Four Days in Jolly Old England! (First three days)

6.15am, slipping out of Alex's apartment on Rue Guersant, I squeeze myself (and back pack) into the very Parisian mini elevator cage and take the four floors down to the street. Waiting for me, a very handsome chap in a big black Mercedes ready to whisk me off to Garde du Nord and my next adventure. 

Eurostar is waiting as we travellers channel through English Customs and Immigration. Lovely to hear a British accent. Settling into my seat the train slides silently on its way at exactly 7.13am, picking up speed as we leave the city. Green wheat fields fled by until we slowed to descend into the Chunnel. Before long we popped out into the soft grey light of Old Blighty. Funny the countryside was exactly the same as France just there! 8.30am we slipped to a stop at St Pancras station London.

Kings Cross Station, London

St Pancras and ajoining Kings Cross station is pretty cool. Helpful staff point me in the right direction of the overland train that whisks me across the Thames to the Tate Modern.

First up is Matisse's Cut Outs. (see video of exhibit at this link) Sadly no photo's allowed. Very cool how this artist at the end of his career took the cut out technique he'd used previously to help with composition and turned it into a winning formula for the last great works of his life. We saw how his assistants painted the card, that he then cut out and affixed to walls or canvas. He drew at times with charcoal atop huge long poles.

The Tate Modern is laid out in four wings across three levels. Each focusing on a major art movement or theme, exploring its origins and how contemporary artists have responded to these ideas. My tour took me from top to toe. I didn't love the Tate. Odd as I gravitate to gritty industrial spaces. Its a big stark ugly building which is being renovated. MoMA in New York has the edge with more elegant galleries, more important works and that stunning sculpture garden....Or... perhaps my art experience is so biased towards American modernism, expressionism and contemporary works that I simply didn't appreciate the plethora of unfamiliar and rather bleak European art on display. Hmmmm!

After a whirl around London in a open top double-decker, next stop was Waterloo Station. A sprint across the Thames from Westminster and I puffingly made the train to Gillingham with three minutes to spare. An hour and half later I was being swept through utterly romantic hedgerows frothing with roses, cow parsley and campion in a low slung Bentley Continental driven by my distant cousin Richard. No lanes could be narrower or prettier! Richard's wife Cathy and daughter Ella welcomed me in their gorgeous low beamed, stone flagged, Aga warmed kitchen in their uber charming home Bulpits House. Once a rope millers cottage, a few centuries of additions to the original stone house had created a true gem of English rural history and charm.

Water bubbles from the ground in this part of Dorset which borders Wiltshire, the river Stour begins near by and is made famous by neighbouring Stourhead Park. In front of Richard and Cathy's house is a long tranquil leat (long shallow pond), once used to soak and soften the hemp or material used to make the rope. Today it's a stalking ground for graceful herons. Parklike grounds surround this lovely house, Cathy's english border burgeoning with spring growth was a glorious tapestry of textures and colours against an ancient brick wall. Roses clamber up stone walls. Gravel crunches underfoot.

Rambling over Bulpit's 9 hole golf course, complete with quaint brick club house we are surrounded by the aching green of England in spring and the sound of rushing water. 

The following day and 7 hours of walking later Cathy and I have circumnavigated the Capability Brown designed park and lakes at Stourhead, taking in the house tour and a pub lunch along the way. I had just read a wonderful book about the history of ice-cream and ice houses was tickled to see the old ice house at Stourhead pictured below. The deep well would have been filled with great blocks of ice which would stay frozen all year round. The ice boy would chip blocks off and barrow ice up to  kitchens of the big house for the icebox.

 The Park is full of vistas and follies, one is the famous Temple of Apollo, cresting a hill overlooking the lake which featured along with the arched stone bridge in the 2005 movie Pride and Prejudice starring Kiera Knightly and Matthew Mcfadyen.

The scene at the stone temple is shown in the video below. You may remember its when Mr Darcy asks Elizabeth to marry him for the first time. Both soaked by the rain.

Today, not a drop of rain, but the Rhododendrons were in full flight, the air rich with exotic perfume from towering bushes foaming with huge blooms. With temples and bridges, grotto's and statues, lakes and artful vistas, the 200+ year old planting is spectacular. Listed as one of the 6 greatest gardens in England. Sadly a number of old trees were lost in recent storms.

Notice the stone toadstools in the picture above at right. Staddle stones were thought to be used to support ancient granaries, hayricks etc off the ground. You see them everywhere in this area.
Below this pic is a typical farmstead, I believe it is the gamekeepers house, with stone walled animal runs pretty much as it would have been in days gone by, though Cathy and I thought there'd have been fruit trees and veggie garden back in the day!

 Building of Salisbury Cathedral began in April 1220

 The following day I toured ancient Salisbury Cathedral (read Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd ) where a copy of the Magna Carta is on show, then trained back to London and the waiting arms of the Great Northern Hotel perfectly positioned for Eurostar travel at Kings Cross. This gorgeous hotel, glamorous with huge chandeliers in the GNH bar, fab cut glass mirrored elevators and the Plum and Spilt Milk restaurant showcasing Mark Sargeant's (used to be head chef at Gordon Ramseys at Claridges) fab food. I indulged in creamy smoked haddock and poached hens egg (best fish pie ever tasted), then grilled cuttlefish with broad beans and chorizo. Simple and divine.

Creamy smoked Haddock with poached hens egg and sorrel

ps: all pics in England taken on iPhone 4* with varing degrees of success!! (*Hence the selfies!!)

Musee Arts Decoratifs : Dries Van Noten Inspirations

The work of the Belgian fashion designer, Dries Van Noten, is featured at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.For this exhibition, Dries Van Noten has brought together elements which point to other sources of inspiration, such as the Renaissance ‘chambers of wonder’ or ‘curiosity cabinets’ in which collectors amassed memorabilia and souvenirs. He has selected anonymous 19^th century pieces and works by emblematic couturiers such as Elsa Schiaparelli and Christian Dior, to evoke intimate subject matters such as youth, the archetype, ambiguity and passion, while highlighting his ‘signature’ themes. Masterpieces by important artists such as Bronzino, Kees Van Dongen, Yves Klein, Victor Vasarely, Francis Bacon, Elizabeth Peyton and Damien Hirst are on display in each section of the show. Major films, including Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange and Jane Campion’s The Piano, are also part of the event.

Monet's house and Garden at Giverny

Our destination today is Giverny. The home of Monet. It's kinda scary visiting a place with such a huge reputation. If spring hasn't sprung yet the visit will be so disappointing. My heart rose as we entered the township of Vernon to see irises blooming on the roadside and roses frothing over a fence. Perfect!

Deep rose scented air after a rain shower wafting from cascades of white species roses and soft lavender irises was my first impression as I stepped from the car. Divine!

Poppies and blue cornflowers strewn across a meadow, spring green trees and hills rolling away behind was my next. Hedges, verdant potager's, rounded mounds of lavender, spent tulips piled in wooden crates, wisteria, roses and perennials too. This was just the entrance to the area. Not even at the house yet!

The garden and house of Monet are everything you imagine them to be. Cacophonous colour, low perennial beds with frothy standard roses marching down the centre, interspersed by long runs of pale gravel, bisecting the beds. The colour starts to make sense as you traverse the garden and glance down the paths where repetitive planting in waves of colour combinations wash over the garden like a rainbow. 

Unintentionally dressed to tone with the predominant colour!!

The house, familiar from books and doco's was quaint and musty. There is something in me that pines for people to live in houses and I always feel the heart of the house is gone when just left to nosey tourists.

Graham Ross of 'Australian Better Homes and Gardens' fame was filming in the garden. I spoke briefly to him in between takes.  It was interesting to see him wandering through the garden chatting away to his invisible microphone, the camera team filming from afar to get those long shots. Every now and then he'd whip out his personal camera and take a pic of a flower or vista!

 

Crossing the road to the water gardens you enter a world of the famous waterlily paintings.Crazy croaking, like the sound of a hundred angry crows, greeted us. Turned out to be a handful of mating little frogs. Eventually the noise died down completely. TG!!

Later we drank hot carrot soup and enjoyed being outdoors at the little cafe. Monet's hamlet is really quaint with charming houses all along the road, giving tantalising peeks of lives lived in this famous spot. For the garden lover or artist visting Giverny is a must do. I was tickled to be here in spring to see the roses and irises.

Alone..(well almost) in Versailles 'Hall of Mirrors" after Royal Opera House triumphe

My American friend Alex drove me from Paris to Versailles Palace. Finding a park near the gates, we teetered across the cobbles in our heels past the throngs of hawkers and noisy tourist lines. It was a gorgeous feeling to be dressed up going to an event in such a romantic Palace. Later, sipping a coup de champagne in the long hall lined with pale statues of past Kings and Queens of France, we mingled with other guests. Meeting up with my friends Gerard and Roberto from Canada, we moved into the Opera House, taking our seats on turquoise tapestry in a little gilt box with upholstered door behind us. Fabulous crystal chandeliers blazed, gilded decorations glowed, the house was packed for the final performance of Lully's Persee presented at Versailles by Opera Atelier from Toronto. My friend Gerard Gauci is set designer.  I made this trip to Paris especially to join him at the Opera.

Roberto and I inside the Opera House (top left) The chapel at Versailles (bottom right) The palace viewed from the gardens (top right) Sipping champagne before the Opera. 

Gerard's opulent painted curtain shrouded centre stage. His marble floor stretched out beneath. From curtain up to the last tumultuous curtain call Gerard's wonderful artistry set the scene for glorious music and costumes.

The opera was a great triumph and it was wonderful to see my friend up on the stage taking his bow with the Opera Director and conductor.

Gerard Gauci (far left) and Marshall Pynkoski take a bow with the cast of Persee. 

Later Alex and I gate crashed the second only private photo shoot in the Hall of Mirrors, Annie Leibowitz being the only other photographer granted such a privilege. This famous room without people was suddenly golden and intimate and wildly glamorous!

With Roberto (at left) and Gerard in the Hall of Mirrors. 

Alex in front of Versailles and in the Hall of Mirrors. 

I couldn't resist!

A private tour of the kings apartments followed then our own photo shoot.  Alex and I slipped away down the time worn stone spiral staircase and wandered through empty apartments. Finally we found someone to unlock the Palace.

Seeing the gardens deserted we walked out and watched the sunset at 10.30pm! What an extraordinary feeling to have the Palace and Gardens virtually to ourselves. Silence broken only by birdsong and the crunch of pale gravel underfoot!

The whole evening was a pinch yourself moment and we loved every minute!

Marche Poncelet and Brocante Marche at Rue Courcelles

A brisk morning walk started day two. Alex and I strolled to her gilded Russian Orthodox Church 'Alexander Nevsky'. Worshipers intoned vespers while the Priest swung a golden orb wafting difts of frankincense over the congregation. Worshipers kissed an ancient icon, genuflecting  as they walked towards the altar. Many lit candles or wrote prayers to be read during the service.

Crossing Avenue des Ternes we meandered through Marche Poncelet where food and flower vendors display their wares with all that incredible French flair.

 

 

 

Leaving Poncelet we turned into Rue Courcelles to find the Brocante Marche in full swing. My heart sank and soared as I spied all the covetable accoutrements of life on offer. Such deliciousness. So I shopped with my camera. My pics show some of the items I'd have loved to bring home!

  Mindful of an important date at 4.30 we strolled home through the fragrant Parc on Rue Pereire.