Cotswold Cup of Tea

Sunday, 3 February 2013

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.

Friday, 25 January 2013

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

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

Monday, 24 December 2012

Krakow Christmas Market

A few months back, I signed up for a packaged tour with NewMarket Tours in the UK for a 4 day trip to the Christmas Market in Krakow, Poland. I traveled with a colleague of Andrew's.

Outside the Cloth Hall

Cloth Hall

The market is held in old town, main square which is surrounded by beautiful architecture. There is a Cloth Hall, and a church with two towers. Shops and restaurants make up the rest of the buildings.

A bit of travel info for those local folks: We had an early flight out of Bristol Airport, which was easy and much smaller than London's airports. Our flight was so early that we stayed in a B&B near the airport. Yew Tree Cottage has tailored its business to those doing just what we did. We took a train from Cheltenham to Bristol Airport, where he picked us up. The rooms were comical in that they are super small and we were there on the coldest night of the year so it was freezing. Nicely decorated I must say. It met our needs as we were only there for a matter hours. Landlord took us to the airport at 04:30 am, no problem and gave us a hearty breakfast to go. For £50 it was worth it.

Once in Krakow, our tour leader met us and we were transferred to the Hotel Logos, cheap and cheerful, very convenient to the old town, and a treat continental breakfast. The old town is surrounded by a tree filled park which makes it very easy to navigate around the city.

On our fist day there we spent time getting acclimated. We walked over to the Old Town and visited to Christmas market.

We had lunch in the Market and tried the gluwein, hot mulled wine that is sold from these giant casks.

The Krakow market seemed different than other markets. It's more..... Polish! Not only are there ornaments and gluwein, there is pottery, knitted mittens, hats (lots of hats), crystal, candles, linens,amber jewelry, and all kinds of yummy snacks. There are traditional tradesmen working right there. The stalls are beautifully decorated with traditional linens and decoration.

Very tempting pottery was on offer! The colors are so beautiful and there is a pattern for everyone.

It was Dec 6 which is St. Nicholas Day, so we saw many people dressed up as St Nick. Some more convincing than others!

The architecture is varied from medieval to renaissance to art noveau. While Krakow is a beautiful city there are still signs of decay and graffiti is rampant and out of control.

Day 2 City Tour

Christof our tour guide lead us through the town from one interesting sight to another. We started in the Cloth Hall and moved to the Main Square. It was bitterly cold, and we were thankful for the warm bus that moved us from one attraction to the other.
Some highlights:

St. Mary's Church in the Main Square

Our guide told us about the legendary buglar, who every hour on the hour performs the hejnał , a 600 year old tradition. Legend has it that in 1241 a watchman saw the advancing Mongol invasion and started to warn the citizens of Krakow about the impending danger by playing his trumpet. A mongol arrowsman spotted the trumpeter and with a well placed arrow pierced the trumpeters throat in mid song. This is why the hejnal stops on a certain note. It is played facing north, south, east and west.