A Sprinkle of Gratitude

Today is Saturday. We went to the Le Marais area today and had a look at Notre Dame from the outside. Le Marais was filled with delightful little boutiques and cafés. Our concierge had advised to try a Falafel in Rue Des Rosiers. We did and it was delicious!! He also told us about a wonderful eclair place called L’Eclair de Genie. Oh my goodness – it was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted!

We sat in this garden to eat our eclairs.

We went back to the hotel in the afternoon and the children got ready for their trip home to Australia. We made our way to the airport with four hours to check in and send them on their way. Unfortunately Charles De Gaulle had a different idea. Air France staff refused to issue boarding passes for the children due to some obscure rule. The result of four hours of intense negotiation between David and the airport staff ended with us leaving the airport with the children and going back to our hotel. It was a very very stressful few hours. Everyone was safe however. We had a delicious dinner in the hotel bar and crawled into bed.

Today we travelled from Nice back to Paris. We settled into our amazing and beautiful hotel. We got another upgrade which is lovely.
We spent the afternoon walking down the Champs Élysées and just absorbing beautiful Paris!

Everyone was tired today. We all had a slow start to the day. We decided to stay in Nice for the day rather than venture to some more of the smaller towns. We went to Musee Matisse and Musee Chagall. Both were wonderful. I love Matisse’s work the best. He tried to combine the thought of art, movement and music into his artwork. Chagall’s work was very big and colorful. The gallery his work was in was quite stunning. It was a relatively new building and meant his work was displayed very well. Musee Chagall also had a lovely garden and a nice little cafe where we had lunch.

Our afternoon was spent wandering the shops in Nice and assisting the local economy. We had dinner at a restaurant that was quite surprising. It was on the street behind our hotel. Most of these restaurants are very touristy. The one we chose was on a rooftop. We were surrounded by potted olive trees , it had a DJ and a very groovy bar. The food was also very delicious. The name of the restaurant Le Hussard.
We leave Nice in the morning. Nice has been a very good base for this part of France. Monaco was very beautiful and would have been a lovely place to stay but outrageously expensive. We stayed in a very convenient part of Nice. We had a lovely view of the ocean. We used Nice as a base to explore some of the smaller towns in the area which worked very well.
We are back to Paris in the morning.

We started today by visiting the Nice flower markets. The flowers were so cheap and fresh. There was also beautiful fresh food and touristy souvenirs.

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We spent the rest of the day in a little town called Villefranche-sur-Mer. It is between Nice and Monaco and seven minutes on the train from Nice. We soaked up the activities by swimming in the Mediterranean and eating lunch. It was a beautiful day. I felt very clever at the end of the day as I negotiated 5 train tickets for us from a ticket machine that was all in French and I had a line of 20 tourists behind me!

My lunch was spectacular today as was the view from where we were sitting.

We spent the day today seeing some of the smaller villages around Nice. We had a lovely French man called Pierre drive us around. We visited Antibes and St Paul de Vence.
Antibes is on the coast and not as far south as Cannes. It is a very pretty seaside town with a big fort on the top of the hill and a wall that ran around the coast. There was a busy food market here that ran along the street just below the city wall in the old town.We tried some yummy cream filled croissants and cannoli and also some Socca. Socca is a chickpea flour pancake cooked in a terra cotta wood fire oven. The Socca was fun to try but not something that I would choose to eat regularly.
The wall around Antibes.

The markets in Antibes.

St. Paul de Vence is a town that is perched high on a hill and was the home of many artists including Picasso. The old town has one main Street that was full of very good art galleries. We were all happy to explore these art galleries and even though it was very tempting to buy something we left empty handed. My favourite piece of art was a beautiful forged iron olive tree. This little town is part of Provence.
The view of the town as we were coming into it.

The pretty streets.

A beautiful sculpture at the entrance to the town.
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We finished our day listening to Jazz from our hotel room . The Nice Jazz festival is going on this week and our hotel room is next to the main stage so we can open our doors and enjoy the music each night.

I think today is Monday. I love a holiday where I really have to think about what day it is. We caught the bus to Monaco today. The bus ride was fantastic – it drove along the Basse Corniche and took about 45 minutes. Once we got to Monaco we walked along the edge of the marina. It was a morning of contrasts. A bus ride and then a marina filled with the most amazing boats I have ever seen !!

Lucy also seemed to enjoy admiring these big boats.

Looking at all this wealth was tiring and we needed lunch. We stopped in at the Hotel Hermitage Terrace for a sandwich. It was the most beautiful hotel and had beautiful views over the harbor.

Nick seemed very comfortable to stop here for lunch.

After lunch we wandered up to the Monte Carlo Casino. On the way we walked up the road that has the most famous corner of the Monaco Grand Prix. The harbor was filled with the most expensive boats. The road was filled with the most expensive cars. The streets were filled with the most expensive shops.
The casino.

The cars.

The shops.

In the afternoon there were more contrasts. Little boats were racing in the harbour.

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We caught the train back to Nice in the afternoon.
The day finished with a meal at a Michelin Star restaurant called Le Bistro Gourmand. It was spectacular.
What a special day!

Today we arrived in Nice, France.
Our first morning in Nice we walked down the Promenade Des Anglais and marveled at the beautiful colour of the water and the fact you have to pay to use much of the beach! Nice is part of the Cote Azur which means Deep Blue Sea.

We laughed because the beach is all rocks!!

We had lunch in The Place Garibaldi at Cafe Turin which had lots of fresh seafood and mayonnaise served on platters in the centre of the table. The seafood was very fresh.
In the afternoon we did the tourist train ride around the town. It was very cheesy and cute but very informative.
Our dinner in the evening was down below the Promenade des Anglais and although it looked like it was going to be very touristy it was very delicious with excellent service and reasonably priced.

Today’s blog is not really about our travels but a different journey I have been on for the last 6 months.
As many of you know I have not drunk much alcohol in the last six months. In fact I did not have a drink from the 1st of January until the 30th of June. Exactly six months. I had chosen to do this not because I don’t like alcohol but I do love a beautiful glass of champagne, a crisp white wine or a cold beer on a hot afternoon.
I chose to do this because I love the way I feel with no alcohol in my system. The benefits for me are better sleep, better diet choices, feeling clearer during the day and on waking, being better hydrated because I drink much more water when I don’t drink alcohol, I enjoy exercise more and I seem to recover better from hard days of exercise.
I have become very comfortable ordering sparkling water or a mocktail when I go out for dinner. My favourite mocktail is a non alcoholic Mojito. I still get questioned by people about my choice but now I am more comfortable not drinking it doesn’t worry me what other people think.
I had made the decision before we left Brisbane that I was going to have some times drinking alcohol while we were away. I chose to have my first drink sitting on the terrace at the Ritz in Madrid. I had a beautiful glass of champagne chosen by David. It was a beautiful afternoon with my family, a beautiful spot and I really enjoyed it! The second drink I had was to share a bottle of wine with David the next night. It too was beautiful. So beautiful in fact we finished the bottle and had another glass. I felt very yuk the next day. Something I haven’t felt for six months. I had a very big breakfast the next day of fruit and cereal, bacon and eggs and pastries! Not only did I feel ordinary but I also was disappointed in my food choices. I did not enjoy the day nearly as much as I was dehydrated, had not slept so well and was pretty hazy.
I am going to have the occasional glass of wine and champagne in the coming weeks but I am going to try and drink very little. I know this may seem very boring to many of you and I know that life is to be lived. My life seems to be much more enjoyable with less alcohol. I wouldn’t have known how much better I feel with no alcohol in my system if I hadn’t made that choice six months ago. I am very happy to have had no alcohol for the last six months and I feel my life has been enhanced by this choice. I also am very grateful to David as he has been very supportive about my choice. A side effect of this journey has been that he also has had less alcohol in the last six months. I know he has enjoyed how he has felt too.
I look forward to the rest of my holiday and having a few beautiful glasses of wine or champagne. I also look forward to continuing to drink a relatively small amount of alcohol and continuing to feel so well.
I challenge you all to try some time with no alcohol. You too may discover the benefits of having no alcohol in your system.

Day 15 was a very slow day. We all needed a sleep in and a day to do nothing much.
We went to the Picasso Museum. This was a fairly small museum that had ordinary reviews on trip advisor but one that I really enjoyed. It included a very good explanation of the development of his work and training. Many of the works were examples of his early portrait work. His middle works were displayed and it was obvious he was influenced by the Impressionists. His work moved into his blue period and then his more modern work.
We also did quite a lot of window shopping and soaking up the streets of Barcelona.
Dinner was a lovely meal in an Argentian restaurant called Arcano.

Today we walked down to the beach – a fifteen minute walk from our hotel.

We spent the afternoon doing a walking tour of the Gothic part of Barcelona. This is the old part of Barcelona and has very narrow streets, roman ruins, hidden squares and more shops. I loved this area of the city – it was not as busy and commercial as Las Ramblas and there were interesting shops like the cake shop filled with cakes made only by the nuns that ran it.
We had a light dinner in this area. The south of Spain is known for tapas. Where we are now is known for pinchos – small portions that you choose from the bar. They have a toothpick stuck through them. When it comes to paying you pay according to the number of toothpicks you have on your plate. A bit like an upmarket sushi train.

We leave Spain in the morning to travel back into France. I have loved Spain . The country seems to be pretty efficient and clean. The food has been very fresh – lots of share plates, lots of beautiful fruit and vegetables and very reasonably priced. The shopping has been fun and cheap and I have never seen so many shoe shops. The people have spoken very good English , are pretty laid back – much like Queenslanders, and seem to have a lovely sense of humour.

Today David and I started the day with a gym visit. It is very unusual for hotels in Europe to have gyms. I think we are doing enough walking to not need to go to the gym but this hotel has a very nice one so we have all used it. We then came up to the roof to have a look at the pool area. It only had seagulls this morning. I am sitting typing this blog in it this afternoon and it is very busy and open until 1am. It is just another example of what a groovy city Barcelona is.

We did a driving tour around the city today visiting many of the main tourist attractions. We were all pretty tired and it was raining so it was a good choice.
Some of the places we visited were the waterfront, the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, Guell Park, and Montjuic Hill which is the site of the 1992 Olympics and has panoramic views of the city.
The waterfront and beach.

The Holy Family Church ( Sagrada Familia) which is a church designed by Gaudi and is still being built. It is being funded by the money used for entry and the estimated finish date is 2026 – 100 years after Gaudi died.

The view from Montjuic Hill.

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And more tapas – in a restaurant recommended by our guide and visited by locals and tourists.