The Mediterranean Sea

Another beautiful day in France, perfect for a day trip to the beach! We drove along the Riviera looking out towards the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. We started the day at Cassis, a nice little town just next to the Calanques. We stopped at a lookout over the sea and watched the water sparkle under the sun, while eating morning tea.

We kept driving along the coast until we arrived at Sanury-sur-Mur. We ate a picnic lunch sitting on some rocks at the beach, while watching the boats come and go. All the boats were covered in fishing nets. We watched as all the seagulls milled around the nets, picking out any old fish pieces. We walked through town looking at the shops, and afterwards we bought an ice cream.

We kept driving and stopped at Cavalaire-sur-Mer where we had a swim. It was quite cold, but very refreshing. There was a small pontoon 100 meters off the beach, where you could get out of the water and use it for diving off!

St Tropez is an old town, with a large port, where many celebrities and wealthy people dock their luxury boats. We had fun watching them dock, and trying to see who was on them. There were many workers on the boats, as they are so large that they require many people just to maintain them.

The boats looked very beautiful with their lights and candles lit up.

We sat at a seafood restaurant across the road from the boats to eat dinner. For entree I had mozzarella and tomatoes. For my main meal I enjoyed a steak, salad and chips.

Dessert was definitely my favourite part as I devoured fresh raspberries and cream. We also shared a St Tropezienne - a caky top and bottom, filled with a very thick layer of cream! Bad....

Mum and Dad drove home whilst Sean and I slept for the 3 hour journey back to Mormoiron :-)

Au Revoir,

Ivy x

More Paris!

Our friends Isabelle, Serge, Elisa and Raphael were staying half an hour east of Paris in a little town called Montceaux les Meaux. We went to stay with with them for a few days in August. The house was so big and so was the garden! We were all so excited to see Paris again, we went into the city the same evening of our arrival.

Our first stop was the bead shop in Rue de Temple, le Marais. Mum had been telling me about this store since June. I have a love for making my own bracelets. We went inside the shop and chose lots of beads and strings so we could make the bracelets when we got home.

Last time we came to Paris we went to Mariage Freres, the tea shop. We loved it so much we went back again. There was a type of tea, called 'Wedding Imperial', a chocolate and caramel tea. It smelled so nice we bought some! Our friends also bought some cherry tea.

We walked into the back streets of the Bastille district. We came across a street full of life and restaurants and cafes. We chose a restaurant and sat down. I chose a steak, salad and chips. For dessert I had a chocolate crepe with fruit sauce. That night I was so very tired.

The next day, we visited the Musee d'Orsay. The Musee d'Orsay is a museum filled with paintings and sculptures. They have a lot of paintings by Vincent Van Gogh. This a painting by him of himself:

My favourite Van Gogh painting was where it was just a landscape with some bails of hay. The museum was very big and on the ceiling there were lots of carvings. It was a train station many years ago. The old huge clock was still there.

We were walking back from the museum when we saw a sushi restaurant. So we decided to stop for lunch. I had avocado and salmon sushi and cucumber sushi! My favourite!

After lunch, we moved on to the Rodin Museum. The Rodin Museum is a museum that shows all the statues made by Augustus Rodin. My favourite statue was 'The Thinker' of a man sitting with his head leaning on his hands.

Do you know Desigual? The Spanish clothes' brand? It is a very creative and colourful brand of clothing that is very popular here in France. We went to a Desigual concept store and it was giant! I chose some jean tights. We went over to a lady in the shop and she sewed a patch on my tights and stitched the word Paris next to the patch! Now my tights are unique.

One of our days in Paris was just spent shopping with our friends. The boys went one direction and us girls another. We all met at 'Laduree', a salon famous for the best macaroons, since 1862. I had some sandwiches with all types of vegetables and chicken. They were great, though not as fabulous as the macaroons which we ate when we arrived back at the house!

Near the Eiffel tower there is the River Seine. We hopped onto a boat to go cruising down the river. We saw all the monuments and turned back around at the Island of St Louis and returned.

The Luxembourg Garden is a big park on the Left Bank with some activities for children. There was a big pond and fountain in the middle of the park. A man was hiring out some miniature sailing boats. The man gave us a boat and a long stick. We put our boats in the water and pushed them out towards the fountain with the stick. Then we ran around the other side of the pond, ready to catch the boat for when it approached the edge of the pond.

We also walked past the Pantheon. I thought it was very beautiful, but we didn't get to go inside. We walked through the Latin quarter all the way to the church, Sainte Chapelle. It's a church within the Palace of Justice, which actually used to be the City's Palace. King Louis IX lived in this palace and had the church built within its confines. We went inside and the glass stained windows were amazingly beautiful! The windows were so big and the pictures depict the stories of the Bible. The church even has the actual crown of thorns that Jesus wore on the cross as well as a bit of the cross within the upper chapel! They said that the acquisition of the crown of thorns greatly exceeded the cost of building the actual church itself.

In Paris, Berthillon ice-cream is well loved by tourists and Parisians. I got 3 balls of Berthillon glace; white chocolate, fig, and blackberry! We sat next to the river while we ate our ice-creams and they were delicious.

We're home again now and all unpacked. This is how I am going with the bracelets:

Au revoir!

Haribo

In France there is a lolly brand called Haribo. It is originally German but it is also quite popular in France and Italy. Dad, Sean, Mum and I all drove to Uzes where the Haribo museum is. At the beginning of the museum there was a giant store where they were selling all the Haribo lollies! The store was so crowded, it was amazing and people were stocking up on bags and bags of lollies! My favourite lolly sort was the Sour Straps. A man at the front desk gave us some tokens. He said that we were to use them in the tasting room. He also gave us a couple of mini bags of lollies.

Hans Riegel was the inventor of Haribo. He lived in Bonn which explains why he called Haribo, Haribo. If you circle Ha, Ri and Bo, it makes, Haribo! The first sweet Haribo invented was the dancing bear, which later became the Goldbear.

There was a room with all the posters and old advertisement posters that Haribo used to use. My favourite poster was one which had a picture of a man with a strawberry on his nose!

There was another room with lots of little desks. On the desks there were some touch screens and a little hole to put your hand through. First you stuck your hand in the hole and felt a lolly, then you listened, I know weird huh? and then you smelt, and figured out which lolly it was.

The last room was the tasting room. You put you token in to the machine and it gave you four bags of a liquorice or strawberry candy. I chose liquorice. I tasted and the lollies were so yum! At the end we walked through the museum store again. All the lollies looked soo good.

Out in the parking lot of Haribo there was a mini fun park. Sean and I chose to go on this jumping castle. It had a big blow up lion that every minute it closed its mouth. It also had a platform a zebra, a lion and an elephant. We sat on the animals while the platform tipped back and forward. I also went on these mini go carts. I lapped the other girl two times and and only crashed once!

Au Revoir

Friends and Family

Hello Everyone,

My Uncle Terry and Auntie Jean came to stay with us here in France. Once we had picked them up from the airport we drove to Fontaine de Vaucluse. We walked up to the top of a hill and in front of us there was a big cliff, cut in it there was a giant cave. The bottom of the cave was like a swimming pool. But there was still enough room for Sean and I to crawl onto a rock into the cave and look into the water. It was very blue, like chewing gum blue. Dad said that the last time he had been there, that the water had been gushing out of the cave and that it had covered the cave so you couldn't even see the cave!

When we were walking back down the hill we stopped at a paper museum where they had lots of examples of how they used to make paper. The people used to make paper by chopping wood and then squishing it into pulp. Then they would put it into a tub when it was white to dry it out a little and then they would squeeze it so it comes out in sheets and then puts it in cloths to dry and then, there you go, paper.

There was a door from the paper museum that led you into the towns mini-mall. We walked into a glass blowing shop and there was a man who was glass blowing a dragon.

We followed the Sorgue River down to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue to have an ice-cream. We went to a cafe and I ordered a banana split. It came in a giant bowl with lots of smarties and butterflies on top!! It was sooo yum!

Before walking back to the car we walked around the antique markets and looked at all the knives and things on sale. My favourite object was a chair that had sprite and coke bottle lids stuck all over it!

With Auntie Jean and Uncle Terry we looked at the lavender fields in Sault. We stopped on the side of the road to look at the purple fields and my uncle found a pair of new sunnies that fit me! They were just lying there, by the side of the road! There was one lavender field that was very well kept and tidy. It looked like it was used for postcards.

We drove to Roussillon, a town well known for it's ochre mining. We walked up the hill to the top of the town to have lunch. From the view point you could see all around. As we walked back down through the village we stopped at an art gallery. The lady had some very pretty paintings. My favourite one was a painting of Sault with lots of cows grazing in the fields.

I went to my friends' house for a sleepover. We went to the public swimming pool in Baumes de Venise. We swam a lot and then we were called over to eat lunch. Constance and I had ham, cheese, and tomato toasties. We lay on the grass and found a tree with blackberries so we ate them and had races in the swimming pool. It was really fun.

At home here in Provence we have had many visitors come to see us during the last 2 months. The last family that came had kids our age with them, our friends from the sunshine Coast, Jack and Georgie. Jack, Georgie, Sean and I walked to the lake together, here in Mormoiron. There we climbed over the railing and then jumped into the lake from a little ledge. After a while the water got very cold as it started to get windy, but it was still fun. We swam into the reeds and Sean found a big clam. He was playing around with Jack and accidently dropped it, the clam cracked and there was a big mussel inside!

That afternoon we drove to the big adventure park just outside Mormoiron. This park is filled with flying foxes and challenging climbing and obstacle courses to get around. A harness allows you to clip yourself onto safety wires and gloves protected our hands from rope burn. Joined from tree to tree there are ropes and wires. There is 6 courses all up with various difficulty levels. They are green, blue, black, blue, red and double black. It takes about 2 and a half hours to complete them all. I did all the courses and so did Jack and Mark. The others didn't finish the entire course. We were all exhausted by the end.

There is a Fete in Mormoiron right now. Jack and Georgia came to the fete with us. I went on the trampolines first. It was so cool. I jumped really high and did lots of flips, I nearly did a double flip!! We kept walking around and I had ago at throwing hoops around these boxes. I tried to get a big teddy bear but it was very hard because it didn't count if the hoop just sat on top, it had to go the whole way round the box so I didn't win anything.

Thanks for visiting and I will see you next time :-)

Dordogne

During these holidays, we visited the Dordogne, where we stayed with friends for 4 nights. We drove two and a half hours to get to the village of Roquefort, where we had a tour of the "Papillon" Roquefort cheese cellars. We first watched a movie on how Roquefort cheese was originally made, then we went on a tour of the caves. Roquefort cheese is made by "salting" the sheep's milk with penicillin, causing the cheese to develop green/blue mold. The cheese is matured in the caves, which stay at 10degC all year round, for a period of 90 to 260 days. There are only 7 manufactures who can call their cheese "Roquefort", and they fall within a zone of 2 km long and 300 meters wide within the village boundaries. When we finished the tour, we got to taste all the different Roquefort cheeses. We bought the best cheese and drove to the nearest park to eat it with some bread and butter.

We kept driving for half an hour until we reached the biggest bridge in France, The Millau Bridge! We drove across the bridge before stopping at a view point, and information centre. The bridge is 2460 meters long and the tallest column is 245m high.

That afternoon we arrived at the house of friends where we were staying, in the town of Thenon, in the Dordogne Valley.

The next morning we left for the markets at Sarlat. They were quite big and we saw a man, he had a little snake toy twirling around his hands so it looked like magic. They looked so cool so Sean and I bought one each. We felt them but they had nothing in them at all! There is a secret to how they work, maybe I will show you one day!! After the markets we drove to the Dordogne river where we had a boat ride that passed five chateaux, all within 1km of each other.

The next day we went to La Roque de St Christophe. La Roque de St Christophe is a cliff face 1km long and 80 meters high. It is made up of 5 terraces, which were first hollowed out 60 million years ago. The cliff was first a shelter for hunters 55 000 years ago and it was continually inhabited until the sight was destroyed during the Wars of Religion in the late 1500s. It had a couple of examples of how the cave men lived. The site was mostly occupied in the middle ages. We saw a demonstration where there was a big wheel, like in a hamsters cage, a man hopped into the wheel and walked. This machine was used as a winch to hoist up and down loads of food, water and other supplies.

That afternoon we went to the Gardens of Marqueyssac. The owners have hand-shaped the 150 000 box trees into lots of imaginative shapes. There was even a kids' maze that Sean and I raced through. I won. A part of the garden is even used for rock climbing.

We went to the Gouffre de Padirac. The Gouffre de Padirac is a giant cave where there are lots of stalagmites and stalactites. We walked through the cave and got into a boat and rode 1 kilometre into the cave. From there, we had a tour guide through the rest of the cave. We had to climb 465 big steps. The cave system has been mapped for 19 kilometres more into the cave, and at 9km remains of cave men, mammoth and cave bears were discovered. My favourite formations were the ones that looked like there was a stack of pancakes with maple syrup on top!! We also saw a 60 meter column. A column is when a stalagmite and a stalactite meet, so then they become a column. When we had the boat ride back the man who was paddling would always rock the boat scaring us all as we thoughrt we were going to tip out. It was one of the most amazing caves I have ever seen.

I had lots of fun in the Dordogne!

Camargue and Marseille

We had great fun in the Camargue! The Camargue is a coastal region in the south of Provence, covered in wetlands. When we first arrived we went to a bird park, called the Pont de Gau bird sanctuary. It holds all different types of birds, including flamingos. We walked around the whole zoo studying all the different birds they had. My favourite was the flamingo. I especially liked the flamingos that were fluoro pink with a black outline around the wings.

After the zoo we went to the nearby seaside town of St Maries de la Mer. We walked around the town and climbed to the roof of the church where we had a fantastic view of the surrounding countryside. After looking at all the little shops, we walked to the town's beach where we had a quick swim.

We drove along the road passing lots of different pony clubs, we stopped at one and went on a horse ride for an hour and a half! We learned to trot and also rode the horses into waist deep water, it was sooo much fun!!

We drove to the town of Salin de Giraud, a salt mining area, because this part of the Camargue is well known for its salt production. Salt is made by filling sea water into small bays, and letting the sun evaporate all the water, leaving you with a layer of salt. The salt is then scraped up and placed on large conveyor belts and sent for processing.

Later in the week we went to Marseille. Marseille is the oldest inhabited city in France. It has been inhabited for 2600 years! We walked around the old city and into an amazing church called Cathedral de la Major. It was very big and built out of marble.

We then caught a boat to the Chateau d'If, on a small island off the coast of Marseille. Until the 16th century it was a barren island, only visited by local fisherman. On a trip to Marseille in 1516, King Francois I decided to make it a fortress. It was turned into a prison in 1540, and remained a prison until World War I. Two of its legendary inmates were the Count of Monte Cristo and the Man in the Iron Mask.

On the weekend I went to my friends' house to have a sleepover! We swam in the pool lots, jumped on the trampoline and watched Avatar! I had great fun!!

Au Revoir :-)

Tarascon and Dolium

On Sunday, my Oma and Opa arrived. They have been traveling around Europe for 2 months and they dropped in to stay with us. They had bought us some very fancy Swiss chocolates and so we sat down and devoured some with a cup of tea.

In the morning we left for Tarascon, a big town to visit the chateau of, well, Tarascon. We walked around the chateau rooms. There were many winding staircases and when you walked into the rich rooms where the kings and queens probably slept, in the corner there were tiny rooms where there was a hole, where they obviously went to the toilet, and it dropped around 60 meters!! After we had looked around the castle we went to a cafe to go and eat. I had ham and wedges.

That afternoon we drove to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. We stopped at a cafe and had a milkshake and ice-cream.

Oma and Opa took us out to a restaurant called Dolium. It is a restaurant as well as as a cooking school. Dolium is a very fancy restaurant that is even in the Michelin guide! The Michelin guide is a guide where all of the best restaurant in France get listed. I had never been to Dolium before. For entree I had a spicy eggplant mousse that tasted like guacamole. For main I had the fish. And for dessert I had an apricot nectar and ice-cream dessert. It was sooo good! Next door there is a big wine cellar and when you go in you stand on glass and can look down into a wine cellar!

:-) YUMMY!! Au Revoir.