Chris’ foot was much better the next morning. Such a relief that those antibiotics are working.

We loved Orleans, but we were keen to get on the road. By 11.00am we had checked out and began our journey on the freeway to St Felix Lauragais. At lunch time we pulled off the freeway to a small village and found a restaurant/bar that appeared to be serving lunch. It was full of workmen and truck drivers and the hostess bid us to find a table. There were no menus, but soon she arrived at our table with four plates with soft baby leeks, coleslaw, boiled eggs and a slice of pork that had the texture of silverside. None of us liked the look of it for a start, but once Chris and Nick and I had started eating it, we found it absolutely delicious (Michael wouldn’t touch it, much to the hostess’ disappointment). We were ready to leave when she arrived again with a big platter laden with savoury rice and stuffed tomatoes which were absolutely delicious. Halfway though lunch Chris went to the bar and ordered me a glass of white wine and was given a bottle. When I thought we couldn’t move, the hostess returned with a large plate of local cheeses – so of course we had to try them all. Finally she retuned a fourth time with a plate of ice creams. I really couldn’t eat any more, but all my boys ate them them very happily. I was curious to see what this would all cost as there were no prices listed anywhere. It was……wait for it…..42 euros including the bottle of wine! Unbelievable! France can be so cheap once you are outside of Paris.

We continued our long journey toward Toulouse stopping every few kilometres to pay a toll. At the first toll gate we discover that our card was not accepted and we had to wait for several long minutes with a queue of cars behind us until someone came to accept cash from us instead. But the drivers behind us were patient and no one tooted their horns!

It was close to an 800km trip between Paris and Toulouse which is equivalent to a trip between Sydney and Melbourne. As we finally turned off the highway at Toulouse and drove towards Cecily and Darren’s house the scenery changed dramatically. Imagine bright blue skies, rolling hills filled with sunflowers everywhere and the occasional 12th or 13th century walled village sitting on top of a hill. It was stunning! We finally arrived at the Hanson’s country home at around 7.00pm to a very warm welcome. The kids ran off, we explored their property and then we had a beautiful (Australian weber BBQ) out on their deck looking the the walled 12th century village of St Felix lit up in front of us. Magic.

The next morning we awoke and Cecily took me into the village to buy provisions from the boulangerie. The shop keepers in the village speak no English but Cecily speaks fluent French – she ordered a wide range of pastries for our breakfast and some baguette for lunch. We joined the boys by a nearby lake for breakfast and ate our delicious pastries in the sunshine. From there we traveled to the nearby village of Castelnaudry to explore some more, before lunch at the Canal de Midi. There we watched boats floating down the river, and travelling though a loch to continue down the river. These boats have to go though a gate, and sit in a holding area that fills up with water until the water level is level with the canal in front of it, before passing though. This system dates back to the 1600s and it was fascinating to watch.

In the evening after dinner, we went to the Chateau in the village to watch a French jazz band play in the courtyard as the sun went down. It was surreal. We watched the sky turn a beautiful shade of indigo blue that I have only seen in story books and sat quite entranced as the band played a wide range of French songs including “Oh Toulouse”. Sometimes I just want to pinch myself.

We got up at 6.00am, and found Chris’s foot to be a bit better. In our usual fashion left home late (after bidding good bye to John and thanking him for his wonderful hospitality – he even donated his bed! Nicest nephew ever!) and then panicked all the way to St Pancras to check back into the Eurostar.

The children were their usual, noisy, high spirited selves which really stands out among the Brits but stands out even more among the French. Chris and I feel like we are enacting a parody of National Lampoons European Vacation – our family is so boisterous, we must seem like total hill-billies to the locals.

We landed in Paris again, (God it was good to be back!) jumped onto the metro and headed out to the Citroen factory to pick up our brand new lease car! The hand over went very smoothly, we packed up the car (all the luggage fit easily into the boot) and off Chris drove into the wild Parisian traffic. Thank god he is driving! I have done this before (25 years ago) but every time we turned a corner my impulse was to turn into the left side of the road instead of the right. But Chris was confident and seamless and seemed absolutely delighted with himself (as he should be!). Part of his confidence was instilled by our GPS which we made sure our new car would have. Within a few minutes it became obvious however, that the GPS was on another planet or at least another city, as it directed us down non-existent streets and showed our progress driving across the city parks (I can assure you Chris stuck to the streets!). It became clear that if we didn’t do something, we would still be driving around Paris even now. Good old Apple. Is there anything that iPhone cannot do? We pulled ups the maps and giggled as we watched the two GPSs directing us completely opposite directions and eventually, by what seemed like a complete fluke, we ended up in Versailles. The plan had been to spend the afternoon here before driving onto Orleans, but one look at the crowds outside ( there would have literally been thousands of people lining up outside) we decided to grab a baguette for lunch (yah, back in the land of baguettes,) and keep driving. Hopefully we can return to Versailles at some stage in the next few weeks.

We arrived in Orleon a couple of hours later (no thanks to the car’s GPS), checked into our gorgeous French hotel and looked around the city. It is absolutely equisitite! (Look at the photos if you don’t believe me!). The architecture is beautiful and some of it dates back to the 1400s or before, it has trams but they’re colour coordinated with the buildings and the streets and buildings are completely pristine.

I begged the boys to not embarrass me (any further) in front of the polite and reserved French and the threatened them with iPod removal. Of course they completely ignored me while I was in a chemist which resulted in a street altercation (yes NLEV!!) and tears from Nick, which led to much discussion from mum and dad and finally an impromptu visit to the Joan of Arc gallery which in happened to be outside. Joan’s story inspired the boys and we went searching for more Joan paraphernalia around the city. We then came across a square where there were fountains……..and looked what happened next!

Yes my repressed little monkeys ran through the fountains screaming and yelling while the French looked on in amazement! (Nick even peeled his top off until I yelled at him to out it back on). But we all felt much better.

Dinner was at a French pub and it was lovely. I ordered the rump steak, medium rare, and it was served completely blue. I’m sure it doesn’t get more French than that. Chris and I had a Sancerre and a Rose and the kids had crepes for desert and we finished the day completely happy.

Chris awoke to find his foot was no worse (if not better), so we decided to stick to our plan to visit his godmother, Busby, in Bulmer Tye. After two tubes and two country trains we arrived at the gorgeous village of Sudsbury to find Busby waiting for us. I was completely entranced with this beautiful place – many of the houses were over 800 years old with tiny little doors. The streets were narrow and there were pretty English gardens everywhere. It must be wonderful to live in a place like that.

Busby drove us in her little car to her house nearby – Bulmer Tye House. Parts of her house date back to the 1600s and the whole house is really interesting – from the rainbow coloured kitchen with the Aga, the decorative clavichord and dolls house that Busby’s husband Peter made or the toy museum in the attic (full of toys and clothes belonging to her parents and grand parents). We had coffee in the garden while the children played with Busby and Peter’s grand child, Leno.

After lunch Busby showed us some interesting artefacts her father had gathered in his exploration of the artic in the 1930s such as an ash tray made for him on his birthday by an Eskimo or the replica of the Eskimo canoe he paddled in made with seal skin. It was a really interesting and unique afternoon and Busby and Peter were lovely hosts.

We took the trains home to meet John and went for a seriously delicious curry. Our last night in London was a sad one. We haven’t seen nearly enough of this interesting city. We must return soon.

We have been doing a lot of walking and it has started to take a toll on our feet. Chris had a blister which had become infected and when he woke up this morning his whole foot was swollen and infected. Being a Sunday, there weren’t a whole lot of options open to us so we jumped into a taxi and took him to the A and E at Whittington hospital. Apparently no one pays for medical treatment in England and that includes unfortunate tourists, but the hospital looked like something out of a modern Charles Dickens novel with outside peeling off and a minimum 6 hour wait for medical treatment. (Not unlike an Australian public hospital actually). We were advised to find an out of hours GP, so Chris rang a service and was given an appointment at another public hospital around lunch time. The taxi ride to the second hospital took us through a few London suburbs and I was struck by how depressing some of them were with tall, dark, ugly brick buildings piled next to each other and unkempt, uncared for gardens (where residents were lucky to have one). But then you’d stumble across the most beautiful park and realise that London residents have access to some great public, community spaces ( as well as free public health care). At the second hospital we ever seen early by a lovely doctor who nearly yelped when he saw Chris’ foot ( and refused to touch it!). He advised him that it was very lucky we hadn’t waited any longer for treatment, prescribed two different super strength antibiotics (to cover the two most likely strains for infection) and warned him that if it got any worse we needed to return to the hospital tomorrow for intravenous antibiotics! Yikes!!!!

We returned home, via two different pharmacies and put Chris’s foot up. It was effectively my last chance to see London, so I grabbed Michael (Nick was fed up with sight seeing), took a tube into Waterloo and went for a stroll along the river with 2 million other people. It was incredibly vibrant along the riverside with different types of buskers every few steps, ice cream vans everywhere (yes Michael got another ice cream) and crowds! I was feeling quite frustrated about London – I’ve read so much about the history, there was so much I wanted to understand and look at, but so far I felt I had just seen the outside of a few places and felt really unsatisfied. Michael and I hopped onto a boat with very low expectations, but we found a couple of seats up the top and at the front, where we got a great view, and discovered there was a commentary (yah!!!!!!). As we cruised down the river our very helpful guide explained all the buildings and monuments along the river side and their origin. It wasn’t as much detail as I wanted, but for an hour long cruise it was great – we saw Cleopatras Needle, Wren’s Steps, Ladies Bridge and my favourite Tower Bridge.

When we returned home, Chris reported that his foot might be feeling a little bit better. Fingers crossed.

Today we got a late start because we are all beginning to feel so tired. We dragged ourselves out of the house at around 11.00am and took the tube into London (catching 4 different train lines in an effort to be as efficient as possible). We decided to alight at Whitechapel which turns out to be a Muslim area with interesting markets. We strolled through looking with interest at burkas for sale alongside exotic looking jewellery. Eventually we came to Auldgate, the old gate to the City of a London still guarded with a griffin. we had learnt earlier in the morning about the City of London’s unique status separate from the rest of England and how the city is still guarded by the griffins when you look around. As we strolled though the old city I was struck by the groovy juxtaposition of the very old sitting alongside the very new. Everything about London is funky.

We couldn’t resist lunch at an old English pub where we had an excellent meal in traditional English surroundings, before walking further to the (for me) the long anticipated Tower of London. I have read so much about what has happened here over the years that I was bursting with expectation. The outside of the Tower did not disappoint – a huge castle, with two walls guarded by lions alongside Tower Bridge.

Sadly for me, because my expectations were so high, the rest of the tour felt frustrating. There were a million tourists there and I really wanted to explore and get to grips with the “real” Tower of London – instead there were people constantly in the way of everything I wanted to look at and lots and lots of exhibitions on guns, cannons, armour blah, blah, blah. The great thing was that both boys fully engaged with the Tower and what it had to teach them. Nick was really inspired by the castle and the way it was designed and very impressed that his ancestor, William the Conqueror, had built the white tower in the centre. Michael loved the armoury. I of course, wanted to know all about King Henry VIII’s wives and what happened to them here.

At the end of the day we took another very hot, and very crowded tube home (God we are so lucky we don’t have to deal with that every day) and had another lovely evening chatting to John.

The day began with a walk across the park and ride in a double decker bus. Nick raced to the top and scored us the front seats and we had a fantastic view as the aggressive driver drove up the back of cyclists and sped through red lights. We alighted at Piccadilly Circus and found ourselves in the heart of London. From there it was a short walk to Trafalgar Square and then a rest from the intense heat and sunshine in St James Park.

Nick was flagging badly so we had to miss Buckingham Palace 🙁 but we pushed on to Westminster Abbey and Parliament House before catching a stinking hot tube home.

John returned home early from work and we had a party at his place with some of his friends. Sinead, his girlfriend, made beautiful gin and tonics with mint (!!) my new favourite drink, while the kids ran around outside having nerf gun wars. By 1.00am it really was time to go to bed.

After some frantic packing and crazy ride across Paris in a taxi we made our train to London by the skin of our teeth.

The train ride was a welcome, relaxing break from the hectic sight seeing of the last few days. The man at passport control warned me that London would have changed a lot from when I saw it 25 years ago and he was right! St Pancras, or Kings Cross station, is really modern and packed with people everywhere. Our plan had been to leave our luggage at the station for a while, but at 10 pounds a bag we thought better if it! Chris bought a SIM card, we called my nephew John, and took the underground to his house and dropped the bags there instead.

After half an hours rest at his lovely apartment overlooking a Lake, we got back on the tube and met him on the steps of St Paul’s. His son, James, is a student at St. Paul’s School and sings in the choir there so we had the opportunity to sit in Old St. Paul’s during evensong, listening to the beautiful choir. The kids found it hard going, but Chris and I really enjoyed it.

The temperature in London was really hot so we decided to walk across the millennium bridge to south bank and have dinner at a pizza restaurant there. London was alive with people everywhere, drinking, eating, walking around. The vibe was very similar to Melbourne on a warm evening and I feel really at home here. I’m really looking forward to seeing more of it tomorrow.

The day began by walking down the Eiffel Tower, waiting in a queue for 1 hour (which is apparently pretty good!) and catching the elevator to the top of the Eiffel Tower. The view was absolutely breathtaking. Michael was scared of heights (and Chris confided to me that he is too), but we all decided to take a second elevator to the Summit anyway. You could see for miles, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and everyone agreed that it was a total highlight of our time in Paris.

Because the kids ( and let’s face it, us too) we’re completely shagged we took the afternoon off. Such a beautiful and hot day, so we strolled down to the local shops in Rue de Commerce, bought some SIM card for our phones, and had a cup of coffee in the sun watching the gorgeous Parisians stroll past.

Late in the afternoon we took the metro to the Jardin Des Tuileries. Chris and I counted out the last of our money for the day (22 euros) which was just enough to buy a baguette for each of us (yes more baguette!) and sit under a tree and soak up the peace and relaxation.

We then strolled to the Lourvre next door, walked straight in (no queues!!!) bought an audio tour and spent the next three hours wandering the gallery. I cannot describe in words how magnificent and overwhelming the gallery is in very way. Everywhere you turn there is an amazing masterpiece (Bottecelli, Da Vinci) , the ceilings are decorated in amazing frescos and the salles lead on one from another. If we had a week it wouldn’t have been enough time there. We thought we’d pop into the Egyptian Exhibition for half an hour, but a day wouldn’t have been long enough here. Whereas Melbourne has one, decaying and sad looking mummy, the Lourvre has dozens and they come from different periods in time and you can look at them all at once. The kids were dying to leave after a couple of hours and Chris was nearly beside himself with disappointment at having to leave – he keeps saying we will return and soon!

The day finished with a stroll along the Seine as the sun set (around 1030pm) and a train ride home. My feet were so sore that I was limping and hobbling like a crippled old lady.

While I remember I wanted to add a word about the food and people in Paris.

Firstly, the food! Everything tastes so, so good here. Often we would exclaim “that’s the best baguettes/croissant/omelette/cheese/butter ” I have EVER tasted. The baguettes (of which we had many) have a delicious crusty exterior and the inside melts in your mouth like candy floss. Often when I’d pick them up in the morning they’d still be warm. We’d slather them in butter which tasted like cream. The croissants were out of this world – melt in your mouth and no need for an accompaniment. Just amazing. Don’t even get me started on the cheese! So plentiful and so cheap. Chris and I bought a big slice of creamy Gorgonzola for 5 euros and it oozed all over the plate. It disappeared in 10 minutes. I have never tasted anything so wonderful! Even the fruit taste different – sweeter and more flavoursome. I don’t know why perhaps one reason is that the Parisian consumer demands freshness. All the fruit and vegetables (even the meat) on display was wonderfully fresh even in the local corner stores.

My second pleasant surprise was the people. I remember Parisians being very rude 25 years ago. What we found this time is that they are lovely – very polite, friendly and warm. A French/Australian national on the plane advised us to remember to always say Bonjour when we entered a store and Au revoir when we left ( as well as the obligatory pleases and thank yous). I think this made all the difference – we found the French really love their pleases and thank yous much in the same way that I love “the wave” when I let someone in in traffic. We always started talking French and to be honest we found it surprisingly easy to convey what we wanted in French – but almost without fail, we found they spoke English – really well – and quickly addressed us in this way to assist us.

Paris is such a civilised city. The people are really well mannered and we noticed all sorts of telling things, such as the gardens are full of beautiful art which no one defaces, the Jardin Des Tuileries is full of chairs for people to use and no one steals them, cyclists are everywhere and no one is required to use a helmet, there are tons of people in the city but the traffic works really well, if you catch someone’s eye they hold it, no one on the train is looking through their smart phone ( they read books, or look out the window), the women are slim and stylish but don’t appear to wear much makeup, there is a cafe within 20 seconds walk, no Parisian seems to live more than 10 seconds walk from a boulangerie or Boucher, they are very, very proud of their city. We absolutely loved it.

Today to save our feet and wallet we decided to use the Metro to get around. It was absolutely fantastic – fast, cheap and easy! We started the day at Notre Dame and proceeded to Sacre Coeur. The boys were truly sick of cathedrals by that stage so we had a lovely picnic lunch (yes baguette and cheese again!) in the sun and watched some Africans scamming the tourists (the scam involved grabbing a tourists hand, asking them to hold some string while they plaited it, tying it around the tourists wrist so that it couldn’t be undone and then demanding payment!). It was very interesting watching the reaction of all the victims – no two responded the same way.

After lunch we explored Monmatre, which is the medieval and bohemian heart of Paris where the great French artists like Renoir lived. It was unbelievably gorgeous!

Our exploration included the Moulin Rouge which logically, but disappointingly, is in the heart of the red light district with tall building on either side overshadowing it. (And Ewan McGregor nowhere to be seen). Despite the kids pleading to go home after that, we couldn’t resist torturing them some more by dragging them to the Museum D’Orsay to look at some beautiful Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh paintings (actually both boys sat on a chair and refused to walk around the gallery with us – but Chris and I got a great culture fix). By that stage we had run out of money so we walked (dragged ourselves) home and collapsed. Dinner was purchased on the way home at our local artisan boulangerie – pizza, quiche and four different tarts to sample. Chris and I will finish with a glass of wine at the cafe across the road. Bon Soir.