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Travel Log: Springtime in Paris (and London, Bath, Stonehenge, Brussels and more...)
Since I started regularly logging my little adventures, I've been pretty good about doing it shortly after the fact. These last two months...eeehhh, not so much. And I've actually done quite a bit, which is in part my excuse why I haven't posted about it. Well, that and also I'm lazy. Reeeally, reeeealllly lazy. Hey, at least I'm honest, right? ^_-
Due to the number of places, I'm gonna (try to) keep each description short...
In mid-April, before my essays drove me indoors and chained to my computer (and sundry research materials)![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cienna's parents came to visit and me (and at times takadainmate) joined them for some of the touristy endeavors...
One of these was a fantastic Stonehenge and Bath day trip. Which was lovely...except for the whole catching the bus at 7:45 am thing...when I hadn't gotten to sleep until around 5:30 the night...err...morning before. So yay for sightseeing on an hour and a half of sleep! :-p Still great day and we had lovely weather!
I had planned to sleep on the bus ride in between each place, but the passing scenery was pretty enough I got distracted, as I so often do...
Bath, even apart from the Roman baths themselves, which were cool (despite the fact they made all of us miss Japanese onsen...a LOT!) is an interesting city. The uniform building materials/architectural style is unique. Don't think I've ever seen a city quite like it.
And me at the baths (wishing they were still in use today...):
A few days after that day trip, I accompanied the same crowd to St. Paul's Cathedral, in London. I'd seen the outside lots but had never before been inside. Absolutely spectacular, though sadly, no pictures allowed inside. But, after a long, very verrrrrrrry long climb, we did get some shots of the city from atop the dome...
cienna and I triumphant after our long climb...(notice the extra pink cheeks from our exertion :-p)
Then that following weekend there was the monthly Merlin fan group meet-up, with the bonus trip to the London Eye. We all had a blast:
And there were more pretty views of the city:
After this, I entered into essay-induced seclusion while I pounded out 3 papers for a total of 13,000 words.
A few days after triumphantly turning the last one in, my best friend Maria and her fiancé David arrived for a two week visit. One of the few things that David really wanted to do was go to Bletchley Park, the place where the Enigma and other WWII codes were broken. Kinda small, out of the way place, but it was really interesting.
Our tour guide in front of the reassembled Colossus, considered one of the earliest digital electronic computers. The thing was massive...and LOUD!
While they were here, we also did a four day trip to Paris. It was David's first time, and Maria and I had both only been for quick two day whirl-wind tours, so we looked forward to having a bit more time to enjoy ourselves and poke about. And climb stairs. Soooo, so many stairs! And walking...there was also walking. Stairs and walking, that pretty much sums up my second Paris outing! ^_-
Our first day, while David toured inside, Maria and I climbed to the top of Notre Dame, as neither of us had gotten to do so on our last visit. We were met with beautiful, if rather hazy and rainy vistas of the city:
But to get up to that point, there had been a lot of dizzying spiral staircases (some of which, near the top, were waaaay too narrow considering there was traffic on them both up and down. There was one point that she was clinging to a center pillar while I was splayed like a squished bug against a wall to let a group pass us. Good times...:-p) The next day...lets just say our legs were none to happy. Which of course was the day we did the most walking :-p
We started off going from our hotel to Rodin's garden:
Then wandered to Musee D'Orsay, (I may have squeaked "I've been there!" at the most recent DW ^__^) which sadly allowed no pictures. Too bad, the place was amazing. Then, after lunch we walked from there to outside the Louvre.
The crowds (see above) and the fact that Maria and I had both been in before and David didn't really care, decided us against going in.
We then took a brief rest by a fountain in the jardin des tuileries, which kindly provided chairs, for which we ridiculously, pathetically grateful. From there we had views of both the Eiffel Tower and our next goal for the day, the L'arc de Triomphe.
We had talked about taking a bus, but somehow wound up walking the entire length of the Champs de elysee to get to the Arc. Because we're masochists...or even more likely, we were just too tired by that point for any of us to actually figure out where and precisely how one would go about doing so. Ah the joys of being in a foreign country! ^_- And upon completing our long trek we were gifted with...MORE STAIRS. With, again, the reward of beautiful views (with better weather this time, even!)
...By this point, Maria and I (and our feet and legs) strongly debated if it was worthy compensation...
Our third day, we headed to Versailles, where David explored inside while Maria and I, again crowd-avoiding, bopped about the ridiculously expansive gardens. Which were having a Music fountain thing, in which most of the fountains were on and various classic music was piped through out. Beautiful to both eyes and ears. Our feet and legs, on the other hand, started offering up a formal protest...which we for the most part ignored. Hey, it was still only four days and we were intent on making the most of it. (Though lemme tell you, Saturday, the day after we got back, we did FUCK ALL and it was wonderful ^_-)
This fountain was timed to the music and distracted us for a bit...
We also took a boat out on the Grand Canal.
And because David is AWESOME he rowed for us the whole way...
The final day we waited a loooooooong time in line to go up to the top of the Eiffel tower. And because of it, we almost missed (again) the Catacombs. We'd tried going on the first day and had been told that the last entry was in 15 min and the line was long enough we wouldn't make it. This time, we had about 50 min, but the line was longer and we were told the same thing. We decided to chance it, and squeezed in just in the last group! And it was SOO worth it! Simply amazing.
Corridor after corridor lined like this, all skulls and femurs, with the other bones thrown behind and on top:
We ended with a fantastic dinner and boarded the Eurostar back to London, where the rest of their visit was more low-key and failed to produce pics on my part.
Two days after they left,acchikocchi stopped by just for a day and a half on her way between home and Italy, in which time I proceed to pimp Odoru Daisousen to her. Yay for Jdrama! We finished watching the series when she stopped by for just the night before flying back home
And then yesterday, I went to Brussels. I was suppose to be meeting up with Gimpy, whom I've not seen in over three years, but due to plane snafus, she wound up being a day delayed and my Eurostar tickets were non-exchangeable or refundable, so I went anyways.
Despite that rather large disappointment, I still had a fun (if sleep deprived...sensing a theme here? ^_-) time. The weather was gorgeous, and Brussels is a truly beautiful city. The architecture, both new and old, is amazing:
...if...um..unique:
Ahh, World's Fairs, you produced the most crazy, awesome shit, why did we ever stop 'em?
And the chocolate, while reeeally expensive, was delicious. I never actually bought any, but a lot of the places had free samples, of which I very happily err...sampled. A LOT. ^_- I did partake in some Belgium waffles, though. Was the place for it, after all.
HOMG sooo good!
And now off to Barcelona tomorrow. Two new countries in three days, a very good week indeed!
More extensive photo-journals of all these different trips can be found at my picasa account:
Stonehenge and Bath
Saint Paul's
London Eye
Bletchley Park
Paris, take two
Brussels
Due to the number of places, I'm gonna (try to) keep each description short...
In mid-April, before my essays drove me indoors and chained to my computer (and sundry research materials)
cienna's parents came to visit and me (and at times takadainmate) joined them for some of the touristy endeavors...One of these was a fantastic Stonehenge and Bath day trip. Which was lovely...except for the whole catching the bus at 7:45 am thing...when I hadn't gotten to sleep until around 5:30 the night...err...morning before. So yay for sightseeing on an hour and a half of sleep! :-p Still great day and we had lovely weather!
I had planned to sleep on the bus ride in between each place, but the passing scenery was pretty enough I got distracted, as I so often do...
Bath, even apart from the Roman baths themselves, which were cool (despite the fact they made all of us miss Japanese onsen...a LOT!) is an interesting city. The uniform building materials/architectural style is unique. Don't think I've ever seen a city quite like it.
And me at the baths (wishing they were still in use today...):
A few days after that day trip, I accompanied the same crowd to St. Paul's Cathedral, in London. I'd seen the outside lots but had never before been inside. Absolutely spectacular, though sadly, no pictures allowed inside. But, after a long, very verrrrrrrry long climb, we did get some shots of the city from atop the dome...
cienna and I triumphant after our long climb...(notice the extra pink cheeks from our exertion :-p)Then that following weekend there was the monthly Merlin fan group meet-up, with the bonus trip to the London Eye. We all had a blast:
And there were more pretty views of the city:
After this, I entered into essay-induced seclusion while I pounded out 3 papers for a total of 13,000 words.
A few days after triumphantly turning the last one in, my best friend Maria and her fiancé David arrived for a two week visit. One of the few things that David really wanted to do was go to Bletchley Park, the place where the Enigma and other WWII codes were broken. Kinda small, out of the way place, but it was really interesting.
Our tour guide in front of the reassembled Colossus, considered one of the earliest digital electronic computers. The thing was massive...and LOUD!
While they were here, we also did a four day trip to Paris. It was David's first time, and Maria and I had both only been for quick two day whirl-wind tours, so we looked forward to having a bit more time to enjoy ourselves and poke about. And climb stairs. Soooo, so many stairs! And walking...there was also walking. Stairs and walking, that pretty much sums up my second Paris outing! ^_-
Our first day, while David toured inside, Maria and I climbed to the top of Notre Dame, as neither of us had gotten to do so on our last visit. We were met with beautiful, if rather hazy and rainy vistas of the city:
But to get up to that point, there had been a lot of dizzying spiral staircases (some of which, near the top, were waaaay too narrow considering there was traffic on them both up and down. There was one point that she was clinging to a center pillar while I was splayed like a squished bug against a wall to let a group pass us. Good times...:-p) The next day...lets just say our legs were none to happy. Which of course was the day we did the most walking :-p
We started off going from our hotel to Rodin's garden:
Then wandered to Musee D'Orsay, (I may have squeaked "I've been there!" at the most recent DW ^__^) which sadly allowed no pictures. Too bad, the place was amazing. Then, after lunch we walked from there to outside the Louvre.
The crowds (see above) and the fact that Maria and I had both been in before and David didn't really care, decided us against going in.
We then took a brief rest by a fountain in the jardin des tuileries, which kindly provided chairs, for which we ridiculously, pathetically grateful. From there we had views of both the Eiffel Tower and our next goal for the day, the L'arc de Triomphe.
We had talked about taking a bus, but somehow wound up walking the entire length of the Champs de elysee to get to the Arc. Because we're masochists...or even more likely, we were just too tired by that point for any of us to actually figure out where and precisely how one would go about doing so. Ah the joys of being in a foreign country! ^_- And upon completing our long trek we were gifted with...MORE STAIRS. With, again, the reward of beautiful views (with better weather this time, even!)
...By this point, Maria and I (and our feet and legs) strongly debated if it was worthy compensation...
Our third day, we headed to Versailles, where David explored inside while Maria and I, again crowd-avoiding, bopped about the ridiculously expansive gardens. Which were having a Music fountain thing, in which most of the fountains were on and various classic music was piped through out. Beautiful to both eyes and ears. Our feet and legs, on the other hand, started offering up a formal protest...which we for the most part ignored. Hey, it was still only four days and we were intent on making the most of it. (Though lemme tell you, Saturday, the day after we got back, we did FUCK ALL and it was wonderful ^_-)
This fountain was timed to the music and distracted us for a bit...
We also took a boat out on the Grand Canal.
And because David is AWESOME he rowed for us the whole way...
The final day we waited a loooooooong time in line to go up to the top of the Eiffel tower. And because of it, we almost missed (again) the Catacombs. We'd tried going on the first day and had been told that the last entry was in 15 min and the line was long enough we wouldn't make it. This time, we had about 50 min, but the line was longer and we were told the same thing. We decided to chance it, and squeezed in just in the last group! And it was SOO worth it! Simply amazing.
Corridor after corridor lined like this, all skulls and femurs, with the other bones thrown behind and on top:
We ended with a fantastic dinner and boarded the Eurostar back to London, where the rest of their visit was more low-key and failed to produce pics on my part.
Two days after they left,
acchikocchi stopped by just for a day and a half on her way between home and Italy, in which time I proceed to pimp Odoru Daisousen to her. Yay for Jdrama! We finished watching the series when she stopped by for just the night before flying back homeAnd then yesterday, I went to Brussels. I was suppose to be meeting up with Gimpy, whom I've not seen in over three years, but due to plane snafus, she wound up being a day delayed and my Eurostar tickets were non-exchangeable or refundable, so I went anyways.
Despite that rather large disappointment, I still had a fun (if sleep deprived...sensing a theme here? ^_-) time. The weather was gorgeous, and Brussels is a truly beautiful city. The architecture, both new and old, is amazing:
...if...um..unique:
Ahh, World's Fairs, you produced the most crazy, awesome shit, why did we ever stop 'em?
And the chocolate, while reeeally expensive, was delicious. I never actually bought any, but a lot of the places had free samples, of which I very happily err...sampled. A LOT. ^_- I did partake in some Belgium waffles, though. Was the place for it, after all.
HOMG sooo good!
And now off to Barcelona tomorrow. Two new countries in three days, a very good week indeed!
More extensive photo-journals of all these different trips can be found at my picasa account:
Stonehenge and Bath
Saint Paul's
London Eye
Bletchley Park
Paris, take two
Brussels