Ladies Day at the Cheltenham Festival

The Cheltenham Festival is an annual 4 day horse racing event that literally takes over the whole town. All hotels are full, restaurants are totally booked. Many people open their homes and rent rooms and those near to the track, provide parking in their gardens. Each day there is a theme and special races in honor of someone related to racing or now more often named for sponsors.  

I went for Ladies Day with several spouses of Andrews coworkers. Despite growing up in Maryland, home to the 2nd jewel in the Triple Crown, at Pimlico (the Preakness) and Laurel Racetrack, I have never been to horse race. So I wasn't sure what expect. The weather forecast was for COLD but fortunately sunny. Thank heavens for that!









On Ladies Day, ladies are encouraged to really go all out dress up. Even though the temps were low, the ladies did not disappoint! People-watching was the sport of the afternoon for us. Some REALLY dressed to the nines. Don't you agree?

Fashion Contest Winner

There was a contest with some pretty impressive prizes. Mink coats, holidays, spa and shopping packages. I'm not sure how the ladies survived with short skirts, stilettos and no nylons. Freezing cold and sore feet! Not my idea of fun. I'm sure the champagne kept them warm. NOT.

Most sensible hat!

Feathers were the most use hat embellishment.

Fur is back.

The only person in our party who dressed for the occasion!

Quite the ensemble.

 The horse racing was so exciting and the atmosphere in the park was truly electric. Many races were very close, neck and neck. In one memorable race the two horses fighting for first place approached the last fence but only one made it over. Of course half the crowd cheered, now their horse would win!

We went to the winners circle and saw trainers and owners receive their prizes. They were interviewed by the press here also. Claire Balding, who hosted the Olympic coverage here in the UK was there.


 


We also went to the paddock, where the horses are walked before they race. This gives the crowd a chance to view them and help them make final betting decisions.




A few festival stats:

Crowds average 60- 70,000 a day. I can vouch for that!
15,000 come from Ireland alone!
Festival drinkers get through 18,000 bottles of Champagne and 214,000 pints of Guinness (a lot of which ends up on the floor!)
Prize money at Cheltenham exceeds £6m throughout the season with £3.67m on offer at The Festival alone, making it the most valuable and prestigious fixture in Jump racing.

I had a great afternoon with some great ladies.The week culminates with the Gold Cup on Friday, then things will quiet down until the Jazz festival later in the month. Then the madness all starts again!

Rococo Garden, Snow drop Glory

 An overcast Sunday afternoon and nothing to do. This is snow drop season, a rare winter blooming flower.
Aptly named snowdrop, it resembles a carpet of snow when in full bloom.

Gorgeous snow drops

In the woods the snow drops giving the appearance of a light snowfall from a distance. 

Heleborese, another winter bloomer.

Rococo gardens were most common in Italy and France but their English counterparts sparkled as wealthy owners showed off their new found wealth.

 Painswick House was built in the 1730 as respite from the smog of Gloucester for asthma sufferer Charles Hyett. His son built the gardens in 1748 as a place to party!

Painswick House

There are many interesting aspects that make me want to return in the summer when the garden is in full swing.

Apple and pear trees surround the kitchen garden.

An interesting scarecrow!

A lovely way to spend a cold winter afternoon.

Snowy Paris

Saturday

Our trip started off with a bang! Due to heavy snow in Cheltenham, there were no taxis running, so from 5:10-5:50am we RAN in snow and ice in the dark to Cheltenham to catch train only to have it pass our house in CK and stop at the bus stop 5 minutes from our house. Lesson no. 1 take the bus from Charlton Kings!! Once in London we took a taxi from Victoria coach station to St Pancreas International terminal. 20 min 20£ but it was so EASY.

Trains were running late due to snow, so while we waited we bought a 3 day metro pass in the Eurostar ticket office which was great and a bargain at 22 €. We went everywhere on it, and it is good for RER, bus, and Metro, We also invested in an Oyster (travel) card for travel on the tube when we get back to London on Tuesday.  The  Eurostar left 45 min late and did not travel as quickly as normal, so we arrived in Paris at the Hotel Parisiana around 4pm local time. Hotel was just ok, won't stay there again or recommend it to others. It was convenient to a metro and breakfast croissant, coffee and fruit, was good, but that's really all it had going for it IMHO.

We needed a walk after all the sitting, so towards the Seine we went, and walked around making our way across a bridge to Notre Dame and saw the nativity crèche, which was a very detailed scene during Vespers service. 





Walked across bridge to the Rive Gauche and had dinner in St. Germaine at Le Relais de l'Entrecote a after a 45 min wait outside in the cold!! Totally worth it. Steak with green peppercorn sauce, and frites, all you can eat. That is all that's on the menu, and it is fantastic. The waitress asks how you like your steak, and what we would like to drink. Red wine, of course! For dessert we had ice creams caramel, toffee, delicious!
We walked around a bit soaking in the atmosphere, and came home on metro, after a very long day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday: Musee d'Orsay

After breakfast in the hotel, croissant and coffee, we took the metro to Museè d'Orsay and spent the morning there. We saw the amazing collection. It is not a big museum, but we took our  time and saw quite a bit of it. We had lunch in the museum cafe, designed by the Campana brothers.
very nice and the food was delicious.

Clock in Cafe Campana

 It was after 3pm when we left there. The snow was beautiful and we thought it would be neat to see the Eifel tower in the snow. A short walk and we were there snapping picture after picture, we took lots of photos.

Hotel des Invalides

Walked under the tower and took some photos of the Hotel de les Invalides and stopped in an Irish pub for refreshments.
It was the Polidor for dinner, an old Hemingway haunt also in the movie Midnight in Paris. Recommended by s friends daughter, a student who spent 2 semesters studying in Paris. After dinner we stopped at Cafe de Flores for a night cap, walked around this arrondissement and stumbled upon the Sorbonne and a beautiful church.

 

 

Monday: Le Louvre

 

After breakfast, we went to the Louvre and spent several hours there, mostly in the ancient art sections of the Denon and Sully wings. The Charles Vth palace rooms built in 1360 were very impressive and were a striking contrast to the sarcophagi and other antiquities housed in them.

Arc de Triumph

Pont Alexandra

Pont Alexandra

Petite Palace

 
We didn't leave there until 4pm and wanted to find somewhere to watch coverage of the inauguration. We thought Harry's American Bar would be the place. Cool bar, with American college banners (the Ivy League schools were represented as were Clemson, Oklahoma, Wake Forest, Texas AM, and UM) hanging throughout. Boxing gloves hang over the bar, a nod to Earnest Hemingway, but no TV. Normally, no TV in a bar is a good sign, but today we really wanted to see one. Harry's is famous for having invented the Bloody Mary so we had to try one, very good. The bar itself is very "old Paris", the bartender was an older gentleman in a white coat and spoke formally. After a drink there, we picked up some macaroons and headed back to the hotel to watch the inauguration. We got there just in time to see the benediction and then the actual swearing in (translated into French!)

Dinner was mussels and frites at Leon de Bruxelles in L'Opera. Saw L'Opera at night lit up, tres jolie!

Tuesday: Monmartre

Moulin Rouge

We had a few hours before our train was to leave so we tried a Discover Walking Tour. These are free walking tours given in English.  You pay what you think it is worth. Tours last between 1 and 1 1/2 hours. We did the tour of Monmartre with Flora and she was excellent. She started the tour at the Moulin Rouge and ended at Sacre Coeur. We saw things you would probably miss otherwise. For example, we saw the Bateaux Lavoret which translates to washing boat. This was an artist studio, and Picasso painted  "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" there which was the first cubism painting. He was inspired by African masks that Matisse brought back from a trip.

I would recommend these tours and look forward to doing one on our next trip as they operate in many European cities.










Train trip from Paris to London was uneventful and ran smoothly.
From St Pancreas, we took the underground from Kings Cross to Victoria and walked to the coach station. Also very easy and it was rush hour! It snowed hard all the way home, but we made it home by 9pm to MORE snow