Tag Archives: Roubaix

No updates recently because the hotel we’re in has no wi-fi which makes it a bit difficult. You have to trek all the way to down to the breakfast room (which is underground!) to plug into a cabled router. And then sit there, as I am doing now. I have a bunch of photos to put up but as that’s a time consuming process so it’ll have to wait until we’re in Hong Kong.

Recently I was asked which city I would live in if money (and language) was no barrier. And I decided rather randomly that it would be Paris. Now that I’m here, I heartily stand by my choice. Paris is just magic. There are no high rises in the heart of the city. They’ve all been shoved off to one end, far away from the very pretty city.

We’ve been doing a lot of walking so we’ve had plenty of time to take in the sights. We walked up to the Arc de Triomphe yesterday from the Louvre and it’s a lot further than it looks when the pros are sprinting up and down it on the last stage of Le Tour de France. Today was a visit to Musée d’Orsay. It was insanely packed on the fifth floor where they’ve moved the Impressionists to so we kinda skimmed through that area reasonably quickly. In my defense, I think I’ve seen quite of few of the paintings before when they’ve been toured to Australia. Or the Melbourne Art Gallery has somehow managed a loan or two.

I was a little disappointed with the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec paintings they had on display. I was hoping for some of his brilliant posters but there were none to be seen. But of course the star for me was the Van Goghs – except it was absolutely packed and today must’ve been “bump into Lauren and nearly knock her over” day. Happened to me three times in the Van Gogh room! The other clear favourite was all the Art Nouveau rooms. The gallery had some beautiful pieces of furniture and glassware. But really I shouldn’t say surprisingly because Art Nouveau was a precursor to Art Deco.

Tomorrow we’re going to the Louvre, hopefully with pre-purchased tickets so we don’t have to queue. The wait today for Musée d’Orsay was an hour and a half – in the rain. I did get to use my new umbrella so it’s all good 🙂

And of course there’s that bike race that was on on Sunday just gone. Lots of driving, being cold, bumping around on cobblestones and standing around waiting for a bunch of cyclists to vibrate past. But it was just excellent. Really exciting to be out there on the backroads of rural France and actually seeing the race as it happened. Of course, I have no idea what actually went down during the race but who cares? I was in the Roubaix velodrome to see Tom Boonen win. The roar when he entered was amazing.