Our Wedding Anniversary

Bonjour,

In January we had our 3rd wedding anniversary. To celebrate we vacated the busy city of Paris and drove South West to a town called Chartres, which is just over one hour drive away. It's amazing how varied the rest of France is to Paris, and you can see so much from just 1-2hrs drive from Paris.

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres

As you can probably guess the town is famous for it's 800 year old Cathedral. It is understood to be one of the finest Gothic Cathedral's in all of Europe. It was a very cold weekend (about 2 degrees), being mid-winter, but we had a lovely sunny day on the Saturday. We stayed in a hotel right in the centre of Chartres, where we had a fantastic lunch in the hotel's posh restaurant.

This is the centre of Chartres.

Venturing out in the cold

One of the many entrances into the Cathedral

The Cathedral has so many wonderful stained glassed windows

The Last Several Months

Ok, it has been quite a long time between posts to say the least. However it has been a busy and challenging six months. Here are some highlights.

We went to Catherine's friends' wedding in Bath (UK) in April which was lovely

The wedding was just outside of Bath in this cute old church.

Catherine with her old Oxford friends Paul (Posh) & Catherine

Beautiful reception venue in the centre of Bath.

A little pic of us

The newly weds Jim & Cally in the Roman Baths.

Then in May it was the arrival of the outlaws, I mean in-laws. Elizabeth & Carl arrived for a two and a half month tour of Europe, with headquarters being our place in Paris :)

We had a little day trip to a nearby town in Burgandy called Auxerre with Elizabeth & Carl.

Typical view of a French town.

In June we flew down to Nice (South of France) and stayed in Villefranche, where we did our language training when we first arrived in France. We hired a car and drove around the Mediterranean coast and stayed a couple nights in Tuscany. The trip ended in Pisa, where we flew back to Paris from.

On the balcony in Villefranche

Florence. Beautiful Florence!

Pisa

We had a quick stop in Pisa to take a few snaps, as there's not much else in Pisa to see besides the tower :)

More photos coming soon of our 2 week summer holiday with Elizabeth & Carl. So I'll keep you posted :)

Christmas & Corsica

Bonjour,

We had a quiet Christmas here in Paris last month, although we helped out with a meal (at our church) on Christmas eve for those without much family to celebrate with (which included us!). There are many lonely people in this big city. As one of my favourite song writer's puts it (which I think explains many peoples feelings in this city):

nowhere feels safe to me
nowhere feels home
even in crowds I'm alone

Ok, that is rather solemn. Although it was a privilege to be apart of those people's Christmas, and after the meal we had a midnight service in the church.

On Boxing Day we flew to Corsica! We had booked a week in one of the main cities called Ajaccio, which is on the south west coast of Corsica. It reminded us so much of NZ with it's slow pace of life (as it was the low-season) and surrounded by nature.

The view from our apartment in looking over the harbour of Ajaccio (me playing with our new camera)

The view looking back to Ajaccio (which reminded us of Wellington)

We had a little hire car which allowed us to explore the island. It took about 2 hours to get to the southern tip of the island, and if we had time it would of taken us about 2.5 hours to get to the Northern tip of the island.

These are the cliffs at Bonifacio, the most southern town of Corsica


A romantic couple we saw in Bonifacio :)



As you can see, Corsica is not just full of coastal roads. There were some mountains with snow on in the middle of the island.

With the temperature being around 15 degrees, it felt quite tropical in comparison to the snowed covered city of Paris that we left behind. So with this new found freedom we went for a few walks.

This is looking down onto Ajaccio from one of the walks up in the bush



You can still find some typical French villages in Corsica

A Special Birthday & a few Visitors

Bonjour,

It's been far too long since I last posted some news. I will definitely try and pick up the pace as I'm keen to start taking more photos.

My very cool twin sister (Julia) came all the way from NZ to celebrate our 30th birthday! Also my big brother (Rob) came from the UK.

Thank you to all of you who sent cards & presents!

We had a number of highlights together. We went for a dinner cruise along the river on the night of our birthday (2nd October). Ju and I went to Disneyland Paris for the day. We all drove out to Versailles and visited the Chateau. Rob, Ju and I risked our lives by going to the very top of the Eiffel Tower, as all of us are scared of heights - some more than others! So there was plenty of fun had by all.

Here is the evidence :)

All dressed up for our dinner cruise on the river Seine



An evening stroll after dinner

The next night was our 30th Birthday Party held in our apartment.

There were some lovely desserts and NZ wine :)


Friends, mainly from church

Then there was the trip to Versailles.

Me, Catherine, Julia & Rob inside the amazing Chateau de Versailles

Then I escorted Julia to Disneyland, obviously I'm way to old and mature too enjoy such a thing :)

Julia & I at Disneyland Paris

Then it was time to risk our lives by going to the very top of the Eiffel Tower.

Rob's face says it all

Then finally, two weeks ago we had one of Catherine's best friends (Stephanie) visit us with her sister (Esther). We stayed with Stephanie when we visited her in the Canary Islands earlier in the year. She was now on her way back to Germany and popped in for a couple of days.

Esther, Stephanie & Catherine in front of Sacre Coeur

Summer Trip

Bonjour

We have recently returned from a fantastic 3 week long holiday. Two weeks in the South West of France and one week in Oxford.

The first week we stayed in a cute Chateau in the Medoc region, which is known for its great wines. It was about a six and a half hour drive from Paris, with most of that cruising (legally!) at 130 km/hr.

Chateau Pomys - our room was on the top floor, second window from the right

We then moved onto the Vendee region, which is about 3 hours north from the Medoc region. We stayed in a holiday home (called a 'gite' in French) in the countryside. We were now much closer to the beach, within 20 minutes drive we had several beaches to chose from. So as you can imagine, we spent plenty of time there. I even dusted off my surfboard that came all the way from NZ with us!

This was our regular spot for the week at the beach called Les Conches

Yay, I finally caught one!

This was our gite, and the spot of many summer evening meals.

On the way home back to Paris we decided to break up the 6 hour journey by staying the night half way. We were recommended, by our French tutor, an abbey called 'Hotel Abbaye Royale De Fontevraud' which had been turned into a hotel. It was in a beautiful setting, and it dated back to the 12th century!

Catherine's artistic photo of the abbey

My symmetrical and sophisticated photo :)

Then our final week of our 3 week holiday was spent in Oxford. This was my first visit to Oxford, and Catherine's first time back since graduating. We stayed in a guest room in Catherine's old college (ironically called New College). Amongst visiting many of the colleges, Catherine had organised for us to meet up with a number of her friends who still live in Oxford.

The beautiful grounds of New College

Catherine and her good friend Anna

Catherine and her crazy bunch of Chemistry friends!