Saint Malo

Seems like ages since we were there! Had a few more problems with blogging apps (my idea of a blogging app is that you can write the whole thing offline and then put it onto your blog when you get internet access again. Apparently blogging app writers don't share my view or get internet access anywhere anytime) so haven't been able to post anything. Anyways, I had a bout of something, measles or chicken pox or something, by the time we got to St Malo, so I was feeling like crap and very itchy!! Also didn't look great.

St Malo is a really sweet seaside town but it had had the bejeesus bombed out of it during the second world war. There was a really interesting war memorial which was the WW2 fort constructed on top of the very old original town fort. It had been hit pretty hard by bombs/shells/whatever and had been abandoned and left forever exactly as it was. All these bits of the fortifications were missing - you could see exactly where bombs or bullets had hit the stone and steel.

Much of it had to be rebuilt but this was done in mostly a very sympathetic style. Many of the houses had names, as can be seen by the scrolls on the buildings in the pictures below.

This picture shows the cutest little tower tucked between buildings. I am guessing the tower was there first...

This appears to be a particularly old little cottage with a lot of character:

This was a gorgeous old hotel located on the waterfront. Great inspiration if you ever wanted to build a fancy miniature French hotel (if you were fortunate enough to have the space!):

The tide rose and fell on average 8.5m! It was really amazing. Our hotel was located on the waterfront, and when the tide was in, it was most of the way up the seawall just outside our window, and at low tide, there were a couple of hundred metres of beach!

The funniest thing was the sound of the seagulls. They sound very different to Australian seagulls. When we were at Paris Disneyland 3 years ago, we stayed at the Newport Bay Hotel and they played seagull noises over the PA system. To us, it sounded really fake, but imagine our surprise when we hear the exact sound coming from real seagulls in St Malo! Very strange!

Next stop, Chateau Challain la Potherie! Yay!

La Rochelle.... Love La Rochelle!

So, the results are in. If we ever buy a place in France, I reckon it will be in this area, or somewhere around Narbonne/Bordeaux. Just beautiful. We had picture postcard weather. It was a very cute little town, full of shabby little seaside houses, a nice marina lined with restaurants and cafes and some areas of gorgeous Victorian townhouses.

Our lovely hotel...

This was the chandelier in the bar:

And this was the guest lounge. Chairs not so lovely, but the rest was amazing.

A sign on a cottage:

A beautiful townhouse:

And lastly, a cafe with the cutest table decorations of boats:

La Rochelle had a great atmosphere and some interesting history. We visited three towers on the waterfront that had graffiti dating as far back as the 1700s! The stone walls inside the towers had been carved by sailors and criminals - ships, people, names and dates.

Then on to St Malo!

Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild

Hello everyone. I am sitting in the train between Villefranche Sur Mer and Bordeaux, which for the record is running 75 minutes late! Yay. I had to take the time to tell you all about the beautiful Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild at Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, just around the bay from Villefranche. It was built at the turn of the 20th century by Beatrice de Rothschild and her husband. She was an avid art and artefacts collector and used these items in her (then new) home. She has incorporated carved reliefs, fabrics, tapestries, painted panels, etc into her home, collected from many historical places. This includes a rug from the chapel at Versailles for example. As you enter the house, there is a large 'patio' (made to look like an enclosed courtyard) and the doors to rooms leading off this patio are all different, having been collected from a range of old buildings.

The following photos show the boudoir and bedroom. The magnificent bed is Venetian, and I'm not 100% sure, but I think the dress is 18th century.








The picture below shows part of what I think I think is a dress. It was exquisite but difficult to photograph in dim light.


This picture is a view of part of the French garden. Baronness de Rothschild was also into gardens.


This picture shows part of the house exterior, with the entryway visible behind. It wasn't a huge house, given these people obviously had huge amounts of money.


If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend a visit. It was so lovely. It has given me so much inspiration for my own mini French chateau and I fully intend returning one day, hopefully with a really fancy camera for better pictures! And the hot chocolate in the tearoom was to die for!

And PS also on the band-wagon with the new Blogger interface dislike. It's so clumsy. I don't understand why you'd make it so complicated and non-intuitive.

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Chateau Challain la Potherie

Is the name of the chateau we stayed in, in the Loire Valley. Here is the link!

New inspiration

My husband and I have been planning our next France trip (a whole 12 months + away but you can never start too early I always say!) so we're excited about all things French at the moment. Especially given that we were supposed to be going in about 2 months but have put it off to next year. So we got thinking about going back to the chateau where we got engaged and decided we had to go back there for a couple of nights. Here are some pictures of the gorgeous interior which may inspire some of you Francophiles!

This was the room we stayed in:



This was our bathroom:



This was the breakfast nook tucked in the passageway between the bathroom and bedroom:



Another breakfast setting in one of the rooms (one of my favourite rooms - I even bought this fabric for my own home!):



Gorgeous bedroom:



This was the King's bedroom (apparently they had to include a King's bedroom in case he came to stay - for the record, he never did!):



The coat room:



The hallway. The staircase, entry and central halls had hundreds of handcarved corbells with gargoyles/trolls/animals etc on them, and every one was different:



This is the exterior of the chateau. It was built in the mid-1800's I believe and has 120 rooms. We only got to see the bottom 2 storeys plus the basement (kitchen/servant's quarters). We stayed in the room in the tower on the left hand side of the photo, second window up.

So we want to go back to explore a bit better and to see the parts that have been restored since we went. Hope you find these inspiring!

Picasso gallery in Paris

Karin Corbin has blogged about Picasso art in her home town. My husband and I are also Picasso fans and so visited the gallery when we were in Paris. It was undergoing renovations whilst we were there and so they had erected a giant mirror to hide the renovations. The mirror reflected one half of the building, so it looked like a whole.



It aligned with a false wall on the inside also, so from the inside, it looked like the whole building had been sliced in half by a giant sheet of plaster/glass. It was very clever.

It was also interesting to note that the interior walls were all false and it was obvious that they sat away from the original walls. We guessed they did this to preserve the original building.

French restoration and renovation is light-years ahead of any such practices we have in Australia. Most large public buildings being renovated had large sheets of some sort of mesh over the scaffolding with printed life-size images of the building that was being renovated on it. Very clever.

Photos of the Petite Trianon

I could quite happily live in the Petite Trianon. This was built by Louis 16 and Marie Antoinette and was where Marie Antoinette spent a lot of her time. It was just so seriously gorgeous and many of the rooms were quite small and cosy.

This photo shows her bedroom with the fabric made especially for her.The furniture all matched and it was sold off after her arrest, but most of it was recovered and put back in the Petite Trianon (from recollection by Napoleon), except for the bed which was never found.



Next is the sitting room which was beside her bedroom. It had a panel which was on some sort of sliding track which came up through the floor to cover the window (you can see it reflected in the mirror - it's halfway over the window).



Lastly is a small sleigh, which looks much larger than it actually was. I don't think it would even fit a child in it (except for a very small one!). Very cute.

More France pics at long last!

I have chosen some more pictures to show you all - they're mostly cute buildings and some interiors that I'd like to reproduce in miniature if I had the time, patience and space! It was pretty much the basis for taking all the pictures I took in France!

These first four pics show some houses in the seaside Brittany town of Vannes (think I showed some pics of the old walled part of town in an earlier post).









Next is a row of tudor houses with shops/cafes beneath. Also in Vannes I think. Most of the places we visited had these old districts full of narrow cobbled streets and tudor buildings all on top of each other.



Next is a pic taken inside Chenonceau I think. It is a chateau in the Loire valley - called the ladies' castle I think, as it has mostly had women own it over time. It was all decorated for easter and looked great. It was a little disappointing as there wasn't much furniture but that was probably typical of the era for many of the chateaus.



Next is the bridge where my fiance proposed to me (that's him leaning over the rail). It was taken the day before he proposed.



Lastly is a picture of Versailles, not long before my camera died (dammit!). Luckily we didn't go anywhere with only one camera - my other half took lots of pics for me. It was truly spectacular and I will have to visit it again one day.

Some pretty pictures from France

Hi all! Nice to be in contact with the world again! I am in France still, and we have not had internet access until now (10 days without internet - eek!!). So I thought I would post some pictures of some things we've seen.

This was a little cafe that we went past in Paris. Very cute!



Main Street USA, Disneyland (Paris Disneyland of course!).



This one is a little cafe we found in one of the passages in Paris, can't remember which one, but near/adjoining Passage Jouffroy. Awesome detail. The passages are basically arcades or early malls.



This is the interior of another cafe which I loved. We didn't eat there, we just stuck the camera up against the glass and clicked! It was an old railway carriage or something I think.



This one is a typical shop in Paris, but an extra pretty one!



Lastly, here is a picture of the town we are staying at now, called Vannes in Brittany. It was settled by the Romans in about 58AD! The buildings date from about the 13th century. The town is walled and has a moat. Seriously amazing.



I am so in love with the shops in Main Street USA. I am so inspired to make mini versions when I return home! I also loved Toad Hall, so will eventually work on making one of them.

Now my apologies to the lovely bloggers who have sent me awards. I am not ignoring them deliberately! It is so appreciated. It is just so nice to know that people other than my mum and boyfriend appreciate my work! I am also pleased that people still read it despite my occasional rude outburst about my frustrations with society!! Given I don't have my own computer and time constraints, I am not putting the awards on my blog, but I am passing on the compliments (and awards) to my fellow bloggers and readers who I find so encouraging and inspiring. Keep up the good work everyone!

And don't worry, I am having a petite macaron for each and every one of you! (and geez are they good!).