Travelogue: April 2019 Archives

I wasn't able to get my blog online for much of our last holiday because the internet on the Queen Mary 2 is practically unusable.  Even when we got to New York, I had better things to be doing than trying to catch up.  So only the first six days are online.  When I got home the focus was on processing photos, and now I'm busy labelling (have finished day 14, and a third of the photos done).  But I've also been choosing and uploading photos for the blog entries, and have finished those first six days.  So they're online at http://kazza.id.au/north_atlantic_2018/  

From now on the new entries will go up with pictures.  If you have a feed reader you can subscribe to http://kazza.id.au/north_atlantic_2018/atom.xml, or check every so often, or just wait until I'm done, hopefully in the next few months, when I'll let you know.

I woke up to the news this morning that Notre Dame in Paris had burnt down.  But looking at pictures tonight it looks like the fire was largely contained to the roof, and the interior stone roof is still intact in large chunks.  It will need some pretty significant repairs as heat stress can damage even stonework, but it doesn't seem as bad as I first thought.

I visited Notre Dame in 2012.  I was by myself after touring Israel, Jordan and Egypt with the parents, and six days by myself in London.  I had two and a half days in Paris and generally hated the place.  Oh sure the city itself was beautiful and I saw *lots* and walked *lots* (one day setting an all time pedometer record of 38450 steps in one day), but I couldn't stand the tourists.  And the queues.  Queues and tourists and more queues and more tourists.  And mainly because they were generally rude tourists.  I never had any problems with the locals, and if the French have a reputation of being rude to tourists, I'm sure for the most part it's because the tourists completely deserved it.  I think if I went back to Paris I'd enjoy it more if I didn't do anything "touristy".  I did tick off a major bucket list item though (going to the top of the Eiffel Tower).  

I actually saw Notre Dame all three days I was there.  These photos are going to focus on the roof and interior.  Most of the exterior, it seems, will be fine (we can hope!!).

First up in the afternoon I arrived, I wandered past while getting a lay of the Paris land.

Those copper statues had been removed prior to the renovation, so they were saved.

The next day I went up the Eiffel Tower and a whole heap of other things (this was the 38450 step day).  I made it back to Notre Dame around 16:30 and went inside this time.

My last day was also quite busy, but not as busy as the day before.  I stopped by Notre Dame in the morning because the sun was out (sort of) and it looked pretty.