RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris. It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing!

All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space... and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air - but eventually we wound up in gay Paree...

We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff.

A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats.

It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere... which is what we started to do today.

I have quite an extensive Bucket List of which Dr Fred is having to accommodate. Some of it suits him very well... the rest he just has to put up with because this is a bit of my birthday treat.

We started today with a wander through the streets of Paris, we got our first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower and then down to the river where we went in the Jardin desTuileries.

I did think about going to Angelina's for hot Chocolate - I didn't realise it was actually inside the gallery so we couldn't find it so we ended up in a really quite nice place in the garden where we just sat and looked at the Louvre drinking coffee and chocolate and talking to the pigeons- probably a lot more cost-effective than Angelina's and no queue!! We wandered around until it was time for us to go into the Louvre.

It's very interesting museum... obviously the outside is absolutely stunning and then the inside is even more stunning if slightly overwhelming. I have read somewhere that it takes you 132 days if you do every room in the Louvre properly - we managed a few hours before we got 'museum leg'.

I've probably got at least 132 photos of amazing rooms, ceilings and art. We noticed that in t'olden days it seemed like a lot of soldiers went to war naked but for hats and shoes.... see bottom middle picture...

We went and looked at Mona along with most of the rest of Paris (it felt like that anyway) we weren't prepared to queue but we did manage to get a photograph with the three of us. This actually a photo of a photo on the camera so not very good quality.

We walked around the other 4 floors just taking in a lot of really lovely interesting art from all over the globe... Dr Fred went and explored the Greek and Egyptian Antiquities and I went and looked at the French paintings. We lost each other for an hour or so - easy to do in such a large space but then we agreed we had definitely got Museum legs. We walked slowly back up through town via the Galleries Lafayette where we went right to the top floor and onto the terrace and got an amazing panoramic view of Paris rooftops....

the art nouveau dome in the shop is really very splendid as well...

We walked about 10 mile today all on pavements and its taken its toll... now officially an OAP I dont seem to have the same staying power I used to have... and the pulled tendon is uncomfortable so we are taking the evening off in preparation for another adventure tomorrow.. We will sit in our nice appartment and drink red wine and eating french bread and recoup strength.

Alesund

Our final destination stop was Alesund. This is a very pretty town in southern Norway built on a peninsula. All the houses are painted pretty colours and a lot of the architecture is all very Art Nouveau based. This is because the town itself was completely burnt to the ground In 1904 by a fire for which they never found the original cause. The whole town had to be rebuilt and this became a huge National Effort and a lot of prominent and up and coming architects flocked to the town to stick there 20 pence in. Consequently the town is very heavily Art Nouveau which was very fashionable at the time. There is this wonderful Museum just off the harbour which is a very beautiful Art Nouveau house. It has amazing panelling, doors, wallpaper, and it's all furnished with beautiful art Nouveau Furniture. It also house a collection of of enameled Art Nouveau Trinkets,boxes, spoons, jewellery, very very beautiful. There is an interesting collection of old books and paintings a...

verdant lushness

Its a never ending island hop... today we hopped of the boat at Kingstown, on the island St. Vincents and Grenadine. Once through the usual port duty free - cheap booze and diamonds to go milarkey we were straight into the town... crazy noisy smelly chaos... refreshingly no tat shops for tourists, just local markets and street traders all vying for local sales. Music blasting from everywhere, cars (very battered and often very pimped) all over the roads - parked in the middle of the street, loading, unloading, chatting seemingly oblivious to the total traffic jam caused behind them... We walked through this mayhem - the temperatures were rising probably about 30 degrees - tourists evident by trying to walk on the shady side of the street - even when we turned off the main drag and there were less people it was still like carnival time with music blasting everywhere. Its very atmospheric and mostly promotes a good vibe although I have heard '3 little birds' everywhich way a...

Almost last chapter... In which our Go Stargazing team watch Astonishing Aurora Borealis seen from the deck of the Astonishing Borealis!!!

The weather brightened considerably and the snowy peaks lining our sail down the fjiords looked glorious and sparkly in the sunshine against a (mainly) blue sky back drop. More awesome scenary.... the Go Stargazing team wrapt up their lectures ... only searching for the illusive Northern Lights remained. The tension from the night before dissolved in the sunshine the forecast for Aurora borealis was looking fairly positive - it was the captains farewell cocktsil party so everyone had their gladrags on.. We ate dinner and sky remained clear so we headed back to our room and donned as many layers as we could move in and proceeded to deck 10 in anticipation of stars and northern lights..... it did not dissappiont - just we got there as the bridge announced that the lights could be seen on the starboard side of the ship. It was stunning. Slowly the intensity built. The auroral green became brighter and bigger areas appe...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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