Mulholland Wanderings

Toulouse - Carcassonne

2007-04-29T01:37:00.000+10:00

We only spent a couple of days here but it's technically not Provence which will be the next post so it's going up on its own.

Toulouse was really just a point of entry to the south coast so we only stayed one night. We found a deli while wandering around the city and bought the makings of a picnic which we had down by the river.

Carcassonne was our first stop, recommended by several people, and it was well worth heading a little off our path for. The main attraction is the ancient city - a narrow maze of streets and alleyways contained within formidable 12th-century walls.

Neil with the ancient city behind him

The region is the home of the Cathars and we visited a couple of museums covering the history of the people and the inquisitors who chased them down.

From Carcassonne we headed east to Arles and then Aix-en-Provence. Next post!

Out and About

2007-04-15T19:23:00.000+10:00

Having decided not to go away for the Easter weekend we took advantage of the beautiful weather to explore a bit locally. We spent quite a bit of time down in the park (photos to come) and on Sunday went to the Tower Of London.

Inside the Tower grounds

Originally built as a city residence for the Royal Family it was later expanded and fortified by different kings over several centuries. It houses the Crown Jewels which we had to queue quite a while for, and a very comprehensive armouries collection.

The Tower seen from the Ferry

After the Tower we took a ferry along the river to Westminster and then walked home. Yes, walked. Please note the distance on the map below! Although there's no scale so that's not much use - I would guess it was around 4-5km.

Houses of Parliament - Westminster

Where we live in Bayswater is kind of the equivalent to East Melbourne in demographic, price and distance from the city. We can walk in and occasionally do for Sunday lunch, but more often take a tube or a bus if it's evening or we're heading for the other side of the city. Bayswater is a very touristy area, advantages of that are that the shops are always open and there's always people out on the streets no matter what time of evening - makes it a bit safer for walking around at night.

Tower Bridge from the Tower of London Wall

Neil travels into the city for work, right near the Tower of London, it takes him about 20min plus 25min walking. I get a tube direct from Bayswater station to East Putney, 20mins with a 10min walk at each end. We generally go everywhere by tube, buses are much harder to work out and usually slower. The most annoying thing about the tube is that there's no mobile cover anywhere underground so it can be tricky if you're trying to meet up with people. It is somewhat unreliable on weekends but we are lucky in that we have a choice of five different lines within walking distance so you can always work out a route even if some are closed.

Where we went

Well, I've mostly just been rabbiting on today but I know there's some readers who like to know the little details.

Ciao :-)

New York, New York!

2007-03-29T03:23:00.000+10:00

And what a fabulous time we had. It was a bit of a last-minute decision (booked through last-minute even) when we were deciding on somewhere to go for Neil's birthday, but it turned out to be awesome.

My first impression was not so great - there was a lot of dirty snow around and there were few pretty buildings, just construction sites and scaffolding everywhere. New York grew on me however and I discovered there can be more to a city than 500 year-old buildings (like great yarn shops ;-) sorry, that slipped in accidentally)

Things New York does well:
- Steak. mmmmmmmm. We had one big 'splash out' meal and managed to spend over $300. Not so bad when converted back to pounds though.
- Street names. It may sound boring to number everything, but trust me it makes a big difference if you're a visitor. Not only do you know where you are and where you're going but even addresses make more sense as usually the cross street is given (there were, however, no signs in Central Park and we spent 20mins looking for Strawberry Fields.)
- Service. After becoming accustomed to the mediocre what-they-call service in London it was refreshing to have people actually trying to do a good job for you.
- Shopping. Was awesome - from the Louis Vuitton bags at Bloomingdales right down to $2 a pair socks at Century 21. We came home considerably heavier of suitcase and lighter of pocket.
- Clean air. No smoking in any clubs, bars or restaurants. Can't wait for it to come in here.

Things I wasn't that fussed about:
- The food. If you're not spending a week's salary on the meal then the food is kind of meh. I had a 'salad' which consisted mostly of dressing and cheese - the ingredients were good quality but just very rich. It was hard to get anything healthy. We found great beer-battered fish (and the cricket) at an Australian bar though :-D
- Traffic. Scary!
- Queues. Seemed like every tourist in NY was trying to get up the Empire State Building at the same time as us. Airport security meant it took us 2 hours to get through customs on arrival at JFK compared to about 20mins back at Heathrow. Security on the Statue of Liberty was stricter than at the airport! At times I wished very much I'd had my knitting ;-)

We did lots more New Yorky things, including visiting Brooklyn Bridge, a Broadway show - Stomp, comedy on Broadway, Ground Zero, Museum of Natural History, Wall Street, yellow cabs and cheescake. I forgot to have a bagel.

See all the photos, with descriptions, in the flickr gallery in the sidebar.

Bath

2007-01-20T05:39:00.000+11:00

Last week I didn't get work on Monday so I trotted down to Bath to visit Julie, who was staying there for a while. Even though it poured rain all day (of course) we still managed to get around and see quite a lot in a few hours.

We started with a good long catch-up over Bath Buns at the Sally Lunn bakery. Apparantly the famous recipe is now handed on as part of the property deeds for the business.

We wandered around the streets for quite a while. Most of Bath is heritage listed - hundreds of buildings - and it is just beautiful. I spotted a lot of streets I recognised from books, Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen in particular set a lot of their writing here.

The Upper Assembly Rooms are still preserved for visitors and house the Museum of Costume. Once again, it was strange to see in real life the kind of gowns I have seen described many times in period novels. We also visited the Jane Austen centre and had tea in the cafe there, but were too late to tour the musem.

The centre of Bath is dominated by the Abbey which towers over everything around it. It is equally stunning inside and absolutely crammed with memorial stones and, presumably, dead bones! The Roman Baths and the Pump Room are right next door but I left those for when I go back for a longer visit with Neil - we just did the girly stuff :-)

White Cliffs Country

2007-01-08T05:13:00.000+11:00

It was our anniversary on Friday - 4 years - and we booked ourselves a retreat weekend in White Cliffs Country, Dover.

Sadly, when I pulled the camera out of the bag I discovered the batteries were flat so no pretty pictures except what I pinched from other websites.

We stayed at Wallet's Court Spa Hotel. Not far from Dover and about a two-hour drive from London (train connections weren't great and we thought we might want a car for day-tripping) It is a fabulous 17th century farmhouse - all uneven floors and low doorways.

Our stay included dinner in the (very posh) restaurant. We sampled local game; I had highly authentic pheasant complete with buckshot. Neil had steak and declared it the only decent steak he's eaten in Britain so far. This all came on top of high tea in the lounge which had included salmon and cucumber sandwiches, cake and scones with cream. Breakfast was also included in our package but we, like Leon*, turned up our noses at the black pudding.

We followed hotel directions to a local walk taking us along the cliffs from the little village we stayed in to another little seaside village. The very pleasant, rambling downhill walk took about an hour and we failed to spot any indications of the vicious head-winds and steep climbs we would encounter on our return. We battled bravely on however (not like we had a choice) and made it back to the car. Great views of the famous white cliffs and the channel abounded. Also had a laugh at the locals attempting to play golf into the driving wind.

We had planned to visit Dover Castle, but after a leisurely lunch in the village we turned up to discover it closes at four during winter, not five as we'd been told, so we left it for another time.

We will definitely return to Dover, it was our first view of the English countryside and was lovely even in winter. We would like to do some more walking and want to have enough time to do justice to the castle.

NB: Driving around the city tonight (we thought we'd come home via Putney so I could pick up something from work- famous last words) has cemented my belief that we will NEVER own a car in London.

Ciao, Diane

* See Georgette Heyer's These Old Shades

Home of Hercule Poirot

2006-12-17T21:25:00.000+11:00

"I am not French, I am Belgian" AC managed to work into every one of her books. Old HP was very particular about not being taken for a frenchman, a bit like New Zillanders not liking to be called Aussies :-D I have to admit though - the culture was very different to Parisian - there were similarities, but Belgium definitely has an individual character in its own right.

Brussels is the home of chocolate, fine beer, mussels, waffles and antiques. All of which we managed to squeeze into our first half-day in the country ;-) We arrived late Friday night on Eurostar and spent Saturday exploring the city.

A collector would need a week - there are countless antique shops in Brussels and a fabulous daily flea-market - but it's not really our thing so we were happy just wandering past the shops and ducking into the occasional Biscuiterie.

We chose to go in December mainly for the Christmas markets. After much wandering about we did manage to find them but I was a little disappointed. They were not as good as I remembered them being in Germany, but that's perhaps just my faulty, nostalgic memory. We did buy a few things but found that a lot of the stalls had the same things we'd already seen elsewhere. Hot wine was FAR cheaper than they're flogging it for here in London though so we relieved the vendors of some!

On Sunday we took a day trip to Bruges - in the Flemish north. After becoming complacent about everything being dual language (French and Dutch) in Brussels it was a bit of a shock to find everything written only in Dutch. Luckily most people spoke English and I found that I could figure out menus etc based on my knowledge of German.

Bruges is a lovely medieval canal town and we wandered around for ages just looking at the beautiful buildings and testing the quality of the local chocolate. So far, we had been very lucky in the weather as you can see from the photos. It was cold (about 7-8) but not windy and very pleasant walking around.

On Monday we took a trip down to Waterloo which is now a suburb of Brussels, about 30mins by train. The weather was foul but we braved the rain and wind and climbed the Butte de Lion - a monument to the Prince of Orange built on the battlefield. The area was almost deserted but there were some interesting displays and a wax museum with very informative voice-over. In Waterloo itself we found the old inn which Wellington stayed in the night before the battle - it has been converted to a museum and has great displays, and once again very informative audio commentary.

Three days was enough for Belgium for us, there wasn't a great deal more that we would have done if we'd had more time. Probably just eat far too many waffles :-) It's a perfect weekend destination though and we had a great time.

Nice Weather We're Having

2006-12-08T09:43:00.000+11:00

It's the fashion in Britain to talk about the weather, and today London's grey skies were international news as freak storms lashed suburban areas. Locals and tourists alike dashed for cover as thunderstorms and hail swept across the city, driven by strong winds.

Hehe, I should be a news reporter :-)

Here's some pics, culled from a website:

We had some pretty cool hail storms in Putney, the window-cleaners were working at the shop just as it was coming over. The poor guys had to work in all the thunder and lightning hail :-D

***

We're off to Brussels tomorrow so will have a juicy update for you soon, full of beer and mussels ;-)

Ciao, Diane

Cake in Brighton

2006-11-19T21:19:00.000+11:00

Yesterday Angel Yarns had an open day with cake (mmmm really good cake) so Neil braved the knitterly conversation and came down with me. There were three underground lines closed in London and a derailment at Brighton so our journey both ways was a bit traumatic but we had a good day. After a journey of about 1 1/2 hours we arrived in Portslade and were picked up by the Angel Yarns taxi (Klyve) and I spent an hour or so playing with yarns and chatting to friends while Neil ate cake :-D

Then we took the bus to Brighton proper and wandered around (in the rain of course) Check out this sky!

It wasn't quite as dark as the photo suggests as you can see from this next one of Neil in front of the famous Brighton Pier.

We'll probably go back some time in better weather, although given the crowds on a cold, rainy afternoon in autumn, I hate to think what it would be like in summer!

Ciao :-)

The City of Light

2006-11-14T01:30:00.000+11:00

Paris was truly fantastic. We have been there before, and I remember that I loved it, but I still was unprepared for the awesome-ness of the experience.

The first thing we saw when we arrived was the Eiffel Tower. A pink one. And a green one, a gold one, silver, glow-in-the-dark, stuffed, painted to look like cows and giraffes, etched on keyrings and earrings, on postcards, books, hats, bags, aprons, fridge magnets and undies. The only gift shop which didn't sell miniature Eiffel Towers was inside Sacre Coeur. However, when we finally got around to wandering in that direction we were once again blown away by the sheer size and beauty of this famous web of metal. We didn't climb it this time but probably will make the effort next time we return.

We spent a lot of our time just wandering around and exploring the different areas of Paris. We spent some time in the Quartier Latin, south of the river where the Palais de Luxembourg and its surrounding park are situated. This area has lots of little streets with restaurants and interesting shops. North of the river in Les Halles - Tuillieres we found all the exclusive shops. Gucci, Armani, Cartier, etc. We kept a sharp lookout for celebrities but didn't see any.

Our two favourite places - areas I know I will return to again and again, were Le Marais, and Montmartre. Le Marais is just north east of the Ile de la Cite, not far from the centre of town. There we found the Chocolaterie (and went a bit nuts!) and lots of other quaint little shops. We spent some time resting our feet in a great little bar tucked away in one of the Marais back streets.

Montmartre is home to the Cathedral Sacre Coeur and was right near our hotel. It is incredibly steep and windy with tiny streets opening into fantastic little squares and courtyards. It is a very arty area and we spent some time on Sunday wandering around watching the artists at work in the main square. The quality varied but some (to our uneducated eyes) seemed excellent and there were several pieces we would like to have bought.

Saturday was Remembrance Day and celebrated in Paris with great pomp and ceremony. We happened to be near the Arc de Triomphe in the morning and there were long official ceremonies followed by a parade of soldiers down the Champs Elysees, preceded by the president and his motorcycle escort.

We found the 'normal' shopping on Champs Elysees, all the same shops as in London and I bought myself a new coat - it was a brisk 10 degrees on Friday and it's getting worse than that in London! None of my Australian winter clothes come close to being enough. I much prefer the boutique style parisian shops but it can take a while to find what you're looking for.

On Sunday afternoon we made our only museum visit for the trip - Musee d'Orsay. It's a much more manageable exhibition than the Louvre and has an impressive collection of French artists. We will return for more museums in the future but we find you really need to dedicate a lot of time and it's hard to do it justice in a weekend.

There were a lot of things on the list that didn't get done, including trekking up the four-hundred-and-something steps of Notre Dame Cathedral but we'll be back soon we hope and can finish up all our plans.

Settling In

2006-11-10T08:09:00.000+11:00

It seems like only yesterday that we arrived but in fact we've been in our flat almost three weeks and have been in London for over a month. It was nice to finally have a relaxing weekend at home - actually at home in the new place - last week, we have been rushing around a bit of late. I had to work at the shop on Saturday but we had the rest of the weekend to relax and settle in.

Tomorrow we are off on the long-awaited and notoriously difficult trip to Paris. We had to settle in the end for a 5:30am train (ick!!) but we bit the bullet realising that it was that or wait until next year. We'll have nearly three days and look forward to just meandering about the streets most of the time soaking up the atmosphere (hopefully that will be all we soak up - haven't seen a weather report to date!)

If you haven't seen the pics of the flat, check it out here. Bernadette's blog is much more up to date than this one :-D

Au revoir!

Manchester and the North-West

2006-10-30T23:32:00.000+11:00

We had a fantastic weekend visiting Neil's Aunt and Uncle in Manchester and exploring the beautiful walled city of Chester. I was surprised to discover how close we were to Wales and begged to be taken there. As it wasn't far out of our way we popped in briefly to Mold and wandered through the local marketplace. Wales is experiencing a very successful language revival - note the dual language signs which are compulsory throughout Wales. Note also some Welsh hills in the background :-)

Chester is lovely and we will definitely return in the future to explore in more detail. We wandered through the shopping district - unusual in its two-tiered architecture - and walked along part of the city wall. After a stroll down to the River Dee we visited Chester's Roman Ruins and popped in all-too-briefly to the archaeological museum.

The rest of the weekend consisted of much boisterous revelry with the cousins. Marina and Frank really know how to put on a spread :-D Manchester will be a great base for further travels in the north, and we look forward to heading back up there at Christmas time for another big family do.

In other news, we have settled in well in the new flat and have ironed out most of the problems. We should have internet connected within a few days so watch out for much more frequent posting here from then.

Ciao, Diane

P.S. Still trying to get bookings for Paris :-(

A thousand million miles

2006-10-15T20:26:00.000+10:00

That's how far I've walked in the two weeks that we've been here. I've worn out one pair of shoes and had to buy more (oh no!) and I'm sure I've lost about 2 kilos ;-)

Here is a picture of the rain, of which there has been no shortage: This is looking out Mel's front window in Richmond, I love the Mary Poppins style rooftops.

Last Sunday we went to Hyde Park to watch Daniel participate in 'Run London', a 10k mini marathon through the park. There were thousands of people, you can see some of the runners here on the other side of the Serpentine:And the glorious finish (bit blurry sorry, action shot). Apparantly Neil and I are signing up for next year...Neil's new job is in Tower Hill - right near the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. It's an awesome area, architecturally striking new buldings mingled with stunning ancient masterpieces. When he went in to sign his contract the other day we had a wander around the tower and were lucky enough to be on the bridge when it opened to let a sailing ship through - apparantly that only happens a couple of times per week.

View up the Thames from Tower Bridge :

The Bridge opening:
And the boat going through:I have also landed a new job: at Stash Yarns in Putney. It was always my ambition to do something like this part time while I am here. Although the hours are not optimal - they were offering four days per week which only leaves me one for teaching - I am very excited about it as it gives me the opportunity to get into the writing and designing I've been wanting to find time for for ages. Who knows, it might be a successful career change. I love teaching but have been trying to think of something to move into when I leave work to have kids.

Haven't had any news yet about our flat (we have applied for one in Bayswater) but hope to hear tomorrow or Tuesday. Neil and I both start working tomorrow so we'd like to be settled ASAP.

News next week to let you know how work went and (hopefully) all about the new flat.

Ciao, Diane

Paris closed...

2006-10-08T07:41:00.000+10:00

... so we went to Cambridge instead.

Apparantly you can get to Paris at very short notice if you are prepared to pay about £260 each for fares. We'll be going later in the month.

Cambridge was absolutely stunning. We took a train from King's Cross which turned out to be an express and took only 45 to reach Cambridge. It was pouring with rain of course but a nice bus driver directed us to a hotel near the station and then we walked into town.

We'd been advised to hire bikes, and it is obviously the thing to to in Cambridge as there are hundreds available, but we fond we enjoyed the experience on foot. We comfortably walked everywhere in the main part of town and in and out from our hotel.

On Thursday we just wandered around and shopped a bit, there was a market in the town centre and we discovered a lovely little tea shop where I fell for a cat mug and some belgian chocolate. We had pits in a litle pub near the river, saw King's College and bought tickts for a local production of Twelfth Night which we thoroughly enjoyed that night.

On Friday it poured again but we managed to squelch our way to Trinity College and the Round Church. After lunch at a very posh French Restaurant we spent some hours escaping the weather in the Fitzwilliam Museum which was stunning. My Favourite painting was Monet's 'Springtime' and Neil recommends a look at the extensive weaponry display.

In the afternoon we went to Evensong at King's College Chapel which was quite an experience. There were loads of tourists there. I chatted with the choral director after the service, he was very nice and said I should have no trouble finding a choir in London.

We caught a train back to London after the service and arrived home rather footsore but with definite plans to return often.

For all the photos, click on the link at the side.

Coming to you LIVE from Rainy London!

2006-10-04T18:36:00.000+10:00

Hello everybody *waves from the other side of the world*

The flight was uneventful: my ipod saved me from eternal boredom and saved Neil from me ;-)

Mel and Dan met us at Heathrow early Sunday morning and I fell in love with London on the way home in the car. Richmond is BEAUTIFUL. It is the perfect match to the picture of London this british-literature-raised girl has in her head. It is a bit far out of town though for us, so we are looking at places to rent a bit closer in.

Monday we met up with Kate and went shopping. Imagine twenty Burke St malls end to end with about 100 times the people and you have Oxford street. It was awesome! We had to get Neil suits and shoes for his interview on Tuesday, visit my teaching agency (who then sent us to the bank to set up accounts) and check out the area Neil was heading for in the morning (Tower Hill - gorgeous) so we wouldn't get lost. We ended up getting home at about 7pm very tired and footsore but with a reasonable understanding of the tube system and a bit of a grasp of London geography.

On Tuesday Neil had his interview with Barclay's Bank and was offered a job within a few hours! With that everything is falling into place and we can start moving on things like budgets, travel and finding somewhere to live.

We really haven't done anything touristy yet I'm sorry and there are no photos until I get my laptop going, but bear with us - this blog will become more interesting I promise :-D

We're off to Paris tomorrow for a couple of days, will let you know how it goes (yeah, I know, it's a hard life, hehe)

Ciao!

Whew! Nearly There!

2006-09-27T19:46:00.000+10:00

Sorry there's been no activity on this blog for a while - all the activity has been happening here at home believe me!

With 3 days to go we're nearly ready but haven't seriously looked at packing yet - that will be fun...

Wormwood and Pippi are still beating each other up a bit but seem to be settling down. Pippi doesn't run away when she sees me any more - in fact she helped me with my knitting :-D

Moving day went well, here are the boys hard at work - they said they were too exhausted to smile much. I fed them cheesecake and they perked up well though :-)

Something has to go wrong of course... Tomorrow we will be going back to the storage unit to retrieve my underwear which is still in the drawers of the bedside table *rolls eyes* I believe Neil was in charge of emptying drawers although he denies it wholeheartedly. Luckily I had a basket of clean laundry here to raid ;-)

Next post will be from the other side of the world!!

13 Days To Go!

2006-09-17T19:16:00.000+10:00

Today involved some proper clearing out and packing - and some unpacking! There seems to be an awful lot of mess around but I'm sure it will all come together on the day.

Moving day next Saturday (gulp!)

Less than a month now!

2006-09-03T08:44:00.000+10:00

With just under four weeks to go things are getting a bit exciting here. My visa has arrived (after I had all the documents organised they did it super quickly) and we have booked and paid for our flights. Apparantly all flights get in to Heathrow at 5am, sorry Melissa! We'll be in London on October 1st.

I have sent off all my forms for my teaching agency, will have to do some induction in the first week or so but it won't be long before I'm working. Neil is in discussion with agencies now and just needs to wait a bit longer to see what's going to be around when we arrive.

On the home side, Pippi and Wormwood seem to be getting along a bit better now, Worm's only bopped her once and she's learning to stay away ;-) After all, she is moving into his house.

Aaaarrgggh Bureaucracy!

2006-08-17T22:07:00.000+10:00

I spent over 1 hour applying online for my british visa tonight and still have to ring the British High Commission tomorrow to ask them all the questions the website doesn't answer.

I suggested to Neil that we might save the $652 fee and I could just bum off him for a year instead of having a work visa but he wasn't inclined to agree ;-)

We have started packing and are about to book flights. ETD is getting close!

Ciao :-)

Two blogs are better than one

2006-08-10T17:15:00.000+10:00

Decided to split the craft and travel blogs, now there are two :-)

And people (not mentioning any names older brother!) who don't want to trawl through all the knitting will still be able to catch up on what we're doing overseas!

Ciao, Diane

Great Otway National Park

2006-08-10T17:12:00.000+10:00

We had a lovely trip away, our B&B had open fireplaces in the guest sitting room and in our bedroom - luxury! Photos to right, here's one of the best:

We tramped around the National Park in the freezing but sunny weather and visited the 12 Apostles before any more fall down!
I am up to the heel turn on my second falling leaves sock and finished Emma while sitting by the fire. One week to go on the to do list!