A Walk around L'Ile Saint Louis

We walked down to look at Notre Dame, I don't know how many times we've done this now but its always nice to see the sparrows being fed and the see Charlemagne on horseback - a great piece of sculpture it is to the right of the cathderal. I've always felt the rear of Notre Dame is the most restful - the tourists don't seem to admire the flying buttresses and its peacefulness. I guess if they did, it wouldn't be so peaceful.

It's the way we make our way to I'lle Saint Louis, the other island in the Seine. It was named after King Louis IX. Walking the streets of the island is a delight, not to be taken too quickly. Take a stop for an espresso in the mid morning, find a place to lunch with a glass of wine and then wander around to find the magic Ice Cream shop before walking off home.

We crossed the pont from I'lle de la Cite to I'Ile Saint Louis for a relaxing day's walk  of discovery.

But before leaving I'Ile de la Cite, we took in the more peaceful rear view of Notre Dame. 

And it seemed that we were not the only ones with a quiet walk.
Some as couples!

Some on their way - somewhere!

And others maybe shopping or on their way back to work?

No matter where you are in Paris, there's always a Deux Cheveau lurking in the streets.

Although we spent on coffee, lunch and Ice Cream, all our other shopping was only window shopping.

And there were plenty of windows to view,

It was a grand day - not alot of excitement, just mingling mainly I presume with locals as I don't think that late  March is a high tourist time in Paris. We find those shoulder seasons of spring and autumn to be the most rewarding. People have asked me if I have been to France or Paris for the Tour de France and I say NO!
I'd rather watch Le Tour at home back in Australia when I can see it in full, and view the wonderful coverage of the countryside from the helicopter cameras. What about those close up footages from the motorbike as the competitors grimace their way up the steepest alps of France.

No - We'll stay home in July when France is at its hottest.

Melbourne Weekend

Saturday Night - Sue decided that because I would be missing all of Sunday, we would enjoy a nice meal, just the two of us. A special occasion - no,  but a special wine. It was a Brunello from Montalcino, a Tuscan wine from an area of Italy we stayed at in 2006. Brunello is one Tuscany's premium wines and here in Australia they come at a premium price hence the reason for it to be complemented with a special dinner.

We started out with a twice cooked goats cheese and leek souffle. One each of course.
There is an interesting food blog called Not Quite Nigella and the recipe was from there. Overcooked the sauce, but it still tasted good. Oh, did I say overcooked? Surely I must have meant caramelized. Ha ha. Hides a multitude of sins, that one!

I had two, note 2...not 3 or 4 or heaven help me 5, special pieces of steak in the freezer. They were pieces of fillet from grass fed Angus cattle. Cooked to medium rare, they were melt in the mouth. The obligatory duck fat potatoes, garlicky spinach underneath and a cheats red wine sauce. Noice.

The Brunello from Montalcino: Note the print on the wall.
It's of a little village in Tuscany. We stayed in Monticchiello which is in the middle between Montalcino and Montepulciano. 

Sunday at Buninyong.
Buninyong has been the venue of the Australian Cycling Road Racing Championships and I decided this year to join friends to watch the race. Before the race, we enthusiasts were entered for a 100 km "Grand Fondo" ride which took in some of the actual course.
The winner of the Championship gets to wear the green and gold National jersey for the next 12 months and so the jersey will be seen on the shoulders of Luke Durbridge, a 21 year old who rides for the Australian International team of Orica Greenedge.

Buninyong is only a small town of 3000 plus people and is about 10 kms from the city of Ballarat. Although a pastoral settlement from the late 1830s, gold was first discovered in the immediate area in 1850 which started the great gold rush in Victoria. How did it get its name - Wikipedia tells us;

The name originates from an Aboriginal word also recorded as 'Buninyouang', said to mean 'man lying on his back with his knees raised', which is in reference to the shape of Mount Buninyong. European settlers named it Bunnenyong and the name later simplified to its current form.

After we arrived back from our 100 kms ride to Buninyong the race had already started but we decided on lunch at the local hotel of which there is only one these days - back in the gold rush days it is said the were over forty hotels and grog shanties. It must have been a very wild town back in those days. The town has a lot of charm with some very historic architecture and some grand homes hidden behind the hedges and gates that we walked past. The town was all decked out for this annual occasion. Cafes and shops were open for business with the town's population swelling to double.

Buninyong put on its best party dress for the occasion.

Its very much a garden city and although we didn't see it, Buninyong is said to have one of the best presented Botanic gardens in the state.

The only hotel left in Buninyong - during the Gold Rush there were over 40.

This house had a distinct French garden atmosphere about it.

With close to 200 riders, the race was won by a lone breakaway.
21 year old Luke Durbridge will wear the national jersey in European competition  for the next 12 months.

Don't weekends go quickly when there's lots to do? Sometimes those "nothing to do this weekends" are restful and stress relieving and others can be really exciting because they are full of things to do and you go back to work for a rest.
This Melbourne Weekend had elements of both and thats a very good balance. Which was your weekend?

FUNKY FRIDAY

P.L. Travers

Last weekend took me to Maryborough Queensland to visit the Scouts Australian Jamboree. Our company was a supplier of the merchandise and we accepted their invitation to view this great event of 12,000 Scouts participating in all sorts of events and living in tenets for two weeks.

The town of Maryborough has a population of 27,000 and in the mid 1800s was a river port. The area grows cane, pineapples and mangoes. It's a compact town and retains many of its original features including some very well restored "Queenslander" houses which sit on stilt like stumps allowing the air movement under the house.

Maryborough was also the birthplace of writer Helen Lyndon Goff or P.L. Travers. An actress and Journalist who wrote Mary Poppins.

No matter where you go with your camera or even your iPhone on this occasion, you always stumble on some points of interest - Maryborough had many and despite only being there for two full days, we were able to enjoy two good dinners, the Jamboree and met some great people within our business/pleasure trip.

A typical Queenslander house albeit restored.

This and the other one sat either side of the 1871 General Store below.

Although not visible in this photo of the store, it had these original  painted glass windows.

I'm told by the locals that this was an old mill in its better days.

The photos you see here show you some typical Queensland architecture and lastly a little bit of whimsy suiting a FUNKY FRIDAY theme.

Look closely at the sign hung under the eaves of this ramshackle bungalow.

This weekend takes me out of Melbourne to the Gold Rush town of Ballarat and nearby village of Buninyong. I apologise in advance as it is cycling related. We get to ride a 100 kms course prior to the Australian Elite Road Cycling Championships. Many of the International Aussies will be vying for a win and the opportunity to wear the National colours in the coming European cycling arena.

Paris for Two Weeks

Wednesdays in France

is back today

After a bit of a Christmas and New Year break, the usual posts are returning with Wednesdays in France, Funky Friday and Melbourne Weekends. It will be interesting ti see what 2013 brings us all in Blogger World. I've just returned from a few days in Maryborough, Queensland with the Australian Scout Jamboree - a great event with close to 12,000 participants.

We arrived back at Paris by TGV from Tours after our week in the Loire with friends. The apartment was on Rue Marie Stuart off rue Montorgueil. Sue picked the apartment in the 2nd due to it being a bit of a foodie area with lots of produce shops and a weekly market, but it wasn't always so.

Rue Marie Stuart was in fact named after Mary Queen of Scots however the streets in the area all had lurid titles of which is explained below;

From Wikipedia:
Louis IX in 1256 designated nine streets in which prostitution would be allowed in Paris, three of them being in the sarcastically named Beaubourg quartier (Beautiful Neighbourhood)^[8] (Rue de la Huchette, Rue Froimon, Rue du Renard-Saint-Merri, Rue Taille pain, Rue Brisemiches, Rue Champ-Fleury, Rue Trace-putain, Rue Gratte-cul, and the Rue Tire-Putain) (see below)^[9][10]

Today this area corresponds to the 1st–4th arrondissements clustered on the Rive Droite (right bank) of the Seine (see map). These streets, associated with prostitution, had very evocative if indelicate names including the Rue du Poil-au-con (or hair of the con, from the Latin cunnus meaning female genitalia, hence Street of the Pubic Hair, or Poil du pubis), later altered to the Rue du Pélican, in the 1st arrondissement, near the first Porte Saint-Honoré,^[11] and the Rue Tire-Vit (Pull-Cock, i.e. penis, later the Rue Tire-Boudin, Pull-Sausage) now Rue Marie-Stuart, in the 2nd arrondissement, near the first Porte Saint-Denis. It is said that Tire-Boudin was a euphemism invented for Mary Queen of Scots when she asked after its name, and the street is now named after her.^[12] The nearby Rue Gratte-Cul (Scratch-bottom) is now the Rue Dussoubs, and the Rue Pute-y-Musse (Whore can hide there) the Rue du Petit-Musc by corruption. The "rue Trousse-Nonnain" (fuck nun), later became Trace-Putain, Tasse-Nonnain, and Transnonain; then in 1851 it was amalgamated into the Rue Beaubourg.^[13] The Rue Baille-Hoë (Give Joy) is now Rue Taillepain in the 4th arondissement near the Porte Saint-Merri.^[14]

On our initial arrival at the apartment, we deposited our bags and decided to explore the area. Unknown to us at the time, we arrived on the afternoon of the street market which took in the end of Rue Montorgueil near Saint Eustache church and wound it self back up Rue Montmartre. As we walked down Rue Montorgueil, we passed La Maison Stohrer, the oldest continual bakery in Paris which has operated since 1730. Further down was the restaurant, L'Escargot where we ate on our last night in Paris - the restaurant is said to have fittings from Sarah Bernhardt's apartment.

I'm not quite sure if Sue was surreptitiously leading me down the general direct or did we just stumble upon a famous foodie utensil shop. E. Dehillerin was on rue Coquilliere and Sue dragged me in to see the wares sold by this still family owned business from 1820. She was in heaven.

What do these two have in common - hairstyle?

Since 1730

Chocolate just around the corner - a real temptation.

L' Escargot, where we decided would be our last meal in Paris before returning home to Melbourne on this trip.

To Sue's delight, we stumbled apon E. Dehillerin, a shop for any obsessive  Foodie.

She's happy

The apartment had quite a nice kitchen and Sue not wanting to waste a minute decided she was going to cook our first meal in Paris.

One of the better kitchen's in Sue's opinion

A comfotable living area.

View from the apartment window looking down to rue Marie Stuart.

The next two weeks were about blending within the fabric of Paris, enjoying the food, riding my bike with my two cycling friends and taking in the sights. Hope you can join us.

FOOTNOTE:
Wednesdays in France to date has taken in our very first 2006 trip, then 2008, 2009 and now 2010. Last year, May 2012 was Sue's 60th birthday trip and it looks like we'll run out of "Wednesdays in France" before our planned trip back to France in 2014. If the plan eventuates, we have thoughts of an extended time in 2014 of maybe two or three months living there. We'll see.

New Year's Eve 2012

New Year's Eve 2012 saw us start celebrations early - about 5.00 PM on the outdoor decking. Celebrations might be to much of a description, although there was a bottle of bubbly associated with the close of 2012. I can't say we celebrated the birth of 2013 as we were in bed before the midnight hour.

It wasn't that we didn't have any where to go to celebrate the the beginning of the new year - we're not big on all that hoo-haa thing at the strike of 12.

So! We decided on a quiet time at home, drinking Champagne on the deck and reading our Kindle and Mini iPad. Later we enjoyed a nice meal and a bottle of Vintage Shiraz while watching the first three episodes of Downton Abbey on DVD.

Can I hear you saying - "Boy, that's a hard one to beat - those Simsies sure know how to party".

Hope your New Year's Celebrations were as exciting as ours!