Oui, Oui Paris!

 I have already posted the US and Canadian legs of our summer holiday, but now it's time to report on the European tail end of the trip . . . . vive la France!  France is the most visited country in the world (79.5 million foreigners welcomed in 2011) and August is known as one of the most popular months for holidaying here in the largest country in Western Europe.  Most Parisians flock to the southern coast themselves, leaving the city relatively empty.  Perfect timing for us traffic hating islanders!  We stayed at the Sourire-de-Montmartre, a beautifully situated bed and breakfast that looked one part Paris, one part Marrakesh.

How grateful we were for a plush bed and pillows and a hot shower to remedy the jetlag!

Breakfast was served each morning in the great room located on the top floor; a scrumptious spread of  fresh fruits, yogurts, jams, sweet cakes, coffee, teas, croissants, and baguettes.  I didn't know at the time that enjoying a typical tea with honey and cream would be a luxury elsewhere in France.

 Montmartre, literally "mountain of the martyr," history dates back to prehistoric times when it is said to have been a Druidic holy place long before the Basilica_of_the_Sacre Coeur was built on the base of the 130 meter peak.

 The neighborhood was favored in the late 19th century by artists including Picasso, Dali, Monet, and Van Gogh.  Many modern filmmakers have chosen the setting for their art as well; La Vie en Rose, Amelie, and  most recently Woody Allen's comedy Midnight in Paris.

 Sacre Coeur is a spectacular sight at night.  Built of travertine stone quarried within France, it will apparently remain white for centuries.

The steps in front of the basilica, the highest point in Paris, are dotted with people admiring the overviews of the city.

Palais Garnier 

The Louvre 

Notre Dame de Paris 

Lover's Locks on the Pont de l'Archevêché

Golden statue from the Alexandre III bridge over the Seine

I am pretty convinced the 4 hours spent standing in line for the Eiffel Tower was worth it, these are  impressive views that greet you at the top.

I would think that visiting at night is a better option due to the city lights in all their many colors, with the added bonus of the post sunset sparkly light show on the tower itself, which is a little Vegas-ey in real life but makes for a quite romantic sepia photograph!

My father and his buddies camped on this very lawn in the early 70's.  Nowadays your only allowed to picnic!

 The Pere_Lachaise_Cemetery was one of my favorite places in all of Paris.  After the memory stick containing these images went missing I spent four weeks mourning their loss when all of a sudden, it reappeared, how is still a mystery (as I ALWAYS remember exactly where I put everything, wink, wink)!  

Navigating the 110 acres is not easy, at least not if you are on a mission to find Jim Morrison's grave or one or two of the hundreds of other famous persons plots.  I would suggest getting familiar with the virtual tour beforehand if you are dead set (no pun intended) on paying your respects to certain sites.

We were perfectly content to get lost in these cobblestone streets and maze of graves.   It is a hauntingly beautiful place, so easy to spend a few hours wandering aimlessly.

The cemetery opened in 1804, the first burial for a five year old girl which was only followed by another 11 burials that year.  By 1830, that number grew to 330,000.   Today, after five expansions, the cemetery holds between 2-3million that have been laid to rest here.

Luxembourg Palace and Gardens

 Arc de Triomphe

And what trip to Paris would not be complete without catching a famous cabaret?  We chose the Moulin Rouge to round out our tour of the Montmartre district and were not disappointed!  Paris was just the beginning of our journey which ultimately spanned over 3,000km, hence the overcharges on the rental car!  We owe a great big merci beaucoup to one Parisian in particular, Veronique your amazing advice and travel links proved priceless!  More to come on France soon . . . .

Siem Reap and Angkor Wat

Waving children on the road

New Hope students learning English

Our group sits down to dinner at the New Hope restaurant, a brand new facility that will help fund the organisations many efforts

  Our first day in Cambodia was spent in Siem Reap, a city of 750,000 with a very distinctive visual line drawn between the haves; large modern hotels with well manicured front entrances dotted with tourists, and the have-nots, dusty dirt roads lined with shanties frequented by shoeless children.  We arrived late in the afternoon and went directly to a grass roots NGO, New Hope Cambodia,  where we stepped into the schools classrooms and joined the kids in their English lessons.  They were a smiling, talkative bunch and we took turns asking all kinds of questions.  Their English was amazing, their stories were sad.  The majority of students were orphans, having lost their parents to war or disease.  Thanks to this organisation 150 children are receiving an education, 180 impoverished families are receiving food, and up to 100 sick per day are being treated with medical care.  After class we headed over to a freshly built one room restaurant and listened to the volunteers talk more about what New Hope does and what we can do to help.  This is a truly remarkable organisation with far reaching goals, please consider making a donation here.

Angkor Wat slowly revealing itself with the sunrise

At 4am in the pitch dark the following morning, armed with a headlamp and a flashlight, we were crossing the threshold of the largest religious monument ever constructed, the capital of the Khmer kingdom from 802 to 1295.  I had grand notions of what to expect at Angkor Wat, literally "city temple," quite fitting considering the entire complex is a spansive 37 square mile city in itself, tough to navigate purely in a day.  Once the sun started to spread light on a temple fronted by massive ponds, (water storage vital to the inhabitants in it's days of glory) every minute added excitement.  We traversed through the highlights, each more impressive than the last.  Every wall of every temple was something to marvel; stone reliefs told mysterious stories of the past, the detail mind boggling when considering the vast quantity contained in the entire complex. And speaking of pictures, they can't begin to give the experience justice but please see below. From wikipedia:

One of the first Western visitors to the temple was Antonio da Magdalena, a Portuguese monk who visited in 1586 and said that it "is of such extraordinary construction that it is not possible to describe it with a pen, particularly since it is like no other building in the world. It has towers and decoration and all the refinements which the human genius can conceive of".[5]
 However, the temple was popularised in the West only in the mid-19th century on the publication of Henri Mouhot's travel notes. The French explorer wrote of it:
"One of these temples—a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michelangelo—might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged."[6]

All images by PepperKeyStacie