paris | Pippa Rea

A Blog From Pippa

by Virginia Rea

Well our great holiday has ended, it was fantastic and all, but sometimes things have to end, even if you’re traveling the amazing country’s of the world. I’m very lucky to have some money to spend on some beautiful souvenirs from Paris, Dubrovnik, Venice, Dubai, Santorini and Katakolon. I also liked doing lots of special things especially going up the Tour Eiffel, going to Euro Disney, watching the lights of the Tour Eiffel and lots more other things.

At Paris after we went to the top of the Tour Eiffel we came back down to look at the souvenir shop I bought a real marble statue with the Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe on it, I got some beautiful magnets, I got two shiny gold coins with the Tour Eiffel on one and the Arc de Triomphe on the other, I got a medium size Tour Eiffel, I got a gorgeous yellow book mark with the Tour Eiffel on it, a red white and blue magnet of the Tour Eiffel, I got a beautiful cream hat that says Paris on it, my cousins Melanie and Chloe bought me a key ring and we got a book that tells us how all the things in Paris were built, who lived in them and how they worked. I got these beautiful T-shirts one of them says Paris loves me and the other one just says Paris. When mum’s Aunty and Uncle Claire and Russell came they got a bracelet for me from their three sons Patrick, David and Sam. I got a yellow watch that I saw on the street and I got a white watch from Swatch. One night as we were walking down the beautiful streets of Paris looking for a nice spot for dinner I saw something that caught my eye…… it was a French Berét mum and I had a look at them for a while and then mum and I decided I should buy one, but I couldn’t decide what colour I wanted, so I tried a few on and I decided red was the colour that suited me best. I also really liked getting my portraits drawn at Montmartre. It was really hard to choose if I wanted normal or cartoon so I got both.

My Red Berèt

My Yellow Book Mark

Marble Statue of Tour Eiffel, Notre Dame and the Arch De Triomphe

My Two T-shirts

Our Monuments Book

A Donkey from Santorini

My Tour Eiffel

My Portrait

My Cartoon Drawing

My Cap

All my magnets

Coins of the Tour Eiffel and the Arch De Triomphe

My favourite postcard

Some more post cards

My leather jacket

And some more postcards…..

My Paris Keyring from Mel & Chloe

My new watches

On the cruise we went to Dubrovnick (Croatia), Santorini (Greece), Kusadasi (Turkey) and Katakolon (Greece). From Dubrovnick I bought a little painting. From Santorini I bought a little grey and black donkey. From Kusadasi I bought a yellow belly dancing costume. From Katakolan I bought a sling shot with a Dolphin’s head on it.

The slingshot with a dolphin head

A Donkey from Santorini

My little painting of Dubrovnik

A Turkish Belly Dancer

From Venice I bought a gondola and two glass bracelets one of them has the tree of life on it.

My glass bracelets

Mini Gondola from Venice

I bought some special Pandora charms as well. The Pandora charms are a suitcase with Paris on it, an infinity charm, an olive wreath of victory and the lucky eye. From Dubai I got a bottle of coloured sand made for me. It says Dubai 2014 on one side and Pippa on the other.

My Pandora Charms from Paris and Greece

My coloured sand in a bottle

I had a lot of fun on our trip doing all the special things in all the places we went to.

I also loved the Tour Eiffel as much as I’ve dreamed of it. The lights were so amazing that they blew me away.

Thank you everyone for reading our blog. From Pippa 🙂

Fun Stuff Memories

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Frogs Legs & Snails

by Virginia Rea

We couldn’t come to Paris without trying frogs legs and snails! Pippa thought frogs legs tasted just like chicken and snails don’t have much flavor at all but their texture is perhaps a bit like mushrooms. We went to a very authentic restaurant in the Latin Quarter near Notre Dame and of course the restaurateur was completely captivated with Pippa.

On our last day we took Libby around a few of our favourite local streets, just wandering like we had done some many times before and taking in all that Paris is. We included a stop by the infamous ice cream shop and stocked up on some really lovely souvenirs from gorgeous little shops in Isle St Louis.

Ice Cream!

Flower Stalls

Jardin du Anne Frank

Archives National

Archives National opposite our Apartment

Place De Vosges

We are standing on grass – legally!

Frogs Legs!

Snails

Merci Jean-Louis

Fun Stuff Memories

Love Locked

by Virginia Rea

We wanted to place a padlock on the famous “Love Lock” bridge in Paris, Pont des Arts.

Libby kindly brought us over a padlock engraved saying

James Patrick Pippa Ginny Forever x

Pippa had asked exactly what she wanted engraved but then she remembered that there was one other name she wanted on it so on the back she wrote Nibbles

Pippa found a place on the bridge and we threw away the keys, locking our love forever.

Locked on

James Patrick Pippa Ginny Forever x

Nibbles

Pippa ready to lock us on

Together forever

All of us locked together

Fun Stuff Memories

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Macaroon Chefs

by Virginia Rea

After seeing so many pastry and cake shops we had to try our hands at the art of perfecting infamous macaroons. Cook’n with Class is a small cooking school in Paris near Montmartre. A taste of France, A love of Cooking…….It sounded just perfect. We were in a small class of 6 people and across 3 hours with the guidance of our lovely French pastry chef, Constance, we made 3 different flavoured macaroons. Whisking, stirring, brushing, piping and banging. Yes, banging! That surprised us all! Constance dropped the tray without warning creating a very loud, impacting bang! It didn’t take long before we realised that was part of the art so off we all went on “banging” the air out of the macaroons!

Our favourite?………Salted butter caramel of course!

We will be sure to try our new skills out when we get back to Australia!

Fun Stuff Memories

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Aurevoir Eleanor

by Virginia Rea

Eleanor left us on Sunday. It also happened to be the first day it was cool and rained slightly. We took the train out to Versaille to see the magnificent opulence and grandeur of Chateaux Versailles first built as a hunting house by King Louis XIII and later extended to become a Palace by King Louis XIV.

The visitor numbers were incredible – a moving blanket of people through the rooms. The children marvelled to hear the life of both the kings, in particular the stories of wives, mistresses and the number of children to both wives and mistresses! James could not relate at all with King Louis the XIV who at the age of 15 (virtually the same as James) was found a suitable child bearing wife of age 22 and had 10 children in 10 years (and that’s only the legitimate ones!). Equal intrigue were tales of beheadings and servants having to test food for poisoning. Pippa found it interesting that anyone was able to visit King Louis XIV so long as they weren’t beggars, ladies of the night or had small pox. A visiting a man was required to wear a hat and a sword and if he didn’t have one he could rent one before he entered the room. We also found it interesting that King Louis XIV had a “fake bedroom” which he would go to every morning for his ceremonious risings in front of a hundred visitors after spending the night in either his own real bedroom, the queen’s or one of his mistress’. (I hope all these anecdotes are remembered correctly.)

French onion soup was on the menu for our last dinner with Eleanor.

Outside Versailles

Eleanor & Pippa Outside Versailles

King Louis XIV real bedroom behind us

Versailles Gardens

Hall of Mirrors

King Louis XIV’s ceremonious bedroom

Louis XIV with his gorgeous dancing legs

Where Louis XIV welcomed visitors including commoners

Ceiling

Versailles Gardens

Versailles

Last Dinner

French Onion Soup

Out on the Town!

Fun Stuff Memories

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Wandering Paris

by Virginia Rea

We have spent days wandering the streets of Paris and taking in the sights. Notre Dame is only a short stroll away along with the pretty lane ways of Isle St-Louis and its famous and Paris’ oldest ice cream shop – pineapple and basil is a winner for me!

A day was spent up to Montmartre to visit more gorgeous cobblestoned streets and Basilique de Sacre-Couer with Claire and Russell who dropped in for a night on their way through. It took a long time wandering the square of artists for Pippa to choose her sketch artist but Patrick found his preferred characterture artist immediately. Pippa ended up having both a sketch and a characterture done. A lovely and fun memory for them both to take home.

Pippa is still perfectly well although her muscles get tired easier than they used to especially up the steps at Montmartre! She’s not the only one though – we are all happy to go to bed at night time! One day she and I did catch a pedal bike home because she was too tired to walk any further. What a lovely treat that was from our beautiful uni student driver, Sara. I’ve kept her number just in case we need her again.

We have wandered around the Lourve, played games in Jardin de Tuileries, strolled up and down the famous Champs Elysees taking in the shops including the car ones for the boys; we have eaten patisseries from famous Cafe Angelina and macaroons from Laudree and stumbled across Parisian markets.

We are all completely enjoying the Parisian life, but not so much the endless cloud of cigarette smoke that engulfs the air we breathe!