Tourist Again

The day after returning from Paris saw the arrival of the folks from home and the beginning of a full-on week of touristing about London. Considering that I leave London soon, and despite needing time to sort a lot of that out, it turned out to be quite good to visit and see things that I hadn't over the past 4 years.

First up was the Silver Vaults. Like you I'd not heard of these either. Below Chancery Lane are 65 "vaults" full of all manner of silver items. The world's largest collection of silver were in each of these "shops" - all for sale. We walked the corridors and poked about in the vaults checking it all out. Can't say I'd like to be one of the sellers spending your day underground in a small little room with the door of a safe as the only entrance/exit. Nor would I want to be keeping all that silver polished!

Another notable was a private tour of the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Not only did we get a good look through the Houses of Parliament, we also got to see a few spots not on the usual tours. This included one of the dining rooms for the Lords as well as the doorway used by Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot. The thirteenth member of the group is actually an ancestor, which gave this revelation [of the door] just that little extra. I can also now say that I've sat on the bench in both houses without being elected to either - even if I didn't notice the sign saying to stay off until I was told off. An amazing place none the less.

A day trip up to Liverpool was also on the cards. This isn't exactly your average tourist jaunt or location either, but this involved more ancestoral tracing - that of my grandmother and her family's home for many decades. This is something that I'd tried to locate previously with little success, but this time we had the correct street name.
A local black cab driver turned out to make for a superb tour guide as we he chauffeured us around for a couple of hours. I should point out that they're cheaper in Liverpool than in London. He took us to the right street, and despite not having a street number, we managed to locate the actual house. The cabbie helping with one piece of information that completed the puzzle with a little bit of local history. It wasn't just this that his knowledge helped us with. He helped us locate both my grandmother's school as well as the cemetery mentioned in my great grandfather's journal where some of the family is buried.
We rounded out the day down at Albert Dock for a late lunch and a bit of a wander about Liverpool.

Another highlight was one busy day that we managed to take in at quite a leisurely pace. Beginning at Madame Tussauds, we discovered that this was more than just rooms full of wax dummies. A very entertaining place to go.

Around the corner is the Sherlock Holmes Museum, which is quite impressive that the premises of a fictional character has been turned into a museum to honour him. I found it quite interesting, even if the only Sherlock Holmes I've had much involvement with is the Robert Downey Jr. one. I will however be digging out the Sherlock Holmes books from dad's collection in the near future.

From here after a brief coffee break, we headed to Hamley's. The world's biggest toy store is always a bit of fun to visit, and a certain nephew will be (hopefully) enjoying what he will soon receive from here!

After strolling down Regent Street and through Piccadilly Circus, we came to the M&M store. Not just a lolly shop, but four floors dedicated to Red, Yellow and their pals. Truly, these two characters would have to be the biggest advertising success story ever (not counting Coke and Santa). In amongst all the paraphernalia, you could even by both chocolate and peanut M&Ms.

Their final evening saw us head to the west end. A nice dinner in the exquisite Browns restaurant kicked off the evening where we took in the 24,454^th performance of Agatha Christie's Mousetrap. This has been running since 1952 and is the world's longest running show. I saw it back in 2004 when I first came to London and if felt like only the actors had changed. It is rumoured to have several variations of its ending, but for me (and this could be just coincidence) they were the same. Still, despite knowing one solution, I was still puzzling away at the other possibilities.
Back to the hotel bar for coffees rounded out the evening and indeed their visit.

Weekends IV: Le Tour

An early morning start on the Saturday saw me and Vanessa (standing in for Sheryl) at St Pancras International for an 8am Eurostar train to Paris. Both of us had either rush-packed in the morning or the late hours of the night before following respective evening drinks with workmates. This made for a very relaxed train ride from London to Paris.

Once there we made our way to the hotel to discover that our room would be available later that day. Baggage room sorted, we set out into the mid-morning throng that is a Saturday in Paris. Exploration and sorting ourselves out for tomorrow were the prime objectives and this took us down the Rue de Faub Saint Denis. Along the way we sampled some of the local produce (okay, pastries) and found some of the items we were looking for.

Eventually, we found ourselves down by Les Halles and the Centre Pompidou as well as being caught in some heavy rain. So, with both shelter and lunch on our minds, we took refuge in the Centre Pompidou. It wasn't long before we had trekked up the large tunnel that runs diagonally on the outside of the building to enjoy the views from the top while dining in the restaurant, Georges, that sits at the top of this interesting structure. Vanessa's lunch of a club sandwich with a glass of Moet seemed very appropriate. I had a very nice penne if you're wondering...

Exploring the galleries was to follow lunch while we waited out the rain. After some time (and confusion - not every exhibit made sense) we made our way back towards our hotel to check-in and collect what we'd seen earlier before those stores closed. Once we had our €7 folding stools, we were looking into every café and bar we passed to see if there was a tv that was showing the live telecast of the Tour de France. It didn't take long to find one.
A pokey little café with two beers on option and staff with very limited English. We managed to both settle in and also order a couple of beers to watch. I knew that Cadel Evans was due to start at just after 4.10pm and we got there just before 4pm. It's hard to describe what it's like to be there in Paris watching that Time Trial stage live, and witnessing the greatest moment in Australian cycling history. It was exciting and emotional as well as a lot of fun with the small group of Parisians in the café. A very special afternoon. But, there's more to come.
The evening saw us stocking up on supplies for the Sunday and then just ducking next door from our hotel to a pizzeria - a very good pizzeria too! Unfortunately, the hotel thwarted our idea of watching a movie in our room afterwards - none in English...

An even earlier start to Sunday as we made our way along Rue de Rivoli and Rue de Saint-Honoré at about 7.30am. Navigating the preparations, detours and road closures lent to a very pleasant sunny morning walk through Paris as we made our way to the Champs Elysées. By a little after 8am, we had strolled along the Champs Elysées and along with quite a few others, had found ourselves a spot on the barriers, and began to settle in for what would turn out to be a fun day out. A coffee and croissant from the nearby café certainly helped the start of this.
Later on, I was to find some loos as well as a bookstore that also sold some English newspapers and magazines, which also helped. I learned from this that you should never underestimate the power of a woman's magazine (ask Vanessa).

During the day, the crowds grew constantly - even with some people trying to push in to where we already had a prime position. Our supplies from the day before were doing their thing very well as were our two cheap folding stools - I can't thank Phil enough for suggesting them!

So there we were, enjoying a sunny day out on the edge of the Champs Elysées. We had no idea what the commentator on the PA system was saying, but we knew he was calling the day's race - the final stage of this year's Tour de France, and with an Australian in the Malliot Juane (yellow jersey) of the race leader. Short of falling off his bike and not being able to continue, there was no way that Cadel Evans would not be announced the overall winner later that afternoon. You could feel the atmosphere grow as we all knew that the peloton would be arriving onto the Champs Elysees soon for their final six laps.

The first sign that this was close was the sponsor's parade (above right). Floats and vehicles of all sorts for every major (and not-so-major) race/event sponsor came past. Some were certainly unique! A little later the cavalcade of race vehicles started to come past and eventually the peloton arrived. We could have literally high-fived the riders as they came past, we were so close. Cadel easily locatable due to being the only one in yellow, but also as he and his team lead the peloton around for the first lap (it's a tradition). Yelling out "Well Done Cuddles!" might not have been appropriate in using his nickname, but hopefully he heard - you just can't help but be happy for him to have finally won the Tour.

Anyway, by this time we were about 6-10 people deep along the barriers, and our early morning start had paid off to give us such a prime location. Seeing them coming past us several times was excellent, and much better than being at the side of the road only to see them zoom past once.

While we may have missed the overall presentations as these were at the other end of the Champs Elysees (we were right by the turn near the Arc de Triomphe) we did get a great view of the teams doing their final lap of honour. All the riders were relaxed and in a great mood - one even swapping his bike for the motorcycle of a photographer! The last team through was that of Cadel's. Team BMC and Cadel soaked it all in, and well deservedly so. It was great to see. And a great way to finish off what was nearly 12hours on the Champs Elysees for us.
We then strolled back down along this famous avenue to the Jardin de Tuilieres where we wandered through the fun fair (left) enjoying both a dodgy dinner and churros (Spanish donuts) before heading back to the hotel.

Monday was a far more relaxed start with no alarm clocks set. Breakfast, or should I say, lunch, was in a nice Parisian café in the sunshine with the world going by before we made our way for Gare du Nord and home.