Day 181, 10 December 2014, Paris to St Lo, France. Travel Day! I've had a routine lately and over the last few days I've been working James into it... no alarms and wake up time is about 8.30 am. This morning we needed an actual alarm - thankfully woke up just before 7 so didn't have to endure it actually going off. Final odds and ends into the bags, leisurely breakfast then a cab to Gare St Lazare. With just our wheeled backpacks we could have made it via t...

Day 178-180, 7-9 December 2014, Paris, France. A couple of years ago we spent a week in Paris and saw the vast majority of, well, everything - the galleries, the museums, the monuments, the cruise on the seine, the regional wine-tasting, Versaille and of course, the lights on the Eiffel tower by night. Which was all brilliant. What it means for our current visit is that we can simply pick a neighbourhood or a direction and just head out and explore on a whim. O...

Day 177, 6 December 2014, Paris, France - the hugest day ever... Saint Ouen's Marches aux Puces, after lunch, off to Place de la Concorde for the massive (huge - enormous - extreme) Christmas market that lines both sides of the Champs Elysee. To start the day we headed off on the metro to Saint Ouen in the north of Paris. I had seen this suburb of markets on the BBC show "Put your money where your mouth is" and thought it looked pretty fascinating. And it was. ...

Day 176, 5 December 2014 - Paris, France - Reunited and it feels so good... After 6 months apart the day had finally come and first thing this morning I headed out into the dark, chilly air and walked to the Gare du Nord - onto the train out to CDG and then, merely 30 minutes later, James came out of the arrivals gate - Fabulous to see him again and given the sheer weight of luggage (at least half of which was winter extras for me...) we even splurged on a taxi b...

Day 175, 4 December 2014, Voulons to Le Dorat (very kindly supplied by my hosts when they took their sons to school) then onto the train (Le Dorat to Poitiers) then another train to Paris - best part of 3 hours, but seems awfully quick for a journey of over 300 kms. Then, last but not least, best part of an hour on the metro getting from Montparnasse to our hotel - smack on the border of the 3rd & the 10th arrondissements. I enjoyed a superb 3 course dinner ...