Bangkok

We left Paris on Saturday and arrived in Bangkok today after a short flight to Zurich followed by a very long overnight flight to here. We will be relaxing in Bangkok for a few days and, as this is our fourth time here, we will be just chilling out and not sightseeing. After that we fly to Phuket and then head up to the Marriot resort at Koh Lak to spend 10 days with Jen, Peter, Sophie and Lachlan. So probably won’t blog again till then.

Palace of Versailles

Today we visited this amazing palace built by Louis XIV in the 17^th century. Its gardens, decorative interiors, salons and the Hall of Mirrors have to be seen to be really appreciated. However the photos below will at least give you some idea of its magnificence.

The Hall of Mirrors was of particular interest to Phil as it was in this room that the Treaty of Versailles was signed on 28 June 1919 ending World War One and, among other things, creating the International Labour Organization which has been the focus of Phil’s work for nearly 20 years. The Hall features 357 mirrors in 17 arches between marble pilasters that feature in gold symbols of France including the fleur-de-lys and the Gallic cocherel. The ceiling is decorated with paintings celebrating Louis XIV’s military victories.

Photo 1: Palace from a distance to give some idea of its size

Photos 2 and 3: examples of ceiling art in the salons

Photo 4: Palace gardens seen from the Hall of Mirrors

Photo 5: example of the many gold ceiling decorations

Photo 6: another external view of the Palace

Photos 7 and 8: the Hall of Mirrors

 

 

The Lido

Last night we went to dinner and the show at the famous Lido. Dinner was delicious and the show was a brilliant cabaret. As you might expect from a French cabaret there was some comedy and a lot of energetic and rather erotic dancing with women wearing colourful costumes that covered very little. They danced a wonderful Can Can!

The staging was terrific. At times part of the stage floor would drop away slowly taking dancers with it only to see them rise again wearing different costumes and doing something new. The lighting was brilliant. Phil says what he enjoyed most was the skill of the dancers. Yeah … right… Sue is extremely sceptical J

We were not allowed to take photos during the show so we can’t show you any pictures. But if you Google ‘Paris Lido’ you will get an idea of what we saw.

Back in Paris

Today we left the boat in Paris and arrived at the Hotel Sofitel de Boutet where we are staying for the next few days. As our room wasn’t ready yet we took the Metro to visit the Arc de Triomphe. This involved changing trains and negotiating numerous sets of stairs at Metro stations as, apparently, the authorities believe that escalators should only be available for travel up or down but never for both. This was no fun for Sue given her hip replacement but we managed OK.

The fun started after we got off at the right station for the Arc de Triomphe and then headed off down what we thought was the Champs Elysees but which turned out to be the Avenue de la Grande Armee. A happy mistake as we had banana splits at a neat little café right near the Arc de Triomphe and enjoyed exploring some of Paris that we had no seen before.

Tomorrow we will visit the Palace of Versailles and the next day we are off to dinner and the show at the Lido. What are the poor people doing? J

Domaine de Chantilly

On Sunday we sailed to Conflans and today we visited the Domaine de Chantilly (i.e. Chantilly castle). The original castle was built in the 14^th century was gradually added to from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries. It is a magnificent building surrounded by beautiful gardens and housing wonderful art and other collections. The library has more than 60,000 books and priceless manuscripts, with only space to show 13,000.

Among the spectacular buildings on the site are the Great Stables, built in the 18^th century and dedicated to hunting. Relics of their past are kept in the Museum of the Horse, also on site. Today the stables host over 150 equestrian shows per year and daily dressage demonstrations.

Photo 1: The castle.

Photo 2: Statue of hunting dogs.

Photo 3: Salon.

Photo 4: View of part of the gardens from the castle.

Photos 5 and 6: These give some idea of the lavish way in which the interior has been decorated.

Monet’s House and Garden

Last night we sailed to Vernon and today we took an excursion to the village of Giverny to visit Oscar-Claude Monet’s house and garden. The famous impressionist artist lived in Giverny from 1883 till his death in 1926 and developed a magnificent garden that featured water lilies that were central to his most famous paintings. And for two oldies who are not overly into paintings his garden just blew us away. We could see exactly where he sat/stood to paint his famous waterlilies with the small Japanese bridge in the foreground. He ended up becoming blind through cataracts, however while he had limited sight he had the names of each of his paint colours written in large writing on every paint tube.  That way he was able to continue to paint for some years. Speculation has it that his diminishing sight led to his lack of clear images and colours running together in his later paintings.

We hope you enjoy the following photos of his house and garden.

 

 

Fecamp and Palais Benedictine

Last night we sailed to Cautebec and this morning we took an excursion to the seaside town of Fecamp. The town is the site of the Palais Benedictine which looks very much like a Benedictine Abbey but in fact is a plant which manufactures Benedictine and related liquors.

There was a Benedictine Abbey near Fecamp but it was destroyed during the French Revolution. However one of the monks bequeathed various items to a Fecamp trader named Alexander Le Grand who, the story goes, discovered a recipe for Benedictine among the papers in 1863 and began manufacturing it in 1864. Subsequently his company built the Palais Benedictine which, as the photos show, is a magnificent building in the style of an abbey both inside and out and includes a museum and art gallery with lovely collections.

As part of our visit we had a tasting of Benedictine as well as liquors made from Benedictine mixed with brandy. Talk about knocking your socks off!!

Enjoy the photos of the Palais and the beach at Fecamp. Notice how rocky the beach is? People on the beach were wearing special shoes to get around. Unreal!

 

Normandy Beaches – D Day invasion

On Friday Phil took the excursion to the Normandy beaches and Sue took the trip to Etretat.

Phil’s day: We visited the scene of the landings by the American, British and Canadian armies in Normandy on 6 June 1944 to begin the liberation of Europe. The landings took place on five beaches designated Utah (US), Omaha (US), Gold (British), Juno (Canadian) and Sword (British). We first visited the town of Aromanches which lies in the middle of Gold Beach and visited the D Day Museum. The Museum is filled with all sorts of exhibits of weapons, uniforms and other items from the invasion as well as many graphic photos of the fighting.

We then visited Omaha Beach which was the scene of the very worst fighting on 6 June and the following days. So much went wrong for the Americans. The aerial and naval bombardments preceding the landings were badly inaccurate and fires in the grain fields created by these actions created dense smoke which obscured the German positions on the cliffs above the beach and prevented the warships from improving the accuracy of their fire. So the American troops ran into heavy fire. To make it worse the Navy had to try and land 32 support tanks in water that was too deep and 27 sank. So the troops had no effective artillery or armoured support as they tried to scale the five narrow approaches to the cliffs. Casualties were massive, as is evident from the cemetery at the American memorial at Omaha Beach which contains 9388 graves.

Some things worked well. The allies had built two floating artificial harbours, called Mulberry Harbours, which they towed from England and settled on the sea bed at Omaha and Gold beaches. The remains of the Mulberry Harbours are still very visible from both beaches. But for all the successes the loss of life and limb was appalling and I hope we never have to see its like again.

 

Photo 1: tank used in the invasion.

Photo 2: remans of Mulberry Harbour B at Gold Beach.

Photo 3: Omaha Beach is 8 km long!

Photo 4 graves at the American memorial at Omaha Beach.

Photo 5: German bunker.

Photo 6: American memorial.

 

 

Honfleur and Deauville

We cruised overnight to Honfleur, which is the farthest point of our Seine River cruise. Today we took an excursion through the Normandy countryside through many villages to the seaside town of Deauville on the English Channel coast.

We never get tired of the Normandy countryside. It is a visual feast of dairy farms, wheat fields and apple orchards dotted with villages which have many houses dating from as early as the 16^th century. As with other parts of Normandy, typical houses are made of brick or stone plus timber, and many are just made of timber.

We had never heard of Deauville, but it turns out that the town has long been a resort for wealthy French and foreigners. Even the Emir of Dubai has a villa there. Deauville also hosts an annual film festival dedicated to American cinema which started in 1975. It also hosts the Deauville International Triathlon on the third weekend of June each year, so it will take place tomorrow. The road closures and other preparations are well advanced.  The beaches leave Monte Carlo for dead.  Think beautiful fine almost white beaches and lots of multi coloured umbrellas for hire.  The wind was blowing off the Channel this morning so most people were rugged up in jackets and scarves, except for the 2 idiots from Canberra who were both in shorts and Tshirts.  Holy smoke, the weather was around 16C, a long way from the -3C you had in Canberra this morning.

Deauville has a huge convention Centre sitting right on the sand of the beach.  The French are always looking to make a Euro or 2, so with the accommodation built for the rich and famous they have 400 rooms set aside for school excursions.  As it sits right on the beach you guess it is well used and helping defray costs.  They have a row of rooms along the beach promenade that has the names of the rich and famous who stayed there.  However, as more come to stay, the names are upgraded to reflect the newer stars.  Some of the older ones are there in perpetuity. 

Gamblers are well catered for with a huge Casino in Deauville, and across the bridge is the huge Casino of Toueville.  As the Emir has a ‘house” in Deauville you can imagine the he comes with many staff, as do so many of the big names and big spenders from around the globe.  It appears to be well kept secret by those in Hollywood and surrounds,

Photo 1: Nice little country cottage?

Photo 2: Low tide at Deauville.

Photo 3: Casino at Deauville.

Photo 4: The Normandy Hotel. For the rich and famous only at 639 Euros per night $1003)!!!

Photo 5: Names of some of the Hollywood stars who have been celebrated at the film festival.

Photo 6: Beach at Deauville.

Somme battlefields

Today Phil took the excursion from our dock in Rouen to the World War One battlefields around the village of Villers Bretonneaux. On 24 and 25 April 1918 the Australians fought a gruesome battle to recapture the town at the cost of 1200 soldiers’ lives.

Our first visit was to the Victoria School in Villers Bretonneaux which was built using funds raised by Victorian schoolchildren in the 1920s who donated two pennies each to the fund. The original school, along with most of the town, was destroyed during the battle. The school contains the Franco-Australian Museum which was donated by Australia in 1975 and contains a lot of memorabilia from the battle.

The second visit was a very moving experience. The Australian War Memorial outside Villers Bretonneaux now includes the Sir John Monash Centre opened on 24 April this year – the 100^th anniversary of the battle. The Centre contains displays of many and varied items including uniforms, helmets and weapons and so on. But its key feature is numerous screens showing both still photos and films of battle scenes and their aftermath. There is a theatre with five wraparound screens which runs a VERY graphic movie of the battle which shows the carnage that took place in horrendous detail. You have to wonder how such horror can be allowed to happen.

In front of the memorial is a cemetery for Australian and Canadian troops killed at the Somme. See the photos below to get something of the feel of being there.

Next we visited the so called Newfoundland site. This is the site of a significant part of the first battle of the Somme in July 1916 in which troops from Newfoundland fought with the British. In total they lost 58,000 dead in a single day of action! The British commanders thought that their bombardment of the German trenches with 1.5 million shells would destroy the enemy trenches so they instructed the troops to move out of their trenches and walk in line to the German trenches to occupy them. However the bombardment was inaccurate and one-third of the shells failed to explode, so the German positions were largely intact and they were able to mow down the British with machine gun fire. Sickening!

Lastly we visited the Lochnagar Crater. It was created by the detonation of an English underground mine made of 27 tons of explosive dug under the German trenches. Unfortunately when it was set off most of the Germans had retreated. Worse, the debris was blown about 1200 metres into the air and a lot fell on the British trenches causing many casualties. What can you say?

Photo 1: Victoria School. Note the flags which have been on display since ANZAC Day.

Photo 2: Speaks for itself. The bond between the town and Australia is very strong.

Photo 3: Uniforms

Photo 4: View towards the memorial with the Cross of Sacrifice in the foreground and cemetery on either side.

Photo 5: Australian graves with Villers Bretonneaux in the distance.

Photo 6: A tapestry woven by four Australian women who each took about 1000 hours to complete their parts. It depicts the soldiers’ thoughts of home.

Photos 7 and 8: Video screens in the Centre.

Photo 9: Trenches preserved by the locals.

 

 

Paris to Les Andelys

We began our cruise of the Seine by sailing overnight from Paris to the lovely town of Les Andelys in the Normandy region. Our excursion today was by bus to the village of Lyons la Foret and then on to the Chateau Fleury.

Lyons la Foret is a village of only 700 people and is apparently typical of villages in Normandy. The village dates from the 12^th century and is made up of very many old buildings from as far back as the 17^th century. A lot of the buildings are brick or stone for the first level then a second floor made of timber – a big contrast to the housing in the south of France. But that was not the only interesting thing about this place. One of the local houses was the home of the composer Maurice Ravel who whose works included Bolero. Far more surprising to Phil, the history buff, was that the village is the site of the grave of King Harold of England who was defeated and killed by William the Conqueror in the Norman invasion of 1066. Fancy an English king being buried in a French village.

The Chateau Fleury was very impressive, as the photos show. It was built in 1595 and is considered a great example of renaissance architecture. Sadly it was stripped of its art, furniture, fine wood panelling and other valuable contents by the Germans during the World War Two occupation. However the restoration work undertaken since then has been remarkable. Of the 62 rooms 55 have been fully restored and much of the lost art and other items has been replaced so that you would hardly know that the Chateau had been vandalised. The area is famous for its cider, so of course tasting was obligatory.  It was certainly not our drink of choice…quite rough around the edges, and with a huge percentage of alcohol.

Photos 1-3: street scenes in the village.

Photo 4: Ravel's house.

Photo 5: the Chateau.

Photo 6: young child's carousel with dolls. The Chateau has an extensive doll collection.

Photo 7: Tea pots collection. The Chateau also has collections of items like antique watches and china.

Photo 8: Typical hanging flower baskets used to decorate the village square.