the night before.

Off to see La Defense du Temps, a special  clock in the Clock Quarter; disappointingly it was being worked on and hence not showing the correct time.

Back to the hotel to pick up the bags, then through the Metro in the rush hour and onto the RER to the airport.  Terminal 3 at Charles de Gaulle airport is not nice having very few amenities, no good food, no reasonable bars, and an extremely bad announcement system which is impossible to understand with all the echoes.

Sunday a very wet day in Paris

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Sunday was very wet.  It appeared to rain all day, cold grey sky which never broke all day.  First we met a walking group over the underpass under the Pont d’Alma where Diana had been killed 10 years previously.  There were flowers and tributes to her placed on the Flame of Liberty monument (sited there in 1987).  The tour we were joining was a visit to the sewers of Paris.  Here we were taken down underground to see a main sewer flowing to a point where it is taken under the Seine to the Northern bank.  Interesting aspects where that rain water and waste water are all passed down the same sewers.  The Parisians also run their fresh water pipes through the sewers, telecommunications and also a very old pre-telephone pneumatic communication system.  This allowed you to send paper messages across the city very much like the old department stores.  This system is no longer used. The pipe under the Seine is cleaned by passing large wooden spheres through the sewer The sphere is a little smaller than the sewer, and causes the water flow fast and flush the grit and sludge out.

 Paris sewer

After the sewers it was lunch and then up the Eiffel Tower.  I walked up to the 2nd floor, (700 steps), while Rosemary took the lift (and of course got there after me).  I then took the lift all the way to the top.  You were not allowed to walk to the top.  The lift journey was a little scary, I was right against the door facing out of the tower.  The door was glass.  It made one feel a little insecure.  On top the feeling of height rather disappeared.  Views were not great because of the rain.

Eiffel Tower

Back down again we walked to the Hotel des Invalides, we were waylaid on the way by a cup of tea. 5.5 euros for a tea bag and some hot water; world shortage of milk.  At the Hotel des Invalides took some pictures in the rain.

Hotel Des Invalides

Supper was in an restaurant, again not value for money and not that good.

Paris on Saturday

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We started the day a little later than normal after an excellent breakfast in the Radisson. 

Out on the metro, changed onto the line which takes us into the Latin zone.  First stop was a visit on the Pantheon.  This is where the great people of France are entombed.  We visited the tombs of Voltaire, the Curies and Victor Hugo and a few other famous authors.  At 11.00 we took the tour on to the roof.  This allowed us to take pictures from a height inside the building, and to take pictures of Paris from just below the dome of the Pantheon. 

 The Pantheon Paris

Next it was of to see the Notre Dame cathedral, stopping on the way for a coffee.  In front of the cathedral was a Fête du Pain; just what we needed.  We bought an Artisan Pain to go with the remains of yesterday’s Camembert. Trekked around the inside of the Notre Dame, looking at the Rose windows.

The Notre Dame Paris

Orsay was next on the agenda.  This building is an old railway station converted into an art gallery. Some very fine clocks adorn it. The building is definitely worth looking at, as are some of the pictures.  Large collections of Monet, Manet, Mondrian.  As usual in a Paris museum you were allowed to take photographs.

 picture.jpg

The evening was spent visiting the erotic museum.  This contained examples of erotica from many ancient cultures.  Afterwards we had a rather poor meal at a Creole restaurant nearby.

 

The Louvre and La Defense

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Today the sun shone on us, at least to start with.  Visited the Louvre first.  Here we visited the rooms of Napoleon the third, objects d’art, sculpture and various modern sculpture. 

 The Louvre

We felt we had to see the Mona Lisa, but it was probably the low point of the trip.  Pictures will appear on the website in due course.

Walked along Champs Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe, stopping on the way for a coffee. (Off the Champs Elysee where we could afford one.)

Caught the metro to La Defense to see the the huge office block built as an arch.  This area is the business district with many new office buildings.  It is a continuation of the Champs Elysee, a whole straight road from the Louvre, the Obelisque, Arc de Triomphe and La Defense.  (Except the latter is slightly slewed – which must be intentional, but don’t know why.)

 La Defanse

Here we ate lunch, some camembert and bread, on the steps of La Defense.  We walked back from the Arch, through the business district, over the Seine and caught the Metro to the hotel from Pont de Neuilly.  Stopping only for a pint of lager at an Irish pub. Almost a reasonable price of 4 Euros from the seemingly bilingual barman.

Managed to catch Rosemary in the doors of the metro.  I was holding them open for her, she was not quite quick enough and they slammed shut on her.  Not quite the same as British underground doors.  These French ones really slam shut hard (or so I am told).

Now it was on home to the hotel, and back out for supper at a local restaurant where we ate a couple of courses.