As you know, I do love a good cemetery.. Why is that? anyway... Pere Lachaise, like Recoleta , falls into the dramatic Catholic city of the dead variety, with beautiful tombs and vaults. Pere Lachaise to the non-French, perhaps most famously contains the final resting place of 27 club member Jim Morrison and the much defaced but lovingly so, winged very modern looking angel protecting Oscar Wilde.

Travel Philosophy Number 9 - Get an apartment

I recently went to Paris for a few days..3 short hours door to door on the Eurostar to a cute little apartment in Le Marais. I love the apartment thing for a city stay. Its not for the kitchen,who wants to cook on holiday.Though, being able to have a cold drink in the fridge and some stuff for an impromputu breakfast is convenient and saves a bob or two. No.. its that feeling of pretending you live somewhere just for a little bit. Theres something a bit special about not having a reception with people knowing your comings and going or having the maids trolley and hoovers thundering past your door in the morning when your having a sneaky lie in. This place was in a lovely old very French building in the cobbled Rue des Rosiers, buzzing with cafes, I had a security code to get in to a courtyard and a typicaly French tiny little lift to take me up to a 3rd floor studio, with a window overlooking the street below and the rooftops of my favourite area in Paris.



Ive done this elsewhere too, that week in the 'Cher' apartment in Buenos Aires at the start of my travels last year - see previous post . And there was a lovely little place in Krakow last year with my parents. Something about that home from home in a city, with a slightly less formulaic style than a hotel room, and an individual touch and flavour of the place adds something to your stay

Even better if more than 2 of you and you get a 2 bedroom place - costs per person usually fall dramatically below 2 hotel rooms

Heres two shots taken from my window - Jour et Nuit

Issues with Wolves

The Loop by Nicholas Evans

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


OK maybe Im feeling mean, its prob a high 3 - I did enjoy the book, in an easy non-confronting, woodsy shack in the mountains way. No complaints, just didnt grab me as much as for some others. I liked the wolfy bits best. It made me pine a bit for Prodigal Summer though, that felt much more real to me.



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The Bit the Germans Missed

Wapping.

what a wonderful part of London, eerily quiet, tucked away and cut off from the world yet a 20 minute walk from my door. An old docks area, with wonderful brick warehouses, coverted into designer flats in the 80's that somehow the Germans managed to miss in the war, piling their bombs down further north in Stepney, Whitechapel, Mile End and Bethnal Green - it does seem odd that this lot is still standing largely untouched. You can just picture it thronging with 19th century coming and goings.

Going a bit further back in time, here was the site of execution dock, where pirates were hanged, and left there until 3 tides washed over them....arrrrrrrrrrrrr. Captain Kidd was amongst them, now he has a jolly nice pub to commemorate him, where one can have a nice lunch overlooking the river.

Hidden steps lead down to bits of beach with old bricks sucked like lollies by the tides in a variety of hues and vibrant green algae climbs the timber joists supporting the buildings above.

Grand Designs - Modern

To complement my previous post, here is a small selection of London's modern architecture - principally Lloyds, designed by the chap that did the Pompidou centre - hence the inside out look, and the Gherkin, which I cant quite make my mind up on. Its an odd shaped beastie but at the same time I do think all those curved windows are quite a feat. The great court at the British museum is always stunning. I think we can rival the louvre's pyramid with that. And the millenium bridge, i'm a fan of too, esp being pedestrian only.

Pomp and circumstance

So this post might reveal a little about how slack I am at blogging, as it rather obviously dates the photos to a very well known day. The Royal Wedding. Whatever your Monarchist or Republican tendencies it was inescapable and well We do do it well, don't we? put on a show, roll out the royals (sometimes in minivans if you've slipped down the rankings with all the new additions). We watched on the telly, then popped on the tube and soaked up the aftermath atmosphere with the Westminster wedding chimes still ringing.

Grand Designs - Period

Ah...Period England, can you beat it. Oh miss Honeyhives I do declare...

Selections from Apsley House, Blenheim Palace, Kensal Green Cemetary (tucked away gem of Victorian funerary architecture), 2 Hampton Courts - the famous one and the other one in the Country, a splash of Leadenhall Market (or the place to buy a wand in Harry Potter), and a couple of other spots.