Bonjour France

Now for my first venture into France :) We were invited by Glen and his family (friends of Stu's) to join them for a long weekend in a small village in Normandy. We decided to leave a day earlier to spend some time in Paris, for my benefit of course :) SO with train tickets in hand and a very kind offer from Liz for us to stay at her place in Paris... off we went.

Paris was an eyeopener for me... lots of hustle and bustle, people everywhere, a big different from Zurich, which is a tiny city compared with Paris! We had less than 24 hours in Paris and I was determined to make the most of it! We walked through the streets of the "dodgy" part of Paris, up to Montmarte, stared at the view of Paris from the steps in front of the magnificent Basilique du Sacré Coeur, stood in the middle of the Arc de Triomphe with the crazy traffic whizzing around us and finally made it to the Eiffel tower... what a whirlwind, it really bought the tourist out of me ;)

Doing amazing tricks with the backdrop of Paris

The middle of the Arc

Ain't she a beauty...

Next stop Normandy and the quaint little village of Crocy. We stayed in a very cute old blacksmith's cottage, surrounded by farm animals and countryside! It was a lovely and relaxing weekend spent with Stu's friends... we drank lots of French wine, ate lots of French cheese and bread and just enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere :)

Our Crocy cottage... gotta love country living

Thank you to Glen and your family for inviting us and being such great hosts :)

More photos :)

Is that the sun i see?

After what seemed like a neverending stream of cold and grey days, the big, burny thing in the sky is starting to make a regular appearance and the trees and plants are responding by turning a lighter shade of green :) Winter was hard, more because of the lack of sunshine than the cold... the benefit of cold is fresh and fluffy snow... well before it turns to black sludge that is!

Flowers are popping up everywhere

I'm really looking forward to summer in Europe... the atmosphere changes dramatically, everyone is out and about, spending long nights sitting in beers gardens along the river, swimming in the lake, hiking the beautiful hills of Switzerland and soaking up the vitamin D :) hopefully we'll be making use of my Schengen resident card by doing some travelling around Europe... stay tuned!

Even our balcony got a makeover in time to welcome summer