Monday - Wednesday - being there

Monday: was spent around the hotel, getting the lie of the land, booking our tours for later in the week & taking it easy.  We were entitled to 2 x full day cruises to different places with lunch, snorkeling etc.  We decided to only do 1 x half day & 1 x full day cruise.  We asked about the weather as we’d seen forecasts of rain Tuesday & Wednesday but were assured that Tuesday would be beautiful. So half day Tuesday & all day Friday were booked.

We had a light lunch in their “La Parisienne Café” – a nod to the ownership of the Sofitel hotel chain.  Rhonda was right in the holiday mood - booked a1 hour massage followed by a pedicure. She has booked another for our last day on Saturday too.  

Our room looks out to sea, but diagonally off to one side is the resort’s wedding chapel.  We were entertained all afternoon by the wedding preparations – with various members of the bridal party calling from room to room about arrangements etc.  And then about 4 they congregated in the chapel for the ceremony, complete with 4 little kids as attendants & the bride’s very new baby being cared for by grandma until after the wedding itself.

We took a stroll along the beachfront towards the west as the sun was setting, checking out the neighbouring resorts.  Next door is the Westin, then the Hilton and then the Sheraton out on the point.  The area we’re in turns a corner & there are a couple of other resorts along that west facing section.  The sunset was spectacular; sun busting out of clouds over a silhouetted rugged island out on the horizon & the sea silvery and still – the sort of thing you see in travel brochures.  Not surprisingly quite a few people had their cameras on tripods capturing the scene.

We took the easy option for dinner – a set course “Asian fusion” themed dinner in the resort at A$46 p.p.  I don’t mind paying reasonable money for good food, but this was a shocker.  Poorly cooked sort of Asian food which was a total disappointment.  If I’d paid $10 at home for it I would have thought it barely passable. Oh well…  lesson learned. 

Tuesday:  I’d read on Trip Advisor that lots of people had commented about walking (or catching the bus) into Denarau centre to eat at restaurants there.  On the back of last night’s dinner & waking at 7 I decided to go for a walk to see for myself.  (A hotel staff member had told us it was a 25-minute walk – hence us staying in on Monday).  It is a 13-minute walk even at Fiji pace.  And there I discovered half a dozen food choices; Italian, Seafood, Indian, Mediterranean/Kebabs a Hard Rock Café & a few other choices - all at less than half the price of the resort’s offerings.  I did the tour of the area looking at menus etc & was back home by 8, walking through a few raindrops as I neared the resort.

The rain didn’t amount to much for the rest of the morning after a shower while we had breakfast.  We made it down to the port to take our cruise out to Mana Island without it raining.  We’d not planned to go there but another island we were going to is closed due to cyclone damage of a few months ago.  It was quite interesting going back to Mana, a place where we spent half of our “honeymoon” over 29 years ago.  It sure has changed – the quaint, single freestanding bures right on the waters edge have been replaced by substantial classic resort accommodation.  But they’ve kept must of the place really rustic, which we like. 

As we ate lunch in a lovely casual café right on the water’s edge it started to rain.  That slow persistent drizzle that doesn’t soak you straight away, but will eventually.  We could see neighbouring islands disappear behind the rain as it got heavier.

We had planned to snorkel & poke around, but with the rain set in we sat inside taking in the scenery & Rhonda had a couple of cocktails.  Then it was back on the boat for the 75-minute trip back to the port.  We bussed it back to the resort, sat about for a while and then walked back into Denarau port for dinner.  We settled on the Amalfi & chose 2 different veal dishes & a lovely bottle of NZ Pinot Noir.

Just as our dinner arrived a young woman, with partner in tow came over & asked if we were Geoff & Rhonda.  I was trying to work the memory banks for who this was to no avail.  Turns out it was Alison & Steve – sort of relatives of Rhonda’s – too difficult to explain here.  I’d met Alison once 10 years ago & never met Steve.  But she recognized us from photos at Carmel’s (Rhonda’s mum) house.  Amazing!  So we’re catching up for dinner on Thursday night.

We walked home & it started raining on us – not too bad, but we were glad to be inside.  We decided to watch the Reacher movie as someone had said it was OK.  I was so anti Tom Cruise playing Reacher that I didn’t really want to watch it  As Rhonda said – if you just see it as an action movie & not a Reacher one it is ok.  Well “just ok” would be my verdict.  If Cruise has bought the franchise to make any more I won’t be paying money to watch them.

Wednesday: It rained on & off through the night & is doing the same for much of the day.  We went down for a late breakfast & you could hear the hubbub long before we got to the dining room.  It reminded me of being on a school of church camp; the busy excitable noise of several hundred people (with lots of kids) all eating & talking etc.  Thankfully there is a delightful outdoor thatched roof pavilion just off the dining room, surrounded by water & very peaceful.  So we retreated outside to a tranquil space & watched the fish & frogs in the pond while enjoying a slow breakfast.

Amongst the various TV channels we can get is the Australia Network, which shows the ABC News 24 breakfast show.  So it has been great to get some headlines from home, but inevitably it is filled with all of the election rubbish – focusing on minutae & not policies – so depressing that I turned it off – which I am sure improves my blood pressure no end. 

I note that the large conference room has been turned into an all day Pixar/Disney animated movies day – to keep the kids entertained, as the pools holds little allure on days like this.  We’re happy – on our balcony, reading in companionable silence & note that a few other balconies are also filled with couples (obviously without kids here) doing the same thing.

So, compelled to do very little we’re unwinding, which is what this short break was meant to achieve. 

Free WiFi is available in the very large & grand lobby for half an hour per device each day.  As I have a laptop, iPad and phone I could be online for a bit, but have chosen not to.  In fact I have written this post as a word doc & will wander down soon & get online, then cut & paste it into my blog.  I note that docs created in Word on a Mac have various formatting problems in Blogger.  If that happens I’ll fix it later.

Sunday - Getting there

Like our European trip blog, this is as much an aide de memoir as a blog for family & friends.  I only re-read our European trip notes the other night & was surprised at how much I had forgotten.

We knew we had to be up at 4:30 am to catch our plane, so of course woke at 4.  It was going to be a long day!  The trip to Sydney was uneventful, though I started reading Steve Waugh’s latest book, The meaning of luck – given to me by my boys for Father’s Day.  The first few chapters are about Steve’s wife Lynette’s stroke & near death while he was out of town on a book signing tour & then the story of her recovery.  I ended up in tears – not what I’d expected from the book.  But it is truly worth reading.  I will get back to reading it, but if it stays this intense it will be read in small doses.

(What has compelled me to do this blog thing again is partly how much the notes from Europe reminded me of things I had forgotten, but also Steve Waugh’s book quotes a Chinese proverb saying “The faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory”.  i.e. Things written at the time of the event – no matter how brief, are more accurate than recall of events much later, no matter how good we think our memory is.)

We knew we had a few hours stop over in Sydney, so arranged to catch up with Lainie & Glen for brunch, which was great.  We had a lovely couple of hours over brunch talking about all things Sydney before they had to go off to a Father’s Day event with Glen’s family.  And I got another book to read as a present from Lainie & Glen – the latest Reacher novel – only out on Thursday & a Grand Designs DVD – so good.

Our plane was delayed by an hour – no big deal.  It was also oversold, so every seat was occupied.  And they were clear about keeping families together, so couples like us were lucky if we got to sit together.  And wow – were there kids – young kids & seemingly they were 50% of the passengers.  The plane was a very old 747 & was stuffy & hot for the entire flight.  But no big deal – its only about a 4 hour flight.  I spent most of it ploughing through my new Reacher novel.

We’d arranged a hotel transfer, so ended up on a bus in the dark on our way to the Sofitel.  We checked in & got to our room, but had no sense of our surroundings, so had to wait til the morning.  We ordered room service & fell into bed at 10pm local time (7:30 home time!) & slept til morning – right through until 10am – missing breakfast – no big deal.

Fiji bound

We can't believe that almost 10 months have past since we got home from Europe & we're only now getting our act together for another break.  We're looking for a longer break in 2014, but in the meantime we've booked a "sunshine" week in Fiji, just to get some warmth, sunshine & chill out -away from work.

We're away 1-8 September & will post a few things if anything interesting happens, but really it is meant to be time out.

Friday (6/10) - holiday time

I should have noted that at the end of yesterday we were outside on the terrace having a nice glass of Monbazillac white when tiny bats appeared overhead - 3 of them.  The sky was still quite light but the sun had gone.  I recalled a similar evening at home with my brother Dave - where we watched bats flitting about above us.  It was a great end to the day.

Friday:
We decided to have a quiet "close to home day" as it was our last full day here at Couze.  As always I woke early & was downstairs before 6.  When Rhonda appeared we Skyped home & luckily for us we were able to talk to all 3 kids - about 5:30 Friday night for them.  So after this lovely pick-me-up we then got on with our day.

We'd found in a book of Dordogne walks in the house that there was a 10.5 km local walk & we decided to do it. The walking wasn't difficult & the scenery was pleasant except for a few overly protective dogs. And given our later start to the day we ended up walking through the sacred 12 - 2 lunch break.  We saw plenty of people on their terraces having lunch & we passed one restaurant in a village of about 50 houses that was full.  And we walked past a lumber yard where a group of guys was playing petanque in the yard under a tree - all very civilised while we strode by in the midday sun. 

We ended up seeing more of the village of Couze, including some caves that were at one stage turned into houses.  And after this walk we rewarded ourselves with a beer at the local.  While French beer is not renowned for its excellence, after a 10km walk any beer was going to be good.

There were 3 reasons for the walk: 1) to explore the neighbourhood 2) we'd got a bit slack on our walking & knew that we'd be back into it in Paris, so thought we needed to keep the walking going & 3) we had booked to go back to Au Fil de L'eau & thought that we needed to burn off a few kilojoules before we ate there again!

We'd also deliberately not eaten much during the day & as we were quite hungry we had to hold ourselves back from being at the restaurant door when it opened.  But we managed to stroll in a bit after 7:30 & we weren't the 1st ones there - whew.

I wont go into details about the meal except to say that it was incredible.  We took our time, enjoyed everything we ate & were amongst the last 5 tables to leave. We wandered up the hill feeling really as relaxed as one can be & just a little sad that this leg of our holiday was drawing to a close.

Thursday/Friday Paris to Singapore

We had an 8am pick up which arrived on time & off we went through the Paris morning traffic to Charles de Gaulle airport.  We went from dodging around delivery trucks in single lane roads to being on a freeway with an 80 kph limit & doing 130 kph.  But all was good & we got dropped off right by the Singapore Airlines counter.

We had been unable to checkin online, so had to take pot luck with seat allocations.  I’d been hoping that either on the trip out or back we would get to ride in an Airbus 380 & was delighted to see that this trip was on such a plane.  After hanging around a bit (as you always seem to do at airports) we were onto the plane. 

Like most flights there were good & bad features.  I haven’t checked the facts, but think that the A380 has more space for passengers than most other planes.  It felt very reasonable for “cattle class”.  However we had the ubiquitous screaming child 3 rows ahead.  This 2 -3 year old screamed and cried for perhaps 10 of the 12 hours.  “I want to get off now” “I want daddy’s phone now” etc.  At least 7 rows (70 people) were kept awake by the performance.  Interestingly we sat with a young Australian lad (perhaps 15?) who was travelling with his parents.  But they were sitting separately because mother got the dates wrong & their flight had left the day before & they’d missed it.  I wouldn’t have wanted to be in their shoes – oh – that sick feeling when you’d found out you’d missed the plane & it was your fault!

Anyway – the 12.5 hours went OK & so here we are in Singapore.  While we were booked to go back into a hotel in downtown Singapore, a few days ago, in looking at our schedule we decided to abandon this idea and stay at the airport.  So we’re holed up at the Crowne Plaza which is in T3 where we landed.  The hotel staff have been wonderful.  We arrived at the check in counter just after 7am & our room was ready – so it was upstairs for a shower and bed – after missing a night’s sleep. 

We’ve checked in & already had our cases checked in – just a couple of things we don’t have to do tomorrow morning.  So with all of that organised it just remains to get on the plane tomorrow & effectively there the holiday will end.  And this seems to also be the right place to sign off this blog.  Its been a great 5 weeks – perhaps too long to be away from home & work.  But we’re already thinking about our next tour - where & when.

PS - arrived safely in Adelaide to be met by Lainie & Glen - which was so nice. Great to see smiling faces. We're home - Buddy was happy to see us - though we may have been more excited than him!.  

The house is clean & the weeds are 5 feet high!  So back to a lovely reality of a home cooked green Thai curry - lots to chat & off to bed to try to realign our sleeping patterns.

Thursday – autumn in Montmartre

We woke to wet ground, misty skies & our last day in Paris.  We decided for a bit of sight seeing and shopping.  So it was on the metro off to Abbesses station and breakfast at the base of the Montmartre hill before taking the funicular up to the top next to Sacre Coeur to take in the view – such as it was.

While we couldn’t see too far – perhaps 3 kms - the misty feel added a bit of what we often see in Paris paintings – that foggy/misty feeling – so quite atmospheric and lovely.  We did the obligatory tour through Sacre Coeur and then the fine rain started.  We wandered the streets of Montmartre – both the one with kitsch tourist shops and those off the beaten track.  We ended up walking down the hill on what I think was the north west side.  We then headed off towards Boulevard Haussmann for some shopping.  We zig zagged through the suburbs & found ourselves in an obviously poorer neighbourhood with many north African and sub-Saharan Africans.  So it was good to see another side of Paris.

After some serious looking and a bit of shopping in LaFayette we headed home & then Rhonda went out doing a bit more shopping. 

We’re pretty tired so decided on an early dinner – so that we would be ready for our 8am pick up tomorrow.  We went back across the road to the café we dined at previously called Chartier & had a lovely French dinner – with us finding our way around the menu well enough. 

So, bags almost packed we fell into bed, ready for the long haul home which starts in the morning.  Its a relatively civilised start with an 8am pick up.

Tuesday - out & about in Paris

After a long day yesterday we didn't wake until about 8 & immediately sprung into action.

The shower was hot - yay!! That made a good start.  We looked out the window - no rain - even better.  And while the ground was wet there were a couple of drying patches that indicated that it hadn't rained for a while.  All good.

So off we set on the subway under the river to the ecole militaire - a metro stop just south of the Eiffel tower.  We walked back towards the river and the tower.  The top of the tower was shrouded in clouds, to going to the top made little sense.  There was a queue of about 300 people for the elevator and NO queue for the steps.  Easy choice.  So we climbed up to the 1st & 2nd levels looking around & identifying landmarks. (115 m up and 1060 steps).  It was really quiet - lots of space to ourselves.  Amazingly we bumped into 2 US couples (from Boise Idaho) with whom we shared a train ride from Venice to Milan.  We looked up & thought about getting the elevator to the top but it was still in cloud so we abandoned that idea and made our way down.  As we were leaving it was amazing to see the throng of people arriving - we were very pleased to have beaten the crowds.

Below are four shots taken from each side of the tower - from the 2nd level.

We then walked east along the river on the left bank for about 3 kms to the Musee D'Orsay - the one art gallery that I really wanted to see on this trip.  And we weren't disappointed.  Mind you while we were lucky with no crowds at the Eiffel Tower we made up for it in spades here.  Two very long lines, even if you'd pre-purchased a ticket. So we shuffled along a line & after about 45 minutes we were inside.  

In this line we had another meeting coincidence.  A bit ahead of us was a guy in his SirsiDynix shirt.  (This is the company whose software we have bought to roll out for all the public libraries in SA).  I was a bit surprised that we would be wearing his work shirt on holidays.  I went and introduced myself & we got chatting.  His name is Ken Warner & he is a trainer. He was wearing his shirt because he is here on business but also has his family here.  He left them in the line to go and train some customers.  He got his wife to take a pic of us both & it will be emailed to Cathy Cusack (our Australian SD trainer).

Musee D'Orsay was everything I had hoped and expected it to be.  It is in an old converted train station & the building alone is magnificent & complements the 19th Century (& early 20th) paintings, sculpture etc that fills it.  There is a whole gallery of Impressionists, but so much more.  It was worth the wait to get in.  

Looking down the main gallery at Musee D'Orsay

Perhaps the one bit I was a little disappointed with was the Art Nouveau glassware - as I collect it (as my budget allows).  There was lots of furniture, pottery etc which I don't particularly like, but only a small collection of glass & it wasn't the best I have seen.  But that is just my personal passion.  For others who wanted a general overview of the movement it was a good display.

While I didn't mind queuing to get into the museum we then had to queue to get a drink. I wouldn't have done it but I was dying of thirst.  There are 3 different eateries in the place & you had to queue for about 30 minutes to get a table at any of them.  It is almost like they like to make you queue so you'll appreciate how fortunate you are to be there.  OK for seeing the art - but to get a drink??  And the food was weird.  It was the strangest Eu25 I'd spent.  Lentil sludge with smoked salmon, quinoa seed chicken curry = birdseed & a ham sandwich with creme fraiche loaded with enough mint to make it taste like a dessert.  Oh well.  At least I got the drink of water I was desperate for.

We then wandered back over the river though the Tuileries garden & home via the Metro.  I think I commented yesterday about the autumn colours in the trees - its looking great - some compensation for the rain!

Rhonda had found a review of a show in Paris called "How to be a Parisian in one hour" - by a French comedian, and in English.  We looked up the address & it was literally around the corner from us - so of course we had to go.  It was a small intimate theatre & the audience was about 50% French & the rest internationals.  (We know this because he got people to call out / show hands etc.)  It was a real hoot & as much as his take offs / put downs of the Parisians were excellent he did some fantastic imitations of Americans that were hilarious.  True to the title the show was over in just over an hour so we got to have dinner by nine & then home to bed.

A long, diverse & really enjoyable day despite the weather.