Le Petit Bois

The cottage is quite brilliant - three bedrooms in all - two large doubles (one with en suite) and a smaller one with bunk beds. There is a common bathroom for the two bedrooms. Downstairs also has a cloak room with shower.

There is a nice large kitchen with separate dining room. A nice large lounge room with an nice airy conservatory off to the side. Althugh of no direct use for us, there is a big deck next to an above ground pool.

The Journey to Plessala

The train journey to Rennes was nice and smooth and quite pleasant - and I spent most of it asleep!

We managed to find the car hire place - just not where all of of the other car hire place at the station. Our travel beastie for this part of the journey is a Opel Corsa.

Driving on the right side of the road is not too much of an issue and surprisingly, changing gears with the ‘wrong’ hand hasn’t been an issue… although every now and then the left hand leaves the wheel heading towards the non-existent gear stick.

The ol' trusty (and dusty) TomTom (with updated France maps) was working a treat and we were of on the way to Plessala - the cottage owners only gave descriptive directions - no direct co-ordinates, so the TomTom was to just guide us to Lamballe and it did that quite successfully.

Driving into Lamballe we found nice cafeteria place for some much needed lunch - an v.early breakfast (7AM), a two hour train ride and an hour in the car generated a bit of a hunger. We also made use of this stop to call into the supermarket to pick up some provisions.

We now entrusted ourselves to the directions from the cottage owners…

All went reasonably well and we found the cottage - although the sign to the cottage itself behind a tree didn’t help!

Departure to Renne

The morning started well but for the fact of the hotel lifts not working properly. One lift was stuck on the 4th floor (Mums) which meant that no request forthe lift from other floors were being accepted. 

I went up to Mums floor to see what was happening and met her in the stairwell on the way down. We headed down via the stairs to the restaurant in he basement. Breakfast was had and, with Mum's key, I headed to reception to see what was what. 

The unstuck lift was in the ground floor so I thought I'd give it a go - success! It took me to the fourth floor but if course by the time I had her suitcase back it was gone irretrievably... walk back to the lobby... lift again to the third floor (mine) for my bag. 

Walk down to lobby... lift to fourth floor, pick up Mums suitcase... down one to get mine... back to reception!

Yay!!

A cab to the Gare Montpanasse and now waiting for the train to Renne...

Day 3 in Paris

Today's wanderings had some highs and lows and another high...

Today is Victory Day and a public holiday in Paris so not everything we expected to open or available was... 

We successfully reached the Eifell Tower by bus from the hotel and a quick walk down the Quai Branley to the Musée...Quai Branley... unfortunately we were an hour earlier than opening time and half an hour before the cafe wasdue to be open. The weather had taken a rather cold turn so we were more than ready for a nice tea by the time the cafe started serving.

The Quai Branly museum displays collections of objects from African, Asian, Oceanian and American civilizations and was a great experience.

Catching the bus again to move onward and upward... to an interchange with another bus service that we discovered was one that didn't run on public holidays - doh!

A short(ish) cab ride overcame the transport issue but introduced us to an hour long queue at Musée Marmottan Monet... not too bad, as such, but then it started to lightly rain... one of main reasons to visit this museum, beyond seeing other impressionist painting, was see if they had a better/different selection of prints. It turned out they had less of a selection than Musée D'Orsay - bleerk.

Fortunately we still had access passes to Musée D'Orsay so another visit restored the purchase requirements... and lead to having a nice (late) lunch at Tabac D'Orsay.

A long, but enjoyable day...

Day 2 in Paris

Pleasant morning venturing out to Musée D'Orsay to visit another Monet collection...

This one has the panel 'Le déjeuner', a print of which is on the walls of a certain home in Adelaide. 

Then is was over the road to view some more Monet panels at Musée de l'Orangerie... lilies in abundance!

Onto a light(ish) lunch at L'Imperial cafe on rue de Rivoli before heading back to the hotel for a well earned rest