Day 496 – 🇫🇷🇫🇷 The French remember🇫🇷🇫🇷

November 18, 2015Leave a comment

The Canadian D Day cemetery at Bény Sur Mer. It seems appropriate to post it today with the fighting in Paris. War again in France. Our guides grandfather was a French resistance fighter killed by the SS when he was caught.

Today I heard a silly journalist on CNN say Parisians were not used to fighting in their streets. If you asked our guide she would tell you they still remember WW2. Bullet holes from WW2 still pock mark the buildings. The church at Ranville was full of bullet holes and huge chunks of it were missing from WW2 fighting.

🇫🇷 The French remember with three museums to the D Day invasions. This is the Canadian museum at Juno Beach were 5000 Canadians died.

🇫🇷 There’s one at the American invasions site and one at Pegasus Bridges were British paratroopers had to seize a bridge BEFORE the D Day invasion.

🇫🇷Our guide’s grandmother found bodies of 132 Canadian POWs who were murdered and buried in a mass grave in her yard. They still find WW2 bodies routinely in Normandy. So yes they remember!!

Stay tuned for more Frenxh sketches. There are at least 33 of them. 😳

Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 496 – 🇫🇷🇫🇷 The French remember🇫🇷🇫🇷

November 18, 2015Leave a comment

🇫🇷 The French remember with three museums to the D Day invasions. This is the Canadian museum at Juno Beach were 5000 Canadians died.

🇫🇷 There’s one at the American invasions site and one at Pegasus Bridges were British paratroopers had to seize a bridge BEFORE the D Day invasion.

🇫🇷Our guide’s grandmother found bodies of 132 Canadian POWs who were murdered and buried in a mass grave in her yard. They still find WW2 bodies routinely in Normandy. So yes they remember!!

Day 487 – only five miles of walking

November 18, 2015Leave a comment

I found this November 9 post stuck in WordPress land. Evidently the boats wifi never let it be posted.
Quai Grenelle-where our boat docks.

Today. We are pikers. We went on a Seine boat ride instead of chasing all over town. So instead of 9 miles only give. Instead of THIRTEEN stair flights just Trois.

I sat In the lounge of the boat with an actual interesting view of Radio France building and people out walking the Seine on this beautiful fall day. Everybody wears black here which was great for this sketch since it made all the figures show up. Evidently it’s the color for the season. Hmm no red no brown just lots of black with occasional grey. And bright red lipstick. Don’t forget the lipstick.

Our pianist. Mom would love his music. Lots of show tunes. Frank Sinatra. Porgy and Bess. I actually am sitting about five feet from him aS I type. He’s just playing his heart out.

St. Pierre church in Monmartre. A lovely small church next to Sacre Couer. We rode the funicular up the hill to Sacre Couer or it would have been 20 stories today walking. 😳

Of all the sketches today this one is screaming for paint. Maybe tonite.

Here it is outside. A lovely little church that almost got torn down about 100 years ago but the people of Monmartre decided they wanted to keep it.

Sacre Couer next door to St Pierre. Monster sized in comparison. No photos inside. Not allowed. The. We toured the area and back to the ship for lunch.

Then we walked a mile along the quai to out boat tour of the Seine. Gorgeous day for the sail.

The Louvre from the river.

Notre Dame
Incredible bridge named after King Alexander of Russia. Over the top decorations.
The stairs that run down to the bottom of the funicular in Monmartre. I did walk down!😳

Day 495 -🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷 Last leg home 🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷

November 17, 2015November 17, 2015Leave a comment

🇫🇷So sharing some photos I took from the terraces at the Pompidou Museum which is just a few blocks south of the bombing sites at Place de la Republique.

🇫🇷Almost done with my repacking. Could have taken what I packed for Atlanta because it was warmer in Paris and rainy instead of leaving it behind in wet cool Atlanta. The last day in Conflans near Paris was the only day we needed warm clothes.

🇫🇷 But first a WIP of the different meringues I are from Paris to Normandy and back. Yummmmm
🇫🇷My favorite snack while in France. No idea how many meringues I ate while in France. I should have counted. Enough for a diabetic coma when u add in the wine we drank like water. Ps no hangover. Supposedly the lack of sulphate a makes all the difference.

🇫🇷 From the Eiffel Tower our view was rain rain and more rain but those preordered tickets worked like a charm.

🇫🇷Straight to the head of the blocks long admission line for a quick zip up the tower where it actually had the gall to rain on us!!😢

🇫🇷The tracadero. Still Gray and rainy.

🇫🇷L’ecole militaire. No sun insight.

🇫🇷Saturday at the Pompidou the views were amazing. The sun was finally out!!! So was the art.

🇫🇷Eiffel Tower on the left far far away.

🇫🇷My favorite. Montmartre and Sacre Couer glowing in the morning sun. Yes we finally saw the sun after two days of rain. 👍🏻😊

🇫🇷The plaza in front of the Pompidou

🇫🇷 Lower level. Paris was out doing what Parisians do on a warm sunny fall day. Enjoying the city.
🇫🇷 Bubble fun
🇫🇷 I want one. The kids loved it.

A few more from the fifth floor of the Pompidou.

Interesting square with several kinds of buildings gothic to modern. Quite startling. There were very cool acrobats and a lot of street artists on the square.

The wild assortment of buildings on the square next to the Pompidou.
Awesome art work in the fountain. Looks a lot like Nikki in the gArden a few years back at the Atlanta Botanical Society.

One more drool over the meringues. Isn’t the cat face to adorable. I have to get these painted I think. A little cerulean and yellow ochre will make them even more delicious.
Thanks for reading.

Margaret xxx

Day 485 – La pause de beaubourg

November 8, 20153 Comments

Le Brasserie La Pause Beaubourg near the Hotel de Ville and Georges Pompidou Contemporary Art Center. Delicious food and wonderful staff. This is the view out their window. We are there again today – so delicious.

Despite being exhausted and walking 7 miles today I drew two sketches when we ate there again after our visit to the Georges Pompidou. I even drank a Coke. Something I rarely do.

La Pause Beaubourg where u can eat in the window in the most charming barrel chairs. Tiny furniture in France unlike supersized everything in America. Always too big pour moi!

La Pause Beaubourg

We did sit resting our aching feet and recooperating before we took off for some Marveilieux au Fred on Rue de Pont St Louis Phillippe three blocks from the Hotel de Ville in the Marais.

Can I say Heaven!? Delicious meringues filled with what might be marshmallow fluff?!

Tiny cakes called Marveilleux that melt in your mouth. Wonderful staff. The young homme who helped us spoke English like an American. When I asked him where he was from he said he learned English from American tv shows.

Beautiful churches abound. This one is interesting because it has a gothic flying buttressed church with a neoclassic facade. Gorgeous lit in the afternoon sun.

Hotel de Ville the crenelated embellished jewel also know as City Hall. Amazing building. This is the Seine River side.

Hotel de Ville from the plaza side.

Even the lights, the metro signs and

the advertising kiosk are amazing in Paris.

Notre Dame across the river from Hotel de Ville was amazing. The building is just incredible. So large! I am sure it’s bigger than a football field.

The Rose Windows and all the stained glass unbelievable. We just sat in awe of quite a while. Well worth getting up early and beating the crowd which stretched across the plaza when we exited the building.

To think that only Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame kept it from falling down in the 183os/. Thank you Victor Hugo and Quasimodo.

Views from the fifth floor of

The Pompidou were worth the admission alone.
Parisians packed the plaza in front enjoying the sunny warm fall day.

The children loved the bubble lady and so did we.

The architecture near the Ljmpidoy was quite eclectic. Gothic to modern in a row.

A few more views from the Pompidou.
Ze Eiffel Tower.
We are off the Viking Pride today and the Louvre. No hopping night club to keep us awake tonite on the quai.

Day 484 – Champs Elysees

November 7, 20152 Comments

What better place to start than this gorgeous avenue of world class shopping.

Despite two hours of sleep on the place we managed to walk five more miles including a rainy after dinner walk to the Arc de Triomphe which is gloriously lit at night. Well worth the walk!!

We ate dinner at L’Artois around the corner from our Hotel on Rue d’Artois. A sweet little place with the nicest owners. A nice way to dip our toes into Paris dining. This will get watercolor soon but not tonight after another six mile jaunt thru the drizzly beautiful Parisian streets.

We did a waking tour of the Marais today. Originally the Jewish district before World War II we know what happened. The Nazis actually rounded up the children at their schools to transport them to the death camps. There are plaques dedicated to them all over the Marais.

Charming Patisseries. This is the Marveilleux de Fred. We hope to go tomorrow. Fabulous cakes. Yum!
One of the oldest buildings in the Marais. A half timber building much more typical of Rouen than Paris which was rebuilt after the third revolution of Les Mis fame with its sweeping boulevards.

Built in the 1400s the buildings were not allowed to be all wood for fear of fire.

It also used to have several royal residences. Place des Vosges is all that remains of the home of Henry 4 and Catherine de Medici. She burned the palace when her husband died from jousting wounds and established this park.

We finished the day at the Eiffel Tour. Our tickets were pre purchased they parisinfo.com. No waiting in the block long line. We went straight in at our appointed time 2 pm.

It is amazing.
The building incredible.

And just enormous. More than 1000 meters tall. 700 HUNDRED TONS of steel!!😳
The view from the Eiffel Tower. Still raining sadly. I would like some photos taken in the sun. Please Thank you!!