Preparing to leave...

 Welcome to everyone interested, vaguely interested (or got lost in the web and found this by accident) in my trip to South America.  The trips starts with my leaving NZ on March 17 and I will be back for Easter.  The main features are Iguazu Falls, up the Amazon and then the Salt Flats of Bolivia. Will put a blog up as soon as something interesting happens (beyond the first flight out 😀😀).

Paris

This time around we had better weather in Paris, i.e. it was cool, and better accommodation so we had a much more enjoyable time.

Our Airbnb apartment was in the Bastille sector and very close to the Jewish centre.  One of the streets we walked down each day had VERY alert soldiers patrolling with their short automatic weapons on the ready.  We had lunch one day in a Jewish restaurant we where felt a little out of place (we were they only non jewish people in it) - the food was great.  David commented that he felt a little uncomfortable on the basis of where we were and because the soldiers were on alert.  My view was that we wouldn't know or see any any bombs coming so no point in worrying about it .

Looking down the three flights of stairs from our apartment.

Insignia on the apartment building

The was the walk way that ran around the quadrant of the apartment building.  At the end is a cafe we had our first breakfast in.  In another corner was the apartment that Victor Hugo wrote Les Miserables in.

Our first day was spent getting to know the area.  We found a small art exhibition that was wonderful. Some amazing work that sadly was either too expensive or too hard to get home - perhaps that is a good thing!

Just about to walk from the Louvre to the Arc de Triomphe

One of the coolest sites was these police officers on roller blades!

A good friend suggested we find the Laduree shop that does the best macaroons.  We stumbled across it by chance and bought some.  They were hideously expensive (3 Euros each), but we must say - they were the best!!!

We were told that Paris is on very high security alert - particularly since the "Charlie" bombing which was not too far away from where we stayed.






























Day two was a trip to the Pompidou Centre - a modern art exhibition site.  It is a crazy building that seemed so out of place within the general Paris architecture.

The entrance side of the Pompidou Centre

While the Steve and David went to look at motorbike shops Catherine walked up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe.  David noted that while in one of the bike shops a woman came in, sat on a bike, checked herself out in a mirror and then went and bought it.  It really is all about how you look in Paris!

Stunning views from the top all around Paris - this is looking into the Lourve.

Photo courtesy of Google images

On day three Maria and Steve headed home to NZ.  David and I decided to visit the lovely Cathedral at the highest point in Paris - Sacre Coeur.  However it poured down!!  We managed to buy two umbrellas so we could get back to the apartment reasonably dry.

It was quite lovely inside, but we were not allowed to take photos.

Day four and we headed to the Palace of Versailles.  What an incredible place!  We both agreed that it was a great example of why the French people decided to revolt.  The grounds were lovely and we felt it would be a great place to go for a picnic.  We hired a wee cart to get around as much of the gardens as we could.  We had it for an hour and that only managed to get us around about a quarter of the area.

The gates into the Palace

The room of mirrors.

Just inside the gates and at the rear of the palace.

Room of Mirrors

At the front of the palace.

Full speed was about 5km/hr - MAX!

On the morning before we left for Scotland we headed to Le Deux Magot, a famous cafe as Hemingway and Picasso had hung out there a lot in their day.  

We were so busy looking at how art work is taken out of an apartment that we nearly missed the signage on the truck - go the All Blacks!

In fact one of the very nice things we the interest that the French have in rugby and that they wanted to talk about it with us.  At the Paris Orly airport immigration control the young chap immediately said "ah All Blacks" as soon as he saw we had Kiwi passports.  Luckily he had been to NZ and knew us and the chap next to him hadn't and nearly didn't let Steve in. Clearly Kiwis don't come through that airport that often.














We had a local cafe that we ended up going to every night- either all together or just a couple of us.  The manager was a lovely man who would put the TV on the right channel so we could watch a game.  He also organised a taxi to take us to the airport on the last day.

They have been moving the locks off the bridges but have managed to put them alongside the walkways instead.

Artwork capturing the fact that the locks used to be on the bridges.

We fell in love with the facade that had been added to this building.

A mini market across from the Louvre.

This is a shopping centre under the Louvre buildings.  We nearly didn't find it.  These pyramids were part of the Da Vinci Code movie.

So it was goodbye Paris, hello Edinburgh .....

Marrakech

Our trip to Marrakech started at 9:30 with a 4 hour drive to Milano airport and then a 5:40pm flight arriving late in the evening.  Just getting through the passport control was a mission in tolerance of queues!  We had all been a bit hungry on the plan so scoffed up large.  However, on arriving at the lovely Riad (like a guest house but usually developed out of a large wealthy family home) we were greeted with a full meal put on for us.  We felt we couldn’t be rude and not eat it!  The food was a delicious mix of local fare including beautifully cooked lamb in a tagine (of course!).

We woke on our first morning to hear that another of Steve’s best friends had died during the night of cancer.  Steve has had a particularly rough time of it on this trip –to put it mildly!  Breakfast was an interesting mix of crepes (catering to the French influence), yoghurt, pancakes and roti’s with jams and honey and a few shared tears.

Catherine haggling over price

We headed for the Souk (local markets) via the inevitable round of coffees for the troops.  A local guided us into the bowels of the Souk hijacked us.  It was incredible with stalls of leather goods, trinkets, carpets, lamps, silks and spices.  The streets were specifically designed so that raiders would get lost.  The theory worked for us tourists too.  We probably walked an extra hour longer than we needed to as we were completely lost.  We stopped and had a coffee while we tried to work out where we were.  French is the second language here behind Berber and Arabic (Berber being the language of the locals before the Arabs arrived).  Thankfully David managed to interpret Gare Routiere on the map as a bus station we had just walked past.  Having got our bearings we headed back to the Riad for a much-earned rest and beer.

The spice markets were amazing.

One of the many amazing doors

A typical walk way / street

Market for the locals i.e. there weren't many (if any) tourists here

Street parking - loved the poor donkey tied up too.

Another of the walkway/streets

Anyone want a Tagine???

Motorbike workshop

Another spice shop

Wednesday we headed for the Ourika Valley at the foot of the Atlas Mountains.  We stayed for one night at a lovely placed called Kasbah Bab Ourika only 45 minutes from the crazy hubbub of the Medina (the is the name of the city of Marrakech inside the fortress wall).  

View of the Atlas mountains from our room

Our room had flowers on EVERYTHING :-)  It was lovely.

The gardens

Dinner in the evening

Tea and coffee on our arrival

This lady was lovely.  She laughed when Catherine tried to describe to her that she felt tired like the donkey looked with its load on its back.

We had a lovely peaceful and restful time here.  We meet the two men who built the place, one French and the other English who’s name was Steven Skinner.  David got talking to him and then met his father James who at 82 is still as sharp as a tack and working on papers on the global creation of wealth and why it should be driven by public policy rather than private.  It was almost with some reluctance that we departed on Thursday at lunch time to head back to our nice Riad. 

Last dinner from the Tagine

On our last day in Marrakech was spend with a walk into the main square in the morning, a lazy afternoon catching up on rest and then an early dinner out at the same main square were we watch the area just come alive with gambling boards, snake charmers (seriously!), men with monkeys (and you have to pay for photos),  and many amazing food stalls.  The best was the freshly squeezed orange juice.

This market seriously comes alive at dusk.  The smoke is from the cooking in the food stalls our of shot to the right,

A typical food stall - this time with snails......

The main mosque that is the centre of town