Thursday, January 29, 2015

Paris Encore :-)

A couple of weeks ago I checked my email and found a very lovely surprise - flight and hotel confirmations! My gorgeous man had booked us a 3 night trip to Paris (without the kids)!!! And so last Thursday, with our boys happily looking forward to a fun weekend with their grandparents and auntie we flew off to our favourite city :-)





This was out third trip to Paris together and I can safely say I could never get sick of this beautiful place. One of my favourite spots is the Sacré Coeur, up high on a hill in Mont Marte it overlooks the whole of Paris and is such a beautiful cathedral, inside and out. I love the little square around the corner where the local artists sell their paintings and there are beautiful cafés and bistros to eat.



We watch a lot of French movies and one of our favourites is Amelie. We had breakfast in the café in which many scenes in the movie were filmed and it is every bit as charming in real life!



The cheese, the seafood... French food stores are amazing!!!


Even things that would be boring in other cities, like signs for the underground, are beautiful in Paris.


The Arc De Triomphe, I was far too amused by all the people taking photos with their selfie-sticks to take any decent photos of it myself :-D





I LOVE the Eiffel Tower, I love its beautiful intricate ironwork, gorgeous from any angle, even underneath! It's hard to believe this was originally intended as a temporary structure.


We took a boat trip along the river Seine.





Notre Dame Cathedral is just so beautiful, the rose windows are amazing from the inside.




My favourite bookshop in the world, Shakespeare and Company, famous from being in many movies, so lovely and cosy on the inside, a bookworm's heaven!





The Louvre is really beautiful by night, there was uproar when the pyramid was originally built, many people felt it detracted from the building's beauty but I kind of like it :-)




And no city in the world sparkles quite like Paris by night, with lights twinkling up and down the Eiffel Tower and the gorgeous buildings all lit up.

We had a fantastic few days, I always feel sad leaving Paris but was so excited to get home to my little boys who also had a great few days getting spoilt :-)

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Happy New Year!

As ever my new year's greeting is a bit late! We've just recovered from the Christmas holidays. We had such an amazing time. Meals with family, sleepovers with cousins, trips to parks, playgrounds, an annual funfair which was a favourite of mine as a child and is still just as much fun, way too many treats and the special novelty of going out smashing up icy puddles :-)

After all the goodies and treats of the festive season we needed to walk some calories off. We drove to Luggala, a beautiful lake area in the Wicklow Mountains just outside Dublin and went for brisk walk.

We first found out about this place a few weeks ago. My hubby and I were watching "Vikings", an action packed drama made by the History Channel. It has some really stunning scenery in it and in particular we were wondering where the lake where the main characters are settled is located.

Thinking Canada or New Zealand we googled and were shocked to discover it's right here only a 40 minute drive from our house! It was a beautiful clear (but so windy) day when we went and it was absolutely stunning! We live in such a beautiful country and I am so excited about showing my boys so many more gorgeous spots over the coming years :-)



If it's this gorgeous and green in Winter what will it be like in Summer?!?