Beautiful Austria

Snow & sun at the same time...

We enjoyed a lovely week in the Austrian mountains, some days cloudy & snow but more days with beautiful blue skies & lots of sunshine! Now, that's what I call a real winter holiday!

Of course we gave the skies some rest from time to time & enjoyed the specialties of the Austrian 'cuisine'!

 It's a gorgeous winter wonderland in Austria!

Wishing you all a very nice & relaxing weekend!

Bisous,

Spring is in the air!

Last week I just saw little leaves rising up out of the soil... just a couple of days, warmer temperatures & some sunshine later the snowdrops are there, in full bloom!

And so are the wild primulas, they re-appeared in the garden after their wintersleep,

 in white and pink... so far!

 It really is a joy to look outside and discover something new every day. I couldn't resist posting some pictures. Hope you don't mind & enjoy them as much as I do?

And this bunch of flowers is for you! Freshly bought at my favorite market stand (I'll show you the stand another time), transported home by bike!

Have a sunny weekend!!

Bisous,

Merci!

An interesting shop in Paris: Merci!

You'll find many different styled corners you can have in your home.
Lots of inspiration!

 They havea wide range of product for sale: furniture, tableware, bed and bath linen, clothes, paperware
 and they have 3 different restaurants as well.

A 'natural' wooden chair

The decoration in front of the entrance :-)

Merci
111, Boulevard Beaumarchais
75003 Paris
To visit their website, click here

Have a lovely week!
Bisous,

Patagonia - Argentina (3)

The last part of the Patagonia trip: El Calafate!!

The first time we saw the Perito Moreno glacier... no words...

how beautiful & impressive nature can be!

 We stayed at Hostéria Los Notros (Los Notros), just opposite the Perito Moreno, what a pleasure to wake up every morning!! Los Notros is situated about 80 km from El Calafate in the Perito Moreno National Park. It's such a peaceful place, totally relaxing.

 View from our hotel room... every morning I quickly checked if the Perito Moreno was still there ;-)

 Hiking on the Périto Moreno, quite an experience!

 Apparently it's not enough to only see the glaciar, Thom also wants to feel it!

After the hike some whisky on the rocks was served... 'rocks' freshly cut of the Perito Moreno...

 On Lago Andino, on our way to the Upsala glaciar. We expected a quiet boat ride... we were completely WRONG! It was WIIIIIIILD!! Glad I took some medication against motion sickness... I would not have 'survived' without!! But again, I've said it more often, the beauty of nature we saw was all worth it... and even more!

I really hope you can see the gorgeous blue colour... no tricks, no photoshopping, just nature... breathtaking!

The Upsala glacier

The Upsala Glacier forms a tongue of ice which is 50 km long, 10 km wide and many hundred meters thick. In its central part there is a dark area, a consequence of the accumulation of rocks, sand and clay brought by smaller glaciers (tributary to the Upsala) which got trapped within this glacier after two ice tongues converged.

The Perito Moreno glacier: 5 km wide, 35 km long and 70 meters above the lake... there are hundreds of meters below the water, can you imagine??

Time to leave Patagonia... luckily we still had some days left in Buenos Aires, absolutely one of my favorite cities in the world!!

The virtual tour of Patagonia is finished... I hope you liked it. The digital album is finished too :)

Time to move on to the next one (still quite some work to do!!).

Bisous,



Les Puces de Saint Ouen

After two episodes of our Patagonia holiday, something completely different today (but don't worry, the last part of the holiday (El Calafate) is coming soon too!).

It's been on my to-do-list for over a year and finally, last Monday, a very sunny day, we visited the 'Puces de Saint Ouen', THE flea market under the Parisian flea markets, only open on Saturday, Sunday & Monday.
We chose to go on Monday as we expected the crowds during the weekend. Well, Monday turnt out to be a good day: few people & lots of sunshine, the only disadvantage is the fact that quite some shops were closed, but as there's so much to visit & see, that didn't really matter!

Les Puces de Saint Ouen are located at the Porte de Clignancourt in the north of Paris, right under the famous (& most of the time congested) Boulevard Périphérique!

They consist of 12 different markets: Antica, Biron, Cambo, Dauphine, Jules Vallès, Malassis, Malik, Michelet, Paul Bert, Rosiers, Serpette and Vernaison. If you'd like to know more about the flea markets in France, then I can advice you the book The Flea markets of France, there's a lot of information available in this little book, easy to take with you on a trip & covers the major touristic regions in France and the most interesting flea markets to visit.

 Marché Paul Bert

Marché Vernaison

As you can see, there's a huge diversity available. We only visited marché Paul Bert (absolutely my favorite!), marché Serpette (indoor), marché Vernaison (this is probably what most corresponds to what visitors imagine when they thinkof French flea markets) and marché Biron. And even on this quiet Monday, there was not enough time to see everything, you can easily spend a whole weekend here.

 Marché Vernaison

For the record: no, I didn't buy anything... although we did consider this SUPER sofa:

A beautiful facade, covered in ivy

Vintage Vespa?

We definitely enjoyed the visit & for sure I'll be back here to see the markets I've missed this time!
Bisous,