Our next morning, we had some shopping plans. We started out at the Les Halles metro stop, and managed to get completely turned around. Which ended up being a happy accident, as we ended up at the Centre Pompidou, which has a really neat fountain installation in its courtyard. Mistake corrected, we headed into the
Our first full day in Paris, we decided to do some shopping. Which worked out to involve a whole lot of incidental walking. We started the morning at Notre Dame, because, well, we’re in Paris, so we had to go to Notre Dame. Which is fully as fascinating as a medieval cathedral should be. We
I definitely recommend taking the Eurostar train from London to Paris. The transport links are so easy (city center to city center). There’s great leg room (I bought my tickets the first day they were available, so I was able to snag one of the table seats for the three of us. Oh, and the
Day 12: London to Paris Read More »
Since we had our car until the end of the day Saturday, and had to clear out of the cottage by 10:00 AM, we figured we’d be silly not to stop off somewhere on the way back to London. Using my trusty National Trust handbook, I located Stourhead House and Garden, in Wiltshire (so not
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I feel as though I should address the driving situation, even though I barely got any pictures, because I was usually too busy navigating. I should first say that there are a lot of roundabouts in England. So a lot of navigating involves spotting the warning signs so you can tell the driver
Heligan isn’t just the kitchen gardens – it was an estate, so has plenty of ornamental gardens, and wild space. There’s a section called the Jungle that’s stuck inside a steep walled valley, so it’s got a warmer microclimate than the gardens near the house. During Victorian times, it was planted with tree ferns and
Cornwall, Day 10: The Lost Gardens of Heligan – The Other Gardens Read More »
The Lost Gardens of Heligan were another one of my must sees in Cornwall, after I’d run into a couple television shows about the gardens. The very basic back story: the garden staff all volunteered to go off and fight in WWI, and unfortunately, as in many other places, they didn’t come back. Fast forward
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Cotehele was the home of the Earls of Mount Edgecumbe back to Tudor times, but they eventually built a much nicer home, and Cotehele became a dumping ground of old furniture and knick knacks. That’s the beauty of Cotehele. All of the rooms still have walls covered in tapestries (which means they keep the inside
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Our other stop in Devon was the market town of Totnes. My mother was interested in visiting because it’s a Transition Town. It’s a really neat old town. The main street (see the gate across it in the first picture) is a crazy one lane street up a steep hill. Lorries were driving on it.
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For our next day out, we headed into Devon. Our first stop was Buckland Abbey, which was originally a Cistercian abbey, founded in the 13th century, until the Dissolution. In the 16th century, it was converted into a home, which came into the possession of Sir Frances Drake. The house has a lot of interesting
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