Simply hot blogfest - see part of my collection

Okay this is my entry for the Simply Hot Blogfest. Seeing as it's winter in the Northern Hemisphere it is thought people are hugging coffee cups of their favourite brew. But what is your favourite coffee cup is the question? I like these simple blogfests as you learn something about people.

Well I moved my entry to my Pichets in Paris site as I am posting my Publication Party on L'Aussie Writing. Sometimes it's just handy to have more than one blog.

When I travel I collect coffee cups. What do you collect? I pick up a cup in every country and the quest for a cup leads me to interesting places at times. I wrap them in bubble wrap and lug them around, getting more annoyed as my luggage gets heavier and heavier. But getting home, unwrapping, and putting them up in my specially-made cabinet is fun.

Here is a photo of the top two rows of coffee cups. The next two rows contain, ahem, shot glasses, beer mugs and the like.

Enjoy my mug shots!

If you're like me you're scrunching your eyes trying to read the countries/cities so I'll help you out - Top row - London, Ireland, Switzerland, Verona, New Zealand.

Bottom row - Paris, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, Spain

I love them all, especially the Paris mug on the left. Here are three angles to show the scenes.

And when the thirst is really on, only the mega Starbucks cup from Paris Champs Elysee will do. Glug. Glug.

Well it is simply hot over here in Queensland at the moment, but strangely I still drink my cup of coffee or two every day. Delish.

Enjoy checking out the other coffee addicts' cups here.

MUSIC BLOGFEST - THE TOP TEN SONGS OF ALL TIME (according to moi!)

I panicked when I saw some of the Music Countdown lists posted and published mine just to realise I'm a day early. *shrug*. At least it's here.

Oh, we only get 10 choices! This is hard! So thanks to music freak Alex J Cavanaugh for this blogfest which gives us the chance to nominate our top 10 best songs of all time. It will be interesting to see across the spectrum of differenct countries and different cultures which songs will be common amongst us.

My Top 10 Songs

Seeing I'm on my Paris blog (it's too crowded over at L'Aussie) I'll use French numbers. Good to keep up.

  Un:          I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - U2

Deux:       Fernando - Abba

Trois:       Living on a Prayer - Bon Jovi

Quatre:    The Summer of 69 - Bryan Adams

Cinq:        Love me tender - Elvis Presley

Six:          Gotta be somebody - Nickleback

Sept:        Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen

Huit:         In the name of love - U2

Neuf:        Lost and Running - Powderfinger

Dix:          Sounds of Silence - Simon and Garfunkle

There you go. It was tres difficile to choose only 10. There are many more I like equally, but the man said 10. Enough!

Denise

South of France - how did I wait this long? Nice, Nice, Nice...

Next to Paris, one of my favourite places in France would be the South of France, so much so that one of my novels has a chunk devoted to this delightful part of the world. Whilst travelling (always in winter as that was when our holidays fell) my husband and I used to get SO COLD! Coming from an Australian summer to a northern winter was no joke at times, so what did we do? We jumped on one or two of those ridiculously (to an Aussie) low-priced planes to Nice - you know EasyJet etc. I'll never forget my first flight from Dublin to Nice, where the plane trolled up the Cote d'Azur on a sparkling sunny winter day, with the Mediterranean glistening and twinkling - it was breathtaking!

Here are some pics of glorious Nice! Love it! I want to be there now!

Our first sunset in Nice, taken from Castle Hill. Watching the sunset in Nice is like a religious experience. It seems everyone comes out to see the glorious display which goes for what seems hours!

Who wouldn't love Nice at sunset?

Let's start the day with breakfast 'on the beach' just off the Promenade des Anglais. Not enraptured with the pebbly beach, but it does have a certain charm.

Don't you love these pastel buildings. We got lost in these passages a few times, but how good was that!

This is my favourite building in Nice. So Moorish!

Let's wait for sunset again. Another perfect day in Nice, but still need the coat!

I hope you liked my reminiscence of Nice. I will be back to share more next week...

Let's go shopping in Paris this Christmas.

Some more Paris at Christmas shots.

Nothing quite like this in Oz. This is as much of the Christmas tree as I could fit in - La Fayette on the Grands Boulevards. It was so lovely to browse, get sprayed with French fragrances, sit in one of the booths looking down on all the Christmas frivolity.

And this would be nearer the bottom of this amazing tree. It'll be twinkling away but I'm not there to see it!

A lovely coffee at Starbucks, Champs Elysee after all that shopping.

A little rest on the steps of Sacre Coeur. What a lovely sunny day it was and didn't Paris look wonderful from this spot.

Back to the Arc de Triomphe for a rest between shopping, eating and coffee.

A little stroll along the Pont Alexander 111 is in order in the icy afternoon.

Looking back towards Pont Alexander 111. Someone had enjoyed a little Christmas celebration and forgot to clean up. Not me, I swear!

The fountain was freezing up. It'd be a lot worse this year with the snow everywhere!

 

I've told you in a previous post how much I love the Tour Eiffel, especially when it's in lights and twinkling. This is taken near the Arc de Triomphe roundabout.

Let's finish the night meeting up with Aussie family members at Place Teatre at Montmarte for a lovely warming meal and stroll around the Place and the souvenier shops.

Christmas in Paris in the past, unfortunately not in 2010

I have been blessed to spend two Christmas seasons in Paris and the Isle de Paris. I always get nostalgic for Europe when Christmas approaches as it is so refreshing to feel the cold, see the snow and enjoy a hot dinner.

In Australia Christmas Dinner should always be prawns and salads, but you'd be surprised how many of us in a fit of mental abberation, cook a roast! Sweat! Sweat! There is a lot of jumping in the swimming pool involved between bastings!

I hope you enjoy a Paris Christmas with me.

Champs Elysee is the place to be for gorgeousness, and that's not just moi! Ha! Ha! I'm dazzled as you see!

Getting used to the delightful lights. What a lovely night! I lived in my fur coat I bought at the Camden Place markets in London and my fur cloche sold to me by a couple of dames near the Notre Dame cathedral. Would have frozen otherwise.

A stroll through the Galleries during the day. Gallerie Vivienne is one of my favourites - oh that art nouveau!

Caught heading into the Gallerie de Champs Elysee for my (shh) Starbucks! I like my cafe with lots of milk and the French think it's against the law after le petit dejeuner! A surprising number of Parsiennes shared a lounge with us. Lucky weren't they? I swear I didn't have Macdonalds while I was in there! But I bought some lovely tee shirts and gifts for the family sweating at home.

Hey, I just can't get enough of those lights and shop dekkies! Over the top! Even the cars screeching around the Arc de Triomphe roundabout look cute tonight.

Hmm. Got to catch a show at the Moulin Rouge, but not tonight in my jeans! Eewwwhhh...

Off to Notre Dame later to join the thousands of other worshippers in midnight mass. Cool! (It was too!)

Oh, sharing this only made me more homesick for Paris.

Au revoir, sniff, sniff...

I'll be posting more as I'm able...

Chateaux of the Loire Valley - two of my favourites.

One of the beautiful chateaux of the Loire, Villandry

On our last visit to France, we were fortunate to stay a month in the Loire Valley, only a few hours drive from Paris. We stayed in Fontvereau at a B and B run by a couple of English ex-pats. Through them we got to meet some of the locals and were fortunate enough to be there while a film crew was filming for a BBC TV series as Fontvereau is pretty much as it was in the middle ages.

The kitchen at Fontvereau, how middle ages!

We visited most of the Loire Valley chateaux, and it is difficult to say I have a favourite as each is different in its own way, depending on what was the purpose behind the building initially.


Two of my favourites were:


CHATEAU D'USSE

The fairytale castle

Living the fairytale at Chateau d'Usse

This gorgeous chateau is built so whatever direction you approach it from, it startles you as you appear to be entering a fairytale setting. It so deserves its reputation for inspirating more than one princess story. To me this castle is a fairytale come to life. Its image served as inspiration and sparked an idea for the writer Charles Perrault, one of the original writers of the fairytale Sleeping Beauty. The basis for his story Sleeping Beauty can be linked back to the blue slate roof and gothic turrets of the Chateau d’ Usse which still stand proudly today.


It has a nickname, the castle of dreams, naturally.


What was it originally built for? It was originally intended to serve as a fortress, but for many it has become the ultimate symbol of a fairytale. If you look closely at the Walt Disney film Cinderella Castle, you will recognise the Chateau d'Usse.


CHATEAU VILLANDRY

Oh wow!

This chateau remains a hot favourite, not just for its eye-popping design, or its amazing vegetable garden, but for the fact that we were taken there by locals who wanted to show it to us. Villandry was built in the 16th century near the Cher River. It is not only the beauty of the chateau’s design that draws people to what is one of the most visited castles in France, but the French mosiac gardens surrounding it are simply unbelievable. They are truly the finest example of formal Renaissance gardens in France.

Whenever you travel, it is the people you meet who make days special - nationalities blend seamlessly - here we have, Theresa (English), Sylvie (French), the Aussies, the Germans. 

There are many more stunning chateaux in the Loire. In another post I will share more..

Cinderella Shoe Giveaway from Mari at A Pocket Full of Roses

 Mari at A pocket full of roses, a simply delicious blog, is having her first giveaway. This is what she is giving away to a lucky follower:

These are the rules for picking up this lovely shoe:

MARI HAS POSTED THE RULES~

#1~ BECOME A SWEET FOLLOWER OF MY BLOG  AND COME BACK AND LET ME KNOW SO I COULD ENTER YOUR NAME FOR YOUR FIRST ENTRY!! AND IF YOU ARE A FOLLOWER ALREADY THEN YOU ALREADY HAVE ONE ENTRY :)

#2~LEAVE ME A COMMENT ON THIS POST, MUST BE ON THIS POST PLEASE OR I WILL NOT BE LIKELY TO FIND IT!!

#3~BLOG ABOUT MY SWEET GIVEAWAY ON YOUR BLOG AND PLEASE FEEL FREE TO USE ANY OF MY THREE PIC'S,TO SPREAD THE WORD AROUND!! AND LADIES I WILL BE CHECKING!!! GIGGLES...
AND PLEASE COME BACK AND LEAVE ME ANOTHER COMMENT TELLING ME YOU DID THIS PLEASE, SO I COULD ENTER YOUR NAME FOR THE THIRD ENTRY!!

ALL THE NAMES WILL GO INTO A BEAUTIFUL ANGEL BOWL, THEN I WILL DRAW THE WINNER!! OR IF I'M TOO EXCITED ILL HAVE MY SWEET HUBBY DO IT FOR ME!!! OHHH LADIES I'M SUCH A CHICKEN....HAHA!!

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT MY BLOGGY GAL PALS!! MY FIRST GIVEAWAY!!!
GOOD LUCK EVERYONE :) MY RULES ARE GOING TO BE SIMPLE LADIES AND I WILL BE PICKING THE WINNER ON NOVEMBER 18, SO YOU HAVE PLENTY OF TIME :) 
XOX~MARI


Isn't she sweet. How could you resist?