Brittany & Bordeaux

Hi all

Well here we are in Bordeaux a nice place with tall old buildings, we had a great weekend with the Stoyles in Audierne which is about an hour from Quimper (pronounced Kemper) its a beautiful sea side town with nice beaches and lots of cliff walks to go on. It was nice to have home cooked meals and someone to drink with, they live next door to the pub which I think is always a smart move.....this keyboard is European so the keys are in different spots very frustrating.....
the weekend came to an end and off we go again all loaded up on the train to Bordeaux 6.5 hrs yesterday got us here at about 2.30pm we found the hotel pretty easily with mum only falling over once (good thing she had her pack on it padded the fall) about 5 french men came to her aid and up righted her pretty quickly wish I had the camera out!!!
last night we jumped on the tram into the city centre and had a look around we then decided to do a night city tour on an open top bus, the idea was good, although pretty cold in reality, we forgot to calculate that in, the tour was good when we weren't shivering too badly, a late dinner to warm up then off to bed was a long day yesterday.
Today we are off to the wine museum which includes some tasting and will probably wonder around the city, I hope to burn my photos onto a disc today which should mean I can post some soon
until later Au revoir

French trains and lots of luggage

Friday 26th Sept (I think)

Well today we tackled the train to Quimper to visit friends from our old PNG days but let me start with yesterday as I think that is where I was up too.

After ending on a final count of 11 km walking on Wednesday we awoke early yesterday in an attempt to catch the train up to Varsielle (let me apologise up front for the spelling, those of you in my team should be used to it!!!)
was a nice short train ride up and then we walked up to the grand palace it was amazing but lots of tourists like us... the strangest thing about the palace was that there was a modern art exhibition through the old king and queen chambers a little strange we have some photos and will post when we can, we figured it was much cheaper finding our own way there than going on a tour bus by about $50 so a good thing really
We had a nice lunch there and then hopped on the train back to Paris where we decided to walk up the famous champ ellses (again I know its spelt wrong but cant be bothered checking) we did wonder through the Louis Voitton store and imagined having the money to buy one of the $4000 handbags very nice!!

After a day of walking around again we headed back to the hotel and our last count of km covered we had about10.8km today (hmmm I am starting to think I should stop asking)

Today we navigated the metro with ALL our baggage at peak time to arrive at the main train station to catch the train to Brittany was hilarious the pair of us with our big back packs, little back packs bag of wine and handbags, pretty sure we only took out a few parisions on the way but we made it there on time, jumped on the train and 4.5 hrs later here we are....

The Stoyles live a beautiful sea side village in country France its nice and of course they live next door to the pub!!! my kind of people.

Well thats about it for the moment I have managed to catch a cold and am trying very hard to get rid of it....

For those in my team reading this dont think I have forgotten you have 3 days left of the quarter, MAKE me proud!!!!!

love you all will write again soon

Au revouir

Oi Paris'

Well fellow blog followers we FINALLY have found access to the internet, took a while!!!

After 20 hours of travelling we arrived in beautiful Paris last Sunday and hauled our exhausted selves to the hotel in La Defense, who on arrival advised us they didnt have a record of our booking but the kind sole that was on night duty booked us into a room pending liasing with his manager in the morning!
Morning arrived seems they found our booking and all was ok for us to stay very kind of them I thought!
Monday morning we decided to try an navigate the metro and take ourselves into the city, the walk from our hotel to the main metro line here takes us about 15 minutes not too bad, but for those that know how lazy I am, you would not believe you much walking I am doing!!! Suppose it counteracts the french food and wine we are drinking......

So first try at the trains took us about 1.5 hours to figure out as no one speaks any English FUN, although we did get it in the end and off we are (By the way we are now pros at the train)

First day we travelled into the main area and wondered around until we eventually found the Eiffel Tour we did get side tracked some by a lunch river cruise which was fab but we wont tell you how much we paid!!!

We then went to the Eiffel Tower and got in line to buy our tickets to the top floor (Danny you will be impressed took us less than 15 mins!)
Mum was a little dubious to go right to the top but trouper she is she did it and stayed away from the edge! We have great photos I will post those later when I can.
For the rest of the afternnoon we wondered around and then still full from lunch decided to skip dinner and have an early night.

Tuesday: We decided to take ourselves to the train station that we leave from on Friday to get the rail pass validated and just figure out how long it will take us to get there and how hard it is.
We then went to the tour place to ensure we knew were to go for the Moulon Rouge and wondered around the Opera area which was nice, word to the wise drinks in cafes VERY expensive cost me $8 for a diet coke!!!!!
Tuesday night we went off to the Moulon Rouge which was amazing much more than just girls dancing was a real show with comedy and acrobats was very good, the food was good as well and amazingly enough we met some Australians Surprise surprise..... They pack you in like sardines must have been at least 5000 people in the room for the show and when we left at least that waiting to go into the 11pm show.

Wednesday: Today we went to the louvre and on last count mum informs me we have walked close to 9km today ...OMG my feet and legs are sore!!!!!

It was amazing though but you cant see it all way to much to see, this arvo we went on a bus tour of the city well worth it as we got to see all the spots like Notre Dame, Pantheon Eiffel Tower, Opera House etc etc all in 2 hours was very good and we definetly needed to sit down for a while!!!

We are now off back to the hotel rest as I need a nana nap!!!!

Hopefully we will post again soon probably Friday maybe?? stay tuned