Spectacular Saint-Émilion

From Bordeaux we took a day trip by train to Saint-Émilion by train. Another central wine region in the area. The town was named after a monk who settled in a hermitage carved into the rock there in the 8th century. Monks who followed soon after set-up wine production in the area.

At the train station

Vineyards skirting the town

Pretty vital to this particular town

Eliane, Rob's aunty, had given us a fantastic recommendation to visit the catacombs and underground church at Saint-Émilion. We took a great tour on the town's underground heritage and the monolithic church was one of the most amazing churches I have ever seen. The underground part was so vast and huge pillars were needed for support. Incredible that prior to the 12th century they decided to carve out so much limestone from a cliff to create the underground part of the church. What a feat! The rest of the town was made using the limestone which made the whole process much more efficient and cheaper than finding building materials elsewhere. It was a very unique church and I was left with my jaw dropping at the scale of the excavation and the sense of a place full of stories. It was also nice to be somewhere where photos were strictly forbidden. It created a very different feel to the tour.

The tour guide also showed us Trinity Chapel and its frescoes, as well as the catacombs. Uncovered in 1997, the frescoes dated from the 13th century but were well preserved under soot from when the building was used by a cooper. Our tour was very well timed because the rain perfectly coincided with our time underground.

Saint-Émilion definitely has edge over other historical European towns I have visited! Aside from the church and fascinating history, there is something very mystical about having so much underground space. Even better that some of the area can be used to store and mature wine.

The belltower sits above the underground church

The bottom of the church: sure it is a little person, but look at the scale of things!

Whilst there, we also went up the bell tower for an excellent view of the town, wandered around the tiny lanes, saw several other monuments scattered around town, tried a different sort of macaron,visited a chateau and had lunch on the square. A lovely time to remember fondly!

View of town from the bell tower

View of the bell tower from a grand arch way

Tricky but lovely terrain

Can this be my house?

The Great Wall

King's Tower 

The entrance to our new house?

What would you do if you had one day in Paris?

That's right. We had one day in Paris. Both Rob and I have been before but, naturally, wanted to go back. While it is probably a crime to come to France and only really spend one day in Paris, we chose this, because it allowed us to spend more time somewhere new.  

Our main objective in Paris was to get lost. We only briefly managed that and still fit quite a lot else in! We dropped in on Notre Dame, wandered along la Seine, saw a few galleries, explored a great bookshop recommended by Geoffrey, spent some time in Montmartre and got to the Eiffel Tower for dusk. 

A highlight was getting our portraits done in Montmartre, a fantastic engagement present from my Mum. We were happy with the end product- the artist knew how to capture our likeness whilst adding a few improvements here and there! The actual experience was very enjoyable, something I hadn't considered. I thought it would be horrible to have to sit still for so long. I most enjoyed watching how the artist drew Rob. It was interesting to see what order she did things and how a few final strokes altered the whole portrait. Thanks Mum!

Almost finished

Photo with the artist, Marina Fortunato

Montmartre

Sacré-Cœur

On the street of Montmartre

Notre-Dame from the front

Notre-Dame and its lovely garden at the back

Inside Shakespeare and Company Bookshop: fantastic bookshop

Tour Eiffel

Tour Eiffel

Goodnight Paris!

Family in Rambouillet!

In Rambouillet, we were going to meet family, quite a bit of it actually.  We saw 2 of my 3 cousins and spent a lovely (but unfortunately short) week with my aunt and uncle, Eliane and Geoff.  On top of this, I got to meet Sophie's youngest Alix for the first time, and Virgil for the first time since I was able to cradle him in my arm. Kat got to meet them all!

First of all, we had to get to Sophie's place in Paris, which proved hard without a SIM card.  But lucky a good samaritan came to our rescue, and Sophie came to meet us at the station, before taking us home to a lovely home-cooked meal where we spent the evening talking and catching up.  Of course, Sophie noticed that we were acting a little weird, but couldn't work out why.  We were desperately trying to get in touch with Tim & David to share the news of our engagement before sharing it with anyone else but those two somehow prove a little more elusive that other members of the family.

It was so nice getting to know the boys and have an extremely personalised tour of the gardens at Versailles.  Sophie and the boys must have been there dozens of times, but they don't seem to tire of the history.

Next up was the short drive to Geoff and Eliane's place (slightly modified since I last saw it in 1999), joined after work by Phillippe every now and again by Monique, a close family friend. Dad had preceded our visit by a few weeks, having come to Rambouillet after leaving us in Turku, Finland, back in the days where I had a respectable beard. If they were sick of Australian Dashwoods they gave no sign of it, they wined and dined us so well, we were fit to bursting.  

Sophie, Phillippe, Virgil and Alix spent the weekend with us in Rambouillet where we rode through the forest spying deer and boar (yes! the Asterix and Obelix kind) and paid a visit to the remarkable Espace Rambouillet where we saw a show on the birds of prey they are restoring back to health.

http://www.asterix.com/

Le Tour de France

During the show, the birds fly right over your head.  Luckily the trainers/keepers have yummier food than us, so the closest we came to being dinner was when one of the vulture's cracked Geoff over the head - probably because he's so tall!

Alix took the lead on the bikes

Monique looks like she's not entirely convinced 

Too much for one weekend?  Not for us, we returned to Versailles to revisit the gardens, but this time with the fountains turned on.  We had ninety minutes to get around.  With our guides increasing from 3 to 7, a lot of shouting and only occasionally a bit of running I think we got to see just about everything, except the obelisk!

The King of the Titans who lost a battle with Jupiter, by being crushed by rocks was probably our favourite - Alex's too, I think.

It's a good impression

Virgil - a highly recommended Versailles tour guide.  Look him up on Tripadvisor.  Tours in English, French & German.

The icing sugar on the crepe, was a dinner out with the whole crew, before Sophie, Phillippe, Virgil and Alex returned home.

A sneaky night out for crepes!
Geoff, Kat, Alix, Sophie, Virgil, Phillippe, Rob & Eliane

We took a day to go out to visit my other cousin Annabel, and meet her partner Antoine at their place near Le Mans where they run a 'free angling' fishing farm - I can't pretend to know all about the types of fish and the enjoyment that people get from catching fish and putting them back, but there's enough people out there who do, so they've got a pretty good business going!  They live on a beautiful lake, and as we were walking around it, one of the fisherman was weighing his catch.  A whopping 23kg!  Here you can fish and be amongst nature while camping out under the stars...but mainly fish!

Looking back at the house from the far side of the lake

Antoine, Eliane, Annabel, Kat & Rob

Such a wonderful time and only a few days, it really makes one wish that France and Australia were a little closer together.

We got engaged in Brussels! (also including chocolate, beer, a bathroom mishap, comic murals and a treasure hunt!)

Celebrations the next day (before the bus)

The day of the double proposal! 
12th August 2015

As much as we both wanted to explore Belgium, it hadn't made our final list of countries. However, although we are keen to travel via land, we decided we didn't really fancy travelling overland between Amsterdam and Paris in one sitting. We were thrilled to choose Brussels as a stopover. 

So Brussels went from a place we weren't even visiting to the place we got engaged! (More on that whole thing later.)

We were greeted in Brussels by European Commission buildings and pretzels. After settling into our Airbnb apartment we set out to explore. Knowing you can only get a small glimpse of a place in one day we had previously decided to focus on two of our loves: Chocolate and Beer. (Well, I don't love beer but I love Rob...and Rob loves beer!) 

European Commission building

Before we got to the beer or the chocolate we sat down for a lovely lunch outside and Rob had an opportunity to try out his French with the waitress. We then walked to the Grand Place, an impressive town square with a town hall (Hotel de Ville) that looks like a grand gothic church. They were setting up for a flower show the next day and we took a quick preview.

Hotel de Ville

Grand Place

Previous Mayor of the city: Charles Buls and his dog

Beloved Manneken Pis: Little Pee Man

Soon our self-made chocolate and beer tour began! I will let the visuals do the talking as I can't possibly convey the tastes:

Chocolate town!

Hard to make out my delightful little dragon chocolate lollypop!

One of everything please!

Mmm chocolate dream

Naturally, I found it pretty exciting being in the chocolate capital of the world! Apparently, Brussels is home to more chocolate factories than any other city on earth. The only thing that stopped me eating my weight in chocolate was that we only spent a day there!

We got a delectable box of chocolates from Leonidas that we savoured for at least a few days! There was a huge variety and I wish Leonidas had a shop in Australia. (They seem to be pretty much everywhere else in the world.)

In the search for some Trappiste beet, we hunted down Au Bon Vieux Temps in a little alleyway for Rob to enjoy a Rochefort Trappiste, the place was deserted so we experienced the place, just the two of us, even the woman at the bar left for a while.  They had what looked like old church pews for benches, which I am surprised they could get up the alleyway, and beautiful stained glass windows featuring a number of families coats-of-arms along with that of Bruxelles.

We did deviate from the chocolate and beer route momentarily to do a walking tour of Brussels comic murals. They were pretty amazing even if I didn't know all the comics & bande-desinsées. We also found some other really powerful street art. 

The well-known "Tintin" - Hergé

Perhaps a not-stricly authorised mural

"Yoko Tsuno" - Roger LeLoup

"XIII" - Jean van Hamme

"Monsieur Jean" - Chalres Berberian

"Broussaille" - Frank Pé

Some more thought-provoking and action-inspiring art

"Victor Sackville" - Francis Carin

Gay pride

The damage of labels

We enjoyed a tasty dinner, again sitting outside for the summer weather and people watching. Rob had an amusing encounter with one of the staff when he went to use the bathroom. The man asked if was a customer and despite Rob confirming he was, he accused him of lying and said he couldn't use the bathroom!! Luckily our waitress came in and left the other staff member very red faced. It was understandable and we ended up feeling sorry for the guy who was thenceforth keen to avoid Rob.

Deciding to be even further cliched on our one day in Brussels we located a waffle shop for dessert before heading back to our apartment. Once there Rob virtually pushed me into the shower so he would have the opportunity to lay out 

the last clue of a grand treasure hunt. 

For me, this treasure hunt had begun all the way back in Kampot, Cambodia where I received my first mysterious letter. Since then I had (very) randomly been getting letters and rhymes all along our trip through Vietnam, China, Japan, Mongolia, Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands.

Finding the last clue, I rushed to locate the previous clues. Putting them all together I had the proposal right there! And luckily I had the answer all ready in the form of an engraved ring. On the outside it read 

The answer lies withinin

and inside had my answer. 

You see, I had somewhat anticipated such a question and had my own sort of proposal ready to go. I did not, however, think it was coming that particular night so the ring that I had "prepared earlier" was across the room in a secret hiding place. I couldn't very well leave Rob waiting for me to rummage through my things so the ring had to wait a few minutes! 

Rob's ring

Treasure clues!

What a way to cap off a lovely day in Brussels! We are both very excited and happy and looking forward to celebrating with family and friends on our return. 




The next day we left lovely Brussels on a bus to Paris. We were quite amused when the bus driver took our tickets and said, "The city of love, you never know, you two might get engaged there."

Celebrations the next day (before the bus)