jeudi, août 31, 2006
Une pièce en plus
18 m2 sufficed for one person for nigh on a year, two people for a few months, three people for several stints, and even four for a week. However, the time has come to move up, move forward, move out!
House-hunting last Thursday, Alex and I found a fantastic one bedroom place with a whole 30 m2! With that much space, we're taking up ballroom dancing! It has just been completely revamped, with brand new kitchen, flooring, and furniture. Exciting features include a bedroom (!), a washing machine, and five flights of stairs... no elevator. Any volunteers to help us move?
We're getting the keys tomorrow, but we won't be moving until next weekend due to a parental visit this weekend.
The apartment is in the 3rd arrondissement, on the right bank. It isn't as impressive an area as the current one (my neighbours will now include gay jewish prostitutes rather than Napoleon and the Prime Minister) but it is a much more lively and fun area and we can't wait to start discovering new favourite restaurants and boulangeries.
Photos to come, for now, here's a trusty old google map image:
House-hunting last Thursday, Alex and I found a fantastic one bedroom place with a whole 30 m2! With that much space, we're taking up ballroom dancing! It has just been completely revamped, with brand new kitchen, flooring, and furniture. Exciting features include a bedroom (!), a washing machine, and five flights of stairs... no elevator. Any volunteers to help us move?
We're getting the keys tomorrow, but we won't be moving until next weekend due to a parental visit this weekend.
The apartment is in the 3rd arrondissement, on the right bank. It isn't as impressive an area as the current one (my neighbours will now include gay jewish prostitutes rather than Napoleon and the Prime Minister) but it is a much more lively and fun area and we can't wait to start discovering new favourite restaurants and boulangeries.
Photos to come, for now, here's a trusty old google map image:
lundi, août 28, 2006
Bateaux, Chateaux, et Mains
One missed train, chased out of Ljubljana by bed bugs, some troubles with Slovenian bus timetables, one rather unpleasant 10 hour ferry trip... but aside from these relatively minor mishaps, our Eastern Extravaganza went surprisingly well! Not even a sunburn to complain about (tan, yes; peeling nose, no).
So what did we see?
Budapest: interesting, I would say. Really beautiful old castles and ornate buildings interspersed with dodgy communist era remnants. Also equipped with truly horrific waiting times to buy train tickets, which resulted in above-mentioned missed train, and the hand of St Stephen! Other highlights included sharing a dorm room with The Loudest Snorer In The World, bathing in a very pongy thermal spring bath house, and plenty of goulash!
The Budapest Parliament House, taken from Buda castle across the Danube.
Buda castle at night.
A memorial to a 1956 revolution in Hungary. When Stalin died, they symbolically cut the hammer and sickle from the flag.
The famous (and rather wrinkly) hand relic. I know you can't really see it, but it is definitely a hand... Whether it belonged to St Stephen or a young and underfed monkey I cannot say.
On the train to Ljubljana, enjoying a hungarian feast of tasty bread and salami.
Ljubljana: gorgeous and really charming, though less so at 2 am traipsing around trying to find a blood-sucking-insect-free room. Bled (also in Slovenia), a mountain lake with a little island in the middle with a gorgeous church on it, which was clearly created with postcards in mind.
A very strange and rather creepy door to a cathedral in Ljubljana, decorated with pope heads!
Beautiful lake Bled.
Dubrovnik, Zadar, Hvar and Split: Dalmatian towns on the Croatian coast that are all amazing. The Croatians obviously have an over-abundance of white marble because all these towns, which have walled in, car free old towns, are basically built from it. Literally even the streets are made of marble. Dubrovnik is the most gorgeous and still has a completely intact wall surrounding the old town: the only entry or exit is through one of two draw-string-bridge equipped doorways, and the wall plunges down into the sea on one side.
A section of the town wall surrounding Dubrovnik.
The white marble streets in Dubrovnik.
A beach with a great view in Dubrovnik.
The gorgeous Plitvice Lakes in a National park in Croatia. Sixteen of these lakes run into each other via waterfalls and they're all this incredible opaque blue colour.
Again in Plitvice, photo taken by an arsehole frenchman who responded with a shrug and "Je ne comprends pas" when I asked him in english (not knowing where he was from) if he could take our photo. Obviously someone gesturing with a camera in a tourist spot and pointing at themselves whilst saying something in a language you don't understand is completely incomprehensible, if you're an arrogant bastard. He was rather surprised when I then responded sweetly in french.
Which brings us to the sea and the beaches, and our introduction to pebble beaches (or, more often, rocky outcrops where you struggle to find a place to lie down without impaling yourself on jagged stone.) Luckily (or not) theses beaches are manned by enthusiastic guys who cover them with deckchairs and charge you for a comfortable space to spread your towel. You can always squeeze in a towel between the chairs though so you don't have to pay, and Alex and I never once did actually. The water was just gorgeous, so clean and crystal clear, we estimated that you could see the bottom at least 10 metres down, and even in the harbour you can see the bottom perfectly a couple of metres down (it wasn't any deeper) and we saw people taking sea urchins from the harbour and cracking them open and eating them straight out of the water! We definitely recommend the Croatian coast to everyone, it is just stunning, amazing old towns and perfect beaches and islands, everyone spoke excellent english and travelling is easy, good buses, ferries, tourist offices etc, and much cheaper than Western Europe.
Our favourite spot- our nearest beach which had a great bar right on the water.
The harbour, old town and castle of Hvar, an island where we spent almost a week. Gorgeous.
Final stop was Venice for a few days. Venice is... Venice. I won't say too much, I think everyone has seen enough pictures and heard enough clichés about Venice, and so I'll instead say that our whole holiday was just fantastic and the pictures really don't do any of these places justice, especially attempts at beach shots which never get that amazing blue colour right.
Oh yes, I almost forgot the tally:
Dalmatians spotted in Dalmatia (final count): 1
Dalmatians spotted in the three days after leaving Dalmatia: 3
So what did we see?
Budapest: interesting, I would say. Really beautiful old castles and ornate buildings interspersed with dodgy communist era remnants. Also equipped with truly horrific waiting times to buy train tickets, which resulted in above-mentioned missed train, and the hand of St Stephen! Other highlights included sharing a dorm room with The Loudest Snorer In The World, bathing in a very pongy thermal spring bath house, and plenty of goulash!
Buda castle at night.
A memorial to a 1956 revolution in Hungary. When Stalin died, they symbolically cut the hammer and sickle from the flag.
The famous (and rather wrinkly) hand relic. I know you can't really see it, but it is definitely a hand... Whether it belonged to St Stephen or a young and underfed monkey I cannot say.
On the train to Ljubljana, enjoying a hungarian feast of tasty bread and salami.
Ljubljana: gorgeous and really charming, though less so at 2 am traipsing around trying to find a blood-sucking-insect-free room. Bled (also in Slovenia), a mountain lake with a little island in the middle with a gorgeous church on it, which was clearly created with postcards in mind.
A very strange and rather creepy door to a cathedral in Ljubljana, decorated with pope heads!
Beautiful lake Bled.
Dubrovnik, Zadar, Hvar and Split: Dalmatian towns on the Croatian coast that are all amazing. The Croatians obviously have an over-abundance of white marble because all these towns, which have walled in, car free old towns, are basically built from it. Literally even the streets are made of marble. Dubrovnik is the most gorgeous and still has a completely intact wall surrounding the old town: the only entry or exit is through one of two draw-string-bridge equipped doorways, and the wall plunges down into the sea on one side.
The white marble streets in Dubrovnik.
A beach with a great view in Dubrovnik.
The gorgeous Plitvice Lakes in a National park in Croatia. Sixteen of these lakes run into each other via waterfalls and they're all this incredible opaque blue colour.
Again in Plitvice, photo taken by an arsehole frenchman who responded with a shrug and "Je ne comprends pas" when I asked him in english (not knowing where he was from) if he could take our photo. Obviously someone gesturing with a camera in a tourist spot and pointing at themselves whilst saying something in a language you don't understand is completely incomprehensible, if you're an arrogant bastard. He was rather surprised when I then responded sweetly in french.
Which brings us to the sea and the beaches, and our introduction to pebble beaches (or, more often, rocky outcrops where you struggle to find a place to lie down without impaling yourself on jagged stone.) Luckily (or not) theses beaches are manned by enthusiastic guys who cover them with deckchairs and charge you for a comfortable space to spread your towel. You can always squeeze in a towel between the chairs though so you don't have to pay, and Alex and I never once did actually. The water was just gorgeous, so clean and crystal clear, we estimated that you could see the bottom at least 10 metres down, and even in the harbour you can see the bottom perfectly a couple of metres down (it wasn't any deeper) and we saw people taking sea urchins from the harbour and cracking them open and eating them straight out of the water! We definitely recommend the Croatian coast to everyone, it is just stunning, amazing old towns and perfect beaches and islands, everyone spoke excellent english and travelling is easy, good buses, ferries, tourist offices etc, and much cheaper than Western Europe.
The harbour, old town and castle of Hvar, an island where we spent almost a week. Gorgeous.
Final stop was Venice for a few days. Venice is... Venice. I won't say too much, I think everyone has seen enough pictures and heard enough clichés about Venice, and so I'll instead say that our whole holiday was just fantastic and the pictures really don't do any of these places justice, especially attempts at beach shots which never get that amazing blue colour right.
Oh yes, I almost forgot the tally:
Dalmatians spotted in Dalmatia (final count): 1
Dalmatians spotted in the three days after leaving Dalmatia: 3
mercredi, août 09, 2006
Dalmatians spotted in Dalmatia tally: 1
Having escaped jumper-buying-requiring cold and blood thirsty bedbugs more or less unscathed, Alex and I are now trying to work on our sun burns in Zadar! (Middle of Croatian coast -known as Dalmatia- on previous map) Heading to Dubrovnik tonight on a no doubt God-awful overnight bus trip after which much fabulous beach action will be the priority.
More comprehensive holiday reports will follow. Stay posted...
Okay, okay, I'm taking over the rest of this post Jen; You haven't told anyone about the fabulous relics or jewels we saw in Budapest (just wait 'till you see the pics), not to mention the countless flocks of avians I have put down my gullet!
...
Like I said, more stories and photos will follow, thanks Alex!
More comprehensive holiday reports will follow. Stay posted...
Okay, okay, I'm taking over the rest of this post Jen; You haven't told anyone about the fabulous relics or jewels we saw in Budapest (just wait 'till you see the pics), not to mention the countless flocks of avians I have put down my gullet!
...
Like I said, more stories and photos will follow, thanks Alex!
